Thaumaturgist/Alienist?

[Abstraction]

I am starting in an arena combat game and want to get my character turned in. Unfortunately, Evil Walmart has not delivered my Complete Arcane yet! My character concept was for wicked summoning goodness. Conjurer, taking Arcane Disciple feat to qualify for Thaumaturgist, followed by Alienist. First, would these work well together. Second, what are the prerequisites for Alienst. Third, what are (vaguely) some of the bennies so that I can avoid duplicating them earlier.

 

[Sejs]

It would work so-so.


The alienist stuff wouldn't really impact the thaumaturgist stuff for the most part.

 

[frankthedm]

alienist is not that strong, It is a class you take for flavor, because once your psudonatural things start showing up, you've gone beyond Marlboro country .

The energy resists your summons have are not that good [acid electricity]and there is technicly NO way to communicate to a psudonatural creature to have it use its True Strike ability since there is no language that could be used to communicate to your summon.[celestial, infernal, and abyssal stoped working when they lost thier original template] 10+hd SR is cool though. plus they will already be pretty tough since you need augment summoning and 3rd circle summonings.



Summon Alien: "Whenever an alienist would use any summon monster spell to summon a celestial or fiendish creature, she instead summons a pseudonatural version of that creature. For example, by casting summon monster IV, she could summon a pseudonatural dire wolf. This adds the pseudonatural template (see page 160) to the summoned creature.
An alienist gives up the ability to summon nonpseudonatural creatures with a summon monster spell .For instance, the alienist described above couldn't summon a mephit or howler with summon monster IV.

But the benifits....

You will be quite the Uniter. Your spells will contact entities that demons and angels would unite to stop from entering the material world. You will feel that warm glow inside seeing Twin brothers, one a paladin, one a Blackguard, working together.... to gut you. Druids and rangers will keep tabs on you to make sure none of your pets adds themselves to the local flora and/or fauna. You will flip the middle finger to everything the D&D cosmos stands for so make sure the DM is cool with it[but not too cool with it...], make sure the players are ok with this too, because if they stay in character as living beings in a sane world, they should kill you at first opportunity, cremate you and your spellbooks and scatter the ashes.

Most divine casters are not going to have a lot of love for someone who calls things from where the gods fear to tread. Arcane casters will be smart enough not to hang around you. The barbarian will likely wind up killing a lot of your summons because a few eyestalks looked at him wrong.

But hey, at least you will eventuall stop aging and have no fear of dying of natural causes. Unnatural causes are part and parcel of this line of work though. And since you ARE going to meet an unpleasant fate someday, why not share that with the rest of the world. Chances are, that is why the DM allowed you to take this PRC.

 

[Iku Rex]

there is technicly NO way to communicate to a psudonatural creature to have it use its True Strike ability since there is no language that could be used to communicate to your summon.

The creatures have Int 3 - it's possible that they speak or understand some language.

Even if there isn't a way to communicate with a creature, it will attack your opponents "to the best of its ability" - probably using the true strike ability on its first attack.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

The creatures have Int 3 - it's possible that they speak or understand some language.

This came up when I was talking with my DM a few days ago. Looking through the SRD, I could not find a creature that has an int of less than 4, and is also listed as understanding a language.

I believe that humans in D&D can have an minimum int of 3, but at that point are under a severe cognitive disability, and can speak/understand only single words or short phrases, at best.

Even if there isn't a way to communicate with a creature, it will attack your opponents "to the best of its ability" - probably using the true strike ability on its first attack.

I agree.

As a side-note, I'm disappointed with the new Alienist. Did Alienist summoning really need to be weakened to such a degree? Now they have less options, and less powerful ones at that. Ugh.

 

[uzagi_akimbo]

I am starting in an arena combat game and want to get my character turned in. Unfortunately, Evil Walmart has not delivered my Complete Arcane yet! My character concept was for wicked summoning goodness. Conjurer, taking Arcane Disciple feat to qualify for Thaumaturgist, followed by Alienist. First, would these work well together. Second, what are the prerequisites for Alienst. Third, what are (vaguely) some of the bennies so that I can avoid duplicating them earlier.

Requirements for the Alienist are :
Spell focus (Conjuration) and Augmented Summoning , Non-lawful alignment, Knowledge (the Planes) 8 ranks and the ability to cast at least 3rd level summoning spells ( so now you can go there by the Cleric or Druid route, too )

The pseudonatural template isn't bad, especially since you do simply add the template onto the original entity summoned, so you don't pay for it with a level increase through the CR like you would for a celestial/fiendish creature. Make that a bunch of "pseudonatural dire wolves" for me..

If you wnat to focus on summoning almost exclusively, I also recommend taking a look at "Frostburn" which lets you summon creatures from the frostfell after taking an extra feat, which adds 1D6 cold damage to each of their attacks, and has the very nifty "Summon Ice Beast 1-VII" line of spells, which can turn old, but weak standbys into truly dangerous monsters.

have fun