D&D General The 3.5 Binder was a really cool class

[Hussar]

The main lore issue with playing a Binder in a campaign is it required the DM to either just go with the mechanics of Binding each day or they had to roleplay through the PC Binding each Vestige.

It'd be like if Cleric PCs were expected to have a conversation to convince their god to grant them spells every single day.

Sorry, what?

You made your Pact roll (I almost always simply declared I failed it because that was WAAAAAY more fun) and that was it. You didn't have to play it out, like at all.

 

[Hussar]

One thing that 5e has provided that would make binders work better is the idea of simply keying all attacks off of a single stat. So, if you bind something that gives you a weapon proficiency, those attacks key off of say, Charisma (or whatever stat) and you're off to the races. And, since pretty much every other 5e class just magically summons equipment as needed, well, binding something that gives you weapon and armor proficiencies would also provide that equipment.

I wouldn't think that's a terribly hard fix. But, yeah, like was mentioned either here or in the other thread, to build a Binder in 5e, I'd use the Warlock chassis with vestiges providing a spell, an invocation and maybe a proficiency or some other ribbon.

 

[GrimCo]

As people said, late 3.5 had some interesting classes. Sure, they weren't really strong (compared even to some PHB classes), but at least they were interesting. Binder, truenamer, shadowcaster etc. They tried to do something more than just slap regular spells on class and call it a day. Binder was good at being second best at role it's vestige covered.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I really miss the creativity of late 3.5. The Tomes of Magic and Battle, Incarnum, the Races of N series. Just tons of cool stuff.

I think you could do a pretty good yet playable Binder as a Warlock Patron - you just pick a new vestige each day and it comes with set of Patron features, so you have a bit of flexibility but your core stuff (cantrips, pact boons) are fixed so you're not trying to jump roles. It wouldn't capture the full flavor but I think it could come close enough.

Shadowcaster would make a good patron too, rather than being 1/3 of the Hexblade.

 

[Necropolitan]

Sorry, what?

You made your Pact roll (I almost always simply declared I failed it because that was WAAAAAY more fun) and that was it. You didn't have to play it out, like at all.

No, the book says how each Vestige appears and how the DM should roleplay them.

You CAN just make your Binding roll, but there was at least some expectation that the player would be roleplaying their Binder PC convincing the Vestige to be Bound.

 

[Alzrius]

You made your Pact roll (I almost always simply declared I failed it because that was WAAAAAY more fun) and that was it. You didn't have to play it out, like at all.

You don't have to play out an elaborate deception when you can just make a Bluff check, either, but there's typically some expectation that a role-playing game will involve a certain amount of role-playing.

 

[Necropolitan]

You don't have to play out an elaborate deception when you can just make a Bluff check, either, but there's typically some expectation that a role-playing game will involve a certain amount of role-playing.

Nonono, nowadays it's a horrible awful thing for a DM to expect a player to roleplay the PC they created and care about the lore of the campaign.

A Peace Domain Cleric can butcher noncombatants (or they can be an Atheist Cleric who doesn't even believe in an ideal and gets divine power regardless), the Warlock will never need to worry about their Patron (It's not like a Fiend might have Evil plans!), and an Oath of Devotion Paladin can lie, cheat, and steal purely for personal gain (It's not like they gain their powers from their Oaths after all).

/s

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The 3.5 Tome of Battle showed some fresh and new ideas for the lore/fluf the experience would teach how it could be better.

The binder and the truenamer were designer to be at-will casters. Each vestige was like a mini-prestige class you can change when you wanted but the truenamer only could use a small list of chosen utterances.

The "mysteries" were an interesting concept and some times I imagine the future elementalist using elemental mysteries instead daily spell slots.

Also I imagine the 5e shaman mixing the 3.5 binder and the incarnum totemist, summoning some totem spirit and "unlocking" monster upgrades.

Other idea is a truenamer with a book like the archivist of "Heroes of Horror" and with a "monster ally" like the manganime Zatch Bell! And unlocking "evolutions" you can add some utterance to your list, and after these to be changed with a different "evolution" of the monster-pet.

Or the sha'ir from al-Qadim to be remade like a mixture of elemental-summoner and mysteries-caster.

I miss the incarnum soulmelders and the martial adepts. Really the idea wasn't bad but the experience could have taught us how to do it better. The incarnate and soulborns were practically reskins of paladin with at-will powers. The martial maneuvers of the martial adepts from 3.5 Tome of Battle(crusader, warblade and swordsage) need to be redesigned for a fast and simple combat in the tabletop.

 

[GrimCo]

Truenamer was mostly inspired by Le Guin's Earthsea concept of wizards drawing power over things by knowing their true name.

 

[BrokenTwin]

Having played one, I found the Binder filled kind of a similar niche to the 3.5 Bard. Eg, if your party needed a specific role filled, there was generally a better class than Bard to fill it, but as a wildcard / backup / second-best-in-slot, the Binder worked great, especially if you knew what you were getting into ahead of time. Did it have problems? Yeah, a lot of the classes in 3.5 did, from the PHB straight to the final released book. But goddamn was it fun.
We did something similar with having the first time binding of a vestige be the fully roleplayed out scene, with future bindings being short interludes mostly handled in the same way that the cleric described praying for their spells in the morning, but with the added fun of occasionally going "sorry guys, I got horns and can't lie today." Which is not sarcasm, having those wildcards thrown into the mix was one of my favourite parts of playing that class.
Man, now I want to go reread those books. Binder and Totemist weren't just some of my favourite classes in D&D 3.5, they were probably two of my favourite classes in any class-based ttrpg.