Beguilers - too powerful?

[amethal]

Over on the Paizo boards, someone posted that "Beguilers are way too powerful". That particular thread had nothing to do with beguilers, so I thought I'd start a thread here.

Are they too powerful?

The only time I've ever seen one played (check out my story hour ), the player got frustrated with the lack of damage dealing potential after three levels and multi-classed into wizard. He's now happy as an Ultimate Magus, but the kick ass character in our party is definitely the psion.

I've always looked on the beguiler as a favour WotC did for me; if I ever find myself in the position where I have to play the party rogue (a class I dislike for no logical reason) then I can now play a beguiler instead.

So, am I missing something?

 

[Slaved]

Maybe the Poster meant when the Beguiler is Combined with Specific Prestige Classes and the Player wants to Damage the Game?

 

[Henry]

It really depends on the game. If your campaign is Lichworld: the Land of Death (tm), and undead are 3 out of 4 challenges, then a beguiler is not the smartest thing to play. On the other hand, if you are running a city-based humanoids-dominant adventure, with some dungeon-runs, the beguiler is DAMNED AWESOME with his ability to (a) charm/bluff/manipulate the enemy, (b) play buff-support with his on the fly enchantment breaking, invisibilities, magic lock breaking, etc. and (c) his ability to find traps, open locks, etc.

He definitely has an Achilles' Heel on undead adventures the same way that a rogue does.

 

[Amazing Triangle]

They are quite underpowered. I mean a Cleric or Wizard are so much more powerful. Beguilers are only really good at social interactions not really at combat.

 

[amethal]

Maybe the Poster meant when the Beguiler is Combined with Specific Prestige Classes and the Player wants to Damage the Game?

I don't think so.

After all, we all know that to Easily Damage the Game such a player will pick a druid, whereas to Damage the Game in ways that take a bit more Thought but are even more Spectacular, only cleric will do.

Thanks for the responses guys, much appreciated.

 

[Zelc]

Beguilers are pretty good with a great deal of save-or-suck and battlefield control effects like Glitterdust and Solid Fog as well as buff and debuffs like Haste and Slow. It's a solid base class, obviously not amongst the top 5 but very good. Having UMD as a class skill allows it to fill in some weaknesses, especially if your DM allows you to use Runestaves (in the non-cheesy way where you still have to use your spell slots to power the spells, of course). Against creatures immune to mind-affecting effects, these aforementioned abilities allows the Beguiler to still greatly contribute to the fight.

Adding something like Shadowcraft Gnome breaks it obviously, but that's more the PrC than anything else .

They also tend to have a ton of skill points . <3 skill points.

 

[Shin Okada]

They can be a good alternative to various Rogue/Mage type prestige classes and can be played from 1st level. It is indeed a good class, but as already mentioned, their limited class-spell list tend to be not so useful in certain environment. Other than undead or construct themed worlds or adventures, I found they are less useful than other arcane casters against dragons who are immune to paralysis, has blindsense (though Glitterduset is still useful), and have high saves (especially Fort and Will) and spell resistances. Beguiler also tend to lack long ranged spells.

Effectiveness of a certain class depends largely on the situation and the party composition. And IMHO Beguiler is a well-balanced class. Not too good. Not useless.

 

[Corsair]

Beguiler's main problem is that in combat in general it is a support class. But in every other phase it is very good.

 

[Nifft]

Beguiler's main problem is that in combat in general it is a support class. But in every other phase it is very good.

True in general, but they do have a lot of flat-out fight-ending spells (e.g. color spray) if facing vulnerable opponents.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Kat']

Beguilers are a plain awesome class. They get d6 HP and armored casting, 6 skill points per level while being Int-based, have a great skill list, can cast as many spells per day as a Sorcerer but know automatically all spells associated to their level. Hello? What do you want more?

Lack of offensive power? They have a great list of save-or-suck, or even save-or-die, and their Cloaked Casting combined with Surprise Casting allow them to better overcome Spell Resistance. If you want to dabble into direct damage, use your Advanced Learning to learn Shadow Conjuration or Shadow Evocation.

IMO, the Beguiler is a very powerful and very useful class because they already have all the tools they need, without being exceedingly complicated and without dabbling into PrCs.