Beguilers - too powerful?

[Slaved]

The Delayed Progression for Spells does hurt a little. Between Color Spray, Glitterdust, Silence, Haste, and Slow a Beguiler is a Force to be Reckoned with!!

 

[roguerouge]

The inability of the beguiler to deal direct damage and use spells like disintegrate limits his or her contributions at higher levels (assuming a standard "dungeon crawl" campaign.)

That's what Use Magic Device is for....

 

[roguerouge]

What I don't understand is that if you feel like the lack of direct-damage doing spells is such a problem, why not solve it with the purchase of a wand (and use your UMD) ranks or through feats like "Extra Spell" in Complete Arcane?

 

[Corsair]

I think the biggest strength of the beguiler is as a "5th man" in a party, even more so than the bard. It takes care of the rogue skills, face skills, and much of the more subtle magic. This means the guy who would otherwise be playing a rogue can now be a real warrior and be more useful in combat, or can double up on divine casting. Further, having the subtle magics and some utility magic allows your mage to focus on more destructive magic.

In fact, if/when my DM restarts his game (it's up to 16th level now, started at 1) I think I might play a Beguiler.

 

[Rystil Arden]

What I don't understand is that if you feel like the lack of direct-damage doing spells is such a problem, why not solve it with the purchase of a wand (and use your UMD) ranks or through feats like "Extra Spell" in Complete Arcane?

I don't know if you're referring to me, but heavens know, I don't care if I do direct damage. I'm happy to sit around buffing everyone else (my longtime Shackled City Archivist character does just that in an extremely effective manner). The Beguiler can't even do that at levels 1-3. I still love the class because it combines a lot of elements that I enjoy as a player, but it just isn't that strong.

 

[Shin Okada]

As I wrote once, effectiveness of a Beguiler depends on what kind of challenge (including creatures) will appear on an adventure or throughout a campaign.

But same thing can be said for a rogue or even for a wizard, who meant to be "generic and standard" mage.

Rogue's sneak attack is as situation/opponent dependent as beguiler's spells.

And even wizard is often considered to be a "bad choice" under some situation.

For example, Red Hand of Doom is considered to be one of the most popular 3.5e official campaign and indeed played by many. As I myself DMed that campaign, I have read many online play-reports (though mostly Japanese ones) and I found that, as the campaign is a cliff-hanger type and there is almost no down-time to add new spells to the book or to create magic items (and there is no wizard opponent from whom a PC can get a spellbook after killing it) many parties are claiming that having a wizard was a rather bad choice comparing to having a sorcerer, which is usually considered to be "weaker" or "less versatile" comparing to a wizard. (FYI, our party was a rather big one with 7 members, a Cleric, a Sorcerer, a Warmage/Luckstealer, a Duskblade, a Paladin, a Ranger/Scout, and a Warforged Paladin/Duskblade/Dragon Disciple).

All the classes are somewhat situational and IMHO beguiler is versatile enough and strong enough, yet not too strong.

And I think beguiler is more like an alternative rogue than to be an alternative mage. They are for solving various challenging situations and not meant to be a uber combat monster nor whom always be useful in any type of combat.

 

[Dragonwriter]

The beguiler is a very situational class. One of the players in a game I just started (1st-level) had a great deal of fun messing with their first little adventure, the stereotypical orc hunt. Fighting such creatures that are susceptible to Will saves ("sleep" and even "daze" were quite effective). However, eventually my campaign will deal with lots of undead... In that case, the beguiler player will have to think a bit more outside the box. Against opponents that are immune to things like charms, the beguiler seems much less useful. Yes, they have less useful spells, but many are still decent... The "image" family spells are still usable, as pointed out by roguerouge. I made a point of going through the spell list and checking which ones would affect undead and which wouldn't. At low levels, yes the beguiler functions much better against intelligent enemies, but it is still usable against mindless ones.

I wouldn't say the class is over- or under-powered, just that, like many others, the beguiler's usefulness depends on what you're fighting.

 

[moritheil]

That's what Use Magic Device is for....

I have yet to play a beguiler that has enough skill points to be the resident sneaky character and the face, stay on-track with spellcaster skills, and have spare skill points to max out UMD. (And yes, obviously, I am maxing out int.)

That's not to say you can't drop one of those priorities, just that I've never played a beguiler in group where I wasn't required to take on all those roles. Some degree of it is necessary to take the Mindbender PrC anyhow.

 

[Starbuck_II]

I just figured out that silent image, a figment, is a type of illusion spell that does work on mindless undead, as it is not on the immunity to all mind-affecting effects list: "charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects." And that means that by the time you get to intelligent undead, you've got options at your higher level spells to use against them too.

Well, you nerfed illusion than didn't you.

Undead are only immune to: charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects

Figments are not on the list. This means, they work.

You can use Silent Image on a Skeleton ans they will usually fail and rarely get a save due to interaction (due to dumb).

Page 173 shows the illusion types. Only Pattern and phantasm are naturally mind affecting.

 

[szilard]

I have yet to play a beguiler that has enough skill points to be the resident sneaky character and the face, stay on-track with spellcaster skills, and have spare skill points to max out UMD. (And yes, obviously, I am maxing out int.)

That's not to say you can't drop one of those priorities, just that I've never played a beguiler in group where I wasn't required to take on all those roles. Some degree of it is necessary to take the Mindbender PrC anyhow.

Weird.

Most of those roles can be supplemented heavily with spells. Take a bit of Hide and Bluff, sure... but don't max them out. That's what Invisibility and Glibness are for...

-Stuart