Binder issues?

[Thanee]

That doesn't particularly fit my playstyle, but for people who enjoy the "jack of all trades, master of none," it works just fine.

Sounds like the right thing for the guy.

Bye
Thanee

 

[shilsen]

Sounds like the right thing for the guy.

Bye
Thanee

That's one of the most important issues in playing the binder, I think. I'm in a game with a binder (just hit 6th) and the player is enjoying it thoroughly, and I would love to play one. But that's because I enjoy playing a variety of different character types, and if playing a binder, my focus would be on versatility and party support rather than specialized effectiveness.

And it is, indeed, 31 flavors of nifty, conceptually.

Yes, it definitely is.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

They're a bit tactically inflexible -- it would be nice if they could unbind and rebind a few times each day.

Cheers, -- N

Thats my beef. They have less flexibility than a cleric or wizard, who also determines what abilities he's going to have at the start of the day, but a larger list to choose from. They arent actually a jack of all trades class, as they have to focus on something each day. The incarnate fills that role much better IMO, as essential can be slided around each round, and soulmelds reshaped easier.

Many of their abilitties dont scale well (in particular the ability to make checks untrained is largely useless for a character who suffers from MAD as much as a binder does), and most of them dont need to be on a 5 round timer (d4 would be fine).
I love the flavor, but the class needs to be able to rebind on the fly, needs to naturally have martial/heavy armor proficiencies, and certain vestige powers need to be tweaked to be mroe useful at later levels (primarily the skill oriented ones).

 

[catsclaw227]

Thats my beef. They have less flexibility than a cleric or wizard, who also determines what abilities he's going to have at the start of the day, but a larger list to choose from. They arent actually a jack of all trades class, as they have to focus on something each day. The incarnate fills that role much better IMO, as essential can be slided around each round, and soulmelds reshaped easier.

Many of their abilitties dont scale well (in particular the ability to make checks untrained is largely useless for a character who suffers from MAD as much as a binder does), and most of them dont need to be on a 5 round timer (d4 would be fine).
I love the flavor, but the class needs to be able to rebind on the fly, needs to naturally have martial/heavy armor proficiencies, and certain vestige powers need to be tweaked to be mroe useful at later levels (primarily the skill oriented ones).

This is why I houseruled the class with the abilities listed above. I agree that they need to be able to expel vestiges or revise their pacts more often each day. This is working quite well.

 

[Thanee]

Well, tactical inflexibility isn't so much an issue here, since the campaign uses the Gestalt rules (but with no multiclassing apart from a single PrC which replaces the whole Gestalt progression (i.e. single class progression then, instead of using Gestalt rules, for those levels)), which results in more versatile characters, generally.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Well, tactical inflexibility isn't so much an issue here, since the campaign uses the Gestalt rules (but with no multiclassing apart from a single PrC which replaces the whole Gestalt progression (i.e. single class progression then, instead of using Gestalt rules, for those levels)), which results in more versatile characters, generally.

Bye
Thanee

Then I'd say the binder is even weaker than before, since gestalt adds a TON of flexibility to everyone, eroding what is supposed to be his strength.

 

[frankthedm]

Binders get around SR.
Binders get around componenets
Binders get around Arcane failure rate without Alignment restrictions
Binders get to change major character abilities every day.

Those are usually big things, the Binder pay raw character power to accomplish them.

 

[lukelightning]

Binders can save a lot of cash on items. Instead of investing in magic armor, they can bind Savnok, etc.

I've mentioned this in other binder threads, but I'm playing an anima mage, which I've found to be awesome. Binder 1 with the improved binding feat qualifies you for the binder part of the PrC; so he's binder 1, wizard 3, anima mage 6. Casts spells as a 9th level caster, binds as a 7th level binder, which I find is certainly worth the 1 spellcasting level he gives up. So far he's only bound Malphas, to turn invisible and summon the raven to spy with (and set off traps).

 

[Gestalt]

I'm playing an anima mage, which I've found to be awesome.

I'll second this. A wizard-based anima mage turns the flexibility up until the knob comes off. In my own experience, I found Dantalion's bonus on knowledge checks combines with a wizard's intelligence to make a tremendous polymath.

 

[lukelightning]

I'll second this. A wizard-based anima mage turns the flexibility up until the knob comes off. In my own experience, I found Dantalion's bonus on knowledge checks combines with a wizard's intelligence to make a tremendous polymath.

Plus, if you don't have any ranks in "local" or whatever, just bind Naberius and use it untrained. +8 from Dantalion, +4 or 5 or whatever from int, and you can know a fair amound about nearly anything!