Laslo Tremaine
Explorer
Alienist
I'm not quite sure what you mean by being bad for spell casting. Alienists have a 1 for 1 spell progression, so thier casting abitlities should be completely unhindered.
The only real drawbacks to the class is the minuses to Wisdom (which are partialy made up by the bonus to will saves) and the phobia (I took snakes!).
If you do take the class, I recommend the improved summoning feat from Tome and Blood, since Alienists really do shine in this area.
As far as party interaction goes, I find my Alienist to be a lot of fun. All of the other party members cringe whenever he summons a creature (because they know that at some point it will errupt into a mass of writhing tentacles, or mind-bending Nth dimensional bubbles). I play him so that anything he summons or transforms has a Pseudonatural taint. Casting the "Mount" spell? Well his mounts are hairless, and their greenish-grey skin has an oily-iridescent sheen. Casting "Polymorph Self? Well his transformed shape has something about it that is fundamentally not-quite-right...
He also has just made a homonculus which he based on the Fungi from Yuggoth (Mi Go), it's somewhat insectoid, somewhat crustacean, yet still disturbingly humanoid. He has to make sure that it stays out of sight while in populated areas to keep it from being killed by the locals...
Alienists... I wholly recommend them. Definitely not for every campaign though...
I am playing a Conjurer/Alienist 5/5 at the moment and he is a blast! As a big fan of Call of Cthulhu, I've been able to get into this character quite easily.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by being bad for spell casting. Alienists have a 1 for 1 spell progression, so thier casting abitlities should be completely unhindered.
The only real drawbacks to the class is the minuses to Wisdom (which are partialy made up by the bonus to will saves) and the phobia (I took snakes!).
If you do take the class, I recommend the improved summoning feat from Tome and Blood, since Alienists really do shine in this area.
As far as party interaction goes, I find my Alienist to be a lot of fun. All of the other party members cringe whenever he summons a creature (because they know that at some point it will errupt into a mass of writhing tentacles, or mind-bending Nth dimensional bubbles). I play him so that anything he summons or transforms has a Pseudonatural taint. Casting the "Mount" spell? Well his mounts are hairless, and their greenish-grey skin has an oily-iridescent sheen. Casting "Polymorph Self? Well his transformed shape has something about it that is fundamentally not-quite-right...
He also has just made a homonculus which he based on the Fungi from Yuggoth (Mi Go), it's somewhat insectoid, somewhat crustacean, yet still disturbingly humanoid. He has to make sure that it stays out of sight while in populated areas to keep it from being killed by the locals...
Alienists... I wholly recommend them. Definitely not for every campaign though...
