Ok, well, this DMs campaigns are more about thinking are real RPing than about raw power. What I'm looking for is something interesting. I like to play characters who either throw a monkey wrench into things or are the monkey wrench.
Oh. Sorry, OP. Didn't catch that, my bad. I can still argue about barely related topics with Empirate, right?^^'
I was going on about ease of play, not about customizability. Cherrypicking spells might be better - if you're willing to invest the time and energy (and can command the system mastery) to make it better. That's not a given, however. For a player with less experience, or without much motivation to dumpster dive for the best spells, the Beguiler's spell list will provide most all you'll ever want.
A-ha! Okay, I think we have a conflict of terminology here. The Beguiler spellist doesn't make play
easier. The right word is convenient. It's convenient to have a big bunch of pretty rad spells handed over to you - all is left to figure out what they can do. And that's a very good deal for new players, absolutely! Spares them from a whole bunch of bookkeeping that have discouraged some aspiring roleplayers before. But that doesn't make
gameplay easy. In fact it's the opposite. Read the last part of this post if you're not convinced.
Also, creativity pays huge dividends, since the entire character archetype relies on it, that much is true. But if you have no good ideas what to do with Silent Image or Suggestion, you should probably go for a different kind of character altogether, right?
No! Absolutely not. Take me as an example. I have no clue how to use
Silent Image. I never tried, or was interested in it. On the flipside, I've won whole adventures at a time with a single casting of
Illusory Script.
Creativity is not so black and white that you either have groundshattering ideas for every spell there is or become completely clueless when a spell's effect can't be expressed in damage dice and an energy type. There is plenty of room for a middle ground.
And your final point I don't get at all: Beguilers can shut down other trickster type casters... how is that a bad thing?
It isn't. Look at the context, I said that to stress they are aware, as Beguilers, that Beguilers can be defeated through common forms of magic, and they responded
by learning the same forms of magic.
Now, the Beguiler spellist, as extablished between us already, is pretty utilitarian. Yet they were actually impressed enough to implement detection spells, a kind of divination totally unrelated to beguiling other people, into their basic tactics. It goes on to show just how immensely effective these spells are against Enchantments and Illusions, and that they acknowledge they are not above being fooled. Which brings me to your last question:
And how do Beguilers need to be on their guard and casting their abjurations all the time - especially more so than other casters?
Because you don't need to make an especially impressive Knowledge(Arcana) check to know that not only most of a Beguiler's power consists of smoke and mirrors(in case the name "beguiler" wasn't a dead giveaway to begin with), but it's also always the same set of tricks, all the time, with miniscule variations. It's the innermost end of the two-bladed sword that is the Enchantment and Illusion schools, combined with a predetermined selection. You see, the act of fooling someone heavily relies on the assumption your targets
don't know they are being fooled - or, at the very least, are a little hazy on
how they are, exactly, being fooled. When faced with a Beguiler, both the fact and the method is given, so what does he have left?
For most casters, exposure is far from the end of the word. Hell, in most situations your fame actually helps(unless you're playing Dark Sun, in which case you're f*cked, obviously), especially if they tart it up or twist it for their purposes. In the face of mortal danger, casters can shrug, then depart for another plane of existence. They can step back and wipe out half the room with a Standard Action. They can draw their weapon as they stand in the middle, just daring everyone to try and kill them. All of those, and many more are possible steps, depending on what they are good at. The Beguiler? In this situation the best he can manage is
Legion of Sentinels,
Shadow Walk, plus a load of mind-affecting spells that allow for a save. Oh, and
Shadow Conjuration/Evocation can save the day, but then again, using them effectively kinda defeats the point in playing a class that's main abstract attraction is being easy on newbies.
Everything else is just a trick of light. And everyone present knows he's harmless like so at that point.
Thus his best bet is to avoid being recognized as a Beguiler altogether. Conceal his presence in combat, maybe hide in plane sight as a bystander, doing his very best to keep his enemies in the dark. And that's not easy.
