new pc Im trying some firsts, even the campiagn is a first

[emanresu]

I wanted this to be a pc of all firsts, at least picking roads less travelled. Our gaming group voted on gestalt pc's, so just remember its a gestalt & evil group.

I initially intended on making the skill monkey of the party and I also wanted to make an evil "mentalist". I came up with rogue/Beguiler, felt that filled the order quite nicely. I have not played a rogue nor a Beguiler so both are firsts. Pc will be female, again a unique experience... Everythings is working right along nicely THEN>>>>I read rumbletigers spells for skill thread. Needless to say, I got disheartened. Skillmonkey was just murdered in this thread, and dead monkeys are not much fun. So the skillmonkey portion of this build will be a distant 2nd. Back to the drawing board!
I now want to specialize, concentrate my energies in the mentalist portion, more directly the evil domineering/charming/mind "F"ing / make others shat themselves portion of the build. In my search I noticed a few classes & prestige classes that "fit" perfectly. Beguiler, Dread Witch, Nightmare Spinner, Mindbender & Bard. (Its mostly City based campaign so none of those Necromancer types)
Starting at 5th level, gestalt and evil your suggestions for her?

1 Swashbucker or fighter? / Beguiler
2 rogue / Beguiler
3 rogue / Beguiler
4 rogue / Beguiler
5 rogue / Mindbender
6 Dread Witch / Beguiler
7 Dread Witch / Fighter or Swash
8 Dread Witch / rogue
9 Dread Witch / fighter r swash
10 Dread Witch / rogue
11 Nightmare Spinner / Beguiler
12 Nightmare Spinner / fighter
13 Nightmare Spinner / rogue
14 Nightmare Spinner / fighter
15 Nightmare Spinner / rogue
or nightmare spinner before dread witch, yah I think that might fit better or just mix 1 after the other?

-the campaign setting is also a first. We will start as mere employees, and will eventually be charisma followers of a very rich and powerful Noble family. The lords of the family, of which they have many, are positioning themselves / vying for the soon to be empty throne. This Noble Family publicly will consist of multiple businesses, many guilds, all together its a huge family conglomerate ref to as House Highborn. No not a very humble name, but its highest lord(s) want to be king/queen.

-Our party role has not been established 100% the assumption being we will do the "less than noble acts" that furthers our houses possession. We will enforce/intimidate/coerce/give offers others cant refuse/ act as strike team / investigate/assassinate/info gathering/protect against other assassin types/advise etc etc all the while keeping the Nobles of our House hands clean, seemingly/publicly clean.


I felt a little campaign insight may influence your decisions, I think I typed to much sorry bout that.
so Im looking for help/suggestions/advice...general thoughts?

all pc's will have one 18 and a 20 pt buy. I have rolled up the following magicals, some random.

brooch or circlet of persuasion
+1 rapier
2 potions both minor
and 1 arcane scroll with a 3rd level spell I cant cast

eman

 

[Jackinthegreen]

One of the big rules of casters is "Don't lose Caster Level unless you get something REALLY worthwhile." The higher your spell level the better, especially when it comes to the generally Save or Suck/Lose spells beguilers tend to pull out.

Also check with your DM on how he's handling gestalt, since there are quite a few oddities with it. In particular ask how he feels about taking a PrC that advances casting on one side while taking that class being advanced on the other. The spirit of gestalt play kinda frowns on that. Also ask whether the DM is using fractional saves and/or BAB, since those help immensely while figuring out how you're actually progressing in gestalt. Plus it prevents cheesy stuff like taking fighter1/sorcerer19//wizard20 and getting a full 20 BAB because the sorc and wiz BAB progressions technically say you gain +1 BAB at each level that way whereas with fractional they're still just +1/2 like usual.

As far as beguilers go, you might want to read The Beguiler's Handbook.

Some things I notice at first: Dread Witch and Nightmate Spinner both have charisma-based abilities, while beguiler is intelligence-based casting. While the beguiler does enjoy some benefits of a high charisma, if you want to maximize the use of DW's and NS's abilities then you could be at odds with pumping your int versus your cha.

Fighter, rogue, and swashbuckler have some ACFs you might want to look at here. That guide has all the non-Dragon Mag ACFs (and alternate classes based on them) I know of for each class. If Dragon Mag is available then this thread has all the 3.5 ACFs and alternate base classes I know of.

Dead Levels and Dead Levels 2 have some abilities the authors thought should be added to the classes to make up for "dead" levels where the class doesn't gain new class features and such. In an intrigue type of game the beguiler and swashbuckler ones can be useful.

Swashbuckler is a poor class generally since its class features suck and it doesn't have much of anything worthwhile to bring it up. I've got a WIP swashbuckler guide if you want to read that. If Tome of Battle is allowed then there's very few reasons to take swashbuckler instead of warblade if you're interested in a melee class that gets some benefit from Int.

Since Dread Witch and Nightmare Spinner play heavily on fear effects, you might want to look at The Fear Handbook. It's a bit outdated and has some errors such as how Intimidating Rage and Imperious Command interact, but in general it'll give you a good idea on how to proceed with fear effects if that's one of the shticks you'd like to pursue.

Given the beguiler's Cloaked Casting ability you might want to look at Flat-footing Compendium to see how best you might benefit from that. Do note that unless the non-beguiler side of your leveling gives you decent defenses and HP and such, being in melee is a very bad idea for you.

 

[PureGoldx58]

Okay, so reading this I'd hoped that your PrC's would be discouraged. There are quite a few warnings I have solely regarding the mechanics of Dread Witch and Nightmare Spinner combined, yes it makes a powerful character, but it trivializes every encounter as every spell can become a fear spell and with Dread Witch nothing will be immune to it and if your allies look at it, they will be running around crying until the battlefield is just you laughing maniacally as everyone is disarmed and in the fetal position.

This is what happened to me the first time I tried to use a powerful Illusion that happened to be threaded with my fear. If everyone is okay with it, have fun it is probably one of the most evil combinations a caster can take that isn't pure necromancy, but make sure everyone knows you will probably be the most powerful one in the party.

I'd even go so far as to treat this equal to Frenzied Berserker in terms of, don't take if you want to keep your party alive.

On the technical aspect of having the classes in general and 2 dead levels, it is usually the most I would recommend and the previously linked information is extremely required if you want to consider this route as fear can become one of the more complicated mechanics in the game and every creature's level of fear needs to be recorded separately and accurately and the book-keeping required to keep track of who resisted your fears and are immune for the 24 hours and which SU or SP or EX ability you failed to apply on them. Basically an extremely advanced experience level/ dedication level is needed to even moderately keep the class accurately played.

Mindbender in general is a fun class and coupled with Thrallherd it is quite a lot of fun as an evil manipulator/dominator character.

I have a lot of experience with pretty much everything you are trying to accomplish, it is a great evil idea that can easily go awry so I just wanted to warn you of the pitfalls.


Edit: Also, as you can see you might not have even given enough information. The more information about a subject, the more answers we can give you, don't ever be afraid to write a small novel if you need to, to get a question answered correctly.

 

[emanresu]

thanks for the excellent responses (I dont think Im the parties most powerful maybe you can help me achieve this, DM is open to letting us rework PCs in first couple of sessions)

the campaign has started and here is what I did... 1st a brief recap, its evil & gestalt, city and travel to n from kingdom campaign, we are the enforcers of a large n politically powerful (secretly evil) House, with influence in several kingdoms. Its a rather tough hi power/encounter campaign and gestalt is basically needed.

...my pc, mafia styled campaign influenced me to go back to fighter rogue opposite caster levels plus nobody else was..I filled the vacuum.

female, 5'3", 104, yes I actually rolled this on the human height n weight charts, talk about old school but seems small maybe even anorexic?
7th level, L evil,
1 fighter / beguiler
2 rogue / beguiler
3 rogue / beguiler
4 rogue / beguiler
5 fighter / mind bender
6 prestigious bard / beguiler
7 Nightmare Spinner / beguiler current (I was almost 50/50 on DW vs NS to go with first)
8 NS / rogue
9 Dread Witch / Beguiler
10 DW / rogue
11 DW / fighter
12 DW / rogue
13 DW / rogue
14 NS / fighter
15 NS / rogue
16 NS / rogue

I had to pick prest bard 1st to get the fear spells, I was thinking of specializing in fear and I got a base class, the Beguiler, that doesn't even have fear spells! JUST A MINOR OVERSIGHT(assumption) ON MY BEHALF! P-Bard nets me: +2 CL w/ Illusion & enchantment but not divination, a -2 w/ evocation but not necromancy, I debated with DM on the merits of fear being necro not ench, we came to this agreement, after all I'm a evil little bard! I also dont get all Bard spells. sadface, but I agreed that was tooo much, I do however get my caster level (9) of bard spells in illusion or enchantment. And we agreed/settled/debated to getting my cha mod of spells (17 cha = +3) in all other schools combined, booo! So basically I get 3 spells from any Bard list to pick from but none from evocation.

Nightmare Spinner gives me another spell per level. Curse of the putrid Husk anyone!smile

I scored (traded w/ other player) on a couple of random magicals, I have the best "set" of magics in party, thats also a first for me, well maybe the 2nd time, either way this is an excellent package! Im very happy
+3 headband of intellect (major score! traded +2 breastplate I randomly rolled up we were both happy)
+2 cloak of charisma
+2 vest of resistance
necklace of persuasion
boots of elvenkind (traded 3 potions and 2 scrolls for these)
+1 Rapier

here she is
str 10
dex 18
con 14
int 17 (20)
wis 14
cha 15 (17)

life path: The Noble House I work for gave me some extra arcane & rogue training this netted me +1 bonus metamagic feat (nice) of my choice and +3 skill focus, I picked +3 to bluff.

**ANY HELP WITH SPELL SELECTION*** much appreciated
Beguiler Spells
8 x 1st
7 x 2nd
5 x 3rd
to which I add 2 x advance learning from Beguiler
Nightmare Spinner gets another spell per level
Prest Bard: +9 spells from illusion or ench schools & 3 from all "others"

my feats currently = 6
1 human, 2 1st, 3 3rd, 4 6th, 5 bonus any, 6 bonus metamagic

help with feat selection, spell selection, build advice, any advice suggestions???

thanks Eman