D&D General The 3.5 Binder was a really cool class

[Necropolitan]

There once was an assassin who specialized in murdering other assassins.

He died, went to Hell, and the many enemies he'd made in life who'd ended up in Hell were so mad they staged a mass uprising solely to beat up his newly-damned soul.

When the fight was over his soul was gone.

Now you might be thinking "Did he somehow escape? Was his soul destroyed? Did he go to Double-Hell? What exactly would Double-Hell be like, would it just have twice as much fire or something?"

The answer is none of the above! His soul somehow got shunted outside reality and became a Vestige.

And if you played a Binder in a 3.5 D&D campaign you could have a fraction of his power as long as you were willing to put up with the chance doing so might cause a slight change in your appearance and behavior.

And that's just one of the dozens of Vestiges you could choose from as a Binder!

There were the remains of dead gods, mortals who failed in their attempts to attain godhood, slain primordial monsters, a noble who got really really really scared (like SO scared, he ran out of there like nobody ever had), the victim of an incredibly mean prank (they cut his arms and legs off), someone who managed to steal his own soul from the god of thieves through a divine loophole (which the god appreciated so much he turned him into a Vestige as a reward), an ancient greedy Dwarven queen who inspired me to create Blackbeard as a Dwarf NPC (his name is Flamebeard and his ship is Queen Aym's Revenge), and many more!

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Doesn't the Trapper Keeper do everything the Binder does, and have much more flavorful options?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

"A lot of time ago, a crack commando unit was sent to an infernal plane by a rival celestial court for a crime they didn't commit. These souls promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Feywild underground. Today, still wanted by those celestial power (and some infernal dragons) they survive in the memories like vestiges. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them....maybe you can summon The Alaph-Team."

 

[Seramus]

Agreed, the Binder was absolutely dripping with style. It did have some thematic overlap with Warlock at the time, but Warlock wasn't as firmly cemented the way it is now. It was also a little on the weak side. I could easily see a homebrew Binder using the 5E Warlock as a design chassis:

Vestiges would give you a set package of Invocations and a 1-5 Spell List you can access, with the ability to bind more Vestiges simultaneously as you increase in level, naturally.

Of course, nothing is stopping someone from fluffing their Warlock, Cleric, or Sorcerer spells as coming from Vestiges. It's a bit hard to replicate passive abilities that way, though.