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

[Kurotowa]

It's arguably worse in the Binder's case because the Vestiges need to be convinced to let your character Bind them, with the Binding check determining how well it went in terms of them affecting your character's appearance and personality.

I really want to play a Binder, but it's a lot to ask of a DM.

There was a recent thread talking about Wild Magic, and it make me really think about how highly "random" abilities work best in a scripted format where there's nothing random about them and it's all decided by the author for maximum narrative impact. Meanwhile having genuinely random features in a game means you're more likely to get a frustrating or anticlimactic result than a narratively satisfying one.

All those hoops the Binder has to jump through probably fall under the same umbrella. They're the limitations of a magical system that would make for a great story in a scripted narrative, but trying to fit them as game mechanics runs into a host of issues.

 

[Necropolitan]

All those hoops the Binder has to jump through probably fall under the same umbrella. They're the limitations of a magical system that would make for a great story in a scripted narrative, but trying to fit them as game mechanics runs into a host of issues.

It's slightly easier with Binders because there are only 2 things that will happen if you fail:

1. You will show the Sign of your Vestige for as long as you've got them Bound to you. This can be anything from glowing eyes to a maggot under your skin.

2. You will have a predilection towards a specific form of behavior. For example you might need to give a speech if you see a podium.

For the majority of them they're downsides that only affect roleplaying, but a few of them can affect the mechanics like having to refuse healing from the worshipers of certain Deities.

 

[Alzrius]

There was a recent thread talking about Wild Magic, and it make me really think about how highly "random" abilities work best in a scripted format where there's nothing random about them and it's all decided by the author for maximum narrative impact. Meanwhile having genuinely random features in a game means you're more likely to get a frustrating or anticlimactic result than a narratively satisfying one.

All those hoops the Binder has to jump through probably fall under the same umbrella. They're the limitations of a magical system that would make for a great story in a scripted narrative, but trying to fit them as game mechanics runs into a host of issues.

The issue with this is that D&D is not—and never has been—a "storytelling" game. It's not designed for it, and trying to make it play like one while keeping it recognizably D&D is the very definition of a square peg in a round hole.

I think D&D is broader than most people think in terms of what genres it can handle, but the issue of "telling a story" isn't a genre, it's about the process. In that regard, D&D is not the engine I'd recommend if narrative satisfaction is your primary goal.

 

[Stalker0]

I played a binder. My dm had an intervention with me because my character was “so weak it was difficult to keep me included” and we came up with some house rules to make the class usable. Never ever happened before or since.

The class was cool, but definately on the weak side.

 

[Necropolitan]

I played a binder. My dm had an intervention with me because my character was “so weak it was difficult to keep me included” and we came up with some house rules to make the class usable. Never ever happened before or since.

The class was cool, but definately on the weak side.

It starts out weak, but with the right builds it can keep up at higher levels.

 

[Voadam]

From reading it, it was very cool and flavorful, but the mechanics did not seem to create a coherent D&D character role niche and did not seem to be designed to make a useful or powerful set of powers. You had huge flexibility day to day in setting your powers for the day, but they each seemed very niche and not equal to other equivalent level players at doing any one job. I thought it would have been cool to have as a supplemental set of powers in a gestalt game though.

I believe 4e made them a late warlock subclass, but I did not really check out their version.

There was a 3rd party publisher that made supplemental material for them in 3.5 and then in pathfinder 1e that added even more flavor stuff that I felt was fun.

I mostly raided the 3.5 ToM vestige concepts as flavor and world elements for my games. I still prefer that version of vestiges over the different definitions for the term that came in later editions.

 

[Tigris]

I believe 4e made them a late warlock subclass, but I did not really check out their version.

4e had 2 versions.

The Binder warlock in 4e was bad. Like really really bad.

It was a "controller" version of the striker warlock. But it just lost the striker feature AND with that an easy way to trigger the subclass utility (ehich noemally triggered when your curse target dies), and only gaines slightly more controlish at wills.


On the other hand 4e has for the normal striker varlock the vestige pact subclass.

That one comes with 2 "general" vestiges of which you choose 1 each rest. And each daily power gave you access to a different vestuge for the encounter.

1 of the default vestiges is more leader, the other more about improving hit chance (especially on harder to reach enemies)

That is a cool warlock subclass, but just a subclass and thus limited in what it can do different.

Also because it came rather late it had not many feats etc.

I think the class is cool when it has 2+ dailies, because then you can really adapt a bit to the combat. One thing is just that part of the vestige power is linked to an at will and in later levels you will not use at wills that much in combat.

 

[Staffan]

The Binder was super flavorful, and I think the ability to tailor your abilities to whatever challenges you think you would find ahead is pretty cool – basically the same concept as spell preparation, but for your whole character. But I think it suffered from two problems.

The first is that D&D is a team game. In most cases, you're a part of a party, where the rest of the characters are pretty set in their way. So your specialization becomes more about fitting into your slot in the party rather than whatever challenges lie ahead.

The second is that even if you can, for example, decide that today you'll be playing the part of a knight and bind Andras, the Grey Knight, and get proficiency in greatsword, lance, longsword, and rapier, that doesn't mean that you have one of those – particularly not a magical one. You also probably don't have the Strength score or feats of a dedicated melee combatant. To some degree this is helped by the Pact Augmentation ability (which lets you pick some bonuses from a list each day), but you'll still only be mediocre at whatever you're deciding to do that day.

As a related point to the second problem, the vestiges that give you bonuses to skills and similar things generally don't scale. For example, Leraje is a 1st level vestige and binding her gives you (among other things) a +4 competence bonus to Hide. That's pretty sweet at first level. But it won't do you much good at level 10 unless you have actually spent skill points on Hide, which goes against the concept of swapping your skills out.

 

[Seramus]

The main lore issue with playing a Binder in a campaign is it required the DM to either just go with the mechanics of Binding each day or they had to roleplay through the PC Binding each Vestige.

It'd be like if Cleric PCs were expected to have a conversation to convince their god to grant them spells every single day.

What we did was a dramatic roleplay the first time each Vestige was bound. But then the player got a seal or item that represented that Vestige, and they could make hushed supplications (or whatever suited their character) afterwards.

We didn't have many people play it, but there was some fun to be had with the same Vestiges being summoned in different campaigns, and the Vestige referencing PCs from former games.

All very Patron-y.

 

[Hussar]

The binder was very flavorful but mechanically weak unless you had access to all the vestiges and could make the best possible pacts for each situation given your level, which kind of goes against the concept of the binder.

It was so fraught with synergies that I understand why they never revisited it. If you up the vestiges' gifts, you run the risk of making unintended rule-monsters, but if you don't very few players will want to play it.

On top of that, it puts a ton of load on DMs so that the adventures just "happen" to have long lost tomes/temples/crypts for relevant vestiges. The alternatives are the Binder is almost certainly worthless or campaign revolves around the Binder'sqhest for more Vestiges.

...?

That wasn't true. There was nothing in the class that said that you had to "find" new vestiges. They weren't wizards.

And, as someone who played a binder, I did not find it weak at all. It was keeping up with pretty much everyone else (other than CoDzilla, but, then, that was a 3e thing).