Post/Author/DateTime	Post
UMiskatonic 02-09-07, 09:44 AM	Hey everybody, I thought that I would try to guess at/speculate on the builds that we are likely to see in the future. Let's try to keep this thread constructive, there's not a lot of point telling us "You won't see Masters of Many Forms anymore", since we're all reading the same chart. I'll get us started.... I think that a lot of people liked the idea of arcane trickster, and found it disappointing in play. A build that really gets going around 10th level might work really well in a home game, but if you retire at 16, it's a long slow road. Therefore, I predict a LOT of beguilers cropping up. It will be unfortunate that so many of them will be made for the Greyhawk Ruins plot arc, I don't think it's really going to favor Beguilers. Between Beguiler 16 and Unseen Seer, you won't see as many rogue3/wiz5/arcane trickster 7 builds anymore. That's ok with me. Unseen Seer has difficulties of its own, in that it focuses on divination, which is the school of magic that most players are WORST at using. You'll see a number of Unseen Seers trying to sneak attack with scorching ray, and completely ignoring divination, I fear.
UMiskatonic 02-09-07, 09:51 AM	I expect to see a bumper crop of healers as well. That's good with me. You could do quite well with a straight healer, and augment healing, and sudden maximize, etc. Someone needs to find what prestige classes healers can get into. I don't think they can easily get into radiant servant (need turn undead), but I wouldn't be stunned to see cleric 1/healer 5/radiant servant 10 The Charisma synergy builds have increased quite a bit, with healer, and with knight. I suspect we'll see a number of characters with 14s in most stats, and levels in any three of the following: bard/marshal/hexblade/paladin/healer/knight Some of those will spread themselves too thin, and realize that they seem to get killed a lot around APL 8, because APL 8 mods are 'really hard.' Maybe, but your BAB of +2 might be contributing to that too. Hmm, I like the idea of Hexblade/Fighter/Knight...
Mommy was an Orc 02-09-07, 10:32 AM	I think there's going to be a lot of Beguilers - probably too many. Great to have 1 in the party, but a lot of mods are not going to favor 2. In some encounters, they're fullblown casters. In others, they can struggle. I don't see the value in Healers - sure, they get an extra spell a day and the +Cha mod to healing, but giving up all those spell choices, domains, armor, turning from being a Cleric? They're a good 'this person doesn't know what they're doing, wants to contribute, and is willing to play whatever other people tell them to play' class. I suspect Unseen Seer won't make it into the full LGCS. It just breaks too many things by being so easy to qualify for.
Sieylianna 02-09-07, 01:23 PM	I expect a huge number of beguilers, unless duskblade somehow makes the final cut (yes, it's not currently on the open list). I wanted to play a healer when they first started to allow base classes from the Complete books, but I'm afraid that it's too old and unsupported to be effective. On the other hand, it would be a welcom change from all the Radiant Servants of Foo. I expect that a lot of druid levels will be dumped in the conversion. If the NPC classes are allowed, I think we're going to see a surprsing number of them. Aristocrat gives martial weapons, all armor and decent skills. I can see it appearing as a one level dip in some spellsword/eldritch knight builds. Ed
Vanadium 02-09-07, 01:49 PM	I myself was thinking of playing Beguiler, but I fear that it would be all too common. I don't think anyone in my group expressed interest in it (although I heard some itching to get Knight), though. Then again, my area has a shortage of rogues and scouts. I could see the Beguiler being huge here if only to have a steady trapfinder. I was planning on making a Charisma mutt of some sort for a tank-type build. I might look into Knight a bit more, but they don't seem to get a huge amount after about 4. Knight seems popular around here for the crowd that's big on tanks. They just love having, as they call it, an MMO-type taunt. I am not too sure on the prestige classes. None of the ones made legal (outside of Unseen Seer, which probably won't last) seem to be a big 'gotta have it now'. Shadowcraft Mage might surge in popularity with all the Beguilers, though. Lord knows my Beguiler is planned to go that path.
Mithreinmaethor 02-09-07, 02:23 PM	Well with the new LGCS you have access to feats from Complete Scoundrel that allow your Rogue and Scout levels to stack for skirmish and even Scout and Ranger levels for Skirmish and Favored enemies. But until Britt clarifies something the Beguilers dont have access to their spells from the PHB II at this time. Unless they make a ruling similar to the one they did with a Warmage your Beguiler might be gimped ever so slightly
LachlarlanIII 02-09-07, 03:19 PM	With some of the new options from PHB2, we could see a resurgence of pureblooded Fighters.
Japangirl 02-09-07, 04:32 PM	I wouldn't be surprised to see some swashbuckler/rogue combos, with the feat that lets you combine grace, sneak attack, and dodge bonus from the two classes. Also maybe some more straight rogues, Savvy Rogue is that awesome (take 12 instead of take 10, do STR damage to non-sneakable things, Defensive Roll three times per day instead of once, etc). I want some of that myself, but no rebuilds for me :(.
Lomiat 02-10-07, 01:18 AM	My Trickster-wannabe just lost Alter Self, which hurts badly since he's a melee variant, but he'll pick up 4 levels of Unseen Seer if that gets introduced to the campaign. It won't work for skill points to pick them up before the first couple AT levels, though. In the Shield Lands, I expect to see a lot of Knights. I'm tempted to play one; the flavor's rich enough. Beguilers are neat, but they lose the Rogue's sneak attack (vs. a Trickster), and they don't have full spell versatility. I expect I'll see them, but more in other regions than the Shield Lands (we're notoriously thin on traps). I expect to see LOTS of retrained characters and, therefore, players who don't know exactly what their characters do anymore or how on Oerth they got that way in-character. In-character? Wazzat? I'm tempted to switch a lot of stuff for my fighter, but nothing that works better mechanically makes any sense to his background...
Sieylianna 02-10-07, 01:33 AM	I want some of that myself, but no rebuilds for me :(. I need to go through my druid's AR's and see what formerly limited classes and feats she can access. Snowflake wardance is one she has that I've been looking at for a while for another PC, but I may take advantage of the change and do something with it now. Ed
Mommy was an Orc 02-10-07, 08:19 AM	I think people might see a lot of the weirder Druid builds showing up - while it sucks to not have old Wildshape, the higher level Druids can bypass a lot of the hurt of builds that normally take a while to pay off. Sublime Chord into Fochulan Lyrist as an example. Beguiler 2/Unseen Seer 2 becomes the new fav Rogue dip - it makes you a caster, you can use UMD'd scrolls for CWI, you get a wealth of valuable 1st/2nd level spells(including Grave Strike) usable in Light Armor and it has no real prereqs. A lot more caster humans - with the ability to get an extra interesting feat at 1st level, humans just got more powerful. Which is good as anything other than human crashes Heroforge on my mac...
solbergb 02-11-07, 03:07 PM	Yeah, my wife's druid is going to have the 1 level of Seeker of Misty Isle right now, instead of at level 10. But then the very last mod she played in, she FOUND an extraplanar misty island. So it seems only fair :) Plus she's had an ongoing alienist-like curse that has dones seriously bad things to her body and mind for over half her career (arms turned to tentacles once, tongue split making spellcasting hard, she spent the last module deaf, etc), so lowering physical attributes for higher wisdom and losing her better wildshape forms for a level also fits pretty well with that...the curse has almost run its course and is now in the kind of beneficial stage where you don't quite want it to end, and she's gained insight into Powers Men Was not Meant To Know by her association with it etc. My own pouncekitty druid was only level 3, and the main effect will be to swap out bull rush at level 1 for something I can use right now, and reserve the option to retrain it in time for Shock Trooper, should that option still exist if and when this character hits level 9. This also allows me to go in a different direction if the campaign throws another curve - I don't play the char much, and won't till my sorceress retires. Most of my other chars have very small retriaining plans or will be unchanged. A few had open feat slots in the endgame that now suddenly have interesting possibilities instead of only 1-2 medeocre choices. I think the single most happy thing that an of my characers got was my archer, who is something of a bow geek anyway, getting instant access to the (elven) Aquatic Bow in Stormwrack. If I'm not underwater, any other bow is strictly superior, but I've been underwater a few times and it beats fighting with a longspear.
Cynric 02-11-07, 04:16 PM	Personally my druid is probably going to end up converting into arcane Hierophant to get some more mileage out of the Animal Companion. That way I do NOT:P have to wildshape and tank.
UMiskatonic 02-12-07, 10:45 AM	Of course, you might now have the option of taking feats that are only good at levels 1-6, and then retraining them later, on purpose. Low level characters might really like feats like Weapon Focus, or Skill Focus, or lightning reflexes, to train them out later for higher-level feats like Imp. Initiative, Scribe Scroll, etc... Ex) Might we see an upsurge in, gasp, Toughness? Later on, retrain it to Empower Spell or something more fitting for a 5th level sorceror. I wonder if that will be considered 'worth it', or it the costs are too great....
Mommy was an Orc 02-12-07, 04:05 PM	Of course, you might now have the option of taking feats that are only good at levels 1-6, and then retraining them later, on purpose. Ex) Might we see an upsurge in, gasp, Toughness? Later on, retrain it to Empower Spell or something more fitting for a 5th level sorceror. I wonder if that will be considered 'worth it', or it the costs are too great.... I think in general, there are a lot better feats than Toughness, even at 1st level, for a Sorcerer. Extra Spell as an example. I think Cleave is going to be real popular as a level 1 feat, though. Absolutely beautiful feat for a human Barbarian 1/Fighter 1 to have at 2nd level as a Fighter bonus feat to be retrained out at 6th for one of the +6 BAB feats.
solbergb 02-12-07, 04:22 PM	Extra spell only gives you a cantrip at L1 or L3, for a sorc unfortunately.
UMiskatonic 02-12-07, 04:30 PM	I'm sure people will think of something... For example, take Scribe Scroll at 3rd, scribe all the scrolls you can, and then retrain the feat. Of course, you'll want the cost of retraining to be lower than the savings on the scrolls, and I'm not sure how easy that is without a PHB 2.
bitznarf 02-12-07, 04:40 PM	I'm sure people will think of something... For example, take Scribe Scroll at 3rd, scribe all the scrolls you can, and then retrain the feat. Of course, you'll want the cost of retraining to be lower than the savings on the scrolls, and I'm not sure how easy that is without a PHB 2. I believe the text on the retraining got changed so that if you drop a crafting feat, you must pay any gold you saved while using the feat.
solbergb 02-12-07, 06:30 PM	yeah, about the only way to save money would be to take brew potion and craft all the CL1 potions of enlarge person you might want, then untrain it. The money saved not having to buy CL5 potions of enlarge person might make it pay for itself, aside from the TU cost, the cost to front-load the expense of all the potions and having to have brew potion as a feat for a level.
solbergb 02-12-07, 06:33 PM	That sort of thing (training and untraining a MIC feat) will be for a rather expensive way to get access, not to save money. As an example, an arcane archer with quickdraw wanting to make some quickdrawable wands instead of annoying scrolls might hose up his feats at, say, level 9, retraining practiced spellcaster from some other feat and craft wands as his L9 feat. Then after crafting his heart out in L1 spells, he'd spend the next two levels retraining real feats back in. Pretty expensive though. Several thousand gold, plus wasting a couple feats on an archer build for a while that could be making him an extra archer. You'd have to REALLY want whatever benefit you'd get.
bitznarf 02-12-07, 07:43 PM	But at least you could do it if you wanted to. I think its great.
Jay_Ibero_911 02-12-07, 09:37 PM	Spike chain wielding knights combining bulwark of defense, hold the line, and test of mettle to force everyone to give you AOO's? Scout+Rangers Skirmishing against undead, constructs, and other usually non-critable things? Tricked out raycasters with Spellwarp Sniper+Unseen Seer? Summoners with Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning, Rapid Spell, and Metamagic School Focus for standard action extra tough summons? Dervishes trying to squeeze in Deadly defense, for that extra d6? Any number of casters with at least one reserve feat? People playing healers with the delusion that it's a good idea?