Rather than constantly changing characters in order to maintain balance, I want to play a utility character that can be beneficial overall without stealing all of the thunder in combat. Helping the rest of the party reach their potential is key. I've debuted my character as a grey-elfen caster type with a build already in mind, but I'd like some advice on tweaking.
The character herself is a nutjob follower of Zagyg who does random not-too-bright stuff (like pick up that evil stone and take 6 negative levels; lots of fun.) She's a knowledge-monger and refuses to do actual damage, preferring to buff the party and disable badguys (I <3 Unluck) while telling people how better to do their jobs of beating up the badguys.
The APL is 10 at the moment, but I'm planning for the future as well.
1 Wizard; Magical Aptitude
2 Wizard
3 Scout; Skill Knowledge (Disable Device, Search)
4 Wizard
5 Wizard
6 Wizard; Heighten Spell, Wizard: Craft Wondrous Item
7 Wild Mage
8 Wild Mage
9 Wild Mage; Skill Focus (Knowledge (religion))
10 Divine Oracle
11 Divine Oracle
12 Fatespinner; Practiced Spellcaster (Wizard)
13 Loremaster; Applicable Knowledge: Insightful Reflexes
14 Loremaster
15 Loremaster; Elflore
16 Loremaster
17 Loremaster
18 Loremaster; Obscure Lore
19 Fatespinner
20 Fatespinner
Our rogue's player has gone MIA but currently her SO is playing the character in her absence so the disable device/search/trapfinding may not necessarily be required any longer. Wild Mage is mostly for roll-twice-on-a-Rod-of-Wonder since that is her favourite item on the planet. Fatespinner is just filler and could easily go to three more levels of Loremaster.
Her original build (as a Living Greyhawk character) had, instead of the Wild Mage, two levels of Geometer to get some skill ranks in for DD/Search as well as to make her Boccob's Blessed Book completely uber (since gold flowed so slowly in LG).
Through reading the optimization boards, I discovered the Ultimate Magus PrC and it has certainly piqued my interest. I've been working on a Diviner/Beguiler/Ultimate Magus build but not sure what to do from there. War Weaver? It certainly has caught my eye for the realm of buffing.
Everything goes for the most part. Our DM is not at all savvy regarding what is broken and what is not, so I'd like to KISS: no flaws, no Vow of Poverty, no extremely broken cheese, etc. Though Skill Tricks I think would still be viable (I have my eye on the +5 to ID creatures).
Thoughts? Ideas?
Edit: Sorta skimmed parts of yer post...sorry if you were only looking for advice exactly related to your current character concept you listed. If that's the case, ignore my comment about War Weaver. Though at level 10, you could already be kickin some serious bum with full War Weaver powers.
Seriously though, I do think Chameleon is perfect for what you want.
1 cloistered cleric for turn undead, domains and wonkiness.
4 crusader
2 chameleon
Continue in Ruby Knight Vindicator, allocating spell progression to chameleon.
It's a divine gish, but...
On the other hand, taking chameleon into jade pheonix mage alone is basically amazing. It's a little harder, since you don't auto-qualify as explained below, but it's not too cheesy or hard to hack around, and it lets you cover for anyone who just happened to fail to show. This is speaking from experience, as one of the players in the high-power planescape campaign I run (EL8->16, at 12 right now), runs such a creature and he is pretty much a game saver. Has a search mod of +30 or so, trap-finding, spells, martial maneuvers, among other things.
I'm willing to accept that, but I'm curious as to why you say that? If I need to, I'll go up and scrub that post. What are the Rules As Intended for qualifying for things as a chameleon, to the best of our knowledge? Any good custserv rulings or anything? I'm deeply curious.
Chameleon itself says you can't. I don't have the book, but I remember that is clearly stated in the class itself.
Edit: I managed to look at the book. Here is the relevant text:
You can’t use any abilities gained from your aptitude focus, ability boon, or mimic class feature abilities to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other option. You can use your bonus feat to qualify for such options, but if you change the feat, you suffer the normal drawbacks for no longer meeting a prerequisite or requirement.
It's interesting that you can use the bonus feat for qualifying for things. I bet that could be abused somehow, by using it to qualify for a feat that you only want part of the time... Hmm...
It appears you are correct, there is such a disclaimer. There are ways around it to make Xavier still work, but it's way too complicated for me to crunch through right now. I do hope you will forgive me. I have scrubbed the above post accordingly, but left in a build for a sader\chameleon\rkv. HldPlz
I'd go Wizard 4/Scout 1/Divine Oracle 2/Loremaster 3/Fatespinner 4/Unseen Seer 6
Paragnostic Apostle also seems to fit your character fairly well, and fairly easy to get into.
What a crime. You have Scout levels and no Unseen Seer?!?!
Complete Mage didn't exist back when this character was first around. I missed playing her from my LG days. I'm the only one there who plays regularly and has been playing for longer than a year so while everyone seems to appreciate my knowledge of the rules, it still makes me feel like a rude, insufferable know-it-all. Being able to roll a knowledge check first makes me feel a little better about knowing what I know.
War Weaver certainly caught my eye and I may produce a build for it. I really love the idea of combining it with Wizard/Beguiler/Ultimate Magus, but I'd want the War Weaver earlier on methinks and that would ruin the Practiced Spellcaster trick for 9th level spells on the Wizard side.
The only real use I had out of Scout was for the Trapfinding and Disable Device/Search skills (though I have killed a number of critters with a skirmished Ray of Frost in my day). I would rather not have or use any damaging spells so the bonuses to damage conferred from Unseen Seer wouldn't do me much good. Advanced Learning could be nice since I could choose Divine spells, but I can get similar results from taking a single level of Divine Oracle through the Oracle Domain. The Silent Spell bonus feat is nice, but because Divination spell power will decrease my caster level for all non-Divination spells, I'll need to use a feat slot for Practiced Caster (and again I could get +2 CL without penalty to other spells from Oracle Domain.) It feels like Divine Oracle 2 (evasion!)/Full Casting 8 is better than Unseen Seer 10.
Wild Mage was mostly considered due to flavor.
I'm very much considering this whole Ultimate Magus/War Weaver thing. I'm playing with two builds at the moment.
Bard 1/Wizard 3 and Bard +1 in any order/War Weaver 5/Ultimate Magus 10
If Practiced Spellcaster (Bard) is taken sometime before 18th level:
11th level Bard Spells at CL 19
15th level Wizard Spells at CL 19
Otherwise:
12th level Bard Spells at CL 20
14th level Wizard Spells at CL 18
The ability to heal is *very* nice with the tapestry and I can use Wizard spell slots to meta-magic Persistent buffs (at higher level, of course). Otherwise, Wizard spells are used for filling in buff blanks and for combat control. Basic Inspire Courage and Bardic Knowledge are nice. Double-dipping on main stats is kinda a pain for any DC spells I throw out on the Bard side.
Wizard 1/Wizard +1 and Beguiler 1 in any order/Wizard +2/War Weaver 5/Ultimate Magus 10
If Practiced Spellcaster (Beguiler) is taken at 3rd level:
10th level Beguiler spells at CL 18
16th level Wizard spells at CL 20
Otherwise:
11th level Beguiler spells at CL 19
15th level Wizard spells at CL 19
Certainly more options if I burn Beguiler spell slots to meta-magic my Wizard spells. More spell variety overall since Beguiler has a larger list of spells compared to the Bard's requirement to choose knowns. Main stat for both classes is Int, which makes me happy.