The Gaming Den

What are some of the best tactics to use as the binder from Tome of Magic, starting out at level 1 ('organic' build)? There's a thread on the WotC forum, but the location makes its use suspect.

Starting at level one? Hmm.

Honestly, its kinda hard to really break a binder, particularly at low levels.
Most of the binding feats suck, and most of the time, you're going to effectively be a warrior-type. Unless you bind Karsus, and then you're a wand and staff guy. A couple vestiges allow you to scout or be the face man, but not many.

Feats of note from the book
Expel Vestige- sometimes you find out that you're going to be doing something totally different with your day. So switching gears can be useful. There's also a magic item that can sort of do this- you pre-choose the vestige you want to stuff in the phylactery. Its 15000 gold, though. Useful later as a back up, but only if you choose fairly well.

Ignore Special Requirements- because someone was a dick and didn't drop this stupid idea from the class in the first place. Only take it if you want to bind a vestige who has a pain in the ass requirement.

improved binding You can get abilities two levels early. Situationally useful, for example, you can bind Savnok and wander around in Full Plate at first level.

Favored Vestige tree. meh. Unless you're doing something specific (like trying to milk a staff of power through Karsus' abilities) I don't think this is really worth it.

Skilled Pactmaking Bite me. So you have the roleplaying equivalent of a facial twitch. So what.

Rapid Pactmaking is pretty much kicked in the teeth by the Seal of the Spirit item. It effectively replaces the feat for only 6000 gold.

the other once per day feats absolutely suck, and the other feats don't apply to actual binders.
Ability focus might be worthwhile if you can find a good Save or die/suck/lose power. Maybe combine it with sudden ability focus and favored vestige focus if you want a +5 to your DC once a day. Not sure its worth 3 feats, and not sure the +3 DC is worth two feats if you can find a good SoD. IMO, the good vestiges grant passive abilities with no save.
The soul lens item is cheap as shit and gives you another +1 to all DCs.


But lets see. breakable shit.
I'd go with Improved binding as a feat at level one. You generally aren't going to measure up to the spellcasters, but this helps you on the early power curve. Drawback is, its a useless feat at 17th level.

As such, Savnok isn't a bad choice. (AC 18 or 19 at level 1) It also has one of the 'I'm going to be a dick to the DM' manuevers for the class. You can summon full plate at will. You can dismiss it as a full round action, but nothing says you can't just take it off normally and sell it. Then summon another suit. All damn day long. (Its not on the chart by the way, but from the way the text reads, if you can use this ability at level one, you just get normal full plate). Downside is, full plate is the only thing you're really getting from this guy. The swap position ability isn't useful until you can use it as a move or free action.

Other low level vestiges.
Amon- kind of crappy a low levels. The fire breath scales with level, though you need to pick up ignore special requirements since he won't play with two of the better vestiges you can get later.

Aym- Melee touch attacks for d6 damage! Yay! And you really kill objects. The touch attack isn't horrible when you're low enough level that you can't bind a real vestige.

Leraje- Fuck this dead elven bitch right in the eye. You vaguely get a couple archery feats out of this. You might care for a level or two.

Naberius- switch to this puppy any time you need to heal ability damage. Diplomatize people with no penalty for doing it as a standard action, and you can take 10. And disguise self.

Ronove- you can fake being a monk, ignoring some DR. and feather fall, and do a weird telekinesis thing. The bull rush aspect of the TK really sucks. The strength score is equal to your binder level, so you aren't pushing shit until at least level 10. The d6 damage does seem to be automatic, once every five rounds. Meh. You can find something better.

Dahlver-Nar- OK. really specific immunity, crappy natural armor, and a mind affecting daze area attack that affects your allies. Not cool. Shield self- Not horrible. If someone beats on you, you can make someone else take the damage.

Haagenti sucks ass.

Malphas- cast invisibility on yourself every 5 rounds. Bird scout, and a fairly crappy sudden strike. Not bad at all.


Those are your options at first level. What role do you want to fill?
Tank- Savnok
Scout- Malphas
Face- Naberius

Aym- you have to deal with fire/want to deal fire damage, but seriously, I'd go with one of those three.

Level 2- Pact Augmentation. Yes, you can totally fake having a full BAB. You can also eventually crank the hell out of initiative (+10! at level 20), AC or saves. Sad factor- you have to choose when you bind a vestige. Another good reason to take expel vestige, I suppose. Need fire resistance? Kick someone out of your head and rebind and reaugment.

At level 2, I'd go with the 5 extra hit points over anything else. The DR absolutely sucks, no matter when you take it, or how much you put into it. The damage bonus becomes useful if you want to bind yourself up for the charge build.

Depending on what role your playing each day, once you have multiple bonuses, focus them on one thing and go for saves, AC, attack rolls or initiative. Though keep in mind, the bonus to damage affects all damage rolls... Interpret that as you will.

At level 3 (improved binding, remember), always keep Karsus in mind if you find wands or staves, or have some monkey that can make them.

General purpose, however, go with Focalor. Keep your allies 10' feet away and inflict that aura of sadness on people -2 to attacks and saves is rather nice, especially since there is no save. You can also blind people, and smite them with lightning. And you can breathe water.

Andromalius has some uses. Bit of a tool kit. the sneak attack damage is actually level appropriate at level 3. Jester's mirth kind of sucks since they get a save every round. See invisibilty... not bad.

Paimon- an untyped dex bonus and several ways to get multiple attacks at third level. Pick up a damn longspear, get the wizard to cast enlarge person and stab everything with whirlwind attack.

At 5th level, you can be the heal monkey with Buer and give your party infinite healing over time.

Thats a starting point. As you go up in levels, keep in mind some of the combinations:

Focalor + Chupoclops. Auras of Despair and Sadness: -4 to attacks and saves, -2 to damage. Pounce and the ability to hide in the fucking ethereal plane. Along with ghost touch, blind sense and a crappy bite attack. 10th level minimum with improved binding

Charge build (13th level)- Andras and Eligor. Mount, smite, ride bonus, untyped strength bonus and spirited charge. Throw in your pact augmentation damage bonus for some extra damage multiplication.

Also take a look at the stupid teeth of Dahlver-Nar. Some of them are subtly good and cheap. Others are damn good ways of picking up decent enhancement bonuses to stats without taking up body slots. Hey, Leraje does have a use. Greater magic weapon, once per day, at CL 20. For 21,600 gp...

Voss at [unixtime wrote:1200380167[/unixtime]]
Leraje- Fuck this dead elven bitch right in the eye.

Have I ever told you that I immensely appreciate your reviews?

No you haven't. I'm rather pleased with that one, myself.


Overall I like this class. It can't compete with the big 3, but it has a daily versatility thats nice, and something beyond 'I hit it in the face again'. The flavor is kinda lame, what with summoning the remnants of Powers That Were being automatically successful and not doing anything to you beyond an obnoxious personal habit for the duration. But hey, you can do quirky shit. And all your Save- based powers actually scale with your goddamn level. Hurray!

My overall thoughts on the vestiges go something like this-

Acerak- Meh. Unless you're playing a murder mystery where speak with dead at will matters, or really need to be immune to cold and lightning.

Agares- Need to talk to people at the tower of Babel? Here you go. The fear immunity is a joke, since its a fucking class feature, and unless you're using improved binding to bind this joker at level 5, you already have it. You can have a minion, though.

Amon- Mediocre. Fire breath scales, but its still just a line of fire.

Andras- Good for some combat builds. Especially mounted chargers.
Sow Discord is a nice break from stabbing people, since you can make other people stab their friends.

Andromalius- I really wanted to be a rogue! But see invisibility is good, and it stacks with Malphas' sudden strike in a way that turns out to be level appropriate sometimes. Locate Item also allows you break some quests.

Aym- Yeah. You can break shit. And if you really need to breach DR/adamantine, she's your dwarf bitch.

Balam- Rerolls and some bonuses that get fairly large and stack with a bunch of shit (but not your class feature).

Buer- the cleric's medipack bitch. Clerics will love you, because now they have even less reason to be the healbitch.

Chupoclops- awesome. someone just gave you a shitload of cool abilities for no apparent reason. You can pounce on people. From another plane. Works well with a bunch of other vestiges. Potentially downright fucking ridiculous once you can bind 3 or 4

Dahlver-Nar- a bunch of crap coupled with the ability to take half damage and inflict on something else. Meh.

Dantalion- Once every 5 rounds, anyone that can see you can't attack you for a round. No save. Just openly deny. As a move action. And you can read minds and have a short range dimension door. Nice.

Eligor- another combat guy. The other half of the binder charge build.

Eurynome- sucks more ass than that dead elf bitch. Seriously, her most useful power is water walking. Buy the damn ring if you really need it.

Focalor- Pretty good, especially at low levels, very good with improved binding at level 3. Inflict penalties, blind and zap people. Oh, and breath water.

Geryon- Another worthless piece of shit. Fly for one round every 5? Bite me. Tenebrous gives see in darkness too. At a lower level.

Haagenti- You can use axes! Shut up, bitch.

Halphax- Board control++. Wall of Iron? Check. Imprison by fucking touch, check. Create a fucking 20' square stone tower at will? Fucking awesome. Always fight from a backstop. DR 10/adamatine would be decent if you weren't at least 15th level. But at least you're mostly immune to angry mobs that are pissed about the real estate fluctuations.

Haures- Mind blank at level 10? Not bad. Incorporeal movement? Also not bad. Rogue killer every five roundsl? Also pretty nice. Major image every five rounds? Fucking awesome. The RP options for this guy are also amazing. Go on. Be a crazy bastard. You know you want to. You are required to talk to imaginary people, but you can also totally make them. Show off the wacky shit that should just go on inside your head.

Ipos- mediocre. Being able to survive on any plane is fairly situational. Rending isn't bad, exactly, but you need something to make your claws better. The gem is the swift action true seeing. Shame about the duration. Also useful for pushing the save DCs up really, really high.

Karsus- detect magic at will, and use arcane staves and wands at a +2 DC. Artillery specialist.

Leraje- did her. stupid bitch in life, stupid bitch in death.

Malphas- pretty good summary above. Good low level scout

Marchosias- death attack, gaseous form, absurd bonus to hide and move silently. Why do you have to be 13th level for this crap?

Naberius- Speak, ubu, speak. Good dog.

Orthos- Blindsight, permanent Displacement and [level]d6 untyped magical damage. Nice.

Otiax- A ranged touch attack that would be level appropriate at level 3. And you can open really shitty locks. At 8th level.

Paimon- untyped dex bonus, uncanny dodge and the ability to attack everybody in reach, all the time, all at 3rd level with the right feat. Nice.

Ronove- yeah. She exists. She doesn't totally suck.

Savnok- free Full Plate. Um. And you can swap with allies, if they're really close. At levels 1 and 2, the armor might be worth it. By 5th, it almost certainly isn't.

Shax- meh. Freedom of movement is good. 1 round out of every 5, not so good. A swim speed too. Gosh.

Tenebrous- not bad. Permanent concealment that you can see out of. Turn undead is useful if you can talk your DM into letting you use it for divine feats that just require you to spend a single turn attempt. Limited teleportation.

Zagan- Weird. Improved Grapple and you count as large, and you can constrict (and you can apply your pact augmentation damage bonus to the constrict damage rolls). So you can beat other humanoids in a wrestling match. Not horrid. And you can really kill snakes and snakelike critters. Aversion is pretty nice if you actually want to keep people away. There are worse options.

Finally, there are a couple stupidly good vestiges on the D&D website.
I don't know why they're as awesome as they are, but here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dn ... ][br]First up-
Zceryll, the Starspawn. Vestige level 6th (so, 10th level binder with improved binding)

Granted Abilities: While bound to Zceryll, your body and mind become alien, allowing you to channel the power of the star spawn in a variety of ways.

Alien form: While bound to Zceryll, you gain the pseudonatural template (page 161 of Complete Arcane).

Alien Mind: Your mind is alien and does not work like that of a normal mortal. You are immune to confusion, insanity, and weird spells. In addition, you receive a +1 bonus per four binder levels on saving throws against mind-affecting effects.

Bolts of Madness: You can fire a ray that dazes an opponent for 1d3 rounds. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack with a range of 100 ft. + 10 ft./binder level. A successful Will save negates the effect. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Summon Alien: You can summon any creature from the summon monster list that a sorcerer of your level could summon. Any creature you summon with this ability gains the pseudonatural template. Thus, at 10th level you could summon any creature from the summon monster I-V list. When you reach 14th level, you can summon any creature from the summon monster I-VII list. You can only summon creatures that can be affected by the pseudonatural template. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Telepathy: You gain the telepathy ability with a range of 100 feet (as described on page 316 of the Monster Manual) and the Mindsight feat (as described on page 126 of Lords of Madness).[

Telepathy is useful. Daze at range, use true strike once and get acid and elecricity resistance, DR and SR.
Plus, uh... infinite level appropriate summoning, that can also use true strike once and gets all those resistances.
Downside? You get Cthullu-tuned Raistlin eyes. You see everything as if they had the pseudonatural template. Do not engage the sex drive, do *not* look at the whores.


Next is Astaroth, Unjustly Fallen, a 4th level vestige (5th level binder)

Angelic Lore: Astaroth constantly whispers the secrets of reality in the back of your mind, allowing you to draw on his own nigh-infinite knowledge. This functions as the bardic knowledge ability (PH 28), based on your effective binder level.

Astaroth's Breath: Once every 5 rounds, you can exhale a 60-foot cone of foul-smelling gas. Creatures within the cone must make a Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1 round and sickened for an additional 1d4 rounds. Those who make the save are merely sickened for 1 round. Creatures immune to poison or disease are immune to this effect.

Honeyed Tongue: You gain a +4 competence bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate checks.

Master Craftsman: While bound to Astaroth, you gain a +4 competence bonus on all Craft checks. In addition, each time you bind with Astaroth, you may select one item creation feat as a temporary bonus feat. So long as you continue to bind with Astaroth, you may use that feat as though you possessed it normally; you must still spend all standard gold and XP for any item you create, and you must still provide all necessary spells for a given item.

If your effective binder level is not at least as high as the necessary caster level to take a specific item creation feat, you cannot choose that feat. For instance, a 4th-level binder could not choose any item creation feat with a prerequisite of caster level 5th or higher.

Word of Astaroth: You may make a suggestion, as the spell, with a caster level equal to your effective binder level. You must wait 5 rounds before attempting another suggestion, and at any given time, you may only have a total number of people under the effects of this ability equal to your Charisma bonus.

Another Face guy. But you can also nauseate, as well as smack people with suggestion whenever you feel like it. Plus... item creation. Any item creation, as long as you can somehow 'provide the spells'.

Lastly, Desharis, the Sprawling Soul. 6th level vestige (10th level again)

City-Dweller: While hosting Desharis, you move at your normal rate when moving through a crowd, rather than requiring two squares of movement for every square as is normal. In addition, you gain a +6 competence bonus on Gather Information and Knowledge (local) checks (and may use the latter even if you have 0 ranks in it).

Infinite Doors: Once per day, you can pass through an exterior doorway (one that leads from inside a building to outside), and appear through another exterior doorway within 3,000 yards. The two doors must both be set in buildings made of similar materials; for instance, you could pass from a wooden building to another wooden building, or a stone building to another stone building. You can either select a specific door with which you are familiar as the destination, or simply declare that you are appearing through the closest appropriate door to a given distance. (If no appropriate portal exists within range or in the direction you wish to travel, the effect does not function.) This is a teleportation effect.

Language of the City: You can speak with any humanoid, as per the tongues spell.

Smite Natural Soul: You may attempt to smite an animal, elemental, fey, or plant with a single melee attack. You add your Charisma bonus (if any) to the attack roll and deal 1 extra point of damage per effective binder level. If you accidentally smite a creature that is not one of the above types, the attempt has no effect. Once you have used this ability, you cannot do so again for 5 rounds.

Spirits of the City: You can animate objects, as the spell, as a caster of your binder level. Once you have used this ability, you must wait 5 rounds after the effect has expired, or all the objects have been destroyed, before you may do so again.

Some weird crap here. Smiting, once per day city teleport, tongues, and animate objects. Not quite as good as the other fellow's summon monster, but combine the two, and you've got all sorts of minions running around. All the time.