Say you want a class that's "similar to the Beguiler," except (a) you'd start off with Detect spells and work your way up to stuff like Discern Location, and (b) you'd get a combat role that's more evocative than just a big bonus, like knowing how to bluff your way through a feint -- though, as per the insight bonus from Moment Of Prescience, plenty of your magic could be fluffed as 'knowledgeable' successes with skills: you're not just slapping Detect Thoughts on top of Sense Motive; you Spider Climb instead of rolling the dice, and you use Freedom Of Movement to get out of a grapple, and maybe even Disguise Self and Hesitate fit into that; but there's also Glibness, and in that vein there's Hypnotism and Suggestion and so on -- and even when you didn't actually have Foresight up and running, you'd still have a just-know-stuff knack when it comes to traps.virgil wrote:I'm looking for ideas similar to the Beguiler, Puppeteer, etc. Can you make an fantasy diviner class that isn't just a big middle finger to the plot (or from the plot, depending on the DM's railroad tendencies)? Obviously they'd get detect spells, scrying, and the like. But giving them combat roles that're more evocative than +$TEXAS insight bonuses seems at first glance difficult.
And you'd have some other divinations, and some abjurations to counter enemy divinations -- and some abjurations to counter enemy magic, because you're a See Stuff Coming And Counter It guy.
So you could do worse than play a Beguiler, right?