What class levels for a Quasit Leadership cohort?

[Telok]

So my current wizard/Mage of the Arcane Order character has reached a point at which Improved Familiar: Quasit is no longer really significant. Essentially his 30 hp and 30 to 34 AC no longer allow him to do anything during combat other than fly around invisibly using Healing Belts and buffing with Eternal Wands. Out of combat he's still a good scout and at-will detect magic is never gets old, plus Commune of course.

With the DM's blessing the Improved Familiar feat will be Psychic Reformationed into Leadership with the Quasit (Fred) as the cohort and the followers being a faction of the guild that supports the character. The leadership score will be about 14 which means that he'll probably only start with 2 or 3 class levels. Fred will also be getting a Psychic Reformation in order to reformat his skills and feats.

The issue of course is that I can't decide on what classes he'll take. I'm kind of leaning towards Swordsage for skills, counters and defensive maneuvers, and Crossbow Sniper for occasional attacks. Although something with UMD would be nice since he'll gain levels fast enough (and be decked out in enough magic gear) for it to be relevant at least for wands. I should at this point mention that we're currently running with the 3.5 core, XPH, ToB, and the completes with stuff from other books being available via research or questing. Pathfinder is not really available.

Any suggestions?

[Coidzor]

What first comes to mind is seeing if you can get into something like Unseen Seer for a Sneak-Attacking Spellcaster kind of build.

[Telok]

What first comes to mind is seeing if you can get into something like Unseen Seer for a Sneak-Attacking Spellcaster kind of build.

Not really. He's got three outsider hit dice to build on and probably two levels to work with. But unseen seer doesn't kick in until the third level, doesn't build on his racial hd in any way, and offers very little by itself. I mean we'd be looking at 7th or 8th level spells in play by the tinme he got 3rds and his second die of SA. Plus it would saddle him with a bunch of low hit dice and bad base attack.

Now ur-priest is a posibility but it's still skill gated at his third level and doesn't offer much outside of the divine casting. So he needs two levels of something that provides either utterly amazing offense, decent defenses, or a bunch of utility.

The PH2 distracting attack rogue might be useful but even with crossbow sniper he's close enough to catch flack and it doesn't do anything for his survivability.

[Mr Adventurer]

Sounds like a job for Bard!

[IlPazzo]

So my current wizard/Mage of the Arcane Order character has reached a point at which Improved Familiar: Quasit is no longer really significant. Essentially his 30 hp and 30 to 34 AC no longer allow him to do anything during combat other than fly around invisibly using Healing Belts and buffing with Eternal Wands.

First of all, how is that "doing nothing"?
If your familiar has 30 hp, you have 60, right? That must mean you're about level 12 with a Con mod of +2 or 10 with +3. So you have access to at least level 5 spells and should not have troble spending a few thousand gp.
You have many options at your disposal to increase your familiar's defensive capabilities, ranging from temporary hit points to miss chances, to not even being melee in the first place.
If it's not doing much in combat, it should make no sense for the enemies to target him before targeting, say, you.


Anyway, I second the Idea of making him a bard or generally having him go support. Most supportive actions, including inspire courage and many spells, will not end invisibility.
It also fits well the idea of keeping him "as a familiar".

[Crake]

fiend of possession comes to mind? Need will +5, but that can be achieved with a single level in any class that has good will, then he just needs hide and knowledge arcana 6 ranks, both of which are class skills for quasits (ok, fine, quasits only get 1 knowledge skill as a class skill, so he might not have arcana, but I'm sure you can set that straight with psychic reformation).

That'll give him the ability to go full on ethereal at level 1, as well as the ability to possess objects, then at level 2 he can begin to curse people touching his object. While that sounds trivial, the curse is at will, and has no signs that it's coming from the object at all, so if the quasit can possess an object that is in someone else's possession, he can curse them every round with a new curse, potentially stacking up a wide variety of curses, all while being practically untouchable. Additionally at 2nd level he can imbue a possessed weapon or armor with an enhancement bonus (or increase it's enhancement bonus, including special abilities) by his class level.

What has your DM determined to be the "LA" of quasits? It can't be that high, considering their CR is 2 and their HD is 3? At your level, the quasit could probably can a few more levels in fiend of possession, it only takes 6 levels to get control creature With 3 quasit HD and a level in a high will class, he can get there by level 10+whatever LA your dm decides for him.

[weckar]

Call me crazy: Is Artificer an option? He already has the at-will Detect Magic going for him (making use of the artificer's monocle a breeze) and apparently you want him to be really good at UMD.

[Telok]

Sounds like a job for Bard!

Charisma 10, morale bonuses are already overwritten, bard offers no boost offence or defence and minimal utility at that level.

First of all, how is that "doing nothing"?

Healing Belts and first level Eternal Wands in 12th level combats with CR 14+ as the normal threat level. I never said "doing nothing" I said "not really significant".

fiend of possession comes to mind?

Book? Because: core, completes, ToB, MIC, XPH.

His pseudo-LA is going to start at about 4 or 5 based on the list of alternate Leadership cohorts in the DMG, but it may evaporate after that. Given that we level up every other xp calculation (relatively long stretches of adventuring between downtimes) it's possible that he'll level at a 2:1 rate up to about level 15, where he'd have a total of 8 class levels. Our games don't generally go much past that because we like martial types and they stop being as much fun to play about then.

Call me crazy: Is Artificer an option?

Core, completes, ToB, MIC, XPH.

And seriously, he's already got roughly 15kgp in gear on him including an item that my character doesn't know about (again). He's buffed with the rest of the party with Hero's Feast, extended Mage Armor (to be replaced with a Mithrilmist shirt when he gets armor prof), and gets most of the combat resistance buffs we sling around.

[Mr Adventurer]

Sounds like a job for Dragonfire Inspiration Bard!

[Crake]

Book? Because: core, completes, ToB, MIC, XPH.

His pseudo-LA is going to start at about 4 or 5 based on the list of alternate Leadership cohorts in the DMG, but it may evaporate after that. Given that we level up every other xp calculation (relatively long stretches of adventuring between downtimes) it's possible that he'll level at a 2:1 rate up to about level 15, where he'd have a total of 8 class levels. Our games don't generally go much past that because we like martial types and they stop being as much fun to play about then.

It's in fiend folio, but really core, completes, tob and xph doesn't really give many options to the little bugger. If he's gaining player class levels by the way, he's also supposed to gain the elite array (or whatever player character ability score generation method you're using), so you can use that to cover the low cha for bard.

4-5LA is pretty huge for a guy that basically gets nothing much other than tiny size and invis on himself. It's not even greater invis, so compare him to, say, a pixie, which gets perma greater invis for 4LA, 4-5 is waaaay too much.

[Mr Adventurer]

Yeah, Quasit ability score adjustments:

Str -2, Dex +6, Wis +2. Not bad!

[Telok]

It's in fiend folio, but really core, completes, tob and xph doesn't really give many options to the little bugger.

That's why I was asking about the options open for him. He's a cohort so I'm not worried about him being super powerful or having PC level effectiveness, besides I'm playing a wizard, I could be featless and still blow half our party's melee guys out of the water if I wanted to.

My concerns here are his survivability and having him do more than 1st and 2nd levels short-buffs in combat. Bard, unless there's some super feat or amazing PrC he can go into immediately, doesn't offer either of those.

[Coidzor]

Hmm. Maybe a way to get it Sneak Attack, Craven, and a nice, juicy Command Word (Energy Substitution/Searing Spell)Scorching Raygun? Or a wand of it?

That's the only thing that comes to mind to leverage that at-will invisibility, other than the aforementioned Bard.

[Mr Adventurer]

Hmm. Maybe a way to get it Sneak Attack, Craven, and a nice, juicy Command Word (Energy Substitution/Searing Spell)Scorching Raygun? Or a wand of it?

That's the only thing that comes to mind to leverage that at-will invisibility, other than the aforementioned Bard.

Swordsage and Shadow Hand? Probably combo nicely with size and Invisibility. 3 RHD means an IL of 3 at Swordsage 2.

[Kantolin]

As an alternate option, would the spell compendium spell 'Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability' help? If you're level 12, it comes online in one level and can help change things.

Anywho, I want to say a wilder would be reasonable here. Pick spells that scale very well, and you can then wild surge to punch a bit above his pay grade. Troubles, of course, include 'Charisma 10', but it could do stuff like astral construct that doesn't involve saves, so that's a +Cha item away from relevance.

[Yogibear41]

including an item that my character doesn't know about (again).

If he was your familiar he should tell you such things/you should already know because of the empathetic link or at least have some idea that he has something. If you are retconning that he was your follower and not your familiar the entire time and it is already hiding things from you I see bad things in your future. Being a CE creature if he doesn't obey you completely he is probably gonna screw you over in the long run some way or another.

[Telok]

If he was your familiar he should tell you such things/you should already know because of the empathetic link or at least have some idea that he has something. If you are retconning that he was your follower and not your familiar the entire time and it is already hiding things from you I see bad things in your future. Being a CE creature if he doesn't obey you completely he is probably gonna screw you over in the long run some way or another.

Pfft, he's always been an employee, even when he's a class feature. His pay was set when I took Improved Familiar. Retconning, bah!