"Dark Magic" Class?

[Kaje]

I'm a fan of Binder 1/Archivist 3/Divine Anima Mage 10/Tainted Sorcerer 1/Tenebrous Apostate 5.

[Raistlin1040]

Binder looks pretty interesting, but I'm not really sure what to do with it. It seems like some kind of weird hybrid melee/magic class and I don't know what ability scores or feats or anything would be useful.

[Rejakor]

Binder is pretty simple. Go and read the vestiges. They give you the stuff they say they do. It's great to combine with other things because the vestiges on their own can give you some interesting abilities it's hard to get from other places but typically need something else (a feat combo, or spells) to fully make use of them.

They make good melee guys. They don't really make good archers. They can give you some great abilities for a gish, or even a regular spellcaster. But they work best as a hybrid. I have played a binder/wizard exactly once. I played him as the scion of a noble family who had been trained as a wizard (magical talent was extremely rare - low magic setting) but was from a family that traditionally went into the elite knighthood - as a consequence he had 16 str and I gave him martial weapon proficiency, so he basically strode around using binder to augment his melee abilities and occasionally dropped a wizard spell as a kind of grenade. At higher levels he'd have been covered in buffs, gishing it up and using BfC as necessary. That's what I think binder/wizard does best, and it played up the whole 'dark pacts' thing really well, but you could do any number of things with it.

There's a couple of 3rd party books, Secrets of Pact Magic and something else, that present an alternate Pact Magic system that might be better. I haven't looked at them, but hey.

[Answerer]

Originally Posted by Rejakor

Binder is pretty simple.

I can't agree with this. The system is simple enough, but actually making and playing a Binder is not particularly so. They have an overwhelming number of options, that can make it very difficult to figure out what you're doing.

Basically, a Binder can be decent to good at just about anything. A lot of playing a Binder well is either finding a niche your party is missing, or capitalizing on the ability to bind different things each day to completely change who you are, mechanically.

[Rejakor]

Honestly I found it pretty easy to try to pick the right vestige for the right situation.

Depending on what you're fighting, the defensive abilities of Savnok, the healing abilities of Buer, the ability to attack everyone once of Paimon, the incredible stealth and scouting of Malphas... it just depends on what you're after. The vestiges people have created online just add to your options if they're allowed. (Hessesselen is my favourite).

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by Talionis

Tainted Scholar from Heroes of Horror is a prestige class that may work very well.

Swordsaged/ or is it Monked now??? Sorry Kelb_Panthera, I only saw Hexblade in that post, I read too fast.

's alright.

Zombulian's use of "monk'd" there is the first I've ever seen that used. "Swordsage'd" was gaining in popularity for a while, but it kind of petered off. I never stopped using the classic "ninja'd," myself.

[Zombulian]

Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera

's alright.

Zombulian's use of "monk'd" there is the first I've ever seen that used. "Swordsage'd" was gaining in popularity for a while, but it kind of petered off. I never stopped using the classic "ninja'd," myself.

Monk'd is a term I came up with with another user here. It is a term for ninja'ing when the actual act of ninja'ing was done hours before, and if the person had read through first, they would have seen it. I just thought it was silly .

[nedz]

I think that we need a term for plagiarism.
How about Zombulian'd ?

[Melayl]

What about Archivist? Searching old tomes and dusty tombs for forbidden knowledge?

[XmonkTad]

I vote necrocarnate. I love Incarnum, and even if you don't go for the prestige class necrocarnate circlet is a great thing.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by Melayl

What about Archivist? Searching old tomes and dusty tombs for forbidden knowledge?

I honestly don't like a straight archivist for a "dark magic" character. All of the "dark" in the class is a direct result of the book its in and nothing in its mechanics is really strongly suggestive of forbidden things that mortals were not meant to know.

They've always come of more as simply divine wizards to me.

Specific choices on the archivist's part can certainly get the desired effect; focus on necromancy, a dip into cleric or sacred exorcist for rebuke, etc; but that's true of any magic user.

Note that I used necromancy examples because they were the first thing that came to mind, not because they are "things that mortals were not meant to know." I'd've drawn from LoM if I had remembered anything specific from the book to use.

[Melayl]

Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera

I honestly don't like a straight archivist for a "dark magic" character. All of the "dark" in the class is a direct result of the book its in and nothing in its mechanics is really strongly suggestive of forbidden things that mortals were not meant to know.

They've always come of more as simply divine wizards to me.

Specific choices on the archivist's part can certainly get the desired effect; focus on necromancy, a dip into cleric or sacred exorcist for rebuke, etc; but that's true of any magic user.

Note that I used necromancy examples because they were the first thing that came to mind, not because they are "things that mortals were not meant to know." I'd've drawn from LoM if I had remembered anything specific from the book to use.

I only meant that you could flavor it that way, not that it was inherently "dark".

[Zombulian]

Originally Posted by nedz

I think that we need a term for plagiarism.
How about Zombulian'd ?

NEDZ! I couldn't remember your name. I dunno I took some credit for it because it originated from a post of mine, even though you came up with the term. FORGIVE ME

[nedz]

Forgiven, it's not important.