The Berathian

Beguiler / beckoner is stupidly powerful, if played right. I think folk call it the Siren.

I find myself in disagreement. Creative use of certain spells in the right situations makes them powerful. In a general sense, I'm inclined to agree. Sometimes, using brute force is better than being clever. Other times, being clever is far more satisfying. Echo skills are, to the cipher, what chants and invocations are to the chanter. They make the party better and provide useful ancillary effects that make the game easier. Useless for soloing, mostly. Valorous Echos remains one of the best low level picks though. I'll stand by that statement. Does it help the cipher? No, it does not. Does it help your party? Yes, yes it does. I would even go so far as to suggest that it is the most damaging spell that a cipher can pick at level 1.

Echo skills might be the cipher's most powerful and most useful abilities. Valorous Echos makes the first island much easier, and remains useful throughout the game. If you multiclass with a ghost heart ranger, you get a perfect summon for echocasting. Most echo spells are about as subtle as the b in subtle, and it is easy to gloss over them. They act as a sort of force multiplier that makes you and your party better. Echoing Shield is amazing, but I never see anybody talk about it. It just doesn't get mentioned. Amplified Wave might be my favourite spell, but it takes some preparation to make it effective. And while a little quirky, I love Amplified Thrust. Early on, it is a lifesaver of you cast it on your tank. While the pierce damage can be resisted sometimes, the shove remains useful. A lot of people dismiss these abilities, and I don't know why.

I think you need slight of hand at six or seven to pick Shrimp's pocket, and you need some pretty high stealth. Don't recall how much. If you can separate Shrimp from his crew, it becomes a whole lot easier.

It is good because of Eder. The roleplaying potential is great.

Psion isn't wholly terrible, but has focus issues. Beguiler can gain focus just by casting spells.

I would say that a beguiler would be your best bet. Single class suites the beguiler, and contrary to popular belief, you don't need to attack much to get focus. You have to cast spells to get focus. The real trick would be making yourself defensive without hurting your accuracy. Not easy. Large shields will impair your aim. It might actually be worth it to go dual daggers, with the modal. Psychovampiric shield will go a long way towards making you durable. With a well-played beguiler, you do reach the point where the enemies aren't much of a threat to you. They can't really hurt you. Much. They're weakened, hobbled, have lowered power levels, can't use abilities, can't heal for much, are scared silly, and have any number of other conditions that cripple them.

It does. And the cipher has a number of dots available, and this makes certain pet damage skills quite good where the pet gets bonuses from attacking something with a dot.

Perhaps. I thought about that as well. But the trickster lacks the sheer confoundery of a beguiler. It would be a build of similar theme, but drastically different outcome. More direct offense, I think. Of course, the pair of them would work rather well together. Which means that you have the start of a theme team!

I would imagine that the multiclass of beguiler and ancient druid would give you something that most resembles a fey trickster. Vengeful forces of nature and deceptive illusions. Mind control. Afflictions. Curses! You can provide boons to your companions while blighting your enemies. It's a weird class combo. As a bonus, the Oracle of Berath is rather ominous.

I do. Sorta. It's not very complicated. Take most of the echo skills and use the AI scripts to cast them on your pet. Use all of the right cipher deception and mind skills. Soul shock will be your bread and butter. Soul shock and valorous echos should be your two level one skills. Ignore most of your ranger skills. Set up AI to summon your pet. Marked prey will give you the accuracy you need. I'm not exactly awake. So I am probably doing a terrible job at this.

And I would agree with you up to a point. There are instances where it is good to max it out. But when you need other stats to function, I tend to go for what I consider to be maximum yields for minimum investment. And it depends on the character build. There's a lot of factors. I was speaking in generalities. If I wanted to maximise res at the cost of other skills, I would. But, if I knew I had other ways and means to get high res, I might just shave a few points off of it I could get away with it. An example: I am currently messing around with a beguiler / forbidden fist. I wanted high res for tankiness. But I needed stats in other places. So I put res to 11 as a compromise, and it raises up to 16 with psychovampiric shield. Is it perfect? Not by a long shot. But it allows me to get the most return for the minimal investment. I know I can survive with it. I also know that I can get it higher, if necessary.

I would get strength to 11. You get a bonus, but not much of one. This will increase your passive healing a bit. With an inspiration, this will get your str to 16, situationally. Which is far better because then you can control how much damage you do to yourself. Res should be at 11 or 15. Those are the sweet spots. At 11, it is easy to hit res 16, and then go even higher with items. At 15, you can hit res 20 with an inspiration, and then go even higher with items, which grants you spectacular returns.

Just an opinion, but these stats aren't as helpful as one might think on first glance. Con and int both are easy to raise as a wizard. (Fit, smart) While they are nice to have, you can drop them both to 15 and get just about as much use out of them. Which allows you to raise might, which increases the regen of your blood mage. Perception is still important for a wizard tank, so ten should be the minimum. 11 is better, because with a +5 inspiration, you hit 16, which is a sweet spot. You get a lot of return for 16. This is true for all stats. 11 and 15 are always good numbers to shoot for. With the right stat boosting inspirations, these become 16s and 20s. Which are more than enough to get you where you are going.

And this is the reason why I love skeletons. Lots of skeletons. A moving wall of bones that trigger engagement.

Every conceivable debuff a well-made beguiler can do. Tearing down defenses with Borrowed Instinct. Stripping armor with Body Attunement. Washing away concentration with echoing shield. If you hit an enemy with every debuff the cipher has, you take all their stats down to single digits. (Str, con, dex, per, int, res) and this in turns leaves them vulnerable to all manner of foul abuses. Like spamming amplified wave. Which is super-effective because of the reduction in fortitude due to any number of debuffs that hurt con. A beguiler does more than just cripple enemies. It sort of acts like a force multiplier for other afflictions and ailments. Once you strip away everything an enemy has, they become far more vulnerable to everything that you wish to do them. And if you combine a beguiler with a wizard, you can render even the most dangerous enemies impotent and unable to harm you. Takes a while to come online, but once it does, the payoff is satisfying.

A beguiler / ghostheart with the right scripts can be left on autopilot and will carry your party through most encounters on PotD with very little trouble. Do you like megacrits? Do you like instangibs? Of course you do! Turn your enemies into a fine red mist today!

I'd like to add to this that if you mix cipher with wizard and then go bananas with these shenanigans, you can do some really ridiculous stuff.

You can make stupidly tanky paladin / priests, but they take a while to gain potency. A paladin / chanter is functional at level 1. Paladin / wizard is another tanky combo, and then there my favourite, the paladin / druid, which can become a bulwark of defensive healing that nothing in the game can bring down.

I can only imagine that the ship will become a floating kung fu monastery, given all the monk companions available. Just imagine what it would be like living aboard for the normal not-kung fu folk.

And I honestly have no idea what to do with her. Not even sure why I did it. It was one of those ideas that seemed brilliant at the time, but once I finished character creation, I had no idea what to do with what I've made. I know a lot about beguilers. Played many ciphers. Played a few monks. Played a few monk / ciphers, and I know they can work well together. But a beguiler / forbidden fist? Not sure what I was thinking. Well, actually, I was thinking that being enfeebled might make it easier to land blinding strike. I've never actually played a forbidden fist for any length of time. When I first tried one, it was back when they were bugged out. I don't remember the specifics. For stats, I went 11, 11, 15, 15, 15, 11. Which sorta works. With the right items, most of those will be boosted. What have I done to myself?

"Ekera. Aloth has taken my rod, and he is holding it with both hands, I say."

I like to make Aloth a rogue / wizard and then have him toss AoE blights with gouging strike. It's mean. And it works incredibly well.

I never got around to actually making it, but I had an idea for a Hylean liberator. A druid / paladin devoted to Hylea. Would use rods and staves, with Amira's Wing being the prize to seek out. Never did sort out which type of druid, but I figured the paladin half was obvious: Kind Wayfarer. With a rod, it'd be like chucking a fireball every time you used Flames of Devotion. Never did sort out the druid part, but I recall trying to figure out which one was most applicable to roleplaying, which was probably Lifegiver, but I didn't want to do a Lifegiver at the time because I had just done one on another build. Liberator is also a great build thematically, as the Deadfire is rife with slavery and people messing with nature. There's a lot of great roleplaying angles, if you sit down and think about it for a bit.

I have a confession: I really love the druid / paladin. I know, I know, it sounds weird. But there are a lot of fire spells. Like, a whole lotta fire spells. And you can be like a druid purifier, who sets the world ablaze so new growth can take root in the ashes of what once was. Firebug is one of my favourite spells. Can't say why, I just like the theme of it. And there are so many variations of druidic orders and paladin orders to mix, each of which gives a totally different theme and feel to the character. But, if you lean into the fire angle heavily, you end up fairly powerful. Plus, you get utility, heals, status effects, and dots. A Kind Wayfarer / Lifegiver is one of the best healing tanks you can make, and you have tons of brute force. It's easy to play both ranged and melee, as you have skills available to you that allow for both.