Some hold truth to be the greatest virtue, but it can do more damage than fiction. Everyone lives in a constant state of deception. White lies, false smiles, and secret thoughts keep society running smoothly. Honesty is a virtue only up to a certain point. Beguilers understand these ideas better than anyone, and they use deception, misunderstanding, and secrets as skillfully as a soldier employs weapons of war.

Beguilers see lying and manipulation as tools. Just as a hammer can be used to build a house or crack a skull, deceit and the ability to control others can be used for good or ill. A lie whispered in the right ear can ruin lives, but a dishonest smile and honeyed words can open doors, turn foes into friends, and even end wars. Beguilers have reputations as rakes, thieves, spies, and puppet masters, but they can also be diplomats, peacemakers, or heroic leaders who give hope in desperate situations.

If you delight in manipulating others, either to their disadvantage or for their own good, then the beguiler is the class for you. More than any other kind of character, you rely on Charisma-based skills to change the reactions of others, while your other class abilities enable you to catch others off guard with devastating spell-based attacks.

Your spells and skills make you well suited to espionage and dungeon delving. In addition to being able to find and disarm traps your group might encounter, you can charm and confound guards, turning what could be dangerous encounters into simple steps toward your goal. In combat, you can use your spells to trick and outmaneuver foes.

MAKING A BEGUILER

As a beguiler, you possess many useful skills and spells. If your adventuring group lacks a rogue, you make a great substitute for all but the rogue's melee combat strengths. If the group lacks a wizard or other arcane caster, you can also fill that role with your command of illusions and enchantments, although you lack a wizard's array of spells that deal damage and you possess less spellcasting versatility. Your main strategy should be to control enemies, bolster your allies, and take command of the battlefield.

Beguilers have quick wits, deft hands, and compelling personalities. You need a high Intelligence to get the most from your spells and skills. A high Charisma helps you be more convincing in your deceptions, while a high Dexterity helps you with the sneaky tasks you are likely to pursue. Don't neglect Constitution; although you have the same Hit Die as a rogue, your Constitution score influences your ability to cast defensively and thus how well you can use your surprise casting class feature.

Beguilers can be found among any race, but gnomes and half-elves seem to most appreciate the beguilers' flexible philosophy about truth. Being tricksters and inquisitive by nature, gnomes gravitate to the beguiler class due to the interesting deeds it allows them to accomplish. Half-elves, trapped as they are between the worlds of elves and humans, find that a beguiler's abilities help them better exist in both. Humans, elves, and halflings also foster beguilers in their midst, but dwarves and half-orcs rarely become members of the class. Dwarves tend to dislike dissembling, and half-orcs typically lack the mental discipline and likable personality required to make a good beguiler.

The beguilers' outlook about truth is neither good nor evil, and beguilers of all alignments walk the world. Nevertheless, those well practiced in the arts of deception and manipulation rarely put much stock in others' laws, and they often display a self-centered attitude. Lawful good beguilers are like lawful good necromancers - rare and foreign even to their fellows.

PLAYING A BEGUILER

Truth lies in the eye of the beholder. Manipulation of truth - and others' visions of it - is a part of life. Everyone does it; you just do it better than everyone else. If you nudge someone into doing something he otherwise wouldn't have done, that person still did the actual deed, and some part of him must have wanted it done. You trick fools, charm egocentrics, inf luence schemers, and control the weakwilled. In a way, you're doing them a favor. If they're clever enough to figure out they've been manipulated, they'll be better prepared to defend themselves against the later manipulations of those who mean them harm. If they don't figure it out, they'll get tricked again, but that's no concern of yours. Life is a game that you win by coming out on top, and the best way to do that is to convince others to give you a boost.

You might adventure because you desire excitement. Someone with your smarts gets bored with mundane pursuits. Alternatively, you might have set off on a life of adventure after some trick or manipulation gone wrong. You have to keep moving, and adventuring offers you a regular change of scenery. In any case, a life of adventure allows you to see new things, meet interesting people, and garner a name for yourself. Of course, it might not be your real name, but fame is fame.

You always look to expand your knowledge and increase your power. You are clever enough to know there's always more to learn. Although you tend to be self-reliant, you understand the value of friendship and allies in your pursuits. Truth might be mutable, but friends value honesty and trust, so you make sure not to entangle your allies in your webs of lies and trickery.

Beguilers favor deities who share their unfettered outlook and who would seem to appreciate their schemes and strategies. Most beguilers look to Olidammara for obvious reasons, but others prefer Fharlanghn since he shares their love of new beginnings and travel. Gnome beguilers largely put their faith in Garl Glittergold, and some nongnome beguilers follow suit. Many also follow Boccob; the Lord of All Magics cares little to what use beguilers put their spells, and beguilers prefer it that way. Evil beguilers often join Vecna's fold - the Master of All that Is Secret and Hidden welcomes beguilers, manipulating them toward ever greater acts of villainy even as they take advantage of their victims.

Few know of characters such as yourself because many beguilers pretend to be something other than what they are, and you can easily pass as a rogue, bard, wizard, or sorcerer. Those who learn of the class often have a poor impression of beguilers unless they call one a friend. Wizards consider characters such as you to be undisciplined and limited in their magic. Knights, paladins, and monks rightly think of you as untrustworthy. Rangers, dragon shamans, barbarians, and druids rarely have patience for your prevarications and your enjoyment of civilized society. Rogues, duskblades, sorcerers, and fighters tend to be more practical: If your abilities make their jobs easier, then you find a welcome reception. Bards often find the life led by beguilers fascinating and are intrigued by a beguiler's exploits.

You're at your best when you can catch foes unaware. Use your spells to hide and disguise yourself and your allies so that you can employ surprise tactics. If you get into melee, use the Bluff skill to feint in combat and thus get the drop on your enemy with cloaked casting or surprise casting. Control the terrain with spells such as fog cloud. Control foes with charm person and dominate monster spells.

Remaining a beguiler typically presents the best course of advancement. The rogue class might seem like a natural choice for multiclassing, but you don't gain much from taking levels in it. Although it gives you the sneak attack ability, it detracts from your spellcasting prowess.

You should assign skill points according to your role in your adventuring group. If the group already has a rogue who is good at finding traps and sneaking about, boost your ranks in social skills such as Diplomacy and Gather Information. Remember that you can use spells such as invisibility and silence for stealth, and spells such as knock and spider climb to do things for which rogues must use skills. High bonuses in Bluff and Concentration are a must if you're going to use the surprise casting ability.

You have many good options for feats, but be sure to take Combat Casting, Combat Expertise, and Improved Feint to get the most from surprise casting and cloaked casting. Complete Adventurer offers Mobile Spellcasting, a feat that allows you to cast a spell and move as a single standard action. Combining this with the benefits provided to you by Improved Feint and the Tumble skill, you could move into melee, feint, and cast a spell that gets the benefit of cloaked casting or surprise casting. You should also consider taking the Battle Caster feat from Complete Arcane, which allows a beguiler to wear medium armor without spell failure. Combining it with the Armor Proficiency (medium) feat gives you much greater protection. If you're interested in having a lot of feats, it might be worthwhile to take a level of fighter, since the 1st level of the fighter class gives you proficiency with all types of armor and a bonus feat you could use for Combat Expertise or Improved Feint.

BEGUILERS IN THE WORLD

The beguiler class gives players a chance to play the archetypal trickster. The class provides the skill set of a rogue and a selection of arcane spells without the complications of balancing multiple classes. Beguilers also make great villains. By manipulating NPCs and situations the PCs encounter, an evil beguiler can operate behind the scenes and trick the adventurers to his own ends.

The way a beguiler behaves depends on his or her individual sense of morality. Some think nothing of adopting false identities or impersonating others as a matter of course. They rely on their spells and their charm to get others to give them what they want. Other beguilers find themselves driven to use their powers of persuasion to help people. They see the daily troubles of others and can't help getting involved in solving arguments, matchmaking, and ending feuds. Regardless of outlook, a beguiler in a civilized area rarely gets bored. There's always something to meddle in or some grand scheme to enact.

Beguilers can become great leaders. With their sharp minds and great charisma, beguilers would be natural leaders were it not for their inconstancy. Beguilers regularly devise brilliant plans for espionage or trickery - plans that usually require them to play a major role - but their natural penchant for improvisation and secrecy often means that such plans possess unpredictable elements or key parts hidden from all other participants. If a beguiler earns the trust of companions, they value her leadership. Lacking that trust, a beguiler rarely leads for long.

Beguilers often gain notoriety for their deeds, although usually under a false identity. They earn fame, rather than infamy, when they use their abilities to serve a greater good. Anastria Nailo did so when she tricked an entire orc army into a box canyon where it could be ambushed, and again when she charmed a leader of a city and learned that he had already been charmed by a mind flayer. Since she was pretending to be a famous elf bard at the time, Anastira can still maintain a low profile despite her famous deeds, which is just the way she likes it.

Beguilers don't organize together, but they often join other organizations, especially thieves guilds and secret political groups. A beguiler joining an organization probably has a specific goal in mind and takes a position that best allows her to attain it. A long-term commitment to such a group rarely appeals to a beguiler, but if the organization champions a cause close to the beguiler's heart, it can count on her very best efforts.

Few common folk understand beguilers to be different from sorcerers or wizards who have some rogue training, and many more mistake them for bards. Beguilers further confuse the issue by regularly adopting false identities and hiding their varied abilities. Thus, the reaction a beguiler gets from those she meets depends on what she is pretending to be at the time. Individuals who know about the beguiler class and the outlook common to its members greet beguilers with an attitude one step more hostile than normal. Paladins and knights in particular look poorly upon beguilers, as does anyone who puts great importance in forthrightness.

BEGUILER LORE

Characters with ranks in Knowledge (arcana) can research beguilers to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including the information from lower DCs.

DC 15: Beguilers are arcane spellcasters who focus on illusions and enchantments. They employ deception and compulsory magic to get what they want.

DC 20: Beguilers can cast spells in light armor, and they have many of the skills of rogues.

BEGUILERS IN THE GAME

Beguilers fit smoothly into any ongoing game, since they are little known and don't require the insertion of an organization into the world or the addition of lots of new mechanics to the game. You can have a beguiler first appear as a villain when players discover a secret manipulator behind foul deeds they have been investigating. A beguiler might first appear as a foe and end up an ally, or the reverse could happen. A PC beguiler can be introduced to the party just as any rogue, bard, or wizard would be.

Think of a beguiler as similar to Loki of Norse myth or the Coyote in Native American tales. The player of a beguiler wants her to be smooth, sly, smart, likable, and light on her feet. Keeping this player happy is a matter of helping the player to feel that way. You might be tempted to make the player's schemes go awry because that seems more interesting to you, but instead you should allow good schemes to work most of the time. Let a player with a beguiler character feel empowered to try crazy ideas and dangerous plans. If it becomes too much of a good thing, then that's when the guards see through her disguise or the villain allows the unwitting PCs to infiltrate their way into his clutches.

When adapting the beguiler to your campaign, look at how rogues and bards fit into your game. The beguiler fills a similar niche, and any organizations that cater to such classes likely prove helpful for beguilers. A thieves' guild might have a small cabal of beguilers associated with it. The beguilers aid the guild on any missions that require their magical talents. In return, the beguilers receive protection, a share of the loot, and a headquarters. Young thieves who show a knack for magic might be shepherded into the beguiler class. In a kingdom or land where magic is common, beguilers might replace the typical rogue, diplomat, or spy. A bandit gang might consist of several beguilers and a number of fighters. In such lands, magic supersedes a rogue's talent with skills.

With their talent for deception, a beguiler might have a reputation similar to the ninja. The common folk fear the beguilers for their ability to bend minds and to use magic to slip away from the authorities. Every royal court employs a few mages charged with using their spells to ferret out beguilers. In this case, the beguilers are secretive, clannish, and difficult to find. They gather in secret societies and never reveal their lore to those whom they do not trust. Becoming a beguiler is a process of winning the trust of one's master, not simply mastering a few simple spells.

An encounter with a beguiler should highlight her use of surprise tactics and manipulation of others to do her bidding. In addition to charmed or dominated minions, a beguiler often gathers allies under false pretenses. Fighting a villainous beguiler should be tricky for the PCs, because they will be forced to figure out who their real enemies are while trying to avoid hurting innocents whom the beguiler has dragged into the fight. The PCs might even have to figure out who the beguiler is, since disguises and hidden spellcasting come easily to such a character.

EL 9: Unlike many half-elves, Anastria Nailo(CN female half-elf beguiler 9) always found it easy to live in either human or elf communities. Quick-witted, perceptive, and naturally empathetic, she could slip from an elf's detached interest to a human's focused drive as easily as she could switch speaking their languages. Always a mischievous charmer, Anastria found the beguiler's abilities came easily to her and allowed her to do more than play at being a human or elf. With the spells she learned, she could pretend to be anyone and anything from a dwarf miner to a goblin shaman. For a time she lived as a gadabout, adopting the lives of the wealthy while they were away or impersonating loyal retainers to gain the patronage of important people. After foiling the plans of an orc warlord and the plot of a mind flayer accidentally while in the guise of a famous bard, Anastria has gained a taste for heroics, and now she's looking to make a name for herself by helping people - even if she's the one who put those people in trouble in the first place.