I'd been a little leery of totemist because I distinctly remember playing one in a game with him at one point and he didn't seem to interested in the class.
When you say allowing Soul Manifester to advance bonus feats what did you mean by that?
Basically, a variant on manifester advancement which says:
- If you're advancing Psion, great, you get more manifesting (your main class feature). Your HD stays the same, your saves are the same, your BAB is still 1/2.
- If you're advancing Psychic Warrior, you are giving up your 3/4 BAB and d8 HD, and advancing manifesting is not as big a deal for you. So you also get bonus feats in addition to the manifester advancement.
It's like when a Bard takes a Wizard-oriented PrC, he loses more than a Wizard would have lost. So I sometimes compensate for that by having the PrC also advance Bardic music. It's purely a house rule.
That said, if he's just not into Totemist, then buffing Soul Manifester for Totemist + Psychic Warrior synergy isn't very useful.
Wildshape Ranger probably isn't the entry I would have gone with but Warshaper could be interesting.
IIRC it's the fastest entry into Warshaper.
Also, the Wildshape gives entry to MoMF, and the level 2 Ranger bonus feat helps with MoMF entry prereqs as well.
I played a spellthief a while back. Aside from the Trickster Dragon Mag variant (which pretty much turns it into Bard+), I remember being really underwhelmed by the class.
Can it really stand alongside a druid and an egoist and not be marginalized to uselessness?
It's specifically when he's standing next to a Druid (or other full caster) that he's better than useless.
What he does is double the primary caster's action economy by casting their spells.
(Is this worse than having your own spells? Yes, it certainly is. But it's still better than useless.)
((Would I personally play this?
No.))
= = =
Anyway more ideas:
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Dragonborn (RotDr)
Crusader (ToB) with the Entangling Exhalation (RotDr) feat. Lots of tactical options.
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Ranger / Scout with Swift Hunter who has campaign-appropriate enemies, especially Undead, since being able to inflict precision damage on them is nice.
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A-Game Paladin (which is primary melee, plus Bardic Inspiration without being a Bard, plus decent casting to cover the party's Wizard gap).