[necro] [D&D 3.5] Good Classes and Bad Classes

[The Son of Thunder]

Every time I read a thread about D&D, someone mentions how some classes are considered weak or unplayable. Some examples I've heard include the Bard, the Soulknife and sometimes the Fighter.

Now, I want to know what you people consider good classes. If I were a munchkin, what classes would I choose to have in my group?

[joepub]

That depends on some things:

-Is the campaign a skills-heavy one?
-Is there heavy "society" component?
-Are there a lot of sneaky strikes, or head-on combats?

Skill-heavy characters get robbed in certain campaigns, I imagine.

[Moonstone Spider]

Hmm, well the most consistently powerful classes are the Druid and the Cleric.

Both are straight-up full casters who can also engage in some serious melee combat if they choose, and are able to heal themselves or others as needed.

[The Son of Thunder]

That depends on some things:

-Is the campaign a skills-heavy one?
-Is there heavy "society" component?
-Are there a lot of sneaky strikes, or head-on combats?

Skill-heavy characters get robbed in certain campaigns, I imagine.



Hmm...didn't actually think about that. All those opinions about weak classes were made by munchkins, so I want munchkin answers. :p

[Monkey King]

If your party will have sufficient chunks of downtime here and there, the artificer is frequently pinned as the most munchy class in the game. Really, even downtime isn't strictly necessary if you can make yourself a Dedicated Wright homonculus. Not only are you immune to the vagrancies of randomly rolled treasure, you can pull all sorts of ridiculous stunts in mixing and matching magical abilities as you see fit. The secret is to be creative.

Create magic items at 30% the base cost simply by restricting them to Neutral Good Artificers with a high Use Magic Device skill - and how convenient, your character meets all three requirements! Temporarily enhanting weapons with the Bane ability via your infusions is also surprisingly abusive. And when your item slots fill up, just start making slotless items - which you ought to be able to afford at 30% base cost. There's even feats to cut down on the time, gold and XP costs if those start to become an obstacle.

However, beware of DM house rules. Keep up the restricted item cheese for very long, and you're liable to start facing off against Lord Sunder and his Sword of Sundering.

[LogicNinja]

At that point, your enemy wouldn't just wield a Sword of Sundering. He'd wield a Sunder. I'm not sure what it looks like, but it's not fun to get hit by.

Artificer is Number One. The core Big Three (more powerful than anything except the artificer) are clerics, druids, and wizards. Wizards are the best on offense, but aren't as well-rounded until high levels.

The ideal "uber" party is a wizard, a druid for melee, a cleric for healing, and a kobold cleric with the Cloistered Cleric variant (d6 HP, poor BAB, 6+INT skill points) and the Kobold domain (grants Trapfinding) as a skillmonkey.

Or, you know, four clerics.

[Whitemagebishieboy]

CoDzilla is used as an example of overpowered.

It means cleric or druid zilla. What it means actully, is that a cleric or druid, played decently(ie you dont need to min/max, just not suck.) will complete dominate a min/maxed party. Being that they kick ass at everything and dont have weaknesses. Oh except you arent the supreme master of skills oh woe is me, i dont have godly skills in the game about killing people and takeing there stuff. But youve got spells, which can replace half the skills in the game, your no wizard replaceing all of them, but half will do.

Fighter, Monk and Soulknife are the big loser classes. They basically cant do anything, and i mean that literally. Fighters are a bloody npc class with feats, monks try to do so many things and suck at all of them, and soulknifes well. Everyone has a +10 weapon by 20th anyways, great class eh?

The other classes fall somewhere in between balanced, somewhat overpowered, somewhat underpowered and wizard. Who despite being ridiculously broken, actully has fucking WEAKNESSES.

Exception:Ebberon, it has artificiers, whos offcial motto is, anything you can do, i can do 50x better.

[LogicNinja]

Meanwhile, the WORST class in the game--hands down, bar none but the NPC classes--is the Complete Warrior's Samurai.

[nargun]

At that point, your enemy wouldn't just wield a Sword of Sundering. He'd wield a Sunder.

Sunderstruck! [whoah-oh-ooh-oh] SUNDERstruck!!

[Rasmus Wagner]

Meanwhile, the WORST class in the game--hands down, bar none but the NPC classes--is the Complete Warrior's Samurai.

Your samurai will beat my hexblade like a drum every single time.

[Rupert]

Artificer is Number One. The core Big Three (more powerful than anything except the artificer) are clerics, druids, and wizards. Wizards are the best on offense, but aren't as well-rounded until high levels.

When it comes to wizards, a properly built specialist is very powerful, but generalists just aren't so flash - the loss of a school or two is far outweighed by the specialist's extra spell slots, because the biggest problem with a wizard is how fast they blow through their high-end spell slots (and at mid-high levels the low-end slots aren't very useful, overall).

[Elemental]

If your party will have sufficient chunks of downtime here and there, the artificer is frequently pinned as the most munchy class in the game.

To address the "Blastificer" build--Metamagic Spell Trigger was changed in Complete Mage, so that you could only apply one metamagic feat that wasn't already in the item--and rightly so.

Even if the broken version of the ability was still in use, the "twinned maximised empowered Enervation / Orb of Force" is still fairly useless. You'll need to blow a huge amount of money and XP / craft reserve on wands or staves, invest a whole lot of feats in getting the metamagic, and you can only use it once or twice before the wand's exhausted and all that money has gone. And a Globe of Invulnerability will shut it down completely.


Create magic items at 30% the base cost simply by restricting them to Neutral Good Artificers with a high Use Magic Device skill - and how convenient, your character meets all three requirements! Temporarily enhanting weapons with the Bane ability via your infusions is also surprisingly abusive. And when your item slots fill up, just start making slotless items - which you ought to be able to afford at 30% base cost. There's even feats to cut down on the time, gold and XP costs if those start to become an obstacle.

Well, anyone with an item creation feat can do the "30% cost" abuse, so that requires a sensible DM to say "No.", in the same way as if a character tried to build the famous use-activated True Strike weapon. Since anybody can do that, it's not an argument for the artificer being broken.

Also, the "reduce GP or XP costs by 25%" feats were quickly errated to not stack.

Weapon Enhancements have an expensive material component and require a full minute to cast, like almost all infusions. Better hope that your intelligence on the enemy is accurate and that you don't get surprised during that minute.

[doug_mccrae]

Everyone says druid and cleric are the strongest core classes, with wizard a little behind but not much.

[vitus979]

Since people have mentioned the basics:

Tough classes:
Archivist
Warblade

Good dipping classes:
Swashbuckler

Campaign specific classes:*
Bard (urban campaigns)
Artificer (campaigns with moderate downtime)



* these types of classes generally don't work so well in the default hack & slash campaign, but in certain campaigns they can be killer.

[Halloween Jack]

Your samurai will beat my hexblade like a drum every single time.The hexblade is like a crappy version of the ranger/paladin formula. Fighter BAB, 4th level spells, magical companion, except that his own special abilities aren't great, and he only gets one good save. Bleh.

[LowBeyonder]

Fighter 20 isn't great, but it's not awful anymore: Players' Handbook 2 and Tome of Battle gave it enough options to be pretty competative, if built right. A two-level dip in Fighter is almost always worth it in a melee combat build, too. Same with Monk - not really worth it to take it to 20, but the first few levels give compelling benefits, especially with the variations in Unearthed Arcana.

Soulknife, Samurai, Hexblade, and Spellthief are probably the weakest ones I can think of offhand. Spellthief isn't terrible, but it's really, really situational. Hexblade got better with Complete Mage, too.

CoDzilla, Artificer (who can be really disturbingly awesome in ways that do not involve Blastificing), and a well-built Wizard are all obviously really strong. Bard gets a surprisingly strong spell list, though I wouldn't take it to 20.

(Yes, I've been obsessing over D&D builds and reading the <a href="http://boards1.wizards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=339">Character Optimization board</a> an awful lot lately.)

[Piestrio]

Everyone says druid and cleric are the strongest core classes, with wizard a little behind but not much.

Soooo... just like in every other edition of D&D?

Why is this a recuring problem?

Piestrio

[LowBeyonder]

Soooo... just like in every other edition of D&D?

Why is this a recuring problem?

Piestrio
D&D sacred cows.

Many people don't like playing a pure healer/support role, so the Cleric gets a bunch of bonus abilities to compensate. Plus they have access to their entire spell list, which gets bigger with every book, along with (in 3.X) feats that let them burn the situationally useless turn undead attempts for other things (Divine Metamagic, I'm glaring fiercely at you. Also, banning you in my games.)

The balancing on Druid Wild Shape has never been right, and even WotC has basically admitted that getting the polymorph chain of spells and abilities balanced is more or less a hopeless cause.

And basically, high-level spellcasting is flat-out insanely powerful (wish, gate, and polymorph any object are good examples) because high-level D&D has always been All About the Magic.

[Fenris]

It seems, from what ive played in D&D, some classes are more powerful in certain types of campaigns than others...and some are just powerful all the time. And yeah, some just sorta suck all the time.

The bard i think can be very powerful in a more urban oriented campaign. While clerics and druids, in about any kind of campaign.

I havnt gotten to play much with the Warlock, but ive been hearing something about their power levels being pretty high...but some say otherwise...just how good is one?


While yeah, the fighter has their problems. I think they've improved from the old-time fighter who really couldnt do ANYTHING...but it seems with the fighter, they just get totally outshined. (Ok, a twinked out Archer build of the fighter can do stupid amounts of damage, true.)

And i thought the Hexblade idea was quite cool...how is it they dont work quite so well? (Or didnt work quite so well, it seems by what folks say they got better.)

I notice some classes look very good on paper but in practice, they dont seem to work all that well. I mean, sure, you dont have to pick the most powerful class, you pick what you want, but i admit it does suck if you really like the flavor of the class but then just cant DO anything useful in the game.

[doug_mccrae]

It would be nice if the classes were better balanced, I hope they will be in 4th ed. As it is, they are pretty balanced if you just play to level 10 or so, as we tend to do. The casters overtake the melee classes sometime around 5th/6th level so that works out.

[Narshal]

Hmm...didn't actually think about that. All those opinions about weak classes were made by munchkins, so I want munchkin answers. :p

A munchkin answer? How about this "The class that gives me the most bonuses!" :D

[langeweile]

I have to veto the Spellthief being weak.
I actually think that one can be quite strong - it's a bit like a Gish, a bit like a rouge.

The point is to exploit all the nice spells from the wiz/sorc spellist, which do them no good, especially those "1 round swift" from Comp Adv. The tricks are to either dual-wield / Combat Expertise / Wraith Strike / Arcane Strike or go Ranged with Snipers Shot / Greater Manyshot. Some other things might be possible, too.
You get a real boost against spellcasters (of course) or if your group has some caster, especially spontaneous, in it (use them or fuel your own spells).
You also can make up quite a good skill monkey, and especially the "free action disarm traps" is superb.

From my Spellthief (6th level, Stronghearth Halfling, TWF, Finesse, Arc Strike, Expertise)
Example 1: We now we will face a what-so-large groups of orcs pretty soon (next some minutes), thanks to my mate (Sorc5 / Divine Oracle 1). So I take two of his four daily fireballs. As we know what's coming we get surprise round, and both also initiative (me due high Dex, him due good rolling). 4 Fireballs before any of the orcs could act, combat over.
Example 2: Weekend trip to an island full of undead. I asked our Cleric to prepare 3 Grave Strikes for me, which I sucked up before a battle. Add a Rod of Extend, which gives me 6 rounds of sneak attack with 2 weapons, 2D6 each. 1st/2nd round he rebukes, I carv up those who were left. 3rd round close in on BBEG. 3 rounds of skirmish, that guy eating 8D6 of sneak attack dmg and loosing his 2 SP abilities (custom DM monster), which helped me in our next encounter shortly later.

No doubt the Spellthief isn't that "fire and forget" great as clerics with their domain / turn undead exploits or stuff, but a right build spellthief can make up a damn good character, especially in party synergy.

[Halloween Jack]

And i thought the Hexblade idea was quite cool...how is it they dont work quite so well? (Or didnt work quite so well, it seems by what folks say they got better.).
1. They only have one good save.

2. A Familiar just isn't as useful as an Animal Companion or Magic Horsey.

3. Their special abilities just don't stack up to the Ranger's or Paladin's.

4. The extra stat they have to boost, Charisma, doesn't help in other ways. Rangers and Paladins need good Wisdom which has the bonus effect of covering their weak Will save. Mettle and Arcane Resistance are no comparison to the Paladin's Divine protective abilities.

5. Spontaneous casting isn't that big an advantage when you only have 4th level spells.

6. Light armour and no shield proficiency?

[Deviant Juvenile]

One good class from the munchkin point of view:

Planar Shepard - PrC from Faiths of Eberron. Druid 5/Planar Shepard 10. Turn into angels, pit fiends, efreeti, and so on. And you get /all/ their abilities, including spell casting ability, spell-like abilites, extraordinary, and supernatural abilities.

Angel: 20th level cleric spells, butt load of spell-like abilities, including wish 1/day, all kinds of immunities and DR and so on. And all yours at 15th level.

EDIT: And since it's a version of wildshape, there is no limit on how long you can stay in a form.

[LowBeyonder]

I have to veto the Spellthief being weak.
I actually think that one can be quite strong - it's a bit like a Gish, a bit like a rouge.

The point is to exploit all the nice spells from the wiz/sorc spellist, which do them no good, especially those "1 round swift" from Comp Adv. The tricks are to either dual-wield / Combat Expertise / Wraith Strike / Arcane Strike or go Ranged with Snipers Shot / Greater Manyshot. Some other things might be possible, too.
You get a real boost against spellcasters (of course) or if your group has some caster, especially spontaneous, in it (use them or fuel your own spells).
You also can make up quite a good skill monkey, and especially the "free action disarm traps" is superb.

Well, Wraithstrike is always good.

Is interesting to hear about how it plays, though - I've put together a few Spellthief builds that unfortunately never saw play (not enough games to play all the builds I write...), and all of them were, while decent, somewhat lacking unless going up against a spellcaster.

Admittedly, high-level spellcasters are flat-out the most dangerous non-dragon enemies you'll fight, so specializing someone to take them down isn't necessarily a bad idea.

I'll amend my opinion - even if they're not especially strong, they're not on the scale of Hexblade, Samurai, or Soulknife. I do contend that they're kind of tricky to build right, though, and depend heavily on party synergy. And they multiclass *terribly*. But I guess they're better than they look on paper.

Planar Shepard, if we're getting into prestige classes, is flat out insane psycho broken. It's past 'good' - if I'm GMing, asking me if you can play a Planar Shepard is about a step below asking if you can play Pun-Pun or the Omniscificer.

[Kurotowa]

I havnt gotten to play much with the Warlock, but ive been hearing something about their power levels being pretty high...but some say otherwise...just how good is one?

Warlocks have very few expended resources. They can use their Eldritch Blast and Invocations all day long. They get DR and Fast Healing and Energy Resistance to keep their HP high. When you meet a Warlock they will always be at their most dangerous, none of this "out of spells" business.

The balance is that their most dangerous is noticably less dangerous than the most dangerous of other classes. While they do reliable damage, the amount of damage quickly falls behind. There are a short list of good Invocations for them to take, all of them behind when normal casters get similar effects. Overall their power level isn't that high.

Which is not to say they can't cause problems. Warlocks were the prototype of the endurance magic guy, and there are some bugs. Mainly that some of the Invocations they can take will really mess with normal adventure design. If the PC takes the Shatter Invocation, they can and will Shatter every last lock and door in the dungeon from a safe distance. If they take the short range Dimension Door Invocation, they can and will teleport around every obstacle and barrier in their way. The books and classes that came later (Incarnum, Tome of Magic, Dragon Shaman and Draconic Adept) do a better job of avoiding those sort of adventure busting powers.

[Deviant Juvenile]

Planar Shepard, if we're getting into prestige classes, is flat out insane psycho broken. It's past 'good' - if I'm GMing, asking me if you can play a Planar Shepard is about a step below asking if you can play Pun-Pun or the Omniscificer.

I am familiar with Pun-Pun, but what is this Omniscificer?

And, I made a mistake on the Planar Shepard. You only need to be a Druid 5/Planar Shepard 9 to turn into angels and such. You can be even lower, if you want access to a super-timestop. 10 rounds for you and your buddy, 1 round for anyone more than 60 feet away.

[Elemental]

No doubt the Spellthief isn't that "fire and forget" great as clerics with their domain / turn undead exploits or stuff, but a right build spellthief can make up a damn good character, especially in party synergy.

To get really crazy, have a Warlock in the same party as the Spellthief (posibly through Leadership). The Warlock uses his "lasts all day" abilities, the Spellthief then takes their effects, then the Warlock reuses them on himself.


Planar Shepard, if we're getting into prestige classes, is flat out insane psycho broken. It's past 'good' - if I'm GMing, asking me if you can play a Planar Shepard is about a step below asking if you can play Pun-Pun or the Omniscificer.

Damn right. Don't forget the possibilities of changing into Efreeti (everyone has a +3 inherant bonus to every stat, including the caster thanks to "I wish that efreeti there was more powerful." phrasing.

[Elemental]

I am familiar with Pun-Pun, but what is this Omniscificer?


A rather clever experiment in bending the rules, using a feat that lets you make Knowledge checks untrained, and then using Masochism + Share Pain + Delay Death to inflict an infinite amount of damage on yourself (it's an artificer because they can make items of the spells earlier, but anyone with a good Use Magic Device could do it). This doesn't kill you, thanks to Delay Death. What it does do is give you an infinite bonus to saves, skills and attacks through Masochism.

So, you use your infinite Knowledge checks to learn everything. Make an infinite Perform check to attract the attention of a god, then use an infinite Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate check to have him elevate you to godhood. And so on.

[Halloween Jack]

I am familiar with Pun-Pun, but what is this Omniscificer?
.
It's a similar infinite-power cheat. I don't remember the precise specifics, but it works something like this: You have a circle of people who all have some kind of magic headband that converts damage into skill bonuses. Somehow the circle of effects and countereffects bouncing around in a circle makes it so that when you jump off a cliff, the damage you incur gives you infinite bonuses to all your skills. You then just use your infinite Knowledge to know whatever you theoretically need to know to contact the gods, use your infinite ranks in Diplomacy to convince them to save you and give you all their power, and defeat Pun-Pun.

[LowBeyonder]

Link is here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=546612), but the boards appear to be down, and I don't remember the exact build. Essentially, the Omniscificer gets delay death (you do not die from damage until the spell duration expires) and masochism (+1 bonus on skill checks, attack rolls and saving throws per 10 damage taken) then uses a damage loop to take infinate (literally, infinate) damage in one round, survives to the next round to take advantage of masochism, and is instantly omniscient via infinate ranks in all Knowledge skills (using a feat that allows Knowledge check to be made untrained).

Then he uses a strange quirk in the D&D drowning rules to reset him to exactly 0 HP before delay death runs out.

It was originally written as an anti-Pun-Pun build, since it can achieve omniscience in a shorter time than Pun-Pun can complete ascension, and so can find a way to stop him from ascending (because duh, omniscient).

EDIT: Damn. Scooped while trying to pull the forum post up...

[Canis Major]

:facepalms:

[LowBeyonder]

Behold the wonders of the Character Optimization boards. Don't just shop: CharOp.

[Deviant Juvenile]

A rather clever experiment in bending the rules, using a feat that lets you make Knowledge checks untrained, and then using Masochism + Share Pain + Delay Death to inflict an infinite amount of damage on yourself (it's an artificer because they can make items of the spells earlier, but anyone with a good Use Magic Device could do it). This doesn't kill you, thanks to Delay Death. What it does do is give you an infinite bonus to saves, skills and attacks through Masochism.

So, you use your infinite Knowledge checks to learn everything. Make an infinite Perform check to attract the attention of a god, then use an infinite Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate check to have him elevate you to godhood. And so on.

Behold the true power of nerdiness!

But, yeah, that seems a little more broken than Pun-Pun.

Question, how do you get the infinite deity ranks of Pun-Pun with the Omniscificer build? Or is it just designed to stop Pun-Pun from ascending?

[LowBeyonder]

The Omniscificer's not "technically" more powerful than Pun-Pun. Once Pun-Pun has ascended, he's impossible to defeat (now that someone came up with a solution to Neo-Terminator, IIRC). Omniscificer is pretty much intended to prevent Pun-Pun from ever happening. But while you've got infinite Diplomacy, may as well convince a few dieties to give you Phenomenal Cosmic Power.

[Deviant Juvenile]

The Omniscificer's not "technically" more powerful than Pun-Pun. Once Pun-Pun has ascended, he's impossible to defeat (now that someone came up with a solution to Neo-Terminator, IIRC). Omniscificer is pretty much intended to prevent Pun-Pun from ever happening. But while you've got infinite Diplomacy, may as well convince a few dieties to give you Phenomenal Cosmic Power.

PC: "Yo, Ao, you want to retire and give your power to me!" *rolls diplomacy + infinity*

Ao: "Ok."

PC: *gets power of Ao then pulls all the granted power from the other gods back into himself* "Ah... Hail to the king, baby."

[!Bob]

From a campaign point of view, the power level of a class is solely based on the GM...never forget Rule Zero.

From a purely statistical point of view I would say <class>20 is rarely going to be better than any cross classing craziness. From my understanding however, Cleric 20, and Druid 20 are considered the best, simpley through flexibility. If your looking to do something specific Fighter 20 can be pretty beastly, but this usually boils down to charging with huge damage, or provoking ridiculous amount of AoOs. Though again, that can be improved with the addition of Psychic Warrior, and maybe some drops into Bind Soulmeld, Bind Vestige, and grabbing some of the Tome of Battle shizzaz.

My personal favourite <class>20 though? Warlock, a truelly awesome class IMO, and great fun, both statistically, and in terms of the "in built" character options, they'res a stigma attatched to being a good warlock that I find quite interesting.

If you want true power though, you have Human Adept 1 (The latest way to create Pun Pun), the Omniscificer, and The H.I.V.E. God I love the CharOp boards, rarely anything on they're I would consider playing, but some of the thought experiments with the D20 rules are quite interesting.

The other "most powerful" class argument is that it depends on what role you have to fill in the party. Melee? Ftr2/PsyW2/Warblade6/PrCX is my favourite. Healer? Cleric 6/Radiant Servent of Pelor 10/Cleric 4 using the "Spontaneous Domain Casting" option from PHB2 to raelly abuse the Radiant Servents free metamagics. Blaster? WarlockX/Hellfire Warlock 3/Legacy Champion 10, by the wording on the various abilities, the Legacy Champion means you still go up in Eldritch Blast damage from the warlock (so +1d6 per 2 levels), but you also go up as a Hellfire Warlock (+2d6 per level). All of that for 1CON damage per shot, that you can regenerate by taking Bind Soulmeld? Not sure what the current damage record on that is, but with a Chausable of Fell Power and a Warlocks Sceptre your probably talking over 30d6 for special occasions (at level 20).

As for classes I'm not a big fan of....statistically Paladin, Bard & Psychic Warrior, we don't likes the Multiple Ability Dependency. In terms of fluff, I'm not a big Ranger fan, I much prefer the Unearthed Arcana option of the Barbarian that loses Rage for the Rangers Favoured Enemy and Archery options.

....and I think I'm done :)

so, to summarise: -

1) A class is as good as your GM lets it be.
2) If your talking <class> 20, Cleric and Druid are good, but it really depends what role you want to play.
3) The CharOp boards are a fascinating read.
4) Bob loves Unearthed Arcana, and PHB2s variant abilities for some of the classes.
5) Anything can be improved by a dip into a different power set. Psychic Meditation/Bind Soulmeld/Bind Vestige and the Tome of Battle feats are you friends.

[theotyugh]

My campaign has a fighter, Ranger, Rogue/Wizard, Cleric and Wizard and it is no suprise than in most situations the Wizard and Cleric are at the forefront of everything that is going right.

Sure the fighter lays down some damage and the rogue and ranger do their bit but when the Wizard is casting Disintergrate and Finger of Death while the Cleric can raise the dead or send the living there with Destruction, the Rangers two weapon fighting seems a tad underpowered.

So I would put Wizards as the most powerful at high level with Cleric as being all round awesome. Can't comment on Druids as no one in my group plays them :D

[Tetnahkshem]

Meh, rocking out your diplomacy rolls lets you what... change the target's attitude to helpful and with an infinite score, you'll definately do that regardless of their inititial attitude (since you need what a 50 for worst case hostile and a penalty of 10 for rushing to get your way much quicker).

If an NPC is helpful they'll do things like, "Protect, back up, heal, aid" etc. Hmm, I mean, sure maybe they're are some dietys who'd consider giving away their cosmic power to be "aid"... but personally, if I were the deity in question, I'd probably do some sort of protect and heal for that nasty infinite damage loop (damn, that's *GOTTA* hurt) and then agree that yes, Pun-pun must be stoped and just use my cosmic power to zap lil bugger before he can be a threat. No need to rent the ol powers out to somebody else.

Since people can be "helpful" to other people in fairly normal, run of the mill, no need to resort to infinite score style situations... I would think by now, all the "Sure I'll give away my cosmic power to people I like" personality deities have *probably* (but you never know) done so by now.

But, hey, go ahead and jump off that cliff. You never know, maybe you *WILL* find the right sort of deity.

And with the impending Pun-pun apocalypse, taking your chances is probably worth it.




EDIT: on second thought, with only the SRD at hand, I'm probably missing some table for Epic Level Diplomacy effects or some such. So, my above post is quite possibly a waste of time and energy. Ah well :o

EDIT 2: yep, confirmed by Unseenlibrarian. Touche good sir, I am well and truely pwnt.

[Unseenlibrarian]

Meh, rocking out your diplomacy rolls lets you what... change the target's attitude to helpful and with an infinite score, you'll definately do that regardless of their inititial attitude (since you need what a 50 for worst case hostile and a penalty of 10 for rushing to get your way much quicker).



Well, with infinite diplomacy, you can change their attitude from Hostile to Fanatical (A category added in the ELH, which seems appropriate when we're talking infinite diplomacy.) Which means that the gods in question will lay down their lives for you.

[Agent Oracle]

Every time I read a thread about D&D, someone mentions how some classes are considered weak or unplayable. Some examples I've heard include the Bard, the Soulknife and sometimes the Fighter.

It's really not true. lots of people have their own opinions reguarding classes like the Bard and Soulknife (and to a much, MUCH lesser extent, fighter) but largely these people are either misunderstanding some aspect of the character, or attempting to get the class to go outside it's focused area of proficiency.

Really, i have to say I've never seen a Base class that is genuinely underpowered. Sure, there are several which are multiple-ability dependent (like how the paladin depends heavily on his Cha, Wis, Str and Con to survive) which can seriously limit their playability in point-buy scenarios, but if you have the stats to back it up (such as rolling a divine assortment of godlike stats...) then by all means play the danged class!

That said: here's a few combos that Look appealing, but you should avoid.

1.) Multiple Caster Level progressions (Mystic Theurge, Arcane Hyrophant, and the like): Is being able to cast "cure light wounds"and Magic missile really worth being perminantly stunted in terms of castable magic?

[jhudsui]

Tough classes:
Archivist
Warblade


What's so tough about the Archivist? To me it looks like a Cleric minus the ability to go melee?

[LowBeyonder]

What's so tough about the Archivist? To me it looks like a Cleric minus the ability to go melee?
I wouldn't say Archivist is especially powerful, but it's better than it looks:

First, it gets access to all divine spells - this includes domain spells (like anyspell and greater anyspell) and, if the GM is friendly/not-paying-attention, the spell list for the NPC class Adept, which includes many wizard/sorcerer spells.

Second, it's a divine caster based (partially, IIRC) on Intelligence, so it synergizes well with Wizard, making going into Mystic Theurge is a better option than it normally is; even better if you use a few optimization tricks to get into MT without losing too much casting ability.

[vitus979]

I wouldn't say Archivist is especially powerful, but it's better than it looks:

First, it gets access to all divine spells - this includes domain spells (like anyspell and greater anyspell) and, if the GM is friendly/not-paying-attention, the spell list for the NPC class Adept, which includes many wizard/sorcerer spells.

There are loopholes in it especially with the classes that only get up to 4th level spells. Like for example an Archivist can cast the Paladin 4th level spell Holy Sword at 7th level. Grants the touched weapon +5, the Holy Weapon enhancement, and a magic circle against evil.

Dark Knowledge is also very tough. +3 to-hit, saves, AC, and +3d6* damage to all my allies requiring an easy skill check which at the same time tells me all my enemy's weaknesses? Yes please.

* the logical progression here also works out to higher bonuses for higher skill checks rolled.

[LogicNinja]

It's really not true. lots of people have their own opinions reguarding classes like the Bard and Soulknife (and to a much, MUCH lesser extent, fighter) but largely these people are either misunderstanding some aspect of the character, or attempting to get the class to go outside it's focused area of proficiency.

So not the case. The fighter's area of proficiency is Tanky Melee Guy. At high levels, he just can't do that.

The problem with some classes is that, basically, they can't DO anything significant, round by round.

Take the soulknife. He gets a free weapon, which translates to 20 gold at level 1 and 162,000 gp at level 20. It's inferior to a real weapon (smaller selection of properties, have to go +5/+4-equivalent properties rather than a +1 with Greater Magic Weapon cast and +8-worth of properties), but you'll never lose it.
He's *not* a frontline fighter (3/4 BAB, no particular way to deal damage, poor Fort save). He's not a skillmonkey (4+INT, no trapfinding, class skill list isn't set up for it). He's not anything. If he multiclasses out, his weapon becomes crappy and there's no point in having been a Soulknife anymore.

Round for round, he can... attack. And not do much damage. Great, that helps... not.

The monk has similar issues. Sure, the monk is great at Not Dying, but what does he add to each combat round? A die or two of damage, maybe a stunning fist everything starts saving against soon enough, occasionally.
Same with the (pre-Dragon Magic/Complete Mage) Warlock. A few d6es once a round. It's just not enough.

Some classes just can't do things. They are genuinely underpowered. It's not MAD, it's not that we're building or playing them wrong--they're just bad.
Like the Complete Warrior Samurai. All of its abilities are useless, and it gets free TWF, which is like a nerf because it encourages TWFing--which sucks so hard compared to THF for the Samurai (and anyone else without lots of bonus damage per hit, like sneak attack). What's he gonna do, hit the bad guy with his two swords and barely hurt him? Yeah, that's not underpowered at all.

[Kurotowa]

The main trouble with Fighters is that their lone class features is Lots Of Feats. And after a certain point Lots Of Feats just isn't worth that much. From all accounts around 10th level most Fighters have finished all the feat trees that matter to them are just stop improving significantly. I can't say for myself, I've never seen a PC with more than 6 level of Fighter, and rarely more than a 2-4 level dip. The PHB2 helps some with new high level feats aimed at Fighters. But I don't think the problem can be solved as long as feats are open to everyone. They just can't be made strong enough to be the Fighter class feature but not so strong that everyone else can take them without issue.

Which is really the point of the Tome of Battle, and why I'm looking forward to trying out a Warblade in a PbP that's about to start.

[LogicNinja]

That's one of the main problems with fighters. The others are the a) spellcasters have like a thousand and one different ways to kill/disable/avoid them, and b) they're not at good at, well, *fighting* as the monsters they fight--because those monsters have to be able to fight the whole party, and therefore *must* be tougher than the fighter.

[Tyrrell]

When it comes to wizards, a properly built specialist is very powerful, but generalists just aren't so flash - the loss of a school or two is far outweighed by the specialist's extra spell slots, because the biggest problem with a wizard is how fast they blow through their high-end spell slots (and at mid-high levels the low-end slots aren't very useful, overall).

I disagree with this assessment. For many games specialization trades off something that you do want (flexibility) for something of limited use (more spells). For games where the characters don't typically see more than two encounters per day specilization is an albatross around the neck of the wizard.

The first level elf substitution level from races of the wild is is almost always a better choice from a minmax perspective. It gives a generalist wizard an extra spell of their highest level and an extra learnt spell per level.

(That being said, I've always taken the non-minmax route and specialized because it is so much cooler)

[LogicNinja]

That's really not true. I mean, you can always lose Evocation pretty damn safely (direct damage wizards are the worst wizards, and when you need it, the Orb of X and other conjuration spells handle that just fine), and if you go core-only, then Enchantment will sting a little, but won't keep you from doing anything important.

If you're not going core-only, go a diviner--See Invisibility, Unluck, (Greater) Anticipate Teleport, Assay Resistance... there's plenty of useful Divination spells that make being a Diviner and just losing Evocation totally worth it.

The damage losing a school like Evocation does to you is very minimal.

[LowBeyonder]

Also, specialization got even better with Complete Mage and the Master Specialist PrC.

[hackmastergeneral]

If there is a Wizard in the group, and you want to slap down serious spell damage, Warmage is, 100% the way to go.

They don't have the versatility of a Wizard, so its hard on the party if the primary caster is a WM (I know, cause mine WAS the only caster - arcane OR divine - in the party, and yeah it was hard until we got our Diviner/Generalist), but if you've got another guy to cast Teleport, Fly and the like, Warmages PWN Wizards for sheer damage. They specialize in touch spells, so a decent build can give you nice bonuses and they get some VERY nice touch spells (the Orbs rock) which can crit. The Warmage Edge ability adds damage, and if you take the right PrC, they can do INSANE amounts of damage.

[Thanatos02]

I see a lot of the answers have kind of dissolved from a straight-forward answer everyone agrees with to a kind of debate. This, I feel, is actually pretty good because it highlights what I feel is pretty much the fundimental truth of the game that "Good" and "Bad" are heavily based on situation and decision.

I mean, look at the Bard. I'm a big Bard fan, because the Bard has rarely failed to bring options to the table at games I've been in. While pretty functional in a combat role (not a powerhouse, but he doesn't need to be), he opens up the options during lengthy stays in civilization.

Spell-casters with a full allotment of spells really are enormously powerful, but this comes at a price. I mean, incredible stopping power for while they're "on", but that juice has to run out at some point. It's then that 'simply' knowing how to pick the locks, spot the traps, or shiv the villain proves to be pretty useful. Spell-casters become the stars of the show, but a Wizard/Cleric/Druid is probably going to want others around after a while.

The optimal 'party setup' might well be a whole cadre of spell casters. I dunno, since I've never played a game past around 10, just heard about them and observed them. They probably are overpowered, just because the incentive to play a first-aid kit needs to be pretty high (a mistake, really). However, the game that *requires* a bevy of 9-th level casting Clerics, Druids, and Wizards is probably going to be insane anyhow.

I wonder, at level 20, how much more overpowered a group like that is over a traditional 4-man build. Does anyone have a good ratio?

As for the Fighter? Shit, peoples. Prestige Classes were invented for them. Looking at a straight-20 Fighter is practically looking at a character that was purposely hampered.

[Nawara]

Meanwhile, the WORST class in the game--hands down, bar none but the NPC classes--is the Complete Warrior's Samurai.

You've just seriously offended the Aristocrat and Expert classes.

-Jeff

[LogicNinja]

I would honestly take an Expert over the Complete Warrior Samurai, but I meant PC classes, of course.
Edit: ...and, in fact, said this.

Oh, I get what you meant. Yeah, I'd take Expert over CWar Samurai. He's still better off than the Aristocrat, having a full BAB. The Adept casts spells, which include Polymorph, so he could also give the Samurai a run for his money, if both had PC wealth.

[LowBeyonder]

I mean, look at the Bard. I'm a big Bard fan, because the Bard has rarely failed to bring options to the table at games I've been in. While pretty functional in a combat role (not a powerhouse, but he doesn't need to be), he opens up the options during lengthy stays in civilization.

I love the Bard flavor, I think their spell list is highly underrated, and they have a couple of great prestige classes available - Seeker of the Song if they want to emphasize music, Sublime Chord if they want to focus on casting. I wish Fochlucan Lyrist was a little easier to get into, but it's a really neat class anyway.


The optimal 'party setup' might well be a whole cadre of spell casters. I dunno, since I've never played a game past around 10, just heard about them and observed them. They probably are overpowered, just because the incentive to play a first-aid kit needs to be pretty high (a mistake, really). However, the game that *requires* a bevy of 9-th level casting Clerics, Druids, and Wizards is probably going to be insane anyhow.

Four clerics or four druids are gonna make stuff cry. Four Wizards lose if they get surprised or ambushed - Wizards squish like bugs without their buffs up, and aren't exactly swimming in HP. But clerics and druids are armored, full-casting. meleeing, cheating machines. Especially if the clerics go for broke with Divine Metamagic: Persistant.


As for the Fighter? Shit, peoples. Prestige Classes were invented for them. Looking at a straight-20 Fighter is practically looking at a character that was purposely hampered.
Agreed. Fighter 20 is both boring and not especially great. There are a boatload of good melee prestige classes with all kinds of good flavors and abilities. And some real stinkers, granted, but that's life.

[Halloween Jack]

That's one of the main problems with fighters. The others are the a) spellcasters have like a thousand and one different ways to kill/disable/avoid them, and b) they're not at good at, well, *fighting* as the monsters they fight--because those monsters have to be able to fight the whole party, and therefore *must* be tougher than the fighter.I think the biggest problem with Fighters is that everything is balanced against them. The CR of a character, regardless of class, is equal to their class level. So can the fighter fight? Yeah. But the designers made sure that the rogue and the sorcerer can also fight, and they can do a bunch of other stuff, too.

Another problem (although this seems to be changing) is that the fighter never actually gets any high-level abilities. When the Wizard goes to 17th level, he gets wish. When the Fighter goes to 18th level, he gets a feat that he also could have taken at 8th level.

[LogicNinja]

Stuff is totally not balanced against fighters.

Fighter vs. Pit Fiend, go! Fighter loses. Same for tons of other monsters. Monsters are balanced against the fighter *and his friends*, and therefore outfight the fighter.

[langeweile]

Four clerics or four druids are gonna make stuff cry. Four Wizards lose if they get surprised or ambushed - Wizards squish like bugs without their buffs up, and aren't exactly swimming in HP. But clerics and druids are armored, full-casting. meleeing, cheating machines. Especially if the clerics go for broke with Divine Metamagic: Persistant.

Frankly, I think DM: Quicken in combination with Domain Spontaniety and the right domain (any alingment, glory, strength, sun or war) heavily plows over DM: Persistant. You usually go to a little less then 4 encounters / day with most GMs on higher levels, you are not soo open to dispels - and cranking out your highest levels spells at double the speed just hurts, especially if you can cast some of your most powerful spontaneously as needed.

[LowBeyonder]

Frankly, I think DM: Quicken in combination with Domain Spontaniety and the right domain (any alingment, glory, strength, sun or war) heavily plows over DM: Persistant. You usually go to a little less then 4 encounters / day with most GMs on higher levels, you are not soo open to dispels - and cranking out your highest levels spells at double the speed just hurts, especially if you can cast some of your most powerful spontaneously as needed.
True, DM: Quicken, Domain Spontaniety, and the Magic domain is just a crazy combination.

Anyspell and greater anyspell... Oh, Forgotten Realms, you have so much to answer for.

Persistant is for Divine Power (+6 Str and a Fighter's BAB) and Wraithstrike (all attacks are touch attacks; technically, it's a Wizard spell, but that's what freaking anyspell is for). Everything after that? Gravy.

[vitus979]

Persistant is for Divine Power (+6 Str and a Fighter's BAB) and Wraithstrike (all attacks are touch attacks; technically, it's a Wizard spell, but that's what freaking anyspell is for). Everything after that? Gravy.

Don't forget your Prayer Bead and Divine Favor. +6 luck bonus to-hit/damage is all good.

[Halloween Jack]

Stuff is totally not balanced against fighters.

Fighter vs. Pit Fiend, go! Fighter loses. Same for tons of other monsters. Monsters are balanced against the fighter *and his friends*, and therefore outfight the fighter.What I mean is that the other classes seem built to be able to keep up with the fighter, plus they do other stuff.

[LogicNinja]

Don't forget your Prayer Bead and Divine Favor. +6 luck bonus to-hit/damage is all good.

Nerfed to a cap of +3 AB/damage, but still a good spell. Mm, Quickened Divine Favor + Divine Power.

[Tsed]

To address the "Blastificer" build--Metamagic Spell Trigger was changed in Complete Mage, so that you could only apply one metamagic feat that wasn't already in the item--and rightly so.

Actually, the Metamagic Spell Trigger in CM is just a feat... I dunno if it actually applies to the class ability. Either way, it hasn't made its way into the Eberron errata yet.

Even if the broken version of the ability was still in use, the "twinned maximised empowered Enervation / Orb of Force" is still fairly useless.

Agreed. The Metamagic Spell Trigger infusion is much handier (and cheaper!).

[Scurvy_Platypus]

I'm going for a Dragon Shaman baby. With a dragonwrought Kobold. I haven't decided if he worships himself yet or not. But ummm... I'm guessing the Dragon Shaman falls into the "bad" class category. I haven't seen anything positive about 'em. Soooo... not much to really contribute to the discussion, but keep on. Maybe I'll learn how to munchkin d20 or something.

[Kurotowa]

Actually, what I've heard of people's actual play with Dragon Shamans has been mostly positive. They're not too strong on their own, but their party buffs and healing power work very well in a party. The feelings I get is they're the divine Warlock that everyone's wanted.

[Kintara]

The one good thing about going all the way through to Fighter 20 is that the epic progression for the Fighter is nice. Say hello to the fastest epic feat progression in the game. And furthermore, epic feats often have lots of feat prereqs, so it's nice to have all those feats if you plan ahead.

[Moonstone Spider]

You can't just look at a class's abilities to decide it's weak, you also have to consider support in the form of feats and prcs that boost it's abilities. Fighters are pretty pointless after level 12, where you get Greater Weapon Specialization, but there's loads of good feats for them and some excellent PrCs.

Soulknives I find weak (although I play one and love it) for the reverse reason, there's no good feats to boost the Soulknife's abilities (For instance trying to get past any DR since you can't have an adamantium mindblade or a blunt one) and no PrCs for them except the Soulbow, which severely limits your options in combat.

Dragon Shamans are weak on the surface but they have, as an example, a breath weapon, which opens up a massive number of metabreath feats from draconomicon that makes an apparently weak power suddenly awesome. The Dragon Shaman's breath weapon is weak. A maximized entangling empowered extended breath weapon is a whole 'nother story, and the Dragon Shaman can pull that off at the beginning of every battle, which might well end the battle as well.

[langeweile]

As we are at it, one other horribly exploited thingy for Clerics - you even only need Comp Adv for it (so quasi-core):
Antimagic Field is nice - it protects you from any other baaaad magic and also takes away quite a bit of really strong enemy magic. It's even nicer if you still get all the benefits of magics (Cleric = buff'n'healing machine).

What you do: Go into melee and throw up AMF. Have the Extraordinary Spell Aim feat (CAdv) and use it to exclude yourself. That will put your Spellcraft DC to 33. If you have activated Divine Insight (Lvl 2, CAdv) - which runs all day ready to use, more or less - you get a +15 bonus to that check. Grab the remaining +2 from any other source (more ranks, int, synergy with knowledge (arcane), hell even some masterwork item if you can make up some), and you know that you will succeed on that check (it's skill, so 1 doesn't fail).
Have fun carving up your enemies cold. Bonus if you got Protection or Magic domain to get it on 6th Lvl, especially with Domain Spontaniety. But make sure you have some serious AC buffs running, when the GM hits you with the "+5 playerbane axiomatic Greathammer with use-activated true strike" with a giang Power-Leap-Attack :D

[Rachel Cartacos]

1.) Multiple Caster Level progressions (Mystic Theurge, Arcane Hyrophant, and the like): Is being able to cast "cure light wounds"and Magic missile really worth being perminantly stunted in terms of castable magic?

If, like me, you're after the sheer fun of being able to cast loads of differant spells and don't care about outright power then yes they are very worth it. :)

[The Formless One]

If, like me, you're after the sheer fun of being able to cast loads of differant spells and don't care about outright power then yes they are very worth it. :)
Power-wise you can also make it a bit more worth it by going Wizard 7 and then taking Aposle of Peace from Exalted Deeds.

This is highly dependent on character type, but hey, it's all good.

[Victim]

There's varying levels of good and bad. Some classes just suck, like the Samuri. Other classes are good, but only for a little bit. Swashbuckler is a pretty handy 3 level class. While Fighter 20 tends to run out of steam, several levels are often a good idea for many combative characters - depending on the weapon choice (aka, if you use a spiked chain...), you could justify quite a few fighter levels before barbarian and/or PrC levels become desireable.

Moreover, actual performance in group combat can be wildly different from solo capabilities. A fighter barbarian guy might lose out to a buffed up cleric or druid even in his niche. But if he's on a team with the cleric or wizard, then he can reap the benefits of a bunch of group buffs and become incredibly deadly. An unsupported melee might totally suck in high level combat. But with some people setting him up and buffing him, he'll be nasty (often nasty enough to justify the use of the precious combat actions spent supporting the character - of course, if its a cohort doing the support, then it's much less of a problem). Similarly, a bard might be incredible if it focuses on pumping its inspire which is going to apply to a whole party of physical attackers. On the other hand, if the cleric player wants to cast Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, then the bard is going to have some serious stacking issues.

Not to mention that power varies over levels. It doesn't matter how awesome something is at level 20 (or how poor something is at level 5) if you aren't playing those levels. Maybe in the long run fighters aren't so great, but at level 1 having Cleave vs not not having it can be a huge deal. Clerics and Druids are more rock solid than wildly powerful until pretty high levels.

Plus there's the massive difference between just making a "good" character, making a character from dozens of books, and then stuff like Pun Pun.

[hackmastergeneral]

I've gotta say, we've had primary fighters in our games, and theres never been a problem. Now, granted, a Fighter build has to include cross classes and PrCs and good feat selection, but man, getting 5 attacks a round, plus a bunch of nasty feats combos and massive weapon buffs, add in a few cleric buffs and some great armour, on a round by round basis, its hard to top a good Fighter build.

At really high levels, magic gets less impressive. Oh sure, you deal massive damage and a lot of the spells are insane and really cool, but Spell Resistance and Energy Immunities become FAR more prevalent at 10+ There were many combats where the Uber Mages were nerfed to "I keep watch in case anything ELSE shows up while the Fighter is pounding on this guy and I'll blast anything that comes around the door."

Hell, My Warmage/Firey Savant is level 13 and I'm already noticing a massive increase in the "I can't do anything to this guy" encounters.

When you DO get to go, it can be deadly in a heartbeat, but I think, over all, a good fighter build is tough to beat. They CONSTANTLY do damage, and are ALWAYS useful. You rarely sit out a combat with a fighter. I notice our barbarians go down much faster than our Fighetrs - likely the AC problem. A good Rogue deals great damage on a Sneak, but when he doesn't get it, he's doing puny damage and has crap HP to boot. Clerics and Druids are a lot of fun, and quite powerful.

While the Samurai might not be great, he's not AWFUL. I mean, he does get full attack progression, SOME of his abilities are neat, and the Katana/Wakazashi combo is nice. Had one I was working towards the Kensai prestige class, which is a nice, flavorful PrC, with some very nice abilities. The XP cost for empowering your weapon is not that high - certainly manageable. I was going to uber out one sword, and make my Katana a Weapon of Legacy.

[LogicNinja]

At really high levels, magic gets less impressive. Oh sure, you deal massive damage and a lot of the spells are insane and really cool, but Spell Resistance and Energy Immunities become FAR more prevalent at 10+ There were many combats where the Uber Mages were nerfed to "I keep watch in case anything ELSE shows up while the Fighter is pounding on this guy and I'll blast anything that comes around the door."

Hell, My Warmage/Firey Savant is level 13 and I'm already noticing a massive increase in the "I can't do anything to this guy" encounters.

Uh, that's damage spells. You're not a true arcanist. You're more like an archer with area-of-effect attacks. If you're having SR problems, cast Orb of ____. You should know spells of enough different elements to overcome immunities handily.


Real arcanists have no-SR spells; they have Assay Resistance (Spell Compendium) to give them +10 to overcome a single creature's SR as a swift action; they can take Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration if it's an issue.
Generally, spellcasters absolutely dominate the higher levels, and fighters find themselves less and less able to contribute.
If you're having problems, I think it's because of your "throw damage spells at it" approach. Damage-dealers are the least effective kind of spellcasters.

A good fighter build is easy to beat. It can't fly, it can't turn invisible, it can't see invisible things, it can't do much. Its mobility is limited by its speed, and it can hit things, trip things, or move and then hit things. Those are its only options. Sure, it can get items that help with flying and seeing the invisible, but it's an uphill battle just to be able to do what spellcasters can do much, much better anyway.

Meanwhile, a wizard can do, essentially, pretty much anything he wants.


The Samurai, incidentally, *is* that awful. Experts and Adepts are better. The samurai gets TWF (pointless, THF is more effective, and it pigeonholes him), some intimidate things (that only work on things of his hit dice and below--and enemy HD scale faster than CR, so anything remotely challenging that you fight has more HD than you)... that's pretty much eat. Each round, he can hit things, for fairly puny amounts of damage. Anything that can be done to improve him feat-selection-wise can be done far more effectiely to the fighter.
The samurai's class features are useless, and it contributes nothing.

[The Formless One]

I'm siding with LogicNinja on the matter of mystical dominance over melee types. I've used his "Wizard as Batman" material as a basis for wizards and it is frightening how competent these characters are.

He's also responsible for making my Bard player a grinning, happy doofus by pointing out a feat in Eberron that I'd forgotten about and how a bunch of options combine well enough to make her secondary Bard character meaningful as a 5th wheel buffer (+6* morale to attack and defense at 6th level prior to the cleric's Elation & Prayer? She's down). So on a personal level I'd like to thank him for that. Take a "Making Bards Rock" point, if you'd like.

However, I don't necessarily agree with him insisting that Fighters are worthless. If only because some of the best fun a spellcaster can have is buffing his buddies up and watching them ravage your enemies.

In my experience, that what it is, other players really value a helpful mage. I can throw "Fireball" which makes me grin inside, but my fellow players? They value Haste more. By utilizing my awesome to make them more awesome, they get to have more fun and I get to watch people die. Who doesn't like that?

That said, he's probably right in that a party warrior being a self-buffing Cleric (post 7th lvl) is likely more powerful than a fighter, but the multitude of feats and the way the various prestige classes interact with each other makes for a fun challenge.

Yes, a wizard will be better at so many things, a Cleric or Druid is phenomenal, but there's something to be said about a Barbarian/Fighter/Warshaper/Bear Warrior who spazzes out, shapechanges and eats his enemies alive!

Despite my love for overwhelming magic types, that character will always hold a special place in my heart. :D

Now, two-weapon fighting? Yeah, bigger, beefier two-handed weapon types do better on average, but it's dependent on variables such as

*This depends on a favorable ruling regarding the interaction of Song of the Heart and Words of Creation. I'm interpreting it as boosting your natural Bardic Music ability, thus doubling the bonus as well. Even if not, +5 at level 6 is pretty sweet.

[Elemental]

Not to mention that power varies over levels. It doesn't matter how awesome something is at level 20 (or how poor something is at level 5) if you aren't playing those levels. Maybe in the long run fighters aren't so great, but at level 1 having Cleave vs not not having it can be a huge deal. Clerics and Druids are more rock solid than wildly powerful until pretty high levels.

Agreed. That quite often gets forgotten on the CO boards, where most of the builds apparently pop into existence fully formed at level 20.

[Katsue]

Soulknives I find weak (although I play one and love it) for the reverse reason, there's no good feats to boost the Soulknife's abilities

Hmm...I haven't played a Soulknife, but Mind Cleave looks pretty good. I think a real problem that they have is the lack of Bonus Feats and/or Psychic Powers.


(For instance trying to get past any DR since you can't have an adamantium mindblade or a blunt one) and no PrCs for them except the Soulbow, which severely limits your options in combat.

The Soulbow is pretty sweet, though, especially given the ability to take the Bane enhancement for your Mind Arrow. If you know what you're going to be fighting the next day, you have a huge advantage.

Also, Illumine Soul may not be worth delaying getting the Knife to the Soul ability, but a four level dip increases your Psychic Strike damage, and gives you some extra abilities without any real penalties.

[hackmastergeneral]

Generally, spellcasters absolutely dominate the higher levels, and fighters find themselves less and less able to contribute.
If you're having problems, I think it's because of your "throw damage spells at it" approach. Damage-dealers are the least effective kind of spellcasters.

To be fair, thats what Warmages do - they throw damage spells at things.

While you say that, you also don't say what makes effective spellcasters in battle. If you're not throwing damage spells at it, what are you doing? Most other spells useful in combat are Save-dependant, and most high level creatures have high saves.

A good fighter build is easy to beat. It can't fly,
Ring

it can't turn invisible,
ring

it can't see invisible things,
It can if its not human.

it can't do much. Its mobility is limited by its speed, and it can hit things, trip things, or move and then hit things. Those are its only options. Sure, it can get items that help with flying and seeing the invisible, but it's an uphill battle just to be able to do what spellcasters can do much, much better anyway.

I haven't found that. I've played epic, with minmaxers galore, and a good Fighter build is ALWAYS useful. Again, the Wizard has to utilize his resources in and out of combat. Thus casting spells outside of combat to do important things (detections, divinations, etc) takes away from their ability to kick ass in combat. Plus, do you waste all your great spells on this guy, or save a few for the NEXT guy? Meanwhile, the fighter is pounding away at the enemy, and rocking crits and extra damage left right and center.

I have NEVER come across a situation where a well built fighter is useless. I've come across plenty where a spellcaster is. Granted, when the spellcaster ISN'T useless, its deadly in the extreme. But magical immunities have a way of nerfing the spellcasters.


Meanwhile, a wizard can do, essentially, pretty much anything he wants.
Until he runs out of spells, or comes across some creature who gets the drop on him (quite frequent, as Improved Init isn't the most common spellcaster feat), and takes him out of the combat before he gets in it.


The Samurai, incidentally, *is* that awful. Experts and Adepts are better. The samurai gets TWF (pointless, THF is more effective, and it pigeonholes him), some intimidate things (that only work on things of his hit dice and below--and enemy HD scale faster than CR, so anything remotely challenging that you fight has more HD than you)... that's pretty much eat. Each round, he can hit things, for fairly puny amounts of damage. Anything that can be done to improve him feat-selection-wise can be done far more effectiely to the fighter.
The samurai's class features are useless, and it contributes nothing.

THF is more pigeonholing than TWF. If I've got two weapons, I've got twice the chnace of hitting, twice the ability to overcome DR and Immunities, and get more attacks per round. In another thread, someone pointed out that, on average, they pretty much equal out. The THF will deal more damage in one blow, but the TWF will hit more, plus with two weapons - an adamantine flaming burst Short sword and a silver icy burst rapier of wounding, I can overcome just about any DR around. If you have a Greatsword of Adamantine, and the enemy has DR10/silver plus takes no damage from slashing weapons, you're screwed. Meanwhile my TWF is doing damage every round.

Its pretty much 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other. It pretty much evens out over time. I personally like the versatility and extra attacks a TWF brings to the table. Plus, with the Samurai, I can drop the Wak and two hand the Katana if I feel the need to rock extra damage.

Samurai does suck - but it has some things that can be neat. Its TWF, and then the bonuses tyou get for the Daisho combo are nice. As a secondary fighter, its not awful if you nail the right PrC. My Kensai was going to be quite uber. It was also a flavor decision, not a minmax munchkin decision. I had fun with him, and it fit the campaign.

[ascendance]

I haven't found that. I've played epic, with minmaxers galore, and a good Fighter build is ALWAYS useful. Again, the Wizard has to utilize his resources in and out of combat. Thus casting spells outside of combat to do important things (detections, divinations, etc) takes away from their ability to kick ass in combat. Plus, do you waste all your great spells on this guy, or save a few for the NEXT guy? Meanwhile, the fighter is pounding away at the enemy, and rocking crits and extra damage left right and center.Epic is basically where you kick yourself and think, "Crap, I should have maxed out one class." Many Epic feats and abilities are dependent on Character Class level, and it's basically where the dippers and the dabblers get punished horribly.

But I think what people are saying here that a good Fighter build is probably a Fighter/Barbarian. Or a Fighter-Anything Else. Or a Warblade. Or a Psychic Warrior. Or even, heck, a Paladin.

[Shawn Conard]

Until he runs out of spells, or comes across some creature who gets the drop on him (quite frequent, as Improved Init isn't the most common spellcaster feat), and takes him out of the combat before he gets in it.


Odd. I think I've taken Improved Init with every single arcane caster I've ever created in D&D 3.x, and I see that feat reasonably often in all-core caster builds on the CO board. It's just, the non-core builds have so many ultra-cheesy options available that Improved Init gets left behind.

[Mr. Teapot]

I can't get at the Wizards boards at the moment, so I'll ask here:

How does the Omnificer get around the fact that dieties are immune to epic-level Diplomacy?


http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#diplomacy:
Treat the fanatic attitude as a mind-affecting enchantment effect for purposes of immunity, save bonuses, or being detected by the Sense Motive skill. Since it is nonmagical, it can’t be dispelled; however, any effect that suppresses or counters mind-affecting effects will affect it normally.


http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#immunities:
A deity is immune to mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).

I'm sure CharOp could find a way to get around mental immunity, but you'd think that'd be a useful trick for other purposes - I know a lot of Enchanters and Beguilers who'd like to charm some undead.

If the answer is "an infinite level knowledge check shows the Omnificer how to do so" then I'll be dissapointed. Couldn't the infinite check equally likely tell the Omnificer that there is no way to get around the divine immunity (barring some actual, rules based way)?

[Fenris]

Ahh, so im a bit late coming back, i had asked about two classes:

Hexblade:

1. They only have one good save.

2. A Familiar just isn't as useful as an Animal Companion or Magic Horsey.

3. Their special abilities just don't stack up to the Ranger's or Paladin's.

4. The extra stat they have to boost, Charisma, doesn't help in other ways. Rangers and Paladins need good Wisdom which has the bonus effect of covering their weak Will save. Mettle and Arcane Resistance are no comparison to the Paladin's Divine protective abilities.

5. Spontaneous casting isn't that big an advantage when you only have 4th level spells.

6. Light armour and no shield proficiency?

Hmm...so i can see where people come from. The concept is cool, and i still might try one out but i can see where the problem lies. Well, having to boost Cha...ahh, so they turn into one of those 'multi stat dependent' characters (Str, Dex, Con, Cha), like monks so i can see them being difficult to utilize. Well, then again, Rangers(Str/Dex/Con/Wis) and Paladins(Str/Con/Wis/Cha) have the four stats also, but seem a bit more flexible in ways, as stated. (To be specific, Wis for those two classes is pretty much a 'nice bonus', for the spells and in the Rangers case, saves. Paladins weak Will saved is compensated with his save bonus at least.)

I wonder how one could improve on the Hexblade a bit...

And for the Warlock description, he definately doesnt sound like a bad class(Medium BaB, only d6 HP but ok weapon selection allows for combat ability if necessary. Unlimited source of ranged damage, and useful invocations, and just awesome flavor). Tho i can also see the point against(they dont do the pure burst damage of a mage, they fight about on par with a rogue, bard or unshifted druid, which isnt bad but isnt great, better than wizard at least), and they seem to be a bit one-sided in the end. Still sounds like a fun class if in the mood.

Now, i can see the thing here....while most roleplayers ive played with decided numbers and kewl powerz aren't THE most important thing...sometimes a class is just SO crippled their survivability or usefulness is just plain overshadowed by other classes...especially these days. I will say thing thing about the older days, everyone was pretty much useful in one way or another, wizards of course getting that very high level advantage and clerics ALWAYS being amazing but all the classes were playable and useful in one way or another.

Seemed to change in the newer days. See what happens when we start adding powerz and variety people? :P ;) :D

[ascendance]

I wonder how one could improve on the Hexblade a bit...It's called the Duskblade. See the PHB II. Essentially, more spells (a bit less than a bard). More abilities related to casting in armor.

[Fade]

It's called the Duskblade. See the PHB II. Essentially, more spells (a bit less than a bard). More abilities related to casting in armor.
Around 5th level the Duskblade can start getting seriously nasty. Swift-cast True Strike then power-attack for 5 points while channeling Shocking Grasp. With a greatsword the total damage is
2d6 + (1.5*Str) + 10 + 5d6
With 14 strength that's ~37 points of damage on average, made with +15 to hit over regular attacks. True you can't do it very many times, but it sure hurts.

[Kurotowa]

Soulknives I find weak (although I play one and love it) for the reverse reason, there's no good feats to boost the Soulknife's abilities (For instance trying to get past any DR since you can't have an adamantium mindblade or a blunt one) and no PrCs for them except the Soulbow, which severely limits your options in combat.

For the record, there are some more Soulknife options for Kalashtar in Races of Eberron. A few feats and a very nice PrC. True, they're race specific, but it's pretty easy to steal them for your game. But still, it's a common house rule I've seen to give the class full BAB.

[KoboldLord]

Here's a guide for the reasons wizards are clearly superior, in all respects, to fighters:

We will pit them against each other in a 1v1 battle, winner take all. The notion that this may favor one over the other will be summarily discarded.

Magic items clearly violate the fighter concept and dilute the meaning of the demonstration, so the fighter must use completely mundane equipment. To keep things fair, the wizard is also restricted to items craftable by wizards.

Both characters get as much time as they want for buffing before the fight starts.

For simplicity's sake, we will assume both characters have infinite money and infinite pre-fight time, and need not worry about their survival until that point. Xp spent on Permanency and magic item creation will be replaced.

Since the wizard would have scried the fighter the night before and seen the fighter's character sheet, the wizard will already have all the perfect preparations in place, even if the wizard's player doesn't know what's on the character sheet. To accomodate this difference between player and character knowledge, any spell can be retconned to have been prepared as something else, whenever the issue comes up.

For simplicity's sake, the fighter will spend his feats getting Weapon Specialization in as many weapons as possible. Feats like Ranged Sunder or Mage Slayer are unreasonably complicated and have no place in this discussion. Similarly, the wizard is restricted to getting as many Metamagic feats as possible.

We will assume that no errata or house-ruling is permitted. If a wizard spell exists in the RAW that any DM capable of forming complete sentences will modify to keep from breaking the game, then the wizard just wins. No other class can compete with even a single badly-written rule, unless they have their own badly-written rule to compete. The notion that badly-written rules can be corrected, and indeed are almost invariably corrected, is not acceptable here.

As you can see, there's no way for the fighter to come out on top. Clearly, the wizard must simply be superior.

[Rasmus Wagner]

Fighters don't have great performance peaks. They just keep giving.

Ambush? All right, I can cope with that.
Enemy immune to crits and sneak? That bites, but I'll manage.
Neutral-aligned constructs? I'll smoke'em, no problem.
Flying enemies: Either I'm a low-level fighter, in which case I'll start longbowing them. Or I'm a medium-to-high level fighter, I'll fly up and sword them. Or, my player is retarded.
Been fighting all day? I'm ok, the only resource I keep track of is HP; a WoCLW is only 750 gold and can keep me going for 225 HPs, if I can just get the occasional 5-minute break.

[Mr. Teapot]

As you can see, there's no way for the fighter to come out on top. Clearly, the wizard must simply be superior.

When I first skimmed this, I though you were serious in suggesting these as guidelines for comparison.

Um, you are joking, yes? I mean, giving both sides infinite money, but restricting the fighter to only mundane equipment?

[Rupert]

CoDzilla, Artificer (who can be really disturbingly awesome in ways that do not involve Blastificing), and a well-built Wizard are all obviously really strong. Bard gets a surprisingly strong spell list, though I wouldn't take it to 20.

One thing to remember about wizards is that if your intelligence is wrong and you memorise the wrong spells, they'll suck, unlike divine casters who can at least buff themselves and fight. Of course, if your intelligence is right on, and you know the right spells a wizard is incredibly powerful - for that one encounter.

[!Bob]

When I first skimmed this, I though you were serious in suggesting these as guidelines for comparison.

Um, you are joking, yes? I mean, giving both sides infinite money, but restricting the fighter to only mundane equipment?

I was thinking much the same thing. He has to be joking as basically the argument states "If we take a test in which we take away the fighets key abilities and restrict him to mundane gear, then give the Wizard as many bonuses possible, by, you know, allowing to craft anything for free, immediately, having all the right spells ready, having free premanancy on anything he can cast etc. etc. etc. he'll win."

Odd that!

If your being fair, taking Wizard 20, versus Fighter 20, with the rules for extra cash from the DMG on starting at higher level, you may be suprised by the outcome. The fight really will boil down to initiative, because a good fighter can, and will, one shot charge a wizard, or get within range and deny him casting capabilties through AoOs.

I'm not saying its entirely balanced, but then again, the game isn't designed for 1v1 combat between character classes. This isn't WoW, and we aren't playing PvP. If we were, I reckon the Warlock of Duskblade would win anyway.

[Rupert]

That's really not true. I mean, you can always lose Evocation pretty damn safely (direct damage wizards are the worst wizards, and when you need it, the Orb of X and other conjuration spells handle that just fine), and if you go core-only, then Enchantment will sting a little, but won't keep you from doing anything important.

I really dislike those Orb spells. They move evocation from being a non-optimal school into a crap one, because you just don't need it - evocation doesn't do much other than direct damage and the Orb spells are at least as good as the evocation spells at it. While we're at it, the high-end divine direct damage spells also make direct damage/evoker builds suckfull - clerics are better at massive area attacks than wizards at high levels (mainly because of Firestorm).


If you're not going core-only, go a diviner--See Invisibility, Unluck, (Greater) Anticipate Teleport, Assay Resistance... there's plenty of useful Divination spells that make being a Diviner and just losing Evocation totally worth it.

Even core only a Diviner that loses evocation or necromancy is a fine build, especially as they can get into Loremaster effectively for free and Loremaster is, like most worthwhile arcanist PrCs, a bit better than it should be.

[Rupert]

Also, specialization got even better with Complete Mage and the Master Specialist PrC.

I haven't got Complete Mage yet, so can someone tell me - does it do anything for generalist wizards? (And just listing more spells doesn't count)

I'm really tired of the way books like Unearthed Arcana give all these nice variants and extras for specialists, but generalists get no love. It's pissed me off to the point that, were I writing 4e I'd ditch specialists entirely - they and sorcerers are redundant now that the warmage style classes are proliferating, so this gives us spontaneous specialists with limited spell lists (warmage, etc), and generalists that must prepare their spells, but can do almost anything arcane (wizards).

[Fenris]

Well, for the Wizard vs. Fighter...it can be tricky. Lower levels, the fighter. One thing the fighter has going for him is at low levels, he's extremely reliable. Even high levels, as stated, he keeps his reliability, but lacks in other areas, and becomes dull. A high level Wizard can lay a serious beating on a high level Fighter...me and some of the crew have done some of those 'battlegames' where we go against each other as varied classes. Even if Fighter gets initative...Wizard at high level has a lot of protections that can keep him alive long enough to seriously use the Fighter's low Will and Reflex saves against him.

Thats not to say i dislike Fighters....ive played many and had a lot of fun. As said: they have a reliability about them. I also find Archery-tecced fighters can lay some seeerious beatings on enemies.

Class balance has always been an issue. Ive been trying to do varied gaming systems using d20 as a base(creating own spells, classes, etc....i'd LOVE to do my own system, but well....every time i try something, i find something else that doesnt work...and then i fix that and something else breaks and then I...you get the idea.) However, designing the classes has been a pain in the ass....pick something that fits a class, and it boosts their power too much.

When you have 500 different classes, some are bound to be too good, some are bound not to work at all as expected, and some are bound to be average. Some things look fine on paper but when put into play have issues. Me and some of my buddies always spoke of how classes sometimes arent good enough at their main thing. Clerics are great at...clericing(:D) i know....good HP and heavy armor allows for a buffer/healer to stay alive, which is important, as is being able to defend oneself. (and some say its a bit excessive...i think the OD&D 1e-2e clerics were fine, in 3.x they became quite more powerful.) Druids are awesome at..druiding. Mages at high levels are great. Their power grows. However, with the humble fighter or barbarian, they shine at lower levels but then have issues at higher levels, the fighter with damage dealing(they do well. they can do very well but they still get outshined). On defense? Great, but clerics and wizards with massive protection spells do better. Barbs have a big defense problem, even with oodles of HP, because they must give up some things for heavy armor. Rogues, i think, are a circumstansial class. In, say, a skillmonkey area, they shine like hell. In situations where their skills arent as needed...they are in the backrow. Where wizards and clerics, and druids, can shine at about anytime. Assassins arent nearly as good as they should be at their jobs.

Youd think with playtesting, a lot of the obvious things would be discovered....but i guess not? Isnt playtesting there partially to find the mistakes and weaknesses/overpoweredness?

[Moonstone Spider]

Oh yes, a Monk seems to be the most self-contained of all classes to me. A monk has decent damage in melee, and has a speed bonus so that she can outrun what she can't outfight. A Monk eventually gets Spell Resistance to help with magicians and DR to help with fighters (although in my experience there's nothing at CR20 that doesn't have magic weapons so the DR tends to be a bit pointless). A monk can basically survive with no equipment at all if she needs to. A monk can even heal herself a bit. Relative to other classes, there's very little a DM can do to totally gimp a monk by nerfing her abilities, where a fighter can get his weapons sundered and a mage can wander into an antimagic field, a Monk will still be putting down the smack.

[Rupert]

Thats not to say i dislike Fighters....ive played many and had a lot of fun. As said: they have a reliability about them. I also find Archery-tecced fighters can lay some seeerious beatings on enemies.

IME, sticking to core classes, fighters really excel as archers, because while you can build a scary melee build, once you get past the low levels a well built barbarian is superior at melee to a fighter - the fighter's greater flexibility and number of feats does not compensate for the barbarian's greater damage output.

[Fenris]

About monks:i think they are decently good. We had a drunken Dwarven monk in a campaign, while on top of being a great character he could really hold his own. Their one drawback is massive stat dependence...with say, two high score, two middling score and two low scores, you really want to boost that Dex and Wis up...so they wont be as massive with the damage and HP...and monks can stay squishy for quite awhile. Int and Cha are rarely above average for a monk unless they used a rolling system and did REALLY well, so their skills usually suffer a bit, but at least they arent skill based. Monks also have a Wizard-like syndrome in it takes them a long time to get to that uber-point(and its a bit longer than a wizard, who starts to become rather formidable after scoring 3rd and 4th level spells, or 5-7 range.) I

I tried building a power based monk once for the hell of it...it did not work well at all.

[hackmastergeneral]

Odd. I think I've taken Improved Init with every single arcane caster I've ever created in D&D 3.x, and I see that feat reasonably often in all-core caster builds on the CO board. It's just, the non-core builds have so many ultra-cheesy options available that Improved Init gets left behind.

At first level, if human, Improved Init is a great option. I can make a HUGE difference later on down the road. If you don't take it at 1st, you likely won't.

I always take it. If I play a human anything, my bonus human feat is 95% of the time improved init.

[Ozymandias]

I'm not saying its entirely balanced, but then again, the game isn't designed for 1v1 combat between character classes. This isn't WoW, and we aren't playing PvP. If we were, I reckon the Warlock of Duskblade would win anyway.

Ha, no. The warlock is a glorified archer, better suited for MMO-style PvE grinding (killing low level opponents for hours on end) than short and furious PvP against a similar-levelled opponent. The duskblade's spellcasting abilities don't keep pace at higher levels.

[LogicNinja]

If your being fair, taking Wizard 20, versus Fighter 20, with the rules for extra cash from the DMG on starting at higher level, you may be suprised by the outcome. The fight really will boil down to initiative, because a good fighter can, and will, one shot charge a wizard, or get within range and deny him casting capabilties through AoOs.

I'm not saying its entirely balanced, but then again, the game isn't designed for 1v1 combat between character classes. This isn't WoW, and we aren't playing PvP. If we were, I reckon the Warlock of Duskblade would win anyway.

The problem is, the wizard has all-day buffs like Moment of Prescience (expend it on the Init check, which is a dex check), Contingency (Dimension Door the wizard 500 feet up), extended Foresight, and the like.

Besides, unless you went with Shock Trooper, splattering the wizard in one hit is very difficult. Denying the wizard casting due to AoOs just plain doesn't work, due to casting defensively, Quickened spells, still Dimension Doors, and so on.

Hell, the wizard could just teleport out, then scry and kill the fighter at his leisure.


***

Monks are terrible, as the monk player in my tabletop game is discovering. They can't *do* anything. They're okay at keeping themselves alive (mobility, saves), but they can't stand up to anything tough in melee, and can't really contribute much to the combat, round-for-round.

[hackmastergeneral]

My point wasn't "fighters are better than wizards" or anything else.

My point was, at high levels, there are more things that can nerf a wizard in combat and make them totally useless than there are things that can totally nerf a fighter and make him totally useless.

When a wizard IS able to go at 10+, its sick. And yes, they deal way more damage per hit than most fighters will. HOWEVER, a fighter is ALWAYS useful. A wizard runs out of spells, fails spell penetration, runs into energy/magic immunity etc etc. Wizards don't get insane amounts of spells. A reasonably long run can seriously deplete a wizards spell resources even at 15+. And stopping to rest every other battle may not be an option.

Every spell a wizard casts outside battle is one more spell he doesn't have yo contribute to the battle.

A decent fighter build, with the right feat selection, PrCs or cross class options, and the right equipment, is never a bad thing. Its more of a dip class, or a base class you multiclass out of quickly, but I've yet to see a bad fighter that wasn't solely from a bad build. Our group has been playing since AD&D 1st ed, and has been playing since 3ed first came out, and fighter is always a base class option. Someone always plays a fighter, because there are VERY nice PrCs and feats for them to take.

[LogicNinja]

My point wasn't "fighters are better than wizards" or anything else.

My point was, at high levels, there are more things that can nerf a wizard in combat and make them totally useless than there are things that can totally nerf a fighter and make him totally useless.
Except that that's a totally ridiculous statement.

When a wizard IS able to go at 10+, its sick. And yes, they deal way more damage per hit than most fighters will. HOWEVER, a fighter is ALWAYS useful. A wizard runs out of spells, fails spell penetration, runs into energy/magic immunity etc etc. Wizards don't get insane amounts of spells. A reasonably long run can seriously deplete a wizards spell resources even at 15+. And stopping to rest every other battle may not be an option.

Every spell a wizard casts outside battle is one more spell he doesn't have yo contribute to the battle.
Fighters can and will deal far more damage than wizards, who shouldn't be blasting at all. Why would the wizard waste his time doing damage? Anyone can do damage. Meanwhile, there are dozens of things only the wizard can possibly do (Ray of Enfeeblement + Ray of Exhaustion, metamagicked Enervation, Wail of the Banshee, Prismatic Wall, Prismatic Sphere over the enemy's head plus Reverse Gravity, Insanity, Power Word Stun, See Invisibility + Glitterdust, Haste, Repulsion, Dominate Monster, etc. etc.), which do a lot more than throwing blasty spells at thing. Caster level plus Spell Penetration easily beats spell resistance. Elemental immunity is totally irrelevant, because, well, see above re: blasting.

The wizard can get through easy encounters spending *one* spell slot. ("Confusion! They whack on each other until one is left, at which point our readied actions finish them off." "Haste; go kill them, I'll be up here.") Tough encounters might eat up five or six or, if you include buffs and low-level spells, hell, ten. A high-level wizard, especially a specialist, has a lot more than that. Something like 60, when you factor in bonus spells from INT, with plenty of high level ones. That's plenty for four encounters/day (the norm); more might require some conservation, but the fighter can and will run out of hit points (and start burning through the cleric's resources) or die in the meantime.

It's almost impossible to find a situation where a wizard can't do something. Even against "magic-immune" golems; no-SR spells FTW. Stone to Mud and Mud to Stone, or just drop a Solid Fog on it and lead it around the Fog with a Ventriloquism. Or trap it in a Forcecage. Antimagic fields are about the only things, but wizards can throw instantaneous conjurations into them from outside; it'd take a Dead Magic Zone or spellbook loss (hint: trap your spellbook) for wizards to truly be rendered ineffective, because they can do so many things.
Fighters, meanwhile, can... move up to something and hit it, or shoot at it. That's not much in the way of options, there.

A decent fighter build, with the right feat selection, PrCs or cross class options, and the right equipment, is never a bad thing. Its more of a dip class, or a base class you multiclass out of quickly, but I've yet to see a bad fighter that wasn't solely from a bad build. Our group has been playing since AD&D 1st ed, and has been playing since 3ed first came out, and fighter is always a base class option. Someone always plays a fighter, because there are VERY nice PrCs and feats for them to take.
A cleric can fill the melee tank role quite nicely, do as well as the fighter, and be a full caster besides. Same for the druid after level 5. Meanwhile, fighters become just plain ineffectual against high-level enemies, who have much higher fly speeds, greater reach and strength, spells and spell-like abilities.
Saying "he shoots it or flies up and hits it" is easy, but unless he's an archer build, he can't shoot it for very much in the way of damage, and flying up and hitting something with a better fly speed and maneuverability, plus Fly-By Attack, is hard.

So what can a fighter do, exactly, against the CR 17-22 monsters in the book? Against a Nightshade or a Great Wyrm or a Balor or the Tarrasque or an Aboleth Mage or a Titan or even a Marilith?

[Victim]

So what can a fighter do, exactly, against the CR 17-22 monsters in the book? Against a Nightshade or a Great Wyrm or a Balor or the Tarrasque or an Aboleth Mage or a Titan or even a Marilith?

Pulp them with a full attack for 100s of damage in a full attack?

Average damage that is, not some theoretical maximum before all of the defenses of the target come into play. Sure, a cleric or druid can be a nasty melee combatant too. But fighters are going to retain more of their effectiveness after dispels, and will also be able to benefit from their buffs (well, not so much from druid) and can use magic items to mimic the effects of a cleric's personal buffs.

Half the options you mentioned for wizards that are more effective than direct damage involve making it easier for the fighter types to apply the beatstick. It's not that strategic domination of fights with spells sucks, but someone still probably has to do that damage.

And it's not like your wizard ideas sit very well versus a Pit Fiend either, since it has the mobility to escape all your battlefield control that isn't accompanied by D-Anchor/Lock, and the saves to shrug off many of your direct save based attacks - even without extra magic from supporting casters or the use of some of its treasure. Poison and grappling might be problematic for the wizard without some cross class buffs.

[Rachel Cartacos]

So what can a fighter do, exactly, against the CR 17-22 monsters in the book? Against a Nightshade or a Great Wyrm or a Balor or the Tarrasque or an Aboleth Mage or a Titan or even a Marilith?

A fighter has lots of options!

He can stab them in the eye! Or the ear! Or the throat! Or the leg!

See, lots of things for fighters to do!

[CowboyEnergy]

I've been wondering which side the Ninja is? Is the ninja one of the crappier classes or better?

I've noticed that while they can do a ton of damage, it mostly depends on sudden strike. Now this is all well and good, but you can usually only use it once on an opponent and then it gets wise.

I've got a ninja character at about lvl. 15, and they are a lot of fun to play with Ghost Step though.

[Bradford C. Walker]

High-level melee combat emphasizes mobility to maximize your Full Attacks while denying the enemy theirs. Fighters are not as mobile as many of the monsters that they face, especially those used as bosses. Clerics, druids, wizards and other top-end classes are that mobile.

[Victim]

High-level melee combat emphasizes mobility to maximize your Full Attacks while denying the enemy theirs. Fighters are not as mobile as many of the monsters that they face, especially those used as bosses. Clerics, druids, wizards and other top-end classes are that mobile.

Fighters (and most Clerics) aren't intrinsically mobile in combat. At high levels, not having something as a class feature doesn't mean a character doesn't have it.

[KoboldLord]

I was thinking much the same thing. He has to be joking as basically the argument states "If we take a test in which we take away the fighets key abilities and restrict him to mundane gear, then give the Wizard as many bonuses possible, by, you know, allowing to craft anything for free, immediately, having all the right spells ready, having free premanancy on anything he can cast etc. etc. etc. he'll win."

Odd that!

If your being fair, taking Wizard 20, versus Fighter 20, with the rules for extra cash from the DMG on starting at higher level, you may be suprised by the outcome. The fight really will boil down to initiative, because a good fighter can, and will, one shot charge a wizard, or get within range and deny him casting capabilties through AoOs.

Exactly. The only reason you even momentarily believed I was seriously advocating that as a valid comparison is that so many people here do advocate exactly that as a valid comparison, even in this very thread. Those rules are absurd.

The problem is, the wizard has all-day buffs like Moment of Prescience (expend it on the Init check, which is a dex check), Contingency (Dimension Door the wizard 500 feet up), extended Foresight, and the like.

One charge that combines Power Attack, Leap Attack, and Shock Trooper will kill a equal-level wizard regardless of these countermeasures.

Besides, unless you went with Shock Trooper, splattering the wizard in one hit is very difficult.

Do charge fighters EVER not take Shock Trooper?

Denying the wizard casting due to AoOs just plain doesn't work, due to casting defensively, Quickened spells, still Dimension Doors, and so on.

Mage Slayer. Assuming the fighter has nothing but Weapon Specialization is NOT a fair comparison. Mage Slayer is a routine feat choice in any reach or AoO fighter build. And it is a prerequisite to several other feats that completely and utterly screw enemy wizards over.

Hell, the wizard could just teleport out, then scry and kill the fighter at his leisure.

Failing whatever his current mission is, giving the fighter experience... And the fighter can use scry-and-die, too, just not as cost-effectively. Use Magic Device works just fine cross-class. The fact that fighters virtually never do stoop to this in actual play shows that they really don't need to.

Besides, scry-and-die is overrated. If you cast teleport, you've just used your action for the round. That means that everything in the entire world gets its action before you get your next action, including the entire enemy party that you are trying to ambush. No matter where in the initiative order you rolled.

Fighters can and will deal far more damage than wizards, who shouldn't be blasting at all. Why would the wizard waste his time doing damage? Anyone can do damage. Meanwhile, there are dozens of things only the wizard can possibly do (Ray of Enfeeblement + Ray of Exhaustion, metamagicked Enervation, Wail of the Banshee, Prismatic Wall, Prismatic Sphere over the enemy's head plus Reverse Gravity, Insanity, Power Word Stun, See Invisibility + Glitterdust, Haste, Repulsion, Dominate Monster, etc. etc.), which do a lot more than throwing blasty spells at thing. Caster level plus Spell Penetration easily beats spell resistance. Elemental immunity is totally irrelevant, because, well, see above re: blasting.

Most of that crap is stopped by either Death Ward or Mind Blank, both of which come standard issue on L20 characters regardless of class. Most CR 20 monsters will fail any of the three saves only on a 1, even when they aren't immune to death or mind-affecting effects outright. Meanwhile, a wizard is threatened with death by a single (ECL-4)CR mook with a spiked chain, Mage Slayer, and Pierce Magical Concealment.

It's almost impossible to find a situation where a wizard can't do something. Even against "magic-immune" golems; no-SR spells FTW. Stone to Mud and Mud to Stone, or just drop a Solid Fog on it and lead it around the Fog with a Ventriloquism. Or trap it in a Forcecage. Antimagic fields are about the only things, but wizards can throw instantaneous conjurations into them from outside; it'd take a Dead Magic Zone or spellbook loss (hint: trap your spellbook) for wizards to truly be rendered ineffective, because they can do so many things.
Fighters, meanwhile, can... move up to something and hit it, or shoot at it. That's not much in the way of options, there.

Again, you assume that CR 20 monsters will never have abilities like teleportation, blindsight, or freedom of movement. You assume that EL 20 encounters will never have a monster get close to the wizard, even though doing so would almost certainly kill the wizard. Even though Sunder is possible for any intelligent opponent and severely cramps the wizard's style when it hits the 0 hardness, 1 hit point spell component pouch. Or the Bag of Holding that holds the wizard's spellbook.

Meanwhile, fighters have plenty of options. They have a plethora of options like Sunder, Disarm, Trip, Use Magic Device, use-activated items, and others. Forcecage, Solid Fog, and Transmute Rock to Mud may sound like a good list, but all three spells do basically the same thing: stop somebody from moving. The real versatility of the wizard is not that far ahead of the versatility of the well-built fighter.

Meanwhile, fighters become just plain ineffectual against high-level enemies, who have much higher fly speeds, greater reach and strength, spells and spell-like abilities.
Saying "he shoots it or flies up and hits it" is easy, but unless he's an archer build, he can't shoot it for very much in the way of damage, and flying up and hitting something with a better fly speed and maneuverability, plus Fly-By Attack, is hard.

Man, it's called Readying an Action to Trip. It really hurts when you're flying 200 feet up and it happens to you.

So what can a fighter do, exactly, against the CR 17-22 monsters in the book? Against a Nightshade or a Great Wyrm or a Balor or the Tarrasque or an Aboleth Mage or a Titan or even a Marilith?

He can charge with Power Attack, Leap Attack, and Shock Trooper for a +80 minimum bonus to damage from Power Attack alone, and get a similar bonus to a Karmic Strike AoO before every single one of the opponent's attempted attacks. Then he can full attack and kill it.

Meanwhile, what can the wizard do? Hope it rolls a 1 on a save before it kills the wizard? Plink at it with force spells? Spend an action to force it to spend an action teleporting out of whatever petty battlefield control spell the wizard attempts? Pray it doesn't have access to Lion's Charge from item or spell?

Granted, I'm oversimplifying on the wizard's options. Those opponents are hard, but conceivably winnable fights, depending on circumstances. However, they are the same for a fighter, as long as you don't unreasonably gimp the fighter's options.

Please don't use my list when comparing fighters and wizards.

[Sangrolu]

Except that that's a totally ridiculous statement.

Indeed... the wizard can generally escape after the Mordenkainin's Disjunction hits. :D

However...

I find most arguments to the tune of "wizard versus fighter" ridiculous, because it fails to recognize the fundamental team/niche protection nature of D&D, and the challenges that it typically face. Many recognize scenarios in which one class can "beat" the other in a contextless one-to-one grudge match. Most experienced D&D players also recognize that without special accommodations by the DM, weaknesses in certain party roles will harm the chances of success at a typical adventure.

Now, one of the fundamental questions to me when considering whether to allow or dismiss a new class is whether it makes an existing class filling a certain role obsolete. Doing such is not good for the game. It amounts to power escalation and narrows the variety in the game, as the superior choice becomes the only choice.


However, within these constraints of analysis (i.e., I am NOT going to be facing off a fighter and a wizard and pretend it says anything pertinent about the game), I think that Warblade and perhaps Swordsage are very strong, and Shadowcaster and Truenamer are weak.

The CW samurai sucks for different reasons. First, it has little resemblance to anything but a specific subset of its namesake. Second, it's painfully specific and has no excuse to exist as a separate class. It should be a fighter perhaps with a new feat chain.

I'm in the minority for this, but I also think the likes of the Duskblade have no business existing, and "suck". The duskblade is a very specific. Unlike achieving such a build through using multi classing and prestige classes, you can't achieve a variety of effects and can pretty much only do one build. It does not combine well with other classes. You can't pick up other spells, or emphasize certain aspects. It might be quick and easy. okay for a quick dungeon bash, but for long duration gaming, it's a bust for flexibility in builds.

[Balac]

So..um..as someone who as always like playing Fighter-types how would you build a 'good' hand-to-hand fighter? A lot of the stuff from Book of Nine Swords looks real nice but my min/max skills are weak. A little help?

[BASHMAN]

Favored Soul is nasty! Weapon Specialization, Spontaneous Casting, All 3 saves are good, Wings, and Damage Reduction!

Warlock is worse. Flings arcane blasts at will!

[Rachel Cartacos]

The CW samurai sucks for different reasons. First, it has little resemblance to anything but a specific subset of its namesake. Second, it's painfully specific and has no excuse to exist as a separate class. It should be a fighter perhaps with a new feat chain.

I think Samurai should be like this.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html

[Ozymandias]

So..um..as someone who as always like playing Fighter-types how would you build a 'good' hand-to-hand fighter? A lot of the stuff from Book of Nine Swords looks real nice but my min/max skills are weak. A little help?

Power attack with a greatsword. Everything else is just details.

Your other option is to trip people with a spiked chain.

[Moonstone Spider]

I've been wondering which side the Ninja is? Is the ninja one of the crappier classes or better?

I've noticed that while they can do a ton of damage, it mostly depends on sudden strike. Now this is all well and good, but you can usually only use it once on an opponent and then it gets wise.

I've got a ninja character at about lvl. 15, and they are a lot of fun to play with Ghost Step though.
Sadly, Ninjas are quite inferior to Scouts and Rogues in the "Trapfinding Skillmonkey" slot. Sudden Strike requires your enemy to be totally flatfooted, and the ability to go invisible is suddenly a lot less useful when you realize the sheer number of mid-to-high level enemies who have see invisible or tremorsense or blindsense or the blindfight feat or umpteen dozen other special abilities that nerf invisibility. This means the Ninja's only chance to get sudden strike is to win initiative and hope you can get in a single attack, after that you're nerfed for the rest of the battle. Ninjas do have their upside, etherealness and the will save boost have both saved me hide playing ninjas a time or two. But it's so hard to sudden strike about 75% of enemies (Source: A funny feeling I had) that it gets painful.

Rogues at least have options to flank a lot and many good rogues bring a bag of tricks along so they can summon up some pals to flank with, and scouts will pretty much skirmish every single round against a non-immune monsters. Plus both of those classes have more skill points, and the PHB2 Rogue alternate ability gives a Rogue something useful to do with sneak attack even against Undead and such.

[Victim]

I'm in the minority for this, but I also think the likes of the Duskblade have no business existing, and "suck". The duskblade is a very specific. Unlike achieving such a build through using multi classing and prestige classes, you can't achieve a variety of effects and can pretty much only do one build. It does not combine well with other classes. You can't pick up other spells, or emphasize certain aspects. It might be quick and easy. okay for a quick dungeon bash, but for long duration gaming, it's a bust for flexibility in builds.

I think the Duskblade is an interesting class. It probably supports more builds than you might think: Whirlwind Attack actually works well for duskblades with the full attack channeling, Sudden metamagic may replace some combat feats for better spells or channeling. But all the Duskblade class abilities basically boil down to extra actions. They can use channeling to cast a (touch) spell AND attack. Quick Cast gives them more things to do in a round, and even without it many of their spells start off as swift or immediate actions. Using a Quick Cast True Strike + Power Attack + Channeled Shocking Grasp or Vampiric Touch may be an obvious move, but what about using that Quick Cast to Dimension Hop away from enemies after making your attacks? Or maybe you can't quick cast something, since you used an immediate action counteracting an attacker before your turn. When you can do more things, it's more about what extra things you do than the platform used to get to do extra things.

[vitus979]

Power attack with a greatsword. Everything else is just details.

Your other option is to trip people with a spiked chain.

There's the Mounted lancer as well. The best one to my knowledge is basically.....

Fighter 5/Halfling Outrider 3/Cavalier 10/Something else 2

Pick up Leadership for a good cohort mount (or better yet get Dragon Cohort from Draconomicron).

Why the Outrider 3? It allows you to charge over difficult terrain and through ally squares. AFAIK it's the only ability in the game like that.

Why a Halfling? Because then your mount is only medium size (and you can get dragon mounts earlier because they only have to be medium) meaning you and your mount can go through any space a human can.

[hackmastergeneral]

Sadly, Ninjas are quite inferior to Scouts and Rogues in the "Trapfinding Skillmonkey" slot. Sudden Strike requires your enemy to be totally flatfooted, and the ability to go invisible is suddenly a lot less useful when you realize the sheer number of mid-to-high level enemies who have see invisible or tremorsense or blindsense or the blindfight feat or umpteen dozen other special abilities that nerf invisibility. This means the Ninja's only chance to get sudden strike is to win initiative and hope you can get in a single attack, after that you're nerfed for the rest of the battle. Ninjas do have their upside, etherealness and the will save boost have both saved me hide playing ninjas a time or two. But it's so hard to sudden strike about 75% of enemies (Source: A funny feeling I had) that it gets painful.

Rogues at least have options to flank a lot and many good rogues bring a bag of tricks along so they can summon up some pals to flank with, and scouts will pretty much skirmish every single round against a non-immune monsters. Plus both of those classes have more skill points, and the PHB2 Rogue alternate ability gives a Rogue something useful to do with sneak attack even against Undead and such.

In a highly urban and low combat/non dungeon campaign, a ninja would rock. Especially if you have a group of about 6 or so, and already have a rogue.

For dungeon crawls, after a certain level, ninja just begin to fall behind, as others said. However, again, in a large group with lots of role play and another rogue, theres few treasons NOT to play a ninja if you want to,.

I'm playing in a Pirates campaign, and I thought to play a Ninja, and give him the Dread Pirate PrC...A PIRATE-NINJA! The world would implode from the sheer awesome.

[CowboyEnergy]

Interesting. I wonder which class I should multi it with then

[Sangrolu]

I think the Duskblade is an interesting class. It probably supports more builds than you might think: Whirlwind Attack actually works well for duskblades with the full attack channeling,

Yeah, I can juggle around my feats. All characters can do that. But the Duskblade has no bonus feats and it does not combine well with other classes. I can't, with the duskblade, viably make the build more or less "fightery" or "magely", can't focus on anything but the short list of combat buff spells so can't use those for emphasis. I can't make a necromantic death knight fighter or defensive figher or blast-then-slash fighter. These are things I can do with the likes of fighter, wizard (or other arcanist classes), bladesinger, eldritch knight, spellsword, and abjurant champion.

[Wolfwood2]

Yeah, I can juggle around my feats. All characters can do that. But the Duskblade has no bonus feats and it does not combine well with other classes. I can't, with the duskblade, viably make the build more or less "fightery" or "magely", can't focus on anything but the short list of combat buff spells so can't use those for emphasis. I can't make a necromantic death knight fighter or defensive figher or blast-then-slash fighter. These are things I can do with the likes of fighter, wizard (or other arcanist classes), bladesinger, eldritch knight, spellsword, and abjurant champion.

Surely the better comparison is a paladin.

[hackmastergeneral]

Yeah, I can juggle around my feats. All characters can do that. But the Duskblade has no bonus feats and it does not combine well with other classes. I can't, with the duskblade, viably make the build more or less "fightery" or "magely", can't focus on anything but the short list of combat buff spells so can't use those for emphasis. I can't make a necromantic death knight fighter or defensive figher or blast-then-slash fighter. These are things I can do with the likes of fighter, wizard (or other arcanist classes), bladesinger, eldritch knight, spellsword, and abjurant champion.

I think, as time goes on, you'll see a few more PrCs that support the Duskblades unique abilities. You can't dual class very well, because this class didn't exist before, and thus its unique abilities couldn't possibly be supported before.

You are right, PrCing out or dual classing will make you lose out on your special abilities. Same with Warlock and Dragon Shammie, unless you use specific PrCs designed for them. But you'll see this come out with subsequent books. They ARE a pretty deadly class at low levels.

Duskblades are AWESOME with a spiked chain.

[LogicNinja]

People way overestimate the Spiked Chain. It's by and large not worth blowing a feat on, especially for a feat-short class like Duskblade--a Guisarme and armor spikes or spiked gauntlets will get you the 5' and 10' reach. The Spiked Chain is just one of a very few weapons actually sort of worth the EWP, but still, it can very easily be done without.

As to whoever said Warlock was uber/broken/badass/etc--yeah, not so much, no. A few d6es a round does not for an important combat contribution make. The Warlock can last all day and be hard to hurt, much like a monk--but, again much like the monk, he can't really *contribute* much each combat round.

[vitus979]

You are right, PrCing out or dual classing will make you lose out on your special abilities. Same with Warlock and Dragon Shammie, unless you use specific PrCs designed for them. But you'll see this come out with subsequent books.

The same seems to be the case with most of the non-core base classes.

[Christopher V. Brady]

I think Samurai should be like this.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html

Agreed.

[Kurotowa]

IMO, prestige classes are a patch on the failings of the core classes in the PHB. They get their signature abilities early and are light on good stuff at the back end, they plateau off at high levels, and there are too many dead levels where you don't get any cool new toys. Prestige classes were required to make up for all this and keep pace with the casters.

The newer base classes avoid most of this. Their abilities scale with level, there are useful powers at the high end, and there are much fewer dead levels. You have strong incentives to stick with the class for a full 20 levels. I'm actually loving this. No having to plan my character around PrC requirements far in the future, just pick something fun like Dread Necromancer or Dragon Shaman and play it.

[hackmastergeneral]

The same seems to be the case with most of the non-core base classes.

It depends. There are lots of good prestige classes for Wizards, Clerics, Druids, Barbarians, Paladins, Rangers and Fighters that allow them to still advance in their core class abilities, or not lose out TOO much.

Warlocks are getting some nice PrCs in Complete Mage, that still allow them to advance in Incantations.

Warmages aren't SO bad - a good blasty type PrC is good enough for them. Argent Savant is working for mine, though I vary it to Firey Savant, so the bonuses work for the multitude of Fire based spells WMs get, rather than the handful of Force based ones. Assassin seems to fit perfectly with a Ninja, Combat Medic is AWESOME for a Healer, or other Heal based Divine Caster.

Rogues actually have been screwed in the PrC department more than any other Core class, as few Rogue specific PrCs allow them to advance in their big class abilities - you are usually sacrificing Sneak Attack, which is a BIG sacrifice. Theres a nice PrC in one of the recent books (Cityscape?) that allows them to keep sneak attack AND gives you nice abilities.

[Similarian]

So..um..as someone who as always like playing Fighter-types how would you build a 'good' hand-to-hand fighter? A lot of the stuff from Book of Nine Swords looks real nice but my min/max skills are weak. A little help?
Reply With Quote


If you're using the book of nine swords, the Warblade is a very nice melee focused fighter (indeed, he sucks at ranged attacks), who tends to be the closest to a traditional fighter, although they can be a bit of a pain to build to the Martial Adept rules.

The benefits to the Warblade are pretty simple, for fighter only feats, you'll count as a fighter-2, so most of those are open to you. The class ability to change your Weapon Focus/Spec day by day makes the feats a lot more useful. You get some bonus feats, and the best recovery mechanic for maneuvers out of all the martial adepts. Extra skills, and some nice Int based abilities fit well with a decent Int score. This can be a bit of an issue, since they're a litle more multi-attribute dependant than a fighter (most want Str, Con, and Int, to the fighter's Str and Con).

Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, and White Raven all have some very nice tricks, Tiger Claw is good for TWFers and damage (although it requires the most "maneuver investment" as many of the Tiger Claw Maneuvers need more prereqs than other styles' same level maneuvers.) Due to your limited maneuvers, you'll probably end up focusing in one or two, and possibly dabbling in another.

The downsides to a Warblade are the very strong focus on melee, since they're pretty terrible ranged fighters without a specific PrC. As mentioned, they tend to be a bit more MAD than fighters, although it isn't a big problem.

The real issue is their use of maneuvers. They tend to have a few rounds of tricks, take a round to "re-charge" and then start back up. Since most maneuver strikes are standard actions, they're less likely to take full attack actions. When they hit their re-charge phase, they tend to be less effective than a fighter, since most don't have the same brutally effective feat trees, whose lack they tend to make up for in the manuevers they use.

[Sangrolu]

I think, as time goes on, you'll see a few more PrCs that support the Duskblades unique abilities.

I've yet to see any PrC's that play off the relatively popular hexblade, so I'm dubious we'll see the same for duskblade.

There are a few that work well with the (even more popular) warlock, but most of those are also primarily for arcane classes.

But what it comes down to is this: most PrCs for arcane casters will work fairly well with any 9-spell-levels, broad list base class. (For an example, the wild heart in complete mage has a sample character that is a wu jen. I could just as easily use a third party class like eldritch weaver.). You start designing PrCs targeted at hybrids, it becomes a lot more difficult to keep those classes usable for any other classes.

[langeweile]

Rogues actually have been screwed in the PrC department more than any other Core class, as few Rogue specific PrCs allow them to advance in their big class abilities - you are usually sacrificing Sneak Attack, which is a BIG sacrifice. Theres a nice PrC in one of the recent books (Cityscape?) that allows them to keep sneak attack AND gives you nice abilities.

I really can't see your point there.
Every line - from Core (Arcane Trickster, Assassin, Black Guard) to Complete Series (C Adv has tons, and even CW has some) to local books (Faerun, Ebboron, ...) to whatever other splat - has some PrC including +Xd6 sneak attack. You might loose up to about 2d6 over 10 levels, but you gain tons of other superb abilities (Arcane Trickster: kickass casting to channel into a strikes if nothing else; Nightsong Infiltrator: kickass teamwork; Skullclan Hunter: peerless undead slayer; ...). It might hurt a bit, but it easily balances out - and that +1 or +2 dice sneak attack don't scale that exponentially as those +1 or +2 spell levels more for caster classes.
Frankly, second to maybe only the fighter (due his tons'o'extra feats) the rouge is the best entry class for multiclassing on this side of the moon.

[hackmastergeneral]

I really can't see your point there.
Every line - from Core (Arcane Trickster, Assassin, Black Guard) to Complete Series (C Adv has tons, and even CW has some) to local books (Faerun, Ebboron, ...) to whatever other splat - has some PrC including +Xd6 sneak attack. You might loose up to about 2d6 over 10 levels, but you gain tons of other superb abilities (Arcane Trickster: kickass casting to channel into a strikes if nothing else; Nightsong Infiltrator: kickass teamwork; Skullclan Hunter: peerless undead slayer; ...). It might hurt a bit, but it easily balances out - and that +1 or +2 dice sneak attack don't scale that exponentially as those +1 or +2 spell levels more for caster classes.
Frankly, second to maybe only the fighter (due his tons'o'extra feats) the rouge is the best entry class for multiclassing on this side of the moon.

Most rogue PrCs I've seen are either niche classes only good for a very limited set of circumstances, or excellent at some things, but not great at the things that make a rogue a rogue.

Arcane Trickster - great class, not for how I like to play my rogues, plus you have to take spellcasting levels outside of rogue to qualify, and the spells you are casting are so far below the primary spellcasters you may as well not bother. Skullclan Hunter - if the campaign is VERY undead centric, sure. Get past undead for any length of time, and those are wasted levels.

There are few generalist ROGUE PrCs that allow the rogue to be what is best about the class - someone who can work anywhere, with any kind of situation.

Shadowdancer - great PrC for hiding and getting your sneak attacks - but you don't gain any SA dice, so its a big sacrifice to take it. Same with Temple Raider of Ollidamara - great dungeony class, but again, no SA dice.

Most Rogue specific PrCs are area-specific. Great for a city campaign, sucks for dungeon crawling. Great for dungeon crawling, sucks for city campaigns. Great for skills and schmoozing, sucks for anything combat related. Great for combat, sucks for skills and schmoozing.

No other class has to sacrifice as much to qualify for good PrCs like rogues do. There are fighter PrCs that give them full BAB, same hit die, and keep fighter bonus feats as well as neat abilities. Same with wizards and clerics and druids - full spell progression, turning and/or healing, wild shaping, etc. GREAT barbarian prestige classes that turn rage on its head and make it really cool, and accentuate all the great things about Barbs.

Rogues do not get that. They either have to multiclass out of rogue, and grab a PrC that doesn't really fit the "stereotypical" rogue (Arcane Trickster), or sacrifice class abilities, or are only good for one particular niche.

I have yet to find a PrC for my rogues I've played that makes me want to take it. I always loose too much (either mechanically or RP wise for my character concept) to make it worth the bother.

[LogicNinja]

Rogues are ALREADY generalists. Rogue prestige classes are by and large for rogues who want to multiclass or specialize.

[langeweile]

I have yet to find a PrC for my rogues I've played that makes me want to take it. I always loose too much (either mechanically or RP wise for my character concept) to make it worth the bother.

Then please read again the Nightsong Enforcer, as by my example given (10 LvLs):
Lose: 1d6 sneak attack, some skills
Gain: Full BAB (exactly what you need to get your 4th attack !), teamwork (you only play solo ?), rouge special abilities as you would do with rouge anyway
Qualify: Trivial with Rouge 7 (two skills you'd need anyway, feat that you'll likely want as rouge anyway, some RP'ing)

And the Skullclan hunter ? You qualify by taking Cleric 1, which is on of the munchkinny choices anyway (gain all cleric wandusage and stuff without having to default to unreliable UMD, gain 2 free domains abilitites like luck (!!), gain +2 fort, +2 will - rouge's archilles heel anyway.)
You loose 2d6 sneak (but keep 3d6 over 10 LvLs), a little bit of skills. You gain - besides kicking undead (like the most common monster through all levels in D&D) around and gaining sneak attack against them, another oh-so-bad no-go area for rouges, usually - good will save and immunities to about every bad shit that can happen to you later on. Not good against non-undead - what ?!

Arcane trickster: Loosing 3d6 sneak and some skill points (not even really lost) for all that bonus to possible sneak attack (impromptu !) and the legerdemain stuff - and on top of that I easily get 8th LvL spells by 20th - giving me a superior array of buffs, utility, intelligence and self protection spells available, plus superb item creation (one feat: craft wondreous item).

I'd take any of those three over rouge 20 without 2nd thought, not losing any generalist ability on the way !

No other class has to sacrifice as much to qualify for good PrCs like rogues do. There are fighter PrCs that give them full BAB, same hit die, and keep fighter bonus feats as well as neat abilities. Same with wizards and clerics and druids - full spell progression, turning and/or healing, wild shaping, etc. GREAT barbarian prestige classes that turn rage on its head and make it really cool, and accentuate all the great things about Barbs.

Which class, exactly, are you referring to ?
Cause bonus feats, all other fighter stuff, and class features ? I don't remember a single one ! And... what about entry stuff to them ?!

[Fenris]

That Nightsong Enforcer sounds very cool....I like the Rogue class(my very first D&D char was a thief so its good memories), but yeah, occationaly i sort of have trouble finding PrCs that i really like for them. That Temple Raider was quite cool but as mentioned, unless you level your rogue up pretty high to have good Sneak Attack it sort of loses it. Tho i guess in a dungeon setting the abilities gained are nice. But Rogue and Sneak Attack go together with me, i dunno...Im loathe to give that up, as i am the skills.

As for Barbarian PrCs...does anyone here like the Frostrager? I love that class, its only 5 levels...but it allows for a quick Fighter dip for a few extra feats. i remember for the longest time, i wanted to build an unarmed fighter who was more of the big, burly grappling type(a Jotunbrud from FR). I had SO much trouble finding a class that fit him...Monk didnt fit the concept, neither did Sacred Fist...I was going to settle for a Fighter/Bbn cross build(who just cant seem to get great at unarmed as it is), til i found the Frostrager. Coming from a frigid Northen area, the class flavor, and class abilities fit perfectly and i was a happy gamer. :D I love when that happens.

[La Maupin]

I suspect we aren't going to see a whole lot of swordsages in the miniatures line - the bread and butter of the swordsage is its massive number of maneuvers and tactical options, and the miniatures game doesn't work well when you have more tactical options than can comfortably fit on a standard-sized trading card in 6-point type.

Shame, it's my favorite class out of Tome of Battle.

[Ze Confessor]

As we're discussing rogues now--anyone know a good Rogue/Cleric PrC? Kind of like the Arcane Trickster PrC for clerics? I saw one on the OotS site (yeah, unofficial but I don't particularly care), but I'd like to peek at others as well.

[langeweile]

As we're discussing rogues now--anyone know a good Rogue/Cleric PrC? Kind of like the Arcane Trickster PrC for clerics? I saw one on the OotS site (yeah, unofficial but I don't particularly care), but I'd like to peek at others as well.

Didn't look above ?
Skullclan Hunter (Miniatures) is absolutely uber, if you want to focus on undead / rouge stuff (weak on casting, though). Black Flame Zealot from CD is ok, but not great, if you like the feel. The best with casting progression is probably the Shadowbane Stalker from CAdv, but it's a good bit restricted.
Try your favorite setting book, that might work far better.
If you just want divine casting, the Daggerspell Shaper from CAdv is probably a quite good deal, if you're ok with the feat investment...

[Elemental]

As we're discussing rogues now--anyone know a good Rogue/Cleric PrC? Kind of like the Arcane Trickster PrC for clerics? I saw one on the OotS site (yeah, unofficial but I don't particularly care), but I'd like to peek at others as well.

Shadowbane Stalker, from Complete Adventurer, sounds like it would fit the bill nicely. It is pretty much what it sounds like, a PrC designed for multiclass rogue / clerics.

[Ze Confessor]

Skullclan Hunter (Miniatures) is absolutely uber, if you want to focus on undead / rouge stuff (weak on casting, though). Black Flame Zealot from CD is ok, but not great, if you like the feel. The best with casting progression is probably the Shadowbane Stalker from CAdv, but it's a good bit restricted.

Shadowbane Stalker is closest to what I want. I basically want clerical spell progression--or some of it--with rogue abilities. Unfortunately, Shadowbane is LG, and I want it for my CG rogue/cleric who worships a luck god. Hrm. :)

[Wolfwood2]

Shadowbane Stalker is closest to what I want. I basically want clerical spell progression--or some of it--with rogue abilities. Unfortunately, Shadowbane is LG, and I want it for my CG rogue/cleric who worships a luck god. Hrm. :)

You could always just ask your DM to use a differently flavored version for chaotic good characters with all the same mechanics.

I really don't know what the designer was thinking with Shadowbane Stalker. Isn't it obvious that the big PrC demand is something for all those rogue/clerics of trickster gods? Who was clamoring for a lawful rogue/cleric PrC?

[langeweile]

Shadowbane Stalker is closest to what I want. I basically want clerical spell progression--or some of it--with rogue abilities. Unfortunately, Shadowbane is LG, and I want it for my CG rogue/cleric who worships a luck god. Hrm. :)

Hard. Cleric already is about as kickass as he could be.
Adding sneak attack would actually just break it, I think. Best way is to go cloistered cleric (variant class: Unearthed Arcana - 6+Int skills, Knowledge Domain, Lore = Bardic Knowledge, Low BAB and light armor) and trickery domain to push up your skills. Maybe either use silence to replace move silent or ask your GM to put on your class list. Substitute super-high wisdom, spells and items for spot / listen.
Or just go with something like the templeraider from CD and accept a reduced spellcasting list. Maybe Stalker of Karash (Exalted Deeds) - a bit rouge / ranger'ish PrC with full casting, full BAB and 6+Int skills (just NG though). Maybe one of the tons of Harper classes from FR floating around...

[Ydirbut]

I'm not saying its entirely balanced, but then again, the game isn't designed for 1v1 combat between character classes. This isn't WoW, and we aren't playing PvP. If we were, I reckon the Warlock of Duskblade would win anyway. Are you claiming a one-on-one warrior vs. mage fight in WoW is balanced?

[Victim]

As for Barbarian PrCs...does anyone here like the Frostrager? I love that class, its only 5 levels...but it allows for a quick Fighter dip for a few extra feats. i remember for the longest time, i wanted to build an unarmed fighter who was more of the big, burly grappling type(a Jotunbrud from FR). I had SO much trouble finding a class that fit him...Monk didnt fit the concept, neither did Sacred Fist...I was going to settle for a Fighter/Bbn cross build(who just cant seem to get great at unarmed as it is), til i found the Frostrager. Coming from a frigid Northen area, the class flavor, and class abilities fit perfectly and i was a happy gamer. :D I love when that happens.

It didn't work at all for my ex-monk barbarian because the Frostrager's unarmed damage increases don't work with monk ones. :(

[vitus979]

As we're discussing rogues now--anyone know a good Rogue/Cleric PrC? Kind of like the Arcane Trickster PrC for clerics? I saw one on the OotS site (yeah, unofficial but I don't particularly care), but I'd like to peek at others as well.

So why don't you just get a Arcane Divine Trickster? It's not what I'd call a difficult conversion.

[Sangrolu]

As we're discussing rogues now--anyone know a good Rogue/Cleric PrC?

There's one in Races of Stone IIRC.

[Fenris]

It didn't work at all for my ex-monk barbarian because the Frostrager's unarmed damage increases don't work with monk ones.


I can see that happening with monks. Monks can really get the short end of the stick in a multiclass. It was awesome for a barb dipped in fighter(that sounds twisted :D), because he had nothing but gain from it.

Monks can MAYBE work well with a Wizard multiclass...IF A. You dont mind being a support mage without full casting power, you'll be sacking some spell levels and B. You have some damned good scores...cos you'll need 5 of the 6 stats to pull this properly. Same with Sorc, only instead of INT youll need CHA, two of the monks dumps.

Multiclassing with a Cleric could be interesting, at least you have the Wisdom already. But, again, you sack spell levels.


Bringing me to another multiclassing option. Of course, multiclass under old system was different...nowadays it seems multiclassing can either hurt or help you depending how you do it.

New system, of course, you can dip all you want but yoll spread yourself too thin. A Fighter 10 or Wizard 10 is different from a Fighter/Wizard 5/5. Fighter 10 has oodles of feats, but are starting to wear a bit thin at that midlevel point. 10th level mage has lv. 5 spells. 5th level mage has 3rd level spells...True Strike and Mage armor are great early spells, as is Sleep(sleep, attack, boom), Protection from Normal Missiles and Protection from Evil/Good etc gives a good early level protection. Magic Missile acts as a nice softening up spell. A Lighting Bolt or Fireball or Melf's Minute Meteors can work to soften numerous opponents up before closing for a kill. Dispel Magic can temporarily disable opponents magical gear allowing the fighter side to shine. I think the build can work well, but ive heard a lot of folks(not here, necessarily) kind of put down the fighter/mage builds for some reason.

Ended up changing subject a bit from rogues to multiclassing but Rogues could be included too...Ive seen some really effective fighter/rogue builds that can get really nasty. Typically they dip until 4 where they can grab their 3 extra fighter feats and a 4/6 they get the extra sneak attack.

[BASHMAN]

Meanwhile, the WORST class in the game--hands down, bar none but the NPC classes--is the Complete Warrior's Samurai.

I accept your Challenge. The PH2 Knight stinks to high heaven!

"You there, knight what are your abilities?"

"I am able to not attack flat-footed opponents and not gain a flanking bonus"

"That's an ability? They should lower your CR just for having that. Anything else?"

"Yes, I am able to make all nearby enemies target me, but have no ability to mitigate the effects, thus becoming a human punching bag for however many rounds it takes me to drop. So far, the record is 2."

"you mean you have no special protection at all, even though your job it to take hits?"

"Well, I get armor and shield bonuses to AC! A fat lot of good they do when I anger a wizard into directing his Fireball or Polar Ray at me! Of course, he could just cast spells needing Fort Saves, because mine suck. Even a duskblade is tougher than I am!"

[Christopher V. Brady]

Are you claiming a one-on-one warrior vs. mage fight in WoW is balanced?

He obviously doesn't play a warrior. A Warrior is not a duelist, Magic goes through plate, and directly to Hit points.

Meaning that if a mage has range, the warrior is often quite, quite dead.

Just like in DnD. :)

[vitus979]

A few of the Knight abilities are *very* tough if you're an Area denial guy. IIRC the 3rd level ability turns all terrain you threaten into difficult terrain.

[Katsue]

"you mean you have no special protection at all, even though your job it to take hits?"

"Well, I get armor and shield bonuses to AC!
And D12 Hit Dice, let us not forget.

[LogicNinja]

I accept your Challenge. The PH2 Knight stinks to high heaven!

"You there, knight what are your abilities?"

"I am able to not attack flat-footed opponents and not gain a flanking bonus"

"That's an ability? They should lower your CR just for having that. Anything else?"

"Yes, I am able to make all nearby enemies target me, but have no ability to mitigate the effects, thus becoming a human punching bag for however many rounds it takes me to drop. So far, the record is 2."

"you mean you have no special protection at all, even though your job it to take hits?"

"Well, I get armor and shield bonuses to AC! A fat lot of good they do when I anger a wizard into directing his Fireball or Polar Ray at me! Of course, he could just cast spells needing Fort Saves, because mine suck. Even a duskblade is tougher than I am!"

Are you kidding me? Knights are great--have you seen their level 3 ability? Give the knight a Guisarme, an animated shield, and Improved Trip or (especially!) Stand Still, and he'll draw enemies in and keep them there. Combine with their Vigilant Defender to prevent tumblers. Plus, they actually get a high

Oh, no, a poor fort save--it's less likely to be targeted than the will save, because he looks like a big armored guy, and whereas fighters need to go out of their way to get a decent WIS to up their will saves, Knights can and should have a good CON. If you're really worried about saves, use one of their bonus feats to snag Great Fortitude (and/or dip Paladin 2, since CHA's already a solid priority).

The knight is a solid class. Meanwhile, the Samurai can't do anything.

[langeweile]

I accept your Challenge. The PH2 Knight stinks to high heaven!

"You there, knight what are your abilities?"

"I am able to not attack flat-footed opponents and not gain a flanking bonus"

"That's an ability? They should lower your CR just for having that. Anything else?"

"Yes, I am able to make all nearby enemies target me, but have no ability to mitigate the effects, thus becoming a human punching bag for however many rounds it takes me to drop. So far, the record is 2."

"you mean you have no special protection at all, even though your job it to take hits?"

"Well, I get armor and shield bonuses to AC! A fat lot of good they do when I anger a wizard into directing his Fireball or Polar Ray at me! Of course, he could just cast spells needing Fort Saves, because mine suck. Even a duskblade is tougher than I am!"

The Knight is all about keeping the stuff away from the rest of your party, so they can deal the damage. (For example, you still grant sneak att to the rouge.)
Alone, he's not too impressive - in a team he can swing quite some battles.

He obviously doesn't play a warrior. A Warrior is not a duelist, Magic goes through plate, and directly to Hit points.

Meaning that if a mage has range, the warrior is often quite, quite dead.

Just like in DnD. :)

OT: Ever fought a warrior with >10k HP ? He ain't care for plate / no-plate vs magic. Either you got a damn good strat to keep him from going into melee for more than one attack, or you're meat, no matter what. (Don't want to turn that into a WoW discussion, cause that PvP strats are easily as long as D&D's are, but in WoW a warrior actually is a serious threat to a mage.)

[Rachel Cartacos]

The knight is a solid class. Meanwhile, the Samurai can't do anything.

Samurai can legitmatly weild Katana's! Thus makeing them more powerful than any other class ever to exist!

[Harlekin]

I've yet to see any PrC's that play off the relatively popular hexblade, so I'm dubious we'll see the same for duskblade.

There are a few that work well with the (even more popular) warlock, but most of those are also primarily for arcane classes.

But what it comes down to is this: most PrCs for arcane casters will work fairly well with any 9-spell-levels, broad list base class. (For an example, the wild heart in complete mage has a sample character that is a wu jen. I could just as easily use a third party class like eldritch weaver.). You start designing PrCs targeted at hybrids, it becomes a lot more difficult to keep those classes usable for any other classes.

One of the best Prestige Classes for The Hexblade is actually in the DMG, the Dragon Disciple. Hexblade is one of the few ways to get into the class without loosing BAB, making them quite fearsome in higher levels.

[LogicNinja]

One of the best Prestige Classes for The Hexblade is actually in the DMG, the Dragon Disciple. Hexblade is one of the few ways to get into the class without loosing BAB, making them quite fearsome in higher levels.

I think fearsome is a bit of an exaggeration. Or a lot of an exaggeration.

[BASHMAN]

And D12 Hit Dice, let us not forget.

So 1 more hit point per level than a fighter... Yeah, that's going to save you from the mob you just drew Aggro from...

[BASHMAN]

Samurai can legitmatly weild Katana's! Thus makeing them more powerful than any other class ever to exist!

A katana is just a MW bastard sword. Anybody can wield one.

[Ydirbut]

OT: Ever fought a warrior with >10k HP ? He ain't care for plate / no-plate vs magic. Either you got a damn good strat to keep him from going into melee for more than one attack, or you're meat, no matter what. (Don't want to turn that into a WoW discussion, cause that PvP strats are easily as long as D&D's are, but in WoW a warrior actually is a serious threat to a mage.):eek:

[Katsue]

So 1 more hit point per level than a fighter... Yeah, that's going to save you from the mob you just drew Aggro from...
It might, you know. I've legitimately been on 0 or small negative numbers of hit points several times during my short D&D career.

[Harlekin]

I think fearsome is a bit of an exaggeration. Or a lot of an exaggeration.

That's not what the group I played in thought of my Bab1/Hex4/DD10. A fighter with Str 40 is quite scary. Ever since playing that character I'm convinced that high lvl Fighters in D&D can hold their own damage-wise. (Sorry for telling you about my character)

[wokuma]

This is why the druid is nasty (a summary of RPGnet's druids)

Get augmented summoning and summon a wolf with it's automatic trip. Your companion should be a wolf with the automatic trip. When the enemies stand up they get an attack of opportunity. Then switch to dire wolf at higher levels. If your target flies, summon a flying critter to grapple.

At higher level wild shape into a plant from the MM2 or MM3.

You have to know your available summons and keep stat sheets for every one. You have to know all your wildshape forms and keep (constantly updated) stat sheets for each one.

Do that, though, and you've got the win. Animals forms have very high strength, good movement, and pretty good natural attacks. Just make sure to keep your AC buffed with Barkskin, Cat's Grace, Wild Armor, and Wild Shield. Also, most animal forms have great little tricks like free trip attacks, free grapple attacks, pounce, or rend.

Buff yourself with Bull's Strength, Greater Magic Fang, and Stoneskin, and you can outfight the melee fighters.

You can also use Wildshape to scout effectively. Fly around as a hawk with that +10 to Spot checks and no every detail of the enemy encampment before you go in.

But wait! You're a full caster too. Druids get great battlefield control spells. Use Fog Clouds to stop ranged attacks (your only weakness). Heal yourself with cure spells or others. Occupy the enemy with Sleet Storm. Teleport around with Tree Stride (and at higher levels Transport through Plants). Baleful Polymorph the enemy and Dispel their spells. Entangle them or blast them with Flamestrike.

Oh, and you're a spontaneous Summoner too, which means never having to fight alone. I can't tell you the laughs I've had summoning a couple of Brown Bears, enlarging them with Animal Growth, and sending them out to grapple giants and golems.

Never. Ever. EVER allow a druid to see an Inevitable.

Fucking guy in my TT game kept turning into a Marut and ripping my campaign a new one. Jesus. Shapechange, level 9 spell. So, granted, it's only something to worry about at very high levels.

At lower levels, apes (which have high strength and can wield weapons) can be annoying, too.

True, but a druid has a number of abilities that are unique in leveraging the spell, including decent attack bonus and various 'while in another form' abilities (including natural casting).

I would recommend Dwarf. I wouldn't have before, but under the recently errata wildshape rules:

1. It is now clear that you keep the hit points your natural constitution score gives you, rather than your wildshaped constitution score.

2. Under the new rules, you now get to keep your darkvision in all forms.

The other strong pick is Human. That extra feat is really nice, and druids have a lot of nice skills you could use the extra skill point per level to keep maxed. If he envisions a lot of talking in the campaign, he should go human and use the extra skill points to keep Diplomacy maxed. Then he's a great spellcaster, a combat monster, and a fair social back-up for the win.

Feats, go Augment Summoning. It's totally worth the two feats it takes to get there. Natural Spell is a requirement at sixth level. Any druid would be a fool not to take it. Beyond that, just whatever appeals. He could go metamagic, item creation, or combat feats depending on what he wants his druidic focus to be.

For items, get a Wisdom-enhancing necklace and get Wild-enchanted Armor and Shield as soon as its practical. Also, get a Ring of Protection. A druid's #1 problem in combat is keeping his AC up, and most forms can wear rings.

Summoning druids rape all at low levels. Greenbound Summoning + Augmented Summoning + Ashbound Summoning lets you call out packs of heavily augmented wolves with abilities far out of proportion to their level.

Ah, you might want to look into purchasing the monk's belt. Put it on after you shapeshift (or have your halfling torchbearer do it).

And if you take profession: Spellcaster, so you can sell your spells and look for magic items.

Oh and you can wildshape into something fast and break contact.

Spellcasting Prodigy feat is a must.

Need info? Ask an animal or a plant, or if you are high enough ask the land itself.

This next bit is illegal, but some DM's have to their regret, let this combination in... Get a big tree, add Shape Wood + Awaken + Ironwood + Leadership feat + Ride: Tree and you get... Tree Mecha. Then your tree mecha can get levels in warhulk and a spiked chain...

[hackmastergeneral]

A katana is just a MW bastard sword. Anybody can wield one.

But noone can weild it COOL like a Samurai!

Cutting tanks in half, using it to unmake the fabric of existance. Anyone can slice and swoosh a katana around, but a Samurai makes it WORK.

[langeweile]

That's not what the group I played in thought of my Bab1/Hex4/DD10. A fighter with Str 40 is quite scary. Ever since playing that character I'm convinced that high lvl Fighters in D&D can hold their own damage-wise. (Sorry for telling you about my character)

Any random fighter worth his (frankly quite few) salt should have 30-something in STR by that. Only that even a straight fighter will seriously outmanouver and outdamage you with the about 8 extra feats he'll have, then have better gear (armor), compensate the last +2 Str bonus with better BAB, etc...
Your flight completely sucks - everyone with Boots of Flying will be seriously better off (12k at 15th lvl is nothing), and anything with serious saves to a proper full attack will still kick your ass.
Sorry, but your build is nice, might have flavour and stuff, but there are tons of better builds out there - and that doesn't include any more optimisation than "Take class X straight and use your feats / spells with a little smart" - which are a hell lot better and will play meat punching bag with your char...

[Harlekin]

Any random fighter worth his (frankly quite few) salt should have 30-something in STR by that.


32 is what he can get to relatively easily, assuming he has rage.


Only that even a straight fighter will seriously outmanouver and outdamage you with the about 8 extra feats he'll have, then have better gear (armor),

Why? We both have the same amount of money... And the 8 extra feats are not really that much better than+4 Con, Mettle , a few spells, Rage, Fast Movement, Immunity to one energy type,+10 HP, good wis saves...


compensate the last +2 Str bonus with better BAB, etc...


Here is the misunderstanding:It's +8 Str, not +2. I Gain +1 to attack, +6 to damage over the Simple Fighter.


Your flight completely sucks - everyone with Boots of Flying will be seriously better off (12k at 15th lvl is nothing), and anything with serious saves to a proper full attack will still kick your ass.


Sure, the Flight is almost useless, and so is the breath weapon. But many other Features are quite Nice.


Sorry, but your build is nice, might have flavour and stuff, but there are tons of better builds out there - and that doesn't include any more optimisation than "Take class X straight and use your feats / spells with a little smart" - which are a hell lot better and will play meat punching bag with your char...

While I certainly agree, that this is not a super-power built, practical experience disagrees with your theoretical assessment. I played that character through City of the Spider Queen and it made the GM double the HP on many beasties, bc they would fall too fast otherwise. A typical full attack ag an AC30 beasty would be around 160 damage, & 3 Massive Damage Saves (no crits).

[langeweile]

Harlekin, please... I don't want to start another argument why your choice might be funny, but is easily outperformed by any serious attempt to build a "good" fighter (and I'll leave out char, because we don't need another caster vs fighter issue).

What I can do with 8 feats ?
I can do a trip build which will easily trip non-ancient dragons (look in this thread or the current TWF thread, don't remember the last example.)
I could get: Imp Initiative, Danger Sense, Power Attack, Imp Bull Rush, Leap Attack - effect: I win init and charge you with a leap for -15 attack, which all go into ac, giving me +45 dmg, plus my basic whatever, say about 30 avg: ~75 net. Having Karmic Strike, Combat reflexes and Deft Opportunist I'll answer your every attack with a full BaB +4 attack for another +30 from PA and 30 Avg, so each of your hits is answered by 60 DMG. If i feel like I just 5-footstep back due Sidestep feat to break your full attack. Next round I gain my another -1 for +3 DMG ratio on my PA from Combat Brute for all the round. Still answering your attacks with above DMG, breaking your Full attack as I like. Oh, and I just ignore your PA DMG Bonus due Elusive Target. I can easily add in Imp Initiative and use a Falchion to crit on a 15+, and maybe I'll get Power Critical to get another +4 for confirmation rolls, just cause I feel like. I'll probably will also sunder your weapon on my first AoO due my Imp Sunder, adamantine weapon and things, including Imp Sunder and free cleave on successful sunder. This was just a flick of the wrist build for Fighter 15+...
Add in any serious PrC like Frenzied Berserker or whatever.
Still not enough ? Optimisation Boards (http://boards1.wizards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=339) (use The Library (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=213480) for starters) will offer much sicker stuff. Also you'll never find Hexblade or Dragon Disciple in any seriously optimised build there, if it's not for the fun of doing it with "that class".
etc etc...


PS: Please don't come over with massive DMG saves, cause above simple example will already trigger them with about any successfull (= most) attack.

[iuam]

I think that it you take the right feats a sorcerer with a daggerspell mage is real good.
Also if you are running a campaign with little people, or people that don't mind waiting forever for you a druid/beastmaster/beast heart adept is a one man army that can not be stoped.

[Deekin]

I think that it you take the right feats a sorcerer with a daggerspell mage is real good.
Also if you are running a campaign with little people, or people that don't mind waiting forever for you a druid/beastmaster/beast heart adept is a one man army that can not be stoped.

Dude?
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o31/raynotisick/ThreadNecromancer.jpg

[KRTR]

now this is using 3rd edition not 3.5

But is this an overpowered class, 5th level druid 10th level shifter [Masters of the wild] with the main feat to take being Fast healing and swit shift, since when ever the druid or shifter class changes form they regain hitpoints as though they had been rested, and that tied with the fact they have fast healing.

So since a 10th level shifter can change form at will, would that not mean the character could regain full hit points mid battle, and thats of course ignoring the fact the character can if they wish be any creature from the whole monster manual. only down side being the loss of caste levels.

[Temet Nosce]

Anything with a full caster progression. The most overpowered of the lot goes to classes like Archivist and Beholder Mage. Core would be (in order) Cleric, Druid, Wizard.

Worst would be Soul Knife, True Namer, and... I'm not sure.

[Ghost_msl]

Samurai can legitmatly weild Katana's! Thus makeing them more powerful than any other class ever to exist!

Until he runs into one of the OA/Rokugan Samurai. Then he PROMPTLY gets handed his head. Diced.

[Borris]

Dude?
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o31/raynotisick/ThreadNecromancer.jpg

"I Agree."

[Nawara]

"Page other than the first" is one thing. "Three years and an edition ago" is a whole different league of awesome.

[vitus979]

"Page other than the first" is one thing. "Three years and an edition ago" is a whole different league of awesome.

Don't forget, this is necro number 2 for this thread. :p

[andreww]

Don't forget, this is necro number 2 for this thread. :p
It's the thread which will not die.

Also, can someone explain to me the power of the Archivist. I recently went back and skimmed my Eberron books for the first time in ever and I wasn't really seeing the ultimate power there.

[Temet Nosce]

It's the thread which will not die.

Also, can someone explain to me the power of the Archivist. I recently went back and skimmed my Eberron books for the first time in ever and I wasn't really seeing the ultimate power there.

Put in simplest terms? Archivists can learn any divine spell, every spell exists as a divine spell, and archivists can choose which class they learn it from (to get the spell at the earliest possible level)

[andreww]

Put in simplest terms? Archivists can learn any divine spell, every spell exists as a divine spell, and archivists can choose which class they learn it from (to get the spell at the earliest possible level)
Aha!

I have just realised that I meant Artificer which is I think the one contained in the 3.x ECG.

[Temet Nosce]

Aha!

I have just realised that I meant Artificer which is I think the one contained in the 3.x ECG.

Strangely enough, pretty much the same problem. Artificers can pick where they get their spells from. When they craft an item instead of needing to be able to actually use a spell, they substitute a UMD check for the pre requisite of having the spell.

[Capfalcon]

Also, can someone explain to me the power of the Archivist. I recently went back and skimmed my Eberron books for the first time in ever and I wasn't really seeing the ultimate power there.

Assuming you mean Artificer...

To put it simply, go and pick a spell of second level or higher (or a paladin or ranger spell) from any 3.5 book. Don't worry, I'll wait.

***

You back? Good. An artificer can, for a modest fee, "cast" that spell two levels before anyone else. That is supreme, ultimate power in easy-to-carry scroll, wand, or staff form. That is the kind of stuff that makes Batman wizards cry themselves to sleep every night, wishing they could be as awesome as you.