Odd base classes.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

I'm currently looking for some odd base classes to play that are between Tiers 2-4. Any suggestion (Please say what book it is in).

[*.*.*.*]

I'm currently looking for some odd base classes to play that are between Tiers 2-4. Any suggestion (Please say what book it is in).

Wu Jen(complete arcane), Spirit Shaman(complete Arcane), Binder (Tome of Magic..

Wait, define odd please.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

I agree define odd.

Factotum is a CO staple but in many groups it would be odd since it's from a odd soource; dungeonscape and it has all skills as class skills, spells from a unique spells per day table and a unique pool of points per encounter to fuel esoteric abilities with.

There's the tierless class truenamer with the right amount of skill bonus cheese it can land in the low 3-high 4 range. Tome of Magic

[Lateral]

No, it can't. Even with enough skill bonus optimization that you can pretty reliably use all utterances, the utterances are still really quite underwhelming. It still only goes in maybe low tier 4, even if you can make every Truespeak check ever.

[Doc Roc]

No, it can't. Even with enough skill bonus optimization that you can pretty reliably use all utterances, the utterances are still really quite underwhelming. It still only goes in maybe low tier 4, even if you can make every Truespeak check ever.

I wish lateral wasn't right, but he is. And no amount of pretending will fix it.

I recommend Binder, myself.

[Scorpions__]

There's also the Sha'ir from Dragon Compendium, it has to ability to cast an immense number of spells, however, it has to send its genie-like familiar to ask the big genies that be for spells it doesn't already know.

If you're up for odd mechanics and an Arabian flavour, you should try Sha'ir.





DM[F]R

[Lateral]

I wish lateral wasn't right, but he is. And no amount of pretending will fix it.

Me too, Doc, me too. It's such a great concept that failed so hard. :smallfrown:

[Doc Roc]

Me too, Doc, me too. It's such a great concept that failed so hard. :smallfrown:

And the fixes for it tend to be implosively good.

[TroubleBrewing]

Third vote for Binder. It's flavorful, not too complicated, mechanically sound, and usually hits at Tier 3, with a bump to Tier 2 with access to online vestiges.

More importantly, it's fun to play!

[Draz74]

Depending on how lenient your DM is (or whether you have an Artificer in the party), the Truenamer (or the NPC-Expert, for that matter) can make it to Tier 4 or so just via UMD. It's (sadly) the pre-20 Truenamer's strongest feature, and it can be pretty strong with a heaping side dish of system mastery.

But anyway, back to the actual topic. The Incarnate and the Totemist can be plenty "weird," and are in the requested range. (Magic of Incarnum.) Or play an Ardent and pick an unusual array of Mantles. (Complete Psionic.)

[Darth Stabber]

Dragon shaman is weird, but not that great.

+1 vote for Totemist. Every morning you pick a collection of animal parts made o soulstuff to wear, and you are a living blender.

[FMArthur]

Binder and Truenamer from Tome of Magic fit the bill pretty well, each containing its own unique system from which their abilities come.

If this is to fill out exotic lands with NPCs, the Truenamer's disastrous scaling problems won't exist against PCs (the problem comes from monster HD getting way ahead of actual CR). The Law of Resistance problem is also reduced given that NPCs probably haven't used their utterances previously in the day before encountering the PCs.

Neither are at all complicated, but the Binder's vestiges are so poorly organized (no quick reference section like for spell lists + sorted alphabetically instead of by level) and the Truenaming explanations are drawn out so stupidly long that they can be hard to get a good grasp on before you have made your first character of either. I'd recommend using an online handbook from BG, WotC forum archive or here to actually learn the classes.

Tome of Battle is also very different from normal, but from an opponent's perspective most maneuvers really wind up just replicating normal combat feat chains, so you'd actually have to go into Desert Wind, Devoted Spirit and Shadow Hand disciplines to actually deliver the oddness of it. Crusaders getting theirs randomly also helps that.

Dragonfire Adepts (Dragon Magic) and Warlocks (Complete Arcane) might also be decently different and operate similarly to one another, but again from an outside perspective it's probably hard to tell the difference to an ordinary PH spellcaster. Probably even moreso given that their abilities are more or less a subset of Wizards' and Sorcerors' spell lists.

Psionics has a handful of wierd things as well if your group never goes into it, and the Ardent + Erudite from Complete Psionic are pretty unique just to people who are used to Psions and Psychic Warriors.

The Duskblade from Player's Handbook II is probably quite good at being demonstratably different, being a blaster caster on a full BAB melee chassis and blasting while he hits people.

Magic of Incarnum contains some very different stuff that I'm just not very familiar with. In fact, it has developed a reputation for being the thing hardly anybody knows about, so you're pretty much set if you choose to pick it up.

[Doc Roc]

Seriously, just avoid truenamer. It's some effort to parse, as FMA suggested, but that doesn't really cover it. It's also terrible, and will never be useful knowledge again.

[erikun]

I've heard that the Shadowcaster from Tome of Magic works better, but runs out of abilities ridiculously quickly.

[Lateral]

Shadowcaster is... not as bad as Truenamer, but not great. They have decent abilities, but they run out of them really fast.

Honestly, Tome of Magic is a pretty crappy book, despite Binders being awesome. One out of three is not a good result, especially when one of those other two is Truenamer. :smallyuk:

[nyarlathotep]

Shadowcaster is... not as bad as Truenamer, but not great. They have decent abilities, but they run out of them really fast.

Honestly, Tome of Magic is a pretty crappy book, despite Binders being awesome. One out of three is not a good result, especially when one of those other two is Truenamer. :smallyuk:

Shadowcasters can become good with a very simple fix posted by the class's original designer somewhere on the web.

[RaginChangeling]

Shadowcasters can become good with a very simple fix posted by the class's original designer somewhere on the web.

The mysteries per encounter instead of per day fix or another one?

[nyarlathotep]

The mysteries per encounter instead of per day fix or another one?

Different it changes how paths work and makes it so that your bonus mysteries and save DCs run off the same stat and a few other things that I forget.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

Thanks for all the suggestions thus far. And to answer the 'odd' question, I mean classes that aren't just modified versions of the basic classes.

[Greenish]

Thanks for all the suggestions thus far. And to answer the 'odd' question, I mean classes that aren't just modified versions of the basic classes.Well, that pretty much means the ones that use alternative systems, so psionics, invokers, martial adepts, meldshapers, factotums and ToM's trio.

Knight and duskblade might also count, if only just.

[FMArthur]

What?
Binders most certainly are not alike any of the usual standard classes. At all.
Not all kinds of martial adepts are, either: ToB was meant to encompass a much larger variety of martial archetypes than even the entirety of core, CW and CA's base classes combined.
Factotum has lots of other classes' abilities, but the combined result of Skillmonkey, Spellcaster and Melee is more than you could normally get out of a multiclassed PH character at that level.

[GoatBoy]

Take a look at the new classes in PF's "Ultimate _" series. Magus in Ultimate Magic, and Sharpshooter, Ninja, and Samurai in Ultimate Combat. They're free to download because they're in the playtest phase.

And, yes, there is an ability for the Sharpshooter to jump sideways while shooting two guns.

[Greenish]

What?That was a list of classes that aren't just modified versions of the basic classes. :smallamused:

Well, shadowcaster might be debatable.

[Edit]:
Sharpshooter, Ninja, and Samurai in Ultimate Combat.Those literally are modified base classes. :smalltongue:

[Zaq]

It's hard to go wrong with incarnum. Totemists make superb beatsticks, and Incarnates make good utility/support characters (they can do melee reasonably well, but they can never truly shine at it the way a Totemist can).

I agree that Binder is an excellent choice. The Shadowcaster is frustrating if played as written, but if you implement some tweaks (making mysteries per encounter instead of per day, giving them reserve feats or Eldritch Shadow Blast or some other at-will fallback, whatever) they're playable. Run screaming from the Truenamer. It's not worth it. Trust me.

Knight is weak, but fun if your group won't totally upstage you. Spellthief is in the same boat.

Dragonfire Adepts are a lot of fun once you file away all the annoying "I wank to dwagons so hard that I spontaneously learned how to breathe fire!" fluff. They're very self-optimizing (take Endure Exposure (invocation) and Entangling Exhalation (feat). Congratulations, you're now at a perfectly respectable level of optimization) and they make excellent battlefield controllers.

Some day, if I'm ever called upon to play in a group at a much lower optimization level than I like, I'd love to play an Expert (yes, that (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/expert.htm) Expert) and not tell them what I was. Then I'd rock out with UMD, Handle Animal, the various social skills, Iaijutsu Focus, and perhaps Craft (Poisonmaking). (I don't think it's a coincidence that almost all of those are CHA-based.) If I don't upstage them, everyone's happy. If I do upstage them, I can only imagine the hilarity when I reveal that they've ended up convinced that an NPC class with literally no class features is overpowered. Probably not relevant to the discussion, but still funny.

The Paragon classes from Unearthed Arcana are rarely earth-shatteringly amazing (Human Paragon is solid, yes, but rarely amazing on its own), but since you can take them at first level, it's entirely possible to take only Paragon classes and PrCs and never take a normal base class. This is easiest as a half-elf or half-orc, but you can enter Stoneblessed really early on anyway, so even that's not an issue.

If your group is friendly to psionics, I think playing a Lurk has the potential to be fun. They are, like many of the other classes I've mentioned, rather weak, but they're by no means unplayable, especially at lower levels.

[Greenish]

It's hard to go wrong with incarnum.Well, if you pick your class at random, you've 1/3 chance to…

[Zaq]

Well, if you pick your class at random, you've 1/3 chance to…

What do you mean? Both incarnum classes are pretty solid.

[Lateral]

Well, if you pick your class at random, you've 1/3 chance to…

There are only two classes in Magic of Incarnum. That other thing you think you see? It's you hallucinating.

[Jack DeCoeur]

Lots of good suggestions here.

Just thought I'd add some love to the Dragonfire Adept as well.
They can be found online here. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060912a&page=2)
With the full rules in Dragon Magic. Although I haven't played one personally, they look like they are very well balanced. Some people seem to think they're a touch on the weak side, some think they're slightly too powerful, to me this suggests that they're actually about right.

Binder can be fun too, lots of vestiges to read up on if you want to squeeze every last drop of effectiveness out the class, but in all honesty, just rolling randomly for which vestiges to bind each day works surprisingly well and keeps the class fresh and flexible.

Tome of Battle offers a lot of good options, but they do essentially offer fixes to the core melee classes by giving them more options.

Incarnum, once again, is awesome, in both flavour and flexibility. The rules can be a little odd at first, but are actually very intuitive.

Lots of love from Psionics here as well. As far as I've seen Psychic warriors are one of the most well balanced classes in the game, essentially a canned gish, which can make playing a combat character a bit different than normal and allows lots of fun options. Although both the Psion and the Wilder are good choices too.

Lots of other fun 'alternative' stuff out there, but without a bit more info on what you'd like to play (it could very well be anything, which is cool) it's hard to narrow things down. There are a surprisingly large amount of non-core base classes.

[Greenish]

Spellthief hasn't been mentioned yet, has it?

[Half-orc Bard]

Warblade is a very odd class it's like a fighter and a warlock had a baby and it was teir 3 it's also the best melee class in the game

[Zaq]

I mentioned Spellthief. Weak, but fun. They work better if you have a generous caster in the party who recognizes that a spell you borrow is a spell they don't have to spend an action on to put on the field.

[Greenish]

Right, I even replied to that post, and browsed through the thread again before posting the question, and still managed to miss that.

Well, it's not as bad as when I read Ice Axe's description thrice and managed to miss the part about touch attack attacks. Which I was looking for.

[Thurbane]

Not sure what tier it falls under (probably 4), but the Mountebank from Dragon Mag Compendium is certainly an odd class.

It has 6 skill point/level, and a decent skill list, as well as an assortment of of weird (but not that great) class abilities. Beguiling Stare is an at will ability that forces a save to avoid losing Dex to Ac and some Will based penalties for a round. The highlights include Alter Self and Dimension Door (as a move action) as SLAs (4th and 10th level respectively); the lowlights include being harder to resurrect than normal, and becoming an NPC as your capstone (with some wriggle room to avoid this).

[FMArthur]

Warblade is a very odd class it's like a fighter and a warlock had a baby and it was teir 3 it's also the best melee class in the game

The best, after Cleric, Druid, Artificer, Archivist, Mystic Ranger, Wizard, Sorceror and likely Bard, Ardent, and Favored Soul as well. It's around the best mundane, magic-less melee class in the game, but still faces stiff enough competition from Crusaders that it's not certain.

[Lateral]

Dungeoncrasher Fighters are far weaker than the Tome of Battle classes- they still only have the one trick. :smallconfused:

If we're referring to sheer damage output, maybe, but...

[Curmudgeon]

If you don't want to deal with all the issues associated with the poorly-written Factotum class description, you could try the original version: the Savant, revised for 3.5 in Dragon Compendium (pages 45-50). The Savant gets actual sneak attack, and casts actual spells (both arcane and divine). And instead of being able to boost their own skill checks, Savants can take on skill jobs for their allies ─ like being able to get the whole party to Move Silently when necessary. It's an odd, useful, and not overpowered support class.

[FMArthur]

Dungeoncrasher Fighters are far weaker than the Tome of Battle classes- they still only have the one trick. :smallconfused:

If we're referring to sheer damage output, maybe, but...

Yeah, my mistake there. They have so many feats to combo with it for a pretty diverse variety of results, but yeah it all depends on being able to bullrush, having the right race for it, and having the right feats. The class itself doesn't actually get much more powerful. The pure-mundane point stands on Crusader alone.

[Curmudgeon]

Dungeoncrasher Fighters are far weaker than the Tome of Battle classes- they still only have the one trick. :smallconfused:
Dungeon Crasher Fighters are also eligible for Zhentarim Soldier substitution levels (Champions of Valor Web Enhancement (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a), pages 6-7). That gives them two tricks. :smallamused: