What are some good non-core base classes?

[Flame of Anor]

I'm starting a new character, and I'd like to know: what are the best/most fun/coolest base classes which are official, but not from PHB? Equally importantly, which are the clunkers to avoid at all costs? Which are good but only when played a certain way? Thanks!

[TroubleBrewing]

Here, have a link that's widely accepted as a comprehensive ranking of most of the base classes in 3.5. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.0)

[Kantolin]

I /love/ incarnum. Incarnate and Totemist are stupid fun. Soulborn is less fun and notably less powerful, but that may be okay if you're in a low-optimization group. Still, incarnate and totemist ^_^

Binders look very fun as well.

Shadowcasters are drowning in awesome flavor and theme, but mechanically aren't so hot. I don't mind them myself, but they run into 'I am out of spells and using my crosssbow' a lot.

Everyone loves Duskblades. It's what I recommend to people who are looking for a fighter/mage.

Psions are way more fun than sorcerors. Psychic warriors are way more fun than many fighter-types. Both are very effective classes that do a great job.

I'm a big fan of Lurks. They do the 'magical rogue' archetype in a base class, and are about as good as the rogue. I really like infiltration and other thing of that sort, and the lurk does them well at the expense of the damage a good rogue can put out. Of course, 'round here whenever someone suggests 'Lurk', everyone jumps on 'No psychic rogue', which is probably better than both lurk and rogue, but hey. :P

[TroubleBrewing]

And of course ToB. Lest we forget. :smallamused:

[IthroZada]

Warlock, while not entirely as powerful as it could be, is supposed to be boat loads of fun. And Factotum is supposed to be just fantastic.

[Sir Homeslice]

I do love me some Dragonfire Adept.

[NeoSeraphi]

Clunkers: Hexblade. Even the designer admitted it was underpowered after the duskblade was printed. If you want a Hexblade (Complete Warrior), try looking for one of the many fantastic fixes in the homebrew section.

Samurai (Also Complete Warrior). You notice how every base class gets one of its main themes at first level? Barbarians get Rage. Rogues get Sneak Attack and Trapfinding. Rangers get Track and Favored Enemy. Druids get their Companion. Clerics get their only class feature, Turn/Rebuke. Paladins get Smite Evil and Detect Evil at will.

Well, the Samurai gets Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword as a bonus feat at first level. That's right. The same time he gets his actual weapon proficiencies, they try to pass off his ability to use a katana as a class feature. (And lest you start thinking that base classes don't normally get EWP as weapon proficiencies, the rogue is proficient with the hand crossbow and the bard is proficient with the whip. And they still have awesome first levels to go along with it).

The first level is the worst, but the rest of the class isn't much better. Skip it.

Good classes to look out for:

The Wu Jen (Complete Arcane). The Wu Jen is a unique type of wizard in many ways. For one, she gains her spell power and class features by swearing taboos. (So she actually makes personal sacrifices for arcane power, which is fun to roleplay and doesn't have much of a punishment if you screw it up). Also, her spells are written in Giant. How weird is that?

Mechanically speaking, the wu jen uses Chinese elements to determine her spell list, (she specializes like a wizard, but in an element instead of a school). The spell list itself is kind of small, but the Spell Compendium will help you expand it if you work with your DM. Also mechanically speaking, she rolls twice for initiative and takes the better roll, she gets free metamagic on a spell every few levels (And she also gets haste, which, when combined with her unique spell Giant Size, makes her an excellent candidate for the Swiftblade prestige class, in my opinion), and she has a few spells the wizard never learns which you might find interesting.

The Spellthief (Complete Adventurer) It's like a rogue on crack. Whenever you Sneak Attack an arcane caster or a creature with spell-like abilities, you can steal their spells, their buffs, their summons, and cast them/control them yourself. You also get the ability to cast your own spells, so you can even supplement your rogueness with spellcasting.

The Factotum (Dungeonscape). It is a completely one-stat, one-feat class. Pump your Intelligence, take Font of Inspiration every chance you get, and never look back. Get your Int to damage, to hit, to saving throws, gain Sneak Attack, take free standard actions (very abusable with Greater Manyshot), Lay on Hands, cast arcane spells, etc. The factotum is a one-man party. (Did I mention he gets all skills as class skills?)

Want more proof? The factotum's 19th level ability lets him copy ANY Ex class feature from a base class as long as they received it before 16th level, 3/day for 1 minute. Some good choices are the monk's AC bonus, the Barbarian's Improved Uncanny Dodge, the rogue's Improved Evasion, the swashbuckler's Insightful Strike (more Int to damage!), the Ranger's Camoflauge ability, etc.

[Lord.Sorasen]

Early on in my forum days I made a remark about how it's weird that people pick dread necromancer because it's inferior to both cleric and wizard.

I take it all back 100 times over. The dread necromancer is weaker, and that's why it's awesome. It won't overwhelm the other characters in a party quite as much, and it still has a load of bonuses.

Same goes to the beguiler. Beguilers are sort of like ultra-specialized wizard sorcerer rogues. They use intelligence to cast, have 6 skill points a level, and have up to 9th level casting. What really works for beguiler though is the auto-optimization. They have a preselected spell-list, but a really good preselected spell-list, so anyone playing as one can avoid picking spells or choosing spells each day. It's all very streamlined. Some people say to start people off with only core. I disagree. If you have the books for it, start them off with beguiler, warmage, and dread necromancer. Maybe healer if you are into that sort of thing.

Warmage... It's weaker than the two I already listed. The warmage is a blaster. It throws different elemental attacks at people. Warmages are really hit or miss, but I bring it up because people who are new to D&D love making things blow up.

Dragonfire Adept is ultra cool. You breath fire all the time. With extangling exhalation you have fire spin. Like a charizard. It's pretty powerful and full of flavor if you like dragons. Not much more to say about that.

Psychic Warriors are really awesome. The psychic warrior uses supernatural powers to augment his body or weapons (but mostly his body) in order to do awesome things. One of their key powers is expansion, which lets you grow 2 size categories larger. Another allows you to gain claws which boost your own health when you take from another. The feat tashalatora allows you to combine psychic warrior (or any psychic class but I choose psychic warrior) with monk, which is widely considered to be one of the best "monk fixes" in the official books, other than unarmed swordsage or not playing a monk.

It's not a class but an alternate class feature, but dungeon crasher is ACF for fighters which allows them to bull rush people into walls to deal awesome damage. Its application with races like goliath and feats like knockback and shock trooper are awesome enough to push the fighter up a tier block, which is definitely saying something.

What to Avoid
Truenamer is the worst of the classes. There are people who can tell you better than me.

CW Samurai is also very weak. It's a fighter but worse. A fighter is not known as a class which needed nerfing.

Swashbuckler is alright, but keep in mind it is a 3 level class. levels 4-20 are not worth much even for flavor. Rogue/swashbuckler is very good.

Debatable

Scout is sort of like rogue but they run around instead of sneak attacking. It's not bad but it's not really too great.

Cloistered cleric and erudite are awesome buffs to the cleric and psion. These classes were very powerful to begin with. They can certainly be awesome, but tread with caution. A lot of caution.

[Darth Stabber]

Totemist, totemist, a thousand times totemist. Wake up every morning and say what kind of monster do I want to be today, with no reguard for what you were yesterday. One day you can be strong ranged threat with manticore belt, the next you can mix it up in melee with 4 claw attacks courtesy of girallon arms. They have a meld to fit almost any combat style you could want, and make decent backup skill monkeys. Lacks the alignment restrictions of the other incarnum classes, and is the most fun melee outside of ToB (I actually prefer it to ToB, but only slightly). If you want to mix it with core stuff, the totem rager PRC (combining it with barbarian) is 31 flavors of awesome.

While on ToB: Warblade. So many of it's manuevers are made of fun, and lacks the mystical aspect of swordsage or crusader, and doesn't lose access to a thing in an AMF. Seriously, they are the salvation of mundane melee. Also: Iron Heart Surge; the maneuver, the myth, the legend available at lvl 5.

Binder is fun, sort of a less granular incarnum. So many weird abilities you get access to, and if you don't like something, just pick a different vestige tommarrow, no harm no foul.

[thompur]

I loves me some Warlock! Not too strong. Not to weak. Easy resource management Lotsa Fun!

Also, Binder. Versatility. Again, easy resource management. And no matter what the other players choose, you can usually fill the niche that's missing.

And both of the above are also great for dipping.

And leave us not forget the Tome of Battle classes. The advantage here is that they are really hard to screw up, unless you're really trying to. My favorite is the Warblade.:smallbiggrin:

I personally hated Incarnum, and would avoid it like the plague, but it has it's fans. The Magic of the Incarnum book is so poorly written that if you really want to try it, I would find someone who likes it, either a fellow player or one of the fine members of the playground, for help with it. We have some wonderfully helpful folks here.

[gorfnab]

Clunker - Truenamer, awesome fluff but horrible execution of class abilities

Good - Beguiler, just an awesome well balanced class. It's a great alternative to a rogue and it can be easily optimized. For fun look into playing a Beguiler (Shining South) Beguiler (PHBII).

[Greenish]

Psychic warrior, the real magic knight (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicKnight). Accept no substitutes.

[JaronK]

My favorites tend to be the T3 classes... not obviously broken, lots of flexibility, usually a lot of fun. All the ToB classes are lots of fun (Warblade, Crusader, Swordsage) though they can be difficult to build if you're starting at high levels. Factotums are fun too, as are Binders, Dread Necromancers, and Beguilers.

JaronK

[Kylarra]

Dragonfire Adept is my favorite class. Nice and solid 1-20.

[Arundel]

I'll throw my hat in for binder. I just started playing one having been only passingly familiar with the ToM before, and I am loving the crazy practical versitility that class has.

Every time I read a vestige I find myself thinking, "Oooh, I could use that if I..." The worst part is picking a limited number of vestiges a day!

[Big Fau]

Really, almost everything post-Complete Series 1 is decent (the first series was CAdv, CW, CArc, and CD), barring the Truenamer. Almost all of the classes introduced after that point ended up in Tiers 4/3 (with a handful of exceptions), and some material boosted low-tier classes up a bit (Daring Outlaw making Swashbuckler a good class for 16 levels, Swift Hunter being very good, and the Dungeoncrasher variant boosting Fighters up to Tier 4).


Classes like the Divine Mind and Soulborn, however, should be avoided like the plague.

[Thurbane]

Some of my favorite, reasonably solid, non-core classes include: Binder, Archivist, Dread Necromancer, Dragonfire Adept, Duskblade, Knight and Favored Soul.

Others that I personally enjoy, but are a bit sub-par mechanically, are Marshal, Dragon Shaman and Warmage.

Some to really avoid are: Truenamer, Samurai (CW) and Healer.

[Otherworld Odd]

Is Factotum a good melee class? As in can it hold up on it's own in melee as well as a fighter and definitely better than a rogue?


Also, is it worth going into Chameleon with Factotum?

[Hiro Protagonest]

Is Factotum a good melee class? As in can it hold up on it's own in melee as well as a fighter and definitely better than a rogue?


Also, is it worth going into Chameleon with Factotum?

Don't know about chameleon, buy factotum can easily match a fighter and beat a rogue.

[MeeposFire]

Factotum, binder, and dragonfire adepts are my favorites.

Factotums are overall more powerful than a rogue due to action economy and sheer versatility.

Binder has probably more awesome fluff than about 8 classes put together and is mechanically awesome enough with lots of different playstyles that you can change daily.

DFAs are a lot of fun and can control battlefields very well. Also having at will magic and just having strong marks in skills and other important areas make them great.

[IthroZada]

Is Factotum a good melee class? As in can it hold up on it's own in melee as well as a fighter and definitely better than a rogue?


Also, is it worth going into Chameleon with Factotum?

Someone, somewhere, has a story about how he was a Factotum held prisoner with absolutely zero gear, and that was how the rest of the party was going to meet him. He proceeded to escape with his awesome skills, use Alter Self to turn into something nasty (or some other shape changing spell...), and proceed to brutally tear apart the guards and fight his way to the party.

So yea, they do fine.

[Eldariel]

Is Factotum a good melee class? As in can it hold up on it's own in melee as well as a fighter and definitely better than a rogue?

You gotta know what you're doing but yes, Factotum can largely match Fighters or Rogues. He, however, needs to dedicate quite a bit of his resources to it. But yeah, they can do it pretty well.

[HappyBlanket]

Binders are fun stuff :D You get some pretty toys, especially if you use online material. And it's a nice way to play a bunch of different party roles; so, you want to be a Tank? Savnok gives you DR and Fullplate. Scout? Malphas gives you invisibility and his Raven (and sneak attack, actually). Need another frontliner? Blaster? Someone to throw around an oversized hammer? A way to survive getting burnt at the stake for your heresy? Check, check, check.

[Big Fau]

Someone, somewhere, has a story about how he was a Factotum held prisoner with absolutely zero gear, and that was how the rest of the party was going to meet him. He proceeded to escape with his awesome skills, use Alter Self to turn into something nasty (or some other shape changing spell...), and proceed to brutally tear apart the guards and fight his way to the party.

So yea, they do fine.

Found that for you. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4913.0)

[classy one]

Right out of the box, ardent is a good class with a nice selection of powers, but the best part about them is they can select their powers based on their ML rather than their class level. Add in a few AFCs and they are plain broken.

Not sure if this counts as non-core since it is found in SRD but he wilder is much misunderstood but a fun class and powerful class. Think a psion, but with less powers, better armor, better BAB, and weapons. Each power they do use however is used with greater effect than a psion of the same level (well 60%-95% of the time that is). Oh, and you get a mini-rage after you use your main class feature as well. This one will need the ACF to replace a useless class feature (free feat for volatile mind). Wild surge carries a small risk of daze (5-30% depending on how high you boost you powers) but worth it IMO.

[Sdonourg]

Don't forget Dragon Compendium classes, especially Sha'ir and Jester. They are quite fun to play.

[Big Fau]

Don't forget Dragon Compendium classes, especially Sha'ir and Jester. They are quite fun to play.

Do remember that even though that book was printed by WotC, the classes themselves are still 3rd party in origin (and have only minor alterations as far as I'm aware).

[IthroZada]

Found that for you. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4913.0)

Ha, thank you for that. I did not realize I was referencing the exact anecdote for why Factotums are awesome in the tier system.

[Darth Stabber]

Notable traps and semi-traps
Truenamer: I've played one, and it is ugly. It looks like a ton of fun, but you need some serious optimization to get any of your abilities to actually stick. With out optimization, you are mediocre at low levels, and it gets worse every level there after. Avoid like herpes.

CAdv Ninja: it seems like an interesting focused rogue type, it's not, unless you count focusing on uselessness. Their abilities are just really sad and have so few uses per day you may as well not have them.

CWar Samurai: you know how people say fighter isn't very good, well imagine if someone chose your feats for you (poorly), you have to use sub par weapons to access them, and you get some weird fear abilities that don't actually help you unless you go to pun-pun lvls of optimization to make them meerly okay? That's CWar samurai in a nutshell.

Shugenja: You get some interesting divine spell casting, except you get nothing unique class abilities wise, and no armor proficiencies, and you get spells at the speed sorcerer gains them (ie delayed 1 level). Thy were originally mant to be played in the rokugan setting where they are the only casters in town (they're good in that context), but when they have competition they just can't compete.

Dragon shaman: a semi trap, you have auras which are good at low levels, but do not scale well, and a cool ability usefull 1/encounter effectively, good luck contributing in the rounds where you are not breating fire. You do get lay-on-hands on 'roids, but it doesn't make up for an incredibly passive and lackluster class. Useable in gestalt though, so it has atleast that going for it, and you can metabreath the breathweapon, unlike DFA. Seriously, free skill focus as a class feature???, and you aren't even a skill monkey.

Warmage: hey did you know that even blastosorcs only spend a few of their spells known on actual blasting spells? And you never really need more than 1-2 per spell level to be good at it? Well imagine you only know blasto spells, and you don't know any good ones. There is a reason that evocation is considered the most easily banned school for wizards.

Soulborn: imagine paladin, now make it slightly worse. Then remove all splat support.

Soulknife: I has a weapon! Anyone can replicate this classes entire point by taking Improved unarmed strike.

[Draz74]

Another vote for Dragonfire Adept being the single best-designed class.

It's one of the easiest classes to play effectively; it has a clear role in the party; it's fairly hard to build it badly enough that it will suck (as long as you take Entangling Exhalation), and it's fairly hard to build it so optimized that it will break anything.

[Hazzardevil]

The shadowcaster is quite weak but easily fixed, so depending on your group it can be useful, especially when used with the Wujen or a psionic version of the noctumancer.

Also, why is the divine mind so bad?

[MeeposFire]

The divine mind lacks a theme and has nothing really of power. It just has so little to work with. I have not looked too closely but it simply lacks any sort of optimization depth.

[Big Fau]

The divine mind lacks a theme and has nothing really of power. It just has so little to work with. I have not looked too closely but it simply lacks any sort of optimization depth.

It also spits in the face of Psionic Flavor.

[Darth Stabber]

Another vote for Dragonfire Adept being the single best-designed class.

It's one of the easiest classes to play effectively; it has a clear role in the party; it's fairly hard to build it badly enough that it will suck (as long as you take Entangling Exhalation), and it's fairly hard to build it so optimized that it will break anything.

I would argue that the ToB classes are better designed. For almost the exact same reasons you mentioned. Where as DFA seems an attempt to fix warlock and dragon shaman in one go, and there is just too much "emulating or descended from dragons" material for me to take any of it seriously anymore. Don't get me wrong DFA has some good and fun mechanics, but for me it lives in a flavor dead zone.

[Draz74]

I would argue that the ToB classes are better designed. For almost the exact same reasons you mentioned.
ToB classes are very well designed, but I feel like they're much harder for a new player to absorb than a DFA. Mostly just because they offer a dizzying array of options and variety.

Also, while their recovery mechanics aren't super-complicated, they're more complicated than "You can use your fire breath or invocations anytime you want, and your special breaths every other round."


Where as DFA seems an attempt to fix warlock and dragon shaman in one go, and there is just too much "emulating or descended from dragons" material for me to take any of it seriously anymore. Don't get me wrong DFA has some good and fun mechanics, but for me it lives in a flavor dead zone.

That's fine, I was talking about mechanics, not flavor. Although personally I find the DFA quite easy to refluff to cover the basic "Sorcerer" / elemental caster territory quite nicely, no dragon-specific stuff necessary.