What are your favorite 3 levels?

[Invader]

And by this I mean,

Is it rogue 1 when you get sneak attack for the first time, Fighter 6 for that 2nd attack, or wizard 17 for the very first time you finally got to cast wish?

It can be from any class or PrC any book, any reason. Maybe its a specific event that happened to you in a campaign that you'll always remember and you still know what level you were.

Mine are:

1st Cleric 9 - This is how high I got with my first D&D character in my first campaign, I felt so powerful with all my new spells.


2nd Druid 5 - The first time I got wildshape!

3rd Wizard 5/Shadow Adept 7 - More so because I was allowed to take the
Lich template at this level because of my character history and I facerolled the other arrogant wizard in the group because he had no idea I was effectively 4 levels higher than he was. My first nongood character and one I ended up having loads of fun with.

[Morph Bark]

My favourite is honestly Survivor 5, because it feels like being a Commoner finally paid off.

[Water_Bear]

I can't think of a specific class, but I have some general level preferences.

9th level is the perfect point to start your PC career, because you've got the chance to really sink your teeth into the class and any PrC you've taken.

12th level is the point at which you really start to see the action heat up; everyone's slinging around 6th level spells and people have the resources to make amazing builds.

15th level is the high-point of your career, where you're strong enough to face Planar challenges but not so strong that you begin to run out of credible opponents.

Obviously these are my opinions, and I like to play a higher powered game than a lot of forum-ites. But yeah, 9th 12th and 15th are usually awesome regardless of your build.

[prufock]

Druid 5 is a great one, definitely.

I like level 6 in general. Spontaneous casters sort of catch up with prepared casters at even levels, martial types get an extra iterative attack so they can do what they're supposed to before anyone else, everyone gets a feat (and druids, who just got wild shape one level ago, can take Natural Spell). Level 6 is just money.

Level 12 is another favourite general level. Feat AND an ability score bump. Not many classes really bust out anything big and new at 12th, though, it seems. Sure, sorcerers get 6th level spells, but wizards had those a level ago.

Factotum 1. Okay, so I don't have a lot of inspiration points yet (fix that with my first level feat: Font of Inspiration!), but that +int is so sweet. Of course, pretty much every level of factotum is lovely.

[Amidus Drexel]

Wizard 3/Cleric 3/Mystic Theruge 2: soooo many 3rd level spells + animate dead infinite exp loops

Bard 7: nothing like glibness to get you a +40 or 50 to bluff :smallbiggrin:

Sorcerer 18: spamming time stop (and ninth level spells in general)

[Amphetryon]

Dread Necromancer 8

Warlock 12

Chameleon 2.

[navar100]

Spellcaster 5, when you get 3rd level spells. 1st and 2nd level spells are all fine and dandy, but 3rd level is when I subjectively feel the spells start to define you as being a spellcaster, fear my power.

Warrior 6, when you get your second attack. Rolling that second d20 is like a Rite of Passage. Now you're a warrior, fear my blade. Exception: Crusader 1 or Warblade 1. They are so well done my blade will drip your blood right from the start.

Spellcaster 9. 5th level spells now mean you are Voldemort, er I mean Dumbledore you evil doers. :smallbiggrin:

[Ernir]

Favored Soul 12.
New spellcasting level, six new spells known (three thereof of the level you just unlocked). Class feature. Feat. Ability score increase. It has everything.

Wizard 3.
Bow before my Glitterdust!

Fighter 2 or Monk 2 (same deal).
I have now squeezed out everything the class has to offer, and am moving on to greener pastures.

[jaybird]

Wizard 5. Pick up Arcane Thesis (Fireball) and Fiery Spell. Laugh as all fall before your 7d6+7 20' radius sphere of **** YOU :smallbiggrin:

[Slipperychicken]

Factotum8- I love Cunning Surge.

Wizard5- 3rd level spells are when you start feeling like a caster, and not just some nerd with a spell or two.

Crusader12- for Aura of Perfect Order. There are so many "until you roll a one" effects that I just want to laugh off.

[Soranar]

pyrokineticist 1 , because having a touch attack weapon that you conjure out of thin air is just that awesome

[Ozreth]

Hm.

9 years of playing 3.5 and I have never once multi-classed. Not even as practice.

That being said...

Levels 1-3 of any class I play? :smalltongue:

[Venger]

Hm.

9 years of playing 3.5 and I have never once multi-classed. Not even as practice.

That being said...

Levels 1-3 of any class I play? :smalltongue:

ouch. what do you usually play?

for me, it'd be:

mindbender 1: advances spellcasting, grants telepathy (and mindsight is hot on its heels) and provides a random bump to fort saves. not bad.

chameleon 7: double. aptitude. you now have twice as many spell slots as a wizard of equivalent level, and can use half of them to cast any divine spell in the gam. you're no beholder mage or spell to power erudite, but you're the closest you'll ever see in PO

dread necromancer 8: this is the point where your cap will begin to forever dwarf everyone else's, undead mastery, and 4th lvl spells. sweet deal.

[Ozreth]

ouch. what do you usually play?

for me, it'd be:

mindbender 1: advances spellcasting, grants telepathy (and mindsight is hot on its heels) and provides a random bump to fort saves. not bad.

chameleon 7: double. aptitude. you now have twice as many spell slots as a wizard of equivalent level, and can use half of them to cast any divine spell in the gam. you're no beholder mage or spell to power erudite, but you're the closest you'll ever see in PO

dread necromancer 8: this is the point where your cap will begin to forever dwarf everyone else's, undead mastery, and 4th lvl spells. sweet deal.

Haha just a straight class, and usually from core. My group and I play a pretty simplistic game more akin to 2e. We never felt like the base classes weren't "enough" and even feats are a bit much for us to deal with haha. We're dull, I know :smallwink:

Point in case: I've never even heard of chameleon or mind bender, and have never actually seen what a dread necromancer is.

Gimme a wizard with a lantern and I'm good to go :smalltongue:

[Doc_Pippin]

#1 first level of Frenzied Beserker, because uncontrollable super rage is just awesome.

#2 10th level Sand Shaper because I remember being killed dozens of times and my PC's never understood how he kept coming back

#3 Planar Shepard 9 because who doesn't want to wild shap into Outsiders

[Malimar]

I got pretty excited when my factotum dinged 3 and suddenly got competent at everything. INT TO ALL THE THINGS.

Now I'm looking forward to Chameleon 2 pretty hard.

And I'd probably agree with several other posters on spellcaster 5. Level 3 spells are when you start getting into real magic, but before you really start getting into the crazystupidpowerful stuff.

[FMArthur]

Barbarian 1 is pretty damned sweet for a wide variety of characters: Fast Movement/Pounce/Improved Grab + Rage/Favored Enemy/Whirling Frenzy/Mountain Rage

Fighter 2: Let's get Dungeon Crashing, baby! (Dungeon Crasher is just fun as hell to play with)

Cleric 1: You get two domains and their granted powers or their respective Devotion feats from Complete Champion and Knowledge with Cloistered Cleric (and 6 skill points there), a bunch of 1st-level utility spells... Cleric 1 is probably a decent level even on a character with 9 Wisdom.

[Rogue Shadows]

7th-level in general. By now any build you're working on is beginning to pay off, and you've probably either already taken your prestige class or are about to. The monsters start to get really interesting abilities, and so do you. Additionally, this is the first level where you can start to take on hordes of low-EL monsters like unmodified orcs and drow or whatnot and just feel all hero-like when you don't really take too much damage from them. Plus, there's just something...graduatory about reaching 7th level.

A lot of this is probably a holdover from Star Wars d20. In it, the Jedi Consular and Jedi Guardian classes got the special ability "Jedi Knight" at 7th level. All it really meant in game terms was a bonus feat, but in my mind, I was now a Jedi Knight. Achieving it meant something more than just another level of mechanical enhancement. I was a Jedi.

It felt about as good as when, in KotORII, you finally construct your first lightsaber.

DAT FEEL.

Other favorites:
- Level 1: Because nothing is better than the feel of a fresh character sheet and a new character ready to meet the world.

...no other level really appeals to me. If I could stay at levels 1-7 forever, I would.

Oh, hi there, E6...

[Daftendirekt]

Telflammar Shadowlord 4 -- Shadow Pounce, eff yeah!

Master Thrower 5 -- Weak Spot ability. Touch attacks forever!

Warshaper 2 & 3 -- Tied. A free +4 to str and con is pretty awesome, as is natural reach.

[kardar233]

I'm gonna add PrCs in here:

Ghost-Faced Killer 3. My favourite PrC gets its signature ability here. Frightful Attack is just so cool. What melee gets a SoD plus an AoE Don't Even Bother Rolling A Save? If you don't have a 50+ DC on the AoE of this by 10th level, you're not trying hard enough.

MoMF 10. Turn into gigantic dragons. Get Assume Supernatural ability and you can breathe cones of pain all day. Plus big dragons have high Strength and fast Flight speed, so you can be a medieval-era jet liner while mangling anything in your way.

Also: Paladin 2. I like Cha-based characters, so this basically means "make ALL the saves".

[Calanon]

15th level is the high-point of your career, where you're strong enough to face Planar challenges but not so strong that you begin to run out of credible opponents.

PFFT! I can challenge a level 35 Swordsage/Master of the Nine Human Paragon Death Knight... monster thingy... with a level 12 human Aristocrat with average WBL and no cheese then I'm confident you can challenge a level 15 character with anything :smallamused:

One day I'd like to challenge my players with traps, riddles, information, a clock that moves at Real life speed, Torture, horror, fear, lack of food, increasing the temperature in the room that we are playing in, deprivation of sleep, illusions and complete lack of tropes :smallamused:

ANYWHO! :smallbiggrin: I enjoy Wizard 21... Epic Spellcasting :smallamused:

[GoatBoy]

6 is just the best. You're always going to be feat-starved, but so many builds just seem to really get going at six.

You've taken your prestige class. You aren't just some regular adventurer anymore. Now you're really something special.

You have that second attack. It'll probably miss, though.

Spontaneous casters now have those sweet level three spells. Prepared casters have already had them since five, but now you get another one. Instead of two per day, you now get three, so you can use one in almost every fight.

[Gnorman]

Agreeing with those who said level 6. There's a reason it's E6, and not some other, lesser number.

[Lucid]

Factotum 3
I find Brains over Brawn very awesome and flavourful.
I'm so smart I can react faster, know how to trip or grapple you, and know all the best ways to time my jumps/tie a rope/move past my enemies/hide from them/etc... :smallcool:

Crusader 1
"What? You chumps can only take two hits before hitting the floor?"
Probably one of the strongest level 1 characters around.

And I have to agree about level 6 in general, for me it's when a character and build really starts to come into it's own.

[panaikhan]

I've played quite a number of (radically) different characters over the years.
For me, my favorite three levels would have to be 3, 4 and 5, in whatever I was playing.
By L3, you are no longer a squishie (2.X Darksun started here for a reason lol) and I really like RPing through the formative levels - figuring out why the character adventures, exploring possibilites, and just starting to build power.

By the time levels get into the 10-15 range, I start to lose interest. Most games I've been involved in rarely go above 15 in any case.

[Duke of URL]

1) Warlock 4 (Deceive Item) -- being able to UMD any wand you find without even rolling is loads of fun.

2) Dread Necromancer 8 (Undead Mastery) -- might as well be a capstone, since this is the logical point to PrC out, especially if you're Necropolitan.

3) Dragonfire Adept 6 (Lesser Invocations) -- pick up the Humanoid Shape invocation, use your feat to snag Draconic Knowledge as an extra invocation, and burn two skill points for the Collector of Stories skill trick. You can be anyone (humanoid, at least) and you know everything. As a side benefit, your breath weapon DC also increased by 1.

[Venger]

I got pretty excited when my factotum dinged 3 and suddenly got competent at everything. INT TO ALL THE THINGS.

Now I'm looking forward to Chameleon 2 pretty hard.

And I'd probably agree with several other posters on spellcaster 5. Level 3 spells are when you start getting into real magic, but before you really start getting into the crazystupidpowerful stuff.

I'm playing a factotum 5/chameleon 6 atm and oh god it's so good. the free-floating feat at 2 is one of my other favorite levels in the g ame. make a list of stuff you qualify for (cuz you still gotta qualify for it) and go to town. I enjoy making use of the domain feats (especially travel devotion) and it has the added benefit of giving you something to do with your worthless turn attempts from mimic class feature for extra activations

1) Warlock 4 (Deceive Item) -- being able to UMD any wand you find without even rolling is loads of fun.

2) Dread Necromancer 8 (Undead Mastery) -- might as well be a capstone, since this is the logical point to PrC out, especially if you're Necropolitan.

3) Dragonfire Adept 6 (Lesser Invocations) -- pick up the Humanoid Shape invocation, use your feat to snag Draconic Knowledge as an extra invocation, and burn two skill points for the Collector of Stories skill trick. You can be anyone (humanoid, at least) and you know everything. As a side benefit, your breath weapon DC also increased by 1.

no! you can't prc out of DN after 8, you'll cripple your control limit. read undead mastery. your pool is now based off of your DN level. if it never goes up again,neither does your control limit.

[malboro_urchin]

I have to agree with whoever said Warshaper 2 & 3, though I'm also a fan of Warshaper 1, for growing ALL OF THE TENTACLES! My number one favorite level, though, is Binder 8, when you first get to bind 2 vestiges at once. So many options!

[Amphetryon]

no! you can't prc out of DN after 8, you'll cripple your control limit. read undead mastery. your pool is now based off of your DN level. if it never goes up again,neither does your control limit.
That's Shneekey's interpretation, which has its backers - you apparently among them. DN 8 works will for others. It apparently works well for Duke_of_URL.

[Duke of URL]

no! you can't prc out of DN after 8, you'll cripple your control limit. read undead mastery. your pool is now based off of your DN level. if it never goes up again,neither does your control limit.

8 * CHA modifier + 4 * (character level) will be plenty of control limit, in most cases. Certainly for a PC. I disagree with readings of that ability that claim that you forfeit control limits from other classes; the clause applies to your DN levels, not other class levels.

[Andorax]

Nowadays, it's 11th Wiz/12th Sorc.

Previous editions it was 12th Wiz.

Something about the 6th level spells says "I've arrived" in my opinion. Fireball's all well and good, but being able to erase things from existance completely and leave behind a pile of ash the maid might not even notice...that's arcane power!

[dropdadgbe]

Artificer 5. Character spending their own XP on items feels like a waste, and this way as long as you're willing to eat the cost of not selling loot for gold you'll never have to spend XP again.

[Ormur]

Wizard 17: Having played the same character up from level 1, it was so sweet to finally be able to cast 9th level spells: "maw of chaos, muhaha". Not that he lived to cast many of them. :smallfrown:

Cleric 9: Becoming the clericzilla and trampling on Tokyo.

Any spontaneous caster on level 12, feats, spell levels, ability scores.