[3.5] Is there a good support class?

[tamane1]

I'm starting a new campaign soon, and one of the guys wants to play the support role, but I don't know of any that are, well, good. I'm open to expanded books of all shapes and sizes, so just throw what ever you have at me.

And unless it has gotten severely changed in some expanded book, please don't say bard. They don't scale well in higher levels.

If it means anything, the party is starting at level 6.

[eggynack]

Bards can scale just fine as a support class. There's a good amount of inspire courage optimization you can do, and their spell progression is powerful enough that they won't really wane at high levels. They're actually fine in core too, if only because of their casting, which is pretty good. Apart from that, you could do something like a wizard prestiging into war weaver (Heroes of Battle, 112). That can do the buffing and support thing pretty efficiently. Alternatively, you can always build it up as a combination of the two. Something like bard 7/war weaver 1/uncanny trickster 1 (CS, 67)/virtuoso 1 (CAdv, 89)/sublime chord 1 (CArc, 60)/war weaver 4/uncanny trickster 2/virtuoso 3 can work out pretty well. Missing out on the lost caster level of three prestige classes at once feels pretty sweet.

[Flame of Anor]

If you want a high-tier support character, just go for a buff-focused wizard or cleric.

[atomicwaffle]

Transmutation Wizards are very useful inside and outside of combat. I usually ban illusion and necromancy or abjuration (unless you cross class as cleric id advise banning necromancy.)

[Red Fel]

I'm starting a new campaign soon, and one of the guys wants to play the support role, but I don't know of any that are, well, good. I'm open to expanded books of all shapes and sizes, so just throw what ever you have at me.

And unless it has gotten severely changed in some expanded book, please don't say bard. They don't scale well in higher levels.

If it means anything, the party is starting at level 6.

Well, there are a lot of definitions of "support class."

I'm going to pretend you meant "something that helps make my melee guys shine."

A ToB class with White Raven provides fantastic augmentation of your melee characters, as well as good melee ability in his own right. Shadow Blade can help them get into flanking, and set up others for flanking as well. And Devoted Spirit makes for a very effective lockdown/tank role.

[Grod_The_Giant]

And unless it has gotten severely changed in some expanded book, please don't say bard. They don't scale well in higher levels.
It's changed severely in expanded books. Bards are pretty "meh" in core, but they have an awe-inspiring range of feats, prestige classes, and ACFs outside.

Take Inspire Courage, for instance. There's a feat in Dragon Magic that lets you turn the bonus attack/damage into an equal number of d6's of fire damage. There's a feat from Book of Exalted Deeds that lets you take a minor amount of nonlethal damage (2d4? 3d4? Something like that) to double your inspire courage bonus. There's a swift-action spell that boosts the bonus by one. A cheap (under 2k) magic item that boosts it by one 3/day. A feat that flat-out boosts it. All of a sudden you're handing everyone +6d6 damage on all weapon attacks. And casting haste. Don't forget the feat that lets you cast and use wands while keeping up the music!

[JusticeZero]

If you are psionics-friendly, you can also backport the Tactician (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/tactician) from Pathfinder.

[lsfreak]

And unless it has gotten severely changed in some expanded book, please don't say bard. They don't scale well in higher levels.

Bard got a ton of support in other books.

Dragonfire Inspiration (Dragon Magic) and a bit of Inspire Courage optimization can fix that (Inspiration Boost (spell, Complete Adventurer), Badge of Valor (item, MIC) and Song of the Heart (feat, Eberron Campaign Setting)). Sixth level, give everyone at least +3 attack and damage and +3d6 elemental damage (and that's without getting into Words of Creation, that'll double it).

Sublime Chord (Complete Adventurer) or Lyric Thaumaturge (Complete Mage) PrCs up the spells you can cast, letting you cast sorcerer spells. They don't advance Inspire Courage, but get you access to non-bard buffing/support spells.

Bard/Crusader (Tome of Battle) is good. Take the basics of the Inspire Courage stuff, and throw on the bit of in-combat healing and other passive support stuff from the Devoted Spirit and White Raven schools.

Just a straight cleric makes a good buffer. Better if you can grab DMM:Quicken, a second turning pool (take Incarnum or Destroy Undead (Ravenloft) instead of turning, then PrC into Sacred Excorcist (Complete Divine)), and one nightstick/one Extra Turning; that should give 4-5 quickened spells per day on top of normal buffing. Complete Champion has some decent support options via feats, especially Protection Devotion.

Similar with straight wizard. Haste is huge. Compliment the buffs with a few of the better crowd-controls like Solid Fog, or fun things like Dimension Shuffle.

Fully expecting to be swordsaged on at least a few points.

[ArcturusV]

If you want to gear down the power level somewhat from Wizards/Clerics, and Bards on the low end... might suggest Rangers and Rogues. Skill Monkey is very easy to turn into a "Support" character. Rangers have a nice bag of tricks on top of being skill based. Plus being natural spellcasters can do the whole Alchemy thing if you're into support involving doping your teammates up and throwing stuff like eggshell grenades.

Heck, just having a Rogue who specializes in Traps, Poisons, and useful skills can be quite a bit of "support".

Depending on your use of the term. I'm going for more general tactical sense rather than the direct "I give all my teammates +2 to hit". But having the rogue who sneaks in, lays traps around the battlefield, which disable and poison enemies to weaken them. It's BFC support of the mundane variety, lower power level, can be fun to play.

[denthor]

Any class with a weapon in there hand can support by rolling a dc 10 to hit.

This gives another player a +2 to either Armor class or to hit somebodies choice the player that did the supporting but I prefer to have the person on the other side make the call

[Red Fel]

Heck, any class that can move can stand next to an enemy.

Bam, flanking. You're welcome.

[Emperor Tippy]

Factotum 8/ Wizard 1/ Ur-Priest 1/ Mystic Theuge 10 can make a great support build.

Use Cunning Surge for extra standard actions and you can buff the entire party in the surprise round or make the battlefield a hell hole for your enemies all before they get to act. You are also a very good spell monkey and have a number of utility abilities.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

And unless it has gotten severely changed in some expanded book, please don't say bard. They don't scale well in higher levels.

It didn't exactly get changed, but there's a prestige class called Sublime Chord in Complete Arcane that allows a Bard to get 9th level spells. There's also a Bard Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8284.0) outlining what to do so that it ends up being a very strong class.

Use Silverbrow Human from Dragon Magic, go Savage Bard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bardVariantSavageBard) 8/ Virtuoso 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Virtuoso 8, advancing Sublime Chord casting with those last eight levels of course. Trade Countersong for Spellbreaker Song (CM), Fascinate for Healing Hymn (CC), Bardic Knowledge for Bardic Knack (PH2), and the Suggestion song for Song of the Heart (ECS). Feats should be Melodic Casting, Dragonfire Inspiration, Ancestral Relic (a staff), Words of Creation, and whatever you want after that. Take two flaws (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm) if available (City Slicker and Love of Nature (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=258440#30)) to get Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) (war trained warbeast (MM2) riding dog) and either Lingering Song or Martial Weapon Proficiency: Longbow (or the Militia regional feat in PGtF if available).

Spells known should include Inspirational Boost, items should include a Badge of Valor. Starting out his Inspire Courage will be +1 from levels, +1 for Song of the Heart, +1 for Inspirational Boost, it gets doubled from Words of Creation, and the Badge of Valor adds another +1, so with Dragonfire Inspiration he'll be adding +7d6 fire damage to everyone's attacks, including his own bow attacks and his wild cohort's natural weapons.

His Ancestral Relic should be a Masterwork/Masterwork Quarterstaff, or an Elvencraft (Composite) Longbow which can also function as a Quarterstaff but needs to be made Masterwork three times (quarterstaff double weapon, bow portion). That will be made into a custom Runestaff following the pricing on MIC p224. He can also make it a magical weapon and/or a magical staff with charges in addition to that. When the party would sell junk loot for half price, he can buy it from the party's treasure pool for that amount, and then he'll get a cut of that gold back when cash is split. He can then sacrifice the full value of that junk loot into his relic to upgrade it, so in a party of four it only costs him 3/8 the normal price for its magical properties. Also note that there's nothing prohibiting him from storing extra value in it to be used later. This helps him get around the limited number of spells known, and he only needs an area of Consecrate or Hallow to switch what spells it gives him. If it's a Longbow he should plan on making it the Energy Bow (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20061227a), and remember that the bow portion, each end of the quarterstaff double weapon, and the runestaff properties are all priced independent of each other, but all of those get totaled for the limit on his Ancestral Relic's magical properties.

[SciChronic]

Bards Clerics and Wizards can help directly
If you mean like a scout/skillmonkey/face/indirect support rogues, bards, factotums and beguilers are all great. they also all have ways to help directly.

[nedz]

It's probably worth mentioning some poor one which are worth avoiding.

Marshal — good one level dip, fades quickly after that.

Dragon Shaman — Its' auras are nice, but you can buy them for a feat ( Draconic Aura Dragon Magic p16).

[ZamielVanWeber]

I am going to go crazy here and suggest Divine Mind. A good aura slection is awesome.

[mabriss lethe]

You could take a two level dip in Marshal, pick up a major and minor aura for some passive support. And speaking of auras, at 3rd level, you can pick up the Draconic Aura feat to pilfer through several other auras. You can also grab the luck dice soulmeld from MoI and open your hand chakra with the feats Shape soulmeld and Open least chakra, respectively. At low levels you can front load a good number of class configurations with a good number of support abilities.

[Equinox]

Dragonfire Adept. Take Entangling Exhalation and some draconic auras.

[Eldariel]

Well:
- Wizards are amazing at supporting, if played to the tune. Just absolutely incredible. That's the whole basis of the God Wizard.
- Artificers [ECS] are incredible force multipliers (crafting gear for teammates in addition to infusions and UMDd buffs).
- Archivists [HoH] are ridiculously good supporters.
- Clerics, Sorcerers, Favored Souls, Druids are all quite good at supporting.
- Bards are a tailormade support class and fairly good at it (not as good as the supporting full casters though).
- Adept (NPC class from DMG) makes for a decent, if limited, support class.
- Crusaders [ToB] can be a decent martial supporting class if built for the purpose. They will need to be in the frontline to accomplish much though, so they'll be at least part warriors too.

[Daftendirekt]

Transmutation Wizards are very useful inside and outside of combat. I usually ban illusion and necromancy or abjuration (unless you cross class as cleric id advise banning necromancy.)

And if you really want to be an uber Transmuter support person, go War Weaver and throw up oodles of buffs at once.

[Big Fau]

And if you really want to be an uber Transmuter support person, go War Weaver and throw up oodles of buffs at once.

Add in Legacy Champion trickery for even more of it!