[Suggestions] So I'm introducing friends to the game

[MammonAzrael]

I have three to four friends that are all interested in learning how to play P&P games. Now, I am most knowledgable about 3.5, and have the most resources available to me with this system, so that is what I'm choosing. Over the next month or so I plan on talking to them about what they want their characters to do and then building one for them, and making a one-shot adventure for them to try.

What I would like from you, Playgrounders, are suggestions on good classes to consider, levels to try, suggestions on what the adventure should highlight or avoid, and so forth. Also any amusing or educational anecdotes from your attempts at introducing people to the wonderful world of pen and paper!

[Naomi Li]

I suggest you figure out what level of cynicism the group wants. "The world is always doomed and nothing you do will accomplish anything positive" to "Good cannot lose, and no matter what everyone will be saved" are rather far extremes on the scale, but there are a lot of points that they could choose from. Also, how much roleplaying they actually want, what style of gaming (railroaded constant combat, roleplay heavy open sandbox, whatever)

As for suggestions for classes... spontaneous casters are probably fairly easy to play effectively if they have help grabbing effective spells. However, all of the divine spontaneous casters from 3.5 that I am aware of are rather MAD, so perhaps a modified version or a modified oracle from Pathfinder? (The easiest method would almost certainly be to just take a favoured soul and shift the spell difficulty modifier from wisdom to charisma)

[AzureKnight]

In my experience fighters are the easiest characters to play for first timers, while fighter subclass such as rangers etc. should be taken with care not to overload the first timers with a lot to remember or they become overwhelmed and lose interest.

Spellcaster selection I would suggest limiting, at least at first, to sorcerer. As they have a set number of spells known, more spells per day they can cast, and dont have to worry about finding new spells or research costs to gain new spells. Not to mention saves against trying to memorize spells each day and pray for an uneventful night as to get proper rest.

I would say a favored soul if someone wants to be a healer, mainly for most of the reasons as the sorcerer over a wizard, minus research and such. A set number of spells known till they get better at spell selection, so you wont have to wait so long each day for them to choose new spells.

Rouge, if any, should be able too pick up things easily, or between all the skills and abilities, could also be overwhelmed.

After you get their concepts for what they want to play, and they start getting more experience, see how they play their characters and maybe suggest what they may enjoy playing, and open more options to them.

As always it seems best to ease new players into the gameing world so they can learn at a nice even pace. Good luck to you and your group, and remember the golden rule... have fun.

[Kennisiou]

Sorc and Favored Soul are both pretty SaD and make good casters. Scout is honestly probably simpler to comprehend than Rogue, but their skill-list isn't quite as thiefy/sneaky. Maybe just run them as a Scout with the Rogue skill list if that's what they feel like playing? Avoid the pitfall of building a fighter for any of them. Barbarian, Crusader, and Warblade are all fairly simple to play and should fit common fighter archetypes. While they may seem "harder to play" than fighter, that's false; crusader pretty much forces proper use through its mechanics, barb is pretty simple, and warblade's complexity is more in building than playing -- beyond that a lot of effective fighter builds ARE kind of hard to play since they involve combat options that aren't explained as effectively as maneuvers are. I'd also suggest trying to get them to unarmed swordsage rather than monk. Again, maneuvers sort of cause correct usage through their mechanics. Monk mechanics not as much.

[Epsilon Rose]

I'd recommend ToB classes for the melee people. They're relatively easy to understand and hard to mess up. They also give you more interesting options than "I hit it again" and the use of maneuver cards can help keep the game moving.

For casters, I'd recommend the fixed list casters on the arcane side. I'm less sure about the divine side, but I'd actually recommend taking a look at homebrew. The fixed list casters are nice because they tend to be decently balanced and you don't have books-upon-books of spells to sift through. They also get features beyond their spells. I'll talk about the homebrew in a later paragraph.

For non-standard classes I'd suggest binder, warlock, and (maybe) incarnate. I suggest these classes because they can be pretty versatile and don't rely on per-day powers (which can result in hoarding with newer players). Additionally, with the exception of the warlock, they don't require you to pick a list of abilities. If you decide a pact or soul-meld didn't work out for you, you can just use a different one tomorrow.
I didn't include the totemist because it's reliance on natural attacks and possibility for grappling could potentially cause problems for new players, you may or may not wish to reverse this judgement as it is an otherwise good class. The Soulborn was omitted because it is a much weaker class and the incarnate already has most of it's soulmelds.

For skilled classes, I'd suggest either one of the previously mentioned classes (incarnate's a good choice), factotum, or rogue (preferably PF rogue). Mainly because those are the best skilled classes I can think of barring homebrew.

Homebrew: I'm going to make an odd recommendation and say that if you like using homebrew, you should have a few pre-chosen homebrew classes and/or fixes available. I think the quantity and quality of 3.5's available homebrew is one of it's biggest strengths, but it can also be intimidating to a lot of players. That said, as new players, there really shouldn't be much difference for them between homebrew and official content. Either way, they'll be learning a new class and new mechanics. The upshot to this is that, by introducing it early, you can help them get comfortable with it. You can also use this to fill gaps in your available classes (divine casters and certain flavors of support) or fix mechanically weak but otherwise interesting classes (like spellthief, soulknife, monk and (maybe) warlock).

As for the starting class, I'd recommend between levels 5 and 10. At that point they're going to have a few shiny toys to play with and won't be in danger of instantly dying if the dice gods turn on them for a round. At the same time, they aren't so powerful that you're having trouble challenging their characters with out going way past their skill level and they can still experience the build up of their characters getting strong enough.

[MammonAzrael]

Solid recommendations, all. Thanks.

Class wise, I will certainly be avoiding Tome of Magic and Incarnum. They're learning the base systems, no need to throw in additional systems yet! Likewise I think I'll avoid psionics unless one explicitly wants to be one. Tome of Battle escapes that purge thanks to it, in my mind, effectively replacing the core martial classes. And martial character they may want will almost certainly be a maneuver-user.

I really like the suggestion for using the fixed-list casters. The classes are all nicely themed and focused, and should be pretty understandable out of the box.

Level-wise, I was also thinking around levels 5-10. Probably 5 or 6. I want to avoid the lethality of low levels for this initial run, and everyone likes having at least a few toys to play with.

I may dig into homebrew if their concept will be aided by it, but likely won't unless I can't find a decent official option. :smallsmile: