Foolproof Classes

[cbaidchris]

So I'm considering taking leadership as a feat and with that the DM has said he will build the cohort but I can request a certain base class. Due to the fact that he will most likely make it highly unoptimized, I'm wondering what are some good classes that are foolproof feat and spell selection wise? I am a sorcerer and I was considering cleric but we already have one in the group. Any ideas?

[Fouredged Sword]

Warblade. Very high optimization floor, hard to do wrong. You could roll randomly for you maneuvers and end up with something relatively powerful.

[Story]

Martial adepts are hard to mess up (short of doing something obviously stupid like giving them 8 str). Full list casters are nice because no matter how badly you build them, you can at least swap out the spells to something sensible.

[eggynack]

Druids have pretty crazy high optimization floors, especially if it is you making the day to day decisions for them. As was mentioned, ToB classes also tend to do well without any kind of build optimization.

[Alabenson]

Druids have pretty crazy high optimization floors, especially if it is you making the day to day decisions for them. As was mentioned, ToB classes also tend to do well without any kind of build optimization.

Actually, despite how easy druids are to build, in my experience they are also remarkably easy to render ineffective.
I'd say the most idiot-proof classes are Crusader and Warblade.

[eggynack]

Actually, despite how easy druids are to build, in my experience they are also remarkably easy to render ineffective.
I'd say the most idiot-proof classes are Crusader and Warblade.
They are very easy to render ineffective, in incapable hands, but if the DM is merely building the druid in a suboptimal way, and then either playing the character at standard optimization levels, or handing the character over to the player, then druid is pretty much the best option around. If the DM is also playing the druid, and doing so poorly, then you may be correct.

[Rubik]

Marshal. So long as it has a high Charisma score, nobody really cares what else it has.

You may also consider a wizard/war weaver. All of the important things you'll care about are the spells it prepares every day, which are obviously going to be primarily buffs, and those are very easily changed out if the DM decides to be an arse about it.

[kpumphre]

Healer in case you need it and don't have any one who can do it a bunch

[Rubik]

Healer in case you need it and don't have any one who can do it a bunchOr better yet, cleric, since clerics are better at healing than healers.

[Andezzar]

If you don't like the cohort, release it and look for a new one.

Also, unless the DM gives a wizard INT 9, you can always make the wizard cohort effective if you give him more useful spells. It would be quite metagamy if the possibly mundane boss of the wizard knows more about being an effective wizard than the wizard himself, but then again, why would the the guy with an IQ through the roof, make such ineffective choices in the first place.

[Zombulian]

Or better yet, cleric, since clerics are better at healing than healers.

Arguable. Since pre-7 Healers are better at it than Clerics, get free SLA's of certain very useful spells, and at lvl 8 get Unicorns.

[subject42]

I'd suggest a binder. Even if he rolls stats randomly, there's likely to be some bind that will be useful.

[Rubik]

A chicken-infested commoner would give you access to infinite food stores. It's practically a class feature at this point.

[The Oni]

Truenamer. No matter how he builds it, it'll suck, so you've got nothing to lose.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Fixed list caster in general are easy to use. Dread Necromancers even get class features. Warmages are bland but very easy to pilot.

[Zombulian]

Truenamer. No matter how he builds it, it'll suck, so you've got nothing to lose.

I'll be honest, maybe not as a cohort, but if you could manage to have your followers be Truenamers that could be pretty funny. Most of their Utterances don't have saving throws or anything that requires a high stat, and if you have a bunch of them then you aren't locked into taking the best utterance, they can all be little gimmicky mages.

[Maginomicon]

If he's using psionics, an Erudite, especially a spell-to-power erudite, as you can always find or buy more power stones to upgrade him.

Warlock is also another solid choice since you can be a minimum stats for everything and still be half-decent.

One thing you might be able to do is ask to give your cohort's backstory, and ask that the backstory figure into how the DM builds the cohort. If your DM agrees, you have an "in" for giving context for the build. For example, you could say he's a childhood friend and that where you grew up the population was mostly Humans and Spellscales. You could say that his great grandfather was an erudite and he always wanted to follow in his footsteps. You could say that he was a bully and thus influence his psicrystal personality selection. Stuff like that.

[Brookshw]

If you don't like the cohort, release it and look for a new one.



If the DM's provided a weak cohort once he probably will again. Sounds like a "talk to him scenario"

[Metahuman1]

Artificer. Nothing says obvious like "Here, let me make you weapons and armor cost half as much and be customized!"

[Particle_Man]

Incarnate and Totemist both have the advantage of "pick better stuff tomorrow out of the entire list of my class list of meld shapes" so I'd say they are hard for a DM to screw over. At worst he would pick feats that only work if you put essentia points in them and lock them in for 24 hours, and even those at least give you one essential point so you could ignore the feat abilities and just play with more essentia points.

Warlock has the advantage of less paperwork, less to keep track of in general, etc.

[bekeleven]

Warlock is also another solid choice since you can be a minimum stats for everything and still be half-decent.

Nah, easy to choose bad invocations. You don't get very many...

As for my mention, has nobody said beguiler? High int is sorta necessary, and high dex would be nice, but beyond that the build comes down to "did you waste advanced learning or not?"

[Rubik]

How about a ghost or an ethergaunt? No matter what class it takes, the thing will have useful racial abilities.

[Shining Wrath]

I guess my question is, is your DM lazy or malicious?

If he's lazy, then almost anything goes, really. If he's just going to give you an "obvious choices for ability scores, obvious feats" build, take a Tier I class and be done with it.

If he's malicious and is going to *try* to break the build, almost nothing goes. This may be a moment for Monk; if he assigns the ability scores as 12 or 13 across the board you aren't that much worse off.

[Telonius]

My suggestion ... "No preference, just give me something that you think will be helpful."

This puts the ball entirely in his court, and makes him look like a complete jerk if he gives you something like a 11-INT Wizard. It also automatically lets him set the power level, so there's no danger of building something that he'll specifically want to massacre on sight for being too powerful.

EDIT: if I had to pick, I'd go with Bard. It's nearly always a force multiplier, and can fill in as a secondary for most roles.

[Urpriest]

Is your DM going to run the cohort, too? He definitely has the right to do so, but that will change our build advice considerably.

[Uncle Pine]

My suggestion ... "No preference, just give me something that you think will be helpful."

This puts the ball entirely in his court, and makes him look like a complete jerk if he gives you something like a 11-INT Wizard. It also automatically lets him set the power level, so there's no danger of building something that he'll specifically want to massacre on sight for being too powerful.

I'll second this as it seems a wise and polite way to handle the situation, be it a lazy or a malicious DM scenario.
Otherwise, go for a generalist Wizard (you don't want to end up with a focused diviner who's banned transmutation, conjuration and illusion, although I suppose it could have it's own niche). It's pretty easy to pimp a generalist Wizard with new spells if he only knows crappy spell. Plus, if he also has crappy feats, at higher levels you can have him learn Embrace the Dark Chaos and Shun the Dark Chaos and fix that too! :smallwink:

[Yogibear41]

What does your group consist off?

On a blind guess I would suggest artificer because well magic items are great, doesn't have to be great at combat at all, just needs a maxed UMD and a charisma > 10 and an int > 13. Bonus Con helps to just to keep him alive while you "refill" his xp after he burns it all making you stuff. He could also find and disable traps for you if you don't have a rogue but that is a good way to get him killed.

[Zaq]

DFA is my choice. Even if he picks crappy invocations, they've still got a nice breath weapon, you know? You do want to hope that he gets the one that makes allies unaffected by it, but even then, you can make it work.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Barbarian, Sorcerer, Crusader, Warblade, Cleric and Druid all come to mind.

I don't think there is any class that doesn't require some initial guidance from more experienced players (not sure what that says about the system), but those classes are pretty hard for anyone to mess up in actual play.

[Hyena]

Crusader and warblade are impossible to screw up. Swordsage, meanwhile, is somewhat weaker and making them powerful requires some rule-gymnastics.

[subject42]

Crusader and warblade are impossible to screw up. Swordsage, meanwhile, is somewhat weaker and making them powerful requires some rule-gymnastics.

Be careful with the crusader. If you're a small creature wielding a gauntlet with the wrong feats and stances you can end up rolling dice until the DM punches you in the face.

[Andezzar]

Be careful with the crusader. If you're a small creature wielding a gauntlet with the wrong feats and stances you can end up rolling dice until the DM punches you in the face.Bah, just say "I deal enough damage." That should work for any monster th<t is not immune to weapon damage. I don't think if anyone actually played the d2 crusader, he would bother rolling since the build can deal arbitrarily high damage anyways.