Help choosing a good evil monster class

[Donny_Green]

Looking for a evil monster or two to create a viking theme around. I'm looking for monsters that can fulfill the role of your basic fighters, barbarians, and ranger/scouts that would make up that sort of army of the norse men could would field. As such I'm only looking for about a +1 + 2 level adjustment at most, so I can maintain difficulty balance for more than a few levels.

At the same time I need a monster that I can turn into a magicy tricky type. A druid would be the obvious choice with the tribal aspects, and a bard seems like a fun choice to beat the drum on the longship. (plus they kick ass at making others kick ass) There might even be a wizard or sorcerer type, with a decent amount of weather control.

So I'd like to pole the playgrounds creative knowledge.
Let me know what ya think
Thanks

[Particle_Man]

Orcs make the best vikings :smallbiggrin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=halLk7382KU

You can give them a level of the orc paragon class to take away that pesky sunlight penalty, if that is bothersome. Otherwise, barbarian (and frenzied berserker perhaps) go well here. Or if you hate your players give the orcs levels in warblade and give them all white raven maneuvers and stances.

For spellcaster, I would go with a half-orc druid (since half-orcs lose out on chr and int, but not wis).

Or, you know, Red Dragon that is taking humanoid form for a while, until the big reveal. They have sorcery spells.

[Runestar]

Gnolls or Flinds seem like they might make good feral barbarian-type characters, though I personally don't like their ECL, if you plan on playing them as PCs. Plus, their crappy skill points make it harder to optimise any sort of skill-based build.

What kind of cr are you looking at for the latter?

[Honest Tiefling]

Why not use a monster that originated in Scandinavian mythology? Heck, why not take one of these monsters that came from that mythology and return it to its roots? For instance, elves are not player characters, they are ethereal, capricious beings that are outside of humanity. Heck, could use the drow for this role as the Svartalfar.

Giants and trolls would be obvious choices, but sadly, are too high of a LA to work. Half-Giants and fluff them lile Loki maybe?

[LTwerewolf]

Goliaths have no tendancy towards good or evil, but do have a tendency toward chaotic other than the adjudicators which are lawful. Seems a good fit.

They have a good few prestige classes and racial sub levels that make for good npcs (even if not great pcs) that would fit your theme imo.

[Inevitability]

Vikings were good sailors, right? Water orc (from UA) may even be a better fit. They boost strength and constitution, and take a hit in all mental stats.

[MadGreenSon]

No one has mentioned Ogres? They'd be great vikings/Norse!
Also, when you need magic-trickiness you can either have Primordial Ogres or Ogre Mages.

[Particle_Man]

Vikings were good sailors, right? Water orc (from UA) may even be a better fit. They boost strength and constitution, and take a hit in all mental stats.

I could get behind that!