Allowing OP third-party classes in a high OP group

[atemu1234]

My group tends to, shall we say, "strategically multiclass". They all run really powerful characters, and recently we all agreed to let a new PC join us. He isn't just new to the group, but new to D&D in general. So, I'm debating letting him run a Dedicated Evoker from School of Evocation, despite it being broken, just to balance it out. Thoughts?

[sleepyphoenixx]

A caster isn't really a good idea for a complete newbie, at least in my experience. He's gonna have enough on his plate getting a feel for the rules and the general gameplay without adding the management of a caster on top of that. A broken 3rd party class won't change that. If you usually don't allow third party the exception will only confuse him.

Unless he really wants to play a caster for some reason he's probably better off starting with something with less options. I'd give him some build help to get a robust non-caster that can contribute and let him change characters after a few sessions if he wants to.
If it absolutely has to be a caster at least let him start out with one of the spontaneuos casters to cut down on the paperwork.

[Gemini476]

If he's a newbie you should probably hand him some high-floor class like a Warblade or something. It depends on what level you are playing at, though.
Generally you don't want to scare them away with lots and lots of choices, which is exactly what all casters have. Even the spontaneous ones. Compare the seventeen maneuvers of the Warblade to the forty or so spells of the Sorcerer.

Above all, though, make sure that you know what kind of character the player wants to play in advance. Maybe they don't want to be a magician, or maybe they don't want to pretend to be Kratos.

If they do want to be a caster, though, make sure to give them one that's easier to handle. Like a Psion. They're fairly intuitive, once you have the power list down.
Also, give them print-outs or cards or something containing all of their spells/maneuvers/powers. It's way easier to handle it if you have everything at hand.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I'm going to argue against Warblade. It has a high op floor, but a low op ceiling. Once he runs into the inevitable shortcomings of the class (low raw numbers relative to high op builds) there's little he can do to get around it.

I'm not sure what a dedicated evoker is, but in my experience even a powerful build will be played poorly by a newbie. Unless he has a go-to button to push ("I blast it with [main power X]") he's going to push the wrong buttons. To that end, whether or not you use borked 3rd party, help him optimize a particular trick. Thesis'd Searing Empowered Maximized Ocular Split Ray Twinned Invisible Orbs of Fire will likely compete even if he can't remember what the rest of his spells known do.