Very beginner build

[MCJennings]

A new friend was wanting to join our campaign of lvl 4 characters, but we're having trouble finding a place for him.
It's his first time playing and I think he is looking for simpler characters anyways.

We currently have a psion (shaper) warforged, a human paladin, a gnome sorcerer, gnome druid, and a tibbit rogue.

I feel like our essential roles are already covered so I'm not too worried on that. I do know this person will be exclusively chaotic neutral in our good party, so I have no clue how role playing will go down (assuming he will role play personality much at all).

So, what are some races and classes you would recommend? I want him to be able to have fun, but I don't expect too many tricks and loopholes to be taken advantage in combat by him so it really does need to be easily playable.

[AWiz_Abroad]

So, what are some races and classes you would recommend? I want him to be able to have fun, but I don't expect too many tricks and loopholes to be taken advantage in combat by him so it really does need to be easily playable.

Warlock. Basic, fun. Flying, invisble blaster is easy, fun and tolerant of lack of system mastery.

[lytokk]

I'd say either a barbarian or a fighter. Just to get his feet wet when it comes to creating or playing a character. Half-orc could be a fun race. No fancy ACFs or anything, just a straight out of the box. Let him get used to combat since thats the most rule intensive part of the game.

Alternatively, elven ranger. With skills, semi-useful class abilities, and a base attack that could keep up its a pretty good starting class. I'd say have him take archery over two weapon fighting, but it ends up being whatever works for him.

[Vhaidara]

Warfogred Crusader. Take Adamantine Body (Steely Resolve lets you double dip DR). Help pick maneuvers (it's pretty simple for a crusader).

For gameplay, print off the maneuver cards here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a) for the maneuvers he has. Shuffle the deck, and have him draw his maneuvers granted. When he uses a maneuver, discard it. Every turn, he draws a card. When he can't draw, shuffle the discard pile and draw.

Crusader pretty much plays itself. They have the best aggro pull ability in the game (Thicket of Blades/Iron Guard Glare) and the maneuvers can allow for the rolling of many dice (a common pleasure among new players).

Failing the allowance of Tome of Battle, I second the warlock suggestion.

[Extra Anchovies]

Warlock. Basic, fun. Flying, invisble blaster is easy, fun and tolerant of lack of system mastery.

Seconded, very strongly. Warlock is one of the simplest classes to play, and are just crazy fun. Even Fighter 20 is a more complex build than Warlock 20 (there are significantly more fighter feats than there are warlock invocations), and the warlock has almost zero bookkeeping (just hit points, equipment, and their Fiendish Resilience ability).

[RolandDeschain]

Seconded, very strongly. Warlock is one of the simplest classes to play, and are just crazy fun. Even Fighter 20 is a more complex build than Warlock 20 (there are significantly more fighter feats than there are warlock invocations), and the warlock has almost zero bookkeeping (just hit points, equipment, and their Fiendish Resilience ability).

I'm gonna second the idea of Barbarian Ranger for sheer ease of play and chaotic barbarian fun.
Barbarian 1/WS Ranger 5.....into whatever he's feeling comfortable with by level 7. There's some utility in there via skills and wild shape, and the feat selection is a piece of cake - extra rage, reckless rage, extra wild shape....

[Urpriest]

I'm gonna second the idea of Barbarian Ranger for sheer ease of play and chaotic barbarian fun.
Barbarian 1/WS Ranger 5.....into whatever he's feeling comfortable with by level 7. There's some utility in there via skills and wild shape, and the feat selection is a piece of cake - extra rage, reckless rage, extra wild shape....

You do not give a first-time player Wildshape. The monster rules don't take a huge amount of explanation, but they certainly aren't "first time playing" material.

[Troacctid]

Seconded, very strongly. Warlock is one of the simplest classes to play, and are just crazy fun. Even Fighter 20 is a more complex build than Warlock 20 (there are significantly more fighter feats than there are warlock invocations), and the warlock has almost zero bookkeeping (just hit points, equipment, and their Fiendish Resilience ability).

Thirded. Warlocks are very easy to build, very easy to play, and lots of fun. And if he wants to play a Chaotic character, he will love Baleful Utterance.

[Waker]

Warlock as others have said, is an excellent choice. You have a super simple "spell" list, no need to track spells per day and virtually no stat dependency. Alternatively you might consider looking at the Dragonfire Adept, which has much of the same going for it. In either case, you might want to help him select his invocations to make sure he doesn't pick the less useful ones.

[Harlot]

I agree on the warlock. You could make it a glaivelock for some melee feel.

That said, something really simple, like a fighter or rogue might be a good place to start.
There are just so many RULES and much to read if you have spells, and as a newbie, tracking spell-lists is sort of complicated.

[Threadnaught]

Druid, just give him a bunch of prechosen Spells and Wild Shape forms, and allow him to choose his own as his system mastery and willingness to keep his character updated increase.


Or just give him a Fighter and tell him to Full Attack every round. Either way, it'd be near impossible for him to screw up.

[Xerlith]

Classes I found the easiest but still fun to play for beginners:
Warlock
Warblade
Crusader (with printed card maneuvers)
Battle Sorcerer - Bit gishy, bit casty. Spontaneus small list means less to learn
Of course, in that vein there is the Warmage, Dread Necromancer and Beguiler
Dragonfire Adept
This class (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=6075.0). It's glorious, really.

[Thiyr]

I'm gonna have say warblade is gonna be one of the better choices, for a few reasons:

It's hard to screw up: Maneuvers are just kinda forgiving like that.
It gives a good handle on basic mechanics. You're gonna be moving and attacking a lot. You've got a decent skill list, so you can guide them to using that well.
It gives a bit more insight into how resources typically work: Maneuvers are fairly self-explanatory (that is, each maneuver says what it can do fairly distinctly), and doesn't come with a whole ton of extra rules baggage (warblade neatly avoids most of the supernatural maneuvers). But it gets the idea of resource "slots" in their head, allowing an easier transition into casters later.
Simple to play: Once you get how maneuvers readied works, you just look at what you have readied, look at what they do, and then you do it.

Last bit is mostly conjecture, but I also feel like its easier to remember all your abilities with the warblade. It's easy to forget that you have feat X on a fighter that dammit I should've used it there. But because these are active things to keep track of, and especially with the maneuver cards, it's a lot easier to keep track of what all you can do.

[1pwny]

I'm putting out Warlock again.

I remember that back in my early days, I was always anxious about sustain issues, even if there were only a few encounters every day. Warlock is really nice for beginners because you never have to ration spells, or worry about running out of your blasting stuff (which a first-time player will probably go for). Its nice and relaxed, and very appealing for someone that is still a bit new. :smallsmile:

[molten_dragon]

I'll buck the trend a bit and suggest human factotum.

It's maybe not the simplest class, but it's hard to make one unplayable. And he'll get to experience a little bit of everything the game has to offer. He can turn undead occasionally. He can do a bit of healing. He can fight in melee and ranged combat relatively effectively. He can contribute to almost anything that requires some sort of skill (especially obscure ones). And he can cast a few spells.

- Factotum is fairly SAD, so no difficulty balancing a ton of ability scores.
- If you spread your skills out all over the place, not only is it not detrimental, it's actually quite beneficial.
- Feats are pretty easy, just take font of inspiration a bunch and you'll do fine.
- The mechanic for a lot of the class is the same. Spend an inspiration point and add your INT bonus to something.
- New spells can be chosen each day, so if he picks bad ones one day, it won't hurt him long term. So he'll be able to experiment and find out what's good and what's not.

[The Insaniac]

I'll agree with warlock and expand with dragonfire adept. It's not much more complex than a warlock but the breath weapon gives you some added goodies in combat. I'm also going to go out on a limb and mention binder. It's pretty simple until level 8 when you can bind two vestiges and he should have an idea of how the system works and what vestiges he likes by then. You only need to keep track of a couple of abilities at a time and if you make a bad choice, you can fix it the next day.

[Ketiara]

Warlock!
I guy in my game likes it very much its easy and if you allow him to retrain from ranged to glaive/claw or hellfire later on if he wants more, or needs to power it up a bit.

If you give him the supernatural transformation feat (http://dndtools.eu/feats/savage-species--47/supernatural-transformation--2849/) (DM call) then he doesnt even have to consider spellresistance on some of his abilities.

[RolandDeschain]

You do not give a first-time player Wildshape. The monster rules don't take a huge amount of explanation, but they certainly aren't "first time playing" material.

meh

I'll acknowledge that you have a pretty good point about complexity, but there's some leveling involved that will give the player adequate time to pick things up(especially if you have some preprepared, limited options), and I don't see it as unnecessarily complicated or at least not more so than a bunch of invocations or stances/maneuvers

I could be and am often wrong though

EDIT: Should be noted that a 5th level WS Ranger has a pretty limited version of wild shape, more in the line of 'utility' not combat forms(which I agree can be incredibly complex)

[lytokk]

As someone who is currently experiencing giving a first time player a druid, don't do it unless the player in question directly controls whether you'll be sleeping on the bed or the couch. Even then, work out as many methods of streamlining things as possible. Spontaneous diving casting instead of prepared list, have everything on notecards, and only pick out 4 or 5 wild shapes.

[Jgosse]

As someone who is currently experiencing giving a first time player a druid, don't do it unless the player in question directly controls whether you'll be sleeping on the bed or the couch. Even then, work out as many methods of streamlining things as possible. Spontaneous diving casting instead of prepared list, have everything on notecards, and only pick out 4 or 5 wild shapes.

Worst thing I ever did was give my wife whobwas new to the game a druid.

[lytokk]

Worst thing I ever did was give my wife whobwas new to the game a druid.

How'd you eventually smooth things out? Really taking all the advice I can get. Granted with a month between games there's a lot of downtime to plan new methods, but not a lot of time to put them into real practice.

[Jgosse]

How'd you eventually smooth things out? Really taking all the advice I can get. Granted with a month between games there's a lot of downtime to plan new methods, but not a lot of time to put them into real practice.
I took a break from dming and will let you know what happens if I figure it out after I start the game again.

[lytokk]

I took a break from dming and will let you know what happens if I figure it out after I start the game again.

Not the vote of confidence I was wanting to hear. Anyway, back to the thread.

I guess warlock is pretty easy to play. I guess I thought fighter would be simpler due to the fact they don't have many options. Either hit them with a stick, hit them with a bigger stick, or hit them with the first stick this time holding a plank of wood with my other arm. Its an easy way to learn the system to start with, then either retire or retrain the character and have a different class. Though you only get 1 more invocation than fighters get feats, so I guess they're about as easy to learn as the other.

[Jgosse]

Not the vote of confidence I was wanting to hear. Anyway, back to the thread.

I guess warlock is pretty easy to play. I guess I thought fighter would be simpler due to the fact they don't have many options. Either hit them with a stick, hit them with a bigger stick, or hit them with the first stick this time holding a plank of wood with my other arm. Its an easy way to learn the system to start with, then either retire or retrain the character and have a different class. Though you only get 1 more invocation than fighters get feats, so I guess they're about as easy to learn as the other.

I should mention we are both playing in a new game and she is a warlock and much happier.

[Person_Man]

My recommendations are Sorcerer, Swordsage, or Dragonfire Adept.

I know you already have another Sorcerer, but its easy enough to pick different spells. Pick some cool non-open ended options, cut and paste the spells onto a list for him, print it out, and you're done.

Swordsage is similarly useful with a stack of Standard Action maneuvers.

Dragonfire Adept is useful for all the reasons people are suggesting Warlock, except the DFA is more powerful.

[Zaq]

I'm gonna agree with Warlock and DFA. I find that a lot of new players have difficulty figuring out how fast to burn limited resources—they either burn themselves out immediately and feel frustrated, or they jealously hoard their powers to the point where they might as well not even have them. Warlock and DFA get around that issue with no problem. They're also really easy to pick feats for—Warlock just needs Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot, and DFA just wants Entangling Exhalation (though really, a first-time player might not even need that), and then they can take whatever feats they want (or just spam Extra Invocation, if they can't think of anything else or if they don't want the hassle). DFAs have the added advantage of having a metric hellaton of HP, so they're reasonably sturdy. Furthermore, DFAs are basically guaranteed to have SOMETHING happen on their turn—unless they're fighting enemies with Evasion (which should be relatively rare), they can't "miss" entirely. They're going to get at least a little bit of damage on the field, no matter what the dice say.

Warblade is another good choice if you help the player pick their maneuvers. Warblade is a different way of approaching the issue of resource management—unlike the Warlock/DFA, they actually do have resources that get used up, but they don't get VERY used up. So the player actually does get used to managing limited resources (rather than just ignoring the issue altogether), but they get used to it in a very nonthreatening manner—no matter how bad they spam things, they're never more than a round away from getting all their toys back. A Warblade will help get the player used to direct combat, which is not a bad idea.

At low levels, a Scout is also a decent choice. "Move + attack" is a pretty simple goal to have every round (especially on a ranged Scout), and they've got lots of skill points to play with, so the player will probably have something fun to do out of combat. Once you're at a level where you need to be making full attacks to stay relevant, a Scout can get a little complex (needing Pounce, Travel Devotion, Greater Manyshot, or something similar that isn't exactly obvious to a new player), but when everyone's making a single attack a round anyway, a Scout's not a bad choice.

[Person_Man]

At low levels, a Scout is also a decent choice.

Having played a Scout extensively when it first came out, I would not suggest it for a newb unless the DM is willing to make a few house rules in their favor.

Precision damage rules (30 limit, immunities, no volley) can be extremely frustrating to a new player. As you noted, you need pounce or free movement or Greater Manyshot to be viable beyond low levels. And doing the same exact thing every round of every combat (I move, then attack) is really boring after a few combats. And Skirmish damage scales very poorly.

This could be solved by hand waving precision damage limitations away, give them Pounce and Greater Manyshot for free at 7th level, give them UMD (which they lack as a class Skill) with the ability to Take 10 along with a selection of cool wands or a cool staff, and allow their Skirmish damage to match Sneak Attack damage progression.

[JW86]

I really enjoyed Barbarian - played some rough half orc, plenty of roleplay fun and fairly simple rules.. :smallsmile:

[Sian]

yeah ... Warlock is probably the way to go ... do take a few seconds to police what invocations he takes, or its also one of the easier classes to send the brain afk while playing

[Faily]

I will recommend Cleric. It was the class I was given when I first started D&D (everyone else in the group had played for like... 15+ years), and I felt it was a very forgiving class to give to a newbie. Cleric is so solid straight out of the gates, it's really hard to mess it up.

A Cleric has decent HP, got the most important saves covered (Fortitude and Will), can tank up in heavy armor, and feels self-sufficent with their spontaneous cure-spells. And at that level, he might be able to really shine as well in case of an undead-encounter, as Turn Undead (or Channel Positive Energy in Pathfinder) is a nice tactic to make things easier for the party.

[Flickerdart]

Warlock is a good option, but I would recommend a class that is less reliant on its subsystem. Pew pew laz0rs are great, but players relish abilities that create exceptions, and the warlock is rubbish at that. If you want to teach him the system, start with a class that interfaces with the base rules more thoroughly, and yet has meaningful abilities that it can use to bend those rules when necessary. You also want a class that doesn't tell the player "no" by being miserly about skill points or creative abilities, doesn't break from established concepts from fantasy media, and doesn't punish the player for making mistakes.

To that end, I recommend Knight. Their skills aren't great, but they are very very hard to kill, and play into a classic character very well - how many of us started the game with a sword and shield warrior who protects his friends, only to end up a skeleton? Hell, he's even got a code of conduct to help him separate his personality from his character's. While the knight relies mostly on full attacks, he has a limited resource pool (use poker chips or coins) to let him do cool stuff. I would recommend augmenting this with his feats and items.

[Zaq]

Having played a Scout extensively when it first came out, I would not suggest it for a newb unless the DM is willing to make a few house rules in their favor.

Precision damage rules (30 limit, immunities, no volley) can be extremely frustrating to a new player. As you noted, you need pounce or free movement or Greater Manyshot to be viable beyond low levels. And doing the same exact thing every round of every combat (I move, then attack) is really boring after a few combats. And Skirmish damage scales very poorly.

This could be solved by hand waving precision damage limitations away, give them Pounce and Greater Manyshot for free at 7th level, give them UMD (which they lack as a class Skill) with the ability to Take 10 along with a selection of cool wands or a cool staff, and allow their Skirmish damage to match Sneak Attack damage progression.

I guess it depends how long you expect the player to stick with the character. When I hear "totally new player," I kind of instinctively think of a one-shot or otherwise pretty short campaign, relatively low-level, after which the player kind of graduates to making their own character (or at least having more autonomy over their build) and grows into being a "regular" player. Upon consideration, there's no reason why that should necessarily be what I assume, but that's what I had in mind when thinking of a Scout.

And I agree that Scouts get kind of monotonous to play round after round, but really, EVERYONE who's not using spells, maneuvers, or something similar is going to get monotonous round after round, at least until you have the system mastery to go for the weird stuff. It's kind of a weakness of the system. Scouts, at least, aren't just going to stand in one place and trade d20 rolls until one combatant falls over. Warlocks are going to be similar: every round is just firing your laser. DFAs, every round is just going to be breathing at table. Scouts at least have to be aware of positioning and movement. Basically, by the time you've got enough system mastery to be bored with a Scout, you're going to have enough system mastery to be introduced to other options, whether those options consist of other character types or of ways to get full attacks on Scouts.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I'm of the opinion that you should give a newbie something with options, just not too many of them. A fighter can be fun to play, but you actually need to know what you're doing.T1 casters need way too much bookkeeping and spell knowledge to really play, so they're out too.

Depending on the players preferences i'd suggest either Warblade or Crusader for melee and Warlock or DFA for ranged/caster. Maybe Sorcerer if he has the time and will to read up on it. Get everyone together for 1-2 oneshots (with the other, experienced players filling other roles with a similar power level if possible) and after that they should know enough to choose their class for a longer campaign.

That said, i've seen people start with a Wizard and do fine. They spend a whole lot of their free time reading up on stuff though, which probably helped quite a bit.

[Blackhawk748]

Warlock is a good option, but I would recommend a class that is less reliant on its subsystem. Pew pew laz0rs are great, but players relish abilities that create exceptions, and the warlock is rubbish at that. If you want to teach him the system, start with a class that interfaces with the base rules more thoroughly, and yet has meaningful abilities that it can use to bend those rules when necessary. You also want a class that doesn't tell the player "no" by being miserly about skill points or creative abilities, doesn't break from established concepts from fantasy media, and doesn't punish the player for making mistakes.

To that end, I recommend Knight. Their skills aren't great, but they are very very hard to kill, and play into a classic character very well - how many of us started the game with a sword and shield warrior who protects his friends, only to end up a skeleton? Hell, he's even got a code of conduct to help him separate his personality from his character's. While the knight relies mostly on full attacks, he has a limited resource pool (use poker chips or coins) to let him do cool stuff. I would recommend augmenting this with his feats and items.

Never actually considered Knight, but ya that actually would be a good class to start someone on as they are actually pretty decent, also gonna second Barbar as its just "RAGE!!!!!" and hit it with a small tree.

[Flickerdart]

Never actually considered Knight, but ya that actually would be a good class to start someone on as they are actually pretty decent, also gonna second Barbar as its just "RAGE!!!!!" and hit it with a small tree.
Barbarian is a very solid choice, but they don't really have much in the way of decisions. You have a limited resource but you always want to Rage at the start of an encounter and then charge and full attack with your huge muscles. I could see some alternative totems (not Spirit Lion, Wolf is a good start) and other ACFs (TRAPKILLER!) that expand this flexibility without compromising the simplicity.

[Tvtyrant]

My suggestion is Dragonfire Adept. Low levels you get at-will blasting, flight, can run around in plate armor with a tower shield and be the best at not dying, and you are con dependent so your HP is going to be second only to the Barbarians. Then when they get more used to the game they can begin picking up Humanoid Shape and learn the ways of the optimizer.

I particularly like aiming for low charisma DFA and use 24 hour buffs with full armor.

[Sian]

edit Knight's Test of Meddle, to calc DC on Character level and not Class level and it should be decent enough to take for a spin

[maniacalmojo]

intro to magic is the warlock or sorcerer as they grant spells but are not super hard to follow.
Intro to fighting is the crusader or warblade as "Going up and hitting things" Is easy and once they learn that learning techniques provides both utility and is sort of an intro to spells itself.

[Extra Anchovies]

My suggestion is Dragonfire Adept. Low levels you get at-will blasting, flight, can run around in plate armor with a tower shield and be the best at not dying, and you are con dependent so your HP is going to be second only to the Barbarians. Then when they get more used to the game they can begin picking up Humanoid Shape and learn the ways of the optimizer.

I particularly like aiming for low charisma DFA and use 24 hour buffs with full armor.

DFA, I think, might actually be better than Warlock, because it's more straightforward. Warlock looks like a sniper class, all ranged touch attacks, Eldritch Chain, and Vitriolic Blast (not to mention the low hp), but it's actually a melee class (Hellfire Warlock/Eldritch Glaive) if you want it to be at all effective at later levels. If the new player is up for a Glaivelock, though, they can be hella fun.

[gooddragon1]

Warlock is a good option, but I would recommend a class that is less reliant on its subsystem. Pew pew laz0rs are great, but players relish abilities that create exceptions, and the warlock is rubbish at that. If you want to teach him the system, start with a class that interfaces with the base rules more thoroughly, and yet has meaningful abilities that it can use to bend those rules when necessary. You also want a class that doesn't tell the player "no" by being miserly about skill points or creative abilities, doesn't break from established concepts from fantasy media, and doesn't punish the player for making mistakes.

To that end, I recommend Knight. Their skills aren't great, but they are very very hard to kill, and play into a classic character very well - how many of us started the game with a sword and shield warrior who protects his friends, only to end up a skeleton? Hell, he's even got a code of conduct to help him separate his personality from his character's. While the knight relies mostly on full attacks, he has a limited resource pool (use poker chips or coins) to let him do cool stuff. I would recommend augmenting this with his feats and items.

I nominate warlock and partially disagree with the does not create exceptions part. Warlock bypasses a few forms of armor with ranged touch attacks. This exposes the player to concepts like touch attacks, spell resistance, and non-typed damage (ignoring DR). Their invocations show concepts like flight, saving throw allocation, and invisibility. However, they're not as intricate as spells like polymorph or as taxing as summoning so as to confuse the player. Depending on the encounters a player using a warlock should feel as though they are almost always able to contribute damage against targets in combat while having appropriate contributions outside of combat.

[Troacctid]

DFA, I think, might actually be better than Warlock, because it's more straightforward. Warlock looks like a sniper class, all ranged touch attacks, Eldritch Chain, and Vitriolic Blast (not to mention the low hp), but it's actually a melee class (Hellfire Warlock/Eldritch Glaive) if you want it to be at all effective at later levels. If the new player is up for a Glaivelock, though, they can be hella fun.

Ranged Warlocks are fine at later levels. Even if the damage doesn't scale well at the top end, it scales great in the early and mid levels, and later on they get to pick up battlefield control, AoE, debuffs, and save-or-dies so that they're no longer reliant on straight damage to win fights.

[Flickerdart]

I made a thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?371737-3-5-Beginner-build-library) to archive builds for beginners, walking through the first 5 levels of a simple character. Feel free to add your own!