Player Looking for a Flexible Class

[Draco_Lord]

Hi Guys, I am preparing to DM for a group of people, and a few of my players are very new. So I am looking for a little advise.

For a new player, what would be a good class that can do a bit of everything? He is looking for someone who can hit with a sword, fall back to magic, maybe heal, with decent skills.

Now, I understand that isn't exactly going to happen. Lets face it, if there was a class that could do everything amazingly that would be the class everyone played. So, I just want some advice on classes that I should suggest to him. My first thought being Bard, since 3/4 BAB, Magic, and lots of skills. He is hesitant, cause he seems to want to hit things, rather then encourage allies to hit things. So if there is a good arch type, let me know, but personally I think a simpler class might be better, get his feet wet you know. Maybe Paladin, Ranger, or Oracle, though not sure if those are all that simple.

What do you guys think? What would be a good class to suggest to him? Or should I suggest he pick something with more focus?

[Dark Kerman]

Hey Buddy,

I notice you're playing Pathfinder, but if you were willing to port in 3rd Ed stuff the Factotum is pretty much perfect for what you want. It's found in Dungeonscape (forget what page). It's whole stick is literally doing a bit of everything, at the moment you most need it.

Following that another one from 3.5 is the Chameleon PrC from Races of Destiny. Not sure how well those two mesh together, but they both follow the idea of being able to swap your abilities around as you need them.

Ta,

DK

[Novawurmson]

I suggest you show your player the medium (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/occult-adventures/occult-classes/medium). They're extremely flexible on a day to day level - Want melee damage? Take the Champion spirit today. Casting? Archmage. Healer? Hierophant.

And so forth and so on.

That being said, Pathfinder is full of 2/3rds spellcasting classes that can do well in melee or back off and heal/support with spells. The warpriest, inquisitor, mesmerist, hunter, and skald, as well as the oracle which you mentioned are all great places to start. If they want to go more damage/spellcasty, the magus is great. The alchemist can melee with good build choices and archetypes.

If you're willing to look at 3rd party, the DSP Psychic Warrior, Tactician, or Wilder could fit the bill.

Edit: Looking at your initial post again, I'd especially show him the inquisitor (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/inquisitor). Good class features for melee or ranged damage, 6+Int skills, 2/3 spellcasting, and the ability to pick up healing spells.

Edit 2: Again, if you use 3rd party, there are several Spheres of Power classes that could do it.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Most of the 6th level casting classes are pretty versatile (bard, magus, hunter, warpriest, inquisitor, alchemist, investigator), as well as being pretty balanced and pretty well-designed. I'd probably put the alchemist forward as my first selection, since they can:

Throw bombs from range
Buff up and enter melee
Pass out heals buffs to themselves and partymates (with the right discovery)
Summon monsters (with the right archetype and/or discoveries)
Do skills (Int focus and great spells to buff them)
Create and use all sorts of poisons and weird alchemical items (don't forget to buy a hybridization funnel!)


Plus they use a spellbook, which can be harder to mess up than casters with static spells known-- it's smaller than a cleric or druid's "entire list," but you can still change the spells you typically prepare, and the DM can always coincidentally drop some better spells as loot. Bombs and melee/archery take little effort to make work (all you really need to do for the latter is drink your Mutagen), and Extracts can be mixed pretty much on the fly, since you only need a minute to make a new one.

[Ilorin Lorati]

I suggest you show your player the medium (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/occult-adventures/occult-classes/medium). They're extremely flexible on a day to day level - Want melee damage? Take the Champion spirit today. Casting? Archmage. Healer? Hierophant.

It sounds like the flexibility he's looking for would actually be round-to-round, or perhaps combat-to-combat. As such, the only Medium Archetype that would work would be the Spirit Dancer (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/occult-adventures/occult-classes/medium/archetypes/paizo-llc---medium-archetypes/spirit-dancer-medium-archetype).

[NightbringerGGZ]

Here are some options:

Bard - The class is great with skill checks, particularly knowledge skills. It has magic for buffing, social situations and crowd control. Bard's are pretty good at combat as is, but can be made better with archetypes. Let your player know that the "party" buffs also apply to him, and that he doesn't have to sing or dance or play an instrument. He could use Oratory or Comedy and buff the party with sarcastic quips.

Some good archetypes for a combat bard are: Arcane Duelist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/archetypes/paizo---bard-archetypes/arcane-duelist), Dawnflower Dervish (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/archetypes/paizo---bard-archetypes/dawnflower-dervish)

Magus - This class is capable of amazing damage in combat, though it can be a bit of a glass cannon in early levels. As an Int-based spell caster you'll always plenty of skill ranks. The class is also pretty versatile with its builds due to the many fun (and useful) archetypes it has received.

Inquisitor - This is the class you want to play if you are going for a spy or bounty hunter theme. It is a bit of a slow start in combat, but by the time you hit levels 4 & 5 you really start excelling. It is also one of the best frameworks for an intimidate build.

Summoner - You basically get two characters in one with this glass, your main Summoner and the Eidolon. For a bit of unoptimized fun, build your Summoner as a melee fighter and make the Eidolon a support character.

Alchemist - The Alchemist really can do everything, but you'll need to specialize in one area to be effective. There are some really fun builds though, letting you be the guy who throws out monsters held in little jars (Gotta Catch em All!), hurl bombs around to blow up enemies or be the Incredible Hulk. You also get to craft useful buffing potions that you can share with the party via a Discovery.

Investigator - This is THE class for out of combat situations or creative skill usage in combat. Damage dealing is needlessly rough until level 4 so you may want to make some homebrew changes to rearrange when various abilities come online. I've been playing an Investigator though, and even with starting out at level 1 I'm loving it.

[Vhaidara]

I second the recommendations of Investigator. If you include either the Empiricist or Mastermind archetypes you become either Sherlock Holmes or Moriarty.

To solve their low level combat problems, I recommend dipping a single level of Inspired Blade (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/swashbuckler/archetypes/paizo---swashbuckler-archetypes/inspired-blade) Swashbuckler (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/swashbuckler) and taking Fencing Grace (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/fencing-grace-combat) as your level 1 feat. Dex to hit and damage, alongside swash's Opportune Parry and Riposte should see you nicely through to where Investigator finally gets decent combat ability.

Oh, and if you're in a home game, see about using a Sword Cane instead of a rapier. Because sword cane.

[Serafina]

Seconding (thirding?) Spirit Dancer Medium. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/occult-adventures/occult-classes/medium)

Essentially, in combat the character would be Full-BAB, Medium armor with an exotic weapon of the players choices, a pretty good bonus to damage and later an ability to move and full-attack (minus one attack).
My personal recommendation is actually going for thrown weapons - mostly because the character would only have D8 HD, and because a thrown-weapon build can make a good switch-hitter.
But you can easily go for more straight-forward hitting of things - reach weapons and two-handed weapons both work well too.

Out of combat, the character can provide 2/3rds casting from the Cleric AND Wizard list, and (at high levels) even gets 9th-level Wizard spells and once/day free Miracle (the non-expensive version).

The character can also provide skills via the Trickster-Spirit. Select any two skills (swappable once per day), you have full ranks in them and treat them as class skills. With a Trapfinding-granting trait, you basically just took the Rogues job.


He won't out-fight any dedicated combat class (no real bonus feats, no combat-related class features other than Swift Charge and some bonus damage), but it's pretty solid.
The casting is also pretty solid. You have much less spells known on your high-level spells, but you know a ton of low-level spells and can swap your high-level spells known (from Archmage and Hierophant) each day.

The only thing the Spirit Dancer can't do compared to a normal Medium is something you have to be aware of.
You have limited rounds/day of using basically all your abilities. That's admittedly not much of a problem after the first few levels - unless you want to cast any spell with a long casting time, or make any skill check that takes longer. Full-round spells are fine, as is quick disabling of traps or knowledge checks. But forget about anything that takes a minute more (unless it's a skill you learned regularly), since you'll run out of rounds for that.



Finally, my favorite re-fluff of the Spirit Dancer Medium:
You are not channeling vague "legends" or deceased spirits. Instead, you are an Aasimar and are manifesting your angelic heritage. (The same could be done with Tiefling, but see the build).

There's also a decent build for that. Standard two-hander feats, but you are an Aasimar and spend feats on getting Metallic Wings (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/racial-feats/metallic-wings-aasimar), since the two natural attacks should play well with the full-attack and damage bonus.
If you want to optimize a bit more, grab a bite attack - either via trait (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/religion-traits/mother-s-teeth), Scion of Humanity + Racial Heritage at level 1 and either a Trait (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/race-traits/tusked) or a feat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/razortusk) and add a bite attack. Well, for a given value of "optimized".
Hardly an optimal build, but might be fun to your player and should deliver solid damage.

[daryen]

I think the Bard idea is good, but I would head in the direction of the Archeologist. It gives everything the OP asked for: combat with a sword, good combat, spells, healing, skills. Plus, it specifically removes what he doesn't want: bardic performance. Instead, the performance is replaced with luck bonuses. Then, just to sweeten the deal, some rogue abilities are tossed in.

I imagine many on this board are not fans of the Archeologist, as it is a pretty simple class, and doesn't use weird and unusual mechanics. However, it seems a perfect fit for exactly what the OP requested.

[AnonymousPepper]

I'm gonna recommend Inquisitor. 2/3 divine caster, 3/4 BAB (has access to Divine Favor/Power though). Has all sorts of (on the fly adjustable) damage steroid class mechanics (no, seriously, a decently built inquisitor hits like a truck), high skill points, huge wisdom synergy with everything (would definitely recommend a Guided weapon, btw), and a very versatile spell list (I'd say the only thing it notably lacks for a 2/3 caster is Haste, actually). It buffs, it skillmonkeys, it serves as a backup face, it heals, it tanks, and it's a good martial class to boot. The only thing it doesn't do suuuuper well is ranged combat, and also its weapon proficiencies are lacking (need to either take MWP or pick a deity with the favored weapon you want, if you want a good non-simple melee weapon... although it paradoxically gets all the bow proficiencies including repeating ones). Honestly, I'd say that even more so than Bard, it's the T3 class that comes closest to breaking the T2 barrier.

[charcoalninja]

Inquisitor all the way. I'm a fan of the Spell Killer Inquisitor archetype. Trades away the teamwork feats for a tonne of saving throw bonuses vs. magic.

[TheifofZ]

Archaeologist archetype bard, Medium, and Inquisitor all fit the bill pretty decently. Alchemist is a strong showing, too, to be frank.
Clerics also can with a moderate amount of investment, but they certainly won't be as strong across the board.

Really at this point it comes down to which flavor the prospective player likes, though if he weren't a new player then I'd say Druid for sure.

[Mystral]

Archeologist archetype seems perfect, yes. It swaps out the thing he doesn't like for more versatility. He'll still be able to encourage himself, too.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/archetypes/paizo---bard-archetypes/archaeologist

[noob]

Clerics can do everything better than non T1 you might look at the thread about that.

[skypse]

Hi Guys, I am preparing to DM for a group of people, and a few of my players are very new. So I am looking for a little advise.

For a new player, what would be a good class that can do a bit of everything? He is looking for someone who can hit with a sword, fall back to magic, maybe heal, with decent skills.

Now, I understand that isn't exactly going to happen. Lets face it, if there was a class that could do everything amazingly that would be the class everyone played. So, I just want some advice on classes that I should suggest to him. My first thought being Bard, since 3/4 BAB, Magic, and lots of skills. He is hesitant, cause he seems to want to hit things, rather then encourage allies to hit things. So if there is a good arch type, let me know, but personally I think a simpler class might be better, get his feet wet you know. Maybe Paladin, Ranger, or Oracle, though not sure if those are all that simple.

What do you guys think? What would be a good class to suggest to him? Or should I suggest he pick something with more focus?

Plain Summoner, Master Summoner, Synthesist, Broodmaster, Shadow Caller, Unchained Summoner.... I think you get the idea :)

[Draco_Lord]

Thank you for all the ideas! Medium was my first though, but he is a new player. His only experience with table top is shadowrun, and one campaign. So I don't think that will be a good class for him. But Inquisitor and Bard look good. Thank you for the advice!

[Pluto!]

Druid. Reasonable skills, chassis and proficiencies plus a spell list and casting mechanic that let him do a basically anything with a little prep. Maybe even use an archetype without the animal companion or wild shape if you want to streamline play.

I was going to kneejerk to say Alchemist or Synthesist, but honestly, they're both less versatile than Druid, and rely on more obscure and more complex rules.

[TheifofZ]

Clerics can do everything better than non T1 you might look at the thread about that.
We're all aware that T1 classes are better at everything than non-T1.
Thank you for this stirring, inspiring, and insightful inclusion of a one-line non-sequitur into a serious discussion about which non-T1 class would be good for a new player looking to play a flexible character.