Help choosing class/build

[Ethernil]

Hello people, this is my first time posting on the forums. I have browsed them multiple times though.

I would like to ask for some guidance about what class i should play in a group that is about to start next week. DnD 3.5 all wotc books allowed except psionics, magazines and some stuff called obscure sources of pcs by the dm like libris mortis. I have played a campaign with that group as a rogue and i didn't enjoy it. The DM made many skillchecks harder than they are in the phb when i hit high ranks in them which made me feel almost as bad as when i heard that i could only sneak attack once each round and that the enemy had to be completely unaware of me for the sneak attack to work, hiding in combat and flanking didn't work.

The group consists of a dwarven cleric(favours rp has no clue about optimizing) and a human wizard who has experience and will play mostly support as he has told me.

I m torn between playing a frontline combatant(bsf): something from tome of battle, melee binder , wildshape ranger-master of many forms generally something to give me more to do than "I hit it with my axe" and a skillmonkey type of character like factotum or chameleon. Bonus points if it can take a beating and can work in antimagic areas.

The dm is really stringy with items, not just drops, at 20 lvl he had me searching 4 capital cities with 15% chance each to find wings of flying(54k gold dmguide item), he gives expensive but useless stuff and then says: but you re ahead of what you should have at you level, ye that staff of fire was really usefull on my rogue.

I would really appreciate some help on what would work with the group and also be fun to play. Thank you in advance.

[nedz]

It's a shame about the Rogue Nerfs - that rules out lots of options, and it's not the most powerful class to put it mildly.

It seems you want a melle character with skills ?
Some Ranger style of character might work here ?
Or a Swordsage ?
Do you want any spells ?

[ComaVision]

Do a dip in Factotum with the Able Learner feat then go Swordsage. All skills, tons of skill points, and martial capable

[Zeruel]

Do a dip in Factotum with the Able Learner feat then go Swordsage. All skills, tons of skill points, and martial capable

That depends if you are accostumed to the use of maneuvers (which I am not, besides knowing the Swordsage is an indeed powerful class if even slightly optimized :smallsmile: ). If your DM is so stringy with items, then choose a class that do not rely on them, like most arcanists. Try out a Stalwart Sorcerer (versatile in combat,even melee, powerful and with simple mechanics), than dip into Fighter for one or two levels, and finally go all-out in a full casting progression arcane PrC (like the Divine Oracle) or a gishy one (Eldritch Knight); this should provide enough versatility without losing spell power, and you'll still be able to say "The axe won't work? Than tell me how my fireball tastes!" :smallwink:

[Red Fel]

If you want a solid combatant without as much dependence on items, go Totemist. Soulmelds give a lot of useful benefits, and can be switched out daily. They give combat ability (via natural weapons), out-of-combat utility (e.g. flight), and assorted skill boosts. And because you get the whole list right out of the gate and can switch things up on a daily basis, you can use different skills every day, and can easily transition into another class if the opportunity arises.

If you need more "oomph," mix your Totemist with some Barbarian or Warblade. If you want to craft your own magic items (and the DM gives you downtime to do so), transition into an Ironsoul Forgemaster (see the handbook in my sig). But a Meldshaping class is a solid choice when the DM screws you on WBL.

[ComaVision]

If you want a solid combatant without as much dependence on items, go Totemist. Soulmelds give a lot of useful benefits, and can be switched out daily. They give combat ability (via natural weapons), out-of-combat utility (e.g. flight), and assorted skill boosts. And because you get the whole list right out of the gate and can switch things up on a daily basis, you can use different skills every day, and can easily transition into another class if the opportunity arises.

If you need more "oomph," mix your Totemist with some Barbarian or Warblade. If you want to craft your own magic items (and the DM gives you downtime to do so), transition into an Ironsoul Forgemaster (see the handbook in my sig). But a Meldshaping class is a solid choice when the DM screws you on WBL.

While this is a good suggestion, I'm going to guess Incarnum falls under the DM's "obscure books" clause of accepted books. I bet six natural attacks right away would make him flip out.

[Ellowryn]

Well, it sounds like this Dm freaks out at the sight of having a whole bunch of d6 thrown with every attack. Honestly i would recommend going warforged crusader, they can throw out deceptively large amounts of damage around while being extremely resilient and adding warforged on top of that should keep you going longer than the energizer bunny. As you pointed out skillmonkeys are going to suffer under a scaling nerf and with the wizard playing support there really wouldn't be much you could do in combat, so frontline fighter/beefcake sounds the way to go.

Grab the feats Adamantine body (Yay, free adamantine full plate!), Extra Granted Maneuver, Martial Study (Moment of Perfect Mind)(Replaces a will saving throw with a concentration check), Stone power (if starting at lower levels)/power attack (if starting at mid to high), Adaptive Style, and anything else that catches your fancy. Grab Devoted Spirit and Stone Dragon maneuvers (White Raven wont really help without a decent melee team to support) and then go to town being a better juggernaut than the juggernaut.

[Grod_The_Giant]

While this is a good suggestion, I'm going to guess Incarnum falls under the DM's "obscure books" clause of accepted books. I bet six natural attacks right away would make him flip out.
It's at least intended for players, unlike predominantly DM-aimed books like the aforementioned Libris Mortis.

[Flickerdart]

Here are some things that are aimed at not scaring newbies:

Avoid powers that can generate spike damage. 10d6 sounds really scary, but it's just an average of 35 damage.
Avoid numbers. It's a lot harder to gauge the effectiveness of grease than fireball because you are not doing the damage yourself. The wizard might be trying to do this already.
Avoid abilities that are mundane. A DM can say "well logically your guy couldn't swing a sword through steel" and there goes that, but with magic there are no "logical" things.
Avoid activating things - it looks scary when you cast 3 different spells and activate a feat, but when that bonus is always on, it's just what your guy does.
Also avoid singular powerful abilities. The DM will go "aha, it is because of Power Attack that he is so strong" and nerf it.


I would recommend straight up taking druid. Use only Core spells and monsters. Write up a convincing backstory that makes you familiar with good animals to wildshape into or use as a companion. Avoid dinosaurs.

[DMVerdandi]

I agree with flicker dart.
Go druid, my man. You will be a 9th level spell caster, so that doesn't interfere with your ability to keep up, you know ALL druid spells, so you won't get screwed over by the DM, and druid more than like, any other class has survivability without access to items and stuff.

You get decent skills, great spells, the ability to turn into animals, and honestly, a fantastic chassis.
Now, if you really don't want to be an animorph, You could look into using the Druidic Avenger/Deadly Hunter Class Variants.

You loose about 2/3rds of what makes the druid amazing, BUT, You do get rage, monk movement and wis to AC, and favored enemy amongst other things. Those are NOT at all any better than what you have as a standard druid, and you lose a LOT of power, but if you just want to play more like a nature based cleric if you will, that will do it.

However, I would just play a regular druid, really. Especially with draconic wild shape. Oh baby.

Check out eggynack's druid handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?439991-Being-Everything-Eggynack-s-Comprehensive-Druid-Handbook).

[Ger. Bessa]

Cleric 4 / Ordained Champion 5 is straight out a good beatstick. Go classic cleric (ACF stacking is scary, and Unearthed Arcana might seem scary (unless it's SRD, I don't know)).

2-hander for damage, sword and board for being unkillable but less active (depending on the rest of the team, that can be a bad thing). You're affiliated with a church so you should be able to get through it a good weapon of your deity.

You have slowed down cleric casting. You are before all a BSF, but your spells are a bag of trick that can solve problems. You can also pick one (or two) 'signature spell' that differentiate you from Enpeecee MacWarrior. (Cloud of knives is classy AH)

Simple, Efficient, Core + 1 complete. If random abilities get nerf/banned, pick another one in your spell list.

Also, the Holy Warrior feat [Complete Champion too] opens his arms at lv9.


I'd avoid skillmonkeys, because your DM would probably up even more the DCs so your skillmonkey gets 50% chance and no one else succeeds. Depends if he has hard DCs on his docs or recalcs them in game.

[Zeruel]

Imo, considering the party lacks a melee warrior and/or a spontaneous spellcaster, and that the only other two characters are a top-tier divine caster and a top-tier arcane caster, I don't feel like he should go with another top-tier divine. Since he don't want to be a rogue again either, I think he should, maybe, go for a melee-specialized class, if not for an arcane fighter or a random spontaneous caster, I don't know...

[Curmudgeon]

Another vote for Druid here. It's a very forgiving class. If you mess up on spell selection, the next day you can change everything and do better. Your feats can be right out of the Player's Handbook to start:

1: Spell Focus (conjuration)
3: Augment Summoning
6: Natural Spell
Pick an animal companion you like (Wolf is very Druidy), and you've got (by proxy) good melee capabilities right from level 1.

[Zeruel]

1: Spell Focus (conjuration)
3: Augment Summoning
6: Natural Spell

You sure? If his DM has nerfing compulsions as he said, I wouldn't go for overimproving one of the already most powerful capabilities of the druid, being even a good melee dmg dealer. The DM could probably restrict his selection of creatures he can summon/turn into...

[Flickerdart]

The DM isn't nerfing things because they are strong, he's nerfing things because they look scary. "I take this feat that lets me cast the spells I can cast anyway" is not scary-sounding at all.

[Ethernil]

You sure? If his DM has nerfing compulsions as he said, I wouldn't go for overimproving one of the already most powerful capabilities of the druid, being even a good melee dmg dealer. The DM could probably restrict his selection of creatures he can summon/turn into...

He did not nerf the rogue for fear of crazy damage, he nerfed it because of aesthetics. Druid is a powerhouse in all aspects but it will not be a power contest between top tier classes about who can blow up the moon faster. I just want to play something that will have options and relative power, i believe maneuvers and improved trip on a pure warblade, maybe into eternal blade will suffice.

[Zeruel]

The DM isn't nerfing things because they are strong, he's nerfing things because they look scary.


He did not nerf the rogue for fear of crazy damage, he nerfed it because of aesthetics.

Now I see, sorry guys, seems I quite misunderstood, and the fact I'm not too fond of prepared spellcaster probably didn't helped at all... (^^;)


I just want to play something that will have options and relative power, i believe maneuvers and improved trip on a pure warblade, maybe into eternal blade will suffice.

Have fun then, I like that kind of build. You'll probably go for an halberd, a spiked chain or a kusarigama, aren't you?

[ComaVision]

Have fun then, I like that kind of build. You'll probably go for an halberd, a spiked chain or a kusarigama, aren't you?

Guisarme > Halberd

[Zeruel]

Guisarme > Halberd

I usually agree, but he will probably find himself most the time alone in the frontlines, and he shouldn't if using a weapon which need a feat to be used against adjacent foes, am I wrong? :smallconfused:

[mabriss lethe]

These are the sorts of games where I prefer to stick to core.

I'd probably go with Monk 6/Sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 9/ whatever 4. Your monk feat selection can be whatever you prefer, but you've got a good chassis for improved grapple-combat reflexes-improved trip. The one feat that's a must-have is multi-attack since you'll have enough natural attacks to qualify. Improved initiative is always good, if there's nothing else you particularly want.

You wind up with a nice attack string, flight, some nice ability score bonuses, a 1/day surprise in the form of a breath weapon, a bit of casting (My go to spells would be things like Enlarge Person and Mage Armor, things that remain useful with low caster levels yet also have high duration), and the ability to use wands if they become available. You have solid defenses all around with good saves, good HP, and access to several types of armor bonuses. You won't *need* a whole lot of equipment, but can definitely put it to good use.

Note that you could take DD all the way to 10, but then Enlarge Person is no longer effective, because your type becomes dragon.

[Ethernil]

When i asked about using a spiked chain on my rogue he gave me a funny look and said it wont fit a sneaky guy and how does that weapon work, instead of show him clips from the ninja assassin movie i went with a rappier. Now exotic weapon fits martial fighter but i feel it is a wasted feat, guisarme has reach and it has a cool dragoon feel, and i can always enchant armor spikes with defending and use those to threaten.

[ComaVision]

When i asked about using a spiked chain on my rogue he gave me a funny look and said it wont fit a sneaky guy and how does that weapon work, instead of show him clips from the ninja assassin movie i went with a rappier. Now exotic weapon fits martial fighter but i feel it is a wasted feat, guisarme has reach and it has a cool dragoon feel, and i can always enchant armor spikes with defending and use those to threaten.

Yeah, I agree. I'd rather keep the feat.

If you want to get Improved Trip without Combat Expertise or 13 Int you can grab it with two levels of Wolf Totem Barbarian (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wolfTotemClassFeatures ).

[Zeruel]

When i asked about using a spiked chain on my rogue he gave me a funny look and said it wont fit a sneaky guy and how does that weapon work, instead of show him clips from the ninja assassin movie i went with a rappier.

If you give him some background on why you use it, your DM should absolutly NOT tell you that you can't do something because it don't fits YOUR character, which is the only thing a DM should never arbitrarily do, unless is for a campaign setting restriction (like "rogues from World X sweared to only use light weapons like knives to distinguish from brute warriors"). Besides, a "ninja assassin" weapon that would certainly fit a rogue is indeed a kusarigama (light sister in all aspects of the spiked chain). I kinda feel a little sorry for you to have a DM like that. I don't know, it'd make me feel like in a big, colorful cage... :smallfrown:


Now exotic weapon fits martial fighter but i feel it is a wasted feat, guisarme has reach and it has a cool dragoon feel, and i can always enchant armor spikes with defending and use those to threaten.

Didn't thought about armor spikes, they compensate for close quarter and would be both good and scary :smallbiggrin:

[GilesTheCleric]

If it helps, you can try to point out to your GM that class =/= character. Just because mechanically you have "rogue" or "fighter" written on your character sheet doesn't mean you're not actually a ranger, or a swashbuckler, or a gladiator, or a pugilist, or whatever else you want to be. This is why 3.5 no longer has the thief or elf class, and why men, women, and folks of different races aren't restricted from taking specific classes.

[Ethernil]

So warblade it is. About race, human is prollythe best but for something not so ordinary it could be a changeling, a goliath or dragonborn goliath(getting flight), a raptoran for flight and no la because we re prolly starting @lvl 1 or a half ogre.

[ComaVision]

So warblade it is. About race, human is prollythe best but for something not so ordinary it could be a changeling, a goliath or dragonborn goliath(getting flight), a raptoran for flight and no la because we re prolly starting @lvl 1 or a half ogre.

For a trip build, I like to start with large size because of the +4 bonus it gives your trip attempts. Half-minotaur from Dragon Magazine is the best choice for +1 LA, and can be paired with Human (or something with more strength).

[nedz]

For a trip build, I like to start with large size because of the +4 bonus it gives your trip attempts. Half-minotaur from Dragon Magazine is the best choice for +1 LA, and can be paired with Human (or something with more strength).

Dwarf, for a further +4 on any counter-trip. It's not good losing your weapon.

[Ethernil]

Half minotaur is dragon magazine, and i think its even op-cheesy for high op groups so there is no way in hell it will fly in our game, i ll have hard time geting dragonborn, raptoran i think will be easier. The dm is gona give me hellish experience in any sort of social interaction by going monstrous and he doesn't care much about diplomacy. After talking about warblade he run through it a bit and said he likes it, at first he thought the damage from maneuvers was too high but then i explained that mundane 4 attacks per round with just power attack most of the time will do more damage without further optimization. Another thing that came up is that he wants me to be the party trap finder, i m thinking 3 or 8 lvls of factotum along with the rest as a warblade.

[stanprollyright]

Warblade and Factotum go great together, especially if you're planning on going into Eternal Blade (if so, remember that it's elf-only. Fire elf has good stats for it). Ask if you can take Font of Inspiration.

[Ethernil]

Would it work building a master of nine or is it trying to put too many eggs in one basket? We re starting at lvl 1 and will prolly go into epic levels. We re rolling for stats and i don't want to get dependant on too many stats. For an elf race i like the flavour of snow elves more.

[Ethernil]

I found a better more colorfull idea. Starting with 3 levels of barbarian for rage, pounce, improved trip regardless of int and trap killer acf, then 6 lvls of dungeoncrusher fighter, a level of exotic weapon master to trip with any weapon, a level of warblade for maneuver requirements and finally 4 levels of bloodstorm blade. Human for extra feat skills and style, maybe jotunbrud feat @ lvl 1 both for flavor and trip modifier though that will be obsolete by the enlarge person buff. So i will be the guy who stops axes with his chest, wields a keen falchion and can use it to power attack or (t)rip both at melee and ranged combat. With some maneuvers for fun and profit.

[ComaVision]

I found a better more colorfull idea. Starting with 3 levels of barbarian for rage, pounce, improved trip regardless of int and trap killer acf, then 6 lvls of dungeoncrusher fighter, a level of exotic weapon master to trip with any weapon, a level of warblade for maneuver requirements and finally 4 levels of bloodstorm blade. Human for extra feat skills and style, maybe jotunbrud feat @ lvl 1 both for flavor and trip modifier though that will be obsolete by the enlarge person buff. So i will be the guy who stops axes with his chest, wields a keen falchion and can use it to power attack or (t)rip both at melee and ranged combat. With some maneuvers for fun and profit.

I'd drop Barb 3. Trapkiller is pretty lackluster and can't find magical traps, so unless you're really hard up for a trapfinder you're better off going into Dungeoncrasher. Sounds like a solid build though.

[Ethernil]

Is silverbrow human with the dragon wings and improved dragon wings feats worth it or is it too taxing? I guess permanent flight that also works in dead magic zones is usefull.

[ComaVision]

Is silverbrow human with the dragon wings and improved dragon wings feats worth it or is it too taxing? I guess permanent flight that also works in dead magic zones is usefull.

Hi again!

Wings are definitely nice but it's generally cheaper to get the Dragonborn template with the Wings aspect. Alternatively, there's the Raptoran class that start with wings.

[Curmudgeon]

... a level of exotic weapon master to trip with any exotic weapon ...
I fixed that for you.

[nedz]

Is silverbrow human with the dragon wings and improved dragon wings feats worth it or is it too taxing? I guess permanent flight that also works in dead magic zones is usefull.

Half-Fey gets you Flight, Dex and Cha boosts, and a bucket full of Enchanting SLAs for +2 LA.
You'd be stuck with light armour, but that can be remedied with Dex and other tricks.
Dip Sorcerer for Enlarge Person, or just grab Wild Talent(Expansion), before taking your mundane melle classes.

Worth it to see your DM's eyes pop since you'd be the large guy with butterfly wings flying over the battlefield tripping all and sundry — Combat Reflexes is your friend — and later in the bar charming all the talent.

[ComaVision]

Half-Fey gets you Flight, Dex and Cha boosts, and a bucket full of Enchanting SLAs for +2 LA.
You'd be stuck with light armour, but that can be remedied with Dex and other tricks.
Dip Sorcerer for Enlarge Person, or just grab Wild Talent(Expansion), before taking your mundane melle classes.

Worth it to see your DM's eyes pop since you'd be the large guy with butterfly wings flying over the battlefield tripping all and sundry — Combat Reflexes is your friend — and later in the bar charming all the talent.

Enlarge Person doesn't work on Fey.

[nedz]

Enlarge Person doesn't work on Fey.

Oops, I forgot about that.

Expansion works fine though — and you don't have the ASF issues.

Of course, psionics are going to be banned though ?

[mackdaddie]

Hello people, this is my first time posting on the forums. I have browsed them multiple times though.

I would like to ask for some guidance about what class i should play in a group that is about to start next week. DnD 3.5 all wotc books allowed except psionics, magazines and some stuff called obscure sources of pcs by the dm like libris mortis. I have played a campaign with that group as a rogue and i didn't enjoy it. The DM made many skillchecks harder than they are in the phb when i hit high ranks in them which made me feel almost as bad as when i heard that i could only sneak attack once each round and that the enemy had to be completely unaware of me for the sneak attack to work, hiding in combat and flanking didn't work.

The group consists of a dwarven cleric(favours rp has no clue about optimizing) and a human wizard who has experience and will play mostly support as he has told me.

I m torn between playing a frontline combatant(bsf): something from tome of battle, melee binder , wildshape ranger-master of many forms generally something to give me more to do than "I hit it with my axe" and a skillmonkey type of character like factotum or chameleon. Bonus points if it can take a beating and can work in antimagic areas.

The dm is really stringy with items, not just drops, at 20 lvl he had me searching 4 capital cities with 15% chance each to find wings of flying(54k gold dmguide item), he gives expensive but useless stuff and then says: but you re ahead of what you should have at you level, ye that staff of fire was really usefull on my rogue.

I would really appreciate some help on what would work with the group and also be fun to play. Thank you in advance.


Fairly simple, you said you didn't enjoy the last game, don't like his style, DON"T PLAY IN THE GAME. Too often people forget the first rule of roleplaying, and that is to have fun. If your entire gamestyle is built around thwarting the stingy DM, you won't have any fun. And if I know controlling stingy DM's like I think I do(and I do) he'll find a way around your glorious build and crush you like a June bug, just because.

Find a new game.

[Ethernil]

Actually i decided to not play with that guy as a dm again. The thing is there are very few people that are into fantasy games were i live. He once suggested that somebody else dms cause he wants to play as a player again. His english sucks and fills in stuff he doesnt understant with crap despite the fact he has played dnd for about 15 years. I might dm if the group agrees and show him how the game is normally run. I might even exact some revenge on him : "what you mean why the umberhulk focuses you and not the heavily armored cleric? You re an easier target, oh and it just sundered your new sword, enjoy."