Balanced non-core party of 4

[Mike Miller]

I have a new campaign starting and my players want to go all non-core classes but stick to the similar roles of the standard four: tank, blaster, skillmonkey, healbot. What are some solid, functional replacement parties for the standard fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric?
At least one player is interested in psionics, with which I have next to no experience.

They are generally a middling optimization group and I would expect the campaign to get at least to early teens level range if not higher, although we are starting at the dreaded level one.

[Goladar]

Crusader, Warlock, Factotum, and I don't know what non core class can act as a healbot.

ETA: Maybe Psy War to replace the crusader?

ETA2: What about the Healer? I don't have any experience with that class though.

[Fizban]

Basically every alternative to tank, blaster, or skillmonkey can do the job- if the player is interested in the mechanics, they can probably make it work. The only role that isn't properly covered by any non-core classes is healer. Copy/pasting from the last time I said it:

Point two: the actual healer role is more about removing and preventing status effects. Restoring hp is easy, and as long as your party can hold it together until the end of the fight, Healing Belts and wands of Cure Light will do fine for quite a while. Everything else, not so much. The list includes:

-Endure Elements, Protection from Evil, Remove Fear, Delay Poison, Remove Paralysis, Lesser Restoration, Magic Circle against Evil, Remove Blindness/Deafness, Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Neutralize Poison, Restoration, Break Enchantment, Raise Dead, Heal, Greater Restoration, Regenerate, Resurrection, Mass Heal, and True Resurrection

There's more buffs and utility the party is expected to have from the cleric list, but that's the main status stuff from the PHB. An arcanist can supply Resist/Protection from Energy, Water Breathing, Fly, and other stuff (including couple of the buffs above), but none of the status removal except Flesh to Stone (clerics have to use Break Enchantment for that).
The core Cleric list and access to all of it every day gives a massive list of fixes that let the party deal with basically any monster ability. So your success with a non-core healer is going to depend on that healer, combined with the arcanist's ability to cover what neccesary spells the non-core healer doesn't have.

Not that there's many options: Favored Soul, Spirit Shaman, Shugenja, and Healer. The first one has limited spells known, the second one can change their spells known each day but basically only has one at a time (for the high level spells you want to cast), the third has extremely limited spell choice that might not even include all the status removal, and the Healer is generally reviled for having nothing but healing and still requiring spell preparation.

[eggynack]

Crusader, Warlock, Factotum, and I don't know what non core class can act as a healbot.

ETA: Maybe Psy War to replace the crusader?
Healer is a reasonable healer, least if you make use of sanctified spells. Said spells put them around tier three, which might actually be a bit above the average power level of that listed party, depending on how you tier those classes.

[Darrin]

Crusader, Warlock, Factotum, and I don't know what non core class can act as a healbot.

ETA: Maybe Psy War to replace the crusader?

ETA2: What about the Healer? I don't have any experience with that class though.

PsyWar tends to be a bit more of a glass cannon than a tank, although there's enough flexibility there to play them different ways.

Healer is... not as good at healing as it should be, but your biggest problem there is the tremendous difficulty in trying to do anything other than healing. I'd suggest trying a Spirit Shaman or a Water Shugenja as a healer first.

[Nifft]

I have a new campaign starting and my players want to go all non-core classes but stick to the similar roles of the standard four: tank, blaster, skillmonkey, healbot. What are some solid, functional replacement parties for the standard fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric?
At least one player is interested in psionics, with which I have next to no experience.

They are generally a middling optimization group and I would expect the campaign to get at least to early teens level range if not higher, although we are starting at the dreaded level one.

Duskblade (Fighter/Wizard)
Archivist (Cleric/Wizard)
Psion (Wizard)
Artificer (Rogue/Wizard)



Alternately...

Archivist (Cleric/Wizard)
Beguiler (Rogue/Sorcerer)
Psion (Wizard)
Crusader (Cleric/Fighter)



If you're starting at higher level...

____ 5 / Chameleon 10 (utility caster + any role by prefix)
Totemist 2 / Psion 3 / Soul Manifester 10 (melee gish and natural attack monster)
Warmage 5 / Rainbow Servant 10 (Cleric plus plus)
Beguiler 10 / Shadowcraft Mage 5 (traps & skills & breaking the Shadow subschool)



If you need to pretend like you're playing at a lower tier for some reason, while retaining real ultimate power...

Warlock (ranged / melee / UMD)
Binder (melee / weirdo / UMD)
Dragonfire Adept (area damage / invocations / UMD)
Artificer (trapfinding / breaking the game through UMD)

The idea here is that the Artificer makes nice things for everyone to UMD. You could also throw Incarnate in there somewhere, they have a Soulmeld which makes UMD viable for them; or a Shaper Psion, who gets Use Psionic Device.

[eggynack]

Healer is... not as good at healing as it should be, but your biggest problem there is the tremendous difficulty in trying to do anything other than healing. I'd suggest trying a Spirit Shaman or a Water Shugenja as a healer first.
Again, sanctified spells grant the healer some pretty solid versatility of spell access. This is the case with just BoED, but using champions of valor as well is even better. It's a surprisingly broad list. I'm not sure on the shugenja, but the spirit shaman faces this issue that it may be too powerful for the tier three/four parties I'd expect out of this sort of setup.

[SirNibbles]

Swashbuckler, Jester, Healer, and Dragonfire Adept.

[Soranar]

Healer type

A favored soul is actually a pretty good choice for a newbie

It gets all the healing and buffing spells you need
you can dump WIS and concentrate on CHA , most of your spells don't require a save anyway (buffs , healing, summons)
since it's a spontaneous caster, if you picked decent spells you'll be fine in most situations

a spirit shaman is also decent but generally weaker than a favored soul in some aspects though it's more versatile since it can change it's spell known list every day
you can dump CHA in this case and you should get by just fine with buffs , healing and summons



Skillmonkey type

-a psychic rogue can be pretty good with hidden talent and expanded knowledge to learn key powers
-a factotum is good but it requires more knowledge of the game to get the most out of it, it's also a secondary healer

Tank

A crusader or a warblade make great tanks, learning maneuvers is not difficult and a crusader can access in combat healing that doesn't cost an action

a psychic warrior doesn't have enough hitpoints to make a decent tank though he gets a lot of offensive powers to be a damage dealer


Blaster

An ardent or a wilder make decent blasters. The ardent can take dominant ideal to get free metapsionics with 1 mantle (usually something offensive) while the wilder can augment powers beyond his manifester level for free if he's lucky. The wilder has to be very careful with his power known list but he can manage just fine if he takes the ACF that grants extra expanded knowledge.

Just make sure he takes the following key powers

-astral construct (aka every summon monster spell rolled into 1)
-charm person (every charm spell rolled into 1)
-dominate person (same as above)

because he's CHA based and has x4 skillpoints per level, I tend to prefer the wilder to the ardent

if you want something simpler (though much weaker) you can have him take a look at a warmage

[Eldariel]

Yeah, healer is a tough one to cover; it may be the best to just relegate the role to Scrolls and Wands of the appropriate spells with some UMD users like Factotum in the party. I'd look at something like:

Crusader
Swordsage
Binder
Warlock

For example. Of course, multiclassing can happen, and e.g. Incarnum classes, Factotum, Dragonfire Adept, lower tier psionic and caster classes, etc. would work just as well.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Healer/Blaster: Ardent with Substitute Powers (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a), or Egoist with True Healer (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070314a)
Tank: Crusader
Skillmonkey/Utility/Buffs: Beguiler
Striker: Warblade

[Fizban]

It occurs to me that Ur-Priest, having the full cleric list, is quite capable of performing the role. Note that while it does get high level spells early, it's not by a drastic amount: 7th level spells one level early, 8th two levels early, and 9th three levels early- but with only 0 base spells when gained, compared to a clerics 1+D. The early access effectively cancels out the domain loss once you get it, but it's not really till ECL 15 at the end of the class that you have both early access and equal slots, and every level after that you're falling behind again.

So if you're not trying to break everything, that's an option.

[Quertus]

I agree with the above sentiment that removing status effects is hard - especially the "dead" status. I recommend Arcane Spellcaster into Tainted Sorcerer, Ur-Priest, Archivist, or <shudder> reliance on items to cover this role.

For healing HP damage, Crusader, wands, or even Red Avenger can be a fun alternative. As can making the entire party Troll Blooded. EDIT: an Eternal Wand of Lesser Vigor can easily come online by level 2; at level 1, a couple of single-charge wands (or, <shudder> potions) might get the party through.

[Jack_Simth]

____ 5 / Chameleon 10 (utility caster + any role by prefix)
Totemist 2 / Psion 3 / Soul Manifester 10 (melee gish and natural attack monster)
Warmage 5 / Rainbow Servant 10 (Cleric plus plus)
Beguiler 10 / Shadowcraft Mage 5 (traps & skills & breaking the Shadow subschool)
Use Bard for the _____. Take Practiced Spellcaster(Bard), and you can use the Chameleon's floating bonus feat to be basically an Artificer (you have to qualify for the feat selected, and a Chameleon's Focus for the day doesn't let you qualify for anything - hence, you need to start with a caster level in order to craft with the floating feat).

Edit: Oh. Non-Core party. Umm... Factotum, then, as they do get a caster level.

[AnimeTheCat]

So, all of the other classes are very easily covered, but this reminds me of when a group I played with decided to go with mostly non-core. It wasn't really a conscious decision from the start of the game, it just kind of happened that way is all.

In said game, we all focused more or less on being bounty hunters. That is, we did our best to bring back marks alive. I liked the idea, thought it was fun, and volunteered to be the "healer" and ended up playing a healer (the class). I decided since we were playing as "bring them back alive" characters, I would play as a human and take sacred vow/vow of poverty/vow of non-violence all at first level and then vow of Peace at second level (broken down as Human Feat) Sacred Vow, Level 1) Vow of Poverty, Bonus Exalted 1) Vow of non-violence, Bonus exalted 2) Vow of Peace).

The only thing that we homebrewed was that healers can spontaneously lose any spell to cast a Conjuration [Healing] spell of the same level, which allowed me to prepare everything else as I would on a normal cleric. I took the feats Augment Healing, intuitive attack, and subduing strike. The only reason this is possible is because Vow of Peace specifically says "You may deal nonlethal damage." Use a quarterstaff or longspear two handed since you can't use a shield anyway. If you start with a Strength of 14, you'll deal respectable damage. Other feats I went with were nymph's kiss, nimbus of light, and others that boost charima based skills and diplomacy in particular.

I think my stat spread was 8/14/10/10/14/18 and I chose Charisma, Wisdom, Dex and Str (in that order) for my Vow of Poverty ability score increases. For my every 4 levels I think I put them all in charisma. Ended up being pretty awesome since I could heal a minimum of 18 from a cure light wounds(1d8+5+10+2). That made healing pretty viable and worth it for me and my group through the whole game.

It depends on your party, but if your party enjoys slaughtering helpless creatures, probably not the class for you. Otherwise, go ham!

[Cosi]

Beguiler -- You get (almost) all the good 1st level Wizard spells, only missing grease. Then you can take PrCs like Shadowcraft Mage, Rainbow Servant, or anything that gives Prestige Domains.
Spirit Shaman -- You're a Druid, but you don't get Wild Shape or Animal Companion. The horror!
Dread Necromancer -- Again, good spell list, strong synergy with any PrC that puts new stuff on your list.
Archivist/Artificer/Psion -- Any of these are fine.


Duskblade (Fighter/Wizard)
Archivist (Cleric/Wizard)
Psion (Wizard)
Artificer (Rogue/Wizard)

Duskblade is so much worse than the rest of that party it's not even funny. Maybe Dread Necromancer. Between being able to wear armor, getting free healing with Tomb Tainted Soul, and DR/Nope you're pretty tanky at low levels, and at mid or high levels you have a pile of undead to rely on.


A favored soul is actually a pretty good choice for a newbie

Favored Souls are bad at healing. You're already struggling to get enough spells to be viable, if you have to throw your slots towards situationally useful spells like raise dead you're not going to do well.


a spirit shaman is also decent but generally weaker than a favored soul in some aspects though it's more versatile since it can change it's spell known list every day

Being able to swap out healing spells when you don't need them is an absolute requirement for a viable healer.

[Psyren]

For a less experienced party in Pathfinder:

- Primalist Bloodrager is a solid beatstick with some combat utility (like Spell Sunder).
- Unchained Rogue is easy to play and master as it's just Rogue+, and the additional abilities are largely passive.
- Life Oracle is a pretty easy "Cleric" to play. They get all the cure spells for free and can group heal via Channel.
- For a beginner Intelligence caster I'd either go Arcanist or Alchemist. Both have multiple tools that help you avoid being punished for not having perfect spell selection skills in the morning. Psychic or Sage Sorcerer aren't bad for a beginner either.

For a more experienced party:

- Magus, Bloodrager or Warpriest as the main "tank."
- Investigator or Ninja as the skillmonkey.
- casters don't matter, experienced players know what to pick.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Ironically, most non-core classes can do a better job than the core ones, ESPECIALLY if you move outside the Complete series as well.

For Fighter types, the ToB classes are obvious choices. Psychic Warriors are great if you want to gish it up a bit (if you spend two bonus feats on the Vigor + Share Pain + Psycrystal combo, you'll swimming in hit points), and Duskblades are excellent if a bit glass can non-. Totemists are fantastic too, and can easily be build icy secondary skillmonkeys.

For Wizard... pretty much any full-caster can do the job, with Wu Jen being probably the most straightforward replacement. If we broaden the thematics a bit, a Factotum might actually make a good Gandalf-style Wizard, operating more like a sage-with-a-few-spells than a magic blaster. Warlocks sort of work, if you build them right, and Binders cover "dabble in forbidden magic" pretty well.

Rogues... The best Rogue is the Psychic Rogue, hands down. Factotums can do the skillmonkey part pretty well, though they struggle in combat. Incarnates make pretty good skillmonkeys, actually, though you'll need to find an external combat trick (Share Soulmeld or a Totemist dip, usually). Beguilers do a petty good job of things, and Totemists are fantastic sneaks and scouts.

Clerics... Thematically, Binders can sort of fit, with refluffing. Crusaders for a martial type. Truenamers, sort of, though they're notoriously flawed.

[Nifft]

Duskblade is so much worse than the rest of that party it's not even funny. Well, it is a Fighter replacement. Specifically a Fighter in a party with a Wizard and Cleric.

I think you're a bit too down on Duskblade, but a Crusader or Warblade would almost certainly be stronger. It'd break the theme of that cluster, which is everybody being a Wizard, but meh.


Being able to swap out healing spells when you don't need them is an absolute requirement for a viable healer.
Druids and Rebuke Clerics are both viable healers, so I've got to disagree with this.

The important thing is the ability to heal a large quantity of damage (mostly out-of-combat) and remove conditions (often in-combat).

Artificer can do this job with high competence as soon as Wands are craft-able. Archivist can do the job quite well also.



Clerics... Thematically, Binders can sort of fit, with refluffing. Crusaders for a martial type. Truenamers, sort of, though they're notoriously flawed. Why not Archivist or Favored Soul here? (... or Artificer, especially in a party of Warforged.)

If you want lower-tier, then maybe Dragon Shaman, who can even remove conditions (eventually).

[Rebel7284]

I prefer slightly higher power games. Here are my recommendations.

- Archivist: All divine spells including healing and status removal.
- Spell to Power Erutide: All psionic powers and arcane spells up to level 8 on top of that.
- Crusader: best non-spellcasting tank in the game. Even better with Ruby Knight Vindicator, but that's hard to enter without a cleric dip.
- Beguiler/Factotum: both do skills well, depends on the play style.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Why not Archivist or Favored Soul here? (... or Artificer, especially in a party of Warforged.)
Partially because they seemed obvious, and I was trying to dig up new answers; partially because they're notably stronger; partially because I was getting tired of typing on my phone.

[Mike Miller]

So lots of good ideas, thanks all. In the end, I prevented two people from taking soulknife and the final party makeup is a Mystic Ranger (dragon mag variant) , winter warden (dragon mag druid variant) , dread Necromancer, and swordsage. They didn't exactly fill the standard roles, but I think they'll be alright.

[Zaq]

As Grod mentioned, Truenamers have plenty of HP-refilling utterances, and at high levels they get condition-removing utterances as well. The condition removal comes online late, and I wouldn’t call them uniquely well-suited to the healer role, but if you’re looking for someone who isn’t just “Cleric spells on a non-Cleric” (which is what Archivist, Healer, and Favored Soul will mostly feel like if you’re building them as healers), they’re a possibility. (They also get UMD, and most of the time I’d rather use a wand of Lesser Vigor than Minor Word of Nurturing, so while UMD is far from unique to them, that’s a thing.) Outside of healing, a Truenamer is pretty much a general support caster anyway, so that’ll do if you’re willing to put in the legwork to make them functional.

Now I’m wondering if there are enough (or any) ways to boost fast healing granted by SLAs to make Truenamers functional in-combat HP refillers in a mid-op setting. Most healing optimization (to the extent that that’s even a thing) is geared towards spells and towards instantaneous healing. I may have to investigate more once I’m home and near my books.

Just riffing on the “nontraditional HP refiller” role (which is not the same as the “healer” role), an Incarnate with the Lifebond Vestments and a source of self-healing could be a thing. Maybe like a Trouserfang Dwarf who goes Incarnate or Ironsoul Forgemaster? That’s goofy enough that it would probably be fun to play. Sure, it’s less efficient than UMD, but most things are, so that doesn’t mean that it’s worthless. Doesn’t help with removing conditions, but that’s a known issue. Maybe adjust the Trouserfang Dwarf to be a Trouserfang Halfling and take the Mark of Healing line? That’s probably too feat-intensive to fly, but I’m mostly idly musing rather than actually optimizing at this point.

[Baby Gary]

hmm... you need a melee character, a spellcaster, a skillmonkey, and a healer; and none can be core...

I have it! for spellcaster, an artificer, for healer, an artificer, for skill monkey an artificer (see a pattern here?) and for melee an artificer.

This is both a joke and a serious recommendation, for melee make armor, weapons, and items that give you combat feats (say power attack), for skillmonkey items that give bonus to skills, for healer wands and such that you can use to cast healing spells, spellcaster, same as healer but you CAN YOU ANY SPELL EVER! like ANY WIZARD/CLERIC/DRUID/OTHER THING SPELL. I think you get my point.

however the other recommendations have been good, for a non OMG-this-campaign-is-so-broken campaign then you should take their ideas.

[Necroticplague]

What's the important part about being a Blaster that you're looking for? is it the nuke of damage, the area damage, or the ranged component? Because just off the top of my head, it looks like you could easily go Tank:Crusader, Skillmonkey: Swordsage (dip into something with Trapfinding if it's of any importance), healer: Crusader. All in ToB, none that complicated to play, fairly well balanced. If you want ranged damage, a Warlock is probably your easiest bet.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Just riffing on the “nontraditional HP refiller” role (which is not the same as the “healer” role), an Incarnate with the Lifebond Vestments and a source of self-healing could be a thing. Maybe like a Trouserfang Dwarf who goes Incarnate or Ironsoul Forgemaster? That’s goofy enough that it would probably be fun to play. Sure, it’s less efficient than UMD, but most things are, so that doesn’t mean that it’s worthless. Doesn’t help with removing conditions, but that’s a known issue. Maybe adjust the Trouserfang Dwarf to be a Trouserfang Halfling and take the Mark of Healing line? That’s probably too feat-intensive to fly, but I’m mostly idly musing rather than actually optimizing at this point.
You can also do psionic healing with Vigor + Empathic Transfer, though I don't think that's particularly efficient.


What's the important part about being a Blaster that you're looking for? is it the nuke of damage, the area damage, or the ranged component? Because just off the top of my head, it looks like you could easily go Tank:Crusader, Skillmonkey: Swordsage (dip into something with Trapfinding if it's of any importance), healer: Crusader. All in ToB, none that complicated to play, fairly well balanced. If you want ranged damage, a Warlock is probably your easiest bet.
Warlocks are pretty mediocre ranged blasters. Even with Hellfire Warlock, they're not particularly impressive, and they'll be hurting for most of the levels before they qualify. I had a player run a Warlock in a mid-level game alongside a Psion, Warblade, and a Favored Soul, and he was definitely the weakest link.

[Doctor Awkward]

I have a new campaign starting and my players want to go all non-core classes but stick to the similar roles of the standard four: tank, blaster, skillmonkey, healbot. What are some solid, functional replacement parties for the standard fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric?
At least one player is interested in psionics, with which I have next to no experience.

They are generally a middling optimization group and I would expect the campaign to get at least to early teens level range if not higher, although we are starting at the dreaded level one.

Tank: Crusader
Blaster: Psion
Skillmonkey: Factotum
Healbot: No clue. Even optimized clerics are ineffective in-combat healers after level 7 or so. If you want a replacement for a divine spellcaster, then archivist, I guess. Radiant Servant of Pelor is the only PrC off the top of my head that directly buffs healing by automatically Empowering and Maximizing them.

[Nifft]

So lots of good ideas, thanks all. In the end, I prevented two people from taking soulknife and the final party makeup is a Mystic Ranger (dragon mag variant) , winter warden (dragon mag druid variant) , dread Necromancer, and swordsage. They didn't exactly fill the standard roles, but I think they'll be alright.

Good work on preventing Soulknife! It's a lovely concept that just plain sucks in practice. Friends don't let friends Soulknife.

Mystic Ranger is good stuff. If that PC is going for Wildshape (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#ranger) Mystic Ranger, even better... but regular Mystic Ranger is pretty good as-is.

Winter Warden is a Druid, so to the extent that it keeps Druid features & casting, it's great -- and mostly it does. I'd suggest that instead of giving wizard spells as 1/day SLAs, the class just learns that spell as a Druid spell at that level.

Dread Necro is fun, especially if you're allowed to make minions. This character can be the party healer if everyone takes Tomb-Tainted Soul.

Swordsage is awesome. Nothing more to say about this one.


A note on traps: this party does not have a trapfinder. Swordsage & Mystic Ranger can bot scout & spy & get skills like crazy, but neither is a trap-finder, since both classes lack the Trapfinding class feature.

If the DM decides to not use traps in the way most modules do, then you're good to go.

If the DM wants to use pre-written modules or use "standard" D&D traps, then either the Mystic Ranger or the Swordsage may want to look at either multi-classing (Scout is good, and not Core), or using an ACF which grants Trapfinding. Ranger has one of those: Trap Expert in Dungeonscape (p.12), lose Track, gain Trapfinding, and get disable device as a class skill.

[Hurnn]

Crusader, Warlock, Binder, Healer

Crusader is a great fighter type that does do a fair amount of in combat healing just by being there.

Warlock can Blast all day, UMD like crazy. They can take a lot of utility utterances. Shatter and darkness leap to mind. Or they can go with some fairly game breaking ones like summon swarm at first level, which just ends combats with 1-2hd creatures.

Binder is a swiss army knife, the will never be great at anything but can be good at everything with even a little notice.

Healer heals fine, and has a better spell list than they are given credit for. Their Companions also range from pretty good to amazing, and start allowing them to break action economy pretty easy.

[Boggartbae]

I'm going to +1 the dread necromancer. They're a full caster who can heal people with tomb tainted soul, and they can make fighters as one of their main schticks. Plus, spells like wall of bone and evards black tentacles give you good battlefield control.

[Psyren]

Good work on preventing Soulknife! It's a lovely concept that just plain sucks in practice. Friends don't let friends Soulknife.

The Pathfinder version (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/) is a solid improvement, especially the Gifted Blade (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/archetypes/dreamscarred-press/gifted-blade) archetype (which replaces your Psychic Strike with a manifesting progression.)

[Eladrinblade]

Crusader, Warlock, Factotum, and I don't know what non core class can act as a healbot.

If only dragonfire adepts had the dragon shaman's fast healing aura, you'd have your "never stop" party.

[Cosi]

Well, it is a Fighter replacement. Specifically a Fighter in a party with a Wizard and Cleric.

So? Isn't the point "balanced party", not "comparably imbalanced party"?


The important thing is the ability to heal a large quantity of damage (mostly out-of-combat) and remove conditions (often in-combat).

What conditions are you removing in combat? Spells like restoration, raise dead, and break enchantment all take multiple rounds to cast.


Warlocks are pretty mediocre ranged blasters. Even with Hellfire Warlock, they're not particularly impressive, and they'll be hurting for most of the levels before they qualify. I had a player run a Warlock in a mid-level game alongside a Psion, Warblade, and a Favored Soul, and he was definitely the weakest link.

The problem with Warlock is that there's no real reason to be a Warlock in the first place. If you already were a Warlock for some reason, there are a bunch of abilities you get that are kind of cool. I can totally imagine situations where the ability to fly around dropping walls of fire all day was useful. But it's not enough to cover for the fact that you don't really do much when the combat music comes on. You get delayed access to good spells, but your blasting is weak and for the most part your grindy strategy matches up poorly with the challenges a D&D party should expect to face.

[Nifft]

So? Isn't the point "balanced party", not "comparably imbalanced party"? The example of a "balanced party" given in the OP was Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, and Rogue.

You are apparently taking issue with the OP, while I'm trying to respect the OP's definition.

Feel free to convince the OP, but please don't take it out on me.


What conditions are you removing in combat? Spells like restoration, raise dead, and break enchantment all take multiple rounds to cast. Blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, frightened, nauseated, panicked, paralyzed, shaken, sickened, and stunned.

That's one spell, BTW.

There are others: removing ability drain, removing negative levels, removing curses, setting up zones of consecrate and/or hallowed to heal Vile damage, stopping cursed wounds with a spontaneous cure spell at a high enough caster level, and so forth.

Your list is also full of good spells, but as you note those spells are not for use in combat.


If only dragonfire adepts had the dragon shaman's fast healing aura, you'd have your "never stop" party.

With DM permission, they can get that aura with a feat at 3rd level.

It only heals up to half, of course, but it's quite decent.

[Metahuman1]

If the Mystic Ranger goes Archery Style at level 3: Just drop him hanks Energy Bow and some nice items to jack up his to hit bonus to pay for Power Shotting. Make it an Elvin Craft bow with 3 wand chambers in it. Trust me, it'll help.



Apart from that, be generous about handing out wands of cure and status repairing spells. Very, very generous.





For Traps: I recommend either the Swordsage get's access to the Soulmeld that grants Trapfinding and puts big bonuses into Disable Device, or the Ranger Takes the Trap AFC from Dungeonscape. More so the latter one frankly.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

I recommend taking a Beguiler: it'll handle traps and arcane spells, and it has good skill points (6+Int) so it can be a good secondary skillmonkey. Make it a sneak and give it Lore Skills!

For a healer, there isn't much choice. I recommend having one PC take a level of Dragon Shaman and get the Vigor Aura (fast healing 1 if under half HP and within 30ft), which vastly reduces the amount of money needed for out of combat healing. Then use the money saved to get scrolls or wands of the other healing spells (restoration, status effect removers...) and give them to a UMD PC (Warlocks are very good at this because they have it as a skill, often max charisma and can take 10 after level 4!).
Warlocks aren't bad either, especially if your GM likes giving you more than a 15 minute adventuring day.
Otherwise, arguably the Draconic Aura feat in Draconomicon (requires level 3) lets you take the Vigor Aura without taking a Dragon Shaman level. Playing a Dragon Shaman isn't bad, but they scale badly at higher levels unless well optimized (after level 11 or so, a mono-Dragon-Shaman tends to be lackluster).

Classes like Binder or Factotum are potentially quite good but are hard to play or build well. Take with caution. Otherwise I suggest playing a Binder who always takes Zceryll as a Vestige, it's by far the best :D

Same for Crusaders. They're very good tanks and melee battlefield controllers, but they're a pain to play because you have to learn the Tome of Battle mechanics. Once you've got the hang of them, they make for excellent frontliners who can also be backup healers in a pinch!
And how necessary are tanks anyway?

[Eldariel]

I recommend taking a Beguiler: it'll handle traps and arcane spells, and it has good skill points (6+Int) so it can be a good secondary skillmonkey. Make it a sneak and give it Lore Skills!

For a healer, there isn't much choice. I recommend having one PC take a level of Dragon Shaman and get the Vigor Aura (fast healing 1 if under half HP and within 30ft), which vastly reduces the amount of money needed for out of combat healing. Then use the money saved to get scrolls or wands of the other healing spells (restoration, status effect removers...) and give them to a UMD PC (Warlocks are very good at this because they have it as a skill, often max charisma and can take 10 after level 4!).
Warlocks aren't bad either, especially if your GM likes giving you more than a 15 minute adventuring day.
Otherwise, arguably the Draconic Aura feat in Draconomicon (requires level 3) lets you take the Vigor Aura without taking a Dragon Shaman level. Playing a Dragon Shaman isn't bad, but they scale badly at higher levels unless well optimized (after level 11 or so, a mono-Dragon-Shaman tends to be lackluster).

Classes like Binder or Factotum are potentially quite good but are hard to play or build well. Take with caution. Otherwise I suggest playing a Binder who always takes Zerxyll as a Vestige, it's by far the best :D

Same for Crusaders. I hear that they're very good tanks and melee battlefield controllers, but they're a pain to play because you have to learn the Tome of Battle mechanics.
And how necessary are tanks anyway?

...Dragon Shaman can't really do anything a healer should do. Healing everyone to half HP (or full) is job for a 750gp item (Wand of Lesser Vigor), not a class.

As for ToB mechanics, I don't see how they're a pain to learn. It's one of the most intuitive subsystems in the game as long as you know that Initiator Level determines the highest level you have access to and that appropriate IL for each maneuver level is equal to minimum caster level for each spell levels. Then you just pick maneuvers you want, prepare the ones you want (each once at most) and use them as desired...using whatever recovery system your class has (the only real big point of difference) if you need to get into a position to reuse a power.


But yeah, if you wanna use vancian casting (the most broken, expansive and complex subsystem in the game), Beguiler is definitely a great pick and so are Archivist, Artificer, Dread Necromancer, Warmage, Spirit Shaman, Favored Soul, and Healer (and something I'm forgetting I'm sure). That's basically no different from using Core classes other than lesser day-to-day versatility and preparation though (well, more in the case of Archivist and Artificer).

[Zaq]

...Dragon Shaman can't really do anything a healer should do. Healing everyone to half HP (or full) is job for a 750gp item (Wand of Lesser Vigor), not a class.


Playing Devil's Advocate for a second here—Dragon Shaman does more than just heal to half. Touch of Vitality can work out of combat to get you from half to full or can be used in combat for a spike heal. Furthermore, it can actually remove conditions, which a Wand of Lesser Vigor (and, indeed, most cheap item-based healing methods) cannot do.

Now, make no mistake, Dragon Shaman is still crap. ToV, despite having its uses, is still poor game design in that it conflicts with the Vigor aura (you've got a disincentive to use it if the target is below half HP—you know, when you need it the most). The class doesn't get nearly enough active abilities, and all of its tricks aside from the Vigor aura (including both ToV and the condition-removal part of ToV) are way too late and, often, too limited. It's a godawful class that basically no one should play unless you're modding it heavily, you're using shenanigans of some kind, or you're intentionally sandbagging yourself as a challenge or as a concession to the GM. But technically, Dragon Shaman does have healing capabilities beyond the Vigor aura, and if for some bizarre reason you're playing a DS at a high enough level to have access to the condition-removal part of ToV, it's nice to be able to just straight up negate a lot of debilitating effects with no questions asked.

It had the potential to be an interesting and different take on the healer paradigm (a constant aura of partial healing and a pool of spike healing/condition removal is very different from the Cleric's "I have a bucket of spell slots and can turn unwanted spells into Cures" toolbox, ignoring the fact that devoting a full character to healing isn't nearly as important as the devs thought it is), though the execution is flawed as hell. It's nowhere close to being what it promises to be. But it's a vaguely interesting concept, at least.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

Eh. Properly built, Dragon Shaman is okay from levels 4 to 10 or so (in a party without highly optimized Tier 1 or 2 classes of course). Get it metabreath feats and proper gear and it isn't bad...
And it's a good dip class!

[Metahuman1]

I beg to differ. When I was new to D&D, I tried to run a Dragon Shamen once. I spent the whole game unable to hit anything and unable to deal enough damage or give out enough healing to save any of the people we were trying to save or stop any of the bad guys we were trying to stop.

[Nifft]

The Pathfinder version is a solid improvement (...) The Athas version (http://athas.org/products/prc1/documents/39) and the 3.0e version were also better than the XPH version.

None of those are relevant, of course.


I beg to differ. When I was new to D&D, I tried to run a Dragon Shamen once. I spent the whole game unable to hit anything and unable to deal enough damage or give out enough healing to save any of the people we were trying to save or stop any of the bad guys we were trying to stop. Personally I feel like the Dragon Shaman would be a decent NPC class.

I've seen good play from a Dragonfire Adept, so I direct people to that instead -- but the Dragon Shaman's "leader" skills (healing & aura) are things that I'd like to support, so I've been thinking about how to bring them over to the Dragonfire Adept.

For me, the best fix might be:

- Dragonfire Adept gets Touch of Vitality and some Draconic Auras.

- Dragon Shaman becomes a designated NPC class which just has some Auras and one breath weapon (the totem's breath), and the breath is available from level 1. No Invocations, so they can use armor & shields. Simple class.

[Fizban]

I beg to differ. When I was new to D&D, I tried to run a Dragon Shamen once. I spent the whole game unable to hit anything and unable to deal enough damage or give out enough healing to save any of the people we were trying to save or stop any of the bad guys we were trying to stop.
Do you remember any details? I feel like this is probably a case of the DM over-optimizing your foes/scenarios since you should be able to at least hit things as well as a rogue, even if the damage isn't sufficient. A scenario where you have to in-combat heal people in order to save them is pretty bogus, and jacking up enemy AC is a common monster optimization.

Not that I disagree about Dragon Shaman being terrible either- it's a Paladin-like with worse BAB, proficiencies, and the major "paladin" abilities delayed or absent. It's fairly easy to fix, but as-is it can't fill any of the roles at what I'd consider par- any my threshold for par is lower than a lot of people's.

I get the feeling the designer actually thought it was a Bard-like thanks to those auras, while failing to understand that the Bard's Inspire Courage compensates for the BAB and spells come online at 2nd rather than 4th- but the Dragon Shaman's auras don't boost attack while their breath weapon is tiny, delayed, and has a cooldown. So what they actually made was a Paladin-like, but worse than a Paladin.

[Endarire]

In a campaign where crafting is expected to be unwise to do most the time, and assuming we aren't just using variants that are mostly the same as the core classes:

-Beguier/Rainbow Servant10/Shadowcraft Mage4 or 5 (using text trumps table for full casting) for sneaking and some casting.
-Some combo of Crusader and Warblade for healing and martial ability.
-Archivist/Full Casting PrCs like Hathran, Church Inquisitor, and Contemplative for potentially all divine spells, but mostly the important ones.
-Psion/Thrallherd OR Spell-to-Power Erudite/Thrallherd because minions and powers.

[Metahuman1]

Do you remember any details? I feel like this is probably a case of the DM over-optimizing your foes/scenarios since you should be able to at least hit things as well as a rogue, even if the damage isn't sufficient. A scenario where you have to in-combat heal people in order to save them is pretty bogus, and jacking up enemy AC is a common monster optimization.

Not that I disagree about Dragon Shaman being terrible either- it's a Paladin-like with worse BAB, proficiencies, and the major "paladin" abilities delayed or absent. It's fairly easy to fix, but as-is it can't fill any of the roles at what I'd consider par- any my threshold for par is lower than a lot of people's.

I get the feeling the designer actually thought it was a Bard-like thanks to those auras, while failing to understand that the Bard's Inspire Courage compensates for the BAB and spells come online at 2nd rather than 4th- but the Dragon Shaman's auras don't boost attack while their breath weapon is tiny, delayed, and has a cooldown. So what they actually made was a Paladin-like, but worse than a Paladin.

Yeah. PHB 2, the class the book was in, suggested picking up a Barbarian level as an advancement option. And the DM's setting was such that there was a 12 god Dragon Pantheon that was worshipped by the local Barbarians before I had even decided to give the class a spin. Perfect, I thought, fits right in.


Game started at 3rd level.

The first fight we went in with 2 Paladin NPC's who were suppose to be inquisitor types, and the party. A trap had mucked up our rangers strength score so he couldn't use his composite long bow. I'd had to lone him my short bow, and he didn't beat DR or Miss chance once with it. A second trap as we go in puts both of the Paladin's on there asses so that I have to keep a healing aura on them to keep them from dieing cause it caused bleed damage of some kind and put them in negatives.

I've got 2 BAB, a 17 Strength, and a Large Masterwork Ax (DM let my bigger then any character established in the party in terms of weight and height character with the highest str of all the PC's and according to him, highest of all but 1 NPC, barbarian character, take a feat to be able to use large weapons at no penalty.), and I'm not raging cause I'm under the impression that could mess up my aura at the time. I can't hit squat the entire time either cause the enemy Bard NPC's Mirror's Image buff is protecting her, or cause when she bails cause she got what she was there for in the first place, and then I'm left swinging at her skeleton mooks, whom I STILL can't land a hit on. Eventually, they've all got an explosive rune spell on them, and they just opt to self destruct, and take the hostages, the lord I'm suppose to be serving, and the two paladin's out, leaving just the party.


After that we get a bump up to 5th level and some more gear from the armory. Ok, I think, that was like a cut scene. And now I have a +1 Large Mage Bane Greatsword.

So, we go after the bard. I charge her form the high ground, she hears me coming, I miss the charge attack, and get rapier'ed for my trouble.

Next round I fire breath, and her and ALL the mooks surrounding me now pass there save. None of them takes damage. The Bard flees and leaves the mooks to buy her time to bail on us. We have a slogging combat while I'm waiting for my breath to come back and we gained a level after it. I didn't connect once, party has to take out the rest of them for me to keep me getting killed instead of catching the bard.

So we track her again, she's got this gate thing that's a part of the setting that are around the map and allow access to other planes. We fight some big beasty thing on the plane she went too (We saw her when we got through in the distance going over a ridge so we know it's the right plane.) and I charge it again, and miss. So I fire breath it, and it's got a fire resistance 10 and I don't roll high enough to actually cut through that.

Game was a PBP game and it died around that time.




I was rolling between 8's and 13's for attack rolls the whole way through. I had the breath weapon DC at about 14. Couldn't. Touch. Crap. Couldn't save the hostages, couldn't stop the bad guys. Nothing. It's a Garbage class.






The Dragon Fire Adept is mechanically superior in EVERY way.

[Fizban]

Yeah that really sounds like the DM was over-optimizing, and also just breaking the rules. You've got a constant bleed trap when 3.5 all but abolished that mechanic, and the few effects remaining are stopped by fast healing- your aura should have ended the damage immediately. Total attack rolls of 14-19 at 3rd level are perfectly fine, except against elite NPCs and skeletons with optimized AC and miss chance. And the skeletons were literally rigged to explode with Explosive Runes, which is not a Bard spell, is 2 levels past your own party level, and were triggered by mindless creatures that can't read, apparently making their own decisions.

Then later either the bard and all of her mooks had evasion, they all had Resist Energy up, or they had innate fire resistance- all three of which are overkill against a character who's main magical ability is a weak breath weapon. Yeah, this is a DM specifically optimizing against the players. Dragon Shaman just happens to have fewer options than most, but I'm pretty sure playing a DFA wouldn't have changed anything there.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

Wow, that looks like a really tough game. How were you supposed to win there?
It's almost as if the GM was designing things specifically to counter everything the players can do... :D
At least Dragon Shamans have the hit points and AC to survive when Dragonfire Adepts and such would die like punks to Explosive Runes :)

I've only played a Dragon Shaman once, and at the lower levels I was happy with him. The breath weapon is great from level 4 if you have entangling breath, and apart from that a Dragon Shaman is a tough melee character who can also buff allies without spending actions. Honestly at low levels this is pretty huge! And being able to "keep going" for ages is good too - it was quite satisfying during the last encounter or two if the day when every caster is hoarding their last spell and I could just keep going on as usual.

I became reliant on the breath weapon after level six though (medium BAB hurts at this point), but if set up properly it was great.

The class becomes far less useful at higher levels - after about level 10 or do arcane spellcasters outshine your breath easily and can keep going for long enough to make your own endurance cease to matter. And monsters outshine you in melee easily :'(

But at level three, or even level seven? I loved it! Now it required good feat choices and planning (it was the first game where I used Intimidate in combat for example), but it was definitely doable.

The class felt like a Tier 3 at low levels, and a Tier 5 at high levels. So if you know that your campaign won't reach level 10, Dragon Shaman can be a valid choice.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I beg to differ. When I was new to D&D, I tried to run a Dragon Shamen once. I spent the whole game unable to hit anything and unable to deal enough damage or give out enough healing to save any of the people we were trying to save or stop any of the bad guys we were trying to stop.
That about tracks with what I'm seeing, too. We've got a Dragon Shaman in my current 3.5 game (we've gone from level 3 to 5), and he's been... fairly useless apart from his healing aura, which has been invaluable. (It's a psionics-only game; it's hard to get reliable healing going there). He misses pretty consistently in combat, his breath weapon does piddling damage when it can be used (which has been about once per fight), and he hasn't been too effective in any of the investigate-y bits, either.

Admittedly, it's been a game of "one or two hard fights per day" thus far, but still. The Psion and my Ranger show him up pretty consistently, and even the Flaw-mangled Barbarian who can almost never rage and the melee-Ardent who spends most of their PP soaking damage mount a more credible offense. I've been trying to think of a non-intrusive way to get him to switch to Dragonfire Adept for like three sessions now...

[Darrin]

I've been trying to think of a non-intrusive way to get him to switch to Dragonfire Adept for like three sessions now...

Hmm. Maybe a variation on Dragonborn's Ritual of Rebirth: You may replace your Dragon Shaman levels with Dragonfire Adept levels.

...or... maybe pay 100 GP per level, and you may "gestalt" Dragon Shaman with Dragonfire Adept?

[DEMON]

The Psion and my Ranger show him up pretty consistently

Is that a spell-less (CotW?) Ranger, or some sort of a psionic variant?


I've been trying to think of a non-intrusive way to get him to switch to Dragonfire Adept for like three sessions now...

A sort of mild gestalt? Like combining, let's say, the best 3 abilities of both classes into 1 package and dropping the rest. The transition would be somewhat smoother.

Or just a revised Dragon Shaman ACF to give his auras to Dragonfire Adept?