Which of the ffd20 classes are most interesting?

[zlefin]

Is there a guide which ranks them by interestingness/newness? In particular I look for ones that provide different gameplay. I know some are fairly heavily just reskins of existing PF classes, so they're rather boring cuz they aren't really 'new'; while others are partly re-skin but also with a fair bit of their own content/gameplay.

I've enjoyed reading them in the past and was going to go browsing again, so I decided to wonder if there was a good guide of this specific sort. I haven't found any based on a quick look; especially not one from here on gitp.

I'm less interested in balance (except insofar as a class is extremely weak or glaringly overstrong, and even then just to know that rather than to worry about it).

[glass]

What's "ffd20"?

[SangoProduction]

final fantasy d20.
Which is basically a tumor off the face of PF, which had been partially lopped off as its own system. In the kindest way possible. It's very neat, and goes heavy on the class features. The amount of time and clear dedication spent on it is fascinating.

I would have to say that, conceptually, the Monk is the most interesting. The blitz and combo finisher is of particular interest... In concept. In actuality, Blitz Techniques are rather minor and never scale (until you can full attack to pump them out in one round), and with 4 of the options literally just pulling from the same 2 effects. One of which being "Does normal unarmed strike damage"!!!! And you only get 1 combo finisher every odd level, so you're not playing a pseudo Street Fighter in D&D, where you take active risk of ruining your combo strike, to get a better finisher, or to cash out while you have something good. You just have a singular spell that... is admittedly more interesting to cast than most spells. But also more annoying, and effectively strips choices from you as it decides your blitz techniques you use every round (in order to actually use your class feature)

And that remains a valid answer, as you said interesting, not good.

Regardless, I am rather partial to the illusionist, because I am always partial to illusions. I'm glad it was not strict, and also included mind magic. The archetypes do all feel meaningfully different while still adhering to the core concept. Same with Astrologian, honestly.

As for the Good, Interesting: I would have to call out the Gambler. And the fact that they made 11 archetypes for that one concept.
I ran the numbers, and Gill Toss is good value, unless you level up spectacularly slowly, and your DM is still a stickler for wealth by level. This is because you get to ignore having to buy an actual weapon, while getting the full benefits of one, so long as you pay per attack, and it's really rather generous. Would have to be, because the subscription model is so much more toxic and unpredictable than the buy-and-own model.

[AvatarVecna]

Freelancer is interesting in that it's "build a class", where you spend job poonts to copy vlass features from other classes. This is balanced if you just stick to taking from ffd20 classes (or at least, I assume it's balanced within its own system), but it can become problematic if the door is opened to copying from anything systemwide in 3.5 or PF (or both). If the game is generous about approving homebrew requests, Freelancer probably just needs to be banned.

[Rynjin]

The "Combo" classes like Monk are certainly interesting, as mentioned, but combos suck ass and aren't fun to use. Blue Mage is probably the coolest caster, despite its design flaw of having non-scaling spell DCs.

Summoner is EXTREMELY cool and probably the most unique of the classes in terms of both spell variety and mechanics. It takes the Unchained Summoner concept and makes it a lot more interesting IMO.

I also really like the White Mage implementation with how their version of Cleric Domains to work as more "subclasses" than just minor bonuses.

Edit: I also remember really liking Medic. It's a non-magical healer class with a Rogue flair for skill-monkeying and damage dealing.

[Maat Mons]

I hadn’t given FFd20 more than a cursory look before this thread. I personally find full casters interest me the most, so I’ve started by looking at those. At first glance, they all seem fine. More limited in scope of abilities than some of the classic D&D classes, but also tighter in theme. Or at least, that’s my impression. If you think Wizard is to much of a “do anything” class, I suspect the FFd20 casters may appeal to you.

The only class I feel I’ve at least sort of gotten my head around is Druid, and that’s partly because it seems to share a lot of DNA with Pathfinder’s Druid. Perhaps the biggest change seems to be the trimmed-down spell list. But a lot of the classics are still there, including Summon Nature’s Ally, a few Wall spells, and more flavors of Entangle than I even remembered existed. The designers seem to have ditched the idea of Druids having a “secondary healer” roll. The only healing spells I’ve noticed are limited to dealing with poison or can only target your Animal Companion.

The Wilderness Medic Archetype gives you access to all the spells from the White Mage spell list tagged with “healing.” It seems like a pretty solid pick if no one else in your party can remove conditions. You lose a fair few damage-dealing spells, but you actually keep some really good ones, like the upgraded version of Entangle that also deals damage. Anyway, you’ve still got Wild Shape and your Animal companion as sources of damage, so I think the trade could easily be worth it. In fact, from what I’ve seen so far, if I had to cover the party roll of condition removal, Wilderness Medic Druid is probably what I’d pick. Admittedly, I haven’t looked through all the archetypes for the standard condition-removal classes, which seem to be Astrologian, Scholar, and White Mage. I guess Necrotic Healer looks like it could be fun too, but not every campaign might be conducive to playing a Necromancer.