Fillin' in spaces

[Admiral Squish]

Okay, I have three empty spaces in my party that need filling. A caster, a tank, and the fifth wheel. I want these to be interesting, effective builds that'd be fun to play. But I got nothing! My mind, she is blank! Every time I start building, something bungles, and I get fed up and stuck! So, I'm asking for some help. a caster, a tank, and a fifth wheel. Possibly healer. Please gimmie a hand with this, It's drivin' me nuts!

Sorry, I should have mentioned: ECL 3.

[Kizara]

Okay, I have three empty spaces in my party that need filling. A caster, a tank, and the fifth wheel. I want these to be interesting, effective builds that'd be fun to play. But I got nothing! My mind, she is blank! Every time I start building, something bungles, and I get fed up and stuck! So, I'm asking for some help. a caster, a tank, and a fifth wheel. Possibly healer. Please gimmie a hand with this, It's drivin' me nuts!

"a caster" Wizard 20. Feats, prcs and other choices dont really matter. You are a wizard 20.

"a tank" Cleric 20. Also Knight isn't bad.

"some other thing" Ummm, bard? Who knows.

[Admiral Squish]

"a caster" Wizard 20. Feats, prcs and other choices dont really matter. You are a wizard 20.

"a tank" Cleric 20. Also Knight isn't bad.

"some other thing" Ummm, bard? Who knows.

3rd level campaign. Sorry, forgot to mention that.
Besides, those are dull builds. Some interesting combination of race and classes.

[Admiral Squish]

Okay, I ended up making a tank on my own, thank you very much. A Child of Bahamut (heart) 3rd-level knight. You guys aren't much help, yet.

[blue_fenix]

Tank: Mongrelfolk (Races of Destiny) Knight (PHBII). Sure the int and cha hit suck, but with Mongrelfolk's +4 con, you can really take a hit. Not to mention LA+0 and interesting flavor. How does a gutter-born mutt become a knight, anyway?

Caster: Dragonfire Adept (Dragon Magic) and Warlock (Complete Arcane) are great caster-types who don't have to deal with the nuisance of per-day limits. They both have great flavor and contribute a lot to combat while having far smaller lists of abilities to confuse you compared to a wizard. Plus, both have use magic device, particulalry Warlock with his "decieve item" ability, so you can grab scrolls for the occasional utility spell.

Fifth Wheel: Marshall, Bard, and Dragon Shaman all make great fifth wheels because they buff the rest of the party, while still having some fun things they can do themselves. Dragon Shaman is a little underpowered, though, so look into giving it either full BAB or more healing ability to balance it better.

[Admiral Squish]

Tank: Mongrelfolk (Races of Destiny) Knight (PHBII). Sure the int and cha hit suck, but with Mongrelfolk's +4 con, you can really take a hit. Not to mention LA+0 and interesting flavor. How does a gutter-born mutt become a knight, anyway?

Caster: Dragonfire Adept (Dragon Magic) and Warlock (Complete Arcane) are great caster-types who don't have to deal with the nuisance of per-day limits. They both have great flavor and contribute a lot to combat while having far smaller lists of abilities to confuse you compared to a wizard. Plus, both have use magic device, particulalry Warlock with his "decieve item" ability, so you can grab scrolls for the occasional utility spell.

Fifth Wheel: Marshall, Bard, and Dragon Shaman all make great fifth wheels because they buff the rest of the party, while still having some fun things they can do themselves. Dragon Shaman is a little underpowered, though, so look into giving it either full BAB or more healing ability to balance it better.

I really do want to make a warlock, but I don't have complete arcane, as sad as that is. I really should buy it. I suppose I can just hold off on getting making the caster for the moment.

Don't have the marshal book, I have too many high-charisma dudes already to add a bard into the mix, and the most of the dragon shaman's effects are covered by the child of bahamut. Well, except the auras. But that's not enough reason to make a largely redundant character. Are there any other supporting classes? Maybe a good archer build?

[Draz74]

Don't have the marshal book, I have too many high-charisma dudes already

Well, most fifth-wheel types are Charisma-based. So I don't know what to recommend there.

But here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030906b) is all you need to know about the Marshal to use it.

[TheOOB]

Caster: Dragonfire Adept (Dragon Magic) and Warlock (Complete Arcane) are great caster-types who don't have to deal with the nuisance of per-day limits. They both have great flavor and contribute a lot to combat while having far smaller lists of abilities to confuse you compared to a wizard. Plus, both have use magic device, particulalry Warlock with his "decieve item" ability, so you can grab scrolls for the occasional utility spell.

Actually dragonfire adepts and warlocks are horrible casters, on the account that they cannot fulfill the caster rolls. The caster controls the battlefield and disables/weakens enemies in battle, and uses their spells for utility outside of battle. Both the classes you mentioned are blasters with some cool abilities, extra damage is great for a 5th party member, but it doesn't give you what you are looking for in a caster.

Anyways, for a caster you can never go wrong with wizard, throwing in a good PrC like fatespinner(first four levels only) initiate of the sevenfold veil, and/or archmage makes things interesting, but considering the wizards vast spell list they don't need a fancy PrC to be interesting, just someone with some imagination. Sorcerers, Wu Jen, Psions, and to a lesser extent Wielders can be pretty good casters as well. As for races, pick which ever you like, all the races are basically humans with a couple adjectives. Dwarves are short honorable humans, elves are graceful mystical humans, warforged are metal war-like humans, ect. It's up to the player to make them interesting.

For tank your best two choices are crusader and warblade(Tome of Battle), both classes are excellent warriors with awesome abilities that help keep them useful and interesting. Duskblade can also fill this role decently well, as can a cleric or favored soul(or even a druid past level 5 or 6).

For a 5th member, bard is the classic, but bards are hard to play and they require the right kind of game to be relevent(without the right setting many of their skills, songs, and spells are worthless, sticking them with providing combat bonuses, which cleric does better). Warlocks, Dragonfire Adepts, and Swordsages are wonderful 5th members, they all provide lots of extra damage and have enough cool abilities to help other party members out.

[Doomsy]

I've always liked Raptorans, Killorans (sp), and the guys with the sigils around their heads. (It's 3 AM and I've been up for two days, so I might not making a lot of sense here.)
As for underused classes that have neat flavor?

...Spirit Shaman. Yeah. It's a BAD idea if your DM doesn't tailor stuff to the PCs abilities. If they do? They're pretty fun, if not mechanically strong. Flavorful fifth wheel once everything is locked down - and possibly full time third wheel, depending on how the game works out.

Knight. Just because they're cool and work for tanking.

Aasimar Barbarian: Because nobody expects the good guy to flip out with axes. Extra bonus if you make them chaotic evil just to do a reverse Drizz't.

[Admiral Squish]

Party so far (all ecl3):
Bahamut's Dragonborn Knight
Changeling Monk/Rogue
Warfoged Druid
(planned) Talenta Halfling Warlock
-Blank Caster Space-

Still need something to fill that last little gap. I'm considering a psion for the caster spot, for some extra flavor. But, not sure.

[mabriss lethe]

Been working on spellthieves and hexblades a lot lately. They'd be interesting 5th wheels. The binder from Tome of Magic is an amazing class, and probably the only real reason to buy the book.

Caster? Cleric with the Shadow and Illusion domains can be loads of fun. If shadow isn't availible (eberron, I think) the the Darkness domain in the SRD is an interesting choice. The Spell domain (forgotten realms?) is pretty amazing(has Anyspell as a domain spell) and combined with Shadow(full progression of shadow conjuration/evocation spells) means you get a lot of the fun from both the wizard and cleric spell lists in one shape or another. Sharakim (from races of destiny) are an obvious choice for a shadow/spell(or illusion) cleric. But it's an LA+1 race. You might consider Illumians as well. This caster can double pretty well as a tank, too.