How not to be a one-trick pony and how to not break the game you're in ?

[Condé]

... As a melee character.

On my free time, I'm looking at classes, builds, handbooks all over the internet. Some threads are almost twenty-years old (Almost) some are pretty recent. All are really inyeresting.

A few days ago, I've found the really creative and original "Horizon Tripper" build, made by Saph. It was a blast. I was really surprised someone could make something based on this class, because at first glance, nothing seemed really worth for me.

What is interesting with this build is that it's not optimised, game-breaking PLUS you can be useful outside of combat. Which is great. The only thing I don't like is it's based on tripping. I mean it is really helpful in some situation but... Yeah it is what it is... Situationnal. And in some occasion you're to be near to useless. (Flying opponents, anyone ?) Otherwise, I think it's pretty well made and a creative way to use a pretty crappy PrC from the DMG. And I'm really admirative of the creativness by the author of that build in particular.

And as far as I know and I'm concerned, I didn't see a lot of build made like that. I mean I saw a lot of build talking about Uber Charge, or Thrower, Grappler, Tripper... But eh... You can't always charge. In fact, most the time in my campaign, you can't. Because we're not all good at the game, so we are making mistake. You'll have an ally right before you, or you're just misplaced, or the enemy has the initiative and come at close range before you can do anything. I mean D&D is not a wargame (Arguably) you do not always know how, and when some fight are going to take place and sometimes you can't be at your advantage and your build now just plain suck because you can't do what you are best at. And your combat session is now boring because basicly... You can't play your character the way you made it !

On the other hand you have really complicated Gish shenanigans (And I made a post about playing a gish not so long ago so I know what I'm talking about, it's crazy.) or DMM-Cleric looking for multiple Turning Pool (Btw, saw a lot of build talking about Rebuke undead as a Cleric and take the Sacred Exorcist PrC which require you to be good... I don't know.) or best shapeshift to persist as an Incantatrix or whatever you can think of.

But nobody talk about PLAYABLE characters who DOES NOT break the game you're in ! (If you're playing with beginner and/or people that do not look for optimisation. Our magician-player told me the other day, I quote "Magician are not great in this edition (3.5), especially at high-level"... just type "D&D 3.5 Magician" and see what you get first... Everyone will tell you it's broken. But it's not. Because he doesn't think it is and his character is not optimized and he does not care about that aspect of the game I think.) And it's fine, I mean he is enjoying playing his character and it's what matters the most.

What I feared the most was being useless as a character... So that's why I'm looking all over the internet to make something good and enjoyable to play with.
Now... What I fear the most is being broken as a character and made everyone want to stop the game or the DM mad.

So... Do you guys know or have played good, "Well-balanced" (It does not mean anything since it is mostly campaign-dependant and dependant of people you're play with I guess) and... Useful but... Not broken characters ?

Just want to know some nice character concept, nothing else. Oh and my questions seem to be really combat-oriented... And in fact they are because the game I'm in is pretty combat-oriented. But I think it's nice to have tools to play with outside of combat too.

Thank you all.

[MultitudeMan]

I know this may sound overly simple, but why not just go Cleric 20? You can melee fairly well, you can self-buff, buff your team, deal with status effects, pull out emergency healing if necessary. Take crafting feats, and you can even make discount magic gear for your fellow adventurers. You don't have to do DMM Nightstick-based shenanigans if they're overpowered for your table. You won't accidentally make the other melee party members obsolete like a Druid can, but you'll be useful in just about every situation if you prepare the right spells, and you don't even need to hunt them down to learn like a Wizard does.

[DeTess]

This is a difficult question to answer, because people have different definitions for what is broken. I'd say the classes from Tome of Battle make for versatile but non-broken melee characters. Several other forumites here will stridently disagree and consider ToB to consists almost purely of broken options. And they're not really any less right than I am, they simply have a far different power level at their table.

If you're looking to be both melee and have some out-of-combat options/utility, going for a half- or third-caster like the ranger or bard might not be the worst idea. Pure melee, outside of tome of battle, is generally fairly one-trick, because to be any good at combat tricks like tripping or grappling you need to make some serious investments, which stops you from being good at other things.

[Nifft]

Even if you're not Tripping, you can still make melee and ranged attacks. At worst, you've got a high BAB and proficiency with Bows.

In a combat environment with more interesting features -- like a cavern with high ledges, or a forest with giant trees -- you could use your 1d4 turn dimension door to gain a positional advantage, which you leverage the next turn, perhaps by jumping down onto the flying enemy.

[el minster]

Skillmonkey/Melee combo like swift hunter or swordsage solidly tier 3/4

[Gavinfoxx]

I'd say, you want to play a Tier 3 melee character type.

I'd suggest an overtly magical class that most GM's won't dislike due to being part of a subsystem, such as Duskblade.

[Troacctid]

Spiked chain trip builds are also naturally good at disarming. The chain has a +2 bonus to disarm attempts, plus an additional +4 for being two-handed, and if you knock them prone first, you get another +4 on your roll and nail them with a -4 penalty on theirs. Because you have reach, you don't need Improved Disarm, either—you can just stand back out of their reach and you won't provoke from them.

You can also do a lot with itemization, including healing, blasting, buffing, debuffing, summoning, and more. Magic items are a godsend for martial characters. It's well worth eschewing that third weapon upgrade to buy efficient utility stuff.

[Tvtyrant]

... As a melee character.

On my free time, I'm looking at classes, builds, handbooks all over the internet. Some threads are almost twenty-years old (Almost) some are pretty recent. All are really inyeresting.

A few days ago, I've found the really creative and original "Horizon Tripper" build, made by Saph. It was a blast. I was really surprised someone could make something based on this class, because at first glance, nothing seemed really worth for me.

What is interesting with this build is that it's not optimised, game-breaking PLUS you can be useful outside of combat. Which is great. The only thing I don't like is it's based on tripping. I mean it is really helpful in some situation but... Yeah it is what it is... Situationnal. And in some occasion you're to be near to useless. (Flying opponents, anyone ?) Otherwise, I think it's pretty well made and a creative way to use a pretty crappy PrC from the DMG. And I'm really admirative of the creativness by the author of that build in particular.

And as far as I know and I'm concerned, I didn't see a lot of build made like that. I mean I saw a lot of build talking about Uber Charge, or Thrower, Grappler, Tripper... But eh... You can't always charge. In fact, most the time in my campaign, you can't. Because we're not all good at the game, so we are making mistake. You'll have an ally right before you, or you're just misplaced, or the enemy has the initiative and come at close range before you can do anything. I mean D&D is not a wargame (Arguably) you do not always know how, and when some fight are going to take place and sometimes you can't be at your advantage and your build now just plain suck because you can't do what you are best at. And your combat session is now boring because basicly... You can't play your character the way you made it !

On the other hand you have really complicated Gish shenanigans (And I made a post about playing a gish not so long ago so I know what I'm talking about, it's crazy.) or DMM-Cleric looking for multiple Turning Pool (Btw, saw a lot of build talking about Rebuke undead as a Cleric and take the Sacred Exorcist PrC which require you to be good... I don't know.) or best shapeshift to persist as an Incantatrix or whatever you can think of.

But nobody talk about PLAYABLE characters who DOES NOT break the game you're in ! (If you're playing with beginner and/or people that do not look for optimisation. Our magician-player told me the other day, I quote "Magician are not great in this edition (3.5), especially at high-level"... just type "D&D 3.5 Magician" and see what you get first... Everyone will tell you it's broken. But it's not. Because he doesn't think it is and his character is not optimized and he does not care about that aspect of the game I think.) And it's fine, I mean he is enjoying playing his character and it's what matters the most.

What I feared the most was being useless as a character... So that's why I'm looking all over the internet to make something good and enjoyable to play with.
Now... What I fear the most is being broken as a character and made everyone want to stop the game or the DM mad.

So... Do you guys know or have played good, "Well-balanced" (It does not mean anything since it is mostly campaign-dependant and dependant of people you're play with I guess) and... Useful but... Not broken characters ?

Just want to know some nice character concept, nothing else. Oh and my questions seem to be really combat-oriented... And in fact they are because the game I'm in is pretty combat-oriented. But I think it's nice to have tools to play with outside of combat too.

Thank you all.

I really like Wildshape Ranger into Master of Many Forms, you are a shapeshifter without real casting that focuses on big combat forms. Wartroll for stuns, tentacle things for grappling, etc. Flexible and fun.

Master of Masks Gladiator Masks makes you proficient with everything, which is cool for the guy covered in exotic weapons concept. Range? Throw an Orc Shotput. Snare people with bolas, lassos, disarm them, use that huge thing from Frostburn, skies the limit. If you use Shapesand you can make all your weapons from one investment, but it won't be magical.

[Twurps]

I really like Wildshape Ranger into Master of Many Forms, you are a shapeshifter without real casting that focuses on big combat forms. Wartroll for stuns, tentacle things for grappling, etc. Flexible and fun.

Seconding this one. And there's a lot more than just combat for that build:
-scouting (desmodu hunting bat)
-Party transportation by land, water or air (Anything large enough)
-spying/infiltrating (tiny spider, will o' wisp, or just 'disguised' as one of your enemies)
-tunneling into/ out of that Orc prison camp (dire badger)

It's really one of the most flexible melee builds I've played. It's also easily adaptable to your table's power level, just by the forms you choose to be 'familiar with' and can change into.

[Troacctid]

Because specificity is a virtue, here are some magic items that will help your fighter or barbarian contribute proactively to combat in ways beyond just attacking or grappling.

• Amber amulet of vermin (700 gp): Summons a large monstrous scorpion (as summon nature's ally) for 1 minute 1/day as a standard action.
• Healing belt (750 gp): Heal with a touch up to 3/day.
• Spidersilk pendant (2,160 gp): Casts web on command once per day.
• Icy strand of the north (2,500 gp): Casts ice storm four times, sleet storm twice.
• Thorn pouch (4,400 gp): Casts entangle (1 charge), spike growth (3 charges), or wall of thorns (5 charges) as a swift action with a one-round delay before the spell takes effect. 5 charges per day.
• Cloak of the dragon (6,000 gp): Grants a +1 bonus to natural armor, and can be activated 1/day to gain a fly speed for 10 minutes, during which time you can use a breath weapon once to deal 6d8 damage in a cone or line.
• Shirt of wraith stalking (6,000 gp): At-will hide from undead.
• Blast globes (8,000 gp): 1/day explosion deals 12d6 damage, deafens subjects.
• Storm gauntlets (10,604 gp): 4 charges/day to cast shocking grasp (1 charge), lightning bolt (2 charges), or a quadrupled lightning variant of flaming sphere (4 charges). Also grants electricity resistance 5 and can be used as +1 spiked gauntlets.
• Cloak of the war wizard (16,000 gp): Continuous feather fall and endure elements. 1/day dimension door, mage armor, protection from arrows, and sending.
• Watery hachimaki of the typhoon dragon (24,000 gp): Casts control weather and control winds.

[NigelWalmsley]

I know this may sound overly simple, but why not just go Cleric 20?

More generally, how married are you to the idea of a non-caster character? Duskblades, Druids, Mystic Rangers, and various more specific Gish builds have plenty of options, and can very easily be built or played in ways that don't break the game.

[Tvtyrant]

A lot of Psychic Warrior powers are pretty mundane, you could call it Focus and refluff as just concentrating really hard and have a decent melee character.

[Fizban]

But nobody talk about PLAYABLE characters who DOES NOT break the game you're in ! (If you're playing with beginner and/or people that do not look for optimisation. Our magician-player told me the other day, I quote "Magician are not great in this edition (3.5), especially at high-level"... just type "D&D 3.5 Magician" and see what you get first... Everyone will tell you it's broken. But it's not. Because he doesn't think it is and his character is not optimized and he does not care about that aspect of the game I think.) And it's fine, I mean he is enjoying playing his character and it's what matters the most.

What I feared the most was being useless as a character... So that's why I'm looking all over the internet to make something good and enjoyable to play with.
Now... What I fear the most is being broken as a character and made everyone want to stop the game or the DM mad.

The answer is "ask your DM."

The DM is already supposed to check your character in the first place. If you've tried to fit in with the party, and the DM agrees that they think the character will fit, then play the character and you'll soon find out if the rest of the table agrees. If the DM can't compare your character and the party to the monsters they use, they have a problem.

So... Do you guys know or have played good, "Well-balanced" (It does not mean anything since it is mostly campaign-dependant and dependant of people you're play with I guess) and... Useful but... Not broken characters ?

Sure. Sword and board fighter 20 with weapon specialization. Because as you said yourself, useful depends on the people involved. So figure out what the group expects from a melee character, and then you can ask for advice on how to tone something up or down.

It is entirely likely that they will say "meatshield," and mean it. That's what the game itself actually expects. You can play this role with any martial character wielding a shield and good party tactical positioning. It can be improved by various feats, without invalidating the entire monster manual or other characters.

The problem is that you've specifically called out a distaste for "one-trick pony" builds, when that is exactly what the game and non-char-oping players expect: melee characters meatshield, swing their weapon, and don't destroy the game (and arcanists throw some fireballs and the occasional SoL, and don't destroy the game). If you want to play a meatshield that isn't a one-trick pony, then don't be a one-trick pony. Instead of spending a dozen feats on uber-tripping, spend those feats being good at both melee and ranged weapons, and tanking, and shrugging off status effects, etc.

You don't need a fancy build to do more than one thing- a fancy build is usually about cramming as much power as possible into as little space as possible. The exact opposite of making sure you don't break the game. To not break the game, simply don't.

1 Constant Guardian (DotU)
1B Dutiful Guardian (DotU)
2B Weapon Focus (1 hand)
3 Point Blank Shot
4B Weapon Specialization (1 hand)
6 Enduring Life or Quick Recovery (LiM or LoM)
6B Rapid Shot
8B Melee Weapon Mastery
9 Quick Recovery or Enduring Life
10B ACF: Resolute (CCh)
12 Combat Expertise
12B Armor Specialization (PHB2)
14B WF (ranged)
15 WS (ranged)
16B Ranged Weapon Mastery
18 Allied Defense (SSo)
18B Improved Combat Expertise (CW)

Use a Sizing Shield and a Swordbow, buy other appropriate items and work with the party. Starts with a neat tanking trick, boost melee attack, picks up ranged to threaten better if enemies don't walk up, resists negative levels, stunning, dazing, and other Will effects, picks up some more meatshielding, some more ranged, and ends with a final party tanking trick. Re-order or replace feats to taste and in response to the game as it goes on. Why pidgeonhole yourself into a single trick, when the Fighter's pile of bonus feats mean they can actually respond to the campaign?

The playtest characters found in the 3.0 Enemies and Allies tell the story: they built this city on zero op. Regdar has feats for both greatsword and longbow along with Great Cleave, Tordek has feats for waraxe and *warhammer*, and *Shot on the Run* to go with his Dwarven Thrower. If you want to be sure you're not over-optimized, that is the target you're aiming for. If you build a character that can trip anything that can be tripped, it will be OP against anything that can be tripped, there's no getting around it. If the party wizard thinks they're underpowered because they throw fireballs that aren't metamagicked into oblivion and don't ignore SR against enemies with high hit points, then melee DPS is not going to go over well. So tank and shoot.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

The Tome of Battle classes are always mentioned as examples of well-rounded melee characters, and for good reason.

One that sees less use, but is very similar in terms of balancing combat with utility, is the Totemist from Magic of Incarnum. Channel the souls of magical beasts to give yourself natural attacks, different movement modes, special senses, buffs, and so much more. You choose what "soulmelds" you have access to each day, but most of the abilities they grant are at-will, and you can also allocate your class resource ("essentia") as a swift action to determine which of your soulmelds is strongest/most prominent round-by-round. Totemist 20 is a very solid build; if you want to get a bit fancier or hit a bit harder, throw in some Barbarian and enter the Totem Rager prestige class.

Incarnate, from the same sourcebook, is also worth a look, though I think it falls closer to a caster archetype/niche than Totemist's natural warrior.

[Gruftzwerg]

But eh... You can't always charge.

Eh what? Sorry but I have to tell you that you are doing it wrong.
If you play a charger, you goal should be to charge every turn (after a certain lvl and some gear).

1) dip 2 lvls of Drunken Master
gives you Stagger which solves any charging problems. You may change directions while charging as much as you want. A single tumble DC15 roll ignores any AoO due to movement. The sole downside are the requirements and 2 lvls you need to invest

or

2) Invest into mobility
There is a skilltrick that lets you turn once in a charge (per encounter). Further buy cheap Anklets of Translocation (1,400g each). They give you 2xday swift action short range teleport to reposition yourself for charging. Exchange em after you used up the daily charges after a fight. There are tons of options to overcome this problem.

My optimized clawlock build can charge every turn under any circumstances. He can fly and makes use of Drunken Masters Stagger ability. You try to stand in front of me? I do a looping to charge with dive multiplier in your face. That's how you are supposed to ubercharge.

__________________________________________

About your other concerns:
Imho a solution is not that hard to pull off. Lets take my clawlock build as example. I assume I will never play this build with that optimization lvl mentioned in the guide (mostly because my teammates barely play on that lvl).
Because it is fully optimized in combat flexibility and damage.
But what I did was to play an almost identical build (class and feat choice) but didn't optimized the damage with items into nirvana (played the build up to 12 and was fun). This way the build stays always combat relevant but never breaks the game. You just need to be careful when you pick any dmg boosts. Most are OK for themselves, but the synergy is what escalates the dmg.

My advice is, optimize your flexibility while minimizing the shortcomings of your build. And if you optimize your damage, do it carefully to stay at the same lvl as your table.

[Condé]

First, thank you all for your answers.

Second, just as a reminder, it is not specifically for me, even if I could really be interested by these and I'm directly concerned, I just wanted to know if some of you were in hat kind of situation, where you have to... Pull yourself back to not break the balance of your table.

I know this may sound overly simple, but why not just go Cleric 20? You can melee fairly well, you can self-buff, buff your team, deal with status effects, pull out emergency healing if necessary. Take crafting feats, and you can even make discount magic gear for your fellow adventurers. You don't have to do DMM Nightstick-based shenanigans if they're overpowered for your table. You won't accidentally make the other melee party members obsolete like a Druid can, but you'll be useful in just about every situation if you prepare the right spells, and you don't even need to hunt them down to learn like a Wizard does.

Cleric and Druid are really solid choices, that's true. You don't really have to push too hard to be useful and every party like to have you in. But you don't really have to make any meaningful choice. (Except for domains & feats and... a lot of more things... Yeah ok you have to make actual choices) but you have most of the divine spells and you can build your cleric as you like and you'll still be useful no matter what. I was a terrible, terrible Cleric and still manage to be useful to my party because you just have to wait a day and take the spells you need for a given situation. Which is nice, but it wasn't really rewarding, as a player.

This is a difficult question to answer, because people have different definitions for what is broken. I'd say the classes from Tome of Battle make for versatile but non-broken melee characters. Several other forumites here will stridently disagree and consider ToB to consists almost purely of broken options. And they're not really any less right than I am, they simply have a far different power level at their table.

If you're looking to be both melee and have some out-of-combat options/utility, going for a half- or third-caster like the ranger or bard might not be the worst idea. Pure melee, outside of tome of battle, is generally fairly one-trick, because to be any good at combat tricks like tripping or grappling you need to make some serious investments, which stops you from being good at other things.

Yeah classes from ToB are really interesting and I can sse why some don't like them. Initiator level, a lot of new mechanics, different maneuvers recovery systems for each class... It can become overwhelming pretty fast.

Some of the Prestige class from this book look dope too (Jade Phoenix Mage, Shadow Sun Ninja and Eternal Blade for example)

I always find that the ranger was a bit... Bland. I don't know. It's a strange mix between a lot of other classes, without being as good as other. I mean you have a pet like a Druid but way worse, can cast spells but not so much, you have some nice abilities but they're not really flashy... (Favored enemy is kinda specific)

But yeah, I guess they're not terrible and they have some interesting alternative class features but that's it.

Even if you're not Tripping, you can still make melee and ranged attacks. At worst, you've got a high BAB and proficiency with Bows.

In a combat environment with more interesting features -- like a cavern with high ledges, or a forest with giant trees -- you could use your 1d4 turn dimension door to gain a positional advantage, which you leverage the next turn, perhaps by jumping down onto the flying enemy.

And you're right. Dimension door almost at-will is the reason Horizon Walker looks interesting. Sadly you have to pick 5 levels of almost nothing. But you can't go wrong with this ability, it looks fun as hell.

Skillmonkey/Melee combo like swift hunter or swordsage solidly tier 3/4

Swordsage is definitly a good choice. Their recover mechanic is a bit odd, but you have so many recover that it is not really a problem. Most fight are going to be over before you ran out of them. Plus, they feel like a monk but with more options.

Spiked chain trip builds are also naturally good at disarming. The chain has a +2 bonus to disarm attempts, plus an additional +4 for being two-handed, and if you knock them prone first, you get another +4 on your roll and nail them with a -4 penalty on theirs. Because you have reach, you don't need Improved Disarm, either—you can just stand back out of their reach and you won't provoke from them.

You can also do a lot with itemization, including healing, blasting, buffing, debuffing, summoning, and more. Magic items are a godsend for martial characters. It's well worth eschewing that third weapon upgrade to buy efficient utility stuff.

The Spiked Chain is really a great weapon, for sure. Almost too good. I think I saw a post somewhere, where a designer of the game told that he made the spiked chain over the other weapons on purpose because he was thinking they were cool.
And sure they are !

I really like Wildshape Ranger into Master of Many Forms, you are a shapeshifter without real casting that focuses on big combat forms. Wartroll for stuns, tentacle things for grappling, etc. Flexible and fun.

Master of Masks Gladiator Masks makes you proficient with everything, which is cool for the guy covered in exotic weapons concept. Range? Throw an Orc Shotput. Snare people with bolas, lassos, disarm them, use that huge thing from Frostburn, skies the limit. If you use Shapesand you can make all your weapons from one investment, but it won't be magical.

I... Didn't even know that prestige class. It sure looks cool and is more the picture I made myself of a "Chameleon" than the class of the name. You can do a bit of everything without outshining more dedicated roles.
Thank you for your input.

Seconding this one. And there's a lot more than just combat for that build:
-scouting (desmodu hunting bat)
-Party transportation by land, water or air (Anything large enough)
-spying/infiltrating (tiny spider, will o' wisp, or just 'disguised' as one of your enemies)
-tunneling into/ out of that Orc prison camp (dire badger)

It's really one of the most flexible melee builds I've played. It's also easily adaptable to your table's power level, just by the forms you choose to be 'familiar with' and can change into.

Yeah. I wanted to make a MMF for years. But it remind me a bit of a Wizard. If your DM is kind enough to show you some nice monsters to turn into, you could be happy. Otherwise... (Otherwise ask a caster to summon nice monsters but eh... It is way less fun.)

Because specificity is a virtue, here are some magic items that will help your fighter or barbarian contribute proactively to combat in ways beyond just attacking or grappling.

• Amber amulet of vermin (700 gp): Summons a large monstrous scorpion (as summon nature's ally) for 1 minute 1/day as a standard action.
• Healing belt (750 gp): Heal with a touch up to 3/day.
• Spidersilk pendant (2,160 gp): Casts web on command once per day.
• Icy strand of the north (2,500 gp): Casts ice storm four times, sleet storm twice.
• Thorn pouch (4,400 gp): Casts entangle (1 charge), spike growth (3 charges), or wall of thorns (5 charges) as a swift action with a one-round delay before the spell takes effect. 5 charges per day.
• Cloak of the dragon (6,000 gp): Grants a +1 bonus to natural armor, and can be activated 1/day to gain a fly speed for 10 minutes, during which time you can use a breath weapon once to deal 6d8 damage in a cone or line.
• Shirt of wraith stalking (6,000 gp): At-will hide from undead.
• Blast globes (8,000 gp): 1/day explosion deals 12d6 damage, deafens subjects.
• Storm gauntlets (10,604 gp): 4 charges/day to cast shocking grasp (1 charge), lightning bolt (2 charges), or a quadrupled lightning variant of flaming sphere (4 charges). Also grants electricity resistance 5 and can be used as +1 spiked gauntlets.
• Cloak of the war wizard (16,000 gp): Continuous feather fall and endure elements. 1/day dimension door, mage armor, protection from arrows, and sending.
• Watery hachimaki of the typhoon dragon (24,000 gp): Casts control weather and control winds.

Damn. Thank you for that stuff.

The answer is "ask your DM."

The DM is already supposed to check your character in the first place. If you've tried to fit in with the party, and the DM agrees that they think the character will fit, then play the character and you'll soon find out if the rest of the table agrees. If the DM can't compare your character and the party to the monsters they use, they have a problem....
+ Really long post but a good one.

Thank you for that build. Your 3.0 story made me chuckle. It's pretty intersting, it reminds me of my first characters back in 2007 or something. In a world where you didn't know about optimization or even you had to plan your character from 1 to 20 otherwise it's probably gonna suck hard.
Great times.

The Tome of Battle classes are always mentioned as examples of well-rounded melee characters, and for good reason.

One that sees less use, but is very similar in terms of balancing combat with utility, is the Totemist from Magic of Incarnum. Channel the souls of magical beasts to give yourself natural attacks, different movement modes, special senses, buffs, and so much more. You choose what "soulmelds" you have access to each day, but most of the abilities they grant are at-will, and you can also allocate your class resource ("essentia") as a swift action to determine which of your soulmelds is strongest/most prominent round-by-round. Totemist 20 is a very solid build; if you want to get a bit fancier or hit a bit harder, throw in some Barbarian and enter the Totem Rager prestige class.

Incarnate, from the same sourcebook, is also worth a look, though I think it falls closer to a caster archetype/niche than Totemist's natural warrior.

I never really yake a look at Magic of Incarnum because... I don't know. (My DM do not allow them atm) And I don't see a lot of people talk about the classes from this book to be honest. I'd be glad to learn more about it.

Eh what? Sorry but I have to tell you that you are doing it wrong.
If you play a charger, you goal should be to charge every turn (after a certain lvl and some gear).

1) dip 2 lvls of Drunken Master
gives you Stagger which solves any charging problems. You may change directions while charging as much as you want. A single tumble DC15 roll ignores any AoO due to movement. The sole downside are the requirements and 2 lvls you need to invest

or

2) Invest into mobility
There is a skilltrick that lets you turn once in a charge (per encounter). Further buy cheap Anklets of Translocation (1,400g each). They give you 2xday swift action short range teleport to reposition yourself for charging. Exchange em after you used up the daily charges after a fight. There are tons of options to overcome this problem.

My optimized clawlock build can charge every turn under any circumstances. He can fly and makes use of Drunken Masters Stagger ability. You try to stand in front of me? I do a looping to charge with dive multiplier in your face. That's how you are supposed to ubercharge.

__________________________________________

About your other concerns:
Imho a solution is not that hard to pull off. Lets take my clawlock build as example. I assume I will never play this build with that optimization lvl mentioned in the guide (mostly because my teammates barely play on that lvl).
Because it is fully optimized in combat flexibility and damage.
But what I did was to play an almost identical build (class and feat choice) but didn't optimized the damage with items into nirvana (played the build up to 12 and was fun). This way the build stays always combat relevant but never breaks the game. You just need to be careful when you pick any dmg boosts. Most are OK for themselves, but the synergy is what escalates the dmg.

My advice is, optimize your flexibility while minimizing the shortcomings of your build. And if you optimize your damage, do it carefully to stay at the same lvl as your table.

Ah ah yes, I guess you're right. You know, I didn't make a character based on charging so... I saw a lot of people talking about their build and how you can potentially one-shot almost anything. And of course you just demonstrate that it's not that hard to be able to charge every turn but... You still are a "One-trick pony" and I don't really find that kind of builds fun to play with. (As far as I know, maybe if I tried them I would love them, I don't know, but they don't sound fun to me) But I can see why some people like these kind of build.
And for me, they are more like a "See how I can push the ridiculousness of the rules" and "Theory builds" than practical builds.

[Condé]

Bumping my own thread but I want to talk about that but it doesn't need another thread I guess.

I was looking at Shadow Sun Ninja lastly and boy... Monk are hard to build. I mean, you COULD use the variant Swordsage, but you can argue by RAW that it doesn't not really exist, even if it's mostly obvious what it's intended for, you still have no board/progression or anything, just some direction for your DM to take. (And I don't think, in my case, my DM wouldn't agree with)
But you'd need SO much feat, and you have such a poor Bab, not many hitpoints nor AC and... Not many anything.

And there's apparently an argument over some people if you can apply "Improved Natural Weapons" on your "Unarmed Attacks" and this remind me why 3.5 rules are both great AND covoluted sometimes.

And as far as I can tell, Prestige Classes for Monks are kinda underwhelming.

Enlightened Fists seems pretty boring. Sacred Fist, it's unclear if you're 10/10 or 8/10, some people tell that text prime over anything else and I genuinely don't know if it matters that much since it doesn't seems great either. At least you have a full Bab, which is nice, I guess.

But the Shadow Monk Ninja looks so fun in comparison. You have really nice and unique features, I don't know if they're great but they look fun and that's what matter I guess.
The thing is, if you have something like : Monk 2 / Swordsage 3 / Shadow Sun Ninja 5 for example, you end up with only +6/+1 at level 10. Damn.

And I guess I'm in an area where I'm not into optimization but I'm taking care of what I want to do because, in the past, I made so many bad characters, either they were boring or just plai nad because I didn't plan them in advance so much and they ended up being just inefficient. And now I fear to make really unbalanced characters and ruin the fun of everyone at the table.

And in the end, what it seems to be the most difficult thing to do is...

A balanced character. And I love it, actually. I'm having fun just looking for build people made in so many years of play and I'm curious about what you guys could come up with.

I take a look at Iron Chef sometimes... But it's really too much for my taste. Even is some of them have some nice concepts.

[el minster]

take 4 levels of monk and the rest in shadow sun ninja and swordsage

[Troacctid]

I keep a collection of interesting prestige classes for monks. Here's my list:

Disciple of Mephistopheles
Dragon Descendant
Enlightened Fist
Fist of Dal Quor
Fist of the Forest
Henshin Mystic
Jaunter
Master of the East Wind
Master of the North Wind
Master of the South Wind
Master of the West Wind
Psionic Fist
Sacred Fist
Serene Guardian
Shadow Sun Ninja
Shen
Shou Disciple
Tattooed Monk
Telflammar Shadowlord
Zerth Cenobite

[Condé]

take 4 levels of monk and the rest in shadow sun ninja and swordsage

Why level 4 ? Normaly people tend to say Monk 2 / Swordsage X / SSM X ? Is it for Ki strike, the unarmed damage boost ... ?

I keep a collection of interesting prestige classes for monks. Here's my list:

Disciple of Mephistopheles
Dragon Descendant
Enlightened Fist
Fist of Dal Quor
Fist of the Forest
Henshin Mystic
Jaunter
Master of the East Wind
Master of the North Wind
Master of the South Wind
Master of the West Wind
Psionic Fist
Sacred Fist
Serene Guardian
Shadow Sun Ninja
Shen
Shou Disciple
Tattooed Monk
Telflammar Shadowlord
Zerth Cenobite

You again ! Thanks for this precious list.

[el minster]

fist of the forest is better as a barbarian

[Troacctid]

Why level 4 ? Normaly people tend to say Monk 2 / Swordsage X / SSM X ? Is it for Ki strike, the unarmed damage boost ... ?

The usual break points are 1, 2, 6, and 7. The biggest reason to go to 4 in this case is probably to set up swordsage better; if you have 4 levels in other classes first, you can pick 2nd level maneuvers right away.

fist of the forest is better as a barbarian

It's mostly just good for any unarmed and unarmored character. For monks, it rapidly advances unarmed damage, gives a rage-like ability that works well with unarmed strikes, provides uncanny dodge on the off chance you want to go into Master of the South Wind later, and IIRC the Con to AC stacks with your Wis to AC. The Power Attack prerequisite isn't quite as good for you, but eh.

[el minster]

The usual break points are 1, 2, 6, and 7. The biggest reason to go to 4 in this case is probably to set up swordsage better; if you have 4 levels in other classes first, you can pick 2nd level maneuvers right away.


It's mostly just good for any unarmed and unarmored character. For monks, it rapidly advances unarmed damage, gives a rage-like ability that works well with unarmed strikes, provides uncanny dodge on the off chance you want to go into Master of the South Wind later, and IIRC the Con to AC stacks with your Wis to AC. The Power Attack prerequisite isn't quite as good for you, but eh.

True, but I will dedny that monks are good for anything

[Calthropstu]

Be bad at everything. Then instead of a one trick pony you're a no trick pony.

Hope this helps!