So, the thought crossed my addled mind this evening about secondary character classes. Y'know, mostly from the splatbooks WotC put out.
So, my thought was about players playing the general roles of the "primary" types, but using a different character class.
The primaries I'm using for this experiment are:
Dwarven Fighter
Human Cleric
Elven Wizard
Halfling Rogue
Half-Elf Bard (to me, the better fit).
So, going with that I'm going to propose a "B-Team" of non-NPC character classes and concepts that don't mix with the above, or do something completely different. I'm leaving every book I own on the table here, so there's going to be lots of thoughts.
Fighter= Human Knight. Pretty simple here, and I like the idea of a human knight in shining armor (i.e. Galahad).
Cleric= Half-Elf Healer from Minis Handbook. I really like this class, and it works better than Cleric for some clergies.
Wizard= This was tough. I actually don't know, but I favor a Warlock, and I like the tormented aspect of a Hellbred. So, Hellbred Warlock it is.
Rogue= This is an easy choice for me, I LOVED the Beguiler, and it's only natural to make this a gnome.
Bard= Again, losing spells, but focusing on the buffing of allies, you end up with a Marshall, and I'm fond of the D&D miniatures marshall, so I'll go Dwarven Marshall.
So, what's your B-team? What do you think of MY B-team? Any other thoughts or ideas to play with the above ideas? This isn't optimization, but an exercise to see what else can be effective in a dungeon environment.
Here's hoping I've sparked an idea with the fellow players out there, and I'll try to discuss this again tomorrow.
/d
Some random thoughts.
This group is all fistfighters from 1-20. Healers get the mid-level stuff to negate certain damage types (although PF nerfed that, if you're using PF), warlocks get a few superheroic tricks (most significantly flight) but they're pretty much all self-only, and beguilers get illusions and a couple big divinations, but if this party wants to fly or go to another plane or adventure underwater or enter the castle with no doors they ask an NPC to help them out.
There are lots of foes that this group just folds to. There's little good way to bypass aligned DR (and nobody's tossing the kind of damage you need to overcome it), you're stuck for killing regenerators, etc. Most of their hope to not be TPKed by fliers is tied up in the beguiler, so the combination of flight, ranged attacks, and immunity to beguiler stuff or the sense to deal with beguiler stuff will wreck this crew.
In fact, I notice that 95% of this group's ranged mojo is beguiler stuff: mind-affecting effects and illusions. If you have something that can't be charmed or tricked, this group is stuck hiding in a fog cloud and plinking with crossbows/eldritch blast.
Save the beguiler, you have picked some of the seriously weakest classes in 3.5. Warlocks are really variable depending on how good you are at separating good invocations from bad, but marshal and knight are bordering on NPC class quality and until high levels healer is barely better than adept.
Everyone pretty much just does their one thing. Nobody has much in the way of actively assisting others in the party; the only one who can buff is the marshal and that's mostly passive. There isn't even anyone who can set people up as flatfooted for the beguiler. I forsee the GM needing to pull a lot of punches on this group. There's a lot of things a normal group can usually do that this group can't.
The points you bring up are all what I considered when creating the party. The idea here is that they're not the "front line" adventurers. The idea was to fill the role that a fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue, and bard would, but do it with other classes.
Whether or not a GM pulls punches or not is their business, but, honestly, I can see this group pulling off quite few surprises. The beguiler, contrary to belief, is stronger in play even without setting up flanking (which isn't flat-footedness that the beguiler needs). This group is a "control" group, really. The beguiler and Knight would be the best two to work together, the illusions getting folk to the knight really quick.
The warlock and Marshall would be the support, and, as you point out, the Marshall is mostly a passive character. The Marshall can do great things, if you allow it. The Warlock, of all the classes, is probably the strongest in my opinion.
Hear me out here:
Blast shape invocations, hideous blow, and eldritch spear. Those three alone negate most ranged threats, and allow for some ability to deal with multiple targets.
Again, the idea isn't that it's the most powerful combination, it's to jump in and try to do without one of the primary fighter types, cleric types, etc.
So, given that we agree on your critique of the classes, what would your B-Team look like?
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Half-Orc Barbarian (Fighter slot)
Shifter Scout (Rogue Slot)
Halfling Druid (with riding animal) (Cleric slot)
Human Warlock (Fey flavoured) (Wizard slot)
Kobold Dragon Shaman (Bard slot)
I realise that the Barbarian and the Druid are core, but my "B" team aren't dungeoneers, they are nature's warriors. I've always wanted to run a campaign where everybody chose wilderness themed classes, tribesmen at the edge of civilisation.
Alternatively:
Warforged Knight (Fighter slot)
Changeling Ninja (Rogue slot)
Vanara Shaman [Oriental Adventures version, updated for PF] (Cleric slot)
Gnome Wu Jen (Wizard slot)
Human Noble [Green Ronin, updated for PF] (Bard Slot)
This "B" team would probably operate as a task force for a noble family, I'd probably flavour the Warforged as a samurai who serves his family within a suit of armour even long after death.
Actually we -do- play a "B team" in our Absalom swashbuckling campaign =D
(all human)
- Dexterity-oriented Fighter/Rogue
- Duelist-focused Divine Bard (lately branching to more divine inclinations after having gotten Ecclesiast title)
- Not-really-swashbuckling Barbarian (the GM insists he's the Porthos to our musketeer team, I stand by my opinion that the player simply disregarded the character-creation guidelines... and yet, he's the one who keeps saving our bacon when the going gets tough)
- Duelist-focus Cleric (originally our fourth musketeer was a Beguiler, but the player couldn't manage to fit in and ended up leaving the table).
As any urban game, magic and magic items were next to none at the begining of the game. Back then the beguiler was in team; no true divine presence in team meant we were deadmeat against anything undead as we soon found out when the GM used Black Waters as a filler between adventures.
As a matter of fact, we were deadmeat against both anything with DR as well as spellcasters, which we again came to regret as our merry band of freedom fighters grew big enough to start stepping on the wrong tails in the slavery business and the asmodian bishop sent a Hellcat our way... the GM had to reconsider and nerf its DR as soon as he realised he had unwittingly put us in an "inescapable death scenario".
Still, our groups' problems have less to do with being a "B team" and more to do with the fact that we're playing characters made for an urban game, and built to deal with human, reasonably-mundane threats (contrary to supernatural ones like undead, outsiders, high magic, etc).
Still, now that the group is into the midgame and characters are getting resources of a heavier caliber (and got a cleric), our babies have finally grown to a stage where they can start tackling more general challenges (we just got over another PFS filler scenario and this time we didn't need to turn tail lol). Then again, the fact that we moved to the Books of Experimental Might (the single best thing since sliced bread) might also have to do with it. ;)
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A B-team made of classes from the PHB2, Heroes of Horror, Expanded Psionics Handbook and / or Oriental Adventures, etc. could be neat, just skipping Core + Completes entirely.
Tank - OA Samurai, Psychic Warrior or Duskblade
Caster - Dread Necromancer, Archivist or Psion/Wilder
Support - Archivist or OA Shaman
Skillmonkey - Beguiler or Factotum
Pure anything; 4 Paladins, 4 Druids, 4 Necromancers (one a Dread Necro, at least one using the skeleton-instead-of-familiar option from Unearthed Arcana), 4 Sohei, 4 Barbarians (with some sort of healing companion / bond thing from DMG2), 4 Warlocks, 4 Bards, etc.
The Oriental Adventures Shaman is a sick, sick, sick little monkey of a class...
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Then again, the fact that we moved to the Books of Experimental Might (the single best thing since sliced bread) might also have to do with it. ;)
Tangent in spoiler;
I would *love* to play a Wizard using the Disciplines from that book in place of spellcasting. He'd get new Discipline bumps every level (and not have to burn feats to get them, and still have the option to burn a feat to get yet more of them), instead of every odd level, and be like the Monte Cook Warlock. :)
I'd probably want to add an illusion-themed Discipline, 'though. There are already Disciplines for Abjuration (Shield of the Seraphim), Conjuration (Familiar), Divination (Telepathy), Enchantment (Bolt of Bedevilment), Evocation (Eldritch Bolt), Necromancy (Debilitating Touch), Transmutation (Telekinesis) and Universal (Arcanist, Gifts of Magic), which pretty much leaves a 'Glamor' Discipline with illusory effects as the logical final option.
A B-team made of classes from the PHB2, Heroes of Horror, Expanded Psionics Handbook and / or Oriental Adventures, etc. could be neat, just skipping Core + Completes entirely.
An ex-roommate and DM of mine did that for a campaign once, telling us we could play anything except the core classes. Ended up with a Dread Necromancer, a Blue Dragon Shaman, a Beguiler, and a Knight.
Otherwise though, we really don't have a B-Team. My gaming group typically plays whatever they want to play and either figures out inventive or unexpected ways around "we don't have anything that normally handles this problem" or the DM tweaks encounters so they're still challenging but beatable. However, we rarely hit roadblocks like that as of late, as we've started playing a lot of Gestalt, and most of the players are at least halfway decent at optimization.
Why restrict the thought exercise to non-PHB classes?
Why not expand it to non-PHB races (excluding variants of PHB races, also), as well?
+0 or +1 LA races:
Sharakim Duskblade
Raptorian Spirit Shaman
Killoren Warlock
Catfolk Scout
Goliath Dragon Shaman
Fighter: Illumian Duskblade
Mage: Human Warmage
Cleric: Aasimar Favored Soul
Rogue: Derro Spelltheif
Bard: Tattooed Varisian Human Beguiler
Back-up fighter/rogue: Varag Scout
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Killoren Warlock
[tangent]Converting the Killoren (my favorite Races of... race) to Pathfinder, I noted that the Destroyer Aspect allows Smiting of Aberrants, Humanoids, Outsiders, Undead, etc. 1 / hour up to Cha+ times / day.
If that Smite used Pathfinder Smite rules, from the Paladin, that would totally rock on toast...[/tangent]
Killoren Warlock[tangent]Converting the Killoren (my favorite Races of... race) to Pathfinder, I noted that the Destroyer Aspect allows Smiting of Aberrants, Humanoids, Outsiders, Undead, etc. 1 / hour up to Cha+ times / day.
If that Smite used Pathfinder Smite rules, from the Paladin, that would totally rock on toast...[/tangent]
[hijack]Totally stealing this for the next one I play, I concur with their awesomeness.[/hijack]