(here comes the play a bard/rouge/fighter, but that's not what I want)
Well I have been looking, and maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places, but I have been looking for a do it all class, kinda that Bard thing just with out all the song.
Here's why I'm asking (or the part you can skip if you like): The people I play with know I "class-hop", for the lack of a better term, and really why I do this is I like to do everything, not really be awesome at one thing, more just good at everything...
Heres a early thanks...
Have you thought about Ranger
Great HP = 1d10
Great BAB = same as fighter
Got 2 good saves = Fort and Ref
Got some spell (druid 1-4)
Alignment = Any and No fluff that can be used to strip you of spells.
Got good skills 6 + INT
Kind of a Bard/Rogue/Fighter all rolled into one, with no mult-classing eating you away.
PS = If you are not a number cruncher, one of the few classes that does not need a Prime ability score. Class works best as even spread of 14 plus in all ability's scores.
Check out the Advanced Player's Guide.
You can make a bard, but trade in the song and dance for something less poncey.
That book really helps you "hit the mark" with otherwise inflexible classes. If this is frequently a problem for you, it's worth getting that book.
Yea I like playing Ranger (always thought them to be Fighter/Druid/Rouges, but anyways)
Still... some of the skills are limited (a little disable device is never bad)
So the search still goes on..
Check out the Advanced Player's Guide.
You can make a bard, but trade in the song and dance for something less poncey.
That book really helps you "hit the mark" with otherwise inflexible classes. If this is frequently a problem for you, it's worth getting that book.
I have the book, and its my Pathfinder Bible (adds a lot more then fireball and magic missile to the game)
Not read much on bards in it but let me check...
Check out the Advanced Player's Guide.
You can make a bard, but trade in the song and dance for something less poncey.
That book really helps you "hit the mark" with otherwise inflexible classes. If this is frequently a problem for you, it's worth getting that book.
I have the book, and its my Pathfinder Bible (adds a lot more then fireball and magic missile to the game)
Not read much on bards in it but let me check...
Well after a quick check, what "removes" the song and dance everything I saw just added to my song list...
EDIT: Sorry about all the post...
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Well, you've already brought up the two main ways to get this. The system encourages specialization to make sure everyone in the party has something to do! Otherwise, multiclassing is your best bet, but you don't have to level everything evenly. My advice is to start rogue, just one level for the class skills, then one level fighter for the weapon and armor proficiencies. after that, enter the spellcasting class of choice. Use your favored class bonus for the extra skill points. You'll be behind, but you'll have a little more breadth.
I'm really fond of either the sandman bard, or an urban guide ranger -- which gives trapfinding and a floating bonus against specific foes.
Beyond those the witch isn't bad for a generalist caster, and an alchemist has a lot going for him too. The inquisitor also has several unique abilities and is capable of filling a wide choice of roles.
What exactly are you looking for though? Is it your intention to stick with one class, or are you interested in a multi-class character?
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I guess it's not entirely clear what you mean by "jack of all trades".
I am a big fan of the alchemist as being a super versatile, batman type character. Lots of skill points, some great class skills, if you want you can do fairly well in melee. They get most of the great skills: Disable, UMB, Perception. If they don't have a skill or an ability they can often have an extract or potion in their 'kit' to get the ability they need. They also have access to a fair number of decent wands as well.
Ranger is also great as a sort of Jack of Trades and the Guide archetype makes them really good at being just all around nasty killer (a few times a day). I've seen combat style used quite effectively to pick up just enough archery feats where they could be quite good in melee and with the bow.
Inquisitor is a pretty decent skills guru too with a lot of nice combat buffs built into the class and a fairly interesting spell mix.
So... what do you mean by Jack of All Trades?
The Black Company Campaign Setting from Green Ronin has a Jack-of-all-trade class that has as class abilities, emulate skill and feat which allows the character to use any skill and feat that they observe another character use.
Then there is the Factotum from Dungeonscape.
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I'm really fond of either the sandman bard, or an urban guide ranger -- which gives trapfinding and a floating bonus against specific foes.
Beyond those the witch isn't bad for a generalist caster, and an alchemist has a lot going for him too. The inquisitor also has several unique abilities and is capable of filling a wide choice of roles.
What exactly are you looking for though? Is it your intention to stick with one class, or are you interested in a multi-class character?
The thing I don't like about the Urban Ranger is it seems like a ranger with Favored Terrain Urban gets bonuses in ANY city while the Urban Ranger gets bonuses in one specific city. So unless your campaign is limited to one specific city you are generally better going straight ranger (or optionally guide).
Though arguably a an Urban Ranger would seemingly get their favored terrain bonus in all parts of that city, including the sewers and dungeons where the FE Urban ranger would be limited to cityscape.
Also, if trap finding is a huge need then Urban Ranger is your only choice without multi-classing.
Yeah it's mainly the trapfinding that really does it for me with the urban ranger. He's not bad otherwise, but as you say he's limited out of his community.
However for a campaign like CoT -- that's quite the bonuses to always have.
Looks like I have 2 questions to answer:
Am I willing to multi class?:
Yes, I will take 1 to 20 classes, but I have heard some bad things another multi classing, but you say otherwise then what ever
What do I mean by "jack of all trades"?:
Let me just give little story of what I'm thinking:
"Oh great locked door, let me get it guys.."
*random orc appears while pick locking*
*shoots hand crossbow at orc*
"Ok doors open guys"
*there is a guy on the door*
*stabs guy as soon as he see him*
*shoots random spell at the guy behind him*
Hope that helped
Yeah, look again at the alchemist and the inquisitor, both of them can do what you ask in varying levels.
Since the APG was released, I have always considered the Inquisitor class as a JoAT. Especially, when one picks a domain suited to their play style.
Greg
It's important to know that you can't be a jack of every trade. It's better to be okay at several things than absolutely rubbish at everything.
Well after a quick check, what "removes" the song and dance everything I saw just added to my song list...
Hm. My bad. Must have been wishful thinking on my part.
I +1 the Alchemist, 3/4 bab, good skills, blasting with bombs, mutagens to further enhance combat, no armor restrictions, curative extracts (with infusion discovery). A Druid can be a JoAT, esp. if you multiclass (rogue, for example), decent combat, offensive and defensive magic, etc.
In my last campaign, my cohort was a half-elf Paladin 2/Bard 6/Arcane Archer 2. I don't think she'd have made a really good PC (mostly because the JoAT's is not an option I think I'd enjoy), but she was a good second-best to fill any role. Back-up healer, arcane, lore, skill, and even damage was decent (Sound Burst Imbued Arrows hurt clustered mobs). Probably couldn't handle melee, but with Versatile Performance (Dance), she could move around the battlefield pretty easily.
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It's important to know that you can't be a jack of every trade. It's better to be okay at several things than absolutely rubbish at everything.
Hmm, the way I see it there are a fair number of classes that are pretty good at a lot of things but not the "BEST" at any single thing. Or like the alchemist, maybe they aren't good at everything out of the box but you can get them a nice mix of extracts/ potions/ alchemical substances which can make them an expert at something in a pinch.
My favorite Jack of All Trades in 3.5 was the binder, couldn't do everything at once, but you could fill almost any roll with a days notice.
Hmm, the way I see it there are a fair number of classes that are pretty good at a lot of things but not the "BEST" at any single thing. Or like the alchemist, maybe they aren't good at everything out of the box but you can get them a nice mix of extracts/ potions/ alchemical substances which can make them an expert at something in a pinch.
Yeah. That's the idea. Too often I see terrible multiclassed builds that are incabable of being a plausible benefit to a party at their level as they have spread their levels and skills so thin.
Firstly I would not get hung up on a bards "performance." Paizo did a good job opening up the field for how a bard can go about using that ability. Personally most of my bards (being a big bard player back in 3e D&D) were mostly based on Perform(Oratory). While this does cover epics, odes, and storytelling, I also saw it used occasionally on "professor/scholar" type NPCs and anyone who's taught in a classroom knows darn well it can be as much a performance as any theatrical production.
A Bard does not have to be a "Sound of Music" bard, instead you can easily work the class into a battlefield commander. Take the Archivist. Lamentable Belaborment and Pedantic Lecture seem most appropriate is tagged to a stereotypical tweed suited professor type, who packs a battered hat and a whip.
Oh? You don't think having a bonus on all initiative checks, stealth checks, and perception checks is useful? This bonus is +2 to start and ends at +8.
The ability to not be slowed by any difficult terrain in his community isn't at all useful?
He gets in a group and you can't find him at all at level 12, and he gets improved invisibility at level 17.
And this is in addition to trapfinding which replaces endurance.
Like someone else said, you can role-play the bards music as something other than music.
Eleven bard, usually take sing and dance. Then i treat the sing as elven song magic, kind of like what you would see in lord of the rings. Were they speak in elven, while creating a spell effect.
I do have some advice, but before I give it, remember that "Jack of All Trades" also means "Master of None." You're not going to find the magic class or combination that makes you excellent at EVERYTHING, because the system is inherently balanced in a way to prevent you from doing that--at least if you are using existing Pathfinder RPG materials alone (by which I mean the core rules and the APG). After all, if there was one character who could do everything, there would be no point in playing a cooperative game where everybody each has their own strength.
That said, I am interpreting you to mean
- You want to be able to have magical abilities
- You want to contribute meaningfully to combat with weapon skills
- You want to have a lot of skills, or at least be very good at a few skills
- You want to easily fill in various niches that other classes/party members may not as easily fill.
With this in mind (I realize I may be stating the obvious here, but I'm outlining my thinking)
- You want a class that casts spells, or at least dip into one. Ranger and Paladin are likely out because limited spell lists, but really nothing else is.
- You through multiclassing or a class you pick, are likely to end up with more or less 3/4 BAB no matter what you do. I would suggest picking a specific combat style to be good at. But if you insist on "jack of all tradesing" that, go with a Dex-based combat style, with a melee weapon with weapon finesse and a ranged weapon. If you want the highest BAB possible, your choices are single-class ranger or Eldritch Knight (the latter of which can be cool, but don't shine till high levels), but you will not have as good skills unless you do something like a Fighter/Bard EK.
- You will at least want to dip into Bard or Rogue to get as many class skills as possible. Ranger is also a good 3rd choice. I would also suggest taking and building up Use Magic Device as much as possible (which in addition to Bard and Rogue, Sorcerer also has as a class skill).
With that laid out, these are my suggestions:
- Arcane Trickster build. This is a very fun prestige class, and if you are tactically minded, you can set up all kinds of sneak attacks for your combat specialty. You will have a full range of spells, plus some great spell tricks that the PrC gives you, and while you won't have as many skill points as a full rogue, a good number. An Arcane Trickster with Use Magic Device can be especially obnoxious, throwing in Divine Spells from scrolls and wands as well as his own known arcane spells.
- If you want to go the divine route, the unpopular but versatile multiclass cleric. People like to single-class clerics for highest spell and caster levels, but a lot of buffs and heals--the majority of the cleric's repertoire--don't need CL for more than the durations of spells (which can be assisted by extend spell). There is resisting dispel magic but you shouldn't be dipping so much that that will be a huge or frequent problem (assuming your GM isn't out to get you). A ranger/cleric or rogue/cleric, especially with the right domains, can be extremely versatile, have great spells, good skills, and a fantastic arsenal of spells. This type of character will be useful in and out of combat with spells and skills, and hold their own more than well in a fight, especially if they got off buffs that help BOTH them and the party. Best if you are a team player and work with buffing everyone else as well.
- Another similar possibility to the above might be multiclass druid. A Rogue/Urban Druid could be particularly interesting (and the Urban Druid on her own can be cool, but I'd add 1 or 2 levels of rogue for more skills).
- Along the above lines, for a single class option, Inquisitor may also be worth looking at. I think a Rogue 2-3/Cleric all the way otherwise would be more versatile, however.
- If you want skills, buffing, decent but not stellar spellcasting, and a great melee combat niche, I'd suggest the Arcane Duelist Archetype of the Bard in the APG.
- Everything everyone else said about the Bard, Rogue, and their respective archetypes.
- Generally speaking, I'd come up with a really strong, specific concept first and then find your classes that fit it the best afterward.
There might be 3.x splat materials that might help, but that's between you and your GM and the things that might "help" may also be broken, depending upon the quality of the particular source material (YMMV).
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It's important to know that you can't be a jack of every trade. It's better to be okay at several things than absolutely rubbish at everything.
I'd say that the bard, itself, is pretty much a jack of all trades.
1. Some magic (including both arcane and divine)
2. Some roguery
3. Some armor and martial prowess
4. Knows tidbits of knowledge throughout, even if not well-knowing in a specific area.
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Like someone else said, you can role-play the bards music as something other than music.
Eleven bard, usually take sing and dance. Then i treat the sing as elven song magic, kind of like what you would see in lord of the rings. Were they speak in elven, while creating a spell effect.
Most of my bards pan out as skalds, marshals or lorekeepers. I don't go down the lute-route. Frankly, I'm a fan of the bards. They just need to know their place.
I found the Inquisitor is a do it all class. You have 3/4 BAB and D8 hit dice but you Judgments and Bane more than make up for that in combat. You have 6 skills and good list of class skills. You have spells which include healing so you are covered there. If I was to solo this is the class I'd pick.
I'd pick a ranger too if we started 4th or higher level.
I haven't tried the Alchemist but it looks like it could do as well as the Inquisitor with the Mutagen for combat, extract for healing, bombs, a little less skills but still pretty good.
The Bard is good too with some of the Archetypes like the Arcane duelist.
Oh? You don't think having a bonus on all initiative checks, stealth checks, and perception checks is useful? This bonus is +2 to start and ends at +8.
The ability to not be slowed by any difficult terrain in his community isn't at all useful?
He gets in a group and you can't find him at all at level 12, and he gets improved invisibility at level 17.
And this is in addition to trapfinding which replaces endurance.
An Urban Ranger would work really well an AP like Council Of Thieves. Wish that option had be out when I ran that AP.
A Factotum like class would be awesome. One that does all sorts of stuff but not better than any class that does it natively. Of course nothing official like that will turn up.
A Factotum like class would be awesome. One that does all sorts of stuff but not better than any class that does it natively. Of course nothing official like that will turn up.
Actually, since Jason Buhlman was one of the creators of the factotum, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility . I won't be so confident to say "likely" but personally, I wouldn't completely dismiss the possibility either.
Maybe if Paizo does the "Ultimate Skillmonkey" or some such we'll get it and/or something similar as an archetype/alternate class for the bard or rogue (especially now that they are d8 HD characters, they can be pretty well interchanged with the factotum in terms of duties, based on what I recall the factotum could do. I'd do it as a bard archetype, swapping out performance for sneak attack and inspirations).
A Factotum like class would be awesome. One that does all sorts of stuff but not better than any class that does it natively. Of course nothing official like that will turn up.Actually, since Jason Buhlman was one of the creators of the factotum, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility . I won't be so confident to say "likely" but personally, I wouldn't completely dismiss the possibility either.
Yes it is. It doesn't matter who created it, WotC/Hasbro owns the IP. It would be difficult to create something similar but that is notably different due to how generic the class is - which was the point.
especially now that they are d8 HD characters, they can be pretty well interchanged with the factotum in terms of duties, based on what I recall the factotum could do
Uh, no. You might want to reread it a couple times.
Yes it is. It doesn't matter who created it, WotC/Hasbro owns the IP. It would be difficult to create something similar but that is notably different due to how generic the class is - which was the point.A Factotum like class would be awesome. One that does all sorts of stuff but not better than any class that does it natively. Of course nothing official like that will turn up.Actually, since Jason Buhlman was one of the creators of the factotum, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility . I won't be so confident to say "likely" but personally, I wouldn't completely dismiss the possibility either.
You're right, they couldn't create "the factotum" but they could design another similar class (or archetype).
Converting the original to Pathfinder for home games probably wouldn't be difficult.
especially now that they are d8 HD characters, they can be pretty well interchanged with the factotum in terms of duties, based on what I recall the factotum could doUh, no. You might want to reread it a couple times.
Fair enough. I don't actually own Dungeonscape, and I read the full class a long time ago. I looked online for a refresher and based my comment on what I found (and the fact that when I read the original, I recall my initial reaction was, "Oh, the bard and the rogue smashed together with better (at the time) hit dice.") If my assessment is inaccurate I apologize. I will stand by the more generic idea that a jack of all trades with spells is easily doable in Pathfinder.
Neither the Factotum can do some minor undead turning and can sort of cast Wizard spells. Rogues and Bards don't do either. That's in addition to trap monkey ability and whatever other random stuff he pulls out of nowhere.
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Oh? You don't think having a bonus on all initiative checks, stealth checks, and perception checks is useful? This bonus is +2 to start and ends at +8.the thing is, the urban terrain gives you exactly that in ALL communities, plus you can choose some other terrains. i can't see any way this isn't a total fail.
Again, Urban Rangers are great in Single City campaigns (emphasis placed since you apparently missed it previously) but not as good in a more general role. If you spend 4 out of 5 encounters in the same city and trapfinding is valuable then urban ranger works.
Also, the way I read it Urban Ranger gets you the Favored Terrain in more places within city limits. Urban Ranger gets you the Terrain bonuses everywhere within city limits, where Ranger with FT Urban wouldn't get it in terrain that qualifies as dungeon, or as some other favored terrain. It can make a difference if you spend a lot of time in sewers or caverns below the city.
I had words with Jason Bulmahn about the Factotum at NeonCon. Apparently, the Factotum is a modified version of a class he submitted called the "Savant" - and the one who modified it was one of the lead designers of 4th edition. You can definitely see the Bulmahn in it (class features powered by a pool of points), but the tinkering shows through (encounter-based renewal of powers). The Factotum had potential, but it wound up pretty overpowered - it ended up being used as a "replacement rogue", and outmoding other classes is never good - but a properly Pathfindered and playtested savant class would be pretty interesting.
That being said, I'm not sure that there is a thematic niche for such a class.
I say a jack of all trades would be either a bard or a UMD-focused rogue.
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I haven't tried the Alchemist but it looks like it could do as well as the Inquisitor with the Mutagen for combat, extract for healing, bombs, a little less skills but still pretty good.
The Bard is good too with some of the Archetypes like the Arcane duelist.
The Alchemist can work as a jack of all trades class (although in fairness, after playing one, I'm not a huge fan of the class). They're very self-sufficient, which is good for a jack-of-all-trades class, and they do enough melee damage through their mutagen, ranged damage with their bombs to be at least a reliable combatant. As for skill points, they in fact usually have more skill +'s than an inquisitor. Firstly, since INT is one of the class attributes, the 4+INT quickly turns into an equivalent to the 6+INT classes and they're more likely to use +INT stat enhancing gear. The class skills also are far more robust, mirroring the rogue's class skills which means more one-rank dips for more favored skill bonuses.
A Bard does not have to be a "Sound of Music" bard
I'm not saying that's the problem we just used "song and dance" instead of writing performance, I don't want to buff like crazy.
And about the Inq and Alch:
Inqies look to buffy... refer to the above (Idk if there are less buffer builds, but that's pretty much all I have seen) (change my mid here if you can)
And the Alch just seams so odd to me, and I feel that playing one would be plain out odd
The whole making your spells and that stuff just feels odd
EDIT: Any one know any good multi-classing options (sorry about the ones above but I just don't like a lot of the core prestigious classes)
EDIT EDIT: Can we keep the Urban Ranger junk down, take it to another post
EDIT EDIT EDIT: I know this is lame but I keep getting ideas, what if we made a JoAT class like this so called "factorum" would any one be interested in help...
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well, actually, i did not miss the emphasis, i'm just not convinced it's correct. FT Urban explicitly covers buildings, streets, and sewers. this covers most situations i can think of, except maybe a central park style area, and even then, if you're close to some buildings in the park, i would argue FT Urban seems to cover it. nothing but plants around and it would probably depend on your other FT's.
as for trapfinding, i agree it can be useful, HOWEVER, ranger already gets a bonus to perception rolls in his FT, and anyone can find any kind of trap. the only reason you need trap finding is to disable magical traps. it can be useful, but not useful enough to justify giving up your FT bonus in all cities except 4.
I do think if you stick to one town it works well but the only campaign I've seen where you could really leverage it is Council of Thieves (and I suppose Shackled City). The more generic Favored Terrain (urban) is generally just as good, better if you consider it works in every city.
If they'd made it so you got all the benefits of Favored Terrain Urban in all cities and some additional benefits in your preferred cities it would have been vastly better.
A Bard does not have to be a "Sound of Music" bardI'm not saying that's the problem we just used "song and dance" instead of writing performance, I don't want to buff like crazy.
Then take a look at the Sandman and Street Performer archetypes. Both replace essentially all of the Bard's buffing abilities with more selfish ones. Sandman in particular is very much a jack of all trades class, even more than the standard bard.
Custome CLass? I'll get right on it!
A Bard does not have to be a "Sound of Music" bardI'm not saying that's the problem we just used "song and dance" instead of writing performance, I don't want to buff like crazy.
And about the Inq and Alch:
Inqies look to buffy... refer to the above (Idk if there are less buffer builds, but that's pretty much all I have seen) (change my mid here if you can)And the Alch just seams so odd to me, and I feel that playing one would be plain out odd
The whole making your spells and that stuff just feels oddEDIT: Any one know any good multi-classing options (sorry about the ones above but I just don't like a lot of the core prestigious classes)
EDIT EDIT: Can we keep the Urban Ranger junk down, take it to another post
EDIT EDIT EDIT: I know this is lame but I keep getting ideas, what if we made a JoAT class like this so called "factorum" would any one be interested in help...
You really should set a realistic goal. It is perfectly possible to take one level of every class (or every class except two, given alignment restrictions). Then you'll truly be a JoaT. You'll have melee attacks, ranged attacks, unarmed attacks, sneak attacks, arcane casting, divine casting, every single skill as a class skill, and a number of potentially useful X times/day abilities. But you'll be entirely ineffective at *doing* anything unless you cast a lot of buffs to shore up your weaknesses. Conversely, a focused character is great at what they do, but can't do anything outside that focus well at all. The less focused you are, the more you have to buff to reach the same level as a focused character. There's just no way around that within the Pathfinder mechanics.
Jack of all trades, master of none is doable.
Jack of all trades, master of all is not.
Jack of all trades, able to buff enough to fake being a master of all is possible.
Jack of one trade, master of it is trivial.
In other words, choose any two: Versatility, competence, native ability (i.e. no buffing).
Sorry for being so harsh, but Pathfinder is a game of tradeoffs, so you can't be a master of all.
Custome CLass? I'll get right on it!
Want any help? And even if know may I request the JoTA & Solo Tactics, that sounds fitting for this class
OHH! I have an idea give him some crappy spell line like ranja or something but make it where it can choose once he gets that level if he wants Arcane or Divine (just pull from Wizard or Cleric list)
Idk they may be a little over powered but what ever
EDIT:
You really should set a realistic goal. It is perfectly possible to take one level of every class (or every class except two, given alignment restrictions). Then you'll truly be a JoaT. You'll have melee attacks...
When did I say I am not willing to trade the ability to master in nothing for the ability to be OK at everything?