Hello
Fast question.
I was the last person to enter into a campaigne that just started. Homebrew 25 point buy in. No class restrictions no race restiction.
There a lot of dragons and we are near the coast.
5 member party
1 zen archer monk
1 gunslinger
1 cleric
1 unsure
I'm leaning towards a melee monster to balance out the party like a bbn or pal. Another line of thought would be synergy with the shooters and set up a switch hitting urban ranger.
I could also go arcane caster to complete classic circle.
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I do like archers a whole lot.
Switch Hitting Urban Ranger seems like a pretty good fit, if you have no Rogue to find/disarm traps.
Bard is always a good guess if you don't know what to play. They're very versatile and you could even be a melee bard if you so chose. With 3+ physical damage dealers in the party, Bard really hits critical mass with Inspire Courage.
You can easily be an archer bard as well, for the record.
I'm partial to bard, but your Ranger idea seems like pretty good intuition.
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Pirate. Archetype of the Rogue. Ganging up against the Dragons, near the coast means there will probably be ship fights, and being a melee build could make this a well rounded character. If you like rogues, that is. The most beautiful thing? Even if you dump your INT in favor of CON [I lived on the ship most of my life! What do I know about Table Manners?] you would still get more Skill than the average Wizard [base of 9 for human, 8 for everyone else] and the flavor of the coast. Human or Halflings make great Pirates.
A Switch-hitting Urban Ranger would be pretty nice with Favored enemy Dragon.
If you want the "best" class, though, you should probably look at the Summoner.
A vanilla Summoner can build up their Eidolon into a good Tank-type while they support with spells.
A Synthesist Summoner can mix it up in melee themselves to a ridiculous, and often-decried-as-overpowered degree.
A Master Summoner can use their Eidolon as an almost literal "Skill Monkey" to be pulled out in non-combat situations for specific goals, and then when combat starts, flood the battlefield with traditional Summons.
The party could use a meat shield. Pally's are great for that if you don't mind the alignment restrictions. Fighters, fighter monks, druids, summoners.. you have a lot of options. I'd just reccomend some way of getting reach, either a pole arm or enlarge person.
You're in a great position, because most of the core positions are already filled. You can play whatever you want!I would go with sorcerer, and hide behind the archer during combat.
I cannot edit my post for some reason, so I will add:
Seeing as there are dragons, you can use someone with the arcane skill set who can craft magic items tailored to your environs.
Either a ranger switch-hitter concentrating FE: Dragon, or a Paladin. You're going to need good saves for this campaign, and that screams paladin...and the paladin's smite makes them the best at killing dragons of all the classes.
Focusing on Archery smiting means you can do it from a hundred yards away. There's an example of a Paladin Archer in the d20pfsrd who walked up with a dragonbane bow, assorted arrows, and wiped out a CR 25 Red Dragon in one round. The designer of the dragon went 'oops' in the playtest challenge.
==Aelryinth
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Hello
Fast question.
I was the last person to enter into a campaign that just started. home-brew 25 point buy in. No class restrictions no race restriction.
There a lot of dragons and we are near the coast.5 member party
1 zen archer monk
1 gunslinger
1 cleric
1 unsure
In this group? I'd probably go Ranger (Favored Enemy is *awesome*) or Paladin (Smite and Aura of Justice are also awesome).
Other than that, a Wizard would really help this bunch.
Level?
My problem with bards it that when they get level 3 spells they double the effectiveness of the party: but then, as they level, I find them contributing less.
I you will play low-mid levels a bard would be great, after I'd consider a true arcane caster (any would do the job, but since you have already a lot of damage dealers I'd go for wizard or witch)
All archery party vs dragons? Wind wall, fogs, cloak of winds, special movements and immunities. The gm will have a field day. Switch hitting isn't a bad plan but i'd go paladin strap on a shield and smite for damage. If your gm's writing good dragon encounters using archery will probably be an exercise in frustration, archery is one of the most common gm complaints in the advice forum and one of the easiest for a clever (draconic) opponent to counter, plus with the paladins high charisma you can take eldritch heritage for the draconic bloodline powers.
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Fighting a dragon as a melee character can be really frustrating: it is difficult to give the dragon a reason to come close and melee with you.
A combination of Stand Still and Step Up/Following Step might allow you to keep the Dragon adjacent to you, once (if??) it makes the mistake of closing with you. In order to pull this off, you'll have to close through it's reach, so that you can be adjacent to it for Stand Still. If it tries to 5 foot step away, you can Following Step to move adjacent to it, allowing you to stop it's movement with Stand Still if it tries to get away. Unfortunately there isn't anyway (that I know of) that you can keep it from withdrawing to get away from you.
As some have mentined, Paladin maybe the best option for a melee-focused dragon slayer: AC, great Saves and Smite all play well to getting that job done.
Dragons kill things with full attacks though, they soften adventurers up with breath weapons, spells and fly-by attacks.
The goal of a good gm should be to make a dragon that takes three rounds of combat to kill then make the party work hard and spend loads of resources to get the two rounds they will actually need to kill it no matter how well you prep or how much you buff it (bastards).
Gonna are the days of the mighty red stood on its hoard scaring adventurers with its presence and turning paladins to cinders with its breath. Now the mighty red gets a warning from its alarm system that something is nearby and goes invisible to investigate, sees adventurers and starts to plan...
He moves away and casts his hour/level buffs then makes a tlying pass over them with a breath weapon and moves away at high speed, fakes a long turn to give them chance to cast some buffs then goes away for half an hour or so, if someone fails to fear and runs off the dragon might even come round for a kill if they are seperate enough from their friends. He makes variations on this play until they get near his lair, breath weapon, delaying tactics, fly-by sunder attacks on bows/shields/component pouches/holy symbols (my pc's learned early to bring spares or repairs), fake illusion ambush, real ambush, forest fire, hell i i once had a very old green take a hireling as a flyby grapple just to scare the pants off my 5 man group walking into its forest with 18 people/companions/horses/undead/summons (whittled em down to 9 before they got near the lair)...
Then if you actually get near the dragons lair (the one he's had hundreds of years to get just right) he plays hide and seek, smoke and pits will seperate a party of adventurers and eventually someone will eat a full attack, possibly through an illusionary wall (that starts 10 feet off the ground), possibly with lunge reach through smoke. If you get one round of attacks off from a gust of wind or similar spell clearing LoS for you the dragon may simply move or dimension door away and recover before coming back. Even navigating through a dragon lair can be intense travelling through huge chambers with the next "door" 70 feet off the ground and 50 feet from the nearest wall, seeing a party get split and begin to panic is your ultimate reward.
In my games dragon hunting is serious business and even considering a dragon hunt after level 8 or so involves many hours of research and planning, scouring the cities for dragonbane arrows and potions of resistance, scrolls to stock up on buffs. Woe betide the poorly informed PC who doesn't check his local library or tavern to find out if the big red doesn't have a fanatically loyal tribe of kobolds looking after its interests. Dragonslayers beware even simple wryms can still be great.
Don't get me wrong, i still buff the hell out of them due to action economy and the hge damage my optimised player characters put out but i like to make dragons evoke the fear they used to in second ed, i prefer reds or whites but blacks can be excellent with all submerged lairs.