besides casters?
does that mean you dont wanna do something like a ranger or a paladin either?
otherwise id say go druid
What levels are you looking at?
off the top of my head? casters. they'd just be a lot squishier than usual at the higher end with just mundane stuff.
I know some builds and classes are heavily magic dependent, but I am going to be playing in a low magic campaign so I am wondering what classes are least affected by not having magic items, besides casters?
Bards, though casters, can still use Inspire Courage without much magic items.
SUmmoners, espcially the synthiesist. You can make the syntheisist a very powerfull front line fighter. You can use arcane strike to make your weapons magical.
I know some builds and classes are heavily magic dependent, but I am going to be playing in a low magic campaign so I am wondering what classes are least affected by not having magic items, besides casters?
You kind of make the point in your post that its generally builds that are more dependent on magic items than classes...
Having said that, since I always design my builds without any magic items, I'd say that well-built Paladins, Rangers and Barbarians along with Summoners and Master Summoners would be the best option. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any specific build questions.
my favorite builds are for pallys and rangers personally, they are my favorite classes to play
paladins get more damage output and if you build them right more spells also
rangers get more skills and versatility in combat
best races is usually human, though it depends on what you want to do
for human paladins that DONT care about skill points, go with the variant that gives you a bonus to 2 scores, and skip out on the extra feat because all you really care about at lvl 1 is power attack, if you DO care about skills go with either toughness or fast learner at lvl 1, personally i find toughness invaluable at lower levels when you play tankier roles
paladin array looks like this:
STR 15(+2 race) = 17
DEX 10
CON 15
INT 13
WIS 7
CHA 15(+2 race) = 17
lvl 4 bump STR, lvl 8 bump CON, lvl 12 bump CHA
if you can, go with oath against the wyrm for access to fly and bear's endurance (you give up channel energy and get evasion against dragons, and your weapon bond loses out on disruption and brilliant energy in favor of dragon bane)
go with Power Attack at lvl 1, use a 2 handed weapon
Unsanctioned Knowledge is pretty important at lvl 5, get yourself some haste and divine power, b@!!~es love haste and divine power
since you plan on flying around, death from above is a good choice around lvl 9-11
furious focus is important at some point
ive always been a fan of crafting your own things, turning certain buffs into always on things eg stat bonuses and a cape of fly, so craft wonderous item is neat and perfectly viable at lvl 7 (assuming youre maxing spellcraft)
you'll be a flying charging paladin with 3 skill ranks per level, pick a trait that gives you intimidate as a class skill and max out diplomacy, intimidate, and either spellcraft or knowledge(religion) depending on the direction you wanna go, and youre a decent party face with good stats, you could also pick perception, but youll start with it at a negative and it isnt a class skill so itll never be that good
around lvl 10 the only buff you should have to cast round 1 is haste, then go flying and charging away at things
rangers look slightly different, where a paladin gets limited to picking one way to fight things (most builds say either go 2 handed weapon or archery, due to a lack of feats, which is why you value flying and charging so you can get to enemies at a distance and still be able to fight up close unlike with archery) rangers on the other hand get to mix combat styles. Treant's guide calls it the switch hitter and its actually a really good and viable build. Elf or human is the best core race to go with.
STR 15
DEX 15
CON 13
INT 10
WIS 15
CHA 7
for a switch hitter, otherwise if you are just going archery style, swap STR and INT for focused shot
apply racial modifiers accordingly, again you could dump your human skills and feat in favor of better stats, i would favor either DEX, WIS, or STR
(i actually value WIS more than most people because it determines spellcasting AND your most important skills perception and survival)
elves are basically designed to just be archers, either way you wanna pick archery style, and as a human you can also value melee fighting so pick power attack and deadly aim at lvl 1, you dont care about getting PBS because if you are in close range you will be attacking them melee style
Rapid shot & Many shot are the most important feats to grab so you can lob arrows doing 6 d8 damage by lvl 6 per round (with a composite bow you can add in your STR for each attack)
even if you just start with power attack at lvl 1 and choose to opt out of the bonus feat, you're still in pretty good shape skill wise
vagabond child is a good trait to pick so you can disable device like a rouge would, on top of that you value survival, perception, stealth, knowledge(nature), and again if you wanna go into crafting spellcraft or handle animal if you GM is a jerk about how you do things with your animal companion
switch hitting is nice because you can get away with not having to get right up in the bad guys face, your AC should be higher than the paladins so your HP doesnt have to be as high, still dont skip out on it, you do get bear's endurance and cat's grace so you could put your stat bump into STR and still get ok stats all around.
hope that helps, as always theres an aasimar race that gives better bonuses if your GM will let you go with either and angelkin or lawbringer for a paladin or a plumekith for a ranger
Probably the best class for this would be an Inquisitor. They get a wide variety of combat boosts as class abilities including treating weapons as magical and latter aligned. Pretty much have a judgment to duplicate most of the common enchantments in most of the common magic items. Throw in Bane for some extra special damage and you are good to go. Their spells also have a lot of buffs that in a normal campaign may not be as useful but in a low magic campaign are really good.
Add this to the fact they get a decent number of skills and more bonuses to skill than any other class makes them very powerful in a low magic campaign.
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It's really not the classes that truly rely more or less on magical equipment, it's more the level your playing at. It's high CR creatures and the like that really require the proper amount of gear to "safely" defeat them.
You should check with your GM and with the rest of the party to see exactly what kind of characters that they might like to have about that you'll enjoy playing. It'll make for a much better game. :)
Wildshaping druid.
Or a ranger.
A class that doesn't need magic to do well, hmmmmm....
What about the Gunslinger? I've read several threads saying they can do a lot of damage and although there is mention of having a magic weapon at some point it isn't needed. The 'slinger makes his own ammo. As long as this isn't a gold poor game, I don't see why this particular class has been overlooked.
Monk with vow of poverty...
oh wait.
use natural attacks. Barbarian.
Alchemist with feral mutagen- or a alchemist/barbarian.
Don't agree with the kensie magus - yes you get a magic weapon - but with magical loot for AC they have glass spoon written all over them (spoon because they don't useally get to be canon before midt-high lvl)