Not counting classes that are relatively new or that came out after established games had started. I would say sorcerer. I personally struggle to wrap my head around what they are "supposed" to be doing and so I haven't played one. When I have seen them played its usually by either extremely new players or extremely experienced players. In the latter case he was only playing one in order to exploit a ring of wishes, burning his spell slots to cast whatever he wanted via the ring w/o using up any charges.
I guess I also don't tend to see many barbarians, but they seem to get played more than sorcerers.
NO ONE in my group has even considered the Vigilante or any of the Occult Adventures classes. Kind of bums me out.
I don't think anyone has played a bard in my group. Like ever...in over 20 years of gaming with this DM.
I've seen vanishingly few of the classes from ACG and on. Though I'm GMing for a warpriest and a swashbuckler this campaign, so there's that.
Pre-ACG, I haven't GM'd or played in a party with a magus, alchemist, inquisitor, nor sorcerer (nor samurai, but that's closer to an archetype than a class), nor have I myself played any of these classes.
I've never seen anyone play a cavalier, inquisitor, or witch. The cavalier has to bring a stupid horse everywhere. While a paladin can accidentally cause restricting effects on other player's choices, an inquisitor makes it their business to do so. A wizard-cleric with a spellbook that will likely get killed at least a couple of times per AP? pass.
Paladin. Due to disputes concerning alignment and codes of conduct it's off limits.
Shaman.
Never been in a group with any vigilantes, occult classes, or hybrid classes. Of the 20ish base classes that came before those, tied for lowest at 1 character each would be alchemist, cavalier, magus, gunslinger. And 2 of those were mine.
the paucity of alchemists is interesting, because in my groups, I've seen several (of course, I played them)...I've not seen many fighters.... barbarians, paladins, rangers, yes, but no fighters... I've never seen any sorcerers, witches or oracles, but then again I never played PF very much.
Because we mainly play AP's we don't start new characters very often. So some of the ones below are due to lack of opportunity. Never seen:
Alchemist
Magus
Gunslinger
Vigilante
any of the Occult Adventures
Skald
Hunter
Brawler
The next AP we start is likely to have a Pyscic and and Alchemist, so we are slowly getting here
Me, in Kingmaker. But I am crazy.
Paladin....
Core Rogue.
I’m not sure if I’ve seen a Medium in play or not. The need for alters makes that one tough in PFS where I play most of my games.
Never seen anyone play as a arcanist, cavalier, medium, shaman, skald, or vigilante.
Also no one has played as a shifter but that wasn't from a lack of interest;)
Shaman, Acanist, Medium
Play locally, intra-state and probably 3-4 states every year.
I see a handful of sorcerors. A few arcanists.
A few Kineticists. A few shamans.
Lots of Barbarians. Fighters tend to be multiclassed only.
Hunters.
Lots of Druids. Lots of Clerics. Lots of Monks.
In our area, a fair number of rogues just because of traps in organized pfs.
Lot of investigators, fair vigilante, usually multiclassed (v).
Lot of slayers (multiclassed)
Fair # of alchemists
A lot of paladins.
Very few occultists. Zero phantoms, mediums. A few mesmers. Very few wizards. Few cvaliers, due to troubles getting mounts around. Few skalds.
Arcanists (I sometimes forget this is a class)
Cavaliers (ditto)
Archetype-free Rangers.
Mediums.
|
I haven't played as much in the post APG era, so I've seen none of the later classes.
Back in the day, 'though, I remember the Barbarian, Monk, Ranger and Sorcerer being rarer than the rest. Someone always seemed to be going for the 'core four' of Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard, and Paladins seemed the next most popular choice, along with the occasional Bard or Druid.
After the APG, it seemed like Alchemists and Summoners were the most common, with Witches right after. I saw few if any Oracles, Inquisitors or Cavaliers.
Playing mostly with people who only do the hobby for a few years, I never encountered anything beyond Ultimate Combat (samurai). If you don't count a single ranger archetype from ACG, that is.
For a more representative survey you can check this PDF out. Page 9 shows a pie chart with classes, just be aware this also includes dips. It can be roughly split in quarters:
1st quarter: "Classic four", meaning rogue, fighter, cleric and wizard
2nd quarter: Other CRB classes, precisely sorcerer, paladin, monk, bard, ranger, barbarian - but not druid
3rd quarter: Most APG classes (cavalier is missing), magus, druid, gunslinger, swashbuckler plus bloodrager (as only ACG classes)
4th quarter: Little love for occult classes, way more for 3rd party material, all the other Paizo classes (cavalier, samurai, antipaladin, ninja, remaining 8 (!) ACG classes, vigilante, shifter)
I see a leaning towards old and straight-forward classes here.
Paladin...
It's the only class I ban
I don't think anyone has played a bard in my group. Like ever...in over 20 years of gaming with this DM.
I've been banned from playing both bards and skalds with my group >:-)
I've also been banned from summoning celectial dolphins with any character, regardless of class.
Playing mostly with people who only do the hobby for a few years, I never encountered anything beyond Ultimate Combat (samurai). If you don't count a single ranger archetype from ACG, that is.
For a more representative survey you can check this PDF out. Page 9 shows a pie chart with classes, just be aware this also includes dips. It can be roughly split in quarters:
1st quarter: "Classic four", meaning rogue, fighter, cleric and wizard
2nd quarter: Other CRB classes, precisely sorcerer, paladin, monk, bard, ranger, barbarian - but not druid
3rd quarter: Most APG classes (cavalier is missing), magus, druid, gunslinger, swashbuckler plus bloodrager (as only ACG classes)
4th quarter: Little love for occult classes, way more for 3rd party material, all the other Paizo classes (cavalier, samurai, antipaladin, ninja, remaining 8 (!) ACG classes, vigilante, shifter)I see a leaning towards old and straight-forward classes here.
lol, if I'm forbidden to play cleric, I'll go for a druid, witch or oracle, if forbidden a rogue, I'll have a slayer, if forbidden a fighter, I'll take a barbarian, and if forbidden a wizard, I guess an aracanist or sorcerer will suit me fine...
|
Our group has its favourites. If it's not a 3/4 bab 6th level caster with lots of skill points, it's probably not popular. If it's a full-BAB class and it's not a Paladin or Bloodrager, it might as well not exist. Swashbucklers and Cavaliers seemed to narrowly escape this fate, though.
I'll run through them by group.
Core: Never seen a fighter or a barbarian. Never. The Wizard, Ranger, Druid and (UC) Monk I've seen once (though I have plans for more Wizards), and the Cleric, while it holds interest, has yet to see play in a campaign that got rolling. Really, only the Bard, Paladin, (UC) Rogue and Sorcerer have much popularity among us - mostly the Paladin.
Base: Gunslinger once, and I regretted it. Cavalier I've seen used as VMC twice and and as a class once (twice including samurai). That makes it the most popular full-bab/no-spells class. Alchemist is liked but suffers like the cleric. Oracle has seen a fair amount play, but the Vigilante, Magus, Summoner, Witch and Inquisitor are all standouts.
Hybrids: Never seen a hunter (shame), Slayer or Brawler. One person likes Skalds, but he mostly plays Bloodragers instead. Arcanist and Shaman once, with the others holding a good deal of popularity (okay I lie all three of our investigators were me).
As for Occult classes? Mesmerist is popular, Occultist is popular, Psychic has seen use, Kineticist is popular but we've yet to actually keep one, the Medium has seen use and I have a Spiritualist for an up-coming module. Occult classes are very popular in our group.
lol, if I'm forbidden to play cleric, I'll go for a druid, witch or oracle, if forbidden a rogue, I'll have a slayer, if forbidden a fighter, I'll take a barbarian, and if forbidden a wizard, I guess an aracanist or sorcerer will suit me fine...
that's the idea
Speaking of banning classes, I don't allow Gunslingers. Don't like the name of the class nor guns in my fantasy. I also ban Paladins and Anti-Paladins. Not because I don't like them (My very first character was an Anti-Paladin 34 years ago) but because they are often the hardest to play correctly (in my view) and far too polarizing.
From following PbPs and a handful of Campaign Journals, it seems that the longer a class has been around, the more I have seen it. Unfortunately, all of the PbPs and [i]almost[i] all of the Campaign Journals I have been following started before the most recent Pathfinder 1st Edition books came out, so it isn't a fair test for anything in Occult Adventures or later, of which I haven't seen any except for 1 Kineticist adversary that a GM put into Serpent's Skull (PbP unfortunately now defunct). Of the classes that came from books early enough for the test to be fair: I haven't seen any Antipaladins (this would likely change if I started following a Hell's Vengeance campaign), Brawlers, Hunters, or Skalds, and vanishingly low numbers of Ninjas(*), Samurai, Slayers, and Warpriests. I have also seen extremely few examples of any prestige classes (the only examples I have seen are 1 each of Arcane Trickster and Mystic Theurge, and 1 instance each where somebody was building for Mystic Theurge or Rage Prophet, but the campaigns went defunct before they could get there -- if not, Mystic Theurge would have been the most popular prestige class).
(*)And yes, I actually have seen some Rogues, even started before Pathfinder Unchained, although they were usually multiclassed with something else.
Hmm...
Antipaladin
Cavalier
Gunslinger
Ninja
Psychic
Samurai
Shifter
Those are the ones we haven't seen at our gaming table.
As for the most popular classes:
Alchemist
Arcanist
Barbarian
Bard
Bloodrager
Druid
Inquisitor
Kineticist
Magus
Monk
Oracle
Paladin
Slayer
Sorcerer
Warpriest
Antipaladin - We don't allow evil PCs.
Investigator - Not really suitable for a typical PF campaign.
Ninja - No idea why.
Occult classes - once or twice but for the most part the players i know are not so interested in the psychic systems.
Samuari - No idea why.
Shaman - Would rather play the Witch class.
Shifter - No one has had change to try one.
Vigilante - Pointless in a regular PF style campaign.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
wow... so many classes people have not seen - that I have PCs of.
just ... wow...
That's one reason why I have no interest in 2ndE....I still have plenty of classes I have not even had the opportunity to play yet :P