Any useful non-combat feats, and advanced classes?

Hello,

I am new to DnD, and was wondering what type of non-combat optimization there is. I remember reading a "(something) walker" class somewhere that got interesting terrain lore (for what you select), and bonuses for what you picked. It would even get planar terrain at epic levels.

So are there other classes that aren't strictly made for combat, that would be interesting for party play, since out of combat things could potentially contribute alot to a non optimized party. Furthmore, if you had (or could make) an optimized build in a non optimized party, you could tone it down with such classes/ feats.

(I would generally be more interested in 3.x stuff, but honestly, since I don't really know the rules anyways I would be interested in anything suggested.)

Thank you for your time, and I apologise if this is in the wrong section.

Wisp412 said:

I remember reading a "(something) walker" class somewhere that got interesting terrain lore (for what you select), and bonuses for what you picked. It would even get planar terrain at epic levels.

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You mean the Horizon Walker? The D&D version does separate it into regular terrain mastery and planar terrain mastery, but the Pathfinder version does not. It's not at epic levels either -- the D&D version allows it at the 6th level of the class -- which, if you max out Knowledge (geography) and take Endurance by 5th level, you can get at 11th character level.

Wisp412 said:

So are there other classes that aren't strictly made for combat, that would be interesting for party play, since out of combat things could potentially contribute alot to a non optimized party. Furthmore, if you had (or could make) an optimized build in a non optimized party, you could tone it down with such classes/ feats.

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I'm afraid your question here is more than a little too general. There are a lot of prestige classes that aren't built for combat optimization. Heck, there are a lot of *regular* classes that do the same. As a general idea, check out these two links:

Regular Classes
Prestige Classes

These links are to indexes of classes in D&D. They are on wizards.com, and have short (usually one sentence or so) descriptions of what the class is about, as well as source (i.e. what book it's from) and what page it's on. When I create a character, sometimes I go through these lists and look for something that jumps out at me.

I mean feats or advanced classes that someone would only choose for roleplaying reasons, or builds designed for out of combat roleplaying (not lock picking/ traps or healing). To narrow it down a bit.. these could be diplomacy experts, performers, lore experts, dedicated scouts/ survivalists, stealth/ infiltration experts or would generally get several out of combat bonuses.

A Cavestalker would be an example, since many of their bonuses apply to navigating caves and dark areas. The Horizon Walker was listed earlier, since I really can't see anyone picking them just for combat bonuses (other than desert), and all their terrain bonuses would be interesting out of combat. Bards are an obvious example, since there is so much that this class provides out of combat. So technically, any interesting classes that you would pick just to get their out of combat effects would fit (I would prefer advanced classes, there are quite a few).

I just think that it could potentially be interesting to roleplay a class that would generally be useful enough out of combat to justify any potential loss in combat ability (or having little to no combat ability at all). Since alot of the game is designed around roleplaying, and conversations, I am a bit surprised not to see more feats for such things (other than the type of feat that adds +2 to a skill). After a look at a feats list, Disguise Spell was one of the only feats which would be interesting out of combat (but could potentially be useful in combat). Edit: After glancing at the Wizards one there seem to be quite a few interesting ones.. although I am unsure how many of these can be picked for players.

Most builds I see on DnD forums and in games usually seem to only pick feats for combat optimization, so I was just curious if there was anyone that makes builds, or optimizes just for out of combat situations. Anyone with such a build is welcome to post here. Potentially, builds designed for doing rediculous things would be fine as well. I saw somewhere that there was a check for balancing on water, or a cloud (about DC 80?). How awesome would it be to have an entire campaign designed around fighting aerial enemies and you're just jumping from cloud to cloud while everything else flies around..

Thanks for the links, some of these classes look fairly interesting.

For build/character optimization, you can start by googling (or binging or whatever search engine you like) something like "D&D 3.5 character optimization." If you have a specific concept you want to look for, include that in there - add the word 'diplomacy' if you wanted to create a diplomat, for example. One of the first boards that will come up will probably be this one. There *are* quite a few combat-related builds there, but there are ones there that do other things too (there's a Diplomat class that starts with a +13 to Diplomacy at 1st level. Be aware that this is an older site, so there's probably more out there somewhere that's even better.

If a search engine doesn't do it for you, try some of the more common gaming fora. I like using EN World and Giant in the Playground, primarily.

Also, wizards.com has a feat index similar to the class and prestige class indexes I gave earlier, though you may have already seen those (as it's probably listed on the bottom of those pages).