D&D 3E/3.5 unfamiliar with 3E, can someone recommend a class/build?

[loki8481]

I'm a life-long AD&D'er (in fact, the longest campaign I ever played in was a 1st Edition campaign that I played in from 1999 - 2004), but one of my friends is starting up a 3rd edition (3.0, not 3.5) campaign in a couple weeks and my dice bag is calling my name. I haven't played since moving away from that 1E campaign.

I'm trying to come up with a class/build (or some combination of classes) that might help mimic my old 1E character, a multi-class fighter/cleric who was more or less a ranged nuker* who could shrug off a couple hits and dish out some melee damage if I had to.

*my cleric worshiped the god of the oceans and my DM let me have access to any mage/druid spell that had anything to do with water or ice in addition to the normal cleric spells, so I had fun things like a boiling water version of fireball, cone of ice, etc

so with that in mind, any suggestions? we're primarily running out of the core rulebooks, but I could petition my DM to allow something from supplemental materiel on a case by case basis (subject to his review on whether he thinks it's not overpowered and blends in with his campaign world that I know nothing about)

I was actually thinking a little bit about a druid, but they seem so situational, like they might be really limited in an in-doors dungeon crawl (especially the animal companion if I don't have something I can physically carry or that can fly)

edit: for what it's worth... I don't know what anyone else in the group is playing (and won't till game night), except one friend who I know for certain is going to be playing a cleric to be a healer.

 

[akbearfoot]

Straight clerics are a very strong choice to play. They can wear heavy armor, have tons of great spells for both offense and defense, use average melee weapons, but can fight on par or better than fighters if they use the right buffs. They can heal and nuke, although their direct nukes are somewhat limited with core.


Druids aren't really limited at all in dungeon crawls. The only thing that keeps an animal companion out of a dungeon is if it can't fit through the door or if there is terrain that makes it impossible for a quadruped to get around. In which case, you could potentially carry them through the difficult parts. Nothing you can start out with is bigger than medium, so if YOU can get into the dungeon, so can your companion. They are loyal to you and will follow/protect you as long as you treat them well.

Druids only have a very few spells that won't work in a 'worked' dungeon. In general, druids and clerics are both considered to be in the top 5 for most powerful classes in 3.xx

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

For what you are talking about, I recommend the following:

Human cleric. (All the way up--if you want, you can take radiant servant of pelor, or church inquisitor without losing much in the way of the abilities you care about, but you will be fine even if you stick with the base class).

Str 14, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 10

Domains: you have a lot of freedom here, but war and sun or sun and strength would give you a good combination of physical combat and spell blasting abilities. Sun is required for radiant servant of pelor (so is worshipping Pelor, BTW).

If you really wanted to recapitulate the character you had in 1e, the water domain would be a solid choice as it adds a good number of attack spells to your repertoire and you could take domain spontainaity to cast them without preparation. Water and sun, water and strength, water and war, or water and destruction would all be solid choices.


Feats: Again, for what you want there is a lot of flexibility. You will want power attack, and weapon focus to maintain the ability to dish out some melee beatdown. You could get a martial or exotic weapon, but unless you go two-handed, you won't get much improvement over the morning star or heavy mace. You will probably want to take domain spontainaity and empower spell at some point.

For equipment, wear fullplate and either wield a buckler and one-handed weapon (longsword, battle axe, light flail, heavy mace, or morning star) or just wield a two-handed weapon (greatsword, falchion, greataxe).

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

If you really want to do melee and ranged blasting above all else, and are limited primarily to core, you really can't go wrong with a simple sorcerer + fighter (1 level) + Eldritch Knight (that's in the 3.0 core books, right?) build. If you must do cleric...getting attack spells from domains is nice, but you're still only going to be able to use one of those per spell level each day, not that reliable. Air actually isn't a bad blasting domain, though. It gives a bunch of lightning spells.

I'd say just go Fighter 1 (it's just plain better to start at level 1 in it for the maxed hp; sorcerer gets the same amount of skill points). Then enter sorcerer, stay in there until you meet the requirements of Eldritch Knight. Then go all the way to level 10 in that.
If you have access to Sword and Fist and/or Tome and Blood, look for other fighter/mage prestige classes you might like, and any feats at all to get a better use out of that charisma score you'll have for spell casting; sadly charisma adds to very few things without feats and such to give new things to add it to. Also, ask your Dm if he'll let you swap out spells known once in a while if you find you don't like ones you picked. 3.5 introduced swapping out spells at basically every other level for sorcerers, but in 3.0 it was rough. Whatever choices you made, without a nice DM, you were stuck with them.


Alternatively, I think Mystic Theurge is in Tome and Blood. That's a dual progression prestige class, arcane and divine. You could do Sorcerer/Cleric (note clerics can at least use high charisma for turning undead) and enter Mystic Theurge. You would not want to melee, but the cleric levels would give you decent hp, and you would have the armor proficiencies if you went for some mithral light armor (to eliminate arcane spell failure). Cleric levels would give healing and utility spells, and the flexibility of knowing every spell on your spell list and being able to prepare it. Sorcerer would give you sheer weight of firepower for offensive spells to be cast over and over.

I reccommend the first build because it's very simple and beginner-friendly. The second would be trickier to make, and would suck terribly until level 7 or so (you probably couldn't enter MT until level 8, or level 7 if you went cleric/wizard).

 

[Arkhandus]

Nah, Eldritch Knights and Mystic Theurges aren't in 3.0. They're two of the sad, flavorless excuses for a "prestige" class that was introduced in 3.5 after they pretty much gave up on most of the "prestige" half of the equation. And druids are more limited in 3.0 when it comes to dungeons and whatnot; Call Lightning, for example, doesn't work just anywhere in 3.0. Of course, druids were at least moderately less broken in 3.0 as well. They have rather few water and ice spells though, in 3e.

Depending on how closely you want to mimic your old character, you might play a cleric, a druid, a fighter/sorcerer, a fighter/wizard, a fighter/shugenja, a fighter/shaman, or a fighter/wu jen. Shugenjas, Shamans, and Wu Jens are spellcasters from Oriental Adventures, and all three of them have some elemental magic for water-focused characters. Plus you may take a prestige class later to better blend your classes or better focus their abilities.

Clerics with the Water Domain have some choice spells for wielding water and ice (as well as fog), and the War Domain can make them effective warriors as well. No core deity grants both of these domains, but if the DM has a different set of deities in his or her campaign, or if he or she allows the option (given in the core rules as a standard option for clerics, but certain campaigns don't allow it, such as Forgotten Realms) to serve an idealogy or philosophy instead of a deity, you can choose two appropriate domains instead of choosing from amongst your character's deity's domains.

A water shugenja (choosing either the Iuchi School or the Kitsu School, depending on whether they wanted more utility or more healing magic) is an effective healer and buffer, plus they can have an animal companion through the Animal Friendship spell (though they would have to choose that as one of their known spells, first), and they get some water/ice spells like Bo of Water, Water Breathing, Water Walk, Control Water, Wall of Ice, Control Weather, and Master of the Rolling River, as well as having Righteous Might among their available spells to learn so they can be pretty good in melee, and they get some Summon Nature's Ally spells for elemental-summoning.

A shaman with the River Domain and the War Domain (or the Hero Domain instead of War) could fit your character concept, if he's more spiritual/animist rather than godly. Besides their domain spells, a shaman has access to Bless Water, Curse Water, Obscuring Mist, Weapon Bless, Ancestral Vengeance, Create Spring, Rebuke, Castigate, Chaos Hammer, Holy Smite, Order's Wrath, Polymorph Self, Unholy Blight, Blood of Fire, Circle of Doom, Blasphemy, Control Weather, Dictum, Holy Word, Sunbeam, Word of Chaos, and Earthquake on their spell list, plus the various Summon Nature's Ally spells for summoning elementals. Wu jens have several water spells on their list as well, such as Steam Breath and Ice Blast, but they're arcane casters.

Unfortunately, 3e doesn't have a lot of water/ice spells, and they're pretty scattered. Defenders of the Faith, the 3.0 softcover supplement for clerics and paladins, has the Knife Spray, Sweet Water, and Sword Stream spells. Tome & Blood, the 3.0 softcover supplement for arcane casters, has the Cold Orb, Lesser Cold Orb, Ice Knife, and Ice Burst spells, but they're all limited to sorcerers and wizards. Masters of the Wild, the 3.0 softcover supplement for druids, rangers, and barbarians, has the spells Creeping Cold, Standing Wave, Waterball, Cloak of the Sea, and Greater Creeping Cold, but all of those are limited to druids except for Cloak of the Sea (which still isn't available to clerics). There's also Slime Wave in Defenders of the Faith and Masters of the Wild, but that's not exactly a water spell.....

Suitable cleric spells from Magic of Faerun (a 3.0 magic supplement for Forgotten Realms campaigns) include Aura against Flame, Doomtide, and Battletide (though the latter is just a combat buff and a debuff for enemies). Suitable druid spells from there include Blinding Spittle, Speed Swim, Cloudburst, Murderous Mist, and Drown. Suitable sorcerer/wizard spells from there include Ice Dagger, Speed Swim, Cloud of Bewilderment, Darsson's Potion, Zajimarn's Ice Claw Prison, Zajimarn's Field of Icy Razors, and Zajimarn's Avalanche. The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book for 3.0 has Snilloc's Snowball Swarm, Waterspout, and Maelstrom (the latter two of which are only available at upper levels as a cleric, though, through the Ocean Domain presented in the FRCS).

Class-wise, there are a few prestige classes that sort of qualify. Warpriest in Defenders of the Faith is a good fighter-cleric mix (best taken as a pure cleric beforehand, though, since Warpriest only has half spellcasting advancement, so even as a pure cleric beforehand you won't gain 9th-level spells by 20th-level). Warpriest is more for leaderly clerics though. Tome & Blood has the Elemental Savant prestige class, which is available to clerics who take one of the elemental Domains (such as the Water domain). Elemental Savant gradually turns the character into an elemental as they advance in the prestige class, and it grants bonuses/resistances related to the character's chosen element (such as Cold Resistance and eventual Cold Immunity for those with Water as their chosen element).

A fighter/wizard, fighter/sorcerer, or fighter/wu jen would probably need to take the Spellsword prestige class from Tome & Blood if they wanted to cast arcane spells easily in armor. The Divine Champion prestige class from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is suitable for fighter/clerics or just plain clerics.

 

[Thanee]

Nah, Eldritch Knights and Mystic Theurges aren't in 3.0. They're two of the sad, flavorless excuses for a "prestige" class that was introduced in 3.5 after they pretty much gave up on most of the "prestige" half of the equation.

And we are glad for that, since they offer something, that multiclassing does not excel at, without being burdened by the "prestigious flavor" that limits the concepts more than opening them up.

Of course, these classes are just a fix for a broken system, but the system isn't easily altered, and the fix works very well.

Bye
Thanee

 

[loki8481]

I should add that I'm not die-hard committed to playing a cleric, it's more that I'm looking for a class (or combination of classes) that would give me ranged utility/damage spells without being completely frail and useless up close. I think what I might end up doing is creating 2-4 characters prior to the first session and deciding which of them I play based on what everyone else is rocking.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Druid is solid. I'm not nearly as familiar with the 3.0 version, but I'll assume that the animal companion and Wild Shape features are not radically different (from 3.5). So, with that in mind, I would recommend the Shapeshift class variant from the PHB II, a 3.5 supplement. It replaces both the forementioned class abilities, and in general makes for a more universally useful, and less hassle-prone, Druid. IMO, anyway. If it's even allowable.

Reasonable HP, medium BAB, some nice spells (including some ranged attacks, and utility of certain kinds), and plenty of oomph in melee when you need it.

Or yeah, Cleric is strong. Pick the War domain, and one other, preferably using a martial weapon courtesy of some deity or other, and you'll be fighting nearly as well as a Fighter (without Weapon Focus) for your first four levels, give or take. You can wear plate armour too, and heft a shield if you like. Your HP are not going to be quite as high, but the difference mightn't be that great. And besides, your spells can buff you (and/or others) like crazy, if that appeals.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Actually, animal companion is a lot different. In 3.0, you could have a whole army of weak companions if you wanted, and I don't think there were rules to improve a single animal if you went that route. You just went for the highest HD animal you could find, and when you gained more levels, find soething with even more HD, or a few weak creatures to fill up your allowed maximum.

Druid can pack that mix of utility/healing, blasting, and melee better than any other base class, although I still think cleric is a bit stronger.

And yeah, I'm shocked EK isn't in core 3.0, I knew MT was in Tome and Blood, but I thought at least my first suggestion was do-able in a core-only game...my bad.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm trying to come up with a class/build (or some combination of classes) that might help mimic my old 1E character, a multi-class fighter/cleric who was more or less a ranged nuker* who could shrug off a couple hits and dish out some melee damage if I had to.

*my cleric worshiped the god of the oceans and my DM let me have access to any mage/druid spell that had anything to do with water or ice in addition to the normal cleric spells, so I had fun things like a boiling water version of fireball, cone of ice, etc

Without faulting anyone else's builds, I'll suggest the following (this is just a checklist of ideas, not an actual build):

1) Take at least a level or 2 of Fighter, just for the warrior feats.

2) Good Cleric Domains for this build would be War and Water. War would let you be very "fighter-y" without causing you to multiclass- you wouldn't get the bonus feats, but the War domain gives you a couple of bonus feats and some nice spells.

Water domain, of course, gives you access to many of the kinds of spells you're used to casting.

3) There is a feat called Energy Substitution which will let you substitute one single energy type (chosen with the feat) for another in a given spell. A feat that has that one as a prereq is Energy Admixture, which makes the damage in the spell half of one type and half of another.

Taking the first would let you do a giant Waterball instead of a Fireball, for instance.

Taking the second would let you do a giant Boiling Waterball, as you mix the fire and water equally in your spell.

4) Oriental Adventures is a 3Ed book (its been updated in Dragon, but never in hardcover) that has a class called the Shaman. Its kind of a mix of Monk and Cleric. I bring it up mainly because it has the same kind of access to Domains as the Cleric...but eventually gains a 3rd Domain.

5) If you're serious about being effective in ranged combat, make sure you have a 12+ in your Dex score, unless you're just talking about area effect attack spells.

6) One of the better arcane/divine spellcaster prestige class mixes- one I actually prefer to the MT- is the Geomancer. Lots of flavor and flexibility, but it is pretty exotic.