D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5e] Favorite non-Core Base Classes

[Diamondeye]

In no particular order:

Duskblade
Warblade
Knight
Swordsage
Crusader
Swashbuckler

 

[JiCi]

Hmmm... let's see:

- Dragon Shaman
- Swordsage
- Warblade
- Binder
- Totemist

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Warlock, though I almost always go multicaster with him.

I like Marshal and Dragon Shaman in Gestalt games, but otherwise no.

Shugenja is my favorite spellcaster. Period.

 

[Nifft]

Binder (ToM)
Psion (XPH and SRD)
Swordsage (ToB)
Warblade (ToB)

Cheers, -- N

 

[hunterofjello]

From all your suggestions, I went and looked up many of the classes mentioned and ended up deciding on a Warblade. I bought the Tome of Battle and love this book. I'm sorely tempted to make a Swordsage, but I think a Warblade will better fit a Fighter/Barbarian role and be more fun for me to play. Thanks everyone.

 

[Vykarius]

The Hexblade is a much better opposite to the Paladin than is Blackguard. Both the Hexblade and Paladin are warriors with secondary casting. Paladins are heavily armored, divine, pious LG types; Hexblades are lightly armored, arcane, somewhat sneaky types of sketchy alignment but not dedicated to a particular ideology. Despite the above comments, I would not consider the Hexblade underpowered. They have some superior defenses for facing high BAB opponents, including several ways to get concealment, and their main unique schtick, the curse, is a HD-based Supernatural ability, which means no SR, and the penalties are killer. Against opponents with SR, they would use their spells just for buffing; don't forget, they have full BAB. They have a nice flavor to them. I just like them.

pawsplay, I agree with you 100% about the Hexblade! I love the haunted flavor they have as well. Rare class with role-playing flavor galore and very good abilities. You get best of those categories with a Hexblade
(Flavor & Optimization too). Disagree that they are underpowered...

Arcane Resistance, Mettle, Dark Companion (Variant familiar), Fighter's BAB/HD/Weapon Proficiencies & the Hexblade Curse makes for a well-rounded front-line type if feats and multi-class/prestige classes are selected well. Can wear Mithril Breastplate, but need to get shield prof. & a secondary class with good base Fort saves & then they're pretty set IMHO.
Mettle and Arcane Resistance & a good charisma with evasion from a few rogue levels & you've got one hell of a spell-caster's bane Warrior type!

 

[HULL]

I'm a fan of all the various subsystems, so the classes in XPH, ToB, ToM, and MoI (minus the Truenamer and Soulborn, of course) are among my favorites. Also, the duskblade and beguiler are quite nice because (A) they give you a reason to go all 20 levels and (B) they let me most easily recreate older-edition characters for some of my players who had fighter/magic-users and illusionists, respectively.

Listen, I dunno if you even still go on here, but I want you to know that 12 years later, your post helped me on an hour long frantic google search to remember what beguilers were called. Thank you so much, hope you're well.

 

[HULL]

I'm a fan of all the various subsystems, so the classes in XPH, ToB, ToM, and MoI (minus the Truenamer and Soulborn, of course) are among my favorites. Also, the duskblade and beguiler are quite nice because (A) they give you a reason to go all 20 levels and (B) they let me most easily recreate older-edition characters for some of my players who had fighter/magic-users and illusionists, respectively.

Listen, I dunno if you even still go on here, but I want you to know that 12 years later, your post helped me on an hour long frantic google search to remember what beguilers were called. Thank you so much, hope you're well.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Crusader, Beguiler, Warblade

 

[Orius]

None of them really. The Psion is useful if you want psionics, and I like the Sha'ir from Dragon #315 because it updates 2e stuff, but that's about it. Maybe the Shugenja which is interesting, but I don't really know what kind of niche it's supposed to be filling. The Wu Jen is another classic concept that is acceptable to me, but I've never been impressed with it in any of its incarnations.

The rest? Either they're limited and weak and overly narrow archtypes or they step on the toes of classes that have existed since the early days of the game and are thus utterly unaccpetable to me as a DM. They can be blindfolded, lined up against a wall, and shot as far as I'm concerned. If the class is named Duskblade, Hexblade, Crusader, Swordsage or Warblade, it gets shot twice.