Design the best well rounded party of 4

[Thanee]

Without putting too much thought into broken combinations, I would try something like this:

Fighter 4/Paladin 16
Rogue 1/Spellthief 1/Wizard 5/Arcane Trickster 8/Fatespinner 5
Sorcerer 4/Human Paragon 3/Incantatrix 10/Archmage 3
Bard 1/Cleric 9/Dweomerkeeper 10

All with Leadership, of course.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Romnipotent]

There are alignment conflicts in there. Even assuming that you switch alignments at appropriate times (extra cheesy, I know), you're going to either lose paladin abilities (and PrCs that require them) or barbarian rage.

the rage is insignificant to uncanny dodge and +10ft speed

 

[Tetsubo]

In a nutshell, for maximum power and nastiness, I'd go with:

Tank: ranger1/monk2/brb2/ftr2/paladin2/templar 1/holy liberator4/tactical soldier2 and then fill out from there with whatever, probably more templar and tactical soldier.
Arcane: wizard11/fatespinner4/archmage5
Healer: cleric6/radiant servant of pelor10/contemplative4

And then a Druid20.

No rogues because a party of magicky folks should be able to duplicate nearly everything a rogue can do with magic, stealth and all.

How do you build that Tank? Aren't there alignment conflicts...?

 

[Zappo]

Start out chaotic, get the barbarian levels, and then become lawful. He loses Rage, but he's only taking Barbarian for the speed and uncanny dodge anyway. It's very cheesy. I'll use it in the next campaign with a DM I don't like.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I'd imagine that the base 4 classes of rogue, wizard, cleric & fighter are a heck of a lot more viable than given credit; between them they can deal with any encounter.

 

[Asmo]

I'll use it in the next campaign with a DM I don't like.

Why would you play with a DM you don´t like?

Asmo

 

[Fingers Boggis]

1) Changeling Rogue4/Monk2/Warshaper4/Cab Trickster5/Mindspy 5

Light combatant, social encounter master, infiltraitor (only spelt right) and one of my fav characters of the moment. Does however leave you with an absence of trap ability from your rogue which makes character 2....

2) Illumninan Wiz5/Rogue1/Loredelver10/geomancer4

Good for traps and casting also has useful bardic lore ability.

3) Raptoran cleric archer with a footbow

Specialist range support with zen archery, 20th level divine casting (any PrC taken shouldnt damage caster level) and has natural flight. Could sub any cleric archer here, i quite like a dwarven hammer thrower as well as in the campaigns ive played huge range archery battles have never cropped up, this option also supplies addition mellee ability if required.

4) A good tank, never really played a tank so Im not too hot on builds but something with pious templar for mettle, will save and DR would be good. Also a fan of dread commando for some sneak attack, better armour utilisation and team initiative bonus (always good to get as many people as possible acting first) Maybe build both in with a bit of rogue to up the sneak dice and flank with char 1

Just some thoughts
Fingers

 

[Anson Caralya]

All with Leadership, of course.

What Thanee said. And Improved Cohort from Hereos of Battle. Here's how I'd do it (I haven't done a detailed prereq check on these, so I may have missed something):

Human Brd8/Drd1/Rog2/Fochlucan Lyrist9
Cohort: Halfling Rog4/Wiz5/Arcane Trickster10
Human Clr10/Radiant Servant of Pelor10
Cohort: Human Healer19
Human Sor10/Elemental Savant10
Cohort: Human Drd3/Wiz3/Arcane Hierophant10/Mystic Theurge3
Human Ftr4/Pal2/Sor4/Eldrtich Knight10
Cohort: Human werebear Ftr10

There's my party of four.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Except find traps. Might i suggest dumping the druid for an artificer?

I like that artificer idea, and it's certainly cheese squared. However, Detect Magic to locate magical traps, and Unseen Servants/summons/disposable animal companions to trigger them works more reliably too.

Now, druid20 or artificer20 -- which is truly more cheesy? I might have to go with Artificer, esp. at level 20 and perhaps with a UMD boosting custom item.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Start out chaotic, get the barbarian levels, and then become lawful. He loses Rage, but he's only taking Barbarian for the speed and uncanny dodge anyway. It's very cheesy. I'll use it in the next campaign with a DM I don't like.

The reason why it's cheesy is because the Tank will have a disgusting Fort save after all of the different classes, and while the Will save will be at something around +0, the 3rd or 4th level of Holy Liberator grants immunity to all enchantment spells, so no Hold Person/Dominate Person/Suggestion etc etc, which are usually the bane of fighter-types everywhere.

There was actually a mistake in there though. Remove the Paladin levels(Holy Lib has to be CG) entirely. You start monk, then leave monk for CG alignment, grabbing barbarian and later holy liberator. Granted, you'll lose a few Monk class features, but three free feats (imp. unarmed strike, imp. grapple, combat reflexes) and +3 to all saves at the cost of a BAB is way too good to pass up. And hey, if you do happen to be unarmored(say, ambushed at night) then you're in a much better position than a lot of other tanks.