Good player classes to add to a campaign

[Greg K]

Bard from Completer Book of Eldrtich Might
Beguiler (PHB2)
Psychic from Green Ronin's Psychic's Handbook
Shaman from Green Ronin's Shaman's Handbook
Witch from Green Ronin's Witrch's Handbook
Hong's Knight: http://www.zip.com.au/~hong/dnd/knight.htm (instead of the PHB2 knight)

Variants from Unearthed Arcana:
Barbarian Hunter
Cloistered Cleric

Battle Sorcerer (instead of the Duskblade): use the common houserule Eschew Materials (level 1)and Bonus Metamagic feat (level 5,10,15,20) for the standard sorcerer and, for battle sorcerer, allow the option of substituting a fighter bonus feat in place of a given metamagic feat

Martial Rogue
Wilderness Rogue (instead of the Complete Adventurer Scout)

 

[Thyrkill]

Many thanks for the ideas and suggestions.

Perhaps my intent was not very clear, but I DO want to use the core classes in my campaign, as well as some others from outside sources. I want to expand the classes available to my players but I also want to make sure I don't unbalance things, hence my asking for help. I love AE but I want to run a D&D game, and wanted to see which classes could be added without causing to much issue.

Please keep the suggestions coming.

Matt

 

[Nifft]

AE: Unfettered -- best swashbuckler I've ever seen.

AE: Totem Warrior -- excellent barbarian and ranger variants.

AE: Akashic -- unique and cool. It's nice to have a know-it-all who doesn't come with spell baggage, song baggage or backstab baggage.

AE: Champion (but look CAREFULLY at the abilities -- for example, the Champion of Death's granted power is much stronger in D&D than it is in AE, because Necromancy is a lot better in D&D than it is in AE.) The ones I like are Life, Light, Magic and Knowledge.

Consider stealing some feats from AE, too -- Sturdy is better than Toughness, and their handling of Exotic weapons seems better than the normal D&D handling thereof.

Cheers, -- N

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Mongoose Publishing's Hedge Wizard is an interesting low magic arcane spellcaster (I have pretty much replaced all the Adepts in my homebrew with them) specializing in cantrips.

A lot of the classes I use for my games would be somewhat limited for others - gunpowder, mass battle, and naval confrontations are not everyone's cup of tea. That said, Seas of Blood and Book of the Sea have some interesting base classes, for those of a nautical bent.

The Auld Grump

 

[howandwhy99]

I'm a pretty bare bones style of DM who adds tons and tons of distinctive styling between the cracks in the core rules instead of adding massive amounts of House Rules. It's just too hard to fight the bulk.

That said, I do have and allow other base classes, but almost all are UA variants or my own creation of UA-style variant classes. I like these better as so many new classes are really just one of the core 11 with different tweaks anyways.

For full, non-variant classes I added Scouts, Swashbucklers, and, with some arm twisting, Spellthieves. I'm thinking about allowing Duskblades too, but I've yet to really read the class.

 

[Nifft]

Oh, and as a completely impartial observer, I recommend these classes as well:

Gothbuckler (urbane barbarian)

Psilock (psionic warlock)

Spirit Binder (three classes, actually, which could replace barbarian, ranger and druid)

Cheers, -- N

 

[phindar]

Speaking about AE caster classes: its tough to bring them in without the AE magic system. You can have Magisters that cast like Wizards and Greenbonds that use the druid list, but if they can't weave slots up and down, ready spells per day, and take the feats that open up the complex and exotic spells, its different. (They're still good classes, but I've never really looked at hooking D&D magic up to AE casters, so I can't say for sure.)

I've always preferred to run it as AE with D&D as the supplementary material, mainly because I liked a few of the rules tweaks (mainly to skills) AE went with. But ultimately, it probably doesn't matter that much. The only AE classes I didn't like were the Oathsworn and the Runethane. Oathsworn is just too much trouble and not enough out of the Monk's shadow to be worth it. The Runethane isn't bad, but I saw it shaking out as more of a NPC class in play, few players had the patience to stick with.

 

[Darklone]

Kalamar Players Guide has some optional classes.

Basiran Dancer: Setting specific sword dancing bard variant.
Brigand: Rogue/Fighter with style.
Infiltrator: Rogue variant with fast movement
Spellsinger: Sorcerer variant
Gladiator
Watchman: Urban ranger detective
Shaman: Druid variant with totem animal, restricted wildshape and nature domains.

 

[Voadam]

AE's Unfettered, best swashbuckler core class I've seen. Full BAB light armor and finesse weapon warrior concept. Ranger is wilderness and druid magic oriented, rogue is frail and not a full warrior. The swashbuckler is its own niche warrior with a different style than the tanking or archer fighter and fighters do not do well at filling that martial niche on their own.

 

[Remathilis]

UA generic warrior, expert, and spellcaster.

OR, barring that: Swashbuckler, Scout, Warlock, Favored Soul, and Knight from WotC