How do you chose a class for a noble PC

Jenka said:
If you were going to start a game at 1st lvl as a Unlanded Knight, Scion of an ancient and noble house. What class would you take? Warrior seems a no brainer but there’s a lack of skills. Skills like Knowledge Nobility or deplomacy. How would you handle this?

Aristocrat or Expert.
 

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Just what is closest to the character. Could be anything from Bard to Cleric to Fighter to Paladin to Wizard, even Rogue could fit well, Aristocrate also.

Then the skills, feats, etc are chosen to reflect the noble background.

Bye
Thanee
 


You could try making him a Bard... A adequate fighter with a skill set perfectly suitable for a noble. Bardic Knowledge can be explained by his noble education and courtly rumor-mongering, and Bardic Music can be described as his inspirational leadership abilities (take Perforn (oratory), or some such).
 


I use a modified version of the Dragonlance Noble class (+Marshal class auras) for our game. The auras work great for that whole projection of charisma and command that a noble naturally exudes.
 

It really depends what you want to do with the "noble."

As others have noted, fighter works well for knightly types. Given a human with a 10 int, that could buy:
1 rank of knowledge: Nobility and royalty (cross-class)
4 ranks of intimidate (good for staring down the peasants)
4 ranks of ride
1 rank of knowledge: local (cross class--you need to know your own laws)

It's not perfect, but it's not bad either. If you are willing to give extra class skills, you could add:
2 ranks of sense motive (skill ranks come from the extra points used to buy cross-class skills).

It's not the perfect knight, but it will get the job done.

If you go barbarian, you could add 4 ranks of survival and 2 more points of a cross-class skill (maybe diplomacy) or literacy and 1 point of a cross-class skill like speak language.

A ranger would also be a pretty decent choice. He could do everything the barbarian does and slap on some knowledge: geography and handle animal. (Since knights did a lot of hunting, the class is a perfectly reasonable choice. Multiclass to fighter later when you can afford fullplate).

There are, of course, plenty of other classes out there that people have suggested, and appropriately so, since there are as many kinds of nobles as there are people. A sneaky, treacherous noble might be well-modelled by the rogue class, for instance. Lots of skill points for social skills, longsword and chain shirt proficiency so he can look the part, and sneak attack for when he stabs you in the back. Paladin makes the righteous, grail knight type noble pretty well. Etc.

However, a few options that haven't yet been mentioned: from Player's Guide to Arcanis:
the Patrician class is good for a non-combatant type noble who mainly contributes via skills and minions.
The Gentry feat gives ride and diplomacy as class skills as well as a bonus to some other skills and the social priviledges of the aristocracy.
 

I just don't think that "Noble" should be a character class. In most cultures, it's not something you "train" for, but are born into. That's why I thought a template would be ideal. So I thought about it awhile, but I really couldn't come up with anything I liked. So I went to Waking Lands and looked at the "savage" template offered there (which I am replacing barbarian with for the same reasons). I contacted Sonofapreacherman there with my idea, and a little while later, voila! A Noble template, rather than a character class that I am totally pleased with and can be applied to existing character classes.
 

Elder-Basilisk said:
It really depends what you want to do with the "noble."

As others have noted, fighter works well for knightly types. Given a human with a 10 int, that could buy:

With your first level feat, take Education. The Knowledge skills won't be cross-class.
 

John Q. Mayhem said:
http://fishnet.cx/~josh/DnD/DHE/new-classes.shtml

This is a link to Nifft's D&D page. It's got a lot of good stuff, including PC versions of the adept and aristocrat. If you take 4 or less levels of Aristocrat, your BAB will only suffer by 1, and you'll get sundry benefits. It's a good class.

I'm being pimped! Yay! Thanks, JQM!

Anyway, I was going to put that link, and then this (for the template-lovers out there):

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=125174&highlight=Noble (scroll down to post #4).

Cheers, -- N
 

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