How would you balance the Aristocrat with PC classes at 1st level?

[Witness]

I believe their is an Aristocrat PC class in the Rokogun book. Also, someone above already suggested the Star Wars noble.

I assume you've talked it over already with your DM. If your only taking the class for 1 or a few levels, or if the DM gives you opportunities to use your status to your advantage, the Aristocrat class from the DMG is just fine.

 

[Green Knight]

The DM didn't go for the 500 XP idea, so I'll just take the class as is. A lot of you brought up good points that, at least at 1st level, the Aristocrat class is pretty good. Thanks for the help.

 

[gpetruc]

I gave the Aristocrat the full fighter BAB (+1/level); he still does not get all those feats, and so a decent BAB might balance it.
I'm also considering:
- free Leadership at lvl 6, 12, 18 ?
- Landlord (from Stronghold builder guidebook) at lvl 10 (or when he has the prerequisites, if later)

 

[Xeriar]

You don't want the leadership and landlord feats overlapping directly with normal feat gains, if you're gonna do that.

I see no problem with adding a leadership feat every 7th level, and landlord every 10th (which is some pretty serious cash at 20th... 1.6 million gold).

 

[Green Knight]

Can the Leadership Feat be taken more than once?

And I don't have the Stronghold Builders Guidebook (Though I DO intend to get it, as I'd like my character to get a stronghold, someday. Got my eyes set on becoming Baron of the Stonelands). What does the Landlord Feat get you?

 

[drnuncheon]

Can the Leadership Feat be taken more than once?

Not by the book.

And I don't have the Stronghold Builders Guidebook (Though I DO intend to get it, as I'd like my character to get a stronghold, someday. Got my eyes set on becoming Baron of the Stonelands). What does the Landlord Feat get you?

It gets you a chunk of money to build your stronghold (and you get more every level), plus, any money you put into your stronghold from your personal funds is effectively doubled.

J

 

[Corwin]

I gave the Aristocrat the full fighter BAB (+1/level); he still does not get all those feats, and so a decent BAB might balance it.

So what good is the Warrior now?

 

[mmadsen]

So what good is the Warrior now?

Yeah, what good is the Warrior now? (You don't need to bump up the Aristocrat to make the Warrior a worthless class.)

 

[Corwin]

Yeah, what good is the Warrior now? (You don't need to bump up the Aristocrat to make the Warrior a worthless class.)

Non-sequiturs are cool.

Oh wait, I think I have a point to make after all...

You may feel every living thing in the D&D world should have PC classes. That is obviously your point. Why use Warrior at all when you can take Fighter, right? Whatever floats your boat. I'm not going to try and change your opinion. All street urchins are minimum 11th level rogues. Fine. All town malitia guards are 9th level fighters or better. OK. Every village healer is at least a 14th level cleric. Un huh.

But don't try and make that a basis for showing how wrong other people are for trying to maintain the balance the rules call for.

NPC classes are supposed to be under par with PC classes. That's the point.

Warrior is the combat oriented NPC class. It's the only one with fighter BAB progression. Like it or not.

To give the same thing to Aristocrats does indeed make Warrior obsolete. You may have no problem with that, but I don't recall the topic being "Let's get rid of the Warrior class and make Aristocrats good fighters".

Now, having said that...

Aristocrat has a lot going for it. It is a viable PC class. Assuming it's what you want for your PC, of course.

Can you pull off a "noble" PC without it? Sure. Can you make a cool PC with it? Absolutely. Does it have an advantage other clases don't? A few, but not really.

Use it or don't. But don't make it the uber class or it becomes the obvious choice for front loading multiclassers. That's all.

 

[mmadsen]

Non-sequiturs are cool.

I'm not sure you understand what non sequitur means...

You may feel every living thing in the D&D world should have PC classes. That is obviously your point.

That's doesn't follow from anything I said; that is a non sequitur.

Why use Warrior at all when you can take Fighter, right?

An inferior Fighter shouldn't belong to a different class; he should have fewer levels. The Warrior class is a kluge to allow for less-than-first-level Fighters for our heroes to cut down.

All street urchins are minimum 11th level rogues. Fine. All town malitia guards are 9th level fighters or better. OK. Every village healer is at least a 14th level cleric. Un huh.

Because that all follows from what I said...

But don't try and make that a basis for showing how wrong other people are for trying to maintain the balance the rules call for.

Why should a noble PC belong to a lesser class again? Where's the balance in that?

NPC classes are supposed to be under par with PC classes. That's the point.

And it's a poorly thought-out point. If the NPCs are supposed to be non-adventurers, their classes should be worse than the adventurer classes at adventuring -- worse saves, worse BAB, worse Hit Dice, no combat Feats, etc.

If the NPCs are supposed to be simply inferior beings, they should have fewer levels of whatever classes they do have.

Use it or don't. But don't make it the uber class...

Other games (Star Wars and Rokugan) present PC Aristocrat classes (the Noble and the Courtier) to bump the Aristocrat's power level up to that of the other PC classes. I don't see a problem with doing the same thing in D&D. In fact, it seems quite natural.