mhacdebhandia
Explorer
Replacing the Wizard
The artificer, from the Eberron Campaign Setting, is not exactly a spellcaster in the traditional D&D sense. All of the effects they can product must be applied to an object - creating a temporary magical item - and they're also extremely competent creators of normal magic items. It's a very useful class and an interesting way to compensate for the loss of the core wizard's ability to "buff" other members of the party - while retaining the ability to contribute directly to combat with offensive items.
The warlock is found in Complete Arcane and has the distinction of being the first supernatural class in Third Edition D&D with unlimited use of their powers. Thematically interesting - though I intend to expand the scope of the class's flavour as written - the warlock has a very reliable attack power and a neat little suite of tricks. A better sorcerer than the core sorcerer, really.
Third, from Heroes of Horror, the dread necromancer. I freely admit to a weakness for darker-themed magicians, but it's also an interesting class to include in a group of PCs because of its nasty possibilities. It's a prime candidate, too, for an in-setting explanation as to why members of the class aren't widely reviled, which is the sort of challenge I appreciate.
Fourth and finally, the psion from the Expanded Psionics Handbook acts as more of a straight-across replacement for the core wizard, but with a set of mechanics which are significantly distinct from core magic. Psions acting as "utility casters" will change the way the game plays quite a bit, I suspect.
Next, "civilised" races suitable for use as PCs.
The artificer, from the Eberron Campaign Setting, is not exactly a spellcaster in the traditional D&D sense. All of the effects they can product must be applied to an object - creating a temporary magical item - and they're also extremely competent creators of normal magic items. It's a very useful class and an interesting way to compensate for the loss of the core wizard's ability to "buff" other members of the party - while retaining the ability to contribute directly to combat with offensive items.
The warlock is found in Complete Arcane and has the distinction of being the first supernatural class in Third Edition D&D with unlimited use of their powers. Thematically interesting - though I intend to expand the scope of the class's flavour as written - the warlock has a very reliable attack power and a neat little suite of tricks. A better sorcerer than the core sorcerer, really.
Third, from Heroes of Horror, the dread necromancer. I freely admit to a weakness for darker-themed magicians, but it's also an interesting class to include in a group of PCs because of its nasty possibilities. It's a prime candidate, too, for an in-setting explanation as to why members of the class aren't widely reviled, which is the sort of challenge I appreciate.
Fourth and finally, the psion from the Expanded Psionics Handbook acts as more of a straight-across replacement for the core wizard, but with a set of mechanics which are significantly distinct from core magic. Psions acting as "utility casters" will change the way the game plays quite a bit, I suspect.
Next, "civilised" races suitable for use as PCs.
