Suggest New or Variant Classes for a Woodsy Campaign

[Planesdragon]

Using the no-spells ranger variant from UA.

*blink, blink*

A no-spells ranger in Unearthed Arcana? What page? I looked for it last night, but I didn't find it. (I saw the Urban Ranger and the wild-shape ranger, but not a no-spells ranger.].

2. Add in the spontaneous cure and turn undead abilities back into the Druid and find some way of balancing those? At that point, it's well on the way to 'create my own woodsy spellcaster class', so... is there a good one out there?

I'd say swap a druid's spontaneous summoning for spontaneous healing, and let them gain Turn Undead as a feat. Or, just tweak the Paladin to be woodsy.

 

[Darklone]

Kalamar pimp alert:
The Shaman class is a variant druid class with only one totem animal in which they can wildshape.

Brigand may be funny for outlaws.

 

[Argent Silvermage]

I'm not sure if anyone mentioned them yet but Wotc published some interesting prestige classes on their website a while ago.

Silverwood Outrider
Silverwood Arcanist

I think these will help.

 

[Iron_Chef]

The "Borderer" class from Conan The RPG with the Tauran (Hyborian) subracial template is a fantastic non-magical ranger. Also, see my new Bandit class for Conan here: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1489

There is a non-magical ranger variant in AEG'S SWASHBUCKLING ADVENTURES.

There are three extremely cool ranger variants in AEG's MERCENARIES: Guerilla, Hunter and Mercenary Ranger. I played a drow mercenary ranger for a mini-campaign last year and it was awesome, because you got to choose from a huge list of cool ranger options to make magical or non-magical character builds entirely at your discretion.

 

[Qualir]

The wilderness setting will probably help you alot. Wizards will probably have to rethink their spells once they nearly die in a forest fire that was started by their careless use of fireball. The standard cleric can be used to great effect when you start thinking along the lines of bringing civilized faith to the heathen wilderness.

My last campaign alowed characters from 3.5 and AU. I didn't change any rules to make them work on the exact same system. I just restricted 3.5 characters to 3.5 books and AU characters to AU books. The slightly different mechanics behind their abilities gave a sense of flavor to players tired of standard D&D, while allowing others to play the tried and true favorites.

 

[WayneLigon]

The standard cleric can be used to great effect when you start thinking along the lines of bringing civilized faith to the heathen wilderness.

That will probably come into play fairly quickly.

One of the basic themes of the campaign is cultural conflict.

To the West, you have the remnants of the Chazan Imperium, which was a large civilized nation-state before it was mostly wiped out by plague (complicated story, which I'll post later. basically, the Imperial family angered the gods, so divine magic stopped working for several years).

To the East, you have the Greatwood, this vast forested realm alive with spirits. The People and the Imperials have virtually nothing in common save the same number of limbs.

This naturally leads to a great deal of conflict, conflict that will stay alive because the People don't have the drive or need to wipe out the Imperials while the Imperials lack the resources and have their attention diverted by the hordes of savage humanoids that stalk their land (escaped slaves).

To put it in the most basic cultural terms, the Imperials are Lawful and the People are Chaotic. Each has things the other needs or wants, though, so there is also reason for them to do something besides ignore each other. The Imperials have a much higher level of technology than the People. The People have resources and available land. The Imperials have an extremely stable legal and governmental system. The People have the knowledge and wherewithall to fight the savage monsters that now infest Imperial territory. It goes on and on. The two sides each have things to offer, but at the same time have so many fundamental differences that it's hard for any form of consensus to be built.

Anyway.

More class ideas.

Sorcerers. Idea: Dragon-blooded Sorcerers. These are descended from dragons and their spells are the big evocations and abjurations that dragons themselves favor. Then you have Fae-blooded Sorcerers, who favor illusions and transmutations. Not sure how to work this. Might give sorcerers their own separate spell list from Wizards, who are not that common at all.

 

[Garnfellow]

A little while back I asked for help on how to rebuild a fighter into a magic-less ranger. The good folks here at EnWorld pointed me toward a host of variant scout/ranger/forester classes, several of which haven't been mentioned yet here.

 

[WayneLigon]

As of the moment, I've decided to go with having rangers use magic after all as a result of the Ranger-is-a-Paladin-of-Nature epiphany I had. But does that mean that all woodsy trackers are Rangers? Oh, no.

The Wilderness Rogue idea stuck with me. Now, the Rogue becomes the Scout; effectively he's a different ranger that's not as good a fighter but better at finding things. Removed some class skills (not the same list as in Wilderness Rogue in UA; don't have the record but I know I got rid of Use Magic Device) and added some class skills (The same list in UA). At 4th or 5th they also get Fast Movement, as per the Barbarian class.

In fact, here's what I have so far:

Barbarians: None. The concept of the berserker doesn't exist in either culture, so barbarians as written don't go well. Take away the Rage abilities and you have a combo Fighter/Ranger. Savage humanoids still get to take the class, though.

Monks: Yes, they exist. The Chazan Imperium had a caste of warrior-assassins dedicated to one of the evil aspects of their king-and-god. Any PC's that show up with that class are runaways from the Black Order.

Rogues. Mentioned above.
Fighters are fighters, still. Some fighter feats will be expanding.
Bards is Bards, except that all skills are class skills for them.

The spell casting classes are still presenting flavor problems.

 

[Ylis]

I've been reading ElfClash: Realm of Lanai by Khan's Press lately...and it has awesome variants for almost all the classes (and races). They're all pretty powerful for a standard game, though. But the world is wild also, so it might actually work, if you wanted a setting.

The ranger and druid in ElfClash no longer have spells. They have some pretty sweet abilities, though. The druid is like a druid/monk, but with more abilities, and the ranger has a LOT more abilities than it does standard.

There's also a race of elves that would really work out in a wilderness campaign.

This book's my newest toy, lol, so it was the first thing that popped into my mind when you said "wilderness campaign", lol

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

The Scout class from the Warcraft RPG is pretty nice. You could also include the variant Druids from Dragon #311.

AR