D&D 3.x Vote for your favorite core Class!!! (3.5)

[Jacob Marley]

....what do you guys think on that????

Well, I voted wizard as my favorite class but in practice I only play wizards maybe 15-20% of the time; other classes account for 80-85% of my gaming. In fact, I have more fighters in my character stable than I do wizards. It would be difficult for someone looking at my character sheets or observing me play to notice what my class preference is.

I think that this has a lot to do with fulfilling roles in the party. When you ask the average gamer what are the different roles in a D&D campaign you often get an answer along the lines of Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard (or Healer, Tank, Skill-Monkey, Wizard). At the time of this post there were 86 votes, if we combine the various classes into these more general roles we get 14 Clerics (Cleric, Druid), 26 Fighters (Barbarian, Fighter, Monk*, Paladin, Ranger), 17 Rogues (Bard, Rogue), and 29 Wizards (Sorcerer, Wizard). These numbers are a lot closer to the traditional adventuring party, though they are skewed in favor of the wizard. And certainly much closer to the average campaigns I have seen.

* The monk is sort of a PITA to classify as it sort of wants to be both a skill-monkey and a tank and does neither all that well.

 

[Jimlock]

ENWorld forums skew heavily toward DMs and avid players, so I suspect that a lot of the votes were cast by folks with a high interest in rules, or at least not afraid of lots of rules. They're least likely to shy away from pages of spells, or tons of skills or finicky attack modes.

I agree with the_orc_within. I think the fact the EN World has a lot of DMs and avid players as posters skews the results in favor of certain classes.

Well if EN is full of DMs that certainly makes sense...after all wizards are the ultimate tool/villains if a DM wants his party to suffer

Roguish types (and by that i mean mostly Assassins) can fulfill this role as well, and can prove even deadlier than wizard if played properly... yet they are not so difficult to deal with once the party discovers/confronts them...

My personal favorite tool/villain would be the cleric... the concept of a cleric who's vanity blinds him as to how he is nothing but a tool in the hands of his deity has always appealed to me... (on the other hand... a wizard's vanity can eventually dethrone a deity...but that's... another story!!)

 

[Rhun]

I think the popularity of the rogue class is probably due to its versatility and its ability to multi-class well with just about anything else. Wizards and clerics are popular due to the sheer power they can wield at higher levels.

 

[Jacob Marley]

I think the popularity of the rogue class is probably due to its versatility and its ability to multi-class well with just about anything else. Wizards and clerics are popular due to the sheer power they can wield at higher levels.

I think that class power may account for part of the votes that those two classes received, but not all of it. If a person is interested in playing the wizard archetype they have two classes to choose from (sorcerer and wizard) whereas if a person is interested in playing a warrior archetype they have five classes to choose from (barbarian, fighter, monk, paladin, and ranger). When you look at the total popularity of the achetype the numbers are much closer: 30 for wizard-type classes and 27 for warrior-type classes. By comparison, cleric-type classes (cleric and druid) account for only 15 votes combined; while the individual cleric may be the third most voted for class, the overall archetype is not that popular.

 

[Greenfield]

There are other factors to consider. I don't always get to play my "favorite" character type. If the group needs beef, I play a fighter type. If they're light in the arcane area I play a Wizard.

Many of us try to be team players, and are willing to put the party's needs above our own desires.

Besides, just because we have a favorite class doesn't mean its the only class we like to play, or that we can't have fun playing some other class.

 

[Jimlock]

There are other factors to consider. I don't always get to play my "favorite" character type. If the group needs beef, I play a fighter type. If they're light in the arcane area I play a Wizard.

Many of us try to be team players, and are willing to put the party's needs above our own desires.

Besides, just because we have a favorite class doesn't mean its the only class we like to play, or that we can't have fun playing some other class.

I see you point and i agree.

...still i'm trying to imagine how having a party with three or more same classes in it, would be like
say..a war band composed of fighters... spies composed of rogues... clerics on some holy quest...

Never tried it... but i'm trying to picture how that might be... Of course it'd require some innovative tuning so that the characters can be different despite their resemblances on the level of feats skills, spells, equipment etc...

Has anyone tried it?

 

[Rhun]

There are other factors to consider. I don't always get to play my "favorite" character type. If the group needs beef, I play a fighter type. If they're light in the arcane area I play a Wizard.

I often do this as well. But it doesn't mean that I don't have "favorites."

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I see you point and i agree.

...still i'm trying to imagine how having a party with three or more same classes in it, would be like
say..a war band composed of fighters... spies composed of rogues... clerics on some holy quest...

Never tried it... but i'm trying to picture how that might be... Of course it'd require some innovative tuning so that the characters can be different despite their resemblances on the level of feats skills, spells, equipment etc...

Has anyone tried it?

Played a 1 shot game with 4 Druids once. Which means, a party of 8, with including the 4 Animal Companions. Each build was designed to cover what the other 3 didn't, I forget what level we were at but it was mid-ish. Broke down to healer, caster, 2 melee builds, (and 4 viscious and varied animals!) but each of us could do all 3 roles. It was a forest-y campaign, so not much need for a skillmonkey. Some of us took PrC's, I forget which but one player had a Fay bent. It was a long time ago.

I remember it being fun, but a bit too easy since we build the party so well in advance and were all experienced players, and chose a class with disgusting versatility.

I'd imagine an all Cleric party would also be able to do anything. All Wizard party as well as long as one or more could summon meat shields, but for some reason I can't imagine 4 or more Wizards travelling together for that long.

I've wanted to play an all Factotum party, but haven't convinced anyone to try it with me. But that's not Core, so I'll stop at that.

 

[Jimlock]

Played a 1 shot game with 4 Druids once. Which means, a party of 8, with including the 4 Animal Companions. Each build was designed to cover what the other 3 didn't, I forget what level we were at but it was mid-ish. Broke down to healer, caster, 2 melee builds, (and 4 viscious and varied animals!) but each of us could do all 3 roles. It was a forest-y campaign, so not much need for a skillmonkey. Some of us took PrC's, I forget which but one player had a Fay bent. It was a long time ago.

I remember it being fun, but a bit too easy since we build the party so well in advance and were all experienced players, and chose a class with disgusting versatility.

yeah i can see what you mean by too easy... 4 players knowing how to play their transmutations can be a headache...

I'd imagine an all Cleric party would also be able to do anything. All Wizard party as well as long as one or more could summon meat shields, but for some reason I can't imagine 4 or more Wizards travelling together for that long.

Well as long as there is some common purpose they can stick together... While i agree that the wizard is definitely more of a "solitaire" kind of guy...
i think that the druid is even more...lonely... i'm not referring to the campaign you played in for since you were in the woods there had to be some "preserve the nature" kind of goal to stick you together...i'm talking about the druid in general.

In a campaign i played about 1 year ago, there was a druid in the party, and somehow... the story prepared by the DM had no motivations for the druid whatsoever...It was really weird ,cause the guy playing the druid... could not find of a single reason to stick with the rest!...
After much debate... the DM incorporated some sort of ..."threat to the forest" so that the druid could tag along...
What i'm trying to say is that the Druid apart from being a lonesome cowboy, is a very difficult class to fit in a party in terms of goals or motivations. If "nature" isn't involved...he shouldn't actually care..

 

[Jimlock]

wow... the sorcerer is doing some great catching up...