What are the best classes to start a new player on?

[MonsterMash]

Well I'm a bit late to the party and I think that my choices wouldn't be really different:
Fighter - probably the easiest and best choice for a newcomer
Sorceror - the easiest of the spellcasters for a newbie
Rogue - tricker than either of the other two, but not everyone wants to play an out and out warrior type or spellcaster.

 

[Vrecknidj]

I think that it's a no brainer to go with the fighter for someone who has never played before. Expecially if the player is creating the character from scratch. While there are a ton of feats to choose from, the player's imagination supplies a lot of guidance (my fighter is quick footed, he doesn't wear heavy armor; or, my fighter is the type who wears a ton of armor, carries a shield, and tries to outlast his foes). Skill selection is mercifully short as well.

After that, I'd say the cleric. And, this is because it's not too hard for a newbie to get a taste of the game synergies when he's the one who heals his allies. This gives the player a sense of participating and being useful and lets him see how this rather odd aspect of the game works.

Dave

 

[Moonstone Spider]

I'm going to second letting the players play what they want. A short time ago I introduced two of my nephews to DnD. Having thoughts similar to the ones in this thread, I suggested a Barbarian to the first, like Conan.

Nephew: "Huh? I thought we were playing Dragons. Why do I have to be Conan? I could play Conan on my Xbox. I want to be the dragon. Why's the game even called Dungeons and Dragons if it's really Conan?"
Me: "Er. . ."
Nephew: (Leafing through monstrous manual) "Hey! I want to be this scorpion guy instead!"
Me: . . .
Second Nephew: "Can I be a mermaid? But a guy mermaid? And a Ninja?"

In the end I threw my planned level 1 crawl in the trash and they played a Scorpionfolk Pirate (fighter) and a Nixie Ninja in an adventure on the high seas. I practically had to burn the rulebook to make such concepts work together. It was totally awesome and they loved it.

Bottom line: Ask them what they want to be and resign yourself to a certain amount of extra work helping them keep track of their abilities. Remember that just because the player is new to the game doesn't mean his character is going to be, if his Wizard has the perfect spell for the situation and he doesn't realize it, a gentle reminder may be in order.

 

[satori01]

Warmage. It has a short easy to decipher spell list. A Warmage's spells encourage pro activity in combat, they do not have to prepare spells, and the class is pretty good at what it is supposed to do.

 

[RFisher]

Traditionally, I would've said fighter. In 3e, though, perhaps one of the other fighter-ish classes, like barbarian, would be simpler. More like a fighter with many of his feats already choosen. Come to think of it, a fighter with a ready-to-use feat progression would work.

Of course, it depends upon the player in question. But that's my would-work-for-anyone-if-anything-is-going-to answer.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

My first reaction is to say Fighter. Help them with the feats and pick stuff that stays 'under the hood' - as in stuff that just sits on the sheet of paper and it won't matter if the player doesn't have a clue what it does. Stuff like Weapon Focus and the +2 to Saves feats. Even avoid Power Attack if the level is low enough. This allows the player to hit stuff and learn the basics of combat and not really have to make any choices other than kill Kobald B instead of Kobald A. Sure, they won't be the best Fighter ever created but that isn't the point right now.

Barbarian isn't bad but you will get the question of "Should I Rage now?" and if they do number change on the sheet of paper.

I would say Rogue as second choice. There are a few things they need to think about (setting up Sneak Attack and remembering to search for traps) but nothing that affects the numbers in front of them, and if they have any RPG experience - even computer game stuff -they shouldn't have a problem with a few extra things to keep track of.

The Warlock has been mentioned a few times but it isn't nearly as easy as it looks. In my opinion there is NO easy magic in D&D. The Warlock is easier - but not easy. Our group knows this from experience. We had a new player join us well over a year ago and the player was asked what they wanted to play. "Something with magic." Makes sense - it is a swords and sorcery game and the idea of blowing stuff with magic is a staple of the genre and very appealing. They got set up with a Warlock. The group was at forth level so the Warlock already had a few different abilities and invocation shapes. This was actually too complex too quickly. The player still doesn't get the entire game since in combat they almost always take a single attack with their invocation and the player (as far as I know) hasn't actually read the PHB (which is another issue entirely) even after a year of very casual play.

My first suggestions are the Fighter and Rogue.
My second suggestion in NO magic at all for the new player. Not even the Warlock.
My third suggestion is if they decide to stay with the game then they need to read the PHB.

 

[Darklone]

My first suggestions are the Fighter and Rogue.
My second suggestion in NO magic at all for the new player. Not even the Warlock.
My third suggestion is if they decide to stay with the game then they need to read the PHB.

When I started with 9 newbies, none of them had read the PHB. One who joined at the 4th session had played AD&D years ago. I used one introductory adventure with pregenerated chars (WA) and afterwards all of them had an idea what type of char they wanted to play.

So we started again at level 1 and it worked out fine. One year later, most of them had bought a PHB.

Not too surprisingly, the spell slot and preparation of spells that made D&D so unpopular showed to be pretty easy for newbies.

Another thing: Joining a group of experienced players for a newbie: Give him a bard archer

 

[Dykstrav]

Let me echo what some of the other people have already said: ask the players what they want to play and help them make that character. I've seen beginning players chug along just fine with wizards and paladins. Their first character is gonna be awesome if they enjoy the game, and you want them to play what they really like.

That being said, I'd favor the ranger as an introductory class.They can do alot of stuff (stealth, scouting, tracking, melee or ranged fighter) and include some of the neat bits of other classes. They get a few bonus feats and eventually spells. It's likely that a new player that doesn't entirely have an idea of what role they want will get at least a taste of it with a ranger.

 

[Darklone]

That being said, I'd favor the ranger as an introductory class.They can do alot of stuff (stealth, scouting, tracking, melee or ranged fighter) and include some of the neat bits of other classes. They get a few bonus feats and eventually spells. It's likely that a new player that doesn't entirely have an idea of what role they want will get at least a taste of it with a ranger.

Sidetrack

In the WA adventure, the player with the ranger was the combat machine, he killed everything much faster than the others and got all the BBEG kills. The players even complained about the strong ranger.

Strangely when we started "with their own chars" later, noone took Ranger.

 

[paradox42]

In my experience with newbies, even the Fighter (in 3.X anyway) is often too complex for people totally new to the game, because of all the feat choices. I would recommend Barbarian over Fighter for this reason alone- the only significant decision the player has to worry about is when to Rage. With Fighters, having all those feats to select from is essentially the same as having a lot of spells to pick from, even though the feats never get used up (typically).

Rogue is a decent secondary choice, but I have to agree with the poster above who said Scout is even easier thanks to the rules surrounding Sneak Attacks. That said, traps can be a problem, so a "trapspringer" rogue who plans on avoiding combat rather than getting into it may be a good newbie character.

There is no healer variant I would recommend to a newbie player- Cleric is far too complex, because (A) it involves preparing spells, the worst possible mechanic to throw at a newbie player, and (B) it involves several limited-use resources- not just the spells, but also Turn Undead. Sure, it doesn't require as much game-knowledge and finesse to play as a Wizard, but it's certainly no Warlock! Ultimately, Favored Soul might actually work best for this, since it doesn't prepare spells (even with the possibility of turning them into other stuff spontaneously, the whole spell-preparation thing is just a headache you want to avoid with any newbie) and doesn't have Turn Undead to worry about. The one gotcha with Favored Soul is the double-ability-dependent spellcasting. You might consider house-ruling that to just work off of one or the other, if you want to include a Favored Soul.

Spellcasters, I'd say Warlock hands down. It's by far the simplest of the spellcasting classes mechanically, with no limits on its use of powers and (at low levels at least) only a few actual powers to use anyway. Allowing retraining is probably a Good Idea for a newbie player, so they can try the different ideas (i.e. Invocations) out and see what fits them best. If the alignment restrictions will be a problem, then change them! You're the DM, use Rule 0. If there's concern about the demonic/fiendish flavor, then change that too, or provide a house-ruled version of the Warlock that has powers granted by Celestials- honestly, is there any reason why the Chaotic Good Angels or the Eladrins wouldn't create something like a Warlock, in the face of the existence of Fiendish ones? Remember, they're Chaotic! Their very nature is to break or ignore rules.

Another excellent spellcaster to pick is the Warmage, since its only difficulty (before getting the Sudden Metamagic feats) is tracking how many spells it has left. You don't even have to pick out a spell selection for the Warmage- it can cast any spell from its class list, at any time. It's a Sorcerer with a pre-selected spell list. For the same reason, the Dread Necromancer (from Heroes of Horror) and Beguiler (from PHB II) can work for newbies, though they both get more class features are are therefore more complex than the Warmage. I'd recommend a Sorcerer before either of them, to be honest, though for me the Sorcerer is in the "middle complex" range along with the Cleric.