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

[Fishbone]

Not fighter. A Fighter in a noob's hands is basically a Warrior with a hit dice bump.
Barbarian all the way. Rage, Charge. Move to flank and attack. Basically all the need to do is get into a situation where they can nail something while raging.
Paladins are another good choice. The mount variants in the DMG have plenty of pop to them and can save a noob a lot. Lay on hands, fear resistance, disease immunity, and the save bonuses also make them a class that is very forgiving.
For spell casting you can't beat the sorcerer for a noob. Have him pick decent spells and they are actually bone simple to play.

 

[Kafkonia]

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.

This is actually one of the few places where the much-maligned Healer class (from the Minis Handbook) might be useful. It's got a limited spell list, plays a very clear role, and for some new players the prospect of having a unicorn companion in the future may be appealing.

 

[Phlebas]

I'm with Fishbone - Not convinced on Fighter - it was simple in 2nd Ed but 3/3,5 really flesh it out but you need to play the feats to survive in the front line

We have one 'less experienced' player who plays a fighter - she's always getting a lot of 'helpful' advice form the other players about tactics on the battlegrid as the fighters the core the other characters work around in combat - IMHO its as tactically difficult as spell casting - go with something simple like an archer or sorcerer where if you get it wrong IT DOESNT MATTER. and if you get it right you'll be a hero....

And don't ignore skills - the first time you ask them to roll listen checks and they have -1 for poor wisdom and then see the rogue add 10 the limitations of the fighter become pretty obvious.....

 

[szilard]

I would, actually, avoid Fighters - a Fighter is incredibly dependent upon good build choices via feats.

Instead, I'd look at Barbarians, Paladins, or Rangers - these all have very constrained choices and are built to be capable regardless of feat choice. They are also recognizable archetypes that will help people new to roleplaying. Paladins and Rangers also have the advantage of gradually introducing new rule subsets (spells, mount/companion) as the characters advance, which can serve as a useful learning tool. I suppose Hexblades, Knights, and Swashbucklers would work okay as well.

- Stuart

 

[Darklone]

If you pick a fighter as so many people here proposed, take a dwarven fighter with shield and waraxe and throwing hammers. Weapon Focus, Power Attack, Cleave. Keeps stuff simple. No polearms, no disarms/sunder/grapples...

 

[ivocaliban]

IMHO, these would be bad:

Bard: Complicated to enjoy, since they spend so little time in the spotlight, and yet have a lot of complex abilities.

I found this out from experience. In an attempt not to limit a new player, thinking that might discourage them, I let the girlfriend of a friend play a 3.5e Bard in her very first D&D game. She was an artist in real-life and so this class appealed to her, but she was quickly overwhelmed by it, even at the first level. Just filling out the character sheet took a couple of hours. It didn't help much that her boyfriend (the only other player) chose to play a ranged archer. I warned him against it as he was a little more experienced in D&D (though he hadn't played in years...and was unfamiliar with 3.0/3.5e). It was difficult making it enjoyable for the two when neither could really stand in the front lines.

My recommendation goes to those classes that have the least options for players who have never picked up dice before: Fighter, Paladin, Sorcerer. The girl I mentioned above loathed all the skill points she had with the Bard. (When's the first time you've heard of a player complaining because they had too many skill points?) Being a new player she felt it was a lot of work...and as the Bard had so many skills I had to explain what each one meant in game terms.



My take on the core classes for new players:

Easy Classes
Fighter (Probably the quickest character to roll up and play. Few skills, no specialized rules.)
Paladin (Choosing this class also chooses your alignment and, essentially, your goals. Few skills, mostly reactive abilities.)
Sorcerer (Few skills, small selection of spells. No need to plan out spells. Simplest of the core class arcanists.)

Intermediate Classes
Barbarian (Great offense, poor defense. Difficult to keep alive without proper support.)
Cleric (Well-armored, undead-turning healers. Lengthy spell lists can confuse a beginner, however.)
Ranger (Can be highly effective in the right situations, but have fewer hit points, more skill points, etc.)
Rogue (Like the Ranger, but more so. Can die quite fast if used poorly.)

Difficult Classes
Bard (A difficult class even for experienced players to make work effectively. Overwhelms the unitiated.)
Druid (Like the cleric, only poorly-armored and no healing speciality. Animal companion might help initially, but it's still more work for a new player.)
Monk (A class with a lot of built-in special abilities. Most of these are reflexive, but there are too many rules to explain.)
Wizard (So many spells, so little time. Having to plan ahead each spell can be frustrating and difficult for newcomers.)



I didn't mention any of the multitude of other classes, because the more books you open in front of someone whose never played before the more overwhelming it may become. I'd definitely recommend the Warlock if it was in the PHB.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think Fighter is a good choice for beginners, too. But you always have to start at 1st level, otherwise its get confusing.

Fighter has the advantage that you essentially can make a new decision each level (at least at the first four levels). This decision allows the player to get his head in the options available within combat and the concepts of feats. Fighter gets enough feats that you probably will not regret choices you made (unless you take exotic weapon profiency (Whip) or something like that)
One disadvantage might be that the player gets accustomed to having a lot of feats and will have trouble adjusting to other classes.

Rogue can be pretty straightforward, too. The main disadvantag might be the low hitpoints, a careless newbie (with a careless DM) might get intro trouble with that...
Ignore non-maxed skills for the moment (though that easily leads to the player wanting to max every skill, even if not really neccessary). He should pick the skills he want to be good at (most likely, a new player will want to sneak, notice and steal things, so ignore the other skills).

If a player really wants to play a spellcaster: Sorcerors are a bit dangerous - the player might not be able to identify the really useful spells, and later regret it. but with the free relearning and retraining rules, you might be able to compensate that. A Wizard has the complexity of preparing his spells, but you can make it easy and have him prepare the same ones at the beginning, and maybe point out a specific situation in where it would be wise to prepare something different.

 

[Nightfall]

Fighters are easy. Just point and click!

Warlocks are the same way.

That's what retraining/ceremonies are for. If the player makes a bad choice, don't penalize him for being a newbie. Just tell him, "hey give me this amount of gold and this much XP, we'll be fine."

 

[DonTadow]

I"m echoing the fighter if they are making their own player. Though I like a player to play a pregen until they get a feel for the game. I played a pregen bard my first time, then moved on to my own cleric charachter once i got the system down.

 

[fusangite]

I'm not too swift on the uptake when it comes to new rules so, when I rejoined D&D, my DM and I put some careful thought into the best class for me to take. Since then, I have shepherded quite a few players through the process of learning D&D.

In my opinion, the best way to determine if a class is suitable for a beginning player is to time the number of minutes it takes to choose options and then modify the character sheet when leveling. The things that increase time are: crunch, options and particular class abilities. Classes that require recalculation of stats or tracking cohorts during combat are also bad, as are classes that require making different spell lists at the beginning of each day in game time.

For that reason, I think the suitable classes for a first-timer are probably Sorceror and Fighter. They are simple and require very little math. Furthermore, they are classes that tend towards specialization so that the new player can feel their character is quite distinct from other sorcerors and fighters very early on in class advancement.