What New WotC Base Classes are you using

[Arnwyn]

From that list?

The Swashbuckler, Hexblade, Psion (3.0), Psychic Warrior (3.0), Shugenja (OA), and Wu Jen (OA).

 

[wingsandsword]

As far as most of the others go, didn't we let the idea of kits die in 2nd edition?

Well, a few of the others completely unsupported by existing classes, or it's asking a whole lot to shoehorn them into existing classes.

There is no spontaneous Divine caster for example, all besides the nature-oriented Druid, there is no way in the core rules to play a divine spellcaster who is not a walking divine battle-tank, like the Cleric is with it's heavy armor. More St. Francis and less Archbishop Turpin. Favored Soul and Mystic are both ways of playing a completely different priest archetype (personally I strongly prefer Mystic, Favored Soul seems a little munchkin for me and the Wings bit is just silly IMO).

There is no easy way to play a Nobleman either (NPC Aristocrat aside). You can call yourself a noble if the DM lets you, but there really is no way to represent with existing core classes (and any PrC I can think of) a charismatic and wealthy leader who commands the influence of men and is more oriented towards political/intrigue type plots instead of dungeon crawls. The nobleman hero is a significant fantasy archetype (Elrond for example, and King Arthur would probably have a few levels in it too, and they gave it to a significant number of characters from Wheel of Time when they made the d20 game of it). The only reason I think a Noble class hasn't been put in D&D Core in the last 30 years is it's wargame/combat roots and the typical dungeon crawl/series of battles mode which the Noble would be poor at.

Also, variant core classes really are in the core books. Look in the DMG, they even give the "Witch" class as an example of modifying Core classes to fit a campaign or a new concept.

 

[Samothdm]

* In the Middle Earth game I play in, I think the DM only allowed Core PH classes, but my character has about 4 levels of (3.0) Shugenja.

* In the Dawnforge game I play in, the DM pretty much allowed everything and the kitchen sink. I'm playing a Bard/Hexblade and someone else is playing a Soulknife. The rest of the players are pretty much all classes from the DFCS or from AU.

* I recently played in an all-day one-shot as a Githyanki Psion. I think the rest of the players are all pretty much core with PrCs.

* In the campaign I run, I allowed core PH, OA (minus the wu jen), and a few 3rd party like GR's Shaman. No one is playing a non-PH class, however. This one started about 3.5 years ago. If a new player wanted to play something from the Complete books, I'd probably allow it after considering how to retrofit the class into the campaign world.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Psions, Psionic warriors, Wu-Jen, Shujenga... and that's about it.

As far as most of the others go, didn't we let the idea of kits die in 2nd edition?

Hang on - you use wu-jen and shujenga and then say that the other core classes (ones with actual new mechanics) are like kits??

[moe]Whaaaa???[/moe]

 

[GuardianLurker]

Well, I allow psionics in my game (theoretically, no PCs yet) so the XPH classes have to go in.

As for the rest, I haven't seen an alternate base class yet that isn't a strict plus-up over the corresponding core base class. Basically, IMO, every single one is overpowered, some sickeningly so. Even the XPH classes are more powerful than the 3.0 PsiHB, and if it wasn't for the fact that they were significantly underpowered before, they'd be out too.

Moreover a lot of the classes cover ground already laid down by perfectly functional PrCs.