"Worst" non-core party?

[diaglo]

Nah, Half-Celestial Gelatinous Cube with Cleric levels all the way.

"I'll cast Cure Serious Wounds on Bill.

*roll*

*roll*

Okay, Bill you get 24 hit points back from my spell, take 3 points of damage from my acid and I'm gonna need you to make a fort save or be paralyzed for the next *roll* 11 rounds."

you forgot to mention Bill's armor is now ruined.

 

[Moonstone Spider]

Some nice points. However, guys and gals - commoners, medusas, bards et al are all core. And I was asking for non-core - so keep it up with that part of it!

cheers,
--N

All of mine had non-core character levels. Do you require races that aren't core as well?

'Cause I'm not sure it's possible to make something worse than a vampire satyr Soulknife 1 at level 20.

 

[BadMojo]

Hmmm, so many choices for crappy base classes.

I'll go with:

Arcanist: Warlock "I'll just be over hear, blasting. Just don't expect anything flashy like a fireball, or any useful party buffs. So, yeah, blasting." If Warlock doesn't count as an arcanist, Spellthief will do.

Warrior: Swashbuckler. For reasons already mentioned.

Sneaky Type: Ninja. 'Cause Sudden Strike almost never comes in to play. Like a rogue with all the good bits removed.

Healer: Dragon Shaman.

Not to go off topic, but I also think 4 Bards would make a decent party with the right builds.

 

[comrade raoul]

I always thought that since ninjas could turn invisible at the drop of a hat (though a limited number of times per day), their sudden strike could come into play really often.

 

[comrade raoul]

On topic, though, I'd go with a Samurai, Healer, Spellthief, and Beguiler. The Beguiler's not a bad class, but it's too specialized to serve as a primary blaster.

 

[javcs]

Warlocks are actually pretty decent, except maybe at extremely low levels, with the right incantation choices and their UMD skills.

As for non-core races .. I would say Kython Broodlings .. mmm .. no arms .. and Kython Juveniles .. mmm sucking montrous humanoid racial hit die-ness for both.
On second though, scratch the Juvenile, they're actually somewhat decent.

 

[Stalker0]

Why all the hate for spellthief? At low levels, I agree, nothing to write home about.

At mid levels and higher when your facing lots of spellcasters, they can be great. And if you have a caster in the party, its like having 2 casters in one.

Wizard: Fireball at 10d6, SAVE 20!!
Spellthief: Fireball at 10d6, Save 20 too!!!!

 

[Wish]

Spellthief, correctly built, can be amazingly potent. We had one in our Age of Worms campaign, and it was just wrong. So very versatile - and on anything that it could sneak attack (which included undead and constructs for him), he would strip it of all its significant abilities in no time flat. For the 'rogue' slot, I've got to go with the ninja. It's just bad. Compared to just about any other candidate for the slot, it's quite inferior - nowhere near as good as rogue, spellthief or scout.

For the 'arcane' slot, I'd go with sorcerer, except that it's core. Let's go with hexblade instead. It's bad as a fighter - it's even worse as the primary caster (it's great, however, as a base upon which to build to certain pclasses). You'll get a durable arcanist, I guess, but only level 6 spells, and pretty limited spell selection on top of it.

For the 'fighter' and 'cleric' I'll go with samurai and shugenja, for reasons others have outlined above.

 

[Moonstone Spider]

Warlocks are actually pretty decent, except maybe at extremely low levels, with the right incantation choices and their UMD skills.

I don't know, my experience playing one was quite limited but at level 1 a Warlock with summon swarm as his sole incantation is amazingly potent at extremely low levels. An area effect that both damages at a reasonable level and causes nausea/poison/disease, and with it's limited duration it's nearly impossible for it to turn on the caster like a normal swarm? That's pretty powerful.

Mind you it lags in usefulness really fast and needs to be swapped out early on but I think the Warlock is great at low levels and great at high levels. It's the mid-area where he sucks quite a bit, which is unfortunately the sweet-spot for most games where people like to be.

 

[Particle_Man]

For the 'arcane' slot, I'd go with sorcerer, except that it's core. Let's go with hexblade instead. It's bad as a fighter - it's even worse as the primary caster (it's great, however, as a base upon which to build to certain pclasses). You'll get a durable arcanist, I guess, but only level 6 spells, and pretty limited spell selection on top of it.

Hexblade only has 4 levels of spells at best.

Luckily I play my underpowered class with an overpowered Sudden Stunning weapon, so it all balances out.