The Really Big Class Discussion Thread

Rogues are great with a couple of levels of fighter - for one thing, there are free feats at levels one and two.

 

IMO - Barbarian characters rule.

 

For melee characters, I just can't get past the fighter with all the feats and the weapon specializations.

What I like to do at higher levels: Have a wizard or sorceror cast Mordenkainen's Sword, then open up the Swords inventory screen and give its greatsword to the fighter. The sword is a force weapon like the magic missile meaning it hits anything. It imparts a pretty big penalty to AC, but depending on the level of the caster the To-Hit bonus is amazing. I know it's a pretty cheap thing to do, but it sure is fun.

 

As multiclass characters go:

Rogue 1 or 2 followed by Bard X is pretty spiffy, if not exactly a world beater. Still, he can pick locks and open traps as well as any other rogue type, use bardic music to boost the rest of the party, serve as the party's face about as well as a standard Rogue (though its easier on skill point usage if you outfit him with a circlet of persuasion and a cloak of charisma), and he's a decent spell caster. Add spell focus: Enchantment, GSF:E and Spell penetration and he can take out a surprising number of enemies with one casting. Max out Use Item and he can use all the scrolls your Wizard and Cleric can scribe and spare. Give him a magic long spear and he's a fair HtH fighter.

So, not a world beater, but not at all bad.

 

@ Gaear: The two things that immediately were in my mind at the time of writing that reply were inspire courage and inspire greatness. In ToEE inspire courage does not improve at bard level 8. Similarly, inspire greatness appears to have no effect at all on the target . I wasn't referring to asthetic considerations like actual music being heard while using bard songs, if that's what you were thinking.

btw sorry to hear that you have not yet indulged in the experience of playing a bard, they truely are a fascinating class :giggle:

 

If I ever play though as Neutral Evil, I'm taking the Linear Guild.

And to make this post slightly more on topic...

Rogue, Fighter, and Barbarian are generally my favorite classes for Multi-Classing. All three do fine when single classed in ToEE, but they're also very good mixers.

Rogue-Fighters or Barbarians (or Rogue-Fighter-Barbarians) can handle most of your skill needs while still blocking and racking up a great body count.

Rogue 1 - Wizards aren't much in HtH, but are almost as good as pure wizards at spell casting (which is still pretty good) and can take care of your lock and trap needs.

Fighter - Clerics are my favorite tanks, with Barbarian - Clerics a close second. The extra weapon proficiencies and feats mix very well with clerical magic. They serve roughly the same combat role as the Paladin, with more of an emphasis on spell casting.

A Half Orc Barbarian 1-Druid X makes a great tank.

I've always wanted to try a Miko type, Monk 2 - Paladin X. It seems like it should be a pretty good combo, with Mage Armor cast by the party Wizard and Barkskin by the Druid to make up for the lack of heavy armor until Bracers, Rings and magical Tattoos become available. Haven't yet tried it though.

 

In my current game my fighter4/cleric# is kicking ass, domains of trickery mean as a party face he's got most bases covered and war means free weapon focus (I took 1 cleric then 4 fighter levels to take advantage of the free feats). with great cleave, weapon specialisation, combat reflexes and the ablity to heal his own wounds he's doing rather well.

 

I never multi-class either. You don't get the full benefits of the class. For example, human fighters get 19 feats by 20th level. That's awesome. And rogues get special bonus feats starting at 10th level, like Opportunist. Monks get faster and faster and the Unarmed Strike damage keeps going up. And you miss out on the highest level spells if you multi-class a caster. Every class only gets better as they level up.

I'm definitely not buying a ticket for the multi-class bandwagon. Well maybe...been thinkin' about doin' a solo game.

 

Didn't the bard songs get fixed one or two .dll fixes ago?

 

A multiclass character is never as good as a single class character in that classes specialty, and spellcasters especially risk losing some serious casting power by multiclassing for more than one level. So, nothing against single class characters.

Multiclass characters are making the same kind of deal that specialists like Paladins and Rangers make; they trade off feats, special abilities or spell levels later in their careers for versatility and special abilities right now. Some mixes work really well in ToEE; a few levels of Fighter go great with Barbarian, a level of Barbarian goes well with Rogue, etc. Some mixes are craptastic from a number crunching or tactical point of view (Barbarian+Sorcerer, Wizard+Cleric). For me at least, part of the fun of multiclassing is seeing how well A+B mixes work out in play.

Which doesn't mean I don't take a pure Divine and a pure Arcane caster with every play through; no reason to gimp the party.

 

Try a wizard solo. You must take care early on, but with crafting and a decent dexterity, you can be a real killing machine! So you can't swing a sword. Big deal. A fighter can't cook a crowd of bugbears medium rare!:evilgrin:

 

I enjoy reading threads like these as it gives me idea's for new groups to try.

I tried my first small party a little while ago, a wizard who could steal and a smooth talking ranger. it really did bring a new aspect to battles as I had to use a lot of strategy to win some of the bigger battles.

I'm currently trying an all warrior team (the motto of the squad is that magic is cheating which real men don't use) :goatee:
Gets very tricky in the later stages. I had to give in and invest in a few wands to help with a few key battles.

I don't normally use Paladins (I got sick of them falling at the drop of a hat. Why would you fall because someone else in the party joined a drinking game???!!!)
But I did for my latest party and what I found interesting was that even when equipped with a non magical sword he still seemed to cause damage to creatures that other classes couldn't with non magical items. I have little knowledge of the rules of AD&D, do they get a bonus when fighting evil creatures? It was quite handy as I could let him wait till last for some of the bigger magical weapons in the game. When I fought those pungent ooze things on the 3rd floor her actually caused the most damage even though he was the only one without a magical weapon.