"Sneak Attack!"

[masstreble]

I'm going to be posting again here and there. I hope that's okay with everyone.

Furthermore, since I'm in a D&D campaign with friends, I feel like writing about it. Tee hee!

Not about the campaign directly, mind you. Just about D&D in general. Actually, nix that, I will write about the campaign. It's thetakogun's show this time. He had fond memories of the

Comments

[raiblu]

Or is it 3.5? I'm never really sure on that distinction. I like the freedom this system gives you to multiclass, even if I don't feel like the classes themselves are divided perfectly. Or excellently, for that matter. It was kind of a monster in the original. In 4.0 it was... interesting? But golly it was limited.

If you want to play a 'pure' class in this it gets kind of funky. I think... hm. I should break this down.

Barbarian: Some combat features moved into Scout.
Druid: Wild Shape removed and placed in the Shifter class.
Monk: Split into Monk & Martial Artist
Paladin: Technically not split up, but some abilities are missing. Then again, I might have deleted them by accident so I'm not sure.
Ranger: Seems to have taken the worst, a couple abilities removed, animal companion inaccessible unless you're a druid. And I've never really been a fan of the favored enemy feature, for some reason.
Rogue: Non-combat abilities tucked into Scout.
Left Alone: Bard, Cleric, Fighter, Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock (I think)

So you can basically re-assemble anything but the Ranger if you want a pure D&D experience. The whole classes are at least half of the selection. o.O I like using them to create (somewhat) unique combinations. I've also found that the more broken it is, the more you have to band-aid them together with feats. xD I'm somewhat terrified of the idea of a Fighter/Barbarian or Fighter/Rogue.

As it is, I'm debating what to make my cohort, class-wise. There's a lot of Useful stuff they could be doing. I'm just not sure if I want them to be tanking, or a delicious skill-bank + support. Tank-Bank?

[masstreble]

Rogue actually gained a little weirdness in the split. For one thing, you lose out on some skill points, because the pure sneak attacking Rogue classlet gets less. To compensate, the Scout has damage reduction. I keep forgetting that I have a point of that now. Otherwise, there's some wonkiness in the growth (why I have such strange saves but a high BAB) but it's close to the core experience.

To be honest, I've always felt deprived of the core experience. Nobody around me seems that interested in it, which is too bad: far as I can tell, just playing a class straight is pretty fun in itself.

But I was thinking about Fighter/Rogue, and it doesn't quite work that easy. For one thing, you have a high BAB and the sneak attack dice, but you have to be using a light weapon and rely on weapon finesse. That means that you're playing a Dex fighter, which is alright. At that point, there's a strong argument just to right for Ranger, so you get two weapon fighting along with it, plus some nice stuff with the bow. But then with the ranger, you're getting into a different niche skill-wise. On the other hand, the skill rogue is all tied up in the Scout anyhow. So that's well enough. Rogue/Ranger is just some stabitty asshole that lives in the wilderness. I guess the strongest argument for Fighter/Rogue with the FMS would be the things you can do with the bonus feats.

As for Barbarian/Fighter, all you get out of it, because of the armour restrictions, is a big BAB and some bonus feats, a lot of which are behind a Int 13 wall. Playing a straight barbarian in this system is... well, you can't. The most effective combo is Barbarian/Shifter, which is a pretty damn effective from the cursory glance I took at it. But if you don't WANT to be a raging bear, well. Hmm.

Anyway, I'm thinking the FMS could use the addition of more base classes, rather than the PHB1 stuff (plus the warlock). It couldn't be that hard to do Shaman (which gets a split between their unique healing abilities and their other stuff), and other things.