And that last example also happens to apply to Paladin and Inquisitor today.

The paladins and the cleric all serve different gods, and so bring different philosophies to the game. The dragon sorcerer rolls his eyes when the wizard casts a “strictly inferior, non-draconic” fireball. There’s bad blood between the dwarven barbarian and the ogre fighter. Depending on who shows up to game we might have “adventurer classic,” “the sneaky ones,” and even “two frightened support casters and their band of underleveled NPC cohorts.” That last one is especially entertaining for me as the GM.Īs much fun as it’s been discovering these different playstyles, the real pleasure lies in watching new group dynamics develop every session. We’ve got “the squishies” with a stupid amount of spell power.

We’ve got “the brute squad” with its big hit dice and high Strength scores. There’s “team holy bro” with nothing but clerics and paladins on board. There’s “tactical mind-whammy squad,” with multiple debuffers and summoned critters for muscle. (Balancing loot distribution for example has turned out to be a ridiculous pain in the ass.) But there is one thing that I absolutely love about the setup: I get to watch an endless procession of bizarre character combinations. This has led to all kinds of repercussions in the game, and not all of them are positive. Every time the group climbs out of the dungeon and heads back to town, each player gets to select which of their intrepid heroes to bring along for the next delve. Tier 7: Truenamer - Apparently received no actual playtesting, mechanics as written simply don't work.We’ve talked before about my oddball megadungeon, right? It’s got seven players, but there are a total of 14 PCs. Tier 6: CW Samurai, Aristocrat, Warrior, Commoner - Objectively worse at their specialty than another (often Tier 5) class, without anything else to show for it. Tier 5: Fighter, Monk, Ninja (both CA & Rokugan versions), Healer, Swashbuckler, Soulknife, Expert, OA Samurai, Paladin, Knight, CW Samurai (with Imperious Command), Soulborn - Good at one rarely applicable thing, or mediocre at one thing, or simply too unfocused. Tier 4: Rogue, Barbarian, Warlock, Warmage, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshal, Fighter (Zhentarium variant) - Good at one thing but useless at everything else, or mediocre at many things. Tier 3: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder, Ranger (Wildshape variant), Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psychic Warrior, Incarnate, Totemist - Good at one thing & useful outside that, or moderately useful at most things. Tier 2: Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Psion, Binder (w/ online vestiges), Erudite - As powerful as tier 1, but no one build can do everything.

Factotum 3.5 handbook