Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Erev 01-15-04, 04:33 PM	What would be the best kind of character to make for a pure city scape campaign. Who do you think would be the funnest for nothing but cities and cities and cities.
Lavallin 01-15-04, 05:29 PM	Any character can be fun in a city (with the exception of the druid and possibly the monk), but which will be most useful depends most upon the style of your game. If you run a low-combat game then the best class for the city is one of rogue, bard, and (if your DM will permit it) aristocrat. The wide variety of skills will allow you to be useful in most situations, and the high charisma useful to the latter two will be invaluable in all social situations. Archetypes for these classes include the street thief/pickpocket, tavern singer, and dispossessed eldest son of a noble family. In a medium-combat game, something blending rogue and a combat class will allow you to act as something of a jack-of-all-trades. For example Ftr3/Rog4 will be a solid basis for entry into the duellist PrC allowing you to emulate the swashbuckling antics of Errol Flynn (or in fact any swashbuckler of your choice, although I'd recommend against trying to transpose Captain Jack Sparrow into a city setting unless it's a city centred around a dock.) Similarly, the cleric has a reasonable range of skills and a vital social function in most standard D&D settings and is very much at home in a city. The cleric is also a sufficiently broad class to allow you any character from a mendicant friar or wandering preacher through a healer of the poor or loremaster to a lord to a battle medic recently returned from the front (if there are ongoing wars in your campaign) or necromancer feeding off the city graveyards. Mages, as characters whose downtime is mostly spent in isolation researching their spells function relatively poorly in most cities. However, in high-magic settings or cities with a large magical enclave, they can be right at home. Failing that they normally require the patronage of a powerful local lord. Whilst this by no means rules out playing a mage in a city, expect a few nights of disturbed sleep and no spells whilst you stay at the inn until you are able to complete the quest which will make you Lord Leuchar's personal astronomer and fortune teller (or whatever). Mages are nearly as diverse a group as clerics, and, whilst evokers and summoners can thrive in some cities (especially if they were to get a position with the city watch, for example), the utility of a diviner or an enchanter is more obvious. Barbarians and most fighters are not well suited to the intrigue of most cities. Although paladins survive better on account of their charisma and wisdom, their abilities are mostly geared towards the kicking of unrighteous buttocks, and a high BAB character will feel a little left out in a low-combat city setting. In a high-combat city, however, fighters, barbarians, rangers and paladins built for street fighting can excel. Cities are frequently filled with mercenaries, caravan guards, smugglers, pirates, trackers, blacksmiths, duellists, dishonourably discharged guard sergeants (a sort of Dirty Harry Ftr/Rog with many ranks in intimidate, perhaps) and more. In the end it's up to you, and will depend on the city itself, but I hope I've shown you that most classes can be useful in a city.
Erev 01-15-04, 05:38 PM	Thanks!