Good 6th Player? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Good 6th Player? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
MerrikCale
11-23-06, 10:58 AM The party is Ranger, scout, sorcerer, favored soul, and fighter. What would be a good 6th class? And why? My first thought was bard.
babysamurai
11-23-06, 11:24 AM You've got everything pretty much covered, so anything would be fine.

But since you asked:

Bard (obviously)
Incarnate (change his/her role daily)
Savant (another great jack of all trades)
Dragon Shaman (secondary fighter, buff, heal)
Binder (similar to incarnate)
Truenamer (buff, secondary fighter)
psionichamster
11-23-06, 11:37 AM Bard. FTW.

skills, songs, magic, charisma, and social-skill-set (which may be lacking in your party at this point)

also, it lets you take Mindbender, and get telepathy for your inner-party-communication needs.

also worth looking into:

Rogue. dependin on what your scout and ranger are missing, you can be the infiltrator, second scout, and have lots of flanking buddies.

Beguiler. lets the sorc be the blaster/utility guy, so you can be the illusionist/controller/special teams kinda guy (spiderclimb/haste/slow especially)

basically, be someone w/ a bunch of skill points, and you can tailor yourself to fill in the gaps.

-the hamster
Orchomenos
11-23-06, 11:43 AM You have a fighter, and with the ranger and scout you have two secondary fighters.

A Bard would be cool, or a generalist wizard or cleric.
DracoPhoenix
11-23-06, 11:50 AM As mentioned, you have all the bases covered, so it's pretty much what ever the player wants. I'd suggest one of the below:

Incarnate (current personal favourite)
Wizard,
Psion,
Togue / Totemist
Soulknife / Illumine soul
Druid
MerrikCale
11-23-06, 12:02 PM Don't know much about the incarnate and savant. What do they do? and where is their info?
DarkRhystar
11-23-06, 12:40 PM The party is Ranger, scout, sorcerer, favored soul, and fighter. What would be a good 6th class? And why? My first thought was bard.

With so many melee-types, I'm thinking the Dragon Shaman and its auras would be greatly appreciated. A Rogue of some sort may be helpful as you could split the required skills down the middle with the Scout so you'd both have plenty left over for other things. If you have access to Tome of Battle, I'd highly recommend a Swordsage or Warblade as they're powerful and fairly versatile (although you might make the Fighter/Ranger a little jealous). As always, Druid is recommended simply for its ability to fill a variety of roles.
MerlintheTuna
11-23-06, 12:57 PM Again, some echos.

Bard: He's got skill points to cover for any general-purpose things that aren't already covered by the Scout, and he can do a bit of sneaking on his own. His bardic music will get a lot of mileage because of the size of the group -- Inspire Courage alone will seriously jack up your party's firepower.

Dragon Shaman: Again, area buffing is good. You'll get a lot of mileage out of auras here, and the bit of extra healing will be appreciated by the Favored Soul's player.

Warlock: Warlocks can't cover the party's general Arcanist purposes, but if you've already got a Sorc, he'll be just dandy. A very flexible class that can take some pressure off of the spellcasters, do some extra scouting if that's your bag, and can do some much-appreciated crafting.

Warmage/Beguiler: Like the Warlock, these two can't cover the general arcane role, but they can take pressure off of the Sorcerer and his piddly list of spells known, and they're both fairly competent on their own as well.

Monk: A monk can't go toe-to-toe with the big guys, but he's got mobility, and with that many allies tying people up, that can help out a lot -- especially since large parties tend to lead to minion-filled battles rather than battles against one huge guy. His solid magical defenses (saves, Evasion, immunities, SR) also make for a good safety-valve character; if something bad goes down (party gets Mind Blasted, etc.) he can stall for time until people come around.
DracoPhoenix
11-23-06, 01:35 PM Don't know much about the incarnate and savant. What do they do? and where is their info?

Not familiar with savants myself, but Incarnates are from Magic of Incarnum. The have access to soul melds which are effectively buffs per day (nothing too over powering (CO board not withstanding)).

Melds correspond to body slots and that binding a meld (limited ability) prevents a magic item on the same body slot working, but usually has a pretty powerful effect (not game destroying).
You can only have one meld per body slot, though an unbound meld can share the same slot as a magic item.

Incarnates have mainly combat related melds, Totemists have mainly skill or special ability related melds.

Then it gets a bit more complicated, the buffs - ranging from special attacks to skill boosts to save/AC buffs to outright special abilities (eg. limited dimension doors - 10ft as a standard action & cant do anything afterwards that round). Attack ability buffs tend to revolve around 1d6 base damage (things like lightining touch attack).

There's not normally a use per day limit, but most active abilities are limited to 1 a round or similar.

These buffs can then be agumented with essentia (each meld has a max +1 point of essential of augment per ~6 character levels) The fun bit is, though you have a limited pool of essentia (you start with 1 point and progression is just over 1 a level with the incarnate), this essentia can be redistributed every turn if you want, different amounts in different melds as you see fit.
Most essentia investment results in a linear augment of the base ability.

It should be worth nothing that Incarnates are somewhat alignment related / dependent. they need a neutral component and some melds are alignment restricted, or have varying effects based on alignment.

They're probably a little front heavy, so they're great for dipping and a lot of the feats are amiable to non incarnum classes (typically providing 1 point of essentia of their own, but are fixed investment / day).

Im currently running a soulknife 3 / incarnate 2 planning on another 2 incarnate levels and all 5 illumine soul levels and loving it :)
johnkretzer
11-23-06, 02:09 PM The party is Ranger, scout, sorcerer, favored soul, and fighter. What would be a good 6th class? And why? My first thought was bard.

The party base roles are pretty much covered. So whatever you want to play.
shinjinbukai
11-23-06, 05:16 PM Druid or Wizard.
Matthew77
11-23-06, 07:45 PM Your only Divine caster is the favored soul, so you could play a Cleric and take the spells the FS doesn't know.

If your FS has healing spells, go with a buffing cleric, and if your FS is buffing, memorize healing spells.
Rurik "The Silent"
11-23-06, 08:49 PM The party is Ranger, scout, sorcerer, favored soul, and fighter. What would be a good 6th class? And why? My first thought was bard.

if you are in a situation where you are low level and there might be a lot of traps ide say rogue. becasue while the scout can find traps they have limited ability to disable them.

Also in a situation with 2-4 melee fighters. (2 assuming only the favored soul and fighter. 4 if the hunter and scout are melee). Rogue is always a good choice with accompinaied with other melee fighters espically when the others seem generally more threatening. The flanking in melee allows for the rogue to dish out a lot fo extra damage while hopefully minimizing damage to himself and the rest of the party by killing things quicker.

Also, as previously stated another class with the ability to heal would be of benifit.
Elemental_Elf
11-23-06, 09:02 PM Shugenja would be fun! Maybe a Shugenja/Fighter in Full-Plate and a Tower Shield! :D

Spirit Shaman or a Druid might be a fun class, esspecially seeing as how your party sorta has that nature theme going for it. Plus both classes have options when it comes to spells, at least for their choices, that can make you a worthy addition.

A Spell Theif might be a fun add as they can, as long as you focus on Sneak Attack/Flanking and skill sets your allies don't use.

If you have the Oriental Adventures, the Shoei class would be a lot of fun. They're kind like a Monkish-Paladin-Barbarian. They have the versatility you might need, at least when it coems to combat and spells. Speaking of the OA, why not use the Shaman? Its kind of like a Monk-Cleric-Druid. They have the skill points, Animal Companion and Spells your party might need in many different situations.
MerrikCale
11-23-06, 09:23 PM How well does the Spirit Shaman play?
Ashok_Lal
11-23-06, 11:15 PM Cleric!?
Elemental_Elf
11-24-06, 12:45 AM How well does the Spirit Shaman play?

Played one once, it turned out pretty well. I love the unique combination of the Prepared Spells and Spells Known with the SS class. That's the biggest draw to the class. The ability to deal with Spirits is also amazing BUT you have to actually come in contact with them, which can be either totally common or totally non existent, depending on your campaign. If your DM is smart and/or nice, than he will try to include non-corporeal creatures into his/her campaign; if s/he isn't nice then your abilities may be totally useless.

A lot of the fun for a Spirit Shaman Player hinges on the addition of Spirits into the campaign. For me that wasn't much of a problem because I enjoyed the versatility of the spells very much. And I was able to use my abilities once-in-a-while, so it wasn't too bad. Even still, some may feel as if the class abilities sorta gimp the class w/o Enemy Spirits, so you'd have to make that decision for yourself.

~~~

You know thinking about it, if the Spirit Shaman doesn't work out, then you may look into the Dread Necromancer. Your party doesn't have a really effective undead hater (besides perhaps the Ranger). A Dread Necromancer would be a good addition because it is a unique class whose abilities fill in some of the weaknesses of your party. Plus the class is very much not in the norm for your party, so the potential RP is very high.
CryoSilver
11-24-06, 12:47 AM Archivist FTW!
Comus
11-24-06, 01:44 AM Hmmm... I suggest a Warmage/Evoker/Ultimate Magus. That party needs some Boom. Even if it has some, it needs more. Besides, you know you want to roll all of your d6s at once.
Meshakhad
11-24-06, 02:52 AM Rogue or other class with Disable Device.
Max the Immortal
11-24-06, 03:52 AM A rogue would work well; you could use a guy to deal with traps and locks (unless your DM doesn't throw many of them at you). With so many other melee characters on the field, getting into a good flanking position should be relatively easy.

Cleric is always a good choice. They're fun to roleplay, they're good in melee, great against undead, and will be able to take some of the healing burden off the favored soul (and in turn won't be burdened as the party's only healer).

Considering that the party already has a sorcerer, a wizard could focus more on being either a utility caster or a buffer.
Zumarai
11-24-06, 05:26 AM Don't know much about the savant. What do they do? and where is their info?

The Savant is a class from the Dragon Compendium Vol. I.

Very interesting support class. I'm at work right now so I can't give as much info as I would like, but here goes from memory (someone please correct me if I’m wrong):

-Medium BAB

-They have a certain number per day and list of arcane spell (up to 4th level), and a separate divine spells number per day and list (also up to 4th level).

-They have a great Skill list, and have an ability to let other members of the party use their ranks when making a Skill check, but the other member still uses his/her own Skill modifier (Str, Int etc).

They have some other goodies too, but I can't recall at the moment.

If you get a chance, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the Dragon Compendium Vol. I. It's got something for everyone – new races, feats, classes, weapons, spells, monsters etc.
shinjinbukai
11-24-06, 11:49 AM -Utility Buffing Wizard (Bull str, Enlarge Person, etc)

-Cleric (and if you dont want to play the heal-spam go True N and take Fire and Earth as your domains, and choose the side of "good" for the healing spontaneous thing.)
kelvinaw273
11-24-06, 12:27 PM The party is Ranger, scout, sorcerer, favored soul, and fighter. What would be a good 6th class? And why? My first thought was bard.

I would say that:

1) you could still profit from a Wizard or Cleric for flexible casting (maybe go Mystic Theurge?).

2) Bard would work well - general all-rounder if weak in combat, and a handy 'face'.

3) Monk would also work, as a 'proof' character that always has a good chance of making a save.

4) A straight rogue would work well too.
Morrowner
11-24-06, 03:00 PM Bards work best when you have
5 or more members other than the Bard
Classes that like to hit things.
2 or more classes that like to hit things but have 3/4 BAB or worse.
Check for all three of them. Buff/debuff spells plus a good Inspire Courage number(4 as early as level 4, can be increased with further feats and equipment to the early double digits later on) and the group will be all over you. The damage given out from Inspire Courage will be pretty substantial and if you take over buff jobs you lower the burden on the Favored Soul and Sorcerer.
The Inspire Courage+Haste thing should be worth at least 40+ damage a round every time you pull it and the scout will love getting +30 feet of movement, another move action, and another attack when full round attacking.
This is almost the ideal smaller sized party to get your bard groove on so if you've always wanted to play one do it.
Ryusage
11-25-06, 09:01 AM Your only Divine caster is the favored soul, so you could play a Cleric and take the spells the FS doesn't know.

If your FS has healing spells, go with a buffing cleric, and if your FS is buffing, memorize healing spells.

Clerics generally do not need to memorize healing spells...

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MerrikCale 11-23-06, 10:58 AM	The party is Ranger, scout, sorcerer, favored soul, and fighter. What would be a good 6th class? And why? My first thought was bard.
babysamurai 11-23-06, 11:24 AM	You've got everything pretty much covered, so anything would be fine. But since you asked: Bard (obviously) Incarnate (change his/her role daily) Savant (another great jack of all trades) Dragon Shaman (secondary fighter, buff, heal) Binder (similar to incarnate) Truenamer (buff, secondary fighter)
psionichamster 11-23-06, 11:37 AM	Bard. FTW. skills, songs, magic, charisma, and social-skill-set (which may be lacking in your party at this point) also, it lets you take Mindbender, and get telepathy for your inner-party-communication needs. also worth looking into: Rogue. dependin on what your scout and ranger are missing, you can be the infiltrator, second scout, and have lots of flanking buddies. Beguiler. lets the sorc be the blaster/utility guy, so you can be the illusionist/controller/special teams kinda guy (spiderclimb/haste/slow especially) basically, be someone w/ a bunch of skill points, and you can tailor yourself to fill in the gaps. -the hamster
Orchomenos 11-23-06, 11:43 AM	You have a fighter, and with the ranger and scout you have two secondary fighters. A Bard would be cool, or a generalist wizard or cleric.
DracoPhoenix 11-23-06, 11:50 AM	As mentioned, you have all the bases covered, so it's pretty much what ever the player wants. I'd suggest one of the below: Incarnate (current personal favourite) Wizard, Psion, Togue / Totemist Soulknife / Illumine soul Druid
MerrikCale 11-23-06, 12:02 PM	Don't know much about the incarnate and savant. What do they do? and where is their info?
DarkRhystar 11-23-06, 12:40 PM	The party is Ranger, scout, sorcerer, favored soul, and fighter. What would be a good 6th class? And why? My first thought was bard. With so many melee-types, I'm thinking the Dragon Shaman and its auras would be greatly appreciated. A Rogue of some sort may be helpful as you could split the required skills down the middle with the Scout so you'd both have plenty left over for other things. If you have access to Tome of Battle, I'd highly recommend a Swordsage or Warblade as they're powerful and fairly versatile (although you might make the Fighter/Ranger a little jealous). As always, Druid is recommended simply for its ability to fill a variety of roles.
MerlintheTuna 11-23-06, 12:57 PM	Again, some echos. Bard: He's got skill points to cover for any general-purpose things that aren't already covered by the Scout, and he can do a bit of sneaking on his own. His bardic music will get a lot of mileage because of the size of the group -- Inspire Courage alone will seriously jack up your party's firepower. Dragon Shaman: Again, area buffing is good. You'll get a lot of mileage out of auras here, and the bit of extra healing will be appreciated by the Favored Soul's player. Warlock: Warlocks can't cover the party's general Arcanist purposes, but if you've already got a Sorc, he'll be just dandy. A very flexible class that can take some pressure off of the spellcasters, do some extra scouting if that's your bag, and can do some much-appreciated crafting. Warmage/Beguiler: Like the Warlock, these two can't cover the general arcane role, but they can take pressure off of the Sorcerer and his piddly list of spells known, and they're both fairly competent on their own as well. Monk: A monk can't go toe-to-toe with the big guys, but he's got mobility, and with that many allies tying people up, that can help out a lot -- especially since large parties tend to lead to minion-filled battles rather than battles against one huge guy. His solid magical defenses (saves, Evasion, immunities, SR) also make for a good safety-valve character; if something bad goes down (party gets Mind Blasted, etc.) he can stall for time until people come around.
DracoPhoenix 11-23-06, 01:35 PM	Don't know much about the incarnate and savant. What do they do? and where is their info? Not familiar with savants myself, but Incarnates are from Magic of Incarnum. The have access to soul melds which are effectively buffs per day (nothing too over powering (CO board not withstanding)). Melds correspond to body slots and that binding a meld (limited ability) prevents a magic item on the same body slot working, but usually has a pretty powerful effect (not game destroying). You can only have one meld per body slot, though an unbound meld can share the same slot as a magic item. Incarnates have mainly combat related melds, Totemists have mainly skill or special ability related melds. Then it gets a bit more complicated, the buffs - ranging from special attacks to skill boosts to save/AC buffs to outright special abilities (eg. limited dimension doors - 10ft as a standard action & cant do anything afterwards that round). Attack ability buffs tend to revolve around 1d6 base damage (things like lightining touch attack). There's not normally a use per day limit, but most active abilities are limited to 1 a round or similar. These buffs can then be agumented with essentia (each meld has a max +1 point of essential of augment per ~6 character levels) The fun bit is, though you have a limited pool of essentia (you start with 1 point and progression is just over 1 a level with the incarnate), this essentia can be redistributed every turn if you want, different amounts in different melds as you see fit. Most essentia investment results in a linear augment of the base ability. It should be worth nothing that Incarnates are somewhat alignment related / dependent. they need a neutral component and some melds are alignment restricted, or have varying effects based on alignment. They're probably a little front heavy, so they're great for dipping and a lot of the feats are amiable to non incarnum classes (typically providing 1 point of essentia of their own, but are fixed investment / day). Im currently running a soulknife 3 / incarnate 2 planning on another 2 incarnate levels and all 5 illumine soul levels and loving it :)
johnkretzer 11-23-06, 02:09 PM	The party is Ranger, scout, sorcerer, favored soul, and fighter. What would be a good 6th class? And why? My first thought was bard. The party base roles are pretty much covered. So whatever you want to play.
shinjinbukai 11-23-06, 05:16 PM	Druid or Wizard.
Matthew77 11-23-06, 07:45 PM	Your only Divine caster is the favored soul, so you could play a Cleric and take the spells the FS doesn't know. If your FS has healing spells, go with a buffing cleric, and if your FS is buffing, memorize healing spells.
Rurik "The Silent" 11-23-06, 08:49 PM	The party is Ranger, scout, sorcerer, favored soul, and fighter. What would be a good 6th class? And why? My first thought was bard. if you are in a situation where you are low level and there might be a lot of traps ide say rogue. becasue while the scout can find traps they have limited ability to disable them. Also in a situation with 2-4 melee fighters. (2 assuming only the favored soul and fighter. 4 if the hunter and scout are melee). Rogue is always a good choice with accompinaied with other melee fighters espically when the others seem generally more threatening. The flanking in melee allows for the rogue to dish out a lot fo extra damage while hopefully minimizing damage to himself and the rest of the party by killing things quicker. Also, as previously stated another class with the ability to heal would be of benifit.
Elemental_Elf 11-23-06, 09:02 PM	Shugenja would be fun! Maybe a Shugenja/Fighter in Full-Plate and a Tower Shield! :D Spirit Shaman or a Druid might be a fun class, esspecially seeing as how your party sorta has that nature theme going for it. Plus both classes have options when it comes to spells, at least for their choices, that can make you a worthy addition. A Spell Theif might be a fun add as they can, as long as you focus on Sneak Attack/Flanking and skill sets your allies don't use. If you have the Oriental Adventures, the Shoei class would be a lot of fun. They're kind like a Monkish-Paladin-Barbarian. They have the versatility you might need, at least when it coems to combat and spells. Speaking of the OA, why not use the Shaman? Its kind of like a Monk-Cleric-Druid. They have the skill points, Animal Companion and Spells your party might need in many different situations.
MerrikCale 11-23-06, 09:23 PM	How well does the Spirit Shaman play?
Ashok_Lal 11-23-06, 11:15 PM	Cleric!?
Elemental_Elf 11-24-06, 12:45 AM	How well does the Spirit Shaman play? Played one once, it turned out pretty well. I love the unique combination of the Prepared Spells and Spells Known with the SS class. That's the biggest draw to the class. The ability to deal with Spirits is also amazing BUT you have to actually come in contact with them, which can be either totally common or totally non existent, depending on your campaign. If your DM is smart and/or nice, than he will try to include non-corporeal creatures into his/her campaign; if s/he isn't nice then your abilities may be totally useless. A lot of the fun for a Spirit Shaman Player hinges on the addition of Spirits into the campaign. For me that wasn't much of a problem because I enjoyed the versatility of the spells very much. And I was able to use my abilities once-in-a-while, so it wasn't too bad. Even still, some may feel as if the class abilities sorta gimp the class w/o Enemy Spirits, so you'd have to make that decision for yourself. ~~~ You know thinking about it, if the Spirit Shaman doesn't work out, then you may look into the Dread Necromancer. Your party doesn't have a really effective undead hater (besides perhaps the Ranger). A Dread Necromancer would be a good addition because it is a unique class whose abilities fill in some of the weaknesses of your party. Plus the class is very much not in the norm for your party, so the potential RP is very high.
CryoSilver 11-24-06, 12:47 AM	Archivist FTW!
Comus 11-24-06, 01:44 AM	Hmmm... I suggest a Warmage/Evoker/Ultimate Magus. That party needs some Boom. Even if it has some, it needs more. Besides, you know you want to roll all of your d6s at once.
Meshakhad 11-24-06, 02:52 AM	Rogue or other class with Disable Device.
Max the Immortal 11-24-06, 03:52 AM	A rogue would work well; you could use a guy to deal with traps and locks (unless your DM doesn't throw many of them at you). With so many other melee characters on the field, getting into a good flanking position should be relatively easy. Cleric is always a good choice. They're fun to roleplay, they're good in melee, great against undead, and will be able to take some of the healing burden off the favored soul (and in turn won't be burdened as the party's only healer). Considering that the party already has a sorcerer, a wizard could focus more on being either a utility caster or a buffer.
Zumarai 11-24-06, 05:26 AM	Don't know much about the savant. What do they do? and where is their info? The Savant is a class from the Dragon Compendium Vol. I. Very interesting support class. I'm at work right now so I can't give as much info as I would like, but here goes from memory (someone please correct me if I’m wrong): -Medium BAB -They have a certain number per day and list of arcane spell (up to 4th level), and a separate divine spells number per day and list (also up to 4th level). -They have a great Skill list, and have an ability to let other members of the party use their ranks when making a Skill check, but the other member still uses his/her own Skill modifier (Str, Int etc). They have some other goodies too, but I can't recall at the moment. If you get a chance, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the Dragon Compendium Vol. I. It's got something for everyone – new races, feats, classes, weapons, spells, monsters etc.
shinjinbukai 11-24-06, 11:49 AM	-Utility Buffing Wizard (Bull str, Enlarge Person, etc) -Cleric (and if you dont want to play the heal-spam go True N and take Fire and Earth as your domains, and choose the side of "good" for the healing spontaneous thing.)
kelvinaw273 11-24-06, 12:27 PM	The party is Ranger, scout, sorcerer, favored soul, and fighter. What would be a good 6th class? And why? My first thought was bard. I would say that: 1) you could still profit from a Wizard or Cleric for flexible casting (maybe go Mystic Theurge?). 2) Bard would work well - general all-rounder if weak in combat, and a handy 'face'. 3) Monk would also work, as a 'proof' character that always has a good chance of making a save. 4) A straight rogue would work well too.
Morrowner 11-24-06, 03:00 PM	Bards work best when you have 5 or more members other than the Bard Classes that like to hit things. 2 or more classes that like to hit things but have 3/4 BAB or worse. Check for all three of them. Buff/debuff spells plus a good Inspire Courage number(4 as early as level 4, can be increased with further feats and equipment to the early double digits later on) and the group will be all over you. The damage given out from Inspire Courage will be pretty substantial and if you take over buff jobs you lower the burden on the Favored Soul and Sorcerer. The Inspire Courage+Haste thing should be worth at least 40+ damage a round every time you pull it and the scout will love getting +30 feet of movement, another move action, and another attack when full round attacking. This is almost the ideal smaller sized party to get your bard groove on so if you've always wanted to play one do it.
Ryusage 11-25-06, 09:01 AM	Your only Divine caster is the favored soul, so you could play a Cleric and take the spells the FS doesn't know. If your FS has healing spells, go with a buffing cleric, and if your FS is buffing, memorize healing spells. Clerics generally do not need to memorize healing spells...