- Barbarian: Max BAB +20, Hit dice d12, Skill Points per level 4+ INT, Max saves Fort 12 / Ref 6 / Will 6
- General: Almost any class (except for Monks, Paladins, and some Clerics) would benefit from the maximum health (d12), maximum BAB progression (1/1), and extra speed if nothing else, but especially spellcasters which have to depend on HP due to restrictions on armor, and the STR bonus from Rage would make up for STR being the traditional spellcaster-dump-stat (albiet at a penalty to AC, but one could still cast "Mage Armor" on oneself before going into a no-spells Rage).
- Specific: Wizards and Barbarians have significantly different class skills, which makes a wizard's assumed-to-be-high INT even more useful.
- Bard: +15, d6, 4+, 6/12/12
- General: More dependent on the other class than vice versa
- Specific: Rogues would benefit from any spellcaster that could provide flanking (Summon Monster and/or Dominate Person) or ways of denying defenders a DEX bonus to AC (Greater Invisibility), but would not necessarily have to be the spellcaster in question, making this a possible distraction against combining Rogue with another combat class and simply having a spellcasting ally.
- Cleric: +15, d8, 2+, 12/6/12
- General: Good with any WIS/CHA dominant class (Paladin, Sorcerer, some Rogues)
- Specific: (see Bard about Rogues/spellcasters) Monks provide the fastest movement for going to allies for healing, high AC, and there is less MAD than with Monks + other spellcasters
- Druid: +15, d8, 4+, 12/6/12
- General: Wild Shape works well with anything that provides the maximum BAB (except for Paladins) for more attacks and would allow spellcasters/archers to defend themselves if enemies get close
- Specific:
- Fighter: +20, d10, 2+, 12/6/6
- General: Maximum BAB works well with any combat-class that would have fewer attacks otherwise, high health protects anything that would've had lower, archery feats go well with spellcasters and/or anything that can become stronger up close (Barbarian, Druid)
- Specific:
- Monk +15, d8, 4+, 12/12/12
- General: Increased speed/AC/health allow spellcasters to cast more "Range: touch" spells against enemies that they would generally stay away from, but high risk of MAD
- Specific: (see Cleric) Unarmed strikes would eventually benefit from the high-level Paladin spell "Holy Sword," as combining both Flurry with max BAB and high AC with high Reflex saves would make sacrificing heavy armor more worthwhile
- Paladin: +20, d10, 2+, 12/6/6
- General: Maximum BAB, high health
- Specific: (see Monk)
- Ranger: +20, d8, 6+, 12/12/6
- General: Maximum BAB, spellcasters could benefit from having archery feats, non-casters would benefit from even more attacks per turn from the TWF chain
- Specific: Rogues could select favored enemies to be more competent against enemies generally immune to Sneak Attack, both classes are encouraged to use the same armor (light-none)
- Rogue: +15, d6, 8+, 6/12/6
- General: Massive extra damage works really well with anything that deals more attacks per turn (Ranger/Fighter for BAB + high health + TWF, Monk for Flurry, Barbarian for BAB + max health), high assumed DEX works well with anything requiring little-no armor (Monks, Rangers, spellcasters)
- Specific: (see Rogue/spellcaster, Ranger)
- Sorcerer: +10, d4, 2+, 6/6/12
- General: Increased spell-casting ability for anything CHA-dominant (Bard, Cleric, Paladin, some Rogue) that can go without armor (Paladins should have enough health to make it work)
- Specific: (see Rogue/spellcaster)
- Wizard: +10, d4, 2+, 6/6/12
- General: Assumed high-INT works well with high skill point classes (especially Ranger or Rogue)
- Specific: (see Barbarian, Rogue/spellcaster)
Paladin + Sorceror gives high saves, full BAB, full casting (though a level behind the wizard), and Charisma synergy. You'll have crap for skill points, however.
...And since when do skill points really matter? Worst case scenario, be a human with intelligence above 10.
I'm also gonna have to bring up Druid/Cleric. And fighter is a respectable addition to just about anything.
I do love, though, how the OP was claiming rogues get "massive damage." It was lulzy.
Ranger/Cloistered Cleric (Uses another UA variant) Full BAB, Full saves, amazing class skill list (6+Int skills), great Wis synergy. Only d8 hd though
Bard/Barbarian Full BAB, All good saves, amazing combat bonus's (some of which apply to allies), D12 HD, can't cast or perform while raging (song in motion remains in motion however)
Druid/Rogue All good saves, can make mad sneak attacks/round at a fairly early level (5 really), has amazing skills. Another combo with only d8 HD though, and 3/4 BAB
There's a nice list of non-core stuff we messed with as well but I'll save that.
Wildshape Ranger/Cloistered Cleric (Uses another UA variant) Full BAB, Full saves, amazing class skill list (6+Int skills), great Wis synergy,. Only d8 hd though
EA, he says extra damage. They do get one of the easier access bonus damage progressions, especially when you're talking core, he also explicitly indicates a bonus to adding it onto multiple attacks. No Rogue's not amazing damage, but in a core environment when all you've really got for melee damage are Power Attack, Sneak Attack and Favored Enemy, it's pretty good.
No, it still really isn't. Sneak attack always has been crap. It's that simple.
A Rogue's only real function is to play a wannabe wizard through UMD.
I've been toying with the idea of a streetfighter barbarian // deadly hunter druid. It doesn't really pay off until 19th level though. Still, you'd be a competent caster and ubercharger before that, so you could live to see 19th level.
The second one though, regardless of what you say Sneak Attack is an excellent source of damage, most top end monsters for example are not immune to sneak attack, over CR 18 anyway. You add 35 damage per attack even with two weapon fighting vs a power attack of +20 damage per attack or +40 per with a two handed weapon, and you take 0 attack penalty for it. The conditions are easy to meet against most monsters as well.
Oh well, some creatures are immune. So don't put all your eggs in one basket and have the ol' UMD crutch to fall back on so you can pretend your a wizard if need be. If you want to be really weird pretend to be a wizard pretending to be a rogue, or fighter.
The second one though, regardless of what you say Sneak Attack is an excellent source of damage, most top end monsters for example are not immune to sneak attack, over CR 18 anyway. You add 35 damage per attack even with two weapon fighting vs a power attack of +20 damage per attack or +40 per with a two handed weapon, and you take 0 attack penalty for it. The conditions are easy to meet against most monsters as well.
Thirty-five damage that's beyond easy to avoid? On mediocre BAB? Especially with Two-Weapon Missing? I'll stick with a power-attacking greatsword. If your party members(Or just you, if you're clever) are doing their jobs, missing should be basically impossible.
Oh well, some creatures are immune. So don't put all your eggs in one basket and have the ol' UMD crutch to fall back on so you can pretend your a wizard if need be. If you want to be really weird pretend to be a wizard pretending to be a rogue, or fighter.
Meh. Point. I just prefer playing a wizard, rather than an easy to shut down, hideously expensive wizard.
As someone who's put together Gestalts recently, I've got a few things to say about them. Fair warning, I avoid alternate spell systems (psionics, incarnum, ToB) like the plague.
#1) Cleric/Wizard is a 1 level dip that can be VERY nice for any class combo, even if you're just after domain abilities and a Raven familiar. Fighter Feat Wizard alternate class feature and Cloistered Cleric can let these fit together better with your standing class configuration.
#2) Fighter feat or vanilla Rogue is a great choice for when fighter classes have outlived their usefulness. Keep Barbarian or a prestige class around for the full BAB and bathe in those Rogue skill points and fun abilities.
#3) Mixing two full casters can painfully strain your action economy. Each character can only do so many things, and I'll guarantee you that your HP will run out long before your useful spells do.
#4) While the entire party taking the same 1/2 of a Gestalt (Barbarian/X, Wizard/X, Cleric/X, etc) may seem silly, it can actually be a benefit. Each member can specialize on a different aspect of that half and the ability to easily concentrate the party’s items onto the best fit for a situation is a big aid. Plus there’s the RP of it. (The Bard Brothers: Rhythm and Blues Review. Kung Fu dungeon crawl.)
#5) Familiars in this enviroment are awesome. For someone with full BAB and huge hit dice, those little buggers can be almost unkillable.
#6) Unthinkable things become possible. You can get into prestige classes that would otherwise violate “Thou shall never lose a caster level” by pairing them with casting progression when they would normally lose it. Rage mage being almost useful? Madness!
EA, he says extra damage.
Actually, I had used the word "massive," but now I feel like a newb for not knowing about even more powerful extra damage classes and would love to know what they are
Since I didn't know as much as I thought I did, could my thought process on "SA is awesome" be picked to pieces please?
Thirty-five damage that's beyond easy to avoid?
I was under the impression that is was really easy to deal SA (except against undead, constructs, etc. but one could gestalt for "favored enemy"), what with:
Telling Blow + Improved Critical
Improved Feint + "A bajillion points in Bluff"
Improved Initiative + Move Silently for catching enemies flat-footed
allies for flanking
spellcasting allies for casting "Summon Monster" for flanking or "Greater Invsibility" for denying DEX bonus
On mediocre BAB?
Not if gestalted with a Fighter, Ranger, or a Barbarian
Especially with Two-Weapon Missing? I'll stick with a power-attacking greatsword. If your party members(Or just you, if you're clever) are doing their jobs, missing should be basically impossible.
I would've thought that the TWF chain would be better than Power Attack:
With G-TWF, +20/+15/+10/+5 becomes +18/+18/+13/+13/+8/+8/+3 to-hit at +35 damage per hit (+55 with Craven)
With Power Attack, +20/+15/+10/+5 becomes -0/-5/-10/-15 to-hit at +20 damage per hit (+40 with two-handed weapon)
Monk without Monk >>> Monk
Rogue 1 / Druid 19 // Ghost 5 / Monk 2 / near cut-paste a very old core Archer tag on
EA, he says extra damage.
Actually, I had used the word "massive," but now I feel like a newb for not knowing about even more powerful extra damage classes and would love to know what they are
Since I didn't know as much as I thought I did, could my thought process on "SA is awesome" be picked to pieces please?
Basically, it's pretty easy to get immunity to precision damage (which shuts down critical hits and sneak attack, although most of the blanket immunities can be bypassed with Use Magic Device or the Swift Hunter feat), and while that damage does boost up per hit, the classes that get such bonus damage typically don't lend themselves well to multiple actual hits. (Not only do they need a full-round action to get multiple attacks - which means they need to start their turn next to the target in most cases - most sneak attack classes have medium base attack and lack bonus feats, which means they get fewer attacks, fewer of the attacks they do get will actually hit the target, and they'll have less flexibility in selecting feats since they'll need to learn the Two-Weapon Fighting tree - which further penalizes attack rolls).
Compare to Power Attack, which scales slightly faster, is much harder to block (I think only the Elusive Target feat can actually negate it), and synergizes better with other effects (i.e. anything that doubles damage - and there's a lot of those - will multiply the power attack bonus damage directly). It's not hard to dish out well over half (and in some cases, all) of the average monster's HP in damage on a good power attack / charge build, for instance. (If you look for more info on this, the usual shorthand is "ubercharging".) Not to mention that if you're fighting something where the 3/4 base attack rogue can hit reliably, then the full base attack warriors can take a pretty beefy Power Attack and have the same chances to hit.
This also sets aside how it's often better to use non-damaging methods in gameplay (i.e. a monster at 1 HP fights as well as it would if it had 400 HP, so why are you whittling down those hit points instead of just saying "you're not fighting me anymore" with a spell that removes them from battle?), since if you're drawn to sneak attack, you probably aren't interested in playing a spellcaster.
It is possible to get a +20 base attack, +12d6 character with the full TWF tree without resorting to magic or gestalt, but it's not actually all that good except in that one dimension and it comes online rather late. (Specifically, you go Swashbuckler 20, grab the Martial Study (Cloak of Deception) and Martial Stance (Assassin's Stance) feats, and then grab Daring Outlaw.)
Thirty-five damage that's beyond easy to avoid?
I was under the impression that is was really easy to deal SA (except against undead, constructs, etc. but one could gestalt for "favored enemy"), what with:
Telling Blow + Improved Critical
Improved Feint + "A bajillion points in Bluff"
Improved Initiative + Move Silently for catching enemies flat-footed
allies for flanking
spellcasting allies for casting "Summon Monster" for flanking or "Greater Invsibility" for denying DEX bonus
All of these are actually easy to foil in their own way even against critters that aren't blanket-SA-immune. Improved Critical has a high base attack requirement which puts it outside the reach of most rogues, and the rogue is feat-starved enough to consider Telling Blow a poor investment as a result (not to mention it leaves it up to chance, and they still need to confirm the critical hit...). Improved Feint only gives them time for a single attack afterwards even if it works (remember that critters get their base attack as a bonus to resist feints!), which means the biggest advantage to Sneak Attack (that it works on multiple hits) is negated. Flat-footedness is unreliable at best and easy to negate in many cases, particularly once good detection spells or feats come online (and this is usually around levels 5 or 6). Flanking bonuses are among the most reliable here, and even they aren't too hard to shut down (Improved Uncanny Dodge).
Then there's the unspoken drawback: It takes a full-round action to make multiple attacks. Without action advantage in some other way, this means you're nailed to the floor if you want to take advantage of sneak attack's per-hit nature (and, quite likely, about half of your feats). The easiest way to avoid this problem while staying a warrior-centric character - namely, using the Tome of Battle - also provides you with better alternatives to over-specializing on Sneak Attack.
On mediocre BAB?
Not if gestalted with a Fighter, Ranger, or a Barbarian
Gestalt changes a lot of things, but as I was pointing out with my Daring Outlaw suggestion above, it still won't be all that impressive compared to what else is available.
For instance, a while back, someone asked for help on a gestalt barbarian//rogue. He wasn't sure if he should use the feat rogue variant (no sneak attack, but gets the fighter's bonus feats) or the sneak attack rogue. On such a character, TWF+Sneak Attack well underperformed what he could get with Power Attack and a two-hander, and the second one cost fewer feats anyway. The benefit from +10d6 Sneak Attack on such a character is small compared to what you can do with the fighter's bonus feats.
I think, of those three, only the ranger//rogue could make SA worthwhile, and even then it relies on magic (specifically, Hunter's Eye, which gives him increased sneak attack; not to mention wand chambers with the bypass-critical-hit-immunity spells in them), unusual feat choices (Practiced Spellcaster, needed to hit a particular breakpoint on the spell (Ranger 20+PSc+orange ioun stone = CL 15, or +5d6 sneak attack; Ranger 20 would only give +3d6); Assassin's Stance and the PHB2 spring attack feats might help here too), and willingly giving up better choices (in this case, the wild shape ranger variant, since UA is already allowed, and Wraithstrike, which also benefits PA better than it does SA). Interestingly, Ranger is also useful in bypassing blanket critical hit immunity in other places as well (it's the backbone of the Swift Hunter style of builds, which rely on Skirmish (related to Sneak Attack), and can uniquely bypass critical hit immunity on favored enemies). Despite this, ranger is still considered a generally poor class on its own; it's only in gestalt pairings (or Swift Hunters) that effects like this begin to show up.
Especially with Two-Weapon Missing? I'll stick with a power-attacking greatsword. If your party members(Or just you, if you're clever) are doing their jobs, missing should be basically impossible.
I would've thought that the TWF chain would be better than Power Attack:
With G-TWF, +20/+15/+10/+5 becomes +18/+18/+13/+13/+8/+8/+3 to-hit at +35 damage per hit (+55 with Craven)
With Power Attack, +20/+15/+10/+5 becomes -0/-5/-10/-15 to-hit at +20 damage per hit (+40 with two-handed weapon)
You're not factoring in the opponent's AC nor the base weapon damage here. -20 might not be the optimal power attack for this situation.
Similarly, if you're allowing the rogue Craven and three feats spent on TWF, then you should allow the warrior Improved Bull Rush, Shock Trooper, and Leap Attack plus the pounce ability (the same cost in feats, except you can get all four by level 6 without gestalt with Barbarian 2 / Fighter 4; if you're using UA that's probably Wolf Totem Barbarian, so you have Improved Trip as well), which means that the attack routine would actually be +22/+17/+12/+7 at +80 damage per hit.
As for the "if your allies are doing their job" thing - it's not hard for teammates to buff the entire team or debuff the target to the point where the fighter will still "always" hit on most attacks even with a significant Power Attack penalty. A prone target, for instance, gives melee attacks against it an extra +4, and if you're alreay accurate enough to begin with, you just shunt that over to extra damage with PA at the same level of accuracy. (To put this in context, you might follow the Dead for Nothing link in my signature - and that's pretty far from the upper limit of what's possible!)
Since I didn't know as much as I thought I did, could my thought process on "SA is awesome" be picked to pieces please?
Gladly. First off, it doesn't work. I mean, it's mediocre damage, basically always outpaced by Power Attack, and everything and their dog is immune to. Beyond functional immunity being below 3000GP, and several types being totally immune to it, everything that's capable of casting spells will be immune to it, through things like the mediocre, but low level, Living Undeath, Stone Body, Iron Body, etc. There's no excuse for anything with WBL or casting to be hit by it, and, really, if it isn't equiped with magic items, doesn't have spellcasting, and lets you get near it, it probably wasn't a threat to begin with.
I was under the impression that is was really easy to deal SA (except against undead, constructs, etc. but one could gestalt for "favored enemy"), what with:
Telling Blow + Improved Critical
Crap. Keen Kukris is fine, but there are better crit-fishing build than rogues, anyways.
Improved Feint + "A bajillion points in Bluff"
I'm just going to say "hell no," and leave it at that. Feint is truly awful.
Improved Initiative + Move Silently for catching enemies flat-footed
Until you run into anything with decent senses.
allies for flanking
spellcasting allies for casting "Summon Monster" for flanking or "Greater Invsibility" for denying DEX bonus
And here, you're running into the problem of having the caster buddy do all the real work.
Not if gestalted with a Fighter, Ranger, or a Barbarian
And a better(And by better, I mean actually decent) combination would be superior. Power Attack is simply superior to sneak attack at all times.
I would've thought that the TWF chain would be better than Power Attack:
With G-TWF, +20/+15/+10/+5 becomes +18/+18/+13/+13/+8/+8/+3 to-hit at +35 damage per hit (+55 with Craven)
With Power Attack, +20/+15/+10/+5 becomes -0/-5/-10/-15 to-hit at +20 damage per hit (+40 with two-handed weapon)
AC is LOL. Especially with WBL. So you're looking at +40 plus a higher strength score versus a couple of piddly attacks that eat up a huge number of feats, and get shut down by everything and their dog.
So, sneak attack is great at killing things that weren't dangerous anways. I don't view that as particularly valuable.
I can go on, but I'm tired and I think I got everything important, anyways.
I'm just going to say "hell no," and leave it at that. Feint is truly awful.
Actually, a newb (like me) looking for new information from people who have been doing this longer would probably like some clarification (thank you Tempest_Stormwind for the reminder about the target adding their BAB to the Sense Motive check.)