4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

These articles were written by Jackelope King, and published on a previous bulletin board. They were extremely popular at the time, but were believed to be lost due to a server crash. Well I had… *ahem* kept a separate copy, and ended up not getting reconnected with the boards for a long time. I still find them an inspiring read today, I so I feel the should be available to the community again. Thank you JK!

The articles cover each of the base classes in order, and then each of the Presitge classes from the DMG.

Behold, 3.5 in its finest hour.

3.5 Power Play- Barbarian
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What’s Changed?
The new 3.5E barbarian is built to encourage players to go straight through to level 20 with it. Here’s what’ we’re looking at:
- Better damage reduction (5/- instead of 4/- at level 20, starts at level 7 instead of level 11)
- Better raging (“no longer winded” earlier, “greater rage” earlier, and the new “mighty rage”)
- Better uncanny dodge (now “trap sense” and “uncanny dodge”, “trap sense” goes up to +6 instead of just +4)
- Better saves while raging (“Indomitable will” is a huge boost to the otherwise weak-willed barbarian)

General tactics
At lower levels, it is usually better to save your rage for the tough encounter of the day. However, rage also works very well as a your “second wind” in combat. Don’t be afraid to rage if your hit points are looking low and you need to extend yourself in a fight, or the last foe in a tough encounter needs to be dropped fast. Try to get a feel for when an encounter is worth raging and whether or not an encounter might be the only one for the day. However, try to save a rage for an unexpected ambush or a nighttime raid on your camp.

Be sure to use your increased speed to your advantage. You can charge from farther away than normal, and wearing medium armor lets you move just as fast as a party member of the same race wearing light or no armor. Keep this in mind when considering how you plan on moving in combat.

Go toe-to-toe with enemies. Generally speaking, you can take a decent amount of punishment and still dish out plenty of damage to the other guy. You can take damage better than anyone else in the party, and even a level 20 cleric needs a big tough barbarian to hold the line while he buffs up.

The survival skill will let your character survive in the wilderness easily. If you spend a lot of time out of cities in the wild, this skill is absolutely one of the most valuable you can get.

Multiclass notes
Generally speaking, multiclassing the new barbarian is a mistake. Playing a barbarian is an all-or-nothing deal. Either you splash one level of barbarian for a rage each day and the enhanced movement or you go through to level 20 for the mighty rage (+8 strength and con). The other good “jumping off” points for multiclassing the barbarian are at the following levels:
- Level 5 (Rage 2/day and Improved Uncanny Dodge)
- Level 10 (2/- damage reduction and enough “room” in your development for a full prestige class)
- Level 11 (Greater rage)
- Level 17 (Tireless rage)

Good mutliclasses with barbarian include:
- Ranger (skills overlap and the ranger allows you to develop other a combat style to save feats)
- Fighter (bonus feats, more armor/shield proficiencies, weapon specialization, and greater weapon focus/specialization)
- Druid (skills overlap, druids can use any proficient weapon now, a raging brown bear is a frightening thing)
- Sorcerer (take 4 levels for the buff spells and a familiar to boost your saves)

What are the basic ways to build a barbarian?
There are quite a few ways you can build a barbarian to take advantage of the abilities you gain from this class. The barbarian grants you an increased speed, the ability to take massive amounts of punishment, the ability to deal lots of damage quickly, and a decent spread of skills to allow a barbarian to survive out in the wild.
- The Wrecking Ball- A barbarian designed to do massive amounts of damage as quickly as possible
- The Meat Shield- A barbarian designed to take hits and survive as much punishment as possible
- The Skirmisher- A more skill-oriented barbarian who is supposed to use his speed to disrupt the enemy plans
- The Raider- A raging barbarian charging with power attack, greater cleave, and spirited charge from horseback with a lance is deadly

The Wrecking Ball
“Com’ere a minute! I gotta axe you somtin’.”

The goal of this character is to do tremendous damage as soon as possible. To that end, this character would do well to pick a large weapon and be sure to have a good strength score. A personal favorite is always the scythe, but the classic greataxe and greatsword are always good (and now viable for the gnomish barbarian). You want to do as much damage as possible when you hit, and you want to take advantage of the fact that you are doing tremendous amounts of damage. A barbarian who uses one specific type of weapon is well advised to take “weapon focus”, as that +1 to hit can be the difference between a miss and a hit. Power attack, especially with a two-handed weapon, is also a very strong idea. At higher levels, taking improved critical effectively doubles the number of times you will score a critical hit. Cleave and greater cleave let you take extra attacks for when you drop your foe, but might not be worth it if your campaigns don’t focus on fighting against hordes of low-level enemies. Cleave alone is more often than not worth taking for the extra attack it grants when you drop a foe, but greater cleave needs to have large numbers of enemies that you can drop in a single round to be effective. If you aren’t worried about losing potential loot that your enemies have, your high strength makes improved sunder a very tempting feat to take.

The Meat Shield
“Huh? Was that it?”

Every party needs someone to stand on the front lines and take hits for everyone else. That is where this concept comes in. The Meat Shield has a high constitution to maximize hit points and gets the best armor possible. There is always a good old large shield as well to further boost AC (especially once you reach higher levels and can afford a good enchanted shield). At lower levels, consider using a reach weapon instead, which can let you make attacks of opportunity on enemies who charge you. Combat reflexes lets you do this more often (should you chose to stick with this route) and combat expertise (though unusable while raging) opens up the possibility of improved disarm and improved trip. All of these are extremely helpful for anyone who use a reach weapon. If you’d rather go for a sword & board style (a one-handed weapon and a shield) instead, consider two-weapon fighting and improved shield bash (which makes a great offhand weapon that adds strong AC bonuses). Another thing to consider is splashing a level of fighter for heavy armor proficiency and tower shield proficiency to further increase your AC. Power attack is not as critical as it is with the Wrecking Ball, but still always welcome. Raging becomes more defensive (for the extra hit points, and a good large shield covers the -2 AC loss) as a means to hold the line. Move quickly to defend the weaker members of the party from attack, and make sure to stay on good terms with the cleric.

The Skirmisher
“Jus’ ‘scuse me a sec… I’ll be right back.”

A Skirmisher is a character designed to backup the scout (be it the rogue, the ranger, or the monk). The Skirmisher stays ahead of the party (but behind the scout) to be first into combat, disrupting the movements of the enemy with his high speeds and weakening the enemy at critical points. A well-placed raging power-attack can drop weaker foes and disrupt the enemy control of the battlefield. For example, an enemy grappling monk who tries to attack the spellcaster, an enemy rogue flanking the fighter, or the enemy wizard who is laying down destructive spells all make good targets for the Skirmisher. A Skirmisher should take feats to increase damage like a Wrecking Ball (such as power attack), and probably feats like Improved Initiative to get the first strike in. A reach weapon like a glaive is an excellent choice for the Skirmisher, who generally is more lightly armored than the Meatshield or the Wrecking Ball, because it lets the Skirmisher effectively use power attack while remaining out of his enemy’s reach. Again, tactical feats like improved trip and improved disarm are useful, because the goal of the skirmisher is to disrupt the enemy as much as possible. This character is designed to move quickly and keep the enemy off-balance. Cleave and greater cleave are generally less desirable, because this character is designed to attack specific enemies.

The Raider
“Ride ‘ard an’ hit ‘arder.”

There’s nothing like doing a few hundred damage with a charge, is there? A good charging barbarian who takes plenty of ranks in ride can take the mounted combat tree of feats, which ends in the lovely spirited charge. For those of you not familiar with it, spirited charge lets you deal double damage on a charge while mounted, triple damage with a lance. Just to do the math, let’s say the raging barbarian has a 24 strength and takes a -3 penalty with power attack. The damage would be (1d8 + 13) x 3 (average damage of 49.5, maximum damage of 60, assuming no weapon enhancements and no critical hits). This character flies into a rage and then charges right through his opponents, doing a good amount of damage while his warhorse gets in it’s attacks with it’s hooves, and then you get to gallop out of melee attack range with ride-by attack. The goal of this character is something like that of the Skirmisher and the Wrecking Ball combined. Your goal is to do a lot of damage to the enemy quickly, use your mobility to attack important enemies quickly, and drop them before they can pose a threat to your party. Cleave is a strong choice for this character, who is very capable of dropping opponents in a single hit. Plus, cleaving during a charge will let you hit yet another foe for that monstrous damage.

Conclusion
How you play the barbarian is up to you. Using mobility and your ability to do plenty of damage coupled with your tough nature, you have an extremely strong character who is more than capable of taking care of himself. And most importantly of all, never forget your skills: they let you survive where a fighter can’t.

3.0 Splash Notes
Extra rage (Masters of the Wild) is a great thing that can make a single level of barbarian valuable.
Frenzied berserker (Masters of the Wild) and berserk (Deities & Demigods) rage bonuses stack with a barbarian’s, allowing for a +14 bonus to strength and constitution with a level of each, but only once per day. A two-level splash of cavalier (Sword & Fist) can make the Raider build very good at charging indeed with the deadly charge ability. Two levels of holy liberator (Defenders of the Faith) can get divine grace and smite evil, if you have a good charisma. Five levels can get you a celestial warhorse, but costs you tireless rage.

3.5 Power Play- Bard
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What’s Changed?
The new 3.5E bard has taken a few steps in the right direction to make it a far more appealing class, and makes it much better as a “jack of all trades”:
- More skill points
- Better selection of weapons (all the old “bard weapons” a bard could chose a single proficiency from are now all available to the bard)
- Better bardic music (“inspire courage” increases with level, inspire heroics, song of freedom)
- Casting in light armor without arcane spell failure
- Better spells overall

General tactics
You can strike up bardic music once per day per level, and inspire courage is almost always worth using in a tough fight to increase the abilities of all your allies.

Your skills can let you wheel and deal with almost anyone you meet, while still allowing you to be a passable fighter and spellcaster. Also, as you can always wear light armor and cast, you are generally much tougher than the average spellcaster, meaning that the bard who sits in the back with the wizard can make the back line of the party much stronger in melee.

Your spells are capable of ending an encounter before they begin. Charm the orc warband leader and prevent the fight from starting, or cast glibness on yourself to bluff the local magister into believing that you’re actually a city guardsman going undercover, and you’d hate to have your cover blown.

Don’t be the first into melee. You can do much more than swing a sword. Indeed, your spellcasting is often better than any damage your sword can do.

Speaking of spellcasting, most of your spells fall into the enchantment school, which is completely negated by the spell mindblank. Make sure you have dispel magic handy or you have a friendly caster who can cast it against the Big Bad Evil Guy who has mindblank cast on himself.

Use magic device can round out your casting repertoire all by itself when you find yourself a wand of fireball or a staff of the magi.

Multiclass notes
Mutliclassing the bard is harder than it used to be. Back when bardic music relied on ranks in perform, you could multiclass a bard all day long and still be singing bardic music the whole time as well as any other bard (but maybe not as often). In 3.5, there are still a few good “jumping off” points for you to multiclass your bard. That said, one of the best ways to make a bard “better” at whichever role the party needs him for is often accomplished through multiclassing.
- Level 6 (Suggestion)
- Level 9 (Inspire courage +2 and inspire greatness)
- Level 15 (Inspire courage +3 and inspire heroics)
- Level 18 (Mass suggestion)

Good mutliclasses with bard include:
- Rogue (the skill points are great, the skills overlap, sneak attack rocks, and evasion can be a lifesaver)
- Fighter (good for a one-level splash to qualify for eldritch knight)
- Sorcerer (both need charisma, and though you can’t cast sorcerer spells in armor, you can use it to add some combat spells to your repertoire)
- Ranger (helps round out the bard to be skilled at surviving in the wild and helps qualify for horizonwalker)

What are the basic ways to build a bard?
There are quite a few ways you can build a bard to take advantage of the abilities you gain from this class. The bard is designed to be a jack of all trades, a supporting caster, a social powerhouse, and a passable fighter as well. Also keep in mind that a bard is the only arcane caster who can cast healing spells, meaning that he can even serve as a back-up combat medic.
- The Skald- A warrior bard who can hold his own in combat and can inspire his allies while staying in the thick of combat himself
- The Eldritch Archer- A bard who sits safely behind the front lines plinking away with his bow and casting beneficial spells for his allies
- The Loreweaver- A bard who is designed to be the best caster he can be, and still be one of the most knowledgeable members of the party
- The Noble- The bard who is the master of social situations and manipulation

The Skald
“Let me spin for you the tale of your doom.”

The goal of this particular bard is to be a warrior first and a caster/singer/social dilettante second. And, as with most builds, it fares best when coupled with multiclassing (in this case, with the fighter). Also keep in mind that it is important for a fighter-type to gain four attack (+16 Base Attack Bonus) by level 20, and this build does that. This character splashes in four levels of fighter to grab weapon focus and specialization in a weapon of choice. Lacking sneak attack damage or ways to boost the damage dealt with his weapons, sword and board is a good way to go for the skald (although you’ll want to grab a mithryl large shield as early as possible to avoid that whole spell failure thing). However, something must be said for the nostalgia of a warrior skald whirling about like a vicious blender of destruction. So whether you dual wield or go sword & board is up to you (though sword & board would probably be more beneficial). Other good feats to pick up would be defensive ones, like expertise, improved disarm, and dodge. A bard 16/fighter 4 qualifies for weapon specialization and still has a +16 base attack bonus by level 20. I would recommend splashing the levels of fighter intermittently throughout the game to keep your bardic ability progression strong. Make sure to get mithryl medium armor (which counts as light armor) for your skald to keep his AC high.

The Eldritch Archer
“Take your best shot.”

Bards gain a free proficiency in the shortbow (and elves come in with a longbow proficiency), and coupled with the support nature of the bardic music ability, bards make excellent archers. It keeps their relatively low AC and HP score out of melee and behind the people he is supporting. Obvious feats like point blank shot and precise shot should be taken early, with rapid shot and the rest of the archery tree following. Standing safely behind the meat shields, the eldritch archer plinks away with his bow, dealing some damage in needed places while still free enough to cast spells and sing as needed to keep the party going strong. Again, multiclassing serves the bard well in this case, because a single level of fighter splashed in can qualify this character for either arcane archer or eldritch knight. Taking either prestige class sacrifices bardic music ability for a better base attack bonus (+17 base attack bonus by level 20). Arcane archer makes all ammunition enchanted (though the fact that the bonus no longer stacks with weapon bonus makes this less attractive), and allows you to cast some of your spells through your arrows. Eldritch knight is the more attractive choice, though it offers a smaller selection of skills and a weaker HD, it grants you near-full caster level progression, which means a bard 9/fighter 1/eldritch knight 10 is casting as a level 18 bard and attacking with a +17 base attack bonus. Neither of these multiclasses is really required, but they can make the character a bit better at what he does.

The Loreweaver
“I know this.”

Back in the days of Baldur’s Gate II, bards were well-loved because of their high lore rating. Nowadays, bardic lore is a secondary ability, but a proper build can make a bardic caster a very formidable foe indeed. This character sacrifices melee and archery for increased spellcasting ability, with the goal of becoming a bard 10/loremaster 10. To start, keep in mind the weakness of bardic spellcasting: you have a limited number of spells per day and a limited number of spells known. To get around this, you have lovely metamagic and item creation feats. To qualify for loremaster, you need three metamagic or item creation feats. As far as metamagic feats, there’s not too many attractive ones for a bard, except perhaps extend spell. Item creation feats, on the other hand, are far tastier. Craft wand, scribe scroll, brew potion, and craft magic arms and armor are all very useful for a bard. The first three help overcome the limited spells known and spells per day of a bard, while the last one can help you do that (use-activated arrows of hold person can put a cramp in the enemy’s day) and let you get a decent set of armor and weaponry for yourself. Knowledge skills are up to you, but pick skill focus for the one you use more often (history is a favorite of mine because it lets the DM give the backstory to the world through your character). Later on, make sure to grab spell focus in enchantment, then possibly greater spell focus in enchantment and spell focus in illusion, which together make up most of your spells. This character can identify anything just by looking at it, and given enough time, can find the answer to anything for the party. For a bard, he’s a pretty good spellcaster, and for a spellcaster, he’s pretty tough.

The Noble
“My good sir, you weren’t planning on arresting me, were you?”

Often times there are answers to any situation that don’t even involve drawing a sword or blowing something up with a fireball. The noble is a character designed to take advantage of this and dominate any social scene he can, manipulate anything he can talk to, and for the noble, that’s just about anything. Skills are key here. Bluff, diplomacy, intimidate, sense motive… important skills for a social bard to have. Feats of choice are skill focus and those feats that grant +2 to two different but related skills. Max out your charisma. Combat skill is secondary to your ability to get people to see things your way. If that fails, make them a little more receptive with a few enchantment spells and try again. Fight only when you can’t win (mindblanked enemies, plants, undead, etc.), and when you have to fight, make sure you have plenty of “friends” there to help you out. Find out who the big powers are in town and get to be their friends, and make friends with the lower folks who hold key positions (the guard who works the gatehouse every night alone, the hired help who carries shipments into the magic items shop, or the thieves’ guild member who has the dubious honor of keeping the safehouse safe). You’ve got a winning personality: use it. If everyone’s your friend, then they certainly aren’t your enemies, are they?

Conclusion
How you play the bard is up to you. Using spells and your modest combat abilities together makes you a fairly well-rounded character. Your skill selection can be the difference between a night in jail or a night with the count’s beautiful daughter. And most importantly, you can keep a party going strong in combat, often giving your group the edge over the enemy. Tough fights are often the ones where that little +1 bonus to hit can be the difference between victory and defeat.

3.0 Splash Notes
The feats from Song & Silence that let bardic music affect undead and plants can help if you find yourself fighting large numbers of these mindless creatures.
A great prestige class for the social-minded bard is the mindbender from Tome & Blood, which grants bonuses to bluff, diplomacy, and sense motive in addition to letting you control the minds of other creatures. A caster bard who gets a lot of use out of illusions might consider taking the shadow weave adept from Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting to get a boost to these spells. Again, holy liberator is a great choice for a bard who wants to be a little better in combat. Two levels will get you divine grace and smite evil. Put that high charisma to good use!

3.5 Power Play: Cleric
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What’s Changed?
The designers of 3.5 have taken some steps to bring the power of the cleric down a notch. It’s not quite enough to make them on par with the other classes, but it was a good step in the right direction:
- The animal buff spells have been reduced in duration
- “Mass” versions of older buff and healing spells
- Change in the duration of fly

General tactics
Going for power with a cleric is almost too easy. Your buff spells are the best in the game and you’re proficient with all armor and shields except tower shields. Cast your buff spells before a tough combat if possible.

Unless you take the healing domain, it is almost worthless for a good cleric to prepare healing spells. You can just drop prepared spells to cast them spontaneously, which means it is less likely that you’ll be caught without that critical spell you need later on.

Much to the begrudge of powergaming clerics everywhere, clerics are expected to heal injured characters. Good clerics naturally are better at this than evil ones, but investing in a wand of “cure X wounds” is a good way to make sure you always have the healing spells you need.

Despite what the designers seem to think, the 3.5 cleric is still a beast in melee combat, so treat him as such. If it is a tough fight, buff up with righteous might, divine favor, and divine power, then wade in and crush everything in sight.

Bead of karma. Bead of karma. Bead of karma. Though it’s been tweaked a bit in 3.5, it’s still invaluable for a cleric (especially one who loses a caster level or two early on).

Turn undead: use it at the first sign of trouble from undead (unless the adventure is full of them).

Multiclass notes
Mutliclassing the cleric is generally a mistake unless the mutliclass grants full spell progression and a benefit like full base attack bonus, high hitpoints, bonus feats, or extra domains. You are a primary caster, so do not make the mistake of losing caster levels through multiclassing (unless you plan on taking cleric as your secondary class or something).

Good mutliclasses with bard include:
- Fighter (good for a one-level splash for the bonus feat, but not really worth it in the long run)
- Paladin (If you have a good charisma, divine grace is a nice little ability, and smite evil is always fun to add in for extra damage)
- Sorcerer/wizard (a fairly good choice to qualify for mystic thurge)

What are the basic ways to build a cleric?
There are quite a few ways you can build a bard to take advantage of the abilities you gain from this class. The cleric is a combat medic, a holy warrior, a piece of divine artillery, and even a deadly archer all rolled into one.
- The Cleric Archer- Though not as powerful without the elf domain from FRCS, clerics can do anything.
- The Combat Medic- The cleric who actually heals people, and is good at it.
- The Crushinator- The melee cleric who can’t be beat… for about an hour per day.
- The Master Blaster- The bard who is the master of social situations and manipulation

The Cleric Archer
“Right between the eyes.”

The goal of this particular cleric is to be able to stay out of melee and plink away with a good bow, taking advantage of your buffs and your ability to create fairly good weapons at a moment’s notice. The old key to this used to be the elf domain from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, but you can still make a very good clerical archer without it. The only archery feats that are absolutely needed are point blank shot and precise shot, though rapid shot is nice too. Now you’ll also want to grab extend spell to make your buffs last a long time. Greater magic weapon is weaker now, but still pretty powerful. And the “align weapon” spell lets you make sure your cleric’s arrows have a better chance of beating damage reduction of some nastier outsiders. An elven archer is the best bet here, because you get longbow proficiency for free. Other feats to consider are the rest of the archery tree, and perhaps metamagic feats like quicken spell to prepare your longbow more quickly for combat. In combat, you combine the roles of a medic and a warrior, attacking while possible from the relative safety of the second line. From here you can buff allies up, heal as needed, and lay down a hail of fire. This cleric benefits greatly from splashing 3.0, which opens up domain like elf and time. But without those, you can still make do with trickery and war as your domains of choice.

The Combat Medic
“Scalpel. Forceps. Blood bucket. Priest. Next patient!”

Clerics who heal are often looked down upon by their more powerful brothers. “You can fight better than anyone,” they say, “so why are you back here healing people?” Well, sometimes games are so brutal that a dedicated healer is less a nicety and more of a requirement. In these games, the best offense is a good defense, so the cleric is there to extend the life of his comrades manifold. Your two domains of choice here are going to be protection and healing, which allow you act with a good amount of defense up while healing your allies. Otherwise, healing and travel are good domains to choose from. Healing grants you +1 to your caster level for casting healing spells, meaning you’ll be healing extra hitpoints when you use your healing spells. If push comes to shove, you can go into melee after a few buff spells, but you are far more useful to the party buffing all of them up with spells like “mass bull’s strength” and “mass bear’s endurance”. Make sure you keep your party buffed up, and then you can join later with your own buff spells. But for this cleric, healing is more important, so make sure your party is safe. Also, positive energy is an effective weapon against undead, so consider taking the sun domain and healing domain to be a very nasty opponent against undead, while still maintaining your role as a strong healer for the party. Extend spell is a feat of choice here, as is empower spell (for healing).

The Crushinator
“Smashy smashy.”

A good melee cleric build focuses entirely on buff spells. Back in 3.0, divine might was good too, but in a purely 3.5 environment, you want to make up for that lack with what you have available. Aside from extend spell, other feats of choice are power attack and weapon focus. Pick a big weapon and use it. Keep it powerful with greater magic weapon, and make sure you stay buffed in combat. Healing is secondary to you, so make sure you use spontaneous healing to avoid having to prepare healing spells. For domains, war is nice for the weapon proficiency, and strength and destruction can both be massive damage increasers. In terms of spells, stick with the tried and true dive favor, divine power, and righteous might. Spiritual weapon makes an excellent flanking partner, and align weapon and greater magic weapon ensure your weapons are doing the most they possibly can do. The animal buff spells, like bear’s endurance and bull’s strength, are massive boosts in combat. Buff the other party members if you can, but the goal here is to do as much damage as you can, and if you’re buffing party members, then you aren’t wailing on your enemies. Heal spontaneously as needed, and at the end of the day, drop your other spells to heal your allies (provided you’re safe for the night).

The Master Blaster
“Wrath of god… please. Try wrath of me.”

The cleric isn’t as wealthy in damage dealing combat spells as the wizard or sorcerer, but his selection is still fairly powerful. Flamestrike, for example, is a great spell. Good radius, good damage, and it’s part divine energy, so it can still hurt a red wyrm. Harm is also a great spell, even though it’s been reduced in power, as is blade barrier. The important thing to remember about this character is to get empower spell to make sure spells do plenty of damage, because that’s his whole key. Power word spells are good against he lieutenants for the Big Bad Evil Guy, and never underestimate the power of the sun domain, especially against undead. The Master Blaster is well advised to take firepower domains like sun and fire, although war does have it’s share of good power word spells. The goal is to do damage as much as possible, so prepare plenty of spells to hit foes with, but don’t neglect support spells. Sometimes you need to knock the enemy’s saving throws down a notch with doom or the like. Remember that because you’re taking an artillery role, your hitpoints are less in danger, so a lower constitution score is acceptable. Make sure to max out your wisdom so that you make your saves difficult to beat, and consider taking spell focus for your damaging spells. And if all else fails, buff up and beat the stuffing out of anything that your flamestrike didn’t burn to a crisp.

Conclusion
The cleric is easy to powergame with, but in the end, you need to use this power to do what’s needed in the game. You don’t always need someone who can wrestle with a god. Sometimes you do need someone who can heal or turn undead or support the artillery mage. The cleric can do all of this, but focusing in one or two areas can make it much more readily apparent how powerful being a god’s right-hand-man can be.

3.0 Splash Notes
Divine feats from Defenders of the Faith make a cleric very powerful, especially Divine Might. Heck, they make extra turning worth it in a game not flooded with undead. The contemplative and the holy liberator are two of the most powerful prestige classes for the cleric from Defenders of the Faith, with bonus domains and full base attack bonus respectively. Divine disciple from Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting adds extra domains too, and is a good splash for clerics. If you want a divine trickster, you can use the assassin prestige class to qualify for arcane trickster (Tome & Blood) to wind up as a good rogue and a better cleric!

Re: 3.5 Power Play- Druid
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What’s Changed?
The druid is more powerful! Huzzah and double huzzah! Maybe now all the druid-haters out there will realize the class does have plenty to offer. Now the changes we’re looking at:
- Wildshape is better and worse. It now has a HD limit and does not grant extraordinary abilities, but you can shift into dire animals and even legendary animals right away.
- Spontaneous casting of “summon nature’s ally” spells, which are fairly nice, but not as powerful as the “summon monster” spells
- An animal companion is now a fairly powerful ally, but you can’t have an army of animal companions anymore.
- Spell list has seen some alterations, mostly for the better.
- No “spiritual vow” restriction on druid weapons.

General tactics
Once you get wildshape at level 5, natural spell is basically a no-brainer as your level 6 feat. Now you can be the amazing spellcasting Chipmunk of Doom.

Your “dump scores” should probably go into strength and dexterity. Wildshape will allow you to get the scores you need when you need them (such as combat or for scouting).

Survival is an excellent skill for any characters trying to make it on their own in the wilderness. While those other bums are paying for rooms, you can rough it quite comfortably.

Wildshape needs to be conserved, but the long duration makes it possible for you to use one wildshape for the entire day’s encounters. That said: if you smell trouble, wildshape!

Don’t forget that druids cast divine spells too, so bead of karma is still a great thing.

Your attack spells are generally weaker than cleric or wizard spells as the game progresses, but you still can be an absolutely deadly melee combatant with wildshape.

Multiclass notes
Druids and multiclassing do not mix. Every single druid class ability is dependant on class level. Certainly if you just want druid spells, then you can multiclass to a caster prestige class, or you can go to the shifter if you just want wildshape, but if you want both, you can’t multiclass.

Good mutliclasses with druid include:
- Ranger (skills overlap and are plentiful)
- Fighter (the one level splash gives you access to the best weapons, armor, and shields)
- Barbarian (skills overlap and a raging dire bear can be very frightening)
- Sorcerer (a low-level shot in the arm of a few good spells can make this a nice dip)

If your heart is set on multiclassing, I’d highly recommend keeping in mind the following “jumping off” points:
- Level 5 (wildshape 1/day)
- Level 8 (wildshape up to large 3/day)
- Level 12 (wildshape tiny and plant 4/day)
- Level 15 (wildshape huge 5/day and timeless body)
- Level 18 (wildshape 6/day, elemental 2/day)

What are the basic ways to build a druid?
There are quite a few ways you can build a druid to take advantage of the abilities you gain from this class. The druid is a good caster, a good warrior (while wildshaped), and now even a good tactical force (with a strong animal companion and spontaneous casting of summon nature’s ally).
- The Avenger- Another mounted build, this time with clerics. Huzzah and double huzzah!
- The Shapeshifter- Wildshape is good, and this druid proves it.
- The Summoner- This druid shows you how to summon with the best of them.
- The Survivor- A druid who just will not stay dead.

The Avenger
“A pint of blood for ever broken branch.”

Some druids are just too uptight. This is one of them. Mounted on his heavily advanced animal companion, the druid charges into battle ready for blood. Druids make good mounted warriors, if for no other fact than they can ride big animals and turn into big animals themselves, and big animals hit hard. There are two ways to go here: archer or charger. The charger will always do more damage, but the archer can do damage all day long and isn’t as reliant on druidic powers (and hence is better for a mutliclassed druid). The charger is easy to build: mounted combat, ride-by attack, spirited charge, and power attack are the keys (and of course proficiency in the lance). The archer is similar, but benefits heavily from the druid animal companion. The archer’s worst nightmare is being caught in melee. Sitting on top of a bloodthirsty dire tiger is an excellent defense against such a threat. While your tiger rips into your foe, you can continue plinking away, healing your mount as needed, and use your mount’s excellent speed to gain a tactical advantage of always being able to target needed foes. And remember that as a druid, you have access to some other great tactical spells, like entangle, which can change the shape of the battlefield with a single casting.

The Shapeshifter
“Don’t fear the halfling. Fear the dire bear the halfling is turning into.”

A druid who uses wildshape effectively is a dangerous foe in melee. An angry dire ape with a huge spear or a legendary tiger with greater magic fang can both make for deadly opponents, especially when the animal actually has the mind of a cunning druid. This druid should take advantage of power attack, because being big and hitting hard is a good thing, and if the druid has one or two favored wildshapes, weapon focus in your wildshapes’ main attacks isn’t a terrible idea either. Remember that a wildshaped druid gains the extraordinary attacks of the animal in question, which might color your decision on which animal to use in a given situation. If you need to get out of a collapsing cave fast, cheetah is a good idea. If you need to reach a high ledge, a hawk or eagle is a good idea. If you need to kill off a foe, consider going rhino to nail your foe with a painful charge (with power attack, of course), or go for a big cat to get that lovely pounce attack. Your own form is weak compared to what you can become. You can normally shift into a powerful from early enough in the day and remain that way for the better part of the day, so if you know you’re going to go fight goblins in the woods, turn into that brown bear when you head out. The rule of thumb with wildshape is to shift as little as possible and as early as possible to make sure you’re ready for the day’s encounters.

The Summoner
“Have you met Chompy Furster? Let me just call him over.”

Another new niche the druid has access to is the role of the summoner. Without even preparing summoning spells, you can fill up the area with nature’s allies. Sure you can’t have a horde of animal companions anymore, but being able to summon an army of them sure seems like fun. The two keys here are “augment summoning”, which will make your summoned allies considerably beefier, and ‘extend spell”, which can keep your allies on the battlefield longer. You don’t need to prepare summoning spells, either. Just prepare things like elemental swarm, and drop your lower levels spells to throw down some summoned allies. You can do this for quite a while, and usually with great effectiveness (especially when you can do it in the guise of a chipmunk sitting up in a tree and laughing maniacally). Summon allies strategically to flank with your party, or to drop summoned animals “behind enemy lines” and onto the spellcasters. This build also benefits from the druid’s ability to buff up animals, meaning that your average summoned animal is a good deal tougher than a normal animal. Also, you can still cast your normal offensive/buff spells, so you should still be able to act as a good support caster for the group. And if things still are going wrong, just wildshape into something with big teeth.

The Survivor
“But I’m not dead yet!”

Druid are durable, but they can really go far in terms of how hard it is to kill them when you throw in some feats that are fairly fitting for a force of nature like the druid. This build allows a druid to make an exceptional meat shield in a pinch while also making it easy for the druid to avoid death in a situation that should have killed him. While a little complex, it is good for a newer player who is playing in a tough game. For feats, go for endurance and diehard. Endurance will let you sleep in your armor and will let you run for a long time without getting tired (and animals can run very fast indeed). And diehard, while not a great feat, will make you almost impossible to kill. If someone drops you to -2 hit points, normally you cross your fingers and hope you stabilize. With diehard, you just cast a cure spell on yourself, dust yourself off, and jump back into the fight. This druid uses his wildshape to escape from dangerous situations and his spells to keep foes busy while he makes his getaway. The goal is to stay alive in the most dire situations, and there are DMs out there who love to run games that routinely wipe out the party. This build does not rely on druid abilities as much as other builds, so levels of monk to beef up saves are often a good idea, and it should allow you to get a high armor class while you are wildshaped. If things get too dangerous, flee and heal up while hidden somewhere in the woods. Use your abilities to win fights, of course, but be sure that you always have a way out.

Conclusion
Druids are more powerful than their previous incarnation, and they are finally getting the respect they deserve. The strength of the druid lies in his ability to assume a form useful for a variety of situations. The druid’s spell list is certainly nothing to scoff at, and the versatility of the druid allows him to be the second best (and with focus, possibly the first best) at anything in the party.

3.0 Splash Notes
Spells from Defenders of the Faith and Masters of the Wild make a druid very powerful, especially Miasma, Briar Web, and Spikes. The contemplative (Defenders of the Faith) and divine disciple (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting) are both easy ways for a druid to pick up cleric domains and domain powers. The aforementioned avenger can do very well with a few levels of hospitaler from Defenders of the Faith if wildshape is not really a focus for the character. Persistent spell can make your animal form and your animal companion much stronger all day long.

3.5 Power Play- Fighter
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What’s Changed?
The fighter is still the same ol’ vanilla fighter we all know and love. However, some changes to the feats available to a fighter have made the way to look at the fighter slightly different.
- Greater weapon focus and greater weapon specialization make a fighter valuable past level 4.
- Only fighters start the game proficient with tower shields.
- Power attack is now a very good choice for anyone using a two-handed weapon.

General tactics
Generally speaking, you have more combat options than anyone else in the game. This is your only advantage, and you must use it wisely. Trip, bull rush, shoot your bow, charge, then disarm the other guy, steal his sword, and run away. And you are versatile all day long, unlike certain spellcasters.

Specialization is always possible, but aside from focusing on your weapon of choice, it’s not really necessary.

While it’s not necessary to specialize in a dozen areas, being good at most and a specialist at one or two is always nice.

For a one-trick pony fighter to work, multiclassing is almost always needed in one form or another.

Multiclass notes
Nowadays, it’s almost more necessary for a fighter to multiclass than ever. A fighter can be a good generalist without multiclassing, but a focused character requires more multiclassing.

Good mutliclasses with fighter include:
- Anything. Really. Fighters used to be the ones sorely in need of multiclassing in 3.0, but now fighters really need it if they want to get into a specialized niche.

The only levels to keep in mind for fighter are:
- Level 4 (weapon specialization)
- Level 8 (greater weapon focus)
- Level 12 (greater weapon specialization)

What are the basic ways to build a fighter?
The key to being a good fighter is to be able to handle any situation combat can throw at you. If you decide to specialize in one area, be sure the party definitely needs it. Otherwise, the fighter serves best as the one who is always yelling out “I can handle it!”
- The Living Wall- The character who is a master of holding the line.
- The Master Tactician- Whatever area he threatens, he controls.
- The Surgical Fighter- One way or another, the main threat will go down.
- The Weapon Generalist- This character uses a variety of weapons in combat, making use of a variety of styles to stay on top of the situation.

The Living Wall
“A wall of force is nice and all, but it doesn’t leave a mark like me.”

Sometimes the best weapon is an oldie but a goodie. In this case, the weapon of choice is the longspear. “What are you talking about?” you’re saying. “The spiked chain is the only weapon that’s worth using!” Well if you want to break a charge like nobody else, the longspear is the way to do it. During your action, set yourself against the soon-to-be charger with your longspear. If he foolishly charges you, then you’ll do double damage on your first attack, and if he manages to survive that, you’ll get a second one for him moving through your threatened area. Both will do some good damage, plus the -2 armor class penalty will mean you basically have the ability to power attack at +4 (-2 to hit, +4 to damage for using a two-handed weapon). And if he survives that, you just pull out your halberd and introduce him to a little more hurt, but few creatures can survive those kinds of hits. Feats of choice for this character include power attack, combat reflexes, weapon focus/specialization and the greater versions of each in longspear (to make that charge is the last he’ll ever make). Now obviously your foe won’t always charge you, so try to get into a position where that’s the only option. Stand in the middle of a narrow hall or a doorway. Any foes who try to get past you will be hit by attacks of opportunity most likely. And if you’re down to your halberd, don’t forget to try to trip them! A spiked chain might be better, but a fighter like this just needs the basics. Nothin’ fancy.

The Master Tactician
“Take a step closer and I’ll show you something neat.”

Okay… now we get to the spiked chain (and the masses rejoice…). The spiked chain is quite possibly the best weapon in the game. It combines good damage with reach and the ability to trip and disarm opponents. This is one of the reasons most people out there think most fighters should use the spike chain. When combined with feats like combat reflexes, improved trip, and improved disarm, you can effectively shut down the area you can reach for your opponents. The feats of choice here are, as mentioned above, combat reflexes, improved trip, and improved disarm. Also, if you plan on playing a fighter with a high strength, you should consider power attack and improved sunder. Cleave can allow you to take out hordes of enemies who want to encroach on your personal space. On the other hand, if you chose to go for a dexterous fighter, weapon finesse is the feat of choice, though a low strength makes power attack, cleave, and improved sunder difficult to obtain. The way you decide to go is entirely up to you. On one hand, weapon finesse allows you to use other weapons like the rapier effectively as a back-up weapon. The general tactic is to find the busiest place on the battlefield and get in the middle of it. If you get an attack of opportunity, the best bet is to trip your foe, then get your damage in with the extra free attack from improved trip against a foe with a considerably lower armor class. Disarm the bad guy who has the +5 hackmaster sword, or render the soldiers useless by sundering their spears. This character, generally speaking, becomes a dangerous obstacle on the battlefield. The enemy will be hurting if they try to move through the space commanded by the Master Tactician.

The Surgical Fighter
“Take out the head and the rest of the body will follow.”

The fighter who specializes in getting through the hordes of enemies and then brow-beats the evil wizard is a difficult build to pull off, because in D&D, defense is cheaper and more plentiful than offense. So even a character several levels lower than your fighter might have an armor class that is tough to get through with your fourth, third, or even second attacks. You have to make up for that by taking advantage of the new feats open to the fighter: greater weapon focus and greater weapon specialization. These fighter-only feats make the fighter one of the best choices for being able to consistently deal damage against tough foes. And this is the goal with the surgical fighter. Pick a weapon and pick it well, because this fighter needs to specialize in his weapon or style of choice. One of the better choices is a two-handed weapon, especially one of the two damage-dealers, like greatsword or the greataxe. Sword & board shouldn’t be overlooked either, as two-weapon fighting and improved shield bash make this build very viable in the core 3.5 environment. If you go with the big weapon, take power attack, cleave, and greater cleave, as well as the quintessential weapon focus/weapon specialization combo and the greater versions. Dodge to mobility and spring attack makes you much better at getting through the front lines safely, and the fighter who likes to get stuck in should consider splashing levels of barbarian and rogue to get uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge (to avoid ever being flanked). Once you’ve got a path to the big bad evil guy, start power attacking away and don’t stop until he’s dead.

The Weapon Generalist
“Try the axe! Now the sword! Now the mace! Now the thing that looks like a bowling pin! Now…”

A lot of people have said that the new damage reduction system means a character will have to carry around a golf bag full of weapons in order to be effective. Not quite, but doing so means you can create the ultimate generalist. This fighter really does carry a lot of weapons, and primarily for the purpose of always having the right tool for the job. A +1 heavy flail of disruption to deal with those pesky undead, a +1 longspear of frost to take on those nasty dragons up the hill, a +1 flaming greataxe to take out trolls who keep harassing you, or a +1 greatsword of brilliant energy to get past those damn Knights of Lieterbure and their heavy armor who seem to enjoy attacking you on the road. The feat of choice here is quickdraw to always be able to pull out the weapon you need to deal the damage you need. You won’t need to increase the + enhancement of your weapon so long as you’re friends with the cleric or wizard in the party, who can cast greater magic weapon whenever you need it. Also, try to know what you’re going against ahead of time. If you expect to fight werewolves and undead, grab your +1 holy undead bane flail of disruption and a +1 silvered glaive of shapechaner’s bane. Maybe take your trusty flaming longsword too, just in case, but don’t take everything. Try to get a good smattering of ways to deal with foes, like trip and disarm, but this doesn’t have to be your focus by any stretch of the imagination. Just be able to deal with whatever you think the DM is going to throw at you today.

Conclusion
Fighters, while still probably still a fairly weak class overall, can use their versatility to great affect. The fighter is a skilled master of combat: don’t forget it. Control the situation with your wide variety of abilities and make sure the enemy is forced to react to you, not the other way around. The more you disrupt the battlefield, the better things will be for your allies. The fighter has the tiresome job of standing out front in the mess all day, but with some planning, he can be extremely good at it.

3.0 Splash Notes
Weapon master from Sword & Fist can make a fighter who wields a scythe an absolutely deadly critical machine. Coupled with elemental burst enhancements… yummy. Splashing the Holy Liberator from Defenders of the Faith is something that any fighter with a good charisma score should consider. You can grab a free weapon specialization and the equivalent of a fortitude/will save evasion called “mettle” from the Templar in Defenders of the Faith… a good choice for someone who uses more than one weapon of choice. Knockdown, from Sword & Fist can allow any fighter who can deal good damage into a tactical fighter who puts many foes on the ground, even if you can’t use improved trip with it.

3.5 Power Play- Monk
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What’s Changed?
If nothing else, the monk is better now than he was before, and that’s saying something. The old 3.0 monk really lacked flexibility and wasn’t much more than a hard-to-hit target. Now, however, the monk can be so much more.
- Flurry of blows now allows for many attacks with high accuracy in a round.
- More flexibility in bonus feats.
- Better ability to penetrate damage reduction.
- Lower maximum speed.

General tactics
You area almost always faster than your opponents, so make sure you use this mobility to your advantage. Tumble when needed, apply pressure where needed, and cover weaker characters is necessary.

You can get an amazing number of attacks. Try to get weapons that add damage dice or pick up sneak attack to take advantage of this. Also, four levels of fighter or any class with full base attack bonus progression will get you a +16 base attack bonus, which translate to an extra attack.

Improved grapple is core, and is a very efficient way for a monk to deal with opponents who use large weapons or cast spells.

Keep your armor class high. You don’t have the hit points to survive many attacks.

Multiclass notes
Multiclassing a monk lets a player focus on certain aspects of the monk. If you want to deal more damage, you can splash some levels of fighter. A few levels of paladin will help your defense and boost your damage against evil creatures. Ranger levels will make you a much more dangerous archer and enable you to last in the wilderness.

Good mutliclasses with monk include:
- Fighter- The base attack bonus, bonus feats, and weapon specialization make fighter attractive.
- Paladin- Divine grace and smite evil are both amazing abilities and work well for a LG monk.
- Ranger- Grab the archery combat style and make use of the free skills.
- Rogue- Sneak attack and uncanny dodge. That is what splashing rogue is all about.

The levels to keep in mind for monk are:
- Level 2 (evasion)
- Level 5 (+1 AC and flurry of blows penalty drops to -1)
- Level 9 (no penalty to flurry of blows)
- Level 11 (greater flurry)
- Level 16 (ki strike adamantine)

What are the basic ways to build a monk?
A good monk should take advantage of his ability to avoid damage, his high speed, and his good number of attacks in combat to ensure that he is doing the most for his allies.
- The Archer- A fighter-splash monk who uses speed and skill with bows to control the area.
- The Master Decoy- A character who uses his survivability to keep the enemy from attacking the real threat.
- The Ninja- Put multiple attacks to good use with sneak attack and poison!
- The Piledriver- Unarmed attacks and grappling kills mages dead.

The Archer
“I shoot you, you die. You shoot me, I catch and shoot it right back at you.”
Inspired by Green Gnome’s “Dragon” build

The advantage of the monk is that he can move out of dangerous areas, something that most archers have trouble with, while still remaining a real threat in melee. The trouble with this is that monks can use a rather poor selection of weapons. Enter the fighter. At the cost of four levels of monk progression, you can get proficiency with the longbow, something that will make playing a monk-archer far more viable. Feats to invest in are point blank shot, rapid shot, precise shot, shot on the run, and manyshot. Monk bonus feats should buy stunning fist, deflect arrows, and improved trip. Stunning fist and improved trip let you get out of melee to continue shooting more easily, whereas deflect arrows effectively negates one successful ranged attack against you each round. Your goal is to move quickly and take shots at your opponents while preventing them from charging you or being able to effectively hit you with ranged weapons. Shot on the run and manyshot are a great pair of feats that let you jump into range, fire off three arrows at once, then jump back out of range. If you get stuck in melee, trip your foe, then use a stunning fist on him once he’s on the ground with your free attack, and then run like hell out of range and start shooting again. Since you don’t need to invest in armor, buy a good bow and consider getting arrows to be used against certain foes (ie fire arrows against trolls or holy arrows against undead). Put skill ranks in tumble, climb, listen, and jump. You want to stay out of reach if possible, and if you’re up a tree, the other guys will have a tough time getting at you. Finally: don’t be afraid to move. Two kinds of archers stand still while shooting: dead ones and soon-to-be dead ones. Use your speed.

The Master Decoy
“I’m as fast as fast can be, you’ll never catch me!”

This build uses the defensive boosts four levels of paladin can give to create a character designed to be durable above all else and able to survive all the attacks he can draw down on himself. Get as high an AC as you can. The stats to worry about here are dexterity, constitution, wisdom, and charisma. Put divine grace to good use to keep your saves sky-high, and make sure to have a good armor class. Your role in combat is to zip through the air and smack the dangerous foe, then dart out of combat. Feats of note here are dodge, mobility, and spring attack, as well as combat expertise. You need to make sure you’re safe to draw the attention of the enemy and that you can survive doing so. To get the enemy’s attention, try to use your one smite per day coupled with spring attack to make then reconsider you as a threat. Although paladins dislike using trickery, a paladin who considers using illusionary magic a tactic rather than a dishonorable trick might consider having a friendly mage cast an illusion spell on you so that you do look like the quintessential paladin in heavy armor with that shiny holy avenger in your hands. A paladin who shoots through the air like a bullet smiting people is quite a threat, and most evil foes will probably consider chasing you down to end that threat. Another alternative is to draw opponents away, and then attack them one at a time once they’ve been divided and you’re safe from being flanked or outnumbered. Divide and conquer works wonders, and a master decoy knows this fact very well.

The Ninja
“Like a shadow barely seen, like a whisper barely heard.”

Everyone loves ninjas. Having the Real Ultimate Power is a dream we all share. Well you can have a ninja without having to use splatbooks. The ninja I will now outline for you is one that uses a core prestige class: the assassin. The goal here is to use those extra attacks to their maximum effect, and there’s nothing like sneak attack to make the most out of having extra attacks. And sneak attack comes packaged as the even sweeter death attack when you take levels as an assassin. Why take assassin over rogue? Well, you gain poison use, spells, death attack, and faster uncanny dodge progression. The only “wasted” ability is the bonus to saves against poison. But this couples very well: you have evasion, improved evasion, uncanny dodge, and improved uncanny dodge. Stunning fist lets you render your opponent flat-footed for the rest of your sneak-attacks. Poison and shurikens were practically made for one another (3.5 EDIT- Shurikens now do 1d2 damage apiece and only one can be thrown at a time, but it is still a monk weapon, meaning it can still be thrown with flurry of blows). So at level twenty, if this character planning is to take someone out, he can do the following: study the enemy for three rounds, then throw five poisoned shurikens, which will do death attack damage. If he manages to survive that, then you stunning attack him with your last shurikens (you did buy a few +1 returning shurikens of ki, didn’t you?) so that he’s flat footed for your next volley. The optimal mix here is monk 11/assassin 9. You can qualify for assassin very easily as a lawful evil monk, but wait until level 11 to multiclass, because this will give you your maximum number of attacks per round with flurry of blows. Quantity is key, because poison and sneak attack make quantity absolutely worth it.

The Piledriver
“Nothing shuts a mage up like a headlock.”

Finally, a pure monk build. Now let’s get started. A character who wants to take mages down needs to have good spell resistance, good saves, and the ability to make casting spells difficult. Well gee golly of monks don’t meet all of those requirements! Monks start with excellent saves, they gain spell resistance, and a wonderful combat option called grappling kills mages dead. The build is simple. Get stunning fist, improved grapple, and a high strength. Rush the mage at the beginning of combat and start grappling as soon as you can. With a higher strength and base attack bonus, you should be able to keep him from casting for the better part of combat. The trouble naturally arises when you fight a caster more on your level, like a druid or a cleric, who are fairly strong in their own right. You need to close quickly and get into a grapple before they can buff or (in the case of the druid) wildshape into something with ridiculous strength. You can survive being hit by spells with your high AC, saves, and spell resistance, but being in melee with a much more powerful foe, like a fully-buffed cleric, is not smart. Take casters down before they can buff up and keep them in a grapple for as long as you can. Don’t let them cast if at all possible. Other feats of choice are improved trip (a wonderful readied action against a spellcaster is trip, because it usually takes them down, and then a free attack can deal the damage you need against a now prone target). Take the casters down and keep them down while the others worry about the rest of the enemies.

Conclusion
Monks are the fastest and one of the best classes in terms of personal defense. They don’t rely on magic for their abilities, and are more than capable of combat on their own terms. Use their abilities to stay mobile and hit the enemy where it is needed. You are not a primary fighter: you’re a hard to hit target and a tactical foe who can remove certain opponents from battle.

3.0 Splash Notes
Oriental Adventures makes monks great and then some. If you want to throw magic items out the window for yourself, consider splashing four levels of forsaker from Masters of the Wild for extra durability. Mantis leap + power lunge (Sword & Fist) + flying kick (Oriental Adventures) allow for the good old fashioned ubercharge monk.

3.5 Power Play- Paladin
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What’s Changed?
Fans of the paladin really felt left out in the rain when 3.5E rolled around. He was definitely improved, with increasing smites and a far superior mount, but a high level paladin still doesn’t seem very appealing. But guess what: a little imagination can make any class powerful. Now here we go…
- Less front-loaded.
- Smiting attempts per day increase over levels.
- Minor changes to spell list.
- Summoned mount.

General tactics
You have access to one of the best mounts in the game: put it to good use!

Being specialized against evil makes you one of the best choices to wipe the floor with the Big Bad Evil Guy. Holy sword is an absolutely deadly spell, and combined with smite… *drool*

Being a paladin means you get to pick from the best weapons and armors in the game. You’re made-to-order for melee, and you’re right up there with the barbarian for the best damage potential of a melee class.

You don’t have the feats to be tricky in combat: pick a combat style and stick with it. Sword & board, big honkin’ sword, mounted, super spring-attack, whatever floats your boat.

You’re a back-up healer and never forget it. You can stabilize a friend with a touch and make sure the cleric gets back on his feet. Save your healing for when it’s needed.

Wands, wands, and more wands. All your spells can fit into a wand, and though they’re expensive, they can make multiclassing much easier on your spellcasting ability.

Multiclass notes
Unless you really want to push your mount’s abilities through the roof, mutliclassing the paladin opens up the path for specialization in his chosen method of combat. Grabbing levels of fighter will help you get more specific combat feats, whereas levels of ranger can make your paladin better at wilderness survival and two-weapon fighting (which is a great thing with sword & board). Sorcerer is a natural choice for a paladin who wants to fall into more of a caster route.

Good mutliclasses with paladin include:
- Bard- A good ex-bardic paladin can be an amazingly charismatic and inspirational leader.
- Fighter- Bonus feats make combat specialization easier.
- Ranger- Stealth and some combat focus in two-weapon fighting.
- Sorcerer- Charisma-based spellcasting? Sign me up!

The levels to keep in mind for paladin are:
- Level 2 (divine grace & lay on hands)
- Level 4 (paladin spell list is open & turn undead)
- Level 5 (2 smites per day & your special mount)
- Level 10, 15, and 20 (more smiting)

What are the basic ways to build a paladin?
A paladin is first and foremost a melee beast. Good defenses, plenty of damage-dealing potential, and the ability to use your mount to increase all your other abilities.
- The Blooded- Using levels of sorcerer, this paladin becomes a dragon disciple
- The Cavalier- A paladin who uses his abilities to devastating affect while mounted.
- The Holy Shield- A great defensive character who makes for an amazing meat shield.
- The Vigilante- Sword and board the way only a paladin/ranger knows how.

The Blooded
“My blood is a gift of the divine.”

Paladin multiclasses well with sorcerer, assuming you’re done with one or the other when you start your multiclassing. The goal here is to come up with a character who has a nice array of spells and manages a good melee attack. Start with a level of sorcerer who can speak draconic, then add nine levels of paladin, and make sure to spend a skill point each level to keep maxing up knowledge (arcana) up to 8 ranks (doable by level 9). Nine levels of paladin will give you two smites per day, two remove diseases per week, and up to second level paladin spells, in addition to your special mount. For your weapon, take a two-handed weapon beyond a doubt. You’ll want it for what we do next. It’s called “dragon disciple”. The end-result of this change is +8 strength, +2 constitution, +2 intelligence, +2 charisma, which is a LOT. Also, paladin 9/sorcerer 1/dragon disciple 10 still grants you a +16 base attack bonus. Sure your sorcerer spells are really limited, but you can easily enough grab goodies like true strike and shield. Plus you have a standing strength that’s sky-high, which is great when you use a two-handed weapon (that 1.5x strength modifier to damage starts adding up), and then when you throw in things like smite and holy sword (with a wand, of course), you’re dealing disturbing amounts of damage (and you can be assured you’ll hit with true strike). Not only that, but you can fly, have the mount of a level 10 paladin, and a fairly decent breath weapon to boot! What paladin wouldn’t want a little dragon blood if it meant he could kick evil’s butt all the way from here to Ghostwalk like that? Other than the main build, grab feats to boost your damage, like power attack, weapon focus (to help you hit), and cleave (to take out the next one after you’ve hit for so much damage).

The Cavalier
“Nobility. Honor. Chivalry. And a sharp lance coming at your throat.”

A pure paladin build in essence, but one that can definitely stand a splash of fighter. You have two main choices when doing this build. The first is to go paladin 16/fighter 4 for weapon specialization in lance. This will grant you a very strong mount overall and 4th level paladin spells, which are nothing to sneeze at. The other option is to go paladin 8/fighter 12 for greater weapon specialization, because having a base +4 to damage when you’re hitting for triple damage on a charge is a beautiful thing, but at the expense of spells, smites, and your mount’s power. Whichever way you decide to go, you’ll also want to take the mounted combat tree up to spirited charge to do some very nasty damage on a charge. Other feats to take are power attack (like I’d go through a melee build without mentioning that one), weapon focus (and the greater version if you go for an extended fighter build), and probably weapon focus in a good one-handed weapon (for those times you have to fight on the ground). Far shot is also extremely useful for using thrown weapons from your mount (with the obvious addition of mounted archery). For a ranged weapon, I recommend javelins, because thrown weapons allow you to add your strength bonus to damage, and javelins do a respectable amount of damage (they also fit the theme of a guy carrying a bunch of pointy weapons) and have a decent range. In combat, charge early and charge often. Let your mount get his licks in too (especially if you have an extended paladin build) and you can cause plenty of damage. If you’re fighting something too dangerous to charge, soften it up with thrown weapons and then charge in. Use your spells to buff yourself a bit before rushing in (holy sword is great) and milk that x3 damage for everything you can.

The Holy Shield
“I am the right hand of a loving god, and no harm shall touch those who are pure.”

A purely defensive paladin is an interesting build, because most people think of a paladin as a living smite-machine. The advantage of it is that you can have exceptional saves and wear excellent armor, translating into a character who is hard to hit and difficult to affect with spells. Now the question is whether to go with a polearm or sword & board. Personally, I prefer having reach with my characters, but getting a one-handed weapon and a shield is definitely a strong choice as well to boost your armor class tremendously. Feats of choice for a build like this are dodge, combat expertise, combat reflexes (if going with a reach weapon), and power attack. This build serves surprisingly well if you use your smites defensively. Unlike most meat-shield characters, you are exceptionally mobile with your mount, and you also have the ability to effectively block two places on the battlefield with the help of your mount. Working together, you should be able to hold the line effectively. Rather than the traditional paladin build, this paladin uses his smites defensively, making sure that the enemies who try to charge him are put down fast. This build is also one that is designed to take into account the extreme power of higher level casters, who can kill the Big Bad Evil Guy much faster than you can. Your smites should be used to make sure anyone who tries to get to the casters are dead before they can reach the casters. Note that using smites in this way really only becomes necessary if a powerful enemy, such as the Big Bad Evil Guy’s lieutenant, charges your party. You don’t need to smite the goblin with three hit points (unless you’re really fond of Goblin McNuggets).

The Vigilante
“Truth and justice can never be mistaken with the wanton corruption of these kingdoms.”

Time for some old school sword and board action with a new twist. This character is somewhat difficult to pull off, depending on how you roleplay it. You can either play a ranger who goes paladin, a ranger who goes paladin and then goes back to being a ranger, or a paladin who goes ranger. They key here is to be a deadly effective warrior, and what that means in your campaign should determine how you build the character. The base build I will describe is paladin 10/ranger 10, which grants you three smites, a good mount and a good animal companion, evasion, 3 smites per day, 3 favored enemies, two combat style feats, and plenty of other goodies. The goal of this build is to get plenty of attacks in a single round, from yourself, your mount, and your animal companion. The more times you attack, the more times you can deal damage. And paladins are very good at dealing lots of damage. The feats to focus on are the two-weapon fighting tree (from the ranger) and improved shield bash. In an ideal world, you can smite three times in a single round, all on a very high base attack bonus, and this can bring down a deadly foe very quickly. Couple this with the extremely nasty bashing enhancement for your shield and you effectively have a +1 longsword in your offhand that you can attack with 3 times in a round. Between yourself, your mount, and your animal companion, you can get off 11 or 12 attacks in a round. Now just make sure to become real good friends with the druid so he can keep greater magic fang on your mount and companion at all times and you’re looking at a good deal of damage.

Conclusion
With great offensive power, excellent defenses, and a powerful mount, a paladin really is a very powerful class. Just make sure you use everything you have access to, and use it fully, or you’re only selling the paladin short.

3.0 Splash Notes
Defenders of the Faith and the divine feats (like divine might) can make a paladin’s damage sickening. Definitely consider getting an improved mount as outlined in Defenders of the Faith. Cavalier (Sword & Fist) fits the build of the same name mentioned above very well. The spells from Defenders of the Faith make paladin damage buffs even nastier.

3.5 Power Play- Ranger
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What’s Changed?
I’ve always loved the ranger, and in 3.5 a ranger is once again a great class, and one that can be played straight through for twenty levels.
- Less front-loaded.
- Choice between two-weapon fighting and archery.
- More skill points.
- Better focus on stealth overall.

General tactics
For being a stealthy character, you are one of the meatiest. Rangers now probably make the best scouts because of their sheer survivability.

Your spells are designed to allow you to survive in the wilderness, so don’t hesitate to use them if you really need to hide well or make sure that something is safe.

A d8 hit die, while not terrible, is still a bit on the weak side when it comes to melee. Rather than just slugging it out on the front lines, use your stealth to find a better position on the battlefield where you aren’t as vulnerable.

You’re the next best thing to a druid when it comes to staying alive in the wild, and you aren’t as reliant on magic as the druid. If it comes down to a grim and gritty trek across the wilderness, you’re well suited for it.

Remember that a ranger isn’t pigeonholed into one type of fighting style: feel free to use your combat styles as backup for your main method of combat.

Animal companions you can gain aren’t as strong as a druid’s but having them on call can only be helpful.

Multiclass notes
Multiclassing the ranger is no longer necessary by any stretch of the imagination, but the ranger can still benefit greatly from multiclassing to focus on a specific combat style or niche to fill. If you decide to multiclass, decide well ahead of time and know what role your party needs filled.

Good mutliclasses with ranger include:
- Barbarian- An easy multiclass to rationalize. You lose skill points, but the others will overlap well.
- Bard- You keep up good skill points, stay in light armor, and get some spells to boot.
- Fighter- Bonus feats are a great thing, though your skills will take a hit.
- Rogue- Two weapon fighting and sneak attack are sick, and you’ll get plenty of skills.

The levels to keep in mind for paladin are:
- Level 2 (first combat style feat)
- Level 3 (endurance)
- Level 5 (Improved combat style)
- Level 11 (combat style mastery)
- Level 13 (camouflage)
- Level 17 (hide in plain sight)

What are the basic ways to build a ranger?
As a ranger, you need to keep in mind that you are the most highly skilled warrior-type in the game. Playing a pure hack & slash whirling warrior of doom is a mistake here: take advantage of your skills!
- The Bounty Hunter- Everyone loves bounty hunters. And rangers make great bounty hunters.
- The Forward Scout- With a polearm and two-weapon fighting as a back-up, this scout is a tough nut to crack.
- The Master Archer- A character who knows the two keys to being a good archer: mobility and stealth.
- The Vagabond- He’s seen it all, and has killed a lot of it, too.

The Bounty Hunter
“Go on and run. I enjoy a good chase.”

The fascination with bounty hunters is enough that finding a good way to build one is something many players have tried. It isn’t a difficult task to accomplish, but it requires some forethought. The build I will present to you is ranger 11/assassin 9. A simple one, and one that works very well. Remember that the death attack ability of the assassin does not have to kill a target: it can paralyze a target too. The combat style of choice here two weapon fighting: this character is going to have a lot of attacks by the end of his development. As this build emphasizes high dexterity and intelligence, weapon finesse is a great choice for a feat, especially if you decide to use two of the same weapons, like shortswords. Weapon focus is another good choice to help alleviate some of the penalty from attacking with two weapons. For your favored enemies, pick races you plan on hunting, probably common races like humans, elves, and dwarves. Some of your skill points will go to craft (poisonmaking) so that you can always have some poisons to deal with your foe. An interesting option here is to poison several shortswords, and then use the quickdraw feat to ensure that you can attack with poison each time you strike, which gets up to around 7 attacks by level 17. Also, you are also capable of paralyzing your opponent with your deadly strike. And even better: all your spells fit into wands, so you can use a wand of greater invisibility to ensure that you’ll be able to get plenty of poisoned sneak attacks against your foes. Which poison you decide to use is up to you.

The Forward Scout
“He didn’t see me until I had my spear in his chest.”

Here’s a pure ranger build for everyone who really wants to see what the class is capable of now. The concept we’re going for is a character who uses a reach weapon to keep foes at bay (to compensate for his relatively low hit points and armor class). Now you might think this is stupid, because this seems to ignore the two combat styles a ranger can pick from. However, consider the fact that most reach weapon do not allow for attacks on adjacent foes. Two weapon fighting would serve as an excellent backup to a primary combat style such as a polearm. The focus of this ranger is stealth. This character takes the role of the scout for the party, keeping his eyes open for trouble, and setting up ambushes to take out enemies who are less aware. While developing the two weapon fighting combat style through ranger, spend normal feats to build up polearm combat. Weapon focus, power attack, and combat reflexes are all great choices that let you drop foes more quickly. When fighting with your group, use your polearm to its best affect. Keep out of close melee, as rangers lack the staying power of other melee classes. Set up flanking opportunities with allies to make the best use of your power attack. When stuck in combat alone (which happens to scouts), use your polearm as best you can, and then quickdraw out your weapon or weapons for two-weapon fighting. The volume of attacks here should provide for a bit of a shock to anyone who though closing with a polearm would be a good idea. You should be able to hold out long enough to withdraw and hide (hide in plain sight is an amazingly good ability) or wait for reinforcements to show up. When not in combat, stay ahead of the group and make sure the path is clear. Blaze a trail. Consider taking a level of rogue for the trapfinding ability just to make yourself into the best possible scout.

The Master Archer
“If shooting someone in the back is ‘fighting dirty’, then I must be filthy.”

One of the things I most like about the ranger is the new choice of the archery tree. Although archers are considerably weaker now than in 3.0, they are still a viable combat build. The goal with this build is to create a character who is highly mobile and skilled at getting into the right position to fire. The good old Deepwood Sniper builds of 3.0 are all about catching someone off-guard and keeping them that way. The Shadowdancer’s abilities fit the role of a fast and furious archer very well. With his shadows, this character can draw enemies into an ambush, striking with arrows and using his summoned shadow companions to keep the enemy from closing. The key though, is shadow jump. Simply shadow jump to a different area of the battlefield and then hide in the shadows, then ready yourself for another attack. If enemies manage to close, the shadowdancer has abilities that make your archer very survivable, like uncanny dodge and defensive roll. Improved evasion and slippery mind will make it difficult to be hit with spells. With the end build of ranger 10/shadowdancer 10, you’ll need to invest in more archery feats than normal, but otherwise the build is straight forward. Investing in shot on the run is very useful when used in conjunction with manyshot, especially considering the focus on mobility of this build. Keep moving and shooting, taking advantage of manyshot to pump your foes full of arrows. Only stand still while you’re lying in wait, and make sure you’re moving at any other time.

The Vagabond
“Been there. Done that.”

Now let’s try something a little more interesting. The previous master archer build is a lot of fun, no two ways about it. However, what if you want to get some delicious melee in and remain mobile. Then let me introduce to you a nasty and completely relentless build. We start with ranger and throw in levels of barbarian, and eventually take levels of horizonwalker. The goal is to end your build as a ranger 9/barbarian 5/horizonwalker 6. This grants you 2 ranges per day, improved uncanny dodge, evasion, and then five horizonwalker terrain masteries and a single planar mastery. For your feats, grab the ones for two weapon fighting. Your weapon of choice is going to be an old classic: the quarterstaff. Fitting for a traveler, eh? Anyway, the advantage of this weapon is that you can use it two-handed or as a double weapon, and it requires no special proficiency to use. Feats to grab are power attack, weapon focus, and probably greater two weapon fighting. The two “must have” abilities from horizonwalker are the terrain mastery for desert (which makes you immune to fatigue… excellent for raging) and the planar mastery for shifting planes (which gives you the incredible ability to use dimension door every 1d4 rounds). So what you do is dimension door right next to someone, strike up a rage, then start wailing away. Use your staff two-handed when charging and as a double weapon when in extended melee. In addition to your rather impressive little set of skills, you’re absolutely tireless in melee. Put it to good use and get stuck in real good. Your hit points might not be sky-high, but you’re hitting plenty hard. Don’t hold back: just kill the other guy and dimension door out if you need to.

Conclusion
The ranger has access to a great selection of skills, good combat abilities, and offers many opportunities for different combat styles. Make sure you take advantage of all the ranger’s abilities. The new ranger is a great class, and disserves some respect.

3.0 Splash Notes
And in case you didn’t know, the good old Holy Liberator is a great addition to any ranger build. For anyone who likes playing a tracker, break out the Bloodhound or Consecrated Harrier from Masters of the Wild and Defenders of the Faith, respectively. Any ranger who likes archery should pick up the Deepwood Sniper or Order of the Bow Initiate from Masters of the Wild and Sword & Fist respectively. If you want a fighter/mage, pick up Unapproachable East (a Forgotten Realms accessory) and make a ranger/wizard who grabs the Master of Yurinwood prestige class. Full spell progression and full base attack bonus is sweet.

3.5 Power Play- Rogue
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What’s Changed?
And now my favorite class ever, the rogue. Rogues have always seemed great to me because of their versatility, and 3.5 hasn’t changed that.
- Uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge at higher levels.
- New ability: trap sense (like the barbarian’s ability of the same name).

General tactics
You can do almost anything you want with a rogue, but some things are better than others. At the start of combat, if you’re in range to take a pot-shot at an enemy who hasn’t acted yet, do so to get your sneak attack damage in.

Generally speaking, skills work even in antimagic fields. Make sure you don’t become reliant on the wizard just because he has knock or the sorcerer for invisibility: keep increasing your ranks in key skills.

Stay out of melee unless you can flank to deliver a flurry of sneak attacks. Anything else isn’t worth the risk.

Quite possibly the scariest thing in the world is being flanked by two rogues. The only thing scarier is being flanked by two rogues with reach weapons.

Rogues have a poor selection of weapons, but starting as an elf or taking levels of fighter or ranger to expand your choices might be a good idea if you want to be more melee oriented.

Tumble early and tumble often. When moving in combat, try to tumble from place to place to avoid being hit by attacks of opportunity, and if the enemy is bearing down on you, tumble as a full defensive action.

Multiclass notes
For the rogue, multiclassing is done to specialize on a specific set of rogue skills or to broaden the rogue’s abilities outside of troubleshooting with his skills. The two big losses for the rogue in multiclassing are skill points and sneak attack.

Good mutliclasses with rogue include:
- Bard- Almost as many skill points, similar skills, some magic, and some extra weapons to boot.
- Fighter- For the price of a lot of skill points, you can grab armor proficiencies and weapon proficiencies, as well as a free bonus feat.
- Ranger- Everyone loves skill points, and I can’t emphasize enough how well two weapon fighting and sneak attack work in conjunction.
- Wizard- Another class that needs a high intelligence and adding some spells to your repertoire could prove very useful.

The levels to keep in mind for rogue are:
- Level 2 (Evasion)
- Level 4 (Uncanny dodge)
- Level 8 (Improved uncanny dodge)
- Level 10 (first rogue special ability)

What are the basic ways to build a rogue?
Rogues are the kings of skills and can do insane amounts of damage with sneak attack. However, their base attack bonus progression and hit die prevent them from being great melee combatants. Use you skills and sneak attack to get your licks in combat
- The Arcane Sniper- Excellent stealth, sneak attack, and some magic can make a great sniper.
- The Dilettante- A rogue who acts like a bard, casts like one, and still sneak attacks very well.
- The Troubleshooter- With a huge number of skills, this character is there to solve problems fast.
- The Whirling Dervish- Old school two-weapon fighting sneak attack build.

The Arcane Sniper
“It’s only a headshot if his head comes off after you hit it.”

Getting lots of sneak attack is always fun, and this character takes it pretty far. By the end of the build, you have +11 base attack bonus, +11d6 sneak attack, and full assassin spell progression (and depending on how you interpret it, more than full assassin spell progression). This character is similar to the Master Archer which I described for the ranger, but it works far better as a hidden ally on the battlefield who picks a foe off at the beginning of combat and then continues to pick foes off. The build we are going for is rogue 5/assassin 5/arcane trickster 10. Rogue and assassin give you +3d6 sneak attack each, and arcane trickster will give you another +5d6, for a total of +11d6 sneak attack. Now your low base attack bonus makes your secondary and tertiary attacks almost useless, but when you use magic device on your scroll of true strike ahead of time, well then you’re going to hit the guy. Feats of choice are select feats from the archery tree: point blank shot, precise shot, improved precise shot. Weapon focus is good too. You want to be sure that you hit. Now the problem of getting sneak attack while in combat. You should try early on to make friends with the wizard or sorcerer so they can cast improved invisibility on you. Once you take levels of assassin, you can use a wand of improved invisibility until you are able to cast it yourself. Poison your arrows well and pick your targets well with your poisoned arrows. Have wands on hand to use for tricky situations. In combat, you want to be hidden extremely well, preferably with invisibility cast upon yourself. Then sneak attack whichever foe needs to go down with a nasty little headshot. If you absolutely cannot go invisible or hide, use impromptu sneak attack to shoot with an attack that normally wouldn’t do sneak attack damage. It’s a nasty little surprise. And if it really makes you feel good, refer to your bow as an AWP.

The Dilettante
“I couldn’t have sneak attacked him, old boy. I’m just a simple bard.”

Using a build almost identical to the one for the arcane sniper, we can create a very different, and very powerful character. This character, by the end of his development, has full +10d6 sneak attack and casts spells as an 11th level bard. Not too shabby, eh? Alright, the build we’re looking at is bard 1/rogue 4/assassin 5/arcane trickster 10. Feats of choice: pretty much whatever you want. Those two-for-one skill feats are nice, as is skill focus. Weapon focus in your weapon of choice is pretty nice, and maybe a weapon proficiency in an inconspicuous weapon would be a good choice. Another one that would work extremely well would be improved feint, as would quickdraw. As for style of play, this character is an infiltrator. He gets into a place where he’s not supposed to be, sets up an alibi, then kills his target, using his impressive array of spells as back-up. This character, with ranks in perform, bluff, and disguise, should have no trouble convincing people that he’s just a low-level bard. The character should use social skills to stay out of combat if he can, and use his spells and minor bardic music abilities to assist his allies in combat. If he can get an enemy alone, he might be able to catch him off guard and then sneak attack him hard enough to drop him, or at least make him think twice about attacking you. Overall, your spells and skills make you an absolute master of the social scene, and your sneak attack makes you quite possibly the deadliest person in the room. And while it’s not exactly the smartest thing to do, you can unsheathe your deadly mandolin and probably kill someone with it. Now that would be one embarrassing cause of death..

The Troubleshooter
“If it’s locked, I’ll open it. If it’s trapped, I’ll disable it. And if it’s sexy, I’ll seduce it like only I can.”

A character who likes to solve every problem while avoiding a real fight if at all possible. Need to get a body out of town? Disguise it like a living person, then use strings and pulleys to make him seem real. Do you need to get through that door locked from the inside, with no keyhole on your side? Luckily you have ranks in craft: masonry and can take the wall apart instead. Is that box suspended over the lava pit by a complex series of ropes holding the one treasure you need? Just have to cut the right one. And this character always cuts the right one. This character is a straight rogue with high intelligence and dexterity. He makes sure to keep many skills maxed out, and to take a smattering of little knowledge and craft skills, just in case. He uses his rogue special abilities to take skill mastery to make sure he can always succeed at the critical rolls, skill focus as a feat to increase his chances at making an important roll, and those two-for-one skill feats to further increase his skill modifiers. The key is to take ranks in the main rogue troubleshooting skills and keep them maxed out: disable device, open lock, sleight of hand. Stealth skills like hide and move silently are also quite helpful. Keep use magic device ranks high. Other than that, buy skills that might come in handy. Just a smattering of 3 or 4 skill points in each one should be enough. When it comes to combat, get back and let the others deal with it, but don’t hesitate to stick someone with some nasty sneak attack damage if you can manage it. This character is not very focused on combat, and instead is the one you turn to time and time again to solve problems. Your party will thank you when you rig up a way to get at that treasure chest balanced precariously atop a thin spire in the middle of the lake of boiling acid, and do so with unmatched style.

The Whirling Dervish
“A storm of steel.”

Now if you know my stance on two-weapon fighting, you know that I think one of the best ways to make it work for you is with sneak attack. This is an old school multiple attack build focused on using sneak attack to its maximum. The build is the rather simple: either go ranger 7/rogue 13 or ranger 5/rogue 15. The levels of ranger are in there to set the foundation for your two weapon fighting, while the levels of rogue are there to get plenty of sneak attack in. Ranger 5/rogue 15 just barely gets you the +16 base attack bonus needed to have four attacks by level 20. Ranger 7/rogue 13 gets you +17 base attack bonus, the second combat style feat, and woodland stride. The cost for this is a single sneak attack die, bringing the ranger 7/rogue 13 down to +7d6, which isn’t too bad. Feats of choice here are ones to make your chances of hitting better, and of course finishing off the two weapon fighting tree. By level 20, the ranger 7/rogue 13 build, assuming no weapon focus, enhanced weapons, or bonus to strength, attack at +15/+15/+10/+10/+5/+5/+0. That is a whole lot of attacks in one round. Now make sure you hit with them. Grab feats like weapon focus to increase the chances that you hit, and if you have a higher dexterity than strength, try to grab weapon finesse and use a pair of shortswords or even daggers. The meat of the damage is going to come from sneak attack, not from your weapon itself. So if you somehow manage to hit all seven times while flanking, you’ll be rolling 49d6 for bonus damage (an average of 174.5 damage, max 294), which is a pretty good chunk of damage. Aside from two weapon fighting and weapon focus, consider getting combat expertise and doge to keep your armor class at a good level, and keep your skills high! Those skills are what will give you an advantage over the fighter or barbarian.

Conclusion
Rogues are still the kings of skills, and they are still the only core class that can sneak attack. Use your skill to get into a position so you can use your abilities to their utmost. The barbarian, the fighter, the paladin, and the uber-buff cleric rush into melee. You finesse your way in to combat. If you use all your abilities to their utmost, you can be a force to be reckoned with in the game.

3.0 Splash Notes
Flick of the wrist is a feat from Song & Silence that lets you sneak attack with a light weapon you just used quickdraw to unsheathe, which is an excellent option to use if you charge. The ranged sneak attack from order of the bow initiate from Sword & Fist stacks with rogue sneak attack damage to make for a good archery rogue. Grabbing levels of guild thief (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting) is an easy way to increase your sneak attack, as is invisible blade (Dragon Magazine. In fact, with rogue 5/assassin 5/guild thief 5/invisible blade 5, you can sneak attack for +12d6 damage at +14 base attack bonus, which isn’t too shabby.