[Lantore]

Hey all, you guys helped me out way back when I was creating a stronghold for my character. I much appreciated that, and I'm back to ask for more help!

The campaign we were playing is at an impass, where our characters are lvl 23+. I'm a lvl 18 fighter lvl 5 legendary Leader. So a pure fighter. The players and our DM have decided that it is getting very repetitive and drawn out with all 7 of us above lvl 20, and we want that lvl 1 feel back again. So we are creating new characters, that exist in the current campaign, but 10 years have passed. Our old characters still live and effect the world/universe but our new ones have no connection to them.

I want to play something different. Something that doesn't become just a tank.

I've been looking at two classes, Favored Soul(basically a sorcerer cleric) and a Druid of some type. Anyone have a suggestion one way or another? Or something completely different. Keep in mind I want usefull skills not just in battle, but to roleplay with a little bit. As my fighter, I was a legendary leader, but that just lead to more battle. Which was great! but it does get boring.

Thanks in advance guys!

P.S. I had looked at a heavy caster, but many a times they can get complicated. I don't have a ton of time to devote to studying spells and what not. So I am thinking that arcane casters are out. I have been a cleric type before, thus I know their spells.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

A Favored Soul (FS) with a good background is excellent, really. If you devote yourself to buff spells, you can still be quite effective in combat, fill the roll of a fighter, and not be the tank unless your tank dies. The concept behind them is usually pretty useful for DM plotting and internal conflict. Imagine a Vash-like FS of Vecna who worships Pelor and tries to do good, but everywhere he goes, the place just gets trashed. Until he realizes that Vecna made him what he is, he'll probably think he's cursed, and once he finds out, god knows what he'll do. Could be on fun option.

Druid. You can tank. You can cast spells. You can cast spells while tanking. Druid is easily the most powerful and versatile class in the game, so if you go that route, you can pretty much fill whatever roll you want. Story-wise, get creative for a change. The next Druid wannabe that tells me "X did Y to my forest so now I'm trying to kill them" or "I'm protecting Y forest" is going to have the continent of Australia appear over their PC's lame little town and consequently smash everyone. Also, for druid, there is at least one really nifty PrC, that if taken the full 10 levels and combined with 32 levels of druid, would allow you to effectively turn into the Tarrasque - complete with carapace. Not that your DM will allow that, but just saying....he COULD.

[Lantore]

It seems that my group is starting to have a problem. Nobody wants to play an arcane caster. So I looked through that last night and found the Warmage. What do you think of that class? (minitures handbook/complete arcana)

So right now I'm down to favored soul or warmage. I really like the idea of the favored soul, for like you said the roleplaying aspect. But sometimes one has to make a sacrifice for the overall group.

Right now group is:
Monk
Ranger
Swashbuckler
Archivist - This guy may do some type of wizard/summoner - if he does wizard I go fave soul
non-caster (was a caster last campaign)
The last guy is a casual gamer that will most likely do some type of tank or rogue.

[Dthclaw]

I personally dislike the warmage for mechanical reasons, but thematically it's decent enough. To clarify, though: as a warmage, your one and only duty is pretty much going to be to blow [BROWNIES] up. You have no buffs, you have no utility, only destruction. You could RP with it, but options for that are somewhat limited.

In a similar vein, though, is the beguiler from PHB-2, which is MUCH more RP intensive despite being similar to the warmage. The difference is that the beguiler focuses on illusions and enchantments instead of destruction... an arcano-rogue, one might say. Because the spells are far less combat-oriented (generally...) it almost requires a substantial amount of RP but has plenty of abilities to get down-and-dirty.

If you need someone to do a mixture of blasting, buffs, and utility, well, Wizard is probably your best choice. Sorcs get more spells per day, but otherwise they're the cripples of the magic world. Other options (if your DM doesn't mind a little Oriental theme) is the Wu Jen from Complete Arcane... which is still basically a Wizard but with somewhat different spells and acquired abilities.

However, don't feel as though an arcane caster is an absolute necessity. Believe it or not, they're rarely of absolute necessity, especially if you have a few creative people in your group.

Favored soul is a nice alternative to the cleric. It still packs plenty of wallop but is less bogged down with the uber-cheese a cleric brings to the floor. Raven's already given one good RP example with the FS, but it's really just the tip of the iceberg with that class.

Them's my two cp.

[super sorcerer]

If you don't wan't to play a tank then I would recomend for Favored Soul, becouse a Warmage is just another type of tank ,

If you want to use more "roleplayfull" spells with your Warmage then make a good use for advaned learning or take the feat "arcane disciple" ( a feat from "Complete Divine") .

Favored Soul is a cool character. You could make it a tank that can heal itself or you can take offensive spells and become a sorcerer that both heal and kill with its spells. Both way are very roleplayfull since you can use most spells on allies as well (such as curing a vilage from a plaque using many remove desease spells or help a blind man to see again through remove blindness/deafness and so on).

I would also recomend a favored soul in this specific party becouse it is much easier to play a party without an arcane spellcaster that a party without a healer, and a ranger is not a good enough healer for such a big party so taking a spell like "Lesser Vigor" (a spell from Complete Divine) is realy usefull for healing large amounts of damage on low levels. A party without enough healing usualy have to spend many resources on healing potion if they want to survive enough encounter and it is much cheaper to have a divine spellcaster in your party.

Another posible combination is to be a Warmage with the feat "arcane discipe" (somtimes taken even more than once). That way you have both supreme destructive power and nice roleplay opportunities (you have a specific deity that you believe in his cause and some interesting spells that reflecs the deiti's philosopy). If your patron deity is palor and you choose the healing domain and the take feats such as "Spontanious Healer" and "Augmented Healing" you can become a fair arcane healer.

If your still not shure wheater you prefer a Warmage or a Favored Soul you can multiclass and later on take the prestige class Mistic Theurge. This may realy solve your conflict very well.

[Lantore]

So I'll give an update, especially since SuperSorc just posted. I'm starting out as a Warmage, it made sense story wise and group wise. But I plan on doing exactly what super said. I'll end up with Mystic Theurge after I take 4 or 5 levels of Favored soul. I forget how many levels exactly before I get lvl 2 spells. It's a long ways away since I'm level 1, and we play fairly slowly. this makes the character, so much more interesting. Not the most poweful build, but one that is quite fun.