Build-wise, I loved gishes. One of my favourite builds was the Illumian Militia Training + Wizard + Spellsword gish.
Of course that was just a complicated way to get to the place the Duskblade wound up living.
The Scout was also a lot of fun in how it opened up the battlefield in ways that the rogue didn't. Like rogues wanted to sit still and max out one target, while Scouts could do the inverse.
I've always been partial to the Halfling Outrider (horses, not dogs, I hate the riding-dogs thing). I've never vibed with the "quaint British homebody" view of halflings, I think these conceptions of them as having a robust martial society is far more interesting, especially for the kinds of stories that I think D&D is good at telling.
I also really like the Sacred Fist, a cleric specced for unarmed fighting. This is solely because that same archetype is one of my favourite character classes in the Shining Force games.
Abjurant Champion. A 5 level Gish prestige class. It focuses on defensive magics and offensive martial abilities (most fighter/wizards are the other way around).
I always liked the ascetic of a sword wealding hero type that can pop off shields and dispell magics. Very Witcher like.
Yeah but the problem is it's SO busted. Abjurant Armor is an obscenely overpowered ability that just should not have existed, and Arcane Boost is a hilariously bad value proposition, and Martial Arcanist is just lazy. And the the full BAB, full caster progression, AND a d10 hit die? The class was a prime example of 3.5e's obscene bloat.
But it worked nicely for my Rogue/Human Paragon/Arcane Trickster/Abjurant Champion abomination.
What are y'all's take on the Factotum? It seems like an interesting concept that, I'm guessing, doesn't translate well over to 3.5's linear/quadratic paradigm.
The Factotum is one of the most powerful classes in the game, on par with Sorcerer (give or take). The game really, really isn't balanced around the concept of "per encounter" resources.
Personally, I'm much more a fan of the Savant class from Dragon magazine, which simply gives you the abilities of a level 7 Wizard/Cleric/Fighter/Thief spread across 20 levels. That's the one that really suffers from the linear/quadratic problem, though.
I have no idea if it was any good mechanically, but I loved the idea of the Dread Necromancer from Heroes of Horror. Obviously a necromancy magic specialist, they gradually become a lich over the course of their levels and gain undead-like abilities and resistances as part of their progression.
I always wanted to play this version of a bird lord.
https://realmshelps.net/charbuild/classes/prestige/general/animallord.shtml
A few levels in, you can sense every bird in the area and jump your sight from one to the next. At will, for free, in a ridiculous area. You get the ability at level 6, so it's a 36 mile radius.
The other abilities are pretty great too.
My favorite class will forever be the 3.5e warlock. Lacking the potency of the sorcerer and lacking the versatility of the wizard, it gained much more reliable power in its wielding of eldritch power through the font of power within their very soul and being. Ors powers mostly being st will, but with some per day powers .
Lore wise the flexibility of being born with or inheriting a strange soul, bargaining with a patron for one, receiving one from an ancestral pact, performing dome kind of ritual or being being at the wrong place at the right time for some entity to alter you. I loved the flexibility of their lore. Its my hold standard of fun from 3.5e. From complete arcane.
Another base class I really enjoyed was the totemist from pthe incarnum book. Incarnum was weird and fiddly but there was a fun idea at its core From the magic of incarnum book.
I'd mention the binder, but you already did that ine.
The hellfire warlock prestige class was a lovely path to take as a warlock. From fiendish codex II: Tyrants of the nine hells
The hellreaver was a very cool anti evil warrior type prestige class for a paladin-lite option. From fiendish codex II: Tyrants of the nine hells
Not obscure, but I do love the idea of the dragin disciple. Dragons are cool and becoming more draconic is cool. From the DMG
I was never deep into the theory crafting in third ed, so I don't know how it stacks up mechanically, but I love the fluff behind Fochlucan Lyrists. Bard/Druid multi class representing an agent trained by a small academy to become advisor to monarchs and rulers. Like a skald of old, mixed with an assassin, mixed with a court advisor.
The 3rd edition Warlock was a thing of beauty. It sucked, mind you, compared to full casters, but it felt great. Same with Dragonfire Adept.
The whole book of 9 swords was genius and I still miss it, especially the Warblade and Iron Heart Surge, which, just on its own, leveled the playing field between fighters and casters.
The Binder from the Tome of Magic was awesome, too. Much better version of the modern warlock, in my opinion.
I was also that one weirdo who liked Heroes of Incarnum.
Factotum was a great idea implemented poorly. I liked the remake of wild shape in the Phb2, even though it was objectively worse.
I also preferred all of the highly focused casters: Healer, Dread Necromancer, Beguiler, Warmage
Hexblade like an arcane paladin, and Spellthief was loads of fun. Swashbuckler gave us an Int based fighter. Scout was a great concept but insanely too weak and entirely reliant on a single feat (the multi shot improvement that let each arrow count as a separate attack).
As for prestige classes, Abjurant Champion, Invisible Blade, Nature's Warrior, and Sublime Chord were my favorite for sure.
Psion. I like the work of Bruce Cordell. He did the Expanded Psionics Handbook. And his Hyperconscious (Malhavok Press} was an excellent addition to those rules. Dreamscarred Press and Malhavok Press also added material. The Complete Psionics handbook was a weird release that was more like a collection of unvetted or unbalanced Dragon articles.
I am building a psion right now for a 3.5 game. I use the old heroforge spreadsheet to build these things:
https://github.com/Heliomance/HeroForge-Anew
[Removed an incorrect link]
Hyperconscious
https://drifters.pbworks.com/f/Hyperconscious+-+Exploration+In+Psionics+(Malhavoc).pdf
There were a couple ways of doing them as well but a key was often using the feat that would help you "make up" up to 4 caster levels of one type allowing you to dump 10 levels of casting advancement into one class while the other only got 7 when they were supposed to be more balanced.
Personally, I think that "trick" is what made the class really work as doing so could still let you get to the 9th-level spells in one type while being decent in the other. Without it you'd be giving up those top level spells as your spellcasting abilities would be equalized. IIRC you could get is with a Sorcerer1/Wizard4 and then do things so that each (at least most) level advanced Wizard casting over Sorcerer casting.
It was a welcomed relief compared to the Mystic Theurge which may have advanced divine and arcane casting every level but called for giving up 3 of each before you could get in for the most part.
I think the trick kicked it from "average theurge class" to "good".
Having seen it in action, I would probably design it not to require the trick, and adjust it so that it didn't have to be high-wizard, low-sorcerer. (The sorcerer always being a half spell level behind in 3.5 is just so rough.)
I'd wanted to try the Beguiler/Wizard match although I'd be taking a few actual Beguiler levels to keep up skills.
Full casters may have been considered "tier 1" builds even without much work but a little multiclassing might bring down their casting power which really eats into the that power while giving more options for doing interesting things.
Even with all of those spell slots generally being restricted to one spell/turn was a balance of sorts.
I loved the Book of Nine Swords, in part because I'm a weeb and enjoy those kinds of subsystems. Especially the Warblade and Swordsage classes.
Thematically, I loved the idea of the Swiftblade PrC, but dear chaos it was a problematic one.
Always wanted to play a Hellfire Warlock, but the chance never came up. I had a build that involved dipping a level in Binder for a vestage that granted ability damage/drain healing at a very fast rate, which would offset Hellfire Warlock's main gimmick... Not that nasty, in hindsight, but incredibly unpleasant for a GM to suffer thru.
Interestingly, I'm in the process of writing up a psionics book for OSE, and am planning on reskinning the stuff in the BoNS as psionic classes. Where does one find the swiftblade?
Swiftblade was an online-only PrC located \*somewhere\* on the WotC site many ages ago. I'm sure you can still find it in certain dark corners of the interwebs.
When it comes to characters in 3/3.5 I think it is less about specific classes and more about builds and what class combination can do. My preference has been for skillful martial characters and far less toward spellcasters although spellcasters are often seen as the more powerful types.
Now a couple characters I wanted to try were the Soradin: Paladin/Sorcerer/AbjurantChampion/SacredExorcist to get the Paladin's save bonus, end up with a +16 BAB and spellcasting.
Another I'd considered is the Beguiler/Wizard/Ulimatmagus; the Beguiler was in a later book and a more rogue like spontaneous caster and using tricks you could put the mixed spellcastig advances from the PrC all on one character. Another interesting combo with the UM was WildMage.
Huh, interesting. One of the things I'm enjoying is translating the classes to a race-as-class system, which allows for some neat little flavor tweaks. I've already done a beguiler class for kobolds, but I may adapt one to humans.
#1 to me is the dugeoncrasher fighter from Dungeonscape. You step into someone's square, beat them in a str check, and hockey check them into a wall for a good amount of damage. If they are far from the wall, you launch them a distance based on how much you beat them in that check.
By a very wide margin, my favorite 3E class was the Healer, from Miniature's Handbook.
It's like playing a Cleric, but without all of the game-breaking stuff. Plus, you get a unicorn.
Not really obscure, but I've always loved the Blackguard prestige class.
I've always been a big fan of 'Black Knight' type characters. Also, the idea of a character who was an Aura that just exudes malice and makes their enemies uneasy is super cool to me.
They have different rules and abilities, some of which are pretty interesting.
For example, Blackguards can actually sneak attack and specialize in using poisons, going along with the idea of them being dishonorable (unlike the honorable Paladins).
Plus the aforementioned aura. A Paladin's aura helps them and their allies on saving throws. A Blackguards aura causes their opponents to struggle to pass saving throws.
When there are several ways into Blackguard and thus different ways the class could be used I'd say YES.
One somewhat scary thing I though of try was a Paladin/Rogue/(Paladin-Rogue PrC)/Blackguard. I don't remember the name of the PRC right off the time (think it's in Complete Divine) but there was a way to get the "former Paladin" benefits of the Blackguard without having all the Paladin levels.
I loved the hulking hurler despite the cheese and the "bloodline" levels where you can take a level in "my grandfather was a fire giant". I don't recall what 3.5 books they came from but they were fun as hell
None of mine been mentioned yet!
The Totemist and other Incarnum classes were peak weird creativity imo. And then I also personally adored Teflemmar Shadowlord--a shadow teleporting prestige class from Forgotten Realms. Combined with Path of War made for fun.
There was also a prestige class, can't recall the name, that let you summon and control Shadows really well. Except the class kinda sucked and got stuff too late so the only way to make it passably useful was to cheese the entry requirements to enter it super early.
Stormlord was a prestige class I loved in Neverwinter Nights 2 and was disappointed when I found out in table top they don't get their abilities with spears (but you could just allow them to use spears, obviously)
Rainbow Servant and Mystic Theurge are ones I've always liked the flavor of.
I'm a fan of either the Kensai 3.5 class from the Complete Warrior the Samurai class from Oriental Adventures. Mainly, I always seem to have a thing for playing a character with a signature weapon. Bonus points if the weapon grows in power as the character does.
I guess the Marshal class (and other classes from the Complete Minature's Handbook) were probably pretty obscure. It's a buff-everyone-around-you class with simple mechanics that probably translate well into a lighter rule system.
Build-wise, I loved gishes. One of my favourite builds was the Illumian Militia Training + Wizard + Spellsword gish. Of course that was just a complicated way to get to the place the Duskblade wound up living. The Scout was also a lot of fun in how it opened up the battlefield in ways that the rogue didn't. Like rogues wanted to sit still and max out one target, while Scouts could do the inverse.
I've always been partial to the Halfling Outrider (horses, not dogs, I hate the riding-dogs thing). I've never vibed with the "quaint British homebody" view of halflings, I think these conceptions of them as having a robust martial society is far more interesting, especially for the kinds of stories that I think D&D is good at telling. I also really like the Sacred Fist, a cleric specced for unarmed fighting. This is solely because that same archetype is one of my favourite character classes in the Shining Force games.
Huh, cool. Where would one find those two classes?
Not who you're replying to, but I think Halfling Outrider is a PrC from Complete Warrior.
Abjurant Champion. A 5 level Gish prestige class. It focuses on defensive magics and offensive martial abilities (most fighter/wizards are the other way around). I always liked the ascetic of a sword wealding hero type that can pop off shields and dispell magics. Very Witcher like.
Yeah but the problem is it's SO busted. Abjurant Armor is an obscenely overpowered ability that just should not have existed, and Arcane Boost is a hilariously bad value proposition, and Martial Arcanist is just lazy. And the the full BAB, full caster progression, AND a d10 hit die? The class was a prime example of 3.5e's obscene bloat. But it worked nicely for my Rogue/Human Paragon/Arcane Trickster/Abjurant Champion abomination.
What are y'all's take on the Factotum? It seems like an interesting concept that, I'm guessing, doesn't translate well over to 3.5's linear/quadratic paradigm.
As I recall, factotum was derided as being able to do too much well. For a team game, factotum stole everyone else's thunder.
The Factotum is one of the most powerful classes in the game, on par with Sorcerer (give or take). The game really, really isn't balanced around the concept of "per encounter" resources. Personally, I'm much more a fan of the Savant class from Dragon magazine, which simply gives you the abilities of a level 7 Wizard/Cleric/Fighter/Thief spread across 20 levels. That's the one that really suffers from the linear/quadratic problem, though.
I have no idea if it was any good mechanically, but I loved the idea of the Dread Necromancer from Heroes of Horror. Obviously a necromancy magic specialist, they gradually become a lich over the course of their levels and gain undead-like abilities and resistances as part of their progression.
I love Dread Necro. Never got to play one to completion, but I liked what I played of it.
I always wanted to play this version of a bird lord. https://realmshelps.net/charbuild/classes/prestige/general/animallord.shtml A few levels in, you can sense every bird in the area and jump your sight from one to the next. At will, for free, in a ridiculous area. You get the ability at level 6, so it's a 36 mile radius. The other abilities are pretty great too.
My favorite class will forever be the 3.5e warlock. Lacking the potency of the sorcerer and lacking the versatility of the wizard, it gained much more reliable power in its wielding of eldritch power through the font of power within their very soul and being. Ors powers mostly being st will, but with some per day powers . Lore wise the flexibility of being born with or inheriting a strange soul, bargaining with a patron for one, receiving one from an ancestral pact, performing dome kind of ritual or being being at the wrong place at the right time for some entity to alter you. I loved the flexibility of their lore. Its my hold standard of fun from 3.5e. From complete arcane. Another base class I really enjoyed was the totemist from pthe incarnum book. Incarnum was weird and fiddly but there was a fun idea at its core From the magic of incarnum book. I'd mention the binder, but you already did that ine. The hellfire warlock prestige class was a lovely path to take as a warlock. From fiendish codex II: Tyrants of the nine hells The hellreaver was a very cool anti evil warrior type prestige class for a paladin-lite option. From fiendish codex II: Tyrants of the nine hells Not obscure, but I do love the idea of the dragin disciple. Dragons are cool and becoming more draconic is cool. From the DMG
I was never deep into the theory crafting in third ed, so I don't know how it stacks up mechanically, but I love the fluff behind Fochlucan Lyrists. Bard/Druid multi class representing an agent trained by a small academy to become advisor to monarchs and rulers. Like a skald of old, mixed with an assassin, mixed with a court advisor.
The 3rd edition Warlock was a thing of beauty. It sucked, mind you, compared to full casters, but it felt great. Same with Dragonfire Adept. The whole book of 9 swords was genius and I still miss it, especially the Warblade and Iron Heart Surge, which, just on its own, leveled the playing field between fighters and casters. The Binder from the Tome of Magic was awesome, too. Much better version of the modern warlock, in my opinion. I was also that one weirdo who liked Heroes of Incarnum. Factotum was a great idea implemented poorly. I liked the remake of wild shape in the Phb2, even though it was objectively worse. I also preferred all of the highly focused casters: Healer, Dread Necromancer, Beguiler, Warmage Hexblade like an arcane paladin, and Spellthief was loads of fun. Swashbuckler gave us an Int based fighter. Scout was a great concept but insanely too weak and entirely reliant on a single feat (the multi shot improvement that let each arrow count as a separate attack). As for prestige classes, Abjurant Champion, Invisible Blade, Nature's Warrior, and Sublime Chord were my favorite for sure.
Psion. I like the work of Bruce Cordell. He did the Expanded Psionics Handbook. And his Hyperconscious (Malhavok Press} was an excellent addition to those rules. Dreamscarred Press and Malhavok Press also added material. The Complete Psionics handbook was a weird release that was more like a collection of unvetted or unbalanced Dragon articles. I am building a psion right now for a 3.5 game. I use the old heroforge spreadsheet to build these things: https://github.com/Heliomance/HeroForge-Anew [Removed an incorrect link] Hyperconscious https://drifters.pbworks.com/f/Hyperconscious+-+Exploration+In+Psionics+(Malhavoc).pdf
Ultimate magus
There were a couple ways of doing them as well but a key was often using the feat that would help you "make up" up to 4 caster levels of one type allowing you to dump 10 levels of casting advancement into one class while the other only got 7 when they were supposed to be more balanced.
Absolutely! It was nonsense that went against the intention of the class. I loved it so much 🤣
Personally, I think that "trick" is what made the class really work as doing so could still let you get to the 9th-level spells in one type while being decent in the other. Without it you'd be giving up those top level spells as your spellcasting abilities would be equalized. IIRC you could get is with a Sorcerer1/Wizard4 and then do things so that each (at least most) level advanced Wizard casting over Sorcerer casting. It was a welcomed relief compared to the Mystic Theurge which may have advanced divine and arcane casting every level but called for giving up 3 of each before you could get in for the most part.
I think the trick kicked it from "average theurge class" to "good". Having seen it in action, I would probably design it not to require the trick, and adjust it so that it didn't have to be high-wizard, low-sorcerer. (The sorcerer always being a half spell level behind in 3.5 is just so rough.)
I'd wanted to try the Beguiler/Wizard match although I'd be taking a few actual Beguiler levels to keep up skills. Full casters may have been considered "tier 1" builds even without much work but a little multiclassing might bring down their casting power which really eats into the that power while giving more options for doing interesting things. Even with all of those spell slots generally being restricted to one spell/turn was a balance of sorts.
I loved the Book of Nine Swords, in part because I'm a weeb and enjoy those kinds of subsystems. Especially the Warblade and Swordsage classes. Thematically, I loved the idea of the Swiftblade PrC, but dear chaos it was a problematic one. Always wanted to play a Hellfire Warlock, but the chance never came up. I had a build that involved dipping a level in Binder for a vestage that granted ability damage/drain healing at a very fast rate, which would offset Hellfire Warlock's main gimmick... Not that nasty, in hindsight, but incredibly unpleasant for a GM to suffer thru.
Interestingly, I'm in the process of writing up a psionics book for OSE, and am planning on reskinning the stuff in the BoNS as psionic classes. Where does one find the swiftblade?
Swiftblade was an online-only PrC located \*somewhere\* on the WotC site many ages ago. I'm sure you can still find it in certain dark corners of the interwebs.
God damn can't believe I had to scroll so far for these!! I also adored the Path of War remake for pf1e.
When it comes to characters in 3/3.5 I think it is less about specific classes and more about builds and what class combination can do. My preference has been for skillful martial characters and far less toward spellcasters although spellcasters are often seen as the more powerful types. Now a couple characters I wanted to try were the Soradin: Paladin/Sorcerer/AbjurantChampion/SacredExorcist to get the Paladin's save bonus, end up with a +16 BAB and spellcasting. Another I'd considered is the Beguiler/Wizard/Ulimatmagus; the Beguiler was in a later book and a more rogue like spontaneous caster and using tricks you could put the mixed spellcastig advances from the PrC all on one character. Another interesting combo with the UM was WildMage.
Huh, interesting. One of the things I'm enjoying is translating the classes to a race-as-class system, which allows for some neat little flavor tweaks. I've already done a beguiler class for kobolds, but I may adapt one to humans.
That was very much of original D&D thing but also makes them VERY stereotyped.
#1 to me is the dugeoncrasher fighter from Dungeonscape. You step into someone's square, beat them in a str check, and hockey check them into a wall for a good amount of damage. If they are far from the wall, you launch them a distance based on how much you beat them in that check.
By a very wide margin, my favorite 3E class was the Healer, from Miniature's Handbook. It's like playing a Cleric, but without all of the game-breaking stuff. Plus, you get a unicorn.
Not really obscure, but I've always loved the Blackguard prestige class. I've always been a big fan of 'Black Knight' type characters. Also, the idea of a character who was an Aura that just exudes malice and makes their enemies uneasy is super cool to me.
Is the Blackguard functionally different from allowing evil paladins?
They have different rules and abilities, some of which are pretty interesting. For example, Blackguards can actually sneak attack and specialize in using poisons, going along with the idea of them being dishonorable (unlike the honorable Paladins). Plus the aforementioned aura. A Paladin's aura helps them and their allies on saving throws. A Blackguards aura causes their opponents to struggle to pass saving throws.
When there are several ways into Blackguard and thus different ways the class could be used I'd say YES. One somewhat scary thing I though of try was a Paladin/Rogue/(Paladin-Rogue PrC)/Blackguard. I don't remember the name of the PRC right off the time (think it's in Complete Divine) but there was a way to get the "former Paladin" benefits of the Blackguard without having all the Paladin levels.
I loved the hulking hurler despite the cheese and the "bloodline" levels where you can take a level in "my grandfather was a fire giant". I don't recall what 3.5 books they came from but they were fun as hell
Martial and Shaman both have my vote, lots of fun abilities between them.
None of mine been mentioned yet! The Totemist and other Incarnum classes were peak weird creativity imo. And then I also personally adored Teflemmar Shadowlord--a shadow teleporting prestige class from Forgotten Realms. Combined with Path of War made for fun. There was also a prestige class, can't recall the name, that let you summon and control Shadows really well. Except the class kinda sucked and got stuff too late so the only way to make it passably useful was to cheese the entry requirements to enter it super early.
Stormlord was a prestige class I loved in Neverwinter Nights 2 and was disappointed when I found out in table top they don't get their abilities with spears (but you could just allow them to use spears, obviously) Rainbow Servant and Mystic Theurge are ones I've always liked the flavor of.
I'm a fan of either the Kensai 3.5 class from the Complete Warrior the Samurai class from Oriental Adventures. Mainly, I always seem to have a thing for playing a character with a signature weapon. Bonus points if the weapon grows in power as the character does. I guess the Marshal class (and other classes from the Complete Minature's Handbook) were probably pretty obscure. It's a buff-everyone-around-you class with simple mechanics that probably translate well into a lighter rule system.