Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

got kris hooked. nyuk nyuk nyuk. our next goal (to conquer the world in a parenthetical note) is to hook other people. character-wise, i've been thinking which race/class combos are the best, especially since you can multi-class and may have other players join you in a campaign. just some thoughts with stuff i tried: 1) elf sorcerer/red dragon disciple. making this class an elf was a mistake. it seems better just to take a straight human rather than incur the -2 con penalty at the beginning. also, it takes a fair amount of time until you get the red dragon disciple class. the good thing about this combo is the potential for giving a sorcerer more hit points and some raw defense so they don't have to rely on armor. also, the addition of the wings look cool but that's it. as far as i can tell, they serve no purpose. however, the real boon is the breath weapon attack. but you can only use this once a day (from what i can tell). at that rate, you might as well split the class with a fighter to get more hit points early on. also, i don't think using this with a bard outside of role playing purposes really is an add value thing 2) elf wizard (or bard)/arcane archer. i did this out of experimentation and to see if it could work. i wanted to avoid adding another class of a fighter so that i could concentrate my XP on just two classes. it's certainly possible since you can get weapon focus in bow with the elf. however, it takes a while (at least level 9) before the arcane archer shows up. for the wizard, it's worse because you need a base attack of +6 so you have to wait until that point. then once you get the second class, you'd probably want to concentrate for a while in the arcane archer just to balance the levels out. you'd be one hell of a distance fighter, but you could never face enemies up close and would require a tank to absorb damage. in the case of the bard, you'd get more defensive spells and would make for a general utilitarian character. offensively though, you'd suck for a while. again not worth it. 3) monk/mage. monks probably are designed to stay as is. as a dual class, you really miss out on their higher level capabilities. the idea is interesting since the monk's armorless disposition makes him natural as a defensive type, but you'd still be weak before you get the cooler bonuses at higher levels. 4) paladin/champion of torm. these seem to compliment each other very well. the champion of torm's abilities merely augments what the paladin can do. it sounds like an interesting class just to try. 5) thief/anything. you're better off hiring a follower or taking a few levels in disarm trap and search. i just don't see a good motive in taking a thief with these rules since you can take (at a lower value) the same skills. 6) ranger. the ranger druid might be interesting from a complimentary viewpoint. but i think the druid is weak to begin with. the shifter ability gets interesting much later, but i'd only take one of these if i could take more than one character and could manage them. the ranger by itself is only interesting from a role playing viewpoint where he has animal capabilities. it's cool looking but not very effective, imo. we tried getting an arcane archer with the ranger and that took forever because we had to put 1 level into a mage class. now that guy has to incur an XP penalty. 7) fighter/weaponsmaster. i'm doing this one right now. basically, the idea is that you get a kensai type. but you have to put emphasis on a ton of, imo, useless feats. you become a kickass fighter in the end, but that's all you really do. with no spellcasting ability whatsoever, you're pretty limited in the end. i think the better multi-classes might end up being something like a fighter + sorcerer/cleric. a paladin/cleric sounds somewhat appealing if you don't intend to get massive cleric spells and want more of a pure fighter. also, you can get a holy avenger and maybe even put a few levels in the champion of torm. ranger/sorcerer also is interesting if you want a little more armor and better weapons. right now, i'm thinking of trying a fighter/sorcerer where i split their levels every time i level up. taking a third class seems like a complete waste to me. if you have more than one person in your group, it's not a great idea since you can't focus on one area. multi-class is fun but doing too much at once isn't.