What is the best true support class?

[AkazilliaDeNaro]

i wanted to make a true support person no combat just buffs debuffs heals and the such

origanaly i wanted to make a fearon vesion of R2D2 from darths and droids but ii gave up

[Optimystik]

Cloistered Cleric is the buffer, healer, loremonkey and summoner all in one.

Factotum can do it all, but is less sustainable.

[Ernir]

Anything with War Weaver, a PrC from Heroes of Battle.

[AkazilliaDeNaro]

so this cleric thing is going to work?
i wanted to make sortof a pacifist to freak my DM out

[Prime32]

Vow of Peace, heading into Apostle of Peace.

Some levels of marshal.

The Draconic Aura feat.

[Longcat]

Bard with Dragonfire Inspiration.

[Optimystik]

Vow of Peace, heading into Apostle of Peace.

Nerfing your entire party as a class feature is not support.

[Shardan]

Wizard, because magic can do ANYTHING.. the only class you need :/

[Fenix_of_Doom]

Sounds like a job for the Beguiler to me, enough skillpoints to cover whatever you want, full casting with a spell list with a few buffs and a lot of debuff/control spells and they can UMD a wand of cure light wounds for out of combat healing.

[Tyndmyr]

Wizard, because magic can do ANYTHING.. the only class you need :/

This. Wizards make awesome support classes.

As a side note, IoTSv is a great PrC for support. Huge bonuses vs dispel to abjuration, and the ability to say no to a wide variety of attacks on your mates.

[Longcat]

Planar Shepherd

Nothing beats free wishes for your party. Except for free drinks!

[Optimystik]

Planar Shepherd

Nothing beats free wishes for your party. Except for free drinks!

Free Time Stop as well, with a fast time planar bubble around your team.

Then you Wild Shape into an Outsider and gain their (Su) abilities. For teh lulz.

[Magnor Criol]

Planar Shepherd

Nothing beats free wishes for your party. Except for free drinks!

Free time I've heard, but I haven't heard the free wishes trick with PS. What's this about?

[Optimystik]

Free time I've heard, but I haven't heard the free wishes trick with PS. What's this about?

You can wild shape into any outsider native to your chosen plane, gaining all their abilities each time you do so.

a) Turn into something that can grant wishes to the party.
b) ???
c) Profit

[Person_Man]

I would warn against frequent use of "always on" class features, like the Marshal or Dragon Shaman's aura, and (essentially) the Bard's music, which improve your damage or abilities by a certain increment. From a metagame perspective, this tends to just make the DM push up the difficulty of every encounter by the same increment. (Although a smart Bard can solve this problem by saving his music uses for important/difficult battles, even if he has tons of uses per day to use them in every battle and your other party members complain). So I would argue that the best support classes tend to be the full casters who choose to use buff, healing, battlefield control, and toolbox spells. They can pick and choose their power level as the game dictates.

I also would like to put forward the quirky addition of the Necrocarnate, a weird 13 level PrC from Magic of Incarnum. When built correctly, it can do anything a Skill Monkey, Totemist, or Incarnate can do. But you start out the day with a small amount of essentia. You gain more essentia by consuming the souls of recently dead, which gives you more essentia for the next 24 hours. When played "honestly" you start the adventure weak, but gain power as your party kills more enemies. Thus your power scale the opposite of casters and psionics, who lose powers and consume resources the more that they fight. In many ways this makes them the ultimate support class. Of course, your DM could mess with you by throwing only non-living enemies at you, in which cased you're somewhat screwed. Or you could use a Pipe of the Sewers or pour boiling water on an ant hill to kill many living things, gaining thousands of points of essentia. In which case the DM bans the Necrocarnate.

[tyckspoon]

Free time I've heard, but I haven't heard the free wishes trick with PS. What's this about?

Planar Shepherd allows you to Wildshape into the inhabitants of the plane you choose, with all their abilities including Supernaturals. Be a Planar Shepherd attuned to a plane with things that can grant Wishes. Turn into one. Grant Wishes- Efreet are a classic, of course.

Incidentally, the expanded Wildshape abuse and the Planar Bubble abuses tend not to be achievable at the same time. It depends on the cosmology in use, naturally, but generally the really awesome outsiders/elementals/templated magical beasts live on fairly boring planes.

[Optimystik]

Incidentally, the expanded Wildshape abuse and the Planar Bubble abuses tend not to be achievable at the same time. It depends on the cosmology in use, naturally, but generally the really awesome outsiders/elementals/templated magical beasts live on fairly boring planes.

Region of Dreams (MotP) has fast time (10x), plus every creature in the game.

[2xMachina]

Wonder if you can have the party wizard genesis a special plane for this... Any traits you want + import outsiders to live there.

Make your own plane Planar Shepperd = Win.

[Optimystik]

Wonder if you can have the party wizard genesis a special plane for this... Any traits you want + import outsiders to live there.

Make your own plane Planar Shepperd = Win.

You can, but reselecting your plane makes you restart the PrC from PS 1.

However, the book says nothing about actually losing experience, so by RAW you can just tack the levels back on immediately anyway, losing nothing.

[AkazilliaDeNaro]

whoa okay uh, any idea where online i can find some recommended spell lists for a wizard support

[dspeyer]

A lot of the best buff spells are arcane only: enlarge person, mage armor, fly, greater bull's strength.... Very few are divine only. You probably want an arcane caster.

Arcanists also get better PrCs: incantrix and war weaver.

You might want to mix in some bard, since that stacks nicely. There are many options, using some combination of sublime chord, prestige bard and virtuoso.

[Cyclocone]

Arcanists also get better PrCs: incantrix and war weaver.

And Spellguard of Silverymoon.

[Eldariel]

Bard/Sublime Chord/Virtuoso is pretty good. Bard/Sublime Chord/War Weaver/Virtuoso is prolly even better. War Weaver's Handbook may interest you.

[DragoonWraith]

Yeah, War Weaver pretty much wins. Spellguard of Silverymoon is hard to work in unless you're spending almost the entire adventure in Silverymoon, or your DM is willing to waive those (rather significant) requirements.

An interesting idea I had was Bard 2/Wizard 1/Master Specialist 2/Ultimate Magus 2/War Weaver 2/Sublime Chord 2/War Weaver +3/whatever 5. The lost level of War Weaver is pretty much negated by Sublime Chord, plus going dual advancement gives you a lot of lower level spell slots. You can cast things like Cure Light Wounds and have full access to the Sor/Wiz list.

[AkazilliaDeNaro]

woah thats thinking way to far ahead im just starting at lvl 2

[Optimystik]

You should plan out your entire build no matter what level you start at. That way, you can keep an eye out for items or other bonuses that support your concept as the game unfolds.

[AkazilliaDeNaro]

that is just like an i win stratagy
you play to win instead of playing to have fun

[Eldariel]

that is just like an i win stratagy
you play to win instead of playing to have fun

Huh? Where'd you get that from? Surely you can have fun even if your character is strong. I thought the point of the game was roleplaying anyways?

[Cyclocone]

that is just like an i win stratagy
you play to win instead of playing to have fun

Pssst! Stormwind Fallacy.

[Bayar]

that is just like an i win stratagy
you play to win instead of playing to have fun

You have more fun when you are not dead, or complaining that those 12 levels of paladin gave you jack **** compared to paladin X / PrC Y.