Unique and Fun builds for 3.5

[Wildstag]

It's mildly dorky, but there's a way to play Llyan from The Chronicles of Prydain. Pick your race as Tibbit. Then choose two levels in a full-bab base class. I prefer Ftr1/Barb1. Then qualify for Stoneblessed (Goliath). By level 3, you count as a Goliath for racial prerequisites.

Now retrain your Barb1 level to use the Goliath Barbarian racial substitution level. Pick up Mountain Rage. Now when you rage, you gain +6 Strength and become a Large creature. You are now playing Llyan.

[RNightstalker]

That's the thing 3.5... has just so many options it's impossible to think of and keep track of them all. Can do pretty much anything.

That's what makes 3ish edition awesome...I'm not on the 5th edition board much but I notice the numbers of posts and this one has way more far and away.

[Jopustopin]

"Binger" - Monk 2 / Warblade 4 (going drunken master). Cobra strike variant. Lion Tribe warrior, mage slayer. Charges, punches, drinks.

[Bonzai]

I had a crazy cat lady build.
Mongrel Folk Druid 1/wizard 1/Sorc 1/Totemist 2/Beastmaster 10
Pertinent feats: wild companion, share soulmeld

The wizard and Sorcerer levels sub out their familiar for animal companions. Wild companion basically gives you another. In a nutshell, this build will give you up to 8 animal companions. You use share soulmeld, with the Manticore Belt bound to their totem Chakra. Maxed out, you will be able to fire off 72 spines a round. That is maxed out, but the combo is engaged at level 5, with 4 cats. Between them and you, that is at least 10 possible d6 damage attacks.

Mongrelfolk wasn't integral to the build, but drives home the crazy cat lady aesthetic.

[Temotei]

It's mildly dorky, but there's a way to play Llyan from The Chronicles of Prydain. Pick your race as Tibbit. Then choose two levels in a full-bab base class. I prefer Ftr1/Barb1. Then qualify for Stoneblessed (Goliath). By level 3, you count as a Goliath for racial prerequisites.

Now retrain your Barb1 level to use the Goliath Barbarian racial substitution level. Pick up Mountain Rage. Now when you rage, you gain +6 Strength and become a Large creature. You are now playing Llyan.

Since the tibbit explicitly takes a "-8 penalty to Strength" upon transforming, soulborn 2 can give you immunity to that if you're Chaotic Evil. Funny interaction.

[Morphic tide]

Artificer 1/Kaorti 2/LA +2/Fiend of Possession 2/Artificer +4 has funny uses with the Web Enhancement that defines Kaorti ribbon weapons as a special material. Because it allows you to replace the normal GP cost of making Masterwork weapons and armor with 50% the market price in XP, and go down to 35% the base cost at 1 XP=5 GP as a replacement Magic Item crafting procedure. This means that when Retain Essence destroys anything made this way, you get back everything you spent on the base item and lose 65% less GP on the magic.

The ordering here is not-quite-RAW backstory abuse of Vile Transformation to have the Kaorti RHD fulfil the Fiend of Possession skill requirements for a clean early entry. At-will Etherealness at ECL 6 is lovely, free floating enhancements are great even at +2, Bestow Curse on contact may function as an on-hit effect, and hiding yourself in one of your items lets your cheap-to-change arsenal be carried through a lot of things. Artificer +8 gets you to CL 15 item requirements like 8th level spells and making them Intelligent, with LA buyoff letting you also reach FoP 5.

[vasilidor]

A build i want to try is to do Sorcerer 5, Fighter 5, Spell Sword 10. Mostly I just want casting on a guy in full plate for some utility stuff. Is this a great build? no. I figure it would function well enough for premade adventures or low op campaigns though.

[titaniumskittle]

Vampire spawn monster class is pretty fun. Ask your DM what you could do to gain unholy toughness to give you more hp but past that it's a good time

[pabelfly]

A build i want to try is to do Sorcerer 5, Fighter 5, Spell Sword 10. Mostly I just want casting on a guy in full plate for some utility stuff. Is this a great build? no. I figure it would function well enough for premade adventures or low op campaigns though.

Arcane casting in heavy armor is a surprisingly commonly-asked question. I even did a thread myself:

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...in-heavy-armor

Short version: Stalwart Battle Sorcerer + Skin of Ectoplasmic Armor (MIC) is heavy armor that counts as light while you can cast in what's effectively full plate armor without any issue. Probably the easiest way to do it.

Stalwart Battle Sorcerer + Battle Caster lets you cast in medium armor without issue, and a material like mithral reduces heavy armor to medium armor.

Armored Savant (Fighter ACF, Dragon Magazine) halves your ASF before you use ASF-reducing stuff like blended quartz, thistledown padding, twilight enchant, and so forth.

There's more suggestions in the thread, if those don't work for you.

[Darg]

Don't forget straight up martial casting PrCs like Knight of the Weave or Suel Arcanamach which give alternate casting while not needing the ability to cast in the first place.

Then again, Still Spell is exceptionally valid for casting in armor if going for a traditional gish. People on these boards complain about it, but it's still a lot of access for casting in plate/tower shield. Even a traditional eldritch knight ends up with 15 BAB and up to 9th level spells, or stilled up to 8th. And not every spell needs to be stilled either. Some spells you cast at the beginning of the day, other times you use some spells for out of combat utility where you have time to remove your failure chances. The real hard part is finding ways to game the action economy to let you cast and attack in a round (which is what makes spellsword so appealing even with its 5/10 casting.)(Funnily enough, spellsword is basically indirect proof that rainbow servant is a 6/10 casting PrC, but that's off topic.)

[rel]

Item wielder is a class of build that only really saw support in 3.5, not even pathfinder 1 had much allowance for it.
In combat you primarily use consumables to contribute; wands for blasting, potions, scrolls and so forth.
Since your power comes largely from the items you craft and carry, rather than directly from class features, your powers don't refresh per encounter, or even per day, but per Adventure.
Eventually, after days of adventuring, you start running out of wand charges and potions and need to go back to town to sell loot and craft more gear.

It's a very different way of playing, dependent on finding enough money and periodic downtime time to keep going but largely immune to running out of gas in the short term.

Good base classes are caster types like wizard or artificer, and good prc's enhance item use; wand adept, alchemist savant, unseen seer (for sneak attack), etc.