Quote Originally Posted by Troacctid View Post
I'm curious, what do people think of the starting packages and sample encounters for the new classes? If you had to pick a starting package for each class, which ones would you say are the best?

I'm somewhat astonished that none of the beguilers have Diplomacy, to the point where I had to look back and confirm for myself that it is actually a class skill. One of them is also using medium armor and a heavy steel shield without proficiency in either, which is...a bold choice, I gotta say, but I guess if you want to rock a 40% spell failure chance, you do you. I think the human with the trapfinding skills is probably the best one.

The starting packages for dragon shaman don't include which auras they chose, only which dragon. I find that odd. Honestly, all of them look pretty miserable to me. Two of them take Power Attack even though they have +0 BAB. That's so sad. I guess I'd go with the dwarf, which has Shield Specialization instead.

I'll say this for the duskblade starting packages, they all sure do know how to allocate their ability scores. I hate the feats on all of them, though. I'd probably pick the dwarf because I like the spell selection and dwarves at least have solid racial abilities.

The human knight going ham on mounted feats and not having enough money to afford a mount is such a sad thing to me. I think the dwarf is the winner of the three for me, with the most useful feat and the strongest weapon, although I respect the half-orc's higher Strength score.
I actually kinda like the sample second rank warrior in the book with a long spear. Actually contributes in that 5 x 5 hallway clogged with enemies and can rotate and hold its own. Its definately not a good class but I could definately see a party of like a Barbarian, Dragon Shaman, Druid, Sorceror. All sort of fitting together pretty well.