Every once in awhile, you get that urge to make that perfect character. But how do you do it? Will you copy fictional works and go for a Conniving Thief? How about a Stupid Bard?Perhaps you will try to do something less overdone than a Drizzt Do'urden clone, or perhaps you will choose a simple meat shield fighter to give your wizard less to complain about. Either way, here is a compiled list of almost all archetypes of classes. Good luck.
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1st through 3rd Edition Core Classes
Assassin
A sub-class of the thief in 1st Edition, the assassin became a Prestige Class in 3rd Edition.
Boring, but Practical: The 3E Assassin has a very small list of spells they can use, but it contains almost all the spells a stealthy character would want (read: Invisibility), and the ability to cast arcane spells at all opens up huge new options for them.
A variant known as the "Avenger" was released by Wizards of the Coast on April Fools' Day. It instead is required to be any non-chaotic alignment, due to their stats as a government agent for acting against foreign powers.
Lightning Bruiser: In 3.x, the barbarian has the highest base movement speed of any class except for the monk. In addition to that he has uncanny dodge, meaning that he reacts so quickly to danger that he gains a bonus to reflex saves against traps and cannot be flanked or sneak-attacked in combat.
Made of Iron: Traditionally, barbarians have the highest hit points of the core classes, and in most cases, actually take reduced damage from all physical attacks at higher levels (the DR is so small that it only outright prevents Scratch Damage, though).
Never Learned To Read: Possibly; in the third edition, barbarians must spend skill points for literacy, whereas other characters are automatically literate.
One Stat to Rule Them All: In 1st Edition, Constitution. In 3rd, barbarians benefit from all physical stats.
Unstoppable Rage: The barbarian's distinguishing characteristic in 3rd Edition. The original 1E barbarian from White Dwarf also had this ability, but the official one by Gary Gygax did not (it was defined by its extreme resilience).
3rd Edition bards must be nonlawful, under the presumption that the spontaneity required by bards cannot live in a lawful soul.
Magic Music: Third edition made the bard's magical abilities into this; previous editions had them as merely bits of lore that the bard had picked up from his travels.
Master of None: Bards have half-decent fighting abilities, a little bit of arcane (wizard) magic, and some thieving skills, but aren't particularly good at any of them. The best ways to make them good all involve specializing (as they are given plenty of options in source books due to their status as a core class).
All Monks Know Kung-Fu: The Cloistered Cleric (no armor or weapon abilities in exchange for knowledge skills and divination) variant in 3.5 finally provides an aversion for the system, as a class for a western book copying monk.
Detect Evil: one of the cleric's spells is the trope namer
Evil Counterpart: Many evil cleric spells are evil counterparts to good cleric spells. In addition, evil clerics' ability to channel negative energy to cast inflict spells or rebuke and command undead is the evil counterpart to good clerics' ability to channel positive energy to cast cure spells or turn and destroy undead.
Technical Pacifist: In the first two editions, clerics cannot cause bloodshed, and thus cannot use slashing or piercing weapons. Apparently, bludgeoning people to death with a big, heavy mace is just fine, though.
Squishy Wizard: Only in 1st Edition, where they had similar armor restrictions to wizards.
The Red Mage: Druids fall outside the dichotomy of white-magic clerics and black-magic wizards, with both healing and damaging spells regardless of alignment.
Mighty Glacier: Although they do not have to be played this way, Fighters can equip the heavy class of armor, and are the only core class capable of properly wielding a tower shield (at least by default).
Weapon of Choice: Fighters gain an ability called "Weapon Specialization", which gives them bonuses when they use their chosen weapon.
Illusionist
Originally a sub-class distinct from the magic-user class and with its own spell list (though there was overlap). Became "merely" one type of specialist wizard among several others as early as AD&D 2nd edition.
Awesome yet Practical: Most classes will be severely hindered if the Dungeon Master requires them to be disarmed for some reason. Even spellcasters will have trouble if their spell components are confiscated too. The Monk, on the other hand, fights unarmed anyways, making it THE best class for fighting in situations where a character would be deprived of its equipment (like diplomatic meetings gone bad or breaking oneself out of prison.)
Rapid Fire Fisticuffs: At lower levels, flurry of blows allows the player to launch more than the standard number of attacks per turn at the cost of accuracy. At higher levels, flurry of blows is MORE ACCURATE than standard attacks.
Charles Atlas Superpower: Most of the monk's abilities are not magical in nature, but merely stem from years of training. Including the ability to do lethal damage with their fists, the only Core class that can do so without taking a feat.
Fragile Speedster: Even if you happen to roll 18 for all your ability scores, monks will never get as strong or as tough as the true fighting classes, with their naturally high AC and movement speed bonuses being their main boons.
Lightning Bruiser: Again, when unarmed combat is required, monks are head and shoulders above everyone else.
Invulnerable Knuckles: Said knuckles count as magic weapons for the purpose of piercing magic defenses. This also has the side-effect of letting a Monk punch ghosts.
Ki Attacks: 3rd Edition describes many Monk abilities as being quasi-spiritual.
Master of None: Have a lot of "flavor" abilities with no value. Most of its abilities are contrary, as well: The monk has a lot of mobility-enhancing powers that would lead to hit-and-run attacks... But Flurry of Blows only work when the monk stands still.
Became a Useless Useful Spell in 3.5 when it could no longer affect targets of higher Hit Die than the monk. Most mooks at the level you gain it have more Hit Die than player characters, nevermind targets you'd actually feel like expending it on.
It doesn't have to be instant-death, either; the monk is able to simply will the target to die at any time for at least a week after landing the attack (depending on the monk's Wisdom and level), and if the target fails a Fortitude save, they drop dead. Paranoia Fuel and extortion ahoy!
What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Monks have tons of filler abilities that are easily replicated by cheap, common, magic items (What good is limited access to slow fall over 20 levels if a Ring of Slowfall is dirt cheap and easily afforded by the time you start getting the basics of the ability and does more than it ever will?).
Cool Mount: The paladin's warhorse Mount, gained upon reaching level 4. Not only is it tougher than a standard warhorse Mount, it shares an empathetic bond with the paladin and levels up as he/she does.
Detect Evil: One of the paladin's abilities duplicates the effect of the cleric spell of the same name, which is the Trope Namer.
Right Makes Might: A paladin's powers are tied directly to his alignment; if he strays from the path of righteousness, he loses all his special abilities.
Combat Pragmatist: Being the only core non-spellcaster with Use Magic Device as a class skill (the skill governing use of magic items like scrolls and wands) gives one a lot of options.
Glass Cannon: Like wizards, sorcerors can dish out huge amounts of damage with their spells, but their d4 Hit Dice means that they won't have many Hit Points.
In the Blood: A sorcerer's powers are innate, as opposed to wizards, who require years of study to learn their magic.
Vancian Magic: Of a different sort than wizards and most other spellcasting classes. Rather than being required to prepare spells in advance, sorcerors can spontaneously cast any spell they know, and are allowed to cast only a given number of spells per day (sorcerors also get to cast more spells per day than wizards). On the other hand, sorcerors are only allowed to know a limited number of spells, period. This gives sorcerors great flexibility to adapt their plans on the fly (in contrast to wizards, who are screwed if they go up against something they didn't prepare for ahead of time), but less flexibility in terms of the total range of situations that they can tackle.
Achilles Heel: Wizards cannot prepare spells without their spellbooks. Very sadistic GMs wanting to equalize the sorcerer/wizard gap are known to exploit this fact.
Badass Bookworm: Wizards study dusty old tomes for years to gain the ability to blow stuff up with a flick of the hand.
Crazy-Prepared: The 2nd and 3rd/3.5 edition wizard was best played with this mindset. Without the cleric's access to all spells each level, wizards must carefully shop for scrolls and prepare the 'right' ones each day.
Badass Bookworm: Archivists add spells to their prayerbook from divine scrolls, and can learn any divine spell in the game, giving them the most versatile spell list around.
Clothes Make the Superman: Artificers cast spells indirectly by enchanting equipment. In other words, they can't fly, but their boots just suddenly sprouted little wings.
Crazy-Prepared: Being only as good as the stuff they carry, experienced artificer players will have whole manifests of stuff they have in their interdemensional storage spaces. And if they don't have the exact right thing, their Infusions (at higher levels) can make a stick into a Holy Orc-bane Stick of Impact.
Difficult, But Awesome: Artificers require a massive amount of bookkeeping — keeping track of all of their magical items, how much XP was lost in creating all of them, how many charges each magical weapon has, how many Action Points they have at any given time — but when pulled off, they are awesomely powerful.
Gadgeteer Genius: For that player who wants to craft their own equipment.
Ars Goetia: Many of the Vestiges that Binders make pacts with are based off of demons from the Ars Goetia.
Continuity Nod: Some of the Vestiges are based off of characters from events in previous editions of D&D that, due to how they died or were destroyed, have slipped outside of the normal order of existence.
Deal with the Devil: While there are plenty of innocent or neutral vestiges, the whole process is considered unnatural. In the default setting, expect at least three Law-aligned deities demanding your head on a plate at any given time.
The WOTC message boards used to have an epic thread of fan-made vestiges. Many of these were also pop-culture icons, for those players who want to channel Ghost Rider or Homsar.
Red Right Hand: Shows up when channelling — sometimes it is a literal deformity, other times it is a personality quirk like being unable to lie.
Introduced in Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords.
Arrogant Kung Fu Paladin: Pretty common; the class is essentially a Paladin 2.0 with the Tome Of Battle rules, and loved hatedrenowned for being so.
Kung-Fu Jesus: They use divinely inspired martial arts to fight. Inspiration is represented by the DM offering them 3 random cards a turn, each card corresponding to a maneuver.
Made of Iron: Damage taken can be delayed up to one round, and the Crusader can heal that damage before it happens (or use the Stone Power feat to negate it outright).
Mighty Glacier: It's the only class in the Book of Nine Swords that is proficient with Heavy Armor. The class also has a strong focus on Hit Points (though not receiving as many as the Warblade), and is very hard to actually kill if played properly.
Obvious Beta: In hindsight, anyway. Wizards of the Coast has confirmed that they were testing gameplay mechanics for fourth edition with this and the other classes in Tome of Battle. It's more obvious here than with earlier classes like the Warlock (see below).
Death Master
Introduced in Dragon #76, updated for 3.5e in the Dragon Compendium.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Dragon Shamans must choose a type of dragon as their totem and must adhere close to that type of dragon's alignment.
Status Buff: The "shaman" part of the class manifests in part through its auras. It works in a way similar to the Marshal, but with a smaller area and more overtly magical.
Dragonfire Adept
Introduced in Dragon Magic.
Breath Weapon: While other characters can pick one up through spells, feats, items, and class features down the line, the Dragonfire Adept is the only class that gets a breath weapon at level 1.
Expy: Uses the same casting system as the Warlock.
Full-Contact Magic: Compared to other Arcane Users. Not supremely strong, but certainly tougher than others.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Dread Necros have a limited spell list, drawn nearly exclusively from the Necromancy school.
Expy: Borrows the Warmage's system of casting, but for necromancy spells instead of blasting.
Healing Hands: Can expel negative energy at a touch. Infinite healing for any undead (or rare living being healed by negative energy), including themself with the right options.
Soul Jar: The Dread Necro's level 20 class feature is an automatic transformation into a Lich, complete with the obligatory Phylactery. They even get Craft Wondrous Item as a bonus feat to construct the phylactery, in case they didn't already have it.
Squishy Wizard: While only slightly less squishy than normal casters in theory, their infinite healing makes them fairly tankish at times. (For comparison, even the Monk's Healing Factor is limited to twice the Monk's class level per day.)
Useless Item: Wot CCust Serv has infamously claimed one of their class features does absolutely nothing beyond give them a box. This is one of the more frequently cited reasons why no one uses Cust Serv rulings.
Duskblade
Introduced in Player's Handbook II.
Magic Knight: The best single non-Prestige class example.
Eidolon
Introduced in Ghostwalk.(Needs entries)
Eidoloncer
Introduced in Ghostwalk.(Needs entries)
Erudite
Introduced in Complete Psionic.
All Your Powers Combined: Unlike standard Psions, Erudites can learn powers from all six psionic disciplines.
Secret Character: The Erudite was hidden away in one of the last pages of Complete Psionic, segregated from the other three classes introduced in that splatbook. Consequently, a fair number of people don't even know it exists.
It was actually a Dragon Magazine-exclusive before it was printed in Complete Psionic. The class was originally slated for the Expanded Psionics Handbook, but was cut for space.
Factotum
Introduced in the book Dungeonscape.
Genius Bruiser: A Factotum can supplement an attack or damage roll with their Intelligence modifier, but only a limited number of times per encounter. Also, they gain the ability to constantly apply their Intelligence modifier to Strength and Dexterity-based checks.
Recycled In Religion: The Favored Soul is the Divine counterpart to the Sorcerer.
The Chosen One: Your deity talks to you directly. Don't expect much vacation time.
Healer
Introduced in the Miniatures Handbook.
Expy: The most common first step in fixing the class among fans is to make it one of the Warmage expies (why it isn't one in the first place, when they debut in the same book, is not understood).
Revive Kills Zombie: Without Sanctified Spells, this is probably the only reasonable way a Healer can fight until they get their Celestial Unicorn companion.
Unicorn: The base companion for a Healer is a Celestial Unicorn (as mentioned above).
Virgin Power: Averted; there is nothing in the rules saying a Healer has to be a virgin to keep their Celestial Unicorn companion.
White Magic: The class specializes in healing spells.
Difficult, But Awesome: Once you've learned how to play the class, you are nearly on-par with a Factotum.
Incarnates are capable of utilizing defenses that are normally reserved for spellcasters/manifesters, and are numerically capable of covering any of the four standard roles. Whats more, an Incarnate can change his entire build within 9 hours' time.
Guide Dang It: The Incarnate was introduced in a book that wears the title of Most Confusing Splat EVER. Very few people have the know-how to play the class, even on the most popular forums like GiantITP.
Made of Iron: Thanks to having a huge amount of defenses and being focused nigh-exclusively on Constitution, an Incarnate is very durable. Only the Totemist and Crusader (and, to a lesser extent, the Barbarian) are comparable out of the non-casters.
Jester
Introduced in Dragon #60, updated for 3.5e in the Dragon Compendium.
Mighty Glacier: The class's main purpose is to call out enemies in single combat to keep them away from your allies. As a result, the Knight has very high Hit Points (but for some reason, a poor Fortitude save). Notable for being actually being semi-effective at it, as they have abilities to prevent enemies from just targeting others.
Lurk
Introduced in Complete Psionic.
Badass Abnormal: Essentially a Rogue with psionic powers up their sleeves.
Idea suggested in Dragon #65, introduced in the Dragon Compendium.
Back Stab: Of a sort. A Mountebank's Deceptive Attack deals bonus damage against opponents whom they successfully feint against OR whom they have beguiled or otherwise lulled into a false sense of security.
Deal with the Devil: The literal, sell-thy-soul-for-power kind. Not even a minion either, but a bonafide demon prince or a Duke of Hell.
Mana: Called Power Points, but function as a mana meter, in contrast to normal Vancian Magic casters.
Mind Rape: In several delicious flavours. Injecting an enemy's mind with a second, simultaneously-functioning personality that hates them is only one example.
Back Stab: Much like their nonpsionic cousin class, Sneak Attacks are part of the deal. Psychic Rogues get a slower bonus damage progression, but can potentially reinforce them with psychic power.
Stealth Expert: Not to the same extent as the Rogue, since its Skirmish ability doesn't rely on surprise like a Rogue's Sneak Attack, but Scouts are still good at remaining unseen.
Took a Level in Badass: The Swift Hunter feat turns this class and the Ranger into a solid Tier 3 build. It's also possible to combine Swift Hunter with Cleric spellcasting, making it even better.
Shadowcaster
Introduced in Tome of Magic.
Dark Is Not Evil: Shadowcasters are not inclined toward evil any more than other classes.
Magic A is Magic A: Many Shadowcaster spells are technically spell-like abilities or supernatural innate powers, causing many a Rules Lawyer to Squee with delight.
Sha'ir
Introduced in the Al-Qadim setting for 2nd Edition, updated to 3.5e in Dragon #315 and reintroduced in the Dragon Compendium.(Needs entries)
I See Dead People: Shamans gain the ability to see ethereal creatures, such as ghosts that are not currently manifesting in the Material Plane (a manifested ghost would be visible to everyone). To a Shaman, ethereal creatures are visible, but appear translucent and somewhat indistinct.
The Beastmaster: Shamans get up to two animal companions (with a total Hit Dice limit), and can easily charm other animals into helping out in a pinch.
Laser Blade: The Soulknife's signature weapon is his Mind Blade, a glowing sword formed from psychic energy.
Throwing Your Sword Always Works: "Throw Mind Blade" is a class feature gained at later levels, and the Soulknives default option for ranged combat.
Spellthief
Introduced in Complete Adventurer.
Anti-Magic: Spellthieves have a natural spell resistance to offset the inherent danger of their profession. At higher levels, they are absorbing fireballs like some sort of fire sponge.
Impossible Thief: Specializes in stealing units of Vancian Magic from spellcasters. Later branches out to stealing innate spell-like abilities and elemental resistances from monsters.
Difficult, But Awesome: About as good as you'd expect a Spontaneous Druid to be, minus the Wildshape and Animal Companion. Still relatively good, and is the only Spontaneous Caster capable of completely rewriting its own spell list every 24 hours.
Plays like a Monk, but with AWESOME mixed in for good measure.
Totemist
Introduced in Magic of Incarnum.
Badass: The only class in the game capable of keeping up with Polymorph in terms of sheer power, but is balanced by comparison. Seriously, name a class capable of grappling a Great Wyrm Gold Dragon without using spells.
Difficult, But Awesome: As with everything Incarnum-related, this class takes a lot of effort to learn. Thankfully, the payout is worth-while.
Gaia's Vengeance: Basically a Druid that focuses on Magical Beasts and can't cast spells.
Made of Iron: Almost better than the Incarnate thanks to a Soulmeld or two.
X Meets Y: Basically a Druid's Wildshape mixed with the Incarnate's Meldshaping.
Truenamer
Introduced in Tome of Magic.
Game-Breaking Bug: Due to the way Truenaming checks scale compared to levels (the DC of the checks scales twice as fast as a character can acquire ranks in the skill), the Truenamer gets worse as it levels up, until it hits around level 19 and can Gate in Solars, which can Gate in Solars, which can Gate in Solars.... It also has key information missing for an entire set of class features in initial printings.
Urban Druid
Introduced in Dragon #317, reintroduced in the Dragon Compendium.(Needs entries)
Warblade
Introduced in Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords.
Badass Normal: Lack any real supernatural abilities by default, but fairly useful despite this.
Blood Knight: According to fluff text, warblades really love fighting.
Calling Your Attacks: Not technically part of the mechanics, but almost inevitable when playing with the Tome of Battle maneuver system.
Genius Bruiser: Most of the class features apply your Intelligence score to different combat tactics.
Introduced in the Miniatures Handbook, and introduced again in Complete Arcane.
Fireballs: Blasting things is their intended purpose. Blasting isn't very good in 3.5 though.
Lethal Joke Character: Any ability that improves their spell list turns them into this.
Poor Predictable Rock: An arcane caster with only damaging spells, lacking in debuffs, buffs, and utilities. Unless you have large hordes of easily disposable cannon fodder Zerg Rush you, the Warmage's utility is fairly limited.
Tier Induced Scrappy: as written in Complete Arcane, the Alienist appears to be a wizard who specialises in summoning otherwordly things from beyond stars. However, they lose the ability to summon anything which cannot be made into a pseudonatural creature, such as demons or angels. This means that at later levels, they have a much smaller pool of creatures they could potentially summon than any other wizard of the same level. As a result, people are either recommended to not use the class, to adapt the class itself or to create an alternative monster pool from which they could chose summons.
Arcane Archer
A prestige class from the Dungeon Master's Guide. This is an elf-specific class that mixes spellcasting with bow-wielding skill.(Needs entries)
Arcane Trickster
A prestige class from the Dungeon Master's Guide. This class mixes spellcasting ability with trickery akin to that of the Rogue class.(Needs entries)
Archmage
A prestige class from the Dungeon Master's Guide. Archmagi delve deeply into the workings of magic, learning to eke out more abilities from their spells.(Needs entries)
Assassin
(See the Assassin entry in the "1st through 3rd Edition Core Classes" folder)
Blackguard
A prestige class from the Dungeon Master's Guide. Blackguards are evil divine warriors much in the way that Paladins are good ones.
Frenzied Berserker
Berserk Button: Taking damage has a chance of triggering the character's frenzy.
The Berserker: to the point where once he runs out of enemies, she starts attacking the rest of the party.
Unstoppable Rage: Steps up the barbarian rage required to take the class in the first place. While frenzying, the frenzied berserker can't died of hit point damage.
Gray Guard
"How're we supposed to see the pally comin' when 'e wears armor blacker than ours?
A prestige class from Complete Scoundrel. These are paladins who fight dirty and can smite virtually anything.
Good Is Not Nice: These are experienced paladins who combat evil by whatever means necessary. The illustration shows a gray guard strangling a necromancer with his bare hands in a scene that looks like it's referencing Darth Vader in A New Hope.
Lawful Good: invoked Class requirement. Violating the code of conduct costs them their powers, but doing so in service to the faith negates the experience requirement of an atonement spell.
The Paladin: The vast majority of entries are paladins (it requires class features that, among the Player's Handbook classes, only paladins have).
Sunmaster
A prestige class from Lost Empires of Faerūn. Sunmasters claim the 3E sun god Lathander is really the ancient Netherese sun god Amaunator. 4E reveals they were right. They have great powers over light.
Blinded by the Light: Defied: the 2nd level ability grants an immunity to being blinded or dazed by light effects.
Glowing Eyes of Doom: Starting at second level, their eyes glow orange, and they can shoot beams of light from them.
Law Versus Chaos: Strongly on the law side. Amaunator was viewed as a deity who brings order to the world.
Not everybody can be a hero. These classes are for background characters and Mooks, although you can play them too if you are feeling masochistic (or are using the right crazy build).
Adept
Lethal Joke Character: Typically rather high on Character Tiers lists, as their spell list has some surprisingly useful gems despite its shallowness.
We are not kidding when we say it's a higher tier than the Samurai.
Religion is Magic: Less magical than a Cleric, but magic nonetheless.
Squishy Wizard: These are normal, average-joe ministers, not badass warrior-priests.
Lethal Joke Character: The "Chicken Infested" joke "flaw" lets them produce infinite chickens.
Muggles: A Commoner is about as weak as a class can get without already being dead. Few hit points, skills more suited for menial labor than adventuring, and no unique abilities whatsoever.
This Loser Is You: Averted. The Dungeon Master's Guide is very clear on the fact that the NPC classes are not suitable for player characters, on the basis of their laughable weakness.
Expert
Iaijutsu Practitioner: While not as good as the Factotum at it by virtue of no other abilities, an Expert is also able to exploit their "any 10" class skills with this.
Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: The D&D class version. Experts are generic classes that are allowed to have whatever skills the Game Master wants, letting the same class represent any profession.
Fridge Logic: Magewrights were born from the question of who is manufacturing all these cheap magic items. See, there are these weak, common arcane spellcasters with only passive spells...
Warrior
Redshirt Army: This is the generic class given to untrained humanoid enemies like orcs and goblins (as well as common guards and foot soldiers), which allows them to handle a sword without actually giving them any distinguishing features. Good for a Zerg Rush and not much else.
4th Edition Classes
Ardent
The ardent is a Psionic Leader from the Player's Handbook 3.
The executioner is a Martial and Shadow Striker sub-class of the assassin from Dragon magazine and Heroes of Shadow. It differs from the standard assassin by not having attack powers (except for certain weapons), instead using only basic attacks modified by powers and poisons.
Technical Pacifist: With the Pacifist Cleric feat, a cleric who damages a bloodied enemy becomes stunned. Using a non-damaging power that lowers defenses or creates vulnerability is fine.
The warpriest is a Divine Leader sub-class of the cleric from Heroes of the Fallen Lands. It differs from the standard cleric by having specific domains as class features.
Druid
The druid is a Primal Controller from the Player's Handbook 2.
The sentinel is a Primal Leader sub-class of the druid from Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms. It differs from the standard druid by being a melee weapon-user, and having an animal companion based on a season chosen as a class feature.
The knight is a Martial Defender sub-class of the fighter from Heroes of the Fallen Lands. It differs from the standard fighter by not having attack powers, instead using only basic attacks modified by stances and powers.
The knight is a Martial Striker sub-class of the fighter from Heroes of the Fallen Lands. It differs from the standard fighter by not having attack powers, instead using only basic attacks modified by stances and powers.
Warrior Monk: While the monk is not necessarily religious, Religion is a monk class skill, and training in it is a prerequisite for the Radiant Fist paragon path, which is particularly Divine.
Paladin
The paladin is a Divine Defender from the Player's Handbook.
The blackguard is a Divine (with some Shadow) Striker sub-class of the paladin from Heroes of Shadow. It is more similar to the cavalier, but chooses a vice instead of a virtue.
Dark Is Not Evil: It is actually possible to play a Good or Lawful Good Blackguard. Not very easily because your vice will often put you at odds with your alignment, but possible. Probably play up the zealousness aspect.
Actually, the way the rules are written, you can't.
The cavalier is a Divine Defender sub-class of the paladin from Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms. It differs from the standard paladin by having specific virtues as class features.
Psion
The psion is a Psionic Controller from the Player's Handbook 3.
The hunter is a Martial and Primal Controller sub-class of the ranger from Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms. It differs from the standard ranger by not having attack powers, instead using only basic attacks modified by powers.
Scout (Ranger)
The scout is a Martial and Primal Striker sub-class of the ranger from Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms. It differs from the standard ranger by not having attack powers, instead using only basic attacks modified by powers.
Rogue
The rogue is also a Martial Striker from the Player's Handbook.
The thief is a Martial Striker sub-class of the rogue from Heroes of the Fallen Lands. It differs from the standard rogue by not having attack powers, instead using only basic attacks modified by tricks and powers.
Runepriest
The runepriest is a Divine Leader from the Player's Handbook 3.
Drop the Hammer: "Wrathful Hammer" runepriests gain proficiency in military hammers and maces.
The swordmage is an Arcane Defender from the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide.
Fire, Ice, Lightning: They have other powers as well, but these are their main go-to elements for damaging opponents.
Genius Bruiser: They require a high Intelligence stat to function, like most Arcane characters, but their combat role is based on mixing it up in the melee.
Magic Knight: Perhaps one of the purest examples of a "Gish" class to be made for D&D.
Teleport Spam: Not quite so adept at it as the Battlemind, but Swordmages get a lot of teleporting moves.
Though, because their class is keyed off of using "Light Blade" class weapons and "Heavy Blade" class weapons, it's just as viable for a swordmage to be wielding a scythe, glaive or khopesh as it is for them to carry a dagger or sword.
Warden
The warden is a Primal Defender from the Player's Handbook 2.
Star Power: Star Pact warlocks, who gain their powers by making a pact with an Eldritch Abomination that lives among the stars.
Hexblade (Warlock)
The hexblade is an Arcane Striker sub-class of the warlock from Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms. It differs from the standard warlock by having a melee weapon granted by its eldritch pact, making it similar to Elric of Melniboné.
The Binder is an Arcane and Shadow Controller Warlock subclass from Heroes of Shadow. It differs from normal Warlocks by being geared towards controlling the battle rather than dealing massive amounts of damage.
An Ice Person: At-will power slows opponents with cold.
The mage is an Arcane Controller sub-class of the wizard from Heroes of the Fallen Lands. It differs from the standard wizard by having schools of magic as class features.
Casting a Shadow: The Nethermancer school from Heroes of Shadow.
Necromancer: The other school from Heroes of Shadow.
The witch is an Arcane Controller sub-class of the wizard from Heroes of the Feywild.
Vampire
Vampires. Obviously. A Shadow Striker class from Heroes Of Shadow.
Bare Fisted Monk: Vampires are geared towards melee combat, and have literally no need to use weapons, as one at-will power (which doubles as a basic attack) does 1d10 damage at first level; this puts their basic damage on par with a fighter using a greatsword.
Blood Magic: The powers that cost them healing surges are flavoured as such.
Cast from Hit Points: Many of their powers become stronger if you sacrifice a healing surge.
, Brilliant Gameologists 3.5 version
