Would this NPC Gestalt "Hero" class be a balanced player class?

Question

While brainstorming class balance and considering options to present to a player who may soon be retiring their character, I arrived on the idea of the hero, a character class which is functionally a gestalt of every (SRD) NPC class.

For reference, the hero class would have the following:

• d8 hit die
• Aristocrat starting age and GP
• 6 (+Int) skill points per level
• Class skills of: Appraise, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Disguise, Forgery, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Heal, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (all skills taken individually), Listen, Perform, Profession, Ride, Sense Motive, Speak Language, Spellcraft, Spot, Swim, Survival, and Use Rope, as well as an additional 10 class skills of the player's choice, chosen at 1st level
• Base Attack Bonus equal to level (as a fighter)
• Good Fortitude and Will saves
• Proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with all armor and shields
• Prepared divine spellcasting up to 5th level as an Adept
• Summon Familiar at 2nd level

The best comparison I can think of for the hero is maybe the ranger, but there's enough differences that it's hard to make a 1-to-1 comparison (Better armor, more skills, and earlier spells for the hero, but ranger-exclusive spells and actual class features for the ranger). It's also similar to the Factotum in an odd sort of way, but also completely different in most respects.

How does it compare with published classes, and which class(es) would it be best compared to? Would this class be likely to cause any problems in play, or could any potentially problematic builds abuse it?

Answer 1

It's probably very strong in the first few levels, fine after that.

The best comparison is probably the Mystic Ranger variant, which has accelerated spellcasting. That class is either bottom of Tier 2 (2019 update) or Tier 3 (seems to have been the prior consensus), but with the caveat that it's extremely strong in the early game due to having both spellcasting and a fantastic chassis, and starts losing steam after level 10.

The Hero has normal Adept casting, which actually starts off better than Mystic Ranger but progresses more slowly, mostly lacks class features, and has slightly better saves, skills, and proficiencies than the Mystic Ranger.

The Hero would be a monster in the early game, where chassis and skills are most important and it's already about as good as arguably the strongest early-game class. I'd guess it slips into Tier 3 territory at around 6th level, and probably stays there for the rest of the campaign.

3.5 balance is always wonky, but I'd call this "within acceptable parameters". You have to balance based on what the rest of the party is doing... but you need to do that with every character anyway.

Answer 2

It might be a low-end Tier 3, but...

So it’s a decent chassis with half-decent spellcasting. Bardic spellcasting is better, but paladins’ and rangers’ are arguably worse.¹ Strictly speaking, that makes it superior to a lot of classes; a 20th-level hero seems to be doing a lot better than a 20th-level fighter or 20th-level warlock.

The issue, to me, is that the class gives little and less reason to stick around—without any class features, there’s a lot of incentive to move into a prestige class ASAP. And the problem with that is, you’re no longer getting the superior chassis to go along with it—so you might as well have had better spellcasting. This does vary a fair bit based on what level you are though: a bunch of the better divine-progressing PrCs require BAB +4, which the hero gets at 4th and a cleric or whatever gets at 6th, so 2 levels of acceleration, which is nothing to sneeze at. But it definitely doesn’t compete well with cleric spellcasting once it gets going, and even something like a divine bard is going to look a lot better at higher levels (particularly when the PrC is done and now the hero doesn’t have any particular advantage).

I’m just not seeing much point to it, myself. In a lower-power game it probably runs fine, and I suppose it could work well for a simpler (but still spellcasting) character for a new player, but even then it’s still spellcasting, which is pretty rough.

One thing you might consider is giving it adept spellcasting, but making it full-list spontaneous à la beguiler or dread necromancer. That would make its spellcasting a little more useful, and you’d also go a long way towards making it actually a pretty decent suggestion for a new player.

1. _{This does depend on how much you leverage the ability to use wands of all spells on your list; paladins and rangers can get a lot more mileage out of that than an adept can, and it goes a long way towards salvaging their spellcasting’s value. But to get that value, you have to actually deal with the logistical headache that is consumable items.}