Favored Soul (Dungeons & Dragons)

This is a list of alternative base character classes to the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. As base classes rather than prestige classes, they can be taken by newly created characters without need for any prerequisites.

Many of these classes have been repeatedly added after the core rules books were released, including the shaman, artificer, and runecaster or runepriest.

Two new classes were introduced after the release of the original D&D boxed set: Thieves in Supplement I - Greyhawk and Bards in The Strategic Review. New subclasses were introduced in Supplement I - Greyhawk, Supplement II - Blackmoor, Supplement III - Eldritch Wizardry and the Strategic Review.

Five standard base classes and five subclasses were offered in the Player's Handbook, with an optional 6th base class, the Bard, presented in an appendix. Additionally, various alternative base classes, subclasses and rule changes were offered in the magazine Dragon and elsewhere, such as the Mystic and the Witch. Eventually, some of these alternative rules came to be compiled in 1985 in the volume Unearthed Arcana. Among other changes, it included the thief-acrobat, a Thief subclass, and the barbarian, a Fighter subclass which had abilities such as summoning a horde of fellow barbarians to any location. Unearthed Arcana also included the cavalier class as "alignment champions" and reworked Paladins to be a subclass of Cavalier. The thief-acrobat, barbarian, and cavalier had previously appeared in Dragon magazine. Many existing classes were also drastically reworked and given different abilities. The Barbarian and Cavalier both had revised treatment in Dragon Magazine #148. The other major book that offered new base classes was the 1985 version of Oriental Adventures; it included the Bushi, Kensai, Ninja, Samurai, Shukenja, Sohei, Wu Jen, and Yakuza. Dragonlance Adventures presented alternative classes for Knights of Solamnia (Knight of the Crown, Knight of the Sword and Knight of the Rose) and Wizards of High Sorcery, as well as the Tinker class, which is exclusive to Gnomes.

...
Wikipedia