I'm going to be DM in a one shot for my old high school game crew.  We're getting back together for shits and grins and a little bit 'o dnd for the first time in over 5 years... should be good times.

I picked out a nice little adventure, The Crumbling Hall of the Frost Giant Jarl, available as a free adventure from CoDzilla's of the Coast (link http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20020329a ) and I was tweaking it a bit to bring it into line with 3.5.  Not too many changes just a few preference tweaks.

For example: I reworked the feats on The Nameless Thing to make it a better warrior, changed the half dragon template to a half fiend template (Don't dragons EVER fuck dragons?  Besides, I like fiends...), chaned Jarl Gungir to Warchief Gungir and made him a Frost Giant Disciple of Thrym 5 instead of Cleric 5.  Harashk is now an Ogre Fighter 2/Ravager 4.  Before the party gets there, they will be encountering some Urskan Barbarian 4's, a Frost Worm, a trio of Remorhaz, and a Hound Archon Hero ally if the going gets rough.

I'm currently making a group of pre-gen characters for everyone to play, and here's what I'd like feedback on the most-- what do you think of a 4 person party comprised of any combination of:

The "5th wheel":
Human Paladin 2/Sorceror 4/Spellsword 4 -- the classic fighter/mage

The Tank:
Dwarf Barbarian 2/Dwarf Paragon 3/Deepwarden 5 -- a tank with a twist

The Arcanist:
Whisper Gnome Illusionist 5/Shadowcrafter 2/Shadowcraft Mage 3 -- paragon of versatility

The Mystic:
Elven Cleric 10 -- archer/healer

The Skillmonkey:
Human Barbarian 1/Rogue 3/Ranger 3/Horizon Walker 1/Shadowdancer 2 -- sneaky death!

As you can see, these are all pretty optimized builds, and they can fill a combat role and their primary role fairly well.  Do you have any suggestions for other roles?

I think I should probably prepare a couple of other builds in case, but these are being worked on now.

Changes to the adventure: The Nameless Thing is a half fiend, not a half dragon.  Its feats have been changed to make it a more effective combatant.  The adventure background has changed.  The characters will recieve a character briefing detailing the following:

In the northern lands, a longstanding truce between a small enclave of elves a nomadic tribe of humans has been broken.  The elves give supplies with the humans, who stay out of the deeps of the forest in return.  Lately, however, a freakishly early winter has forced the nomads to take shelter in the forest, disrupting the harmony of the ancient elven sanctum.  Tensions run high among both camps.  After some savage preliminary skirmishes, an accord was reached when the forest was attacked by Frost Giants under the leadership of Jarl Fjorn, a foe long thought dead.  The humans and elves united against their common enemy and the elves sent an emissary to their longstanding allies, the dwarves of the Blackstone clan.  The dwarves made all haste they could, but with each passing day the unnatural winter deepened.  Fighting a defensive war, the forest defenders discovered that a magical relic, the Wintershard, was the source of the weather.  Enter the PCs: as the most experienced warriors the defenders can spare, they will infiltrate past enemy lines to the stronghold of Warchief Gungir, who has the Wintershard in his possession.  They are to eliminate Gungir and capture the Wintershard, inflicting as much damage as possible to the Jarl's forces as possible in the process.

feedback, comments, and suggestions are welcome and encouraged.

I don't know... Looks fairly good to me.

One thing that occurred to me, but I'm not sure if it really is an issue, is that it looks like fairly complex character concepts, for something they're only going to play in a one-shot.

I can't really say if it *is* a problem, but look at the characters and put yourself in the players' position of trying to get a grip on all the things their characters can do. Maybe copy and paste the ability descriptions into a document for each character. It's very different to start a PC at lvl 1, or even at lvl 10 that you have created yourself vs playing a PC at lvl 10 that someone else has made for you.

Just a thought. I don't know your players etc. They might have memorized these prestige classes already...

Quote from: Radu the Wanderer(Don't dragons EVER fuck dragons?)

yes, but only by accident.