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View Full Version : One Tier System to Rule Them All...



Doc Roc
2010-01-28, 05:02 PM
So Tier systems. Very loaded word. Power-rankings, even worse.
What are we supposed to call these things then?

How about we discuss things in terms of one nebulous quantity for just a moment..

Option Cost

What is an option cost? Imagine for a moment that most things are a sequence of trade-offs. In D&D, this isn't as true as we would like. In fact, there are a lot of free lunches in D&D. For a moment, these are going to be ignored. We can't discount them, but we can talk around them.

So, option cost refers to the idea that you could envision your character as a fluid system while building it. Nothing is locked in. You aren't devoted to a role. No option costs have hit you yet. An option cost is where effectively, your character loses potential options in favor of actual options. So view it as the calcification of a character, the gradually increasing constraints of his party role. But more than that. Too close in, I think.

Step back.
Consider.
D&D is class-based. Some classes perform certain roles in ways that are strictly better than others.

Step back.
It's not that simple. Instead of simply better, we have a vast gradient of value where option cost is weighed against advantage is weighed head-room.

Some classes do well at a role easily, but top out lower. They have a low cost, a high gain, but limited head room.

Step a bit closer to the problem.
Abstraction starts to collapse here. Option cost isn't a simple concept in practice. Each case decays into applications and use-cases. This is the problem in balancing large systems with many fine details. Often the only way to model them is empirical in nature. This is not a good thing.

Step a bit closer.
We still care about 3.x. So we're gonna dive in a bit. Doesn't matter that our abstractions will break. There's information to be gleaned.

Step up to the plate.
Yeah, here's the gig. This is not a canon. This is not a set of rules.

Crucially, this is not a set of recommendations. These are just my opinions about the relative strength of classes. This is an analysis based on option cost. I'm going to offer ranges and notes about special uses or cases for base classes. This takes into account the spectrum of possible optimization, as well as multiclassing.

Doc Roc
2010-01-28, 05:03 PM
I'll be using Eight Layers, and a Zeroth as a dump ground. If something is in the Zeroth layer, I think it's unplayable for any-of-many reasons. Examples include Erudite due to its terrible editing, or True-Namer, due to its broken mechanic.

Each base class gets a minimum layer, a maximum layer, a mean layer, and a few additional tags:

F: For Finnicky.
These are classes that are really hard to play well, or are just unforgiving. Wizard comes to mind immediately, as does rogue.
M: For Material Dependent
These are classes that earn their ranking by having access to certain printed material outside of the book they were printed in. I'll try to mention what material.
L: For Landmines.
Landmines are classes that contain some specific build options which produce a vastly weaker or stronger character. For example: Sword and board fighter or UMD Rogue.

Doc Roc
2010-01-28, 05:04 PM
Zeroth:
Wizard 1, 8, NaN
FL

True-Namer 7, 8, 8
F

Erudite 1, 8, 3
FML



_____________________________

Psion: 1, 3, 2

Wilder: 2, 5, 2
FL
Some PrCs that were designed for Wilder are actually inaccessible due to poor editing of skill lists.

Psychic Warrior: 3, 5, 4
M

Fighter 4, 6, 6
FML

Monk 4, 7, 6
FML

Zeta Kai
2010-01-28, 05:54 PM
Druid + Natural Spell = Landmine. A simple equation.

Doc Roc
2010-01-28, 06:01 PM
Druid - Natural Spell = Landmine as well. :S

Frosty
2010-01-28, 06:03 PM
What do Layers represent? Why do Wizards range anywhere from 1 to 8 and ahve no avergae Layer while the Fighter range from 4 to 6 and average 6?

Kantolin
2010-01-28, 06:04 PM
Druids are generally considered one of the easiest if not the easiest core class to get 'optimized'.

If they are considered landmines due to natural spell, then what counts as not a landmine? O-o

Kurald Galain
2010-01-28, 06:18 PM
Druid + Natural Spell = Landmine. A simple equation.

...I'm not sure if it makes the system clearer to use the term "landmine" both for unexpectedly good and for unexpectedly bad options.

sofawall
2010-01-28, 06:20 PM
What do Layers represent? Why do Wizards range anywhere from 1 to 8 and ahve no avergae Layer while the Fighter range from 4 to 6 and average 6?

Wizards can run the entire gamut, you can make absolutely horribly ineffective wizards, and you can make wizards that do everything. Simple mistakes can change it so much, and it is so dependent on using the right choice, it is impossible to really make an 'average wizard'.

A poorly made fighter is better than a poorly made wizard. A well made fighter is weaker than a well made wizard. This is why it covers fewer layers. Most fighters, however, end up fairly weak, and it is possible to make an 'average fighter', i.e. non-tripper, non-charger, but might still be using two-handed, for example.

Also, the above note about a poorly played fighter being stronger than a poorly played wizard leads to many, many holy wars about "Well, fighters are the best class when we play!"

Kurald Galain
2010-01-28, 06:24 PM
You know what, Doc? You should represent this as a graph. It would be much clearer. For each class, make a visual line that runs from left (best) to right (worst) with a black dot where its "average" would be. Just my $.2

Frosty
2010-01-28, 06:26 PM
Wizards can run the entire gamut, you can make absolutely horribly ineffective wizards, and you can make wizards that do everything. Simple mistakes can change it so much, and it is so dependent on using the right choice, it is impossible to really make an 'average wizard'.

A poorly made fighter is better than a poorly made wizard. A well made fighter is weaker than a well made wizard. This is why it covers fewer layers. Most fighters, however, end up fairly weak, and it is possible to make an 'average fighter', i.e. non-tripper, non-charger, but might still be using two-handed, for example.

Also, the above note about a poorly played fighter being stronger than a poorly played wizard leads to many, many holy wars about "Well, fighters are the best class when we play!"

That's fine and all, but is the lower tha Layer numer the more powerful? Because I see Truenamers ranging from Layer 7 to 8, and they clearly suck.

arguskos
2010-01-28, 06:33 PM
You know what, Doc? You should represent this as a graph. It would be much clearer. For each class, make a visual line that runs from left (best) to right (worst) with a black dot where its "average" would be. Just my $.2
Amen. I'm having issues reading the damn rankings. A graphical depiction would work wonders.

Doc Roc
2010-01-28, 06:35 PM
When I get them all filled in, I'll graph them up. I also need to write up a solid description of each layer.

Doc Roc
2010-01-28, 06:37 PM
Druids are generally considered one of the easiest if not the easiest core class to get 'optimized'.

If they are considered landmines due to natural spell, then what counts as not a landmine? O-o

This was, originally, my opinion. Oddly enough, natural spell is pretty thoroughly debated in some circles, and ignored or unknown in many others. What I will likely do is just note down that we're ranking it with the assumption that natural spell is in play.

T.G. Oskar
2010-01-28, 06:39 PM
Druids are generally considered one of the easiest if not the easiest core class to get 'optimized'.

If they are considered landmines due to natural spell, then what counts as not a landmine? O-o

Hmm...

I'd say something along the lines of...ToB. You can play it straight from the board, or try to tweak it, and it won't shift from insanely weak to insanely strong. Crusader and Warblade, to be specific, remain pretty solid at every level, even though a well-played spellcaster effectively crushes them into a pulp. Swordsage is also very good, but it's recovery method causes Adaptive Style to become almost a choice, so it falls within landmine territory. Think of it as a low-power landmine, not something like the Druid's Claymore anti-personnel landmine.

Of course, there are some options that simply blast off ToB's power, but they are few and far in between. Mostly, Iron Heart Surge and White Raven Tactics, which are pretty ambiguous to become either useful or brutally useful (but never useless, mind you) depending on how you read it.

Druid's relationship with Natural Spell is what makes Druid a landmine. In a way, it fulfills two of the three choices, if not all three:
--Druid is Finnicky. Someone who doesn't know all the package of a Druid will play it as a healbot, which is not exactly the Druid's forte (the Cleric beats him in the same game, and a Wand of Cure Light Wounds simply eviscerates it out of the proverbial water). Also, Druid has a plethora of options that may confuse a newbie player: animal companion, the spontaneous Summon Nature's Ally and how it can be awesome since you can call the Unicorn squad at nearly any time (to say the least), the resistances and immunities, how the heck Wild Shape does its magic, and so on.
--Druid is Material-Dependent, though not nearly exclusively. Or perhaps they do: the fact that a Druid player is well recommended to be familiar with the Monster Manual tends to say something. Then comes the Fleshraker. Or Planar Shepherd. Or Venomfire. Which leads to...
--Druid is a brutal Landmine. The equivalent of getting a nuclear warhead that detonates by means of a Claymore mine. I think it's not hard to see: dire animals and Natural Spell just in Core, then Planar Shepherd and in an extent Arcane Hierophant in another, might be capable of adding Master of Many Forms and Venomfire and all those nifty Bite spells and...well, you can notice the Druid is actually quite complete, and it can give its fight to the Wizard.

A PS Druid takes it into Zeroth-degree tier, because the game breaks into its constituent parts depending on the chosen plane. Either because of super-healing bubbles, or time-dilating bubbles, or Wish-granting Wild Shapes. But, think about Shapeshifting Druid or Aspect Druid, and you see a very elegant "Wild Shape" system that doesn't make or break the game. Heck, if you notice, almost everything from these two sides was recycled for 4th Edition (Wardens took the Aspect Wildshaping, Druids retained the Shapeshifting) because of their inherent elegance compared to Wild Shape.

Now, Paladin...
--Paladin is pretty Finnicky. Perhaps not as much, but the fact that the Code itself makes it pretty unforgiving to many DMs (sadistic, serious or otherwise) makes it quite unplayable. I mean, what other class provokes the creation of threads specifically intended to explain the various ways a paragon of Good can fall!?
--Paladin is Material-Dependant. And in what way! Core alone, it has the Holy Avenger, which acts pretty much as a set of abilities granted to the Paladin late in his quest. Then Player's Handbook 2 introduces Charging Smite, and a few worthwhile spells (at least in my observation: Mark of Doom is pretty interesting to have, even if it's taken later than a Cleric does...). Then Complete Champion (don't worry, you can shudder safely) created the Natural Spell-equivalent for Paladins in Battle Blessing; the fact that Rangers should have had an equivalent spell is pretty unforgiving. Then Dungeonscape introduces the Companion Spirit, which is in several ways quite as good, if not better, than the Special Mount (and one option I love quite a lot)
--Paladin may or may not be a Landmine, but it certainly behaves like such. Play a Paladin 20, and you must be either a n00b or a genius or an unrepentant Paladin fan (and yeah, I can take that as a self-inflicted insult; I may not be an unrepentant Paladin fan as I think so...) Five levels of Paladin are pretty much the limit: take Remove Disease, and things start to fall down a bit. But then, there's Paladin as Ubercharger, and you suddenly start to make some sense. Or Paladin dips (T.T)...

So... I'd say Paladin can go into a solid 4 or even 3 (depending on the build, since it has more options than a Fighter which is a very appropriate comparison guideline), but it tends to remain at around 6. Played normally with all the options, you can make it a decent 5 as a mean (they have spells, they have feats, they have Turn Undead and access to Divine Feats, they have their mount, they have their weapon selection, but they can't make good use of all of those at the same time). So, it would look something along the lines of:

Paladin: 4(3?), 6, 5
FM(possible L)

Agree or not?

Prime32
2010-01-28, 07:17 PM
Landmine: Dragonfire Adept/Entangling Exhalation. Though that feat is a must for any character with a breath weapon, really.

Pyro_Azer
2010-01-28, 07:25 PM
Why are wizards in the zeroth tier?

Sstoopidtallkid
2010-01-28, 07:30 PM
Why are wizards in the zeroth tier?The game world does not work with Wizards after about level 10. Either it's low-magic, in which case the few Wizards there are are basically unbeatable, or it's high magic, in which case Tippyverse is the only way to not break verisimilitude.

Tyndmyr
2010-01-28, 08:35 PM
I think the term landmine is too negative for what you're trying to describe. Landmine implies it's dangerous and/or bad.

A druid does not seem like a landmine. They will be powerful even with suboptimal build choice, in core. Sure, not taking natural spell or having a good knowledge of the MM are significant differences...but even without this, you're still a shapechanging full caster with a weak fighter as a pet.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2010-01-30, 08:14 PM
Please explain the advantages of doing this as opposed to the existing class tier system. Is it meant to use the old one as a subset? Also the "NaN" confuses me. I do not understand much of the nomenclature, whilst the rest is unwieldy: 1,8 should be 1-8 imo.

Tavar
2010-01-30, 08:32 PM
I'd like to see a clear explanation if lower layer or higher layer is better. I assume that Lower is better based on the entries, but it should be spelled out somewhere.

And PlzBreakMyCmpAn, I actually think the current writing format is okay, as long as they read the second post first. NaN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaN) in this case means the same as N/A.