How to tell the DM to get off my back, in a nice way.

[ngilop]

Well I do not know how to put this really.. but Im going to give it a try

I started a new campaign as a player.
I rolled up a healer and when I presented her/him ( im not really sure which as I do not know at what point in the process a person ceases to be their former sex, and becomes their newly aqcuired one, and should be referneced as such)

they looked at the class noticed it said healer tossed the sheet back to me and told me 'they suck" then i rpelied 'ok.. what about a Knight?" to which again the DM said 'worhtless'

blah blah some talk about tiers and how me picking tier 4 & 5 classes makes me a chump player. I was like " ok can I just be a Warlock?"

I guess that lookin gback that maybe I should perhaps just walk away from the game itself, or at least tell the DM to calm down and not bo so 'stuck' on the tier's and be more focused on the players

BTW the group consists of mostly tier 3 classes coupled with a sorcerer. so I don;t feel that playing a healer as i originally wanted to would have made me a chump.

WHat would be a nice way to let the DM know that I am either A) not very appreciative of their comment on being a chump and other such or B) that I am leaving the game entirely?

[Daftendirekt]

Honestly, that doesn't sound like a DM worth playing under. Personally, I'd walk away if he was going to be such a douche.

[Invader]

Honestly, that doesn't sound like a DM worth playing under. Personally, I'd walk away if he was going to be such a douche.

I'd agree with this ^

Or fully cheese out a character and wreck anything the DM throws at you but this might just ruin it for the other players so I'd go with option a.

[ericgrau]

I would have walked away as soon as I heard "tier". It's fine to hold that opinion but to be bigoted about it is a red flag. Not only are you going to have trouble playing whatever you want, and selecting whatever options you want within that concept, but it's unlikely that they'll change their mind about it.

I normally say try to work it out and then if that fails move on to another group but here I'm going to say just move on.

[Katana_Geldar]

As a DM I would usually not stand in the way of a character that a player wanted to play. That's not my territory, and the only time I would intervene if it goes very much against mechanics or story in a big way.

Or the player was new and didn't know how to play.

He's a prick not worth space, find another DM.

[Othesemo]

If he's unwilling to accommodate a low-tier character, and you don't want to play in a tier 3 game, I'd suggest finding a new DM. Whether he's the best DM in the world or not, you probably shouldn't play with someone who's play style so differs from yours.

[Deophaun]

"I understand your concerns, but I still believe that I will have fun with this character. If it doesn't work out, we can always rebuild him later. We have the technology."

Not that hard, really.

If I was the DM, I would caution you against the healer, as it's a class that the party hopes it doesn't need (great NPC class, though). But, I wouldn't stop you.

[Quietus]

Okay, first @ngilop - If a person is changing their gender, then it's most polite to refer to them as whichever gender they've asked you to use. Whatever gender they use to describe themselves, it's polite to use the same. If you aren't sure, ask! Just be tactful about it. Now!


Honestly, that doesn't sound like a DM worth playing under. Personally, I'd walk away if he was going to be such a douche.

See, this is part of the problem with these forums. You see people giving advice to DMs who ask about how to keep their games balanced, being told "Just tell players to play in the tier range you're comfortable with". And then when those DMs do so, and the players come on the forums, those players are told to quit the game. Frankly, that's unreasonable. If the DM has said they want the game to run within a certain tier range, then the player should stick to that tier range, or be prepared to explain why they want to do X.

As an example - if the DM is asking players to play around tier3, and a player brings a Healer (tier 5) to the table, that player may not be contributing enough. The DM is saying "Please bring characters that are good at one thing and have options outside of that area of specialty, or who are passably good at dabbling in many things", and the player is saying "I want to play a character who isn't very good at their specialty, and is useless outside of that". That means the encounters the DM has planned may turn from a rough but winnable fight, to a party wipe, because one player isn't pulling his or her weight.

Of course, it sounds like the DM is presenting this in a very poor way, if he's dismissing tier5's as chumps, but this is where things lie at the heart of the matter.

[navar100]

See, this is part of the problem with these forums. You see people giving advice to DMs who ask about how to keep their games balanced, being told "Just tell players to play in the tier range you're comfortable with". And then when those DMs do so, and the players come on the forums, those players are told to quit the game. Frankly, that's unreasonable. If the DM has said they want the game to run within a certain tier range, then the player should stick to that tier range, or be prepared to explain why they want to do X.

As an example - if the DM is asking players to play around tier3, and a player brings a Healer (tier 5) to the table, that player may not be contributing enough. The DM is saying "Please bring characters that are good at one thing and have options outside of that area of specialty, or who are passably good at dabbling in many things", and the player is saying "I want to play a character who isn't very good at their specialty, and is useless outside of that". That means the encounters the DM has planned may turn from a rough but winnable fight, to a party wipe, because one player isn't pulling his or her weight.

Of course, it sounds like the DM is presenting this in a very poor way, if he's dismissing tier5's as chumps, but this is where things lie at the heart of the matter.

That's the key, the DM's attitude. No regard to the player's desire. Fanatic to the Tier System incapable of accepting any Tier below 3. Such bullheadedness does not endear as a friendly game to play.

[Slipperychicken]

"I understand your concerns, but I still believe that I will have fun with this character. If it doesn't work out, we can always rebuild him later. We have the technology."

Not that hard, really.

If I was the DM, I would caution you against the healer, as it's a class that the party hopes it doesn't need (great NPC class, though). But, I wouldn't stop you.

"Listen, if we feel like my character isn't contributing effectively, we can make him a Cleric instead."


You could try rolling a Cleric with Leadership for a Unicorn Cohort. Leave the followers to help run a temple somewhere if you feel like it, and they keep it afloat with healing services, donations, and crafting. Just let the GM know that all you want out of the feat is an RP Unicorn, so you can RP the same concept, only with a more-powerful character. If Cleric is too powerful for him, try it with a Favored Soul (pretty sure it's T3) or Divine Bard.

[Deophaun]

That's the key, the DM's attitude. No regard to the player's desire. Fanatic to the Tier System incapable of accepting any Tier below 3. Such bullheadedness does not endear as a friendly game to play.
And all that we have to go on for that is the OP's post, which may or may not be an accurate account of what really happened. It's not like human beings have ever been known to misinterpret one another or anything.

[Empedocles]

I am not a good person.

Therefore, I would tenderly apologize to the DM for my ignorance of his brilliance, and agree to play a tier 1 artificer, since I dread being a chump.

My build would look suspiciously like this. (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19868070/LoPs_Omniscificer&post_num=4)

Once I learned everything in the universe, I would destroy his campaign world, create a new one, and offer to play a healer again. Or maybe something a little bit more fun, since you'll likely be bored if you play a healer :smalltongue:

[killianh]

take option a. Ask him why taking healer as a heal bot makes for a "chump" selection or better yet ask him how your character selection will effect the entirety of the game. I've had some people in my game end up playing really weak characters but I find as a DM it's better to ask if they mind under performing then get the theme of the guy and make it something better. If you're feeling brave or considering leaving anyway why not ask him if he has the ability to actually run a game with that kind of variance between tiers? tell him you understand if he lacks the skill to do so properly :smallamused:

From a game running perspective I can understand the sentiment of not wanting someone to play a character that will most likely end up being either a god or scrub in comparison to the rest of the party, but I think it might have been a bit overdone in the way you were turned down. If he's gonna have restrictions on what you're allowed to play, ask for a full list so you don't keep coming to him with characters he believes sucks (whether they are actually good or not). I agree with the idea of a DM having a ban list, but only if its upfront or discovered during game that its a game breaker (which is why I don't allow truenamers in my game).

In the end say you weren't a fan of him called you a chump (don't get upset about him ragging on the class though, just his comments about you) and ask for what is and isn't allowed. Try to work with that if you can, and if it turns out his head is too far inserted into his body for you to be able to play with then leave, but at least give it a shot under his rules before you do. If its still fun with his rules you might even end up liking his gaming style

[Mithril Leaf]

I myself am rather akin to the DM in question in my current campaign, asking most of my players to play tier 3s. In my case this isn't me being a jerk, but rather being not skilled enough to make radically different tiers feel useful. A similar situation recently came up with one of my players who really wanted to be a cleric with lowly optimized tier 3s. Originally I tried to get him to play a radically different class, but he was rather adamant. After we talked about it, we agreed that he could play a slightly nerfed Favored Soul. That way he would be about on par with the rest of the party, which helped me out, and he got the cleric flavor, which satisfied him. I'd actually recommend the same to the OP, as a favored soul is pretty much the tier 3 part of the divine types.

Know the DM may not be a jerk, but certainly should have been more understanding and compromising.

[ngilop]

the DM in question did not say ' try to keep this tier 3 and above' just said that this was going to more of a horror based gamestyle and we were going to have to deal disease posoin and such on a regular basis due to the over arching plot of some vile crazed cult.

so I thought ' nice. a healer would be perfect' and since i saw that most everybody was playing tier 3 classes, i felt that maybe i would not be hindrance in game play consideirng what the whole cmapaign was about ( i am used to playing with people who grew up on 1st/2nd ed D&D, where the whole 'tier' thing in D&D never comes up becuase nobody is jerk enough to play a wizard who can do everybody job and better, this was my excursion into more typical 3rd ed play where people pay attention to teirs)

at some point i was told, that and I am verbatim here "unless you are playing a spell to power elan batman divine oracle wizard, you are pretty much playing a joke character"

i did say what slipperychicken suggested the whole ' allright, if my character is falling behind, we cna make some changes that you would prefer"



I guess what kills me the most is the fact that whether or not the player has fun with his character is nowadays a non-priority?

myself, i am pretty competant in the game, i am by no means an optimizer ( and by that i mean the whole Lord of Procrastion's numerous builds one of which was linked by VIlpish, or other such such as that, i am more of a nul-optimizer I play concepts and look for the lcass that most fits that particular concept and by playstle and my own creativnes is where 95% of my characters strnght comes from

case in point playing 3rd ed in the ealry days of getting into it, my friends in college were i guess what is considered high optimizers and I chose to be a Warmage, althought redone to be INT based and not CHA based and lost the armor proficienies. I managed to deafeat a CR 10 encounter by myself (at level 6) by using a little bit of the class abilites but my own ingenuity. caught the evil bad guys in the secret meeting. acid breathed the iron wrought staircase and ducked back inside the antechamber lalal the dmage done to the sarcase and the weihg tof them baddie coming up teh stair caused it to collaspe whenc i then proceeded to use my 2 fireballs to kill the bad guys while they were trying to get out formt he tangled mess of the staircase.

I guess that just becaue X is in a tiar don;t mean X is useless never count out the player

and the player having fun should be a hihger priority than telling how one is a chump.

and at no single point did the DM even suggest that I try a cleric or a favored soul (which are teir 2)

and quietus, he is not dismissing classes as chumps but a player ( myself in this case) as being a chump for wanting to play a tier 4 or 5 class.

[Lonely Tylenol]

{Scrubbed}

[CIDE]

I can understand having problems with going too high of a tier. I can't see the opposite being a problem for a DM. In fact that (In my experience) makes the job easier. Rather than trying to scramble to find something to be a challenge I can keep it simple. Or even viewing things as a player and seeing the interaction with parties with the DM.

It's easy to make a weak enemy and keep things interesting. And fluffwise it still fits for the characters to not be entirely even with each other. Honestly, I don't even buy into the effectiveness of classes completely either; it depends entirely on the players.

An example for this would be the game I ran just tonight. 5 man party at level in 3.5(mostly) fought a Kraken (CR 18) that I pulled from Pathfinder and they nearly killed it before the ship was sunk and they were moored on a nearby island. Only class above tier 3? Artificer. In the fight that followed that the single character that contributed the most was the monk (despite a swordsage being present).

Stories aside you have one of two options and both of which have already been mentioned here. Tell the DM to go **** himself and leave or make something covered in 5 different cheeses and absolutely ruin everything he has or does.

[maysarahs]

The best interpretation of this situation is that the DM is trying to do a good thing (promote class balance/ play a game with characters near each others levels of competency) and doing it poorly in practice (calling you a chump).

Were I the DM in this case, I'd have instead asked my player what he wanted to do. If the answer was "be able to deal with the diseases and poisons you have hinted that the campaign will feature heavily" I'd have suggested two things. One, we could try making you a cleric with spontaneous domain casting, and maybe work together to find/make up a domain that had detect/delay/neutralize poison on its list. Secondly, if you had insisted on playing a healer I would have forced you to cast spontaneously off your list. I'd point out the obvious benefits to the first option (and that focusing on anti-poison, means I'd be lenient on letting a T1 enter my anal-retentively balanced group (forgive me if I seem inflammatory)), and the potential drawback of the second (that in combat healing is near-useless). However, I have once again put the choice in your hands, where it should be.

I don't believe I'd do this because fun is not a priority, but rather BECAUSE it is. In my experience, from tier 3 and up, the higher you go, the more opportunities to interact with the environment you have (aka, the more crunch obstacles you can participate in), I assume of course that "doing more" = "fun", thus I define a tier 3 and up character more fun than a lower tier one. Add in the fact that I'm certain you can fit any character concept into a tier 3 or higher build, I'd encourage and help any player that comes to me with a character to build above the tier 3 mark. This is in the name of fun according to my above definition. If you define fun another way, I would be glad to try to work that definition of fun into the game such that it applies to you. (And my above point is moot)

If I were the player and the DM called me a chump for playing a character that was underpowered, I'd first demand an apology because his comment doesn't accomplish anything other than incense the recipient ("It just makes me think of you as a jerk because you look down on me for wanting to play a character I thought would be fun"), and suggest if he wanted to be a better DM that he work with players instead of taking an adversarial role. He could do this one of many ways, none of which involve calling anybody anything (see "In this case were I the DM"). If after this conversation he continued to act like a jerk, I'd reach the conclusion that even if I were playing a character that fit his picture, I still wouldn't enjoy it (would he do this every time I took a sub-optimal action? Used part of my WBL to roleplay my expensive soil collecting habit?) and leave. I hope the rest of them have fun, but you don't need to hear insults over anything. Especially a roleplaying game.

Just my 2cp, spend as you will.

[Ashtagon]

the DM in question did not say ' try to keep this tier 3 and above' just said that this was going to more of a horror based gamestyle and we were going to have to deal disease posoin and such on a regular basis due to the over arching plot of some vile crazed cult.

so I thought ' nice. a healer would be perfect' and ...

Given that it is a horror campaign, I'd say a healer character would not be suitable, simply because it would ruin many potential horror themes. These guys are pretty much designed to cure status effects, and status effects are pretty central to horror campaigns.

[ThiagoMartell]

I'm sad the tier system gets used as a front for being a jerk. I said it in another thread recently... this is not what the tier system was created for. In fact, if this is a tier 3 game, a warlock (tier 4) would fit perfectly in. Not only is this DM a "tier nazi", he is a tier nazi who does not know the tier system very well. My suggestion: walk away.



Given that it is a horror campaign, I'd say a healer character would not be suitable, simply because it would ruin many potential horror themes. These guys are pretty much designed to cure status effects, and status effects are pretty central to horror campaigns.
Disagree completely - it just creates more horror potential. Throw them against ghouls with the healer. They menage to avoid paralysis. Separate them from the healer. Throw twice as many ghouls on them.

[killem2]

{Scrubbed}

[Ashtagon]

Disagree completely - it just creates more horror potential. Throw them against ghouls with the healer. They menage to avoid paralysis. Separate them from the healer. Throw twice as many ghouls on them.

So the way to make your character a meaningful part of the campaign's feel is to... take him out of the encounter before it starts?

[Togo]

Since he believes that only a chump would play a low Tier character, you might want to use that. Explain that you want to play this class, and ask him for any bonuses he can give to the class to make it viable. Extra feats, skill points and BAB are all good choices, since they're features of low Tier classes, so he won't see them as valuable. If he doesn't want to go to the bother, ask to gestalt with another low-tier class (monk is a good choice, since it provides many defensive abilities, and is particularly reknowned for it's flaws). Try and get more points in your stat-build. If he's so worried about your viability, you need the help, right?

The advantage of this approach is you can still play the character you want, while resolving his concerns over balance. And if he should be wrong about your character, then it will be patently obvious to both him and the other players as the game progresses.

[DogbertLinc]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Yes, because your players make bland and weak characters, they won't be achieving any threatening levels of power to your sanity. A cleric, as a T1, can even accidentally **** things up, but YOUR cleric is a focused on healboting, losing much of the cleric's power

Also, please don't call people incompetent or lazy because they may have had to deal with something you didn't.

The OP's DM is just using a tool to help people as an excuse to being a douche, and said douche is better off with no players.

[Gavinfoxx]

Suggest using one of the Healer fixes, maybe?

[Malachei]

I would have walked away as soon as I heard "tier". It's fine to hold that opinion but to be bigoted about it is a red flag. Not only are you going to have trouble playing whatever you want, and selecting whatever options you want within that concept, but it's unlikely that they'll change their mind about it.

I normally say try to work it out and then if that fails move on to another group but here I'm going to say just move on.

Exactly. And this is the kind of stereotyping we have now, and many would argue this cannot possibly be in any way an undesired result of the tier system. Yes, it does, in fact, have a few disclaimers. But still, IMO, it is a labeling exercise and therefore excellently suited to support stereotyping.

[LordBlades]

Yes, because your players make bland and weak characters, they won't be achieving any threatening levels of power to your sanity. A cleric, as a T1, can even accidentally **** things up, but YOUR cleric is a focused on healboting, losing much of the cleric's power

Also, please don't call people incompetent or lazy because they may have had to deal with something you didn't.

The OP's DM is just using a tool to help people as an excuse to being a douche, and said douche is better off with no players.

plus ****ing one

As somebody who has accidentally broken his first two D&D 3.5 campaigns ever, one with a cleric and the other with a druid, I'd have really appreciated if I had come across some sort of warning that stuff like that might happen at that time.

[BlueEyes]

Exactly. And this is the kind of stereotyping we have now, and many would argue this cannot possibly be in any way an undesired result of the tier system. Yes, it does, in fact, have a few disclaimers. But still, IMO, it is a labeling exercise and therefore excellently suited to support stereotyping.
The Tier System can't help it that people are stupid/jerks.

[Draconi Redfir]

Now ya see this is why i'm not the fan of the whole teir thing. People get too stuck up on it and beleive it to be nothing but truth and fact, getting hissy at anoyone who actually wants to play a class they are interested in rather then one that's good.

And even then i've seen a supposedly "low teir" monk run up to, and utterly murder a hill giant in less then three rounds flat from over a mile away. ANYTHING can be great if you work hard enough on it.

[Kuulvheysoon]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Seconded.

In all seriousness, I agree with LordBlades and them.

[Togo]

Exactly. And this is the kind of stereotyping we have now, and many would argue this cannot possibly be in any way an undesired result of the tier system. Yes, it does, in fact, have a few disclaimers. But still, IMO, it is a labeling exercise and therefore excellently suited to support stereotyping.

This is an excellent point. I've been feeling increasingly uneasy in using the tier system with my present group, and this captures part of why. It's a tool that relies on stereotyping each class according to its potential for abuse. Hm.

In practice, my players try and avoid abuse, the balance of builds within classes varies wildly from build to build, from level to level, and from situation to situation, and class abilities are only one facet of how effective a character is on the table.

It's a nice anecdotal warning of some potential pitfalls, but it's not robust enough or accurate enough for me to use as a tool, and I see it causing more misunderstandings than it prevents.

Maybe I should just ditch it altogether?:smalleek:

[Hand_of_Vecna]

You're DM in a bit rude and blunt if the exchange happened as described, but they're ultimately correct.

Healer is a chump, by purposeful design the Healer class only exists to pigeon hole characters into a role which happens to be suboptimal and whether or not it was intended it is inferior at this role to several lower tier classes designed to fill several roles including healing.

Yes, you could apply some homebrew to Healer to bring it up to speed. Start by adding a bunch of healing spells published after it's release to it's list then give it adaptive learning like all the T3 spontaneous list casters have. However, many DM's hate using Homebrew classes so you shouldn't feel entitled to this option.

Yes you could play whatever class you want and rebuild later if it's under powered, but it would be much simpler to play a stronger divine caster and play down to healer's level via feat, domain and most importantly spell selection then instead of rebuilding you can just decide to prepare a more versatile spell loud out and continue the game that's the beauty of the low tiers you can fix your mistakes over night(prayers), or with a little downtime (book casters), or by leveling (sorc), or you can't really mess up that badly except playing one ill suited for your campaign (T3 spontaneous list casters).

Sure you could ask to reserve the right to rebuild an underperforming character, but that technically makes all PC's Tier 0.

If I was in your DM's shoes I would have told you asked you "Why do you want to play a healer?" and depending on my mood and your answer I'd either give you homebrew healer fixes I mentioned above or insist that you play Cleric or favored soul if you're hung up on spontaneous casting.

As for player fun being a concern, I can honestly say that there is nothing "funner" about healer than a lower tier caster played as a healer and the only way in which your DM is restricting your fun is by disseminating this information rudely.

[moritheil]

I would have walked away as soon as I heard "tier". It's fine to hold that opinion but to be bigoted about it is a red flag. Not only are you going to have trouble playing whatever you want, and selecting whatever options you want within that concept, but it's unlikely that they'll change their mind about it.

Yeah. This DM has no interest in bending a bit to let the players play what they want, which is a serious problem.


Honestly, that doesn't sound like a DM worth playing under. Personally, I'd walk away if he was going to be such a douche.

This. Both players and DMs need to realize when it's best to just walk away.


See, this is part of the problem with these forums. You see people giving advice to DMs who ask about how to keep their games balanced, being told "Just tell players to play in the tier range you're comfortable with". And then when those DMs do so, and the players come on the forums, those players are told to quit the game. Frankly, that's unreasonable. If the DM has said they want the game to run within a certain tier range, then the player should stick to that tier range, or be prepared to explain why they want to do X.

I think that this illustrates why the DM - who has far more control over the encounters - is the one who should customize things to the game rather than making the players play things they don't want to play. I mean, in a game where you have more applicants than slots, you can and should exclude people who don't fit the idea of the campaign. But the OP implied this is an in-person campaign. The social contract is a little different there.


As an example - if the DM is asking players to play around tier3, and a player brings a Healer (tier 5) to the table, that player may not be contributing enough. The DM is saying "Please bring characters that are good at one thing and have options outside of that area of specialty, or who are passably good at dabbling in many things", and the player is saying "I want to play a character who isn't very good at their specialty, and is useless outside of that". That means the encounters the DM has planned may turn from a rough but winnable fight, to a party wipe, because one player isn't pulling his or her weight.

Yeah, but he or she is also saying, "I can't be bothered to rewrite this totally awesome fight, just because you haven't spent as much time with your nose in the sourcebooks as me." Or, "I don't care what you want to play; I care what I want to run." That kind of outlook does not end well and is a great indicator you want to find another DM.


Of course, it sounds like the DM is presenting this in a very poor way, if he's dismissing tier5's as chumps, but this is where things lie at the heart of the matter.

I don't think it's only a matter of presentation. "Chumps" has an additional negative connotation that "underpowered" does not; if this is the actual term the DM used, then it implies a certain powergamer mindset (that characters must be powerful to be worthy of play, which is certainly not what every DM or every player thinks.)

[moritheil]

This is an excellent point. I've been feeling increasingly uneasy in using the tier system with my present group, and this captures part of why. It's a tool that relies on stereotyping each class according to its potential for abuse. Hm.

In practice, my players try and avoid abuse, the balance of builds within classes varies wildly from build to build, from level to level, and from situation to situation, and class abilities are only one facet of how effective a character is on the table.

It's a nice anecdotal warning of some potential pitfalls, but it's not robust enough or accurate enough for me to use as a tool, and I see it causing more misunderstandings than it prevents.

Maybe I should just ditch it altogether?:smalleek:

Something I do that has a side bonus of slightly disrupting the tier system is run a simulated world with no guarantees of level appropriateness, which means that a lot of the social skills generally associated with tier 4 characters can be situationally more important than being tier 1. It doesn't matter if the 5th level wizard is more powerful than the 5th level rogue, if the latter is the sometimes the one who keeps everyone alive by staying in the good graces of strangers who may range from levels 1-18.

Part of the assumption of Ultimate Wizard Power is the idea that spells like charm person can be a substitute for social skills, and thus the wizard can do whatever the rogue can do, but if you live in a world where you have to worry about the possibility that strangers can casually kill you for attempting to take control of their minds, you won't be as free with it. Obviously a clever wizard will still find ways around these difficulties, but at least you are reducing the potential for abuse by establishing that there are consequences.

Also, the tier system is very different if you have to play from 1-20 than if you get to use some theoretical build that pops into being at level 20. Early feats can be thrown into things which are useless at the time, optimizing everything for the endgame. Fighter/mages, who have a lot more durability, suddenly become more on par with pure mages as opposed to being suckers who "gave up power to play with swords" (which is an accurate description of the disparity at level 20, but not at level 2.) And so on.

The traditional point of rewarding mages for hitting the endgame is that it is damn hard for a squishy mage to hit the endgame. If there's no fear that my character might not survive if I don't trade off some power to enable survivability then of course you're going to see more of a "glass cannon" approach. You're basically encouraging it.

Solution: play from low levels on, and reward people for thinking about defense rather than just offense. If there's no point to armor, then of course the mage doesn't fare that much worse than the fighter because both can be hit. Establish that the fighter's AC makes a real difference - at least in terms of how strongly the enemy can trade attack for damage by power attack. Help your fighter optimize that AC. And use monsters that get bonus rend attacks on unarmored opponents. It's not about punishing the mage, it's about making there be an actual cost to spending all your time playing with arcane books and scrolls instead of learning the rudiments of how to wear protective gear.

[ThiagoMartell]

You're DM in a bit rude and blunt if the exchange happened as described, but they're ultimately correct.
Sincerely, no, he is not. If your player wants to play X, X does not disturb your campaign's fluff and X does not break your campaign, what is the problem with your player playing X? It's your player's character, not yours.
How can you say a character is "a joke" because of class only? Some of the most interesting characters I know are not very powerful. This is like saying "Sorry, you can't play Daredevil, use The Sentry instead"


Healer is a chump, by purposeful design the Healer class only exists to pigeon hole characters into a role which happens to be suboptimal and whether or not it was intended it is inferior at this role to several lower tier classes designed to fill several roles including healing.
But the player does not care if Healing is suboptimal. He wants to heal. Why the hell will you not allow a player to do what he wants?
Also, I must say this - in an undead heavy campaign (and a horror campaign is probably one of those) a Healer with Mastery of Day and Night can be absolutely ridiculous, considering they get the Mass version of healing spells a level earlier.
Also, santified spells. Also, unicorn mount.
And sincerely, in combat healing is very relavant in the lower levels. Between Augment Healing, Mastery of Day and Night and Magic of the Land, a 3rd level Healer is healing 24+Cha points of damage. That's more than the full hp of most 3rd level characters.
An optimized healer (one with a Domain Icon, Karma Beads, the Contemplative prestige class and the aforementioned feats) remains relevant a lot longer. Even when your healing spells fall behind, you get mass heal at level 15. Level 17? You get freaking gate! You can easily make the healer effectively tier 4 and maybe even 3 with the correct amount of optimization and the DM wouldn't even let the player try, even being outrageously rude about it.
That can not be considered right, ever.


Yes, you could apply some homebrew to Healer to bring it up to speed. Start by adding a bunch of healing spells published after it's release to it's list then give it adaptive learning like all the T3 spontaneous list casters have. However, many DM's hate using Homebrew classes so you shouldn't feel entitled to this option.
You could just optimize, as I pointed out above.


Yes you could play whatever class you want and rebuild later if it's under powered, but it would be much simpler to play a stronger divine caster and play down to healer's level via feat, domain and most importantly spell selection then instead of rebuilding you can just decide to prepare a more versatile spell loud out and continue the game that's the beauty of the low tiers you can fix your mistakes over night(prayers), or with a little downtime (book casters), or by leveling (sorc), or you can't really mess up that badly except playing one ill suited for your campaign (T3 spontaneous list casters).
Oh, you're telling me you can't mess up a Sorcerer too badly? :smallamused:
And of course, you can play a Cleric instead and go out of your way to get the Healer's class features (the unicorn would be the only thing actually hard to get, you'd be dumping a few feats to get it - feats a Healer could be using to be better at healing). Healing spells not provoking could also be achieved via a feat (Shielded Casting), but that's a borderline case (unless your world is full of Mage Slayers) and Shielded Casting would be a good feat in such a scenario for everyone.


Sure you could ask to reserve the right to rebuild an underperforming character, but that technically makes all PC's Tier 0.
What...? Care to explain that?


If I was in your DM's shoes I would have told you asked you "Why do you want to play a healer?" and depending on my mood and your answer I'd either give you homebrew healer fixes I mentioned above or insist that you play Cleric or favored soul if you're hung up on spontaneous casting.
If I were in his shoes, I'd say "Healer is a weak class, do you know that? Want some help with your sheet?" and that's all.


As for player fun being a concern, I can honestly say that there is nothing "funner" about healer than a lower tier caster played as a healer and the only way in which your DM is restricting your fun is by disseminating this information rudely.
Dude, you don't know that. You can say what is fun for you and for you only. I have a blast playing low tier classes in high tier groups because of the added challenge.

[BlueEyes]

There's a non-"chump" version of Healer in Core that's higher tier. It's called Cleric. It can do everything a Healer can do. And better.

[Sewercop]

myself, i am pretty competant in the game, i am by no means an optimizer ( and by that i mean the whole Lord of Procrastion's numerous builds one of which was linked by VIlpish, or other such such as that, i am more of a nul-optimizer I play concepts and look for the lcass that most fits that particular concept and by playstle and my own creativnes is where 95% of my characters strnght comes from

case in point playing 3rd ed in the ealry days of getting into it, my friends in college were i guess what is considered high optimizers and I chose to be a Warmage, althought redone to be INT based and not CHA based and lost the armor proficienies. I managed to deafeat a CR 10 encounter by myself (at level 6) by using a little bit of the class abilites but my own ingenuity. caught the evil bad guys in the secret meeting. acid breathed the iron wrought staircase and ducked back inside the antechamber lalal the dmage done to the sarcase and the weihg tof them baddie coming up teh stair caused it to collaspe whenc i then proceeded to use my 2 fireballs to kill the bad guys while they were trying to get out formt he tangled mess of the staircase.

I guess that just becaue X is in a tiar don;t mean X is useless never count out the player

and the player having fun should be a hihger priority than telling how one is a chump.


If you as a chump stomps on the other players fun because the gm needs to play magical tea party like the way in your exsample i do understand him.
Perhaps the gm just wanted you to actually contribute beyond gm fiat?

You want the ability to redo your character if he sucks, that alone are good enoug reason to say pick some good from the start.

If you want him to get off your back its easy.. Choose a role he dont need to treat as a little princess.
Or atleast ask him why he thinks its a chump.. Perhaps he just answers why...

MY guess, if he has played with you before.. He dont wanna cater to your precius needs. He wants you to be competent so he dont have to annoy the other players by "gifting" you easy outs...

[Malachei]

There's a non-"chump" version of Healer in Core that's higher tier. It's called Cleric. It can do everything a Healer can do. And better.

Are you the DM in question?

[ngilop]

Ok a lot of people are completely miss readin what i wrote.

the DM is not calling the healer class a chump. but Myslef a chump for wanting to play lower tier classes.



ANd i think that maybe Sewer cop might be the DM in question, becuase appeanrly he thinks I am a chump as well.

bcuase i guess actually being a smart player and using your own brain power(s) so that when you do find yourslef ( your character that is) alone in a situation, you come out the victor is some how trampling on other player;s fun.

though I have no idea how i could be trampling on other players fun when no other players' characters was present (hence why i did mention the word solo)

ive never played with this DM before, and i don;t have litle princess needs, have you even read the thread or do you just ike this whole tier bandwagon stuff?


Ive never said nor have i ever wanted Easy outs, I play this game to have my character overocme obstacles not auto win, i hate the whole my character should be a hero and win all the time sentiment that i see more prevalnet today than in yester-year



I am never considering if my particual class choice is over/under powered, my playstyle prevents all of that fuss, i never play the 'tier' system and in my above example i use my own intuiton to make up for any faults in most classes ( can't realy do much with the monk...)

but I guess that accoridng to mr sewercop, me wanting to be a healer makes me a chump and a princess. maybe i shoudl buy a pink sundress and purple boa, takes some pics and put them up here to validate his own insults towards me.

[ThiagoMartell]

If you as a chump stomps on the other players fun because the gm needs to play magical tea party like the way in your exsample i do understand him.
This is a misunderstanting of the tier system.

Q: So, which is the best Tier?

A: In the end, the best Tier is the Tier that matches the rest of your party and appeals to you. If your party is Fighter, Rogue, Healer, Barbarian, then Tier 4 or 5 is going to be the best. If your party is Sorcerer, Beguiler, Crusader, Swordsage, then Tier 2-3 will be best. Really, if you're having fun and no one in the party feels either useless or overpowered, then you're doing it right. Personally, I prefer Tier 3, but I still match to whatever party I'm in if I join after other characters are created.

Q: So what a minute, how can I use it then? My players all play differently.

A: First, determine what you'd say is the average optimization and skill level in the group, then make adjustments for people who are noticably different from that. I can't give examples of skill level, but here's an example for optimization. Imagine for a moment that your party has a Cleric with DMM: Persistant Spell, a Fighter with Shock Trooper and Leap Attack, a Beguiler with a Mindbender dip and Mindsight, and a traditional Sword and Board Fighter. Now, the first three are pretty optimized, but the fourth is pretty weak. So in that case, what you've actually got is a Tier 1, a Tier 3, a Tier 5, and a Tier 6, with that second Fighter being Tier 6 because he's far less optimized than the rest of the group. However, if your group is instead a healbot Cleric, a Beguiler who hasn't figured out how to use illusions effectively, a Sword and Board Fighter, and a Shock Trooper/Leap Attack Fighter, then the charge based Fighter is the odd one out. Bump him up a Tier... maybe even 2. So now you've got a Tier 1, a Tier 3, a Tier 5, and maybe a Tier 4. Remember, this whole thing is about intra party balance... there's no objective balancing, because each campaign is different.

Also, a simple way I've used it is this: in my regular gaming group, I've got one player who optimizes like crazy and likes making characters for other players. And then I've got a bunch of people who make their own characters, and they're less optimized. I can therefor tell people that they can be a Tier 4 class if they let him make their characters, or Tier 3 if they make their own. It's worked out pretty well.


Q: My party mates all want to play classes of wildly different Tiers. What can I do about this?

A: First... see if you can get them to play something closer together, as above. If that won't work, okay. Now, if the class you're playing is noticeably stronger than everyone else, try focusing your energy on buffing your party mates. Channel your power through them... it helps. If you're a DMM Cleric in a party with a Monk and Fighter, try persisting Recitation, Lesser Vigor, and Righteous Wrath of the Faithful instead of Righteous Might, Divine Power, and Divine Favor. You're still very powerful, and definitely getting results, but since you use your party mates to get those results, they feel useful too. Also, let them shine in their areas. If they're melees and you're a Cleric, don't turn into Godzilla and smash Tokyo. It's not polite. Focus on the other areas a bit more. If one of them is playing a Rogue, using Divine Insight to beat him on skills isn't nice. Let him have his fun, and save your spells for other areas if you can. If, however, you're playing a weaker class, then optimize optimize optimize! A CW Samurai is going to have a lot of trouble in a party full of Tier 3s and up, so maybe try being a Necropolitan CW Samurai 10/Zhentarium Fighter 10 with Imperious Command, Eviscerator, Improved Critical, and a pair of Lifedrinker Kukris. Carve out a niche where you're the king... they can have everything else. Also, make sure you've got something to do when you do have to sit out. Give your character a drinking habit or something.

[Tyndmyr]

blah blah some talk about tiers and how me picking tier 4 & 5 classes makes me a chump player. I was like " ok can I just be a Warlock?"

Tier's are a useful measuring stick, but he's kind of going about this wrong. This is like telling someone "driving a civic makes you an idiot". Sure, I'm aware that there are faster/better/shinier cars than a civic...but if I don't care, why the hell should he care so much about what I pick?

Run, IMO. The not caring about your desires and proclivity toward insults are not good signs.

[CIDE]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Absolutely beautiful...


Yes, because your players make bland and weak characters, they won't be achieving any threatening levels of power to your sanity. A cleric, as a T1, can even accidentally **** things up, but YOUR cleric is a focused on healboting, losing much of the cleric's power

Also, please don't call people incompetent or lazy because they may have had to deal with something you didn't.

The OP's DM is just using a tool to help people as an excuse to being a douche, and said douche is better off with no players.

He's making a point that the classes tier doesn't solidify it's power level or role in a party. It's based on what the player wants to actually play, what kind of character it is, how much they can/want to optimize.


There's a non-"chump" version of Healer in Core that's higher tier. It's called Cleric. It can do everything a Healer can do. And better.

Not everyone wants to play a cleric. The cleric may not fit the fluff the player wants to get with his character. It's the same argument with Monk Vs Swordage. Not everyone wants to play a swordsage. Not everyone wants to play a Erudite, Druid, Wizard, or Aritificer either.


Ok a lot of people are completely miss readin what i wrote.

the DM is not calling the healer class a chump. but Myslef a chump for wanting to play lower tier classes.



ANd i think that maybe Sewer cop might be the DM in question, becuase appeanrly he thinks I am a chump as well.

bcuase i guess actually being a smart player and using your own brain power(s) so that when you do find yourslef ( your character that is) alone in a situation, you come out the victor is some how trampling on other player;s fun.

though I have no idea how i could be trampling on other players fun when no other players' characters was present (hence why i did mention the word solo)

ive never played with this DM before, and i don;t have litle princess needs, have you even read the thread or do you just ike this whole tier bandwagon stuff?


Ive never said nor have i ever wanted Easy outs, I play this game to have my character overocme obstacles not auto win, i hate the whole my character should be a hero and win all the time sentiment that i see more prevalnet today than in yester-year



I am never considering if my particual class choice is over/under powered, my playstyle prevents all of that fuss, i never play the 'tier' system and in my above example i use my own intuiton to make up for any faults in most classes ( can't realy do much with the monk...)

but I guess that accoridng to mr sewercop, me wanting to be a healer makes me a chump and a princess. maybe i shoudl buy a pink sundress and purple boa, takes some pics and put them up here to validate his own insults towards me.

Long story short; you just want to have fun and roleplay. I'm not seeing anything wrong with that.

[BlueEyes]

Are you the DM in question?
Maybe?


Not everyone wants to play a cleric. The cleric may not fit the fluff the player wants to get with his character. It's the same argument with Monk Vs Swordage. Not everyone wants to play a swordsage. Not everyone wants to play a Erudite, Druid, Wizard, or Aritificer either.
Cleric can have exactly the same fluff as a Healer.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Now ya see this is why i'm not the fan of the whole teir thing. People get too stuck up on it and beleive it to be nothing but truth and fact, getting hissy at anoyone who actually wants to play a class they are interested in rather then one that's good.
I doubt you'd feel very fulfilled playing a casual monk alongside a warblade, focused conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt, and BFC/buff/debuff cleric with a Persisted Divine Power up (yes, I know his melee skills are about as good as an NPC warrior, but this is a "just in case" thing). On the other hand, your casual monk would work with a blaster wizard/sorc/warmage without metamagic reduction, a straight fighter that uses shield bashing, and a rogue that doesn't use TWF+flanking.

And even then i've seen a supposedly "low teir" monk run up to, and utterly murder a hill giant in less then three rounds flat from over a mile away. ANYTHING can be great if you work hard enough on it.

...At what level? I'm going to assume 20. Without any houserules, like changing monk's speed boost from enhancement to untyped, he can have a speed of 90 feet. Times four, that's 360. 360 times three is 1180. That's not even a quarter mile. And a hill giant? That's CR 7. Not exactly a big accomplishment.