The Tier System explained to dummies

[Guizonde]

another question i asked in the simple questions... please keep in mind that i don't understand any of it, and from a layman's view, see this as unjustly unfair

ok, so as far as i can understand, the tier system is this ranking of the character types based of efficiency.

what is this based on? who created it? why and how did they get to the current compendium?

is this a pure-crunch listing? or does it take into account fluff? (for example, in greyhawk halfling paladins are an oddity, so would be a half-orc conjurer, or whatever)

is the list a min-maxer's delight or the be all end all class listing?

is this in any way related to the linear warrior-quadratic mage trope? so far, i've heard both sides, including some people claiming warriors can take on epic level arcane casters if well roleplayed. so i'm kind of confused.

[Telonius]

I'd post you direct to Brilliant Gameologists, where the original post was ... but the site was recently hacked (redirected to naughty pictures).

Basically the idea is that the bunch of classes that make up D&D can be ranked into roughly-equivalent power tiers, based on what the class is able to do. At the bottom, you have stuff like Truenamer that doesn't work at all without serious cheese; then classes like Monk and Samurai that aren't very good at what they're supposed to do, with not much else besides (Tier 5); one-trick pony classes that are really good at what they do but useless in other situations (Tier 4); good-strength classes that are good at what they do but have the ability to do other stuff even when their main shtick isn't applicable (Tier 3), Potentially world-breaking classes that can wreck a game but don't quite have the power of the top classes (Tier 2), and the real gamebreakers that make reality cry twice before they get out of bed every morning (Tier 1).

The whole thing was intended as a balance and planning tool for DMs and players. If the DM knows that he has four tier 2 characters and a tier 4, he'll probably want to throw a few special treats to the Tier 4 to make sure he doesn't feel left out; or make sure the one-trick ponies get the chance to use their trick often. At the outer extreme, some DMs will only allow certain tiers in their game, and ban others.

The poster JaronK was the person who first set it up, but the final/current version was the result of a lot of discussion by hundreds of posters. (He did make edits to the original list, and some of the classes' assignments that generated a lot of debate were marked as such).

It has more to do with crunch than with fluff, but like most things regarding D&D it has aspects of both. If a class has things to do other than combat (think "skillmonkeys" and "faces") that might affect whether it's a Tier 4 or Tier 3.

EDIT: Found a direct quote from GITP (praise Boccob).



The following is a repost of something I made over on the WotC forums. I'm not exactly sure which forum to put it on, as it's intended for a variety of purposes. It's here mostly because I'd like to get some feedback from knowledgeable minds, but it's also a useful tool, much like a handbook, and available for use.

My general philosophy is that the only balance that really matters in D&D is the interclass balance between the various PCs in a group. If the group as a whole is very powerful and flexible, the DM can simply up the challenge level and complexity of the encounters. If it's weak and inflexible, the DM can lower the challenge level and complexity. Serious issues arise when the party is composed of some members which are extremely powerful and others which are extremely weak, leading to a situation where the DM has two choices: either make the game too easy for the strong members, or too hard for the weak members. Neither is desireable. Thus, this system is created for the following purposes:

1) To provide a ranking system so that DMs know roughly the power of the PCs in their group

2) To provide players with knowledge of where their group stands, power wise, so that they can better build characters that fit with their group.

3) To help DMs who plan to use house rules to balance games by showing them where the classes stand before applying said house rules (how many times have we seen DMs pumping up Sorcerers or weakening Monks?).

4) To help DMs judge what should be allowed and what shouldn't in their games. It may sound cheesy when the Fighter player wants to be a Half Minotaur Water Orc, but if the rest of his party is Druid, Cloistered Cleric, Archivist, and Artificer, then maybe you should allow that to balance things out. However, if the player is asking to be allowed to be a Venerable White Dragonspawn Dragonwrought Kobold Sorcerer and the rest of the party is a Monk, a Fighter, and a Rogue, maybe you shouldn't let that fly.

5) To help homebrewers judge the power and balance of their new classes. Pick a Tier you think your class should be in, and when you've made your class compare it to the rest of the Tier. Generally, I like Tier 3 as a balance point, but I know many people prefer Tier 4. If it's stronger than Tier 1, you definitely blew it.

Psionic classes are mostly absent simply because I don't have enough experience with them. Other absent classes are generally missing because I don't know them well enough to comment, though if I've heard a lot about them they're listed in itallics. Note that "useless" here means "the class isn't particularly useful for dealing with situation X" not "it's totally impossible with enough splat books to make a build that involves that class deal with situation X." "Capable of doing one thing" means that any given build does one thing, not that the class itself is incapable of being built in different ways. Also, "encounters" here refers to appropriate encounters... obviously, anyone can solve an encounter with purely mechanical abilities if they're level 20 and it's CR 1.

Also note that with enough optimization, it's generally possible to go up a tier, and if played poorly you can easily drop a few tiers, but this is a general averaging, assuming that everyone in the party is playing with roughly the same skill and optimization level. As a rule, parties function best when everyone in the party is within 2 Tiers of each other (so a party that's all Tier 2-4 is generally fine, and so is a party that's all Tier 3-5, but a party that has Tier 1 and Tier 5s in it may have issues).

The Tier System

Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played well, can break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

Examples: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Archivist, Artificer, Erudite

Tier 2: Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes. Still potencially campaign smashers by using the right abilities, but at the same time are more predictable and can't always have the right tool for the job. If the Tier 1 classes are countries with 10,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, these guys are countries with 10 nukes. Still dangerous and world shattering, but not in quite so many ways. Note that the Tier 2 classes are often less flexible than Tier 3 classes... it's just that their incredible potential power overwhelms their lack in flexibility.

Examples: Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Psion, Binder (with access to online vestiges)

Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.

Examples: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psionic Warrior

Tier 4: Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competance without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribue to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well.

Examples: Rogue, Barbarian, Warlock, Warmage, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshal, Fighter (Dungeoncrasher Variant)

Tier 5: Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the rest of the party is weak in that situation and the encounter matches their strengths. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly.

Examples: Fighter, Monk, CA Ninja, Healer, Swashbuckler, Rokugan Ninja, Soulknife, Expert, OA Samurai, Paladin, Knight

Tier 6: Not even capable of shining in their own area of expertise. DMs will need to work hard to make encounters that this sort of character can contribute in with their mechanical abilities. Will often feel worthless unless the character is seriously powergamed beyond belief, and even then won't be terribly impressive. Needs to fight enemies of lower than normal CR. Class is often completely unsynergized or with almost no abilities of merit. Avoid allowing PCs to play these characters.

Examples: CW Samurai, Aristocrat, Warrior, Commoner

And then there's the Truenamer, which is just broken (as in, the class was improperly made and doesn't function appropriately).

Now, obviously these rankings only apply when mechanical abilities are being used... in a more social oriented game where talking is the main way of solving things (without using diplomacy checks), any character can shine. However, when the mechanical abilities of the classes in question are being used, it's a bad idea to have parties with more than two tiers of difference.

It is interesting to note the disparity between the core classes... one of the reasons core has so many problems. If two players want to play a nature oriented shapeshifter and a general sword weilder, you're stuck with two very different tiered guys in the party (Fighter and Druid). Outside of core, it's possible to do it while staying on close Tiers... Wild Shape Variant Ranger and Warblade, for example.

Note that a few classes are right on the border line between tiers. Duskblade is very low in Tier 3, and Hexblade is low in Tier 4. Fighter is high in Tier 5, and CW Samurai is high in Tier 6 (obviously, since it's pretty much strictly better than the same tier Warrior).

JaronK

[Grod_The_Giant]

Telonius covered pretty much everything. About the only thing I can add is that the division between T1 and T2 is the wizard verses the sorcerer: T2 can break the game into a million tiny pieces one or two ways, while T1 can shatter everything any way they want to.

[Doug Lampert]

I'd post you direct to Brilliant Gameologists, where the original post was ... but the site was recently hacked (redirected to naughty pictures).

Basically the idea is that the bunch of classes that make up D&D can be ranked into roughly-equivalent power tiers, based on what the class is able to do. At the bottom, you have stuff like Truenamer that doesn't work at all without serious cheese; then classes like Monk and Samurai that aren't very good at what they're supposed to do, with not much else besides (Tier 5); one-trick pony classes that are really good at what they do but useless in other situations (Tier 4); good-strength classes that are good at what they do but have the ability to do other stuff even when their main shtick isn't applicable (Tier 3), Potentially world-breaking classes that can wreck a game but don't quite have the power of the top classes (Tier 2), and the real gamebreakers that make reality cry twice before they get out of bed every morning (Tier 1).

The whole thing was intended as a balance and planning tool for DMs and players. If the DM knows that he has four tier 2 characters and a tier 4, he'll probably want to throw a few special treats to the Tier 4 to make sure he doesn't feel left out; or make sure the one-trick ponies get the chance to use their trick often. At the outer extreme, some DMs will only allow certain tiers in their game, and ban others.

The poster JaronK was the person who first set it up, but the final/current version was the result of a lot of discussion by hundreds of posters. (He did make edits to the original list, and some of the classes' assignments that generated a lot of debate were marked as such).

It has more to do with crunch than with fluff, but like most things regarding D&D it has aspects of both. If a class has things to do other than combat (think "skillmonkeys" and "faces") that might affect whether it's a Tier 4 or Tier 3.

EDIT: Found a direct quote from GITP (praise Boccob).


Tiers come in pairs where the power is similar, but the difference is versatility.

Tier 2 includes Sorcerer, Tier 1 includes Wizard, both have no significant features other than spells and work off the same list, maximum raw power is identical (with splats it even favors the sorcerer), but the wizard can know more spells so he's more versatile.

Tiers 3 and 4 are both full of perfectly functional classes, but 3 can do something when his good trick doesn't work.

Tiers 5 and 6 both fail at even the tasks they're allegedly designed for, but 5 can be made to work with some effort.

Truenamer is NOT at the bottom of the tier list, tier 6 includes commoner and a truenamer is clearly stronger than a commoner. Truenamer doesn't have a tier because the utility of the class is too dependent on level and build and setting stuff to be reasonably determined (and can change greatly due to change in level within a build). With "reasonable" optimization truenamer is probably a fairly weak tier 4 till level 20 (people will argue for higher or lower), when it jumps to tier 1. And then at epic levels it just gets silly.

[Guizonde]

ok, so that's what i basically knew (1d4chan wiki) but better explained. thanks.

but, gamebreaking factor (read: magic users) aside, why is a monk lower than a warrior, where both are supposed to hit things a lot? i'd gathered it was flavor-wise, with a monk dodging and making physics cry in a corner, while a warrior is beating logic half to death and making violence the main solution.
heck, i've seen a monk outplay a rogue, becoming the scout of the group, using his agility to stay discreet. so, throw me a bone when i hear "monks aren't good at what they're supposed to do". sure, i've seen that to be a gamebreaking monk you'd need to do the RNG god's dishes for a monk, but in the end isn't it just based on WIS and DEX?

edit: what of the case of rogues going "invisible assassin"? truly using stealth in combat, with the rest of the party distracting while the rogue gets into a better position?
this is what bugs me: with sufficient tactics, can't a basic class work to its full strength no matter what? (almighty bystander/commoner aside?)
my current "serious campaign" group is made up of a cleric (tier 1), a wizard (tier 1), a rogue4/enchantress1 (tier 4, i guess), and a monk (tier5), and a warrior (tier 3). none of us can truly say we out-excel each other, aside from the warrior, who plays quite litteraly the "roll to hit, nothing else" archetype. i mean, sure, the cleric does more hand to hand damage than the warrior against evil and undead, but the monk hits 4 times with his fists at d6 damage. even this outclasses a bec de corbin.

[Friv]

but, gamebreaking factor (read: magic users) aside, why is a monk lower than a warrior, where both are supposed to hit things a lot? i'd gathered it was flavor-wise, with a monk dodging and making physics cry in a corner, while a warrior is beating logic half to death and making violence the main solution.
heck, i've seen a monk outplay a rogue, becoming the scout of the group, using his agility to stay discreet. so, throw me a bone when i hear "monks aren't good at what they're supposed to do". sure, i've seen that to be a gamebreaking monk you'd need to do the RNG god's dishes for a monk, but in the end isn't it just based on WIS and DEX?

As a rule, the monk has a laundry list of special powers that either show up later than the point in most games where they're useful, or directly oppose one another in ways that make them less useful (increased movement speed combined with the ability to attack frequently if you don't move, the ability to hit frequently combined with a reduced chance to hit, and so on), and the monk's design means that several Abilities are very important to build - if you just take Dex and Wis, you need to buy a feat to deal with your inability to hit anything and you won't do any damage, and as a front-line warrior with no armor you get killed quickly if you don't have hit points (and monks don't have good hit points to start with), so CON is important too.

By comparison, fighters just get a ton of feats, which makes them kind of suck at most things, but they can be very good at their one trick.

It is conceivable for a monk to outplay a rogue. It's possible for a monk to outplay a wizard, if you have the right monk and the wrong wizard. But with equivalently skilled players playing the monk and the rogue, it's not likely to happen.

[Razgriez]

Simple, look at the Monk's Abilities and required Attributes. Monks are A. Multi Ability Dependent (MAD). They are considered to be one of the most, if not the absolute most MAD character in the game. You'll always need 4 of the 6 attributes: DEX, WIS, INT, and CON. STR is going to be needed as well for a number of reasons (Including damage) and even with Weapon Finessed unarmed strikes, you still are limited on your strike output.. and Charisma is your only true dump stat.

B. their abilities are gained way too slow, and scale horribly. The Monk's Slow fall only works when they can reach a wall, and the drop isn't above their limit of slowing down. (At which point, you better roll really well on your Tumble check, if you still have a long distance to go). Long after everyone else has purchased weapons that let them handle DRs, the Monk is only just beginning to learn how to use their best weapon (Their unarmed strikes) against DR carrying creatures. Spell Resistance is a double edged sword (Sure it might save you from eating that massive pile of dice worth of damage, but it also hinders friendlies healing you. Which is important when you start playing "Rocket tag" at high levels. Especially when you have to sacrifice actions to shut it down and get said healing.) And Quivering palm, comes way too late into the game to be of use, as at that point, foes either pack high Fort, or Immunity to Instant Death effects. For extra Insult and Injury, as noted by the folks who wrote up the tier system, an Unarmed Sword Sage does just about everything a Monk does, but Better, and with more proper power and abilities as they level up.

[Eldan]

It seems you are thinking a bit much of combat. The tier system is intended to cover pretty much every system you can encounter in an adventure. Think of, say, a dozen situations that you might encounter in a low-to medium level adventure:

1. Talking to a noble about your reward
2. Hunting for clues in a busy city
3. A hostage negotiation
4. Evading an enemy that is too strong to kill
5. Getting past an environmental obstacle
6. Reaching a destination faster than an opponent
7. Finding a hidden enemy base
8. Killing a horde of enemies
9. Disabling someone without killing him
10. Taking out a monster with one specific weakness, say, fire, silver, magical weapons, sunlight
11. Earning a lot of money, quickly.
12. Stealing an item, undetected.

Thenk think about this: in how many of these situations does the class have a working mechanic that helps with them?
At medium-ish levels, without serious cheese:
Your typical tier 4 has one ability they are good at. Most often combat.
A tier 3 should be able to do something in most of these situations.
A tier 2 is incredibly good at a few of those situations, good enough that they are no challenge at all, with some possible applications for others.
A tier 1 solves each of these without breaking a sweat, especially if they can prepare.

[Rogue Shadows]

1. Talking to a noble about your reward
2. Hunting for clues in a busy city
3. A hostage negotiation
4. Evading an enemy that is too strong to kill
5. Getting past an environmental obstacle
6. Reaching a destination faster than an opponent
7. Finding a hidden enemy base
8. Killing a horde of enemies
9. Disabling someone without killing him
10. Taking out a monster with one specific weakness, say, fire, silver, magical weapons, sunlight
11. Earning a lot of money, quickly.
12. Stealing an item, undetected.

Now, see, here's the interesting thing. I'm assuming a human rogue with a 14 Intelligence (reasonable), and therefore 11 maxed-out skills. Call them as follows: Bluff, Disable Device, Gather Information, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Open Locks, Search, Sleight of Hand, Spot, Use Magic Device. These could be assumed to be the "classic" rogue skills, so we're not exactly looking at an optimized rogue here...

1. Talking to a noble about your reward: Bluff the noble into thinking that what you went through was much more dangerous and so requires additional pay.
2. Hunting for clues in a busy city: The very definition of Gather Information.
3. A hostage negotiation: Bluff is invaluable here.
4. Evading an enemy that is too strong to kill: You're a Rogue: dexterity is your primary stat.
5. Getting past an environmental obstacle: Once again - Dexterity, primary stat, takes care of most environmental obstacles.
6. Reaching a destination faster than an opponent: no specific response, admittedly.
7. Finding a hidden enemy base: Gather Information, Search, Bluff
8. Killing a horde of enemies : No specific response, admittedly, beyond UMD
9. Disabling someone without killing him: No specific response, admittedly, beyond UMD
10. Taking out a monster with one specific weakness, say, fire, silver, magical weapons, sunlight: No specific response, admittedly, beyond UMD
11. Earning a lot of money, quickly.: Rogue. Synonym for "thief." Okay, "earn" is technically wrong, but if you replace it with "steal..."
12. Stealing an item, undetected.: Rogue. Synonym for "thief."

So of the 12 things above, the "classic" rogue excels at 2, 11, and 12 and can at least be useful in all of the remainders save 6, 8, 9, and 10, but of those four 8, 9, and 10 are solved by UMD and a fairly easy-to-acquire-and-use magic item like a wand of sleep. So basically the "classic" rogue can never not contribute meaningfully to a given situation and can shine in numerous areas...yet is ranked in Tier 4.

[Answerer]

Yes, but the Rogue has no "automatic win" on any of those. The Rogue would be Tier 3 if there were one or two of those things that it's really exceptional at, but there isn't, really. It's widely-competent (unlike most Tier 4s), but lacks that special niche where it truly shines.

[Rogue Shadows]

Yes, but the Rogue has no "automatic win" on any of those. The Rogue would be Tier 3 if there were one or two of those things that it's really exceptional at, but there isn't, really. It's widely-competent (unlike most Tier 4s), but lacks that special niche where it truly shines.

Ah, comprende.

[Gnaeus]

To go further, the use of UMD is really not factored into the tier system. Yes, Rogues, with their many skill points and UMD as a class skill, are better at it than most, but the tier system is looking solely at class abilities and not assuming that you have cherry-picked items for the situation. Similarly, items that can be equally used by anyone do not count into the equation. For example, a wizard gets points for being able to Fly over an obstacle. The fighter of course can also do this, with the right item that any optimized fighter will buy. But that is a strength of the gear, not the class.

Clearly, a rogue who can make all his UMD checks and who always has the exact right scroll for the situation plays in Tier 1, as he is otherwise indistinguishable from a Wizard.

[Flickerdart]

Clearly, a rogue who can make all his UMD checks and who always has the exact right scroll for the situation plays in Tier 1, as he is otherwise indistinguishable from a Wizard.
His save DCs and CLs on everything would be crap, though.

[Eldan]

Eh, UMD alone really doesn't make a tier 1. It gives you a lot of tier 1's tricks, but you still need an actual tier 1 to sell you those scrolls and, you know, pay money for them. Wizards can cast those spells without a large money investment.

That said, not everyone agrees on all the fine details of the tier system and where each class belongs. I'd say that yes, a rogue with a broad spread of skills is probably a tier 3, if perhaps a bit on the weaker side in many situations, there. Compared to say, a beguiler or factotum, who are similar but also have spells.

[SowZ]

Now, see, here's the interesting thing. I'm assuming a human rogue with a 14 Intelligence (reasonable), and therefore 11 maxed-out skills. Call them as follows: Bluff, Disable Device, Gather Information, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Open Locks, Search, Sleight of Hand, Spot, Use Magic Device. These could be assumed to be the "classic" rogue skills, so we're not exactly looking at an optimized rogue here...

1. Talking to a noble about your reward: Bluff the noble into thinking that what you went through was much more dangerous and so requires additional pay.
2. Hunting for clues in a busy city: The very definition of Gather Information.
3. A hostage negotiation: Bluff is invaluable here.
4. Evading an enemy that is too strong to kill: You're a Rogue: dexterity is your primary stat.
5. Getting past an environmental obstacle: Once again - Dexterity, primary stat, takes care of most environmental obstacles.
6. Reaching a destination faster than an opponent: no specific response, admittedly.
7. Finding a hidden enemy base: Gather Information, Search, Bluff
8. Killing a horde of enemies : No specific response, admittedly, beyond UMD
9. Disabling someone without killing him: No specific response, admittedly, beyond UMD
10. Taking out a monster with one specific weakness, say, fire, silver, magical weapons, sunlight: No specific response, admittedly, beyond UMD
11. Earning a lot of money, quickly.: Rogue. Synonym for "thief." Okay, "earn" is technically wrong, but if you replace it with "steal..."
12. Stealing an item, undetected.: Rogue. Synonym for "thief."

So of the 12 things above, the "classic" rogue excels at 2, 11, and 12 and can at least be useful in all of the remainders save 6, 8, 9, and 10, but of those four 8, 9, and 10 are solved by UMD and a fairly easy-to-acquire-and-use magic item like a wand of sleep. So basically the "classic" rogue can never not contribute meaningfully to a given situation and can shine in numerous areas...yet is ranked in Tier 4.

Dexterity isn't necessarily going to help you in evading an enemy or an environmental effect. I don't see how they are very related. You could sneak past an enemy, but you may not be able to if he is already chasing you. A rogue would have no more ability to run away from something or, say, jump a pit than anyone else. Actually, Strength has Climb and Jump and Swim. I'd say Strength is better at environmental stuff.

Anyway, part of the issue isn't just what someone can do. It is the investment required. Let's take a wizard-

1: Suggestion
2: Divination
3: Suggestion
4: Invisibility, Teleport, Expeditious Retreat, take your pick
5: Flight, Teleport
6: Teleport, Expeditious Retreat
7: Divination, (Detect Thoughts)
8: Too many options to list
9: Again, a million disabling spells
10: Divination, spells with a bunch of damage/energy types
11: Can steal better than the Rogue what with Dominate, Suggestion, Teleport, Invisibility, Disguise Self...
12: See above

So while the rogue CAN contribute to most of the things above, he doesn't do any of them exceedingly well. The wizard can literally do every one of those twelve better than the rogue and with very little investment. Meanwhile, the rogue needs to invest in certain stats/use skill points to be able to do an inferior job.

[huttj509]

Ah, comprende.

Yeah, IIRC, the rogue has been one of those oft "it should really be tier X" arguments.

The main thing to recall is thatthe tiers are bands, not distinct points, and are intended to be used as guidelines and possible warnings of difficulties, rather than absolute "you fail" labels.

If you have mostly tier 3s and a tier 4? Shouldn't be too much issue. Mostly Tier 1s and a tier 4? Yeah, keep an eye on things.

[Guizonde]

i think i'm starting to understand: a jack of all trades will be lower on the tier scale than the equivalent specialist. however, a jack will be higher up if played well with good gear.
in other words, the tier system is pure number-crunching: the most power for your points.

i was kinda scared i misunderstood completely what it was about, based on the apparent hatred of monks and paladins here for being "too weak", whereas with a good roleplay they can become rp-solving machines. huh, go me for forgetting pen and paper is pure math once the storytelling's turned off.

edit: i've just seen the topic was moved. sorry to the mods, i'll get better at posting in the appropriate category, i promise:smallsmile:

[Flickerdart]

i was kinda scared i misunderstood completely what it was about, based on the apparent hatred of monks and paladins here for being "too weak", whereas with a good roleplay they can become rp-solving machines. huh, go me for forgetting pen and paper is pure math once the storytelling's turned off.
Good RP has nothing to do with your class. Hell, one can even RP as a Paladin while actually being a Cleric with persisted Divine Power, or a Crusader, or whatever. But all the RP in the world won't actually make you competent at solving tasks. You can RP that you are an investigator, but without divinations, Search, or good Knowledge checks, you're not going to be investigating very much. You can RP that you are a slayer of undead, but when the first shadow to come along offs you without so much as breaking a sweat, all that RPing doesn't really hold up.
Essentially, the mechanics are there to hold up the RP, to back up all the claims that you're making about your character. The tier system is a tool for this - it allows you to gauge how good certain classes are compared to other classes when it comes to walking the walk.

[Gnaeus]

i think i'm starting to understand: a jack of all trades will be lower on the tier scale than the equivalent specialist. however, a jack will be higher up if played well with good gear.


Not always.
Wizard/Cleric/Druid Can do anything. They are the best jacks of all trades. They can do anything well. Often, they can do things better than classes that are focused on doing that specific thing. They top the tier list at 1

Charge/Pounce barbarian. Likely to be able to do more damage than a tier 1 wizard. May be able to do damage that requires exponential notation if built with enough cheese. Mid-low on the tier list at tier 4. If he can't charge, or the situation does not call for charging, he sucks.

The reason that skill monkeys like rogue tend to be low tiered is not because they are Jacks of All Trades, but because they are masters of none. The well-built rogue, as shown above, is likely to be worse than the well built wizard even at the kinds of utility tasks at which the rogue is thought to excel. Skills < Spells in 3.5.


in other words, the tier system is pure number-crunching: the most power for your points.

Mostly. Its claim is to measure versatility, which is similar to but different than power. But you are correct that it does not take role-play into account. The Tier system advocate would answer that any class may have role-play advantages.

[Answerer]

Ah, comprende.
Just for the sake of completeness/accuracy, I will say that in my previous post, I deliberately overstated things when I said the Rogue is not Tier 3 because he lacks an "automatic win." Having a truly "automatic" win is really the hallmark of a Tier 2. But nonetheless, a Tier 3 would be about as competent as the Rogue in most things, but also have a specialty in which they can shine. The Rogue is equally OK-but-not-great at a lot of things. Whereas the Barbarian (also Tier 4, but a quite different variety of it) is stellar at dealing enormous melee damage, but is quite poor at almost everything else.

[mattie_p]

In before the inevitable thread lock: cached copy (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b0rgCHs5TUkJ:brilliantgameologists. com/boards/index.php%3Ftopic%3D1002.0+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) of the tier system.

[Sgt. Cookie]

The Tier system should, at best, be treated like the manic scribblings of an insane wiseman. Helpful at a glance, but look to closely and it's just gibberish.

In other words, it's helpful if you want to know a class' "as-is" potential, but it doesn't take different levels of optimisation into account. So, while a Wizard "is" Teir 1, if it's poorly optimised, other "lower" tier classes that are better optimised can outshine it.

[Flickerdart]

The Tier system should, at best, be treated like the manic scribblings of an insane wiseman. Helpful at a glance, but look to closely and it's just gibberish.

In other words, it's helpful if you want to know a class' "as-is" potential, but it doesn't take different levels of optimisation into account. So, while a Wizard "is" Teir 1, if it's poorly optimised, other "lower" tier classes that are better optimised can outshine it.
Why does that make it gibberish? The tier system holds up across equal levels of optimization, and until someone makes a comprehensive list of all possible degrees of optimization, that's the best we can do.

[mattie_p]

Well, I think the tier system assumes moderate optimization. At very low levels of optimization, it breaks down.

[Amphetryon]

The Tier system should, at best, be treated like the manic scribblings of an insane wiseman. Helpful at a glance, but look to closely and it's just gibberish.

In other words, it's helpful if you want to know a class' "as-is" potential, but it doesn't take different levels of optimisation into account. So, while a Wizard "is" Teir 1, if it's poorly optimised, other "lower" tier classes that are better optimised can outshine it.
Because the original default assumption of the Tier system is that everyone at the table is roughly equivalent in their op-fu abilities and in how much of those abilities they bring to bear. Change that default, and you can change the equation.

[Gnaeus]

Well, I think the tier system assumes moderate optimization. At very low levels of optimization, it breaks down.

Only if "very low levels of optimization" involves having T1 casters with less than 10s in their casting stats. Even a poorly built wizard can stumble on one of the many stupidly broken spells in the game completely by accident ("What does Polymorph mean? Oh. Oooohhhhh. How many of those can I memorize in a day???), and rocket past his melee cohorts, who are stuck with their mixed Sword & Board/Ranged dex focused barbarians for the rest of the game.

It is true that some classes (like most of Tier 3) are more "optimization proof" than others, and will be a bit stronger or weaker in high or low op environments.

[mattie_p]

Only if "very low levels of optimization" involves having T1 casters with less than 10s in their casting stats. Even a poorly built wizard can stumble on one of the many stupidly broken spells in the game completely by accident ("What does Polymorph mean? Oh. Oooohhhhh. How many of those can I memorize in a day???), and rocket past his melee cohorts, who are stuck with their mixed Sword & Board/Ranged dex focused barbarians for the rest of the game.

It is true that some classes (like most of Tier 3) are more "optimization proof" than others, and will be a bit stronger or weaker in high or low op environments.

For some (not on this forum) polymorph means change into a wolf. You've never played in those games?

[DeltaEmil]

Depends on which level you turn into a wolf, or what kind of wolf it is, and if you still have the option to turn into a better wolf.

Turning yourself into a wolf at level 1 makes you a better fighting machine than a fighter, because you can trip with your bite attacks, and you gain some ability to contribute outside battle with scent.

At higher level, you just turn yourself into a dire wolf.

At even higher level, you turn yourself into a spectral flying doomwolf that shoots death-rays from its mouth when it howls, and can summons more spectral flying doomwolves with death-ray howls as a supernatural ability, or something equally insane.

You could of course also turn yourself into a tiny bird, being able to reach places that a fighter or a rogue never could, fly to safety while the fighter, rogue, warblade and so on are getting mauled to death by flying flaming dire bears that shoot negative energy beams from their claws, and all that other stuff.

[Gnaeus]

For some (not on this forum) polymorph means change into a wolf. You've never played in those games?

1. No. I haven't.
2. That doesn't have a bit to do with the tier system, or character optimization. That has to do with PLAY. The party barbarian could choose to throw away his weapons and walk into the middle of the enemy and attempt diplomacy with no skill ranks and a cha of 4. That says nothing about the strengths or weaknesses of the Barbarian class. It says very little about the strengths or weaknesses of the character sheet. Only the player. Using Polymorph to turn into a wolf for combat is aggressively bad play. Close to intentionally bad play. Like punching enemies without improved unarmed strike. It is either a joke, or something you will quickly learn not to do. You can fall on your sword equally well with any class if that is your goal. Yes, I have heard of wizards who love nothing better than to wade into melee unbuffed with their staff. Even that guy is tier 1. Not because he performs better than everyone else in the party. But because his class would allow him to dominate every encounter if he chose to use his class abilities. He just chooses not to.

[Eldan]

i was kinda scared i misunderstood completely what it was about, based on the apparent hatred of monks and paladins here for being "too weak", whereas with a good roleplay they can become rp-solving machines. huh, go me for forgetting pen and paper is pure math once the storytelling's turned off.


Well, one thing should be said here: roleplaying is very difficult to evaluate on a scale. Sure, a monk can be great in a pure talking situation. But so can every other character. Furthermore, much more htan class features, these situations are very dependent on the player and the DM, much more than the character.

But this isn't about pure math, really. See, a monk just hasn't very many options to go through a situation. Think of a situation like this, no combat involved:

The count of X requires help. The baron of Y has an army, but would much rather use it to guard its borders. You have to convince him to help you.

The monk or paladin can talk to the baron.

The wizard can talk to the baron. However, he can also dominate him and make him his puppet for a week, so he'll order his army to come. Or he can summon a small army of his own, or build golems.

The thing is: the stronger tiers just have more options in any given situation.

[JaronK]

Well, I think the tier system assumes moderate optimization. At very low levels of optimization, it breaks down.

I'm actually going to defend this statement, except it's not "optimization" but "player competence." Every class was considered balanced by the initial play testers, because they didn't know what they were doing. The play test Wizard was just a blaster... fireball all day long. The play test Druid used a scimitar in combat and didn't use Wildshape in combat. The play test Cleric was a heal bot. And as such they were all about the same power level. But that's not optimization... get a different player with those same characters, and suddenly that safe Wizard could cast Animate Dead and have an army of minions (or just a few shockingly strong ones) that were better than the Fighter. That Druid could have Wild Shaped into a Dire Ape and rocked out (probably with a Quarterstaff buffed by various spells). And so on. So that's not optimization (how your character is built to do the job) but rather what you chose to do with the character.

Of course, the Wizard class still had more power than the Fighter class, so his Tier ranking was the same. But that power was being used to, well, suck. And Tier 1s are good at everything. Even sucking if they want. Frankly, a Wizard can suck even more than a Fighter could ever dream of sucking. A Fighter can stab himself to death, but only a Wizard could Plane Shift to some horrible far realm to be tortured for an eternity of insanity.

JaronK

[Flickerdart]

Frankly, a Wizard can suck even more than a Fighter could ever dream of sucking. A Fighter can stab himself to death, but only a Wizard could Plane Shift to some horrible far realm to be tortured for an eternity of insanity.

Mind if I sig that?

[Answerer]

Sure, a monk can be great in a pure talking situation.
Technically, a pure talking situation should involve uses of Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive. The Monk's got a good reason to be decent at the last of those, but his Charisma had better suck (or else there is something very wrong with his ability scores), so even if he does spend some of his few skill points on Diplomacy, he won't be too hot at that and he's probably packing negative Bluff and Intimidate checks.

[Cruiser1]

As the title of the thread is "The Tier System explained to dummies" we should focus on doing just that. :smallwink: In summary, it's all about spellcasting:


Tier -1: Can you spell "god"?
Tier 0: You have infinite 9th level spells.
Tier 1: You have many 9th level spells.
Tier 2: You have some 9th level spells.
Tier 3: You have weak spells.
Tier 4: You don't have any spells.
Tier 5: You don't have spells, or anything remotely good at all.
Tier 6: Can you spell "broken"?

[JaronK]

Heh, go for it Flickerdart.

Just a reminder for others who are confused on this point: the Tier system is only about what a class gives you by RAW (in terms of ways to deal with situations or effect the world around you). It is not measuring player skill, player role play, house rules, gear that has nothing to do with the class, or anything else not related to the class itself.

JaronK

[Spuddles]

Now, see, here's the interesting thing. I'm assuming a human rogue with a 14 Intelligence (reasonable), and therefore 11 maxed-out skills. Call them as follows: Bluff, Disable Device, Gather Information, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Open Locks, Search, Sleight of Hand, Spot, Use Magic Device. These could be assumed to be the "classic" rogue skills, so we're not exactly looking at an optimized rogue here...

1. Talking to a noble about your reward: Bluff the noble into thinking that what you went through was much more dangerous and so requires additional pay.
2. Hunting for clues in a busy city: The very definition of Gather Information.
3. A hostage negotiation: Bluff is invaluable here.
4. Evading an enemy that is too strong to kill: You're a Rogue: dexterity is your primary stat.
5. Getting past an environmental obstacle: Once again - Dexterity, primary stat, takes care of most environmental obstacles.
6. Reaching a destination faster than an opponent: no specific response, admittedly.
7. Finding a hidden enemy base: Gather Information, Search, Bluff
8. Killing a horde of enemies : No specific response, admittedly, beyond UMD
9. Disabling someone without killing him: No specific response, admittedly, beyond UMD
10. Taking out a monster with one specific weakness, say, fire, silver, magical weapons, sunlight: No specific response, admittedly, beyond UMD
11. Earning a lot of money, quickly.: Rogue. Synonym for "thief." Okay, "earn" is technically wrong, but if you replace it with "steal..."
12. Stealing an item, undetected.: Rogue. Synonym for "thief."

So of the 12 things above, the "classic" rogue excels at 2, 11, and 12 and can at least be useful in all of the remainders save 6, 8, 9, and 10, but of those four 8, 9, and 10 are solved by UMD and a fairly easy-to-acquire-and-use magic item like a wand of sleep. So basically the "classic" rogue can never not contribute meaningfully to a given situation and can shine in numerous areas...yet is ranked in Tier 4.

Tangential to the thread, but I think these are all really good examples of how problems should be solved- with a good deal of luck. Casters, though, get stuff that pretty much can derail any of these encounters by either totally going around them or approaching with like, charm person or something.

I mean it's fun to have game altering power like teleport and dominate person, but it sure makes playing D&D fiddly for the DM.


Why does that make it gibberish? The tier system holds up across equal levels of optimization, and until someone makes a comprehensive list of all possible degrees of optimization, that's the best we can do.

A rainbow beguiler with a spellbook via magical training is arguably better than a wizard. More spells/day, better skills, and better spells. It at least moves up two tiers. In the case of warsnake, you go up 3 tiers.

Optimization can change many of the rankings, as some classes respond much better to optimization than others. I think that's what he meant by "gibberish".


Technically, a pure talking situation should involve uses of Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive. The Monk's got a good reason to be decent at the last of those, but his Charisma had better suck (or else there is something very wrong with his ability scores), so even if he does spend some of his few skill points on Diplomacy, he won't be too hot at that and he's probably packing negative Bluff and Intimidate checks.

Monk's and paladins are MAD because they were MAD in 2e. They were meant for people that lucked out and rolled a bunch of high stats. If you're playing with 4d6b3, sometimes you get a bunch of 16s. That's when you consider a paladin or monk.

[JaronK]

A rainbow beguiler with a spellbook via magical training is arguably better than a wizard. More spells/day, better skills, and better spells. It at least moves up two tiers. In the case of warsnake, you go up 3 tiers.

Optimization can change many of the rankings, as some classes respond much better to optimization than others. I think that's what he meant by "gibberish".
{Scrubbed} Equivalent optimization was always assumed, and that was outright stated. A Beguiler is Tier 3 while a Wizard is Tier 1. If we're giving the Beguiler a super powered PrC, then the Wizard gets one too (Incantrix? Anima Mage? Iot7V? Runesmith?) and we're right back to where we started. The only class that responds dramatically differently to optimization than the others (the Truenamer) isn't on the list for that exact reason.

I find that most people that say the system is rubbish are people that have only skimmed it at best.

JaronK

[ahenobarbi]

A rainbow beguiler with a spellbook via magical training is arguably better than a wizard. More spells/day, better skills, and better spells. It at least moves up two tiers. In the case of warsnake, you go up 3 tiers.

Wizard on similar optimization level will have 9ths at level 1. Also access to cleric spells and more slots via Ur-Priest + Mystic Theurge.

[Spuddles]

If so, that means he never read the post. Equivalent optimization was always assumed, and that was outright stated. A Beguiler is Tier 3 while a Wizard is Tier 1. If we're giving the Beguiler a super powered PrC, then the Wizard gets one too (Incantrix? Anima Mage? Iot7V? Runesmith?) and we're right back to where we started. The only class that responds dramatically differently to optimization than the others (the Truenamer) isn't on the list for that exact reason.

I find that most people that say the system is rubbish are people that have only skimmed it at best.

JaronK

People have problems with the limitations of your system. Equivalent optimization results in different tiers given certain values of optimization. Past a certain optimization threshhold, ToB never ever catches up to anyone with spells.

I think your system works best when measuring how big of a headache a class can pose for the DM. Your examples of tiers 1 and 2 utterly derailing campaigns is great. But if you play your wizard as core only blaster, your tier sinks down to warblade level because the optimization floor of warblade is so much higher.

That is limitation of raw tier rankings- they fail in large degree to take into account the fiddliness of many of the full casters. It wouldn't be hard to build a T4 sorcerer on par with a rogue, even given similar levels of optimization. Perhaps "player competence", as you put above, would be a better metric in ranking the fiddliness of classes.

Personally, I contend that knowing to use spells with descriptions that take up close to ahalf page or more (grease, web, planar binding, shapechange) requires optimization. An optimal game breaking wizard with perfect spell selection is actually really, really optimized, which puts it at the very upper limits of T1. You can't achieve the same thing with a barbarian, though. However, a poorly played wizard sinks to fighter level, while a poorly played fighter doesn't move too much.

Your system fails to capture this, and you admit as much. But it is still a problem with your system, and many people with a lot of anecdotal evidence immediately latch on to the fact that different playstyles will lead to radically different distributions of class "power".

There's also nothing preventing incantatrix on a warsnake, or IotSV, or both, by the way.


Wizard on similar optimization level will have 9ths at level 1. Also access to cleric spells and more slots via Ur-Priest + Mystic Theurge.

Spontaneous access to all cleric and wizard is pretty good. There's also room for prestigr classes. Magical training alone gets you wizard spells. That kind of makes the wizard class obsolete, unless you're messing around with domain/elf generalist stuff.

[Amphetryon]

"Player competence" and "similar levels of optimization" are, as far as I can tell, synonymous in the way that JaronK uses them in explaining the Tiers. Arguing the semantics of one or the other doesn't really do much to dispute his point, other than saying you'd prefer he chose a different synonym.

[ahenobarbi]

Spuddles


Spontaneous access to all cleric and wizard is pretty good. There's also room for prestigr classes. Magical training alone gets you wizard spells. That kind of makes the wizard class obsolete, unless you're messing around with domain/elf generalist stuff.

How do you get spontaneous access to all cleric and wizard lists? Magical training allows you only to cast cantrips. Cleric spells you can get with Rainbow Servant.

[JaronK]

People have problems with the limitations of your system. Equivalent optimization results in different tiers given certain values of optimization.

Please show an example of this without going to ridiculous extremes.


Past a certain optimization threshhold, ToB never ever catches up to anyone with spells.

Unless we're talking absolute extremes (like Dragonwrought Kobold Warmages using Dragons of Eberron to get the whole Cleric list added to their Warblade list) this isn't too much of an issue. Besides, with similarly cheesy nonsense I can make a Warblade that does infinite damage to all targets in range at will, so I'm not so sure even this is an issue.


I think your system works best when measuring how big of a headache a class can pose for the DM. Your examples of tiers 1 and 2 utterly derailing campaigns is great. But if you play your wizard as core only blaster, your tier sinks down to warblade level because the optimization floor of warblade is so much higher.

Okay, see, you missed something there. The first part is using the tool as intended. The latter... that's not optimization. That's how a player chooses to use the class. And trust me, even a Warblade can be played badly (I've actually seen one using Oversized Two Weapon Fighting and Monkey Grip to wield a pair of Bastard Swords. It was way worse than a blaster). But the point is, it's measuring what the classes let you do, not what you chose to do with the classes. An old nearly blind grandma can drive a Porsche 911 at 10mph down the freeway, but that doesn't change the fact that a Porsche is a lot faster than a Civic. If we were ranking the racing potential of cars, the old granny wouldn't be relevant. And when we rank the power and versatility of classes in normal scenarios, we don't calculate for things like "but my Wizard only casts Fireball!"


There's also nothing preventing incantatrix on a warsnake, or IotSV, or both, by the way.

Now you've picked two PrCs, though note that the Warsnake can't take all of Incantrix pre epic. I pick two as well. To match your Incantrix Warsnake, I chose Incantrix Runesmith. Now you have flexible Cleric casting with endless metamagic and I've got Wizard casting with endless metamagic with the ability to have armies of you for free (which I'll just spell stitch with Extract Gift so that anybody I want gets tons of permanent magical buffs free), plus an endless supply of any material I want, and heaven knows how many other abilities. We can keep going. See how applying the same optimization to these classes results in the same comparative ability?

JaronK

[navar100]

What the Tier System does not tell you, and JaronK specifically mentions it, is which class is the best. You as an individual may have a preference for a particular Tier level of play, but that only means that's your preference. No one is playing the game wrong because they prefer a higher or lower Tier. They are not playing the game wrong if a party has all Tier levels represented. You are not a superior player because you only play whatever Tier you happen to like.

The Tier System is not a game value judgment system. It is handy as a guide as to what to expect from a particular character. It helps to know as a DM to watch out for a Tier 1 character trying to "Win D&D" while a Tier 5 could "Lose D&D". However, the Tier Sytem in no way says Tier 1 players are power hungry munchkin "rollplayers" nor Tier 5 players are incompetent yahoos who can't fight their way out of a paperbag nor Tier 3 players are the Elite Epitome Of Perfection Of How Everyone Should Play The Game You Are The Suck If You Don't Play Tier 3.

[chomskola]

Has anyone ever made a list of the characters who are not good at being themselves....i.e. The ranger is a better paladin than the paladin etc

[JaronK]

What the Tier System does not tell you, and JaronK specifically mentions it, is which class is the best.

Absolutely. And no matter how many times I say that, someone always has to jump in with "see, that means you hate Fighters/Monks/Rogues and love Wizards/Clerics/Druids! It's bias!"

It's just showing how effective the classes are as tools to deal with the situations that come up in play. That's it. Some people want to play with super powers, others with unlikely heroes, others with something in between... there's nothing wrong with playing as Bilbo Baggins. Or Conan. Or Superman.

JaronK

[russdm]

A player/dm i know said it best regarding the Tier system: "At high levels, the wizard solves the encounters; the fighter makes the sandwichs and carries stuff."

And gameplay doesn't affect the Tier system. A Tier 1 Wizards stays that way even if the player has no f-king idea what they are doing. To me, the Tiers represent power potential of classes, not competency alone. A wizard can reshape the foundation of reality, the fighter can smack the tarrasque with his sword.

[JaronK]

Has anyone ever made a list of the characters who are not good at being themselves....i.e. The ranger is a better paladin than the paladin etc

Well, one person made a Psion that could turn himself into a sandwich...

But there's definitely stuff like "The Warblade is better at being a samurai than either of the Samurai classes". Warblades are also better at many of the Fighter roles than Fighters (specifically in the melee, "ex veteran soldier" and "warlord" areas), while Urban Rangers are better guards than Fighters who are also supposed to be the default guards. Heck, Experts make better guards than Fighters. Factotums and Swordsages make better ninjas than Ninjas. I don't know if there's ever been a complete list of that, though.

JaronK

[russdm]

Fighters are way better at being archers than Rangers are and they can be better at being two-weapon combatmasters as well.

How? Fighter bonus feats. You can get rapid shot at 1st level as a fighter, which is one level sooner than Rangers and you can use feats to add two weapon style.

So if you want to be a real stealthy woods type, play a ranger. If you want to be a dual wielding death dealer or an archer, play a fighter.

[SowZ]

A player/dm i know said it best regarding the Tier system: "At high levels, the wizard solves the encounters; the fighter makes the sandwichs and carries stuff."

And gameplay doesn't affect the Tier system. A Tier 1 Wizards stays that way even if the player has no f-king idea what they are doing. To me, the Tiers represent power potential of classes, not competency alone. A wizard can reshape the foundation of reality, the fighter can smack the tarrasque with his sword.

Also, if the Wizard player is not rules savvy until he hits level seventeen, he can just start applying his spells better and purchase better spells. Poor stat allocation and feat choice hurts him little. If the Fighter, however, becomes rules savvy by level seventeen, he is screwed. His feat/stat choices make or break his build.

[Bakkan]

Tangential to the thread, but I think these are all really good examples of how problems should be solved- with a good deal of luck. Casters, though, get stuff that pretty much can derail any of these encounters by either totally going around them or approaching with like, charm person or something.

I mean it's fun to have game altering power like teleport and dominate person, but it sure makes playing D&D fiddly for the DM.


All this means is that you seem to prefer to play around Tiers 3 and 4, where characters are more or less competent, but thre are very few foregone conclusions regarding whether you'd be able to succeed at your task. And these Tiers are where many people prefer to play.

[Bang]

Please show an example of this without going to ridiculous extremes.I'm certain you can look at class features like Advanced or Eclectic Learning or broadly available feats like Arcane Disciple or Metamorphic Transfer and come up with a demonstration you would yourself deem suitable of Dread Necromancer or Warmage capabilities varying more readily with optimization than those of the Warblade or Barbarian.

[JaronK]

I'm certain you can look at class features like Advanced or Eclectic Learning or broadly available feats like Arcane Disciple or Metamorphic Transfer and come up with a demonstration you would yourself deem suitable of Dread Necromancer or Warmage capabilities varying more readily with optimization than those of the Warblade or Barbarian.

Unless we get to absolute extremes (the point where everything is breaking everywhere anyway) it doesn't seem like a big issue. And since the tier system is designed for actual games, I see no need to worry about such extremes anyway. Yes, a Dread Necromancer with Arcane Disciple can get one or two broken tricks. Likewise, a Warblade can do infinite damage (one broken trick). While they're not exactly the same, they're close enough in power level that we could expect them to play together as successfully as we can imagine, which is granular enough for the tier system.

Remember, it's not a competition to see who is better. It's a rough gauge of who can play together in a game without the DM pulling their hair out. Yes, a Paladin can turn into Pun Pun and thus be far stronger than a Wizard, but who cares at that point? The class is barely relevant at that point, and it's all just theoretical optimization anyway.

JaronK

[Bang]

If the Warmage selecting Simulacrum or Shapechage with a feat or class feature counts as the same optimization as a Barbarian generating infinite damage, I might consider agreeing. But those powers are much easier to obtain and can do many of the same damage tricks as well as accessing abilities like level 9 Sorcerer or Cleric spells, which wrap around into T1/2 power levels.

[Flickerdart]

Fighters are way better at being archers than Rangers are and they can be better at being two-weapon combatmasters as well.

How? Fighter bonus feats. You can get rapid shot at 1st level as a fighter, which is one level sooner than Rangers and you can use feats to add two weapon style.

So if you want to be a real stealthy woods type, play a ranger. If you want to be a dual wielding death dealer or an archer, play a fighter.
Fighters are rubbish at both of those things, because both of those things need a source of bonus damage to be useful. Rangers, at least, get a ton of cool spells in later books that allow them to augment their archery. Fighters don't really get anything. Rangers can also get their feats without having the prerequisites, so the Fighter might have Two-Weapon Fighting a level early but at the cost of dumping his Strength score to pay for the Dexterity to qualify for it, meaning that his damage suffers compared to the Ranger's.

[toapat]

Yeah, IIRC, the rogue has been one of those oft "it should really be tier X" arguments.

The main thing to recall is thatthe tiers are bands, not distinct points, and are intended to be used as guidelines and possible warnings of difficulties, rather than absolute "you fail" labels.

If you have mostly tier 3s and a tier 4? Shouldn't be too much issue. Mostly Tier 1s and a tier 4? Yeah, keep an eye on things.

Problems:
1: The presentation of the system basically doesnt reinforce that at all, it makes a little more sense when you understand that, but it still has arguments that are counteractive to the biases used
2: Rogue not being T3: Easily the easiest to argue, expecially when you look at the "reasoning" behind it, a Gush of JaronK's that bleeds Factotum is T2.


As the title of the thread is "The Tier System explained to dummies" we should focus on doing just that. :smallwink: In summary, it's all about spellcasting:


Tier -1: Can you spell "god"?
Tier 0: You have infinite 9th level spells.
Tier 1: You have many 9th level spells.
Tier 2: You have some 9th level spells.
Tier 3: You have weak spells.
Tier 4: You don't have any spells.
Tier 5: You don't have spells, or anything remotely good at all.
Tier 6: Can you spell "broken"?


There are no T -1s, Psionic Artificer is T0 and is the only class who counts.

T0: There is nothing you can not solve, Not even a Planar Shepard (Dal'Quor) Druid using their Manifest Zone or a Storm of Great Wyrm Time Dragons (about 700)
T1: Preparation is the only thing you can not beat.
T2: More along the lines of T4, but with the ability to solve anything within their sphere of choosing, as opposed to a single one chosen by your class
T3: Overal, generally balanced Classes, although people like Warblade (extremely high floor + slight out of combat utility) and Factotum (able to break the game in half with only 7ths very easily) are in here for some reason.
T4: Can shine in one thing.
T5: Something horribly wrong is in your class features. Paladin, for instance, would be T4 if that nasty Wisdom spellcasting was charisma, while Fighter just simply doesnt last more then 6 real levels. Ranger has weak/stupidly nerfed class features and a spell list that is magnificently short (i cant even name a third spell worth casting from it)
T6: Something is horribly wrong with your class. CW samurai is the best example of why things are here: Simply, you get here because None of your class features are desirable outside of extreme optimization, if you have class features.
TN: You are here because you are a truenamer. You need Opfu to function, but theoretically are the most powerful base printed class in the game.

[Rogue Shadows]

There are no T -1s, Psionic Artificer is T0 and is the only class who counts.

Lies (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Mary_Sue_%283.5e_Class%29) and herasy! (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=49303)

But, admittedly, both of the above are fan-made joke classes.


T4: Can shine in one thing.

Or can do many things, but excels at nothing and never truly shines.

[JaronK]

If the Warmage selecting Simulacrum or Shapechage with a feat or class feature counts as the same optimization as a Barbarian generating infinite damage, I might consider agreeing. But those powers are much easier to obtain and can do many of the same damage tricks as well as accessing abilities like level 9 Sorcerer or Cleric spells, which wrap around into T1/2 power levels.

So, Warmage uses an Alterative Class Feature to get a level 7 spell as a level 8 spell at level 16 (when it becomes available via Eclectic Learning... note you can't even get Shapechange that way... you could get Shapechange by getting a domain with a feat but that's only at level 18), granting him one broken trick (assuming he can get something good to duplicate, and noting the high xp cost that he can't easily avoid). By comparison, a Lion Totem Barbarian (one Alternative Class Feature) with one feat chain (Shock Trooper and its related stuff) can charge kill pretty much anything... starting at level 6. Not as powerful of a trick overall, but it actually lasts over most levels (remember, I outright stated that the tiers mostly count levels 6 to 15, otherwise the Healer would be T1 if we only cared about getting Gate at the highest levels). Is the Warmage really a stronger character overall? I honestly don't think so. That Barbarian's going to contribute more with his trick due to having it over more levels (and who cares about infinite damage, when all that matters is doing more damage than their HP?).

Again, staying pretty close in optimization the result is pretty similar. And there's no need to focus so much on 9th level spells, which never show up in the vast majority of games.


Fighters are rubbish at both of those things, because both of those things need a source of bonus damage to be useful. Rangers, at least, get a ton of cool spells in later books that allow them to augment their archery. Fighters don't really get anything.

Actually, Fighters do a lot more damage with full attack archery than Rangers at most played levels. What they lack is skills to supplement archery (Spot and Hide are pretty big, so you can start the engagement at long range) as well as, well, anything else but full attack unloading. Fighters are pretty horrible at two weapon fighting, of course.


Problems:
1: The presentation of the system basically doesnt reinforce that at all, it makes a little more sense when you understand that, but it still has arguments that are counteractive to the biases used
2: Rogue not being T3: Easily the easiest to argue, expecially when you look at the "reasoning" behind it, a Gush of JaronK's that bleeds Factotum is T2.

Actually, I outright state that they're power bands, not distinct points. It's in the FAQ section right after the main post, in addition to the descriptions of the tiers themselves. How could I have reinforced that any more? Feel free to go actually read it and tell me how I could have done more.

And my reasoning for the Rogue had nothing to do with Factotums. I have often described all the skillmonkeys (from Expert to Cloistered Cleric) to show how the tiers work, but seriously, it has nothing to do with Factotums. The Rogue is T4 because of the Rogue. Frankly, most people who try to argue the Rogue is T3 (or T2) do so by going with the tired old "if the DM hands you super awesome gear to use with UMD, then you're super powerful!" but we all know that every class is very powerful if the DM hands you super awesome gear, UMD or no. I can make a commoner 6 that can easily solo CR 20s with the right gear (one Candle of Invocation, please!). Try to argue that the Rogue is T3 without Class X fallacies and we'll see. Remember, T3 means you're not made useless in common scenarios (such as when fighting any elemental or ooze or plant or undead or construct or thing that flies fast or thing that's really big or thing that can kill you if you hang out within 30' of it or Barbarian or Warblade or...)

JaronK

[Rogue Shadows]

The Rogue is T4 because of the Rogue.

For what it's worth, having had the reasoning explained to me, I get it.

Idle question: where do the Pathfinder classes measure up to the Tier system? By this I'm asking about both the Pathfinder versions of the regular classes (barbarian, etc) and the classes new to Pathfinder (cavalier, etc).

I'm given to understand that Pathfinder changed up quite a bit in terms of combat speed of gaining new feats, so if it makes things easier you can assume Pathfinder classes but ported backwards to 3.X.

[Snowbluff]

All you need to know is that T3 is awesome.

[JaronK]

For what it's worth, having had the reasoning explained to me, I get it.

Yay!


Idle question: where do the Pathfinder classes measure up to the Tier system? By this I'm asking about both the Pathfinder versions of the regular classes (barbarian, etc) and the classes new to Pathfinder (cavalier, etc).

Can't help there... I've never quite liked Pathfinder much so I have no experience with it. Most folks seem to think they haven't changed much, tier wise, but I can't actually confirm that.

JaronK

[Snowbluff]

Yay!



Can't help there... I've never quite liked Pathfinder much so I have no experience with it. Most folks seem to think they haven't changed much, tier wise, but I can't actually confirm that.

JaronK

The tiers should not be any different overall. New classes fit in in rather obvious ways (Gunslinger ~T4, with Rogue, etc).

[Rogue Shadows]

The tiers should not be any different overall. New classes fit in in rather obvious ways (Gunslinger ~T4, with Rogue, etc).

Well, mostly I'm asking 'cause of the new full spellcasting classes (Oracle, etc). Full spellcasting doesn't seem to automatically grant high-tier status RE: the Warmage and Healer; and I'll admit I'm not very good at judging what it strong or weak without actually seeing the thing played, which I have not.


All you need to know is that T3 is awesome.

I agree. I think that the goal of every class designed, personally, should be to fit into either Tier 3, or high-Tier 4 as defined as "exceedingly good in one area, but not very good or even useless in other areas." I'm okay with a Fighter fix that is good at fighting but can't do anything else, for example, as long as it is the best at fighting. And fighting-type things, like sundering walls, etc.

You don't level into a class called "fighter" because you want to be able to talk to people.

[The Random NPC]

Well, mostly I'm asking 'cause of the new full spellcasting classes (Oracle, etc). Full spellcasting doesn't seem to automatically grant high-tier status RE: the Warmage and Healer; and I'll admit I'm not very good at judging what it strong or weak without actually seeing the thing played, which I have not.

Based on a quick look, the Oracle seems tier 2, it looks like it's basically a sorcerer version of the cleric, with some additional goodies (weapons take -2 to attack and damage and armor ac is halved, but any manufactured weapon that damages me needs to save or turn to dust? Yes please.)

[Jerthanis]

One issue I tend to take with the Tier system is the idea that out-of-combat things like skills are weighted so heavily. Bard, for instance gets better Tier placement than the Barbarian because the Bard gets a few tricks here and there which aren't related to combat, and good skills, even though Barbarian is singularly good at combat in a way that few other classes approach.

Bard is in the awkward position that it isn't actually THAT good in or out of combat, but it gets the implied-to-be-the-best-balanced tier of 3 on the strength of its out of combat baubles. It's a system where a class that does thousands of damage per round cannot escape tier 4 without Bluff and Diplomacy because "Does one thing quite well" can have the "one thing" be "fighting".

Evaluating holistically makes sense, as sometimes classes will be more useful than they appear by being able to manage a lot of circumstances decently, but the Tier system always seemed like an arbitrary categorizer, where "Amazing at A and B" "Decent at A and B" and "Either Decent or amazing at A or B" are arranged in a linearly descending fashion, when being Amazing at A tends to be more useful than being decent at B.

[Rogue Shadows]

It's a system where a class that does thousands of damage per round cannot escape tier 4 without Bluff and Diplomacy because "Does one thing quite well" can have the "one thing" be "fighting".

Well, see, the idea is that it's not so much in Tier 4 because it only does one thing well, as much as because it's not very useful at anything else. Tiers measure options, not power.

It doesn't necessarily need bluff and diplomacy, or even skills, it just has to be useful at something else. Healing, for example.

[Story]

If you're optimizing your Barbarian to deal thousands of damage, the bard is probably throwing around +9d6 Dragonfire Inspirations and the like. They're not useless in combat, and infinitely better outside of combat.

[toapat]

If you're optimizing your Barbarian to deal thousands of damage, the bard is probably throwing around +9d6 Dragonfire Inspirations and the like. They're not useless in combat, and infinitely better outside of combat.

and the Warblades are simply using the Barbarian as a battering ram

[Snowbluff]

If you're optimizing your Barbarian to deal thousands of damage, the bard is probably throwing around +9d6 Dragonfire Inspirations and the like. They're not useless in combat, and infinitely better outside of combat.

You mean +10/+10, and then maybe +10d6 DFI with combine songs. And they can cast 6th level spells.

[Flickerdart]

The thing about thousands of damage is that your opponents probably don't have that many HPs. You can't kill something deader than dead. It's perfectly possible to build a combat specialist Bard who rocks a solid damage output without sacrificing his ability to be useful out of combat.

[Answerer]

Idle question: where do the Pathfinder classes measure up to the Tier system? By this I'm asking about both the Pathfinder versions of the regular classes (barbarian, etc)
The Paladin is the only one who saw enough change to even consider how it's tiered, but ultimately I don't think it did. All of the Core classes are the same Tier as they were.

I can't speak to new classes, or to archetypes of the old classes.

[Gnaeus]

Witch is 1
Oracle is 2
Summoner is high 3/low 2
Magus is 3
Alchemist is 3
Not sure about the others, haven't seen them in play, but I think Inquisitor is 3, Cavalier 4 and gunslinger 5. Can't really defend that last part well, though.

[mattie_p]

Well, I think the tier system assumes moderate optimization. At very low levels of optimization, it breaks down.

Let me clarify this statement, as I think I could have worded it better (as pointed out by at least one poster). (No, I don't mean that the caster has a casting stat of 10 -> Gnaeus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14474393&postcount=26), or that the barbarian throws down his weapon and attempts diplomacy with no ranks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14474509&postcount=29))

Let me try out a couple of alternate phrasing choices:

At very low levels of optimization/player competence, observing the tier system is less obvious. I think this quote sums it up:


Every class was considered balanced by the initial play testers, because they didn't know what they were doing. The play test Wizard was just a blaster... fireball all day long. The play test Druid used a scimitar in combat and didn't use Wildshape in combat. The play test Cleric was a heal bot. And as such they were all about the same power level. But that's not optimization... get a different player with those same characters, and suddenly that safe Wizard could cast Animate Dead and have an army of minions (or just a few shockingly strong ones) that were better than the Fighter. That Druid could have Wild Shaped into a Dire Ape and rocked out (probably with a Quarterstaff buffed by various spells). And so on. So that's not optimization (how your character is built to do the job) but rather what you chose to do with the character.

Of course, the Wizard class still had more power than the Fighter class, so his Tier ranking was the same. But that power was being used to, well, suck. And Tier 1s are good at everything. Even sucking if they want. Frankly, a Wizard can suck even more than a Fighter could ever dream of sucking. A Fighter can stab himself to death, but only a Wizard could Plane Shift to some horrible far realm to be tortured for an eternity of insanity.

JaronK

At very low levels of optimization/player competence, players do less to take advantage of the tier they are on, and thus it appears that all classes are equal.

[The Glyphstone]

The Paladin is the only one who saw enough change to even consider how it's tiered, but ultimately I don't think it did. All of the Core classes are the same Tier as they were.

I can't speak to new classes, or to archetypes of the old classes.

You can build a very solid upper-Tier 4 Monk with the right archetypes. Most archetypes are either weaker than base classes or zero-sum-change, but a handful are substantial boosts.

[Bang]

That Barbarian's going to contribute more with his trick due to having it over more levels (and who cares about infinite damage, when all that matters is doing more damage than their HP?).
You were the one to bring up infinite damage, and I completely agree with that statement. But you're disingenuously portraying the situation. If we're discussing levels 6-15, the Warmage is still at worst matched to the Barbarian. It has battlefield control and debuffs that easily outdo the Barbarian's potential, damage in the same ballpark and using the same ACF mentioned earlier, likely Polymorph, Animate Dead or some other high power/utility as well.

My point isn't that the Warmage belongs in a different group all the time - a Warmage picking spells and feats only pertaining to its damage output wouldn't be too out of line with a Barbarian that put some effort into control abilities. It's that there are class features that give an easier springboard into higher-tier type play. This typically means level 9 spell progression, because it is not difficult to use class features, dips, feats or alignment to meaningfully expand spell access to grab the most powerful abilities in the game, while the best a noncaster like a Warblade or Barbarian can do with similar investments is find a couple new bonuses when they hit things with a sword.

[tiercel]

A lot of the tier system is the "quadratic/exponential caster, linear fighter" syndrome. Not ALL of it, obviously, but a lot of it (the more casting you have and the more versatile your casting, the higher your tier; if no casting, the more powerful and generally useful your non-spell tricks are, the higher your tier).

But yes, each class not only has a tier for its potential but in general a "floor" for its abilities -- as people have mentioned, the ToB classes tend to have a "high floor" (i.e. a not-particularly optimized ToB class will not be that far below its full potential), whereas a class like wizard could have a much lower floor (not living up to anything like its full potential). For the most part, the tier of a class tends to represent a "ceiling" for its abilities -- the maximum potential it can generally reach, compared to other classes (exceptions being very specific optimization tricks, possibly outside the norm, or more usually the use of PrCs that move the build up a tier or two from the base class).

The OTHER thing about tiers is that typically the spacing between the tiers is less at low levels and greater at high levels. It's a lot of work for a 17th level Fighter to even be relevant next to a 17th level Wizard, but it's a lot harder for a 1st level Wizard to just outmode a 1st level Fighter. To the extent this is true, this is a manifestation of the "exponential caster, linear noncaster" phenomenon mentioned above.

[JaronK]

You were the one to bring up infinite damage, and I completely agree with that statement. But you're disingenuously portraying the situation. If we're discussing levels 6-15, the Warmage is still at worst matched to the Barbarian. It has battlefield control and debuffs that easily outdo the Barbarian's potential, damage in the same ballpark and using the same ACF mentioned earlier, likely Polymorph, Animate Dead or some other high power/utility as well.

You keep changing levels on me. If we're discussing levels 6-15, why are you bringing up Animate Dead and Polymorph (doesn't show up until 11 for a Warlock via that ACF)? For most of the 6-15 band, that stuff isn't even around. At 6, the only spells they can get via Ecclectic Learning are level 2 spells.

I mean, here's why they're both T4: The Barbarian is REALLY good at his thing, namely killin' stuff. Lion Totem + Shock Trooper = stuff is dead. He's been doing that the whole time (even before Shock Trooper he was probably killing the heck out of stuff). But outside of combat, all he had pretty much was the ability to use Listen or Intimidate... not a lot, really. And the Warmage? Same deal. Decent combat utility (probably lower damage than the Barbarian, but he brought a few other tricks to the table), likely very little out of combat utility (pretty much only that one level 2 spell, until he's 11, and then he can get one higher level interesting spell). Do we care about which one might be stronger than the other? Not really, because they're close enough. Do you see that?


My point isn't that the Warmage belongs in a different group all the time - a Warmage picking spells and feats only pertaining to its damage output wouldn't be too out of line with a Barbarian that put some effort into control abilities. It's that there are class features that give an easier springboard into higher-tier type play. This typically means level 9 spell progression, because it is not difficult to use class features, dips, feats or alignment to meaningfully expand spell access to grab the most powerful abilities in the game, while the best a noncaster like a Warblade or Barbarian can do with similar investments is find a couple new bonuses when they hit things with a sword.

I understand that, but a class like the Warmage, unless optimized like crazy, is rarely going to have more than a couple super powered tricks, and only then at very high levels, and they're still unlikely to have more utility outside those few strong areas. The same is true of the Barbarian. But again, let's not focus everything at super high levels. Note when we talk about T1s and why they're there, yes we can talk about Genesis and Gate and Shapechange, but we can also talk about Animate Dead (gotten as early as 5 by Clerics) and Alter Self (My recommendation for a solid Warmage pick, btw, either that or Ghoul Glyph) and Magecraft and other low level game influencing tricks.

Yes, you can pump the hell out of some classes to give them a few broken tricks. You can, in fact, do that with every single class if you put your mind to it (almost any class can become Pun Pun). And yes, at extreme optimization you can break anything (Dragonwrought Kobold Warmages can cast the entire Cleric list spontaneously starting at level 1, for example). But overall, extreme optimization isn't really the point, because the class basically stops mattering at that point... and for the Warmage, the reasonable optimization (take Eccelectic Learning, get a few really nice spells) doesn't actually take them out of the "pretty darn good in some areas, very weak in others" T4 category.

JaronK

[toapat]

The Paladin is the only one who saw enough change to even consider how it's tiered, but ultimately I don't think it did. All of the Core classes are the same Tier as they were.

I can't speak to new classes, or to archetypes of the old classes.

At base, the PF paladin is a T4, specifically because one of their largest issues is removed by turning their wisdom casting into charisma casting. None of their new class features are too good, other then LoH, and their spellcasting lost the 2 best spells they ever had. I would actually argue though that The T4 is overvaluing their changes though by a small margin, as very little of what redeems 3.5 paladin is available in PF.

as far as ive seen, Archetypes dont really help in PF with balance. Pretty much all of the paladin ones are a step backwards, for instance, adding versatility of choices, but without the strength that hiring many different players + DMs to write sourcebooks how they saw fit gave to 3.5.

[Jerthanis]

Well, see, the idea is that it's not so much in Tier 4 because it only does one thing well, as much as because it's not very useful at anything else. Tiers measure options, not power.

It doesn't necessarily need bluff and diplomacy, or even skills, it just has to be useful at something else. Healing, for example.

Yes, and that's the fundamental problem I have with the Tier system as written. A class cannot escape a low tier without having the trappings of a higher tier, no matter how good they get at the one thing. So classes that are just absurdly, breathtakingly spectacular get held back significantly over some spectacularly minor offenses... like Beguiler being Tier 3 because of their slight weakness to mind immune creatures, when otherwise they're basically sorcerers on crack with full rogue skills. It also applies to T4 classes like Barbarian, or Gunslinger. The response to "But they can be so stupidly powerful at axes or guns" gets the response, "But that's all they can do, no T3 for them".

I can't point as efficiently to a class that has so many options it's been assigned a position above its relative combat prowess particularly, closest being Bard, but I definitely think the Tier system's iron curtain on classes without out of combat options rising above T4 does a disservice to the overall success of the system at measuring how they really stack up against each other.

For one reason, because in-combat capability becomes an out of combat tool. Knowing a guy can fight all the orcs in the universe to a standstill becomes a tool to negotiate with their demon master, "Don't do this or we'll have Grok kill your army out from under you" or "We need a distraction, Grok, make a bunch of noise on this side of the castle and draw the army out after you, we'll sneak in the other side" kind of thing.

[Qwertystop]

Well, that is sort of how it works. There's break points built into the definitions and quite frankly, (as a previous poster said) beyond a certain point, being absurdly good at combat just means that your target is shredded into somewhat finer shavings. It doesn't matter how much damage you could do to an enemy with uncapped HP, because no such creature exists, except maybe something in the Epic Level Handbook, which is just "oh let's take an awesome-sounding framework and bash rocks on the number pads for a few minutes to see how much damage they do or how many times they can cast Wish for free".

[The Glyphstone]

Well, that is sort of how it works. There's break points built into the definitions and quite frankly, (as a previous poster said) beyond a certain point, being absurdly good at combat just means that your target is shredded into somewhat finer shavings. It doesn't matter how much damage you could do to an enemy with uncapped HP, because no such creature exists, except maybe something in the Epic Level Handbook, which is just "oh let's take an awesome-sounding framework and bash rocks on the number pads for a few minutes to see how much damage they do or how many times they can cast Wish for free".

That's the Immortals Handbook. The Epic Handbook is, for the most part, woefully underpowered as far as Epic goes, minus the Epic Spellcasting rules.

[JaronK]

Yes, and that's the fundamental problem I have with the Tier system as written. A class cannot escape a low tier without having the trappings of a higher tier, no matter how good they get at the one thing. So classes that are just absurdly, breathtakingly spectacular get held back significantly over some spectacularly minor offenses... like Beguiler being Tier 3 because of their slight weakness to mind immune creatures, when otherwise they're basically sorcerers on crack with full rogue skills. It also applies to T4 classes like Barbarian, or Gunslinger. The response to "But they can be so stupidly powerful at axes or guns" gets the response, "But that's all they can do, no T3 for them".

You say that like they should have a right to be T3 or something, like it's a competition and T3 is better than T4. But that's not the point at all. It's not the Beguiler has committed some offense that makes it T3 and not T2, and it's being punished. T3 means it's an all around useful class that's solid in its specialty but rarely if ever useless, capable of being optimized to game breaking but not starting there. That's a Beguiler. T2 has the potential to be game breaking pretty much out of the box, but often has holes in its abilities that can leave it useless, and can only be game breaking in a few ways. That's a Sorcerer... you can just take broken spells without any effort, but it's tough to cover all your bases.

So why shouldn't the Beguiler be T3 then?


For one reason, because in-combat capability becomes an out of combat tool. Knowing a guy can fight all the orcs in the universe to a standstill becomes a tool to negotiate with their demon master, "Don't do this or we'll have Grok kill your army out from under you" or "We need a distraction, Grok, make a bunch of noise on this side of the castle and draw the army out after you, we'll sneak in the other side" kind of thing.

So the guy with the social abilities makes the threat ("we'll have Grok kill your army") while the guy with the hitting power handles combat. That's how T4 works... you need team work, because Grok can't handle the social aspects and your social guy probably can't kill an army out from under any demon lords. If it were T3, it would be Grok saying "I'll kill the army out from under you." And to be clear, that's not a bad thing... T4 needs teamwork more than T3 (T3 still needs it, but in a pinch they can cover for each other a lot better).

So as a comparison, Grok the Barbarian and Slick the Rogue and Wally the Warmage have jobs they do for the party. Slick covers trap disarming and social chatter, with a bit of stealth assassination when that'll help. Grok slaughters enemies in melee, especially the really big ones. Wally handles crowd control and blows up the small fries with his area spells. Everyone's got a job. That's a T4 party... they all work together great. But Slick can't slaughter people in a head on fight, Wally can't handle traps or stealth, Grok can't talk to people. They need each other.

Now imagine Grok the Warblade and Slick the Factotum and Wally the Beguiler. Slick covers trap disarming and social chatter... but he can also nuke undead (where Slick the Rogue spent his money on Truedeath Crystals and Wands of Razing Strike, Slick the Factotum got a Lyre of the Restful Soul and a Rod of Defiance so he can one shot all undead in the area). And Slick can do crowd control too. Grok the Warblade smashes people up in melee... but he can also cover social aspects if he needs, break through super strong walls, and buff the party. Wally handles crowd control and neutralizes smaller threats, but he can also handle stealth and trap disarming if needed. They work together great, but they don't need each other quite so desperately.

See how that works? It's about how the classes work together. D&D isn't a solo game, usually.

JaronK

[Lans]

You can build a very solid upper-Tier 4 Monk with the right archetypes. Most archetypes are either weaker than base classes or zero-sum-change, but a handful are substantial boosts.

That leaves it the same as 3.5's which can reach tier 4 with the right ACFs

[toapat]

That leaves it the same as 3.5's which can reach tier 4 with the right ACFs

actually, Monk in 3.5 can reach mid T3, as they have an ACF that is simply: Trade Fast Movement, Get Druid's full wildshape

[awa]

wow really? huh its probably a net speed increase as well now that you can get magic items of enhancement to speed on top of wild shape faster move speed.
I wonder if it was an attempt at increasing the power of a monk or honestly thinking a monks speed boost = wild shape

[The Glyphstone]

actually, Monk in 3.5 can reach mid T3, as they have an ACF that is simply: Trade Fast Movement, Get Druid's full wildshape

I never heard of that feature. Wow. What's it called?

[toapat]

I never heard of that feature. Wow. What's it called?

Wild Monk, Dragon 324 p97

Its basically Monk: The Overpowered Mundane

and actually, you keep 50'/round of their fast movement, but lose slow fall, the bonus feats, and the monk "Signatures" that are generally agreed to be terribad

every other Monk ACF taken together isnt actually enough to solidly move them into T4 from 3.5, Wild monk does it by shoveling away garbage for gold

[Snowbluff]

Except that it's monk and that it's dragon material. Don't get me wrong. I hate monks. I haven't met a single monk-player in real life that was not a terrible person. The class is still only 3/4 BaB, so I'd rather be a MoMF ranger, or just a straight up WS ranger. Finally, why is the Asian style monk in the game? This is my Western High-Fantasy Medieval game, where is my Friar Tuck?! :smallmad:

TL;DR We've had too many monk threads and discussions.

[Rubik]

This is my Western High-Fantasy Medieval game, where is my Friar Tuck?! :smallmad:It's in the DMG. It's called the expert.

Also, not every campaign is played in a fantasy version of Ye Merrye Olde Englande. And those that are? Can still have travelers from Ye Olde Oriente.

[toapat]

Except that it's monk and that it's dragon material. Don't get me wrong. I hate monks. I haven't met a single monk-player in real life that was not a terrible person. The class is still only 3/4 BaB, so I'd rather be a MoMF ranger, or just a straight up WS ranger. Finally, why is the Asian style monk in the game? This is my Western High-Fantasy Medieval game, where is my Friar Tuck?! :smallmad:

TL;DR We've had too many monk threads and discussions.

you get a D8 Hitdie and unholy offensive damage in wildshape, even if you have -4 nonproficiency penalties with everything because some idiot forgot to make them proficient with their class specialty.

You also have great saves, and can infuse wisdom with all your attributes. You make the fighters, barbarians, and rangers cry with your scaled natural attacks.

[Gavinfoxx]

Monk can be okay... Wild Monk (Dragon Magazine #324), Holy Strike (Complete Champion), Invisible Fist (Champions of Valor), Resistant Body (Planar Handbook), who picks up the 'X Wild Shape' (where X is a descriptor) feats from Draconomicon, Book of Exalted Deeds, and Frostburn. Make sure the DM lets you use your unarmed strikes at the end of your natural attacks. Focus on Wild Shape forms that get Pounce. Only works as 'powerful' once you get Wild Shape, and if you use a method of speaking while in Wild Shape, and of getting your gear to work while in Wild Shape as well (Wilding Clasps, or taking it off and putting it on after you shape). Maybe even pick up Touch of the Golden Ice. That's solid Tier 3...

[Rogue Shadows]

This is my Western High-Fantasy Medieval game, where is my Friar Tuck?!

Interestingly, the Monk has been a PHB class since 1st edition...

[Eldan]

And D&D has been a weird mixture of all kinds of genres since at least then. Sword and Sorcery, High Fantasy, renaissance weaponry, Science Fiction, all the mythologies of the world plundered and thrown in together and a lot of just plain weird stuff.

[Sith_Happens]

Every class was considered balanced by the initial play testers, because they didn't know what they were doing. The play test Wizard was just a blaster... fireball all day long. The play test Druid used a scimitar in combat and didn't use Wildshape in combat. The play test Cleric was a heal bot.

As a side note, I hear this a lot. Is it just an assumption, or is there actually some (preferably linkable) information floating around on what the 3.5 playtesting process was?

[GnomeGninjas]

Interestingly, the Monk has been a PHB class since 1st edition...

Not in Advanced Second Edition.

[Lord_Gareth]

As a side note, I hear this a lot. Is it just an assumption, or is there actually some (preferably linkable) information floating around on what the 3.5 playtesting process was?

I dunno where to find it, but SKR was part of the original 3.0/5 testing team and he BRAGS about his 12 INT wizard character.

Yeah.

It's kinda like that.

[awa]

now is he bragging becuase he thinks that's an effective design or becuase look at me i just killed a dragon with a 12 int wizard how awesome am i.

[Amphetryon]

now is he bragging becuase he thinks that's an effective design or becuase look at me i just killed a dragon with a 12 int wizard how awesome am i.

Yes, on both counts.

[Lord_Gareth]

now is he bragging becuase he thinks that's an effective design or becuase look at me i just killed a dragon with a 12 int wizard how awesome am i.

He's bragging because that's "good roleplaying." SKR and many of the other designers considered concepts like the above to be adding 'interesting weaknesses' to their characters, and then proceeded to judge balance from there.

For PF fans: this is the man in charge of your game.

[Prime32]

Monk can be okay... Wild Monk (Dragon Magazine #324), Holy Strike (Complete Champion), Invisible Fist (Champions of Valor), Resistant Body (Planar Handbook), who picks up the 'X Wild Shape' (where X is a descriptor) feats from Draconomicon, Book of Exalted Deeds, and Frostburn. Make sure the DM lets you use your unarmed strikes at the end of your natural attacks. Focus on Wild Shape forms that get Pounce. Only works as 'powerful' once you get Wild Shape, and if you use a method of speaking while in Wild Shape, and of getting your gear to work while in Wild Shape as well (Wilding Clasps, or taking it off and putting it on after you shape). Maybe even pick up Touch of the Golden Ice. That's solid Tier 3...Don't forget the Mantis Leap feat from Sword and Fist, which lets a monk charge as a move action.

[Rogue Shadows]

And D&D has been a weird mixture of all kinds of genres since at least then. Sword and Sorcery, High Fantasy, renaissance weaponry, Science Fiction, all the mythologies of the world plundered and thrown in together and a lot of just plain weird stuff.

Heck, D&D owes at least as much to Ron E. Howard as J.R.R. Tolkien, and he regularly set Conan adventures in exotic locations. One of my favorites takes place in Afghanistan and India Ghulistan and Vendhya.

[toapat]

Monk can be okay... Wild Monk (Dragon Magazine #324), Holy Strike (Complete Champion), Invisible Fist (Champions of Valor), Resistant Body (Planar Handbook), who picks up the 'X Wild Shape' (where X is a descriptor) feats from Draconomicon, Book of Exalted Deeds, and Frostburn. Make sure the DM lets you use your unarmed strikes at the end of your natural attacks. Focus on Wild Shape forms that get Pounce. Only works as 'powerful' once you get Wild Shape, and if you use a method of speaking while in Wild Shape, and of getting your gear to work while in Wild Shape as well (Wilding Clasps, or taking it off and putting it on after you shape). Maybe even pick up Touch of the Golden Ice. That's solid Tier 3...

um, no.

The only thing that even shakes monk in 3.5 from their T5 position is Wild monk, everything else is only slight power tuning that doesnt deal with their terrible MAD and general lack of use both inside and outside of combat. Being built to take down the 23 Int, 3 Wisdom blaster wizard inside his own tower is inherent to the class, but most DMs wont have their BBEG be so stupid as to blow themselves and their base up

[awa]

im not familiar with all the sources hes referring to but many of them seem to be about increasing the effectiveness of the wild shape. being able to turn into non animals will certainly increase your versatility not enough to jump another tier but they never said it would.

so i'm not certain the blanket rejection suggested by the "um no" is warranted it seems unnecessarily hostile.

[Story]

By the way, is it wrong to sympathize with Eugene after learning about the tier system? Obviously, OOTS is extremely low op, but still, a fighter has no business taking on an Epic Sorceror Lich, especially a fighter with ranks in Knowledge (Architecture). The only way he'll ever win is PLOT (plus the assistance of his teammates and Xyon's stupidity).

I think the Feather Fall comment was especially telling.

[darksolitaire]

Congratulations Monk, you're the new Druid. Now, let's go!

[awa]

actually for order of the stick our fighter has proved to be a capable leader coming up with a effective plan to defeat a more powerful party quite handily. so while he might never be strong enough to beat the lich in a head to head contest of raw power he may win due to superior intelligence and leadership.
The difference between theoretical optimization and a real game if he wins it wont be becuase hes a fighter it will be becuase hes smart. He part of an adventuring party having his team is a almost a given.

[Story]

But Xykon is easily strong enough to TPK without even taking his eyes off the Tivo. It will take more than the power of teamwork and nonnegative Wisdom to beat him. Even if Redcloak was on their side somehow it'd be challenging.

[The Glyphstone]

OOTS stopped making strict adherence to, and making jokes about, the rules a long time ago. Such as the first dozen comics or so.

[Menteith]

um, no.

The only thing that even shakes monk in 3.5 from their T5 position is Wild monk, everything else is only slight power tuning that doesnt deal with their terrible MAD and general lack of use both inside and outside of combat. Being built to take down the 23 Int, 3 Wisdom blaster wizard inside his own tower is inherent to the class, but most DMs wont have their BBEG be so stupid as to blow themselves and their base up

Dark Moon Disciple, Invisible Fist, any mechanism for getting Pounce (Lion Tribe Warrior's a pretty easy one) and a Wand of Greater Mighty Wallop [CL20] make the Monk compare favorably to any Uber-Charger build, since they can put out lethal damage on every Charge and do it all with near-permanent Total Concealment/Invisibility. Yeah, the class isn't well designed initially, but Monks are entirely capable of contributing in a T3ish game if you're willing to work with them.

[toapat]

Dark Moon Disciple, Invisible Fist, any mechanism for getting Pounce (Lion Tribe Warrior's a pretty easy one) and a Wand of Greater Mighty Wallop [CL20] make the Monk compare favorably to any Uber-Charger build, since they can put out lethal damage on every Charge and do it all with near-permanent Total Concealment/Invisibility. Yeah, the class isn't well designed initially, but Monks are entirely capable of contributing in a T3ish game if you're willing to work with them.

1: you are not supposed to consider things you cant get outside of the class, except for considering it against your class features.
2: having a bigger base damage die is still basically useless without Wild Monk, specifically because Unarmed Strikes applies to natural attacks.
3: Invisible Fist is not that good.


im not familiar with all the sources hes referring to but many of them seem to be about increasing the effectiveness of the wild shape. being able to turn into non animals will certainly increase your versatility not enough to jump another tier but they never said it would.

so i'm not certain the blanket rejection suggested by the "um no" is warranted it seems unnecessarily hostile.

He is refferencing other things as though they help improve the tier of Monk, which none of them do, the only reason why Wild Monk does, is because it explicitly adds actual class features to monk, instead of Lodes or minimal value trades

[awa]

alternate class features do improve the tier if you are using them.
I believe wild shape ranger is specifically listed as at a higher tier then regular ranger.

Assuming no limitations on the wild shape i would suspect a wild shape monk to be at least as good as the wild shape ranger and his more limited wild shape

[Menteith]

1: you are not supposed to consider things you cant get outside of the class, except for considering it against your class features.
2: having a bigger base damage die is still basically useless without Wild Monk, specifically because Unarmed Strikes applies to natural attacks.
3: Invisible Fist is not that good.

Your initial point is correct when assigning a Tier Rank to a class, which I am not doing. I'm pointing out that a relatively cheap magic item enables the class to dramatically expand its power, to a much greater degree than many other classes. If you're still unwilling to accept such reasoning, then just use the Overwhelming Attack fighting style and actually use Shock Trooper. While the total damage output isn't going to be as high as a full BAB/2Hed character, it's still trivially easy to boost it high enough that you're going to drop anything remotely CR-appropriate on a charge. If retraining around, Flying Kick gives enough game damage to carry you through until you get solid options, and is available starting at level 1. Yes, this does mean you use a sane stat priority and don't give a damn about Wisdom, since it's actually terrible for the class unless you're specifically building around it.

For you second point....I'm actually not sure what you're saying, here. From the SRD;

"A monk’s unarmed strike is treated both as a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons."

Treating an unarmed strike as a larger sized one is an effect which enhances or improves either a manufactured weapon or natural weapons. A base weapon damage of 6d6/attack is pretty solid at killing most things, and that's with the unarmed strike damage of a level 1 Monk. It's not exactly hard to get the US damage of a higher level Monk, and the base damage die doesn't cap until 12d8/attack.

Invisible Fist drops off in effectiveness at later levels, when True Seeing becomes commonplace, but it's excellent for much of the game for the same reasons that Abrupt Jaunt is. It's an Immediate Action which (arguably) ruins targeting, AoO, and flat-foots the enemy (since it's not "Invisibility as the spell", it doesn't drop after a single attack). I'd really like for you to elaborate on why you think it's not good, if we're going to have a discussion.

I'd be happy to take this to PMs if you wish to continue this, lest we derail the thread's focus - and I know that few members of the board are interested in yet another Monk discussion.

[awa]

we cant let the monk thread tangent die no ones come to tell us that a monk is tier 1 becuase it can use umd.

[Arbane]

By the way, is it wrong to sympathize with Eugene after learning about the tier system? Obviously, OOTS is extremely low op, but still, a fighter has no business taking on an Epic Sorceror Lich, especially a fighter with ranks in Knowledge (Architecture). The only way he'll ever win is PLOT (plus the assistance of his teammates and Xyon's stupidity).

I think the Feather Fall comment was especially telling.

Mind you, the rest of the Order of the Stick aren't exactly models of optimization, either. We have a blastomancer wizard, a healbot cleric, a ranger with pathetic wisdom who dual-wields daggers, and an archer rogue. Right now the most-optimized person in the party is probably _Elan_.

Thankfully, they're up against a guy who thought Meteor Swarm was a good 9th level spell to take.

[navar100]

I know that Adrian Monk is a good detective-type character if a bit frustrating to get along with. He gets better.

[Story]

OOTS stopped making strict adherence to, and making jokes about, the rules a long time ago. Such as the first dozen comics or so.

Actually, it still makes jokes about the rules occasionally. Remember the bit about getting a discount on material components? And while it fudges things for dramatic purposes, it does follow them at least approximately.

[JaronK]

As a side note, I hear this a lot. Is it just an assumption, or is there actually some (preferably linkable) information floating around on what the 3.5 playtesting process was?

For a start, check out the iconic characters. Their stats have been floating around the internet for a while at different levels (here's one example: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?99308-Iconic-Characters-Stats/page2 ). Things to note include the Wizard's spells being mostly blast spells, the Fighter using things like Weapon Focus: Dwarven War Axe, and the Druid actually taking feats to boost their Scimitar use.

JaronK

[nedz]

It helps to look at this from a DM's perspective.

If you are trying to design challenges for the party then party balance is king. 3.5 doesn't do party balance very well: the classic paradigm is Angel Summoner and BMX bandit. Now if I have a party of BMX bandits I can create challenges which their characters can deal with. Likewise if I have a party of Angel Summoners then I can create challenges appropriate for them. If however my party includes both types: then I can either make challenges which are appropriate for the BMX bandit, which the Angel Summoner can trivialise with a couple of spells; or I make challenges appropriate for the Angel Summoner, in which case the BMX Bandit is going to be useless or dead.

Its hard to know for sure but Angel Summoners are probably Tier 1 and BMX Bandits are probably Tier 4.

An example of this, from my first 3.5 game, was when I set a scenario involving travelling along an underground canal. Now the party were 5th level, and I thought, from my experience of running AD&D, that this should add a few interesting problems for them, but not insurmountable ones. However I had two clerics in the party who simply cast Waterwalking on everyone, including the mule who was supposed to tow the barge. (Now this spell existed in AD&D, but it was less useful in that it couldn't be shared, so I wasn't expecting this.) Now if the Clerics had been spontaneous clerics, Tier 2, then it is very unlikely that they would have known this spell; and so the problem would not have been trivialised.
It would have been the same if I had created an underwater encounter. The T1 clerics would have breezed this since Waterbreathing is also level 3; T2 and below, well maybe.

[toapat]

However I had two clerics in the party who simply cast Waterwalking on everyone, including the mule who was supposed to tow the barge.

Did they cast it on the Barge too to be nice to the donkey?

[awa]

how would that help a barge floats by definition making it act like you were dragging it on solid ground could only make things worse.

[toapat]

how would that help a barge floats by definition making it act like you were dragging it on solid ground could only make things worse.

A barge also has horrible drag in the water, and making it float over the water would make it easier to pull.

It also doesnt say that standing on the water actually produces friction as though you were standing on solid ground, so theoretically you could ice skate with Water walk

[Killer Angel]

I know that Adrian Monk is a good detective-type character if a bit frustrating to get along with. He gets better.

But at the edge of optimization, it's still a one trick pony, and he picked a lot of flaws!

[Lonely Tylenol]

But at the edge of optimization, it's still a one trick pony, and he picked a lot of flaws!

Hey, man, don't knock. Flaws equal feats. There's no telling what sort of op-fu Monk is really capable of.

[nedz]

Did they cast it on the Barge too to be nice to the donkey?

No, but I wouldn't put it past them to have tried. Not that it would work: the spell only works on creatures.

[MukkTB]

The tier system breaks down when you ask specific questions. For example at level 1 I'd rather have a fighter at my back than a Wizard (with equal optimization). At that point in the game the fighter is a bit more reliable and much less likely to get squished. By level 5 the fighter isn't that important and the Wizard is a great asset. Somewhere the Wizard overtakes the Fighter.

If I didn't know the specifics I would say Wizard >>> Fighter, but if I knew we were talking about level 1 I'd have one thing to say while level 20 I'd have another.

Then some classes have lower ceilings or higher floors than others. The Warblade doesn't have a great deal of wiggle room. The Wizard could banish himself to the abyss of insanity or become a living god. The Psion can turn himself into a sandwich. Some of the tier 3/4 casters can jump right into tier 1 with the right optimization.

Then there are classes that make excellent splashes. The monk sucks but 2 levels of monk isn't terrible. 2 levels or so of fighter can actually be pretty sweet.

Finally there is noobie expectations. Lets take the archetypal noobie group: Sword and Board Fighter, Blaster Wizard, Healbot Cleric, Sneaky Rogue. Of all of these the Rogue is probably played to the best of its potential of the classes. The Fighter isn't that bad either. At very low level a shield is a nice piece of equipment. On the other hand the Wizard and Cleric are weighing in at far below their real capabilities. Some classes are more intuitive than others. They work well played the way someone who is experienced with fantasy but not D&D would try to play them.

Then there are the moderate different levels of optimization you expect to find in a random group.

This all combines to create an experience where people do not necessarily see the world described by the tier system. Its a wide abstraction trying to cover a ton of ground after all.

[nedz]

There is an old adage that Player > Build > Class.

I'm not sure who came up with this but it answers your question I think.

The tier system explains differences in the potential of classes, but these can be overshadowed by optimisation (build) and then again by usage (player).

[Lonely Tylenol]

The tier system breaks down when you ask specific questions. For example at level 1 I'd rather have a fighter at my back than a Wizard (with equal optimization). At that point in the game the fighter is a bit more reliable and much less likely to get squished. By level 5 the fighter isn't that important and the Wizard is a great asset. Somewhere the Wizard overtakes the Fighter.

If I didn't know the specifics I would say Wizard >>> Fighter, but if I knew we were talking about level 1 I'd have one thing to say while level 20 I'd have another.

I used to believe the same thing as you... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12543740)

But then... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=229753)


Then there are classes that make excellent splashes. The monk sucks but 2 levels of monk isn't terrible. 2 levels or so of fighter can actually be pretty sweet.

Dips aren't measurements of the value of a class. Marshal is a great 1-level dip for getting everybody your CHA to initiative. That doesn't mean it's a good 20-level class, which is the thing the tier system measures (the class as a whole).


Finally there is noobie expectations. Lets take the archetypal noobie group: Sword and Board Fighter, Blaster Wizard, Healbot Cleric, Sneaky Rogue. Of all of these the Rogue is probably played to the best of its potential of the classes. The Fighter isn't that bad either. At very low level a shield is a nice piece of equipment. On the other hand the Wizard and Cleric are weighing in at far below their real capabilities. Some classes are more intuitive than others. They work well played the way someone who is experienced with fantasy but not D&D would try to play them.

Four levels later, the Wizard discovers the glory of Haste and Fly, and the folly of Ice Dagger, and spends a marginal amount of his wealth completely revamping his ability set. The Fighter is still a Fighter. (Worse, he is saddled with Improved Shield Bash and Weapon Focus [short sword]. Way to go, gladius!)

More to the point, a Wizard who prepares Magic Missile in all levels of spell slots up to 4 is still a Wizard. Wasted potential is still potential.


Then there are the moderate different levels of optimization you expect to find in a random group.

The tier system (rightly) assumes roughly equal levels of optimization, because it's patently unfair to compare a Power Attacking Water Orc Spirit Lion Totem Wolf Totem Whirling Frenzy Barbarian 1 with a Sorcerer 1 who thinks Burning Hands is the hottest thing ever, or the same Barbarian 10 (with the Streetfighter ACF and the Ubercharger line of feats) against a Cleric of Pelor 10 who prepares Cure spells. (Seriously, who does that?)


This all combines to create an experience where people do not necessarily see the world described by the tier system. Its a wide abstraction trying to cover a ton of ground after all.

The tier system also (rightly) does not pretend to determine that every class will contribute exactly as the tier system prescribes. It measures the level of potential each class has; how much of that potential gets explored in a given game is entirely up to the player. A player who optimizes Inspire Courage, but chooses not to explore the Bard's spell list (or simply does not use spells at all), is letting the potential of the Bard's 6th-level spellcasting go to waste--but the potential to cast 6th-level spells to great effect is still there. The potential of the class remains unchanged, regardless of how much (a Wizard with several spellbooks of various types who intuits, divines and anticipates his daily workload, and prepares varied lists of spells regularly, with a spell slot or two of each level left open for improvised situations) or little (a Bard who does not use bardic music, or a Monk used only for a 2-level dip) of it is used.

[navar100]

But at the edge of optimization, it's still a one trick pony, and he picked a lot of flaws!

Gets good use out of his Leadership feat, though.

[MukkTB]

I should be more clear that in general I agree with the tier system. I'm just explaining why a lot of people have experiences that lead them to disbelieve in it. Its obvious to an optimizer. It is not obvious to a noobie.

[Raven777]

Also, if there is at least one player optimizing within a given party, it stands to reason that he will attempt to help the others optimize as well.

After all, who would God prefer at his side? A Healbot or CoDzilla?

[Gavinfoxx]

Some groups really, really, really, really hate optimization advice...

[Story]

I tried giving one of the players (who's new) optimization advice, but she ignored it. At least I convinced her to pick Druid instead of Ranger.

[Killer Angel]

Get's good use out of his Leadership feat, though.

Leadership is broken. Next step, you'll tell me that a monk with UMD is a strong class!


After all, who would God prefer at his side? A Healbot or CoDzilla?

Gods are often prideful beings, that wants to rule by themselves... A CoDzilla could be tempted to steal some glory.

[awa]

There are different schools of role playing for some people its enough to say i was a farmer who heard the word of pelor and then just make a regular cleric for someone else there gonna want profession farmer and cross class ranks of animal handling.

add in the idea that a character who has no sub-par choices is not organic or realistic. (taken to far you get only sub-par characters can be well role-played)

when you combine that with the fact that some people just don't like being told what to do you can see where optimization advice could be unwanted

[Qwertystop]

add in the idea that a character who has no sub-par choices is not organic or realistic. (taken to far you get only sub-par characters can be well role-played)

Why? How is it unrealistic to be good at doing what you spent years learning to do (and that's just getting to 1st level)?

[Gavinfoxx]

add in the idea that a character who has no sub-par choices is not organic or realistic. (taken to far you get only sub-par characters can be well role-played)

Yes, because a character whose primary job is solving problems through the application of violence in small, hyper-specialist, superhuman commando/mercenary teams, should not specifically seek out training to be extra competent at that job is unrealistic...

Remember, the Cleric class isn't the village priest. That's the Adept class. The Cleric is the person who is given an absurd amount of power by a god or a force of reality, and that power and competence is primarily associated with the application of violence to achieve ends...

[Answerer]

Why? How is it unrealistic to be good at doing what you spent years learning to do (and that's just getting to 1st level)?
Yes, because a character whose primary job is solving problems through the application of violence in small, hyper-specialist, superhuman commando/mercenary teams, should not specifically seek out training to be extra competent at that job is unrealistic...
Guys, awa was explicitly explaining/describing the mindset of some groups, who don't like optimization advice. He never espoused those views himself. I suspect he agrees with you.

Of course, cross-class ranks in Handle Animal still don't make sense. If you are dead-set on mechanically demonstrating your former life as a farmer, you ought to be a multiclass Commoner/Cleric who took ranks in Handle Animal while it was a class skill for you. After all, you weren't a priest who spent some time on a farm, you were a full-time farmer until you heard the call of the gods.

It's still a bad idea and utterly unnecessary within the system.

[awa]

I believe that someone who felt this way would describe it as it's not they would not seek out training to be good at there job but that it would be unrealistic for them not to have learned anything else.

going back to the cleric example they might say well sure hes a cleric know but what was he before he heard the voice of pelor and decided to go adventuring.

When combined with the idea that you should spend skill points or even feats to represent the things you did in your life that are not combat related a character who has spent his life doing nothing but preparing to be an adventure may feel like they are trying to game the system.

now personally I don't care for optimization advice but that's becuase I don't like being told what to do not becuase im inherently against optimization.

[Tvtyrant]

No, but I wouldn't put it past them to have tried. Not that it would work: the spell only works on creatures.

This is why I advocate every Cleric have the spell Animate Object! Now the barg is a critter, and you can cast fly on it.

[Gavinfoxx]

Remember:

Commoner < Expert < Savant < Factotum

If you want to have something that involves some skill-based backstory, take a Factotum level as your first level, and put the skill points wherever you want.

[awa]

not familiar with savant

[Lonely Tylenol]

not familiar with savant

It's a Dragon Magazine base class (and a pretty fun one, if I recall, only slightly worse than Factotum at being a Factotum).

[Darius Kane]

A PC whose backstory is that he was a farmer before becoming a Cleric could just forget what he was able to do before starting training in Cleric ways. Learning to cast spells and fight and all the other Cleric stuff is hard. It's not unreasonable that a character could simply replace redundant knowledge and memories with things that will be actually helpful in future.

[nedz]

Some groups really, really, really, really hate optimization advice...

Well you can't tell people anything.

Also, having been given optimisation advice by someone who knew less than me once was quite aggravating, especially when they were pushy, doubly so when at the first bad roll they went for the "Told you so line", :smallfurious::smallbiggrin:

The trick is to make suggestions, I think.

Ed:
the other one that's annoying is when someone tells you to do something which you were going to do anyway. And then takes the 'credit'.

[Raven777]

The trick is to make suggestions, I think.

You mean, like, the spell? :smallconfused:

[awa]

"the other one that's annoying is when someone tells you to do something which you were going to do anyway. And then takes the 'credit'"

Oh i hate that so much.

the kind of player who would even consider cross class rank in handle animal and profession farmer becuase it fits there back story is not the kind who would use retraining

[Rogue Shadows]

Of course, cross-class ranks in Handle Animal still don't make sense. If you are dead-set on mechanically demonstrating your former life as a farmer, you ought to be a multiclass Commoner/Cleric who took ranks in Handle Animal while it was a class skill for you. After all, you weren't a priest who spent some time on a farm, you were a full-time farmer until you heard the call of the gods.

Maybe. The other possibility is that you were a rancher (why would you represent being a farmer with Handle Animal?), but not particularly good at it, though better than someone who has no training at all.

It's not like you just pop into being at 1st level, or wake up one morning as a 1st level Cleric. The first + [Starting Age dice] years of your life were spent gaining everything you have at 1st level, so if you start with two cross-class ranks in Handle Animal, then you must have been good enough to warrant those two ranks.

Of course, specifically to preclude such problems, I house ruled this ability into the Commoner class, though I've been considering adding it to every NPC class:

[b]Greater Destiny (Ex): A commoner who gains levels in any other base class can immediately trade in all their commoner levels for levels in the base class, re-rolling hit points and selecting new skills and feats as necessary.

[Answerer]

Honestly, on some level, I blame the DM: I'd give the player free skill ranks before I let him self-nerf in the name of backstory.

A player with that sheet in my game would be told that he could have a free +4 bonus on Handle Animal as relate to the rearing, raising, and care of domesticated farm animals, as well as on Profession (Farmer) checks, but he was not allowed to burn cross-class ranks on a skill he would never use.

[awa]

a farmer might have an ox or mule to pull there plow

[Rogue Shadows]

A player with that sheet in my game would be told that he could have a free +4 bonus on Handle Animal as relate to the rearing, raising, and care of domesticated farm animals, as well as on Profession (Farmer) checks, but he was not allowed to burn cross-class ranks on a skill he would never use.

Why would he never use it? It is at least as much up to the player to find opportunities to use each of his skills, as it is up to the DM to provide opportunities.


a farmer might have an ox or mule to pull there plow

True, but I'd associate Profession (farming) with it a lot more...

[awa]

my hypothetical player took both becuase both are relevant
The handle animal gets more notice becuase its cross class

[Juntao112]

Why would he never use it? It is at least as much up to the player to find opportunities to use each of his skills, as it is up to the DM to provide opportunities.

I have a cunning plan to rescue the princess from the evil clutches of the Dark Lord Tyannus. It involves two carts full of hay, four halfling cloth merchants, five pounds of olive oil, two sticks of butter, seventeen trained pigeons, and a rusty fork.

[awa]

not a whole lot you can do with 2 ranks of anything and profession is just terrible in general.

[nedz]

Honestly, on some level, I blame the DM: I'd give the player free skill ranks before I let him self-nerf in the name of backstory.

A player with that sheet in my game would be told that he could have a free +4 bonus on Handle Animal as relate to the rearing, raising, and care of domesticated farm animals, as well as on Profession (Farmer) checks, but he was not allowed to burn cross-class ranks on a skill he would never use.

There are ways of optimising Handle Animal you know.
I seem to recall a level 5 commoner build with three CR 18 pets
— by SonOfZeal IIRC.

[toapat]

There are ways of optimising Handle Animal you know.
I seem to recall a level 5 commoner build with three CR 18 pets
— by SonOfZeal IIRC.

Bubz the Commoner (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7097263&postcount=38), Level 4, CR 3 Strongheart halfling, 3 CR 16 Battletitans

[awa]

Handle animal can be a very useful skill in the right circumstances (like war beasts) but that wasn't really the point.

I suspect the bonus in question would not be given to the guy whose trying to train t rexs only the guy whose back story involved a ribbon winning pig and has no further plans to use his handle animal but feels he needs to have handle animal on his character sheet or it's not realistic.

[Answerer]

There are ways of optimising Handle Animal you know.
I seem to recall a level 5 commoner build with three CR 18 pets
— by SonOfZeal IIRC.
That's very true. But you don't do it with 2 cross-class ranks and nothing more.

I consider it going without saying that I trust anyone I play with. Someone I didn't trust with the freebie would not be playing at all, not simply held more tightly to the rules.

[Arbane]

Honestly, on some level, I blame the DM: I'd give the player free skill ranks before I let him self-nerf in the name of backstory.


I blame the system - this is one of those places where if you try to put some actual backstory into your build, the game itself screams "UR DOIN IT WRONG" and steals your lunch money. :smallyuk:

[awa]

actually this is in a way the core problem in d&d it considers everything equal.
Being able to use magic devices or tumble costs just as much as craft baskets and profession ditch digger.

power attack costs as much as skill focus

a level in monk costs as much as a level in druid

the designers considered all these options equal and priced them as such.

[The Glyphstone]

actually this is in a way the core problem in d&d it considers everything equal.
Being able to use magic devices or tumble costs just as much as craft baskets and profession ditch digger.

power attack costs as much as skill focus

a level in monk costs as much as a level in druid

the designers considered all these options equal and priced them as such.

Not if you listen to Monte Cook. But that would be silly, who does that?:smallconfused:

[awa]

hasn't he retconned his opinion on the subject several times?

[The Glyphstone]

I don't know, because I consider listening to him to be silly.:smallamused:

[Rogue Shadows]

I don't know, because I consider listening to him to be silly.:smallamused:

I liked his idea behind a bard rebuild and his attempt at giving the sorcerer a unique spell list of its own.

I also have Arcana Unearthed and Monte Cook's World of Darkness d20, for inspiration and plundering.

[toapat]

I don't know, because I consider listening to him to be silly.:smallamused:

i think he considers Classes in 3.5 equal, but feats not, with Two Weapon Fighting being worth 11.5 points on a 10 point scale, while metamagic: Heighten is something like 3

[The Glyphstone]

i think he considers Classes in 3.5 equal, but feats not, with Two Weapon Fighting being worth 11.5 points on a 10 point scale, while metamagic: Heighten is something like 3

You're thinking of Sean K. Reynolds/SKR, the 'game designer' who's one of three people in charge of creating Pathfinder.

Monte Cook was the guy who wrote the Ivory Tower Design' article where he claimed they deliberately built 3.5 to have weak options in order to reward people with system mastery and the ability to spot these 'traps'.

[Killer Angel]

The trick is to make suggestions, I think.


You mean, like, the spell? :smallconfused:

Mandatory link (http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/?px=%2F2010-05-14.jpg). :smallbiggrin:

[Gwendol]

I tried giving one of the players (who's new) optimization advice, but she ignored it. At least I convinced her to pick Druid instead of Ranger.

That's ok if she wasn't in to the ranger, otherwise to me being helpful would mean advise my fellow player into making the ranger (mechanically) perform the way she/he has imagined. I don't think advising all to play full casters all the time is good advice. Not even if they are considering playing a monk.