The Tier 3 Rebalancing Project

[prufock]

Yes, I have an ongoing project to rebalance all classes to tier 3 - really good at one thing but still useful in other situations, or competent at many different situations but not as good as classes that specialize in it.

I'm revamping, replacing, or eliminating classes so that everything falls into tier 3 (or at best, high tier 4 to low tier 2). Just looking for a little feedback on some of my basic ideas for depowering some of the higher tier classes and where they would fall in the tier list.

1. Wizard/Sorcerer - all arcane casters follow the mold of beguiler and dread necro. Spontaneous casting, spells available at class level = spell level x 2, limited spell lists, and some thematic and useful class features. There should be a class per school of arcane magic. Summoner from PF will be depowered a bit to fit the conjuration role, warmage will be amped up a bit, and I'll add an abjurer (which might end up being a boosted Healer), diviner, and transmuter.

2. Cleric - Becomes a mix of Favored Soul and Ardent psionic class. Spells available at class level = spell level x 2, but you're limited to domain spells only. You get more domains - I'm thinking you start with 2 at level 1, and add one at every 4th or 5th level. Domains chosen from your deity (deity domain lists may need to be expanded) or in line with a philosophy/cause if you have no deity. You get all the domain powers (which will be the class ability for that level as well). Turn undead remains, and I'll be adding class features, some stolen from the Favored Soul list.

3. Druid - Druid is replaced by Ranger (killing two birds with one stone!), and Rangers now choose a focus to bump them to tier 3: Shapeshifting focus (Wildshape variant), Spellcasting focus (Mystic Ranger), Nature's Bond focus (gain Druid animal companion + some additional abilities), or Hunter focus (gain bonus precision damage and other hunting bennies). Urban variant can be applied to each of them, being a combo of the UA Urban Ranger and the Cityscape variants (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a).

4. Psion/Erudite - Eliminated. Use Psychic Warrior, Psychic Rogue, Ardent, or Wilder instead.

5. Artificer - This is the one causing me the most difficulty. I'm going to spread out the infusion progression to match a bard's spell progression, but that's definitely not enough. How would you bring this class down to tier 3?

6. Archivist - Eliminated. Use cleric.

Pathfinder stuff will be incorporated, but any tier 1 and 2 PF classes not mentioned above are out.

And yes, before you tell me this is a futile effort, let me admit that you're probably right, and I may never incorporate these ideas into my games. However it's a good thought exercise for the game design kick I've been on lately. If it works out, I'll probably use this going forward.

[ahenobarbi]

spells available at class level = spell level x 2

So only cantrips at level 1?

[prufock]

So only cantrips at level 1?

Ah, good catch. No, you'd get both cantrips and level 1s for the first three levels, like the beguiler progression.

Also, for clerics, all level 0 spells are available to everyone, and they would have an Advanced Learning-type class feature (actually pretty much all the spellcasters I'm adjusting will) so that they can learn a limited number of spells outside their domains.

[Phelix-Mu]

You will definitely need to expand the list of domains for the deities. Luckily, 3e had a ridiculously long list of domains by the end, many of which were moderately stepping on each others' toes (windstorm domain). Unluckily, the domains were spread across a ridiculously big series of books. Lemme do a bit of a cut and paste...this is 3.5 mainly, and I wasn't particularly meticulous, but pretty sure I got all of them.

Spell Compendium> Balance, Cavern, Celerity, Charm, Cold, Community, Competition, Courage, Craft, Creation, Darkness, Deathbound, Domination, Dragon, Dream, Drow, Dwarf, Elf, Envy, Family, Fate, Force, Glory, Gluttony, Gnome, Greed, Halfling, Hatred, Hunger, Illusion, Inquisition, Liberation, Lust, Madness, Mentalism, Metal, Mind, Moon, Mysticism, Nobility, Ocean, Oracle, Orc, Pact, Pestilence, Planning, Portal, Pride, Purification, Renewal, Retribution, Rune, Scalykind, Slime, Sloth, Spell, Spider, Storm, Suffering, Summoner, Time, Trade, Tyranny, Undeath, Wealth, Windstorm, Wrath
Frostburn> Cold, Winter
Sandstorm> Nobility, Repose, Rune, Sand, Summer, Thirst
Stormwrack> Blackwater, Ocean, Seafolk, Storm
Exalted Deeds> Celestial, Community, Endurance, Fey, Glory, Herald, Joy, Pleasure, Wrath
Vile Darkness> Bestial, Corruption, Darkness, Demonic, Diabolic, Greed, Pain
Dragon Magazine Compilation> Avarice, Beguilement, Charity, Chastity, Chromatic Dragon, Emotion, Gem Dragon, Generosity, Hope, Humility, Hunt, Hunger, Lung Dragon, Metallic Dragon, Night, Patience, Radiance, Seduction, Spirit, Temperance, Undead, Zeal
Races of the Wild> Sky
Races of Destiny> City, Destiny
Heroes of Horrow> Dream, Spite
Underdark> Balance, Portal, Watery Death
Fiendish Codex I> Corruption, Demonic, Entropy, Fury, Ooze, Temptation


I listed redundant domains, often because they weren't identical. Maybe useful, probably out there somewhere already. Oh, I guess BoVD isn't strictly 3.5, so just ignore it I guess.

[prufock]

You will definitely need to expand the list of domains for the deities.

Yep. On the bright side, we generally play in homebrewed settings, so assigning new domains to deities is not much of an issue. I've run a filter through IMarvinTPA's spell filter, and it lists 258 spells that are found in cleric domains. Not sure how complete it is, but that leaves 669 spells that aren't found in domains. These could be chosen with the Advanced Learning ability.

I wonder if I've gone TOO far in the other direction. Any idea how this would show in the tier list?

[Phelix-Mu]

Yep. On the bright side, we generally play in homebrewed settings, so assigning new domains to deities is not much of an issue. I've run a filter through IMarvinTPA's spell filter, and it lists 258 spells that are found in cleric domains. Not sure how complete it is, but that leaves 669 spells that aren't found in domains. These could be chosen with the Advanced Learning ability.

I wonder if I've gone TOO far in the other direction. Any idea how this would show in the tier list?

Hmm, I think you might find that, thematically, a cleric of an evil god of death/undeath will have even less options than you might think, because while a good number of domains fall under this kind of thing, there is a good bit of overlap in the spells that many of these domains use. This makes Advanced Learning much more important to the cleric than the beguiler, as most, if not all of the example clerics stuff is going to involve evil spells, necromantic maim/kill, and creating/augmenting undead. Where does the evil cleric of slaughter get his healing spells? If he needs to Advanced Learning it, then he only gets one or two such spells. Even with more slots at the given levels, this means an evil cleric can't support their evil minions the way they can in the current system. Support cleric should be available to every god and every alignment, but I'm not sure your system supports that. Maybe switch some spells to some kind of "universal" domain.

Not a tier master, so I'm not sure I can speak to the balance issue.

[ahenobarbi]

Did you check Generic Casters (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/UA:Generic_Classes) (I think the information on the page is correct... is it available on a more reliable page?). If you added spell list restrictions it could bring all casters to tier 3. And have added benefit of simplicity.

[Gavinfoxx]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174628

Ahem...

[JaronK]

I've been playing with my own "push all the classes towards Tier 3" rebalance project myself... feel free to steal ideas. I tend to do a model of "stay as close to existing rules as possible, and use class variants where possible to keep the flavors the same."

Wizards: All Wizards must be a specialist Wizard. Specialists can only cast spells from their chosen school, universal spells, and (if there is one), from the related school to their school. Illusions are related to Enchantment, Necromancy to Divination, and Abjuration to Evocation. Thus, a Necromancer can only cast Necromancy and Divination spells along with Universal spells. Some spells get moved around too... all spells of the fire, cold, or electricity type that deal damage are now Evocation, while all spells with the force descriptor that are not already Evocation are now Abjuration.

However, Wizards all get the benefits of the UA variant substitutions and the PHB familiar substitutions without losing anything, in addition to gaining the Minor, Moderate, and Major Esoterica abilities of the Master Specialist class at levels 8, 11, and 14. So for example, a Necromancer looks like this:

Necromancer: Casts Wizard spells from the Necromancer, Divination, and Universal schools. Prepared one additional Necromancy spell per spell level per day. +2 Spellcraft to learn about Necromancy spells.
1. Familiar, Skeletal Minion, Scribe Scroll, Enhanced Undead, Cursed Glance (Int Mod/Day as immediate action spell like ability, enemy within 60 feet takes -2 to AC and saving throws start of your next turn. Will negates, save based on Wizard level + Int, spell level one half Wizard level. ), Spells (Wizard list: Necromancy, Universal, and Divination Only)

5. Undead Apotheosis (+2 Saves vs Sleep, Stun, Paralysis, Poison, Disease), Bonus Feat

7. Minor Esoterica (When you cast a Necromancy spell, undead allies within 60 feet get turn resistance and a bonus on saves equal to your Wizard level for a number of rounds equal to your Wizard level)

10. Undead Apotheosis (+4 Saves vs Ability Damage, Ability Drain, Energy Drain), Bonus Feat

11. Moderate Esoterica (When you cast a Necromancy spell, gain immunity to ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, and negative levels for spell level rounds)

14. Major Esoterica (3/day, when you cast a Necromancy spell, all allied undead within 60 feet gain fast healing 10 for 5 rounds)

15. Undead Apotheosis (+4 Saves vs Sleep, Stun, Paralysis, Poison, Disease), Bonus Feat

20. Undead Apotheosis (25% critical resistance like Light Fortification), Bonus Feat

Combined with some spell nerfing, the resulting class is a lot less flexible, and it actually has class abilities that makes PrCing out not such an automatic choice (especially since I also had PrCs never grant casting at level 1, so pure casters are always better casters than PrC'd ones).

Cleric: At first level, chose 5 domains, which must include all of your deity's domains (the rest must be thematically appropriate to your deity or cause, as judged by the DM). Domains that currently modify Turn Undead or Rebuke Undead in any way now grant those abilities instead of their normal domain power if you didn't already have them. You now spontaneously cast from your 5 domains with your normal spell slots and can prepare one spell per level from the standard Cleric list in what used to be your domain spell slot. At first level, you get the domain power of one of your domains. Every 5 Cleric levels (5, 10, 15, 20) you gain the domain power of another of your domains. Cloistered Clerics do not get a 6th domain, but rather must chose Knowledge as one of their domains and must take the Knowledge domain power at first level.

This means Clerics have a much smaller set of spells to chose from normally, though they do get one spell per day from the much wider list.

Druids: don't gain Wild Shape, and their animal companion is like a Ranger one. There's also a second class called the shapeshifter that's like a Druid without Animal Companions or shapeshifting, but gains a touch attack like the Dread Necromancer's Charnel Touch, except it is positive energy so it heals the living and harms undead.

Sorcerer: Max spell level cast is based on Intelligence. Bonus spells based on Wisdom. Gains the benefits of any one major bloodline (but without bloodline levels). Obviously other spell nerfs are going to be necessary to balance this out.

JaronK

[jedipilot24]

Wizards: All Wizards must be a specialist Wizard. Specialists can only cast spells from their chosen school, universal spells, and (if there is one), from the related school to their school. Illusions are related to Enchantment, Necromancy to Divination, and Abjuration to Evocation. Thus, a Necromancer can only cast Necromancy and Divination spells along with Universal spells. Some spells get moved around too... all spells of the fire, cold, or electricity type that deal damage are now Evocation, while all spells with the force descriptor that are not already Evocation are now Abjuration.

JaronK

And Conjuration is left with just the Summoning Spells, but I guess it needed to be nerfed. But I don't see how Conjuration would be 'related' to Transmutation, unless those two schools are being dumped entirely.

[prufock]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174628

Ahem...

Thanks, that's a great resource. I'll probably delve into that during my own project.

[thethird]

I guess that since transmutation and conjuration are already really powerful (and varied) schools they are kept separate.

[Amphetryon]

Have you looked at the Shugenja as a possible Tier 3 Cleric replacement?

[prufock]

I guess that since transmutation and conjuration are already really powerful (and varied) schools they are kept separate.

Absolutely. No need to boost them any more. Note that there may be "out-of-school" spells included on class lists if they fit thematically and aren't overpowered. Healer will be getting a bunch of abjuration spells, and warmage will get some abjuration, conjuration, and transmutation added.


Have you looked at the Shugenja as a possible Tier 3 Cleric replacement?
I looked at it. It's probably about right from a power perspective (between tier 2 and 3), but it has the elemental schtick that I don't really think clerics should have. Shugejas will remain their own class, at tier 3.

[JaronK]

And Conjuration is left with just the Summoning Spells, but I guess it needed to be nerfed. But I don't see how Conjuration would be 'related' to Transmutation, unless those two schools are being dumped entirely.

They're not related. Conjuration doesn't have a related school, nor does Transmutation. They're good enough already, even with Conjuration losing many blast spells and Mage Armor.

JaronK

[thethird]

The only thing that I would change to JaronK's overhaul of the wizard (which I really like). Is trying to not crowd all the class features at level 1.

Perhaps pushing the PHBII ACF to level two and maybe giving the familiar at level three.

[JaronK]

Yeah, possibly. It's still a rough draft.

JaronK

[prufock]

Any suggestions for the Artificer? I've considered just dropping the whole crafting items thing and having it be all about infusions, making them just sort of an item-based gish, but that takes away their main schtick. Crafting items is their thing. It's just such a variably powerful thing that I'm not sure how to scale it down.

1 - Remove their "counts as 2 caster levels higher" thing. If they want a higher caster level, they can always get it through feats (usually count just toward a specific school), items, spells, etc, just like any other caster.
2 - Decrease craft reserve? I don't like this idea too much - at least I wouldn't want to decrease it greatly.
3 - Get rid of retain essence/make it less useful. You'd get half the xp from an item, for instance.
4 - Metamagics... through items. Oh man I don't know. It's a cool and flavourful ability.
5 - Delay progression of crafting feats. You get them at the class level = caster level required, since you no longer count as class level +2 for caster level.
6. Forced choice. You no longer get ALL the crafting feats, you must make a decision. At 3rd level you select either Brew Potion or Craft Wondrous Item. At 5th it's either Arms and Armor or Wands. At 9th it's Craft Rod or Scepter. At 12th, either Staves or Rings. If they want more they have to burn their character level feats.
7 - As I said before, infusion progression matches the bard spell progression (ignoring level 0, getting level 1 infusions at class level 1).

These are just some ideas, anyway. Thoughts?

[Bakkan]

The thing that makes the artificer Tier 1 is not the crafting feats (anyone can get those, he just gets them cheaper), or the craft reserve (again, just makes his crafting cheaper), or the retain essence (again, cheaper), or his bonus to caster level (makes crafting faster), but his ability to replicate any spell in existence with a skill check. This is what makes the Artificer one of the Big 5. I would guess that if you stripped everything away from the artificer, forced him to take all 20 levels, and left him only that ability at 1st level, he might still be Tier 1. In order to bring him down to Tier 3 you need to limit him dramatically as you are doing with the other Tier 1s.

[prufock]

The thing that makes the artificer Tier 1 is not the crafting feats (anyone can get those, he just gets them cheaper), or the craft reserve (again, just makes his crafting cheaper), or the retain essence (again, cheaper), or his bonus to caster level (makes crafting faster), but his ability to replicate any spell in existence with a skill check. This is what makes the Artificer one of the Big 5. I would guess that if you stripped everything away from the artificer, forced him to take all 20 levels, and left him only that ability at 1st level, he might still be Tier 1. In order to bring him down to Tier 3 you need to limit him dramatically as you are doing with the other Tier 1s.

Yeah, that's a very good point. He's powerful because he can make any magic item, basically. It takes him time, money, and XP/reserve to do it, but he has basically unlimited flexibility given enough of those resources. OK, so some way of limiting either:
- what items he can create or
- what spells he can access to create them or
- the usefulness of UMD checks to create them

To start, he should at least be able to create items requiring a spell for which his infusions can substitute - IE Fox's Cunning infusion = Fox's Cunning spell - for creating items

[rockdeworld]

Re: limiting the artificer: make it an NPC-only class, and let wizards learn spells from it. Problem solved, world economy saved.

Of course, if you actually want a character with item creation as its main class feature, you could simply do the same thing as you are with the wizard, namely (for fluff): each artificer focuses on a specific branch of magic with which to create items (like a PhD student or doctor), and can only create items with spells from that school as a prerequisite.

[prufock]

Re: limiting the artificer: make it an NPC-only class
Noooooooooo! /Darth Vader
It really should remain a PC class, even if just for personal bias reasons.


Of course, if you actually want a character with item creation as its main class feature, you could simply do the same thing as you are with the wizard, namely (for fluff): each artificer focuses on a specific branch of magic with which to create items (like a PhD student or doctor), and can only create items with spells from that school as a prerequisite.

This is an interesting idea. I was also considering allowing them to pick one (?) spell per level that they could emulate, restricting them to one UMD check for crafting items per level, or making the UMD check more difficult.