Changes needed to fix the Tiers without banning/nerfing?

[Belial_the_Leveler]

OK, now that I understand a bit more the Tier system and how it isn't only about power, let's discuss how it can be fixed;



Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing
By level 20, a spellcaster has about 50 spell slots and as many spells known whereas a noncaster has what, a half-dozen abilities? A dozen? Given the disparity in number of abilities, it is obvious why a spellcaster could do "everything".
Solution: Give noncasters a higher number of higher-level abilities, especially abilities that spells can't replicate. If all a Rogue does with his Hide skill is the standard check, of course the greater invisibility spell will be better. But if the rogue has Hide in Plain Sight and a "Hit-and-Run" ability to strike from stealth and return to it by, say, level 8 then he's about on-par with Greater Invisibility without expending spell slots. And if he gets further improvements that aren't defeated by divinations like illusion magic is then by lvl 20 he's far better at his specialty than the wizard could be.
Ditto for the Fighter; if all he does is hit with a big stick of course the CoDzilla will overmatch him given enough buffs. But if he beats things with a stick, can control the flow of combat, actively defend/block others, analyze opponents and strategically improvise then he could not only outfight the CoDzilla in pure combat but also offer advantages spells can't replicate.



Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player.
Well, duh. A PC is a CR equal to his level on average. A party of 4 PCs facing themselves are facing an even fight - and yet 4x CR X means CR X+4, which the system mistakenly labels as "overwhelming". Now, take that CR=level PC and optimize him enough to make him significantly stronger. What do you think happens when he does face monsters who are already mistakenly labeled as higher CR?
Solution: Level-appropriate fight means 20% resources lost. If the PCs are not losing that many resouces to win, then either reduce rewards (XP and treasure) or increase encounter difficulty. As a rule of thumb, for every 4 original CR, reduce the CR by 1 for average optimization. I.e. a Balor is an appropriate encounter for a party of lvl 15 PCs if they are optimized. For example, the cleric and wizard between them would have eight 8th lvl spells, ten 7th lvl spells and twelve 6th level spells at that level. 20-25% resources lost would be 2 spells of 8th lvl, 2-3 spells of 7th lvl and 3 spells of 6th lvl used up to beat the Balor.


Has world changing powers at high levels.
This is less an innate part of the spellcasters than it is a problem with how splatbooks are written and how Polymorph/Wildshape is handled. A caster's power will be far less world-changing if he could not Persist his buffs, could not avoid/reduce the cost of metamagic, could not get spells that gave outright immunity to a very large number of dangers (energy immunity, veil of undeath, sheltered vitality, monstrous regeneration) or copy the abilities of monsters for his use (polymorph/shapechange/wildshape).
Remove the above 4 problems and world-changing power will not be so easily acheived.
Solution: Pathfinder. Shape-changing magic has actually been effectively fixed there, metamagic is sane, there is no persistent spell, and there are no outright "immunity" spells offering blanket protection.
Just remember that abusing calling spells is actually abusing existing creatures that can hold a grudge and you're set.

[Gwendol]

What needs to be fixed again?

The tiers are simply a way to describe versatility/power of classes in D&D. That's all. The tier system is what it is, it doesn't need fixing.

[Madeiner]

OK, now that I understand a bit more the Tier system and how it isn't only about power, let's discuss how it can be fixed;



By level 20, a spellcaster has about 50 spell slots and as many spells known whereas a noncaster has what, a half-dozen abilities? A dozen? Given the disparity in number of abilities, it is obvious why a spellcaster could do "everything".
Solution: Give noncasters a higher number of higher-level abilities, especially abilities that spells can't replicate. If all a Rogue does with his Hide skill is the standard check, of course the greater invisibility spell will be better. But if the rogue has Hide in Plain Sight and a "Hit-and-Run" ability to strike from stealth and return to it by, say, level 8 then he's about on-par with Greater Invisibility without expending spell slots. And if he gets further improvements that aren't defeated by divinations like illusion magic is then by lvl 20 he's far better at his specialty than the wizard could be.
Ditto for the Fighter; if all he does is hit with a big stick of course the CoDzilla will overmatch him given enough buffs. But if he beats things with a stick, can control the flow of combat, actively defend/block others, analyze opponents and strategically improvise then he could not only outfight the CoDzilla in pure combat but also offer advantages spells can't replicate.



I agree with you completely, and i think thats the direction the game should take. I think a spell should never render a skill obsolete, and should never be better than someone specialized in that very area.
Knock for example should only work on magical locks, or mundane locks under a certain DC. By contrast, a rogue should be able to do "something else" with his open lock ability.
Even better, make spells like knock be channeled spells that improve the chances of someone lockpicking the crate. You channel the spell and the lockpicker gets a +10 bonus to his skills. This way a mage can either help a rogue open very hard locks, or non-rogue open average locks. He can't do everything by himself.

However, 4ed did just that and failed miserably.
Its something to take into consideration

[navar100]

What needs to be fixed again?

The tiers are simply a way to describe versatility/power of classes in D&D. That's all. The tier system is what it is, it doesn't need fixing.

Exactly! You're not playing wrong playing a class of Tier X that someone else hates with a passion even in the same game as another player of Tier Y someone on this Forum thinks is a crime against humanity to have the two together.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

I think a spell should never render a skill obsolete, and should never be better than someone specialized in that very area.
Not exactly. I think that spellcasters should have spells that, for an expenditure of spell slots, can do more than a basic skill could; that's their way of doing utility things after all.
In contrast, a class specialized in a skill should have abilities that make that skill a lot better and can do more than a basic skill could - except without spell slot expenditure and the vulnerability to divinations.
This brings to the fore the different abilities and playstyle of every class without losing balance.


Knock for example should only work on magical locks, or mundane locks under a certain DC.
Naah. A seriously locked door that has, say, three bolts needing keys, two combination locks, two padlocks and three barring mechanisms with hidden triggers requires *counts* no less than five Knock spells to open, even if each individual lock is of merely simple quality. And if it is specially constructed (i.e. in 3 separate layers magnetically held together rather than a single object) it can also take more than one Disintegrate to blast through.
Whereas the Rogue can open it without expending all his 2nd level slots or 3 of his 6th level slots - and a strong fighter or barbarian can batter it down with his big stick if the party doesn't mind the noise.

Similarly, when you put an artifact in a vault, buy a couple hundred cheap, lead-lined chests. Just as with searching a modern warehouse, you know in which chest you left the artifact while intruders won't. Any enemy wizards will not have nearly enough spell slots to magically check, unlock or break all of them whereas the rogue will (eventually) manage to search everything.



Ditto with traps. The competent trapmaker that makes magic traps will lead-line them so the wizard won't automatically find them with detect magic and similar spells and will make sure to use his own (persumably high) survival, hide, knowledge (architecture/dungeoneering) and disguise skills to conceal the trap (and take 20 in the process) instead of relying on the trap's original spot DC. Thus only a rogue of comparable skill could actually find it.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

What needs to be fixed again?

The tiers are simply a way to describe versatility/power of classes in D&D. That's all. The tier system is what it is, it doesn't need fixing.


I never said "fix the tier system". I said to fix the tiers i.e. the balance between classes that currently are in different tiers. (but that was too long as a thread title).

[Jeff the Green]

Naah. A seriously locked door that has, say, three bolts needing keys, two combination locks, two padlocks and three barring mechanisms with hidden triggers requires *counts* no less than five Knock spells to open, even if each individual lock is of merely simple quality.

Nope. Check the spell again: it unlocks one door, not one lock, regardless of how many locks it has on it.

More on-topic, I don't think it is possible to do what you want to. We're talking about comparing a class whose class features consist of 10 feats from a lackluster list to a class that can literally summon up a demon, hold it in a cage, and then mindrape it into worshiping its captor. Irreversibly. Utterly. Totally.

[stack]

Well, you have to do away with the idea that a character can remain mundane AND competitive. After level 6 your character SHOULD be doing impossible things.

Legend (http://www.ruleofcool.com/)levels the playing field. Some argue that the caster are underpowered.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Nope. Check the spell again: it unlocks one door, not one lock, regardless of how many locks it has on it.

Check the spell more carefully;

Each spell can undo as many as two means of preventing egress.
Thus if a door or chest has, say, 10 means of preventing egress you'd need 5 different Knock spells. And because it targets the door, not each individual lock on the door, you can't chain it to affect everything.


More on-topic, I don't think it is possible to do what you want to. We're talking about comparing a class whose class features consist of 10 feats from a lackluster list
And that's the problem with the martial classes. My Champion (fix for martial characters) has a lot more class features than that. Including using her great leadership ability to convince NPCs to follow her in exchange for rewards, just like wizards can call and bind creatures to their service.


to a class that can literally summon up a demon, hold it in a cage, and then mindrape it into worshiping its captor. Irreversibly. Utterly. Totally.
Nope. First, by the time you can cast Mindrape, demons have unholy aura and laugh off your control attempts. Secondly, a calling diagram is disrupted if anything crosses it. Casting a spell through it is a bad idea unless you're 100% sure it succeeds the first time.
Third, Mindrape doesn't exist in Pathfinder. It also won't exist in Pathfinder because, being obviously superior to the same-level Dominate Monster, it should be a higher-level spell, and there are no spells higher than 9th level.

Some game designers actually check spell balance. Why, pathfinder doesn't even have Orb spells or Assay SR so casters can ignore the SR of monsters with 4th level spells.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I see where you are going with this, Belial. However, I think some judicious pruning of spell list is also going to be required.

Legend managed this quite wonderfully. The melee classes Got Nice Things, the casters got more... focused... in their spell list. Certain spells (like polycheese) got left on the editing floor, others were severely nerfed.

The overall power level rose, but casters were no longer the end-all be-all. In fact, in an early version, the monk actually topped out the damage per round charts, and had to get pulled back a notch. Too many attacks, too much bonus damage per attack, too many ways of making sure the attacks landed.

The problem is... magic solves everything. There's A Spell For That (tm). With such a versatile bag of tricks, you can Felix your way through anything. That has to be at least toned down in order for other classes to not be overshadowed. Mind you, trimming and pruning the spell list itself is probably a good way to tone down the power level of magic to be comparable, but it will need to happen.

[Soranar]

You could just play E6

no seriously, just about every class is balanced in E6, even a truenamer

being a squishy spellcaster is actually a concern in E6

Cleric are far from being the powerhouse they're used to be, same goes for the druid

Tanks are actually useful and getting that second iterative from BAB 6 makes you a far better warrior then when you get that 4th iterative when you reach level 16 in uncapped games

Skillmonkeys are necessary, factotums never gain the ability to get more standard actions

Most of the problematic spells are just not available

Honestly, ever since my group has started playing E6 we've enjoyed 3.5 a lot more

[Belial_the_Leveler]

he problem is... magic solves everything. There's A Spell For That (tm).
I am fairly sure I gave my martial class abilities that can't be replicated by spells or easily countered. So spellcasters that meet such as opponents will actually have to think tactically rather than blast away.



The same thing can be done with the Rogue. A wizard for example has a bazillion detection spells to see the rogue coming - but what if there's a Rogue talent that makes such detection harder so the wizard can't entirely rely on his divinations to spot them? Wizards can similarly do stealth by invisibility but what if there's a Rogue talent called "Hear the Unseen" that makes hearing an accurate sense for the Rogue, negating or at least limiting Invisibility as a method for Stealth and/or enabling him to tell what's a mirror image (it isn't breathing!) or an illusory wall (hey, I can hear the wind through it!). Thus the Rogue becomes the master of subterfuge rather than the wizard.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Step 1 towards balance, methinks, is to remove prepared casters. Nope, zip, gone. Doing so gets rid of a lot of the "there's a spell for that" problems, making it much more difficult for one caster to solve every problem he runs across.

Step 2 is to cut the most hands-down broken spells. Import polymorph stuff from Pathfinder, **** the Celerity line, and so on. Make everything that targets another creature require SR.

Step 3 is to power up the boring mundane classes. Give them options, out-of-combat abilities, and the ability to do relevant damage without cheese.

Step 4 is to limit rocket tag. Do something about conditions to make them less binary*, stop metamagic stacking cheese, limit power attack stacking, an so on.


*We tried to do something like thisin G&G (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=257689)

[wayfare]

Bans and nerfs are not bad things. You dont need them, if your players decide not to be jerks, you have a a trippy realities spanning campaign where everybody is a caster, but they help for the type of heroic fantasy D&d is trying to replicate.

Look at the T3 casters. They still have 9th level spells, but they are T3 because they have limited spell lists. A Beguiler player very well next to a Swordsage, and won't totally eclipse a Barbarian or Ranger.

Wizards, Clerics, and Druids derive the bulk of their power from the fact that they can cast ANYTHING. An average non-caster, non ToB character has, maximum 25 class abilities and 10 feats. A Wizard gets 50 unique effects, plus metamagic, plus his 10 feats.

Options are a huge reason why these classes are so powerful. The devs realized this, which is why they created the thematic casters. If they had done a full sweep, they would have actually made a game where casters and non casters could play together.

For the record, there is a T4 full caster (maybe 2 -- the healer is a full caster, right?). Its T4 because it has a crummy skill list and casts evocation spells. Evocation alone is so non versatile that it makes a full caster drop 3 tiers.

Legend does the stuff you are talking about well, but its not super hard to make T3 casters in 3.5. You just have to limit what they have access to.

Also, i think its worth noting that the higher tier melee characters are generalists to some degree. Duskblade is a fighter/mage. Scout is a monk/rogue. The ToB classes have flexibility in the abilities they pick.

Bottom Line: more flexibility for combat characters and less from casters can easily balance the game. Its invol;ved, and requires that you make a few classes, but it can be done (except with alteration and conjuration. that stuff needs to be full-on ritual magic to be balanced)

[stack]

Always thought they should have gone all the way with making the specialist casters, covering all the schools. Though as noted above, focusing on evocation does not make a versatile character. The opposite would be the pathfinder summoner, which is tier 2 because of the power of conjuration (especially summoning/calling). A focused transmuter would likely have similar issues, though using the PF polymorph spells would curb that somewhat. Probably be a solid support caster. Why didn't they make one?

The Healer is a full caster with prepared slots off a tiny list. It begs to be spontaneous and SAD.

[Eldan]

This again?
Well. First, you rewrite 3/4 of the spell list. Then you give the low tiers meaningful class features. Done.

[Person_Man]

I've been gaming a long time, and it's been my observation that pretty much every gamer eventually goes through this phase where they want to "fix" everything through a set of elaborate house rules. It's a fun distraction, and Odin knows I spend way too much time arguing about different rules and homebrewing whatever strikes my fancy that week.

But if you get too deep into rewriting the basic rules or classes, it usually ends up collapsing in on itself due to the ever accumulating burden of unintended consequences, and/or pissing off players (ie, your friends) who liked things the way they were before. (Unless you take the time and effort to rewrite literally everything, and then you get 3.5 Reborn, Legend, Iron Kingdoms, Pathfinder, etc, which are each awesome in their own different way, though YMMV).

So to address this common concern, my suggestion is to simply have all of your players create their characters together, at the same table at the same time. Have everyone talk about their character's personality and the types of things they're good at doing. Try to respect each others niches, and/or design your characters so that their abilities complement each other. Ask the Tier 1-2 builds to avoid taking or abusing game breaking spells. (Polymorph-ing into a bird to spy on an enemy is fine, Polymorph-ing into a crazy monster to win every combat by yourself is a jerk move). Give the lower Tier players more and/or cooler treasure that gives them additional options. Remind everyone that it's a cooperative game, and not a competition. And everything will probably turn out fine, without having to "fix" anything.

[JoshuaZ]

Solution: Give noncasters a higher number of higher-level abilities, especially abilities that spells can't replicate. If all a Rogue does with his Hide skill is the standard check, of course the greater invisibility spell will be better. But if the rogue has Hide in Plain Sight and a "Hit-and-Run" ability to strike from stealth and return to it by, say, level 8 then he's about on-par with Greater Invisibility without expending spell slots. And if he gets further improvements that aren't defeated by divinations like illusion magic is then by lvl 20 he's far better at his specialty than the wizard could be.
Ditto for the Fighter; if all he does is hit with a big stick of course the CoDzilla will overmatch him given enough buffs. But if he beats things with a stick, can control the flow of combat, actively defend/block others, analyze opponents and strategically improvise then he could not only outfight the CoDzilla in pure combat but also offer advantages spells can't replicate.


So, a large part of this is what Tome of Battle tried to do, mostly pretty effectively.



This is less an innate part of the spellcasters than it is a problem with how splatbooks are written and how Polymorph/Wildshape is handled. A caster's power will be far less world-changing if he could not Persist his buffs, could not avoid/reduce the cost of metamagic, could not get spells that gave outright immunity to a very large number of dangers (energy immunity, veil of undeath, sheltered vitality, monstrous regeneration) or copy the abilities of monsters for his use (polymorph/shapechange/wildshape).
Remove the above 4 problems and world-changing power will not be so easily acheived.
Solution: Pathfinder. Shape-changing magic has actually been effectively fixed there, metamagic is sane, there is no persistent spell, and there are no outright "immunity" spells offering blanket protection.
Just remember that abusing calling spells is actually abusing existing creatures that can hold a grudge and you're set.

This handles some but not nearly all of what makes T1, T1 or even what makes T2, T2. This ignores summon abuse, this ignores diplomancy, this ignores flight, this ignores teleportation, this ignores monkeying with the action economy, this ignores making your own private demiplanes, etc. You are only fixing here a small fraction of the issues.

If you really are running into balance issues, just say no to any T1 or T2 classes. That's a simple fix that solves most of these issues.