Tiers?

[Azif13]

I've seen in this forums that classes in DnD and PF are classifeid in tiers. As I'm familiarized with this term through Pokemon and MtG I wanted to know which class belongs to each tier, but I haven't found any thread with the information and the reasons that explain why every class is assigned to a particular tier. Can someone explain them to me or link me a thread or web where it is explained? Thanks.

[Sloshman997]

Here's the site I found tiers on http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1002.0

It's just used to represent the power level of base classes and what vaguely they are capable of.

[Azif13]

Thank you very much!

[Eldan]

It's also here on GitP now, since gameologists had a few forum problems. The inventor of the tier system is a playgrounder.

It's a system that groups characters on a scale of power and versatility. At the top are classes that have an answer to almost any imaginable problem, enormous power and are often better at most things than even specalists.
In the middle are classes that are competent at solving some problems, and not quite useless when encountering other things.
At the very bottom are those classes that can't really do anything.

[Deffers]

And below THAT is Truenamer, so low it's really outside the tier system according to some. With CRAZY optimization you can get it into the Tier system.

[Greenish]

And below THAT is Truenamer, so low it's really outside the tier system according to some. With CRAZY optimization you can get it into the Tier system.Well, Truenamer is pretty mediocre tier 5, and then it gets Gate. Kinda like Healer, actually.

[Eldariel]

And below THAT is Truenamer, so low it's really outside the tier system according to some. With CRAZY optimization you can get it into the Tier system.

This isn't right. Truenamer isn't bad power-wise (probably in the Tier III range; tho it gets bonkers abilities near level 20); it's just that the base checks you need to do to make it work are so high that it requires serious optimization to make it do anything at all. It's certainly better than Commoner on every relevant metric, except Chicken Infested.

[eggynack]

This isn't right. Truenamer isn't bad power-wise (probably in the Tier III range; tho it gets bonkers abilities near level 20); it's just that the base checks you need to do to make it work are so high that it requires serious optimization to make it do anything at all. It's certainly better than Commoner on every relevant metric, except Chicken Infested.
My usual assessment of truenamer power puts it around tier IV if they're able to use their abilities with any consistency. I don't think any powers they have before 20 put them any more powerful or versatile than a warlock. Also, they're less consistent, even when they're somewhat consistent. Warlocks get actually infinite stuff, which gets some utility from spamming.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Personally I think that the Truenamer is outside the system because it requires serious optimization skills to be usable, while the system assumes equal system mastery between players, be it high or low .

[Axinian]

Looking at most of the utterances, even if the truenamer worked it would still be low tier. Most of the abilities really just dont do anything until you get gate

[Komatik]

I've seen in this forums that classes in DnD and PF are classifeid in tiers. As I'm familiarized with this term through Pokemon and MtG I wanted to know which class belongs to each tier, but I haven't found any thread with the information and the reasons that explain why every class is assigned to a particular tier. Can someone explain them to me or link me a thread or web where it is explained? Thanks.

It's good to note that the Tier system is a bit different from Magic's, and vastly different from Pokemon. In Pokemon, the Tiers are, to my knowledge, formed largely based on usage, not things like raw power (though the two obviously correlate).

Similarily, in Magic the tiers are largely based on a deck's ability to win in a certain metagame. Some other classifications like many forums' Decks to Beat sections accentuate that with a heavy emphasis on popularity. A strong deck may be tier 1, but it's not necessarily part of the gauntlet unless it's heavily played.

The D&D tiers largely measure character classes' and characters' potential for solving problems in the environment and in encounters the DM places in the players' way. Ability to kill a representative of another class is wholly irrelevant. What matters is the class' access to tools that help solve different problems, the raw power of those tools, and the ability of a single character to access them.

As an example, a Warblade has very good tools for combat, and decent ones outside it, but nothing truly absurd to the point you have to start inventing specifically contrived challenges for the Warblade. This is basically the definition of Tier 3.

Wizards and Sorcerers, Tier 1 and 2 respectively, have access to the same broad toolset that can solve anything and is just plain absurd in power. The spell list breaks not-specifically-planned campaigns asunder, obsoletes other party members handily (at higher levels even Tier 3 ones) and absolutely necessitates specifically-contrived challenges if played competently and without pulling punches. Same raw power, but they're in different tiers because prepared casters theoretically have access to the entire spell list, while any one Sorcerer has flexibility closer to that of a tier 3 character or so (partly due to generally more generalized spell selection) but his power is still way ahead.

/convolutedsentences

[Urpriest]

Another point is that the tier system is a rating of classes, not characters. It's about the sort of resources your class gives you, any extra resources (wealth, UMD) are irrelevant.

[Azif13]

It's good to note that the Tier system is a bit different from Magic's, and vastly different from Pokemon. In Pokemon, the Tiers are, to my knowledge, formed largely based on usage, not things like raw power (though the two obviously correlate).

Similarily, in Magic the tiers are largely based on a deck's ability to win in a certain metagame. Some other classifications like many forums' Decks to Beat sections accentuate that with a heavy emphasis on popularity. A strong deck may be tier 1, but it's not necessarily part of the gauntlet unless it's heavily played.

The D&D tiers largely measure character classes' and characters' potential for solving problems in the environment and in encounters the DM places in the players' way. Ability to kill a representative of another class is wholly irrelevant. What matters is the class' access to tools that help solve different problems, the raw power of those tools, and the ability of a single character to access them.

As an example, a Warblade has very good tools for combat, and decent ones outside it, but nothing truly absurd to the point you have to start inventing specifically contrived challenges for the Warblade. This is basically the definition of Tier 3.

Wizards and Sorcerers, Tier 1 and 2 respectively, have access to the same broad toolset that can solve anything and is just plain absurd in power. The spell list breaks not-specifically-planned campaigns asunder, obsoletes other party members handily (at higher levels even Tier 3 ones) and absolutely necessitates specifically-contrived challenges if played competently and without pulling punches. Same raw power, but they're in different tiers because prepared casters theoretically have access to the entire spell list, while any one Sorcerer has flexibility closer to that of a tier 3 character or so (partly due to generally more generalized spell selection) but his power is still way ahead.

/convolutedsentences

I understand that, I was simply saying that I was familiarized with the term :smallsmile:

[Karnith]

Additionally, if you're looking for the explanations as to why certain classes are placed in a particular tier, you would do well to consult the Why Each Class Is In Its Tier (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269440) thread.

[Azif13]

wow thanks, very useful link

[JaronK]

For the record, the reason the Truenamer is not in the system because the power level of the class changes so dramatically depending on optimization. It simply makes it hard to place. At high optimization it's roughly Tier 4 (kind of like an optimized Warlock). At low optimization it's about Tier 6 (about like a Commoner, really).

JaronK

[Mighty_Chicken]

JaronK, did you (or anyone else) ever revised the tier system to Pathfinder?

[Lans]

My usual assessment of truenamer power puts it around tier IV if they're able to use their abilities with any consistency. I don't think any powers they have before 20 put them any more powerful or versatile than a warlock. Also, they're less consistent, even when they're somewhat consistent. Warlocks get actually infinite stuff, which gets some utility from spamming.
They get a few abilities that I think are stronger than the warlocks at the level obtained. 1st level the no save immobilization, as well as the healing are stronger than most of the warlocks stuff at that level. The healing only for 1 level though, as the amount healable goes down, as the amount of healing needed goes up at level 2 f

Reusable potion trick
Solid Fog at 8th- which I think is about on par with the warlocks tentacles that he gains at 11th, getting a solid ability the same level a sorcerer or beguiler would get the same

[JaronK]

JaronK, did you (or anyone else) ever revised the tier system to Pathfinder?

I never did, as I never got into Pathfinder. Most people seem to think the tiers didn't really change much there though, for what that's worth.

JaronK

[TuggyNE]

Ability to kill a representative of another class is wholly irrelevant.

Quoted for truth, although sadly this is usually the one aspect of the tier system most easily forgotten.

[sonofzeal]

Another thing about Truenamers is that they generally follow the opposite patterns as most other "weak" classes. They're weakest in low-level, low-op, low-magic campaigns... and get progressively more powerful compared to their peers with higher levels, with higher ambient optimization, and in high-magic settings, precisely the circumstances when most low-tier classes start dropping off the radar completely. It's a very strange dynamic.

[Renen]

Can someone explain why truenamers get stronger? (dont wanna make a thread just for that)
What was it about gate that makes em strong?
What about high levels that makes em strong?
Im just looking for a short-ih explanation on why they suck and how how/why they get stronger.

[eggynack]

Can someone explain why truenamers get stronger? (dont wanna make a thread just for that)
What was it about gate that makes em strong?
What about high levels that makes em strong?
Im just looking for a short-ih explanation on why they suck and how how/why they get stronger.
Well, before level 20, if all of their abilities worked warlock style without the need for skill checks, they'd probably top out somewhere between tier 3 and 4. Their abilities just aren't that powerful at the levels they get them. At level 20 they get free gate, and gate is one of the most powerful spells in the game, so they beat just about everything. Thus, without the truenaming skill mechanic, they'd be a reasonably balanced class until level 20.

But they do have that mechanic. The skill checks required to use the truenamer's abilities are so high that without optimization it's almost impossible. You need to delve through a few obscure books, and get dm approval for weird stuff, and pour all of your resources into pumping a single stat, or else you might as well be a commoner with cool flavor. Thus, at normal optimization levels the truenamer is tier 6, and at high optimization levels they're tier 4. It's a difference based in optimization that doesn't really occur in any other cases, so the class doesn't fit on the list. For more specific information Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214115) is the truenamer handbook. It's neat.

[Renen]

Could you tell my why Gate is so OP?

[Lonely Tylenol]

Can someone explain why truenamers get stronger? (dont wanna make a thread just for that)
What was it about gate that makes em strong?
What about high levels that makes em strong?
Im just looking for a short-ih explanation on why they suck and how how/why they get stronger.

In short: the success of the Truenamer's utterances revolves around beating a skill check which actually scales faster than your ability to put ranks into it (if I recall, the DC is 15 + 2*HD). What this means is that, say, if you level up from 4 to 5, you gain 1 rank in the skill, increasing your bonus from, say, +14 to +15 (8 ranks, +4 INT bonus, +3 Skill Focus)... But, since you now have one more Hit Dice, the Truenaming DC to affect you (and other creatures of your level) with utterances increases from 23 to 25. Without scaling resources appropriately, you just became 5% less likely to successfully affect yourself (and others of your level) with your utterances... And this is BEFORE the Law of Resistance is even brought to light.

Now, if you are a Truenamer in a low-op, low-magic game, chances are you are going to have bonuses from ranks, a high INT score, and maybe Skill Focus, with no other real support coming in until the highest of levels. With this in mind, it is entirely impossible for you to not even be able to affect yourself with your utterances, much less level-appropriate creatures (which have more HD than you) by level 13, even on a natural 20 with the skill check, which means that you literally cannot use your class features (except on creatures much, much weaker than you).

In a higher-op game, however, Truenaming is just another skill--and, like any other skill, it can be optimized to absurd extents. Item Familiars alone can completely negate the problem of Truenaming DC scaling, and competence bonus items basically equate to free uses of the abilities of a Truenamer past a certain point. It's possible, at a certain optimization threshold, to pass every Truenaming check you'll need to make on a natural 1, which means you can use your abilities without any risk of failure whatsoever. At that point, you are basically a Warlock--you have a set of abilities from a list that you can use at-will, at least within a normal adventuring day--and this should compare the actual power of those abilities with the Warlock's invocations to intuit the power level of the class.

Guess that wasn't so short after all.

[Renen]

Great explanation thanks.

[Eldariel]

Could you tell my why Gate is so OP?

The "immediate servitude"-clause enables calling a creature with HD equal to twice your level (or more with caster level boosters) and controlling it (so a level 20 caster could call e.g. Dream Larva (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm#dreamLarva)...or a Titan and command it to Gate in more for example). That's completely and utterly beyond ridiculous. No checks, no chance of failure, no cast time, nothing; you just get a free creature potentially way stronger than you to serve you for a couple of minutes.

Basically, no CR appropriate encounter (other than enemy who can also use Gate) can stand up to a single casting of Gate. And that's without going to the potential of gating something you can't control and just teleporting away while whatever eldritch horror destroys whatever you needed destroyed. But make no mistake, the most broken part in the spell is the ability to control something potentially twice as strong as you with no check. Controlling with no check is one huge problem and controlling something twice as strong as you is another, and the spell has both.

[The Trickster]

I never did, as I never got into Pathfinder. Most people seem to think the tiers didn't really change much there though, for what that's worth.

JaronK

Pretty much. However, in my humble opinion, I think the tiers are a little closer together in PF compared to 3.5. They nerf druids a bit, changed wizard spells a bit, and made turning into a healing...aura...thing. It's not as good. They also buffed monks, fighters and paladins a bit.

So yeah, tiers are basically the same, just closer together a bit. My 2 cents.

[Gavinfoxx]

Paladin improved a Tier in pathfinder, and most of the completely new classes are around Tier 2-3. Some folk did some Tiers in Pathfinder; the threads are all over the place. Only pay attention to the ones that are on the six point scale, though.

[sonofzeal]

Can someone explain why truenamers get stronger? (dont wanna make a thread just for that)
What was it about gate that makes em strong?
What about high levels that makes em strong?
Im just looking for a short-ih explanation on why they suck and how how/why they get stronger.
In addition to what others have said....

....it's not just that high-op lets Truenamers do their thing better, it's that what they do is simply more valuable there. For example, some of their utterances do unresistable damage that bypasses all defences - a curiosity in a low-op game, but a potential lifesaver in a high-op game. In general, offensive utterances are difficult to use because of the DCs, but if you can hit those then just about nothing they can do will block it. In games where enemies often have cheesed-out defences, that makes Truenamers who can hit their checks something to be feared. At least moreso than they are in low-op games.

[Alienist]

Artificer is also a class based around a skill, and so pretty much everything that people were complaining about with Truenamer also applies to Artificer.

It's not exactly the same though, for instance the price of failure for an Artificer is much steeper.

Failure for a Truenamer doesn't have any penalties. Let's say the DC is 25, if you have +25 that is eleven guaranteed* uses of each and every 'spell'.

*After 10 uses of that spell you'll need a 20 on your roll to succeed, but you can try as much as you want.

If you can get an additional +2, all your spells can be used one additional time per day.

If you took a Truenamer in E6 for instance, he could heal a couple of thousand hit points every day.

I rate a Truenamer about as high as a Bard (tier 3) they've both got some mediocre party buffs. Artificer has some neat tricks that can get it into tier 3 too (normally people rate it tier 1, because of magic item creation, but if access to magic items makes you tier 1, then any class with access to Magic Mart is also tier 1, which is clearly nonsense).

[JaronK]

Artificers can make their own skill boosting items. That alone is huge. They also don't have to hit NEARLY as high skill checks. Plus, the things they can do with those checks are far and away better than what Truenamers can even dream of.

There's really no comparison.

JaronK

[ArcturusV]

I always find these tier discussions interesting. More so because sometimes something will come along on the board that reminds me of it.

Like today when someone asked me what Tier my class was, so they could determine who was the "Main Hero" in a game and who was going to be the sidekick out of the two of us.

Granted, pretty sure he was. But I had no idea what the tier of my class (Vampire Spawn class from Libris Mortis) actually would be other than a rough guess of tier 5, maybe 4. But clearly behind the Kobold Sorcerer. Maybe equatable to a pure Fighter, but hard to peg out due to weirdness like being behind on Hit Dice/Skill Points, but getting a crapton of Stat Bonuses and odd powers.

[Xiander]

Pretty much. However, in my humble opinion, I think the tiers are a little closer together in PF compared to 3.5. They nerf druids a bit, changed wizard spells a bit, and made turning into a healing...aura...thing. It's not as good. They also buffed monks, fighters and paladins a bit.

So yeah, tiers are basically the same, just closer together a bit. My 2 cents.

An other thing that equals it out a little is the change to the skill system and the favored class system.

This means that even a fighter can be useful out of combat by taking useful skills, without spending a ton of skill points to take cross class skills.

Granted it is not earth shaking, but it does provide more possible utility for classes which rely on skills to be useful out of combat.

[sonofzeal]

I rate a Truenamer about as high as a Bard (tier 3) they've both got some mediocre party buffs.
...except Truenamer buffs are {a} almost invariably 5-round or less, and {b} invariably single-target - to the point where if you use one on another ally, the first use is dismissed.

I don't think that qualifies as "party buffs". =P

[Wings of Peace]

I always find these tier discussions interesting. More so because sometimes something will come along on the board that reminds me of it.

Like today when someone asked me what Tier my class was, so they could determine who was the "Main Hero" in a game and who was going to be the sidekick out of the two of us.

Granted, pretty sure he was. But I had no idea what the tier of my class (Vampire Spawn class from Libris Mortis) actually would be other than a rough guess of tier 5, maybe 4. But clearly behind the Kobold Sorcerer. Maybe equatable to a pure Fighter, but hard to peg out due to weirdness like being behind on Hit Dice/Skill Points, but getting a crapton of Stat Bonuses and odd powers.

Whoever asked you that question has a weird sense of how storylines should be generated but they also don't sound like they fully understand how the tier system works.

The tier system is not a measure of raw power, it's a measure of problem solving power/versility. The reason I think people have trouble seeing the difference is because in a system like D&D 3.5 versatility will very often be almost identical to power. The tier system is not a measure of power because what's powerful is relative to what needs accomplishing, the primary assumption the tier system makes is that each class is being optimized at an equal level (a line which is incredibly hard/impossible to define precisely but important none the less).

So a better question would have been if that person asked you how well you knew the system and if you'd be comfortable playing at X skill level to keep in line with the other players (assuming they weren't at the same level or if the campaign wasn't being designed for that level of play).

[Alienist]

...except Truenamer buffs are {a} almost invariably 5-round or less, and {b} invariably single-target - to the point where if you use one on another ally, the first use is dismissed.

I don't think that qualifies as "party buffs". =P

But you do know what mediocre means right?

[ArcturusV]

Whoever asked you that question has a weird sense of how storylines should be generated but they also don't sound like they fully understand how the tier system works.

The tier system is not a measure of raw power, it's a measure of problem solving power/versility. The reason I think people have trouble seeing the difference is because in a system like D&D 3.5 versatility will very often be almost identical to power. The tier system is not a measure of power because what's powerful is relative to what needs accomplishing, the primary assumption the tier system makes is that each class is being optimized at an equal level (a line which is incredibly hard/impossible to define precisely but important none the less).

So a better question would have been if that person asked you how well you knew the system and if you'd be comfortable playing at X skill level to keep in line with the other players (assuming they weren't at the same level or if the campaign wasn't being designed for that level of play).

True. As I understood the tier system it was more a measure of the ability to problem solve and be relevant. Which actually does apply to a Hero/Sidekick pairing in so far as you could compare it to say:

Batman: Obvious tier 3. Can fight well (Though not just end encounters) has a wide array of personal gadgets and tools, skills, etc. It'd be like taking the Rogue Chassis and adding Tome of Battle stuff on top of it for free.

Robin: Obvious tier 5. Can fight well enough to help out, but can't really carry fights like Batman can. Lacks the Skill Monkey chassis batman has. Gadgets seem to be nowhere near as varied based on useage, suggesting a limited kit.

Course, the reason this asked was the guy had his wires crossed and was thinking of another campaign on the forum we were both thinking of joining, where it was meant for 2 PCs, who would adopt that Hero/Sidekick mentality. And while the "Sidekick" in things doesn't have to be weaker, they are usually a lot more singularly focused, so the Tier thing kinda made sense. Even if you compare to other things like... Star Trek: The Next Generation. Picard is a Generalist, lots of skills, lots of relevant knowledge/abilities. Then you have Worf, who basically can beat things up (When the writing allows him to and doesn't have him getting beat up just to prove the Villain of the Week is stronger), and blow things up, as well as Picard really, if not better. But definitely lower tier as that's ALL he does.

[sonofzeal]

But you do know what mediocre means right?
Mediocre: of medium quality. Synonyms: middling - moderate - indifferent - ordinary.

You'll notice that nowhere in that list of synonyms was "terrible" or "nigh-useless". :smalltongue: Not that Truenamers are abysmal in general, but party buffer is a terrible role for them. They're better at CC, debuff, and utility.

[Alienist]

Artificers can make their own skill boosting items. That alone is huge. They also don't have to hit NEARLY as high skill checks. Plus, the things they can do with those checks are far and away better than what Truenamers can even dream of.


I refute your argument thus: calculate the DC to apply Persistent Spell to a ninth level spell completion item (e.g. scroll)

Being able to make a magic item is comparable to shopping at magic mart. In this case the Truenamer actually comes out a little ahead, the item he needs is an off the shelf item, whereas the Artificer needs to make a custom magic item, which many DMs (rightly so) get squeamish about.




There's really no comparison.

JaronK

The comparison is apt here, because the amount of optimisation required to function as an Artificer is enough to push the Truenamer into the 'pretty good' category.

That people for some reason are perfectly happy to optimise the bejesus out of the Artificer to hit its silly DCs, but suddenly come over all shy and bashful when it comes to applying exactly the same optimisations for the Truenamer is totally illogical.

What you say about the artificer makes me think you never really played one. Consider this: if the DC you need to hit to make an item is 25, but failure costs you thousands of gold, how is that so much better than a Truenamer also trying to hit a DC of 25?

In fact, the Artificer is going to need to crank his numbers much higher than the Truenamer, because he can't afford failure. Hence his actual DCs are 8-10 points higher than they look at first blush.

At higher levels for the question of whose skill based mechanism sucks less the advantage switches to the Artificer, especially once he can take 10 on UMD checks. Then at level 13 his DCs shoot through the roof again.

In order to take full advantage of the Artificer's Retain Essence feature you have to be able to hit DCs of 34 in two addiitonal skills. So arguably the Artificer needs to max out three skills, not just one. But then there are worse things to do with skill points than throw them en masse at UMD, Search and Disable Device.

If you want to make a claim about whose skill based class sucks less a better argument might be that the Truenamer is always going to take Skill Focus (a universally despised feat here in the playground), but the Artificer doesn't need to.

But to that I would simply point out that if there was a feat which let any other spellcaster cast all of his spells an addiitional 1.5 times per day it would be considered horribly horribly horribly horribly broken. Seriously.

You seem to want to expand away from my original assertion (that the complaints made in this thread) about the Truenamer generally also apply to the Artificer, into a class X vs class Y discussion. That's fine if you want to go there, but I'm not really interested in tilting at that straw-man.

I will say though (probably unwisely) that if you look at Zaq's original demolition of the Truenamer, you will find that the fight which made him give up on the Truenamer was one in which the DM afterwards later told them that the contribution of the Truenamer greatly outweighed the contribution of the other two characters in the party. Essentially, without the Truenamer they would have been TPKed (or the BBEG would have gotten away), given the description of the fight, I suspect most people's Artificers would have been roadkill. Nonetheless, many people choose to interpret Zaq's thesis as saying that the Truenamer is weak, you obviously bought into that misreading. The true critique of the Truenamer (and one which apparent fans of the class (amongst which I DO NOT number myself just FYI)) is that it has very little replay value, if you have to play multiple Truenamers they will end up gravitating towards the same power choices, and making the same optimisations as the previous one.

But if you want to defend your Thesis (that Artificer is Tier 1 or better), then enlighten us. Didn't you recently post a challenge about an army of Orcs attacking a village? What then would you do (as a 'Tier 1' Level 4 Artificer) against that horde of Orcs (plus mysterious others)? I ask this because I personally considered this, and came up short. About the best I could think of was the "Orc-Bane a bunch of Arrows" trick, but if the enemy are divining when is best to attack (as per the description of the challenge), they can avoid attacking when your infusions are up, that means you need to basically give up on most of your infusions 'on the day'.

[Alienist]

Mediocre: of medium quality. Synonyms: middling - moderate - indifferent - ordinary.

You'll notice that nowhere in that list of synonyms was "terrible" or "nigh-useless". :smalltongue: Not that Truenamers are abysmal in general, but party buffer is a terrible role for them. They're better at CC, debuff, and utility.

They can do all those things and buff at the same time.

I'm away from books ATM, but isn't there a feat which lets Truenamers extend from 5 rounds to 10? Yes it bumps up the DC, but you're already knocking the DC out of the park. Anyway, extending solves your earlier objection.

With respect to whether they are bad at buffing, consider that they are very good at those buffs which are not time dependent. E.g. if you want to give someone a +5 to a skill check out of combat then you're going to get a large number of those every day. (Same with the healing) It's really only towards the end of a long work day that the failure DCs become annoying.

The mitigating factor of high DCs is that the DCs you need to effect your party members stay reasonably low. So if you're cranking up the numbers to hit the high DCs on bad guys, you're going to have a much easier time of it slapping healing and fortification and +1 to this and +1 to that on your allies. Hence, you're unlikely to ever run out of ways to buff your allies.

In terms of quality vs quantity of course, it's no Guidance of the Avatar (but then, what is), however the Truenamer makes up for it in sheer volume. If you have 20 lexicony-thingies and you crank out another +2 to Truespeech, that means you just got an additional 20 spells per day. (Actually not sure, it might be more than that if the reversals aren't also affected by the law of inconvenience-thingy)

[sonofzeal]

They can do all those things and buff at the same time.

I'm away from books ATM, but isn't there a feat which lets Truenamers extend from 5 rounds to 10? Yes it bumps up the DC, but you're already knocking the DC out of the park. Anyway, extending solves your earlier objection.
You still run afoul of the Law of Sequence. A Bard can give sizeable buffs to the whole party, but a Truenamer can't.


With respect to whether they are bad at buffing, consider that they are very good at those buffs which are not time dependent. E.g. if you want to give someone a +5 to a skill check out of combat then you're going to get a large number of those every day. (Same with the healing) It's really only towards the end of a long work day that the failure DCs become annoying.
They're also good at Identifying, which helps the whole party. But I consider this all part of "utility". There are better options for out-of-combat healing, and anyone who can UMD a wand of Weildskill is providing better skill bonuses too.

But taking on the roll of "Party Buffer" implies that you can carry your weight in combat by proxie, buffing your allies so they collectively contribute enough to make up for not having that extra active person. Truenamers simply can't do that. If they try to get by as a buffer in combat, they're not going to remotely carry their weight.

Again, I'm not actually a Truename-hater. I've made one. It's not as bad as a lot of people say. But "Party Buffer" is a terrible role for them. I'd rather have a Tier 5-6 Divine Mind in that party slot. Or a gorram Expert (the NPC class) with UMD trained. Either could do "Party Buffer" better than the Truenamer. Their strengths, such as they are, lie elsewhere.

[Story]

Artificer has some neat tricks that can get it into tier 3 too (normally people rate it tier 1, because of magic item creation, but if access to magic items makes you tier 1, then any class with access to Magic Mart is also tier 1, which is clearly nonsense).

That is being highly disingenious. Other people can buy and use magic items, but noone can match the quantity, quality, or utility of the Artificer.

Can a different class craft a Scroll of Dimension Door at level 1? Can a different class burn money to play Incantrix for a day? (Possibly if built that way, but not as well as the Artificer). Can a different class more than double the party's WBL without crippling their build? The Artificer does that as a class feature.

The ability to get access to any spell or magic item in the game with sufficient preparation is incredibly useful.

As for the army scenario, lets see. With access to spells (Gudiance of the Avatar, Divine Insight, Friendly Face, Share Skills, etc.), the Artificer can do any diplomacy the Warblade or Bard might want to engage in, except the Artificer does it much better.

Even with just an Eternal Wand of Stone Shape, the Artificer can do more to help prepare for the battle than most entire classes.

And that's just what comes to me off the top of my mind. The point is that the Artificer has hundreds of options, many of them better than dedicated classes. That's the definition of Tier 1.

[eggynack]

That people for some reason are perfectly happy to optimise the bejesus out of the Artificer to hit its silly DCs, but suddenly come over all shy and bashful when it comes to applying exactly the same optimisations for the Truenamer is totally illogical.

I dispute a lot of the things in your post, but I just don't understand how people being willing to put work into making an artificer good is illogical when they're not willing to do the same for the truenamer. Truenamers are dumb without the high skill dc thing. Their abilities are pretty consistently behind what the tier 3's are doing at most levels, and the law of sequence means that for a lot of what they do, they do it badly. Moreover, the class is kinda broken, in the broken lightbulb way, not the broken wizard way. They have an entire class of ability that has no save dc's, they have several powers that make no sense within the rules, there's a feat that's truenamer focused that explicitly hinders their abilities, and there's an incredibly low amount of book support compared to how much you have to raise their checks.

Comparitively, artificers base their shtick off of crafting and spell casting. Spell casting is a tier one ability, and umd has a bunch of book support. Moreover, when you optimize an artificer, you get a class that is kinda broken in the wizard way instead of the lightbulb way. The class requires a lot of effort from the player, but if the player puts the effort in they get a super versatile character. If a truenamer player puts the effort in, they get a weak damage over time spell, short duration invisibility and a delay poison ability that makes no sense. It's just not worth the hassle. UMD, crafting and spells are three of the things in the game that have some of the most book support. Truenaming is one of the things that has the least.

[killem2]

Ignore them.


Seriously. Do yourself the favor.

[Darius Kane]

Ignore them.


Seriously. Do yourself the favor.
That would mean not playing D&D at all.

[Eldan]

You don't necessarily have to do anything about tiers. But being aware that wizards have a lot more breaking potential than fighters is not a bad thing. Deciding if it matters for your group comes after.

[JaronK]

I refute your argument thus: calculate the DC to apply Persistent Spell to a ninth level spell completion item (e.g. scroll)

Being able to make a magic item is comparable to shopping at magic mart. In this case the Truenamer actually comes out a little ahead, the item he needs is an off the shelf item, whereas the Artificer needs to make a custom magic item, which many DMs (rightly so) get squeamish about.

You know there's some really good in the books UMD items, right? The Admiral's Bicorn, for a higher level example (+7 morale to all Cha based skills, +2 to all other skills, effects allies too). Or a Wand of Guidance of the Avatar (+20 comp to any skill check, and it's a level 2 spell). How about an Eternal Wand of Wieldskill for a +10 untyped bonus to any one skill check twice per day (that's a first level spell)? He doesn't need a custom magic item to do this. And he can make both of those wands himself. He might also want a Masterwork Tool of UMD, since the PHB does say that you can get a Masterwork Tool of any skill for 50gp (+2 Circumstance Bonus). And that's without touching Item Familiar which would make this all trivially easy (but isn't always allowed).

Seriously, for a trivial amount of money I just showed you how to get a +32 to UMD, and an Artificer can craft both of those wands as soon as he has Craft Wand (he can probably buy them before that, they're really cheap). What's the problem here? Notice how the fact that he only needs to do it for item creation once a day or so makes it a LOT easier than the Truenamer's need for many boosts per day.


The comparison is apt here, because the amount of optimisation required to function as an Artificer is enough to push the Truenamer into the 'pretty good' category.

You realize for Artificers it's just "make any item you want" right? That's the optimization. Just do it.


What you say about the artificer makes me think you never really played one. Consider this: if the DC you need to hit to make an item is 25, but failure costs you thousands of gold, how is that so much better than a Truenamer also trying to hit a DC of 25?

Failure doesn't do that. The artificer simply needs to make one UMD check (DC 20 + CL) during the entire crafting of the item. He must succeed just once, and he can retry once per day (plus one last time on the last day). So if there's one prerequisite spell to make the item and the item takes 10 days to make, he has 11 chances. That's... really not bad at all.

So for our sample Artificer, he bought his Eternal Wand for 820gp and his Masterwork UMD tool for 50gp. He's also got a Charisma of 18 (maybe he's got a Cloak of Charisma, I don't know), and he's level 5 let's say (he can easily afford this). He's got 8 ranks in UMD. If he wants to craft something that takes 10 days to craft, he'll get 11 tries to craft it. If it has one requirement and a caster level required of 7, then he needs to make one DC 27 check. He has a base +14 to UMD, +24 when he uses his wand.

So he has to hit a DC 27 with a +24, and has 11 tries. Yeah... that's really tough.


In fact, the Artificer is going to need to crank his numbers much higher than the Truenamer, because he can't afford failure. Hence his actual DCs are 8-10 points higher than they look at first blush.

Nope, lower. Again, he gets to keep trying over and over... and a single wand of Guidance of the Avatar, as stated above, will handle 50 UMD attempts quite easily if he REALLY needs to make the check. But an Eternal Wand of Wieldskill ought to be plenty, and it's cheaper and reusable.


In order to take full advantage of the Artificer's Retain Essence feature you have to be able to hit DCs of 34 in two addiitonal skills. So arguably the Artificer needs to max out three skills, not just one. But then there are worse things to do with skill points than throw them en masse at UMD, Search and Disable Device.

Retain Essence doesn't require skill checks. It just takes a day.


But to that I would simply point out that if there was a feat which let any other spellcaster cast all of his spells an addiitional 1.5 times per day it would be considered horribly horribly horribly horribly broken. Seriously.

Truenamers don't get spells. They get Truename stuff, which is not nearly as good. Unlike Artificers. Who get spells. All the spells. All of them.


You seem to want to expand away from my original assertion (that the complaints made in this thread) about the Truenamer generally also apply to the Artificer, into a class X vs class Y discussion. That's fine if you want to go there, but I'm not really interested in tilting at that straw-man.

The complaints about the Truenamer are that you need to optimize the hell out of their Truenaming just to make them work at all, and that once you do they're just reflavored Warlocks, basically. You seem to think Artificers are in a similar boat, but they're not... they're WAY easier to optimize (because they optimize themselves, really), and more importantly once there they can do WAY more (namely, cast every spell, create every magic item, rock out like crazy).


I will say though (probably unwisely) that if you look at Zaq's original demolition of the Truenamer, you will find that the fight which made him give up on the Truenamer was one in which the DM afterwards later told them that the contribution of the Truenamer greatly outweighed the contribution of the other two characters in the party. Essentially, without the Truenamer they would have been TPKed (or the BBEG would have gotten away), given the description of the fight, I suspect most people's Artificers would have been roadkill. Nonetheless, many people choose to interpret Zaq's thesis as saying that the Truenamer is weak, you obviously bought into that misreading.

You realize I ranked the Truenamer (as being outside the system, but still) before he wrote that, right?


But if you want to defend your Thesis (that Artificer is Tier 1 or better), then enlighten us. Didn't you recently post a challenge about an army of Orcs attacking a village? What then would you do (as a 'Tier 1' Level 4 Artificer) against that horde of Orcs (plus mysterious others)? I ask this because I personally considered this, and came up short. About the best I could think of was the "Orc-Bane a bunch of Arrows" trick, but if the enemy are divining when is best to attack (as per the description of the challenge), they can avoid attacking when your infusions are up, that means you need to basically give up on most of your infusions 'on the day'.

Now that I can do! Let's say it's a level 8 Artificer. It would be too easy at level 15 (just make 50 Candles of Invocation in advance as they're pathetically cheap, now gate in a bunch of Solars to defend the town). And we're not going to do anything silly like make lots of Orc Bane arrows. No no. We're going to do much better.

First of all, as is standard for an Artificer, he's going to have all the item cost reduction stuff. Legendary Artisan, Magical Artisan, Exceptional Artisan, Extraordinary Artisan. So all his magic items cost 56% normal price (and exp, and time). And I want Extend Spell and Persistent Spell (I guess this is a Human or Strongheart Halfling... might as well). That seems pretty straight forward optimization right there. Might as well get Wand Mastery too. Of course you'll have a Dedicated Wight, those are pretty obvious, and he works in some extradimensional space of your choice. Second, note that Artificers work best in a group... they give their allies whatever they need. Without knowing those allies I can't really say what you're giving them, obviously.

So, one strategy that's slightly better than Orc Bane Arrows would be to make a Wand of Boreal Wind (Dru 4) and then use Metamagic Spell Trigger to Persist it. So that's going to do 10d4 damage to all enemies within 800 feet in a 20 foot wide line, which also knocks them back, blinds them if there's any dust on the ground, and deflects all ranged attacks headed your way (because it does everything a wind of that strength would normally do). And it does this for 24 hours. This wand cost you 5880gp and can be used like this 7 times, giving 7 days of complete slaughter whenever you need (one day is enough for this scenario). This kills the army.

Also: the Trapsmith class has Fabricate as a third level spell. So an Eternal Wand of Fabricate costs just 3052gp. Sweet. Let's build anything... you can make two things per day while the enemy approaches (more if you want multiple such wands) Seriously, I bet you can come up with something fun.

Note that both of these strategies used items you'd probably just want in general.

See what complete access to every spell ever does? You just have to find lots of spells. You can do a LOT better than Orc Bane Arrows. And that's the point... the Artificer can actually DO something with his optimization, and the optimization is WAY easier. A Truenamer can't just use an Eternal Wand of Wieldskill... first off he can't make it himself (so he's screwed without a magic mart) and second 2/day just isn't going to cut it for him (but it's plenty for making magic items.

All that is in addition to all the general use magic items he can make. And note that I didn't go for the really cheesy options (like building an Effigy with 100 templates or whatever).

This is sorta the point of the tiers isn't it? A Tier 1 class can just do something like this, given no DM help, just because the player knows the options available to him. And that could really break a game (if this Orc battle was the climactic fight of a campaign and the Artificer busted out Persistent Boreal Wind, that would suck). But a weaker class (an optimized Truenamer is around T4, an unoptimized one is T6) isn't going to just do that to you. He's going to have serious trouble even contributing at all, even if the player knows the class well. The Artificer is simply a more powerful and more versatile tool that will always be useful towards devastating an encounter... if the player knows how to use the tool. And wants to use it that way, of course.

If you don't know how to use the tool, you'd just, well, make some Orc Bane Arrows. Which is the equivalent of using an entire wood shop just to hit something with a hammer.

JaronK

[Big Fau]

...except Truenamer buffs are {a} almost invariably 5-round or less, and {b} invariably single-target - to the point where if you use one on another ally, the first use is dismissed.

I don't think that qualifies as "party buffs". =P

Right. Truenamer abilities are rarely level-appropriate (their Haste equivalent, for example, is worthless compared to the actual spell).

[Lans]

Right. Truenamer abilities are rarely level-appropriate (their Haste equivalent, for example, is worthless compared to the actual spell).

That's why I only really like it for its reverse, a no save slow.


You still run afoul of the Law of Sequence. A Bard can give sizeable buffs to the whole party, but a Truenamer can't.
Depending on the party, the buffs given by the bard might not mean much, a warmage, healer, and a barbarian getting a bonus to hit and damage isn't much better than just giving the barbarian the bonus.




But taking on the roll of "Party Buffer" implies that you can carry your weight in combat by proxie, buffing your allies so they collectively contribute enough to make up for not having that extra active person. Truenamers simply can't do that. If they try to get by as a buffer in combat, they're not going to remotely carry their weight.

This is why I would only put Truenamer at tier 3 if they can auto quicken their 'spells'. Give the frontliner+5 to hit and damage or trueseeing, then give the warmage a free use of the empower spell for 5 rounds.

But overall debuffing with them is going to be a better focus, dropping an enemies saves and AC by 5 is about as good as the 2 above effects

[Amnestic]

That would mean not playing D&D at all.

:smallconfused: I'm not sure I agree with that. Many groups are perfectly successful (given the people who say "We're running a group fine and then I heard about the tier system. What is it?") without knowledge of it - why would ignoring it mean not playing D&D?

[Greenish]

Like today when someone asked me what Tier my class was, so they could determine who was the "Main Hero" in a game and who was going to be the sidekick out of the two of us.That's just silly. Everyone knows that if that question even arises, it's to be solved with opposed charisma checks. See, for example, Pirates of Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

[Darius Kane]

:smallconfused: I'm not sure I agree with that. Many groups are perfectly successful (given the people who say "We're running a group fine and then I heard about the tier system. What is it?") without knowledge of it - why would ignoring it mean not playing D&D?
Ignoring it and not knowing about it are different things.

[JaronK]

{scrubbed}

[Amnestic]

Ignoring it and not knowing about it are different things.

Ignoring the tier system and ignoring balance problems in your personal game are also two different things. I don't believe that the person you initially responded to was actually saying "Ignore any balance problems you come across." That would be quite an odd statement, no?

Don't get me wrong - I like the tier system; I like what it says and its purpose, but I don't believe that ignoring it makes you incapable of playing D&D. Far from it.

[Darius Kane]

Oh, I completely understood what the person I responded to was saying.

[sonofzeal]

Depending on the party, the buffs given by the bard might not mean much, a warmage, healer, and a barbarian getting a bonus to hit and damage isn't much better than just giving the barbarian the bonus.
But Bards have Haste, Battle Hymn, Freefall, Good Hope, and Elation. All of those are low-level spells that affect multiple party members, and generally last longer than what Truenamers can do. All of those come online well before the free Empower from Truenamer. At higher levels they get even more impressive things to do.

Although Magic Contraction IS kind of awesome. Still, 10th lvl before it comes online.

[Aharon]

We are talking about a no holds barred high op truenamer, right? With a high enough Truename check (or, going in very high op territory, Truenaming: yes by double PoAing into a Garbler), he can very effectively buff the party with potion-tiles and Restore Item.

Truenamer is essentially a class that gets lots of stuff that's mediocre - and one super-effective thing that makes it on par with high Tier 3.

Wealth is one of the most reliable ways to power in 3.5 (see the very strong Cube build). Artificers can create it very cost-efficiently. Truenamers can preserve it very cost-efficiently.

[Togo]

Ignoring the tier system and ignoring balance problems in your personal game are also two different things. I don't believe that the person you initially responded to was actually saying "Ignore any balance problems you come across." That would be quite an odd statement, no?

Don't get me wrong - I like the tier system; I like what it says and its purpose, but I don't believe that ignoring it makes you incapable of playing D&D. Far from it.

I quite happily balance games based on the player, their particular character build and the nature of the game being played. I don't use the Tier system to do so, in part because balancing a game involves far more than theoretical use of class abilities.

[Darius Kane]

Oh, but you do, you just don't know it. :smalltongue:

[Qwertystop]

Oh, but you do, you just don't know it. :smalltongue:

Odd way to put it, but that's about right. The system didn't invent anything, it just organized what was already there.

[Darius Kane]

It's kinda like building a table from IKEA. Yeah, you could build it without the manual, based on your guesswork, but it's better, safer and quicker to just follow the guidelines.

[Big Fau]

It's kinda like building a table from IKEA. Yeah, you could build it without the manual, based on your guesswork, but it's better, safer and quicker to just follow the guidelines.

Not that anyone should buy an IKEA table if they expect it to be balanced.

[Gavinfoxx]

Not that anyone should buy an IKEA table if they expect it to be balanced.

Yea, they are all a little wobbly at best...

[Clistenes]

A question: Does anybody have a link to some site giving a tier level for gestalt classes?. Like, which tier would Barbarian/Rogues or Paladin/Rangers or Bard/Fighters belong to?

[Big Fau]

A question: Does anybody have a link to some site giving a tier level for gestalt classes?. Like, which tier would Barbarian/Rogues or Paladin/Rangers or Bard/Fighters belong to?

There are too many possible combinations for Gestalt to make it feasible to rank them. Core alone has 11 class, which presents dozens of combinations all by itself. And some classes have such solid synergy that it gets really difficult to adjudicate.

[Eldan]

In my experience, it's quite often "The better of the two tiers, rarely +1".

[Lans]

But Bards have Haste, Battle Hymn, Freefall, Good Hope, and Elation. All of those are low-level spells that affect multiple party members, and generally last longer than what Truenamers can do. All of those come online well before the free Empower from Truenamer. At higher levels they get even more impressive things to do.

Although Magic Contraction IS kind of awesome. Still, 10th lvl before it comes online.

I'm sure the bard is a better at buffing, the +5 to attack damage that i listed is a 5th or 6th level utterance and not available till pretty late. I just wanted to point out that the law of sequence is not as debilitating as people make it out to be, and that the truenamer can be an all rightish buffer.

[Big Fau]

I'm sure the bard is a better at buffing, the +5 to attack damage that i listed is a 5th or 6th level utterance and not available till pretty late. I just wanted to point out that the law of sequence is not as debilitating as people make it out to be, and that the truenamer can be an all rightish buffer.

Yeah, but a +5 to attacks/damage rolls is a terrible waste of a 5th/6th level Utterance. And that's what people mean when they say the class lacks level-appropriate abilities. A +5 bonus to attacks/damage is appropriate for a 1st level spell (Sure Strike, PH2), not the equivalent of a 7th or 9th level one. The Truenamer's utterance list is riddled with effects like this, and then you get the Lexicon of the Perfected Map (which has several utterances that are unusable as written, and one that's hideously overpowered).

[Oscredwin]

A question: Does anybody have a link to some site giving a tier level for gestalt classes?. Like, which tier would Barbarian/Rogues or Paladin/Rangers or Bard/Fighters belong to?

I would say the better of the two tiers with a likely jump from 5->4 (eg fighter/monk) and a possible jump from 4->3 (eg rogue/barbarian).

[Pickford]

The "immediate servitude"-clause enables calling a creature with HD equal to twice your level (or more with caster level boosters) and controlling it (so a level 20 caster could call e.g. Dream Larva (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm#dreamLarva)...or a Titan and command it to Gate in more for example). That's completely and utterly beyond ridiculous. No checks, no chance of failure, no cast time, nothing; you just get a free creature potentially way stronger than you to serve you for a couple of minutes.

Except the immediate service ends the moment that other creature Gates in.

Now you have two completely uncontrolled monsters up to 40 HD and 80HD standing in front of the caster, neither of which has any reason not to kill the caster.

If the DM is feeling benevolent they just leave, otherwise it's probably a fatality.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Not that anyone should buy an IKEA table if they expect it to be balanced.

Yea, they are all a little wobbly at best...
Exactly. It's an excellent metaphor for 3.5!

[Qwertystop]

Except the immediate service ends the moment that other creature Gates in.

Now you have two completely uncontrolled monsters up to 40 HD and 80HD standing in front of the caster, neither of which has any reason not to kill the caster.

If the DM is feeling benevolent they just leave, otherwise it's probably a fatality.

Yeah, that's the thing about chain-gating, unless you can qualify "Gate in the strongest creature you can with the order to [whatever you want it to do]" as a single task. You could make a case for that, as it's part of the single spell's casting. Then you get something quadruple your HD doing what you want.

However, you don't have to chaingate, in which case you still have a creature with twice your HD you can order to kill your enemies or something.

Alternately, if you can find something powerful that's not immune to Dominate, you could gate it in and make the single service "do not resist the spell I'm about to cast on you."

[Eldariel]

Except the immediate service ends the moment that other creature Gates in.

Depends on the servitude you ask. Formulate it right and you can have 20+ turns of them all (chained under each other) which is plenty to have them Mindraped. Dream Larva can't cast Gate; something like a Titan is much more suitable for that.

A servitude such as "accept spells I cast on you" is perfectly fine; after all, receiving a Mindrape only takes 1 turn out of the 20. Then you can have your subservient friend Gate in extras to be Mindraped in turn.


This isn't, of course, necessary to make the spell broken but it's still funny.

[Pickford]

Yeah, that's the thing about chain-gating, unless you can qualify "Gate in the strongest creature you can with the order to [whatever you want it to do]" as a single task. You could make a case for that, as it's part of the single spell's casting. Then you get something quadruple your HD doing what you want.

However, you don't have to chaingate, in which case you still have a creature with twice your HD you can order to kill your enemies or something.

Alternately, if you can find something powerful that's not immune to Dominate, you could gate it in and make the single service "do not resist the spell I'm about to cast on you."


Anything requiring more than one sentence: Do X (Gate in a Wumpus) is pretty clearly a more involved service and requires payment.

For the dominate monster:
At which point the immediate service clause of Gate ends and the creature returns...dominated, but not on your plane of existence.

And, not that it matters, but Lowering Spell Resistance is a standard action, so that would be two services to ignore the (very likely very high) SR and forgo a save.

Eldariel: That could not be more obviously an involved rather than immediate service. It might even take the full 2 minutes to merely describe that service.

[Karnith]

Anything requiring more than one sentence: Do X (Gate in a Wumpus) is pretty clearly a more involved service and requires payment.
Actually, according to RAW, that's not true (it may be sensible, but that's quite another thing). Per the SRD: (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gate.htm)

A controlled creature can be commanded to perform a service for you. Such services fall into two categories: immediate tasks and contractual service. Fighting for you in a single battle or taking any other actions that can be accomplished within 1 round per caster level counts as an immediate task; you need not make any agreement or pay any reward for the creature’s help. The creature departs at the end of the spell.
As long as it takes less than 1 round per caster level (or if you're gating something in for a fight), no payment is required.

[Eldariel]

Eldariel: That could not be more obviously an involved rather than immediate service. It might even take the full 2 minutes to merely describe that service.

One-two sentences. Takes about 20 words, maybe 20 seconds. "Accept spells cast by me for the duration of your stay here". Then you mindrape and then you can command your mindraped victim to use Gate and repeat the process. Easy peasy. Your argument is invalid.

[Arundel]

Karnith, that gets ignored by naysayers so often that that part of the srd on gate may as well get placed in the obscure knowledge thread,

[Lans]

Yeah, but a +5 to attacks/damage rolls is a terrible waste of a 5th/6th level Utterance. And that's what people mean when they say the class lacks level-appropriate abilities. A +5 bonus to attacks/damage is appropriate for a 1st level spell (Sure Strike, PH2), not the equivalent of a 7th or 9th level one. Actually Sure Strike is second level, doesn't give a damage boost, and only lasts for 1 attack or 1 round. Is also an insight bonus rather than untyped. Its more in line with a strong second, and if quickened would be closer to sixth. As a 6th level utterance and gained when 9th level spells come on line this is terrible compared to casters, but you are exaggerating how bad it is. It compares better to noncaster abilities.

Its reverse is about on par with an empowered ray of enfeeblement so would be closer to 7th level if you could auto quicken.

Edit-Still likely a waste of an utterance, but at the level you get it you can affect multiple creatures



The Truenamer's utterance list is riddled with effects like this, and then you get the Lexicon of the Perfected Map (which has several utterances that are unusable as written, and one that's hideously overpowered).
Which ones don't work?

[Big Fau]

Which ones don't work?

Shield of the Landscape is poorly worded, Shockwave has a duration despite being basically instantaneous, Lore of the World is based on a spell that's personal-range, but it has an area and does not specify who is affected by it and how it affects them, Master the Four Winds has a 20ft radius area, but is based on Control Winds (a spell that affects 2 miles in a radius), really any of them with an area are screwy. They all have poor editing (including the part about errata being required to even use the Lexicon), but those ones in particular are bad about it.

The metamagiced spells are not nearly level appropriate either though. At the time 7th level spells are in play a 1d6+3 penalty to Strength isn't that good anymore, especially not for a 7th level spell slot.

As to comparing it to what the noncasters are doing, Martial Adepts have strikes that put most of the Truenamer's capstone utterances to shame. Literally every ability that 6th level Utterances in the Evolving Mind lexicon (save the Dominate Monster one) can be replicated by a Martial Adept a few levels lowers than the Truenamer. Greater Night's Puissance is a freaking class feature for Crusaders, after all.

[eggynack]

Which ones don't work?
Don't all of those utterances have their difficulty class unlisted? They had to put a fundamental aspect of that type of utterance in the errata. There's good detail on the specifics in Zaq's truenamer handbook. I think I have it linked earlier in this thread.

[Killer Angel]

Not that anyone should buy an IKEA table if they expect it to be balanced.

That's because you don't know the system and thus you are not able to avoid the traps... :smalltongue:

[Big Fau]

That's because you don't know the system and thus you are not able to avoid the traps... :smalltongue:

The trap was making an IKEA table in the first place. Everyone knows Excel is better for tables. :smalltongue:

[Qwertystop]

For the dominate monster:
At which point the immediate service clause of Gate ends and the creature returns...dominated, but not on your plane of existence.

Great. So it's Dominated. You then have it Gate back to you (there's a Planar Travel use of it. Or it could target you specifically, in which case you don't have to go through (Uniqueness clause) but the gate is guaranteed to be right next to you and it just walks through.

[Alienist]

You know there's some really good in the books UMD items, right? The Admiral's Bicorn, for a higher level example (+7 morale to all Cha based skills, +2 to all other skills, effects allies too). Or a Wand of Guidance of the Avatar (+20 comp to any skill check, and it's a level 2 spell). How about an Eternal Wand of Wieldskill for a +10 untyped bonus to any one skill check twice per day (that's a first level spell)? He doesn't need a custom magic item to do this. And he can make both of those wands himself. He might also want a Masterwork Tool of UMD, since the PHB does say that you can get a Masterwork Tool of any skill for 50gp (+2 Circumstance Bonus). And that's without touching Item Familiar which would make this all trivially easy (but isn't always allowed).

Seriously, for a trivial amount of money I just showed you how to get a +32 to UMD, and an Artificer can craft both of those wands as soon as he has Craft Wand (he can probably buy them before that, they're really cheap). What's the problem here? Notice how the fact that he only needs to do it for item creation once a day or so makes it a LOT easier than the Truenamer's need for many boosts per day.



You realize for Artificers it's just "make any item you want" right? That's the optimization. Just do it.



Failure doesn't do that. The artificer simply needs to make one UMD check (DC 20 + CL) during the entire crafting of the item. He must succeed just once, and he can retry once per day (plus one last time on the last day). So if there's one prerequisite spell to make the item and the item takes 10 days to make, he has 11 chances. That's... really not bad at all.

So for our sample Artificer, he bought his Eternal Wand for 820gp and his Masterwork UMD tool for 50gp. He's also got a Charisma of 18 (maybe he's got a Cloak of Charisma, I don't know), and he's level 5 let's say (he can easily afford this). He's got 8 ranks in UMD. If he wants to craft something that takes 10 days to craft, he'll get 11 tries to craft it. If it has one requirement and a caster level required of 7, then he needs to make one DC 27 check. He has a base +14 to UMD, +24 when he uses his wand.

So he has to hit a DC 27 with a +24, and has 11 tries. Yeah... that's really tough.



Nope, lower. Again, he gets to keep trying over and over... and a single wand of Guidance of the Avatar, as stated above, will handle 50 UMD attempts quite easily if he REALLY needs to make the check. But an Eternal Wand of Wieldskill ought to be plenty, and it's cheaper and reusable.



Retain Essence doesn't require skill checks. It just takes a day.



Truenamers don't get spells. They get Truename stuff, which is not nearly as good. Unlike Artificers. Who get spells. All the spells. All of them.



The complaints about the Truenamer are that you need to optimize the hell out of their Truenaming just to make them work at all, and that once you do they're just reflavored Warlocks, basically. You seem to think Artificers are in a similar boat, but they're not... they're WAY easier to optimize (because they optimize themselves, really), and more importantly once there they can do WAY more (namely, cast every spell, create every magic item, rock out like crazy).



You realize I ranked the Truenamer (as being outside the system, but still) before he wrote that, right?



Now that I can do! Let's say it's a level 8 Artificer. It would be too easy at level 15 (just make 50 Candles of Invocation in advance as they're pathetically cheap, now gate in a bunch of Solars to defend the town). And we're not going to do anything silly like make lots of Orc Bane arrows. No no. We're going to do much better.

First of all, as is standard for an Artificer, he's going to have all the item cost reduction stuff. Legendary Artisan, Magical Artisan, Exceptional Artisan, Extraordinary Artisan. So all his magic items cost 56% normal price (and exp, and time). And I want Extend Spell and Persistent Spell (I guess this is a Human or Strongheart Halfling... might as well). That seems pretty straight forward optimization right there. Might as well get Wand Mastery too. Of course you'll have a Dedicated Wight, those are pretty obvious, and he works in some extradimensional space of your choice. Second, note that Artificers work best in a group... they give their allies whatever they need. Without knowing those allies I can't really say what you're giving them, obviously.

So, one strategy that's slightly better than Orc Bane Arrows would be to make a Wand of Boreal Wind (Dru 4) and then use Metamagic Spell Trigger to Persist it. So that's going to do 10d4 damage to all enemies within 800 feet in a 20 foot wide line, which also knocks them back, blinds them if there's any dust on the ground, and deflects all ranged attacks headed your way (because it does everything a wind of that strength would normally do). And it does this for 24 hours. This wand cost you 5880gp and can be used like this 7 times, giving 7 days of complete slaughter whenever you need (one day is enough for this scenario). This kills the army.

Also: the Trapsmith class has Fabricate as a third level spell. So an Eternal Wand of Fabricate costs just 3052gp. Sweet. Let's build anything... you can make two things per day while the enemy approaches (more if you want multiple such wands) Seriously, I bet you can come up with something fun.

Note that both of these strategies used items you'd probably just want in general.

See what complete access to every spell ever does? You just have to find lots of spells. You can do a LOT better than Orc Bane Arrows. And that's the point... the Artificer can actually DO something with his optimization, and the optimization is WAY easier. A Truenamer can't just use an Eternal Wand of Wieldskill... first off he can't make it himself (so he's screwed without a magic mart) and second 2/day just isn't going to cut it for him (but it's plenty for making magic items.

All that is in addition to all the general use magic items he can make. And note that I didn't go for the really cheesy options (like building an Effigy with 100 templates or whatever).

This is sorta the point of the tiers isn't it? A Tier 1 class can just do something like this, given no DM help, just because the player knows the options available to him. And that could really break a game (if this Orc battle was the climactic fight of a campaign and the Artificer busted out Persistent Boreal Wind, that would suck). But a weaker class (an optimized Truenamer is around T4, an unoptimized one is T6) isn't going to just do that to you. He's going to have serious trouble even contributing at all, even if the player knows the class well. The Artificer is simply a more powerful and more versatile tool that will always be useful towards devastating an encounter... if the player knows how to use the tool. And wants to use it that way, of course.

If you don't know how to use the tool, you'd just, well, make some Orc Bane Arrows. Which is the equivalent of using an entire wood shop just to hit something with a hammer.

JaronK

Regarding the optimisation you did to pump up your UMD checks (where you dumpster dived a bunch of sourcebooks), I'm not claiming it can't be done, I'm just saying that a similar level of attention is all that is required for the Truenamer to easily get more than 2x to truespeech each time he levels up. For some reason that mystifies me, this is acceptable for an Artificer, but everyone wails and gnashes their teeth about doing it for the Truenamer.

It's ridiculous really, you cannot throw an awakened cat in the playground without hitting some kind of 'look at my diplomacy modifier of +276' or somone pumping up their jump skill or crafting skill to some ungodly amount ... yet suddenly the moment someone mentions truenamers everyone starts whinging about how hard it is to optimise skills.

The skill checks associated with Retain Essence are for Finding and Disabling the magical trap before you retain essence on it.

Thank you for your example. A few notes:

I specifically mentioned a level 4 Artificer as I was under the impression that was the minimum level of the challenge. And I thought the limitations of the lower level Artificer would require more creativity to solve. For instance, you can't make a dedicated wright at level 4, and you certainly can't make extradimensional spaces for him to craft in (they all seem to require secet chest). As such, wands wouldn't be available, eternal or otherwise.

Wand Mastery is not an eligible feat for an 8th level character (requires 9th level)

Boreal Wind is a powerful spell, but it is not persistable.
Even if it was persistable, you're using the wrong class feature to persist it, you should use the feature which doesn't use additional charges. (!!!!)

Magical Artisan does not reduce time. Slapping Magical Artisan on top of say Extraordinary Artisan requires a dodgy interpretation of the word 'with'.

[JaronK]

Regarding the optimisation you did to pump up your UMD checks (where you dumpster dived a bunch of sourcebooks), I'm not claiming it can't be done, I'm just saying that a similar level of attention is all that is required for the Truenamer to easily get more than 2x to truespeech each time he levels up. For some reason that mystifies me, this is acceptable for an Artificer, but everyone wails and gnashes their teeth about doing it for the Truenamer.

I literally made a wand of a single spell to get most of the way there. And the reason that mystifies you is this: the Artificer can make his own wand, and it's far cheaper. The Truenamer is at the mercy of the DM (hoping for a magic mart) and it costs a heck of a lot more.

Here, try to spend a similar amount of money without relying on magic marts (or heck, even with relying on it) to get a similar bonus with a Truenamer (remember, I specifically avoided Item Familiars because many people don't like them). Good luck with that.


It's ridiculous really, you cannot throw an awakened cat in the playground without hitting some kind of 'look at my diplomacy modifier of +276' or somone pumping up their jump skill or crafting skill to some ungodly amount ... yet suddenly the moment someone mentions truenamers everyone starts whinging about how hard it is to optimise skills.

That's because a +100 or more bonus to a skill is silly optimization that doesn't see real play... that's people having fun with what you can do. But that's not practical in real games.


The skill checks associated with Retain Essence are for Finding and Disabling the magical trap before you retain essence on it.

Seriously? Why is it only magical traps, as opposed to the randomly generated trash loot you're supposed to find? And why not let the Rogue handle magical traps (I mean, if there isn't one you could do it, but you hardly have to).


I specifically mentioned a level 4 Artificer as I was under the impression that was the minimum level of the challenge. And I thought the limitations of the lower level Artificer would require more creativity to solve. For instance, you can't make a dedicated wright at level 4, and you certainly can't make extradimensional spaces for him to craft in (they all seem to require secet chest). As such, wands wouldn't be available, eternal or otherwise.

The minimum level for the challenge was, IIRC, 6. It's designed for levels 6-15. And trying to compare power levels of classes while restricting them to super low levels is disingenuous... you know full well that balance problems occur more at high levels. Keeping to low levels masks the issues a little bit (they're still there though).


Boreal Wind is a powerful spell, but it is not persistable.
Even if it was persistable, you're using the wrong class feature to persist it, you should use the feature which doesn't use additional charges. (!!!!)

It is persistable. Why do you think it isn't? It's got a duration and a range. And I didn't want to worry about skill checks or anything. This was nice and simple.


Magical Artisan does not reduce time. Slapping Magical Artisan on top of say Extraordinary Artisan requires a dodgy interpretation of the word 'with'.

Eh, doesn't matter, the point was to get things cheap, not to worry so much about crafting time. I picked a bunch of items I'd want anyway, not stuff custom made for this fight.

JaronK

[Lans]

Don't all of those utterances have their difficulty class unlisted? They had to put a fundamental aspect of that type of utterance in the errata. There's good detail on the specifics in Zaq's truenamer handbook. I think I have it linked earlier in this thread.

Actually there listed DC was a straight 25+5 if in a magical zone, the errata made it 25+5 per level with another+5 for being in a magic zone.


Shield of the Landscape is poorly worded, Shockwave has a duration despite being basically instantaneous, Lore of the World is based on a spell that's personal-range, but it has an area and does not specify who is affected by it and how it affects them, Master the Four Winds has a 20ft radius area, but is based on Control Winds (a spell that affects 2 miles in a radius), really any of them with an area are screwy. They all have poor editing (including the part about errata being required to even use the Lexicon), but those ones in particular are bad about it.

I took the Master of the 4 Winds "This utterance functions as a control winds spell (PH 214) ...except as noted here." as it having a 2 mile area, the shockwave is worded poorly, but still would be functional, lore of the world is worded a little oddly, but still is functional, and shield of the landscape is doesn't seem badly worded, it just seems weak.


The metamagiced spells are not nearly level appropriate either though. At the time 7th level spells are in play a 1d6+3 penalty to Strength isn't that good anymore, especially not for a 7th level spell slot.
Its closer to -10 to strength for the utterance and (d6+5)*1.5 for the spell, which still isn't very good, especially when gained at level 18.


As to comparing it to what the noncasters are doing, Martial Adepts have strikes that put most of the Truenamer's capstone utterances to shame. Literally every ability that 6th level Utterances in the Evolving Mind lexicon (save the Dominate Monster one) can be replicated by a Martial Adept a few levels lowers than the Truenamer. Greater Night's Puissance is a freaking class feature for Crusaders, after all.
Fair enough, so Martial Adepts can , knock a creatures saves down by 7, make an ally untargetable, and perfect flight for the barbarian so he can pounce the dragon above them?

[Azif13]

There are some classes from PF which I haven't found their tier. One example is the witch. As I see it, it is a class with a lot of battlefield control and debuffing spells and abilities, since that's the reason why Wizards and Clerics are tier 1 I was wondering if witches are also tier 1. I'm not sure because they don't get the wish and time-stop spells, but they have access to all the spell list much like a cleric would do, and that is quite good too. What do you think?

Also the summoner has things in common with the druid and the wizard (being conjuration one of the best schools), would it be tier 1 or 2?

[Karnith]

I can't really speak to the Witch because I don't play Pathfinder (I know that witches have prepared spellcasting off of their entire list, so I'd hazard a guess at tier 1), but I would like to clarify something. Battlefield control and debuffing abilities aren't the reason that tier 1s are tier 1s. Well, they're part of the reason, but not the main one.

Tier 1 characters are defined by their ability to solve any encounter through their class abilities. In some cases, debuffing and BFC may be the answer (e.g. party combat). In other cases, something else will be required. Charm Person or Suggestion can solve social situations, for example, while getting from point A to point B can be solved by Teleport. Needing to sneak can be solved by Invisibility, and locked doors can be solved by Knock (or blasting the door down). And so on for other situations. A tier 1 character will be able to solve all of these problems using only his class features. Tier 1s are capable of solving any encounter that you send their way, and that they are usually better at solving encounters that lower-tier characters who specialize in solving those encounters.

Tier 1 characters are also generally capable of much, much more than low-tier characters, not just in versatility, but in scope and power. While a Warblade can kill creatures in one strike, for example, wizards are capable of leveling planets.

[Togo]

Oh, but you do, you just don't know it. :smalltongue:


Odd way to put it, but that's about right. The system didn't invent anything, it just organized what was already there.

I know what I'm doing in my own games, and balancing by Tier isn't it. Not even a little bit.

[Togo]

A question: Does anybody have a link to some site giving a tier level for gestalt classes?. Like, which tier would Barbarian/Rogues or Paladin/Rangers or Bard/Fighters belong to?

I've seen some games on these boards where the DM tries to balance things by allowing low Tier classes to gestalt. So a Tier 4 gets to gestalt with a Tier 5 or lower class, and vice versa, tier 3s get a minor benefit, and higher tiers get nothing.

[Amphetryon]

There are some classes from PF which I haven't found their tier. One example is the witch. As I see it, it is a class with a lot of battlefield control and debuffing spells and abilities, since that's the reason why Wizards and Clerics are tier 1 I was wondering if witches are also tier 1. I'm not sure because they don't get the wish and time-stop spells, but they have access to all the spell list much like a cleric would do, and that is quite good too. What do you think?

Also the summoner has things in common with the druid and the wizard (being conjuration one of the best schools), would it be tier 1 or 2?

That (BFC/debuffing spells) isn't THE reason why Wizards and Clerics are Tier 1; the fact that they have those abilities as potential go-to options while still maintaining the ability to choose other courses if those options aren't optimal is what puts them there (plus, yanno, 9th level spells). Without that additional versatility - which folks have harped on in this and other Tiers thread over and over - the Witch falls short of Tier 1, reading more like a souped-up Warlock or a toned-down Dread Necromancer. That makes it somewhere around low Tier 3 as compared to the 3.5 list. In a straight Pathfinder game, the abilities may scale better, toward the top end of Tier 3 or - given sufficient op-fu - low Tier 2. As the Tier System assumes everyone in the group optimizes to roughly the same degree, the "sufficient op-fu" clause means it shouldn't outshine the rest of the party in this circumstance to a greater degree than under lesser optimization.

Summoner, by dint of its ability to muck up the action economy, rates a bit higher than the Witch by my reading, but falls short of Tier 1, and probably needs nearly as much substantial op-fu to reach Tier 2 as the Witch.

[Darius Kane]

I know what I'm doing in my own games, and balancing by Tier isn't it. Not even a little bit.
Trust me, if you're balancing your game, tiers come into play, whether you like it or not. You can deny it all you want, won't make it any less of a fact.

Summoner, I read, is T2. It goes only up to 6th level spells, but has some 7th and higher level spells as 6th level on his list.

[Togo]

Trust me, if you're balancing your game, tiers come into play, whether you like it or not. You can deny it all you want, won't make it any less of a fact.

I don't trust you, I don't agree with you. I have carefully considered your opinion and found it to be in error. :smalltongue:

Can we just accept that we disagree on this point and move on?

[Eldest]

So, out of curiosity, what do you do in your games? Since you have an alternative, and several people in this thread have stated they don't care for tiers.

[eggynack]

Indeed so. You could just be like, "Here're some examples of my personal balance system at work. Note the several ways in which it deviates from the tier system," and then we'd say either, "Wow, I've never considered balancing games along those lines. I'll have to reevaluate the way I play," or, "Yeah, that's different on the surface, but it's ultimately the tier system with some modifications. I feel vindicated." Maybe it'd be something in between. Either way, it'd probably take less time than you saying that you have a balancing system separate from the tier system every time the subject comes up, and people doubting you.

[Story]

Regarding the optimisation you did to pump up your UMD checks (where you dumpster dived a bunch of sourcebooks), I'm not claiming it can't be done, I'm just saying that a similar level of attention is all that is required for the Truenamer to easily get more than 2x to truespeech each time he levels up. For some reason that mystifies me, this is acceptable for an Artificer, but everyone wails and gnashes their teeth about doing it for the Truenamer.

It's ridiculous really, you cannot throw an awakened cat in the playground without hitting some kind of 'look at my diplomacy modifier of +276' or somone pumping up their jump skill or crafting skill to some ungodly amount ... yet suddenly the moment someone mentions truenamers everyone starts whinging about how hard it is to optimise skills.


In addition to what JaronK said, there's also the fact that Diplomacy is one of the easiest skills in the game to boost, while Truename is one of the hardest.

You can easily get a Diplomacy mod in the 40s by level 2 without even using magic or item familiars.

As for the source bit, Guidance of the Avatar is a single source and makes the Artificer's UMD checks irrelevant, just by itself. But a Truenamer can't effectively use it for mutliple reasons.

[Pickford]

Actually, according to RAW, that's not true (it may be sensible, but that's quite another thing). Per the SRD: (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gate.htm)

As long as it takes less than 1 round per caster level (or if you're gating something in for a fight), no payment is required.

I prefer to focus on the "a service" part. Casting Gate is a single service, anything beyond that is more than one and exceeds the number of allowed services, complex or no.

Eldariel, the problem is once the task to gate in another and order it to gate in another is completed...that first guy is free and can kill you or cancel their spell or whatever. Which stops a chain from happening.

[sonofzeal]

Isn't the solution to Gate in something that can cast Wish, with the order to Wish for a Candle of Invocation which can Gate in three things that can cast Wish, and Wish for three Candles of Invocation?

[JaronK]

Isn't the solution to Gate in something that can cast Wish, with the order to Wish for a Candle of Invocation which can Gate in three things that can cast Wish, and Wish for three Candles of Invocation?

That's one way to do it. Efreetis can get the job done, as they grant three wishes.

JaronK

[Komatik]

{Scrubbed}

[Alienist]

It is persistable. Why do you think it isn't?


Because you're the only person on the playground who thinks that spells with a variable range qualify for Persistent Spell?

Persistent Spell (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-arcane--55/persistent-spell--2140/)

Incidentally, I was trying to keep it polite and civil, I know we've clashed before, and I've criticised the tier system, which is your baby, but I would have appreciated the same basic courtesy that I was showing you.

Calling me disingenuous for pointing out that you misread what I wrote is really unnecessarily rude. I wasn't being disingenuous I was genuinely interested in what you had to say about low level artificing.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

That (BFC/debuffing spells) isn't THE reason why Wizards and Clerics are Tier 1; the fact that they have those abilities as potential go-to options while still maintaining the ability to choose other courses if those options aren't optimal is what puts them there (plus, yanno, 9th level spells). Without that additional versatility - which folks have harped on in this and other Tiers thread over and over - the Witch falls short of Tier 1, reading more like a souped-up Warlock or a toned-down Dread Necromancer. That makes it somewhere around low Tier 3 as compared to the 3.5 list. In a straight Pathfinder game, the abilities may scale better, toward the top end of Tier 3 or - given sufficient op-fu - low Tier 2. As the Tier System assumes everyone in the group optimizes to roughly the same degree, the "sufficient op-fu" clause means it shouldn't outshine the rest of the party in this circumstance to a greater degree than under lesser optimization.

Summoner, by dint of its ability to muck up the action economy, rates a bit higher than the Witch by my reading, but falls short of Tier 1, and probably needs nearly as much substantial op-fu to reach Tier 2 as the Witch.


Witches aren't quite able to match the everything-shattering versatility of wizards and clerics, they have more versatility than the Dread Necromancer, unless I have some big gaps in my memory of its spell list. I've generally seen them as a pretty solid tier two in pure Pathfinder, sometimes even on the higher end, and I'd generally agree. Rating them in "3.P" is a little weird, since a wizard or sorcerer would get sorcerer/wizard spells from about a kajillion 3.5 splatbooks and the PF books, while the witch would only have access to the latter.

It's also worth nothing that I feel like the witch acquits itself better than a lot of tier one classes, in practice.

[Eldariel]

Honestly, you only need servitude "Accept spells I cast on you". Mindrape later the Gated creature is a willing thrall, can get to you and provide more Mindrape victims.

If you need to employ chain Titans in a combat, you could also e.g. use servitude "Fight in this battle for me using your calling powers to bring more of your kind." or something similar; it's not hard to add stipulations to a line. Hell, if you want Gate and lowering defenses, a simple And-clause such as "Call X with Gate and lower your defenses" works.

[Karnith]

I prefer to focus on the "a service" part. Casting Gate is a single service, anything beyond that is more than one and exceeds the number of allowed services, complex or no.
That's fine as a houserule, because Gate is stupid, but you should be aware that it isn't RAW. Gate even specifies that any actions that can be completed in one round per caster level count as an immediate task.

[Amphetryon]

Witches aren't quite able to match the everything-shattering versatility of wizards and clerics, they have more versatility than the Dread Necromancer, unless I have some big gaps in my memory of its spell list. I've generally seen them as a pretty solid tier two in pure Pathfinder, sometimes even on the higher end, and I'd generally agree. Rating them in "3.P" is a little weird, since a wizard or sorcerer would get sorcerer/wizard spells from about a kajillion 3.5 splatbooks and the PF books, while the witch would only have access to the latter.

It's also worth nothing that I feel like the witch acquits itself better than a lot of tier one classes, in practice.

The big thing DN gets that Witches don't - by my understanding (I'm only passingly familiar with Pathfinder) - is the ability to bring in hordes. If I've missed a trick with Witches that allows them to create legions of loyal minions like a DN can do via Create/Control Undead, then I definitely agree they should get a bump in power over my initial commentary.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Thread locked for review.