Core Tiers? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Kaeso

2013-05-25, 04:29 PM

eggynack

2013-05-25, 04:32 PM

Spellcasters start out at tier one, and there's not really much further you can go up from there without hitting pun-pun. I think there's something between those two things, but I digress. Fighters tend towards tier four with splat books, and wildshape ranger is in tier 3. I think those are the only changes to the tier list, though bards tend to live up to their tier less when stuck in core. You don't get any of that cool inspire courage optimization; you just have the diplomancy and weak casting shtick. It's still tier 3, but I think it tends to feel worse, especially to inexperienced players. I don't even think they really get feats in core.

Fable Wright

2013-05-25, 04:33 PM

Current game is Core (PHB1, MM1, and DMG1). I'm actually enjoying the simplicity. It got me wondering if the tiers still apply when you cut out splatbooks. Less spell options, less feat options.....Is the Wizard still the most versatile?

Some classes are still obviously crud to play (*coughmonkscough*) because they're MAD. Even so....How much of the different classes strengths are based on splatbook options?

The tiers still apply. Polymorph, Alter Self, Grease, Solid Fog, Glitterdust, Haste, the works. Most of the unbalanced spells that make a Wizard as good as it is are all core. Clerics are a bit less versatile and go down, as other splats gave them things to do outside of healing and buffing, but it's still up there. Druid is still Druid. And, of course, Fighter is still tier 5, monk tier 6, and so on.

limejuicepowder

2013-05-25, 04:57 PM

Core only hurts the mundanes, badly. Not really enough to move them down a tier per say, but it definitely makes them weak examples of their tier rather than the strong ones they might be with splat support (barb, ranger, paladin, I'm looking at you).

Archery options are practically non-existent, power attack is only OK, tripping is not nearly as good, and...that's about it. Fighter, ranger, and paladin are nearly unplayable over the long haul for basically the same reason: there's just not enough to do.

Feat options are so limited that any mundane is going to run out of things to get by 15th or so. This really really sucks for the fighter, who's "class features" amount to crap like diehard at level 12, just for lack of other things to get.

Ranger is nearly inoperable as a combatant. Archery is terrible, and lack of feat and ACF support means he'll be a subpar melee'r too. Have fun with 4 spells per day and some skill monkeying.

Paladin will be OK in certain campaigns as a mounted combatant, but that's pretty niche. He's a little better off than the ranger just because of heavy armor, but his offensive options are limited and weak.

Casters are barely hurt, honestly. The core arcane spells are good enough they won't really notice the change that much. IMO, they will dominate earlier and more obviously than normally as their abilities are nearly the same and the mundanes can't really shine at anything at all.

Kaeso

2013-05-25, 04:59 PM

The tiers still apply. Polymorph, Alter Self, Grease, Solid Fog, Glitterdust, Haste, the works. Most of the unbalanced spells that make a Wizard as good as it is are all core. Clerics are a bit less versatile and go down, as other splats gave them things to do outside of healing and buffing, but it's still up there. Druid is still Druid. And, of course, Fighter is still tier 5, monk tier 6, and so on.

To be fair, the cleric can do more than just buff and heal even in core. He can still do trapfinding (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/findTraps.htm), summon monsters (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/summonMonsterI.htm) to do his bidding, do damage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/searingLight.htm), cast save or suck (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/holdPerson.htm) spells and become a fighter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/divinePower.htm) among other things. Access to core weakens the cleric the most out of all tier 1 classes, but by no means reduces him to a buffslave with a pointy stick.

Eldariel

2013-05-25, 05:09 PM

To be fair, the cleric can do more than just buff and heal even in core. He can still do trapfinding (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/findTraps.htm), summon monsters (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/summonMonsterI.htm) to do his bidding, do damage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/searingLight.htm), cast save or suck (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/holdPerson.htm) spells and become a fighter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/divinePower.htm) among other things. Access to core weakens the cleric the most out of all tier 1 classes, but by no means reduces him to a buffslave with a pointy stick.

Yeah, Clerics have some great Core spells. Let's not forget they also get Wall of Stone, Silence, Dispel Magic, Gate, Air Walk, top tier spells in general. Then they have domains which include e.g. Time Stop, Shapechange, Polymorph Any Object, Teleport, etc.

Their low level spells aren't that amazing compared to Wizard but they get Heavy Armor and such so they're pretty solid martially early on to compensate. And the buffs? Yeah, they get Magic Vestment (which actually makes AC a reasonable proposition for hours/level), Greater Magic Weapon, personal buffs and many 10 min/level buffs with great utility (FoM, Magic Circle, Resist Energy, etc.). And Beads of Karma are the easiest for them to use and are Core.

Core Clerics might not be quite as amazing as splatbook Clerics but they're still very, very strong. Druid is probably stronger in Core but even then, Clerics have some key unique spells, get stuff like Heal and Death Ward a level earlier and can fight with the best of them.

SouthpawSoldier

2013-05-25, 05:27 PM

I think that's a key issue. We've yet to have a campaign get that high. Highest level we've reached is 5th; keep starting new campaigns when DM gets an idea, or people leave the group, or we take a month off, etc. Kinda hard to really see what classes can do, especially casters that really shine at higher levels.

It'd be easier if I knew other people in the area, and my work schedule was more regular so I could have a set day to play. Right now though, these are the only players on my area, so I'm dependent on them.

Eldariel

2013-05-25, 05:34 PM

Azernak0

2013-05-25, 05:43 PM

I would say anyone that isn't a full Spellcaster would get much weaker. Bards are great but it is outside Core where they really become powerhouses. Of course, if everyone below Tier 2 gets lowered, the Tier system more or less stays the same.

Wizards still have Polymorph, Glitterdust, Slow, Haste.
Sorcerers don't get the benefits of Sorcerer only spells, but they still have ^
Druids are made gods with a Core Only feat.
Fighters get worse. Core Only to Core Only I would say that a Fighter is not much better than a Monk or they are so close it is hard to tell. IE, they both suck but Fighter sucks just a little bit less.
Barbarians are still 'good' as the limited options hurt them less.

So basically everything is the same but the classes that needed to go book diving (Paladin, Fighters, Monks) are probably worse off.

Frosty

2013-05-25, 08:05 PM

Paladins go from tier 4 to tier 5.

limejuicepowder

2013-05-25, 08:09 PM

Barbarians are still 'good' as the limited options hurt them less.

I mostly disagree with this. Barbs get hurt equally badly, but since the other mundanes get hurt just as much, and they start off worse, it still leaves barbs as the best melee...but not by much, if at all.

Check it -
1) no pounce
2) no free improved trip, meaning if they want it it takes 2 feats (no power attack until level 6 then, or 3 if you're human) and int 13
3) no whirlwind

They don't even get 2 rages/day until level 4, which means for the majority of fights they are a fighter with less feats, less armor, more skills, more movement, slightly more HP, and uncanny dodge. That's pretty weak.

Really, I'd put "best melee" as a toss-up between fighters and barbs. A level 1 human fighter can rock WF, power attack, and cleave. With a 18 in str and a greatsword, he can mow through most CR 1 enemies 2/round. A barb who takes power attack and cleave will be strictly worse at this except for a couple of rounds per day, and by level 4 when the barb finally gets more rage uses the fighter has taken improved initiative, WS, and rapid shot. Now the barb basically has to rage just to match the fighter, and the fighter can still ping away with 2 ranged attacks/round if necessary.

StreamOfTheSky

2013-05-25, 09:27 PM

Core only badly hurts the non-casters and does little to the casters, as everyone has said. Casters have some of their best feats (Quicken Spell, Extend Spell, Spell Focus, Improved Initiative, and Flyby Attack) right in core. Core also provides the Archmage and Thaumaturgist prestige classes for wizards and clerics, as well as Loremaster (which is less exciting, but still plain better than Wiz or Sorc 20). The melee characters have Power Attack, Improved Initiative, and...yeah... The only good non-caster PrC is Horizon Walker, also maybe a 1-2 level dip of Shadowdancer.

The best melee characters in core are: buffed up cleric; wildshaped Druid; and polymorphed Wizard or Sorcerer. Seriously, make a dwarf or (forest) gnome Transmuter with Int and Con as most important stats. Starting at level 7, you can turn into Annis Hag or Treant for 3 combats per day with size large or huge and str in the mid to high 20's. Slap Imp. Trip, Combat Reflexes, and Spiked Chain proficiency on there and you have a great tripping build, much better than the noncasters can muster.

SouthpawSoldier

2013-05-26, 06:21 AM

Maybe it's just my group then. Our playtest of DnD Next was the only time I've seen much imagination from the party (using Mage Hand to milk the silk from a giant spider so it couldn't web us). DM has set up a few interesting situations, but most people seem to stick with stereotypes. One exception is the other guy who occasionally DM's; he had a shifter factotum that could have been interesting, but the campaign didn't last long enough to see what he could really do. The Darfallen character DM helped me set up wasn't bad (basic barb/fight harpooner).

On a related note, what splatbooks would you say are most important for each class (Complete Divine for clerics, Cityscape for rogues, etc)?

sonofzeal

2013-05-26, 06:35 AM

On a related note, what splatbooks would you say are most important for each class (Complete Divine for clerics, Cityscape for rogues, etc)?
It's not really that simple. Each book has individual options; sometimes those options open up new possibilities, but that doesn't mean it's "important" unless you're using those possibilities.

The best splatbooks to get, though, are generally some permutation on Magic Item Compendium, Spell Compendium, Tome of Battle, Dungeonscape, and PHB2. After that is the original Complete run (Warrior, Arcane, Divine, Adventurer).

HunterOfJello

2013-05-26, 06:45 AM

The class tiers are generally the same but some of the classes get a bit worse. Cleric becomes more boring, but stays at its same tier. Bards might drop a tier and Paladins probably do. Barbarians and Fighters become worse due to lack of options. Pretty much everything under Tier 2 becomes worse than it already was.

Making a game Core Only really doesn't help things if a person's goal is to balance out the tiers.

JaronK

2013-05-26, 06:45 AM

Core only makes the tiers more extreme. Barbarians drop to Tier 5. Bards probably drop to Tier 4, though I'm not as sure about that. Rogues are even lower in Tier 4, if not now Tier 5 (they now have no way to hurt undead, plants, elementals, constructs, and so on, plus they can't deal with Blindsense and similar). Casters, meanwhile, are just as strong, and comparatively speaking are even stronger.

As far as what splats are best for which classes...

Barbarians love getting Lion Totem, which is Complete Champion. They also love Shock Trooper from Complete Warrior. Fighters are also going to like Complete Warrior, but mostly because they just need more feats to spend on their shtick, whatever that may be. The concept of "melee class" benefits best from Tome of Battle which allows them to stay interesting and useful even in high level play.

Rogues basically need Darkstalker from Lords of Madness just to function as a stealth class. There's also a few books that have abilities that let them sneak attack other stuff, which is nice, and the equipment books are often useful (MIC, for example). The stealther concept benefits a lot from PHBII and Dungeonscape, which have Tier 3 skill types.

Bards benefit from BoED a lot, as well as anything else that can pump up their music. Dragon Magic along with Libris Mortis can actually make Bards really nasty, to the point that many DMs might balk.

Monks can really benefit from Unapproachable East due to the Shou Disciple class. The "unarmed martial artist" concept benefits from Tome of Battle, which has ways to make that really work.

JaronK

Kaeso

2013-05-26, 06:47 AM

It's not really that simple. Each book has individual options; sometimes those options open up new possibilities, but that doesn't mean it's "important" unless you're using those possibilities.

The best splatbooks to get, though, are generally some permutation on Magic Item Compendium, Spell Compendium, Tome of Battle, Dungeonscape, and PHB2. After that is the original Complete run (Warrior, Arcane, Divine, Adventurer).

I'd say that the Complete line trumps the other books you have named. The complete line is the one that allows barbarians to get pounce, bards to get the bardic knack ability (which makes it one of the most versatile skillmonkeys in the game even if you lack int) and gives fighters a slew of new feats, ranging from "really useful" to "Why would you do this?".

eggynack

2013-05-26, 06:54 AM

I'd say that the Complete line trumps the other books you have named. The complete line is the one that allows barbarians to get pounce, bards to get the bardic knack ability (which makes it one of the most versatile skillmonkeys in the game even if you lack int) and gives fighters a slew of new feats, ranging from "really useful" to "Why would you do this?".
Well, sure, that works for them. I think that caster classes tend more towards the spell compendium though. I don't even know what druids really get through the complete books. I suppose there's golden desert honey, and the items of the beast, but I'd rather have MiC or SpC. It's theoretically possible that a wizard might want some kind of prestige class from a complete, but I think that SpC is probably better. Clerics might want complete divine though, because of DMM, some spells, and some prestige classes, but without persist DMM's value goes down a bit.

Eldariel

2013-05-26, 06:57 AM

I mostly disagree with this. Barbs get hurt equally badly, but since the other mundanes get hurt just as much, and they start off worse, it still leaves barbs as the best melee...but not by much, if at all.

Check it -
1) no pounce
2) no free improved trip, meaning if they want it it takes 2 feats (no power attack until level 6 then, or 3 if you're human) and int 13
3) no whirlwind

They don't even get 2 rages/day until level 4, which means for the majority of fights they are a fighter with less feats, less armor, more skills, more movement, slightly more HP, and uncanny dodge. That's pretty weak.

Really, I'd put "best melee" as a toss-up between fighters and barbs. A level 1 human fighter can rock WF, power attack, and cleave. With a 18 in str and a greatsword, he can mow through most CR 1 enemies 2/round. A barb who takes power attack and cleave will be strictly worse at this except for a couple of rounds per day, and by level 4 when the barb finally gets more rage uses the fighter has taken improved initiative, WS, and rapid shot. Now the barb basically has to rage just to match the fighter, and the fighter can still ping away with 2 ranged attacks/round if necessary.

Yeah, Barbs get hurt but they still get hurt far less than Fighters (who have no worthwhile feats to pick after first 4-5 levels). Barb fast movement is really good early on. If you're playing a low level Barb in light armor (Chain Shirt is nice), you have 40' Movement Speed. Given your ranged proficiencies, this goes great for kiting in e.g. forests or plains.

Anything with 20' move speed (anyone in heavy armor, many larger monsters, etc.) can only match your single move action with doublemove (running might or might not work depending on terrain) while Barb can move and throw things.

Honestly tho, best Core mundane is a multiclass. Barb/Ranger/Fighter together is much stronger than any of them alone. Ranger 2 for Rapid Shot so you effectively have as good ranged combat as you can have, Fighter 2 for few feats and heavy armor & Barbarian for Fast Movement, Uncanny Dodge, Rage & so on.

Also, Raging Barbarian has Fighter beat on every count; it's not just equal, the fact that Trip is a Strength-check and it's by far the strongest combat option in Core makes Rage the only easy source of +2 on that front.

Kaeso

2013-05-26, 07:05 AM

but without persist DMM's value goes down a bit.

Only a bit, as you've just said. DMM empower, DMM extend and especially DMM quicken are still pretty good. Also, the main use for DMM persist is persisting divine power. With the ordained champion prestige class (complete champion if I'm not mistaken), there is no longer a need for that because every spell from the war domain is automatically quickened. The class may cost you two spell advancement levels, but it's generally considered to be one of the few classes where the cost is actually worth it because it brings so much to the table, including a way to break the action economy. If you do that, you can still use your turn undead uses for the devotion spells including the powerful travel devotion and the IMHO underrated animal devotion.

It's true that druids profit more from spell compendium, but I'd say wizards and clerics profit more from the complete line because it gives them more feats and best of all some of the most broken prestige classes. While SpC gives them a lot of powerful spells, there's a bit of overlap with the complete books in this field anyway.

eggynack

2013-05-26, 07:17 AM

Well, it seems a bit unfair to compare any given book to the entire complete line simultaneously. I had assumed that you meant that a book out of the complete line would be better than any given other book, which probably isn't far off base for most core classes.

ericgrau

2013-05-26, 03:09 PM

The "most broken spells" are almost all infinite loops that never see play. And you don't get polymorph forms like war troll. Nor do you have DMM persist. Without stupid loops you still have powerful battlefield control to slow down the enemies. But that acts as support for the damage dealers who finish off the delayed foes before they can recover.

Theory might be different, but in practice there isn't much discrepancy between classes. You can argue which party member is contributing more, but it's a cooperative game. The best setup is usually casters slow down foes and buff melee, melee finishes off foes. The better parties should have both and, no, a core divine caster is nowhere near a perfect substitute for regular melee at hitting stuff. Buffs waste time until level 15, and by then you're imitating a warrior 15 not a has-melee-class-features full BAB 15. Versatility is nice, but unless it's a 1 man party you're better off with both kinds of characters in the party.

The biggest hangup that remains is boredom. When I'm not playing a full caster I have a lot of fun loading up on random magic items to make up for it, both for combat and between it. There are skills and tripping and so on and don't forget those but they only go so far.

eggynack

2013-05-26, 03:15 PM

The "most broken spells" are almost all infinite loops that never see play. And you don't get polymorph forms like war troll. Nor do you have DMM persist. Without stupid loops you still have battlefield control to slow down the enemies. But that acts as support for the damage dealers who finish off foes.

Theory might be different, but in practice there isn't much discrepancy between classes. You can argue which party member is contributing more, but it's a cooperative game. The best setup is usually casters slow down foes and buff melee, melee finishes off foes. The better parties should have both and, no, a core divine caster is nowhere near a perfect substitute for regular melee. Buffs waste time.
Even assuming your other claims are at all true, druids kinda are a perfect substitute for melee. They have a friendly fighter right there, not consuming any actions, and then you get to do other melee stuff, like summoning bears. I have no idea what you mean by the most broken spells being all infinite loops. Even assuming that you mean only super crazy ridiculous spells, there's still stuff like shivering touch. That spell is the buns of insanity. Most spells are just good because they're good, not because they can loop repeatedly. Some of them can, but most of them can't. Seriously though, druids. Druids are crazy. They basically just invalidate all arguments by the fact of their existence.

ericgrau

2013-05-26, 03:18 PM

It's not the versatility it's the hardness of hitting. The only way I've seen to make the core stats work better was abuse like dire tiger barding. There have been long arguments about it but honestly were do you even buy that and how do you sell it when it's time to switch forms. In a mixed party you don't need a 2nd versatile guy. Really you should have a druid and a barbarian, not a druid instead of a barbarian. And a druid and a cleric is likewise a bit redundant.

The classic 4 man party that always gets teased is tank, healbot, glass cannon and skillmonkey, but really it works well when done properly: front-line damage dealer, buffer/fixer/semi-front-line cleric, controller arcane caster and skillmonkey/semi-other-role rogue/bard/ranger.

Carth

2013-05-26, 03:19 PM

Core still has some pretty darned good polymorph forms, such as bulette, behir, and hydra.

ericgrau

2013-05-26, 03:24 PM

They're decent, but the best target is still the one with the most hp and full BAB, and except with the most broken off-the-wall interpretation they're not crazy.

eggynack

2013-05-26, 03:24 PM

It's not the versatility it's the hardness of hitting. The only way I've seen to make the core stats work better was abuse like dire tiger barding. There have been long arguments about it but honestly were do you even buy that and how do you sell it when it's time to switch forms. In a mixed party you don't need a 2nd versatile guy. Really you should have a druid and a barbarian, not a druid instead of a barbarian. And a druid and a cleric is likewise a bit redundant.
Well yeah. Obviously a druid and barbarian party is going to be better than a druid alone party. However, you said that casters don't make good mundane guy substitutes, and druids absolutely do. They're like a mundane guy, except they're also another mundane guy, and then a bunch of summoned mundane guys, and they can also cast spells all the time. A party with a druid in it does not need a barbarian to operate, if any party ever needs a barbarian to operate. I'm nowhere near convinced of that. Wizards have their ways of killing stuff.

ericgrau

2013-05-26, 03:26 PM

Then it may be a misunderstanding. I said they're not a perfect substitute in a party and that a party should have both, which seems to be the same thing you're saying. I have run the numbers on core melee stats before btw.

This all reminds me of a hierophant druid-barbarian combo which you can pull off in core. Wildshape+full BAB+rage+hp is nuts for pounding face with the mobility to do it too. Meanwhile the druid also handles the party versatility almost as well as before, since he only lost 1 caster level to do it.

Eldariel

2013-05-26, 03:28 PM

They're decent, but the best target is still the one with the most hp and full BAB, and except with the most broken off-the-wall interpretation they're not crazy.

Honestly, Druid with Wild Armor & Shield outpaces any warrior by midlevels. Coupled with properly equipped companion, two Druids is a match for any warrior + Druid.

Flickerdart

2013-05-26, 03:30 PM

The better parties should have both and, no, a core divine caster is nowhere near a perfect substitute for regular melee at hitting stuff. Buffs waste time until level 15, and by then you're imitating a warrior 15 not a has-melee-class-features full BAB 15. Versatility is nice, but unless it's a 1 man party you're better off with both kinds of characters in the party.

What does a Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party have that a Druid, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party doesn't?

Alabenson

2013-05-26, 03:34 PM

What does a Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party have that a Druid, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party doesn't?

I was going to say an expendable meat shield, but not only does the Druid's animal companion fill that role just as easily, it's less likely to complain about it.

ericgrau

2013-05-26, 03:35 PM

What does a Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party have that a Druid, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party doesn't?
Doesn't have any more options, but doesn't have any less either. And purely by the numbers the one with the fighter hits harder in core with all but the most flying DMG worthy interpretations. It's a boring job and not versatile on its own, but that's why there's a party and not a solo guy.

"Full BAB and hp" was referring to polymorph. I normally don't respond to these topics because I don't like repeating myself when people don't read and repeat the same old hat. But simply put this is what I see in every casual game I've ever seen. Not disagreeing with theory, only that practice is another thing. In my gaming groups in particular, even playing in two different cities with 4-5 different DMs, druids have it particularly bad. The dungeons never seems to match them well.

eggynack

2013-05-26, 03:36 PM

What does a Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party have that a Druid, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party doesn't?
Basically this times a reasonable, not arbitrarily large, number. A party with a druid instead of a barbarian isn't going to really feel the pain of not having a barbarian in it. The wizard is never going to say, "Oh, if only I had a barbarian stabbing enemies for me instead of this puny riding dog, I would be a man with a perfect life." Druids absolutely make a perfect barbarian substitute. This is especially true after level 8, when you get large wildshape forms.

StreamOfTheSky

2013-05-26, 03:38 PM

I will say the one thing about Polymorph (and why I like it) is because you aren't just limited to using it on yourself to make the melee guy feel useless. You can also just cast it on him instead to make him more awesome.

I still would never play a fighter beyond level 2 or 4 in core, though. Well, it's also hard to justify with all splats, but it's absolutely pointless in core.

eggynack

2013-05-26, 03:41 PM

Doesn't have anything more, but doesn't have anything less. And the one with the fighter hits harder in core with all but the most flying DMG worthy interpretations. It's a boring job and not versatile on its own, but that's why there's a party and not a solo guy.

The fighter party doesn't have anything less than the druid party? You should try saying that after the druid launches any of his battlefield control spells, locking down most of the enemies there. You should try saying that after there is a situation that can only be accessed by flying guys, and the druid can fly of his own power while the fighter has to mooch a flight spell off the party wizard. You should try saying that after the druid has just summoned a giant crocodile five feet from an enemy wizards face, and the wizard is effectively locked out of combat due to the crocodile's crazy grapple mod. It's a thing that's just incorrect. Druids are much much more than just their animal companions, and that seems obvious to me. They're a prepared caster first, the party's meat shield second.

CIDE

2013-05-26, 11:50 PM

What does a Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party have that a Druid, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party doesn't?

Two expendable characters instead of just one?

Flickerdart

2013-05-27, 12:09 AM

Two expendable characters instead of just one?
The animal companion is infinitely expendable. Try again.

Kaeso

2013-05-27, 06:15 AM

What does a Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party have that a Druid, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party doesn't?

1. An extra fighter in the form of an animal companion
2. Theoretically infinite reinforcements in the form of spontaneous summons
3. Some good battlefield control options (starting as low as level 1 with entangle)
4. An option to actually consistently full attack (change into an animal with pounce)
5. Extra spells. More spells = more power and can actually open up a few spell slots for the wizard and cleric to do things they normally wouldn't do.

This party is strictly superior to the classic fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard party. The only downside is that the rogue will feel even more unneeded and that the other three party members will have to put explicit effort into makin the rogue feel useful, such as explicitely giving him flanking opportunities even if it is inefficient and explicitely refraining from buying wands of knock or find trap so the rogue can pretend his trapfindig skill isn't superfluous.

I'm not saying the rogue is a bad and stupid class that nobody should every play, I'm just saying that pretty much everything is superfluous if the party already has a druid, wizard and cleric.

eggynack

2013-05-27, 06:24 AM

1. An extra fighter in the form of an animal companion
2. Theoretically infinite reinforcements in the form of spontaneous summons
3. Some good battlefield control options (starting as low as level 1 with entangle)
4. An option to actually consistently full attack (change into an animal with pounce)
5. Extra spells. More spells = more power and can actually open up a few spell slots for the wizard and cleric to do things they normally wouldn't do.

This party is strictly superior to the classic fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard party. The only downside is that the rogue will feel even more unneeded and that the other three party members will have to put explicit effort into makin the rogue feel useful, such as explicitely giving him flanking opportunities even if it is inefficient and explicitely refraining from buying wands of knock or find trap so the rogue can pretend his trapfindig skill isn't superfluous.

I'm not saying the rogue is a bad and stupid class that nobody should every play, I'm just saying that pretty much everything is superfluous if the party already has a druid, wizard and cleric.
I think you may be quoting the wrong person. That quote was arguing in favor of the thing you're claiming, not against it. You should switch it over to an ericgrau quote or something.

Kaeso

2013-05-27, 06:26 AM

I think you may be quoting the wrong person. That quote was arguing in favor of the thing you're claiming, not against it. You should switch it over to an ericgrau quote or something.

Oh oops! Sorry, that was dumb of me. I should read more carefully next time.

ahenobarbi

2013-05-27, 06:30 AM

I will say the one thing about Polymorph (and why I like it) is because you aren't just limited to using it on yourself to make the melee guy feel useless. You can also just cast it on him instead to make him more awesome.

Actually I don't understand why wizard would polymorph it self and got meelee if he can polymorph fighter and let him go meelee. Sure it makes your share smaller significantly smaller but:
- You put yourself at much less risk this way.
- You can do more important things during combat.
- The fighter is actually better hydra than you (it has more BAB and HP).

eggynack

2013-05-27, 06:36 AM

Actually I don't understand why wizard would polymorph it self and got meelee if he can polymorph fighter and let him go meelee. Sure it makes your share smaller significantly smaller but:
- You put yourself at much less risk this way.
- You can do more important things during combat.
- The fighter is actually better hydra than you (it has more BAB and HP).
I think you're missing the point a little. Sure, the fighter makes a somewhat better hydra than you do. That's great for him. The point, is that the effect of the fighter on the combat was marginal at best. If the wizard had a fighter in his party, that party would be better, but the wizard can do just fine without him. The fact of the matter is, the power levels of a wizard, cleric, druid party, and a wizard, cleric, druid, fighter party are so close as to be indistinguishable. That first party is incredibly unlikely to ever say, "Oh man, this fight would have been swayed our way if only we had a fighter." The fighter is nice to have around, but he's completely non-essential.

ahenobarbi

2013-05-27, 06:41 AM

I think you're missing the point a little. Sure, the fighter makes a somewhat better hydra than you do. That's great for him. The point, is that the effect of the fighter on the combat was marginal at best. If the wizard had a fighter in his party, that party would be better, but the wizard can do just fine without him. The fact of the matter is, the power levels of a wizard, cleric, druid party, and a wizard, cleric, druid, fighter party are so close as to be indistinguishable. That first party is incredibly unlikely to ever say, "Oh man, this fight would have been swayed our way if only we had a fighter." The fighter is nice to have around, but he's completely non-essential.

I mean if I were a wizard I'd gladly pay fighter so he'd risk it's life instead of me risking mine. Sure it's even better if there is a cleric willing to risk it's life for the same payment...

Well Wizard, Cleric, Druid party probably doesn't need Fighter at all because Animal Companion can fulfill duty of giving signal that we should run (by dieing).

eggynack

2013-05-27, 06:49 AM

I mean if I were a wizard I'd gladly pay fighter so he'd risk it's life instead of me risking mine. Sure it's even better if there is a cleric willing to risk it's life for the same payment...

Well Wizard, Cleric, Druid party probably doesn't need Fighter at all because Animal Companion can fulfill duty of giving signal that we should run (by dieing).
Well, I would if the costs were low enough. I could also likely hire a commoner for cheaper and gain a similar effect. I mean, there's certainly reason to buy the fighter, and I probably would do that if the prices weren't too far apart, but it's all very marginal. This is a PC we're talking about, and its only impact on this given combat is to be a target for a wizard spell. I think that that assessment, that the fighter is worthless without the polymorph, is probably too far in the extreme. However, it's not so far from true as to be dismissed entirely. really, the role that the fighter is filling in this situation, and the role that an animal companion would be filling, are really similar. One of the biggest differences is that the animal companion can be the target of animal growth, and with that buff can wreck most fights. The fact that that spell can also hit summons with the same casting is ridiculous.

MukkTB

2013-05-27, 07:38 AM

With 1 Wizard and one Fighter the Wizard could make the fighter into a Hydra and the Fighter could go to town. However you have to factor in opportunity costs beyond saying Wizard + Fighter > Wizard. With two gish Wizards they both could turn themselves into Hydras and go to town almost twice as hard.

The Druid chassis itself is a slightly ****ty substitute for a fighter. It has 3/4 base attack and fewer feats to apply to a combat style. The Animal companion is a slightly ****ty substitute for a fighter to about the same degree for about the same reasons. Wildshape itself makes the slightly ****ty druid chassis into an outright better fighter than the fighter. Once the Druid spell list is being employed, it's buffs can make both the companion and the Druid better fighters than the fighter.

There are a number of low tier characters that produce excellent damage in the course of regular play. They are contributing to combat, especially at lower levels. Then theres the argument at exactly when the Quadratic Wizard surpasses the Linear Fighter. It may be first level. It may be a couple levels in. Under lower optimization I believe its at least a couple levels in. This experience makes less experience optimizers a bit skeptical of the tier system.

Overall in the course of regular adventuring, low tier characters can be sufficient, fun to play, and contribute meaningfully in a party. Higher tiers would just be more powerful. At high levels the disparity gets worse though.

SouthpawSoldier

2013-05-27, 08:21 AM

Overall in the course of regular adventuring, low tier characters can be sufficient, fun to play, and contribute meaningfully in a party. Higher tiers would just be more powerful. At high levels the disparity gets worse though.

Truth. As fun as it may be for some to try to break the game, I had a blast with my very basic 5th lvl Darfallen Fighter/Barb Harpooner. Simplistic and cliche; you bet. But when I'm being chewed on by a giant snake that's making its saves vs our casters, and the ONLY attack that is actually hitting him is my Raged Natural Bite on his tonsils, (measely 1d6+5), I feel fulfilled. Just imagine a 4'6 Humanoid Orca qouting Darla from Finding Nemo; "I'm a piranha! GNAW GNAW GNAW!"

GreenETC

2013-05-27, 08:53 AM

The only downside is that the rogue will feel even more unneeded and that the other three party members will have to put explicit effort into makin the rogue feel useful, such as explicitely giving him flanking opportunities even if it is inefficient and explicitely refraining from buying wands of knock or find trap so the rogue can pretend his trapfindig skill isn't superfluous.

Actually, if I was a party of a Wizard/Druid/Cleric, Rogue is the FIRST thing I'd want, since that means you can just sit back and not waste spells on trapfinding or lockpicking, not to mention I'd much rather have a Hydra Rogue than a Hydra Fighter. Plus with the Animal Companion and potentiality of all three casters using summons, I'd say flanking is highly likely. He still sucks against undead/constructs/plants though.

eggynack

2013-05-27, 09:06 AM

Actually, if I was a party of a Wizard/Druid/Cleric, Rogue is the FIRST thing I'd want, since that means you can just sit back and not waste spells on trapfinding or lockpicking, not to mention I'd much rather have a Hydra Rogue than a Hydra Fighter. Plus with the Animal Companion and potentiality of all three casters using summons, I'd say flanking is highly likely. He still sucks against undead/constructs/plants though.
Eh, I don't know if a rogue is necessary for that kind of thing. I mean, out of core they're obviously not, because of the summon elemental reserve feat, but I don't think it's the biggest issue in core either. Druids have a good pile of first level summons at any reasonable level, and those can be tossed into apparently dicey situations at a pretty low cost. Animal companions also make pretty viable trap checkers, and wildshape helps bunches with the stealth aspect. Wizards and clerics can do similar things with their low level slots if they want. I think the point I'm making is that you're giving up spells to deal with traps, but they can basically be spells of any level. Like the fighter, the rogue is nice to have, but I'd rather just have another caster, and the effects of the rogue are rather marginal.

Edit: Also, it might be irrelevant, but I view traps as pretty bad game design. Even in a core game, I'd probably port in some encounter traps for this purpose alone.

Squirrel_Dude

2013-05-27, 10:21 AM

Hey now guys, fighters could just be like every other monster and pick up tons of useless flat bonus feats.

Let's see how far we can go with core before we take truely useless feats.

Two Handed Dwarf Fighter

Level 1: EWP Spiked Chain
Level 1 Bonus: Combat Expertise
Level 2 Bonus: Improved Trip
Level 3: Power Attack
Level 4 Bonus: Weapon Focus (Spiked Chain)
Level 6: Improved Bull Rush
Level 6 Bonus: Weapon Specialization (Spiked Chain)
Level 8 Bonus: Greater Weapon Focus (Spiked Chain)
Level 9: Great Fortitude?
Level 10 Bonus: Cleave
Level 12: Lightening Reflexes?
Level 12 Bonus: Great Cleave
Level 14 Bonus: Combat Reflexes
Level 15: Iron Will?
Level 16 Bonus: Improved Sunder
Level 18: Improved Initiative?
Level 18 Bonus: Improved Disarm
Level 20 Bonus: Greater Weapon Specialization (Spiked Chain)
Yeah, I had no idea where to go after Level 14. Well, that's just because the two handed fighter is so much easier to build...

But as we all know, sword n' Board is the best way to go.
Sword N' Board Dwarf Fighter

Level 1: Improved Shield Bash
Level 1 Bonus: Two Weapon Fighting (Yeeeeeah, here we go!)
Level 2 Bonus: Power Attack
Level 3: Weapon Focus (Dwarven Waraxe)
Level 4 Bonus: Weapon Specialization (Dwarven Waraxe)
Level 6: Cleave
Level 6 Bonus: Improved Two Weapon Fighting
Level 8 Bonus: Greater Weapon Focus (Dwarven Waraxe)
Level 9: Great Cleave
Level 10 Bonus: Combat Expertise
Level 12: Greater Two Weapon Fighting
Level 12 Bonus: Improved Bull Rush
Level 14 Bonus: Quick Draw
Level 15: Greater Weapon Specialization (Dwarven Waraxe)
Level 16 Bonus: Uh.... Weapon Focus (Heavy Shield)
Level 18: Improved Sunder
Level 18 Bonus: Weapon Specialization (Heavy Shield)
Level 20 Bonus: Greater Weapon Focus (Heavy Shield)
See, there are always useful feats for a fighter!

I hurt on the inside now...

StreamOfTheSky

2013-05-27, 10:53 AM

Actually I don't understand why wizard would polymorph it self and got meelee if he can polymorph fighter and let him go meelee. Sure it makes your share smaller significantly smaller but:
- You put yourself at much less risk this way.
- You can do more important things during combat.
- The fighter is actually better hydra than you (it has more BAB and HP).

I agree completely, and it's a lesson I learned the hard way.

Whenever it is an option, I will always polymorph the melee guy before me, it's just more efficient in every possible sense (synergy in combat ability; action economy since he can then attack on the same round, etc...), and it's much more team-friendly.

The thing w/ a wizard built from day 1 to perform as a fighter replacement is that he can do so quite well (so can most classes other than monk to be fair, fighter sucks except compared to monk), so the fighter isn't actually needed for anything. Self-sufficiency is nice to have. A mid-level wizard built with the chain trip feat line and polymorph can melee against most of the monster manual and have a good chance of winning/surviving. Can't say the same of the fighter w/o spell support. While I am quite willing to help an ally as a caster; when I am a noncaster, unless one of the casters is a friend of mine already, I can't really afford to assume he will be as generous to noncasters as I would have been.

Tvtyrant

2013-05-27, 11:03 AM

I think you're missing the point a little. Sure, the fighter makes a somewhat better hydra than you do. That's great for him. The point, is that the effect of the fighter on the combat was marginal at best. If the wizard had a fighter in his party, that party would be better, but the wizard can do just fine without him. The fact of the matter is, the power levels of a wizard, cleric, druid party, and a wizard, cleric, druid, fighter party are so close as to be indistinguishable. That first party is incredibly unlikely to ever say, "Oh man, this fight would have been swayed our way if only we had a fighter." The fighter is nice to have around, but he's completely non-essential.

On the contrary. Polymorphing yourself as a Wizard is a waste of time and resources, as it prevents you from casting spells and you still are not going to be as good at combat as whatever you are fighting. "I can turn into a flurry of missing hydra-bites!" is a terrible strategy against, say, an actual hydra of appropriate CR. You have crappy BaB, less strength and HP, and are blocking off your primary tools.

A polymorphed fighter still benefits from his primary class features, has more HP than the enemy hydra, hits more accurately, can use his fighter feats, and doesn't block off your spell casting abilities.

eggynack

2013-05-27, 11:15 AM

On the contrary. Polymorphing yourself as a Wizard is a waste of time and resources, as it prevents you from casting spells and you still are not going to be as good at combat as whatever you are fighting. "I can turn into a flurry of missing hydra-bites!" is a terrible strategy against, say, an actual hydra of appropriate CR. You have crappy BaB, less strength and HP, and are blocking off your primary tools.

A polymorphed fighter still benefits from his primary class features, has more HP than the enemy hydra, hits more accurately, can use his fighter feats, and doesn't block off your spell casting abilities.
Yeah, but that's only true to the extent that any arbitrary fourth party member would be an asset to the party. I mean, there's always other good ways a wizard can approximate a fighter. Summoning spells are one of the best, though I always prefer a druid for that method. Being a fighter is probably the worst thing a wizard can be, because fighters are terrible. Druids make way better fighters in general, and wizards can generally cast haste on animal companions as well as he can on a fighter. It's really the druid wizard cleric party that doesn't need a fighter more than the wizard alone party. With a wizard alone, you're generally going to want to rely on more attrition based methods of enemy killing. Ya'know, wizard style.

MukkTB

2013-05-27, 11:31 AM

ahenobarbi

2013-05-27, 11:50 AM

Being 'better than nothing' is not a major selling point for the claim that the fighter is as powerful as the wizard. Bringing almost anything along is better than nothing. Even a Commoner can meat shield for a round or so before being dead.

I don't think I claimed that Fighter(class) is as powerful as Wizard(class). I only wrote that if I were a wizard I'd happily pay meat shield to take blows and die instead of me. Fighter is quite capable of doing this. Of course fighter's pay should reflect it's contribution to whatever I hired it for (and cost of alternative meat shields: summons, called critters, ...) so it would be much less than equal share of treasure (at least at mid-high levels at lower levels fighter could contribute significantly).

However perfectly reasonable in-game behavior is kinda outrageous out-of-game. Because every PC should get equal share of treasure. Because you get one slot in party per player and it's matter of what you fill slot with (not what people you look to put in your team).

Killer Angel

2013-05-27, 12:55 PM

If I'm not mistaken the most powerful and exploitable spells are in Core. Excluding splatbooks only increases the gap (fighters have less items and feats they can profit from, for example). As far as I know the only high tier classes that suffer from excluding splatbooks are the cleric (no divine metamagic) and the bard (most of the exploitable tricks and prestige classes are gone), but even the cleric still is a force to be reckoned with in just core. They're practically a slightly worse fighter with an impressive arsenal of spells.

I'm not completely sure about it.
If you go outside DMG and PHB, you give to meleers and non casters more options, so they become less boring to play.
But casters gain terrifying advantages: say hello to DMM and persist spell, matamagic reductions, craft contingency, celerity, and so on. They go from T1 to invulnerable T1.
Splatbooks are good 'cause they add vital options to non casters, but they don't reduce the gulf.

eggynack

2013-05-27, 01:03 PM

I'm not completely sure about it.
If you go outside DMG and PHB, you give to meleers and non casters more options, so they become less boring to play.
But casters gain terrifying advantages: say hello to DMM and persist spell, matamagic reductions, craft contingency, celerity, and so on. They go from T1 to invulnerable T1.
Splatbooks are good 'cause they add vital options to non casters, but they don't reduce the gulf.
The problem with your claim, is that moving from tier one to invulnerable tier one is a smaller move than moving from tier five to tier four or three. Also, it really depends on the caster, I think. Like, druids probably gain the least out of a book expansion. They get actual item access, but not much in the way of class features. I think that a party with a reasonably splat booked wizard and a warblade would work better than a party with a core wizard and a fighter. Fighters just don't do anything in core. Like, they can kinda trip folks, and the horizon tripper is nice, but it's pretty limited.

StreamOfTheSky

2013-05-27, 01:17 PM

It also assumes all sources or those specific sources are allowed.
I wonder what the game would look like if all splats save for Spell Compendium, C.Arcane, C.Divine, C.Champion, and the monster manuals past I and other monster oriented-books like Serpent Kingdoms were allowed? I guess you'd also have to ban Faiths of Eberron (Planar Shepherd) and...let's say all of FR products since much of it seems to exist just to justify Elminster's 733+ powaz.

And that the DM is a mindless robot that allows everything from a book no matter how much it breaks the game, despite the char op community even labeling this stuff as "theoretical" because even they don't seriously expect it to be used in actual games.

Killer Angel

2013-05-27, 02:06 PM

The problem with your claim, is that moving from tier one to invulnerable tier one is a smaller move than moving from tier five to tier four or three. Also, it really depends on the caster, I think. Like, druids probably gain the least out of a book expansion. They get actual item access, but not much in the way of class features. I think that a party with a reasonably splat booked wizard and a warblade would work better than a party with a core wizard and a fighter. Fighters just don't do anything in core. Like, they can kinda trip folks, and the horizon tripper is nice, but it's pretty limited.

Yes, that's almost true.
The fact is that, barring extreme cases, you don't go up a tier.
You can give all the splatbooks you want to the fighter: MiC is nice, COmplete W. helps, but in the end the fighter remains a T5.
You have to pick the dungeoncrusher variant (which is a particular case), to have effectively a T4, and at that point, your companions could well be an incantatrix and a planar sheperd.
Outside Core you have more option, and it's a good thing, but the gap is still there. IMO.

The objection is (obviously) that outside core you can pick whole classes that are already 1 or 2 higher tier (see warblade). But it's almost like to say that the gap in core isn't so big, 'cause you can choose to be a barbarian instead of a monk.

Chronos

2013-05-27, 02:08 PM

There's one key way in which Tier 1 classes benefit from splatbooks more than other classes do: Anyone can take material from a splatbook. But a Tier 1 character can take material from all splatbooks, all at once. If you're making an optimized fighter using all available books, you're probably going to get the most use out of Complete Warrior, and maybe two or three other books, but you don't have room for everything, even if you wanted it. Even if the splatbooks had a thousand good fighter feats, you still only get about 18 of them over your whole career. With a wizard, though, you can take a spell from here, a couple spells from there, some spells from these other books, and then still switch to a completely different set of spells tomorrow or the day after.

eggynack

2013-05-27, 02:12 PM

Yes, that's almost true.
The fact is that, barring extreme cases, you don't go up a tier.
You can give all the splatbooks you want to the fighter: MiC is nice, compendium helps, but in the end the fighter remains a T5.
You have to pick the dungeoncrusher variant (which is a particular case), to have effectively a T4, and at that point, your companins could well be an incantatrix and a planar sheperd.
Outside Core you have more option, and it's a good thing, but the gap is still there. IMO.
That seems somewhat inaccurate with respect to fighters. Fighters are hanging out at the edge of tier 5 already, so either dungeoncrasher or zhentarim soldier are going to push them over the top. I generally prefer both, especially because zhentarim soldier is actually free. I also object to your claim that dungeoncrasher or zhentarim are somehow equal to planar shepard. That class is actually fundamentally broken, while dungeoncrasher and zhentarim just give the fighter some options. You should really be comparing those ACF's with some more down to earth prestige classes, like master specialist. That's way closer to dungeoncrasher in terms of optimization level. Planar shepard is practically theoretical optimization all on its own. If you want a similar level of melee brokenness, it'd probably be something like the hulking hurler, or 1d2 crusader.

JaronK

2013-05-27, 02:34 PM

The "most broken spells" are almost all infinite loops that never see play.

Teleport still completely destroys any traveling based campaign (can you imagine Lord of the Rings if Gandalf could Teleport?). Glitterdust still nullifies whole encounters. Gate still brings in Solars who act as 20th level Clerics. Animate Dead basically just gives you extra Fighters, and in core a 10 Headed Zombie Hydra created next to a Desecrated Evil Altar is definitely better than any melee Fighter of the appropriate level. None of those are infinite loops, all are using the spells exactly as intended.

JaronK

Killer Angel

2013-05-27, 03:03 PM

That seems somewhat inaccurate with respect to fighters. Fighters are hanging out at the edge of tier 5 already, so either dungeoncrasher or zhentarim soldier are going to push them over the top. I generally prefer both, especially because zhentarim soldier is actually free. I also object to your claim that dungeoncrasher or zhentarim are somehow equal to planar shepard. That class is actually fundamentally broken, while dungeoncrasher and zhentarim just give the fighter some options. You should really be comparing those ACF's with some more down to earth prestige classes, like master specialist. That's way closer to dungeoncrasher in terms of optimization level. Planar shepard is practically theoretical optimization all on its own. If you want a similar level of melee brokenness, it'd probably be something like the hulking hurler, or 1d2 crusader.

Guilty. :smallsmile:
I agree that my example was partial. Let’s see if I can explain my PoV from a different angle.
Let’s say that we have a group made with PHB1, DMG1, MM1: a barbarian, a paladin, a bard, a wizard, PrC allowed. Tippy optimizes all the PCs.
Then we have a group with all splatbooks allowed: a barbarian, a crusader, a bard and a wizard, PrC allowed. Tippy optimizes all the PCs.
You know where I’m going: the lower tiers of the second group will certainly have more fun than their counterparts of the Group 1, and they’ll have a ton of more options. But the gap in power between the PCs of the 2nd group, will be so different than the gap of the first one?

eggynack

2013-05-27, 03:08 PM

Guilty. :smallsmile:
I agree that my example was partial. Let’s see if I can explain my PoV from a different angle.
Let’s say that we have a group made with PHB1, DMG1, MM1: a barbarian, a paladin, a bard, a wizard, PrC allowed. Tippy optimizes all the PCs.
Then we have a group with all splatbooks allowed: a barbarian, a crusader, a bard and a wizard, PrC allowed. Tippy optimizes all the PCs.
You know where I’m going: the lower tiers of the second group will certainly have more fun than their counterparts of the Group 1, and they’ll have a ton of more options. But the gap in power between the PCs of the 2nd group, will be so different than the gap of the first one?
Yeah. I think that the barbarian, bard, wizard, crusader party will be more balanced in any practical optimization context. All of those classes have pretty good things to offer, while a paladin does approximately nothing. In a theoretical optimization arena, tiers have no meaning. Everyone just becomes pun-pun or chain gates solars.

Killer Angel

2013-05-27, 03:44 PM

Yeah. I think that the barbarian, bard, wizard, crusader party will be more balanced in any practical optimization context.

Eh, probably you're right, but my heart still cries in a corner, when I think to all the goodies offered to Tiers 1 by splats...

eggynack

2013-05-27, 03:51 PM

Eh, probably you're right, but my heart still cries in a corner, when I think to all the goodies offered to Tiers 1 by splats...
Indeed they are. Even in a practical optimization context, the high tiers are still offered a massive amount by splat books. The problem is, mundane classes tend to actually be irrelevant in core. They just don't offer anything to the party that couldn't be offered better by a tier one class. Out of core though, you get classes like the warblade which actually tends to be better at combat than the majority of casters. They're moving from irrelevant to relevant, while the casters are just moving from one state of borkedness to another. Some of those out of core things are pretty great though. Every tier one class gets some way to break the action economy. Wizards get celerity, clerics get DMM (which removes the action from buffing), and druids get the dire tortoise wildshape form. The druid one is way higher level though, and they correspondingly gain even less from splat books. Probably the biggest benefit to them is actually wilding clasps.

StreamOfTheSky

2013-05-27, 03:55 PM

I think the most beneficial books to druids are new monster books...

eggynack

2013-05-27, 04:01 PM

I think the most beneficial books to druids are new monster books...
Yeah, those are pretty sweet too. I don't know if they're necessarily better than being able to access the majority of your wealth by level while wild shaped though. Like, a desmodu hunting bat is better than a dire bat, but I'd rather have the dire bat with a full compliment of cool gear than the desmodu hunting bat without it. There're some ways to gear up without wilding clasps, but you're not really getting those with only monster books anyway. I tend to be partial to summoning feats too, so it's possible that either greenbound or rashemi elemental summoning would be more worthwhile than cool wild shape forms and animal companions. The thing is, cool wild shape forms can be substituted for, while gear can't be.

SouthpawSoldier

2013-05-27, 04:07 PM

So if druids & wizards= win, why don't we see caster only campaigns?

Eldariel

2013-05-27, 04:10 PM

So if druids & wizards= win, why don't we see caster only campaigns?

We do. At least every time I play Core with at all more experienced players (happens rarely enough, granted), it's basically all casters and maybe a token Rogue or Barbarian/Fighter/Ranger if playing low enough levels (we've houseruled Trapfinding to enable running all traps even if nobody wants to play a Rogue). Which is why Core campaigns are, indeed, rare enough with said players.

eggynack

2013-05-27, 04:11 PM

So if druids & wizards= win, why don't we see caster only campaigns?
Druids and wizards are way better at solving problems than lower tiered classes. Sometimes, you want to not be better at solving problems. Thus you get caster only campaigns, and mundane only campaigns. If all of the classes are being played to their full capacity within the bounds of practical optimization, those are really the only two types of games that remain balanced. Really though, "better at defeating every challenge in existence" and, "better at being the class I want to play" are often two different types of better.

Edit: This is ignoring the fact that the casters are absolutely the only core classes I would play. Fighters are really limited in terms of stuff they can do, so I would get bored pretty quickly playing anything in that spectrum. I like having a ton of different, interesting, solutions to any problem. Casters are just more fun to me.

Squirrel_Dude

2013-05-27, 04:24 PM

So if druids & wizards= win, why don't we see caster only campaigns?Because playing a wizard or a druid over and over can be a little taxing sometimes. You do have quite a bit of stuff to keep track of, and if you're going to be Batman wizard, then you have to make sure that your supercomputer is always running. In other words, if you're playing a wizard or druid, there aren't any moments during a combat where you can relax, you have to watch everything.

It's why I try and take a break by playing a fighter class every so often. I don't have as many powers, but during combat I can simply wait for my turn, see who is closest to me and punch. Out of combat I can always go-to-bar-start-drinking-contest-lol.

Flickerdart

2013-05-27, 04:27 PM

So if druids & wizards= win, why don't we see caster only campaigns?
See them where? There's not a global directory of every campaign ever that would let us gauge frequency of game types.

MukkTB

2013-05-27, 05:17 PM

I have seen some all caster parties. The core reason you don't see everyone using all caster party's is because there isn't pressure being applied to the players. If D&D was a PVP game where teams of people would face off like a miniature wargame, there would be a strong penalty for not being as strong as possible. Losing due to weakness wouldn't be fun. The metagame would become widely known. People would care about it. Guys like Emperor Tippy and JaronK who laid the groundwork for our current understanding of the game would have crushed tournaments, maybe even winning large chunks of real money for their troubles. The power disparity of classes would be widely known, and people would migrate to the more powerful options because they want to win. Players could compete in other ways. Racing to finish a dungeon is another possibility.

League of Legends is a good example of this. Anybody with some skill in that game would be able to describe which characters are stronger and weaker in the current metagame. Claims that they're all balanced (such as the Paizo guys make) would be considered laughable.

The closest we get to that is some group events where dungeon completion is pass/fail. I understand they're pretty easygoing. Deadly ones like the Legendary Tomb of Horrors are more the exception than the rule. For the most part we play the game for the adventure. Challenges are designed to be middle of the road. Power does not translate directly into fun. I would rather play a character with interesting and useful mechanics, than one that could just bulldoze the problem over.

eggynack

2013-05-27, 05:22 PM

I have seen some all caster parties. The core reason you don't see everyone using all caster party's is because there isn't pressure being applied to the players.
This isn't really accurate. All caster parties can easily have pressure applied to them. You just need to apply more pressure. If nothing else, an enemy party of the exact same makeup is going to be a serious challenge to any given party. The fact that D&D allows you to modulate encounters to the power level of the characters means that any given party has the possibility to face a similar amount of challenge. The difference is that when the caster party does it, they do it with a wide variety of possible solutions.

georgie_leech

2013-05-27, 05:30 PM

League of Legends is a good example of this. Anybody with some skill in that game would be able to describe which characters are stronger and weaker in the current metagame. Claims that they're all balanced (such as the Paizo guys make) would be considered laughable.

Just to quibble, the win percentage as a whole for every champion is remarkably close to 50%.

Carth

2013-05-27, 05:44 PM

Cleric, wizard, and druid make for a perfect 3 person party.

StreamOfTheSky

2013-05-27, 06:18 PM

So if druids & wizards= win, why don't we see caster only campaigns?

Well, I'm in a core only game right now. Our party consists of a Wizard, a Cleric, a Paladin, and a Wiz/Rogue/Arcane Trickster. And the Paladin has a cohort sorcerer to buff him on top of the wizard frequently polymorphing him. Further, the AT guy seems to be kind of new to 3E, he's struggled to be effective at all the entire time.

Frosty

2013-05-27, 10:47 PM

Just to quibble, the win percentage as a whole for every champion is remarkably close to 50%.

Well, just because pre-remake Karma was on a team that won doesn't necessarily make her a huge contributing factor or make her balanced against say...Blitzcrank or Veigar.

Chronos

2013-05-27, 11:10 PM

Those guys aren't kidding about the tier 1 classes needing a lot of bookkeeping. In my current game, I'm playing a druid, and my character sheet (including a brief summary of the stats of the creatures I wildshape into or summon) is 21 pages long. I could omit those, of course, but then that'd just mean that I'd always be delving through the entire Monster Manual, instead of delving through my 21 pages.

georgie_leech

2013-05-27, 11:15 PM

Well, just because pre-remake Karma was on a team that won doesn't necessarily make her a huge contributing factor or make her balanced against say...Blitzcrank or Veigar.

Touche, but she could still be played well. The fact that she apparently wasn't bad enough to cause her to lose games as if they were 4v5's says she wasn't that far out of the power curve. Unlike, say, Druid + Druid vs Druid + Fighter, which will tend to go for the former a lot more than 50% of the time, whether arena or dungeon.

Frosty

2013-05-27, 11:46 PM

Still, there are least played champions for a reason. I bet Xerath would love to have a word with you about buffs so he'd stop feeling so lonely, never getting picked (or banned) on the select screen...

georgie_leech

2013-05-27, 11:50 PM

Feh, Xerath just needs the loving hands of an artillery expert! :smallwink:

But we seem to be wandering a bit afield...

Frosty

2013-05-27, 11:57 PM

There's a *reason* siege tanks need marine support normally...but yes, we are wandering off topic a bit.

You're right in that a team of Wizard, Cleric, Sorcerer, and Druid would beat a team of Wizard, Cleric, Sorcerer, and Fighter a lot more often than not.

Killer Angel

2013-05-28, 06:09 AM

Chronos

2013-05-28, 11:04 AM

I'm not sure what you're asking, there. I said "(including a brief summary of the stats of the creatures I wildshape into or summon)". Do you mean something beyond that?

As an example, here's what I have for one of my summon entries:

Small Fire Elemental [II]
HP: 13 (2 HD)
AC: 15/12/14 Dodge
Attack: Slam +4 (1d4+2 plus 1d4 fire)
Move: 50

Fort +2
Ref +4
Will +0

SQ: Darkvision 60, fire subtype, elemental (immune poison, sleep,
paralysis, stun, no eat, sleep, or breathe)
SA: Burn (on hit, reflex 13 or catch fire for 1d4 rounds or until move action,
1d6/round)

eggynack

2013-05-28, 11:14 AM

The summoning stat sheets get quite a bit worse when you start tossing things onto them. Yours has augment summoning, if I'm not mistaken, and that's just the beginning. Throwing rashemi elemental or greenbound summoning onto a whole pile of creatures takes quite a bit of time to do. There's also the more minor ones, like ashbound, and that elemental specific augment. You can sometimes figure out the stats of summons on the spot if you just use augment, but big templates with lots of abilities and modifiers take awhile. It helps if you actually kind of like doing the book keeping aspects of druid construction, like I do.

Edit: It also gets a bit more complicated when you're drawing monsters from more than one book. There are a couple of decent summons from other books, like the aquatic replacements from stormwrack, the yellow musk creeper and oread from the the fiend folio, and storm elementals from monster manual III. I also have the fossergrim on my list of creatures that I have stat blocks for, because I'm weird like that.

Chronos

2013-05-28, 11:37 AM

eggynack

2013-05-28, 11:46 AM

Yeah, I do have Augment Summoning, which is another reason to pre-prepare all of the stats instead of looking them up on the spot (especially since a lot of things have Weapon Finesse, so you can't always just add +2 to the attack rolls). And we're doing core-only, so that's the only summon-buff I have, and I don't have access to all those other monsters, either. If I did, my character sheet would be just that much longer.
Yeah, it gets pretty out of hand pretty fast. Wildshape forms are possibly even more annoying, because they always have to be fitted to your stats and abilities. Druids get pretty absurd pretty fast in terms of all the pages you have to create. Still, I think that it's worth it, if only so that you can write, "+2 on saves against red wizards" on your orglash and thomil sheets. That stuff is fun. Also, fossergrims are the best. They're these fey that are apparently only effective if you summon them into a waterfall, and they're probably still underpowered even then. I get a kick out of pointless abilities, if this wasn't apparent already. Another thing to love about druids is that they actually have class features all the time. Sure, casting, wildshape, and an animal companion are great, but stuff like resist nature's lure and venom immunity are what give the druid kick. The only empty spots on the druid stat block are 17 and 19, and 17 gives you frigging 9th level spells.

Komatik

2013-05-28, 12:10 PM

You mean "Gives you Shapechange?"

eggynack

2013-05-28, 12:15 PM

You mean "Gives you Shapechange?"
Shapechange is nothing before the might of mass cure critical wounds!

Killer Angel

2013-05-28, 02:56 PM

I'm not sure what you're asking, there. I said "(including a brief summary of the stats of the creatures I wildshape into or summon)". Do you mean something beyond that?

I mean that my mind saw the "creatures I wildshape into", and I totally missed the "or summon" part... :smallredface:

papr_weezl8472

2013-05-28, 03:19 PM

This isn't really accurate. All caster parties can easily have pressure applied to them. You just need to apply more pressure. If nothing else, an enemy party of the exact same makeup is going to be a serious challenge to any given party. The fact that D&D allows you to modulate encounters to the power level of the characters means that any given party has the possibility to face a similar amount of challenge. The difference is that when the caster party does it, they do it with a wide variety of possible solutions.

That's really the point Mukk is trying to make. The difficulty of encounters generally isn't independent of the capabilities of a particular party, so the party as a whole being more powerful doesn't make things easier. A DM can just scale things up to deal with an all-caster party, so there isn't much of an advantage to them, and their power doesn't make them any more attractive than more diverse parties.

Of course, this isn't necessarily the case for modules. I remember this one all-druid RHoD I played in...

ahenobarbi

2013-05-28, 04:59 PM

eggynack

2013-05-28, 05:05 PM

That's really the point Mukk is trying to make. The difficulty of encounters generally isn't independent of the capabilities of a particular party, so the party as a whole being more powerful doesn't make things easier. A DM can just scale things up to deal with an all-caster party, so there isn't much of an advantage to them, and their power doesn't make them any more attractive than more diverse parties.

Of course, this isn't necessarily the case for modules. I remember this one all-druid RHoD I played in...
There absolutely is an advantage to having an all caster party over a more diverse party. In an all caster party, the encounters can be modulated to be dangerous to a party of all casters, and everyone can be challenged. The same is true of a class full of mundane folk. However, in a caster and mundane party, the challenges have to be modulated against either the casters, or the mundanes. In the former case, the mundane characters will be unable to cope with the more difficult enemies, and in the latter case, the casters will just kill everything. Thus, all caster parties are not only possible, but are significantly better for the game state than diverse parties.

Lans

2013-05-28, 08:44 PM

eggynack

2013-05-28, 08:47 PM

Outside of core this is less true, as a warblade, beguilar, barbarian, bard party is more even than wizard, druid, sorcerer and warmage.

Well, yeah. When I say, "All caster party" I'm mostly just using it as a substitute for "tier one party" which are the same thing in core. Out of core the non-casters obviously gain some tier boosting tricks, and the casters gain some tier lowering tricks, so the math of the thing changes. It's why the tier 3 game is so often presented as a good idea; it's basically the tier at which casters and mundane classes meet, though there are a couple of lower tiered caster exceptions.

Lans

2013-05-29, 08:13 PM

eggynack

2013-05-29, 08:18 PM

A few terms get thrown around here impercisely. Caster often means tier 1 or 2, melee often means mundane and I'm sure there are a couple others.

An interesting discussion would be whether a whirling frenzy barbarian or one of the tier 3 melees would be better for a wizard/cleric/other tier 1 party
I don't know if a super barbarian is really tier 3. They do utterly ridiculous damage, but that's just about all they do. Warblades are a different story though, and are probably worth having a real discussing about. They can actually melee in a way that casters can not melee, which means that they might be a worthwhile resource for the almost all caster party. I don't know if there's any situation where you'd rather have a warblade in the party than a druid or cleric, but it's possible.

Flickerdart

2013-05-29, 09:17 PM

eggynack

2013-05-29, 09:37 PM

You can definitely make a barbarian build that performs like a T3 - Trapkiller gives you trap finding and disarming, the various elemental Rages are nice, Champion of Gwynharwyf and Runescarred Berserker are easy for you to enter and grant spells, there are a couple of ACFs and rage-activated items that let you heal yourself, they can smash stuff real good even when that stuff isn't enemies, they get pretty good skills, the Totems and Spirit Totems are actually quite versatile (Improved Trip and Pounce aren't the only thing available there). It'll take more effort than it would to just grab a Warblade and pick up a bunch of maneuvers, but it can be done, and it can be done with Barbarian-specific stuff.
Yeah, some of that stuff definitely pushes the limit into tier 3. Especially runescarred, because that PrC is amazing. I don't know the specific optimization break points that shift him over a tier, but they're not all that high up if you use prestige classes. Also, there are some spirit totems outside of lion, but I don't think there are really regular totems outside of wolf. If you want access to both, you can't trade away fast movement, and only wolf and horse don't make that trade. You could always do just the regular totem, but that seems like the worse end of the bargain.

137beth

2013-05-29, 10:39 PM

Yea, a highly optimized barbarian with a bunch of ACFs does pretty well compared to tier 3 classes. Actually, given that there is significantly less support for the warblade, a barbarian with all ACFs and books available might have a slightly higher optimization ceiling than the warblade. Hmm...

Lans

2013-05-30, 03:01 AM

I don't know if a super barbarian is really tier 3. They do utterly ridiculous damage, but that's just about all they do. Warblades are a different story though, and are probably worth having a real discussing about. They can actually melee in a way that casters can not melee, which means that they might be a worthwhile resource for the almost all caster party. I don't know if there's any situation where you'd rather have a warblade in the party than a druid or cleric, but it's possible.
Your misunderstanding, its not super barbarian being tier 3, its super barbarian has 5 stars in wreck face. Is 5 stars in wreck face worth more than 4 stars in wreck face, 2 stars in talky stuff, and 3 stars in healing to the party that has 4 or 5 stars in everything

Togo

2013-05-30, 05:02 AM

There absolutely is an advantage to having an all caster party over a more diverse party. In an all caster party, the encounters can be modulated to be dangerous to a party of all casters, and everyone can be challenged. The same is true of a class full of mundane folk. However, in a caster and mundane party, the challenges have to be modulated against either the casters, or the mundanes. In the former case, the mundane characters will be unable to cope with the more difficult enemies, and in the latter case, the casters will just kill everything. Thus, all caster parties are not only possible, but are significantly better for the game state than diverse parties.

Nah, I don't buy it. You're just assuming that there exists no set of challenges that would be more difficult for tier 1 casters than for other classes, at any level. Otherwise the mixed party is still better.

I've played a fair few tournament games. Set rules and restrictions, fixed dungeon and encounters, you make your own party and enter as a team. All caster teams didn't do particularly well. We can argue about why, but that doesn't change the result.

Now it may well be that in your local meta, in the kinds and styles of games you're used to playing, everything you say is true. But that doesn't make it true of everyone and every game. If nothing else, tiers are explicitly based on the potential they offer, a factoid which is relevant only if you first assume that players will build and play characters to the maximum capability of the options on offer. In practice, how often does that happen.

Eldariel

2013-05-30, 05:09 AM

I've played a fair few tournament games. Set rules and restrictions, fixed dungeon and encounters, you make your own party and enter as a team. All caster teams didn't do particularly well. We can argue about why, but that doesn't change the result.

You've told about it before; it's because of the rules on consumables. Those aren't really representative of D&D as a whole. If you run a long campaign, or a game with the proper prices for consumables (multiplied for one-shots), it's not even viable to do what they did.

Not to even mention, I'm not convinced this tournament circuit was really high level enough to truly utilize the system. But yeah, tournament results are automatically skewed and fairly useless, which is why most of these "class argument: have class X and Y fight" are fairly useless too, far as analysing classes' performance in a normal D&D games (that is, a long campaign) goes.

eggynack

2013-05-30, 05:18 AM

Nah, I don't buy it. You're just assuming that there exists no set of challenges that would be more difficult for tier 1 casters than for other classes, at any level. Otherwise the mixed party is still better.

I've played a fair few tournament games. Set rules and restrictions, fixed dungeon and encounters, you make your own party and enter as a team. All caster teams didn't do particularly well. We can argue about why, but that doesn't change the result.

Now it may well be that in your local meta, in the kinds and styles of games you're used to playing, everything you say is true. But that doesn't make it true of everyone and every game. If nothing else, tiers are explicitly based on the potential they offer, a factoid which is relevant only if you first assume that players will build and play characters to the maximum capability of the options on offer. In practice, how often does that happen.
I'm not claiming that casters are going to be better than non-casters in all levels, optimization levels, and situations. I'm merely claiming that they're going to be better in most levels, optimization levels, and situations. Generally, the range over which my claims don't hold is pretty small. For example, I think that a druid is going to be better than a fighter at all levels and in all situations, as long as the druid is played with even a modicum of knowledge about its inner workings. In this case, that means picking a riding dog, and taking natural spell at 6th. Not much else is required. For wizards, I'm never completely sure. I've heard claims of anywhere from 2nd level to 10th level, but I think the answer is likely somewhere in between. I'd put it at 5th or 7th level, personally. I'm not as familiar with clerics as I am with druids and wizards, but their chassis has to mean that they compare at least reasonably to a melee class. They're only really down a weapon type, a few HP, and the few good melee feats in core, and they're up casting, domain powers and turning. It seems like an insanely favorable exchange to me.

The initial claim was that there's no advantage to having a caster party to a variety filled party. Even if there is some situation where mundane folks outshine casters, which your vague anecdotal evidence does nothing to prove, that claim is decidedly untrue. Casters merely have to outshine melee folk the vast majority of the time for the all caster party to be desirable. Also, I never assumed that casters were being played to their maximum potential. I'm merely assuming that they're being played to the level assumed by the tier list, which is fair given that the tier list is part of the thread's title.

Togo

2013-05-30, 05:35 AM

You've told about it before; it's because of the rules on consumables. Those aren't really representative of D&D as a whole. If you run a long campaign, or a game with the proper prices for consumables (multiplied for one-shots), it's not even viable to do what they did..

I've played in tournaments where consumables were list price, *5 and *10 normal cost, and even in some where they weren't available at all (because the characters were taken from an existing RPGA campaign and not given a chance to buy anything after learning about the tournament). In none of these cases did casters dominate.

Not to even mention, I'm not convinced this tournament circuit was really high level enough to truly utilize the system. But yeah, tournament results are automatically skewed and fairly useless, which is why most of these "class argument: have class X and Y fight" are fairly useless too, far as analysing classes' performance in a normal D&D games (that is, a long campaign) goes.

Sure, but in a real long campaign Tiers are largely irrelevant to the performance of the character - what matters is the capability of the individual character and the options they have chosen, not the choices that a character of that class could theoretically have taken. Any game is automatically skewed and useless for arguing the general case.

eggynack

2013-05-30, 05:41 AM

Sure, but in a real long campaign Tiers are largely irrelevant to the performance of the character - what matters is the capability of the individual character and the options they have chosen, not the choices that a character of that class could theoretically have taken. Any game is automatically skewed and useless for arguing the general case.
Let's be clear here. Unless there's some extreme cheese I'm missing, there is no level of fighter optimization that even comes close to moderate druid optimization. By moderate druid optimization, I mean that they're making two entirely reasonable choices, and are possibly casting a good spell once in awhile. There's such a massive gap between the two classes that it's ridiculous. We can sit around and argue all day about whether wizards can do without the fighter's melee capabilities, but I'm in no mood to have that argument. It's why I stick to druids. They're able to beat core melee options on their own terms, while simultaneously beating them on terms that they have no way of comprehending.

Togo

2013-05-30, 08:27 AM

Let's be clear here. Unless there's some extreme cheese I'm missing, there is no level of fighter optimization that even comes close to moderate druid optimization.

If you say so. Comparing 'levels of optimisation' strikes me as a fairly abstract exercise.

The bit I don't agree with is that a druid is 'better' than a fighter in all situations at all levels and, by implication, for all purposes. Since it's reasonably easy to construct scenarios where druids might be at a disadvantage, I don't see why such disagreement is controvertial.

eggynack

2013-05-30, 08:33 AM

If you say so. Comparing 'levels of optimisation' strikes me as a fairly abstract exercise.

The bit I don't agree with is that a druid is 'better' than a fighter in all situations at all levels and, by implication, for all purposes. Since it's reasonably easy to construct scenarios where druids might be at a disadvantage, I don't see why such disagreement is controvertial.
As long as the druid has access to his class features, then he is definitely better. Those are generally the terms I'm working off of. I don't think that there are any level based restrictions though.

Chronos

2013-05-30, 09:10 AM

It's a little complicated by the fact that, while a druid always outperforms a fighter, he doesn't always outperform him in the same way. At low levels, the animal companion is king, and everything else is secondary. A first-level animal companion is, by itself, inferior to a first-level fighter, but only very slightly: It's close enough that the presence of a guy in hide armor with a club is enough to tip the balance, with the occasional Entangle being the icing on the cake. At second level, they just might be competitive (since the animal companion hasn't improved), though Entangle is still pretty nice. At third level, though, the druid can summon crocodiles and elementals spontaneously, and the fighter never really catches up to the druid's summon options. And then of course, around fifth or sixth level, the druid starts personally outperforming the fighter via Wild Shape.

eggynack

2013-05-30, 09:21 AM

I've always thought that hippogriffs are the better 2nd level summoning option than crocodiles or elementals. I haven't done much actual study into it, but the hippogriff's large size, flight, higher HP, and actualy full attack, seem to give it the edge. That's always been my impression of 2nd level summoning options, anyway. For the other levels my opinions are as follows: dire wolf at III, giant crocodile at IV (crazy grapple skills activate), I'm not sure what the best option is at V, and then elementals seriously start to outpace other options for most of the game. At the very least, they make hyper-efficient meat shields. For the sake of perspective, huge earth elementals have 152 HP, and the next highest is a frigging baleen whale with 132 HP. It makes a big difference, especially if you have augment summoning backing you up.

Chronos

2013-05-30, 10:09 AM

Hm, I had been thinking about hippogriffs mostly in terms of their utility use as mounts-- I'll have to take another look at their combat stats. And even at low levels, Earth Elementals are pretty good walls, and a normal croc is a decent-enough grappler for the level, against anything Medium or smaller.

Though this also brings up another advantage that druids have over fighters: Not only can they put extra combatants on the field, they can choose which extra combatants they put on. If the situation calls for tripping, summon wolves or dire wolves. If the situation calls for grappling, summon regular or giant crocs or lions. If the situation calls for charging, summon lions. If it calls for ability score damage, summon vipers or dire badgers. If it calls for a wall, summon earth elementals or xorn. Now, the fighter can do any of these (except for probably the ability score damage), but he has to choose one or two of them (especially at low levels when he still doesn't have many feats). He can't switch off which one he does every round.

And to bring this back to the OP, let me point out that I didn't mention anything non-core at all, there.

Lans

2013-05-30, 03:55 PM

You guys keep assuming a diverse party has a fighter for some reason, as opposed to a barbarian or warblade, or barbarian 2/fighter2/warblade x/prcy

eggynack

2013-05-30, 03:58 PM

You guys keep assuming a diverse party has a fighter for some reason, as opposed to a barbarian or warblade, or barbarian 2/fighter2/warblade x/prcy
Well, I'm assuming it's either a fighter, or a barbarian, or some combination of the two. There're some other combinations also. I'm kind of assuming that the OP's definition of core doesn't include warblades though. Warblades might actually be able to melee better than caster classes, so the casters and warblade party could probably work. It's kinda irrelevant to the issue though.

Chronos

2013-05-30, 04:48 PM

I think the gold standard for Core-only melee builds is probably the Horizon Tripper (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80415).

137beth

2013-05-30, 04:52 PM

Since it's reasonably easy to construct scenarios where druids might be at a disadvantage, I don't see why such disagreement is controvertial.
If it is easy to construct such a scenario, then do it. And actually tell us what it is, I wanna see.

eggynack

2013-05-30, 05:00 PM

I think the gold standard for Core-only melee builds is probably the Horizon Tripper (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80415).
That is my general understanding as well. Unfortunately for them, they tend to be good at things that druids are already really good at, so it doesn't do much for the comparison. Like, they're good scouts, except druids do really well at that because they have wisdom synergy, a reasonable number of skill points, and two sets of eyes. The fact that the second set of eyes also has a nose seems relevant. I don't think druids can approximate the horizon trippers dimension doors, his tremorsense, or his weird immunity to aligned effects. However, by the point the horizon tripper is doing that stuff, the druid is doing other stuff. The horizon tripper only gets access to dimension door at 11th level, but at that point the druid has 6th level spells, large wildshape (I don't think tiny does much in terms of scouting), and some kind of super powered animal companion. Megaraptors seem good if you just want damage, though I've always been partial to polar bears. It's just a style thing. Horizon trippers are certainly very cool, but it's not really much competition in my opinion.