137beth
2013-05-30, 10:03 PM
The purpose of this thread is to explain the horrific forum-wide bias many people here have towards commoners. In particular, I think that commoners deserve to be placed among the tier 1 classes in JaronK's tier system.
Reason 1: Versatility
Versatility is frequently considered the most important factor in the tier rankings. For example, a fighter can be decent at hitting stuff, but that's about it, so it is stuck at tier 5. A tier four class like a rogue is decent at killing stuff, but can also be a skillmonkey and scout.
But all the classes except commoner, even the tier one classes, lack total versatility. Most of the classes are effectively shoehorned into one particular playing style. The wizard, for example, sucks at anything which doesn't involve spells. The barbarian, likewise, is effectively forced to play a mundane melee character, and is penalized for other play-styles.
The commoner, on the other hand, can do all things equally well. Suppose your DM is forcing you to play a particular class. If that class is anything but a commoner, they are basically forcing you to build a certain style of character. But if you play a commoner, you can do anything equally well. Wanna be a primary spell-caster? No problem! Just take a few cross-class ranks in Use Magic Device, pick up a few magic items, and you are good to go! And unlike the wizard or sorcerer, who are penalized for not casting spells, the commoner can fight in melee just as well as it can with magic. All it needs is to take martial weapon proficiency, a couple combat feats and magic items, and bam! He's just as good at melee as he is at casting! Do you want your commoner to be a skill monkey? No problem! It is just as good at that as it is at combat: just get a few skill-boosting items and feats and you are set. Need to be the party face? Easy, just train charisma, cross-class ranks in diplomacy, get items to boost bluff/intimidate, and go steal the rogue's job. Scout? You have spot and listen as class skills! Overall, it is pretty clear that the commoner does equally well in all roles in a party.
Reason 2: They can't be disabled
One of the biggest issues with monks is that their class features require a bunch of magic items to work well. The ranger has a similar problem (along with needing magical buffs to make their animal companion more useful, which they can't provide for themselves without items).
The commoner is a completely different story. Go back and look at the commoner's class table. Now, how many class features does the commoner have which require items to work properly? That's right, NONE! The commoner can keep using all of its class features even after you strip all its items away! How is that fair?!? The only other classes that can do that are the tier 1-2 casters!
It gets even worse, though: while a wizard or sorcerer, like the commoner, can make full use of all their class features without needing magic items, almost everything a T1 caster can do is completely shut down by an antimagic field. A commoner, on the other hand? Look again, it has no supernatural abilities at all. None of its class features are shut down or hindered in any way by an antimagic field. It's just about the only class that can use all of its class features to their full effect without any items and inside an AMF. The monk's flurry can't hit without items, the cleric's spells are shut down without items (like their holy symbol), the wizard/cleric/druid are all shut down by anti-magic fields. But the commoner keeps chugging at full power.
Reason 3: Get the most from your gold:
All classes can benefit from magic items, but some can benefit more. Suppose you find an item which gives you +4 to constitution. For a barbarian, that's nothing special--an extra 17% of their hit-points and a small bonus to a saving throw they were already making anyways. But for a commoner, sorcerer, or wizard, +4 constitution nearly doubles your hp, with just one item.
On the other hand, an item which grants an extra spell per day is nothing special to a wizard or sorcerer--they already have a bunch of spells. But a commoner? You just increased their spells/day by a factor of infinity (0 to 1)! See the problem? Certain items are more beneficial to certain classes, but commoners get the full benefit from all items, making them the most overpowered item-user in the game (and, as explained above, they are already the least item-dependent, so...)
Reason 4: Power
A bunch of versatility and tools are nothing if you don't have the power to back them up. So let's take a look at the commoner's raw power:
First up is skill points. Now, it is well established that the tier system rewards lower numbers (hence why the best classes are tier 1, while the worst are tier 6). The commoner has two skill points, tied for the lowest in the game. And who else has two skill points/level? Why, other tier 1 and 2 classes! The commoner gets the same number of skill points as the wizard, sorcerer, psion, and cleric!
Now, for hit-dice. Once again, low numbers dominate (yea, the barbarian does have a larger HD than the fighter, but the barbarian can make up for it by being literate in fewer languages and getting fewer bonus feats, which is why the barbarian is better). The commoner, once again, has the smallest hit die in the game, along side, yes, that's right, other tier 1-2 classes like wizard, sorcerer, and psion.
Base attack bonus? Same deal! The classes with low BAB are among the best ones, while full BAB classes like fighters or barbarians are stuck in the mundane. Commoner once again sits among the best with the wizard.
As if that weren't overpowered enough, let's take a look at saving throws. Saves, more than any other stat, are best kept low (I mean, look at the monk--it has the highest saves in the game, and is the worst base class:smalltongue:). But here, the commoner is beyond comparison with the other tier 1s. The wizard does pretty well with two low saves, but the cleric and druid are left with only one. But the commoner? It gets all three of its saving throws as low as possible!
Last, but certainly not least, we have class features. More so than any other aspect of a class, the one thing that really hurts a class is bad class features. Exhibit A: the monk. All of its class features suck. Slightly better is the fighter, who does have some good feats available, but a lot of horrible ones bog those down.
The ranger can do a little better, but it still has that animal companion which is too weak to be useful without spells the ranger can't use, and it has spells which are too weak and come to late to help. Likewise, the rogue is weakened by the crippling limitations of sneak attack.
Even the other tier one classes are plagued by a few bad class features. While most of the wizard's class features (i.e. spells) are great, it is still stuck with a couple bad bonus feats, and, even worse, a familiar. Remember, just like a team or a chain, a class is only as good as its weakest link, so a couple bad class features can really drag down a class. The cleric is a bit better, but turn undead is still not that great, and most domains have force you to learn at least one bad spell. The druid, on the other hand, has almost no bad class features (as to be expected, given that the druid is usually considered one of the strongest classes in the game). Still, resist nature's lure is a weak spot, and venom immunity is totally redundant by 9th level, given all the spells you have.
But the commoner? How many bad class features does it have? That's right, NONE. It doesn't have a single class feature which isn't an earth-shattering game-breaking auto-win!
Ultimately, it is clear that the commoner exhibits all the qualities normally associated with tier 1 classes: It can take on any roll in a party equally well. It has the raw stats comparable to other tier 1-2 classes. There isn't much of a weak point in its class features. In fact, I would would go so far as to say the "weak-link-class feature" of the commoner is nonexistent. It can operate at full power without magic items and gets the most use out of items, operates equally well in and out of an anti-magic field, and in pretty much any other situation. In short, the commoner has all the power and versatility to place it firmly beside the druid in tier 1.
Reason 1: Versatility
Versatility is frequently considered the most important factor in the tier rankings. For example, a fighter can be decent at hitting stuff, but that's about it, so it is stuck at tier 5. A tier four class like a rogue is decent at killing stuff, but can also be a skillmonkey and scout.
But all the classes except commoner, even the tier one classes, lack total versatility. Most of the classes are effectively shoehorned into one particular playing style. The wizard, for example, sucks at anything which doesn't involve spells. The barbarian, likewise, is effectively forced to play a mundane melee character, and is penalized for other play-styles.
The commoner, on the other hand, can do all things equally well. Suppose your DM is forcing you to play a particular class. If that class is anything but a commoner, they are basically forcing you to build a certain style of character. But if you play a commoner, you can do anything equally well. Wanna be a primary spell-caster? No problem! Just take a few cross-class ranks in Use Magic Device, pick up a few magic items, and you are good to go! And unlike the wizard or sorcerer, who are penalized for not casting spells, the commoner can fight in melee just as well as it can with magic. All it needs is to take martial weapon proficiency, a couple combat feats and magic items, and bam! He's just as good at melee as he is at casting! Do you want your commoner to be a skill monkey? No problem! It is just as good at that as it is at combat: just get a few skill-boosting items and feats and you are set. Need to be the party face? Easy, just train charisma, cross-class ranks in diplomacy, get items to boost bluff/intimidate, and go steal the rogue's job. Scout? You have spot and listen as class skills! Overall, it is pretty clear that the commoner does equally well in all roles in a party.
Reason 2: They can't be disabled
One of the biggest issues with monks is that their class features require a bunch of magic items to work well. The ranger has a similar problem (along with needing magical buffs to make their animal companion more useful, which they can't provide for themselves without items).
The commoner is a completely different story. Go back and look at the commoner's class table. Now, how many class features does the commoner have which require items to work properly? That's right, NONE! The commoner can keep using all of its class features even after you strip all its items away! How is that fair?!? The only other classes that can do that are the tier 1-2 casters!
It gets even worse, though: while a wizard or sorcerer, like the commoner, can make full use of all their class features without needing magic items, almost everything a T1 caster can do is completely shut down by an antimagic field. A commoner, on the other hand? Look again, it has no supernatural abilities at all. None of its class features are shut down or hindered in any way by an antimagic field. It's just about the only class that can use all of its class features to their full effect without any items and inside an AMF. The monk's flurry can't hit without items, the cleric's spells are shut down without items (like their holy symbol), the wizard/cleric/druid are all shut down by anti-magic fields. But the commoner keeps chugging at full power.
Reason 3: Get the most from your gold:
All classes can benefit from magic items, but some can benefit more. Suppose you find an item which gives you +4 to constitution. For a barbarian, that's nothing special--an extra 17% of their hit-points and a small bonus to a saving throw they were already making anyways. But for a commoner, sorcerer, or wizard, +4 constitution nearly doubles your hp, with just one item.
On the other hand, an item which grants an extra spell per day is nothing special to a wizard or sorcerer--they already have a bunch of spells. But a commoner? You just increased their spells/day by a factor of infinity (0 to 1)! See the problem? Certain items are more beneficial to certain classes, but commoners get the full benefit from all items, making them the most overpowered item-user in the game (and, as explained above, they are already the least item-dependent, so...)
Reason 4: Power
A bunch of versatility and tools are nothing if you don't have the power to back them up. So let's take a look at the commoner's raw power:
First up is skill points. Now, it is well established that the tier system rewards lower numbers (hence why the best classes are tier 1, while the worst are tier 6). The commoner has two skill points, tied for the lowest in the game. And who else has two skill points/level? Why, other tier 1 and 2 classes! The commoner gets the same number of skill points as the wizard, sorcerer, psion, and cleric!
Now, for hit-dice. Once again, low numbers dominate (yea, the barbarian does have a larger HD than the fighter, but the barbarian can make up for it by being literate in fewer languages and getting fewer bonus feats, which is why the barbarian is better). The commoner, once again, has the smallest hit die in the game, along side, yes, that's right, other tier 1-2 classes like wizard, sorcerer, and psion.
Base attack bonus? Same deal! The classes with low BAB are among the best ones, while full BAB classes like fighters or barbarians are stuck in the mundane. Commoner once again sits among the best with the wizard.
As if that weren't overpowered enough, let's take a look at saving throws. Saves, more than any other stat, are best kept low (I mean, look at the monk--it has the highest saves in the game, and is the worst base class:smalltongue:). But here, the commoner is beyond comparison with the other tier 1s. The wizard does pretty well with two low saves, but the cleric and druid are left with only one. But the commoner? It gets all three of its saving throws as low as possible!
Last, but certainly not least, we have class features. More so than any other aspect of a class, the one thing that really hurts a class is bad class features. Exhibit A: the monk. All of its class features suck. Slightly better is the fighter, who does have some good feats available, but a lot of horrible ones bog those down.
The ranger can do a little better, but it still has that animal companion which is too weak to be useful without spells the ranger can't use, and it has spells which are too weak and come to late to help. Likewise, the rogue is weakened by the crippling limitations of sneak attack.
Even the other tier one classes are plagued by a few bad class features. While most of the wizard's class features (i.e. spells) are great, it is still stuck with a couple bad bonus feats, and, even worse, a familiar. Remember, just like a team or a chain, a class is only as good as its weakest link, so a couple bad class features can really drag down a class. The cleric is a bit better, but turn undead is still not that great, and most domains have force you to learn at least one bad spell. The druid, on the other hand, has almost no bad class features (as to be expected, given that the druid is usually considered one of the strongest classes in the game). Still, resist nature's lure is a weak spot, and venom immunity is totally redundant by 9th level, given all the spells you have.
But the commoner? How many bad class features does it have? That's right, NONE. It doesn't have a single class feature which isn't an earth-shattering game-breaking auto-win!
Ultimately, it is clear that the commoner exhibits all the qualities normally associated with tier 1 classes: It can take on any roll in a party equally well. It has the raw stats comparable to other tier 1-2 classes. There isn't much of a weak point in its class features. In fact, I would would go so far as to say the "weak-link-class feature" of the commoner is nonexistent. It can operate at full power without magic items and gets the most use out of items, operates equally well in and out of an anti-magic field, and in pretty much any other situation. In short, the commoner has all the power and versatility to place it firmly beside the druid in tier 1.