Arcane vs. Divine vs. Psionics vs. Incarnum: Subsystem Battle Royale!

[wayfare]

Hey All:

At the comic shop this week, discussion turned to what the various D&D subsystems can and cannot do. I'd like to continue that discussion here -- what are the strengths and weaknesses of the various D&D subsystems?

[Flickerdart]

Arcane magic wins. It's not even close. All of the best tricks of divine and psionics, save a few, emulate arcane spells. Incarnum isn't even in the same ballpark - arcane and divine nines are usually T1, psionics are T2, but Incarnum? Incarnum tops out at 3.

[Jigokuro]

Incarnum is in an entirely separate (lower) league than the other 3, and can't hold a candle to them.
That is mainly because the other 3 can completely revise the universe to your will. More easily if used in conjunction, but still possible individually.

[Callin]

Then how about Incarnum vs Tome of Battle?

[tyckspoon]

Incarnum does have the useful feature of being far, far more accessible without dedicating your entire build to it; if there's a single particular soulmeld trick you want, you can get that with the Shape Soulmeld and Open Chakra feats. If there's a spell or power you want to have regular access to, you can't really do that without investing levels into being a spellcaster.

[Flickerdart]

Then how about Incarnum vs Tome of Battle?
It's a much more even match. ToB has a higher optimization floor, but a much lower ceiling - some of the best attack bonuses in the game come from Incarnates, and Totemists have so many attacks it'll make you dizzy. The ability to change your melds completely every day also gives meldshapers much greater day to day versatility. Their skills are better, they have a wider range of exotic abilities, they can actually be a serious threat at range...for someone who knows what they are doing, Incarnum is the more powerful subsystem for sure.

[eggynack]

Arcane magic wins. It's not even close. All of the best tricks of divine and psionics, save a few, emulate arcane spells. Incarnum isn't even in the same ballpark - arcane and divine nines are usually T1, psionics are T2, but Incarnum? Incarnum tops out at 3.
Yeah, arcane magic is clearly the best. The tier one divine classes are of about the same power level, but they usually get some nifty bonuses to make up for the difference in spell quality. Just for some context, wizards are at the same power level as druids, despite having the worst HD, one less good save, two fewer base skill points, a lack of ability to wear armor, no wild shape, no animal companion, the need to learn all of the spells they want to cast, the need to protect their spell book and material components, the inability to turn prepared spells into summons, and a generally worse skill list. They get a familiar, some feats, and whatever advantages they can get through specialization type stuff in return. They're also missing the druid's crazy number of lackluster class features like venom immunity, and trackless step. Even with all of that, they still tend to be better, essentially entirely due to the wonder that is arcane spell casting. That system is just ridiculously good.

[wayfare]

Feel free to throw ToB, ShadowCasting, DFA/Warlocks, or any other interesting subsystem in.

IMO (and likely only there), I think Warlocks are great for new players who want to start learning teh type of stuff the other kinds of magic can do -- its strength is accessibility.

Incarnum is almost for the opposite end of the specturm -- folks who love crunch in their games, and are too cool for "i win" buttons. It doesnt seem like it would be fun for new players (why is teh low BA class a close combatant "aaaaaahhhhh"), but I have a ton of fun with my skillmonkey!

Psionics has always seemed to be "balanced" magic to me. Not as powerful as arcane, lacking the best group buffs of divine, but with good utility -- i dont think you'll ever feel "weak" with a psionics character, unless you went lo-op in a high-op party.

[Flickerdart]

Feel free to throw ToB, ShadowCasting, DFA/Warlocks, or any other interesting subsystem in.

IMO (and likely only there), I think Warlocks are great for new players who want to start learning teh type of stuff the other kinds of magic can do -- its strength is accessibility.

Incarnum is almost for the opposite end of the specturm -- folks who love crunch in their games, and are too cool for "i win" buttons. It doesnt seem like it would be fun for new players (why is teh low BA class a close combatant "aaaaaahhhhh"), but I have a ton of fun with my skillmonkey!

Psionics has always seemed to be "balanced" magic to me. Not as powerful as arcane, lacking the best group buffs of divine, but with good utility -- i dont think you'll ever feel "weak" with a psionics character, unless you went lo-op in a high-op party.
Warlocks are alright for a newbie player who wants to get their hands on some tricksy magic, but they start to chafe very quickly under the sheer lack of invocations that they have, and the low damage output compared to even a Rogue. You really have to book-dive to make a versatile and powerful warlock.

[wayfare]

Warlocks are alright for a newbie player who wants to get their hands on some tricksy magic, but they start to chafe very quickly under the sheer lack of invocations that they have, and the low damage output compared to even a Rogue. You really have to book-dive to make a versatile and powerful warlock.

Yeah, no doubt that after playing a Warlock you're at least moving on to a Warmage or Evocation specialist if you want to keep playing magic. I think DFA has it a bit better with the ability to damage multiple opponents in one shot, though they have fewer invocations, right?

[Chronos]

tyckspoon does have a point that incarnum is very splashable, but the flip side of that is that there's not much reason to do more than splash. Any soulmeld that you can shape at 20th level, you can shape at 1st level, too... So why go to 20th level? You'll almost always be better off multiclassing out after Incarnate 1 or Totemist 2 (maybe Totemist 9, if you want to double up on your totem). Yeah, you do get access to more chakra binds as you level, but that's at the expense of both that magic item slot, and whatever you could get from that many levels of other classes (and if you desperately want one particular bind, you can get it from a feat, spell, or power anyway).

On comparing warlocks and dragonfire adepts, the DFA gets fewer invocations, but he gets his breath effects for free, unlike the warlock who has to spend invocations to get blast shapes and essences. The DFA has the advantage that his at-will blast has an area of effect and that most of his saving throws are Con-based (and everyone likes high Con), but the disadvantage that his blast almost always has an energy type (and is thus subject to resistances and immunities), always offers a reflex save for half (at high levels, touch attacks are more consistent than reflex saves), and they have less variety available to choose from on their invocations.

[mangosta71]

If psionics had enough splatbook support, that system might be able to compete somewhat with arcane magic. The trouble is that every splatbook includes a few dozen new arcane spells that can't be emulated via psionics.

I love the versatility of psionics - when I play a psion, I only really need one blast power because I can augment it to the equivalent of my current highest-level power and can make it whatever energy type I want on the fly. But when it comes down to raw power, the arcane magic system has so much more support that my beloved psionics gets blown away.

[tyckspoon]

tyckspoon does have a point that incarnum is very splashable, but the flip side of that is that there's not much reason to do more than splash. Any soulmeld that you can shape at 20th level, you can shape at 1st level, too... So why go to 20th level? You'll almost always be better off multiclassing out after Incarnate 1 or Totemist 2 (maybe Totemist 9, if you want to double up on your totem). Yeah, you do get access to more chakra binds as you level, but that's at the expense of both that magic item slot, and whatever you could get from that many levels of other classes (and if you desperately want one particular bind, you can get it from a feat, spell, or power anyway).


Well, leveling in one of the primary Incarnum classes is the only way you'll get reasonable access to the greater chakras.. although most of the really *useful* incarnum abilities are in the binds for the Least and Lesser chakras. The main reason to continue leveling in meldshaper classes would be the improved essentia capacity benefits and actually getting a reasonable amount of essentia- feats won't give you enough essentia to keep more than one essentia receptacle topped off.

[Flickerdart]

If psionics had enough splatbook support, that system might be able to compete somewhat with arcane magic. The trouble is that every splatbook includes a few dozen new arcane spells that can't be emulated via psionics.
Eh, that's not really it. The biggest thing holding manifesters back is that none of them are prepared, and thus can't really be a T1 class (even the Erudite).

[wayfare]

If psionics had enough splatbook support, that system might be able to compete somewhat with arcane magic. The trouble is that every splatbook includes a few dozen new arcane spells that can't be emulated via psionics.

I love the versatility of psionics - when I play a psion, I only really need one blast power because I can augment it to the equivalent of my current highest-level power and can make it whatever energy type I want on the fly. But when it comes down to raw power, the arcane magic system has so much more support that my beloved psionics gets blown away.

Yeah, I think Arcane is just fun for folks who really like sheer possibility. You can practically do ANYTHING between Core + Spell Compendium if you play a wizard. I think teh complexity does get to some folks, though -- i've had players who just HATE playing arcane, because they feel its too tactical. One player said that it was liek playing a different game in teh same room as his buddies.

[Larkas]

@Chronos: Well... Leveling up in the meldshaper classes does grant you a bunch of essentia, and you can make great builds by single-classing. If that's enough to make a counterpoint to dipping, though, I wouldn't know.

Overall, I think we can pretty much separate the subsystems into tiers of their own:

High Tier: Arcane Spellcasting, Divine Spellcasting, Manifesting;
Mid Tier: Meldshaping, Binding, Initiating, Invoking, Shadowcasting;
Low Tier: Truenaming.

This relates to class tiers, of course, but not that closely. A class using arcane spellcasting to its fullest is tier 1 (wizard), one that doesn't, isn't (bard, warmage). A class using divine spellcasting to its fullest is also tier 1 (cleric, druid), one that doesn't, isn't (ranger, paladin, healer). It, however, indicates the "ceiling" of those systems: meldshaping is great, but at its fullest, doesn't hold a candle to manifesting. Well, at least not with what we have published.

[Emperor Tippy]

Warlock makes a great one or two level dip on any stealth character.

Take the Darkness Invocation and the feat Blend With Shadows, now whenever you are in an area of magical darkness you can hide in plain sight as a swift action.

If you have Darkvision (for example, from the spell made permanent) you can also take At Home in the Deep so that you see through the Darkness spell as if it isn't there.

Now grab the Entropic Warding invocation.

Use darkness on yourself and Entropic Warding. You now have concealment (and thus can't be sneak attacked) vs. everybody else and 36% concealment against ranged attacks of any kind, and can HiPS as a swift action.

Doable at level 2. And it also gives you the 1d6 ranged touch attack with a range of 60 feet and Detect Magic at will.

A level of Rogue, some Novice Shadowhands for Assassins Stance, and Craven and you are rocking your ranged touch attack for 4d6+4 damage that end with you back in hiding at no penalty (move to get within range, standard to attack, swift to hide).

Pick up 8 levels of Factotum, a level of Mind Bender, and then finish off with 8 levels of Swordsage.

Mindsight, Darkstalker, Adaptive Style, and then spend the rest of your feats on Font of Inspiration.

Can be an absolutely positively nasty assassin type character.

----
To the OP. At max optimization all three main magic types are equally broken because all three can steal the abilities of the other two without any real difficulty if they want.

Generally though, Psionics is better at being usable day in and day out and breaking the action economy. Arcane is far and away the most versatile (pretty much whatever you want to do there is an arcane spell that can make it reality). Divine has the best buff list and the best healing.

[Trunamer]

If psionics had enough splatbook support, that system might be able to compete somewhat with arcane magic. The trouble is that every splatbook includes a few dozen new arcane spells that can't be emulated via psionics.
It's a shame that so many DMs have this "If it's not published, it doesn't exist" attitude. And I'm not even talking about original stuff; heck, a huge chunk of published powers are just spells converted to the PP system. So it's not like "Yeah, there's a power version of that spell" is a big leap into the big dangerous world of home brewing. It doesn't require creativity, or much conversion skill.

But nope, "The listed powers cover every power in all of existence." :smallconfused:

...Though in the case of psionics, maybe not converting all kinds of broken spells to the PP system isn't such a terrible thing. A psionics-only game might be marginally more balanced than a traditional CoDzilla game.

[Chronos]

Actually, I think that if they had a bit more support, Binders could be Tier 1. They have the same preparation advantage that a wizard or cleric does, in that they can change their abilities each day, choosing from (essentially) all of the options ever published. Their weakness is just that there haven't been all that many options ever published for them. But consider that adding just one single vestige, Zceryll, is generally considered to push them up from Tier 3 to Tier 2. If every new book contained a couple of new vestiges, like how every new book contains new wizard spells, and they could switch between all of those every day, they might even surpass wizards.

This is also true to some extent of the Incarnum classes, though they still have their scaling issues. The incarnate is already one of only four or five classes in the game that doesn't suck at first level, and adding enough new melds to put them up a tier would make low-level incarnates just that much more insane.

[Larkas]

Actually, I think that if they had a bit more support, Binders could be Tier 1. They have the same preparation advantage that a wizard or cleric does, in that they can change their abilities each day, choosing from (essentially) all of the options ever published. Their weakness is just that there haven't been all that many options ever published for them. But consider that adding just one single vestige, Zceryll, is generally considered to push them up from Tier 3 to Tier 2. If every new book contained a couple of new vestiges, like how every new book contains new wizard spells, and they could switch between all of those every day, they might even surpass wizards.

This is also true to some extent of the Incarnum classes, though they still have their scaling issues. The incarnate is already one of only four or five classes in the game that doesn't suck at first level, and adding enough new melds to put them up a tier would make low-level incarnates just that much more insane.

Yep... Alas, we can only work with what were published. If a real system for converting arcane spells into maneuvers was to be published, Swordsages would land squarely into Tier 1 territory, but that unfortunately* didn't happen.

*Unfortunately from the point of view of "more published goodies", not "SS are now T1!"

EDIT: Ehm, more like T2, but you get the idea.

[Bakkan]

Eh, that's not really it. The biggest thing holding manifesters back is that none of them are prepared, and thus can't really be a T1 class (even the Erudite).

Could you elaborate on the bolded part? I can't see what advantage the Wizard mechanic has over the Erudite mechanic. In fact, the Erudite's seems superior if we ignore the difference between the power of spells versus powers, which has nothing to do with the casting/manfesting mechanic.

[Morcleon]

Eh, that's not really it. The biggest thing holding manifesters back is that none of them are prepared, and thus can't really be a T1 class (even the Erudite).

Actually, I'd argue that the StP Erudite, combined with the Metaconcert trick and a number of StP Erudite thralls/believers (from Thrallherd) to get extra powers known from allows greater instantaneous versatility than any arcane caster, as they can access a much larger number of powers.

Also, combine this with PP recharge in a persistent temporal acceleration, and you can essentially go nova every single round.

[Larkas]

Actually, I'd argue that the StP Erudite, combined with the Metaconcert trick and a number of StP Erudite thralls/believers (from Thrallherd) to get extra powers known from allows greater instantaneous versatility than any arcane caster, as they can access a much larger number of powers.

Also, combine this with PP recharge in a persistent temporal acceleration, and you can essentially go nova every single round.

StP Erudite is just silly. It combines the psionic action economy shenanigans and the arcane versatility.

Overall, I'd say that combining two subsystems in one class can bring silliness all around. Consider StP Erudite, Rainbow Warsnake, Arcane Swordsage and even Archivist with Divine Magician Cleric friends.

... I didn't say it wasn't fun, I just said it was silly. :smallbiggrin:

[Emperor Tippy]

A properly optimized Psion will know every power in the game anyways, including all spells (thanks to Spell to Power Erudite+Psychic Chirurgery).

But for whatever reason people don't like when I do that, and it makes Tippy have a sad. :smallfrown:

[sonofzeal]

Arcane:
Floor: 1
Ceiling: 10

Arcane might almost invariably comes with a terrible chassis, and there's a truly vast difference between a well-made one and a terrible one. A low level Wizard who preps a bunch of Magic Missiles ("It's iconic! And unresistable!") is going to suffer compared to a T5 and even a few T6s. But a well-made one is devastatingly powerful.

Divine
Floor: 4
Ceiling: 9

Divine magic isn't as potent as Arcane, but Divine casters usually have a far better chassis, and usually spontaneously cast something in addition to whatever spell slots they have. They also don't suffer from ASF, and can change their spells freely every day. A Divine caster is far harder to mess up, even if it loses some straight potency.


Psionics
Floor: 3
Ceiling: 9.5

Psi is close to Arcane, but with less useless content and less game-breaking content too. Psi powers also generally scale better and are more flexible, and are usually pretty good at whatever it is they're doing, so it's easier to get something decent. You'd really have to try to mess them up as badly as a poorly-built Wizard can be.


Incarnum
Floor: 3
Ceiling: 8

Incarnum is pretty fiddly, and certainly nowhere near as potent as actual spellcasting. Still, there's a lot of interesting things it can do if built well, and some really unexpected power there.

Martial Adepts
Floor: 5
Ceiling: 7

Martial Adepts are extremely hard to mess up. You could pick maneuvers by blindfolded darts and still be within a stones-throw of someone who debated endlessly and weighed all pros and cons.


Invocation-users
Floor: 4
Ceiling: 6

Invocations generally aren't super, but they're reliable and fairly straightforward. A few nasty combos exist, but in general there's really not a big difference here in my experience.

[Larkas]

@Tippy: I love that PO for you seems to mean "properly optimized" and "practically optimized" at the same time, and that your PO makes almost everyone else's TO cry in a corner! :smallbiggrin:

@Zeal: Hey, that's a nice list! Care to add binding and shadowcasting to the mix? What about *shivers* truenaming?

[Emperor Tippy]

@Tippy: I love that PO for you seems to mean "properly optimized" and "practically optimized" at the same time, and that your PO makes almost everyone else's TO cry in a corner! :smallbiggrin:
I generally avoid picking up all spells from StP Erudite but I consider it standard to grab all powers around level 18 or so. It's just sensible.


What about *shivers* truenaming?
Levels 1-19: 0-4
Level 20: 0-10

Ah the power of Conjunctive Gate.

[sonofzeal]

@Zeal: Hey, that's a nice list! Care to add binding and shadowcasting to the mix? What about *shivers* truenaming?
Unfortunately, I'm really not the person to ask on the former two. I'll vouch for Emperor Tippy's placement of Truenaming, with the caveat that the curve is actually a little smoother than that. A Truenamer before tenth level probably goes in the 1-4 range; after that they have frequent-use Solid Fog (and still have limited FoM), which is nice, and a few of their other options become better too. I'd say a higher level Truenamer might be able to manage a 1-6. They're very sensitive to optimization skill though.

My guess for Binding is 4-7, and Shadowcasting is 3-8, but those are just guesses.