Playing a high Tier as low Tier

[The Insanity]

How does one play a Tier 1 or 2 class as not higher than a Tier 3 character? By which I mean, how can you self-regulate yourself to build your character strong, but not more capable than a Tier 3 class (as a sweet spot)?

[Quiddle]

Spell choice entirely determines how powerful you are, limit that and you limit your ability to out shine the entire party.

[tyckspoon]

Pretty easily. Are you a Wizard? Ok, pick your favorite Tier 3 specialist list caster (Dread Necro/Beguiler style) and pretend you're one of them. Go into Mystic Theurge without using early entry or action-economy tricks to help leverage your extra spells/day. Break the First Commandment of caster optimization and take some multiclasses or prestige classes that drop caster levels; maybe build on inefficient gish (extra levels in Fighter, maybe more than 1 level of Spellsword..) or investigate the giant pile of prestige classes that offer some interesting and cool abilities but give away too many caster levels to be seriously considered by most people..

Or just pick worse spells. There's a huge range of spells in between the 'this is never, ever worth casting' and 'this solves all the problems ever' endpoints to pick from, and it's not hard to land in roughly Tier 3 zone if that's what you're aiming for.

[Just to Browse]

When you see a spell that wins, don't pick it.

here is a place to start (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=31950). Don't pick those spells.

[The Insanity]

I was afraid it wouldn't be that easy. Unfortunately I'm not that familiar with spellcasters, which BTW doesn't mean I'm going to be automatically less efficient with them, quite the opposite actually, I might be too efficient on accident.
Note that I'm not just talking strictly about "nerfing" myself. I'm also talking about (somehow) regulating my players. I don't like to just ban things or veto everything, but at the same time I would prefer the PCs to be around Tier 3. I play with reasonable people, so simply asking them to self-regulate is of course an option, but it's one thing to agree to something, and another to actually do it (properly).

[Curmudgeon]

If you're not that familiar with spellcasters, you're not going to be that familiar with the hundreds of (potentially, at least) problematic spells. Some examples that I've had to deal with often enough to write down the details:
Wall of Force (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfForce.htm) requires not a single grain of sand ("any object or creature") be in the way, so you can form one slightly above a floor but you can't have it come into effect in direct contact with the floor. (In D&D a water drop doesn't count as "any object", so you can cast the spell while it's raining.)
The Displacement (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/displacement.htm) spell and Cloaks of Displacement (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#cloakofDisplacementMinor) don't prevent sneak attack, because they don't provide actual concealment — though their miss chance might keep you from being hit at all.
Enlarge Person (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/enlargePerson.htm) increases your equipment weight 8 times, with aneffective increase in encumbrance as if you stayed the same size and all your gear exactly tripled in weight.
Shatter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shatter.htm) is dependent on the definition of the word "solid (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/solid?s=t)", for which I use the common meaning "rigid, not flexible". (Other possibilities would be: "without interior voids"; or "formed of only a single substance". One non-possibility would be the modern chemical "neither liquid nor gas". That's not only anachronistic but nonsensical in the game because liquids and gases aren't D&D objects; all objects are "solid" in that sense).
Freedom of Movement (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/freedomOfMovement.htm) lets you move normally, which means through any hindrance that isn't an actual barrier; but Note: the caster must bind a leather thong around the arm of the target, so you can't cast the spell with just a shield hand available.
Mind Blank (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mindBlank.htm) doesn't protect against True Seeing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/trueSeeing.htm), because True Seeing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/trueSeeing.htm) doesn't read emotions or thoughts. However, because Mind Blank (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mindBlank.htm) wards the subject's mind from detection, it will foil both Telepathy and Mindsight (Lords of Madness, page 126), as the warded creature is never in range of any Telepathy ability (regardless of actual distance).
Nondetection (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/nondetection.htm) does have a chance to foil True Seeing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/trueSeeing.htm) and See Invisibility (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/seeInvisibility.htm), because these are divination spells that detect, visually.
Telekinesis (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/telekinesis.htm) lets you use Violent Thrust to hurl weapons, but does not give you proficiency with these weapons, make melee weapons other than improvised for throwing, or change weapon range increments.
Darkness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/darkness.htm) does create shadowy light in a previously pitch black area, despite the spell name making that seem odd.
One other helpful tip: watch for metamagic shenanigans. Every way to reduce what slot a spell uses, or to reduce the cost of adding metamagic to a spell, is problematic.

[Narren]

I was afraid it wouldn't be that easy. Unfortunately I'm not that familiar with spellcasters, which BTW doesn't mean I'm going to be automatically less efficient with them, quite the opposite actually, I might be too efficient on accident.
Note that I'm not just talking strictly about "nerfing" myself. I'm also talking about (somehow) regulating my players. I don't like to just ban things or veto everything, but at the same time I would prefer the PCs to be around Tier 3. I play with reasonable people, so simply asking them to self-regulate is of course an option, but it's one thing to agree to something, and another to actually do it (properly).


If you're not familiar with casters, I advise you to just stay away from the CharOp boards and you should be fine. In my experience, most players that are new to spellcasters don't break the game with them.

Regulating your players is a different question. Are you the DM or a fellow player?

[Just to Browse]

Sounds like they're the DM.

Regulating players when you have no experience is a bad idea--you'll mess something up, guaranteed. You should just let them do whatever, and if one player consistently outshines the other you should either talk to the optimizer and ask him to tone it down or grant the weaker one some buffs.

[nedz]

The simplest solution is to not play a T1 or T2 character.

[Red Fel]

Ultimately, there are two ways to bring a Tier 1 character down to T3+.

Way the first is essentially DM fiat. It's not enough to take extra features off the table; even played as-is, a Wizard has the capacity to be mindbogglingly potent right out of the box. Excluding books and sources can help, but it's like putting a Band-aid on a sucking chest wound. You would have to actively, nitpickingly limit their spell selection, item selection, feat selection - in essence, control their character build. Wizards are powerful and versatile, period, full-stop. Same rule applies to other Tier 1 classes, to varying degrees.

Way the second is player control. This cannot be imposed by force; you cannot control your players. But when done right, it works beautifully.

I wouldn't take it as far as some have suggested, and tell the player "Here is a list of spells you can't use anymore." Instead, I would tell the player to be more situational with his spells. Use spells that benefit the party, instead of simply spells that demolish enemies. For example, a Cleric who throws around buffs, or a Wizard who uses tactical spells (Grease, Dimension Door, etc.) can benefit the party as a whole, without soloing everything that comes along. This keeps the caster relevant, and still powerful, but gives everyone a chance to synergize with the Wizard or Cleric or Druid's abilities.

Another option is to encourage the character to specialize. One of the hallmarks of Tier 1 is versatility. A player who voluntarily gives that up can still have power, but simply less versatility - that could bring them down to Tier 2, or even Tier 3. For example, say your Wizard is going to play a "fire Wizard," only using spells with the Fire descriptor, and not taking any special tricks to turn his spells into Fire spells. That's a substantial nerf, but he can still incinerate things easily. (This also resembles the earlier suggestion of mimicking a Tier 3 specialist class). Or say your Cleric is going to take a bunch of ACFs, feats and features that more or less completely remove him from melee. He becomes exclusively a caster, and his versatility decreases.

These are all options that allow characters to remain relevant (a caster-Cleric is nonetheless a Cleric, for example) while granting the lower-tier characters a chance to shine more.

[Fax Celestis]

Alternatively, focus on spells that make your party shine. Haste, snake's swiftness, allegro, mass lesser vigor, etc. Don't handle a threat yourself, make your partymates able to handle the threat.

[Raimun]

Hmm, the way I've seen it done:

Use Magic Missile. No Metamagic. No anything else.

Just Magic Missile. Even if it's low level and Color Spray is still very good. Even if it's higher level and you have all of those other cool and deadly spells.

And if you're in a really, really wild mood, drop a Fireball. 20ish points of fire damage for everyone. Yay.