Easy and Hard Classes in D&D

[The Trickster]

I think by now, most people on the playground have at least heard about JaronK's Tier System, and there are pages upon pages of debates about it. However, what I don't hear as often are debates about how difficult some classes are to play.

So, I am curious fellow Playground peeps. What are the hardest classes to learn how to play? How about easiest classes to learn?

(By play, I mean how hard is it to get the class to be effective, not necessarily super duper broken optimized.)

I personally feel that barbarians are relatively easy to learn and be effective (they already have class feature set in stone, and even newer players can see the usefulness of Power attack), while fighters can be a bit tricky to a new player (if you goof up your feats, then the character can suffer).

[eggynack]

There're a lot of different kinds of hard. For example, look at sorcerers and druids. Sorcerers are pretty easy in play, with a single set of spells that they can use at all times. No choices to make except for the specific application of your spells in any given situation. It can be difficult, especially if you use open ended spells, but it's certainly not the most options in game. However, sorcerers are very difficult to build, with every spell needing to fit certain parameters, and a wrong choice leading to big problems. Hard to build, easy to play.

Then, you have the druid. Druids are really easy to build. Take natural spell at 6th, do no other things, and you have a druid that any good player can break the game with. There're a ton of ways to build a druid better, and there's depth there, but it's not necessary. By contrast, actually playing a druid is significantly more difficult. Every day you have access to spells from every spell in existence, from any number of sources, and a decent number of animal companions, and every round you have access to a massive number of diverse animal forms spread across a number of sources, usually different from the spell sources, as well as a pile of summons, though those aren't from that many sources. Hard to play, easy to build.

[DR27]

Keeping with eggynack's spirit, I'd say that ToB classes are the epitome of easy build, easy play. You can basically pick your maneuvers known/prepared at random, and end up with legitimate options that come in handy, and have obvious uses.

Contrast that with the Artificer then, which has frankly, insane build difficulty spanning literally thousands of options, with whole binders coming along with the player to the table. When you actually play - get ready for turns to take in excess of 10minutes while the Artificer PC is looking through that binder and actually choose the right thing to use. Can end up pretty sucky in the hands of somebody without much experience.

[Spuddles]

In my experience, wizards and druids are the easiest, with rogues and clerics being the hardest.

You tell a noob wizard player to get high int and wis, tell them what spell to get on level up. Then they shoot a web or grease and all the rules are right there. They can also have magic missile available or whatever other spell you let them pick. They quickly learn what is good magic and what isnt. They contribute a lot to the party. Their high int lets them use quite a few skills.

Druid's same story, but they also get an attack roll for their pet.

Rogue is stupid complicated- if it twf or rapid shots, it cant move and attack. It needs flanking. Flat-footed bull****. Search for traps, disable traps, unlock door. Forget a crucial step? Oh how about a poison needle!

Maybe it's because of who gravitates towards what classes, but in my experience, women playing spellcasters pick up the game super fast. Usually because of their 4 turns (essentially choices) in the average combat, they will do something useful on 75% of the turns. A rogue has to waste time getting near something, then takes a crit to the face and runs away. Oh look, two attacks, one sneak attack, and a whole lot of fail.

Meanwhile druid lady has entanged, she remembered to have her pet goat attack twice, and she healed the rogue.

Clerics, though. What spell? Doesnt matter, they're all a waste of a turn and a spell slot so you can pretend to be a fighter. Yaaay, you cast two inconsequential spells and made one attack. Gold star for you!

Women tend to read the rules, too, in my experience. So that could be affecting why spellcasters tend to have an easier time of it.

[The Trickster]

Snippity snip

I didn't really think about it that way, so thanks for the awesome imput.

I will say druid isn't as hard to play as some would think. For example, take a level 1 druid. He will have a druid pet and spells. Now, even if he goofs up his feats and spell selection, he isn't punished for it too much. (Yes, having a crappy feat hurts, but not as much as a fighter losing a feat). Basically, I still feel that a poorly built druid is still able to contribute fairly easily. Other than that, I agree with your points.


Keeping with eggynack's spirit, I'd say that ToB classes are the epitome of easy build, easy play. You can basically pick your maneuvers known/prepared at random, and end up with legitimate options that come in handy, and have obvious uses.

Contrast that with the Artificer then, which has frankly, insane build difficulty spanning literally thousands of options, with whole binders coming along with the player to the table. When you actually play - get ready for turns to take in excess of 10minutes while the Artificer PC is looking through that binder and actually choose the right thing to use. Can end up pretty sucky in the hands of somebody without much experience.

I had completely forgot about ToB for a minute there...and I love ToB. I feel like I cheated on my lover or something.


In my experience, wizards and druids are the easiest, with rogues and clerics being the hardest.

You tell a noob wizard player to get high int and wis, tell them what spell to get on level up. Then they shoot a web or grease and all the rules are right there. They can also have magic missile available or whatever other spell you let them pick. They quickly learn what is good magic and what isnt. They contribute a lot to the party. Their high int lets them use quite a few skills.

I always viewed Wizard as a harder class, because like a fighter, a player needs to pick his "class features" (spells).

[Feralventas]

T1 classes tend to require more book-work than most newbish folks want to put up with. The way I handle it is.

Fighter Tier: it may not be all that powerful but it's easy and straight-forward to use. Fighter, Barbarian, Swashbuckler, Warlock, Dragon Shaman; classes whose abilities are static and always available.

Rogue Tier: More powerful, more utilitarian, not over-powered and powers/abilities are likely to be conditional, but make them able to keep up. Lots of skill points, a little more system knowledge needed to be effective, but can be easily grasped once you've played a few sessions and paid attention. Rogue, Ranger, Paladin, Duskblade, Ninja, Scout. Plenty of ways to contribute, but usually narrow in focus.

Sorcerer Tier: Starts getting difficult to optimize here, but there's a reasonably low skill floor as long as you know how to set up saves and DC's and such. Might still make trap/unsuitable choices, but for the most part having spells per day and a set of spells known they can work out. Mystics, Sorcerers, Bards, Factotem, Favored Soul, and the like hang out here, along with the Tome of Battle and Tome of Magic classes. Most of Expanded Psionics (minus Soulknife) too.

T1: Yup, you know your stuff well enough to make classes like Wizard, Cleric, or Erudite sing. It's a mess of book-keeping but if you can manage it you've worked your way through study and experience to be able to handle just about anything.

Ivory Tower as all get out, but that's how I'd see it on a vague estimation.

[Kennisiou]

The easiest classes to play are probably Druid, Spirit Shaman, Favored Soul, Sorceror, Psion, Dread Necro, Warmage, Healer, Beguiler, and the ToB classes. Most of those classes are pretty functional without a lot of optimization work, and a lot of the mechanics just show you the right way to build/play them.

[eggynack]

I will say druid isn't as hard to play as some would think. For example, take a level 1 druid. He will have a druid pet and spells. Now, even if he goofs up his feats and spell selection, he isn't punished for it too much. (Yes, having a crappy feat hurts, but not as much as a fighter losing a feat). Basically, I still feel that a poorly built druid is still able to contribute fairly easily. Other than that, I agree with your points.
True enough. Druids get up to competency pretty fast. Still, some of the widest constant book use of any class. Just getting into the class requires pretty deep understanding of the ever-complicated rules for monsters. Also, book keeping. A really easy class in some ways, but a very difficult one in some other ways, mostly in terms of complexity density. That's the whole point in a sense. I could put together a class difficulty tier list that has druids all the way on the easiest end of the spectrum, and that would be perfectly valid, or I could stick them on the hardest end, and it would likely also be valid. The fact that we've basically seen both lists in this very thread supports that position.

[Spuddles]

I always viewed Wizard as a harder class, because like a fighter, a player needs to pick his "class features" (spells).

I've seen this regurgitated from virtually every person that played dnd in my 15 years of gaming but I have never actually seen it play out.

Why?

Because there's usually someone at the table to suggest spells. T1 can re-pick their spells multiple times in the same session. T1 can add new spells to their list trivially.

I've seen a lot of people struggle with clerics because cleric spells are atrocious. It's a terrible class without the DMM crutch, and that's kind of complicated to give someone at level one. "Sorry you have to be a cleric of undeath and time and pick these feats." Yeah, no.

A wizard or druid can do just about whatever they want as long as one spell per spell level is picked by someone who knows what they're doing. Sort of like how you might suggest power attack and cleave over toughness and EWP bastard sword to a new fighter.

[TrueJordan]

I feel like sorcerers and other spontaneous casters have it slightly easier. Sure, you have to pick what spells you know in advance, but it's not like you have a book to go through every time you want cast a spell in game to see which the best one for the situation is every day.

That said, obviously fighters and similar melee classes (monks, barbarians, rouges etc.) have it easier since the vast majority of their choices are made for them.

[iceman10058]

Clerics, though. What spell? Doesnt matter, they're all a waste of a turn and a spell slot so you can pretend to be a fighter. Yaaay, you cast two inconsequential spells and made one attack. Gold star for you!



you havent played many clerics have you

[Azoth]

I think it depends on the person playing the class. I picked up all the skill monkey classes like they were second nature. Even gishing them came easily to me.

Making a straight beat stick or pure caster was difficult for me. I kept looking to spells to emulate what my natural thought processeses were for handling a situation. This was a big mistake that took me a few characters to get past. Had to wrap my head around how each type of character handles a situation.

[Spuddles]

you havent played many clerics have you

I have. They're basically a one trick pony. They can sort of pretend to be a wizard, but then why not play a wizard.

Cleric's just have abysmal action advantage unless you're summoning (druid or wizard are superior there) or you abuse DMM, in which case incantatrix all the way.

They're certainly not a very easy class to use, that's for sure.

[limejuicepowder]

you havent played many clerics have you

I kind of agree, at least in core. What spells do clerics get that compare to the likes of color spray, sleep, enlarge person, glitterdust, invisibility, web, fly, haste, slow, black tentacles, etc. (at those levels)?

I think clerics are very underwhelming. I recognize the skills at higher levels and higher OP, but in a more casual environment....very meh. You're a fighter with worse BaB, no bonus feats, and a plethora of weak buff spells.

[The Trickster]

I've seen this regurgitated from virtually every person that played dnd in my 15 years of gaming but I have never actually seen it play out.

Why?

Because there's usually someone at the table to suggest spells. T1 can re-pick their spells multiple times in the same session. T1 can add new spells to their list trivially.

I've seen a lot of people struggle with clerics because cleric spells are atrocious. It's a terrible class without the DMM crutch, and that's kind of complicated to give someone at level one. "Sorry you have to be a cleric of undeath and time and pick these feats." Yeah, no.

A wizard or druid can do just about whatever they want as long as one spell per spell level is picked by someone who knows what they're doing. Sort of like how you might suggest power attack and cleave over toughness and EWP bastard sword to a new fighter.

Fair enough. I wasn't very clear on my definition of "easy to play".

I wanted to know what classes were easy/hard to play without needing help from someone else. Sure, another veteran player could walk you through the wizard, showing you all of the spells to take and when to use them. At that point, however, shows that maybe the wizard isn't as easy to play as one would think. If you need help with something, it is at least a little tricky.

But hey, I don't pretend to be an exper at this stuff, so *shrug*.

[iceman10058]

I kind of agree, at least in core. What spells do clerics get that compare to the likes of color spray, sleep, enlarge person, glitterdust, invisibility, web, fly, haste, slow, black tentacles, etc. (at those levels)?

I think clerics are very underwhelming. I recognize the skills at higher levels and higher OP, but in a more casual environment....very meh. You're a fighter with worse BaB, no bonus feats, and a plethora of weak buff spells.

i have to disagree, for one, buffing always seems underrated when it can save a party in an encounter. two, clerics get plenty of good attack spells that are hard to resist taking damage even in core. plus any class that has full casting progression and can wear heavy armor is great in low or high levels. finally, clerics do not need a full nights sleep for their spells, and sometimes can pray for new spells twice in a day, depending on the diety and setting.

[iceman10058]

i say monk is hard to build and play to be effective, even with optimizing

[Coidzor]

Barbarian and Sorcerer are generally posited as go-to options for new players, though sometimes with caveats about guided spell selection or what have you, so those two are what I generally think of as the easiest to learn, partially because it's geared towards locking a player into a certain playstyle from the get-go without greater system mastery to take the pieces and kick it up a notch.

[KorbeltheReader]

I feel the same way as Eggynack for the most part. Most of the really powerful classes are powerful because of some combination of super-powerful, easy-to-switch-out spells and SAD or near-SAD, which makes them easy to build. Wizards and druids in particular work out of the box to such an extent that they don't even need feats to be good (with the exception of Natural Spell), nor do they need any high ability scores except their caster stat. Clerics, similarly, just work even when played as healsticks or stuck with pretty wild build choices.

Contrast with many of the low-tiered classes. They tend to be hard to build because they're not well-designed, requiring oodles of MAD and lots of practically mandatory feats that don't line up well. In fact it can feel as if they were intentionally designed to thwart every attempt to beef them up.

Take the dragon shaman, for instance. D10 hit dice, so you can put him in the front lines, right? Well, he's only got medium BAB, medium armor, and simple weapons.

Well, maybe you can make him a skillmonkey then! After all, he gets skill focus several times and you can choose some of your class skills by choosing the right dragon! Except that you only get 2+int skills.

But you get a breath weapon! That's awesome! Except that it's only 1d6 damage/2 levels (average of 35 damage at level 20), and takes 1d4 rounds to recharge.

But hey, you get wings! That is, you get wings at level 19, 16 levels after the wizard gains the ability to alter self into things with wings.

[Firechanter]

So, we've already learned that a class can be differently hard to build and to play. And now I'll add another dimension: there are Hard classes, and there are HARD classes. Okay that's too cryptic; what I mean is: some classes are hard to learn, but once you get the hang of them, you get great results. Other classes require a lot of effort to just barely hang in.

When a new player joins the group, a common fallacy is to give them an "easy" class such as the Fighter. Which is a horrible call because Fighters are HARD. Feat choices are pretty much the hardest call for beginning players, and as we know, Fighters get nothing _but_ feats, i.e. hard choices. It doesn't help that some feats do something completely different than their names might imply to new players.

So anyway, here are some ratings for general difficulty:

Druid: Faceroll
You don't even need to have a clue of what you're doing and still win. (And yes, I've seen this happen several times in actual play)

Barbarian: Fairly Easy
Most of your stuff is set. Just follow the recipe and you will smash stuff.

Cleric: Easy
Don't get intimidated by the size of the spell list. Even if you cast nothing but Cures, you still outrank any Fighter.

Crusader: Easy
You need to understand how the maneuver system works. Once you got that, the limited maneuver selection makes this easy to build, easy to play.

Warblade: Medium
The difference here is that you have a bigger selection of maneuvers, and it's possible to lock yourself out of some options if you don't plan carefully. Still, even with completely random choices you'll still do better than a Fighter.

Rogue: Medium
The most important lesson is to learn what the Rogue _can't_ do. Once you know not to commit suicide, you just need to follow the same routine every time.

Fighter: Hard!
Risk painting yourself in a corner with every choice you make. Even with good choices, your results will still be only mediocre.

Wizard: Hard
The prime example of "Difficult to master, but excellent results when you do".

[Spuddles]

i say monk is hard to build and play to be effective, even with optimizing

Yep. Unless the monk gets like 80pb and 3x WBL. In my experience monks always fail to deliver for the noobs, and many times for vets.


Barbarian and Sorcerer are generally posited as go-to options for new players, though sometimes with caveats about guided spell selection or what have you, so those two are what I generally think of as the easiest to learn, partially because it's geared towards locking a player into a certain playstyle from the get-go without greater system mastery to take the pieces and kick it up a notch.

My biggest grief with barb is recalculating to hit, damage, hp, grapple, and fort saves while raging. Maybe I tend to play with... those with less aptitude for auch things, though.


Fair enough. I wasn't very clear on my definition of "easy to play".

I wanted to know what classes were easy/hard to play without needing help from someone else. Sure, another veteran player could walk you through the wizard, showing you all of the spells to take and when to use them. At that point, however, shows that maybe the wizard isn't as easy to play as one would think. If you need help with something, it is at least a little tricky.

But hey, I don't pretend to be an exper at this stuff, so *shrug*.

A wizard gets at least 4 spells known per spell level. A veteran player need only help pick 1 of those for a successful wizard build. In other words, a wizard or druid player need only take 25% of my advice to have a functioning, fun character. And they arent even particularly "hard" character investments. Tier 1 classes' most powerful options also tend to be the most ephemeral. Compare that to the crapshoot of picking out fighter feats. The wizard can stop with haste and go to fireball if they want. McFighter cannot ditch power attack and go to tripping, not for three more levels anyway.

In showing people how to play, I've found casters, esp. T1, are the easiest. Here's why:

Nonbinding build decisions

Powerful options

Efficient and non-confusing action economy. None of that bull**** confusing full attack and five foot step nonsense.

Major abilities tend to be mostly self contained- rules for spells are usually self contained.other worries like flanking, attacks of opportunity, high ground advantage, etc. are for chumps

It's easy to offer build advice without feeling like your building their character

Lots of room to grow and things to try out- blasting, battlefield control, debuffs, buffs, heaven forbid minionmancy- the world is yours.

[iceman10058]

I would put ranger in medium, combat styles are either a or b and as you play, favored enemies become easier to pick, but the number of features you get can be intimidating to new players

[Vaynor]

I think it depends what you mean by easy to play, for the most part. Some classes might be easy to play, but require a lot of knowledge and setup in order to be effective (most prepared spellcasters like wizards and clerics). Some classes are relatively simple and don't require much knowledge, but are difficult to pull off well and might require a more advanced playstyle to remain effective (rogues, rangers, etc.). It depends what you're comparing the class to, as well. A fighter might require a solid setup to be more effective than a druid's animal companion in combat, but there's still an upper limit to their abilities (represented fairly well by the tier system, in my opinion). Technical knowledge and skill can improve a fighter a lot, but they'll never be as good as a caster because their skill lies entirely in combat alone.

[Particle_Man]

Multi-classing will usually make the character harder to learn, because of extra subsystems to learn.

Turning undead is a complication on clerics.

Wildshape is a complication on druids.

Given that lots of videogames use a "spell point" system for magic, I would assume that the psionic classes would be easier to understand than the vancian spell slot classes.

Warlock is dead easy. Point and shoot, and you don't keep track of the magic resource because it is at will.

The absolute easiest is Commoner, but that is not really one people will want to play.

Fighters *can* be easy if you keep to feats that give static bonuses and to a cluster of feats like power attack/cleave/great cleave. It can get more complicated if you try for trickier stuff, of course.

[Lord Ruby34]

The absolute easiest is Commoner, but that is not really one people will want to play.


I'm going to disagree, I think commoners are actually the hardest class to play. You get absolutely nothing, so if you want to win you have to get clever ever single turn. And if you screw up one time, guess what, you're dead.

Commoners are only easy to play if you do something like chicken infested.

[Spuddles]

Artificer is probably the hardest to play anywhere near tier 1. A class whose major mechanic is a spreadsheet? me gusta

[Sir Chuckles]

You tell a noob wizard player to get high int and wis, tell them what spell to get on level up.
Snipped and emphasis mine.

I think the major flaw here is that you're guiding someone through it.
It's proven that a man can easily land an airplane when guided step-by-step, and the same could be said about any class in DnD. Take away that guardian angel and leave them to the devices of WotC's writing, and it's a whole different ball game. And WotC gave you rollerblades, a baseball bat, and the address of an ice hockey rink.

Let's use some game terms: Skill Ceilings and Floors. When gauging the difficulty of a play style or class, you look at the floor, not the ceiling. A Barbarian has an incredibly low floor. Next to no bookkeeping, good chassis, fun an simple to play, and effect even when you're missing a hand and have 7 in half your stats. This makes it an easy class.

Where as a Wizard can suck hundreds of times worse than a Fighter, if improperly built. It has a moderate floor and a high ceiling. It may even have a ceiling at all, it's so high (The same can be said about half the T1 classes).
By no means is it the hardest, but it's not easy.

[Squirrel_Dude]

I'll throw out psionic classes as hard to play for the same reasons that can make them fun to play: Their unique mechanics. Power points are great (my favorite spontaneous casting system), but there is a lot of math/tracking that goes along using them, to go along with all the other fun quirks like the different ways powers can manifest themselves. Players who aren't careful can accidentally nova, and new players may have trouble getting accurate advice about how to play psionics because most people don't play them.


I'll add any finesse/acrobatic type class (monk, rogue, ninja, etc.). Mostly because they don't work as well as they do in most any other form of fiction. You're simply not (or can't be) as practically fast or as hard to hit as those guys.


Easy class:
- Barbarian: Tell the player to wield a two handed weapon and charge things in combat. Ask him if he wants to make an intimidate check outside of combat.
- Bard: The player will almost always have some viable way to try and aid the party

[Spuddles]

Snipped and emphasis mine.

I think... I... can suck hundreds of times.... it's the hardest... it's easy.

Yeah, if you selectively edit my posts, you can make anything out of them.

[eggynack]

Yeah, if you selectively edit my posts, you can make anything out of them.
His quote didn't really seem all that selectively edited, or misrepresented. it looks a lot like you said that exact thing, and that you meant it to mean just about what he said that it meant.