High Floor Low Ceiling Classes? (3.P)

[Tvtyrant]

I'm looking for a list of high floor classes with fairly low ceilings, such as Tome of Battle or Dragonfire Adept. I play E6 but due to previous experiences I want to narrow the ceiling to floor ratio.

[Thealtruistorc]

By that do you mean they begin incredibly good but gradually level off?

Spike Chain Fighter.

[Gavinfoxx]

By that do you mean they begin incredibly good but gradually level off?

Spike Chain Fighter.

No, that's not what he means, nor is that a good example of beginning powerful, since it can only do one narrow thing...

[The Insaniac]

He means a class that is hard to screw up but is also hard to optimize out the wazoo.

[Jeff the Green]

The fixed-list casters and martial adepts are all this. They're hard to screw up, but with the exception of a few prestige class combinations can't be brought much higher. Incarnum classes and binder aresimilar, since soulmelds and vestiges can be swapped every day and they don't need particular feats to do well.

[JusticeZero]

ToB/PoW classes, too, for your combat monkeys.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Incarnate, Totemist, Binder...

[Augmental]

I've personally always wondered if there are any high floor, high ceiling classes...

[eggynack]

I've personally always wondered if there are any high floor, high ceiling classes...
Druid seems a lot like one,

[Silva Stormrage]

Druid seems a lot like one,

You can screw up druid easier than screwing up ToB classes though so its not quite as high of a floor.

[eggynack]

You can screw up druid easier than screwing up ToB classes though so its not quite as high of a floor.
Quite possibly, though it's notable that it's impossible to construct a druid such that it can't be of a very high power level within a day. Most screw-uppery comes from non-build stuff.

[Silva Stormrage]

Quite possibly, though it's notable that it's impossible to construct a druid such that it can't be of a very high power level within a day. Most screw-uppery comes from non-build stuff.

Hm, fair point, it is harder to permanently mess up a druid.

Though it IS possible. A druid with 8 wisdom and no useful feats (Lets say skill focus craft basket weaving and the like) and trading out animal companion and wild shape for ACF's can't really achieve high power. But thats nitpicking as no one would build such a thing.

[eggynack]

Though it IS possible. A druid with 8 wisdom and no useful feats (Lets say skill focus craft basket weaving and the like) and trading out animal companion and wild shape for ACF's can't really achieve high power. But thats nitpicking as no one would build such a thing.
Heh, yeah. That seems more like a basement than a floor though. I think the worst I've seen started out by using some sort of spontaneous casting variant, traded out wild shape and animal companion for shapeshifter, traded spontaneous SNA for spontaneous regeneration, and I think it was capped off with VoP. That's probably hanging out at around tier 2, for a competent player, though you'd probably hit a low floor with an incompetent one. Still, I must imagine that someone capable of systematically destroying all of a druid's best stuff would be necessarily doing so intentionally, because it takes a lot of book diving and counter-intuitive maneuvers.

[Xerlith]

I've personally always wondered if there are any high floor, high ceiling classes...

Wouldn't that be the Cleric? As long as you have a non-negative WIS score at least.
You can't fail the spell selection, can't really be useless (well, not unless you really try), you get medium BAB, Armor... I guess you can lower the floor on a given day - but it's easy to fix.

[Alex12]

Wouldn't that be the Cleric? As long as you have a non-negative WIS score at least.
You can't fail the spell selection, can't really be useless (well, not unless you really try), you get medium BAB, Armor... I guess you can lower the floor on a given day - but it's easy to fix.

Healbot Cleric.

[TuggyNE]

Wouldn't that be the Cleric? As long as you have a non-negative WIS score at least.
You can't fail the spell selection, can't really be useless (well, not unless you really try), you get medium BAB, Armor... I guess you can lower the floor on a given day - but it's easy to fix.

Clerics, like Druids, have a high build floor but a low play floor — and, of course, neither has a low ceiling at all. I'm given to understand that ToB classes have not merely high build floors but high play floors, to the point you can literally pick maneuvers to use at random and still sort of do OK.

[chaos_redefined]

I think PF paid more attention to the floors, meaning that classes typically have lower floors. The giant debate that tarnished their early reputation was caused by people saying "Hey... this ceiling is still pretty high...", and their response was "But, your average player only cares about the floor." Which is probably true, but still causes problems within the online gaming community.

[Xerlith]

Healbot Cleric.

Spell choice. Rectified next morning.

As Tuggy said, it's play floor, not optimization floor.
Any prepared fixed-list caster seems to fit this.

[Eldan]

Druids can be screwed up. The first druid in our group was a kobold (and not a draconic one, either, straight out of the MM). In combat, he would mostly dual wield two light weapons. Effectively, he was the group's scout, in some small mammal, bird or aquatic form.

Well, not really screwed up. still an effective scout. Just hilariously ineffective in combat, with his two daggers and no spells.

[Shining Wrath]

Note which classes are getting frequent mention here: ones released late in 3.5 dev.

WotC had realized what was wrong with the Monk and Fighter, but never published the splatbooks allowing full-on optimization with ACF and feats and what have you.

[nedz]

The fixed-list casters and martial adepts are all this. They're hard to screw up, but with the exception of a few prestige class combinations can't be brought much higher. Incarnum classes and binder aresimilar, since soulmelds and vestiges can be swapped every day and they don't need particular feats to do well.

The fixed list casters can be brought very high — mainly using PrCs. How is this not a high ceiling ?

[Mitchellnotes]

I'd throw duskblade in as an idea here. Out of the box, they'll do pretty well. They are pretty hard to do wrong, and while you can optimize them a bit, they have a pretty reasonable ceiling.