3rd Ed Least Favorite Class and Why [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

TheCrowing1432

2015-07-08, 01:55 PM

Id like to hear about some of the playgrounds least favorite classes and why. With a couple of rules.

1. Dont just say "because they are bad" even the universally agreed "bad" classes, (IE Monk and Paladin) are still favored by a lot of players, myself included.

2. Dont quote someones post and say "But X class is so good/thats a dumb reason to not like the class/etc" Dont need to turn this into a pointless flame war.

Ill go first.

Ranger.

Its just so.....painfully average.

Its skills are so-so, its spellcasting is ok, its class abilities are niche.

Rangers just....dont stand out to me.

They dont have the mighty spellcasting/wildshaping/animal companions of their druid cousins. But they do considerably more then their full BAB brothers, Fighter/Barbarian/Paladin. In fact Ill even admit Ranger is probably better then those 3, but I like playing those three a whole lot more.

Ive never had a bad experience with rangers and this certainly isnt Drizzt hate, I just....dont like Rangers very much.

Flickerdart

2015-07-08, 02:15 PM

Ranger actually has a lot to offer in its ACFs. It's pretty lame, but not the lamest, since you can get it to be interesting with some work.

The lamest is Divine Mind. Not only does it crap all over psionics by scrubbing out the whole "power of the mind that comes from within" idea and putting in "lol deities!," it also dares to do it with an exceptionally awful class.

Honest Tiefling

2015-07-08, 02:33 PM

Beloved of Valarian if only for the reason no one I have played with is mature enough to stop implying that they are a bit more then friendly with the unicorns. This is why we can't have nice things that for some reason are attracted to virgins of medium sized races, guys.

Vrakk

2015-07-08, 02:44 PM

Monk.

Yes, I know everyone hates on the monk. Monk is my most hated class because it's the class I want to be fun and awesome and it just turns out lame. The idea of the monk is great - the mechanics not so much. I've tried playing monks in almost every combination/level of cheese possible and they still leave me feeling that I cannot contribute much.

TheCrowing1432

2015-07-08, 02:45 PM

LoyalPaladin

2015-07-08, 02:48 PM

Wizard. You know why.

QuickLyRaiNbow

2015-07-08, 02:50 PM

Base classes or PrCs? If PrCs are included then like 90% of them are stupid and pointless. Of base classes, my least favorite are Wizard, Cleric and Sorcerer.

ComaVision

2015-07-08, 02:52 PM

Monk.

In addition to being mechanically terrible, I also just don't like Asian-themed stuff. For those that do like the 'Monk' archetype, it does a piss poor job of representing it.

Extra Anchovies

2015-07-08, 02:54 PM

Psyren

2015-07-08, 02:57 PM

I hate actually everything about the Soulknife. It's a stupid idea for a class, and it's executed horribly, too. Pathfinder at least managed to implement it right but I can't stand it in that system either. The amount of praise it gets on this forum is kind of infuriating because I want absolutely nothing to do with it.

Other people like something I don't like! RAAAAAAAGE!!! :smallbiggrin:

But concerning the 3.5 Soulknife I agree, that is also my personal choice for worst. Even Soulborn is better imo.

Flickerdart

2015-07-08, 03:00 PM

I hate actually everything about the Soulknife. It's a stupid idea for a class, and it's executed horribly, too. Pathfinder at least managed to implement it right but I can't stand it in that system either. The amount of praise it gets on this forum is kind of infuriating because I want absolutely nothing to do with it.
Have you seen the 3.0 one? I've always felt it was one of the only decent things in the original Psionics Handbook.

Psyren

2015-07-08, 03:05 PM

Have you seen the 3.0 one? I've always felt it was one of the only decent things in the original Psionics Handbook.

Wasn't it a Psywar PrC or something?

You can actually get that version back via the Plantagenet PrC from Hyperconscious, or just use the Soulbound Weapon ACF.

jiriku

2015-07-08, 03:15 PM

The shugenja is my least favorite, because it stands as a reminder to me of how Alderac Entertainment Group sold their gorgeous Legend of the Five Rings role-playing game and let Wizards turn it into D&D Asia. I love me some L5R and I love me some Dungeons and Dragons, but the merger of the two sucked the soul out of L5R for years. Fortunately, AEG bought back their property and L5R 4th edition is shiny. :smallbiggrin:

Sian

2015-07-08, 03:19 PM

Bard ... while i'm aware that they're quite optimisable, i just never liked their mechanics or their fluff, as i just can't take the idea of a entertainer serious in a dungeoncrawl or anything remotely adventurer'ish

Renen

2015-07-08, 03:20 PM

I think everyone is forgetting the TRUE most disappointing class:
The Truenamer.
Whats sad is the fluff vs crunch. You expect SO MUCH, but get so little.

Geddy2112

2015-07-08, 03:26 PM

Cleric.

Every time I have tried a cleric, I have always wondered why the character was not a monk, bard, paladin, wizard, or druid. All classes I greatly enjoy playing. Clerics seem to be stuffy, 2 dimensional and basically useless in and out of combat. Not that they can't be effective mechanically, they just feel incredibly out of place. Maybe I just have not found a fun cleric concept, because every time I play them they are ungodly boring.

Renen

2015-07-08, 03:30 PM

Did someone just wish a cleric character was a monk or paladin instead? We need snowbluff here to "enlighten".

J-H

2015-07-08, 03:35 PM

Wizard, cleric, and druid. There are eleventy-billion possible spells in 5^3rd splats and it becomes work to find the best spell beyond the basics or a small list of favorites. If I wanted to do bookkeeping I would volunteer to help the accounting department at work out.

One of the reasons I greatly prefer psionics is that, although they have fewer options, most of their powers are on the easily-searchable SRD; the remainder are consolidated in CPSi with very few exceptions.

For "worst" classes vs. least favorite?
Warpriest, Ollam, Shining Blade of whatshisname (5 levels and you get Thundering), and Duelist.

LoyalPaladin

2015-07-08, 03:39 PM

Cleric.
I'd really like Cleric if it was a d6, unarmored, super healer.

Did someone just wish a cleric character was a monk or paladin instead? We need snowbluff here to "enlighten".
"Part, fools! Put up your swords. You know not what you do!"

Jormengand

2015-07-08, 03:58 PM

I think everyone is forgetting the TRUE most disappointing class:
The Truenamer.
Whats sad is the fluff vs crunch. You expect SO MUCH, but get so little.

Oh, the truenamer itself is fine. Especially when you build the Truenamer McApocalyse build, deal lolhueg amounts of damage with Reversed Energy Negation shenanigans, or reach level 20 and go to town with your at-will Gate SLA.

The one that's currently making me slam my head against the desk, however, is Disciple of the Word. Whether it's the fact that it tries to theurge Truenamer and Monk, the fact that it doesn't advance Utterances or half your monk abilities, the fact that its class skill list shares almost nothing with the monk or the truenamer, or the fact that eight of its class features are almost useless, there are about three things that save this class from utter uselessness, and one of them isn't even one of its class features.

ExLibrisMortis

2015-07-08, 04:07 PM

Sagetim

2015-07-08, 04:10 PM

Soulknife gets praise? I thought it would be much reviled (that said, I like it, if only because of two prestige classes- Soulbow and Illumine Soul, and the delicious cheese that can be had with high wisdom and zen archery).

Cleric is ungodly boring you say? was the pun intentional?

I think I have a tie between Divine Mind for shoving deities where they don't belong (psionics) and Truenamer for having cripplingly built mechanics. I like Truenamer as a concept, you speak and the universe listens. But when you have to hit a dc that keeps climbing, and the dc is based on target hit dice, and the dc climbs every time you use an utterance within a 24 hour period (as opposed to how I misremembered it- dc goes up for that target) then you wind up with a class that cannot regularly hit it's dc's against opponents of reasonable challenge ratings. In addition, some opponents will be much higher in hit die than in CR, becoming impossible for the truenamer to target even if they rolled a 20 and hadn't used the utterance that day. With an arithmetic progression for the skill, and a geometric progression for the dc, you can't keep going up like you can in other classes. Even if they made an epic progression for truenamer, they would be rendered incapable eventually (as opposed to the fighter, who can keep hitting forever, the wizard, who can keep getting more caster levels, etc). It's a class the Requires magic gear just to do it's special thing, and more than likely custom magic gear just to keep up with the other classes. By contrast, other classes benefit from magical gear, but can usually make due without it (or buff their way around the lack of it).

The Divine Mind is a class that is not as bad as I remember. I wanted to agree with the person earlier who was pissed off about Divine Mind shoving gods into Psionics, but I had to look the class over again to give it a fair shot. To me, it suffers from two main problems: it has a 3/4th ab, when comparable classes (like duskblade, paladin, etc) have full bab. The other main problem it suffers from is the little tidbit at the end: lose all powers if you grossly violate the strictures of your deity's moral code. The way Divine Mind is described at the start of it's section is that you are using psionic talent to take powers from your god. They were not granted to you by the god, they were not given to you. You did not pray for them. Almost like an Ur-Priest, you reached your mind out and got your grubby mortal mind hands all over the shiny paladin divine grace that your god keeps in his vault, away from the plebs. Like a gigolous lothario, you seduced divine energies away from your god. What part of that implies that your psionic powers are god granted? what part of that implies that your auras, a feature unique to this class, are god granted? If anything, the divine mind should keep their auras, their powers, but lose out on the specifically divine features of their class: Divine Grace (until atonement can be had). With that kind of fix, suddenly the Divine Mind isn't tempted to do something lawful stupid just to keep their class abilities. Also, something I forgot about with the Divine Mind: it gives morale bonuses. I'm not familiar with a lot of base classes that give level scaling morale bonuses and don't have to spend actions to do it.

A Tad Insane

2015-07-08, 04:12 PM

LoyalPaladin

2015-07-08, 04:16 PM

Oooooh I have strange and mysterious powers no other mortal has, unless they worship Orcus or their grandpa banged a dragon! SpooooOOOOoooky!
He's not wrong you know...

ZamielVanWeber

2015-07-08, 04:20 PM

I'm going to piss off a lot of people, but... warlocks.
I can totally get behind the unlimited resource castery idea, but in a world with sorcerers and clerics of evil and chaotic gods, what sort of fluff do they even have.

Oooooh I have strange and mysterious powers no other mortal has, unless they worship Orcus or their grandpa banged a dragon! SpooooOOOOoooky!

They are my choice as well. It is that and their effects leave me underwhelmed. Infinite Casting looks less cool when 1) a lot of it is eaten up by trying to make Eldritch Blast be useful and 2) the effects are okay all around. Truenamer makes you work for what it gives, but it has a pile of useful effects (and auto heighten is nice).

Jormengand

2015-07-08, 04:21 PM

But when you have to hit a dc that keeps climbing, and the dc is based on target hit dice, and the dc climbs every time you use an utterance within a 24 hour period (as opposed to how I misremembered it- dc goes up for that target) then you wind up with a class that cannot regularly hit it's dc's against opponents of reasonable challenge ratings. In addition, some opponents will be much higher in hit die than in CR, becoming impossible for the truenamer to target even if they rolled a 20 and hadn't used the utterance that day.
Uhm... a 10th level truenamer isn't leaving home without being able to make a DC 35 check with his eyes closed (13 skill ranks 3 skill focus 2 illumian sigil 13 item familiar 10 amulet of the silver tongue 5 intelligence 2 MWK tool 10 competence item; if your DM lets an item of use-activated GotA fly then +20 for that, too). The fact that you get to use each utterance more than once at all gives you an instant one-up on vancian casters.

With an arithmetic progression for the skill, and a geometric progression for the dc,
Wrong. The skill increases +2 per level (1 rank, 1 item familiar) and the DC increases by +2 per level. Both are arithmetic.

you can't keep going up like you can in other classes. Even if they made an epic progression for truenamer, they would be rendered incapable eventually (as opposed to the fighter, who can keep hitting forever, the wizard, who can keep getting more caster levels, etc).
Your truespeak check should be going up faster than the DC.

It's a class the Requires magic gear just to do it's special thing, and more than likely custom magic gear just to keep up with the other classes. By contrast, other classes benefit from magical gear, but can usually make due without it (or buff their way around the lack of it).

Never play a truenamer in a low-magic setting. Oh, wait, we knew that. Fortunately, by the time anyone can cast disjunction, you can repair all your magic items with a single, fairly low-DC utterance anyway. So I guess that's not much of a problem.

ZamielVanWeber

2015-07-08, 04:25 PM

Your truespeak check should be going up faster than the DC.

The problem with Truenamer is either you don't have access to the tools you need/you don't know what you need and suck epically or you know/have everything you need and which point you are wandering around with a permanent 2 spells per turn, high save DCs, and your "downsides" don't matter. It is too binary.

Kazyan

2015-07-08, 04:26 PM

Wizards. Constantly feeling like I'm crippling myself by not playing one, but somehow being even more useless against all odds when I do, is basically the reason I seldom play 3.5 anymore.

Jormengand

2015-07-08, 04:31 PM

The problem with Truenamer is either you don't have access to the tools you need/you don't know what you need and suck epically or you know/have everything you need and which point you are wandering around with a permanent 2 spells per turn, high save DCs, and your "downsides" don't matter. It is too binary.

Truenamers can exist at many tiers.

T0: Use the Truenamer McApocalypse trick to get infinite wishes at first level.
T1: Ditto, but instead use the ability to get items of gate, ice assassin, greater celerity, heal, overland flight, and other nasty spells. Or be level 20 and get Conjunctive Gate, but that doesn't really count because it's level 20.
T2: Use DWK schenanigans and bad utterance wording to hit anyone, anywhere, through a wall. Do tons upon tons of damage. Abuse heightening utterances to get out of Law of Sequence. Have item familiars, custom items, and other things to push truespeak through the roof. Use IHS-like wording of Reversed Spell Rebirth to end epic spells, or reinstate them. Fix single-use items of high-level spells. Buff your knowledge checks up to infinity and subsequently know anything you like starting at level 4. Know all properties, ever, of an item just by touching it.
T3: Play a competent healer/mage-cheerleader with buffs such as eternal ability to hit ethereal opponents, first-level freedom of movement, use no-save-just-suck spells with effects like preventing someone moving out of the space they're in even with teleportation, abuse mortalbane to do more damage than the average blaster. Take Item Familiar or at the very least buff items.
T4: Play a healbot or a damagebot or a buffbot.
T5: You have medium BAB and ways to increase your damage.
T6: What's truespeak?
T7: Use the truenamer McApocalypse trick to DCS all the feats that you used to be competent at truespeak/knowledge away into useless ones, then PaO yourself into a squirrel.
T8: Use Transmute Weapon to turn your sword into Thinaun. Use the Truenamer McApocalypse trick to summon, call, or otherwise obtain a suitable minion. Order minion to:
Kill you with the sword.
Wait for the sword to turn back into steel.
Throw the sword (which is now no longer made of thinaun, so the soul can't be released by breaking it) into an active volcano.
Enjoy your new life as a volcano.

Sagetim

2015-07-08, 04:38 PM

Uhm... a 10th level truenamer isn't leaving home without being able to make a DC 35 check with his eyes closed (13 skill ranks 3 skill focus 2 illumian sigil 13 item familiar 10 amulet of the silver tongue 5 intelligence 2 MWK tool 10 competence item; if your DM lets an item of use-activated GotA fly then +20 for that, too). The fact that you get to use each utterance more than once at all gives you an instant one-up on vancian casters.

Wrong. The skill increases +2 per level (1 rank, 1 item familiar) and the DC increases by +2 per level. Both are arithmetic.

Your truespeak check should be going up faster than the DC.

Never play a truenamer in a low-magic setting. Oh, wait, we knew that. Fortunately, by the time anyone can cast disjunction, you can repair all your magic items with a single, fairly low-DC utterance anyway. So I guess that's not much of a problem.

Item familiar you say? I may have a new level 12 feat then. I may have to get back to you on my least favorite class then. It might have to change to Healer...but then, I like the idea of a peacenik that can go around fixing people...or slapping undead to death with healing spells (or whatever cheese the healer can do that I'm unaware of).

Jormengand

2015-07-08, 04:39 PM

Item familiar you say? I may have a new level 12 feat then. I may have to get back to you on my least favorite class then. It might have to change to Healer...but then, I like the idea of a peacenik that can go around fixing people...or slapping undead to death with healing spells (or whatever cheese the healer can do that I'm unaware of).

Sanctified Spells. Which aren't actually that amazing if you're, say, a cleric, but they're a lot better than anything a healer can do.

Sagetim

2015-07-08, 04:48 PM

Sanctified Spells. Which aren't actually that amazing if you're, say, a cleric, but they're a lot better than anything a healer can do.

I knew there was something out there I was missing that could make Healer ridiculous. Oh, Book of Exalted Deeds, will you ever stop giving?

noob

2015-07-08, 04:55 PM

Level 11 priests and higher level priests have cool damage spells and if you play only with the players manual priest is one of the best offense and defense and buff classes at high level.
But with only the manual of players my most hated class is the monk(I did found no way to make him useful and I had bad experiences with it) with more manuals I might have found monk less useless(for example I would have taken wow of poverty which would really have helped in this campaign where I got barely any monk friendly item or +stats items).

Troacctid

2015-07-08, 05:01 PM

Divine Mind gets better once you add in the Ectopic Ally variant. Since the astral constructs are automatically augmented to the maximum level possible and can be augmented even further past that by spending extra uses, you can get some decent minionmancy going.

My personal least favorite class is Swashbuckler. It just does actual nothing. There are zero worthwhile abilities in the entire 20 levels.

A Tad Insane

2015-07-08, 05:07 PM

My personal least favorite class is Swashbuckler. It just does actual nothing. There are zero worthwhile abilities in the entire 20 levels.

Insightful strike is great for gishes

icefractal

2015-07-08, 05:15 PM

Divine Mind offends me more on an aesthetic level, but I'd still probably play one over Swashbuckler, if those were my only choices.

There's quite a few classes I've never felt the urge to play - Scout, Knight, Soulknife, Soulborn, Favored Soul, Hexblade, probably a bunch more. I don't know if I even think about them enough to count as "least favorite".

Shadowcaster sort of bugs me, because it doesn't feel different enough from existing shadow options (Shadowcraft Mage, Shadow Weave user, etc) to need a different casting system, not to mention that it's strongly overshadowed :smalltongue: by a Killer Gnome type of build.

Bard is an interesting one - I like it conceptually, and by most measures it's stronger than a lot of classes I've played and enjoyed (Barbarian, Totemist, Swordsage), but somehow it never gels for me. Just lacks a "key feature" at lower levels, and by the time you can make the music awesome and get some good spells, the full-casters are really overshadowing your partial magic. I think in an urban intrigue based game it'd be pretty nice, but even then I feel like I'd regret not being a Beguiler or Telepath instead.

As an example of that, I'm playing a charismatic musician character with dreams of rock-star status currently - and it's a Summoner.

Which brings up Pathfinder. Not as many classes there; the only non-Hybrid ones I'd avoid are the Cavalier and Fighter, and just because they're crappy, not because I dislike the concept. Many of the hybrid classes have been lackluster though, IMO. Not that they're necessarily bad, but a lot of the concepts bore me - "halfway between a Druid and a Ranger" ... is that a thing that needed to exist?

Troacctid

2015-07-08, 05:19 PM

Insightful strike is great for gishes

It's too bad that Swashbuckler isn't a gish class, then, or it might actually be a worthwhile ability.

Hrugner

2015-07-08, 05:21 PM

Stalwart defender if we're counting PRCs. There are more useless things out there, but the immobile barbarian is a different level of awkward and awful.

Just normal classes, I'd say the rogue. It's a core class, it fills a unique fantasy archetype and just sucks at it.

AmberVael

2015-07-08, 05:26 PM

Its hard for me to pick one. So I'll go with one no one has mentioned yet, even if I have others I dislike more.

Dragonfire Adept. While in some ways its an improvement over warlock, in others I feel its a downgrade. The division of breath effects and invocations, and the small number it gets of each (and the small number of each it even gets to choose from), make it incredibly hard to customize. Its flavor similarly feels very rigid. Dragonfire Adept is almost more of a build than it is a class, just by virtue of how narrow it is.

nedz

2015-07-08, 05:36 PM

Dienekes

2015-07-08, 05:39 PM

I've always thought Wu Jen were a bit stupid. Sure they're casters, and probably at least tier 2, or whatever, but their taboos are the most idiotic thing. At least you can say with Paladins that their code can possibly lead to interesting RPing (not likely mind you, but there is potential there). Wu Jens just have silly things like never bathing, or never sitting on the left side of a table or whatever nonsense that will be forgotten and pointless.

noob

2015-07-08, 05:40 PM

"Spontaneous casters are less of a problem — for obvious reasons. "
Any enough huge team of spontaneous caster gives exactly the same problems as non spontaneous casters(you need a lot less spontaneous casters if they are mystic theurges).
Also know the beholder mage it is spontaneous and can know all the spells.

IZ42

2015-07-08, 05:57 PM

Or Un-errata'd paragon surge sorcerer/oracle. That can be hilarious.

Jormengand

2015-07-08, 06:19 PM

I have to second the disciple of the word... Jormengand mentioned it a few days ago on another thread, and I looked it up... I read it while bashing my head on the desk, sometimes mixed with mad, unbelieving laughter. It's better if you think of it as comedy :smalleek:.

Or perhaps tragedy. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?426560-Optimising-a-Disciple-of-the-Word-%28Abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter-here%29)

Pex

2015-07-08, 06:23 PM

Rogue

I know Rogue does not equal thief. I like how the Rogue player in my Pathfinder group is playing it. He helps the party. Our characters are good pals. The Rogue player in my previous group is my favorite by far. I could trust him implicitly with my character's life and fortune in and out of character and have done so. Any campaign our characters naturally became best buds. We're brothers. I miss him since our group ended. However, I'm still burned on all the Rogue players I've met before them. They're almost always Jerks. Not all of them would steal from the party, but even just their general character personality would grate me. Selfish, in character argumentative, lone wolf, unhelpful. That guy. They aren't always Rogues, but it's always the Rogue.

I also recognize that I can't play the class. I've tried it; I can't do it. Knowing and accepting I'm not a thief, I don't have the proper mindset to utilize the class's strengths to help the party save the day. I can go through the motions of skill use and sneak attack, but I don't 'get' the class. As my two favorite Rogue players attest, I know you don't have to be a Jerk to play the class well.

Ironically, in my short participation of a 5E game, I actually did like the Rogue of the group. In fact, in and out of character I trusted him more than the Paladin.

Blackhawk748

2015-07-08, 06:47 PM

Prepared casters. As a DM I got tired of them turning environmental challenges into wallpaper. Also preparing spells eats into playing time. Also power. This is why I banned them in one of my current games.

Spontaneous casters are less of a problem — for obvious reasons.

This for me, i can deal with Clerics or Druids (they also have a Spontaneous version if i ever actually wanted to play one) but i really hate the Wizard, as it encourages the 15 minute workday, and i hate that.

RedMage125

2015-07-08, 07:21 PM

Complete Warrior Samurai.

There's so much wrong with the class. For starters, the is no resonance between the fluff and the crunch. The CW Samurai is just a variant Two-Weapon Fighter. Niten style (Two Swords Falling From Heaven) was developed by Miyamoto Musashi, but it was hardly the norm for Samurai. Traditionally, the Samurai used his katana 2-handed. I rather liked the way 3.0 oriental Adventures (and even better, the d20 Rokugan book*) handled the Samurai. Those classes didn't even have proficiency in the katana (which was just a bastard sword), but because of the way the rules worked, they could still use it 2-handed as a martial weapon. The feat Way of the Dragon (available only to Dragon-clan characters) granted all the feats necessary to use Niten style with the katana and wakizashi.

It just felt so forced to have a class called "samurai" be pigeonholed into a two-weapon fighter, which is something that only resonates with the word "samurai" on a very niche level.

The fact that the class is SO bad that it is the only PC class to be given the Tier 6 rating (equal to the Commoner) makes me laugh with delight.

*I understand some L5R fans may take issue with this, so here's the disclaimer. I had never heard of L5R before the 3.0 Oriental Adventures book. I then sought out a few d20 Rokugan products such as the core setting book, Way of the Samurai and Way of the Ninja. I loved the fluff of the setting. I learned about how most L5R fans felt about it, and I understand that AEG's system was better for it. But taking it SOLELY as a d20 product, I liked it a lot, and that's how I view the material. I've never gotten the opportunity to play an L5R game, but I would welcome the opportunity.

Metahuman1

2015-07-08, 07:30 PM

Ouch.

Monk and Paladin come to mind. (And the latter REALLY is so close and yet so far and that's the pain.).

Shadow Craft adept (Tome of Magic.) and Truenamer also come to mind.

As do Knight and Dragon Shaman.

frogglesmash

2015-07-08, 07:44 PM

I personally avoid any class that relies on some sort of deity like figure to grant them power (i.e. cleric, paladin, divine mind, favoured soul etc.) because I really hate the idea that all of your power could be stripped away from in what amounts a divine time out. I also don't like generalist wizards, and to a lesser extent, sorcerers because I tend to view their amazing versatility as a lack of flavour.

Brova

2015-07-08, 08:14 PM

There are a lot of classes I could blame for simply not being good enough. Healer, Warmage, CWar Samurai, CAdv Ninja, Fighter, and so on and so forth. But just not being all that good is really not a strong condemnation. I can just not play a Fighter, and play a Warblade instead. The problem classes are ones that are conceptually disappointing, either flavorfully or mechanically.

The biggest category of disappointing classes, though admittedly the least disappointing, are the fullcasters. Casting Wizard spells is a totally sweet deal, but actually being a Wizard really isn't. I mean, FFS, there is literally no reason to take the 2nd level of Cleric, let alone the 20th. That's just bad design, not least because it makes it hard to make PrCs useful but not mandatory.

I find the Truenamer to be especially disappointing, both because the class sucks and because it could have easily been way better. Throw together some combination of planar binding, power word spells, and DC boosts against targets you've researched and you have something that could both be reasonably called a Truenamer and be a reasonable PrC choice. But instead WotC dropped the weird, nonfunctional mess takes of a third of Tome of Magic.

Another one that pissed me off is the Factotum. It's got a lot of problems, both mechanically (encounter is not a defined variable, inspiration points are permanent, it takes a standard action to get a standard action) and conceptually (the whole "dabbler" concept is done in a way that is very focused on how it looks in the game rather than how it functions in the world. Finally, and for me most problematically, even after you fix all the issues it's not actually much better than a Rogue.

I dislike the Artificer for similar reasons to the Factotum - it's too complicated for too marginal a gain. Also, custom magic items are super broken and can't really be made to work. The whole class is basically smashing broken parts of the system together. And while that generates a very powerful character, it doesn't really generate a very usable class.

Milo v3

2015-07-08, 08:19 PM

It's hard to decide between Bard (Because it's flavour doesn't ever seem to fit anywhere) and Cleric (Because it's basically just spells and it's annoying that clerics of different gods are so similar).

Sagetim

2015-07-08, 08:46 PM

Now, I had managed to successfully forget about the dragon shaman and the complete warrior samurai until now, but now I have to give them serious consideration as to if they're my least favorite class in 3.5 or not. The Dragon Shaman looks like it could probably do with a full bab and still not be broken, in that it functions a lot like some kind of less uptight dragon paladin. The problem is that I remember having one in a game I ran, the player for that dragon shaman was constantly frustrated at their limitations and incapability, and this was in a part a true necromancer in it, and they started at lot enough level that he hadn't gotten any of the prestige class yet. I imagine it's quite frustrating to look at a party member who has 3 levels of cleric and 2 of wizard and feel inadequate. Bear in mind, the player's weren't optimizing in the way that you see on these boards.

But just now I gave the Dragon Shaman a look over again, and it's not a terrible class. At least, it doesn't Have to be. You just have to know what you're using from it and why. And the best part about it is that it gets an unlimited use breath weapon that scales with level and also wings. Mmmm, wings. Wings with this statement: "If you already have wings, you can choose whether these draconic wings replace your own."

To me that just calls into mind a picture of a dainty avariel elf powering up dbz style and having their bird wings explode to make room for dragon wings.

And then there's the complete warrior samurai. Shame on the complete warrior samurai. Samurai was done, and done better as a modified fighter, especially with all the feats they could pick up from Oriental Adventures and Rokugan. Complete Warior samurai aparently becomes a master of iajutsu at level 5 and his benefit is that he gets quick draw? I think I like the capstone to Iajutsu Master better- when combat starts you get a surprise round. Always. Even if they get the drop on you, you get to act in the surprise round. Combined with attacking twice as a standard action, and adding your charisma modifier to bonus iajutsu focus dice (each die, even), and the Iajutsu Master from oriental adventures is terrifying compared to....quick draw. Complete Warrior samurai turns an honorable warrior into a dual wielding bully. I think we can all agree that players can be bullies just fine without having intimidation based class abilities to encourage them to do so.

squiggit

2015-07-08, 09:26 PM

Hard to pick just one.

Sorcerer, for being a glorified wizard ACF that for some reason gets treated like it's its own class and because it's such a terrible trap for new players.

Probably.

Telonius

2015-07-08, 11:38 PM

It's a really close race between Wizard and Artificer, but Artificer pulls ahead. On the one hand, I love Artificer's flavor, and Wizards just don't appeal to me. On the other, playing an Artificer is like getting six pages of math homework between sessions. Wizard isn't exactly simple to keep track of, either, but you know for sure you're going to be able to use your class features. With an Artificer, you have to worry about how much downtime you'll have. (At least until your Dedicated Wright sets up his workshop in a bag of holding, and then it just gets more ridiculous from there).

IZ42

2015-07-08, 11:57 PM

I'd have to say Wizard. I like the fluff, I just dislike the class. And the dislike has deepened because of this board's love affair with the class. A class that spends half an hour OOC to choose spells that may or may not be useful later in the day, even if you do all those fancy divination things is obnoxious. The wizard is more of an NPC class than an actual player class.

Ninjaxenomorph

2015-07-09, 12:08 AM

I'm going to do Pathfinder, since its what I know :smallwink:

I had to think about this; I brought up a list of all the (1st party) classes. And, my least favorite, would probably have to be a toss-up between Summoner and Skald. The former because I witnessed first-hand how ridiculously broken they can be (while I very much like the idea, and have yet to play with a U!Summoner, and I really like the Synthesist), the latter barely hedging in because almost every single character I play doesn't benefit from them.

AvatarVecna

2015-07-09, 12:08 AM

I love the monk's flavor, but its mechanics are terrible. Beyond its front-loaded nature (which makes it frequently fantastic as a dip on a better, non-monk build), its low-op nature, its fluff of needing no equipment when it's one of the most equipment-dependent classes there is, if Wizard 20 is tearing down gods in their sleep, Monk 20 should be a freaking Super Saiyan to balance things out. That kind of game would be wonderfully fun.

Dr TPK

2015-07-09, 12:55 AM

Barbarian.

Barbarians should a cultural trait, not a class. Unfortunately I don't have enough fantasy genre know-how to truly understand how this travesty of "barbarians are a class" began. Barbarians should be a trait that you can add on any class... You should have barbarian rangers that are such as much barbarian as barbarian fighters. The barbarian class is silly in many, many ways.
1. Barbarism should be a cultural trait.
2. I can play a barbarian, but in Core, I can't play a caveman, pirate, noble... These are all social traits, not classes. Your caveman, pirate and noble can be anything, but your barbarian is highly limited.
3. Barbarians make fighters feel even more redundant.... And they are both in Core!
4. It gets tiresome that every barbarian rages. It makes the class very one-dimensional.
5. What else...

You don't have to agree on all these points, but it's still silly.

In my campaigns, the barbarian class is simply for dipping and serves no other purpose. It's value for good roleplaying is zero and only serves optimizers. This is genuinely my experience.

Extra Anchovies

2015-07-09, 01:03 AM

erok0809

2015-07-09, 01:36 AM

I think I have to go with the Paladin. I don't like the code, and I feel like a lot of DMs will immediately try to make the Paladin fall, which is in poor taste IMO. If you want him to be a feat-less fighter, make him a warrior, not a paladin.

I'm also not a huge fan of the Hexblade. I'm not even really sure why, I simply don't like its flavor.

marphod

2015-07-09, 01:47 AM

It's misnamed. It should be Berserker, not Barbarian.

You are right about it being a dip class, though. Almost every martial class is a dip class, the primary exceptions being the ToB classes.

I'm not really sure martial classes are particularly special in this respect. Most core class builds, possibly excepting Druids, multiclass as soon as possible. Clerics are frequently dips for Turn, to power Devotion feats, and to pick up domain abilities. Wizard has almost nothing going for it after 1st level, nor does Sorcerer.

Barbarians at least have some interesting abilities after 1st. As does Ranger and Paladin. There are even legitimate reasons to take more than half-a-dozen levels of Ranger (Swift hunter builds). Sometime around Complete Adventurer, WotC realized they needed to give people a reason to stay in base classes. They didn't get it right for the Martials until ToB, but they did try.

---

The Barbarian could be named a whole bunch of other things. Thematically, it is out of the 'Conan the Barbarian' tradition, but that's hardly sufficient.

The Barbarian term is, OTOH, culturally offensive in a lot of ways, IMO. The implication that cultures without written traditions are barbarous is a distinctly Western trope and is far from accurate. It also equates lack of education, tribal behavior, and nomadic status with violent behavior -- which is, based on archaeological evidence, the opposite of actual history.

I still have to go with the Monk as my least favorite class. Not that I wouldn't like an unarmed martial class to be viable, but it screams of cultural appropriation. The Monastic traditions of East Asia have very little place in a Western pseudo-Historical Fantasy Setting. (Nor do, for that matter, Tomatoes, Potatoes, Llamas, Turkeys, Bison, ... ). Add a separate area where independent cultural development could occur, such as Rokugan or Kara-Tur, and it might make sense, but as part of Core? No thank you. It is as out of place as a Scotsman wielding a Japanese Sword and Claiming to be a Spaniard.

MorgromTheOrc

2015-07-09, 02:34 AM

Probably wizard, just because of the groups I've played with. Our usual wizard is currently playing a kender rogue exactly as you would fear and it's still a thousand times better in my opinion. I've had my best fun when the wizard wasn't there or wasn't being a wizard. I'm currently playing the barbarian "wizard" build with a bard being the only real caster in the party and the game is just so much more fun without big casters.

ekarney

2015-07-09, 02:55 AM

I have a few here

Scout: Like the ranger, it's just so painfully boring, don't get me wrong, Skirmish is a great thing, and it's a great class for at least starting or dipping for sling builds, but my word, nothing else excites me in it.'

Sohei: Again, I like the concept, it's just that the execution falls way short, from reading the fluff you'd think it would be some wisdom/dex warlord with crazy supernatural ki powers.
But no. What we got was the writers saying "we couldn't be bothered writing up 3 martial classes so we just shoved them into one. But don't worry it's new because it's Japanese!*"
*In name only, no refunds. It just seems so lazily developed, currently homebrewing a refined version since I was so offended by how lazy this class is.

Alienist: Something about it just irks me, I feel like the class could be so much more than "Crazy conspiracy theory mage".

Extra Anchovies

2015-07-09, 03:09 AM

Sohei: Again, I like the concept, it's just that the execution falls way short, from reading the fluff you'd think it would be some wisdom/dex warlord with crazy supernatural ki powers.
But no. What we got was the writers saying "we couldn't be bothered writing up 3 martial classes so we just shoved them into one. But don't worry it's new because it's Japanese!*"
*In name only, no refunds. It just seems so lazily developed, currently homebrewing a refined version since I was so offended by how lazy this class is.

Hm. I hadn't looked at the Sohei before, but you're right. Awesome concept, poor execution. Looks like it was thrown together in half an hour at most. If you could send me a link when you post the homebrew fix (or link it in-thread if it's already posted), that would be great.

Nifft

2015-07-09, 03:26 AM

Cleric - toxic to the game because it covers the entire healing space, which means you need to budget room in your party for a Cleric for healing. But just healing is no fun, so they had to heap more and more powers on the Cleric. It's a good example of why niche protection is bad.

Rogue - Trapfinding is similarly toxic to game design. "We need a Rogue to handle traps!" -- "The dungeon must have traps to reward the Rogue!" -- it's a design pattern that works fine in a video game like Baldur's Gate, where having a character who is only part-time useful is a fine trade-off, but it's absolutely awful design for a tabletop game where each character has a player behind her and these players want to have an interesting thing to do in a variety of different circumstances.

Fighter - Presented as the most basic easy class for new players, but it's actually the one which has the most landmines and requires a bunch of system mastery to use adequately.

Monk - Looks cool and powerful. Is lying.

ekarney

2015-07-09, 03:41 AM

Hm. I hadn't looked at the Sohei before, but you're right. Awesome concept, poor execution. Looks like it was thrown together in half an hour at most. If you could send me a link when you post the homebrew fix (or link it in-thread if it's already posted), that would be great.

It's not a direct fix-fix, I'm implementing the Shou into my Campaign Resource Supplement I've been working on and this is one of the classes for the CRS, it takes some of the features like Ki Frenzy and the monk influences as inspiration, but it could definitely be used as a replacement, I might even work on it a bit tonight and send through what I've done to you!

SinsI

2015-07-09, 03:44 AM

All divine casters, particularly Cleric. Gets his powers not due to his own merits, but because some random god decided to bestow them upon him, while all others actually have to work to get them.
Makes the Heal skill obsolete, greatly reduces effect of traps (thus only leaving them to be a "save or die" challenge, which is awful) and other sources of mundane danger.
Gets too many powers - T1 spell list (including overpowered XP-free version of Wish), spontaneous healing, extra Domain spells, Domain powers, turn-undead and DMM, no armor check penalty spellcasting, d8 hit versus wizard d4, medium BAB versus wizard's poor BAB...

Dr TPK

2015-07-09, 03:56 AM

---

The Barbarian could be named a whole bunch of other things. Thematically, it is out of the 'Conan the Barbarian' tradition, but that's hardly sufficient.

The Barbarian term is, OTOH, culturally offensive in a lot of ways, IMO. The implication that cultures without written traditions are barbarous is a distinctly Western trope and is far from accurate. It also equates lack of education, tribal behavior, and nomadic status with violent behavior -- which is, based on archaeological evidence, the opposite of actual history.

Well said. Now my dislike towards barbarians has been doubled.

noob

2015-07-09, 05:05 AM

"Rogue - Trapfinding is similarly toxic to game design. "We need a Rogue to handle traps!" -- "The dungeon must have traps to reward the Rogue!" -- it's a design pattern that works fine in a video game like Baldur's Gate, where having a character who is only part-time useful is a fine trade-off, but it's absolutely awful design for a tabletop game where each character has a player behind her and these players want to have an interesting thing to do in a variety of different circumstances.
"
Your dm is doing it wrong and your full bab strength character is doing wrong too you should break walls(and walk in them) instead of walking in rooms and you should put new walls everywhere(barbarians should carry steel walls) for being in non trapped areas with no line with trapped areas also never enter a building in the first place if you have a wizard instead do orbital bombardment with huge rocks.

" Cleric - toxic to the game because it covers the entire healing space, which means you need to budget room in your party for a Cleric for healing. But just healing is no fun, so they had to heap more and more powers on the Cleric. It's a good example of why niche protection is bad. "
You can create a 0% healing priest and it can work great once you get urpriest levels in fact the truth is that priest have more or less all the common caster spell pool and healing while wizard have all the pool and rule breaking spells(also you do not necessarily need a priest if for example you have a healing warlock or a healer(there was one with unlimited healing ability but nothing else) but those classes does not have the common pool and so are weak).
So the problem of the cleric is rather that it is a vancian caster with healing as a plus while healing should not be managed by healing classes but rather by a skill.

frogglesmash

2015-07-09, 05:30 AM

All divine casters, particularly Cleric. Gets his powers not due to his own merits, but because some random god decided to bestow them upon him, while all others actually have to work to get them.

That's not strictly true, druids and rangers both wield the powers of nature itself which isn't all that different than manipulating powerful arcane forces. After all, both of them are mindless, uncaring, neutral forces that are technically separate from the casters.

HurinTheCursed

2015-07-09, 05:42 AM

I like druids in concept, I like druid in rules.
But if you intend to find the best option rather than a very good option (that you always have), it's sooooo much book keeping.
- Plenty of spells to choose from that you can change everyday, potentially ingame.
- Plenty of monsters to choose from for your wild shapes and for your summons, with modifiers to apply for feats / equipment, either ingame or require a full year of full time book keeping
- One spellcasting character + 1-2 companions + several summons is powerful but slows the game so much compared to some classes !

WotC should really make interactive tools for players to ease spell research, monster selection... I would pay for that. 3.5 is such a huge system with so many options that can be swapped everyday it can defeat itself under its own weight.

But at the opposite, mundane and sorcerers are very unforgiving regarding sub optimal choice. If your L20 build is not ready when you choose the character's name, you are doomed.

ekarney

2015-07-09, 05:48 AM

Alent

2015-07-09, 06:51 AM

Hm...

In Straight 3.5...

Barbarian/Fighter: They're billed as simple and easy to use, yet take too much system knowledge to keep pace with a decent caster. Even when mastered they lack options and their players tend to ask for permission to change their character a few encounters after the casters start summoning creatures or going full nova. (Would anybody even notice if a player Gestalted Barbarian and Fighter together and called it Barbarian?)

Paladin: I actually really like the idea of this class, but the baggage it brings with it and the way certain groups of people ridicule you for not playing it by the absurdly flanderized caricature THEY think of when they hear paladin is just... painful. :smallfrown:

Heaven help you if you get a bad DM when you play paladin, because they see it as their Gygax given mission to make you fall. One of your party members jaywalked? Kill him or you fall. Team up with a friend to roleplay out the Good guy trying to mentor the bad guy with good intentions and bring him on to the straight and narrow? You're a bad paladin for being a good person, you fall.. (Apologies, I don't remember the Chief Circle color name.)

In PF...

I can't really think of any new PF class I outright dislike other than Gunslingers. (Although I still haven't seen the advanced class book.) I don't mind the guns or fluff since I'm a steampunk/victorian fantasy fan myself, and the technology of the average D&D campaign places it late renaissance on average anyway. Instead, it's the bland flavor of the class itself that bothers me. It feels like "Fighter with guns", and the only real defining trait it has is "vs touch AC". It actually has interesting features on paper, but somehow at the table it boils down to moar dakka vs touch AC and is nowhere to be seen when the bard and wizard start the war of words. (the diplomacy check kind)

NeoPhoenix0

2015-07-09, 09:20 AM

Wizard
A lot of people like it over the sorcerer because of its versatility, but to take advantage of its versatility you need to take time to plan you prepared spells otherwise it just ends up worse than the sorcerer. Wizards are also the main class encouraging the 5min work day often for the sake of getting that one spell that would be useful if they had it prepared right then. Couple that with the fact that many things a wizard is better than the sorcerer at require a lot of extra management and the game can slow to a halt quite quickly. Also the praise the wizard gets make many people think the sorcerer is worse than it is. It's not like the favored soul which is missing several key elements of the cleric.

Necroticplague

2015-07-09, 09:22 AM

noob

2015-07-09, 09:32 AM

"Wizards: I can never, for the life of me, think of their spellcasting in a way that makes sense. WtF makes the spell suddenly go *poof* from your brain after casting it? At least divine casters have the excuse that they're just borrowing their power, what's yours?"
The main justification for wizard forgetting spells is that somehow reality does not like people casting spells and so when it sees that the wizard cast a spell it tries to make it unable to cast it again by making it forget.
The other explanation is the Terry Pratchet one: powerful words wants to be free and escape when you say them.
Memorizing them is imprisoning them.

Morcleon

2015-07-09, 09:32 AM

Wizards: I can never, for the life of me, think of their spellcasting in a way that makes sense. WtF makes the spell suddenly go *poof* from your brain after casting it? At least divine casters have the excuse that they're just borrowing their power, what's yours?

Think of it as magical grenades. You have to build (prepare) each grenade (spell) each time you want to throw (cast) it. By becoming a more skilled grenade crafter and grenadier (spellcaster), you can build more and more powerful grenades (spells), and make more at a time.

The main justification for wizard forgetting spells is that somehow reality does not like people casting spells and so when it sees that the wizard cast a spell it tries to make it unable to cast it again by making it forget.
The other explanation is the Terry Pratchet one: powerful words wants to be free and escape when you say them memorizing them is imprisoning them.

That's my justification for limited spell durations, which is totally cribbed off of Nasuverse. Reality is what it is, and destabilizes spells after a certain time, ending them. More skilled casters generally can make their spells last longer.

Segev

2015-07-09, 09:39 AM

I have a love/hate thing going on with the Crusader. Mechanically, it's pretty sound (though I'm iffy on the "deck of cards" style of maneuver-preparation), and it's got really neat things it can do, whether you're trying to optimize it to break its balance-points or not. However, it's clearly trying to be the martial adept Paladin, and it just...falls short. It's "Divine Grace but only for Will" is disappointing, and its delayed damage pool, while good for tanking, really doesn't feel particularly paladinal. I'm not entirely sure what I'd do to "fix" it, but it's like it's in an uncanny valley of paladin-ness for me. A note just slightly off-key.

Divine Mind and Soulborn are examples of "paladin-like" classes tried for different magic-sources, and they fail because those magic-sources just don't work in the semi-caster way that divine magic can. Moreover, their abilities are mostly lifts and pastes without really shoring up a full class behind them; they don't synergize too well with the power source they're supposed to be gishing. Divine Mind does have something truly unique: auras tied to mantles. However, that, too, feels more like something that was split off of Ardent because the writers felt they needed 3 classes in the book rather than allowing the Ardent to have all the tricks it started with. The Divine Mind comes off as the deformed construct built from the amputated fingers and ribs of the Ardent.

But the one that I just loathe, no matter what logic one might apply, is the Factotum. I hate the class from top to bottom. It's trying to be the everyman better than the Bard, fill the skill-master niche of the Rogue, and...it does. It does it too well. Not because it's well-designed, but because they really just threw everything and the kitchen sink into it, and didn't bother with balance. Pieces of it could be good Rogue class features, but instead they built this other monstrosity to further overshadow the Rogue AND the Bard, stealing both of their thunder. And then, because magic is the be-all and end-all in 3e, they gave them the means to not just pick up magic almost willy-nilly, they made it "spell-like abilities," so they're automatically better at it than spellcasters (at least when it comes to kind of action taken).

This is weird, because at the same time, I love the Chameleon PrC. Perhaps that's the thing: Chameleon does it by shifting focus and making choices, and is a PrC. Factotum is a base class and just does everything. I hate it.

Psyren

2015-07-09, 09:43 AM

Wizards: I can never, for the life of me, think of their spellcasting in a way that makes sense. WtF makes the spell suddenly go *poof* from your brain after casting it? At least divine casters have the excuse that they're just borrowing their power, what's yours?

It's because the inconsistent fluff for Vancian casting makes it sound sillier than it actually is. The truth is that when you prepare spells in the morning, you aren't actually memorizing them - you are "pre-casting" them, leaving only the 6-second trigger that's fast and simple enough to pull off in combat. Wizard casting is a very lengthy process because they don't have a divine, pact or blood-based shortcut to power - they have to cast all of the spell, and that first huge chunk of every spell can only be cast in a calm environment due to the precision required.

Clerics and sorcerers don't have to worry about this - but the former are limited in how much power they can access by their deity (or similar source), while the latter basically fool reality into thinking they did all the prep work, but there's only so many times they can do that per spell level per day.

Segev

2015-07-09, 10:34 AM

It's because the inconsistent fluff for Vancian casting makes it sound sillier than it actually is. The truth is that when you prepare spells in the morning, you aren't actually memorizing them - you are "pre-casting" them, leaving only the 6-second trigger that's fast and simple enough to pull off in combat. Wizard casting is a very lengthy process because they don't have a divine, pact or blood-based shortcut to power - they have to cast all of the spell, and that first huge chunk of every spell can only be cast in a calm environment due to the precision required.

Clerics and sorcerers don't have to worry about this - but the former are limited in how much power they can access by their deity (or similar source), while the latter basically fool reality into thinking they did all the prep work, but there's only so many times they can do that per spell level per day.

While not canon per se, the fluff I attach to it when I am DMing or my DM doesn't care is that all magic is interaction with mystical spirits of the world. Sort of an animist thing, philosophically speaking.

Wizards are lawyers. They know and have libraries of ancient (and less-than-ancient) contracts with the spirit world, with an eye towards "If I do this, they owe me that service." They research new spells either by negotiating new contracts ("homebrewing rules") or by finding new ways old clauses can be made to work together to get their desired effects (something optimizers like us are familiar with!). Preparing spells in the morning is performing all of those little ritualistic behaviors which make them the rightful beneficiary of the proper contracts; casting the spell is invoking the contract and commanding the service they're owed, possibly with specification as to how it's to be executed (target selection, etc.).

Sorcerers are often the originators of the contracts. Through their personal magnetism and negotiating skill (and just plain by making friends), they attract some spirits to their permanent service, and convince other, greater ones to grant them special boons and rights. These represent their spells known. Researching new spells is about making new friends and negotiating for more rights and privileges. Casting spells is, again, invoking their rights and priviliges. They only have so much they can call upon in any given day before friends start to be "too busy" or their permissions and rights start to be...strained, but they still can cast more often than wizards.

Clerics are, literally, members of their god's or pantheon's hierarchy. They're inducted in, and are granted authority to command services from other beings which work for the same organization. Whether it's authority due to high station, or merely "By the writ I have been granted," they can cast a spell to get their allied court spirits to do things for them. Spontaneously casting inflict or cure spells is mainly asking a favor and cashing in a service; the spirits they work with like that sort of thing so are cooperative.

Druids are more like good neighbors and friends. They dwell in the community of Nature, and ask for and receive favors all the time, just as they're constantly working to help out. They prepare spells mainly by planning out their day and asking the right spirits to accompany them. It's not "friends" the way sorcerers are, but it's not a hierarchical thing like with clerics, either. They know and understand the spirits of nature, and the spirits of nature regard them as fellows. Druids know what these spirits want or fear, and live in such a way that they can command their respect or admiration.

Necroticplague

2015-07-09, 12:19 PM

Flickerdart

2015-07-09, 12:34 PM

Why does it always take the same amount of time to 'pre-cast' all your spells, regardless of how many you have to prep?
Maybe wizards have the power to prepare spells in parallel, rather than one after the other?

Segev

2015-07-09, 12:55 PM

What about spells with longer casting times? What is 15 minutes of pre-casting doing for a spell that takes 8 hours to cast for 7-10 days straight (depending on setting)?Slight bit of separation of mechanics and fluff, but in practice, the difference between "prep" and "casting" is nominal for those spells. They are just that long of a ritual. You can do the prep in the morning, but you're not really "done" preparing it; you're more laying out your components so you're ready to START the ritual when you get around to it.

Why does it always take the same amount of time to 'pre-cast' all your spells, regardless of how many you have to prep?Because higher-level wizards are better with the various clauses and contractual obligations, and can align their preparatory services and actions to fulfil more requirements at once.

SinsI

2015-07-09, 01:11 PM

Why does it always take the same amount of time to 'pre-cast' all your spells, regardless of how many you have to prep?

Maybe it is something like shopping in a mall? You take an hour to get your car out of the garage and drive to the mall, 30 minutes to walk through the whole mall to put all the ingredients you need into the trolley, spend from 1 to 5 minutes at the cashier depending on the amount you have selected and then another hour to get back home. But if you only need one thing, you can just run to the nearest stall that sells it and buy it in 15 minutes.

Roga

2015-07-09, 01:26 PM

For base class I have a strange choice: The Spirit Shaman. Despite playing Artificers, Shapeshifters, and Necromancers, each with mountains of paperwork to keep track of, I found changing my spells known each day strangely fatiguing. It was perhaps because I've never really enjoyed the Druid list if I wasn't playing a dedicated summoner, and each day it got depressing to look at the same disappointing options. The character wasn't a summoner, because I really enjoyed the flavor of someone who interacted with spirits, saw into their world, and could act as an oracle of sorts to the elements and the dead. Despite going to lots of books, like Ravenloft, to find nice spirit-themed options the class just wouldn't gel. It was like wearing shoes that were too tight, everyone thought they looked nice but I was miserable.

On the flip side, my favorite is the Healer. I hear no end of complaints that it's poorly optimized, and it should be an NPC only class, but I really respect and enjoy a class that perfectly does what it says on the box.

For Prestige classes, my choices are bitter: Pathfinder Horizon Walker, and the 3.5 updates of Animal Lord and Shifter (Master of Many Forms).
These took what I loved so dearly about the classes and completely removed them. I had a handful of characters get completely neutered to the point of being nearly unplayable. It's petty, but this has always made me avoid Pathfinder in general. Give me back my shifting mastery. :smallfurious: I built Nightcrawler, and I want to BAMF!

Psyren

2015-07-09, 01:37 PM

What about spells with longer casting times? What is 15 minutes of pre-casting doing for a spell that takes 8 hours to cast for 7-10 days straight (depending on setting)?

It lays the groundwork in a quiet setting so that you can then go through the longer motions later. Basically there are parts to every spell that have to be performed in such an environment, no matter how much time the actual casting takes. Furthermore, the energy that gets stored in your mind during that pre-casting phase can be channeled to other purposes with the proper training - spontaneous conversion, reserve feats, counterspelling etc.

Why does it always take the same amount of time to 'pre-cast' all your spells, regardless of how many you have to prep?

That's easy - the main way you get more to prep is by becoming a better wizard (i.e. leveling up, or increasing your Int, or both.) The better you are, the faster you prep the lower-level ones, thus you can pack more in. It's like adding more RAM, a faster processor and a solid state drive to you computer - it gets through the boot process quicker and thus you can have it load more things during startup in the same amount of time.

Chronikoce

2015-07-09, 02:26 PM

I have two lists

First I'll go with the ones I straight up like the least.

Literally any prepared caster, but specifically: Druid, Cleric, Wizard, Wu Jen as I have played all of those. They are supposed to be versatile but to pull that off you have to waste so much in game time switching spells, leaving slots open then preparing later, scroll hunting, and out of game diving through books. Now I love reading rules book and do so for fun on a regular basis. But deciding what spells to prepare each day is the least enjoyable aspect of any class I have played.

I should note I don't really have an issue with the power level of T1 casters since I think that you should be building your character to match your groups optimization level rather than trying to outclass your fellow players.

Second list are the classes that disappoint me the most.

Warlock: Unlimited casting per day and always have the fallback of your eldritch blast. However, with so few invocation they get boring quickly. My homebrew fix is to increase the rate of new invocations to be at every other level.

Knight: I love playing heroic armor wearing PC's. The knight falls flat at doing what it is supposed to and that is supremely disappointing to me. Thankfully the crusader exists but since ToB is banned in many games due to the DM not being familiar I usually end up having to fall back to knight for this concept.

Monk: First class I ever played. Had a massive amount of fun but that was because the DM gave me homebrewed items that fixed all the problems. I didn't know that at the time and when I played it again later I was sad. Also the number of DM's I have had to convince that the monk is not actually OP is just absurd.

A_S

2015-07-09, 04:36 PM

Fighter.

It's not that it's bad. I mean, it is bad, but there are lots of bad classes in 3.5. If you don't want to play them, you can just not play them.

It's not even that it's lazy. To be sure, it is lazy. It's hard to think of a lazier design philosophy for a class than just replacing any and all class features with a sign that says "Fighter: See feat subsystem." But again, it shares this problem with other classes, like the core spellcasters ("Wizard: See spell subsystem"). No big deal; you don't like it, don't play it.

No, it's that the bad, lazy design of the Fighter class ruined feats for everybody else, because it made the designers think they had to balance feat prerequisites around how hard it was for a Fighter to take a given feat, often without regard for those poor fools who only get seven feats over the course of their entire careers.

There are a lot of things I dislike about Pathfinder's design philosophy, but whatever else there is to be said about the system, de-emphasizing feat chains is doing God's work, and nothing can take that away from them.

Winter_Wolf

2015-07-09, 05:03 PM

Paladins are the far lead for my least favorite. Never has a class inspired more pointless and circular debate in my experience. Thematically it's not terrible, but the second two people have even slightly differing opinions on it, drama. As a prestige class it's a lot more palatable if only because there's time for DM and player to find a common ground for expectations if one subscribes to the PrC available only through in-game RP and not just starting out at high enough levels to just prebuild it. It. Also makes more sense to me that it would need to be earned because they're supposed to be the elite arm of their faith.

plus I've never known a player who doesn't eventually turn into an overbearing butthead at some point during the paladin character's run. And then hide behind "I'm playing my class" like that's supposed to make it okay.

SwordChucks

2015-07-09, 05:49 PM

It is as out of place as a Scotsman wielding a Japanese Sword and Claiming to be a Spaniard.

I know I'm focusing on the wrong thing here but, Ramirez was a scot playing an egyptian with a spanish last name and a japanese sword. So yeah it's even dumber.

Nothing to lose your head over though.

Threadnaught

2015-07-09, 06:02 PM

Despite all my complaints about a certain player, Druid is my second favourite Class.

I used to dislike Cleric and especially Paladin, but I've been working with some themes for Cleric and building something cool. Paladin shares the alignment and code of conduct restrictions, as well as having the religious flavour of normal Cleric. After coming to terms with the Cleric Class, I have become more accepting of Paladin, even with its flaws. At least it gets actual Class Features without completely relying on Alternate Class Features to get something other than a Bonus Feat.

I hate the Fighter, it's so boring. People may dislike the Monk, but it does the thing I like the most when choosing a Class. It offers something at every single level, that you don't also get as a Commoner. Same with Soulknife.
With Fighter you get none of that, no, no features that a Commoner wouldn't be able to replicate. A Commoner with a Flaw = a 1st level Fighter. That's all the Fighter is, a bunch of Feats on a Paladin chassis, it's a Paladin without anything interesting.

Still not a huge fan of Paladin, but at least you get something interesting. Unlike Fighter. Fighter gets nothing.

I really think the Fighter is an awful Class.

Necroticplague

2015-07-09, 06:13 PM

Still not a huge fan of Paladin, but at least you get something interesting. Unlike Fighter. Fighter gets nothing.

Eh, if you take fighter ACFs into account, fighter is better in that respect than paladin. Zhemeritan (probably spelt that wrong) dungeoncrasher, anybody?

Ninjaxenomorph

2015-07-09, 06:17 PM

In Pathfinder, I think, its not so much the case, at least to me. Yes, the fighter is bland, but its also the most versatile of the martial classes. He's the best with armor, which I think is one of the bigger things going for him. Plus, in the rare event you go for a martial prestige class, a lot of times you really want that versatility a feat every level can give you.

ExLibrisMortis

2015-07-09, 07:23 PM

Eh, if you take fighter ACFs into account, fighter is better in that respect than paladin. Zhemeritan (probably spelt that wrong) dungeoncrasher, anybody?
Zhentarim is what you're looking for. Zhentarim dungeoncrasher [insert DM 310/355 ACF] with dead level fixes is pretty good, but still has fewer options than a paladin. Paladin ACFs/substitutions are very nice - the Harmonious Knight sub levels for example - and very extensive - Champions of Valor has like twenty different sets of sub levels.

Pluto!

2015-07-09, 07:36 PM

Factotum.

Its writing is like an exercise in just how awkward a class's mechanics can be while actually being taken seriously, and optimizing it is an exercise in how many rules and obscure splatbook oversights can be over-scrutinized and abused.

Segev

2015-07-09, 09:34 PM

gooddragon1

2015-07-09, 09:54 PM

Toss up between the wizard and the druid.

Wizard:
-I hate that you have to pick what spells you're going to use and you need to do it well and you can't just go all willy nilly.
-I hate the d4 HD
-You have to carry a stupid book everywhere.
-I feel like I'm playing mono blue control in magic the gathering. You have to think of every single thing the enemy is going to do every time you prepare spells. So damned annoying. I don't want to invest that much effort into a class. I'm not even willing to invest time into a backstory, why would I waste time on spell preparation.

Druid*:
-Running multiple creatures slows down combat which upsets people which I don't like doing.
-They're hippies. I hate nature. Many parts of nature. From dogs, to bugs, to annoying plants.
-They not only have an alignment restriction, they have a you must respect nature restriction. I hate that. It's a repeat of the second problem I know, but I just want to strap fire seeds (berry bombs) to all the trees within range and say boom. Why can't I do that? I revere nature by burning it down so more trees can be fertilized with the ashes.

*I've been meaning to make a complete refluff that uses shadows but is otherwise nearly mechanically identical to the druid. Uses the shadow of an animal to make a shadow companion. Shadow versions of their spells. Etc. I'm just too lazy to do it.

mabriss lethe

2015-07-09, 10:59 PM

I actually have a soft spot for some of the truly offensively bad classes: Truenamer, soulknives, Divine minds.... I've spent ungodly amounts of time tweaking and dissecting them, looking for oddball corner case builds that can bring out a few hidden sweet spots

That said, I think I'm most disappointed in the Shadowcaster. It's a very flavorful caster, and could have been great if they simply pulled it off in the same manner as a beguiler or dread necro. (just using its own mysteries as a spell list) Unfortunately, it has an absurdly convoluted casting system and spell progression coupled a serious shortage of abilities/day.

atemu1234

2015-07-09, 11:07 PM

-Sorcerer. I hate how they interact with metamagic feats.
-Cleric. No real class features. Should get bonus feats. Another reason I dislike Sorcerers.

I have a love/hate relationship with Ninjas. I often replace Sudden Strike with a Sneak Attack progression in my games. Then it's fun.

Vrock_Summoner

2015-07-09, 11:18 PM

Soulborn.

It's everything bad about the Paladin with none of the redeeming features. It has literally nothing going for it. Multiclassing Incarnate/Paladin actually does its thing better than it does its own thing. Even its cool few soulmelds are held back by an abysmal lack of Essentia... Like, a Paladin's spellcasting isn't the greatest thing ever, but they have a couple of cool tricks they can use. Soulborns are pulling a Monk by getting stuff that should be available to them by like 7th level over the course of 20 levels.

The worst part is that it's such an obvious attempt at an Incarnum Paladin. Incarnate is loosely based around Wizard and Totemist is Druid-like, but they're mechanically distinct and both have really unique aspects to them so it doesn't feel like you're playing a Wizard or a Druid when you play those classes; they have their own abilities and playstyles and they represent them really well. When you play a Soulborn, you're just playing a worse Paladin with another system shoehorned onto it, and you can absolutely feel it.

Really. When you can play a class and think that you'd prefer a Fighter for its increased versatility and more distinct flavor/playstyle, you know you've got a bad class.

(A shame, too; Incarnate and Totemist are some of my favorite classes, so how their great designs got sandwiched around that steaming pile of pig doodoo is beyond me.)

Nifft

2015-07-10, 12:03 AM

-Sorcerer. I hate how they interact with metamagic feats.
-Cleric. No real class features. Should get bonus feats. Another reason I dislike Sorcerers.

Heh. In my 3.5e house rules, I gave Sorcerers bonus Metamagic feats, and gave them access to new spell slot levels at odd class levels -- before they got any known spells of that level -- so they had access to Metamagic'd spells at the same level that a Wizard could, but slower progression learning new spells.

That solved some of the Sorcerer's problems for our group, though it still wasn't a perfect class by any stretch of the imagination. It meant we saw a lot of Sorc 5 > X or Sorc 10 > X for the bonus feats -- basically the same as Wizard.

nyjastul69

2015-07-10, 01:05 AM

My original least favorite class was the sorcerer. Then they created the warlock. Now I'm not sure.

Sorcerers are just so poorly built as a class it bothers me. Latter spell progression, almost no class features, and on top of that it's difficult to change any poor decisions you've made.

My issue with the warlock is that it is, for the most part, a one trick pony. The trick is neat and somewhat effective, but extraordinarily boring.

RedMage125

2015-07-10, 01:15 AM

I want to jump in here again and say that I really LIKE what Pathfinder did to the Fighter. And I mean the Core Fighter, no ACFs or Archetypes (although those are good, too. I especially like Lore Warden).

In my opinion, Pathfinder's added class features gave the Fighter something that it was lacking in 3.5e. And that was PURPOSE. I would argue that the PF Fighter deserves to be Tier 4, up a whole Tier from 3.5e. And my main contention in that is that while a glut of feats is nice, it doesn't make up for a lack of class features. The PF Fighter has no dead levels, and has a purpose. That is, that the PF Fighter is the guy who can wear heavy armor better than anyone, and perform in regular "martial" combat better than anyone. Whether that is as a tank, or a heavy armored DPR beast, he does it well. This namely because of how many Combat Feats the Fighter will have access to (22 in total, I believe), including feats that grant additional maneuvers and Critical abilities.

Why is this better than the 3.5e Fighter? Well, simply put, because of what I call Red Mage Fallacy (and this is something I came up with and named on the WotC boards long before I took this fporum name. It, like my avatar, is named after the 8-bit theatre character). That is: Versatility In Choice Is Not An Advantage When That Choice Cannot Be Changed. And Pathfinder did something amazing by incorporating feat retraining into the Core Rules. ANYONE can change a feat when they level.

To wit: Tier 4 is defined as "does one thing well, but tends to flounder when in situations that do not play to their strengths", whereas Tier 5 "only does one thing, and not even that well". JaronK, the creator of the Tier system has said himself that while an INDIVIDUAL member of a given class could rise above what Tier their class is ranked in, the Tier System was designed to measure the Class as a whole. 3.5e Fighters did not have a clearly defined purpose, and their only "class feature" was a glut of ambiguous "bonus feats". Feats are great. Hell, they can be downright awesome. But sometimes a feat chosen at lower levels is just not as useful later on.

So not only did Pathfinder remove the burden of Red Mage Fallacy on Fighters, making them better, but also granted them unique abilities. Ones that made them better at wearing heavy armor, and also weapon abilities that improved the bonuses they could consistently get with weapons, both to hit and damage. These things combined give the Core PF Fighter a single purpose (again, to be the guy who can wear heavy armor and be a martial combat beast, and do both better than anyone). And while he is still limited in anything outside that, it DOES cause him to meet the perquisites for Tier 4.

Telok

2015-07-10, 03:30 AM

Bard.
I've always wanted to like bards. A suave, sophisticated jack of all trades who can always crack a good joke, hold his own in a sword fight, and toss off the occasional spell. Love the concept.

They end up being another full 9ths spellcaster, some sort of melee blender, or a damned yodeler who adds boring bonuses that everyone forgets about and is negated by a second level cleric spell. Then people start yelling "dfi, dfi, dfi!" about something in one of the umpty dozen splat books like it's the best thing in the world. Then it turns out that it's just another damage bonus, and this time the second level spell that counters it is on every spell list in the game.

Warblade/beguiler/jade phoenix mage is a much better all around "bard" than the class is.

noob

2015-07-10, 05:33 AM

Bards are game breaking if you follow raw diplomacy rules.(do not do that if you want players to fight monsters else bards automatically convert opponents to his side)

ben-zayb

2015-07-10, 06:19 AM

Barbarians: Aside from the aforementioned offensive naming, I just don't see the appeal in theoretically dealing YES damage, when in practice, you won't get to play it anyway. Besides, there are Fighter and Warblade builds that can emulate it's primary schtick, but on a more acceptable scale.

noob

2015-07-10, 06:41 AM

If you play only with the base manuals and dwarves barbarians ends up being cool for economizing spells(you want to destroy walls? with barbarians you can do that at will while magicians use up their disintegrate) and fighting rogues(uncanny dodge) and holding up a door(raging make you stronger than everyone else) and are cooler than fighters in antimagic zones(versatility by being able to survive rogues and traps).
Else it is just the obsolescence of base classes due to the increasing power of classes with the time.

TheNivMizzet

2015-07-10, 08:26 AM

Oooooh I have strange and mysterious powers no other mortal has, unless they worship Orcus or their grandpa banged a dragon! SpooooOOOOoooky!

I want to throw that into my signature as possibly the funniest thing I've read all week.
And on topic I'll probably say sorcerer, because if I'm playing one, I never have the spell I need, and if the GM is running one against us their spell selection is specifically designed to mess with the party, especially ones which are powerful but not versatile and just happen to beat the party.

DarkEternal

2015-07-10, 09:56 AM

Psion and most of their related ilk. Yeah, you can keep harping to me that they are not as powerful as wizards, clerics or druids. I don't buy it. They are just as cheap, if not cheaper than those classes that are theoretically better in a way that you need to write a thesis to be approved by your DM(which he won't) to make them in any way significantly weaker, and need far less going into build shenanigans to make them broken. All of that Ego Whip nonsense, infinite health nonsense with their psy crystal, and the fact that their power points are renewable the way they are and that they don't care about being immobilised for most of their spells. I dislike them. Plain and simple.

Threadnaught

2015-07-10, 10:08 AM

Eh, if you take fighter ACFs into account, fighter is better in that respect than paladin. Zhemeritan (probably spelt that wrong) dungeoncrasher, anybody?

Already took ACFs into consideration.

After coming to terms with the Cleric Class, I have become more accepting of Paladin, even with its flaws. At least it gets actual Class Features without completely relying on Alternate Class Features to get something other than a Bonus Feat.

I realize ACFs are available, but I don't want to have to rely on them to make a Class interesting.

YossarianLives

2015-07-11, 10:25 AM

I honestly have no real problems with any class. I'm not a fan of all the book-keeping and text-diving prepared casters require but I've seen almost every class implemented in a fun way.

AmberVael

2015-07-11, 10:34 AM

noob

2015-07-11, 10:42 AM

Curmudgeon

2015-07-11, 10:44 AM

The Factotum, for evidencing perhaps the most bone-headed writing in all of D&D.
The target automatically fails any spell resistance check that she attempts to avoid your spell.
:confused:

Milo v3

2015-07-11, 10:47 AM

"This sounds like you're dealing with psions optimized to a nearly theoretical level, not so much just normal psions. I can definitely understand disliking that. "
you do not need theoric optimization just do a three step plan:
1: Take the feat who allows to burn stat points for getting PP
2: Ask the telepath of the group(potentially you) to take psionic surgery
3: Now the telepath give you psionic surgery and you can regenerate all your stats points for 17 pp
Now abuse as much as you want your unlimited pp regeneration out of battle.
In addition you can learn all the psi abilities by using psionic surgery for giving it to somebody then asking him to cast it on you for giving you any ability he wants to give you.
If that is not super easy to do T0 then what is it?

Still less ridiculous than what you can do with a casting of gate. Wizards brake the game sooo much more than psions.

noob

2015-07-11, 10:53 AM

"Still less ridiculous than what you can do with a casting of gate. Wizards brake the game sooo much more than psions. "
Well it depends of the universe for example no rule says the portal brings you creature who did not consumed all their use of powers so because of that I had a gm who said 99% of the stuff you summon have spent all their wishes and gates with their friends or by being summoned by someone else meaning you can not do chains because it have 99% chance of breaking at each time and since portal costs XP it is not efficient for gaining anything.(and this explanation is 100% raw and universe logic)

Jormengand

2015-07-11, 10:57 AM

A first-level truenamer can break the game with three spells and one utterance (Universal Aptitude, Planar Binding, Guidance of the Avatar, Wish), or a wizard can go straight to Wish directly. It's not hard to do, but it's really easy, just... not to?

Morcleon

2015-07-11, 11:01 AM

"This sounds like you're dealing with psions optimized to a nearly theoretical level, not so much just normal psions. I can definitely understand disliking that. "
you do not need theoric optimization just do a three step plan:
1: Take the feat who allows to burn stat points for getting PP
2: Ask the telepath of the group(potentially you) to take psionic surgery
3: Now the telepath give you psionic surgery and you can regenerate all your stats points for 17 pp
Now abuse as much as you want your unlimited pp regeneration out of battle.
In addition you can learn all the psi abilities by using psionic surgery for giving it to somebody then asking him to cast it on you for giving you any ability he wants to give you.
If that is not super easy to do T0 then what is it?

This PP regen method doesn't work. Ability burn (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm#psionicMaladies) cannot be magically or psionically healed.

As for using psychic chirurgery to get all the powers, you have to pay 1000 XP per level of the power transferred (or 5000 gp per level if from an NPC), plus they have to know the power in question in order for it to be transferred.

danzibr

2015-07-11, 11:06 AM

Soulbooooooorn!!!

Already mentioned, but man they could've been so much cooler. One of my favorite 3.5 arts is a baddonkey Soulborn, then mechanically they reek.

ace rooster

2015-07-11, 11:27 AM

Still less ridiculous than what you can do with a casting of gate. Wizards brake the game sooo much more than psions.

Gate allow you to steal power, and avoid direct immediate consequences. It does not mean that the owner of that power and their allies will not be pissed about this. In particular you count as extraplanar to those creatures, so are also vulnerable to gate. Dance little wizard, dance. :smallamused:

The psionic thing does ability burn, not ability damage. It functions the same mostly, but is much harder to get rid of. Even that 9th level power doesn't do it (It is ambiguous, but I would read "effects penalising" as penalties, which ability burn is not.)

The one that has always bugged me is wizards that trade out scribe scroll. The whole casting mechanic revolves around magical notation and writing, with the spellbook being more than just a text book (or else why does it just need magical inks). By giving up scribe scroll you create a character who cannot create magical notation and writing... Mechanically they can still function, but fluffwise it makes no sense.

Morcleon

2015-07-11, 11:33 AM

The psionic thing does ability burn, not ability damage. It functions the same mostly, but is much harder to get rid of. Even that 9th level power doesn't do it (It is ambiguous, but I would read "effects penalising" as penalties, which ability burn is not.)

It's not ambiguous at all. Ability burn cannot be removed magically or psionically. Psychic chirurgery is psionic. Thus, it doesn't remove ability burn.

The one that has always bugged me is wizards that trade out scribe scroll. The whole casting mechanic revolves around magical notation and writing, with the spellbook being more than just a text book (or else why does it just need magical inks). By giving up scribe scroll you create a character who cannot create magical notation and writing... Mechanically they can still function, but fluffwise it makes no sense.

Trading out scribe scroll does not mean that they can't create magical notation and writing. It means that they can't create magical notation that is imbued with the necessary arcane energies so that other people can use it easily. They can still create magical notation that they then use their own energies to use.

Necroticplague

2015-07-11, 11:58 AM

The one that has always bugged me is wizards that trade out scribe scroll. The whole casting mechanic revolves around magical notation and writing, with the spellbook being more than just a text book (or else why does it just need magical inks). By giving up scribe scroll you create a character who cannot create magical notation and writing... Mechanically they can still function, but fluffwise it makes no sense.

1. At least one ACFs trades out scribe scroll for not needing a spellbook.
2. A spellbook is only of use to the wizard who wrote it, and takes a fair bit of reverse-engineering for someone else to use it. A scroll, however, can be used perfectly by anyone with the right type of magic, and with a little difficulty by those that don't. The spellbook is someone's class notes and a scroll is step-by-step instructions. So a wizard without scribe is just like a college kid who writes a whole ton of notes but can't re-write the textbook he took them from.

Socratov

2015-07-11, 01:24 PM

Well, for my part, I don't like bland classes, or classes that induce a heavy amount of accounting, no matter how good they may be. Fighter, Wizard, Sorcerer, Druid, Cleric. Sure, they might offer power or versatility, but either I'm too busy keeping track of my spells/accounting, or the basis of what I'm playing is so situational it makes for a pretty bland character. Which incidently explains my undying love bards and warlocks. The flavour is just endless.

Reprimand

2015-07-11, 01:26 PM

I have a love hate relationship with the healer class. Mechanically it's SOOOOOOOO BAD.

But I have a soft spot for any tissue paper healing class.

I'll still play it but I won't be happy about how badly it got shafted.

A Tad Insane

2015-07-11, 06:14 PM

I want to throw that into my signature as possibly the funniest thing I've read all week.

Go ahead. I've always wanted to be memorable enough to sig

Sith_Happens

2015-07-11, 08:23 PM

I find the dearth of Fighter in this thread disturbing.

Classes (or at least PC classes) have class features. Fighters do not have class features. Therefore to call the Fighter a class is an insult to the idea of classes.

QED

Xervous

2015-07-11, 10:19 PM

nyjastul69

2015-07-12, 12:01 AM

Segev

2015-07-12, 12:21 AM

Technically, Fighters do have a class feature: they are fighters of whatever level of fighter they are. This is a relevant thing because there are feats which have fighter levels as prereqs. While yes, the Warblade has a class feature that lets them count as fighters of their warblade level -1, that is little different than a monk sharing the rogue's evasion class feature.

Shoat

2015-07-12, 12:33 AM

Wizard, because they're so full of bull****. Closely followed by all other T1 classes.
(As an example: Wizards are already better at everything than sorcerers for no ****ing reason, and then the PHB2 comes along and gives both of them an ACF. The sorc gets "Hey, you can use quicken spell normally with this ACF. But of course only a limited number of times a day, and you also need to take the feat. **** you." and the wizard one is "Here, you can teleport as an immediate action and, thus, become literally unkillable for the first 5 levels of the game.")

I'm really happy that none of my players ever go for any of the powergaming cheese even when they play 'good' classes, but even READING about wizard nonsense on this forum makes me sick.

Curmudgeon

2015-07-12, 01:23 AM

Rogues: their best class feature is UMD as a class skill. Sneak attack can just evaporate whenever the DM feels like it and outside of that you aren't getting many serious class features. They also have that silly issue of not qualifying for weapon finesse at level 1 which is a mild bit of laughter inducing brilliance.
While the core Rogue has those problems, most of the class deficiencies are fixable if you have enough supplements. Lightbringer Penetrating Strike ACF (Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, page 208) lets you deal ½ your normal sneak attack dice to the otherwise unsneakable while you flank them. Craven feat (Champions of Ruin, page 17) adds +1 damage to your sneak attack for every character level you have (and because this bonus to sneak attack isn't from dice, it's not halved with Lightbringer Penetrating Strike). The biggest problem with the Rogue is that you can't get Hide in Plain Sight as a class feature before level 13 (Wilderness Rogue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogueVariantWilderness Rogue) variant). However, in Faerûn you can get a version of HiPS as a template at ECL 2 (Cormyr: The Tearing Of The Weave, page 152). Sneak attack still won't work on the unflankable, but that just means you carry some alchemist's fire to use on swarms.

Shadowscale

2015-07-12, 02:47 AM

Warblades: Way to turn martials into casters and make everyone feel bad for wanting to play any other martial class they may be interested in. As that'd just be non-optimal.

Arbane

2015-07-12, 03:04 AM

Warblades: Way to turn martials into casters and make everyone feel bad for wanting to play any other martial class they may be interested in. As that'd just be non-optimal.

I think you're blaming the wrong class. If the Warblade makes the Fighter look bad, maybe it's because the Fighter IS bad?

Curmudgeon

2015-07-12, 03:21 AM

I think you're blaming the wrong class. If the Warblade makes the Fighter look bad, maybe it's because the Fighter IS bad?
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the Fighter chassis. The problem is the lack of Fighter feats which are comparable to other classes' features. Provide feats like Martial Flight (Prerequisite: Fighter level 8; Benefit: you can fly at your speed for 1 round with good maneuverability, every other round) and the Fighter will be a fine class.

Shadowscale

2015-07-12, 03:58 AM

I think you're blaming the wrong class. If the Warblade makes the Fighter look bad, maybe it's because the Fighter IS bad?

I never mentioned the fighter, I only mentioned the clunky spellcasting warrior sometimes is not what you're going for, yet the sentiment seems to be they're the only martial worth playing therefore taking attention away from the others.

SinsI

2015-07-12, 05:24 AM

Warblades: Way to turn martials into casters and make everyone feel bad for wanting to play any other martial class they may be interested in. As that'd just be non-optimal.

Lol what? There are plenty of other martials that won't lose to Warblade. One of my favorites is changeling Totemist/Warshaper. And all TOB clases are great for a dip, especially with Bloodlines allowed.

Shadowscale

2015-07-12, 05:25 AM

Lol what? There are plenty of other martials that won't lose to Warblade. One of my favorites is changeling Totemist/Warshaper. And all TOB clases are great for a dip, especially with Bloodlines allowed.

Did you just use "lol" in a non ironic way?
I'm sorry for having an opinion?

Taveena

2015-07-12, 05:36 AM

For much of the reasons stated above, Soulborn tops the list for me. Their limited essentia, delayed binds, and lack of capacity increases results in a class whose strongest abilities are 4d4 sonic on a charge attack (without pounce) and Spell Resistance 21. At level 20. I think it deserves to have been put into tier 6 - it might be more versatile than the Samurai, but that versatility doesn't matter when no matter what you're going for, you still suck.

The Fighter has a lot of problems - while the feats can support a build, they need to be backed up by class features. And hell, with Zhentarim or Dungeoncrasher, it's decent. But without ACFs, it's... not a class at all, really.

PersonMan

2015-07-12, 06:21 AM

"This sounds like you're dealing with psions optimized to a nearly theoretical level, not so much just normal psions. I can definitely understand disliking that. "
you do not need theoric optimization just do a three step plan:
1: Take the feat who allows to burn stat points for getting PP
2: Ask the telepath of the group(potentially you) to take psionic surgery
3: Now the telepath give you psionic surgery and you can regenerate all your stats points for 17 pp
Now abuse as much as you want your unlimited pp regeneration out of battle.
In addition you can learn all the psi abilities by using psionic surgery for giving it to somebody then asking him to cast it on you for giving you any ability he wants to give you.
If that is not super easy to do T0 then what is it?

This 'three step plan' is TO, though. Theoretical Optimization isn't 'this is really complex and hard to do', it's 'this is so stupidly strong you won't use it in a real game'. It's like saying Fighters suck because all they do is charge for 99999999 damage and that's annoying to deal with.

SinsI

2015-07-12, 06:36 AM

Did you just use "lol" in a non ironic way?
I'm sorry for having an opinion?
You used the maxim "everyone". Others are entitled to their own opinion, too.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 06:37 AM

I think you're blaming the wrong class. If the Warblade makes the Fighter look bad, maybe it's because the Fighter IS bad?

And if the response to that is to give them abilities that look more like spells than, say, utterances do (the same utterances which are literally called spell-like abilities) then there's a problem. If we wanted spellcasters with swords, we would play clerics.

Taveena

2015-07-12, 06:56 AM

And if the response to that is to give them abilities that look more like spells than, say, utterances do (the same utterances which are literally called spell-like abilities) then there's a problem. If we wanted spellcasters with swords, we would play clerics.

Apart from the Vancian system - and, granted, the Swordsage's (Su) maneuvers - how do they look like spells?

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 06:59 AM

Apart from the Vancian system - and, granted, the Swordsage's (Su) maneuvers - how do they look like spells?

I think you just answered your own question. The truenamer at least had the honesty to admit that he was basically using magic.

Taveena

2015-07-12, 07:07 AM

I think you just answered your own question. The truenamer at least had the honesty to admit that he was basically using magic.

If you simply mean the Vancian system isn't inherently spell-y, though - no-one actually goes "Doing a bunch of preparation and then doing the things you'd prepared? WITCHCRAFT!"

If, however, you mean from an in-universe perspective, Utterances and Invocations LOOK a lot more like spells - someone says an incantation and then stuff appears out of nowhere. Meanwhile, a Warblade is indistinguishable from a Fighter. They hit dudes with a sword and run around a lot.

Consider a game in which Warlocks are the only spellcaster. If a class has a bunch of at-wills and passives gained every second level, are you going to say they're BASICALLY a Warlock?

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 07:15 AM

If you simply mean the Vancian system isn't inherently spell-y, though - no-one actually goes "Doing a bunch of preparation and then doing the things you'd prepared? WITCHCRAFT!"

But the fact that you use spells and maneuvers in the exact same way... yeah...

"Quick! Mister wizard warblade! You have to cast initiate your spell maneuver that you prepared readied earlier!"

"Quick! Mister wizard truenamer! You have to cast utter your spell utterance that you... uhm... yeah, let me go an think about this one for a bit."

It just feels like "Spellcasting, but with swords!"

Shadowscale

2015-07-12, 07:18 AM

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 07:20 AM

Thank you, sometimes I just want to play one of the mundanes or ranger level casters, I don't want a whole level system of combat "spells".

Honestly, a spell-less rogue//ranger gestalt, possibly even rogue//ranger//barbarian, is my idea of a good martial class. A sword-mage? Isn't.

Shadowscale

2015-07-12, 07:21 AM

Honestly, a spell-less rogue//ranger gestalt, possibly even rogue//ranger//barbarian, is my idea of a good martial class. A sword-mage? Isn't.

You'd like slayer from Pathfinder then.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 07:24 AM

You'd like slayer from Pathfinder then.

Mm, it's pretty neat, yeah.

Milo v3

2015-07-12, 07:30 AM

Nifft

2015-07-12, 07:47 AM

Based on that... archers are spellcasters.
"Quick! Mister wizard ranger! You have to cast shoot your spell arrow that you prepared stored in your quiver earlier!"

"Quick! Mister wizard rogue! You have to cast throw your spell thunderstone that you prepared bought at a store earlier!"

... yeah, a bit too generic to be any kind of condemnation of the Warblade.

- - -

As an aside, IMHO Warblades and Crusaders and Swordsages are great. In my games, these classes allow players who want a sword-guy to have fun, contribute in combat, and feel awesome.

Shadowscale

2015-07-12, 07:55 AM

"Quick! Mister wizard rogue! You have to cast throw your spell thunderstone that you prepared bought at a store earlier!"

... yeah, a bit too generic to be any kind of condemnation of the Warblade.

- - -

As an aside, IMHO Warblades and Crusaders and Swordsages are great. In my games, these classes allow players who want a sword-guy to have fun, contribute in combat, and feel awesome.
Warblades and wizards prepare their spells each day and they are essentially one and the same. Shooting an arrow or using a thunderstone is different than having 9 levels of spells that you look through, select, and use in combat.

Your aside is essentially exactly what I was saying, you feel forced into them, otherwise you're not "contributing".

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 07:58 AM

Warblades and wizards prepare their spells each day and they are essentially one and the same. Shooting an arrow or using a thunderstone is different than having 9 levels of spells that you look through, select, and use in combat.

Yeah, this. The mechanics of shooting someone (attack and damage rolls, full-attacks, etc.) are entirely different from those of spellcasting (prepare spell, expend spell slot, do something obviously magical).

Morcleon

2015-07-12, 08:14 AM

Yeah, this. The mechanics of shooting someone (attack and damage rolls, full-attacks, etc.) are entirely different from those of spellcasting (prepare spell, expend spell slot, do something obviously magical).

With the exception of Desert Wind and Shadow Hand (and a few scattered others), none of the ToB maneuvers are obviously magical. Most are things like "hit harder", "hit them more", and "hit them more and harder", with a few status effects based on how hard you hit them. I like it since it's a way for martial characters to have some unique effects and abilities other than "I full attack and occasionally use a combat maneuver".

Nifft

2015-07-12, 08:30 AM

Warblades and wizards prepare their spells each day and they are essentially one and the same. That's very incorrect.

Warblades can use their maneuvers over and over during an encounter; Wizards fire-and-forget their payload.

Warblades refresh their current suite with a Swift action; Wizards need 8 hours of sleep, and then an hour in front of a book, to do something equivalent.

Warblades can take a feat which allows the to swap their entire suite of maneuvers as a full-round action; Wizards need 8 hours of sleep, and then an hour in front of a book, to do something equivalent.

Warblades are happy to do their thing in an anti-magic field; Wizards are not happy about that idea, not happy at all.

Warblades can't spend money to increase their repertoire; Wizards can and do.

Warblades are not T1; Wizards are the epitome of T1.

Taveena

2015-07-12, 09:36 AM

Vancian is NOT the same thing as Identical To Spells. By the logic you're using a Warlock - hell, a SORCERER isn't a Spellcaster because they don't prepare spells. It is using the system as spells, yes, but that's like saying a Barbarian is identical to a Wizard because they both have hit dice, BAB, and saving throws.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 09:45 AM

Vancian is NOT the same thing as Identical To Spells. By the logic you're using a Warlock - hell, a SORCERER isn't a Spellcaster because they don't prepare spells.

When a martial class's spellcasting maneuver-initiating mechanic is closer to the wizard's than the sorcerer's is, there's a problem. So I guess the question is, would you like to continue proving my point for me?

StreamOfTheSky

2015-07-12, 10:00 AM

I think I'll just plagiarize myself (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?319130-Which-class-do-you-hate-the-most/page5&p=5837399&viewfull=1#post5837399) on this one.

So anyway, I voted Fighter. Often the most beloved class on these forums. Over the years, as I've tried to balance the other non-casters, I've steadily grown to hate this generic, completely flavor-devoid class. There isn't a martial-caster disparity often, the problem is framed ONLY in the terms of "fighter is underpowered!" But that's just the tip of my hate-berg. Anything I try to do to buff classes other than Fighter (who I also try to buff, it just tends to attract less flak when I buff him) there's this glass ceiling. "You can't out fight the fighter!" It doesn't matter what style of fighting it is, whether it's skirmishing, archery...whatever. Because "a fighter's job is fighting! It's in his name! He must be the best at it!" it ends up being a cement block around the feet of other underprivileged characters in the ocean of D&D. Anything to buff the fighter has to maintain his generic "capable of anything" crap else it loses the "flavor" of being a Fighter.

I'm sick of it. Please, just go away, you horrible boring class that's about nothing more than how many +'s you have on rolls. I hate you. Give me a bunch of different martial classes to cover different things that are actually hyper capable of those things. Give me swashbuckling duelists who can parry spells. 2H weapon wielders that can heft giant swords and create avalanches by cleaving into the side of a mountain. Give me archers who can blot out the sun with arrows and shoot just fine in melee, disarming you of your sword as you're charging at him and in midswing.

Just not the generic fighter. Please.

Necroticplague

2015-07-12, 10:04 AM

Why is using a pseudo-vancian system as a martial a bad thing? "Oh no, now I actually have a variety of abilities I can't spam over and over within an encounter without a cost, so I now have to balance my tactics around what's available to me (or might be available soon), instead of doing the same thing over and over every round."

Brova

2015-07-12, 10:04 AM

When a martial class's spellcasting maneuver-initiating mechanic is closer to the wizard's than the sorcerer's is, there's a problem. So I guess the question is, would you like to continue proving my point for me?

Except it's not close at all really. There are big distinctions to be made between martial adepts and spellcasters, on both micro (single combat) and macro (adventuring day) levels.

On a basic level, all martial adepts have their powers essentially at will with respect to the day. That's not a big deal if your powers are combat based, but it changes how powers interact with the world dramatically. wall of stone once per day is a useful utility spell, in addition to a powerful combat ability. wall of stone at will allows you to replace masons permanently.

Individual martial adepts also have differences from Wizards in combat. A Wizard has all of his powers at the start of the fight and gets worn down. A Swordsage has all his powers at the start of a fight, but can recharge during a fight. A Crusader has some of his powers at the start of a fight, and gets new ones at random when he uses enough. A Warblade has all his powers at the start of a fight, but he has to give up his powers for a round to recharge. All completely different mechanics.

Ironically, the Truenamer is actually closer to the Wizard, in that he has all his powers at the start of the fight but eventually runs out of uses (or rather gets a DC so high he can't cast anymore).

I do have a problem with Tome of Battle though - it doesn't go far enough. Maneuvers are very cool, and make martial characters a lot more useful in a fight. But they don't do anything about noncombat power and they don't do enough a high levels. But I give the book a lot of points for identifying and attempting to solve the problem.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 10:15 AM

ExLibrisMortis

2015-07-12, 10:35 AM

Because it feels like being a wizard: swords edition.
Much the same issue with all prepared spellcasters being the same, or all spontaneous casters (arcane and divine separately). Low hit die, good will save, low base attack - you must be an arcane caster. Medium hit die, good will & another, medium base attack - you must be a divine caster. Good fort, full base attack, no power - you must be a martial character. Persisting divine power? You're such a gish.

In the end, D&D martial classes are all very similar, D&D caster classes are all very similar, and only a few exceptions exist. Things like wild shape are basically spells, but better; inspire courage is only +numbers, and turn undead is just another batch of action points that you need a feat to use properly. The main differences are summarized in the tier system.

That said, prepared casters are nothing like initiators; spontaneous casters with limited spell lists are closer, but even they run out of spells, which the initiator never does. In addition, initiators mainly solve combat/physical encounters by attacking AC and hit points, whereas casters can branch out into any sort of encounter and have a choice of defences to attack. In other words, initiators (barring IHS shenanigans) don't even register on the Henderson scale (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Henderson_Scale_of_Plot_Derailment) (or rather the tier system, which can be called a potential for registering on the scale, but I was reading that page), whereas casters do. You could say that that's only a matter of how maneuvers are written, but by the same reasoning, fighters aren't game-breaking due to how fighter feats are written - in other words, that's not an argument specific to any one class, it applies equally to all classes.

Extra Anchovies

2015-07-12, 11:07 AM

I think I'll just plagiarize myself (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?319130-Which-class-do-you-hate-the-most/page5&p=5837399&viewfull=1#post5837399) on this one.

Well said, Stream. The core issue with the fighter is that it is inherently designed to be good at fighting and nothing else, which means it's always going to perform poorly in a game that isn't all combat all the time.

Morcleon

2015-07-12, 11:16 AM

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 11:28 AM

Warblades and wizards prepare their spells each day and they are essentially one and the same. Shooting an arrow or using a thunderstone is different than having 9 levels of spells that you look through, select, and use in combat.

Your aside is essentially exactly what I was saying, you feel forced into them, otherwise you're not "contributing".

Well, the nine level thing is just good balancing. These are the distinct levels of effectiveness that have worked for classes, and just putting a smattering of feats with strange prerequisites has not worked. Streamlining so everyone improves at the same rate is a good thing.

However, I do agree the preparing which abilities you're doing each morning thing is incredibly strange and not martial at all. It'd make sense for classes like the Crusader and Swordsage, they're basically spellcaster/warriors, but the Warblade? Not so much.

It's a pity that the rest of the system does a better job of doing melee combat than the actual melee combat rules when it's tied to the weird and near impossible to rationalize preparation mechanic.

I still prefer the Warblade to others though. Mostly by ignoring the preparation problem. Being able to actually go into Vom Tag stance, use a beat, and parry blows whatever boring "I attack" thing the fighter or barbarian has going for it out of the water in terms of fun. For me anyway.

Troacctid

2015-07-12, 11:56 AM

Tome of Battle is basically just a beta version of the 4th Edition Fighter. I've played multiple Fighters in 4e and I've never felt like they played too similarly to Wizards.

Necroticplague

2015-07-12, 12:24 PM

Tome of Battle is basically just a beta version of the 4th Edition Fighter. I've played multiple Fighters in 4e and I've never felt like they played too similarly to Wizards.

Funny thing, I was gonna bring up 4e into this too. Because these complaints about the Warblade are pretty much the exact ones I've heard grognards complain about 4e. "Wah, everything's the exact same now, there's no difference between the classes because they all use daily/encounter/at-will powers." On a smaller scale, of course, since we're only talking about two groups of classes, but similar idea.

NomGarret

2015-07-12, 12:36 PM

Meh, the warblade "prep" time amounts to a bit of exercise. Even world class athletes need to stretch for a few minutes beforehand.

Kazyan

2015-07-12, 01:01 PM

Oh, yeah, Warblade. I forgot about the class that lets you opt out of anything that would be inflicted on a saving throw, is really hard to do anything to in melee, one-shots most enemies, and generally makes my life hard as a GM. I usually have to tailor my encounters more heavily around them than actual full casters, but I'm not allowed to criticize this, anywhere, because apparently melee is supposed to be able to smash through anything and everything, Tier 3 is the best, and these issues mean I'm just not doing it right because Tier 3 and nice things. Shut up and go nerf the Wizard some more.

What? You're already using CR+2 or CR+3 encounters? Then you're not using challenging monsters! Never mind that we constantly say that the CR system doesn't work with things that have these SLAs and stuff, nor that those kinds of monsters tend to get steamrollled hard, and the best caster-y encounters to date have been gishes.

Or the Factotum, because...well, it's like running around with a glitch pokemon in Pokemon Red/Blue. Yes, it's the best, but you're pretty much tying the game in knots by using it in the best way because its mechanics are more porous than basalt. Also it's the only skillmonkey class that matters, because only some obscure curmudgeonly game guide recommends Rogue and all the others say "glitch the game with these quickrazors instead" when I want to play Pokemon.

Or, hey, let's Cleric because it can do anything! Actually, no, it only does that if you use DMM: Persist. Otherwise all you get to do is heal and a little fighty stuff, but you're not allowed to heal because healing in combat without the Heal spell is Bad; never mind that the most valuable spell my table uses that could fit in a Spell Storing item is Close Wounds and that our highest-level healing spells always make a difference. Go buff yourself instead, because then you'll kill everything better than the Warblade! Except you only get a size increase and +8 strength over the Warblade with the two relevant buffs, which, if you'll notice, are not maneuvers, and things that are only +numbers are bad because we've seen how it goes on the fighter. Hey, the combat's over! Thanks for wasting your buffs on getting prepared to contribute. Now heal me.

:smallfurious:

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 01:06 PM

Meh, the warblade "prep" time amounts to a bit of exercise. Even world class athletes need to stretch for a few minutes beforehand.

Ehh, even without warming up, you should still know how to swing your sword to, as I said earlier, do a beat, or parry, or the dozens of other things a warblade can do.

Oh, yeah, Warblade. I forgot about the class that lets you opt out of anything that would be inflicted on a saving throw, is really hard to do anything to in melee, one-shots most enemies, and generally makes my life hard as a GM. I usually have to tailor my encounters more heavily around them than actual full casters, but I'm not allowed to criticize this, anywhere, because apparently melee is supposed to be able to smash through anything and everything, Tier 3 is the best, and these issues mean I'm just not doing it right because Tier 3 and nice things. Shut up and go nerf the Wizard some more.

What? You're already using CR+2 or CR+3 encounters? Then you're not using challenging monsters! Never mind that we constantly say that the CR system doesn't work with things that have these SLAs and stuff, nor that those kinds of monsters tend to get steamrollled hard, and the best caster-y encounters to date have been gishes.

Or the Factotum, because...well, it's like running around with a glitch pokemon in Pokemon Red/Blue. Yes, it's the best, but you're pretty much tying the game in knots by using it in the best way because its mechanics are more porous than basalt. Also it's the only skillmonkey class that matters, because only some obscure curmudgeonly game guide recommends Rogue and all the others say "glitch the game with these quickrazors instead" when I want to play Pokemon.

Or, hey, let's Cleric because it can do anything! Actually, no, it only does that if you use DMM: Persist. Otherwise all you get to do is heal and a little fighty stuff, but you're not allowed to heal because healing in combat without the Heal spell is Bad; never mind that the most valuable spell my table uses that could fit in a Spell Storing item is Close Wounds and that our highest-level healing spells always make a difference. Go buff yourself instead, because then you'll kill everything better than the Warblade! Except you only get a size increase and +8 strength over the Warblade with the two relevant buffs, which, if you'll notice, are not maneuvers, and things that are only +numbers are bad because we've seen how it goes on the fighter. Hey, the combat's over! Thanks for wasting your buffs on getting prepared to contribute. Now heal me.

:smallfurious:

Eh, sounds like you're used to less optimized gameplay. That's cool, and in general where I fit most of the time. To non-optimizers a Warblade is really damn powerful.

Wardog

2015-07-12, 01:15 PM

Complete Warrior Samurai.

I don't even see the point of a "Samurai" class*.

A samurai is just a Japanese-themed knight, with a slightly different weapon selection.

And a knight is just a fighter build (typically) roleplayed as a minor noble.

None of the special abilities the CW Samurai (or the Knight) get are either unique to or ubiquitous among either knights or samurai.

* Unless perhaps in a game or system where everyone is some sort of "fighter", and you want to force soldiers/thugs/knights/guards/samurai/etc into very specific roles.

StreamOfTheSky

2015-07-12, 01:28 PM

Well said, Stream. The core issue with the fighter is that it is inherently designed to be good at fighting and nothing else, which means it's always going to perform poorly in a game that isn't all combat all the time.

Not quite, actually. My issue is two-fold:

1) It is supposed to be the "not magical guy" class. Even a Barbarian it's an acceptable trope for them to survive when they should be dead or destroy things in one swing you should not be able to. But the Fighter has to always be mundane, if you start giving him wuxia/anime/video game level abilities that blatantly fly in the face of reality, people get VERY UPSET. All you're allowed to do is give bigger numbers, more attacks, stuff like that. I could ignore the class and not care about its existence and let the people who want to be mundane at level 20 have their fun, but unfortunately...
2) Because fighting is all it does, the class is expected to be better at it than other martial classes. Otherwise, you traded away any non-combat ability you could have had just to play 2nd fiddle in combat anyway and you feel like a sap (and you should feel like a sap). So it becomes a zero-sum game. The monk can self-heal (crappily)? He must pay for that in combat ability!
The quoted rant came shortly after arguing on the paizo boards. PF had recently released the "Brawling" armor property, for light armor only. For just a +1 it gave an untyped +2 to unarmed attack and damage, and grappling. Since monks lose their class features in armor and by technicality bracers of armor are not considered "light armor," monk was hosed out of the best unarmed item buff in the game. Combined with other things, I proved with math that a fighter built around unarmed combat could now out-fight the monk. And the response from most paizo fans? "Good! He's the Fighter, he should be able to outperform any other class in any form of fighting if built for it!" Otherwise, the fighter class is (again, shocker) kind of pointless. They didn't mind that this made the Monk kind of pointless, though.

The Fighter is the glass ceiling of the martials. None are allowed to surpass him w/o drawing heavy wrath from fans. But at the same time, the Fighter must remain mundane in his abilities and potentially built towards any combat style. Taken together, you get a very nasty catch-22 that is a huge contributor to why martials will never be allowed to have nice things.
It pisses me off, and I hate the Fighter class more than any other because of it. I wish it didn't exist.

Ninjaxenomorph

2015-07-12, 02:05 PM

I don't even see the point of a "Samurai" class*.

A samurai is just a Japanese-themed knight, with a slightly different weapon selection.

And a knight is just a fighter build (typically) roleplayed as a minor noble.

None of the special abilities the CW Samurai (or the Knight) get are either unique to or ubiquitous among either knights or samurai.

* Unless perhaps in a game or system where everyone is some sort of "fighter", and you want to force soldiers/thugs/knights/guards/samurai/etc into very specific roles.

I like the PF solution: Cavalier is a class, typically the 'knight' role, but they are intended to be martial leaders, with the ability to share teamwork feats and otherwise be team players. With mounts. The Samurai is an alternate class, changing up a few of the teamwork abilities to be better focused at a chosen weapon (with mounted archery replacing mounted charging as the nudged combat style). Also with a horse.

Arbane

2015-07-12, 03:25 PM

But the fact that you use spells and maneuvers in the exact same way... yeah...

"Quick! Mister wizard warblade! You have to cast initiate your spell maneuver that you prepared readied earlier!"

"Quick! Mister wizard truenamer! You have to cast utter your spell utterance that you... uhm... yeah, let me go an think about this one for a bit."

It just feels like "Spellcasting, but with swords!"

D&D does not model non-spellcasters doing anything cool except in its x uses per period paradigm.

Why is using a pseudo-vancian system as a martial a bad thing? "Oh no, now I actually have a variety of abilities I can't spam over and over within an encounter without a cost, so I now have to balance my tactics around what's available to me (or might be available soon), instead of doing the same thing over and over every round."

{ scrubbed }

Or, yeah, what StreamsOfTheSky said. Fighters have created an unpleasantly low glass ceiling on what non-spellcasters can do in D&D.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 03:37 PM

D&D does not model non-spellcasters doing anything cool except in its x uses per period paradigm.

{ scrubbed }

I dunno, I always thought of being able to sneak up on people and kill them dead in the surprise round, and don't forget to disable all their traps, was quite cool.

I always thought that getting so angry you were invulnerable to pain and capable of feats of strength that would impress a small dragon as being quite cool.

Hells, I always thought that being able to jump off a bridge without taking any damage before proceeding to defeat a small army with your bare hands as being pretty cool.

I wouldn't mind ToB if it actually keyed off what martial classes do: Attack rolls and damage rolls, and sometimes skill checks. Giving them the ability to Vance people in the face doesn't feel martial. Hells, refluff truespeak as some kind of psychological manipulation of yourself and you can make a truenamer feel kinda martial. Why? Well, he feels a bit like a rogue, because he's making lots of skill checks and going up and attacking people. When you're expending your spell slots and, by sheer coincidence, swinging your sword, that takes away some of the feel. When you're less martial than someone who admits to using spell-like abilities, ur doin it rong.

Brova

2015-07-12, 03:56 PM

I wouldn't mind ToB if it actually keyed off what martial classes do: Attack rolls and damage rolls, and sometimes skill checks. Giving them the ability to Vance people in the face doesn't feel martial. Hells, refluff truespeak as some kind of psychological manipulation of yourself and you can make a truenamer feel kinda martial. Why? Well, he feels a bit like a rogue, because he's making lots of skill checks and going up and attacking people. When you're expending your spell slots and, by sheer coincidence, swinging your sword, that takes away some of the feel. When you're less martial than someone who admits to using spell-like abilities, ur doin it rong.

Dude, what is with your hate for Tome of Battle? The effects are different than spells (way more attack rolls), the resource management is different from spells (as mentioned above), and the tactics are different from spells (way more melee). And the classes are actually good. What's the problem?

Necroticplague

2015-07-12, 03:58 PM

I wouldn't mind ToB if it actually keyed off what martial classes do: Attack rolls and damage rolls, and sometimes skill checks. Giving them the ability to Vance people in the face doesn't feel martial.

Huh? Are we reading the same ToB? Because the vast majority of maneuvers are making attack rolls+damage rolls or skill checks. Heck, the most common maneuver format is "Make a normal attack. If it hits, add rider effect X" where X is something like 'do extra damage, blow through resistances' or 'debuff the enemy'. With the crusader also having the 'heal your friends' as an option. Even some of the ridiculously magical stuff (Death Mark) still requires you making a bunch of attack rolls (albiet, attack rolls where there's a small fireball after every hit).

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 04:09 PM

Dude, what is with your hate for Tome of Battle? The effects are different than spells (way more attack rolls), the resource management is different from spells (as mentioned above), and the tactics are different from spells (way more melee). And the classes are actually good. What's the problem?

Well, for starters I'm not a "Dude". But letting that slide...

"When you're less martial than someone who admits to using spell-like abilities, ur doin it rong."

That's my problem with ToB. It's basically a case of "I swing my sword at someone, and then cast a spell on them if I hit." I wouldn't mind affects that, say, scaled with the actual damage you dealt, which is what I did when I actually tried making a martial fix that - while obviously magical - actually felt like your martial prowess was relevant.

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 04:23 PM

Well, for starters I'm not a "Dude". But letting that slide...

"When you're less martial than someone who admits to using spell-like abilities, ur doin it rong."

That's my problem with ToB. It's basically a case of "I swing my sword at someone, and then cast a spell on them if I hit." I wouldn't mind affects that, say, scaled with the actual damage you dealt, which is what I did when I actually tried making a martial fix that - while obviously magical - actually felt like your martial prowess was relevant.

This is confusing to me, first you suggest that you want the abilities to be based off of your innate ability to fight. Which the Warblade does. The vast majority of abilities they have are: make an attack roll, if it is successful you do something a bit more than damage to the target. So they are based off your skill in combat, specifically your attack roll. In addition to what you put into your character to learn about combat, in getting that maneuver.

I just don't see how organizing that based on maneuvers is any worse than making them feats. Hell, if I had the time or motivation I probably could just convert the effects to feats.

As to making the abilities based off of damage. That's a terrible idea. That just makes Two-handed fighters even more dominant over the other fighting types than it already is. Part of why ToB is well regarded is that it opens up fighters to be different things and still largely contribute (though admittedly, two-handers are still king, they're not as king).

atemu1234

2015-07-12, 04:24 PM

Did you just use "lol" in a non ironic way?
I'm sorry for having an opinion?

I think some people missed the point of this thread, to say your opinion without people going 'burn the witch!'.

On the other hand, as a community we love to debate. So bear with, k?

Brova

2015-07-12, 04:40 PM

Well, for starters I'm not a "Dude". But letting that slide...

Figure of speech, sorry.

"When you're less martial than someone who admits to using spell-like abilities, ur doin it rong."

But martial adepts aren't. They fight with swords, in armor. That's the whole thing that being martial means.

That's my problem with ToB. It's basically a case of "I swing my sword at someone, and then cast a spell on them if I hit."

Given that anything in D&D that is high level is represented by spells, I don't think you can design a system that doesn't feel that way.

I wouldn't mind affects that, say, scaled with the actual damage you dealt, which is what I did when I actually tried making a martial fix that - while obviously magical - actually felt like your martial prowess was relevant.

But dealing damage isn't martial prowess. Wizards deal damage with fireball and scorching ray. Clerics deal damage with flamestrike and searing light.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 04:49 PM

But dealing damage isn't martial prowess. Wizards deal damage with fireball and scorching ray. Clerics deal damage with flamestrike and searing light.

And warriors deal damage with their sword. If you're casting spells with an attack roll with your sword, the folks at Paizo call you a "Magus (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus)."

Morcleon

2015-07-12, 04:55 PM

And warriors deal damage with their sword. If you're casting spells with an attack roll with your sword, the folks at Paizo call you a "Magus (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus)."

The largest category of maneuvers aren't similar to spells and are, in fact, dealing damage with swords (and other weapons). Most are "if you land an attack, enemy gets X effect depending on how you hit them". A lot of these are things like more damage, more attacks, ignoring DR, tripping, disarming, status effects, etc. Basically, things that you could reasonably do if you're good enough at fighting. The second largest category is counters, where you either dodge attacks because you're that awesome, or you counterattack at the exact right time.

If you dislike the supernatural aspect, ban Desert Wind and Shadow Hand.

Also, Paizo does not know balance very well. :smalltongue:

Sith_Happens

2015-07-12, 04:55 PM

AmberVael

2015-07-12, 05:00 PM

If you're casting spells with an attack roll with your sword-

I think you need to work more on this point.

Yes, maneuvers have a fairly notable resemblance to the spell system. But why does that automatically make them spells? Can't similar mechanical underpinnings represent more than one thing? For instance, there are feats that grant very magical abilities, and feats that grant mundane abilities. That doesn't make the mundane feats more magical, or the magical feats more mundane. Just because you can get Evasion from Incarnum or psionics (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/evadeBurst.htm) doesn't make Evasion magical.

If you want to argue about content, then I don't understand there either. The vast majority of maneuvers have quite simple mundane explanations- being able to double move and attack is as easy to explain as Spring Attack, for example. There are some less easy to explain maneuvers... but most of them are called out as supernatural.

Now, I can understand disliking the readying mechanic, and I can also understand disliking that Tome of Battle doesn't present a system that stands out a little more distinctly from existing systems if that's what you're trying to express, but I don't think the "they're spellcasters" argument works. You're going to be a bit more nuanced and clear than that.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 05:04 PM

Most are "if you land an attack, enemy gets X effect depending on how you hit them".
Every touch spell ever?

A lot of these are things like more damage, ignoring DR
Shocking Grasp? Versatile Weapon?

tripping
Blade Lash?

disarming
Mm, Blade Snare? Okay, not quite.

status effects, etc.
I'm not listing every status effect spell on the magus list.

Also, Paizo does not know balance very well. :smalltongue:

That's not actually relevant, though...

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 05:05 PM

Hey look, it's StreamOfTheSky's complaint about Fighters in action.

Funny, then, that my martial fix is explicitly magical. But they actually use their swords for more than "I poke you, you take spell effect. Nyah nyah."

Morcleon

2015-07-12, 05:07 PM

Every touch spell ever?

Shocking Grasp? Versatile Weapon?

Blade Lash?

Mm, Blade Snare? Okay, not quite.

I'm not listing every status effect spell on the magus list.

That's not actually relevant, though...

All of these are also effects that you can replicate with mundane methods. ToB just lets you do it without having to dedicate a weapon and several feats to one specific task.

Power Attack, weapons of different types (or just hitting hard enough that you do enough damage through the DR), actual tripping, actual disarming, various feats that let you deal effects on attacks.

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 05:09 PM

Funny, then, that my martial fix is explicitly magical. But they actually use their swords for more than "I poke you, you take spell effect. Nyah nyah."

This is still weird. Combat has always been: I poke you, you take an effect. Normally, that effect is weapon damage + Strength modifier + bonuses granted by feats, and sometimes you have + rider ability.

ToB changed that to weapon damage + Strength modifier + bonus granted by maneuver, and a lot more often you have + rider ability. Most of those rider abilities are explicitly non-magical. In fact I can only think of 1 that's really magical that the Warblade gets.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 05:10 PM

All of these are also effects that you can replicate with mundane methods. ToB just lets you do it without having to dedicate a weapon and several feats to one specific task.

Power Attack, weapons of different types (or just hitting hard enough that you do enough damage through the DR), actual tripping, actual disarming, various feats that let you deal effects on attacks.

See, I don't mind actual tripping and actual disarming, because you're actually rolling off to see who's better at tripping/not getting tripped (well, in PF you have CMD, but that's just a static version of the same thing). In the Tome of Magic: Swords Edition it's just "I spent a spell-I-mean-maneuver slot, so you are tripped. Now, handle it!"

This is still weird. Combat has always been: I poke you, you take an effect.

No, that's touch spells. Combat is "I hit you with a stick, and the amount of damage I deal feeds into that effect." For example, my fix has a life-steal heal which is dependent on the damage you deal and the damage already dealt.

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 05:11 PM

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 05:12 PM

You still have to make the attack roll, indicating your skill with a weapon.

So does the wizard. It's just that weapon's his index finger. Which prepared a very stirring dissertation on the subject.

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 05:14 PM

So does the wizard. It's just that weapon's his index finger. Which prepared a very stirring dissertation on the subject.

So by this logic doesn't that make the wizard closer to the fighter?

AmberVael

2015-07-12, 05:14 PM

See, I don't mind actual tripping and actual disarming, because you're actually rolling off to see who's better at tripping/not getting tripped (well, in PF you have CMD, but that's just a static version of the same thing). In the Tome of Magic: Swords Edition it's just "I spent a spell-I-mean-maneuver slot, so you are tripped. Now, handle it!"
This is actually just flat out wrong. When you use Disarming Strike you still need to make a disarm check. When you use Mighty Throw, you need to make a trip check. When you use dazing strike, your enemy gets a saving throw. There is no "magical sudden effect" like you're describing.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 05:16 PM

So by this logic doesn't that make the wizard closer to the fighter?

No, it just means that using attack rolls doesn't mean you're martial. What means you're martial is the things you would optimise when making a fighter or a barbarian: weapon damage rolls. With your weapon. Which is being used as more as a spell-poking stick.

Brova

2015-07-12, 05:21 PM

No, it just means that using attack rolls doesn't mean you're martial. What means you're martial is the things you would optimise when making a fighter or a barbarian: weapon damage rolls. With your weapon. Which is being used as more as a spell-poking stick.

But if martial classes did different things, you would optimize them in different ways. You aren't actually criticizing Tome of Battle, you're just asserting that it is different from what came before. And given that what came before ranged from "bad" to "depressingly awful", I can't really bring myself to care.

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 05:22 PM

No, it just means that using attack rolls doesn't mean you're martial. What means you're martial is the things you would optimise when making a fighter or a barbarian: weapon damage rolls. With your weapon. Which is being used as more as a spell-poking stick.

That's strange reasoning, as it means that fighters and barbarians don't try to optimize their attack roll (they do). It also implies that wizards are as good at making attack rolls as fighters and barbarians (they are not).

Also, on a whim I went through my copy of ToB for every instance of the word "trip" in a maneuver. Every single one of them said this: If the attack is successful, you can make a Trip attempt. Also (and this one is odd) the Warblade doesn't have access to a single maneuver that lets him trip anything. They're all from Setting Sun.

nyjastul69

2015-07-12, 05:26 PM

When did this thread become a ToB debate? I suggest letting people express their opinions and move on.

Necroticplague

2015-07-12, 05:27 PM

No, it just means that using attack rolls doesn't mean you're martial. What means you're martial is the things you would optimise when making a fighter or a barbarian: weapon damage rolls. With your weapon. Which is being used as more as a spell-poking stick.

Not all martials do that. Two weapon fighters optimise amount of plausible attacks, dungeoncrashers optimize bull rush checks, and yet they are both still martials.

When did this thread become a ToB debate? I suggest letting people express their opinions and move on.
We are. Just as one person is free to express their opinion that ToB is just melee spellcasting, others are free to express their opinion that it is actually fairly similar to a fighter.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 05:33 PM

Not all martials do that. Two weapon fighters optimise amount of plausible attacks, dungeoncrashers optimize bull rush checks, and yet they are both still martials.

Cool. And what martial class only optimises their ability to hit, not to actually deal any damage because their spells do all the work for them?

Magus. That's what.

Shadowscale

2015-07-12, 05:43 PM

Sorry, I didn't mean to start a debate, I have no problem with ToB existing and people liking it, I wish it just wasn't the answer for everything and didn't get me dirty looks when I play a fighter or ranger.

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 05:45 PM

Cool. And what martial class only optimises their ability to hit, not to actually deal any damage because their spells do all the work for them?

Magus. That's what.

Not a very good one though.

Sorry, I didn't mean to start a debate, I have no problem with ToB existing and people liking it, I wish it just wasn't the answer for everything and didn't get me dirty looks when I play a fighter or ranger.

Nah, don't worry. ToB discussions pop up every couple of days. If it wasn't you, it'd be someone else.

Also, never be bothered by people giving you looks for playing what you wanna play. Screw 'em it's a game, go have fun.

What we're arguing about is some of the logic as to why certain individuals don't like ToB seems faulty, not that they have to like it.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 05:51 PM

Not a very good one though.

Hey, playing a magus is fun. Playing a ToB class is fun, too: they're almost perfect gishes. They're just not martials.

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 05:52 PM

Hey, playing a magus is fun. Playing a ToB class is fun, too: they're almost perfect gishes. They're just not martials.

No, I mean a guy whose playing a magus who is only trying to pump up their attack is terrible at optimization. Just terrible, most I know do try to increase their damage as well.

Though on that note, Warblades are the same. I have never seen one not try to optimize their damage, strength, and all the jazz that a fighter does.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 05:54 PM

Warblades are the same.

:smallamused:

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 05:59 PM

:smallamused:

If you continued reading I also said they're the same to fighters. But you're not gonna respond to that part, I take it.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 06:00 PM

If you continued reading I also said they're the same to fighters. But you're not gonna respond to that part, I take it.

Well, the fact that you consider magus, warblade and fighter all to be fundamentally the same may highlight the reason we disagree about whether the warblade feels martial or not.

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 06:04 PM

Well, the fact that you consider magus, warblade and fighter all to be fundamentally the same may highlight the reason we disagree about whether the warblade feels martial or not.

I never said that either. I said that in terms of optimization they all try to optimize the similar or the same things. Ability to hit, damage, strength, and so on. There are definite differences in feel. But you're the one that said that being a martial meant you need to optimize the damage you deal with a weapon. Which all three of them do.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 06:07 PM

I never said that either. I said that in terms of optimization they all try to optimize the similar or the same things. Ability to hit, damage, strength, and so on. There are definite differences in feel. But you're the one that said that being a martial meant you need to optimize the damage you deal with a weapon. Which all three of them do.

But Magus and Warblade share that their abilities aren't usually keyed off weapon damage. They're basically touch attacks that you happen to make with a sword, not an index finger - shocking grasp would not look at all out of place as a maneuver in one of the more magical disciplines. They're just using their weapons as spell-poking sticks and by the way they deal damage.

ryu

2015-07-12, 06:09 PM

Well, the fact that you consider magus, warblade and fighter all to be fundamentally the same may highlight the reason we disagree about whether the warblade feels martial or not.

It is disingenuous to remove a statement from its context for the purpose of trying to make it apply to criteria you know full well the original speaker didn't mean. I'd like to think we can have a more honest debate than that.

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 06:14 PM

But Magus and Warblade share that their abilities aren't usually keyed off weapon damage. They're basically touch attacks that you happen to make with a sword, not an index finger - shocking grasp would not look at all out of place as a maneuver in one of the more magical disciplines. They're just using their weapons as spell-poking sticks and by the way they deal damage.

And this is just describing grappling. Based off a touch attack, adds a rider effect to the target.

And yes, the more magical disciplines could definitely have rider effects that are magical. They're magical disciplines after all.

I just don't see that much of a problem with the design: Make an attack, if the attack is successful you can make a trip attempt. Is inherently magical. Hell, we have the opposite in the form of a feat. Make a trip attempt, if it's successful, make an attack. The entire situation is immediately possible to do with a weapon, hell, attack then trip is actually a move in a Talhoffer fechtbuch. It's as realistic as you can get.

And hell, I can think of many fighter feats that aren't keyed off damage. Admittedly, more for Pathfinder as I made that switch awhile ago.

Morcleon

2015-07-12, 06:17 PM

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 06:18 PM

And yes, the more magical disciplines could definitely have rider effects that are magical. They're magical disciplines after all.

That's not my point. I mean that you could easily refluff the vast majority of the Magus as a ToB class without having to change much. Most of its spells would fit right in.

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 06:22 PM

That's not my point. I mean that you could easily refluff the vast majority of the Magus as a ToB class without having to change much. Most of its spells would fit right in.

And I don't see that as a problem, as I can do the same with every single fighter feat in existence, and I can turn every ToB into a feat.

Saying you don't like the feel of a Warblade is fine. Hell, there are parts about it that I dislike. But it is a martial class, I don't really see how it can be effectively argued that it is not. None of your reasons why it's maneuvers aren't martial have really stood up to scrutiny.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 06:26 PM

And I don't see that as a problem, as I can do the same with every single fighter feat in existence, and I can turn every ToB into a feat.

You can, but it would just look really weird. The Magus would fit pretty snugly into the ToB. And it's not, by any stretch, a martial class.

Extra Anchovies

2015-07-12, 06:36 PM

Nifft

2015-07-12, 06:41 PM

Let's all stop and think for a moment. Is anything we say in favor of ToB going to convince Jormengand that ToB is good? No, he doesn't like the system. So there isn't really much point to this. You make a good point.

Plus, we're supposed to be ranting about the classes we dislike, not telling other people that they shouldn't dislike certain classes. This, though, is incorrect.

Nobody is telling Jormumbleblah that it can or can't dislike ToB stuff.

People are objecting to the assertion that ToB classes are not martial.

Anyone who dislikes ToB is free to do so -- but you can't call it spellcasting, because it's not.

Arbane

2015-07-12, 07:02 PM

No, that's touch spells. Combat is "I hit you with a stick, and the amount of damage I deal feeds into that effect." For example, my fix has a life-steal heal which is dependent on the damage you deal and the damage already dealt.

{ scrubbed }

Edit to add:

That's not my point. I mean that you could easily refluff the vast majority of the Magus as a ToB class without having to change much. Most of its spells would fit right in.

Color Spray, Floating Disk, and Mount are going to be some mighty weird-looking kung-fu.

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 07:04 PM

{ scrubbed }

Well, yes, it does. That's why I'm saying that it's about using your sword as more than just a spell-prod. It's the fact that actually using the weapon for what a weapon is used for (dealing damage) makes it seem to be more about the weapon and less about the spell-prod.

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 07:27 PM

{ scrubbed }

That is what he's saying. Not that I agree with it, as it makes Cornugon Smash, and all the Critical X feats magic. But that's his view and I don't know how to argue against that.

Necroticplague

2015-07-12, 07:34 PM

That is what he's saying. Not that I agree with it, as it makes Cornugon Smash, and all the Critical X feats magic. But that's his view and I don't know how to argue against that.

Agreed. It's at least the core point of difference, now that a bunch of chafe is out of the way. So it all boils down to what you think of a martial as, and what you think weapons are for. Being based pretty much entirely on opinion or personal definitions (lacking any formalized ones), the argument is now in an intractable state. Being a guy who's first (non-video game) intro to DnD was 4e monk, I of course hitting as more important than damage, and weapons mere tools, so ToB falls well within the realm of martials to me. So do Soul Eaters who dual-wield Necrotic Focus weapons, and kills via just stacking up negative levels (how much damage is done each hit is irrelevant, as long as it hits).

Jormengand

2015-07-12, 07:35 PM

That is what he's saying. Not that I agree with it, as it makes Cornugon Smash, and all the Critical X feats magic. But that's his view and I don't know how to argue against that.

I gotta sleep, so consider the following:

"Jon the Magus pokes the goblin with his sword. Though the sword barely scratches the goblin, a mighty blast of lightning erupts from the blade and slays it."
"Tom the Warblade pokes the goblin with his sword. Though the sword barely scratches the goblin, a mighty blast of lightning erupts from the blade and slays it."
"Dave the Disciple Apparent rushes up to the goblin, and swings his sword right through it, a blast of lightning trailing in the wake of the blade and slaying it."

To me, those are two separate images - one is the touch spell but with swords image, the other is the sword but with lightning image. To me it just doesn't seem right that the amount of damage you do with your weapon has no bearing on the effectiveness of your ability - you're just using it as a conduit for your spell, much like a wizard's index finger, rather than actually using it as a weapon which also has cool lightning stuff on it.

You should come for the sword-wielding and stay for the cool lightning stuff - the weapon-using itself should be the primary feature, and the cool lightning should be what turns them from a fighter into a Disciple Apparent, not the swords being an addition to the wizard to make them a Warblade (Swords being an addition to a wizard to make it a magus is fine, because the design goal of a magus is spellcaster with swords, not sword-user with magic). I know you don't agree, but that's just the way my mind responds to those two different mechanics.

Arbane

2015-07-12, 07:41 PM

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you haven't actually used Tome of Battle much. Because from my own admittedly limited experience, most of its maneuvers aren't touch-AC effects.

Or is it the fact that some maneuvers add +Xd6 damage what's offending your sensibilities? (Because that OBVIOUSLY doesn't count as 'real' weapon damage.)

Anyway, moving on. Another reason Fighters Suck is that when D&D 3 was in the design phases, the devs apparently figured that since Fighters can Fight, they wouldn't NEED any skills. I humbly submit this was a bad decision.

Shadowscale

2015-07-12, 07:58 PM

Dienekes

2015-07-12, 08:03 PM

Interesting, but here's a rebuttal.

The barbarian attacks with a charging leap power attack. It deals weapon + strength + a whole ton of damage solely because of leaping charging and power attacking. It kills a goblin in one blow.

The warblade steps into a punishing stance and swings down with a finishing move. It deals weapon + strength + a whole ton of damage solely because of the finishing move maneuver and punishing stance. It kills a goblin in one blow.

I don't know where this lightning comes from, nor where the idea that your damage roll doesn't matter. It matters about as much as it did before, though now instead of being vastly outpaced by power attack combos as you level, it's vastly outpaced by specific maneuvers. I mean I could fluff that the damage from power attack was magical lightning if I wanted (it'd have to do electric damage though), just like I could fluff the damage from a maneuver to be the same (again, it'd have to be changed to electric damage though).

Also, not sure where the whole touch attack thing is coming from. There is 1 maneuver of the Warblade's that's a touch attack.

But this is what I want out of melee combat. I want to feel like a swordsman, just one vastly better than I am. I want to parry, I want to beat, I want to lunge, I want to switch guards, I want to disarm them and attack in one fluid move, I want to ring their helmets so they're dazed, I want to riposte, or ward. The Warblade lets me do most of that, and that, to me, feels like an actual swordsman. Everything else might as well be waving around sticks and doing accounting for all like combat it actually feels.

Arbane

2015-07-12, 08:36 PM

I for one liked the pathfinder fighter, all I feel it's missing is better fighter only feets, also an issue, classes getting to count as full or partial fighter levels for the awesome fears, them being exclusive makes the fighter better.

The problem I'm talking about is that Fighters kinda suck even at the things you'd EXPECT a Big Stupid Fighter to be good at, never mind the things an actual military leader should be good at. With 2 skill points per level, good luck keeping halfway decent values in Jump, Climb, Swim, and Balance, let alone Spot, Listen, Intimidate, Survival, and Use Rope.

Or, as this guy says in another thread:

"As a pirate, I'd like to have Intimidate, Knowledge (Geography), Profession (Sailor), Use Rope, Bluff, Gambling, Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (Nature), and Swim. And Appraise. I have enough for... four of those."
"What're you going to cut?"
"I guess I'll just drop Knowledge (Nature), (Geography), and (Use Rope) and just be a sailor who can't tie knots and knows nothing about the ocean."

And I'd like to see someone come up with a level 17+ fighter-only feat that's as good as Time Stop or Shapechange, let alone Wish.

Oko and Qailee

2015-07-12, 09:26 PM

I have two.

Favored Soul, because honestly, picking it feels so painful compared to cleric. I get that they're good, but I hate not having Domains and Turning as a divine caster since some of the best/coolest feats use turning. Like Sorcerers only lose feats and spell flexibility, which isn't a problem if I just want to be a "specialize in X" style sorcerer, but Favored Souls losing domains and turnings just feels depressing.

Then Barbarian. Super boring class IMO, everyone just builds raging chargers and nothing else with them. They're so boring.

Morcleon

2015-07-12, 10:17 PM

Favored Soul, because honestly, picking it feels so painful compared to cleric. I get that they're good, but I hate not having Domains and Turning as a divine caster since some of the best/coolest feats use turning. Like Sorcerers only lose feats and spell flexibility, which isn't a problem if I just want to be a "specialize in X" style sorcerer, but Favored Souls losing domains and turnings just feels depressing.

I think Spontaneous Divine Casters (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm) is something you'd like. :smallsmile:

Th3N3xtGuy

2015-07-12, 11:26 PM

Paladin, Monk and any other class that requires Lawful something to use your powers. You know what, alignment required classes in general hate them and there inflexibility.

PrCs that require alignment to get in them is fine but ones where you lose your powers for etc. Bards are the exception.

chaos_redefined

2015-07-13, 01:26 AM

I've yet to hear an argument for why a concert pianist can't be lawful. Or, why a monk has to be lawful while a wizard doesn't have to be.

Alignmnent restrictions suck across the board.

In any case... Mundane melee excluding ToB/PoW. It's just boring to play. Gimme some spells or some maneuvers or something to shake it up.

Arbane

2015-07-13, 01:33 AM

Paladin, Monk and any other class that requires Lawful something to use your powers. You know what, alignment required classes in general hate them and there inflexibility.

Paladin especially. No class should have "Cause three-hour debate about Morality" as an at-will power.

Nifft

2015-07-13, 03:24 AM

Alignmnent restrictions suck across the board.

Some people just throw away Alignment altogether.

Paladin especially. No class should have "Cause three-hour debate about Morality" as an at-will power.
Once -- but only once -- I saw a Paladin settle a morality debate quickly and without rancor.

The debate topic was, "Is making a deal with a Devil an inherently Evil act?"

The response was, "Is making a deal with a Paladin an inherently Good act?"

nyjastul69

2015-07-13, 03:47 AM

Pie is better than cake. My pie has no.defense.

Svata

2015-07-13, 09:39 AM

Soulborn. Why? It was a chance to do the paladin over, adapted to this cool new system that worked great for the other two classes it made, and they just dropped the ball. Big time.

Sith_Happens

2015-07-13, 10:51 AM

Every touch spell ever?

Shocking Grasp? Versatile Weapon?

Blade Lash?

Mm, Blade Snare? Okay, not quite.

I'm not listing every status effect spell on the magus list.

By this logic everything is just like being a spellcaster. You know, because there's a spell for everything.

Oko and Qailee

2015-07-13, 11:40 AM

I think Spontaneous Divine Casters (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm) is something you'd like. :smallsmile:

That's exactly something I like! How I never noticed that is amazing.

Morcleon

2015-07-13, 11:47 AM

That's exactly something I like! How I never noticed that is amazing.

It's a single line near the bottom of the page in a variant rules section. It took me quite some time to find too. :smalltongue:

Threadnaught

2015-07-13, 04:22 PM

Warblades: Way to turn martials into casters and make everyone feel bad for wanting to play any other martial class they may be interested in. As that'd just be non-optimal.

Damn, I missed a big argument earlier, but still want to weigh in.. Crusaders and Swordsages. Thank you.

Also I like in addition to Tome of Battle Classes, Barbarian. Barbarian has something interesting outside of ACFs, getting into ACFs means you can breed a more interesting Barbarian.

It just feels like "Spellcasting, but with swords!"

You know what else feels like a Caster? Fighter, I cast Sword!
Also Monk, I cast Fist!
And Commoner, I cast Chicken!

This is in response to the entire "discussion" regarding Initiators Ms. (http://www.nuzlocke.com/pokemonhardmode.php?p=23) Hissy, not just your initial comment.

I don't like ToB either, that ******* Druid is determined to ruin all my enjoyment of owning that book. Him and his fifteen Crusaders vs my single substitute deck.
Also his ******* Druids, I hate his Druids so much. They're always useful, that's stupid, anything that is always useful should be nerfed into uselessness... Wow, that's ranty. I wish my players didn't know how to Druid so well, or try it so often. Too much awesome is still bad guys.

Jormengand

2015-07-13, 04:31 PM

You know what else feels like a Caster? Fighter, I cast Sword!
Also Monk, I cast Fist!
And Commoner, I cast Chicken!

And which of them uses up a spell slot to do it?

Brova

2015-07-13, 04:33 PM

And which of them uses up a spell slot to do it?

None of them, just as the Warblade doesn't.

Gracht Grabmaw

2015-07-13, 04:39 PM

It has to be the bard, absolutely no question about it.
I get that it's a very useful and versatile and potentially extremely powerful class, but I just never saw the appeal.

Let's say you're watching a film or reading a novel about a heroic fantasy adventure and you get to a big dramatic action sequence. The warriors draw their blades, the priest or wizard starts chanting their words of power, the archer readies a bow and takes aim... and then that one guy busts out a lute or a lyre or whatever and starts strumming along to encourage all his friends.

What kind of diseased and damaged mind would watch or read this tale and not only take the bard seriously after that, but in total sincerity point at that character and go "Wow, I wanna be just like that guy!"? I mean really.

Jormengand

2015-07-13, 04:40 PM

None of them, just as the Warblade doesn't.

Yes, he does. It's just not called that.

Threadnaught

2015-07-13, 04:58 PM

And which of them uses up a spell slot to do it?

They're not called Spell Slots, but they do prepare their Weapon/Flaw Slot ahead of time in order to "Cast" the "Spell".

It's insane troll logic, but that's effectively half of the argument against your referring to "Blade Magic" as "Magic". I just went nuclear and defeated any point to going further. You don't like ToB? Barbarian is simpler and has actual Class Features (unlike Fighter, whinge moan) anyway. Unless you don't like Barbarian either... In which case, I'll snort derisively and throw my arms up in exasperation. I just hope you didn't hide a dirty sock in my home.

Jormengand

2015-07-13, 05:48 PM

prepare their Weapon/Flaw Slot

That's not even remotely the same. Preparing a spell slot and calling it a maneuver is not the same as picking up a bit of metal that you found lying on the ground and using it to do someone an injury.

Masakan

2015-07-13, 06:13 PM

Sagetim

2015-07-13, 06:15 PM

Based on that... archers are spellcasters.
"Quick! Mister wizard ranger! You have to cast shoot your spell arrow that you prepared stored in your quiver earlier!"

ahem.
"Quick Master of Slaying, kill them with your sticks of death!" "That's not how you ask." "....sigh...Master Of Slaying, What is Truth?" "*Silently draws an arrow and shoots it at the thing.*"

And on this whole martial maneuvers thing, I haven't had the chance to run a Tome of Battle character before and run one (I'm too busy running a truenamer and he's too busy not dying in the first game I've had a chance to run a ToB character in). But in a pathfinder game I got the opportunity to play a path of war character.

My warder is not a wizard. He doesn't chant, he doesn't rhyme, and his powers would not be confused with a wizard or a gish, ever. In point of fact, he abuses his strength score a lot more than anything else, having beaten up and bullied a suspected old man terorrist, including dragging him into a dungeon and punching him whenver he tried to cast a spell. Does this mean he's some kind of monk? No, he was just punching the guy in the face with massive strength and a gauntleted fist. When it became apparent that the statues had been trapped in the castle, he 'requisitioned' an adamant sword from the armory and cut the statues to pieces. Sure, his maneuvers let him do it faster, but it was all physical damage all the time. And it ignored the hardness because he was using an adamant sword to do it.

When it finally came to the point that the party was showing down against a glut of enemies streaming out of a mine, we used a crossbow sniper, some dynamite, and the alchemist umd'd a fireball wand to collapse the tunnel with one blast that also took out most of hte forces who were working their way to the outside. Of the remaining stragglers, my Warder took out a demon in two hits. Now, the fact that he has a stance that lets him treat bows, hammers, spears and (because of a feat) heavy blades as holy weapons sure helped. It helped because he ignored it's DR. But the deciding factor in those two hits was that the first was a bow crit with a mighty bow that let him use all his +5 strength, and the extra 2d6 of holy damage was a little icing on the cake. The soldiers on his side would sooner confuse him for an agent of heaven sent down to violently save them than they would confuse him for any kind of mage.

It also helps that he tromps around in full plate all the time. And acts like a fighter in combat, because that's what he is. He's a tank that can sometimes pump out some extra swings or extra damage that ignores DR, and he has the benefit of protection from evil and holy weapons to help him do that (through the Silver Crane Stance). He's building a reputation for himself as a violently effective hero in his land. But he can't, for example, throw fireballs. He has no aoe options. If we hadn't had the alchemist to shoot the fireball wand, we would have had a ****load of gnolls to deal with. As it was, they were nicely packed as they tried to squeeze and rush through the entrance of that mine.

Anyway, to get back on topic: I want to say Order of the Bow Initiate, but I can't actually bring myself to dislike the class. It's not built right, that's for sure, but it's concept is interesting. If it had 4+int mod skills and skills appropriate to the concept (like survival, hide, and move silently) the class could make for a very interesting fighter option to pair with a rogue for stealthy teamwork and synergy. Also having listen on the skill list would be nice.

Flickerdart

2015-07-13, 06:17 PM

And warriors deal damage with their sword.
What would you call a fellow who makes touch attacks against people to render them prone, unconscious, grappled, stunned, nauseated, etc - without dealing any damage? Is such a character a spellcaster even if he can accomplish this with naught but his fists?

Sagetim

2015-07-13, 06:22 PM

What would you call a fellow who makes touch attacks against people to render them prone, unconscious, grappled, stunned, nauseated, etc - without dealing any damage? Is such a character a spellcaster even if he can accomplish this with naught but his fists?

I call them a witch and burn them at the stake for their bald headed, celibate witchery. Likely over the loud protests of his followers as they try to explain some kind of infernal energy that burns within them called key. And don't forget to bring the priests to douse them with sanctified oils right before we start the burning. They go up better with a good oil soaking.

But no, I know you mean monks.

Jormengand

2015-07-13, 06:24 PM

Huh Funny, I guess that means you hate Duskblades too right?

No, I think duskblades and magi (maguses?) are perfectly fine. They cease to be fine if they start pretending they're swordblades or warsages or whatever.

What would you call a fellow who makes touch attacks against people to render them prone, unconscious, grappled, stunned, nauseated, etc - without dealing any damage? Is such a character a spellcaster even if he can accomplish this with naught but his fists?
Prone is a trip, unconscious without dealing damage seems odd, but I'd let it slide, grappled is a grapple, stunned again seems odd, nauseated... I guess you're choking them? None of the conditions in and of themselves are impossible, but some seem slightly weird as a touch attack unless you can think of a good reason for them. Why?