DM Help Tier 3 + 4 Synergy? (Or additional tiers) [Archive]

Red Fel

2016-02-10, 01:19 PM

Now before we begin, I know that the tier system can be subjective and not everyone agrees, but I also know that some DMs use the tier system to keep the game-play fun, balanced, etc. This is a question for those who use the tier system.

For the actual question, I am a beginner DM and I have been doing research for a while now. Part of that was digging through the tier system, and how other DMs used it. Now I am not quite sure but I generally got a feeling that DMs who did ban tiers banned tiers 1 and 2 for obvious reasons and focus on tiers 3 and 4. My question is how well do those tiers synergize, work with balancing, etc. (if you want to talk about the lower tiers you are more than welcome to as well).

And I know much of this question is dependent on the party itself. I am just asking for your personal experience with it, no matter if it was good, bad, or really stupid.

Well, the first thing to appreciate is what the Tiers mean - that is, what the numbers reflect.

A Tier 1 class, with preparation, can perform any role, sometimes several at once, frequently better than the classes designed for that role. An example is the Wizard, who, with time to prepare spells, can do whatever he wants at any time. A Tier 2 class can perform any role, although it lacks the Tier 1's flexibility to perform every role. An example is the Sorcerer who, like the Wizard, can assemble a list of spells for whatever scenario, but unlike the Wizard lacks the freedom to switch them out easily.

Then you get to the classes about which we're talking. A Tier 3 class can perform one job quite well, or several jobs adequately. A Tier 4 class can perform its job reasonably well. (Tier 5s can't even perform their own job well; we don't need to get into that.) As such, Tiers 3 and 4 make for a reasonable game-balance point. Classes within those two tiers are reasonably competent, and can fall into roles easily enough without overshadowing one another. As a result, everyone has the chance to contribute, no single character dominates every challenge, and you - as DM - don't generally have to worry about "I win" buttons that can trivialize encounters.

In terms of game balance, and giving everyone a level playing field, then, a Tier 3-4 game is great. But keep in mind two things.

First, the Tiers are a guideline based upon the potential of a single class. They don't generally take multiclassing or PrCs into account. They also don't take player system mastery into account. A highly-optimized Monk can dominate a poorly-built Wizard with surprisingly little effort. A Fighter/Wizard multiclass is going to be substantially more versatile than a regular Fighter, due to the introduction of Wizard DNA. (Frankly, an Anything/Wizard is more versatile than the original class on its own.) So even though you've removed the variable that is game-breaking potential, there is still some wiggle room that can disrupt the precious balance you seek to maintain.

Second, the game's design. Ostensibly, the game is designed for a four-character party of Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric. Though you can easily fill these roles as you like - or even make it a four-Wizard party and laugh at everything - the game does assume the availability of spellcasters. And not just spellcasters, primary casters - as in, characters with spellcasting as their primary class feature, frequently the sort that gain access to 9th-level spells. (Not to be confused with partial casters, who gain spellcasting plus other class features, and generally spells no higher than 4th or 6th level.) As a general rule, primary casters tend to be in Tiers 1 and 2. So banning those tiers frequently eliminates most of your primary spellcasters, which means that to run a game, you have to challenge one of the underlying assumptions of D&D - that there is a primary caster in the party. At low levels, this isn't a problem. At higher levels, though, where you may need spells like Greater Teleport, Mass Cure Serious Wounds, or Dimensional Lock, that absence will be felt. It means planning a campaign where your PCs shouldn't expect to need that kind of heavy firepower.

Overall, is banning Tiers 1 and 2 a bad idea? Certainly not. It has some drawbacks, but it has some benefits, too. The thing to remember is that it isn't a cure-all. It makes it easier to keep the party balanced, but it doesn't prevent all of the imbalance in the system. Nor does it prevent players with strong system mastery from dominating the game - good manners, not house rules, solve that.

A_S

2016-02-10, 05:34 PM

ITT: Red Fel makes high quality posts.

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The only thing that I'd add is that I find there's a big "balance gap" between tiers 3 and 2. Tiers 3-6 are pretty much just gradations on a continuous scale. Sure, a CW Samurai is going to feel pretty terrible compared to a (similarly built and played) Warblade, but that's a 3-tier difference. A CW Samurai and a Fighter can work fine in the same party, as can a Fighter and a Barbarian, or a Barbarian and a Warblade. But a Warblade and a Sorcerer start having balance issues (unless the Sorcerer is being very good about playing below their potential so as to not rock the boat).

Then above the gap, a Sorcerer and a Wizard have no trouble playing in the same game (as long as everyone involved is okay with it being a game that involves a lot of high-procedure cheese-grinding that rewards extensive splatbook-diving).

Since you're mostly asking about tiers 3 and below, this is unlikely to be a problem for your game. Really, if you're banning (or heavily limiting via houserules or whatever) tiers 1-2, you probably can just safely ignore tiers entirely and judge each character on its own merits. Something like: Does this character have high enough numbers to do its thing well (i.e., not falling into the "Flurry of Misses" trap)?
Can this character do anything useful when its main schtick is not appropriate?
Does this player have enough system mastery and experience that I trust them to make reasonable tactical decisions?
Unless you have one PC for whom the answers are all "yes" and another for whom they're all "no," balance issues below tier 2 are likely to not be a huge deal. If they do come up, they can often be resolved with small adjustments like giving a weak player some advice on combat tactics, pointing out a dip that would help them out a lot, or letting them retrain a crappy feat into a good one. As opposed to tier 1-2 balance issues, which often come down to, "Welp, guess you shoulda thought of that before you decided not to play a primary caster."

JNAProductions

2016-02-10, 05:39 PM

Honestly? Work with your players, make sure everyone will have fun and no one will overshadow anyone else, and it should be fine, Tiers or no. Obviously keep people away from the truly horrible, like Samurais, but if someone wants to play a Wizard alongside a Fighter? Let them. Just make sure they're either 1) low-op enough that they're comparable to the Fighter or 2) optimized to help the party, so instead of replacing the Fighter, they make the Fighter better.

Chronikoce

2016-02-10, 05:39 PM

This may be a bit tangential but I'll try to keep it concise.

If you are playing in 3.5 then the prospect of banning classes, features, and feats is really a losing battle over. The system is so versatile and has so many options that I've found banning to be ineffective.

Instead for my most recent game (which has now been going on for about 2 years) I started with a very simple rule.
My only rule is: don't be a jerk.

I explained to my players that the game needs to be fun for everyone (including myself) and as such I asked them to converse with each other and try to make class/race decisions that put them on similar footing.

This has worked very well. If you have a group of mature and reasonable players I would suggest that instead of banning stuff outright you instead explain to them that since you are new to being a DM you would really appreciate it if they made lower tier characters. You could even let them know that if you become more confident in your ability that you would be able to perhaps allow multiclassing into stuff that you are unsure you are ready to deal with at this time.

Troacctid

2016-02-10, 06:03 PM

The only thing that I'd add is that I find there's a big "balance gap" between tiers 3 and 2.

[...]

Then above the gap, a Sorcerer and a Wizard have no trouble playing in the same game (as long as everyone involved is okay with it being a game that involves a lot of high-procedure cheese-grinding that rewards extensive splatbook-diving).

I've found basically the opposite. In my experience, the gap between T1 and T2 is much more noticeable than the gap between T2 and T3. Sorcerers and Favored Souls can easily coexist with Beguilers and Bards, and often function at the T3 level in practice, but Wizards and Clerics and Druids are just blatantly better than T2 classes to the point where there's almost no reason to play a T2 class if a T1 class is available.

A_S

2016-02-10, 06:05 PM

My only rule is: don't be a jerk.

I explained to my players that the game needs to be fun for everyone (including myself) and as such I asked them to converse with each other and try to make class/race decisions that put them on similar footing.
I think this approach works well with groups that are mature and non-competitive, and who also have quite high system mastery. If system mastery isn't super high, though, I think it's unfortunately very easy to introduce imbalance issues even without meaning to. The classic example is the party Wizard hitting level 7, taking Polymorph because shape-changing magic is super cool (not because he knows it's a particularly strong spell), and suddenly being better than everyone else at everything.

You can always target-ban after the fact ("hey, man, I know you weren't trying to be a **** but ever since you figured out the thing with the Cryohydra, everybody else feels like a sidekick, could I maybe get you to swap that our for a different spell?"), and if your group is pretty chill, it's not usually too bad, but nobody really likes being forced to go back on the choices they made with their character, especially if it's because their choices were too good.

*edit*
I've found basically the opposite. In my experience, the gap between T1 and T2 is much more noticeable than the gap between T2 and T3. Sorcerers and Favored Souls can easily coexist with Beguilers and Bards, and often function at the T3 level in practice, but Wizards and Clerics and Druids are just blatantly better than T2 classes to the point where there's almost no reason to play a T2 class if a T1 class is available.
Hm. I certainly have seen T2's coexist comfortably with T3's, but in my games it's always because they avoided taking their notoriously broken spells (usually intentionally, for balance reasons, although sometimes due to lack of system mastery). When they did take their high-power options, they generally outclassed their T3 buddies except in situations that specifically catered to the specialties of the T3's.

Maybe part of this is because I play with people who love UMD and consumables? My experience is that every time we hit a situation where we could conceivably be like, "this situation requires us to know Greater Teleport, but I'm a Sorcerer and I didn't take that spell last level! Damnation!", the Sorcerer just pulls out a Scroll of Greater Teleport and we're fine.

I will say that I wasn't thinking of Favored Soul when I wrote that, and the one time I saw somebody play one of those, it did play more like a T3 character. I was mostly thinking of Sorcerers and Psions, who I generally see play nice with Wizards and Clerics.

Troacctid

2016-02-10, 06:53 PM

Maybe part of this is because I play with people who love UMD and consumables? My experience is that every time we hit a situation where we could conceivably be like, "this situation requires us to know Greater Teleport, but I'm a Sorcerer and I didn't take that spell last level! Damnation!", the Sorcerer just pulls out a Scroll of Greater Teleport and we're fine.

T3s do exactly the same thing, so this doesn't really contradict my point.

A_S

2016-02-10, 07:38 PM

T3s do exactly the same thing, so this doesn't really contradict my point.
A lot of them, yeah. Having access to whatever spell list it is helps (no UMD checks required), but certainly plenty of T3's use a lot of scrolls/wands.

How do the T1's outclass the T2's in your games? Just the most basic rearranging-spells-for-whatever-we're-fighting-today kind of stuff? I get that there's a lot of sorta larger scale campaign-shaping stuff that relies on obscure spell access (needing to Plane Shift, or Teleport, or having access to a Wish or a Gate or whatever), but that's the kind of thing that I usually see get handled by consumables, because you generally don't need to do that stuff all the time.

Troacctid

2016-02-10, 08:34 PM

Chronikoce

2016-02-10, 10:59 PM

I think this approach works well with groups that are mature and non-competitive, and who also have quite high system mastery. If system mastery isn't super high, though, I think it's unfortunately very easy to introduce imbalance issues even without meaning to. The classic example is the party Wizard hitting level 7, taking Polymorph because shape-changing magic is super cool (not because he knows it's a particularly strong spell), and suddenly being better than everyone else at everything.

This is true. For this to really shine you need at least one person with good system Mastery. In my situation I am medium to high mastery, one of my players is medium, and two others are low. We try to help each other out and thankfully everyone is mature and on-board with the whole "let's give this a go, but if it turns out to be terribly unbalancing we will try and adjust it with a houserule in the future" idea.

Red Fel

2016-02-11, 09:43 AM

How do the T1's outclass the T2's in your games? Just the most basic rearranging-spells-for-whatever-we're-fighting-today kind of stuff? I get that there's a lot of sorta larger scale campaign-shaping stuff that relies on obscure spell access (needing to Plane Shift, or Teleport, or having access to a Wish or a Gate or whatever), but that's the kind of thing that I usually see get handled by consumables, because you generally don't need to do that stuff all the time.

Look at it like this. The difference between T2 and T3-on is a difference of type - a T2 can do pretty much any task, while a T3-on can do its own job reasonably well. They're two virtually completely different aptitudes. The difference between T1 and T2 is scale - both can do any task, but the T1 can do so more efficiently, and with more flexibility. Same aptitude, but to a greater degree. As such, the difference between T2 and T3-on, at a moderate or higher optimization level, is far more noticeable than the difference between T1 and T2, unless the game demands rapidly shifting levels of preparation and versatility.

Because you're right. The Wizard or Cleric may be able to do everything more easily than the Sorcerer, but they don't need to do everything all the time. It really only comes up in incredibly high-op high-challenge games. But the ability to be hyper-competent at a given task does come up in pretty much any game, and as a result, the T1-T2 will almost certainly have the opportunity to outshine the T3-on. Whether the player chooses to seize that opportunity is another matter.

Remember that the Tier system doesn't necessarily have an impact on a given game. If the players are low-to-mid-op, or if the game doesn't call for extreme challenge or versatility, the difference between Wizard and Sorcerer, or even Sorcerer and Bard, may not present itself. You can have a Sorcerer who is a glorified blaster, and a Barbarian who matches his damage output reasonably well. In such a game, you won't see much difference between T2 and T3-T4. The Tier system merely measures the potential versatility of the class in a vacuum, not as applied to a given set of players and a given campaign.

Elder_Basilisk

2016-02-11, 12:06 PM

One other thing to consider is that the tier system (which I don't actually think is an accurate reflection of the game but this is not the place to argue that) is a measure of flexibility not necessarily in-role balance. The contention is that a tier 1 wizard is tier 1 because he can supposedly out-fighter the fighter, out-heal the cleric, and out-scout/trapfind/trapspring the rogue (though not necessarily all at the same time).

In considering the restriction of so-called tier-1 classes, there are several things you need to take into account which are not covered by the tier system:
1. What level you are playing at. Nearly all of the tier discussion (which could reasonably be termed "wizards rool/fighters drool posts") assumes high level play. If not 20th level play, at least 15+. If you anticipate your game going from level 1 to level 12, your experience will not bear any resemblance to the game described by the tier system until the very end and maybe not even then. A 7th level wizard can be game-changingly effective in a couple battles per day, but he'll have trouble outscouting the rogue (unless that's all he wants to do or outfighting the fighter over the course of any adventuring day that lasts longer than 5 minutes.

2. What roles are required. As A_S alluded to, the game does assume certain capabilities as you level up. For example, the Red Hand of Doom campaign assumes that by the time they reach the endgame, players will have access to magical flight (to reach the final encounter) and effective dispel magic ability (to deal with the final encounter). Some adventures will assume that the party has access to the heal spell. Some will assume access to plane shift or teleportation.
Now, in most situations, a sorcerer (T2) can fill the required roles of a wizard and a favored soul can fill the required roles of a cleric. But if you count on T3 and T4 classes to fill those roles, you may well find that, for example, having a bard or (in pathfinder) an inquisitor/warpriest is not enough to fill the role of a wizard or cleric.
It's not just important to ensure that T1 classes don't fill other peoples' roles; it's important to ensure that the roles normally filled by T1 classes don't go unfilled or at least that the party can work around them if they are not.

3. The type of game and optimization level/style you are running. Red Fel alluded to mid-low optimization games not experiencing the dichotomies that the tier system predicts. Similarly, you even in a higher optimization game, you may not experience the dichotomy if you are running more of a traditional adventure. I expect that tier discrepancies show up to the greatest extent in more sandboxy campaigns. If you are looking at a trapped bridge in a dungeon with a demon standing on the other end and the party says, "lets have the wizard dimension door us all across so we can kill the demon," the wizard's flexibility is not going to make nearly as much difference as a game where the wizard is using wall of iron+fabricate to arm an army and finance the construction of his stronghold and has months to spend on scrying and other divinations about the challenges he will need to face in order to accomplish his self-chosen goals while the fighter is toiling away using profession to try to make a stronghold for himself and pay spies to get intelligence. The more independent the characters' actions and goals and the more that the players choose their own adventures/goals rather than working toward a shared and independently defined goal (as in a traditional published adventure), the more likely you are to see the discrepancies that the tier system predicts.

A_S

2016-02-11, 12:48 PM

Mostly by doing the exact same thing more efficiently, much in the same way that Fighters are better versions of Warriors and Psions are better versions of Wilders. Nobody ever wants to play a Favored Soul when Cleric is sitting right there being the obviously superior choice.
I'll admit I don't know a lot of people who want to play Favored Soul (what is it about that class?), but I do know plenty of people who prefer to play Sorcerer, even when Wizard is available or even being played in the same game. I am one of them!

I prefer Sorcerer because (A) it helps me create a specific, identifiable skillset for my character via spell selection, whereas I find all Wizards kind of feel like the same character, and (B) it reduces the negative impact of tyranny of choice, because I only have to do my splatbook-diving at level-up, rather than during combat or within-session rests, so I don't slow down the game so much by needing just another minute to remember what book that perfect spell is in.

Look at it like this. The difference between T2 and T3-on is a difference of type - a T2 can do pretty much any task, while a T3-on can do its own job reasonably well. They're two virtually completely different aptitudes. The difference between T1 and T2 is scale - both can do any task, but the T1 can do so more efficiently, and with more flexibility. Same aptitude, but to a greater degree. As such, the difference between T2 and T3-on, at a moderate or higher optimization level, is far more noticeable than the difference between T1 and T2, unless the game demands rapidly shifting levels of preparation and versatility.

[snippage]
You appear to be agreeing with me! But Troacctid is saying that in his experience, the difference between T1 and T2 has been more noticeable than the difference between T2 and T3. So I'm curious what's different about his games that makes the "balance gap" shifted away from where it's been in my games.

Perhaps he plays with DM's who use a lot of "puzzle monster"-style challenges, where if you don't have exactly the right solution available you're in serious trouble, whereas my DM's tend more toward straightforward challenges that can be solved by widely applicable "Swiss army knife" spells? That would be getting at what you're saying about "rapidly shifting levels of preparation and versatility."

*shrug*

tsj

2016-02-11, 01:02 PM

johnbragg

2016-02-11, 01:12 PM

I'll admit I don't know a lot of people who want to play Favored Soul (what is it about that class?), but I do know plenty of people who prefer to play Sorcerer, even when Wizard is available or even being played in the same game. I am one of them!

Sorcerer is an obvious tradeoff vs Wizard, more spells for versatility. In addition, you don't have the hassle of managing your spellbook and deciding what to prepare. (The Sorcerer was designed to be a tradeoff to Wizard, and looks that way at first glance. Evolution of the game has erased much of the tradeoff, but it still says so on the box)

Favored Soul isn't a tradeoff from Cleric, it's a straight downgrade. Clerics tend not to change up their spells as much, usually going with a pretty set repertoire.

If the Favored Soul had Tier 2 spellcasting, and the Not-Cleric had Bard casting, or just had domain spells and a bunch of paladin-style abilities, you'd see people choosing between Favored Soul and Not-Cleric.

JNAProductions

2016-02-11, 01:21 PM

My solution is to play a gestalt game where one the the classes MUST be a tier 1 (or whatever "powerlevel" you will want to play your game at), that ensures the result is always tier 1 since even a wizard//samurai is still tier 1 (result is normally the "highest" tier)

Great! I want Fireball and Magic Missile and Lightning Bolt and why am I so far behind everyone else?

Part of using the tiers is system mastery. You can make a Wizard suck.

johnbragg

2016-02-11, 01:24 PM

Great! I want Fireball and Magic Missile and Lightning Bolt and why am I so far behind everyone else?

Part of using the tiers is system mastery. You can make a Wizard suck.

But one thing about Tier 1 is a bad "build" is almost trivial to fix. 10th level Wizard with a warmage spellbook? I'm pretty sure WBL can fix that. Cleric can just stop praying for healer spells and read a Handbook online.

Tier 2s with bad builds are stuck.

Troacctid

2016-02-11, 02:24 PM

Look at it like this. The difference between T2 and T3-on is a difference of type - a T2 can do pretty much any task, while a T3-on can do its own job reasonably well. They're two virtually completely different aptitudes. The difference between T1 and T2 is scale - both can do any task, but the T1 can do so more efficiently, and with more flexibility. Same aptitude, but to a greater degree. As such, the difference between T2 and T3-on, at a moderate or higher optimization level, is far more noticeable than the difference between T1 and T2, unless the game demands rapidly shifting levels of preparation and versatility.

Because you're right. The Wizard or Cleric may be able to do everything more easily than the Sorcerer, but they don't need to do everything all the time. It really only comes up in incredibly high-op high-challenge games. But the ability to be hyper-competent at a given task does come up in pretty much any game, and as a result, the T1-T2 will almost certainly have the opportunity to outshine the T3-on. Whether the player chooses to seize that opportunity is another matter.

This is mostly only applicable to high-level games. Most games take place at a lower level range where the difference between T2 and T3 is not especially noticeable. Yes, a Sorcerer who's casting Wish and Gate is overpowered, but it's pretty uncommon for you to actually reach that point.

Cosi

2016-02-11, 02:25 PM

Part of using the tiers is system mastery. You can make a Wizard suck.

Yes, but that's an argument against all efforts to balance the game. Regardless of what abilities you have, you can choose to not use them. Therefore, the game can only be balanced if no one uses their abilities. As such, all abilities are broken and everyone should play a Commoner.

A_S

2016-02-11, 03:48 PM

This is mostly only applicable to high-level games. Most games take place at a lower level range where the difference between T2 and T3 is not especially noticeable. Yes, a Sorcerer who's casting Wish and Gate is overpowered, but it's pretty uncommon for you to actually reach that point.
I think you've got a point about very low-level games (T3's like Duskblade and Beguiler have just as many early-game encounter-enders as Wizards and Sorcerers do). But I see the T2's start to leap ahead way before 9th level spells come online, more in the level 7-10 range. That's when:
Strong action economy manipulation (Celerity, Contingency ok this one is level 6)
Spells whose power scales with the number of sourcebooks you own (Polymorph, Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Evocation, good options for Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally)
Some of the earliest narrative-shaping utility spells (Teleport, Raise Dead, Contact Other Plane)...start to come online.

If you play most of your games at levels 1-6, that would explain the discrepancy. But I don't think you can chalk everything Red Fel is saying to the Playground's level-20-syndrome.

TheCreatorT

2016-02-11, 03:55 PM

Now I have been reading all of this and it has been educational, but I still kinda want to know if anyone has done the ban the tiers method.

A_S

2016-02-11, 04:05 PM

Now I have been reading all of this and it has been educational, but I still kinda want to know if anyone has done the ban the tiers method.
I haven't been in a game where the top tiers were banned, but I've been in one where none of the players played anything above T3 (in part because we were cooperating to not step on each other's toes). It's what I had in mind in my first post in this thread:

Since you're mostly asking about tiers 3 and below, this is unlikely to be a problem for your game. Really, if you're banning (or heavily limiting via houserules or whatever) tiers 1-2, you probably can just safely ignore tiers entirely and judge each character on its own merits. Something like: Does this character have high enough numbers to do its thing well (i.e., not falling into the "Flurry of Misses" trap)?
Can this character do anything useful when its main schtick is not appropriate?
Does this player have enough system mastery and experience that I trust them to make reasonable tactical decisions?
Unless you have one PC for whom the answers are all "yes" and another for whom they're all "no," balance issues below tier 2 are likely to not be a huge deal. If they do come up, they can often be resolved with small adjustments like giving a weak player some advice on combat tactics, pointing out a dip that would help them out a lot, or letting them retrain a crappy feat into a good one. As opposed to tier 1-2 balance issues, which often come down to, "Welp, guess you shoulda thought of that before you decided not to play a primary caster."
My experience with it was, in a party featuring classes between T3-T5, there weren't any major balance issues, and the minor balance issues were things that could be solved with quick fixes like, "Hey Scout player, we appreciate the skillmonkey thing, but your combat contributions haven't been very impressive now that we're higher level. Have you thought about taking a Barbarian dip for pounce?"

Troacctid

2016-02-11, 04:40 PM

I think you've got a point about very low-level games (T3's like Duskblade and Beguiler have just as many early-game encounter-enders as Wizards and Sorcerers do). But I see the T2's start to leap ahead way before 9th level spells come online, more in the level 7-10 range. That's when:
Strong action economy manipulation (Celerity, Contingency ok this one is level 6)
Spells whose power scales with the number of sourcebooks you own (Polymorph, Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Evocation, good options for Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally)
Some of the earliest narrative-shaping utility spells (Teleport, Raise Dead, Contact Other Plane)...start to come online.

If you play most of your games at levels 1-6, that would explain the discrepancy. But I don't think you can chalk everything Red Fel is saying to the Playground's level-20-syndrome.

Most of those, or similar powerful mid-level options, are available to T3/T4 casters too. Beguilers and Dread Necromancers have no shortage of broken 3rd, 4th, and 5th level spells, nor do Bards. Wilders have access to most of the stuff you listed. And Celerity? Pssh, come on, that's not even better than White Raven Tactics.

Red Fel

2016-02-11, 04:51 PM

If you play most of your games at levels 1-6, that would explain the discrepancy. But I don't think you can chalk everything Red Fel is saying to the Playground's level-20-syndrome.

S'trewth. At levels 1-5, your non-casters basically have one option - hit the thing until it dies. (Your Rogue also has some skill points.)

A first-level Wizard could use any of the following:
Grease: Stay where you are unless you can make a DC 10 Balance check. At low levels, that's actually not easy.
Obscuring Mist: Your attack? You mist missed. I'm so, so sorry.
Summon Monster I: I don't have to be strong. I brought a friend who does that for me.
Charm Person: Hostile? Nah.
Sleep: Save or suck, kids.
Color Spray: Aim for the eyes, Boo!So, at first level, a Wizard can render a target immobile, render a target concealed from attack, summon minions, render a hostile target friendly, completely incapacitate a target, or render a target stunned/blinded/unconscious. With a single roll. These are all completely core options, no splatbooks required. Open up the expansions and things get crazy.

The versatility of a Tier 1 character isn't limited to high levels, is my point. They have options - powerful ones - right out of the gate.

Now I have been reading all of this and it has been educational, but I still kinda want to know if anyone has done the ban the tiers method.

I'm sure some people have. But that's attempting to cure a symptom, not the cause.

Very simply, if the goal is to create a balanced party where no PC overshadows the others, and PCs don't use "I win" abilities to bypass encounters altogether, the solution is for the players to follow the golden rule: Don't be a dingus.

It's that simple. The goal is fun for everyone, not winning on your own. A traditional Cleric/Fighter/Rogue/Wizard party can work just fine if the casters resolve to not ruin the game for everyone.

Having a Tier 1-2 class doesn't automatically imbalance the table. It is possible to underplay your advantage. And plenty of players do. All it takes is the maturity to resolve not to overshadow everyone.

Banning Tiers 1 and 2 doesn't prevent some players from overshadowing others or coming up with encounter-trivializing solutions. They're still there. There are ways to ruin everyone's good time.

I'm not saying you can't ban some tiers. Certainly, you can discourage them and I wouldn't begrudge you that. But don't delude yourself into thinking that it solves the problem; it doesn't.

Troacctid

2016-02-11, 05:01 PM

S'trewth. At levels 1-5, your non-casters basically have one option - hit the thing until it dies. (Your Rogue also has some skill points.)

A first-level Wizard could use any of the following:
Grease: Stay where you are unless you can make a DC 10 Balance check. At low levels, that's actually not easy.
Obscuring Mist: Your attack? You mist missed. I'm so, so sorry.
Summon Monster I: I don't have to be strong. I brought a friend who does that for me.
Charm Person: Hostile? Nah.
Sleep: Save or suck, kids.
Color Spray: Aim for the eyes, Boo!So, at first level, a Wizard can render a target immobile, render a target concealed from attack, summon minions, render a hostile target friendly, completely incapacitate a target, or render a target stunned/blinded/unconscious. With a single roll. These are all completely core options, no splatbooks required. Open up the expansions and things get crazy.

The versatility of a Tier 1 character isn't limited to high levels, is my point. They have options - powerful ones - right out of the gate.

That's probably not the best example, since the 1st level Wizard's ability to render a target unconscious, paralyzed, prone, or immobile a few times per day is generally weaker than the 1st level Warblade's ability to render a target dead at will. 3d6+6 damage instagibs most CR 1 monsters. (It's certainly going to have more impact than that Celestial Dog you spent one round summoning for a duration of 1 round.) Also, you basically just named a bunch of Beguiler and Bard spells, so there's that too.

Cosi

2016-02-11, 05:35 PM

A first-level Wizard could use any of the following:
Grease: Stay where you are unless you can make a DC 10 Balance check. At low levels, that's actually not easy.
Obscuring Mist: Your attack? You mist missed. I'm so, so sorry.
Summon Monster I: I don't have to be strong. I brought a friend who does that for me.
Charm Person: Hostile? Nah.
Sleep: Save or suck, kids.
Color Spray: Aim for the eyes, Boo!

Any two to four of the following, chosen at the beginning of the day. The Wizard is plenty powerful at 1st, but it's not because he could prepare color spray or grease or sleep, it's because he can prepare any of those and they all rock.

EDIT: That's unclear. The Wizard's power is because color spray is good, not because he could use it or sleep. He'd still be super good without one or the other, as evinced by Beguilers (who lack grease) and Wizards who ban Enchantment or Illusion.

The versatility of a Tier 1 character isn't limited to high levels, is my point. They have options - powerful ones - right out of the gate.

It's not the freaking versatility that shines. You know who has versatility at 1st? Beguilers. They know a dozen spells and can cast them whenever (subject to spell slots) they want. That's way more versatile than anything the Cleric, or Wizard, or Druid does. The fact that you could have different options if you had prepared different spells is about as relevant to character power as the fact that the Fighter could have different options if he had taken different feats.

It's that simple. The goal is fun for everyone, not winning on your own. A traditional Cleric/Fighter/Rogue/Wizard party can work just fine if the casters resolve to not ruin the game for everyone.

Why is it the prerogative of casters not to ruin the game by being too strong rather than the prerogative of mundanes not to ruin the game by being too weak?

(It's certainly going to have more impact than that Celestial Dog you spent one round summoning for a duration of 1 round.) Also, you basically just named a bunch of Beguiler and Bard spells, so there's that too.

This is true. Red Fel's argument was lame. Especially calling out things that are on the Beguiler list, or don't have a meaningful duration at 1st.

That's probably not the best example, since the 1st level Wizard's ability to render a target unconscious, paralyzed, prone, or immobile a few times per day is generally weaker than the 1st level Warblade's ability to render a target dead at will. 3d6+6 damage instagibs most CR 1 monsters.

This is false. The Warblade kills one guy super hard. The Wizard incapacitates a group of enemies. Those are different contributions, but it is not particularly clear to me that one is better. It is also worth noting that while the Warblade's damage is large, the damage of a Barbarian or Fighter is still sufficient to kill most CR 1 enemies.

Elder_Basilisk

2016-02-11, 05:37 PM

S'trewth. At levels 1-5, your non-casters basically have one option - hit the thing until it dies. (Your Rogue also has some skill points.)

A first-level Wizard could use any of the following:
Grease: Stay where you are unless you can make a DC 10 Balance check. At low levels, that's actually not easy.
Obscuring Mist: Your attack? You mist missed. I'm so, so sorry.
Summon Monster I: I don't have to be strong. I brought a friend who does that for me.
Charm Person: Hostile? Nah.
Sleep: Save or suck, kids.
Color Spray: Aim for the eyes, Boo!So, at first level, a Wizard can render a target immobile, render a target concealed from attack, summon minions, render a hostile target friendly, completely incapacitate a target, or render a target stunned/blinded/unconscious. With a single roll. These are all completely core options, no splatbooks required. Open up the expansions and things get crazy.

The versatility of a Tier 1 character isn't limited to high levels, is my point. They have options - powerful ones - right out of the gate.

I think we have officially lost touch with reality when someone is seriously arguing that a 1st level wizard is better and more versatile than a 1st level fighter or rogue.

And if anyone failed to notice, we're definitely no longer talking about the same kind of versatility that the tier system proponents claim at 20th level. Being able to choose up to three different spells per day is a long way from being able to outfight the fighter, outsneak/trapfind/spring/assassinate the rogue, or outheal the cleric. The first level wizard does have some versatility but that versatility is in the ability to be useful in various situations, not in the ability to fill any of the other traditional party roles even adequately. It's not just Schroedinger's wizard. It Schroedinger's moving goalposts too.

ComaVision

2016-02-11, 05:46 PM

I think we have officially lost touch with reality when someone is seriously arguing that a 1st level wizard is better and more versatile than a 1st level fighter or rogue.

Being able to pick 3 spells a day is still more versatility than the Fighter or Rogue has at first level.

Troacctid

2016-02-11, 05:52 PM

This is false. The Warblade kills one guy super hard. The Wizard incapacitates a group of enemies. Those are different contributions, but it is not particularly clear to me that one is better. It is also worth noting that while the Warblade's damage is large, the damage of a Barbarian or Fighter is still sufficient to kill most CR 1 enemies.

Two guys. Steel Wind is a staple low-level maneuver for Warblades. That's usually as good as Color Spray, which has a fairly small AoE. Sleep is a bit bigger, but Sleep also has the added drawback of being interruptable, which can be a big deal at low levels when you don't have much of a Concentration check, and it can only hit more than two enemies if they have fewer than 2 HD each.

Amphetryon

2016-02-11, 06:13 PM

Elder_Basilisk

2016-02-11, 06:21 PM

Being able to pick 3 spells a day is still more versatility than the Fighter or Rogue has at first level.

And even if it's true (which it probably isn't if you haven't already decided that flexibility means casting spells) what does that have to do with being able to fill any other character class's role at all much less better than the designed class fills it? Absolutely nothing.

A fighter with combat reflexes, cleave, and a reach weapon, arguably fills the wizards role of "dealing with groups of weak enemies" role better than the wizard. A rogue with a horse and some stealth skills is better at gathering information or transporting the party. First level spells can be good but most of them don't do anything that can't be done without magic. (Charm person and sleep for combat avoidance come close but a good diplomacy or stealth score can accomplish a lot of what you would do with the spells). At first level, the advantage may not all be on the martial side (clerics do pretty well at low levels) but anyone who has actually played a first level D&D character knows it's not on the wizard's side.

ComaVision

2016-02-11, 06:30 PM

Elder_Basilisk

2016-02-11, 07:51 PM

I play 1st level characters quite frequently, since most DMs in my circles tend to not run very long campaigns. The BSF usually kills most of the things but he isn't shutting down an entire fight at once like Sleep can. I'll agree that it's more important to have a well rounded group at level 1 but the Wizard is by no means the weak link of the group.

Also, a rogue with a horse is better at moving around? Since when is buying a horse a rogue class feature?

This is still changing the topic of discussion. The discussion of tier 1 vs tier 3, etc disparity is supposed to be that a tier 1 character can not only fill his own role, but can also fill other characters' roles better than those other characters can fill their own roles: outfight the fighter, outsneak the rogue, outheal the cleric etc. Whether sleep is a good spell or not (and I'm not saying it isn't), wizards can't do that at level 1. That's the point. The disparities predicted by the tier system are simply not present at level 1.

tomandtish

2016-02-11, 08:22 PM

You can always target-ban after the fact ("hey, man, I know you weren't trying to be a **** but ever since you figured out the thing with the Cryohydra, everybody else feels like a sidekick, could I maybe get you to swap that our for a different spell?"), and if your group is pretty chill, it's not usually too bad, but nobody really likes being forced to go back on the choices they made with their character, especially if it's because their choices were too good.

I see what you did there.... :smallbiggrin:

nedz

2016-02-11, 08:29 PM

I prefer Sorcerer because (A) it helps me create a specific, identifiable skillset for my character via spell selection, whereas I find all Wizards kind of feel like the same character, and (B) it reduces the negative impact of tyranny of choice, because I only have to do my splatbook-diving at level-up, rather than during combat or within-session rests, so I don't slow down the game so much by needing just another minute to remember what book that perfect spell is in.
I'm with you on this one entirely - you get casters with more flavour and focus. T2s do favour players with system mastery who do their homework; whilst newbies are better with T1s since they don't know the spells and so they can try a few out. Also T2 batmen are hard to pull off.

I think you've got a point about very low-level games (T3's like Duskblade and Beguiler have just as many early-game encounter-enders as Wizards and Sorcerers do). But I see the T2's start to leap ahead way before 9th level spells come online, more in the level 7-10 range.
We had a huge debate on this a while ago: Sorcerer overtakes Beguiler at about level 10 FWIW

Now I have been reading all of this and it has been educational, but I still kinda want to know if anyone has done the ban the tiers method.
I'm currently running a game where T1s, Casterly +1 Tier PrCs and a couple of dozen spells are banned - but it's only at level 4 so it's too early to tell.

Milo v3

2016-02-12, 06:29 AM

Now I have been reading all of this and it has been educational, but I still kinda want to know if anyone has done the ban the tiers method.

I have banned tiers, but I normally actually ban the low tiers rather than the tiers ones because of my players lack of optimization skill and unknowingly picking suboptimal options very often for Rule of Cool. If they were playing a class like a fighter/monk/healer/truenamer they'd end up making a character who is highly ineffective and end up frustrated.

Hurnn

2016-02-13, 12:29 AM

This is still changing the topic of discussion. The discussion of tier 1 vs tier 3, etc disparity is supposed to be that a tier 1 character can not only fill his own role, but can also fill other characters' roles better than those other characters can fill their own roles: outfight the fighter, outsneak the rogue, outheal the cleric etc. Whether sleep is a good spell or not (and I'm not saying it isn't), wizards can't do that at level 1. That's the point. The disparities predicted by the tier system are simply not present at level 1.

Ok gonna jump in here a tier one cant do those things at 1st level is what you are trying to tell me? Druid says hi... out fight the fighter check, heal at least as well as the cleric check, out sneak the rouge check, solve an encounter with magic check. Wizard may not be king of the hill as far as t1's go at first level but that dirty hippy hanging out in the woods with his animal friends sure is.

Troacctid

2016-02-13, 12:32 AM

Yeah, well, that's why Druids are so much more overpowered than Wizards.

johnbragg

2016-02-13, 08:59 AM

Tiers is a very useful framework, and using them is far better than ignoring them. But in the years since JaronK wrote out the classification system, it may have been adopted beyond what it should be.

In the original post, JaronK says that classes 2 Tiers apart can cooperate in a party without real problems. That means if you can keep things in the Tier 2-4 range, you're probably fine up to level 15 or so. (Tier 2s CAN break the game, but since their spell restriction is limited, they usually have to try. You can either ban, houserule or live with how planar binding, polymorph and teleport work in your campaign. It's easier to figure out what to do about a problem spell than to figure out what to do about ALL THE SPELLS).

So the real problem areas are Tier 1, because with moderate effort they can do pretty much anything in the game, obsoleting other characters like Ray Charles taping himself singing falsetto and replacing the Ray-lettes; and Tier 5, who pretty much can't do his expected job effectively.

An argument runs "but after a certain point, all the melee character can do is hit things with sticks. Hitting it harder/more times doesn't solve that problem." Well, that ignores that fighter-players WANT their guy to hit things with sticks. And items exist to add necessary capabilities like flight, stealth, etc.

So if you ban Tier 1, and bring Tier 5 fighters and monks up to Tier 4, you might be okay. (I don't have an easy answer if a player REALLY wants to play a druid, but there's lots of homebrew.)

nedz

2016-02-13, 09:23 AM

(I don't have an easy answer if a player REALLY wants to play a druid, but there's lots of homebrew.)

T2 Druid (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm)

The rest of your points are pretty much the view I formed. I did also try and reduce the ability of spells to make skills pointless - which isn't all that hard.

johnbragg

2016-02-13, 08:30 PM

T2 Druid (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm)

The rest of your points are pretty much the view I formed. I did also try and reduce the ability of spells to make skills pointless - which isn't all that hard.

That kind of makes my point about the Tier system. Slap Spontaneous Divine Caster on the Druid, and he's Tier 2. Done and done.

Except the druid and his pet are at least competitive in melee with the Barbarian at low levels, and the Wildshaped druid is competitive in melee with the Barbarian at higher levels, besides doing almost everything you'd want a Rogue to do in a different Wildshape. And on top of that he's got a full day's supply of level-appropriate spells, even if the Druid spell list may not match the Wizard or Cleric.

Over-reliance on the Tier system blinds us to the fact that even the Spontaneous Casting Druid isn't a play-well-with-others class, since he's still a guy who turns into a bear and rides a bear while summoning bears. He meets the criteria of Tier 2, but he's still a one-man party, which is the real problem. All it does is cut off the Druid's access to spells that might help the party solve a problem. ("At the time, Remove Disease and Stone Shape seemed more important to take than Water Breathing. Now we're screwed.")

Actually, I think a non-wildshaping, Expert-chassis, Tier 1 9th-level casting Druid with the Animal Companion rebuilt with the Familiar rules would fit better alongside a Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer party. Especially if you added a Wildshaping Ranger with a Wild Cohort to give you the other half of the 3X Druid.

nedz

2016-02-13, 09:09 PM

johnbragg

2016-02-13, 09:19 PM

Well Druid is probably the strongest class from levels 1-10, but the Arcane and Cleric spell lists are better later.

One thing I did was to swap the Druid and Ranger AC progression for one group - which does have two Rangers, but no Druid.

For the group with minimal house rules we do have a Druid, but the player is Mid OP and the party is only level 4. The Druid hasn't over-shadowed the rest of the party as yet, but they are mainly T2-T3 anyway; and, of course, Player > Build > Class.

Player > Build > Class is the factor most people ignore when reviewing the Tier system. Build Tier can be approximated fairly well, but the Player factor is hard to quantify (I have seen T4 Wizards). This is not a weakness of the tier system - just it's limitation.

Ed: As to the limitations of the Spontaneous Druid: SNA derived SLAs and consumables can fill the gap here - at least when it comes to the healbot/utility type aspects.

JaronK's rule of thumb is that 2-tier separation works ok. So Druid-Sorcerer-Warblade-Factotum or whatever should be ok. But if you had a Core melee class in the group, the guy with d8 HD, 3/4 BAB and a CR 1 wingman is going to outshine the guy without the wingman, even if he does have another point of BAB and larger weapon damage dice.

Consumables can always close the gap. But then we might as well build Experts with Magical Aptitude, Skill Focus: and Greater Skill Focus: UMD.

Troacctid

2016-02-13, 09:20 PM

Well Druid is probably the strongest class from levels 1-10, but the Arcane and Cleric spell lists are better later.

Yeah, but by the time "later" rolls around, you're so overpowered that it really doesn't matter very much.

johnbragg

2016-02-13, 09:33 PM

Yeah, but by the time "later" rolls around, you're so overpowered that it really doesn't matter very much.

Well, the Druid is a little lighter on the Oberoni-heavy break-the-campaign exploit spells like planar ally/binding, wall of things-that-can-be-turned-into-gold-pieces, contingency, etc. At least until 9th level spells let you shapechange into a creature with 20th level Wizard casting, because I'm sure there's a splatbook somewhere that has one under 17 HD.

I don't see much TO talk about how a Druid 20 would solve the given challenge by sending an Ice Assassin of himself from the demiplane where his Astral Projection hides in order to conceal the demiplane where his real body is.

nedz

2016-02-13, 09:58 PM

Consumables can always close the gap. But then we might as well build Experts with Magical Aptitude, Skill Focus: and Greater Skill Focus: UMD.
Well I was thinking of the more common Lesser Restoration, Poison, Blindness type of issues which Spontaneous Druid can solve out of the box whereas the other classes require extra investment which almost any build can utilise.

Yeah, but by the time "later" rolls around, you're so overpowered that it really doesn't matter very much.
I seen games fail due to tier issues at levels 18 and 13 respectively - the latter due to Ur Priest. It does depend a lot on the group I think.

gadren

2016-02-13, 11:33 PM

It's been sad before, but is worth saying again, Tiers relevancy goes way down when different players have different levels of skill mastery. I've seen multiple groups where the guy playing the wizard made a comment about the fighter/rogue (being played by a person with superior SysMastery) was "OP", even when the build in question wasn't particularly cheesy.

Cosi

2016-02-14, 08:52 AM

Well I was thinking of the more common Lesser Restoration, Poison, Blindness type of issues which Spontaneous Druid can solve out of the box whereas the other classes require extra investment which almost any build can utilise.

No, spontaneous divine spellcasters don't have enough slots to do that. They have to take all the fix people spells, which screws them over when it comes time to pick offensive spells. And even then, they have worse individual offensive spells than the arcane casters. That's why the Sorcerer works and the Favored Soul doesn't.

I seen games fail due to tier issues at levels 18 and 13 respectively - the latter due to Ur Priest. It does depend a lot on the group I think.

I highly doubt that. Unless tier issues are "shapechange abuse" or something. Ur Priest isn't tier issues, even if you believe in the tiers, it's "getting spells early" issues.

nedz

2016-02-14, 10:59 AM

No, spontaneous divine spellcasters don't have enough slots to do that. They have to take all the fix people spells, which screws them over when it comes time to pick offensive spells. And even then, they have worse individual offensive spells than the arcane casters. That's why the Sorcerer works and the Favored Soul doesn't.

I highly doubt that. Unless tier issues are "shapechange abuse" or something. Ur Priest isn't tier issues, even if you believe in the tiers, it's "getting spells early" issues.

Cognitive Dissonance.

Incidentally it's not unknown for a Sorcerer to face situations which they don't have the spells for.

Cosi

2016-02-14, 11:37 AM

Cognitive Dissonance.

What point are you trying to make? Is it that because I don't believe in the tiers, I shouldn't make claims about game balance? I don't have to make any particular assumptions about game balance to correctly observe that doing the same transformation (prepared w/large list -> spontaneous w/small list) will have different effects on lists that are balanced in different ways. Because that is a super obvious point.

The Wizard spell list was written with the assumption that Wizards would know a relatively small (if much larger than Sorcerers) spells, which means that Sorcerers selecting a small number of individual spells from it is relatively balanced. The Cleric spell list was written with the assumption that Clerics would have access to any Cleric spell when they prepared spells, which is why the Favored Soul selecting a small number of individual spells from it is not balanced (this is also why Rainbow Servant builds that spontaneously cast off the whole list are so good). This is amplified by the number of spells on the Cleric list that an adventuring party is required to have (i.e. healing magic, status removal, resurrection, plane shift).

Incidentally it's not unknown for a Sorcerer to face situations which they don't have the spells for.

That also happens to Wizards. In so far as the information available to them when they select spells is the same, they will face roughly the same number of situations they are unprepared for. The Wizard can hedge his bets against different types of encounters, but that comes at the cost of not being prepared for multiple instances of similar encounters.

nedz

2016-02-14, 12:28 PM

You start by dismissing my second point because I mentioned the tier system and therefore I must be wrong.

Your first point though illustrates the tier system in action, albeit in less general terms.

The whole of your next post illustrates the tier system in action.

So you don't believe in the Tier system, and yet you do.

At the higher tiers: the tier system is mainly about the method of spell access.

BTW Favoured Soul has a large number of issues, I was originally talking about Spontaneous Druids ability to ameliorate these issues via SNA.

Also Rainbow Servant (10) is normally assessed at above Tier 1 for precisely the issues you describe.

Cosi

2016-02-14, 12:40 PM

All of that only makes sense if you assume that the only possible tier system is JaronK's tier system. Also that those tiers mean anything at all.

I objected to your point because describing "the Ur-Priest progresses twice as fast as everyone else" has zero to do with the the (or any) tier system, unless all balance problems are cases of "tier problems". Also that I am 99% sure the reason your game fell apart at 18th had more to do with "9th level spells are nuts" and less to do with "the Beguiler is worse that the Wizard because Arcane Disciple doesn't exist".

I objected to the other point as part of the broader implication that Spontaneous Druid would be balanced, because it doesn't have the spell slots (or the spell list quality, particularly at low levels) to be competitive while still having the ability to fix people with restoration or reincarnate.

nedz

2016-02-14, 04:39 PM

All of that only makes sense if you assume that the only possible tier system is JaronK's tier system. Also that those tiers mean anything at all.
What tier system would you propose ?

I objected to your point because describing "the Ur-Priest progresses twice as fast as everyone else" has zero to do with the the (or any) tier system, unless all balance problems are cases of "tier problems".
There were problems other than the Ur Priest. The last few scenarios left the mundanes carrying the bags.

Also that I am 99% sure the reason your game fell apart at 18th had more to do with "9th level spells are nuts" and less to do with "the Beguiler is worse that the Wizard because Arcane Disciple doesn't exist".
Er nope.

I objected to the other point as part of the broader implication that Spontaneous Druid would be balanced, because it doesn't have the spell slots (or the spell list quality, particularly at low levels) to be competitive while still having the ability to fix people with restoration or reincarnate.
Druids don't get Restoration, Spontaneous or otherwise. Balanced to what exactly ?

Cosi

2016-02-14, 04:52 PM

What tier system would you propose ?

The SGT. Run people by a battery of encounters of CR = Character Level. Then you get, roughly speaking, four balance points:

-Monk Level: Cannot effectively contribute at any level.
-Fighter Level: Contributes until roughly 5th level, then falls behind.
-Rogue Level: Contributes at all levels, but falls slightly behind at high levels.
-Wizard Level: Contributes at all levels.

Theoretically, there are other balance points (for example, the Artificer is weak at low levels but contributes at high levels like some kind of reverse Fighter), but those are the ones typically used.

It assumes minimal active optimization (i.e. no planar binding abuse), and attempts to replicate the conditions of an actual game.

There were problems other than the Ur Priest. The last few scenarios left the mundanes carrying the bags.

You notice that you specifically called out "Ur Priest" as the reason the game fell apart at level 13.

Er nope.

Really. Care to elaborate?

Druids don't get Restoration, Spontaneous or otherwise. Balanced to what exactly ?

They get lesser restoration, which deals with (almost, not negative levels and ability drain) all the same conditions, particularly in downtime. But yes, they do not get restoration.

Balanced compared to the Sorcerer and Rogue, which was the claim John made (apparently also Barbarian, but those classes are better than Barbarian).

nedz

2016-02-14, 05:34 PM

The SGT. Run people by a battery of encounters of CR = Character Level. Then you get, roughly speaking, four balance points:

-Monk Level: Cannot effectively contribute at any level.
-Fighter Level: Contributes until roughly 5th level, then falls behind.
-Rogue Level: Contributes at all levels, but falls slightly behind at high levels.
-Wizard Level: Contributes at all levels.

Theoretically, there are other balance points (for example, the Artificer is weak at low levels but contributes at high levels like some kind of reverse Fighter), but those are the ones typically used.

It assumes minimal active optimization (i.e. no planar binding abuse), and attempts to replicate the conditions of an actual game.

Interesting - do you have a link ?

I am aware that several people tried to do a similar thing on this forum a couple of years ago. I don't recall any great insights coming out of their efforts - FWIW.

There is also the issue that, almost, everyone uses JaronK's system as a means of communication. Not just on this forum, but others also.

Cosi

2016-02-14, 05:45 PM

Interesting - do you have a link ?

I am aware that several people tried to do a similar thing on this forum a couple of years ago. I don't recall any great insights coming out of their efforts - FWIW.

There is also the issue that, almost, everyone uses JaronK's system as a means of communication. Not just on this forum, but others also.

Link (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Same_Game_Test_%28DnD_Guideline%29). There are also a few threads on The Gaming Den talking about it in varying levels of detail.

I don't know how much it matters that people are using JaronK's system to communicate if it doesn't communicate anything. Every time I talk to someone about it, the first thing that's mentioned is that you're supposed to consider it in light of the fact that "Player > Build > Class", which makes it seem impressively useless before any criticisms are made. If people believed that, it would be massively more pertinent to talk about how builds that use a bunch of sources, or rely on a specific RAW interpretation, or ask for custom items, or whatever else are likely to be more powerful.

nedz

2016-02-14, 06:16 PM

Link (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Same_Game_Test_%28DnD_Guideline%29). There are also a few threads on The Gaming Den talking about it in varying levels of detail.
Well it's been around a while but doesn't seem to have made much impact in these parts of the internet ?
It is empirical, but what are the usual criticisms ?
It obviously doesn't cover out of encounter issues.

I don't know how much it matters that people are using JaronK's system to communicate if it doesn't communicate anything. Every time I talk to someone about it, the first thing that's mentioned is that you're supposed to consider it in light of the fact that "Player > Build > Class", which makes it seem impressively useless before any criticisms are made. If people believed that, it would be massively more pertinent to talk about how builds that use a bunch of sources, or rely on a specific RAW interpretation, or ask for custom items, or whatever else are likely to be more powerful.
P>B>C is true of any class based metric.

The usual criticisms of the tier system relate to a class which takes some feat, or a build using a PrC combo, or that Fred the Wizard was useless, etc.

Cosi

2016-02-14, 06:43 PM

Well it's been around a while but doesn't seem to have made much impact in these parts of the internet ?

The same reason people talk about Pun-Pun rather than the Wish and the Word when considering who the most powerful character in 3.5 is. The SGT was written by people who were not part of the "in group" of the WotC Char Op boards when thinking on 3e was solidified, so people do not particularly interact with those perspectives.

It is empirical, but what are the usual criticisms ?

It measures some things inaccurately. For example, classes that contribute by buffing others perform poorly in solo tests. Hypothetically, a class with "kill anything, no save" 1/day would beat the SGT handily, but be dead useless in actual play.

It obviously doesn't cover out of encounter issues.

I disagree. It doesn't cover things that aren't on the test, but that's tautological. The standard SGT has trap-based non-combat encounters at every level, and you could easily imagine encounters in the vein of "travel to location X" (where X is something level appropriate like "the other side of Murkwood" or "the giant's keep in the clouds" or "Hell"), or "discover information about Y" (where Y is something level appropriate like "the stranger outside town" or "the lost temple in the mountains" or "Orcus's True Name"). You could run up an entire SGT of purely non-combat challenges if you wished.

The issue with doing that is that there's no clear standard of what a "level appropriate non-combat power" looks like. While Wizards and Fighters have different levels of combat power, we have a yardstick with which to compare them when making balance judgments: monsters. That's not at all true for non-combat encounters. When are you supposed to get plane shift? At 9th level, when it becomes available to the Cleric? At 13th level, when it becomes available to the Wizard? Never, when it becomes available to the Fighter?

P>B>C is true of any class based metric.

Then the metric should be written about build options, and about how play skill effects class performance (and lets not kid ourselves, the benefit from a good player is a lot higher for a Cleric than a Fighter). I think the SGT does a much better job of assessing that.

The usual criticisms of the tier system relate to a class which takes some feat, or a build using a PrC combo, or that Fred the Wizard was useless, etc.

I think there's a lot of legitimacy to some of those claims. It's fine to discount PrCs like Incantatrix, feats like Improved Initiative, or skills like Bluff (which are of basically constant value for any given class that uses them), but I think ignoring synergies between a class and various feats/skills/PrCs is illegitimate. The Beguiler, or Warmage, or Dread Necromancer benefits much more from Rainbow Servant than the Wizard does, and simplifying that to "+2 Tiers" is wrong. The Rogue has a unique benefit from UMDing wands of gravestrike, and throwing that under "UMD, Class X fallacy" is foolish. A Spontaneous Divination Wizard benefits much more from Versatile Spellcaster than a Sorcerer does. Those are all criticisms that move things within the Tier system, but they move things enough that I don't think it's legitimate to call a system that evaluated based on those criteria a variation of JaronK's tiers.

I also think that JaronK's tier definitions are stupid and poorly applied, but that's a debate for another day.

Troacctid

2016-02-14, 07:37 PM

The usual criticisms of the tier system relate to a class which takes some feat, or a build using a PrC combo, or that Fred the Wizard was useless, etc.

JaronK's rankings mis-tier a decent number of classes and do a poor job accounting for power across a typical game's level range. (Low-level play is more common than high-level play in actual games, but it's mostly ignored in the tier list.) Multiclassing and prestiging aren't considered either, which makes rankings misleading for frontloaded classes.

nedz

2016-02-14, 08:33 PM

The same reason people talk about Pun-Pun rather than the Wish and the Word when considering who the most powerful character in 3.5 is. The SGT was written by people who were not part of the "in group" of the WotC Char Op boards when thinking on 3e was solidified, so people do not particularly interact with those perspectives.
the Wish and the Word has been around roughly as long, but is more complex and harder to explain. Pun-Pun is usually used when some newbie asks for us to make them the most powerful character ever. As to which is the most powerful, well you then have to start comparing infinities - and it's pretty pointless anyway.
Ad hominem arguments are unimpressive.

It measures some things inaccurately. For example, classes that contribute by buffing others perform poorly in solo tests. Hypothetically, a class with "kill anything, no save" 1/day would beat the SGT handily, but be dead useless in actual play.
All metrics have strengths and weaknesses.

I disagree. It doesn't cover things that aren't on the test, but that's tautological. The standard SGT has trap-based non-combat encounters at every level, and you could easily imagine encounters in the vein of "travel to location X" (where X is something level appropriate like "the other side of Murkwood" or "the giant's keep in the clouds" or "Hell"), or "discover information about Y" (where Y is something level appropriate like "the stranger outside town" or "the lost temple in the mountains" or "Orcus's True Name"). You could run up an entire SGT of purely non-combat challenges if you wished.
Well the SGT does state it's encounter based, and the coverage of the tests is important. Now that may be tautological to the metric, but it is important about how relevant the metric is - even if that is an external.

The issue with doing that is that there's no clear standard of what a "level appropriate non-combat power" looks like. While Wizards and Fighters have different levels of combat power, we have a yardstick with which to compare them when making balance judgements: monsters. That's not at all true for non-combat encounters. When are you supposed to get plane shift? At 9th level, when it becomes available to the Cleric? At 13th level, when it becomes available to the Wizard? Never, when it becomes available to the Fighter?
Plane shift is a bad choice since it's usually plot driven, and requires the correct "tuning fork".
Fly at level 5-6 is a better predicate because it's a more common encounter requirement.

Then the metric should be written about build options, and about how play skill effects class performance (and lets not kid ourselves, the benefit from a good player is a lot higher for a Cleric than a Fighter). I think the SGT does a much better job of assessing that.
Well JaronK's metric is Class based so P>B>C is relevant to that metric.

It is normal to discuss Floors and Ceilings of Classes and Builds but quantifying players is at the hard end of hard.

That said what SGT actually measures is how the character was played through the encounter set. Thus it conflates P,B,C. JaronK's metric does at least try to avoid that conflation.

I think there's a lot of legitimacy to some of those claims. It's fine to discount PrCs like Incantatrix, feats like Improved Initiative, or skills like Bluff (which are of basically constant value for any given class that uses them), but I think ignoring synergies between a class and various feats/skills/PrCs is illegitimate. The Beguiler, or Warmage, or Dread Necromancer benefits much more from Rainbow Servant than the Wizard does, and simplifying that to "+2 Tiers" is wrong. The Rogue has a unique benefit from UMDing wands of gravestrike, and throwing that under "UMD, Class X fallacy" is foolish. A Spontaneous Divination Wizard benefits much more from Versatile Spellcaster than a Sorcerer does. Those are all criticisms that move things within the Tier system, but they move things enough that I don't think it's legitimate to call a system that evaluated based on those criteria a variation of JaronK's tiers.
You are always going to get this sort of issue however you measure things. Monk's being MAD means that they benefit more from buffing and kit - which both metrics miss.

I also think that JaronK's tier definitions are stupid and poorly applied, but that's a debate for another
There are other ways of looking at the Tiers. The difference between T1 and T2 is mainly one of play-style, but I'll park that one for now.

All of these metrics have strengths and weaknesses and none of them paint the full picture. I think that they are all useful YMMV.

Ed:

JaronK's rankings mis-tier a decent number of classes and do a poor job accounting for power across a typical game's level range. (Low-level play is more common than high-level play in actual games, but it's mostly ignored in the tier list.) Multiclassing and prestiging aren't considered either, which makes rankings misleading for frontloaded classes.

I missed this one whilst I was typing.

Maybe we need a guide to the different metrics listing their strengths and weaknesses ?

Cosi

2016-02-14, 08:41 PM

the Wish and the Word has been around roughly as long, but is more complex and harder to explain. Pun-Pun is usually used when some newbie asks for us to make them the most powerful character ever. As to which is the most powerful, well you then have to start comparing infinities - and it's pretty pointless anyway.
Ad hominem arguments are unimpressive.

I have no idea how you could say that the Wish and the Word are "more complex" than Pun-Pun. The Wish's trick is just to wish for a magic item with whatever powers you want, and then get it. Seriously, that's the entire trick. Whereas Pun-Pun requires you to perform a highly complex loop with your familiar (or whatever the current version is) to grant abilities from specific creatures.

Plane shift is a bad choice since it's usually plot driven, and requires the correct "tuning fork".
Fly at level 5-6 is a better predicate because it's a more common encounter requirement.

Fly isn't honestly that much of a noncombat ability. It lets you go to floating castles, but it doesn't have nearly the effect on character ability that plane shift does.

That said what SGT actually measures is how the character was played through the encounter set. Thus it conflates P,B,C. JaronK's metric does at least try to avoid that conflation.

I don't understand why you would want to avoid doing something that makes your assessments more closely match actual play.

You are always going to get this sort of issue however you measure things. Monk's being MAD means that they benefit more from buffing and kit - which both metrics miss.

No it doesn't. They don't have any buffs, and they have the same amount of money to buy gear. Wizards benefit more from kit, because they only really need their Headband, which means their stats advance faster than everyone else.

nedz

2016-02-14, 08:56 PM

I have no idea how you could say that the Wish and the Word are "more complex" than Pun-Pun. The Wish's trick is just to wish for a magic item with whatever powers you want, and then get it. Seriously, that's the entire trick. Whereas Pun-Pun requires you to perform a highly complex loop with your familiar (or whatever the current version is) to grant abilities from specific creatures.

17 pages (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Wish_and_the_Word_%283.5e_Optimized_Character_ Build%29) - 2 characters - and you can Pun-Pun at level 1.

I don't understand why you would want to avoid doing something that makes your assessments more closely match actual play.
But does it ?
Solo play perhaps ?

Cosi

2016-02-14, 09:01 PM

17 pages (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Wish_and_the_Word_%283.5e_Optimized_Character_ Build%29) - 2 characters - and you can Pun-Pun at level 1.

17 pages for the contest write-up that includes builds for both that are intentionally overcomplicated, full write ups, and a huge encounters section.

You can do the Wish at any level where you can do Pun-Pun. Both of them start with "get a wish that doesn't cost XP", it's just that Pun-Pun has steps after that point and the Wish goes directly to winning the game.

But does it ?
Solo play perhaps ?

First, it doesn't have to match well, just better than the tiers.

Second, it matches pretty well. I don't really see a Flask Rogue or Ubercharger doing their thing differently in actual play versus an SGT.

Troacctid

2016-02-14, 09:32 PM

You could just use pre-published modules for your SGT if you're worried about them not reflecting actual play.

Beheld

2016-02-14, 09:42 PM

But does it ?
Solo play perhaps ?

By measuring characters against monsters of their actual CR, you can see what your build would be doing in an actual fight. It models play a lot better than "The Factotum is better than the Rogue because it can Alter Self into a slyph and gain it's spellcasting, and then use that casting to Polymorph into a Phaerimm, and then shapechange into a Solar, and then cast anything on the Cleric list even 9th level spells at level 10."

Which, is sadly, something JaronK actually based the tiers on (the claim that polymorph and similar grant casting, and therefore are just the best thing ever).

But the main problem is that the Tiers fail right on step 2) of this very basic process:

1) Hypothesis.
2) Prediction based on Hypothesis.
3) Test Prediction.

Because the Tiers refuse to actually make any predictions about actual play at all. Sometimes. Sometimes people slip up and they make actual predictions that are completely wrong like "You shouldn't let a Wizard and a Rogue play in the same party, because the Rogue will feel bad, instead make the Wizard play a Fighter and this will make the Rogue player feel better!" which are of course, completely wrong, and not just not helpful, but actively anti-helpful. The Rogue will be happier with a Wizard casting Glitterdust than a Fighter ubercharging.

But then people respond by either backtracking and claiming that the Tier system makes no predictions at all, or say P>B>C to explain why the Tier systems prediction don't ever apply to anything that might ever possibly serve as evidence.

It's hard to be a useful metric for anything when you refuse to provide a coherent use for your metric. Untestable hypothesises suck.

You could just use pre-published modules for your SGT if you're worried about them not reflecting actual play.

This fails on some different levels that the SGT succeeds at:
1) Playing a party through a module tells you nothing, because they aren't supposed to ever fail, so seeing that a group of 4 Xs succeeds doesn't tell you anything if like 70-80% of classes succeed.
2) Playing with a group of different classes fails to tell you anything because you can't quantify who contributed how much in an objective way, so you are right back at square "I know from my own personal experience that Wizards rule, but Bob is convinced he actually carried this adventure (even though he didn't)."
3) Playing through with a single character high enough level to count as a party level that should beat the adventure means you are running exclusively against things that you break the RNG on, and you aren't testing anything you would actually face.
4) Playing through with a single character at the level expected does not help because you will definitely die (since you are supposed to, according to the rules, have a 50% chance to die every fight, so it's just random luck of which fights you are bad at or roll badly in that you die on).
5) Playing the same class 4 times just tells you that some classes have specific enemies they don't beat. If there is an Iron Golem in the adventure, and the party loses to it, that doesn't mean that the characters are garbage because they failed the adventure, it might just mean, they weren't capable of beating an Iron Golem specifically.

nedz

2016-02-14, 09:55 PM

17 pages for the contest write-up that includes builds for both that are intentionally overcomplicated, full write ups, and a huge encounters section.

You can do the Wish at any level where you can do Pun-Pun. Both of them start with "get a wish that doesn't cost XP", it's just that Pun-Pun has steps after that point and the Wish goes directly to winning the game.
So it's a presentation issue.
Pun-Pun also has comedic merit: Paladin Kobold.
IDK: Pun-Pun has become a trope - which might be relevant too.

First, it doesn't have to match well, just better than the tiers.

Second, it matches pretty well. I don't really see a Flask Rogue or Ubercharger doing their thing differently in actual play versus an SGT.

My problem is that I have to balance a number of factors - or at least try to - for each player: [ Playstyle, Tactical Ability, Build Ability, Threat Preference ]. So a metric which conflates the last three is no more helpful than one which isolates them - however poorly.

My control levers are also very indirect and fragile since the players do control this process.

The result is simply how long the game will last before it becomes pointless to continue.