Tier One Martials: A discussion

[Heliomance]

How would one go about having a Tier One character that wasn't a spellcaster? How would you go about creating such a thing, a character that feels like they get by on their impossible skill and prowess? Conceptually, what would they feel like? What abilities would they need?

I'm not intending this discussion to be restricted to the classes in D&D. It's impossible to do without excessive quantities of TO. I'm more interested in concepts and hypotheticals, and maybe theories as to the general shape such a class might take.

What would be needed to make a character that could match spellcasters, without making them a spellcaster in all but name?

[ryu]

How would one go about having a Tier One character that wasn't a spellcaster? How would you go about creating such a thing, a character that feels like they get by on their impossible skill and prowess? Conceptually, what would they feel like? What abilities would they need?

I'm not intending this discussion to be restricted to the classes in D&D. It's impossible to do without excessive quantities of TO. I'm more interested in concepts and hypotheticals.

What would be needed to make a character that could match spellcasters, without making them a spellcaster in all but name?

I mean... What exactly is the criteria for not being a spellcaster in all but name? I suppose I could work on making the most exhaustive summary of all the reasons magic is power that need to be competed with... And then we can talk about attempting to imitate that without having something people would call spellcasting. The reason I say imitate is that you simply aren't going to find something magic is incapable of. Only people with magic being better or worse at certain things relative to each other at a given non-maximum level within the tier one wheelhouse. Should I get to work on that list/try to find the last one I posted when this idea was brought up?

[Heliomance]

I mean... What exactly is the criteria for not being a spellcaster in all but name? I suppose I could work on making the most exhaustive summary of all the reasons magic is power that need to be competed with... And then we can talk about attempting to imitate that without having something people would call spellcasting. The reason I say imitate is that you simply aren't going to find something magic is incapable of. Only people with magic being better or worse at certain things relative to each other at a given non-maximum level within the tier one wheelhouse. Should I get to work on that list/try to find the last one I posted when this idea was brought up?

I mean, I guess, not wiggling your fingers/thinking really hard/spouting some gobbledegook, and having something happen based on the exact pattern in which you wiggled/thought/spouted. A character that feels like it's their own personal skill they're using, rather than commanding abstract forces of the universe to do their bidding.

Think of Solar Exalted, for example. They're incredibly powerful, they can fight gods, they can attain mastery of however many fields. But they do it all themselves. It's physical ability perfected - only spellcasters feel like spellcasters, everyone else runs off impossible skill.

[JyP]

You want a character concept which would not be a Vancian wizard nor a miracle worker but having close to the same abilities ?

=> "ninja" from Naruto manga, all about secret techniques and being ninja, with pacts with big surnatural entities.
=> a god's avatar waking up on the mortal world after having angered Ao in the Forgotten Realms (AD&D1 -> AD&D2 for the win)
=> a hacker like Neo in The Matrix - or any member from any faction in Planescape, where Belief is Power
=> a cosmic entity like The Beyonder

[Emperor Tippy]

How would one go about having a Tier One character that wasn't a spellcaster? How would you go about creating such a thing, a character that feels like they get by on their impossible skill and prowess? Conceptually, what would they feel like? What abilities would they need?

I'm not intending this discussion to be restricted to the classes in D&D. It's impossible to do without excessive quantities of TO. I'm more interested in concepts and hypotheticals.

What would be needed to make a character that could match spellcasters, without making them a spellcaster in all but name?

You can't. Tier 1 means a degree of versatility and strategic power that you are never going to be able to justify without a differently fluffed spellcaster. Tier 1 needs the kind of strategic mobility that Teleport (at a minimum) and Plane Shift (again at minimum) makes possible.

In X-Men terms, Tier 1 is Xavier, Wolverine, Magneto, Cyclops, Mystique, Kitty Pride, and Magik all rolled into one individual. And with a dozen or so other, lesser, powers thrown on for good measure.

You could fluff all of the necessary abilities as things like tech but in the end it is still spellcasting by a different name.


I mean, I guess, not wiggling your fingers/thinking really hard/spouting some gobbledegook, and having something happen based on the exact pattern in which you wiggled/thought/spouted. A character that feels like it's their own personal skill they're using, rather than commanding abstract forces of the universe to do their bidding.

Think of Solar Exalted, for example. They're incredibly powerful, they can fight gods, they can attain mastery of however many fields. But they do it all themselves. It's physical ability perfected - only spellcasters feel like spellcasters, everyone else runs off impossible skill.

Solar Exalted are spellcasters. They get fluffed differently but their abilities are no more "physical ability" than those of a Naruto character throwing out fireballs. In D&D terms you would do something like an Exalted as Supernatural racial abilities probably.

[Heliomance]

You can't. Tier 1 means a degree of versatility and strategic power that you are never going to be able to justify without a differently fluffed spellcaster. Tier 1 needs the kind of strategic mobility that Teleport (at a minimum) and Plane Shift (again at minimum) makes possible.

In X-Men terms, Tier 1 is Xavier, Wolverine, Magneto, Cyclops, Mystique, Kitty Pride, and Magik all rolled into one individual. And with a dozen or so other, lesser, powers thrown on for good measure.

You could fluff all of the necessary abilities as things like tech but in the end it is still spellcasting by a different name.

I can think of three different ways immediately to justify strategic movement that aren't spellcasting. You could use your impossible swordsmanship to cut a hole in reality and step through. You could be the Flash, and just be that damn fast. You could have a seven-league stride. Interplanar movement is a little trickier, but still possible.

[weckar]

It's a bad example, but say we used a 20-level monstrous progression into the Tarrasque as a class.

You wouldn't even get close.

Tier 1 is an indicator of more than sheer power. It's a matter of versatility. And it's hard to beat "The ability to do anything" with anything but magic (or psionics), in that field. No matter what trick Batman learns or engineers, Tier 1s have that and 5 others before lunchtime.

[eggynack]

One punch man is a decent starting point. He's like a significantly more versatile version of the classic "character that can kill everything they look upon" construct. Strength enough to beat anything in combat that he can hit, resilient enough to shrug off anything including magic, accurate enough that most anything he targets will die instead of just dodging, and maybe you could up his speed some, to start competing with teleportation effects in a more serious way. He emulates quite a few classic spell effects, including, as I recall, mirror image and flight. You'd really want to beef up his non-combat some, though. He can handle armies and dragons more than fine, but he can't really go invisible, or control someone's mind, or cross planar thresholds, or call up minions, all things which could conceivably be desired by someone with those kinds of physical powers. On the other hand, invisibility isn't even as good as sufficiently potent stealth, so you could just give him that without leaving martial stuff, and mind control reads a lot like sufficiently high social skills, and calling up minions is more a means to an end that you can already reach than anything, so that leaves planar travel from this arbitrary list, and punching into planes sounds cool enough to work.

So, I dunno. Is that enough? I have to admit, in a lot of parties I'd prefer a one punch man to any other tier one. You'd have to be right at the top of the optimization curve, and high in level, to seriously challenge that dominance, and what distance there is can be narrowed with some work. I feel like he's close, but I might be missing something. The addition of invulnerability to the combat capabilities helps a lot, and if you toss on the ability to destroy magical constructs then you're even closer. One of the big problems might actually be the minion thing. OPM can protect himself well enough, but it can take more than a single hand to deal with wider reaching problems. Again though, that sort of thing isn't going to happen in most games. So, it's tricky. But I suspect it's close.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Agreed with Tippy. You can remove any mechanical association with 3.5 spellcasting, for example by not requiring any expendable resource, but the ability to take other forms is going to be magic, no two ways about it.

You can do what (greater) teleport/plane shift does by 'slipping between the planes', using an Escape Artist check.

You can do what ice assassin does with a Craft check, fusion with a Heal check, and astral seed with a Survival check.

Are those things less magical because they are (Ex) and done via skill checks? I really doubt it.

[Emperor Tippy]

I can think of three different ways immediately to justify strategic movement that aren't spellcasting. You could use your impossible swordsmanship to cut a hole in reality and step through. You could be the Flash, and just be that damn fast. You could have a seven-league stride. Interplanar movement is a little trickier, but still possible.

Those are all re-fluffed spellcasting. In the first case it is a somatic component spell requiring a focus component, just fluffed slightly differently. In the second it is being, essentially, the chosen avatar of a God.

If you want some semi plausible re-fluff then that is one thing. Just go the Iron Man or Reed Richards route and have it be advanced technology. Or go with "gifts from the gods for services rendered". Or "skill of such an extreme bull**** tier that reality itself is persuaded to realize your desires.".

None of that makes it a martial character though.

[eggynack]

Agreed with Tippy. You can remove any mechanical association with 3.5 spellcasting, for example by not requiring any expendable resource, but the ability to take other forms is going to be magic, no two ways about it.
Taking other forms seems irrelevant. It's not so much a thing to do as a way to do things.


You can do what (greater) teleport/plane shift does by 'slipping between the planes', using an Escape Artist check.
If you're on-plane, sufficient movement speed to reach the area combined with insane stealth to get to the specific place along with some way to physically bypass magical defenses seems fine. Plane shift does need that weird kinda solution though.


You can do what ice assassin does with a Craft check, fusion with a Heal check, and astral seed with a Survival check.

These effects too seem more like ways to accomplish a thing than a thing to accomplish. They're very good at what they do, but as long as you can solve any problem through other means it seems fine.

[weckar]

eggynack makes a good point. There is no need for your abilities to replicate spells, if they can replicate the results of those spells.

[HappyElf]

The thing is, if you go through every RPG, you'd probably only find a fairly small number of powers (hurt thing, go place, resist damage, learn information etc) with minor mechanical changes. What makes one these superpowers "magic" rather then "psionics" or "superpowers" or "invisible reality-warping goblins" is just what fluff they have, and a martial tier-one is just a matter of fluffing "able to do pretty much anything" as super-combat:

Teleportation? Cutting holes through time and space
Summoning? Monsters are intimidated into appearing and serving you, lest you strike them down
Scrying? Your expert combat experience lets you anticipate what your enemies and allies must be doing in perfect detail, wherever they are
Healing? punch the blood back into their body! Or, more seriously, years of combat experience make you an expert at getting downed soldiers back in the fight.

Continue through all the generic powers, and voila, martial tier one! It isn't a magic user because it uses super-combat rather then magic, which really is the only criteria for what is and isn't a wizard in a given system.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Taking other forms seems irrelevant. It's not so much a thing to do as a way to do things.

[...]

These effects too seem more like ways to accomplish a thing than a thing to accomplish. They're very good at what they do, but as long as you can solve any problem through other means it seems fine.
I disagree. There is a reason to have redundant means of accomplishing the same goal: one way may be blocked or countered. There is, in fluff and crunch, a difference between "take the form of a cat", "use an illusion to look like a cat", and "possess a cat". A wizard can do all three. If we take a hypothetical mundane, who can do only one of the three, the wizard still has the edge. The wizard simply uses an appropriate counter, and the mundane is back to being mundane, whereas the mundane needs three counters.


That doesn't completely invalidate your point: a lot of high-OP tricks are about getting Ability A without Investment X, and you don't need a billion ways to do that. In PO however, there are some considerations, such as role-playing ("I can't possess a cat, that's immoral!") or practical ("Diamonds are heavily regulated, resurrection won't be easy to get"), which promote the use of different methods. You might call it 'practical versatility' versus 'theoretical versatility'. A commoner can chain-wish to do anything, but practically, a wizard is far more versatile.

[D.M.Hentchel]

So if we evaluate tier 1s by their ability to infinite loop than I suppose a handful of abilities like:
-Goad any creature in the multi-verse to attacking you
-Convince anyone to serve you with a word
Then you could wish farm which would kinda make you tier 1 if you also had:
-Basically can't be killed
-5 extra standard and move actions a turn
-Super comical levels of speed
-Some ability to make your own plane
-Pretty much unlimited knowledge of things

Then I guess you would be tier 1

Outside of the infinite stuff though I'm not sure Tier 1 is possible without making it a spell per day thing; you could give them capabilities relitive to the wizard, but without the per day limit they become even more powerful tier 0 (arcane swordsage anyone) or you appropriately compensate their extra consistenty with lesser versitility, but then you'll probably sink into tier 2 or tier 3.

The best way I could think of would be to rig the christmas tree effect in their favor so they get more milage out of their items, but that kinda seems to ruin the idea of 'not just magic'

[Thurbane]

The general consensus would be they need the following:

1. Ability to full attack as a standard action
2. Innate ability to fly and/or Teleport.
3. Innate Freedom of Movement (or equivalent).
4. Innate Mindblank (or equivalent).
5. Decent amount of skill points and good range of skills to chose from.
6. Bonus feats (selectable from all feats, not just Fighter feats).
7. Martial maneuvers and stances (or a similar kind of subsystem) for versatility and attack options.

So, basically gestalt Warblade//Expert//Generic Warrior (UA)//with tacked on Fly, FoM and Mindblank as all day Su abilities, and some kind of Pounce.

...even then, this would only likely push them to low tier 2, if you're lucky. You can't seem to push a class into tier 1 without access to world altering spells or an equivalent.

The tier system just generally makes me sad. :smallfrown:

[MisterKaws]

Or "skill of such an extreme bull**** tier that reality itself is persuaded to realize your desires."..

Isn't that just Truenaming? I always thought of it as 'System Diplomancy'...

[Gnaeus]

Let's look at mythological sources.

Cuchulainn: Alternate form. Hero has an alternate form he can shift to. In that form he may have special immunities, attacks like a fear aura, better action economy.
Salmon leap: better movement modes. That one is almost flight. Or look at Beowulf for swim speed/virtual water breathing. Or Bran for the ability to wade across seas.
Achilles or Antaeus: virtual immunity to common forms of damage. Instant healing. There is a Celtic legend about a guy who can only be hurt by a javelin thrown through a rock under specific conditions.
Hercules: world changing terrain alteration. The people of the city pissed you off? Drop a mountain on them. Reroute a river to flood them.
Resurrection: walk into the underworld, wrestle or charm some demigods, bring your dead friend out
Roland: hero can defeat an army in melee combat
Other European legends:
A marksman who can hit anything he aims at at any distance, even over miles
A trickster who can deceive gods or primal forces, like tricking death or the devil into a bag they can't get out of, then forcing bargains from them
Talking with animals is pretty common

That's just off the top of my head.
You call the class Demigod. Give it a stat boost at most/all levels, and when the stat exceeds 20 let them pick from a list of stat related powers with power levels comparable to spells available at that level. It wouldn't be tier 1, because the powers can't change daily. But it could easily be a strong T2

[ShurikVch]

Isn't that just Truenaming? I always thought of it as system dyplomancy...Yes. It is! :smallsmile:

[Aharon]

I think Frank and K's fixes are pretty successful at creating Tier One Martials (that being the explicit design goal).

Here (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=33297#33297)'s their fighter. He get's stuff like forging magic items at 7th level (because he got so good at forging that the stuff he creates is magical), or Improved Delay, also at 7th level:

Improved Delay (Ex): A Fighter of 7th level may delay his action in one round without compromising his Initiative in the next round. In addition, a Fighter may interrupt another action with his delayed action like it was a readied action (though he does not have to announce his intentions before hand).

They also have feats that scale with BAB (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=33298#33298), for example their version of Mage Slayer:

Mage Slayer [Combat]
You have trained long and hard to kill magic users. Maybe you hate them, maybe you just noticed that most of the really dangerous creatures in the world use magic.
Benefits: You gain Spell Resistance of 5 + Character Level.
+1: Damage you inflict is considered "ongoing damage" for the purposes of concentration checks made before the beginning of your next round. All your attacks in a round are considered the same source of continuing damage.
+6: Creatures cannot cast defensively within your threat range.
+11: Your attacks ignore Deflection bonuses to AC.
+16: When a creature uses a [Teleportation] effect within medium range of yourself, you may choose to be transported as well. This is not an action.

[Heliomance]

Let's look at mythological sources.

Cuchulainn: Alternate form. Hero has an alternate form he can shift to. In that form he may have special immunities, attacks like a fear aura, better action economy.
Salmon leap: better movement modes. That one is almost flight. Or look at Beowulf for swim speed/virtual water breathing. Or Bran for the ability to wade across seas.
Achilles or Antaeus: virtual immunity to common forms of damage. Instant healing. There is a Celtic legend about a guy who can only be hurt by a javelin thrown through a rock under specific conditions.
Hercules: world changing terrain alteration. The people of the city pissed you off? Drop a mountain on them. Reroute a river to flood them.
Resurrection: walk into the underworld, wrestle or charm some demigods, bring your dead friend out
Roland: hero can defeat an army in melee combat
Other European legends:
A marksman who can hit anything he aims at at any distance, even over miles
A trickster who can deceive gods or primal forces, like tricking death or the devil into a bag they can't get out of, then forcing bargains from them
Talking with animals is pretty common

That's just off the top of my head.
You call the class Demigod. Give it a stat boost at most/all levels, and when the stat exceeds 20 let them pick from a list of stat related powers with power levels comparable to spells available at that level. It wouldn't be tier 1, because the powers can't change daily. But it could easily be a strong T2

So some ideas have been rattling round in my head since I posted this thread, and I've come up with something that could be a decent skeleton for such a class.

For every skill point you spent in that class, you'd also gain a bonus point to that skill. I want to call them "Epic skill points", after Scion's Epic Attributes, but that would cause confusion. So essentially, they'd get two points in a skill for every point they put in, though it wouldn't count for prereqs. Actually, they should probably give a Competency bonus to help limit the silliness you could get into with magic items, and the number of Epic skill points in any skill could never exceed your class level.

Then there'd be a whole slew of abilities, somewhere between feats and spells. Not sure what you'd call them. Trappings, maybe. You'd gain these at a regular rate as you progressed through the class. Each one would have prereqs requiring you to have a certain number of Epic Skill Points in appropriate skills. Once you learned them, they'd just be abilities you could do, like feats, but they'd generally require an appropriate skill check.

Trappings would give points of mental or physical fatigue, listed in the ability description. Each point of fatigue would give a -1 penalty to all mental or physical skill checks, respectively, and would clear at a certain rate (one per class level perhaps?) per hour that you don't use any Trappings.

Sample Trappings that I've thought of could be:


Take a point of physical fatigue when making a Jump check to multiply your distance by your Epic Jump (low level one)
Take a point of physical fatigue and make a Weapons Drill check as part of an attack to cut through Force effects
Take a point of mental fatigue and make a Concentration check to gain the benefits of Mind Blank for an hour
Take a point of physical fatigue to increase your speed by the highest of your Epic Balance, Climb, or Jump times 5ft
Take a point of physical fatigue to move your speed as a swift action (can be combined with the last one)
If someone takes an immediate action or readied action in response to your action, take a point of physical fatigue and make an opposed Initiative check to have your action resolve first

[Fizban]

There have been several attempts to make tier 1 martial classes, and they probably found their marks more or less. All failed to realize a rather significant point of tier 1, however: tier 1's don't actually do all of that simultaneously at-will. Barring the highest of ridiculous ops, the vast majority of tier 1 characters actually obey a significant number of rules and restrictions upon their supposedly unchecked power. They have definitive weaknesses which no matter how hard they compensate, are still weaknesses that must be compensated. The defining problem of a "tier 1 martial," is that the defining feature of a "martial" type is being able to do your stuff at-will, if not every round than at least with no daily limit and with extreme ease in switching between your maneuver loadout. The weaknesses of a spellcaster are the very things that a martial is always good at, so a tier 1 martial's weaknesses are. . . what?

When people try to make tier 1 martials, they often write up a massive list of all the magical effects they want to duplicate and set up how to do so, with little or no limits on daily use or knowledge. They give out constant abilities that are blatantly better than any spell version which exists. And so instead of a theoretically overpowered tier 1 caster who has to jump through a bunch of hoops and effectively get permission, the tier 1 martial is just bonkers overpowered.

In order to make a tier 1 martial which can actually be played with tier 1 casters, they must follow similar rules. Once those rules become similar enough to play nice, the martial is effectively just using refluffed casting. It's a catch-22: if you're better than a caster you're too strong, if you're the same as a caster then you're not a non-caster anymore. That leaves being worse than a caster, back to square one.

[Thealtruistorc]

It just so happens that many people have homebrewed classes with exactly this intent, this one in particular being my favorite. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?433533-quot-I-will-crush-you-puny-mage!-quot-(3-5-hypermundane-class-PEACH))

But anyway, besides what was mentioned above, the Chuck Norris mythos (http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/chuck-norris-top-50-facts) that developed on the internet is a phenomenal example of a tier 1 character who doesn't use magic. The premise is somebody who is just so strong that his very presence warps reality in his favor. If a martial would ever be tier one, I can think of no better way.

[Darrin]

I try to think of it more in terms of narrative control. Most of the structure of D&D is predicated on the idea that narrative control is determined by HPs. Your character gets to fight, talk, negotiate, find traps, collect treasure, etc. so long as HPs are above zero. Everything your PC can influence in the world around him is determined by whether he can reduce its HP to zero. If so, then the PC gets to control what happens to that thing in the story.

Tier 2 is where one PC has transcended the structure of that game. No other agent in that story can interact with or assert narrative control over that PC until they satisfy some sort of requirement. It could be the PC now has flight, and no other creature can harm him unless they do X, where X is get some form of flight, a powerful ranged attack, or whatever. Essentially, the PC has a huge "NOPE" card, whether it's always-on invisibility, astral projection, backup clone bodies, etc. If some other agent in that game has the counter for that ability, then they can continue to play the "HP = control" game.

Tier 1 is another whole level above that second game, where one PC has so many inexhaustible resources that the hoops someone in a lower tier has to jump through are essentially unlimited. It's not "you have to have X, Y, and Z to attack me", it's "I have completely changed the rules of the game so that before you even think about doing X, Y, and Z, I have teleported through time so I act just before you do, and you are now a potted plant on my window sill. No saving throw. Thank you for playing, and you can go home now." HPs have irrevocably become meaningless for that PC. Tier 1 is essentially where the PC has pretty much the same narrative power as the DM, and they are now playing a more freeform "Because I said so" game. They may fool themselves into still thinking that there is a structure there that says if you have X, Y, and Z then maybe this ability ABC combined with DEF under these specific circumstances may hurt you, but it's largely an illusion.

So, I'm not really sure it's structurally possible to bring a Tier 3 up to the same footing as Tier 1. It's like sitting down to a game of backgammon and then your opponent informs you that under his house rules, he gets to pick 11 players from the Pittsburgh Steelers before the game starts, he gets to use lightsabers instead of hockey sticks, and he scores 100 points every time his imaginary fruitbat lands on a triple word score.

And yes, there are ways to structure things at the Tier 1 level where you can play that way with other Tier 1s and still have an enjoyable, challenging game. But it's just not going to work well with lower tiers.

[Red Fel]

The bottom line is this:

What separates Tiers 1 and 2 from everyone else is the ability to have a solution for any encounter. Teleportation, flight, invisibility, the ability to charm NPCs, the ability to strike incorporeal targets, etc. What separates Tier 1 from Tier 2 is the ability to have, with some preparation, access to all of the solutions - or at least, whichever you might need that day.

To make a martial Tier 1, then, you need to isolate those things which constitute solutions, and then give the martial a way to access all of them, either all at once or on a daily basis. Now, to be fair, things like Incarnum gave us a hint of this - short-range teleports, ranged and incorporeal attacks, limited flight, and so on. But you need your martial to do this in a not-visibly-magic way.

And therein lies the wrinkle. As has been mentioned repeatedly, a lot of people have this hangup about martials - when they are no longer doing what "the guy at the gym" could do, at least in terms of kind, if not scale, they are no longer purely martial, and have become (at least in part) functionally spellcasters.

If we can ignore that hangup, of course, sky's the limit. In that case, I'd simply suggest rebuilding Tome of Battle to your needs. ToB brought martials up a bit, after all; the model works.

I'd suggest setting aside all of the disciplines, and creating a set of new ones. For example, you could have a "Fist of the Sky" discipline, with stances that give you (progressively) levitation, gliding, and eventually proper flight, and maneuvers that let you perform ranged attacks with melee strikes. A "Blade of Spacetime" discipline could include teleportation maneuvers (which technically Shadow Hand already gets), perhaps a Haste-style spell, strikes that add the Force descriptor to your melee attacks, and so forth. A "Face of the Champion" discipline would basically sub out your combat maneuvers for skill-type bonuses, letting you function outside of combat - which a martial sorely needs. A "Soul of Steel" discipline would let you engage in weapon crafting, and give you benefits with any weapon you've crafted. A "Hammer of the Gods" discipline could give you a Miracle-type effect as a capstone, perhaps let you summon Celestial allies and the like.

Basically, just run down the Lists of Necessary Magic Items (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items). These are benefits pretty much every character needs or could want, and almost every Tier 1 spellcaster can have. If it's on the list, find a way for a martial to have it innately. That's your first step.

[Gallowglass]

You know, I read the first post this morning and I thought of many things to say, then I come to work and find out most of them have already been said...

The main problem with this scenario design is this: "Tier one" no matter what they state is the definition, the real definition is "What a wizard 20 can do." That's it. Because its a system built around sorting and allocating D&D classes by their ability to do whatever needs to be done in any scenario (flexibility AND power) So they took the classes and sorted them and "What a wizard 20 can do" became Tier 1. Sure they put some other classes up there with the wizard (Druid, Cleric) but that's kind of halfhearted.

So anytime you posit a scenario design which is "what can we do to get X to tier 1" It immediately turns to "what can we do to make this class as powerful and versatile as a wizard 20 within the game system design with as little homebrew as possible"

That's why you end up making a list of all the things that make the wizard 20 tier 1 (wish, plane shift, tactical teleport, divination, shapechange, time manipulation) and try to figure out how to get that martial or whatever to be able to do all of that. And you end up with "spells with swords" like what someone suggested up above.

I think, yeah, its theoretically possible to finagle with the skill system enough to make a "nonmagic" tier 1 character who exploits the skill system to be able to handle any scenario within a reasonable timeframe. First, if you want to be able to have a PvP tier1 non magical, you are going to have to let diplomancy and other social skills effect other players. Assuming this isn't PvP and you are just trying to win any given scenario, then diplomancy as it already exists plus allowing creation of magic items through mundane crafting is close to tier1 already. Just add some skill tricks like "planar black market - your knowledge base and contact base is so broad you are treated as if you are in the middle of a giant planar city for locating magic items and information no matter where you are." and a knowledge: geography/knowledge: planes skill trick "Planar roads: your knowledge of the planes and local geography is so great you know how to find folds and secret wormholes hidden in the world around you" And you are getting close to a character who can handle any scenario within a reasonable timeframe already.

"But, Gallowglass, a wizard 20 would just ice assassin, travel through time, pwn this guy no problem!" Yeah yeah yeah. Notice I differentiated between PvP and scenario handling up above? Everytime I see one of those "the wizard just sits in his demiplane and sends his ice assassin out to deal with you" threads I just think "You are basing this off of you, the player, thinking through every possible scenario and accounting for it, but you don't seem to realize a mundane can put just as much thought an effort into thinking ahead as you can." Either way, is skilltrick boy going to survive in PvP against wizard 20? Probably not, but so what. I already stated I'm not looking at this as PvP tier 1.

[digiman619]

No. Just... just no.

I'll agree that as a general rule, martials need nice things too, but Tier 1 is a mistake. Tier 1 brings the game down to Calvinball: Though they claim there are rules, the T1 can more or less do whatever they want and barring DM fiat, there nothing anyone who isn't another T1 can do about it. It trivializes everyone else, because if your life's work wasn't "I study magic" or "I devoutly channel my god/nature", then you are inherently inferior regardless of your skill: you're Bruce Lee dropped into DBZ. Yeah, you have skill, but in a world were everyone of note flies and can move faster than you can blink, and do enough damage to destroy a mountain... and that's before they buff themselves, it doesn't matter.

Tier 3 is what the game is supposed to be; Your character is very good in their chosen area of expertise and decent in a bunch of other things. No one player has all the answers. The whole in-universe reason you're in a party in the first place is that you need someone to the things that need to be done that you don't know how to do yourself. Not everyone knows how to pick a lock, or be good at convincing others, or be a great swordsman; but if Joe the Wizard has knock, charm person, and tenser's transformation, he doesn't need to. And those are the spells themselves, not counting all the incredibly broken cheese that you can get without too much trouble. All a wizard needs to do is look at his big book in the morning and say "How will I bust reality today?". Everyone else has to put years of practice into being good at one thing.

This is why my games use Spheres of Power and Path of War; it makes everyone T3; not only does it make magic cool and thematic (you can't just pick and choose the best abilities; you actually have to invest in in the Alteration sphere and get lesser transformations before you can just decide to be a Terrasque today.), it also lets the martials have cool stuff too. It also separates the divine and 6th level casters from the lower end martials; even though a cleric and a rouge both have a moderate BAB (+15 at Lv 20), the rogue is a far better fighter, as he has martial maneuvers and stances that enhance his fighting. It's the difference between a boxer and a football player getting in a street fight; both are strong athletes, but the boxer has far more things he can do here, as that's his primary focus. They also multiclass really well, so a Magus might want to mix up his mystic and martial skills by dabbling with maneuvers. All he needs is one feat (Advanced Magical Training) to let his abilities scale as he dabbles in the second field. Similarly, if a Stalker wants to dabble in magic (in order to, say, get some teleportation via the Warp sphere), his non-martial levels still count towards his initiator level. It's easy and fun to mix and match while keeping both sides balanced and fun.

tl;dr: Don't make T1 martials; make T3 magicians and let everyone have fun.

[Flickerdart]

I agree, T1 is stupid, and T1 with at-will abilities. What's not stupid is being able to do things T1s do. Teleporting, plane shifting, mind control.

There is a really cool ability in 4th Edition that you get from some Epic Destiny. With 24 hours of travel, you end up anywhere you want. Other continent, other plane, whatever. It's not really described how - you're just that good.

One of Hercules' only feats that don't translate to "CR6 or lower monster encounter" is the labour of the Augean Stables, where he spent a day digging a ditch, and redirected the flow of two nearby rivers.

Given that one of the biggest gaps in martial capability is what to do during downtime, this seems like a decent solution to the T1 martial problem. Give them progressively better things they can do by being just that good, and let it take a while. Yes, it's not useful to encounters. Yes, wizards will be better. But it's something, and it lets mundanes do something in the tail end of the game.

Essentially, this is a meta-narrative tool. Martial characters get the ability to say "I am too much of a big famous hero to schlep through miles of plains on the way to the Caves of Doom" and the story fast-forwards to the Caves of Doom. "My fame is too great to have to scrape and bow at the feet of the king to raise an army." Bam, you got an army. Do a dice roll if it makes you feel better. The stuff that was necessary happened off-screen. The most basic of these abilities can be something like "infinite arrows" because you're too heroic for "I go shopping for arrows" plots.

[digiman619]

I agree, T1 is stupid, and T1 with at-will abilities. What's not stupid is being able to do things T1s do. Teleporting, plane shifting, mind control.

There is a really cool ability in 4th Edition that you get from some Epic Destiny. With 24 hours of travel, you end up anywhere you want. Other continent, other plane, whatever. It's not really described how - you're just that good.

One of Hercules' only feats that don't translate to "CR6 or lower monster encounter" is the labour of the Augean Stables, where he spent a day digging a ditch, and redirected the flow of two nearby rivers.

Given that one of the biggest gaps in martial capability is what to do during downtime, this seems like a decent solution to the T1 martial problem. Give them progressively better things they can do by being just that good, and let it take a while. Yes, it's not useful to encounters. Yes, wizards will be better. But it's something, and it lets mundanes do something in the tail end of the game.

Essentially, this is a meta-narrative tool. Martial characters get the ability to say "I am too much of a big famous hero to schlep through miles of plains on the way to the Caves of Doom" and the story fast-forwards to the Caves of Doom. "My fame is too great to have to scrape and bow at the feet of the king to raise an army." Bam, you got an army. Do a dice roll if it makes you feel better. The stuff that was necessary happened off-screen. The most basic of these abilities can be something like "infinite arrows" because you're too heroic for "I go shopping for arrows" plots.

I saw a comment in a different discussion that postulated that if the martials could full attack as a standard and that all casting had a casting time of at least a full-round, things might be more balanced without massive changes. I think that would combo very well with this; martials are better in the spur of the moment, while wizards are better when they take their time.

[Extra Anchovies]

The issue with saying "but that replicates [spellcasting]/[a spell]" is twofold.
1. There exists a spell or combination of spells for anything that characters are expected (by the designers) to have to do in D&D.
2. Dismissing [being able to do things that spells can also do] as refluffed spellcasting means dismissing most of 3.5. Psionics, invocations, incarnum, pact magic; there's so many different subsystems, all of which are designed to help characters meet the challenges they're expected to face, a purpose for which spellcasting is also designed. Heck, there are spells that grant full BAB and fighter feats - is the fighter as printed in the PHB, then, just refluffed spellcasting?


In X-Men terms, Tier 1 is Xavier, Wolverine, Magneto, Cyclops, Mystique, Kitty Pride, and Magik all rolled into one individual. And with a dozen or so other, lesser, powers thrown on for good measure.

Sentry and Jean Grey as (Phoenix) are both good examples of Marvel comics characters who approach or meet t1. Scarlet Witch, too, at the height of her power.

Thinking along those lines, Doctor Doom could be a way to approach the concept of a Tier 1 noncaster. With time and materials he can build gadgets that have pretty much whatever effects he needs, he has a number of various "NO button" effects (paralysis ray, doombots, jetpack), and he has incredible leadership ability, e.g. his own kingdom. He's also gained mystical powers by observing and learning from others or from building a gadget to steal them from someone else, but he notably does not have any mystical powers that he develops on his own.

A Doctor Doom class wouldn't be a fighter, sure, but T1 has nothing to do with fighting and everything to do with not having to fight, by having gadgets or spells or powers or minions or anything else that deals with obstacles without having to get your hands dirty.

[digiman619]

Thinking along those lines, Doctor Doom could be a way to approach the concept of a Tier 1 noncaster.

Clearly you're not as knowledgeable about Marvel lore as you think; Doom is a caster, at least as far a Marvel defines it; he's challenged Doctor Strange multiple times for his title of Sorcerer Supreme.

[khadgar567]

The issue with saying "but that replicates [spellcasting]/[a spell]" is twofold.
1. There exists a spell or combination of spells for anything that characters are expected (by the designers) to have to do in D&D.
2. Dismissing [being able to do things that spells can also do] as refluffed spellcasting means dismissing most of 3.5. Psionics, invocations, incarnum, pact magic; there's so many different subsystems, all of which are designed to help characters meet the challenges they're expected to face, a purpose for which spellcasting is also designed. Heck, there are spells that grant full BAB and fighter feats - is the fighter as printed in the PHB, then, just refluffed spellcasting?



Sentry and Jean Grey as (Phoenix) are both good examples of Marvel comics characters who approach or meet t1. Scarlet Witch, too, at the height of her power.

Thinking along those lines, Doctor Doom could be a way to approach the concept of a Tier 1 noncaster. With time and materials he can build gadgets that have pretty much whatever effects he needs, he has a number of various "NO button" effects (paralysis ray, doombots, jetpack), and he has incredible leadership ability, e.g. his own kingdom. He's also gained mystical powers by observing and learning from others or from building a gadget to steal them from someone else, but he notably does not have any mystical powers that he develops on his own.

A Doctor Doom class wouldn't be a fighter, sure, but T1 has nothing to do with fighting and everything to do with not having to fight, by having gadgets or spells or powers or minions or anything else that deals with obstacles without having to get your hands dirty.
how about the hulk especially world breaker version I can say he is tier 1 cuz if ( banner allows) he wants he just breaks the platelet to fine space dust

[Gallowglass]

I saw a comment in a different discussion that postulated that if the martials could full attack as a standard and that all casting had a casting time of at least a full-round, things might be more balanced without massive changes. I think that would combo very well with this; martials are better in the spur of the moment, while wizards are better when they take their time.

except that that MISSES the entire point of what the tier system represents.

Martials are ALREADY GREAT at attacking and doing damage. Better at it than a wizard is (though the wizard has the ability to end the combat through other means) Anything you do that improves that doesn't make them a higher tier. That includes letting them hit more often, being able to debuff the enemy with actions, buffing with actions, etc. etc. etc.

Where the martials fall short is in ANY other aspect of the game (skill challenges, social challenges, trap handling, problem solving, mystery solving, roleplay) where the wizard has one of N spells that give them boosts or overcome the challenge through a backdoor, as well as attribute dependance on the very attribute that gives you skill points. The martial doesn't. They just hit things.

Its not about giving the martials a step up in combat. They don't need that. That's not what the tier system is about!


Personal note. I agree with the above poster that keeping the party at T3 is the best solution. However, I understand the frustration of the power gamers who cry out "don't take my toys away!" I just don't agree with them.

[Eldariel]

tl;dr: Don't make T1 martials; make T3 magicians and let everyone have fun.

If everyone is T1, everyone can have equally fun. Just look at Exalted. T3 might be around the baseline intent of the system but there's nothing wrong with T1 and indeed, if the challenges and the players are all calibrated for T1, the game can be an incredible experience.

[Gallowglass]

how about the hulk especially world breaker version I can say he is tier 1 cuz if ( banner allows) he wants he just breaks the platelet to fine space dust

That doesn't let him solve any problem. Not appreciably.

[Extra Anchovies]

No. Just... just no.

I'll agree that as a general rule, martials need nice things too, but Tier 1 is a mistake. Tier 1 brings the game down to Calvinball: Though they claim there are rules, the T1 can more or less do whatever they want and barring DM fiat, there nothing anyone who isn't another T1 can do about it.

Tier 3 is what the game is supposed to be; Your character is very good in their chosen area of expertise and decent in a bunch of other things. No one player has all the answers. The whole in-universe reason you're in a party in the first place is that you need someone to the things that need to be done that you don't know how to do yourself. Not everyone knows how to pick a lock, or be good at convincing others, or be a great swordsman; but if Joe the Wizard has knock, charm person, and tenser's transformation, he doesn't need to. And those are the spells themselves, not counting all the incredibly broken cheese that you can get without too much trouble. All a wizard needs to do is look at his big book in the morning and say "How will I bust reality today?". Everyone else has to put years of practice into being good at one thing.[/QUOTE]

I definitely agree with this, although I think T4 is also a good place for a class to be, and it's not often recognized as such. Sometimes a player will want to just be good at a few things - maybe they don't want to have to worry about all the little stuff on the side and want something simple, or maybe they know they're more of an optimizer than the rest of their group and want to give the others their chances to shine - so there's definitely reason for classes with limited scope to exist.

The tiers, in my eyes, are summed up well as follows.
1: can break the game in a lot of ways
2: can break the game in a few ways
3: can contribute effectively in a lot of ways
4: can contribute effectively in a few ways
5: can contribute in a lot of ways, but not effectively
6: can contribute in a few ways, but not effectively

The 1-2, 3-4, and 5-6 divisions are about versatility, while the 2-3 and 4-5 divisions are about game balance - I tend to lump 1-2, 5-6, and 3-4 into pairs: "too hot", "too cold", and "just right".


Clearly you're not as knowledgeable about Marvel lore as you think; Doom is a caster, at least as far a Marvel defines it; he's challenged Doctor Strange multiple times for his title of Sorcerer Supreme.

:sigh: of course he is. C'est la Marvel Comics. My explanation ignores his innate magic, though, so I think it's still valid.


I agree, T1 is stupid, and T1 with at-will abilities. What's not stupid is being able to do things T1s do. Teleporting, plane shifting, mind control.

There is a really cool ability in 4th Edition that you get from some Epic Destiny. With 24 hours of travel, you end up anywhere you want. Other continent, other plane, whatever. It's not really described how - you're just that good.

One of Hercules' only feats that don't translate to "CR6 or lower monster encounter" is the labour of the Augean Stables, where he spent a day digging a ditch, and redirected the flow of two nearby rivers.

Given that one of the biggest gaps in martial capability is what to do during downtime, this seems like a decent solution to the T1 martial problem. Give them progressively better things they can do by being just that good, and let it take a while. Yes, it's not useful to encounters. Yes, wizards will be better. But it's something, and it lets mundanes do something in the tail end of the game.

Essentially, this is a meta-narrative tool. Martial characters get the ability to say "I am too much of a big famous hero to schlep through miles of plains on the way to the Caves of Doom" and the story fast-forwards to the Caves of Doom. "My fame is too great to have to scrape and bow at the feet of the king to raise an army." Bam, you got an army. Do a dice roll if it makes you feel better. The stuff that was necessary happened off-screen. The most basic of these abilities can be something like "infinite arrows" because you're too heroic for "I go shopping for arrows" plots.

This is a very interesting take on things. Reminds me of the gag in comedy film or television where the characters get themselves into an apparently inescapable situation, and then it will cut to them walking away and one will remark "gee, that wrapped itself up pretty neatly", perhaps with a "SCENE MISSING" card in between :smalltongue:

[Flickerdart]

This is a very interesting take on things. Reminds me of the gag in comedy film or television where the characters get themselves into an apparently inescapable situation, and then it will cut to them walking away and one will remark "gee, that wrapped itself up pretty neatly", perhaps with a "SCENE MISSING" card in between :smalltongue:
Ultimately, that's what happens when you cast a spell. The wizard's player is not ever asked to describe how exactly his teleport spell worked, he just deducts the appropriate resource from his character sheet and the thing described in the spell happens. Even feats work like this - Leadership just has a guy show up to serve you. Nobody really cares how, it just does, even if you're in the middle of nowhere, and are a nobody. More mundane abilities should be like this.

Of course, level-based distribution is a thing, so it's worth thinking about exactly when it's appropriate to do any of these things. For example, "I conjure an NPC into being" is apparently pegged as appropriate for a level 6 character. :smallamused:

[Jormengand]

It just so happens that many people have homebrewed classes with exactly this intent, this one in particular being my favorite. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?433533-quot-I-will-crush-you-puny-mage!-quot-(3-5-hypermundane-class-PEACH))

The sad part is, I was wondering how long it would take for the hypermundanes to pop up. Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?428437-quot-Stand-back-boy-and-let-me-show-you-war!-quot-%283-5-class-PEACH%29) are (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?431473-The-Mundane-Trickster-Because-who-needs-spells-%283-5-class-PEACH%29) the (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?431660-quot-Mind-over-matter-matter-over-magic-quot-%283-5-class-PEACH%29) rest (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?433945-quot-Suffer-not-the-witch-to-live-quot-3-5-hypermundane-PEACH) of (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?478413-The-Animalist-%28Class-in-30-minutes-PEACH%29) them (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?481879-The-Hypnotist-%28Hypermundane-Telepath-Class-in-30-minutes-PEACH%29), for (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?489060-The-God-Hunter-Epic-Hypermundane-PrC-PEACH) those (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?489304-The-Invisible-Blade-Epic-Hypermundane-PrC-PEACH) interested (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?489610-The-Immortal-Soul-Epic-Hypermundane-PrC-PEACH).

[tsj]

Hmm.. Tier 1 mundane/martial ... 2 words. ...chuck Norris the class

[digiman619]

Hmm.. Tier 1 mundane/martial ... 2 words. ...chuck Norris the class

That's 4 words.


If everyone is T1, everyone can have equally fun. Just look at Exalted. T3 might be around the baseline intent of the system but there's nothing wrong with T1 and indeed, if the challenges and the players are all calibrated for T1, the game can be an incredible experience.

I'll never disagree that everyone being on a more or less even playing field is a good thing, but if you,read more than the tl;dr, I said that it turned the game into Calvinball. T1s have the ability to just flat-out undo the scenario. Their spells basically cheat reality so hard that unless the DM cheats even harder, it's impossible to challenge them.

Basically, I'm not saying a world where everyone is Goku and Merlin is a bad idea, but in a game like D&D, trying to quantify everything Goku and Merlin can theoretically do so that they can do all of them at a moment's notice free forever doesn't lend itself to balance. And ultimately, balance is what the tier system is all about.

[Telonius]

That's 4 words.

The two words picked a fight with Chuck Norris. You can see the results. :smallbiggrin:

[tsj]

The two words picked a fight with Chuck Norris. You can see the results. :smallbiggrin:

Exactly :-)

[Eldariel]

I'll never disagree that everyone being on a more or less even playing field is a good thing, but if you,read more than the tl;dr, I said that it turned the game into Calvinball. T1s have the ability to just flat-out undo the scenario. Their spells basically cheat reality so hard that unless the DM cheats even harder, it's impossible to challenge them.

Basically, I'm not saying a world where everyone is Goku and Merlin is a bad idea, but in a game like D&D, trying to quantify everything Goku and Merlin can theoretically do so that they can do all of them at a moment's notice free forever doesn't lend itself to balance. And ultimately, balance is what the tier system is all about.

I disagree with that assumption. Compared to Calvinball, there are certainly lots of rules and interactions in place and while everyone can dislocate space and time at a whim, that doesn't amount to the structure breaking down. Indeed, it becomes incredibly fast, brutal and powerful, but the structure is still there. There are games run on this level and it's qualitatively different from a game between Pun-Puns where everybody comes up with their abilities and the world on the fly.

The scenario simply has to exist on the same sphere. A hull such as Bastion of Broken Souls is, with some tinkering (mostly the creature builds and equipment; the plot itself functions perfectly well), perfectly functional in a world of T1s for instance: it's designed around the availability of plenty of divinations, planar travel, fast travel, resurrection, etc. T1s can challenge other T1s so in a world where everyone is T1, yes, the game becomes mostly about preparation and either lightning-fast or superslow encounters and there are plenty of considerations that don't match those of a lower-tiered game but it certainly functions. Such a game takes a lot of experience and system mastery to play, sure, but I don't think that should necessarily deduct from its value.


One of the beauties of the tier system is that you can play at any of these levels. I don't think it's fair to demonize T1-play just because of the worldshaping powers offered by it; some enjoy such precisely because of such powers. Games that actually offer the players that degree of ability to change the world are rare indeed and as such, it kind of hits a chord.

[digiman619]

I disagree with that assumption. Compared to Calvinball, there are certainly lots of rules and interactions in place and while everyone can dislocate space and time at a whim, that doesn't amount to the structure breaking down. Indeed, it becomes incredibly fast, brutal and powerful, but the structure is still there. There are games run on this level and it's qualitatively different from a game between Pun-Puns where everybody comes up with their abilities and the world on the fly.

The scenario simply has to exist on the same sphere. A hull such as Bastion of Broken Souls is, with some tinkering (mostly the creature builds and equipment; the plot itself functions perfectly well), perfectly functional in a world of T1s for instance: it's designed around the availability of plenty of divinations, planar travel, fast travel, resurrection, etc. T1s can challenge other T1s so in a world where everyone is T1, yes, the game becomes mostly about preparation and either lightning-fast or superslow encounters and there are plenty of considerations that don't match those of a lower-tiered game but it certainly functions. Such a game takes a lot of experience and system mastery to play, sure, but I don't think that should necessarily deduct from its value.


One of the beauties of the tier system is that you can play at any of these levels. I don't think it's fair to demonize T1-play just because of the worldshaping powers offered by it; some enjoy such precisely because of such powers. Games that actually offer the players that degree of ability to change the world are rare indeed and as such, it kind of hits a chord.

Let's just say that the metaphorical wankery Tier 1 brings isn't something I'm interested in as either a player or GM, so I don't want to deal with T1s. If you do, m have fun with it, but it's not my bag.

[Eldariel]

Let's just say that the metaphorical wankery Tier 1 brings isn't something I'm interested in as either a player or GM, so I don't want to deal with T1s. If you do, m have fun with it, but it's not my bag.

That's perfectly fine (though I'd appreciate it if you used more neutral language; "metaphorical wankery" practically seethes with disdain) but surely people who do should be allowed to enjoy what they enjoy?

[Gruftzwerg]

There are games run on this level and it's qualitatively different from a game between Pun-Puns where everybody comes up with their abilities and the world on the fly.

I think Pun-Pun would be on option to gain power equal/greater than T1 without spell casting ability (I am referring to the alternate ways to become Pun-Pun, not the Divine Minion build!). e.G. a 6th lvl "Soul Eater" could try to pull the Pun Pun card out.

Or what would be the most elegant way to solve this quest imho:

6. Calling Pazuzu's name 3 times will summon him. You can then Wish for a Lawful Evil Candle of Invocation. you can use this to gate in an Efreeti, to get three more wishes. one to shift to the astral plane, and two others on candles. Gate in a Sarruhk, and make it give you Manipulate Form. Properly statted the knowledge skill check of DC 25 is makeable at level 1.
(source: Pun-Pun (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build)))

[digiman619]

That's perfectly fine (though I'd appreciate it if you used more neutral language; "metaphorical wankery" practically seethes with disdain) but surely people who do should be allowed to enjoy what they enjoy?

Let me rephrase then. I don't think that sheer level of options that Tier 1s have that amount to "Unless you are another T1, there's nothing you can do to stop me" makes for fun gameplay, at least as far as a D&D style game is concerned. I'm not saying that level of player power is inherently bad, I'm saying that D&D/Pathfinder isn't the best game to play such a character in.

[Gnaeus]

There have been several attempts to make tier 1 martial classes, and they probably found their marks more or less. All failed to realize a rather significant point of tier 1, however: tier 1's don't actually do all of that simultaneously at-will. Barring the highest of ridiculous ops, the vast majority of tier 1 characters actually obey a significant number of rules and restrictions upon their supposedly unchecked power. They have definitive weaknesses which no matter how hard they compensate, are still weaknesses that must be compensated. The defining problem of a "tier 1 martial," is that the defining feature of a "martial" type is being able to do your stuff at-will, if not every round than at least with no daily limit and with extreme ease in switching between your maneuver loadout. The weaknesses of a spellcaster are the very things that a martial is always good at, so a tier 1 martial's weaknesses are. . . what?

When people try to make tier 1 martials, they often write up a massive list of all the magical effects they want to duplicate and set up how to do so, with little or no limits on daily use or knowledge. They give out constant abilities that are blatantly better than any spell version which exists. And so instead of a theoretically overpowered tier 1 caster who has to jump through a bunch of hoops and effectively get permission, the tier 1 martial is just bonkers overpowered.

In order to make a tier 1 martial which can actually be played with tier 1 casters, they must follow similar rules. Once those rules become similar enough to play nice, the martial is effectively just using refluffed casting. It's a catch-22: if you're better than a caster you're too strong, if you're the same as a caster then you're not a non-caster anymore. That leaves being worse than a caster, back to square one.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends a lot on level and opti-fu. Some T1 powers have or can easily be made to have durations that are either all day or can be made close enough to all day that it doesn't matter. This category includes such winners as wildshape, shapechange, planar binding, animate dead, astral projection, overland flight. Yes, you can only cast it once, but it will be on when you want it on (once you extend it if needed). Other common T1 powers have enough uses that you just have all you need. If you can teleport across a continent and back, you are unlikely to need more than a few uses a day. You might not have Polymorph at will, but still have enough uses that you can cast it every combat.

What makes this worse is that daily use is a terrible balance point because individual games are all over the map. I've been in games where we expected one big over CRed fight per day, and casters could nova freely. I've been in games where players were exploring without a timetable, and you could rope trick after each encounter. Ive been in games where every monster lair was set up in such a way that the first fight activated the entire tribe and you basically get 3-6 encounters at 1-3 round intervals. I've been in games with 4 encounter days. Ive been in games with tight timetables where you don't want to rest until absolutely necessary. I've been in games where every day IC was 4 sessions, and you could level faster than you could memorize spells. You pretty much have to balance the classes around your DMs playstyle.

[Gallowglass]

That's perfectly fine (though I'd appreciate it if you used more neutral language; "metaphorical wankery" practically seethes with disdain) but surely people who do should be allowed to enjoy what they enjoy?

Well now I've got a big problem. I don't know whether to name my new costume metal band "Metaphorical Wankery" or "Seethes with Disdain"

dammit guys.

[digiman619]

Well now I've got a big problem. I don't know whether to name my new costume metal band "Metaphorical Wankery" or "Seethes with Disdain"

dammit guys.

If it's closer to glam rock, "Metaphorical Wankery". If it's closer to death metal, then "Seethes With Disdain"

[Psyren]

You could fluff all of the necessary abilities as things like tech but in the end it is still spellcasting by a different name.


Those are all re-fluffed spellcasting. In the first case it is a somatic component spell requiring a focus component, just fluffed slightly differently. In the second it is being, essentially, the chosen avatar of a God.

If you want some semi plausible re-fluff then that is one thing. Just go the Iron Man or Reed Richards route and have it be advanced technology. Or go with "gifts from the gods for services rendered". Or "skill of such an extreme bull**** tier that reality itself is persuaded to realize your desires.".

None of that makes it a martial character though.

^^^

All of this. I mean, if you can envision martials doing all this stuff - if you simply can't accept there are some innate abilities that casters should have but non-casters shouldn't - then the distinction between martial and mage is already so threadbare that you might as well just play 4e and call it a day.

[Jormengand]

All of this. I mean, if you can envision martials doing all this stuff - if you simply can't accept there are some innate abilities that casters should have but non-casters shouldn't - then the distinction between martial and mage is already so threadbare that you might as well just play 4e and call it a day.

Yeah, but at the same time, there are pretty clearly some things that mundanes should have access to, like fat stacks of fat stacks of hit points and the ability to just nope status conditions, but the trouble is that at high levels even wizards have supernatural levels of health and can usually cure any status conditions they're stupid enough to let happen to them in the first place. The main problem with 3.5 is finding the things that mundanes should be able to do better than casters, but that casters can't already do unrealistically well anyway.

[ryu]

^^^

All of this. I mean, if you can envision martials doing all this stuff - if you simply can't accept there are some innate abilities that casters should have but non-casters shouldn't - then the distinction between martial and mage is already so threadbare that you might as well just play 4e and call it a day.

The problem with that is that 4e doesn't have a tier 1. It just has one tier it shoved everyone into in the general 3 area. Perfectly fine if tier 3 or so was your intended goal. Not so much if you wanted 1.

[Psyren]

The main problem with 3.5 is finding the things that mundanes should be able to do better than casters, but that casters can't already do unrealistically well anyway.

The main martial advantage I'd look for would be less dependency on resource management than casters have. That's not how it works in practice past the earliest levels since mid-high level casters can basically end every day with unused spells/consumables, but that's what the game should have aimed for, and it's one of the few things I'll applaud 5e for doing unequivocally right; 5e has no bonus spells and it's also very difficult to slather on buffs to the point that you can use your remaining slots sparingly with no loss of effectiveness due to the Concentration mechanic.


The problem with that is that 4e doesn't have a tier 1. It just has one tier it shoved everyone into in the general 3 area. Perfectly fine if tier 3 or so was your intended goal. Not so much if you wanted 1.

I think the folks who want all-T1 are system-savvy enough that they can just ban everything below that point on their own and brew themselves up a Lightning Warrior/ExFighter if they truly must have a noncaster option. I don't see the point in designing specifically for that niche professionally/commercially.

[ryu]

The main martial advantage I'd look for would be less dependency on resource management than casters have. That's not how it works in practice past the earliest levels since mid-high level casters can basically end every day with unused spells/consumables, but that's what the game should have aimed for, and it's one of the few things I'll applaud 5e for doing unequivocally right; 5e has no bonus spells and it's also very difficult to slather on buffs to the point that you can use your remaining slots sparingly with no loss of effectiveness due to the Concentration mechanic.



I think the folks who want all-T1 are system-savvy enough that they can just ban everything below that point on their own and brew themselves up a Lightning Warrior/ExFighter if they truly must have a noncaster option. I don't see the point in designing specifically for that niche professionally/commercially.

Except that is expressly, unequivocally the point of the thread as defined in the OP. I may not care about non-casters. I just stopped using them and never looked back. Apparently Helio desires a different solution and I'm fine with it. I'm skeptical she could manage it without getting something most of us would call a caster, but I wish her luck with her endeavor anyway.

[Psyren]

Except that is expressly, unequivocally the point of the thread as defined in the OP.

I know the premise of the thread. I just happen to disagree with it, for the reasons Tippy outlined.

For me, martials should top out at T3 or possibly even T2 (if they, say, become strong enough to punch planets out of alignment, that could be used to break the game in very limited ways for instance.) But T1 should require magic, or else it risks breaking suspension of disbelief. (Or the significantly less polite phrase for that Tippy used.)

[Florian]

How would one go about having a Tier One character that wasn't a spellcaster?

Your question itself is meaningless to the point of being stupid.

What we´re talking about are boundaries and breaking them. "Tier One" is directly tied to both and defined by them, as would be what "mundane" means in that context.

[Extra Anchovies]

^^^

All of this. I mean, if you can envision martials doing all this stuff - if you simply can't accept there are some innate abilities that casters should have but non-casters shouldn't - then the distinction between martial and mage is already so threadbare that you might as well just play 4e and call it a day.

People seem to have missed my thoughts on refluffed spellcasting (which makes sense, because the post was at the bottom of page one), so I'll bring them forward here.

The issue with saying "but that replicates [spellcasting]/[a spell]" is twofold.
1. There exists a spell or combination of spells for anything that characters are expected (by the designers) to have to do in D&D.
2. Dismissing [being able to do things that spells can also do] as refluffed spellcasting means dismissing most of 3.5. Psionics, invocations, incarnum, pact magic; there's so many different subsystems, all of which are designed to help characters meet the challenges they're expected to face, a purpose for which spellcasting is also designed. Heck, there are spells that grant full BAB and spells that grant fighter feats - is the fighter as printed in the PHB, then, just refluffed spellcasting?


Well now I've got a big problem. I don't know whether to name my new costume metal band "Metaphorical Wankery" or "Seethes with Disdain"

dammit guys.

Hm. You could name it one of those and give the other name to their first album, but even then I'm not sure which way is better. I think Metaphorical Wankery is better as a band name than an album name, so I suppose that's the one to go with.

[eggynack]

I personally don't think my altered one punch man goes too far at all outside the bounds of the strictly mundane and martial. To me, martial mostly means that you're doing things that real people can do, except much better. Taking that from, "I can run several times faster than anyone in the real world," to, "I can run millions of times faster than anyone in the real world," doesn't break that underlying construct. The only thing that I listed that does go against that construct is the thing about going to other planes. And, if it's so important, he can just not go to other planes. Druids don't go to other planes natively, and they somehow manage. Hell, they don't even necessarily need to mimic teleportation, cause clerics don't do that in a meaningful way (at least to my knowledge). And they definitely don't need to heal others, even if that could fit into plausible medical skill, cause wizards don't tend to do that. Casters usually only have access to most things, and Saitama can definitely do most things. Granted, they get the ability to do all things at higher levels, and/or through proxies, but the tier system doesn't strongly consider those levels anyway.

Now, whether such a thing should exist, that's another question. Maybe this class should never even be considered, or maybe it's important to have martial characters on that level, but I don't care overmuch about the answer to that. The important thing is that it seems possible, and possible within the strict bounds of the actually extraordinary.

[Eldariel]

Let me rephrase then. I don't think that sheer level of options that Tier 1s have that amount to "Unless you are another T1, there's nothing you can do to stop me" makes for fun gameplay, at least as far as a D&D style game is concerned. I'm not saying that level of player power is inherently bad, I'm saying that D&D/Pathfinder isn't the best game to play such a character in.

That's strange. I'd consider 3e D&D one of the best systems for modelling a game on that level given that's what about 50% of the Player's Handbook (the spell-section) is about; and hell, many settings have characters going straight-up God or better. Epic system doesn't work but everything short of that works beautifully for just that kind of gameplay.

[danzibr]

One punch man is a decent starting point.

I can think of three different ways immediately to justify strategic movement that aren't spellcasting. You could use your impossible swordsmanship to cut a hole in reality and step through. You could be the Flash, and just be that damn fast. You could have a seven-league stride. Interplanar movement is a little trickier, but still possible.
Agreed.

Agreed with Tippy. You can remove any mechanical association with 3.5 spellcasting, for example by not requiring any expendable resource, but the ability to take other forms is going to be magic, no two ways about it.

You can do what (greater) teleport/plane shift does by 'slipping between the planes', using an Escape Artist check.

You can do what ice assassin does with a Craft check, fusion with a Heal check, and astral seed with a Survival check.

Are those things less magical because they are (Ex) and done via skill checks? I really doubt it.
Man, I dunno. Seems to me they're way less magical.

[Psyren]

The issue with saying "but that replicates [spellcasting]/[a spell]" is twofold.
1. There exists a spell or combination of spells for anything that characters are expected (by the designers) to have to do in D&D.
2. Dismissing [being able to do things that spells can also do] as refluffed spellcasting means dismissing most of 3.5. Psionics, invocations, incarnum, pact magic; there's so many different subsystems, all of which are designed to help characters meet the challenges they're expected to face, a purpose for which spellcasting is also designed. Heck, there are spells that grant full BAB and spells that grant fighter feats - is the fighter as printed in the PHB, then, just refluffed spellcasting?

I view your second point to be splitting hairs - Psions, Incarnates, Warlocks et al. may not be spellcasters, but I do consider them to be casters, i.e. definitely not "martials."

As for your first point - it doesn't actually matter to me that there is a combination of magic that can do everything it's possible to do in the system. Broadly speaking, to me, magic should be more capable than not-magic. What I do think it needs is less ammunition; the wizard can do anything the fighter can do plus anything only the wizard can do, but it should be more sensible in most situations to just focus on the latter and bring a fighter with you. Currently, the game gives casters too many resources (bonus spells and consumables) and makes it a little too easy to do the fighter's job (a single Polymorph spell will do it in 3.5, leaving plenty of slots available to do other things) and that's what I think should be addressed moreso than creating Saitama.

[illyahr]

The generally accepted thought behind a Tier 1 is being able to handle an situation or combination of situations. Anything you throw at them, they have a counter for.

So to get a martial character up to Tier 1, they would have to have a solid answer for each of the following at any given time:

ethereal/incorporeal creatures
flying creatures
creatures with damage reduction
social encounters
skill challenges
mundane travel
planar travel
ally death
character death
surprise rounds
enemy armies
ally armies
debilitating effects
high-level single magicals/martials
low-level groups of magicals/martials
extraplanar creatures
probably some more things that I can't think of but someone else will


Now, having an easy answer to some of these and still at least having a workable answer for the rest puts you into Tier 2 (I still say the Bard has moved up to Tier 2 with splatbooks, but that's just me). Having a workable answer for most or having an easy answer for one and being support for the rest puts you into Tier 3. Having a workable answer for one or two and being support for the rest puts you into Tier 4. Being basically a support character for all of these puts you at Tier 5. And if you have no answer for any of these (*cough* CW Samurai *cough*), you end up with Tier 6.

The Tier System isn't about whether or not something is magical, it's about whether or not a class has an answer to a problem and how easy that answer is to put into play. If you want to move martials up into the higher tiers, you need to give them answers for more of these.

[danzibr]

The generally accepted thought behind a Tier 1 is being able to handle an situation or combination of situations. Anything you throw at them, they have a counter for.

So to get a martial character up to Tier 1, they would have to have a solid answer for each of the following at any given time:

ethereal/incorporeal creatures
flying creatures
creatures with damage reduction
social encounters
skill challenges
mundane travel
planar travel
ally death
character death
surprise rounds
enemy armies
ally armies
debilitating effects
high-level single magicals/martials
low-level groups of magicals/martials
extraplanar creatures
probably some more things that I can't think of but someone else will


Now, having an easy answer to some of these and still at least having a workable answer for the rest puts you into Tier 2 (I still say the Bard has moved up to Tier 2 with splatbooks, but that's just me). Having a workable answer for most or having an easy answer for one and being support for the rest puts you into Tier 3. Having a workable answer for one or two and being support for the rest puts you into Tier 4. Being basically a support character for all of these puts you at Tier 5. And if you have no answer for any of these (*cough* CW Samurai *cough*), you end up with Tier 6.

The Tier System isn't about whether or not something is magical, it's about whether or not a class has an answer to a problem and how easy that answer is to put into play. If you want to move martials up into the higher tiers, you need to give them answers for more of these.
I could totally see Saitama handling all of that.

[Extra Anchovies]

I view your second point to be splitting hairs - Psions, Incarnates, Warlocks et al. may not be spellcasters, but I do consider them to be casters, i.e. definitely not "martials."

That's fair. But "refluffed magic" doesn't have quite as much punch to it as "refluffed spellcasting", now does it? "It's just refluffed spells" was being used to dismiss abilities that would follow different game mechanics than spellcasting, so declaring them mechanically identical to spellcasting and then using that to say that the proposed abilities might as well not exist at all is faulty reasoning.


As for your first point - it doesn't actually matter to me that there is a combination of magic that can do everything it's possible to do in the system. Broadly speaking, to me, magic should be more capable than not-magic.

If a system is designed with the idea in mind that magic should have broader and better capabilities than not-magic, then a "tier 1 martial" is impossible.


What I do think it needs is less ammunition; the wizard can do anything the fighter can do plus anything only the wizard can do, but it should be more sensible in most situations to just focus on the latter and bring a fighter with you. Currently, the game gives casters too many resources (bonus spells and consumables) and makes it a little too easy to do the fighter's job (a single Polymorph spell will do it in 3.5, leaving plenty of slots available to do other things) and that's what I think should be addressed moreso than creating Saitama.

This leaves untouched a particularly glaring issue with classes like the fighter; namely, they have no real way to interact with the story beyond rolling dice at the meatbags set in front of them by the DM. Martial characters, even very good ones, are playing a rail-shooter, while the wizard is playing Morrowind.

Another issue with trying to use differences in resource limitations as a primary balancing factor is that how limited a certain resource is will vary from one game to the next. If a system is designed with the assumption that characters will face X encounters each day and that wizards will use an average of 3 spells per encounter, then players who (due to their personal playstyle) average more than 3 spells in each encounter (or who average 3 per encounter on days with more than X encounters) will run out of spells and have nothing to do for the rest of the day, and players who (again, due to playstyle) average less than 3 spells in each encounter will underperform because they are not using as much of their power as the game expects them to. Being useless some of the time is not fun, nor is being not particularly useful all of the time.

There are ways around this (e.g. Psions getting a certain number of temporary power points per encounter, along with a small pool for any powers they want to use outside of combat, with the fluff being that the extra temporary PP are their mind responding to the pressure of combat), but they generally require abandoning some or all of the limited-resource structure.

[Milo v3]

As long as it doesn't feel like spellcasting and you still feel like a martial, I'd say it's not just "refluffing" since obviously it's going to have different mechanics that just "SLA's with (Ex) slapped on them".

[GreyBlack]

In order to have a T1 martial character, the best model you can find is golden age Superman.

No, seriously. This is a character who, within his universe, can solve most problems with little to no outside help and has abilities which allow him to perform other characters jobs, sometimes better than even those who specialize in that area. Need a character who can deal immense amounts of damage? Boom. Disguise his face? Done that. Violate action economy? Done that.

This is even before you consider that he can create powers for himself on the fly, customizing his loadout to the situation. Basically, he's a T1 martial.

[Thurbane]

Hypothetical Class (quick and dirty version) -

THE UNBERMENSCH

Hit Die: d12



BAB
Fort
Ref
Will
Special
Maneuvers
Known
Maneuvers
Readied
Stances
Known


+1
+2
+2
+2
Bonus Feat
6
5
1


+2
+3
+3
+3
Bonus Feat
7
5
2


+3
+3
+3
+3

8
5
2


+4
+4
+4
+4
Bonus Feat
9
5
2


+5
+4
+4
+4
Fly
10
6
3


+6
+5
+5
+5
Bonus Feat, Pounce
11
6
3


+7
+5
+5
+5
Freedom of Movement
12
6
3


+8
+6
+6
+6
Bonus Feat
13
7
3


+9
+6
+6
+6
Teleport (standard action)
14
7
4


+10
+7
+7
+7
Bonus Feat
15
8
4


+11
+7
+7
+7

16
8
4


+12
+8
+8
+8
Bonus Feat
17
8
4


+13
+8
+8
+8
Teleport (move action)
18
9
4


+14
+9
+9
+9
Bonus Feat
19
9
5


+15
+9
+9
+9
Mind Blank
20
10
5


+16
+10
+10
+10
Bonus Feat
21
10
5


+17
+10
+10
+10
Teleport (swift action)
22
10
5


+18
+11
+11
+11
Bonus Feat
23
11
5


+19
+11
+11
+11

24
11
5


+20
+12
+12
+12
Bonus Feat
25
12
6




Class Skills
The ubermensch can choose any ten skills to be class skills.

Skill Points: 6 + Int modifier (or four times this number at 1st level).

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: An ubermensch is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with all armor (heavy, medium, and light) and shields (including tower shields).

Maneuvers: You begin your career with knowledge of six martial maneuvers. The disciplines available to you are Desert Wind, Devoted Spirit, Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, Setting Sun, Shadow Hand, Stone Dragon, Tiger Claw, and White Raven.

Maneuvers Readied: (as per warblade, ToB p.20)

Stances Known: (as per warblade, ToB p.20)

Bonus Feats: An ubermensch gets one bonus feat at 1st level, one at 2nd level, and another one at every second class level (4th, 6th, and so on).

Fly (Su): at 5th level, the ubermensch can fly as per the spell. Activating or deactivating this ability is a swift action, and it functions continuously until deactivated, or disrupted by an outside source (such as an anti magic field).

Pounce (Ex): when the ubermensch makes a charge, he can follow with a full attack.

Freedom of Movement (Su): at 7th level, the ubermensch can cloak himself with a freedom of movement effect, as per the spell. Activating or deactivating this ability is a swift action, and it functions continuously until deactivated, or disrupted by an outside source (such as an anti magic field).

Teleport (Sp): at 9th once per day per point of Con bonus, the ubermensch can teleport as a spell-like-ability. CL is equal to his class level. At 13th level, activating this ability becomes a move action. At 17th level, it becomes a swift action.

Mind Blank (Su): at 15th level, the ubermensch can cloak himself with a mind blank effect, as per the spell. Activating or deactivating this ability is a swift action, and it functions continuously until deactivated, or disrupted by an outside source (such as an anti magic field).




...apart from my horrendous formatting and obviously errors and omissions in my write-up, am I correct in assuming this would only still make it to tier 2?

[GreyBlack]

SNIP

You are incorrect in assuming that this is T2. Rather, this is a high-tier 3. For comparison, a sorcerer is, at level 9, able to cast the Wightocalypse. Alternatively, they could gate in literal extraplanar beings. No, the T1 martial would have to be able to solve any problem with little to no effort. If I had time, I'd almost model it like a power point system, but each ability would cost a swift action and at least 1 power point to utilize. I'd probably have the character draw their powers from some focus object (e.g. the sun) and require 1 hour of focus on this object to establish that link. From there, the character could change out his various powers daily based on what was necessary. Flight would be one possible power, another could be matter manipulation, creating a cone of cold, the ability to travel faster than light (e.g. Time Stop) etc.

In addition to that, these powers would have to be pretty darn abusable. I would recommend that they scale with the character's BAB. The powers would only be usable while the character has power in their reservoir; using their abilities would cost a certain amount of energy from their reservoir, which can be replenished with exposure to their power source.

There's more, and I'll post a full work up later, but that's where we'll start.

[Thurbane]

You are incorrect in assuming that this is T2. Rather, this is a high-tier 3. For comparison, a sorcerer is, at level 9, able to cast the Wightocalypse. Alternatively, they could gate in literal extraplanar beings. No, the T1 martial would have to be able to solve any problem with little to no effort. If I had time, I'd almost model it like a power point system, but each ability would cost a swift action and at least 1 power point to utilize. I'd probably have the character draw their powers from some focus object (e.g. the sun) and require 1 hour of focus on this object to establish that link. From there, the character could change out his various powers daily based on what was necessary. Flight would be one possible power, another could be matter manipulation, creating a cone of cold, the ability to travel faster than light (e.g. Time Stop) etc.

In addition to that, these powers would have to be pretty darn abusable. I would recommend that they scale with the character's BAB. The powers would only be usable while the character has power in their reservoir; using their abilities would cost a certain amount of energy from their reservoir, which can be replenished with exposure to their power source.

There's more, and I'll post a full work up later, but that's where we'll start.

Fair enough...this pretty sums up everything I dislike about the tier system.

I have updated the formatting of my post, and added some changes about the activation time of teleport.

[Florian]

@Extra Anchovis:

The whole thing will hinge on how the rules for this are modeled. The core problem here is, that each "spell" is a complete discreet rules element unto itself and that a casters option are expanded by that exact rules element. Most of the time, all of that is pretty binary: You either have fly and teleport, or you don´t.

To make it work, you must first model "Hyperreality" and drop all spells/abilities that would duplicate now "ordinary" abilities that anyone can access. This step should be done without looking at the spells, as this´ll lead to a kind of confirmation bias based on point-by-point integration.

Once this is done, you can add "magic" to create effects that are still out of the ordinary, even in Hyperreality.

For example - Interaction with the planes in hyperreality:

Let´s assume that interacting with the planes "only" needs experience and willpower, creating a HD minimum for some effects and using the Iron Will feat to generate "Astral Points".

Then anyone with 3HD, a minimum of one readied Astral Point an the necessary material components (Chalk and silver powder) can create a Magic Circle, call and bind outsiders beginning at 5HD and cross to the planes at certain "weak points" at 7HD or commune with a deity.

[ShurikVch]

Excuse me, but aren't Abjurant Champion, Ruby Knight Vindicator, and Slayer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/slayer.htm) martial classes too?

[Gnaeus]

The generally accepted thought behind a Tier 1 is being able to handle an situation or combination of situations. Anything you throw at them, they have a counter for.

So to get a martial character up to Tier 1, they would have to have a solid answer for each of the following at any given time:

ethereal/incorporeal creatures
flying creatures
creatures with damage reduction
social encounters
skill challenges
mundane travel
planar travel
ally death
character death
surprise rounds
enemy armies
ally armies
debilitating effects
high-level single magicals/martials
low-level groups of magicals/martials
extraplanar creatures
probably some more things that I can't think of but someone else will


Now, having an easy answer to some of these and still at least having a workable answer for the rest puts you into Tier 2 (I still say the Bard has moved up to Tier 2 with splatbooks, but that's just me). Having a workable answer for most or having an easy answer for one and being support for the rest puts you into Tier 3. Having a workable answer for one or two and being support for the rest puts you into Tier 4. Being basically a support character for all of these puts you at Tier 5. And if you have no answer for any of these (*cough* CW Samurai *cough*), you end up with Tier 6.

The Tier System isn't about whether or not something is magical, it's about whether or not a class has an answer to a problem and how easy that answer is to put into play. If you want to move martials up into the higher tiers, you need to give them answers for more of these.

This is just wrong. A core Druid is a T1, and can't do almost half of that stuff, at least prior to Shapechange. You don't have to be able to do everything every T1 can do to be T1. Merely to be approximately equal to the core Druid list in versatility.

[Florian]

Excuse me, but aren't Abjurant Champion, Ruby Knight Vindicator, and Slayer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/slayer.htm) martial classes too?

Not really.

[ShurikVch]

Not really.??? :smallconfused:

[eggynack]

This is just wrong. A core Druid is a T1, and can't do almost half of that stuff, at least prior to Shapechange. You don't have to be able to do everything every T1 can do to be T1. Merely to be approximately equal to the core Druid list in versatility.
Wait, what's this half that stuff that the druid can't do now? Maybe skill challenges, planar travel, and surprise rounds. Social encounters possibly too, if diplomacy isn't sufficient. That's a lot less than half.

Edit: Also, I think that standards are generally lower in a core context. If you're defining a list of stuff that a tier should generally be able to do, you've gotta be working in a particular book range in the construction of that list, because the list changes based on the book range. In that context, it's notable that planar travel and surprise rounds enter the druid's wheel house pre-17 out of core, and there's ways to do some stuff you'd want out of skills without too much effort involved. Y'know, stealthiness and skill list expansion and such.

[LTwerewolf]

??? :smallconfused:

They mean that the thing that makes those things powerful isn't the martial side, but the casting side. The martial side is just more on top of what was already powerful. RKV on a paladin chassis isn't nearly as powerful and doesn't approach tier 1. The same goes for the slayer and abjurant champion. They're not nearly as powerful on a psychic warrior or hexblade respectively.


This is just wrong. A core Druid is a T1, and can't do almost half of that stuff, at least prior to Shapechange. You don't have to be able to do everything every T1 can do to be T1. Merely to be approximately equal to the core Druid list in versatility.

The only two things on that list I don't see a moderate level druid having an answer to is the skill challenges (for SOME skills) and the planar travel.

[NichG]

Take any character. Give them (well, their player) the dramatic editing mechanics from White Wolf's Adventure!.

Bob Ordinary doesn't snap his fingers to planeshift, but it seems like whenever he needs it there's always an interdimensional portal nearby going exactly where he wants to go, keyed to his pocket lint. He may be a thousand miles away from the climactic battle, but wouldn't you know it, just then an alien spacecraft crashes down right near him - interstellar drive disabled, but atmospheric engines just need a good kick and he's on his way. Someone bisects him with a glaive made of a sphere of annihilation? Wouldn't you know it, but all SoAs are actually an epic spell cast by an ancient god-wizard, they have a duration, and it just ran out this round.

The mechanics are something like 'here, you have a handful of points per game. For 1 point, make anything possible happen of minor (e.g. not plot-breaking) importance. For 2 points, make anything impossible happen of minor importance, or anything possible and plot-breaking happen. For 4 points, make anything impossible and plot-breaking happen. Suffer a side-effect for a discount, and the GM can choose to veto this one (but not the others)'.

[Florian]

??? :smallconfused:

Don´t fool yourself. Just because a class can hold and swing a weapon, it´s not "martial". Any basic Cleric or Druid can do that. The power of the PrC you named comes from accessing spells and gaining synergy from that.

[ShurikVch]

They mean that the thing that makes those things powerful isn't the martial side, but the casting side.Does it implying martial side somewhen somewhere actually made somebody powerful? :smallconfused:
I mean - except for the closest circle to the Spire in the Outlands

[Gnaeus]

So to get a martial character up to Tier 1, they would have to have a solid answer for each of the following at any given time:

ethereal/incorporeal creatures
flying creatures
creatures with damage reduction
social encounters
skill challenges
mundane travel
planar travel
ally death
character death
surprise rounds
enemy armies
ally armies
debilitating effects
high-level single magicals/martials
low-level groups of magicals/martials
extraplanar creatures
probably some more things that I can't think of but someone else will


Core 16th level druid. Is it a tier 1? Unquestionably.
Ethereal/incorporeal creatures: No. Cant become ethereal. No specialized anti incorporeal effects. No force effects. Only better than a monk by virtue of Death Ward.
Fliers: Yes.
DR: moderate. Cant beat common DR types, but can bypass with some magical attacks. But see Below.
Social Encounters: No. Having a skill on your skill list does not a T1 make. No helpful spells.
Skill Challenges: No.
Mundane Travel: Yes
Planar Travel: No
Ally Death: Yes
Character Death (I assume this means virtual immortality/immunity to death via clone/astral projection/other): No
Surprise Rounds: No
Enemy Armies: Yes
Ally Armies (This means making them?): Medium. Get a few nice tricks like Awaken, but nothing as good as Animate dead or planar binding.
Debilitating Effects: Yes
High level enemies or groups: Yes
Extraplanar Creatures: No better than a muggle. Cant beat common DR. Best attack spells are SR yes. No specialized anti outsider spells or spells to prevent them from summoning or escaping. May struggle against things with multiple energy resistances and DR.

I count 7 nos, 7 yeses, and a couple on the fence. I would add some other factors, some of which the core druid list cannot do. Like Immunity to Scrying: No. Immunity to mind control: Partial. The Druid can do it, with wildshape. But his Tier 1 spell list can't.

Anyone with the versatility of the core druid spell list, or in other words who can reliably solve about half those T1 issues, is a T1.

Now, I'll admit adding the SPC fixes about half of the problem areas and opening all sources fixes most of the rest. But the baseline of a tier is the least versatile guy in the tier. Which for T1 is core druid, unless you include spirit shaman as a T1, which is just druid with half your spells made useless by lack of wildshape and AC.

[Florian]

Does it implying martial side somewhen somewhere actually made somebody powerful? :smallconfused:
I mean - except for the closest circle to the Spire in the Outlands

Maybe you did´t understand the (stupid) underlying core question: It´s about being able to do what a T1 caster can do without resorting to spells.

[eggynack]

I count 7 nos, 6 yeses, and a couple on the fence. I would add some other factors, some of which the core druid list cannot do. Like Immunity to Scrying: No. Immunity to mind control: Partial. The Druid can do it, with wildshape. But his Tier 1 spell list can't.
I'd probably give more credit on some of the ones you're on the fence for, and would at least upgrade the incorporeal one to somewhere around medium (energy effects help, even if they're imperfect, and that plus the possibility of greater magic fang'd face beating doubles down on the approach count. Also, monks can't really interact with incorporeal at all) but I admittedly misinterpreted a couple of the things listed. Like character death, which, I dunno, maybe that's the thing you said. Not really sure how wild shape is granting immunity to mind control offhand. I think you need enhance to access plant traits, and elemental traits don't include that immunity. If wild shape did have that capability in core though, I'd definitely have it on the list of druid capabilities, for the reasons I'll mention below.


Anyone with the versatility of the core druid spell list, or in other words who can reliably solve about half those T1 issues, is a T1.
Two points. First, if you're only using core for the martial fellow, then that is approximately the metric that makes sense, but it seems weird to be adding all these arbitrary abilities and use such a metric. As I said, the list changes depending on what books you use, and it seems to me that a martial character should really be trying to measure up to, if not a full book list, then at least something broader than core only. Second, I definitely wouldn't only consider the spell list, and would absolutely add wild shape and the companion to the consideration of problem solving capabilities. I have a whole long speech associated with that claim, but the short version is that these class features, while they may on the surface seem meaningless to the druid's status as a tier one class, actually represent a number of critical spell effects that broaden versatility beyond what would be expected. The classic example is flight. Druid spells don't do all that well where flight is concerned, but that's fine, cause they basically get a buffed version of overland flight from various wild shape forms. It's an important ability, but it's not all that present on the druid's "spell list" until you consider wild shape.

[ShurikVch]

Maybe you did´t understand the (stupid) underlying core question: It´s about being able to do what a T1 caster can do without resorting to spells.Without using spells?
Easy!
There is Psionics. :smallsmile:

But without using magic?
Please, tell me: what's even the point?

Also, if everything magic do will be accessible without magic, then what will be the point of magic? :smallconfused:

[eggynack]

Also, if everything magic do will be accessible without magic, then what will be the point of magic? :smallconfused:
Cause it's presumably doable in a different fashion, and this arbitrary martial class would be better at some things and worse at others in comparison to a caster. I mean, you essentially constructed this point yourself in this same post. What's the point of spells if everything those spells do is accessible without spells, specifically through psionics?

[Gnaeus]

I'd probably give more credit on some of the ones you're on the fence for, and would at least upgrade the incorporeal one to somewhere around medium (energy effects help, even if they're imperfect, and that plus the possibility of greater magic fang'd face beating doubles down on the approach count. Also, monks can't really interact with incorporeal at all)

If magic fanged face beating counts, having magical fists and a much higher touch AC than the bears has to help too.


but I admittedly misinterpreted a couple of the things listed. Like character death, which, I dunno, maybe that's the thing you said.

Well, given that the one above it was "ally death" I figured if it was counted twice it had to mean something different than casting reincarnate on your buddy.


Not really sure how wild shape is granting immunity to mind control offhand. I think you need enhance to access plant traits, and elemental traits don't include that immunity.

I'm not so foolish as to argue with you about wildshape works. I'm sure you're right. OK, we can shift that into the no category.


Two points. First, if you're only using core for the martial fellow, then that is approximately the metric that makes sense, but it seems weird to be adding all these arbitrary abilities and use such a metric. As I said, the list changes depending on what books you use, and it seems to me that a martial character should really be trying to measure up to, if not a full book list, then at least something broader than core only.

But he doesn't actually have to equal Druid. He has to equal Tier 1ness. Where Tier 1ness is that range of flexibility that we see as characteristic of a Tier 1, higher than T2 or 3. A core druid has that range of flexibility. It is fully possible that a class could be more flexible than a core druid, less flexible than an open source druid, and lurk on the bottom of the T1 power scale in a game with lots of sources allowed. Unless we are redesigning the goalposts to say that druid is not T1 in core, the minimum versatility of T1ness can never be higher than the versatility of a core druid.

To put it a different way, whenever a new supplement comes out, it may change how classes rank, but not where the tiers are. When I see PF human sorcerers with their additional 3 spells known per level, I don't think (Tier 2 got higher) I think (that makes them more resemble T1). When I look at the late 3.5 paladin boosts, like battle blessing, I don't think (tier 5 improved) I think (he moved towards T4).


Second, I definitely wouldn't only consider the spell list, and would absolutely add wild shape and the companion to the consideration of problem solving capabilities. I have a whole long speech associated with that claim, but the short version is that these class features, while they may on the surface seem meaningless to the druid's status as a tier one class, actually represent a number of critical spell effects that broaden versatility beyond what would be expected. The classic example is flight. Druid spells don't do all that well where flight is concerned, but that's fine, cause they basically get a buffed version of overland flight from various wild shape forms. It's an important ability, but it's not all that present on the druid's "spell list" until you consider wild shape.

Well, I gave flight to the druid anyway. My biggest counter arguments to that are definitional:
1. Many people consider Spirit Shaman to be T1. I think they are T3 (because they functionally can't access a big chunk of the druid spell versatility because of their casting mechanic/spells known progression) but not going there this thread.
2. Look at the ACFs. Like the Shapeshifter, which is a straight up nerf. Or imagine Druid + any full casting PRC that doesn't advance WS or AC. We would all agree it was worse than base druid, but I think we would generally think of it as a T1 caster.

In any of those 3 examples, I think that the consensus is that the Druid spell list is T1, so that would be the barrier to try to match. The result might be a little bit lower in its T1ness than druid. But I think if we put the core druid spell list/mechanic on a wizard chassis, it would be a T1, not a T3. To support that, look at binder, which gets to T2 pretty much solely on the strength of Summon Monster. SNA (in 3.5) is fully as good as SM, and the full druid list is certainly more flexible than any T3 on its own.

[Florian]

Without using spells?
Easy!

Also, if everything magic do will be accessible without magic, then what will be the point of magic? :smallconfused:

If "Martial" is peak performance, then "Magic" is "Niche and Different, ""What martial can´t do"".

If you want, take the "Kung-Fu Panda"-Series as inspiration: Po does his stuff and doesn´t need "magic" to do it.

[Psyren]

That's fair. But "refluffed magic" doesn't have quite as much punch to it as "refluffed spellcasting", now does it? "It's just refluffed spells" was being used to dismiss abilities that would follow different game mechanics than spellcasting, so declaring them mechanically identical to spellcasting and then using that to say that the proposed abilities might as well not exist at all is faulty reasoning.

It's not the mechanics that are the issue here; you could make Ex/Na versions of any spell effect you wanted and stick them onto a martial chassis for your ExFighter - Ex Resurrection, Ex Planar Travel, Ex Domination, Ex Incorporeality etc. The problem rather is the suspension of disbelief needed for the mainstream to accept these non-magic magic abilities.

Or as Tippy so elegantly put it:


"skill of such an extreme bull**** tier that reality itself is persuaded to realize your desires"

There are ways to nudge D&D in this direction if that is what the playgroup desires - things like Mythic and Stamina - but they are always variants, and tightly controlled, for a reason.


If a system is designed with the idea in mind that magic should have broader and better capabilities than not-magic, then a "tier 1 martial" is impossible.

I have yet to be shown why a T1 martial is necessary for a system to have. You don't roll a fighter or barbarian to interact with every single nuance of the game system - you do it because you want to crack skulls, and they do that. If I wanted a T1 caster's toolbox, I'd be one.



This leaves untouched a particularly glaring issue with classes like the fighter; namely, they have no real way to interact with the story beyond rolling dice at the meatbags set in front of them by the DM. Martial characters, even very good ones, are playing a rail-shooter, while the wizard is playing Morrowind.

And what is the rogue playing? There are in fact martials built for those who want to interact more with the system, but it's important to have streamlined ones as well. And in PF, both Fighters and Barbarians can broaden their methods of interaction if they wish - doing more than just full-attacking, or more even than just combat actions.



Another issue with trying to use differences in resource limitations as a primary balancing factor is that how limited a certain resource is will vary from one game to the next. If a system is designed with the assumption that characters will face X encounters each day and that wizards will use an average of 3 spells per encounter, then players who (due to their personal playstyle) average more than 3 spells in each encounter (or who average 3 per encounter on days with more than X encounters) will run out of spells and have nothing to do for the rest of the day, and players who (again, due to playstyle) average less than 3 spells in each encounter will underperform because they are not using as much of their power as the game expects them to. Being useless some of the time is not fun, nor is being not particularly useful all of the time.

There are ways around this (e.g. Psions getting a certain number of temporary power points per encounter, along with a small pool for any powers they want to use outside of combat, with the fluff being that the extra temporary PP are their mind responding to the pressure of combat), but they generally require abandoning some or all of the limited-resource structure.

These are solvable - just empower the GM to adjust resources to match their party's playstyle. Maybe they run a variant that bans bonus spells if they're running fewer encounters than normal, or they cause the adventuring day ot be spread over multiple sessions. And if they're doing extra encounters beyond the suggested number, add an optional recovery mechanic or extra spells. Either way, the martials should be at-will or otherwise unconstrained by daily/hourly limits.

And no, I don't see tweaking limits and "abandoning" them to be equivalent at all.

[Florian]

Psyren, at the relevant level, we´re talking story and not individual action. That´s why Fate Core works with "T1 Mundane" while D20 does not.

[Psyren]

Psyren, at the relevant level, we´re talking story and not individual action. That´s why Fate Core works with "T1 Mundane" while D20 does not.

I'm not familiar with Fate so you'll have to elaborate on what you mean by "story vs. individual action" as well as which level you're talking about.

[Cosi]

I have yet to be shown why a T1 martial is necessary for a system to have. You don't roll a fighter or barbarian to interact with every single nuance of the game system - you do it because you want to crack skulls, and they do that. If I wanted a T1 caster's toolbox, I'd be one.

This highlights what is, in my opinion, one of the largest problems with talking about balance in the context of the tiers. The concepts of "Tier One Martial" and "Effective Martial" are distinct, but the Tiers erase that difference. The Barbarian's problem isn't that he can't fight a time-traveling multi-planar war with three layers of proxies. It's that when you put him in a room with a level appropriate monster, the monster is the one who walks out.


And what is the rogue playing? There are in fact martials built for those who want to interact more with the system, but it's important to have streamlined ones as well.

This is true. As a corollary, you also want casters that interact less with the system. If we're going to support the Barbarian who doesn't want to deal with any problem he can't solve with an axe (and we should), we should also support the Fire Mage who doesn't want to deal with any problem he can't solve with a fireball.

At risk of derailing the thread, you want three basic types of class. Some classes should be simple to play and simple to build, some classes should be simple to build and complex to play, and some classes should be complex to build and complex to play. And you want to make sure there are a variety of concepts in each of those categories. (Core) 3e's setup where all the simple/simple classes are martials and all the complex/complex classes are casters is a failure.

[Florian]

I'm not familiar with Fate so you'll have to elaborate on what you mean by "story vs. individual action" as well as which level you're talking about.

Ok, you actually managed to surprise me there.

This system does not know individual spells, pieces of equipment or special moves.
Your character has some skills, there is a "scene" or "challenge", you chose your skill you want to use for it, determine the outcome by rolling the dice and then "tell the story of how you did it".

We´re in a Mos Eisley cantina, there´re some Hutt Mafia guys, me, I have the "Smuggler" skill, you have the "Jedi" skill, let´s go for it...

Edit: A Skill of "God Wizard of the Lonely Reaches 5" is equal to "Gaisha Seductress of the Crimson Lotus 5".

[Psyren]

Ok, you actually managed to surprise me there.

This system does not know individual spells, pieces of equipment or special moves.
Your character has some skills, there is a "scene" or "challenge", you chose your skill you want to use for it, determine the outcome by rolling the dice and then "tell the story of how you did it".

We´re in a Mos Eisley cantina, there´re some Hutr Mafia guys, me, I have the "Smuggler" skill, you have the "Jedi" skill, let´s go for it...

That sounds awfully rules-light/threadbare for a concept like "tiers" to apply though. I might just be dense here but I'm not really seeing the relevance.

[Florian]

That sounds awfully rules-light/threadbare for a concept like "tiers" to apply though. I might just be dense here but I'm not really seeing the relevance.

That´s a common mistake. Fate Core is actually very rules heavy, needs a fair amount of planning and is leagues away from being light-weight. In itself, it´s on the complexity level of d20 core.

The relevant point is, that it treats everything as a skill and all skills as equal. "Might" 5 is equal to "Magic" 5 and you can simply break down skills to fit the actual game, like "Might" into "Melee", "Ranged" and "Dodge" and "Magic" into "Arcane", "Divine and "Foresight", and so on.

Point being that in context of this discussion, everything is a straw man and this situation has already been resolved.

[Vogonjeltz]

except that that MISSES the entire point of what the tier system represents.

Martials are ALREADY GREAT at attacking and doing damage. Better at it than a wizard is (though the wizard has the ability to end the combat through other means) Anything you do that improves that doesn't make them a higher tier. That includes letting them hit more often, being able to debuff the enemy with actions, buffing with actions, etc. etc. etc.

Where the martials fall short is in ANY other aspect of the game (skill challenges, social challenges, trap handling, problem solving, mystery solving, roleplay) where the wizard has one of N spells that give them boosts or overcome the challenge through a backdoor, as well as attribute dependance on the very attribute that gives you skill points. The martial doesn't. They just hit things.

Its not about giving the martials a step up in combat. They don't need that. That's not what the tier system is about!


Personal note. I agree with the above poster that keeping the party at T3 is the best solution. However, I understand the frustration of the power gamers who cry out "don't take my toys away!" I just don't agree with them.

So nebulous definitions aside, you'd want to do something along the following three things:

Succeed in combat, somehow.
Have the ability to get around obstacles, somehow.
Overcome social challenges, somehow.

Given that combat isn't an issue, and the other two are easily done through roleplay, what's the problem?


Anything you throw at them, they have a counter for.

Well, a Wizard could have a counter for it. If they always did there couldn't be a TPK with a Wizard in the party.

[Psyren]

Point being that in context of this discussion, everything is a straw man and this situation has already been resolved.

I'm afraid I still don't know what you mean and, lacking the necessary context, it doesn't seem I'm likely to.


So nebulous definitions aside, you'd want to do something along the following three things:

Succeed in combat, somehow.
Have the ability to get around obstacles, somehow.
Overcome social challenges, somehow.

Given that combat isn't an issue, and the other two are easily done through roleplay, what's the problem?

Indeed, that's the whole point - in practice, there isn't an issue. The game works even without T1 martials, and works well.

However, I'm compelled to point out that the second item ("get around obstacles") can in fact require a mechanical rather than a roleplay solution; you can't roleplay your way across a chasm if the bridge is destroyed and there's no one to roleplay with to fix it for you. But that's also why this is a team game; stuff the martials can't get past on their own can easily be done with the assistance of the party casters, which is why most parties have them, and the game actively suggests that you do so.

[Jormengand]

But that's also why this is a team game; stuff the martials can't get past on their own can easily be done with the assistance of the party casters, which is why most parties have them, and the game actively suggests that you do so.

I'm afraid that "Martials don't suck because they can get the casters to do things for them" has been done to death already. The problem is that wizards are better at doing the fighter's job, and every other job, than the fighter, to the extent that they actually have a "Win social encounter" spell and a "Win locked door encounter" spell and a "Win travel" spell.

[Psyren]

I'm afraid that "Martials don't suck because they can get the casters to do things for them" has been done to death already. The problem is that wizards are better at doing the fighter's job, and every other job, than the fighter, to the extent that they actually have a "Win social encounter" spell and a "Win locked door encounter" spell and a "Win travel" spell.

I'm not saying "martials don't suck." I'm saying "they don't need to be good at everything the casters are, because it's a team game."

I acknowledge that casters shouldn't be able to easily take over the fighter's job. They should be capable of it in a pinch, but the opportunity cost should be high enough that they have a reason to not do so and just bring the Fighter instead. 3.5 of course failed miserably at this, what with polymorph/wild shape replacing stats etc. PF did better, but casters still have too much ammunition. 5e has done the best at this so far, and there's lessons we can take back to the more textured editions of the game.

[Cosi]

I'm afraid that "Martials don't suck because they can get the casters to do things for them" has been done to death already. The problem is that wizards are better at doing the fighter's job, and every other job, than the fighter, to the extent that they actually have a "Win social encounter" spell and a "Win locked door encounter" spell and a "Win travel" spell.

Why are you replying to Psyren? He's not going to change his mind, because he is 100% entrenched in his weird world where the designers are always right, Fighters are valuable party members, and the people who think there are problems with anything are "doing it wrong". It's like trying to convince Lord Drako he's wrong about whatever he's on about. You're better off just ... not doing that. Go read a book or something.

[ryu]

Why are you replying to Psyren? He's not going to change his mind, because he is 100% entrenched in his weird world where the designers are always right, Fighters are valuable party members, and the people who think there are problems with anything are "doing it wrong". It's like trying to convince Lord Drako he's wrong about whatever he's on about. You're better off just ... not doing that. Go read a book or something.

Hey hey hey... Let's not say things we can't take back easily man. NO ONE capable of holding a conversation with complete sentences and a lack of spam pictures deserves that comparison.

[digiman619]

I'm not saying "martials don't suck." I'm saying "they don't need to be good at everything the casters are, because it's a team game."

I acknowledge that casters shouldn't be able to easily take over the fighter's job. They should be capable of it in a pinch, but the opportunity cost should be high enough that they have a reason to not do so and just bring the Fighter instead. 3.5 of course failed miserably at this, what with polymorph/wild shape replacing stats etc. PF did better, but casters still have too much ammunition. 5e has done the best at this so far, and there's lessons we can take back to the more textured editions of the game.

Ah, but there's the rub: A moderate-to-highly wizard can solo an AP. Even a TO Fighter can't even come close.

[Psyren]

My decision to put him on ignore months ago continues to be validated :smalltongue:

If only it blocked quotes too. Ah well, can't have everything.


Ah, but there's the rub: A moderate-to-highly wizard can solo an AP. Even a TO Fighter can't even come close.

Indeed - the AP's are designed around the playtest party (healbot cleric, blaster wizard, fighter and rogue.) By this forum's standards, that would be low-op.

But the assumption there is that high-op friendly DMs can use the APs as a starting point to ramp up the challenge, while the low-op ones can run things as-is for their similarly low-op playgroups.

[Cosi]

Hey hey hey... Let's not say things we can't take back easily man. NO ONE capable of holding a conversation with complete sentences and a lack of spam pictures deserves that comparison.

I didn't say "Psyren is as incoherent as Lord Drako" or anything like that. I said "Psyren is as unwilling to change his beliefs in the face of evidence as Lord Drako". And I stand by that. Remember the "Balance to the Wizard" thread? Remember how he argued with a straight face for multiple pages that monsters using their abilities constituted an unfair advantage that raised CR? Because that is pretty much exactly what Lord Drako is doing right now.

[Gallowglass]

We've gotten to the point on this discussion where we are at the "well if we can't turn a mundane/martial into tier 1 without turning him into a spellcaster* then what can we do?"

And that leads to the same answers:


...play a different game
...nerf casters (by eliminating spells edition)
...nerf casters (by only allowing tier 3 casters edition)
...nerf casters (by modifying rulesets in some way which won't work edition)
and finally
...accept its a disparity, understand that in MOST game tables AS THE GAME IS ACTUALLY PLAYED it doesn't matter and wont' be noticed, its just an artifact of us talking about the game as a high op exercise.

Now, personally, I love me a good nerf, but that seems to be the worst dirty word of dirty words in this forum. Playing a different game isn't a good option because I like playing with the people I play with and I'm too lazy and cheap to learn new games in my dotage. So I'm left with the last which, as it happens, works really well for me.



*spellcaster here refers to all magic using or magic equivalent using classes including, but not limited to, psionics, powerwording, invoking or whatever other reskinned spellcasting you can find

[Psyren]

We've gotten to the point on this discussion where we are at the "well if we can't turn a mundane/martial into tier 1 without turning him into a spellcaster* then what can we do?"

And that leads to the same answers:


...play a different game
...nerf casters (by eliminating spells edition)
...nerf casters (by only allowing tier 3 casters edition)
...nerf casters (by modifying rulesets in some way which won't work edition)
and finally
...accept its a disparity, understand that in MOST game tables AS THE GAME IS ACTUALLY PLAYED it doesn't matter and wont' be noticed, its just an artifact of us talking about the game as a high op exercise.

Now, personally, I love me a good nerf, but that seems to be the worst dirty word of dirty words in this forum. Playing a different game isn't a good option because I like playing with the people I play with and I'm too lazy and cheap to learn new games in my dotage. So I'm left with the last which, as it happens, works really well for me.



*spellcaster here refers to all magic using or magic equivalent using classes including, but not limited to, psionics, powerwording, invoking or whatever other reskinned spellcasting you can find

I concur wholeheartedly.

To add content to this post I'll add one last option - "be okay with the 'T1/T2 martial' functionally being a spellcaster." The "ExFighter" or "Saitama" approach does appeal to some people. Not me, certainly, but some, and homebrewing it up is an option.

[digiman619]

Indeed - the AP's are designed around the playtest party (healbot cleric, blaster wizard, fighter and rogue.) By this forum's standards, that would be low-op.

But the assumption there is that high-op friendly DMs can use the APs as a starting point to ramp up the challenge, while the low-op ones can run things as-is for their similarly low-op playgroups.

Let me be blunt: You're never going to convince me that a T1 martial is the solution. Even if we collectively design a Tier 1 martial (or hopefully 3 or 4 T1 martials so you can have a choice in your overpowered martial, like you have your choice of overpowered caster), we still have the same problem: It's Tier 1, and T1 is "do everything forever until the DM fiats it away." That's not fun, at least not in any D&D game I've played, as either a player OR GM. So, no: you're never going to convince me that such a level of player power is appropriate for a D&D game. There are games where it's appropriate, mind you, but D&D is not it.

[Psyren]

Let me be blunt: You're never going to convince me that a T1 martial is the solution. Even if we collectively design a Tier 1 martial (or hopefully 3 or 4 T1 martials so you can have a choice in your overpowered martial, like you have your choice of overpowered caster), we still have the same problem: It's Tier 1, and T1 is "do everything forever until the DM fiats it away." That's not fun, at least not in any D&D game I've played, as either a player OR GM. So, no: you're never going to convince me that such a level of player power is appropriate for a D&D game. There are games where it's appropriate, mind you, but D&D is not it.

Did you mean to quote me here? Because you're actually agreeing with my stance. I have no interest in T1 martials either, as noted by my entering this discussion quoting Tippy.

[digiman619]

Did you mean to quote me here? Because you're actually agreeing with my stance. I have no interest in T1 martials either, as noted by my entering this discussion quoting Tippy.

Then it was addressed to the thread in general. I don't care. I still say Spheres of Power & Path of War to make everyone Tier 3 is the best way to play it so that everyone has interesting options while keeping the two feeling different.

[Jormengand]

I acknowledge that casters shouldn't be able to easily take over the fighter's job. They should be capable of it in a pinch, but the opportunity cost should be high enough that they have a reason to not do so and just bring the Fighter instead. 3.5 of course failed miserably at this, what with polymorph/wild shape replacing stats etc. PF did better, but casters still have too much ammunition. 5e has done the best at this so far, and there's lessons we can take back to the more textured editions of the game.

See, I find it funny that I've been told that I shouldn't argue with you because you won't change your mind, and then you acknowledged my point.

But yeah, to me, it seems like magic should be a sort of "Cheat" almost - you can pretend that you're a fighter but not for very long per day, you can do rogue things with a flick of your wrist, but only twice a day so make it count, you can grab up an ability you wish you got for your class but you have ten rounds to do it. It should be a case of "I didn't learn this the hard way, instead, I learned the cheat codes to the universe so I can pretend to be good at all these things for a short while." I don't even mind a wizard getting a moment of blowing things up better than the fighter can stab them, but that should be once a day rather than slinging fireballs all day until he realises there are better uses of spell slots than doing the fighter's job better than the fighter.

[Psyren]

Then it was addressed to the thread in general. I don't care. I still say Spheres of Power & Path of War to make everyone Tier 3 is the best way to play it so that everyone has interesting options while keeping the two feeling different.

Great, we're in alignment then :smallsmile:

Of course, for those without access to Spheres (is it on the SRD?) there are plenty of T3 casters in the base system to choose from too.

[digiman619]

Great, we're in alignment then :smallsmile:

Of course, for those without access to Spheres (is it on the SRD?) there are plenty of T3 casters in the base system to choose from too.

No, it's not, despite them trying to get it there for over a year now. It does have a free site with all the data here (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/), though...

[Jormengand]

The thing that irks me about "Just play at T3" like it's some objective standard for what's the best is that it isn't. Some people like playing at T1, or T2, or T4. Some people like playing mundane characters. At least some attempt should be made, and has been made, to reconcile the two, and some people enjoy playing the results precisely because they feel like a nonmagical character who is still relevant in a world full of powerful magical characters, without the magical characters being deprived of their earth-shattering magical abilities that they, I dunno, like having access to?

[illyahr]

Core 16th level druid. Is it a tier 1? Unquestionably.
Ethereal/incorporeal creatures: No. Cant become ethereal. No specialized anti incorporeal effects. No force effects. Only better than a monk by virtue of Death Ward.
Fliers: Yes.
DR: moderate. Cant beat common DR types, but can bypass with some magical attacks. But see Below.
Social Encounters: No. Having a skill on your skill list does not a T1 make. No helpful spells.
Skill Challenges: No.
Mundane Travel: Yes
Planar Travel: No
Ally Death: Yes
Character Death (I assume this means virtual immortality/immunity to death via clone/astral projection/other): No
Surprise Rounds: No
Enemy Armies: Yes
Ally Armies (This means making them?): Medium. Get a few nice tricks like Awaken, but nothing as good as Animate dead or planar binding.
Debilitating Effects: Yes
High level enemies or groups: Yes
Extraplanar Creatures: No better than a muggle. Cant beat common DR. Best attack spells are SR yes. No specialized anti outsider spells or spells to prevent them from summoning or escaping. May struggle against things with multiple energy resistances and DR.

Ethereal/Incorporeal: Abberant Wild Shape into a Dharculus (Planar Handbook), Ghost Shroud lets you touch incorporeals
Damage Reduction: Necklace of Natural Attacks (Savage Species)
Social Challenges: Agreed. Not much a Druid can do with this one
Skill Challenges: Wild Shape gets around more than you'd think
Planar Travel: Yeah, this one is basically for Clerics and Wizards
Character Death: Craft Contingent Spell -> Reincarnation on death
Surprise Rounds: You can spend all day, every day as an Invisible Stalker, if you choose
Extraplanar Creatures: Gatekeepers Initiate (Eberron Campaign Setting) adds spells to counter Outsiders and Abberations. Adding Metalline or, even better, Transmuting to your Necklace of Natural Attacks takes care of DR

Not much causes a properly kitted Druid any discomfort, but it is doable.


Well, a Wizard could have a counter for it. If they always did there couldn't be a TPK with a Wizard in the party.

They do have a counter for it. Whether the player knows how to use it is another matter.



So, yes, a T1 martial is unnecessary. Even a T2 martial, while an interesting idea, doesn't appeal to everyone. I, personally, have a problem with T1 casters played at full power but most of the issues I have with them are the level of TO that I wouldn't allow in my games anyway. I don't like the idea of a character that can do everything. If your group comprises of Superman, Dr. Strange, Green Lantern, and The Hulk, what is there to do that is in any way a challenge? Remember, the DM needs to be having fun also and trying to make challenges for a group like that doesn't seem like much fun to me.

I'd take a group of Wolverine, Deadman, Spider Man, and Groot any day.

[Jormengand]

Ethereal/Incorporeal: Abberant Wild Shape into a Dharculus (Planar Handbook), Ghost Shroud lets you touch incorporeals
Damage Reduction: Necklace of Natural Attacks (Savage Species)
Social Challenges: Agreed. Not much a Druid can do with this one
Skill Challenges: Wild Shape gets around more than you'd think
Planar Travel: Yeah, this one is basically for Clerics and Wizards
Character Death: Craft Contingent Spell -> Reincarnation on death
Surprise Rounds: You can spend all day, every day as an Invisible Stalker, if you choose
Extraplanar Creatures: Gatekeepers Initiate (Eberron Campaign Setting) adds spells to counter Outsiders and Abberations. Adding Metalline or, even better, Transmuting to your Necklace of Natural Attacks takes care of DR

Not much causes a properly kitted Druid any discomfort, but it is doable.

Except that druids are still tier 1 in core, where they can't do nearly as much of that.

[Gallowglass]

The thing that irks me about "Just play at T3" like it's some objective standard for what's the best is that it isn't. Some people like playing at T1, or T2, or T4. Some people like playing mundane characters. At least some attempt should be made, and has been made, to reconcile the two, and some people enjoy playing the results precisely because they feel like a nonmagical character who is still relevant in a world full of powerful magical characters, without the magical characters being deprived of their earth-shattering magical abilities that they, I dunno, like having access to?

I can only speak from my experience. In my experience, it isn't a problem in real table play, only a problem in theorycraft. In real games, that guy playing the fighter seems perfectly happy to pile on his feats and do 300+ damage or whatever with a powerswing and doesn't seem to care that he can't make his own demiplane, or that he's dependant on the cleric's buffs and the wizard's teleport to get to the action, or even when the druid turns into a bear and does 300+ damage right beside him. He's still having fun.

I'm in a game right now with a 20lvl optimized conjuration wizard, a drow fighter/dualist, a sea hag gunslinger/death mage and a human ninja. A ninja. Guess who the ninja is? Me. And I have fun, contribute and enjoy myself every session even when the wizard is throwing 10 t-rexes into the fray.

Now part of the reason I'm ALLOWED to have fun is because of good DMing, and a good story, but mostly its because I enjoy my little niche of smoke bombing and flank fighting. I don't begrudge the optimized wizard even though they could wipe the floor with me and occasionally trivializes things. Because she's not my enemy.

[Jormengand]

Yes, obviously, but at the same time some people do want to play powerful characters and a game should not just incorporate your playstyle or playstyles that you can understand.

[Psyren]

No, it's not, despite them trying to get it there for over a year now. It does have a free site with all the data here (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/), though...

Fantastic, I wasn't aware of that. Bookmarked, now I can try before buying.

I will echo Gallowglass' earlier point though - you don't have to force everyone to adhere to T3 for the game to work. T1s and T2s can coexist with weaker classes so long as their players have self-control. Occasionally, having one party member that can resolve a tough (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0352.html) encounter (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0919.html) using their T1 strength can be beneficial to both the game and the story as a whole.


The thing that irks me about "Just play at T3" like it's some objective standard for what's the best is that it isn't. Some people like playing at T1, or T2, or T4. Some people like playing mundane characters. At least some attempt should be made, and has been made, to reconcile the two, and some people enjoy playing the results precisely because they feel like a nonmagical character who is still relevant in a world full of powerful magical characters, without the magical characters being deprived of their earth-shattering magical abilities that they, I dunno, like having access to?

I actually agree with you as well - T3/T4 should only be forced if, like some of the folks on this forum and indeed in this very thread, the caster players are incapable of moderating themselves from overshadowing the martials' fun. This is what we commonly refer to around here as "Gentleman's Agreement." If that proves impossible, then the bannings and nerfs commence.

[digiman619]

The thing that irks me about "Just play at T3" like it's some objective standard for what's the best is that it isn't. Some people like playing at T1, or T2, or T4. Some people like playing mundane characters. At least some attempt should be made, and has been made, to reconcile the two, and some people enjoy playing the results precisely because they feel like a nonmagical character who is still relevant in a world full of powerful magical characters, without the magical characters being deprived of their earth-shattering magical abilities that they, I dunno, like having access to?

Then use the Advanced talents (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/advanced-talents). That way you still get some of those earth-shattering effects (astral projection, demiplanes, fun with scrying, etc.) but still keep it balanced in that a) you can one or two of these trick, but not all of them (because they take investing, not the "cherry-pick the best of everything" the standard magic system has), and b) it usually costs spell points, a smaller pool than the 40 slots a Wizard has.

[Gallowglass]

Yes, obviously, but at the same time some people do want to play powerful characters and a game should not just incorporate your playstyle or playstyles that you can understand.

You lost me here, I can't figure out what you are saying.

[Jormengand]

Then use the Advanced talents (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/advanced-talents). That way you still get some of those earth-shattering effects (astral projection, demiplanes, fun with scrying, etc.) but still keep it balanced in that a) you can one or two of these trick, but not all of them (because they take investing, not the "cherry-pick the best of everything" the standard magic system has), and b) it usually costs spell points, a smaller pool than the 40 slots a Wizard has.

Right, except I'm not trying to reduce the caster's power, versatility, or capability, because those players may not want to lose out on any of those things. Some people want to play a mundane character who can interact on that level, rather than casters who operate on the level of sorcerers and mundanes still being left in the lurch.


You lost me here, I can't figure out what you are saying.

Just because you are happy with the options given by a system doesn't mean that everyone should be told they have to be happy with them.

[Gallowglass]

Just because you are happy with the options given by a system doesn't mean that everyone should be told they have to be happy with them.

Sure. Agreed. But its valid advice to give to say "maybe you haven't thought about it this way" when they ask for suggestions. Because maybe they haven't.

Especially when the ask is for something that they probably arent' going to find an answer for.

[Psyren]

Sure. Agreed. But its valid advice to give to say "maybe you haven't thought about it this way" when they ask for suggestions. Because maybe they haven't.

Especially when the ask is for something that they probably arent' going to find an answer for.

Indeed, or in the case of the "ExFighter," have to build from scratch - in all probability, unnecessarily.

[Jormengand]

Telling people that the desire for a Tier 1 martial is an inherently stupid wish or that it's inherently impossible when there are examples on this forum which tick more of the boxes than the druid does on the list which was posted earlier without any more magical ability than the ability to interact with magical effects like gates which are already there (something which any creature can do) seems a bit over the top, though.

EDIT: Also, since the thread did actually say martial and not mundane, I feel compelled to point out that battle clerics are T1 martials.

[Gallowglass]

Telling people that the desire for a Tier 1 martial is an inherently stupid wish or that it's inherently impossible when there are examples on this forum which tick more of the boxes than the druid does on the list which was posted earlier without any more magical ability than the ability to interact with magical effects like gates which are already there (something which any creature can do) seems a bit over the top, though.

EDIT: Also, since the thread did actually say martial and not mundane, I feel compelled to point out that battle clerics are T1 martials.

Oh okay.you were replying to florian then. Got it.

The ask in the first post was actually for tier 1 without being or feeling like a spellcaster. Despite the thread name.

[Jormengand]

I'm responding to everyone who deliberately excluded a tier 1 mundane as an exception to the problem of not having any tier 1 mundanes. Yes, that includes you.

[LudicSavant]

What would be needed to make a character that could match spellcasters, without making them a spellcaster in all but name?

A lot of people will focus on the superpowered scale of abilities, talking about things like One Punch Man or the like, but I often feel like such posts are missing the point to some degree. Tier 1s aren't only different at high levels, they're different at the lower levels too. Simply giving the Fighter a narrow range of earthshattering abilities doesn't make him tier 1... tier 2s can do that too. Heck, uberchargers that can always deal enough hp damage to kill something in one punch are already a thing. We need to look at the core issues that differentiate tier 1s from the likes of a Sorcerer, let alone a Fighter. In doing so, I think it's very possible to make a tier 1 fighter without making the sort of guy who bends rivers with his bare hands.

1) The capacity to acquire meaningful new abilities without gaining levels. A tier one class can effectively change up their build / loadout from day to day, whether it's the Cleric preparing an entirely new set of spells than she had yesterday, the Artificer preparing new gear and using new long-term buffs, or the Wizard scribbling new spells into her spellbook.

2) Improved itemization. When a tier one character like a Wizard buys items, they're often getting stuff like wands and scrolls and staves that give them new options. When a Fighter buys items, he's limiting himself... he often has to buy expensive stuff to keep the numbers for his existing tricks relevant rather than acquiring new ones. Moreover, a Fighter's items are more devastating to lose, because he relies on them for baseline relevance (instead of improved repertoire). The fact that he pour so much money into his weapon, in particular, is limiting... it means he can't just change fighting styles from day to day by changing his loadout. You'd basically have to totally overhaul D&D's itemization system to really solve this one... it's deeply embedded. But fixing it could make a truly massive difference... without having to turn your Fighters into One Punch Man. Just being better than others at using versatile, new-power-granting gear is already a concept that can scale up high enough to participate in the Justice League or the Avengers, and there are endless examples in fantasy of justifications for martial experts being the only ones being really capable of bringing out the potential of certain magical items. Perhaps most importantly, it can cover "tier 1" bases without using refluffed spellcasting. The fact that a given fighter may need an item to teleport isn't as huge a deal as some might assume it to be, any more than that Batman needs batarangs to throw batarangs... or a wizard needs items to cast spells, for that matter. What matters is how accessible the item is for the martial guy, and whether or not it's more accessible for him than others (e.g. "The Hammer of Moradin can open a great fissure in the earth and start earthquakes, but only if one has enough strength and skill to swing it properly in the first place" or "The Witcher's potions are a great strain on the body, only one with sufficient fortitude can use them without risk of toxicity" and so forth).

3) Considerably improved out of combat skills. Skills are mundane, and have room for improvement besides. Improved itemization can also help considerably in this regard (just look at someone like Link or Batman). Leadership skills, beast mastery, first aid, extraordinary perceptiveness, crafting (which should probably be able to repair even if it can't enchant magic gear), even Spellcraft (e.g. recognizing spells used on the battlefield so that you can respond tactically, just as a veteran warrior might recognize siege equipment they can't personally operate) and UMD (Link clearly does this and everyone seems to agree that he's Fighter-y)... all fit right into the martial archetype, and can scale up quite a bit in terms of power. For instance, perceptiveness and combat instincts could easily scale up into the realm of seeing invisibility (by noticing subtle changes in the environment), circumventing illusions and enchantments (by noticing inconsistencies), blind-fighting/ignoring miss chances, avoiding traps, detecting poison, finding secret doors, revealing disguises, noticing magical auras (such as by the way they make the hairs prick on the back of your neck or whatever, there are various examples in classic fantasy), tracking, aiding investigations, never being flat-footed, always acting in surprise rounds, greatly improved initiative, knowing which pillars are load-bearing, all the way up to things like "Always-On Foresight."

4) Ease of picking up new schticks. A tier one class such as a Wizard who has never taken anything but blasting skills can all of a sudden decide to take Stinking Cloud and have a new schtick he can use in a more or less level-appropriate way, and if it ever becomes obsolete it's not hard for him to pick up new schticks to replace it. A Fighter tends to need to navigate a maze of requirements both to get the trick and to scale the trick to a relevant level, and often has to keep investing resources in it to keep it level-appropriate, and if it goes obsolete he's got stat investments, feat slots, and the like taken up. As is, being good at archery *and* swinging a hammer well enough to take on a giant monster in melee is hard for a Fighter, let alone having tricks as diverse as a character like Link, let alone higher level examples of Fighter archetypes.

5) Interactivity and counterplay with magic and monsters. As is, a lot of things just don't interact with fighters, sometimes even when the art tells us that they should (lookin' at you, shields not helping with area attacks or touch attacks). Shields blocking the line of effect of a dragon's breath, or deflecting rays. Hitting the right pressure points to make a Wall of Force collapse. Ranged attacks that ruin a flyer's balance, causing them to crash. Stuff like that.

6) Reduced MAD (though this is a relatively minor point compared to some of the others I've raised). Either have a different attribute system altogether (the existing one in D&D is clearly geared against certain types of characters), or have martial types actually get bonus attribute points to spread around to all stats as they level up because they're working on improving their mind and body all the time instead of studying like the Wizard (make sure that they can't just invest all these points into one stat if you go this route, though; the whole point is to diversify their abilities, not just make them hyperfocused), or both.

7) And finally, just plain better abilities for fighting. There is a ton of room for this (I mean, fighters barely even scratch the surface of the design space for tanking / control abilities explored in videogame fighters, despite supposedly being a tank class), and you can scale these up quite a lot without leaving the appearance of humanity (at least, the kind of humanity that Batman has) behind in favor of being Charles Atlas Superman. For example, accuracy can scale up all the way into "never misses, even with crazy trick shots" and that's still just something Hawkeye does all the time in his more powerful incarnations. Initiative can scale up all the way to "you win initiative and always act during surprise rounds," which on its own is terrifying, without ever leaving the realm of the badass normal. Action economy could scale up quite a lot from where it is right now for fighters, especially in terms of being able to interrupt actions or intercept movement (one of the many reasons that fighters tend to do better in real-time D&D videogames than in pen and paper worlds). Dodging can scale up about as much as you want, not to mention things like shields blocking line of effect in an area around you or deflecting rays where you want them (using *your* attack bonuses) or playing tennis with Fireballs (like Link). Perceptiveness and combat instincts can scale up all the way past Sherlock Holmes on a good day, to a point where your senses seem preternatual and people marvel at your Yomi. Normal attacks can attach all sorts of nasty status effects to them without needing to resort to superhuman potential (dazing, bleeding, crippling pain, blinding, limb disabling, on and on). Strength doesn't even need to scale up that much for Excalibur to cut out a dragon's heart in the space of a round (Captain America or Batman can handle that just fine, no need for Hercules bending rivers). Leadership skills could add all kinds of buffs (think stuff like Mass Resurgence without the limitations, or of course the very powerful White Raven Tactics). Itemization can scale up without limit (Uther Doul doesn't stop seeming human just because he's the only one who has enough martial skill to wield the Possible Sword without hurting himself in The Scar). Beast mastery can make you point at a purple worm and go "I'm gonna ride it" then play rodeo for a little while and get you a permanent Purple Worm ally. The list goes on.

[Gallowglass]

I'm responding to everyone who deliberately excluded a tier 1 mundane as an exception to the problem of not having any tier 1 mundanes. Yes, that includes you.

Okay. Well. Youve grossly misunderstood all of my posts in this thread then because im pretty sure i have not done that. *shrug*

[Gnaeus]

Ethereal/Incorporeal: Abberant Wild Shape into a Dharculus (Planar Handbook), Ghost Shroud lets you touch incorporeals
Damage Reduction: Necklace of Natural Attacks (Savage Species)
Social Challenges: Agreed. Not much a Druid can do with this one
Skill Challenges: Wild Shape gets around more than you'd think
Planar Travel: Yeah, this one is basically for Clerics and Wizards
Character Death: Craft Contingent Spell -> Reincarnation on death
Surprise Rounds: You can spend all day, every day as an Invisible Stalker, if you choose
Extraplanar Creatures: Gatekeepers Initiate (Eberron Campaign Setting) adds spells to counter Outsiders and Abberations. Adding Metalline or, even better, Transmuting to your Necklace of Natural Attacks takes care of DR

Not much causes a properly kitted Druid any discomfort, but it is doable.

Yeah. Not only is all that stuff very not core, which I have already explained why that is important, it isn't even base class druid. It uses 3 versatility expanding feats: Aberrant wildshape, Gatekeepers initiate, and craft contingent spell. And 2 magic items. Give my Beguiler/warmage/Dread Necro 3 spell list enhancing feats and a runestaff and I'll show you a tier 1 caster for sure! Its like saying that monks can deal with flying enemies because they wear boots of flying! None of that stuff could possibly be relevant to the definition of what is T1.

[Psyren]

Telling people that the desire for a Tier 1 martial is an inherently stupid wish or that it's inherently impossible when there are examples on this forum which tick more of the boxes than the druid does on the list which was posted earlier without any more magical ability than the ability to interact with magical effects like gates which are already there (something which any creature can do) seems a bit over the top, though.

"Stupid" is a bit harsh. "Silly" maybe? :smalltongue:



EDIT: Also, since the thread did actually say martial and not mundane, I feel compelled to point out that battle clerics are T1 martials.

This seems like an irreconcilable difference of definition, because I would (and do) call that a caster who just happens to melee, not a martial. By that definition, a druid who wildshapes into bears all the time is a martial too.

[Jormengand]

Okay. Well. Youve grossly misunderstood all of my posts in this thread then because im pretty sure i have not done that. *shrug*

No, it's not that I don't understand you. It's that I don't agree with you. Or did you not post in this very thread a post which opened on the assumption that making a mundane tier 1 was impossible, so you should do something else instead?


We've gotten to the point on this discussion where we are at the "well if we can't turn a mundane/martial into tier 1 without turning him into a spellcaster* then what can we do?"

And that leads to the same answers:


...play a different game
...nerf casters (by eliminating spells edition)
...nerf casters (by only allowing tier 3 casters edition)
...nerf casters (by modifying rulesets in some way which won't work edition)
and finally
...accept its a disparity, understand that in MOST game tables AS THE GAME IS ACTUALLY PLAYED it doesn't matter and wont' be noticed, its just an artifact of us talking about the game as a high op exercise.

Now, personally, I love me a good nerf, but that seems to be the worst dirty word of dirty words in this forum. Playing a different game isn't a good option because I like playing with the people I play with and I'm too lazy and cheap to learn new games in my dotage. So I'm left with the last which, as it happens, works really well for me.



*spellcaster here refers to all magic using or magic equivalent using classes including, but not limited to, psionics, powerwording, invoking or whatever other reskinned spellcasting you can find




"Stupid" is a bit harsh. "Silly" maybe? :smalltongue:

How about "Both reasonable and entirely possible to fulfil"?

[Gallowglass]

No, it's not that I don't understand you. It's that I don't agree with you. Or did you not post in this very thread a post which opened on the assumption that making a mundane tier 1 was impossible, so you should do something else instead?







How about "Both reasonable and entirely possible to fulfil"?


You are reading my posts with an aggression that is not warranted. I am NOT saying that building a tier 1 "mundane" is impossible. In fact,ifIf you go back and read further you'll find a hypothesis from me that it could be possible to finagle a tier 1 out of the skill system that would feel reasonably non magical. Diplomancy is extremely potent, and you can solve most of the wish and gate problems by "knowing the right people" instead of casting spells. That doesn't sound like I"m opposed to the concept.

That post you quoted is saying specifically "we seem to have reached this point in the conversation". That's not even close to what you are attributing to me.

I'm completely unfamiliar with the one-punch man and exFighter build mentioned in this thread, so I didn't talk about them. I don't know what they are. Maybe they are exactly what the OP is looking for. *shrug*

I -do- happen to think that there is an inherent limitation in the game that almost anything you do to make a "martial" (by my definition of martial - a combat specialist without vancian casting or other equivalent spell system) tier 1 is GOING to feel like refluffed magic to some or most people. I feel like mundane is a completely separate word from Martial.

I would suspect if I looked at the exfighter or onepunch man build, they'd probably look like refluffed magic to me. But I could certainly be wrong as I haven't seen them. Again, I very certainly did not comment on them in this thread.

[Milo v3]

Step 1. Play PF.
Step 2. Create more powerful melee/ranged weapon mastery feats with effects associated with tier 1.
Step 3. Create more powerful Advanced Weapon Training abilities with effect associated with tier 1.
Step 4. Create more powerful item mastery feats with effects associated with tier 1.
Step 5. Provide a method so that fighters (or all martials) can spend gp to get additional feats, similar to a wizard scribing additional spells.
Step 6. Make skill unlocks much more powerful.
Step 7. Give fighter (or martials in general) a small number of skill unlocks either limited via associated ability score or limiting to class skills.

[eggynack]

If magic fanged face beating counts, having magical fists and a much higher touch AC than the bears has to help too.
Well, maybe if they have an amulet of mighty fists. Otherwise, their fists aren't magical for this purpose.



Well, given that the one above it was "ally death" I figured if it was counted twice it had to mean something different than casting reincarnate on your buddy.
Fair. I'd read it as some kinda resilience thing, rather than specifically ways to bypass death.



But he doesn't actually have to equal Druid. He has to equal Tier 1ness. Where Tier 1ness is that range of flexibility that we see as characteristic of a Tier 1, higher than T2 or 3. A core druid has that range of flexibility. It is fully possible that a class could be more flexible than a core druid, less flexible than an open source druid, and lurk on the bottom of the T1 power scale in a game with lots of sources allowed. Unless we are redesigning the goalposts to say that druid is not T1 in core, the minimum versatility of T1ness can never be higher than the versatility of a core druid.

To put it a different way, whenever a new supplement comes out, it may change how classes rank, but not where the tiers are. When I see PF human sorcerers with their additional 3 spells known per level, I don't think (Tier 2 got higher) I think (that makes them more resemble T1). When I look at the late 3.5 paladin boosts, like battle blessing, I don't think (tier 5 improved) I think (he moved towards T4).


Well, I gave flight to the druid anyway. My biggest counter arguments to that are definitional:
1. Many people consider Spirit Shaman to be T1. I think they are T3 (because they functionally can't access a big chunk of the druid spell versatility because of their casting mechanic/spells known progression) but not going there this thread.
2. Look at the ACFs. Like the Shapeshifter, which is a straight up nerf. Or imagine Druid + any full casting PRC that doesn't advance WS or AC. We would all agree it was worse than base druid, but I think we would generally think of it as a T1 caster.

In any of those 3 examples, I think that the consensus is that the Druid spell list is T1, so that would be the barrier to try to match. The result might be a little bit lower in its T1ness than druid. But I think if we put the core druid spell list/mechanic on a wizard chassis, it would be a T1, not a T3. To support that, look at binder, which gets to T2 pretty much solely on the strength of Summon Monster. SNA (in 3.5) is fully as good as SM, and the full druid list is certainly more flexible than any T3 on its own.
This druid might be in tier one, but it's a tricky question. A druid without their class features, yes, that's definitely a tier one on the back of spell casting. A druid with only core access, that's a tier one based on the druid's great core spells and class features. But is a core druid with only casting in a world of broad-book-access casters really hitting tier one? I'm not so sure. Just like, indeed, I'm not all that convinced that the spirit shaman, with all book access, hits tier one. And this situation has a lot of parity with that one.

Yeah. Not only is all that stuff very not core, which I have already explained why that is important, it isn't even base class druid. It uses 3 versatility expanding feats: Aberrant wildshape, Gatekeepers initiate, and craft contingent spell. And 2 magic items. Give my Beguiler/warmage/Dread Necro 3 spell list enhancing feats and a runestaff and I'll show you a tier 1 caster for sure! Its like saying that monks can deal with flying enemies because they wear boots of flying! None of that stuff could possibly be relevant to the definition of what is T1.
I mean, if we're talking out of core, a lot of that is doable natively. Ethereal with the broader range of force spells (mostly hammer of righteousness), or otherwise with phantom stag for etherealness (which can be granted early through a caster level bump), and extraplanar creatures through, well, being good at killing creatures. I honestly am still not sure what the trouble is with killing extraplanar creatures. Also, add to the list of things doable planar travel, through animate with the spirit for a movanic deva, swap out the invisible stalker plan for a dire tortoise (or, jeeze, at least a will-o'-wisp, which actually works for this plan), and push social challenges more towards the middle, cause the druid is starting to get cool stuff like summon fey and fey ring to make up for that enchantment spell gap, and more build oriented stuff like cityscape web enhancement ACF's can give you some facery if you need it. That covers a lot of the stuff, I think.

Edit: Realized that I hadn't realized that thing about phantom stag having its effects keyed to caster level before, which allows early access to the cool etherealness ability. The change is in the handbook now. Man, this is a big part of why I like argument threads. The pressure of it gets you to take way closer reads of things.

[Gnaeus]

This druid might be in tier one, but it's a tricky question. A druid without their class features, yes, that's definitely a tier one on the back of spell casting. A druid with only core access, that's a tier one based on the druid's great core spells and class features. But is a core druid with only casting in a world of broad-book-access casters really hitting tier one? I'm not so sure.

I still don't think the presence or absence of broad book access casters can matter as to where the line is. Can core druid casting do everything, often better than specialized classes? Yes. We can clearly summon beatsticks better than a monk. Can it often solve encounters with a single ability and little thought? Thoqqa says yes. World changing powers at high level? Yes. Can level cities. Can break games? Yes. Because I scoff at my DM's stupid walk to Mordor plot. It hits every definition pretty easily. Just because others can do those things better, doesn't make it less than T1.


Just like, indeed, I'm not all that convinced that the spirit shaman, with all book access, hits tier one. And this situation has a lot of parity with that one.

Yeah... It does strike close to the center of the issue. For me, spirit shaman is sketchy because of the double whammy of not having AC/WS and because where a Druid 14 could prep Heal, Control Weather, and Wind Walk and be able to rapid travel, remove debuffs, destroy armies or change any of those into SNA, a SS can only pick one of those 4 things and hope he got it right. I think a (Core + source) SS with WS and AC (maybe either/or) would easily be T1, or a wizard with the druid spell list would also be T1. The fact that we are hesitant suggests to me that this is pretty close to the line separating T1 from T3. But I'll admit I had a very bad play experience with a Spirit Shaman and spent a lot of combats sucking and I might be very biased. (It was a game with a lot of weird planar effects that prevented summoning. He spent a lot of time as a favored soul but worse)


I mean, if we're talking out of core, a lot of that is doable natively.....That covers a lot of the stuff, I think.

I agreed from the first that non core could hit most if not all the buttons. I just thought using tricks like Aberrant Wildshape and Craft Contingent and magic items was cheating in a way that would never be allowed if we weren't talking about T1s.


Edit: Realized that I hadn't realized that thing about phantom stag having its effects keyed to caster level before, which allows early access to the cool etherealness ability. The change is in the handbook now. Man, this is a big part of why I like argument threads. The pressure of it gets you to take way closer reads of things.

Yay! I'm helping!

[Vogonjeltz]

However, I'm compelled to point out that the second item ("get around obstacles") can in fact require a mechanical rather than a roleplay solution; you can't roleplay your way across a chasm if the bridge is destroyed and there's no one to roleplay with to fix it for you. But that's also why this is a team game; stuff the martials can't get past on their own can easily be done with the assistance of the party casters, which is why most parties have them, and the game actively suggests that you do so.

Sure you can, you throw a grappling hook to the other side, or build a bridge, or climb down one side and climb up the other, or quest for a flying horse or whatever.

Yes, it's more involved, but it's roleplaying the figure out the solution to the problem. Spells are just shortcuts, they're not the only solution to problems, just one of the fastest.


They do have a counter for it. Whether the player knows how to use it is another matter.

Not every wizard has every spell, so it's only a possibility, not a certainty. More to the point, not every spell will have been memorized that day, there aren't enough spell slots for that. So again, only a possibility.

As to if they did have the right spell for the job? That's blind luck.

[illyahr]

I just thought using tricks like Aberrant Wildshape and Craft Contingent and magic items was cheating in a way that would never be allowed if we weren't talking about T1s.

I actually agree with you on that point. It's things like that that I, as a DM, wouldn't allow in my games. That doesn't mean they aren't taken into consideration. Chain gating is a thing, but I would also never allow it and it's core!


Not every wizard has every spell, so it's only a possibility, not a certainty. More to the point, not every spell will have been memorized that day, there aren't enough spell slots for that. So again, only a possibility.

As to if they did have the right spell for the job? That's blind luck.

It's part of why clerics and wizards are so talked about. A divination spell or two will let you know exactly what you'll be facing about 85% of the time. If you know you will be at court tomorrow, use some scrying spells to figure out who the head guys are and what you can use as leverage. Is there a court wizard? What does he specialize in? Prepare accordingly.

[InvisibleBison]

Sure you can, you throw a grappling hook to the other side, or build a bridge, or climb down one side and climb up the other, or quest for a flying horse or whatever.

I have to point out that using a grappling hook, building a bridge, climbing, and acquiring flying horses are all things that have mechanics controlling how they work.


Yes, it's more involved, but it's roleplaying the figure out the solution to the problem. Spells are just shortcuts, they're not the only solution to problems, just one of the fastest.

How is "I use a spell" different from "I use a grappling hook"?

Also, I don't understand why you're distinguishing between spells and roleplaying. When a player playing a wizard decides to cast a spell, isn't that roleplaying?

[Bucky]

It seems like the ability to re-allocate weapon enhancements on the fly helps quite a bit. Normal combat? +3 greatsword. Need to penetrate DR 30/Law? Make it a +1 Axiomatic greatsword. Need to deal with flyers? Move your enhancements onto a bow. Incorporeal creatures? Ghost touch. And so forth.

[digiman619]

It seems like the ability to re-allocate weapon enhancements on the fly helps quite a bit. Normal combat? +3 greatsword. Need to penetrate DR 30/Law? Make it a +1 Axiomatic greatsword. Need to deal with flyers? Move your enhancements onto a bow. Incorporeal creatures? Ghost touch. And so forth.

That's part of the reason I love the (DSP) Soulknife so much.

[Falcii]

In the campaign I'm playing in right now we have characters who can punch people into the shadow realm through sheer badassery or fly by kicking the air with the unending power of anime.

Alternatively when I brought up multiplicative speed doubling with my physicist DM he allowed me to start combusting earth, ripping other beings apart at the atomic level and eventually slowing down relative time once I hit high enough speeds. I could still only do like 2d8 damage a turn when physics wasn't at play, but the other effects were insane

[LudicSavant]

It seems like the ability to re-allocate weapon enhancements on the fly helps quite a bit. Normal combat? +3 greatsword. Need to penetrate DR 30/Law? Make it a +1 Axiomatic greatsword. Need to deal with flyers? Move your enhancements onto a bow. Incorporeal creatures? Ghost touch. And so forth.

This is the tip of an iceberg. Like I said, better itemization for fighters can go a long way.

[D.M.Hentchel]

So in many ways couldn't we just say that an artificer is a tier 1 mundane character. Sure the infusions feel kinda spell-like, but even then if we word it like, "Unlocking innate power in the item" don't we just have a character that is very good with magic items?

Worth noting mundanes can do things like sacrifice people to summon demons or gain 24-hour divine power at CL 20, Use powerful magic items, or perform incantations (albeit those are really over-priced and unhelpful)

Maybe the best solution is giving them magical capabilities for outside of combat, not because they are magical, but just because the world works like that (someone proposed something similar to this) they wouldn't have magic in the same sense that a wizard or cleric does, but with proper use of Sacrifice and greatly empowered Incantations they could match some of the out of combat, RP, and down-time abilities of their counterparts.

Barbarian and Wizard stand on opposite bluff preparing for a fight.
The wizard channels arcane energy cause a rift to open and draws armies of devils through, the Ice Devil he bound to help him channels his might into the two of them empowering them. The wizard quickens his personal time and manifests armor of sheer force. The wizard congregates arcane energy to defy gravity
Meanwhile the Barbarian tears into his flesh and screams to his evil gods, causing Dretches to rise from the ground around him, called to his fury. A Maralithe gifted to him for a powerful sacrifice uses diabolical magic to empower him. The barbarian begins an ancient war-chant and begins to fly
The two forces charge at one another, the barbarian swoops low and starts slaughtering Devils left and right with his mystical sword. The Wizard springs horrible black tentacles in the midst of the Demon forces grasping and entangling swathes of them while slaughtering other with nothing but a scream.

As described does the barbarian seem any less like a barbarian just because there are powerful forces he can draw upon?

[Jack_Simth]

How would one go about having a Tier One character that wasn't a spellcaster? How would you go about creating such a thing, a character that feels like they get by on their impossible skill and prowess? Conceptually, what would they feel like? What abilities would they need?

I'm not intending this discussion to be restricted to the classes in D&D. It's impossible to do without excessive quantities of TO. I'm more interested in concepts and hypotheticals, and maybe theories as to the general shape such a class might take.

What would be needed to make a character that could match spellcasters, without making them a spellcaster in all but name?

Hmm....

Well, to be Tier-1:

Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played with skill, can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party. (Source (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.0)).

So... something like...

1) Able to meditate for an hour and completely rework a significant chunk of their character sheet (Say... feats and skills for this one).
2) Has a series of class features that let them do impossible things via skill checks. A few examples (NOT an exhaustive list)
a) Multijump: With a Jump check each round, the character can repeatedly jump off the air and effectively fly. Flight speed is dependent on the skill check and class level as follows:
DC 15 (requires level 3): 1/2 land speed, Clumsy maneuverability.
DC 20 (requires level 5): Land Speed, Poor maneuverability.
DC 25 (requires level 10): 1.5* Land Speed, Average maneuverability.
DC 30 (requires level 15): 2 * Land Speed, Good Maneuverability.
DC 35 (requires level 20): 3 * Land Speed, Perfect Maneuverability.
b) Predict Location: By taking ten minutes thinking about what the target would do and making a sense motive check (opposed by the Bluff check of the target - the target has no way to know when or even that this is happening, so the target's bluff check does not include any modifiers that the target would need to choose to use, such as from Divine Insight, Improvisation, Moment of Prescience, or similar abilities - however: If the target keeps something like Heroism up full time, the bonus from that would apply), then the person who uses this ability knows where they are, what they currently look like, and approximately what they're doing. (Level 7, maybe?)
c) Know opponents: When making knowledge checks against a creature, you can roll on any creature (even if there's no way for anything about the creature to be known), the DC is 5+CR, and you get one useful piece of information per point by which you exceed the DC.
d) Secret Paths: When traveling overland, make a Survival check with a ten-point penalty. Subtract a number of days equal to you check result from the length of time the trip would take were it not for this ability. If this would reduce the number of days of travel to zero or less, subtract the excess from eight; this is the number of hours the trip takes. If this would result in 0 hours or less, subtract the remainder from 10, and then multiply the result by 6; this is the number of minutes the trip takes (minimum one round). You may take as many people as you like with you. Requires 9th level.
e) There's always a secret door: When you need to get on the other side of a barrier (such as a wall or door, but also something you simply wouldn't want to pass through, such as a river of lava or a bottomless abyss), make a search check. For mundane barriers, the DC is 10 + the barrier's hardness + the thickness of the barrier (in feet) (note that empty air has a hardness of 0 - so the DC to get past a ten-foot wide river of lava in this manner would be 20). For magical barriers (such as a Wall of Force), the DC is 20 + the effective spell level (1/2 the effective caster level when the spell level is unknown). Requires 7th level.
f) Shockwave: By making a Martial Lore check (DC 10 plus the distance to the opponent, in squares) as part of an attack action, you can make melee attacks against non-adjacent foes. Alternatively, by making a Martial Lore check with a ten point penalty as part of an attack action with a ranged weapon, you can pick a square within your range and roll to attack and damage every opponent in a radius of that many feet from the selected square. Requires level five.
e) Bypass Defenses: By making a Spellcraft check as a free action (DC 10 plus caster level of the effect) against a magical effect currently active on an opponent, you can resolve your action as though that specific defense simply did not exist (thus, if you're striking at a character wearing a Minor Cloak of Displacement [caster level 3], you could ignore the 20% miss chance by beating Spellcraft DC 13). You may use this against each currently-active defense on the target with the same free action. Note that in the case of Project Image, Astral Projection, and related abilities, this manifests as striking the target's real body through the projection (in addition to the projection).
f) Find Opposed Twin: By making a Gather Information Check (DC 10 + target's hit dice) and spending eight hours to do so, you can find someone who doesn't like your target yet looks remarkably similar and has many of the same abilities (same build, but half the level or hit dice). Requires level 13. At level 17, you can instead make a Gather Information Check of DC 35, and find a perfect twin of your target (exact same build) that doesn't like your target.
g) Able Medic: By making a Heal check (DC 10), you spend a minute to heal yourself or another person a number of hit points equal to your check result minus ten. At level 5, you can even remove magical afflictions this way by making a Heal check DC 10 + the caster level of the effect (if it could be dispelled by Dispel Magic), or 20 + the caster level of the effect (if it couldn't normally be dispelled, such as curses, or instantaneous effects such as Flesh to Stone and Mind Rape).
h) Lasting Wound: By making a Heal check and hitting the target as part of an attack, you can bestow a lasting wound that incapacitates the target until they receive a suitable counter-effect (such as a Remove Blindness/Deafness spell for blinding) in addition to the normal damage. See the table below. This may be combined with Shockwave by taking a -10 penalty to the Heal check.
(No, I'm not writing out a table for this - basically just a bunch of status effects with different minimum DC's - Blindness, Paralysis, Instant Death, and so on, with some fluff for what you hit (eyes for blindness, for instance) and what save is appropriate).

... and so on. It'd take a while to build this. The idea being a whole bunch of skill-dependent abilities, and the ability to shift skill investment around with a bit of notice.

[LudicSavant]

b) Predict Location: By taking ten minutes thinking about what the target would do and making a sense motive check (opposed by the Bluff check of the target - the target has no way to know when or even that this is happening, so the target's bluff check does not include any modifiers that the target would need to choose to use, such as from Divine Insight, Improvisation, Moment of Prescience, or similar abilities - however: If the target keeps something like Heroism up full time, the bonus from that would apply), then the person who uses this ability knows where they are, what they currently look like, and approximately what they're doing. (Level 7, maybe?)
c) Know opponents: When making knowledge checks against a creature, you can roll on any creature (even if there's no way for anything about the creature to be known), the DC is 5+CR, and you get one useful piece of information per point by which you exceed the DC.
Yomi (and perceptiveness/combat instincts in general) is a good direction to think in. There's a lot of high powered abilities that can be keyed off of the concept without ever breaking the veil of being nonmagical.



f) Shockwave: By making a Martial Lore check (DC 10 plus the distance to the opponent, in squares) as part of an attack action, you can make melee attacks against non-adjacent foes.

I find it odd that people keep giving "tier 1 martials" shockwaves and swordbeams before making them competent with ranged or thrown weapons and tools, or even gap-closing or interceptor abilities. Not only are these things often stronger than most swordbeam/shockwave abilities I've seen in fighter fixes, they also don't risk breaking the "badass normal" fantasy.

[Psyren]

How about "Both reasonable and entirely possible to fulfil"?

"Possible to fulfill" is a given - you can do just about anything in this system, you just need the right rules text.

"Reasonable" however is in the eye of the beholder. There certainly are GMs who'd be fine with Saitama and other Muscle Wizards running around their campaign world and rearranging reality by flexing at it. There are also those who would find the very notion repulsive.

[Florian]

Telling people that the desire for a Tier 1 martial is an inherently stupid wish or that it's inherently impossible when there are examples on this forum which tick more of the boxes than the druid does on the list which was posted earlier without any more magical ability than the ability to interact with magical effects like gates which are already there (something which any creature can do) seems a bit over the top, though.

EDIT: Also, since the thread did actually say martial and not mundane, I feel compelled to point out that battle clerics are T1 martials.

The examples are based on using a T1 character that can also be a "martial" if that suits the needs. You can take a regular high-op Sorcadin gish build and declare it a "martial" as it can competently handle a weapon, but you´re kidding yourself as you will make heavy use of the caster-side when push comes to shove.

Maybe you should have read my second post in this thread before getting all riled up, because I gave an explanation of the underlying conceptual problem here: We use a set of rules to model what "mundanes" and "martials" can do, while simultaneously using discreet rules for spells that work on an entirely different level and seldom touch on each other. Get rid of one of the two rules sets and you can start creating a "martial" T1...

[khadgar567]

you know on pathfinder forums there is a treat called what you want from drop dead studios and all people request martials of power as next book( name is not decided so please find that treat and post a we want martial system request the so we can have the tier 1 martial classes)

[Jack_Simth]

Yomi (and perceptiveness/combat instincts in general) is a good direction to think in. There's a lot of high powered abilities that can be keyed off of the concept without ever breaking the veil of being nonmagical.Yeah. You need the basic functionality of divinations to be T-1. A lot of other stuff, too; If I was actually doing this, I'd probably run out of letters before I was done.

I find it odd that people keep giving "tier 1 martials" shockwaves and swordbeams before making them competent with ranged or thrown weapons and tools, or even gap-closing or interceptor abilities. Not only are these things often stronger than most swordbeam/shockwave abilities I've seen in fighter fixes, they also don't risk breaking the "badass normal" fantasy.
Please define competent as you're using it in this context. I was putting things in no particular order (If you'll note, I tossed level requirements on some of them, but not on others - as an example, Shockwave requires level 5, while it comes in my list after There's always a secret door... which requires level 7) - a Tier-1 martial would (among other things) need to be able to take down an army of mooks quickly past some point. Scaling area effects solve that. A Tier-1 martial also needs to be able to strike at opponents who won't close. Ranged effects solve that. I also gave 'em flight, teleportation, healing, status effects (including a note that one of them should be straight-up death), and something very close to Dispel Magic. I thought I'd made it pretty clear that it's NOT an exhaustive list with the "and so on. It'd take a while to build this" note towards the end and the "A few examples (NOT an exhaustive list)" towards the beginning. If the martial can apply a daze effect with arrows during an attack action (status effect) while still dealing damage at the same time as bypassing Wind Wall and Displacement... are you sure he's not being competent?

[Jormengand]

Saitama and other Muscle Wizards

Right, except I mentioned earlier:


[T]here are examples on this forum which tick more of the boxes than the druid does on the list which was posted earlier without any more magical ability than the ability to interact with magical effects like gates which are already there (something which any creature can do)

So I am, pretty obviously, not talking about Saitama.

[martixy]

I can think of three different ways immediately to justify strategic movement that aren't spellcasting. You could use your impossible swordsmanship to cut a hole in reality and step through. You could be the Flash, and just be that damn fast. You could have a seven-league stride. Interplanar movement is a little trickier, but still possible.

Have you read the "Chronicles of Amber"? Literal planeswalking.
(If you haven't, I can't recommend them enough.)

[Psyren]

Right, except I mentioned earlier:



So I am, pretty obviously, not talking about Saitama.

So what are you talking about then? If not a OnePunchMan style homebrew, what do you see as a T1 martial, if you insist such a thing is both possible and reasonable?

[Jormengand]

So what are you talking about then? If not a OnePunchMan style homebrew, what do you see as a T1 martial, if you insist such a thing is both possible and reasonable?

Oh, I dunno, the massive list of things I and another poster already posted earlier in the thread?

[Psyren]

Oh, I dunno, the massive list of things I and another poster already posted earlier in the thread?

"Another poster?" "Earlier in the thread?" Could you be a bit more specific?

[Jormengand]

"Another poster?" "Earlier in the thread?" Could you be a bit more specific?

Post #38 contains a list of classes I made with this intent - the list in post #63 lists things that a T1 character should, if druids and post #81 are any indication, be able to do about half of, whereas most of the classes listed can handle all of it, and all of them can definitely handle most of it. But really, isn't this sort of general thread-awareness the job of everyone in the discussion to do for themselves?

[Psyren]

Post #38 contains a list of classes I made with this intent - the list in post #63 lists things that a T1 character should, if druids and post #81 are any indication, be able to do about half of, whereas most of the classes listed can handle all of it, and all of them can definitely handle most of it. But really, isn't this sort of general thread-awareness the job of everyone in the discussion to do for themselves?

Oh, you meant those? Just vomiting links to homebrew without explaining how they solve the T1 problem is not much of a discussion. In the Veteran's own thread for instance, people are pointing out its deficiencies relative to an actual caster, and while taking hours to "craft flying machines" and "locate/contort through existing rifts" can somewhat approximate T1 powers, they still fall woefully short in the end. But at least they aren't trying to be exmagic, so kudos for that.

[LudicSavant]

I was putting things in no particular order (If you'll note, I tossed level requirements on some of them, but not on others - as an example, Shockwave requires level 5, while it comes in my list after There's always a secret door... which requires level 7) - a Tier-1 martial would (among other things) need to be able to take down an army of mooks quickly past some point. Scaling area effects solve that. A Tier-1 martial also needs to be able to strike at opponents who won't close. Ranged effects solve that. I also gave 'em flight, teleportation, healing, status effects (including a note that one of them should be straight-up death), and something very close to Dispel Magic. I thought I'd made it pretty clear that it's NOT an exhaustive list with the "and so on. It'd take a while to build this" note towards the end and the "A few examples (NOT an exhaustive list)" towards the beginning. If the martial can apply a daze effect with arrows during an attack action (status effect) while still dealing damage at the same time as bypassing Wind Wall and Displacement... are you sure he's not being competent?

Fair enough on the point that it is not an exhaustive listing of ideas, and that they are in no particular order, and that you did list a couple of archery ideas. However, I wonder why you need shockwaves or swordbeams at all, if one of the goals here is to try to make a tier 1 martial characters who don't look like "a wizard by another name."

I guess a more precise phrasing of my sentiment would be "Why include things that may threaten the badass normal fantasy when abilities that do not do so would serve just as well, if not better?" It's hardly a stretch to imagine martial techniques which strike many foes in an area at range which do not involve energy projection attacks.

It seems to me that a lot of the roles that people would want a "tier 1 fighter" to cover do not need to resort to "refluffed spell-like" effects, yet suggested fixes choose to do so anyways.

[Jormengand]

Oh, you meant those? Just vomiting links to homebrew without explaining how they solve the T1 problem is not much of a discussion. In the Veteran's own thread for instance, people are pointing out its deficiencies relative to an actual caster, and while taking hours to "craft flying machines" and "locate/contort through existing rifts" can somewhat approximate T1 powers, they still fall woefully short in the end. But at least they aren't trying to be exmagic, so kudos for that.

Well, they "Fall woefully short" in the way that they're less powerful than some T1s, but they still do the job of being T1. I mean, you can say that druids "Fall woefully short" because they can't do half the things in the T1 list posted earlier.

But fine, let's take a look, using veteran because that's the example you chose:


ethereal/incorporeal creatures
Explosives can hit either for force damage, starting at level 5. Incorporeal bane can cut through either from level 1. Druid fails.


flying creatures
Ranged weapon attacks that actually do something and wingclip are both helpful from level 1. Druid succeeds but not as well.


creatures with damage reduction
Mortal wound bypasses entirely. Druid somewhat succeeds.


social encounters
All skills on list. Iron Mind, Master of Disguise, Skilled and possibly Snap Out of It can help. Druid fails.


skill challenges
All skills on list. Tricks such as above can help. Druid fails.


mundane travel
CFM and CMFM can allow flight if you're not already a raptoran. Defender, Jump Master, Sudden Movement, The Speed of Light and The Speed of Sound can help; also Find Rift can just get you somewhere without much hassle. Druid does better in some areas and worse in others; for example the druid's flight is better so long as you don't mind being a glorified chicken for a while.


planar travel
Find planar rift; druid fails.


ally death
Not on My Watch; Druid gets reincarnate which is fine if you're happy being another creature for a while.


character death
Escape Death helps you survive your own death; druid fails.


surprise rounds
Always Strike First; druid fails.


enemy armies
Resilience, overcome wounds, and so forth let you take an army directly with a sword; else exploding potions and volley of arrows work well and you can even equip allies with the former. Druid succeeds, but possibly not as well.


ally armies
Animal companion, champion of the common man, and constant companion get you a small army who can then be kitted out with your poisons and bombs (the animal companion can just run at creatures and kill them, because it can be stronger than a druid's animal). Druid has a lot less.


debilitating effects
Does dead count? Otherwise you can poison, trap (using trap mastery for free traps), resolute shout, and so forth. Druid succeeds.


high-level single magicals/martials
Combat coup at first level, killing blow at second, heroic killing blow at third. Done and done. Druid succeeds, but without quite the same ease.


low-level groups of magicals/martials
Bomb 'em. Druid succeeds but not as well.


extraplanar creatures
Again, bypass their immunities and murder them. Druid pretty much fails.


probably some more things that I can't think of but someone else will

How about JaronK himself?


Situation 1: A Black Dragon has been plaguing an area, and he lives in a trap filled cave. Deal with him.

Situation 2: You have been tasked by a nearby country with making contact with the leader of the underground slave resistance of an evil tyranical city state, and get him to trust you.

Situation 3: A huge army of Orcs is approaching the city, and should be here in a week or so. Help the city prepare for war.

Situation 1: Trap master to get rid of the traps, use spell resistance and ability to ignore illusions to stop his spells and see through illusions, heroic killing blow the dragon.

Situation 2: Swap a trick for Skilled if you didn't already train all the skills you would need. Use Master of Disguise to change your looks quickly. Brutally murder anyone who tries to stop you.

Situation 3: Set up explosives and then hide expolsives operators behind walls or possibly tower shields, acquiring soldiers using Champion of the Common Man if you somehow can't convince the people.



Like, seriously, this guy is as good as, or better than, the druid in most if not all of these situations. What more do you want?

[Extra Anchovies]

Well, they "Fall woefully short" in the way that they're less powerful than some T1s, but they still do the job of being T1. I mean, you can say that druids "Fall woefully short" because they can't do half the things in the T1 list posted earlier.

I beg to differ.


Explosives can hit either for force damage, starting at level 5. Incorporeal bane can cut through either from level 1. Druid fails.

Spirit Jaws; druid passes.


Ranged weapon attacks that actually do something and wingclip are both helpful from level 1. Druid succeeds but not as well.

Wild shape, Air Walk, Earthbind, Master Air; druid passes easily.


Mortal wound bypasses entirely. Druid somewhat succeeds.

Druid has oodles of save-or-lose effects that don't care about HP; Entomb, Baleful Polymorph, and Drown are the first few that come to mind. Druid passes easily. If we need to go HAM, Mudslide -> Transmute Mud to Rock is game over for most enemies.


All skills on list. Iron Mind, Master of Disguise, Skilled and possibly Snap Out of It can help. Druid fails.

One of the few things the Druid isn't good at. Druid fails.


All skills on list. Tricks such as above can help. Druid fails.

Native access to a handful of good skills (spot, listen, diplomacy, spellcraft), plus movement modes/special senses/etc from Wild Shape that obviate a solid range of challenges, but that's probably not quite enough. Druid fails.


Find planar rift; druid fails.

They can't hop planes alone, but Attune Form ranges from very useful to absolutely necessary to get by on the non-Material planes - it even gets around the weird Elysium/Hades entrapment effects. Druid is in a very grey area; I'd say perfect adaptation to planar conditions is just as important to planar travel as Plane Shift is.


Escape Death helps you survive your own death; druid fails.

Druid doesn't have a direct escape from death (á la Clone, Astral Projection, etc), but they have a number of ways to get themselves gone in very short order if need be. Kinda iffy, depending on how you interpret "deal with character death". Druid sorta passes?


Always Strike First; druid fails.

Enhance Wild Shape -> Dire Tortoise (Sandstorm); druid passes.


Resilience, overcome wounds, and so forth let you take an army directly with a sword; else exploding potions and volley of arrows work well and you can even equip allies with the former. Druid succeeds, but possibly not as well.

The druid list has some of the best battlefield control in the game. Insect Plague and Creeping Doom can sweep away enemies en masse if they aren't prepared to fight swarms. Blizzard can incapacitate or kill (by suffocation) thousands with its 100 ft/level radius. Druid passes.


Animal companion, champion of the common man, and constant companion get you a small army who can then be kitted out with your poisons and bombs (the animal companion can just run at creatures and kill them, because it can be stronger than a druid's animal). Druid has a lot less.

Animal companion, SNA, Animal Growth, Giant Vermin, Liveoak, Cry of Ysgard. Obscuring Snow + Snowsight makes most fights very one-sided. Aura of Vitality and Animal Shapes are both solid buffs. Venomfire means the animal companion can just run at creatures and kill them. If we're going into feats, Chain Spell opens up a lot of strong single-target buffs for group use, e.g. Greater Magic Fang. Druid passes easily.


Bomb 'em. Druid succeeds but not as well.

Call Avalanche, Mudslide -> Transmute Mud to Rock, Obscuring Snow + Snowsight. Druid passes easily.


Again, bypass their immunities and murder them. Druid pretty much fails.

The Druid has access to all five elemental damage types, all three physical damage types, force damage (e.g. spirit jaws), and untyped damage (e.g. blast of sand). Magic Fang, Silvered Claws, and Align Fang get around most types of DR. Bypass their immunities and murder them? Sounds like a plan. Druid passes.

That's two failures and two questionable. I don't see any cause to question the druid's presence in the top tier.

[Jormengand]

You will of course notice I am referring to the core druid, who - as was mentioned earlier - is still T1. I never questioned that the druid was T1 and am using that as the basis for why the veteran is too.

[Cosi]

One of the few things the Druid isn't good at. Druid fails.

Druids have Diplomacy on their list, and at will disguise self at high levels. It's not as much as the Wizard, but it's far from nothing.


Native access to a handful of good skills (spot, listen, diplomacy, spellcraft), plus movement modes/special senses/etc from Wild Shape that obviate a solid range of challenges, but that's probably not quite enough. Druid fails.

If you're counting "has all skills" as a pass, that's probably also a pass.


Druid doesn't have a direct escape from death (á la Clone, Astral Projection, etc), but they have a number of ways to get themselves gone in very short order if need be. Kinda iffy, depending on how you interpret "deal with character death". Druid sorta passes?

Contingent reincarnate isn't awful. It has the immediate problem of resurrecting you in danger, but you can avoid that by cutting off one of your toes and giving it to a minion (with the contingency on him instead of you).

[eggynack]

I beg to differ.
I think he was specifically talking core, but I'ma add some things anyway.


One of the few things the Druid isn't good at. Druid fails.
Not sure I buy that. Summon fey makes up some good ground cause it means access to charm person. Diplomacy helps too, as does the ability to access speak language as a class skill. Also, doing forget that you get some solid animal interraction stuff. Not the same thing, but it's not meaningless.



Native access to a handful of good skills (spot, listen, diplomacy, spellcraft), plus movement modes/special senses/etc from Wild Shape that obviate a solid range of challenges, but that's probably not quite enough. Druid fails.
A big problem I have with this is what skill challenge means in the first place. There's not much in the way of game mechanics that forces you to approach a particular problem through pure skill means. And druids have lotsa problem solving. Only thing that might be annoying is traps, and that's a much smaller issue than skills in a broad sense.



They can't hop planes alone, but Attune Form ranges from very useful to absolutely necessary to get by on the non-Material planes - it even gets around the weird Elysium/Hades entrapment effects. Druid is in a very grey area; I'd say perfect adaptation to planar conditions is just as important to planar travel as Plane Shift is.
They can get plane shift through animate with the spirit for a movanic deva. Some dragon forms also have limited planar travel, if you go that route.




Animal companion, SNA, Animal Growth, Giant Vermin, Liveoak, Cry of Ysgard. Obscuring Snow + Snowsight makes most fights very one-sided. Aura of Vitality and Animal Shapes are both solid buffs. Venomfire means the animal companion can just run at creatures and kill them. If we're going into feats, Chain Spell opens up a lot of strong single-target buffs for group use, e.g. Greater Magic Fang. Druid passes easily.
Don't forget fey ring (especially for a siabrie), animate with the spirit, valiant steed, myconid sovereign for plant zombies, and, if we move out of native stuff, aberration wild shape for deepspawn form allows for some really weird minions.

Edit:

Contingent reincarnate isn't awful. It has the immediate problem of resurrecting you in danger, but you can avoid that by cutting off one of your toes and giving it to a minion (with the contingency on him instead of you).
Last breath is on the druid list, and seems like a possibly better option for this.

[eggynack]

Why is Last Breath and the like even part of the discussion?
I bring up non-core options only when they can serve to replace other non-core options that are mentioned. I feel my stance on this core-only construct is a known one, that the implicit claim, that we're putting core casters in direct competition with non-core casters, even leaving aside the specifics surrounding druids, is a weird one. Yes, theoretically, a big list is all you need, but in actual fact this core druid in a non-core world is going to necessarily be stationed below the rest of tier one, cause that's just what other sources means for casters. Which, in a sense, means that this martial class is only getting the dubious distinction that it's sandwiched between the theoretical floor of the tier and the actual floor of the tier. What does that even mean, really? Hell, for all I know, a sorcerer with all books would do better than a druid with only core. Books are powerful like that. I'm not sure if it's the case, but I wouldn't be surprised by the comparison going that way. Same might be true of clerics too, actually. In reality, a spirit shaman might make for a better comparison. I noted the plausible spirit shaman supremacy before, when it was both class features and books the druid was losing, but losing just the books might represent sufficient advantage for the spirit shaman. Wouldn't be crazy.

So, I guess my point is that this is weird. The end result comparison may well go in favor of this melee class, but the premises that get you to that point are really problematic. We like to act like there's this really strong prescriptive element to the tier system, like these definitions transcend everything, even simple assessments of the classes involved. The truth is that these definitions are ultimately descriptive, rather than prescriptive, true primariy because the system happens to reward the things that the tier system says are rewarded. Have the system start rewarding other things, maybe by handing sufficient books to other classes, and you might wind up moving classes around the tiers in a way the system wouldn't anticipate. It's a somewhat flexible system, capable of handing some level of new things introduced into it, but it's not perfectly flexible. The spirit shaman is really a symbol of the tier system's occasional difficulties in placing new things within it, with that weird claimed sublimation effect where the class moves directly between tier three and tier one with nothing in between. This crap-druid, a druid essentially given a bunch of nerfs by limiting its books in a way that other casters aren't being limited, is similarly in a weird spot.

Edit: How's core cleric without domains doing against this list, anyway? It's been somewhat implied that they'd do well, but it hasn't been explicitly stated.

[Jack_Simth]

Fair enough on the point that it is not an exhaustive listing of ideas, and that they are in no particular order, and that you did list a couple of archery ideas. However, I wonder why you need shockwaves or swordbeams at all, if one of the goals here is to try to make a tier 1 martial characters who don't look like "a wizard by another name."

I guess a more precise phrasing of my sentiment would be "Why include things that may threaten the badass normal fantasy when abilities that do not do so would serve just as well, if not better?" It's hardly a stretch to imagine martial techniques which strike many foes in an area at range which do not involve energy projection attacks.
*Shrug* that specific example is just a matter of fluff and taste. Would you prefer I split it into "Arrowstorm" and "rebounding throw" at essentially the same effect (make one attack roll with against everyone in an area with a ranged weapon with a single attack action, and throwing the weapon at someone with it coming back)?

It seems to me that a lot of the roles that people would want a "tier 1 fighter" to cover do not need to resort to "refluffed spell-like" effects, yet suggested fixes choose to do so anyways.
Mostly because it's easier, I imagine. We already have a few well-defined tier-1's, and the definition of a Tier-1 has it able to take on pretty much any party role, and well. It's easier to refluff existing T-1 abilities than it is to build a lightning warrior that can simply do all the things, and well.

[LudicSavant]

Since this seems to be an issue in the conversation above (w/ Jormengand/Psyren/etc)...

Stuff that you don't need to be tier 1 in all the ways that count:
Doing everything a full-blown TO druid with access to every conceivable supplement can do. I think folks can agree that a core only druid, wizard, or cleric counts as "tier 1 enough" already, and shooting for the TO goalpost is both unnecessary and impractical.
Creating the most powerful single build. You know what class can do that? Commoners. There's already a level 1 Commoner Pun-Pun build.
Doing absolutely everything without the aid of gear you don't craft yourself. The Artificer does basically everything with gear, few wizards can do without their spellbook and material components, etc. Moreover, Tier 1 characters are still tier 1 if they don't take magic item crafting feats.


Stuff that every tier 1 class does:
Has a broad variety of schticks, such that they can contribute in very useful ways to just about any party scenario. Note that this isn't necessarily the same thing as having all the tricks at the same time (even though that is sometimes the case in sufficiently optimized examples), it's just having enough diversity that you always have a tool in your belt. For example, a core druid might not be able to Plane Shift you, but they still have tools that will help a party trying to travel the planes in meaningful ways.
Can pass the Same Game Test (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:The_Same_Game_Test) and similar metrics without resorting to TO or anything like that.
Can alter their ability loadout in dramatic ways outside of leveling up (such as by preparing new spells the next day). Can pick up radically new, level-appropriate capabilities with little prior investment.
Has significant itemization advantages over many other classes. Scrolls are straight up better versions of potions, etc.

[eggynack]

Doing everything a full-blown TO druid with access to every conceivable supplement can do. I think folks can agree that a core only druid, wizard, or cleric counts as "tier 1 enough" already, and shooting for the TO goalpost is both unnecessary and impractical.
Kinda true, but also partially not. I mean, I wouldn't demand literally every book arbitrarily, but saying something along the theoretical lines of, "This arbitrary martial class with all book access is better than that arbitrary caster class with only core access, and that means the martial class is tier one," is a really weird sort of claim to make. And I'm aware that these created classes are probably mostly doing this stuff without non-core, but that's because all the resources they need are being given to them in an immediate sense. The fact is, the core only druid, wizard, and cleric are definitely tier one. In core. People don't usually make these comparisons with extra books, but it changes stuff. They might be tier one in a non-core environment, or maybe they wouldn't be. Maybe each core caster is reduced in tier relative to the other non-core casters, because that's how things go.

As a somewhat inverted note, it seems like a bit of a disadvantage to me that these classes don't really benefit much from non-core. Like, check this out. The basic argument is that this martial class can pull stuff off better than the core druid, and so deserves tier one, and you don't even have to give the martial class anything from out of core to do it. But that should hold up the other way too. If you give the martial class extra sources, then they should still be able to compete in these ways, and while they obviously do well, they don't necessarily do as well. Or maybe they do, cause they're just that powerful, but this core-only standard is a really weird one.



Creating the most powerful single build. You know what class can do that? Commoners. There's already a level 1 Commoner Pun-Pun build.
Sure, not necessarily the single most powerful thing ever. But I don't see why these casters can't make optimal decisions. Not necessarily all the optimal decisions, but it's not crazy to assume that the cleric will be running useful domains, or that the wizard might be doing metamagic stuff, or that the druid will have some form adding feat.


Doing absolutely everything (flying, plane hopping, teleportation, etc) without the aid of gear... so long as said gear is accessible (e.g. you don't have to spend 60% of your wealth on just ONE magic sword).
Sure. Most casters are missing some stuff. Clerics have relatively weak teleportation, for example, and wizards have basically no healing, and druids have the weakest long term minions of the high tier classes. But, at the same time, each thing missing is a serious liability, and must me considered as such. If you can't teleport, then you're missing quite a bit of potency, and if you're missing enough of these things, then at some point you might drop a tier. It's a matter of quantity of things missing, not just one thing moving into the "gear necessary" pile.


Can alter their ability loadout in dramatic ways outside of the level structure (such as by preparing new spells the next day). Can pick up radically new capabilities with little prior investment.
I don't think I'd include this. That tier one classes just happen to typically be prepared casters, and thus that tier ones currently have your stated quality. But imagine a sorcerer with a quadrupled count of spells known. Such a class would probably fall into tier one, just cause they can do all the stuff you'd want of them with that many options. And if that's not enough, add more spells. The transition will happen eventually. Similarly, any theoretical new class could bypass this issue by just having all these abilities you'd want access to for proper versatility already a part of the class.

[ryu]

I'd like to point out that the inherent advantage of prepared isn't just more spells known, though that is sweet. It also allows you the privilege of picking new spells known outside of level up at any time in town. This means new wizards and similar get to test their choices for results, decide in the most objective manner possible whether they were useful, and finally pick new choices based on this. I mean technically you could give the sorcerer so many choices that it's not possible to permanently miss, but I still feel the mechanic that encourages self curating and experimentation has a wicked edge.

[LudicSavant]

Sure, not necessarily the single most powerful thing ever. But I don't see why these casters can't make optimal decisions. Not necessarily all the optimal decisions, but it's not crazy to assume that the cleric will be running useful domains, or that the wizard might be doing metamagic stuff, or that the druid will have some form adding feat. I'm sorry, what? I don't actually understand what your point is supposed to be here in context of what you quoted. Do you think that someone is suggesting that it would be crazy to assume that the cleric will be running useful domains, or that the wizard will be using metamagic stuff, etc? :smallconfused:

If so, that is definitely not what I am saying. Quite the opposite: If they weren't making at least somewhat smart decisions, they wouldn't be passing the Same Game Test or similar metrics.


I don't think I'd include this. That tier one classes just happen to typically be prepared casters, and thus that tier ones currently have your stated quality. But imagine a sorcerer with a quadrupled count of spells known. Such a class would probably fall into tier one, just cause they can do all the stuff you'd want of them with that many options. And if that's not enough, add more spells. The transition will happen eventually. Similarly, any theoretical new class could bypass this issue by just having all these abilities you'd want access to for proper versatility already a part of the class.

True. However, the fact remains that it's something all current tier 1s have.


I'd like to point out that the inherent advantage of prepared isn't just more spells known, though that is sweet. It also allows you the privilege of picking new spells known outside of level up at any time in town. This means new wizards and similar get to test their choices for results, decide in the most objective manner possible whether they were useful, and finally pick new choices based on this. I mean technically you could give the sorcerer so many choices that it's not possible to permanently miss, but I still feel the mechanic that encourages self curating and experimentation has a wicked edge.

Yes. One of the major advantages (both in terms of power level and game design) is that you get to adapt at your own pace, rather than one set by the DM. For example, if a Fighter wants to go on a quest to a nation that speaks another tongue, he can't really do anything to prepare for that (besides buying items everyone else can use just as well as he can or better). He can't learn "Speak Language" until it's time to level up, at which point the adventure is already over. By contrast, the Wizard can suddenly decide "Hey, we'll need to be able to understand these foreigners for this adventure, I'll just skip over to the mage guild library..."

[eggynack]

I'm sorry, what? I don't actually understand what your point is supposed to be here in context of what you quoted. Do you think that someone is suggesting that the cleric will not be running useful domains, or that the wizard will not be using metamagic stuff, etc? :smallconfused:

Yeah, kinda. Earlier, it was mentioned that several methods of druid doery were not native to the class, and were instead coming from feats and such. Some such restriction makes sense, because not all druids will have a particular feat, and indeed such objections are frequently lodged. As in, does the druid really have access to action multiplication if they need to be a nilshai, a form not accessible through standard wild shape, to do it? Plenty of druids do not have the relevant feat, after all, and some may instead choose dragon wild shape, or exalted wild shape, and some may theoretically eschew form adding feats altogether. Similarly, considering clerics, yes, they will have some domains, but any individual use of a domain could be accused of not being broadly available. It's a sort of reverse schrodinger wizard thing. Just as the shrodinger wizard has access to all spells because the specific list is yet to be determined, so too does this reverse construct sometimes seem to have no access to things outside of class because said thing could be considered not representitive.



True. However, the fact remains that it's something all tier 1s have.
Sure. I just thought you were talking also about what a tier one martial would need to have.

[LudicSavant]

Yeah, kinda. Earlier, it was mentioned that several methods of druid doery were not native to the class, and were instead coming from feats and such.

Oh. Well, somebody who wasn't me did that, which is why I confused about the point being raised in response to my quote.

[Gnaeus]

Oh. Well, somebody who wasn't me did that, which is why I confused about the point being raised in response to my quote.

Ok, I'll make the point again then. If definition of T1 includes stuff that you can do with multiple cherry picked feats that radically enhance their abilities, then Beguiler, Dread Necro, or Warmage is at least high T2, because there is no question at all that I can make a Beguiler or DN that hits every button on the list if you allow me to expand their spell list by 3 domains of my choice.


Kinda true, but also partially not. I mean, I wouldn't demand literally every book arbitrarily, but saying something along the theoretical lines of, "This arbitrary martial class with all book access is better than that arbitrary caster class with only core access, and that means the martial class is tier one," is a really weird sort of claim to make.

I don't think I'd include this. That tier one classes just happen to typically be prepared casters, and thus that tier ones currently have your stated quality. But imagine a sorcerer with a quadrupled count of spells known. Such a class would probably fall into tier one,

No, it is the only interpretation, and I do make that claim. Either you can meet the definition, or you can't. T1 doesn't mean (is equal to some other class) it means (breaks the game in a T1 manner) and anything stronger than core Druid (as we discussed earlier) is moving the goalposts with the ball in the air.

Heck, we are pretty specifically talking about home brew here, because it isn't going to be published in an original supplement, so if it meets the basic power definition, it kinda qualifies by default, because the home brew class will clearly have its "power list" expanded in all the home brew supplements we make up after that point.

Your sorcerer example proves it. If extra book access moved the tier definition, the sorcerer wouldn't be T1, T2 would have shifted higher. It crosses the line, it doesn't move the line.

[eggynack]

No, it is the only interpretation, and I do make that claim. Either you can meet the definition, or you can't. T1 doesn't mean (is equal to some other class) it means (breaks the game in a T1 manner) and anything stronger than core Druid (as we discussed earlier) is moving the goalposts with the ball in the air.

Your sorcerer example proves it. If extra book access moved the tier definition, the sorcerer wouldn't be T1, T2 would have shifted higher. It crosses the line, it doesn't move the line.
The tier system means that as applies to the classes that exist, because it is a fundamentally descriptive rather than prescriptive system. If you start screwing around with the game system, or add classes, then the tier system may not necessarily describe what results. It's convenient for us that the system tends to lay out along these lines, that classes at the top, at the bottom, and in the middle, all tend to look pretty similar, but that convenience shouldn't shackle us to this ridiculous specificity. Even JaronK himself seems to agree. After all, when speaking of the value to future homebrewers in determining tier placement, he spoke not of the definitions but instead of the surrounding classes. He agreed about something else too. Particularly, that sufficient optimization, or the lack thereof, could represent a movement in tiers. Well, optimization differential doesn't model book use perfectly, but it's a decent facsimile.

Besides, your claimed definition of tier one is really vague. What does it mean to break the game in a tier one manner, exactly? I would assert that that definition could easily change depending on what sources you can access. After all, one could plausibly expect a tier one class outside of core to really be breaking the action economy at higher levels of optimization, but core classes don't do that well at that. Actually, we were talking about acting against the surprise round as a tier one thing earlier. Well, how's even a wizard doing that before 9th's? I might well be missing something, but it looks like they only get contingency, which is somewhat limited in scope, and clerics don't even get that. Clerics have pretty weak long distance travel access too, I think.

On some level, your argument here is a self defeating one. Your claim that this is tier one is based entirely on how this class competes with the core druid in terms of this list, but what that list actually looks like, and how the classes do on that list, changes based on how many books are being used. So, if you're going to ignore books as tier influencing power, then that feels a lot like it should lead to ignoring the list as a tier influencing power. If books don't matter, then the list shouldn't matter, and if the list does matter, then books should matter too, because the accessible books change what the list looks like.

With that in mind, I think there must be a more reasonable way to look at this overall setup. You're drawing up this comparison in core only, and in core only this class is probably tier one, but the class is not in core. Instead of asking whether this class is tier one, on a binary basis, what should really be asked is when this class stops being tier one, if it ever happens. Maybe the class remains competitive with the capacity of the other tier ones to do cool stuff, or maybe it loses ground due to the fact that it's not getting anything. Not sure what exactly that analysis would look like, but I suspect you'd want to add books based on closeness to core. I think that looks like core only, then core, completes, compendiums, and PHB II, then everything not setting specific, and then all books. Really not sure what the lists look like in that context though.

[Jormengand]

Let's play another round of "How does the veteran measure up to the core druid"! But before that, I'd like to address eggynack's point, and my answer is: yes, it is an odd comparison, if you're trying to say "The veteran measures up to the druid across all levels of sourcebook usage," but that's not really a claim I'm trying to make. What I am trying to say is "The core druid is tier 1, so we can use it as a measuring bar above which everything else must be tier 1 too, even if they're not as tier 1 as the druid is with this many sourcebooks."


Has a broad variety of schticks, such that they can contribute in very useful ways to just about any party scenario. Note that this isn't necessarily the same thing as having all the tricks at the same time (even though that is sometimes the case in sufficiently optimized examples), it's just having enough diversity that you always have a tool in your belt. For example, a core druid might not be able to Plane Shift you, but they still have tools that will help a party trying to travel the planes in meaningful ways.
I'm not sure druids really do have any tools that help you travel to the planes, honestly, but a veteran does, and also generally has tools to do... most things.


Can pass the Same Game Test (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:The_Same_Game_Test) and similar metrics without resorting to TO or anything like that.
Let it be known that I intrinsically dislike the SGT. Let's look at the first item on the list: a locked door behind an arbitrarily high number of CR 4 traps. This is supposed, by the SGT's metric, to be a 50/50 chance of death for a reasonably balanced character. Except, that would be a CR 5 encounter, which would be a locked door behind... one and a quarter CR 4 traps. Reframing it like this allows a fighter or a monk a little more chance to get through. Note that it's never specified what the door is made of either; fortunately this shouldn't matter as a fighter or even monk ought to deal at least 21 damage (to get through adamantine's hardness) with a maximum attack by that point (even the monk can just grab a greatsword and proficiency be damned, power attack for 3, and add another 6 from strength). Still, this kind of lack of detail doesn't help.

Fortunately for the veteran, he can beat down the door after disarming all the traps, and can smash easily enough through the animated object and must be forcibly kept awake when a basilisk appears. The cleric's level is never specified, but if he's CR 5 with 12 zombies, then he must be about CR... 2 by himself. Which makes me wonder where he got the zombies, but what the hey, he's gonna die. The "Hallway filled with magical runes" is pretty unhelpful, but fortunately we know that the third-level spell glyph of warding at CL 5 is a CR 4 encounter by itself, so the hallway filled with magical runes must have about... two and a half glyphs of warding in. Maybe we'll take one of the CR 6 ones and one of the CR 4 ones? Either way, the veteran can just tank the damage and heal it. Young blue dragon is only CR 6. Even an adult dies easily. And by level 15, we're just playing games to see how many dire bears we can take out per round.


Can alter their ability loadout in dramatic ways outside of leveling up (such as by preparing new spells the next day). Can pick up radically new, level-appropriate capabilities with little prior investment.

C'mon, even wizards need to "Invest" gold in new spells they want to learn. But veterans can just choose new tricks on the fly.


Has significant itemization advantages over many other classes. Scrolls are straight up better versions of potions, etc.

Herbalist and brewmaster tricks allow you to make pretty nasty stuff that other classes can't.

[eggynack]

Let's play another round of "How does the veteran measure up to the core druid"! But before that, I'd like to address eggynack's point, and my answer is: yes, it is an odd comparison, if you're trying to say "The veteran measures up to the druid across all levels of sourcebook usage," but that's not really a claim I'm trying to make. What I am trying to say is "The core druid is tier 1, so we can use it as a measuring bar above which everything else must be tier 1 too, even if they're not as tier 1 as the druid is with this many sourcebooks."

But what I'm saying is that that's not necessarily a perfect measuring bar across all those source books. Yes, maybe the veteran is tier one in a core only environment, but if the core only druid wouldn't be considered tier one if other casters had all books, and my claim is that it (possibly like other core only casters) may well not be, then the veteran too may not be tier one in that all book environment, even if the veteran too has access to all books.

[Gnaeus]

The tier system means that as applies to the classes that exist, because it is a fundamentally descriptive rather than prescriptive system. Well, optimization differential doesn't model book use perfectly, but it's a decent facsimile.

It is descriptive. There is a definition. And core druid meets that definition. We have already discussed the elements of that definition ad infinitum ad nauseum. And no, it isn't a decent facisimile. At all. It is in fact totally irrelevant.


Besides, your claimed definition of tier one is really vague.

All the tier definitions are really vague. Thats why we can punch each other in the face for 25 pages over whether rogue is T3 or beguiler is T2 and come up with no more consensus than we started with.


What does it mean to break the game in a tier one manner, exactly?

Some degree of power and versatility no higher than the clearly weakest T1. The clearly weakest T1 is a core druid, possibly a core + source spirit shaman depending on how we rank Spirit Shaman (and again, the existing definition is so vague that we have classes that may or may not qualify).


Actually, we were talking about acting against the surprise round as a tier one thing earlier. Well, how's even a wizard doing that before 9th's? I might well be missing something, but it looks like they only get contingency, which is somewhat limited in scope, and clerics don't even get that. Clerics have pretty weak long distance travel access too, I think.

You are singing my song. Not every T1 can access all those powers before certain high levels, in some cases 17th. So hitting all those benchmarks is clearly not necessary. I agree completely.


So, if you're going to ignore books as tier influencing power, then that feels a lot like it should lead to ignoring the list as a tier influencing power. If books don't matter, then the list shouldn't matter, and if the list does matter, then books should matter too, because the accessible books change what the list looks like.

The base list only matters because it shows us an upper boundary of where the bottom of what a T1 is. If there were a weaker T1, THAT would show us where the bottom of a tier 1 is. When you expand the list, you show us a stronger T1. But you don't make the core druid less able to wipe out an army or be a better monk than a monk.


the class remains competitive with the capacity of the other tier ones to do cool stuff, or maybe it loses ground due to the fact that it's not getting anything. Not sure what exactly that analysis would look like, but I suspect you'd want to add books based on closeness to core. I think that looks like core only, then core, completes, compendiums, and PHB II, then everything not setting specific, and then all books. Really not sure what the lists look like in that context though.

Not at all. If I made a barbarian + class, and its only power was that it can do 1,000,000,000 damage on a charge or full attack, it would be T4. It would totally obsolete most other T4s. Blow them out of the water. But it would not break T3. Because the tiers have definitions. And those definitions are not based around how the other characters in the tier interact, they are based on how they interact with the game.
T5 May be unable to meaningfully interact with the game if not well built.
T4 May interact with the game meaningfully in their area of expertise, or be generally useful but never very good.
T3 Always able to meaningfully interact with the game
T2 May be better than T5s in their area of expertise. May be good at anything in the game. May break the game, especially at high levels.
T1 May do a larger subset of the the things T2s can do, but in more ways.

Barbarian is T4, not because it is likely better than fighter, but because it is likely better than (CR equivalent enemy)
Wildshape Ranger is T3, not because it is better than rogue, but because it is really hard to make useless.
Binder is T2, not because it is better than warblade, but because open access to summon monster makes it often useful and occasionally trivially game breaking.

To change the tiers, you would need to rewrite the monster manuals and common adventure challenges, to make it so that classes can or cannot interact meaningfully with game, or snap it over their knee.

[eggynack]

It is descriptive. There is a definition. And core druid meets that definition. We have already discussed the elements of that definition ad infinitum ad nauseum. And no, it isn't a decent facisimile. At all. It is in fact totally irrelevant.
My point was that the system doesn't strictly tell you things about new classes. We shouldn't take what is a description of what is as a prescription of how to evaluate new things introduced.



All the tier definitions are really vague. Thats why we can punch each other in the face for 25 pages over whether rogue is T3 or beguiler is T2 and come up with no more consensus than we started with.
Sure, but what I'm saying is that the tier definition you mentioned, and if the base tier list can be said to match your definition then the tier system in general, does not preclude the possibility that book access can influence tiers.



Some degree of power and versatility no higher than the clearly weakest T1. The clearly weakest T1 is a core druid, possibly a core + source spirit shaman depending on how we rank Spirit Shaman (and again, the existing definition is so vague that we have classes that may or may not qualify).

Dunno that it's that clear, given that the druid is probably the best core tier one at low levels. It's a weird situation, cause druids are worse at traditional caster metrics, but pretty great at less traditional combat oriented metrics. They're also maybe the best at the whole army dealery thing, given control winds. Of course, any tier one martial worth their salt would also be great at those combat oriented metrics.


You are singing my song. Not every T1 can access all those powers before certain high levels, in some cases 17th. So hitting all those benchmarks is clearly not necessary. I agree completely.
Yes, but consider how we're doing these assessments. We're saying, "Here's a list of things I'd expect a tier one to be able to do, and they have to hit most or all of the listed criteria to qualify." You're essentially claiming that the list should be around half that long, on the back of the core druid, but what if the list actually is that long, if not longer, outside of core? If the druid is only meeting half the criteria in the non-core environment, then to what extent can we really say they're tier one in that environment?



The base list only matters because it shows us an upper boundary of where the bottom of what a T1 is. If there were a weaker T1, THAT would show us where the bottom of a tier 1 is. When you expand the list, you show us a stronger T1. But you don't make the core druid less able to wipe out an army or be a better monk than a monk.
But, if you expand the list enough, then maybe army destruction and monk crushing isn't sufficient to hit the threshold of millions of nukes. Nuke quantity, after all, is somewhat relative.



Not at all. If I made a barbarian + class, and its only power was that it can do 1,000,000,000 damage on a charge or full attack, it would be T4. It would totally obsolete most other T4s. Blow them out of the water. But it would not break T3. Because the tiers have definitions. And those definitions are not based around how the other characters in the tier interact, they are based on how they interact with the game.
Sure, but that's more because the barbarian+ is practically just the barbarian than because crazy improvements are happening here. Not all that sure it'd obsolete most tier 4's as a result. But toss that damage down to a standard action, and you still have just the one great trick, but now that trick is becoming relevant in a bigger way. The fact of the matter is, the tier system doesn't read this superior barbarian, or even a more superior barbarian, as higher than tier four, primarily because the superior barbarian didn't exist when the tier system was being created. If it did, then maybe we'd be working with different definitions right now. After all, the definition in tier four only really allows for doing a thing quite well. There's not much precedent for a thing being done incredibly well without also doing a lot of other things, and maybe a thing done incredibly well is enough to get into tier three.

[Gnaeus]

My point was that the system doesn't strictly tell you things about new classes. We shouldn't take what is a description of what is as a prescription of how to evaluate new things introduced.

Of course we should. The list is the list. If you want to make your own system, go right ahead. There are plenty of arbitrary places to draw lines. I could say Beguiler and DN are T2.5, being clearly superior to other T3s and superior to some T2s under certain optimization assumptions. But the list is still the list. We could say that shapeshift druid and spirit shaman are tier 1.5, and that rogue was 3.5. But that would be pointless. We have original definitions and anything else is just a similar but different system.



Dunno that it's that clear, given that the druid is probably the best core tier one at low levels. It's a weird situation, cause druids are worse at traditional caster metrics, but pretty great at less traditional combat oriented metrics. They're also maybe the best at the whole army dealery thing, given control winds. Of course, any tier one martial worth their salt would also be great at those combat oriented metrics.

OK, I will agree that to the degree that any other core T1 is weaker, then that is the benchmark to beat. I love druid almost as much as you. I'm not trying to put them down.


You're essentially claiming that the list should be around half that long, on the back of the core druid, but what if the list actually is that long, if not longer, outside of core? If the druid is only meeting half the criteria in the non-core environment, then to what extent can we really say they're tier one in that environment

The environment doesn't change. Goblins are still goblins. Ogres are still ogres. Green slime is still green slime. Wizard/Cleric/Druid being stronger doesn't change a thing. If there really was power creep in the later Monster Manuals (excluding 2, which most of us agree is just pretty borked at any tier) to the point where barbarians could no longer fight things and druids could no longer level armies or thoqqa through walls, then the different environment would matter.


But, if you expand the list enough, then maybe army destruction and monk crushing isn't sufficient to hit the threshold of millions of nukes. Nuke quantity, after all, is somewhat relative.
But millions of nukes isn't the threshhold. The threshhold is at or below the number of nukes possessed by the weakest thing that looks like a T1. That is a core or core + source (X). To be totally honest, I think the definition is foolish and nukes shouldn't have any bearing on Tier. I can break any game with a T5 monk by the simple expedient of insulting the DM and kicking his dog. I think other parts of the definition are way more relevant, like the ability to obsolete your party members to the degree that they may as well be carrying your luggage. But I didn't write the definitions.


The fact of the matter is, the tier system doesn't read this superior barbarian, or even a more superior barbarian, as higher than tier four, primarily because the superior barbarian didn't exist when the tier system was being created. If it did, then maybe we'd be working with different definitions right now. After all, the definition in tier four only really allows for doing a thing quite well. There's not much precedent for a thing being done incredibly well without also doing a lot of other things, and maybe a thing done incredibly well is enough to get into tier three.

The fact of the matter is that every tier definition is based on PVE. Can a fighter do its job? (Y/N). Is a beguiler going to be relevant in a vast majority of encounters? (Y/N). Can a Druid do the fighter's job and everything else and solve the dragon and army challenges? (Y/N). If we rewrote every T5 to hit the standard of T4, there wouldn't become a new T5 because of how classes interacted. There would only be 4 tiers because now no one hit the T5 definition by being likely to be useless. If we made only one tier, that being tier 1, we wouldn't have to re-sort the game into 5 tiers, we could just say (everyone is always useful and everyone can break the game and everyone can kill armies) and any relative power disparity between the cleric/druid/wizard/psion/artificer/demigod/divine trickster/amberite is just not relevant on the same level as the relative power disparity between a T1 and a T4 used to be. If the only tier was T3, we don't have to say that now Duskblade is T5 and Beguiler and DN are T1 and sort the others through the middle.

If we have an open game environment. And Bill the druid is all sources, and the wizard is core only because Steve read the PHB and he refuses to pick up any other source, but they are both using their classes at a high degree of opti-fu, such that Steve is walking around with an army of undead and bound minions that he uses polymorph on and every enemy gets scried and dead and every time there is a puzzle he binds an imp and solves it via commune. Does that look more like a druid + a warblade? Or does it look more like 2 tier 1s? It looks like 2 tier 1s. And his inability to use celerity or make a demiplane doesn't remotely change that.

[Jormengand]

But what I'm saying is that that's not necessarily a perfect measuring bar across all those source books. Yes, maybe the veteran is tier one in a core only environment, but if the core only druid wouldn't be considered tier one if other casters had all books, and my claim is that it (possibly like other core only casters) may well not be, then the veteran too may not be tier one in that all book environment, even if the veteran too has access to all books.

But the thing is, Tier 1 isn't relative. I don't feel that any of the core casters stop being tier 1 just because there's something even more bahroken running around. It's not how T1 works: T1 is an absolute measurement of your ability to solve problems all the time without relying on out-of-class abilities, not a measurement of how well you stack up to other Tier 1 classes. The only reason I'm mentioning core druid is because we know it's T1.

[Bucky]

Not at all. If I made a barbarian + class, and its only power was that it can do 1,000,000,000 damage on a charge or full attack, it would be T4. It would totally obsolete most other T4s. Blow them out of the water. But it would not break T3.

T3 is skippable for characters; this particular barbarian might hit T2 by using massive damage in game-breaking ways, without the versatility that T3+ usually implies.

For classes on the other hand, the T4->T2 jump on the basis of a single trick usually isn't considered sufficient (e.g. Healer using Gate).

[Emperor Tippy]

The versatility of lower level tier 1 classes can be at least semi decently replicated via "plausible" martial abilities. The issue is the 8th and 9th level spells that Tier 1 classes get.

Take a Commoner 1 that has always on access to Shapechange at CL 20 and you have a Tier 2 character. Shapechange is able to directly replicate a pretty solid 80% of the games spells lists on its own without any questionable rulings.

That is perhaps the most extreme example but most of the other generally discussed 8th and 9th level spells fall into the same category.

---
Let's see, Tier 1 martial.

Now first we give it something like Insight (Ex).
Level 1: Is never flatfooted, adds class level to Initiative rolls.
Level 3: Adds class level to attack and damage rolls.
Level 5: Adds class level to AC (including touch AC).
Level 7: Supreme Initiative (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#supremeInitiative), in the event of two characters with this ability it is whomever has the higher divine rank or (if equal divine ranks) whomever has more levels in this class.
Level 9: Adds class level to all skill and ability checks and all saving throws.
Level 11: Ignores any damage reduction a foe possesses.
Level 13: Is immune to all types of precision damage.
Level 15: Every roll made involving the character is rolled twice and the character gets to choose which result is taken.
Level 17: Immune to all time manipulation spells and abilities. Direct effects are ignored, indirect effects like Celerity and Time Stop apply all benefits to the character as well.
Level 19: As an immediate action the character can declare the previous round to have never occurred and reset to the start of the characters last turn, any given round can only be replayed once. The character is the only individual who retains memory of the unplayed round.

Then we need something like Quick (Ex).
Level 2: +10 x Class level feet enhancement bonus to movement speed (all types of movement).
Level 4: Character gains an additional move action each round. Character gains the Spring Attack and Fly-by-attack feats without need to meet any of their prerequisites.
Level 6: Character gains an additional swift or immediate action each round.
Level 8: Character gains an additional standard action each round; can combine this with extra swift and move actions for an additional full round action.
Level 10: Character can, at the cost of two standard actions, make a single attack at his highest BAB against any foe he threatens at any time this turn.
Level 12: Character can save all or part of his available actions until anytime before his next turn, being able to take all unused actions as an immediate action. Effectively he has readied his excess actions without having to declare an activation condition.
Level 14: Character gains an entire additional set of actions.
Level 16: Character gains an entire additional set of actions.
Level 18: Character gains an entire additional set of actions.
Level 20: Character gains an entire additional set of actions.

Now lets see, next up is Inconstant Location (Ex).
Level 3: Character can, as a standard action, teleport character level times 5 feet.
Level 6: Character gains the benefits of the Blink spell except that his own attacks have no miss chance. Character acts as if, always, under the effects of Air Walk as their mass is shifted to the Ethereal Plane and so they can balance on the air.
Level 9: Character can, as a standard action, step fully into the Ethereal Plane (or from the Ethereal to the Material Plane).
Level 12: Character can transition any weapon they wield or projectile that they fire or spell they cast between the Material and Ethereal Planes as they will. In addition to the obvious benefits, this makes all attacks as if they come from an incorporeal foe (against touch AC) and the foe is always treated as flat-footed against the attack.
Level 15: Character can, as a full round action, move themselves to anywhere on any plane that they have previously visited, or to any square adjacent to any creature that the character has previously dealt any damage to.
Level 18: Character is targeted by a True Resurrection spell once per day, TR is treated as cast by a Cleric of the same level at whatever location the character desires.

And now for some more exotic offensive abilities. Timely Wrath (Ex).
Level 2: As a standard action you can charge your next attack so that on a successful hit the target needs to make a Fort save (DC equal to 10 + Character level) or be frozen in time (unable to act or be harmed) until the end of your next turn.
Level 4: As a standard action you can charge your next attack so that on a successful hit the target is effected twice by the attack (damage is rolled twice, effects trigger twice, etc.)
Level 6: As a standard action you can charge your next attack so that on a successful hit the target needs to make a Fort save (DC equal to 10 + Character level) or be unable to move from their current square for the rest of the encounter (suffering a -10 to Reflex saves in additional to the more obvious effects).
Level 8: As a standard action you can charge your next attack so that on a successful hit everyone you choose who within character level x 5 foot radius of the struck target needs to make a reflex save or be frozen in time until the end of your next turn.
Level 10: As a standard action you can charge your next attack so that on a successful hit you can choose to appear adjacent to the target as an immediate action once at any time within the next character level hours.
Level 12: As a standard action you can charge your next attack so that on a successful hit the target needs to make a Fort Save (DC 10+Character level) or be unable to undertake any type of planar travel for character level hours (note that this includes all teleportation spells and effects that make use of other planes as a transport medium).
Level 14: As a standard action you can charge your next attack so that on a successful hit the target needs to make a Will Save (DC 10+Character level), on a failed save their active magical effects and items are treated as if character level days have passed.
Level 16: As a standard action you can charge your next attack so that it will strike true against any target that you have dealt damage to within the previous 24 hours. No attack roll is required and the targeted enemy does not need to be within LoS, LoE, attack range, or even on the same plane.
Level 18: As a standard action you can charge your next attack so that it travels through time, striking at a chosen location in the previous round. You need to threaten the struck square this round to target it. The targeted foe is treated as flat footed, the foe is denied Dex to AC, the attack ignores any Contingencies that the foe may have in effect.
Level 20: As a standard action you can charge your next attack so that on a successful hit the target needs to make a Fort save (DC 10+Character level) or be locked eternally in that single instant of time, utterly immune to any and all forces that would attempt to effect it and yet utterly unable to act in any manner.

---
Well I would need to flesh this out a bit, fluff it as using great (and secret) knowledge of planar mechanics to interact with reality and time, and give it a bit of polish but the end result should at least be within general shouting distance of Tier 1.

Hmm, might actually have to flesh this out and play test it. Could be fun to play.

[LudicSavant]

The versatility of lower level tier 1 classes can be at least semi decently replicated via "plausible" martial abilities.

*snip*

Certainly.

I'll also add that in edge cases where "plausible" nonmagical explanation is challenging, the gap can often be bridged by itemization advantages. People might object to Batman flying by kicking the air, but they won't object to him having a jetpack. "But Ludic," one might say, "a Fighter can already buy a jetpack." Yeah, but his version is as good or worse than a jetpack used by anyone else. It's as expensive or more than items accomplishing a similar effect accessible by other classes. This needn't be the case. For instance, a martial character could have something like a better version of Pathfinder's Fly skill so that they're better at maneuvering the jetpack, or their physical endurance allows them to fly much longer and faster without the magic tiring them out from drawing on their spirit, or the flight is like Thor's hammer and you have to be good at throwing it, or any of a hundred other ideas.

The ways you can make a character better at using an item than their peers are endless. Maybe a strength belt is a multiplier instead of a flat bonus. Maybe instead of having a super expensive flaming axe that just adds damage, you have a cheap flaming axe which requires sufficient martial skill to harness its true potential, at which point you can do all sorts of maneuvers with it, like cleaving the ground to create walls of fire in your wake when you move, or using your martial skill and balance to fly around on jets of flame. Or a javelin that can pierce the veil between worlds and teleport the attuned owner to its position, naturally synergizing with weapon throwing techniques. And so on and so forth.

[eggynack]

But the thing is, Tier 1 isn't relative. I don't feel that any of the core casters stop being tier 1 just because there's something even more bahroken running around. It's not how T1 works: T1 is an absolute measurement of your ability to solve problems all the time without relying on out-of-class abilities, not a measurement of how well you stack up to other Tier 1 classes. The only reason I'm mentioning core druid is because we know it's T1.
I disagree that it's not relative. Maybe I've been going about this the wrong way, pointing out how the lists above the core druid expand when you add sources. After all, you could just be expanding the tier itself, or moving those classes into a higher tier. Instead, what should possibly be considered is how lower tier classes act under these conditions, particularly classes from tier two. So, does having access to a bunch of new books give sorcerers broader problem solving capability than a druid? As a more accessible question, if the spirit shaman is considered tier two or three, and I think that's a correct placing, then do these new books push the spirit shaman above the druid? I don't think there's much justification for putting these classes into tier one, so the only conclusion would be that the druid should be below them in some fashion.


Of course we should. The list is the list. If you want to make your own system, go right ahead. There are plenty of arbitrary places to draw lines. I could say Beguiler and DN are T2.5, being clearly superior to other T3s and superior to some T2s under certain optimization assumptions. But the list is still the list. We could say that shapeshift druid and spirit shaman are tier 1.5, and that rogue was 3.5. But that would be pointless. We have original definitions and anything else is just a similar but different system.
As above, so too here (which is why I did that response first). Because, yes, the line placement is pretty arbitrary, but if one can establish a real crossing, then that's a meaningful thing. Not sure if it happens though.



OK, I will agree that to the degree that any other core T1 is weaker, then that is the benchmark to beat. I love druid almost as much as you. I'm not trying to put them down.
Sure, just noting stuff, particularly that druids are in a weird spot because they have this weird martial/caster hybrid element that doesn't read well in the tier system. There's this whole separate list out there, composed of what things a low tier martial character should be capable of, or what one can be capable of, and the druid scores very highly on that list, while the wizard does significantly less well.



The environment doesn't change. Goblins are still goblins. Ogres are still ogres. Green slime is still green slime. Wizard/Cleric/Druid being stronger doesn't change a thing. If there really was power creep in the later Monster Manuals (excluding 2, which most of us agree is just pretty borked at any tier) to the point where barbarians could no longer fight things and druids could no longer level armies or thoqqa through walls, then the different environment would matter.
That's not why the environment changes, because new books make better monsters. It changes because now all your party members are more powerful, so the difficulty of the game has to be upped in response. Just consider a more extreme example. You start with a party of definitely tier ones, of moderate level, adventuring across the land. In order for those adventures to be difficult, they need to be more than just arbitrary even-CR enemies. So, either monsters have to be picked that are especially strong for their CR, or you need things at a higher CR. From there, you can consider adding a tier five party member. Would this party member not face a greater challenge against this environment than by one determined by a tier five party? This is why relative balance between party members matters in the first place.



The fact of the matter is that every tier definition is based on PVE. Can a fighter do its job? (Y/N). Is a beguiler going to be relevant in a vast majority of encounters? (Y/N). Can a Druid do the fighter's job and everything else and solve the dragon and army challenges? (Y/N). If we rewrote every T5 to hit the standard of T4, there wouldn't become a new T5 because of how classes interacted. There would only be 4 tiers because now no one hit the T5 definition by being likely to be useless. If we made only one tier, that being tier 1, we wouldn't have to re-sort the game into 5 tiers, we could just say (everyone is always useful and everyone can break the game and everyone can kill armies) and any relative power disparity between the cleric/druid/wizard/psion/artificer/demigod/divine trickster/amberite is just not relevant on the same level as the relative power disparity between a T1 and a T4 used to be. If the only tier was T3, we don't have to say that now Duskblade is T5 and Beguiler and DN are T1 and sort the others through the middle.

Yes, the tiers are PVE, but the questions involved are not binary ones. It's not about whether the fighter can do its job, but the effectiveness with which the fighter does that job. The beguiler doesn't just get a "frequent relevance" merit badge, they get some not necessarily known percentage of encounters they can be relevant, and that percentage presumably changes based on how you adjust the CR. You don't just ask whether the druid can supplant the fighter and solve these challenges. You ask how powerful the challenge has to be before the druid can't just solve them, and how powerful the fighter has to be before said fighter is better at fightering, or if that ever happens. And, if we eliminated all but one tier, then we'd definitely have new tiers with a range of numbers, and we'd definitely use a method like the one you cited.


If we have an open game environment. And Bill the druid is all sources, and the wizard is core only because Steve read the PHB and he refuses to pick up any other source, but they are both using their classes at a high degree of opti-fu, such that Steve is walking around with an army of undead and bound minions that he uses polymorph on and every enemy gets scried and dead and every time there is a puzzle he binds an imp and solves it via commune. Does that look more like a druid + a warblade? Or does it look more like 2 tier 1s? It looks like 2 tier 1s. And his inability to use celerity or make a demiplane doesn't remotely change that.
Maybe, or maybe not. Wizards probably do better in just core, at least at caster specific stuff. In any case, I think my other claimed method, assessing the power of tier 2's, is closer to right. Not sure if it leads to my claimed conclusion, but it plausibly could.

[illyahr]

...or the flight is like Thor's hammer and you have to be good at throwing it, or any of a hundred other ideas.

This is the first thing that came to mind. I give you: martials in "flight."

https://33.media.tumblr.com/9576a3c29e3c003182424a437d2f6a79/tumblr_ml28j2DsRn1qzmfgzo1_400.gif

[danzibr]

Well I would need to flesh this out a bit, fluff it as using great (and secret) knowledge of planar mechanics to interact with reality and time, and give it a bit of polish but the end result should at least be within general shouting distance of Tier 1.

Hmm, might actually have to flesh this out and play test it. Could be fun to play.
When I started reading this, I thought hrm, looks pretty fun. But then I got to reading more and thought... man, that's strong. Really strong. Super strong.

But... it would certainly make a T1 martial. I wonder if you need *that much*, though.

[LudicSavant]

This is the first thing that came to mind. I give you: martials in "flight."

https://33.media.tumblr.com/9576a3c29e3c003182424a437d2f6a79/tumblr_ml28j2DsRn1qzmfgzo1_400.gif

Thor might even be easier to justify than Tao, who needs to jump faster than the pillar under his own unaided power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iFK8EMswdQ

[digiman619]

This is the first thing that came to mind. I give you: martials in "flight."

https://33.media.tumblr.com/9576a3c29e3c003182424a437d2f6a79/tumblr_ml28j2DsRn1qzmfgzo1_400.gif

This never made sense to me; the Tsurusen'in/Crane Hermit was his brother, yet he apparently never taught him bukujustu: a.k.a the flying technique his school (and later the series) was famous for. Why?

[Emperor Tippy]

When I started reading this, I thought hrm, looks pretty fun. But then I got to reading more and thought... man, that's strong. Really strong. Super strong.

But... it would certainly make a T1 martial. I wonder if you need *that much*, though.

Yeah, and I'm wondering if it is enough. Probably should make Insight level 13 True Seeing, Tremorsense, Blindsight, Blindsense, Darkvision, Low-Light vision; all with a range of Class level x 10 feet.

To even be able to seriously contest at Tier 1 you must be able to abuse the action economy and counteract your opponents abuse of the same. Foresight+Celerity+Time Stop is a go to combo for a reason. You also need some way to deal with higher end minion-mancy (whether Ice Assassin, summons, bound creatures, or other).

The entire Insight line is essentially the bare minimum I feel is needed defensively to be able to play in that league, while also granting significant out of combat utility. Insight alone would make a first rate skill monkey (+20 to every single skill at class level 20, able to roll all skill checks twice and take the better one, able to roll back the entire round for a second try and another two rolls). It is probably enough of a boost to make up for most of the Tier 1 social spells; yes this is supposed to be Diplomacy Abuse and the like.

Inconstant Location is the minimum movement capabilities that a character needs for Tier 1. You need effective, cheap, multi-planar teleportation and a flight analog. The Level 6 ability combined with the level 1 ability of Quick provides that. The Ethereal hopping is there because it fits thematically and provides a good offensive and defensive ability that is near unique.

Timely Wrath is some more utility effects but is also pretty much purpose made to work around a lot of Tier 1 defenses. The capstone, for example, is worded the way it is because of just how hard keeping a Tier 1 level 20 dead (or even out of play) is. You fail that save and you are done - and I'm still half tempted to go back to my first take on that and give it no save at all.

[LudicSavant]

This never made sense to me; the Tsurusen'in/Crane Hermit was his brother, yet he apparently never taught him bukujustu: a.k.a the flying technique his school (and later the series) was famous for. Why?

Probably the same reason Trunks's hair color keeps changing.