What classes do you hate?

[Jack_McSnatch]

Just as it says on the tin. Whether it's for fluff or crunch reason, list your least favorite classes and why.

I hate the Factotum. It's the most obnoxious damn class in existence. It is Mary-Sue given stats. Why is it my wizard has to train til he's old and grey, just to cast the simplist cantrip, but this jerkhole can do it just by waving his hands like moron and grunting things that sound vaguely arcane? Why do my clerics and paladins have to spend decades in monastery, giving up worldly pleasures for the favor of their god, but this jackass pulls out a holy symbol and just decide he's gonna worship that particular god today AND GET SPELLS FOR IT. They get more skills than the rogue, and are better in combat than fighters thanks to iaijutsu shenanigans, and they can copy ANY class ability? This class needs to go in the garbage.

I dislike monks to a lesser extent because there's nothing you can do with them. Forget their terrible mechanics, monks suck to rp. As a player, your a stoic. When you all go to the bar for a cold drink after a hard days adventuring, what does the monk do while everyone is partying? He friggin meditates. As a DM, I like to give my players some time in the story where they're the main character. This fails miserably with monks because THEY DON'T DO ANYTHING. It always comes down to "There was this guy in your monastery who wasn't very good at following the monk code."

Which is another reason they get me. A paladin breaks their code, and they become a fighter without bonus feats. This can fun to present a paladin with the choice between following their code, or doing the right thing, but of you try it on a monk?

They lose nothing. What do they care? They can go full on chaotic, and keep all their monk abilities. There's nothing interesting to play out with them.

EDIT: I was wrong. Factotums don't get divine spells. The gods still bless them for paying lip service. That's what annoys me.

[Technetium43]

The Binder. Well, that's not exactly fair to say: I LOVE the Binder, both mechanically and fluff-wise. I HATE Suppress Sign. You have this incredibly interesting, varied, and creepy fluff with the signs, and the roleplaying, and you can just... ignore all of it. From second level. With it being based on making a good pact, it basically ends up being completely volatile and annoying. Like, 'oh hey yeah I've been binding this vestige daily for multiple years but suddenly I can't get rid of these weird-ass signs'. It makes no sense.

[Kaje]

Factotums don't get divine spells.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Factotums don't get divine spells.
They can sponteneously cast like a cleric, and get to have turn undead. Like a cleric. Seriously, that class blows. "Oh, you have a unique and interesting class? Well mines better cause it can do the same thing and more!"

[Necroticplague]

I really, really hate base classes that are just combinations of two other classes. That's what you made prestige classes for, you dense designers. So paladin, ranger, bard, and a few others I can't think of can all go burn.

Similarly, the distinction of some divine classes always struck me as incredibly arbitrary. How is a cleric of nature any different from a Druid, fluffwise?

[ryu]

Fighter. Just... fighter. Mainly for sucking completely and utterly even at the role it claims to be best at. It's existence was a mistake, It's fluff is boring and fully of lies, and worst of all it's part of the baseline play assumption with hilariously little to break out of being a useless pile of muscle with a stick.

It has less skills and utility than the supposed unskilled illiterate. Lacking spot and listen, with less skill points than most anyone else, it can't even function adequately as a night-shift guard. Literally everything this class is capable of can be done better or rendered moot by low level spells across a wide range of lists. Don't believe me? Try to find something, ANYTHING, they can do that can't be done better or rendered moot by a spell of 4th or under. You have access to fighter 20 with only the stipulation that you can't use WBL to get casting items of any kind. Can't have you voiding the challenge by pretending to be one of the actually strong classes.

[SangoProduction]

I hate Paladins because of bad DMs. It's one of the things that made me move towards the "spell casters only" side of things, as they are always seen as "underpowered" by bad DMs, and you might even get free goodies, in addition to being better than everyone else. Also, no one makes you fall from Wizard-hood.

[Kaje]

They can sponteneously cast like a cleric

No. They have a tiny healing pool.

[SangoProduction]

Similarly, the distinction of some divine classes always struck me as incredibly arbitrary. How is a cleric of nature any different from a Druid, fluffwise?

Fluff-wise? Not much. But they do have a better connection to nature, as evidenced by the mechanical parts of it, while clerics just get the spells. Also, D&D thrives on arbitrary distinctions. If you have everything be really generic, and never step on a potential toe of another, and put all the fluff-work on the user, you will have a game that never takes off.

[SangoProduction]

Fighter. Just... fighter. Mainly for sucking completely and utterly even at the role it claims to be best at. It's existence was a mistake, It's fluff is boring and fully of lies, and worst of all it's part of the baseline play assumption with hilariously little to break out of being a useless pile of muscle with a stick.

It has less skills and utility than the supposed unskilled illiterate. Lacking spot and listen, with less skill points than most anyone else, it can't even function adequately as a night-shift guard. Literally everything this class is capable of can be done better or rendered moot by low level spells across a wide range of lists. Don't believe me? Try to find something, ANYTHING, they can do that can't be done better or rendered moot by a spell of 4th or under. You have access to fighter 20 with only the stipulation that you can't use WBL to get casting items of any kind. Can't have you voiding the challenge by pretending to be one of the actually strong classes.

Take a ton of hits over a long period of time.

[ryu]

Take a ton of hits over a long period of time.

Fly. Stop taking hits.

Abrupt jaunt. Stop taking hits.

Cleric in general: Have more health through magic and also less pathetic.

Druid: I have you as a class feature and can summon many more of you spontaneously. I probably won't though. I have better things to do.

Should I keep going? I can keep going.

[SangoProduction]

Fly. Stop taking hits.

Abrupt jaunt. Stop taking hits.

Cleric in general: Have more health through magic and also less pathetic.

Druid: I have you as a class feature and can summon many more of you spontaneously. I probably won't though. I have better things to do.

Should I keep going? I can keep going.

You said a 4th level spell. And those stop taking hits spells still doesn't allow them to take a lot of hits. Also, L20 WBL means you get plenty of healing as well.

So, yes. I found one thing that level 20 fighters can do that a 4th level spell can't.

[Jack_McSnatch]

No. They have a tiny healing pool.

This doesn't affect my opinion of them. They are still the worst class published. If you like them, good for you. I'm not fond. I think it invalidates the entire idea of the D&D party, and it annoys me that they can just do everything, except for psionics, and I'm fairly sure there's an acf for that.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Try to find something, ANYTHING, they can do that can't be done better or rendered moot by a spell of 4th or under.

Have you ever -seriously- tried to build a top-class fighter? I don't think you have. I think you tried it out a few times before you got good at optimizing, were overshadowed by casters, and wrote it off as trash; an idea that gets reinforced just about every time the class gets mentioned online.


You have access to fighter 20 with only the stipulation that you can't use WBL to get casting items of any kind. Can't have you voiding the challenge by pretending to be one of the actually strong classes.

Let's flip it around; what can a spellcaster do that isn't available in item form? For argument's sake; let's throw out scrolls, potions, wands, staves, and similar; otherwise the answer would have to default to "literally nothing."

[ryu]

You said a 4th level spell. And those stop taking hits spells still doesn't allow them to take a lot of hits. Also, L20 WBL means you get plenty of healing as well.

So, yes. I found one thing that level 20 fighters can do that a 4th level spell can't.

I said replicate, OR RENDER MOOT. You don't get to ignore the second half of that sentence. If you have ways of not taking hits, the issue of people trying to hit you is moot. If you want to keep going though? Any of the summon monsters, undead creation and control, miss chances, and so on.

[Kaje]

This doesn't affect my opinion of them. They are still the worst class published. If you like them, good for you. I'm not fond. I think it invalidates the entire idea of the D&D party, and it annoys me that they can just do everything, except for psionics, and I'm fairly sure there's an acf for that.

That's fine. Go ahead and hate them. Just don't hate them for stuff you're obviously wrong about.

[ryu]

Have you ever -seriously- tried to build a top-class fighter? I don't think you have. I think you tried it out a few times before you got good at optimizing, were overshadowed by casters, and wrote it off as trash; an idea that gets reinforced just about every time the class gets mentioned online.



Let's flip it around; what can a spellcaster do that isn't available in item form? For argument's sake; let's throw out scrolls, potions, wands, staves, and similar; otherwise the answer would have to default to "literally nothing."

For starters? Actual staying power of casting over a long period. Increased effects from feats. Unique effects from feats. Synergy with ACFs, and most importantly craft contingent spell.

[Morphic tide]

Artificer, because it is both OP as all kinds of hell and does not properly fulfil its setting role. I hate it because it is far too powerful at the normally low power level 1-5 range, being able to handily ruin anything that the party runs into with proper application of Bane and the alignment effects. I hate it more because it has very strict limits on how many items it can make without an XP cost, which ruins the capacity of it to do its setting role of making cheap magic items possible. Also, the Homunculus things are out of place. That should be golem crafting skills!

PF Alchemist, because it's scattered quite crazily. You have bombs, mind and body altering substances and weird ass potion things all in one class, with no specializing in the base class's abilities. Each one of those could make a class on it's own, with rather little difficulty.

[Kelb_Panthera]

For starters?

I'd prefer finishers if you have any, actually.


Actual staying power of casting over a long period.

Why would you need to cast something repeatedly if you can get it permanently with an item?


Increased effects from feats.

You mean like maximize or empower? 'Cause they show up in item cast spells too. And if we weren't specifically excluding spell trigger items, I could point out metamagic spell-trigger is a feat.


Unique effects from feats.

Such as?


Synergy with ACFs,

Synergy between what? I really don't get this one at all.


and most importantly craft contingent spell.

Literally an item creation feat. I ask what they can do that can't be done with items and you give me a class of item. :smallamused:

[Jack_McSnatch]

That's fine. Go ahead and hate them. Just don't hate them for stuff you're obviously wrong about.
Okay I was wrong avout the mechanic, but the reason I hate them is still present. To turn undead, or channel positive energy, a cleric or paladin has to dedicate themselves -Mind, body, and soul- to their deity. Whereas Johnny Factotum can hm and hah over what holy symbol he wants to wear that day, and get the blessings. It has nothing to do with crunch, I hate them purely for fluff reasons. Hell, the name of the ability irritates me. "Opportunistic Piety?" Eat me.

[ben-zayb]

Similarly, the distinction of some divine classes always struck me as incredibly arbitrary. How is a cleric of nature any different from a Druid, fluffwise?Classes are bound to have some overlaps, because all are more or less derived from the Fightyman / Magic User / Skillmonkey base: Barbarian is just a shouty Fightyman, Monk is a tougher but squarer Skillmonkey, and Wiz/Sorcs are just nurture/nature flavors of Magic User.

They can sponteneously cast like a cleric, and get to have turn undead. Like a cleric. Seriously, that class blows. "Oh, you have a unique and interesting class? Well mines better cause it can do the same thing and more!"
No, they really don't cast divine spells. I highly suggest actually reading what a class does before hating on it.


As for the class that I am disappointed by the most (which is closest to saying "I hate it"), it's undoubtedly the Dragon Shaman. I just love the fluff of this class, so no complaints there. Mechanically, however, it sucks compared to its more popular, more competent cousin, Dragonfire Adept. The class features are really underwhelming, both in power and versatility. Hell, DFA can even grab Draconic Aura, which is more or less the defining ability of a D.Shaman.

[Grod_The_Giant]

PF Alchemist, because it's scattered quite crazily. You have bombs, mind and body altering substances and weird ass potion things all in one class, with no specializing in the base class's abilities. Each one of those could make a class on it's own, with rather little difficulty.
I love the Alchemist, but I kind of agree. A while back I tried to backdate them to 3.5, and I wound up sort of breaking them into pieces-- you get your casting, and you get bombs, mutagens, or poison, not all three. (Unless you dedicate a bunch of Discoveries to the purpose, but you'll be at a disadvantage even if you do).

I have to slightly agree with the Factotum's flaws, too... except that I have the opposite problem; it's versatile as heck but-- outside of Iajutsu focus trickery, which takes a weird 3e sourcebook and some serious work to pull off-- it doesn't have much in the way of an offensive punch. Needs... it needs something. I favor gestalting them with the Fighter.

[ryu]

I'd prefer finishers if you have any, actually.



Why would you need to cast something repeatedly if you can get it permanently with an item?



You mean like maximize or empower? 'Cause they show up in item cast spells too. And if we weren't specifically excluding spell trigger items, I could point out metamagic spell-trigger is a feat.



Such as?



Synergy between what? I really don't get this one at all.



Literally an item creation feat. I ask what they can do that can't be done with items and you give me a class of item. :smallamused:

Nope. Contingent spells are not items. They are spells that the crafter must personally be able to cast or have an ally willing to cast it for you during the crafting process, the feat is caster only, and no listed price means you aren't buying them. More importantly? It's a powerful way to not only shatter the action economy, but do so reactively in such a way that initiative ceases to matter unless your opponent has an equal number of crafted spells to you.

You wanna get even sillier? Dragonwrought kobolds of a high enough age category can void the epic requirement for feats, and through optimization gain epic spellcasting earlier. No fighter 20 is EVER going to compare, because they can't buy epic items.

[Jack_McSnatch]

No, they really don't cast divine spells. I highly suggest actually reading what a class does before hating on it.


Again, the underwhelming healing mechanic isn't why I hate them.

You are a cleric of Pelor. (Or Obad-hai, or Boccob, or Lolth, I don't care.) You spent the last few years in temple, learning how to tap into your god's divine essence to turn undead.

You meet this guy, who was wearing the holy symbol of Ehlonna, and could turn undead as easily as you can. The next day he's wearing Wee Jas holy symbol, then Olidammara's the next, and Tiamat's the day after that.

Ur priests make sense. They steal power from the gods, that's their schtict. The Factotum just DOES it. Because he can.

[AnachroNinja]

I feel pretty confident that I'm just never going to agree about fluff stuff with someone who's issue with monks is that they don't have a *fun* mechanic for falling like Paladins. Falling is literally the biggest **** move a DM can ever pull, especially when you're talking about deliberately putting the player in a trap situation where they fall if they do the right thing.

That being said, factotums are pretty bland mechanically and awesome from a story perspective. They can do just enough of the right stuff get a God's attention and the god is literally like "man, that's a pretty cool guy, I think I'll help him out just to see what he does with it.."

My most hated class though... Probably rogue/assassin. Sneak attack and similar abilities are so cool in theory but tied to such a clunky mechanic that to be good at it, you really have to strain the bounds of reason. I don't know exactly how it could be made better, I just don't like it as it is, conceptually.

[SangoProduction]

Again, the underwhelming healing mechanic isn't why I hate them.

You are a cleric of Pelor. (Or Obad-hai, or Boccob, or Lolth, I don't care.) You spent the last few years in temple, learning how to tap into your god's divine essence to turn undead.

You meet this guy, who was wearing the holy symbol of Ehlonna, and could turn undead as easily as you can. The next day he's wearing Wee Jas holy symbol, then Olidammara's the next, and Tiamat's the day after that.

Ur priests make sense. They steal power from the gods, that's their schtict. The Factotum just DOES it. Because he can.

This seems to be getting slightly heated. But I want to toss my hat in to the ring. In the base rules, all even clerics need is belief and/or conviction to *something* not even neccesarily gods. And I believe this applies to basically all divine casting. Paladins don't care about gods, just Good, though many additionally worship gods.

I generally think of magic like White Wolf's Mage. They think they can, therefore they can. Some just need a bit more of a push to realize, and not subconsciously block themselves from "disobeying" the "laws" of "physics" than others.

Factorum doesn't cast divine spells, but I'd say it more or less works the same way. Just they don't focus on a single area of magic to open their minds to.

[Jack_McSnatch]

I feel pretty confident that I'm just never going to agree about fluff stuff with someone who's issue with monks is that they don't have a *fun* mechanic for falling like Paladins. Falling is literally the biggest **** move a DM can ever pull, especially when you're talking about deliberately putting the player in a trap situation where they fall if they do the right thing.

I guess I'm weird. I enjoy playing the paladin who loses his abilities and has to atone. And not in the lazy "pay off a cleric" way.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Wizard. It is a just a big pile of power and no flavor at all. The PrCs and ACFs do nothing to really help that. Sorcerer started off as "dragon-ish magic" but they worked to drive that theme home! Wizard just always falls flat for me.

[Zanos]

Wizard. It is a just a big pile of power and no flavor at all. The PrCs and ACFs do nothing to really help that. Sorcerer started off as "dragon-ish magic" but they worked to drive that theme home! Wizard just always falls flat for me.
That's because wizard is an archetype itself that contains many different themes. The "core" of the class is someone with a reasoned and learned approach to magic, which I personally enjoy. But this comes off as theme-less, because it's possible for a single wizard to do it all. I don't personally take issue with that, but you can definitely create themes within the class, which does have built in support with spell schools, focused specialist, etc.



I generally think of magic like White Wolf's Mage. They think they can, therefore they can. Some just need a bit more of a push to realize, and not subconsciously block themselves from "disobeying" the "laws" of "physics" than others.
Many popular settings don't have clerics of ideals. In Faerun for example, a Factotum putting on a different holy symbol every day and it working fine is kind of ridiculous. But even outside that setting, divine power definitely comes from an external source. Unless you yourself are a God.

[icefractal]

Nope. Contingent spells are not items. They are spells that the crafter must personally be able to cast or have an ally willing to cast it for you during the crafting process, the feat is caster only, and no listed price means you aren't buying them.No listed price? It's in the feat itself!

Crafting a contingent spell takes one day for each 1,000 gp in its base price (spell level × caster level × 100 gp).As for whether you can buy them, it's the same question as whether you can commission any item to be crafted for you at all, which in most campaigns you can. And in the ones you can't, I wouldn't assume you're getting the time/materials to do it yourself either.

As for the Factotum ... yes, they can cast spells. Weaker spells than a full caster, and less of them. To suggest that a Wizard or Cleric should be jealous of the Factotum doesn't add up, if we're talking about a similar level of optimization in both cases. Better than a Fighter? Absolutely, but that's not a high bar to pass.

[SangoProduction]

I guess I'm weird. I enjoy playing the paladin who loses his abilities and has to atone. And not in the lazy "pay off a cleric" way.

Except it's literally never done well. And the mechanics don't support working to atone, because....well, there are other people in the game, and either a) the paladin's going to be basically sitting out of the fights while the rest of the party does stuff. b) the rest of the party wipes the floor with the encounter(s), because it's balanced to allow the paladin to not just sit there twiddling their thumbs. or c) he gets a solo adventure and the 4 other people get to watch the paladin do their stuff so that they can play together.

Well, how about non-combat encounters? Paladins aren't skill monkeys, and they now lack the few spells they had. They'll, again, just be sitting aside while others do their thing.

[icefractal]

Also:

This can fun to present a paladin with the choice between following their code, or doing the right thing, but of you try it on a monk?Uggh. :smallmad:

Leaving entirely aside whether "falling" is a good thing to exist or not, Paladins are supposed to actually be a force for good. If you want snobby knights with shiny armor who are too rule-bound and arrogant to really accomplish good, those are not Paladins; they're LN Aristocrats probably.

So no, the Paladin code should not be contrary to doing the right thing. Contrary to doing the easy thing, or the most efficient thing, or the safest thing, absolutely. But acting like Miko is as good as Paladins get bugs the hell out of me.

[AnachroNinja]

Not to mention, if it's fun and something you enjoy, it should be something you and the DM work out together. Not a trap set for an unwary player who just likes to help people and ride a horse.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Except it's literally never done well. And the mechanics don't support working to atone, because....well, there are other people in the game, and either a) the paladin's going to be basically sitting out of the fights while the rest of the party does stuff. b) the rest of the party wipes the floor with the encounter(s), because it's balanced to allow the paladin to not just sit there twiddling their thumbs. or c) he gets a solo adventure and the 4 other people get to watch the paladin do their stuff so that they can play together.

Well, how about non-combat encounters? Paladins aren't skill monkeys, and they now lack the few spells they had. They'll, again, just be sitting aside while others do their thing.

I'm of the opinion everyone should get a solo adventure. Everyone gets to have their chance at the spot light. If the group isn't connected in some form, then it's a group of individuals with their own stories and their own loose ends. The fact that it's a solo adventure shouldn't be a reason it can't be done well.


Also:
Uggh. :smallmad:

Leaving entirely aside whether "falling" is a good thing to exist or not, Paladins are supposed to actually be a force for good. If you want snobby knights with shiny armor who are too rule-bound and arrogant to really accomplish good, those are not Paladins; they're LN Aristocrats probably.

So no, the Paladin code should not be contrary to doing the right thing. Contrary to doing the easy thing, or the most efficient thing, or the safest thing, absolutely. But acting like Miko is as good as Paladins get bugs the hell out of me.

Miko was an awful paladin. You are absolutely right, paladins are supposed to be a force for good. Doing good whether or not you have divine power is kind of what a paladin is supposed to do. If there's no adversity and you're just a glowy fighter who stomps all over everything, where's the story? Where's the character development?

Yeah there's other ways to get story out of a paladin, but I enjoy falling and atoning.


Not to mention, if it's fun and something you enjoy, it should be something you and the DM work out together. Not a trap set for an unwary player who just likes to help people and ride a horse.

I absolutely agree with this. I enjoy falling. I try to make sure my players would be okay with that story arc before I just drop it on them.

[ryu]

No listed price? It's in the feat itself!
As for whether you can buy them, it's the same question as whether you can commission any item to be crafted for you at all, which in most campaigns you can. And in the ones you can't, I wouldn't assume you're getting the time/materials to do it yourself either.


Nope. That's price to craft. In no book I've found will you ever see contingent spells placed onto yourself as a listed good. And why would you? Any wizard capable of doing it himself has himself, minions (read party members), and actual minions to equip. Contingent spells are orders of magnitude more valuable than gold.

As for time to craft we've crafting homunculus to spend our crafting time, and spells to MAKE crafting time. Are you familiar with them?

[Âmesang]

Wizard. It is a just a big pile of power and no flavor at all. The PrCs and ACFs do nothing to really help that. Sorcerer started off as "dragon-ish magic" but they worked to drive that theme home! Wizard just always falls flat for me.
As a fan of sorcerers I actually hate that theme. I suppose I prefer taking a more… for lack of a better phrase… Anakin Skywalker approach; having the sorcerer develop his or her powers by having either a natural yet almost unknown connection to the arcane (possible plot hook), being descended from something besides dragons, or perhaps the result of arcane experimentations (see sherem transformation from the GHOSTWALK Campaign Option).

It's a bit difficult having a character spout pride in her "purebloodedness" if it turns out, oops, you're 1/1,024TH dragon! :smallyuk:

[Kelb_Panthera]

Nope. Contingent spells are not items. They are spells that the crafter must personally be able to cast or have an ally willing to cast it for you during the crafting process, the feat is caster only, and no listed price means you aren't buying them. More importantly? It's a powerful way to not only shatter the action economy, but do so reactively in such a way that initiative ceases to matter unless your opponent has an equal number of crafted spells to you.


Nope. That's price to craft. In no book I've found will you ever see contingent spells placed onto yourself as a listed good. And why would you? Any wizard capable of doing it himself has himself, minions (read party members), and actual minions to equip. Contingent spells are orders of magnitude more valuable than gold.

As for time to craft we've crafting homunculus to spend our crafting time, and spells to MAKE crafting time. Are you familiar with them?

CAr page 139, "The market price of a contingent spell is spell level x caster level x 100 gp." Note that market price is distinct from base price when discussing magic items. Market price is the price to purchase an item.

Notably, that's the only thing in that post you seem to have addressed. Shall I take that as concession to the other points? A couple were requests for elaboration, ya know.

[ryu]

CAr page 139, "The market price of a contingent spell is spell level x caster level x 100 gp." Note that market price is distinct from base price when discussing magic items. Market price is the price to purchase an item.

Notably, that's the only thing in that post you seem to have addressed. Shall I take that as concession to the other points? A couple were requests for elaboration, ya know.

More acknowledgement of the simple fact that listing the entirety of the feats, alternative class features, and similar that casters get exclusive would take far, FAR longer than is in any way appropriate for a thread not strictly related to that. Moreover it's not strictly necessary. Can you find any combination of magic items you can buy at or below level 20 that trump early access to epic spellcasting? Do note that this is not the only thing casters have over WBLmancers by a long shot. I just like to bring the back breaker points in early as a courtesy instead of dragging it out.

[Particle_Man]

I am disappointed in the Soulborn - they could have been so much more.

I wish that many prestige classes were better thought out.

I think that a lot of PF classes are a little too "fiddly" for my tastes.

But I don't hate any of those.

I reserve hatred for the PF Anti-Paladin. This is just over the top cartoonish EEEEEEvil for the sake of being evil. I mean, being good and lawful and a paladin is difficult. Being evil is the easier path - why are they also getting rewards for it? I mean, it doesn't even allow for the LE "honourable but fallen" type of paladin, since you have to be CE too.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I am disappointed in the Soulborn - they could have been so much more.

I wish that many prestige classes were better thought out.

I think that a lot of PF classes are a little too "fiddly" for my tastes.

But I don't hate any of those.

I reserve hatred for the PF Anti-Paladin. This is just over the top cartoonish EEEEEEvil for the sake of being evil. I mean, being good and lawful and a paladin is difficult. Being evil is the easier path - why are they also getting rewards for it? I mean, it doesn't even allow for the LE "honourable but fallen" type of paladin, since you have to be CE too.

Oh, thanks for the reminder.

Only classes I -hate- are the paladin variants. Worst has to be the CE variant. Pally of slaugher, what?!! How is a code of conduct appropriate for that? Why are the forces of chaos and evil investing power in individual champions rather than rewarding psychotic behavior? dear gods what a mess.

I actually can't think of any other class I hate and it took somebody mentioning the anti-palandin to even remember the one.

[ZamielVanWeber]

That's because wizard is an archetype itself that contains many different themes. The "core" of the class is someone with a reasoned and learned approach to magic, which I personally enjoy. But this comes off as theme-less, because it's possible for a single wizard to do it all. I don't personally take issue with that, but you can definitely create themes within the class, which does have built in support with spell schools, focused specialist, etc.

Thing is, nothing ties your theme together. I look at druid and see something that feels nature-like. Fighter has the same flavorless issue, but it does not wander off with IMMENSE power. It just felt like they throw things at the wall and did not bother to see what stuck.

[Efrate]

Favored Soul: Specially chosen by your god, yet you get not a lot of worthwhile stuff. Seems half baked.

Swashbucker: The cool acrobatic fighter all Errol Flynn...and you get 2 abilities which reflect that, the first at level 7. Would acrobatic charge really been that bad to have at level 1? Also int synergy as opposed to Cha; it makes more sense for a flamboyant fighter not to get bonuses based on how smart but they are but how much presence they have.

Dragon Shaman: Cause dragonfire adept exists, as well as marshals. You are out of place.

Fighter: For existing.

Hexblade: Needs update badly, very cool and flavorful but as written terrible.

Knight: No good taunt mechanic for the supposed penultimate tank. Challenge is nice but not good enough to be useful across a broad enough spectrum.

Monks: Without ACFing yourself into essentially an entirely different class you cannot do the cool kung fu fighter stuff.

Any PrC which gives you all the benefits of a normal class and significantly more. Mostly applies to caster PRCs, why should most wizards PRCs be better than straight Wizard at generalistic magic? At a specific facet, yes. At one type of spell, or one element,or whatever ok. But why better at everything? You lose a few feats you don't really need, and you likely get more/different ones so its not much of a tradeoff.

Shadowcaster and truenamer: Good ideas, but a lot of time you just won't be useful and you preform your one function meh at best. Binder is so great, seems they dropped the ball with the other ToM classes.

[Kantolin]

I really don't like warlocks, mostly for mechanical reasons. While I know it's possible to have a warlock not be a one-or-two trick pony, the majority end up that way, and it's definitely something I'm not fond of.

Barbarians are quite similar.

I love paladins, but I also dislike playing them under many DMs. I'd be much happier with a difficult decision between doing the hard thing, and doing the wrong thing, where there /is/ a right answer (and it's right there) but it is difficult to accomplish or costly. Instead, I often get the feeling like I'm walking in a minefield with a gleeful DM who finds it most amusing when the paladin becomes a fighter without bonus feats.

(I actually had a Paladin fall for helping an orphan, because as a dwarf I was supposed to hate elves to the point of letting their children die, or something? Either way, the DM was then very upset when I didn't spend any effort to atone for it nor did my character change personality at all, because the character didn't see 'helping innocent people' as something he should be in any way apologetic for. He was, however, far less useful for the remainder of the game)

I don't think there are classes I hate due to their thematices. I mean there are schticks that aren't for me, again like the aformentioned warlock or most evil-based classes, but that's just 'I don't want to be one', not 'I hate those'. The divine mind dances on that line by stomping on the coolest parts of psionics thematically, but it can be twisted and warped into something less awful, haha.

It bugs me that the warblade is int-based and not cha-based.

[ryu]

Thing is, nothing ties your theme together. I look at druid and see something that feels nature-like. Fighter has the same flavorless issue, but it does not wander off with IMMENSE power. It just felt like they throw things at the wall and did not bother to see what stuck.

Here's your wizard theme. Have fun. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHrTTgmB_3w)

[Ssalarn]

Both 3.5 and PF- Wizard. Big stack of power, no meaningful unifying theme, no meaningful limitations. It's particularly bad in PF where you don't even really have prohibited schools and and the only downside for being a specialist wizard who readies a spell from their opposition school is that they end up with the exact same number of spells they would have had if they hadn't specialized to begin with. Cleric is a runner up for most of the same reasons, to slightly lesser degrees.

3.5 only- Soulborn. Incarnum was a really cool system that I was a big fan of despite its flaws, but Soulborn was like, insultingly bad. The Healer class from the Miniatures Handbook gets runner-up for being unapologetically incompatible with most adventuring parties.

PF 1pp only- Swashbuckler. 2/3 of its class features are all competing for the same action economy, and multiple archetypes and other classes can do a decent approximation of what it does while actually being good. Runner-up goes to the Medium for not even being able to actually support the backstory of its iconic and really only excelling as a psychic "paladin".

[Cosi]

You've never played a Death Delver. You've never met anyone whose played a Death Delver. But the fact that animate dead is a 2nd level Death Delver spell makes Chameleons (and Archivists, and Artificers, and Erudites) substantially stronger. That's stupid. I still think the Chameleon is probably cool enough to be okay, but the thing where it gets more powerful because people write classes no one plays is kind of terrible.

I'm also disappointed by most of the classes like Incarnate, Binder, and Warlock that promise new and interesting resource management systems, then end up being stupid, fiddly, and weak. The thing where the Binder gets a bunch of powers that are broadly thematic is cool, but it's not very consistent, the class is kind of lame, and the vestige descriptions are way too verbose. Also, you should really be allowed to bind Cthulhu and friends. Essentially, every time WotC tried to do something novel, it ended up being a disappointment.

[eggynack]

Monk, because it's the biggest trap in the game. Monk lies to you, tells you that you're going to be great at fighting, imbued with all of these powerful magic abilities, the best class in the game at taking out wizards and other casters. These and more are the promises made by the class abilities of the monk, promises followed blindly by players new and old alike. It's such an easy trap to fall into. The class description can lie, but the abilities, those are supposed to tell you what a class is. When you see the AC bonus, that's supposed to mean some high class tanking is going to happen. Fast movement is supposed to mean a character capable of getting around the battlefield like it's nothing, and flurry is meant to crush enemies in your wake as you do it. Grappling/stunning, the SR, the saves, the immunities, the dimension door, it's all meant to make you into an unstoppable mage killing machine, the ultimate trump card to their reality warping. But it's all a lie. Just an awful lie.

ACF's help a quite a bit. You can turn the class into something interesting with sufficient know-how, because it's been supported here and there. The mage killing thing is a non-object, but that promise was unlikely to be kept by any class. But the promise of awesomeness was made in the moment, and that's when the promise should have been kept. Other classes suck, or have similarly somewhat boring real impact on things, but monks more than any of them have that huge difference between apparent awesome and actual suckage. Fighter doesn't make those promises, and for all its surface level flavor, neither, really, does the samurai. It takes more than the mechanics to make me hate a class. It takes those crappy mechanics, and also something more, and monk definitely has that something more.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Both 3.5 and PF- Wizard. Big stack of power, no meaningful unifying theme, no meaningful limitations. It's particularly bad in PF where you don't even really have prohibited schools and and the only downside for being a specialist wizard who readies a spell from their opposition school is that they end up with the exact same number of spells they would have had if they hadn't specialized to begin with. Cleric is a runner up for most of the same reasons, to slightly lesser degrees.

3.5 only- Soulborn. Incarnum was a really cool system that I was a big fan of despite its flaws, but Soulborn was like, insultingly bad. The Healer class from the Miniatures Handbook gets runner-up for being unapologetically incompatible with most adventuring parties.

PF 1pp only- Swashbuckler. 2/3 of its class features are all competing for the same action economy, and multiple archetypes and other classes can do a decent approximation of what it does while actually being good. Runner-up goes to the Medium for not even being able to actually support the backstory of its iconic and really only excelling as a psychic "paladin".

Wait... Do what about the healer now? How is it "incompatible?"

[ryu]

Monk, because it's the biggest trap in the game. Monk lies to you, tells you that you're going to be great at fighting, imbued with all of these powerful magic abilities, the best class in the game at taking out wizards and other casters. These and more are the promises made by the class abilities of the monk, promises followed blindly by players new and old alike. It's such an easy trap to fall into. The class description can lie, but the abilities, those are supposed to tell you what a class is. When you see the AC bonus, that's supposed to mean some high class tanking is going to happen. Fast movement is supposed to mean a character capable of getting around the battlefield like it's nothing, and flurry is meant to crush enemies in your wake as you do it. Grappling/stunning, the SR, the saves, the immunities, the dimension door, it's all meant to make you into an unstoppable mage killing machine, the ultimate trump card to their reality warping. But it's all a lie. Just an awful lie.

ACF's help a quite a bit. You can turn the class into something interesting with sufficient know-how, because it's been supported here and there. The mage killing thing is a non-object, but that promise was unlikely to be kept by any class. But the promise of awesomeness was made in the moment, and that's when the promise should have been kept. Other classes suck, or have similarly somewhat boring real impact on things, but monks more than any of them have that huge difference between apparent awesome and actual suckage. Fighter doesn't make those promises, and for all its surface level flavor, neither, really, does the samurai. It takes more than the mechanics to make me hate a class. It takes those crappy mechanics, and also something more, and monk definitely has that something more.

I disagree. Fighter makes one promise. Be the best at combat if you pick this class. Would you like me to find the page number for you, and would you say that fighter isn't either the worst or tied for worst at combat in core?

[eggynack]

I disagree. Fighter makes one promise. Be the best at combat if you pick this class. Would you like me to find the page number for you, and would you say that fighter isn't either the worst or tied for worst at combat in core?
They kinda make that promise, but the class features tend to only indicate that you're going to get to the end of a lot of combat feat chains. And I'd probably take them over a monk in combat most of the time. The important thing is that the monk's promise is more grandiose. The fighter, while certainly oversold by the best at combat thing, is obviously kinda mundane and boring. To put it simply, fighters are more likely to get a, "This class is underrated, or pretty decent," while monks are more likely to get a, "This class is the greatest thing ever invented, capable of a million amazing things, and anyone missing that is blind."

[TheTeaMustFlow]

I disagree. Fighter makes one promise. Be the best at combat if you pick this class. Would you like me to find the page number for you, and would you say that fighter isn't either the worst or tied for worst at combat in core?

Actually, in core, I'd probably say that the Fighter is far from the worst combatant. Without splat access, Paladins and Rangers are kinda short on attack options, and Bards are fairly underwhelming. The full casters will stomp poor Fighterkins into the ground, of course, but what's new there?

[ryu]

Actually, in core, I'd probably say that the Fighter is far from the worst combatant. Without splat access, Paladins and Rangers are kinda short on attack options, and Bards are fairly underwhelming. The full casters will stomp poor Fighterkins into the ground, of course, but what's new there?

But see that's just it. All those things you just mentioned? They still have spells. Not good spells of course, but spells nonetheless. Not to mention class features. Limited and kinda underwhelming are also still objectively superior places to be than completely ineffectual in all senses when things start flying.

[Crake]

Wait... Do what about the healer now? How is it "incompatible?"

I believe it's to do with the healer's code not meshing very well with the murderhobo mentality of most adventuring parties.

[Firest Kathon]

As a fan of sorcerers I actually hate that theme. I suppose I prefer taking a more… for lack of a better phrase… Anakin Skywalker approach; having the sorcerer develop his or her powers by having either a natural yet almost unknown connection to the arcane (possible plot hook), being descended from something besides dragons, or perhaps the result of arcane experimentations (see sherem transformation from the GHOSTWALK Campaign Option).

It's a bit difficult having a character spout pride in her "purebloodedness" if it turns out, oops, you're 1/1,024TH dragon! :smallyuk:
Then you'll love the Pathfinder Sorcerer bloodlines. In case you haven't checked them out (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/sorcerer/bloodlines), it's a list of possible sourcer for the sorcerer's power (and each gives distinct boons).

[Ieagleroar]

Gotta hate the paladin, because divine grace, lay hands on, and smite evil run on charisma. Here's why this is bad:

Smite Evil: Oh your pretty, you clearly hit harder.

Divine Grace: You talk rather well, you clearly are harder to kill.

Lay Hands On: You are good at singing and handling animals, so you obviously are able to heal people by touch alone.

Silly Paladin.*face palm*

[Melcar]

Fly. Stop taking hits.

Abrupt jaunt. Stop taking hits.

Cleric in general: Have more health through magic and also less pathetic.

Druid: I have you as a class feature and can summon many more of you spontaneously. I probably won't though. I have better things to do.

Should I keep going? I can keep going.

Dont forget stoneskin, invisibility, blurr, displacement, and all the other AC providing spells. (Given AC is not a great thing, but its something a fighter has.)

[Sam K]

Fighter. The power level I can live with - it's not for me, but I acknowledge other people prefer to play at a different power level than I do. But the sheer blandness of it all; the heroic (or villainous) warrior is the most common archetype in history, and somehow fighter fails to capture any of that potential glory. Casters get what, a quarter of the book dedicated to cool stuff they can do. The fighter feels like a big bowl of pasta that was boiled at high heat for 24 hours until only a soggy mush remained. And you're barely allowed to put salt on it!

Fighters get feats that anyone can take. The fighter "mechanic" feels like it was designed like this: "Yeah, anyone can take these feat chains, so we make people take lots of really useless feats before they can get a slightly good one. But fighters get lots of feats so they can afford it!"

I also kind of dislike the "fighter-based" classes (barb, ranger, swashbuckler, paladin) just because I feel their abilities should have been included as possible ways to build a fighter. It wouldn't make them powerful, but at least you could build something with your own unique touch. Now, in order to do that you have to go into alot of bad multiclassing that will no doubt get you branded as a heathen devil worshiper (sorry, "optimiser") at any table where playing a fighter is actually viable.

[stanprollyright]

Rogue: I love skillmonkeys. I should love rogues. I want to love rogues. I love roguish characters in other games and in other media. But man, D&D/PF Rogues are so disappointing. You're a slave to sneak attack. Low levels, out of combat, you're pretty cool and can do lots of stuff, but as you level up you basically get demoted to backup wizard, wondering why you spent so many points on climb and jump now that you have this handy flight item. In combat, you spend all your character resources and half of your actions to make your underwhelming situational damage bonus less underwhelming and situational. You can't hit worth a damn, your regular damage sucks, and you can take 2 hits before you're dead. Botch your sneak, perception, or initiative roll and you're an Expert in light armor. If you can consistently go first and get surprise rounds you'll kill 1, maybe 2 guys at the start of combat, and then struggle to keep up with the Fighter, who's probably going to take all your kills as soon as you give him a flanking bonus. You have to move around so much to set up every attack that you almost never get to use your full attack, and then when you do use it to murder a BBEG the DM is all "you can't get multiple sneak attacks a round! that's too OP!" Trapfinding never really feels like an organic part of the character, just a thing that only you can do for some reason. And if your DM actually likes traps and uses them a lot, you're going to hate them because you're the one that always has to go first.

Monk: I like that they suck. I've never been a big fan of wuxia or anime, and I think it is both right and proper that the guy who runs around with no armor and weapons trying to punch dragons should have a hard time doing it.

Cleric: the fact that the D&D gods not only obviously exist, but also grant powers to their followers actually undermines the idea of the "faithful cleric." Now they're just brown-nosed flunkies. I also generally dislike Wisdom-based characters because things like being manipulated, having low willpower, missing crucial details, and believing deceptions make for better story elements than failing any other ability-based check.

[ryu]

Dont forget stoneskin, invisibility, blurr, displacement, and all the other AC providing spells. (Given AC is not a great thing, but its something a fighter has.)

Oh trust me dude I know. I could keep going for days man. DAYS!

[Jormengand]

All the classes in tome of battle, because they're presented - partly by developers but mainly by players - as the answer to the competent noncaster question, and they neither match up to a full caster, nor refrain from using magic.

[Buufreak]

Social studies. :P

[Telonius]

As-written, Paladin, Monk, Truenamer, and Soulborn. Paladin, because of that "can't associate with..." clause in the code. Any class that forces the other players to choose between playing their characters a certain way and not gaming with you is just a bad idea. Monk, for being a flashy trap. Truenamer, for having some of my favorite fluff in the game (I want to play Sparrowhawk, confound it!) and turning it into a nightmarish hodgepodge of things that either don't work without cheese, turn on way too late, and don't do much even when they do work. Soulborn, for doing a similar thing with Incarnum.

[CaPtMalHammer]

wizard:) flat out, to generic, ohhh look another wizard... oooo all that cosmic power in a little bitty body! :) ok I know its a bit harsh. But they are just boring. no fun to play at all. they are either underpowered and weak or overpowered and seem to piss off the rest of the players at the table:)

[Soranar]

Druid because "I have class features more powerful than entire classes" shtick.

Consider the fact that a druid is tier 1 with his spellcasting alone

Now add an animal companion that is stronger than any familiar and better than the ranger's. Said animal companion is probably tougher than the fighter.

top it off with wildshape, an extremely versatile ability that makes your physical stats completely irrelevant, lasts hours and add natural spell to make sure you never get out of wildshape

oh and give him x4 skillpoints with listen and spot as class skills, 3/4 BAB, d8 hitpoints and two good saves

now compare it to a fighter (which is overshadowed by the animal companion alone)

a fighter gets less skillpoints (and no listen or spot), worst saves, no wildshape, no spellcasting

but hey, the fighter is full BAB, a few more hitpoints and has feats

seriously what were they thinking?

[Grod_The_Giant]

seriously what were they thinking?
By my understanding of the playtest? That Wild Shape was a useful scouting ability, that none of the animals you can pick for a companion are that strong so they're really just like a less intelligent familiar, and that they don't have great damage spells so they need to be able to fight in melee.

[Necroticplague]

By my understanding of the playtest? That Wild Shape was a useful scouting ability, that none of the animals you can pick for a companion are that strong so they're really just like a less intelligent familiar, and that they don't have great damage spells so they need to be able to fight in melee.

I remember reading somewhere that the core of the Druid play test build dual wielded throwing scimitars. Since that was incompatible with WS, they never did it except to scout as a hawk, their AC was similarly only used to scout, and the usually didn't cast spells due to action limits (and when they did, I believe it was to use flame seeds). Given this knowledge, it explains quiete well why they thought Druid and Monk were balanced (though it should have been a warning sign that a Druid ignoring most of their class features is as good as a monk using what they can).

It really says something about the play test optimization level that a joke build (Lord Berrington, the bear riding a bear that summons bears) is more competent than what they used as a baseline.

[Lord Raziere]

Wizard. Mostly because its pointless to play. If you can be so godlike, where is the challenge in anything? They feel less like Batman and more like One Spell Man.

Fighter: The Mumen Rider to the Wizard's One Punch Man. Neither of these are particularly fun. If I wanted to play either of these archetypes, I wouldn't need mechanics, I just say "Wizard rules: always win, Fighter rules: always lose." no need to roll dice.

I prefer something between the two, something competent and some specialness but not y'know, godly omni-competent.

[LordOfCain]

Wizard. Mostly because its pointless to play. If you can be so godlike, where is the challenge in anything? They feel less like Batman and more like One Spell Man.

Fighter: The Mumen Rider to the Wizard's One Punch Man. Neither of these are particularly fun. If I wanted to play either of these archetypes, I wouldn't need mechanics, I just say "Wizard rules: always win, Fighter rules: always lose." no need to roll dice.

I prefer something between the two, something competent and some specialness but not y'know, godly omni-competent.

I heard One Punch Man?

[Stealth Marmot]

Addressing the OP: I love the Factotum. I don't consider a Factotum to be a Mary-Sue so much as a walking plot contrivance. They always happen to have just the thing to top off what the others are doing. They aren't the baker, but they always have the cherry for the top of the cake. Plus they are also the best skill monkey available, but they are no substitute for the rest of the classes. They can't outcast a wizard, or even a bard. They certainly can't outheal a cleric, and they are weaker than the fighter or barbarian in melee. The one class they DO tend to overshine a bit is the rogue, but the rogue has more skill points, uncanny dodge, and can use evasion and sneak attack without having to worry about inspiration points. More importantly though, a Factotum is still bound by the fact that his stats have to be spread pretty thin if he wants to try to perform in any of his versatile functions. The factotum works best as the backup, the guy who helps when the main guy is busy or incapacitated. He's the plan B, or the guy filling whatever small holes or gaps in your group. He'll cover any skill the rest of the group lacks, add some healing if a core healer is missing, be a flanking buddy for the rogue or supply a spell that the sorcerer is missing in a pinch.

As for classes I hate? I have to agree with OP on the Monk. Not because I think it overpowers anything, but because the monk rarely seems to serve a purpose. Everything about the monk is defensive and selfish. The monk is immune to half the things in the game, and pretty much able to take anything except a barbarian to the face, but what good is the monk for except EXISTING? The monk's unarmed strikes hit for utter crap and are hard to enhance at all, much less turn into +3 flaming holy weapons, and their crit range is horrible. They can't even use a bow and instead have to use shurikens, or sling bullets, or javelins that do craptastic damage. They don't even have a lot of skill points, especially since INT is their second biggest dump stat, barely beating CHA, and they only get 4+int. The only use I see for monks is as a caster killer, and only if they run and grapple the caster. They can't grapple most monsters since most monsters have Huge BAB and strength bonuses and, for the most part, size bonuses. Stunning fist is sort of useful, but considering how many creatures in the game are immune, or have fort saves that make a barbarian blush, the monk is only useful in very specific circumstances, and even then only marginally. They get a little better in Pathfinder, but in 3.5 they rarely contribute anything but a flank and occasional trip.

3.5 classes that cheese me off: Arcane Trickster. This class requires someone to be horrible at two classes while getting very little in return. It grinds my gears that they only get 4 skill points per level when you already sacrificed 5 levels to the 2+int wizard or worse, 6 levels to the 2+int sorcerer. The ranged legerdemain ability is borderline useless (especially since you take a major -5 PENALTY when using it), and is still limited in how many times you use it per day. Impromptu sneak attack is nice, but you get it once or twice a day. Your weak BAB means that the sneak attack you use will at best compensate for your catastrophic spell level loss from taking 3 levels in rogue, and only when using certain spells. Without supplements, the Arcane Trickster is just a horrible idea, and with supplements you may as well go to the vastly superior Unseen Seer. Arcane Trickster makes me extra mad mainly because I love Rogue/mages. You're better off going bard.

Similarly, the Swashbuckler is a terrible base class. Only a single bonus feat, and a few extremely sparse abilities. You don't even get Improved Critical, Combat Expertise, Uncanny Dodge, or EVASION. You get some dodge bonuses, but they never get close to bridging the gap between chain shirt (light armor) and Plate armor, and barely bridges the gap between breastplate and chain shirt at 10th level, only getting larger at 15th, even then only barely. This is disastrous considering that the class is designed to be in melee. You get a bonus to damage that is probably smaller than a single level of sneak attack, not to mention the difference between rapier damage and say, greatsword. So to review, a fighter does more damage and has a higher AC even when using a two handed weapon. In fact, they probably do more damage when going sword and board (longsword over rapier), and don't have any dependence on intelligence. The reflex save bonus amounts to no better than Lightning Reflexes until 20th level, and Lightning Reflexes is considered a crap feat. This class is significantly worse than fighter, and fighter is considered a pretty low tier class. I could literally build a better swashbuckler using 4 levels in rogue and the rest fighter using only Core.

The. Samurai. Need I say more?

Swordsages also cheese me off for some reason, not sure why. Maybe it's because their solution to melee being outshined by casters is, turn melee into pseudo-casters? I don't know that much about them, so that might be my error, but I also don't want to learn and adapt a whole new set of what are essentially spells for fighters. This is probably for the same reason I don't care to learn about psionics, since they are a new pseudo-caster and now everything in the world needs to adapt to psionics existing. They may work for you, but I don't care for them.

Other classes don't cheese me off so much because if they are a bad class, I can just ignore it and not play it. I only care if it's a class that is a potential staple of a D&D setting that turns to fail.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I remember reading somewhere that the core of the Druid play test build dual wielded throwing scimitars. Since that was incompatible with WS, they never did it except to scout as a hawk, their AC was similarly only used to scout, and the usually didn't cast spells due to action limits (and when they did, I believe it was to use flame seeds). Given this knowledge, it explains quiete well why they thought Druid and Monk were balanced (though it should have been a warning sign that a Druid ignoring most of their class features is as good as a monk using what they can).

It really says something about the play test optimization level that a joke build (Lord Berrington, the bear riding a bear that summons bears) is more competent than what they used as a baseline.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking of-- knew I was forgetting some details of the stupidity. I really have to wonder about the playtest, sometimes... like, I understand missing a lot of unintended interactions and individual spells, and I understand that 3e has lower HP totals, which probably threw their damage output impressions off, but how did you not notice that the Monk is fundamentally incapable of skirmishing? Or that, you know, "I turn into a bear!" is the first thing you'd do as a druid?

[Zanos]

Is this the same playtest where the character doing the most damage to the balor was the elven wizard using a longbow with quickened truestrike?

[Stealth Marmot]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of-- knew I was forgetting some details of the stupidity. I really have to wonder about the playtest, sometimes... like, I understand missing a lot of unintended interactions and individual spells, and I understand that 3e has lower HP totals, which probably threw their damage output impressions off, but how did you not notice that the Monk is fundamentally incapable of skirmishing? Or that, you know, "I turn into a bear!" is the first thing you'd do as a druid?

Initial playtests are one thing, but how did it make it through the 3.5 update?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Initial playtests are one thing, but how did it make it through the 3.5 update?

reticence to make such a drastic change from what was previously printed?

[Stealth Marmot]

Is this the same playtest where the character doing the most damage to the balor was the elven wizard using a longbow with quickened truestrike?

https://imgflip.com/s/meme/Persian-Cat-Room-Guardian.jpg

[Morphic tide]

Addressing the OP: I love the Factotum. I don't consider a Factotum to be a Mary-Sue so much as a walking plot contrivance. They always happen to have just the thing to top off what the others are doing. They aren't the baker, but they always have the cherry for the top of the cake. Plus they are also the best skill monkey available, but they are no substitute for the rest of the classes. They can't outcast a wizard, or even a bard. They certainly can't outheal a cleric, and they are weaker than the fighter or barbarian in melee. The one class they DO tend to overshine a bit is the rogue, but the rogue has more skill points, uncanny dodge, and can use evasion and sneak attack without having to worry about inspiration points. More importantly though, a Factotum is still bound by the fact that his stats have to be spread pretty thin if he wants to try to perform in any of his versatile functions. The factotum works best as the backup, the guy who helps when the main guy is busy or incapacitated. He's the plan B, or the guy filling whatever small holes or gaps in your group. He'll cover any skill the rest of the group lacks, add some healing if a core healer is missing, be a flanking buddy for the rogue or supply a spell that the sorcerer is missing in a pinch.
So, Factotum is basically the perfect skillmonkey? Honestly, the iaijutsu focus stuff is surprisingly close in function to Sneak Attack, only instead of Flanking or unaware as the painful use restriction, you get having to draw the weapon in the same round as the attack.


As for classes I hate? I have to agree with OP on the Monk. Not because I think it overpowers anything, but because the monk rarely seems to serve a purpose. Everything about the monk is defensive and selfish. The monk is immune to half the things in the game, and pretty much able to take anything except a barbarian to the face, but what good is the monk for except EXISTING? The monk's unarmed strikes hit for utter crap and are hard to enhance at all, much less turn into +3 flaming holy weapons, and their crit range is horrible. They can't even use a bow and instead have to use shurikens, or sling bullets, or javelins that do craptastic damage. They don't even have a lot of skill points, especially since INT is their second biggest dump stat, barely beating CHA, and they only get 4+int. The only use I see for monks is as a caster killer, and only if they run and grapple the caster. They can't grapple most monsters since most monsters have Huge BAB and strength bonuses and, for the most part, size bonuses. Stunning fist is sort of useful, but considering how many creatures in the game are immune, or have fort saves that make a barbarian blush, the monk is only useful in very specific circumstances, and even then only marginally. They get a little better in Pathfinder, but in 3.5 they rarely contribute anything but a flank and occasional trip.
They ultimately try to do too many things. Honestly, the PF Brawler is a better Monk than the actual Monk in most situations. Fighter-exclusive feats are one of the most ridiculous things in the game, because they make it look like the Fighter actually is the best at melee, when most of those feats are just small number changes.


3.5 classes that cheese me off: Arcane Trickster. This class requires someone to be horrible at two classes while getting very little in return. It grinds my gears that they only get 4 skill points per level when you already sacrificed 5 levels to the 2+int wizard or worse, 6 levels to the 2+int sorcerer. The ranged legerdemain ability is borderline useless (especially since you take a major -5 PENALTY when using it), and is still limited in how many times you use it per day. Impromptu sneak attack is nice, but you get it once or twice a day. Your weak BAB means that the sneak attack you use will at best compensate for your catastrophic spell level loss from taking 3 levels in rogue, and only when using certain spells. Without supplements, the Arcane Trickster is just a horrible idea, and with supplements you may as well go to the vastly superior Unseen Seer. Arcane Trickster makes me extra mad mainly because I love Rogue/mages. You're better off going bard.
So very much agreed. It would have worked better if there was more focus on the Sneak Attack, or on the skill monkey stuff, but sadly WotC has issues with properly focused classes. Like the entirety of Wizards.


Similarly, the Swashbuckler is a terrible base class. Only a single bonus feat, and a few extremely sparse abilities. You don't even get Improved Critical, Combat Expertise, Uncanny Dodge, or EVASION. You get some dodge bonuses, but they never get close to bridging the gap between chain shirt (light armor) and Plate armor, and barely bridges the gap between breastplate and chain shirt at 10th level, only getting larger at 15th, even then only barely. This is disastrous considering that the class is designed to be in melee. You get a bonus to damage that is probably smaller than a single level of sneak attack, not to mention the difference between rapier damage and say, greatsword. So to review, a fighter does more damage and has a higher AC even when using a two handed weapon. In fact, they probably do more damage when going sword and board (longsword over rapier), and don't have any dependence on intelligence. The reflex save bonus amounts to no better than Lightning Reflexes until 20th level, and Lightning Reflexes is considered a crap feat. This class is significantly worse than fighter, and fighter is considered a pretty low tier class. I could literally build a better swashbuckler using 4 levels in rogue and the rest fighter using only Core.
Now I want to make a Swashbuckler fix, like the Unchained Rogue, specifically to bring Swashbuckler more in line with the other "hybrid" classes... Seriously, Brawler is amazing because it gets dice size bonuses to actual weapons. This makes them a lot better at dealing damage than most Monk builds, because they get to use normal magic weapons. And Fighter feats. Granted, Archanist should never have seen the light of day because it's a horrific pile of nonsense, but that's a small gripe.


Swordsages also cheese me off for some reason, not sure why. Maybe it's because their solution to melee being outshined by casters is, turn melee into pseudo-casters? I don't know that much about them, so that might be my error, but I also don't want to learn and adapt a whole new set of what are essentially spells for fighters. This is probably for the same reason I don't care to learn about psionics, since they are a new pseudo-caster and now everything in the world needs to adapt to psionics existing. They may work for you, but I don't care for them.
Would have worked a lot better if they based it on Warlock than if they based it on regular casters. Daily uses for mundane abilities always seem wrong to me... At-wills make a lot more sense because then you can get away with weaker individual abilities and the Warlock basis makes it so that you have important access to using combo tricks. Yes, it's even more Wuxia than the existing ToB classes. So what, it makes more sense because they keep the Martial advantage of "fight as long as I live" to keep them in front of casters in long games with few chances to rest.


Is this the same playtest where the character doing the most damage to the balor was the elven wizard using a longbow with quickened truestrike?
Which both spells out how broken Wizards are and how horribly optimized that game was. Seriously, why the hell do only Wizards and Sorcerers get the near-guarantee hit spell? Rangers would kill so damn many to get ahold of that one spell, just to get the ability to ensure one good hit. It also makes Artificers even more bull**** because, as a 1st level spell, infinite use is extremely cheap to get, leading to +20 to-hit on basically every attack.

[Zanos]

https://imgflip.com/s/meme/Persian-Cat-Room-Guardian.jpg
It's real. (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20050809a) Even better, they specifically had prep time and knew they were fighting a balor, yet quickened true strike manyshot(why does he have manyshot?) was still the wizards strategy. Also he isn't actually an elf, meaning he burned another feat on longbow proficiency.

Which both spells out how broken Wizards are and how horribly optimized that game was. Seriously, why the hell do only Wizards and Sorcerers get the near-guarantee hit spell? Rangers would kill so damn many to get ahold of that one spell, just to get the ability to ensure one good hit. It also makes Artificers even more bull**** because, as a 1st level spell, infinite use is extremely cheap to get, leading to +20 to-hit on basically every attack.
Not unless you're some kind of Gish built around truestrike. It takes a standard action to cast and only lasts for a single attack or one round, meaning that unless you're using high level slots to quicken true strike and then making 1 attack every round, it isn't helping that much. I'd much rather use my 5th level slots to cast an empowered fireball every round than making a single ranged attack every round.

And dedicated archers have very little trouble hitting.

[Doug Lampert]

Initial playtests are one thing, but how did it make it through the 3.5 update?

It didn't. Most of the broken was ADDED in the 3.5 update.

3.0 Druid simply wasn't that broken, no ability to spellcast in animal form (natural spell is 3.5 only); animal friendship (a spell which where the animal companion came from) wasn't that good, and if it had been all that good then every character in the game with UMD would have trivially stolen access to it (but they didn't, it wasn't all that good); wild shape was a polymorph effect, with added limits on what you could change into, but the actual polymorph spell was almost globally better; ext...

Dinosaurs and a bunch of other things were "beasts" not animals, and hence 3.0 druid animal based stuff didn't work for them.

3.0 Druid wasn't a WEAK class by any means; but it wasn't nearly as broken as the 3.5 version.

[Stealth Marmot]

So, Factotum is basically the perfect skillmonkey? Honestly, the iaijutsu focus stuff is surprisingly close in function to Sneak Attack, only instead of Flanking or unaware as the painful use restriction, you get having to draw the weapon in the same round as the attack.



What is iaijutsu focu- *googles*...

Who in Pelor's shiny bumhole thought adding that to a game was a good idea? That's not a skill, that should be a class ability. Then again, back in 3.0 there was no cross class skills, but yeah technically the Factotum would have that as a skill somehow.

[Zanos]

Iaijutsu focus requires more effort than that to use. They have be flat-footed and you have to draw your weapon. It's more restrictive than sneak attack, and you can't full attack with it under normal circumstances.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't consider a Factotum to be a Mary-Sue so much as a walking plot contrivance.

The main problem with the factotum is that it's a highly Gamist class in a primarily Simulationist game.

Classes I dislike include psions (because ectoplasm and sentient crystals are just stupid, and because pretty much all psion powers are a copy/paste job of wizard spells); monks (primarily for their class ability to cause endless forum strife); and samurai (don't make highly specialized subclasses that should simply be a fighter build). And wild mage (not strictly speaking a class, but anything that generates utterly random effects whenever you're trying to cast is fun for the DM but not the rest of the group).

Oooh, can we include Pathfinder? In that case gunslinger (very much a one-trick pony, and guns don't fit in most fantasy campaigns); and kinny (because it's overcomplicated and rather underperforming, and because it could simply have been the Warlock).

[ryu]

Iaijutsu focus requires more effort than that to use. They have be flat-footed and you have to draw your weapon. It's more restrictive than sneak attack, and you can't full attack with it under normal circumstances.

On the other hand, you're limited to classes with lots of skill points, and ideally native class skill access, instead of purely sneak attack classes. Also IAFO isn't natively immuned against by such large portions of the expected encounters. It's more consistent, freely available, and the intelligent strat with optimizing throwing daggers means you're doing this at range. Do keep in mind it only says you must use a suitable melee weapon to do it. It doesn't say that weapon must be used in melee.

[GilesTheCleric]

Clerics. For a class that purports to be about faith in a higher power, attempting to share their word, and show others their philosophy, it's pretty piss-poor. At least in 2e there were spheres that different priest classes were limited to, as well as having greater limitations compared to arcanists; and the first 3.0 FR books had a decent number of deity-specific things like spells and initiate feats. But in 3e as a whole? Clerics just get to run rampant with a spell list that contains over 1200 spells!

How does an individual Cleric show that their deity's ideology is best when there's literally only 0-1% of their spells to do that with, and not a single class feature? "Ah, use your roleplay!" you might say. "How?" I ask. Domains are widely shared between deities, with many obscure deities (particularly evil ones or racial ones) having the exact same selection, and no other deity-specific feats, abilties, or anything. FR is the only choice for even a small selection of them, and then only the most well-known and popular deities are allowed to have unique worshippers.

The spell list doesn't help, because even if Clerics do choose different spell selections, they're going to immediately start to revert to the mean of the same useful spells when they figure out that preparing nothing but Longstride to show their devotion to Fharlangn isn't actually a feasible playstyle.

And no, the three PrCs that have a deity's name in the title don't count, because they're just as generic as every other Cleric.

[Morphic tide]

It's real. (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20050809a) Even better, they specifically had prep time and knew they were fighting a balor, yet quickened true strike manyshot(why does he have manyshot?) was still the wizards strategy. Also he isn't actually an elf, meaning he burned another feat on longbow proficiency.

Not unless you're some kind of Gish built around truestrike. It takes a standard action to cast and only lasts for a single attack or one round, meaning that unless you're using high level slots to quicken true strike and then making 1 attack every round, it isn't helping that much. I'd much rather use my 5th level slots to cast an empowered fireball every round than making a single ranged attack every round.

And dedicated archers have very little trouble hitting.
Range penalties, various other penalties, the nearly guaranteed hit if you are at normal ranges and the fact that it can be used for an extremely hard shot or one that simply will hit. Also, bypassing party killingly over CR encounter's AC, like running into an adult dragon in a level 11 party of 4. The distance matters not, the AC is no issue and you will hit the damn Dragon. Oh, and Arcane Archer doesn't care about the one attack per round bit, as long as they hit, the DM can't say the shot carrying the Fireball went off target. Otherwise, they didn't hit. And this can give you enough to guarantee hitting a specific 5' square well over a mile away with some weapons...


The main problem with the factotum is that it's a highly Gamist class in a primarily Simulationist game.
Eh, gamist things are okay once in a while, but a class built around them isn't normally acceptable in a typically Simulationist game.


Classes I dislike include psions (because ectoplasm and sentient crystals are just stupid, and because pretty much all psion powers are a copy/paste job of wizard spells); monks (primarily for their class ability to cause endless forum strife); and samurai (don't make highly specialized subclasses that should simply be a fighter build). And wild mage (not strictly speaking a class, but anything that generates utterly random effects whenever you're trying to cast is fun for the DM but not the rest of the group).
Agreed on all except the Psion bit. The similarities to Wizard spells is a case of saving on design time to rush a product to increase profits. The flavor, however, opens up many interesting options. I, personally, would like more magic equivalents for esoterics like Shadow spells and Warlock type stuff present in Psionics, because you have excuses to make them different due to the different power source. And one important difference between Psionics and magic is that Psionics tends to have single things be highly versatile. The attribute bonus thing is a set of 6 spells, but only one power. Direct damage powers are a matter of choosing your damage type from the basics, rather than having to find spells that are "like Fireball, but Cold damage!" or get piles of metamagic.

And yes, this makes Psions even more crazy than Wizards because they can just use whatever they need without needing to look up the specific variation of a spell, then using one of their spell learning chances on it, then actually prepare the spell. Why use Fireball as an Erudite when the Psionic equivalent gives you a choice of several damage types?


Oooh, can we include Pathfinder? In that case gunslinger (very much a one-trick pony, and guns don't fit in most fantasy campaigns); and kinny (because it's overcomplicated and rather underperforming, and because it could simply have been the Warlock).
Well, Gunslinger is one of those things that is pigionholed too much. It would be much better off if the class simply had the Swashbuckler deeds available as part of the base class. As well as Deeds for archery stuff in the base class. Granted, at that point you are basically making ToB Manoeuvres as Psionics-like instead of Magic-like, but PF doesn't have 1st party ToB anyway.

[thoroughlyS]

All the classes in tome of battle, because they're presented - partly by developers but mainly by players - as the answer to the competent noncaster question, and they neither match up to a full caster, nor refrain from using magic.
In defense of Tome of Battle, I believe they succeeded at creating competent non-casters. No, they do not match up to full casters, but full casters are MORE than competent, insofar as they routinely break the game. Initiators more closely match up to bards, duskblades, barbarians, et cetera in terms of power and versatility. And while there are maneuvers that are supernatural, most of them are extraordinary, and not just on paper. What is inherently magical about making an extra attack, hurling an enemy 10 feet away, or hitting so hard and fierce it ignores damage reduction? It is easy to make a ToB character who never does anything resembling magic. As much as you can in D&D anyway...

Swordsages also cheese me off for some reason, not sure why. Maybe it's because their solution to melee being outshined by casters is, turn melee into pseudo-casters? I don't know that much about them, so that might be my error, but I also don't want to learn and adapt a whole new set of what are essentially spells for fighters. This is probably for the same reason I don't care to learn about psionics, since they are a new pseudo-caster and now everything in the world needs to adapt to psionics existing. They may work for you, but I don't care for them.
I'm having a little trouble understanding what you mean precisely by "pseudo-caster". Could you elaborate, so I can better understand what you don't like?

Would have worked a lot better if they based it on Warlock than if they based it on regular casters. Daily uses for mundane abilities always seem wrong to me... At-wills make a lot more sense because then you can get away with weaker individual abilities and the Warlock basis makes it so that you have important access to using combo tricks. Yes, it's even more Wuxia than the existing ToB classes. So what, it makes more sense because they keep the Martial advantage of "fight as long as I live" to keep them in front of casters in long games with few chances to rest.
Actually, initiators don't have daily uses and are much closer to at-will abilities than anything else. The system they use sounds wonky, but flows smoothly in-game. In addition, the individual abilities aren't "weak" necessarily, but very importantly don't scale with level which avoids the quadratic wizard problem. Also, in order to learn higher level maneuvers from one "school", you usually have to know at least a few from the same "school" which kind of mechanically enforces a theme for your character.



In regards to the thread, I don't really have much to add. I mostly dislike the fighter, monk, and paladins for the same reasons as everyone else. The fighter gets a slight pass because it is still really useful to splash into builds, and has some ACFs that can add flavor and power. The monk and the paladin never really got that kind of boost.

I'm also disappointed in the sorcerer and wizard as kind of a matched set. The sorcerer doesn't have nearly the breadth of ACFs that the wizard gets, and usually prestiges out later thanks to the delayed spell levels. And then the wizard stomps on the sorcerers toes by having ways to gain more spells per day and ways to gain semi-spontaneous casting (Not like it matters, because they both get such versatile spells that one can usually solve any problem).

[Zanos]

Range penalties, various other penalties, the nearly guaranteed hit if you are at normal ranges and the fact that it can be used for an extremely hard shot or one that simply will hit. Also, bypassing party killingly over CR encounter's AC, like running into an adult dragon in a level 11 party of 4. The distance matters not, the AC is no issue and you will hit the damn Dragon. Oh, and Arcane Archer doesn't care about the one attack per round bit, as long as they hit, the DM can't say the shot carrying the Fireball went off target. Otherwise, they didn't hit. And this can give you enough to guarantee hitting a specific 5' square well over a mile away with some weapons...
Okay, so you do 1d8 damage(or not, because damage reduction) to the dragon, and then it eats you because it has a 200 ft fly speed, and is a dragon.

The arcane archer could have just CAST fireball and had it gone on target. Dragons have spell resistance and get a reflex save either way.

Are you one of WotC original playtesters, back from the grave to convince us that the manyshot truestrike wizard is totally sweet, dude?

[Morphic tide]

Okay, so you do 1d8 damage(or not, because damage reduction) to the dragon, and then it eats you because it has a 200 ft fly speed, and is a dragon.

The arcane archer could have just CAST fireball and had it gone on target. Dragons have spell resistance and get a reflex save either way.

Are you one of WotC original playtesters, back from the grave to convince us that the manyshot truestrike wizard is totally sweet, dude?

I'm thinking more along the lines of hitting the Dragon with save-or-sucks from several rounds of flight away. And the Manyshot Truestrike Wizard is trash because it's a wizard. They have better things to do. Manystrike Trueshot Arcane Archer, however, is an amazing assassin type character thanks to landing a fireball or three on target from over 1000 yards with relative ease. That's what I'm getting at, Truestrike should be on classes with more Martial stuff because those classes get a lot more use out of it.

To demonstrate, let's say that the default AC-equivalent of hitting a specific 5' square is 10. At level 9 on a full BAB chassis, you will only miss on a 1, provided there aren't any penalties. Let's use a shortbow as an example. So, at +9 BAB, you will always hit your tile of choice within 60 feet. Truestrike turns this into 1260 feet of only missing your tile on a nat 1. With a heavy crossbow, you instead have a massive 2520 foot range of always hitting your tile of choice outside of auto fails. For an Arcane Archer, this is their AoE spell range. The range for all of their AoE spells is now 2520 at +9 BAB.

[PacMan2247]

Fighter. Just... fighter. Mainly for sucking completely and utterly even at the role it claims to be best at. It's existence was a mistake, It's fluff is boring and fully of lies, and worst of all it's part of the baseline play assumption with hilariously little to break out of being a useless pile of muscle with a stick.

It has less skills and utility than the supposed unskilled illiterate. Lacking spot and listen, with less skill points than most anyone else, it can't even function adequately as a night-shift guard. Literally everything this class is capable of can be done better or rendered moot by low level spells across a wide range of lists. Don't believe me? Try to find something, ANYTHING, they can do that can't be done better or rendered moot by a spell of 4th or under. You have access to fighter 20 with only the stipulation that you can't use WBL to get casting items of any kind. Can't have you voiding the challenge by pretending to be one of the actually strong classes.

Survive combat against a prepared enemy that drops AMF on you when retreating isn't an option. Sarkrith are bastards.

[Jormengand]

Survive combat against a prepared enemy that drops AMF on you when retreating isn't an option. Sarkrith are bastards.

Celerity. Oh, you're throwing an AMF at me? No you're not, it's my turn first.

[Necroticplague]

Survive combat against a prepared enemy that drops AMF on you when retreating isn't an option. Sarkrith are bastards.
A wizard does that better. Abrupt Juant when the AMF is dropped (AMF has small radius), pelt with instantaneous conjurations. A fighter in an AMF has the magic items he needs to operates shut down.

[Zanos]

To demonstrate, let's say that the default AC-equivalent of hitting a specific 5' square is 10. At level 9 on a full BAB chassis, you will only miss on a 1, provided there aren't any penalties. Let's use a shortbow as an example. So, at +9 BAB, you will always hit your tile of choice within 60 feet. Truestrike turns this into 1260 feet of only missing your tile on a nat 1. With a heavy crossbow, you instead have a massive 2520 foot range of always hitting your tile of choice outside of auto fails. For an Arcane Archer, this is their AoE spell range. The range for all of their AoE spells is now 2520 at +9 BAB.
True, but it doesn't let you ignore the normal rules for sighting targets or the massive spot penalties at that range. And arcane archer doesn't progress casting. A half mile range fireball sounds OP on paper, but I don't think most encounters really benefit from super long ranges.

[Arbane]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of-- knew I was forgetting some details of the stupidity. I really have to wonder about the playtest, sometimes... like, I understand missing a lot of unintended interactions and individual spells, and I understand that 3e has lower HP totals, which probably threw their damage output impressions off, but how did you not notice that the Monk is fundamentally incapable of skirmishing? Or that, you know, "I turn into a bear!" is the first thing you'd do as a druid?

Other way around, actually - 3rd edition increased hitpoints across the board compared to AD&D, without boosting the blasty spells to match, leading to the Save-Or-Cry Supremacy we have now. (Weapon damage DID get a bit of a boost, I think.)

And I agree about how bland Clerics are in the system.

[PacMan2247]

Celerity and Abrupt Jaunt are great, if you're not flat-footed. I did say a prepared enemy.

[ryu]

Celerity and Abrupt Jaunt are great, if you're not flat-footed. I did say a prepared enemy.

Are you familiar with the tinfoil hat trick? I don't even need to waste actions to mostly negate your silly farce of a spell, and it works even if not only surprised, but stunned/dazed until my turn.

[Morphic tide]

True, but it doesn't let you ignore the normal rules for sighting targets or the massive spot penalties at that range. And arcane archer doesn't progress casting. A half mile range fireball sounds OP on paper, but I don't think most encounters really benefit from super long ranges.

There's a spell or two to get +20 on that spot check :tongue: Oh, and I could swear there's a Psionic feat to ignore such petty barriers. And Arcane Archer gets some tricks to lower that problem further.

[Vampire1]

Are you familiar with the tinfoil hat trick? I don't even need to waste actions to mostly negate your silly farce of a spell, and it works even if not only surprised, but stunned/dazed until my turn.

Celerity and Abrupt Jaunt are great, if you're not flat-footed. I did say a prepared enemy.

A wizard does that better. Abrupt Juant when the AMF is dropped (AMF has small radius), pelt with instantaneous conjurations. A fighter in an AMF has the magic items he needs to operates shut down.

OMG, I love counter it!! :thog:

[Nifft]

The 1e Cleric was a Pantheonic Priest.

2e tried to introduce god-specific "Specialty Priests", but IIRC that was mostly for FR where gods were objectively real and every character was supposed to pick exactly one of them to favor.

3e and 5e are both more about the Pantheon as a whole. You will tend to favor one deity over others, but you can call upon the powers of any of the members. This is a good fit for both ye olde settings (Greyhawk) and new more modern settings (Eberron).

My house rule for 3.5e Clerics was: you can add splatbook spells to your list, but you must exchange each one for a Core spell of the same level. That Core spell is forever removed from your list.

That both limited the size for each Cleric's list, and forced each individual character to customize his or her magic.

IMHO this houserule allows the benefits of the 2e "specialty priest" without the 2e conceptual straight-jacket.

- - -

Anyway, classes that I hate...

- the ones that look cool but chronically under-deliver (Monk, Fighter, Spellthief, Truenamer, Shadowcaster, Lurk, Soulknife, Soulborn, Divine Mind, Dragon Shaman, Hexblade, etc...)

- Factotum. Milquetoast as a single class, yet broken in Gestalt -- thus bad for either of the types of game that I enjoy. Ugh.

- Chameleon, specifically because I love Chameleon. What I hate is that only 2/5 of the options are any good. Give me 5 good choices -- e.g. make combat worth using -- and then I can actually enjoy being something other than a spellcaster.

- Racial Paragon Classes, some are quite decent, but others seem to do the opposite of what they should -- instead of boosting the strengths of some races, they remove the weaknesses. Boo! I don't think that a Kobold Paragon should enjoy hanging around in direct sunlight. That's not the epitome of Koboldness. (Full disclosure: this annoyed me such that I re-wrote racial paragons, link in my sig.)

- Marshal, for being a really interesting idea which seems to only get used on niche skill-exploit builds.

- Arcane Archer, for being terrible at arcane archery, unless you use it as a 2-level dip after you finish Chameleon 10.

[PacMan2247]

Are you familiar with the tinfoil hat trick? I don't even need to waste actions to mostly negate your silly farce of a spell, and it works even if not only surprised, but stunned/dazed until my turn.

I've had a lot more experience with the "anything a player can do, the DM can do, and with the infinite resources and population of the multiverse" trick.

[Vampire1]

I've had a lot more experience with the "anything a player can do, the DM can do, and with the infinite resources and population of the multiverse" trick.
Wizard tinfoil hat trick?


It's bad, Easily Countered.

[ryu]

I've had a lot more experience with the "anything a player can do, the DM can do, and with the infinite resources and population of the multiverse" trick.

DM fiat has never been respected as a legitimate argument here, and likely never will be. Care to say something actually relevant about fighters not being garbage tier with something that meets the frankly generous criteria I've given?

[digiman619]

Paladins. Not because of the concept; it's because no other class has a such a huge self-destruct button built into it. Sure, a monk, barbarian or druid can lose if they change alignment, but 90%+ of the time that happens because the player chose to make a change; I can't count the number of times I've seen stories of a-hole GM's that just arbitrarily decide that they want the paladin to fall and decides to do so for bull**** reasons and/or at the drop of a hat. As if the class wasn't already weak enough, the one thing that makes them mechanically interesting can be ejected by the DM at any time.

Personally, I'd just recommend building the character with a different chassis rather than have that Sword of Damocles hanging over your head at all times.

[PacMan2247]

DM fiat has never been respected as a legitimate argument here, and likely never will be. Care to say something actually relevant about fighters not being garbage tier with something that meets the frankly generous criteria I've given?

Awful lot of hostility there considering you missed the point: if a player character can pull a stunt, that means other characters within a given setting also have that capacity. It has nothing to do with DM fiat, which as you noted, in no way resembles a legitimate argument. Stuff your ego in your bag of holding.

[Zanos]

The argument that circumvents all of that is that fighters can't really survive a fight against a prepared enemy at the appropriate CR without their magic items.

If you're referring to the sarkrith thane specifically, it's stats are across the board higher than what a magicless fighter's are at that CR, and the AMF is only 5 feet big. A spellcaster, even assuming the creature could reach them since it can't fly, can 5ft step out of that AMF and teleport.

[elonin]

Haven't read all the responses, so maybe I'm just repeating what has already been said. For those who complain about this class or that being bland my comment is that the classes are just a framework or mechanic to put your character on. One thing I've hated about 3.5 is winth some of the expansions in which someone slaps an adjetive on a new set of class abilities and calls it a class. This is one that Rich played with using Miko. She's a samurai but not carrying a class called samurai.

I've thought that the factotum fits into the class slot that bard fit into in adnd (being good at a lot of things but specializing in none). And I think they could be toned back a bit. I don't agree that factotums are directly competing with clerics directly. The abilities they get aren't rated that well by cleric guides. I recall a piece of advice being given often is to use turning attempts to power dmm cause turning undead doesn't scale. So if clerics are being overshadowed I just don't see it. The suggestion that someone would be more powerful playing a factotum instead of playing as codzilla seems laughable.

[Aeturo]

Barbarians tick me off solely based on the idea that someone from a tribal setting is automatically a bezerker type guy and that they lose the ability to rage if they half integrate into society by becoming neutral.
Duskblades because I was talked into playing one when I was new to D&D and wanted to play a gish. I thought I'd be like a skyrim wielding magic and sword but could also channel spells through my sword. What I got was an awkward mess and the few spells worth using with Arcane Channeling aren't even that great.
Favored Soul for being the most underwhelming thing I ever played. "I'm the chosen of this great and powerful god who gave that guy in a robe awesome power and I get...nothing special. I'm a sorcerer without the perks of being a sorcerer."
In pathfinder I'm annoyed with the Summoner but it's nothing wrong with the class. It's the lack of support they give the class because the devs don't like it. I want more feats and content for it but never get any.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Barbarians tick me off solely based on the idea that someone from a tribal setting is automatically a bezerker type guy and that they lose the ability to rage if they half integrate into society by becoming neutral.

You know the cut-off is lawful, not non-chaotic right? A barb that becomes lawful loses the ability to rage, presumably because the mindset of lawful creatures requires setting one's own emotions aside for the group or organization to which they're dedicated while rage requires throwing yourself into those emotions whole-heartedly.

As for its association with barbarism, it throws away any pretense at finesse or sofisticiation for raw power and brutality. Sounds pretty barbaric to me.

Besides, you can be rustic without being full-on tribal. Never heard of country-nobles before?

I get not liking the default flavor of a class but when even a minor reexamination, not even reimagining just looking at it different, can get more palatable results, it seems a touch overblown.

Well, that and complaining about misremembered rules. :smalltongue:

[Jack_McSnatch]

Duskblades because I was talked into playing one when I was new to D&D and wanted to play a gish. I thought I'd be like a skyrim wielding magic and sword but could also channel spells through my sword. What I got was an awkward mess and the few spells worth using with Arcane Channeling aren't even that great.


Sorry, could you explain this to me? I completely agree the spell list is lackluster, but I felt the class abilities meshed really well together. It's basically what you described there, minus the dual wielding spell and sword. Though, the PF Magus fixed that.

[ryu]

Awful lot of hostility there considering you missed the point: if a player character can pull a stunt, that means other characters within a given setting also have that capacity. It has nothing to do with DM fiat, which as you noted, in no way resembles a legitimate argument. Stuff your ego in your bag of holding.

The tinfoil hat trick is merely why Anti-magic field is a pointless spell no one ever actually bothers with. Create a large dome or cone depending on your hat of choice. Make it large enough to cover your square, surrounding you. Shrink item plus permanency to make a hat out of it. If you make it admantine good luck breaking in to get at the wizard even IF you get a turn to try before he teleports out. Congratulations. AMF is no longer a thing. You want to make a point that anyone can do this? Yes, and that's precisely WHY AMF is a useless spell. In response to having AMF called out as utterly pointless you called on DM fiat which is roughly translated to: ''I have nothing more to say and concede the argument.'' around here. Now do you have an actual, relevant thing a fighter in any way does superior to a wizard? AMF isn't one of them. Fighters don't have the tools to make tinfoil hats, nor the teleportation to make proper use of them. An AMF of sufficient size is actually significantly more of an impediment to a fighter than a wizard. They lose all their little magic items, and then just die to instantaneous conjuration orb of X spells.

[Aeturo]

New to giantitp so I don't know how to reply directly to people but to Jack_Mcsnatch it was awkward because I essentially became a one trick pony. "I arcane channel [best touch spell I have atm, which wasn't ever very impressive]" Granted I was new to D&D and it could have been my build.
To Kelb_Panthera, it may be my history major talking. My main tick is the labeling really. The whole barbarian feel is a bit misrepresented since barbarians were pretty tame cattle ranchers. "Hate" is strong, granted, but the barbarians were one of the first to develop law in the west so non lawful irked me is all. What they're based on is the beserker, which were warriors who were what we know as barbarians. I completely forget they couldn't be neutral though so sorry about that. I'm shaky on alignment in general. It's not my favorite thing, and restrictions bug me more than anything. But I guess with my argument I should dislike bard more...can you explain why they can't be lawful? :smallconfused:

[Kelb_Panthera]

New to giantitp so I don't know how to reply directly to people

There's a brown button labeled "quote" at the bottom of each post. You can click that to quote an individual immediately.

Alternately, there's a button that looks like the quotation mark that you can use to mark a post you'd like to quote when you hit "reply to thread" and by selecting multiple posts this way, you can "multi-quote" and respond to multiple persons simultaneously.

Welcome to the forum :smallsmile:


To Kelb_Panthera, it may be my history major talking. My main tick is the labeling really. The whole barbarian feel is a bit misrepresented since barbarians were pretty tame cattle ranchers.

You're conflating barbarian culture in general with barbarian warriors in particular. The tribal villagers would be better modeled with commoners and experts with an odd noble and/or adept. Same as any other community in the game world.


"Hate" is strong, granted, but the barbarians were one of the first to develop law in the west so non lawful irked me is all. What they're based on is the beserker, which were warriors who were what we know as barbarians.

Yeah, I know. Can't take the labels quite so literally and need to remember that a lot of labels have multiple meanings. A "barbarian" can simply be someone who is barbaric without any cultural consideration at all.

Oh, and nobody mentioned hate. Rage and hate can be related but they are not inherently so.


I completely forget they couldn't be neutral though so sorry about that. I'm shaky on alignment in general. It's not my favorite thing, and restrictions bug me more than anything.

A popular enough sentiment 'round here. Not one I share, mind, but a popular one.


But I guess with my argument I should dislike bard more...can you explain why they can't be lawful? :smallconfused:

Sure. The default fluff is the wandering minstrel archetype. Lawful characters tie themselves to a group, organization, cause, or some other external locus of behavioral acceptability (don't buy the "holds to their own code" nonsense, that's chaotic alignment stuff.) As a consequence of this, someone who wanders the world with no attachments is fundamentally incompatible with the lawful alignment.

[Aeturo]

There's a brown button labeled "quote" at the bottom of each post. You can click that to quote an individual immediately.

Alternately, there's a button that looks like the quotation mark that you can use to mark a post you'd like to quote when you hit "reply to thread" and by selecting multiple posts this way, you can "multi-quote" and respond to multiple persons simultaneously.

Welcome to the forum :smallsmile:

Well hey thanks. I've been around but only lurking. And you make otherwise fair points. My opinion still stands but I will forfeit. I can always play a Dwarven Orator and ask my DM for the exception to be lawful. As for the barbarian bit I suppose that's DMs I've had having the entire town be barbaric warriors. Thank you for your insight.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Well hey thanks. I've been around but only lurking. And you make otherwise fair points. My opinion still stands but I will forfeit. I can always play a Dwarven Orator and ask my DM for the exception to be lawful. As for the barbarian bit I suppose that's DMs I've had having the entire town be barbaric warriors. Thank you for your insight.

Hey, everyone's entitled to an opinion and one of the perks of a game run by a human being is that you -can- ask for rules to be excepted even for arbitrary reasons. Heck, I often advise people that are nonplussed by the alignment rules to simply outright discard them, in spite of my own fondness for them.

As for insight, The Giant phrased it well enough so I'll paraphrase; rather than making an assumption about the game world and getting irritated when what's printed doesn't match up, why not adjust your assumptions to fit what's printed? Not like you're going to argue the printed page into changing its mind, eh? :smalltongue:

[Morphic tide]

As for insight, The Giant phrased it well enough so I'll paraphrase; rather than making an assumption about the game world and getting irritated when what's printed doesn't match up, why not adjust your assumptions to fit what's printed? Not like you're going to argue the printed page into changing its mind, eh? :smalltongue:

But you can argue the DM into changing the game you play to fit. Sure, the printed stuff isn't changed, but now you have an AU campaign world to explore!

[Kelb_Panthera]

But you can argue the DM into changing the game you play to fit. Sure, the printed stuff isn't changed, but now you have an AU campaign world to explore!

You can but if you're not sufficiently familiar with the system you can end up creating more problems than you solve. Do you want to play a game or design one? :smallamused:

[Morphic tide]

You can but if you're not sufficiently familiar with the system you can end up creating more problems than you solve. Do you want to play a game or design one? :smallamused:

Some would answer with "Why not both?" I am not quite one of those people.

[YossarianLives]

I gotta agree with wizards. And Clerics. Druids. Their insane power is definitely a huge downside, but my real problem is their ability to switch spells everyday, destroying any individuality the character may have had. At least with a sorcerer or psion it feels like the character has a certain theme. Every prepared caster just feels same-y and overpowered.

[Stealth Marmot]

I gotta agree with wizards. And Clerics. Druids. Their insane power is definitely a huge downside, but my real problem is their ability to switch spells everyday, destroying any individuality the character may have had. At least with a sorcerer or psion it feels like the character has a certain theme. Every prepared caster just feels same-y and overpowered.

Well, 3.5 wizards can be specialists and do, at least at lower levels, have limited spellbooks. 3.5 Clerics have domains and deities that can make them unique.

The real problem with those two classes is not the potential of being different, but the fact that people expect them to pretty much fill their very specific role without any sort of variance. A battle cleric who is a frontline fighter is actually quite viable, but the second you say "cleric" everyone expects you to be the healbot. Everyone expects the wizard to be the firepower throwing things that do massive d6s of damage.

These two classes are highly variable through their preferred spell choice and even stat arrangements, but are shoehorned by expected class practices.

3.5 Druid on the other hand, is both OP and invariant. Aside from spell choice and animal companion choice, there is no difference in different druids mechanically. Heck, even stats have little difference since druids usually depend on their wild shape form for physical stats.

[Calthropstu]

Calculus. That stupid teacher had it in for me I swear!

[Cosi]

- Factotum. Milquetoast as a single class, yet broken in Gestalt -- thus bad for either of the types of game that I enjoy. Ugh.

I wouldn't say broken. Extra actions are good, but in a lot of games one BFC spell will be totally sufficient to win encounters. The class is very poorly written (IP gain is broken, their extra action ability doesn't have a type).


- Chameleon, specifically because I love Chameleon. What I hate is that only 2/5 of the options are any good. Give me 5 good choices -- e.g. make combat worth using -- and then I can actually enjoy being something other than a spellcaster.

Well, it would be kind of weird for it to get better options for fighting than the fighting classes did.


I've had a lot more experience with the "anything a player can do, the DM can do, and with the infinite resources and population of the multiverse" trick.

Yes, you can get into an arms race with the players. But despite the fact that the players cannot win such a race, they generally do not back down from one either. In most cases, trying to stomp on optimized characters just results in people optimizing more.


I gotta agree with wizards. And Clerics. Druids. Their insane power is definitely a huge downside, but my real problem is their ability to switch spells everyday, destroying any individuality the character may have had. At least with a sorcerer or psion it feels like the character has a certain theme. Every prepared caster just feels same-y and overpowered.

If you want to have a theme, why not just not switch spells? No one is forcing you to wake up and pick a new set of options. Also, I generally disagree with the view that imbalance is the fault of the casters.


3.5 Druid on the other hand, is both OP and invariant. Aside from spell choice and animal companion choice, there is no difference in different druids mechanically. Heck, even stats have little difference since druids usually depend on their wild shape form for physical stats.

This is true. There's one good Druid PrC (which is so good every Druid would take it if they could), and very few competitive Druid feats. This results in Druid builds converging very rapidly.

[Doug Lampert]

What is iaijutsu focu- *googles*...

Who in Pelor's shiny bumhole thought adding that to a game was a good idea? That's not a skill, that should be a class ability. Then again, back in 3.0 there was no cross class skills, but yeah technically the Factotum would have that as a skill somehow.

Umm, from the 3.0 SRD:

Depending on a characters' race and class, some skills are "class skills" and some skills are "cross-class skills" Cross-class skills require 2 skill points per rank, class skills require 1 skill point per rank.
The maximum number of ranks a character can have in a class skill is equal to that character's level +3. The maximum ranks a character can have in a cross-class skill is half that number.

Looks effectively identical to the 3.5 rule to me, it's in both the PHB and the SRD for 3.0.

Now, a few skills were exclusive (which is probably what you are thinking of), the rules for that were split up in multiple places. But an exclusive skill could only be taken by a listed set of classes and only levels in those classes counted for determining the cap, I assume that's what you're thinking of, [Edited to remove untrue statements].

[Nifft]

I wouldn't say broken. Extra actions are good, but in a lot of games one BFC spell will be totally sufficient to win encounters. The class is very poorly written (IP gain is broken, their extra action ability doesn't have a type).

Agree that it's poorly written. Rulings are required to make some features function at all, and that means it's going to perform differently at different tables.

I would say the class is broken, so apparently our opinions about that are at odds. Oh well.


Well, it would be kind of weird for it to get better options for fighting than the fighting classes did.

There are fighting classes which have better options than other fighting classes. It's not weird at all.

Some fighting classes are awful, and other fighting classes are not awful.

I'd prefer more of the latter in my Chameleon.

For example: grant Maneuvers.

[Cosi]

I would say the class is broken, so apparently our opinions about that are at odds. Oh well.

The big deal ability of the Factotum (extra actions) comes on-line at the same level as celerity would from Sorcerer levels, and without any of the other benefits you'd get from a bunch of Sorcerer levels. Also, on casters it usually ends up being a way to burn extra spell slots for only marginal benefit. I like it on martial adepts, particularly because they value the (marginal) non-combat abilities of the Factotum more as well.


For example: grant Maneuvers.

That'd be some trick, considering how the Chameleon came out two years before Tome of Battle.

I don't think what you're asking for is unreasonable, I just think there really aren't that many martial options you could give the Chameleon to compete with spells (especially if the Chameleon remembers it can pilfer from the Trapsmith or Demonologist lists).

[Arbane]

The tinfoil hat trick is merely why Anti-magic field is a pointless spell no one ever actually bothers with. Create a large dome or cone depending on your hat of choice. Make it large enough to cover your square, surrounding you. Shrink item plus permanency to make a hat out of it. If you make it admantine good luck breaking in to get at the wizard even IF you get a turn to try before he teleports out. Congratulations. AMF is no longer a thing.

A trump card that can be defeated by a little kid with a snowball, or not being on flat, level ground... you know, like a flying spellcaster.

[Vizzerdrix]

Sandshaper, for being bad at what it does, and just being another caster prc. Not once have I seen it included in a build for the shaping of sand. It is only taken for a few levels to up the casting power of sorcerers.

Shadowsmith for being silly with its restrictions on what you can make. Nothing with moving parts. So a minatuar greathammr is ok, but a book isnt. Did the author not realize that armor has moving parts?

Any prc with a cl/ml tax built in.

Lantan Artificer. WHY THE HECK DO I NEED TO BE A CASTER TO BECOME A NONCASTER?!?! Anyone know? The fluff isint in sync with the crunch here.

[ShurikVch]

I truly hate none of classes - at least as far as I remember right now.

(I can understand some opinions about classes which are "too bland", "should be NPC", "have too many spells for their own good", and "fail in all possible roles")

Still, there are 3 classes from Dragon Compendium which I really don't like:
Mountebank - utterly underwhelming class features, outperformed by almost any similarly-themed class (especially Warlock), problems with resurrection, NPC at capstone
Savant - this class attempts to be everything at once, but, as a result, it's less "jack of all trades", and more "master of none"; it gets everything either a little too late, or just not enough, or both: 4th level of arcane spells at 15th level? Even Hexblade got it a level earlier! 4th level of divine spells at 18th level?! Even Paladins and Rangers got it whole 4 levels earlier (8 levels - if Mystic Ranger)! Sneak Attack 3d6 at 15th level? Seriously?! Wouldn't we got mostly the same results with something like Wizard 7/Cloistered Cleric 7/Rogue 6?
Sha'ir - the very speculation about casting spell which your character doesn't know make me cringe ("spells known" is such a big deal for casters, yet Sha'ir supposed to just sidestep it?); further, Sha'ir supposed to Summon Gen Familiar, but can't (not enough gp) and will stay spelless forever; but even if, somehow, Gen will be summoned - spells are "retrieved" by physically traveling to another plane... which means, among other things, "planar hazards" and "random encounters". How good exactly are chances of 1 HD CR ½ Tiny Outsider to survive random encounter at another plane?



I really, really hate base classes that are just combinations of two other classes. That's what you made prestige classes for, you dense designers. So paladin, ranger, bard, and a few others I can't think of can all go burn.Firstly, there are Prestigious Character Classes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/prestigiousCharacterClasses.htm).
Secondly, how about the E6 games? At which level you can enter a PrC there?
Thirdly, the very access to PrCs is an optional rule - what if DM doesn't use it.
Also, Bard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bard_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)#Advanced_Dungeons_.26_ Dragons_1st_edition) already was a "prestige class":
Bards in First Edition AD&D were a special class unavailable for initial character creation. A character could become a bard only after meeting specific and difficult requirements, achieving levels in multiple character classes, becoming a bard only later.



PF Alchemist, because it's scattered quite crazily. You have bombs, mind and body altering substances and weird ass potion things all in one class, with no specializing in the base class's abilities. Each one of those could make a class on it's own, with rather little difficulty.I heard a very unflattering description of PF Alchemist: "Refluffed Warlock with limited usage-per-day". Is it truth?



As a fan of sorcerers I actually hate that theme. I suppose I prefer taking a more… for lack of a better phrase… Anakin Skywalker approachMidichlorians are over 9000?
No, seriously, are you familiar with "spellworms" theory?

being descended from something besides dragonsIn Player's Handbook II, there are Celestial Sorcerer and Infernal Sorcerer feat lines; in various Dragon magazines, articles "Aquatic Fey Kin" (#335), "Arcane Ancestry" (#311)/"Arcane Ancestry 2" (#325), "Unusual Spells" (#338) have some more possible sources to sorcerous abilities



Favored Soul: Specially chosen by your god, yet you get not a lot of worthwhile stuff. Seems half baked.I like Favored Soul for spontaneous casting, but dislike for MAD
Dragon Shaman: Cause dragonfire adept exists, as well as marshals. You are out of place.Same may be said about Ranger, Druid and Fighter; DFA is definitely better, but have different fluff, and was printed later

Hexblade: Needs update badly, very cool and flavorful but as written terrible.True. Also, it's arcane caster which may fall. :smallannoyed:



You've never played a Death Delver. You've never met anyone whose played a Death Delver. But the fact that animate dead is a 2nd level Death Delver spell makes Chameleons (and Archivists, and Artificers, and Erudites) substantially stronger. That's stupid. I still think the Chameleon is probably cool enough to be okay, but the thing where it gets more powerful because people write classes no one plays is kind of terrible.What's it about the Death Delver? :smallconfused:
Animate Dead is a 3rd level spell for Death Delver, but 2nd level for Death Master (Dragon Compendium)



Gotta hate the paladin, because divine grace, lay hands on, and smite evil run on charisma. Here's why this is bad:

Smite Evil: Oh your pretty, you clearly hit harder.

Divine Grace: You talk rather well, you clearly are harder to kill.

Lay Hands On: You are good at singing and handling animals, so you obviously are able to heal people by touch alone.

Silly Paladin.*face palm*Charisma is always considered the most magical of all abilities: most of racial magical tricks keyed on Cha; still, unless you playing social-heavy campaign, Serenity feat (switch all to Wis) considered superior



I also kind of dislike the "fighter-based" classes (barb, ranger, swashbuckler, paladin) just because I feel their abilities should have been included as possible ways to build a fighter.Actually, Paladin and Ranger already were it in earlier editions



Rogue: I love skillmonkeys. I should love rogues. I want to love rogues. I love roguish characters in other games and in other media. But man, D&D/PF Rogues are so disappointing. You're a slave to sneak attack. Low levels, out of combat, you're pretty cool and can do lots of stuff, but as you level up you basically get demoted to backup wizard, wondering why you spent so many points on climb and jump now that you have this handy flight item. In combat, you spend all your character resources and half of your actions to make your underwhelming situational damage bonus less underwhelming and situational. You can't hit worth a damn, your regular damage sucks, and you can take 2 hits before you're dead. Botch your sneak, perception, or initiative roll and you're an Expert in light armor. If you can consistently go first and get surprise rounds you'll kill 1, maybe 2 guys at the start of combat, and then struggle to keep up with the Fighter, who's probably going to take all your kills as soon as you give him a flanking bonus. You have to move around so much to set up every attack that you almost never get to use your full attack, and then when you do use it to murder a BBEG the DM is all "you can't get multiple sneak attacks a round! that's too OP!" Trapfinding never really feels like an organic part of the character, just a thing that only you can do for some reason. And if your DM actually likes traps and uses them a lot, you're going to hate them because you're the one that always has to go first.Excuse me, but if you say that - then you just missing the whole point of 3.X Rogue: it's not a Sneak Attack (after all, "feat Rogue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue)" exist), it's the skills!
Why struggling to shiv an enemy, when you can defeat the whole encounter with just one skill check (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html)?
Also, really, "why you spent so many points on climb and jump"? They both are Strength-keyed skills.
Are you trying to play Str-based Rogue?
Instead, high ranks in Hide and Move Silently allow you to stay hidden better than by Invisibility or Polymorph, mundane Disguise doesn't fail against True Seeing, Escape Artist - squeeze through a keyhole, and Balance - literally walk on air, and social skills are one of the most powerful things in the whole game



The. Samurai. Need I say more?I hope you meant CW Samurai?




That's what I'm getting at, Truestrike should be on classes with more Martial stuff because those classes get a lot more use out of it.Duskblade; Assassin, Nentyar Hunter, Runescarred Berserker
Side-note: Ferocity of Sanguine Rage may be used to activate True Strike effect



The tinfoil hat trick is merely why Anti-magic field is a pointless spell no one ever actually bothers with. Create a large dome or cone depending on your hat of choice. Make it large enough to cover your square, surrounding you. Shrink item plus permanency to make a hat out of it. If you make it admantine good luck breaking in to get at the wizard even IF you get a turn to try before he teleports out. Congratulations. AMF is no longer a thing. You want to make a point that anyone can do this? Yes, and that's precisely WHY AMF is a useless spell. In response to having AMF called out as utterly pointless you called on DM fiat which is roughly translated to: ''I have nothing more to say and concede the argument.'' around here. Now do you have an actual, relevant thing a fighter in any way does superior to a wizard? AMF isn't one of them. Fighters don't have the tools to make tinfoil hats, nor the teleportation to make proper use of them. An AMF of sufficient size is actually significantly more of an impediment to a fighter than a wizard. They lose all their little magic items, and then just die to instantaneous conjuration orb of X spells.Imbue Arrow (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/arcaneArcher.htm#imbueArrow) (Antimagic Field (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/antimagicField.htm)) - that way target couldn't walk out of range



Barbarians tick me off solely based on the idea that someone from a tribal setting is automatically a bezerker type guy and that they lose the ability to rage if they half integrate into society by becoming neutral.Actually, there is "Crafty Hunter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#barbarian)" variant - rarely used (for obvious reasons), but still there



Oh, and nobody mentioned hate. Rage and hate can be related but they are not inherently so.True. Hate is closer to Favored Enemy (which upgraded to Hated Enemy in Foe Hunter PrC), and Sworn Foe of Corrupt Avenger PrC kinda merging both concepts



Every prepared caster just feels same-y and overpowered.Healer?
Adept?
Telflammar Shadowlord? :smallamused:

[Nifft]

The big deal ability of the Factotum (extra actions) comes on-line at the same level as celerity would from Sorcerer levels, ... except without an action trigger ("therefore it's a free action! and as many times as I want in a row with no limits!").

IMHO it's broken, and I mean that in both of the usual senses.


That'd be some trick, considering how the Chameleon came out two years before Tome of Battle. ... then don't print that variant two years before it's possible to print that variant.

I mean, c'mon. Are you deliberately seeking out the most stupid way to interpret every sentence I write?

Class variants & adaptations & alternate class features are printed long after the original class, and this is not in any way unusual.


I don't think what you're asking for is unreasonable, I just think there really aren't that many martial options you could give the Chameleon to compete with spells (especially if the Chameleon remembers it can pilfer from the Trapsmith or Demonologist lists). Yeah, and I'm not even asking for something which is directly as powerful as optimized spellcasting.

I just want something which is worth using sometimes in addition to spellcasting, so my Chameleon characters have other options than just being a funky Mystic Theurge every single day.

Like, I dunno, maybe:

Replace Stealth with SKILLED, and give a stack of bonus Skill Tricks + Incarnate soulmeld progression.

Replace Wild with BESTIAL, and give access to Rage & Wild Shape, plus a disposable animal companion for the duration.

Replace Combat with MARTIAL, and give Warblade maneuver progression & refresh, but to any 3 schools instead of 5 pre-selected schools.

... and stuff.

There's no reason this needed to be printed with the original class. These would include variants that demand access to another rule book, so putting them in the other rule books is quite sensible. There could also be variants which drop one of the 5 usual personas for access to something like:
- PSIONIC - another floating bonus feat and Psi powers
- DRAGON - emulate a Dragonfire Adept breath & invocations
- LEADER - auras like a Marshal and/or Dragon Shaman, plus Inspire Courage
- FIEND - Warlock powers & half-fiend features
- TINKERER - Artificer infusions, perks when using magic items, and boosts to UMD (no craft points, but the floating bonus feat does help with this persona during downtime)

[Cosi]

IWhat's it about the Death Delver? :smallconfused:
Animate Dead is a 3rd level spell for Death Delver, but 2nd level for Death Master (Dragon Compendium)

I do. My bad, although I feel like that kind of proves my point.


... except without an action trigger ("therefore it's a free action! and as many times as I want in a row with no limits!").

Well, when you get it you can use it once, because you only have enough inspiration points to use it once. Also, unlike celerity it only goes off on your turn.


... then don't print that variant two years before it's possible to print that variant.

I mean, c'mon. Are you deliberately seeking out the most stupid way to interpret every sentence I write?

WotC never (to my knowledge) printed new options for an existing PrC. It seems strange you assume I would realize that was what you meant.


Class variants & adaptations & alternate class features are printed long after the original class, and this is not in any way unusual.

For PHB classes, plus Psionics (which got upgraded to Core).

[Nifft]

WotC never (to my knowledge) printed new options for an existing PrC. It seems strange you assume I would realize that was what you meant.

Assassins & Blackguards got new spells in several books, so now you are aware of the fact that WotC does in fact print new options for PrCs.

Anyway, I think my opinion is pretty clear, and I'm not particularly trying to convince you -- I just want to say that I love Chameleons, and that's why their gaps annoy me so much.

[Inevitability]

Gotta hate the paladin, because divine grace, lay hands on, and smite evil run on charisma. Here's why this is bad:

Smite Evil: Oh your pretty, you clearly hit harder.

Divine Grace: You talk rather well, you clearly are harder to kill.

Lay Hands On: You are good at singing and handling animals, so you obviously are able to heal people by touch alone.

Silly Paladin.*face palm*

You're absolutely right! For exactly those reasons, I hate clerics, duelists and monks.

Good eyesight? That means the gods have chosen you to be their agent in the mortal world!

Able to decipher ancient writings? Here's some AC!

You're good at knowing when someone is lying? Enjoy your dodging skills!

Seriously, though, it seems like you're viewing all things charisma boosts as directly correlated when this is simply not the case. Having high charisma does indeed make you better at singing, talking, and handling animals, but those aren't the reason paladins add charisma to saves.

Correlation ≠ causation.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I heard a very unflattering description of PF Alchemist: "Refluffed Warlock with limited usage-per-day". Is it truth?
Not really. They're extremely versatile buff-focused 6th-level casters with a non-spell-slot based blasting option. Think Bard, but with potions instead of music.

[Stealth Marmot]

I hope you meant CW Samurai?

Indeed. I don't actually have OA.

But since you prompted me, the Samurai is basically a Fighter without shield proficiency and missing the bonus feats.

let's go down the line and talk about their abilities in CW and why they are terrible.

So the first thing they get is bastard sword proficiency. A bastard sword is d10, only slightly better than a longsword and worse than a greatsword. But that's fine, since they get two weapon proficiency right? For the wakizashi? Except they don't get that feat until level 2. So for first level, you are in fact running around with a d10 weapon when any other fighter has a 2d6 weapon and a bonus feat. Bravo.

But second level, they get two weapon fighting! Only...they can only use it for one particular set of weapons. And not an exceptional set either. It's basically the same as longsword/shortsword combo, but the bastard sword does SLIGHTLY more damage. As in, averaging 1 more. But the Samurai faces the restriction of only being allowed to use those two weapons.

It gets worse. They don't get the bonus feat for improved 2 weapon fighting until 11th level. That's right, you don't get the ability to attack a second time with your off-hand until 5 levels after you meet the BAB requirements for the feat. Technically speaking, you can't even take improved two weapon fighting at 6th level for it just to tide yourself over because technically YOU DON'T HAVE THE FEAT TO BEGIN WITH! So they have a terrible version of two weapon fighting, but that leads me to another point.

On a tangent, two weapon fighting is, as a general rule, useless to most martial classes. The end result under the best of circumstances, at least from core, is +1 average damage over just using a 2 handed weapon (read: Longsword/shortsword over Greatsword). You have to sink multiple feats into it to allow yourself to keep up with the extra attacks you get, and you STILL take a -2 on all attacks while using it!. Whatever SLIGHT damage bonuses are crushed under the fighter with a greatsword using power attack for -2 to attack and +4 to damage. So with all of that, you have to ask what is the point of two weapon fighting? There's only one: bonus damage from other abilities. Two weapon rogues get extra attacks to get sneak attack, Two weapon Rangers get multiple favored enemy damage bonuses, and even fighters can dual wield light weapons for a sweet +4 greater weapon specialization bonus (potentially).

So getting back to the Samurai, what bonus damage do they get on attacks? Oh right, none. Except for Kiai smite, and that is limited by attacks per day, so extra attacks don't help it. In fact, by dividing up the damage, it makes it WORSE for a samurai since they don't get the bonus to hit on both attacks, and only get the damage once.

What about Kiai smites though? Well they get one per day until 7th level, then 2 until 12th level. This is basically a smite attack with a bonus to attack equal to the charisma modifier. So the Samurai is expected to have decent to high charisma now? Well what else is charisma used for by Samurais? 2 skills. Not even kidding, they get a total of 2 skills that use charisma: Diplomacy and Intimidate. I would estimate at BEST you have a +2 charisma modifier, seeing as how Strength, constitution, and dexterity are all more useful. So you are going around able to hit +2 to hit, and +2 damage once or twice a day until you get it for 3 times at 12th level. A fighter will have weapon focus, specialization, and greater weapon focus for a total +2 to hit AND damage for ALL of their melee attacks by around 8th level. Hell by 4th level they have the +2 damage from specialization. Thats one level after Kiai smite once per day. This ability is only marginally useful at best, yet it is treated like a primary class ability.

Level 5 They get quick draw. Again limited to their special weapons. Outdone by a fighter bonus feat at any time, by far since one of the possible fighter bonus feats is, SURPRISE Quick Draw. And it would apply to all weapons.

Level 6 they get Staredown, which adds +4 to intimidate checks to demoralize. Skill Focus (Intimidate) would accomplish nearly the same and be usable out of combat. Demoralizing an opponent is usually a waste of a standard action anyway. HOWEVER the Samurai gets the ability to staredown and demoralize, as a standard action everyone in a 30 foot radius! At 10th level. Demoralizing makes people shaken. An effect equivalent to sickened in debuff. Sickened can be managed in a 20 foot radius with stinking cloud. A 3rd level spell. By that level, a wizard is casting spells like that around 5 times a day. When they aren't doing say, a 10d6 fireball. Intimidation only works against people really, as half the monsters in the game are immune to that sort of thing, and the other half will have tons of hit dice, making intimidate checks hard. At 14th level they can do it as a move action. By that level, it is costing them their second and third attacks.

Then at level 20....know what, I'm not even going to PRETEND anyone made it to level 20 with a Samurai character, and even if they did, Frightful Presence is at best, something like a 5th level spell. For a 20th level character, that is WEAK.

So to review. The Samurai is better served under almost every circumstances using a Greatsword. I'm not even kidding. Do the math, no -2 to attack, almost identical damage, no problems with delayed feats. Quickdraw, which wouldn't happen until 5th level anyway, does not balance that out.

So that removes every class bonus except Kiai Shout, Staredown, and Improved Initiative. Compare those abilities to a bonus feat at first level and even levels, and access to the greater weapon focus and weapon specialization tree. The fighter is MUCH better.

And keep something else in mind, a fighter is considered LOW tier.

[RedMage125]

Number one on the list of classes I hate is the CW Samurai.

Not only is the class BAD, mechanically (the only PC class rated at Tier 6, like a Commoner), but the fluff doesn't fit the crunch AT ALL. Samurai were not dual-wielding swordsmen. Niten style (Two Swords Falling From Heaven) was developed by Miyamoto Musashi, who-while brilliant-was almost defined by how unorthodox he was.

I kind of liked how OA Samurai were not actually PROFICIENT in the katana (bastard sword). Due to the way Exotic Weapons work, a Samurai could use it 2-handed as a martial weapon, which is how most katana were wielded. The Rokugan book further expands by allowing a Samurai from the Dragon Clan to take the feat Way of the Dragon, which effectively granted him Weapon Prof (Katana), Ambidexterity and TWF-ONLY for purposes of fighting with his katana in one hand and wakizashi in off hand.

Don't particularly care for Hexblade from the same book. Interesting concept, poor execution. Honestly, each "Complete" book has ONE base class that I like: Swashbuckler, Favored Soul (a little MAD, but not terrible), Warlock, and Scout.

For the rest of the classes, especially the core ones, a lot of people's issues seems to stem from complaints about Class Design. The Barbarian, for example, was specifically designed to fit the archetype of "unlettered savage from 'uncivilized' region". Which is why people complain about the alignment restriction. Rage was viewed by the designers as requiring a kind of "surrender" to savage impulses that were incompatible with a Lawful alignment. Lawful in alignment has NOTHING to do with Civil Laws of a tribe, city, or nation. So the argument about how "tribal societies often had rigid codes and laws" is absolutely bunk when complaining about Barbarian's alignment restrictions. As is the complaint "if I become lawful, I can't get angry anymore?". Rage is more than just "getting angry", it's a state of increased combat ability. A Lawful Barbarian could be a very rich and flavorful concept. Rage could absolutely be a kind of specially trained "heightened battle-awareness" in which the user strikes hit harder and more accurately, allow him to ignore some damage, but leave him slightly less able to defend himself (represented mechanically as bonus to STR and CON and penalty to AC). This state is taxing and difficult to maintain (which is why it has limited duration, uses per day, and gives fatigue afterwards). The L5R books specify that most Clan warriors (or Bushi) would be "samurai" in game, even if their class was not "Samurai" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html). Such a warrior with levels of Barbarian would be called a "berserker", because "barbarian" has a specific meaning in L5R, and calling a Crab Bushi that would likely get you punched in the face. The Crab Clan also trains Dead-Eyes Berserkers, whose Rage is absolutely a cold, calm, claculated state of battle-awareness. Such a character could absolutely be Lawful. It's a great concept. The limitations on that by RAW are not because of alignment, but rather are an indictment of CLASS DESIGN, because the class was designed to fulfill a narrow and specific archetype.

Same goes for Monk, really, and the wuxia-martial artist steerotype. Several of the monk's class features say they stem from "hours spent in meditation" or the like. When people complain "just because I'm chaotic I can't fight unarmed/be a martial artist?", I roll my eyes. A character who had learned to fight well unarmed is represented by the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, not the monk class. The monk class is very restrictive in the archetype the developers were trying to represent. A Chotic Monk could be a cool and unique character concept, but would best be fitted with some houserules and maybe some new class features. I know Dragon Magazine did a Chaotic Monk at one point in their "Class Acts".

Paladin, as someone mentioned, were knights devoted to GOOD, not devoted to DEITIES. So the complaint "why don't evil gods have paladins?" is always best answered by "Because people devoted to righteousness rarely serve evil gods". Of note is that 4e explicitly changed this for purposes of that edition.

Bards were one in which the alignment restriction never made sense, even with the reasoning they give. "The spontaneous talent, magic, and lifestyle of a bard are incompatible with a lawful alignment". WHAT? Sorcerers have spontaneous magic and can be lawful. Rogues are very talented and can be very spontaneous in action and can be lawful. And lifestyle? The lifestyle that EVERY ADVENTURER shares? I understand that the same argument about Class Design and filling archetypes holds true to the Bard. Bards were meant to fill the "wandering minstrel" archetype. But nothing about that necessitates, nor even implies a chaotic alignment. A Lawful Bard could be someone who seeks to uncover the secrets of the Echoes of Creation, someone whose music is always carefully planned, ordered, and evenly structured. Concept makes sense, limited by narrow Class Design.

The one people complain about the least is, oddly enough, the class with the MOST restrictions of any other. Cleric.

That's right. Clerics have all kinds of wonky rules. The alignment aura they radiate is keyed to their DEITY'S alignment, not theirs. They are prohibited from casting alignment spells opposed to their deity's alignment OR theirs, whichever is more restrictive. There's racial restrictions...a human cleric of Moradin cannot exist.




As for insight, The Giant phrased it well enough so I'll paraphrase; rather than making an assumption about the game world and getting irritated when what's printed doesn't match up, why not adjust your assumptions to fit what's printed? Not like you're going to argue the printed page into changing its mind, eh? :smalltongue:
This is excellent advice for a lot of issues.




I generally think of magic like White Wolf's Mage. They think they can, therefore they can. Some just need a bit more of a push to realize, and not subconsciously block themselves from "disobeying" the "laws" of "physics" than others.

So...if a Factotum doesn't KNOW that it's impossible to grab himself by the scruff of the neck and hold himself at arm's length, can he do it? :wink:

A trump card that can be defeated by a little kid with a snowball, or not being on flat, level ground... you know, like a flying spellcaster.

So many things wrong with this:
Snowball-A wizard only gets hit with a child's snowball if he allows it. He'd have to intentionally lower a number of defenses for that to even be a thing.
Nonlevel ground/Flying - So...that would immediately move the tinfoil hat wizard OUT of the AMF? Tactic successful!

Also, why would anyone want to get within 10 ft to use AMF anyway? People need to seriously review the way that spell works. I've seen people talk about Widening or Shaping the AMF, but those don't work. AMF not only has an Effect of "10 ft emanation", but also a RANGE of 10 ft. So the spell can never extend more than 10 ft from the caster. And it's not a valid target for Enlarge Spell to extend the range, because that feat only works on spells with Close, Medium or Long as the range.

[Lord Raziere]

A trump card that can be defeated by a little kid with a snowball, or not being on flat, level ground... you know, like a flying spellcaster.

Or the fact that tinfoil doesn't exist in medieval fantasy, you don't have the time to find out because at any time a monster might come and eat you while your off guard, and Anti-Magi Field doesn't say anything about it being blocked by tinfoil anyways, thats just physics bull some online people thinks counts because of cheese rules lawyering for their own advantage. there is nothing that says fantasy radiation has to work like real life radiation or that they are related to each other in any way shape or form, and the compulsion to try and match them up is pointless aside from being able to pull off a single trick to their own advantage.

I suspect a lot of these rules lawyering is to the players advantage making them so that they can benefit from them and therefore isn't dealing with other players in good faith by allowing a fair and sensible interpretation of the rules. "My Wizard can do better to benefit everyone else because of it" is not an answer. Thats just benefiting yourself disguised as helping others. Such rules lawyering and the fact the people are so allowing of it is partially why I dislike the wizard.

[stanprollyright]

Excuse me, but if you say that - then you just missing the whole point of 3.X Rogue: it's not a Sneak Attack (after all, "feat Rogue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue)" exist), it's the skills!
Why struggling to shiv an enemy, when you can defeat the whole encounter with just one skill check (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html)?
Also, really, "why you spent so many points on climb and jump"? They both are Strength-keyed skills.
Are you trying to play Str-based Rogue?
Instead, high ranks in Hide and Move Silently allow you to stay hidden better than by Invisibility or Polymorph, mundane Disguise doesn't fail against True Seeing, Escape Artist - squeeze through a keyhole, and Balance - literally walk on air, and social skills are one of the most powerful things in the whole game

I think you missed the first part where I said I love skill monkeys. I just like all the other ones better. Every time I play a straight rogue I'm disappointed. Bards, Factotums, Scouts, Rangers, and even Ninjas all have better and more reliable class features in addition to all of the above.

I actually really like the UA feat Rogue for 1st level dips. Way better than a Fighter dip if you need the feats.

I have played a Str Rogue before. I ended up multiclassing into Barbarian IIRC.

[GilesTheCleric]

There's racial restrictions...a human cleric of Moradin cannot exist.

Do you have a source for that?

[Stealth Marmot]

So...if a Factotum doesn't KNOW that it's impossible to grab himself by the scruff of the neck and hold himself at arm's length, can he do it? :wink:


That depends on whether he can bluff past his own sense motive check.

[Jack_McSnatch]

There's racial restrictions...a human cleric of Moradin cannot exist.


I saw an example countering this in a splatbook, talking about how you could play a half orc cleric of Correllon Larethian. The basic idea is "Larethian beat Gruumsh. Larethian more worthy of orcs praise!"

[A.A.King]

Do you have a source for that?

"A character may not be a cleric of a racial deity unless he is of the right race, but he may worship such a deity and live according to that deity’s guidance. For a deity who is not tied to a particular race (such as Pelor), a cleric’s race is not an issue." - Player's Handbook page 106.

I don't think the rule ever comes up, because when you're looking for a God you probably ignore all the ones that favour a race that isn't yours but technically (unless updated otherwise) you can't do it.

[sonofzeal]

In defence of the Factotum:

I'm a solid advocate for refluffing, so a class is mostly just relevant to me for what it can and can't do, not for how the book describes it. If I took the class fluff as absolute inviolate truth, that'd drastically limit the diversity of characters available and shut down a vast array of roleplaying opportunities. If I played a Duskblade, going by PHB2 pg 21, I'd be required to get along well with Paladins, the party Sorcerer would be required to be jealous of me even if they're outshining me in combat, and the party Bard would be required to admire me even if I'm a total wet blanket. All of those statements are given in the book as absolutes, no "some" or "most" or "usually" to be found. Sorcerers are jealous of Duskblades, full-stop.

Point is, I don't put much stock in the book's descriptions and always feel free to ignore it whenever not backed up by actual class ability rules. Druids and Fey have a special relationship that's enshrined in the rules ("Resist Nature’s Lure"), though going off that rule alone the relationship could be positive or negative, and I'd be happy to interpret it differently depending on the campaign setting or even just the faction of Druids involved. As far as Factotum goes, I've used the class as a sort of variant Rogue, or as a less-silly Bard, or matched with Barbarian levels to make a cunning and mystical hunter. Take it how you want it, and repurpose any descriptions you don't like.

What I care most about a class is, in order of importance:
- It's not gamebreakingly overpowered without significant effort (ie not Erudite).
- Its abilities synergize or make some thematic sense with eachother (ie not Divine Mind).
- It's not overly-complicated (ie not Incarnate).
- It's not fun-sappingly underpowered (ie not Soulblade).
- The same idea isn't handled better by another class (ie not CW Samurai).

Power-wise Factotum generally in a good place without rampant abuse of Font of Inspiration, eight levels in the class, and something special to spend those Standard Actions on (if you're just shooting a bow 3 extra times, nobody cares much). And it's probably the best take on the idea of a generalist that WotC ever came up with; in a game that rewards specialists, it strikes a nice balance. I admit the description of how it casts spells is wonky, but the fact that it can cast (more or less) spells isn't any stranger than it is for a Bard or Ranger. And being very much of a generalist class means it's fairly easy to layer your own interpretations over it.

So I'll give Factotum a solid pass. Erudite, Divine Mind, Incarnate, Soulblade, and CW Samurai are all worse classes in their respective ways.

[ShurikVch]

a human cleric of Moradin cannot exist.Stoneblessed?
Changeling with Racial Emulation?

[Necroticplague]

Or the fact that tinfoil doesn't exist in medieval fantasy, you don't have the time to find out because at any time a monster might come and eat you while your off guard, and Anti-Magi Field doesn't say anything about it being blocked by tinfoil anyways, thats just physics bull some online people thinks counts because of cheese rules lawyering for their own advantage. there is nothing that says fantasy radiation has to work like real life radiation or that they are related to each other in any way shape or form, and the compulsion to try and match them up is pointless aside from being able to pull off a single trick to their own advantage.

Tinfoil might not, but the tactic doesn't change much if you replace the metal with another substance. Heck, simply a conic block of wood would do the trick.

And, actually, AMF does state that it is blocked by things.

Antimagic Field
Abjuration
Level: Clr 8, Magic 6, Protection 6, Sor/Wiz 6
Components: V, S, M/DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 10 ft.
Area: 10-ft.-radius emanation, centered on you
Duration: 10 min./level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: See text
Bolded relevant part. Now, let's see what the rules have to say about emnations:

A burst spell affects whatever it catches in its area, even including creatures that you can’t see. It can’t affect creatures with total cover from its point of origin (in other words, its effects don’t extend around corners). The default shape for a burst effect is a sphere, but some burst spells are specifically described as cone-shaped. A burst’s area defines how far from the point of origin the spell’s effect extends.

An emanation spell functions like a burst spell, except that the effect continues to radiate from the point of origin for the duration of the spell. Most emanations are cones or spheres.
So, if I have a complete, solid layer between me and the emnation, I have total cover, and thus aren't effected.
However, you get the same result if you go a different path, which also says a barrier can block an AMF.

Line of Effect

A line of effect is a straight, unblocked path that indicates what a spell can affect. A line of effect is canceled by a solid barrier. It’s like line of sight for ranged weapons, except that it’s not blocked by fog, darkness, and other factors that limit normal sight.

A burst, cone, cylinder, or emanation spell affects only an area, creatures, or objects to which it has line of effect from its origin (a spherical burst’s center point, a cone-shaped burst’s starting point, a cylinder’s circle, or an emanation’s point of origin). So if something blocks the path, then the emanation can't affect me.

[Nifft]

This actually explains why Wizards wear cone-shaped pointy hats.

Their pointy hats are actually shrunken wooden safe-rooms.

[Inevitability]

I saw an example countering this in a splatbook, talking about how you could play a half orc cleric of Correllon Larethian. The basic idea is "Larethian beat Gruumsh. Larethian more worthy of orcs praise!"

Wouldn't having an orc parent automatically be a 'gross violation' of Corellon's code? :smalltongue:

[Jack_McSnatch]

Wouldn't having an orc parent automatically be a 'gross violation' of Corellon's code? :smalltongue:

No idea I'm just quoting what I found. Wotc does contradict themselves a lot though.

From Hero Builder's guidebook pg 29: Everyone knows half orcs cannot become clerics of Corellon Larethian. But for some reason you don't understand, you're compelled to try.

Personally I think this would be a hilarious character to play. I'd give him like an 8 intelligence.

[Kurald Galain]

Sorcerers are jealous of Duskblades, full-stop.

That you have to go to such absurd arguments to "defend" the factotum is precisely why it repeatedly pops up in a thread of hated classes :smallbiggrin:

[Lord Raziere]

Tinfoil might not, but the tactic doesn't change much if you replace the metal with another substance. Heck, simply a conic block of wood would do the trick.

And, actually, AMF does state that it is blocked by things.

Bolded relevant part. Now, let's see what the rules have to say about emnations:

So, if I have a complete, solid layer between me and the emnation, I have total cover, and thus aren't effected.
However, you get the same result if you go a different path, which also says a barrier can block an AMF.
So if something blocks the path, then the emanation can't affect me.

Hm. I see. It still does not change the fact that this tactic is easily countered by an archer just shooting the hat off out of paranoia- hey look a mundane being useful- THEN someone else casting AMF. I mean by this logic we should assume all wizard hats are these safe houses, and therefore people will attack their hats first. Thus the advantage is negated by the fact that common people not trusting wizard hats.

Realistically all these tactics and innovations would need time to develop, spread and get countered. the myth of an instant win wizard is ignoring a world that reacts to their shenanigans. or the fact that no matter how great you are, everyone makes mistakes eventually and if you prepare so much well....I'd start calling rolls to randomly determine which thing you prepare fails with no chance to fix it or you realizing what thing you prepared is improperly done. A lot of stuff these wizards make sound like machinery, and machinery can breakdown.

Notice I wouldn't be choosing which thing breaks down, but the dice would, so its up you whether you want to chance your luck.

[ryu]

Hm. I see. It still does not change the fact that this tactic is easily countered by an archer just shooting the hat off out of paranoia- hey look a mundane being useful- THEN someone else casting AMF. I mean by this logic we should assume all wizard hats are these safe houses, and therefore people will attack their hats first. Thus the advantage is negated by the fact that common people not trusting wizard hats.

Realistically all these tactics and innovations would need time to develop, spread and get countered. the myth of an instant win wizard is ignoring a world that reacts to their shenanigans. or the fact that no matter how great you are, everyone makes mistakes eventually and if you prepare so much well....I'd start calling rolls to randomly determine which thing you prepare fails with no chance to fix it or you realizing what thing you prepared is improperly done. A lot of stuff these wizards make sound like machinery, and machinery can breakdown.

Notice I wouldn't be choosing which thing breaks down, but the dice would, so its up you whether you want to chance your luck.

Wind wall or friendly fire spells. Archers aren't and never were a thing in this game. Or for that matter just making more than one hat and wearing them under each other. This isn't even hard.

Also your houserules are amusing but irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

[sonofzeal]

That you have to go to such absurd arguments to "defend" the factotum is precisely why it repeatedly pops up in a thread of hated classes :smallbiggrin:

Sheesh, it's called a hyperbole.

I doubt you'd find many who'd enforce that kind of limitation, sure. But absolutely there are plenty who agree with me about refluffing on general principal, and that's just a clearer instance where just about everyone would agree that rigorous adherence to the fluff is silly.

Tell me, do you think refluffing in general is "absurd"?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Or the fact that tinfoil doesn't exist in medieval fantasy, you don't have the time to find out because at any time a monster might come and eat you while your off guard, and Anti-Magi Field doesn't say anything about it being blocked by tinfoil anyways, thats just physics bull some online people thinks counts because of cheese rules lawyering for their own advantage. there is nothing that says fantasy radiation has to work like real life radiation or that they are related to each other in any way shape or form, and the compulsion to try and match them up is pointless aside from being able to pull off a single trick to their own advantage.

I suspect a lot of these rules lawyering is to the players advantage making them so that they can benefit from them and therefore isn't dealing with other players in good faith by allowing a fair and sensible interpretation of the rules. "My Wizard can do better to benefit everyone else because of it" is not an answer. Thats just benefiting yourself disguised as helping others. Such rules lawyering and the fact the people are so allowing of it is partially why I dislike the wizard.

You clearly didn't know what the tinfoil hat trick was when you wrote this.

As you seem to have gathered from necroticplague's post, the hat isn't necesarily made of tin-foil. It's made by taking a conical structure (I actually perfer a hemispheric one for a skullcap) just big enough to hide under and subjecting it to a permanent shrink object effect. The resultant "hat" will resume its normal shape and material composition (remember shrink object's cloth-like option) when subjected to an AMF and instantly break line of effect between the caster and the source of the AMF. If you use something particularly solid, I like lead-lined iron, it can reliably squash any small objects that might otherwise prevent it from contacting the ground and may even sink slightly into less than completely solid earth.


Hm. I see. It still does not change the fact that this tactic is easily countered by an archer just shooting the hat off out of paranoia- hey look a mundane being useful- THEN someone else casting AMF. I mean by this logic we should assume all wizard hats are these safe houses, and therefore people will attack their hats first. Thus the advantage is negated by the fact that common people not trusting wizard hats.

Ranged disarm is rather an uncommon feat and style isn't the only reason I prefer a tinfoil skullcap.


Realistically all these tactics and innovations would need time to develop, spread and get countered. the myth of an instant win wizard is ignoring a world that reacts to their shenanigans.

Forotten Realms' history is measured in 10's of thousands of years and who knows how much prehistory. It's also home to the old netherese empire. Advanced wizardry will have been a thing for a while.


or the fact that no matter how great you are, everyone makes mistakes eventually and if you prepare so much well....

You're not wrong here and there are counters to all the usual tricks and a number of unusual ones as well. I honestly can't think of one thing that doesn't have some counter. Tinfoil hats can be turned against their owner by the imbue arrow plus AMF combo and antimagic ray has always been more effective than antimagic field.


I'd start calling rolls to randomly determine which thing you prepare fails with no chance to fix it or you realizing what thing you prepared is improperly done. A lot of stuff these wizards make sound like machinery, and machinery can breakdown.

Not with ya here at all. There's nothing appropriate about punishing a player for playing his character too well. If you can't handle the level of play he's on, be honest about it and ask him to back off.


Notice I wouldn't be choosing which thing breaks down, but the dice would, so its up you whether you want to chance your luck.

"It's what the character would do!" Players don't get away with BS for BS excuses and DM's don't either. You're talking about punishing a player for playing too well. That's BS and blaming the dice doesn't change that.

[Zanos]

Hm. I see. It still does not change the fact that this tactic is easily countered by an archer just shooting the hat off out of paranoia- hey look a mundane being useful- THEN someone else casting AMF. I mean by this logic we should assume all wizard hats are these safe houses, and therefore people will attack their hats first. Thus the advantage is negated by the fact that common people not trusting wizard hats.
It's only named the tinfoil hat trick as wordplay on it being a viable tactic for extremely paranoid wizards. The "tinfoil hat" is not necessarily made out of tinfoil or a hat.


Realistically all these tactics and innovations would need time to develop, spread and get countered. the myth of an instant win wizard is ignoring a world that reacts to their shenanigans. or the fact that no matter how great you are, everyone makes mistakes eventually and if you prepare so much well....I'd start calling rolls to randomly determine which thing you prepare fails with no chance to fix it or you realizing what thing you prepared is improperly done. A lot of stuff these wizards make sound like machinery, and machinery can breakdown.

Craft is intelligence based, which powerful wizards tend to have double digit modifiers in. In the canon world of Faerun, many powerful spellcasters are even still alive and powerful after all magic in the Realms failed twice.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Well, I was never good at math classes, and my high school history and government classes were garba-

Oh, RPG classes. Right. Just pathfinder here, but there aren't any classes I dislike on principle, besides maybe non-unchained Summoner. There are classes that I haven't seen played well by others, like samurai, but it's a decent class, one of my favorite characters is one. He's also patently ridiculous as he was envisioned as a half-viking, half-samurai, katana and handaxe TWF-ing warrior that PrCed into Mammoth Rider, but hey, I might just be a hypocrite. I've seen good monks and I've seen bad monks, I've seen good paladins and bad paladins... really, the only classes I can squarely say I've never enjoyed being played is a gunslinger, and even then its not because I have gripes with the mechanics, its just that the players didn't really have a character other than the stats. I've even had fun with a summoner with aforementioned samurai, since I figured I could ride the mount and both of us would get bonuses.

I guess the class I wouldn't like would be... the ninja? It's just sad. I don't think it's bad, but it's hard to consolidate with the Unchained Rogue, which I really like.

[Arbane]

Not with ya here at all. There's nothing appropriate about punishing a player for playing his character too well. If you can't handle the level of play he's on, be honest about it and ask him to back off.


There's a point in most UberWizard(tm) arguments where I can't help thinking it's time for some direct Godly retribution for the wizard's ridiculous level of hubris. (The point where the wizards is using Mind Rape to make sure they have enough Solars to serve as towel-boys in their demiplane is one such breakpoint.)

Oh, back to the OP: WIZARDS. For reasons the last few pages should make abundantly clear. :smallmad:

[Morphic tide]

Some more reasons why I hate some classes:

Warlock, Artificer, Alchemist and Summoner, for the shared reason of having a subsystem (or three, for the Alchemist) that only they use.

One time, I saw a 3.5 Warlock overhaul intended to replace the normal Warlock that had a completely different fluff with more in common with Sorcerers than Warlocks and abilities that work better for other classes in the same subsystem of Evocations. Why not make a new class that focuses on the magical bloodline fluff, retconning Sorcerers to diluted or recessive expression of such things, explaining why the new class works so differently? Why not make a new class that infuses unstable, almost raw, arcane energy into items acting as an Artificer for Invocations and/or Pact Magic? That overhaul had things that could be used as the foundation of three different classes crammed into one, and replaced the class for one of them.

Artificer Infusions are an amazing idea, made broken by the CoDzilla problem of no restrictions on access. Give Artificers an Infiusions Known limit and restrict their crafting to that list and they are a lot more balanced. Make it small enough and infinite potential item crafting is balanced, or you can have the crafting reserve refill slow enough that it doesn't matter in normal campaigns. But why use the setup for only magic and psionic items? Why not use it for Invocations, or Soulmelds, or any of the other supernatural subsystems as magic items? I mean, yes, you have the issue of having to make magic items for all those things, but you can always go to the fallback of being 70% "X effect, but Y power source instead" that some Psionic items end up being and 30% actually new stuff.

Alchemists. They have two types of exclusive buff item, a crafting system unto themselves that is amazing for an Artificer overhaul and bombs. Yes, there are PF Archetypes that give the buff items and bombs to other classes, but the Extracts are exclusive to Alchemists. Why can't we have a Mutagen focused class that uses Eidolon rules for a Homunculus? Why can't we have a Cognigen focused class that wields Psionics (or associated ripoff) through their expanded mental capacity? Why can't we have a pure bomber that can and will wreck things with bombs that they attach to arrows or fire out of blunderbusses, use as grenades and pull a Demoman with by attaching them to a stick they hit people with? (Okay, that's basically just Demoman as a Fighter/Alchemist hybrid class...)

There are several class possibilities that would love to have Eidolon mutations, like a worshipper of Lamashtu that actually becomes monstrous over time/as they get stronger, or a hybrid class with Alchemist that uses the mutations to describe more detailed changes than "+4 Str, +2 Con" on a Homunculus that advances like an Eidolon. You can also have the Eidolon's mutation subsystem be used to describe Protean type creatures who have inconsistent forms at best, rapidly shifting everything at worst. You might even make a class using the same forces as the Summoner that focuses on the Aspect class feature's implied possibilities, granting Eidolon mutations as temporary buffs.

My problem with 3.5 Clerics and Druids, and how to fix it:

As many people know, Clerics and Druids are broken as hell. The main reason, many people think, is access to their entire spell lists, which stops both game balance and coherent character abilities. But we already have things that work to restrict this access. The Cleric domain spell system.

The fix I kind of propose for 3.5 style Clerics and Druids is to play up the Domains. Give them different selections of domains, maybe have entry requirements to using domains. Instead of Heal being Cleric 6, it should only be Healing or Life 6. This forces Clerics and Druids to specialize by making them pick from focused spell lists that are built around a concept, with some spells being universal access to Cleric or Druid.

Cleric domains would be built mainly around the concepts civilization builds around words, resulting in more abstract connections like having Animate Object being in both Craft and Life. Druid domains would be built on much more literal things and aspects of nature, resulting in domains like Predation, with tracking and melee supporting spells, and Growth, housing healing and literal Grow spells, including food from existing plants and seeds.

Clerics would keep their deity domains only restriction, but would gain access to more domains as they level than Druids. This would serve to keep them more grounded as being given power by their god, as they would not have access to anything that lays outside their God's domains. For philosophy based Clerics, you'd make a list of common philosophies to be devoted to with domains associated with each, trying to ignore actual historic implementations of the philosophies and focus on the actual intent of the philosophy. For example, a Cleric devoted to the philosophy of Yin/Yang would be restricted to a non-chaotic, non-extreme (as in LG or LE) alignment and get domains like Order, Community, Balance and such.

Druids would have more broad domains, but overall get fewer, both in terms of the number of domains and in terms of how many they get. Because they are devoted to the true version of Nature, rather than the philosophical cultural construct of the idea of Nature, they would have no restrictions on which domains of theirs they could get because all Druids are focused on the literal truths of what nature is. That's what sets them apart from Clerics of Nature, who focus on the civilized ideal of nature. Clerics of Nature would have domains like Life, Healing and maybe Hunting. Druids would have domains like Rot, Fire, Storms and Age.

What do ya think of the overhaul idea?

[Marlowe]

Rogue. Terribly overspecialized class with abilities that most of the time either aren't needed, aren't working, or are beaten out by the abilities of some other class that's also better in other areas. Horribly reliant on the assistance of other party members. Requires active DM pampering to be useful. Always, always, ALWAYS played with a sense of entitlement to such pampering. Good for nothing but getting the other players into trouble, pulling adventures out of shape, and whining about being useless again. I no longer have the slightest amount of time for this class.

[ryu]

Rogue. Terribly overspecialized class with abilities that most of the time either aren't needed, aren't working, or are beaten out by the abilities of some other class that's also better in other areas. Horribly reliant on the assistance of other party members. Requires active DM pampering to be useful. Always, always, ALWAYS played with a sense of entitlement to such pampering. Good for nothing but getting the other players into trouble, pulling adventures out of shape, and whining about being useless again. I no longer have the slightest amount of time for this class.

Oh and lets not forget the hyper aggressive niche protection that means an entire skill (debatably two) is basically useless to people who lack the approved ability to trapfind. And the trap finding is almost always binary boring dice roles with nothing interesting like choice of tactics or the interplay of how best to use limited resources in imperfect knowledge.

[Nifft]

My problem with 3.5 Clerics and Druids, and how to fix it:

As many people know, Clerics and Druids are broken as hell. The main reason, many people think, is access to their entire spell lists, which stops both game balance and coherent character abilities. But we already have things that work to restrict this access. The Cleric domain spell system.

The fix I kind of propose for 3.5 style Clerics and Druids is to play up the Domains. Give them different selections of domains, maybe have entry requirements to using domains. Instead of Heal being Cleric 6, it should only be Healing or Life 6. This forces Clerics and Druids to specialize by making them pick from focused spell lists that are built around a concept, with some spells being universal access to Cleric or Druid.

I did basically the opposite: instead of trying to make Domains bigger or re-write some kind of Sphere subsystem, I just put a hard cap on the spell list size of Clerics & Druids, and said they can design their own custom spell lists by exchanging stuff in Core for stuff in splats on a one-for-one basis. (I also collapse all the Chaos / Good / Evil / Law spells into a single spell, so you can't trade out 3/4 of those. They all count as one.)

So for example every Druid has 10 spells of 9th level, but they're not all the same spells.

This has the added advantage of NOT being a pain in my butt as a DM, since the players have the burden of evaluating choices & making decisions about flavor or power or whatever.

The other advantage my system has is that it applies to Paladins, Rangers, and Druids, unlike the Domain system which doesn't apply to them at all.

[sonofzeal]

Some more reasons why I hate some classes:

Warlock, Artificer, Alchemist and Summoner, for the shared reason of having a subsystem (or three, for the Alchemist) that only they use.

One time, I saw a 3.5 Warlock overhaul intended to replace the normal Warlock that had a completely different fluff with more in common with Sorcerers than Warlocks and abilities that work better for other classes in the same subsystem of Evocations. Why not make a new class that focuses on the magical bloodline fluff, retconning Sorcerers to diluted or recessive expression of such things, explaining why the new class works so differently? Why not make a new class that infuses unstable, almost raw, arcane energy into items acting as an Artificer for Invocations and/or Pact Magic? That overhaul had things that could be used as the foundation of three different classes crammed into one, and replaced the class for one of them.

Artificer Infusions are an amazing idea, made broken by the CoDzilla problem of no restrictions on access. Give Artificers an Infiusions Known limit and restrict their crafting to that list and they are a lot more balanced. Make it small enough and infinite potential item crafting is balanced, or you can have the crafting reserve refill slow enough that it doesn't matter in normal campaigns. But why use the setup for only magic and psionic items? Why not use it for Invocations, or Soulmelds, or any of the other supernatural subsystems as magic items? I mean, yes, you have the issue of having to make magic items for all those things, but you can always go to the fallback of being 70% "X effect, but Y power source instead" that some Psionic items end up being and 30% actually new stuff.

Alchemists. They have two types of exclusive buff item, a crafting system unto themselves that is amazing for an Artificer overhaul and bombs. Yes, there are PF Archetypes that give the buff items and bombs to other classes, but the Extracts are exclusive to Alchemists. Why can't we have a Mutagen focused class that uses Eidolon rules for a Homunculus? Why can't we have a Cognigen focused class that wields Psionics (or associated ripoff) through their expanded mental capacity? Why can't we have a pure bomber that can and will wreck things with bombs that they attach to arrows or fire out of blunderbusses, use as grenades and pull a Demoman with by attaching them to a stick they hit people with? (Okay, that's basically just Demoman as a Fighter/Alchemist hybrid class...)

There are several class possibilities that would love to have Eidolon mutations, like a worshipper of Lamashtu that actually becomes monstrous over time/as they get stronger, or a hybrid class with Alchemist that uses the mutations to describe more detailed changes than "+4 Str, +2 Con" on a Homunculus that advances like an Eidolon. You can also have the Eidolon's mutation subsystem be used to describe Protean type creatures who have inconsistent forms at best, rapidly shifting everything at worst. You might even make a class using the same forces as the Summoner that focuses on the Aspect class feature's implied possibilities, granting Eidolon mutations as temporary buffs.

My problem with 3.5 Clerics and Druids, and how to fix it:

As many people know, Clerics and Druids are broken as hell. The main reason, many people think, is access to their entire spell lists, which stops both game balance and coherent character abilities. But we already have things that work to restrict this access. The Cleric domain spell system.

The fix I kind of propose for 3.5 style Clerics and Druids is to play up the Domains. Give them different selections of domains, maybe have entry requirements to using domains. Instead of Heal being Cleric 6, it should only be Healing or Life 6. This forces Clerics and Druids to specialize by making them pick from focused spell lists that are built around a concept, with some spells being universal access to Cleric or Druid.

Cleric domains would be built mainly around the concepts civilization builds around words, resulting in more abstract connections like having Animate Object being in both Craft and Life. Druid domains would be built on much more literal things and aspects of nature, resulting in domains like Predation, with tracking and melee supporting spells, and Growth, housing healing and literal Grow spells, including food from existing plants and seeds.

Clerics would keep their deity domains only restriction, but would gain access to more domains as they level than Druids. This would serve to keep them more grounded as being given power by their god, as they would not have access to anything that lays outside their God's domains. For philosophy based Clerics, you'd make a list of common philosophies to be devoted to with domains associated with each, trying to ignore actual historic implementations of the philosophies and focus on the actual intent of the philosophy. For example, a Cleric devoted to the philosophy of Yin/Yang would be restricted to a non-chaotic, non-extreme (as in LG or LE) alignment and get domains like Order, Community, Balance and such.

Druids would have more broad domains, but overall get fewer, both in terms of the number of domains and in terms of how many they get. Because they are devoted to the true version of Nature, rather than the philosophical cultural construct of the idea of Nature, they would have no restrictions on which domains of theirs they could get because all Druids are focused on the literal truths of what nature is. That's what sets them apart from Clerics of Nature, who focus on the civilized ideal of nature. Clerics of Nature would have domains like Life, Healing and maybe Hunting. Druids would have domains like Rot, Fire, Storms and Age.

What do ya think of the overhaul idea?

My #1 favorite RAW Cleric fix is just to use the Evangelist variant (not the PrC, the variant from Dr 311) as the default norm. Spontaneous casting with fixed known spells pulled primarily from the Domain lists, with extra Domains as you level up. You get a few Spells Known off the general list, but at most level you'll have the majority of your total Spells Known, and nearly all of your higher level spells, off the Domains. So someone worshiping a deity without Healing or Life could still pick up Raise Dead, but it's much more of an investment for them, and they'd be hard-pressed to have the full repertoire of curatives that someone with Healing or Life gets baked-in. It's probably a small step down in power from the default Cleric, but definitely a major advance in making domains vital, and the rules for it are right in RAW.

[Lord Raziere]

Not with ya here at all. There's nothing appropriate about punishing a player for playing his character too well. If you can't handle the level of play he's on, be honest about it and ask him to back off.

"It's what the character would do!" Players don't get away with BS for BS excuses and DM's don't either. You're talking about punishing a player for playing too well. That's BS and blaming the dice doesn't change that.

I'm sorry, but your talking as if your playing on "higher" level than me. Your not. Your just breaking the game, don't do it. Don't try to excuse it as "playing better" when your just making the machine break down from overcharging it and putting together pieces that were never intended to be put together. You don't get rewards or appreciation for figuring out how to abuse glitches in programming, you patch the glitches and use it as it was meant to be. So that everyone can have fun, not just you. A GM thinks about the game for everyone and a good player thinks about the game for everyone as well, and by doing these tricks first your the one starting this by thinking only of yourself.

Its kind of pointless to play the game that way anyways, because there is no challenge, so its just stroking your own fake awesomeness. Kind of like getting too high a level in Skyrim. At some point, its just not worth it when your just one-shotting everything and not getting any real satisfaction out of it.

You want to play better, you have to face more challenges. Playing better is not about things being easier, its about things being harder and still winning. Easy mode Wizard is not playing better. Its just trivializing challenges by using spells that are easy to see how better they are and easy to apply. Press the spell button and you win. Easy mode, thy name is One Spell Man.

[Marlowe]

Oh and lets not forget the hyper aggressive niche protection that means an entire skill (debatably two) is basically useless to people who lack the approved ability to trapfind. And the trap finding is almost always binary boring dice roles with nothing interesting like choice of tactics or the interplay of how best to use limited resources in imperfect knowledge.

Oddly enough, I don't mind playing Rogues. Or playing alongside one. The problem comes when I'm DMing and I realise that with a Rogue in the party I'm somehow expected to provide certain types of challenges and opponents while avoiding others, just so the Rogue can look relevant. In short, they bend the entire game around their weaknesses. I can't think of any other class that has such detrimental metagame effect.

[Arbane]

I can't think of any other class that has such detrimental metagame effect.

Paladins?

(I like the IDEA of Paladins, but any class with 'Cause Alignment Argument/Lose All Class Features' as at-will powers has problems.)

[ryu]

I'm sorry, but your talking as if your playing on "higher" level than me. Your not. Your just breaking the game, don't do it. Don't try to excuse it as "playing better" when your just making the machine break down from overcharging it and putting together pieces that were never intended to be put together. You don't get rewards or appreciation for figuring out how to abuse glitches in programming, you patch the glitches and use it as it was meant to be. So that everyone can have fun, not just you. A GM thinks about the game for everyone and a good player thinks about the game for everyone as well, and by doing these tricks first your the one starting this by thinking only of yourself.

Its kind of pointless to play the game that way anyways, because there is no challenge, so its just stroking your own fake awesomeness. Kind of like getting too high a level in Skyrim. At some point, its just not worth it when your just one-shotting everything and not getting any real satisfaction out of it.

You want to play better, you have to face more challenges. Playing better is not about things being easier, its about things being harder and still winning. Easy mode Wizard is not playing better. Its just trivializing challenges by using spells that are easy to see how better they are and easy to apply. Press the spell button and you win. Easy mode, thy name is One Spell Man.

Oh there's plenty more challenge. The enemies in our campaign world? Other casters. We don't pretend mundanes are competent, and play the casters more or less to potential with the only limiter rules being no truly unlimited loops, no pun-pun, and no aleaxs. At that point it IS playing on a higher level. I have an entire notebook filled with various spells, reactions, plans, and other such things to do in a given situation. I require this notebook because the enemy is expected to be similarly powerful and intelligent. We command armies, battle for entire planes of existence on a regular basis, and face enemies that wouldn't acknowledge the standard healbot, blaster, skillmonkey, beatstick party as a threat and be entirely right not to. Why? They'd die before any dice were rolled.

[Technetium43]

I'm sorry, but your talking as if your playing on "higher" level than me. Your not. Your just breaking the game, don't do it. Don't try to excuse it as "playing better" when your just making the machine break down from overcharging it and putting together pieces that were never intended to be put together. You don't get rewards or appreciation for figuring out how to abuse glitches in programming, you patch the glitches and use it as it was meant to be. So that everyone can have fun, not just you. A GM thinks about the game for everyone and a good player thinks about the game for everyone as well, and by doing these tricks first your the one starting this by thinking only of yourself.

Its kind of pointless to play the game that way anyways, because there is no challenge, so its just stroking your own fake awesomeness. Kind of like getting too high a level in Skyrim. At some point, its just not worth it when your just one-shotting everything and not getting any real satisfaction out of it.

You want to play better, you have to face more challenges. Playing better is not about things being easier, its about things being harder and still winning. Easy mode Wizard is not playing better. Its just trivializing challenges by using spells that are easy to see how better they are and easy to apply. Press the spell button and you win. Easy mode, thy name is One Spell Man.

It seems that you have made the unfortunate mistake of assuming that optimization has literally anything to do with the actual game of D&D most people play. This is patently untrue, and in fact the default assumption of Theoretical Optimization. That's why it's CALLED Theoretical Optimization. Of course people aren't going to break actual games like this. :/

Unless the campaign is specifically built around this stuff (like in ryu's example above) it's irrelevant.

[ryu]

It seems that you have made the unfortunate mistake of assuming that optimization has literally anything to do with the actual game of D&D most people play. This is patently untrue, and in fact the default assumption of Theoretical Optimization. That's why it's CALLED Theoretical Optimization. Of course people aren't going to break actual games like this. :/

Unless the campaign is specifically built around this stuff (like in ryu's example above) it's irrelevant.

There's actually games at every level of power. I've heard of people playing as non-chicken infested commoners, and my group is far from the only super high power one. Further none of what we do involves ''glitches.'' Every single individual spell used is being used in ways they were obviously written as doing precisely what we're using them for. The game devs just didn't understand even slightly how powerful most of them were when they were writing them.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Oh there's plenty more challenge. The enemies in our campaign world? Other casters. We don't pretend mundanes are competent, and play the casters more or less to potential with the only limiter rules being no truly unlimited loops, no pun-pun, and no aleaxs. At that point it IS playing on a higher level. I have an entire notebook filled with various spells, reactions, plans, and other such things to do in a given situation. I require this notebook because the enemy is expected to be similarly powerful and intelligent. We command armies, battle for entire planes of existence on a regular basis, and face enemies that wouldn't acknowledge the standard healbot, blaster, skillmonkey, beatstick party as a threat and be entirely right not to. Why? They'd die before any dice were rolled.

See I get what you're saying, but you could say it in a way that doesn't make you sound like a Grey Elf.

[GilesTheCleric]

You don't get rewards or appreciation for figuring out how to abuse glitches in programming, you patch the glitches and use it as it was meant to be.

I don't think this is quite the right analogy. Unintended interactions and unintuitive code/ glitches can be plenty useful in programming, so long as you're using them intentionally/ know what to expect. That's the same as 3.5, incidentally. ACF chaining, for example, isn't an immediately obvious or possibly intended interaction, but it can serve as a great way to make a distinctive character in 3.5 in the absence of 4e's multiclassing feats, PF's VMC, or 2e's multiclassing.

[Zanos]

I don't think this is quite the right analogy.
It's a terrible analogy. A lot of people are literally paid to attempt to break existing systems so that they can reveal vulnerabilities.

[ryu]

See I get what you're saying, but you could say it in a way that doesn't make you sound like a Grey Elf.

No. I'm the party wizard. It's my character and job to be the paranoid, frighteningly eccentric, 239 plans running at a time chess-master of the group.

[Lord Raziere]

It's a terrible analogy. A lot of people are literally paid to attempt to break existing systems so that they can reveal vulnerabilities.

So that they can be patched. and fixed. Using them more is kind of missing the point


No. I'm the party wizard. It's my character and job to be the paranoid, frighteningly eccentric, 239 plans running at a time chess-master of the group.

So you decide to counter my argument by going "your completely right! Let me dig my hole deeper and be as stereotypically wizard as possible!".

Well played. *slow clap*

[Marlowe]

Paladins?

(I like the IDEA of Paladins, but any class with 'Cause Alignment Argument/Lose All Class Features' as at-will powers has problems.)

The Paladin thing is something you can at least steer around with a bit of creativity.

Last time I had a Paladin in the party the group wound up working for Phil the Lich; a undead abomination in a Hawaiian shirt and bunny slippers. Phil and the paladin never directly interacted at all and ran all conversation between them through Phil's LN Dread Necro cohort. We had fun seeing how many ways Phil and the Paladin could insult each other while ignoring the other's presence in the room.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm sorry, but your talking as if your playing on "higher" level than me. Your not. Your just breaking the game, don't do it. Don't try to excuse it as "playing better" when your just making the machine break down from overcharging it and putting together pieces that were never intended to be put together. You don't get rewards or appreciation for figuring out how to abuse glitches in programming, you patch the glitches and use it as it was meant to be. So that everyone can have fun, not just you. A GM thinks about the game for everyone and a good player thinks about the game for everyone as well, and by doing these tricks first your the one starting this by thinking only of yourself.

Just because you don't understand playing the game with these things doesn't make it broken. It -is- dramatically more complex and requires (get this) a higher level of system mastery to run. There's nothing shameful about preferring a lower level of complexity for when you're playing; I actually do so myself, most of the time. That preference doesn't make the more complex mode of play not exist.


Its kind of pointless to play the game that way anyways, because there is no challenge, so its just stroking your own fake awesomeness. Kind of like getting too high a level in Skyrim. At some point, its just not worth it when your just one-shotting everything and not getting any real satisfaction out of it.

There's no challenge if the DM doesn't know how to handle it. If he does then it can be quite a different play experience from the one more typical of the game.


You want to play better, you have to face more challenges. Playing better is not about things being easier, its about things being harder and still winning. Easy mode Wizard is not playing better. Its just trivializing challenges by using spells that are easy to see how better they are and easy to apply. Press the spell button and you win. Easy mode, thy name is One Spell Man.

And when "easy mode wizard" is the bad guy? One of the major benefits of this system is the transparency between player and DM resources.

Before you throw "arms race" at me, that's not what I'm saying. A DM has to put an upper bound on the complexity and power the game is allowed to reach. Some DM's are comfortable with that upper bound being much higher than are other DM's. That doesn't make them guilty of bad-wrong-fun. Your comfort zone lies somewhere below the tinfoil hat, apparently. A player deliberately exceeding that bound is breaking the social contract of the game and needs to be handled with a conversation not by bending the game around him.

[ryu]

So that they can be patched. and fixed. Using them more is kind of missing the point



So you decide to counter my argument by going "your completely right! Let me dig my hole deeper and be as stereotypically wizard as possible!".

Well played. *slow clap*

Actually that was me talking to someone else because they were at least saying something I haven't heard and dealt with dozens of times before from more eloquent people. The narcissism of thinking it was directed at you was a nice touch though. No the thing directed at you actually quoted you.

[Jack_McSnatch]

No. I'm the party wizard. It's my character and job to be the paranoid, frighteningly eccentric, 239 plans running at a time chess-master of the group.

Well, gotta hand it to you, Ryu, at least you own it. I do agree with Raziere, though. D&D is more fun when it's on a smaller scale. Yeah commanding armies and storming planes can be fun once in a while, but to paraphrase a quote I've seen in someone's sig, playing a wizard that way requires roughly the same amount of time and effort as a college minor. I'm here to play a game, not get my bachelor's in Dungeons and Dragons. That might look bad on my resumè.

[ryu]

Well, gotta hand it to you, Ryu, at least you own it. I do agree with Raziere, though. D&D is more fun when it's on a smaller scale. Yeah commanding armies and storming planes can be fun once in a while, but to paraphrase a quote I've seen in someone's sig, playing a wizard that way requires roughly the same amount of time and effort as a college minor. I'm here to play a game, not get my bachelor's in Dungeons and Dragons. That might look bad on my resumè.

I played D&D the ''normal'' way for a long time, got bored, started doing this and haven't looked back since. I mean let's be real, the game the designers intended wasn't exactly mentally stimulating. I literally own PS1 games with more in-depth mechanics and lore at the same time. Tier 3 where a lot of people enjoy is.... better than previous, but still less of a game to me than xenoblade chronicles. No if I'm gonna break out the pencils, paper, maps, dice, books, schedule managing friend invites, and food to feed said friends I'mma play something that can only really be done in that setting.

[Zanos]

Well, gotta hand it to you, Ryu, at least you own it. I do agree with Raziere, though. D&D is more fun when it's on a smaller scale. Yeah commanding armies and storming planes can be fun once in a while.
Considering a a pit fiend, a general of the armies of the lower planes, is something a party of level 20 PCs should be able to defeat without casualties, planar scale warfare and other such high scale shenanigans are the intended providence of high level D&D, even if you aren't "breaking" the system.

[Jack_McSnatch]

I played D&D the ''normal'' way for a long time, got bored, started doing this and haven't looked back since. I mean let's be real, the game the designers intended wasn't exactly mentally stimulating. I literally own PS1 games with more in-depth mechanics and lore at the same time. Tier 3 where a lot of people enjoy is.... better than previous, but still less of a game to me than xenoblade chronicles. No if I'm gonna break out the pencils, paper, maps, dice, books, schedule managing friend invites, and food to feed said friends I'mma play something that can only really be done in that setting.

You make an excellent point. I suppose it would give my spellthieves plenty of opportunities to do their thing, but that is where the problem comes in. You really HAVE to play a full caster at that level of play. If you want to play anything other than God, Batman, or CoDzilla, you're kinda screwed.


Considering a a pit fiend, a general of the armies of the lower planes, is something a party of level 20 PCs should be able to defeat without casualties, planar scale warfare and other such high scale shenanigans are the intended providence of high level D&D, even if you aren't "breaking" the system.

Also an excellent point, but it seems more intended for party vs demon lord, rather than party vs demon lord's entire army.

[D&DPrinceTandem]

Truenamer... tried... once... was lvl 20.... died from a cat.... yup a cat..

[zergling.exe]

Truenamer... tried... once... was lvl 20.... died from a cat.... yup a cat..

Did it happen to be a dire tiger? :smalltongue:

[ryu]

You make an excellent point. I suppose it would give my spellthieves plenty of opportunities to do their thing, but that is where the problem comes in. You really HAVE to play a full caster at that level of play. If you want to play anything other than God, Batman, or CoDzilla, you're kinda screwed.



Also an excellent point, but it seems more intended for party vs demon lord, rather than party vs demon lord's entire army.

There's lots of different tier 1 classes, and further lots of ways of building a very powerful version of each. I mean there are literally several extremely powerful wizard PRC options each with unique abilities that will shape how you approach things at the higher levels. Even druids, the ones bemoaned as being singular build choice or bust I've seen built either with a focus on exalted feats, abberations, just optimal animals with casting support, and of course the extra dimensions added by planar shepherd. Less diverse than wizards I'll grant, but you DO have choices. Do I even need to get into just how many good cleric domain choices and PRCs there are or for that matter the entirety of archivists? How about artificers? Psionics hasn't even been touched yet, but do you need me to keep going?

[D&DPrinceTandem]

Did it happen to be a dire tiger? :smalltongue:
nope. if you want me to be exact it was a *page flipping intensely* a titanic awakened intensified effigy cat.... it was a BIG cat with 36 in mental stats

[Arbane]

I'm here to play a game, not get my bachelor's in Dungeons and Dragons. That might look bad on my resumè.

"Participated in weekly brainstorming and problem-solving sessions...." :smallwink:

[Jack_McSnatch]

There's lots of different tier 1 classes, and further lots of ways of building a very powerful version of each. I mean there are literally several extremely powerful wizard PRC options each with unique abilities that will shape how you approach things at the higher levels. Even druids, the ones bemoaned as being singular build choice or bust I've seen built either with a focus on exalted feats, abberations, just optimal animals with casting support, and of course the extra dimensions added by planar shepherd. Less diverse than wizards I'll grant, but you DO have choices. Do I even need to get into just how many good cleric domain choices and PRCs there are or for that matter the entirety of archivists? How about artificers? Psionics hasn't even been touched yet, but do you need me to keep going?

And if you want to play a character class that isn't in that lofty tier 1 slot? If you want to say, play a thief that can steal the demon lord's throne from under him? He obviously wouldn't be a mundane, he'd need some kind of magical aptitude, but if he wasn't a full blown tier 1 class, he'd fall behind exponentially. He wouldn't be able to manage the absurdity being thrown at him. At least, not without some serious minmaxing, dipping, and rule bending shenanigans. Probably even some dice flubing at that.

[ryu]

And if you want to play a character class that isn't in that lofty tier 1 slot? If you want to say, play a thief that can steal the demon lord's throne from under him? He obviously wouldn't be a mundane, he'd need some kind of magical aptitude, but if he wasn't a full blown tier 1 class, he'd fall behind exponentially. He wouldn't be able to manage the absurdity being thrown at him. At least, not without some serious minmaxing, dipping, and rule bending shenanigans. Probably even some dice flubing at that.

Literally every level of play has levels of play it just can't really support. Sub t3 our party has minions more powerful than that entire class and the t3 is still deeply far behind. You'd want to be at least a competent t2 if you wanted to significantly contribute. Similarly the t6 commoner game just cannot hang with pretty much anything that isn't a commoner. I'm not interested in providing all games to all people. I'm just interested in t1 played as t1.

[Morphic tide]

Fun fact about the Expert NPC class: They can, technically, grab Truespeak and Iajutsu Focus.

[ryu]

Fun fact about the Expert NPC class: They can, technically, grab Truespeak and Iajutsu Focus.

True, but if I'm gonna be the skillz guy I'm taking factotum. All of the skills and actual class features with a better chassis.

[Kelb_Panthera]

And if you want to play a character class that isn't in that lofty tier 1 slot? If you want to say, play a thief that can steal the demon lord's throne from under him? He obviously wouldn't be a mundane, he'd need some kind of magical aptitude, but if he wasn't a full blown tier 1 class, he'd fall behind exponentially. He wouldn't be able to manage the absurdity being thrown at him. At least, not without some serious minmaxing, dipping, and rule bending shenanigans. Probably even some dice flubing at that.

The T2 classes are -much- less complex to run and just as powerful. Combine liberally with an appropriate type by PrC, in this case unseen seer seems appropriate, and you're good to go. Really, even the T3 list casters can do a pretty good job. Put a bit of rogue, beguiler, and unseen seer in a blender and hit frappe and you'll be near what you've described. If you get caught trying to steal that throne, the demon lord will be the one hitting liquify but, hey, no risk is no fun.

[Cosi]

Why not use it for Invocations, or Soulmelds, or any of the other supernatural subsystems as magic items?

Why tho? Like, people have different responses to different resource management systems. If you have Essentia Guy and At-Will Girl in your game, you get more players than if you just had At-Will Guy and At-Will Girl.


As many people know, Clerics and Druids are broken as hell. The main reason, many people think, is access to their entire spell lists, which stops both game balance and coherent character abilities. But we already have things that work to restrict this access. The Cleric domain spell system.

The fix I kind of propose for 3.5 style Clerics and Druids is to play up the Domains. Give them different selections of domains, maybe have entry requirements to using domains. Instead of Heal being Cleric 6, it should only be Healing or Life 6. This forces Clerics and Druids to specialize by making them pick from focused spell lists that are built around a concept, with some spells being universal access to Cleric or Druid.

Any limit to the Druid or Cleric that has the potential to keep them from getting restoration, reincarnate, remove disease, or any of the other laundry list of spells the party needs to keep going after encounters with Mummies (or whatever), is bad design. As long as those abilities are necessary (which they are if you don't plan on gutting the MM), people need to have access to them. If you want to limit the Druid or Cleric lists, just give them 1 non-core spell per level (or whatever). Then no one is without vitally important spells like cure blindness, and Clerics don't automatically have every ability anyone ever considered giving a Cleric.


Oh and lets not forget the hyper aggressive niche protection that means an entire skill (debatably two) is basically useless to people who lack the approved ability to trapfind. And the trap finding is almost always binary boring dice roles with nothing interesting like choice of tactics or the interplay of how best to use limited resources in imperfect knowledge.

Is that really worse than the thing where encountering a Medusa without stone to flesh can drop a character for the rest of the adventure? At least with traps a party without a Rogue has options for solving the problem. You could destroy the trap, avoid the trap, find someone who knows the bypass code, or just tank the trap. The Rogue's niche protection seems like an essentially reasonable paradigm to me. Rogues have a monopoly on a solution (disarming), rather than a problem (traps).


I'm sorry, but your talking as if your playing on "higher" level than me. Your not. Your just breaking the game, don't do it. Don't try to excuse it as "playing better" when your just making the machine break down from overcharging it and putting together pieces that were never intended to be put together.

What exactly is the line on "breaking the game" though? Most people would probably say that binding an Efreet, getting one of its wishes, and asking for a Belt of Magnificence +1000000000 is "breaking the game". But what about asking it for a bunch of inherent bonuses? Or for some random utility spell you don't have. Are those "breaking the game"?


You don't get rewards or appreciation for figuring out how to abuse glitches in programming, you patch the glitches and use it as it was meant to be.

The reason 99% of "glitches" in D&D exist is because there isn't a single, canonical Way Things Were Meant To Be. If the designers had a coherent vision in place, the Fighter wouldn't get +1 BAB and +1 to REF and WILL saves at the level when the Wizard gets greater planar binding and polymorph any object. Why is what you want how "it was meant to be" rather than what Ryu wants being how "it was meant to be"?


Its kind of pointless to play the game that way anyways, because there is no challenge, so its just stroking your own fake awesomeness.

I certainly view Ryu's particular level of optimization as kind of degenerate and bizarre, but you can get pretty high without just "stroking your own fake awesomeness". There are gods and demon prices and elder evils and whatever you could kill.


Easy mode Wizard is not playing better. Its just trivializing challenges by using spells that are easy to see how better they are and easy to apply.

Maybe if the Wizard is solving all your challenges with one spell, they are bad challenges.


D&D is more fun when it's on a smaller scale. Yeah commanding armies and storming planes can be fun once in a while, but to paraphrase a quote I've seen in someone's sig, playing a wizard that way requires roughly the same amount of time and effort as a college minor.

It is true that D&D is ill equipped to (smoothly) run any kind of large scale action. But the solution that is to add good tools for handling large scale action, because pretty much every fantasy series except Harry Potter (and even then at the end of book seven) has armies duke it out at some point. The fact that you have to choose between "simple enough to play" and "captures fantasy tropes", is an argument for a simpler game, not against fantasy tropes.


There's lots of different tier 1 classes, and further lots of ways of building a very powerful version of each.

It feels super weird to hear "the Wizard is too versatile" and "the Wizard is uninteresting" in the same argument. Aren't those basically mutually exclusive? Also, you can add a lot of play space with minor changes. There are a bunch of PrCs that no one touches because they cost caster levels that would be respectable (if niche) options if they didn't. You wouldn't play a Rage Mage now, because it costs you a bunch of caster levels. But if it didn't, you might roll a Rage Mage next time you decide to make a Gish. With just that change, I can name twenty different builds I'd be willing to play without looking at a book.

1. Wizard/Mage of the Arcane Order
2. Sorcerer/Warblade/Jade Phoenix Mage
3. Battle Sorcerer/Swiftblade
4. Beguiler/Mindbender
5. Beguiler/Unseen Seer
6. Wizard/Green Star Adept
7. Beguiler/Shadowcraft Mage
8. Cleric/Dweomerkeeper
9. Druid
10. Druid (the variant that gets turning)
11. Dread Necromancer/Pale Master
12. Warmage/Rainbow Servant
13. Sorcerer/Acolyte of the Skin
14. Wizard/Effigy Master
15. Chameleon Prerequisites/Chameleon
16. Cleric/Domains PrC from Eberron
17. Dread Necromancer/Blood Magus
18. Beguiler/Prestige Bard
19. Wizard/Binder/Anima Mage
20. Wizard/Geometer
You may need some dips to meet prerequisites, but that's twenty different characters literally off the top of my head. If you add minor tweaks like expanded spell lists and better class features, that number balloons even more. The idea that "competent full casters" is at all narrow is basically absurd.


And if you want to play a character class that isn't in that lofty tier 1 slot? If you want to say, play a thief that can steal the demon lord's throne from under him? He obviously wouldn't be a mundane, he'd need some kind of magical aptitude, but if he wasn't a full blown tier 1 class, he'd fall behind exponentially. He wouldn't be able to manage the absurdity being thrown at him. At least, not without some serious minmaxing, dipping, and rule bending shenanigans. Probably even some dice flubing at that.

Beguiler/Unseen Servant? You get a bunch of thief abilities, some magic mojo, and you can dip into Prestige Bard, Shadowcraft Mage, or any number of other things that take your fancy. That's a character that can play in a party that is otherwise Wizard/Cleric/Druid.

[Morphic tide]

Why tho? Like, people have different responses to different resource management systems. If you have Essentia Guy and At-Will Warlock Girl in your game, you get more players than if you just had At-Will Guy and At-Will Girl.
Is that supposed to be supportive or not liking it? Also, changed the quote to give a slightly more decent example. 'Cause Warlocks are mostly at-will...


Any limit to the Druid or Cleric that has the potential to keep them from getting restoration, reincarnate, remove disease, or any of the other laundry list of spells the party needs to keep going after encounters with Mummies (or whatever), is bad design. As long as those abilities are necessary (which they are if you don't plan on gutting the MM), people need to have access to them. If you want to limit the Druid or Cleric lists, just give them 1 non-core spell per level (or whatever). Then no one is without vitally important spells like cure blindness, and Clerics don't automatically have every ability anyone ever considered giving a Cleric.
Clerics would still have the choice to grab it if their God or philosophy includes it in their domain selections. It's that it make it so that the necromancy focused Chaotic Evil murdermancer can't just go "I prepare X uses of Cure X wounds." Keep in mind that the point is, quite specifically, to restrict these Clerics to what their god has or what their philosophy stands for. A Cleric of Orcus should not have the option of getting healing magic because that is not what Orcus stands for. A Cleric of Yin/Yang can't grab Chaos or Imbalance spells because those are inherently opposed to the idea of being devoted to the ideal of Yin/Yang.

Basically, it makes having healing something you opt in to with your core options, which takes up a significant amount of your options, not something you are assumed to have. Healing is not supposed to be a right, it is supposed to be an option or a privilege. Yes, this makes dying much easier, but it makes fights have more risks. How often do you think that a party plans around being able to get healed? How much more focus on avoiding damage do you think parties without ready access to healing have?

For Druids, just grab Growth as one of your surprisingly-broad domains. You get rations creation, healing and some buffs out of that single domain. As to why I go with the idea of giving Druids domains, it's because the Druid spell list is massive and covers basically all of the concept of nature as philosophers tend to think of it, with shockingly little support for basic natural things like the idea of hunting. How many tracking related spells do Druids get? Not a whole lot, in spite of the fact that tracking is part of the lives of most predators. Tempted to make a thread on the philosophy side of the Divine caster spell lists, to hew out what kinds of spells the various divine casters should have...

[Cosi]

Is that supposed to be supportive or not liking it? Also, changed the quote to give a slightly more decent example. 'Cause Warlocks are mostly at-will...

My understanding of your post was that you didn't like classes with exclusive resource management mechanics, which are something I'm largely in favor of in theory, though they tend to suck practically.


Clerics would still have the choice to grab it if their God or philosophy includes it in their domain selections. It's that it make it so that the necromancy focused Chaotic Evil murdermancer can't just go "I prepare X uses of Cure X wounds."

But the party needs someone who can cure ability damage, negative levels, and death. Because if they don't have someone to cure those things, they can permanently cripple a character.


Basically, it makes having healing something you opt in to with your core options, which takes up a significant amount of your options, not something you are assumed to have. Healing is not supposed to be a right, it is supposed to be an option or a privilege. Yes, this makes dying much easier, but it makes fights have more risks. How often do you think that a party plans around being able to get healed? How much more focus on avoiding damage do you think parties without ready access to healing have?

(Combat) healing is crap no matter how you slice it. You should not be charging people for that, because it is not a thing they care about being able to do. Seriously, the reason Clerics have awesome spells is because combat healing sucks so much that they got divine power to compensate. But restoration isn't a power play ability that makes Clerics crazy powerful, it's an ability you are mandated to have if you want to keep adventuring after encountering a room full of Wights.

[ShurikVch]

Some more reasons why I hate some classes:

Warlock, Artificer, Alchemist and Summoner, for the shared reason of having a subsystem (or three, for the Alchemist) that only they use.In that case, you, apparently, also should hate Demonbinder (damnation points), Hellreaver (Holy Fury points), Jaunter (Travel Power), Shadow Sentinel (shadow points), Ninja (ki points), and whole Tome of Magic - because they all have a "subsystem ... that only they use"
And about the Warlock - it's incorrect: Dragon Fire Adept use the same subsystem



Rogue. Terribly overspecialized classOverspecialized?! :smallamused:
Do you even seen how long their skill list?
Plus Sneak Attack
Plus various Special Abilities - especially if you look beyond Player's Handbook
Wilderness Rogue gets Hide in Plain Sight - earlier than Ranger

with abilities that most of the time either aren't neededFor me, it sound very unlikely: skills are useful most of the game time
But even assuming it's correct - then: So what?
Any class may have a "slow time": just look at Barbarian in social encounter, or Paladin during espionage mission.
Even spellcasters couldn't cast spells all the time: not just they will run out of spells sooner than later, but some tasks just better to delegate to their "more mundane" comrades
Why the "special dislike" for Rogue?

aren't workingIf skill "aren't working", then your PC don't have enough ranks in the skill.
Try some alternative solution (or use another skill)

or are beaten out by the abilities of some other class that's also better in other areas.What's up, "spellcaster supremacy"?
Last time I'm checked, See Invisibility doesn't show characters who using Hide/Move Silently...

Horribly reliant on the assistance of other party members.:smallsigh: Rogue is one of the most self-sufficient classes in the whole game
Wizard may lose the spellbook, Cleric - don't have access to holy symbol, and even Psion, (theoretically) at some time may get to the bottom of the Spire in Outlands...
Skills working almost anywhere and anytime

Requires active DM pampering to be useful.Of course, if adventure have no traps, no locked doors, and monsters are teleporting directly in front of the party withing the charge range - then Rogue isn't that useful; after all, it's that sort of adventures that produced "all-fighter party" trope

Good for nothing but getting the other players into trouble, pulling adventures out of shape, and whining about being useless again.Is it from personal experience?
If yes, then my condolences.
Probably, player just wasn't experienced enough to play Rogue effectively

[Jormengand]

Truenamer... tried... once... was lvl 20.... died from a cat.... yup a cat..

Wait, you were a twentieth level truenamer and died to, like, anything at all?

Like, dying as a nineteenth-level truenamer is forgivable, but a twentieth-level one?

PSA: Conjunctive Gate is a stupid utterance.

[Arbane]

Overspecialized?! :smallamused:
Do you even seen how long their skill list?
Plus Sneak Attack


I think Marlowe meant in combat - they're mostly dependent on Sneak Attack to do good damage, and it flat-out doesn't WORK on a depressingly large number of enemies, and usually requires a character with low hitpoints and bad armor to maneuver around large, hostile targets.

Plus, they're skillmonkeys, which means everything they do requires a D20 roll, which tempts even the best GMs to get 'creative' on the inevitable rolls of 1s. :smallmad:

Then there's Sleight of Hand (let's tick off NPCs for pocket change), Stealth (let's split the party - that always works out well), and Trapfinding (let's give that bad fortitude save a workout).

I seem to recall he's devoted several of his Planetouched Play D&D (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?422242-Planetouched-play-D-amp-D) comics to the topic of Why Rogues Suck, I just don't feel like looking through the thread to find them.

[stanprollyright]

Overspecialized?! :smallamused:
Do you even seen how long their skill list?
Plus Sneak Attack
Plus various Special Abilities - especially if you look beyond Player's Handbook
Wilderness Rogue gets Hide in Plain Sight - earlier than Ranger
For me, it sound very unlikely: skills are useful most of the game time
But even assuming it's correct - then: So what?
Any class may have a "slow time": just look at Barbarian in social encounter, or Paladin during espionage mission.
Even spellcasters couldn't cast spells all the time: not just they will run out of spells sooner than later, but some tasks just better to delegate to their "more mundane" comrades
Why the "special dislike" for Rogue?
If skill "aren't working", then your PC don't have enough ranks in the skill.
Try some alternative solution (or use another skill)
What's up, "spellcaster supremacy"?
Last time I'm checked, See Invisibility doesn't show characters who using Hide/Move Silently...
:smallsigh: Rogue is one of the most self-sufficient classes in the whole game
Wizard may lose the spellbook, Cleric - don't have access to holy symbol, and even Psion, (theoretically) at some time may get to the bottom of the Spire in Outlands...
Skills working almost anywhere and anytime
Of course, if adventure have no traps, no locked doors, and monsters are teleporting directly in front of the party withing the charge range - then Rogue isn't that useful; after all, it's that sort of adventures that produced "all-fighter party" trope
Is it from personal experience?
If yes, then my condolences.
Probably, player just wasn't experienced enough to play Rogue effectively

People are allowed to hate on your favorite class without you insinuating that they are a total n00b. You don't have to defend page 50 of the PHB from people who want to eradicate rogues forever or redesign the class into something you wouldn't enjoy. You don't have to scour this thread for every post that mentions a casual dislike for rogues compared to other classes. Not everyone likes the same things.

[ShurikVch]

Not everyone likes the same things.Don't get me wrong - I'm completely OK with people "not liking the same things"
Bu I'm not OK when class disliked for a reasons which are (mostly) just plain wrong
It's as if somebody sayd Sorcerer is bad because weak in melee
Also, I doesn't presumed it was written by, as you sayd, "total n00b" - I expected either frustrated DM who tired of unexperienced players which are trying to play as Rogues, but don't know two bits about how it's supposed to be played; or a fellow player who suffered from presense of such "Rogue" in the party

[Jack_McSnatch]

Don't get me wrong - I'm completely OK with people "not liking the same things"
Bu I'm not OK when class disliked for a reasons which are (mostly) just plain wrong
It's as if somebody sayd Sorcerer is bad because weak in melee
Also, I doesn't presumed it was written by, as you sayd, "total n00b" - I expected either frustrated DM who tired of unexperienced players which are trying to play as Rogues, but don't know two bits about how it's supposed to be played; or a fellow player who suffered from presense of such "Rogue" in the party

Yeah, a newbie rogue almost turned me off of playing them, just cause he always got himself (and thereby us) into trouble. When I started getting really knowledgeable about D&D I realized why. He spread his skill points too thin, trying to be good at every single one of them. He rarely tumbled, and if it was an enemy he couldn't sneak attack he just stayed out of combat altogether. It made the rogue seem really underwhelming, and I was playing a fighter.

[GilesTheCleric]

whole game
Wizard may lose the spellbook, Cleric - don't have access to holy symbol,

Just as an fyi to anyone lurking, clerics can summon a holy symbol if they don't have one. A cleric can start the day without anything more than some commoner clothes and end it with a holy symbol, full set of armour, magical weapon, and a good idea of what's to come, even at low levels.

[ryu]

Just as an fyi to anyone lurking, clerics can summon a holy symbol if they don't have one. A cleric can start the day without anything more than some commoner clothes and end it with a holy symbol, full set of armour, magical weapon, and a good idea of what's to come, even at low levels.

There's also the fact that if you've a DM determined to fiat away spellbooks eidetic wizard is a thing. If it's just normal attacks that aren't fiat-based the spellbook is actually going to be better defended against such nonsense than even the wizard himself. After all how exactly do you plan on getting it from permanency item shrunken, bag of holding suppository? Do keep in mind that's just the low level spellbook defense.

[GilesTheCleric]

There's also the fact that if you've a DM determined to fiat away spellbooks eidetic wizard is a thing. If it's just normal attacks that aren't fiat-based the spellbook is actually going to be better defended against such nonsense than even the wizard himself. After all how exactly do you plan on getting it from permanency item shrunken, bag of holding suppository? Do keep in mind that's just the low level spellbook defense.

Good point. Iirc, wizards can also always prepare Read Magic, right? And scrolls would still be useable without a spellbook.

[ryu]

Good point. Iirc, wizards can also always prepare Read Magic, right? And scrolls would still be useable without a spellbook.

Yep. There's also tattooing your spellbook onto your own skin, actually keeping the spellbooks of slain enemies as spares hidden in remote but known locations, and other such actually pretty easy to do things. This is before we get to high levels where this entire exercise becomes hilariously moot for a number of really obvious reasons.

[gooddragon1]

Monk: It's such a cool idea (you're never unarmed because you use your kung fu), but the alignment restriction, the Multiple Ability Dependence, the average BAB, and the gear restrictions (to a lesser extent) just kill it.

Paladin: The alignment restriction and code of conduct. Very disappointing.

Knight: If I'm going to force people to make a save, it had better be die/lose/or suck. Drawing aggro is a nice concept, but there's better ways to do it imo (iron guard's glare).

Ranger: Ignoring two weapon fighting, archery just doesn't have damage output worth anything unless you have access to the magic item emporium every game. The ranger should have been able to use a bow much better than they currently do if you pick the archery path and certainly shouldn't need the magic item Christmas tree effect to do it effectively. It should be part of their class features.

[Efrate]

My issues with rogues, or traps in general, is how easily that entire niche is covered by low level casters. Knock is a 2nd level spell, summon soon to be dead again but not really monkey is a 1st level spell. For 5250 gp, which the party if all contribute to is doable around level 3, definately by 4, has invalidated that entire niche for the entire campaign.

You can find traps of dc 20 plus as rogue, thats one of your things. Well a level 1 spell trap, say burning hands cl 1, is dc 26. At level one you are looking at plus 6 to 8 in general to find that. Thats 15% chance at best. If the dc is 21 for a mechanical thing, you are still looking at 25 to 35% chance of success. Thats not good, and yer the trap guy.

Now if its dc 12 or 13, that easy for you, but the untrained wizard with his 18 int finds that over 50% of the time with no magic. Yes its easier for you, but the smart guy does it pretty good by himself, taking your job. And anyone can brainstorm a solution to bypass/avoid/set it off. Or theres our friend the ever suffering monkey.

The sheer amount of ways to trivialize one of your primary iconic abilities does not start you off well.

I like rogues, I enjoy playing them but its too easy to be eadily overshadowed. Unchained from PF is a nice boost fwiw, but if you need that to stay relevant longer thats a design issue.

[gooddragon1]

My issues with rogues, or traps in general, is how easily that entire niche is covered by low level casters. Knock is a 2nd level spell, summon soon to be dead again but not really monkey is a 1st level spell. For 5250 gp, which the party if all contribute to is doable around level 3, definately by 4, has invalidated that entire niche for the entire campaign.

You can find traps of dc 20 plus as rogue, thats one of your things. Well a level 1 spell trap, say burning hands cl 1, is dc 26. At level one you are looking at plus 6 to 8 in general to find that. Thats 15% chance at best. If the dc is 21 for a mechanical thing, you are still looking at 25 to 35% chance of success. Thats not good, and yer the trap guy.

Now if its dc 12 or 13, that easy for you, but the untrained wizard with his 18 int finds that over 50% of the time with no magic. Yes its easier for you, but the smart guy does it pretty good by himself, taking your job. And anyone can brainstorm a solution to bypass/avoid/set it off. Or theres our friend the ever suffering monkey.

The sheer amount of ways to trivialize one of your primary iconic abilities does not start you off well.

I like rogues, I enjoy playing them but its too easy to be eadily overshadowed. Unchained from PF is a nice boost fwiw, but if you need that to stay relevant longer thats a design issue.

As for the trap thing, I remember a hallway with two trapped plates that when you stepped on them they shot lightning down that line of 5 foot squares (hallway was 10 feet wide and 10 feet tall). So we were able to find the traps, but we needed a rogue to deal with them. Sure the wizard could fly over them, but the rest of the party couldn't.

[Ludic]

Truenamer.

Never have I had such a headache to even attempt to play one. Pencils on a lollipop truenamers are the worst balanced, practically unplayable class. They don't even have good synergy with the PrCs built for them!

[Morphic tide]

In that case, you, apparently, also should hate Demonbinder (damnation points), Hellreaver (Holy Fury points), Jaunter (Travel Power), Shadow Sentinel (shadow points), Ninja (ki points), and whole Tome of Magic - because they all have a "subsystem ... that only they use"
And about the Warlock - it's incorrect: Dragon Fire Adept use the same subsystem
All those, because I do, in fact, hate all exclusive subsystems. Especially when they describe a category of power, rather than a unique thing only that class should have.

Oh, and DFA does use Invocations. Seemingly only because they are an existing framework for the crunch that was aimed for, given the fact that they lack the tie in that Warlocks have by keeping Invocations and their Breath Weapon (which having locked to Fire kinda screws with the flavor of the class) entirely separate, when the Warlock has Invocations that directly affect their Eldritch Blast. Or just give DFA Metabreath feats instead, because that's more in line with what Dragons get than anything else.



My understanding of your post was that you didn't like classes with exclusive resource management mechanics, which are something I'm largely in favor of in theory, though they tend to suck practically.
It's when that management mechanic is linked to a fluff that works for several separate classes yet only ever sees use in one class that makes me angry. For example, Artificer. They made the Psionic Artificer into an AFC when it could easily be different enough for a new class altogether. The feats are overhauled anyway, so why not go a step further and give the Psionic Artificer it's own class with more detailed changes? Yes, it's more work, but it fills a niche in a way that allows new things to be done.


But the party needs someone who can cure ability damage, negative levels, and death. Because if they don't have someone to cure those things, they can permanently cripple a character.
Then the Cleric or Druid opts in to having healing. Healing is not a right, and forcing the party to choose healing over more damage or buffs or save-or-sucks makes it so that they are, in fact, threatened by these effects that are made to cripple characters. And Evil parties need more issues than just being vulnerable to Smite effects, because most DMs won't send serious threats after Evil parties. Like stripping their Clerics of the largely-unfitting healing unless they find a God they are eligible to worship that has healing. You still have Druid healing, you still have healing off the non-full-Divine casters, but your Cleric of Lolth in your all-Drow party will not be the healer.


(Combat) healing is crap no matter how you slice it. You should not be charging people for that, because it is not a thing they care about being able to do. Seriously, the reason Clerics have awesome spells is because combat healing sucks so much that they got divine power to compensate. But restoration isn't a power play ability that makes Clerics crazy powerful, it's an ability you are mandated to have if you want to keep adventuring after encountering a room full of Wights.
And the party should be actively threatened by the large number of long-term-effects that cripple. Why bother having the effects if you are almost guaranteed to have a person who invalidates their existence at all times? Fighting should be actually threatening and immunity to quite a few common cripples is already fairly easy to get anyway. The intent here is to make it so that the party needs a dedicated healer who gave up combat ability to heal.

[Inevitability]

Truenamer.

Never have I had such a headache to even attempt to play one. Pencils on a lollipop truenamers are the worst balanced, practically unplayable class. They don't even have good synergy with the PrCs built for them!

Jormengand incoming in 3... 2... 1...

[Jormengand]

Jormengand incoming in 3... 2... 1...

YOU DARE SUMMON ME?

But, no, I can't really argue with the fact that the PrCs are a bit terrible - none of them advances actual utterances. The only ones which are even at all worth it are Acolyte of the Ego (Can you say "At-will dimension door" seven times fast?) or disciple of the word if you're dead set on the whole "untouchable martial artist" thing and know what you're doing. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?426560-Optimising-a-Disciple-of-the-Word-(Abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter-here))

Truenamer on its own? The main thing is that the optimisation-to-power curve, rather than reading like the wizard's (2,5,10,40,100...) or even the fighter's (3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12...), reads more like (1,1,2,3,4,8,12,15,20), which is a little depressing to those of us who don't get the kind of obsession to keep playing them. They're decent once you figure out the tricks to them.

[AnachroNinja]

Then the Cleric or Druid opts in to having healing. Healing is not a right, and forcing the party to choose healing over more damage or buffs or save-or-sucks makes it so that they are, in fact, threatened by these effects that are made to cripple characters. And Evil parties need more issues than just being vulnerable to Smite effects, because most DMs won't send serious threats after Evil parties. Like stripping their Clerics of the largely-unfitting healing unless they find a God they are eligible to worship that has healing. You still have Druid healing, you still have healing off the non-full-Divine casters, but your Cleric of Lolth in your all-Drow party will not be the healer.


And the party should be actively threatened by the large number of long-term-effects that cripple. Why bother having the effects if you are almost guaranteed to have a person who invalidates their existence at all times? Fighting should be actually threatening and immunity to quite a few common cripples is already fairly easy to get anyway. The intent here is to make it so that the party needs a dedicated healer who gave up combat ability to heal.

OK here's the problem with that. For 99.9% of players, being a walking HP dispensary is not a fun thing, especially since doing that in combat is a terrible role to try to fill. So all you are doing is saying "Somebody here is going to have to play an unfun and limited class because I think you guys are too strong without an anchor."

That's the whole reason I've known a huge amount of DMs who find work arounds for healing and status effect removal so that no one is obligated to play the healbot unless they really want to. Requiring one person to take one for the team and play a boring character so everyone else can have fun is terrible game design. Full stop.

[Necroticplague]

Just as an fyi to anyone lurking, clerics can summon a holy symbol if they don't have one. A cleric can start the day without anything more than some commoner clothes and end it with a holy symbol, full set of armour, magical weapon, and a good idea of what's to come, even at low levels.

Also, getting a holy symbol stolen doesn't make a cleric spelless . Not all divine spells have a divine focus component. Heck, even miracle doesn't have one, so you can directly phone up your god for a favor holy symbol free.

[Morphic tide]

OK here's the problem with that. For 99.9% of players, being a walking HP dispensary is not a fun thing, especially since doing that in combat is a terrible role to try to fill. So all you are doing is saying "Somebody here is going to have to play an unfun and limited class because I think you guys are too strong without an anchor."

That's the whole reason I've known a huge amount of DMs who find work arounds for healing and status effect removal so that no one is obligated to play the healbot unless they really want to. Requiring one person to take one for the team and play a boring character so everyone else can have fun is terrible game design. Full stop.

It's not like it entirely cripples their other combat options. The Druid heal thing would have some rather useful buff spells and rations filling under it, and Clerics would have it as just one of, like, three branches of competence they can have at 1st level, with more branches of competence as they level. Of course, the pure offensive stuff would not likely be available due to the God domain limitations, but neither would they be unable to do other things. It's that being able to heal takes a bite out of their limited options to make healing something the Party needs someone to bite the bullet to get.

[Telonius]

It really depends on how you play it. Right now I'm playing a Draconic Human Cleric of Olidammara in a Ravenloft campaign. I've got an Eldritch Disciple build going, so it is combining with Warlock a bit; but even without that I'm having a great time being the fast-talker of the group. I'm really not feeling like a walking band-aid box. We're about level 6 now, and so far I've mainly been casting utility spells, and doing most of my healing out-of-combat (with the occasional emergency spell to get somebody back up to positive hit points). Pretty soon I'll be casting most of my healing from wands, so it's not going to affect my spells per day at all.

[GilesTheCleric]

Also, getting a holy symbol stolen doesn't make a cleric spelless . Not all divine spells have a divine focus component. Heck, even miracle doesn't have one, so you can directly phone up your god for a favor holy symbol free.

Good point!


OK here's the problem with that. For 99.9% of players, being a walking HP dispensary is not a fun thing, especially since doing that in combat is a terrible role to try to fill. So all you are doing is saying "Somebody here is going to have to play an unfun and limited class because I think you guys are too strong without an anchor."

That's the whole reason I've known a huge amount of DMs who find work arounds for healing and status effect removal so that no one is obligated to play the healbot unless they really want to. Requiring one person to take one for the team and play a boring character so everyone else can have fun is terrible game design. Full stop.

I agree wholeheartedly. Clerics are far more interesting than just being healers. My advice is always to stock up on scrolls for things like Break Curse/ Enchantment/ Disease, and use your actual spell slots to help your party be better at overcoming challenges. Heals don't overcome challenges, and leave you a useless character that only encourages the GM to say "well, they've got a healer, so I might as well do even more HP damage to them". No fun.

[Ludic]

Also, getting a holy symbol stolen doesn't make a cleric spelless . Not all divine spells have a divine focus component. Heck, even miracle doesn't have one, so you can directly phone up your god for a favor holy symbol free.

My clerics don't tend to carry a holy symbol. 'The Divine Focus component is an item of spiritual significance.' Worship Pelor? Guess what, his Holy Symbol is pretty easy to form as a shield. Yondalla's actually IS a shield. Anyhow, point being, Shield becomes Divine Focus.

When I get a DM that is superrulsy on that demanding that it must be the Holy Symbol item, I just embed it in something, behind my shield, into a pauldron. Tattoo it on my body . . . Okay that last one is a little snarky but the point is given.


Jormengand incoming in 3... 2... 1...


YOU DARE SUMMON ME?

Little over an hour difference, that's actually pretty impressive. Well played.

[NerdHut]

My clerics don't tend to carry a holy symbol. 'The Divine Focus component is an item of spiritual significance.' Worship Pelor? Guess what, his Holy Symbol is pretty easy to form as a shield. Yondalla's actually IS a shield. Anyhow, point being, Shield becomes Divine Focus

I'm about to play in a campaign as a Cleric of Tharmekul. His symbol is a fiery warhammer. I'll give you three guesses what the cleric's weapon is.

[Inevitability]

Little over an hour difference, that's actually pretty impressive. Well played.

Let's just say similar things have happened in the past. :smalltongue:

[Marlowe]

Wooden Holy Symbols don't have weight and cost 1gp each. You can easily have multiple spares of them-sometimes over a dozen of them at level one.

Pickpocketing Holy Symbols to shut down a Cleric is something that works only with newbs or when the DM is throwing a bone to the pick-pocketer.

[ryu]

Wooden Holy Symbols don't have weight and cost 1gp each. You can easily have multiple spares of them-sometimes over a dozen of them at level one.

Pickpocketing Holy Symbols to shut down a Cleric is something that works only with newbs or when the DM is throwing a bone to the pick-pocketer.

For similar reasons I start laughing and thanking my GM whenever someone tries sundering the spell component pouch. Going after these things is just not a good combat tactic. You're spending turns to do nothing when you aren't even debuffed? By all means have fun!

[Ludic]

For similar reasons I start laughing and thanking my GM whenever someone tries sundering the spell component pouch. Going after these things is just not a good combat tactic. You're spending turns to do nothing when you aren't even debuffed? By all means have fun!

Two words.

Eschew Materials

May not be great in terms of optimization, but if you have a floating feat and a DM pulling sunder shenanigans like that, it's quite the middle finger.

[ryu]

Two words.

Eschew Materials

May not be great in terms of optimization, but if you have a floating feat and a DM pulling sunder shenanigans like that, it's quite the middle finger.

No. They cost 1GP. I can have plenty from level one. Not wasting a feat on it.

[Lord Raziere]

Wooden Holy Symbols don't have weight and cost 1gp each. You can easily have multiple spares of them-sometimes over a dozen of them at level one.

Pickpocketing Holy Symbols to shut down a Cleric is something that works only with newbs or when the DM is throwing a bone to the pick-pocketer.

Stuff like this makes me think we should actually make holy symbols and wizard spellbooks actually expensive and important.

I mean in PF, guns cost thousands of GP to use with class features that aren't nearly as powerful as Wizards or Clerics. Yet a Wizard or Cleric can buy this stuff cheap for no reason. I mean, a spellcaster can have access to all their magic for relatively cheap prices:
Holy Symbol: 1 gp
Spellbook: 15gp
A single +1 magical sword: 2000gp

How is this any way remotely fair, balanced or desirable? the two items needed for access to the biggest selection of the most powerful spells in the game are cheaper than a single magical weapon that doesn't even achieve the effect of a single spell. If we're being fair, a blank spellbook or holy symbol should be the one costing tens of thousands of gp, if not hundreds of thousands, while the magical sword should be closer to costing only 30 gp or something. The symbol or book you get for free at character creation? thats should be valuable, your only one, your life's blood.

I mean, there is something seriously wrong with this set up. this should not be how things are priced at the very least.

[Marlowe]

5 gp and weight 2lbs.

Still, it's not like Wizards have to buy or wear heavy armour and weapons is it? Point still stands.

[ryu]

Stuff like this makes me think we should actually make holy symbols and wizard spellbooks actually expensive and important.

I mean in PF, guns cost thousands of GP to use with class features that aren't nearly as powerful as Wizards or Clerics. Yet a Wizard or Cleric can buy this stuff cheap for no reason. I mean, a spellcaster can have access to all their magic for relatively cheap prices:
Holy Symbol: 1 gp
Spellbook: 15gp
A single +1 magical sword: 2000gp

How is this any way remotely fair, balanced or desirable? the two items needed for access to the biggest selection of the most powerful spells in the game are cheaper than a single magical weapon that doesn't even achieve the effect of a single spell. If we're being fair, a blank spellbook or holy symbol should be the one costing tens of thousands of gp, if not hundreds of thousands, while the magical sword should be closer to costing only 30 gp or something. The symbol or book you get for free at character creation? thats should be valuable, your only one, your life's blood.

I mean, there is something seriously wrong with this set up. this should not be how things are priced at the very least.

It's not about what the item can be used for. It's about difficulty of production. A magical sword requires significantly more resources to make than a block of wood and some carving time.

[RedMage125]

Sory for the long responses on this.


Do you have a source for that?
Someone already cited it, but yes, the Player's Handbook. Mind you, this is strict-RAW only.

Stoneblessed?
Changeling with Racial Emulation?

By RAW? Stoneblessed, no.
Racial Emulation, yes. ARGUABLY, a level 1 CHangeling Wizard with racial emulation could take the Elven Wizard racial substitution level. Which could be explained story-wise as being a part of the Passer changeling philosophy (Races of Eberron), and living among elves his whole life.

[Marlowe]

Or a quick chalk daubing on your sleave or whatever. What. You don't carry chalk? 1 gp for a 100 pieces without weight? All sorts of uses.

But by all means keep talking about punishing players for planning ahead and equipping their characters sensibly. That'll help things.:smallmad:

[Necroticplague]

Stuff like this makes me think we should actually make holy symbols and wizard spellbooks actually expensive and important.

I mean in PF, guns cost thousands of GP to use with class features that aren't nearly as powerful as Wizards or Clerics. Yet a Wizard or Cleric can buy this stuff cheap for no reason. I mean, a spellcaster can have access to all their magic for relatively cheap prices:
Holy Symbol: 1 gp
Spellbook: 15gp
A single +1 magical sword: 2000gp

How is this any way remotely fair, balanced or desirable? the two items needed for access to the biggest selection of the most powerful spells in the game are cheaper than a single magical weapon that doesn't even achieve the effect of a single spell. If we're being fair, a blank spellbook or holy symbol should be the one costing tens of thousands of gp, if not hundreds of thousands, while the magical sword should be closer to costing only 30 gp or something. The symbol or book you get for free at character creation? thats should be valuable, your only one, your life's blood.

I mean, there is something seriously wrong with this set up. this should not be how things are priced at the very least.

So be slightly fair, a blank spellbook is useless. Spellbooks aren't useful until you actually have spells in them. And books with spells in them are 100 GP a page. Still probably too cheap, though.

[Morphic tide]

So be slightly fair, a blank spellbook is useless. Spellbooks aren't useful until you actually have spells in them. And books with spells in them are 100 GP a page. Still probably too cheap, though.

Can always make getting the spells more expensive.

[Marlowe]

The DM doesn't have to make scrolls available at all. Or at least, without finding a seller turning into a plothook and a sidequest. Scrolls just being sold at local shops implies a certain sort of setting where magic is industrialised and everyday.

As for the material components/holy symbol prices not being balanced; these things were never designed as limiting factors at all. They've always been a strictly fluff thing, and were never intended as handicaps. It's not surprising there's multiple ways around attempting to use them as an achilles heel.

And yes, a +1 magic weapon is a waste of money. Big surprise. There's much better uses for 2000gp, even considering that enchanted martial weapons are extremely common items from the random loot tables. Such things are heavily biased in favour of martials.

[Lord Raziere]

Or a quick chalk daubing on your sleave or whatever. What. You don't carry chalk? 1 gp for a 100 pieces without weight? All sorts of uses.

But by all means keep talking about punishing players for planning ahead and equipping their characters sensibly. That'll help things.:smallmad:

Yeah, all this talk of punishing players when they are wizards, yet no one thinks of any of the fighters who get punished just for being fighters. or rogues just for being rogues by the system. Apparently all this "punishing players" talk only applies to the classes you care about. Yet no one recognizes the hypocrisy that any high tier game is inherently punishing anyone who chooses fighter. All systems and choices punish one option over another. Your not better than me, you just spin your punishments as this tier system then act as if everything is alright, then act as if there is a right way to play any game so that one can claim that playing the game on a "higher level" is somehow more desirable.

You want to talk punishment, talk about how all classes below T2 are punished for existing and how to fix that and don't act as if T1 or T2 getting punished is any thing more special or notable than that. I'll start caring about wizard getting punished for being optimized or planning when people start caring about people playing fighters being punished by the system just for not being a wizard.

[Nifft]

Yeah, all this talk of punishing players when they are wizards, yet no one thinks of any of the fighters who get punished just for being fighters. or rogues just for being rogues by the system. You must not read many threads on this forum.

We talk about fixing the system all the time.


Apparently all this "punishing players" talk only applies to the classes you care about. No, we talk about "punishing players" as a very poor way to compensate for a bad system.

The way to make the game fair is to fix the system and then treat all PCs fairly.

Using DM fiat to treat one player unfairly is not my idea of fun.

FIX THE SYSTEM, don't punish anyone.

[ShurikVch]

Happy New Year to everybody! :smile:



Kiai smiteActually, Kiai smite may be the only interesting thing about the CW Samurai: it's neither restricted by target's alignment(/type/.../whatever), nor required to be a melee attack.
1/day? So what? It's still better than 0/day.
So, assuming you have high Cha on non(full)caster, it may worth a dip



If you want to say, play a thief that can steal the demon lord's throne from under him?Sleight Of Hand (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#sleightOfHand) 80



Just as an fyi to anyone lurking, clerics can summon a holy symbol if they don't have one. A cleric can start the day without anything more than some commoner clothes and end it with a holy symbol, full set of armour, magical weapon, and a good idea of what's to come, even at low levels.Summon Holy Symbol?
"1 round/level" - hardly a long time, even if summoning works as expected
And what's you mean about "full set of armour, magical weapon"? At which level is it?



There's also the fact that if you've a DM determined to fiat away spellbooks eidetic wizard is a thing.If DM determined to fiat away spellbooks, then eidetic wizard not a serious obstacle - negative level is a thing (and drugs may be a tad unawaylable)

If it's just normal attacks that aren't fiat-based the spellbook is actually going to be better defended against such nonsense than even the wizard himself. After all how exactly do you plan on getting it from permanency item shrunken, bag of holding suppository? Do keep in mind that's just the low level spellbook defense.Even wizard may roll a natural 1 against some effect...



Yep. There's also tattooing your spellbook onto your own skinErase (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/erase.htm)...



Ranger: Ignoring two weapon fighting, archery just doesn't have damage output worth anything unless you have access to the magic item emporium every game. The ranger should have been able to use a bow much better than they currently do if you pick the archery path and certainly shouldn't need the magic item Christmas tree effect to do it effectively. It should be part of their class features.Hey, ranged combat in a game is weak in general, why the special dislike for Ranger?
Swift Hunter is OK-ish
Peerless Archer PrC gets Power Shot - ranged analog of PA, and may be entered from Ranger
Ferocity of Sanguine Rage - that spell add half of your CL to damage (see "101 way to cheese your CL up"), and can be discharged to activate True Strike (sadly, Ranger will need Sword of the Arcane Order feat to cast it)



My issues with rogues, or traps in general, is how easily that entire niche is covered by low level casters. Knock is a 2nd level spellWhich doesn't work on especially large doors, unable to open more than 2 locks per cast, and alarming enemies on the other side of doors
Also, some locks are just immune to it
If Arcane Lock spell don't existed, I would say Knock is just plain worse; otherwise, they are about equal
summon soon to be dead again but not really monkey is a 1st level spell. For 5250 gp, which the party if all contribute to is doable around level 3, definately by 4, has invalidated that entire niche for the entire campaign.Directing summoned minions on trapped room should be act of desperation, not a general strategy: some traps, if sprung, may cause fail for the whole campaign.
Also, it wouldn't be that helpful against recharging traps
You can find traps of dc 20 plus as rogue, thats one of your things. Well a level 1 spell trap, say burning hands cl 1, is dc 26. At level one you are looking at plus 6 to 8 in general to find that. Thats 15% chance at best. If the dc is 21 for a mechanical thing, you are still looking at 25 to 35% chance of success. Thats not good, and yer the trap guy.Duh, traps are supposed to be hidden - that's the point: they should be a danger, not a chore
Still, "6 to 8" is an awfully low number - I can relatively easy make a 1st-level Rogue who will make it up to +15 (before any rolls, and without a single magic item)
Also, trap of burning hands is at least CR 2
Unchained from PF is a nice boost fwiw, but if you need that to stay relevant longer thats a design issue.PF killed skillmonkeying as a niche, because in it anybody can have the same number of ranks in the same skills as a Rogue



Also, getting a holy symbol stolen doesn't make a cleric spelless . Not all divine spells have a divine focus component.OK.
And Ancestral Speakers are doesn't need a holy symbol anyway - their "holy symbols" is their bodies
But what if Cleric was affected by Intercession? 24 hours without spells...

Heck, even miracle doesn't have oneSo atheist wizards can cast it without looking silly

[Marlowe]

Yeah, all this talk of punishing players when they are wizards, yet no one thinks of any of the fighters who get punished just for being fighters. or rogues just for being rogues by the system. Apparently all this "punishing players" talk only applies to the classes you care about. Yet no one recognizes the hypocrisy that any high tier game is inherently punishing anyone who chooses fighter. All systems and choices punish one option over another. Your not better than me, you just spin your punishments as this tier system then act as if everything is alright, then act as if there is a right way to play any game so that one can claim that playing the game on a "higher level" is somehow more desirable.

You want to talk punishment, talk about how all classes below T2 are punished for existing and how to fix that and don't act as if T1 or T2 getting punished is any thing more special or notable than that. I'll start caring about wizard getting punished for being optimized or planning when people start caring about people playing fighters being punished by the system just for not being a wizard.


Playing a sub-standard class like Fighter is a choice. Objectively a poor choice. Like choose a race/class combo that doesn't pan out well or placing your stats incorrectly.

You are essentially saying that players shouldn't be effected by the choices they make.

The entire point of the game is players being effected by the choices they make.

Why are you even here?

[Lord Raziere]

Playing a sub-standard class like Fighter is a choice. Objectively a poor choice. Like choose a race/class combo that doesn't pan out well or placing your stats incorrectly.

You are essentially saying that players shouldn't be effected by the choices they make.

The entire point of the game is players being effected by the choices they make.

Why are you even here?

There are far better choices to be effected by than your race/class combination or your stats. I'd go so far as to say those are the worst, least fun choices to be effected by in all roleplaying games. Ever.

[Marlowe]

Your opinion, which remains nothing but your opinion. Nothing more. They are still game choices that effect performance. If you don't like them having an effect, then you seriously are playing the wrong game.

[Lord Raziere]

Your opinion, which remains nothing but your opinion. Nothing more. They are still game choices that effect performance. If you don't like them having an effect, then you seriously are playing the wrong game.

Oh I'm not playing. Not unless I really need to, for certain specific games when people won't playing anything else. Unfortunately due to popularity and how hard it is find games that do in fact use systems I like, I must be constantly prepared to use it anyways just in case to get any games at all. So I have to care, even though I don't want to.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Stuff like this makes me think we should actually make holy symbols and wizard spellbooks actually expensive and important.

... spellbooks are incredibly expensive unless they're empty and, in that case, they're useless.


I mean in PF, guns cost thousands of GP to use with class features that aren't nearly as powerful as Wizards or Clerics. Yet a Wizard or Cleric can buy this stuff cheap for no reason. I mean, a spellcaster can have access to all their magic for relatively cheap prices:
Holy Symbol: 1 gp
Spellbook: 15gp
A single +1 magical sword: 2000gp

Try as much as 10,000gp for a full, mundane spellbook or 12,500 for a blessed book, regardless of how full it is. Wizarding is very powerful but it sure ain't cheap unless you leave yourself with no more spells know than a sorcerer or are willing to sac' permanent build-resources to obviate the gold cost.


How is this any way remotely fair, balanced or desirable? the two items needed for access to the biggest selection of the most powerful spells in the game are cheaper than a single magical weapon that doesn't even achieve the effect of a single spell. If we're being fair, a blank spellbook or holy symbol should be the one costing tens of thousands of gp, if not hundreds of thousands, while the magical sword should be closer to costing only 30 gp or something. The symbol or book you get for free at character creation? thats should be valuable, your only one, your life's blood.

I mean, there is something seriously wrong with this set up. this should not be how things are priced at the very least.

Beyond your notable error, clerics and druids are expected to melee as well as cast so they too need magic arms, armor, and spellcasting acoutrements such as wands, staves, and scrolls. Building them into ranged casters or such melee monsters that they don't require a standard set of melee gear is difficult and requires more than basic-level optimization skills.

It's not unreasonable that you should be able to squeeze more power out of a class that's more difficult to squeeze for power.

[Zanos]

There are far better choices to be effected by than your race/class combination or your stats. I'd go so far as to say those are the worst, least fun choices to be effected by in all roleplaying games. Ever.
I'm a little confused by your meaning here. Are you conveying that your race/class shouldn't affect a characters performance?

[GilesTheCleric]

Summon Holy Symbol?
"1 round/level" - hardly a long time, even if summoning works as expected
And what's you mean about "full set of armour, magical weapon"? At which level is it?
Why would "summoning not work as expected"? Summon Holy Symbol doesn't need to last very long, as some other posters pointed out -- not all Cleric spells have DF.

Luminous Armor/ Greater (SL 2/ 4), Shield of Heironeous (SL 2), Magic Vestment (Sl 3), and Segojan's Armor (SL 1).

Ice Gauntlet (SL 1), Magic Weapon/ Greater (SL 1/ 4), St. Cuthbert's Cudgel (SL 1), Nerull's Scythe (SL 3), Fang Blade (SL 4), Boneblade (SL 3), Ice Axe (SL 3), Blade of Pain and Fear (SL 3), Conjure Ice Object (SL 2), Brambles (SL 2), Stone Shape (SL 3), Shape Metal (SL 4), Ice Shape (SL 3), and probably others at higher levels.

All of those are very low-level; a Cleric at level 1 wouldn't be happy without any of their gear, but they could deal with it. After level 1 it gets much easier. Substitute Domain (SL 2) for a domain with any kind of fabrication or minor creation would work, too (which iirc are in ~5 domains).

And Ancestral Speakers are doesn't need a holy symbol anyway - their "holy symbols" is their bodies
But what if Cleric was affected by Intercession? 24 hours without spells...
So atheist wizards can cast it without looking silly

Yes, Clerics do suck when they can't cast spells. I can't find Intercession; do you mean Divine Interdiction? That doesn't turn off their casting.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm a little confused by your meaning here. Are you conveying that your race/class shouldn't affect a characters performance?

The fact that a character's race does is kind of weird and iffy to me already. the very concept of ability score penalties and bonuses will automatically lock away most character concepts and potential stories, and while I may understand that a giant or something not being a spellcaster is desirable because of game balance, or not being affected by the realistic simulated things its supposed to with massive strength and size, I would find such an argument hypocritical, given two reasons: that the game is already broken beyond belief (and therefore any arguments for game balance coming from people who already know such a thing doesn't exist) and that because of how broken it is it doesn't actually properly simulate a world that is any sensible or worth playing in since the mechanics are so well known for being broken and prone to abuse, and therefore can no longer be considered immersive enough to make any coherent simulation or setting.
If I could, I would just play any race/class combination without needing to worry about requirements of this or that and just trust people to play this for fun.

A class is bit more understandable since its a profession, but I always was of the mind that such things should be more a difference in method in achieving a goal than objectively better quality in achieving any goal. IE, things should be equally good at killing things but for different reasons just as one example.

and no 4e does not fix this to my satisfaction. nor does 5e. they're both too limited. they lack the options I want. its unfortunate that 3.5 and pf lacks the balance. and yes I have the monster classes book, and so on. Still waiting for the day when I get to use that. I have a "succubus spy from heaven" idea I want to use at some point, and 3.5 is one of.....say.....three systems I can possibly use to play it that I can think off the top of my head and I don't like closing off my options.

[Linken]

For Pathfinder? I extremely dislike Wizard. I prefer T3/T4 classes, and Wizard just feels imbalanced, even at low levels. I like to make characters that are strong in lots of attributes- a Cleric with good Strength, Constitution and Wisdom, for example, while having stuff like Intelligence and Charisma working too, above average. Then you get Wizard, which can just dump every stat aside from Dexterity, Intelligence and perhaps Constitution because of certain traits causing their dumped Charisma to work fine, their dumped Wisdom and Strength to not even matter. Their low skill points per level don't matter because they have high Intelligence anyway. The class has raw power, too.
Don't want to suck at Diplomacy or Bluff but need that high Intelligence? Just take Student of Philosophy!
Trapped under rubble? You don't need your team. Just telekinesis that stuff off of you, or summon a monster to lift it off. I wish wizards had a few more limitations.

[ShurikVch]

Why would "summoning not work as expected"?Because in real games, unlike the "white room" TO-speak, sometimes happens what magic doesn't works as expected.
The most direct example - Dimensional Lock (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dimensionalLock.htm), Seal of Binding, and other similar effects which prevent summoning completely
Please, remind me - how well exactly works summoning magic in Ravenloft?
Less obvious complication - area may be under the Corrupt Summons effect; so, what exactly you will get instead your expected holy symbol?

I can't find Intercession; do you mean Divine Interdiction? That doesn't turn off their casting.Dragon #312 have several Evil versions of Paladin; one of them - NE Corrupter; at 4th level, instead usual Turn Undead, Corrupter gets ability which named Intercession in text, but in table - Rebuke divine magic; it cause divine casters to lose their magic for 1 minute; if result of turning check was "Destroyed", then loss of magic is for 24 hours

[GilesTheCleric]

Because in real games, unlike the "white room" TO-speak, sometimes happens what magic doesn't works as expected.
Yes, if magic doesn't work, then magic doesn't work. Clerics are a bit screwed in that case.

Dragon #312 have several Evil versions of Paladin; one of them - NE Corrupter; at 4th level, instead usual Turn Undead, Corrupter gets ability which named Intercession in text, but in table - Rebuke divine magic; it cause divine casters to lose their magic for 1 minute; if result of turning check was "Destroyed", then loss of magic is for 24 hours
Ah, okay. I was unfamiliar with that Pal variant. Thank you for letting me know about it ^^

[Zanos]

The fact that a character's race does is kind of weird and iffy to me already. the very concept of ability score penalties and bonuses will automatically lock away most character concepts and potential stories, and while I may understand that a giant or something not being a spellcaster is desirable because of game balance, or not being affected by the realistic simulated things its supposed to with massive strength and size, I would find such an argument hypocritical, given two reasons: that the game is already broken beyond belief (and therefore any arguments for game balance coming from people who already know such a thing doesn't exist) and that because of how broken it is it doesn't actually properly simulate a world that is any sensible or worth playing in since the mechanics are so well known for being broken and prone to abuse, and therefore can no longer be considered immersive enough to make any coherent simulation or setting.
If I could, I would just play any race/class combination without needing to worry about requirements of this or that and just trust people to play this for fun.

A class is bit more understandable since its a profession, but I always was of the mind that such things should be more a difference in method in achieving a goal than objectively better quality in achieving any goal. IE, things should be equally good at killing things but for different reasons just as one example.

and no 4e does not fix this to my satisfaction. nor does 5e. they're both too limited. they lack the options I want. its unfortunate that 3.5 and pf lacks the balance. and yes I have the monster classes book, and so on. Still waiting for the day when I get to use that. I have a "succubus spy from heaven" idea I want to use at some point, and 3.5 is one of.....say.....three systems I can possibly use to play it that I can think off the top of my head and I don't like closing off my options.
I don't think I agree with you on a conceptual level, then. I rather like it when sterotypes are mechanically enforced. Yes, 3.5's balance is atrocious, but writing a setting that says that "elves are more likely to be wizards or rangers, and shy away from close combat"(for example), doesn't make a lot of sense if elves are equally as good naturally as every other species at anything. And classes can be doing other things than killing stuff. Speaking generically, I think it's okay for Class A to have 10 points in muderin' and for Class B to have 8 points in murderin' and 2 points in makin'. 3.5 screwed the pooch on that one by making some classes objectively better at everything than others, but I think the concept of classes having different niches is completely acceptable. And not every concept under the sun has to be mechanically good. Personally I would find a setting where a gnome was mechanically as good at lifting stuff as an ogre pretty stupid.

[digiman619]

For Pathfinder? I extremely dislike Wizard. I prefer T3/T4 classes, and Wizard just feels imbalanced, even at low levels. I like to make characters that are strong in lots of attributes- a Cleric with good Strength, Constitution and Wisdom, for example, while having stuff like Intelligence and Charisma working too, above average. Then you get Wizard, which can just dump every stat aside from Dexterity, Intelligence and perhaps Constitution because of certain traits causing their dumped Charisma to work fine, their dumped Wisdom and Strength to not even matter. Their low skill points per level don't matter because they have high Intelligence anyway. The class has raw power, too.
Don't want to suck at Diplomacy or Bluff but need that high Intelligence? Just take Student of Philosophy!
Trapped under rubble? You don't need your team. Just telekinesis that stuff off of you, or summon a monster to lift it off. I wish wizards had a few more limitations.

Have you heard of our non-Vancian savior Spheres of Power (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/)?

[Lord Raziere]

And not every concept under the sun has to be mechanically good. Personally I would find a setting where a gnome was mechanically as good at lifting stuff as an ogre pretty stupid.

Depends on the gnome for me. Perhaps this specific Gnome has had cybernetic enhancements or took a certain potion to make him so strong because he wanted to be and is now permanently that way. the mechanics don't really say where the Strength comes FROM, just that they are there.

[Linken]

Depends on the gnome for me. Perhaps this specific Gnome has had cybernetic enhancements or took a certain potion to make him so strong because he wanted to be and is now permanently that way. the mechanics don't really say where the Strength comes FROM, just that they are there.

Actually, yes, RAW you CAN have a Gnome just about as strong as an Ogre!

Using pointbuy or a lucky roll, give the gnome 18 strength, which is decreased to 16. Let's say he's an Alchemist, too, of first level, and that he drinks a Strength mutagen! He now has 20 strength, +5 to damage and to hit. Is that a good build? Probably not! Could it work? Definitely! Is the gnome now as strong as an ogre? Yes! He can't lift as much due to Small size, but he could also just use Enlarge Person! Medium sized gnome with lots of strength at level 1!

[Luccan]

The internet sometimes makes me hate casters. And casters are my favorite thing to play. Obviously, I can play however I want, but I wish I could go back to the time before I knew I could solve every encounter with one spell (there are plenty of lists of the "right" spells to know/prepare at each level). What other spells am I supposed to choose then? Makes me want to roll on random tables for my spellbook. Or play a sorcerer type caster, like in UA.

Edit: Oh, and I don't really care for the way they made the 3 CA base classes. Hexblades can't be good because using their not asked for debuff powers are evil or at least "non-good", I guess. Even though you could make an LG Wizard that exclusively uses debuffs that do the same or worse and also can trap other people's souls or torture them with nightmares so terrifying they have a heart attack and die. But damn are Hexblades inherently kinda-bad or evil people. Also, despite being a debuff oriented class, other casters do it better. Samurai are an attempt to make the sort of samurai popular in media, by giving them class abilities that are useless by the time you get them. Literally everything they can do can be done better by another PC class and sooner. The Swashbuckler barely gets a pass from me, only on the basis that it has an ACF or Feat that replaces one of its boring class abilities with spell like abilities. They aren't varied, have limited uses per day, and only last for a round or so, but at least they're themed in a way that makes me feel like I'm playing someone who could be called a Swashbuckler. You know, besides the completely useful and neccesary bonus to reflex saves. Otherwise I find them dull

[ryu]

The internet sometimes makes me hate casters. And casters are my favorite thing to play. Obviously, I can play however I want, but I wish I could go back to the time before I knew I could solve every encounter with one spell (there are plenty of lists of the "right" spells to know/prepare at each level). What other spells am I supposed to choose then? Makes me want to roll on random tables for my spellbook. Or play a sorcerer type caster, like in UA.

I mean... sure? Why would you play wizard if you just wanted to use the same spell over and over again? Variety of spells is kinda their biggest strength. That's like saying you wanna play a druid but refuse to use anything animal, nature, or shapeshifting related. I mean... Technically you could probably manage, but why this class?

[Zanos]

Depends on the gnome for me. Perhaps this specific Gnome has had cybernetic enhancements or took a certain potion to make him so strong because he wanted to be and is now permanently that way. the mechanics don't really say where the Strength comes FROM, just that they are there.
In 3.5, the mechanics do say where the strength comes from, though. X points are your natural score, Y points are your racial adjustment, Z points is from your belt, etc. If you want to completely cleave mechanics from flavor, you need a very different system, and one I wouldn't be interested in playing. Cybernetically enhanced gnomes punching through doors shouldn't be as common as Ogres or Orcs or Trolls or <insert stereotypical bruiser species> doing the same thing, and characters that go against the grain should be weaker because going against the grain should be hard. Otherwise it loses any meaning.

Before anyone gets on me for discouraging "colorful" characters or whatever, characters don't need to be inherently different or special to be interesting from a story perspective. "Guy who rejects his own culture and stereotypes" is so played out that there's even a Drow wielding two scimitars that's the face of it being played out.

Actually, yes, RAW you CAN have a Gnome just about as strong as an Ogre!

Using pointbuy or a lucky roll, give the gnome 18 strength, which is decreased to 16. Let's say he's an Alchemist, too, of first level, and that he drinks a Strength mutagen! He now has 20 strength, +5 to damage and to hit. Is that a good build? Probably not! Could it work? Definitely! Is the gnome now as strong as an ogre? Yes! He can't lift as much due to Small size, but he could also just use Enlarge Person! Medium sized gnome with lots of strength at level 1!
It's not really a terrible build, because small size is a pretty good boon in melee combat unless you're being grappled. And people overestimate how much is really needed to be competitive. You don't need a 20 in your primary stat to keep pace with appropriately CR'd encounters in 3.5. Although I did hear the curve is worse in Pathfinder, not sure.

But I think you realize my point was that an Ogre should be stronger than a Gnome with the same degree of investment. Obviously a Gnome with 10 gallons of steroids in his stomach and blessed by the nine divines while channeling the powers of chaos is going to be very physically strong.

[ryu]

In 3.5, the mechanics do say where the strength comes from, though. X points are your natural score, Y points are your racial adjustment, Z points is from your belt, etc. If you want to completely cleave mechanics from flavor, you need a very different system, and one I wouldn't be interested in playing. Cybernetically enhanced gnomes punching through doors shouldn't be as common as Ogres or Orcs or Trolls or <insert stereotypical bruiser species> doing the same thing, and characters that go against the grain should be weaker because going against the grain should be hard. Otherwise it loses any meaning.

Before anyone gets on me for discouraging "colorful" characters or whatever, characters don't need to be inherently different or special to be interesting from a story perspective. "Guy who rejects his own culture and stereotypes" is so played out that there's even a Drow wielding two scimitars that's the face of it being played out.

It's not really a terrible build, because small size is a pretty good boon in melee combat unless you're being grappled. And people overestimate how much is really needed to be competitive. You don't need a 20 in your primary stat to keep pace with appropriately CR'd encounters in 3.5. Although I did hear the curve is worse in Pathfinder, not sure.

But I think you realize my point was that an Ogre should be stronger than a Gnome with the same degree of investment. Obviously a Gnome with 10 gallons of steroids in his stomach and blessed by the nine divines while channeling the powers of chaos is going to be very physically strong.

Wouldn't the steroids have to be in his blood? I'm pretty sure the steroids you're thinking of aren't ingestion based due to stomach acids not being very kind to the chemical in question.

[Zanos]

Wouldn't the steroids have to be in his blood? I'm pretty sure the steroids you're thinking of aren't ingestion based due to stomach acids not being very kind to the chemical in question.
I'm pretty sure alchemists drink their 'roids.

[ryu]

I'm pretty sure alchemists drink their 'roids.

I dunno. Permanent body altering subtances just seem more likely to be injection based.... or a suppository.

[Jormengand]

Let's just say similar things have happened in the past. :smalltongue:

I wasn't even going to until you insisted. Unlike Red Fel, I don't even usually appear whem you say my name three times in a mirror...

[Lord Raziere]

Before anyone gets on me for discouraging "colorful" characters or whatever, characters don't need to be inherently different or special to be interesting from a story perspective. "Guy who rejects his own culture and stereotypes" is so played out that there's even a Drow wielding two scimitars that's the face of it being played out.


Yeah, whatever. I'll believe that once you stop playing adventurers and start roleplaying a human farmer who doesn't do anything adventurous or exciting ever. Because if what you say was true, everyone would become an adventurer in the setting. Even the most mundane farm boy who picks up a sword and goes forth from their village to be a hero simply because they want to be one is exceptional and different from all the other farm boys out there who AREN'T destined to become great warriors saving lives.

Even in this mundane example, the human is an exception, different because of the choice he made, special because he set out on the journey out of his own desire no matter how misguided or naive his beliefs are upon it. Because I bet you, all the farmers and villager he left disagreed with him and shouted at him to stay and live a peaceful life instead going out into dangerous wilderness and risking his life like a fool. He is an exception to farmers and their desires.

I'm just applying that principle to everything besides humanity and its culture. Adventurers are exceptions by the dint of being adventurers. Its not as if a profession whose people travel around, take any job, burn down taverns, considered by heroes by some and coming storms of chaos by others, facing dangers no one else does, has room for anyone considered normal. Normal would be to back home, let someone else handle it, seek no such power and live peacefully and protected by others strength of arms. Thats what everyone else does, no matter what their culture. Even warrior cultures need people who stay home and tend to the children and the crops.

To say its played out is to ignore that adventurers are what you claim is played out, and has always been around, always been exceptions and different from the cultures around them since the first heroic myths. I find it quite silly to point to Drizzt when this is a tradition reaching all the way back to Odysseus and Hercules.