Retiering the Classes: Archivist, Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Sha'ir, and Wizard [Archive]

eggynack

2017-02-21, 09:15 PM

Welcome to the tier one classes edition of retiering the classes. Yeah. The results here I fully expect to be a foregone conclusion, but if you want to pen a huge essay about the awesomeness of wizards, lovingly flowered with Tippy citations, be my guest. Or, better yet, you can argue they aren't tier one for whatever reason. That'd generate some fun times. You don't need to worry overmuch about justification length here. I'm just giving them all tier one and moving on with my life. I'ma keep these descriptions short (primarily including them in the first place because I like consistent formatting, and because it's a nice place to put page numbers).

Archivist (HoH, 82): Just the ability to prepare spells off the cleric and druid lists is great. When you branch out some, you delve into insane power.

Artificer (ECS, 29): Item use on this level practically represents spellcasting, and infusions are great too.

Cleric: You get an amazing spell list, bolstered by domains, along with a bunch of cool stuff you can do with turn undead (including undead turning), and spontaneous curing on top of that.

Druid: It's awesome. I have a whole handbook about it. Check it out.

Sha'ir (DrC, 51): You basically have free access to the wizard list, and you get some divine access too. Awesome stuff.

Wizard: And, last but not least, practically the definition of tier one. Best list in the game. It's more than enough, all on its own.

What are the tiers?

The simple answer here is that tier one is the best, the home of things on the approximate problem solving scale of wizards, and tier six is the worst, land of commoners. And problem solving capacity is what's being measured here. Considering the massive range of challenges a character is liable to be presented with across the levels, how much and how often does that character's class contribute to the defeat of those challenges? This value should be considered as a rough averaging across all levels, the center of the level range somewhat more than really low and really high level characters, and across all optimization levels (considering DM restrictiveness as a plausible downward acting factor on how optimized a character is), prioritizing moderate optimization somewhat more than low or high.

A big issue with the original tier system is that, if anything, it was too specific, generating inflexible definitions for allowance into a tier which did not cover the broad spectrum of ways a class can operate. When an increase in versatility would seem to represent a decrease in tier, because tier two is supposed to be low versatility, it's obvious that we've become mired in something that'd be pointless to anyone trying to glean information from the tier system. Thus, I will be uncharacteristically word light here. The original tier system's tier descriptions (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.0) are still good guidelines here, but they shouldn't be assumed to be the end all and be all for how classes get ranked.

Consistent throughout these tiers is the notion of problems and the solving thereof. For the purposes of this tier system, the problem space can be said to be inclusive of combat, social interaction, and exploration, with the heaviest emphasis placed on combat. A problem could theoretically fall outside of that space, but things inside that space are definitely problems. Another way to view the idea of problem solving is through the lens of the niche ranking system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?314701-Person_Man-s-Niche-Ranking-System). A niche filled tends to imply the capacity to solve a type of problem, whether it's a status condition in the case of healing, or an enemy that just has too many hit points in the case of melee combat. It's not a perfect measure, both because some niches have a lot of overlap in the kinds of problems they can solve and because, again, the niches aren't necessarily all inclusive, but they can act as a good tool for class evaluation.

Tier one: Incredibly good at solving nearly all problems. This is the realm of clerics, druids, and wizards, classes that open up with strong combat spells backed up by utility, and then get massively stronger from there. If you're not keeping up with that core trio of tier one casters, then you probably don't belong here.

Tier two: We're just a step below tier one here, in the land of classes around the sorcerer level of power. Generally speaking, this means relaxing one of the two tier one assumptions, either getting us to very good at solving nearly all problems, or incredibly good at solving most problems. But, as will continue to be the case as these tiers go on, there aren't necessarily these two simple categories for this tier. You gotta lose something compared to the tier one casters, but what you lose doesn't have to be in some really specific proportions.

Tier three: Again, we gotta sacrifice something compared to tier two, here taking us to around the level of a swordsage. The usual outcome is that you are very good at solving a couple of problems and competent at solving a few more. Of course, there are other possibilities, for example that you might instead be competent at solving nearly all problems.

Tier four: Here we're in ranger/barbarian territory (though the ranger should be considered largely absent of ACF's and stuff to hit this tier, as will be talked about later). Starting from that standard tier three position, the usual sweet spots here are very good at solving a few problems, or alright at solving many problems.

Tier five: We're heading close to the dregs here. Tier five is the tier of monks, classes that are as bad as you can be without being an aristocrat or a commoner. Classes here are sometimes very good at solving nearly no problems, or alright at solving a few, or some other function thereof. It's weak, is the point.

Tier six: And here we have commoner tier. Or, the bottom is commoner. The top is approximately aristocrat. You don't necessarily have nothing in this tier, but you have close enough to it.

The Threads

Tier System Home Base (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?515845-Retiering-the-Classes-Home-Base&p=21722272#post21722272)

The Fixed List Casters: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, and Warmage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?515849-Retiering-the-Classes-Beguiler-Dread-Necromancer-and-Warmage&p=21722395#post21722395)

The Obvious Tier One Classes: Archivist, Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Sha'ir, and Wizard (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?516137-Retiering-the-Classes-Archivist-Artificer-Cleric-Druid-Sha-ir-and-Wizard&p=21731809#post21731809)

The Mundane Beat Sticks (part one): Barbarian, Fighter, Samurai (CW), and Samurai (OA) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?516602-Retiering-the-Classes-Barbarian-Fighter-Samurai-(CW)-and-Samurai-(OA)&p=21747927#post21747927)

The Roguelikes: Ninja, Rogue, and Scout (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?517091-Retiering-the-Classes-Ninja-Rogue-and-Scout)

The Pseudo-Druids: Spirit Shaman, Spontaneous Druid, Urban Druid, and Wild Shape Ranger (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?517370-Retiering-the-Classes-Spirit-Shaman-Spontaneous-Druid-Urban-Druid-and-WS-Ranger&p=21774657#post21774657)

The Jacks of All Trades: Bard, Factotum, Jester, and Savant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?517967-Retiering-the-Classes-Bard-Factotum-and-Jester&p=21794327#post21794327)

The Tome of Battlers: Crusader, Swordsage, and Warblade (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?518495-Retiering-the-Classes-Crusader-Swordsage-and-Warblade&p=21815193#post21815193)

The NPCs: Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert, Magewright, and Warrior (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?519155-Retiering-the-Classes-Adept-Aristocrat-Commoner-Expert-Magewright-and-Warrior&p=21838412)

The Vaguely Supernatural Melee Folk: Battle Dancer, Monk, Mountebank, and Soulknife (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?519701-Retiering-the-Classes-Battle-Dancer-Monk-Mountebank-and-Soulknife)

The Miscellaneous Full Casters: Death Master, Shaman, Shugenja, Sorcerer, and Wu Jen (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520291-Retiering-the-Classes-Death-Master-Shugenja-Sorcerer-Wu-Jen&p=21878654#post21878654)

The Wacky Magicists: Binder, Dragonfire Adept, Shadowcaster, Truenamer, and Warlock (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520903-Retiering-the-Classes-Binder-Dragonfire-Adept-Shadowcaster-Truenamer-Warlock&p=21898782#post21898782)

The Rankings
Archivist: Tier one.

Artificer: Tier one.

Cleric: Tier one.

Druid: Tier one.

Sha'ir: Tier one.

Wizard: Tier one.

And here's a link to the spreadsheet. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Hj9_9PQg6tXACUWZY_Egm2R9Gtvg9nXRTPfGYnAfh9w/edit)

CockroachTeaParty

2017-02-21, 09:52 PM

I'd like to just take a moment to poop on the Artificer.

Look, I get it. On paper, they're a Tier 1 wet dream. They can make any magic item. This means they can scribe any scroll, which means they have full access to essentially every spell in the game.

True. In the sense that any problem can be solved by a specific spell, an artificer can solve any problem.

However, I base a lot of my opinions on these matters on actual play experience. I have seen wizards and sorcerers become terrors of efficacy and power. I have experienced firsthand the awesome might of a cleric. Campaigns have been won and lost based on the presence or absence of one of these classes.

Now, I haven't seen as many artificers in play due to their association with a very specific campaign setting, but I HAVE seen artificers in actual play, at low and mid levels. And the artificer routinely sucks.

There's something about the limitations of their infusions, the fiddly complexity of their UMD-dependency, and how beholden they are to time that in play I have never seen an artificer even come close to the power (and fun) of a wizard, sorcerer, or cleric.

The primary obstacle is the matter of campaign pacing. Most RL campaigns I've ever played (especially in Eberron) get a certain momentum going. Eventually the plot is in full swing, and stuff needs to get accomplished. The artificer quickly loses the ability to make magic items with any consistency, reducing him to a third-rate crossbowman.

Again, on paper I'm familiar with the counterarguments. "An artificer should have a legion of homunculi in portable holes making items around the clock!" Yes, in theory, every artificer should. But it's such a long, bitter struggle at low levels until you have the capital and time to even begin making these things. At low levels, it's not even guaranteed that an artificer can activate scrolls they've penned themselves. It's like playing a friggin' Truenamer. "I hope I make this skill check! Otherwise my turn is wasted!"

And by the time you can reasonably start making the big ticket items, the sheer amount of days required quickly becomes ludicrous. Even with the various time-reducing things out there, it'll take weeks and weeks to pop out a sexy new wand or what-have-you.

If a wizard has to prep their usefulness for the day and play a bit of guesswork, the artificer often has to prep their usefulness for a campaign arc and hope they get it right, since having months of downtime is far from guaranteed.

A necromancer might bog down pacing with the sheer complexity of managing tons of undead, but most of the time in character they just can pop a spell and go. The artificer has to ask their party for weeks or months of time before they're ready to go back to adventuring. Madness. It's a preposterous wrench in the gears.

I guess most of my grievances are with how magic item creation is handled in general, but a class that is 100% dependent on those rules makes for a tedious garbage fire of a class that is way more handicapped in-play than char op theory would suggest.

eggynack

2017-02-21, 09:56 PM

Zanos

2017-02-21, 09:58 PM

A necromancer might bog down pacing with the sheer complexity of managing tons of undead, but most of the time in character they just can pop a spell and go. The artificer has to ask their party for weeks or months of time before they're ready to go back to adventuring. Madness. It's a preposterous wrench in the gears.
IIRC this is actually how the books assume the game is played, with adventurers having short periods of high activity between long periods of downtime. Like ancient vampires. I'm sure there's a deeper link there. If you want your super specific +1 Greatsword of Charging and Swinging and Purple and Beef w/Honey Glaze it's probably not just sitting on a shelf somewhere, you're going to have to get it commissioned most likely. Wizards take a day each to scribe spells. I'm sure the rogue wants to actually spend his money on living nicely for a little bit at least.

Otherwise you wind up going from level 1 to 30 in under a month because the plots don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming.

CockroachTeaParty

2017-02-21, 10:02 PM

Yeah, I've seen some arguments against their awesomeness before. I'm not super knowledgeable on the class though, so I tend to not get involved. I figured it'd definitely land in one either way, so I stuck it here, but an argument on it could be interesting.

I'd call it Tier 1, but with the biggest asterisk next to it you could muster.

Consider the following:

A long, arduous adventure against mindless monsters with little in the way of treasure. Sure, nobody relishes the prospect. But the cleric gains experience, the rogue gains experience, everybody gets XP. And everyone is stronger for it! New spell levels! More sneak attack! More feats, etc.

The artificer in this scenario is much less well off. They need gold. Infusions just aren't going to cut it.

Every time they use a scroll or cast from a wand, they're burning money. No other class is so reliant on hurling money at a problem.

A cleric doesn't need money or time, just XP. A wizard would like money and time, but they don't need it. An artificer MUST have those resources, and their availability is at the whim of the GM and campaign pacing. That's the asterisk, right there. "Tier 1 if there's time and money." Not quite the same as Tier 1 full stop.

CockroachTeaParty

2017-02-21, 10:07 PM

IIRC this is actually how the books assume the game is played, with adventurers having short periods of high activity between long periods of downtime. Like ancient vampires. I'm sure there's a deeper link there. If you want your super specific +1 Greatsword of Charging and Swinging and Purple and Beef w/Honey Glaze it's probably not just sitting on a shelf somewhere, you're going to have to get it commissioned most likely. Wizards take a day each to scribe spells. I'm sure the rogue wants to actually spend his money on living nicely for a little bit at least.

Otherwise you wind up going from level 1 to 30 in under a month because the plots don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming.

That's the thing, though. I'm basing all of these opinions on actual play experience.

I play a decent number of pre-written campaigns and adventures. Most see your character sprint from level 1 to the upper teens in a matter of months.

Rise of the Runelords was the last game I ran in RL. In-character, the party went from level 1 to level 17 in about six months. ZOOM!

So it's very campaign dependent. An artificer in a Kingmaker-style game is much better off, of course. But few classes tier ranking is so affected by this factor; a character has no control over pacing.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-02-21, 10:09 PM

I'd even be prepared to give it two entries: T1 with significant downtime, and T4 without.

Gullintanni

2017-02-21, 10:15 PM

Archivist: Tier 1.

Artificer: Can't rank. I've never sat down and read through the class, much less played one.

Cleric: Tier 1

Druid: Tier 1

Sha'ir: See Artificer.

Wizard: Tier 1.

CockroachTeaParty

2017-02-21, 10:17 PM

GilesTheCleric

2017-02-21, 10:24 PM

eggynack

2017-02-21, 10:26 PM

I could go off on the artificer for a while longer, but here's a challenge in general:

How good is the Druid, really? I mean, really really?

I've never seen a high level druid in play, but I've seen a lot of low level ones, and each time, I would have rather had a cleric in the party.

How many problems can the druid spell list and wild shaping really solve?

I challenge the Druid's Tier 1 status!
See, this is the kinda wacky fun I'm looking for. What problems can't the spell list and wild shape solve? I've gotta think the list is pretty short. There's things on that list earlier, but I think the companion compensates for some of those missing elements (a druid can't cast silent image, a wizard can't beat face efficiently), and later on I'm getting to the point where the list is near empty.

Cosi

2017-02-21, 10:26 PM

Broadly, I agree with Cockroach on the Artificer.

Theoretically the Artificer is quite good. It can do any particular broken thing the Wizard, Druid, or Cleric can, it can do broken things all its own, it can break WBL, and it can pilfer spells at atrociously early levels.

But practically it's not very good.

Consider what is going to be the bread and butter of the Artificer for the early levels, and often for the game as a whole: activating scrolls.

The DC to activate a scroll is 20 + the scroll's caster level. In most cases, this will be 20 + the Artificer's level. Assuming a CHA of 18, full ranks, the class and synergy bonuses, and no feats or items, the Artificer is looking at a bonus of 13 + his level (4 CHA, 3 base ranks, 2 from class/Spellcraft synergy/Decipher Script synergy)*. Obviously, the levels cancel out, and the Artificer needs to roll 7 or higher to succeed. That's a 35% failure rate, before we get down to the fact that the DCs on scrolls are seriously crappy.

Even the usual standby of the Artificer (spell storing item) requires a DC 20+ UMD check to activate. This leaves the Artificer in the unenviable position of having to invest resources simply to get his abilities to work at all.

Yes, there are pretty impressive things the Artificer can do. They can reduce item creation costs to a pittance. If they pump a pile of feats into it. They can stack huge amounts of metamagic into wands. If they pump a huge pile of feats into it. Effective Artificer builds rely on deep knowledge of the game, and a willingness to dig into very obscure books to find things like 2nd level animate dead or every cost reducer known to man.

Ultimately, the Artificer is a class with two wildly different modes. In the hands of an effective optimizer, with broad access to splats, it is a strong contender for the best class in the game. In the hands of anyone else, it can be very close to useless. It's not like the Sorcerer or Wizard where just picking some good spells can get you pretty far. An Artificer that picks good spells is still looking at a spell failure rate of full plate when he tries to use them.

I think the Artificer is a good argument for having multiple entries. A well played Artificer with good splat access is the equal of a Wizard or Cleric. A poorly played one can quickly fall to the level of a Barbarian or Ranger.

*: For things that aren't scrolls, your bonus is lower, but the DC is usually fixed, so it kind of evens out. Still sucks at low levels.

The Archivist suffers from a similar, if substantially less pronounced issue.

Consider what the Archivist actually gets as a baseline. Two Cleric spells every level. That's not the equal of the Wizard's two Wizard spells every level, or the Cleric's all the Cleric spells. Yes, the Archivist can learn all the Druid spells. But is the marginal difference between "all the Cleric spells" and "all the Cleric spells plus all the Druid spells" really enough to make up for the cases where he's stuck with only a few Cleric spells?

Don't even get started on the Magical Christmas Land scenario of finding Divine Magician scrolls of Wizard spells, or Geometer Death Master scrolls of 2nd level animate dead.

Overall, I think the Artificer and the Archivist will tend to under-perform at low optimization levels, particularly the Artificer.

Zancloufer

2017-02-21, 10:30 PM

So this is pretty clear cut. Pretty sure they are all Tier 1 with like two exceptions:

Full Spell-casting is the theoretically best thing. Wizard has arguably the best list and the best access to it. Terrible Chassis and meh class features, but when played right get very good after a few levels. Heavily dependant on learning AND memorizing the right spells though. Lowest floor here and one of the few classes where you can literally makes things worse if played wrong. I had a player that tried literally buffing the enemy once.

Sha-'ir is on the edge. Probably one of the weakest here, maybe even Tier 2. Not super familiar with them, but they are pretty much Sorcerers that can change their spells known each day. Yes in THEORY they have the same versatility as a Wizard, but they can fail to retrieve the spells they want, and gain limited spells per day and weakened progression like the Sorcerer. Maybe a Tier 1.5? Haven't actually used one/seen one used first hand.

Druid. Weakest of the "Big Three" spell lists. Compensate by having great class features and the best Chassis of a Full Caster. They don't have as much "Screw you it's magic" as Cleric and Wizard lists, but compensate by being having the highest floor. Take Nature Spell. Congrats you will eventually get it right with some thought. Also Bears. Throw enough level appropriate bears at any encounter and you are at least a functioning Tier 3. Not like anyone can stop you as any spell you have can become "Summon Bear" at will.

Cleric. It's a gish in a can. Buff. Smash faces. Or you can be a heal bot. Maybe summon a hoard of angels. Solid list, chassis that doesn't suck and the ability to choose new spells each day make this a solid standard. Probably the least versatile of the full casters before ACFs/PrCs, but they work as long as you choose the right spells. Probably one of the few classes you can make an entire party out of and still function across most levels and optimizations.

Artificer: Err. This one might not be tier 1. It's CLOSE though. In theory with enough time and experience they are, but two problems. One; Crafting at low levels sucks and your UMD is unreliable. Two; Using straight RAW (which IMHO is stupid, but hey) they take FOREVER TO MAKE ANYTHING. If you can survive the first 3-5 levels AND you get TONS of down time, yes tier 1. They would have trouble hitting Tier 3 without these things though. I mean, you can spend 8 hours max each day. One item at a time. Takes one day per 1k GP of it's cost. +1 Flaming stick literally takes a week+ by RAW.

Archivist: Yet again never played/used this. Correct me if I'm wrong though: Wizard, but they use Cleric/Druid/Paladin/etc spells instead? As in: It is a Divine spell, therefore I can cast it. Some abuse here, especially with short list casters and the fact that divine magic has solid support. Maybe even more issues with optimization than wizards, but nothing wrong with ALL THE DIVINE MAGIC. Biggest problem, yet again, is learning and using the right spells. If you can do so though, solid class that would be fun to play.

Esprit15

2017-02-21, 10:47 PM

As someone playing an archivist in a current game that assumed fairly easy standard divine scroll access (ie no unusual ACFs or the like, but domain, paladin, ranger, and druid scrolls were reasonably accessible), Archivist has just as much game breaking potential as a wizard. Of course, that's its upper potential.

In a world where standard cleric and druid scrolls are the only ones easily available got for them to scribe, life gets a little rougher, and you lose a lot of fun spells that already never see the light of day.

In a world where scroll shops/libraries are not a thing, you're down to the same danger that a Wizard has, trying to pick the two most useful spells to scribe each level, and praying (hah) that you find a divine scroll with something besides just core spells on them. That's a lot rougher of a place to be, but it's the same rough place a wizard would find itself in a similar world.

Cosi

2017-02-21, 10:48 PM

See, this is the kinda wacky fun I'm looking for. What problems can't the spell list and wild shape solve? I've gotta think the list is pretty short. There's things on that list earlier, but I think the companion compensates for some of those missing elements (a druid can't cast silent image, a wizard can't beat face efficiently), and later on I'm getting to the point where the list is near empty.

I like the Druid for Tier One under this set up a lot more than the old one.

A Druid walks in the door with a list that has solid combat options (entangle, wall of thorns, baleful polymorph), a nice utility suite (including both scrying and healing magic, as well as all kinds of random stuff*), and Wild Shape to be a reasonable frontliner. That's just in core. Outside core you get the ability to throw down all kinds of weird, niche utility spells periodically. There's a spell out there (changestones) that turns one stone per four levels into a Lith. I don't know what the hell a Lith is, but if you ever need one of them per four levels, the Druid can just do that. The ability to pull out weird abilities like that at no long term cost is what makes Clerics and Druids good.

The issue in the old system was always that you didn't get anything that was really broken. Wild Shape is enough to kick the Fighter to the curb, but it's not really in the same league as planar binding. You get shapechange, but you get it in the range where Healers and Truenamers are throwing around gate. There are options out there (that Fey summoning spell), but they're pretty obscure.

There's another issue where being a Druid forces you to engage with the fractal nightmare that is figuring out how form changing works at this point, but most groups will just kind of ignore it unless you try to do something that both is very powerful and rests on a specific interpretation of the rules.

*: goodberry? reduce animal? There's some weird stuff in there, but the beauty of divine casters is that you can just prepare that stuff if it seems useful, and having the option is absolutely free.

Zanos

2017-02-21, 11:05 PM

That's the thing, though. I'm basing all of these opinions on actual play experience.

I play a decent number of pre-written campaigns and adventures. Most see your character sprint from level 1 to the upper teens in a matter of months.

Rise of the Runelords was the last game I ran in RL. In-character, the party went from level 1 to level 17 in about six months. ZOOM!

So it's very campaign dependent. An artificer in a Kingmaker-style game is much better off, of course. But few classes tier ranking is so affected by this factor; a character has no control over pacing.
That's the thing, though. I'm basing all of these opinions on actual play experience.

I play a lot of pickup games on roll20, and most of the DMs don't write games such that if you don't do x thing by y date the universe explodes. If you take a month off it's not a big deal, the PCs aren't the gatekeepers of the multiverse and it doesn't explode/get infested with legions of undead/fall to demons/cease to exist because someone decided to spend some time with their wife, get a magic item commissioned, scribe some spells, or tend to the lands they were granted as part of their knighthood. Perhaps I participate in an older school of thought where the PCs are exceptional but not chosen ones. Unless they piss someone off or it makes sense for the setting "the plot" isn't going to smash in their front door because they're taking a break. Of course taking a nap might become more of an issue as the PCs reach higher levels and their actions do have significant impact, but timey wimey shenanigans become more accessible as that becomes an issue.

Now I know some adventure paths are written this way. The ones that are written for 3.5 do account for some pretty significant downtime between installments although I think the amount decreases as things start to get bad. I'm not a huge fan of adventure paths in general because it assumes that the PCs generally oppose the same faction from levels 1-20 or similar, which requires some contrived writing to make any sense as their enemies constantly throw level appropriate foes at them instead of sending the CR 18 guy to crush the level 10s that are constantly screwing stuff up and everyone else has failed to kill.

So sure, I concede that the power of the artificer is dependent on what kind of game you're in more than most other classes. But I also recognize that those games ignore some baseline assumptions of the system and require some connived writing to make work.

Don't even get started on the Magical Christmas Land scenario of finding Divine Magician scrolls of Wizard spells, or Geometer Death Master scrolls of 2nd level animate dead.
The cleric spell list alone makes a class tier 1, but where do you draw the line here? There are many ways to make an arcane spell divine, including Alternate Source Spell, Southern Magician, Wyrm Wizard, and the mentioned Geometer. Even assuming conversion cheese is out there's still the cleric list, the druid list, domain spells, then all the wacky PrC lists you can cherry pick cheesy spells from at lower levels or just have more options.

CockroachTeaParty

2017-02-21, 11:05 PM

Cosi

2017-02-21, 11:39 PM

The cleric spell list alone makes a class tier 1, but where do you draw the line here? There are many ways to make an arcane spell divine, including Alternate Source Spell, Southern Magician, Wyrm Wizard, and the mentioned Geometer. Even assuming conversion cheese is out there's still the cleric list, the druid list, domain spells, then all the wacky PrC lists you can cherry pick cheesy spells from at lower levels or just have more options.

The Cleric list is good if you get all of it. It is much less good if you only get two spells a level. The power of the Cleric is that you can prepare the best spell each day for absolutely no cost to yourself. Think ice axe is going to do what you want today? Go ice axe. Think instead you'll want anarchic storm? Prepare that instead. The ability to get that degree of versatility for free, on top of having consistently good options, is what makes Clerics so effective.

Making an arcane spell divine is just very unlikely to fly without a permissive DM, at which point all bets are off. Look at the techniques you listed. In order they are from Dragon Magazine, Forgotten Realms, Dragon Magic, and Complete Divine. Only Complete Divine seems particularly likely to show up in most games. What's more, those things don't get you anywhere on their own. Each of them requires that a NPC with the appropriate class or feat and the appropriate spell known create a scroll and that scroll make its way to you. That's not a particularly realistic assumption in most games.

The issue with the Archivist is that the DM has a whole bunch of points of intervention to stop your best tricks, and without them you have to spend huge amounts of money to play catch up to the Cleric. You can be very good, but in practice you are often constrained by the DM much more than a Cleric or a Wizard would be. And if you can convince your DM to let you buy scrolls from Trapsmiths with Alternative Spell Source, the Warmage's player can probably convince him to allow early entry shenanigans with Rainbow Servant at which point he pulls ahead pretty quickly.

In the end, it's just another chassis for buff spells, less intelligent and with less clear-cut magic item slots. I'd rather have a full BAB class in the party to layer on those buffs.

This is bad logic for two reasons.

First, the animal companion shares most buffs with the Druid, so you're getting whatever you put on it (largely) for free.

Second, the opportunity cost of the animal companion isn't a Fighter. It's whatever the best animal companion trading ACF is.

As for spontaneous summon nature's ally, at low levels I'd rather have a cleric's spontaneous cure spells nine times out of ten. Summoning a pony for a handful of rounds is rarely as vital as a cure spell at those fragile, fragile low levels.

In combat healing is generally pretty bad. summon nature's ally also goes totally insane in a world where you take Greenbound Summoning.

And anybody can turn themselves into a polymorphing horror show in 3.5, often with better options than the druid's wild shape alone. Sure, the druid can cast (crappy) spells while in animal form, but if the solution to your problem was turn into a hydra and wreck face... just mop up, and get back to casting once everyone is dead. I dunno?

The big benefit of Wild Shape is being free. You turn into a Bear at the beginning of the day, layer on a few buffs, and then you have a respectable fallback option.

Using polymorph for a combat form is probably not worth it in most cases. You'd rather cast black tentacles or something, unless you're doing something fairly cheesy (and therefore vulnerable to triggering a debate on what polymorph really does, which will probably result in an unfavorable interpretation).

eggynack

2017-02-21, 11:43 PM

Concerning the potency of animal companions:

I get a feeling that most tables hand-wave a lot of the rules surrounding animal companions. They're not as reliably awesome as most people likely see them in play, at least officially.

At low levels, getting an animal companion to do anything that doesn't pertain to one of their tricks is a DC 25 Handle Animal check (higher if it's injured). That's not guaranteed, and it's not a free action, either.
I'm not assuming anything crazy here. Just that the companion attacks the things you want it to attack. Pretty sure that aligns quite well with the rules. Animal companions rarely have associated high complexity tactics. Even a fleshraker just does all its stuff automatically.

In the end, it's just another chassis for buff spells, less intelligent and with less clear-cut magic item slots. I'd rather have a full BAB class in the party to layer on those buffs.
Enrage animal is a pretty solid animal only buff at the really low levels we're talking about. And otherwise you're not that likely to toss a lot of buffs or items on the party beatstick. The prime area of consideration is first to fourth or fifth. The companion is arguably better than a lot of melee oriented characters in that range.

As for spontaneous summon nature's ally, at low levels I'd rather have a cleric's spontaneous cure spells nine times out of ten. Summoning a pony for a handful of rounds is rarely as vital as a cure spell at those fragile, fragile low levels.
First level, I'd likely prefer the cure. By third, fifth, or especially seventh, because at seventh you can turn those summons into efficient curing, I'd much prefer the summoning. Wolves are alright too, but the duration makes it not the best thing.

And anybody can turn themselves into a polymorphing horror show in 3.5, often with better options than the druid's wild shape alone. Sure, the druid can cast (crappy) spells while in animal form, but if the solution to your problem was turn into a hydra and wreck face... just mop up, and get back to casting once everyone is dead. I dunno?

What does the druid cast while wild shaped? More buffs? Crowd control? Is it just so you can be a bird all day, safely out of reach?

Really gonna have to apply more justification to the notion that these spells are crappy. Cause, yes, buffs and crowd control, along with high quality debuffs and reasonable blasting, and summons. And the animal companion covers direct melee damage. You're really covering the broad spectrum of in combat impact you'd hope to have. What do you really want to do in combat that you're not doing?

PaucaTerrorem

2017-02-21, 11:48 PM

What does the druid cast while wild shaped? More buffs? Crowd control? Is it just so you can be a bird all day, safely out of reach?

Whatever the hell they want to cast. With a druid you have a lot of tools available. And yes, it's so you can be a bird all day and still do everything you could do if you weren't a bird. But from a safe range. And as a bird.

Don't get me wrong, I'd always rather have/be a cleric. But a Wild Shaped druid with Natural Spell can get things done that a cleric would have to burn a spell or two to do.

Troacctid

2017-02-22, 01:17 AM

Cosi

2017-02-22, 01:49 AM

Y'all dissing the Artificer clearly haven't looked very closely at their infusion list, because the class is totally busted and can break T1 even if you never craft a single item. You realize you can spontaneously cast any spell up to 4th level off of any list and apply any metamagic to it for free, just with infusions, no crafting necessary? Bah. Roken.

There are a whole lot of asterisks on that particular trick.

It takes a minute, so you can't use it spontaneously in combat.

It takes a UMD check to use, so it's still hard to use consistently, particularly at low levels.

It relies on an encyclopedic knowledge of spell lists to use effectively, so it's not really solving the Artificers deep dependence on player skill.

The Artificer is a hard mode class. If you don't have a lot of knowledge about the game, it's very hard to make it close to as effective as a Wizard or even a Sorcerer.

Zanos

2017-02-22, 02:10 AM

it's not really solving the Artificers deep dependence on player skill.
The tier list isn't about floors. You can pretty easily just set your spellbook on fire at level 1. Or prepare animate rope in 90% of your slots. The later of which a real person in a real game I ran actually did, because "I'm a transmuter."

Him being a dingus doesn't make the wizard not a tier 1.

Cosi

2017-02-22, 02:23 AM

The tier list isn't about floors. You can pretty easily just set your spellbook on fire at level 1. Or prepare animate rope in 90% of your slots. The later of which a real person in a real game I ran actually did, because "I'm a transmuter."

There's a difference between not measuring floors and ignoring optimization effort altogether. The amount of work and game knowledge it takes to get the Artificer working at all is more than it takes to get a Beguiler or Dread Necromancer to Tier One.

Zanos

2017-02-22, 02:27 AM

There's a diffuerence between not measuring floors and ignoring optimization effort altogether. The amount of work and game knowledge it takes to get the Artificer working at all is more than it takes to get a Beguiler or Dread Necromancer to Tier One.
Nope. Pick some good spells and magic items out of core. You're done making an artificer that can "work at all."

Cosi

2017-02-22, 02:31 AM

Nope. Pick some good spells and magic items out of core. You're done making an artificer that can "work at all."

Except you can't actually cast your spells, because you have a 35% spell failure chance. Also, the ability to have items is kind of incredibly unimpressive. People can buy stuff with gold. The 50% savings you get for crafting is not on par with what the Wizard is doing.

Zanos

2017-02-22, 02:35 AM

Cosi

2017-02-22, 02:41 AM

Opportunity cost. Gold is a limited resources that buys power. Doubling that resource doesn't make it less useful. May as well argue that getting more levels as a class feature isn't good because people can just buy levels with xp. You will always have more.

35% failure rate isn't terrible at level 1 when the wizard only has 2-4 spells anyway.

More gold isn't terrible or anything, it's just clearly not equal to what the Wizard is doing, especially considering that even Warmages can take item creation feats.

It's a 35% failure rate for every scroll until you bump up your ability scores, not just at first level. It's also assuming a pretty favorable set up (18 CHA, both synergy bonuses). You don't get the basic competency of all casters (having spells work when you cast them) until you pony up six more points of bonus, which requires either a feat, a custom item, or waiting to accumulate +12 to your CHA score. Again, that's just to get the thing Warlocks get for free where when the use their abilities, they don't fail.

That 35% failure rate is also on top of the failure rate of whatever spells you cast, which is higher than normal anyway because scrolls have crap DC.

At first level the Artificer is the equivalent of a Wizard who walks around in full plate and has an INT of 11. I would seriously rather have a Fighter in my party.

EDIT: It's actually even worse than I thought at specifically first level. Your UMD check is 4 points worse than normal because you don't have your synergy bonuses yet. That means you've got a 55% failure chance. More than half the time a 1st level Artificer tries to use a scroll, it fails before the spell ever goes off.

Efrate

2017-02-22, 04:11 AM

Ok a mouthful here.

Archivist is Tier 1. Even assuming drops as per the DMG, 30% of scrolls are divine, so he should have a reasonable chance of getting spells, and there is no reason he cannot ask cleric xyz to make him a scroll. Find a church of Boccob and just like wizards your prayerbook is insane. It might be less common than wizards and stuff like ranger, druid, and paladin spells on scrolls might be really rare, but its definitely not THAT insane. Just the full cleric list, or the best cleric spells for a bit of WBL when you are an INT SAD full caster is not in any ways a weak option. Plus the higher level dark knowledge is a free stun or daze with no save if you meet or a beat a DC 35 skill check. Daze is only hitting DC 25. Thats a pretty trivial DC to hit, even if it only hits abberations, undead (who you daze), magical beasts, outsiders, and elementals. Making that 20th level lich not take any actions for 6 turns at level 11 is kind of amazing.

Artificer: This is weird. I have only played with artificers in games that started after level 5, so I have no idea how they function at very low levels. Their infusion list is ok as is and I do not know how much they can expand that, or other than spending action points how they can use it in less time. I'm going to hesitantly put them into t2 but very high t2. If you have downtime or there are easy tricks I do not know about (I don't play much eberon) I can easily see them being t1. I can also see them being t3/4 if lack of downtime and 1 minute infusions are an uncircumventable thing (like a FR campaign that doesn't use Action points). They also bleed money. If you infinite loop your homunoculi crafting ok but at that point you are doing NI shenanigans and anything NI pretty much hits t1 or higher and I do not consider it. Unless there is an ACF that reduces time to 1 round that they all need to take and should be a pretty much be class feature like natural spell.

Cleric: You get DMM. You get all the spells. Plus domains. You wear plate, cast behind a shield then shame the other members of your party other than maybe your wizard pal by existing, because you not only do it all but do it better. Easy tier 1.

Driud: Similar to a Cleric, and easily Tier 1. Animal companion is about as reliable as a fighter your entire career, and is significantly better a lot of the time even before buffs, which you have a LOT of. You get a bunch of class features, and wild shape to safely give you physical stats of insanity. Or the safety of being a little birdie dropping fire seeds with a ton of buffs up that is nigh impossible to hit. It get only better if you have any of the wild shape feats that give you alternate forms because you are an elan or whatever. Wilding clasps fixes the polymorph problem, so not only are you a giant bear, you also fly, have mind blank, concealment, true seeing, and your carry your venomfire fleshraker to becoming a flying ariel bear-dino of death. You also wear armor, becoming an assault helicopter of furry death. And it last long enough that the entire adventuring day is easily covered.

Sha'ir: I have never seen nor played one of these, but given a bit of prep time,I can see you being t1. Your low levels are trash since your spells only last 1 hour/CL, and take time to get, but once you get to 5 or 6ish it seems really really strong. But requires planning and attending the local arcanists faire to get access to all your goodies whenever. Just reading the task description I am going to go tier 1*, with the caveat that if you have a bit of time to prep you are amazing past the first few levels. It does appear to reward a careful methodical playstyle which may not be for everyone however, but is definitely safe.

Wizard: Jose Esposito says it best: You're the best, around! Nothings ever gonna keep you down! Best spell list, super easy to expand since all your class members get the tool to help your spellbook at level 1. You can easily invalidate everyone, like your cleric and druid buddies, in different ways. You are god. Tier 1.

Troacctid

2017-02-22, 04:18 AM

Artificer: This is weird. I have only played with artificers in games that started after level 5, so I have no idea how they function at very low levels. Their infusion list is ok as is and I do not know how much they can expand that, or other than spending action points how they can use it in less time. I'm going to hesitantly put them into t2 but very high t2. If you have downtime or there are easy tricks I do not know about (I don't play much eberon) I can easily see them being t1. I can also see them being t3/4 if lack of downtime and 1 minute infusions are an uncircumventable thing (like a FR campaign that doesn't use Action points). They also bleed money. If you infinite loop your homunoculi crafting ok but at that point you are doing NI shenanigans and anything NI pretty much hits t1 or higher and I do not consider it. Unless there is an ACF that reduces time to 1 round that they all need to take and should be a pretty much be class feature like natural spell.
There is a feat that reduces the casting time to 1 round, and a persistable spell that gives you a temporary action point every round. Also, Artificers are arguably even better at DMM than Clerics, since they don't need turn attempts to fuel it.

Here, have yourself a look at this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?427628-Disregard-Money-Acquire-Buff-Spells-Artificers-without-the-Artifice).

Efrate

2017-02-22, 05:14 AM

eggynack

2017-02-22, 05:26 AM

For the record, I have no idea what to do with asterisks. Can't even stick them in the sheet without screwing up the averaging thing. Planning to ignore them for the moment. I guess I could call it a fraction, but that could be further from true than just using the standard number. Oh, and Zancloufer, not sure what you're giving what scores, or what you're doing with the ones that don't get tier one, if they exist. I can guess, of course, but guessing isn't ideal.

Aharon

2017-02-22, 06:19 AM

I'm not assuming anything crazy here. Just that the companion attacks the things you want it to attack. Pretty sure that aligns quite well with the rules. Animal companions rarely have associated high complexity tactics. Even a fleshraker just does all its stuff automatically.

That's a DC10 Handle Animal Check. Doable, but has a chance of failure at low levels. It's a free action for Druids and Rangers, but most DMs at actual tables probably won't give you unlimited tries.

Concerning the Artificer Debate:
Definitely Tier 1, for the reasons stated above by other posters.

eggynack

2017-02-22, 06:40 AM

That's a DC10 Handle Animal Check. Doable, but has a chance of failure at low levels. It's a free action for Druids and Rangers, but most DMs at actual tables probably won't give you unlimited tries.
First, a bunch of tries is likely sufficient. You could theoretically miss ten times in a row, but that's a pretty low order problem. Second, failure is pretty close to impossible. I'd expect most druids to invest in handle animal animal for this very reason, so we're talking a baseline score of +3 or +4. The animal companion's link ability applies a +4, so we're already hanging out in +7 or +8 territory. Damage reduces that to a +5 or +6, but success is still really likely here. We're talking a 15-20% chance of failure, at most, and if you combine that with a reasonable quantity of repeated attempts, the chances of failure go down drastically. A single extra attempt gets us to a 4% chance of failure if we assume 8 charisma and first level. A third pushes us to .8%, and I'd expect that to fall short of unlimited tries. A 20th level barbarian will fail to succeed on a single attack against a first level commoner significantly more often. And this is first level. Further levels make the situation even better. By the time we hit fleshrakers, you should have +7 from skill ranks and +4 from link, meaning +11, reduced to +9 by damage, for automatic success. Finally, even if you can't closely guide the companion, I'd generally expect it to attack, even if its attack pattern is simply going after what's closest. This is your animal friend, after all, and your team is getting attacked. Is a DM really going to use their animal companion control to have said companion do literal nothing?

So, yeah, I'd fully expect the animal companion to successfully go after the exact enemy you want nearly 100% of the time, and the remaining almost 0% of the time they'd still be pretty great. Y'know, for one round. Then the next round you can presumably get it to attack your exact desired target again.

thethird

2017-02-22, 07:37 AM

I'll show some love to artificers,

Optimization floor of classes is an important consideration. Most of the times I've seen tome of battle brought up in the boards as overpowered eventually we get to "tome of battles have a higher optimization floor than other martial classes but are not overpowered per se".

Eggynack has shown how high can a druid rise, but still a druid for example is not strongly reliant on build. Animal companion, wildshape, summoning spells (since they are spontaneous even new players will try them eventually) and spells to support them. The floor isn't really low there, even if the ceiling is high.

Someone playing a wizard and selecting spells that sound cool out of the phb will probably stumble unto something good (it's commonly agreed that most of the most broken spells are in the phb). But as good as that is it cannot be compared to how powerful a wizard can get with good and proper optimization (like learning spells from scrolls). The floor is lower than the druid, and I think the ceiling is higher.

What about the artificer? Looking at the floor of it it is a "conceited overblown NPC class" at the ceiling though it looks at the wizard/druid/cleric/psion/erudite/shadowcaster/whomever tricks and says that's nice I can do that too. Psionic artificer have been sometimes jokingly referred as tier 0. While I do not believe that tier 0 exists, or should exist, artificers can be really strong.

In my opinion they are tier 1 but are swingy and strongly dependant on optimization level. Is much harder as an artificer to stumble upon the good stuff that it is for other tier 1 classes.

Since you are bringing up tier 1 classes. And spellcasting, what about spirit shaman?

eggynack

2017-02-22, 07:47 AM

Since you are bringing up tier 1 classes. And spellcasting, what about spirit shaman?
This thread is for "obvious" tier one classes. Spirit shaman I don't even think is tier one, let alone obviously so. I tend to consider it tier two, personally, and anywhere from one to three has been posited. One of the reasons I went with the tier one thread after the fixed list casters was because I thought the former thread would be debate heavy, and I wanted to follow it with something more laid back (and I think it is, even if we're having more discussion than I'd assumed we would). Spirit shaman is not laid back. Also, I already have six classes in this thread. I was thinking we'd have like three or four classes each thread, and six is around the maximum. Especially because I think adding the spirit shaman here exceeds the character limit for titles. My plan is to toss the spirit shaman into a thread with other "druid variants", so that the druid can act as something of a common touchstone for all of them. That means spirit shaman, urban druid, probably wild shape ranger, and maybe spontaneous druid.

Edit: On a somewhat separate note, I gotta say, I love the weird role of curator I've taken on regarding which classes go in which threads, and in what order those threads happen. There's some surprising depth to it. I just hope I don't get left with completely unrelated things at the end, cause I'm doing this all on the fly.

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 08:44 AM

My opinion is that, in practical play, Wizard and Artificer are t2 because of flaws everyone thinks are easy to bypass.

Wizards need to get spells into their spellbook, which is far from a sure thing. They get less spells than the Sorcerer automatically, while also having to prepare spells. They have the best spell list, but you have to get ahold of scrolls of a spell or have to be extremely careful in their spell picks. They are extremely dependent on having a Magic Mart to properly take off.

Artificers, as already stated, need unbelievable amounts of time(although the cost-reduction-restriction cheese also reduces time required, because it's a reduction of market price) and gold to get anything done. They bypass the least troublesome part of item crafting in 3.X, the part that the rules average out to be negligible, especially for Artificer.

As for Archivist, same issue as Wizard, but they can get spells from allied Druids and Clerics to fill their supply with large, juicy chunks of their spell lists, which is a much better position than having only the Wiz/Sorc spell list to draw from. So they are t1, in my opinion.

I have no clue what the Sha'ir is, so I have no comment.

Druid are firmly t1 to me. Yes, it's harder to find the broken SLAs on Nature's Ally lists than it is on the better-attended Summon Monster list, but you don't have to prepare any uses of the spell. You find a Nature's Ally healer that's worth using? You're almost a better healer than the Cleric, now, because you can Summon a replacement for that function. Or Summon an elemental beatstick. And you don't prepare the slot for it, either, you just do it. And Wildshape makes them almost a better Fighter than the actual Fighter, though using 3.0 creature types nerfs that quite a bit. Which was actually intentional, Wildshape was balanced for most of the good monsters being Beasts, not Animals.

Clerics are also firmly t1, but because of the much better spell list. Drawing on demigods and divine intervention for their theme is a big advantage over the Druid theme of "nature stuff," so you have considerably better spells to use. Domains also give an advantage, as does DMM, but whatever a Cleric has, they have most of the advantage made up for by the combat power of Wildshape and the utility power of Summon Nature's Ally, both reducing the need for preparing for combat on Druids by a lot.

Basically, Druids match Clerics by not needing to prepare any spells for combat, so they can focus on utility in practical play a lot harder. And the t1 game is defined by how much utility you bring to the table. Meanwhile, Clerics have much better spells and the bonuses of Domains and DMM, bringing them ahead in combat when preparing for it, as well as utility when focusing on it, but Druids have the advantage of being fully ready for combat with far fewer prepared slots than Clerics.

Meanwhile, the Archivist and Wizard are digging/begging for scrolls to add to their actually available spells. In practical play, I imagine that the Archivist gets a big advantage over Wizard due to plausible purchase of almost any 1st and 2nd level Cleric spell scroll by commissioning Clerics to make the scrolls with their full list access, which puts Archivist into t1 territory in more practical play situations.

ryu

2017-02-22, 08:53 AM

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 09:10 AM

There's literally dozens of ways of expanding your wizard's book that a DM has to individually veto one at a time before it can be called inefficient at which point I call some pretty big houserules are in effect. A few of which even work if you're literally the only magic user alive in the world.

And I imagine that the catch is that they are mostly from the vast pileup of splats. If you go core-only, or have a policy of whitelisting splats in effect, both of which are rather reasonable means of restraining t1 classes and keeping the game generally manageable, then chances are that those methods will be cut down by a lot as a side effect.

Saying the DM has to individually veto stuff at all is kinda silly, when the optimization game is often reliant on drawing from half-a-dozen splats to get anywhere seriously better than core, or is reliant on inherently broken things to get far. You can't make Pun Pun without Serpent Kingdoms, after all. The DM need only restrict you to a set list of splats to cripple some tricks.

eggynack

2017-02-22, 09:11 AM

Clerics are also firmly t1, but because of the much better spell list.
Dunno if this is the case minus domains. Still not as knowledgeable about the cleric list as I'd like to be, even after doing that favored soul analysis and poking at a list of all cleric spells, but the druid list is... surprising. Do you have any idea how long it took after hearing about how cool friendly fire is that I learned that it's a fourth level spell for druids as well as the more obvious wizards? I don't, but it was a lot. Knowing the druid list first gives access to things that other classes have that you wouldn't expect the druid to be capable of copying (took me even longer than the friendly fire thing to learn that protection from winged fliers is a solid facsimile of the mental protection part of protection from evil), and second gives access to things that other classes can't necessarily match (friendly fire in the cleric comparison, or master earth in the comparison to anyone).

ryu

2017-02-22, 09:28 AM

And I imagine that the catch is that they are mostly from the vast pileup of splats. If you go core-only, or have a policy of whitelisting splats in effect, both of which are rather reasonable means of restraining t1 classes and keeping the game generally manageable, then chances are that those methods will be cut down by a lot as a side effect.

Saying the DM has to individually veto stuff at all is kinda silly, when the optimization game is often reliant on drawing from half-a-dozen splats to get anywhere seriously better than core, or is reliant on inherently broken things to get far. You can't make Pun Pun without Serpent Kingdoms, after all. The DM need only restrict you to a set list of splats to cripple some tricks.

Congratulations. We might actually be down to less than ten. You can houserule however you please in your games. Do keep in mind that short of houseruling, excessively might I add, wizard has more spells known than any other arcane caster.

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 09:42 AM

Congratulations. We might actually be down to less than ten. You can houserule however you please in your games. Do keep in mind that short of houseruling, excessively might I add, wizard has more spells known than any other arcane caster.

How many are in core, how many are in the Complete series and how many are in the basic setting books? Do keep the numbers separate for each of those three categories, just to keep it clear about where the concentration is.

Oh, and my issue with people saying Wizard is OP because of the spell variety is that said variety is so very, very hard to actually use. Meanwhile, Sorcerers need only one Psionic Power to completely replace their spells known altogether, and means of getting that as a uses per day ability are fairly cheap.

ryu

2017-02-22, 09:53 AM

How many are in core, how many are in the Complete series and how many are in the basic setting books? Do keep the numbers separate for each of those three categories, just to keep it clear about where the concentration is.

Oh, and my issue with people saying Wizard is OP because of the spell variety is that said variety is so very, very hard to actually use. Meanwhile, Sorcerers need only one Psionic Power to completely replace their spells known altogether, and means of getting that as a uses per day ability are fairly cheap.

Well let's start with the simple ones shall we? The ones you pick at level one and never think of again? Domain wizards gain a free pile of spells from any of several good sets on top of more daily castings. Collegiate wizard is four more spells known per level. If you can't make a competent wizard list out of that without even getting into scribing of any kind you aren't trying.

eggynack

2017-02-22, 09:57 AM

Oh, and my issue with people saying Wizard is OP because of the spell variety is that said variety is so very, very hard to actually use.
I don't see how spell variety is that hard to use. Even if you're just picking up enough spells to give you exactly as many as you have spells prepared, you're already gaining a significant versatility advantage over the sorcerer. And doing that is rather trivial. Buy a couple of scrolls each level, or find a friendly wizard or abandoned spell book, and you're doing really well for yourself. Go somewhat deeper, gaining a couple of spells for each spell prepared slot, and you can vary your daily approach to circumstance, or have spells that gain you power during your time away from adventuring. All of this seems classically within the bounds of rather low optimization games. It doesn't take a genius to recognize that more spells is more good, and neither does it take one to access the rather simple and straightforward mechanics surrounding spell addition. I'd trust a new player to figure out getting extra spells for some variety before I'd trust one to get their spells known list really great on the first try.

Aharon

2017-02-22, 10:03 AM

First, a bunch of tries is likely sufficient. You could theoretically miss ten times in a row, but that's a pretty low order problem. Second, failure is pretty close to impossible. I'd expect most druids to invest in handle animal animal for this very reason, so we're talking a baseline score of +3 or +4. The animal companion's link ability applies a +4, so we're already hanging out in +7 or +8 territory. Damage reduces that to a +5 or +6, but success is still really likely here. We're talking a 15-20% chance of failure, at most, and if you combine that with a reasonable quantity of repeated attempts, the chances of failure go down drastically. A single extra attempt gets us to a 4% chance of failure if we assume 8 charisma and first level. A third pushes us to .8%, and I'd expect that to fall short of unlimited tries. A 20th level barbarian will fail to succeed on a single attack against a first level commoner significantly more often. And this is first level. Further levels make the situation even better. By the time we hit fleshrakers, you should have +7 from skill ranks and +4 from link, meaning +11, reduced to +9 by damage, for automatic success. Finally, even if you can't closely guide the companion, I'd generally expect it to attack, even if its attack pattern is simply going after what's closest. This is your animal friend, after all, and your team is getting attacked. Is a DM really going to use their animal companion control to have said companion do literal nothing?

So, yeah, I'd fully expect the animal companion to successfully go after the exact enemy you want nearly 100% of the time, and the remaining almost 0% of the time they'd still be pretty great. Y'know, for one round. Then the next round you can presumably get it to attack your exact desired target again.

Forgot about the +4 from the link. Without it, the chance of failure is more significant at low levels.

Cosi

2017-02-22, 10:10 AM

I see. So there is ways around it. I'll go t1 then, since the hoops are actually class features and nothing too crazy. I think the floor is a lot higher to do it well though. But I don't think that is something that keeps it out of t1.

Think about what you're saying. The Artificer is Tier One because if it gets a setting specific resource (action points), and takes three specific feats (Extend Spell, Persist Spell, whatever feat gives you fast infusions), and gets a specific spell form an obscure splat, it can do something cool. You know what a Wizard needs to do something cool? To take a spell that does something cool.

Artificers, as already stated, need unbelievable amounts of time(although the cost-reduction-restriction cheese also reduces time required, because it's a reduction of market price) and gold to get anything done. They bypass the least troublesome part of item crafting in 3.X, the part that the rules average out to be negligible, especially for Artificer.

Also, if you're doing massive cost reduction to bump stuff down to 10% or less of its base cost, couldn't other people be doing WBL loops to get 10 times their base wealth? The advantage the Artificer has here is a really weird one where his power has an obvious cap (he can't reduce infinitely, so he's still technically constrained), and is therefore less likely to get banhammered.

As for Archivist, same issue as Wizard, but they can get spells from allied Druids and Clerics to fill their supply with large, juicy chunks of their spell lists, which is a much better position than having only the Wiz/Sorc spell list to draw from. So they are t1, in my opinion.

Is the situation where the party has an Archivist and a Druid/Cleric with Scribe Scroll really more common than the one where they just have two Wizards?

Gnaeus

2017-02-22, 10:17 AM

Archivist: Tier 1.

Artificer: Can't rank. I've never sat down and read through the class, much less played one.

Cleric: Tier 1

Druid: Tier 1

Sha'ir: See Artificer.

Wizard: Tier 1.

I'd like to cast my votes just the same as Gullintanni. I think Artificer is T1, but haven't seen one in play and the counter argument has convinced me sufficiently to not want to vote on it.

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 10:18 AM

Well let's start with the simple ones shall we? The ones you pick at level one and never think of again? Domain wizards gain a free pile of spells from any of several good sets on top of more daily castings. Collegiate wizard is four more spells known per level. If you can't make a competent wizard list out of that without even getting into scribing of any kind you aren't trying.

All of those things? The tier system does not care about any except the first. The tier system is about the base class's abilities. Not what feats unlock, not what AFCs do, not what anything other than the base class has.

Sorcerer is t2 because it has a hard limit on it's versatility in the base class. There's a lot of tricks to swap your Spells Known. One of them brings your feats along for the swap. Those tricks are not part of the tier of Sorcerer because they are not class features of Sorcerer.

Similarly, all the non-Core, non-base-class tricks for gaining spells in your spellbook are invalid for Wizard being t1. Otherwise, Sorcerer would be higher tier than Wizard because of access to tricks that turn the entire spell list into an accessable feature, instead of something you have to choose a fragment of.

I know what Domain Wizards are, I know about Collegiate Wizard, but I ignore them because they have no bearing on the Wizard class proper. Under your reasoning, Fighter would be t3 because Dungeoncrasher and other good AFCs exist. But those are actively considered separate thing from Fighter because they are not part of the base class and alter the capabilities enough to change the tier. If the Wizard can only truly match Druids and Clerics with the level of careful building that Sorcerer normally needs, then Wizard should not be t1.

That's the big thing here: Wizard can be permanently screwed up. Cleric and Druid? Nothing can make Druid 20 with 19 Wis incapable of outclassing everything that isn't t1 or t2. Wizard? Sufficiently bad spell picks make it incapable of keeping up with Druid 20 with only a change in playstyle. It's the same boat Sorcerer is in, it's just a better part of the boat.

Edit: It's possible to negatively optimize Wizard down to t3, or even t4, with nightmarishly bad building. With the same level of active effort put into crippling the class, the only thing a Cleric or Druid needs to keep to stay t1 in practice is to have 17 Wisdom. Because their spells alone can outclass the lower tier classes, and they always have their entire spell list.

You cannot destroy a Druid with 19 Wis to be worse than a Bard. You can, however, do such a thing with a 19 Int Wizard, because the Wizard has to choose their spell list access, while Druids always have spontaneous access to Nature's Ally and always have Wildshape and always have access to their entire spell list. You cannot remove these things from the base class.

ryu

2017-02-22, 10:25 AM

All of those things? The tier system does not care about any except the first. The tier system is about the base class's abilities. Not what feats unlock, not what AFCs do, not what anything other than the base class has.

Sorcerer is t2 because it has a hard limit on it's versatility in the base class. There's a lot of tricks to swap your Spells Known. One of them brings your feats along for the swap. Those tricks are not part of the tier of Sorcerer because they are not class features of Sorcerer.

Similarly, all the non-Core, non-base-class tricks for gaining spells in your spellbook are invalid for Wizard being t1. Otherwise, Sorcerer would be higher tier than Wizard because of access to tricks that turn the entire spell list into an accessable feature, instead of something you have to choose a fragment of.

I know what Domain Wizards are, I know about Collegiate Wizard, but I ignore them because they have no bearing on the Wizard class proper. Under your reasoning, Fighter would be t3 because Dungeoncrasher and other good AFCs exist. But those are actively considered separate thing from Fighter because they are not part of the base class and alter the capabilities enough to change the tier. If the Wizard can only truly match Druids and Clerics with the level of careful building that Sorcerer normally needs, then Wizard should not be t1.

That's the big thing here: Wizard can be permanently screwed up. Cleric and Druid? Nothing can make Druid 20 with 19 Wis incapable of outclassing everything that isn't t1 or t2. Wizard? Sufficiently bad spell picks make it incapable of keeping up with Druid 20 with only a change in playstyle. It's the same boat Sorcerer is in, it's just a better part of the boat.

You seem to laboring under a misconception. Fighter is not t5 not because ACFs and feats specific to a class aren't considered, but because there are no fighter ACFs that actually do much of anything important. A carefully optimized fighter might be able to break into tier 4 of the old system, and that's a big might. If it's specific to your class it counts as a consideration for your tier. Period. Unless you'd like to argue with eggy about that.

eggynack

2017-02-22, 10:28 AM

All of those things? The tier system does not care about any except the first. The tier system is about the base class's abilities. Not what feats unlock, not what AFCs do, not what anything other than the base class has.
No, it's not. This one isn't, anyway, and I'd argue that the original has more room for that kinda analysis than some may think. You shouldn't assume that every wizard is a domain wizard, but you should assume that's an available option. Anyway, I'm pretty explicit that we're considering ACFs that don't individually raise your tier, especially if said ACFs have meaningful substitutes, and feats are generally considered where they offer marginal advantage over other classes.

That's the big thing here: Wizard can be permanently screwed up. Cleric and Druid? Nothing can make Druid 20 with 19 Wis incapable of outclassing everything that isn't t1 or t2. Wizard? Sufficiently bad spell picks make it incapable of keeping up with Druid 20 with only a change in playstyle. It's the same boat Sorcerer is in, it's just a better part of the boat.
How could a wizard possibly be permanently screwed up? Scrolls are right there. If you suddenly realize all your spells are a pile of crap, it might take awhile along with some cash but you can swap out every single one of those. Granted, wealth is finite, but it's nowhere near this finite that permanent screwing up is going to be a common occurrence. Druids and clerics definitely adapt better to crappy building than a wizard does, but a wizard isn't completely inflexible.

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 10:29 AM

You seem to laboring under a misconception. Fighter is not t5 not because ACFs and feats specific to a class aren't considered, but because there are no fighter ACFs that actually do much of anything important. A carefully optimized fighter might be able to break into tier 4 of the old system, and that's a big might. If it's specific to your class it counts as a consideration for your tier. Period. Unless you'd like to argue with eggy about that.

Isn't t4 "good at one thing, and one thing only?" Because that's basically Fighter in a nutshell. They are good at Fighting, and nothing else. You don't need extreme optimization to do more damage than most Barbarians or Rangers, and even some Rogues who consistently land Feints to Sneak Attack constantly.

Gnaeus

2017-02-22, 10:30 AM

You seem to laboring under a misconception. Fighter is not t5 not because ACFs and feats specific to a class aren't considered, but because there are no fighter ACFs that actually do much of anything important. A carefully optimized fighter might be able to break into tier 4 of the old system, and that's a big might. If it's specific to your class it counts as a consideration for your tier. Period. Unless you'd like to argue with eggy about that.

I agree with Ryu's main point, and while I disagree with his fighter comments that belongs in a later thread.

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 10:36 AM

I agree with Ryu's main point, and while I disagree with his fighter comments that belongs in a later thread.

How so? This thread is about retiering the Wizard, Artificer and Archivist, along with three others. I just used Fighter as an added example of where the idea that the tier system gives a damn about AFCs is wrong. I also used Sorcerer, which has multiple bypasses of the Spells Known mechanic to have functional access to the entire Sorc/Wiz spell list, as another example.

If AFCs, as well as feats and equipment that are not class features, effect the tier of a class, then several t2 classes are very, very easily t1 because their limitations that make them t2 have bypasses.

ryu

2017-02-22, 10:39 AM

Isn't t4 "good at one thing, and one thing only?" Because that's basically Fighter in a nutshell. They are good at Fighting, and nothing else. You don't need extreme optimization to do more damage than most Barbarians or Rangers, and even some Rogues who consistently land Feints to Sneak Attack constantly.

No, because fighter isn't good at fighting. Fighter SUCKS at fighting harder than literally every single core class save perhaps monk unless we place arbitrary restrictions on non-fighters. Without ACFs the class is actually debatably not far off being compared to straight up warriors. They don't get bonus feats, but at least they have skill points and a less terrible class skill than Mr. blind, deaf, and generally awful. That's right. You can't even use baseline fighter as a competent guard dog. That's how much of a mockery of every other mundane they are just by existing.

Psyren

2017-02-22, 10:41 AM

Sha'ir is T1 but tends to be weak at low levels because their preparation/retention mechanic has a rough start. Regardless, they're one of my favorite classes in 3.5.

They combo exceptionally well with Warlocks - Cha synergy, fluff synergy, theurge synergy, and eldritch blast + invocations save them from the "crossbow problem" early on too.

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 10:54 AM

No, because fighter isn't good at fighting. Fighter SUCKS at fighting harder than literally every single core class save perhaps monk unless we place arbitrary restrictions on non-fighters. Without ACFs the class is actually debatably not far off being compared to straight up warriors. They don't get bonus feats, but at least they have skill points and a less terrible class skill than Mr. blind, deaf, and generally awful. That's right. You can't even use baseline fighter as a competent guard dog. That's how much of a mockery of every other mundane they are just by existing.

Spot and Listen are not really needed for direct combat. Avoiding surprise rounds, somewhat, but not really for when you are actually in combat. Really, the only skills normally relevant mid-combat without piles of optimizing are Intimidate, Tumble and sometimes Balance.

How, exactly, is Fighter worse at fighting than "barely a caster" Paladins, who's only advantages in combat over a Warrior are Charisma to saves, the only thing people actually bother with the class for, a limited healing pool and a uses-per-day ability that's rather weak for how limited the uses are? Oh, and the mount.

I also bring back up Dungeoncrasher: I have never seen an argument for Fighter proper being a higher tier because Dungeoncrasher exists. I have always seen it listed separately from the Fighter proper. Same for other AFCs that alter tier, like STP Erudite.

I have never, ever seen tier arguments count AFCs as part of the base class for the tier rating. Every tier list I have seen lists STP Erudite as t1, with other Psions at t2. They've all listed Dungeoncrasher separately from normal Fighter.

Over and over again, I have seen AFCs listed separately from the base class. According to what's been said as retort, that's not supposed to be the case.

eggynack

2017-02-22, 10:54 AM

If AFCs, as well as feats and equipment that are not class features, effect the tier of a class, then several t2 classes are very, very easily t1 because their limitations that make them t2 have bypasses.
These game elements both are and aren't considered. The simplest way to put it is that you determine what percentage of characters you'd expect would have the feat, and then consider the feat at that percentage. It's obviously a lot more complicated than that, especially because, first, that percentage is fundamentally unknown, and second, because considering something at a given percentage is a weird construct, but that's the general principle you should be holding in your mind.

Perhaps the fuller approach to this actually makes more sense, rather than less as one would expect of added complexity. Zoom in on a hypothetical random table where someone's playing a wizard, with the stipulation that this random wizard can't make much use of prestige classes or of specific high impact ACFs. Assess the tier of this wizard. Now zoom out and do the same to some other wizard. And a third, and a fourth, and so on until you've evaluated every wizard in existence. Now, kinda average all those tier rankings together. That average tier is what we're looking for, and you can do the same for sorcerers. By thinking about this overall structure, it's easy to take note of some of the things I mention in my base thread. For example, that feats are mostly just important when they give greater advantage to you than to the class you're comparing to. After all, if we spread a wizard-superior feat arbitrarily among the wizards and sorcerers, which might well be what is happening in real-space, then the wizard will do better in the comparison than before the feat was considered. If the feat is equally beneficial to both classes, then it's irrelevant to this comparison, but maybe relevant to a different comparison.

Edit:
I also bring back up Dungeoncrasher: I have never seen an argument for Fighter proper being a higher tier because Dungeoncrasher exists. I have always seen it listed separately from the Fighter proper. Same for other AFCs that alter tier, like STP Erudite.

I have never, ever seen tier arguments count AFCs as part of the base class for the tier rating. Every tier list I have seen lists STP Erudite as t1, with other Psions at t2. They've all listed Dungeoncrasher separately from normal Fighter.

Over and over again, I have seen AFCs listed separately from the base class. According to what's been said as retort, that's not supposed to be the case.
If dungeoncrasher does raise the fighter's tier on its own, which might well be the case, then we will indeed split it off and not consider it as part of the fighter for the purpose of tiering. However, with an ACF that does not individually raise tier, we will not wind up splitting it off, because splitting it off would just give us another class with the same tier (and ultimately force us to tier every single ACF in existence). These ACFs, that don't raise tier, are considered, because to not consider them would be to lose the information that is ordinarily recouped (with interest) through separate consideration. And, if these not individually tier raising ACFs exist in sufficient quantity, then the class might be increased in tier by the consideration of that whole group. A good example of this is the paladin, which has a ton of decent but not tier raising ACFs. The monk could fit this too, but it's possible that invisible fist is worth tier four on its own.

ryu

2017-02-22, 11:08 AM

Spot and Listen are not really needed for direct combat. Avoiding surprise rounds, somewhat, but not really for when you are actually in combat. Really, the only skills normally relevant mid-combat without piles of optimizing are Intimidate, Tumble and sometimes Balance.

How, exactly, is Fighter worse at fighting than "barely a caster" Paladins, who's only advantages in combat over a Warrior are Charisma to saves, the only thing people actually bother with the class for, a limited healing pool and a uses-per-day ability that's rather weak for how limited the uses are? Oh, and the mount.

I also bring back up Dungeoncrasher: I have never seen an argument for Fighter proper being a higher tier because Dungeoncrasher exists. I have always seen it listed separately from the Fighter proper. Same for other AFCs that alter tier, like STP Erudite.

I have never, ever seen tier arguments count AFCs as part of the base class for the tier rating. Every tier list I have seen lists STP Erudite as t1, with other Psions at t2. They've all listed Dungeoncrasher separately from normal Fighter.

Over and over again, I have seen AFCs listed separately from the base class. According to what's been said as retort, that's not supposed to be the case.

The mount can threaten attacks of opportunity in squares the the paladin doesn't acting as pseudo area denial, the healing pool means that unlike fighter they can kiss their own inevitable melee booboos better, not to mention a host of buffs and spellcasting that will be in place to bolster melee combatant proficiency any time the party isn't caught unexpectedly. All of these are things fighters don't get. You wanna bring in ACFs the comparison gets even less kind.

Gnaeus

2017-02-22, 11:08 AM

How so? This thread is about retiering the Wizard, Artificer and Archivist, along with three others. I just used Fighter as an added example of where the idea that the tier system gives a damn about AFCs is wrong. I also used Sorcerer, which has multiple bypasses of the Spells Known mechanic to have functional access to the entire Sorc/Wiz spell list, as another example.

If AFCs, as well as feats and equipment that are not class features, effect the tier of a class, then several t2 classes are very, very easily t1 because their limitations that make them t2 have bypasses.

We should be looking at feats to determine what a class can do. We have to use the lens of equivalent optimization of course, a rogue with darkstalker is not the same as a fighter with power attack, but it may be the same as a fighter pulling from ToB. ACFs are the same. We shouldn't assume that every barbarian has pounce, but we should assume that most barbarians in highly optimized tables do unless there is some good reason for them not to.

Gear is tougher. We have to include gear at some level or the system breaks down completely. We can certainly assume that a Fighter 10 can break DR magic unless he's been captured and stripped. I don't like assuming that classes have specific gear unless they can make it. Without endless debates on RAW of magicmart, I have certainly seen games where a fighter can't say "I want a +3 vicious spiked chain" and be sure to get one. In some games the rogue can get the precise weapon crystals he wants, in some he can't, depending on lots of campaign assumptions, but even if he can't get the wand of blink he wants, he will almost certainly have access to some wands, and UMD must be taken into account or we are mistiering. And classes that can make their gear or have special benefits as to using gear have to get points for that on the scale. I don't think it's fair to assume that my beguiler or DN has the exact runestaff he wants. But I do think that if that's an allowed sourcebook that they will usually be able to find/buy/commission/quest for a runestaff.

Tldr Some classes are highly dependent on certain specific gear to do their jobs and that should be held against them. Other classes have advantages in making/using gear and that is in their favor.

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 11:12 AM

These game elements both are and aren't considered. The simplest way to put it is that you determine what percentage of characters you'd expect would have the feat, and then consider the feat at that percentage. It's obviously a lot more complicated than that, especially because, first, that percentage is fundamentally unknown, and second, because considering something at a given percentage is a weird construct, but that's the general principle you should be holding in your mind.

Perhaps the fuller approach to this actually makes more sense, rather than less as one would expect of added complexity. Zoom in on a hypothetical random table where someone's playing a wizard, with the stipulation that this random wizard can't make much use of prestige classes or of specific high impact ACFs. Assess the tier of this wizard. Now zoom out and do the same to some other wizard. And a third, and a fourth, and so on until you've evaluated every wizard in existence. Now, kinda average all those tier rankings together. That average tier is what we're looking for, and you can do the same for sorcerers. By thinking about this overall structure, it's easy to take note of some of the things I mention in my base thread. For example, that feats are mostly just important when they give greater advantage to you than to the class you're comparing to. After all, if we spread a wizard-superior feat arbitrarily among the wizards and sorcerers, which might well be what is happening in real-space, then the wizard will do better in the comparison than before the feat was considered. If the feat is equally beneficial to both classes, then it's irrelevant to this comparison, but maybe relevant to a different comparison.

The more stuff I hear like this, the more I consider the tier system to be fundamentally nonsense. Because if you did that, Wizards and Sorcerers would be almost equal because most casual play has Wizards and Sorcerers make very similar choices. And you can't really consider stuff like this as a basis of a system without having extensive studies on it, in which case you run into the problem of high-op games having single tricks made extremely common by the nature of the game being played inverting some comparisons, like my stated example of the Sorcerers with access to the entire Sorc/Wiz spell list.

As a matter of fact, one such trick basically exactly matches the example of things that work better for one class than another. For Sorcerers and Psionic classes, it's overwhelmingly bull**** because it provides them effective access to their entire list of abilities. For most other classes, it only lets them swap out feats and skill ranks.

ryu

2017-02-22, 11:16 AM

The more stuff I hear like this, the more I consider the tier system to be fundamentally nonsense. Because if you did that, Wizards and Sorcerers would be almost equal because most casual play has Wizards and Sorcerers make very similar choices. And you can't really consider stuff like this as a basis of a system without having extensive studies on it, in which case you run into the problem of high-op games having single tricks made extremely common by the nature of the game being played inverting some comparisons, like my stated example of the Sorcerers with access to the entire Sorc/Wiz spell list.

As a matter of fact, one such trick basically exactly matches the example of things that work better for one class than another. For Sorcerers and Psionic classes, it's overwhelmingly bull**** because it provides them effective access to their entire list of abilities. For most other classes, it only lets them swap out feats and skill ranks.

Yeah sorcerer needs a special power not on his list to do that, and he needs to cast it repeatedly every time he wants to change. Wizard can literally just afford to buy literally every spell he wants no strings attached. He can also mostly keep up level by level such that at no stage of the game does any arcane caster have access to more of the list than him.

eggynack

2017-02-22, 11:24 AM

The more stuff I hear like this, the more I consider the tier system to be fundamentally nonsense. Because if you did that, Wizards and Sorcerers would be almost equal because most casual play has Wizards and Sorcerers make very similar choices. And you can't really consider stuff like this as a basis of a system without having extensive studies on it, in which case you run into the problem of high-op games having single tricks made extremely common by the nature of the game being played inverting some comparisons, like my stated example of the Sorcerers with access to the entire Sorc/Wiz spell list.
That was admittedly a largely theoretical construct. It's a way to consider how classes should be assessed, through a rough averaging at various levels and optimization scales, rather than by some weird measure of potential, or of some platonic average optimization version character of the class.

As a matter of fact, one such trick basically exactly matches the example of things that work better for one class than another. For Sorcerers and Psionic classes, it's overwhelmingly bull**** because it provides them effective access to their entire list of abilities. For most other classes, it only lets them swap out feats and skill ranks.
And that trick is considered, for both classes. It's just not assumed to always be in use, any more than domain wizard is assumed to always be in use (though one might be assumed to be used more than the other, depending on how close the element is to the class in question on how obscure it is, and on how replaceable it is). That the wizard has so many and such low obscurity methods of high efficiency spell addition, along with the standard moderate efficiency method of using scrolls and such, is a big part of the class' power.

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 11:27 AM

Yeah sorcerer needs a special power not on his list to do that, and he needs to cast it repeatedly every time he wants to change. Wizard can literally just afford to buy literally every spell he wants no strings attached. He can also mostly keep up level by level such that at no stage of the game does any arcane caster have access to more of the list than him.

Okay, how about the brand of Psion that gets the power natively? That brand of Psion, which has access to a trick that gives them functional access to their entire power list, is t2, alongside all the non-STP Erudite Psions. A party of six or seven Psions can get access to literally every power ever printed accessable by Psions all at once, given enough time. If one of them is STP Erudite, this may include every spell ever printed that STP Erudite can access. With just two Psions, you can get the vast majority of Arcane spells printed and Psion powers printed. Hell, the reason STP Erudite is t1 is specifically because it's taking the Psion's Powers Known list and applying it to spells.

ryu

2017-02-22, 11:30 AM

Okay, how about the brand of Psion that gets the power natively? That brand of Psion, which has access to a trick that gives them functional access to their entire power list, is t2, alongside all the non-STP Erudite Psions. A party of six or seven Psions can get access to literally every power ever printed accessable by Psions all at once, given enough time. If one of them is STP Erudite, this may include every spell ever printed that STP Erudite can access. With just two Psions, you can get the vast majority of Arcane spells printed and Psion powers printed. Hell, the reason STP Erudite is t1 is specifically because it's taking the Psion's Powers Known list and applying it to spells.

Nope. Psion is tier 1 and jarnok was wrong there. You really ought to stop using the old method to argue against what classes are tiered how in the new one when they have markedly different selection criteria.

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 11:41 AM

Nope. Psion is tier 1 and jarnok was wrong there. You really ought to stop using the old method to argue against what classes are tiered how in the new one when they have markedly different selection criteria.

Okay, when was this system shift done? Is it a thing currently in progress? Because I'm looking at these threads from the perspective of the oldest version of it I can find, as that's likely the most common version.

Gnaeus

2017-02-22, 11:46 AM

Okay, when was this system shift done? Is it a thing currently in progress? Because I'm looking at these threads from the perspective of the oldest version of it I can find, as that's likely the most common version.

I find your argument that Psion is T1 reasonable and will likely vote that way when we get to that thread. Until then, let's compare apples to apples.

ryu

2017-02-22, 11:48 AM

Okay, when was this system shift done? Is it a thing currently in progress? Because I'm looking at these threads from the perspective of the oldest version of it I can find, as that's likely the most common version.

The restructuring craze started just a few days ago with... three different camps each going about it a different way and, to my knowledge, all disagreeing with the original on some fundamental issue or another. In this one every distinct trick you can come up with to make a class more effective is going to count in so much as said trick gives them advantage over other classes. The ease of doing the trick and the relative obscurity of required pieces involved are also considered. Further this one is entirely collab with voting while the original was the work of one poster.

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 11:52 AM

I find your argument that Psion is T1 reasonable and will likely vote that way when we get to that thread. Until then, let's compare apples to apples.

Okay, so it is an in-progress overhaul. I'm still going to insist on Wizard being t2, because of vulnerabilities and being harder to stomp everything with than Cleric and Druid, who can do it on accident.

You can't build a Cleric or Druid horribly enough to be unable to outclass the t3 classes. That's the sort of thing I'm looking at as t1. Incapable of sucking beyond a mere playstyle change fixing all the mistakes.

eggynack

2017-02-22, 11:53 AM

Okay, when was this system shift done? Is it a thing currently in progress? Because I'm looking at these threads from the perspective of the oldest version of it I can find, as that's likely the most common version.
With this set of threads, particularly the home base one. However, it's worth note that the basic tier system is really weird and kinda contradictory about this stuff, rather than straightforward in one direction. Ostensibly, the old tier system doesn't consider feats and such, but it also demands that we consider things at all optimization levels, and part of optimization is feat selection. Also, in that classically cited bit of weirdness, JaronK expresses that font of inspiration is fair game because it's in a source that's obviously factotum based or something. And the "Why each class is in its tier" thread mentions this stuff all over the place. Also, as I noted above, while the original tier system did separate out a few ACFs, it obviously didn't separate out all of them. What to do with the unmentioned ACFs is left kinda open. The tier system is inconsistent, is what I'm driving at. A primary purpose of this tier system revamp is to get rid of as many of these inconsistencies as is possible.

ryu

2017-02-22, 12:05 PM

Okay, so it is an in-progress overhaul. I'm still going to insist on Wizard being t2, because of vulnerabilities and being harder to stomp everything with than Cleric and Druid, who can do it on accident.

You can't build a Cleric or Druid horribly enough to be unable to outclass the t3 classes. That's the sort of thing I'm looking at as t1. Incapable of sucking beyond a mere playstyle change fixing all the mistakes.

And good luck ranking wizard as anything less than tier 1, considering that it does have the best list of the triad, and the ability to literally buy new spells if you wake up in the morning and realize your current set is crappy. That goes double considering feats, wealth, and other such things are considered in so much as they yield specific benefit to a class that others can't get as that's what moved beguiler and dread necro to tier 2 in popular opinion. Not warmage though. Consensus is that warmage is directly worse than sorcerer... and blows goats for pocket change.

eggynack

2017-02-22, 12:11 PM

That goes double considering feats, wealth, and other such things are considered in so much as they yield specific benefit to a class that others can't get as that's what moved beguiler and dread necro to tier 2 in popular opinion.
I actually think beguiler and maybe dread necromancer get there before accounting for that stuff. Their lists are really strong.

ryu

2017-02-22, 12:15 PM

I actually think beguiler and maybe dread necromancer get there before accounting for that stuff. Their lists are really strong.

I mean maybe. I certainly wouldn't consider it so clear cut without that. Totally pretty fair to put them both in two after counting that.

Psyren

2017-02-22, 12:20 PM

And good luck ranking wizard as anything less than tier 1, considering that it does have the best list of the triad, and the ability to literally buy new spells if you wake up in the morning and realize your current set is crappy. That goes double considering feats, wealth, and other such things are considered in so much as they yield specific benefit to a class that others can't get as that's what moved beguiler and dread necro to tier 2 in popular opinion. Not warmage though. Consensus is that warmage is directly worse than sorcerer... and blows goats for pocket change.

Not to mention the seldom-publicized ability to simply leave some slots open every morning to prepare with situational spells on the fly. Wizards are a lot more flexible than many tables give them credit for even without high-optimization tricks.

Cosi

2017-02-22, 12:23 PM

It comes down to two things:

1. The baseline for those classes is that you are a Sorcerer who has made defensible spell choices. There are a lot of Sorcerers whose lists look much worse than the Beguiler, and while you can still do better in some ways (e.g. getting to use planar binding natively), it's hard to really dominate them. For more depth, take a look at the Favored Soul/Beguiler analysis from Jormengand's thread (I think Giles linked it). I would also like to see someone put out a Sorcerer list to do a comparison on at some point.
2. They have access to half a dozen or so different tricks to pump up their spell list, which means that they optimize quite well if they need to.

Basically, they start out good, and they get better quickly if you relax any of the restrictions people talk about.

eggynack

2017-02-22, 12:25 PM

ryu

2017-02-22, 12:31 PM

And let's not forget the biggest reason to keep wizard in tier one. If they moved then I'd have to change the tier definition. And I possibly wouldn't, out of a combination of laziness and amusement, leaving the wizard outside the realm of wizards. Actually, that sounds great. Everyone should vote wizards for tier two, and then I'll keep the realm of wizards thing around for any future tier one definition I use.

While that might be amusing as a temporary joke do we really need to break out the wizard sorcerer comparison to show that difference in kind again? I mean you can make arguments that wizard is ''hard'' or similar, but let's be real here. They compare to sorcerer like sorcerer compares to warmage.

eggynack

2017-02-22, 12:35 PM

While that might be amusing as a temporary joke do we really need to break out the wizard sorcerer comparison to show that difference in kind again? I mean you can make arguments that wizard is ''hard'' or similar, but let's be real here. They compare to sorcerer like sorcerer compares to warmage.
Oh, sure, wizards are sweet and junk. That's why I have them as the poster child for the tier in the first place, despite the fact that other tier one classes are arguably there in smoother fashion (higher floor and lower ceiling). Was mostly making a weird causality joke, the idea that the description would inform the ranking rather than vice versa, and perhaps implying the notion that several of my stated baseline classes could be incorrectly tiered in some fashion.

ryu

2017-02-22, 12:39 PM

Oh, sure, wizards are sweet and junk. That's why I have them as the poster child for the tier in the first place, despite the fact that other tier one classes are arguably there in smoother fashion (higher floor and lower ceiling). Was mostly making a weird causality joke, the idea that the description would inform the ranking rather than vice versa, and perhaps implying the notion that several of my stated baseline classes could be incorrectly tiered in some fashion.

And while I get that, and it may be amusing for a bit, anyone who comes in later not getting the joke is gonna be so completely and utterly confused.

Zancloufer

2017-02-22, 12:47 PM

. . .
Oh, and Zancloufer, not sure what you're giving what scores, or what you're doing with the ones that don't get tier one, if they exist. I can guess, of course, but guessing isn't ideal.

Artificer is Tier 1 if it can (ab)use crafting, Tier 3 if not.

Sha'ri I'm not sure about. Haven't seen enough of them to confirm that they are tier 1, but they are definitely better than Sorcerers after a few levels. Maybe Tier 2 before level 6-8 and then tier 1 afterwards (essentially when they can reliably have their spells known list built of spells they want/need).

Everything else was a YES to tier 1 for sure.

Beheld

2017-02-22, 01:43 PM

Wizards need to get spells into their spellbook, which is far from a sure thing. They get less spells than the Sorcerer automatically, while also having to prepare spells.

This.... does not compute. If you were a Wizard, and you woke up at level 1 with a spellbook, and you leveled up, and only ever wrote in your two free spells per level, you would have more spells than the Sorcerer of every single spell level you were able to cast all the way from 1-10. At level 11, the Sorcerer would have one more 2nd level spell than you. Level 11! ONE SECOND LEVEL SPELL! Meanwhile, you would have one Fourth, two Fifths, and a two Sixths!

If, from this point, you continue on until level 20, at level 20 the Sorcerer would have... ONE SECOND LEVEL SPELL MORE THAN YOU! And the same or fewer at every other level.

Wizards totally get more spells than Sorcerers.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-02-22, 02:15 PM

This.... does not compute. If you were a Wizard, and you woke up at level 1 with a spellbook, and you leveled up, and only ever wrote in your two free spells per level, you would have more spells than the Sorcerer of every single spell level you were able to cast all the way from 1-10. At level 11, the Sorcerer would have one more 2nd level spell than you. Level 11! ONE SECOND LEVEL SPELL! Meanwhile, you would have one Fourth, two Fifths, and a two Sixths!

If, from this point, you continue on until level 20, at level 20 the Sorcerer would have... ONE SECOND LEVEL SPELL MORE THAN YOU! And the same or fewer at every other level.

Wizards totally get more spells than Sorcerers.
Seriously, this. Heck, better than this, because you get those extra spells known as soon as you get access to the new spell level, rather than having to wait for the slot to become semi-obsolete. Scrolls are cheap and common treasure. Heck, even if you're in a core-only world with no other arcane spellcasters, you can explicitly research "new or existing" spells yourself. A Wizard is Tier 1 because it's frankly insane to say otherwise. While we should certainly weigh the core-only Wizard more than the Domain Wizard with Collegiate Wizard and Uncanny Forethought, a core-only Wizard will still have more spells sooner than the Sorcerer.

So, I guess I'll vote

Artificer: Tier 1 with crafting time, Tier 4 without. (My experience has always been that downtime is very sparse; even without an explicit ticking clock, most groups are always out doing things.)

Archivist: Tier 1, no cheese required-- Cleric and Druid spells are great, and scrolls should be reasonably common.

Cleric: Tier 1. Though I'd argue that their list is the weakest in terms of raw casting, with less raw offensive power than the Wizard or Druid's.

Druid: Tier 1, but a weird position within said tier: they're perhaps the strongest at low optimization, then fall behind, then leap back up once you start getting serious about taking advantage of their synergies.

Sha'ir: Even if you only ever retrieve your spells known, they're fantastic, with more spells available than a sorcerer of equivalent level. If you lose the spell, just spend another minute or so replacing it. But then your spells start lasting longer, and you start whipping out anything on the Wizard list, and there's no justifying anything but a high T1. Plus you're a Cha caster with actual social skills on your list.

Wizard: Tier 1, because come on.

Bucky

2017-02-22, 02:29 PM

At level 11, the Sorcerer would have one more 2nd level spell than you. Level 11! ONE SECOND LEVEL SPELL! Meanwhile, you would have one Fourth, two Fifths, and a two Sixths!

If, from this point, you continue on until level 20, at level 20 the Sorcerer would have... ONE SECOND LEVEL SPELL MORE THAN YOU! And the same or fewer at every other level.

The Sorcerer's advantage in 2nd level spells known is illusory. The wizard can have an extra 2nd in place of a 5th if he wants to know everything the sorcerer does.

Troacctid

2017-02-22, 02:48 PM

For the record, I have no idea what to do with asterisks. Can't even stick them in the sheet without screwing up the averaging thing.
You can do this by using a custom number format for the cell that includes an asterisk at the end.

Isn't t4 "good at one thing, and one thing only?"
No.

How, exactly, is Fighter worse at fighting than "barely a caster" Paladins, who's only advantages in combat over a Warrior are Charisma to saves, the only thing people actually bother with the class for, a limited healing pool and a uses-per-day ability that's rather weak for how limited the uses are? Oh, and the mount.
Why does everyone go, "Oh, and the mount"? Do people think adding a whole extra beatstick to your team is not powerful?

You can't build a Cleric or Druid horribly enough to be unable to outclass the t3 classes. That's the sort of thing I'm looking at as t1. Incapable of sucking beyond a mere playstyle change fixing all the mistakes.
"Hi guys! For this game, I brought an Aelfborn Druid with 8 Wisdom!" :smalltongue:

Oh, sure, wizards are sweet and junk. That's why I have them as the poster child for the tier in the first place, despite the fact that other tier one classes are arguably there in smoother fashion (higher floor and lower ceiling). Was mostly making a weird causality joke, the idea that the description would inform the ranking rather than vice versa, and perhaps implying the notion that several of my stated baseline classes could be incorrectly tiered in some fashion.
Druid and Cleric are much better poster children for the tier IMO.

Beheld

2017-02-22, 02:49 PM

The Sorcerer's advantage in 2nd level spells known is illusory. The wizard can have an extra 2nd in place of a 5th if he wants to know everything the sorcerer does.

I mean, yes, but you wouldn't, you'd just spend at the absolute most 300gp to learn and scribe a 5th 2nd level spell. By level 11.

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 03:10 PM

"Hi guys! For this game, I brought an Aelfborn Druid with 8 Wisdom!" :smalltongue:

Horrifically enough, still better than t4 and some t3. That's how utterly broken Druid is, that having a Wisdom penalty still leaves you ahead of some classes... Wildshape and Animal Companion can be built to let you be better than Barbarians and Fighters at melee off of just those two things.

Druid is so broken, it doesn't even need spells to be better at melee than most dedicated melee classes. You have to go deep into negative optimization to be worse than t3, and even without spells you're a solid t3. Such is the nature of Druid. Such is the power of Wildshape and Animal Companion.

eggynack

2017-02-22, 03:28 PM

Druid and Cleric are much better poster children for the tier IMO.
I get that perspective, but wizard feels so iconically tier one. With the cleric and druid, it's like you're a spell list, but you're also all this other stuff. Good chassis, important class features, just a bunch of stuff to allow you to operate when spells aren't enough. Wizard is just the spells. It's fundamentally just the tier one element, standing all by its lonesome on a class that's otherwise nearly empty. It's the essence of the tier.

GilesTheCleric

2017-02-22, 03:42 PM

I might go back and vote for the other classes at some point, but for now, I'd like to focus on Clerics. Shocking, right?

Cleric: T1 I don't think there's any contention here. The floor for this class is so high that it's almost impossible to ever drop below T3. In terms of spells, it does get a bit of a slow start, but once you've got SL 3, you're cooking with gas. Luckily, Clerics can handle those early levels with a whole lot of grace, since they have heavy armour and spontaneous heals. Once you get outside of core, Clerics are suddenly a powerhouse starting right at level 1. They're easy to improve even by those new to non-core books -- a significant portion of great options come from very obvious books (SC, CD, CC).

Evangelist Cleric [Drag311 52]: T2 This is the Sorcerer of Clerics. However, they do come with built-in list expansion, since they get to add domains to their spell list every few levels. For a worshipper of a pantheon or an ideal, this effectively makes you a sorcerer with a slightly larger list -- think Dread Necro or Beguiler, only with even more customisation. There are some incredibly powerful domains available, for example Spell, Magic, Alteration, Transformation, Plant, Shadow, Patience, and Time, just to name a few. However, if we're considering the set of all possible Evangelists, and weighting towards those that are more likely to be built, then these powerful options probably occupy a small space. In that context, I don't think they're enough to tilt the class back to T1. It's worth noting that Evangelists benefit greatly from all the same methods that standard Clerics can use for expanding their domain access (Eg Domain Draughts, Substitute Domain), but again, that's probably not enough to bump it back to T1.

Spontaneous Cleric [UA 64]: T2 This is the Sorcerer of Clerics... wait... actually, yes, it is. Evangelist is the Dread Necro of Clerics. It's nice that it gets more spells known than the Sorc, but there's not much to say about it besides that. It's far better than Favoured Soul, but still inhabits the same tier.

All other Cleric variants: T1 None of the other variants, even in combination, are enough to drop the Cleric a tier. This is because none of them remove its basic casting. There might be a feat somewhere that removes your casting, but I can't recall one offhand (maybe there's an always-on Rage/ Tenser's Transformation feat?). The Mage Slayer feat chain can make it more difficult to cast spells, but I think you can only hit -8 CL with those, total, so you'll eventually get your casting back as you level, or as you purchase +CL items. You could pick a race that can't perform somatic components, but that's not a permanent removal of all casting, either. It's just so difficult to mess up a Cleric. Short of permanently dropping your Wis below 6 or offending your deity and never atoning for it, I can't think of a way to do it.

Troacctid

2017-02-22, 03:58 PM

There might be a feat somewhere that removes your casting, but I can't recall one offhand (maybe there's an always-on Rage/ Tenser's Transformation feat?). The Mage Slayer feat chain can make it more difficult to cast spells, but I think you can only hit -8 CL with those, total, so you'll eventually get your casting back as you level, or as you purchase +CL items. You could pick a race that can't perform somatic components, but that's not a permanent removal of all casting, either.
You could be a Karsite, I guess.

OldTrees1

2017-02-22, 04:05 PM

"Hi guys! For this game, I brought an Aelfborn Druid with 8 Wisdom!" :smalltongue:

At 8th level(10 Wis), they can wear a Periapt of Wis+2(12 Wis), and cast Owl's Wisdom(14 Wis by not stacking with Periapt).:smalltongue:

At 12th level(11 Wis), they can wear a Periapt of Wis+2(13 Wis), cast Owl's Wisdom(15 Wis by not stacking with Periapt), and then cast Owl's Insight(21 Wis).:smalltongue:

I know we could ignore their casting and look at their companion & wild shape, but Druids are the best full caster class to be if you are required to start with a low casting stat. You need to start with 3 Wis before it requires a Wish/Tome to reach 9ths.

Troacctid

2017-02-22, 04:08 PM

At 8th level(10 Wis), they can wear a Periapt of Wis+2(12 Wis), and cast Owl's Wisdom(14 Wis by not stacking with Periapt).:smalltongue:

At 12th level(11 Wis), they can wear a Periapt of Wis+2(13 Wis), cast Owl's Wisdom(15 Wis by not stacking with Periapt), and then cast Owl's Insight(21 Wis).:smalltongue:

I know we could ignore their casting and look at their companion & wild shape, but Druids are the best full caster class to be if you are required to start with a low casting stat.
Not in this case! By 8th level, the Aelfborn's Wisdom penalty has increased from -2 to -6! And by 12th, it has increased to -8. Have fun keeping up with that! :smallbiggrin:

Morphic tide

2017-02-22, 04:10 PM

Not in this case! By 8th level, the Aelfborn's racial penalty to Wisdom has increased from -2 to -6! And by 12th, it has increased to -8. Have fun keeping up with that! :smallbiggrin:

The fact of the matter is that they are still t3!

OldTrees1

2017-02-22, 04:31 PM

Not in this case! By 8th level, the Aelfborn's Wisdom penalty has increased from -2 to -6! And by 12th, it has increased to -8. Have fun keeping up with that! :smallbiggrin:

Ouch. Okay. If we reach 15 we are golden, so for how large of a level range can we reach 15?. At 50% WBL max per item guideline we have Periapts at 5th, 9th, 12th and max Tomes at 11th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 19th.
Owl's Wisdom is cheaper but we can afford Periapt +4 or better for this range.
9th: -6 + 2 + 4 + 0 = +0 (need 15 pointbuy)
10th: -7 + 2 + 4 + 0 = -1 (need 16 pointbuy)
11th: -7 + 2 + 4 + 1 = +0 (need 16 pointbuy)
12th: -8 + 3 + 6 + 1 = +2 (need 13 pointbuy)
13th: -8 + 3 + 6 + 2 = +3 (need 12 pointbuy)
14th: -9 + 3 + 6 + 2 = +2 (need 13 pointbuy)
15th: -9 + 3 + 6 + 3 = +3 (need 12 pointbuy)
16th: -10 + 4 + 6 + 4 = +4 (need 11 pointbuy)
17th: -10 + 4 + 6 + 4 = +4 (need 11 pointbuy)
18th: -11 + 4 + 6 + 5 = +4 (need 11 pointbuy)
19th: -11 + 4 + 6 + 5 = +4 (need 11 pointbuy)
20th: -12 + 5 + 6 + 5 = +4 (need 11 pointbuy)
Okay, so an Aelfborn Druid needs 11 starting Wisdom before their crazy -2-1/2HD Wisdom penalty. Unfortunately that 8 Wis 1st level Druid is just 1 point shy.

So only 50% of Aelfborn have the potential to become full fledged spell casting Druids instead of merely Tier 3 Druids. :smallbiggrin:

Grod_The_Giant

2017-02-22, 04:47 PM

The fact of the matter is that they are still t3!
Hooray Wild Shape!

Gemini476

2017-02-22, 05:29 PM

There's one thing the Archivist lacks that makes the Wizard comparison a bit more harsh: spell books. Oh, sure, the Archivist has a spell book... but most other Divine classes don't. And chances are that, due to the nature of splatbook classes, most divine casters you'll meet will be of the Core variety.

The big issue here is that the fee for copying from a borrowed spell book is spell level * 50gp, while the market price of a scroll is 25gp*spell level*CL. That's 50gp vs. 25gp for level 1, but 450gp vs. 3,825gp for level 9. You can't get "all divine spells, ever" - the sevenish-volume Blessed Book OmniWizard barely eeks out filling their spell list within a quarter of their level 20 WBL, IIRC, but if you're going to be paying that much of a premium it starts to be an issue. (Not that you actually need all spells ever. Nabbing all the good ones is relatively attainable.)

And if you're employing someone to craft them there's a somewhat-negligible CL*spell level XP cost, and the crafting time adds a few days to the schedule. And then there's the whole "30% of scrolls are divine" kerfuffle if you're running with DMG treasure tables - there's twice as many arcane scrolls.

This isn't enough to knock the Archivist down a tier, I don't think - it's just that it's worth remembering that while they look really similar to Wizards there's a bunch of mechanical quibbles that work against the class despite the similarities. It's very dependent on the specific campaign environment it's in in a way that's not entirely dissimilar to the Artificer, albeit with more base competency just from the two free Cleric spells per level.

DEMON

2017-02-22, 05:41 PM

Wiz, Clr, Drd, Arc T1
Can't comment on the other as I don't have any in game experience with them.

GilesTheCleric

2017-02-22, 05:50 PM

Zanos

2017-02-22, 06:09 PM

Depending on where you pulled that from, it's possible there's a lot of duplicates in there as well.

GilesTheCleric

2017-02-22, 06:12 PM

Depending on where you pulled that from, it's possible there's a lot of duplicates in there as well.

I did not pull this from where you might guess. This is my own list, which contains no duplicates. It also includes all dragmag spells.

Zanos

2017-02-22, 06:23 PM

I did not pull this from where you think I did. This is my own list, which contains no duplicates. It also includes all dragmag spells.
I should expect as much, it is GilesTheCleric, after all.
Be real interesting if that list were to happen upon that list, though.

lord_khaine

2017-02-22, 06:27 PM

I'd like to cast my votes just the same as Gullintanni. I think Artificer is T1, but haven't seen one in play and the counter argument has convinced me sufficiently to not want to vote on it.

Second the T1 nomination for artificer. I played with one that got downtime in a highpowered campaign. And he were downright brutal.

danielxcutter

2017-02-22, 06:30 PM

Eh... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Wizards and Archivists have extraordinarily high potential even among t1s because of their spell learning system, but the same system results in players new to the classes having difficulty in accessing all of it. Crazy powerful t1 classes, yes, but a bit harder to snap the game in two than Druid, who gets it's most game-breaking ability in core: Natural Spell.

remetagross

2017-02-22, 06:53 PM

I am currently playing in a PbP game involving an Artificer played by a very experienced player. Since we thought the DM's plot was crappy, the Artificer player suggested another plot hook: building the Tippyverse. And so far, this is exactly what he does, while my Wild Shape Mystic Ranger has a hard time finding any way to be useful to the plot! On account of this, I vote Tier 1 for the Artificer.

I don't have any meaningful experience to judge the other classes other that simply agreeing with what people said, which would amount to them voting twice.

Zanos

2017-02-22, 06:58 PM

Oh, if it wasn't clear, I'm voting Tier 1 for all classes present because the objections to them being tier 1 seem to focus on either the DM preventing them from using core class features or exercises in chopping as many of your own limbs of as you can to make the worst possible character.

Cosi

2017-02-22, 07:18 PM

Esprit15

2017-02-22, 07:49 PM

Which of those does "your abilities have a 35% failure rate" fall into?

The "I assume you'll take Feats and buy items to be good at your focus" I imagine, just as a Wizard is going to buy a few scrolls and not put all of his feats into Weapon Focus. I will agree that Artificer has a lower floor than even Wizard, though.

Put me down for all of them at T1, with a caveat that Artificer drops to 3-4 without downtime, and the Wizard and Archivist drop to 2 if scrolls are not easily accessible.

Cosi

2017-02-22, 08:00 PM

The "I assume you'll take Feats and buy items to be good at your focus" I imagine, just as a Wizard is going to buy a few scrolls and not put all of his feats into Weapon Focus. I will agree that Artificer has a lower floor than even Wizard, though.

So the Artificer invests a feat and an item into getting his spells to work at all. In the meantime, the Beguiler invests a level and an item into getting a Prestige Domain and an Eternal Wand of substitute domain, and all of a sudden he's juggling the twenty different domains the Sovereign Host grant. Who comes out looking better there?

ryu

2017-02-23, 12:32 AM

So the Artificer invests a feat and an item into getting his spells to work at all. In the meantime, the Beguiler invests a level and an item into getting a Prestige Domain and an Eternal Wand of substitute domain, and all of a sudden he's juggling the twenty different domains the Sovereign Host grant. Who comes out looking better there?

Considering he put in significantly more work and used non-core resources? Beguiler at low levels. Then the artificer outpaces him for having had access to all of that and more anyway.

Cosi

2017-02-23, 12:39 AM

Considering he put in significantly more work and used non-core resources? Beguiler at low levels. Then the artificer outpaces him for having had access to all of that and more anyway.

The Beguiler put in a level and an item. The Artificer put in a feat and an item. You get more levels than you get feats. The Beguiler used resources from Eberron (Sovereign Host, Eternal Wand) and Complete Champion (substitute domain). That's more books than the Artificer, but the Artificer has to use a custom item, as there are no listed items that boost UMD.

Yes, the Artificer eventually ends up with access to anything. But so what? So does the Beguiler. He gets the Spell Domain from whichever the Sovereign Host magic god is, uses limited wish to emulate planar binding and do whatever he wants. The ability to have access to all the things in a high-op environment is not all that impressive or unique.

Zanos

2017-02-23, 12:57 AM

An eternal wand of substitute domain isn't avaliable until 4th. 5th if you use the rule that no item can be more than half your wealth.

There's an infusion that grants a scaling bonus to any skill, and an artificer can craft apellsight spectacles for +5 with scrolls, and they get a bonus to UMD checks for any item type they can craft. Plus if they really need to there are spells that grant skill bonuses. And a beguiler dipping another class is two full spell levels behind an artificer. He had scrolls of limited wish at level 11, and access to all the spells it can replicate for cheaper at level 9. You're getting your "equivalent" ability at level 15.

ryu

2017-02-23, 12:59 AM

The Beguiler put in a level and an item. The Artificer put in a feat and an item. You get more levels than you get feats. The Beguiler used resources from Eberron (Sovereign Host, Eternal Wand) and Complete Champion (substitute domain). That's more books than the Artificer, but the Artificer has to use a custom item, as there are no listed items that boost UMD.

Yes, the Artificer eventually ends up with access to anything. But so what? So does the Beguiler. He gets the Spell Domain from whichever the Sovereign Host magic god is, uses limited wish to emulate planar binding and do whatever he wants. The ability to have access to all the things in a high-op environment is not all that impressive or unique.

The ability to do that natively as a class feature is though. Further you're not accessing literally everything even with all this extra work. You're access most everything, and with significantly more work in the daily routine if you rely that much on binding. Further anyone with any experience at all will tell you that levels matter significantly more than feats. This isn't because of the amount of them you get on the whole but what a level does compared to a feat.

Cosi

2017-02-23, 01:07 AM

An eternal wand of substitute domain isn't avaliable until 4th. 5th if you use the rule that no item can be more than half your wealth.

The Artificer gets Craft Wondrous Item at 3rd level. But yeah, you can get "use your abilities at all" on line a couple of levels sooner than the Beguiler can get "almost any domain spell". I weep before your horrible power.

And a beguiler dipping another class is two full spell levels behind an artificer. He had scrolls of limited wish at level 11, and access to all the spells it can replicate for cheaper at level 9. You're getting your "equivalent" ability at level 15.

Rainbow Servant grants a Prestige Domain and advances casting.

The ability to do that natively as a class feature is though. Further you're not accessing literally everything even with all this extra work. You're access most everything, and with significantly more work in the daily routine if you rely that much on binding.

You bind an Efreet then ask for whatever you want. You do it once.

Further anyone with any experience at all will tell you that levels matter significantly more than feats. This isn't because of the amount of them you get on the whole but what a level does compared to a feat.

Well, yeah, but you're not giving up casting.

ryu

2017-02-23, 01:28 AM

The Artificer gets Craft Wondrous Item at 3rd level. But yeah, you can get "use your abilities at all" on line a couple of levels sooner than the Beguiler can get "almost any domain spell". I weep before your horrible power.

Rainbow Servant grants a Prestige Domain and advances casting.

You bind an Efreet then ask for whatever you want. You do it once.

Well, yeah, but you're not giving up casting.

It still matters more and you know it. I care much more about what class I'm advancing than which feats I have in over 90% of scenarios. You wanna know what else is fun about efreet wishes? Literally anyone can do that with spellcasters having earlier access, and thus it doesn't count.

Cosi

2017-02-23, 01:32 AM

It still matters more and you know it. I care much more about what class I'm advancing than which feats I have in over 90% of scenarios. You wanna know what else is fun about efreet wishes? Literally anyone can do that with spellcasters having earlier access, and thus it doesn't count.

You're advancing exactly the same class with Rainbow Servant.

Your point on Efreet wishes is exactly wrong. It's not that limited wish -> planar binding doesn't matter because casters do it sooner, it's that no "get all the abilities" trick matters, because those are available to anyone. WBL is TO-complete, so no class features (hell, no class) matters if you're allowing TO.

ryu

2017-02-23, 01:52 AM

You're advancing exactly the same class with Rainbow Servant.

Your point on Efreet wishes is exactly wrong. It's not that limited wish -> planar binding doesn't matter because casters do it sooner, it's that no "get all the abilities" trick matters, because those are available to anyone. WBL is TO-complete, so no class features (hell, no class) matters if you're allowing TO.

It's not T0 if it's literally your explicate class feature and requires none of the usual outside help sources.

tsj

2017-02-23, 02:07 AM

Maybe a gestalt artificer/warlock ? Warlock has the bang and can use Any magic devices and artificer can make stuff... Would that not make a great tier 1 class?

And sorceror plus warmage?

OldTrees1

2017-02-23, 02:11 AM

Maybe a gestalt artificer/warlock ? Warlock has the bang and can use Any magic devices and artificer can make stuff... Would that not make a great tier 1 class?

Shh... , the tiering community likes to pretend multiclass cannot happen. Quietly slip away before they see you.

ryu

2017-02-23, 02:16 AM

Shh... , the tiering community likes to pretend multiclass cannot happen. Quietly slip away before they see you.

It's not that it can't happen. It's that attempting to quantify the rank of all possible combinations would be an absolute flustercuck. Seriously anyone here wanna try that? I'm not kidding. Hands up!

Efrate

2017-02-23, 04:08 AM

Rant about t3/4 Cleric and Druids

I would just like to chime in that is is absolutely possible to build a cleric or druid at very low levels and drop to t3/4. Its mostly on playstyle not actual features, but a cleric who has IDK, Good and helaing as his domains, and only used turn undead to turn undead. The cleric the designers thought of. You prep heals, and one of your domains is healing and that stays there, and the occasional bless or such. No self buffs, no big party buffs, just healing focused. Your summon monsters you use exclusively as minor combat threats, do not look at SLAs and just one more body to attack/flank. Your feats go into combat stuff, extra turning and improved turning, and DMM has no existence for you nor do most metamagic. Most new players can easily play this cleric. And its horrible. For all the reasons you expect. Its not that it cannot do more, but it is VERY easy to build that way, especially as a new player.

Its a little harder with a driuid, but no wilding clasps which again new people will not know about, a similar playstyle with a lot of healing prepped, and stuff like heat metal or goodberry. Which are find but you can do so much more. Spontaneous SNA is great, helps a lot, but again you use them just as combat forms. Your pet is just whatever you get at newest level and you do not cast buffs on it cause you need those heals, possibly more than a cleric since you can't just get any heals. Or you save your wild shape because you might need to cast spells and do not want to take natural spell, so you rarely use it.

I have seen more of these types in actual play than "real" clerics because all the fluff and such that is in the books tries to force the role on healer on someone and that is all they generally show said class really doing. I have taught the game to a lot of newer people in my years of playing any every time someone, myself included, first plays a druid or cleric this is exactly how it turns out. I have seen so many weapon focus/imp inititative then no idea what to pick for feats and how to do stuff. I have seen more magic stone and SM/NA 1 prepped than any other spell that would be highly useful since its the "best I can do as a healer." 1-2 cure spells and a SM/NA 1 or magic stone or bless is the 100% most common setup I see on early level spells. And further level it stays the same. I have seem the same type of feats taken for the animal companions (WF Bite, WF claw, imp init, etc.) more than I have seen anything else.

Yes all of this is easily fixable the next day, but most don't. Sadly I was the same way when I first played,but a few people I play with with no op-fu do a similar thing. One friend of mines just wants to go hit things with someone big with a weapon, but won't ever use power attack nor get pounce becacuse he doesn't want to, he just wants to smash. He loves BSF types and it doesn't matter than he can build an ubercharger and go silly, he doesn't want to, he plays the BSF, dumps int, cha, wis, dex,as much con and str as possible, and plays a very funny but very fun BSF. Every time. I have another who always plays a healer, and again, she always plays a healer, full healing support, a few buffs but nothing great, because that is what she likes. She plays a taciturn and quiet character who only speaks seldomly and with great import when she has a key insight and it also super fun to play with. But I have seen a LOT more of these types than others.

As for wizards being less than tier 1 because they can screw themselves, that is similar to what I said above, and its not outside sources and obscure things which break a wizard its a PHB. That has everything you need. Yes they can be played very badly and drop but even accidentally stumbling around and playing a no metamagic blaster you still can hit t3 very easily excelling in your one role, and still contributing more than the fighter or rogue in combat.

As to paladins not being better than fighters, whomever made the claim, cha to saves, a few abilites, spells including a solid holy gish-style list, your free mount, and the fact that you have actual skills to deal with something other than run up and smack (diplomacy, knowledges) you do a lot more than just holy guy who hits things. Divine Might (I think? spend a turn for cha to damage/) equals or surpasses weapon spec and there are a decent few reasonable divine feats to take advantage of your turns, not even counting just being another DMM user with a better melee base but with no where near the spell selection to make you a CoDzilla, just a normal godzilla.

Also whoever keeps mentioning x-prestige class on y class makes you do all this stuff so much better than z class, can you please stop. Prestige classes have NO bearing on this tier list. As far as I am aware, and eggy please correct me if I am wrong, ACFs and such have a bearing but all of these builds are being judged as base class x 20. I do not care if a 1 level dip into anything, even another base class, makes whatever class a million times better. I do not care if prestige class X gets you all spells known from all lists forever infinitely and class y enters it a level earlier than class Z, it does not matter at all for the purpose of the list. I consider all of this to be under the umbrella of prestige classes have no existence and are in no way relevant to the discussion at hand in tiering base classes. Too many combinations, not enough time or space on the internet for all of it.

I did not mean to come off as hostile, but its been bugging me whenever someone brings that up.

GilesTheCleric

2017-02-23, 04:30 AM

Rant about t3/4 Cleric and Druids -snip-

The problem with this is that it's just not possible to drop the class that low. Player ability is not counted in tiering, so all that you can do to drop the tier is to actually remove the class features. These two classes also can't be stopped -- in 24 hours, a better player can instantly revert them back to t1-in-play.

Beheld

2017-02-23, 07:07 AM

Also whoever keeps mentioning x-prestige class on y class makes you do all this stuff so much better than z class, can you please stop. Prestige classes have NO bearing on this tier list. As far as I am aware, and eggy please correct me if I am wrong, ACFs and such have a bearing but all of these builds are being judged as base class x 20. I do not care if a 1 level dip into anything, even another base class, makes whatever class a million times better. I do not care if prestige class X gets you all spells known from all lists forever infinitely and class y enters it a level earlier than class Z, it does not matter at all for the purpose of the list. I consider all of this to be under the umbrella of prestige classes have no existence and are in no way relevant to the discussion at hand in tiering base classes. Too many combinations, not enough time or space on the internet for all of it.

I did not mean to come off as hostile, but its been bugging me whenever someone brings that up.

Also whoever keeps mentioning x-item on y class makes you do all this stuff so much better than z class, can you please stop. Items have NO bearing on this tier list. As far as I am aware, and eggy please correct me if I am wrong, ACFs and such have a bearing but all of these builds are being judged as itemless class x 20. I do not care if a 1 item, even a cheap item you can buy for 100gp, makes whatever class a million times better. I do not care if item X gets you all spells known from all lists forever infinitely and class y crafts it a level earlier than class Z, it does not matter at all for the purpose of the list. I consider all of this to be under the umbrella of items have no existence and are in no way relevant to the discussion at hand in tiering base classes. Too many combinations, not enough time or space on the internet for all of it.

I did not mean to come off as hostile, but its been bugging me whenever someone brings that up.

Also Artificer is Tier 5.

Fizban

2017-02-23, 07:50 AM

Huh. I was going to check out, but seeing Morphic Tide actually bringing some reasonable optimization assumptions gives me hope. You can throw me in second on everything he said on the classes at hand (even if he's doing a couple other things wrong), except that Archivist doesn't get a pass from "allied casters" so it lands at 2 with the Wizard and Artificer, plus Sha'ir at tier 1. Because he's quite right: the thing that makes Wizards and Artificers "tier 1" is lots of DM leniency, cross-book optimization, and wacky spell access, and without those they lose to Druid and Cleric so hard they deserve to drop a tier. Because hey, if other classes aren't good enough due to assumptions about the DM, why should these be?

Like I said back in the main thread, the more stuff you have to bring up to prove how awesome your class is, the less likely it is awesome. And the Wizard's list of excuses is always longer than anyone else's.

With this set of threads, particularly the home base one. However, it's worth note that the basic tier system is really weird and kinda contradictory about this stuff, rather than straightforward in one direction.
While yours is merely vague and undefined. Trying to claim an "average" of all hypothetical builds is and has always been ridiculous. Define what your standard level of optimization, leniency, and multitasking expectations is, or. . . keep rating based on nothing but vagueness and preconceptions I guess. I brought this up in the main thread ages ago, but basically all the response I got was "eh, I don't get it," and then nothing but how I'm so wrong about Warmage. And now this oh so funny joke:

And let's not forget the biggest reason to keep wizard in tier one. If they moved then I'd have to change the tier definition. And I possibly wouldn't, out of a combination of laziness and amusement, leaving the wizard outside the realm of wizards. Actually, that sounds great. Everyone should vote wizards for tier two, and then I'll keep the realm of wizards thing around for any future tier one definition I use.
Despite giving the impression you were interested in discussing how the tiers should work, you really don't seem to give a crap about anything that disagrees with you. Or I guess mine and Morphic Tide's input isn't worth considering because it's not vague enough due to our actually having an idea of why we're rating things the way we are. Grod and Gemini gave yet another suggestion for tier changes, no word on that either.

Your tier definitions lack critical definitions, yet you demand fine distinctions between those tiers based on unspecified definitions and laugh at us for disagreeing. Warmage is tier 3 or 4 because it "can't solve enough problems," even though there's no definition of what those problems are, but Wizard is tier 1 because it can totally solve all the problems thanks to it's undefined power level perfectly matching the undefined possibility field.

And I do mean to come off a little hostile, I'm kind of offended at this point.

eggynack

2017-02-23, 08:00 AM

Classes are weird. Only reason I count heavy multi-class and prestige class use differently is cause those are, y'know, classes. I'm not even entirely sure that we should be discounting those elements as much as I say that we should, because some classes absolutely do get more or less out of these modes of optimization. Pulling from that too extensively does make things wonky though. Am I supposed to consider a fighter 2/barbarian 2 a part of the array of "fighter"? What about fighter 2/barbarian 1? If, as may be the case here, there is a gap in tier between the two classes, am I supposed to take this enhanced fighter capability as a synergy or as a simple averaging between the tiers to some extent? It might seem obvious in that case, but what if I'm suddenly assessing a monk 1/cleric 19 as opposed to, say, a wizard 1/cleric 19? The former is probably better, but setting that case up as part of the monk's deal as part of the principle of unequal use is weird and misleading.

What I'm getting at here is, use sparingly, and, because classes are an absolute intrinsic part of the system that we're already evaluating while prestige classes may never be assessed (because they're weird and difficult to assess), use normal classes even more sparingly. There's a range of cases here that get more or less assessed. In the most assessed pile is something like extra domains from a prestige class for a cleric. The various options eat very few levels, usually one, and there's an approximate ton of classes that do this spread across a number of books which are pretty interchangeable. Something like rainbow servant for ten levels (which is distinct from rainbow servant for one level) is in the least assessed pile. It eats close to the maximum possible quantity of levels, ten, and it's basically unmatched in what it does. These, I think, are the two primary criteria, capacity to substitute and level intensiveness. When you have low capacity to substitute and high level intensiveness, you're really starting to assess the capabilities of this prestige class instead of the capabilities of this class, and the opposite is true in the inverse case.

So, in conclusion, probably don't discount these things completely, but don't consider them as much as you would some other factors. Items, feats, and ACFs are different, but they're not like a whole different universe. I'm trying to get somewhat away from the criticism that the tier system isn't reflective of the real game state associated with these classes. It's an important criticism to get away from, in my opinion.

Like I said back in the main thread, the more stuff you have to bring up to prove how awesome your class is, the less likely it is awesome. And the Wizard's list of excuses is always longer than anyone else's.
It seems a lot to me like the wizard's "excuse" is that it can scribe scrolls and sometimes copy off of spellbooks, fully within the rules and guidelines of the game. There are workarounds if you can't do that stuff effectively, but those are less additional excuses, more ways to work around the occasional weirdness in the original "excuse". It's longer than the list for some classes, certainly, but it's not all that long by any means, and the higher echelons of power are incredibly high. And, as was noted, even in relatively low to the ground scenarios, you're still getting more spell variety and faster spell level access than a sorcerer. So, marginally higher floor, much higher ceiling.

While yours is merely vague and undefined. Trying to claim an "average" of all hypothetical builds is and has always been ridiculous. Define what your standard level of optimization, leniency, and multitasking expectations is, or. . . keep rating based on nothing but vagueness and preconceptions I guess. I brought this up in the main thread ages ago, but basically all the response I got was "eh, I don't get it," and then nothing but how I'm so wrong about Warmage. And now this oh so funny joke:

It's not that undefined. Tier two is better than tier three, worse than tier one. That's nearly all of what you need to know in order to tier. I think the warmage is worse than any class I'd consider tier two. That's a more important factor than any consideration relating to some precise definitions. It's not like people weren't indicating why they thought you were wrong about warmage. Not spontaneously agreeing with everything you say doesn't mean that people aren't listening to you and discussing things with you.

Despite giving the impression you were interested in discussing how the tiers should work, you really don't seem to give a crap about anything that disagrees with you. Or I guess mine and Morphic Tide's input isn't worth considering because it's not vague enough due to our actually having an idea of why we're rating things the way we are.
These threads have given your and Tide's input a massive amount of individual attention and discussion. This wizard for tier two argument has dominated a large quantity of this thread, and the same is the case for your warmage for tier two argument.

Grod and Gemini gave yet another suggestion for tier changes, no word on that either.
I've looked at them somewhat. Not ruling anything out, but I don't think there's that much consensus on an individual thing. The idea of adding the graphs is growing on me a bit, though I'm not quite there yet. This doesn't have to be super crazy action time. Even if/when I change the system, it's not going to place emphasis on something above comparison testing. It'd just better define the space for that testing, and give a better understanding of the lay of the land.

Your tier definitions lack critical definitions, yet you demand fine distinctions between those tiers based on unspecified definitions and laugh at us for disagreeing.
I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing at myself for kinda prematurely including a class as benchmark that could theoretically become controversial. I don't expect the class to become actually controversial, because some classes are a lot more set in stone in the minds of folks than others (and for good reason, I'd assert), but if it does it'd be somewhat amusing that I'd have to change my definitions to match.

Warmage is tier 3 or 4 because it "can't solve enough problems," even though there's no definition of what those problems are, but Wizard is tier 1 because it can totally solve all the problems thanks to it's undefined power level perfectly matching the undefined possibility field.
They're not that undefined. I'd expect the problem field to be majority combat, with a solid chunk of various quantities of non-combat. Wizards happen to be really good at all of those things. And everything else, really. The problem field is rare that the wizard won't be great at. Kinda why they're tier one.

And I do mean to come off a little hostile, I'm kind of offended at this point.
Not really sure why, to be honest. I think I've given your position a fair shake. People just don't agree with you. Maybe we will after another ton of arguing, or maybe we won't, but really, failing to convince people is the default state in an argument. If people weren't already convinced of their own position, they probably wouldn't be arguing it, after all.

ryu

2017-02-23, 08:31 AM

Or to put it another way guys. It's not that eggy disagrees with you, though he does, or that I do, though I totally do, or that any number of individuals do, though we can confirm there are many. It's that extraordinary claims in argument or otherwise require extraordinary evidence to sway someone. You want to argue against one of the most widely held consensus points in the entire forum, having been in place for well over a decade or so of play, and you want it to be EASY?! I'm sorry but no.

Zanos

2017-02-23, 08:35 AM

The Artificer gets Craft Wondrous Item at 3rd level. But yeah, you can get "use your abilities at all" on line a couple of levels sooner than the Beguiler can get "almost any domain spell". I weep before your horrible power.
As we all know, infusions, long term spells, 1st level spells that grant skill bonuses, and crossbows don't exist.

Rainbow Servant grants a Prestige Domain and advances casting.

So we're talking about a 7th level character minimum. I don't think the comparison between a 7th level artificer and a prestiged beguiler is going to end well for the beguiler.

Buddy76

2017-02-23, 09:49 AM

Also whoever keeps mentioning x-item on y class makes you do all this stuff so much better than z class, can you please stop. Items have NO bearing on this tier list. As far as I am aware, and eggy please correct me if I am wrong, ACFs and such have a bearing but all of these builds are being judged as itemless class x 20. I do not care if a 1 item, even a cheap item you can buy for 100gp, makes whatever class a million times better. I do not care if item X gets you all spells known from all lists forever infinitely and class y crafts it a level earlier than class Z, it does not matter at all for the purpose of the list. I consider all of this to be under the umbrella of items have no existence and are in no way relevant to the discussion at hand in tiering base classes. Too many combinations, not enough time or space on the internet for all of it.

I did not mean to come off as hostile, but its been bugging me whenever someone brings that up.

Also Artificer is Tier 5.

Well, if you're discounting items altogether it's a very different game indeed. UMD is useless, as are weapon and armor proficiencies. Monks will probably fare better than fighters, sorcerers will definetely be better than wizards, artificers get the (very) short shrift, Vow of poverty becomes an amazing feat, et cetera. While that's an interesting theoretical discussion, it's not a fair assessment of how most games are played. Assuming standart WBL and that characters purchase level-appropriate equipment with said wealth is neither TO nor an abuse of the rules.

Now, granted, items can be abused both in real gaming situations and in TO. Assuming that you can buy any item, no matter how obscure (or custom), because it fits your WBL is not reasonable. Ignoring WBL entirely "My rogue can take down full casters no problem! All I need is a dagger that casts greater dispel on hit an infinite number of times per day at CL 40 " is definetely not reasonable. However, removing all the items, no matter how cheap or mundane, from the equation causes just as much distortions when you're discussing class effectivness.

lord_khaine

2017-02-23, 09:55 AM

ryu

2017-02-23, 09:56 AM

Well, if you're discounting items altogether it's a very different game indeed. UMD is useless, as are weapon and armor proficiencies. Monks will probably fare better than fighters, sorcerers will definetely be better than wizards, artificers get the (very) short shrift, Vow of poverty becomes an amazing feat, et cetera. While that's an interesting theoretical discussion, it's not a fair assessment of how most games are played. Assuming standart WBL and that characters purchase level-appropriate equipment with said wealth is neither TO nor an abuse of the rules.

Now, granted, items can be abused both in real gaming situations and in TO. Assuming that you can buy any item, no matter how obscure (or custom), because it fits your WBL is not reasonable. Ignoring WBL entirely "My rogue can take down full casters no problem! All I need is a dagger that casts greater dispel on hit an infinite number of times per day, at CL 40 " is definetely not reasonable. However, removing all the items, no matter how cheap or mundane, from the equation causes just as much distortions when you're discussing class effectivness.

Actually wizard can go eidetic and take eschew material components. Sacrificing all that and never learning another spell besides when it levels and it's still got more spells known than sorcerer. Nice try though.

Beheld

2017-02-23, 09:59 AM

So we're talking about a 7th level character minimum. I don't think the comparison between a 7th level artificer and a prestiged beguiler is going to end well for the beguiler.

You can be a level 2 character who is Beguiler 1/Rainbow Servant 1 and has access to a domain to be substituted away (when you later have the money for an eternal wand, or I guess, using a scroll every few days earlier if you want). There are lots and lots of Domains that Beguilers can get, and I recommend they get as many as possible (unless you are specifically doing Shadowcraft Mage or 10 levels of Rainbow Servant) but the earliest is level 2. Certainly if you aren't using early entry tricks at all, you would be in place to take Divine Oracle as your 6th level.

Because he's quite right: the thing that makes Wizards and Artificers "tier 1" is lots of DM leniency, cross-book optimization, and wacky spell access, and without those they lose to Druid and Cleric so hard they deserve to drop a tier. Because hey, if other classes aren't good enough due to assumptions about the DM, why should these be?

Like I said back in the main thread, the more stuff you have to bring up to prove how awesome your class is, the less likely it is awesome. And the Wizard's list of excuses is always longer than anyone else's.

Without defending the Artificer at all, that's completely bull**** about the Wizard. The reason the Wizard is Tier 1 is because every spell he casts in combat is better than every spell the Cleric/Druid casts most of the time.

Everyone has their own strengths in utility, depending on Druid/Cleric/Wizard list, though it wouldn't surprise me if Wizard had the "best" there too, but in combat, Wizard spells at every level are just better than comparable ones for the other classes. That's why they get a worse casting preparation system than Druids and Clerics. Because they cast better spells. (special exceptions for Entangle, Control Winds, and basically nothing else :D )

However, removing all the items, no matter how cheap or mundane, from the equation causes just as much distortions when you're discussing class effectivness.

As you should have seen from my parroting of an argument above almost word for word, I was using an analogy to show why I think that argument is a bad argument.

eggynack

2017-02-23, 10:00 AM

Well, if you're discounting items altogether it's a very different game indeed.
Pretty absolutely sure that was just a reductio ad absurdum argument extending off of the idea that we're not considering prestige classes and base class dipping.

Buddy76

2017-02-23, 10:08 AM

Actually wizard can go eidetic and take eschew material components. Sacrificing all that and never learning another spell besides when it levels and it's still got more spells known than sorcerer. Nice try though.

I guess? My point was not "sorcerers are better than wizards! Ultimate dread sorecer king combo 9 revealed (insert even more insane gibberish here)!". What I was trying to say is that, if you do not consider items at all, the game becomes very different. The one example about sorcerers and wizards was wrong because I forgot about Dragon 357. I stand corrected.

ryu

2017-02-23, 10:09 AM

Pretty absolutely sure that was just a reductio ad absurdum argument extending off of the idea that we're not considering prestige classes and base class dipping.

As I have demonstrated above, I at least, am prepared for the naked caster battle free-for-all. Not beating druid at low levels, but then who is?

Edit: Aw. I thought we were gonna start something silly.

eggynack

2017-02-23, 10:16 AM

As I have demonstrated above, I at least, am prepared for the naked caster battle free-for-all. Not beating druid at low levels, but then who is?

Edit: Aw. I thought we were gonna start something silly.
Well, we are now five pages deep talking about whether tier one classes are tier one, so that's pretty silly in and of itself. It's not even mostly about the artificer and sha'ir, as I would have expected. Jeez, we're only a page away from the fixed list casters thread. I suppose any thread length estimate that was based on the idea that tier thread are sometimes short and not filled with a bunch of wacky discussion is somewhat insane. Or silly, perhaps. Double silliness.

ryu

2017-02-23, 10:20 AM

Well, we are now five pages deep talking about whether tier one classes are tier one, so that's pretty silly in and of itself. It's not even mostly about the artificer and sha'ir, as I would have expected. Jeez, we're only a page away from the fixed list casters thread. I suppose any thread length estimate that was based on the idea that tier thread are sometimes short and not filled with a bunch of wacky discussion is somewhat insane. Or silly, perhaps. Double silliness.

You really thought I would permit myself to be involved in a discussion of this importance without some amount of shenanigans? I thought we knew each other better than that man.

Zanos

2017-02-23, 10:22 AM

Well, we are now five pages deep talking about whether tier one classes are tier one, so that's pretty silly in and of itself. It's not even mostly about the artificer and sha'ir, as I would have expected. Jeez, we're only a page away from the fixed list casters thread. I suppose any thread length estimate that was based on the idea that tier thread are sometimes short and not filled with a bunch of wacky discussion is somewhat insane. Or silly, perhaps. Double silliness.
Anyone who knows enough about the Sha'ir to actually discuss it knows that there's pretty much no way it isn't tier 1. It's a charisma wizard that doesn't need a spellbook or to buy spells with some extra goodies.

Now I await the refutation that Sha'ir's are Tier 4 in worlds that don't have genies or whatever.

Psyren

2017-02-23, 10:33 AM

Sha'ir is definitely T1 but it can hurt at low levels something fierce. Neither its spell durations nor its spell retention last long enough early on to guarantee that you'll have something ready to cast when combat starts, which means you risk having to send your gen away and plink at the enemy with a crossbow for a couple of rounds at the beginning of a fight - and do so with no mage armor no less. I don't think that necessarily affects its tier, but it's a thorny problem nevertheless. Your gen might return only to find that you've gotten acquainted with the business end of a few orc spears and it should be updating its planar resumé.

Zanos

2017-02-23, 10:39 AM

eggynack

2017-02-23, 10:39 AM

You really thought I would permit myself to be involved in a discussion of this importance without some amount of shenanigans? I thought we knew each other better than that man.
Still not really sure why it's important. It's important that people recognize that wizards are tier one, but I thought everyone already thought that, so convincing them thereof is a bit redundant. That there's this opposing perspective does increase its importance profile though. Wouldn't expect a lack of shenanigans at this point. Just didn't expect any shenanigans of any flavor starting out. I thoroughly expected that the thread would die out within a page of everyone blandly agreeing with each other without serious attention paid to justification. I even included a rule in the base thread that was basically just, "You don't have to explain why wizards are tier one if you don't want to." Not to dissuade people, but because I thought seeking this level and quantity of justification was a lost cause.

Anyone who knows enough about the Sha'ir to actually discuss it knows that there's pretty much no way it isn't tier 1. It's a charisma wizard that doesn't need a spellbook or to buy spells with some extra goodies.
I mostly agree, which is why it's here, but the last thread had a little, "I don't get this but an incredibly surface level analysis makes them look vaguely tier two," followed by some correction of that mindset. Y'know, maybe a five post back and forth.

Psyren

2017-02-23, 10:54 AM

You can stagger your familiars return for right after your slots clear. I.E. if you want a spell that takes minutes to get, you can send your genie thingy out a few minutes before it does, so it will be empty by the time it gets back. This will mean you won't have a filled slot for a few minutes(or rounds, depending on the spell) out of every hour at 1st level, but if combat just so happens to occur right after your slots are emptied I think I'd call shenanigans. Since your genie thing also returns with one spell at a time, you should probably always have something ready unless you're out of slots as well. Your slots don't all clear at once.

I'd call shenanigans too, but some DMs use encounter tables and the like, the kind that make you roll for every X of travel or exploration time. You're at the mercy of the dice at that point.

However, you do have a point - if you're constantly sending the gen out right before a slot empties, you have a better chance of at least having one spell ready. Of course, one can also raise the point that a DC 20 check is not impossible to fail at your first 1-3 levels, and if it is, not only do you get nothing that cycle, but the gen itself may even be delayed in returning.

You can actually leverage the slots clearing as an advantage to change your prepared spells during the day as well. Being able to change to anti-undead spells after the first encounter in a dungeon is pretty nice, to the point that I've seen Sha'irs built to minimize levels in the actual class so they could swap spells as often as possible.

Now I'm imagining a Sha'ir with like 40 watches to time all of his slots clearing...

Generally you don't need more than 6-8 Sha'ir levels. and can even get by with 4 in a pinch. There is an advantage to not PrCing though, because at 13 you can Planar Ally geniekind which is nice. Marids even grant wishes, and are far less dickish than Efreet.

GilesTheCleric

2017-02-23, 01:06 PM

As I have demonstrated above, I at least, am prepared for the naked caster battle free-for-all. Not beating druid at low levels, but then who is?

Edit: Aw. I thought we were gonna start something silly.

Cleric actually does just fine without any gear; I made a post about it (I think in Jormengand's thread); maybe I'll get over being lazy and link it at some point. In short, Clerics can create everything they need to function in a self-contained fashion, though it's easier if they have some stuff to work with, like raw stone or ice. It's also not great when you're forced to do that at level 1, in which case Druid probably has the advantage simply because it's 2v1, which is powerful at that level. At later levels, it's not too much of a problem.

Cosi

2017-02-23, 01:15 PM

It's not T0 if it's literally your explicate class feature and requires none of the usual outside help sources.

TO is more about power than complexity. I agree that you can do non-TO things with the Artificer, but at that point you're looking at a character that takes several days to prepare spells and has to spend gold to prepare spells. That's not really very good.

It's not that it can't happen. It's that attempting to quantify the rank of all possible combinations would be an absolute flustercuck. Seriously anyone here wanna try that? I'm not kidding. Hands up!

Honestly, if you were doing that, you should probably just default to assuming multiclass combinations suck unless someone demonstrates otherwise. Wizard 5/Cleric 5 and Wizard 5/Druid 5 are different, but they're both terrible.

Because he's quite right: the thing that makes Wizards and Artificers "tier 1" is lots of DM leniency, cross-book optimization, and wacky spell access, and without those they lose to Druid and Cleric so hard they deserve to drop a tier. Because hey, if other classes aren't good enough due to assumptions about the DM, why should these be?

Is the Wizard that just takes core spells at every level worse than the core only Cleric? Is the Wizard that takes core spells and a couple non-core options (like Collegiate Wizard or Spontaneous Divination) worse than the Cleric who takes DMM (but not nightsticks)? What optimization point do you see the Wizard being worse at?

Classes are weird. Only reason I count heavy multi-class and prestige class use differently is cause those are, y'know, classes. I'm not even entirely sure that we should be discounting those elements as much as I say that we should, because some classes absolutely do get more or less out of these modes of optimization. Pulling from that too extensively does make things wonky though. Am I supposed to consider a fighter 2/barbarian 2 a part of the array of "fighter"? What about fighter 2/barbarian 1? If, as may be the case here, there is a gap in tier between the two classes, am I supposed to take this enhanced fighter capability as a synergy or as a simple averaging between the tiers to some extent? It might seem obvious in that case, but what if I'm suddenly assessing a monk 1/cleric 19 as opposed to, say, a wizard 1/cleric 19? The former is probably better, but setting that case up as part of the monk's deal as part of the principle of unequal use is weird and misleading.

The thing people are talking about is taking one level of a PrC that advances your casting. That seems pretty clearly "still a Beguiler" to me. I agree that it could be ambiguous in some cases, but those cases aren't what's being discussed here.

As we all know, infusions, long term spells, 1st level spells that grant skill bonuses, and crossbows don't exist.

Your infusions aren't carrying much weight in combat. Most of them have minute+ casting times. There are spells that grant skill bonuses, but the ones that pump UMD are pretty obscure (i.e. guidance of the avatar is web content). If crossbow proficiency makes you Tier One, Warriors are Tier One.

So we're talking about a 7th level character minimum. I don't think the comparison between a 7th level artificer and a prestiged beguiler is going to end well for the beguiler.

We're talking about a 7th level character assuming the only optimization the Artificer does is what he has to do to use his abilities at all. If he starts dumpster diving, equivalent optimization for the Beguiler pulls that level down pretty fast.

eggynack

2017-02-23, 01:20 PM

The thing people are talking about is taking one level of a PrC that advances your casting. That seems pretty clearly "still a Beguiler" to me. I agree that it could be ambiguous in some cases, but those cases aren't what's being discussed here.
Yeah, that's the kinda thing I was getting into with the evaluation metrics in the following paragraph. That it's just a level means you're at the maximum quantity of consideration from that axis, and the degree to which other classes have similar or comparably useful offerings determines how much you should consider it along the other axis. That it's one level means it should likely be considered at least somewhat.

ryu

2017-02-23, 01:33 PM

TO is more about power than complexity. I agree that you can do non-TO things with the Artificer, but at that point you're looking at a character that takes several days to prepare spells and has to spend gold to prepare spells. That's not really very good.

Honestly, if you were doing that, you should probably just default to assuming multiclass combinations suck unless someone demonstrates otherwise. Wizard 5/Cleric 5 and Wizard 5/Druid 5 are different, but they're both terrible.

Is the Wizard that just takes core spells at every level worse than the core only Cleric? Is the Wizard that takes core spells and a couple non-core options (like Collegiate Wizard or Spontaneous Divination) worse than the Cleric who takes DMM (but not nightsticks)? What optimization point do you see the Wizard being worse at?

The thing people are talking about is taking one level of a PrC that advances your casting. That seems pretty clearly "still a Beguiler" to me. I agree that it could be ambiguous in some cases, but those cases aren't what's being discussed here.

Your infusions aren't carrying much weight in combat. Most of them have minute+ casting times. There are spells that grant skill bonuses, but the ones that pump UMD are pretty obscure (i.e. guidance of the avatar is web content). If crossbow proficiency makes you Tier One, Warriors are Tier One.

We're talking about a 7th level character assuming the only optimization the Artificer does is what he has to do to use his abilities at all. If he starts dumpster diving, equivalent optimization for the Beguiler pulls that level down pretty fast.

So let me get this straight. You're arguing that artificer is natively too powerful just doing what it does, and still claim it's not tier 1? What actual madness is this? You don't need prestige classes, multiclasses, specific planar bindings, or depending on level not even really feats or items outside your chosen spells to be manifestly superior in versatility to every other spellcaster. They certainly help of course, but baseline artificer is literally every other tier one crammed together with some of the free bonus bits chopped off. Even the other ones that get everything don't get them all from the most efficiently low spell levels possible.

Cosi

2017-02-23, 01:38 PM

Yeah, that's the kinda thing I was getting into with the evaluation metrics in the following paragraph. That it's just a level means you're at the maximum quantity of consideration from that axis, and the degree to which other classes have similar or comparably useful offerings determines how much you should consider it along the other axis. That it's one level means it should likely be considered at least somewhat.

I'm not 100% sure what you're saying here. Insofar as I think I understand, I don't think there are a bunch of axes. It's just "optimization". Sometimes that means dumpster diving for options. Sometimes it means picking good feats. Sometimes it means taking good dips or PrCs. Trying to split it up leads to stupid situations like the old tiers where you're allowed to do any amount of optimization that fits under "class" no matter how ridiculous (yes, you can totally buy Death Master Geomancer scrolls!), but if you take a feat that totally disqualifies you.

So let me get this straight. You're arguing that artificer is natively too powerful just doing what it does, and still claim it's not tier 1?

The argument is that there's no real line between what the Artificer needs to do to be good (UMD and WBL abuse) and things anyone can do (making skill checks and buying items). If you play the Artificer in a non-abusive way, it takes several days and some money to prepare your spells. If you play it in a useful way, it's a WBL loop hooked up to a skill Rogues get.

eggynack

2017-02-23, 01:54 PM

I'm not 100% sure what you're saying here. Insofar as I think I understand, I don't think there are a bunch of axes. It's just "optimization". Sometimes that means dumpster diving for options. Sometimes it means picking good feats. Sometimes it means taking good dips or PrCs. Trying to split it up leads to stupid situations like the old tiers where you're allowed to do any amount of optimization that fits under "class" no matter how ridiculous (yes, you can totally buy Death Master Geomancer scrolls!), but if you take a feat that totally disqualifies you.
I think a prime consideration to PrC's is the extent to which you are that PrC instead of your base class. And it is in this fashion that the integration of PrC's into the system differs with the consideration of feats.There are two measures of how much you are said PrC, in my opinion. How many levels you take, because if half your build is this other class then you're not really the base class anymore, and whether you can find these abilities elsewhere, because if these abilities are uniquely associated with a single prestige class then it may make sense to call this ability a "that one prestige class thing", as it were.

I think that hitting a good mark on either of those axes opens you to a decent quantity of consideration, and hitting a good mark on both gets you around feat territory. Hitting neither to any extent means the thing probably shouldn't be considered much if at all. I don't know if this is the perfect way to consider this element of tiering, but I think it's a good compromise between the idea that we're considering the class so any level in something that is not the class is meaningless, and the idea that other classes are simply another resource that you use to optimize whatever base class you're considering. There's some truth to the idea that a beguiler 9/X 1/beguiler 10 is less beguiler than a beguiler 20, and that this fact pulls us away from standard feat space. But, of course, there's also truth to the idea that we're trying to talk about real games here, and real games use the beguiler in ways that aren't straightforward 20 level builds. That the original tier system fully sticks to the former mode of thought is wrong, but that paragraph you were quoting before shows the potential pitfall in calling this just more optimization. It's different, but it's not this different.

Beheld

2017-02-23, 02:44 PM

Grod_The_Giant

2017-02-23, 03:37 PM

I'm not 100% sure what you're saying here. Insofar as I think I understand, I don't think there are a bunch of axes. It's just "optimization". Sometimes that means dumpster diving for options. Sometimes it means picking good feats. Sometimes it means taking good dips or PrCs. Trying to split it up leads to stupid situations like the old tiers where you're allowed to do any amount of optimization that fits under "class" no matter how ridiculous (yes, you can totally buy Death Master Geomancer scrolls!), but if you take a feat that totally disqualifies you.
I think "obviousness" one axis that's worthy of consideration, though-- certainly moreso than raw number of sources. Beguiler/Contemplative with Substitute Domain might not involve that many disparate elements, but it's not an intuitive choice in the same way that, say, an Artificer taking Skill Focus (UMD) and making a skill-boosting item is. The former requires you to recognize the unique way the bonus domain interacts with your casting mechanic; the latter requires you to notice that you roll UMD a lot.

The argument is that there's no real line between what the Artificer needs to do to be good (UMD and WBL abuse) and things anyone can do (making skill checks and buying items). If you play the Artificer in a non-abusive way, it takes several days and some money to prepare your spells. If you play it in a useful way, it's a WBL loop hooked up to a skill Rogues get.
The Artificer makes a pretty good case for Tier X, honestly, because its power can spike so high (pennies-on-the-dollar scrolls, bags full of crafting wights, Trapsmith spells, etc) and fall so low (no downtime, low UMD checks, etc).

Gnaeus

2017-02-23, 03:50 PM

Cosi

2017-02-23, 04:07 PM

There are two measures of how much you are said PrC, in my opinion. How many levels you take, because if half your build is this other class then you're not really the base class anymore, and whether you can find these abilities elsewhere, because if these abilities are uniquely associated with a single prestige class then it may make sense to call this ability a "that one prestige class thing", as it were.

There's a difference between taking a PrC that advances your primary class features (like Incantatrix, Mage of the Arcane Order, or Rainbow Servant on an arcane caster), and one that doesn't (like Eye of Gruumsh on an arcane caster). There are also PrCs that change dramatically based on what class is taking them, either relatively (MoMF is good for Wild Shape Ranger, but bad for Druid because Druid has casting) or absolutely (Rainbow Servant is only really good for fixed list casters).

I think "obviousness" one axis that's worthy of consideration, though-- certainly moreso than raw number of sources.

I think obviousness and number of sources are both meaningful, but in different ways. Something that is more obvious is more likely to get attempted. Things like sources or complexity go to a general "fast talk your GM" factor. The first is, I think, less important, because if you need to optimize, you're going to work out how to do it.

Zanos

2017-02-23, 04:11 PM

The irony of arguing that Archivists could get access to all the spells because people with Prestige Classes would make them for him but Beguilers couldn't get a Prestige Domain because Prestige Classes don't exist was always pretty hilarious in old JaronK tier threads. Good times.
I never argued that Beguilers couldn't get a prestige domain, but the Tier list is about what Class X can do. PrCs are such huge modifier for a base classes power that taking them into account would make tiering base classes either useless or exhausting, as in many cases the PrC can define a classes tier more than a base class. Damn Commoner/Ur-Priests.

I'm not sure archivists can copy from each other's books, but they do get scribe scroll for free at level 1, so Archivists shouldn't have huge problems sharing scrolls with each other. So it's not necessary for an army of cleric with <insert specific domain and feat> to spend months creating scrolls in case archivists want them as long as one archivist picked it up at some point.

Depends on how coming archivists are in your setting whether or not that makes I sense, I suppose.

Beheld

2017-02-23, 04:12 PM

😄 Because there's a cleric 9 with drow domain merrily crafting scrolls of spiderform to sell in elvin metropolises because RAW says that you can buy any magic item under a certain price!

Man, whatever, even a Cleric making spiderform with his domain is less of an issue, but really "Beguilers can't PrC because PrCs don't exist, but my Archivist has a non existent Geometer PrC friend who writes him scrolls."

Zanos

2017-02-23, 04:13 PM

Man, whatever, even a Cleric making spiderform with his domain is less of an issue, but really "Beguilers can't PrC because PrCs don't exist, but my Archivist has a non existent Geometer PrC friend who writes him scrolls."
Also, Archivists don't need access to PrC lists to be tier 1, so I'm not really sure why that argument even matters.

eggynack

2017-02-23, 04:30 PM

There's a difference between taking a PrC that advances your primary class features (like Incantatrix, Mage of the Arcane Order, or Rainbow Servant on an arcane caster), and one that doesn't (like Eye of Gruumsh on an arcane caster). There are also PrCs that change dramatically based on what class is taking them, either relatively (MoMF is good for Wild Shape Ranger, but bad for Druid because Druid has casting) or absolutely (Rainbow Servant is only really good for fixed list casters).
That's kinda a separate factor that's just universally considered. As I said before, something like contemplative on a cleric is pretty close to a feat in terms of how we'd consider it. So, at that point, we inevitably have to ask how good contemplative is for a cleric, and how it is on the classes we're comparing it to, same as we would for any feat or item. If the prestige class is something we're not considering as much, we still do all that stuff but with some variety of modifier to represent that lesser consideration.

GilesTheCleric

2017-02-23, 09:47 PM

That's kinda a separate factor that's just universally considered. As I said before, something like contemplative on a cleric is pretty close to a feat in terms of how we'd consider it. So, at that point, we inevitably have to ask how good contemplative is for a cleric, and how it is on the classes we're comparing it to, same as we would for any feat or item. If the prestige class is something we're not considering as much, we still do all that stuff but with some variety of modifier to represent that lesser consideration.

I think everyone already knows, but adding more domains to a cleric is a bit of a proposition in diminishing returns. Most domains are filled with spells that are already on your list, and of those spells that aren't, most will entice you toward a particular playstyle that's likely at odds with the spells from another domain. That is, the marginal utility of extra domains isn't all that high.

In terms of the general sentiment, I agree -- some PrCs are more about augmenting or slightly expanding a class's options than they are about changing the focus of the class entirely. Whether I would be comfortable rating those in? No, I don't think so. We're already a bit sticky on the points of "which books should we assume are in use" and "do skills or WBL count or not", so I wouldn't want to add PrCs to that.

Plus I can already see a huge point of contention -- if you get to add a bunch of PrCs to something like the Evangelist Cleric as part of its tier assumption, then there's a reasonable argument to be made that it qualifies for T1. So too then goes Beguiler, Dread Necro, and Warmage with their list expansions. At what point do we cut things off and say "well, lots of classes can get to T1 in all sorts of ways, WBL or no, because we're good at optimising"?

Gullintanni

2017-02-23, 10:13 PM

Fizban

2017-02-23, 10:15 PM

Huh, fell asleep without hitting submit. Eh, nothing new.

It seems a lot to me like the wizard's "excuse" is that it can scribe scrolls and sometimes copy off of spellbooks, fully within the rules and guidelines of the game. There are workarounds if you can't do that stuff effectively, but those are less additional excuses, more ways to work around the occasional weirdness in the original "excuse". It's longer than the list for some classes, certainly, but it's not all that long by any means, and the higher echelons of power are incredibly high. And, as was noted, even in relatively low to the ground scenarios, you're still getting more spell variety and faster spell level access than a sorcerer. So, marginally higher floor, much higher ceiling.
My point being the flaw in the assumptions about the rules and guidelines of the game. As I brought up in the Warmage thread, the only challenges that are fully endorsed by the game (with CR, xp, and treasure tables rather than mild suggestions) are combat and traps, with only a few pages of traps to entire books of monsters. In order to make dealing with anything other than combat or traps a consideration, you have to impose that on the game, which you are doing so by ranking down classes for not having those effects. You are making assumptions about what the DM is doing which are not accounted for in your tiers.

Similarly, with Wizards and spellbooks, you are assuming that the Wizard does in fact have access to scrolls and other Wizards to copy from, which is actually several assumptions at once. For magic marts, even by the given city generation, you are assuming cities of a certain minimum size to support NPCs of the required level, who happen to have the spells the player wants, who happen to be willing to sell a scroll or allow copying to the given character. There are whole fields of DMs for which none of those assumptions are assumptions, it's not looking at the Wizard class: it's looking at the Wizard plus WBL and campaign based optimization.

Your response to Morphic Tide was literally, "how can you screw a wizard up, scrolls are right there," but having all the spells is not a native ability. Cleric and Druid have a drastic innate advantage that the Wizard can only overcome with WBL, the same problem that makes the Sorcerer inferior to the Wizard, the same problem everyone says the Warmage has compared to everyone. If Sorc can't count scrolls for utility spells, why does Wizard get to count them as spells known? Is the Wizards four, four innate spells known at each spell level really so mind-bogglingly awesome that it matches the entire Cleric/Druid lists? The Wizard is not incredibly good at solving all problems: it's only incredibly good at solving problems that match the spells in its book. If you want to argue that Wizard is better, you have to prove it via the spell efficacy, not their supposed spellbook size.

And this is where we hit my claim that you're going to need more tiers. If one actually considers the possibility that Wizard is lower tier than the Druid, That would drop the Wizard to tier 2. But then if Sorcerer must be weaker than Wizard, it drops to tier 3. But apparently Warmage isn't as good as Sorcerer, so now it drops to 4. But people still want at least two tiers worth of non-casters, so now you need 5 and 6, before even hitting the garbage tier at 7. And back to the Beguiler, how many extra problems does a Sorcerer need to solve to match it's raw ability, shouldn't the Beguiler be a tier higher too? Now we need another one.

You say that I'm arbitrarily limiting the Wizard, I say that you're arbitrarily favoring the Wizard. Until you define the starting position you can't really complain if I think the starting position should be somewhere else. Saying that I haven't convinced anyone doesn't change the fact that you've left it open to interpretation, making your tiers automatically wrong for someone who doesn't happen to already match your views, which you don't fully explain because. . . ? You want the voting average to represent the base assumptions of the DM, without explanation, even when some voters might not even be running them that way?

I'd also take another moment to heap some more on that "average of all wizards at all tables" comment. Really? You really think the average wizard across all tables is being played to Tier 1 Competency? Come on. You're explicitly counting player skill as part of that model, and with how easy it is to screw up a Wizard, the only way it's true is by assuming Wizard players are just better than non-Wizard players. You say that its just a theoretical model and rather than "some platonic average optimization version," but that is exactly what you're doing. Assuming a platonic ideal of a Wizard that picks a spread of spells that makes them extremely good at dealing with all "problems" and is both allowed to expand that spell list whenever necessary and does so to whatever extent is required to beat the class it's being compared to.

It's not that undefined. Tier two is better than tier three, worse than tier one. That's nearly all of what you need to know in order to tier. I think the warmage is worse than any class I'd consider tier two. That's a more important factor than any consideration relating to some precise definitions. It's not like people weren't indicating why they thought you were wrong about warmage. Not spontaneously agreeing with everything you say doesn't mean that people aren't listening to you and discussing things with you.
Yo, dawg, I covered this in the main thread with the posts that you haven't responded to. Other than "worse," you don't have any definitions of *how* worse something needs to be, or what it takes to be *good*, other than Wizard, Sorcerer, and Bard. You can't just keep sidestepping the issue by saying you don't want definitions. I'm not even asking for precise definitions, Troacctid literally already gave more of a guideline by quoting the 5e pillars of adventuring, but you have to say something more specific than "problems" if you want it to mean anything, because you're the one expanding the definition of "problems" from the game's given combat and trap encounters to whatever is is you consider a problem.

These threads have given your and Tide's input a massive amount of individual attention and discussion. This wizard for tier two argument has dominated a large quantity of this thread, and the same is the case for your warmage for tier two argument.
Yes, after which I realized we weren't on the same page and went back to the main thread to try and continue that discussion, which you dropped.

I've looked at them somewhat. Not ruling anything out, but I don't think there's that much consensus on an individual thing. The idea of adding the graphs is growing on me a bit, though I'm not quite there yet. This doesn't have to be super crazy action time. Even if/when I change the system, it's not going to place emphasis on something above comparison testing. It'd just better define the space for that testing, and give a better understanding of the lay of the land.
I hope you're not expecting consensus when you have both invited change and have participants who seem actively hostile to it. All I want is for you to acknowledge that your tiers are based on things not required by the initial game and give some indication of that with actual meaning besides "problems." It'd be nice to see the expectations in DM leniency and optimization actually laid down, but I doubt that will happen.

I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing at myself for kinda prematurely including a class as benchmark that could theoretically become controversial. I don't expect the class to become actually controversial, because some classes are a lot more set in stone in the minds of folks than others (and for good reason, I'd assert), but if it does it'd be somewhat amusing that I'd have to change my definitions to match.
I will also point out the obvious in that voting will never produce a consensus and an unwillingness to change anything unless the majority says so will result in no changes. If all you want is to write down the shift in opinion/disagreements with the original tiers, well that's pretty much the stated goal I guess. But if all you're going to do is say "nah, you haven't convinced me, denied," why should we even bother presenting views we know you disagree with already? If my voice isn't heard for the tiering, or improving the definitions, why am I speaking?

They're not that undefined. I'd expect the problem field to be majority combat, with a solid chunk of various quantities of non-combat. Wizards happen to be really good at all of those things. And everything else, really. The problem field is rare that the wizard won't be great at. Kinda why they're tier one.
Yes, they are. What is non-combat and what does it take to be good at it? Sorcerer is constantly getting a pass for being able to have one or two spells related to a thing. Wizard is getting an A+ for the same thing but a few levels sooner (and their base 4 spells per level is just as brutal as the Sorcerer's without WBL). What is non-combat? How much do you need to go up a tier? You don't want to specify any of this, and that's why I thought my tiers actually lined up, because mine are structured so as to avoid these questions entirely.

Not really sure why, to be honest. I think I've given your position a fair shake. People just don't agree with you. Maybe we will after another ton of arguing, or maybe we won't, but really, failing to convince people is the default state in an argument. If people weren't already convinced of their own position, they probably wouldn't be arguing it, after all.
As above, I'm annoyed because you dropped the discussion of what other people wanted to see in the tier definitions in the main thread without accepting any input from those who found your tiers lacking. You say that adding any definitions other than what you have will somehow result in things being tiered wrong, but there are ways you could improve it without committing to anything specific enough to cause that. You don't even have the combat/non-combat distinction that you just used anywhere up there. Every time you give a reason why a class isn't good enough for a tier, you are revealing the definitions you refuse to actually write down.

At what point do we cut things off and say "well, lots of classes can get to T1 in all sorts of ways, WBL or no, because we're good at optimising"?
Apparently not until after spell choices and WBL use for Wizards.

PairO'Dice Lost

2017-02-23, 10:36 PM

Similarly, with Wizards and spellbooks, you are assuming that the Wizard does in fact have access to scrolls and other Wizards to copy from, which is actually several assumptions at once. For magic marts, even by the given city generation, you are assuming cities of a certain minimum size to support NPCs of the required level, who happen to have the spells the player wants, who happen to be willing to sell a scroll or allow copying to the given character. There are whole fields of DMs for which none of those assumptions are assumptions, it's not looking at the Wizard class: it's looking at the Wizard plus WBL and campaign based optimization.

It's a fairly good assumption, since an 8th-level scroll only costs 3,000 gp (barring scrolls of clone and other spells with XP costs), the GP limit for a Large Town (30% of all settlements, minimum population 2,001) is 3,000 gp, and

Anything having a price under that limit is most likely available, whether it be mundane or magical. While exceptions are certainly possible (a boomtown near a newly discovered mine, a farming community impoverished after a prolonged drought), these exceptions are temporary; all communities will conform to the norm over time.

Yes, finding a 9th-level or high-XP 8th-level scroll requires a larger city size (which isn't an obstacle by the time you get to the level where you'd need that, since between divinations and teleport+plane shift finding and getting to such cities is easy), yes it's possible to create a low-wealth war-torn primitive setting with small settlements to go against all the wealth rules, and yes a DM can arbitrarily declare that the wizard can't find the scrolls he wants, but by the settlement and purchasing rules as they stand scroll access isn't nearly the problem it's made out to be.

And, of course, if the DM decides to ignore the wealth rules like that, well, the martial types are even more screwed because anything more than a +1 suit of armor or any magic weapon at all costs more than 3,000gp, meaning that where the wizard is mildly inconvenienced the fighter types probably die to big bruisers and definitely die to the first incorporeal creature they run into, so such a situation is unlikely to crop up without quickly being rectified (if unintentional) or being evidence of blatant DM meddling (if intentional).

Jopustopin

2017-02-23, 11:01 PM

In any tier there are going to be classes that are at the top of that tier and at the bottom of that tier. There will always be some debate whether the bottom of tier 1 actually belongs in tier 2. But anyone who questions the validity of whether the wizard belongs in tier 1 (not talking placement within tier 1, just that it's somewhere in there) is probably someone who, if left to their own devices, would create a tier system completely outside the mainstream opinion.

I want to add, that a thread like this, is going to bring out the minority in droves who think, for whatever reason, that a wizard is not tier 1. I strongly suggest not seriously engaging with anyone who doesn't consider the wizard tier 1 and, in the future, discounting their advice on the rest of voting for everything else. It reminds me of someone who drinks gasoline and considers it in the same tier of "health" as water. Like, what use do you have in trying to define exactly what "health" means when they are including obviously non-healthy things to consume? It's a waste of time, energy, and is absolutely distracting to the purpose of this thread. I'd say the purpose here is twofold: To hit all our bases, and to engage in any surprise arguments. Like the artificer argument. That was a good use of this thread. The artificer is not a class we see in every campaign. I've only seen one, once. Limited exposure.

I do not mean to be inflammatory at all and for many classes there is a healthy amount of real debate to be had. But, I for one, do not think it's healthy to try to explain to someone why the wizard, who is obviously tier 1, why it's in tier 1. If they don't get it, they never will and their votes shouldn't count because either they are overthinking this whole tier concept (and need everything perfectly and rigidly defined which is not possible) or they are in total left field with their way of tier thinking and thus disqualify themselves.

The amount of classes I have this opinion on are basically Wizard, Cleric, Druid, and Commoner. I just, imagine if someone was making the argument that the Commoner was tier 5; would you continue to engage them or just ignore them? There are extremes and trying to entertain someone who thinks an extreme is in the middle of the pact is insanity. I know the purpose of this thread is to get a community vote but there are probably over a thousand people who saw this thread and "yeped" it without saying anything. Then the .02% who want to vote "no" come in to argue their beliefs.

This post is for those engaged in a serious discussion with someone who thinks the wizard is tier 2. You are not going to change their mind, move on.

GilesTheCleric

2017-02-23, 11:23 PM

I want to add, that a thread like this, is going to bring out the minority in droves who think, for whatever reason, that a wizard is not tier 1. I strongly suggest not seriously engaging with anyone who doesn't consider the wizard tier 1 and, in the future, discounting their advice on the rest of voting for everything else.

I strongly disagree with this. Without a good debate, we aren't going to move forward. Sure, T1 wizards are a very entrenched idea, and for good reason. But that doesn't mean we can't stop and look critically at them. I think it's definitely worth discussing how much we assume about WBL, GM permissiveness, optimisation floors, and equal comparisons. I might disagree with some folks about them, but debating it only helps to further my understanding, and possibly cement my opinion (based on both the new discussion and my previous experience).

Jopustopin

2017-02-23, 11:47 PM

I strongly disagree with this. Without a good debate, we aren't going to move forward. Sure, T1 wizards are a very entrenched idea, and for good reason. But that doesn't mean we can't stop and look critically at them. I think it's definitely worth discussing how much we assume about WBL, GM permissiveness, optimisation floors, and equal comparisons. I might disagree with some folks about them, but debating it only helps to further my understanding, and possibly cement my opinion (based on both the new discussion and my previous experience).

Assumptions about WBL, GM permissiveness, optimisation floors, and equal comparison discussions belong in the main thread.

I look forward to hearing both sides (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGArqoF0TpQ) of the wizard debate.

Fizban

2017-02-24, 12:19 AM

It's a fairly good assumption, since an 8th-level scroll only costs 3,000 gp (barring scrolls of clone and other spells with XP costs), the GP limit for a Large Town (30% of all settlements, minimum population 2,001) is 3,000 gp,
The line is, "Anything having a price under that limit is most likely available." Some people read that as meaning that top level Wizards ship scrolls of every 8th level spell out to every town. Other people read it as anything under that limit, which can actually be justified is purchasable, and the assumption that Wizards ship 8th level scrolls of every spell everywhere is so obviously preposterous that it never even enters their minds.

So take your assumptions to the main thread and demand they be made part of the tier definitions.

And, of course, if the DM decides to ignore the wealth rules like that, well, the martial types are even more screwed because anything more than a +1 suit of armor or any magic weapon at all costs more than 3,000gp, meaning that where the wizard is mildly inconvenienced the fighter types probably die to big bruisers and definitely die to the first incorporeal creature they run into, so such a situation is unlikely to crop up without quickly being rectified (if unintentional) or being evidence of blatant DM meddling (if intentional).
Or maybe the Fighter is capable of using the loot they find. If you want to run the numbers on what percentage of random loot is scrolls the Wizard wants, then you can claim some objectivity. The random weapons and armor aren't great, but I do know they're weighted towards non-exotic weapons and full plate. It doesn't matter if unreliable magic marts can hurt everyone, because magic marts are not nearly as protected as you think they are, and lacking them takes this Wizard "class feature" and turns it into nothing.

You want an objective campaign assumption? Open up a bunch of premade campaigns and see how big the towns are, see what they're stocked with, see what their NPCs can make. Take a look at Forgotten Realms and the weeks-long travel times between the middle of nowhere (adventure!) and the cities with high gp limits. Said campaigns almost always include items the Fighter can use as rewards just for progressing the main quest, while scrolls and spellbooks the Wizard can copy are not guaranteed and not picked by the Wizard. Some popular campaigns include time limits that will cause failure if you take two weeks off to fetch a spell. So who's more dependent on DM allowance?

I strongly suggest not seriously engaging with anyone who doesn't consider the wizard tier 1 and, in the future, discounting their advice on the rest of voting for everything else.
This post is for those engaged in a serious discussion with someone who thinks the wizard is tier 2. You are not going to change their mind, move on.

I look forward to hearing both sides (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGArqoF0TpQ) of the wizard debate.
These two lines do not match.

Edit: and yes, I got the joke. The funny part is that you're the one being so dogmatic you refuse to consider an alternate viewpoint.

Assumptions about WBL, GM permissiveness, optimisation floors, and equal comparison discussions belong in the main thread.
Then why aren't you talking about it there? If it's so obvious that the idea Wizard could be tier 2 is wrong, shouldn't it be easy to explain why as part of the main tier definitions? Take your assumptions to the main thread and demand they be part of the definitions.

eggynack

2017-02-24, 12:27 AM

My point being the flaw in the assumptions about the rules and guidelines of the game. As I brought up in the Warmage thread, the only challenges that are fully endorsed by the game (with CR, xp, and treasure tables rather than mild suggestions) are combat and traps, with only a few pages of traps to entire books of monsters. In order to make dealing with anything other than combat or traps a consideration, you have to impose that on the game, which you are doing so by ranking down classes for not having those effects. You are making assumptions about what the DM is doing which are not accounted for in your tiers.
These aren't the only challenges that show up in games, first of all, even if the relevant systems are better developed. Second, these things that look on the surface like non-combat are secretly super combat oriented. Diplomacy helps grease the wheels on the way to monster fighting (and can get you allies, sometimes). Divinations tell you where and what the monsters are. Teleport takes you to the monsters. Stealth lets you get the drop on the monsters. Scouting gets you fancy tactical information. On the monsters. And, if the monsters are coming to you, then permanent structures can grant a big advantage there. These are all big advantages over just blasting and the occasional BFC, on top of a bunch of more direct in-combat advantages that these other casters have. Third, I'm not making an assumption about what the DM is doing. Some games have out of combat stuff. Some have way less. Both situations are accounted for, because they both take up the potential in-game problem space. You're the one assuming that every game is going to be pure hack and slash.

Similarly, with Wizards and spellbooks, you are assuming that the Wizard does in fact have access to scrolls and other Wizards to copy from, which is actually several assumptions at once. For magic marts, even by the given city generation, you are assuming cities of a certain minimum size to support NPCs of the required level, who happen to have the spells the player wants, who happen to be willing to sell a scroll or allow copying to the given character. There are whole fields of DMs for which none of those assumptions are assumptions, it's not looking at the Wizard class: it's looking at the Wizard plus WBL and campaign based optimization.
As was noted, scrolls are way way easier to access than you're implying. Also, that out-of-combat stuff you were disparaging is pretty helpful at making the hard to find easier to find. So you can kill monsters better.

Your response to Morphic Tide was literally, "how can you screw a wizard up, scrolls are right there," but having all the spells is not a native ability.
All the spells? No. The occasional spell found in towns of various size? Probably. Scrolls are assumed to exist by the system. Other wizards are assumed to exist as well. This isn't something that the occasional wizard does because they're optimizing. Just about every wizard with any access to additional spells whatsoever adds some spells to their book. Even the stupid NPC wizards in the books have more than the bare minimum of spells.

Cleric and Druid have a drastic innate advantage that the Wizard can only overcome with WBL, the same problem that makes the Sorcerer inferior to the Wizard, the same problem everyone says the Warmage has compared to everyone. If Sorc can't count scrolls for utility spells, why does Wizard get to count them as spells known?
The sorcerer can have as many scrolls as they want. Warmages can have scrolls too. It's kinda a lot less impressive when you have to spend money every time you want to cast this utility spell.

Is the Wizards four, four innate spells known at each spell level really so mind-bogglingly awesome that it matches the entire Cleric/Druid lists? The Wizard is not incredibly good at solving all problems: it's only incredibly good at solving problems that match the spells in its book. If you want to argue that Wizard is better, you have to prove it via the spell efficacy, not their supposed spellbook size.
The four spells probably don't match the cleric/druid. They're probably better than the sorcerer though. When you account in the plausible additional spells from the fact that scrolls are pretty inexpensive, and a ton of alternatives exist, the wizard absolutely does match those classes.

And this is where we hit my claim that you're going to need more tiers. If one actually considers the possibility that Wizard is lower tier than the Druid, That would drop the Wizard to tier 2. But then if Sorcerer must be weaker than Wizard, it drops to tier 3. But apparently Warmage isn't as good as Sorcerer, so now it drops to 4. But people still want at least two tiers worth of non-casters, so now you need 5 and 6, before even hitting the garbage tier at 7. And back to the Beguiler, how many extra problems does a Sorcerer need to solve to match it's raw ability, shouldn't the Beguiler be a tier higher too? Now we need another one.
I really don't agree. The beguiler might be a bit stronger than the sorcerer, but it's not outside the normal bounds of what you'd expect to exist in a tier. And I love druids, but the wizard list is amazing, very much enabling the wizard to surpass them in the second half of the game, kinda like how the sorcerer surpasses the beguiler in that stage.

You say that I'm arbitrarily limiting the Wizard, I say that you're arbitrarily favoring the Wizard. Until you define the starting position you can't really complain if I think the starting position should be somewhere else. Saying that I haven't convinced anyone doesn't change the fact that you've left it open to interpretation, making your tiers automatically wrong for someone who doesn't happen to already match your views, which you don't fully explain because. . . ? You want the voting average to represent the base assumptions of the DM, without explanation, even when some voters might not even be running them that way?
When your baseline is lower than that of a source that tries to push the druid into scimitar fighting, I don't consider it particularly worthy of consideration as the game's normal. As the super low end? Maybe, but again, druid scimitar fighting.

I'd also take another moment to heap some more on that "average of all wizards at all tables" comment. Really? You really think the average wizard across all tables is being played to Tier 1 Competency? Come on. You're explicitly counting player skill as part of that model, and with how easy it is to screw up a Wizard, the only way it's true is by assuming Wizard players are just better than non-Wizard players. You say that its just a theoretical model and rather than "some platonic average optimization version," but that is exactly what you're doing. Assuming a platonic ideal of a Wizard that picks a spread of spells that makes them extremely good at dealing with all "problems" and is both allowed to expand that spell list whenever necessary and does so to whatever extent is required to beat the class it's being compared to.
I think low end wizards compare reasonably to low end not-wizards. Fireballs don't compare particularly unfavorably to weapon focus, and the flexibility associated with the capacity to add spells enables even a lower optimization player to sometimes do things that aren't fireball.

Yo, dawg, I covered this in the main thread with the posts that you haven't responded to. Other than "worse," you don't have any definitions of *how* worse something needs to be, or what it takes to be *good*, other than Wizard, Sorcerer, and Bard. You can't just keep sidestepping the issue by saying you don't want definitions. I'm not even asking for precise definitions, Troacctid literally already gave more of a guideline by quoting the 5e pillars of adventuring, but you have to say something more specific than "problems" if you want it to mean anything, because you're the one expanding the definition of "problems" from the game's given combat and trap encounters to whatever is is you consider a problem.
I think most people have a reasonable idea of what a problem is. Some kinda conflict or issue that you resolve through your various capabilities.

Yes, after which I realized we weren't on the same page and went back to the main thread to try and continue that discussion, which you dropped.
I didn't respond to like one post, which I kinda dropped the notion of responding to after you starting saying that your issues were more tied to all this other stuff in this thread.

I hope you're not expecting consensus when you have both invited change and have participants who seem actively hostile to it. All I want is for you to acknowledge that your tiers are based on things not required by the initial game and give some indication of that with actual meaning besides "problems." It'd be nice to see the expectations in DM leniency and optimization actually laid down, but I doubt that will happen.
People seem to be doing pretty well in working on the definitions, and figuring out what a problem is. The issue of what game states are like in a general sense is inevitably central to any tier system. No definition is ever going to solve that. The original system certainly didn't.

I will also point out the obvious in that voting will never produce a consensus and an unwillingness to change anything unless the majority says so will result in no changes.
We've literally already changed the tiering of three separate classes from the original system. You seem to be oddly defining a willingness to change things as a willingness to change things the specific way you want them to change.

If all you want is to write down the shift in opinion/disagreements with the original tiers, well that's pretty much the stated goal I guess. But if all you're going to do is say "nah, you haven't convinced me, denied," why should we even bother presenting views we know you disagree with already? If my voice isn't heard for the tiering, or improving the definitions, why am I speaking?
I've responded to the vast majority of your comments in what I consider a rather reasonable way, and a bunch of other people have as well. Even though I fully disagree with your reading of the tier system and at least a few of your tierings, your vote has counted just as much as anyone else's. What, do I have to respond to literally every comment you make? Do I have to automatically agree with everything you say in order to qualify as hearing you? Your expectations of me and this thread, threads in general really, are thoroughly unrealistic. I do my best to respond to people, and give positions as fair a shake as is possible, but I'm not perfect.

Yes, they are. What is non-combat and what does it take to be good at it? Sorcerer is constantly getting a pass for being able to have one or two spells related to a thing. Wizard is getting an A+ for the same thing but a few levels sooner (and their base 4 spells per level is just as brutal as the Sorcerer's without WBL). What is non-combat? How much do you need to go up a tier? You don't want to specify any of this, and that's why I thought my tiers actually lined up, because mine are structured so as to avoid these questions entirely.

I think people have a reasonable idea of what non-combat is. Social situations, information gathering, really anything that isn't directly combat oriented on the niche ranking system for classes. Sorcerer isn't just getting a pass. They're genuinely capable of some solid out of combat stuff.

As above, I'm annoyed because you dropped the discussion of what other people wanted to see in the tier definitions in the main thread without accepting any input from those who found your tiers lacking.
I've responded to some of the input and thought some of it was solid. Just not necessarily sure if I want to port in big graphs yet, or precisely how I'd want to frame it.

You say that adding any definitions other than what you have will somehow result in things being tiered wrong, but there are ways you could improve it without committing to anything specific enough to cause that.
Maybe, or maybe not. Definitions proved super problematic for the original system.

You don't even have the combat/non-combat distinction that you just used anywhere up there. Every time you give a reason why a class isn't good enough for a tier, you are revealing the definitions you refuse to actually write down.
For all its specificity, I don't think this is something that the original tier system ever concretely defined, and for all its other problems, I don't think people ever really struggled with questions of what qualified as a problem. The tier system was, if anything, less defined in this way, demanding that a class be able to do a... thing. What's a thing? Is being a crappy commoner a thing? Cause the commoner does that quite well. I don't think most people here are struggling with the question of what a problem is. Chasm between you and a castle? That's a problem. A crafty spy is the only one that knows details of where an artifact you're seeking is hidden? That's a problem. You need to schmooze your way into the good graces of royalty in order to refine their political system? That's a problem. Problems are necessarily broad. It's a broad game.

Edit:

These two lines do not match.
Yes, they do. You should probably watch the video.

Malroth

2017-02-24, 01:06 AM

Even in a 100% all random encounters with random loot scenario more than 1/3 of all encounters will drop scrolls so Wizards and Archivists will, in the overwhelming majority of fair games have means to expand their spell access to some degree.

As to my rankings

Cleric Tier 1 if the player knows what clerics can do and takes feats appropiately. Tier 5 if they don't know about buffing or summoning and just try to be a fighter with heals.

Druid low Tier 1 when played well Tier 3 when played poorly. Becoming a Bear riding a T-rex is always possible but there are a lot of problems a druid needs to be creative to fix

Sha'Ir Tier 1 at high levels, lower levels you're plinking with a crossbow.

Wizard/Archivist. Tier 1 unless the DM is actively sabotoging you. Sheer number of spells means you're stumbling on a good combination even if entirely by accident.

Artificer. Entierely up to the table, Capable of being the strongest tier 1 when DM allows prep time and the player knows what he'd doing, Capable of being a very solid tier 2 with only a couple minutes prep time and no crafting at all, and capapable of being no better than expert when neither the DM nor the player gives the class what it needs.

lord_khaine

2017-02-24, 01:56 AM

Kinda surprised about low end druid ending at 3 compared to clerics 5?
Cleric does have heavier armor, dancing around in hide with a scrimitar is not a pretty sight... :smallfrown:

eggynack

2017-02-24, 02:04 AM

Kinda surprised about low end druid ending at 3 compared to clerics 5?
Cleric does have heavier armor, dancing around in hide with a scrimitar is not a pretty sight... :smallfrown:
Yeah, but they wear light armor cause it's classier. I dunno. The whole idea of basically minimum optimization is a weird one. If we're just assuming the classes don't use their features, all that should matter are things like BAB, hit die, and saves. It's hard to know what to count beyond that, if anything.

Edit: Oh, also mandatory features. Monks actually aren't the worst in such an environment. Fighters at least have to pick some feats, and what they pick could be useful. I feel a bit like assuming no spells is like assuming no hitting stuff though. The big cleric advantage might be domains, cause domain powers just are for the most part, though some are admittedly useless. The big druid advantage, meanwhile, might be the animal companion, which has to at least exist unless you trade it away, along with all those crap class features.

Fizban

2017-02-24, 02:08 AM

You know what, let's try this again. I'll cut out the wizard stuff to put here, bump the main thread, and see if we can get any responses on the tier definitions in the tier definition thread.

As was noted, scrolls are way way easier to access than you're implying.
See ninja post.

The sorcerer can have as many scrolls as they want. Warmages can have scrolls too. It's kinda a lot less impressive when you have to spent money every time you want to cast this utility spell.
It's kindof a lot less impressive when you have to spend your own slots every time you want to prepare a utility spell too. It's kindof a lot less impressive when you have to go find a scroll because you don't know all the spells to begin with.

When you account in the plausible additional spells from the fact that scrolls are pretty inexpensive, and a ton of alternatives exist, the wizard absolutely does match those classes.
Plausible by who's definition? Yours, which you refuse to write down.

I really don't agree. The beguiler might be a bit stronger than the sorcerer, but it's not outside the normal bounds of what you'd expect to exist in a tier. And I love druids, but the wizard list is amazing, very much enabling the wizard to surpass them in the second half of the game, kinda like how the sorcerer surpasses the beguiler in that stage.
No, by what you'd expect in a tier. Clearly it's not what Morphic Tide would expect in a tier, or he wouldn't have suggested Wizards should go to 2. And clearly none of this is what I'd expect in a tier, or the Warmage wouldn't be so much lower. And since you refuse to define it in any way other than, and I quote, "The rest of my tier definitions is simply to clarify a reasonable notion of "better". Perhaps not a perfect notion of it, but it works to my mind."

Well it doesn't work to mine, or presumably Morphics, or anyone else who's suggested it's not sufficient.

When your baseline is lower than that of a source that tries to push the druid into scimitar fighting, I don't consider it particularly worthy of consideration as the game's normal. As the super low end? Maybe, but again, druid scimitar fighting.
You've completely missed the point? Set the bar wherever the hell you want, just freaking stop trying to tell me that leaving it completely undefined means you get to deem mine "unworthy of consideration," because it doesn't. It means you're dismissing people for not agreeing with something they have no way of seeing, dismissing those people who do in fact play at that low of an optimization level because their games don't count in your mind. You can be elitist all you want, as long as you admit it.

And while you're at it, stop trying to draw a line between the Druid playtester's incompetence and buying magic items. The two have nothing to do with each other.

I think low end wizards compare reasonably to low end not-wizards. Fireballs don't compare particularly unfavorably to weapon focus, and the flexibility associated with the capacity to add spells enables even a lower optimization player to sometimes do things that aren't fireball.
No, you think low end wizards compare favorably to low end not-wizards, else you wouldn't be claiming that with the same level of optimization the wizard is tier 1 and non-wizards are tier 2 or 3 or 4. Unless you mean just the Cleric and Druid specifically, which as already demonstrated have native advantages requiring zero optimization that the wizard cannot touch without using more. A truly low end wizard must spend resources to get out of the hole that a Cleric or Druid can reverse at no cost.

Your assumptions favor wizards. That's fine. Stop pretending they aren't assumptions and define them.

eggynack

2017-02-24, 02:36 AM

It's kindof a lot less impressive when you have to spend your own slots every time you want to prepare a utility spell too.
Not really. Slots are rather plentiful. Especially when you're using an off hours list where time is less of an issue.

It's kindof a lot less impressive when you have to go find a scroll because you don't know all the spells to begin with.
Somewhat. The list being amazing helps though.

Plausible by who's definition? Yours, which you refuse to write down.

By the game's definition, for one thing. You don't necessarily have to expect every single specific scroll you're looking for to show up, but the game states that scrolls should show up. And, again, the game presents wizards that assume you're getting extra spells from somewhere.

No, by what you'd expect in a tier. Clearly it's not what Morphic Tide would expect in a tier, or he wouldn't have suggested Wizards should go to 2. And clearly none of this is what I'd expect in a tier, or the Warmage wouldn't be so much lower. And since you refuse to define it in any way other than, and I quote, "The rest of my tier definitions is simply to clarify a reasonable notion of "better". Perhaps not a perfect notion of it, but it works to my mind."
I'm not saying you think these things belong in the same tier. I'm saying that if you thought warmages were as mediocre as I do, and wizards as great as I do, then you would probably put them in the same tier. It was a comment on the size of tiers, not individual evaluation.

Well it doesn't work to mine, or presumably Morphics, or anyone else who's suggested it's not sufficient.
Most people seem to think it's mostly fine. I fully admit that it's imperfect, and improvements do exist, but the general structure of it strikes most as agreeable enough to work with.

You've completely missed the point? Set the bar wherever the hell you want, just freaking stop trying to tell me that leaving it completely undefined means you get to deem mine "unworthy of consideration," because it doesn't. It means you're dismissing people for not agreeing with something they have no way of seeing, dismissing those people who do in fact play at that low of an optimization level because their games don't count in your mind. You can be elitist all you want, as long as you admit it.
There isn't really a bar. That's the point of the whole multiple fixed optimization points thing. You're standing over there suggesting that most games with wizards don't feature said wizards buying any scrolls or adding spells in any way, despite the fact that the designers themselves assumed that not to be the case all over the place. This as a typical game state seems radically off the mark as a result.

And while you're at it, stop trying to draw a line between the Druid playtester's incompetence and buying magic items. The two have nothing to do with each other.
They have something to do with each other. The people who playtested the game generally optimized really badly. If people at this low optimization level were doing a thing, and doing it with high consistency, and if that thing is, y'know, good, then we can expect that thing to show up at higher optimization levels too, and thus most optimization levels. Basically, what I'm saying is, if your party's druid is doing better than scimitars, then we can expect the wizard to do equal to or better than some scrolls.

No, you think low end wizards compare favorably to low end not-wizards, else you wouldn't be claiming that with the same level of optimization the wizard is tier 1 and non-wizards are tier 2 or 3 or 4. Unless you mean just the Cleric and Druid specifically, which as already demonstrated have native advantages requiring zero optimization that the wizard cannot touch without using more. A truly low end wizard must spend resources to get out of the hole that a Cleric or Druid can reverse at no cost.
I did not mean favorably. Wizards can be just reasonable at some optimization levels as long as the comparison is favorable at a sufficient majority of optimization levels.

Your assumptions favor wizards. That's fine. Stop pretending they aren't assumptions and define them.

I disagree. Both that I'm biased in a way that's pushing wizards upwards, and that I should define things heavily. If you think wizards are tier two, that's fine. Vote that way, and then attempt to convince people of that. That's really all anyone can do. It's why we're here.

Hurnn

2017-02-24, 03:11 AM

I don't think I will need to say much here so I will be brief.

Every class on this list is more or less SAD, which is great.

Archivist (HoH, 82):

Tier 1

Better base chassis that a wizard, D6 HP, INT + 4, and 2 good saves. Int based caster so they will be good at their skills. 9th level casting, and can learn every cleric and druid spell. I am certain with some shenanigans they can learn more than a few wizards spells.

Artificer (ECS, 29):

Tier 1*

6/6 casting of not a bad list. Is slightly MAD needs INT and CHA. Can make any magic item, but they can fail and waste all the time and gold, so maxing out UMD ASAP is a must. I could only figure out how to end up with +13 (15 if you know the infusion) at 1st level so there is a fail chance early. Later with items and Stat bumps It can be gotten rid of completely. * Now for the massive Caveat with this class. Down time, they need it and lots of it. If they can't get it they will definitely suffer and probably drop a tier or 2.
Cleric:

Tier 1

9/9 casting, almost as many spells per day as a sorcerer, 3/4 BAB, 2 good saves, turning, Domains can expand your spell list into some arcane stuff. Divine meta magic. This class can do almost anything.

Druid:

Tier 1

9/9 casting, 3/4 BAB, 2 good saves, animal companion, after 5th wild shaping. In all honesty this is probably the most powerful class in the game for the first 6 levels, falls off a bit in the early teens, and makes a come back late. Also one of very few classes that you are better off sticking in 1-20.

Sha'ir (DrC, 51):

Tier 1

Seams really awkward early, will be good in the middle, and amazing late. Clearly a tier 1 caster but I think it has been oversold a bit based on how good they are late. The ability to get any wizard or sorcerer spell actually has a caveat, and cleric is restricted to certain domains, and are harder to get. For half your carrier you are going to have to prepare spells 1 or 2 in advance and leave the rest of your slots open, and it is not a sure thing that you will get the spell you want. Over all I think they are at the bottom end of T1 behind wizard and cleric but ahead of druid.

Wizard:

Tier 1

King of the tier 1 full access to the best list in the game, and is probably one of the best candidates to PRC ASAP because they have most of the best ones available to them, and lose almost nothing for leaving and can gain insane power.

ryu

2017-02-24, 03:36 AM

lord_khaine

2017-02-24, 04:02 AM

Yeah, but they wear light armor cause it's classier. I dunno. The whole idea of basically minimum optimization is a weird one. If we're just assuming the classes don't use their features, all that should matter are things like BAB, hit die, and saves. It's hard to know what to count beyond that, if anything.

Edit: Oh, also mandatory features. Monks actually aren't the worst in such an environment. Fighters at least have to pick some feats, and what they pick could be useful. I feel a bit like assuming no spells is like assuming no hitting stuff though. The big cleric advantage might be domains, cause domain powers just are for the most part, though some are admittedly useless. The big druid advantage, meanwhile, might be the animal companion, which has to at least exist unless you trade it away, along with all those crap class features.

Well.. i dont think its that hard of an idea to deal with. Class features i always assume are going to be used as straightforward as possible. And as for spells, then i look at those with the biggest numbers, either in healing or damage. Even someone completely new at the game should be able to do that. At least with core spells.

In such an enviroment i do think the cleric fares a lot better. There might be undeads to turn. And healing really is extremely important. Its almost impossible to run a party without having it from somewhere.
The animal companion meanwhile, can unfortunately be something as squishy as a bat, hawk, badger or dog. That gets killed within the first encounter.

eggynack

2017-02-24, 04:08 AM

Well.. i dont think its that hard of an idea to deal with. Class features i always assume are going to be used as straightforward as possible. And as for spells, then i look at those with the biggest numbers, either in healing or damage. Even someone completely new at the game should be able to do that. At least with core spells.

In such an enviroment i do think the cleric fares a lot better. There might be undeads to turn. And healing really is extremely important. Its almost impossible to run a party without having it from somewhere.
The animal companion meanwhile, can unfortunately be something as squishy as a bat, hawk, badger or dog. That gets killed within the first encounter.
Wild shape is pretty sweet if we're talking crappy but rational. Bear form is kinda useful, and while wolf form, one of the other possible expected options, isn't as good, it does offer some utility. As do various big cats and dinosaurs. Similarly, while the animal companion can die, it's one of the easier of this kind of ability to bring back, and each time you have a shot at picking something straightforwardly reasonable like a bear. Also, spontaneous summoning naturally lends itself to a somewhat optimal line of play, if one diminished in quality by bad summons selection.

Fizban

2017-02-24, 05:05 AM

Wizard stuff only.

By the game's definition, for one thing. You don't necessarily have to expect every single specific scroll you're looking for to show up, but the game states that scrolls should show up. And, again, the game presents wizards that assume you're getting extra spells from somewhere.
Yup, on randomized tables with a selection of PHB spells, and when the DM agrees they are most likely available for purchase.

There isn't really a bar. That's the point of the whole multiple fixed optimization points thing. You're standing over there suggesting that most games with wizards don't feature said wizards buying any scrolls or adding spells in any way, despite the fact that the designers themselves assumed that not to be the case all over the place. This as a typical game state seems radically off the mark as a result.
And you're standing over there suggesting that most games with wizards features said wizards buying all sorts of scrolls or adding spells, despite the fact that the designers themselves assumed that not to be the case all over the place. Where? Well, there's the language that doesn't guarantee magic item sales, or spell copying rights, the entirely random nature of found treasure (20-30% scroll chance, which is then only 70% arcane and rolls randomly off PHB only spells) and any module where a town has a shopping description more limited than "whatever you want," which is plenty. Thus your typical game state seems radically off the mark as a result. (Yes I see those statblocks in Enemies and Allies with extra spells in them, which tell us only about character creation and don't invalidate the DMs that think spell acquisition rules are meant as as a sign of limits to build upon rather than allowing easy access).

The "bar" is that you are making assumptions about what the average table does. I've never seen anyone actually present data on what the average table does. You're saying that any op below a certain point has a low enough share that it doesn't actually affect the tiers, and that point is based on your thinking that average optimization levels are significantly higher. Do I disagree? With no data my only response can be to make those assumptions plain because to claim that the truth is anything else would be a lie.

They have something to do with each other. The people who playtested the game generally optimized really badly. If people at this low optimization level were doing a thing, and doing it with high consistency, and if that thing is, y'know, good, then we can expect that thing to show up at higher optimization levels too, and thus most optimization levels. Basically, what I'm saying is, if your party's druid is doing better than scimitars, then we can expect the wizard to do equal to or better than some scrolls.
No, optimization levels have nothing to do with DM leniency, which is what you're relying on when you say that the Wizard can improve their power level beyond their initial picks.

Efrate

2017-02-24, 05:29 AM

SNA for pure combat, as in hitting stuff and doing damage, comes out ahead of the SM line for a decent bit. You lose a lot of utility and SLAs but as a spell that makes a disposable thing to hit another thing to hurt it, SNA outperforms SM for a fair bit. Plus greenbound summoning FWIW, though that is a feat not a class feature.

Wizard and scroll rant
I also fail to see the issue with wizards and scroll access. Sorcerers for example get a ton of mileage out of consumables for occasional utility spells, and will look to get as many as they can to shore up their limited selection, NPCs wizards know this and its a quick way to make cash. A wizard gets the consumable benefit and can add it, and going off DMG treasure chart alone a lot of scrolls will show up. Trade in all magic goods is a staple in any environment where they exist and random murderhobos adventurers will pay for them. The point of getting loot is to get better stuff for your character, by buying the items you actually want. No you do not want that +1 defending gnomish hammer, you want a +1 flaming longsword, are you arguing then that settlement X,Y, or Z might not have said item at all? Or someone who can make one? Or know someone who can? Might be the next town over, ok, but all you are doing is hamstringing one of the primary motivations for adventuring and the purpose of loot in general. You can only get what I saw, not what you want, is horrible DMing and almost directly against RAW. Occasionally yes, I can see it, but not all the time, not all the stuff you are supposed to be able to get when you want it.

If you take the view that specific magic items are hard to get, or at least harder than normal as the DMG states, then are all magic items similar? What if you never find a +1 weapon your party can use, and you face a shadow? Do you just TPK and laugh? Magic item access of all kinds is mandated by the game itself, you cannot play without magic past a certain point, the system knows this and has in place infrastructure to support this. Even the horribly statted NPC wizards have more spells than just from leveling and a selection of random consumables including scrolls. And because it makes sense for wizards who search for more arcane power and knowledge would make scrolls for themselves, or to trade with other wizards. Its a class feature, getting scribe scroll for free.

If you are running a game with hyper limited magic item access and you cannot get what you need despite RAW saying you should, I do not think you can count that particular setting for the purpose of general tiering, since its is a lot of assumptions largely against RAW, and definitely against RAI.

A wizard can only pick bad spells. True. So can a sorcerer. A sorcerer can change a few through leveling. A wizard can spend a bit of WBL in most any settlement and fix it. Since they pay a pittance, or since it used WBL at all, are wizards then worse then sorcerers? No, because they have a very easy way to fix their problems. Not as easy as a cleric or a druid. True, but still very easy. Unless you are taking a no cost approach is better, are paladin and ranger then better than a wizard since they know all their spells and can change load outs easier? No because even if they can the wizard list is so far superior and easily accessible that you can get what you need easily enough to overshadow them even with your "restriction." I don't know if you are playing devil's advocate or just trolling but I am having a hard time even attempting to take your comments seriously when one of the fundamental concepts of the game (get the loot you want) that you are expected to be able to do more or less at your leisure is removed from the equation.

Aharon

2017-02-24, 05:51 AM

I want to reiterate that Artificer is Tier 1 even without downtime.
All the spell Lists ever is extremely powerful, and built correctly, the failure Chance is low to non-existent.

Concerning the scroll-debate: Of course a DM may limit wealth. A DM may also rule your cleric Fell and lost all bis powers. Should we also take that into consideration?

lord_khaine

2017-02-24, 06:48 AM

Wild shape is pretty sweet if we're talking crappy but rational. Bear form is kinda useful, and while wolf form, one of the other possible expected options, isn't as good, it does offer some utility. As do various big cats and dinosaurs. Similarly, while the animal companion can die, it's one of the easier of this kind of ability to bring back, and each time you have a shot at picking something straightforwardly reasonable like a bear. Also, spontaneous summoning naturally lends itself to a somewhat optimal line of play, if one diminished in quality by bad summons selection.

Well yeah.. Bear shape more or less automatically turns you into a mediocre fighter. And Wolf can be really annoying if your a humanid. Though i really dont see it as the automatic win button most other people makes it sound like.
I guess survival of the fittest might eventually land you with a slightly more survivable animal companion.
Summoning though is something i have seen extremely few new players deal with. The casting time does not improve things either.

Fizban

2017-02-24, 07:47 AM

Trade in all magic goods is a staple in any environment where they exist and random murderhobos adventurers will pay for them.
Adventurers and NPCs capabable of trading in magic goods make up a vanishingly small part of the economy, or rather population. Suggesting that you can walk into a "large town" of 2,000 people and buy an 8th level scroll of the spell you want is like expecting the liquor store to stock a bottle of wine that costs more than a house (literally, a basic house is 2,000gp). Almost no one who lives there could buy it at all, much less would buy it, and the supposed shop owner couldn't possibly afford keeping it around where someone could steal it. And you expect not just one, but more than one, the one the player just now announced they want even.

If you take the view that specific magic items are hard to get, or at least harder than normal as the DMG states, then are all magic items similar?
Your argument is predicated on your reading of the DMG being the only correct one.

What if you never find a +1 weapon your party can use, and you face a shadow? Do you just TPK and laugh?
If you're playing that hardcore of a game, yes. Only 12% of the common melee weapon table is exotic, looks like about half the uncommon, and none of the ranged, odds are if the DM has rolled even a single magic weapon your brawler can wield it. If you didn't bring someone who can wield martial weapons, that's your fault. Or rather you'd rely on the Cleric, who has turning as an automatic ability, and/or have the Wizard take Magic Missile. And if you didn't bring anyone who had any way of dealing with Shadows then that's your fault.

Or maybe the DM is running hard line magic items but choosing monsters that match up with the existing party, rather than letting the party choose items and then throwing hard line monsters at them.

Magic item access of all kinds is mandated by the game itself, you cannot play without magic past a certain point, the system knows this and has in place infrastructure to support this.
You do realize there's a difference between "you can't buy exactly what you want," and "omfg no magic items," right?

All you have to do to justify limiting magic item marts is to look at the NPCs in that city, and see that they don't have anyone who can actually supply that item. Any DM that thinks twice need look no further. Forcing the PCs to travel to places that can actually supply the goods they want is perfectly reasonable. The only thing unreasonable here is demanding that the PCs be able to buy whatever they want when the DMG explicitly gives the DM control over the rules of the world. The only thing that is even close to guaranteed is random treasure based on monsters defeated, and yes in fact there are people who have run games like that since the beginning.

Just because it doesn't match your ideal doesn't make it some crazy outlier you can ignore: if you want to ignore it, you have to define your system in such a way that makes it a official outlier. We currently have no such definition. So take your assumptions to the main thread and demand they be included in the definitions.

I don't know if you are playing devil's advocate or just trolling but I am having a hard time even attempting to take your comments seriously when one of the fundamental concepts of the game (get the loot you want) that you are expected to be able to do more or less at your leisure is removed from the equation.
I'm the guy who's willing to tell people to their face in exacting detail and line by line citations why their "proof" of the CR system being broken is garbage and their default optimization level is overpowered (at least one of those involved eggynack, and Cosi and I have already sniped at each other this time around). Pointing out that there are no guarantees of players getting the exact loot they want is nothing. You could say it's half devil's advocate, since I picked up a position I wouldn't use in my own game, but I am fully secure in my statements. Show me proof of these guarantees in either the rules or data on the average table, and I will accept it.

Or admit, as I do, that when you say PCs should be allowed a certain freedom in use of WBL that you're imposing that on the game yourself. Because I will fully agree that there are say, monsters, balanced around the assumption that the PCs can hire or otherwise obtain certain spells with their WBL-but when I make claims as to what they should be entitled to, I don't go any further than finding an NPC in a sufficiently large town who will cast the spell if they drag their afflicted party member back. I think it is the least assumption, but it is still technically an assumption.

Of course if all you have is suggested practices from later books then I can quote the actual PHB, not the SRD:

This fee is usually equal to the spell's level x50gp, though many wizards jealously guard their higher level spells and may charge much more, or even deny access to them altogether.
Yup, that totally guarantees copying spells from other wizards, and doesn't imply that higher level scrolls might be hard to find at all by extension. And exactly defines higher level as spells of X level or higher and not simply spells that are high level with regards to the guy you're asking, which would further limit you.

You are not guaranteed to copy spells from other wizards, and in fact the PHB suggests other wizards won't want to share anything of value. You are not guaranteed to be able to buy scrolls, and in fact even a cursory examination suggests that you ought not to be able to unless you have someone who can make it right there in front of you. If your DM is hard rolling random loot, you have a good chance of stumbling upon random spells from the PHB which you may or may not want. So once again, assuming the Wizard can expand their spell list in a useful way relies on DM lenience. Lead with your assumptions or fight with no ground beneath your feat.

lylsyly

2017-02-24, 07:54 AM

I strongly suggest not seriously engaging with anyone who doesn't consider the wizard tier 1 and, in the future, discounting their advice on the rest of voting for everything else.

So my vote will only be counted IF I vote wizard has tier 1?

:bronxcheer:

Gnaeus

2017-02-24, 07:56 AM

Or maybe the Fighter is capable of using the loot they find. If you want to run the numbers on what percentage of random loot is scrolls the Wizard wants, then you can claim some objectivity. The random weapons and armor aren't great, but I do know they're weighted towards non-exotic weapons and full plate. It doesn't matter if unreliable magic marts can hurt everyone, because magic marts are not nearly as protected as you think they are, and lacking them takes this Wizard "class feature" and turns it into nothing.

You want an objective campaign assumption? Open up a bunch of premade campaigns and see how big the towns are, see what they're stocked with, see what their NPCs can make. Take a look at Forgotten Realms and the weeks-long travel times between the middle of nowhere (adventure!) and the cities with high gp limits. Said campaigns almost always include items the Fighter can use as rewards just for progressing the main quest, while scrolls and spellbooks the Wizard can copy are not guaranteed and not picked by the Wizard. Some popular campaigns include time limits that will cause failure if you take two weeks off to fetch a spell. So who's more dependent on DM allowance?
.

Definitely the fighter is.
1. With only 2 spells per level, the wizard already gets more spells than a sorcerer. He can already engage cr appropriate encounters. He can do his job with a spellbook and component pouch. Fighters often can't. Not only do they need weapons but also tricks to deal with fliers, incorporeal etc.
2. Even if the scrolls available are bad, he can still build around them. Fireball or rage or deep slumber might not be the spells he wanted, but he can still mark them down as "melee buff" or "dex AOE" or "will disabler" and just pick different spells to fill other holes. A fighter can't choose a flight item on level-up. A wizard with 2 totally random spells per spell level + 4 chosen spells is likely way stronger than a wizard with only 4 chosen spells/level. Not too many spells are completely useless.
3. By 9th level, the wizard can make that 2 week journey in a few days, via multiple methods.
4. Wizard can use a bonus feat to craft items. He can coordinate with the cleric to make sure they have their item bases covered and the basic spells to make what they need. He can skip "resist elements" because he can take craft wands and make a wand with the cleric or Druid if he has to. Fighter is dependent on the goodwill of others.

Lans

2017-02-24, 08:53 AM

Anything having a price under that limit is most likely available, whether it be mundane or magical. While exceptions are certainly possible (a boomtown near a newly discovered mine, a farming community impoverished after a prolonged drought), these exceptions are temporary; all communities will conform to the norm over time.

Could 'anything' be read to mean scrolls are available as opposed to scrolls of X?

lord_khaine

2017-02-24, 09:04 AM

Adventurers and NPCs capabable of trading in magic goods make up a vanishingly small part of the economy, or rather population. Suggesting that you can walk into a "large town" of 2,000 people and buy an 8th level scroll of the spell you want is like expecting the liquor store to stock a bottle of wine that costs more than a house (literally, a basic house is 2,000gp). Almost no one who lives there could buy it at all, much less would buy it, and the supposed shop owner couldn't possibly afford keeping it around where someone could steal it. And you expect not just one, but more than one, the one the player just now announced they want even.

Your acting though, like if not being able to buy a given level 8 scroll in a large town of 2000 people will have any noticeable impact on what makes a wizard tier 1?
All he needs are access to scrolls of level 4-5 and he is more or less covered for life. Those by the way, cost about 1/3 of what a level 8 scroll does. And its much more likely you can commision the crafting of one.

You do realize there's a difference between "you can't buy exactly what you want," and "omfg no magic items," right?

All you have to do to justify limiting magic item marts is to look at the NPCs in that city, and see that they don't have anyone who can actually supply that item. Any DM that thinks twice need look no further. Forcing the PCs to travel to places that can actually supply the goods they want is perfectly reasonable. The only thing unreasonable here is demanding that the PCs be able to buy whatever they want when the DMG explicitly gives the DM control over the rules of the world. The only thing that is even close to guaranteed is random treasure based on monsters defeated, and yes in fact there are people who have run games like that since the beginning.

Just because it doesn't match your ideal doesn't make it some crazy outlier you can ignore: if you want to ignore it, you have to define your system in such a way that makes it a official outlier. We currently have no such definition. So take your assumptions to the main thread and demand they be included in the definitions.

You do realise yourself though, that there are no need for magic marts or simular? All thats required is an arcane caster with more time than gold on his hands.

And since there are straight up rules and guidelines for what you can find in a given city, then we need to assume that its the given baseline.

Yup, that totally guarantees copying spells from other wizards, and doesn't imply that higher level scrolls might be hard to find at all by extension. And exactly defines higher level as spells of X level or higher and not simply spells that are high level with regards to the guy you're asking, which would further limit you.

You are not guaranteed to copy spells from other wizards, and in fact the PHB suggests other wizards won't want to share anything of value. You are not guaranteed to be able to buy scrolls, and in fact even a cursory examination suggests that you ought not to be able to unless you have someone who can make it right there in front of you. If your DM is hard rolling random loot, you have a good chance of stumbling upon random spells from the PHB which you may or may not want. So once again, assuming the Wizard can expand their spell list in a useful way relies on DM lenience. Lead with your assumptions or fight with no ground beneath your feat.

So.. your more or less basing all of this on a line of fluff? But you do notice that most people have not even talked about buying scrolls, but only the much more reasonable selling of scrolls?
And that if this was the case, then it should actually make it that much easier for wizards to trade scrolls of their own. Or get a much higher price for them than what the market would allow.

edit.

2. Even if the scrolls available are bad, he can still build around them. Fireball or rage or deep slumber might not be the spells he wanted, but he can still mark them down as "melee buff" or "dex AOE" or "will disabler" and just pick different spells to fill other holes. A fighter can't choose a flight item on level-up. A wizard with 2 totally random spells per spell level + 4 chosen spells is likely way stronger than a wizard with only 4 chosen spells/level. Not too many spells are completely useless.

Also as Gnaus says. Scrolls are fairly common. A wizard should at least get around 3-5 random spells from each level. Thats all they are going to need.
Unlike a fighter who can get stuck with a crappy weapon or no way to deal with fliers.

Morphic tide

2017-02-24, 09:34 AM

Allow me to point out a few very important facts about how Wizards end up in low op:

In low op, the players can, quite reasonably, be entirely unaware of the fact Wizards can add scrolls to their spell list. Because this ability is what makes Wizards t1.

In low op, players will largely ignore save or suck spells because save or suck is such a large part of what defines higher optimization in combat spells.

In low op, Wizards will blow WBL on very bad picks, and that WBL ain't coming back. Meanwhile, four of the other five classes here need only a good casting stat and a good player to return to t1 in practice.

In low op, well, Wizards are infamous for having the second or third lowest optimization floor in core because of just how much you can screw up.

The true mark of a t1 class is that they must remain able to solve almost any problem at close to their optimization floor. A properly t1 class ought to be nigh-impossible to make t4, unless you are actively trying to make a build as bad as possible for the class. This is called negative optimization.

As for recovering from negative optimization, where a build is made to suck as hard as possible:

Wizard: SOL, hands down. Your WBL is basically gone, wasted on worthless items. Your spellbook is barely worth the paper it's printed on, with nothing but garbage situational spells. You probably lost a level to some form of Familiar suiciding. Your feats include precisely nothing useful to a Wizard.

Druid: Still t3, as long as you have Wildshape. T4, if you traded out Wildshape via AFC. Mind, this is with a Wisdom penalty, having a 12 in Wisdom is more than enough to reach back up to t1 with a play style change alone, because a +4 enhancement bonus to Wisdom come in a spell that you have guaranteed access to.

Cleric: T5, given their near-total lack of useful non-casting abilities, and the fact that negative op will have Wis penalties. A Cleric with with 12 Wis, meanwhile, can get 6th level spells, returning to t1 no matter what. Mind, the same goes for Wizards and Intelligence, but a Wizard might not have the spell while a Cleric or Druid always will.

Artificer: T3 at the very least, as long as they still have Infusions. Infusions let them recover from almost anything a player does without issues, so long as they can use the Infusions. Also, their ability to craft items never goes away, only the GP and skill checks to do so, so they can make garbage scrolls for gold to recover GP.

Archivist: Better off than Wizard, but not by much. A skilled player might be able to scrounge up enough good scrolls to recover using the spell lists accessable, but you're most likely not going to recover from negative optimization. After all, negative optimization means intentionally wasting WBL.

Sha'ir: From what I know, it's able to recover from almost any horrible choice with just a play style change, because they're very nearly an arcane version of the Cleric or Druid casting method. As long as you can find people to watch cast the right spells, you can fix yourself better than a Wizard or Archivist. Provided you have 12 Cha, anyway.

Really, the cutoff point is 12 in the casting stats, because that's where the +4 bonus spell is at. Archivist and Wizard are not going to have it after negative optimization, because it's a good optimization tool that can be missed.

ryu

2017-02-24, 09:44 AM

Gnaeus

2017-02-24, 09:59 AM

Morphic tide

2017-02-24, 10:01 AM

Actually you're severely wrong for one very simple reason. Low OP isn't automatically bad picks. Low OP is random to semi-random picks and you only need get lucky once to be above the curve. Cue twenty seven stories of new players accidentally dominating everything with druid abilities we don't even commonly talk about.

And truly random spell picks for a Wizard who isn't dumping half their WBL on scrolls to add to their books will be fairly bad. And still, Archivist and Wizard have a far, far lower optimization floor than Cleric and Druid.

We need actual, coherent definitions for the tiers beyond just the problems the class can solve. Because that definition makes the line between t1 and t2 extremely vague, as most t2 classes can optimize to solve any problem.

Also, the tier system is about effectiveness at equal optimization. Wizards solving every problem is actually fairly high optimization because you have to have all the right spells. Archivist is in the same boat, you have to optimize your spell choices. Sorcerers actually have enough spells to optimize to solve very nearly every problem, yet are t2 because of how precise that pick has to be, making it a high-op thing.

Meanwhile, at all levels of optimization that lead to having 16 Wisdom, literally all of them, Clerics and Druids can solve practically every problem almost trivially. Sha'ir with 16 Charisma, no matter their Spells Known or feats, are t1 for the same reason, only they are slower about it.

Clerics, Druids and Sha'ir have a much, much higher floor than Wizard and Archivist. Fighters are registered as t5 because they need quite a bit of optimizing to be good at combat. Same with Barbarians and Paladins. A Wizard can be worse than that.

Wizards and Archivists are only truly t1 in games where people are optimizing intentionally. Not everyone dumps WBL on scrolls to make their Wizard indisputably better than a Sorcerer of the same level. Meanwhile, literally everyone playing a Cleric or Druid with a +3 Wisdom modifier can stomp the game with nothing but preparing the right spells. Which they don't have to go through any difficulties to get.

Beheld

2017-02-24, 10:02 AM

So my vote will only be counted IF I vote wizard has tier 1?

:bronxcheer:

Maybe don't confuse some random poster with the person managing the project?

Cosi

2017-02-24, 10:05 AM

I never argued that Beguilers couldn't get a prestige domain, but the Tier list is about what Class X can do. PrCs are such huge modifier for a base classes power that taking them into account would make tiering base classes either useless or exhausting, as in many cases the PrC can define a classes tier more than a base class. Damn Commoner/Ur-Priests.

The Commoner/Ur-Priest seems like an excellent argument for not bumping up the Beguiler because you can take Ur-Priest. How does the Commoner/Rainbow Servant compare?

Also, Archivists don't need access to PrC lists to be tier 1, so I'm not really sure why that argument even matters.

They kind of do if you're counting average performance. The games where they only get a few (level up + random scrolls) Clerics spells exist, and they are really bad then. If all you're getting is a Cleric, you're a substantially worse Cleric. I don't think even the whole Druid list is sufficient to make up for that. You need some added stuff.

That's kinda a separate factor that's just universally considered. As I said before, something like contemplative on a cleric is pretty close to a feat in terms of how we'd consider it. So, at that point, we inevitably have to ask how good contemplative is for a cleric, and how it is on the classes we're comparing it to, same as we would for any feat or item. If the prestige class is something we're not considering as much, we still do all that stuff but with some variety of modifier to represent that lesser consideration.

Zanos's post suggests an interesting idea. Imagine that a Commoner was allowed to take whatever feat/item/PrC, but not necessarily benefit from it if it requires a class feature. So the Commoner can become an Incantatrix without having casting, but still wouldn't advance casting. Then compare what the Commoner gets to what the class gets. The Commoner/Contemplative gets a granted power, while the Cleric/Contemplative gets that and some extra spells known. I think that's enough of an advantage to the Cleric to say that Contemplative could reasonably be argued to bump their tier, if necessary.

I strongly disagree with this. Without a good debate, we aren't going to move forward. Sure, T1 wizards are a very entrenched idea, and for good reason. But that doesn't mean we can't stop and look critically at them. I think it's definitely worth discussing how much we assume about WBL, GM permissiveness, optimisation floors, and equal comparisons. I might disagree with some folks about them, but debating it only helps to further my understanding, and possibly cement my opinion (based on both the new discussion and my previous experience).

Yes. If your only defense of your position is "it is ridiculous that anyone would believe otherwise", you can't defend your position and should probably reevaluate it. It's acceptable to ignore some people for arguing for stupid positions (e.g. the guy who keeps making "Sorcerer pwns your face" threads), but that should never be your first resort.

I would point out that you wanna stay in wizard until at least fifth level for spontaneous divination to qualify for versatile spellcaster. I mean technically you can still get into that feat by taking another feat, but spontaneous divination is the best of the possible pre-reqs.

I don't think that you will be allowed to combine Spontaneous Divination and Versatile Spellcaster in any meaningful percentage of games. If that's what the Wizard needs to be Tier One, it probably is Tier Two.

Zanos

2017-02-24, 10:05 AM

The true mark of a t1 class is that they must remain able to solve almost any problem at close to their optimization floor.
This is tremendous nonsense. We aren't tiering players. Classes aren't going to be demoted from tier 1 because it's possible to screw them up if you're an idiot or by making an intentionally bad character.

Try this: I'm a cleric who forsakes his God or becomes an incompatible alignment. Whoops! Looks like we've got a tier 5. Cleric sucks, lets go home. Oh sure, you could get an atonement, but that costs WBL that doesn't come back, and converting to another deity requires a specific quest with no cleric powers. But this doesn't matter, because if a Wizard picks "drool on himself" as all his spells, he sucks.

You can make any class garbage. Also, enhancement bonus spells don't last long enough to actually prepare spell slots, and they specifically don't grant extra spell slots anyway.

The Commoner/Ur-Priest seems like an excellent argument for not bumping up the Beguiler because you can take Ur-Priest. How does the Commoner/Rainbow Servant compare?
I'm not arguing that RS doesn't make Beguiler tier 1(at least at 10), only that because prestige classes can turn a Tier 4 in a Tier 1 that taking them into account isn't super practical.

They kind of do if you're counting average performance. The games where they only get a few (level up + random scrolls) Clerics spells exist, and they are really bad then. If all you're getting is a Cleric, you're a substantially worse Cleric. I don't think even the whole Druid list is sufficient to make up for that. You need some added stuff.
Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, and Domain lists cover a pretty wide array of effects in the game. Is there anything you really want that isn't on one of those lists?

Gemini476

2017-02-24, 10:10 AM

Even in a 100% all random encounters with random loot scenario more than 1/3 of all encounters will drop scrolls so Wizards and Archivists will, in the overwhelming majority of fair games have means to expand their spell access to some degree.

Sorry to nitpick, but that's not quite true. Or, well, it's true but in a complicated way that makes it quite penalizing towards Wizards. (tl;dr: it peaks at 59.8% and they get a ton of low-level spells, but extremely few high-level ones. Getting specific high-level spells is nigh-impossible.)

Here, have some tables:

Encounter
Level
Chance of
Getting Any
Scroll Whatsoever

1
2.13%

2
6.26%

3
8.65%

4
15.10%

5
24.75%

6
29.27%

7
33.05%

8
40.75%

9
41.23%

10
41.48%

11
44.88%

12
57.55%

13
57.48%

14
47.88%

15
59.80%

16
25.60%

17
16.51%

18
22.01%

19
25.90%

20
21.04%

The chance of getting an arcane spell of level X at an EL Y encounter:

Spell Level

EL

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

1
2.0%
2.1%
2.1%
2.0%

2
5.7%
6.1%
6.1%
5.7%

3
7.9%
8.4%
8.4%
7.9%

4
13.9%
14.7%
14.7%
13.9%

5
22.7%
24.1%
24.1%
22.7%

6
26.8%
28.4%
28.5%
26.9%
0.2%
0.2%

7
30.1%
31.8%
32.3%
30.5%
0.5%
0.5%

8
37.1%
39.3%
39.9%
37.7%
0.6%
0.6%

9
37.1%
39.3%
40.7%
38.5%
1.4%
1.4%

10
37.1%
39.3%
41.0%
38.8%
1.9%
1.8%
0.1%
0.1%
0.1%
0.1%

11
40.0%
42.3%
44.5%
42.2%
2.4%
2.4%
0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
0.2%

12
51.8%
54.8%
57.1%
54.2%
2.7%
2.6%
0.3%
0.3%
0.3%
0.3%

13
51.2%
54.2%
57.5%
54.7%
4.0%
3.9%
0.5%
0.5%
0.5%
0.5%

14
40.8%
43.2%
48.4%
46.2%
6.1%
6.0%
0.8%
0.8%
0.8%
0.8%

15
51.8%
54.8%
61.4%
58.7%
7.8%
7.6%
1.0%
1.0%
1.0%
1.0%

16
12.2%
12.9%
25.6%
25.4%
14.2%
13.8%
1.0%
1.0%
1.0%
1.0%

17

14.3%
14.9%
16.5%
16.1%
1.8%
1.8%
1.8%
1.8%

18

19.5%
20.2%
22.1%
21.5%
2.1%
2.1%
2.1%
2.1%

19

22.5%
23.4%
26.3%
25.6%
3.1%
3.1%
3.1%
3.1%

20

14.3%
14.9%
21.8%
21.4%
7.1%
7.1%
7.0%
7.0%

Chance of getting a scroll with a spell of level X during the entirety of level Y:

Spell Level

EL

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

1
23.2%
24.4%
24.4%
23.2%

2
54.6%
56.7%
56.7%
54.6%

3
66.8%
69.0%
69.0%
66.8%

4
86.3%
88.0%
88.0%
86.3%

5
96.8%
97.5%
97.5%
96.8%

6
98.4%
98.8%
98.9%
98.5%
2.1%
2.1%

7
99.2%
99.4%
99.4%
99.2%
6.2%
6.0%

8
99.8%
99.9%
99.9%
99.8%
8.2%
8.0%

9
99.8%
99.9%
99.9%
99.8%
17.5%
17.0%

10
99.8%
99.9%
99.9%
99.9%
22.1%
21.5%
1.4%
1.4%
1.4%
1.4%

11
99.9%
99.9%
100.0%
99.9%
27.9%
27.3%
2.8%
2.7%
2.7%
2.7%

12
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
30.5%
29.8%
4.1%
4.1%
4.1%
4.1%

13
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
41.8%
41.0%
6.7%
6.7%
6.7%
6.7%

14
99.9%
99.9%
100.0%
100.0%
57.0%
56.1%
10.6%
10.5%
10.5%
10.5%

15
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
66.3%
65.4%
13.0%
13.0%
13.0%
13.0%

16
82.3%
84.1%
98.1%
98.0%
87.0%
86.2%
13.0%
13.0%
13.0%
13.0%

17

87.3%
88.4%
91.0%
90.4%
21.1%
21.1%
21.0%
21.0%

18

94.4%
95.1%
96.4%
96.1%
24.3%
24.3%
24.3%
24.2%

19

96.7%
97.1%
98.3%
98.1%
34.2%
34.2%
34.1%
34.0%

20

87.3%
88.4%
96.2%
96.0%
62.3%
62.3%
62.2%
62.1%

Total chance of having gotten a scroll with a spell of level X during the entirety of your career up until the end of level Y:

Spell Level

EL
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

1
23.2%
24.4%
24.4%
23.2%

2
65.1%
67.3%
67.3%
65.1%

3
88.4%

89.9%
89.9%
88.4%

4
98.4%
98.8%
98.8%
98.4%

5
99.9%
100.0%
100.0%
99.9%

6
100.0%

100.0%
2.1%
2.1%

7

8.2%
8.0%

8

15.7%
15.3%

9

30.5%
29.7%

10

45.8%
44.8%
1.4%
1.4%
1.4%
1.4%

11

60.9%
59.9%
4.1%
4.1%
4.1%
4.1%

12

72.8%
71.8%
8.0%
8.0%
8.0%
8.0%

13

84.2%
83.4%
14.2%
14.2%
14.2%
14.2%

14

93.2%
92.7%
23.3%
23.3%
23.2%
23.2%

15

97.7%
97.5%
33.3%
33.2%
33.2%
33.1%

16

99.7%
99.7%
42.0%
41.9%
41.9%
41.8%

17

100.0%
100.0%
54.2%
54.2%
54.1%
54.0%

18

65.4%
65.3%
65.2%
65.2%

19

77.2%
77.2%
77.1%
77.0%

20

91.4%
91.4%
91.3%
91.3%

As you can see, it's easy going for spell levels 1-3 (the ones available on Minor scrolls) but much more of an issue with higher-level spells. You don't have a >50% chance of having a 4th- or 5th-level spell until level 11, and for levels 6-9 not until level 17. (That's the chance of getting a any arcane spell of that level by that time.)
Archivist are a bit worse off since they start with a base 30% chance of getting divine scrolls rather than a 70% chance for arcane, but I can't be bothered to make the tables for them right now.

Furthermore, consider that there's a lot of junk spells out there and they're all filling up the random tables. Also IIRC they also adjusted things so that Wish is less likely than Meteor Swarm, so that's another weird thing to consider.
Also some of the spells are just straight-up useless, being Bard-exclusive, but luckily there's not a lot of those. Or they might be duplicates of ones you already have.

Relying on random scroll drops is a sucker's game, and relying on automatic spells known is the way to go if you can't get Magic Mart-brand scrolls from the local town. Which are, obviously, more reliable than random scrolls found as loot. Even when you account for needing to sell two useless scrolls to get one worthwhile one.
(By the by, WBL is reduced by roughly 15%ish if you sell all magic items to buy better ones and increased by roughly 11%ish if you keep all consumables. Raw cash is roughly 86% of expected wealth gain, which is different from WBL in that it includes consumables.)

Although when it comes to those store-bought scrolls I should probably point out that the DMG NPC Wizards in cities top out at level 16? The highest you get in the random dungeon encounter tables is a 15th-level kobold sorcerer on level 15/18, a 15th-level lizardfolk druid on level 16, and... a 10th-level drow wizard on level 1? Those seem to be the highest-level casters in the dungeons of the Implied 3E Setting, so if you want high-level scrolls custom-made you'll probably need to turn to some dragons or something. Looks to be Great Wyrms, mostly - the CR23 Brass Dragon is probably your best bet?
Archivists don't have any problems here, though - Clerics go all the way to level 18 in the biggest cities.
And including the Epic Level Handbook stuff gets you vastly inflated NPC levels if that's what you're into, of course, while the Eberron demographics push things down a bit further.

ryu

2017-02-24, 10:17 AM

The Commoner/Ur-Priest seems like an excellent argument for not bumping up the Beguiler because you can take Ur-Priest. How does the Commoner/Rainbow Servant compare?

They kind of do if you're counting average performance. The games where they only get a few (level up + random scrolls) Clerics spells exist, and they are really bad then. If all you're getting is a Cleric, you're a substantially worse Cleric. I don't think even the whole Druid list is sufficient to make up for that. You need some added stuff.

Zanos's post suggests an interesting idea. Imagine that a Commoner was allowed to take whatever feat/item/PrC, but not necessarily benefit from it if it requires a class feature. So the Commoner can become an Incantatrix without having casting, but still wouldn't advance casting. Then compare what the Commoner gets to what the class gets. The Commoner/Contemplative gets a granted power, while the Cleric/Contemplative gets that and some extra spells known. I think that's enough of an advantage to the Cleric to say that Contemplative could reasonably be argued to bump their tier, if necessary.

Yes. If your only defense of your position is "it is ridiculous that anyone would believe otherwise", you can't defend your position and should probably reevaluate it. It's acceptable to ignore some people for arguing for stupid positions (e.g. the guy who keeps making "Sorcerer pwns your face" threads), but that should never be your first resort.

I don't think that you will be allowed to combine Spontaneous Divination and Versatile Spellcaster in any meaningful percentage of games. If that's what the Wizard needs to be Tier One, it probably is Tier Two.

Oh you don't NEED versatile spellcaster. It's just nice. In other words the kind of thing you just take in a game of tier ones being tier ones. Cuz let's be real, it's neat to have, and allows a lot more efficient play for a lot less mental effort, but any reasonably competent wizard player who new what spell he wanted in what situation probably also knows how to create a fair loadout.

Cosi

2017-02-24, 10:19 AM

Try this: I'm a cleric who forsakes his God or becomes an incompatible alignment. Whoops! Looks like we've got a tier 5. Cleric sucks, lets go home. Oh sure, you could get an atonement, but that costs WBL that doesn't come back, and converting to another deity requires a specific quest with no cleric powers. But this doesn't matter, because if a Wizard picks "drool on himself" as all his spells, he sucks.

reducto ad absurdium. There's an obvious difference between "this class is hard to optimize" and "this class can be built to suck if you try". If playing the Wizard effectively required solving PhD level math problems whenever you cast a spell, it would be quite reasonably to assume that most people's inability to solve PhD level math problems impacted the power of the Wizard.

I'm not arguing that RS doesn't make Beguiler tier 1(at least at 10), only that because prestige classes can turn a Tier 4 in a Tier 1 that taking them into account isn't super practical.

You can't conflate PrCs like the Ur-Priest (that provide a uniform bump to any character who takes them) to PrCs like the Rainbow Servant (that have a very specific interaction which works only with a particular class). The ability to get huge bumps to spells known with Prestige Domains is a Beguiler class feature, and claiming we have to ignore that because it looks kind of like something anyone can do if you squint is just bad analysis.

FFS, we're supposed to believe the Artificer is Tier One, and all it does is abuse WBL (any class can do this) and make UMD checks (Experts can do this). But apparently taking a PrC dip disqualifies you?

Furthermore, consider that there's a lot of junk spells out there and they're all filling up the random tables. Also IIRC they also adjusted things so that Wish is less likely than Meteor Swarm, so that's another weird thing to consider.

Is there a way for random rolls on the DMG tables to generate non-core scrolls? It's not a huge deal (the core Wizard list is pretty good), but it would be worth noting.

lylsyly

2017-02-24, 10:28 AM

Maybe don't confuse some random poster with the person managing the project?

I am not confusing Jopustopin for Eggynack. I just think the attitude stinks. Actually, I have to admit, it really pisses me the **** off.

Asta La Vista

Beheld

2017-02-24, 10:40 AM

I am not confusing Jopustopin for Eggynack. I just think the attitude stinks. Actually, I have to admit, it really pisses me the **** off.

Asta La Vista

"I'm not confusing the person not running this from the person running this, that's why I'm boycotting it." Okay.

Morphic tide

2017-02-24, 10:42 AM

This is tremendous nonsense. We aren't tiering players. Classes aren't going to be demoted from tier 1 because it's possible to screw them up if you're an idiot or by making an intentionally bad character.

Try this: I'm a cleric who forsakes his God or becomes an incompatible alignment. Whoops! Looks like we've got a tier 5. Cleric sucks, lets go home. Oh sure, you could get an atonement, but that costs WBL that doesn't come back, and converting to another deity requires a specific quest with no cleric powers. But this doesn't matter, because if a Wizard picks "drool on himself" as all his spells, he sucks.

You can make any class garbage. Also, enhancement bonus spells don't last long enough to actually prepare spell slots, and they specifically don't grant extra spell slots anyway.

The tier system is about the versatility of a class at all levels of optimization. Wizards only equal Druids and Clerics at higher optimization. The floor should be relevant to tiering, because of the fact that the definition of tier is supposed to be the power of the class at all levels of optimizing.

If a class can be reduced to t3 levels of versatility and power with little to no way of recovering without large costs of irreplaceable resources and this situation can come about simply by a casual player not trying to optimize, the class really, really should not be t1. It should be t2.

If the low to mid optimized form of the class is t3 and the upper-mid to high optimized form of the class is t1, then the class ought to be t2 because it's about that strong and versatile for the average game.

If a class requires deliberate effort and actively trying to cripple it to go below t3 capacity, is t2 in most casual gameplay and can reach t1 with little effort, then it deserves to be t1. Healbot cleric is a play style failure, not a build failure like Mailman Wizard. Healbot cleric can instantly go t2 with nothing but a swap of spell choice with little system knowledge beyond "clerics are good for things that aren't healing." Mailman Wizard has to figure out what spells are actually good, get the scrolls, spend time adding the spells to their spellbook and then prepare those spells as the situation desires.

Healbot cleric only needs to decide to do something other than healing to ascend to t3, or even t2. Mailman Wizard has to get at least half a dozen scrolls, with extremely specific picks of particularly good spells that are normally found in use as actively optimized choices to get the number that low, in order to get to t3 in practice, with t2 being particularly optimal picks for that half-dozen scrolls.

This is arguing that Wizard needs to be t2 because it has so many ways to screw up and there's so many choices you have to make to get it to t1. Even being t2 requires some significant optimizing, the sort you usually won't see used in low-op games.

In comparison, Artificers, Sha'ir, Druids and Clerics just get what they want from their spell lists. Sha'ir have a delay to them, but still, these four can't be screwed up beyond recovering to t2 unless you dig deep into negative or blind moron optimization, or the DM pulls fluff-based cripples on you like declaring an alignment shift for a Cleric or Druid to make them lose their powers.

Zanos

2017-02-24, 10:53 AM

reducto ad absurdium. There's an obvious difference between "this class is hard to optimize" and "this class can be built to suck if you try". If playing the Wizard effectively required solving PhD level math problems whenever you cast a spell, it would be quite reasonably to assume that most people's inability to solve PhD level math problems impacted the power of the Wizard.
reducto ad absurdium is not a logical fallacy. In fact, it's considered a legitimate form of argument, and even used in formal logic as the proof by contradiction. You're thinking of a straw man. And wizard isn't hard to optimize, you just have to pick decent spells. I don't think that "a wizard who picks all bad spells" is any less of an improbability than "a cleric who doesn't respect his dogma." It requires either immense ignorance combined with tremendous (un)luck or intentional self-sabotage for either result to come about. Neither scenario should have an effect on the classes formal tier.

The tier system is about the versatility of a class at all levels of optimization. Wizards only equal Druids and Clerics at higher optimization. The floor should be relevant to tiering, because of the fact that the definition of tier is supposed to be the power of the class at all levels of optimizing.
It's their power at all levels of optimization, not their level of power when you take a character built by an 8 year old and hand them to a the guy who came up with punpun. The WotC druid never used wild shape and barely ever cast spells and used returning thrown scimitars, and was definitely not played as a tier 3.

Beheld

2017-02-24, 11:02 AM

reducto ad absurdium is not a logical fallacy. In fact, it's considered a legitimate form of argument, and even used in formal logic as the proof by contradiction. You're thinking of a straw man. And wizard isn't hard to optimize, you just have to pick decent spells. I don't think that "a wizard who picks all bad spells" is any less of an improbability than "a cleric who doesn't respect his dogma." It requires either immense ignorance combined with tremendous (un)luck or intentional self-sabotage for either result to come about. Neither scenario should have an effect on the classes formal tier.

Reducto ad absurdum is sometimes and argument and sometimes a fallacy.

It's an argument when the reducto is correct, and a fallacy when it isn't. It's not an open and shut case.

Though I confess to some confusion why you two are having this argument, when both of you believe that Wizards will make good spell choices on average.

ryu

2017-02-24, 11:03 AM

reducto ad absurdium is not a logical fallacy. In fact, it's considered a legitimate form of argument, and even used in formal logic as the proof by contradiction. You're thinking of a straw man. And wizard isn't hard to optimize, you just have to pick decent spells. I don't think that "a wizard who picks all bad spells" is any less of an improbability than "a cleric who doesn't respect his dogma." It requires either immense ignorance combined with tremendous (un)luck or intentional self-sabotage for either result to come about. Neither scenario should have an effect on the classes formal tier.

It's their power at all levels of optimization, not their level of power when you take a character built by an 8 year old and hand them to a the guy who came up with punpun. The WotC druid never used wild shape and barely ever cast spells and used returning thrown scimitars, and was definitely not played as a tier 3.

It's actually worse than an eight year old would do. I've WATCHED eight year olds play wizards. Do you wanna know what they unilaterally latched onto without any direction? Evocation blasting. Were they great wizards? No. They certainly did more than they even theoretically could've as noncasters.

Gnaeus

2017-02-24, 11:04 AM

Sorry to nitpick, but that's not quite true. Or, well, it's true but in a complicated way that makes it quite penalizing towards Wizards. (tl;dr: it peaks at 59.8% and they get a ton of low-level spells, but extremely few high-level ones. Getting specific high-level spells is nigh-impossible.)...(Stuff)...

Thats a really good argument. Thank you for posting it because it was a lot more scientific than the analysis I was about to do. I like your data. It has changed how I view the extra spells problem.

That said, I disagree with your conclusions as a result of that data. Lets assume that you get 5 random spells each from 1-3, 1 each 4 and 5, and 2 random spells from random levels between 6-9, which seems to be born out by the chart. Lets roll that up a couple times and see what it looks like:
Wizard 1
L1 Identify, Ray of Enfeeblement, Ventriloquism, Magic Missile, Jump
L2 See invisibility, Bears Endurance, Touch of Idiocy, Levitate, Invisibility
L3 Lightning Bolt, Fly x2, Keen Edge, Major Image,
L4 Crushing Despair
L5 Telepathic Bond
L7 Finger of Death
L9 Shades
Wizard 2
L1, Grease x2, True Strike, Magic Aura, Reduce Person
L2, Phantom Trap, Obscure Object, Blindness, Knock, Magic Mouth
L3 Gentle Repose, Water Breathing, Magic Circle, Wind Wall, Invisibility Sphere
L4 Rainbow Pattern
L5 Transmute Mud to Rock
L6 Mass Bears Endurance
L8 Moment of Prescience

I think that looks pretty representative of the chart. I like Wizard 1's random rolls a lot better than 2's, but even wizard 2 gets save or sucks for all 3 saves, several nice utility spells (Wind Wall, Invisibility sphere, magic circle, Water breathing, knock) and a high level decent self buff. Wizard 1 has a solid range of attacks, some utility, a decent level 9, and some good buffs. Either one of those would be a solid addition to 4 spells per level. Yes, they have some near useless dross, but also some spells I would consider as picks, and other spells that I wouldn't pick but would use if I got for free or would adjust spells known to account for. Also remember that some spells are item prereqs. So even if I rarely wanted to cast bears endurance, I probably do want to make a + con item that needs it.

And again, that is the totally random approach. I think thats pretty much the worst case scenario. I think more commonly you would have that + a limited selection of scrolls for purchase.

It's actually worse than an eight year old would do. I've WATCHED eight year olds play wizards. Do you wanna know what they unilaterally latched onto without any direction? Evocation blasting. Were they great wizards? No. They certainly did more than they even theoretically could've as noncasters.

Thats my experience also. Low op wizards tend not to be useless, just blasty.

Jopustopin

2017-02-24, 11:05 AM

So my vote will only be counted IF I vote wizard has tier 1?

:bronxcheer:

It's more than this. If you don't think the wizard is tier 1 or that the commoner is not tier 6 I think there are just too many failures on the part of the person casting this vote to seriously consider engaging with them at all as it pertains to evaluating classes into tiers. I struggle to understand why such a person is actually here and can't imagine anything they could add would be useful at all. So far, none of the arguments put forth by the Wizard is not tier 1 crowd are realistic and often times I wonder if I'm being trolled or not as I can't tell the difference.

Fizban

2017-02-24, 11:08 AM

This is tremendous nonsense. We aren't tiering players. Classes aren't going to be demoted from tier 1 because it's possible to screw them up if you're an idiot or by making an intentionally bad character.
Right, we're supposed to be tiering the class based on the average of it's ability. And when you actually include the low end, the Wizard average tanks while the Druid average remains significantly higher.

Oh, Morphic already responded to that. And you've responded to him, ahh active threads.

Here, have some tables:
Sick math bro, I hadn't actually drilled down far enough to notice just how rare higher level scrolls were.

And including the Epic Level Handbook stuff gets you vastly inflated NPC levels if that's what you're into, of course, while the Eberron demographics push things down a bit further.
Yup, never even got to mentioning Eberron yet.

Is there a way for random rolls on the DMG tables to generate non-core scrolls? It's not a huge deal (the core Wizard list is pretty good), but it would be worth noting.
Not that I'm seeing on a quick skim. I was expecting a DM's choice entry on the 100's, but nope. The text does mention that every PHB spell is on the random tables though. I know several 3rd party books have scroll tables with their spells added, might be a 1st party setting book that does the same but it'd require that book.

-More excellent tier definitions-
I'm gonna cross quote this over to the main thread for you, for now, will remove if you want to do it yourself.

Beheld

2017-02-24, 11:11 AM

Magic Item Compendium had new item tables, since that was late in 3.5 lifecycle, maybe it and/or Spell Compendium might have tables? Away from books, so can't check myself.

ryu

2017-02-24, 11:11 AM

Right, we're supposed to be tiering the class based on the average of it's ability. And when you actually include the low end, the Wizard average tanks while the Druid average remains significantly higher.

Oh, Morphic already responded to that. And you've responded to him, ahh active threads.

Sick math bro, I hadn't actually drilled down far enough to notice just how rare higher level scrolls were.

Yup, never even got to mentioning Eberron yet.

Not that I'm seeing on a quick skim. I was expecting a DM's choice entry on the 100's, but nope. The text does mention that every PHB spell is on the random tables though. I know several 3rd party books have scroll tables with their spells added, might be a 1st party setting book that does the same but it'd require that book.

I'm gonna cross quote this over to the main thread for you, for now, will remove if you want to do it yourself.

No the wizard doesn't ''tank'' because while you've a theoretically lower floor you've a much much higher ceiling.

Karl Aegis

2017-02-24, 11:11 AM

ryu

2017-02-24, 11:15 AM

Fizban and Morphic Tide do have a point. Wizard does fit in the definition of Tier 2: About as powerful and good at problem solving as a Sorcerer. You have these weird tier definitions that allow a class to be in multiple tiers simultaneously. One class could be in Tiers 1, 2 and 3, another class could be in Tier 2 and 4, (but awkwardly not 3) and another class could be in Tier 3, 4 and 5. It's really a terrible system in general. You shouldn't be so harsh on someone not understanding it when it is unrefined.

Actually with the alterations to the system proposed by this rework, read: why everyone's arguing rather than linking things, a class can only be in one tier and tiers are separated by direct comparison of effectiveness with each other rather than any definition outside that. Given that, no, there is no place to say wizard is equal to sorcerer. Way WAY more spells known.

Karl Aegis

2017-02-24, 11:21 AM

Oh? A problem that a wizard can solve that a sorcerer can't solve? Do explain what this problem is. With detail, please.

Fizban

2017-02-24, 11:26 AM

It's actually worse than an eight year old would do. I've WATCHED eight year olds play wizards. Do you wanna know what they unilaterally latched onto without any direction? Evocation blasting. Were they great wizards? No. They certainly did more than they even theoretically could've as noncasters.
And an evocation blaster is what tier? Warmage just got tier 3 for having more than twice as many spells known including BFC options and spontaneous casting. So if a blaster wizard is the floor at tier 3, and a high op wizard is tier 1, the average is. . . ?

Pretty solid comparison there actually. A low-op wizard that only picks a certain type of spell, plus random scrolls, is basically the definition everyone seems to be using for "very good at one thing, good at a few more things," which is either tier 2 or tier 3.

Actually with the alterations to the system proposed by this rework, read: why everyone's arguing rather than linking things, a class can only be in one tier and tiers are separated by direct comparison of effectiveness with each other rather than any definition outside that.
The alterations that you can't quote because they don't mean anything. Well you can quote the parts about what problems and roles are now.

Given that, no, there is no place to say wizard is equal to sorcerer. Way WAY more spells known.
Ah, such ability to ignore what people are saying, it's almost like we haven't spent the last three days telling you exactly why those spells known only exist in your head. On your personally expected level of optimization, which is not yet reflected by the tier definitions.

Well they exist in a lot of people's heads. If you have assumptions you want to be part of the main tier definitions, please take them to the main thread for consideration.

Magic Item Compendium had new item tables, since that was late in 3.5 lifecycle, maybe it and/or Spell Compendium might have tables? Away from books, so can't check myself.
Nah, MiC tables have fewer scrolls on them. Since they're based on the Item Levels system they pump out high level scrolls much earlier, but they're very specific scrolls and the Item Level system will stop giving them out once you pass 7th (where there's a chance of dropping some 8th level scrolls), or 13th if rolling the treasure levels off the full random table.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-02-24, 11:37 AM

Looking at extremely low/negative optimization is no more helpful than looking at extremely high optimization. Maybe less; I don't think anyone is realistically going to play a wizard by sitting down and randomly rolling up a spell list. They're not going to pick, I don't know, Sepia Snake Sigil and Daylight, they'll pick "cool" spells like Fireball and Fly. Or they'll pick spells that seem like they would have been good in the last few adventures, because new players aren't blithering idiots.

Can I say that again, but louder? New players aren't blithering idiots.

No, they're probably not going to realize that Alter Self is a crazy powerful defensive buff, or that blasty evocations aren't that powerful. But they're also going to realize that Sepia Snake Sigil is useless because ****ing doy. They'll pick direct spells. Cool-looking spells. Not ones that require book diving, probably, or ones that are only good if you know all the options, but there are a lot of things that look good and are.

And by the way, assuming that they won't know they can add spells to their spellbook, when that's a core part of the rules on the subject (there's a big heading and everything!) is like assuming that the Druid didn't notice that they get an animal companion, or that the Fighter forgot they could pick a bonus feat at 2nd level. And the fact that clerics and druids are harder to permanently screw up isn't tremendously relevant because real people generally don't do 180 turn-arounds. Growth over the course of the campaign, sure, but in that case a Wizard can gradually pick better spells too. I mean, hey, I'd bet on the new-Wizard varying their spell selection more than the new-Cleric who got intimidated by the huge spell list. The Wizard is picking from a smaller, more controlled environment. And it's easier for a DM to subtly boost the Wizard by dropping scrolls/captured spellbooks than it is to get the Cleric to try and draw up a new list of prepared spells.

ryu

2017-02-24, 11:38 AM

And an evocation blaster is what tier? Warmage just got tier 3 for having more than twice as many spells known including BFC options and spontaneous casting. So if a blaster wizard is the floor at tier 3, and a high op wizard is tier 1, the average is. . . ?

The alterations that you can't quote because they don't mean anything. Well you can quote the parts about what problems and roles are now.

Ah, such ability to ignore what people are saying, it's almost like we haven't spent the last three days telling you exactly why those spells known only exist in your head. On your personally expected level of optimization, which is not yet reflected by the tier definitions.

Well they exist in a lot of people's heads. If you have assumptions you want to be part of the main tier definitions, please take them to the main thread for consideration.

Actually high OP wizard is tier 0. They have access to some of the scariest tools in high level play, like ice assassin, crafted contingent spell of 100000 different flavors, the best information game both for defense and offense, the highest core efficiency in turning time into power, and of course the ability to not be a level behind in spell acquisition.

And yes I quite pointedly dismiss most of your points, because they're poorly conceived, generally not compelling, and only above lord drako's regular impotent flailing for ability to use the English language fluently, and for not having been banned yet.

Morphic tide

2017-02-24, 11:38 AM

It's their power at all levels of optimization, not their level of power when you take a character built by an 8 year old and hand them to a the guy who came up with punpun.QUOTE]

Actually, it partly is. Because the power of a class at an extremely low optimization level being used by a very skilled player is part of the power of the class at that optimization level. After all, there are people who make very, very bad builds to challenge themselves.

Being optimized, by most standards, does not include play style. That's part of why Healbot Cleric isn't a major mark against Cleric's tier, despite the fact that it's the most, or second most, common Cleric play style. Because a dedicated, purely and absolutely focused and optimized for the one role and nothing else, Healbot Cleric can still be t2 in practice with ease. All it is is a different play style. It's the same build, played differently.

Meanwhile, a Mailman Wizard has to blow a pile of WBL and choose the spells fairly specifically to get back to t2 from their t3 or t4 build, because they spent so much of their character resources on a t3 or t4 build.

[QUOTE=Jopustopin;21741555]It's more than this. If you don't think the wizard is tier 1 or that the commoner is tier 6 I think there are just too many failures on the part of the person casting this vote to seriously consider engaging with them at all as it pertains to evaluating classes into tiers. I struggle to understand why such a person is actually here and can't imagine anything they could add would be useful at all. So far, none of the arguments put forth by the Wizard is not tier 1 crowd are realistic and often times I wonder if I'm being trolled or not as I can't tell the difference.

How, exactly, is arguing that the Wizard and Archivist have too low of an optimization floor to deserve t1 unrealistic? If the majority of the players go for builds that are t3, and the majority of likely builds by people with a plan for their build end up at t2, then the class is only t1 in serious optimization, in which case the aggregate of optimization levels points towards t2.

Cleric, Druid, Sha'ir and Artificer have much higher build floors, although Artificer has to deal with crafting and casting times getting in the way of practical use of that floor. These classes, as long as they have 19 in their relevant ability score, are always, always t2 or better. There is no possible build that makes Druid 20 with 19 Wisdom a t3 build. Play styles, yes, builds, no.

Meanwhile, a Wizard can ban Transmutation and Conjuration spells while focusing on Evocation spells, grab precisely zero utility spells on level up and never write a single scroll into their spellbook and spend most of their WBL on Wands and Scrolls with Druid and Cleric utility spells. This is a semi-reasonable situation for a low-op build, and it's t3 at best.

Can you actually prove that Wizards have an optimization ceiling enough higher than Cleric and Druid to make up for their t4, if not t5, floor? Because the optimization ceiling for Cleric involves having at least two Persisted buffs cast at the start of the day for no metamagic adjustment alongside being a fully operational gish, only they have full casting on top of it, while for Druid it involves an unholy merger of BFC, gish and minionmancy, leading to combat being a faint dream of irrelevant gameplay while non-combat has a pile of tools to bypass a lot of tricks.

Druids don't have to spend any spells above 3rd or 4th level to be good in combat, if that, while Clerics cast their needed buffs at the start of the day for all-day melee power above most martials, using Turn Undead to fuel the metamagic.

See, the core Divine Casters don't need to blow a bunch of spells on combat. They have most of the combat capacity handled by feats and class features. They have their entire spell list to work with. Their optimization floor is higher than many t4 class's ceilings. Meanwhile, the ceiling of Wizard is being a better caster due purely to total list size that has to use spells to do literally anything at all, burning spells for every fight, and it's floor can be outdone by a Fighter 20.

Beheld

2017-02-24, 11:40 AM

Oh? A problem that a wizard can solve that a sorcerer can't solve? Do explain what this problem is. With detail, please.

Any problem that involves your highest level of spells on odd levels? Any problem that involves your second spell of your highest level on even levels.

Fizban

2017-02-24, 11:59 AM

Can I say that again, but louder? [B]New players aren't blithering idiots[/SIZE].
Far be it from me to insult our fellow forumites, but have you seen some of the stories we get around here? See also: derpy evocation wizard is what tier now?

And by the way, assuming that they won't know they can add spells to their spellbook, when that's a core part of the rules on the subject (there's a big heading and everything!) is like assuming that the Druid didn't notice that they get an animal companion, or that the Fighter forgot they could pick a bonus feat at 2nd level.
Incorrect. There is no big heading or anything in the main class about adding spells to a spellbook. There is a sentence at the very end of the class right before the starting packages that says, see this other page for rules on adding spells found in other wizard's spellbooks. Let's take that exact line, "At any time, a wizard can also add spells found in other wizard's spellbooks and add them to her own."

Scrolls are not mentioned in the class except as a bonus feat (doesn't even say what they do). Paying people off to copy their books is not mentioned in the class. You only get that info if you look it up specifically, and what is the definition of a newb if not that they might be missing some information, because they didn't look everything up? The phrasing in the class description clearly implies that you should look up this rule if you find another wizard's spellbook, and until you have said book in your hands you've no reason to aside from your own curiosity. Even when you do look it up, the section in the PHB straight up says that *many* wizards won't want you copying their stuff. So no, you don't have to be a blithering idiot to accidentally limit yourself to your own spells.

And the fact that clerics and druids are harder to permanently screw up isn't tremendously relevant because real people generally don't do 180 turn-arounds.
Again, have you seen some of the threads we get around here? Just a week or two ago we had yet another DM asking how to fix his players. If they want to keep the same characters, some of them are going to be fixable, and others are not. They were Pathfinder, and all three of their spellcasters had spells known to deal with which could very well have been garbage. If any one of them had been a Cleric or a Druid, pulling a 180 and leaving the others in the dust would be perfectly possible. If a Cleric or Druid player in a newbie group decides they want to get buff and looks up a handbook, they can immediately crush their low-op newbie wizard player.

And it's easier for a DM to subtly boost the Wizard by dropping scrolls/captured spellbooks than it is to get the Cleric to try and draw up a new list of prepared spells.
So the Wizard's low-op side matters less because the DM can fix it? Sounds like more DM assumptions boosting the Wizard.

Bucky

2017-02-24, 12:06 PM

Is a wizard in a party with an artificer inherently higher tier than the same wizard in a different party?

Fizban

2017-02-24, 12:08 PM

Actually high OP wizard is tier 0. They have access to some of the scariest tools in high level play, like ice assassin, crafted contingent spell of 100000 different flavors, the best information game both for defense and offense, the highest core efficiency in turning time into power, and of course the ability to not be a level behind in spell acquisition.
Too bad we don't have a tier 0 then. If you would like additional tiers, please post them in the main thread for consideration, I'm sure your compelling argument will have it immediately added to the list.

And yes I quite pointedly dismiss most of your points, because they're poorly conceived, generally not compelling, and only above lord drako's regular impotent flailing for ability to use the English language fluently, and for not having been banned yet.
And yet there are two of us, with more piling on. Does it scare you that the minority is speaking out? That while you have nothing but ad hominem one-liners and "obvious" proofs, we're building an actual case? If you think I'm so wrong, prove it.

And you know, that draco guy actually did have a point that no one seemed to notice while they were busy patting themselves on the back. All you need to be tier 1 is a piece of cheese that lets you change your spells known, and once the Sorcerer can get Psychic Reformation they have it. It's actually been mentioned in these very threads.

Edit: ah, I didn't want to start the new page with that, now I just look mean instead of mean after a series of empty attacks.

OldTrees1

2017-02-24, 12:11 PM

Bucky

2017-02-24, 12:15 PM

It depends on optimization level, and not necessarily in a predictable way. A low-op wizard spends a bunch of money on irrelevant things. A low-op artificer pays more for crafting the same items than a high-op artificer.

Karl Aegis

2017-02-24, 12:16 PM

Any problem that involves your highest level of spells on odd levels? Any problem that involves your second spell of your highest level on even levels.
That describes literally zero problems and literally zero solutions.

Try again with details, please.

Troacctid

2017-02-24, 12:19 PM

Wizards have more feats and better spells than Sorcerers and are more effective as a result.

ryu

2017-02-24, 12:21 PM

Too bad we don't have a tier 0 then. If you would like additional tiers, please post them in the main thread for consideration, I'm sure your compelling argument will have it immediately added to the list.

And yet there are two of us, with more piling on. Does it scare you that the minority is speaking out? That while you have nothing but ad hominem one-liners and "obvious" proofs, we're building an actual case? If you think I'm so wrong, prove it.

And you know, that draco guy actually did have a point that no one seemed to notice while they were busy patting themselves on the back. All you need to be tier 1 is a piece of cheese that lets you change your spells known, and once the Sorcerer can get Psychic Reformation they have it. It's actually been mentioned in these very threads.

Edit: ah, I didn't want to start the new page with that, now I just look mean instead of mean after a series of empty attacks.

Considering there are hundreds if not tens of thousands of individual people on this forum right now backing the consensus, much less the many many more who were active over the years or on other forums, and that I'm fairly certain you couldn't get a hundred supporters much less anything approaching parity? Yeah I'm not scared.

Cosi

2017-02-24, 12:23 PM

Though I confess to some confusion why you two are having this argument, when both of you believe that Wizards will make good spell choices on average.

I think my argument with Zanos started out as a debate about the Artificer, but turned into a Wizard argument for some reason.

That describes literally zero problems and literally zero solutions.

Try again with details, please.

Yes, if you discount all the ways the Wizard is better than the Sorcerer, the Wizard is as good as the Sorcerer.

Forrestfire

2017-02-24, 12:23 PM

I'd argue that the Artificer is a low tier 1 without crafting, and a high tier 1 if using their wealth of crafting-focused class features. Yes, any caster can craft, but Artificers just do it better. But the non-crafting abilities are important to remember, too. I wrote a guide about it, detailing the often-ignored infusions class feature (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?427628-Disregard-Money-Acquire-Buff-Spells-Artificers-without-the-Artifice).

I would consider skimming it before discounting an artificer for "only" doing crafting stuff. The artificer persists buffs better than pretty much any other class past very low levels (where Persistent Spell isn't as relevant beyond some small buffs), and grabs silver bullet spells with extreme ease. It's also a fixed-list spontaneous caster, meaning that it has access to its entire list of fairly decent infusions at all times, even if it's not doing the above.

BaronDoctor

2017-02-24, 12:23 PM

I'm gonna drop a vote in here. I know I'm not the smartest guy in the room here, but these are pretty darn obvious.

Archivist: T1. Easy enough to pick "the good spells" even without shenanigans, bookdiving, etc. Would I recommend getting utility spells on wands? Yeah. Are you still a wizard casting off the cleric list with actual class features? Yeah.

I also seem to remember there being an option somewhere when crafting magic items that you can get an ally / NPC to contribute the item's spell for the normal price of having the spell cast. I might be delusional, but if that exists (or is a common houserule like ignoring multiclass XP penalties or something) that would certainly help the Archivist's cause.

Artificer: Abstain. I haven't played it, I haven't seen it in action. With downtime, it can be powerful and absolutely belong in T1. Not every game has that level of downtime, so I'm not sure where it sits without it.

Cleric: T1. Prepared casting off the whole class list. Decent chassis. Turn Undead can fuel stuff. You're literally a day away from solving any appropriate-level problem.

Druid: T1. Prepared casting off the whole class list. Good Chassis. Animal Companion, Wild Shape, other class features. Big enough that a figurative encyclopedia could be made about the class.

Sha'ir: Abstain. Haven't played it, haven't seen it. Not sure how the spell retrieval stuff works in actual play.

Wizard: T1. You can make a general-solutions wizard that can resolve problems with literally one book and one feat. Collegiate Wizard (Complete Arcane) gets you a bucket more spells in your book per level. I'm not going to say it's a Wizard version of Natural Spell, but it's definitely a pretty nice feat. I know I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but I know there's enough absolute gems on the wizard list that grabbing one of them can solve a bucket of problems.

Beheld

2017-02-24, 12:24 PM

And you know, that draco guy actually did have a point that no one seemed to notice while they were busy patting themselves on the back. All you need to be tier 1 is a piece of cheese that lets you change your spells known, and once the Sorcerer can get Psychic Reformation they have it. It's actually been mentioned in these very threads.

That wasn't new. I literally went back and showed posts about it on BG or something in 2007 in one of those threads. "I can change my spells out" is no more original than "I can planeshift to a infinite time plane and have infinite spells per day." The most depressing thing about his posts was how incredibly old hat all the tricks where.

Morphic tide

2017-02-24, 12:28 PM

Quick question:

Can a couple people quickly summarize the general consensus on the amount of WBL we are counting as part of the Artificer & Wizard for the purposes of tiering those classes? I know eggynack's de jure position on it but there is often a disconnect between de jure and de facto.

I ask because the precedent set here will be brought up in later threads.

Well, for the Artificer, the class only functions properly with WBL treated as an extension of the class. Although Infusions are actually able to bring Artificer to t3, and possibly t1, on their own. The definition of t2 is weird in that a class can end up skipping it because they are never unable to do something, they just lack the power over everything needed to reach t1.

That's actually a major point against the tier system: A class can skip from t3 to t1 without ever being t2 under any situation. Because t2 is, in part, defined by the Sorcerer's lack of being a significant contributor to everything. So redefining the tiers themselves is actually needed for the tier system to make sense, as some classes can skip a tier due to the odd disconnect between them.

A class can skip from t4 to t2 because it's never able to have a large breadth of abilities in one build, which is part of the tier three and tier one definitions. This is a weird thing to have happen, because it involves the tier system basically being on two tracks. Tiers 6, 4 and 2 are mostly about power while tiers 5, 3 and 1 are mostly about versatility.

ryu

2017-02-24, 12:29 PM

Fizban

2017-02-24, 12:35 PM

Considering there are hundreds if not tens of thousands of individual people on this forum right now backing the consensus, much less the many many more who were active over the years or on other forums, and that I'm fairly certain you couldn't get a hundred supporters much less anything approaching parity? Yeah I'm not scared.
Wow, you are really easy to play. I kinda don't want to laugh uproariously now with how readily you'll dig your own grave. Bwahahahaha.

That wasn't new. I literally went back and showed posts about it on BG or something in 2007 in one of those threads. "I can change my spells out" is no more original than "I can planeshift to a infinite time plane and have infinite spells per day." The most depressing thing about his posts was how incredibly old hat all the tricks where.
Ah, glad it didn't go without notice then. I still can't help but see a public service announcement under the troll though, for people that don't realize that ridiculous TO cuts in every direction.

Can a couple people quickly summarize the general consensus on the amount of WBL we are counting as part of the Artificer & Wizard for the purposes of tiering those classes? I know eggynack's de jure position on it but there is often a disconnect between de jure and de facto..
And I'll quote you over to the main thread as well, since this is relevant.

Karl Aegis

2017-02-24, 12:37 PM

Yes, if you discount all the ways the Wizard is better than the Sorcerer, the Wizard is as good as the Sorcerer.

Yes, if you discount all the ways the Sorcerer is better than the Beguiler, the Sorcerer is as good as the Beguiler.

Yes, if you discount all the ways the Bard is better than the Beguiler, the Bard is as good as the Beguiler.

Yes, if you discount all the ways the Barbarian is better than the Beguiler, the Barbarian is as good as the Beguiler.

Yes, if you discount all the ways the X is better than the Y, the X is as good as the Y.

It's like we have a theme going on here. Months of the same exact thing.

Beheld

2017-02-24, 12:37 PM

That describes literally zero problems and literally zero solutions.

Try again with details, please.

Step 1) Make a level X Sorcerer. I don't even care what level it is. I guess don't have Gate, or Planar Binding, or a Candle of Evokation, or a Charmed Diplomacied Genie or whatever other infinite WBL trick.

Step 2) Make a Wizard of the same level that has all the same spells, but also more spells.

Step 3) Look at the encounters they are expected to deal with, and notice how:

a) Some of them require your highest level spell slots, or, alternatively, slots the Sorcerer doesn't have yet, IE, at level 7, you could have EBT, Dimensional Anchor, Phantasmal Killer, and Greater Invis, and some CR 7s are defeated with some of those spells, and others with others of those spells, and the same at CR 8.

b) They aren't all beaten by the same single spell, so having two different spells allows you to solve problems that you wouldn't be able to if you only had one.

c) Also some things that aren't monsters you might want to do, like say, travel half way across the world in an instant, are also accomplished by spells, so when the level 9 Wizard does that and the Sorcerer can't, and the level 10 Wizard does that and still gets any non-zero number of other 5th level spells and the Sorcerer doesn't, that's an example of the Wizard solving problems the Sorcerer can't.

I know you want to Schroedinger's Sorcerer your way out of this by pretending that because some other Sorcerer could solve this problem, but this Sorcerer solved a different problem, therefore the collective Ur-Sorcerer solves all problems. But the problem is, there is no Ur-Sorcerer.

Ah, glad it didn't go without notice then. I still can't help but see a public service announcement under the troll though, for people that don't realize that ridiculous TO cuts in every direction.

I think in this respect, it would be preaching to the choir, since half my posts on the forum amount to admonishing people for arbitrary declarations that X thing they don't like is TO while Y thing they do like is not TO.

BaronDoctor

2017-02-24, 12:44 PM

A very real encyclopedia of druidness was actually posted on these forums by Eggynack. I believe the main tagline of the title was ''being everything.''

Yes, that's what I was referencing. Perhaps I should have rephrased in such a way that it suggested I knew about it.

Troacctid

2017-02-24, 12:48 PM

Quick question:

Can a couple people quickly summarize the general consensus on the amount of WBL we are counting as part of the Artificer & Wizard for the purposes of tiering those classes? I know eggynack's de jure position on it but there is often a disconnect between de jure and de facto.

I ask because the precedent set here will be brought up in later threads.
Artificers have like 25% extra WBL or something as a class feature, and can spontaneously convert XP into GP at will. This is part of the class and should be considered.

Well, for the Artificer, the class only functions properly with WBL treated as an extension of the class. Although Infusions are actually able to bring Artificer to t3, and possibly t1, on their own. The definition of t2 is weird in that a class can end up skipping it because they are never unable to do something, they just lack the power over everything needed to reach t1.

That's actually a major point against the tier system: A class can skip from t3 to t1 without ever being t2 under any situation. Because t2 is, in part, defined by the Sorcerer's lack of being a significant contributor to everything. So redefining the tiers themselves is actually needed for the tier system to make sense, as some classes can skip a tier due to the odd disconnect between them.

A class can skip from t4 to t2 because it's never able to have a large breadth of abilities in one build, which is part of the tier three and tier one definitions. This is a weird thing to have happen, because it involves the tier system basically being on two tracks. Tiers 6, 4 and 2 are mostly about power while tiers 5, 3 and 1 are mostly about versatility.
Ultimately, the only track is overall power. Every T1 class is more powerful overall than every T2 class. Every T2 class is more powerful overall than every T3 class. And so on.

ryu

2017-02-24, 12:52 PM

Yes, that's what I was referencing. Perhaps I should have rephrased in such a way that it suggested I knew about it.

Yeah, especially considering your post count title thing makes you look the kinda new that might not know these things. Not a slight mind. Just very easy misunderstanding of your position to make in the circumstances.

Morphic tide

2017-02-24, 12:53 PM

Ultimately, the only track is overall power. Every T1 class is more powerful overall than every T2 class. Every T2 class is more powerful overall than every T3 class. And so on.

Actually, the tiers are literally defined the way I stated. Well, Eggy adjusted the definitions to have it be so that t2 is either less versatile or less powerful.

Troacctid

2017-02-24, 12:55 PM

Actually, the tiers are literally defined the way I stated. Well, Eggy adjusted the definitions to have it be so that t2 is either less versatile or less powerful.
Doesn't look to me like they're defined the way you stated.

Karl Aegis

2017-02-24, 12:59 PM

ryu

2017-02-24, 12:59 PM

So shall we open the betting pool on whether it's drako again or some new spammer?

Karl: You do realize you just admitted to knowing the reason why wizard is higher tier than sorcerer right?

Beheld

2017-02-24, 01:02 PM

Gnaeus

2017-02-24, 01:05 PM

.................................................. .................................................. .........

So what you are saying is that you refuse to have a conversation about this at all, and you are just going to declare sorcerers equal wizards no matter what?

Well, that's ok. It's a voting thread. You don't have to make him quit, you just have to persuade more people than his non-argument. Which I think you are.

Fizban

2017-02-24, 01:06 PM

b) They aren't all beaten by the same single spell, so having two different spells allows you to solve problems that you wouldn't be able to if you only had one.
I wanted to mirror match the whole thing, but as has always been true the whole level delay really is a BS nerf to sorcerer. However, this line is still bogus.

Nothing at all says that the spread of encounters can't be beaten by the same single spell. You're invoking Schroedinger's Wizard by assuming the Wizard's spells are applicable in the exact quantities they are prepared.

Furthermore, basically every class that has choice in spells known is currently being treated under the assumption that they have picked their spells to be good at multiple things, even when those spells aren't of the highest level (though we've been lobbying against that assumption). If the Sorcerer doesn't have to have the highest level spell for the job, and definitely has that spell available as long as he has slots, how is he at a disadvantage when the Wizard finds themselves with the wrong spell prepared?

Well, that's ok. It's a voting thread. You don't have to make him quit, you just have to persuade more people than his non-argument. Which I think you are.
I highly doubt that he's convincing anyone of anything. The people who agree with him happen to already have agreed with him, and he hasn't presented anything of substance that I've noticed. Karl may not be presenting an argument, but since he's started calling for it Beheld has presented the most of one to oppose it, which relies on a form of Schrodenger's Wizard.

Cosi

2017-02-24, 01:15 PM

Artificers have like 25% extra WBL or something as a class feature, and can spontaneously convert XP into GP at will. This is part of the class and should be considered.

It also costs them money to cast their spells.

So shall we open the betting pool on whether it's drako again or some new spammer?

I mean, it's obviously Drako, but I would have put slightly less than 100% odds on it because he opened with something other than one of his signature screeds. But then his second post was one of his screeds, so it's obviously him (or maybe those arguments are super compelling to some people and it's been a litany of new guys posting the same thing).

What's interesting is that he showed up in a thread that wasn't about Sorcerers unless you actually bothered to read it for a while. Doesn't he usually just make his own thread, or post when people ask questions about Sorcerers specifically?

Nothing at all says that the spread of encounters can't be beaten by the same single spell. You're invoking Schroedinger's Wizard by assuming the Wizard's spells are applicable in the exact quantities they prepared.

If only we had some kind of test that we could use to judge if different characters were playing the same game or not. We could have a whole suite of encounters, and see how different builds performed overall. Alas, if only such a thing existed.

ryu

2017-02-24, 01:22 PM

It also costs them money to cast their spells.

I mean, it's obviously Drako, but I would have put slightly less than 100% odds on it because he opened with something other than one of his signature screeds. But then his second post was one of his screeds, so it's obviously him (or maybe those arguments are super compelling to some people and it's been a litany of new guys posting the same thing).

What's interesting is that he showed up in a thread that wasn't about Sorcerers unless you actually bothered to read it for a while. Doesn't he usually just make his own thread, or post when people ask questions about Sorcerers specifically?

If only we had some kind of test that we could use to judge if different characters were playing the same game or not. We could have a whole suite of encounters, and see how different builds performed overall. Alas, if only such a thing existed.

I mean to be fair, I closed betting after his second post because the longshot odds got way too steep. Maybe he has started coming when his name is called and we must all make it taboo?

Edit: Nah just people who follow your pattern, cupcake.

Gnaeus

2017-02-24, 01:26 PM

I wanted to mirror match the whole thing, but as has always been true the whole level delay really is a BS nerf to sorcerer. However, this line is still bogus.

Nothing at all says that the spread of encounters can't be beaten by the same single spell. You're invoking Schroedinger's Wizard by assuming the Wizard's spells are applicable in the exact quantities they are prepared.

Furthermore, basically every class that has choice in spells known is currently being treated under the assumption that they have picked their spells to be good at multiple things, even when those spells aren't of the highest level (though we've been lobbying against that assumption). If the Sorcerer doesn't have to have the highest level spell for the job, and definitely has that spell available as long as he has slots, how is he at a disadvantage when the Wizard finds themselves with the wrong spell prepared?

I highly doubt that he's convincing anyone of anything. The people who agree with him happen to already have agreed with him, and he hasn't presented anything of substance that I've noticed. Karl may not be presenting an argument, but since he's started calling for it Beheld has presented the most of one to oppose it, which relies on a form of Schrodenger's Wizard.

They don't need much of an argument against a line of reasoning as poor as what you and kelb have presented. They pointed out that wizard has higher level spells 50% of levels and at the 50% where sorcs can equal the wizard the wizard knows at least 4 spells to the sorcs 1. The schrodengers wizard argument is nonsense, since the wizard can always leave open slots to fill with whatever he needs. Or, in the case of rarely useful spells, he can make a scroll of whatever it is with his more spells known and scribe scroll class feature. Beheld's answer is exactly correct. Which situation is wiz better than sorc? Any situation that involves top level spells, at pretty much any level, or any situation where having scrolls or more feats is better, or any situation in which you would want access to a spell which is situationally useful, like spells that you only need in a wilderness or town day. And that adds up to a subset of situations which is essentially "most all the time"

Zanos

2017-02-24, 01:29 PM

Okay betting pool over before it begins. Everybody here familiar with where to find your lord drako button?
Just ignore him.

It's more than this. If you don't think the wizard is tier 1 or that the commoner is not tier 6 I think there are just too many failures on the part of the person casting this vote to seriously consider engaging with them at all as it pertains to evaluating classes into tiers. I struggle to understand why such a person is actually here and can't imagine anything they could add would be useful at all. So far, none of the arguments put forth by the Wizard is not tier 1 crowd are realistic and often times I wonder if I'm being trolled or not as I can't tell the difference.
Poe's law. I don't agree with arguments that the Artificer isn't tier 1, but I understand the rationale behind them. The wizard being tier 5 because new players don't know you can scribe scrolls into your spellbook and will pick all bad spells and/or burn all their money on bad spells, but the druid is tier 3 if you start with 6 wisdom but remember you can wildshape despite the later requiring a better understanding of the rules than the former is either a case of unimpressive devil's advocacy or some extremely impressive mental gymnastics. It's the class tier list, not the class tier list if someone who doesn't know anything about D&D or fantasy in general builds a character and then hands it off to me. I don't care about 6 intelligence wizards or wizards who only know fifteen different ways to fart glitter, neither is of any consideration in practical usages of a tier list. If you tier wizard as lower than 1 because someone might not know what a wizard is, you're no longer making a tier list that's applicable to actual play. Extreme outliers are thrown out in real statistical analysis, not that any part of this is particularly scientific.

I'll just agree with Grod at this point that if your argument is that a class isn't tier 1 because it can be built more poorly than any reasonable human being would ever construct them, to the point of picking options that are opposite of good despite in many cases being less accessible than good options, I'm just not going to engage. Unless I feel like it, because I like to be contrary.

Cosi

2017-02-24, 01:33 PM

Using metamagic as a standard action is worse than using it as a full round action? I guess I wasn't using my move actions anyway.

Also, all the cool kids play Incantatrixes and use metamagic with actions that are not dependent on their casting mechanic.

Fizban

2017-02-24, 01:34 PM

If only we had some kind of test that we could use to judge if different characters were playing the same game or not. We could have a whole suite of encounters, and see how different builds performed overall. Alas, if only such a thing existed.
If eggynack wants to adopt your "same game test" as the standard for his tiers, more power to him. I have already campaigned for more well defined problems, and it would then actually exist in the context of those tiers, though still not in the original game. You are welcome to submit it to the main thread.

Beheld

2017-02-24, 01:35 PM

I wanted to mirror match the whole thing, but as has always been true the whole level delay really is a BS nerf to sorcerer. However, this line is still bogus.

Nothing at all says that the spread of encounters can't be beaten by the same single spell. You're invoking Schroedinger's Wizard by assuming the Wizard's spells are applicable in the exact quantities they are prepared.

No, I'm saying that by definition, a Wizard of level X can solve more types of problems than a Sorcerer of level X (assuming equivalent spell choices) because the Wizard has more spells that he could prepare.

If you can prepare both Teleport and Contact other Plane then you can solve problems that someone who has only one can't, and you can also solve the problems he solved with the other one. Can is not will. But it is can.

If the Sorcerer doesn't have to have the highest level spell for the job, and definitely has that spell available as long as he has slots, how is he at a disadvantage when the Wizard finds themselves with the wrong spell prepared?

The Sorcerer is a Wizard that prepares his spells when he levels up, instead of when he wakes up in the morning. The Wizard is equally capable of preparing a set of spells of general applicability.

It would be possible for a spontaneous caster to have enough spell versatility at his three highest levels of spells to for him to actually be better at general applicability than a Wizard, and that class has been written 3 times by WotC and probably 5-6 times in homebrew forms with more spells known than a Sorcerer. But in standard D&D, the Sorcerer doesn't have that advantage, if the Wizard prepares general applicability, he's as well of or better than the Sorcerer, since he has more spells of the highest level at every level 3-20, and most of the time more spells of the second highest level, and can prepare generally applicable options. (Even before better usage of downtime effects like Contact other Plane, Teleport, Planar Binding, Animate Dead, ect.).

Bucky

2017-02-24, 01:38 PM

I suppose a better standard for the floor is "what's the worst character that someone might build if they need a tier list to tell them how good the class is, assuming that once the character is built they seek advice from an expert on how to play it?"

Karl Aegis

2017-02-24, 01:39 PM

Your argument is exactly the same as eggynack's argument for why sorcerer and beguiler are the same tier. Better at half the levels, the same or worse the other half. Literally the entire reason this series of threads exists. Saying it's wrong is saying this thread has no reason to exist. Since you can't come up with a problem the wizard can solve but the sorcerer can't they are the same tier in this tier system. Saying I won't have a conversation when you are flaming me doesn't change that.

Bucky

2017-02-24, 01:41 PM

Since you can't come up with a problem the wizard can solve but the sorcerer can't they are the same tier in this tier system.

This sort of problem would likely involve a sequence of back-to-back encounters of different types that are too tough to solve with just low-level spell slots and require different sorts of higher level spell slots from each other.

Cosi

2017-02-24, 01:44 PM

Your argument is exactly the same as eggynack's argument for why sorcerer and beguiler are the same tier. Better at half the levels, the same or worse the other half.

The Beguiler as good as the Sorcerer or better at every single level under any set of assumptions more generous than "the Sorcerer can do whatever he wants, but the Beguiler can't take feats or PrCs or buy items because reasons".

Since you can't come up with a problem the wizard can solve but the sorcerer can't they are the same tier in this tier system.

At 9th level, cast teleport. At 10th level, cast teleport and then cloudkill. Repeat for each spell level.

Morphic tide

2017-02-24, 01:50 PM

If individual builds actually mattered at all you wouldn't be in Tier 1 or Tier 2. Schrodinger's Wizard is an actual thing that can exist in game. It pushes all other classes out of Tier 1 by existing. There isn't a problem that actually calls for Schrodinger's Wizard. Thus, Schrodinger's Sorcerer does not need to exist.

Now. The problem. With details.

Individual builds do matter, because they help define the ceiling of a class. Said ceiling is what people here keep thinking of Wizards as, and the relentlessly ignore how many builds of Wizard likely to be played come in at tiers four through 2. The spread of effective tier of actually played Wizard builds is sharply biased towards the upper end for what us forum-goers see, because many of us endlessly contemplate optimization.

However, this is ignoring the casual players who just play the game. This is ignoring the reasonable floor of the Mailman Wizard or the other hyperspecialized builds, who typically come it at t4 because they abandon almost all of the versatility for monofocused power.

The tier rating is for the average power, and it's value as a tool is to warn DMs about how likely a class is to break the game. Wizard needs rather significant optimization to do game breaking, or has to use single game breakers that the Sorcerer is just as capable of using.

The Wizard and Archivist are very different from the other t1 classes because you have to try hard to shatter the game, or you have to use game breakers that are able to break the game entirely on their own. Meanwhile, Druids are the single most likely class in 3.X to break the game on accident. Because nobody knows what the hell Druids are meant to do, so they are the most likely class to see noobs screw around with them without any idea what they are doing. Which, given the simplicity of it, is quite liable to lead to discovering the gishy horror of the self-buffing, self-healing Wildshape user who does their best to ignore their natural physical ability scores. A solid t2 build, easily able to be figured out by anyone who isn't a blind idiot trying to figure out what Druids are supposed to do.

I'll just agree with Grod at this point that if your argument is that a class isn't tier 1 because it can be built more poorly than any reasonable human being would ever construct them, to the point of picking options that are opposite of good despite in many cases being less accessible than good options, I'm just not going to engage. Unless I feel like it, because I like to be contrary.

It's not just that it can be built that poorly, but that there's a lot of builds that can be actually seen in use in-between that negative optimization and the t1 builds that define the perception of Wizard here.