Retiering the Classes: Barbarian, Fighter, Samurai (CW), and Samurai (OA)

[eggynack]

This is the first run of big burly mundane beatsticks. Plenty of classes are about doing things besides hitting stuff in the face with as powerful a sword as is plausible, or they can hit stuff and also do things besides hit stuff. While the occasional not-stabbing utility is offered here, these classes are not those classes. The vast majority of the abilities on offer here are about doing direct damage by means of a melee weapon. Not a path to great versatility, but there can be some power in it. Because we're evaluating both samurai here, make sure to denote which you're talking about. The classic notation here is "CW samurai" and "OA samurai".

Barbarian: Between rage at the baseline and things like spirit lion totem and whirling frenzy when optimized, the barbarian is one of the more directly damaging classes in the game. They also get a bit more variety than most mundane melee classes, with decent skill points (and intimidate as a class skill), cheap tripping with wolf totem, and maybe some trap disabling capabilities through trap killer if you decide to eschew the wolf totem thing. If you haven't noticed yet, a lot of these are ACFs. Because the barbarian's ACFs are frequently fantastic.

Fighter: Feats, feats, and nothing but feats, as far as the eye can see. You can do some reasonable to strong things with these feats, allowing you to hit stuff with variety and competency alike. The ACF situation here is tricky as compared to the barbarian, because there are so few of them worth much. The main two worth note are dungeoncrasher, which may get split off (obviously less likely if the fighter lands in tier four for whatever reason), and zhentarim soldier, which you probably have to consider alongside non-ACF optimization tools to get a tier bump.

Samurai (CW, 8): This is quite possibly the worst non-NPC class in the game, better than the warrior but not by way of that much. The original tier system had them all the way down at tier six, which may be a justified position. Still, you get some decent intimidation abilities, diplomacy as a class skill, and a few marginal improvements. It's not an ideal situation when the ideal strategy might be hucking a huge pile of class features out the window, not because you're getting anything in return, but just because the plan they imply is so awful.

Samurai (OA, 20): This class really bares more similarity to the fighter than to the other samurai. The primary utility here is a pile of bonus feats, though fewer in number and variety as compared to what the fighter gets. You also get a fancy sword along with better skill use. Not a great class, or even a particularly good one, though it compares favorably to its CW reboot.


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
Barbarian: Tier four

Fighter: Tier four

CW Samurai: Tier five

OA Samurai: Tier five

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

[Lans]

You should add knight and swashbuckler to this

CW Samurai Tier 6 4 with Imperious Comand

Either its a warrior that got improved initiative as a bonus feat, some one who is using a subpar fighting style or it took imperious command and is actually quite useful. It never falls in tier 5 for me.

With out Imperious Command

The skill list being better is debatable. If the samurai had more skills per level I would give it to him, but as it stands Handle Animal is a good enough of skill to make the situation debatable and campaign dependent.

The shield proficiency of the warrior is better than everything the samurai gets combined except for improved initiative, and thats before people start actually using the samurai 'features'.

[OldTrees1]

RE Feats

All 4 of these martial characters expend some (let's say 3-5) of their feats on things like Power Attack or Combat Reflexes. Perhaps even Hearing the Unseen. While other classes need to spend their HD feats on these, these feats are on the Fighter Bonus Feat list. This means that the Fighter is uniquely able to leverage their bonus feats to effectively grant them more non Fighter feats than these other martial characters.


So I posit that the Fighter's greater ability* to take NON [Fighter] feats should be considered when tiering the Fighter.
*relative to other martial characters


As such it might be wise to presume the Fighter makes smart HD feat choices that expand their non combat options. Obviously mentioning a set of specific feats would be too specific since not every Fighter would take that set. However there are a lot of quality feats (Shape Soulmeld, Aberrant Blood->Starspawn, Dragon Wings->Improved Dragon Wings, ... the list goes on for awhile)

[eggynack]

You should add knight and swashbuckler to this
I'm trying to keep the count low. Closer to three than to six. I made something of an exception for tier one classes, because I, perhaps mistakenly, thought we'd just be getting these classes out of the way in one big batch so we could move on to less straightforward things. These classes are very much non-obvious. The only one that I'd tier in a particular way without reservation is OA samurai in tier five. They deserve our attention in a relatively non-diffuse way. Later on, probably a decent amount later on (we're liable to do some set of "interesting" non-casters like ToB before we come back to these), we'll do mundane beatsticks part II, and both those classes are gonna be there unless there are like six or more of these.

Edit: And, as I mentioned in the other thread, I'm really not sure what to do with these "X except under condition Y" votes. We are neither assuming that every samurai has imperious command, nor assuming it fully absent. Could theoretically be worth splitting out, if we get some support for that notion (which you could be trying to drum up with your vote, in which case, continue voting like that), but as is you really have to make some personal determinations about how much it should be counted, how much it's worth when it is counted, and what the ultimate singular tier is as a result.

[Zancloufer]

Barbarian: Straight Tier 4. They can front-line and smash faces VERY WELL. Can't do much else with any effect, but if the problem can be solved by hitting it with a giant stick till it stops moving you don't get much better than this. Unfortunately decent HP damage all day can only get you so far, especially with your HP being somewhat limited and having no buffs other than RAGE which just makes you better at hitting things.

Fighter: Tier 5. As they stand full BaB + d10 HD + most proficiency doesn't make you good at anything. Combined with the fact you need 4 feats + stats all over the place to get anywhere without class features makes straight fighter kind of bad. Mostly because of ridiculous feat chains and per-requisites though. Also don't get much in the way of ACFs that don't make them worse versions of other martial classes.

Complete Warrior Samurai: Tier 6. Bonus feats are meh. Samurai trade away those for. Wait one second. Hmm, free weapon, the ability to TWF with his free weapons, the ability to draw his free weapons slightly faster, slight bonus to intimidate. So! If you wanted to TWF with a Bastard Sword and a Short sword, quick draw with them and where putting 1/3-1/2 your skill points into intimidate you would be equal to a fighter who could AoE intimidate [Only in Combat!] and had 5 fewer feats. And a code of conduct like a Paladin.
AoE intimate at +4 is not worth 5 feats. Also Kai smite and frightful prescience are worth jack (require a pile of Cha to be worthwhile. Not like you need Str, Con, Dex, or Int right??). Essentially you are pigeonholing yourself into a very niche corner [that kind of sucks] that the fighter could pull off and still have feats left over to, IDK, do something better.

Oriental Adventures Samurai: Tier 5. It's the fighter with different bonus feats and two free weapons that has some alternate options for enchanting. I mean yeah it takes a while and a pile of money, but it's pretty much Craft Magical Arms and Armour, but only applicable to your free weapons and costs no EXP. Still weaker than the Fighter, mostly because they have a few less feats and they are on a more limited list. Still better to be down 3 feats and have choice vs being down 5 feats and no choice in your bonus feats.

[Lans]

OA Samurai Tier 5 like the fighter but high will save, 4 skill points a level with a good skill list, and it gets ancestral daisho which can be enchanted by the samurai to give flight, displacement and other effects. Worse feat selection, looking at the varios clans only gives 3 good feats.

[eggynack]

and it gets ancestral daisho which can be enchanted by the samurai to give flight, displacement and other effects.
Doesn't this cost the exact same to enchant as a normal sword, and are the enchantment options not identical? Doesn't seem like that big of an advantage, aside perhaps from kinda increased ease of accessing weapon enchantment.

[Lans]

Doesn't this cost the exact same to enchant as a normal sword, and are the enchantment options not identical? Doesn't seem like that big of an advantage, aside perhaps from kinda increased ease of accessing weapon enchantment.

It eases the magic mart problems, and it lets you convert goodies at a 100% instead of half.

[Zancloufer]

Doesn't this cost the exact same to enchant as a normal sword, and are the enchantment options not identical? Doesn't seem like that big of an advantage, aside perhaps from kinda increased ease of accessing weapon enchantment.

DM gives you a +3 flaming Towershield? You can convert the full price of said shield into your weapons, instead of selling it for half price and spending the gold on enchantments.

[Lans]

Edit: And, as I mentioned in the other thread, I'm really not sure what to do with these "X except under condition Y" votes. We are neither assuming that every samurai has imperious command, nor assuming it fully absent. Could theoretically be worth splitting out, if we get some support for that notion (which you could be trying to drum up with your vote, in which case, continue voting like that), but as is you really have to make some personal determinations about how much it should be counted, how much it's worth when it is counted, and what the ultimate singular tier is as a result.

I think low occurring instances of feats, situations, or items that dramatically increase a classes power should be listed separately on the tiers. Imperious Command for samurai, expanded spell access for wizards, truespeak amulet for truenamers

[eggynack]

I think low occurring instances of feats, situations, or items that dramatically increase a classes power should be listed separately on the tiers. Imperious Command for samurai, expanded spell access for wizards, truespeak amulet for truenamers
Some things are like that, but we generally gotta agree on which additional things to bring in. There are other truename items for truenamers (and the one you mentioned is super not obscure), expanded spell access is something that's pretty low barrier to entry, and imperious command is solid, but not necessarily too much more solid than it is for a bunch of other classes. Fighters and barbarians, for example, two classes we're assessing right now, do intimidation really well. Never outnumbered copies a lot of mass staredown, and I think there's some armor that can copy improved staredown (and barbarians can intimidating rage). Also, a lot of the intimidation stuff takes awhile to come on line. I'm not saying this necessarily shouldn't be separately considered, but the idea of just averaging it in seems reasonable.

[Troacctid]

Barbarian is often held up as an example of T4. I don't think the core class is all that great, but it is at least better enough over most T5 classes that it's not unreasonable to put it in T4. For me, it's the ACFs that push it over the top, because there are some very good ones, and a healthy share of marginal ones that offer small but cheap upgrades.

Fighter is either at the top of 5 or the bottom of 4. I think the ACF that pushes it over the top is Thug; the extra skills are a pretty big deal. Thug for T4, non-Thug for T5.

Both of the Samurai are obvious T5s; not much to discuss there.

[eggynack]

Fighter is either at the top of 5 or the bottom of 4. I think the ACF that pushes it over the top is Thug; the extra skills are a pretty big deal. Thug for T4, non-Thug for T5.
This kinda thing is tricky. My thinking is that the solution in cases like this, and in the case of the imperious command vote, is to count these as tier four until and unless we split out the game object for separate consideration, at which point the other vote becomes the one used. My more personal feeling on thug is that it's quite good, but that it might need other stuff, like zhentarim soldier, to get to four. Fighter is kinda interesting, because all of these ACFs offer what is objectively a rather limited quantity of stuff, but the fighter has so little to start with that it becomes plausibly tier increasing.

[ryu]

This kinda thing is tricky. My thinking is that the solution in cases like this, and in the case of the imperious command vote, is to count these as tier four until and unless we split out the game object for separate consideration, at which point the other vote becomes the one used. My more personal feeling on thug is that it's quite good, but that it might need other stuff, like zhentarim soldier, to get to four. Fighter is kinda interesting, because all of these ACFs offer what is objectively a rather limited quantity of stuff, but the fighter has so little to start with that it becomes plausibly tier increasing.

Fighter and the samurai are pretty much the only classes in this game where I would consider gaining a level in it and bringing up CR accordingly unilaterally a liability for the player regardless of previous build. Even if you completely disallow me from taking levels in any class with spells or spell equivalents I would still rather agree never to cast spells as a wizard, trade out my familiar for an animal companion, go faerie mysteries initiate stacking necropolitan, and only use spells from UMDed scrolls/wands I bought myself than actually take levels in fighter. I'm suddenly tankier, have a bunch of immunities, an extra free dump stat for higher other stats, an extra body, and am essentially a bad artificer. Really puts it in perspective doesn't it? That wizard is more useful WITHOUT THE CASTING PROGRESSION?!

[Bucky]

The crazy-long feat chains actually work in the fighter's favor, relative to other martials, at low levels (until level ~5) because fighters get the capstone a level or two early compared to everyone else, and the capstones' usefulness won't fall off for a bit.

[Aimeryan]

If you take Fighter as meaning Fighter 20, not with ACFs, then yeah Tier 5 makes sense. However, since we are not so rigid here, allowing minor dips and taking into account ACFs with some weighting (frequency of being taken, mainly), it becomes quite possible to call a Fighter Tier 4.

For example, take a Barbarian 1 dip (for pounce) coupled with Shock Trooper - add in Leap Attack if you want to be sure. None of that is obscure, or even close, but would be hard not to rate Tier 4. How many Fighters going charger would not seriously take those? It is as low optimisation as you can get without just picking at random. Furthermore, you could take Dungeoncrasher ACF and Knock Back to make this pretty nasty, indeed - bit higher optimisation, but I would be surprised if it wasn't quite common. You also still have all the HD-feats left over to add a couple of non-combat contributions if you chose to do so.

Even if you don't really want to ubercharge, the cost to the Fighter of picking up those Fighter Feats to do so is very minor, so you might as well anyway. Would many Fighters really not pick up the Shock Trooper feat chain and grab a Barbarian 1 dip unless by not doing so they are still Tier 4 in some other way?

[Gnaeus]

Barbarian T4. An 8 YO can make a barbarian good at combat, as long as all you need is charge/full attack. Few hard counters to melee problems, but good at what it does.
Fighter high T5. An optimized fighter is as good as an optimized barbarian, but it's a class with a ton of non-obvious traps. Build your fighter around TWF, thrown, S&B, or several maneuvers and you are probably done before you begin. May not even be good at combat, depending. And good design on a fighter includes both (what is a good feat) and (what feat will get me to the end of the chain I need 5 levels from now). Picking good feats isn't enough, you have to weigh the opportunity costs of entire feat chains way ahead in your build.
Samurai (CA) T5 A fighter with poor build choices. You can make one that works, but it's more like a single working build than a working class. And that route is hardly obvious or low op.
Samurai (OA) no rank. I'm pretty sure it's a T5 but no experience with this class

[Troacctid]

If you take Fighter as meaning Fighter 20, not with ACFs, then yeah Tier 5 makes sense. However, since we are not so rigid here, allowing minor dips and taking into account ACFs with some weighting (frequency of being taken, mainly), it becomes quite possible to call a Fighter Tier 4.

For example, take a Barbarian 1 dip (for pounce) coupled with Shock Trooper - add in Leap Attack if you want to be sure. None of that is obscure, or even close, but would be hard not to rate Tier 4. How many Fighters going charger would not seriously take those? It is as low optimisation as you can get without just picking at random. Furthermore, you could take Dungeoncrasher ACF and Knock Back to make this pretty nasty, indeed - bit higher optimisation, but I would be surprised if it wasn't quite common. You also still have all the HD-feats left over to add a couple of non-combat contributions if you chose to do so.

Even if you don't really want to ubercharge, the cost to the Fighter of picking up those Fighter Feats to do so is very minor, so you might as well anyway. Would many Fighters really not pick up the Shock Trooper feat chain and grab a Barbarian 1 dip unless by not doing so they are still Tier 4 in some other way?
We're rating the class as 20 levels. If we weren't, then Thug would absolutely not be a tier increase, but over 20 levels I think the extra skills are a pretty big deal. They certainly help Barbarian up to T4.

Either way, it's close. You could certainly make a case for top of 5 or bottom of 4. And optimization level matters a lot.

I dunno. I'm not sure if it's better as 4- or 5+. Monk is kind of the same way. I do think it's better than Dragon Shaman, Knight, Samurai, Swashbuckler, and Soulknife, which are all pretty clear T5s in my mind. But it's also worse than Ranger, Rogue, Fast Rogue, Smart Rogue, and Magic Rogue, which I see as clear T4s.

[bekeleven]

So, forget optimization. What assumptions are we making about playstyle?

if D&D is played close to the books, all of these classes are 1-2 tiers higher than everyone is currently rating them.

[eggynack]

So, forget optimization. What assumptions are we making about playstyle?

if D&D is played close to the books, all of these classes are 1-2 tiers higher than everyone is currently rating them.
How ya mean that? Like combat versus non-combat focused?

[TIPOT]

How much are we factoring in the background fluff? I played a OA samurai in a OA game and it was important because I was a Samurai ie a noble. Does allowing OA Samurai imply that all OA stuff is in effect?

Overall though: I'd say Barbarian is tier 4 (for similar reasons to other people), OA samurai is tier 4 (they're basically a better fighter in that they get most things a fighter gets + a high will save and better skills), fighter is low tier 4 high tier 5 depending on what your baseline level of optimisation is and CW Samurai is tier 5 (as it can still go power attack with a two handed weapon and has some ok class features)

[eggynack]

How much are we factoring in the background fluff? I played a OA samurai in a OA game and it was important because I was a Samurai ie a noble. Does allowing OA Samurai imply that all OA stuff is in effect?
Near or actually zero, I'd expect. Any character can plausibly have some background nobility if they really want it, and a samurai can not have that much of a nobility connection if they want. You can even be a samurai without being a "samurai" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html). You can be a non-cleric with church connections, or a cleric that prays to an ideal or has had a falling out with the larger church structure. I don't think it makes much sense to be predicting where tables hold to or diverge from the fluff that's written into the game.

[bekeleven]

How ya mean that? Like combat versus non-combat focused?
Let's start with "Three encounters per day."

[ryu]

Let's start with "Three encounters per day."

I thought standard was four?

[Jopustopin]

Barbarian: I've never seen a pure barbarian ever. With that said, I'd always rather have a barbarian than a fighter. They are SAD (compared to the Fighter who can be quite MAD), have the capability for a celerity like win button (instantaneous rage + Intimidating rage + blah blah blah + I win) and that's before we get into their ACF which are simply some of the best in the game for non-casters. Tier 4

BMX Bandit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw): WotC should have included an update to the fighter IN the Tome of Battle. Like an errata or just a Re-do. It's an insult to the fighter that the warblade exists. By level four the fighter is regularly failing his will save and spending fights asleep, running in fear, or some other pathetic end result. If he is able to pop a wheely with his BMX and there is a wall and he has dungeoncrasher he's still completely overshadowed by just about everyone in the game (and especially you know Crusaders who could divine surge for 8d6 points of damage and doesn't need a wall). Yes, a large sized fighter or one with powerful build and the dungeoncrasher ACF and the feat Knockback is now tier 4 but the fighter class as a whole, holistically, is tier 5. His job is to fight and he can't even accomplish that one purpose let alone all the other non-fighting related challenges in the game. He is a straight upgrade to the Warrior... so there is that.

CW Samurai: It's hard to make fun of the Monk when there is this monstrosity. I agree with JaronK - if you have imperious command he's the worst class in tier 5. Otherwise he's the best tier 6 class in the game. For purposes of my vote: Tier 6.

OA Samurai: This is 3.0 material; my opinion is that the CW supersedes this material. In the same way that the Ranger in the Player's Handbook 3.5 supersedes the Ranger in the Player's Handbook 3.0.

[Lans]

OA samurai is tier 4 (they're basically a better fighter in that they get most things a fighter gets + a high will save and better skills), fighter is low tier 4 high tier 5 depending on what your baseline level of optimisation
OAS suffers from having a weaker bonus feat list, I'm not sure if the rokugan book gave them anything. In a lower op game I'm thinking they might edge out the fighter, while in a higher op game the better fighter feats should give it the advantage over the OAS.


CW Samurai is tier 5 (as it can still go power attack with a two handed weapon and has some ok class features)

If you look closer at its class features and get rid of the ones that are traps you wind up with improved inititive at 8th and fear at 20th. + a few weak smites per day. Its actually debatable whether the warrior has better features or not.

[ryu]

Barbarian: I've never seen a pure barbarian ever. With that said, I'd always rather have a barbarian than a fighter. They are SAD (compared to the Fighter who can be quite MAD), have the capability for a celerity like win button (instantaneous rage + Intimidating rage + blah blah blah + I win) and that's before we get into their ACF which are simply some of the best in the game for non-casters. Tier 4

BMX Bandit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw): WotC should have included an update to the fighter IN the Tome of Battle. Like an errata or just a Re-do. It's an insult to the fighter that the warblade exists. By level four the fighter is regularly failing his will save and spending fights asleep, running in fear, or some other pathetic end result. If he is able to pop a wheely with his BMX and there is a wall and he has dungeoncrasher he's still completely overshadowed by just about everyone in the game (and especially you know Crusaders who could divine surge for 8d6 points of damage and doesn't need a wall). Yes, a large sized fighter or one with powerful build and the dungeoncrasher ACF and the feat Knockback is now tier 4 but the fighter class as a whole, holistically, is tier 5. He is a straight upgrade to the Warrior... so there is that.

CW Samurai: It's hard to make fun of the Monk when there is this monstrosity. I agree with JaronK - if you have imperious command he's the worst class in tier 5. Otherwise he's the best tier 6 class in the game. For purposes of my vote: Tier 6.

OA Samurai: This is 3.0 material; my opinion is that the CW supersedes this material. In the same way that the Ranger in the Player's Handbook 3.5 supersedes the Ranger in the Player's Handbook 3.0.

Best tier 6 in the game?! Clearly someone has never witnessed an apocalyptic doom-chicken singularity commoner at work.

[Lans]

Best tier 6 in the game?! Clearly someone has never witnessed an apocalyptic doom-chicken singularity commoner at work.

I am standing by the warriors class features being stronger in combat

[eggynack]

Let's start with "Three encounters per day."
You should account for this to the extent a game would force you to account for it. So, you can't always expect the rope trick 15 minute adventuring day to work, but you can sometimes. I don't think that forcing encounters to be really helps these classes nearly so much as you've indicated. I'd take the classes that are currently in the tiers that these classes are supposedly landing in before these classes any day of the weak.

Best tier 6 in the game?! Clearly someone has never witnessed an apocalyptic doom-chicken singularity commoner at work.
The chicken infested commoner is obviously amazing. I don't think it's tier six though. I think I had it at a three or four, when I rated it back in the other thread. Chickens can do a lot of things.

I am standing by the warriors class features being stronger in combat
You can stab things better, certainly, but the infinite chickens can do tons of random crap. Wall of chickens (a giant mound of chickens between you and your foes), chicken walk (generating chickens beneath you until you've essentially levitated, and maintaining this chicken mountain as you move about), chickenquake (filling an enclosed space with chickens until said space collapses from the chicken pressure), chickenfireball (pile chickens atop your opponent and set them aflame, perhaps with some energy resistance on) and more can all help you handle a variety of combat situations. You really handle combat more like a wizard than a fighter.

[Lans]

You can stab things better, certainly, but the infinite chickens can do tons of random crap. Wall of chickens (a giant mound of chickens between you and your foes), chicken walk (generating chickens beneath you until you've essentially levitated, and maintaining this chicken mountain as you move about), chickenquake (filling an enclosed space with chickens until said space collapses from the chicken pressure), chickenfireball (pile chickens atop your opponent and set them aflame, perhaps with some energy resistance on) and more can all help you handle a variety of combat situations. You really handle combat more like a wizard than a fighter.

I meant better than the samurai

[eggynack]

I meant better than the samurai
Either way. Chickens are good at stuff. Better at non-combat, certainly, but the combat is solid, trading away the melee style single target damage reduction, and occasional debuffing if you run imperious command, for wider ranging battlefield impact.

[remetagross]

Should we consider what a Lion Totem Barbarian dip brings to the power level of a Fighter Ubercharger? I don't think we should, since this dip singlehandedly makes the build viable, and it does not come from the Fighter class.

Also, another interesting Fighter ACF is the Overpowering Strike of the PHB II. But since it can only be taken at level 16, which is high even if we consider people playing a Fighter 20 build, it might not be as relevant to evaluation as Zhentarim Fighter or Thug Fighter.

[Lans]

3 More ACFs that should be looked at are the Hit and run that adds dex to damage against flat footed opponents, and dungeon crasher and the sneak attack varient

[Fizban]

Haven't read the thread yet, but for now:

I still don't consider these definitions sufficient since they're based on being some unspecified degree worse than the last tier, extended through multiple tiers. Based on my own tiers (variable-specialist, specialist, grey, grey, self-sabotaging/over-restricted, "NPC") however:

Barbarian, Fighter, and OA Samurai: tier 4, distinctly lacking in magic and variability compared to the upper half of the grey area.

CW Samurai: tier 5, comparable to a Fighter but unduly restricted to a fighting style that has no synergy within the class and conflicts with its other class features, and a code of conduct on top of that.

And I'll note my initial conditions: without a definition of "mid-op," classes are being allowed feats from a couple books (PHB, CW, and OA being the obvious) due to the inherent nature of bonus-feat based classes, but otherwise ACFs are not a significant factor as a whole due to being stuck at baseline. (And even if they were it'd just be to mention that Spirit Lion is a ridiculous outlier).

[OldTrees1]

What are people thinking about Fighter's greater ease (when compared to Barbarian) at gaining Flight, Teleportation, and other neat tricks from their HD feats as a direct result of Fighter's sole class feature?

[Aimeryan]

What are people thinking about Fighter's greater ease (when compared to Barbarian) at gaining Flight, Teleportation, and other neat tricks from their HD feats as a direct result of Fighter's sole class feature?

It should definitely be considered. The weighting may be low, however; finding non-Fighter Feats that benefit the Fighter significantly is not all that common I feel. More likely most people just keep on adding Fighter Feats when gaining feats through HD even though they need not do so - could be wrong, though.


Should we consider what a Lion Totem Barbarian dip brings to the power level of a Fighter Ubercharger? I don't think we should, since this dip singlehandedly makes the build viable, and it does not come from the Fighter class.

It is explicitly mentioned that minor dips are fine, so we are considering it. Furthermore, it doesn't make sense to enforce this weird Fighter 20 premise when very very few Fighters go Fighter 20 - it just isn't representative at all.


In my opinion, anyone who has looked at a Fighter Handbook, or looked at a forum, would know of the Barbarian dip (Pounce) and Shock Trooper; that's enough for Tier 4. One solves being able to Full Attack after moving, while the other solves getting more damage without losing attack. They are pretty much staples unless you have a high optimisation build that manages to avoid them.

I don't know anyone that is not an outright new player to not be able to build a Fighter to Tier 4 standard just because of how common knowledge this is. Having many poor options doesn't matter if people are aware of the good options.

[Hurnn]

Barbarian:

T 4

I doubt there will be much debate here. They are probably the kings of smashing faces really really hard. They are a second rate rogue or ranger if they need to be. They have some of the absolute best ACFs in the game for melee guys. Oddly enough I don't think anyone plays one all the way to 20, they gain to much from dips and PRCs.

Fighter:

T4

They can be really good at killing things, at least as good as the barbarian, and have more options on how to do it. They can also do decent BFC, and with the mountain of feats they get can actually pull off both. Their skills, and skills per level are mostly abhorrent* Much like Barbarian they have some really good ACfs, Thug, Dungeoncrasher, Z fighter, and Skirmisher leap to mind. Again like Barbarian no one plays them to 20, hell I like fighter, and I would never go past 10th at the absolute max and realistically 6th. They Gain way to much from dips and PRCs. Almost every high damage melee build I see for fighter has levels of barbarian and vice versa.

*thug ACF not withstanding.


CW Samurai:

T5


To quote myself: Literally a worse fighter with no ACFs, no splat support, and a better skill list. Has a built in "you are now a warrior" clause, and build traps. If you try really really hard and go for one specific build you might climb to T 4, most the time you will be T5 and can always implode into T6 through bad choices build or RP. Play a fighter, warblade, sword sage or OA samurai instead.

OA Samurai:

T5

I'm sad that it is T5. It is literally a much better fighter chassis. More skills per level, and a better skill list. Double good save including the all important will save. Fewer bonus feats, but that's 7 vs 11, which is still double what most classes will have. The free masterwork bastard sword that they can sack loot to to improve is a pretty sweet deal actually. So where do they fall down so hard? No ACFs, no splat support, alignment restriction makes it super hard to dip to improve combat ability, and to PRC in some cases.

[lord_khaine]

Near or actually zero, I'd expect. Any character can plausibly have some background nobility if they really want it, and a samurai can not have that much of a nobility connection if they want. You can even be a samurai without being a "samurai". You can be a non-cleric with church connections, or a cleric that prays to an ideal or has had a falling out with the larger church structure. I don't think it makes much sense to be predicting where tables hold to or diverge from the fluff that's written into the game.

Its actually not directly correct. In the OA campaign, where the OA samurai is from, then the samurai's nobility is strictly a part of the settings caste system, and it grants them a LOT of influence since they are inherently at the top.
But at the same time, you cant be a Samurai there without being a Samurai.

Thats why in a OA setting i would place the OA samurai at 3-4, purely from being able to get away, with what a samurai is suposed to get away with when wandering around peasants (almost everyone else thats not a samurai)

[eggynack]

Should we consider what a Lion Totem Barbarian dip brings to the power level of a Fighter Ubercharger? I don't think we should, since this dip singlehandedly makes the build viable, and it does not come from the Fighter class.

A bit. It shouldn't be anything close to a major consideration though, because it's unique, and because it's a base rather than prestige class based (which is even worse, because we're directly ranking base classes here). It strikes me as notable on this point, however, that while classic pounce, with its sky high damage offerings, should be considered at around the level I stated, considering the broader spectrum of free movement for easier full attacks is somewhat more likely. You can get that through a wider variety of dips, after all, as well as through some non-dip sources.


3 More ACFs that should be looked at are the Hit and run that adds dex to damage against flat footed opponents, and dungeon crasher and the sneak attack varient
I think dungeon crasher is going to wind up separate, based on the precedent of the original tier system. Is that a mistake? It's entirely possible that the fighter has a pretty even distribution of potent ACFs, one where dungeoncrasher isn't the meaningful force such that we should consider the whole class, ACFs and all, as this singular object that's more definitely tier four. It's kind of an interesting notion. If we can delete dungeon crasher and still have tier four, then we'd be able to add dungeon crasher back in without it acting as a tier raiser, which would mean that it should possibly be considered normal style. The really weird thing is that the rating could theoretically act as after the fact justification for the ACF's inclusion into fighter consideration, because it's also acting as justification for the ACF's inclusion as a solitary entry, in inverse fashion.


Barbarian, Fighter, and OA Samurai: tier 4, distinctly lacking in magic and variability compared to the upper half of the grey area.

Kinda surprised by the OA samurai rating, actually, even given your past structural objections. They don't seem nearly so good at combat stuff as the barbarian or fighter.

Anyway, I'ma state my ratings now.

Barbarian: Tier four. Really strong combat abilities, capable of doing really solid damage at low-op, or utterly destroying any monster it can charge and higher optimization levels. Also of interest here is the barbarian's, perhaps not great, but at least present, non-combat ability, rooted largely in its skill use.

Fighter: Tier four. It feels like, when you consider the wide variety of tier boosting factors in combination, the overall construct does well enough to justify the tier boost. Decently to reasonably versatile combat, and, if you use some of that tier boosting stuff, surprisingly present non-combat.

CW Samurai: Tier five. It's bad. You don't get that much over a warrior. Crappy combat style, improved initiative, and, best of the list, a whole intimidation shtick eventually. I think it's enough. Not a lot, but enough.

OA Samurai: Tier five. It's kinda like a fighter, but you're losing a lot of ground. Weird bonus feat list, no ACFs, and that's all supposed to be made up for by easier weapon enchantment and somewhat better skill use. They just don't seem to get there.

[Rhyltran]

Barbarian Tier 4: Barbarians are the text book case of how a martial should function. They got solid features, they are easy to build, and it's not hard to either make a character that can be effective at what it's built to do. They are also one of the best, if not the best factoring in ACF, at delivering damage straight in the enemies face.

Fighter Tier 4: There are many ways to build a fighter and even more ways to build an effective fighter. Given the large number of feats as well as bonus feats combined with the list of ACF's they have this is another class that solidly belongs to Tier 4.

Samurai: Tier 6 and near the top of Tier 6: I understand that people want to put this class in Tier 5 but this is a class that has very little synergy within it's own class features. The one thing it can do well still provides a bunch of useless class features that has nothing to do with it. They are a worse class than base fighter and can easily be built by a newer player to be even worse. The best bet is to go imperious command or focus on power attack but even then literally every other tier 4 and tier 5 martial can do it better.

OA Samurai Tier 5: A better chasis than warrior, better skill list, good class features, so why is this Tier 5? No ACF to beef them up, no further splat support, and while they have their weapon enchant system and good saves it just isn't enough to get them into Tier 4.

[Fizban]

So I posit that the Fighter's greater ability* to take NON [Fighter] feats should be considered when tiering the Fighter.
*relative to other martial characters
The Fey/Fiendish Hertiage and Dragonmarks are prime examples of this. All sorts of builds dip Fighter for damn good reason: they need those bonus feats to get their groove on sooner and leave them room for the non-fighter feats they want later. The more fighter you have, the more non-fighter you can afford.

I would still rather agree never to cast spells as a wizard, trade out my familiar for an animal companion, go faerie mysteries initiate stacking necropolitan, and only use spells from UMDed scrolls/wands I bought myself than actually take levels in fighter.!
And people call my expected level of optimization weird?

So, forget optimization. What assumptions are we making about playstyle?

if D&D is played close to the books, all of these classes are 1-2 tiers higher than everyone is currently rating them.
->
Let's start with "Three encounters per day."
Even better, let's start with "on average, after about four encounters," which is even more significant since in order to average 3 or 4, you need days with 5 and 6 to even out the days with 2 or 1.


Should we consider what a Lion Totem Barbarian dip brings to the power level of a Fighter Ubercharger? I don't think we should, since this dip singlehandedly makes the build viable, and it does not come from the Fighter class.

Also, another interesting Fighter ACF is the Overpowering Strike of the PHB II. But since it can only be taken at level 16, which is high even if we consider people playing a Fighter 20 build, it might not be as relevant to evaluation as Zhentarim Fighter or Thug Fighter.
Lion Totem is ridiculous, but the funny thing is it's still not even that ridiculous on its own. Maybe enough for a tier increase if no other classes are allowed charge boosters (lancers, other ACFs) or ranged full attacks without martial maneuvers, but the ubercharger gets the uber from Shock Trooper. Both a dip and an ACF for that dip should not affect the Fighter's own rating. Of more concern would be if the Barbarian's tier should go up, but the fun part there is that while I consider the ubercharger bogus and don't count it, other people count it as tier 4 where the Barbarian belongs anyway, so it works.

The barbarian dip gets more interesting when you recognize that the barbarian's vaunted Rage is only +2 attack/+2-3 damage. The fighter gets +1 attack/+2 damage at 4th level, up to +3/+4 at 8th, if they take Weapon Focus/Spec/Mastery- and they can still dip Barbarian, maybe take Extra Rage, and then have an extra feat left over compared to the Barb. More levels, higher rage bonus vs more spec feats. In exchange the Barbarian gets some skill points, +1hp/level, and is discouraged from using heavy armor but is functionally immune to sneak attacks. Barbarian isn't the god of dps, but the skill points and immunity to rogues are valuable abilities if you don't need maximum dps.

Seriously, I wonder at all the people saying Barbarians are one of the best at dealing damage to the face, even without ACFs. They just aren't.

Overpowering Strike is basically garbage but if you need an endgame boost to an AoO build, it's there to optimize.

Hit and Run is all but explicitly for Drow only, and at the cost of +2 LA is garbage. On non-drow it's comparable to a couple sneak attack dice and some initiative, 2-3 feats for one at the cost of all your armor forever. It essentially locks you into dex build, which is several feats worse than str build. I don't think it changes anything outside of a fully multiclass build.

Dungeoncrasher annoys the hell out of me. It's a frankly ridiculous amount of damage compared to swinging a weapon like fighters are supposed to, balanced only by the fact that you have to bull rush someone into a wall (normally read as any surface). It's power depends entirely on optimization: alone or with just Improved Bull Rush, it's really strong but not too much worse than a lancer or ToB. Layer on a couple more bonuses and it quickly becomes as bad or worse than an ubercharger. Luckily they both require several combined elements to put together, which drops them off my tier rating until there's a definition for how many elements count as "mid-op," and once again "most" people seem to disregard that damage in the first place.

Kinda surprised by the OA samurai rating, actually, even given your past structural objections. They don't seem nearly so good at combat stuff as the barbarian or fighter.
The OA Samurai has a decent enough set of bonus feats to compete with someone who's not drawing from a ton of books and still has their HD feats to fill in. The reduction in feats is compensated for by skill points and will save, including Iajutsu Focus, and the Ancestral Daisho compensates for its restriction to a particular weapon by being wholly unreliant on DM leniency for weapon as long as you get loot and can pray. Worst part is losing heavy armor (that hurts) and a few feats at high levels.

The code of conduct is harsher than I remembered and isn't done any favors by the phrase "never commit a chaotic act," since law/chaos is the most fluid axis, but assuming you read it as "act like a samurai" it's a lot easier to follow and less likely to be DM screwed than the Paladin who tends to have a target painted on their back for moral dilemmas. The worst you can do with a samurai is have their lord order them to do something dishonorable. And unlike the Paladin losing all their supernatural abilities, an ex-samurai retains all their skills and bonus feats. Much more useful while they wait to atone, losing nothing but the Ancestral Daisho which is restored with atonement, and if they can't atone for some reason all you have to do is drop them an appropriate replacement and they start taking fighter levels. I'd also give them the benefit of their noble status as a balance to the code of conduct: they're not likely to run afoul of their lord if they're not in the right setting, and if they are then they have social benefits.

The CW Samurai on the other hand, has a slightly looser code that doesn't reference chaotic acts and makes it clear that minor transgressions are okay-but it also costs you all your class features besides TWF without any synergy and prohibits you from returning if you try to dip something to fix your build, so you can't even delay Fighter or ToB for value.

Putting OA Samurai at tier 5 just shows that you're demanding a higher optimization level as your standard: rank them down for lack of wacky ACFs and bonus feats, while I say they have enough room to optimize a bit without needing those. I'll also admit I'm probably not weighting high levels very much either, and I'm pretty sure that most people agree that high level games are rarer. OA Samurai can be worse than Fighter, but odds are if you're in a game where it makes sense to be one you won't be worse off in comparison and if need be you can dip Fighter to make up some feats. CW Samurai actively works against itself, and simply does not deserve to be on the same tiers as classes which do not.

[eggynack]

The OA Samurai has a decent enough set of bonus feats to compete with someone who's not drawing from a ton of books and still has their HD feats to fill in.

This is the part that strikes me as questionable. What does an OA samurai's feat list look like? Most of the sub-lists seem bad after like the third feat picked. The fighter list takes longer to reach bad, even in core. Sure, the samurai takes longer to get to bad, because they get the feats slower, but that's obviously not an advantage. And any additional source with any kind of meaningful extra feats is a big advantage. You don't need a ton of books to get to that point.


Putting OA Samurai at tier 5 just shows that you're demanding a higher optimization level as your standard: rank them down for lack of wacky ACFs and bonus feats, while I say they have enough room to optimize a bit without needing those.

That OA samurai seems to compare a lot worse at moderate and high optimization seems like a meaningful disadvantage. But some of my issue is that they're also disadvantaged at the lower optimization baseline by their narrower and less frequent feat access. Yes, the samurai gets some stuff to make up for it, but I don't think it's enough at all. Fighter seems to me to be near always above the samurai, with the fighter curving up and away from the samurai more and more as you increase optimization level.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I think the Barbarian and Fighter are both Tier 4-- they're both solid choices for beating face, with roughly comparable ability at all levels of optimization. Spirit Lion Totem is an insane outlier, of course, but it doesn't really shift the tier (and it'll probably show up on every melee build at a certain optimization level anyway). They can both do damage, scare people, and have a (very) limited ability to deal with traps via ACFs.

CW Samurai is Tier 5. He's a mediocre fighter and a mediocre intimidator, making him clearly superior to the Warrior (a medicore fighter only). He's also got Diplomacy and 2/3 synergy skills, for however much that's worth, and it does lead you to some passable places-- Exotic Weapon Master, Ronin, etc.

OA Samurai is Tier 4, and basically a minor upgrade of the Fighter-- specifically, you're a Thug Fighter with a free Ancestral Relic at first level (but no other ACFs, so I think your ultimate ceiling is lower). Passable skills, passable face-beating. You probably won't suffer, but you won't exactly thrive.

EDIT: Yeah, most of the lists start to run dry after 3 choices, but that takes you through about half the class. By that time the Fighter's starting to run dry on level-appropriate choices too.


I think dungeon crasher is going to wind up separate, based on the precedent of the original tier system. Is that a mistake? It's entirely possible that the fighter has a pretty even distribution of potent ACFs, one where dungeoncrasher isn't the meaningful force such that we should consider the whole class, ACFs and all, as this singular object that's more definitely tier four. It's kind of an interesting notion. If we can delete dungeon crasher and still have tier four, then we'd be able to add dungeon crasher back in without it acting as a tier raiser, which would mean that it should possibly be considered normal style. The really weird thing is that the rating could theoretically act as after the fact justification for the ACF's inclusion into fighter consideration, because it's also acting as justification for the ACF's inclusion as a solitary entry, in inverse fashion.
I disagree with Dungeon Crasher being ranked separately. It's a fine ACF, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing incredible. You can do damage with a suboptimal combat maneuver, whoopee-- you're a Fighter, you can already do damage and use combat maneuvers. Bonus AC against traps is nothing. A bonus to Strength checks to break things is nice, possibly the best thing about the ACF, but you can replace it with an adamantine mace, or even just judicious Power Attack. It's sort of trading one feat slot for two passable feats. (And another slot later for their Improved versions).

[eggynack]

I disagree with Dungeon Crasher being ranked separately. It's a fine ACF, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing incredible. You can do damage with a suboptimal combat maneuver, whoopee-- you're a Fighter, you can already do damage and use combat maneuvers. Bonus AC against traps is nothing. A bonus to Strength checks to break things is nice, possibly the best thing about the ACF, but you can replace it with an adamantine mace, or even just judicious Power Attack. It's sort of trading one feat slot for two passable feats. (And another slot later for their Improved versions).
Yeah, I'm thinking this is one of those things the original system was off on. It's not even necessarily as useful as the ACFs that make your skill use better, cause it's not like fighters were hurting for ways to damage things semi-creatively. I'm currently defaulting to its inclusion in the standard fighter, I think, which is especially well supported by my vote of a 4 for them. The class is running an average of 4.25 right now, and it's probably impossible to argue that dungeoncrasher could possibly mean tier three. Given my stated criteria for where dungeoncrasher falls, inclusion makes sense.


Yeah, most of the lists start to run dry after 3 choices, but that takes you through about half the class. By that time the Fighter's starting to run dry on level-appropriate choices too.

I guess, but running running dry halfway through the class on a fighter means about twice as many bonus feats as running dry halfway through the class on a samurai. It's hard to deny that the OA samurai's pair of feat disadvantages go weirdly well together, but the overall impact is a significant loss of combat capability. Especially when you open up some sources. Some of those non-core feats are really good, especially because they mean you run dry to a way lesser extent than the samurai does. If your 12th level feat is still good, for example, that's a big advantage over the 12th level samurai, and a similar sized advantage over the 13th level samurai that's getting an extra feat. And if the samurai runs dry at 7th level with their third feat, that's a lot of levels where you get essentially nothing.

[Fizban]

Yes, the (OA) samurai gets some stuff to make up for it, but I don't think it's enough at all. Fighter seems to me to be near always above the samurai, with the fighter curving up and away from the samurai more and more as you increase optimization level.
But it's never so bad that it actively works against itself like the CW Samurai. Weaker than Fighter with more op sure, but who says Fighter has to be the bottom of tier 4?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I guess, but running running dry halfway through the class on a fighter means about twice as many bonus feats as running dry halfway through the class on a samurai. It's hard to deny that the OA samurai's pair of feat disadvantages go weirdly well together, but the overall impact is a significant loss of combat capability. Especially when you open up some sources. Some of those non-core feats are really good, especially because they mean you run dry to a way lesser extent than the samurai does. If your 12th level feat is still good, for example, that's a big advantage over the 12th level samurai, and a similar sized advantage over the 13th level samurai that's getting an extra feat. And if the samurai runs dry at 7th level with their third feat, that's a lot of levels where you get essentially nothing.
Oh, it's not great, but as Fizban noted, I think it's far from terrible. The class still has a good chassis (full BAB, 4 skill points off a decent list), bonus feats off a list that contains things you actually want to take, a magic sword, and Iajutsu Focus, which a lot of people feel is good enough to serve as the Factotum's entire offensive strategy. It's a decent source of bonus damage at higher levels, at least.

[Troacctid]

OA Samurai is 3.0 and superseded by the 3.5 version in CW, so I am of the opinion that it does not need a rating.

[eggynack]

But it's never so bad that it actively works against itself like the CW Samurai. Weaker than Fighter with more op sure, but who says Fighter has to be the bottom of tier 4?
I tend to think fighter is riding the line, and likely below it if you consider no ACFs whatsoever. I must admit though, as Grod noted, iajatsu focus is sweet.


OA Samurai is 3.0 and superseded by the 3.5 version in CW, so I am of the opinion that it does not need a rating.
It's a really different class, and my understanding is that it gets used sometimes, particularly because the CW version sucks. Also, it showed up in the original, which sets a weird sort of precedent. I don't think it costs much to have it in the system.

[Bucky]

Fighter is a clear tier 4 at level 1, and fades to a tier 5 by level 20. Whether it ends up in 4 or 5 depends on assumed optimization (how long does it take for static class features to outscale their feat selection?) and level weighting (how much does level 1 matter compared to level 20?)

[Canine]

Dragon Magazine #318 included a set of updates to translate Oriental Adventures from 3.0 to 3.5. It also said that some of the feats and prestige classes had already been updated in Complete Warrior, but didn't explicitly mention base classes.

Not that I've been voting, but I have been following along, and the discussions are interesting and informative. Are the other OA classes going to be Tiered?

[Troacctid]

I assume Shaman will go with Wu Jen and Death Master and maybe Shugenja for the "Core caster with watered-down spell list" round.

[remetagross]

Not a bad thematic round :) Favored Soul too, maybe?

[eggynack]

Favored soul might end up with spontaneous cleric and mystic. They're all really similar.

[Troacctid]

Favored Soul doesn't have a watered-down spell list (it has the whole Cleric list and small parts of the Sorcerer list), so it doesn't fit the theme.

I guess Jester might.

[remetagross]

Fair point.

[D.M.Hentchel]

Barbarian: 4
Fighter: 4
Samurai (CW): 5
Samurai (OA): 5

Bbn: The barbarian can do the good old uber-charge trick, nothing special about it until you start getting ACFs into the mix. The ACFs however work really nicely together if applied right turning the Bbn into a damage machine against anything he can charge. Nice skill-points, but not a great skill list.

Ftr: The fighter is very easy to build wrong, largely because it offers little guidence to how it should be built. But feats do count for a lot, there are a lot of powerful feats out there and the fighter has easy access to feats and prestige classes. Easy enough to make up for the lacking aspects of the bade chasis.

Sam: Well most of the class features are crap, some so bad you are better off pretending you don't have them. (Two Swords as One). But not a bad skill list and has intimidation synergy. You want to build the uber-charge trick and get some social and debuff on the back of it. With one bonus feat, 3 useful class features, and 2 skill points the samurai is stretched really thin, but can manage to out-shine the Warrior and even compare with something like the Knight.

Sam (OA): I am not convinced that this class can actually be built in an effective way. The clans all just seem too limited. The base chasis might honestly be enough to make it tier 5, but I don't think the rest actually put it above the knight or other tier 5s.

[eggynack]

I guess Jester might.
Well, that one's inevitably going with the bard and... something. Factotum? That seems more skill monkeyish than I'm necessarily looking for, though it could be a jack of all trades thing.

[remetagross]

Seems fair enough, since they also share the "3/4 casting ability" to a certain extent.

[Troacctid]

You can put me down as a 5 for the Fighter, by the way. It's in an in-between place where optimization can tip the scales one way or another, but with the abundance of trap options and the overall difficulty of building a good Fighter, I think it takes more system knowledge to optimize compared to other classes, so I'd give extra weight to the low-op side.

[Zaq]

I feel like the front-loadedness of Barbarian and Fighter (not even getting into the two Samurai classes) really trips this up. A level 6 Fighter is obviously much weaker than a level 6 Druid, but if they're built well, they can make a reasonable argument for earning their share of the XP budget when facing at-level encounters (at least unless you have a really killer GM). It's much harder to say that with a straight face when talking about a level 12 Fighter or a level 18 Fighter, particularly without heavy party support. I'm not the first person to bring this up, but it's kind of preventing me from feeling comfortable slotting them into a single score. Even level 6 is kind of pushing it, truth be told, despite that arguably being a sweet spot for a pure Fighter (since you can pretty much guarantee that you've laid down the foundation of your fighting style by that point, but it's still reasonable to encounter CR-appropriate enemies that are better matched to a Fighter than to a Wizard).

Basically, we know that these classes are in a lower tier than casters, and one reason that we know that is because Fighters and Barbs don't really gain fundamentally new tricks after low-mid levels. Their existing tricks may nominally become better, but their class features rarely give them the ability to solve fundamentally different problems than the ones they could solve a few levels ago. Bigger versions of the same problems, sure, but not fundamentally new problems.

Pure-class Fighters are especially tricky in this regard, since they kind of look like they might be able to dip into other tricks, but that's often an illusion. Basically, once you've gotten the feats you need to handle your main combat style (whether that's archery or tripping or charging or whatever), if for some reason you keep taking Fighter levels, you might be tempted to think that you could then branch out into another combat style. And that's kind of true, but it's not likely that a Fighter who's primarily built as a tripmonkey will end up fully useful as an archer just because they ran out of tripping feats and started down the archery chain. (This is both because the devs knew that Fighters would get lots of feats, and therefore you have to spend a whole lot of feats—and therefore a whole lot of levels, to say nothing of stats—to achieve decent competence with a fighting style, and also because a fighting style that was theoretically decent at early levels is likely not going to be that helpful when you take it as an afterthought at later levels.) So Fighters look like they kinda get new ways of approaching situations, but it's hard to argue that they're good enough at it that it makes them anything we would describe as "versatile."

I think I'm okay calling the Barb T4, pretty much for the reasons that everyone else has listed, even if I'm way more comfortable playing or accepting a level 6 Barb in a level 6 party than I am a level 15 Barb in a level 15 party. That said, something deep inside me says that it's not right to call a Fighter T4, even though a Fighter and a Barb really do solve most problems in the same ways. Basically, I feel like a Barb can eventually do anything a Fighter can do (it's extremely difficult to build an optimized high-level character that actually needs every single one of a Fighter's bonus feats, so a Barb can eventually get a similar fighting style to a Fighter, with additional tricks on top), but a Fighter can't necessarily do anything a Barb can do (they don't have an equivalent to Pounce, or to access to feats without stat prereqs, or to "Barbarian Celerity," or to Mountain Rage if we're accepting race-specific tricks, or to Whirling Frenzy, and so on). Even though both of them are primarily just good at making numbers with weapons and both of them are equally stymied by high-level, high-magic enemies, I feel like a pure-class Barb has more potential than a pure-class Fighter when taken as a whole. I think the Fighter belongs in T5.

When looked at as dips, this all changes, but we knew that already.

If the Fighter is T5, the CW Samurai certainly can't be higher than T5, for reasons that have already been discussed. If we're allowing non-NPC classes into T6, then I think the CW Samurai belongs there, alongside the Soulknife and the Soulborn, since none of them really do what they purport to do. That said, CW Samurai is unquestionably better than the Warrior and the Aristocrat (yeah, 4 skills vs. 2 skills, but while a Sam's class features are weak, at least they do exist), so if we want them to be the dividing line, then the CW Sam is T5. I need not list their sins, as everyone else has done it for me already. What tier they belong in isn't so much a matter of "how strong is this?" but more "how are we choosing to define things?" Basically, I think that the CW Sam's closest kin are, as I said, the Soulknife and the Soulborn. Going pure-classed, I think that Soulborn is the strongest of the three (they have extremely limited access to soulmelds, but they still do get soulmelds, and soulmelds offer more utility than anything the Sam gets), so the CW Sam is no higher than them. I think the Soulknife is possibly even weaker than the CW Sam when used as intended, since Psychic Strike is an active trap if you have to spend actions on it in combat, and the Soulknife's lack of full BAB is an active hindrance when they don't have strong class features to fall back on. Do we count the Soulknife as being better or weaker than a Warrior? Yes, that's early, but I think that either the CW Sam or the Soulknife is going to be the dividing line between T5 and T6, so that's pretty much what we need to be looking at.

I'm not sufficiently familiar with the OA Sam to give them a good rating. They have more skills than the Fighter, but fewer feats, and I'm really not sure how to rate that. I'll pass for now.

[Psyren]

RE Feats

All 4 of these martial characters expend some (let's say 3-5) of their feats on things like Power Attack or Combat Reflexes. Perhaps even Hearing the Unseen. While other classes need to spend their HD feats on these, these feats are on the Fighter Bonus Feat list. This means that the Fighter is uniquely able to leverage their bonus feats to effectively grant them more non Fighter feats than these other martial characters.


So I posit that the Fighter's greater ability* to take NON [Fighter] feats should be considered when tiering the Fighter.
*relative to other martial characters


As such it might be wise to presume the Fighter makes smart HD feat choices that expand their non combat options. Obviously mentioning a set of specific feats would be too specific since not every Fighter would take that set. However there are a lot of quality feats (Shape Soulmeld, Aberrant Blood->Starspawn, Dragon Wings->Improved Dragon Wings, ... the list goes on for awhile)

While I agree with the underlying point here (Fighters do have greater capacity for non-fighter stuff), it also neglects two other factors that I believe keep the Fighter at T5. These are:

(1) Other martials gain similar advantages from their own class features. For example, a Barbarian may have fewer generic feats to throw around, but they get a higher fort and will save natively than the Fighter does due to Rage; for the fighter to get similar benefits, he needs to have picked up Iron Will and Endurance. And Rangers get class skills and skill points that a fighter might have to spend its HD feats on things like Apprentice and Able Learner to achieve parity in. There are certainly better benefits out there than those sorts of things, but that's cold comfort when you fail a save to a dominate and the Barb didn't, or get ambushed by something that the Ranger saw coming. So the Fighter isn't just behind by missing the class feature, he's behind from a basic competency/chassis point too.

(2) Many of those non-fighter things are dependent on other factors. Power Attack is right in core and is a pretty basic pick for any martial class, whereas something like Aberrant Blood or Shape Soulmeld depends on the GM okaying not just splat content, but a character concept or even an entirely new magic system that can have considerable implications for their setting and story. My point being that such things should not be assumed as available simply because they're present in a feats chapter somewhere.


The first of these is the main one for a tier discussion (they have to use feats to catch up to other martials in even basic ways) but I think both are important considerations.

[Aimeryan]

When looked at as dips, this all changes, but we knew that already.

I think this is somewhat key, here. Certainly, dips are not needed to reach Tier 4, but it probably puts it outside of average optimisation - or maybe not, but either way the argument is much more difficult to make.

With a single level Barbarian dip, alongside the Shock Trooper feat, it hits Tier 4. Pounce, or any way to Full Attack after moving, is just that much of a difference. The thing is, this is very much within average optimisation, so the allowance of a single level dip really does allow such an easy change of tier that JaronK's system did not allow for. This is good, in my opinion; it is much more representative of actual play.

[bekeleven]

JaronK's tier system states that a well-built multiclass character will generally play as the tier of its top-tier class.

Therefore:

If I make a build using entirely tier 6 characters, and take a few levels in fighter, how does that help the build?

If I make a martial build using tier 5 characters, and take a few levels in fighter, will the build noticeably improve?

If I make a martial build using tier 4 characters, will dipping fighter improve it?

This way we don't have to worry about "tier when single-classing." It also means that we're rating classes on "utility to the player" rather than "utility per level." I'm not sure how Eggy feels about that. A class that's really good for 20 levels would be the same tier as a class that's really good for 1 level and synergizes well with 19 levels found elsewhere.

I think we can agree that some tier 3 builds can take 1-2 levels in fighter, but it keeps them around the power level of the build without fighter - it certainly doesn't raise the tier. Therefore, using this measure, we can say that fighters are not tier 2.

[Aimeryan]

I don't really count a Figher 19/Barbarian 1 as multiclass; its just a dip. I don't really care for some arbitrary picture to tier, I prefer to tier actual game play.

[bekeleven]

I don't really count a Figher 19/Barbarian 1 as multiclass; its just a dip. I don't really care for some arbitrary picture to tier, I prefer to tier actual game play.So... then, tier the class as it's played in games?

[Aimeryan]

So... then, tier the class as it's played in games?

Yeah, indeed.

[Fizban]

So Fighters look like they kinda get new ways of approaching situations, but it's hard to argue that they're good enough at it that it makes them anything we would describe as "versatile."
That depends on what you mean by versatile. At tier 2, casters seem to be allowed to count as versatile even when that versatility comes from only good-enough spells. The assumption that you need the entire feat tree to do something is the same as saying only the highest level spells matter. You don't need the whole archery tree to shoot significantly better, just Rapid Shot. You don't need the whole ubercharger build to melee significantly better, just Power Attack. You have your main build, and then when it's not appropriate your secondary is still better than people who don't have it.

Regardless, the definition of "versatility" for these tiers doesn't seem to care much about how you do combat as long as you do it. What barbarian has over the fighter is skills.

Basically, I feel like a Barb can eventually do anything a Fighter can do.
Being able to eventually do what a Fighter can do means nearly a dozen levels later depending on build, which is hardly a comparison.

Every person saying the Barbarian is better than Fighter in combat seems to be doing so based on ACFs alone. While each individual build may take as few as one ACF, I think the fact that all of them rely on at least one ACF should count for something. The Fighter's bonus feats are intentionally variable and expand to almost every other book naturally, just as the spell lists, but the Barbarian seems to be relying on ACFs just to compete with feat builds.

Every Barbarian claiming superiority due to duplicating a fighter build +pounce needs an extra book to get that pounce. I'm fairly certain the "barbarian celerity" build is quite spread out as well, and Imperious Command itself is from the drow book which I'm giving an obscurity penalty even for non-restricted feats (it also requires a massive cha investment). Who thinks "I'll look at the sneaky evil elf book to power up my Barbarian, yeah!" on their own without char-op telling them to? At least Complete Champion has "champion" in the title, even though it's a divine oriented book that is apparently required for any melee build to be "viable."


And since I'm headed there anyway: anyone actually ever looked at how ridiculous SLTB is? No other class in the game gets "pounce" that easily. Psychic Warriors, Rangers, and Druids pay out the nose to do it with spells. Druids don't get to wild shape pounce with two handed power attacking magical weapons, they have to do it with d6+1/2 str claws. ToB doesn't give you a full attack charge until 10th level, with cooldowns. Two-weapon pounce requires you to two-weapon fight and only gives you those two attacks. And there's the bit where it's a 1st level ability that won't have any effect without a specific feat or 6th level BAB. And the fact that pounce is a monster ability written specifically to emulate the idea of monsters that jump on top of you with all their natural weapons, nothing to do with iterative attacks.

SLTB is one of the single most obviously broken elements in the game. Various spells can at least hide behind "it's magic" and people just wanting to make up new abilities. But this thing goes against the fluff of the ability it's based on, in order to be drastically cheaper and more powerful than any similar ability in the game. People give it a pass because they want higher optimization levels, you can tell whenever someone says it's "required to be viable," but if you actually look at it from the perspective of any of the fighting classes is blindingly obvious. It's so broken that once you count dips all it does is cement the Fighter as being better than the Barbarian at combat.

The point being, anyone who says we should ignore or diminish outliers should take a good long look at Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian lolPounce, as it's a prime example of something that only exists because some idiot with a WotC paycheck wrote it down and RAW is god. /rage

[danielxcutter]

While I'm not much of an expert and I'm not completely in agreement with Fizban, I do admit that Spirit Lion Totem's kinda out of whack compared to a lot of other melee stuff. Even disregarding the huge power boost(especially when combined with the Whirling Frenzy ACF), I mean... How does that work? I've been trying to picture it in my head for more than a month and I still have NO idea how you can get the power of your charge on all of your attacks.

[Gnaeus]

Every person saying the Barbarian is better than Fighter in combat seems to be doing so based on ACFs alone. While each individual build may take as few as one ACF, I think the fact that all of them rely on at least one ACF should count for something. The Fighter's bonus feats are intentionally variable and expand to almost every other book naturally, just as the spell lists, but the Barbarian seems to be relying on ACFs just to compete with feat builds.


I do not. I think Barbarian > Fighter in combat because fighter is filled with traps. Playing a decent barbarian is obvious based on the class. Take a high strength and con, a huge beard, and a giant weapon and you are done. Solid feats like power attack practically scream at you. If you've watched Conan, you understand barbarian.

Fighter has dozens of routes supported by fantasy archetypes that don't bear up well in rules. Sword and board is one, TWF is another. And you can read the entire PHB and not intuitively realize numbers that we have crunched through the years, like that TWF sucks because you have to spend twice as much on weapons and divert points to secondary stats, or that AC doesn't hold up as a defense into high levels.

I have 0 doubt that your fighter = or exceeds your barbarian. But it's really simple to build a fighter who can't do his job without jumping to ridiculous arguments like casters with 9 in their casting stat.

[Fizban]

I do not. I think Barbarian > Fighter in combat because fighter is filled with traps.
. . .
I have 0 doubt that your fighter = or exceeds your barbarian. But it's really simple to build a fighter who can't do his job without jumping to ridiculous arguments like casters with 9 in their casting stat.
Right, forgot about yours, sorry. But as you mention casters, didn't we just have this argument? If casters always pick decent spells out of their hundreds of garbage spells, why is the fighter picking bad feats? You say trap, but a trap is only a trap if it actually huts you. And in what way does Power Attack stand out any less for the Fighter? It's even recommended by the starting package, along with a greatsword.

Sword and board is one, . . .TWF sucks because you have to spend twice as much on weapons and divert points to secondary stats, or that AC doesn't hold up as a defense into high levels.
TWF, as before doesn't actually require the entire feat chain to benefit, and both it and sword 'n board gain a higher benefit from weapon spec line (what's that? instead of reducing my attack for damage I can just increase both?), not that anyone ever looks at those. But here's the real heresy:

AC is a perfectly fine defense into high levels.

You know why AC is "bad" at high levels? Because the +7 you are expected to gain from a shield isn't there on your two-handed build. If you want AC, you use a shield, duh. If you demand maximum dps and refuse to use a shield, you lose the right to complain about AC not being good enough. Give the Fighter the proper suite of AC boosters and they reach 50% or near that against most monsters of equal CR from the MM- and monsters of equal CR are not even the Fighter's niche, that's lower CR opponents which aren't worth wasting spells on, who have lower attack bonuses (that's how you expend fewer resources) [super giant monsters are the spellcaster's niche, you're not supposed to stand in range of them]. The core feat for boosting AC, Combat Expertise, is worth another +5 (as much as Power Attack is worth damage). That's 12 points of AC I'm pretty sure people making that claim are ignoring.

Because no, you don't need to two-handed power attack pounce shock troop doodly do, to do your job. Unless your job is to solve problems meant to face the whole party solo, which it isn't. Except according to the tier system, which focuses entirely on aggressive solutions to problems. In short, AC is bad because you say it's bad, not because it's actually bad.

[Gnaeus]

Right, forgot about yours, sorry. But as you mention casters, didn't we just have this argument? If casters always pick decent spells out of their hundreds of garbage spells, why is the fighter picking bad feats? You say trap, but a trap is only a trap if it actually huts you. And in what way does Power Attack stand out any less for the Fighter? It's even recommended by the starting package, along with a greatsword.

TWF, as before doesn't actually require the entire feat chain to benefit, and both it and sword 'n board gain a higher benefit from weapon spec line (what's that? instead of reducing my attack for damage I can just increase both?), not that anyone ever looks at those. But here's the real heresy:

AC is a perfectly fine defense into high levels.

You know why AC is "bad" at high levels? Because the +7 you are expected to gain from a shield isn't there on your two-handed build. If you want AC, you use a shield, duh. If you demand maximum dps and refuse to use a shield, you lose the right to complain about AC not being good enough. Give the Fighter the proper suite of AC boosters and they reach 50% or near that against most monsters of equal CR from the MM- and monsters of equal CR are not even the Fighter's niche, that's lower CR opponents which aren't worth wasting spells on, who have lower attack bonuses (that's how you expend fewer resources) [super giant monsters are the spellcaster's niche, you're not supposed to stand in range of them]. The core feat for boosting AC, Combat Expertise, is worth another +5 (as much as Power Attack is worth damage). That's 12 points of AC I'm pretty sure people making that claim are ignoring.

Because no, you don't need to two-handed power attack pounce shock troop doodly do, to do your job. Unless your job is to solve problems meant to face the whole party solo, which it isn't. Except according to the tier system, which focuses entirely on aggressive solutions to problems. In short, AC is bad because you say it's bad, not because it's actually bad.

At phone, so can't cut and paste properly but.
1. How is it different from casters: a caster doesnt need to pick all good spells to be a functioning caster. A wizard with a crap spell just memorizes a different one. A sorcerer with Polymorph and (useless spell x) can just cast polymorph. Worst case, they can pick new spells on level up and cast them instead. A fighter with power attack, dodge, toughness, combat expertise, improved disarm and Point blank shot is actively bad at everything. He can't decide to fight like a barbarian, without retraining rules being in effect and significant downtime. And even then he may need to sell and rebuy gear at a discount to work with new style. And he can't retrain stats at all, if, for example, he made a high decision for TWF reasons.

And your TWF point I think actively works against you. It counterintuitively explains that the guy who spent resources on two weapon fighting is worse at it than a guy who didn't. I'd call that a trap.

I disagree that AC scales properly, but that isn't even really the best answer. The best answer is that the guy who has the 2hander just gets an animated shield and winds up with close to the same AC as the S&B guy, but the S&B guy who chooses to do the same thing and pick up a great sword loses the benefit of his shield feats and is back to being a worse barbarian

[eggynack]

At phone, so can't cut and paste properly but.
1. How is it different from casters: a caster doesnt need to pick all good spells to be a functioning caster. A wizard with a crap spell just memorizes a different one. A sorcerer with Polymorph and (useless spell x) can just cast polymorph. Worst case, they can pick new spells on level up and cast them instead. A fighter with power attack, dodge, toughness, combat expertise, improved disarm and Point blank shot is actively bad at everything. He can't decide to fight like a barbarian, without retraining rules being in effect and significant downtime. And even then he may need to sell and rebuy gear at a discount to work with new style. And he can't retrain stats at all, if, for example, he made a high decision for TWF reasons.
This is especially the case because the fighter class (and melee feats in general) frequently pushes you towards spending good feats after bad. When you pick fireball as a third level spell, there's nothing in fireball that's like, "Hey, if you're taking fireball now, you should probably take ice storm next spell level. Wouldn't that be great?" But, much of the time, feats tell you to take different feats. TWF, whether it should or not, screams out to you to take ITWF, which shouldn't even more but likely does tell you to pick up GTWF. Feats come bundled together, such that you say you're taking one feat that looks cool, whirlwind attack, and suddenly a million feats are devoted to this pretty awful strategy. If you pick the right plan, like tripping, then you'll end up good, but, while sorcerers get dozens and dozens of "plans", a fighter might get only three or four. Picking one of those wrong could be disastrous, and stumbling on a good plan is made more difficult by how few chances you have.

As for the previously stated issue of dipping, I think this is mostly covered by my already stated procedure. It should be considered in a relatively limited fashion compared to other elements of optimization, because we're talking about classes here, but a plan being highly replaceable and low cost helps a lot. Barbarian dipping is low cost, but only the free movement part is easily replaceable, so it should get considered, but less than something like a feat or ACF. If you needed five levels in barbarian, then that'd really hurt the level of inclusion, but it'd help if what you were getting could be gained elsewhere. Like, if you had five ways to do a thing already, you can kinda count this as a sixth, but a lesser sixth cause again it's not a feat. We are trying to capture game-states as much as possible, but it's impossible to argue that the fact that we'd be including other classes in the tiering of a particular task doesn't interfere with that. The fighter gets to be even less reliant on this game object for its ascension into tier four than it could be on something like an ACF or feat, but it can help get them closer by a bit.

[Aimeryan]

I agree in part with the last few posts on the fighter feat selection; there are awful feat lines that a completely new player will fall for.

However, I disagree as to how this affects the tiering; knowledge of this kind is in most cases literally the first thing you learn about mundanes. If you don't read a few forum posts on the subject, or a handbook, or ask a knowledgeable friend, then you learn it in your first game; every game there after you don't do that.

In terms of average play, the awful trap feat lines are almost inconsequential.

[Troacctid]

That's certainly a valid line of reasoning. I still think you could go either way on Fighter.

[Gnaeus]

I agree in part with the last few posts on the fighter feat selection; there are awful feat lines that a completely new player will fall for.

However, I disagree as to how this affects the tiering; knowledge of this kind is in most cases literally the first thing you learn about mundanes. If you don't read a few forum posts on the subject, or a handbook, or ask a knowledgeable friend, then you learn it in your first game; every game there after you don't do that.

In terms of average play, the awful trap feat lines are almost inconsequential.

I'm not sure that's true. I guess maybe you don't remake the exact same failed characters, but I've seen low op characters made by experienced players. I literally once saw a player play a sorcerer with all evocation spells, and when the PC died he made a sorcerer with all necromancy spells. I've watched the same player in a different game make 3 failed muggles in a row, and another one ditch a samurai to make a monk.

And all that assumes that they even come back. I've also seen a new player who never returned after their swashbuckler-type fighter was less effective than the Druid's pet. That's a T5 failure. That very same game, she was replaced by another new (to us) player. When he said "I'm playing a fighter" I almost panicked. When his next sentence was "I have a spiked chain tripper with some Tome of Battle feats" I knew all was well in game land.

And that, to me, is exactly what the Tier system should be telling us to avoid. The forum user or the knowledgeable friend should know that Tier 5s and Tier 4s can both be built in such a way that they can contribute to combat. But that the T5 MAY fail catastrophically and should not be left to new players without significant adult supervision.

[Aimeryan]

And that, to me, is exactly what the Tier system should be telling us to avoid. The forum user or the knowledgeable friend should know that Tier 5s and Tier 4s can both be built in such a way that they can contribute to combat. But that the T5 MAY fail catastrophically and should not be left to new players without significant adult supervision.

The bolded sentence I agree with strongly, however, are they likely to find the tier list before finding out anything about a class/style they wish to play? In my opinion, if they have found the tier list then it is highly likely they have or will do at least basic research on the class (or have someone who has done that tell them what's what).

Basically, while I am not discounting the potential for someone to fall for these traps, I do feel that average play does not involve them all that much at all. This is the sort of thing I feel makes for excellent notification in the class notes (to be done at a later date), but should have only minor weighting in the tiering of the class - the class notes then do what the bolded sentence asked for when people find the tiering list.

[Gnaeus]

This I agree with strongly, however, are they likely to find the tier list before finding out anything about a class/style they wish to play? In my opinion, if they have found the tier list then it is highly likely they have or will do at least basic research on the class (or have someone who has done that tell them what's what).

Basically, while I am not discounting the potential for someone to fall for these traps, I do feel that average play does not involve them all that much at all. This is the sort of thing I feel makes for excellent notification in the class notes (to be done at a later date), but should have only minor weighting in the tiering of the class.

I don't expect them to. I expect the DM to, more likely, or another experienced player. At which point, you fall into the standard list of solutions to T5 characters, which include things like:
Convince them to play to something easier
Build their character for them if they agree
Mod the class in your game
Skew encounters to play to their strengths (like having humanoid weapon users regularly fight the guy who takes improved disarm)
Drop/craft specialized loot that solves their problems
Modify the high Tier characters play style to buff them regularly

But again, those are things I would expect to need to do for a T5. I would expect a T4 to need occasional help with certain kinds of encounters and a T3 to have something in hand to fix it themselves.

[eggynack]

Just posted the scores for the classes. Barbarian and OA samurai landed about where expected, meaning they match up to the old tiers. Fighter was always riding the line, so tier four makes sense, though it's ridiculously close, again as one would expect of a class riding the line. A tier movement from this point forward is quite plausible. CW samurai moved, but it was always stronger than anyone in its tier, so as Zaq noted (though I'll mention here that I'm still not sure whether that was a 5 or a 6), it's basically representing the tier dividing line wherever it lands. Pretty solidly a 5 though.

Next thread should come out tomorrow, assuming things don't seriously ramp up in the existing threads. Might make sense either way, cause I was figuring three active child threads when I posted this one, but neither this nor the fixed list caster thread were as active as I was expecting while the tier one caster thread really exploded. Anyway, plan is to go after the currently basically uncovered role next, the skill monkey. Plan is factotum, rogue, and scout, latter two because they're the only 8+int classes to my knowledge, and the former because of its own awesome skillery.

[ryu]

Fighter tier 5. If anyone present is familiar with my stories to a sound degree they know I've literally had someone do an equivalent job to what's expected of them at low levels very easily. How? We handed the child we were escorting back to town a large rock on the edge of unhampered carrying capacity to use as an improvised weapon. He coup de graced enemies just fine and didn't demand a share of party loot. Then there was the time a bunch of assassins managed to infiltrate the hotel we were staying in because said hotels owners hired fighters for security rather than having the foresight to at least get someone with spot and listen as class skills. Luckily I was paranoid enough to have cast an alarm spell and we didn't sustain any losses, but I'm still bitter over it. I could also go on for a bit about the time we had someone trying to challenge themselves with an ubercharge fighter build fail to do anything at all in an early cave encounter because the enemies were ranged combatant who set caltrops. No I don't have any stories where a fighter came off competent. Even the one where two fighters were against each other was more about who lost less than who won.

[Hurnn]

And since I'm headed there anyway: anyone actually ever looked at how ridiculous SLTB is? No other class in the game gets "pounce" that easily. Psychic Warriors, Rangers, and Druids pay out the nose to do it with spells. Druids don't get to wild shape pounce with two handed power attacking magical weapons, they have to do it with d6+1/2 str claws. ToB doesn't give you a full attack charge until 10th level, with cooldowns. Two-weapon pounce requires you to two-weapon fight and only gives you those two attacks. And there's the bit where it's a 1st level ability that won't have any effect without a specific feat or 6th level BAB. And the fact that pounce is a monster ability written specifically to emulate the idea of monsters that jump on top of you with all their natural weapons, nothing to do with iterative attacks.

SLTB is one of the single most obviously broken elements in the game. Various spells can at least hide behind "it's magic" and people just wanting to make up new abilities. But this thing goes against the fluff of the ability it's based on, in order to be drastically cheaper and more powerful than any similar ability in the game. People give it a pass because they want higher optimization levels, you can tell whenever someone says it's "required to be viable," but if you actually look at it from the perspective of any of the fighting classes is blindingly obvious. It's so broken that once you count dips all it does is cement the Fighter as being better than the Barbarian at combat.

The point being, anyone who says we should ignore or diminish outliers should take a good long look at Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian lolPounce, as it's a prime example of something that only exists because some idiot with a WotC paycheck wrote it down and RAW is god. /rage

Yep it's so broken that the melee guys have an easy way to use their most powerful combat tool and still move just like casters can.... Damn WotC for giving a way for mundanes gain something that just should been automatic because full attack was f'ing stupid.

[danielxcutter]

Yep it's so broken that the melee guys have an easy way to use their most powerful combat tool and still move just like casters can.... Damn WotC for giving a way for mundanes gain something that just should been automatic because full attack was f'ing stupid.

You know, I don't really have too much beef on most methods of moving+full attack. The power boost is greatly needed for about 99% of melee builds.

Pounce - that is, full attacking on a charge, however, is different. I mean, I get things like Travel Devotion or Hustle, because you're just moving really fast. But full attack on a charge, and getting the full force of said charge on each blow, is past the limits of credibility. Getting the full power of it on your first attack, and then resuming your full attack - yeah, I can believe that easily. Pounce as it is, on the other hand, fails to make sense - even though my disbelief has been suspended so throughly, it's dangling by the neck and at -9 hit points due to strangulation.

[ryu]

You know, I don't really have too much beef on most methods of moving+full attack. The power boost is greatly needed for about 99% of melee builds.

Pounce - that is, full attacking on a charge, however, is different. I mean, I get things like Travel Devotion or Hustle, because you're just moving really fast. But full attack on a charge, and getting the full force of said charge on each blow, is past the limits of credibility. Getting the full power of it on your first attack, and then resuming your full attack - yeah, I can believe that easily. Pounce as it is, on the other hand, fails to make sense - even though my disbelief has been suspended so throughly, it's dangling by the neck and at -9 hit points due to strangulation.

I mean.... Is it any less believable than a fighter 20 having no chance of dying from a fall from orbit? Keep in mind that doesn't require feats or dips or magic of any kind. It's just a thing that happens. That and do we really wanna make them suck even HARDER?!

[OldTrees1]

Pounce - that is, full attacking on a charge, however, is different. I mean, I get things like Travel Devotion or Hustle, because you're just moving really fast. But full attack on a charge, and getting the full force of said charge on each blow, is past the limits of credibility. Getting the full power of it on your first attack, and then resuming your full attack - yeah, I can believe that easily. Pounce as it is, on the other hand, fails to make sense - even though my disbelief has been suspended so throughly, it's dangling by the neck and at -9 hit points due to strangulation.

The following is not about RAW or balance, just a passing statement that might affect your disbelief.


I have always imagined a full attack as a continuous set of attacks(with a few unrepresented minor feints & blocked swings) where the momentum of the attack sequence is imperfectly conserved(iterative attacks have an attack penalty).

If you likewise imagine full attacks as such, then it is easier to imagined the kinetic energy of the charge dissipating slowly over the full attack(perhaps even represented by the iterative attack penalty since its significance scales with the significance of a hit). Especially since there is only 1 iterative attack at 6th level.

[danielxcutter]

I mean.... Is it any less believable than a fighter 20 having no chance of dying from a fall from orbit? Keep in mind that doesn't require feats or dips or magic of any kind. It's just a thing that happens. That and do we really wanna make them suck even HARDER?!

No and no. I have absolutely no problem with Pounce power-wise at all, it just doesn't make much sense in terms of physics. And while your example is fine, it makes some sense if the fighter's basically solid iron. Pounce, on the other hand, is kinda weird because it's literally impossible.

Again, it's perfectly fine power-wise. In fact, I'm more confused by the fact that there are so few ways to move and full attack in the same turn.

[Troacctid]

I mean it certainly makes sense for big cats that are pouncing on you and clawing you with all their limbs at once.

[danielxcutter]

The following is not about RAW or balance, just a passing statement that might affect your disbelief.


I have always imagined a full attack as a continuous set of attacks(with a few unrepresented minor feints & blocked swings) where the momentum of the attack sequence is imperfectly conserved(iterative attacks have an attack penalty).

If you likewise imagine full attacks as such, then it is easier to imagined the kinetic energy of the charge dissipating slowly over the full attack(perhaps even represented by the iterative attack penalty since its significance scales with the significance of a hit). Especially since there is only 1 iterative attack at 6th level.

Better, although not perfect. If you use the counterforce of the initial attack to snap the weapon back, then it makes much more sense, but it's easier to imagine a TWFer doing that than a THFer. tl;dr My disbelief has made the save to stabilize, though it's not back in positives yet.

[danielxcutter]

I mean it certainly makes sense for big cats that are pouncing on you and clawing you with all their limbs at once.

Exactly. Iteratives on a charge are hard to swallow, but one attack per weapon? No problem. Absolutely none.

And power-wise, Pounce-as-written is fine. It only gets really silly when you add half a dozen multipliers on it.

[Aimeryan]

Exactly. Iteratives on a charge are hard to swallow, but one attack per weapon? No problem. Absolutely none.

And power-wise, Pounce-as-written is fine. It only gets really silly when you add half a dozen multipliers on it.

So, thanks for sharing? I mean, it doesn't affect the tiering in any way and D&D isn't a game going for realism so...



I don't expect them to. I expect the DM to, more likely, or another experienced player. At which point, you fall into the standard list of solutions to T5 characters, which include things like:...

I think we are trying to accomplish different things here; you are trying to tier for complete new players where as I am trying to tier for average play. Both are fine, but I think this thread is for the latter, not the former.

[OldTrees1]

Better, although not perfect. If you use the counterforce of the initial attack to snap the weapon back, then it makes much more sense, but it's easier to imagine a TWFer doing that than a THFer. tl;dr My disbelief has made the save to stabilize, though it's not back in positives yet.

I was thinking more of the angular momentum rather than any translational counterforce. Imagine a continuous 4 attack sequence of a THF mace from a standing position. Now imagine a charging warrior translating the forward momentum of their body + weapon into angular momentum of their arm + weapon. The follow through would still have a decent chunk of that momentum which could be used in the next arc of the sequence.

[Gnaeus]

I think we are trying to accomplish different things here; you are trying to tier for complete new players where as I am trying to tier for average play. Both are fine, but I think this thread is for the latter, not the former.

I think there is no one on this thread who can't make a T4 samurai, warrior or monk build. It's not that hard. Your numbers won't be as high, but we all know the tricks that get you there.

I think the Tier difference is lower op between 4 & 6 than between 3 and 1 because of what tiers are for. They measure game failures. Not loops and Druids destroying cities, but casual play failures like overshadowing other party members or failing to contribute/trivializing encounters. The best simple definitions for me are: may suck, can suck situationally, won't suck, may rock situationally, may rock in a different way every day. Either end tells DMs and responsible players that further intervention may be required and that you need to watch for potential issues. So when you can build a T4 fighter or someone points out that it's easy to build a T3 invoker wizard I think that's fantastic. But it doesn't change that fighters can also suck and if you or I build a wizard the DM should carefully review at level up to make sure we cant accidentally one shot his boss battle.

I also think the fighters you are talking about are high op. Low op players take traps. Mid op players take good options. High op players take bad options so that they can qualify for amazing options 2 levels later. Can you make a fighter that takes no bad feats that still fails to be competitive? Yes, if the synergy isn't there. So T5

[Fizban]

A fighter with power attack, dodge, toughness, combat expertise, improved disarm and Point blank shot is actively bad at everything.
Actually he's not? Power Attack is considered the gold standard of melee damage and all you need to use it is the feat. Toughness remains a reasonable 1st level feat even when you start with 10hp, plenty justifiable. Combat Expertise allows him to switch from two handing the longsword to pulling out the shield and having proper AC, depending on the AC and attack of his foe. Improved Disarm is about all there is for disarm and if you want to disarm congrats you're done. The only thing he's "actively bad" at is ranged attacks because you've specifically cut him off before getting Rapid Shot, which he'll have within the next 1-2 levels.

Your definition of actively bad is based on your assumption that things must be optimized to X level to be worthwhile, which is only true because you make it true. Nothing in this Fighter build stops them from doing their actual job: being tougher and more accurate than mooks so he can mow them down. He's not focused enough to solo level appropriate encounters but he's well on his way to having a bunch of different answers to other low-level humanoids, great for a gritty game about men fighting men.

And your TWF point I think actively works against you. It counterintuitively explains that the guy who spent resources on two weapon fighting is worse at it than a guy who didn't. I'd call that a trap.
That's not what I said, at all? The guy who spends less resources of TWF spends less resources on TWF. The first feat is not devalued by the remaining feats. If a guy who only has 13 dex picks up TWF, he can use TWF for an extra attack when it's appropriate. If a guy who has 17 dex wants to TWF, it will behoove him to take the later feats, and he will be better at it.

he best answer is that the guy who has the 2hander just gets an animated shield and winds up with close to the same AC as the S&B guy, but the S&B guy who chooses to do the same thing and pick up a great sword loses the benefit of his shield feats and is back to being a worse barbarian
So you're proven that an inane shield property (introduced in 3.5 btw) invalidates the use of shields, when it's freely available. Congratulations? If you're buying a shield to get your AC up to par then you just admitted AC works. The barbarian still isn't any more powerful than a two-handed fighter without certain specific ACFs from further books (and takes -2 AC and can't use Combat Expertise while raging and doesn't get heavy armor, so they still can't do AC properly).


TWF, whether it should or not, screams out to you to take ITWF, which shouldn't even more but likely does tell you to pick up GTWF.
Says you. The first time I looked at ITWF I saw it wasn't a great idea, but that's still not neccesary. In order to take the feat you need a certain amount of dex. If you don't have that dex, you obviously can't take the feat. If you make a character with the dex to take the GTWF, they will probably be better off with the whole TWF line than they would be with trying to two-handed power attack. (Unless they dumped con to get both high str and dex, in which case they're screwed with any non-archery build)

If you pick the right plan, like tripping, then you'll end up good, but, while sorcerers get dozens and dozens of "plans", a fighter might get only three or four. Picking one of those wrong could be disastrous, and stumbling on a good plan is made more difficult by how few chances you have.
If you pick an entire trip build, maybe. But the trip build requires a lot more less obvious feats than it is given credit for. Meanwhile as bad as high cost as Spring Attack is you can still make use of it if you actually take it and try rather than assuming it does nothing, and Whirlwind Attack has it's uses if the DM is doing their job.


As for the previously stated issue of dipping, . . . Like, if you had five ways to do a thing already, you can kinda count this as a sixth, but a lesser sixth cause again it's not a feat. . .The fighter gets to be even less reliant on this game object for its ascension into tier four than it could be on something like an ACF or feat, but it can help get them closer by a bit.
Pounce is not something there are five other ways to get though, there is only one way that takes less than 5+ levels, and it takes only one level (and non-lawful) for any character to get it from that source. Saying Barbarian goes up a tier because of pounce is like saying Wizard goes up a tier for having a spellbook-when a Sorcerer could get a spellbook with a single level dip without losing their spontaneous casting (and is never a level behind as feats for barb/fighter don't care about class level the way spellcasting does). Who is the higher tier?

But that the T5 MAY fail catastrophically and should not be left to new players without significant adult supervision.
Again, isn't this what we just went over in the wizard thread? I said it there and I'll say it again now: I think people are assuming Wizard players are just plain smarter and better at the game than Fighter players. If the Cleric and Druid don't get a tier increase for being less-screw-uppable than the Wizard, why should the Barbarian get it?

Especially when the Barbarian's crushing lack of feats means that if the Barbarian makes a bad feat choice they're so much more screwed than the Fighter it's not even funny (if we assumed that you need a full build just to function, not that you do). Seriously, go take a look at the example barb builds in PHB2, that's what a bad build looks like. A Fighter can recover from bad feat choices twice as fast thanks to their bonus feats, a Barb doesn't.

And I bring up Weapon Specialization again. For all the bad feats that are supposedly jumping up the Fighter's nose, here's the one that is called out as Fighter only like it's something special. A feat line that allows them to nearly match the barbarian's rage bonus, beating it once you include PHB2's Weapon Mastery, while still having bonus combat feats remaining. The most obvious Fighter build called out by Weapon Focus being on like 50% of everything, is Weapon Spec, and it guarantees the Fighter will be right there with the Barb. So saying that a Fighter will take a bunch of bad feats and screw themselves requires actually ignoring the obvious feats and deliberately choosing feats with no active use/refusing to look for ways to use them, while the Barb is. . . ?

[Gemini476]

So a thing about the Fighter with "power attack, dodge, toughness, combat expertise, improved disarm and Point blank shot" is that that's six feats, and thus the Fighter is either level 4 human fighter or level six nonhuman fighter (in which case they also have another feat - let's call it Endurance, to stick to the general theme.)

If you have a Barbarian who took the same feats? Because why wouldn't you, as a low-op player? You're a tough guy, right, who likes to dodge and do fancy disarming stuff? And Point Blank shot is basically Weapon Focus with half Weapon Specialization, and for ranges most dungeon combat takes place in either way.
Anyway, that barbarian is level 12 if they're a human and level 15 if they aren't.
You can even rage with a composite longbow, if you want, and do the same damage as a glaive at range. (1d8+1+STR/x3 vs. 1d10+STR/x3)
It's a bad option, definitely, but it isn't completely lacking in appeal to the low-op mindset.


In contrast to the Barbarian, the Fighter can somewhat recover from that situation - Combat Expertise and Dodge are prerequisites for tons of feats, after all, and Disarm can potentially be a save-or-lose against humanoid foes. (Which are increasingly rare as you go up in level, but hey.)

And while Toughness is just straight-up a trap feat and WotC admitted as much, it's not that bad a choice at level 1. The difference between 10hp and 13hp puts you just beyond the maximum of an orc's 2d4+4 falchion. You'll still be murdered by that 15% crit rate (confirmation pending), but the confirmation roll makes that less common than the 37.5% chance that the orc will roll 10+ damage.

It's a terrible feat at the levels beyond the first, but if that one feat lets your character actually survive to level 2? Yeah, that might be worth it if you're in a lethal enough starting-from-1st-level campaign.

[Fizban]

and Disarm can potentially be a save-or-lose against humanoid foes. (Which are increasingly rare as you go up in level, but hey.)
Or at least they should be, but there are DMs who use them for pretty much everything. Was the only real problem with my last DM, every time went off module it was classed humanoids. And then there's the modules that are mostly classed humanoids. All of which is a problem because classed humanoid CR isn't, but if it is then yeah, you can fight lots of dudes who'll get wrecked by a disarm even without including monsters that fight primarily with weapons.

[eggynack]

Says you. The first time I looked at ITWF I saw it wasn't a great idea, but that's still not neccesary. In order to take the feat you need a certain amount of dex. If you don't have that dex, you obviously can't take the feat. If you make a character with the dex to take the GTWF, they will probably be better off with the whole TWF line than they would be with trying to two-handed power attack. (Unless they dumped con to get both high str and dex, in which case they're screwed with any non-archery build)
Fair enough, I suppose.



If you pick an entire trip build, maybe. But the trip build requires a lot more less obvious feats than it is given credit for. Meanwhile as bad as high cost as Spring Attack is you can still make use of it if you actually take it and try rather than assuming it does nothing, and Whirlwind Attack has it's uses if the DM is doing their job.
There are things that you can do that aren't just taking improved trip, but just taking improved trip is pretty solid. Yeah, you'd prefer some reach and combat reflexes, but they're not strictly necessary.


Pounce is not something there are five other ways to get though, there is only one way that takes less than 5+ levels, and it takes only one level (and non-lawful) for any character to get it from that source. Saying Barbarian goes up a tier because of pounce is like saying Wizard goes up a tier for having a spellbook-when a Sorcerer could get a spellbook with a single level dip without losing their spontaneous casting (and is never a level behind as feats for barb/fighter don't care about class level the way spellcasting does). Who is the higher tier?
That was a standard for class levels which isn't so present for standard levels. Yes, the sorcerer spellbook dip would be remarkably impactful, if a bit problematic to include if it's the only thing granting such a tier shift, but it'd be counted less than a feat doing the same thing. Realistically, something that ridiculous and out of place might merit its own entry. Similarly, pounce on a barbarian counts more than pounce on a fighter. Because a barbarian is a barbarian, and if you have to be a barbarian to play at that level then that's really an advantage for the barbarian, tiering wise. The primary consideration for spirit lion totem on a straight barbarian is whether removing it and using other ACFs would also mean a tier shift, rather than whether the specific ability is replaceable.

I don't think this mode of analysis, discounting base class and prestige class use somewhat, is perfect. But it strikes me as a necessary compromise between two positions that are very valid. First, that they're character resources like any other, and that they show up in play all the time, and second that using other classes reduces the degree to which we're analyzing the base class, especially when the class you're adding is a base class that already has a tier associated with it.

Anyways, it's not like I disagree with you in general about the fighter. As you may note, I gave them a 4 as well. I'm rather amused by the fact that I can spontaneously alter the tier from straight 4 to a tie by changing my vote to a 5.

Edit: Huh. My count functions were wrong. Me vote swapping would just straight up make fighters tier five, and a new entrant could cause a tie. Ridiculously close.

[Gnaeus]

Anyways, it's not like I disagree with you in general about the fighter. As you may note, I gave them a 4 as well. I'm rather amused by the fact that I can spontaneously alter the tier from straight 4 to a tie by changing my vote to a 5.

I don't think that's a bad thing. I can see Fighter as being on the T5/4 border. I won't get too worked up on which side of the imaginary line they hit as long as we understand that a strong wind can blow them either way.

[eggynack]

I don't think that's a bad thing. I can see Fighter as being on the T5/4 border. I won't get too worked up on which side of the imaginary line they hit as long as we understand that a strong wind can blow them either way.
I guess, but if it holds at exactly one vote from 5 for enough time it could make sense to peg them at 4.5 or something. It's the thinnest margin by a lot. It'd also make a bit of practical sense, setting them up as a fancy strict dividing line between tier four and five. Actually, while I don't love the idea of not exactly honoring the vote, I really like the idea of, at the end of all this, using the results to more exactly determine which classes are viewed as that dividing line. We're always setting up various classes as gates into or out of tiers, so having a reasonably conclusive set of gates could be one of the useful outputs of all this.

[OldTrees1]

I guess, but if it holds at exactly one vote from 5 for enough time it could make sense to peg them at 4.5 or something. It's the thinnest margin by a lot. It'd also make a bit of practical sense, setting them up as a fancy strict dividing line between tier four and five. Actually, while I don't love the idea of not exactly honoring the vote, I really like the idea of, at the end of all this, using the results to more exactly determine which classes are viewed as that dividing line. We're always setting up various classes as gates into or out of tiers, so having a reasonably conclusive set of gates could be one of the useful outputs of all this.

Sticking with the vote would be better given you are using indefinite voting periods and are displaying the vote breakdown in your table.

[eggynack]

Sticking with the vote would be better given you are using indefinite voting periods and are displaying the vote breakdown in your table.
Sure. Eventually revising the definitions to include more quantitatively determined breakpoints strikes me as more interesting at this point anyway. It's not perfect, because of course some theoretical future class could be voted worse than even a fighter and still land in tier four, but it strikes me as a useful piece of information. The fighter is actually really great here, because, as something so ridiculously on the line, we can probably say that anything better is at least tier four and anything worse is at most tier five, at least according to the people that've voted.

[yellowrocket]

After reading posts here I fall on the side of tier 4 for the fighter. I'm not going to rehash the arguments.

[Jopustopin]

Sure. Eventually revising the definitions to include more quantitatively determined breakpoints strikes me as more interesting at this point anyway. It's not perfect, because of course some theoretical future class could be voted worse than even a fighter and still land in tier four, but it strikes me as a useful piece of information. The fighter is actually really great here, because, as something so ridiculously on the line, we can probably say that anything better is at least tier four and anything worse is at most tier five, at least according to the people that've voted.

It doesn't look like you counted my vote. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21749314&postcount=25)

[Firechanter]

I say the Fighter is terrible.
Tier 5.

Reason being that while the Fighter _can_ be good at physical combat, that only applies as long as the opposition doesn't care to deny him his shtick. And it's so bloody _easy_ to deny him that. There are so many ways to take a Fighter out of the fight, E.B. Browning could have written a sonnet on the subject.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I say the Fighter is terrible.
Tier 5.

Reason being that while the Fighter _can_ be good at physical combat, that only applies as long as the opposition doesn't care to deny him his shtick. And it's so bloody _easy_ to deny him that. There are so many ways to take a Fighter out of the fight, E.B. Browning could have written a sonnet on the subject.
That tends to apply to all low-tier martial types, though. You're good at one thing, but severely messed up if it doesn't work.

[Troacctid]

You know what, I like that it's so close between 4 and 5. That seems really fitting. I'm changing my vote to "Whichever of the two has fewer votes (or 4.5 if they're tied)".

[Gemini476]

cf. anything that keeps the Barbarian from charging into reach of an enemy.

A Barbarian doesn't have much to punish a dragon who decides to just strafe with dragonbreath from the skies - unless they go the composite bow route, which they should probably have as a back-up but will also be pretty bad at because of the Dex focus. (Or get some way to fly, be it weak-to-dragonfire mount or magic boots.)

The Fighter can try to fill multiple niches to some degree, at least, although if they do that they're very much the Jack of Some Trades, Master of None. They can be decent at archery and melee combat, but if they do so then they aren't great at either.

Then again, in some ways Fighters suffer even more than the Barbarian in specialization since the fighter-exclusive feats and feat trees incentivize specializing to a degree greater than what the Barbarian does. Rage works with any melee weapon, after all - Weapon Focus only works on one weapon.


One big problem with the Fighter, I think, is that it seems to be built to shine in a situation that doesn't really happen - being a ECL 8 encounter with sixteen orcs, for instance.
Basically, once you keep this is mind:



Organization (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm#organization):
Gang (4-9), band (10-100 plus 100% noncombatants plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 20 adults and 1 leader of 4th-6th level), warband (10-24 plus 2-4 dire weasels (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/direWeasel.htm)), tribe (40-400 plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 20 adults, 1 or 2 lieutenants of 4th or 5th level, 1 leader of 6th-8th level, and 5-8 dire weasels (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/direWeasel.htm))



Suddenly Great Cleave and Whirlwind Attack look a bit better. And that -15 fourth iterative. Even Sunder makes sense when you fight enemies without magic items, since it's Disarm+ (that destroys loot, but who cares about mundane spears).

Heck, the Barbarian's and Adamantine's DR 3/-? That actually matters when fighting a bunch of mooks. Those 40-400 kobolds (number taken directly from OD&D's lack of an encounter balance system) suddenly can't hurt you with their 1d3-1 slings and the 1d6-1 spears are... well, {0,0,0,0,1,2} isn't exactly a good damage matrix.
It just doesn't really matter at all once you get into the big numbers.

But in the later-3E encounter design, you don't get the ECL-2 to ECL+5 encounters with lots of mooks the DMG suggests - things move towards universal ECL+0 encounters with maybe one NPC per PC. So Great Cleave is useless, because how often do you face multiple adjacent enemies that can be killed in a single strike?

[Aimeryan]

I say the Fighter is terrible.
Tier 5.

Reason being that while the Fighter _can_ be good at physical combat, that only applies as long as the opposition doesn't care to deny him his shtick. And it's so bloody _easy_ to deny him that. There are so many ways to take a Fighter out of the fight, E.B. Browning could have written a sonnet on the subject.

That issue isn't unique to the Fighter, or to Tier 5; a Barbarian has the exact same issue.

~~~

I agree with the others who have pointed out that we are tiering Barbarian largely on the basis of Pounce (an ACF, so not something they automatically get) and then saying we are denying that to the Fighter because that would be not be average optimisation (which I believe couldn't be further from the truth). I personally don't see any difference in the optimisation of a Fighter grabbing Pounce and a Barbarian grabbing Pounce.

As mentioned previously, any level of optimisation above completely new player is going to make at least a Tier 4 Fighter, just like they would make at least a Tier 4 Barbarian.

P.S., you can mark me down for Barbarian as Tier 4 as well.

[Troacctid]

I also think that the core Barbarian is better than the core Fighter, though. The class has a higher ceiling and a higher floor.

[Fizban]

How so? Core Barbarian is taking significant penalties to AC regardless of weapon/shield. Rage is about +1 attack/damage ahead of specialization line, frontloaded and usable with more weapons but of cripplingly limited use without access to Extra Rage. The only advantages it has are in skills and special defenses, which are compared to the Fighter's feats and normal defenses. All Core Barbarian really has higher strength checks to use with Improved Trip- which requires an int based feat that screams "not barbarian" by even being called out as unusable in rage (even if Improved Trip itself is).

[Troacctid]

More HP, more damage, more skill points.

[Bucky]

Fighter: Tier 5


As explained upthread, I think they start off Tier 4, but fall off too much at higher levels to remain there on average. Aggressive optimization can keep them in T4 for longer, but we can expect tier bumps from aggressive optimization across most of the tier list.

Also, I'm a bit spoiled from Pathfinder, whose fighters actually get some degree of scaling class features.

[Jopustopin]

More HP, more damage, more skill points.

Also the +2 will save, while not much is also huge. I know from experience the thing that starts taking fighters out of the fight is failing will saves. Barbarians have a much higher chance of beating sleep/color spray at level 1 and this small but important boost continually puts them ahead of the fighter at every level. A fighter is more likely to put a bonus (if he has any left) into Intelligence due to their low skill points. A barbarian is more likely to put a higher stat into Wisdom due to having no need for intelligence (as opposed to a fighter who does have a need for intelligence) and having Spot and Listen as class skills.

Basically, while raging, a Barbarian is going to have +3 - +4 Will save over the fighter, in Core.

[Fizban]

More HP, more damage, more skill points.
+1 hp/level, at the cost of getting hit 10% more often while raging and another 10% more often once heavy armor shows up. +2-3 damage up to level 4, after which it's +1 point of damage, if you're two-handing, when you're raging.

All claims about will save and damage depend on when you're raging, which you can only use 1/day. 1/day, until 4th, at which point it's 2/day. In one fight you have a bonus, in all the rest you're worse off. At the level where the Barbarian gets rage 4/day, the Fighter gets Greater Weapon Spec and continues to match the bonus damage from rage, and they have enough feats to afford Iron Will and Great Fortitude if they want. So where is this so-called advantage?

It's skills and special defenses, which are cancelled out by normal defenses, as in AC. That's called a tradeoff, not an advantage.

[Efrate]

Fighter Tier 5, but high 5. It has some decent ACFs, but judging fighter as a fighter, not as a barbarian 1/fighter19, it falls short. 4.5 is very nice for it actually, but I'm leaning more towards 5 because ACFs and such that you take are not as obvious or fixing of your primary melee problem. You might rebound from a mistake better but have a lot more options to make that many more mistakes. Your skills are bad, your class features are more or less non-existent, and you have helping ACFs but I think for every decent fighter or feat chain there are so many more bad choices that it sits you in 5.

Barbarian:Tier 4. We all know pounce is great. Move and full attack is awesome for melee types, especially considering that WotC tends to hate mobile melee combatants. Its an epic feat for a one level dip. A horrible epic feat, consdering its a one level dip, but one in a few epic games I ran was eagerly looked forward to because no one looked into ACFs deeply or at all. But its not just that. Wolf get you improved trip without int, bear I believe gives you grapple stuff, and so on. Just because most melees "need" pounce they get overlooked. Rage is nice, will bonus is nice, DR is not totally irrelevant though minor. Spot and listen are class skills, and your list at 4 plus int is actually what you would expect and is a huge mark in your favor. Fast movement also means you can escape most encounters at lower levels without things catching up, which can be very nice.

CW Samurai: Tier 6. It is bad. Its best feature is... falling can get you into ronin which isn't the worst? You are a worse fighter. You are better than a warrior....maybe. Sometimes. Its probably the top of t6, but its in there.

OA samurai: Tier 5. You might be a better fighter. Or at least better for a while. Some neat features and skills.

[OldTrees1]

Fighter Tier 5, but high 5. It has some decent ACFs, but judging fighter as a fighter, not as a barbarian 1/fighter19, it falls short. 4.5 is very nice for it actually, but I'm leaning more towards 5 because ACFs and such that you take are not as obvious or fixing of your primary melee problem. You might rebound from a mistake better but have a lot more options to make that many more mistakes. Your skills are bad, your class features are more or less non-existent, and you have helping ACFs but I think for every decent fighter or feat chain there are so many more bad choices that it sits you in 5.

2 Questions:
1) Did you account for how the Fighter's class feature allows them to pick up more non [Fighter] feats than other Martial Characters?

2) Will you also use your "there are so many more bad choices" metric when you judge spellcasters that choose spells known? The Sor/Wiz list is plagued with hundreds of bad spell, yet most tier Sor based on the top 20 percent of spells.

[ryu]

2 Questions:
1) Did you account for how the Fighter's class feature allows them to pick up more non [Fighter] feats than other Martial Characters?

2) Will you also use your "there are so many more bad choices" metric when you judge spellcasters that choose spells known? The Sor/Wiz list is plagued with hundreds of bad spell, yet most tier Sor based on the top 20 percent of spells.

Thing is, they get a lot more spell choices than fighters get feat choices. Like, a lot more. Like, it's literally possible to afford every wizard spell that exists with a fraction of level 20 WBL, more. It's significantly more forgiving of mistakes.

[Troacctid]

And while there are plenty of bad spells, few of them are trap spells. The bad spells tend to look bad or sound lame, so even new players don't pick them very often.

[eggynack]

Thing is, they get a lot more spell choices than fighters get feat choices. Like, a lot more. Like, it's literally possible to afford every wizard spell that exists with a fraction of level 20 WBL, more. It's significantly more forgiving of mistakes.
I think that was directed at sorcerers rather than wizards. Point still stands though. Especially because even if low end for each class were comparable, the middle and high ends are radically dissimilar. That the fighter takes a disadvantage at the low end isn't by any means representative of their whole existence. But it's a downgrade. Whether it's a downgrade worthy of a shift to five, I don't know. I don't personally think so.

On that note, that Troacctid "4.5" vote has been super impactful in terms of keeping the fighter at 4.5. I keep thinking a vote will make them a straight up 5, but it's just been rolling along at 4.5 forever without any need to update it. Thought it'd be more strenuous to maintain that, but it's probably actually less work than editing the OP for this thread and the base thread every time someone tilts this ridiculously close vote.

[OldTrees1]

Thing is, they get a lot more spell choices than fighters get feat choices. Like, a lot more. Like, it's literally possible to afford every wizard spell that exists with a fraction of level 20 WBL, more. It's significantly more forgiving of mistakes.

As eggynack said, that was aimed at classes that pick spells known(Sorcerer).


And while there are plenty of bad spells, few of them are trap spells. The bad spells tend to look bad or sound lame, so even new players don't pick them very often.

Considering Sorcerers are usually put into Tier 2, all spells less than good would be equivalent in trap value as any trap options that would affect a tier 4-5 shift.

The "disregard weaker options that tend to look bad or sound lame, so even new players don't pick them very often" principle could be reasonable, but one would have to apply it equally.

So if we consider TWF(a Tier 6 feat) when tiering Fighter, then we would consider Fireball(a Tier 4 spell) when tiering Sorcerer.



However I was asking Efrate about their less sophisticated principle "For every tier X option there are so many tier Z options that the class is tier Y" and whether they would apply that principle to other cases it would be equally applicable.




My own vote:
Fighter Tier 4.5*: The ability to leverage their bonus feats to grant more non [Fighter] feats than their peers allows them access to many great versatility improving feats(like flight). However they struggle to use their full attack(frequently falling back to Combat Reflexes to deliver their attacks per round). Their alternate class features help expand their skill range, but not every Fighter will choose those ACFs and there are too few to expect them you have at least 1.
*Like Troacctid, I vote for either Tier 4 or Tier 5, whichever has the fewest votes.

[Troacctid]

I'm not saying Sorcerers who pick mediocre spells and land in T3 aren't considered. I'm just saying they're going to be less common than Fighters who pick mediocre feats and land in T5, so it weighs more heavily against the Fighter when considering the average build. After all, no matter what happens, the Sorcerer is still scaling up all the way to 9th level spells, and even if you pick clenched fist instead of polymorph any object, you're still doing more powerful things than any T3 class.

[OldTrees1]

I'm not saying Sorcerers who pick mediocre spells and land in T3 aren't considered.

Then you are applying your principle equally.

Initially I was asking Efrate if they would apply their principle equally. Both "Yes, I would apply it to other relevant cases" and "No, I would not apply it in those cases so I will not apply it in this case" are reasonable responses.

[ryu]

Then you are applying your principle equally.

Initially I was asking Efrate if they would apply their principle equally. Both "Yes, I would apply it to other relevant cases" and "No, I would not apply it in those cases so I will not apply it in this case" are reasonable responses.

I mean... Even as a sorcerer there are plenty of ways of getting more picks, and they still get more spells baseline than fighters get feats.

[OldTrees1]

I mean... Even as a sorcerer there are plenty of ways of getting more picks, and they still get more spells baseline than fighters get feats.

This reply does not follow from the quote you quoted.

Do you agree that principles should be applied equally?

[ryu]

This reply does not follow from the quote you quoted.

Do you agree that principles should be applied equally?

In cases where the conditions that invoke the principle are actually equal yes. They aren't in this case. It's both harder to mess up a sorcerer, and easier to recover if you do, than an equivalent fighter mess-up.

[OldTrees1]

In cases where the conditions that invoke the principle are actually equal yes. They aren't in this case. It's both harder to mess up a sorcerer, and easier to recover if you do, than an equivalent fighter mess-up.
Semantics

If I apply F(X)=X2 equally to all values of X, then I get the parabola Y=X2. You appear to agree with that.

[Grod_The_Giant]

It's both harder to mess up a sorcerer, and easier to recover if you do, than an equivalent fighter mess-up.
Meh. I consider the ability to "recover" a character highly overrated. Playstyles don't generally change that much over time.

[ryu]

Semantics

If I apply F(X)=X2 equally to all values of X, then I get the parabola Y=X2. You appear to agree with that.

No not semantics. You do not apply the F(X) formula to clearly different variable Z. Yes you can screw up a sorcerer harder than you can a wizard, yes that's part of why I consider them tier 2 in addition to powers granted by being able to pull on a wider number of spells known for wizard, and being a level behind that wizard. No this does not make sorcerers comparably, tier droppingly screw-able to fighters.

[OldTrees1]

No not semantics. You do not apply the F(X) formula to clearly different variable Z. Yes you can screw up a sorcerer harder than you can a wizard, yes that's part of why I consider them tier 2 in addition to powers granted by being able to pull on a wider number of spells known for wizard, and being a level behind that wizard. No this does not make sorcerers comparably, tier droppingly screw-able to fighters.

Oh my, a different X value totally deserves a different function. It is not like we can be consistent in our application of our principles.

At this point you either agree and don't recognize that due to semantics (my bet) or you disagree on a fundamental level (your bet). Have fun with that.

[eggynack]

Oh my, a different X value totally deserves a different function. It is not like we can be consistent in our application of our principles.
Pretty sure Ryu is arguing that sorcerers have a different function at the baseline. Like, if they got as few and as unchangeable spells known as a sorcerer, then the same function would apply. But they don't, so an argument that works with the fighter regarding poor feat choice either works worse or doesn't work at all for the sorcerer.

[ryu]

Pretty sure Ryu is arguing that sorcerers have a different function at the baseline. Like, if they got as few and as unchangeable spells known as a sorcerer, then the same function would apply. But they don't, so an argument that works with the fighter regarding poor feat choice either works worse or doesn't work at all for the sorcerer.

Indeed. Similarly Z is not a value of X. It has no inherent relation to X at at all. You apply F(X) to Z consistently you fail algebra. You want F(Z). This is why we have different variables. It's to define things that are distinct form one another, unless explicitly related in an equation Where one is equal to or a modification of the other.

[OldTrees1]

Pretty sure Ryu is arguing that sorcerers have a different function at the baseline. Like, if they got as few and as unchangeable spells known as a sorcerer, then the same function would apply. But they don't, so an argument that works with the fighter regarding poor feat choice either works worse or doesn't work at all for the sorcerer.

The base principle I was asking Efrate about was a level or 2 more abstract that Ryu is operating at. Thus Ryu's X and Z are actually just X=a and X=b. However ryu is free to believe there is disagreement where there is not.

[ryu]

The base principle I was asking Efrate about was a level or 2 more abstract that Ryu is operating at. Thus Ryu's X and Z are actually just X=a and X=b. However ryu is free to believe there is disagreement where there is not.

That your position as agreeing with a second person who considered sorcerer as possibly dropping sorcerer to 3 due to the possibility of screwing up? No. In order to be 3, they'd be in the same general realm as warmages, which blow goats for pocket change. Sorcerers are tier 2 while fighters are tier 5 in part because they're much easier to screw up than sorcerers. If you do not agree with that statement then, no, we do not agree, and I find your finagling of my position pretentious.

[OldTrees1]

That your position as agreeing with a second person who considered sorcerer as possibly dropping sorcerer to 3 due to the possibility of screwing up? No. In order to be 3, they'd be in the same general realm as warmages, which blow goats for pocket change. Sorcerers are tier 2 while fighters are tier 5 in part because they're much easier to screw up than sorcerers. If you do not agree with that statement then, no, we do not agree, and I find your finagling of my position pretentious.

Considering I have not stated my position on Sorcerer and have not stated my position on any class within the scope of our conversation, you have lost the conversation and are speaking to a fiction of your own creation.

[ryu]

I'm not saying Sorcerers who pick mediocre spells and land in T3 aren't considered. I'm just saying they're going to be less common than Fighters who pick mediocre feats and land in T5, so it weighs more heavily against the Fighter when considering the average build. After all, no matter what happens, the Sorcerer is still scaling up all the way to 9th level spells, and even if you pick clenched fist instead of polymorph any object, you're still doing more powerful things than any T3 class.


Then you are applying your principle equally.

Initially I was asking Efrate if they would apply their principle equally. Both "Yes, I would apply it to other relevant cases" and "No, I would not apply it in those cases so I will not apply it in this case" are reasonable responses.

You stated in pure, unequivocal that to use this argument to tier fighters 5, one must similar consider it legitimate to tier sorcerers 3. No. The situations are not equivalent. Now stop slandering my position, by claiming it agrees with yours.

[OldTrees1]

You stated in pure, unequivocal that to use this argument to tier fighters 5, one must similar consider it legitimate to tier sorcerers 3. No. The situations are not equivalent. Now stop slandering my position, by claiming it agrees with yours.

No I did not state that. Reading those quotes and the quotes that precede them will bear me out on this. I will explain with 3 points (the first two will disprove your claim and the 3rd addresses your concern)

1) Which principle is being discussed in the scope of our conversation? Is it Efrate's or Troacctid's? Considering you replied to the question to Efrate I have been presuming it is Efrate's principle being discussed.

2) My reply to Troacctid about their principle (which is what you just quoted) talked about Sorcerer CHARACTERS that ended up in Tier 3 due to poor spell choices. Troacctid said that their use of their principle (notice how Troacctid and Efrate are different people?) considered poor choices in both cases but did not imply Tiering the Fighter class as Tier 5 implied Tiering the Sorcerer class as Tier 3. Far from it, anyone reading Troacctid's post would presume Troacctid's equal application of Troacctid's principle would end up with Tiering Sorcerer as Tier 2. And what was my reply to Troacctid? I said they are clearly applying their principle equally.

3) I am not slandering your position by saying I expect you believe in being fair and logical in your application of principles. Nobody reading your posts would accuse you of being unfair or illogical. All the slander you perceive is due to your unknowing misrepresentation of what I am talking about.

[Efrate]

I am of the boat that despite a huge number of not great spells, it is still easier to recover. Sorcerers get more spells than fighters get feats, and can swap them out natively. Fighters need time and retraining rules, and there are fewer great or amazing feats than there are great or amazing spells. There are few trap or useless spells compared to trap or useless feats. Yes a fighter has more room take non fighter feats, but the other classes that want those other feats dont want many fighter feats, so its a minor advantage. I still stick by tier 5, though 4.5 is definitely reasonable.

[OldTrees1]

I am of the boat that despite a huge number of not great spells, -snip-

As I suspected, you would apply your principle to both cases. If I read that correctly you will likely conclude that Sorcerers are still Tier 2 once we get to that thread. Nice to hear the consistency.

[ryu]

Equal does not mean fair. Equal as applied to verbs, means doing the same thing across situations regardless of the content of those situations. Fair as applied to verbs means moderating your action based upon the content of situations in a way that would be commonly held as reasonable or agreeable. I hate when people use false synonyms in conversation.

[Aimeryan]

Fighter Tier 5, but high 5. It has some decent ACFs, but judging fighter as a fighter, not as a barbarian 1/fighter19, it falls short. 4.5 is very nice for it actually, but I'm leaning more towards 5 because ACFs and such that you take are not as obvious or fixing of your primary melee problem. You might rebound from a mistake better but have a lot more options to make that many more mistakes. Your skills are bad, your class features are more or less non-existent, and you have helping ACFs but I think for every decent fighter or feat chain there are so many more bad choices that it sits you in 5.

We are not considering Fighter as meaning only Fighter 20; this is not that sort of tiering thread. You should consider Fighter 20, Fighter 19/Barbarian 1, and other possibilities as a weighting based on average uptake by players. In this respect, Fighter 20 is actually a very low weighting to its tiering because very few actually go full Fighter 20. As a note, we are still limiting dips, so Fighter 10/Barbarian 10 is not to be weighted for, but we are not ruling them out - where the exact cut-off is has not been established, but I would put forth that you should probably have at least twice the number in Fighter as all other classes put together. Other people may decide differently.

Could I ask of you what tiering you would give Fighter 19/Barbarian 1, presuming Pounce (Spiritual Lion)? Or maybe even Fighter 18/Barbarian 2, taking Pounce (Spiritual Lion) and Improved Trip (Tribe Wolf)? Keeping in mind you were specifically using those to rate the Barbarian - which is, of course, perfectly fine since the weighting for those should be fairly high given average uptake by players is very high.

[Efrate]

Pouncing fighter is high 4.5, low 4. Its a great boon to melee but still you lack anything else for the most part. I try to make my evaluations on strictly class 20 however, merely because I think that is more fundamental to knowing how to represent the class. If you dip into x y or z, or even if just x, I do not think its representative to the class. Maybe its that most my tables are low to no op, hence why I generally DM, but I have seen all of 2 pounce dips, and dozens of melee builds without.

[eggynack]

I mean, it should be considered less than, I dunno, knock-down, obviously, and less than something like thug, a bit but not that much less obviously. I generally contextualize a straightforward one level barbarian dip, no ACFs or anything, as somewhat less weighted than native feats or ACFs as a general class of game object, though a sufficient obscurity modifier could give the super not-obscure dip a better weighting in some instantiated case. From there, considering the combination of a barbarian dip and the barbarian ACF, I suppose you'd take that dip in another class weighting and multiply it by whatever weighting you give the ACF when the barbarian takes it. Maybe less, cause you could assume a dip is taking place in a somewhat higher optimization environment anyway. What I guess I'm getting at is that, at least in my personal model for tiering, I ascribe a negative weighting to various game objects for a number of different reasons. The game object in this case being a different class is one of them. That said other class is only one or two levels reduces that negative weighting somewhat. That it's a rather unique piece of utility does not reduce that negative weighting, and where something else could plausibly hit feat level, this might not. Still, just not assessing it as a factor is wrong.

Anyway, completely separate thing, is there any interest in the ninja, rogue, and scout thread? If it keeps this lack of pace up, I'm liable to start up the next thread in the next day or two. It's not a significant problem or anything, cause the thread'll still be there later, awaiting votes and discussion, but this would certainly limit its time as the "main thread" as it were.

[Fizban]

I've been resting my forum muscles but I'll get over to there eventually, no one's bothered trying to refute me with any numbers here anyway.

[Dunsparce]

For the handful of people claiming that the OA Samurai shouldn't count because it's a 3.0 class, Dragon Magazine had an official 3.5 conversion for the entire book made by the people that actually worked on the original.

The biggest change was the Introduction of DR/Jade and DR/Honorable among the various creatures in the book. A Samurai's special weapons count as Honorable for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction(they also introduced a level 1 spell that gives turns a weapon Honorable, these are the only two ways to bypass it)

[danielxcutter]

For the handful of people claiming that the OA Samurai shouldn't count because it's a 3.0 class, Dragon Magazine had an official 3.5 conversion for the entire book made by the people that actually worked on the original.

The biggest change was the Introduction of DR/Jade and DR/Honorable among the various creatures in the book. A Samurai's special weapons count as Honorable for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction(they also introduced a level 1 spell that gives turns a weapon Honorable, these are the only two ways to bypass it)

There are ways to completely ignore that, but they work on all forms of DR - even DR/epic or DR/--, so I guess they don't count?

[Dunsparce]

There are ways to completely ignore that, but they work on all forms of DR - even DR/epic or DR/--, so I guess they don't count?

Yeah, I was ignoring things that can bypass all DR, like Mountain Hammer, ect. I guess I should've worded it as "These are the only readily available ways to gain the Honorable property"

[Gnaeus]

Could I ask of you what tiering you would give Fighter 19/Barbarian 1, presuming Pounce (Spiritual Lion)? Or maybe even Fighter 18/Barbarian 2, taking Pounce (Spiritual Lion) and Improved Trip (Tribe Wolf)? Keeping in mind you were specifically using those to rate the Barbarian - which is, of course, perfectly fine since the weighting for those should be fairly high given average uptake by players is very high.

I would give it the same Tier as a Samurai 19/Barbarian 1, or a Warrior 19/Barbarian 1. Dips may be considered, but are strongly at a higher op place. Dips for an ACF ability even more so. And any one of those classes can make an ubercharger that can kill most relevant targets through most of their level ranges, or be so bad as to be less than the clerics undead or the Druids pet or wizards planar binds.

[Gemini476]

Isn't a one-level dip more like a two-level one given how multiclass XP penalties work out with the increased XP for fighting higher-CR opponents? IIRC you always end up one level behind, so it's more like Fighter 20 vs. Fighter 18/Barbarian 1.

Unless you don't ever take more than two levels of Fighter, but, well.

I feel like I'd have to check the maths to be sure, but it looks correct at a glance.

[Troacctid]

I'm assuming we're tiering all 20 levels of the class, or else Fighter would only be 2 levels long and we'd be having a totally different conversation.

[OldTrees1]

Isn't a one-level dip more like a two-level one given how multiclass XP penalties work out with the increased XP for fighting higher-CR opponents? IIRC you always end up one level behind, so it's more like Fighter 20 vs. Fighter 18/Barbarian 1.

Unless you don't ever take more than two levels of Fighter, but, well.

I feel like I'd have to check the maths to be sure, but it looks correct at a glance.

1) Multiclass xp penalties are almost never used.
2) Favored classes make it easy to avoid multiclass xp penalty.
3) XP is a river and thus the 20% xp penalty would not lead to a full level lost IIRC (you are double checking the math as I type).



Someday in the future we may iterate again and have a more accurate tiering system via measuring value added by the class(kinda like how the PrC tiering went). That better system will be able to handle multiclassing with the accuracy needed to be an improvement. However that day is not this day. This day has had its own improvements towards perfection and I for one am satisfied with that progress.

TLDR: I will presume straight classed characters for this project even though in 10 years we might be ready to handle multiclassing.

[lord_khaine]

I kinda agree on there being to many different viables to considder anything but straight classes.

Partly i guess, because it would muddle the issue of where the power came from. Just for example, imagine what sort of power boost even a single level warblade could bring to a martrial class.

[Jopustopin]

I kinda agree on there being to many different viables to considder anything but straight classes.

Partly i guess, because it would muddle the issue of where the power came from. Just for example, imagine what sort of power boost even a single level warblade could bring to a martrial class.

The single greatest failing in my subjective experience with fighters and to a lesser extent Barbarians is failing will saves. A single level of Warblade would easily push each of these classes out of the tiers I voted for them to be in. That... is why when I voted I only considered straight classes.

[Fizban]

Dragon Magazine had an official 3.5 conversion for the entire book made by the people that actually worked on the original.

The biggest change
And a significant rebuilding of the Sohei to match the 3.5 Barbarian's rage changes. And the complete replacement of a bunch of +2 skill feats with actual unique feats. And the Hengeyokai +0 LA change. And the Kimono of Storing price.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Barbarian: Low to mid tier 4. Good at beating things up, not much else besides intimidate builds, which others can do just as well practically (1/encounter you can immediate action cower-lock a foe to rob him of his turn, that's the one advantage Barbs have over the others, w/ heavy investment). Gets a lot of options in splats, all of it pretty balanced except for the 1 level dip Pounce.

Fighter: I'd say mid tier 4. Actually slightly better at killing things than Barb thanks to PHB2 feats, but a little less utility. Zhentarim gives you swift action demoralize at level 9 for absolutely no cost; Hit and Run gives nice buffs for the low cost of dipping a level elsewhere to get your proficiencies back (if you even care...HaR fighter can use mithral breastplate and a 2H weapon w/ a mithral animated shield just fine); and Dungeoncrasher + Knockback is golden.

Samurai (CW): If tier 6 exists, it exists to place this class in it. Holy crap does Samurai suck! Even w/ Imperious Command, anyone else can use it just as well or better (the rage feat to demoralize when you enter it, Zhentarim Fighter, anyone w/ that dirt cheap armor property to demoralize as a move action...). Samurai was written to make the monk feel better, not much else.

Samurai (OA): Fighter w/o the splat love, it's in tier 5 somewhere. It can at least fight competently, so probably above the Monk in that tier, I guess upper-ish.

[Aimeryan]

I would give it the same Tier as a Samurai 19/Barbarian 1, or a Warrior 19/Barbarian 1. Dips may be considered, but are strongly at a higher op place. Dips for an ACF ability even more so. And any one of those classes can make an ubercharger that can kill most relevant targets through most of their level ranges, or be so bad as to be less than the clerics undead or the Druids pet or wizards planar binds.

I disagree very strongly on the optimisation level you are stating, here; I feel it is one of the lowest forms of optimisation that occurs in this case. Multiclassing is the hallmark feature of D&D 3rd edition/3.5e and a class like Fighter, who lacks his own class features, was practically designed to be part of a multiclass experience. Saying that taking one single level of another melee class is high optimisation just strikes me as so wrong.

The consideration of the optimisation level of an ACF is, or should be, dependent on the obscurity and uptake of such an ACF. For Spiritual Lion Totem (Pounce) this results in an average optimisation level - it is taken by the average player. The resultant optimisation level of a Fighter taking a single level dip into Barbarian for the ACF is that of an average optimisation level, and thus the weighting for it should be very favourable.

Your last sentence has some interesting discussion for me, however. I do not disagree that many a Tier 5 can be brought up to Tier 4 by that single dip for Pounce. You have made the implication here that this nullifies its value in a tiering system, or at least that is how I am reading this. However, it does not, because it does not do this uniformly; a Monk will not be Tier 4 by grabbing Pounce, a Commoner will not be Tier 4 by grabbing Pounce.

[Gnaeus]

I disagree very strongly on the optimisation level you are stating, here; I feel it is one of the lowest forms of optimisation that occurs in this case. Multiclassing is the hallmark feature of D&D 3rd edition/3.5e and a class like Fighter, who lacks his own class features, was practically designed to be part of a multiclass experience. Saying that taking one single level of another melee class is high optimisation just strikes me as so wrong.

The consideration of the optimisation level of an ACF is, or should be, dependent on the obscurity and uptake of such an ACF. For Spiritual Lion Totem (Pounce) this results in an average optimisation level - it is taken by the average player. The resultant optimisation level of a Fighter taking a single level dip into Barbarian for the ACF is that of an average optimisation level, and thus the weighting for it should be very favourable.

Your last sentence has some interesting discussion for me, however. I do not disagree that many a Tier 5 can be brought up to Tier 4 by that single dip for Pounce. You have made the implication here that this nullifies its value in a tiering system, or at least that is how I am reading this. However, it does not, because it does not do this uniformly; a Monk will not be Tier 4 by grabbing Pounce, a Commoner will not be Tier 4 by grabbing Pounce.

Grabbing other specific abilities through multiclassing is at least mid op. At a low op level you might multiclass because it sounds cool, but picking good options because they are mechanically superior is mid, and picking them to build synergistic combos is high. The problem with discussing this in relation to Fighter is that fighter sucks so badly that I can't really think of any likely dip that doesn't improve it. Multiclassing into a casting class in which you don't even have a high enough stat to cast spells is still likely to exceed 1/2 feat +1 BaB in most cases. I guess Knight or Soulblade aren't dip worthy. Heck, CW Samurai 1 gives a feat, a fort bump and some handy skills, and is clearly better than fighter 3. So yeah, a low op player could decide multiclassing is cool, roll randomly to see which class he takes, and almost certainly get better, but that's hardly a selling point for fighter.

And no, I don't think it invalidates the Tier system at all. I think it highlights the parts of the Tier system that say that you can shift tiers through optimization and that multiclass combos unless completely unsynergistic will tend towards the higher tier class.

[Aimeryan]

And no, I don't think it invalidates the Tier system at all. I think it highlights the parts of the Tier system that say that you can shift tiers through optimization and that multiclass combos unless completely unsynergistic will tend towards the higher tier class.

Again, I think we are trying to tier different things. The procedure here is to take optimisation into account and weight it accordingly, while you are attempting to tier for completely new players only - and then only the ones that lack the ability to find information or decide to make informed choices through other means. In such a case you could say that multiclassing for benefit is beyond such a player, although I would argue the same about feats, about items, about any choice they have, quite frankly. Regardless, it isn't what we are tiering here, at least not solely.

[Jopustopin]

Again, I think we are trying to tier different things. The procedure here is to take optimisation into account and weight it accordingly, while you are attempting to tier for completely new players only - and then only the ones that lack the ability to find information or decide to make informed choices through other means. In such a case you could say that multiclassing for benefit is beyond such a player, although I would argue the same about feats, about items, about any choice they have, quite frankly. Regardless, it isn't what we are tiering here, at least not solely.

Trying to "tier" all the classes while factoring in multi-classing is frankly incoherent. An Abrupt Jaunting Conjurer with a fighter bonus feat dip for a fighter is not something I'm factoring in to the "fighter" class. That's absurd the amount of scenario's is ridiculous and pushes EVERY low tier class UP an ENTIRE tier. How is that useful at all?

[OldTrees1]

Trying to "tier" all the classes while factoring in multi-classing is frankly incoherent. An Abrupt Jaunting Conjurer with a fighter bonus feat dip for a fighter is not something I'm factoring in to the "fighter" class. That's absurd the amount of scenario's is ridiculous and pushes EVERY low tier class UP an ENTIRE tier. How is that useful at all?

Have you considered how they tiered prestige classes? That is similar to how you would tier base classes in the context that multiclassing can occur. What tier of value does Fighter add to the character?

Although I don't think we are considering the multiclassing context this iteration.

[eggynack]

Have you considered how they tiered prestige classes? That is similar to how you would tier base classes in the context that multiclassing can occur. What tier of value does Fighter add to the character?
Yeah, we could even largely limit analysis to dips, and even more specifically martial dips. That's where the meat of multiclassing is, after all. Not precisely sure what the underlying measuring system would look like, and there's obviously a ton of complexity involved in the specifics, but there's a plausible adjunct system to it.


Although I don't think we are considering the multiclassing context this iteration.
We're considering it somewhat. Generally speaking, dips and things that offer non-unique utility are considered a decent amount, things that fit both categories are considered quite a lot, and things that fit neither category are considered very little. The dip thing, as noted above, I'd expect to broadly apply to base classes though not prestige classes.

[Jopustopin]

Take my votes out. A tier system for multi-classed characters and calling them a fighter is incoherent, pointless, and misleading.

[Troacctid]

We cannot possibly consider multiclassing without making the project basically useless. There are an infinite number of permutations and it is impossible to analyze. Tiering only the first two levels of Fighter or Barbarian or Monk is a completely different discussion than tiering all 20 levels.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah, i mean im already lost at the possibilities if we add as little as a 2 levels dip.

[eggynack]

Take my votes out. A tier system for multi-classed characters and calling them a fighter is incoherent, pointless, and misleading.
I mean, we're still placing heavy emphasis on base class characters, considering dips as something of a less frequently used version of a feat. The provision for non-unique features doesn't make that much of a difference, because if it's non-unique then it's just one more way to do the same thing, and thus not all that important. This isn't a tier system for all multiclassed class permutations. It's an analysis largely centered on the class as it exists with the occasional dip as a potential resource, as it exists in real games.


We cannot possibly consider multiclassing without making the project basically useless. There are an infinite number of permutations and it is impossible to analyze. Tiering only the first two levels of Fighter or Barbarian or Monk is a completely different discussion than tiering all 20 levels.
We're definitely not tiering only the first two levels of anything here. That would, in fact, be a completely different project, which I was saying might be worth consideration later. I'm just saying that, in the analysis of the fighter, a fighter 18/barbarian 2 (in some order) wouldn't be completely outside the bounds of what we're talking about, even if it's considered less than the fighter 19/barbarian 1, or the fighter 20.

Edit: I'm not really sure why the possibility of a couple levels of a different class is any more complicated than the kinda analysis which we're going to be applying to the sorcerer later. Or, to touch on these melee classes, the radical quantity of feat permutations available.

[Jopustopin]

I mean, we're still placing heavy emphasis on base class characters, considering dips as something of a less frequently used version of a feat. The provision for non-unique features doesn't make that much of a difference, because if it's non-unique then it's just one more way to do the same thing, and thus not all that important. This isn't a tier system for all multiclassed class permutations. It's an analysis largely centered on the class as it exists with the occasional dip as a potential resource, as it exists in real games.


I understand what you're saying; I just disagree with it. I think that if you allow for dips, then, the tier 6 classes almost entirely get to bump up a level to tier 5. The tier 5 classes now can accomplish what we've defined as being tier 4 and almost all the tier 4 classes are tier 3. A fighter 4 who dips one level of wizard loses 1 BAB. He gains +2 will (basically Iron Will as a bonus feat), A fighter bonus feat (trading scribe scroll away), the ability to abrupt jaunt probably twice or maybe three times a day, and some handy buffing spells like Shield, enlarge person, fist of stone, nerveskitter, or whatever else you want. He can use magic device with the entire wizard's lists of spells. That same fighter dips barbarian the next level and gets pounce. We now have a fighter 4/Barbarian 1/Wizard 1. At level 9 he picks up a level of warblade. THAT IS NOT A FIGHTER. Honestly at this point you've created a possibly tier 3 melee champion who has excellent saving throws, pounce, can abrupt jaunt, and full attacks like a beast. He can overcome DR once every other attack. Any fighter feat he has, he can switch around at will thanks to weapon aptitude.

Allowing dips makes your project meaningless (to me) and as such, I withdraw my votes as they are based on something you're not evaluating. I consider it misleading to claim the fighter is tier 5 when any moron can dip a class or two and make his fighter tier 4 or tier 3. I mean a cleric dip to almost ANY tier 4,5, and 6 class raises the class by a tier. It's incoherent to call a commoner with a cleric dip a commoner.

[Troacctid]

It only takes a single level of Warblade for a Fighter to feel more like a Warblade than a Fighter. Make it two levels of Warblade and you might as well just be tiering Warblade. So yes, you would essentially be tiering the first two levels of some classes.

[eggynack]

I understand what you're saying; I just disagree with it. I think that if you allow for dips, then, the tier 6 classes almost entirely get to bump up a level to tier 5. The tier 5 classes now can accomplish what we've defined as being tier 4 and almost all the tier 4 classes are tier 3. A fighter 4 who dips one level of wizard loses 1 BAB. He gains +2 will (basically Iron Will as a bonus feat), A fighter bonus feat (trading scribe scroll away), the ability to abrupt jaunt probably twice or maybe three times a day, and some handy buffing spells like Shield, enlarge person, fist of stone, nerveskitter, or whatever else you want. He can use magic device with the entire wizard's lists of spells. That same fighter dips barbarian the next level and gets pounce. We now have a fighter 4/Barbarian 1/Wizard 1. At level 9 he picks up a level of warblade. THAT IS NOT A FIGHTER. Honestly at this point you've created a possibly tier 3 melee champion who has excellent saving throws, pounce, can abrupt jaunt, and full attacks like a beast. He can overcome DR once every other attack. Any fighter feat he has, he can switch around at will thanks to weapon aptitude.
Well, we still operate under the principle of equal utility here. A wizard or cleric dip is good for a fighter, but it's also good for a commoner, samurai, monk, nearly any of these low tier classes really. Thus, the tier moving capacity of some of these dips is somewhat reduced. Moreover, we operate under the principle of optimization consideration. A cloistered cleric dip for three great devotions is really good, but is it so much better than near-perfect feat optimization, or picking all the best fighter ACFs? Using a couple of these dips is indeed really meaningful, but at that point we're doing a couple of these in concert, and the underlying notion of level limitation kinda stacks together so a sufficient quantity of non-fighter levels would take you even further from consideration than just one.

Basically, I don't think you're overrating these things. I think you're overrating how much they factor in. Some things in the game are good. Dips are some of them. That a barbarian, wizard, and warblade dip could get a fighter to tier three does not make the fighter tier three, any more than heavily optimizing a commoner for damage and handle animal to the point where they can do well in a low-op tier five game makes them tier five. The fundamental concept to the tier system is equivalent optimization. If the fighter is doing this stuff, what is the monk doing? What of the paladin? The ranger? The fighter needs to be beating these classes when these classes are well optimized for it to make a significant difference, or any difference at all, really.


I mean a cleric dip to almost ANY tier 4,5, and 6 class raises the class by a tier. It's incoherent to call a commoner with a cleric dip a commoner.
This is kinda my point above. If you think that this kinda dip raises nearly any class in these tiers by about the same amount, then that's roughly tantamount to saying it should be considered at all. Not perfectly so, because a barbarian dip helps a fighter more than it helps a warlock, but it's a heavy discount of the utility. Ask yourself. In a low optimization environment, one without dips, which classes is the fighter better or worse than? Ask that question again at moderate optimization, a third time at high optimization, and theoretically an infinite amount of other times at all the in-betweens. At which of those optimization points to you think dipping generally happens, considering the fact that it's being discounted on this axis relative to its true position based on the notion that the base class is what's being assessed at an essential level? Does the fighter start winning some fights it was losing before, and if so how many and by how much?

I think you'll find that the inclusion of this stuff is impactful, but not nearly so much as you're implying. A commoner with a cleric dip is still worse than a fighter with a cleric dip is still worse than a barbarian with a cleric dip. Maybe the distance shrinks a bit, but not by that much. I don't think we get anywhere close to incoherence from this.

[Jopustopin]

Eggynack you're not going to be able to get me to agree with your line of thinking and it's clear that I'm not going to get you to agree that your project is pointless, incoherent, and misleading. I'll not waste anymore of your time. My suggestion is that you change the definition of your tier system to avoid including "problem solving" as any "low problem solving" base class can dip a class with a "high problem solving" ability (or simply fill the holes in the "low problem solving" base class) to meet the definitions of a higher tier. Again, just a suggestion. As it stands, my vote would be everything is tier 1, 2, and 3 by your own definitions. Commoner is probably in tier 4 as with dips you can make a commoner function like, well just about anything, and as such can problem solve most of the problems in the game.

[Troacctid]

If you are including dips, then your tier ranking no longer accurately reflects the tier of the base class. The list is useless.

I have been working under the assumption that we are ranking Base Class 20. If that's not a correct assumption, then everything I ranked below T3 instantly moves up to T3 or higher.

[eggynack]

Eggynack you're not going to be able to get me to agree with your line of thinking and it's clear that I'm not going to get you to agree that your project is pointless, incoherent, and misleading. I'll not waste anymore of your time. My suggestion is that you change the definition of your tier system to avoid including "problem solving" as any "low problem solving" base class can dip a class with a "high problem solving" ability (or simply fill the holes in the "low problem solving" base class) to meet the definitions of a higher tier.
Not really sure how this could possibly be considered misleading. I laid out the exact extent to which I think other levels should be considered, and why, in the home base thread. Actually been kinda confused about this whole argument as a result. Your perspective, that other classes dilute the analysis of the main class, is a valid one, but equally valid is the fact that we're trying to approximate real game states. The issue with the problem solving thing is somewhat inevitable, and results from optimization along non-class lines as well. This isn't unique to dipping at all. What you really have to ask is whether this class is helping with more problems or helping more with problems than other classes. It's the fundamental nature of the tier system, and the highest level metric, this notion that a class in a tier is better than classes a tier below and worse than classes a tier above. I think that focusing on that dictate above any specifically laid out definitions gets you closest to truth here.


It only takes a single level of Warblade for a Fighter to feel more like a Warblade than a Fighter. Make it two levels of Warblade and you might as well just be tiering Warblade. So yes, you would essentially be tiering the first two levels of some classes.
Yeah, but you also consider a lot of scenarios where the fighter doesn't dip warblade at all, and some where the fighter dips some other class. You may be correct that some classes, even in small quantity, take things too far away from the base class itself, but a lot of game objects do that, I think. Warblade is a rather radical alteration, but something like a monk dip, significantly less so. It might be worth thinking of something like a two level warblade dip as akin to the use of sword of the arcane order. It's of a class of object that we're ostensibly considering, but the change is massive enough that that consideration is really low weight.

Edit: It looks like what I have in the base thread is somewhat less consideration than what I've been discussing here. Might be best to stick with that level of consideration. Mostly not considered, but things can be pulled in if they make sense to consider.

[Troacctid]

Yeah, but you also consider a lot of scenarios where the fighter doesn't dip warblade at all, and some where the fighter dips some other class.
The probability space argument does not work in your favor here. What percentage of Fighters do you think take 18 levels of Fighter and 2 levels of another class, compared to the reverse? I know which one I'd be giving more weight to.

[eggynack]

The probability space argument does not work in your favor here. What percentage of Fighters do you think take 18 levels of Fighter and 2 levels of another class, compared to the reverse? I know which one I'd be giving more weight to.
True, but we're still explicitly considering the fighter 18 case more for a bunch of really good reasons. I dunno. I think my stated home base position is a logical compromise: "The default is to never consider these things, but if the class has a lot of substitutes, and you're not using it that extensively, then there may be situations where it makes sense to think about it."

[Troacctid]

You can't allow dips in the rankings and still claim to be representing the base class, because whatever power the dip adds is not representative of the base class.

The lower tiers vanish in that scenario. I can tell you everything I ranked below 3 would move up at least a tier with multiclassing.

[eggynack]

You can't allow dips in the rankings and still claim to be representing the base class, because whatever power the dip adds is not representative of the base class.

The lower tiers vanish in that scenario. I can tell you everything I ranked below 3 would move up at least a tier with multiclassing.
That seems less likely if things are largely limited to classes with replacement that you're not moving into that heavily.

Edit: Honestly, the mode of assessment I have included in the base thread is weak enough that non-inclusion would be a decent, though not perfect, approximation. The main gain from it is if there are a number of base or prestige classes that grant the same thing that you want in their first or second level. Pounce itself would get considered pretty minimally, but when you add that and a few other classes together, it becomes somewhat more reasonable to say, "A fighter has a decent chance at higher optimization levels of pulling a move+full attack."

[OldTrees1]

That seems less likely if things are largely limited to classes with replacement that you're not moving into that heavily.

A general reply to the conversation so far
1) The majority of the voting and a majority of the voters are not considering multiclassing
2) Neither Jopustopin, Troacctid, nor even you really understand what tiering "base classes as themselves" yet in the "multiclassing can happen" context would entail. It certainly wouldn't automatically tier up every class because the base class does not get carte blanche credit for the foreign entities. Nor would it be highly focused on dips unless you stretch the meaning of dips to include 20 level dips.

This is one of the times when the best move is to accept a loss and accept non multiclass tiering for this iteration. This iteration has already improved the structure's accuracy, there is no reason to lose the good in the search of the perfect. Please, accept the groundwork you have made and let this issue slide at this time.

[eggynack]

A general reply to the conversation so far
1) The majority of the voting and a majority of the voters are not considering multiclassing
2) Neither Jopustopin, Troacctid, nor even you really understand what tiering "base classes as themselves" yet in the "multiclassing can happen" context would entail. It certainly wouldn't automatically tier up every class because the base class does not get carte blanche credit for the foreign entities. Nor would it be highly focused on dips unless you stretch the meaning of dips to include 20 level dips.

This is one of the times when the best move is to accept a loss and accept non multiclass tiering for this iteration. This iteration has already improved the structure's accuracy, there is no reason to lose the good in the search of the perfect. Please, accept the groundwork you have made and let this issue slide at this time.
You may be correct, but I think inclusion of the kind I've described is reasonable, and roughly in keeping with the views of other people. There's like a billion ways for a cleric to get a bonus domain really easily. We shouldn't necessarily just disregard that, the way we might if there were only one method or if all the methods required five non-cleric levels. I think there's room for discussion of this stuff, at least.

[OldTrees1]

You may be correct, but I think inclusion of the kind I've described is reasonable, and roughly in keeping with the views of other people. There's like a billion ways for a cleric to get a bonus domain really easily. We shouldn't necessarily just disregard that, the way we might if there were only one method or if all the methods required five non-cleric levels. I think there's room for discussion of this stuff, at least.

I have observed only 3 people across your threads that are ready for such a discussion. One of those 3 is yourself, and another is suggesting we wait.

[eggynack]

I have observed only 3 people across your threads that are ready for such a discussion. One of those 3 is yourself, and another is suggesting we wait.
Maybe. I'd like to see what the response looks like to that level of limitation applied to consideration first though. I think that people opposed have been in a space a lot more multi-class centered than what I'm talking about at this moment. Also, still not clear what the opposing side's view on PrC dips looks like.

[Jopustopin]

Maybe. I'd like to see what the response looks like to that level of limitation applied to consideration first though. I think that people opposed have been in a space a lot more multi-class centered than what I'm talking about at this moment. Also, still not clear what the opposing side's view on PrC dips looks like.

I always enjoyed the Tier system for PrCs threads (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1573.0) of back in the day. I could see a tier system for dips in the same limelight.

[eggynack]

I always enjoyed the Tier system for PrCs threads (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1573.0) of back in the day. I could see a tier system for dips in the same limelight.
It's a reasonable idea, though it's inevitably held back by the same things that hold the PrC system back. The +/- system that was settled on has its advantages, but it's a problematic thing. I'm more interested, however, in whether you think the mode of base/prestige class analysis I have listed explicitly in the base thread, absent much in the way of external explanation, is workable. My feeling is that it includes a sufficiently small set of things to not be overly problematic to those that find the construct in general problematic.

[Jopustopin]

It's a reasonable idea, though it's inevitably held back by the same things that hold the PrC system back. The +/- system that was settled on has its advantages, but it's a problematic thing. I'm more interested, however, in whether you think the mode of base/prestige class analysis I have listed explicitly in the base thread, absent much in the way of external explanation, is workable. My feeling is that it includes a sufficiently small set of things to not be overly problematic to those that find the construct in general problematic.

eggynack this is just my opinion. My opinion is that we're holding a lot of things in a vague state on purpose. Is the PC a moron in real life and did he pick toughness for his fighter? Is there magic marts or not? Low magic or high magic? What books are available? What alternate class features are available? Do Archivist have access to obscure divine scrolls or not? I agree with you that for a lot of these questions we don't need answers. We try to pretend that there are an infinite amount of iterations of worlds and scenarios and that we get an expected value (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value) of the base classes tier. But if you are now saying that the base class itself is an option, even to a tiny extent, it blows everything up. No. The thing we hold constant is the base class. We do not hold whether you have access to Complete Mage constant. We do not hold the players IQ level constant. We do not hold anything else constant. What we are analyzing is the base class; it must be held constant otherwise what are we doing here? I have no idea.

But hey, I'm just one person.

[eggynack]

eggynack this is just my opinion. My opinion is that we're holding a lot of things in a vague state on purpose. Is the PC a moron in real life and did he pick toughness for his fighter? Is there magic marts or not? Low magic or high magic? What books are available? What alternate class features are available? Do Archivist have access to obscure divine scrolls or not? I agree with you that for a lot of these questions we don't need answers. We try to pretend that there are an infinite amount of iterations of worlds and scenarios and that we get an expected value of the base class. But if you are now saying that the base class itself is an option, even to a tiny extent, it blows everything up. No. The thing we hold constant is the base class. We do not hold whether you have access to Complete Mage constant. We do not hold the players IQ level constant. We do not hold anything else constant. What we are analyzing is the base class; it must be held constant otherwise what are we doing here? I have no idea..
I don't see why analysis can't take place in an environment where base class isn't held fully constant. Not saying the following is what we're doing, but something like, "You are allowed to take exactly one level of a different class, and everything else is held more fully non-constant," is an invalid environment for inquiry. In that environment, we still have a game object held constant that we're analyzing. It's the other 19 levels, which, given that people generally consider a fighter 19/barbarian 1 a "fighter", would still serve as an analysis of the fighter class as a construct. What I'm suggesting is that sort of level in flux scenario, but where the level can only take on some fixed states that meet a few criteria. What we're suggesting is that such an environment would necessarily not have a constant element to analyze, a stable Y axis to the ever-shifting X axis. That doesn't seem accurate to me, even as an opinion. The only real difference is that the Y axis is a bit different than you thought it was.

[Jopustopin]

I'm not gonna argue with you for a bunch of pages on this because, honestly, when you are able to rate the tiers you no longer really need them. This is your thread and you do it how you want man. We didn't change each others minds, which since this is the internet, would be a shockingly rare phenomenon.

I consider myself pretty smart but I don't see how you correctly evaluate base classes while allowing dips. The permutations goes to a level beyond my intellect. It massively benefits only base classes in tiers 3, 4, 5, and 6. Sorry I mean to say, base classes that would be in tiers 3, 4, 5, and 6 if we didn't allow dips. Consider the permutation Base Class X 19 / Factotum 1 with the feat Able Learner. What tier is it in? Who cares!

[OldTrees1]

I consider myself pretty smart but I don't see how you correctly evaluate base classes while allowing dips. The permutations goes to a level beyond my intellect. It massively benefits only base classes in tiers 3, 4, 5, and 6. Sorry I mean to say, base classes that would be in tiers 3, 4, 5, and 6 if we didn't allow dips. Consider the permutation Base Class X 19 / Factotum 1 with the feat Able Learner. What tier is it in? Who cares!

Flip it 180 degrees. Look at the value the class adds (including the synergy it brings to existing assets)

I have a character (a race, some gear, some HD feats, and 0 or more class levels).
I have a base class that the character has 0 levels in.
How does the addition of the base class benefit the character?
Not at all? Tier 6 base class
Allows participation in some problems? Tier 5 base class
Allows competency vs some problems or participation in all problems? Tier 4 base class
Allows strength vs some problems and competency in many problems? Tier 3 base class
Allows "gamebreaking" strength vs some problems and competency in many problems? Tier 2 base class
Value added is Tier 1 complete? Tier 1 base class

Basically you are tiering base classes based upon the base classes's ability to impact the tier of an arbitrary yet representative existing character. Druid would be Tier 1 and Commoner would be Tier 6.

However I don't think we should attempt this model for this iteration.

[lord_khaine]

I consider myself pretty smart but I don't see how you correctly evaluate base classes while allowing dips. The permutations goes to a level beyond my intellect. It massively benefits only base classes in tiers 3, 4, 5, and 6. Sorry I mean to say, base classes that would be in tiers 3, 4, 5, and 6 if we didn't allow dips. Consider the permutation Base Class X 19 / Factotum 1 with the feat Able Learner. What tier is it in? Who cares!

Actually i think even tier 2 classes might potentially improve. A Ardent dip would give base access to psychic reformatiom. Thats a lot of utility if you can switch around feat/powers of your latest level for just 50 xp.
Or the added survivability of a warblade dip, that lets you replace saves or IHS things away.

Not certain if this is always enough to boost someone past T2 though.

[Troacctid]

eggynack this is just my opinion. My opinion is that we're holding a lot of things in a vague state on purpose. Is the PC a moron in real life and did he pick toughness for his fighter? Is there magic marts or not? Low magic or high magic? What books are available? What alternate class features are available? Do Archivist have access to obscure divine scrolls or not? I agree with you that for a lot of these questions we don't need answers. We try to pretend that there are an infinite amount of iterations of worlds and scenarios and that we get an expected value (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value) of the base classes tier. But if you are now saying that the base class itself is an option, even to a tiny extent, it blows everything up. No. The thing we hold constant is the base class. We do not hold whether you have access to Complete Mage constant. We do not hold the players IQ level constant. We do not hold anything else constant. What we are analyzing is the base class; it must be held constant otherwise what are we doing here? I have no idea.
This 100%. We're not tiering feats, we're not tiering prestige classes, we're not tiering item loadouts, we can handwave that stuff away. But the classes are what we are actually measuring, which means we can't mix in other classes and still expect to get an accurate and useful rating.


Flip it 180 degrees. Look at the value the class adds (including the synergy it brings to existing assets)

I have a character (a race, some gear, some HD feats, and 0 or more class levels).
I have a base class that the character has 0 levels in.
How does the addition of the base class benefit the character?
Not at all? Tier 6 base class
Allows participation in some problems? Tier 5 base class
Allows competency vs some problems or participation in all problems? Tier 4 base class
Allows strength vs some problems and competency in many problems? Tier 3 base class
Allows "gamebreaking" strength vs some problems and competency in many problems? Tier 2 base class
Value added is Tier 1 complete? Tier 1 base class

Basically you are tiering base classes based upon the base classes's ability to impact the tier of an arbitrary yet representative existing character. Druid would be Tier 1 and Commoner would be Tier 6.
Well this also results in us ignoring multiclassing and only taking into account the levels in the class we're tiering. Which should be what we were already doing.

[OldTrees1]

Well this also results in us ignoring multiclassing and only taking into account the levels in the class we're tiering. Which should be what we were already doing.

The subtle difference is this would credit base classes for the synergy they(the base class) provide with existing assets. A very subtle difference to be sure and one that we are currently doing to a degree for feats and items. Crediting the base class with any further would make no sense of course.

[GilesTheCleric]

Wow, I missed a lot of drama while I was out for the weekend. I'll reply to all this multiclassing in the other thread. For the moment, I wanted to quickly respond to some quotes from two pages ago (sorry!).


2 Questions:
1) Did you account for how the Fighter's class feature allows them to pick up more non [Fighter] feats than other Martial Characters?

2) Will you also use your "there are so many more bad choices" metric when you judge spellcasters that choose spells known? The Sor/Wiz list is plagued with hundreds of bad spell, yet most tier Sor based on the top 20 percent of spells.

In my analysis of all Cleric spells, I found that 5% were "optimised", 10-15% "above average", 30% "average", and 50% "below average". I've defined "average" as being spells that are capable of solving encounters in the context of a four-person party. So, that's things like standard blasting, morale bonus buffs, Hold Person-quality SoLs, etc. It's worth noting that the 50% of "below average" spells does include niche spells, which can be incredibly good in the right situation (eg. all those spells that only work against dragons), but since I've rated spells in terms of a general/ mixed use case, they fall in value.

I'd have to imagine that the Wiz and Drd lists are either roughly the same %s of quality, or perhaps even higher-quality, given that the designers know that Clerics can afford to have more niche solutions than other classes.

In any case, if you assume a person is picking their spells entirely at random, they have decent chances of about half their list (and possibly more, depending on what niche encounters they have) of being completely acceptable for real-world use. For this reason I think that judging a sorc or any other big-3 list caster on their top 50% of spells still leaves them in T1. Judging them on the top 75% probably does, too, depending on how many they know/ can cast a day.


And while there are plenty of bad spells, few of them are trap spells. The bad spells tend to look bad or sound lame, so even new players don't pick them very often.

Exactly. There's a lot of spells that underperform, but they're still useful to some extent, and if they're not, it's usually pretty obvious. Eg. you would never prep/ learn "Resistance to Frostfell" or "Protection from Altitude Sickness" (yes, there is a spell that does this; I forget what it's called) or somesuch unless you expected to be in an arctic campaign where it could conceivably be useful.

[OldTrees1]

Wow, I missed a lot of drama while I was out for the weekend. I'll reply to all this multiclassing in the other thread. For the moment, I wanted to quickly respond to some quotes from two pages ago (sorry!).No apology necessary.


In my analysis of all Cleric spells, I found that 5% were "optimised", 10-15% "above average", 30% "average", and 50% "below average". I've defined "average" as being spells that are capable of solving encounters in the context of a four-person party. So, that's things like standard blasting, morale bonus buffs, Hold Person-quality SoLs, etc. It's worth noting that the 50% of "below average" spells does include niche spells, which can be incredibly good in the right situation (eg. all those spells that only work against dragons), but since I've rated spells in terms of a general/ mixed use case, they fall in value.
That was a lot of legwork. It is appreciated.

I think your conclusion is well founded based upon this data.

[Lans]

Instead of thinking about what dips do for any particular class, why don't we just put a statement that says when a tier 4 or lower takes a dip it will often raise the build a partial tier?

[Aimeryan]

I mean, we're still placing heavy emphasis on base class characters, considering dips as something of a less frequently used version of a feat. The provision for non-unique features doesn't make that much of a difference, because if it's non-unique then it's just one more way to do the same thing, and thus not all that important. This isn't a tier system for all multiclassed class permutations. It's an analysis largely centered on the class as it exists with the occasional dip as a potential resource, as it exists in real games.


We're definitely not tiering only the first two levels of anything here. That would, in fact, be a completely different project, which I was saying might be worth consideration later. I'm just saying that, in the analysis of the fighter, a fighter 18/barbarian 2 (in some order) wouldn't be completely outside the bounds of what we're talking about, even if it's considered less than the fighter 19/barbarian 1, or the fighter 20.

Edit: I'm not really sure why the possibility of a couple levels of a different class is any more complicated than the kinda analysis which we're going to be applying to the sorcerer later. Or, to touch on these melee classes, the radical quantity of feat permutations available.

Have yet to read following posts, but this hits the nail on the head; a one or two level dip is no more complex than the difference between feats, between spells, between any choice the player has.

Multiclassing to the extent that the class is only half or less of the levels is a completely different situation to taking a one or two level dip in another class; those that are attempting to conflate the two are either being dishonest or have not thought it through.

Edit: Ok, read the rest of the posts now. The issue with not considering dips is that you then don't consider real game play. Fighter 20 is at least very high Tier 5, so close to Tier 4 it merely takes a minor nudge to push it over into Tier 4. Taking a one level dip is usually enough. Furthermore, because of the structure of the class features that Fighter has (so, just the Bonus Fighter Feats every two levels) it is far more susceptible to taking a dip and benefiting from it without losing that which makes it unique.

A Monk 20 is low Tier 5. Taking a one level dip is not going to raise it to Tier 4, and the same for Commoner but for Tier 6 and Tier 5.

My point is, for classes that merely need a one level dip into something else to grab something that makes a real difference it seems harshly unfair to deny them that when considering tiering. You could also say that a class feature of some classes is class synergy when taking a one level dip, which you also ignore if you do not consider dips.

Let me pre-empt the next discussion, are we just considering one level dips then? No, you can consider more, but, every further level is lowering the weighting considerably. For anyone not familiar with the concept of weighting wikipedia has some information on it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weighting).

[OldTrees1]

Have yet to read following posts, but this hits the nail on the head; a one or two level dip is no more complex than the difference between feats, between spells, between any choice the player has.

You should go read the following posts. The debate started, was hashed, and concluded while your back was turned.

Summary: The community is not yet going to be handling tiering in the context of multiclassing. Maybe next project.

[Gnaeus]

Instead of thinking about what dips do for any particular class, why don't we just put a statement that says when a tier 4 or lower takes a dip it will often raise the build a partial tier?

I agree with this.

[lord_khaine]

I agree with this.

So do i, its much more simple, but still covers the whole issue nicely.

Either that, or stating that the lower tier a given class is, the more likely it is that a dip will raise it a tier.

[TIPOT]

As a general point as well is it really fair or appropriate to compare classes at level 20? I assume the tier system is meant to reflect the level of power throughout the entirety of the game and I'm pretty sure most games never get to level 20. For most games the fact that fighter is completely worthless compared to a wizard at level 20 is really not important. When I compare classes for tiering I mainly look at levels 1-10 as those are the levels I see most in play (which admittedly favors non-spellcasters to an extent)

[Gnaeus]

As a general point as well is it really fair or appropriate to compare classes at level 20? I assume the tier system is meant to reflect the level of power throughout the entirety of the game and I'm pretty sure most games never get to level 20. For most games the fact that fighter is completely worthless compared to a wizard at level 20 is really not important. When I compare classes for tiering I mainly look at levels 1-10 as those are the levels I see most in play (which admittedly favors non-spellcasters to an extent)

The default JaronK tier system, which I assume we are mimicking in this area, says we weigh 6-15 most heavily, then 1-5, then 16-20 least heavily. So classes like truenamer and healer with T1 abilities at the highest levels are not called T1, but we don't assume ToB classes (probably the strongest non druid L1s) are at the top of the heap because of very low levels. 1-6 are reasonably balanced for most classes, which is why some people like e6.

[eggynack]

The default JaronK tier system, which I assume we are mimicking in this area, says we weigh 6-15 most heavily, then 1-5, then 16-20 least heavily. So classes like truenamer and healer with T1 abilities at the highest levels are not called T1, but we don't assume ToB classes (probably the strongest non druid L1s) are at the top of the heap because of very low levels. 1-6 are reasonably balanced for most classes, which is why some people like e6.
Pretty much. I have it somewhat looser than the original's system, with, "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," but the sentiment is the same. As I mentioned in the community tiering thread, I think three modes of analysis by level are plausibly valid. You can weight everything equally, you can weight early levels most and let it slope down, or you can weight the center the most and have the rest as some sort of bell curve, either completely normal, with the first and last level largely discounted, or slanted towards early levels, perhaps just by cutting the curve off on the left side somewhere with the level one line but sticking the level twenty line closer to the tapering off.

That last is what we're going with, and it's important to note that the inverse of the second, weighting twenty and sloping down towards the left, makes no sense. All those aforementioned models are reasonable, capturing some mode of viewing general play states. Level twenty analysis isn't reasonable, and captures literally just the situations where games start at or around level twenty and stay there forever. Does that happen? Sure, and so do games that start reasonably late and then hang out at twenty for awhile. It's these kinds of situations (along with the range of longer running games that start earlier) that cause us to evaluate high level play at all. It has importance. But we are absolutely trying to capture more than that slice of games, and that set of situations. If you see someone saying that the healer or truenamer is tier one or two because they get gate at really high levels, they are doing it wrong. Simple as that.

[StreamOfTheSky]

The default JaronK tier system, which I assume we are mimicking in this area, says we weigh 6-15 most heavily, then 1-5, then 16-20 least heavily. So classes like truenamer and healer with T1 abilities at the highest levels are not called T1, but we don't assume ToB classes (probably the strongest non druid L1s) are at the top of the heap because of very low levels. 1-6 are reasonably balanced for most classes, which is why some people like e6.

ToB classes are at their strongest relative to other classes at the mid-levels, though. Level 6-8 in particular, they're arguably some of the strongest in the game, even compared to casters. IH Surge and WR Tactics are the best maneuvers in the book, and you can get them at level 5+. Then the next level of maneuvers brings Divine Surge and its ludicrous +8d8 damage (in addition to your normal melee damage). At level 7, that's a one hit kill, full stop.

[DEMON]

Barbarian: T4
Fighter: T4 thanks to ACFs
Samurai (both): T5

[remetagross]

Hey DEMON, why so? Don't you think the OA Samurai pretty much has the edge over the Fighter, thanks to higher skill points, Will saves and a better skill list?

[eggynack]

Hey DEMON, why so? Don't you think the OA Samurai pretty much has the edge over the Fighter, thanks to higher skill points, Will saves and a better skill list?
A lot of these votes could indeed use a good amount more justification (across a couple of threads). Might wind up removing them absent that justification, or at least thread participation. Especially given how on the wire some of these results are (implying that they're sufficiently controversial to demand some text, unlike a cleric or something).

[DEMON]

Hey DEMON, why so? Don't you think the OA Samurai pretty much has the edge over the Fighter, thanks to higher skill points, Will saves and a better skill list?

I think some of the ACFs (Thug, Hit-and-Run Tactics, Dungeoncrasher, Resolute, to name a few) make up for the difference in skills and saves and offer the Fighter options, that the Samurai doesn't have.

A vanilla single-classed PHB 1 Fighter with no splat support is T5, in my book.

[Schattenbach]

Voting seems more or less already done, but ... well. Barbarian & Fighter T4, both Samurais T5.

[Aimeryan]

Decimal voting has been stated to be in, so I'm changing my Fighter vote to Tier 4.5.