Retiering the Classes: Battle Dancer, Monk, Mountebank, and Soulknife [Archive]

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eggynack

2017-03-28, 11:37 AM

In this thread, we will cover those weird mediocre melee classes with a bunch of supernatural abilities that range from terrible to kinda decent. The monk is the classic class along these lines, with its wonky once/day or even once/week abilities alongside standard punch power. The battle dancer is patterned after the monk somewhat, except with dance theming, the mountebank has a bunch of infernal supernatural abilities running around, and the soulknife has a crappy supernatural weapon. This is also a weirdly dragon compendium based thread, given the battle dancer and mountebank both come from there, but whatcha gonna do? I realize only in this late hour that I should have done this yesterday, for monkday, but such is the way of the world.

Battle Dancer (DC, 26): On the upside, you get full BAB, which is nice. On the downside, your abilities are probably even worse than the monk's. You get some decent ones eventually, but it's not enough to make up for most of your levels being super crappy.

Monk: I think that the true defining quote for the monk comes from the dead levels web enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20061013a), "Players always have something to look forward to with the monk, which boasts the most colorful and unique special abilities of all the character classes." As much derision as that quote gets, it's not entirely wrong. The monk has a lot of really cool and really interesting abilities, and it is this fact that drives much of the interest in the class. But, of course, those abilities suck. There's a reason the quote calls these abilities colorful and unique rather than, y'know, good and useful. Still, the monk does have some optimization potential to it, between its potent ACFs, kinda wonky unarmed strike mechanic, and occasionally useful monk specific thing.

I think that there's going to be a lot of weirdness to untangle with this class, if my experience with monk discussions is any judge. At the outset though, I think it's fair to discount the proficiency with unarmed strikes issue. I personally think that it's a weapon you can lack proficiency in, and that the monk lacks said proficiency, by the rules at least, but I can't imagine anyone actually plays that way, except for some ridiculous exception. Thus we should probably just assume they have the proficiency, or that the proficiency is unnecessary, for the purposes of this thread.

Mountebank (DC, 42): This one is pretty interesting. You don't actually hit all that good, with deceptive attack as a mediocre at best source of extra damage, but some of the supernatural abilities on offer here are pretty good. Alter self at fourth level in particular, along with some teleportation and stuff. Not much that lets you take a super meaningful role in combat, but they're more worth note than most of what the battle dancer or monk gets access to. Also, your 20th level ability is to be removed from the game in a way that's particularly difficult to reverse, so that's a thing. The interaction between this and our current no dipping policy is problematic, but I think it's fair to assume that mountebanks can avoid that fate through the application of some variety of dip if they so choose. We're still assessing the base class here, so no particular dip abilities should be used or assumed, which means this would essentially take the form of a commoner dip, or perhaps something that roughly matches the mountebank chassis without adding much, but assuming that players that don't want to get their characters consumed by hell fire are forced down that path by way of a no dipping dictate seems really wonky.

SoulKnife (XPH, 26): You get a free supernatural weapon. It really doesn't do much. It has the occasional trick to it, and you get the rare somewhat unrelated ability, but this class is mostly just a halfway decent weapon that you don't have to pay for.

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
Battle Dancer: Tier five

Monk: Tier five

Mountebank: Tier five

Soulknife: Tier five

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

Bucky

2017-03-28, 01:41 PM

Troacctid

2017-03-28, 02:40 PM

Monk is a 5, but gets up to 4 if you pick good ACFs, particularly Wild Monk, Chaos Monk, Invisible Fist, and/or Dark Moon Disciple. I think you can reasonably call it a 4.8 or so with all the splatbook support it has.

Battle Dancer is a straight 5 though. It is just bad without much room for improvement.

Mountebank gives up a ton of stuff compared to a Rogue, and in return it gets Alter Self and basically nothing else. Alter Self and nothing else does not a class make. It's in T5, although at the high end of it, probably like a 4.6 or so.

Soulknife is arguably the worst standard class in the entire game (fighting Swashbuckler and Samurai for the title). Easy T5. Probably more like a 5.3, even.

Bucky

2017-03-28, 02:47 PM

Battle Dancer gets Pounce! And Flight! If only they had those 10 levels earlier, they might look competent.

Rhyltran

2017-03-28, 02:52 PM

Hey Eggy what about things like wild monk and other class variants? Are they separate or included? Based on ACF features I'm giving monk Tier 4. Without Tier 5.

Soul Knife Tier 5 - It just doesn't really have anything good at struggles at what it's supposed to do. I'm not familiar enough with the other two to say one way or another.

eggynack

2017-03-28, 03:12 PM

Hey Eggy what about things like wild monk and other class variants? Are they separate or included? Based on ACF features I'm giving monk Tier 4. Without Tier 5.
Depends on whether the ACF is individually tier increasing. Wild monk probably is, which would make it not considered. Invisible fist is likely not, so that should be accounted for. Decisive strike is definitely not, so that should definitely be accounted for.

Rhyltran

2017-03-28, 03:21 PM

Depends on whether the ACF is individually tier increasing. Wild monk probably is, which would make it not considered. Invisible fist is likely not, so that should be accounted for. Decisive strike is definitely not, so that should definitely be accounted for.

Alright, I still stand by with ACF's tier 4 (low end of tier 4.) without Tier 5. Maybe we'll compare wild monk to itself like wild ranger in the future.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-03-28, 03:25 PM

I think the Soulknife gets a generally bad rap. It's not good by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not as bad as all that. A free magic weapon translates to a large effective jump in WBL. That can't be ignored-- a Soulknife will have better armor and utility items than another character of equal level. Knife to the Soul is... admittedly worse than Ray of Stupidity, but that doesn't mean it can't still one-or two-shot things even at 13th level. Bladewind is a mediocre feat for free, but it's still worth having in a lot of situations. Plus, you're got Autohypnosis, Hide, Move Silently, Spot, Listen, and Tumble, plus a d10 HD and 4 skill points. Medium BAB, but free (Greater) Weapon Focus does a lot to help make up for that. It's not a bad chassis at all. To say nothing of the ACFs, both of which help significantly-- you can pick up a few neat options with Hidden Talent, and you can drop the near-useless Psychic Strike for a whole bundle of bonus feats.

I'd call the base Soulknife lowish T5 largely by virtue of "solid chassis + enhanced WBLmancy," with the Mind's Eye augmented Soulknife makes for a pretty high T5 any way you slice it.

remetagross

2017-03-28, 03:34 PM

What is the Wild Monk variant exactly, by the way? Gain a limited Wild shape in exchange for Slow fall? It's from DragMag, isn't it?

By the way, it just hit me that tiering the Mystic Ranger and the Wild Monk establishes a precedent for ranking DragMag-but-not-Dragon Compendium stuff. Are there any other such well-known (among the dozens that DragMag contains) and powerful variants that we should account for?

Kurald Galain

2017-03-28, 03:36 PM

eggynack

2017-03-28, 03:45 PM

Troacctid

2017-03-28, 03:47 PM

By the way, it just hit me that tiering the Mystic Ranger and the Wild Monk establishes a precedent for ranking DragMag-but-not-Dragon Compendium stuff. Are there any other such well-known (among the dozens that DragMag contains) and powerful variants that we should account for?
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=9028.0

Trickster Spellthief, Mystic Ranger, Wild Defender Ranger, Wild Monk, Chaos Monk, and Evangelist Cleric all strike as me tier-altering.

Rhyltran

2017-03-28, 03:49 PM

Soulknife is 5; for comparison, it's a lesser version of the hexblade, which in itself is a lesser version of the duskblade.

Monk is 6, as repeatedly shown in the done-to-death monk threads on this forum.

No opinion on the other two.

Most of those done to death threads only take into consider base monk and many were based on JaronK's tier system which also didn't factor in feats/optimization. In this case Monk has quite a few splat book support, acf's, and many ways, features, and feats that they can get size increases to increase their damage. Putting it at Tier 6 does it a gross disservice here as that's putting it together with the likes of samurai, commoner, etc. Being able to take Tashlatora, ACF's, Ectoplasmic Fist, and more.. should easily make up for the class's many short comings.

Troacctid

2017-03-28, 03:51 PM

Tashalatora in this case is not useful as we are only tiering the single-class Monk.

Rhyltran

2017-03-28, 03:55 PM

Tashalatora in this case is not useful as we are only tiering the single-class Monk.

Good point. Still, I'll stand by my argument that between feats, acf's, and etc it isn't hard for someone to pick up monk at this point and be able to do something with it. Getting size increases also isn't a real difficult feat either. In combat the monk, especially with access to ACF's, is going to contribute far more than the likes of the samurai, commoner, warrior, and expert. Monk has good saves, decent AC, has versatility in the skill department by even being a stand in for the party scout, and more.

Troacctid

2017-03-28, 03:58 PM

Rhyltran

2017-03-28, 04:04 PM

See, I agree with you, but most of the best stuff is in obscure sources, so I don't want to put too much weight on them? I think the average Monk is still more of a 5, even if some of them make it to 4.

I agree with this as well but my problem here is that if anyone googles "Monk optimization" or "How to build a good monk" or "Monk ACF's" they'll probably find it being the age of internet and all. The fact is these things do exist and can be found without some deep meta level of research, though I'll be honest and say that your argument is a fair point. I don't know where I stand on that argument as a whole. Truth is most people aren't going to do that so hm..

Bucky

2017-03-28, 04:12 PM

Baseline Monk gets to treat its unarmed strikes as manufactured weapons. This is hilariously vague and therefore ripe for RAW abuse, especially given monks' whole-body unarmed strikes.

Troacctid

2017-03-28, 04:14 PM

especially given monks' whole-body unarmed strikes.
Monks have no such thing.

Soranar

2017-03-28, 04:55 PM

Monk: tier 5, it can reach tier 4 with enough optimization but most of the ACF and substitution levels were designed to try and fix a terrible class.

Soulknife: tier 5 The problem is that your main class feature, a free weapon, is strickly worse than a psychic warrior ACF. If you had full BAB, free action bladeshaping and the ability to do multiple throws much earlier (say level 5) then it might be worth the trouble. Like a monk enough op fu might bring this to tier 4.

Mountebank tier 5, worse than a scout in every aspect of his class features

Battledancer ... I say tier 4

you get:

-a monk's unarmed strikes
-pounce at level 11
-CHA to AC if you don't wear armor or shields
-full BAB
-x4 skillpoints
-eventually flight

and

-you don't lose much from wearing armor, if you gain the right proficiency dumping CHA for armor makes sense (say a warforged with adamantine body)

-unlike a monk you can do the TWF routine
-snap kick and shadow blade are very nice additions for you, you can use ToB very effectively

Personally I have a really hard time rating a class as less than tier 4 when it gets pounce and flight. You also get pounce without any ACF.

Are you as good as an ubercharger barbarian? No but you always get pounce he doesn't

You can use a reach weapon and threaten your immediate squares with unarmed strikes.

You have all the right skills to move around the battlefield and tumble into the right position

remetagross

2017-03-28, 05:07 PM

The Sacred Path of Wee Jas seems great too, Improved Initiative, UMD as a class skill, Focus Skill:UMD and half monk level as UMD bonus...

Efrate

2017-03-28, 06:12 PM

Monks: Tier 6. I would rather have a warrior or an expert most of the time, or a CW samurai even. ACFs can get you 5, as can variants, and both combined (ACF and variants assuming they apply) can get you 4 maybe. I am not super familiar with variant monks so I cannot say but I'd take a herculean effort to get outta 5 IMO. You are very MAD, have major issues with DR, terrible defenses, minor mobility that is mostly useless, inability to easily make use of your signature feature, DR destroys you, the options for enchanting your strikes are generally horridly overpriced, 3/4 BAB for a melee combatant, average HD with mediocre con generally, no armor, no good weapons, give me anything else. Most of your class features are just trash.

Not super familiar with the rest, I will look into them later and possibly vote then. I'm tempted to go tier 5 for now but I do not know until I look over them a bit.

eggynack

2017-03-28, 06:41 PM

Battle dancer: Tier five. There's just not much here. The early abilities are bad, and the late abilities are late. Flight at 17th level is emblematic of a lot of the problems with this class. Full BAB is nice, at least.

Monk: Tier 4.5. Votes on this one have been surprisingly low. The baseline version of the class seems tier five to me. You hit things kinda mediocre, and do other things kinda mediocre. A couple of the abilities on offer are pretty decent, especially early on. The optimized version seems around tier four. Dark moon disciple is great, decisive strike is quite good, invisible fist is great, the sparring dummy of the master is pretty good, and wonky unarmed strike stuff is of variable put positive quality. It's a lot. This strikes me as a running theme of the core classes. They are supported, more than most, and that means higher marginal utility from optimization. Even for higher tier classes, this is one of the core reasons why an urban druid is a full tier below the standard one, why the death master may get the same treatment.

Mountebank: Tier 4.5. When I originally tiered this class, I went with four but was unsure. Five makes some sense, but alter self has so much arbitrary utility, and some of the other abilities are good as well. As I noted in the description, this class really needs some offensive heft. The awful deceptive attack does not make up for the average BAB and bad proficiencies. The skills are pretty important to the tiering here as well. 6 is quite good, and the list is long.

Soulknife: Tier five. I could see this dropping to 5.5 or six, but it seems roughly comparable to a CW samurai, or maybe even a bit better. It's not a good class, in either case.

DEMON

2017-03-28, 07:13 PM

Both Soulknife and Monk are T5s in my opinion, even with most ACFs I can think of right now.

I have no opinion on the DC classes.

Rhyltran

2017-03-28, 07:34 PM

Both Soulknife and Monk are T5s in my opinion, even with most ACFs I can think of right now.

I have no opinion on the DC classes.

The ACF's get the monk invisibility, walk in shadows, full concealment, and more.

Let me provide an example of what monks get because I think some people are unaware:

Dark moon disciple substitution levels (CoV, web):
Levels have d6 HD.
3rd level: Get darkvision 60ft. Lose still mind.
7th level: Shadow blend: Gain total concealment in less than full daylight. Lose wholeness of body.
12th level: Walk the shadows: Gain ability to dimension door from shadow to shadow. Lose abundant step.

Invisible fist gives invisibility at will with a short cooldown.

For those that don't like furry of blows there's decisive strike to replace it.

Sparring dummy of the master gives you a 10 foot step instead of a five foot step.

They have good saves across the board and honestly getting decent AC with a monk is easy.

They have access to escape artist, diplomacy, move silently, listen, and hide. The monk can be the party scout, they can be built to disrupt enemy forces via trip, improved trip, stunning fist, or can focus on damage via ways to increase unarmed damage sizing through feats like improved natural attack and more. They have the scorpion kama which lets them keep the best of both worlds. They can do their unarmed damage and enchant the kama for additional bonuses. With the above ACF's they have invisibility and teleport on top of what they already have. For survival they have evasion and improved evasion. They do have ki-strike which does help them overcome damage reduction so they're not helpless there (not to mention they have the scorpion kama listed above). Immunity to poison (not the greatest), and more. Since we're focusing on pure classes here their capstone at the end isn't bad. DR10

I agree with eggy's sentiment.

P.S. I don't know where the whole "Monk is tier 6 coming from." I can see an argument for five but not six. It's much easier to build a monk that can contribute at least in the damage department vs anything the Samurai or warrior can do. With the ACF's the monk has far more utility than either of them have as well. No idea how a warrior, an expert, or a samurai competes with the above in any capacity.

MHCD

2017-03-28, 07:35 PM

Monk: What a difference splat support makes here. There are enough options to let monks be okay at a lot of things or even good at some, so with a potentially horrendous floor, I still vote T4 (absolutely dependent upon on ACF choice), if on the lower end. I agree that Wild Monk should be considered separately - and I would vote it T4.

Battle Dancer: Hey, some of your flavorful abilities are actually useful! You miss out on some saves and random fluffy powers, but pounce and full BAB are yummy. More powerful than a core monk, but without all the options of splat-support monk, I'd put this between the two. T4.5

Mountebank: Akin to Troacctid's thoughts, I compare it to a rogue sans several abilities, but not without so much that it becomes wholly incompetent. T4.5

Soulknife: The only good thing about the chassis is "not commoner", and you have class features to be almost okay at doing one thing. T5.

Zaq

2017-03-29, 12:25 AM

Monk: It's hard to call the Monk anything but T5. I listed the Fighter as T5 and the Barbarian and the Rogue as T4. There's no way that a Monk is on par with a Barb or a Rogue, so T4 is out.

Now that I think about it, though, it's possible that T5 is too high when we're considering an actual Monk 20 build instead of a dip here and there. The Monk's AC problems are seriously nontrivial, and it only gets worse as they level (since they can't easily add magic pluses to armor—Bracers of Armor are way more expensive than +X Armor, after all—and they tend to need more and more expensive items than similar mundane classes, thereby giving them less room in the budget for that sort of thing). Invisible Fist helps, but it's not likely to be enough alone. Squishiness was part of what kept me from putting the Rogue in T3, and I'm kind of feeling like a Monk's squishiness (combined with its overall ineffectual nature) might dictate that I keep it below the Fighter.

That said, I think that kicking it into T6 may be too harsh. The Monk does have enough splat support to do some unusual things, at least. Stunning Fist is almost halfway decent if you have lots of uses per day, assuming you can hit at all. Invisible Fist is helluva fun, especially with Spectral Skirmisher. I rank the Monk below the Fighter in T5, but I don't think they're probably so ineffective that they slip below T5 proper. We can keep them there for now.

Battle Dancer: If the Monk is T5, then I think the Battle Dancer is T5 as well. I don't think it's far enough above or below the Monk to change their tier. Pounce and full BAB are clear advantages. Spending a standard action on making your unarmed strikes magical is a clear disadvantage. The capstone is hilariously underpowered, but I won't count that against them too much. (I will say that I'm curious if that capstone has ever actually seen play in a live game. The class is pretty dang obscure, after all, and very few games get to level 20. Even fewer people would take this class without multiclassing at all, and I'm skeptical that the devs actually tested the class at 20.) The loss of cool defensive abilities like Evasion/Invisible Fist is a little weird, but I suppose it is what it is. Overall, though, a Battle Dancer has full BAB and Pounce. I think that's enough for T5. It's not enough for T4, but I think it puts them in the same neighborhood as a single-class Monk.

Soulknife: I think I've finally found a class that I feel comfortable sticking in T6. Soulknife is just such a trap option that it's not even funny. It's a bad idea to spend an action in combat recharging Psychic Strike basically 99% of the time, so you get ONE attack per encounter with bonus damage. Which is likely to be less than what you would get if you had full BAB and Power Attacked for the difference. As countless others have said before, "has a weapon" is less of a useful class feature and more of a baseline assumption of the system, though I never get tired of phrasing it that way. It can't contribute meaningfully to combat, it can't contribute meaningfully out of combat, and it doesn't even have enough unique support to bring it up to the level of the Monk. We're doing this. It's T6. Fight me.

Mountebank: God, this class is weird. Decent skills with a decent list, so that's nice. As has been mentioned, Alter Self is about their strongest ability, so I guess that's also kind of nice. The nice things stop there, though—I'm having a hard time coming up with anything else good to say about the class. The fact that their bonus damage requires set-up actions is bad enough, but then the bonus damage had to be insultingly low, and that's not cool. The fact that you can only try to beguile any given target 1/day (and then even succeeding only gives you the effect for basically one round) is really annoying, though I appreciate that they didn't go Hexblade (by which I mean I'm happy that the class's signature ability on which everything hinges is, at least, not constrained with a horrifyingly low daily use limit). The Infernal Patron abilities other than Alter Self seem pretty weak for the action cost by the time most of them come online. I can't really see a compelling use for this class for, well, much of anything. I guess there's a mild leader-style ability in that other allies can benefit from your beguiled targets being easier to hit? I'm really reaching for that one.

So basically, are good skills and Alter Self enough to overcome the fact that they seem less combat-capable than the Monk? Because that's what we're looking at here. I'm not convinced that they are, to be honest. I guess the Infernal Patron abilities are noticeable, but only barely. This one's right on the borderline. Are non-integer votes still kosher? If so, I'm thinking T5½.

SirNibbles

2017-03-29, 04:05 AM

The base Monk is a solid Tier 5. Its best abilities involve it punching stuff in melee combat and it's not all that great at that, thanks to 3/4 BAB, trouble getting AC, problems enchanting its weapons, abilities that have poor or non-existent synergy, and multiple attribute dependency. It doesn't have any abilities that help outside of punching things and it doesn't get enough skill points to overcome that.

What is the Wild Monk variant exactly, by the way? Gain a limited Wild shape in exchange for Slow fall? It's from DragMag, isn't it?

By the way, it just hit me that tiering the Mystic Ranger and the Wild Monk establishes a precedent for ranking DragMag-but-not-Dragon Compendium stuff. Are there any other such well-known (among the dozens that DragMag contains) and powerful variants that we should account for?

Wild Monk is from Dragon Magazine #324, page 97. You trade away all your bonus feats and Slow Fall for the ability to use Wild Shape (and you get Resist Nature's Lure at 3rd level). Your Wild Shape progression is slightly delayed compared to that of a Druid, but still quite nice, giving you 6/day at 20th level with a maximum size of Huge (starting at 16th level). Level 19 unlocks Elemental Wild Shape and level 20 gives you a second use of it per day.

It's an improvement over the base Monk but it's still a Monk. Your ability to punch stuff until it dies increases, you become less MAD, and your forms increase your combat versatility. Various Wild Shape feats will allow you to pick up some nice forms and their (Ex) and (Su) abilities. You still can't do much outside of that. So, you do one thing kind of well? Tier 5

Edit: '6 a day' changed to '6/day' for style reasons.

Troacctid

2017-03-29, 04:41 AM

Wild Shape is totally legit. It makes the Monk easily better than the Barbarian, no contest, although probably still worse than Wild Shape Ranger. Solid T4, with outs to T3 at high-op.

Gemini476

2017-03-29, 05:21 AM

SirNibbles

2017-03-29, 06:24 AM

There's also the Chaos Monk (Dragon #335), which is a kind of crazy variant.

To whit, here's the unique features:
Flailing strikes. Rather than Flurry of Blows, you get a random number of extra attacks. All at full BAB, -2 at level 1 and -0 at level 9. You get 1d4-1 (min 0, av. 1.5) at level 1, 1d6 (av.3.5) at level 15.
Erratic advances. On a charge, you get a WIS/day DC 10+level Will save-or-daze with a one-round duration. This kinda-sorta replaces Purity of Body, in that weird way class variants do.
Displacing stance. For a number of rounds equal to half your Chaos Monk level, you get a 20% miss chance. At level 12 that becomes a 50% miss chance. The stance takes a standard action to activate. This kinda-sorta replaces Purity of Body and Abundant Step.
Freedom of Thought. 1/day reroll on will saves against mind-affecting effects. Replaces Diamond Body, I think.
Also Perfect self makes 'em (Chaotic).

The sad thing, though, is that even if you permit stacking variants it still doesn't work with Wild Monk - they disagree on what to do with Abundant Step (Wild Shape(Large), Displacing stance (50%)) and Empty Body (Wild Shape (Elemental 1/day), Empty Body).

Chaos Monk (Dragon Magazine #335, page 88) is a definite improvement over the standard Monk. However, it still has the same problem the monk has: problems that can't be solved by punching things can't really be solved at all.

The Sidewinder Monk (Dragon Magazine #331, page 89) is also an improvement on the Monk. In exchange for some different (read: worse) bonus feat choices (which can be fixed with Martial Monk; see below) and giving up Slow Fall, you get Sneak Attack (1d6 every 3 levels), a Bite attack, +1 Competence to Bluff every 2 levels, and a +4 to +6 competence bonus to Intimidate checks.

This variant has slightly more versatility when it comes to doing more than just punching things, but only barely.

The Martial Monk ACF from Dragon Magazine #310, page 45 loses 1 skill point per level (4 skill points at first level) in exchange for being to pick any Fighter Bonus Feat when selecting Monk Bonus Feats. There's almost no reason to not take this.

It's already been mentioned but Invisible Fist (Exemplars of Evil, page 21) is always a great addition. It's an immediate action and you can use it once every 3 rounds. It has the nice benefit of not ending when you attack, allowing you to make full attacks while invisible. This is great if you have Sneak Attack damage from Sidewinder or some other source.

__

Wild Shape is totally legit. It makes the Monk easily better than the Barbarian, no contest, although probably still worse than Wild Shape Ranger. Solid T4, with outs to T3 at high-op.

If we follow the rules of no dips and no PrCs, I don't see what problems the Wild Monk could solve that would put it in Tier 4, let alone Tier 3. They can punch stuff pretty damn well but I don't see what else they could do. Maybe you could argue that they punch things so well they're Tier 4.

Gemini476

2017-03-29, 07:19 AM

Rhyltran

2017-03-29, 08:30 AM

Chaos Monk (Dragon Magazine #335, page 88) is a definite improvement over the standard Monk. However, it still has the same problem the monk has: problems that can't be solved by punching things can't really be solved at all.

The Sidewinder Monk (Dragon Magazine #331, page 89) is also an improvement on the Monk. In exchange for some different (read: worse) bonus feat choices (which can be fixed with Martial Monk; see below) and giving up Slow Fall, you get Sneak Attack (1d6 every 3 levels), a Bite attack, +1 Competence to Bluff every 2 levels, and a +4 to +6 competence bonus to Intimidate checks.

This variant has slightly more versatility when it comes to doing more than just punching things, but only barely.

The Martial Monk ACF from Dragon Magazine #310, page 45 loses 1 skill point per level (4 skill points at first level) in exchange for being to pick any Fighter Bonus Feat when selecting Monk Bonus Feats. There's almost no reason to not take this.

It's already been mentioned but Invisible Fist (Exemplars of Evil, page 21) is always a great addition. It's an immediate action and you can use it once every 3 rounds. It has the nice benefit of not ending when you attack, allowing you to make full attacks while invisible. This is great if you have Sneak Attack damage from Sidewinder or some other source.

__

If we follow the rules of no dips and no PrCs, I don't see what problems the Wild Monk could solve that would put it in Tier 4, let alone Tier 3. They can punch stuff pretty damn well but I don't see what else they could do. Maybe you could argue that they punch things so well they're Tier 4.

Punching things good enough in this tier system can warrant tier 4 if it's above what others can get. Also I believe dips, within reason, are allowed. As dips was discussed in both the factotum and warblade discussions. ACF features are also allowed. Pounce totem barbarian was considered in barbarian placement, etc. While Jaronk's tier system put versatility as the highest this system looks at overall effectiveness. Versatility is still pretty important but it's not all encompassing. An ubercharger barbarian which is a definite one trick pony is tier 4 for example.

Wild Shape is totally legit. It makes the Monk easily better than the Barbarian, no contest, although probably still worse than Wild Shape Ranger. Solid T4, with outs to T3 at high-op.

I agree with this. A wild monk would not match a wild shape ranger. I think it'd be one of those "Almost tier 3 but not quite." placements.

eggynack

2017-03-29, 09:08 AM

Wild monk might actually be better. Uses/day is way easier to get around than size limits (feats and items alike help with this, while neither helps with just not getting access to a size), and large and huge forms are really good. Huge especially. Like, people were talking frozen wild shape back in the wild shape ranger thread, but this is where that actually could actually be useful, especially when you use wild shape level increasing items. Wild shape gets pushed back a level, which is far from ideal, but the overall progression seems smoother to me, plausibly superior over big swaths of the level progression. One of the big problems with wild shape ranger is that you get nothing after level five. This seems to solve that problem to some extent.

Bucky

2017-03-29, 09:35 AM

Soulknife:It's T6. Fight me.
Knife to the Soul singlehandedly pulls it out of tier 6. It lets them one-shot certain enemies with a ranged attack, with no save. Spending one feat lets them do so on a touch attack.

It's a bad idea to spend an action in combat recharging Psychic Strike basically 99% of the time, so you get ONE attack per encounter with bonus damage.

This makes me wonder if you've ever played a Soulknife.

The obvious case where it's wrong is at level 3-5, when recharge+attack has the same strategic purpose as a full attack but comes online early.

Sobash

2017-03-29, 12:00 PM

Monk: Id have to agree with the people citing the splat books and the alternate class feature stuff, and say tier 4 due to the increased flexibility, at the very least its improved enough to warrant it, even if the average monk player still has to go hunting to make that shift in tier levels noticeable, but thanks to the internet that is a lot easier. Plus all the people bitching and saying it needs to be tier 6 are starting to grate on this lurkers nerves so there is that too...

Soul-knife: Thank god I read up on the pathfinder version of this to see the differences between the two otherwise I might agree it was Tier 6 almost. Regardless its still tier 5, with some interesting mechanics that got done better else where, but since this is 3.5 only, the Soul-knife stays at tier 5, though one that might be good for low wealth campaigns, cant beat being able to enchant your own gear with effects without paying any money after-all.

Gemini476

2017-03-29, 12:59 PM

Yeah, it's worth remembering the hidden bonus with the Soulknife: much like the Fighter's bonus feats mind-bendingly enough end up giving them more non-Fighter Bonus Feat feats than other fighty characters, in some ways the Soulknife basically gets a bunch of free money.
Money that they might want to use to get a better weapons but hey. It's something.

To be terribly reductive, does a Warrior get out of T6 if you give 'em a free +9 Sword at level 20 in addition to standard WBL?

MadShadows

2017-03-29, 04:49 PM

Battle Dancer: Tier 4
Monk: Tier 4
Soulknife: Tier 5

remetagross

2017-03-29, 05:05 PM

Wow, Battle Dancer Tier 4? Why so?

Rhyltran

2017-03-29, 05:43 PM

Wow, Battle Dancer Tier 4? Why so?

Maybe he/she was convinced by Soranar's post? That's my guess.

remetagross

2017-03-29, 06:44 PM

Ah, right, I hadn't noticed his post.

Rhyltran

2017-03-29, 07:03 PM

Ah, right, I hadn't noticed his post.

Yeah, I don't know enough about battle dancer to say so myself so I'm not going to vote on it. Soranar does provide a convincing argument though. I need a lay down of the negatives, however.

Troacctid

2017-03-29, 07:14 PM

The thing is, all that stuff comes online way too late to be useful.

eggynack

2017-03-29, 07:24 PM

If we follow the rules of no dips and no PrCs, I don't see what problems the Wild Monk could solve that would put it in Tier 4, let alone Tier 3. They can punch stuff pretty damn well but I don't see what else they could do. Maybe you could argue that they punch things so well they're Tier 4.
Thought I'd expand some more my argument against this point (though I'll note that we're liable to cover this as a whole thread, especially if monk stays around tier five or low tier four). Baseline, wild shape offers a bunch of useful stuff. You get every movement mode in a high quality form (with the specific quality somewhat dependent on the level), meaning flight, swimming (including the ability to breathe underwater), burrowing, and even climbing or brachiation if you want those for whatever reason. You get combat abilities that extend beyond simple punching, really in more or less every form possible. That means grappling, tripping, poison, pounce, and even rhino style charging if you want it. And then you also get the occasional weird thing. Ferocity from boar form, the ability to always act in the surprise round from dire tortoise. Special attacks get some notable outliers like that.

So, that's the basic stuff. Optimization gets you a lot more. Dragon wild shape gets a ton of cool stuff, like true seeing, invisibility, earthquakes, some plane shifting, a pile of immunities, and a huge pile of other stuff. My handbook has an extensive detailing of that stuff if you're interested. Exalted wild shape gets blink dog form, which means crazy teleportation shenanigans, as well as the extraordinary abilities of all your animal forms. That's usually some vision modes, but there's some other interesting stuff running around, including fast healing. Frozen wild shape, which was bad for rangers owing to a lack of huge forms, is turned back into the cryohydra feat by access to said forms. You'll want some wild shape level boosters if you want that at a reasonable level. And, finally, aberration forms are obviously way way better with enhance wild shape, but you do get the aberrations all the way to huge, so you're getting a good variety and some of these forms are solid even without Ex special qualities. You can even pick up a mantle of the beast to access forms as a swift action, and there are ways to increase the uses/day too.

So, wild shape grants access to a lot that isn't just face punching.

Punching things good enough in this tier system can warrant tier 4 if it's above what others can get. Also I believe dips, within reason, are allowed. As dips was discussed in both the factotum and warblade discussions.
I think we ditched those around the fighter thread. Don't really recall seeing much depending on dips back in those discussions, though they may have come up.

Jopustopin

2017-03-29, 07:50 PM

The Battle Dancer is tier 5: I looked at this class once, and never looked again. It is better than the monk due to pounce. Obviously a battle dancer is going to have to spend feats to get Shock Trooper and ignore their unarmed strike class feature and use a simple weapon in two hands. Side by side next to a barbarian with the exact same feats at level 12, the battle dancer will have less hit points, less strength, less fort, less will and far far superior battle mobility. The Battle Dancer has a superior skill list but nothing that would help realistically outside of combat. This is also the "ceiling" for a battle dancer - they must ignore completely their unarmed strike capabilities. It's basically a slightly worse barbarian that gets pounce way later. The barbarian would also realistically be making an additional attack each round with whirling frenzy. So, yeah, that's one build....

Most builds won't be doing this. Which drops them right next to what I ranked the fighter.

The Mountebank is tier 5: About the only thing that saves this class is their class skill list. In a humanoid heavy game they would be marginally better than a fighter in combat.

Soulknife is tier 5.4: I voted the fighter is tier 5. The soulknife is clearly worse than the fighter. And their skill list gives them not much to do except fight. This class is made for gestalting, but by itself it's damn near at samurai level. By the way, now that I'm voting with decimals can you move the Samurai from a 6 to a 5.5.

The Monk is tier 4.9: Look the class has diplomacy and sense motive. Which makes them generally more useful than the Fighter. But... in combat, in my experience, even in low powered games, they die. I was a level 3 conjurer and turned a losing battle around and saved the party from a TPK. Except the level 5 monk. He died. Yes there are some tier dropping ACF in 3rd party sources but they are not weighted strongly due to never seeing them used in the real world. If you're a DM reading this tell the Monk to play a swordsage.

Sadei

2017-03-29, 08:25 PM

I'm a long time lurker so I hope my vote counts.

Monk - Tier 4 - Because alternate class features make this viable and gives the monk the versatility that it needs.

Soulknife - Tier 5 - It just has no versatility and it suffers from poor class features no splat support.

Battledancer - Tier 5 - It just doesn't have any versatility by the time it matters what it does get is a mix between not good or great but too late by the time this class gets good it's career is over it doesn't really get anything in the way of acf.

Mountebank - Tier 5 - This has so much potential but some features really don't work as well as they intend it doesn't really do anything well but can do a few things at once. It's neat features could be better with splat support but it has none. This class is something I want to really like but just falls flat.

Big Fau

2017-03-29, 10:43 PM

Are we taking into account that the Soulknife is utterly useless against anything with Mind Blank, as Psychic Strike (and Knife to the Soul) is mind-affecting? If so, Tier 5/6 seems to be the right place.

The Battle Dancer and Mountebank are Tier 5. The Battle Dancer can be a dip class, but loses so much value at the mid-game it isn't funny. The Mountebank is just plain bad, saved only by small out-of-combat tricks most players can pull off with cheap magic items or good skill checks.

The Monk, ACFs included, is a high Tier 5/bottom Tier 4. The damage output a mid-op Monk is capable of is nifty, but the amount of effort (and multiclassing, typically) needed to get there is rough.

eggynack

2017-03-29, 10:59 PM

Are we taking into account that the Soulknife is utterly useless against anything with Mind Blank, as Psychic Strike (and Knife to the Soul) is mind-affecting? If so, Tier 5/6 seems to be the right place.
Not that much more useless than against anything without mind blank. It was noted that psychic strike has reasonable utility before your second iterative comes online, but other than that it's just between 4.5 and 22.5 damage on a single attack each combat. You still have all that similarly mediocre stuff running around. Separately, on this one and the monk one you really have to choose some sorta rational number (or I suppose a real number that I'm trivially capable of representing in sheets, cause I can apparently do pi without much effort) if ya want your vote counted.

Rhyltran

2017-03-29, 11:09 PM

Not that much more useless than against anything without mind blank. It was noted that psychic strike has reasonable utility before your second iterative comes online, but other than that it's just between 4.5 and 22.5 damage on a single attack each combat. You still have all that similarly mediocre stuff running around. Separately, on this one and the monk one you really have to choose some sorta rational number (or I suppose a real number that I'm trivially capable of representing in sheets, cause I can apparently do pi without much effort) if ya want your vote counted.

Wouldn't a vote like bottom tier 4 and high tier 5 simply be 4.8 or 5.2? Close to tier 4 and close to tier 5? Just like I assume "Between Tier 4 and 5" would be 4.5. Maybe I'm wrong.

Bucky

2017-03-29, 11:55 PM

Not that much more useless than against anything without mind blank. It was noted that psychic strike has reasonable utility before your second iterative comes online, but other than that it's just between 4.5 and 22.5 damage on a single attack each combat.

Other common cases for recharging Psychic Strike:
* When throwing mind blades before gaining the ability to do so more than once per round.
* When trying to disable an enemy with a double Knife to the Soul.
* Before readying an action to attack out-of-turn.
* Against enemies with a high enough AC and/or miss chance that the soulknife is hitting less than once per round; the recharge isn't wasted if the attack misses, provided that the soulknife hits at least once before the encounter ends.
* Against enemies with more DR than the soulknife can reliably penetrate.

tl;dr: in a lot of the cases where a T6 is usually sad, a soulknife can fall back on Psychic Strike spam to be somewhat less sad.
(E) Tier 5/6 is a rational number, but high Tier 1 is probably not what he meant.

eggynack

2017-03-30, 12:54 AM

Wouldn't a vote like bottom tier 4 and high tier 5 simply be 4.8 or 5.2? Close to tier 4 and close to tier 5? Just like I assume "Between Tier 4 and 5" would be 4.5. Maybe I'm wrong.
Well, it wouldn't be 5.2, certainly, cause that's the opposite of high tier five. Realistically, it could be anywhere from, I dunno, 4.8 to 4.2. Maybe 4.9 to 4.1 if you're stretching a bit, straight 4.5 if you're being really strict. I don't like to make guesses though. Different people mean different things by words. My preference is towards having as little influence over what I put down as someone's vote as is possible.

Lans

2017-03-30, 02:02 AM

Battle Dancer, 5
Monk, 4.5 High number of ACFs, this might be high
Mountebank 4.5 mainly from alterself
Soulknife 5.5 Not much better than warrior or expert

Bucky

2017-03-30, 02:03 PM

eggynack

2017-04-01, 12:52 AM

lord_khaine

2017-04-01, 04:21 AM

Im not going to vote on the other classes, as i lack experience with them in actual play.

Monk T4 though.

They can get overshadowed, but are able to contribute to a lot of things.

Jopustopin

2017-04-01, 04:50 AM

Actually, they get both Stealths and both Perceptions as class skills, so they can do the mundane scout routine as well as a Rogue pre-10.

So basically they contribute about as much as a Wizard's animal companion. Actually I'll take the animal companion. Yeah... What I meant is skills that allow you to overcome out of combat encounters. I mean you can make the argument that stealth and perception does this, but it's not going to change my mind or my vote.

Eldariel

2017-04-01, 05:19 AM

With all the alternative class features, I'm actually leaning towards Tier 4 for the Monk, properly built. Invisible Fist is really powerful and Monk class features synergize great with Wild Monk. Then there's Chaos Monk which is just a huge improvement over the default Monk, getting almost a full bonus attack on average from Flurry and having significantly more useful abilities (Erratic Advance and Displacing Stance are both way better than the standard Monk fare). Chaos Monk and Wild Monk almost combine seamlessly (assuming we gloss over the fact that Wild Monk states it can be "only Lawful Neutral" and take the logical "only Chaotic Neutral" for Chaos Wild Monk); the only ability they both lose is Abundant Step meaning you'll presumably have to choose between 50% Displacing Stance and Large Wildshape (Large Wildshape is almost certainly more important). Also, Martial Monk combines with other Monk variants giving some real sweet stuff due to being able to ignore prerequisites (Weapon Supremacy on level 1 is quite strong). Before Exemplars of Evil and without Dragon Magazine content the class is of course around Tier 5-6 margin. And getting free Improved Trip on level 2 from Passive Way (you can mix the Monk ways as you like) is also really nice.

The principal issue and one of the reasons Monks are hard to analyse is, the weakest levels of the Monk are the ones where martials are supposed to be comparatively at their best. Level 1 Monk is absolutely terrible! I've actually seen some played. They have huge MAD, terrible AC unless they run straight 18s, terrible damage, terrible to hit with their Monk weapons and no BAB. Their best bet is taking like Martial Weapon Proficiency in Greatsword and two-handing while praying nobody attacks them... Level 2, Invisible Fist is nice. Level 2 anything else is terrible, though getting free Improved Trip is cool. Again, you lack proficiencies to truly make use of it: one of your best investments would be MWP: Guisarme or EWP: Spiked Chain (but you need to wait until level 3 to do that). The only decent Monk-weapon is the Unarmed Strike and you need to be of rather high level before that's worth using.

An argument could be made for Invisible Fist Wild Chaos Monk being even Tier 3, up there with Wildshape Ranger. Lower BAB and no casting sucks, and the low levels are really painful but Invisible Fist and Chaos Monk somewhat alleviate those problems. Of course, Wild Monk loses out the bonus Monk feats which are literally the only thing the class has going on for it on the low levels so levels 1-5 are even worse than for a standard Monk, but at least Wild Monk gets something for it. I don't really know how to rank a class that's around tier 6 for some levels and tier 4-3ish thereafter. Wild Monk gets really good combat options; Unarmed Strikes and Monk AC combine beautifully with Wildshape forms, which also solve Monk's MAD issues (and there's the whole fun of Aberration Wildshape and what have you). And Invisibility + Blinking is a nice toy both defensively and offensively to make up for the poor "to hit" and AC early on. Displacing Stance also adds something defensively. And of course, Wildshape offers various problemsolving tools, though Monk Wildshape uses are more limited than a Druid's or a Wildshape Ranger's (but it gets Large and Huge shapes, unlike standard Wildshape Ranger). Obviously, Wild Chaos Monk makes for an excellent Master of Many Forms just as a Wildshape Ranger, but has to pick the feats up manually while Ranger at least gets Endurance.

Ultimately, I'd say conservative Tier 4 for Invisible Fist Wild Chaos Monk (that is, Monk with Dragon Magazine content) mostly dropped from Tier 3 due to the slowish Wildshape progression and terrible levels 1-5, and Tier 5 for standard Monk thanks to the ACFs in books.

Gemini476

2017-04-01, 06:21 AM

Eldariel

2017-04-01, 07:03 AM

Quick note: Wild Monk and Chaos Monk both change the same class features and thus can't be combined. (Assuming that you could combine class variants in the first place, that is.)

Both of them swap away Abundant Step, and you can't grab variants piecemeal. AFAIK it's an all-or-nothing deal.

Aye, that's probably the RAW. Allowing them to combine due to the scarcity of conflict is not very out there, I don't find, but ultimately you're correct: it would require essentially a small amount of DM homebrewing. Then again, Chaos Wild Monk and Wild Monk aren't all that different; Chaos Wild Monk would be better but mostly in some aspects of combat, not relevantly anywhere else. Though the combat advantages would indeed help where it needs help the most, on the pre-Wildshape levels.

Gemini476

2017-04-01, 09:09 AM

Eldariel

2017-04-01, 09:40 AM

There's also the question of whether or not you can combine variant classes to begin with, and how variants/ACFs/substitution levels interact - is a Mystic Ranger still a Ranger, and thus can take Ranger ACFs? Or is it more like the Jester, and a technically separate class?

I think that one is easier: Most variant classes (i.a. the mentioned Chaos and Wild Monk) make it clear that you can't take levels in both, Monk and Chaos Monk. That I feel is a good enough indicator that they are indeed the same class, just with a different set of abilities. It follows that if they have the abilities required for a given ACF for the "source class" so to speak, they are able to take the ACFs.

eggynack

2017-04-01, 07:19 PM

Still don't think it makes sense to cover wild monk at all here. It's either singularly tier boosting or really really close to it. I'd contend that, using the precedence established by wild shape ranger, the monk with that variant alone is roughly tier three. Not super tier three, but maybe even more than is the case for the ranger because of advancement. Anyway, it seems inarguably at least tier four, and the monk is currently at a solid tier five, so that's a tier increasing variant that's liable to get covered separately. Only way that could be problematic is if monk somehow lands in low four and wild monk somehow lands in high four, but even then it seems like the kinda data we'd want to have.

It's like with spontaneous druid. I put it in with the initial expectation that it would land in tier two, and might well have skipped it entirely had I known for a fact that it'd be tier one. But, now that we have the data before us, keeping that information hanging around holds more utility than ditching it and saying that it's all a part of the big tier one druid object. People might well ask, "Does the spontaneous druid have a different tier than the normal one?" and we can have some kinda concrete answer for them. Point being, the risk to evaluating semi-extraneous variants is relatively low.

Canine

2017-04-02, 07:24 AM

I'd contend that, using the precedence established by wild shape ranger, the monk with that variant alone is roughly tier three. Not super tier three, but maybe even more than is the case for the ranger because of advancement.

I had been wondering about this for a couple days, hadn't had time to work it out in my head yet. If Wildshape Ranger is T3, is Wild Monk really that much worse that he lands in T4? The Wild Monk can hit all of the same prestige classes as the Wildshape Ranger, with some slight delays due to BAB. The Ranger still has skills and spells, the Monk gets flurry and AC bonus, but if they both prestige out the base classes aren't factoring in quite so much. And if we compare Wildshape Ranger 20 to Wild Monk 20, the better long-term wildshape progression for the Monk is a big deal.

Eldariel

2017-04-02, 07:48 AM

I had been wondering about this for a couple days, hadn't had time to work it out in my head yet. If Wildshape Ranger is T3, is Wild Monk really that much worse that he lands in T4? The Wild Monk can hit all of the same prestige classes as the Wildshape Ranger, with some slight delays due to BAB. The Ranger still has skills and spells, the Monk gets flurry and AC bonus, but if they both prestige out the base classes aren't factoring in quite so much. And if we compare Wildshape Ranger 20 to Wild Monk 20, the better long-term wildshape progression for the Monk is a big deal.

The big part is the big picture: on low levels, Ranger is a functional martial class with full BAB and martial weapon + light armor proficiencies + good skill points while Monk sucks monkey balls.

On higher levels, Ranger (even non-mystic) spellcasting is quite the big deal far as both, power and versatility go. It's far better than anything Monks get with just Spell Compendium, not to even mention Sword of the Arcane Order.

eggynack

2017-04-02, 03:27 PM

I had been wondering about this for a couple days, hadn't had time to work it out in my head yet. If Wildshape Ranger is T3, is Wild Monk really that much worse that he lands in T4? The Wild Monk can hit all of the same prestige classes as the Wildshape Ranger, with some slight delays due to BAB. The Ranger still has skills and spells, the Monk gets flurry and AC bonus, but if they both prestige out the base classes aren't factoring in quite so much. And if we compare Wildshape Ranger 20 to Wild Monk 20, the better long-term wildshape progression for the Monk is a big deal.
I don't tend to think the wild monk is particularly worse, though Eldariel's argument, particularly the part about low levels, is reasonably compelling. I'd stick it in tier three as well, but I can't pretend my rating, or indeed your rating, will generalize out to the rest of the voting populace.

lord_khaine

2017-04-02, 04:06 PM

Gemini476

2017-04-02, 04:34 PM

It might be worth noting that while BAB doesn't matter all too much for wildshaping for Druids and Rangers (natural weapons use their own thing rather than relying on iteratives), the Wild Monk's unarmed strikes work just fine while being a bear.

You still have issues with the Flurry of Misses and various other fun bits (e.g. primary weapons are now basically secondary), but I guess it's a thing.
Also, natural size boosters to unarmed strike dice. That's nice, I guess.

eggynack

2017-04-02, 04:42 PM

I dont think its the least bit compelling though, full BAB is to start with wastly overrated, and martial weapon proficiency means a lot less for a class thats going to focus on wildshaping. And i certainly think that Evasion/Improved Evasion as well as a good wil save is worth more than a couple level 1-2 spells.
These things aren't so important by fifth or sixth level, when we're talking wild shape stuff. Earlier on though, this stuff represents something close to a strict advantage over the monk. Martial weapons are useful at first level, and so is an extra point of attack. The ranger is solidly advantaged until level six, especially at level five when they have the ability while the monk doesn't, and then they're reasonably advantaged until the monk gets large wild shape, either naturally or partially by way of items. Basic rangers are better than basic monks, and it's for these reasons that Eldariel noted. Without the large advantage, we return in part to that basic ranger to basic monk comparison. The key question is whether the monk advantage at higher levels is sufficient compensation for this loss. I'd say yes, but the opposing perspective is far from ridiculous.

eggynack

2017-04-02, 04:47 PM

It's about time to note voting on this thread in preparation for the next. Results were pretty straightforward, with everything in tier five and nothing coming especially close to not tier five. Some of these could have maybe gotten out of the tier, monk and mountebank in particular, but so it goes. Next thread should be something more magicy. We've done a lot of not casting, with the most recent caster being the adept, and before that the bard. Not sure precisely how I'm planning to do the sorcerer thread, but it's probably going to be that one. Bunch of spontaneous traditional casters is the main idea here.

Cosi

2017-04-02, 04:59 PM

Bunch of spontaneous traditional casters is the main idea here.

Are there that many of those left? We've already done the Beguiler et al, and the Spontaneous Druid-ish classes. That leaves, what, Sorcerer and Favored Soul? Plus, if you do those, you end up not being able to do a "Cleric-ish classes" like you did with "Druid-ish classes" because you'll already have done the Favored Soul. This is why I though doing things by book instead of category would have worked better.

In any case, I suggest Tome of Magic + also Warlock because it's kind of similar + maybe Sorcerer because there might not be anywhere else to put it. You could also do "Full Casters that don't fit elsewhere" which could net Wu Jen and the Asia-flavored Divine Caster whose name I can't remember. Or if you want to stretch the definition of "magic" you could do Psionics or Incarnum.

eggynack

2017-04-02, 05:33 PM

SirNibbles

2017-04-02, 05:57 PM

I don't tend to think the wild monk is particularly worse, though Eldariel's argument, particularly the part about low levels, is reasonably compelling. I'd stick it in tier three as well, but I can't pretend my rating, or indeed your rating, will generalize out to the rest of the voting populace.

Without a doubt, before it gets Wild Shape it manages to be worse than the standard Monk (due to loss of abilities and bonus feats).

This problem arises again when it runs out of its Wild Shapes for the day. Unlike Ranger (which has spells, weapons, armour, and full BAB) and Druid (which has spells), you're again left with a weaker version of the Monk (which was already bad).

Unless you have a way for it to be able to adapt to situations without burning a Wild Shape to change forms, you're going to have trouble. That's why I think you're going to be mostly limited to using forms that aren't as specialised (read: powerful) but are reliable in most situations.

__

On a side note, you can't take Exalted Wild Shape as a Wild Monk.

"Alignment: Wild monks...may only be lawful neutral." - Dragon Magazine #324, page 97

"This book introduces a new type of feat: the exalted feat. Only intelligent characters of good alignment and the highest moral standards can acquire exalted feats..." - Book of Exalted Deeds, page 39

Cosi

2017-04-02, 06:36 PM

I dunno. Maybe sorcerer, shugenja, and then I can maybe slot the favored soul into that group? There's at least three cleric variants remaining after that, maybe more. It's a better solution, in my opinion, than just sticking the sorcerer with the arbitrary dredges of tiering society. There's inevitably going to be some classes that fit in a couple of groups, y'know?

I guess? It still seems weird to not put Favored Soul in the equivalent category of Spirit Shaman. You could plausibly have a week for "casters that don't fit anywhere else" with Death Master, Sorcerer, Wu Jen, and Shugenja.

eggynack

2017-04-02, 06:56 PM

Without a doubt, before it gets Wild Shape it manages to be worse than the standard Monk (due to loss of abilities and bonus feats).

This problem arises again when it runs out of its Wild Shapes for the day. Unlike Ranger (which has spells, weapons, armour, and full BAB) and Druid (which has spells), you're again left with a weaker version of the Monk (which was already bad).

Unless you have a way for it to be able to adapt to situations without burning a Wild Shape to change forms, you're going to have trouble. That's why I think you're going to be mostly limited to using forms that aren't as specialised (read: powerful) but are reliable in most situations.
This can't be that much of a problem. The extra wild shape feat is right there, as is the druid's vestment, and the monk has fewer things to spend those resources on than a straight druid, so picking that stuff up is less crazy.
__

On a side note, you can't take Exalted Wild Shape as a Wild Monk.

"Alignment: Wild monks...may only be lawful neutral." - Dragon Magazine #324, page 97

"This book introduces a new type of feat: the exalted feat. Only intelligent characters of good alignment and the highest moral standards can acquire exalted feats..." - Book of Exalted Deeds, page 39
Fair enough. Dragon is still the best option available though, I think. And frozen is more open here than for a ranger.

I guess? It still seems weird to not put Favored Soul in the equivalent category of Spirit Shaman. You could plausibly have a week for "casters that don't fit anywhere else" with Death Master, Sorcerer, Wu Jen, and Shugenja.
It's not ideal. But I like putting favored soul outside of a cleric-ish week more than putting sorcerer inside of a warlock week. And I think I have some reasonable entries for whatever the death master week ends up looking like regardless. I dunno. There are inevitably some weird and kinda problematic weeks we're going to have lined up at various points. Further we go in, the more this kinda thing is going to happen.

Cosi

2017-04-02, 07:08 PM

It's not ideal. But I like putting favored soul outside of a cleric-ish week more than putting sorcerer inside of a warlock week. And I think I have some reasonable entries for whatever the death master week ends up looking like regardless. I dunno. There are inevitably some weird and kinda problematic weeks we're going to have lined up at various points. Further we go in, the more this kinda thing is going to happen.

I dunno, having a "spontaneous casters week" that includes the Shugenja but not Beguiler or Spirit Shaman seems weird too. What does "Death Master Week" look like to justify doing that and "Spontaneous Casters We Haven't Done Yet" week instead of just "Casters We Haven't Done Yet" week?

eggynack

2017-04-02, 07:58 PM

I dunno, having a "spontaneous casters week" that includes the Shugenja but not Beguiler or Spirit Shaman seems weird too. What does "Death Master Week" look like to justify doing that and "Spontaneous Casters We Haven't Done Yet" week instead of just "Casters We Haven't Done Yet" week?
Separating out beguiler and spirit shaman into the categories I have them in makes a lot of sense to me, cause they have some seriously different underlying mechanics. Shugenja seems a lot more similar. And I think I have some good prepared style casters running around for death master. I might wind up switching it up, but the thing of it is, we have all these different tier one, tier two, and maybe high tier three casters that I want to run more or less together. Like, any use of one of those classes should be part of some partition of the whole set. So, the warlock idea doesn't make sense to me, but the death master+sorcerer idea might, if that creates the most normal grouping. Not entirely sure it does yet.

Troacctid

2017-04-02, 08:04 PM

Shugenja, Wu Jen, Death Master, Healer, and Favored Soul are all basically watered-down versions of core casting classes. That's a theme there.

Cosi

2017-04-02, 09:59 PM

Shugenja seems a lot more similar.

Shugenja seems like it goes with Wu Jen, right? They're both the Lo5R/Oriental Adventures classes in their respective books, and (IIRC), they both have a "pick a special element" deal. Certainly you can put it with Sorcerer, but doing Shugenja and Sorcerer without Wu Jen seems weirder than the reverse.

So, the warlock idea doesn't make sense to me, but the death master+sorcerer idea might, if that creates the most normal grouping. Not entirely sure it does yet.

The Warlock thing is mostly just "Wizard knock offs", but yeah, you could plausibly do "other full casters". I just don't think you get two weeks out of that without some deeply arbitrary distinctions.

Shugenja, Wu Jen, Death Master, Healer, and Favored Soul are all basically watered-down versions of core casting classes. That's a theme there.

Okay but where do you put the Sorcerer then? You just put (almost) all the casters in a pile that doesn't include the Sorcerer. Are we doing "dragon week" with Sorcerer, Dragon Shaman, and Dragonfire Adept? That works, but it seems only marginally less weird than any other place to put the Sorcerer.

eggynack

2017-04-02, 10:09 PM

Shugenja seems like it goes with Wu Jen, right? They're both the Lo5R/Oriental Adventures classes in their respective books, and (IIRC), they both have a "pick a special element" deal. Certainly you can put it with Sorcerer, but doing Shugenja and Sorcerer without Wu Jen seems weirder than the reverse.
They do have their commonalities, but I don't precisely have a third for that setup, and I think wu jen could plausibly fit into something like wu jen, death master, and healer, with maybe a fourth.

The Warlock thing is mostly just "Wizard knock offs", but yeah, you could plausibly do "other full casters". I just don't think you get two weeks out of that without some deeply arbitrary distinctions.
Some deeply arbitrary distinctions are kinda inevitable. Some classes are going to come across as homeless, and some are going to be in weird pairs that have to be thirded or fourthed out. I don't precisely hate the way it seems to be laying out at the moment, which is a good thing here, I think. You get that above setup I listed with the death master, and then the sorcerer, shugenja, and favored soul thing, and finally the spontaneous cleric, evangelist, and mystic as a third. Am I missing any serious 9th getting casters (excluding psionics) in that setup? If I'm not, it strikes me as a solid arrangement of nine classes. Far from perfect, but I think that each thread features that general advantage of like paired with like comparison testing.

Troacctid

2017-04-03, 02:50 AM

Only three classes is not very many for an entire thread. Honestly you could just put all nine in a single thread and I think you'd be fine.

eggynack

2017-04-03, 03:09 AM

Only three classes is not very many for an entire thread. Honestly you could just put all nine in a single thread and I think you'd be fine.
That sounds like a lot, especially on the thread title axis but also just by way of conversation density. Some of these could quite possibly become real conversation things. Maybe 4/5? That might angle more towards Cosi's desires. Going down that route, you'd want something like wu jen+shugenja in one of those groups, and spontaneous cleric, evangelist, and mystic fit in the other. So, then you just need to divide up healer, sorcerer, death master, and favored soul. The Cosi ordering there would probably look put favored soul into the spont cleric pile, and then we can toss the healer there too for good luck, and then put the sorcerer and death master in the other group. Healer could go either way, really. I don't love the shugenja in a group that otherwise just has divine spells, but it's not the worst setup. You get the pseudo-cleric group and the arbitrary full casters group, whatever I wind up calling the latter.

Troacctid

2017-04-03, 03:14 AM

I don't love the shugenja in a group that otherwise just has divine spells
Why not? Shugenja are divine casters too.

eggynack

2017-04-03, 03:17 AM

Why not? Shugenja are divine casters too.
Oh, wait, opposite thing. The shugenja group has just arcane otherwise, I think.

Eldariel

2017-04-03, 04:35 AM

Without the large advantage, we return in part to that basic ranger to basic monk comparison. The key question is whether the monk advantage at higher levels is sufficient compensation for this loss. I'd say yes, but the opposing perspective is far from ridiculous.

Specifically Wild Monk scaling does have advantages since UA Strikes synergise incredibly well with natural attacks. However, Ranger spells are really good higher up. Martially and otherwise. It's hard to overstate the advantages of having actual spells over few daily spell-likes.

Can't do it justice in a short post on phone sadly, but Spell Compendium and Champions of Ruin contain all you need.

eggynack

2017-04-03, 04:40 AM

Specifically Wild Monk scaling does have advantages since UA Strikes synergise incredibly well with natural attacks. However, Ranger spells are really good higher up. Martially and otherwise. It's hard to overstate the advantages of having actual spells over few daily spell-likes.

Can't do it justice in a short post on phone sadly, but Spell Compendium and Champions of Ruin contain all you need.
I don't doubt that ranger spells do some solid things at higher levels. Just not sure those things are worth more than large and eventually huge forms. The comparative optimization curve is actually pretty interesting here, because I think the maximum utility for each class comes from dragon wild shape, and that feat benefits not at all from sizes above medium, but I think there's a sizable area between reasonable wild shape use that doesn't use dragon forms and wild shape with dragon forms where the wild monk gets serious advantage from those forms. And, critically, if we evaluate dragon wild shape and other such things as relatively low optimization, then I think monk gets into three rather handily.

Eldariel

2017-04-03, 08:58 AM

I don't doubt that ranger spells do some solid things at higher levels. Just not sure those things are worth more than large and eventually huge forms. The comparative optimization curve is actually pretty interesting here, because I think the maximum utility for each class comes from dragon wild shape, and that feat benefits not at all from sizes above medium, but I think there's a sizable area between reasonable wild shape use that doesn't use dragon forms and wild shape with dragon forms where the wild monk gets serious advantage from those forms. And, critically, if we evaluate dragon wild shape and other such things as relatively low optimization, then I think monk gets into three rather handily.

That's fair enough. I'm fairly certain level 12 onwards Wild Monk does indeed hit Tier 3. The main question I tend to encounter is whether that's enough - I find 1-11 (or rather, perhaps 3-11) much more relevant than 12-20. But this is something that's ill covered by tiers; some classes are just horribly swingy. Like Truenamer or Healer casting 9s is actually really strong but that's only on very high levels - until then they kinda suck. Similarly Wild Monk is probably worse than Warrior on level 1 and somewhat competitive with NPC classes level 2-5. Then it suddenly gets a huge shot in the arm on level 6 for 6 hours a day and it gets better from there. Level 6 Monk still kinda struggles, needing to invest in additional uses of Wildshape and being stuck with low BAB no buffs medium forms (however, the synergy between Monk abilities and Wildshape should not be underestimated), but certainly it can at least fight unlike up until then. I'd put Wild Monk 6 on Tier 4. The expanded Wildshape uses and especially Large forms summarily eliminate these issues, however.

Wild Ranger/MoMF is another thing entirely, but without PRCs, plain Wild Ranger probably merely keeps up with Wild Monk past level 12, getting 3rd level spells at that juncture (we'll have to account for Sword of the Arcane Order too though). I think the spells are really good and probably help with the Wildshape-based gap, but certainly it's hard to argue Ranger trounces Monk in any meaningful way at that point anymore. Large forms off Aberration and Dragon Wildshape are both quite awesome.

Given a bit more time, I think running the Same Game Test for these two classes could prove interesting.

Gemini476

2017-04-03, 10:01 AM

One interesting thing with Monk MAD is that it's mostly because they need decent-to-good physical stats and also Wisdom - with Wild Monk that suddenly becomes WIS-SAD.
Or, well, SAD-ish. You'll still need stats for feats if you're looking for that, and Wild Monk loses the free bonus feats of the Monk, but it's interesting. (Those feats being everything that requires DEX 13, INT 13, STR 13, etc. Power Attack, Stunning Fist, Combat Expertise, et. al.)

It's kind of neat how synergistic it all is, really. The AC bonus, fast movement and Ki Strike (Magic) are all kind of relevant when wildshaped in way that they maybe aren't normally.

You just lose out on Natural Spell and all the Wildshape-focused Druid spells and all that, and if you decide to dump physical stats to focus on WIS you're going to have a bad time for the first five levels.

Bucky

2017-04-14, 12:32 PM

Let's talk baseline, no-ACF Monks. They get commonly criticized for having class features that don't work well together. However, I think a lot of it comes down to player skill - in particular, skilled readied-action judo does a lot to tie the class together.

I'm not precisely sure what sort of technique that's referring to. You can't ready more than a standard, so you can't combine that with flurrying, so I guess it'd be a stunning fist thing which works fine with fast movement and such. Generally speaking, I'm not sure what a monk is doing with player skill that's so much more impressive than what other classes can do with player skill.

Let's go with one of the classic examples: ready an action to charge an enemy that casts a spell. Here's how Monks use their active class features to help, in the order they apply.

Improved Unarmed Strike - can do this with hands full (minor unless they have a reach weapon)
Fast Movement - can charge from farther away.
Bonus Feat 2 (Combat Reflexes) - Can take an AoO from the spellcast attempt and another AoO from the opponent's movement. With size/reach, can take multiple AoOs if they try to move away.
Bonus Feat 1/3 (Improved Trip and/or Grapple or Stunning Fist) - Substitute combat maneuvers that stop movement for AoOs, or try to Stunning Fist away their entire turn.
Flurry - Threaten to murder them harder if they don't move away.

This isn't overpowered by any means, but it does demonstrate how readied actions let all the apparently un-synergetic class features work together.

-------
Since my last post about Soulknives, I've been made aware that mounted Soulknife is a possible approach. They can switch freely between two-handing a lance for charging and one-handing their soulblade for Psychic Strike. The normal downside of mounted combat is that you can't use your move action for full attacking. But you can use it to recharge Psychic Strike.

I overlooked it at first because they don't get Ride as a class skill. But the basic Ride checks are easy; as long as they have a war-trained mount, they only need a +4 modifier between Dex and cross-class ranks to make it work.

eggynack

2017-04-14, 01:05 PM

Is readying a charge even a thing? You can't ready full round actions, so you'd presumably be using the standard action only version of a charge, but that mode of charging specifically relies on it being your turn.

Bucky

2017-04-14, 01:19 PM

If your GM rules you can't ready a charge, you can ready a move and lean harder on Combat Reflexes.

eggynack

2017-04-14, 01:22 PM

If your GM rules you can't ready a charge, you can ready a move and lean harder on Combat Reflexes.
Well, yeah, but at that point you should prolly just be moving normal style. You get a totally normal hit in that way, and the wizard moving away to cast from somewhere else is more likely to yield an AoO than being next to them when they cast.

Sagetim

2017-04-14, 01:45 PM

Soulknife: T5

They get into T5 by virtue of the Hidden Talent ACF at early levels, mental ability damage at late levels and Psychic Strike outpacing full attacks for a significant portion of the middle.

Other perks include easier access to psionic feats, a good reason to sword-and-board and the ability to bypass DR/magic from level 1. Their ability to bypass DR/magic inside a wide-area AMF is extremely rare.

Cons:
Medium BAB hurts, although the free bonus feats almost make up for it for a while.
None of their class features work with reach weapons.
Their 'free' weapon enhancements come online slowly compared to actual magic weapons, and they can't golf-bag alternate weapons to deal with exotic DR.

Ultimately, their late game kills them as a T4 candidate. Their ability damage isn't strong enough to disable most enemies in one round, they stop getting bonus feats to compensate for the missing BAB, Mind Blank effects get more common and the Psychic Strike vs Full Attack math stops favoring Psychic Strike so much.

So, just to bring it up, there's an oft overlooked benefit to using the mindblade- it's enhancement bonus counts twice for your bonus to hit. It increases you base attack bonus, and also counts as an enhancement bonus to hit and damage. The wording is buried in there, but having run a soulknife through a long campaign, I did fine. Now, that's not to say that it was because of the raw features that the soulknife class alone provides. I had two soulknife only prestige classes backing me up and specializing me into a role that the party was sorely lacking (long range attacking and having stuff for specifically hating on undead). There were a number of tricks that I pulled from access to magic items that anyone with those items could use (like a ring of telekinesis) and a few of the tricks I relied on most often were from psionic feats (which, again, are not soul knife specific). So just from my experience with the class and what I made of it, I'd say the ceiling on it could be in tier 4, but more from what you can build it into instead of what it comes with in that class features column alone. That d10 hit die is also really handy for not dying, and having a high will save as a physical combatant is uncommon and handy.

So, if you go straight soulknife 20, remember that your mind blade's enhancement bonus is adding to your base attack bonus. So you're getting those extra attacks that full bab classes get as long as you're using your core class feature.

Also remember that every soulknife prestige class advances your mind blade's enhancement bonus, if nothing else. That said, stacking multiple prestige classes with a 3/4 bab onto a base class with the same can get really painful later on. But this is where your gear and tactics come into play to make up the difference.

Something that the soulknife (and monk for that matter) have going for them is that they can effectively stealth...you know, along with the party rogue. Which means you can have a pair of people scouting a location out instead of the rogue potentially getting caught alone and then murderized due to a lack of anyone to flank with. Up the Walls and Tumble is great for flanking, by the way, and the soulknife doesn't have a hard time qualifying for the feat or putting ranks into that skill. And they get speed of thought for free, increasing their ability to support party members by utilizing off the wall movement.

Oh, and another trick with abusing Up the Walls involves having an immovable rod. This was admittedly more of a Soulbow trick, running up a wall and clicking the rod into place, then hanging with one hand and shooting with the other to lay down a rain of death from a difficult to assail position. Since you're not spending money on a weapon (or weapons), affording an immovable rod is pretty trivial at mid to higher level.

Is there some reason we're not considering prcs that are specifically made for the classes involved? Because that's definitely a strength for a class in 3.5.

Psionic Shot, Greater Psionic Shot, and Psychic Meditation became a three feat combo of death for my soulknife (because he was a ranged attacker, mostly). If you're going to go melee, replace shot with weapon, and enjoy your bonus damage against high ac opponents that extra attacks aren't helping with anyway. I sure used it a lot, and as far as we could tell (my dnd group and dm that is) the extra damage from psionic shot/weapon would get multiplied on a critical, since it adds directly to the base weapon damage in it's damage type. That was probably more of a house ruling than the correct interpretation, but boy did it make those x3 bow criticals hit like a truck.

And with Bucky bringing up mounted combat and soul knifing: Don't forget about psionic weapon and psychic meditation. Get both of those feats online and you can recharge your focus as a move action, recharge your psychic strike as a move action, and get some potentially monstrous damage out of a charge on horseback. Also, do horses have the magical ability to turn on a dime? If you charge past someone, you'll probably need to turn around to make another pass anyway, providing the opportunity to spend some of that recharging both psychic strike and your psionic focus.

Deep Impact is another one of those psionic focus feats that the soulknife can pick up. Not until level 9 or so, with it's BAB requirement from what I recall, but resolving a melee attack as a touch attack is pretty handy. The only downside being that it requires expending your focus to use it, but I'm willing to believe there's some way of getting either multiple focuses or the ability to expend a focus for multiple effects at once somewhere in 3.5.

So, I think it has a ceiling in T4- as long as you're willing to accept that it has prestige classes that specifically expand on it's core ability and provide it with different and useful abilities to draw upon. If you don't think about your build and just run a soulknife expecting it to play like a fighter or barbarian, of course it's going to seem like a T6 class.

Oh, and don't forget that the Psychoactive Skin of Ectoplasmic Armor is something the Soulknife can easily afford (at, what, 3k?) and use well, since it's comparable to Full Plate as light armor and weights 1 pound. Depending on how your gm interprets it (mine was willing to count it like a suit of armor), you can potentially then drop money on it to increase it's armor bonus by enhancing it like a suit of armor.

Lans

2017-04-14, 02:59 PM

So, just to bring it up, there's an oft overlooked benefit to using the mindblade- it's enhancement bonus counts twice for your bonus to hit. It increases you base attack bonus, and also counts as an enhancement bonus to hit and damage. The wording is buried in there, but having run a soulknife through a long campaign, I did fine.

Do you have a source for that? I wouldn't doubt that being the rule somewhere, but I didn't find it. It seems like it would be like the psicrystals getting feats, but only if made by a psion or wider factoid that appears in its monster entry

Grod_The_Giant

2017-04-14, 03:33 PM

So, just to bring it up, there's an oft overlooked benefit to using the mindblade- it's enhancement bonus counts twice for your bonus to hit.
Pretty sure you're thinking of the Soulbow.

At 3rd level, a mind arrow gains a +1 enhancement bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls, and at 7th level the bonus improves to +2. These enhancement bonuses stack with previous enhancement bonuses gained earlier for your soulknife class levels. Likewise, these enhancement bonuses also improve your soulknife base attack bonus.

A soulknife’s mind blade improves as the character gains higher levels. At 4th level and every four levels thereafter, the mind blade gains a cumulative +1 enhancement bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls (+2 at 8th level, +3 at 12th level, +4 at 16th level, and +5 at 20th level).
The base Soulknife has no such clause. Soulbow is a pretty good PrC; pretty sure the old "tier system for PrCs" lists it as a +1 tier PrC-- you get one of, possibly the best ranged weapons in the game (one of the few that adds an ability modifier to damage), five bonus feats, effectively full BAB, and the old Lucky Mind Arrow trick.

Sagetim

2017-04-14, 03:59 PM

Pretty sure you're thinking of the Soulbow.

The base Soulknife has no such clause. Soulbow is a pretty good PrC; pretty sure the old "tier system for PrCs" lists it as a +1 tier PrC-- you get one of, possibly the best ranged weapons in the game (one of the few that adds an ability modifier to damage), five bonus feats, effectively full BAB, and the old Lucky Mind Arrow trick.

Yeah, that sounds about right Grod. I remember having to look it up at some point during the campaign and I think it might just be a the wording in soulbow's description of it that made me think that it was part of the Soulknife base class. I just checked the errata and the book entry just in case, and it looks like it's a Soulbow thing in particular.

Also worth mentioning is that with Soulbow you can dual wield it's ranged weapon. Which means it's the only class in the game (at least that I can think of) that can two weapon fight in ranged combat. I didn't go that route with my own soul bow, preferring to hit hard in single shots with reliable accuracy against tough opponents, but riddling armies with a rain of beams of light arcing down from the sky is pretty cool, visually if nothing else. Combine with Rapid Shot and Haste, and you have maybe 9 attacks in a round by level 20. 9 attacks from composite longbow range, which can benefit from both Distance and Far shot for range extending. It's a good thing. :smallbiggrin:

Combine with a carpet of flying and a friend to pilot it for you, and you becoming a mobile weapons platform that never runs out of ammo and can out distance and outshoot anything on the ground, save maybe some wizards with long range spells like fireball.