Tired of Tiering!:)

[BobsYourUncle!]

Preface:

This is an observation. it is in no way meant to single anyone out or to be taken as an attack on anyone. the following is simply my opinion and nothing else.

Opinion:

There are so many Tier threads now its crazy. All of them seem to come down to the same conclusion so my opinion is we make this simple.

We rename Dungeons and Dragons to Wizards and Dragons and all those other classes that help them.

The jist of these Tier threads seem to be that CASTERS are everything and if you can not cast spells your useless. The point is it seems that if you don't play a caster you are worthless in this game.

Again my opinion. Thank you for reading my little rant of frustration. Again this is just an observation and opinion and is not an attack on anyone or anything.

Thank you.

[Swaoeaeieu]

it's ok, i understand your frustration.
But the whole reason for the tier threads or the existance of tiers isnt to tell people to only play casters. It is a tool for players to understand what to expect from certain classes. No one is telling anyone to play a tier one or stop playing DND. Just that a wizard does have more things to do, and can be better at them then say, a fighter.
the tier system is a tool for all players to understand what they are getting into, or to value the powerlevel a party will have.

It is merely meant as information, not judgement.

all the new threads are because the old list seems outdated and new classes should be added for maximum information efficiency.
i hope i have soothed your mind, do not stress, we are all friends here.

[icefractal]

There has been a lot recently, hasn't there? Tiers are only a matter of relative power though. A moderately optimized non-character with some magic items or allies to fill in important capabilities can defeat any published adventure just fine.

The case where non-casters get left in the dust is either:
A) If you're talking about a really high-op game where the foes are equally high-op.
B) If you don't take steps to cover the capabilities they're missing, they can get stuck at some point in the adventure, like having no way to deal with vertical terrain or invisible foes.

That's it; in the majority of groups, the issue is much more subtle if it's there at all. Also, one thing the tier system doesn't really take into account (not sure how it would, admittedly) is that individual build and tactics matter more than class. A poorly played Wizard with bad spell choices could end up weaker than a Warrior (yes, the NPC class).

[Luccan]

I find tiering fascinating, but I also get fatigued at times. I agree it is intended as more informative than trying to force people to play certain classes, though some people (both supporters and detractors of tiering) see it as a way to declare that only some classes are fun or "allowed". Really, you can play any class with any other class and as long as everyone is having fun, you aren't playing wrong. Plus, it's really theoretical, because most people aren't attempting to build the "perfect" wizard or fighter, they're trying to build a character they find fun to play. Personally, I find the idea of playing a high-op game exhausting, but it's all personal. Point being, have fun however you want and you can basically ignore the tiering threads if they bug you. It's just discussion about why X class is clearly tier Z not tier Y.

P.S. It should be Dungeons and Wizards, since wizards are way better optimized than dragons.

[GilesTheCleric]

There has been a lot recently, hasn't there? Tiers are only a matter of relative power though. A moderately optimized non-character with some magic items or allies to fill in important capabilities can defeat any published adventure just fine.

The case where non-casters get left in the dust is either:
A) If you're talking about a really high-op game where the foes are equally high-op.
B) If you don't take steps to cover the capabilities they're missing, they can get stuck at some point in the adventure, like having no way to deal with vertical terrain or invisible foes.

That's it; in the majority of groups, the issue is much more subtle if it's there at all. Also, one thing the tier system doesn't really take into account (not sure how it would, admittedly) is that individual build and tactics matter more than class. A poorly played Wizard with bad spell choices could end up weaker than a Warrior (yes, the NPC class).

These are all important points. It's worth emphasizing that tier systems don't say "casters are better", just that "casters are often both more powerful and more versatile". It doesn't make them better -- that's a judgment call on the part of the player. Many folks enjoy fighters, rogues, or other classes more.


Player > Build > Class, as the saying goes.

[eggynack]

Casters are really great. That's not really the core of what we talk about though. A lot of the castery types have really clear cut placement, after all. While we did wind up with a lot of wizard talk, a lot of that analysis was rather perfunctory. I knew the rough results of that thread long before I posted it, and put it together in the first place primarily because we're doing all classes and not merely non-obvious classes. Some of what we do is necessarily going to be caster related, oriented around the analysis of how much value any given quantity of casting is going to provide, but a lot of our analysis is about mundane to mundane comparisons.

I just put together a battle dancer, monk, mountebank, and soulknife thread, and unless someone wants to go really off track, it's unlikely that folks are going to be making much in the way of comparison between these classes and high tier casters. What would be the point? Instead, much of the analysis, the force guiding our placement, is in the analysis of stuff like the value of invisible fist, and fighter comparisons, and maybe a comparison to CW samurai if we're trying to establish a tier six class (cause it's the lower border of five right now). Maybe adept will enter into it, but it'd be hard to successfully work such an apples to oranges comparison.

Is the overall gist of the tier system that casters are more powerful than non-casters, all else being equal? Sure, I guess. But the purpose of these threads is not to establish an overall gist. That has indeed been a topic done to death. My goal is in the minutiae, comparisons between like and like, the precise borders between various tiers. Even caster discussion is generally done in the form of caster to caster comparisons, hoping to evaluate sorcerer as compared to beguiler rather than beguiler as compared to barbarian. The former tells you a lot, while the latter tells you nearly nothing.

So, while this project may have claims that match what you've said, those claims are far from the point. If you aren't interested in the discussion, there's nothing forcing you to participate, but I suspect you'd find what we're doing more interesting than you're giving it credit for. How can you resist the allure of my fancy spread sheet? It's impossible. Look upon it in all of its data having glory.

[Karl Aegis]

There was an alternate tier list posted over a decade ago in one of the JaronK tier threads that basically put casters on top and the lower tiers were just casters with less spells until you got to classes without spells. It avoided any ambiguities, but wasn't widely accepted.

[Vizzerdrix]

So lets talk about something else op. How do you feel about alchemicals?

[Darrin]

Threads that generate immense volume but very little substance:

1) Anything related to alignment (including "Make X fall" threads)
2) Monk threads.
3) Tier discussions/browbeating.
4) Tome of Battle power level.
5) Dragonwrought kobolds/true dragons.
6) Do "early entry" shenanigans work.

Before posting, ask yourself: "Are you aware of and willing to accept that the time you invest in this thread will produce absolutely no lasting positive benefit for anyone involved?" If you're comfortable with the answer, proceed as your conscience dictates.

[King539]

Minor correction: Full casters and dragons.

[eggynack]

Threads that generate immense volume but very little substance:

1) Anything related to alignment (including "Make X fall" threads)
2) Monk threads.
3) Tier discussions/browbeating.
4) Tome of Battle power level.

Before posting, ask yourself: "Are you aware of and willing to accept that the time you invest in this thread will produce absolutely no lasting positive benefit for anyone involved?" If you're comfortable with the answer, proceed as your conscience dictates.
Eh, I think we've gotten some reasonable signal in all of that noise. Also, it's super weird to me how little (meaning no) traffic the thread I just put up that is precisely both a monk thread and a tier discussion thread is getting. Can really never predict how much response a thread will get, apparently.

[Darrin]

Eh, I think we've gotten some reasonable signal in all of that noise. Also, it's super weird to me how little (meaning no) traffic the thread I just put up that is precisely both a monk thread and a tier discussion thread is getting. Can really never predict how much response a thread will get, apparently.

There may be an axiom in there somewhere: When someone else accidentally trolls the board, 100+ pages. Whenever you deliberately attempt to troll the board, nobody cares and the thread dies.

[eggynack]

There may be an axiom in there somewhere: When someone else accidentally trolls the board, 100+ pages. Whenever you deliberately attempt to troll the board, nobody cares and the thread dies.
Wasn't really purposefully trolling anything. We got some non-monk classes in there, and we had to do monk eventually. Thread length has just been generally out of line with my expectations. The wizard thread ran forever, as did the factotum thread, while the rogue and NPC threads ran super short, and the fixed list casters thread ran somewhat below my expectation at the time. It's pretty early to assume that the monk thread will just die off, in any case. Just been a bit slow.

[Nupo]

I've been playing D&D since the 70's but haven't followed current' trends much. This whole thing about Tiering is new to me. Yea, we always knew certain classes were harder to keep alive than others, the 1's edition monk for example, but never put much thought in it or ever quantified it. I'm still a little confused about it. We consider pure casters to be the hardest to keep alive, but apparently we are all wrong. Apparently they are the best. Yes at higher levels pure casters are quite powerful, but getting them there is pretty tough. Do most people these days still start their characters at 1st level? I kind of get the impression they don't. That would change things a lot, skipping past the hard to survive low levels.

[Troacctid]

Divine casters survive just fine at low levels.

[eggynack]

I've been playing D&D since the 70's but haven't followed current' trends much. This whole thing about Tiering is new to me. Yea, we always knew certain classes were harder to keep alive than others, the 1's edition monk for example, but never put much thought in it or ever quantified it. I'm still a little confused about it. We consider pure casters to be the hardest to keep alive, but apparently we are all wrong. Apparently they are the best. Yes at higher levels pure casters are quite powerful, but getting them there is pretty tough. Do most people these days still start their characters at 1st level? I kind of get the impression they don't. That would change things a lot, skipping past the hard to survive low levels.
Casters are more survivable than they're sometimes given credit for. Just at the outset, two of the major core casters are the cleric and the druid, a pair of d8 HD classes, same as the monk and better than the rogue. The cleric gets heavy armor flat out, and the druid gets mediocre armor but a full on melee meat shield to increase burliness. That's all before any kind of magic or optimization. Wizards are trickier, but they can afford to invest heavily into constitution, have access to effects like mage armor, and can even pull out abrupt jaunt as an excellent defensive tool. And, meanwhile, all three classes get an advantage that most fighters lack. They can stand where the monsters aren't and maintain their utility. Also, while lower optimization wizards have arguably less endurance than a fighter, they have a bunch of non-combat utility and a broader range of possible combat options.

The result, generally speaking, is that the druid is actively better than nearly any other class starting at first level, with that advantage only growing over time (except as compared to other high tier casters, because some of those pull ahead later on), the cleric is above average though not best in the game really early, and wizard is reasonably comparable to lower tier classes until level five or so when they start really pulling ahead. Other high tier classes have different power curves, but said curves are generally better than you'd expect, I think.

[Rhyltran]

Preface:

This is an observation. it is in no way meant to single anyone out or to be taken as an attack on anyone. the following is simply my opinion and nothing else.

Opinion:

There are so many Tier threads now its crazy. All of them seem to come down to the same conclusion so my opinion is we make this simple.

We rename Dungeons and Dragons to Wizards and Dragons and all those other classes that help them.

The jist of these Tier threads seem to be that CASTERS are everything and if you can not cast spells your useless. The point is it seems that if you don't play a caster you are worthless in this game.

Again my opinion. Thank you for reading my little rant of frustration. Again this is just an observation and opinion and is not an attack on anyone or anything.

Thank you.

I, as a DM, am a big supporter of the tier system. Personally I find it a useful tool especially in the hands of newer players who don't have a full handle on mid-high optimization and that's all it's meant to be. A tool, guideline, etc. It isn't meant to be taken as a bible. You can ignore it or use it as you see fit.

[Swaoeaeieu]

I, as a DM, am a big supporter of the tier system. Personally I find it a useful tool especially in the hands of newer players who don't have a full handle on mid-high optimization and that's all it's meant to be. A tool, guideline, etc. It isn't meant to be taken as a bible. You can ignore it or use it as you see fit.

so actually just like a bible then? :smallbiggrin:

[Rhyltran]

so actually just like a bible then? :smallbiggrin:

I'm not touching that one with a ten foot pole. Them's fighting words. :P

[Nupo]

Divine casters survive just fine at low levels.I know there are tons of classes out there these days, but if you are talking core 3.5 I meant Wizards and Sorcerers only. Classes that have very little melee combat ability, and no armor. I don't know if there are any Divine caster classes out there that fit that description, but if there are, I would include them as well.


And, meanwhile, all three classes get an advantage that most fighters lack. They can stand where the monsters aren't and maintain their utility.Only if they have a group of fighters to stand behind. And if anything slips through, a 1st level wizard is in deep trouble.

I don't know about other peoples campaigns, but in ours, fighter types have the greatest odds of reaching second level, and wizards the least. But I get the impression that's not exactly what this tiering thing is all about.

[Troacctid]

I mean, if for some reason you don't count Clerics and Druids as pure casters, okay. But they're higher in their tier than Wizards for a reason.

[eggynack]

I know there are tons of classes out there these days, but if you are talking core 3.5 I meant Wizards and Sorcerers only. Classes that have very little melee combat ability, and no armor. I don't know if there are any Divine caster classes out there that fit that description, but if there are, I would include them as well.
I'm not really sure why your definition of tier one caster would not include clerics and druids. Having access to armor suddenly makes you not a pure caster? It's an odd categorization.



Only if they have a group of fighters to stand behind. And if anything slips through, a 1st level wizard is in deep trouble.
No, either way. It's not a perfect defense by any means, but fighters necessarily stand right next to opponents, leaving themselves open to full attacks. Wizards can trivially be far enough away to deny full attacks, and can even do things at ranges where normal attacks are impossible.


I don't know about other peoples campaigns, but in ours, fighter types have the greatest odds of reaching second level, and wizards the least. But I get the impression that's not exactly what this tiering thing is all about.
It's a factor, but it's not everything. Defense at first level is relevant, but so is offense at first level, non-combat utility at first level, and all those things at levels besides first.

[Beheld]

Preface:

This is an observation. it is in no way meant to single anyone out or to be taken as an attack on anyone. the following is simply my opinion and nothing else.

Opinion:

There are so many Tier threads now its crazy. All of them seem to come down to the same conclusion so my opinion is we make this simple.

We rename Dungeons and Dragons to Wizards and Dragons and all those other classes that help them.

The jist of these Tier threads seem to be that CASTERS are everything and if you can not cast spells your useless. The point is it seems that if you don't play a caster you are worthless in this game.

Again my opinion. Thank you for reading my little rant of frustration. Again this is just an observation and opinion and is not an attack on anyone or anything.

Thank you.

I think you misunderstand the beliefs and goals of the people making Tiering threads. I think it would more accurately be said that the point of Tier threads is "Wizards are OP and you shouldn't be allowed to play them." I have a friend who (I am fairly certain) doesn't post on gitp, who said "shouldn't you purposefully sabotage vote Beguilers into Tier 3, since so many games on gitp ban or otherwise disadvantage higher tier classes, and then you can have something you actually want to play." It was mostly a joke, but the point stands. If you really drill down on eggy about the "purpose" of the tiers or the usefulness of them, (someone linked a thread on another forum where this happened) he says that people shouldn't play classes of different tiers together. It's not Wizard superiority that's the goal, it's Wizard exclusion.

[lord_khaine]

I mean, if for some reason you don't count Clerics and Druids as pure casters, okay. But they're higher in their tier than Wizards for a reason.

? Lot of people think its the other way, that wizards are at the utter top. And with the amount of broken arcane spells published then its kinda hard to disagree with.


Only if they have a group of fighters to stand behind. And if anything slips through, a 1st level wizard is in deep trouble.

I don't know about other peoples campaigns, but in ours, fighter types have the greatest odds of reaching second level, and wizards the least. But I get the impression that's not exactly what this tiering thing is all about.

I must confess its been so long since i played a level 1 char, that its really hard to remember. And with 4+con hp you will die to a random arrow/thrown spear crit, so if intelligent humanoids target the ones on robes then i guess the surviability rate for them are kinda low.

But already at those levels arcane casters are immensely powerful, able to end entire encounters with a standart action, and it only get worse from there on. I guess you could say that they suffer even more from glass cannon syndrome.
And the tier system rate classes across level 1 to 20, where the majority of the weight is put on the middle range of levels that most people play in.

because honestly very few people does play at level 1-2, since survival there is a matter of luck more than anything else. Gameplay at that level is really deadly for anyone, and a lot of GM's find it annoyingly hard to tell a story if the participants constantly gets replaced.

[Nupo]

I'm not really sure why your definition of tier one caster would not include clerics and druids. Having access to armor suddenly makes you not a pure caster? It's an odd categorization.I wasn't trying to define anything as tier anything. Just explaining what I meant by "pure caster." If the term "pure caster" has some other commonly accepted meaning I am sorry for the confusion. All I was saying is that I have players in our group that will never play a wizard because they can't ever get them to second level, yet in this tier system they are suppose to be way better than fighters. I have other players that do play wizards, but they have to work at it. If it survives, and gets to higher levels they reap the rewards.

[Nupo]

because honestly very few people does play at level 1-2, since survival there is a matter of luck more than anything else. Gameplay at that level is really deadly for anyone, and a lot of GM's find it annoyingly hard to tell a story if the participants constantly gets replaced.So most don't start at 1st level? We always have, I guess we're weird. I have some players that prefer the low levels (my wife is one of them) because of the added challenge. She finds high level characters boring because they are soo hard to kill. Well hard compaired to low levels.


And the tier system rate classes across level 1 to 20, where the majority of the weight is put on the middle range of levels that most people play in.So you are saying most people play characters in the level 7-14 range? Wow! We consider anyting over 6th level to be "high level" and 20th level to be...well I don't know. In 40 years of playing D&D never had anyone get that high.

[eggynack]

I wasn't trying to define anything as tier anything. Just explaining what I meant by "pure caster." If the term "pure caster" has some other commonly accepted meaning I am sorry for the confusion. All I was saying is that I have players in our group that will never play a wizard because they can't ever get them to second level, yet in this tier system they are suppose to be way better than fighters. I have other players that do play wizards, but they have to work at it. If it survives, and gets to higher levels they reap the rewards.
Pure caster usually refers to full 9th level casting off of a big list. Or, not exactly, cause I don't think that's a term in wide use, but it's what I'd generally take it to mean. Anyway, wizards definitely lose some of that issue as they level. Their defenses get pretty varied and potent pretty fast. And, again, there are tools to increase defensive power early on too, even at first level. The tier system is definitely not strictly a measure of a class' capabilities at first level though, nor should it be.

[lord_khaine]

I wasn't trying to define anything as tier anything. Just explaining what I meant by "pure caster." If the term "pure caster" has some other commonly accepted meaning I am sorry for the confusion. All I was saying is that I have players in our group that will never play a wizard because they can't ever get them to second level, yet in this tier system they are suppose to be way better than fighters. I have other players that do play wizards, but they have to work at it. If it survives, and gets to higher levels they reap the rewards.

But how do you handle player death then? If everyone always returns at level 1 then there is going to be some wild level differences eventually. And if they come back at group level then eventually you are going to gain the rewards of being a full caster.

Also, i suspect the survival rate of wizards rise considerably with system mastery, and access to the hive mind.

[GilesTheCleric]

I wasn't trying to define anything as tier anything. Just explaining what I meant by "pure caster." If the term "pure caster" has some other commonly accepted meaning I am sorry for the confusion. All I was saying is that I have players in our group that will never play a wizard because they can't ever get them to second level, yet in this tier system they are suppose to be way better than fighters. I have other players that do play wizards, but they have to work at it. If it survives, and gets to higher levels they reap the rewards.

For us, a pure caster usually means "anyone with 9ths and access to one of the Big 3 lists (Wiz, Drd, Clr)". You're right that many casters aren't incredibly durable at low levels, but 3.5 (and newer editions) have made surviving low levels easier for everyone. Once you add in some optimisation, it's not difficult to drastically reduce the likelihood of low-level death with a caster. That's not to say they'll never die -- after all, GMs and players all vary. But your odds certainly go up as your system mastery increases.

Edit: double swordsage'd.


So most don't start at 1st level? We always have, I guess we're weird. I have some players that prefer the low levels (my wife is one of them) because of the added challenge. She finds high level characters boring because they are soo hard to kill. Well hard compaired to low levels.

So you are saying most people play characters in the level 7-14 range? Wow! We consider anyting over 6th level to be "high level" and 20th level to be...well I don't know. In 40 years of playing D&D never had anyone get that high.

Everyone plays the game differently. I always start experienced groups at level 3, since that's when you've actually got a few class features and a decent chunk of HP. My games usually last 1-2 years, and reach 10-14th level. For you, maybe you level more slowly and prefer lower levels, and that's fine.

If you don't like to go above 6th or so, you might want to look into E6 (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?206323-E6-The-Game-Inside-D-amp-D), which is a codified rules system for low-level games.

[Nupo]

But how do you handle player death then? If everyone always returns at level 1 then there is going to be some wild level differences eventually. And if they come back at group level then eventually you are going to gain the rewards of being a full caster.
If the players are only second or third level they come back as a first level and do their best to fit in and survive. If the players are higher we have taken a break from the high level characters and start a new first level campaign. Once some of those get some levels they meet up with the old characters and go from there. Sometimes a player has an old character that they retired that they bring back. Occasionally with very high level characters (like over 8th level) they can find someone to cast raise dead.


Also, i suspect the survival rate of wizards rise considerably with system mastery, and access to the hive mind.System mastery does help, but it also helps with other classes as well. "Hive mind?" Had to google that one. Don't have that in our campaign.


For us, a pure caster usually means "anyone with 9ths and access to one of the Big 3 lists (Wiz, Drd, Clr)".Oh, OK, totally not what I meant. I meant a character that's offensive capability is purely through casting.


You're right that many casters aren't incredibly durable at low levels, but 3.5 (and newer editions) have made surviving low levels easier for everyone.I agree, getting a 1st. edition Magic-User to second level was quite a challenge. One spell per day, a dagger, and 1d4 hp made surviving tough. In 3.5 it's easier, but still a challenge.


Everyone plays the game differently. I always start experienced groups at level 3, since that's when you've actually got a few class features and a decent chunk of HP. My games usually last 1-2 years, and reach 10-14th level. For you, maybe you level more slowly and prefer lower levels, and that's fine.We had a group that got to that 10-14th level. It took about five years of weekly gaming. So I guess we do level more slowly. In that five years though we did break away from that group of characters occasionally, so had we just played that group exclusively it probably would have taken three years. I guess starting at first and getting to 10+ in three years isn't a whole lot slower than starting at 3rd and getting there in two years.

[eggynack]

System mastery does help, but it also helps with other classes as well.
It helps less. Wizards have a ton of powerful spells and some things that really fill in the gaps at early levels. Fighters just kinda have somewhat better feats.


"Hive mind?" Had to google that one. Don't have that in our campaign.
That's referring to the optimizing capability of the community as a whole. Or, alternatively, the community's actual hive mind capabilities, where any one of us can field the answers for any other of us, for such is our power.


Oh, OK, totally not what I meant. I meant a character that's offensive capability is purely through casting.
That's still nearly true for the cleric and druid. Yeah, they can occasionally hit something, but the magic is where it's at. Especially the cleric.

[GilesTheCleric]

We had a group that got to that 10-14th level. It took about five years of weekly gaming. So I guess we do level more slowly. In that five years though we did break away from that group of characters occasionally, so had we just played that group exclusively it probably would have taken three years. I guess starting at first and getting to 10+ in three years isn't a whole lot slower than starting at 3rd and getting there in two years.

The rate you level at probably also has a lot to do with how you award xp. If you still follow the older edition models for granting xp (eg. only for killing mobs, or collecting gold, etc), then you'll probably level more slowly. In 3rd edition and later, many folks award xp for overcoming challenges generally. For example, if a room in a dungeon had a puzzle with coloured tiles or something that needed to be properly arranged to open a door, xp might be awarded for completing it. Same thing for disabling/ bypassing a trap.

I can't state how many folks do, but I personally also award xp for good RP, and also for completing story arcs and quests. Some GMs I know award xp for folks showing up on time, bringing food, or other out-of-game things, but I've never needed to do that with my groups.


It helps less. Wizards have a ton of powerful spells and some things that really fill in the gaps at early levels. Fighters just kinda have somewhat better feats.
Fighters can also easily outscale wizards on damage at low levels. Since it's tricky to raise DCs without access to higher-level magic and expensive items, a fighter's average contribution can still be quite good for the first few levels, especially if a wizard doesn't know to use good BFC, or perhaps is unable to because of positioning/ initiative.

[lord_khaine]

All the same it is a really interesting observation, that having to advance up though the levels on their own does indeed hinder arcane casters a bit more than most other classes.

It would also be nice to know at what level of optimisation this takes place though. How does a typical level 1 wizard look here? If played by one of the players that can manage to keep them alive?
Because it would be interesting to see how many of the common tricks used to survive past level 1-2 is used here.

[Crake]

If half your party is dead before level 4, you must be playing an incredibly lethal campaign. Is your DM throwing CR+4 encounters at you every fight or something? CR+4 means what a 1st edition player might consider an "equal fight" which is basically a 50/50 chance to come out on top, with even a win coming out with casualties on the winning side. I have both run and participated in numerous games all beginning at level 1 (I don't think I've ever actually played in a game that didn't start at level 1, barring 1 shot adventures for things like festive holiday games), and short of one campaign, everyone made it well and far in before player deaths occured. And these were games that went on for months, if not years, going all the way up to 15+

Even in the current games, we managed to take down a whole fort at level 5, filled with a garrison of 80+ men, and like, 5 commanders each at least 2-3 levels above us in level in a single day with no casualties on our side. I simply cannot fathom a world in which players die so frequently and frivolously. The only scenario I can possibly think of is either you're so completely outgunned by your DM, and you are stonewalled in all creative attempts to shift the scales in your favour, or you charge into every dungeon and alert the whole place as you fight.

[Nupo]

If half your party is dead before level 4, you must be playing an incredibly lethal campaign.You got me thinking, so I did a little research. My wife has kept all her characters she ever created, including dead ones, going back to our start in 1st edition. Her current character just made second level.

She has 12 other characters that are alive, but she quit playing for one reason or another. 4-1st level, 3-2nd level, 3-3rd level, 1-5th level and 1-9th level.

She has 25 dead characters. One died at 12th level, 1 at 7th, 1 at 6th, 3 at 4th, 1 at 2nd, and a whopping 18 died at first level.

So over the years she has had 8 characters make it to 4th level or higher, and 19 that died before getting there. That comes out to more than two thirds dead before level 4. She takes chances with her characters more than most, but half dead before forth level is probably pretty accurate for our campaign.


The only scenario I can possibly think of is either you're so completely outgunned by your DM, and you are stonewalled in all creative attempts to shift the scales in your favour,I'm the DM. I definitely don't stonewall creative attempts to shift the scales, in fact I encourage it. No one has ever complained that things are too deadly, and all seem to enjoy our sessions. It does make reaching second level a pretty big accomplishment, and cause for celebration.


or you charge into every dungeon and alert the whole place as you fight.They do frequently end up fighting most of the dungeon at once. I design and play dungeons as logically as I can. Combat is usually noisy, and any monsters with an intelligence over 2 will usually send one of their number for reinforcements. To have monsters just sit in their room waiting for the characters to come and kill then one at a time isn't very logical. I do tend to make small dungeons, less than ten rooms, and many of those rooms are for storage or other things. If they are smart they can take them out in small bunches, but it takes good tactics and a bit of luck.

A few weeks ago only three of our six players were able to make the session. They went out anyway, had poor tactics, and it resulted in all three getting killed. The characters that belonged to the three that couldn't attend the session just stayed in town.

The next session the three that had stayed in town recruited some help, and went out to find their friends that had not returned. They found a mostly empty dungeon, lots of blood on the floor and clues that let them to our last session.

Our last session they took on an old shipwreck that was being used by hobgoblin pirates as a base. The ship was in the water, but firmly on the rocks. They approached in the dark with the aid of an obscuring mist spell to conceal their approach. Sent the rouge and monk in to take out the two guards on deck, but the monk took two rounds to kill his. It yelled an alert and things built from there. They had the upper hand however, and made it through without any players dyeing. One did get knocked into the negatives, but the cleric was able to save him. They tossed all the dead hobgoblins overboard and spent the night on the ship. In the morning, at first light they spotted a ship sailing toward them flying a skull and crossbones flag. That's where we ended the session. They have until Sunday to come up with a good plan, and they're gonna need one.

Some would probably call our campaign "incredibly lethal" but everyone has fun.

[Nupo]

It would also be nice to know at what level of optimisation this takes place though. How does a typical level 1 wizard look here? If played by one of the players that can manage to keep them alive?It seems to have less to do with how optimized the character is and more to do with how smart the player plays them. My daughter is quite good at keeping wizards alive at low levels. Actually probably better than fighters because she makes a point to play them smart.

[Nupo]

The rate you level at probably also has a lot to do with how you award xp. If you still follow the older edition models for granting xp (eg. only for killing mobs, or collecting gold, etc), then you'll probably level more slowly. In 3rd edition and later, many folks award xp for overcoming challenges generally.I quit awarding xp for collecting gold decades ago. I'm not terribly generous with xp but I do award it for overcoming challenges without actually fighting. In fact if it's an ingeniously creative solution I award even more than they would have received had they just hack and slashed it.

[Vizzerdrix]

So most don't start at 1st level? We always have, I guess we're weird.

I mostly start at level 1 and have never lost a sorc that low of level. Just make sure your con is second highest stat and dex is third. Other than that, improved init or nerveskitter because he how goes first wins and keep in mind that if you are on the front line something has gone very wrong. Caltrops and tanglefoot bags will help keep stuff away. Start with a few crafting ranks and see if you can make them instead of buying them. Also shields can be dropped as a free action, so use one.

[Nupo]

I mostly start at level 1 and have never lost a sorc that low of level. Just make sure your con is second highest stat and dex is third. Other than that, improved init or nerveskitter because he how goes first wins and keep in mind that if you are on the front line something has gone very wrong. Caltrops and tanglefoot bags will help keep stuff away.The most important stat to have is a smart player. If you have that, the character's stats are a lot less important.


Also shields can be dropped as a free action, so use one.That's a great idea. I'll pass that tip on to the next person in our group that creates an arcane caster. Maybe even a tower shield.

[eggynack]

The most important stat to have is a smart player. If you have that, the character's stats are a lot less important.
Well, smarts and abrupt jaunt. Abrupt jaunt is real good. Especially at low levels. High AC and HP make attacks that come your way take out less of your HP on average. Abrupt jaunt just makes you where the attacks aren't.

[Nupo]

Well, smarts and abrupt jaunt. Abrupt jaunt is real good. Especially at low levels. High AC and HP make attacks that come your way take out less of your HP on average. Abrupt jaunt just makes you where the attacks aren't.
We don't use PH2

[rrwoods]

FWIW: my play group likes to start at 1, but level very quickly until 3. Our sessions last a full day or most of a weekend, and until level 3 whoever is DMing handwaves enough XP to level each session. Lots of the players in the group like starting at 1. In our current game, to help make things a *little* less swingy, we started at 1 but with 2000 gp. The beatsticks and dexterity striker got the armor needed to keep from getting hit too often and the party was able to start with wands. Interesting having that stuff with level 1 class features.

From that point forward we usually level every other session or so. Last session (this weekend) we leveled to 8 despite having leveled to 7 recently, but that was because we hadn't played in quite a while AND it was a full weekend play session. I also suspect that the challenges planned for where we ended up work out better at 8 than 7.

As far as the usefulness of tiering: I find it extremely useful, personally. The growing pains involved with the various retiering efforts are undeniable, but IMO very worth it. My current game is composed of classes with pretty settled-on tiers (wizard, cleric, cleric, crusader, swordsage) and the players are playing a pretty tight spread in terms of power (wizard is doing summons and a tad of bfc; one cleric has Vow and the other is playing a beatstick). I find the tier system very useful to make that type of prediction and I've found it to be accurate so far.

[Stealth Marmot]

I'm not touching that one with a ten foot pole. Them's fighting words. :P

I wouldn't touch the Bible with a 10 foot pole either.

It burns my hands when I touch it. Maybe I should stop the blasphemy?

[TheIronGolem]

I'm tired of hearing about quarts and gallons. Thanks to that system, everybody says a pitcher holds more beer than a glass. I know that's wrong, because this one time I carefully filled a glass to the top without spilling any, and my friend tried to fill a pitcher by blasting beer into it from a firehose and the pitcher tipped over and spilled everywhere. So I know quarts aren't real.

[Beheld]

I'm tired of hearing about quarts and gallons. Thanks to that system, everybody says a pitcher holds more beer than a glass. I know that's wrong, because this one time I carefully filled a glass to the top without spilling any, and my friend tried to fill a pitcher by blasting beer into it from a firehose and the pitcher tipped over and spilled everywhere. So I know quarts aren't real.

If you think the Tier system is as objective as volumes, you should be waging a one man crusade against the reteiring threads.

[gooddragon1]

Fighters can also easily outscale wizards on damage at low levels. Since it's tricky to raise DCs without access to higher-level magic and expensive items, a fighter's average contribution can still be quite good for the first few levels, especially if a wizard doesn't know to use good BFC, or perhaps is unable to because of positioning/ initiative.

How about fighters compared to druids? Always wondered.

[Troacctid]

How about fighters compared to druids? Always wondered.
Well, the Fighter can outperform the animal companion without much difficulty, but I imagine beating both the companion and the Druid at the same time would be tough. Action economy and all that.

[Seerow]

These are all important points. It's worth emphasizing that tier systems don't say "casters are better", just that "casters are often both more powerful and more versatile". It doesn't make them better -- that's a judgment call on the part of the player. Many folks enjoy fighters, rogues, or other classes more.


Player > Build > Class, as the saying goes.

Pretty much this.

The tier system is good, it gives players an idea of what to expect. I am someone who's been around here enough years to remember a time before tiers were a thing, and remember the first time the term CoDzilla was coined. Most of what has come to know as tiers came from a long history of bickering about what party members can or should be able to do.

I respect the tiers for what they do in terms of bringing a common language to the discussion. But even with that knowledge, I don't say "Tier 1 or bust". I don't even say "Don't play anything below tier 3", or "Everyone at the table has to be close to each other in tier". I still run and play in games where a Wizard is playing alongside a Monk/Ranger, and everybody is happy and having fun.

The tier system does not in any way say this is wrong. What it does do is set expectations for what each character is capable of, how much support we might expect that they need, and what sort of tactics the players of those characters may need to use.

So when I am DMing that heavily imbalanced party? I am more inclined to provide lenient rulings to things regarding what the character wants to do. Or I might happen to work in more loot that is specifically tailored to that character. Or I might talk to the player of the weaker character to find out what about those classes they actually liked, and help come up with some homebrew variant of the class that maintains what they want while having a bit more capability or flexibility. Yes, these are all rule 0 things. Because as DM I have accepted the game is broken, and sometimes I need to nudge things along to make the game work as intended.

If I am playing in the party? If I am playing the higher tier character, I generally pull my punches a bit. Not in terms of play, but in build. I'm a big fan of using Stalwart Battle Sorcerer because it gives me enough spellcasting to have a solid toolset, but little enough spellcasting that I'm not solving everything by myself. I stick to themes, I drop caster levels unnecessarily occasionally, or waste a feat or two on pure flavor. Far more frequently I am instead the one picking the weaker classes and doing my best to optimize them. Despite all of its flaws the Fighter Archetype is still one of my favorites, and I love trying to make it work without Tome of Battle. I love Tome of Battle and Path of War, but making a well built Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, or Ranger without touching it or a dedicated casting class is a reward in of itself.

I still strive to remain effective, but I play to the level of the table as a whole. Occasionally when a new player joins the group we have a bit of a disconnect of where optimization levels lie (either over or under shooting), but that's part of the adjustment process for any new group in my opinion.



Anyway, that's a long rant to basically say, Tiers are great, but they exist as a guideline. They exist to set expectations, not to close doors or tell anybody that they're playing wrong. And setting those expectations is one of the most important things you can have in a game with as wide of a power spread as 3.X/PF.

[Bakkan]

If you think the Tier system is as objective as volumes, you should be waging a one man crusade against the reteiring threads.

The Tier systems are attempts to describe and measure what are objectively real differences in capabilities between classes. The fact that the Tier systems are a matter of debate just means that we don't have as straightforward a way to measure those capabilities as we do for volumes.

[Beheld]

The Tier systems are attempts to describe and measure what are objectively real differences in capabilities between classes. The fact that the Tier systems are a matter of debate just means that we don't have as straightforward a way to measure those capabilities as we do for volumes.

Yes........ Which was my point. That quarts ECT. Are objective measure, and tier threads are not.

[Bakkan]

Yes........ Which was my point. That quarts ECT. Are objective measure, and tier threads are not.

Quarts and the Tier system are both constructs designed to measure objective realities. The only differences are that volumes are easier to measure and quarts have been around longer.

[eggynack]

The key difference here is that quart is a mathematical unit, while tier is a far more complicated scientific unit. By which I mean, while we can tell you precisely how much a quart is, and deductively determine whether it's greater than or less than any comparable measure, tier depends on induction. We make a hypothesis about how good a class is, and then test that hypothesis both in the practical realm, running games and the like, and in the theoretical realm, directly comparing abilities against each other to the extent they can be compared. Perhaps it's more like determining which out of two medicines is more effective. We can determine the rate of curing inductively, though absolutely not perfectly, and we can use that as an estimate of the curative properties of the medicines in a pair of instantiated trials. We might be wrong in that estimate for any number of reasons, but that doesn't make the estimate subjective (it was based purely on objective criteria that are logically formed), and a future estimate will be better, alloyed as it is by this new data.

By which I mean to say, we had reasonable and objective average medicine curing data, but the objectivity of the old data does not necessarily make new and different data useless. We are running the experiment again, in a sense, to either confirm the initial results or find new ones. And, critically, we're accounting for some variables that were removed from consideration entirely before, which means that the results could be different even if the original was precisely correct.

[Thurbane]

Preface:

This is an observation. it is in no way meant to single anyone out or to be taken as an attack on anyone. the following is simply my opinion and nothing else.

Opinion:

There are so many Tier threads now its crazy. All of them seem to come down to the same conclusion so my opinion is we make this simple.

We rename Dungeons and Dragons to Wizards and Dragons and all those other classes that help them.

The jist of these Tier threads seem to be that CASTERS are everything and if you can not cast spells your useless. The point is it seems that if you don't play a caster you are worthless in this game.

Again my opinion. Thank you for reading my little rant of frustration. Again this is just an observation and opinion and is not an attack on anyone or anything.

Thank you.

It's a valid observation: even though it may not be the intended purpose of Tiers, a number of peple see the ranking and think "Why would I ever play as a Tier 2 or lower?".

Personally I tend to take the Tier system with a grain of salt: I play in a fairly low op group, and the level of disparity between the classes people tend to play is rarely an issue.

Oddly enough, only 4 classes have ever flagged an "OP" discussion in my group:
- Beguiler ("He's stealing the Rogue's job, and he's got, like, a spell for everything!"
- Warblade ("Those abilities are far too strong to be renewable in a single round, let alone usable in every encounter!")
- Warlock ("All day magical abilities? What the?")
- Dragon Shaman (as per warlock)

...needless to say, I don't agree with any of the above assessments fro my group.

[Rhyltran]

It's a valid observation: even though it may not be the intended purpose of Tiers, a number of peple see the ranking and think "Why would I ever play as a Tier 2 or lower?".

Personally I tend to take the Tier system with a grain of salt: I play in a fairly low op group, and the level of disparity between the classes people tend to play is rarely an issue.

Oddly enough, only 4 classes have ever flagged an "OP" discussion in my group:
- Beguiler ("He's stealing the Rogue's job, and he's got, like, a spell for everything!"
- Warblade ("Those abilities are far too strong to be renewable in a single round, let alone usable in every encounter!")
- Warlock ("All day magical abilities? What the?")
- Dragon Shaman (as per warlock)

...needless to say, I don't agree with any of the above assessments fro my group.

Lol, the only class that has ever been brought up as OP discussion in my group is Druid. To be fair.. that one is warranted. :P

[Vizzerdrix]

Lol, the only class that has ever been brought up as OP discussion in my group is Druid. To be fair.. that one is warranted. :P

Ive tried several times to break a druid in a game, and I am convinced that the book keeping involved is some sort of built in preventitave measure. :smallsigh:

[Rhyltran]

Ive tried several times to break a druid in a game, and I am convinced that the book keeping involved is some sort of built in preventitave measure. :smallsigh:

Yeah, my fiancee plays druid and she has more character sheets than I've ever seen.

[Kantolin]

My group is super low-op. People often have things like 'I make attack rolls with no damage boosters except maybe weapon specialization' sometimes.

We have had overpowered characters of various tiers. These can be problems.

The trouble is that um... okay, two of these examples of overpowered characters were 'Charging multipliers' and 'Stacking damage boosts on a two-weapon fighter'. These were concerns and needed to be addressed.

But I also, on total accident, broke the game when I decided I wanted to play a 'useless' wizard. :P My goal was 'I'm gonna play a half-orc wizard who isn't very good at magic and knows this, but he loves magic, and so I'm gonna take a bunch of spells that don't do damage like good spells like fireball and will instead do other stuffz'.

So I did things like suddenly discover 'Wow Solid Fog doesn't have a save' and 'Whoa what stops me from just using nightmare over and over' and 'I put a wall of stone up so this half of people and that half of people stay apart' and 'Gee I used sleep on the ogre and then we killed it' and 'Wow glitterdust is amazing' and stuff. No complicated builds or anything, just 'Whoop, broke the encounter'.

Let alone things like haste.

Now I mean, part of that is 'ease of building' as well as other things, which bodes poorly for things like the tome of battle that also have very high floors. But I mean, I was trying to consciously make a /bad/ wizard and whoops, and that can happen any time the wizard gets a new spell (Roll randomly on the scroll table, here have this planar bidning it seems like crap anyway since it doesn't do damage).

But as a DM, I find the tiers extremely helpful for a quick 'at a glance'. So if I have a sorceror, a bard, and a fighter, I know I have to watch the sorceror a bit for power and to watch the fighter for building himself into a corner, and the bard is probably more okay.

To compare, a different DM in my group was trying ot make sure everyone got a spotlight and was super fixated on 'the cleric doesn't have the same BAB as the fighter but is trying to be a frontliner', and thus gave the cleric a superstrong legendary homebrew weapon to 'fix the gap', making the cleric absolutely amazinger to the point where it did cause a problem.

And we've also had a DM who went on a tirade to neuter the party dragon shaman for some reason, until I sat him down and had a conversation about what the rest of the party was doing and why the dragon shaman's auras were definitely okay given that (Or really 'in general').

I am all for tiers. Give me the quick glance of 'Oh this new class is tier 4, what does it do, damage, okay I know what to glance for' or 'Hm this new class is tier 2, let me make sure I keep an eye on what tricks he picks' or 'This class is tier 5, let me vet his sheet a bit to make sure that if he builds himself useless I can help him out'

...without having to wait like two months in game before I can say, 'Okay this clearly isn't just a case of bad rolls, the monk needs help'.

[Mordaedil]

Only if they have a group of fighters to stand behind. And if anything slips through, a 1st level wizard is in deep trouble.

I don't know about other peoples campaigns, but in ours, fighter types have the greatest odds of reaching second level, and wizards the least. But I get the impression that's not exactly what this tiering thing is all about.
No, tiering isn't really about combat prowess alone, if it was, we'd only need 3-4 tiers, where we'd have "powerful", "less powerful", "weak" and "useless".

Tiering was invented for 3.5 because of the toolbox certain characters have that other classes do not.

Example, a barbarian has a very focused skill set. He fights. He's very good at it. Ask him to do something outside of fighting, for instance convince the king to give a bonus and he might try to intimidate him. Ask him to sweet talk the barkeep to let them stay the night and he'll still intimidate him. He doesn't have a lot of options here. Same with a room filled with traps. Ask him what to do and he'll just activate them all and rely on his trap sense/DR to save him. A barbarian is tier 4.

Another example, a bard has a very varied skill set. He can sing, he can sweet-talk and he can cast magic. He's not awful at it. Because of the large list of skills and skill points a bard gets, he's got a lot of variety in how you can play one. He can sweet-talk the king, he can bluff the barkeep to allow the party to stay for free and he's always got options to do things with his magic that he cannot do with his skills alone. A room of traps can provide a challenge to a bard because he's not a rogue. A bard is tier 3.

The wizard is considered tier 1 not because of his sheer amazing power (albeit in the right hands it can be quite spectacular) but because whatever problem the DM puts down, the wizard, given the circumstances, can at least prepare the spell required to overcome it. There are limits to this, of course, and wizards aren't invincible at low levels, but the tier system is meant to give an indication of "given any situation possible in D&D, what class can solve them on their own". A wizard with access to divination magic can learn about most everything he needs to be ready for, even if at early levels that doesn't really mean much. A sorcerer is given tier 2 because they are locked into their spell lists by default and require magic items to expand their reportaire.

So, you aren't wrong, but survival in D&D 3rd edition onward is significantly easier than AD&D 2nd edition and earlier.

[Nupo]

Example, a barbarian has a very focused skill set. He fights. He's very good at it. Ask him to do something outside of fighting, for instance convince the king to give a bonus and he might try to intimidate him. Ask him to sweet talk the barkeep to let them stay the night and he'll still intimidate him. He doesn't have a lot of options here.Does this have more to do with being a barbarian, or more to do with the fact that most people don't put many points toward charisma when creating a barbarian? And you never know, maybe the barkeep likes the gruff outdoorsy type.


Same with a room filled with traps. Ask him what to do and he'll just activate them all and rely on his trap sense/DR to save him.Or go get one of the orcs they killed in the last room and toss it in, so it will trigger the traps.


whatever problem the DM puts down, the wizard, given the circumstances, can at least prepare the spell required to overcome it.How smart and creative the player is has a lot more to do with how easily they overcome obstacles than anything to do with what class their character is. At least in our campaign.


So, you aren't wrong, but survival in D&D 3rd edition onward is significantly easier than AD&D 2nd edition and earlier.I guess I played 1st edition too long, and that part of me didn't convert when I switched to 3.5 :smalltongue:

[lord_khaine]

Does this have more to do with being a barbarian, or more to do with the fact that most people don't put many points toward charisma when creating a barbarian? And you never know, maybe the barkeep likes the gruff outdoorsy type.

It mainly has something to do with that the Barbarians only social skill is intimidate. He might have a acceptable 4 skill points per level, but he dont have much to use it on.


Or go get one of the orcs they killed in the last room and toss it in, so it will trigger the traps.

And then hope he is out of range of the following explosions? Or that an orc corpse will actually trigger everything?
I would say thats certainly not a sign of a competent trapmaker.


How smart and creative the player is has a lot more to do with how easily they overcome obstacles than anything to do with what class their character is. At least in our campaign.

Does not change that one player got a big bag of tools from his class, and another dont. Just for an example, its surprisingly more easy to be creative if you can manipulate things from afar, or create vegable matter out of thin air.

[TheIronGolem]

Does this have more to do with being a barbarian, or more to do with the fact that most people don't put many points toward charisma when creating a barbarian?
Those aren't really separate matters - the barbarians' class features are designed to benefit heavily from STR/CON, and hardly at all from CHA. This naturally encourages players to dump CHA in favor of STR/CON, because they have very little to do with a good CHA score.


And you never know, maybe the barkeep likes the gruff outdoorsy type.
In other words, "maybe DM fiat will let you succeed by obviating the design of the game". That's true (of every single class and every single situation), but not relevant to a point that is explicitly about the design of the game.



Or go get one of the orcs they killed in the last room and toss it in, so it will trigger the traps.

Sure...if you have a corpse handy. And it's a trap that can be triggered by a corpse. And the corpse just happens to land in the right spot to trigger a trap whose existence/location are in question (is the whole floor of every trap room a pressure plate?). And the trap's effect is confined to the room it's in.

Of course, if the dungeon contains so many of this kind of easily-defeated trap that corpse-checking is a reliable strategy, then that's a game where traps are a trivial challenge and it doesn't actually take any real smarts to defeat them.


How smart and creative the player is has a lot more to do with how easily they overcome obstacles than anything to do with what class their character is. At least in our campaign.

Everybody thinks that how it is in their campaign. Many are wrong, because they forget is that it's much easier to intelligently/creatively apply the tools you have when you have more tools, and they fail to design campaigns accordingly.

[Alabenson]

But as a DM, I find the tiers extremely helpful for a quick 'at a glance'. So if I have a sorceror, a bard, and a fighter, I know I have to watch the sorceror a bit for power and to watch the fighter for building himself into a corner, and the bard is probably more okay.

To compare, a different DM in my group was trying ot make sure everyone got a spotlight and was super fixated on 'the cleric doesn't have the same BAB as the fighter but is trying to be a frontliner', and thus gave the cleric a superstrong legendary homebrew weapon to 'fix the gap', making the cleric absolutely amazinger to the point where it did cause a problem.

And we've also had a DM who went on a tirade to neuter the party dragon shaman for some reason, until I sat him down and had a conversation about what the rest of the party was doing and why the dragon shaman's auras were definitely okay given that (Or really 'in general').

I am all for tiers. Give me the quick glance of 'Oh this new class is tier 4, what does it do, damage, okay I know what to glance for' or 'Hm this new class is tier 2, let me make sure I keep an eye on what tricks he picks' or 'This class is tier 5, let me vet his sheet a bit to make sure that if he builds himself useless I can help him out'

...without having to wait like two months in game before I can say, 'Okay this clearly isn't just a case of bad rolls, the monk needs help'.

This.
This is exactly what the Tiers are supposed to be for; to help DMs gauge the flexibility of their parties and help determine if one player is going to need more help than the others.

Now, one of the arguments commonly made against the Tiers is that a given player can reach beyond the limits of their class with clever planning. While that's certainly true, that doesn't have any impact on the Tier system, as the Tiers are meant to gauge the tools that the class provides to the player, not what the player does with them.

[Telok]

If you play old school and combat-as-war then the whole tier thing doesn't matter as much. But if you play with people who've never experienced pre-WotC D&D and they play 'by the book' trying to follow the rules and guidelines as presented and without the old school assumptions and tactics then the tiers can be a very real thing. Dangerous combats and perma-death versus ~4 encounters a day and ~12 encounters per level make for very different game play (and the wizard teleporting back to town for more diamond dust while the cleric prepares Raise Dead again, dude just stop dying already).

What I use the tiers for as a DM is determining the amount and power of magic items found as loot (loot > crafted > store bought; very important house rule). Where the tiers are more important to me are as a player. I use them to gauge how much optimization I'll need to do in order to keep up with the group mechanically. This requires that I be able to assess the optimization and tier level that my group plays at (generally high 3ish but never quite getting into tier 2) in order to match my character to the group. So for the high 3s group I know that if I choose the fighter class I'll have more work to to and need more optimization to keep up with everything but to-hit and damage, but if I choose wizard I can sink all my feats into fluff/RP and lose a couple caster levels in a fun PrC and still have perfectly good mechanical options in and out of combat.

For straight up RP I don't care what class is written on the character sheet, I'm good. But there always comes a time to roll dice and the tiers let me know how much optimization work I'll need to put into a class to keep up with the rest of the party at dice rolling time.

Kinds off the original topic I've come up with a rough rule of thumb: For a competently played and designed character in 3.x D&D it normally takes a number of bad/unfortunate rolls equal to the character’s level to kill that character. As always, player>build>class, because I've seen a Lord of the Uttercold wizard build with a how-to sheet printed out handed off to a guy who completely failed to be effective and died in his second combat.

[Crake]

Does this have more to do with being a barbarian, or more to do with the fact that most people don't put many points toward charisma when creating a barbarian? And you never know, maybe the barkeep likes the gruff outdoorsy type.

Or go get one of the orcs they killed in the last room and toss it in, so it will trigger the traps.

How smart and creative the player is has a lot more to do with how easily they overcome obstacles than anything to do with what class their character is. At least in our campaign.

I guess I played 1st edition too long, and that part of me didn't convert when I switched to 3.5 :smalltongue:

You gotta look at the classes not in the hands of a player, but on their own merits, in the absense of any player. Because sure, a player can be creative with the tools given at hand, but "tossing an orc so it will trigger the traps" is not a barbarian exclusive thing. Anyone can do it, and thus it doesn't present any merit to the barbarian class at all.

As others have pointed out, look at the classes like tools. Imagine you have a swiss army knife, as compared to a fold out knife of the same size as the one in the swiss army knife. Objectively speaking, the swiss army knife can do more things. Sure, you can go on about how, by being creative, you can do lots of stuff with just the fold out knife, but so can the swiss army knife, only the swiss army knife can also do other things with it's other myriad of tools.

In a discussion about class capabilities, sadly, creative thinking does not factor in, because creative thinking isn't a class feature.

[Nupo]

Everybody thinks that how it is in their campaign. Many are wrong, because they forget is that it's much easier to intelligently/creatively apply the tools you have when you have more tools, and they fail to design campaigns accordingly.We frequently don't roll skill checks, we just roll play them out. I do stack the characters modifier on to the players performance, so I see what you are getting at.


You gotta look at the classes not in the hands of a player, but on their own merits, in the absense of any player.OK, I'm starting to understand.


Where the tiers are more important to me are as a player. I use them to gauge how much optimization I'll need to do in order to keep up with the group mechanically.Why is keeping up with the group important? In our campaign players just do what they can, with what they have, to help out. If some do more than others that's just fine. It's kind of like having one superstar on a basketball team. You embrace it, and change your tactics to try to get that guy the ball more often. I'm sure the hobbits weren't put out that Gandalf was so much more powerful than them. They were just glad to have him along, and did what they could to help out.

I'm starting to see how some would find tiers a little helpful. I just don't see how it could be helpful in our campaign. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just trying to see if it could improve our game in any way. I'm always looking for ways to improve. Just trying to figure out if there is something about it that I'm still not getting.

[Pex]

The Four Sides of Tier System Advocates

#1: Tiers 1 and 2 are an abomination. How dare players have such power. Animate Dead! Teleport! Gate! Spellcasters always have the exact spell they need at the moment they need it with any necessary feat, always get through spell resistance, and monsters never make their saving throws. Ban! Ban! Ban! If you play Tier 1 or 2 you are playing the game wrong.

#2: Tier 4 and below is The Suck. When one of their class abilities isn't able to be used in a particular instance that's proof right there they are completely useless for everything. Their skills never work. They always fail saving Will saving throws. They are a waste of a buff spell or even a spot at the game table. If you play Tier 4 or below you are playing the game wrong.

#3: Hear now the Greatness of Tier 3. Tier 3 is Harmony. Tier 3 is Balance. Naturally Tier 1 is an abomination. No kidding Tier 4 is atrocious. Abandon all and play only Tier 3. It is the way the game was meant to be played. Everyone is equal and at peace. If you are not playing Tier 3 you are playing the game wrong.

#4: This Tier System and all these problems is proof as to why 3E is a horrible game that no one should play. That is why I play (Insert game). It has none of these problems. To play 3E you have to be a min/max powergaming rollplayer to get anything done. If you play 3E you are playing the game wrong.

Exaggerate much? Hardly. I rarely even comment here anymore because I got tired of the constant 3E bashing that was going on and using the Tier System to justify it. I lurk from time to time, and now most threads are either asking for advice on a particular character build (I have no issue with that) or trying to "fix" a class to change its Tier or some other Tier related nonsense. No one needs the Tier System's permission to play the game.

[rrwoods]

Why is keeping up with the group important? In our campaign players just do what they can, with what they have, to help out. If some do more than others that's just fine. It's kind of like having one superstar on a basketball team. You embrace it, and change your tactics to try to get that guy the ball more often. I'm sure the hobbits weren't put out that Gandalf was so much more powerful than them. They were just glad to have him along, and did what they could to help out.

Comparison to written literature isn't useful, because in written literature all the characters are getting driven by the author's brain.

In a TTRPG, each character is driven by an individual player, and the character's hopes and dreams and motivations are up to that player. If part of a player's hopes and dreams and motivations have to do with overcoming challenges by using the rules of the game system, then lack of contribution to encounters can be a very real source of distress for them. (And if no part of the player's hopes and dreams and motivations have to do with overcoming challenges within the system... then why play D&D?)

It might not be the case for you. Some players legitimately don't care whether they do everything or nothing or something in between.

[Kantolin]

I'm sure the hobbits weren't put out that Gandalf was so much more powerful than them. They were just glad to have him along, and did what they could to help out.

While true, it would've been really weird if Gandalf was WAY WAY less powerful and less useful in all respects than Merry.

Or well, it could have worked, but it'd seem strange that everyone treated Gandalf like he was so powerful, and why nobody took hobbits seriously, and other things.

To build on that logic, if one PC makes 'The strongest swordsman in the lands', and on his right is, 'a squire who hopes to someday be as good as his hero', then it becomes a very different story if the squire is tremendously better than the hero. A story which can work, mind you, but the person who made the hero may not be happy to discover, 'Whoops, you're actually playing the buffoon who just /thinks/ they're powerful! Lol!'

If they're okay with that then that's fine though. Although if the goal is that (I want to play the buffoon who /thinks/ they're more powerful than the squire but clearly isn't), then it'll cause problems if they clearly are more powerful than their Squire, so this can fail either way.

Now, once you /know/ these things, it's all cool. I played a really fun incarnate who simply wasn't up to snuff in combat as I was about as optimized as everyone else, and that was fine since it's what I wanted to do. So yay! I'd have felt a lot worse if 'Whoops my incarnate is way way better than the wizard whos schtick is he wants to become a deity and is one of the most powerful characters in the setting', who was also in the party.

All of these examples have happened to me, mind you. Including the 'Hero fighter and his squire the cleric who is there to support him'. I was irritated that there really aren't good core 4th level spells for helping your buddies since most of them are super niche (neutralize poison?) or self only (Divine power) so I used the latter... and whoa, my 13 strength cleric who took Martial Weapon Proficiency: Longsword was suddenly way more useful than the 18 strength fighter. Whoa what.

~~~~~~

Another main value of the tiers comes from narrative power. I believe the original tier topic had something like, "The Adventure requires you to solve the oncoming orcish horde, find where the dragon's lair is, cross the improbably deep chasm, get through the trapped lair, and slay the dragon"

Tier 3 and 4, which a lot of people consider the 'sweet spot', is where they can either do /something/ for various one of those effects, at least can help participate even when it's not ideal, or at least is very good at their part of it.

So like, tier 3. The bard can talk people to his side or use his wide-range ability to buff his group/army, the warblade is a very good combatant and thus can do a good job of fighting the horde regardless of his optimization. Bards are great at finding things, Warblades are lousy at finding things so the warblade wouldn't be too useful here unless he can use his weapon drill. Bards /can/ solve the impossibly deep chasm but aren't guaranteed to be able to, warblades have a somewhat larger amount of options with teleportations and balance, both can go get a martial scroll or something and a rope. Warblades have some 'I punch through the walls' and stuff for the dungeon, and teleports again, bards have a small array of things they can do for traps, neither is optimal but both can play. Then yay dragonslaying!

Sounds cool! They did the adventure!

Tier 4 is actually closer to where I feel the designers were aiming for. The Rogue will get the crap beat out of him in an army fight while the Barbarian is better at it, although maybe the Rogue can sneak up to the captains if someone tells him who those are. If it's survival to track, the barbarian can find the lair and the rogue can't; if information around town is what you need, the rogue can find the lair and the barbarian can't. Neither of them can solve the chasm without some external help unless it's narrow enough for the barbarian to jump. Traps are a rogue's forte, the barbarian can sort of have a boost to his saves due to trap sense I guess as he's settin goff all of them, so he lets the rogue do it. Then dragonslaying! Although the rogue may have trouble there, as dragons are the listed example for 'may be hard to sneak attack'.

But that still is cool. The rogue had his time smacking the traps and talking around town and sneaking up to the boss, the barbarian had his time charging the orc army and using survival to follow tracks, but they both desperately needed the other to function (and they need some help for the chasm).

Doing the adventure! Yay!

Now, tier 5 is when you start to get into the 'If they are built well'. A fighter can charge the orc army like the barbarian can; if the fighter is built well he gets into tier 5 as is, if the fighter is built poorly he'll be ineffectively using weapon specialization or something. A healer might be able to help support the fighter a little but the healer class isn't really enough to help him function as they take work to keep up with oncoming damage. I have no idea what the fighter can do to help find the dragon's lair - he could intimidate someone? The healer has diplomacy in class and their split casting includes charisma so I guess they can do this one? The healer does have survival and thus could also possibly find tracks if that's the solution - kudos to the healer for having a skill list. Chasm of unsolveable unless the healer is optimized enough to have some sanctified spells or can summon something or whatever. The fighter can hope he has enough hit points to deal with all the traps, and can hope none of the traps send him insane or something, although the two might get through it depending on the traps if the healer avoids getting in it at all. Then the fighter /might/ be good at dealing with the dragon, and the healer /might/ be able to heal enough to be competent at helping the fighter deal with the dragon.

I mean, that's also alright. A lot of great stories involve kinda goofy Inspector Gadgety main characters who bumble through things and somehow it works out for them, haha. And at least, worst case scenario, they're doing the adventure. Tier 6 is even more of that - that's when they're not likely to be able to do /any/ of the steps. You can generally, as a note, optimize yourself out of tiers 6 and 5 - it's harder to get above 4 and rather rough to get above 3.

Because then we have trouble when we move in the upwards direction. To prove my point, let's look at the wizard or the cleric!

The two of them could deal with the orcish army - both could buff thesmelves up and wade in nigh-invincible, or use wide area of effect nonsense, or by buffing up or equipping an army. There are piles of divination spells to find the dragon's lair or the cleric has diplomacy. Every spell can get over the chasm, exaggerated for proof. Between meld with stone or in fact the spell 'find traps' the two can deal with the traps in the cave. Then dragons! Knowing they're fighting a dragon, the wizard can even tailor his spells for 'this specific dragon'.

And that's okay!
Well sort of anyway. It may make everyone else feel a little bad.

Since instead, the wizard could sit on his hands as the cleric kills three or four of them, then the wizard animates them and commences with his undead army that just grows and grows as more orcs die, and sends them against the town for more bodies, a speak with dead or five from the cleric tells them about the lair, they form a bone bridge or once again every spell for the chasm, infinite undead solve the pit, then throw a gigantic pile of undead at the dragon and use their own spellcasting if concerned.

That's also okay!
...but even more sort of, since now the fighter has trouble participating when it's 'Watch Joe and Mac send their gigantic hordes of the undead to solve all the problems'.

But from a DM's perspective, a larger concern is that the wizard could go from solution A to solution B with just one set of memorizing spells. They could solve the army traditionally then, that evening, decide, 'Hey let's do an undead army' and then cross the chasm and 'Eh I don't want to do undead anymore send them in in case of traps and we'll fight the dragon normally'.

But an even /bigger/ problem is uh.

The Wizard and Cleric could see the orc army, use a divination to find the orc's boss (and the dragon while at it), teleport to the orc chief, dominate him, order him to send his army after the dragon, greater teleport to the dragon while he's fighting the orcs and shivering touch him.

Or use Planar ally and planar binding to get a couple angels and ask them to please defend the town while they create phantom steeds to just suddenly be /at/ the dragon's lair and zip way overhead from the random encounters and then earthquake the lair until it collapses on him with a couple angels in backup.

Or a bunch of things. They don't even have to /play/ this adventure. You could be sure the rogue and barbarian are going to have to interact with the army and there will be a lot of rolling and then finding information and blah. A barbarian who instantly kills anything he hits and is immune to damage will at least /fight/ the orc army and the dragon, and actually still will have trouble at the end, so while that is a concern for a DM it's less narratively strong since he has to play your game. The wizard can just... /do/ these things.

And while you can neuter a lot of these things, that's in fact half the point - the tier system helps let you know 'The wizard can just kinda solve these problems, crap, watch him carefully and if he's going to do that have a talk with him'. Since it's not just 'Mwa ha ha the wizard's player is out to spoil people's fun', it's also 'We really need to defend this town but we have to go and beat up the evil lich. Can I make a golem or summon something that can guard this town while we're gone? I can?! Wow that's actually really easy. Um can I summon a couple more because the lich is really hard and beat us last time?'

And whoops!

As a DM, of course, you can easily deal with this. Which is kinda why Tier 2 is easier to DM for - a sorceror might have Phantom Steed and Divination and teleport and animate dead, but then at least you /know/ he has these things well in advance instead of 'every spell in the wizard's spellbook'. And if the sorceror picks up a scroll of planar binding, he can do it once! If the wizard picks up a scroll of planar binding, he can planar binding every day for the rest of the campaign.

Now I mean, of course the tier system just gives you alerts. Like, 'Oh, that's something to keep an eye on'. If the wizard is putzing around with non metamagic'd fireballs and the druid takes weapon focus(Scimitar), then okay. Crisis averted. Unless the druid is glancing over the PHB and finds that 'Hey we can use Air Walk to kinda solve the zombie horde, let's do that' or the wizard casts solid fog on the evil blackguard boss or something. But anyway, in there the fighter might have looked up how to be an ubercharger on the internet and thus he squishes anything he hits.

Although even then, the tier system tells you that the fighter is still at least playing your adventure, which is nicer than scrying or astral projection or even unfortunately placed dominates or something. But hey.

If someone in your group grabs a new book (say, Magic of Incarnum), you can either read everything about it and do a ton of simulations with it so you completely understand how everything works together, or glance at the tier list and see 'Incarnates are tier 4, Totemists are tier 3, Soulborns are tier 5' with the paragraph blurb on why, and get the vague idea about 'are they going to be using invisibility and out-hideing people's ability to find them' or stuff.

While you can glance, 'Ah, Wu Jens are tier 1' and conclude, 'Red Flag. Okay, what exactly can you do? Teleport? Okay I need to keep that in mind / use teleport to my advantage as a DM / Forbiddance everything / whatever', while you don't have to carefully analyze, 'Hm, Lightning Gauntlets? Everything has resistance 30 against all incarnum effects! I will keep you in line!'

[Stealth Marmot]

Kantolin makes an excellant point for the concept of tiering, though I think that the setup of what tiering is called and how it is presented could have done better.

The truth is that Wizards sort of fouled up when making certain classes and abilities within those classes. Tiering basically rates two things:

1. Can a character playing this class be in sufficient situations where they can feel they are useful, contributing, and/or get glory?

- This is important because the second part of "Roleplaying Game" is "Game". Consider similar team focused games like Team Fortress 2, or Overwatch. There are extensive debates and arguments about the power of each character, but in the end so long as a character can perform their job pretty well, your casual player will be happy contributing to the team. If however the character is either significantly overshadowed in every capacity (or nearly every capacity) or Heavily overshadowed in other capacities while not overshadowing the other class, then you run into a situation where a character will want to play a class, but could end up feeling like they got hosed when they try to use it. In those situations the DM gets a heads up and can compensate. Samurai in Complete warrior is a terrible class compared to even a fighter, but the player may have a desire to play such a character. The DM might get ahead of it and give the character a good portion of the plot to get behind, a good deal of extra money from their backstory, or heirlooms that are magic items that work only for him and give him some cool abilities. The DM could also make finding an artifact something that will benefit that player more than the others. "Next Quest is to recover the Twin Dragon Katana everyone!" A character doesn't have to be good in straight combat or even skills to feel like they contribute. They could be essential to the plot or roleplaying, and have situations where the player being there helps the team out without a roll. "Oh I'm sorry Lord Shin! Please, come in!" It's a useful heads up to the DM that says "Warning: Player will suck at stuff, give him non-stat related stuff to help them contribute in other ways or pimp him out with some shinies."

2. Can a character fundamentally unbalance the game to the point of rendering other members of the party superfluous, or can they circumvent entire portions or settings without much hassle?

- When the cleric can out fighter the fighter, why have a fighter? This of course is related to the last part, but it gives the DM an idea to where to draw the line with a player. He might get stricter with the rules concerning actions with a character who will overshadow another, or do other tricks. The real problem happens however when one or two character can actually literally leave the rest of the party behind and force the DM to potentially use critters who will stamp the lower tiered characters.

As for the second part, I emphasize the concept of Scry and Die. Keep in mind that I am fully aware that even low tier characters can fundamentally BOMB the whole system with a particular cheesy build. However, the higher tiered characters not only can do so AND do so in many ways, they can do so without even intending to do so. An even moderately well built wizard will likely be able to circumvent entire portions of the adventure when they have access to stuff like Scry, and Gods help you when the cleric starts dropping Divination to find out anything at all, ruining the mystery. Basically, with a fighter, if they are trying something cheesy, it becomes obvious. "Okay hes a half ogre with a spiked-" "Stop." But with a wizard, through normal building and things they would normally get, just used in a certain completely legal way, they can bypass nearly any damn thing in the game. As a DM, knowing that Wizards top off the Tier 1 list gives you a heads up on making sure they don't bypass over half the adventurer and completely throw you off your game, not to mention ruin the journey for the rest.

And keep in mind that this is not really the players fault if they do. Are they expected to not take an advantage or solve something when they can?

Wizards of the Coast dropped the ball in the original design of the game and players and DMs have to compensate because of it. From what I hear, though I don't have the source, the playtesters were fighting a Balor and the one doing the most damage was the wizard who was using a longbow with an elf character. Basically, the playtesters were awful, and likely fundamentally didn't understand how power scaled or didn't use their abilities (I heard that one of the playtesters couldn't make the druid too powerful because they never wild shaped into anything but a wolf).

The point is that a DM needs to be able to know this and adjust, and a player needs to know these sorts of things and be considerate.

Does it really matter if a class is tier 3 or 4? not particularly, though some like to argue (like myself). The real ones that matter are tiers 1 or 2 and tiers 5 and 6, and adjusting for them.


The Four Sides of Tier System Advocates

#1: Tiers 1 and 2 are an abomination. How dare players have such power. Animate Dead! Teleport! Gate! Spellcasters always have the exact spell they need at the moment they need it with any necessary feat, always get through spell resistance, and monsters never make their saving throws. Ban! Ban! Ban! If you play Tier 1 or 2 you are playing the game wrong.

#2: Tier 4 and below is The Suck. When one of their class abilities isn't able to be used in a particular instance that's proof right there they are completely useless for everything. Their skills never work. They always fail saving Will saving throws. They are a waste of a buff spell or even a spot at the game table. If you play Tier 4 or below you are playing the game wrong.

#3: Hear now the Greatness of Tier 3. Tier 3 is Harmony. Tier 3 is Balance. Naturally Tier 1 is an abomination. No kidding Tier 4 is atrocious. Abandon all and play only Tier 3. It is the way the game was meant to be played. Everyone is equal and at peace. If you are not playing Tier 3 you are playing the game wrong.

#4: This Tier System and all these problems is proof as to why 3E is a horrible game that no one should play. That is why I play (Insert game). It has none of these problems. To play 3E you have to be a min/max powergaming rollplayer to get anything done. If you play 3E you are playing the game wrong.

Exaggerate much? Hardly. I rarely even comment here anymore because I got tired of the constant 3E bashing that was going on and using the Tier System to justify it. I lurk from time to time, and now most threads are either asking for advice on a particular character build (I have no issue with that) or trying to "fix" a class to change its Tier or some other Tier related nonsense. No one needs the Tier System's permission to play the game.

It's like a new alignment system.

[Nupo]

As a DM, knowing that Wizards top off the Tier 1 list gives you a heads up on making sure they don't bypass over half the adventurer and completely throw you off your game, not to mention ruin the journey for the rest.

The point is that a DM needs to be able to know this and adjust, and a player needs to know these sorts of things and be considerate.
I suspect that groups that have these issues did not start their characters at first level and slowly progress up. If they had, the DM wouldn't need to adjust to anything, the adjustments would have happened gradually over a long period of time, and without anyone (including the DM) even noticing it was happening. The DM would never be caught off guard by anything the characters can do because by the time they were high enough level to do any of the stuff listed in the last two post they would have been adventuring in that DM's campaign for months, or even years.

[Crake]

I suspect that groups that have these issues did not start their characters at first level and slowly progress up. If they had, the DM wouldn't need to adjust to anything, the adjustments would have happened gradually over a long period of time, and without anyone (including the DM) even noticing it was happening. The DM would never be caught off guard by anything the characters can do because by the time they were high enough level to do any of the stuff listed in the last two post they would have been adventuring in that DM's campaign for months, or even years.

That's not really true. If you're trying to adjust reactively, by the time you've tailored things to what the spellcaster was capable of, he's gained a new tier of spells, and now you need to react to his new capabilities, so you'll always be a few steps behind, even if you start at level 1. Here are a list of just a few spells that can trivialize an encounter even at early levels: color spray, glitterdust, web, stinking cloud, hold person, slow, evards black tentacles, confusion, polymorph.

Say you're a DM who's reactive, you see the wizard popping off color spray and wiping out half the encounter in the first round, so you say "Ok, I'll throw some undead/constructs/plants at him, that will give the rest of the party something to do" But by that point, the wizard has hit level 3 and is now throwing around glitterdust and web, which equally affects those creatures, and that just continues up the line. Every time the wizard gains a new spell, he has the potential to catch the DM off guard. Honestly, all of the above might not even occur. Perhaps the wizard is throwing around magic missiles, scorching rays and fireballs to begin with, but then at level 7 he sees polymorph and says "oh that looks fun" and then suddenly everything starts falling apart as the fighter suddenly turns into a 7 headed hydra and gets 7 attacks each round even after moving, and the DM's whole dungeon is roflstomped in one session.

[Telok]

I suspect that groups that have these issues did not start their characters at first level and slowly progress up. If they had, the DM wouldn't need to adjust to anything, the adjustments would have happened gradually over a long period of time, and without anyone (including the DM) even noticing it was happening. The DM would never be caught off guard by anything the characters can do because by the time they were high enough level to do any of the stuff listed in the last two post they would have been adventuring in that DM's campaign for months, or even years.

Oh no. Let my tell you a story...
I was playing in a regular group and had a Dragon Mag subscription when 3rd edition was announced. We were playing AD&D of course and had clerics, and fighters, and thieves in the party. Everything went about as you'd expect. Some months later 3e hit the shelves and we started playing, right from level 1. I picked a sorcerer, because it was a wizard without the spellbook. Even then I was savvy enough to know that I'd need to choose spells that were widely applicable and multifunction. We had a monk too, and a guy joined in with a half-celestial fighter at about level five.

Fast forward some months. The sorcerer had more hit points than the monk because Con was already his second highest stat while the monk spent all his money on Str, Dex, and Wis boosting items. Shortly after the Half-celestial fighter got Whirlwind Attack (after getting TWF) we annoyed a hag who was working for some bad guy. Since my sorcerer was the only caster in our group some nightmare power got used on me to prevent the recovery of spells. Since we'd just levelled up I picked up Improved Familiar: Pseudodragon (Tome and Blood recently come out, or perhaps it was the divine splat) and bought a lesser Rod of Maximize spell. The sorcerer went to sleep, hag showed up on the ethereal plane, the familiar spotted her, and maximized magic missiles drove her off. The next day before breakfast my sorcerer scried on the hag, cast Invisibility, teleported outside her hut, summoned three large elementals, kicked the door in and killed her. Then he teleported to his favourite restaurant and had breakfast.

The sorcerer had accidentally soloed what was supposed to be a group adventure to find, travel to, and kill the hag, before breakfast. My first 3e character, started right after 3e came out. Two tiers higher than everyone else, on accident. I've been telling this story for years now.

And remember, all the WotC editions are predicated around anywhere from 4 to 8 encounters a day and 10 to 15 encounters per level. It is literally built into the game for a group of adventurers to be able to level up every week of in-game time. From 1st level nobodies to a 12th or 13th level "oops, I took out an entire adventure before breakfast all by myself" took maybe four or five in-game months.

[Kantolin]

I suspect that groups that have these issues did not start their characters at first level and slowly progress up.

Nope! Most of my earlier games with these problems started at level 1.

Once we got a better handle on these problems, we started running games that start at a higher level, as we find that that enables more character concepts and increases depth of the roleplay. But uh, most of my problem games - including pretty much everything listed above - started at low levels.


If they had, the DM wouldn't need to adjust to anything, the adjustments would have happened gradually over a long period of time, and without anyone (including the DM) even noticing it was happening.

This isn't true because of the nature of, well, pretty much anything in D&D.

For example, a fighter gets spring attack, suddenly they are bounding in and out of combat which isn't something that was happening before. When you hit levels 5-8ish, the rogue starts getting pretty dang reliable with their skill checks. Heck, at level 1 you're almost certainly better off with a longbow than some sort of sword due to 'way over there', so a smart fighter would probably use a bow for most of the level and then suddenly swordsman as his feats catch up.

And then let alone spellcasting. A level 1 sorceror who has shocking grasp and burning hands can choose to take either sleep or color spray or something at level 2, and suddenly they go from 'the party dies to that ogre' to 'sleep, coup de grace, next room'. Let alone when that sorceror hits level 4, where they could take acid arrow or invisibility (One is 'hit less hard than they were already but acid', the other is 'suddenly grandmasters of infiltration that requires some conscious work to have not blow up a stealth sequence'), but I'm talking about level one spells here.

Heck, the level one wizard with shocking grasp and burning hands could for a lark try to use the sleep scroll he got the previous day to good effect and change from example A to example B overnight.

And that overlooks the fact that at level one, the difference between a commoner and a fighter is extremely narrow anyway. Particularly when the cleric can cast bless, and more or less give everyone in the party the same to-hit as the fighter for the low low price of having two less HP.

But I mean... it's also totally okay to play a character who is weaker than another character. The problem comes when you didn't sign up to be a bit character. ;)

I've played lots of Goblin Rogues, Goblin Lurks, and Goblin Cryptics who were focused heavily on looking out for number one (Themselves). None of them were, nor had any interest in, being the topmost fighter in the group - and all of them especially my Lurk would lose to just about anything in an even fight. They had their niches, though, as they were extremely good at skulking around and getting at information.

This was objectively worse than most other characters in the party at most things, but that was fine, since I wanted to do that. ;)

It would, in fact, have been a bit of a problem if my character had been able to trivially punk the big scary fighter in martial combat as that would've just felt wrong. But fortunately, at that point I had a good amount of D&D knowledge to fall back on and knew what the classes could do and how to compensate.

...If I hadn't, it would've been nice to be able to take a quick glance at the Tier System and its couple sentence blurb.

And that's on the player's end. On the DM's end it's invaluable - I have enough to do as a DM.

Now I mean, of course if one player is thirty times better than everyone else at everything this is a concern (Edit: Namely, a concern I can address as a DM). But it's nice to get a little warning about in advance and to have some confirmation that things are up, since another example was I made a fog mage who used wall spells, and that was relatively fine and dandy until the moment he hit level 7 and solid fog's no save nature kicked in. Of course, that was also the game where we had an enchanter who was causing headaches from level one with sleep spells, and where the war cleric used divine favor to outfight the fighter while also being a full caster, and...

[Stealth Marmot]

I suspect that groups that have these issues did not start their characters at first level and slowly progress up. If they had, the DM wouldn't need to adjust to anything, the adjustments would have happened gradually over a long period of time, and without anyone (including the DM) even noticing it was happening. The DM would never be caught off guard by anything the characters can do because by the time they were high enough level to do any of the stuff listed in the last two post they would have been adventuring in that DM's campaign for months, or even years.

I was in a D&D 3.5 game with a perfectly good DM and had an aasimar bard I played with him. I started at level 4. At level 9 my AC was in the lower to mid 20s, and only because I put considerable investment into my AC. At level 10 I took a level of sublime chord (The DM allowed prestige classes a little earlier than most). After that, I could cast polymorph, polymorph into a Ghaele, and end up with an AC near 40. When I first did this, I ended up in a major boss battle lead by a dragon where the only person in the enemy group who could hit my character with anything but a natural 20, was the boss dragon. And there were supposed to be some damn powerful minions. (one of which was a level 9 archer build who rolled a 19 against me and missed.)

What's my point? All that took was a level 4 wizard spell. Granted, it was a special circumstance (being an aasimar) but it means power surges can happen when new spells are accessible, so knowing that when the Wizard hits level 7, or 9 there could be a whole new level of stuff to deal with is helpful.

[Nupo]

From 1st level nobodies to a 12th or 13th level "oops, I took out an entire adventure before breakfast all by myself" took maybe four or five in-game months.With us less than half of the characters survive to 4th level, and progression is slower. If they survive, it usually takes at least three years of game time to get 12th level. I don't know why we haven't had the same problems you all have, but we haven't. At first level, yes they can cast sleep and other spells that take out a good number of enemies, but they are very limited in how many times per day they can cast it. Due to the slow progression, and deadliness of our campaign we end up playing characters under 4th level over half the time, but we have had them get to the 10-12th level range. Still didn't have a problem. My daughter played a wizard that got up to 11th or 12th level. She played it very effectively, but still never seemed to overshadow the rest of the party.

I've come to the conclusion that this system of dividing classes into tiers is a solution to a problem that we have never had, so I guess I can feel free to ignore it. Thank you all for your input and helping me understand.

[Telok]

Let me reiterate:

If you play old school and combat-as-war then the whole tier thing doesn't matter as much. But if you play with people who've never experienced pre-WotC D&D and they play 'by the book' trying to follow the rules and guidelines as presented and without the old school assumptions and tactics then the tiers can be a very real thing. Dangerous combats and perma-death versus ~4 encounters a day and ~12 encounters per level make for very different game play (and the wizard teleporting back to town for more diamond dust while the cleric prepares Raise Dead again, dude just stop dying already).
Essentially you aren't playing 3.x D&D like the people who've never played anything but WotC versions of D&D play. You're playing it like AD&D. Which is fine and good. I personally happen to like that style better than the WotC style too. But at this point 3rd edition came out before some of the people playing were born. There is a generation who have never seen anything but the DMG suggested number of encounters per day at 'level appropriate' difficulty which is designed not to 'challenge' but not kill characters. Their characters don't die much, come back from the dead easily, and zoom up the levels. When that happens and you turn around and suddenly have a scrying, flying , teleporting, wall of stone, solid fog, cloudkill wizard in the same group as a monk who runs fast, punches one extra time a round, dimension door once a day, and has spell resistance versus his allies healing/buffing him... That's when you see tiers in full effect.

[Kantolin]

I've come to the conclusion that this system of dividing classes into tiers is a solution to a problem that we have never had, so I guess I can feel free to ignore it.

Or, alternately, keep it in the back of your mind somewhere and move on.

If your players never have one character overshadow another, then that's terrific! But that doesn't mean it will never happen in the future, so it may help to keep a mental bulletpoint for 'Huh, the cleric used divine favor and liked the effects and now the fighter feels bad' or 'the wizard used sleep and beat the ogre that I expected to capture the party' or 'Woo! New book! A player wants to play a swashbuckler!' or something.

[Eldariel]

Let me reiterate:

Essentially you aren't playing 3.x D&D like the people who've never played anything but WotC versions of D&D play. You're playing it like AD&D. Which is fine and good. I personally happen to like that style better than the WotC style too. But at this point 3rd edition came out before some of the people playing were born. There is a generation who have never seen anything but the DMG suggested number of encounters per day at 'level appropriate' difficulty which is designed not to 'challenge' but not kill characters. Their characters don't die much, come back from the dead easily, and zoom up the levels. When that happens and you turn around and suddenly have a scrying, flying , teleporting, wall of stone, solid fog, cloudkill wizard in the same group as a monk who runs fast, punches one extra time a round, dimension door once a day, and has spell resistance versus his allies healing/buffing him... That's when you see tiers in full effect.

Many groups also skip level 1 play, specifically because it's so volatile. If you invest a lot of mental resources into creating a living character with a place in the world, networks, family, clan, friends and foes, and an Orc happens to roll a lucky crit immediately killing you from full, it feels rather unrewarding. And that can happen even to the 20 Con Barbarian - an Orc Warrior with a Greataxe has 17 Str and x3 crit multiplier averaging 31 damage on a crit. Those things are CR ½ allowing a level 1 party face a bunch. And the crit + hit isn't really that unlikely if any actual combat takes place. ~3% chance per attack, accumulating rather swiftly.

I personally start people off at level 3 for this very reason, even though I otherwise run rather combat-as-war game or in general, game with the assumption that all parties strive to take the initiative and that encounters are generally over before they even begin. Of course, this does nothing to diminish caster power. Even from level 1, Wizards may only have 6 HP but they also have the greatest alpha strike potential in the game with both Sleep and Color Spray having the potential to just completely negate a group of even relatively powerful hostiles, even if they have good saves. Like even a level 1 Cleric with 18 Wis fails vs. 20 Int Gray Elf Wizard's Color Spray 45% of the time - to say nothing of the classes with little in terms of Wisdom-synergies and no base bonuses. And monsters tend towards terrible Will-saves, particularly the common melee brutes of low levels (Ogres, Orcs, etc.).


Of course, the specific case of Abrupt Jaunt actually makes level 1 Wizard probably the most survivable level 1 class simply because immediate action ability to break line of effect/avoid melee enemies allows negating the chance they have to roll entirely removing the risk of even getting crit. And 5/day tends to be plenty if you manage the 20 Int - but even 3-4 is a huge help.


In general, 3E is the huge culprit, making casters much safer and more survivable while simultaneously giving them access to most of the non-caster specific abilities, similar leveling rates and making some spells have no downsides (by far the worst offenders are the Polymorph-lines, completely broken by the lack of any kind of system shock risk and the like). 3E casters have 4 spells on level 1 while AD&D casters have 1. This means they may be playing rocket tag but they have a bunch of rockets. And everyone getting Con-bonuses, iterative attacks and so on kinda makes the martial classes pointless - they just don't get anything at all while casters get full 9 levels of spells with all kinds of ridiculous effects. 3E removed all the caster downsides and warrior upsides without adding any new ones.

[Kantolin]

If you invest a lot of mental resources into creating a living character with a place in the world, networks, family, clan, friends and foes, and an Orc happens to roll a lucky crit immediately killing you from full, it feels rather unrewarding.

Man, this topic feels like it's full of people who have gone through exactly what I've gone through, haha.

I have played in games that were extremely fatal. You tend to have less story behind them, simply because the characters with story don't last long enough to have story. Imagine if, in Lord of the Rings, half of the fellowship died within sight of Rivendell and the other half died in various periods of time but all before reaching Moria.

I mean it works - dungeon crawls are things - but it hurts the roleplay.


And the crit + hit isn't really that unlikely if any actual combat takes place. ~3% chance per attack, accumulating rather swiftly.

Or something like 'getting hit twice'.


There is a generation who have never seen anything but the DMG suggested number of encounters per day at 'level appropriate' difficulty which is designed not to 'challenge' but not kill characters.

Actually, this feels like it would make the tier system even /more/ critical.

Imagine if you have two soldiers. One can do 1d8+2 damage, the other can do 1d8+1 damage but can do it from hundreds of feet away.

Now put them in a world where things want you dead, most things aren't level appropriate, yadda. The first guy who goes up front is in constant danger of dying - because his tactics are poor, like doing a horse based charge during world war 1's trench warfare. The tactical thing to do would be to have both of them able to do their 1d8+1 damage from hundreds of feet away instead of having either go get themselves killed.

That's the kind of thing I'm used to seeing from extremely fatal games. People, perhaps gradually, either cycle through poor tactics and find more useful ones, and then the more useful ones need to be countered, and then people find yet better ones. With the exception of what that group called 'The Charles', who will always make a melee idiot and go get themselves killed, leading to arguments about whether or not they're deserving of a share of the loot when they're not going to participate.

In this particular game, everyone went through three characters except the party sorceror. And over this span of time, first of all everyone's third character had very little storyline to themselves, but secondly the third characters were far more optimized. After the second time the fighter died he went for a ranged combatant because he didn't want to be the guy who goes up to the trolls and gets ripped in half again, in which we learned that 'tank' was not a particularly valid role when you're up against things that can just kinda maul you (And I mean, that was Charles, who did in fact go back to being melee in the future and died for it). We started doing summons or just tactics to keep enemies away from us. We quickly learned that, regardless of the presence of melee or not, enemy melee brutes are a lot easier to deal with than enemy ranged hitters or casters, especially when the ranged units are not necessarily any less sturdy than the melee ones (A greatsword fighter will often have the same - or possibly /lower/ - AC than the archer fighter).

Not to mention suggestions like, 'Okay, we have proven /three times/ that we can't take four of these well trained hobgoblins. There are four hobgoblins over there. Let's screw the princess and go do something else, we are obviously not capable of doing this'.

How is this at all different from tiers? It becomes a fierce encouragement to go after the best possible options and deliver them ruthlessly. When fights are meant to use up a quarter of your resources it's fine to throw fireballs at them, but when you're up against five enemies any one of which could kill your group then your every action is extremely valuable and needs to critically adjust the tide of battle.

More lethal fights, summarily, should have /less/ fireball slingers and /more/ optimized high tier characters, since low tier characters won't cut it. Plinking the ogre for 1d4+1 damage so it charges and kills you (or the fighter), vs using sleep. If it makes its save, it charges and kills you (or the fighter), if it fails its save you kill it. Those are way better odds of 'not having you/the fighter die'.

(And also, um, it /really/ hurts the monk whos only real choice is to go run into an attack of opportunity to punch the ogre for 'not killing it')

(Edit: Unless, I suppose, the monk is super well optimized such that he can ubercharge himself an instant kill or something and have high enough AC to avoid the attack of opportunity or maybe optimize so he can get his OHKO with shuriken or something. :P But I'm not used to that kind of optimization, haha)

[Stealth Marmot]

Many groups also skip level 1 play, specifically because it's so volatile. If you invest a lot of mental resources into creating a living character with a place in the world, networks, family, clan, friends and foes, and an Orc happens to roll a lucky crit immediately killing you from full, it feels rather unrewarding. And that can happen even to the 20 Con Barbarian - an Orc Warrior with a Greataxe has 17 Str and x3 crit multiplier averaging 31 damage on a crit. Those things are CR ½ allowing a level 1 party face a bunch. And the crit + hit isn't really that unlikely if any actual combat takes place. ~3% chance per attack, accumulating rather swiftly.


This is one of the few things that 4th edition actually addressed pretty well, the fact that low level character start with incredibly low hit point pools that double in one level and triple in 2. It causes rapid change in power and survivability at the early stage which can make the playstyle radically different, and abrupt. It really seems weird when you start with a character who can be one shot by an orc warrior (Which is a CR below 1) when later characters being one shot by anything, much less something below their CR.

It's especially harsh considering that the lower level characters are the ones with the least access to resurrection and raise dead.

[Telok]

Actually, this feels like it would make the tier system even /more/ critical.

I can't say anything about your games. All I can say is that the lethality of any particular game is neither driven nor described by the tier system. That's all on you guys.

All the system does is rate classes based on power and flexibility without making any assumptions about player skill, game style, of a particular character build. It's information, nothing more. I find it to be useful when applied to my groups because we have a majority of players who've never played AD&D and only know the WotC paradigm of D&D.

[Kantolin]

I can't say anything about your games. All I can say is that the lethality of any particular game is neither driven nor described by the tier system. That's all on you guys.

Indeed! I agree with you - the tier system is informative.


All the system does is rate classes based on power and flexibility without making any assumptions about player skill, game style, of a particular character build. It's information, nothing more.

Right.

Now, the more lethal your game, the more critical the power and flexibility your class gives you becomes. If the game is more story-driven and is more of a narrative, then you can be a commoner and this is fine.

If the game is extremely extremely lethal, and you play a commoner, then your punishment is a time-out as you make a new character. Who can also be a commoner, mind you, and you could have your solution be to optimize the bajeezus out of a commoner or something, but you are encouraged to select a class that has the power and flexibility so you don't have to trade full attacks with the trolls who can one shot you and have better reach.