Retiering the Classes: Binder, Dragonfire Adept, Shadowcaster, Truenamer, Warlock

[eggynack]

This thread is for the three classes from tome of magic, along with the dragonfire adept and warlock because they bare some similarities to each other and to the truenamer. All of them have some magical capabilities as a central mechanic, but in a format distinct from traditional vancian casting.

Binder (ToM, 8): The binder is a class with access to a variety of demonic pacts that hold a bunch of utility. This was by a significant margin the best part of tome of magic. Notably, for the purposes of this thread, we will likely be ignoring Zyceryll, as it is plausibly tier increasing (in a way that should be evaluated separately).

Dragonfire Adept (DrM, 24): Sometimes considered the "fixed" dragon shaman, the dragonfire adept is a pretty neat class. You get a pretty decent breath weapon, especially with entangling exhalation, you get a bunch of fancy invocations, and you just generally have some solid stuff to do.

Shadowcaster (ToM, 109): The shadowcaster isn't as wonky and crappy as the truenamer, but it's still a decent amount of both of those things. Your daily mystery access is so weirdly limited here.

Truenamer (ToM, 198): Quite possibly the wonkiest class in the game, the truenamer is testament to the fact that skill based casting is a near impossible thing to do right. And, beyond that, it has some weird editing issues. But, as has been sometimes shown, the inability of a truenamer to use their basic class abilities has been overblown somewhat, and what we're left with is a class that mostly consists of usually kinda mediocre at-will abilities that slowly turn into not at-will abilities (though I suppose that means they never were at-will).

Warlock (CArc, 5):This is the classic alternative magic fellow, shooting a steady stream of variably useful eldritch blasts and packing some pretty useful at-will abilities, including, classically, flight. Also, you get super magic item powers, which is always a good thing to have.





What are the tiers?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



The Threads

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


The Rankings
Binder: Tier three

Dragonfire Adept: Tier three

Shadowcaster: Tier four

Truenamer: Tier five

Warlock: Tier three

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

[Zombulian]

Ooh I'm excited for the discussion in this one.
Considering your note on the DFA, I'm now curious which thread will include the Dragon Shaman.

[eggynack]

Ooh I'm excited for the discussion in this one.
I am too. Lotsa weird and interesting classes.


Considering your note on the DFA, I'm now curious which thread will include the Dragon Shaman.
Planning on shaman, marshal, soulborn, as an aura thing.

[Cosi]

The Truenamer is terrible. Like, really terrible. Core Monk or Soulknife level terrible where it's a plausible candidate for "worst PC class". Easy Tier Five, and fairly low there.

To start off with, you eventually stop being able to use your abilities at all against level appropriate opposition by 20th level. The DC to hit a CR 20 enemy with an Evolving Mind Utterance is 55. Your check (assuming 20 INT) is +28, which means you succeed if you roll at least ... 27. That's not happening. By way of comparison, a 20th level Fighter with 20 STR hits a Balor (AC 35) on a 10 or better.

So right off the bat, the class has an expiration date. Not like the Fighter or Barbarian where you just suck a lot, you straight can't do stuff after a certain level.

Effectively, you have to invest resources in something every other class gets for free. If you don't buy items, spend feats, dip Marshall, or something else, your abilities don't work. Some people will tell you that's fine because people get to make saves against regular spells, but people get to save against your utterances too! Oh, and that crippling DC? It gets bigger if you use utterances more than once.

For referencer, last time I checked, Troacctid's chart for an average optimization Truenamer (+stat and +skill items, maybe Skill Focus) said that you peak at a 75% chance of success for your first use of an Evolving Mind utterance. That number goes down by 10% every time you succeed.

So suppose you get your utterances running somehow. Maybe you convinced your DM that Item Familiar is a real feat and you poured everything into one of those. Maybe you just bought a bunch of items that boost your check. Whatever. Now you get to use your utterances, and guess what? They all suck! Would you like to give a single target +2 on attack rolls as a Standard Action? Well, that's one of your first level powers. You can also give them -1 to AC, or heal them a little. And it's not like your high level powers are any better. You can do 10d6 damage a round for two rounds, which is notable for being slightly less damage than an equal level Rogue gets on a single attack (remember to count base weapon damage too). Or instead you can debuff your target's saves.

There are buffing utterances, which might seem like a viable path, until you realize that they are terrible. You get some buffs that matter (like true seeing), but the durations are crap. true seeing is good because it's fire and forget. If you have to guess when to use sensory focus, it loses the huge advantage of passively countering environmental illusions. You get the ability to give people an extra action, which sounds nice until you realize it takes a standard action, and if you really needed two actions out of that party member, you could have just played a clone.

Since we're talking about utterances, the elephant in the room: conjunctive gate. It's gate. Is it good? Sure. But it happens at 20th level, and it's also broken as all crap. If you live in a campaign where your DM is going to let you abuse gate, you died 19 levels ago because you're a Truenamer and all your abilities suck if you're allowed to use them at all.

Or, Jormengand's favorite Utterance: rebuild item. They believe this allows you to take an uncharged wand, snap it, and get back a fully charged wand. This is obvious bunk. The "undamaged" state of an uncharged but broken wand is an uncharged but functional wand. As Beheld pointed out last time we had this debate, if you really believed charge depletion was a form of damage, you wouldn't claim you had to snap the wand to use rebuild item on it. As far as the actual function of the item, it appears to be good for use with Skull Talismans (there are versions in both Complete Arcane and Frostburn) -- potion equivalents that are broken on use. As far as this goes, it's basically buying spell slots. You have to buy the talisman, then if you miss one check to repair it, it's broken. Also, there are limitations and reasonable arguments it doesn't work at all.

Your power is also profoundly situational. You get your AoE ability (Speak unto the masses) at 17th, which is when real characters have 8th or 9th level spells. Before that, you are basically only effective in a 1v1 fight against a CR = Level enemy. Against more enemies, you can't even theoretically dish out enough hurt to matter. Against a higher CR enemy, you can't effect them reliably. If you aren't doing exactly "four encounters a day against one CR = Level enemy", you look even worse than normal.

Oh, and the class is horribly edited. archer's eye negates the "penalties for concealment". Concealment does not inflict penalties, it gives a miss chance. Talking about "penalties for concealment" is like talking about "size bonuses to damage" or "armor check penalty to casting".

To top things off, this is followed up with absolutely no support in later books. At least the Monk gets some ACFs to fix it a little.

I think that represents all my objections to the Truenamer on the grounds of "it sucks a whole lot". I reserve the right to post more as I remember it though.

As an aside:
The first thing you have to do to fix the Truenamer is give up on skill check based magic. Skill checks in D&D vary too much by optimization (items, spells, various other BS bonuses) and too little by level (two levels is a 10% shift, but it takes you from black tentacles to cloudkill). So that whole thing has got to go.

The easiest fix for the Truenamer is just to make it a Wizard PrC. Searching ancient tombs for words of power sounds a whole lot like what Wizards do, and "name magic" is a respected form of sorcery in writings both historical and modern. Slap together some combination of knowledge magic, buff spells, planar binding, sound magic, and power word line spells and you're good.

If you want a base class, I suggest basically the same thing. The main element I'd probably keep from the original is the whole "reversible" deal. Probably blow that up by putting utterances on a recharge timer, but allowing you to skip the timer if you use the reversed utterance. You could give them the same basic shtick as the previous suggestion, but with more magic diversity (because it's supposed to anchor a whole class, not just some guy's character). The key is to make utterances something like enlarge person/reduce person, not +1/-1 to AC. Maybe give them some kind of Metamagic deal, both literally and in the Master of the Five Magics sense where it lets you screw with how magic works.

Shadowcaster is kind of like a Sorcerer, but your spells are crappier and your learning of them is more restricted. Probably Tier Four. Might be persuaded it scrapes Three with the suggested fixes the author posted.

Binder seems like it has a whole lot of variety and very little power. Seems like it probably belongs in Tier Four, especially considering that the Rogue is there, and the only satisfying Binder build I've seen relied on stacking together the Sneak Attack vestiges and pretending to be a Rogue. Might go up with the summon monster web vestige, but that seems pretty obscure and is also a very radical change on several levels.

Warlock seems like it lags casters too much to be very good. Probably Four, maybe Three if someone can show me a compelling build. I assume Dragonfire Adept is similar, but I never really gave it a good look.

[Zombulian]

I am too. Lotsa weird and interesting classes.

Planning on shaman, marshal, soulborn, as an aura thing.

Oho smart man

[Gildedragon]

So of these I've only really played around with the Binder and Warlock.
I found the Warlock to be... well what one usually wants to play when one is going for blaster sorts; at which they are fairly competent, and they're so-so at getting other things done with their utility powers and, more importantly, their ability to ignore requirements for magic item crafting.

The binder i'm more experienced with and feel quite comfortable putting them in tier 3. They can do quite a few things... provided they have enough time to swap their abilities around.

On an odd note re. binder: I usually gestalt the class with soulmelders... there's some sort of fluffy similarity between both of them in my mind.

[Troacctid]

For referencer, last time I checked, Troacctid's chart for an average optimization Truenamer (+stat and +skill items, maybe Skill Focus) said that you peak at a 75% chance of success for your first use of an Evolving Mind utterance. That number goes down by 10% every time you succeed.
LOW optimization Truenamer.

And you're cherry-picking the utterances that are hardest to use. Two of the best utterances on the class's list, Universal Aptitude and Hidden Truth, have essentially a 100% success rate most of the time even in low-op, as do all of the ones that target objects and most of the ones that target areas.

The Truenamer is a solid 4 most of the time. Maybe 4.5 at worst. You're a competent skillmonkey with a decent amount of support magic.

[Cosi]

LOW optimization Truenamer.

Buying two separate items to get your trick to work is mid OP. It's the equivalent of a Wizard running around with a Headband and a Blessed Book or a Beguiler with a Headband and a Runestaff (or some other list expansion/hole filling item). If we redefine what different levels of optimization mean to pretend classes don't suck, nothing sucks.


And you're cherry-picking the utterances that are hardest to use. Two of the best utterances on the class's list, Universal Aptitude and Hidden Truth, have essentially a 100% success rate most of the time even in low-op, as do all of the ones that target objects and most of the ones that target areas.

You have to make a skill check to give you a bonus to a skill check. That doesn't work in time limited situations, the uses per day are limited, and you still haven't solved the problem where you can't do anything in combat.


The Truenamer is a solid 4 most of the time. Maybe 4.5 at worst. You're a competent skillmonkey with a decent amount of support magic.

The Rogue is a competent skillmonkey, and also has an effective combat shtick. The Truenamer has neither of those things. Your "support magic" amounts to being slightly worse than just another copy of whatever character you're "supporting".

[Big Fau]

Binder: Tier 3.4. The class is capable at almost every level, and only really experiences an "inadequacy" at the 5-8 range (if focused on pure melee/ranged combat). Once you get out of that choke-zone it is fairly simple to not only be a solid character but to "retool" yourself on the fly. Most of your best class features can be traded out day-by-day at no real penalty; the hardest things to change are feats and items (which can be done on both counts).

Dragonfire Adept: Tier 4. It's a one-trick pony. Sure the trick is good, but the class has only 1 option as far as encounters go. There is some room for stupidly broken tricks, like blanketing the world in acid for several minutes with Metabreath feats, but those tricks are highly impractical (trying that particular trick results in your character being unable to use its key class feature for several in-game months, if not significantly longer). The class has some methods of keeping up at the higher levels, but it is a very easy class to counter and doesn't have a lot of build variety.

Shadowcaster: Tier 4.1, possibly Tier 3 with the right optimization. The class has almost no longevity below level 7, at least without Reserve feats (and a DM that allows you to qualify for them). The mid-to-high levels provide some serious options, and online materials add even more versatility. While the mystery selection is lacking, the PrC options are pretty good due to their ability to qualify for PrCs that don't specify Arcane/Divine spells. It also has the single biggest AoE with the longest duration in the game (the Citywalk expansion gave it a stupidly powerful spell). Items that affect spells can, in some cases, directly benefit a Shadowcaster too (Spellguard Rings, for example). The major issue is they completely lack longevity, and a good chunk of their spells are underpowered (some outright worthless). The gems are there, but it takes some work to make it good.

Truenamer: Tier 5, rock bottom. The only thing stopping it from being Tier 6 is that it can take a Commoner of equal level in a straight-up fight a majority of the time. The utterances are worthless at almost every level, and even the game-breaker doesn't justify the sheer amount of weakness you run into along the way. The utterances not only have a mechanic that makes it impossible to use them past a certain point, it has a mechanic that prevents you from using the same utterance more than once every 30 seconds. They have a built-in "metamagic" benefit, but the DC increase is astronomical in most cases, and the utterances are typically too weak to really care about it. The build options are non-existent; every single Truenamer PrC offers so little to the actual class that it isn't worth trying to multiclass into them, the feats are narrow-minded (or in one case counter-intuitive), and you have to have the same magic items or you just don't function.

Oh, and the Truespeak Spells offer actual casters more value than a Truenamer. Take that.

Warlock: Tier 3. I dislike that so many tout a Dragon Magazine option for this class as being a viable option, as a lot of DMs ban that content on principle, but I won't argue that the option is good. As a class itself it can certainly pull its own weight in the low levels, and once you get item crafting the class jumps into campaign-wrecker territory (since there are ways to bypass crafting costs without being an Artificer). A badly built Warlock is a worse archer than a Ranger, but any modicum of optimization can keep it well away from there. The down-sides are the invocations are so limited or poorly-written that it tends to push the builds into a few small routes, and almost all Warlocks end up taking Hellfire Warlock by default. Without the item crafting this class is largely damage-focused, as the utility Invocations aren't level-appropriate most of the time.

[Troacctid]

Buying two separate items to get your trick to work is mid OP. It's the equivalent of a Wizard running around with a Headband and a Blessed Book or a Beguiler with a Headband and a Runestaff (or some other list expansion/hole filling item). If we redefine what different levels of optimization mean to pretend classes don't suck, nothing sucks.
Really? So a weapon-user buying a magic weapon and magic armor is too good for low-op?


You have to make a skill check to give you a bonus to a skill check. That doesn't work in time limited situations, the uses per day are limited, and you still haven't solved the problem where you can't do anything in combat.
Most skills are not used in time-limited situations.


The Rogue is a competent skillmonkey, and also has an effective combat shtick. The Truenamer has neither of those things. Your "support magic" amounts to being slightly worse than just another copy of whatever character you're "supporting".
Yes, that's why it's worse than all the other support mages, which are mostly Tier 3.

[Zombulian]

Dragonfire Adept: Tier 4. It's a one-trick pony. Sure the trick is good, but the class has only 1 option as far as encounters go. There is some room for stupidly broken tricks, like blanketing the world in acid for several minutes with Metabreath feats, but those tricks are highly impractical (trying that particular trick results in your character being unable to use its key class feature for several in-game months, if not significantly longer). The class has some methods of keeping up at the higher levels, but it is a very easy class to counter and doesn't have a lot of build variety.

I think you're being a little unfair to the DFA. I really like their invocation list. Is the only reason you're putting Warlock ahead because of the item crafting (not that that's not valid, I'm just curious)?

[Cosi]

Really? So a weapon-user buying a magic weapon and magic armor is too good for low-op?

AC and attacks are different things. Also, it's a rule of thumb. What do you think a mid-OP Truenamer's item selection looks like?


Most skills are not used in time-limited situations.

Skill Monkey skills (Open Lock, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Hide) are often time limited to at least some degree. Also, you still have limited daily uses, and the whole "nothing to do in combat" thing.


Yes, that's why it's worse than all the other support mages, which are mostly Tier 3.

It's worse than just not having a support mage and instead having whatever class you wanted to support.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I consider both Invocation users, and the Binder, to be somewhere around the T3/T4 line. Both have a... passable number of options (certainly compared to noncasters), but they have a hard time finding a good offensive role. (I've seen a Binder and a Warlock in a T2/T3 mid-point group, and both suffered.) The DFA can be a decent debuffer, at least, and the Warlock starts to recover at mid levels with Hellfire Warlock and Eldritch Glaive, but still... Lot of meh. The Binder's supposed versatility suffers because they kind of need to spend feats to make any of their schticks work, and they really hate the first half of the game before they get their second vestige. I'd say T4 but high for all three; maybe even 3.5 ("build dependant?")

Truenamer is T5-- like the Monk, they're a fundamentally flawed class where you have to fight your own class features to make it functional. It CAN be built into something useful, but it takes way too much effort.

[Troacctid]

Any given DFA build is going to have multiple tricks pretty easily. The main problem with the class is that there are so few invocations available, most builds end up looking at least 80% identical.

That one build is good enough for T3 though. Decent skills and utility combined with consistent combat power (mainly with support and crowd control).

Warlock is very similar, although there's more variety in builds—your character will look pretty different depending on whether you're focusing on Dex, Cha, Str, or Int (all of which are viable). It ranges from low to high Tier 3, but honestly, I don't think it falls to the level of the Barbarian or Ranger even at low-op—it holds up just as well at low levels, and then at high levels it pulls way ahead. If it were just Eldritch Blast: The Class, it would be an easy 4, but it's not. There are a ton of really powerful invocations on its list. I have it at 3.

Binder is a lot like Warlock, except weirder and harder to use. I think it is worse, although Zceryll is of course broken. Still a 3 though.

Shadowcaster is just really awkward. Like an Adept, it's practically unplayable at low levels with how few spells per day it has. It scales well enough after 7th level, but the heavy-handed path restrictions are really hard to work with. Oftentimes you can't get a good mystery you want unless you also commit to getting two bad mysteries, which means that although there are some nice ones on the list, most of them are inaccessible to a given build. It's...really awkward. I have it at Tier 4.

[Soranar]

Well my first points will differentiate the DFA and the warlock

-both get at will abilities
-both get invocations
-some invocations are pretty damn good
-both have an unusually reliable mode of attack (touch attack for one, square attack for the other)

but

eldritch blast is easily optimized to deal with a single powerful enemy through eldritch glaive, even if you don't pick that particular shape a magic item (a rod I think) can grant it to you so it's not a major investment in resources

the warlock also gets to take 10 on UMD rolls, essentially giving it reliable access to any spell if he really needs it. Only the artificer can do the same.

finally warlock invocations are just stronger than a DFA's and they come on earlier :

-black tentacle
-nightmare made real
-the dead walk
-baleful utterance
-spiderwalk

while the DFA has some utility invocations (like humanoid shape or draconic knowledge) their use pale when compared to something as versatile as the dead walk or chilling tentacles

Another problem is that it's fairly simple to improve a warlock's eldritch blast damage

-knowledge devotion
-chasuble of power
-sneak attack damage (martial study + martial stance)
-a wand of hunter's eye (which you can create yourself after level 12)
-psionic shot, greater psionic shot, psionic meditation

Even if your DM rules that metabreath feats apply to DFA's abilities there are not many ways to actually increase your damage and evasion is a real problem for you. The eldritch blast does not have this issue, it always works and creatures capable of evading a touch attack from a medium BAB are quite rare.

For these reasons I would rate the DFA slightly lower than a warlock, in this case tier 4 seems appropriate.
As for the warlock, though it's fairly easy to break the campaign with item crafting, that ability comes on pretty late so I would rate it at tier 3.

[Troacctid]

Well my first points will differentiate the DFA and the warlock

-both get at will abilities
-both get invocations
-some invocations are pretty damn good
-both have an unusually reliable mode of attack (touch attack for one, square attack for the other)

but

eldritch blast is easily optimized to deal with a single powerful enemy through eldritch glaive, even if you don't pick that particular shape a magic item (a rod I think) can grant it to you so it's not a major investment in resources
Entangling Exhalation makes your breath weapon an extremely potent battlefield control tool that also deals decent damage, and it comes online at level 1 instead of level 8.


the warlock also gets to take 10 on UMD rolls, essentially giving it reliable access to any spell if he really needs it. Only the artificer can do the same.
DFA has UMD as a class skill too, so it's not like it can't UMD. It's obviously not as good at it, but on the other hand, it has an extra 2 skill points per level, which goes a long way toward making up for it.


finally warlock invocations are just stronger than a DFA's and they come on earlier :

-black tentacle
-nightmare made real
-the dead walk
-baleful utterance
-spiderwalk

while the DFA has some utility invocations (like humanoid shape or draconic knowledge) their use pale when compared to something as versatile as the dead walk or chilling tentacles
The Dead Walk is admittedly overpowered, but the DFA has plenty of good invocations too. Draconic Knowledge, Beguiling Influence, and Darkness are great at least; Charm, Humanoid Shape, Voracious Dispelling, and Walk Unseen are great at lesser; and Chilling Fog at greater is miles better than Chilling Tentacles, I don't know how you can say it's worse. All these are as good as or better than Warlock invocations of the same level, so the DFA does just fine in the head-to-head up until darks. DFA darks are admittedly pretty meh.


Another problem is that it's fairly simple to improve a warlock's eldritch blast damage

-knowledge devotion
-chasuble of power
-sneak attack damage (martial study + martial stance)
-a wand of hunter's eye (which you can create yourself after level 12)
-psionic shot, greater psionic shot, psionic meditation
Knowledge Devotion is better on DFAs than it is on Warlocks because of Draconic Knowledge. Likewise, Chasuble of Fell Power does the same thing as Dragon Spirit Cincture, except it costs more and doesn't give a bonus on attack rolls. And if you want to burn feats for limited-use damage boosts, metabreath feats are a thing.


Even if your DM rules that metabreath feats apply to DFA's abilities there are not many ways to actually increase your damage and evasion is a real problem for you. The eldritch blast does not have this issue, it always works and creatures capable of evading a touch attack from a medium BAB are quite rare.
Almost no monsters have evasion. It'll hardly ever come up. I would say it's certainly balanced out by your ability to ignore spell resistance, concentration, and anything that prevents you from using somatic components—all of which can be problematic for Warlocks, especially early on. Not to mention ignoring arcane spell failure, which is always nice.


For these reasons I would rate the DFA slightly lower than a warlock, in this case tier 4 seems appropriate.
I've played both classes pretty extensively and I have them about the same if they're single-classed. Warlock is better when you account for prestige class compatibility, but we're not worrying about that here.

[Big Fau]

I think you're being a little unfair to the DFA. I really like their invocation list. Is the only reason you're putting Warlock ahead because of the item crafting (not that that's not valid, I'm just curious)?

The Warlock has significantly more support. That's the main reason.

[Florian]

I´ve had the opportunity to play shadowcasters in three campaigns back then, one plain vanilla, one Noctumancer with the creeping darkness wiz to shadow conversion option, one with dipping into Swordsage and Jade Phoenix Mage. It´s certainly an interesting class with a slightly different learning curve when you know regular spells known mechanics, but it can be fun and rewarding. Runestaff required, tho. I´d put it smack in the middle of T3 territory, as each "set" of mysteries has some kind of "+" and "-" to it, like a buff and debuff, or damage or healing, which´ll lead to be able to tackle a broad range of situations.

[Kurald Galain]

The main problem with the truenamer has always been that the truenaming checks don't scale with level, because your skill bonus gets +1 per level and the DC gets +2 per level of your enemy. Now there are two things to consider. First, while this difference is problematic at high levels, it is not really noticeable at low levels - and it turns out low-level campaigns are vastly more common than high-level ones. It seems unfair to discount a class at level 5 because its performance at level 20 would be lacking. Second, bear in mind that the crafting rules allow you to make an item that gives +20 to a skill check pre-epic, which basically eliminates the difference all by itself.

Once we have dealt with the DC issue, what is left of the truenamer is a spellcaster with an admittedly poor list, but still a decent amount of versatility. Yes, this could have been written better, but so could a number of commonly used feats and prestige classes. I'd call this Tier 4.

Oh and as mentioned by other posters, T3 for warlock and binder, T4 for shadowcaster and DFA.

[MHCD]

Warlock and DFA: These would probably be at least on the lower end of T4 with just their main damage option, but the addition of some very handy invocations for each makes them to me an easy T3. Even if every single T3 build with those classes had nearly identical invocation selection, would that really be too dissimilar from the same spells showing up at the top of every T1 wizard's spellbook wishlist? Differences in power / versatility / splat support between warlock and DFA also seem irrelevant to me, since neither is more comparable to an adept than a warmage.

Binder: Being "very good at solving a couple of problems and competent at solving a few more" sounds straight up a binder's alley. A versatile and customizable class, you're still kind of required to somewhat specialize (at least according to my definition of "moderate optimization" in this context), but that leaves you more comparable to a wildshape ranger, warmage, or initiator than one of the roguelikes or a barbarian. T3.

Truenamer: What a crazy class. So at least we can all agree that the design is at least wonky, but it's really not utterly broken, as in legitimately unplayable. I definitely wouldn't recommend it to a newbie, but if you're willing to put the same amount of thought into one as you would a non-fixed-list caster, it's really not that bad. I haven't played one at 20th level, but my experiences playing one straight left me feeling like I was playing a noticeably less-adept bard or more "supernatural sage" and less "stabbity stealth" roguelike. My vote: T4, with admittedly, a floor that can easily drop a tier.

Shadowcaster: One is more likely to sway me on this one, as I can only go by theory, having never seen one in play. On paper, the limits on mysteries seem to prevent anything higher than T4, but perhaps some obvious optimization I don't know or can't remember makes this higher.

[eggynack]

An interesting question for truenamers, one that has hounded the class, is how we should class these items it needs. Because, yes, the class does need these items, but should we begrudge them that? As Troacctid has noted, we don't turn our noses at martial classes because they generally need a magic weapon and armor to operate (we turn our noses for other reasons), so why do so for the amulet of the silver tongue and some other stuff? The clear answer is that we don't necessarily see these skill items as existing on that same level. Weapons are considered in some fashion fundamental, while the amulet is a level or two above that, at incredibly useful or very useful, statuses that would incur more of an effective penalty if they're required. But that's the thing in itself, I think. If the class needs this item, then shouldn't that make the item fundamental, making this "The class needs the item to operate" thing a non-object problem-wise? I'd say it depends on the item, on how obvious and clearly associated with the class it is. The amulet seems like a no brainer. It's in the same section of the same book, clearly intended for this exact purpose. A competence item? Maybe a bit less fundamental, and an item familiar, quite a lot less than that. But there's clearly some level of optimization we should straightforwardly expect, and that level allows for a good amount, perhaps not a massive amount, of use of the class' main ability. And reasonable optimization would likely grant consistent access, as Zaq's guide has noted.

So that leaves the main question of the truenamer what exactly you're doing with the abilities. And the answer, I think, is something like tier four's worth. There's some nice utility, and some semi-useful combat stuff. I'd take this above a monk any day. Sure, the abilities are wonky as all hell and limited in ways they really shouldn't be, but the utterances are better than they're sometimes given credit for, with a couple of actually decent effects scattered about. This is worse than a warlock, but not insanely worse, at least before the item stuff.

So, the others. Warlock seems about 3.5 to me. It's sometimes been argued for tier three, and sometimes for tier four, and both sides on this one seem reasonable. Shadowcaster, I gots nothing. The binder for three rating strikes me as fair. Those abilities are very good. And I don't see much call to move DFA from tier three. I think I'm pretty static on truenamer and binder, but I could see about a .5 of wiggle room on warlock and DFA. Warlock for three and DFA 3.5 wouldn't be crazy by any means.

[Troacctid]

A typical DFA build is about as good as what I would expect from a typical Warlock build. I have a hard time putting them in different tiers; they are just too close in power level.

[weckar]

Binder: T3, but only because of the fairly limited choices per day and the relatively long recharge on signature abilities.

Dragonfire Adept: T3. A lack of splat support really hurts here.

Shadowcaster: T4. I wish this could be higher, but...

Truenamer: T5

Warlock: T2. They have a range of abilities about as wide as a fixed-list caster, and no chance of ever burning out any of them. It's on the low end, but a greater amount of splat support puts it here IMO over the DFA.

[Zombulian]

There's some nice utility, and some semi-useful combat stuff. I'd take this above a monk any day.

But you can do *both*. Believe it or not, Disciple of the Word is pretty fun to play.

[Gruftzwerg]

Regular warlock builds tend to be t3-t4.
But.. if we leave actual table builds and go into TO territory it gets ugly.

Max UMD and get some crafting skills. Scribe Scrolls and you have access to all spells.
Cheat WBL and start to craft contingent spells, either with (gr.) Arcane Fusion or divine spells.
Make a lil minion army (golems, undead, effigy..) and craft contingent spells for any situation that might come up.
Best dip Blood Magus 4 to get the special crafting skills (scribe scrolls on your skin, brew potions in your blood) so that you don't leave loot and it can't be stolen.

Imho if you went all out, you could push a warlock easily on T1 - T0.5 lvl. On the other side, I guess such a build will never be really played (by players^^).

[eggynack]

Warlock: T2. They have a range of abilities about as wide as a fixed-list caster, and no chance of ever burning out any of them. It's on the low end, but a greater amount of splat support puts it here IMO over the DFA.
This rating seems very very far off. Better than the DFA? Sure, arguably the case. As good as a dread necromancer or beguiler, the currently lowest ranked tier two classes? Not even remotely close. I'm very doubtful they're even as good as a bard. This is really a thing you need to justify (speaking as an arbitrary thread participant here, rather than in a moderation sense).

[weckar]

I genuinely believe the warlock sits right there with the beguiler and the dread necro in practical play, but all I have to back that up is about 6 years of table experience with the three classes. This is UNLESS we include Sand Shaper/Rainbow servant shenanigans as fairly rate-able when talking about the fixed list casters in which case I will concede warlock to a T3.

[eggynack]

I genuinely believe the warlock sits right there with the beguiler and the dread necro in practical play, but all I have to back that up is about 6 years of table experience with the three classes. This is UNLESS we include Sand Shaper/Rainbow servant shenanigans as fairly rate-able when talking about the fixed list casters in which case I will concede warlock to a T3.
Nah, we're not talking that stuff. It just seems off anyway. Especially regarding the beguiler. Like, I'ma do a straight spells to invocations comparison here at a few levels. Not a perfect comparison, but I think it captures a lot of what I'm talking about.

First level: Warlocks get a single invocation. There are solid choices here, but the beguiler gets 14 different high quality spells where some of them may even be better that that one invocation, so it doesn't really matter that much. The beguiler wins, and they win by a lot. Especially when you consider they also get 0th's. They're not hurting too much for daily uses either. Sure, the warlock can summon swarms, or shatter objects, or use diplomacy, but the beguiler can charm foes, and create silent images, and stun folks, and understand languages. And is better than or.

Fifth level: The warlock has three invocations. All least. The beguiler has moved up to second level spells, and they have a lot of them. Assuming the warlock ignores eldritch blast modifications, they can now do all three of the things I just listed, which is neat, but the beguiler can still do all that stuff I said they can do, and more cause I didn't list all of it, and even more because second level beguiler spells are great. There are 19 of them, and there's still a ton if you ditch the image and mind-affecting stuff. Which you don't, because you don't have to ditch anything, because you're a beguiler. Seems like a super clear win for the beguiler.

Sixth level: This one is close to the last, but I'm doing it also, cause it's where warlocks get a lesser invocation. It's not necessarily a warlock advantage level though. What are you choosing here that matches up with access to third level spells? The dead walk is great. Fell flight is great. Neither is as good as that list of 20 spells. Not when that list features dispel magic, glibness, haste, slow, and suggestion. The invocation can arguably beat two or maybe three of those third level spells. I can't see it beating 20.

Tenth level: The warlock still only has lesser invocations. Three of them now. The beguiler has gained two full levels of spells. Good ones. Solid fog is on the list of fourths, and dominate person is on the list of fifths. Again, what two lesser invocations would you rather gain than these two spell levels? Consider, those two lesser invocations are actually individually worse than the one you got at sixth, or you would have taken it at sixth, and they are each being asked to fight a whole spell level, each higher than the one from before. It's an even worse comparison than fifth or sixth level.

Fifteenth level: Between tenth and now, the warlock gained three greater invocations. The beguiler again gained two spell levels. Compared to a sorcerer, these spell levels are putting you seriously behind your earlier better than sorcerer position. Compared to a warlock? I seriously doubt it. You get to use black tentacles, a third level spell, maybe noxious blast, for some SoL action, and just pick a third one, I suppose. Whatever it is, I can't imagine it does better than greater dispel magic (the warlock can get that too, but at way higher opportunity cost), shadow walk, true seeing, ethereal jaunt, and project image.

Twentieth: Beguilers can use advanced learning to pick ice assassin. Also, they have foresight and time stop. Nothing the warlock can do is remotely close.

So, I can't see it. Imbue item is nice, but I can't see that coming close to making up the gap that is just having spells to cast. Eldritch blast is a decent source of damage, but beguiler spells are frequently great in combat, and spells that are great in combat seem better than eldritch blast's decent damage. You can maybe optimize the warlock better, but what I've been talking about so far, in beguiler terms, is just out of the box stuff. Aside from the ice assassin thing. The second you start optimizing, the beguiler does too. And that means stuff like arcane disciple, or generally efficient use of advanced learning. The beguiler has a higher floor, and greater marginal utility from optimization. Warlocks advance super slow, and they get a tiny number of these invocations. Beguilers advance quickly, and have a massive variety of spells at all levels. Maybe there's an advantage in endurance, but the beguiler gets great spells/day, so that advantage has to vanish pretty quickly.

[Gemini476]

One thing to remember with Truenamers is that not all combats are going to be against one enemy of equal CR - two enemies drops it down to CR-2, or a -4 to the DC, and four enemies drops it down to CR-4, or a -8 DC. A sixth-level low-op Truenamer fighting an Orc has a +15ish bonus (9 ranks + 3 INT + 3 Skill Focus) against DC 16, and appropriately mops them up. (As does the Fighter, of course - this is the rare situation where Cleave is useful.)

On the other hand, stronger encounters are even worse for the Truenamer. The reasonably deadly CR+2 encounter is +4 to the DC, and those "you should run away" CR+5 encounters are +10 to the DC - the Truenamer is reduced to plinking with a crossbow, if that.


Let's consider the low-op Truenamer: 15 intelligence from the array, human or other flavorful non-INT race (hello, iconic half-elf Truenamer!), Skill Focus as a feat because it's, like, +3 to hit and that's three times as good as Weapon Focus. Truespeak is maxed out because that's the least complicated option.

Let's also consider the low-op Fighter: 15 strength from the array, not a half-orc since the DM is old-school and plays up the racism, Weapon Focus line is a go.

Neither gets magic items, because the DM is stingy and dislikes Magic Marts, and in any case Weapon Focus outweighs the bonus of the random weapon drops - +2/+4 beats even a +2 weapon, after all, and if they ever run into anything with DR/Magic you can pull out your backup +1 dagger.

They got a +2 INT item once - they gave it to the Fighter, since they needed it more to counterbalance that 8 INT.

And hey, let's throw a fireball wizard into the mix as well. What the hay. 15 INT, no INT bonus from race because there's no such thing among the core races, (Greater) Spell Focus(Evocation). Focusing on Reflex saves for the moment, because Tim the Enchanter doesn't care much for the other saves.

Also, let's say that Player's Roll All The Dice for consistency's sake. And let's break out the good old Optimization By The Numbers (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=2ct1muocbfst7i681m2m2l0683&topic=3472)chart, and do an old-fashioned thing by making a chart with what number you need To Hit Armor Class 0 whatever numbers we come up with.



LVL

Truespeak

DC

To Hit


Attack

av.AC

TH

m.AC

TH


Save

av.Ref

TH

m.Ref

TH



1
9(SF)
17
8


4(WF)
16
12

23
19


4(SF)
13
8

17
12



2
10
19
9


5
16
11

23
18


4
15
10

21
16



3
11
21
10


6
17
11

23
17


6(GSF)
15
9

20
14



4
13(+1INT)
23
10


8(+1STR)
16
8

20
12


7(+1INT)
16
9

20
13



5
14
25
11


9
18
9

25
16


8
16
8

24
16



6
15
27
12


10
19
9

29
19


8
17
9

23
15



7
16
29
13


11
19
8

25
14


9
17
8

30
21



8
17
31
14


13(GWF)
20
7

27
14


9
18
9

25
16



9
18
33
15


14
22
8

29
15


10
20
10

33
23



10
19
35
16


15
23
8

33
18


10
19
9

30
20



11
20
37
17


16
24
8

29
13


11
21
10

36
25



12
22(+2INT)
39
17


18(+2STR)
22
4

28
10


12(+2INT)
20
8

23
11



13
23
41
18


19
28
9

32
13


13
20
7

25
12



14
24
43
19


20
27
7

35
15


13
22
9

24
11



15
25
45
20


21
30
9

34
13


14
21
7

25
11



16
26
47
21


22
32
10

42
20


14
24
10

27
13



17
27
49
22


23
28
5

34
12


15
22
7

26
11



18
28
51
23


24
33
9

37
13


15
26
11

35
20



19
29
53
24


25
36
11

38
13


15
27
12

31
16



20
31(+2INT)
55
24


27(+2STR)
37
10

40
13


16(+2INT)
29
13

40
24




It doesn't look all that good for the low-op "low-magic" (note:actually just no magic items, Wizards and Dragons are still things) Truenamer. Although, well, for level 1-6 they seem pretty on-par with Wizards as far as success chance goes. They also don't run into anyone who's just flat-out immune until level 15, while Wizards have them show up as early as level 7. (What CR7 monster has a +19 Relex save, anyhow?)

Also interesting to note: the Fighter third (-10) attack never really becomes relevant against high-AC monsters, and the fourth (-15) only ever hits the average equal-CR monster on level 17. I guess it's meant to emulate old-timey "the Fighter gets multiple attacks against weak foes" mob-clearing stuff, huh.

Now, once you include magic items things change a lot. The Fighter gets up to +5 to hit (+3 if Weapon Focus is different, +7 if Bane is relevant, etc. etc.), and the Truenamer gets a +10 bonus that helps bring the level 10+ numbers back down to a more manageable 50%ish level.
And the Wizard gets to target multiple saves anyhow, and Fireball still does partial damage on a successful save, so the high-Reflex enemies are less of an issue than they may seem on paper.


I'm going to tentatively vote Tier 4 for the Truenamer - mostly at the very least I believe it to be better than the Savant.
This is conditional on being able to get the Amulet of the Silver Tongue, though - if you can't, at high levels you're resorting to Universal Aptitude, AoE/item effects, and self-buffs. Affecting critters when you need to roll 19+ is extremely unreliable. (On a related note, it's interesting that a 50%ish expected hit rate kind of lines up with Reversed Words of Nurturing lasting for two turns.)

If nothing else, the Truenamer is pretty great at knowledge checks. That's a semi-useful niche, I guess.

[weckar]

I agree that on paper the beguiler outpaces the warlock at every level. In practice, though, I think there is a psychological element at play: Where the warlock never needs to hold back his highest level abilities "just in case", a beguiler could very much do so to its own detriment (or fire off too early in the other extreme). The fact that a warlock CAN pop up these high-level abilities whenever (and they are not that much worse than the ones a beguiler gets a couple times per day) still does not change my vote.

[eggynack]

I agree that on paper the beguiler outpaces the warlock at every level. In practice, though, I think there is a psychological element at play: Where the warlock never needs to hold back his highest level abilities "just in case", a beguiler could very much do so to its own detriment (or fire off too early in the other extreme). The fact that a warlock CAN pop up these high-level abilities whenever (and they are not that much worse than the ones a beguiler gets a couple times per day) still does not change my vote.
I'm not even sure the beguiler is worse, or even equal, if you generally just don't use your top level of spells. After all, in a lot of those scenarios I was laying out, the comparison was between two full spell levels and a few invocations of a level you already have. Like in the 10th level comparison, does getting two more lesser invocations get you more than adding just fourth level spells to your repertoire? Even at 5th level, where this mode of comparison would be at its most warlock favorable, would you really prefer three invocations to all of those first level spells? Again, you have 14 of them, and a lot of them are at around the peak of first level spell quality. Also detect magic and ghost sound. Can't forget those. This is an insanely lopsided comparison. You can strip away a ton of beguiler power and still have superiority, and then you add it back, because it's there, and the comparison is crazy beguiler favorable.

You can like the warlock's play pattern all you like, but that does not a tiering make. The beguiler is advantaged in nearly every sphere of consideration. They're better at roughly every level. They're better across practically all optimization levels. They're better at the majority of encounter types. The warlock maybe has a slim advantage specifically when you hit level 12 in a higher optimization campaign, but I'm honestly doubtful. And they might have an advantage if you're running a metric ton of encounters in a day, but the beguiler would get a really good comparative rating in that scenario until you're pretty deep in encounter count. After all, they contribute way more to the earlier encounters, and to a wider variety of them. And, again, their spells/day is on the huge side.

Edit: Basically, the warlock's high level abilities are much worse. Much much much worse. The warlock is getting the equivalent of a third level spell, black tentacles, while the beguiler is getting a bunch of sixth level spells. And a level later they get seventh level spells, while the warlock isn't even adding an invocation to their list. To point to the classic caster argument technique, at level 12 the beguiler's cohort's cohort is casting higher level spells than the warlock.

[weckar]

If you didn't want dissenting opinions, why even put up a vote? :smallconfused:
I'd agree with your opposition had I said T1 (frankly ludicrous) but where I am standing I think T2 is not unfair.

I am reporting what I see the power level of these classes be in practice, not in theory. At worst, my vote will be a blip in the total count if it is truly that far out. At best, it will actually matter.

[eggynack]

If you didn't want dissenting opinions, why even put up a vote?
I don't not want dissenting opinions. I do want, however, to argue with them when they dissent with me. Big part of the goal of these threads is arguing about how things are tiered. It makes just as much sense for me to try to convince you as it does for Cosi and Troacctid to try to convince each other on the truenamer, and I would assume that that conversation's presence in this thread does not come across as aberrant to you.


I'd agree with your opposition had I said T1 (frankly ludicrous) but where I am standing I think T2 is not unfair.
As people have noted in the past, tier two really isn't that far from one. I contend that there is a substantial and noteworthy difference, but it's not near so big as the difference between two and three. Point being, if you think that tier one is ludicrous, then tier two is likely more reasonably wrong. Or totally wrong, depending on the class. Leaving aside fixed list casters, how do you think the warlock compares to the sorcerer? If the answer is that the warlock is significantly outclassed, in a general and situation inclusive sense, then that is not an evaluation that makes for tier two. The reason the fixed list casters are where they are is that folks look at them, and then look at the sorcerer, and note that the former is roughly equal to the latter. It's not just because the tier is super broad or something. Consider here that you're two full points above the low end of the spectrum of evaluation for this class, and seemingly purely on the basis of a preference for the warlock play pattern.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Tier 2 classes are typically the ones that can deploy huge, campaign-shattering power-- especially strategic power. But because most people aren't obnoxious, they usually won't go around raising vast legions of the dead, mind-controlling every NPC in the kingdom, binding overpowered outsiders, shattering the action economy, and so on. If they get along with classes like the Warlock or Totemist, it's because they're punching down, not because the Warlock is punching up.

And Eldrich Blast is bloody awful; the accuracy of a touch attack doesn't mean crap when you're not doing meaningful damage with it. My friend got frustrated with how bad it was. It doesn't start looking passable until mid-to-high levels, when Eldrich Glaive, Hellfire Warlock, and good debuffy essences come online. (That's the big point of departure from the DFA-- their breath weapon stinks too, but it at least comes with good save-doesn't-matter-you-just-suck effects from level 1)

[Cosi]

First, while this difference is problematic at high levels, it is not really noticeable at low levels - and it turns out low-level campaigns are vastly more common than high-level ones. It seems unfair to discount a class at level 5 because its performance at level 20 would be lacking.

It's still pretty bad at low levels. You're making a check to see if you get to use abilities that allow a save. It's a check you can pretty easily fail, especially if you aren't very optimized or are making more than one check a day. I agree that it's not reasonable to discount the class at 5th level because it sucks at 20th, but it also sucks at 5th! Also, in a system where all the levels are included, it's unfair to exclude high levels, particularly when you're as bad as the Truenamer at them.


Second, bear in mind that the crafting rules allow you to make an item that gives +20 to a skill check pre-epic, which basically eliminates the difference all by itself.

That's a custom item, right? Also, on it's own that still gives you a 30% chance to fail your first check at 20th level.


Once we have dealt with the DC issue, what is left of the truenamer is a spellcaster with an admittedly poor list, but still a decent amount of versatility. Yes, this could have been written better, but so could a number of commonly used feats and prestige classes. I'd call this Tier 4.

A poor list? Your combat options are terrible, and your non-combat ones amount to skill bonuses you can grant a few times a day. How is that as good as the Rogue?


Truenamer: What a crazy class. So at least we can all agree that the design is at least wonky, but it's really not utterly broken, as in legitimately unplayable. I definitely wouldn't recommend it to a newbie, but if you're willing to put the same amount of thought into one as you would a non-fixed-list caster, it's really not that bad.

Wat?

The amount of effort you have to put in to get a Beguiler or Dread Necromancer to work is basically zero. As long as you put your highest stat in the right place, and don't do truly brained things like wearing full plate or taking Mage Slayer, you get a very effective character. If you put in the same effort a Truenamer does, you start looking at a character who can pick from dozens of different spells before even touching their list -- the sort of character that starts rapidly running up on the power of the Wizard.

Whereas a Truenamer that puts a high stat in the right place and does nothing else can't use their abilities at 20th level. How are those things remotely comparable?


Warlock: T2. They have a range of abilities about as wide as a fixed-list caster, and no chance of ever burning out any of them. It's on the low end, but a greater amount of splat support puts it here IMO over the DFA.

But width is not the same thing as power. Ten first level spells is the same thing as ten eight level spells if all you look at is raw numbers, but that would seem to indicate to me that raw numbers is the wrong lens, not that those ability suites are equal. Also, the fixed list casters are dramatically more amenable to optimization.


I agree that on paper the beguiler outpaces the warlock at every level. In practice, though, I think there is a psychological element at play: Where the warlock never needs to hold back his highest level abilities "just in case", a beguiler could very much do so to its own detriment (or fire off too early in the other extreme). The fact that a warlock CAN pop up these high-level abilities whenever (and they are not that much worse than the ones a beguiler gets a couple times per day) still does not change my vote.

I don't think that's true. For every person whose overly cautious with their abilities, there's another whose overly aggressive and pushes for a 15 minute workday.


One thing to remember with Truenamers is that not all combats are going to be against one enemy of equal CR - two enemies drops it down to CR-2, or a -4 to the DC, and four enemies drops it down to CR-4, or a -8 DC. A sixth-level low-op Truenamer fighting an Orc has a +15ish bonus (9 ranks + 3 INT + 3 Skill Focus) against DC 16, and appropriately mops them up. (As does the Fighter, of course - this is the rare situation where Cleave is useful.)

That drops the DC, but it also drops your effectiveness dramatically. Your ability to hit multiple targets comes online at 17th level. Before that point, you're dramatically less effective against groups of enemies.


If nothing else, the Truenamer is pretty great at knowledge checks. That's a semi-useful niche, I guess.

I don't think "I can make one kind of skill check" is on par with the Rogue at all. The Rogue has a combat shtick that is useful, consistent, and effective. The Truenamer's ability to be pretty good at skill checks of one kind doesn't even come close.

[Grim Reader]

If you didn't want dissenting opinions, why even put up a vote? :smallconfused:

I am sorry, but my frank opinion is that this whole thing is about getting frustrated with the tiers assigned to favourite classes. And so trying to change the goalposts of the Tier system. Pushing back against the favourite class is generally going to lead to a disproportionate response.

[Cosi]

I am sorry, but my frank opinion is that this whole thing is about getting frustrated with the tiers assigned to favourite classes. And so trying to change the goalposts of the Tier system. Pushing back against the favourite class is generally going to lead to a disproportionate response.

If you think people voted wrong on the Beguiler, you can post in the Beguiler thread with arguments about why that is, instead of complaining about how it's totally unfair that people don't recognize the wisdom of JaronK.

Doing this just sounds like you know you're wrong, but won't admit it out of pride.

[Grim Reader]

If you think people voted wrong on the Beguiler, you can post in the Beguiler thread with arguments about why that is, instead of complaining about how it's totally unfair that people don't recognize the wisdom of JaronK.

Doing this just sounds like you know you're wrong, but won't admit it out of pride.

I don't really have a strong opinion on that. I do feel a bit more strongly about the whole concept of changing the tier definitions and retiring the classes but still calling it the tier system. It feel like trying to leech off the recognition the tier system has. I recognize that you'll get more posters if you use the term "Tier System" but that is in itself a mark on how much of a name the Tier System has.

By all means make what you feel is a better, more descriptive or gameplay-accurate system. Or a system where everyones favourite can be Tier 2. But if you've changed both the Tier definitions and the rankings, its not the Tier system any more, and calling it that feels like trying to mooch off the recognition other peoples work has.

[Cosi]

I don't really have a strong opinion on that. I do feel a bit more strongly about the whole concept of changing the tier definitions and retiring the classes but still calling it the tier system. It feel like trying to leech off the recognition the tier system has. I recognize that you'll get more posters if you use the term "Tier System" but that is in itself a mark on how much of a name the Tier System has.

By all means make what you feel is a better, more descriptive or gameplay-accurate system. Or a system where everyones favourite can be Tier 2. But if you've changed both the Tier definitions and the rankings, its not the Tier system any more, and calling it that feels like trying to mooch off the recognition other peoples work has.

You understand that the concept of Tiers predates JaronK, right? He did not invent the concept of ranking things, nor the concept of calling those rankings "Tiers". In fact, this system's use of "power" relatively directly is far closer to what the vast majority of people mean when they talk about "Tiers" than JaronK's ravings ever were.

[Beheld]

I don't really have a strong opinion on that. I do feel a bit more strongly about the whole concept of changing the tier definitions and retiring the classes but still calling it the tier system. It feel like trying to leech off the recognition the tier system has. I recognize that you'll get more posters if you use the term "Tier System" but that is in itself a mark on how much of a name the Tier System has.

By all means make what you feel is a better, more descriptive or gameplay-accurate system. Or a system where everyones favourite can be Tier 2. But if you've changed both the Tier definitions and the rankings, its not the Tier system any more, and calling it that feels like trying to mooch off the recognition other peoples work has.

While I'm all for tossing out the bath water that is the Tier system, which provides no useful information at all and constrains thinking, I don't think JaronK has a trademark on the concept of a Tier System, which has existed since before he was born, and has been in wide use in at least fighting games since the 80s.

[Grim Reader]

You understand that the concept of Tiers predates JaronK, right? He did not invent the concept of ranking things, nor the concept of calling those rankings "Tiers". In fact, this system's use of "power" relatively directly is far closer to what the vast majority of people mean when they talk about "Tiers" than JaronK's ravings ever were.


While I'm all for tossing out the bath water that is the Tier system, which provides no useful information at all and constrains thinking, I don't think JaronK has a trademark on the concept of a Tier System, which has existed since before he was born, and has been in wide use in at least fighting games since the 80s.

Not a relevant argument. Tiering as a concept is used in many areas and has been for a long time. That does not mean that every bit of work using the word can be appropriated. "The distinctive likeness of" is a relevant phrase. Science Fiction had been around for more than a century before Star Wars. Doesn't mean you can pretend Darth Vader is your own creation.

Although I am not trying to say that this is a copyright or trademark issue. However, the delineations are useful.

Incidentally, if the Tier system is "ravings" and contains "no useful information" why is it so important to appropriate the name?

[Soranar]

If you compare a typical tier 2 (sorcerer) with a warlock the warlock is clearly overshadowed at every turn. The sorcerer can more or less do everything the warlock can do, he can do it better and he can do things the warlock cannot do. A sorcerer optimized for blasting for example (mailman build) severely outdamages a warlock and he still has resources left to one up him in every field.

Now consider that most people thing the beguiler is better than a sorcerer ...

Even if you compare the warlock to a typical tier 3 (say a bard) the warlock can more or less hold his own at certain things but even then he never manages to overshadow a bard. It's far more likely to be the other way around.

Warlocks are better than some tier 3 classes (say a swordsage) but they are not even the ceiling of the tier.

I love warlocks but I have no illusion as to their potential. I might have been overly harsh at DFA but evasion is pretty common amongst the enemies I usually faced and I often saw chilling fog hindering my own party members as much as the opposition since LOS is important for just about everyone but the DFA.

[Cosi]

Incidentally, if the Tier system is "ravings" and contains "no useful information" why is it so important to appropriate the name?

Because that is a name for a list of classes by power? If JaronK had written a Factotum handbook and called it a Tier System, would you claim that the term "Tier System" in the context of D&D always and forever had to refer to Factotum handbooks?

[Bucky]

Why Truenamer should not be in tier 6: They do one of the allegedly T5 Expert builds better than Expert. Even if they fail all their utterances. Allowing utterances, they can buff themselves up to a passable job at even cross-class skills.

Why a Truenamer might be in tier 5: If they're using utterances offensively on single big (at or above level) targets, they have a fail rate comparable to a power attacking Monk. But "inconsistent utility" isn't the same as "no utility" and you need to do something stupid like not putting ranks in Truespeak to be completely useless.

Why a Truenamer might be in tier 4: A decently optimized Truenamer can scrape together enough bonuses to make their check reliably a few times per day per utterance, with some unreliable uses following. They can do this with WBL, external buffs or with the Item Familiar feat. They can fall back on Knowledge Devotion, or with utterances that don't target the enemies and thus don't scale in DCs.

Special mention to a flat DC for a Solid Fog effect.

Why a Truenamer might be in tier 3: They have utterances that affect (magic) items and UMD. The DC of these utterances scale with item CL rather than CR, so old items never go out of style as long as the underlying items remain relevant and for some of them (Rebuild Item - Skull Talismans) it means the Truenamer can spam them reliably. This accounts for your versatility.

Using various methods to get under-CL items is also a valid tactic at this level.

Meanwhile, still further skill-check optimization gives Quickened level-appropriate utterance attempts to exploit the action economy, especially given your utterances that already bend it. Empowered utterances lend some raw power. And some choice BoVD feats (mortalbane and boost SLA) turn your Save-or-DoT effects into real threats.

Finally, at this level of optimization you're bypassing some of the class's other built-in limits like the Law of Sequence.

Why Truenamer might be Tier 2:
To get here, you need to use some variety of cheese to get +YES to Truespeak checks. When you do, you're spamming a couple of high level spells with metamagic from oversized Skull Talismans, deleting buffs with quickened dispels and applying a variety of useful spell-boosters to your other game-breaking party members. Assuming there's no way to parlay this into no-dice NI damage, that is.

[Cosi]

Why a Truenamer might be in tier 4: A decently optimized Truenamer can scrape together enough bonuses to make their check reliably a few times per day per utterance, with some unreliable uses following. They can do this with WBL, external buffs or with the Item Familiar feat. They can fall back on Knowledge Devotion, or with utterances that don't target the enemies and thus don't scale in DCs.

I think it's important to note that an optimized Truenamer needs to be compared to other optimized characters. Is a Truenamer that hits their utterances 50% of the time as good as a TWF Rogue? 75%?


Why a Truenamer might be in tier 3: They have utterances that affect (magic) items and UMD. The DC of these utterances scale with item CL rather than CR, so old items never go out of style as long as the underlying items remain relevant and for some of them (Rebuild Item - Skull Talismans) it means the Truenamer can spam them reliably. This accounts for your versatility.

You have rebuild item which might work with obscure items. You have something that grants a +5 buff to UMD, but requires an action, making it really bad in combat.


Why Truenamer might be Tier 2:
To get here, you need to use some variety of cheese to get +YES to Truespeak checks. When you do, you're spamming a couple of high level spells with metamagic from oversized Skull Talismans, deleting buffs with quickened dispels and applying a variety of useful spell-boosters to your other game-breaking party members. Assuming there's no way to parlay this into no-dice NI damage, that is.

Again, compare this to an optimized Beguiler. With optimization, the Beguiler can get any spell from any list, shuffle around prestige domains, and have an army of charmed minions.

[Grim Reader]

Because that is a name for a list of classes by power? If JaronK had written a Factotum handbook and called it a Tier System, would you claim that the term "Tier System" in the context of D&D always and forever had to refer to Factotum handbooks?

No. That is what the phrase "The distinctive likeness of " means. Close enough to be mistaken for. Generally, if there is a reasonable chance of confusion, you're getting into skeewy territory.

Which is another point. If you manage to get this off the ground, you'll have two distinct Tier rankings floating around, and you are generally going to have to get into which one you are using and what the differences are. Then people will read about this system here and go on other message boards and not realize it is a niche system...

[Beheld]

Not a relevant argument. Tiering as a concept is used in many areas and has been for a long time. That does not mean that every bit of work using the word can be appropriated. "The distinctive likeness of" is a relevant phrase. Science Fiction had been around for more than a century before Star Wars. Doesn't mean you can pretend Darth Vader is your own creation.

Although I am not trying to say that this is a copyright or trademark issue. However, the delineations are useful.

Incidentally, if the Tier system is "ravings" and contains "no useful information" why is it so important to appropriate the name?

1) Like, seriously, this is stuff that has existed since way before JaronK and is exactly like this: Street Fighter II Tiers (http://wiki.shoryuken.com/Super_Street_Fighter_2_Turbo#Tiers_.26_Balance)

2) I didn't say it's important to appropriate the name. I said we should throw it out. Thinking about classes in a cooperative storytelling game the same way you think about characters in a multiplayer competitive fighting game produces many problems in the process. But that doesn't mean when eggynack ranks things in tiers he's stealing from JaronK any more than stealing from God_Ryu69, or whomever invented Tiers for Street Fighter.


Again, compare this to an optimized Beguiler. With optimization, the Beguiler can get any spell from any list, shuffle around prestige domains, and have an army of charmed minions.

Or compare to anyone who used skill optimization on better skills who is using Caster Level NI Holy Words instead of Utterances.

[Cosi]

Or compare to anyone who used skill optimization on better skills who is using Caster Level NI Holy Words instead of Utterances.

Oh damn, I totally forgot about that. But yeah, the fact that Truenamer optimization is about getting really big skill checks means that just doing your stuff already puts you behind a Rogue who simply invests the same resources in UMD or Diplomacy, because those are better skills.

[Grim Reader]

1) Like, seriously, this is stuff that has existed since way before JaronK and is exactly like this: Street Fighter II Tiers (http://wiki.shoryuken.com/Super_Street_Fighter_2_Turbo#Tiers_.26_Balance)

Your own link uses A Rank, B rank, C Rank.

I am not sure you are understanding my objection here. It is not that you are ranking things it is that the ranking terminology and scale is copied from the already existent Tier system and this is far to close a clone to be fair use.


2) I didn't say it's important to appropriate the name. I said we should throw it out. Thinking about classes in a cooperative storytelling game the same way you think about characters in a multiplayer competitive fighting game produces many problems in the process. But that doesn't mean when eggynack ranks things in tiers he's stealing from JaronK any more than stealing from God_Ryu69, or whomever invented Tiers for Street Fighter.

I'm afraid it does. Sorry, but that's the way it is. I am not sure if you understand that the line is normally drawn at there being a reasonable chance at confusing the two. There is not much chance of reasonably confusing a Street Fighter character tier system for a D&D Class one. However, confusing two D&D class ranking systems, both called "Tier System" ranking the same classes, and using 6 tiers with the top one being tier 1, that is a very different

This is just simply too close to be defensible, there is not even any attempt made to hide it. Its not like there isn't a lot of different terminology out there that can be used. I mean, I hear D&D already uses the term "levels" but strangely it doesn't seem to use a lot of the other ranking terms.

[Beheld]

Your own link uses A Rank, B rank, C Rank.

I am not sure you are understanding my objection here. It is not that you are ranking things it is that the ranking terminology and scale is copied from the already existent Tier system and this is far to close a clone to be fair use.



I'm afraid it does. Sorry, but that's the way it is. I am not sure if you understand that the line is normally drawn at there being a reasonable chance at confusing the two. There is not much chance of reasonably confusing a Street Fighter character tier system for a D&D Class one. However, confusing two D&D class ranking systems, both called "Tier System" ranking the same classes, and using 6 tiers with the top one being tier 1, that is a very different

This is just simply too close to be defensible, there is not even any attempt made to hide it. Its not like there isn't a lot of different terminology out there that can be used. I mean, I hear D&D already uses the term "levels" but strangely it doesn't seem to use a lot of the other ranking terms.

Okay 1) The existence of numbers 1-5 and the letters A-C (or even S above A) are not unique special things. Those are the ways to denote orders. Denoting orders using numbers is not a unique invention of JaronK either.

2) There are multiple competing Street Fighter Tiers that all use the same letters. There are multiple competing Smash Brother Tiers that all use the same names for the Tiers. Everyone else in the universe can somehow manage to have multiple competing Tiers usually named things like: SmashBoard Tier list, or SmashBackRoom Tier list, based on the name of the person or people who are involved in their construction.

If they can manage that, then surely we can somehow manage to tell the difference between the eggynack Tier List and the JaronK Tier List, or the Gitp Tier List and the JaronK Tier List.

Especially when one of them outputs numbers like 2.647, and the other doesn't, I'm sure people will be able to figure it out.

3) None of this changes that both Tier systems are without value and actively destructive to sound thinking about D&D balance though.

[Soranar]

Alright, I'll try to pitch in the truenamer review by using the tier definitions

Tier one: Incredibly good at solving nearly all problems...

-even if truenames actually worked 100 % of the time (like spells that require no save or SR) this is clearly not a truenamer

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

-Again you are still clearly not here, a truenamer is inherently unreliable but even if he was reliable his abilities are not on par with spells when you get them. And unlike a warlock (who can get a level 3 spell at level 6, or a level 4 spell at level 11) your ''spell progression" is even slower than that.

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

Say a truenamer, somehow, managed to make his abilities work 100% of the time. What do the utterances do according to the truenamer handbook?

-Well by level 18 you get abilities that are on par with a level 4 spell in the lexicon of the evolved mind. (again a warlock gets that at level 11 and he actually gets good abilities, like dimension door (level 4 spell) combined with major image (level 3 spell) while you get something akin to panaea...
-You also get something that's worse than a level 5 spell (telekenesis) in the lexicon of the crafted tool
-By level 16 you get access to level 3 of the lexicon of the perfected map and , again, the effects mostly replicate low level spell (level 5ish)
-Technically you get something that replicates a level 9 spell at level 20 but how exactly did you manage to get there with such terrible abilities? And you only get it at level 20 while most games either never reach this level unless they intended to start there and go into epic.

So, all in all, you get to replicate gimped spells (or have brand new gimped spells) which you can (with enough optimization) use at will or mostly at will. Which means you're basically a very bad warlock or a bad DFA. And this is IF you manage to always make your rolls. I'm sorry but the truenamer is not tier 3 either.

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

-Now comes the problem of actual usefulness and reliability. If you're going to be tier 4 you need to be able to do something reliably and that something has to be useful. A barbarian deals damage, which is useful in most combat situations, so a barbarian is tier 4. A truenamer can... spam low level spells sometimes and be a sort of knowledge monkey. I don't see how a truenamer makes it into this tier.

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

-And here we are. I would say a truenamer in with the like of experts and such: you only really play one as a sort of personal challenge and you are only marginally better than a commoner.

In short, I voter tier 5 for the truenamer

[Zancloufer]

Hmm so we have the sorta weird somewhat at-will occult classes this time?

Binder: Tier 3: Never played one but I have given them a look. You get 1-4 different vestiges to bind which give you a bunch of abilities. You probably need some feat support to help and choosing the wrong vestige at level >8 hurts but hey you can change your abilities the next day. Tier 3 in IIRC you have a decent array of choices and you can change them every day anyway so.

DFA / Warlock : Tier 3. You get an at-will ability that does magic damage. Warlock's is easier to optimize but the DFA's is more powerful out of the box. Invocations it's hard to say, Warlock has a better selection and count overall though. DFA does have a better chassis though. Overall you got solid at-will damage a bunch of utility powers at will and some little cute class features that are not a waste of time.

Shadowcaster: Tier 4. Mostly because of how awkward it is to learn their abilities. Though they do eventually become SLAs and even Su abilities when they start to get stale. You can also gain extra castings by "knowing it twice". It's mostly the dual stat casting and limitations on mysteries known by path the hurt them.

Truenamer: Tier 4. There is A LOT of arguing on what tier they should be. It seems most of the tier 5-6 arguments are the whole "+30 competence items are not 100% RAW therefore the Truenamer sucks because he can't hit the DCs enough". Honestly I think we should safely assume enough optimization that the class can actually USE it's utterances because otherwise it's literally a tier em dash. It is a solid tier 4 in that if you choose the right utterances it can do a bunch of cute things that are helpful. Also the hilarious wording brings a few silly high OP tricks. Like the bunny rabbit trick to essentially IHS any magic away. Or becoming immune to City/Divine/Untyped damage. Instantly fixing sundered items. Infinite range vision outside. Also if you can go almost TO level (Item familiar, Skill Focus, 50+ Int, +30 item etc) and get the 100+ bonus to Truespeak most of your powers become at will. Even Gate at level 20.

[Grim Reader]

Okay 1) The existence of numbers 1-5 and the letters A-C (or even S above A) are not unique special things. Those are the ways to denote orders. Denoting orders using numbers is not a unique invention of JaronK either.

Correct. However, this ordering of the classes into a 1-6 tier system has come to be well established and is in occasional use on several message boards.

I am not sure if this is a serious argument or if you are mocking your own position ? You seem to be arguing that because this number or letter exists elsewhere, that means any use done with it is fair. That's not how it works. Its not on the same planet.


2) There are multiple competing Street Fighter Tiers that all use the same letters. There are multiple competing Smash Brother Tiers that all use the same names for the Tiers. Everyone else in the universe can somehow manage to have multiple competing Tiers usually named things like: SmashBoard Tier list, or SmashBackRoom Tier list, based on the name of the person or people who are involved in their construction.

Good for them. Tell me, did they have one overarching system that was well established before launching a different one using the exact same names? Because, you know I noticed in your link that they were at pains to use a lot of different terminology.


If they can manage that, then surely we can somehow manage to tell the difference between the eggynack Tier List and the JaronK Tier List, or the Gitp Tier List and the JaronK Tier List.

Especially when one of them outputs numbers like 2.647, and the other doesn't, I'm sure people will be able to figure it out.

Or, instead of just relying on people being able to figure it out, it could be done correctly from the start. You know, relying on its own merits without trying to mooch off the reputation of previous works. Incidentally, I am sure the phrase "I am sure people will be able to figure it out" was used quite a bit in the development of 3.5, although not in the well-written parts.

[Beheld]

This other tier system that sucks slightly less than yours has a different name and isn't piggybacking off of your street cred in any way JaronK. I get that you think you are a genius who can do no wrong, but this system doesn't even have the same name. Get over yourself.

[Lans]

The Truenamer is terrible. Like, really terrible. Core Monk or Soulknife level terrible where it's a plausible candidate for "worst PC class". Easy Tier Five, and fairly low there.

To start off with, you eventually stop being able to use your abilities at all against level appropriate opposition by 20th level. The DC to hit a CR 20 enemy with an Evolving Mind Utterance is 55. Your check (assuming 20 INT) is +28, which means you succeed if you roll at least ... 27. That's not happening. By way of comparison, a 20th level Fighter with 20 STR hits a Balor (AC 35) on a 10 or better.


Yes, but the balor has flying so the fighter can't even reach the balor. So they are both at 0%. The fighter could use a bow but the balors DR will make that useless.

Even if the Balor landed next to the Fighter, the fighter is doing 2d6-8 damage. So basically doing nothing


AC and attacks are different things. Also, it's a rule of thumb. What do you think a mid-OP Truenamer's item selection looks like?


I don't see any real difference between a true speak check by a truenamer and an attack by a fighter or barbarian. If you assume the fighter or barbarian has power attack and a +1 sword then you can assume a truenamer has skill focus and an Amulet of truespeach

I put the truenamer in low tier 4 on the assumptions that it will get the amulets and skill focus at a reasonable level and that the perfected map lexicons are about as valuble as having a stock barbarian

[Troacctid]

If you compare a typical tier 2 (sorcerer) with a warlock the warlock is clearly overshadowed at every turn. The sorcerer can more or less do everything the warlock can do, he can do it better and he can do things the warlock cannot do. A sorcerer optimized for blasting for example (mailman build) severely outdamages a warlock and he still has resources left to one up him in every field.

Now consider that most people thing the beguiler is better than a sorcerer ...

Even if you compare the warlock to a typical tier 3 (say a bard) the warlock can more or less hold his own at certain things but even then he never manages to overshadow a bard. It's far more likely to be the other way around.

Warlocks are better than some tier 3 classes (say a swordsage) but they are not even the ceiling of the tier.

I love warlocks but I have no illusion as to their potential. I might have been overly harsh at DFA but evasion is pretty common amongst the enemies I usually faced and I often saw chilling fog hindering my own party members as much as the opposition since LOS is important for just about everyone but the DFA.
I have to agree. Warlocks are great and all, but they're definitely not on the level of Tier 2 classes.


Why a Truenamer might be in tier 3: They have utterances that affect (magic) items and UMD. The DC of these utterances scale with item CL rather than CR, so old items never go out of style as long as the underlying items remain relevant and for some of them (Rebuild Item - Skull Talismans) it means the Truenamer can spam them reliably. This accounts for your versatility.

Using various methods to get under-CL items is also a valid tactic at this level.

Meanwhile, still further skill-check optimization gives Quickened level-appropriate utterance attempts to exploit the action economy, especially given your utterances that already bend it. Empowered utterances lend some raw power. And some choice BoVD feats (mortalbane and boost SLA) turn your Save-or-DoT effects into real threats.

Finally, at this level of optimization you're bypassing some of the class's other built-in limits like the Law of Sequence.

Why Truenamer might be Tier 2:
To get here, you need to use some variety of cheese to get +YES to Truespeak checks. When you do, you're spamming a couple of high level spells with metamagic from oversized Skull Talismans, deleting buffs with quickened dispels and applying a variety of useful spell-boosters to your other game-breaking party members. Assuming there's no way to parlay this into no-dice NI damage, that is.
The problem with going above Tier 4, I think, is that utterances just aren't that good. I mean, they do things, but I'd still take, like, the Swordsage list over it, for example. Gate aside.

[eggynack]

Good for them. Tell me, did they have one overarching system that was well established before launching a different one using the exact same names? Because, you know I noticed in your link that they were at pains to use a lot of different terminology.

Or, instead of just relying on people being able to figure it out, it could be done correctly from the start. You know, relying on its own merits without trying to mooch off the reputation of previous works. Incidentally, I am sure the phrase "I am sure people will be able to figure it out" was used quite a bit in the development of 3.5, although not in the well-written parts.
This is, frankly, a silly argument. I am not mooching or secretly stealing anything, or tricking anyone. This thread is explicitly called retiering the classes. That means I am going back to the original tier system, explicitly, and seeing what, if anything, should be changed. This is not an entirely new tier system. It's not intended to be one. The reason some things are changed isn't because it's some completely new leech system, but because the original featured several fundamental contradictions and problems that were more or less objectively present. My definitions, for example, are intended to comport somewhat with where everything originally laid out, without including ridiculously poorly defined terms like game breakers and nukes. Who knows what those are? You think you do, cause everyone thinks that they do, but everyone's mental definition of that is going to be completely different. That this is based on the original is no secret. I specifically link back to Jaronk's list in these threads.

I've heard it said that there are one of two main goals for any creative endeavor. First, to create something original and new. That's what JaronK was doing (if not in the invention of the idea of the tier system, then in the development of the ideas that go into tiering classes in this game). Second, to take that original stuff, and try to refine it, make it more perfect. That's what I'm doing. I'm essentially coming to you saying, "This hammer is a great idea, but it's built in a bunch of subtly wrong ways that make it significantly worse than you'd want it to be at its main job," and you're saying, "You're a cheater for making this look anything like a hammer. You should use an entirely different fundamental design schematic, not because it will be better, but because that way you can say it's original." I don't care about originality here. It's not something I'm going for. All I care about is tiering things as correctly as is possible, and part of doing that is not trying to wholly reinvent the wheel.

[lord_khaine]

Edit: Basically, the warlock's high level abilities are much worse. Much much much worse. The warlock is getting the equivalent of a third level spell, black tentacles, while the beguiler is getting a bunch of sixth level spells. And a level later they get seventh level spells, while the warlock isn't even adding an invocation to their list. To point to the classic caster argument technique, at level 12 the beguiler's cohort's cohort is casting higher level spells than the warlock.

Actually the warlock is getting a superior version of one of the more broken level 4 spells in the phb. Not going to bother about the rest of the argument, since im not that invested in the warlocks final placement. But though the fact should at least on the table.

[Bucky]

The problem with going above Tier 4, I think, is that utterances just aren't that good. I mean, they do things, but I'd still take, like, the Swordsage list over it, for example. Gate aside.

Yeah, going above T4 at higher levels probably implies the ability to make practical use of Quicken Utterance OR using Rebuild Item to exchange an utterance for, effectively, a couple of flexible spell slots.



Or maybe finding some way to convert a +150 truespeak modifier into very large effects.

[digiman619]

It's worth mentioning that Pathfinder has a good 3rd party version of the Truenamer that you can find here (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/strange-magic).

[eggynack]

Actually the warlock is getting a superior version of one of the more broken level 4 spells in the phb. Not going to bother about the rest of the argument, since im not that invested in the warlocks final placement. But though the fact should at least on the table.
Not sure why I thought it was a third level spell. Might've been thinking of stinking cloud or something. Still, now the beguiler's beguiler's beguiler is just bringing equal level spellcasting to the table. And better spellcasting at that. Because, after all, the warlock is getting one really good fourth level spell, while the beguiler gets several, including solid fog which is pretty comparable in utility. Fourth level beguiler list is really good, actually. Charm monster, freedom of movement, greater invisibility, locate creature, greater mirror image, and solid fog all range from quite useful to really useful.

Actually, that raises an alternate mode of analysis. At what level can a warlock match the versatility of an 8th level beguiler by way of invocation choices? Do they need dark invocations to get there? Is three greater invocations sufficient?

[Gruftzwerg]

I would like to repeat my entry argument:

Regular warlock builds are T3 but in TO with cheating WBL & max UMD they get T1 - T0.5 easily and can play batman (they just need a bit more gold/resources but who cares if you already cheat WBL?).

And while we are at batman, how many batman/T1 builds are not cheating WBL? Just the amount of spells is almost enough to break the WBL (a lil bit overreaction from me here I now^^).

So, my question is, of which lvl of optimization are we talking here in general?

Max possible optimization? Or what is "common" (will be in favor of wizards due to the lack of interest in TO:warlock builds; just mho)?

As said, as long as the warlock builds/invests heavy into a UMD + crafting build, he can easily keep up with T1/0.5.

Maybe we should put warlocks into T3 and mention this gimmick? In the old Tier list there are a few similar examples where a note mentions that if "you do this than this class get TX". So, shouldn't we handle warlocks this way?

[Cosi]

If you already cheat WBL, what is the advantage of being a Warlock (who gets UMD and easy crafting) instead of a Beguiler (who gets UMD and casting)?

[Zombulian]

@Gruftz
My understanding of how we synthesize tiers is understanding the high end and the low end of a class' capabilities, and then finding a reasonable medium that assumes a player building a well-thought-out character taking advantage of the class abilities without delving into cheese too much.


If you already cheat WBL, what is the advantage of being a Warlock (who gets UMD and easy crafting) instead of a Beguiler (who gets UMD and casting)?

Crafting tons of magic items. Duh.

[eggynack]

Yeah, if you're straight cheating wealth by level, meaning doing things that aren't strictly crafting (walls of salt, for example), then that's a kind of trick available to roughly every class in the game. Warlocks are marginally better at it, but we don't account for that by saying that warlocks get the whole trick and a commoner gets none of it. We look at that tiny marginal advantage and that, theoretically, gets associated with the warlock. I'm not even sure there is a marginal advantage. WBL cheating tends to transcend stuff you already had. Disadvantages can usually be made up for with yet more items. Also, tier .5? Seriously? The wizard does this exact trick at least as well, actually way better, and at earlier levels. Deceive item and imbue item are powerful abilities. But they are not, by any measure, this powerful, because while you can contrive game breaking stuff through the use of these class features, other classes can skip the class features and do this just fine.

[Cosi]

Crafting tons of magic items. Duh.

But if we're cheating WBL, we can just buy tons of items.

[Gruftzwerg]

If you already cheat WBL, what is the advantage of being a Warlock (who gets UMD and easy crafting) instead of a Beguiler (who gets UMD and casting)?

Access to all spells via scrolls, can build any item with the right crafting feats (or dipping 2lvl into chameleon).
Or go Blood Magus 4 to get scribe scrolls on your skin and brew potions in your blood (makes you unlootable). Add constructs and craft contingent spell and you are basically invincible.
You get the strongest possible contingent spells (either divine or with greater arcane fusion) and you can also put em on your constructs. This way you can have contingent spells for any situation that might occur.

_________________________

While other classes may go the same route with UMD and crafting, warlocks may take 10 on UMD which gets them the cheese much earlier and have access to all spells while crafting. Something which is hard to achieve for others (not impossible).

So if you have to optimize the hell out of a wizard to maintain the T1 status (you need to pick the right spells & so on), why the dislike when a warlock does the same (on his way by taking the right feats/PRC)?

[chaos_redefined]

So, there's some discussion regarding the skill DCs for truenamers. This is the wrong thing to look at.

Let's suppose that you manage to get +infinite to truenaming. You have successfully bypassed that pesky Law of Resistance.

But there is still that Law of Sequence. So, you can cast what is effectively haste on one person at a time. Or slow on one enemy at a time. Etc...

Then there are the durations. A common non-combat thing that wizards are praised for is flight. Truenamers can put fly on someone for 5 rounds before needing to reapply it.

So, once we get past all of that... For 19 levels out of 20, the abilities that you do have are weaker than the warlock's invocations. At level 20, you get Gate without XP.

Of note: You do get Freedom of Movement ridiculously early... but at that point, noone needs it. There isn't a lot of use for FoM at level 1. You have an amazing type of damage: Untyped magical damage with no save and you can ignore SR by bumping the truename check. Most of your high level utterances are spells of 6th level or lower.

Even with the ability to bypass the truenaming check, the Truenamer is less versatile and less powerful than the Warlock. They are lower than tier 4. I'm not willing to call them Tier 6, as they are more versatile and powerful than all current T6 things, but T5 sounds right.

[Beheld]

Access to all spells via scrolls, can build any item with the right crafting feats (or dipping 2lvl into chameleon).
Or go Blood Magus 4 to get scribe scrolls on your skin and brew potions in your blood (makes you unlootable). Add constructs and craft contingent spell and you are basically invincible.
You get the strongest possible contingent spells (either divine or with greater arcane fusion) and you can also put em on your constructs. This way you can have contingent spells for any situation that might occur.

_________________________

While other classes may go the same route with UMD and crafting, warlocks may take 10 on UMD which gets them the cheese much earlier and have access to all spells while crafting. Something which is hard to achieve for others (not impossible).

So if you have to optimize the hell out of a wizard to maintain the T1 status (you need to pick the right spells & so on), why the dislike when a warlock does the same (on his way by taking the right feats/PRC)?

......

It's the WBL cheese that is doing 100000% of the work, and the Warlock class doing none of it.

"I have infinite money and I can take 10 on UMD!" "I have infinite money and I spent a finite amount on a +30 competence to UMD item, and don't care if I roll a 1."

"I can make a scroll of any spell with my infinite money, in order to make any item with my infinite money and crafting!" "I bought the item with my infinite money. Or wished it, whatever."

A Wizard picking the right spells is not like a Warlock having infinite money. That's a Wizard having infinite money. A Wizard picking the good spells is like a Warlock picking the good invocations.

[Cosi]

Access to all spells via scrolls, can build any item with the right crafting feats (or dipping 2lvl into chameleon).

Again, if you are break WBL, you can just buy whatever scrolls you want. That's what "breaking WBL" means.


While other classes may go the same route with UMD and crafting, warlocks may take 10 on UMD which gets them the cheese much earlier and have access to all spells while crafting. Something which is hard to achieve for others (not impossible).

Taking 10 on UMD is pretty much the same as buying a +10 skill item. Is the difference between Beguiler class features and Warlock class features really only worth the 10,000 GP such an item costs? Of course, all this is assuming we accept no failure chance -- the average effect of the ability is zero (slightly less as 1d20 averages 10.5). You can also likely get away with a smaller item by the time Warlock UMD becomes good.


So if you have to optimize the hell out of a wizard to maintain the T1 status (you need to pick the right spells & so on), why the dislike when a warlock does the same (on his way by taking the right feats/PRC)?

I'm not disputing that you can make Tier One Warlock. I just think doing so is harder and less effective than optimizing, say, a Beguiler to that level (UMD + Knowstones, Prestige Domains + substitute domain, Arcane Disciple, Bloodline Feats, etc). To make matters worse, the Warlock only gets four levels of casting before the Beguiler could have Cleric Spell Access. To finish things off, the Beguiler's floor is dramatically higher.

[Troacctid]

Not sure why I thought it was a third level spell. Might've been thinking of stinking cloud or something.
There's like a domain or an initiate feat where it's 3rd level. It's in your Druid handbook IIRC.


Actually, that raises an alternate mode of analysis. At what level can a warlock match the versatility of an 8th level beguiler by way of invocation choices? Do they need dark invocations to get there? Is three greater invocations sufficient?
When the Beguiler runs out of spell slots.

They have lots of spell slots, so good luck with that. :smalltongue:

[Grod_The_Giant]

Note that rolling a natural 1 on a UMD check does keep you from using the item again for 24 hours. Taking 10 isn't entirely useless.

[eggynack]

So, once we get past all of that... For 19 levels out of 20, the abilities that you do have are weaker than the warlock's invocations. At level 20, you get Gate without XP.

Of note: You do get Freedom of Movement ridiculously early... but at that point, noone needs it. There isn't a lot of use for FoM at level 1. You have an amazing type of damage: Untyped magical damage with no save and you can ignore SR by bumping the truename check. Most of your high level utterances are spells of 6th level or lower.

Even with the ability to bypass the truenaming check, the Truenamer is less versatile and less powerful than the Warlock. They are lower than tier 4. I'm not willing to call them Tier 6, as they are more versatile and powerful than all current T6 things, but T5 sounds right.
I think you are mostly correct, but in my opinion warlock ranges from somewhere between 3-3.5, and truenamer stuff being mostly weaker than that with a few notable advantages puts them at tier four. I don't think there's any tier five class I'd prefer to a truenamer. At least on a power level basis. There are a lot of reasons to dislike truenamer in a more general sense. Compare to magewright or battle dancer, and I think the truenamer is pretty clearly advantaged.

[Beheld]

Note that rolling a natural 1 on a UMD check does keep you from using the item again for 24 hours. Taking 10 isn't entirely useless.
No it doesn't. If you roll a 1 AND fail to activate. Never fail, never care.

[Cosi]

Note that rolling a natural 1 on a UMD check does keep you from using the item again for 24 hours. Taking 10 isn't entirely useless.

That's only if you fail. I'm assuming the Beguiler's check is big enough that he never does, because even if all it costs is an action, failing in combat time is unacceptable. Source (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/useMagicDevice.htm):


Yes, but if you ever roll a natural 1 while attempting to activate an item and you fail, then you can’t try to activate that item again for 24 hours.

Emphasis mine.

[Sr Gaspar Livin]

Cosi sound like fanatic argument. Also, we alread discuss about knowstones + UMD. It's stupidly controversial. To me, it really dont work.

Also, IF your DM allow UMD + Knowstones. U need 24 rolls per day. If u take 1 natural GG, you failed. (It's a high chance to fail)
To learn a sorcerer/favored soul 9th level, you need take 38 DC 24x. It can be problematic.
It's HIGH EXPENSIVE, you will break WBL.

Also, Metamagicked Hail of Stones can easily destroy yours Knowstones.

[Grod_The_Giant]

No it doesn't. If you roll a 1 AND fail to activate. Never fail, never care.


That's only if you fail. I'm assuming the Beguiler's check is big enough that he never does, because even if all it costs is an action, failing in combat time is unacceptable. Source (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/useMagicDevice.htm):

Huh. I've been playing that wrong for years. Whoops :smallredface:

[Bucky]

But there is still that Law of Sequence. So, you can cast what is effectively haste on one person at a time. Or slow on one enemy at a time. Etc...

Bypassing the Law of Sequence costs a +4 to DC per extra instance.



Then there are the durations. A common non-combat thing that wizards are praised for is flight. Truenamers can put fly on someone for 5 rounds before needing to reapply it.

Extend costs +5 to DC and a feat. Granted, some invocations are still short even with that.

[Cosi]

Huh. I've been playing that wrong for years. Whoops :smallredface:

It's kind of strange that the rule exists at all. How often do people fail UMD checks with a natural 1 that you need a special rule for bad stuff that happens under that condition?


So, there's some discussion regarding the skill DCs for truenamers. This is the wrong thing to look at.

I don't think it's wrong, I think it's just not the whole argument. The whole argument is that Truenamer's utterances suck, and they have to work for it, which means they look even worse for it. Their abilities are probably Tier Four, but when you factor in the difficulty of using those abilities, they fall to Tier Five.


Of note: You do get Freedom of Movement ridiculously early... but at that point, noone needs it. There isn't a lot of use for FoM at level 1.

IIRC, it only works against magical effects too, which negates one of the broadest use cases for freedom of movement -- preventing grapple monsters from working.


I think you are mostly correct, but in my opinion warlock ranges from somewhere between 3-3.5, and truenamer stuff being mostly weaker than that with a few notable advantages puts them at tier four. I don't think there's any tier five class I'd prefer to a truenamer. At least on a power level basis. There are a lot of reasons to dislike truenamer in a more general sense. Compare to magewright or battle dancer, and I think the truenamer is pretty clearly advantaged.

I think the "utterances at-will Truenamer" is probably Tier Four, but most Truenamers aren't that, so you have to apply some discount for the people who are stuck with a limited number of chances at crappy abilities. Like, a Wizard with 50% spell failure is not Tier One, even if his abilities are just as good as a regular Wizard.

[Troacctid]

I think the "utterances at-will Truenamer" is probably Tier Four, but most Truenamers aren't that, so you have to apply some discount for the people who are stuck with a limited number of chances at crappy abilities. Like, a Wizard with 50% spell failure is not Tier One, even if his abilities are just as good as a regular Wizard.
The spell failure analogy is bad. Arcane spell failure causes you to lose the spell if you fail, so the punishment for failing is severe. That's not the case for Truespeak checks.

[Cosi]

The spell failure analogy is bad. Arcane spell failure causes you to lose the spell if you fail, so the punishment for failing is severe. That's not the case for Truespeak checks.

Arcane spell failure has two costs: a wasted spell slot, and a wasted action. A failed Truespeak check only costs the action. The difference between the two depends on how much you think people are action constrained or spell slot constrained. I would argue that people's use of e.g. celerity indicates that they are much more action constrained than they are slot constrained, as does the value that people place on buff spells. Certainly it's not the same, but I think it's fairly close.

[Grod_The_Giant]

[QUOTE=Cosi;21902050]It's kind of strange that the rule exists at all. How often do people fail UMD checks with a natural 1 that you need a special rule for bad stuff that happens under that condition?/QUOTE]
My guess is to keep you from spamming the skill in noncombat situations-- you know, invest half a rank to get around the trained only limit, then spend two minutes shaking a wand until it works for you.

[Beheld]

My guess is to keep you from spamming the skill in noncombat situations-- you know, invest half a rank to get around the trained only limit, then spend two minutes shaking a wand until it works for you.

Its actually even more insidious than that. A level 1 character with 2 ranks and 8 cha still has twice the chance to succeed as to disable. No reason you wouldn't try as a character, but the act of rolling and fishing is a hassle. If you could take 20 everyone would do that instead because taking more character time is fine since its less player time.

The 1 disable rule exists only to prevent taking 20 on wands, because no one will actually sit there and roll.

[Gemini476]

I may have figured out one possible reason for how on earth the Trunamer's designers could think that a +20 DC to Quicken was feasible.

Simply put, hordes of mooks. You know that thing where the DMG suggests having 10-12 CR-7 creatures as a EL=APL encounter? Those Orc squads of 1d10+10 orcs with 2 3rd-level sergeants and one 2+1d4th level leader? That EL 11 encounter on page 92 of The Red Hand of Doom, where you fight five CR3 monsters alongside five CR6?

At level 9, when you first get access to Quicken, with nothing but Skill Focus/16 INT/Greater Amulet of the Silver Tongue you're looking at a 50% success chance for your swift action. And a 150% chance for non-Quickened utterances, of course, meaning you can do five of them without having to roll.


Level

Truespeak

CR-7 DC

Quicken Roll



9
28
19
11


10
29
21
12


11
30
23
13


12
32
25
13


13
33
27

14


14
34
29
15



15
35
31
16


16
36
33
17


17
37
35
18


18
38
37
19


19
39
39
20


20
41
41
20




This is the hidden anti-group feature the Truenamer has, I guess - being able to target two weakish creatures.

It's not particularly impressive, to say the least, and probably not too relevant in actual play since handling a bunch of weak minions is a pain in play and AFAIK most DMs like to stick to smaller numbers of stronger creatures, but I'm glad that I've figured out some kind of answer to the question of "how high were they when they made the Quicken DC +20?"
It's been bugging me for a while.


tl;dr: in a low-op environment, Quicken Utterance is basically just Greater Cleave - useful against niche groups of weak enemies, unlikely to come up in more typical encounters. This probably doesn't change the Truenamer's tier whatsoever, unless you're convinced they're in the pits of Tier 6. Remember, stronger classes get the same effect by having spells that target multiple creatures.

[Soranar]

So I voted on everything else, that leaves the binder and the shadowcaster.

Binder is pretty easy without the Z bind, tier 3.

-even if you pick bad abilities you can change them the next day
-the abilities are relatively versatile
-you can spam many spell like abilities roughly equal to the warlock's invocations but once every couple of rounds (so you never really run out of juice per day)
-you are arguably more versatile than a warlock or a DFA
-your best abilities are probably higher than a warlock's or a DFA so I would rank it at a higher tier 3 (even without the Z bind)

Shadowcaster, tier 3

This one is tough, very counter intuitive (like a Shugenja).

you definitely have the equivalent to spells and your progression is like a wizard's

but

-you have essentially 1-3 spellslot per spell (which is all kinds of weird) and no bonus spells
-your buffs are harder to dispel
-by level 14 you get unlimited low level spells which is mostly useless
-you're a dual caster (meaning you need INT and CHA, as if you weren't weak enough)
-you are locked into paths (a sort of progression of spell, kind of like domains) meaning that your spell knowns is very limited and hard to optimize

Because of all of these limitations, you lack the versatility required for a tier 1 or tier 2 class. So, like a Shugenja, I'm going to vote tier 3.

[Troacctid]

Arcane spell failure has two costs: a wasted spell slot, and a wasted action. A failed Truespeak check only costs the action. The difference between the two depends on how much you think people are action constrained or spell slot constrained. I would argue that people's use of e.g. celerity indicates that they are much more action constrained than they are slot constrained, as does the value that people place on buff spells. Certainly it's not the same, but I think it's fairly close.
Dragonfire Adepts are known for walking around in full armor because their at-will invocations don't care about spell failure. So it clearly makes some difference.

Anyway, I don't see why you'd use a comparison with such an obvious flaw when there's a better one—attack rolls—right there.


I may have figured out one possible reason for how on earth the Trunamer's designers could think that a +20 DC to Quicken was feasible.
You did all that math and you forgot that some utterances just have a flat non-scaling DC!


-your buffs are harder to dispel
I don't remember any good buffs on the Shadowcaster list.

[Zombulian]

I'm pretty sure you can pick up Quicken SLA for free quickened utterances 3/day. Save those uses for the big boiz, and use your insanely high truespeak checks for mooks.

[lord_khaine]

Not sure why I thought it was a third level spell. Might've been thinking of stinking cloud or something. Still, now the beguiler's beguiler's beguiler is just bringing equal level spellcasting to the table. And better spellcasting at that. Because, after all, the warlock is getting one really good fourth level spell, while the beguiler gets several, including solid fog which is pretty comparable in utility. Fourth level beguiler list is really good, actually. Charm monster, freedom of movement, greater invisibility, locate creature, greater mirror image, and solid fog all range from quite useful to really useful.

I honestly dont think you can compare solid fog to Evards tentacles. Solid fog takes a target out of combat for a little while, mostly acting like battlefield control. Evards tentacles meanwhile are a no-safe you lose spell. Its grapple modifier is high enough to large targets. That means almost everything human sized are going to remain stuck and slowly torn apart.

[Cosi]

Anyway, I don't see why you'd use a comparison with such an obvious flaw when there's a better one—attack rolls—right there.

Because attack rolls aren't a better comparison. Utterances don't "just work". They allow saves. This isn't the baseline failure chance of a full attack or spell, it's layered on top of that.

[eggynack]

I honestly dont think you can compare solid fog to Evards tentacles. Solid fog takes a target out of combat for a little while, mostly acting like battlefield control. Evards tentacles meanwhile are a no-safe you lose spell. Its grapple modifier is high enough to large targets. That means almost everything human sized are going to remain stuck and slowly torn apart.
Solid fog doesn't have a save either. The spells both lock an enemy down for awhile. They just tend to hit different enemies. Burly melee types, with their high grapple scores, can plausibly contend with the tentacles pretty well. Not perfectly, but they're better equipped for this than they are for the no save just sit that is solid fog. Casterly types, meanwhile, are better equipped for solid fog, given that they have things they can do when they can't see anyone and have no one close by, and worse equipped for black tentacles, given that grappling makes casting difficult or impossible. There are two factors though, one in favor of each of the spells. Black tentacles has an advantage because casters are more important enemies to stop. Melee is potentially easier to deal with in general. Solid fog, meanwhile, has an advantage because casters tend to be better at covering for this sort of weakness. Casters in general usually have some kinda freedom of movement, and casters in the specific sometimes have a variety of other potential defenses. Y'know, heart of water, being a bear, having burly cleric strength, and so on. The damage is a relevant difference here, but I don't think the comparison is near so black tentacles favored as you're claiming.

[Zombulian]

Because attack rolls aren't a better comparison. Utterances don't "just work". They allow saves. This isn't the baseline failure chance of a full attack or spell, it's layered on top of that.

There are very few useful utterances that have saves.

[Cosi]

There are very few useful utterances that have saves.

Almost every offensive utterance gives a save. The exceptions are your direct damage utterances, which are less damage than a single attack from an equal level Rogue.

[Big Fau]

I don't remember any good buffs on the Shadowcaster list.


Caul of Shadow
Steel Shadows
Sight Eclipsed
Piercing Sight
Shadow Skin
Dancing Shadows
Thoughts of Shadows
Bolster
Shadow Investiture
Feign Life
Shadow Vision
Ephemeral Image
Umbral Body

Not GREAT ones but several are fairly decent. AFAIK, Bolster is only rivaled by Greater Consumptive Field for Temp HP.

[digiman619]

There are very few useful utterances.

FITY. Extra text!

[Soranar]

Dragonfire Adepts are known for walking around in full armor because their at-will invocations don't care about spell failure. So it clearly makes some difference.

I don't remember any good buffs on the Shadowcaster list.

they actually have quite a few

a weird form of mage armor + shield
buffs to skills
incorporeal transformation
darkvision + see invisibility
cold resistance + evasion and see in darkness

nothing obviously useful like haste but they have a few tricks.

[Malroth]

Warlock: 2.5 Has a really really low floor but it's ability to be either a Melee monstrosity with none of the melee weaknesses or an almost Artificer make it usable at high tier tables.

Dragonfire Adept: 3 Better than Warlock most of the time but lacks some of the TO tricks you can pull with unfettered Item crafting

Binder 2.4 Making your own stuff is really good and Binder can do it better than a warlock with fewer resources. Not quite as good at the wrecking faces as a well built clawlock but can adapt to what the party needs better.

Truenamer: 6 No table i've ever heard of has allowed either +20 competence items or Item Familiar and basing your class abilities around both being required to function leaves you at the bottom of the barrell

Shadowcaster 4 Very few uses of their tricks but the ones they have are pretty strong

[eggynack]

Truenamer: 6 No table i've ever heard of has allowed either +20 competence items or Item Familiar and basing your class abilities around both being required to function leaves you at the bottom of the barrell.
I think you can use your abilities with some consistency with just an amulet of the silver tongue, which is right there in the same book, and some straightforward stuff like skill focus and ability score optimization. It's not much more than you'd expect of most classes. Not saying you can get your abilities to go off every time at low optimization, but you're definitely not non-functioning.

[Troacctid]

Because attack rolls aren't a better comparison. Utterances don't "just work". They allow saves. This isn't the baseline failure chance of a full attack or spell, it's layered on top of that.
Many effects that use attack rolls also require saves. Many utterances do not require saves, and in fact most of the best ones are meant to be used on yourself or your allies.


Not GREAT ones but several are fairly decent. AFAIK, Bolster is only rivaled by Greater Consumptive Field for Temp HP.
Most of those aren't really worth dispelling anyway.

Bolster is decent, but it locks you into Languor and Shadow Investiture, neither of which you're really looking to take. It's maybe the 4th or 5th best Initiate path—and that's out of seven, so, ehhh.

[Zombulian]

Warlock: 2.5 Has a really really low floor but it's ability to be either a Melee monstrosity with none of the melee weaknesses or an almost Artificer make it usable at high tier tables.

Dragonfire Adept: 3 Better than Warlock most of the time but lacks some of the TO tricks you can pull with unfettered Item crafting

Binder 2.4 Making your own stuff is really good and Binder can do it better than a warlock with fewer resources. Not quite as good at the wrecking faces as a well built clawlock but can adapt to what the party needs better.

Truenamer: 6 No table i've ever heard of has allowed either +20 competence items or Item Familiar and basing your class abilities around both being required to function leaves you at the bottom of the barrell

Shadowcaster 4 Very few uses of their tricks but the ones they have are pretty strong

*Uses the highest end of optimization of abilities to rate all the classes in fairly high tiers*
*Throws out any sort of optimization for Truenamer so they can rate it low*
cmon guy

[Florian]

Shadowcaster, tier 3

This one is tough, very counter intuitive (like a Shugenja).

you definitely have the equivalent to spells and your progression is like a wizard's

but

-you have essentially 1-3 spellslot per spell (which is all kinds of weird) and no bonus spells
-your buffs are harder to dispel
-by level 14 you get unlimited low level spells which is mostly useless
-you're a dual caster (meaning you need INT and CHA, as if you weren't weak enough)
-you are locked into paths (a sort of progression of spell, kind of like domains) meaning that your spell knowns is very limited and hard to optimize

Because of all of these limitations, you lack the versatility required for a tier 1 or tier 2 class. So, like a Shugenja, I'm going to vote tier 3.

All not necessarily true.

Yes, you must progress along a path when you want to know the second or third mystery in a given path, but you´re no locked into that. Keep in mind how bonus feat work on a Shadowcaster: 1 per 2 paths you started. So you might as well get 4 1st level initiate paths and two 2nd level ones, for 2 bonus feats. Or, taking the long view, you might start 3 paths in initiate and again 3 paths in master for a total of 3 bonus feats.

Edit: Building "Path Pyramids" will also affect the number of mysteries per day, as these are per path.

You can actually go SAD with the right mystery path choices, as not all require a save DC. On a, say, Wiz 1 (Precopious Apprentice)/ SC 3/Noctumancer 10/Mystic Theurge 6 you get double-9s and focus on INT while using mysteries as utility.

[Lans]

Truenamer: 6 No table i've ever heard of has allowed either +20 competence items or Item Familiar and basing your class abilities around both being required to function leaves you at the bottom of the barrell


Are you taking into account the other 2 lexicons? A knockdown effect can be gotten at level 8 with a flat 30 DC. With the AotST and skill focus thats a roll of 6-Int mod.

[Gemini476]

You did all that math and you forgot that some utterances just have a flat non-scaling DC!

That's because in the low-op elite array environment that Khetarin the iconic half-elf Truenamer exists in, those non-scaling DCs don't look that great when you get Quicken Utterance.

Really, they don't look alright until level 12. When you also get a feat. At this point I'm kind of wondering why on earth the prerequisite is specifically Truespeak 12.

At high levels it does become pretty reliable, though, I'll give you that.



Level

Truespeak
LPM1
LPM2
LPM3
LPM4


9

+28

22





10

+29

21





11

+30

20






12

+32

18
23




13

+33

17
22




14

+34

16
21




15

+35

15
20




16
+36

14
19
24



17

+37

13
18
23



18

+38

12
17
22



19

+39

11
16
21



20

+41

9
14
19
24



Add +10 or whatever it is to LPM1 to get your low-op Solid Fog numbers.

[lord_khaine]

I will say that the amulet that gives a bonus to truespeak is straight up in the same book as the truenamer. Assuming one gets such an amulet should be on the samel level of optimisation as the fighter getting a magic sword and a str item.

And i think a general sign of a higher optimised game would then be when you start pulling in skill boosts from other books.

[Gemini476]

I will say that the amulet that gives a bonus to truespeak is straight up in the same book as the truenamer. Assuming one gets such an amulet should be on the samel level of optimisation as the fighter getting a magic sword and a str item.

And i think a general sign of a higher optimised game would then be when you start pulling in skill boosts from other books.

Yeah, an optimized Truenamer is a Venerable Illumian with a +10 bonus from that one Complete Champion organization who started with 18 INT (so 21) and also got a +INT item.
So take my numbers up there and add +20ish to them.
And then add a +30 custom competence item, a +23 item familiar, a +2 masterwork item, a +1 luckstone, various feats with piddly +1/+2 bonuses, worship an Elder Evil to get a free +5 insight bonus to Truespeak*... That's already up to +81 over the low-op one.

This is the thing people mean when they say that "a high-op Truenamer is basically just a slightly worse Warlock" - they have all their abilities effectively at-will, it's just that their abilities aren't that great. Also, they're at the op level where other classes start doing some really broken stuff and all they've got to show for it is at-will utterances.
Although the "unstoppable" factor Zaq mentions in their guide is perhaps worth considering - if the Truenamer can beat the Truespeak check +4 to ignore spell resistance, there's not a whole lot to stop them from just dumping no-save-just-hurt spells on their opponents. All the levers to control the difficulty are on the Truenamer's side, there's no saves or attack rolls to manipulate.


*As an immediate action for the cost of 1 CON damage - negatable through Shape Soulmeld(Strongheart Vest), although this will prevent you from being Venerable, since both need CON 13. On the other hand, you could throw away two of those five Vile feats to Deformity(Obese) and +2 CON. It's free, anyhow, for the small cost of worshipping a world-ending evil and being irredeemably evil. If you want to fight celestials, two [vile] feats give +4 to save DCs against Lawful Good [good] creatures. There's also a feat (with a bad prereq, but hey we've got five [vile] slots to fill) that has a 50% chance of giving you a +8 bonus with an immediate action.

[Florian]

@Gruftzwerg:

That´s a non-argument. Actually, any class can cheat on WBL, as that system-inherent guideline doesn´t cover any means of getting wealth outside plundering it during actual adventure.
Now items, every class can use them. Put a luck blade and candle of invocation on a fighter and you´ll get the same result as with any other class.

[Rhyltran]

Warlock: 2.5 behind it's TO potential as well as a decent list of invocations and it's ability to be quite a power house I think it comes really close to being Tier 2 but there is a gap between Tier 2 and Tier 3. I believe Warlock could potentially "Break the game" better than a bard if certain liberties are allowed but most of the time you end up something in this little between stage. I'd say on the high end of Tier 3 and my vote showcases that. Not to mention the claw lock really tears things up. The warlock has some amazing synergy that allows it to hang out with some of the big boys.

Dragonfire Adept: 3.5 between draconic invocations, meta breath feats, etc I think this class can pull off "Near Tier 3" but the problem is that it doesn't have much splat support. Which really hurts it. This class will probably fall high tier 4 but not quite tier three.

Shadowcaster: Tier 4. In the low levels this class is pretty bad and in the mid levels it really starts to pick up. However, it doesn't quite reach Tier 3.

Truenamer: Tier 5.5. Sorry I know people are trying to defend this class and are trying to come up with reasons why it isn't as bad as we think but in the end a lot of it's features don't scale well, they don't function properly, and it requires practically TO level of building just to even bring it up to tier 4. This doesn't bode well for a class.

Binder: Tier 3. This reaches close to the levels of the warlock but doesn't quite have the support that the warlock has. Still better than anything in the Tier 4 range.

[eggynack]

Truenamer: Tier 5.5. Sorry I know people are trying to defend this class and are trying to come up with reasons why it isn't as bad as we think but in the end a lot of it's features don't scale well, they don't function properly, and it requires practically TO level of building just to even bring it up to tier 4. This doesn't bode well for a class.
You might need more to get you to basically always hitting your checks, but an amulet of the silver tongue, combined with bog standard maneuvers like intelligence optimization and skill focus, get you a lot of the way there. The floor, depending on how you define floor, is really bad, but you don't have to go too far above the floor before you leave 5.5 range. The amulet, an item in the same section of the same book, feels kinda low op to me.

[Grod_The_Giant]

How do people keep getting the Warlock as a "powerhouse?" Your damage is godawful outside of, like, one build (Hellfire Warlock clawlock) that depends on Dragon material. And even then you're only a passable glass cannon type. Invocations are nice, and I suppose with proper choice you can scrape T3 versatility, but none of them strike me as "powerhouse" material. Ditto the crafting-- you can push your versatility up with a backpack of scrolls and wands, but you don't have anything like the Artificer's ability to craft OR power them up. The DFA at least can entangle+slow wide areas without touching your allies, and can theoretically stack metabreath feats to deliver a killing blow...

[Kurald Galain]

How do people keep getting the Warlock as a "powerhouse?"

People overvalue at-will abilities. It's the exact same thing with Pathfinder's kineticist, which is a substantially weaker and less versatile version of the Warlock, and is also considered a top-tier "powerhouse" by some.

[Telok]

Warlock: 3
Reasons: High practical optimization can have them kicking at the gates of T2 with high save DCs, acceptable damage, magic item trickery, and a variety decent of at-will tricks. They're a decent choice for low stats characters (been there) at least in mid/low-op games and the floor isn't quite as bad as some other classes. At-will abilities are a benefit, maybe not as much as the original designers though but it is a plus for the class.

Binder: 3
DFA: 3
I haven't played them but others in my group have. They always seem to slot in at about the level of warlocks. Really, just... different warlocks. No massive glaring weaknesses, no super win abilities.

Skipping shadowcaster as I have no experience there.

Truenamer:... If Zaq posts a rating peg my vote to that. He'll be right.

[Troacctid]

Warlocks are not kicking at the gates to T2. Not as long as T3 still includes Bard.


Really, just... different warlocks.
That's a great description of those two classes.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah.. in the end i think there are just to many warlocks doing ½leveld6 in damage to push the tier above T3.5
In general it sounds like you need immense system mastery to push it much above that level. Though it also have a wide enough level of skills to fall back on, to ensure that it always can contribute somehow. Personally i rate it along the line of the bard.

[Telok]

Warlocks are not kicking at the gates to T2. Not as long as T3 still includes Bard.


Yeah.. in the end i think there are just to many warlocks doing ½leveld6 in damage to push the tier above T3.5
In general it sounds like you need immense system mastery to push it much above that level. Though it also have a wide enough level of skills to fall back on, to ensure that it always can contribute somehow. Personally i rate it along the line of the bard.

Which in my opinion is perfectly accurate, I'm glad you agree with me. A low op (or core only) bard or warlock is high 4 or low 3. Both generally get run, in real games, around the T3 level. Which reflects modest and practical optimization and a 'plays well with others' player attitude. At the high end of practical optimization and pushing into TO territory they can become low T2 material. Doing things like DC 35+ Baleful Polymorph that automatically passes SR every round is, in my opinion, a potential T2 indicator.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Which in my opinion is perfectly accurate, I'm glad you agree with me. A low op (or core only) bard or warlock is high 4 or low 3. Both generally get run, in real games, around the T3 level. Which reflects modest and practical optimization and a 'plays well with others' player attitude. At the high end of practical optimization and pushing into TO territory they can become low T2 material. Doing things like DC 35+ Baleful Polymorph that automatically passes SR every round is, in my opinion, a potential T2 indicator.
How on earth is the Warlock cranking their DC up that high? That's also not until 16th level; everyone else has been throwing save-or-dies around for ages even in mid-to-low op.

[Troacctid]

How on earth is the Warlock cranking their DC up that high? That's also not until 16th level; everyone else has been throwing save-or-dies around for ages even in mid-to-low op.
Warlock has them earlier too. Voice of Madness at least, Charm at lesser, Noxious Blast and Devil's Whispers at greater.

I can't speak as to how you're getting the DC that high though.


Yeah.. in the end i think there are just to many warlocks doing ½leveld6 in damage to push the tier above T3.5
In general it sounds like you need immense system mastery to push it much above that level. Though it also have a wide enough level of skills to fall back on, to ensure that it always can contribute somehow. Personally i rate it along the line of the bard.
Low-op blastlocks aren't just doing ½leveld6. They're generally taking at least one or two eldritch essences and blast shapes so that they're either doing more damage or doing things on top of the damage. And if they're not, then they're probably taking defensive or utility invocations that give them additional breadth.

I think it would be pretty​ tough to build a Warlock that's not significantly better than, say, a Ranger or Barbarian of the same optimization level.

[Soranar]

I don't know if the warlock's floor is that low. Even the most basic optimization would mean

-greater chasuble of fell power (+2d6 blast damage)
-vitriolic blast (+2d6 acid damage, ignore SR, stacks with itself, lasts 1 round /5 caster level)
-eldritch glaive (iteratives , reach weapon, lets you do AoO)

so by level 20 that's 13d6 per attack so about 39d6 damage per round without AoO. It's not ubercharger levels of damage but it's enough to get the job done and it works against just about anything. It also doesn't destroy your AC or require you to charge (Barb charger), you're using touch attacks so you'll rarely miss (which is an issue with most precision damage dealers like a rogue) and you're never going to run out of spells (any blaster build) so you don't need to hold back.

Since you get more attacks due to your iterative, your damage scales fairly well but the level 12 power bump from imbue item is highly dependant on system mastery and a cooperative DM.

All of this cost you 1 magic item that any warlock should take , 1 blast essence that any warlock should take (ignore SR is too useful to pass up) and 1 blast shape (same as the other two).

none of this is dragon mag material

does it make the class tier 2, hell no but it's still impressive to watch when some players think anything over 1d6 damage per level is OP.

[Troacctid]

I don't know if the warlock's floor is that low. Even the most basic optimization would mean

-greater chasuble of fell power (+2d6 blast damage)
-vitriolic blast (+2d6 acid damage, ignore SR, stacks with itself, lasts 1 round /5 caster level)
-eldritch glaive (iteratives , reach weapon, lets you do AoO)
Eldritch Glaive is way over in a whole other book! The most basic optimization level is much more likely to take a blast shape like Eldritch Cone or Eldritch Chain and try to fly out of reach of enemies with Fell Flight. Luckily the multi-target blast shapes still do a fine job of multiplying your damage.

[lord_khaine]

Low-op blastlocks aren't just doing ½leveld6. They're generally taking at least one or two eldritch essences and blast shapes so that they're either doing more damage or doing things on top of the damage. And if they're not, then they're probably taking defensive or utility invocations that give them additional breadth.

I think it would be pretty​ tough to build a Warlock that's not significantly better than, say, a Ranger or Barbarian of the same optimization level.

Tough question, the barbarian of course just mainly meatshield and dish out damage. So almost anything beats it in utility. While a low op ranger is a fighter with a low HD and some utility.


Eldritch Glaive is way over in a whole other book! The most basic optimization level is much more likely to take a blast shape like Eldritch Cone or Eldritch Chain and try to fly out of reach of enemies with Fell Flight. Luckily the multi-target blast shapes still do a fine job of multiplying your damage.

This i do agree with. But how then does the damage of a level 10 warlock look? What is he adding to a combat?

[Beheld]

This i do agree with. But how then does the damage of a level 10 warlock look? What is he adding to a combat?

He looks like a guy who has cone of cold at will, but does half as much damage as a Wizard casting it, but has a rider.

Honestly, god I hate the Warlock class.

It's not that it's bad, it's that literally everything about it was a good idea ruined.

At will blasting, but so ****ty that you have to pay for an improved shape (most of which you don't even qualify for early) to do anything worthwhile.

Even when you do get that shape, still criminally short range (melee/reach/30ft).

But we will give status effect riders! Great Idea! So those also have to be picked up, and are way higher level than each deserves. GRRRR!

Well come on, he has at will SLAs, with like utility and defense and crowd control, this is totally cool! 1) mostly way to late to be that good (some exceptions) 2) EVERY BLAST SHAPE AND BLAST MODIFIER COSTS A UTILITY SPELL THAT YOU ALREADY HAD ALMOST NONE OF!

Like, the Warlock class would be a perfectly reasonable not all OP class if it just knew every blast and shape and invocation that exists at the levels it can cast. Really. That's what a warlock should look like.

[eggynack]

2) EVERY BLAST SHAPE AND BLAST MODIFIER COSTS A UTILITY SPELL THAT YOU ALREADY HAD ALMOST NONE OF!

Like, the Warlock class would be a perfectly reasonable not all OP class if it just knew every blast and shape and invocation that exists at the levels it can cast. Really. That's what a warlock should look like.
Yeah, this seems like the most bothersome thing to me. Like, I was going through that comparison, generally assuming the warlock would mostly orient around those utility invocations because it seems to me the only way they can come close, but they probably wouldn't actually do that. They'd take these other types of invocations to some extent, and lop off at least a few of their extremely limited total invocations. I probably wouldn't give them all blast shapes and such, but would instead give them one or two other invocation pools for those abilities, both to match the ability structure and to give interesting choices, but the main idea is the same. Their invocation progression is so ridiculously slow. I don't know how people are getting to 2.5 here. Is it all predicated on crafting from 12th up? Because even reasonably optimized use of invocations wouldn't seem to get you above the bard.

[Forrestfire]

I think warlock is tier 4, mostly owing to its general deficiencies in actual function. It has the ingredients to be a tier 3 (or 2, if you count the item crafting past 12 for it), but in general, it's... not got enough gas to actually be good at most things beyond one trick you optimize hard for. Low tier 3/high tier 4, brushing up against that border, but I'd call it a 4.

Dragonfire adept, on the other hand... hooboy. I recently took another look at this class for my warlock port to PF, after having thought of it as just a dragon warlock for years... and god damn, WotC, this class is a mess. Tier 2. At most levels beyond the first couple, DFAs have abilities that neuter encounters in ways that only the full spellcasters really mimic, deliverable far more easily than, say, a charging barbarian's damage. The class is, in my opinion, genuinely campaign-warping.

(Something to note is that in 3.5, lines are 10 feet wide, and easily one of the best AoEs in the game. It's a common misconception I've seen, but relevant, since the level 1 dragonfire adept has a 30 foot by 10 foot rectangular AoE they can toss out, which is more than enough to hit many fights.)

Level 1: The endure exposure invocation lets you never worry about affecting allies with your breath weapon, and the Entangling Exhalation feat lets you lay down what is an effectively no-save entangle on an entire fight worth of enemies. Halved speed, no charging, and –2 to attacks and AC (effectively; poor Finesse NPCs get –4 to attacks). It also does some incidental damage, which is slightly more relevant at levels 3-4.

Levels 2–4 aren't much to talk about; Entangling breaths are nasty, and the breath effects are just a choice of new damage types (sickening breath isn't great). You do get some decent utility like draconic knowledge's +6 to all Knowledge skills, or magic insight giving you at-will identify.

Level 5: Slow breath comes online. Your enemies can no longer full attack, move+attack, move well at all (one partial action and halved speeds) or use full-round action spells, because you have a cone of slow that lasts 1 round even on a successful save. Evasion can't even protect an enemy from it. Alternate this and Entangling breaths and you've basically neutered a significant amount of enemies.

Level 6: Invisibility at-will, dispel magic at-will, change shape (humanoid forms, basically alter self) at-will, charm monster effect (only one up at once, but still works extremely well for social encounters), or frightful presence, which is a swift-action AoE shaken condition that lasts 10 minutes and can escalate itself in further rounds.

You'll also be able to grab another of these effects at 8. Invisibility and dispel magic do wonders for a lot of dungeon crawl and exploration situations, charm will work rather ell in social encounters, etc.

Level 10: Hooboy, sleep breath. This doesn't work on creatures with more HD than your level, but your knowledge checks can hopefully tell you what's what. On a failed save, the targets fall asleep for 1 round. On a successful save, they're instead exhausted for 1 round, giving them halved speeds and –6 Str and Dex.

Level 11: A damaging solid fog at-will. There are several Greater invocations, but this one is the only thing that matters. In case people blocked it out (I know I did), solid fog in 3.5 is this monstrosity:


This spell functions like fog cloud, but in addition to obscuring sight, the solid fog is so thick that any creature attempting to move through it progresses at a speed of 5 feet, regardless of its normal speed, and it takes a –2 penalty on all melee attack and melee damage rolls. The vapors prevent effective ranged weapon attacks (except for magic rays and the like). A creature or object that falls into solid fog is slowed, so that each 10 feet of vapor that it passes through reduces falling damage by 1d6. A creature can’t take a 5-foot step while in solid fog.

So basically, past level 11, you trap enemies inside a chilling fog, then bombard them with AoE save-or-loses, other debuffs, or similar effects until they die. The only way out is tactical teleportation, and they can't shoot back because it blocks all vision past 5 feet.

Level 12 lets you get another Lesser invocation through Extra Invocation, and at level 13, you also get an at-will geas/quest (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/geasQuest.htm) that's a standard action to use, for no-save, no SR mind control within Close range. Only works on enemies with HD of your level or less, but that's really a non-issue.

Level 15: You get another save or lose breath (paralyzing breath), which... isn't actually as good as the ones before, since it's 1 round, but no effect on a failed save. You could also get fivefold breath of tiamat for a sizeable damage boost.

Level 16: Dark invocations are a bit of a letdown. Not much power-wise to talk about here, but it's not like you need more.

Level 20: You get another breath effect. This'll be fivefold breath, probably, for a 50d6 breath weapon before metabreaths and meta-SLAs. Good followup for your AoE breaths.

So, overall, from levels 5–9, you're very strong against a large variety of enemies, shutting them down with extreme reliability (who cares about Evasion when you're Fort saves? Who cares about saves when all your debuffs hit on a successful save?). Level 10, you get a strong SoL, level 11, you now automatically shut down basically anything that doesn't teleport (and make them waste turns teleporting either way), level 13, spammable absurdly good mind control, and from then on, you just do whatever.

I'd say that this is the definition of Tier 2. Doesn't have as much versatility, but it's a campaign-warpingly powerful class. Seriously, what the hell WotC.

[Cosi]

That non-combat suite looks really disappointing to me. It does not compare at all well to the Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, or Sorcerer, even at will.

[Forrestfire]

There's a reason I stated it as Tier 2, not Tier 1. Campaign-warping, game-breaking, but not particularly versatile in how it does it.

[Cosi]

There's a reason I stated it as Tier 2, not Tier 1. Campaign-warping, game-breaking, but not particularly versatile in how it does it.

Those classes are all in Tier Two.

From your description, the class looks good in combat, but pretty lame outside it. You're picking up two or three utility options. Having them at will is nice, but have you seen the Beguiler list? It's got almost every effect you've listed and more stuff, and you get all of them for free, and you get a non-limited version of charm monster.

[eggynack]

There's a reason I stated it as Tier 2, not Tier 1. Campaign-warping, game-breaking, but not particularly versatile.
It doesn't look like this stuff is as good power-wise either. The other tier two classes can generally do a number of these things while the DFA is doing one, or do better things. It seems worse than any of those classes, and by a significant margin. The bard, meanwhile, seems to get reasonably comparable effects, if not at-will, and significantly more out of combat utility.

[Forrestfire]

I'm... actually really curious as to what sort of things a bard does that can match the sort of lockdown effects the DFA puts out. The class basically removes whole parts of the Monster Manual from relevance, as well as quite a large amount of NPCs. Past level 5, if it wins initiative, basically nothing can full attack your party. Past level 11, nothing without teleportation can fight the party, either, and at all levels, you never have to worry about friendly fire for the AoEs.

Sure, the other Tier 2s are better, but the class is way too strong, utility and combat-power wise, to be called Tier 4, and way too strong in combat to safely be called Tier 3, I'd say.

[eggynack]

I'm... actually really curious as to what sort of things a bard does that can match the sort of lockdown effects the DFA puts out. The class basically removes whole parts of the Monster Manual from relevance.
Not quite as lock-down based, but grease, silent image, and sleep at first level, glitterdust and maybe pyrotechnics at second, slow at third, all serve as solid combat effects. Back that up with some possibly optimized inspire courage and haste, more utility oriented combat stuff like alter self and dispel magic, and long term effects like charm/dominate person, and you have a pretty solid array of combat options, ones with a wide variety of applicability.

[Forrestfire]

Not quite as lock-down based, but grease, silent image, and sleep at first level, glitterdust and maybe pyrotechnics at second, slow at third, all serve as solid combat effects. Back that up with some possibly optimized inspire courage and haste, more utility oriented combat stuff like alter self and dispel magic, and long term effects like charm/dominate person, and you have a pretty solid array of combat options, ones with a wide variety of applicability.

Mm, yeah. Bard definitely has an edge at levels 1 through 4; at level 5 though, the DFA pulls ahead, and at level 6, it gets a good hammers for which most things can be nails. Slow is good, but bards get it at level 7, and their save DCs will not be great. The DFA's doesn't care about a save (it'll still nuke a fight's whole next round regardless), and its save DC is going to be a fair bit higher. Alter self and dispel magic are both good, but having them at-will is a whole different ball game. Being able to shapeshift, charm or dispel every situation, instead of just a couple per day, is pretty big, even if the DFA only gets one of them. Dispel magic in particular, because the bard will run out of slots eventually, while a DFA can effectively take 20 on most dispel checks against things like, say, magic traps, magically-locked doors, effects you don't want to touch, and the like.

And, of course, by the time the bard gets long-term true mind control (10th level), the DFA is just one level behind for their at-will no-save hard mind control (standard action geas/quest), if they decide to go for that instead of chilling fog.

The bard has a bit more breadth, but... it's way better-balanced, has to deal with save DCs, and doesn't have as significant entire-fight options. Solid, definitely, but not instant fight-winners against a large amount of enemies.

[Telok]

What I noticed most about DFAs when people at my table played them was that they were busy spamming point blank, small area effects, with damage that got shut down by resistances at times. They did get nice effects, but they also got whopped by enemies outside thier AoE. The ones I saw in action really were like close range warlocks.

As for the 30+ save DCs that was just the usual optimization stuff you see around the forums. You know, 20 charisma starting, 4 from levels, 5 from a crafted book, 6 from an item, and another couple DC points from feats/items. Yes it was high op and high level. But very very few characters actually acheive effective T2 at level 5.

What I experienced told me that DFAs and warlocks are pretty similar in power level and endurance, slightly different in how they apply damage, and roughly equal for an equal amount of character work. That's what I based my votes on.

[eggynack]

Mm, yeah. Bard definitely has an edge at levels 1 through 4; at level 5 though, the DFA pulls ahead, and at level 6, it gets a good hammers for which most things can be nails. Slow is good, but bards get it at level 7, and their save DCs will not be great. The DFA's doesn't care about a save (it'll still nuke a fight's whole next round regardless), and its save DC is going to be a fair bit higher. Alter self and dispel magic are both good, but having them at-will is a whole different ball game. Being able to shapeshift, charm or dispel every situation, instead of just a couple per day, is pretty big, even if the DFA only gets one of them. Dispel magic in particular, because the bard will run out of slots eventually, while a DFA can effectively take 20 on most dispel checks against things like, say, magic traps, magically-locked doors, effects you don't want to touch, and the like.

And, of course, by the time the bard gets long-term true mind control (10th level), the DFA is just one level behind for their at-will no-save hard mind control (standard action geas/quest), if they decide to go for that instead of chilling fog.

The bard has a bit more breadth, but... it's way better-balanced, has to deal with save DCs, and doesn't have as significant entire-fight options. Solid, definitely, but not instant fight-winners against a large amount of enemies.
The lack of invocations is a massive issue though, as you note. Sure, the invocations are nice and all, but you're getting only two of each level. Bards get way more. So, like, 6th level you get alter self, which, being at-will, is really nice. The 6th level bard has three different second level spells known, and you're getting decent castings/day at this point. So that's glitterdust and also alter self and also invisibility, for the sake of argument. You get your next lesser invocation at 8th level. By that point the bard has three full fledged third level spells. So, glibness, dispel magic, and haste, say. And you're fighting that with just dispel magic.

Point being, yes, getting these effects at-will is substantially different, but the bard is getting three times as many of the effects pretty consistently. You can get dispel first, and get it underleveled, but then you're getting alter self overleveled when you pick it up. Yes, you get a mind control effect a level after the bard does, but, as is becoming a theme, you have three full 4th level spells at that point. So, dominate person, dimension door, and the last one can be a fancy divination, or maybe freedom of movement, or greater invisibility, depending on your mood. You don't precisely have chilling fog, but I think you're doing very well for yourself with the list I've described. And then 13th level comes around, and you pick the other greater invocation, and the bard gets two 5th level spells. Pretty limited uses/day, but still. At least it's not three this time. These options aren't quite as good for their level as the ones in the past, but there are some good spells there.

Is the bard necessarily better than the dragonfire adept? No. The DFA has some notable advantages, including a degree of spammability that's unmatched. Is the DFA better than the bard? No. The bard gets way way more options, often of higher effective level than what the DFA is getting. Keep in mind, if the first invocation is equal to one of the bard's highest level spells, then their second invocation is going to be decidedly worse than the now even higher level spells.

And if we were to change the comparison to the beguiler? The DFA gets left so far in the dust that it's insane. You get at-will somewhat improved solid fog at 11th level, and a sorta dominate person effect at 13th, or vice versa. The beguiler gets solid fog at 8th, along with ten other spells, many of high quality, and dominate person at 10th, along with, again, ten other spells. By the time they're 13th level, and the DFA is getting baleful geas, the beguiler has already had 6th level spells for an entire level. Eight of them. The beguiler is getting comparable effects way earlier, and more of them.

The conclusion seems pretty obvious to me. The DFA is roughly comparable to tier three classes. Maybe you prefer the bard, maybe you prefer the DFA, but it's hard to make solid conclusive statements about which one is better. The DFA is not remotely comparable to tier two classes. Every single one of them is going to get better effects and a wider variety of them, and they don't usually suffer that much in terms of uses/day. That's a pretty straightforward recipe for tier three, as far as I'm concerned. Worse than any tier two, better than any tier four, comparable to some quantity of tier threes.

[Lans]

Binder 3.5, it can do a good job of imitating a rogue, and can select other abilities when they would be more useful. Is a 2 at level 10 due to summoner vestige. Might be able to break WBL at level 1 by summoning full plate then selling it. Or summoning a set for they entire party.
Dragonfire Adept 3.5 I put this a hair above warlock with low-moderate optimization
Shadowcaster, 3.5 Basically the flip side of warlock
Truenamer, 4.5 This has been discussed heavily, its not a good class . I would be on the fence between this and an adept, fighter or barbarian
Warlock 3.5 bunch of weak or gotten a tad too late at will abilities. Can be decent blaster with optimization.

[Forrestfire]

The lack of invocations is a massive issue though, as you note. Sure, the invocations are nice and all, but you're getting only two of each level. Bards get way more. So, like, 6th level you get alter self, which, being at-will, is really nice. The 6th level bard has three different second level spells known, and you're getting decent castings/day at this point. So that's glitterdust and also alter self and also invisibility, for the sake of argument. You get your next lesser invocation at 8th level. By that point the bard has three full fledged third level spells. So, glibness, dispel magic, and haste, say. And you're fighting that with just dispel magic.

Point being, yes, getting these effects at-will is substantially different, but the bard is getting three times as many of the effects pretty consistently. You can get dispel first, and get it underleveled, but then you're getting alter self overleveled when you pick it up. Yes, you get a mind control effect a level after the bard does, but, as is becoming a theme, you have three full 4th level spells at that point. So, dominate person, dimension door, and the last one can be a fancy divination, or maybe freedom of movement, or greater invisibility, depending on your mood. You don't precisely have chilling fog, but I think you're doing very well for yourself with the list I've described. And then 13th level comes around, and you pick the other greater invocation, and the bard gets two 5th level spells. Pretty limited uses/day, but still. At least it's not three this time. These options aren't quite as good for their level as the ones in the past, but there are some good spells there.

Is the bard necessarily better than the dragonfire adept? No. The DFA has some notable advantages, including a degree of spammability that's unmatched. Is the DFA better than the bard? No. The bard gets way way more options, often of higher effective level than what the DFA is getting. Keep in mind, if the first invocation is equal to one of the bard's highest level spells, then their second invocation is going to be decidedly worse than the now even higher level spells.

And if we were to change the comparison to the beguiler? The DFA gets left so far in the dust that it's insane. You get at-will somewhat improved solid fog at 11th level, and a sorta dominate person effect at 13th, or vice versa. The beguiler gets solid fog at 8th, along with ten other spells, many of high quality, and dominate person at 10th, along with, again, ten other spells. By the time they're 13th level, and the DFA is getting baleful geas, the beguiler has already had 6th level spells for an entire level. Eight of them. The beguiler is getting comparable effects way earlier, and more of them.

The conclusion seems pretty obvious to me. The DFA is roughly comparable to tier three classes. Maybe you prefer the bard, maybe you prefer the DFA, but it's hard to make solid conclusive statements about which one is better. The DFA is not remotely comparable to tier two classes. Every single one of them is going to get better effects and a wider variety of them, and they don't usually suffer that much in terms of uses/day. That's a pretty straightforward recipe for tier three, as far as I'm concerned. Worse than any tier two, better than any tier four, comparable to some quantity of tier threes.

I agree that the DFA is not quite comparable to the beguiler and tier 2s, but I don't think that "tier 3" is a place that the DFA can be considered to exist. It is decidedly not comparable to the bard; the bard gets more versatility but is significantly less powerful, even with the effects you listed.

Looking at what the bard gets: they're ahead at very low levels, and better at buffing their team, but don't have anything near the encounter-ending power of a dragonfire adept.

I've gone and calculated a table of expected save DCs vs monster saves taken from the data found here (https://web.archive.org/web/20150919071716/http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1118841):

https://i.gyazo.com/6e275ab65a88005d6f6b17b1cc1a9971.png

Level 1: Bards basically don't have much; the level 1 DFA's AoE entangles are better. At levels 2 through 4, the bard pulls out ahead, but even then...

Level 2: Two of sleep or color spray or grease or silent image, or perhaps eats another spell known. However, you've got only 1 1st-level spell per day at 2nd level (assuming Cha 18), two at 3rd, and three at 4th. That's not terrible.

At level 3 and 5, the bard gets another spell known from their 1sts, so some more versatility.

Level 4: Two spells known, let's say alter self and glitterdust, probably the best 2nds on the list. One of these usable per day, so 1/day they'll get on average a coinflip to blind each enemy in a fight (though you need to be careful not to hit allies).

At level 5 and 7, the bard gets another spell known of this level, letting them get more stuff, though nothing is really going to be as relevant to the direct combat comparison. Bards are indisputably better at utility.

Level 5: Another spell per day, and you can afford a +2 Cha item, giving a bonus 1st per day. Your 1st-level spells will be lagging behind ever so slightly (drop the success chance by 5% per spell level below the maximum), but it's functional. 2/day, you can glitterdust a fight to basically end it... with about a 55% chance of success, or a bit lower if you're facing enemies with higher Will saves than average.

The DFA, at this point, is dropping AoEs that shut down full attacks (the most significant danger from a lot of monsters, and in a few levels, a lot of NPCs), even if the enemies succeed on their saves. If they fail, then it means that they're debuffed with 100% uptime, instead of forcing the DFA to alternate breaths. They're also doing it in every fight.

Level 6: The bard gets another spell per day for their 2nds, letting them drop another glitterdust per day, since this bard is using spells for fighting. Still about a coinflip for success chances. The DFA has caught up slightly in utility; they either have extremely good social powers, very good scouting powers and start-of-fight positioning, immunity to magical hazards, or effective immunity to non-magical hazards, along with movement modes, natural armor, etc. Even with the bard's spells, I feel like the DFA comes out ahead; they have a near-universally-applicable, very strong combat tool, and an at-will ability that'll let them bypass, solve, or help solve quite a few types of encounters.

Level 7: Bard gets some 3rds, possibly haste, charm monster, dispel magic, or similar. But they only have these once per day. Their strongest combat tool at this point is either glitterdust (still), or their buffed allies. DFA is running around continuing to debuff non-caster enemies rather hard even if they succeed on their saves (which will still have better DCs than the bard's spells), but the bard again pulls ahead in utility. Despite this, it doesn't have anything better than a bit worse than a coinflip, as far as ending enemies goes.

Level 8: Bard gets another 3rd-level spell per day and spell known. DFA gets another lesser invocation, which is a significantly stronger gain.

Level 9: Oddly, both bards and DFAs get very little here. All bards get is another spell per day for their 3rds, making their utility or buffing from that more useful. By now, they probably have enough spell slots to glitterdust each fight, but they're looking at a bit below a 45% chance of successfully affecting a given enemy. DFA still shuts down martial enemies and monsters hard.

Level 10: Bards get 4ths, including dominate person. Possibly freedom of movement. This is a very good level for bards, since they now have a particularly strong save-or-lose, but... it's still only about a 55ish% success rate. The dragonfire adept, at this level, got sleep breath, which is an AoE save or lose that still tags them with a decent penalty to attacks and AC on a successful save.

Level 11: Dragonfire adept now completely shuts down all encounters that don't involve teleporting enemies, or spellcasters who have blindsight. Bard gets another 4th and more spells per day, and their save DCs fall slightly further behind monster math. Again, ahead on utility, far behind on combat.

Level 13: Dragonfire adepts now get a no-save, no-SR, functionally permanent hard mind control effect. It works on anything alive of your Hit Dice or lower. This, I feel, is likely to be far splashier than the bard's 5th-level spells (of which they're getting one per day, the bonus spell).

Level 15: Dragonfire adepts get either another SoL or fivefold breath of tiamat. Bards continue to boost their other stuff, and continue to pull ahead in utility.

Levels 16-20: Bards get 6ths, but nothing on their list quite compares to the DFA's encounter-ending debuff suite. Thus, more utility. Dark invocations come online for the DFA, but they're honestly not super relevant. The veil effect is neat, I guess.

My conclusion here is that if we compare this to a class generally regarded as one of the stronger tier 3s, the dragonfire adept comes out way ahead in the realm of combat, and slightly ahead in the realm of problem solving. Bards have more tools in their toolbox, but the ability of a DFA to hammer through scenarios with their small handful of superpowers shouldn't be underestimated. In-combat, though, the bard doesn't really compare at all. The biggest thing: bards in combat can fail. DFAs are built up around effects that still shut enemies down even if they succeed on the save; failing the save just hoses the targets harder. And their biggest, most devastating effects? No saves at all.

And this is just out of the box, with their single mandatory low-level feat. The bard comparison was likewise out of the box; both effectively have their whole non-class parts of their builds open. The DFA will likely get far more mileage out of it, though, because the bard needs to use a lot of this stuff to keep up in combat, if they don't want to be flipping coins to contribute for 20 levels. The DFA really doesn't.

Overall, it's my belief that the encounter-winning power of a DFA is enough to put it solidly in (low) Tier 2—it's not going to compare to a sorcerer or beguiler, but it's in a league of its own compared to the Tier 3s. And, unlike classes like the barbarian (Tier 4, can ubercharge one thing to death per turn, generally, if the setup is right), the DFA does it in an AoE, without endangering their allies, generally to the entire fight, with basically no failure chances.

[Beheld]

The thing to remember about the DFA is that if they don't take damage, they aren't entangled from entangling exhalation.

Resist 5 makes you immune to level 1 DFA Entangling exhalation, Resist 10 immune to level 3, and almost always 5.

[Florian]

The thing to remember about the DFA is that if they don't take damage, they aren't entangled from entangling exhalation.

Resist 5 makes you immune to level 1 DFA Entangling exhalation, Resist 10 immune to level 3, and almost always 5.

Both, DFA and Warlock look pretty lousy once resistances and immunities come into play, which can be quite early. A single 6HD devil/angel can stop them cold.

[Gruftzwerg]

Both, DFA and Warlock look pretty lousy once resistances and immunities come into play, which can be quite early. A single 6HD devil/angel can stop them cold.

hm? Eldritch Blast deals untyped dmg and is superior in such situations. Somehow you got that wrong in your memory. warlocks shine when it come to DR/Immunity ;)

[Florian]

hm? Eldritch Blast deals untyped dmg and is superior in such situations. Somehow you got that wrong in your memory. warlocks shine when it come to DR/Immunity ;)

... and might fall flat against SR, unless they have vitriolic.

[Gruftzwerg]

... and might fall flat against SR, unless they have vitriolic.

Which any blast/glaive-lock will take. So, what's you point? I don't get it.

And the only one that don't take it are clawlocks. And I guess I don't need to say that they can just build into absurd amount of dmg and just laugh about any kind of DR/SR/Immunity whatsoever.

[Beheld]

Both, DFA and Warlock look pretty lousy once resistances and immunities come into play, which can be quite early. A single 6HD devil/angel can stop them cold.

I was responding specifically to the Tier 2 DFA argument.

some decent crowd control against things with no resistances is good, but not as good as a Sorcerer or Beguiler.

[Gemini476]

Also, guess what class has at-will Solid Fog at mid-op levels? The Truenamer. Quickened, too. At level 12 you can also toss in an Energy Vortex for 2d6/turn cold damage if you want to match Chilling Fog a level after the DFA does it. (Or change it to whatever energy type is relevant. The effects last a minute, so are very fire-and-forget.)
I'm not convinced that this one point is a Tier 2 thing, basically, although it's a point in both classes favor - maybe combined with all the breath weapon buffs and the Geas thing, I dunno.


Weirdly enough, the Truenamer's damage via Reversed Words of Nurturing is pretty equivalent to the Warlock's unbuffed Eldritch Blast damage - the Warlock is ahead by 1d6 at 5/9/13/17, the Truenamer is ahead by 1d6 at 6/10/14/18, and for the other twelve levels they're the same. I guess that's where they got their balance point from. "At-will-ish easy-to-hit damage shouldn't do more than a single Sneak Attack hit" or something along those lines.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don't think "wins some kinds of fights" is enough to make a T2 class. (Ranged-heavy monsters still whoop you, encounters with spread-out enemies are dangerous, and Solid Fog has a lot of friendly-fire potential.) A Warblade can stomp all over most encounters too, especially at low-to-mid levels, but that doesn't make them T2. They can mess with encounter design, but they've really not got much that can alter the strategic situation-- no big minionmancy, no divination, no teleporting... A DFA is an excellent short-range debuffer with one or two extra tricks; that sounds T3ish to me.

[Beheld]

Also, guess what class has at-will Solid Fog at mid-op levels? The Truenamer. Quickened, too.

No he doesn't. I mean really. There is a difference between at will and 23 times a day or whatever you come up with for an item familiar is always allowed of course I'm illumian true namer

[eggynack]

I don't think "wins some kinds of fights" is enough to make a T2 class. (Ranged-heavy monsters still whoop you, encounters with spread-out enemies are dangerous, and Solid Fog has a lot of friendly-fire potential.) A Warblade can stomp all over most encounters too, especially at low-to-mid levels, but that doesn't make them T2. They can mess with encounter design, but they've really not got much that can alter the strategic situation-- no big minionmancy, no divination, no teleporting... A DFA is an excellent short-range debuffer with one or two extra tricks; that sounds T3ish to me.
Yeah, this is a lot of where I am too. Honestly, more I think about it, the DFA has a lot more in common with a warblade, or maybe a crusader, as you've implied. Really strong and versatile combat utility paired with the rare and potent non-combat effect, including, notably, one focused heavily on dispelling. These are classes that have a niche, and it's a strong niche, and they do it well, but it doesn't have the versatility or the power I associate with tier two. The DFA analysis is interesting, but it ends in a really telling manner. Particularly, the summation of the argument can be paraphrased as, "This class is akin in focus to a barbarian, except it trades away one excellent and narrow trick for a more varied and broadly applicable one that gets the job done well enough to be excellent in combat, as well as some rare non-combat utility." I could easily be describing either the DFA or warblade with that quote, and I don't think the comparison is all that far off.

The pro-DFA argument highlights a key thing, but it's not that the class is somehow better than a bard. The class is different than a bard. They're two different expressions of the core tier three idea. One can value one of those expressions more than another, and that can always represent a point of disagreement, but I think one thing we can all agree on is that, however you value this DFA stuff, any tier two class blows it out of the water. DFA isn't necessarily going to be perfectly comparable to any tier three class, but we can see the general form, observe its shape as kinda obeying the bounds of that tier three notion. It never, not in any way I can perceive, obeys the bounds of any tier two class. DFA makes sense with warblades and bards. It makes no sense with beguilers and favored souls.

[Gruftzwerg]

I would like to add another argument to warlocks and UMD cheese.

Let's not break WBL, but max UMD as much as possible. Warlock will be able to use 9th lvl Spells Scrolls (DC29) (DC 38) before anyone else having access to the same resources (XP/gold). It's limited and expensive, but you can. Further since scrolls are consumables that only count temporary against your WBL, you may not be as limited as one may think in the first place.

Sure nothing that would make warlocks clear T2 as other T2 classes, but getting things earlier than others is still a powerspike worth mentioning. I mean, it's not like that a +9 UMD item is at every corner for cheap money.

Imho people underestimate the value of the warlock UMD abilities.

edit: corrected the DC. sry had the wrong formula in mind.

[Bucky]

If you require T2s to be literal campaign destroyers, DFAs can do that too thanks to metabreath stacking.

[Beheld]

I would like to add another argument to warlocks and UMD cheese.

Let's not break WBL, but max UMD as much as possible. Warlock will be able to use 9th lvl Spells Scrolls (DC29) before anyone else having access to the same resources (XP/gold). It's limited and expensive, but you can. Further since scrolls are consumables that only count temporary against your WBL, you may not be as limited as one may think in the first place.

Sure nothing that would make warlocks clear T2 as other T2 classes, but getting things earlier than others is still a powerspike worth mentioning. I mean, it's not like that a +9 UMD item is at every corner for cheap money.

Imho people underestimate the value of the warlock UMD abilities.

If your contention is that you can use infinite 9th level scrolls without it costing any money because they are consumables, that still doesn't change that everyone else can just have and use those infinite scrolls like 99% as well as a warlock:

In fact, better? Level 8 Wizards, before Warlocks can even craft or take ten on UMD, can afford to walk around with your infinite free level 9 scrolls that don't cost WBL because as soon as you use them you instantly get more treasure next fight, and they can activate them 100% of the time, because they take ten on the caster level check and have to hit DC 18.

So yeah, the idea that Warlocks have this unparalleled access to the ability to abuse WBL because consumables refresh also isn't grounded in reality.

[remetagross]

If you require T2s to be literal campaign destroyers, DFAs can do that too thanks to metabreath stacking.

I would like to mention the fact that the ability of DFAs to use metabreath feats is far from settled, in addition to the fact that these feats come from a different book than the DFAs themselves; as such, I don't think use of metabreath feats should be considered below medium optimisation.

[Gruftzwerg]

If your contention is that you can use infinite 9th level scrolls without it costing any money because they are consumables, that still doesn't change that everyone else can just have and use those infinite scrolls like 99% as well as a warlock:

In fact, better? Level 8 Wizards, before Warlocks can even craft or take ten on UMD, can afford to walk around with your infinite free level 9 scrolls that don't cost WBL because as soon as you use them you instantly get more treasure next fight, and they can activate them 100% of the time, because they take ten on the caster level check and have to hit DC 18.

So yeah, the idea that Warlocks have this unparalleled access to the ability to abuse WBL because consumables refresh also isn't grounded in reality.

I didn't said infinite. Just not as limited as you might think (still in regular table game dimensions. Cause the xp/lvlup and the rewards for the encounters needed, neat in a bit more than what you regular get as WBL on that lvl => the rest is supposedly for consumables.).

And warlock may take 10 on UMD starting at lvl 4 btw.. It's the crafting ability what comes late with lvl 12.

edit:
lets see what a minimal optimized UMD warlock can achieve at lvl 8:

take 10 + 11 ranks + 5 Cha (18 base @lvl1 and 20 till lvl 8) + 3 skill mastery UMD = 29

at lvl 8 the warlock can use scrolls up to caster lvl of 9 (5th lvl spells).

[Beheld]

I would like to mention the fact that the ability of DFAs to use metabreath feats is far from settled, in addition to the fact that these feats come from a different book than the DFAs themselves; as such, I don't think use of metabreath feats should be considered below medium optimisation.

DFA's lose basically nothing and gain everything from being a Dragonborn, (I guess they lost Fivefold Breath if you are getting that high) and the use of metabreath feats on the DFA's breath after qualifying with some other breath is (I believe, and if it isn't, should be) settled.

[remetagross]

By RAW if I remember correctly this trick is indeed correct. But first, you have to be a Dragonborn, that'a a third book into the mix (WoTC really went crazy with the splatbooks with "Draco" or "Dragon" in the name) . And second, more than one DM will brake when seeing how the trick actually works. At any rate, I don't think this qualifies as less than medium optimisation.

[Beheld]

By RAW if I remember correctly this trick is indeed correct. But first, you have to be a Dragonborn, that'a a third book into the mix (WoTC really went crazy with the splatbooks with "Draco" or "Dragon" in the name) . And second, more than one DM will brake when seeing how the trick actually works. At any rate, I don't think this qualifies as less than medium optimisation.

My understanding is that the metabreath feats part only matters for JaronK style "I rate the classes on how they break the game" higher optimization discussion.

They aren't worthless, but there's plenty for a DFA with entangling and slowing and Solid Fog to do.


I didn't said infinite. Just not as limited as you might think (still in regular table game dimensions. Cause the xp/lvlup and the rewards for the encounters needed, neat in a bit more than what you regular get as WBL on that lvl => the rest is supposedly for consumables.).

And warlock may take 10 on UMD starting at lvl 4 btw.. It's the crafting ability what comes late with lvl 12.

1) If the rest is "for consumables" and you don't spend it on consumables, you just have more wealth. If the rest is "for consumables" and you spend it on consumables, and some of the stuff you that wasn't for consumables you spend on consumables, then you have less wealth (and quickly run out under the "I just cast spells from scrolls because I wish I was a Wizard" Warlock system).

If on the otherhand, you declare that using up WBL on consumables gets you more WBL, then people with actual spell lists are better at this, and anyone will UMD is basically as good.

2) You need DC 37, (It looks like you confused spell level with Caster level) at level what? Need to take 10, or else you aren't better than a Rogue, so +27. +4-8 from Cha. +4 synergy I think somewhere. Still looks like you can't manage at level 8. Yeah, I just don't see the genius Warlock ability to use 9th level scrolls before other people.

[Grod_The_Giant]

By RAW if I remember correctly this trick is indeed correct. But first, you have to be a Dragonborn, that'a a third book into the mix (WoTC really went crazy with the splatbooks with "Draco" or "Dragon" in the name) . And second, more than one DM will brake when seeing how the trick actually works. At any rate, I don't think this qualifies as less than medium optimisation.
It's in a weird spot, practicality-wise. You're doing something very RAW stupid (qualify with one breath weapon and apply the benefits to another) to do something that should be covered by RAI. My gut feeling is that most GMs would either ban the trick for being goofy, or allow it without the trick because it seems obvious.

[Gruftzwerg]

My understanding is that the metabreath feats part only matters for JaronK style "I rate the classes on how they break the game" higher optimization discussion.

They aren't worthless, but there's plenty for a DFA with entangling and slowing and Solid Fog to do.



1) If the rest is "for consumables" and you don't spend it on consumables, you just have more wealth. If the rest is "for consumables" and you spend it on consumables, and some of the stuff you that wasn't for consumables you spend on consumables, then you have less wealth (and quickly run out under the "I just cast spells from scrolls because I wish I was a Wizard" Warlock system).

If on the otherhand, you declare that using up WBL on consumables gets you more WBL, then people with actual spell lists are better at this, and anyone will UMD is basically as good.

2) You need DC 37, (It looks like you confused spell level with Caster level) at level what? Need to take 10, or else you aren't better than a Rogue, so +27. +4-8 from Cha. +4 synergy I think somewhere. Still looks like you can't manage at level 8. Yeah, I just don't see the genius Warlock ability to use 9th level scrolls before other people.

1) depends on how DM handles WBL and consumables and you income. But as the rules are for consumables, they only count temporary against your WBL. It's a bit cheesy I know and it is available for everybody. Again, it was so to show that it ain't that limited as one may think at first glance.

2) yeah got confused there as you said^^.
But the comprehensions with the rogue:
When you use UMD and are short in time, you don't want to risk a fail and retry next round again. There are enough threads they tell you why you don't want to fail on UMD in-combat.
And to accomplish the same safety as a warlock, a rogue always has to assume that he might roll a 1 and start his build calculation for UMD from there. That's a straight 9 point difference to make up. I don't see how the rogue is as good in UMD as a warlock (maybe I am missing something?)

[Beheld]

1) depends on how DM handles WBL and consumables and you income. But as the rules are for consumables, they only count temporary against your WBL. It's a bit cheesy I know and it is available for everybody. Again, it was so to show that it ain't that limited as one may think at first glance.

2) yeah got confused there as you said^^.
But the comprehensions with the rogue:
When you use UMD and are short in time, you don't want to risk a fail and retry next round again. There are enough threads they tell you why you don't want to fail on UMD in-combat.
And to accomplish the same safety as a warlock, a rogue always has to assume that he might roll a 1 and start his build calculation for UMD from there. That's a straight 9 point difference to make up. I don't see how the rogue is as good in UMD as a warlock (maybe I am missing something?)

1) Like I said. If your DM handles it one way, then it's a terrible idea to do the thing you are suggesting. If you DM handles it the other way, then it's still a terrible idea (and your DM is wrong) but other people are much better at it than you.

2) You only have to use UMD in combat if you are a worthless character who's combat actions are worthless.

A Rogue uses UMD for utility as well as a warlock (well, not quite as well since he probably has lower Cha) and he uses UMD (on wands) to supplement his in combat ability that is already meaningful. If all a character does is pull out stinking cloud scrolls and try to use them in combat time at level 5, then that character should just be shoved off the nearest cliff so the player can play the character they meant to make in the first place.

[Gemini476]

No he doesn't. I mean really. There is a difference between at will and 23 times a day or whatever you come up with for an item familiar is always allowed of course I'm illumian true namer

Let's call it an greater amulet of the silver tongue, +4 INT, masterwork item, Illumian and high ranks in the paragnostic assembly. since we're talkinghigh-op "campaign breaking" anyhow, let's throw in the item familiar and a custom competence item.
That's one 10k item and one 16k with a 88k WBL, so if we want to stay under 22k (25%) that's a +14 item for 19.6k.

So at level 12, that's two flat non-scaling DCs of 45 (Solid Fog from the Void) and 60 (quickened Energy Vortex), with a bonus of...
15 (ranks) + 7 (int) + 3 (skill focus) + 2 (Illumian) + 10 (amulet) + 10 (paragnostic assembly) + 2 (masterwork item) + 15 (item familiar) + 14 (competence item) = 78.

Using the heighten trick, you can spread out that +18 advantage to... what, 20 quickened solid fogs, 30 quickened energy vortices, and 89 non-quickened solid fogs? Before you need to start rolling, that is.

(Low-op truenamer is still getting out +34 or so with magic items, so while quickening is out of their reach they can still semi-reliably drop a few AoEs. Hitting the DC39 enemies is also pretty reliable, weirdly enough. Perfected Map lvl.1 is DC35 and very reliable, although I don't know how much use Lowop McGee is going to get from that. They probably grabbed the one that knocks people prone with a fortitude save.)

Each of the utterances last for a minute, note (a mixed blessing), so it's dragged out a bit. And in your DMG-suggested 4 encounter day that's five quickened solid fogs per encounter, each lasting a minute, so it's not like you'll use them all for that few encounters anyhow.

That's the problem with at-will combat abilities - they only matter if you have enough combats that the more limited classes start running out, in which case you have greater issues.

Not saying that the Truenamer is good, mind you. Quickened solid fog is roughly as good as it gets, and while it's a nice trick it doesn't prevent the class as a whole from being pretty bad.
I'm just not entirely convinced that similar tricks catapult the Draginfire Adept all the way to Tier 2. 3, maybe.

[Gruftzwerg]

2) You only have to use UMD in combat if you are a worthless character who's combat actions are worthless.

A Rogue uses UMD for utility as well as a warlock (well, not quite as well since he probably has lower Cha) and he uses UMD (on wands) to supplement his in combat ability that is already meaningful. If all a character does is pull out stinking cloud scrolls and try to use them in combat time at level 5, then that character should just be shoved off the nearest cliff so the player can play the character they meant to make in the first place.

Imho there are plenty of short time combat buffs (poly spells, action altering spells, defensive spells...) that might become handy in stressful situations (big fights / BBEG). And you don't want to waste more rounds into buffing than needed. e.g. a Body out of Bodies scroll (a spell which most caster don't have access too) for situations where your group is outnumbered and you cast it on one of your party members. It's a bit of expensive batman play I know.
But I still fail to see that a rogue is as good. He needs to invest into a +9 bonus to just keep up with the same incombat safety. Further lacks Cha compared to a warlock with UMD focus (you barely will find rogues with Cha 18 compared to warlocks).
Escape/Emergency spells that you might want to use in combat would be another scenario that comes into my mind.

[Beheld]

Let's call it an greater amulet of the silver tongue, +4 INT, masterwork item, Illumian and high ranks in the paragnostic assembly. since we're talkinghigh-op "campaign breaking" anyhow, let's throw in the item familiar and a custom competence item.

Uh. Let's not because we aren't talking about that at all? At will solid fog (+damage? So like Acid Fog?) is just a thing that all level 10(or whatever level it is) DFA's just get.


Each of the utterances last for a minute, note (a mixed blessing), so it's dragged out a bit. And in your DMG-suggested 4 encounter day that's five quickened solid fogs per encounter, each lasting a minute, so it's not like you'll use them all for that few encounters anyhow.

No that's the point. At will spells are, while not significantly more powerful in most situations, sometimes qualitatively different from not at will. It's a minor thing, but if you fight a demon that teleports at will with a standard action, you can put a new solid fog on him every time he does that as a DFA, and know that you are never going to stop, and true namer cannot. If you block a choke point with solid fog, you can do that forever and know that anyone coming through will be stumbling blind out of a solid fog.

It's a difference. Not a huge one, but one all the same.

But yes, if Chilling Fog or whatever was the only thing a DFA could do, and they didn't come with an at will large aoe debuff that disables run actions, and AoE damage that doesn't rely on attack rolls, then DFA's would be as bad as Truenamers, but since they do have those other things, they are much better than Truenamers at level 10 (and obviously, all the other levels before 10).

[Troacctid]

This i do agree with. But how then does the damage of a level 10 warlock look? What is he adding to a combat?
Not a lot of damage, because Warlocks aren't primary damage-dealers.


Yeah, this seems like the most bothersome thing to me. Like, I was going through that comparison, generally assuming the warlock would mostly orient around those utility invocations because it seems to me the only way they can come close, but they probably wouldn't actually do that. They'd take these other types of invocations to some extent, and lop off at least a few of their extremely limited total invocations. I probably wouldn't give them all blast shapes and such, but would instead give them one or two other invocation pools for those abilities, both to match the ability structure and to give interesting choices, but the main idea is the same. Their invocation progression is so ridiculously slow. I don't know how people are getting to 2.5 here. Is it all predicated on crafting from 12th up? Because even reasonably optimized use of invocations wouldn't seem to get you above the bard.
There's certainly room to take utility invocations, especially with Extra Invocation on the table, and considering that most of the best utility invocations are leasts and lessers.

An example of a low-op blaster Warlock would be one who uses the sample feats and invocations from PH2.

https://i.imgur.com/pZHZJ8m.png

https://i.imgur.com/hu6wLN7.png

This is a pretty terrible build. But it's still doing damage while sickening and blinding multiple enemies at a time. It also has detect magic, see invisibility, fly, greater dispel magic, and greater invisibility at will, and it's a decent face with max ranks in Bluff and Charisma as its highest stat. Compare that to what other classes are doing at this optimization level—the Rogue is taking archery feats with no way to enable sneak attack, the Ranger is taking Dodge and Mobility to qualify for Shot on the Run, and the Barbarian has Two-Weapon Fighting and Skill Focus (Tumble).


The lack of invocations is a massive issue though, as you note. Sure, the invocations are nice and all, but you're getting only two of each level.
Really it's effectively a little more than that, since breath effects are basically invocations.


So at level 12, that's two flat non-scaling DCs of 45 (Solid Fog from the Void) and 60 (quickened Energy Vortex), with a bonus of...
I believe the base DC for Quickened Solid Fog from the Void is 60 (25 + 5 for 1st level utterance + 10 to make it solid + 20 for Quicken), and Quickened Energy Vortex starts at DC 55.

[Grod_The_Giant]

No one's saying that UMD isn't useful, just that it's not that powerful-- it's a great trick for utility and emergencies, but it's not overpowering. Similarly, crafting your wands and scrolls is nice, but not overpowering. I'll accept T3, but T2 is nonsense.

Look, if you're arguing that the Warlock is T2 because of crafting/UMD abuse, you kind of have to compare it to the Artificer.

UMD: The Artificer doesn't get to take 10 until level 13, and has less native use for Cha. Advantage: Warlock... though for pretty much the entire time they have the advantage, they can't craft to make full use of it.
Crafting class feature: The Warlock gets to pretend they have the spell. The Artificer gets to pretend they have the spell, and they get +2 CL for prereqs, and they get to fake racial and alignment restrictions. Oh, and they get to do this from level one. Advantage: Artificer
Crafting Efficiency: The Artificer has their crafting reserve, and they can eat unwanted magic items to refill it. They can also make Dedicated Wights to work on things for them. They also get 5 bonus feats that can be spent to pick up cost reduction feats. The Warlock has bupkiss. Advantage: Artificer by about a hundred miles.
Crafting feats: The Artificer gets 8. The Warlock gets none, and if you take any before level 12 they're useless. So you have one, maybe two in playable levels. Advantage: Artificer, by a lot.
Item Power: Warlocks can spend more money to make higher-CL items. Artificers can do that too... and they can apply metamagic feats in, just, so many ways. (Did you know they have a 3rd level infusion that just adds a metamagic feat for 1 round/level, no questions asked and with no extra costs?). Advantage: Artificer, by a million miles.
Non-Crafting Stuff: Warlock invocations are decent to good. Artificer infusions are decent. Slight advantage to Warlock, I think.


This isn't sorcerer-vs-wizard; this is adept-vs-wizard.

[Gruftzwerg]

Really it's effectively a little more than that, since breath effects are basically invocations.


I really agree on this one. The breath effects are similar to Eldritch Blasts shape & essences which just count as invocation while the breath effects are handled separate. The only difference is that the DFA has to invest into those and may not exchange em for other invocations as a warlock can. A warlock can entirely pass on shapes & essences and just go for other invocation.

edit:

Look, if you're arguing that the Warlock is T2 because of crafting/UMD abuse, you kind of have to compare it to the Artificer.

I said that IMHO a warlock is T3 but can PO/TO into T2 (and if you break WBL into T1) areas.
can it be achieved by UMD cheese by anyone? yeah
can another class do it better? yes
is it still mentionable? yes

I hope you get the idea. I just ask for a note on the UMD topic for a more detailed Tier guide. Not more not less.

[Gemini476]

Remember, WBL is only really used for two purposes:
For seeing what amount if magic items a new character needs to start with;
And for seeing when the party is under-geared and you should include more double-treasure monsters.

WBL isn't even the actual wealth you end up with just by playing through RAW with the random tables, since it's got some rounding and reductions for consumables and whatnot. You end up with 800k, IIRC - you "break WBL" merely by playing the game as intended!

[Gruftzwerg]

WBL isn't even the actual wealth you end up with just by playing through RAW with the random tables, since it's got some rounding and reductions for consumables and whatnot. You end up with 800k, IIRC - you "break WBL" merely by playing the game as intended!

Imho that slight difference is meant as the part of your ongoing investments for consumables.

[Keral]

https://i.imgur.com/pZHZJ8m.png





Wait, is that two point blank shots? Is that even allowed?

[Troacctid]

Wait, is that two point blank shots? Is that even allowed?
I assume it's a mistake in the table. But it's fine, you just move Ability Focus down there instead.

[ComaVision]

Wait, is that two point blank shots? Is that even allowed?

Any Warlock worth their salt should be taking PBS at least every second feat, imo.

[Soranar]

UMD is pretty good on a warlock (assuming magic mart access) but it only becomes broken good when you get imbue item and you know what you're doing.

People keep comparing a warlock to a rogue for some reason so let's see how a warlock can outrogue a rogue.

-the charm invocation covers social encounters (it's a solid low level invocation, no reason not to take it anyway)
-hide and move silently are covered by an invisibility invocation (again these are pretty good so not a big investment)

-you'll need the craft wand feat at level 12 (or become a member of the mage college that lets you use every crafting feat for 1000 gold but that's DM and setting dependant)

-your first wand will be alter self (to turn into a darkstalker and gain 3d6 sneak attack), several eternal wands can cover all your daily needs of the spell. Otherwise you'd need to waste a high level feat on infernal adept to get humanoid shape.

-your second wand would be hunter's eye (which is only powerful when it's made by a warlock, an archivist, an artificer or a chameleon).

1/3 your caster level in sneak attack means 6d6 sneak attack for 1 round per charge, 1 swift action to activate

-finally you might also invest in martial study+ martial stance for assassin's stance

so you get 11d6 sneak attack by using wands and feats, I would hardly call this useless. Ideally you'd need to make a permanent hunter's eye item but that's DM dependant.

Even barring custom items or scribe scroll, the sheer utility a warlock can get out of UMD and 1 crafting feat is pretty impressive IMO but this is definitely high level optimization.

[Zaq]

So I had a really big post typed up, and then my computer ate it, which I suppose is my fault for trying to do this over multiple sittings rather than finishing what I start. So this is much shorter than I want it to be, because I don't really feel like typing everything over again.

Truenamer: This is kind of my thing, as I'm sure most of you know. So I suppose we'd better get to work.

To go way, way briefer than I probably should, as most people know, the Truenamer suffers from two primary issues (and a whole host of little issues). First, it's wildly impractical to rely on raw skill ranks and INT as ways to meet your Truespeak DCs, without which you cannot accomplish anything. Second, even once Truespeak DCs are met, utterances don't have a whole lot of kick overall relative to the levels at which they become available, especially not without hairsplitting rules mastery. (These are not the only issues the 'Namer faces, and I discuss them a lot more in my guide, but I'm trying to be brief.)

It's not that hard to optimize to meet one's Truespeak DCs—the resources do exist. Skill Focus, Amulet of the Silver Tongue, custom items that give competence bonuses, the Paragnostic Assembly, dips in Marshal or similar classes, and so on. That said, it is entirely necessary to invest in those resources, since the DC scales up much faster than your bonus scales up from ranks and INT alone. A mid-level Fighter without a magic weapon is definitely underpowered, but they can still at least make attacks, and while those attacks will be markedly less effective than the attacks of a well-equipped counterpart, most enemies (barring incorporeal targets and such) will still at least notice the underequipped Fighter's efforts. A mid-level Truenamer trying to use ranks and INT and nothing else at all to meet their at-level DCs, on the other hand, is a much sadder story, and we might even go so far as to call this unoptimized character basically nonfunctional, or close to it, especially after the Law of Resistance kicks in. So Truenamers have a ridiculously low floor, especially if we follow the doctrine of tiers not taking dips or items or such into account. Again, the issue of Truespeak DCs is far from impossible to overcome, but it also simply cannot be ignored. Naturally, resources spent here are resources not spent elsewhere, but I assume we all know that already.

If we assume that we have spent the appropriate resources to shore up our Truespeak mods, then we need to look at what the Truenamer can accomplish with their class powers. That's still not great most of the time, to be honest, even with enough juice to reliably Quicken. There's a lack of offensive oomph (it's not totally absent, but Truenamers aren't going to be DPR kings), but there's some passable buffs and debuffs. The Law of Sequence is a major pain in the rear here, but I'm choosing to intentionally ignore the "my level or yours?" trick, because I consider it to be shenanigans. Still, even on a good day, the Truenamer's contribution is usually going to be on the level of "okay, you earned your share of the XP" rather than "wow, you totally changed the face of that encounter, and we couldn't have pulled that off without you!"

The Truenamer's utterances are arguably the most effective when level 3 LEM ones are current (or MAYBE level 4 LEM, assuming you have a caster in the party to turbocharge with Caster Lens and Reversed Magic Contraction), because the higher-level ones really don't scale appropriately to the expected challenge level of the game. That's a relatively narrow window, and it doesn't do much for the argument that Truenamers struggle in the late game, because they absolutely do.

Out of combat, they've got decent skill-based utility early on by using Universal Aptitude and Hidden Truth (both by making themselves good and making their allies good), but aside from some basic HP refilling, that's most of their real out-of-combat utility overall, since their other utility utterances are usually too short in duration to solve too many non-combat problems. (Compare using Invisibility versus Reversed Vision Sharpened to let the party Rogue go on a scouting mission, for example.) It's not nothing, but it's definitely less than many other magic-ish classes can pump out.

I'm intentionally ignoring Conjunctive Gate, because nothing that can only exist at ECL 20 is big enough to change a tier.

Let's cut to the chase, since as I said, I'm retyping and don't want to spend all day on this. If we assume that a given Truenamer will have access to some kind of resources to bump up their Truespeak checks to respectable levels, then I think the Truenamer is about a T4. They've got some reasonable tricks, but they don't have too many things that really change the terms of the encounter, and their abilities are niche enough that they aren't always applicable. If we go really extreme and assume that the Truenamer isn't allowed to use anything but ranks and INT to make their checks, then they're basically low T5 or high T6, since (let's go absurd at this point) a level 20 Truenamer with ranks and INT alone (so no items or Assembly membership or anything) literally cannot succeed at an at-level Truespeak check, even assuming 18 starting INT and bumping INT at every level-up opportunity. I don't think anyone in the history of D&D has ever tried to play a naked level 20 Truenamer with nothing but ranks and INT, but the fact remains that the class alone doesn't give you all the resources you need to use your abilities, and other classes just don't have to have that kind of discussion.

I think it's fairly silly to assume that you cannot get any sort of Truespeak-increasing tricks, since there's even more than one path to power here, so you can probably find some way to bootstrap yourself up even if the GM shuts down one or two of the major sources of bonuses. I've done it multiple times with very different GMs and very different starting resource packages. But it's still true that investing in Truespeak costs you resources that you aren't spending elsewhere, and it's still true that utterances are really mostly "okay, I guess that helped" rather than "wow, that was amazingly badass!" So my vote goes for T4.

Shadowcaster: I have tried multiple times to build a Shadowcaster that I wouldn't be bored with at the table, but I have failed.

I love the idea of the Shadowcaster. I like the neat effects of mysteries (especially the ones that aren't just "like this spell"), I like their flavor ribbons, I like the idea of your lower-level powers getting easier as you master higher-level ones, and I don't even mind their fluff (as long as you don't go full high-school-goth-kid, which is possible but not required). But the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

I doubt I'm saying anything that's news to any of us, but the Shadowcaster's biggest sins are lack of flexibility and lack of stamina. I don't mind the idea of paths, but with relatively few paths available, it's very grating to have to nearly always take at least one crap mystery on the way to getting the cool ones. That said, they basically take the worst parts of spontaneous casting (very few powers known; can't swap out powers day-to-day) and prepared casting (heavy risk of not having enough of a given power per day; risk of having powers prepped that aren't effective for the day's challenges) and mush them together. Even the Sorcerer gets more than one spell known at about 50% of their levels, but the Shadowcaster does not. Every mystery you take comes at a big opportunity cost. And, of course, the fact that it's extremely difficult to get any given mystery more than once per day (while it's still level-appropriate) is a ridiculously huge limitation—if you take it twice, then you've shut off access to the higher-level mysteries in your second path for the tier, and if you spend a feat on Favored Mystery, then that's a feat, and you don't have many of those.

When they don't have enough mysteries per day (which is always), or when the mysteries they have aren't right for the situation, Shadowcasters have nothing to fall back on. We can joke about Crossbow Mode, but the Shadowcaster will hit Crossbow Mode far more often than a Wizard will, and low BAB really actually hurts when you're plinking with a crossbow at level 6 (compared to at level 1). They don't have very good skills, which would have at least given them an out-of-combat niche that wouldn't require expenditure of mysteries. It's very difficult to get them to qualify for useful reserve feats, and it gets weird when their mysteries-as-spells (which can power reserve feats) turn into mysteries-as-SLAs (which, RAW, cannot). Basically, if a Shadowcaster isn't casting a mystery, they aren't having much effect on the world, so the fact that there's a lot of time when they can't really be casting mysteries makes them rather ineffective.

And then there's the zero flexibility issue, which I've kind of touched on already, but which I still want to complain about a little more. If your chosen mysteries (which are basically hard-coded into the character) aren't right for a situation, there's pretty much jack that you can do about it. This doesn't end well much of the time.

When mysteries work, they do tend to be pretty cool. Their high-level stuff isn't the gamebreaking nonsense of Gate and Wish and PaO and long-term minionmancy and all that crap, but you will notice when a level-appropriate mystery is being placed on the field. If they could use their mysteries regularly, they'd be pretty darn powerful, easily T3 and maybe even close to T2. But they can't. They can't go all day long, and they can't bring level-appropriate effects to the field in encounter after encounter. Add in the restrictive way in which they choose mysteries, and I don't think I can rate them higher than T4. Honestly, if their effects weren't so cool, I'd be strongly thinking about T5, but mysteries are actually powerful enough to climb out of that hole. It's mostly the fact that they can't keep using those cool effects that keeps them out of T3. So we split the difference and call it T4.

Binder: I've played a couple of Binders or Binder-based characters. I like them a lot, but if we're being brutally honest, I think they're a wee bit overrated for a good chunk of their careers. "Oh, they're so versatile," goes the common wisdom, and it's true that they can switch out between different packages of abilities, but . . . well, there's a big level range in which it doesn't make sense to switch to many of those packages.

First, the elephant in the room: you get one vestige at a time for way, way too long. I know I'm slipping into anecdata, but I've played way more games that ended before level 8 than I have games that included significant time at ECL 8+. And no, my groups never start at level 1 (I don't think I've ever played a level 1 3.5 character), so it's not that. But there's a massive chunk of your career wherein you don't get to actually combine your vestiges into new and unique wholes. You can choose lots of packages, but they're just that—packages. I hope that there's enough useful bits in the one vestige you get to keep you interesting and useful for an entire day, because if you just wanted one trick to get past one set of challenges, well, here we are. Add in the fact that you do have to build the rest of your character (feats, skills, stats, sometimes items) to accommodate your favored vestiges, and you can often end up at a severe disadvantage if you end up stuck with a vestige that you don't usually like much. That doesn't seem supremely versatile on its own, to be honest. And especially when you've only got one vestige at once, if you take a vestige who doesn't have a primary offensive option (or who has a mediocre primary offensive option), well, I hope you've got something from your feats and other build elements, or else combat's going to be pretty boring for you today. (I don't like Expel Vestige as a means of increasing flexibility, since then you're still going to be bound to the new vestige for the first part of the following day, and you've basically reset your "when do I choose my abilities?" time to an arbitrary time in the middle of the adventuring day, which gets awkward fast.)

Once you get more vestiges at once, things improve, though I always think it's a little awkward to play a pure-class Binder. They get a ton of neat little support abilities, but they don't get a whole lot of level-appropriate abilities that you can rely on for a whole encounter. I think that's basically what it comes down to—everything the Binder gets is little. Little is not the same as bad, of course. Little abilities can be very interesting. But you rarely get an ability that seems solid enough to let your character rely fully on it, so a lot of the time, you kind of end up in "it's very nice, but what does it do?" territory. Much like the Factotum, now that I think about it.

Binders make fantastic multiclass or gestalt characters, of course. Vestige abilities are excellent for supporting other classes (even without Naberius shenanigans, which I have to admit I kind of love). I know I've droned on endlessly about my old Binder/Incarnate/Chameleon, who mashed up enough "pick little packages of abilities" classes to end up with something resembling a terrifyingly coherent whole. But I don't think a pure-class Binder is really very good at that. And we're not supposed to tier the classes as multiclass building blocks.

I do appreciate that the vast majority of vestige-granted abilities aren't limited in use per day. The famous 5 round recharge timer basically gives you encounter powers, which I like on principle, though I find most of them to be a little bit underpowered for that. But still, I like that you don't have to jealously hoard your cool tricks, which is a relative rarity in 3.5.

Even with all of this, I do appreciate that the Binder can prepare for different challenges, and I do genuinely like their little utility abilities. But I've talked enough. Bottom line: T3 or T4? I kind of want to give them an edge rating. They do not have as much versatility early on as popularly promised, and they don't have a ton of power by the time they get their versatility. But they do get some neat utility benefits, and if they aren't being useful, that's at least usually because they chose the wrong vestige rather than because they ran out of juice or because they don't have the ability to access something decent at all. Let's call them T3½. I might be willing to be swayed from that, but I want to keep moving.

Dragonfire Adept: I like this class a lot. I played one a while back, and I had more fun with it than I expected to. I appreciate the fact that they're relatively hard to shut down (blinded? Don't care! Threatened in melee? Don't care! Flying enemy? Don't care! Spell resistance? Don't care! High touch AC? Don't care!), and we all adore Entangling Exhalation as a fun way to get legit at-will debuffing/BfC as early as level 1 (but that stays useful for a frighteningly long time). Slow Breath is profoundly obnoxious for the GM to deal with, too. And I really like that since almost all of their abilities are "save for half" rather than an attack roll or a save to negate, a DFA is likely to have some guaranteed effect every turn. It may be a pretty paltry effect, but you're not going to have many turns where you literally contributed nothing because the dice didn't like you, and that's really rare in this game.

The invocations are hard to choose, since they tend to be pretty strong, at least early on. (High-level ones are a bit less exciting, I will admit.) They don't get a whole ton of slots, so it's impossible to cover all of the tasks that the invocations promise to handle, but by mid levels, it's not that hard to have at least one or two utility slots available. They also have a reasonably respectable skill list (with 4 + INT points, which isn't terrible for a pseudocaster), so they can very reasonably handle a party face role or party sage role, if nothing else. (Oh, and UMD.)

That said, if you're looking for raw might, the DFA will disappoint you. Barring metabreath stacking cheese (which I choose to ignore, since it takes shenanigans to even get metabreath feats on a DFA, so it doesn't seem right to consider that sort of thing to be part of the class's effectiveness), the DFA is never going to be a damage monster (minus horde encounters with 10d4 + 12 CR 1/2 goblins or whatever 1e-style crap, which no one ever actually does because it takes forever and isn't much fun). They will mostly do one instance of damage per round, and that's going to be a little bit less than a single Sneak Attack from an at-level Rogue (save for half), or half that much if they go Entangling. That is not a lot of damage at all (even before resistance), and if the DFA didn't have strong control effects, then they'd actually be pretty weak. They're nice for players who like the idea of doing lots and lots of AoE blasting but who don't like rationing out spell slots, but they're still not actually high-damage characters. Fivefold Breath is fun and all, but it's pretty darn high level, and it's likely that at least one flavor of the Fivefold Breath will be resisted by a CR-appropriate encounter at that level. They also tend to be one-trick ponies. Most DFAs look pretty similar to one another overall (there's a little bit of wiggle room, but not a whole lot), and most DFA encounters look pretty similar overall. That's not much of a mark in the class's favor.

So we have a class that has some acceptable skill-based utility, a little bit of magical utility (but not a whole lot of picks from the list), nice control effects out of the box (and a few respectable control options at higher levels), and a nearly guaranteed baseline level of effectiveness, but a fairly low cap on just how powerful they can be and a relatively restrictive path to power. Is that in the range of the Bard and the martial adepts, or the range of the Rogue, the Barb, the Truenamer, and the Shugenja?

My gut says that the Rogue is kind of a useful point of comparison. They're actually relatively inverted compared to each other: the Rogue has a cool combat trick that's extremely powerful when it works perfectly, but it's very difficult to make it work perfectly (and often might not work at all). The DFA has a cool combat trick that is basically guaranteed to always be at least slightly effective, but it doesn't have too many scenarios in which it'll actually be super-powerful. High-risk/high-reward versus low-risk/low-reward, but they're two sides of the same coin. Rogues are surprisingly versatile, but they can require book diving to shore up their weaknesses; DFAs all look more or less the same, but they have a much easier time accounting for their own weaknesses than a Rogue might. Again, two sides of the same coin, at least from the perspective of what I'm looking at. Putting the DFA in the same tier as the Rogue makes intuitive sense to me. So we can call them T4. [Update: After talking through the Warlock, I managed to convince myself that the Warlock is T3½, and I convinced myself that the DFA is sufficiently similar to warrant the same tier, so we'll call the DFA T3½ as well.]

Warlock: Ah, the Warlock. Perhaps one of the game's most dippable classes, though we aren't looking at that specifically. Famed wielder of "scary and unbalanced" at-will magic, which we all know is anything but unbalanced. The class tends to lend itself to shenanigans, but very different shenanigans than, y'know, a Cleric or a Psion.

The Warlock can focus very heavily on EB, and of course a pure-class Warlock that ignores EB entirely is probably doing something really bizarre. Bizarre or not, though, they also have the freedom to basically ignore the blast-related invocations, and then they've just got a minimally acceptable damage option as a fallback. (Perhaps this isn't based on anything solid, but I've always thought of a Warlock's unaugmented EB as being basically the minimum level of damage a damage-dealing character should be able to regularly do. It just seems like a reasonable baseline. I don't know if the actual CR numbers back that up properly, though.) This is somewhat in contrast to the DFA, which is forced to take a certain number of breath effects (which basically take the place of the Warlock's blast-related invocations). This ties back to my earlier point of the DFA kind of being forced into a high-floor style; there's only so much you can do to screw one up, which is good for the baseline but restrictive for the maximum. But this is about the Warlock.

Warlocks do not get nearly enough resources overall. Their skills are anemic (making the "+6 to lots of skills" invocations kind of weird on a pure-class 'Lock, since they give a huge early boost but can't be easily sustained as you level up), and they don't get enough invocations. They're arguably one of the best supported "weird new magic system" classes, since they have several sources for invocations beyond just their original book, but that kind of underscores the point that they don't get enough picks from the list. Their class features other than EB and invocations are mostly flavor ribbons, though their UMD shenanigans are nice, and I've never actually seen Imbue Item in actual play instead of just in theorycrafting. I hate their alignment restrictions.

A pure-class Warlock isn't going to outdamage a Barbarian or a savvy Rogue or a martial adept. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the Dragon Magazine stuff to determine how that works (Eldritch Claws and such?), and I don't know if Dragon Magazine stuff is included in this discussion. But a pure-class 'Lock basically only has Eldritch Glaive as a way of getting more than one dose of damage per turn, and while EG is decent, it's a bit slow to come online, and it's not super amazing on a pure 'Lock (who doesn't have Hellfire or any way of juicing their BAB). A Warlock is almost always going to have more utility than a Barb, of course (just look at Lesser invocations: flight, invisibility, dispelling, Charm, tactical teleportation, etc. One Warlock cannot have all of those, but a Barb can't get any of them), but again, we're not looking at DPR king material here. EB is fairly reliable (stopped only by crazy high touch AC—fairly rare overall—or spell resistance, and I admit that I don't like taking Vitriolic Blast as a workaround, since a Greater is a nasty cost), but it's also only so much on its own. They have debuffs and control effects, but it bothers me that it takes basically until Greater invocations before they get any really strong debuffs and control (while the DFA gets Entangling Exhalation as early as level 1 and Slow Breath as early as level 5).

Overall, a Warlock is decent at several things, but there's always something holding them back. If I called the DFA T4, does the Warlock fit there as well, or do they have enough extra tricks to overcome the weaker skill list and the fact that their debuffs don't come online until much later? If we're looking at a pure-class 'Lock with no dips and no PrCs, I think they're fundamentally at the same level here. The Warlock has a stronger late game than the DFA does (I'd rather take Warlock Greaters than DFA Greaters most of the time), but I feel like the DFA has a much more interesting early game. Both have relatively high baselines but few ways to rise above that baseline. Both have cool tricks and nowhere near enough access to all of the cool tricks. I think they're kind of straddling the line, though. Even if they can't do everything cool that the class promises, they're fairly guaranteed to be able to pull out a few tricks that a Rogue can't, and I think the DFA is the same way. Let's call them both T3½. They don't have the far-reaching versatility of the Bard or the combination of power and resilience that the martial adepts have, but they have enough reliability that they rise above the Rogue and the Shugenja and enough utility to keep themselves in the game.

tl;dr: Truenamer T4, Shadowcaster T4, Binder T3½, DFA T3½, Warlock T3½

[Cosi]

It's not that hard to optimize to meet one's Truespeak DCs—the resources do exist. Skill Focus, Amulet of the Silver Tongue, custom items that give competence bonuses, the Paragnostic Assembly, dips in Marshal or similar classes, and so on. That said, it is entirely necessary to invest in those resources, since the DC scales up much faster than your bonus scales up from ranks and INT alone.

By way of a quick comparison, let's consider what a Beguiler might do with comparable resources. If our Truenamer is buying custom items, dipping Marshal, and joining the Paragnostic Assembly, it does not seem unreasonable to compare to, say, a Beguiler with a single Prestige Domain and an Eternal Wand of substitute domain who worships the Sovereign Host. Three times a day, he can swap into any domain his god(s) grant, and subsequently cast its spells freely. That's probably good enough to move him up a Tier, and it's roughly the same optimization as a Truenamer is doing.

This is why I think the Truenamer is Tier Five. The kind of optimization you do to get the Truenamer's abilities to work is the kind that puts other classes up a Tier. That means that if the Truenamer is really Tier Four, it has to be on the back of utterances that are at least Tier Three, and that's laughable.

or MAYBE level 4 LEM, assuming you have a caster in the party to turbocharge with Caster Lens and Reversed Magic Contraction

Is +2 caster level or Empower Spell really "turbocharging"? Empower Spell best case boosts your spell by half, but since most spells have something non-numeric as their primary threat, it seems really lacking. Empowering a wall of stone isn't anything to write home about.


I think it's fairly silly to assume that you cannot get any sort of Truespeak-increasing tricks, since there's even more than one path to power here, so you can probably find some way to bootstrap yourself up even if the GM shuts down one or two of the major sources of bonuses.

I don't think its silly to assume you won't get any kind of tricks. But those tricks are very clearly a form of optimization, and a Truenamer using them has to be compared to other optimized characters. If we let the Truenamer get free optimization because otherwise it sucks, we've given up on the idea of equal optimization.

[digiman619]

So I had a really big post typed up, and then my computer ate it, which I suppose is my fault for trying to do this over multiple sittings rather than finishing what I start. So this is much shorter than I want it to be, because I don't really feel like typing everything over again.

~Preceeds to 5-7 paragraphs about each class~

Yeesh. And I thought I was loquacious...

[Sagetim]

Yeesh. And I thought I was loquacious...

No, you're Digiman619. Silly dwarf :smalltongue:

Anyway, I'm not here to debate tier this and tier that. Just to relay that I Have played a successful Truenamer in the past, from level 1 to 18. Now, the xp rate in that campaign was insane, with the group taking on challenges much higher than our CR, winning, and getting xp for it while ignoring the 'you can only gain one level at a time' thing. So there was a lot going on, and part of it was that we had a giant party of like, 4 to 10 players (depending on who showed up). There was someone running a half celestial crusader/favored soul, there was someone running a mimic necromancer/Tainted Scholar (and getting a lot of rules on how hit dice, ecl, and taint work wrong). There was someone running a gunslinger from the dndwiki because they refused to believe that it was some homebrew bs that hadn't been properly tagged and did not actually exist in 3.5.

The important part was that I did not run my Truenamer as if his class was his defining end all, be all. Utterances are nice, UMD is fantastic, but skills like Diplomacy and Knowledges were what caused me to become the de facto party leader. A willingness to get the party jobs from the mages guild, and keep us on track in pursuing the quest line the DM had prepared. The ability as a player to make reasonable sounding arguments, mixed with compliments, mixed with a little bs reasoning, to get the mages guild to not only give him a badge of office but a staff of fire as his mark of office. A willingness to shoot fireballs from that staff to solve problems. Applying that same verbal charm to talking with npcs along the way, and sacraficing the staff with no expectation of reward only to be surprised by the GM making the Truenamer a Chosen of Kossuth (woop woo, fireball as a few uses per day SLA...and firestorm...and some others). Making the party members that I squarely targeted with these fire spells immune to fire damage using truenaming. Ignoring the resistances, saves, immunities, and defenses of otherwise nigh impossible to damage targets by unmaking bits of them with truenaming.

I know the 10d6 doesn't look like a lot of damage when you've got blender rogues who are throwing out 6 attacks in a round with two weapon fighting able to potentially get that amount in sneak attack damage for each of those attacks....but when the target is immune to piercing damage, or ridiculously resistant to slashing, or what have you that untyped damage that Truenaming does Really comes in handy.

Oh, and my truenamer was the one who killed the big bad of the campaign. An epic level red dragon with multiple extra hp pool hacks. With a book full of explosive runes, a willingness to read them himself, being within 10 feet of the dragon, and making himself immune to sonic damage.

So the point I'm trying to make was: I didn't have a particularly hard time doing really well with the Truenamer in that game. It was certainly a sillier game as DnD games go, but my truenamer survived the fights, contributed with damage, healing, utility, and skills. At one point he even defeated, then healed a wyvern and talked it into owing him a blood debt and thus becoming his mount. That was around level 6.

[Cosi]

The important part was that I did not run my Truenamer as if his class was his defining end all, be all.

I don't mean to be rude, but if you played a character whose behavior wasn't based on his class, why should we weigh that when considering the power of the class he nominally was?


Utterances are nice, UMD is fantastic, but skills like Diplomacy and Knowledges were what caused me to become the de facto party leader.

As far as I can tell, the Truenamer does not get Diplomacy:


Concentration, Craft, Perform (oratory), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually), Truespeak, Use Magic Device.

It's possible that this was fixed in errata or something, but my copy of the book doesn't list Diplomacy.

I can understand why you'd be confused, as you are advised to take Diplomacy by the authors, but it is not one of your class skills.


I know the 10d6 doesn't look like a lot of damage when you've got blender rogues who are throwing out 6 attacks in a round with two weapon fighting able to potentially get that amount in sneak attack damage for each of those attacks....but when the target is immune to piercing damage, or ridiculously resistant to slashing, or what have you that untyped damage that Truenaming does Really comes in handy.

Blender Rogues should generally be employing flasks of various sorts to maximize DPS.


Oh, and my truenamer was the one who killed the big bad of the campaign. An epic level red dragon with multiple extra hp pool hacks. With a book full of explosive runes, a willingness to read them himself, being within 10 feet of the dragon, and making himself immune to sonic damage.

The Truenamer does not learn explosive runes, and the ability to read is common to nearly every class. It seems like the large majority of what your character accomplished could have been achieved by an Expert of similar level.

[digiman619]

Yeesh. And I thought I was loquacious...


No, you're Digiman619. Silly dwarf :smalltongue:

Fun fact: I'm a member of the SCA (a medival recreation group) and my society name is Akbar the Loquacious.

[Grod_The_Giant]

a Beguiler with a single Prestige Domain and an Eternal Wand of substitute domain who worships the Sovereign Host. Three times a day, he can swap into any domain his god(s) grant, and subsequently cast its spells freely. That's probably good enough to move him up a Tier, and it's roughly the same optimization as a Truenamer is doing.
Nitpick: Eternal Wands are arcane-only; you'd need a normal wand.

[Cosi]

Nitpick: Eternal Wands are arcane-only; you'd need a normal wand.

Really? TIL.

In any case, to nitpick right back, you could get an Eternal Wand crafted by a character with Alternative Spell Source, or by a Wyrm Wizard.

[Sagetim]

I don't mean to be rude, but if you played a character whose behavior wasn't based on his class, why should we weigh that when considering the power of the class he nominally was?



As far as I can tell, the Truenamer does not get Diplomacy:



It's possible that this was fixed in errata or something, but my copy of the book doesn't list Diplomacy.

I can understand why you'd be confused, as you are advised to take Diplomacy by the authors, but it is not one of your class skills.



Blender Rogues should generally be employing flasks of various sorts to maximize DPS.



The Truenamer does not learn explosive runes, and the ability to read is common to nearly every class. It seems like the large majority of what your character accomplished could have been achieved by an Expert of similar level.

As I recall, Diplomacy was errata'd in, and yeah this is why I wasn't trying to argue for it being any particular tier. I just wanted to share a bit of my experience with playing a truenamer. The only other time I ran one was in a world's largest dungeon game that only lasted about 2 sessions. The one room we didn't look up in, is where the fiendish darkmantles were and they dropped on and nearly murdered our fighter. For level 1, Truenamer worked fine. 2d6 damage on offense, a little fast healing on defense, and a mace to threaten things with.

I definately wouldn't put it as a tier in the 1 to 3 range, because most of what I did with it relied on utilizing and exploiting the capabilities of other classes in item format, or using skills. But in utilizing, exploiting, and abusing the capabilities of other classes with skills and class abilities, the Truenamer has a baseline of capability that keeps it above tier 6, at least. And while I don't really have any strong or decent arguments to support it, I agree with the others who are saying it's tier 4. That sounds about right. It's got some really wicked tricks that you can pull off with it's abilities, and some of them get overlooked because their raw damage isn't some bucket of dice and modifiers. It's probably not going to shine on it's own, but as part of a team (which the vast majority of player characters are) it has a role to play that it can do well: Party face and secondary support. The healing it provides goes up in dc, but that's per target. So if you want to help the real party support hang on to their spells longer, you can fix people, npcs, mounts, pets, familiars, and so on up between fights without having to blow wand charges or spell slots for the day. It's not going to take the place of a primary damage dealer like the rogue, but it could help one out with a bit of extra giant middle finger untyped damage to whatever the rogue is hitting to help kill it faster.

[eggynack]

Seems about time to put up results. Tier three for binder, DFA, and warlock, four for shadowcaster, five, very close to four, for truenamer. Really interesting stuff this thread. Binder and DFA held their old tier, as expected, warlock switched it up, which was reasonably expected, and then truenamer and shadowcaster were pretty tricky to judge. Most interesting is the standard deviation though. Truenamer got .64, second only to the monk, but the numbers in general were aberrantly high, with DFA and warlock also running above .5. It all speaks to a highly controversial and interesting set of tierings, which matches my experience of things.

So, next thread. Not quite sure yet what I'ma be doing for that. We have options though. I could run another mundane melee thread. Haven't done much of that lately, I don't think. Incarnum and aura classes seem a bit off the table here, cause it strikes me as samey for some reason, and high tier casters are like that as well. We could do something psionic. Lotsa good setups for that. The metaphorical suggestion box is open and such. As always, it shall be up on the morrow.

[Bucky]

Slow progression casters with full BAB, such as Hexblade, Paladin and Ranger?

[Lans]

I don't think its silly to assume you won't get any kind of tricks. But those tricks are very clearly a form of optimization, and a Truenamer using them has to be compared to other optimized characters. If we let the Truenamer get free optimization because otherwise it sucks, we've given up on the idea of equal optimization.

Why not compare it to other classes in the same tier with optimization? If the Beguiler happens to gets more out of optimization, that could be explained by it being in a higher tier to start with. I think the Truenamer is 4.5 so it would be more appropriate for me to compare it to other classes that I think are tier 4.5 Such as Marshal, Fighter, PHB Barbarian, and adept.

Does this sound reasonable to you?

[Gildedragon]

Slow progression casters with full BAB, such as Hexblade, Paladin and Ranger?

Seconding this. They're pretty interesting.

[DEMON]

I'm not gonna vote on the ToM classes, but I'd like to add another vote to the Warlock and DFA being T3s.

They have their differences, both pros and cons, that were already discussed heavily in this thread, but I think overall they both deserve a T3 spot.

[eggynack]

Seconding this. They're pretty interesting.
Seems reasonable. Any other classes fall into that pile?

[Canine]

Seems reasonable. Any other classes fall into that pile?

Paying less attention to BAB, in the home base thread I had suggested Ranger/Paladin/Sohei as the divine half-casters, Hexblade/Spellthief/Duskblade as the arcane half-casters. Might have room for them all in 1 thread? Psychic Rogue/Psychic Warrior/Lurk would be the psionic equivalent group.

[Soranar]

hexblade, ranger, paladin and duskblade?

[eggynack]

hexblade, ranger, paladin and duskblade?
Forgot that we hadn't done duskblade. Sohei and spellthief do indeed seem to fit also. I just checked and it looks like I can fit all six in a thread title, so that could be a workable lineup. It seems like those six want to go together in some fashion, without much in the way of external classes, and folks seem to dislike three and three unless necessary, so that pile seems fine.

[Troacctid]

Yes, definitely prefer doing six in one.