Retiering the Classes: Evangelist, Favored Soul, Healer, Mystic, Spont. Cleric

[eggynack]

Here be the pseudo-clerics. Most of them are more similar to each other than classes that tend to fill out these groups, with all but the healer as more or less spontaneous versions of the cleric in different formats. Healer is significantly different, but it hangs out here by dint of being one of the last classes with basically nothing but casting that we're going to cover. Really, it'd just be the spontaneous clerics thread without it, but healers are neat and such.

Evangelist (Dragon Magazine #311, 52): Here's the first of the spontaneous clerics. This one is the most domain focused on the list, with most of its spells known coming from a wide array of domain choices.

Favored Soul (CDiv, 6): This is spontaneous cleric classic, with no domains at all, an above average number of basic spells known, and some nifty class features running around.

Healer (MH, 8): While oft maligned for its spell list with very little besides inferior-to-cleric healing, along with a massive bump from gate at the top of the list, the healer actually has a surprising amount of useful stuff. The companion, especially in its higher level incarnations, offers a whole bunch of magical utility, and sanctified spells from the book of exalted deeds and champions of valor alike grant a pretty smooth casting progression across a variety of niches.

Mystic (DCS, 47): And we're back to spontaneous clerics. This one lands between favored soul and evangelist in terms of reliance on domain spells, with fewer base spells known supplanted by a single domain.

Spontaneous Cleric (UA (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm)): And here we have a completely straightforward spontaneous cleric. Just straight up the cleric if it were spontaneous. In the domain dependency scale, which is seemingly the primary differentiating feature here, this one lands between mystic and evangelist.




What are the tiers?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



The Threads

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


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


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


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


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


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


The 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 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 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 Slow Casting Melee Folk: Duskblade, Hexblade, Paladin, Ranger, Sohei, and Spellthief (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?521476-Retiering-the-Classes-Duskblade-Hexblade-Paladin-Ranger-Sohei-Spellthief)


The Rankings
Evangelist: Tier two

Favored Soul: Tier two

Healer: Tier three

Mystic: Tier two

Spontaneous Cleric: Tier two


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

[Zombulian]

Wow. Never even looked at the Evangelist or the Mystic before. Interested to see how people weigh in on them.

[eggynack]

Wow. Never even looked at the Evangelist or the Mystic before. Interested to see how people weigh in on them.
I strongly suspect they're both going to get a lot of tier twos, like the favored soul and spontaneous cleric. None are likely to hit one, cause they're not better than high end tier two classes, and none are likely to hit three either, cause they're quite a bit better than those. Healer's the only one that seems plausibly controversial, which might be one of the better reasons to have included it. It's liable to get shifted upwards, but whether it gets shifted to three or four is up to the will of the masses.

[Anthrowhale]

Favored Soul, Mystic, and Evangelist are all gimped by one level for spell access. Healer (prepared) and Spontaneous Cleric are not. Spontaneous Cleric and S. Druid are the only spontaneous classes not gimped by a level in spell access that I know of.

Healer, Favored Soul, Mystic, and Evangelist all lose Turn Undead. (Mystic can regain it by choosing Sun domain.)

Evangelist probably has ~3 domains in practice, S Cleric 2, Mystic 1, Favored Soul and Healer 0. Favored Soul however has ~2 domains worth of extra spells known.

Favored Soul, Mystic, Healer, and Evangelist lose heavy armor proficiency. Healer loses medium armor also.

Healer is deeply gimped by the spell list. It's a chassis to add high level spells known via dipping domain granting prestige classes or sanctified spells. With that, probably Tier 3.5, noticeably worse than a Warmage.

Favored Soul, Mystic, and Evangelist are probably tier 2.

Spontaneous Cleric is better than these by an increment. It can persist spells from level 1 via divine metamagic or use other DMM and the advanced spell access is chronically useful even if it's only domain spells. For example a a human spontaneous cleric using the divine magician ACF with DMM[Twin] Sunstroke could inflict no save no type 4d6 damage with fortitude saves to avoid exhaustion at level 1. Overall, tier 1.75.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Evangelist: 1.5. This one really depends on domain selection, but you can end up with so many spells that you have functionally as many solutions are a tier one. Choose your domains poorly and you are pretty gimped. You don't feel the level loss as much given how crazy your list can get.

Favored Soul: 2. Dual stat casting and no domains really hold this back vs a cleric, but the list it casts off of is still strong.

Mystic: 2. One domain is nice but no turn/rebuke unless you take a specific domain is not fun. Ultimately what you lose vs cleric compared to what you gain is not worth it.

Healer: Not sure TBH. I am inclined to say 2 because it can do some cool things with exalted spells are some of those companions are awesome.

Spontaneous Cleric: 1.5. It all comes down to domain choices. Choose one with amazing spells that you will want often and you can hold your own with the ones. Don't? Down with the twos.

[eggynack]

Healer: Not sure TBH. I am inclined to say 2 because it can do some cool things with exalted spells are some of those companions are awesome.

I'm kinda doubtful you could get to two. The good companions come online when you're already halfway through the game, and the spell list is good but not necessarily better than, like, a bard or something. Or a somewhat optimized warmage. I put them at three personally. They get a good amount of variety, and some quantity of strength, but not a ton of variety or a ton of strength. Everything else I have pegged at straight up two, though I suppose there's like a .5 of wiggle room.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Of the classes listed Healer is the only one I have not used. The rest of these come from experience, so I would defer to people who have actually used the healer. I can honestly say that I have seen evangelists and spontaneous clerics keep pace with equally optimized clerics. Evangelist has a massive and functionally unique list. They are bad at the buff spells divine magic is noted for since DMM is off the table, but there are a good number of spells ro directly affect a foe and some domains are quite powerful. The goal for both is to pick domains that are not redundant with each other and offer many spells that are not on the cleric list. Consider there are five domains that offer Polymorph Any Object as a spell and 4 that offer Shapechange (one domain offers both) and consider how many situations you can solve using just those two spells. Then consider evangelist has 4-5 more domains to work with.

[Cosi]

The Favored Soul is Tier Three. The Cleric list is good, but it's very often good either in concert with DMM (which the Favored Soul doesn't get) or because you get all the spells (which the Favored Soul doesn't get). Then you don't get domains, and you don't get to be SAD. You're like a Sorcerer, except your first level spells are bless and divine favor instead of color spray and sleep. You're also very likely to be mandated to pick up spells like restoration or raise dead which, while necessary for the party, aren't doing you any favors in combat. In Jormengand's thread, Giles had to go super deep to get a list that was about as good as what the Beguiler wakes up with. That's not Tier Two.

[Gemini476]

So the Evangelist gets two domains at level 1, +1 at 5/10/15/20. That ends up at six domains, which is a lot!

Here's the catch, though: with some notable exceptions (Elder Evil's Sertrous (comes with free [Vile] feats!), Eberron's Sovereign Host, and clerics worshiping an ideal), most gods don't have six domains. I think it's usually closer to fiveish, maybe?
Except for Core gods, because they're the only ones that are actually assumed to be part of the setting and thus get bunches of new domains whenever a new list comes out. Pelor goes from having four domains in Core to nine with splatbooks and twelve with Dragon Magazine.

I'm not sure why they went for +1/5 levels, really, when the standard PHB number of domains is 4?
Especially when you've got stuff like Deities and Demigods suggesting that

A deity has at least three domains. Deities can have more than three domains if they possess the Extra Domain salient divine ability.
This isn't really a problem with the variant's power as much as I just find it a puzzling design decision, though.


Also, well, unless you're worshiping one of the big three (Sertrous, Sovereign Host, an ideal) then you're kind of going to be pigeonholed eventually by what god you choose. If you choose Vecna because you like the look of Knowledge and Magic, well, I hope you like the Evil domain.
Not that this stops you from being really powerful, it's just that if you're not careful it's easy to end up with a "wasted" class feature. (That comes at, like, level 20. So you'll multiclass or prestige out before then, probably.)
It's a weird design issue, really, since the sixth domain you grab is almost by definition going to be the least attractive one. It's not really that much of a capstone.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Or it is the other one with a sexy 9th and not much else to speak of. Also funnily enough there is a god, Lastai, with one domain. Clerics of Lastai are just stuck in Limbo for their second domain choice. As an interesting note: evangelists get so many domains they can afford to grab a meh domain with an amazing power and still make it work (Pride comes to mind).

[eggynack]

The Favored Soul is Tier Three. The Cleric list is good, but it's very often good either in concert with DMM (which the Favored Soul doesn't get) or because you get all the spells (which the Favored Soul doesn't get). Then you don't get domains, and you don't get to be SAD. You're like a Sorcerer, except your first level spells are bless and divine favor instead of color spray and sleep. You're also very likely to be mandated to pick up spells like restoration or raise dead which, while necessary for the party, aren't doing you any favors in combat. In Jormengand's thread, Giles had to go super deep to get a list that was about as good as what the Beguiler wakes up with. That's not Tier Two.
I don't think the comparison is as bad as you're claiming. You're not generally getting bless and divine favor instead of color spray and sleep. You're getting bless, divine favor, and some third spell of your choice instead of just color spray or sleep. Y'know, at levels besides first. Sorcerers do significantly better in the comparison when it comes to first level spells. In any case, you get two or three times as many spells of any given spell level. And they're worse spells, sure, but not so much worse to justify a tier drop given that advantage, in my opinion. Meanwhile, favored soul is a lot better than any tier three class. The bard is significantly behind, and other classes are naturally going to be further back. Favored soul might be the worst tier two or close to it, but it's way closer to the second worst tier two than it is to the best tier three.

[Beheld]

I don't think the comparison is as bad as you're claiming. You're not generally getting bless and divine favor instead of color spray and sleep. You're getting bless, divine favor, and some third spell of your choice instead of just color spray or sleep. Y'know, at levels besides first. Sorcerers do significantly better in the comparison when it comes to first level spells. In any case, you get two or three times as many spells of any given spell level. And they're worse spells, sure, but not so much worse to justify a tier drop given that advantage, in my opinion. Meanwhile, favored soul is a lot better than any tier three class. The bard is significantly behind, and other classes are naturally going to be further back. Favored soul might be the worst tier two or close to it, but it's way closer to the second worst tier two than it is to the best tier three.

Warmage is leaps and bounds better than Favored Soul, that's probably Tier 3.

[eggynack]

Warmage is leaps and bounds better than Favored Soul, that's probably Tier 3.
I don't really agree with that claim. Favored soul offers a significantly wider variety of spells, and cleric spells ain't half bad at combat neither.

[Cosi]

I don't think the comparison is as bad as you're claiming. You're not generally getting bless and divine favor instead of color spray and sleep. You're getting bless, divine favor, and some third spell of your choice instead of just color spray or sleep.

You're the party divine caster, that spell is pretty sharply mandated to be cure light wounds. And what third spell is covering that hole? Your spells are offensively anemic, and unlike a Cleric, you're not following that up with Domains or Turning.


Sorcerers do significantly better in the comparison when it comes to first level spells. In any case, you get two or three times as many spells of any given spell level. And they're worse spells, sure, but not so much worse to justify a tier drop given that advantage, in my opinion.

Really? Because color spray versus bless, spiritual weapon versus glitterdust, or stone shape versus stinking cloud seems pretty loose to me. And while you get more spells, you have to burn those slots on divine caster utility stuff like remove disease or break enchantment, which cuts you down some.

Also, more but worse spells suggests a comparison to the Beguiler, which doesn't look great. The out of the bag Beguiler compared pretty well to the Favored Soul last time, even when the Favored Soul was pulling from every splat imaginable.

[Anthrowhale]

For cleric list value, this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=13287007&postcount=2) is a good reference.

level 1: Sanctuary (+summons), Cause Fear
level 2: Sound Burst [AOE damage+stun], Silence, Hold Person
level 3: Nauseating Breath, Blindness, Hesitate (immediate action will-or-lose)

[Beheld]

I don't really agree with that claim. Favored soul offers a significantly wider variety of spells, and cleric spells ain't half bad at combat neither.

It's really easy to claim that when you and everyone who advocates that refuses to ever actually present the spells. But as soon as someone presents actual spells they think are as good as a Warmage, they have to dive 17 books and present a single specific character concept that is the only Favored Soul comparable to a Warmage.

The same amount of optimization results in Warmages casting from multiple domains and a bloodline, and having their own decent spells too.

[Zancloufer]

So not sure about Evangelist or Mystic (will have to look them up) anyway.

First Favoured Soul is a Tier 2. Dual stat casting and somewhat delayed progression hurt, but saying it is VASTLY inferior to the Sorcerer is a bit harsh. First as mentioned they have 2-3 times as many spells known as the Sorcerer does. A HUGE advantage is that a FS learns 3 spells when they gain a new spell level vs the 1 a Sorcerer does. They also cap at 6 spells known by the time Sorcerers hit 4. Even if you say that Arcane spell X is better than Divine Spell X, Y and Z (unlikely) you also have the Chassis to consider. FS gains d8 HD, 3/4 BAB and all good saves. They also get some half decent DR, free feats with their deity's chosen weapon and eventually gain Ex flight. Even saying that the Sorcere has better seplls they know ALOT LESS of them and get complete crap for a chassis and class features, especially vs the FS. Solid tier 2
Also who said you HAD to be the party heal bot? It's like saying "Sorcerer gets crap spells per day cause they have to learn those niche arcane spells that are sometimes useful".

Healer is probably a tier 3. They are REALLY GOOD at healing. Like the can heal all the things. Their Unicorn mount gives them some extra options and at high levels they do gain a few silly spells.

Spontaneous Cleric is tier 2. They know the same number of spells as the FS but they gain Turn Undead and two domains. Also worth nothing while they technically do not have delayed progression 2 of your spells known (and the first two spells you know of each new level) are from your domains. So they actually have slightly less flexibility in choosing spells known.

[Cosi]

level 1: Sanctuary (+summons), Cause Fear

cause fear is already on the Sorcerer's list, and people don't take it over color spray or silent image (and something the Dread Necromancer gets for free). Having one of your three spells at 1st level be something that locks you out of offense seems pretty weak to me.


level 2: Sound Burst [AOE damage+stun], Silence, Hold Person

sound burst and hold person are solid. silence is something the the Beguiler gets for free.


level 3: Nauseating Breath, Blindness, Hesitate (immediate action will-or-lose)

nauseating breath is roughly as good as stinking cloud, except its SpC instead of core. blindness seems less good than glitterdust, which the Sorcerer had for two levels already. hesitate is good, but is also a thing the Beguiler just gets for free.

[eggynack]

You're the party divine caster, that spell is pretty sharply mandated to be cure light wounds. And what third spell is covering that hole? Your spells are offensively anemic, and unlike a Cleric, you're not following that up with Domains or Turning.
I mean, you can just get a wand, at least at slightly later levels, and use cure minor to handle stabilizing. Gotta point out, I might be mistaken, but really low level cleric spells have always seemed a bit mehdiocre to me. Thirds are where it seems to start getting really good, and it's largely solid from there on. As you note below, the color spray to bless comparison is pretty anemic for the soul.



Really? Because color spray versus bless, spiritual weapon versus glitterdust, or stone shape versus stinking cloud seems pretty loose to me. And while you get more spells, you have to burn those slots on divine caster utility stuff like remove disease or break enchantment, which cuts you down some.

It seems a lot like you're counting the capacity to heal as a downside, which strikes me as odd. Either the spells are good, in which case you can take them and that's an advantage, or they're bad, and you don't take them. There might be some kinda healer's onus perspective here, but that doesn't seem like a particularly important perspective for tiering. But, in any case, while the comparison between, say, stone shape and stinking cloud is likely sorcerer favored, the comparison between stone shape, dispel magic, and, I dunno, animate dead? Blindness? Seems quite possibly favored soul... favored. You could even make that last spell remove whatever. Whole kinda utility the sorcerer isn't bringing to the table. The sorcerer is ahead, very likely, but these comparisons you're suggesting, where the favored soul is doing a kinda worse thing with their "main" slot, then a second thing that's also kinda worse, and then maybe healing or doing a totally different third thing with their third slot, seems pretty solid for the favored soul.


Also, more but worse spells suggests a comparison to the Beguiler, which doesn't look great. The out of the bag Beguiler compared pretty well to the Favored Soul last time, even when the Favored Soul was pulling from every splat imaginable.
The beguiler compared well, but it wasn't precisely soaring over by leaps and bounds. I got to around where I got with the sorcerer, which is that the beguiler is favored for maybe half of levels, and the soul is favored for the other half. Diminishing optimization hurts the favored soul, but I doubt the beguiler is ever pulling by that many levels ahead. The dread necromancer is probably pulling ahead by even fewer levels, maybe a couple levels behind at high op and a couple levels ahead at low op. I mean, there's a reason I was so in favor of beguiler for tier two, and it's because the class was consistently dominating just about any tier two class, even when those classes were optimized. It's really no surprise that the favored soul would be in a similar position.


It's really easy to claim that when you and everyone who advocates that refuses to ever actually present the spells. But as soon as someone presents actual spells they think are as good as a Warmage, they have to dive 17 books and present a single specific character concept that is the only Favored Soul comparable to a Warmage.
The Giles list featured a whole lot of alternative options, as I recall. Meaning you're not strictly reliant on one particular build but rather on a lot of possible subsets. I'm not really cleric list presenting guy, y'know? I'm more like, hey, that cleric list someone else produced is convincing, guy. And it was a very convincing list. Least as far as I'm concerned.

[J-H]

Does anyone else prefer Healer as a spontaneous whole-list caster? If someone wanted to play a healer in one of my games, I'd allow it.

[Beheld]

The Giles list featured a whole lot of alternative options, as I recall. Meaning you're not strictly reliant on one particular build but rather on a lot of possible subsets. I'm not really cleric list presenting guy, y'know? I'm more like, hey, that cleric list someone else produced is convincing, guy. And it was a very convincing list. Least as far as I'm concerned.

"If I just provide literal maximum optimization to this ****ty dual attribute caster, it's almost as good as a warmage that took weapon focus on 8 different weapons! This proves that Favored Souls are Tier 2 because spell list is the only thing I ever look at and I refuse to consider equal optimization"

Sure thing buddy.

[Anthrowhale]

..Dread Necromancer ... Beguiler

You are switching comparators on the fly which seems likely to cause confusion in comparisons. FS needs to be notably better than only 1 T3 class or approach just one T2 class to be judged T2.


cause fear is already on the Sorcerer's list, and people don't take it over color spray or silent image

Cause Fear is less impressive than Color Spray, but it's in the same realm unlike Divine Favor as you were pointing out. You trade AoE for single target but lose the geometric constraints of little cones and gain a debuff on save.



Having one of your three spells at 1st level be something that locks you out of offense seems pretty weak to me.


Sanctuary is a level 1 spell for later levels. Many problems can be solved via Sanctuary + summon monster spam.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Low-level Cleric spells can be a bit anemic, sure, but it starts kicking up at higher levels. Just in the 3rd/4th level spell range, you've got things like Animate Dead, Blindness/Deafness, Locate Object, Speak with Dead, Clutch of Orcus, Nauseating Breath, Tremor, Death Ward, Dismissal, Divination, GMW, Lesser Planar Ally, Wall of Sand, Wrack, and the Summon Monster line is starting to get good*. And you definitely do get enough spells known to take a downtime spell or two and not cripple your combat casting-- I'd say a minion spell, a divination, and two combat spells of each level is enough to surpass the Warmage, and that's not really touching on the remaining two situational spells you can take later on.


*List generated by taking a few minutes to quickly scan the PHB and SpC. That's certainly easy-low optimization.

[Troacctid]

Or it is the other one with a sexy 9th and not much else to speak of. Also funnily enough there is a god, Lastai, with one domain. Clerics of Lastai are just stuck in Limbo for their second domain choice.
I assume you're actually stuck in whatever plane you pick for your Planar Domain! Either that or you're taking Divine Magician, or the Incarnum domain.

I think most Evangelists are probably going to want to worship a pantheon!


It's really easy to claim that when you and everyone who advocates that refuses to ever actually present the spells. But as soon as someone presents actual spells they think are as good as a Warmage, they have to dive 17 books and present a single specific character concept that is the only Favored Soul comparable to a Warmage.

The same amount of optimization results in Warmages casting from multiple domains and a bloodline, and having their own decent spells too.
Remember that Favored Souls have a little extra leeway compared to the Warmage because they have a beefier chassis giving them a better baseline competency level before bringing their spells in. (Much like Beguiler does compared to Sorcerer.)

[eggynack]

"If I just provide literal maximum optimization to this ****ty dual attribute caster, it's almost as good as a warmage that took weapon focus on 8 different weapons! This proves that Favored Souls are Tier 2 because spell list is the only thing I ever look at and I refuse to consider equal optimization"

Sure thing buddy.
If you have a massive array of possible spell lists, then you obviously don't require maximum optimization. And, as always, warmage, baseline, can only do about two things. Blast, and BFC. They can do the first quite well, and the second pretty well. A favored soul can absolutely do those things, and also a lot of other things. I mean, jeez, the core third level spell list includes animate dead, dispel magic, and stone shape. That seems to easily stand up to the warmage's two really good BFCs and only blasting after that. And then a level later the comparison becomes more in the favored soul's favor. And, keep in mind, the blasting spells aren't adding a niche. They're expanding on one that was already present. Fourth level spells are similar. One high quality BFC spell, and then all blasting. We're still at literal two things. The favored soul is casting lesser planar ally at this level if they're optimized, and a solid array of spells from a lot more categories than two if they're not. You can buff, heal, defend, have mobility, see the future, and control the battlefield. All on an only reasonably optimized favored soul build.

I've looked at both lists. The cleric list, picking at least three and generally more spells of each spell level, is significantly better. Way more versatile, frequently more powerful, and the ceiling is pretty great too.

[Cosi]

Also who said you HAD to be the party heal bot? It's like saying "Sorcerer gets crap spells per day cause they have to learn those niche arcane spells that are sometimes useful".

Someone has to deal with downtime healing. Eggy is right that between encounter HP restoration can come from a wand, but scrolls of raise dead get expensive eventually.


I mean, you can just get a wand, at least at slightly later levels, and use cure minor to handle stabilizing.

True, but then you get another problem -- you probably don't need cure light wounds at 7th, but you might need it at 1st, and swapping is minimal. This is a big disadvantage for the organic Favored Soul. Recall that Giles' list didn't have anything to remove status conditions below heal.


The beguiler compared well, but it wasn't precisely soaring over by leaps and bounds.

The Beguiler compares well when you ignore the various random utility options it gets, most of the advanced learning, and the possibility to use feats/Knowstones/Prestige Domains. And this was to a Favored Soul pulling from everything from the Book of Vile Darkness to web content to Dragon Magazine.


FS needs to be notably better than only 1 T3 class or approach just one T2 class to be judged T2.

I don't think either of those really holds. The first assumes we have a class that sits a the ceiling of Tier Three, which I think is unlikely, and the second assumes that there's a a well defined worst Tier Two, which I also doubt. Absent that, it's reasonable to look at the overall comparisons, then ask whether the class is sufficiently worse to land a tier down.


Cause Fear is less impressive than Color Spray, but it's in the same realm unlike Divine Favor as you were pointing out. You trade AoE for single target but lose the geometric constraints of little cones and gain a debuff on save.

The AoE seems like a much bigger deal than partial effects. Also, you're still pretty spatially constrained by close range.


Sanctuary is a level 1 spell for later levels. Many problems can be solved via Sanctuary + summon monster spam.

That sounds pretty resource intensive for an unimpressive effect. summon monster is not a terribly good spell, and the number of slots you spend on something like that seems prohibitive.


Just in the 3rd/4th level spell range, you've got things like Animate Dead, Blindness/Deafness, Locate Object, Speak with Dead, Clutch of Orcus, Nauseating Breath, Tremor, Death Ward, Dismissal, Divination, GMW, Lesser Planar Ally, Wall of Sand, Wrack, and the Summon Monster line is starting to get good*.

A lot of those seem pretty situational for a spontaneous caster to be throwing slots at.

[Grod_The_Giant]

A lot of those seem pretty situational for a spontaneous caster to be throwing slots at.
Um, what? I'll give you Locate Object, Death Ward, and Dismissal are probably later-game picks, but everything else is rock-solid, widely-useful spells.

[Troacctid]

Yeah, Animate Dead and Summon Monster are like the opposite of situational.

[Cosi]

Um, what? I'll give you Locate Object, Death Ward, and Dismissal are probably later-game picks, but everything else is rock-solid, widely-useful spells.

speak with dead, and divination too (less so). Getting downtime spells is a little rough as well, though less than for the Sorcerer. The combat stuff looks to be equivalent to middle of the pack Wizard spells.


Yeah, Animate Dead and Summon Monster are like the opposite of situational.

animate dead sure. summon monster may be non-situational, but it's also just not very good.

[Zombulian]

Does anyone else prefer Healer as a spontaneous whole-list caster? If someone wanted to play a healer in one of my games, I'd allow it.

I would be inclined to agree, but a lot of people argue that Sanctified spells are more important.

[Beheld]

Yeah, Animate Dead and Summon Monster are like the opposite of situational.

Animate Dead is something only stupid spontaneous casters take as their limited spells known because you get the same utility out of not being able to cast it and having a scroll. It's also like Planar Binding in that it ****s on them because it's an off day spell. It also ****s on them like Planar Binding in that it requires other spells to be used well, eating more spells known.

In a world where Animate Dead and Planar Binding were balanced, no spontaneous caster would ever know them, the only reason that people still do point to them is because Animate Dead and Planar Binding are broken, so you can break the game in half if your DM lets you, so in a situation like this, the same people that when talking about Tiering warblades say "Yeah but if a Wizard casts Animate Dead to make mininos that can beat you in a fight, he's an ******* and your DM should punch him" will now say "Of course 100% of all Favored Soul Builds have Animate Dead and create Fire Giant Skeletons at level 6. DUHHHHHHH!"

Of course, none of that changes that if you are willing to do the actual work and optimization of Animate Dead to make it worthwhile, a Warmage Uttercold Assault Necromancer who also has Animate Dead is much much much better at it than a Favored Soul at every level.


Summon monster is just garbage and everyone who likes that spell line and thinks it proves how good a spontaneous caster is that they can prepare and cast Summon Monster spells is basically just writing about how they should be ignored for sound advice in Tier threads.

[Anthrowhale]

Does anyone else prefer Healer as a spontaneous whole-list caster? If someone wanted to play a healer in one of my games, I'd allow it.

It certainly would work much better this way. Healing is fundamentally a reactive strategy which is exactly what spontaneous whole-list casters are good for.

I remain skeptical that FS is a T3. Some support for this is given by the niche ranking system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?314701-Person_Man-s-Niche-Ranking-System) which puts Sorcerer at 29, FS at 32, Beguiler at 37, DN at 49, and Warmage at 56. It's easy for me to believe that DN, Beguiler, or Warmage have an edge at the things they are designed for, but FS is not far behind in those categories and it can master several others besides.

[Cosi]

I remain skeptical that FS is a T3. Some support for this is given by the niche ranking system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?314701-Person_Man-s-Niche-Ranking-System) which puts Sorcerer at 29, FS at 32, Beguiler at 37, DN at 49, and Warmage at 56. It's easy for me to believe that DN, Beguiler, or Warmage have an edge at the things they are designed for, but FS is not far behind in those categories and it can master several others besides.

The Favored Soul spell list has a bunch of stuff on it, but any particular Favored Soul has only a few of those options. What's more, classes like the Warmage or Dread Necromancer are pretty adept at expanding their spell lists in various ways.

[eggynack]

True, but then you get another problem -- you probably don't need cure light wounds at 7th, but you might need it at 1st, and swapping is minimal. This is a big disadvantage for the organic Favored Soul. Recall that Giles' list didn't have anything to remove status conditions below heal.
Again, this seems to posit the presence of healing on the favored soul list as a disadvantage. I don't see it that way at all. If not taking healing spells would let the favored soul be tiered better, then that's a thing they can do. If healing is so ridiculously vital that not taking it is suicidal, then that seems like a massive advantage over a beguiler, who doesn't have healing at all.



The Beguiler compares well when you ignore the various random utility options it gets, most of the advanced learning, and the possibility to use feats/Knowstones/Prestige Domains. And this was to a Favored Soul pulling from everything from the Book of Vile Darkness to web content to Dragon Magazine.
The comparison still doesn't seem crazy slanted. A favored soul with a few books feels like it'd be a decent amount behind a reasonable beguiler, and maybe even with a dread necro. I think the beguiler drop off range is surprisingly consistent. You have like five excellent spell levels, and then they drop off some. A favored soul at first level is going to be behind a first level beguiler whether the favored soul is core only or pulling from every book in existence. A favored soul at, say, 12th or 14th, is quite possibly going to be ahead even in core only.


I don't think either of those really holds. The first assumes we have a class that sits a the ceiling of Tier Three, which I think is unlikely, and the second assumes that there's a a well defined worst Tier Two, which I also doubt. Absent that, it's reasonable to look at the overall comparisons, then ask whether the class is sufficiently worse to land a tier down.
The tier three ceiling comparison supposes the existence of some things that people aren't going to all agree upon. The tier two floor argument requires way less. If you can pick a tier two class and show this class is better, then it doesn't matter if the original tier two is the floor.

I would be inclined to agree, but a lot of people argue that Sanctified spells are more important.
Yeah, I'd probably put spontaneous fixed list healer at tier four, while the prepared healer using sanctified spells is tier three in my opinion. The sanctified list is really really good. It's the difference between the healer covering one niche very well and maybe another in kinda mediocre fashion until 12th level, and the healer covering like six or seven niches, maybe more, and doing so quite competently. While still being good at healing.


Animate Dead is something only stupid spontaneous casters take as their limited spells known because you get the same utility out of not being able to cast it and having a scroll. It's also like Planar Binding in that it ****s on them because it's an off day spell. It also ****s on them like Planar Binding in that it requires other spells to be used well, eating more spells known.
You'd get the same utility out of scrolling animate dead if doing so weren't mad expensive. You're spending like 625 GP for one at minimum caster level. And varying the price is way more expensive too. The favored soul can pay less for a weaker zombie, or get a stronger zombie later without paying a premium. You need to match caster level to scale up, and scaling down is always 625 GP, as far as I can tell. It's a lot more costly. Which is bad. There's a reason we don't just call rogues as good as wizards and call it a day, and it's because UMD can't be the answer to everything. Yeah, you can get some zombies running around as a not favored soul, but zombies die, and then you have to pay the scroll premium again. It adds up, and way faster than onyx costs. Planar binding is even more costly, especially if we're not just going for a single highest order usage. This strikes me as a kinda bad plan.

[Cosi]

Again, this seems to posit the presence of healing on the favored soul list as a disadvantage. I don't see it that way at all. If not taking healing spells would let the favored soul be tiered better, then that's a thing they can do. If healing is so ridiculously vital that not taking it is suicidal, then that seems like a massive advantage over a beguiler, who doesn't have healing at all.

Healing isn't a disadvantage per se, but it dampens the advantage of getting more spells. The party needs someone to cure ability damage, negative levels, death, or whatever other crappy things happen because people roll poorly in high level fights. As those spells are available to the Favored Soul, she is likely to be pressured to take them. At the same time, they are fundamentally reactive in character, which means that when the adventure doesn't involve Bodaks or Wights, she's down a spell. Also, those spells are often redundant with higher level versions (e.g. lesser restoration v restoration, raise dead v true resurrection), but you're stuck with them eating up spells known.


I think the beguiler drop off range is surprisingly consistent. You have like five excellent spell levels, and then they drop off some.

Your list drops off, but the Beguiler is better than almost any other class in the game (and certainly better than any spotaneous caster) at expanding that list. Is your sixth level list getting you down? Go grab a domain with acid fog or planar binding.


The tier three ceiling comparison supposes the existence of some things that people aren't going to all agree upon. The tier two floor argument requires way less. If you can pick a tier two class and show this class is better, then it doesn't matter if the original tier two is the floor.

Sure, but what class is this better than?

[eggynack]

Healing isn't a disadvantage per se, but it dampens the advantage of getting more spells. The party needs someone to cure ability damage, negative levels, death, or whatever other crappy things happen because people roll poorly in high level fights. As those spells are available to the Favored Soul, she is likely to be pressured to take them. At the same time, they are fundamentally reactive in character, which means that when the adventure doesn't involve Bodaks or Wights, she's down a spell. Also, those spells are often redundant with higher level versions (e.g. lesser restoration v restoration, raise dead v true resurrection), but you're stuck with them eating up spells known.
I mean, it dampens the advantage if and only if you take them. You can theoretically take none of them, or nearly none of them. It's one of the things I actually liked about the Giles build, that the class is just being posited as this standard caster as opposed to one bound to a ton of healing. Because, yes, going deep on healing does lead to all these problems, and I think it's because the favored soul might just mostly suck at healing. Could make more sense in narrower environments, but the optimal list probably eschews most healing pretty fast.



Your list drops off, but the Beguiler is better than almost any other class in the game (and certainly better than any spotaneous caster) at expanding that list. Is your sixth level list getting you down? Go grab a domain with acid fog or planar binding.
I was mostly talking the three or so book version. The domain comparison version would maybe go to six or seven, and pick up some of the more wonky stuff, which would make the new comparison not all that bad.



Sure, but what class is this better than?
I dunno. Was just supporting the model. I could see dread necromancer, maybe. That class was at like eight out of twenty levels better than sorcerer, while beguiler was like ten to twelve. The favored soul might get pushed back to ten, which would support rough equality.

[Kurald Galain]

While I like the theory of picking domains you want, in practice this is sharply limited by what deities are available, and you most likely won't be able to get exactly the domains you want. Certainly not if there are three or more of those; and in a number of campaign worlds you can just worship a concept or a pantheon either. That means I'll vote tier 2 for both evangelist and spont.cleric.

Favored soul is clearly below the sorcerer, so gets a tier 3 from me; the cleric list really benefits from switching your spells each day, and the fave soul cannot do that (and has some MADness to boot). I'd say the same applies to the mystic.

Healer strikes me as markedly worse than all the tier-3 classes, so that makes it tier 4. I'm discounting Gate given that it's so high level that most campaigns will never see it anyway.

[Beheld]

You'd get the same utility out of scrolling animate dead if doing so weren't mad expensive. You're spending like 625 GP for one at minimum caster level. And varying the price is way more expensive too. The favored soul can pay less for a weaker zombie, or get a stronger zombie later without paying a premium. You need to match caster level to scale up, and scaling down is always 625 GP, as far as I can tell. It's a lot more costly. Which is bad. There's a reason we don't just call rogues as good as wizards and call it a day, and it's because UMD can't be the answer to everything. Yeah, you can get some zombies running around as a not favored soul, but zombies die, and then you have to pay the scroll premium again. It adds up, and way faster than onyx costs. Planar binding is even more costly, especially if we're not just going for a single highest order usage. This strikes me as a kinda bad plan.

1) You get like, basically no utility at all out of being able to cast it multiple times a day or multiple days in a row. There is in fact, not more utility, but in fact a loss of utility, in casting it to animate a small thing. The only acceptable use of Animate Dead is gathering together all your CL bonuses and corpses into one big piles and then poofing the whole goddam thing together.

2) You are basically lying when you say that casting animate dead as a Rogue costs 625gp. It costs 375gp. The Favored Soul has to pay the rest himself when casting it, he's not making that money out of nothing, he's spending it exactly the same.

3) 2200gp is how much a Runestave that casts Animate Dead and Desecrate once per day costs. Buying that and handing it to a Warmage or Beguiler or Sorcerer is like 100% of the benefit of a Favored soul in 2200gp, since the Favored Soul is a dumpster on fire outside of Animate Dead compared to any of those classes.

4) A Rogue doesn't bring 100% of the benefit of a Favored Soul in a scroll, only like, 95% of one. But if 95% of your spell known can be replaced by a guy with a scroll, and what you gave up to get that spell known was insanely worse spells at every single level forever, and the worst possible casting metric, then you gave up to much.

5) For people who actually play with Animate Dead (instead of whining about how it's unfair to point out that Warblades are useless because no one should be allowed to cast Animate Dead, until it becomes convenient to argue otherwise) the actual limitation on Animate Dead is worthwhile corpses that are worth carrying around with you breaking even the concept of stealth for your group. If you have a couple of those, you definitely have the 375gp or more to pay for a scroll. If you don't have those, then the spontaneous caster with Animate and Desecrate on their list are wasting slots, and if they are Favored Souls, feeling bad about the fact that besides that thing a Cleric gets for free by waking up, they are also like a Sorcerer who broke their brain, lost 3 points on DC, some spells per day, and then casts off a worse list.

[eggynack]

1) You get like, basically no utility at all out of being able to cast it multiple times a day or multiple days in a row. There is in fact, not more utility, but in fact a loss of utility, in casting it to animate a small thing. The only acceptable use of Animate Dead is gathering together all your CL bonuses and corpses into one big piles and then poofing the whole goddam thing together.
The capacity to do a different thing is the opposite of less utility. Also, if that's the only utility to animate dead, you're gonna be paying significantly more than 625 GP.


2) You are basically lying when you say that casting animate dead as a Rogue costs 625gp. It costs 375gp. The Favored Soul has to pay the rest himself when casting it, he's not making that money out of nothing, he's spending it exactly the same.
That's not lying at all. Both sides pay some money. What, am I supposed to assume the favored soul is just getting this free because they have a significant marginal advantage? That gets you further from truth.


3) 2200gp is how much a Runestave that casts Animate Dead and Desecrate once per day costs.
Better strategy than scrolls. Still a meaningful premium. Also, we're out of core and with a specific item at this point. Kinda wonky use of the item as well.

Since the Favored Soul is a dumpster on fire outside of Animate Dead compared to any of those classes.

Animate dead was like the third or fourth spell that I was talking about picking, and it was in the maybe pile. The cleric list has a ton of great spells.


4) A Rogue doesn't bring 100% of the benefit of a Favored Soul in a scroll, only like, 95% of one. But if 95% of your spell known can be replaced by a guy with a scroll, and what you gave up to get that spell known was insanely worse spells at every single level forever, and the worst possible casting metric, then you gave up to much.
What I'm getting from this is that you apparently know very little about the cleric list, if you think it's just animate dead.

[Zaq]

I agree that the discussion seems to be heading in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" direction for healing. Either it's good, in which case it's an asset if the character in question has it, or it's not good, in which case the character in question doesn't have to take it (yes, there may be "pressure" from partymates, but that isn't actually the class's problem).

Anyway, I'm going to attempt to be brief. The fact that I don't have access to the books with the Evangelist or the Mystic will probably help in that regard, since I obviously can't rate what I can't see.

Favored Soul: I have to be honest—the Cleric list is my least favorite of the Big Three. I really like the Wizard list and the Druid list a lot better than the Cleric list. However, I do recognize that the Cleric list is pretty good overall, but I'd much rather have spontaneous access to one of the other two.

The Favored Soul has a decent chassis. Decent BAB, decent HD, decent armor, and three good saves, though they're quite deficient in the skill department. Their non-spell class features are fairly worthless when looking at Complete Divine (Wings come online way too late to matter, and everything else is forgettable), though I like Deity's Favor from PHB2 (it's not tier-changing, but it is pretty nice). Favored of the Fiends has some niche use, and Favored of Bahamut/Favored of Tiamat can grant a very small number of Sorcerer spells known, which isn't to be ignored entirely.

The FS gets a large number of spells known compared to most other spontaneous casters (not counting the full-listers like the Beguiler). This doesn't entirely make up for the lack of downtime spells that a normal prepared divine caster can use, but it does help them take a little bit more in the way of utility spells or situational spells. Still, it's not hard to run out of room; you'll basically always want more spells than you have. I definitely do appreciate that they never know fewer than 3 spells of any given level, though.

Split-stat casting is obnoxious on someone with the Cleric list. A lot of the good offensive spells are entirely negated on a save, so it's hard to want to rely on those . . . and while it's possible (probably even smart) to rely primarily on buffs and other spells that have no saving throw, that's definitely a limitation that a Cleric doesn't have to deal with.

Lack of domains is also bad news. Domains grant a lot more utility to the Cleric than we always like to admit.

Overall, my gut tells me that it's acceptable to keep the FS in its traditional slot of T2. It's not a super high T2, but even if I like the Cleric list less than the Wizard list or the Druid list, you can still solve a lot of problems with the spells the FS gets. You're always behind the Cleric, and no one is denying that, but you've still got a lot of magic, and you've got less of an opportunity cost to learning new spells than many other spontaneous casters experience. Even if a prepared caster will almost always be better (at least at anything above minimal levels of optimization), there are relatively few problems that a well-built FS (by which I mean just taking strong spells at every level, nothing more) can't even attempt to help with. Add in a handful of game-breakers at 9ths, and I think T2 is about where they belong.

Spontaneous Cleric: I'm really trying to be brief here, so I think we can pretty much copy over the majority of what I said for the FS over to the Spontaneous Cleric. The Spontaneous Cleric is definitely stronger (Turn Undead, domains, single-stat casting), but they both live and die on their spells, and they both have acceptable access to a fine list. The lack of flexibility keeps the Spontaneous Cleric below a real Cleric, but I think T2 makes sense here as well.

Healer: It's tempting to rhapsodize about this one for a long time, but I actually do have things to do. The Healer's printed list is ridiculously limited (they basically don't even get many protective buffs—it's pretty much all healing and condition removal), and the fact that they have to prepare their healing spells is downright obnoxious. That said, as everyone here knows, access to Sanctified spells (their "invisible" list) makes a pretty nice difference, though it must be admitted that it's not an "obvious" (or low-op) choice to dive into the Sanctified list. (It can be accessed at any time, of course, since it doesn't require any build-level choices that haven't already been baked in by choosing Healer, but a low-op player will not know to look for or use Sanctified spells.)

Their non-pet class features are a bit strange. Healing Hands can be nice at low levels if you have a high point-buy, but it doesn't really scale. The "free condition removal 1/day" line of features is very thematically nice, but the levels at which things come can seem a bit random or out-of-date. (For example, Cleanse Disease, which mimics a 2nd level spell, comes before Cleanse Fear, which mimics a 1st level spell; a similar situation occurs with Cleanse Spirit and Cleanse Petrification.)

The unicorn is probably their nicest feature overall, and having a highly intelligent and magical pet is a rewarding experience. It doesn't really break the Healer out of their permanent support role (nothing wrong with being a support character, of course, but it's still a bit of a limitation), but it's not nothing.

Because I need to go do other things, I think I'll just lay down a gut ruling of T3½. Their non-Sanctified spells get them up to about T4½ (they're very good at healing if they have the right spells prepared, but they can't really do much other than healing (which, of course, is purely reactive), and they do run the risk of having the wrong healing spells prepped). The extra tier comes from the unicorn and their Sanctified spells. The unicorn comes relatively late, which is definitely a downside, and Sanctified spells require higher-than-baseline system knowledge (not to mention a certain investment in ways to deal with the sacrifice costs, though Healers certainly have easy access to spells that deal with that sort of thing), which is why I think they don't belong in T3 proper.

I may reevaluate later, but this will do for now.

[Anthrowhale]

The Favored Soul spell list has a bunch of stuff on it, but any particular Favored Soul has only a few of those options. What's more, classes like the Warmage or Dread Necromancer are pretty adept at expanding their spell lists in various ways.

What's wrong with this argument: "The Sorcerer spell list has a bunch of stuff on it, but any particular Sorcerer has only a few of those options. What's more, classes like the Warmage or Dread Necromancer are pretty adept at expanding their spell lists in various ways." (If anything?)

[Beheld]

What's wrong with this argument: "The Sorcerer spell list has a bunch of stuff on it, but any particular Sorcerer has only a few of those options. What's more, classes like the Warmage or Dread Necromancer are pretty adept at expanding their spell lists in various ways." (If anything?)

Nothing, the Beguiler and Dread Necromancer are definitely better than the Sorcerer. The Warmage starts from not as good, so it's more a question of optimization.

Of course, most of the problem is that if you actually compare a Favored Soul to a Sorcerer, the Favored Soul is garbage.


The capacity to do a different thing is the opposite of less utility.

The capacity to do things that hurt you is not a capacity with any value, trap options are bad, casting animate dead on a random humanoid corpse you run across is a trap option that hurts you.


Better strategy than scrolls. Still a meaningful premium. Also, we're out of core and with a specific item at this point. Kinda wonky use of the item as well.

"Kind of wonky use of an item that let's you cast a spell to use it to cast a spell." "Meaningful premium!" (basically nothing, to replace literally 100% of the reason you would even consider Favored Soul over any other of these casters)


Animate dead was like the third or fourth spell that I was talking about picking, and it was in the maybe pile. The cleric list has a ton of great spells.

What I'm getting from this is that you apparently know very little about the cleric list, if you think it's just animate dead.

So we are back to "They totally have really good spells that I just refuse to ever mention, and you are an idiot if you don't fish through dragon magazines with your Favored Soul for spells, but no Warmage has ever taken Arcane Disciple or a Prestige Domain in the history of the universe!"

Yeah, your continued reference to the totally awesome spells that are as good as what Beguilers and Warmages and Sorcerers are doing with their Single Stat Casting, but refusal to ever even mention a single one is pretty classically you, but still not convincing.

[eggynack]

The capacity to do things that hurt you is not a capacity with any value, trap options are bad, casting animate dead on a random humanoid corpse you run across is a trap option that hurts you.
Crap minions have utility. You can use them to trigger traps and occasionally eat an errant punch, and at low HD the spell is pretty cheap.




So we are back to "They totally have really good spells that I just refuse to ever mention, and you are an idiot if you don't fish through dragon magazines with your Favored Soul for spells, but no Warmage has ever taken Arcane Disciple or a Prestige Domain in the history of the universe!"

Yeah, your continued reference to the totally awesome spells that are as good as what Beguilers and Warmages and Sorcerers are doing with their Single Stat Casting, but refusal to ever even mention a single one is pretty classically you, but still not convincing.
The Giles list that he's posted a few times (I think he even links to it in his sig) has a ton of spells from a ton of sources, not just a few spells from a few obscure sources. And people, including me, have been posting good spells this whole time. You just seem to be kinda ignoring them. I mean, third level core spells also include dispel magic, stone shape, blindness, and even magic circle as a reasonable defensive buff. Fourth level spells include lesser planar ally, SM IV (which seems like one of the better ones, premised largely on mephits though supported by the other options available), freedom of movement, and air walk. And then fifth level spells have plane shift, raise dead, wall of stone, and true seeing. The warmage is getting nowhere close to this breadth and depth of utility.

[Anthrowhale]

Nothing, the Beguiler and Dread Necromancer are definitely better than the Sorcerer. The Warmage starts from not as good, so it's more a question of optimization.

So, I think there is a point of order here. Is the tier system about the scope of problems that the class can be used to overcome? Or is it about the scope of problems that individual character taking the class can overcome? Traditionally, I think the first interpretation has been applied, but it's not unreasonable to use the second. There are nearly the same for Beguiler/DN/Warmage, but rather different for Sorcerer or Favored Soul.

[eggynack]

So, I think there is a point of order here. Is the tier system about the scope of problems that the class can be used to overcome? Or is it about the scope of problems that individual character taking the class can overcome? Traditionally, I think the first interpretation has been applied, but it's not unreasonable to use the second. There are nearly the same for Beguiler/DN/Warmage, but rather different for Sorcerer or Favored Soul.
Second. First strikes me as kinda useless. Do I have something on this already? I should probably if I don't currently.

Edit: I think it's implied? Could plausibly be clearer.

[Cosi]

I mean, it dampens the advantage if and only if you take them. You can theoretically take none of them, or nearly none of them. It's one of the things I actually liked about the Giles build, that the class is just being posited as this standard caster as opposed to one bound to a ton of healing. Because, yes, going deep on healing does lead to all these problems, and I think it's because the favored soul might just mostly suck at healing. Could make more sense in narrower environments, but the optimal list probably eschews most healing pretty fast.

The thing is, the party needs those spells. High level combat is lethal, and just not taking the spells you need to deal with that isn't an option. The reason that the Cleric has the casting mechanic it does is to allow you to solve those problems and also having a real character.


I was mostly talking the three or so book version. The domain comparison version would maybe go to six or seven, and pick up some of the more wonky stuff, which would make the new comparison not all that bad.

Eh. The only explicit comparison I've seen used way more books than that. If you want to throw down a 3 book (say core + Spell Compendium + Complete Divine) Favored Soul, I would be interested in seeing that.


What's wrong with this argument: "The Sorcerer spell list has a bunch of stuff on it, but any particular Sorcerer has only a few of those options. What's more, classes like the Warmage or Dread Necromancer are pretty adept at expanding their spell lists in various ways." (If anything?)

Nothing. That's pretty much my position on the issue.


So, I think there is a point of order here. Is the tier system about the scope of problems that the class can be used to overcome? Or is it about the scope of problems that individual character taking the class can overcome? Traditionally, I think the first interpretation has been applied, but it's not unreasonable to use the second. There are nearly the same for Beguiler/DN/Warmage, but rather different for Sorcerer or Favored Soul.

I don't see the point of ranking the capabilities of the class in the abstract. You don't play the abstract platonic ideal of a Sorcerer, you play some particular Sorcerer who has or does not have specific spells. Your character doesn't get any more power because there are different character with the same class you could have been any more than it gains power for there being other characters with the same feat or magic item you could have played but didn't.

[Zombulian]

So... I know that PrC's aren't factored into this but... Evangelist + Sovereign Speaker would be nutty.

[ZamielVanWeber]

So... I know that PrC's aren't factored into this but... Evangelist + Sovereign Speaker would be nutty.

Spontaneous cleric is better for this actually. I have done it and it was hilarious.

[Zombulian]

Spontaneous cleric is better for this actually. I have done it and it was hilarious.

Oh... Oh no. So... An Evangelist is essentially a Spontaneous Cleric without Turn Undead that has Sorc spell progression that gets new domains at 5, 10, 15, 20?

[Beheld]

So I typed up a huge reply, and then apparently accidentally clicked somewhere on a button that just deletes your entire reply and replaces it with your last post? That seems like a dumb thing to have.

Anyway long story short, look at how that sample Favored Soul you presented is complete garbage in combat, because you keep focusing on how many things a character can do instead of those things being actually worthwhile.

A warmage is better out of the book than the Favored Soul with all those spells you presented. Much better.

Even before he picks up for example, all the calling spells including magic circle and dimensional anchor with a feat, or the travel domain, ect.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The thing is, the party needs those spells. High level combat is lethal, and just not taking the spells you need to deal with that isn't an option. The reason that the Cleric has the casting mechanic it does is to allow you to solve those problems and also having a real character.
The party does need to have access to recovery spells somehow, sure; the Favored Soul isn't very good at it. I don't think we judge the Bard or Paladin too harshly for being bad healers, so it seems disingenuous to blame the Favored Soul for not being able to master every role simultaneously.

But anyway, how 'bout this 10th level Favored Soul spell list, using just the PHB + SC? (Chosen in this approximate order)

1st: x6 Cause Fear, Bless, Obscuring Mist, Protection from Evil, Sign, Shield of Faith
2nd: x6 Hold Person, Close Wounds, Deific Vengeance, Divine Insight, Silence, Zone of Truth,
3rd: x5 Animate Dead, Nauseating Breath, Dispel Magic, Speak with Dead, Stone Shape
4th: x4 Lesser Planar Ally, Divination, Wrack, Hand of the Faithful
5th: x3 Plane Shift, Wall of Stone, Flame Strike

[eggynack]

The thing is, the party needs those spells. High level combat is lethal, and just not taking the spells you need to deal with that isn't an option. The reason that the Cleric has the casting mechanic it does is to allow you to solve those problems and also having a real character.
It could always just be a different character that isn't you. I mean, is this really where we are right now? "The favored soul would be tier two, except it has all these healing spells on its list." That's kinda the argument you're making. The situation is incredibly rare where I would rank a class down because it has too many spells on its list.



Eh. The only explicit comparison I've seen used way more books than that. If you want to throw down a 3 book (say core + Spell Compendium + Complete Divine) Favored Soul, I would be interested in seeing that.
I've mostly just been poking around with core stuff, with the assumption of the other SpC stuff that's been discussed. Seems pretty solid. I guess it could be worth doing something more in depth. Wonder when Giles gon' be here. Feel a bit like I been weirdly talking for him, as a crazy cleric mouthpiece.


so I typed up a huge reply, and then apparently accidentally clicked someone where there's a button that just deletes you entire reply and replaces it with your last post? That seems like a dumb thing to have.
It just kinda reloads whatever thing you had before. It's nice when you accidentally close out of the tab, cause it lets you recover that stuff where it wouldn't have been there before. I think it's probably saved more of my posts than it's killed.


Anyway long story short, look at how that sample Favored Soul you presented is complete garbage in combat, because you keep focusing on how many things a character can do instead of those things being actually worthwhile.

A warmage is better out of the book than the Favored Soul with all those spells you presented. Much better.
Some of those spells I listed are solid in combat contexts. Stone shape has a bunch of combat utility, as does SM IV, as does blindness, as does dispel magic. Not to mention that spell that's basically just stinking cloud, apparently. Are you quite as good at directly engaging in combat? Probably not. But you're good at it, and you're also really good at a lot of other things. As well as some more complex fight stuff.

Edit: @Grod: Does zone of truth not suck? I kinda feel like it sucks, because you have so little assurance that the information you're getting is true. Like, even if they don't know about the zone, and answer your questions consistently under the assumption that they're going to be lying, they could still just be lying. I suppose the situation where it has utility is, like, you cast it a few times and ask them to try to say the assumed lie, and then you just hope the statistical truth is close enough. But that seems a bit involved.

Double-edit: Oh, and still contend that SM IV would make a good pick. It's like a whole bunch of reasonable level spells. You get tongues and brief magic circle out of archon, and then gust of wind, wind wall, soften earth and stone, pyrotechnics, stinking cloud, and glitterdust, as the good ones. So, one fourth, a few thirds, and a bunch of seconds. Combine that with decent beat stickery, and I think you have a solid choice. And that's assuming the book restriction holds for monster choice. Some of the monster manuals have some really great stuff.

[MHCD]

Evangelist, Mystic, Spontaneous Cleric: These are all close enough to a cleric to be analogous to wizard:sorcerer. Slightly different class features don't mean as much as the fact that you have a full spellcasting from a great list attached to a good chassis. They all drop from "Cleric" status, but none drop to "Bard" level. They all sit pretty comfortably in T2, some even pushing the high end.

Favored Soul: I have to be honest: - I don't understand the hate. Just because it isn't the wiz/sorc spell list doesn't mean you don't have all the options you need to stay an effective and formidable force. The split casting isn't cool, but it doesn't cripple your character, nor make you much more MAD than a cleric anyway - and that's if you even want to focus on spells with DCs. And let's not forget that even with unimpressive class features, you still get great saves, casting in medium armor, and maybe good use of a martial or exotic weapon. While not enough on its own, surely the massive improvement over a sorcerer chassis and class features should help place them into the same tier when added to full casting from the cleric list.

And regarding arguments about further limiting spells known for healbot duties Zancloufer had the correct response. We don't penalize the sorcerer by assuming he must have spent his spells known on disguise self, comprehend languages, and hide from undead - because that's what the party needed him to do (nor do we say changeling rogues drop a tier for trading away trapfinding in a social-heavy campaign with another trapfinder in the group, for that matter). He or someone else in the party can use wands; the party can share resources invested in raising each other from the dead; another party member can cast healing spells (since when are we saying the FS is the only divine spellcaster allowed in the group?); heck, he can even just choose a healing-ish spell known every couple levels and still fulfill that role alright without suddenly dropping a tier, because he's a full caster with a nice chassis choosing from a great spell list, who also has access to feats and items like everyone else. Even if one thinks they don't look as powerful or even as versatile as a comparably optimized sorcerer, do they really fit in more at the level of martial adepts? T2.

Healer: Another vote here for the side-discussion of "there's nothing wrong with making healers spontaneous set-list casters". I'm more just somewhat weirded out by dealing with a full spellcasting class with such a limited list, that I tend to stay away from them - but they don't suck at what they do, so vanilla healer is T4. Sanctified spells offer enough versatility (and a bit of a power boost) to bump that up to T3. As that's not a separate class variant or ACF, I don't think they need to be judged separately, so I'll vote healers in T3, since that's a resource that's very easily available even with a "low" level of optimization.

[Anthrowhale]

Second. First strikes me as kinda useless. Do I have something on this already? I should probably if I don't currently.

Edit: I think it's implied? Could plausibly be clearer.

First has uses. The second beguiler in a party adds little, but the second sorcerer could add a lot.

Anyways, with this interpretation I understand better where Cosi & Beheld are coming from. A Beguiler really is pretty good within it's domain. A high level high optimization Sorcerer probably dominates a high level high optimization Beguiler at the Beguiler's thing, but below level 10 or so, I'd expect a Beguiler is better at the Beguiler thing. And with more reasonable levels of optimization that may extend indefinitely.

I'm not sure that makes FS Tier 3 though. You want to argue that the FS is no more capable than a Warmage? I'm still skeptical about that. FS has such a wide array of spells to choose from that it's hard to rule out Beguiler levels of capability. Pointing to low end spells like Divine Favor sure doesn't do that.

[Zancloufer]

Here is one other thing for the FS in comparison to the Warmage or the Sorcerer. In the first few earlier levels (>level 6) when your spells per day kinda suck and you end up running out of them what do you do? Yes the Warmage and Sorcerer get better offence at the earlier levels for the 1-2 spells/encounter they cast, but after that? Ping away at someone with d4/6 hd, low BaB and crap weapon proficients? A FS taking the right deity gets 3/4 BaB, d8 HD, medium armour, shields and Weapon Focus in a decent martial/exotic weapon. When the spells run out the FS can still wail on enemies to some effect. I mean they are no fighter, but they can do stuff like make 2-4 enemies cower in fear for the rest of the encounter, or grant +1 to all allies' to hit before marching on in.

[Cosi]

1st: x6 Cause Fear, Bless, Obscuring Mist, Protection from Evil, Sign, Shield of Faith

This level is pretty clearly in the Beguiler's favor. The only things that come close to being charm person or silent image here are sign and protection from evil, and they're not nearly as good.


2nd: x6 Hold Person, Close Wounds, Deific Vengeance, Divine Insight, Silence, Zone of Truth,

You've got a single target save or lose (which is likely worse than charm person), a blast that seems deeply unimpressive (capped single target d6/level is kind of sad), a big skill check buff (which is fine, but probably not better than the Beguiler's ability to just have a bunch of skills), a Beguiler spell, and zone of truth which seems really meh -- is there a reason this isn't lesser restoration or something?


3rd: x5 Animate Dead, Nauseating Breath, Dispel Magic, Speak with Dead, Stone Shape

I don't think there's a use-case where animate dead is meaningfully better than the Beguiler's minions suite, and it's worse in social situations. nauseating breath comes in at the same level as vertigo field. dispel magic is a Beguiler spell. speak with dead seems really situational to spend a spell known on. stone shape is cool but unexceptional


4th: x4 Lesser Planar Ally, Divination, Wrack, Hand of the Faithful

lesser planar ally is probably about as good as the Beguiler's suite on raw stats, but it costs XP per use. divination is solid utility. wrack is a single target save or lose that comes at the same level as charm monster and looks terrible by comparison. hand of the faithful is basically a BFC spell that can't trap people, and it seems pretty weak.


5th: x3 Plane Shift, Wall of Stone, Flame Strike

All of these are okay (though flame strike lags the others). OTOH, the Beguiler just picked up dominate person.


It could always just be a different character that isn't you. I mean, is this really where we are right now? "The favored soul would be tier two, except it has all these healing spells on its list." That's kinda the argument you're making. The situation is incredibly rare where I would rank a class down because it has too many spells on its list.

The argument I'm making is that most Favored Souls are going to find themselves taking those spells, and that means they will get to do less things. The Favored Soul has the spells known to be good at 2.5 - 3 things, and if one of those is healing, that's not great for the class.


Edit: @Grod: Does zone of truth not suck? I kinda feel like it sucks, because you have so little assurance that the information you're getting is true. Like, even if they don't know about the zone, and answer your questions consistently under the assumption that they're going to be lying, they could still just be lying. I suppose the situation where it has utility is, like, you cast it a few times and ask them to try to say the assumed lie, and then you just hope the statistical truth is close enough. But that seems a bit involved.

It also feels like it's a little redundant in that particular list as you can just slap a sense motive bonus on yourself. That's far from perfect, but people are going to make saves or just be evasive a pretty substantial percentage of the time.


Double-edit: Oh, and still contend that SM IV would make a good pick. It's like a whole bunch of reasonable level spells. You get tongues and brief magic circle out of archon, and then gust of wind, wind wall, soften earth and stone, pyrotechnics, stinking cloud, and glitterdust, as the good ones. So, one fourth, a few thirds, and a bunch of seconds. Combine that with decent beat stickery, and I think you have a solid choice. And that's assuming the book restriction holds for monster choice. Some of the monster manuals have some really great stuff.

I think summon monster IV is a reasonable addition to your list if you already have something good going on (like evard's black tentacles). It's not something I'd rely on. It's possible the Favored Soul has enough slots to grab it though.


Anyways, with this interpretation I understand better where Cosi & Beheld are coming from. A beguiler really is pretty good within it's domain. A high level high optimization sorcerer probably dominates a high level high optimization beguiler at the Beguiler's thing,

I don't think that's true. The place I see the Sorcerer beating the Beguiler is mid-OP, where people are good enough that the Sorcerer might have potent spells like polymorph but not so good that the Beguiler is just grabbing every spell he wants like a kid in a candystore. The issue is that the Beguiler the Beguiler gets much less from just "moar books", and historically people have attempted to write Tier Systems that assume only power you get from "moar books" counts.


I'm not sure that makes FS Tier 3 though. You want to argue that the FS is no more capable than a Warmage? I'm still skeptical about that. FS has such a wide array of spells to choose from that it's hard to rule out Beguiler levels of capability. Pointing to low end spells like Divine Favor sure doesn't do that.

I think the Favored Soul is worse than everything else in Tier Two by a reasonable margin, and I think there's a real danger that if you keep putting classes in because they seem close that you'll pull the break-point down further. If you let the Favored Soul in, that makes the case for the Bard easier, which makes the case for the Warmage easier, which makes the case for the Binder easier, and so on and so forth. I think this is part of the problem with having a system that doesn't lay down a testable bright line for what goes where. If there was some standard for "being Tier Two" that you could run the Favored Soul through (some kind of gauntlet, or a benchmark "Worst Tier Two Character" to compare against), I would be much more willing to let the Favored Soul in, assuming it passed those tests.

[Beheld]

First has uses. The second beguiler in a party adds little, but the second sorcerer could add a lot.

Anyways, with this interpretation I understand better where Cosi & Beheld are coming from. A Beguiler really is pretty good within it's domain. A high level high optimization Sorcerer probably dominates a high level high optimization Beguiler at the Beguiler's thing, but below level 10 or so, I'd expect a Beguiler is better at the Beguiler thing. And with more reasonable levels of optimization that may extend indefinitely.

I'm not sure that makes FS Tier 3 though. You want to argue that the FS is no more capable than a Warmage? I'm still skeptical about that. FS has such a wide array of spells to choose from that it's hard to rule out Beguiler levels of capability. Pointing to low end spells like Divine Favor sure doesn't do that.

1) At high optimization, the Beguiler is leagues better than the Sorcerer. He's literally a Sorcerer with either the entire Cleric list at level 11, or he's a Sorcerer with like 20 spells known at every level, adding a new spell of every spell level every level. Beguiler is also better at low op, for obvious reasons. You can make an argument Sorcerer being better at some mid op point, but that usually looks to me like someone saying "Sorcerer picks good spells, and Beguiler doesn't" so I've never seen that.

2) Some specific Favored Soul might be better than some other specific Warmage, but the Warmage is genuinely good, and has access to the ability to add lots of really good spells, where the Favored Soul is casting off of two stats (and therefore ****) and casting off a spell list that ****s over the concept of known spells. With sufficient Dumpster Diving or by abusing Dumb Broken Thing X, you can be moderately okay, but there will never be a point where you are actually comparable with a Beguiler/Sorcerer at the same optimization, and for the most part you are pretty much less good to just as good as a similarly optimized Warmage.

[Zombulian]

Evangelist, Mystic, Spontaneous Cleric: These are all close enough to a cleric to be analogous to wizard:sorcerer. Slightly different class features don't mean as much as the fact that you have a full spellcasting from a great list attached to a good chassis. They all drop from "Cleric" status, but none drop to "Bard" level. They all sit pretty comfortably in T2, some even pushing the high end.

Favored Soul: I have to be honest: - I don't understand the hate. Just because it isn't the wiz/sorc spell list doesn't mean you don't have all the options you need to stay an effective and formidable force. The split casting isn't cool, but it doesn't cripple your character, nor make you much more MAD than a cleric anyway - and that's if you even want to focus on spells with DCs. And let's not forget that even with unimpressive class features, you still get great saves, casting in medium armor, and maybe good use of a martial or exotic weapon. While not enough on its own, surely the massive improvement over a sorcerer chassis and class features should help place them into the same tier when added to full casting from the cleric list.

And regarding arguments about further limiting spells known for healbot duties Zancloufer had the correct response. We don't penalize the sorcerer by assuming he must have spent his spells known on disguise self, comprehend languages, and hide from undead - because that's what the party needed him to do (nor do we say changeling rogues drop a tier for trading away trapfinding in a social-heavy campaign with another trapfinder in the group, for that matter). He or someone else in the party can use wands; the party can share resources invested in raising each other from the dead; another party member can cast healing spells (since when are we saying the FS is the only divine spellcaster allowed in the group?); heck, he can even just choose a healing-ish spell known every couple levels and still fulfill that role alright without suddenly dropping a tier, because he's a full caster with a nice chassis choosing from a great spell list, who also has access to feats and items like everyone else. Even if one thinks they don't look as powerful or even as versatile as a comparably optimized sorcerer, do they really fit in more at the level of martial adepts? T2.

Healer: Another vote here for the side-discussion of "there's nothing wrong with making healers spontaneous set-list casters". I'm more just somewhat weirded out by dealing with a full spellcasting class with such a limited list, that I tend to stay away from them - but they don't suck at what they do, so vanilla healer is T4. Sanctified spells offer enough versatility (and a bit of a power boost) to bump that up to T3. As that's not a separate class variant or ACF, I don't think they need to be judged separately, so I'll vote healers in T3, since that's a resource that's very easily available even with a "low" level of optimization.

Pretty much the same for me, I'll list them out for Eggy's convenience though (and for the sake of noting a few changes).

Evangelist: Solid 2. I've recently been very interested in adding domain lists spells known, so this class having that as a main mechanic is pretty neat (though it's a bit boring and the capstone barely counts as a capstone). No turning and the usual gimp that spontaneous casters deal with hurts a bit, but I still think with the extreme capability of expanding their spell list with well-picked domains (and hey, more domain powers kinda feels like class features), they can be very effective.

Mystic: Also 2, though a little lower down than the Evangelist. I like that they're divine casters specifically designed to eschew deities though.

Favored Soul: 2

Healer: Tier 3.5 seems most reasonable to me. I can't really make a prediction on how a spontaneous Healer would play, but I think it would be interesting, and a more fair view of their core spell list and abilities. Adding Sanctified spells can bump them up an entire tier, but Sanctified spells are from another book entirely, and some people have a problem with that (for the sake of tiering).

Spont. Cleric: 1.5. It's pretty much the whole shebang, especially if you choose your spells well. Prepared caster spell level progression is pretty sexy as well.

Edit: I'd just like to note that I love when people are talking about Beguilers and just cite them having the Cleric list with no mention of prc'ing but it's implied because why would you not be a Rainbow Servant

[Anthrowhale]

1) At high optimization, the Beguiler is leagues better than the Sorcerer. He's literally a Sorcerer with either the entire Cleric list at level 11, or he's a Sorcerer with like 20 spells known at every level,

I was assuming that we were optimizing under the constraint of Beguiler 20 which forbids these kinds of things. A Sorcerer 20 has a straightforward nova using (Greater) Arcane Fusion, Celerity, Arcane Thesis, Twin Spell, and Foresight. A Beguiler 20 does not.

[Beheld]

I was assuming that we were optimizing under the constraint of Beguiler 20 which forbids these kinds of things. A Sorcerer 20 has a straightforward nova using (Greater) Arcane Fusion, Celerity, Arcane Thesis, Twin Spell, and Foresight. A Beguiler 20 does not.

A Beguiler 20 has a straightforward infinite Solar army by Gate, Ice Assassin's out the butt, and whatever your 50 Pit Fiends at level 15 beat up and brought home to you to be charmed and diplomacied.

If your plan is to break the game at level 15-18, the game can be broken. And Beguilers have plenty of ways to do that. I'd rather focus on what happens when people actually play the game, which, again results in high optimization beguilers casting spontaneously from a much much wider list of spells.

[eggynack]

I was assuming that we were optimizing under the constraint of Beguiler 20 which forbids these kinds of things.
This is accurate, for the record. We were considering a bit of prestige classing and multiclassing before, but even then a full on ten levels would apply basically just zero upward force on the tier.

[Grim Reader]

A Beguiler really is pretty good within it's domain. A high level high optimization Sorcerer probably dominates a high level high optimization Beguiler at the Beguiler's thing, but below level 10 or so, I'd expect a Beguiler is better at the Beguiler thing. And with more reasonable levels of optimization that may extend indefinitely.


I don't think that's true. The place I see the Sorcerer beating the Beguiler is mid-OP, where people are good enough that the Sorcerer might have potent spells like polymorph but not so good that the Beguiler is just grabbing every spell he wants like a kid in a candystore.

I don't think it is so much a matter of optimization. Except inasmuch as the Sorcerer has a very low floor. Level is more important in this case, I think. I did a thread where I estimated how much of a Sorcerers resources it would take to cover the Beguiler, Dread Necromancer and Warmages domains. (And the thread seems to have gone walkabout while I was focused on work)

Anyway, I found that at low levels, it would take many times what the Sorcerers got, 3-400 % from memory. But at high levels you can do it with resources to spare.

That's not a indication of power versus power, focusing on covering other classes areas is not a good strategy.

[Anthrowhale]

A Beguiler 20 has a straightforward infinite Solar army by Gate, Ice Assassin's out the butt, and whatever your 50 Pit Fiends at level 15 beat up and brought home to you to be charmed and diplomacied.

Using class features of the Sorcerer to argue that the Beguiler is better seems counterproductive. At a minimum it costs more to get these things.

I took a look at the cleric spell list last night just to get an idea how powerful it is. It's definitely scary. Here's a proto build

"The Left Hand of Mystra"
Silverbrow Human LE Favored Soul 20
Wisdom maximized, other stats as desired.

Feats:
Human: Selective Spell
1. Extend Spell
3. Initiate of Mystra
6. Ocular Spell
9. Persistent Spell
12. Easy Metamagic[Persistent Spell]
15. Practical Metamagic[Persistent Spell]
18. Sudden Maximize

Spells (not all chosen, not deeply optimized):
1. Cause Fear: Fear 1d4 rounds Will Shaken -> Conviction: Morale+5 to ally saves for 10 minutes/level
1. Ice Slick: 20' square fall balance check for half move
1. Sanctuary: Will or can't attack.
1. Shield of Faith: Deflect+5 for minute/level
1. Sign: Init+4 in next combat 10 minute/level
2. Bewildering Substitution: Appear to swap enemy&ally for round/level Will Neg
2. Soundburst: AoE Stun Fort Neg
2. Close Wounds: Party gets 7 virtual hp as immediate action
2. Divine Insight: Any Skill+15(insight)
2. Silence: No save spellcaster problems.
3. Magic Vestment: Party has good weapons & armor
3. Alter Fortune: Reroll a save
3. Nauseating Breath: AoE Nauseate 3.5 rounds Fort neg
3. Flesh Ripper: 10d8 ranged touch (20d8+wound on critical hit)
3. Magic Circle
4. Sacred Spell: 10d4 discharge on outsiders&undead
4. Fang Trap: uncapped d4 trap
4. Consumptive Field: caster level bonus
4. Remove Fatigue: Party doesn't sleep
4. Summon Monster IV.
5. Greater Command: level creatures for level rounds
5. Spell Resistance: SR lots with Consumptive Field for Minute/level
5. Surge of Fortune: Natural 20 at will
6. Antilife Shell: Life can't approach.
6. Heal: Combat healing
6. Sarcophagus of Stone: Reflex or trap
6. Rejection: Uncapped d6 AoE Fort Neg
6. Energy Immunity: Party immune to Chosen Flavor
6. Superior Resistance: Party Resist+6
7. Dictum: Nonlawful die
7. Fortunate Fate: Party has +150hp.
7. Blasphemy: Nonevil die
7. Greater Plane Shift: Planar teleport
7. Planar Bubble.
7. Greater Harm: 40d12 Ocular attack
8. Spread of Contentment: No save Indifferent for hour/level in huge AoE. Selective[You] Spread of Contentment means hours of slaughter.
8. Stormrage: Immune ranged, wind, fly, 10d6 lightning attack 1/round.
8. Antimagic Field: I have magic. You do not.
8. Summon Monster VIII
9. Erupt: 500 Fire Fort/2 in a 1 mile radius.
9. Mass Heal: Party reset
9. Miracle: Omnispell
9. Sublime Revelry: double party hp for minute/level, immune mind-affecting
9. Gate: 50HD monsters are fun.

Scrolls: Revenance, Revivify (for blue-on-blue Consumptive Field or other applications), True Resurrection when you really need it.

Tricks:
1. Divine caster level is easily elevated via Ankh of Ascension, Prayer Bead, and Consumptive Field. It is ultra deadly via Dictum/Blasphemy.
2. Persistent Spell can be reduced by 2 levels via Practical Metamagic + Easy Metamagic.
3. Saves+5(Morale)+Saves+6(Resist), potentially for the whole party all day long. (+your own good saves)
4. Clerics have some _nasty_ single target damage spells. Combine with Ocular spell and Surge of Fortune for autodeath.
5. Sacred Item and Fang Trap are no material permanent duration deadly spells. Fang Trap does uncapped d4 damage.
6. Erupt + Energy Immunity = all bad guys vulnerable to fire are dead.
7. FS qualifies for Initiate of Mystra and can use it effectively via Persistent Consumptive Field.
8. AC+15 for the party.
9. Any skill+15.

Overall, I'm sticking with my T2 estimate. This is well beyond what you can get using only Warmage or Bard Features.

[Beheld]

Using class features of the Sorcerer to argue that the Beguiler is better seems counterproductive. At a minimum it costs more to get these things.

All of those are class features of the beguiler. Gate, Ice Assassin, Planar Binding, Dominate/Charm/Diplomacy are all class features of the Beguiler class.


Wisdom maximized, other stats as desired.

"To cast a spell, a favored soul must have a Charisma score of 10 + the spell's level (Cha 10 for 0-level spells, Cha 11 for 1st-level spells, and so forth). . . In addition, she receives bonus spells for a high Charisma."

So right off the bat you are giving up your highest level spells per day, and can't cast any spells at all because I desire a Charisma of 8. Be honest about your stat requirements, you have to invest in Charisma too.


Feats:
Human: Selective Spell
1. Extend Spell
3. Initiate of Mystra
6. Ocular Spell
9. Persistent Spell
12. Easy Metamagic[Persistent Spell]
15. Practical Metamagic[Persistent Spell]
18. Sudden Maximize

................


Spells (not all chosen, not deeply optimized):
1. Cause Fear: Fear 1d4 rounds Will Shaken -> Conviction: Morale+5 to ally saves for 10 minutes/level
1. Ice Slick: 20' square fall balance check for half move
1. Sanctuary: Will or can't attack.
1. Shield of Faith: Deflect+5 for minute/level
1. Sign: Init+4 in next combat 10 minute/level

So at level 1 you have Cause Fear as compared to Color Spray and Slightly Different Grease, And some minor buffs you won't use until later levels.

That... is a highly optimized book dive Favored Soul list. Its... roughly comparable to a Warmage and much much much worse than a Sorcerer.


2. Bewildering Substitution: Appear to swap enemy&ally for round/level Will Neg
2. Soundburst: AoE Stun Fort Neg
2. Close Wounds: Party gets 7 virtual hp as immediate action
2. Divine Insight: Any Skill+15(insight)
2. Silence: No save spellcaster problems.

I guess Soundburst would be the only thing here that constitutes a useful attack spell. I feel compelled to point out that a Warmage or Sorcerer at this level could be casting Glitterdust which is much better, but one round stuns, Fort negates is at least comparable to what a regular warmage with weapon focus for all his feats would be doing.


3. Magic Vestment: Party has good weapons & armor
3. Alter Fortune: Reroll a save
3. Nauseating Breath: AoE Nauseate 3.5 rounds Fort neg
3. Flesh Ripper: 10d8 ranged touch (20d8+wound on critical hit)
3. Magic Circle

Nauseating Breath is allegedly (I haven't looked it up) approximately as good as Stinking Cloud. Flesh Ripper is literally just an orb spell but without a status condition. Magic Vestment is at least plausibly a buff you would cast multiple times. So... about as good as a Warmage.


4. Sacred Spell: 10d4 discharge on outsiders&undead
4. Fang Trap: uncapped d4 trap
4. Consumptive Field: caster level bonus
4. Remove Fatigue: Party doesn't sleep
4. Summon Monster IV.

This is the part where you try to use Consumptive Field to break Caster level, but of course, you can't actually persist it. So you are basically just a guy who set all his 4th level slots of fire to hypothetically be better than a Warmage at some future point, but be much worse than a Warmage right now.


5. Greater Command: level creatures for level rounds
5. Spell Resistance: SR lots with Consumptive Field for Minute/level
5. Surge of Fortune: Natural 20 at will

Greater Command is your only combat spell. SR is a buff you might want to cast a lot. I'd say that you are slightly worse than a Warmage that took Weapon Focus for all his feats.


6. Antilife Shell: Life can't approach.
6. Heal: Combat healing
6. Sarcophagus of Stone: Reflex or trap
6. Rejection: Uncapped d6 AoE Fort Neg
6. Energy Immunity: Party immune to Chosen Flavor
6. Superior Resistance: Party Resist+6

Now you have some buffs that the party really appreciates, and Heal. That's not terrible. I'm not sure it's better than Acid Fog, but it's at least as good.

Sarcophagus of stone is a ref negates or be inconvenienced for one round that might conceivably defeat some enemies somewhere, but I can't think of who they would be.


7. Dictum: Nonlawful die
7. Fortunate Fate: Party has +150hp.
7. Blasphemy: Nonevil die
7. Greater Plane Shift: Planar teleport
7. Planar Bubble.
7. Greater Harm: 40d12 Ocular attack

Now we are fully in "I will have CL cheese" land, even though you won't, because you still can't Persist Consumptive Field. Nothing really worth even having here.


Tricks:
1. Divine caster level is easily elevated via Ankh of Ascension, Prayer Bead, and Consumptive Field. It is ultra deadly via Dictum/Blasphemy.
2. Persistent Spell can be reduced by 2 levels via Practical Metamagic + Easy Metamagic.
3. Saves+5(Morale)+Saves+6(Resist), potentially for the whole party all day long. (+your own good saves)
4. Clerics have some _nasty_ single target damage spells. Combine with Ocular spell and Surge of Fortune for autodeath.
5. Sacred Item and Fang Trap are no material permanent duration deadly spells. Fang Trap does uncapped d4 damage.
6. Erupt + Energy Immunity = all bad guys vulnerable to fire are dead.
7. FS qualifies for Initiate of Mystra and can use it effectively via Persistent Consumptive Field.
8. AC+15 for the party.
9. Any skill+15.

Overall, I'm sticking with my T2 estimate. This is well beyond what you can get using only Warmage or Bard Features.

Caster level shenanigans are not a Favored Soul specific trick, literally any class in the game can just have a Caster level of NI whenever they want.

Also for some reason, you choose to do this in a way where you can't persist Comsumptive Field at all until level 16.

Using a collection of TO tricks to get a result less impressive than just casting broken calling spells is really not on my list of impressive calls to how great a class is, doing so in a way that makes you basically just as good as a Warmage that takes weapon focus for all his feats for the first 15 levels, even less so.

[eggynack]

Nauseating Breath is allegedly (I haven't looked it up) approximately as good as Stinking Cloud. Flesh Ripper is literally just an orb spell but without a status condition. Magic Vestment is at least plausibly a buff you would cast multiple times. So... about as good as a Warmage.
I really don't understand how you went from that premise to that conclusion. The warmage's primary contributions from third level spells are twofold. They have BFC effects, mostly stinking cloud, and blasting, in a few reasonable varieties (and note that actual orb is a spell level away). These two favored soul spells get really close to that set of effects. Not perfectly, but quite well. And then you get three other spells that do three other things. That's a lot better, because those three other spells are quite good. The favored soul is killing enemies while also being well defended and helping the party. The warmage is basically just doing the first.



Now you have some buffs that the party really appreciates, and Heal. That's not terrible. I'm not sure it's better than Acid Fog, but it's at least as good.
This is the other main issue with the warmage. Acid fog is great. I don't think anyone really disagrees with that. But it's less great when you already have a bunch of other good BFC spells. You're not getting a shiny new effect here. You're getting yet another black tentacles or cloud kill. Is it good in some different scenarios? Sure, but we can't ignore that there's a lot of overlap here. I noted above that the warmage was doing two things to the favored soul's three to five. The issue is that at higher levels the warmage is still doing basically two things, while the favored soul is actually adding niches and effects at various levels. There's some overlap, but not nearly so much, and the result is a continuously compounding advantage over the warmage.

[Beheld]

I really don't understand how you went from that premise to that conclusion. The warmage's primary contributions from third level spells are twofold. They have BFC effects, mostly stinking cloud, and blasting, in a few reasonable varieties (and note that actual orb is a spell level away). These two favored soul spells get really close to that set of effects. Not perfectly, but quite well. And then you get three other spells that do three other things. That's a lot better, because those three other spells are quite good. The favored soul is killing enemies while also being well defended and helping the party. The warmage is basically just doing the first.

At levels 6 and 7 it has 3 spells known. Those spells are Nauseating Breath (because that's the one that is actually good), Flesh Ripper, and Magic Vestment. That's it. The Favored Soul brings fewer Nauseating Breaths than the Warmage does Stinking Clouds, and the Warmage can exchange stinking clouds blast people too, and the limited spells per day Favored Soul can FleshRipper them for mediocre damage at the cost of future Nauseating Breaths.

Orb spells without status effects are not that impressive, hell, for the sake of argument, the Warmage's Scorching Ray does 8d6+Int damage at CL 7 and that's a second level slot. I'm just not impressed with dumpster diving in 3.0 books to be a slightly worse Warmage.

Those "three other things" the Favored Soul can do it a) Can't do at these levels, and b) aren't very good, c) are apparently only two things based on this list.

Being able to cast Magic Circles is worth about 1/9th of a feat to a Warmage, and that same feats gives Planar Binding. It's not worthless, but it's also not something the Favored Soul can even do at level 6-7.


This is the other main issue with the warmage. Acid fog is great. I don't think anyone really disagrees with that. But it's less great when you already have a bunch of other good BFC spells. You're not getting a shiny new effect here. You're getting yet another black tentacles or cloud kill. Is it good in some different scenarios? Sure, but we can't ignore that there's a lot of overlap here. I noted above that the warmage was doing two things to the favored soul's three to five. The issue is that at higher levels the warmage is still doing basically two things, while the favored soul is actually adding niches and effects at various levels. There's some overlap, but not nearly so much, and the result is a continuously compounding advantage over the warmage.

That's basically a lie. This Favored Soul is still doing the same thing. Lighting all your spell slots on fire to give Magic Vestment to the party and then standing around while everyone else does all the fighting is not a different thing than lighting all your spell slots on fire to give Superior Resistance and Magic Vestment to the Party and then standing around while everyone else does all the fighting. Those are basically the same thing.

[lord_khaine]

A little late to the discussion, but noticed a few things i felt should be commented on.


3) 2200gp is how much a Runestave that casts Animate Dead and Desecrate once per day costs. Buying that and handing it to a Warmage or Beguiler or Sorcerer is like 100% of the benefit of a Favored soul in 2200gp, since the Favored Soul is a dumpster on fire outside of Animate Dead compared to any of those classes.

No its not, there isnt any Runestave that casts Animate Dead and Desecrate.
So something that requires DM permission like custom magic items are really not relevant for tiering something in a neutral setting. It would be the same as using a reasearched spell that combined those two effects for tier evaluation.


The party does need to have access to recovery spells somehow, sure; the Favored Soul isn't very good at it. I don't think we judge the Bard or Paladin too harshly for being bad healers, so it seems disingenuous to blame the Favored Soul for not being able to master every role simultaneously.

Yeah, getting though especially level 1-4 without healing spells can be a real chore. I thing having access to those spells are a boon, especially when you cant really afford other sorts of healing.


lesser planar ally is probably about as good as the Beguiler's suite on raw stats, but it costs XP per use. divination is solid utility. wrack is a single target save or lose that comes at the same level as charm monster and looks terrible by comparison. hand of the faithful is basically a BFC spell that can't trap people, and it seems pretty weak.

Yeah, i also think Charm Monster looks terrible in comparison. I mean all it does is to end the combat, or at least put it on pause while the charm lasts.

[Beheld]

No its not, there isnt any Runestave that casts Animate Dead and Desecrate.
So something that requires DM permission like custom magic items are really not relevant for tiering something in a neutral setting. It would be the same as using a reasearched spell that combined those two effects for tier evaluation.

HAHAHA, but in fact, Favored Souls don't exist at all, so they are Tier (N/A).

I mean, if blatantly lying is the new stock in trade for Tier arguments, this is going to get old fast.

Making a scroll of Superior Resistance is not exactly like writing an entirely new spell.


Yeah, i also think Charm Monster looks terrible in comparison. I mean all it does is to end the combat, or at least put it on pause while the charm lasts.

"Planar Ally is great because and super powerful and high class because it gets you a temporary minion for a few days. But Charm Monster is terrible, because all it does is give you a permanent friend, and those suck." Sure thing.

[eggynack]

Orb spells without status effects are not that impressive, hell, for the sake of argument, the Warmage's Scorching Ray does 8d6+Int damage at CL 7 and that's a second level slot. I'm just not impressed with dumpster diving in 3.0 books to be a slightly worse Warmage.
I mean, if you can be a slightly worse warmage and still be a bunch of other things, that strikes me as impressive relative to said warmage.


Those "three other things" the Favored Soul can do it a) Can't do at these levels, and b) aren't very good, c) are apparently only two things based on this list.
Alter fortune isn't the best at lower levels, but it still has a bunch of utility. When it works, it's the difference between life and death, and that's a significantly higher XP cost. Magic circle and vestment seem somewhat distinct to me, meanwhile.



Being able to cast Magic Circles is worth about 1/9th of a feat to a Warmage, and that same feats gives Planar Binding. It's not worthless, but it's also not something the Favored Soul can even do at level 6-7.
If you spent your feat on that, sure. Favored souls can spend feats too though, and magic circle is a surprisingly low optimization portion of this seemingly higher end focused build. Meaning, I could just kinda have the soul pick up breath, circle, and some solid third thing, and we're in a three book environment that isn't ideal for these spells known adding situations. Third thing could even be animate dead, and we're still in core+SpC.



That's basically a lie. This Favored Soul is still doing the same thing. Lighting all your spell slots on fire to give Magic Vestment to the party and then standing around while everyone else does all the fighting is not a different thing than lighting all your spell slots on fire to give Superior Resistance and Magic Vestment to the Party and then standing around while everyone else does all the fighting. Those are basically the same thing.
The build has things besides buffs. It's not my favorite setup though. Honestly, I feel like the mostly core setup I was proposing could be a better argument for the relatively variety filled favored soul, and that the Giles build is a better argument for an even more variety filled high op cross-book cleric. That build did a ton of stuff.

[Beheld]

I mean, if you can be a slightly worse warmage and still be a bunch of other things, that strikes me as impressive relative to said warmage.

Except that just like every other time you've said this, you are wrong, because this is a super optimized Favored Soul, and it's literally worse than a Warmage because it has fewers spells per day and requires 3rd level slots to blast as well as level 2 Warmage slots, and it can't do anything at all that the Warmage can't do.


If you spent your feat on that, sure. Favored souls can spend feats too though, and magic circle is a surprisingly low optimization portion of this seemingly higher end focused build. Meaning, I could just kinda have the soul pick up breath, circle, and some solid third thing, and we're in a three book environment that isn't ideal for these spells known adding situations.

1) Favored Souls can spend feats and get significantly less out of them, for example, this builds somehow manages to spend an entire 20 levels worth of feats and get one dumb TO trick that comes online at level 16 out of it.

2) Yes, if you have Breath, Circle, and "some solid third thing" then you are basically just much worse than a Warmage. This is your Tier 2 masterpiece. A Much much worse warmage with fewer spells per day trying really hard to manage to compete with a Warmage.


The build has things besides buffs. It's not my favorite setup though. Honestly, I feel like the mostly core setup I was proposing could be a better argument for the relatively variety filled favored soul, and that the Giles build is a better argument for an even more variety filled high op cross-book cleric. That build did a ton of stuff.

If you are going to cite to a non-existent build for literally 100% of your arguments can you just link it one time.

[GilesTheCleric]

I'll talk about Clerics and Cleric-alikes generally, then get to the ratings, since the differences between each class are apparent.

As far as primary casters go, the Cleric class probably has the highest floor, only second to the Druid. The Cleric list, however, has a pretty low floor. Many of the spells are reactive. That said, it's one of the Big 3 lists, and it gets a ton of splat support, not to mention a lot of highly powerful spells right in core for those with some system mastery.

I see Cleric-alikes as being in one of three places: heal bots with the occasional miracle in the hands of the fourth player invited to join the group; DMM builds, because everyone knows about DMM; and optimised builds that utilise the Cleric list and class-based boons rather than Druid or Wizard. I think 95% of Clerics land somewhere between the first two categories.

Turning
There are at least 44 feats that utilise Turn Undead, more than 15 PrCs (Haven't finished analysing those yet, so I don't have a final tally), and a decent handful of items. Not to mention that DMM can apply to many MM feats, not just Quicken, Extend, or Persist. I think that Turn Undead alone offers enough power and flexibility to take a class to T4 or T3 by itself with enough optimisation, much the same way as Wild Shape can.

Domains
Here's another place where Clerics gain a whole lot of heft. There's probably somewhere around 200-300 different domains (too lazy to cut duplicates from my spreadsheet to count right now), with a huge range of different ways to customise the class. For just about any niche you can think of, a domain exists to support your specialisation. And, domains aren't just useful for the spells. There's all sorts of great granted powers, such as Pride, Magic, Travel, Trickery... And of course there's the omnipresent Spell domain, with the incredible Anyspell. Will low-op players pick this domain? No, but anyone who didn't take Undeath+Planning will certainly have it in their mind.

Aura
Okay, this is one facet of the Cleric that's difficult to optimise. The only use I've found for it is to prevent folks from using Detect Magic on you, but maybe there's more here.

Spontaneous Cure/ Inflict
I'm actually glad that Clerics have this ability. Some folks expect Clerics to be heal-bots, and this is a nice, low-investment method of fulfilling that expectation both without items and without wasting daily slots on heals. Should Clerics be heal-bots? No, they're a primary caster. They should be solving the problems that brute force or judicious use of skills can't solve.

Spells
The Cleric list is a great list. It has a lot of power-building spells, tons of incredible niche solutions, and a generous helping of versatile options. Clerics, with enough books and levels, get access to every effect. Some things they get sooner and in more abundance than Wizards and Druids, and others later and sparser. Is it "worse" than the Wizard or Druid lists? I couldn't really say -- depending on what metric you use to compare them, they all have their strengths.

Evangelist: T2 This class explicitly counts as a Cleric for other game rules, and that's important. It opens up ACFs, and allows it to benefit from poorly-worded feats, PrCs, and the like. It can spontaneously cast Sanctified spells. Though it's spontaneous, it gets just about double the spells known as the Sorc does. That's a lot of spells. Is it flat-out better than Sorc, purely based on having more spells? Of course not. But, in a low-op environment, it's a big advantage. More spells means the odds of picking good spells are higher.

Favored Soul: T2.5 The split casting gets a lot of hate, and that's understandable. What really breaks my heart about this class is that if only it had turning, then the split casting wouldn't feel so terrible. Clerics already focus on Wis+1, but the FS is forced into a control-based build if they want to be most efficient with their resources. And of course most control builds don't really benefit all that much from the versatility of a spontaneous caster. This class is an exercise in nonbos at every turn. The Cleric list is best under the Wizard/ Cleric paradigm of prepping different lists on different days; FS doesn't get that. The Cleric list is primarily offensively suited for gishes; FS is a MAD gish. The Cleric list is primarily defensively suited for buffing the whole party with long-duration buffs tailored to the monster du jour; the FS cannot tailor. The Cleric class is often supported through turning pre-reqs on feats, PrCs, and ACFs; the FS can't qualify. The Cleric gets a domain to emphasise their devotion and diversify their skills; the FS gets... energy resistance?, med armour, med BAB, d8 HD, MAD, and simple weapons to make them the ultimate frontliner?

Mystic: T2 A weaker version of the Evangelist. They do get one unique boon: like arcanists, their deity can't tell them that they're no longer casters. They also can gain access to the impeccable Alteration domain, or the Necromancy domain to emulate the spontaneous Cleric.

Spontaneous Cleric: T2 Like the Evangelist, this keeps all the benefits of being a Cleric -- it's called "Cleric", and has all the class features, plus more spells known than a sorc.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Except that just like every other time you've said this, you are wrong, because this is a super optimized Favored Soul, and it's literally worse than a Warmage because it has fewers spells per day and requires 3rd level slots to blast as well as level 2 Warmage slots, and it can't do anything at all that the Warmage can't do.
Apart from the attempt at CL cheese (which I agree is not a worthwhile trick unless you're starting at high levels), that is by no means a super-optimized Favored Soul build. It's mostly just picking spells from a few books-- I think 95% are from the PHB, SpC, or PHB 2. It's not using crazy obscure spells or high-op feat combos, just some metamagic reduction. A comparable Warmage probably made good Advanced/Eclectic Learning picks, took an Arcane Discipline and grabbed a decent Runestaff.


If you are going to cite to a non-existent build for literally 100% of your arguments can you just link it one time.
Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21627547&postcount=604).

[eggynack]

Except that just like every other time you've said this, you are wrong, because this is a super optimized Favored Soul, and it's literally worse than a Warmage because it has fewers spells per day and requires 3rd level slots to blast as well as level 2 Warmage slots, and it can't do anything at all that the Warmage can't do.
The warmage has to spend feats to match the favored soul in just about any area of favored soul competency, which means you're dependent on specific builds. And the build is optimized, but I'm not in love with the spell selection.



2) Yes, if you have Breath, Circle, and "some solid third thing" then you are basically just much worse than a Warmage. This is your Tier 2 masterpiece. A Much much worse warmage with fewer spells per day trying really hard to manage to compete with a Warmage.
Seems better to me. Breath more or less covers the BFC thing. Circle offers effective utility in a niche the warmage isn't covering. The third spell can represent a third thing. So, we're at like BFC+buff+minionmancy versus just BFC+blast. And, next level, the warmage is still BFC+blast, and the favored soul can still be reasonable at its niches and also good at other stuff.



If you are going to cite to a non-existent build for literally 100% of your arguments can you just link it one time.
Seriously? I told you where to find it. I dunno why you'd call it non-existent. Here you go (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21627547&postcount=604). Coulda asked at any point if you couldn't find it. The spells known are unordered, so you have to make some assumptions about how the build plays out at earlier levels, but it's overall a pretty straightforward setup that's not dependent on build optimization outside of spell selection, and which seems to operate just fine at those early levels. The spells are mostly just intrinsically good.

[Grim Reader]

No its not, there isnt any Runestave that casts Animate Dead and Desecrate. So something that requires DM permission like custom magic items are really not relevant for tiering something in a neutral setting. It would be the same as using a reasearched spell that combined those two effects for tier evaluation.

It doesn't even matter. Runestaves are useless to Beguilers and Warmages, because you have to have the spell on your list. The description goes out of its way to make that clear. It also adds that spontaneous casters with nonfixed lists benefit the most from them, although wizards can use them too.

You'd think you would be able to UMD your way past that, but specific trumphs general.

Anyway, while I never finished the comparison, the resource cost went Beguiler-Dread Necromancer-Warmage. A very high-level Sorcerer could cover all the domains, although with some difficulty in the case of the Dread Necromancer, as some very useful spells just weren't on the Sorcerer list. Warmage was the easiest, requiring only a handfull of spells, and a feat. And some of the spells were even better than what the Warmage had. There is a reason the postal service does not recruit Warmages to deliver the mail.

[Beheld]

Apart from the attempt at CL cheese (which I agree is not a worthwhile trick unless you're starting at high levels), that is by no means a super-optimized Favored Soul build. It's mostly just picking spells from a few books-- I think 95% are from the PHB, SpC, or PHB 2. It's not using crazy obscure spells or high-op feat combos, just some metamagic reduction. A comparable Warmage probably made good Advanced/Eclectic Learning picks, took an Arcane Discipline and grabbed a decent Runestaff.

1) And PrCed to have 10 other domains by level 20. Or Arcane Thesis Blast for infinity damage, since apparently "just some metamagic reduction" is not big deal.

2) Also spells from Vile Darkness, Frostburn, and Complete Champion, and probably other sources if I went past level 3.


It doesn't even matter. Runestaves are useless to Beguilers and Warmages, because you have to have the spell on your list. The description goes out of its way to make that clear. It also adds that spontaneous casters with nonfixed lists benefit the most from them, although wizards can use them too.

You'd think you would be able to UMD your way past that, but specific trumphs general.

What specific do you imagine is preventing someone from emulating a level 1 Cleric/Wizard/Bard/Assassin/Trapsmith with a DC 21 UMD check and thus having spell X on their spell list?


The warmage has to spend feats to match the favored soul in just about any area of favored soul competency, which means you're dependent on specific builds. And the build is optimized, but I'm not in love with the spell selection.

No, the Warmage would need to spend one feat to cover 9 spells known of a Favored Soul. Which since the Favored Soul has to spend at least two and often infinity spells known to match a Warmage at a given level, doesn't look good.

Here's a sample, let's say you have a Human Warmage with Arcane Disciple (Undeath) and Arcane Disciple Travel, and Arcane Disciple uhhhh, I don't have my Fiendish Codex with me so Arcane Disciple (Law). Now in reality, he'd take feats that get him into a PrC that gives a domain, but whatever.

This warmage has Animate Dead, Desecrate, Stinking Cloud, Magic Circle, and Fly, and all his warmage spells that aren't stinking cloud.

As compared to this Favored Soul that doesn't have Desecrate (presumably would fix that) and has Nauseating Breath, Animate Dead, and Magic Circle. And nothing else. That's... sad.


Seems better to me. Breath more or less covers the BFC thing. Circle offers effective utility in a niche the warmage isn't covering. The third spell can represent a third thing. So, we're at like BFC+buff+minionmancy versus just BFC+blast. And, next level, the warmage is still BFC+blast, and the favored soul can still be reasonable at its niches and also good at other stuff.

It seems better to you because you reject the concept of evaluating worth and instead rely on the theory that counting non combat applications is somehow worth something. So again, you have a character with fewer Nauseating Breaths than the Warmage has stinking clouds, and then the ability to trade some of those Nauseating Breaths for +1 bonus to AC that lasts 6 hours.

As compared to Fireball (7 other damage spells), Flame Arrow, Gust of Wind, Ice Storm, Sleet Storm.

Now be honest, if someone actually offered you the chance to trade your Stinking Clouds per day for +1 AC, would you actually take it, and also, would you be willing to give up that list of spells there to get it. Because that's it, the Favored Soul has +1 AC spell that the Warmage doesn't, and the Warmage has everything else.


Seriously? I told you where to find it. I dunno why you'd call it non-existent.

Are you contractually obligated to lie once per post, is that why you slipped this in?

[eggynack]

1) And PrCed to have 10 other domains by level 20.
This is not a thing we're accounting for in this system, ever since the fighter thread.


No, the Warmage would need to spend one feat to cover 9 spells known of a Favored Soul. Which since the Favored Soul has to spend at least two and often infinity spells known to match a Warmage at a given level, doesn't look good.

Here's a sample, let's say you have a Human Warmage with Arcane Disciple (Undeath) and Arcane Disciple Travel, and Arcane Disciple uhhhh, I don't have my Fiendish Codex with me so Arcane Disciple (Law). Now in reality, he'd take feats that get him into a PrC that gives a domain, but whatever.

This warmage has Animate Dead, Desecrate, Stinking Cloud, Magic Circle, and Fly, and all his warmage spells that aren't stinking cloud.
And, again, now we're talking about three separate feats. It's a really specific build we're talking about. If you can only be good if you take a specific feat, you're not particularly good.


It seems better to you because you reject the concept of evaluating worth and instead rely on the theory that counting non combat applications is somehow worth something.
It's not just an arbitrary theory. It's a fundamental and explicit assumption of the tier system. This one and the old one alike.


As compared to Fireball (7 other damage spells), Flame Arrow, Gust of Wind, Ice Storm, Sleet Storm.

Now be honest, if someone actually offered you the chance to trade your Stinking Clouds per day for +1 AC, would you actually take it, and also, would you be willing to give up that list of spells there to get it. Because that's it, the Favored Soul has +1 AC spell that the Warmage doesn't, and the Warmage has everything else.
For just +1 AC? No. For a wide variety of spells added across a wide expanse of levels? Absolutely. You keep claiming that this spell or the other spell is literally all a favored soul gets. It's completely inaccurate.



Are you contractually obligated to lie once per post, is that why you slipped this in?
Which is a lie? That you called it non-existent? You absolutely did that. That I told you where to find it? Here's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21944655&postcount=43) the post where I gave a location, specifically saying, "The Giles list that he's posted a few times (I think he even links to it in his sig)." If you're going to be arbitrarily insulting, at least be accurately so.

[Beheld]

And, again, now we're talking about three separate feats. It's a really specific build we're talking about. If you can only be good if you take a specific feat, you're not particularly good.

If by taking that specific feat you are better than the best possible Favored Soul optimized to the same extent, then regardless of how good you are, the Favored Soul is worse.


It's not just an arbitrary theory. It's a fundamental and explicit assumption of the tier system. This one and the old one alike.

Wait, you are seriously going on record claiming that Augury once a day is exactly the same as at will Divination? I mean, I know that's how you actually count things, but it's amazing you'd straight up admit that actual worth doesn't go into your calculations, just number of things you can claim to do.


For just +1 AC? No. For a wide variety of spells added across a wide expanse of levels? Absolutely. You keep claiming that this spell or the other spell is literally all a favored soul gets. It's completely inaccurate.

It is factually true that the Favored Soul you just presented gets fewer spells per day than the Warmage I presented, from a list which gives it literally only Magic Vestment as the only thing it can do that the Warmage can't.

It doesn't matter if some hypothetical other favored soul exists somewhere else exists that is worse than some other Warmage, it just matters that the Favored Soul you presented is worse than the Warmage.


That I told you where to find it? Here's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21944655&postcount=43) the post where I gave a location, specifically saying, "The Giles list that he's posted a few times (I think he even links to it in his sig)." If you're going to be arbitrarily insulting, at least be accurately so.

Eggynack, a complete and total explanation of why everything you have ever said is wrong is in the location I am about to give you: "It's been posted a few times."

[Anthrowhale]

Gate, Ice Assassin, Planar Binding, Dominate/Charm/Diplomacy are all class features of the Beguiler class.

That's just false. Gate and Planar Binding are not on the Beguiler spell list. If you want to add them, you must expend feats or money.



So right off the bat you are giving up your highest level spells per day, and can't cast any spells at all because I desire a Charisma of 8. Be honest about your stat requirements, you have to invest in Charisma too.


Getting an adjusted charisma of 19 at high levels is easy.



Caster level shenanigans are not a Favored Soul specific trick, literally any class in the game can just have a Caster level of NI whenever they want.


This sounds like a claim that tiers are meaningless. I don't believe that and I don't believe you can get caster level 50 on Warmage 20 that easily.



Using a collection of TO tricks to get a result less impressive than just casting broken calling spells is really not on my list of impressive calls to how great a class is, doing so in a way that makes you basically just as good as a Warmage that takes weapon focus for all his feats for the first 15 levels, even less so.

I believe you are implicitly granting that the build is very strong at L16+. Correct? If so, just make an explicit Warmage build up to L15 and we can compare.


... this is a super optimized Favored Soul

No, this is just a first pass where I looked for the kinds of things that really use the cleric list.


it can't do anything at all that the Warmage can't do.

Citation needed. Present your uber Warmage build which can do everything here.



1) Favored Souls can spend feats and get significantly less out of them, for example, this builds somehow manages to spend an entire 20 levels worth of feats and get one dumb TO trick that comes online at level 16 out of it.

Apparently Ocular madness, Spread of Contentment, Erupt, and Initiate of Mystra are not TO. Good to know.



I'm just not impressed with dumpster diving in 3.0 books to be a slightly worse Warmage.


First, dumpster diving is an entirely fair advantage over fixed-list casters.

Second, provide your Warmage 20 with NI caster level that can do everything this FS can do.

[Anthrowhale]

than the Warmage I presented

Where did you present a Warmage?

[Telok]

Based off personal experience:

Spont. Cleric: 1.3
Because cleric is that good.

Favored Soul: 2.6
Lose heavy armor, wis SAD, turns, and domains.

Part of the reason for mu FS choice is that low levels, or limited books, or non-high op/cheese on table, hurt the class pretty hard. Any two cause it to struggle, all three make it a gimp cleric wannabe. A level 4 cleric facing opponents has plate, a shield, a d8 weapon, two domain powers, turns, and 7 different non-cantrip spells chosen for that day's events before wis bonus spells. A level 4 FS has a breastplate, a shield, a d8 weapon, 7 different non-cantrip spells that are locked in, and 9 spell casts per day before cha bonus slots. The extra spell per spell level per day isn't near enough to make up for the losses. When I've tried the difference is big enough that I can't justify playing a FS over a cleric.

[Zancloufer]

It seems better to you because you reject the concept of evaluating worth and instead rely on the theory that counting non combat applications is somehow worth something. So again, you have a character with fewer Nauseating Breaths than the Warmage has stinking clouds, and then the ability to trade some of those Nauseating Breaths for +1 bonus to AC that lasts 6 hours.

You know if you want to argue that FS spells suck (or having MORE OPTIONS = BAD) at least get the stats right when you critique spells. Magic Vestment is CL/4 AC so at minimum CL it is +2 AC. At CL 8 it's essentially +3 armour for 8 hours (the entire day).

Also where are you getting the "Warmage has more Stinking Clouds than the FS has Nauseating Breaths" thing? They BOTH have the same spells per day. Well except 9th level spells, the FS has one more of those per day than the Warmage at the end of the day.

[remetagross]

Beheld, do keep in mind that Arcane Disciple requires the Warmage to pump Wis, and as such diminishing its asset as a SAD caster. Besides, Warmages don't have UMD as a class skill, so using Runestaves implies more feats/money to pump UMD as well.

[eggynack]

If by taking that specific feat you are better than the best possible Favored Soul optimized to the same extent, then regardless of how good you are, the Favored Soul is worse.
I doubt you get close off of taking it once. Taking the same feat repeatedly could theoretically maybe get there, but at this point you're talking about an incredibly specific build. Beguilers are tier two, not just because of arcane disciple, but because the class is great without that feat, and the feat a decent increase to that. If the beguiler were utterly dependent on this one feat to even operate, then they very likely wouldn't be tier two. If they could be decent without it, and great with it, then the same thing would be the case.



Wait, you are seriously going on record claiming that Augury once a day is exactly the same as at will Divination? I mean, I know that's how you actually count things, but it's amazing you'd straight up admit that actual worth doesn't go into your calculations, just number of things you can claim to do.
No, I meant counting as in, "This counts for something," not strictly as, "Three is bigger than two." It's just that the warmage's two things aren't that much better than what the soul can do in the same area, and the soul gets way more than two things. Count has two meanings and such.



It is factually true that the Favored Soul you just presented gets fewer spells per day than the Warmage I presented, from a list which gives it literally only Magic Vestment as the only thing it can do that the Warmage can't.
It looks like the build opens with alter fortune as well, and the lower level spells offer additional utility.



It doesn't matter if some hypothetical other favored soul exists somewhere else exists that is worse than some other Warmage, it just matters that the Favored Soul you presented is worse than the Warmage.
Wasn't what I presented, for one thing. For another, if we're just in the context of this specific argument, sure, but in the larger context of FS tiering, other favored souls matter.



Eggynack, a complete and total explanation of why everything you have ever said is wrong is in the location I am about to give you: "It's been posted a few times."
I didn't say he's posted it in this thread. I can point you to multiple copies of that post he's made, if necessary. Seriously, I'm just going to stop interacting with you if you keep accusing me of lying on absolutely no basis. Jeez, I wasn't wrong, but even if I were, have you considered for a moment I could have just been that rather than trying to actively deceive you?

[Beheld]

You know if you want to argue that FS spells suck (or having MORE OPTIONS = BAD) at least get the stats right when you critique spells. Magic Vestment is CL/4 AC so at minimum CL it is +2 AC. At CL 8 it's essentially +3 armour for 8 hours (the entire day).

Also where are you getting the "Warmage has more Stinking Clouds than the FS has Nauseating Breaths" thing? They BOTH have the same spells per day. Well except 9th level spells, the FS has one more of those per day than the Warmage at the end of the day.

1) If you are going to contradict me, contradict me. 6/4 is 1. Or you know, "You imbue a suit of armor or a shield with an enhancement bonus of +1 per four caster levels" If you have 6 caster levels, you don't have 8 caster levels, so you have 4 caster levels, so you get +1.

2) Quick check, what stat do Favored Souls cast off of? If you answered "two and the one that the sample favored soul was dumping is charisma, the one that governs bonus spells" then you answered correctly. Having fewer spells is often times similar to having fewer spells.


That's just false. Gate and Planar Binding are not on the Beguiler spell list. If you want to add them, you must expend feats or money.

It is a class ability of the Beguiler to have access to things more easily than other classes. I mean, technically it's not a class ability of Wizards to have Gate either, they have to specifically choose to have it. But they can still choose to have it, and so can Beguilers.


Getting an adjusted charisma of 19 at high levels is easy.

Giving up bonus spells because your game plan is to start with Charisma 12 and buy an item to keep getting access to your highest spells and then use inherent bonuses from Wish to get to 19 at level 18 means you get no bonus 3rd level spells at level 6-7, when the warmage gets 1-2.


This sounds like a claim that tiers are meaningless. I don't believe that and I don't believe you can get caster level 50 on Warmage 20 that easily.

Literally any character that can cast spells:

Step 1: Candle of Invocation Gate Efferti.
Step 2: Wish for scroll of Greater Consumptive Field with caster level = 100000 years of time duration.
Step 3: Wish for a Contingent Spell of Shapechange contingently going off when you say the world "Monkey."
Step 4: Wish for something for the Efferti because whatever, you already finished replicating this dumb TO trick.
Step 5: Say "Monkey."
Step 6: Shapechange into a Lillitu which has an EX ability to auto activate items with UMD.
Step 7: Use your CL [really high] Greater Consumptive Field.
Step 8: Walk around aimlessly turning butterflies into more Caster level for the rest of eternity.


I believe you are implicitly granting that the build is very strong at L16+. Correct? If so, just make an explicit Warmage build up to L15 and we can compare.

I mean... probably not? It can't beat an infinite army of Pit Fiends, which is a thing a level 16 Warmage could be doing. It uses one TO trick, and is therefore absolutely not worth playing the game with, but pretty much nothing is at level 16.


Citation needed. Present your uber Warmage build which can do everything here.

Why? I mean, besides that a Warmage can spontaneously cast off all Cleric spells in the game, or can just pile on domains until their list is insane, the ability to replicate TO tricks is not an impressive or meaningful thing. Your particular build is so bad that it took you 16 levels to get to a TO trick, but that a Warmage can do any TO trick that breaks the game like casting Greater Planar Binding at all renders it unplayable, so while it probably could replicate your exact tricks, there is no reason to.


Apparently Ocular madness, Spread of Contentment, Erupt, and Initiate of Mystra are not TO. Good to know.

I'm not sure why your claim that you used multiple TO tricks is supposed to convince of the meaningfulness (also, Initiate of Mystra at high CL is the one trick).


First, dumpster diving is an entirely fair advantage over fixed-list casters.

No it isn't. The Warmage has the best dumpster diving chassis in the game. People just keep insisting that Warmages shouldn't be allowed to Dumpster Dive because then Favored Souls would feel bad.


Second, provide your Warmage 20 with NI caster level that can do everything this FS can do.

He picks Arcane Disciple (Any Domain With Gate) and has his infinite solar army do everything the favored soul can do for him. Uses above CL trick so his gates all have Caster level (60 goddam years of duration) too, because apparently having NI CL is somehow a condition that it's supposed to be hard to replicate.

[Beheld]

Beheld, do keep in mind that Arcane Disciple requires the Warmage to pump Wis, and as such diminishing its asset as a SAD caster. Besides, Warmages don't have UMD as a class skill, so using Runestaves implies more feats/money to pump UMD as well.

Indeed, and if you were playing a real Warmage in a real game, you probably wouldn't use it much, because you'd already have like 10 other domains, so why care. But for some reason, people who actually play D&D need to be dragged out in the street and shot so that they can't interfere with the perfect Ur-Favored Soul that knows all spells on the Cleric list (wholly **** eggynack actually said that, he actually said that because two different favored souls with two different spell sets are both worse than the two Warmages, that proves that the Favored Soul is better than the warmage, my brain hurts.)

[AnimeTheCat]

Sadly, as much as I enjoy the healer class's fluff and crunch, I don't even really think it's tier 3... I would say high 4. It can heal real goodly, and at level 1 it's will heal more on average than a cleric with a cure light wounds spell (assuming you have a charisma higher than 11). But it doesn't get spontaneous healing so you have to prepare individual cure spells, it doesn't get domains (some of which would really help it), and it's abilities are just nothing too special in high magical worlds.

I have played many a healer, but my DM granted spontaneous healing as well as the healing domain for free at first level. That made the healer really good, but that's not the class. I wouldn't want to play a healer without spontaneous cures, I could live without the domain though.

Similar story with the Favored Soul. I really really really really REALLY want to love the class, but they just aren't that great. No turn undead, no class features for the first two levels (that's really bad), and as good as the spells are, you're so limited on them. No one Favored Soul is going to be able to do everything. On top of it, they're slated as melee combatants (getting deities' favored weapon as weapon focus etc.) but get 3/4 BAB, and to top it all off they're still behind in spell progression similar to a sorcerer. On the flip side, they do get monk saves so... there's that I guess... I would seat it at tier 2, but whenever I play one I always rue the spells known with no way to get more.

as for the others, I have no opinion as I have never played them.

[Anthrowhale]

2) Quick check, what stat do Favored Souls cast off of? If you answered "two and the one that the sample favored soul was dumping is charisma, the one that governs bonus spells" then you answered correctly. Having fewer spells is often times similar to having fewer spells.


No claim of dumping was made. You are simply engaging in adversarial interpretation. Put in the time time to make your Warmage and I'll fill in other details for you.



It is a class ability of the Beguiler to have access to things more easily than other classes. I mean, technically it's not a class ability of Wizards to have Gate either, they have to specifically choose to have it. But they can still choose to have it, and so can Beguilers.


This is not the traditional understanding of class ability. If you want to modify a game term, you should be explicit about the definition.



Literally any character that can cast spells:

That was a waste of electrons. Do you have something more interesting?



Why?


Because it's the intellectually honest thing to do. If you think Warmage is hot stuff, then show it with a build. I reviewed the Warmage list and Arcane Disciple---I'm skeptical.



I mean, besides that a Warmage can spontaneously cast off all Cleric spells in the game, or can just pile on domains until their list is insane,


Eggynack clarified here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21945640&postcount=61) that the thread is about staying in the same class to level 20. Maybe revise your claims around that or go start your own thread?



No it isn't. The Warmage has the best dumpster diving chassis in the game.


I don't believe that. Show me the build.



He picks Arcane Disciple (Any Domain With Gate) and has his infinite solar army do everything the favored soul can do for him. Uses above CL trick so his gates all have Caster level (60 goddam years of duration) too, because apparently having NI CL is somehow a condition that it's supposed to hard to replicate.

Warmage is not a divine caster so prayer beads and ankh of ascension are out. And I'm assuming you are still confused about whether or Rainbow Servant 10 is a Warmage.

[Beheld]

That was a waste of electrons. Do you have something more interesting?

Step 1: Propose challenge.
Step 2: Have challenge met.
Step 3: Remove challenge being met from quote.
Step 4: Say "that was a waste" fail to acknowledge challenge being met.


Warmage is not a divine caster so prayer beads and ankh of ascension are out. And I'm assuming you are still confused about whether or Rainbow Servant 10 is a Warmage.

......

I literally just demonstrated how the can have CL NI. Like, in the post are quoting. I mean, you removed it from the quote, because you are dishonest, but it was there.

[eggynack]

(wholly **** eggynack actually said that, he actually said that because two different favored souls with two different spell sets are both worse than the two Warmages, that proves that the Favored Soul is better than the warmage, my brain hurts.)
Where'sat now? If it's accurate to some weird reading of what I've said, it's certainly not accurate to my views on the topic. I just don't necessarily think this particular favored soul is necessarily the one I'd posit as particularly great. As you point out, a lot of its tricks take awhile to come online, and there're a lot of great spells its not using along with some maybe not as great spells it is using.

Edit:
Sadly, as much as I enjoy the healer class's fluff and crunch, I don't even really think it's tier 3... I would say high 4. It can heal real goodly, and at level 1 it's will heal more on average than a cleric with a cure light wounds spell (assuming you have a charisma higher than 11). But it doesn't get spontaneous healing so you have to prepare individual cure spells, it doesn't get domains (some of which would really help it), and it's abilities are just nothing too special in high magical worlds.

I have played many a healer, but my DM granted spontaneous healing as well as the healing domain for free at first level. That made the healer really good, but that's not the class. I wouldn't want to play a healer without spontaneous cures, I could live without the domain though.
Have you looked at the sanctified spell list, primarily in BoED but also in CoV? It's one of the best things the healer has access to.

[remetagross]

Indeed, and if you were playing a real Warmage in a real game, you probably wouldn't use it much, because you'd already have like 10 other domains, so why care. But for some reason, people who actually play D&D need to be dragged out in the street and shot so that they can't interfere with the perfect Ur-Favored Soul that knows all spells on the Cleric list (wholly **** eggynack actually said that, he actually said that because two different favored souls with two different spell sets are both worse than the two Warmages, that proves that the Favored Soul is better than the warmage, my brain hurts.)

I am skeptical as to your ability to garner that many domains. Without any PrC (since this is one of the prerequisites of this tiering), with Elder Evil worshipping, Human race and two flaws, ok the Warmage will top at 15 domains. Now if we cut out the Elder Evils + DCFS and flaws, we get 8 domains. At, but in fact no, since Knowledge: Religion is cross-class for Warmages, you cannot take Arcane Disciple before level 5, so that means actually 6 domains.

And in fact, not even then. Since all domains must belong to the same deity (you cannot pick an ideal), you're likely to find out one somewhere in all the splatbooks that gets maybe 4 interesting domains, and then it's either crap or there aren't any domains left. So, 4 domains, at levels 6, 9, 12, 15.

I have never played a Warmage, so I trust you when you say this means a very significant improvement of the Warmage's ability. However, 4 domains is not 10.

[Zancloufer]

1) If you are going to contradict me, contradict me. 6/4 is 1. Or you know, "You imbue a suit of armor or a shield with an enhancement bonus of +1 per four caster levels" If you have 6 caster levels, you don't have 8 caster levels, so you have 4 caster levels, so you get +1.

2) Quick check, what stat do Favored Souls cast off of? If you answered "two and the one that the sample favored soul was dumping is charisma, the one that governs bonus spells" then you answered correctly. Having fewer spells is often times similar to having fewer spells.


No it isn't. The Warmage has the best dumpster diving chassis in the game. People just keep insisting that Warmages shouldn't be allowed to Dumpster Dive because then Favored Souls would feel bad.


For some reason I thought it was 1+1/4 CL. Hmm. Also the FS and the Warmage both have the same spells per day (except 9ths which the FS caps 1 higher for) and both use Cha for casting. Yes a FS with low point buy MIGHT have less Cha, but it's like saying a Cleric casts less spells per day than a wizard because they don't max Wis as much as the wizard maxes Int.

Best dumpster diving chassis in the game? Wot? What is this I don't even. d6 HD, low Bab, 2+int skill points and one good save. Even if you are arguing it's because they "know all spells" and can therefore add more easily the Beguiler and Dread Necro both do that. Beguiler with Rainbow Servant or similar tricks is probably better with it's Int based casting and pile of skill points. Also oddly enough an invisible/hiddden Beguiler can overcome the Golems magic immunity at level 20.

[Beheld]

For some reason I thought it was 1+1/4 CL. Hmm. Also the FS and the Warmage both have the same spells per day (except 9ths which the FS caps 1 higher for) and both use Cha for casting. Yes a FS with low point buy MIGHT have less Cha, but it's like saying a Cleric casts less spells per day than a wizard because they don't max Wis as much as the wizard maxes Int.

This is another instance where you might want to look up the actual rules. Favored Soul saved DCs are based off Wisdom, bonus spells based off Cha.

If you have lower save DCs, your Nauseating Breaths are worse than Stinking Clouds, if you have fewer spells per day, then you have fewer of them. One way or another, Favored Souls casting Nauseating Breath are worse than Warmages casting Stinking Cloud.

Having two 18s and everything else 8 is 32 PB, which is already as high as the highest possible offered PB in the book, so they aren't just going to have both stats at the highest level with no cost (even before getting into racial bonuses)

[AnimeTheCat]

Edit:
Have you looked at the sanctified spell list, primarily in BoED but also in CoV? It's one of the best things the healer has access to.

I have, but the whole shtick of the healer is healing, but they don't get access to any of the best healing things, the simplest of which is spontaneous cure spells like the cleric. Having to specifically prepare cure spells is laborious and a potential waste of resources, in my opinion. It is better point per point of healing than a cleric (in my experience) but it just lacks the ease and flow of what a cleric does with spontaneous cure/inflict spells.

[eggynack]

I have, but the whole shtick of the healer is healing, but they don't get access to any of the best healing things, the simplest of which is spontaneous cure spells like the cleric. Having to specifically prepare cure spells is laborious and a potential waste of resources, in my opinion. It is better point per point of healing than a cleric (in my experience) but it just lacks the ease and flow of what a cleric does with spontaneous cure/inflict spells.
I don't know why it matters what their shtick is. In my opinion, what matters is what they're actually capable of, which is in large part about this weirdly powerful set of spells. That they can't spontaneously cure sucks. That they can cast animate with the spirit, valiant steed, vision of punishment, hammer of righteousness, and so on, does the opposite of suck.

[Anthrowhale]

I literally just demonstrated how the can have CL NI. Like, in the post are quoting.

You can't make a Warmage satisfying your claims so you suggest using a 4.2 trillion XP wish that will not be taken seriously by anyone. It's boring.



I mean, you removed it from the quote, because you are dishonest, but it was there.

You accused eggynack of being dishonest also. If you find yourself thinking everyone is dishonest, maybe the problem isn't everyone?

I don't know why you have such a crush on Warmage. They seem okish to me, but not particularly exciting. Arcane Disciple is good for them but you will be stuck with ~4 domains from a single deity and flip into MAD land as rmetagross notes. That's worthwhile because the Warmage has such a weak list, but it's far from exciting.

[Soranar]

I'll do the noncontroversial votes right away

Evangelist, Mystic, Spontaneous Cleric are all tier 1

-good spell list
-lots of spells
-access to several domains (which tend to grant key spells)
-the spontaneous cleric is a step above the other two due to turn undead

Healer tier 3

-kind of like a reverse battlefield control: this guy makes you guys keep fighting (and heals between encounters)
-the pet is pretty strong
-with the right feats /build you should have something to contribute in most occasions
-bumps up a tier if it has access to exalted spells
-difficult to optimize a fighting style (I guess a mounted charger that spent a feat to get lance proficiency)

Favored soul tier 2

-Too many spell knowns to be gimped by a restricted list like a sorcerer
-no obvious difficult choice in spell knowns, can even afford to take summon monster spells to gain access to more spells
-fairly good chassis, a mithral full plate makes the medium armor a non issue fairly soon
-you lose too much to be tier 1 (domain abilities and spells can be really good, turn undead is also an issue)
-when compared to a typical tier 3 class (say a bard or a swordsage) a favored soul mops the floor with them, this is my best argument as to their tier

But if I had to break it down, even a favored soul that didn't optimize his wisdom and just pumped his CHA

-can still summon a decent fighter or helper (summon monster 3-9, 1 and 2 are not worth it IMO)
-become a fighter type (divine power + righteous might)
-heal (lesser vigor, heal, mass heal)
-restore debilitating status effects (death, ability damage, negative levels, etc)
-prevent debilitating effects (dispel magic, protection vs evil, freedom of movement)
-use dispel magic to counterspell (and thus shut down a spellcaster)
-use longterm buffs for himself and the party (greater magic weapon, magic vestment)
-use lesser planar binding (and the better versions) like beefed up summon monsters (access to more spells, etc)

Now compare that to a bard or a swordsage?

Is a favored soul tier 1, no.

A tier 1 class can do all of that and more even with a gimped build. When compared to a tier 1 class

The favored soul's save DC will be hurt by the dual casting
He will lack the rest of the broken spells available at earlier levels (entangle, grease, color spray, web , stinking cloud, cloudkill, celerity, etc)
Lacks most forms of action economy (a permanent pet you don't need to summon like an animal companion, a familiar that can cast spells or share them, action granting spells, etc)
Has difficulty with movement (little access to flight, teleportation and the like, has to jump through hoops to get some)
Like all spont caster he won't have much downtime spells

[AnimeTheCat]

I don't know why it matters what their shtick is. In my opinion, what matters is what they're actually capable of, which is in large part about this weirdly powerful set of spells. That they can't spontaneously cure sucks. That they can cast animate with the spirit, valiant steed, vision of punishment, hammer of righteousness, and so on, does the opposite of suck.

Ok, I do see what you mean. I guess I was just left with a bad taste in my mouth when I realized that they're not the best healers even though they're called healers. You make a fair point, and I concede that you're likely right. I still feel like if I ever play one or allow a player to play one i'll allow them to spontaneously cast cure spells.

[ATHATH]

Only semi-on-topic, but I'm gonna just gonna drop this amazing (mostly for the spells) domain here...

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/glossary&term=Glossary_dnd_Timedomain&alpha=T

Spell List:
True Strike: Dud
Gentle Repose: Decent
Haste: Really good
Freedom of Movement: Really good
Permanency: Decent-ish, although probably not that good to have as a spontaneous spell
Contingency: Really good
Moment of Prescience: Decent
Foresight: Really good
Time Stop: Really good

Oh, and it gives you Improved Initiative as a bonus feat. I think I'm in love.

Also, I suspect that an Evangelist could pull off a pretty decent Rebuking-focused build by taking every elemental domain and other domains that interact with Rebuking and just having ALL THE MINIONS (including some types of dragons!). Admittedly, that's a specific example.

[Beheld]

You can't make a Warmage satisfying your claims so you suggest using a 4.2 trillion XP wish that will not be taken seriously by anyone. It's boring.

"You successfully made a Warmage that satisfied your claims with a 0XP wish, and I'm mad about it so I'm just going to say that it's boring!"

Almost like breaking the game with NI Caster Level is a something anyone can do, so a class being able to do that at level 16 is not meaningful.


I don't know why you have such a crush on Warmage. They seem okish to me, but not particularly exciting. Arcane Disciple is good for them but you will be stuck with ~4 domains from a single deity and flip into MAD land as rmetagross notes. That's worthwhile because the Warmage has such a weak list, but it's far from exciting.

The Warmge isn't very good. That's kind of the point. Neither is the Favored Soul, when the presented Favored Soul build is about as good as a Warmage that takes Weapon Focus for every feat for 15 levels, that's an indictment of the Favored Soul.

[Anthrowhale]

and I'm mad about it so I'm just going to say that it's boring!"


Nah, I'm just disappointed. Resort to wealthomancy is an admission of failure in a build. It's boring.

[lord_khaine]

HAHAHA, but in fact, Favored Souls don't exist at all, so they are Tier (N/A).

I mean, if blatantly lying is the new stock in trade for Tier arguments, this is going to get old fast.

Making a scroll of Superior Resistance is not exactly like writing an entirely new spell.

Well.. i guess putting your hands over your ears and going "la la la" is also a way to respond if you have forgotten magic item creation rules are not rules but guidelines that need DM aproval.

Though if im suposedly lying, then by all means, point out the location and name of your runestaff :smallamused:


Planar Ally is great because and super powerful and high class because it gets you a temporary minion for a few days. But Charm Monster is terrible, because all it does is give you a permanent friend, and those suck." Sure thing.

I guess it is easy to confuse DOMINATE and CHARM monster. Well.. of course one of those can be used to fight for you.. and the other can be used to, and i quote the SRD for the friendly attitude "Chat, advise, offer limited help, advocate"

[Beheld]

Nah, I'm just disappointed. Resort to wealthomancy is an admission of failure in a build. It's boring.

"My way of getting infinite caster level is totally okay and not at all gamebreaking but your way of getting infinite CL is GAMEBREAKING!"

I mean, if infinite caster level was a thing that anyone actually cared about getting on their characters, a Warmage could just buy a runestaff with consumptive field in it, UMD being a Cleric 1, and Persist the spell Easy Meta, Practical Meta at level 18 like your character.

If for any reason at all, we actually cared about getting infinite Caster Level.

But we don't because game breaking TO is TO, and doesn't matter.


Well.. i guess putting your hands over your ears and going "la la la" is also a way to respond if you have forgotten magic item creation rules are not rules but guidelines that need DM aproval.

No, the magic item guidelines are guidelines the ones with weird crap about making infinite use items and constant effect, and not having to have spell completion. The rules for how to create scrolls are in fact, not guidelines. Likewise, Runestaves, because their are explicit rules for creating Runestaves with whatever spells you want that are literally exactly like the scroll rules.

So you can totally just make a runestaff with any spells you want in it, using the rules for doing that, just like you can make scrolls with any spells on them, using the rules for that.


I guess it is easy to confuse DOMINATE and CHARM monster. Well.. of course one of those can be used to fight for you.. and the other can be used to, and i quote the SRD for the friendly attitude "Chat, advise, offer limited help, advocate"

I guess it's easy to confuse the word FRIEND with the word ALLY. (Presumably you also reject the concept of using Diplomacy on charmed people and making a DC 1 check to change then to friendly or DC 15 to change to Helpful.)

[Anthrowhale]

You might want to be more careful with your words. Let me help.


"My way of getting infinite caster level is totally okay and not at all gamebreaking but your way of getting infinite CL is GAMEBREAKING!boring wealthomancy."

[remetagross]

(Presumably you also reject the concept of using Diplomacy on charmed people and making a DC 1 check to change then to friendly or DC 15 to change to Helpful.)

That is debatable, since one could read the Charm line of spells as setting the attitude of the target to "Friendly" for the duration of the spell, without any possibility to either improve or downgrade it apart from the cases the spell covers.

[eggynack]

I think there's a more straightforward argument against charm+diplomacy. It doesn't seem to make the target actually friendly. It says to treat them that way, but that's in the context of, y'know, how they regard you. They might not be friendly for all possible purposes, and one of the purposes left out could easily be modification through diplomacy.

[GilesTheCleric]

I'll do the noncontroversial votes right away

Evangelist, Mystic, Spontaneous Cleric are all tier 1

The favored soul's save DC will be hurt by the dual casting
He will lack the rest of the broken spells available at earlier levels (entangle, grease, color spray, web , stinking cloud, cloudkill, celerity, etc)
Lacks most forms of action economy (a permanent pet you don't need to summon like an animal companion, a familiar that can cast spells or share them, action granting spells, etc)
Has difficulty with movement (little access to flight, teleportation and the like, has to jump through hoops to get some)
Like all spont caster he won't have much downtime spells

I'm a little confused here. Almost all the drawbacks you list for FSes also apply to the classes you've listed as being T1. Does not having split casting alone really raise those those three classes to T1?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm a little confused here. Almost all the drawbacks you list for FSes also apply to the classes you've listed as being T1. Does not having split casting alone really raise those those three classes to T1?
I can't find the Evangelist, but the Mystic and Spontaneous Cleric also get (or can inherently get) Turning, meaning DMM is still online. That lack seems to be the main argument against the Favored Soul reaching Tier 2?

A big question that hasn't been addressed, I don't think, is how the Mystic and Spontaneous Cleric handle bonus domains. The Spontaneous Cleric specifically says "adds his two domain spells to his list of spells known; the Mystic seems even more direct in their presentation of only learning one domain spell/spell level. While it seems reasonable to assume that more Domains mean more spells known, it doesn't seem to be 100% RAW.

For the record, I'd vote

Favored Soul is Tier 2.5ish-- it's certainly a 3 at lower levels, and climbs into T2 once you hit 3rd or 4th level spells, but the split-list casting leaves it on the weak side
The Spontaneous Cleric and Mystic are stronger Tier 2s. DMM and domain powers make them a much more direct clone of the Cleric, in the same way that the Sorcerer can do any one subset of Wizard tricks.
Healer is hard. I think it was the one class I voted "Tier X" on in the last thread, because it's effectiveness is just... all over the place. Sanctified Spells being in play or not makes a huge difference. Relative optimization levels and table culture make a huge difference in how useful the healing is. You get these huge spikes when the spellcasting pets come online, then quickly lose power as their casting becomes obsolete. I'd lob an average guess as somewhere around Tier 4 if pressed, I guess, but I really can't feel good about any specific placement.

[Gemini476]

Evangelists are not a very complicated variant. To wit:

Take a Cleric.
Make their casting spontaneous rather than prepared.
Give them the Sorcerer's spellcasting tables, and remove one 9th-level spell known at level 20. (It's possible that this is a typo, but you also get a new domain at 20.)
Remove Turn Undead.
Give them +1 domain/5 levels. (Mentioned in the tables but not the text.)
Remove Knowledge(arcana, history, the planes) from the list of class skills.
Add Gather Information and Knowledge(local) to the list of class skills.
Remove heavy armor proficiency.

And that's all she wrote, I think.


When it comes to Divine Metamagic, it's probably worth mentioning that the Divine Metamagic feat requires you to be able to turn or rebuke undead. Like, as a prerequisite for getting the feat. I don't remember if there's a domain that will get you that, but you'll need to spend one of your slots on that if you want to DMM as an Evangelist. (Or a prestige class or dipping one level of Cleric or whatever, but we're mostly ignoring multiclassing in these threads IIRC.)

[GilesTheCleric]

or dipping one level of Cleric or whatever, but we're mostly ignoring multiclassing in these threads IIRC.)

Both the Spontaneous Cleric and Evangelist count as "Cleric", so you can't dip Cleric with those, unfortunately.

[Gemini476]

Both the Spontaneous Cleric and Evangelist count as "Cleric", so you can't dip Cleric with those, unfortunately.

The Spontaneous Cleric's already got native turning, so that's mostly just a concern for the Evangelist.

Still a badish option for Healers and Favored Souls, but available outside the constraints of this thread. Prestige classes are a bit easier to swallow in any case as a spontaneous caster - you really don't want to fall two levels behind in spellcasting.

The Mystic might already have native turning, I honestly haven't ever even looked at that book.

[Soranar]

I'm a little confused here. Almost all the drawbacks you list for FSes also apply to the classes you've listed as being T1. Does not having split casting alone really raise those those three classes to T1?

All those drawbacks can be fixed with the right domain spells which all of these classes have access to. The only realy gimp to the favored soul is lack of domain access. Turn undead is useful but DMM metamagic is also rarely allowed so it's mostly a matter of powering divine feats which can be powerful but not as much as spells.

[Rizban]

Evangelist - I'm unfamiliar with it and don't have access to that DragMag. So, I have no meaningful opinion. n/a

Favored Soul - I don't understand the hate on this class. Yes, the cleric list often tends to be more situationally useful than the bread and butter wizard spells, but it's not bad. FS has the same casting as but more spells known than a sorc, so this makes up for that a bit. Split casting sucks, but it doesn't make you any more MAD than most cleric builds, and if you focus on no-save spells, then you can dump Wis without a problem. All good saves, medium BAB, and d8 HD are nice as well. The general class features are... strange and usually too late to be meaningful, but it does have class features of some kind. Overall, I'd still rate it on par with a Sorc. It seems like it takes a little more effort to optimize properly than a sorc, but not that much more. T2

Healer - Frankly, this class is terrible. It does one thing and claims to do that one thing well... but it doesn't. Standard clerics can outpace the healing on a Healer and have better options. Reactive, in combat healing is also one of the least optimal uses off actions in combat. Yes, it's necessary if you can't rez and need to save someone from death, but making it your primary role generally relegates your character to superfluousness. I'm tempted to dump them in the dregs of tier 5, but they are full casters and have some of the same types of tricks that all full casters have. There are ways to build them that make them not useless, but it's difficult without using SpC text to add spells to their list. I'm going to say they're a low T4.

Mystic - This is exactly a divine sorcerer who casts from the cleric list and trades a familiar for a domain. This gives it 1 more spell known per spell level than a standard sorc. From there, it just comes down to comparing the Cleric spell list to the Sor/Wiz list. I'd put Mystic on exactly the same tier as Sorcerer. T2

Spontaneous Cleric - It sacrifices the flexibility of anytime full list access, which is the primary advantage of being a divine caster over an arcane caster, to get spontaneous casting. There are a number of feats and ACFs that give clerics limited spontaneity that don't require fully sacrificing this benefit. This isn't entirely useless though, especially since each domain he picks up gives him 9 more spells known, and there are plenty of ways to pick up new domains. I'd rate this as high T2.

[eggynack]

Healer - Frankly, this class is terrible. It does one thing and claims to do that one thing well... but it doesn't. Standard clerics can outpace the healing on a Healer and have better options. Reactive, in combat healing is also one of the least optimal uses off actions in combat. Yes, it's necessary if you can't rez and need to save someone from death, but making it your primary role generally relegates your character to superfluousness. I'm tempted to dump them in the dregs of tier 5, but they are full casters and have some of the same types of tricks that all full casters have. There are ways to build them that make them not useless, but it's difficult without using SpC text to add spells to their list. I'm going to say they're a low T4.
As I've been noting, sanctified spells are very strong, and they mean the class is capable of significantly more than just healing. Also, the mount starts doing some cool stuff at level 12.

Edit: Also, corrupt spells maybe? They kinda technically have access to those too.

[Anthrowhale]

As I've been noting, sanctified spells are very strong, and they mean the class is capable of significantly more than just healing. Also, the mount starts doing some cool stuff at level 12.

Edit: Also, corrupt spells maybe? They kinda technically have access to those too.

I think the question is: What is the tier of a hypothetical class with spell slots but no spells on their list?

[eggynack]

I think the question is: What is the tier of a hypothetical class with spell slots but no spells on their list?
High four, maybe low three if you account for corrupt, I'd think. Sanctified spells are surprisingly variety filled and powerful. Corrupt spells are less interesting, in my opinion, but offer some really interesting stuff, up to and including a nearly top quality 9th. Toss in healer spells, which represent at least one full niche and maybe a bit of utility in one or two others, and the companion, which gets you a whole bunch of extra magic, maybe getting you to high four or low three on its own in that level range, and I feel like we're talking a clear three. These spells are great.

[Sagetim]

Alright, so, I'm going to start with the class that I have actually played before. I mean, if you count neverwinter nights 2 as playing the class. I do, because while it may not have had all of 3.5 in it, it could still give you a baseline of comparison between classes and help you test out builds and ideas.

Favored Soul: I would not be surprised if this could be optimized up to tier 2. In playing one, I found it to be a very solid class for buffing and party support. And, given the right amount of shenanigans while buffing, it can be a solid combatant as well. Add in shenanigans with persistent spell later on, and you don't need to heal the party between fights because everyone has Fast Healing with a 24 hour duration. I mean, that's not unique to this class, but it can do that. It gets more spells than a sorcerer (more spells than a shugenja as well, as I recall) and as long as you're not expecting it to drop fireballs and play some kind of outright damage dealing spell game, you're good. In a party, this class can join the front line and do well. It's when you start trying to cast spells that reqire saves that you're going to have issues, because it's got a dual stat set up for some god forsaken reason. Now, if you are rolling stats up, that's fine, you just play one when you have enough stats to play one and don't worry about the rest. But a lot of people here seem to be fans of point buy, and trying to point buy enough stats to be a good favored soul is going to be a pain in the ass. I would say they are Tier 3. They can do a handful of things well (healing, buffing, fighting) and have potential access to a solid spell list for solving problems that make you friends of npcs (like curing the sick). Oh, and I just looked up shugenja, they have the same number of spells known without the wonky rules of shugenja. The Damage redction is too late to be great, the wings are also a bit on the late side for usefulness, but it IS nice to be able to have weapon focus and specialization without having to dip any fighter levels. Energy Resistance is nice at 5, and a little low but better than nothing at 10 and 15.

Healer: Oh, wow, man, I remember looking at this class long ago and saying "I want to play one for flavor, but I know it would suck." After looking over their class abilities, they do one thing monstrously well. Heal. Heal, heal, heal for days. And not so much on those pesky combat spells to tempt them to do anything else. I suppose they might be able to pick up domains to help fix that, but even if they rebel and prepare a bunch of domain spells instead of any healer spells (or sanctified spells, or corrupt, oh wait, they can't be evil). Even if they rebel with regards to the spell list that has been granted upon them from on high, their class abilities make sure that they can cure any number of odd ailments at least once per day. Including missing limbs, drained levels, and oh, Death. That's a pretty damn potent capstone to just ignore a massive gold cost and true rez someone for free each week. Sure, it's their capstone, they ain't getting that one early or easily, but it's the kind of game changer that could alter the culture of a world for as long as that healer lives. But we're not really here to talk impacting the culture of the game world with regards to tier, we're talking how many problems the class can solve and how well they can solve those problems. They can solve the 'dying and mezzed ' problem with great competency. I would give them Tier 3, but only because I expect the rest of you to know how to make them competent at solving other problems with your build fu and optimization. If we are assuming someone who is not coming to this forum for advice on building and what not? Probably tier 4, because they are REALLY good at healing.

Spontaneous Cleric: From the spontaneous alternate class feature thing from Unearthed Arcana? Tier 2. You may have sorcerer problems now, but they aren't nearly as bad (you still get more spells known for most levels than sorcerer does) and while one of the cleric's great strengths is that they can pray for spells from the entire cleric list at any given day, you still get to pick your spells known from the cleric list. And you get domains to cast spontaneously from. And you can still beat things to death with a mace. And wear heavy armor. And shields. And turn undead. You're changing enough about the cleric to drop from tier 1 to 2, but your' still sitting pretty.

Mystic: From Dragonlance, right? Like the spontaneos cleric, but one domain and no heavy armor. Oh, and you lose turning. I mean, technically that's all impactful, but I don't see the mystic as dropping down to tier 3 because of it. They still have d8 hp, still have two good saves, still got 3/4 bab, and still have up to medium armor and are still Single Ability Casters. While lack of heavy armor prof means you can't jump on full plate as soon as the fighter, later on it doesn't mean much as you (just as anyone limited to medium armor proficiency) can get mithril full plate and stop giving a crap. Your domain pick is going to seriously shape your character, which makes sense given the fluff of the class. Because you're not drawing on divine strength from the gods. You're pulling divine power out of yourself and using it to cast spells. This means that you can give every bishop the finger and proceed to do whatever you want with your spells at any time. There is no god to cut you off for bad behavior. And while that doesn't necessarily come up that often here on the forums, that IS something that can happen to clerics in addition to paladins. The mystic can freely pick whatever spells they want without regard to alignment restrictions that normally apply to clerics, and if a mystic picks the Sun domain they get normal turning (you know, if you were dead set on that class ability for some reason). This class is still solid enough to rank tier 2 to me, especially if you pick a domain with incredibly abusable domain only spells to proceed to spontaneously spam on things. Oh, and they can do Sanctified or Corrupt spells.

Evangelist: So, from looking p the class and what I cold find on it easily, it's a dragon magazine class with better skill points, lighter armor, no turn undead, and hohohholy crap a lot of domains. Domains for days. I would put them solidly in tier 2, because they seem to be a 'better than the mystic' class. While the Mystic has to be careful about their domain pick, the Evangelist gets so many that they run into issues with needing a god badass enough to support them all the way to 20. Now, that's not a bad problem to have. I would not be surprised if someone could make a few Evangelist builds that compete with Tier 1 classes even with limited spells known, just from all the extra domain granted spells known. As far as I know, you still have the problem that most cleric based classes have of having to pay attention to alignment restrictions and act in accordance with your god's mandate and alignment, but that's pretty par for the course with divine magic. Unlike the Healer, they can go either Corrupt or Sanctified spells based on alignment as well, as far as I know. Now, if they were the domains only caster that the class apparently started as, then we'd be talking about a much lower tier class. But they have the baseline cleric list to draw from and a whole mess of domains to add to their spontaneous repertoire along with an augmented cleric chassis to back that up. Does anyone know if they get regular turning from picking up the sun domain? or was that a weird little Mystic only thing?

[eggynack]

(or sanctified spells, or corrupt, oh wait, they can't be evil).
I actually don't think there's anything intrinsic to the healer that forces you to not cast opposed alignment spells, and there's nothing intrinsic to corrupt spells that makes them inaccessible to good characters. Only actual mechanical problem is that corrupt spells might turn you evil. Something to keep an eye on, certainly, but from a strict mechanical perspective the healer can probably get a bit of utility here.


but only because I expect the rest of you to know how to make them competent at solving other problems with your build fu and optimization. If we are assuming someone who is not coming to this forum for advice on building and what not? Probably tier 4, because they are REALLY good at healing.
The healer is really interesting in terms of build and optimization stuff. I'm pretty firmly convinced that a healer with no optimization beyond knowing that sanctified spells exist, that they're good, and that healers can use them, lands in tier three. At least if you build your list reasonably. It single handedly expands their list from healing to, off the top of my head, blasting, minionmancy, debuffs, knowin' stuff, mobility, buffs, overnight rest, and even a bit of illusion shenanigans. And this stuff isn't in particularly low quality forms either. These aren't crappy throwaway spells that any real caster would dismiss. These are spells that are optimal for top tier casters. And not just because clerics weirdly get them spontaneously.

[Sagetim]

I actually don't think there's anything intrinsic to the healer that forces you to not cast opposed alignment spells, and there's nothing intrinsic to corrupt spells that makes them inaccessible to good characters. Only actual mechanical problem is that corrupt spells might turn you evil. Something to keep an eye on, certainly, but from a strict mechanical perspective the healer can probably get a bit of utility here.

The healer is really interesting in terms of build and optimization stuff. I'm pretty firmly convinced that a healer with no optimization beyond knowing that sanctified spells exist, that they're good, and that healers can use them, lands in tier three. At least if you build your list reasonably. It single handedly expands their list from healing to, off the top of my head, blasting, minionmancy, debuffs, knowin' stuff, mobility, buffs, overnight rest, and even a bit of illusion shenanigans. And this stuff isn't in particularly low quality forms either. These aren't crappy throwaway spells that any real caster would dismiss. These are spells that are optimal for top tier casters. And not just because clerics weirdly get them spontaneously.

Well, they are still alignment locked into good and required to heal good creatures who need healing (for example). They have an Ethos that doesn't seem very well defined (mostly implied), and that's probably why I assumed they have a similar alignment restriction on casting that clerics have. Then again, the only way for them to gain access to evil aligned spells is from sources outside their class (such as feats and Maybe corrupt spells). From the description of Corrupt spells in the Book of Vile Darkness, it sounds like they are so horrible that learning them would call the alignment of Good into question, and casting even one would probably drop you to neutral. The Healer is a Very goody two shoes class, it's why they get a unicorn companion. I'm pretty sure that kind of companion would skewer you for learning, let alone casting anything like Corrupt spells.

So while you might be able to technically utilize Corrupt spells, rules as written, as a healer, I don't think many gm's would let you do it for long (or at all) unless they just didn't care about enforcing class alignment things. That said, the Healer seems like a prime class for Book of Exalted Deeds stuff. The class is all about being a nice person to good people and the vow of nonviolence seems like it would jam with their whole 'sucks at combat anyway' thing.

Oh, one trick that the Healer would be well suited to do that other classes might have a harder time managing would be casting Sanctify The Wicked on people. Because they could charge people some amount of diamonds for the True Rez without having to actually expend those resources to cast it. Then they could take those diamonds for use with that Sanctified spell. Admittedly, eating a character level loss per casting would suck, but you pay the sacrifice cost at the end of the spell's duration anyway, so as long as you don't break the diamonds, you can keep a collection of penitent evil beings. Then, when things start going well and truly to hell, you break them all at once and fall over dead from being negative level 30 or whatever....or hit level 1 and keep getting reset to 0 xp with each gem breaking and forming into sanctified former villains.

[Gemini476]

I actually don't think there's anything intrinsic to the healer that forces you to not cast opposed alignment spells, and there's nothing intrinsic to corrupt spells that makes them inaccessible to good characters. Only actual mechanical problem is that corrupt spells might turn you evil. Something to keep an eye on, certainly, but from a strict mechanical perspective the healer can probably get a bit of utility here.

Isn't there a general rule that divine casters can't cast spells of the opposite alignment? I seem to remember that being pointed out somewhere.

[Grod_The_Giant]

As I've been noting, sanctified spells are very strong, and they mean the class is capable of significantly more than just healing. Also, the mount starts doing some cool stuff at level 12.

Edit: Also, corrupt spells maybe? They kinda technically have access to those too.
One issue with rating the Healer mainly on Sanctified Spells is that they're an external source of power. It's not as bad as rating a class on a specific ACF, feat, PrC or what have you, because Sanctified Spells aren't technically a choice, but it's still very possible to have a Healer who-- due to book restrictions-- can't use them. And I think that ought to be considered. It's probably not worth a whole tier, but it's definitely not a point in their favor.

[eggynack]

Isn't there a general rule that divine casters can't cast spells of the opposite alignment? I seem to remember that being pointed out somewhere.
I don't think so, no. I certainly couldn't find such a rule the last time this came up, and that was when I thought healers couldn't do this.

One issue with rating the Healer mainly on Sanctified Spells is that they're an external source of power. It's not as bad as rating a class on a specific ACF, feat, PrC or what have you, because Sanctified Spells aren't technically a choice, but it's still very possible to have a Healer who-- due to book restrictions-- can't use them. And I think that ought to be considered. It's probably not worth a whole tier, but it's definitely not a point in their favor.
I don't think I'd call it precisely external, any more than celerity is external to a wizard. But, yeah, it's definitely a subtracting factor that you're reliant on access to one or two books. It's interesting, because no sanctified spells in the entire context of the game is probably worth a tier, but that's not really the situation we're working with. I don't think it makes sense to separate out this factor like we would with some of those other things you mentioned, because we're not talking about a game object, but rather a massive pile of them.

[Beheld]

"All PrCs ever printed across all game books are a single game object, and people probably don't have access to them. On the other hand, a list of spells from a single book that most people don't own are a wide variety of different game objects, and there is no way that someone would be denied access to all of them at the same time."

[eggynack]

"All PrCs ever printed across all game books are a single game object, and people probably don't have access to them. On the other hand, a list of spells from a single book that most people don't own are a wide variety of different game objects, and there is no way that someone would be denied access to all of them at the same time."
When did I say that prestige classes are disallowed on an access basis? They're not. They're disallowed because there are some problematic parts to evaluating them. We had a whole argument about it in the fighter thread, one which also spread into the main thread.

[Beheld]

When did I say that prestige classes are disallowed on an access basis? They're not. They're disallowed because there are some problematic parts to evaluating them. We had a whole argument about it in the fighter thread, one which also spread into the main thread.

So you are just going to ignore that your claims that a list of spells in one book are discrete game objects that people might have access to some of is complete bull****?

[eggynack]

So you are just going to ignore that your claims that a list of spells in one book are discrete game objects that people might have access to some of is complete bull****?
The point isn't strictly one of access, but one of dependence. The healer isn't just a class reliant on one individual spell they happen to have. They have a solid spread of spells without one easily removable point of weakness, and they're in two books, not one. If you can get rid of one game object and have a class suck, then it is in large part the game object, rather than the class, that is good. But the healer actually has a pretty wide spell list, and a strong one.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The point isn't strictly one of access, but one of dependence. The healer isn't just a class reliant on one individual spell they happen to have. They have a solid spread of spells without one easily removable point of weakness, and they're in two books, not one. If you can get rid of one game object and have a class suck, then it is in large part the game object, rather than the class, that is good. But the healer actually has a pretty wide spell list, and a strong one.
The Sanctified list is a wide set of spells, but it's still a single point of failure-- remove the one book (and it's not even something like a Complete book; the BoED is reasonably niche), and the class suffers a lot.

[remetagross]

I do think however that Beheld might have a point if we ask the question that way:

Sanctified spells are found in the BoED and in CoV. We make the assumption that the Healer raises a tier, from 4 to 3, if given access to those spells. And we also make the assumption that, for either of those two books, a Healer gets access to either all or none of the spells contained within. That is the assumption Beheld is making, and it allows us to consider the lot of sanctified spells from a single book as a single game object.

If we remove either the BoEd or CoV, do the remaining sanctified spell allow the Healer to still reach tier 3?

If yes, then that means that the sanctified spells as a whole cannot be considered a single game object for purposes of tier ranking, and as such we should not rank a Healer with those spells separately from a Healer without.

If no, that means there is a sharp enough difference between Healer and Healer + that one excluded book's spells to separately rank the two.

Of course the point is moot if we consider that Sanctified spells as a whole are not powerful enough to raise the Healer ranking on their own right. Or if we consider that the sanctified spells in the book can be attributed in a more fine way than either "all of them" or "none of them" in which case they cannot be considered a single game object.

[eggynack]

The Sanctified list is a wide set of spells, but it's still a single point of failure-- remove the one book (and it's not even something like a Complete book; the BoED is reasonably niche), and the class suffers a lot.
Mostly. There is the CoV, as I've noted. Still, main point was that it's a distinct point of failure from that denoted by externality. This is, to some extent, just part of the healer class.


If we remove either the BoEd or CoV, do the remaining sanctified spell allow the Healer to still reach tier 3?
I dunno. Maybe. Assuming we strike BoED, just getting vision of punishment, animate with the spirit, create lantern archon, benign projection, celestial fortress, and holy fire shield are all quite good. Animate especially is plausibly straight up borked when you get it. It gets you a lot of lesser planar ally. If we strike CoV, then I think the case is significantly stronger. That list is long. I'd be willing to put just BoED healer there pretty easily.


If yes, then that means that the sanctified spells as a whole cannot be considered a single game object for purposes of tier ranking, and as such we should not rank a Healer with those spells separately from a Healer without.

If no, that means there is a sharp enough difference between Healer and Healer + that one excluded book's spells to separately rank the two.
It feels like there's a bit of an in-between state here. Like, CoV's stuff is enough to get you to high four, at least, and that matters even if it needs BoED to get to three. Either way, I don't think it makes much sense to split off, "Healer, but we let it get access to the rest of its spell list."


Of course the point is moot if we consider that Sanctified spells as a whole are not powerful enough to raise the Healer ranking on their own right.
This seems unlikely. Sanctified spells are mad good.

[Beheld]

"A Warmage's spell list is completely empty garbage, but somewhere, one obscure book that no one in this conversation even legally owns they wrote 'Gate level 1' in it. Clearly it's bull**** to not count the ENTIRE Warmage Spell List. I mean, after all, everyone plays with the entire Spell list, including that one spell in Astroski's GhostLand Compendium Part V: Of Clerics and Druids. So it's really not fair to not count the entire spell list."

[Bucky]

We tiered Fighter as Thug Fighter and Paladin as SotAO Paladin. Saying Healer is in the same tier as both because they might not have Sanctified spells seems spiteful.

[remetagross]

"A Warmage's spell list is completely empty garbage, but somewhere, one obscure book that no one in this conversation even legally owns they wrote 'Gate level 1' in it. Clearly it's bull**** to not count the ENTIRE Warmage Spell List. I mean, after all, everyone plays with the entire Spell list, including that one spell in Astroski's GhostLand Compendium Part V: Of Clerics and Druids. So it's really not fair to not count the entire spell list."

Didn't we just address your point?

EDIT: ah, I see, there are actually two issues you're raising, the unicity of the source of of the sanctified spells, but also its rarity. Yeah, I agree that CoV and BoED are not among the most common sourcebooks. Still, they're no 3.0 unconverted stuff, no web enhancement, and no bizarre somehow third-party-but-licensed stuff. Like, I agree that we should weigh the power they bring down given that they're not that common, but come on, they're not that far-fetched either.

[eggynack]

"A Warmage's spell list is completely empty garbage, but somewhere, one obscure book that no one in this conversation even legally owns they wrote 'Gate level 1' in it. Clearly it's bull**** to not count the ENTIRE Warmage Spell List. I mean, after all, everyone plays with the entire Spell list, including that one spell in Astroski's GhostLand Compendium Part V: Of Clerics and Druids. So it's really not fair to not count the entire spell list."
Book of exalted deeds is obscure and no one legally owns it? That seems a bit unlikely. Higher possibility for CoV, but still. We're not talking about some absurdly overpowered spell from a crazy out of the way book. We're talking about a wide variety of pretty reasonably balanced spells from one very well known book and one more obscure book. I mean, jeez, you've been talking about taking arcane disciple like four or five times and going ten levels in a completely different class, and you're complaining about people just straightforwardly using one or two sourcebooks? One of these things is way closer to the class than the other, and it's not the warmage.

[Beheld]

Book of exalted deeds is obscure and no one legally owns it? That seems a bit unlikely. Higher possibility for CoV, but still. We're not talking about some absurdly overpowered spell from a crazy out of the way book. We're talking about a wide variety of pretty reasonably balanced spells from one very well known book and one more obscure book. I mean, jeez, you've been talking about taking arcane disciple like four or five times and going ten levels in a completely different class, and you're complaining about people just straightforwardly using one or two sourcebooks? One of these things is way closer to the class than the other, and it's not the warmage.

It doesn't matter if it's one overpowered spell or a whole bunch of "reasonably powerful" spells that shoot a class up 12 tiers to tier 0. The point is that when you say "The REAL Healer Spell List that everyone actually uses involves spells that aren't on the Healer list and that no one has ever cast as a healer, and that come from a book I don't even own" that you are full of ****.

I've been talking about real characters that people actually play, and I've been talking about them at comparable optimizations. (IE, compared Warmage without any of those things they totally have access to as compared to a Favored Soul who wasn't diving into 3.0 books and obscure setting books that no one owns, compared warmage as people actually play it to favored soul that does dumpster dive 3.0 books and setting books.) It's fine to take into account sanctified spells that no one has ever used with a healer when evaluating a healer, it's not fine to say bull**** lies like "Of course anyone who even thinks about the Healer without it's entire spell list is basically just cheating the healer out of it's inherent class features (in a book literally no one owns)."

[eggynack]

It doesn't matter if it's one overpowered spell or a whole bunch of "reasonably powerful" spells that shoot a class up 12 tiers to tier 0. The point is that when you say "The REAL Healer Spell List that everyone actually uses involves spells that aren't on the Healer list and that no one has ever cast as a healer, and that come from a book I don't even own" that you are full of ****.

I've been talking about real characters that people actually play, and I've been talking about them at comparable optimizations. (IE, compared Warmage without any of those things they totally have access to as compared to a Favored Soul who wasn't diving into 3.0 books and obscure setting books that no one owns, compared warmage as people actually play it to favored soul that does dumpster dive 3.0 books and setting books.) It's fine to take into account sanctified spells that no one has ever used with a healer when evaluating a healer, it's not fine to say bull**** lies like "Of course anyone who even thinks about the Healer without it's entire spell list is basically just cheating the healer out of it's inherent class features (in a book literally no one owns)."
As the original tier system pointed out, people are inevitably going to be biased towards classes that they like and know well. Your assertion that all your warmage stuff is super common and always used, while healer stuff is never used and completely inaccessible (I've used sanctified spells before, albeit not on a healer), is a baseless one, predicated on what is at best anecdotal evidence. I didn't say anything was cheating the healer out of class features. I'm saying what is true. These things are intrinsic to the class, and that matters. The barrier to something like arcane disciple is two fold, maybe even three or four fold. You need access to the book, and you need to pick that feat, and you need to pick the right version of the feat, and you need to build your character around it a bit. The barrier to sanctified spells is only the first, that you need the book access. After that, the spells are basically just yours, no matter what, and you can throw them on your list at any time. It means that sanctified spells are, in many ways, closer to the healer than your suggested warmage optimization is to the warmage.

[Beheld]

As the original tier system pointed out, people are inevitably going to be biased towards classes that they like and know well. Your assertion that all your warmage stuff is super common and always used, while healer stuff is never used and completely inaccessible (I've used sanctified spells before, albeit not on a healer), is a baseless one, predicated on what is at best anecdotal evidence. I didn't say anything was cheating the healer out of class features. I'm saying what is true. These things are intrinsic to the class, and that matters. The barrier to something like arcane disciple is two fold, maybe even three or four fold. You need access to the book, and you need to pick that feat, and you need to pick the right version of the feat, and you need to build your character around it a bit. The barrier to sanctified spells is only the first, that you need the book access. After that, the spells are basically just yours, no matter what, and you can throw them on your list at any time. It means that sanctified spells are, in many ways, closer to the healer than your suggested warmage optimization is to the warmage.

I don't know why you don't see that your repeated desire to express how utterly bull**** the concept of warmage's expanding their spell list is isn't not only not helpful to your argument, but directly hurting your argument that all Healers ever always use Sanctified spells.

I mean, don't get me wrong, your attempts to make it sound like Warmage spell acquisition are the hardest toughest most horrifying thing in the universe with 14 failures steps is cute in it's silliness, but you really can't see that it contradicts your claim that all Healers ever in the universe always have access to sanctified spells in all circumstances?

"Warmage spell acquisition isn't intrinsic to the class because they only have 30 different ways of adding spells to their list that they can use, and if I just keep spot banning them for my tier list, eventually I'll be able to justify my opinion on warmages. But I think we can all agree that spells in Champions of Valor are intrinsic to the Healer class....."

Or you know, in the alternative, maybe it's true that spell acquisition is sometimes a thing that some characters can do, but varies based on a number of factors, including, but not limited, to whether those methods are in say, every book published by WotC for 8 years, or only in two books one of which sold and entire 10,000 books total ever !

(Also I've never played a Warmage even once, I've just played enough games that I've seen a guy play a warmage.)

[eggynack]

I don't know why you don't see that your repeated desire to express how utterly bull**** the concept of warmage's expanding their spell list is isn't not only not helpful to your argument, but directly hurting your argument that all Healers ever always use Sanctified spells.

I mean, don't get me wrong, your attempts to make it sound like Warmage spell acquisition are the hardest toughest most horrifying thing in the universe with 14 failures steps is cute in it's silliness, but you really can't see that it contradicts your claim that all Healers ever in the universe always have access to sanctified spells in all circumstances?

"Warmage spell acquisition isn't intrinsic to the class because they only have 30 different ways of adding spells to their list that they can use, and if I just keep spot banning them for my tier list, eventually I'll be able to justify my opinion on warmages. But I think we can all agree that spells in Champions of Valor are intrinsic to the Healer class....."
I haven't banned arcane disciple at all. Nor have I said that sanctified spells are universally used. This is pretty blatant strawmanning.

[Beheld]

I haven't banned arcane disciple at all. Nor have I said that sanctified spells are universally used. This is pretty blatant strawmanning.

Yes, I too hate it when I say something is intrinsic to the class and is part of the Healer spell list, and then people have the temerity to claim I said it was intrinsic to the class and part of the Healer Spell List. Truly we are put upon in life when people insist that we mean the things we said.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Mostly. There is the CoV, as I've noted. Still, main point was that it's a distinct point of failure from that denoted by externality. This is, to some extent, just part of the healer class.
Did not know that, but I think the point (my point, at least; I'm not sure what Beheld's point is besides picking a fight) holds: while, by RAW, every Healer has access to said spells, in practice not every group will have a copy of those books, or will know that you even can cast said spells*. Given that so much of the Healer's tier depends on whether or not they have that list, it seems disingenuous to assume that they're in use. Like assuming that all Rangers are Wildshape Rangers just because it's a RAW option.


*Speaking of, are there any other casters who get big jumps in usefulness from accessing Sanctified Spells? Divine Crusader, maybe? Can someone like a Duskblade or Warlock grab Arcane Preparation and suddenly access the whole list?

[Zombulian]

Yes, I too hate it when I say something is intrinsic to the class and is part of the Healer spell list, and then people have the temerity to claim I said it was intrinsic to the class and part of the Healer Spell List. Truly we are put upon in life when people insist that we mean the things we said.

How long ago did you make the choice to communicate exclusively with asshat rhetoric? I feel like I remember respecting you...

[Zombulian]

*Speaking of, are there any other casters who get big jumps in usefulness from accessing Sanctified Spells? Divine Crusader, maybe? Can someone like a Duskblade or Warlock grab Arcane Preparation and suddenly access the whole list?

Wait does Arcane Preparation actually work on Warlocks?
Also I'm not sure. The wording of the feat specifically says that you can prepare spells you know, but the only requirement for Sanctified is being Good (Exalted?) and preparing spells huh...

[eggynack]

Yes, I too hate it when I say something is intrinsic to the class and is part of the Healer spell list, and then people have the temerity to claim I said it was intrinsic to the class and part of the Healer Spell List. Truly we are put upon in life when people insist that we mean the things we said.
Intrinsic/on list and universally used are distinct things. Celerity is intrinsic to the wizard and on their list, but it's not necessarily used by every wizard. Sanctified spells are so intrinsic to clerics that some can spontaneously cast the things, and yet some clerics will never ever use them. In the same sense, sanctified spells are absolutely intrinsic to the healer, and on their list, but they may never be used. To put it simply, I think it proper to imagine sanctified spells as just having healer written under them, the same as one might write druid under blinding beauty. We can assume that healers have as much access to greater luminous armor, a bit more because they automatically match alignments, as druids do to blinding beauty. This is my position. "All Healers ever always use Sanctified spells," is a blatant mischaracterization of that position.


Did not know that, but I think the point (my point, at least; I'm not sure what Beheld's point is besides picking a fight) holds: while, by RAW, every Healer has access to said spells, in practice not every group will have a copy of those books, or will know that you even can cast said spells*. Given that so much of the Healer's tier depends on whether or not they have that list, it seems disingenuous to assume that they're in use. Like assuming that all Rangers are Wildshape Rangers just because it's a RAW option.
And, as I've said, I partially agree. These shouldn't be considered necessarily present on literally any healer in existence. However, I feel that sanctified spells are too intrinsic, too great in number, and too spread across books (two is significantly more than one) to make splitting it off logical. It feels a bit like splitting off non-core spells as a different class, even if that's not exactly what's happening here. It's like, if there were just two really powerful healer spells in two books of varying obscurity, ones that are together tier raising, then we might still consider those spells part of the class. It's on the line. That we have a huge number of spells, ones of redundant power increasing capability, means that we're way past the, "One game object, or maybe two in combination, in a weird scenario," standard. Not sure how I'd feel if it were just BoED, but that's still a lot of spells to just call one game object because they're in one book.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Wait does Arcane Preparation actually work on Warlocks?
Also I'm not sure. The wording of the feat specifically says that you can prepare spells you know, but the only requirement for Sanctified is being Good (Exalted?) and preparing spells huh...
Warmage, I meant. Oh well.

[GilesTheCleric]

It's like, if there were just two really powerful healer spells in two books of varying obscurity, ones that are together tier raising, then we might still consider those spells part of the class. It's on the line. That we have a huge number of spells, ones of redundant power increasing capability, means that we're way past the, "One game object, or maybe two in combination, in a weird scenario," standard. Not sure how I'd feel if it were just BoED, but that's still a lot of spells to just call one game object because they're in one book.

To take another perspective on them, you could consider them one (or two, since they're in two books) objects based on the rules required to use them. When you read the heading for the Sanctified spell rules, that's when you realise you can add them all to your list.

Alternatively, and I think this is a better argument: maybe it doesn't matter for Healers, but for many other classes, gaining access to Sanctified spells is a build choice -- you need to pick the correct alignment, and/ or pick a class that doesn't prevent you from casting them. I see that as being similar in nature to picking a feat, a skill to rank up, or any other facet of character building.

There's other things in the game that are similar. For example, adding the Incarnum spells to your list requires the Incarnum Spellshaping feat. Just about any class can do that, and some classes have it easier than others, eg. a Cleric with the Incarnum domain.

[Troacctid]

*Speaking of, are there any other casters who get big jumps in usefulness from accessing Sanctified Spells? Divine Crusader, maybe? Can someone like a Duskblade or Warlock grab Arcane Preparation and suddenly access the whole list?
Evangelists and Spontaneous Clerics get full spontaneous access to the entire list, provided they are of Good alignment. So that's cool.

[rrwoods]

I think Sanctified spells should be categorized similarly to an ACF, if they change the tier.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Evangelists and Spontaneous Clerics get full spontaneous access to the entire list, provided they are of Good alignment. So that's cool.
Ooh, that is fun.

[remetagross]

So basically Eggynack your stance is that most of the people who bother playing a Healer will be aware of the opportunity of sanctified spells, because thew will have performed the required research about the class. On the other hand, GilesTheCleric and Grod_the_Giant (to say nothing of remetagross-the-forumite) think that such a knowledge by the player is less intuive and granted than that. Due to their relative obscurity, and as such possible rulebook unavailablity of their source even if the player does know of them.

Then, Giles, Grod and Eggy, would you consider that all in all, the rarity of the occurence of a Healer using sanctified spells (which is not the same according to either of you, but still) weighs the power of such a character down enough to prevent the average Healer from raising a Tier?

That could solve the debate regardless of the various interpretations, if thew all produce the same result.

[Zombulian]

To take another perspective on them, you could consider them one (or two, since they're in two books) objects based on the rules required to use them. When you read the heading for the Sanctified spell rules, that's when you realise you can add them all to your list.

Alternatively, and I think this is a better argument: maybe it doesn't matter for Healers, but for many other classes, gaining access to Sanctified spells is a build choice -- you need to pick the correct alignment, and/ or pick a class that doesn't prevent you from casting them. I see that as being similar in nature to picking a feat, a skill to rank up, or any other facet of character building.

There's other things in the game that are similar. For example, adding the Incarnum spells to your list requires the Incarnum Spellshaping feat. Just about any class can do that, and some classes have it easier than others, eg. a Cleric with the Incarnum domain.

Healer has a requirement of being Good, so I feel like that makes Sanctified spells a more reasonable assumption than a build choice. Obviously you have to know about them and have access to the books, but they still pretty much auto-qualify.


Evangelists and Spontaneous Clerics get full spontaneous access to the entire list, provided they are of Good alignment. So that's cool.

Wait what? I'm AFB rn, is there a clause that makes sanctified spells available to Clerics of Good alignment regardless of casting style?

Edit: WHOA

[eggynack]

To take another perspective on them, you could consider them one (or two, since they're in two books) objects based on the rules required to use them. When you read the heading for the Sanctified spell rules, that's when you realise you can add them all to your list.
I get the perspective. It just seems a bit much to fit under that tiny categorization.


Alternatively, and I think this is a better argument: maybe it doesn't matter for Healers, but for many other classes, gaining access to Sanctified spells is a build choice -- you need to pick the correct alignment, and/ or pick a class that doesn't prevent you from casting them. I see that as being similar in nature to picking a feat, a skill to rank up, or any other facet of character building.
It's pretty hard to not have access to sanctified spells. Just gotta be non-evil. I'd expect most characters to be that. Or, rather, I'd obviously expect most characters to be that, because it's a majority of alignments, but I'd also expect more characters to be that than would be dictated by a random distribution, because evil is a bit wonky.


Evangelists and Spontaneous Clerics get full spontaneous access to the entire list, provided they are of Good alignment. So that's cool.
Seriously? Wow. I might need to up my evaluation then. Maybe. I have somewhat higher standards for acceptance into tier one than I do for tier three or four.

I think Sanctified spells should be categorized similarly to an ACF, if they change the tier.
I think a sanctified spell should definitely be categorized like that. A couple of sanctified spells in one book? Sure, maybe. Dozens of them across two books? It feels like a stretch. At least, it feels like a stretch to categorize them all as a single ACF. In the same sense, I would not consider thug fighter and sneak attack fighter the same ACF for the purposes of tiering, just because they come from the same book. I definitely don't consider every UA barbarian totem, that barbarian with some ranger class features thing, whirling frenzy, and spirit totems a single ACF for tiering purposes. That situation is near identical to this one. The healer situation is actually significantly less a single ACF.

So basically Eggynack your stance is that most of the people who bother playing a Healer will be aware of the opportunity of sanctified spells, because thew will have performed the required research about the class. On the other hand, GilesTheCleric and Grod_the_Giant (to say nothing of remetagross-the-forumite) think that such a knowledge by the player is less intuive and granted than that. Due to their relative obscurity, and as such possible rulebook unavailablity of their source even if the player does know of them.
I think it makes sense to assume it shows up a reasonable amount of the time, but not a ton.


Then, Giles, Grod and Eggy, would you consider that all in all, the rarity of the occurence of a Healer using sanctified spells (which is not the same according to either of you, but still) weighs the power of such a character down enough to prevent the average Healer from raising a Tier?
Not really. I think that, when you account for all this different stuff, the sanctified spells at the low levels, the companions at the high levels, the decent healing stuff throughout, you have a setup that's a good amount better than some tier three classes. When you subtract out some obscurity force, I think you still land there in one form or another. Without their presence in the game at all? Probably not.

[rrwoods]

I think practically that Sanctified spells really are all or nothing. Either the player and DM are aware of them, or they are not. I can't see a situation where a DM says "you can have this one Sanctified spell" happening very often.

[Beheld]

I think practically that Sanctified spells really are all or nothing. Either the player and DM are aware of them, or they are not. I can't see a situation where a DM says "you can have this one Sanctified spell" happening very often.

No human being actually believes that. Eggy just boxed himself into a corner with his initial justification for tiering with sanctified spells and now has to pretend that dms make separate decisions on each sanctified spell to justify his "sanctified spells are totally discrete game objects" position.

[arclance]

I would add to this discussion that even if the group has access to BoED, knows Sanctified Spells exist, and realizes the Healer can use them (Healer is itself obscure enough I don't have much of a problem with this assumption) does not mean the player will be allowed to use them.
A lot of times BoED gets kneejerk banned (like BoVD and ToB) because the DM does not like it or "it encourages a play style that is disruptive when introduced into the pool of players I have".
Because of that I could easily see it not being something a player actually has access to.

I know of no DM locally that allows BoED by default, though that is mostly because the don't have time to go through and weed out the few things they would allow from the rest.

[eggynack]

I think practically that Sanctified spells really are all or nothing. Either the player and DM are aware of them, or they are not. I can't see a situation where a DM says "you can have this one Sanctified spell" happening very often.
"You can have just this sanctified spell, because reasons," is unlikely. "You can have all but this sanctified spell, because I don't think that one fits in this game for whatever reason," is more likely. "You can have all the sanctified spells, except the campaign is such that the particular strategy set out by a few of them won't be all that effective," may be more likely still. "You can have only some of the sanctified spells, defined by the fact that we have access to CoV but not BoED for whatever reason," is quite likely. There are advantages to having access to a lot of little objects as opposed to one big object.

No human being actually believes that. Eggy just boxed himself into a corner with his initial justification for tiering with sanctified spells and now has to pretend that dms make separate decisions on each sanctified spell to justify his "sanctified spells are totally discrete game objects" position.
Could you please, seriously, stop acting like these threads are this crazy fight to the death, where I'm boxing myself into corners or trying to trick people because this is high stakes enough that those things can happen? I don't care nearly so much about the outcome here to lie to you or anyone else. I'm nowhere near sufficiently bound to one ironclad position that I can be boxed in, as it were. You're ostensibly trying to convince people, including me, of things here. What you're doing is incredibly counterproductive.

[Beheld]

Could you please, seriously, stop acting like these threads are this crazy fight to the death, where I'm boxing myself into corners or trying to trick people because this is high stakes enough that those things can happen? I don't care nearly so much about the outcome here to lie to you or anyone else. I'm nowhere near sufficiently bound to one ironclad position that I can be boxed in, as it were. You're ostensibly trying to convince people, including me, of things here. What you're doing is incredibly counterproductive.

People say dumb things and then refuse to admit they are wrong about unimportant non life and death stuff, even stuff they don't have knowledge about or strong opinions before they establish the initial point they start defending. You do it all the time. Just because I criticized your silly position doesn't mean I think this is life and death.

[eggynack]

People say dumb things and then refuse to admit they are wrong about unimportant non life and death stuff, even stuff they don't have knowledge about or strong opinions before they establish the initial point they start defending. You do it all the time. Just because I criticized your silly position doesn't mean I think this is life and death.
Having and defending, or not having and criticizing, a position is fine. It's the tone of the comments that is problematic.

[remetagross]

No human being actually believes that. Eggy just boxed himself into a corner with his initial justification for tiering with sanctified spells and now has to pretend that dms make separate decisions on each sanctified spell to justify his "sanctified spells are totally discrete game objects" position.

Actually I do envision such a situation. If I were to DM a player using Sanctified spells, I'd consider forbidding Exalted Fury and the Phoenix flames one, basically those who cost a character level as a sacrifice cost. They put a player into a position of party self-sabotage, since not only do they leave the overall party weaker but also they cost 5000gp and a high-level cleric a pop, which is a loss of time and money for everyone for not-so-impressive effects.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Evangelists and Spontaneous Clerics get full spontaneous access to the entire list, provided they are of Good alignment. So that's cool.

How? I am actually in the middle of playing a good aligned evangelist and being able to bring this to the DM would be cool.

[GilesTheCleric]

How? I am actually in the middle of playing a good aligned evangelist and being able to bring this to the DM would be cool.

That's one of the benefits of Spontaneous Cleric and Evangelist. They count as a Cleric for ACFs and other effects.


As the classes given here are all derivates of the cleric, they possess many traits and features in common with the standard cleric class. Unless otherwise noted, a specialist cleric advances as a normal cleric and shares the following traits:
• Levels of specialist cleric count as levels of a standard cleric in terms of spellcasting ability, qualification for feats and prestige classes, and the like. A character must choose upon first becoming a cleric whether to be a core cleric or one of these variations. Once the choice is made it cannot be changed or unmade, and the character may not later multiclass into the core cleric or a different variant cleric.



While wizards, druids, rangers, and paladins can all prepare sanctified spells, clerics have a special advantage: they can spontaneously cast any sanctified spell, just as they can spontaneously cast cure wounds spells.

[ZamielVanWeber]

That is amazing. Thank you so much. I think, with this information, I will just change my vote for spontaneous cleric and evangelist to 1. Getting access to a huge repertoire of spells, plus spells known, plus the ability to do domain spells at will is invaluable for some domains.

[eggynack]

Actually, wait a sec. Tentative counterargument. "Casters who do not prepare spells (including sorcerers and bards) cannot make use of them except from a scroll." Spontaneous clerics do not prepare spells, so while their clerichood would let them spontaneously cast them were they capable of casting sanctified spells, their spontaneous nature disallows casting in a general sense. I don't think specific versus general applies here either. The line about spontaneous sanctified spells is not constructed as an exception to the line about restriction from spontaneous casters. This might be in the ambiguous/not allowed range.

[Zombulian]

Actually, wait a sec. Tentative counterargument. "Casters who do not prepare spells (including sorcerers and bards) cannot make use of
them except from a scroll." Spontaneous clerics do not prepare spells, so while their clerichood would let them spontaneously cast them were they capable of casting sanctified spells, their spontaneous nature disallows casting in a general sense. I don't think specific versus general applies here either. The line about spontaneous sanctified spells is not constructed as an exception to the line about restriction from spontaneous casters. This might be in the ambiguous/not allowed range.

The line "just as they can spontaneously cast cure wounds spells" adds a bit to this, as Spontaneous Clerics don't have that ability either.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Well, if we determine they can use sanctified spells put me down for one on spontaneous cleric and evangelist. If they cannot put me down for 1.5 for the two of them (two with minimal optimization and one if you really want to be good at it).

[Gemini476]

I would add to this discussion that even if the group has access to BoED, knows Sanctified Spells exist, and realizes the Healer can use them (Healer is itself obscure enough I don't have much of a problem with this assumption) does not mean the player will be allowed to use them.
A lot of times BoED gets kneejerk banned (like BoVD and ToB) because the DM does not like it or "it encourages a play style that is disruptive when introduced into the pool of players I have".
Because of that I could easily see it not being something a player actually has access to.

I know of no DM locally that allows BoED by default, though that is mostly because the don't have time to go through and weed out the few things they would allow from the rest.

To add on to this, Champions of Valor is a Forgotten Realms product. While Faerûn is a popular setting, it is by no means the only popular 3E setting - not to mention how custom settings can be a bit scattershot when it comes to setting-specific products.
And while the Healer is from the Miniatures Handbook, well, that's a product that has some value beyond just D&D. Those minis sold pretty well. Also, it's one of two products that actually has mass battle rules (the other being Heroes of Battle).

Also, a somewhat-common restriction is "PHP plus one book" - you've probably heard of it before. It's usually either that, "Core Only (Actually Just PHB Only, Don't You Dare Touch Those Monster Manual Subraces)", "whatever the DM owns", a book-based ban list (or white list - "Core + Completes", for instance), or blanket allowance. Occasionally there's a more specific list detailing specific feats, spells and classes (the Living Greyhawk Campaign is a neat artifact for that reason), but that's generally too much effort both to write and read.
And by choosing to play a Healer, you're using up your one book on the Miniatures Handbook. A pretty poor choice, but who am I to judge?


I vote the Healer for Tier 4 for most of the reasons already mentioned in this thread (they do a good enough job at healing, and adding Charisma to CLW actually helps keep up with individual attacks even if it falls behind eventually), and the Healer with Sanctified Spells for Tier 3 for the reasons that have already been mentioned. It changes from a full caster with a mediocre list to a full caster with a decent one.


I'm not sure if it's worth considering for tiering since it's so ambiguous, but the Spell Compendium's paragraph on adding spells to the Healer has this little gem:

Healer (Miniatures Handbook): Add spells concerned with healing, providing protections, removing affliction, and providing for needs. In particular, add higher-level versions of spells the healer can already cast, such as mass restoration.
Emphasis mine. The base Healer spell list does the rest - heals, removes afflictions, provides for needs - but is pretty lacking in the "providing protections" bit. Depending on the specifics, that might push it into tier 3 on its own. "Protective buff" is pretty broad.

Since it's so vague it's kind of useless for this discussion, but I felt that it should be brought up.

[Duelpersonality]

Evangelist, Spont. Cleric: Tier 1.5. While some of the cleric's oomph comes from broad spell access day to day, these are still potent.

Favored Soul: Tier 2. Losing turning and domains hurts, but that's relative to one of the strongest classes the game has to offer.

Healer: Tier 3. I'm in the camp with sanctified spell access.

[Rizban]

I have to stick with my original determination of T4 on Healer. While sanctified spells are good and generally enough for a tier bump, I'd say at least 90% of the games I've played in over the years have outright banned BoED/BoVD. My opinion is that if a class is reliant on material from a completely different book to be viable, then that extra material shouldn't be counted when rating the class. If it's from the SRD or the same book, then it's entirely fine to count it. If it's from different books, then it's questionable at best.

[Anthrowhale]

Actually, wait a sec. Tentative counterargument. "Casters who do not prepare spells (including sorcerers and bards) cannot make use of
them except from a scroll." Spontaneous clerics do not prepare spells, so while their clerichood would let them spontaneously cast them were they capable of casting sanctified spells, their spontaneous nature disallows casting in a general sense. I don't think specific versus general applies here either. The line about spontaneous sanctified spells is not constructed as an exception to the line about restriction from spontaneous casters. This might be in the ambiguous/not allowed range.

So, would a Spontaneous Cleric taking the Spell Domain to qualify for Arcane Preparation be able to spontaneously cast sanctified spells?

[Troacctid]

I think Healer is somewhere between 3 and 4. I'm going to say 3.4, because I think the companion is like, actually legit fantastic. The action economy advantage is really nice. The problem is that it takes so long to come online, and you kind of suck until then? So it's awkward.

I do think it's criminal to put the Healer in the same tier as the Adept. That's just unreasonable. If you have Healer at 4, you basically have to have Adept at 5.

[Rizban]

I do think it's criminal to put the Healer in the same tier as the Adept. That's just unreasonable. If you have Healer at 4, you basically have to have Adept at 5.If sanctified spells are off the table, between the two, I'd be a bit torn and likely choose the Adept. I'd be even more likely to choose Adept if it gains a domain as presented in ECS, again assuming no sanctified spells. With sanctified spells on the table, I'd probably choose Healer, primarily because of the faster spell progression.

To me, they're about equally viable options, so I have no problems having them on the same tier.

[Troacctid]

I mean just look at a 12th level Adept against a 12th level Healer. The Adept has a single 4th level spell if its Wisdom is high enough. The Healer has full access to the entire Cleric spell list up to 4th level and doesn't have to spend her action to cast any of it.

[GilesTheCleric]

I'm a little surprised at all the folks rating Evangelist and Spontaneous Cleric at the top of T2. Is it just sanctified spells that leads you to put them at the top of the tier, or something else in addition?

[Rizban]

I'm a little surprised at all the folks rating Evangelist and Spontaneous Cleric at the top of T2. Is it just sanctified spells that leads you to put them at the top of the tier, or something else in addition?

I see Sorcerer as right near the middle of T2. To me, Mystic is exactly on par with Sorcerer in power or very slightly higher due to a very slightly better chassis. Spontaneous Cleric has faster spell level progression, more spells known (until 18th level), 2 domains, turn undead, better BAB (also Divine Power), better saves, and better hit die, all compensated by having slightly fewer spells/day. Each new domain gained adds 9 new spells known in addition to a new domain power, and it's generally much easier to gain a new domain than it is to add 9 additional spells to a sorcerer.

With Sorcerer at "Mid T2," I would say that puts S.Cleric at "High T2," comparatively speaking.

[Sagetim]

Wait, What? When did the healer get full access to the cleric list up to 4th level spells?

Also, there's not That many sanctified spells. It's not even like, two per level, so it doesn't seem like an objectively large amount of spells to get access to or not. Compared to the Healer's anemic spell list of, like, what is it 8 per level if that? Then sure, it's a statistically significant increase in spell options. But personally I think it's just kind of eeeeehhh~ if that makes any sense. Sanctified spells are great for healers, who have somewhere between 0 and 0 offensive spell options, but for a regular cleric your normal spells like searing light and flame strike and what not are probably going to get a lot more mileage when it comes to fighting evil. Because it doesn't eat into your time to recover from the sacrifices that Sanctified Spells call for.

To answer giles though, I think I can see why they would put evangelist up on top of tier 2. It's losing a little and gaining a lot of potential in domains shenanigans. There are some really nice domain only spells out there, and the evangelist can potentially cast them as spontaneous spells until they run out of slots.

[Rizban]

Wait, What? When did the healer get full access to the cleric list up to 4th level spells? Lammasu (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lammasu.htm)companion casts spells as a 7th-level cleric.

[eggynack]

Bout time for results. Actually kinda late for results. But results. And new thread tomorrow. Not sure what it's gonna be. Maybe something I'm not as into, like incarnum or psionics. Getting sidetracked. The results were pretty much as you'd expect. Two for everything but healer, three for healer. I feel like there was some interesting discussion though.


So, would a Spontaneous Cleric taking the Spell Domain to qualify for Arcane Preparation be able to spontaneously cast sanctified spells?
I dunno. Maybe. It's an interesting strategy. I mean, I'm just getting on the, "This maybe doesn't work train," now.

I'm a little surprised at all the folks rating Evangelist and Spontaneous Cleric at the top of T2. Is it just sanctified spells that leads you to put them at the top of the tier, or something else in addition?
I'd expect it to be that. It's a lot of spells. Still not sure you actually get them though. The argument against seems solid.


Also, there's not That many sanctified spells. It's not even like, two per level, so it doesn't seem like an objectively large amount of spells to get access to or not. Compared to the Healer's anemic spell list of, like, what is it 8 per level if that? Then sure, it's a statistically significant increase in spell options. But personally I think it's just kind of eeeeehhh~ if that makes any sense. Sanctified spells are great for healers, who have somewhere between 0 and 0 offensive spell options, but for a regular cleric your normal spells like searing light and flame strike and what not are probably going to get a lot more mileage when it comes to fighting evil. Because it doesn't eat into your time to recover from the sacrifices that Sanctified Spells call for.
It's somewhat more than two per level. Maybe it drops to less if you exclude crap? The firsts, aside from vision of punishment (and then only at later levels), and the seconds, aside from luminous armor, are pretty mediocre, but there are like six different third level sanctified spells in the BoED, and you get to add create lantern archon in CoV. You're getting at least three solid entries, archon, hammer, and aspect, with a few side benefits. Fourths get you like three or four spells. Greater luminous, animate with the spirit, and celestial fortress are more or less whole spells, and then I maybe count sunmantle and diamond spray as one spell in total. Fifths are a bit anemic, but inquisition is kinda great. So put that down for a one. Sixths have valiant steed, which is great, and benign projection, which is reasonable, and the others maybe get you to three effective spells. Sevenths have cry of ysgard and constricting chains as whole spells, and then maybe the others are about one spell again. eights have nothing, and that sucks, and 9th's have nothing too, but I'm just not gonna count that either way, because you already have sufficient power from your other spells that nothing else matters.

So, tallying it up. Looks like around 15-17, maybe 18, for eight spell levels? Yeah, I guess it was two per level. It's a pretty reasonable two per level though. It seems significant on a spontaneous build. You're getting only a few spells known, usually like three or four including domains, so this is like a 50% bump. More, sometimes. Less, when the lower percentage matters less. The biggest benefit is on odd levels, for the spontaneous cleric. At those levels, it's just domain spells. So, two spells known, and one or both of them could be mediocre depending on the level and the domains. That's over a 100% increase. Great deal. It transforms odd levels from, "You have an advantage over sorcerers, but it's not a perfect situation," to, "You're just casting totally normally on odd levels, more or less." Which is good. Y'know, assuming this works.

[GilesTheCleric]

I'd expect it to be that. It's a lot of spells. Still not sure you actually get them though. The argument against seems solid.

I just expected more explanations about them to include the domains. I'm also not convinced, but I'll take a hard look at all the RAW later.

[Troacctid]

Wait, What? When did the healer get full access to the cleric list up to 4th level spells?
Like I said, companions are legit.

You get 8th level spells at Healer 12 as well via the gynosphinx.

[eggynack]

I just expected more explanations about them to include the domains.
Well, in all fairness, domains are an assumed element of the classes, while sanctified spells are decidedly not. Sanctified spells are that extra thing that might arguably push them over the top. That it improves odd levels so much makes it especially interesting.


I'm also not convinced, but I'll take a hard look at all the RAW later.
As I noted, kinda something I threw together, argument-wise, but I think it holds up to scrutiny decently. Convinced me at least somewhat, especially after that thing about spontaneous clerics lacking spontaneous cure spells (at least in the usual sense).

[Sagetim]

Like I said, companions are legit.

You get 8th level spells at Healer 12 as well via the gynosphinx.

Oh, well, that seems pretty handy, along with the lammasu thing too. I think your milage is going to vary with the companions though, but it wold be the kind of varying that you get from group to group anyway. Like, if the gm controls all companions and requires you to provide orders or they do their own thing, that's going to be different than you controlling it directly different than each player controlling someone elses' companion and so on. Healer looks like a really good cohort class to have.


Edit: Go for psionics next. I like psionics.

[Anthrowhale]

I dunno. Maybe. It's an interesting strategy. I mean, I'm just getting on the, "This maybe doesn't work train," now.


Do you have an argument?

[eggynack]

Do you have an argument?
Yeah, I posted one hereabouts (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21959245&postcount=160).

[Rizban]

I don't understand why gynosphinx is a companion option for a Healer. I mean, they're not Good, they're not particularly empathetic of others, they have no beneficial abilities to use on others, and they have a list of SLAs that reads "symbol of death, symbol of fear, symbol of insanity, symbol of pain, symbol of persuasion, symbol of sleep, and symbol of stunning." They just don't seem to fit in with the other options of unicorn and lammasu.

Water naga also makes me scratch my head. It's not Evil, but nothing it does seems to be in line with healers at all. A guardian naga would have made much more sense, what with being Good aligned and casting as a sorcerer with cleric spell access, it can actually do some of what would be expected of a healer's pet.

Androsphinx actually makes some sense. It's good aligned and has access to the Healing and Protection cleric domains for its casting. It seems like an appropriate upgrade to the base unicorn and the only other creature on the list that makes sense to me to be on there.

Couatl works too, but it still feels weird to me to have a psionic creature as a companion for a healer, even if it is also a sorcerer with cleric spell access.

[Zombulian]

I just expected more explanations about them to include the domains. I'm also not convinced, but I'll take a hard look at all the RAW later.

I think a lot of those ratings were based on domains, the possibility of spontaneous sanctified spells is just gravy.

[Anthrowhale]

Yeah, I posted one hereabouts (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21959245&postcount=160).

A Spontaneous Cleric with Arcane Preparation does prepare spells so the quoted line does not apply.

[eggynack]

A Spontaneous Cleric with Arcane Preparation does prepare spells so the quoted line does not apply.
Oh, I was in a loop, thinking that you were just entering the basic conversation rather than responding to a response. I gots nothing on it at the moment. Seems feasible, but these, "Take some feat to pretend to be this or the other kind of caster," tricks often have some point of ambiguity somewhere. Not saying there is one in this case, but I wouldn't be surprised.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I think a lot of those ratings were based on domains, the possibility of spontaneous sanctified spells is just gravy.

Domains technically cost something: a domain choice. If I take the transformation domain, then there is a domain choice that is gone and can never be gotten back; transformation is an exceedingly powerful domain, but that does not mean that I would be better served by another domain's spells in specific instances. If sanctified spells are accessible automatically then there is a whole bunch of utility there at no cost.

[eggynack]

Domains technically cost something: a domain choice. If I take the transformation domain, then there is a domain choice that is gone and can never be gotten back; transformation is an exceedingly powerful domain, but that does not mean that I would be better served by another domain's spells in specific instances. If sanctified spells are accessible automatically then there is a whole bunch of utility there at no cost.
We could probably assume some reasonably high op domains and have them compare favorably to sanctified spells though. Another way of putting it, however, is that sanctified spells have a consistent power level that remains high in the face of lower optimization levels. Which is nice. Sanctified spells mean you don't necessarily have to take lesser planar ally, which is good on a spell known opening basis, but it also means that you have that spell no matter what, which is good on a, "Lesser planar ally is good to have," basis.