Waazraath
2017-08-19, 04:08 PM
The purpose of this
is the following:
1) To give players an overview of how good the different (sub)classes can fulfil the different roles that are (or can be) needed in an adventuring party.
2) To provide our community a guideline on which classes can be good at what specific role, and a framework to talk about this.
Why is this a handy function?
Well, as for 1), to give people an overview on how good different (sub)classes fulfil certain roles, that can be nice in several situations. For example, somebody has an idea what he wants his character to do (for example, good melee damage, healing, and social skills), this tool can be used to see what (sub)classes have much to offer in these areas. When people get together to decide to build a ‘stealthy’ party, they can check it to see how good different classes perform on ‘stealth’. If they are missing ‘ranged damage’, they can check what (sub)class would perform well in that area. Et cetera.
As for 2), to be a place for the 5e community, where strong and weak points of classes can be discussed, and where abilities of subclasses can be compared. For some reasons, people like to rank stuff. And we are people, and rankings, tiers and all that is often a subject enthusiastically discussed.
Basicly, this tool gives a structured framework to look at the strong points of (sub)classes.
What the purpose of this is not
To determine which class is ‘better’ then other classes. How ‘good’ a class is, is mostly depending on the player, the build, the party make-up, the DM, the kind of setting that is used, the kind of enemies encountered, the way the three pillars of D&D (combat, social, exploration) are in balance, et cetera. As history shows, discussions about ‘what’s best’ often lead to bickering. Very nice, if you think that the life domain cleric is ‘better’ than the arcane trickster rogue, and you have a build to prove it. No doubt, that’s true at your table(s). But here that’s not interesting. What the multirank will tell you is that the life cleric is a better healer and the rogue is better at stealth.
This multirank is a tool that shows how good a class can perform in a number of areas. No more, but no less.
How does the 5e multirank work?
The base of this tool is the options that each class gives, the roles it can fulfil. In other words: can you use this class for a build that is good at X. Where ‘X’ is for example ‘healer’, ‘debuffer’, ‘scout’, or ‘melee damage dealer’.
That means that though a class can be used to do both X, Y and Z, that doesn’t neccesarily mean that one build can do X, Y and Z at the same time. That depends on the selection of feats, spells, skills, and (other) class features.
In general, spell users will be more flexible; especially those that can adjust their spell list from day to day (clerics, druids, wizards). A wizard that doesn’t have anything to increase her mobility, can memorize the next day a jump, misty step, and fly spell. Other casters have more limited spell choices. Besides: a wizard that has her fifth encounter of the day, might have used all spell slots, and not have anything left in the mobility department, while the rogue can still has expertise in the athletics skill, and can continue to dash as a bonus action. Therefore, though all these facts are noted, they aren’t included in the multi-rank. Key is: the potential each subclass has to fulfil each different role.
Some other relevant issues:
- feats are assumed to be included in the game (though an optional rule, their usage is assumed because it’s used on most tables, judging these boards).
- multi-classing is out (else ranking will be nigh impossible).
- no Unearthed Arcana, just classes published in books (so far: from the PHB and SCAG).
The assessment scale
5e did a pretty good job of creating options for all classes, especially when using feats. Everybody can heal with the ‘healer’ feat, everybody can buff others with the ‘inspiring leader’ feat, everybody can get a familiar with the ‘magic initiate’ feat and use it to scout, and everybody can use gold to hire a lot of mercenaries and use them as minions. Also, with the background system, every character has access to every skill. That means that every class can perform at most tasks at a basic level.
In addition to that, in 5e there isn’t that much difference in power between characters that are totally optimized, and those that are hardly optimized. Also non-optimized characters, of all classes, are still reasonably competent.
For the assessment scale this means the following:
A score of 1: great, this (sub)class is simply one of the best for this task. It has several, strong class features that are designed for this specific kind of job.
A score of 2: good: the (sub)class offers additional tools for fulfilling a task. It’s not the best possible (sub)class for the job, but definitely better than a class that, of example, has no other tools than the relevant skill and / or feat.
A score of 3: ok-ish: the (sub)class offers little to none additional tools for fullfilling this task. It needs to spend a feat to be able to do this, or pick a background to give access to a skill, and invest in the relevant ability score.
To give an example, to make this more concrete: let’s take the role “healer”. Every class can be a healer, up to a certain point. By investing in the skill proficiency Medicine, or taking the Healer feat, or the Magic initiate feat and selecting healing spells. This makes your character an ok-ish healer, but not good. Good is for example an Oath of devotion paladin, with lay on hands, relevant spells and abilities that end status effects, heal, or even bring allies back from the dead. The life domain cleric is, without a doubt, great in this role.
Of course, the lines between these categories are blurry and not objective. How about the beast master ranger, for example, how is that subclass in regard to the healer role? Does the fact that the class has wisdom as a secondary stat, and has a few minor spells like cure wounds and lesser restoration, enough to lift it to rank 2 (good)?
Intersubjectivity is aimed for, by discussing this with the community. That is, you!
To make things more complex, classes are ranked based on the abilities the get from level 1-20. A hypothetical class that doesn’t get any healing ability from level 1-19, and gets something ‘omg this is über great’ at level 20, still won’t rank high as a healer, since most of the adventuring career the class can’t heal any better than any other class.
If we wanted to do this really accurately, we should make one of these at several levels (1, 5, 10, etc.), because options can differ depending on what level you are playing. Imo this will be too complicated. Therefor the assumption is that most games won’t last past level 15 (so far none of the official modules do), and most a few levels earlier. Also, very little play time is spend at level 1 and 2. The most important levels therefor are (arguably) 3-12.
The different rankings
These are divided among the three pillers of combat, social interaction and exploration, since that’s the way 5e was structured in the Player’s Handbook (PHB). For some abilities, the piller they are part of is arguable. Healing is here part of the combat pillar, but in practice often takes place when combat is over, and you can use healing in a social situations (cure the princess, etc.). Information gathering can be both social interaction, as exploration. Most roles are related to the combat piller. You don’t need all roles in every game.
Combat
• Melee damage dealer: can give ‘em the hurt in melee
• Ranged damage dealer: can deal serious pain from the distance
• Multiple target damage dealer: can deal damage to groups of enemies (either close by or at range)
• Single target damage dealer: has the ability to dish out a large amount of damage against a single enemy
• Tank: can take a lot of hurt before going down, due to very high hp and / or defensive class features. Preferably can also lure enemies into attacking the tank.
• Debuffer: weaken enemies, by slowing them down, taking away their actions, giving them disadvantage; includes battlefield control.
• Buffer: empowering your allies (and often yourself) with temporary hp, extra attacks, stronger defences, advantage.
• Healer: though not necessarily something you want to do in combat, it’s combat related, that’s why it’s in the combat pillar. It includes healing hp damage, but also ending negative status effects; good healers can even bring back the dead.
Social interaction
• Influencer: make people do what you want, through intimidation, diplomacy, bluff, charm or fear.
• Minion master, have undead, hirelings, summons and / or thralls do your bidding. (can also be used in combat)
• Information gatherer: (through investigation, arcana/history/nature/religion, divinations)
Exploration
• Scout (locate enemies, move unnoticed)
• Trapfinder (find, disable and don’t get killed by traps)
• mobility (land fly climb swim speed, flying, teleportation effects)
Some remarks
As far as I’m concerned this is as much as possible a community effort. I haven’t played (with) all classes, so some of my views are theory that haven’t been tested in practice. What I hope you’ll all contribute:
• in this thread: feedback on the ranking system itself. Is what I came up with here solid? Should there be more roles, or should some of them be combined? Are there relevant skills or abilities that aren’t included in this list?
• In the threads on specific classes: your views on how good these classes are, in each of the different roles.
To get started, I made a thread on the (alphabetically) first two classes, the barbarian and the bard, and their subclasses. You can find them here:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?533863-5e-multi-rank-the-Barbarian
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?533864-5e-multi-rank-the-Bard
Credits: this system is inspired by the “Person_Man's Niche Ranking System”, that the poster Person_Man created for 3.5. It can be found here:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?314701-Person_Man-s-Niche-Ranking-System
is the following:
1) To give players an overview of how good the different (sub)classes can fulfil the different roles that are (or can be) needed in an adventuring party.
2) To provide our community a guideline on which classes can be good at what specific role, and a framework to talk about this.
Why is this a handy function?
Well, as for 1), to give people an overview on how good different (sub)classes fulfil certain roles, that can be nice in several situations. For example, somebody has an idea what he wants his character to do (for example, good melee damage, healing, and social skills), this tool can be used to see what (sub)classes have much to offer in these areas. When people get together to decide to build a ‘stealthy’ party, they can check it to see how good different classes perform on ‘stealth’. If they are missing ‘ranged damage’, they can check what (sub)class would perform well in that area. Et cetera.
As for 2), to be a place for the 5e community, where strong and weak points of classes can be discussed, and where abilities of subclasses can be compared. For some reasons, people like to rank stuff. And we are people, and rankings, tiers and all that is often a subject enthusiastically discussed.
Basicly, this tool gives a structured framework to look at the strong points of (sub)classes.
What the purpose of this is not
To determine which class is ‘better’ then other classes. How ‘good’ a class is, is mostly depending on the player, the build, the party make-up, the DM, the kind of setting that is used, the kind of enemies encountered, the way the three pillars of D&D (combat, social, exploration) are in balance, et cetera. As history shows, discussions about ‘what’s best’ often lead to bickering. Very nice, if you think that the life domain cleric is ‘better’ than the arcane trickster rogue, and you have a build to prove it. No doubt, that’s true at your table(s). But here that’s not interesting. What the multirank will tell you is that the life cleric is a better healer and the rogue is better at stealth.
This multirank is a tool that shows how good a class can perform in a number of areas. No more, but no less.
How does the 5e multirank work?
The base of this tool is the options that each class gives, the roles it can fulfil. In other words: can you use this class for a build that is good at X. Where ‘X’ is for example ‘healer’, ‘debuffer’, ‘scout’, or ‘melee damage dealer’.
That means that though a class can be used to do both X, Y and Z, that doesn’t neccesarily mean that one build can do X, Y and Z at the same time. That depends on the selection of feats, spells, skills, and (other) class features.
In general, spell users will be more flexible; especially those that can adjust their spell list from day to day (clerics, druids, wizards). A wizard that doesn’t have anything to increase her mobility, can memorize the next day a jump, misty step, and fly spell. Other casters have more limited spell choices. Besides: a wizard that has her fifth encounter of the day, might have used all spell slots, and not have anything left in the mobility department, while the rogue can still has expertise in the athletics skill, and can continue to dash as a bonus action. Therefore, though all these facts are noted, they aren’t included in the multi-rank. Key is: the potential each subclass has to fulfil each different role.
Some other relevant issues:
- feats are assumed to be included in the game (though an optional rule, their usage is assumed because it’s used on most tables, judging these boards).
- multi-classing is out (else ranking will be nigh impossible).
- no Unearthed Arcana, just classes published in books (so far: from the PHB and SCAG).
The assessment scale
5e did a pretty good job of creating options for all classes, especially when using feats. Everybody can heal with the ‘healer’ feat, everybody can buff others with the ‘inspiring leader’ feat, everybody can get a familiar with the ‘magic initiate’ feat and use it to scout, and everybody can use gold to hire a lot of mercenaries and use them as minions. Also, with the background system, every character has access to every skill. That means that every class can perform at most tasks at a basic level.
In addition to that, in 5e there isn’t that much difference in power between characters that are totally optimized, and those that are hardly optimized. Also non-optimized characters, of all classes, are still reasonably competent.
For the assessment scale this means the following:
A score of 1: great, this (sub)class is simply one of the best for this task. It has several, strong class features that are designed for this specific kind of job.
A score of 2: good: the (sub)class offers additional tools for fulfilling a task. It’s not the best possible (sub)class for the job, but definitely better than a class that, of example, has no other tools than the relevant skill and / or feat.
A score of 3: ok-ish: the (sub)class offers little to none additional tools for fullfilling this task. It needs to spend a feat to be able to do this, or pick a background to give access to a skill, and invest in the relevant ability score.
To give an example, to make this more concrete: let’s take the role “healer”. Every class can be a healer, up to a certain point. By investing in the skill proficiency Medicine, or taking the Healer feat, or the Magic initiate feat and selecting healing spells. This makes your character an ok-ish healer, but not good. Good is for example an Oath of devotion paladin, with lay on hands, relevant spells and abilities that end status effects, heal, or even bring allies back from the dead. The life domain cleric is, without a doubt, great in this role.
Of course, the lines between these categories are blurry and not objective. How about the beast master ranger, for example, how is that subclass in regard to the healer role? Does the fact that the class has wisdom as a secondary stat, and has a few minor spells like cure wounds and lesser restoration, enough to lift it to rank 2 (good)?
Intersubjectivity is aimed for, by discussing this with the community. That is, you!
To make things more complex, classes are ranked based on the abilities the get from level 1-20. A hypothetical class that doesn’t get any healing ability from level 1-19, and gets something ‘omg this is über great’ at level 20, still won’t rank high as a healer, since most of the adventuring career the class can’t heal any better than any other class.
If we wanted to do this really accurately, we should make one of these at several levels (1, 5, 10, etc.), because options can differ depending on what level you are playing. Imo this will be too complicated. Therefor the assumption is that most games won’t last past level 15 (so far none of the official modules do), and most a few levels earlier. Also, very little play time is spend at level 1 and 2. The most important levels therefor are (arguably) 3-12.
The different rankings
These are divided among the three pillers of combat, social interaction and exploration, since that’s the way 5e was structured in the Player’s Handbook (PHB). For some abilities, the piller they are part of is arguable. Healing is here part of the combat pillar, but in practice often takes place when combat is over, and you can use healing in a social situations (cure the princess, etc.). Information gathering can be both social interaction, as exploration. Most roles are related to the combat piller. You don’t need all roles in every game.
Combat
• Melee damage dealer: can give ‘em the hurt in melee
• Ranged damage dealer: can deal serious pain from the distance
• Multiple target damage dealer: can deal damage to groups of enemies (either close by or at range)
• Single target damage dealer: has the ability to dish out a large amount of damage against a single enemy
• Tank: can take a lot of hurt before going down, due to very high hp and / or defensive class features. Preferably can also lure enemies into attacking the tank.
• Debuffer: weaken enemies, by slowing them down, taking away their actions, giving them disadvantage; includes battlefield control.
• Buffer: empowering your allies (and often yourself) with temporary hp, extra attacks, stronger defences, advantage.
• Healer: though not necessarily something you want to do in combat, it’s combat related, that’s why it’s in the combat pillar. It includes healing hp damage, but also ending negative status effects; good healers can even bring back the dead.
Social interaction
• Influencer: make people do what you want, through intimidation, diplomacy, bluff, charm or fear.
• Minion master, have undead, hirelings, summons and / or thralls do your bidding. (can also be used in combat)
• Information gatherer: (through investigation, arcana/history/nature/religion, divinations)
Exploration
• Scout (locate enemies, move unnoticed)
• Trapfinder (find, disable and don’t get killed by traps)
• mobility (land fly climb swim speed, flying, teleportation effects)
Some remarks
As far as I’m concerned this is as much as possible a community effort. I haven’t played (with) all classes, so some of my views are theory that haven’t been tested in practice. What I hope you’ll all contribute:
• in this thread: feedback on the ranking system itself. Is what I came up with here solid? Should there be more roles, or should some of them be combined? Are there relevant skills or abilities that aren’t included in this list?
• In the threads on specific classes: your views on how good these classes are, in each of the different roles.
To get started, I made a thread on the (alphabetically) first two classes, the barbarian and the bard, and their subclasses. You can find them here:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?533863-5e-multi-rank-the-Barbarian
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?533864-5e-multi-rank-the-Bard
Credits: this system is inspired by the “Person_Man's Niche Ranking System”, that the poster Person_Man created for 3.5. It can be found here:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?314701-Person_Man-s-Niche-Ranking-System