Tiering the Spells

[HouseRules]

Tier the Spells

Tier 1A - Solves Every Problem Perfectly
Tier 1B - Solves Every Problem Quite Well
Tier 2A - Solves Some Problems Perfectly
Tier 2B - Solves A Problem Perfectly
Tier 3A - Solves Some Problems Quite Well
Tier 3B - Solves Every Problem Moderately Well
Tier 4A - Solves A Problem Quite Well
Tier 4B - Solves Every Problem Not So Well
Tier 5A - Solves A Rare Problem Perfectly
Tier 5B - Solves Some Problems Not So Well
Tier 5C - Solves Every Problem Poorly
Tier 6 - Solves No Problems


Multiple Tier 2 Spells with proper interaction would become Tier 1
Multiple Tier 4 Spells with proper interaction would become Tier 3
Multiple Tier 5 Spells with proper interaction would become Tier 4


Using Theoretical Same Game Test with the following assumptions

Level 1 Commoner with one At-Will Cantrip or Orison.
Level 2 Commoner with one At-Will First Level Spell.
Level 4 Commoner with one At-Will Second Level Spell.
Level 6 Commoner with one At-Will Third Level Spell.
Level 8 Commoner with one At-Will Fourth Level Spell.
Level 10 Commoner with one At-Will Fifth Level Spell.
Level 12 Commoner with one At-Will Sixth Level Spell.
Level 14 Commoner with one At-Will Seventh Level Spell.
Level 16 Commoner with one At-Will Eighth Level Spell.
Level 18 Commoner with one At-Will Ninth Level Spell.

in order to solve the Spell Tier system.

Remember that first, we will need to solve the tier of individual spells, before we could deal with their potential interaction.

What does this system do?
It allows us to Tier the build of a particular caster in an easier fashion. Some say that most players would build Tier 4 out of Full Casters instead of having the Theoretical/Practical Optimization of Tier 1 or Tier 2. Spells may be one tier at a particular ECL, but could be a different tier for a different ECL. A Tier 2 Spell for its appropriate ECL would become a Tier 4 Spell at a higher ECL, and even a Tier 6 Spell at even greater ECL.

We assume Wish and Limited Wish are Tier 1 Spells.

[noob]

planar binding is tier 1 too as well as summon monster 9 and planar ally and gate and miracle and shapechange.
Fabricate and the other money gaining spells are tier 1: use fabricate to gain money then retrain your commoner levels in wizard levels.

[HouseRules]

Should have reserved some posts for the eventual lists.

Level 0 Spells


Level 1 Spells


Level 2 Spells


Level 3 Spells


Level 4 Spells


Level 5 Spells
Tier 1

Planar Binding
Fabricate


Level 6 Spells

Level 7 Spells
Tier 1

Limited Wish


Level 8 Spells

Level 9 Spells
Tier 1

Wish

[Goaty14]

That's a lotta spells, and for the most part, you're going to get a bunch of varying opinions unless you make the system more or less complicated. Oh, and then we get into spells that have multiple versions/usage such as Wizard Haste or Trapsmith Haste? Do the options for Pyrotechnics work at different efficiencies?

Instead, i suggest the following system:
T1: Cheese (Or, the stuff your PbP DM has on his ban-list) i.e Ice Assassin, Shivering Touch
T2: The Best Stuff (Basically stuff that does the best of what it should do) i.e Grease, Glitterdust, Haste
T3: The Good Stuff (Basically stuff that does what it should do) i.e Fireball, Shield,
T4: Specialists (Stuff that does what it should do, but solely exists to solve a specific problem) i.e Divest Essentia, Dispel Ward
T5: Utter Trash (You spent *how* much lead writing this!?) i.e Bigby's Tripping Hand
T6: Variable (You know, we honestly don't know where this goes, but it goes somewhere) i.e any "Image" spell

[HouseRules]

The Tier System has to suggest the possible Tier of the Build. A Caster with one Tier X spell would be a Tier X build; multiple Tier "X+1" spell would also be a Tier X build. However, the Tier is also based upon ECL. What is Tier 1 for ECL 2 is different from ECL 4 and ECL 6. What is Tier 1 for ECL 18 is Tier 1 for any ECL that it could be cast.

The project would be too large without a full community to help.

How do the meta-magic affects the Tier of spells?
What spell level do we could the spells with meta-magic applied to them?

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't think limited wish is in the same tier as wish. It's a very useful spell, but not nearly as game-breaking.

Top-tier spells are usually the open-ended ones, the ones that grant additional actions, and the ones that bypass checks entirely. That includes the likes of alter self, polymorph, draconic polymorph, polymorph any object, shapechange, planar binding, greater planar binding, gate, wish, miracle, magic jar, ice assassin, simulacrum, animate dead, dominate monster, astral projection, Mordenkainen's disjunction, body outside body, time stop, and mind blank.

Some spells aren't necessarily very powerful in a caster-versus-caster comparison, but they change the playing field relative to non-casters, like teleport, greater teleport, plane shift, control winds, greater invisibility, scrying, even Leomund's tiny hut (20' radius sphere of force, 2h/level duration, 3rd-level spell, yes please!).

Fusion + astral seed is t0 (TO).


I don't think it's useful to tier all spells of a given level. Better to pile all spells together and tier the lot. Yes, there won't be a lot of t1 cantrips, but that's okay. We know caster power is based on spell access.

[HouseRules]

Limited Wish is a Tier 1 Spell for ECL 13 and ECL 14, but Tier 2 for ECL 15 and ECL 16, yet Tier 3 for ECL 17+.

Of course, people's opinion my vary, so those values may change.

I need a n-dimensional spread sheet, where n = 3+ factorial (number of spells).

ECL
Tier
Spell Level
Spell Synergy and Spell Interaction

The hardest thing is to look into the synergy and interaction of spells. Remember the List of Commoners with At-Will Spells? That's to tier the spell on its own. However, we need to look more into the interaction. There is a reason why Divination is one of the strongest school of magic if it is not alone.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Limited Wish is a Tier 1 Spell for ECL 13 and ECL 14, but Tier 2 for ECL 15 and ECL 16, yet Tier 3 for ECL 17+.
You're making things too complicated too fast. Don't assume you have tiers from the start. First, collect spells that feel like they belong in the same sort of game: TO, PO, noO, antiO. Then start looking if you can refine the listing a bit.

[eggynack]

I think you might be going a bit deep on the tier quantity. I'd prefer just having, like, five or so tiers, and each tier is just clearly better than the one above it, with little to no extra definition having. My metric would largely skip problem solving, and instead assess how often I want to prepare it. Like, primal instinct just offers a decent buff, to the extent that it might hit tier three or four by your classification, but I'd still toss it into tier two because it's so efficient for its level.

A spell based same game test makes little sense, because it assumes spells ought to be proactive. A commoner with heart of water is basically just a commoner, but that's still an amazing spell. That the spell is at-will also makes little sense, as that just disregards the fact that duration matters.

I dunno. I kinda just wanna start tiering near arbitrarily. Maybe even somewhat poorly. There are so many spells. I'll do, let's say, spells that start with an A in the SRD until I get bored. I'll toss them in five tiers, cause that matches up with a typical handbook ranking system for spells.

Acid arrow: Four. It's not entirely useless, but the damage output is pretty low, and damage output in general is pretty weak.

Acid fog: Three. The level cost renders this something of a downgrade to solid fog, which I'd put at tier two.

Acid Splash: Five. With combos, this can do some things, but in a vacuum it's not really want you want your cantrips to be doing. Why are you spending an action to deal this little damage, y'know?

Aid: Four. Seems decent but marginal. Bit below replacement rate, I think, though these cleric spells are where I'm most likely to be wrong.

Air walk: Three? I dunno, how critical is this? It's a pretty middling flight method, but if it's just the cleric flight method then it might get a two.

Alarm: Three. Decent defensive spell for the level, but access to rope trick right after this renders it a bit redundant.

Align weapon: Five. Super situational and kinda weak.

Alter self: One. It's a defining spell for the tier.

Analyze dweomer: Four. Seems like a relatively low ranking divination effect, with the focus cost being a bit prohibitive here.

Animal growth: Two. One of the stronger buff spells out there. Well, on a druid anyway. Lot weaker on a wizard and still quite a bit weaker on a ranger.

Animal messenger: Four. I feel like you can do a lot better for message oriented spells. This has so many limitations.

Animal shapes: Four. So high level, and with such limited utility. It does have a nice duration and target quantity though. Gotta be worth something.

Animal trance: Five. So situational, and it doesn't do that much in those situations.

Animate dead: Two. Very strong, and central to some strategies, but not quite broken.

That seems like a good place to stop. This project is prohibitively massive, I gotta say.

[HouseRules]

How about the good old "Fighter's Fire Ball". Throw a can of oil and a lit torch. Old school players always use this.

There are too many spells, and many spells have low value on their own. However, the interaction between spells is difficult to judge.

Thus, the project would be too large to complete within any short (several months is short) time frame.

[noob]

How about the good old "Fighter's Fire Ball". Throw a can of oil and a lit torch. Old school players always use this.

There are too many spells, and many spells have low value on their own. However, the interaction between spells is difficult to judge.

Thus, the project would be too large to complete within any short (several months is short) time frame.

It is good at setting stuff on fire but less in the middle of a rocket tag fight due to the action cost: it needs 2 actions.
But the point of being a wizard is to make sure that the rocket tag fight did not happen in the first place.
Which is why fireball is a weak spell.

[Telonius]

Yeah, chiming in on the "too many spells" aspect ... just a quick Google search shows full lists of 1900+ unique spells, just for Wizard/Sorcerer. There's a going to be a lot of overlap for the final list (some spells are both Wizard and Cleric casting for example), but you're looking at well over 2000 total spells in the game.

[eggynack]

How about the good old "Fighter's Fire Ball". Throw a can of oil and a lit torch. Old school players always use this.

There are too many spells, and many spells have low value on their own. However, the interaction between spells is difficult to judge.

Thus, the project would be too large to complete within any short (several months is short) time frame.
I'm not really sure what this is in reference to. Heart of water doesn't "interact" with a second spell to become good. It's just a standard solid defensive buff that's also efficient for underwater travel. That's a good thing. However, it's worthless for most things you'd look at in a same game test. If you look at my handbook, or any handbook really, you'll find that these sorts of spells are assessed and given exactly one grade. Because we know how spells are deployed. You cast heart of water to keep you safe while you cast other spells.

All of that is why my metric makes sense, more than some weird same game test. Cause, the more I think about it, the more spells an at-will commoner same game test trashes a lot of great spells. Is solid fog good? Not really, cause you have to count on whatever commoner damage you can get in through the fog. Is greater magic fang good? Not really, cause commoners ain't got fangs. Is dinosaur stampede good? Well, at least it has some means of ending combat encounters, so it's better than those two spells under this metric.

By contrast, isn't it better to just ask, "How likely am I to prepare solid fog?" Or even, "How likely am I to prepare acorn of far travel?" That's decidedly a crazy combo spell, but if it's a sufficiently good combo spell then you are reasonably likely to prepare it. Your system would literally put acorn in tier six. Isn't that kinda weird?

[RoboEmperor]

Top-tier spells are usually the open-ended ones, the ones that grant additional actions, and the ones that bypass checks entirely.

Correction: Top-tier spells are out-of-combat spells. Shapechange doesn't break games because people use it to assume the form of powerful monsters. Shapechange breaks games because of at-will wish out of combat, for example.

Limited Wish is subpar, like, horrendously subpar. Wish and Gate have shenanigans that makes it worth their XP cost but Limited Wish? It's a once in a while direct combat spell. If that's your definition of tier 1 then you need tier -10.

In any case I disagree with your tier classifications. They should be ranked based on how hard they break the game to the point you can't use them in certain optimization levels.

[eggynack]

In any case I disagree with your tier classifications. They should be ranked based on how hard they break the game to the point you can't use them in certain optimization levels.
I disagree. Game breakingness was a really weird and wonky metric on the original tier system, and, while the discrete nature of spells makes it a good amount less weird here, I don't think it's a good primary metric. Is alter self game breaking? It does a bunch of useful things efficiently, but I dunno that I'd call anything it does breaking the game. Simple stuff like efficiency or versatility finds difficulty adding up to broken status, but I think it's incredibly important, especially for lower level spells.

[RoboEmperor]

I disagree. Game breakingness was a really weird and wonky metric on the original tier system, and, while the discrete nature of spells makes it a good amount less weird here, I don't think it's a good primary metric. Is alter self game breaking? It does a bunch of useful things efficiently, but I dunno that I'd call anything it does breaking the game. Simple stuff like efficiency or versatility finds difficulty adding up to broken status, but I think it's incredibly important, especially for lower level spells.

Maybe not game-breakiness, but how about Power?

Alter Self breaks the low and mid op game but not high op.

Combined with other shenanigans i.e. Dwarven Ancestor or what I've done in every single one of my builds (assume supernatural ability + ravid) shows that Alter Self is inconceivably superior to Web and Glitterdust. You can make entire builds around Alter Self like I have done which inevitably completely trivializes a lot of your party members to the point some DMs just don't know how to deal with the spell (and end up breaking the low or mid op game) but not Glitterdust or Web so Alter Self needs to be in its own tier.

There's just so much you can do with Alter Self but not Web or Glitterdust.

If we're using 1st and 2nd level spells, I'd put
Tier 1: Alter Self, Spell-Storing Item (entire builds can be built around these spells and they can replace entire parties)
Tier 2: Summon Marked Homunculus (too powerful for its level)
Tier 3: Web, Glitterdust, Conjure Ice Beast II (very powerful direct combat spell)
Tier 4: Scorching Ray, Invisibility (Less powerful)

So I think it's a good metric. You take one look at this list and you can see which spells are so powerful they can potentially derail games and you can make entire builds around, and which spells are just good to prepare but nothing else. And a new player looking at this list would know which spells he needs to do in-depth research on. It's more useful than a list that puts Limited Wish at tier 1 imo, because you can't do jack with Limited Wish other than use it as a panic spell at the cost of 300xp. No builds, no shenanigans, yet tier 1...

[eggynack]

Alter Self breaks the low and mid op game but not high op
I'm not sure what you mean by op here. Alter self is a clearly good option in high optimization settings.


Combined with other shenanigans i.e. Dwarven Ancestor or what I've done in every single one of my builds (assume supernatural ability + ravid) shows that Alter Self is inconceivably superior to Web and Glitterdust. You can make entire builds around Alter Self like I have done which inevitably completely trivializes a lot of your party members to the point some DMs just don't know how to deal with the spell (and end up breaking the low or mid op game) but not Glitterdust or Web so Alter Self needs to be in its own tier.
Alter self is great without arbitrary combo nonsense. When I say it's tier one, I mean it's tier one when applied to a normal human without using feats or whatever.


So I think it's a good metric. You take one look at this list and you can see which spells are so powerful they can potentially derail games and you can make entire builds around, and which spells are just good to prepare but nothing else. And a new player looking at this list would know which spells he needs to do in-depth research on. It's more useful than a list that puts Limited Wish at tier 1 imo, because you can't do jack with Limited Wish other than use it as a panic spell at the cost of 300xp. No builds, no shenanigans, yet tier 1...
You literally just put invisibility, a very strong and unique spell, into the bottom half of your tier system. That does not seem like a good metric to me. I also don't think limited wish is necessarily tier one, but not because you can't build around it. There are so few spells that you actively build around. No, the important thing is how much you want limited wish on your prepared or known list. If you always want limited wish, to the extent that you might want to not have it because it's too strong, then limited wish is tier one. I don't think that's the case though.

[farothel]

I think it's going to be very difficult to place spells, because how good they are depends also on the circumstances. For instance the spell Create Food and Water. A handy spell if you're out in a dungeon to supplement your rations (especially when you don't have bags of holding yet), but in a desert this can be the only thing that keeps your party alive.

I also think that good spells can be made perfect and average spells can be made good by just making sure you use them creatively. A simple Create Water spell cast on a sandy surface turns it into mud, enemy walks into the mud and gets slowed. And when he's up to his ankles into the mud, throw a fireball (or any other fire based spell that does enough damage) to bake the mud into brick and stop him in his tracks. On its own the Create Water is not that good, but if you have the right conditions (or make sure you have them), it can become a very good spell.

[noob]

A simple Create Water spell cast on a sandy surface turns it into mud, enemy walks into the mud and gets slowed. And when he's up to his ankles into the mud, throw a fireball (or any other fire based spell that does enough damage) to bake the mud into brick and stop him in his tracks. On its own the Create Water is not that good, but if you have the right conditions (or make sure you have them), it can become a very good spell.

Sorry but brick creation does not works like that in real life.
A grenade can not make bricks from mud obtained from a sandy surface because bricks does needs a constant supply of heat over time and not a burst of heat in fact too much heat at once does not works for making bricks because it does not make a coherent structure.
I mean it is utterly nonsensical and if it happens it just means your gm have no idea how to create bricks and does not deserve his brick crafting license.
If you used pyrotechnic or flaming sphere it could have made sense if you did have the right amount of time and did place the flame effect at a place where it gives the right heat to the mud for making bricks and then only if the mud is not obtained from a sandy surface but rather a surface with the appropriate amount of clay and sand and then you also need to somehow mix the components or else again it will not make bricks.

so basically you would need ground with the right amount of clay and then you cast create water then you mix the ingredients(for example with fabricate but that takes a lot of time) then you heat over the right amount of time and at the right temperature the mix with a spell creating heat in a continuous way and not in a burst and so the opponent had like at least 5 minutes to go away.
Or like a normal person instead of creating bricks you just use create water then mud to rock.

Another problem you forgot is that create water do not create that much water and ground have a limited absorption rate so basically the opponent have multiple rounds to run into you and stab you before there is enough mud at the space where you did cast the create water spell for making feet get under mud rather than being on mud.

Create water shine not in battle but when you have preparation time you can make traps with it or get water to not die of thirst or heat or even to survive lava because somehow wet clothes give 1 of fire resistance which makes you immune to lava you can also use water to scare off adventurers(since adventurers are creatures made of fire from the elemental plane of fire and which hates getting under water).

[eggynack]

I think it's going to be very difficult to place spells, because how good they are depends also on the circumstances. For instance the spell Create Food and Water. A handy spell if you're out in a dungeon to supplement your rations (especially when you don't have bags of holding yet), but in a desert this can be the only thing that keeps your party alive.
Yeah, situational spells are tricky. It reminds me of the MtG podcast Limited Resources, where they sometimes give cards a sideboard grade, meaning you don't bring it in on a normal basis, but it has some quantity of utility in the situations you prepare it. The same might make sense here. Spells with a significant delta between typical preparation rate and their utility when prepared might get a secondary rating that's reflective of that. I think the best way to capture this meaning is just to ask how good the spell is when put it on your list on a normal adventuring day, and when you put it on your list in a more optimal scenario. This, I think, reflects well the difference in spell usage methods of wizards, sorcerers, and clerics/druids.



On its own the Create Water is not that good
I disagree. Water is useful. Like, not just in the creative sense you were talking about. There's just a lot of arbitrary unborked things you can do with a bunch of water. You can drink it, or scry with it, or put out fires, or make something slippery, or make it harder to get around invisibly, or any number of things. As anything but a 0th, it'd be questionable, but it's one of the more versatile and potent 0th's out there.

[HouseRules]

Water is very useful. People need to drink half a gallon per day in temperate climate, and more in other climates.

Water has a 50% lethal dose of 3 gallons. That means the average person has 50% chance of dying if they drink 3 gallons as they would pee out all their salt and die.

Using water as a weapon, and drowning the enemy is a possibility. Remember that not everything is combat.

[Cosi]

The idea of a "tier system for spells" is straighforwardly nonsensical, and only exists because the legacy of JaronK has convinced people that you should have a class tier system that is "class only, no feats, no items, final destination". That, of course, necessitates a tier system for PrCs, and spells, and items, and feats. Except that those are useless because those things are not independent of class, and do not combine linearly together.

Consider, for example, the effect of class on spell evaluation. Warmages, Clerics, Wizards, and Sorcerers all learn and cast spells in different ways and with different restrictions. Warmages can use any spell slot to cast any spell of the appropriate level from their list. Clerics have to commit their spells ahead of time, but can still pull anything from their list on any given day. Wizards have to prepare spells, and have to spend resources to add more spells to their list. Sorcerers don't prepare spells, but only get access to a tiny fraction of the spells nominally on their class list.

Consider what happens if you add a new spell to the spell list of each of those classes.

Any spell you add to the Warmage's list makes every Warmage more powerful. It doesn't matter how niche it is, if it is at any point useful to a Warmage, they will be able to use it at that point.

For a Cleric to benefit from a new Cleric spell, there has to be some circumstance where that spell is better than other spells at the beginning of the day. That's a fairly low bar, but it's possible (particularly at lower levels of optimization) for a spell that a Warmage would benefit from not to clear it.

A Wizard has to pay for additional spells (past the free ones at level up, which are not getting spent on niche spells), which adds yet another hurdle to benefiting from an additional spell on their list.

A Sorcerer has a fixed number of spells at each level. New Sorcerer spells basically don't exist unless they are better than the Xth best spell of their level (where X is the number of spells of a given level a Sorcerer has).

So how good is something like command undead? The answer is that it varies. Not just because there are different campaigns where parties will encounter different amounts of mindless undead, but because it requires a radically different amount of investment from different classes to have access to it as an option. So trying to evaluate spells on their own will get you nonsensical results. Just like it will when someone inevitably proposes a Tier System for Feats, or Items, or Races. Because all of those are obviously unhelpful and the reasonable way to do things is to acknowledge that a Wizard with Incantatrix levels is still fundamentally a Wizard and that Scout/Ranger with Swift Hunter is still a Scout and that buying a Runestaff doesn't make you not a Warmage.

That said, people are making some pronounced errors of analysis here, and those are worth correcting.


planar binding is tier 1 too as well as summon monster 9 and planar ally and gate and miracle and shapechange.

summon monster does not deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as planar binding.


Fabricate and the other money gaining spells are tier 1: use fabricate to gain money then retrain your commoner levels in wizard levels.

No, this is fallacious thinking. Money loops aren't powerful. The things you buy with WBL-breaking piles of cash are. Because you could just steal those things, or make a bunch of profession checks.


T6: Variable (You know, we honestly don't know where this goes, but it goes somewhere) i.e any "Image" spell

That is not how a tier system should be structured. "this doesn't fit" should never result in "this is at the bottom". Also, if you need an entire category for "we can't rank this", you're probably headed in the wrong direction.


I don't think limited wish is in the same tier as wish. It's a very useful spell, but not nearly as game-breaking.

Limited Wish is subpar, like, horrendously subpar. Wish and Gate have shenanigans that makes it worth their XP cost but Limited Wish? It's a once in a while direct combat spell. If that's your definition of tier 1 then you need tier -10.

wish and limited wish are very comparable as spells. Emulating higher level spells is obviously better than emulating lower level ones, but by that logic cone of cold is fundamentally superior to fireball. wish for money isn't practically different from limited wish emulating wealth creation. wish is totally broken when you don't pay the XP cost of a magic item that is broken and get it for free, but that's on whatever is letting you skip on XP costs.


Correction: Top-tier spells are out-of-combat spells. Shapechange doesn't break games because people use it to assume the form of powerful monsters.

I mean, shapechange does break the game for that reason too. It's trivially easy to cycle through forms in a way that makes you totally immune to damage, for example.


They should be ranked based on how hard they break the game to the point you can't use them in certain optimization levels.

No. This has never ever been a helpful way to rank anything ever and anyone who tries to use it in any kind of ranking is being unhelpful.

[eggynack]

The idea of a "tier system for spells" is straighforwardly nonsensical.
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more that's probably true. Why are we not just doing a wizard handbook or something? That's kinda why I feel some engagement with this thread though. Less as a way of actually tiering all the spells in all the circumstances, but just because the idea of community ranking spells, even if it there's a stipulated context of class, is interesting. Is community handbooking a thing? Sounds kinda wonky, to be honest, but it's at least a fun project. Maybe that should be the angle, that we stipulate that we're talking about wizard spells in the context of the wizard, and develop some stuff in that direction. Of course, even narrowed this much, the project is still prohibitively lengthy and not all that useful. It would take so much less time for me to just give color spray a blue rating, write a paragraph long description, and call it a day.

[zfs]

I think I'll join the general chorus that there's just too many moving parts for a spell tier system to be anything but a novelty (and a horrifically time confusing one at that - look at how long the LA assignment project is going and now picture that for every spell in every splatbook). Ranking spells requires you to give at least minor consideration to class, build, setting, op level, general campaign style (RP heavy? Nothing but hack and slash dungeons?), party composition...there's so many variables here.

I think the tier discussions are useful not because they become proscriptions writ large on the whole community but because the discussion can occasionally bring to light issues that hadn't been considered before and can get people to think about classes in a more broad fashion. I just suspect that a spell tier discussion would go off on so many possible tangents and ranking methodologies that we're not going to learn very much - we largely already know how to separate good spells from bad spells.

[HouseRules]

Take Chainmail to Original D&D. Every kill becomes 1d6, so all instant kill spells does exactly 1d6 damage.

Now,

How do we deal with the Save or Suck spells?
How do we deal with the Just Suck spells?

[eggynack]

Take Chainmail to Original D&D. Every kill becomes 1d6, so all instant kill spells does exactly 1d6 damage.

Now,

How do we deal with the Save or Suck spells?
How do we deal with the Just Suck spells?
What are you talking about and what does it have to do with this project?

[zfs]

Take Chainmail to Original D&D. Every kill becomes 1d6, so all instant kill spells does exactly 1d6 damage.

Now,

How do we deal with the Save or Suck spells?
How do we deal with the Just Suck spells?

Could you unpack this a bit more, please? I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here and I doubt I'm alone in that boat.

[AnimeTheCat]

instead of tiers (why is everyone so bound to this tier concept) why not give things grades? You can have any number of categories so you can see the stand outs in each category, but you can also see a composite score so you can see the overall "best" spells. I think someone at some point tried doing this with the classes and I much preferred it to the very unrefined tier 1-6 ratings. A score tells you something, especially when broken down into its components. A tier gives you a vague definition of what a grouping of things can be included in.

I believe this successfully navigates the problems associated with tiering things. As to what the categories could be, something like Damage, Buffing, Debuffing, Restoring, and Utility could cover quite a large spectrum of spells, give a minimum score of 0 and a maximum of 50 (for the composite score), and give a good overview of what each spell can be good for as opposed to "it's just good". This also allows for different spells of the same type to be graded independent of each other, showing that (no duh, I know) Summon Monster I is infinitely inferior to Summon Monster IX, but it can also show what kinds of things are possible with each level of spell, meaning that SMI would have a 0 in Restoring and Buffing, while getting maybe 1 in Damage and Debuffing, and possibly a 2 or 3 in Utility, as it can be use to effectively navigate trapped hallways and such from the earliest of levels, giving it a composite score of 4-5. Heck, you could even do decimals here because all you're doing is adding it up at the end.

I think this would be the way to go if you want to evaluate spells and I think that if this is done it should be done by spell list, one class at a time, and done in a style similar to the level adjustment adjustment threads with a spell being posted, describing it's capabilities and then giving an initial assessment of the score. After a period of time (I dunno, a spell every 2-3 days sounds appropriate in my opinion) the next spell is posted. After all of the spells for that spell level of that class are posted, they get consolidated. Multiple threads like this could be going at once even. For copyright sake, only spells on the SRD would be able to be done in this way, but that's a great start and hits many of the classics I think.

[lylsyly]

My two cents - The tier system is useless for classes, useless for anything else, and most useless for spells.


Take Chainmail to Original D&D. Every kill becomes 1d6, so all instant kill spells does exactly 1d6 damage.

Apples and Oranges man

[RoboEmperor]

I'm not sure what you mean by op here. Alter self is a clearly good option in high optimization settings.

Optimization. I said it breaks low and mid optimization games but not high optimization games.


Alter self is great without arbitrary combo nonsense. When I say it's tier one, I mean it's tier one when applied to a normal human without using feats or whatever.

I think you should consider "combo nonsense" when ranking the spells IMO. Orb of x spells for example, are lackluster since blasting is bad, but if you bring in a mailman build, it is superior to every BFC spell in the game, so Orb of x spells should be tier 1 or similar. Their combo potential is what makes them strong. If we're making a list of spells for a normal human with 0 feats or PrCs, I think that list is worthless.



You literally just put invisibility, a very strong and unique spell, into the bottom half of your tier system. That does not seem like a good metric to me. I also don't think limited wish is necessarily tier one, but not because you can't build around it. There are so few spells that you actively build around. No, the important thing is how much you want limited wish on your prepared or known list. If you always want limited wish, to the extent that you might want to not have it because it's too strong, then limited wish is tier one. I don't think that's the case though.

It's not bottom half. If you look at my list it's clear there's gonna be like... 5-10 tiers. Magic Missile is not on the list right? And the tier 4 spells are superior to magic missile by a wide, wide margin.

Also I never got invisibility to work. It doesn't give a bonus to move silently so it's worthless on a wizard. Maybe if cast on the party rogue it's awesome but in combat, I doubt it. The 50% miss chance is nice on a summoner but it depends on the DM. My DM gives his mooks what he calls the "standard mundane kit" and flour is in that kit. Sure it forces them to waste an action but you only come out ahead if you cast it before combat.


Why are we not just doing a wizard handbook or something?

Because there are handbooks out there already and most people are like me don't want to think about anything that doesn't concern their build which limits their system mastery to the point they really shouldn't be writing a handbook.

[Cosi]

Of course, even narrowed this much, the project is still prohibitively lengthy and not all that useful. It would take so much less time for me to just give color spray a blue rating, write a paragraph long description, and call it a day.

If your spell descriptions are a paragraph long, you're not being concise enough. It doesn't take a paragraph to explain why color spray is good, and you don't need to do any analysis on most bad spells. A list of good spells is already 80% of the way there. Particularly because good spells are usually good in similar ways.


instead of tiers (why is everyone so bound to this tier concept) why not give things grades? You can have any number of categories so you can see the stand outs in each category, but you can also see a composite score so you can see the overall "best" spells. I think someone at some point tried doing this with the classes and I much preferred it to the very unrefined tier 1-6 ratings. A score tells you something, especially when broken down into its components. A tier gives you a vague definition of what a grouping of things can be included in.

I believe this successfully navigates the problems associated with tiering things. As to what the categories could be, something like Damage, Buffing, Debuffing, Restoring, and Utility could cover quite a large spectrum of spells, give a minimum score of 0 and a maximum of 50 (for the composite score), and give a good overview of what each spell can be good for as opposed to "it's just good". This also allows for different spells of the same type to be graded independent of each other, showing that (no duh, I know) Summon Monster I is infinitely inferior to Summon Monster IX, but it can also show what kinds of things are possible with each level of spell, meaning that SMI would have a 0 in Restoring and Buffing, while getting maybe 1 in Damage and Debuffing, and possibly a 2 or 3 in Utility, as it can be use to effectively navigate trapped hallways and such from the earliest of levels, giving it a composite score of 4-5. Heck, you could even do decimals here because all you're doing is adding it up at the end.

I think this would be the way to go if you want to evaluate spells and I think that if this is done it should be done by spell list, one class at a time, and done in a style similar to the level adjustment adjustment threads with a spell being posted, describing it's capabilities and then giving an initial assessment of the score. After a period of time (I dunno, a spell every 2-3 days sounds appropriate in my opinion) the next spell is posted. After all of the spells for that spell level of that class are posted, they get consolidated. Multiple threads like this could be going at once even. For copyright sake, only spells on the SRD would be able to be done in this way, but that's a great start and hits many of the classics I think.

This seems like a long walk for something that is not meaningfully superior to just writing a short description of why each spell is good.


Spell-Storing Item

This is overrated. Paying XP for your daily castings is a bad deal at low levels. At mid levels it's good. At high levels it doesn't do enough. Grabbing early access spells is cheese, and should be ranked against other cheese. From 8 to ~10 it's good, but that's like 10% of the game.


If we're making a list of spells for a normal human with 0 feats or PrCs, I think that list is worthless.

I mean, that's exactly how the Tier System for classes works.


It's not bottom half. If you look at my list it's clear there's gonna be like... 5-10 tiers.

That's way more granularity than you need.

[eggynack]

Optimization. I said it breaks low and mid optimization games but not high optimization games.
That's not really how it's typically used though. Most people are just going to use it as a 10 minutes/level second level flight spell that also grants a ton of armor and some fancy attacks should the need arise. Maybe some other movement modes too. That ability is excellent in spite of the fact that it doesn't precisely break any games.


I think you should consider "combo nonsense" when ranking the spells IMO. Orb of x spells for example, are lackluster since blasting is bad, but if you bring in a mailman build, it is superior to every BFC spell in the game, so Orb of x spells should be tier 1 or similar. Their combo potential is what makes them strong. If we're making a list of spells for a normal human with 0 feats or PrCs, I think that list is worthless.
Again, most people casting orb won't be mailmen, and the few that are already know they're casting orb. Ranking orb of fire as tier one provides roughly zero information to anyone. There's room for accounting for this utility, I suppose, but the idea that any ranking should fixate on only the most broken possible usage, when other lesser usages exist and are solid, seem kinda ludicrous.




It's not bottom half. If you look at my list it's clear there's gonna be like... 5-10 tiers. Magic Missile is not on the list right? And the tier 4 spells are superior to magic missile by a wide, wide margin.
Given that the other tier four spell is scorching ray, not really.



Also I never got invisibility to work. It doesn't give a bonus to move silently so it's worthless on a wizard. Maybe if cast on the party rogue it's awesome but in combat, I doubt it. The 50% miss chance is nice on a summoner but it depends on the DM. My DM gives his mooks what he calls the "standard mundane kit" and flour is in that kit. Sure it forces them to waste an action but you only come out ahead if you cast it before combat.
It has a lot of out of combat utility at the very least, along with a number of spells still usable while invisible (there's a bunch beyond summoning).Do you have a citation for the idea that flour is a panacea against invisibility?



Because there are handbooks out there already and most people are like me don't want to think about anything that doesn't concern their build which limits their system mastery to the point they really shouldn't be writing a handbook.
But a tier system will be, if anything, far more general. You seem to be talking about a project that bears literally no resemblance to any tier system in existence, which is some kinda compendium of ways to incorporate various spells into builds in a game breaking fashion. Which, I admit, could be neat, but again, ludicrously different.

[eggynack]

If your spell descriptions are a paragraph long, you're not being concise enough. It doesn't take a paragraph to explain why color spray is good, and you don't need to do any analysis on most bad spells. A list of good spells is already 80% of the way there. Particularly because good spells are usually good in similar ways.
I disagree. I think there's value in lengthy descriptions that have a lot of depth to them. It doesn't take a paragraph to say that color spray is good, it strikes me as worthwhile to talk about, for example, its drawbacks and advantages compared to its same level competition. Deep analysis is also fun to read, in my opinion. That's why I wrote my handbook that way.

[RoboEmperor]

This is overrated. Paying XP for your daily castings is a bad deal at low levels. At mid levels it's good. At high levels it doesn't do enough. Grabbing early access spells is cheese, and should be ranked against other cheese. From 8 to ~10 it's good, but that's like 10% of the game.

That's my point. If a spell can be used as cheese it should be high on the tier list. If a spell can't despite being strong then it should be middle tier. If a spell can't be used as cheese and is not strong it should be bottom tier.


I mean, that's exactly how the Tier System for classes works.

Yet you argued so hard spellcasters > artificers because they can use feats to gain early access.


That's way more granularity than you need.

There's a LOT more spells than classes. Grouping spells with vast difference in power and cheese-ability because you want to shorten the number of tiers doesn't seem like a good idea to me, which is why i'm not making the list. Too much work. Way too much work.


That's not really how it's typically used though. Most people are just going to use it as a 10 minutes/level second level flight spell that also grants a ton of armor and some fancy attacks should the need arise. Maybe some other movement modes too. That ability is excellent in spite of the fact that it doesn't precisely break any games.

In low-op DMs consider Crucians game breaking because 10min/level of +8 natural AC that stacks with everything else is OP in their eyes.

I guess we just have different viewpoints. If I may make an analogy, in a fighting game, I'm rating characters based on their performance in the highest possible skill level, while you're rating them based on a normal, non-competitive player's skill. Granted, since d&d is not a competitive game, perhaps my viewpoint is arguably wrong.



Again, most people casting orb won't be mailmen, and the few that are already know they're casting orb. Ranking orb of fire as tier one provides roughly zero information to anyone. There's room for accounting for this utility, I suppose, but the idea that any ranking should fixate on only the most broken possible usage, when other lesser usages exist and are solid, seem kinda ludicrous.

Yeah, you're considering usage by normal wizards, I'm considering the spell's maximum potential.


Given that the other tier four spell is scorching ray, not really.

Perhaps you're right. But still, I don't think invisibility is "powerful" especially compared to the spells I put higher on the list.


Do you have a citation for the idea that flour is a panacea against invisibility?

I don't have an interest in flour so I wouldn't know. But my DM has been using it AFTER he pin points my character's location via Listen, which is stupidly easy when that character is casting a spell with a verbal component. The only time Invisibility was of use to me was when retreating in a low level encounter.

[AnimeTheCat]

This seems like a long walk for something that is not meaningfully superior to just writing a short description of why each spell is good.

It's meaningfully superior because it coverts lengthy conversations into easily digestable data that can be viewed at a glance as well as categorizing and ranking spells in particular areas so that clear stand-outs can be selected in a timely and efficient manner.

I would rather look at a spreasheet than read a handbook.

Also, this could just be a solo undertaking of a single individual rather than a group effort and take only a fraction of the time, but then it's a solo project and not a community project. Each have their benefits and defecits, and neither is more "right" than another.

[Mike Miller]

I am not sure this project has value given the amount of variation in third edition. So many variables in play. However...



That's a lotta spells, and for the most part, you're going to get a bunch of varying opinions unless you make the system more or less complicated. Oh, and then we get into spells that have multiple versions/usage such as Wizard Haste or Trapsmith Haste? Do the options for Pyrotechnics work at different efficiencies?

Instead, i suggest the following system:
T1: Cheese (Or, the stuff your PbP DM has on his ban-list) i.e Ice Assassin, Shivering Touch
T2: The Best Stuff (Basically stuff that does the best of what it should do) i.e Grease, Glitterdust, Haste
T3: The Good Stuff (Basically stuff that does what it should do) i.e Fireball, Shield,
T4: Specialists (Stuff that does what it should do, but solely exists to solve a specific problem) i.e Divest Essentia, Dispel Ward
T5: Utter Trash (You spent *how* much lead writing this!?) i.e Bigby's Tripping Hand
T6: Variable (You know, we honestly don't know where this goes, but it goes somewhere) i.e any "Image" spell

I agree with this system as much easier to work with.

[noob]

No, this is fallacious thinking. Money loops aren't powerful. The things you buy with WBL-breaking piles of cash are. Because you could just steal those things, or make a bunch of profession checks.

in the thread the starting point is that you start as a commoner with only that spell.


Using Theoretical Same Game Test with the following assumptions
Level 1 Commoner with one At-Will Cantrip or Orison.
Level 2 Commoner with one At-Will First Level Spell.
Level 4 Commoner with one At-Will Second Level Spell.
Level 6 Commoner with one At-Will Third Level Spell.
Level 8 Commoner with one At-Will Fourth Level Spell.
Level 10 Commoner with one At-Will Fifth Level Spell.
Level 12 Commoner with one At-Will Sixth Level Spell.
Level 14 Commoner with one At-Will Seventh Level Spell.
Level 16 Commoner with one At-Will Eighth Level Spell.
Level 18 Commoner with one At-Will Ninth Level Spell.

with profession checks you would need monthes to gain enough gold to retrain your levels in wizard levels.
Retraining is not buying: it is a process that spends money and is not said to need any people or objects involved: you just sit there for a few weeks and money disappear and you are suddenly retrained.
with fabricate at will it is much faster.
did you even read the start point of the thread?
Since the starting point is that you are a commoner with only that spell and level appropriate to the spell it is normal that the tiering of the spells is radically different than if you are a wizard.



summon monster does not deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as planar binding.

Summon monster 9 is particular since you can summon spellcasters with an equivalent level in wizard or cleric of 12 which in turn gives access to planar binding which in turn allows to get a mirror mephit which can then make a simulacrum of a level 32 wizard which have the powers of a level 16 wizard and with enough level 16 wizards you can solve most problems or if you are ready to then you can make wish loops with a planar binding.

Since planar binding is broken at any level any spell that gives access to planar binding is broken except that having access to planar binding .

Also Summon monster 9 would steamroll over same game test if you just cast it at will without using it for breaking the game more: 17 spellcasters able to cast spells up to level 6 that are constantly replaced by fresh ones with fresh spell slots can surely solve problems from the same game test.

[Cosi]

I disagree. I think there's value in lengthy descriptions that have a lot of depth to them. It doesn't take a paragraph to say that color spray is good, it strikes me as worthwhile to talk about, for example, its drawbacks and advantages compared to its same level competition. Deep analysis is also fun to read, in my opinion. That's why I wrote my handbook that way.

Deep analysis can be useful, but it can also be pointless. It can be worth pointing out things like "sleep has a 1 round casting time" or "color spray might require you to get to melee distance", but there are very few cases where you need a paragraph. Particularly for bad spells. No one needs a paragraph worth of explanation for why you shouldn't be casting tenser's transformation, for example.


That's my point. If a spell can be used as cheese it should be high on the tier list. If a spell can't despite being strong then it should be middle tier. If a spell can't be used as cheese and is not strong it should be bottom tier.

No, ranking things by cheese potential is pointless. Because it doesn't correlate with anything useful, and in the games where you will actually get to use cheese, you will know what cheese without needing a handbook. If you were going to rank cheese, it would in an entirely separate project that just listed things that are cheesy.


Yet you argued so hard spellcasters > artificers because they can use feats to gain early access.

Yeah. Because I disagree with that mode of analysis. But if you want to change it, there's no reason to do "Tiers for Spells" at all.


It's meaningfully superior because it coverts lengthy conversations into easily digestable data that can be viewed at a glance as well as categorizing and ranking spells in particular areas so that clear stand-outs can be selected in a timely and efficient manner.

No system that has ten gradation in how good at thing is at buffing is going to be easier to digest than a short written summary.


in the thread the starting point is that you start as a commoner with only that spell.

Well that's a dumb starting point. You'll notice that my first post in this thread is pretty explicit about disagreeing with the thrust of it, and mostly wanting to correct people who make bad analysis about specific spells.


with profession checks you would need monthes to gain enough gold to retrain your levels in wizard levels.
with fabricate at will it is much faster.

It's not fast enough to work at combat time, so it basically comes down to how much prep time you get, and it's trivially easy to specific amounts where either fabricate doesn't work, or Profession does.


Also summon monster 9 is particular since you can summon spellcasters with an equivalent level in wizard or cleric of 12 which in turn gives access to planar binding which in turn allows to get a mirror mephit which can then make a simulacrum of a level 32 wizard which have the powers of a level 16 wizard and with enough level 16 wizards you can solve most problems.

If you're going through two other spells to get to broken, the original spell isn't broken.

[Cosi]

Dude stop adding arguments after you make your posts.


Since planar binding is broken at any level any spell that gives access to planar binding is broken except that having access to planar binding .

No, by this logic any item that costs more than 16,800 GP is broken because you could sell it and buy a Candle of Invocation. That's nonsensical.


Also Summon monster 9 would steamroll over same game test if you just cast it at will without using it for breaking the game more: 17 spellcasters able to cast spells up to level 6 that are constantly replaced by fresh ones with fresh spell slots can surely solve problems from the same game test.

At-Will is a bad point for analysis, because spells aren't actually at-will. If you gave a caster fireball at will, they'd probably steamroll a lot of 5th level encounters (particularly because of fireball's range). That doesn't make it a good spell, it just makes the way you're evaluating spells bad.

[noob]

Deep analysis can be useful, but it can also be pointless. It can be worth pointing out things like "sleep has a 1 round casting time" or "color spray might require you to get to melee distance", but there are very few cases where you need a paragraph. Particularly for bad spells. No one needs a paragraph worth of explanation for why you shouldn't be casting tenser's transformation, for example.



No, ranking things by cheese potential is pointless. Because it doesn't correlate with anything useful, and in the games where you will actually get to use cheese, you will know what cheese without needing a handbook. If you were going to rank cheese, it would in an entirely separate project that just listed things that are cheesy.



Yeah. Because I disagree with that mode of analysis. But if you want to change it, there's no reason to do "Tiers for Spells" at all.



No system that has ten gradation in how good at thing is at buffing is going to be easier to digest than a short written summary.



Well that's a dumb starting point. You'll notice that my first post in this thread is pretty explicit about disagreeing with the thrust of it, and mostly wanting to correct people who make bad analysis about specific spells.



It's not fast enough to work at combat time, so it basically comes down to how much prep time you get, and it's trivially easy to specific amounts where either fabricate doesn't work, or Profession does.



If you're going through two other spells to get to broken, the original spell isn't broken.

Well a spell "cast tons of spells including broken spells" would be called broken.

also you do not need two other spells for it to be broken:summon monster for planar binding is already broken and just casting summon monster over and over for having a caster army already makes all non tier 2 or tier 1 spellcaster widely inferior to you.
it is just that we can chain the broken stuff for getting all the broken stuff in fact broken stuff is more or less a network where any broken stuff allows to get all the other broken stuff and a spell that gives access to that network is indirectly broken too.

And no on the candle of invocation buying stuff: you can not buy candles of invocations because they are all spent right after creation by wish loopers.
The rules never says "in any campaign setting you can always buy a candle of invocation if you have enough money for it"

And yes I agree the at will commoner same game test is dumb but it is the ranking system used here it is not a ranking system that isolate stuff it is just "we give it at will to a commoner is the world destroyed or not?" and the answer is "if it gives access to the ability to destroy the world even indirectly then yes the world can be destroyed"

I ranked stuff with the premise of the thread and not under the form "if the spell is isolated is it still game breaking" which is a separate ranking and which is usually called "ban lists" and it have been done tons of time and so you are not original in wanting do that work again.

Ban lists exists and are a form of ranking but just not the same as the one the creator of the thread is using and I agree that using ban lists can help a lot making the game less broken.

[eggynack]

Deep analysis can be useful, but it can also be pointless. It can be worth pointing out things like "sleep has a 1 round casting time" or "color spray might require you to get to melee distance", but there are very few cases where you need a paragraph. Particularly for bad spells. No one needs a paragraph worth of explanation for why you shouldn't be casting tenser's transformation, for example.

I mean, there's a reason I just outright excluded spells on that obviously bad level of quality. And it's cause people don't generally need to be told how bad they are or why they're bad. Either way, my tendency is to write until I run out of things to say which I think are interesting, and that tends to result in about a paragraph. I think a good standard for concision is that each sentence adds new information. All that being said, I somehow managed to write two paragraphs on dinosaur stampede, so what do I know?