Gnaeus
2018-10-24, 12:15 PM
So, I have, in the past, built supergestalts of all the tier 5 classes, or all the tier 4&5 classes, to compare with high tiers.
Given the retiering process, I was asked about how I thought they held up.
My short answer is that very little changes. I would still put a gestalt of all the tier 5 classes at the very top of tier 3. The changes weren’t huge.
The Tier 4&5 ubergestalt I still think ranks above most tier 1s in power level, at most character levels and optimization levels. It lost psychic rogue, Warlock, Healer and Warmage, but absorbed Shadowcaster and Incarnate, which I think will fill much of the lost territory. In any event, not much changes besides the spell lists, so if you care you can review all the old threads and just swap spells as appropriate and make your own call. I would certainly feel happy, if not guilty, playing one.
But in support of that argument, upon consideration, I will make a stronger claim. I think gestalts of 6, Tier 4-5 classes can play on a tier 1 level in 90+% of games.
Here are the assumptions I make for that claim.
Tier 1s have abilities that destroy games. Those will be stopped by some combination of houserules, nerfs, campaign considerations or Gentlemen’s agreements. Not for any balance reasons, assuming a group with 0 balance concerns at all. Simply a group that wants to play D&D. So, for example, no selling walls of salt or mounts. Anything that causes infinite wealth will be stopped. Loops will be stopped. Arbitrarily high ability scores will be stopped. PCs will be expected/will desire to play the game themselves, as opposed to sitting outside a dungeon deploying waves of minions. Some cap on number of pets will be employed to keep combats functional and keep spotlight on PCs. Most play time will be spent murderhoboing hostile areas, and tricks that bypass that (like scrying the boss and teleporting/earthgliding to him and leaving) will be short circuited by above methods. Assume that the players actually want to play the game the DM designed and will not evade his dungeons for lols.
Assume all sources. Assume a competitive, greedy party, working together for mutual benefit. So the wizard won’t Polymorph you unless he feels like it is his best strategy in that combat. The Druid won’t spare a barkskin unless you hand him a level 2 pearl of power or give him a similar buff. All the casters have crafting feats that they pool with other PCs with crafting feats, so if you can throw into the crafting pot you can expect about 150% WBL with the specific gear your team can make, which should be most everything.
Assume that the DM has rules mastery equivalent to the players, and wants difficult encounters pegged to challenge clever T1 players, so monsters will be intelligent, and often include templates, class levels, and or buffs, and boss fights will commonly include spellcasters. Assume awesome PRCs like incantrix or planar Shepherd but not broken ones like beholder mage. (Assume that we can PRC also but only with one part of the gestalt and only with classes that clearly don’t top T4) Assume that the Tier 1s usually but not always have good but incomplete intel on their targets, so they know they are fighting a building of ninjas but there may still be surprises. Assume the party varies from 3-7 PCs across the campaign, always has at least 2 well played T1s, and never has anything weaker than a highly optimized high T3. Basically, assume the highest optimization environment that doesn’t rewrite the default assumptions of what is D&D.
Assume that for comparison, we want our gestalt to have spotlight time (earned, not given to him). He must be able to compete with the T1s across combat and noncombat encounters. He must exceed the T1s in general competence for as many levels as they exceed his. Assume that you will be mercilessly mocked for perceived weakness and if it happens too much you will be booted.
(Note, the lower we place the optimization level, the less low tier classes we need to play on a level playing ground. These assumptions aren’t far from what my group plays at. I think of them as the lower end of high op. I think anything above this and you are really straining the base assumptions about what D&D means, and I think very few groups actually play much higher op than that).
Under those assumptions, again, I think 6 synergistic classes are approximately equal to T1. Something like Divine Mind//spellthief//Ranger//Shadowcaster//Incarnate//Hexblade. Or Samurai//Marshall//Truenamer//Shadowcaster//Rogue//Zhentarim Fighter.
Pretty much any functioning gestalt on that level needs full BAB. 6+ skill points. All good saves. A wide array of special defenses. A good strategy for action economy. And at least 2 of the 4 low tier heavy lifting classes (Adapt, Incarnate, Shadowcaster, Marshall + Truenamer). There are, IMO, probably dozens of playable options.
Shadowcaster is very impressive for a T4. I see how it got there. It doesn’t have enough powers known, or powers/day, and most of its tricks are less flexible than high tier tricks and the whole is less flexible than a T2. But it does have full caster level and a lot of good tricks that T1 casters would take if they could. Like shadow evocation (or greater) as a 4th (or 6th) level spell. And a lot of other top level powers that a sorcerer would consider, like plane shift and time stop at the right levels.
Truenamer, with Marshall, is very worthwhile at that opti fu level. Blowing out skill checks that key off Int+cha is easy, when you assume that you will have crafted gear. And some of their tricks, like boosting an ally’s CL or giving free metamagic, are things a T1 really wants in their team. It’s a bit embarrassing being a buffbot for higher tiers. But it’s unquestionably useful, and you should be able to negotiate good stuff for it. (And at level 20 you are back to T1 status with free gate).
Adept, other than giving a full BAB all good saves skillmonkey familiar, brings a number of solid T1-2 spells at levels close to when the arcanists get them, like mirror image and animate dead at the same level as the sorc. Yeah, you don’t get nearly enough uses, but you have them when they matter. Sadly it’s wis based, and you probably want to be cha/Int. But there are other good wisdom classes available.
Incarnate gives skill buffs that turn your contested rolls into autosuccesses, when in combination with Marshall and a skillmonkey class. Also flexible defenses, movement modes, and counters to tricks that often gimp low tiers like invisibility. It can’t do a lot by itself, so again, not arguing the tier. But a very strong gestalt, made even better by the fact that we probably don’t mind having a good Constitution.
Ok. I used my spellthief levels to steal 🔥 resistance. So flame on.
Given the retiering process, I was asked about how I thought they held up.
My short answer is that very little changes. I would still put a gestalt of all the tier 5 classes at the very top of tier 3. The changes weren’t huge.
The Tier 4&5 ubergestalt I still think ranks above most tier 1s in power level, at most character levels and optimization levels. It lost psychic rogue, Warlock, Healer and Warmage, but absorbed Shadowcaster and Incarnate, which I think will fill much of the lost territory. In any event, not much changes besides the spell lists, so if you care you can review all the old threads and just swap spells as appropriate and make your own call. I would certainly feel happy, if not guilty, playing one.
But in support of that argument, upon consideration, I will make a stronger claim. I think gestalts of 6, Tier 4-5 classes can play on a tier 1 level in 90+% of games.
Here are the assumptions I make for that claim.
Tier 1s have abilities that destroy games. Those will be stopped by some combination of houserules, nerfs, campaign considerations or Gentlemen’s agreements. Not for any balance reasons, assuming a group with 0 balance concerns at all. Simply a group that wants to play D&D. So, for example, no selling walls of salt or mounts. Anything that causes infinite wealth will be stopped. Loops will be stopped. Arbitrarily high ability scores will be stopped. PCs will be expected/will desire to play the game themselves, as opposed to sitting outside a dungeon deploying waves of minions. Some cap on number of pets will be employed to keep combats functional and keep spotlight on PCs. Most play time will be spent murderhoboing hostile areas, and tricks that bypass that (like scrying the boss and teleporting/earthgliding to him and leaving) will be short circuited by above methods. Assume that the players actually want to play the game the DM designed and will not evade his dungeons for lols.
Assume all sources. Assume a competitive, greedy party, working together for mutual benefit. So the wizard won’t Polymorph you unless he feels like it is his best strategy in that combat. The Druid won’t spare a barkskin unless you hand him a level 2 pearl of power or give him a similar buff. All the casters have crafting feats that they pool with other PCs with crafting feats, so if you can throw into the crafting pot you can expect about 150% WBL with the specific gear your team can make, which should be most everything.
Assume that the DM has rules mastery equivalent to the players, and wants difficult encounters pegged to challenge clever T1 players, so monsters will be intelligent, and often include templates, class levels, and or buffs, and boss fights will commonly include spellcasters. Assume awesome PRCs like incantrix or planar Shepherd but not broken ones like beholder mage. (Assume that we can PRC also but only with one part of the gestalt and only with classes that clearly don’t top T4) Assume that the Tier 1s usually but not always have good but incomplete intel on their targets, so they know they are fighting a building of ninjas but there may still be surprises. Assume the party varies from 3-7 PCs across the campaign, always has at least 2 well played T1s, and never has anything weaker than a highly optimized high T3. Basically, assume the highest optimization environment that doesn’t rewrite the default assumptions of what is D&D.
Assume that for comparison, we want our gestalt to have spotlight time (earned, not given to him). He must be able to compete with the T1s across combat and noncombat encounters. He must exceed the T1s in general competence for as many levels as they exceed his. Assume that you will be mercilessly mocked for perceived weakness and if it happens too much you will be booted.
(Note, the lower we place the optimization level, the less low tier classes we need to play on a level playing ground. These assumptions aren’t far from what my group plays at. I think of them as the lower end of high op. I think anything above this and you are really straining the base assumptions about what D&D means, and I think very few groups actually play much higher op than that).
Under those assumptions, again, I think 6 synergistic classes are approximately equal to T1. Something like Divine Mind//spellthief//Ranger//Shadowcaster//Incarnate//Hexblade. Or Samurai//Marshall//Truenamer//Shadowcaster//Rogue//Zhentarim Fighter.
Pretty much any functioning gestalt on that level needs full BAB. 6+ skill points. All good saves. A wide array of special defenses. A good strategy for action economy. And at least 2 of the 4 low tier heavy lifting classes (Adapt, Incarnate, Shadowcaster, Marshall + Truenamer). There are, IMO, probably dozens of playable options.
Shadowcaster is very impressive for a T4. I see how it got there. It doesn’t have enough powers known, or powers/day, and most of its tricks are less flexible than high tier tricks and the whole is less flexible than a T2. But it does have full caster level and a lot of good tricks that T1 casters would take if they could. Like shadow evocation (or greater) as a 4th (or 6th) level spell. And a lot of other top level powers that a sorcerer would consider, like plane shift and time stop at the right levels.
Truenamer, with Marshall, is very worthwhile at that opti fu level. Blowing out skill checks that key off Int+cha is easy, when you assume that you will have crafted gear. And some of their tricks, like boosting an ally’s CL or giving free metamagic, are things a T1 really wants in their team. It’s a bit embarrassing being a buffbot for higher tiers. But it’s unquestionably useful, and you should be able to negotiate good stuff for it. (And at level 20 you are back to T1 status with free gate).
Adept, other than giving a full BAB all good saves skillmonkey familiar, brings a number of solid T1-2 spells at levels close to when the arcanists get them, like mirror image and animate dead at the same level as the sorc. Yeah, you don’t get nearly enough uses, but you have them when they matter. Sadly it’s wis based, and you probably want to be cha/Int. But there are other good wisdom classes available.
Incarnate gives skill buffs that turn your contested rolls into autosuccesses, when in combination with Marshall and a skillmonkey class. Also flexible defenses, movement modes, and counters to tricks that often gimp low tiers like invisibility. It can’t do a lot by itself, so again, not arguing the tier. But a very strong gestalt, made even better by the fact that we probably don’t mind having a good Constitution.
Ok. I used my spellthief levels to steal 🔥 resistance. So flame on.