How important are class tiers?

[Atarax]

If I run a campaign with a ranger, rogue, cleric, sorcerer, barbarian, and a dragon shaman and I only allow feats from the PHB 1 and 2, is someone going to become useless in combat at later levels? If so, what can I do to balance things between characters without things getting too complicated?

[JNAProductions]

If I run a campaign with a ranger, rogue, cleric, sorcerer, barbarian, and a dragon shaman and I only allow feats from the PHB 1 and 2, is someone going to become useless in combat at later levels? If so, what can I do to balance things between characters without things getting too complicated?

It depends on how optimization savvy your players are.

If you're lucky, or the players all know what they're doing AND work together to find a balance point, you'll be fine.

If you're not... Then the Cleric has a good chance of being the star.

How much and about what have you talked to your players about? Because that's always a good place to start.

[Mike Miller]

JNA has it right. The tiers are unofficial and unnecessary. For some groups, they are helpful. However, don't feel as though you need to abide by their classifications. If you had a party of something really dramatic, like druid, wizard, fighter, truenamer... Then maybe even optimization ignorance wouldn't save the fighter and truenamer later on. Your party should be fine though. Just work with them as they level to make sure no one picks repeated trap options that disable their character within the bounds of your campaign.

[Luckmann]

How important are class tiers?In a casual game between friends, playing a game in earnest, not trying to break things or optimize for the sake of optimization, focusing on roleplaying and doing fun or thematic stuff rather than what is strictly the best, reasonably moderated by the DM?

Not even a little bit.


If I run a campaign with a ranger, rogue, cleric, sorcerer, barbarian, and a dragon shaman and I only allow feats from the PHB 1 and 2, is someone going to become useless in combat at later levels? If so, what can I do to balance things between characters without things getting too complicated?Honestly, "Core game only" and variations thereof ("PHB1/2 only", etc.) tend to harm more than help, since it generally restricts lower-tier classes more than higher-tier classes, and also (practically) forces those higher-tier classes to focus on the things that are available (which includes everything necessary to maintain the gaps, if desired) rather than to diversify and focus on random fun stuff.

Instead, I advocate ostensibly allowing everything, and moderating as you feel necessary, even if that means throwing extra items or abilities or feats at someone that is falling behind due to really poor choices, but honestly, just play the game and remember that you, as the DM, can do whatever.

[Zombulian]

As others have mentioned, limiting book access tends to enforce the tier paradigm more than amend it. If you as the DM just don’t want to think about as much, I get it, but it is highly likely that a stratification of power will emerge. The Dragon Shaman and Ranger will likely fall off first, followed by the Barbarian and likely the Rogue.

If your group is very teamwork oriented and the Cleric and Sorc are willing to pick up buff spells like Enlarge Person, Polymorph, etc. then the players in lower tiers will probably feel more valuable.

[ezekielraiden]

If I run a campaign with a ranger, rogue, cleric, sorcerer, barbarian, and a dragon shaman and I only allow feats from the PHB 1 and 2, is someone going to become useless in combat at later levels? If so, what can I do to balance things between characters without things getting too complicated?

In contrast to Luckmann, I do think tiers matter, even for people genuinely just trying to do what they think is thematic. I personally know someone who nearly ruined a game because they thought a metamagic-using wizard just sounded really neat, and that Incantatrix sounded like a good way to do that. They have repeatedly sworn it had nothing to do with intentional optimization. They just liked the idea. And that's really the secret flaw of the class tiers: not that they can be abused intentionally, but that they can cause problems by accident. Innocent intent can be confounded and broken by the tiers. It isn't guaranteed to happen, but it's not the incredibly remote possibility most critics make it out to be.

Based on the general consensus, you have something of a tier-split here. Cleric is tier 1, Sorcerer is tier 2, and all the rest are tier 4. It might not matter, particularly if all the tier 4 people get nifty magic items and the cleric and sorcerer choose to play sub-optimally. But if the reverse happens, you may find them (particularly the cleric) outshining the other characters on a mild but consistent basis. There are multiple ways you can address that, but personally, here's what I would recommend purely from a rules standpoint:
Characters that don't cast spells at all can use feats, equipment, and options from nearly anywhere, as long as it doesn't grant them spells or spell-like abilities. Brief once-overs are probably all that will be necessary, though if you're really worried about something, post a thread here to ask about it.
Characters that do cast spells, but aren't full casters, e.g. bard/paladin/etc., cannot use Dragon magazine content, but are otherwise free to use most other sources if they're passed by you first. You'll want to do a semi-close reading, and if anything seems off, ask for outsider advice.
Characters that are full-casters or the equivalent of full-casters (e.g. psionsic classes) must get approval for everything they choose, and you probably want to pass a lot of it through third-party review as well. These classes are very easily abused, and setting simple book limits on them is rarely effective at preventing problems, so "I have to personally check everything you try for" is really the only means of ensuring that there won't be (accidental or intentional) exploitation.
In particular, I recommend being very restrictive about metamagic, and in particular anything that gives metamagic reduction. The only exception I can think of is using metamagic to make a "blaster" character work--magic is ironically really bad at just doing damage unless you permit some optimization, particularly energy-damage like what sorcerers usually use.

[Gnaeus]

Here’s my advice.

Start the campaign by advising the players about potential imbalance. Some of the problem can be fixed by just being aware there is an issue. And it probably won’t show up until level 5-9 anyway.

Check in with the players every few levels to make sure they feel good about how play is going. If they don’t have a problem there isn’t a problem. Or it may be something where minor tweaks work like dropping favorable loot.

Be especially careful about the dragon shaman. It isn’t a powerhouse, but worse, it’s a very passive class. Even if he is contributing (and at low levels it isn’t impossible that he could be outdoing the cleric in buffs, heals and skills and comparable in melee), he may not feel that he is because his actions will likely be unimpressive.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The tier listing is just information. It's importance is a function of your group's dynamics. If your players aren't particularly prone to optimization and you keep an eye out for the potential probelms that the tier list suggests can occur then things will be fine regardless of the mix of classes your players run with.

If, on the other hand, you have one or more players that like to play with the system to see what they can do, then those same potential issues become magnified to the point that you may need to suggest players looking at low tier classes that they may have issues if they expect to be an equal contributor to the plot when compared to the higher tier class' players.

This becomes more pronounced still if the group is a mix of optimizers and casuals. You may need to ask the optimizers to either play lower tier classes so that their optimization is easier to limit or to voluntarily limit the power they bring to bare so as not to make the casual players feel their presence is superfluous.

In all cases, this expression remains true: player > build > class.


If I run a campaign with a ranger, rogue, cleric, sorcerer, barbarian, and a dragon shaman and I only allow feats from the PHB 1 and 2, is someone going to become useless in combat at later levels? If so, what can I do to balance things between characters without things getting too complicated?

You're more likely to run into problems by limiting sources, as others in this thread have rightly pointed out. Source expansions tend to help non-casters more than casters. I understand the thought that the more there is the harder it is to see things coming but I assure you that the things you most need to watch out for are right there in the core rulebooks; particularly the spell lists of the sorcerer and cleric.

If you're afraid that too many sources will overwhelm you or your players, at the very least allow Complete Warrior, Complete Adventurer, Complete Scoundrel, and Tome of Battle in their entirety, if you have them available. All of those offer -dramatically- more non-caster material than caster material.

[Telonius]

In contrast to Luckmann, I do think tiers matter, even for people genuinely just trying to do what they think is thematic. I personally know someone who nearly ruined a game because they thought a metamagic-using wizard just sounded really neat, and that Incantatrix sounded like a good way to do that. They have repeatedly sworn it had nothing to do with intentional optimization. They just liked the idea. And that's really the secret flaw of the class tiers: not that they can be abused intentionally, but that they can cause problems by accident. Innocent intent can be confounded and broken by the tiers. It isn't guaranteed to happen, but it's not the incredibly remote possibility most critics make it out to be.

Seconded. This is not just a problem on the high end, either. Shortly after Shackled City and Book of Exalted Deeds came out, I really wanted to play a Vow of Poverty Monk, using the Half-Drow race (basically, Half Elf minus the interesting bits). I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, and the character was about as mechanically powerful as you would expect. The DM did throw me a bone by letting me pick any feat I qualified for after I ran out of useful bonus Exalted feats. The breaking point for that was the one that made me glow in the dark.

But (and here's where Player > Build > Class comes in) Mordechai became what amounted to the central character of the group, since he did what he thought was sacrificing himself for the group to get the Sign of the Smoking Eye. His charitable donations to the Lantern Street Orphanage gave us a ready-made bunch of Lantern Street Irregulars. And in the boss fight, I managed to disarm the Big Bad, then did exactly what Monks are best at doing - running and not dying - so the rest of the team could whomp on him. It was fun, but if I hadn't really, really been on my toes, or if I had been too worried that I was mostly incompetent in combat (I literally didn't successfully Stunning Fist a single enemy in the entire 20-level adventure path) it would have been terrible. All by accident, since I didn't know what I was getting into at the time.

[Willie the Duck]

If I run a campaign with a ranger, rogue, cleric, sorcerer, barbarian, and a dragon shaman and I only allow feats from the PHB 1 and 2, is someone going to become useless in combat at later levels? If so, what can I do to balance things between characters without things getting too complicated?

Tiers are descriptive, and they are descriptive of trends, they can only tell you what could happen, and possibly inform how likely it is. If the cleric thinks of their spells as mostly being for healing the group, and the sorcerer starts giggling at all the direct-damage options they have, things might very well be fine. Likewise, if you are the type of DM where 50-75% of the contribution to success that each player makes is based on the decisions they make, and not what their character can or cannot accomplish, any power balance caused by their class choices will be very much muted in final result.


All by accident, since I didn't know what I was getting into at the time.

And that's really the what and why that tiers are important -- they are a warning sign. Because people should know when they are taking on an extra challenge.

[pabelfly]

Knowing your tiers and what they mean is helpful, and helps you understand why some classes are inherently better than others, all things equal, but equally important is how people play classes and how knowledgeable everyone is about optimization.

Without knowing more, I'd suggest starting the game without doing anything. If you start to see problems, work out how to solve them then - suggest powerful players shift to support, give the weaker players more goodies, and/or try to get the 4th-tier characters into third-tier characters of a similar type or give them access to good PrCs. No need to solve problems that you aren't sure exist yet though.

[Troacctid]

Something I don't think has been stressed yet is that severe power differentials don't really manifest until higher levels. If your campaign starts at level 1, it's entirely likely that it will end before the sorcerer or cleric has the chance to start really overshadowing the others. Of course, the barbarian and dragon shaman may start to get bored and frustrated with all their dead levels, while the ranger starts to struggle to deal enough damage to remain useful in combat. But in the early game, there's actually a good chance that the dragon shaman and barbarian will be the MVPs of the party while the sorcerer struggles to survive and the cleric is relegated to bless and cure light wounds duty.

Once you hit 3rd level spells, there's a good chance you'll see the sorcerer start tossing fireballs and casually doing three or four times the ranger's damage output without even trying, while the cleric starts using animate dead to raise undead minions that are beefier than the barbarian. When the sorcerer gets 4th level spells and starts casting stuff like polymorph and wings of flurry, it's really going downhill, and if she ever hits 5th level spells, stick a fork in it cuz you're done.

[Rynjin]

Something a lot of people misunderstand about tiers is that they are a measure of what a class CAN do, not what a class WILL do.

Using them as a GM is basically just keeping a mental idea in your head that what your Wizard player could POTENTIALLY do to break the game is more likely (and easier to do by accident) than what your Rogue player can do, so you keep in mind that if something needs to be banned as it shows up at the table, it will more likely be something a higher tier class is trying to do.

It is not a hard limit of any kind of what classes or resources you should allow as a GM, merely a guideline for what to keep a closer eye on.

[Psyren]

In contrast to Luckmann, I do think tiers matter, even for people genuinely just trying to do what they think is thematic. I personally know someone who nearly ruined a game because they thought a metamagic-using wizard just sounded really neat, and that Incantatrix sounded like a good way to do that. They have repeatedly sworn it had nothing to do with intentional optimization. They just liked the idea. And that's really the secret flaw of the class tiers: not that they can be abused intentionally, but that they can cause problems by accident. Innocent intent can be confounded and broken by the tiers. It isn't guaranteed to happen, but it's not the incredibly remote possibility most critics make it out to be.

I wouldn't say that it's remote necessarily, but I believe the vast majority of tables just fix it internally and move on, without needing any kind of forum post or other dramatic show. The high-tier caster tones it down, or the GM buffs the low-tier martial classes in the group, maybe throwing the latter a custom item or feat, or even starts using caster-specific challenges like counterspells and dispels that affect the martials less-proportionately, or some combination, and we never hear about it because it just doesn't end up being a problem worth discussing. For these groups, at worst a single session or couple of sessions have problems, but the campaign as a whole thrives.

[Gnaeus]

Something I don't think has been stressed yet is that severe power differentials don't really manifest until higher levels. If your campaign starts at level 1, it's entirely likely that it will end before the sorcerer or cleric has the chance to start really overshadowing the others. Of course, the barbarian and dragon shaman may start to get bored and frustrated with all their dead levels, while the ranger starts to struggle to deal enough damage to remain useful in combat. But in the early game, there's actually a good chance that the dragon shaman and barbarian will be the MVPs of the party while the sorcerer struggles to survive and the cleric is relegated to bless and cure light wounds duty.

True. And it takes less system mastery to play a pretty good barbarian or DS than a caster.


When the sorcerer gets 4th level spells and starts casting stuff like polymorph and wings of flurry, it's really going downhill, and if she ever hits 5th level spells, stick a fork in it cuz you're done.

Yes, if your sorcerer FINDS wings of flurry you have a problem. I’ve actually never seen it in play. Not many people search Races of the dragon for spells.

Polymorph, otoh, is as likely to be the answer to your problems as a cause. If the sorcerer is using it ON the barbarian, DS, or rogue (which is the most optimized way to use it) they are likely to have a blast. In the hands of a skilled player it is the one stop shop for melee buffs. “Oh, you need to be a 4 armed huge flying fire resistant thing with natural attacks? Let me check my spreadsheet!” Even for a newb caster turning the DS into a Giant is clearly a solid choice. Yes, it’s a very powerful spell. And yes, if your sorcerer casts mostly on himself (or worse, on the cleric) it’s a problem. But if you can gently nudge your sorcerer to cast it on the meleers it will make them relevant well into the teens. Most players are more excited about turning into a war troll and rolling massive attacks than they are in parsing out whether the awesomeness is originally coming from their character sheet or the Sorcerer’s. (This is why I disagree with the part of the PF polymorph nerf where they made all the polymorph line personal. Having one of your most powerful, versatile options be to buff a muggle encourages cooperative play.)

[DEMON]

In a random group we know nothing about, it's just as likely that the Sorcerer will be a blaster and the Cleric a healbot, or they will focus on buffing the whole party and they will not disrupt the game balance whatsoever.

The tiers show the potential ability of a certain class, but whether they reach said level depends on the individual player and his/her build.

[Telok]

I recall back when 3e was new (the first two splats came out during the campaign) accidentally stumbling into the tier issue with a party consisting of a sorcerer, twf fighter, monk, and rogue. Just taking spells thay were flexable, fun, and obviously not trash did it. The sorc ended up doing scry-and-die, riding large air elementals in combat, and slapping enemies down with power word: stun, cloudkill, and disentegrate while having better AC & HP than the monk (although the hp were a function of 12 con vs a 16+4 con).

The tiers are informational, describing what may happen. As you are aware of the possible problems they have fufilled their function.

[Psyren]

(This is why I disagree with the part of the PF polymorph nerf where they made all the polymorph line personal. Having one of your most powerful, versatile options be to buff a muggle encourages cooperative play.)

To be fair, while the underlying spells (e.g. Beast Shape, Vermin Shape, Giant Form etc.) are indeed personal, the actual polymorph line (Polymorph, Greater Polymorph, and PAO) are still usable on others just like they were in 3.5. You can have a PF wizard that turns the fighter into a Merfolk or an Earth Elemental just fine.

Where I think they messed up was in not future-proofing these spells, by being to specific about what they could do. A houserule we've adopted at our tables is that Polymorph and Greater Polymorph can duplicate the effects of any (polymorph) spell 1 level or more below their level, applying the touch range to those too.

[Quertus]

If I run a campaign with a ranger, rogue, cleric, sorcerer, barbarian, and a dragon shaman and I only allow feats from the PHB 1 and 2, is someone going to become useless in combat at later levels? If so, what can I do to balance things between characters without things getting too complicated?

How important are tiers? If you know enough to ask that question, the answer is somewhere between "not important" and "detrimental".

-----

Is someone going to become useless later? Um, forget later - is someone going to be/feel useless right now?

Look, if you've got a good group, they're going to want to make sure that nobody feels useless (unless that's their goal for their character, in which case, less power to them!)

If you've got a skilled group, they will be able to create that balance on their own.

If you don't have a skilled group, you may need to intervene. Encourage them to ask you to intervene, if necessary.

If you don't have a good group, play with better people.

-----

What can you do? Well, there are lots of things you can do.

Make parts of the game be about choices, or about player skill, to deemphasize mechanical disparity.

Allow rebuilds to fix disparity.

Allow all sources, to give the players the easiest time finding tools to fix any disparity that occurs.

Put ranks in Sense Motive, so that you can better determine what is actually a problem, and focus your efforts there.

Post problems (and any suggested solutions) on GitP. I hear they are very helpful.

Have the players start each session with random characters, and pass their characters to the right every hour.

[Gnaeus]

To be fair, while the underlying spells (e.g. Beast Shape, Vermin Shape, Giant Form etc.) are indeed personal, the actual polymorph line (Polymorph, Greater Polymorph, and PAO) are still usable on others just like they were in 3.5. You can have a PF wizard that turns the fighter into a Merfolk or an Earth Elemental just fine.

Where I think they messed up was in not future-proofing these spells, by being to specific about what they could do. A houserule we've adopted at our tables is that Polymorph and Greater Polymorph can duplicate the effects of any (polymorph) spell 1 level or more below their level, applying the touch range to those too.

To be fair polymorphing your fighter 9 into a small elemental or a tiger is more likely to be a nerf than a buff, and +2 strength (that doesn’t stack with enlarge) and swim speed isn’t worth a 5th level spell, let alone the action to cast it in combat. They don’t give any large weapon using forms, which is what the melee guys want. Your fix helps. Marginally. A better fix is to replace personal with touch for every polymorph school spell. None of them is broken as a buff at level. (For example, if you could alter self your fighter into a merman with a level 2 slot (alter self)for +2 str and swim it would probably be a thing that you might occasionally want to do.) Even better would be to make them range touch but not usable on yourself, so the actual polymorph spells are what you use on yourself or familiar.

Polymorph 3.5 version is worth casting at the beginning of almost every fight to help your melee. Polymorph PF version isn’t worth learning and if you get it for free isn’t worth casting unless you need your fighter to cross a terrain feature and don’t have any of the cheaper ways to do that.

[Psyren]

To be fair polymorphing your fighter 9 into a small elemental or a tiger is more likely to be a nerf than a buff, and +2 strength (that doesn’t stack with enlarge) and swim speed isn’t worth a 5th level spell, let alone the action to cast it in combat. They don’t give any large weapon using forms, which is what the melee guys want. Your fix helps. Marginally. A better fix is to replace personal with touch for every polymorph school spell. None of them is broken as a buff at level. (For example, if you could alter self your fighter into a merman with a level 2 slot (alter self)for +2 str and swim it would probably be a thing that you might occasionally want to do.) Even better would be to make them range touch but not usable on yourself, so the actual polymorph spells are what you use on yourself or familiar.

Polymorph 3.5 version is worth casting at the beginning of almost every fight to help your melee. Polymorph PF version isn’t worth learning and if you get it for free isn’t worth casting unless you need your fighter to cross a terrain feature and don’t have any of the cheaper ways to do that.

You're thinking a bit too small here, there are martials besides fighters. How about a turning the rogue into a (dire) tiger instead? Or a Deinonychus? How about turning the monk into a fire elemental for a burning flurry? Basically anyone whose class doesn't necessarily revolve solely around their weapons. And once you reach it, GP gives you more options like dragons, magical beasts and plants - I can think of few monks who wouldn't mind grab and constrict for example.

When you add in my fix it gets ludicrous fast. Now you have monstrous physique 2, i.e. the fighter gets to keep all his gear, gets buffs that stack with all of it, and pounce on top (e.g. tikbalang.)

[Gnaeus]

You're thinking a bit too small here, there are martials besides fighters. How about a turning the rogue into a (dire) tiger instead? Or a Deinonychus? How about turning the monk into a fire elemental for a burning flurry? Basically anyone whose class doesn't necessarily revolve solely around their weapons

Would you like some rotten cheese with that trash sandwich?

This is a 5th level spell. Your TWF rogue already has 3-4 attacks with actual weapons. Turning him into a deinonychus is pretty strictly worse than haste, especially since he is likely a dex combatant with weapon focus from a rogue talent and magical weapons. You know, like you have at 9th level?

You are seriously going to use a 5th level slot to give your monk 1d4 burn damage with a junk DC? Fireball does 9d6 to multiple foes with a higher DC and the ability to metamagic with a cheap rod, and fireball is a trash option barely worth using and 2 levels lower to boot. If you totally aren’t sweating the combat and want to throw the muggle a bone at least give him heroism or greater invisibility instead. Fire Elemental form is just cruel.

Truly, if your muggles are that bad, you still don’t want polymorph. You make them greater hats of disguise with your craft wondrous items. It costs 6kgp each, and they can all turn into Tabaxi (scent, darkvision, bite attack, 40’ move, +2 str, still speak and use all their gear) for the rest of their natural lives. Then you can do something useful with your top level combat spells. I’d rather pay for the hats out of my own pocket than spend my rounds like that.


And once you reach it, GP gives you more options like dragons, magical beasts and plants - I can think of few monks who wouldn't mind grab and constrict for example.

Dragon form is a nice spellcasting platform. So, you know, it’s handy for the teams other casters.

Yeah. Your monk wouldn’t mind grab and constrict. But that isn’t the standard. You are now talking about 7th level spells. The monk has been obsolete for several levels. The monk would also probably prefer Blur and 6 cure serious wounds casts and a flanking buddy and a couple of blockers who shoot lightning. Like you could get by just summoning 2-5 Bralani which will virtually always be a better use of that 7th level slot, even with 0 summoning optimization.

For this to be valid requires the wizard to effectively say
“You, my teammate, suck too much to be effective alone. And I, the caster, am so much better that I should buff you rather than do any of the better things I can do so you don’t feel bad. I choose to give you grab rather than cast my dazing selective fireball and remove multiple opponents from play.” That’s not a spell, it’s a pity party.


When you add in my fix it gets ludicrous fast. Now you have monstrous physique 2, i.e. the fighter gets to keep all his gear, gets buffs that stack with all of it, and pounce on top (e.g. tikbalang.)

That’s the first decent thing you’ve mentioned and I did say your fix helped a bit. You can’t convince me that you shouldn’t have been able to use it on your fighter at 7th level, when the 3.5 wizard got polymorph and the PF one gets Monstrous Physique 2. But there will be a brief window where this is a viable option.

[Psyren]

Would you like some rotten cheese with that trash sandwich?

Is there a reason you're being so hostile about this?

[BlueWitch]

From my experience not a whole lot. Monk's seem to have the least amount of fun. But a Wizard can be easily owned if he doesn't do well on initiative. Grapples and Anti-Magic fields. You get it.

It's really about who has the most fun OUTSIDE of combat.

My experience: Rogueish + Magic is the winning ticket. (Not necessarily an Arcane Trickster, but someone with lots of skills and magic are usually the players having the most fun.)

[Gnaeus]

Is there a reason you're being so hostile about this?

Yes! I love playing buff wizards. Paizo got so enthusiastic with the nerf bat that they invalidated my favorite playstyle and at the same time dis-incentivized team play. And the polymorph/greater polymorph spells ARE just awful. As in, overleveled and almost never worth the action to cast. The only way I know to make it work decently (other than just fixing the spells) is brown-fur-transmuter, and even that only works with aggressive optimization tricks, and is pretty much a step down from being a vanilla arcanist. But it does, RAW, let you be a polymorph buffer without being a horrible joke.

Edit. There are decent spells in the polymorph line. They just no longer involve helping teammates. Fay Form and Monstrous Physique are quite nice. But the point should be helping your monk, not surpassing him at his job.

[Psyren]

Well I'd rather not engage with someone who is projecting their bitterness at the system onto me. Call me when you can be civil if you want to discuss this further.

[Rynjin]

Yes! I love playing buff wizards. Paizo got so enthusiastic with the nerf bat that they invalidated my favorite playstyle and at the same time dis-incentivized team play. And the polymorph/greater polymorph spells ARE just awful. As in, overleveled and almost never worth the action to cast. The only way I know to make it work decently (other than just fixing the spells) is brown-fur-transmuter, and even that only works with aggressive optimization tricks, and is pretty much a step down from being a vanilla arcanist. But it does, RAW, let you be a polymorph buffer without being a horrible joke.

Edit. There are decent spells in the polymorph line. They just no longer involve helping teammates. Fay Form and Monstrous Physique are quite nice. But the point should be helping your monk, not surpassing him at his job.

Buffing is perfectly viable, and probably the optimal way to play wizards still, I don't know what you're talking about. They nerfed Polymorph, specifically. Not buffing.

And it's still hella strong. Half the stats of my Barbarian for Rise of the Runelords come from being permanently Polymorphe Any Object'd into an Elder Earth Elemental.

[Gnaeus]

Well I'd rather not engage with someone who is projecting their bitterness at the system onto me. Call me when you can be civil if you want to discuss this further.

Well, don’t say false things and I won’t have to correct you.


Buffing is perfectly viable, and probably the optimal way to play wizards still, I don't know what you're talking about. They nerfed Polymorph, specifically. Not buffing.

Oh, there are still some good buffs. Haste and heroism for example. What there aren’t are buffs worth casting in combat in the mid level (say 4-7) range. There is no replacement for polymorph for the team focused caster. There are some good self buffs. Stoneskin is strong but will be cast outside the dungeon. Other than that... life bubble is good, but that isnt cast in combat and is pretty much just permission to use chemical weapons on the badguys. Indirect buffing can be decent, like summoning or binding angels and letting them throw around stuff like blur or magic circle v evil.


it's still hella strong. Half the stats of my Barbarian for Rise of the Runelords come from being permanently Polymorphe Any Object'd into an Elder Earth Elemental.

Yeah, I also took PAO and used it on our barbarian in ROTRL. It duplicates enough non-polymorph spells to be worth it on a human sorcerer with a bunch of extra spells known. What it isn’t is worth casting in combat. It isn’t worth either the action or the spell slot. But cast on a downtime day it’s ok.

With regards to your specific example, 2 things. I don’t think you can PAO to an elder earth elemental. It duplicates specific spells from greater polymorph, in this case Elemental body 3, which limits you to large. Second, RotRL is a pretty forgiving play environment. We floorstomped most encounters, after the DM maxed all monster HP and upgraded a lot of their feats and other choices. I think we spent most of the AP getting revenge for the Druids pet, our only casualty. I mean it has a couple of pages that talk about how your 15th level party will survive cold and high altitudes. I would expect your barbarian to do just fine unbuffed unless aggressively unoptimized. Ours did. So sure, be an elemental. Go nuts. Have fun. If you make encounters weak enough virtually anything will work.

[Rynjin]

Oh, there are still some good buffs. Haste and heroism for example. What there aren’t are buffs worth casting in combat in the mid level (say 4-7) range. There is no replacement for polymorph for the team focused caster. There are some good self buffs. Stoneskin is strong but will be cast outside the dungeon. Other than that... life bubble is good, but that isnt cast in combat and is pretty much just permission to use chemical weapons on the badguys. Indirect buffing can be decent, like summoning or binding angels and letting them throw around stuff like blur or magic circle v evil.

My idea of a "buff Wizard" is bound up in the whole idea of the God Wizard archetype, so yeah I do consider "indirect buffing" by summons, enemy debuffs, and so on to be part and parcel. You are right that direct buffs fall off unless you poach from other spell lists (I really like Spell Immunity as a buff), but I don't think that's really an issue since the 2nd and 3rd level buffs (and their higher level equivalents, like Greater Heroism) get enough mileage all things considered.

Have you tried playing a Psionic character for that fix? Tacticians are really good.




Yeah, I also took PAO and used it on our barbarian in ROTRL. It duplicates enough non-polymorph spells to be worth it on a human sorcerer with a bunch of extra spells known. What it isn’t is worth casting in combat. It isn’t worth either the action or the spell slot. But cast on a downtime day it’s ok.

With regards to your specific example, 2 things. I don’t think you can PAO to an elder earth elemental. It duplicates specific spells from greater polymorph, in this case Elemental body 3, which limits you to large. Second, RotRL is a pretty forgiving play environment. We floorstomped most encounters, after the DM maxed all monster HP and upgraded a lot of their feats and other choices. I think we spent most of the AP getting revenge for the Druids pet, our only casualty. I mean it has a couple of pages that talk about how your 15th level party will survive cold and high altitudes. I would expect your barbarian to do just fine unbuffed unless aggressively unoptimized. Ours did. So sure, be an elemental. Go nuts. Have fun. If you make encounters weak enough virtually anything will work.

That's debatable, and I think wrong. It "functions as Greater Polymorph except", but is not limited to what GP can do, at least by my (and the GM's) reading at the time.

The encounters were fairly beefed in our game as well TBF. We were fighting Mythic creatures by the end, but with no tiers ourselves.

[Gnaeus]

My idea of a "buff Wizard" is bound up in the whole idea of the God Wizard archetype, so yeah I do consider "indirect buffing" by summons, enemy debuffs, and so on to be part and parcel. You are right that direct buffs fall off unless you poach from other spell lists (I really like Spell Immunity as a buff), but I don't think that's really an issue since the 2nd and 3rd level buffs (and their higher level equivalents, like Greater Heroism) get enough mileage all things considered.

Have you tried playing a Psionic character for that fix? Tacticians are really good.

The problem with summons buffing is that it highlights rather than diminishing tier imbalance. Yes, the melee do certainly benefit from flankers and friendly battlefield spaces and angels throwing team spells like cures and blur. But it really looks like the arcanist is taking 5 turns for every one from the barbarian. Because he is. The best way to fix it imo is to bind an angel and put it under the control of the muggle player. But some players play muggles because they don’t want a complicated casterish thing. For them just turning them into a war troll and assisting with the math would be better.

DSP does very little I don’t like. I haven’t played a tactician but I’ve played a Vitalist and used tactician tricks through the network. Very impressive support characters.


That's debatable, and I think wrong. It "functions as Greater Polymorph except", but is not limited to what GP can do, at least by my (and the GM's) reading at the time.

That isn’t how I read it but I like your version better than what I consider RAW. I could easily see just pretending it’s raw to help balance. At least when you are using it on muggles not casters.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

The recommendation I've seen is that you want the team to be at least within 2 tiers of each other, because that should be enough to prevent one player from accidentally rendering another redundant.

It might be worth tracking down some cool ACFs, feats, multiclassing options, or prestige classes for the lower tier characters to help them optimize.