How Can You Make All The Class From Tier 6 To Tier 2 Useful?

[Bartmanhomer]

It seems like no matter what class everyone takes it always have to be the Tier 1 dominates everything from combat to non-combat and all the other Tiers really stinks. It there some way to make A Tier 6 class to Tier 2 class be good as Tier 1 class? :frown:

[Jack_Simth]

It seems like no matter what class everyone takes it always have to be the Tier 1 dominates everything from combat to non-combat and all the other Tiers really stinks. It there some way to make A Tier 6 class to Tier 2 class be good as Tier 1 class? :frown:
At the upper limits of optimization, everyone is pun-pun, at which point, everyone is equally useful.

Ignoring that sort of thing, however:
Not really. Part of the point of the tier definitions in the first place.
If you modified the game itself to the point where it's not really recognizable as D&D 3.5, sure.

[Bartmanhomer]

Ignoring that sort of thing, however:
Not really. Part of the point of the tier definitions in the first place.
If you modified the game itself to the point where it's not really recognizable as D&D 3.5, sure.
What do you mean by that? Can you explain a bit more, please? :confused:

[Buufreak]

He means that at the highest end of optimization, your class doesn't matter, because everyone can get literally infinity in every single game score at level one.

[tiercel]

“As good” and “useful” are two different benchmarks.

The point of Tier 1 is that you will pretty much always have more options available than lower tiers, and as character level increases those options will generally increase in potential power faster than those of lower tiers.

Having said that, the magnitude of the difference between tiers in practice is often a significant function of level — some folks talk about Tier 1 as if it’s only ever played at level 15+, in which high level spells kinda do just rule the game. In my personal experience — and I’d guess to a greater or lesser degree, those of a fair few others — plenty of parties in actual games have had (gasp) both Fighters and Wizards and both have been useful in the game and all the players had fun. At low to mid levels, there’s nothing wrong with a mix of tiers and especially when the spellcasters are optimizing “make the whole party rock” as opposed to the usually-theoretical “I’m going to deliberately outshine the Fighter and Rogue until they go slink off into the distance like the useless waste of character sheets they are.”

It also just depends how much the player is trying to reach the optimization ceiling of a class: there’s a world of difference between a “I picked two domains for purely RP reasons, I actually occasionally use healing spells on the party, mostly use the same mostly-Core general party support spells when I’m not healing, and I think Turn Undead is for turning undead” bog-standard Cleric and a “fine-tuned domain-choice and domain feats, DMM Persistomancy cheese, early-PrC-entry cheese, strictly-better-than-BSF-in-raw-numerical-offense-and-defense, plus full casting from every Cleric spell printed anywhere, EVER, including and especially the most broken Core AND non-Core spells” Clericzilla.

[radthemad4]

Play low levels?

An option to balance things somewhat is tiered gestalt (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm).

For example,

Tier 1s can't gestalt
Tier 2 can gestalt with Tier 5 or higher
Tier 3 can gestalt with Tier 4 or higher
Tier 6 should really be NPCs only or I guess deliberately low power campaigns as they don't have any interesting abilities

Also, use these tiers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?600635-Why-each-class-is-in-its-tier-2019-update!)

This helps with the combat part, but out of combat usefulness past low levels is pretty hard to balance as prepared full casters are way better at that

[NigelWalmsley]

T6 is mostly (entirely? people have done multiple tier listings) NPC classes, so I don't think you actually want to fix those guys. T2 is already viable in a T1 party, and needs minor tweaks (spell progression consistency, mostly) at best. So the question is really "how do I buff T3 - T5", which is more manageable. The general problem for those tiers is that it's too much work to be effective in combat, and that you don't get out of combat utility. So that's what you need to attack. The first is probably solvable by giving maneuvers and damage bonuses, the second requires that you either hand out spells or develop a "spells but not" alternative for people to have. None of that is particularly hard, just time-consuming.

[Buddy76]

It seems like no matter what class everyone takes it always have to be the Tier 1 dominates everything from combat to non-combat and all the other Tiers really stinks. It there some way to make A Tier 6 class to Tier 2 class be good as Tier 1 class? :frown: Is that a problem at your table? Because tiers are descriptive, not prescriptive. The tier system doesn't exist to encourage people to play "high tier" characters, it's meant to provide useful information for DMs and players regarding the capabilities of each class, so that everyone can have fun.

I've only seem the situation you're describing when players spend a lot of time reading optimization guides online but have very little actual play experience.

Regarding how to make each tier useful, well, tier 2 classes are already very powerful (sometimes overwhelmingly so). Tier 3 classes are usually fine. If the players are struggling at those tiers they might need to retweak their characters and pick better options.

Some tier 4 classes can be very effective, but if the rest of the party is playing optimized tier 1-2 classes, letting them gestalt is a good idea.

Tier 5 classes are usually very poorly designed. Some already have fixes i.e: use pathfinder's Soulknife instead of 3.5's, and use Mike Mearls' Hexblade changes (http://irongamersguild.wikidot.com/forum/t-248314/unofficial-fix-for-hexblades-from-an-official-source). Others have some relatively obvious flaws that you can address (Soulborn needs better incarnum proggression, Divine Mind more powers, and Truespeak checks need to scale at a slower rate). You can fix them and/or gestalt them with other classes.

Tier 6 classes are weak but that's not a bug, it's a feature. They're meant for more ordinary, non-heroic npcs.

Other than that, can't really recommend enough the thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?600635-Why-each-class-is-in-its-tier-2019-update!) that radthemad4 linked to. Troacctid did a great job summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of each class.

[Gnaeus]

Yeah, really a lot to unpack.

1. T1s do not dominate all things. The difference between high T2 and low T1 is pretty small, and not always apparent. Even Tier 3s and below can dominate in the right circumstances. The barbarian may actually not be concerned that the wizard has more meta game power when he is uber charging every round and scoring most kills/damage in combat.

2. You can make classes useful in lots of ways. You can set encounters that play to different characters strengths. You can drop loot that helps weaker characters.

If changing the game is more your style, people mentioned the various class buffs and nerfs. You can buff rage and nerf planar binding.

Or you can go farther afield. There are lots of possibilities. You just have to change the game assumptions. Dresden files, for example, has mechanics to allow T1 Harry Dresden Wizard to adventure with T5 Karen Murphy Cop. You could, for example, give every PC awesome points equal to their tier -1 every day or adventure or level and let them use those points to describe how their character overcomes some challenge in an awesome way. There are lots of options depending on how far you want to go.

Of course, you hit a point where it’s easier just to use other systems if balance is your main concern. It really isn’t a strength of 3.5. 3.5 at its root is just a huge toolbox, but if you hand a toolbox to me, and a construction worker, and an auto mechanic, and a battle bots team, your results will vary wildly.

[radthemad4]

Oh, an option is to upgrade the classes themselves using homebrew. For instance I really like this Sorcerer fix (http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=56529), though I don't know if that makes it 'Tier 1'. But anyway, you can probably find lots of homebrew class fixes that boost classes sufficiently combatwise.

But anyway, non combat usefulness... Oh boy....

I don't think there's a good easy fix for this. Clerics and Druids can just decide to prepare non combat spells sometimes. Wizards can buy a few non combat spells. A Sorcerer can pick non combat spells, but they get so few spells known, this severely hurts their combat capabilities and they'll still be outshone by Wizards.

Anyway, I think what I'd do if I had the time would be to take every class and give them some extra class features that let them do non combat stuff without sacrificing their combat capabilities. e.g. for a Sorcerer, I'd let them choose some extra spells known which have to be from a curated list containing primarily non combat spells, e.g. Disguise Self, Deceptive Facade, Detect Thoughts, Rope Trick, Locate Object, Tongues, Comprehend Languages, etc. A Beguiler already has some nice things on their list so I doubt I'd change that much, but for the Warmage and Dread Necro I'd probably add a few more utility based spells known. The same thing can be done with powers, maneuvers, soulmelds, invocations, etc. (probabily requiring more options to be written). For other things, it might be necessary to come up with lists of abilities and let people choose from them, e.g. maybe Barbarians and Rangers can pick up things like Scent or Blindsense somehow.

[zfs]

Every non-NPC class has at least something it can do well - though with a few of them you need a magnifying glass to see what that thing is. CW Samurai is the lowest ranked non-NPC class in the newest tiers, and it's very good at fear locking builds. Knight is low tier, but has one of the only legitimate aggro-pulling abilities in the game. It's unfortunately very limited, but it's something.

But no, tiers exist because Tier 1 and Tier 5 classes fundamentally interact with the game differently.

"Useful" is a broad term, though. Outside of Commoner (chicken-infested aside), pretty much any class can be built to be "useful."

[Bartmanhomer]

Is that a problem at your table? Because tiers are descriptive, not prescriptive. The tier system doesn't exist to encourage people to play "high tier" characters, it's meant to provide useful information for DMs and players regarding the capabilities of each class, so that everyone can have fun.

I've only seem the situation you're describing when players spend a lot of time reading optimization guides online but have very little actual play experience.

Regarding how to make each tier useful, well, tier 2 classes are already very powerful (sometimes overwhelmingly so). Tier 3 classes are usually fine. If the players are struggling at those tiers they might need to retweak their characters and pick better options.

Some tier 4 classes can be very effective, but if the rest of the party is playing optimized tier 1-2 classes, letting them gestalt is a good idea.

Tier 5 classes are usually very poorly designed. Some already have fixes i.e: use pathfinder's Soulknife instead of 3.5's, and use Mike Mearls' Hexblade changes (http://irongamersguild.wikidot.com/forum/t-248314/unofficial-fix-for-hexblades-from-an-official-source). Others have some relatively obvious flaws that you can address (Soulborn needs better incarnum proggression, Divine Mind more powers, and Truespeak checks need to scale at a slower rate). You can fix them and/or gestalt them with other classes.

Tier 6 classes are weak but that's not a bug, it's a feature. They're meant for more ordinary, non-heroic npcs.

Other than that, can't really recommend enough the thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?600635-Why-each-class-is-in-its-tier-2019-update!) that radthemad4 linked to. Troacctid did a great job summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of each class.

No I'm just asking in general.

[Buddy76]

Fair enough. How much classes are balanced in regards to each other (and whether or not they should be balanced against each other) and how much they're balanced towards the challages of the game are hotly debated topics with lots of interesting opinions.

It's just that the bolded part:

It seems like no matter what class everyone takes it always have to be the Tier 1 dominates everything from combat to non-combat and all the other Tiers really stinks. It there some way to make A Tier 6 class to Tier 2 class be good as Tier 1 class? :frown: threw me off a little bit. As I said, I've never actually encountered a player with even a modicum of actual play experience that holds the view expressed in the bolded text. I just wanted to clarify that so we don't expend a lot of time discussing a problem that doesn't exist (i.e: players that only want to play tier 1's and think everything else is garbage).

But yeah, if you're looking to opinions on how to balance classes (and whether or not you should do it), I'm sure this thread is going to provide lots of them. Here's my two cents: If you are trying to balance classes, aim for low tier 2 or tier 3. Trying to bring everything up to tier 1 will get messy very fast.

[gogogome]

They're useful. Give me a sorcerer rogue or warlock and I'll kick as much ass as any t1 wizard.

[Tvtyrant]

It seems like no matter what class everyone takes it always have to be the Tier 1 dominates everything from combat to non-combat and all the other Tiers really stinks. It there some way to make A Tier 6 class to Tier 2 class be good as Tier 1 class? :frown:

No, because tiers are a measure of possible flexibility or power given the same amount of optimization and effort. A mailman wizard and a charger Barbarian both deal high levels of damage consistently, but the Wizard also flies, teleports, turns into a box turtle, etc.

In practice this is usually fine for tier 4-1. A simple fighter and a fireball sorcerer work out fine, as do a Batman Wizard and an Ubercharger Frenzied Berzerker abusing Mad Foam Rager.

Tier 5-6 are less fine. A badly built Monk is going to accomplish next to nothing next to a bog standard Barbarian, and badly in this case means "taking the seemingly obvious choices." That is why we used to have Monkday every week, because the low tier classes are so badly built you have to use decent optimization to play them and do anything at all (Truenamer.)

[Biggus]

You can't make low-tier classes equal to tier 1's without rewriting the whole game, but there are a few simple things you can do to help matters. Use high point-buy for character generation, as tier 1 and 2 classes tend to be less MAD so benefit less, while classes like Paladin and Monk become quite a bit more viable. Make the magic items on this list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items) readily available so the mundanes can get flight, True Seeing and all the other things they need to give them a fighting chance against casters. Drop multiclass XP penalties (if you don't already) as multiclassing is generally more useful to martial classes.

There are plenty of other little tweaks you can use to help specific class types. For example: any class which is combat-focused and doesn't have full BAB gets it (I'm looking at you, Monk and Marshal); this doesn't help them that much in relation to casters, but it does mean they can at least do their core job semi-competently. Give classes like Paladin and Ranger whose caster level is half their class level a caster level of class level -3 as in PF instead so it isn't laughably easy to dispel their buffs at high levels. Stuff like that.

[Psyren]

OP: You might be spending too much time on messageboards about the game instead of actually playing the game.

[Peat]

Maybe I'm being naive, but I'd have thought that as long as the T1 player isn't absolutely limelight hogging like mad, any T2-5(ish) character built to a similar optimisation level would still be useful. Not as useful, no, nowhere near, but that doesn't mean they're not useful at all.

At the lower end of T5/T6 maybe that doesn't hold, but that's where we're talking classes that are really poorly designed at doing their job/NPC classes.

[Bartmanhomer]

OP: You might be spending too much time on messageboards about the game instead of actually playing the game.

I do play the game yes. I just love posting about it since D&D 3.5 is my favourite RPG. :smile:

[Psyren]

I do play the game yes. I just love posting about it since D&D 3.5 is my favourite RPG. :smile:

When you play, do the T1 players make the T3 and T4 players feel useless? Because that is as much a player problem as it is a game problem, if not moreso.

[Bartmanhomer]

When you play, do the T1 players make the T3 and T4 players feel useless? Because that is as much a player problem as it is a game problem, if not more so.

No. Not really. The game I play everybody gets along really well.

[Biggus]

Maybe I'm being naive, but I'd have thought that as long as the T1 player isn't absolutely limelight hogging like mad, any T2-5(ish) character built to a similar optimisation level would still be useful. Not as useful, no, nowhere near, but that doesn't mean they're not useful at all.

At the lower end of T5/T6 maybe that doesn't hold, but that's where we're talking classes that are really poorly designed at doing their job/NPC classes.

This is true. A couple of years ago I played in a large mid-to-low op group, with classes ranging all the way from a Cleric to a Monk and every tier inbetween. Everyone was happy with their character, even the Fighter, with the sole exception of the Monk. The wail "I just can't hit anything" was heard nearly every combat.

[NigelWalmsley]

The problem with imbalance isn't really players overshadowing each other. Most functional groups have a pretty good handle on that, and you can't fix dysfunctional groups by changing the rules (you shouldn't even try, because doing that makes the rules worse for everyone else). The problem is the way that people not having abilities constrains the kinds of stories you can tell. Non-casters (particularly martials, particularly mundanes) simply don't get utility options. That means they are excluded from any challenge that requires those abilities, which means you can't build challenges around the party having those abilities, which means that the players that do have those abilities don't get to use them. In this sense, the real problem with imbalance is the effect it has on Wizards.


Anyway, I think what I'd do if I had the time would be to take every class and give them some extra class features that let them do non combat stuff without sacrificing their combat capabilities. e.g. for a Sorcerer, I'd let them choose some extra spells known which have to be from a curated list containing primarily non combat spells, e.g. Disguise Self, Deceptive Facade, Detect Thoughts, Rope Trick, Locate Object, Tongues, Comprehend Languages, etc.

All the Sorcerer really needs is to get enough spells known that it doesn't cripple its combat effectiveness picking up utility spells (and to get the same spell progression as Wizard, because the status quo is dumb). The fix you linked might be good enough, TBH. One interesting possibility would be to make Dragonpacts better. The basic idea of getting a pile of linked utility spells works, it's just the the spells you actually get are largely bad to mediocre.


A Beguiler already has some nice things on their list so I doubt I'd change that much, but for the Warmage and Dread Necro I'd probably add a few more utility based spells known.

The first thing I'd do there is make Esoteric Learning the default (probably without the level penalty) and give the classes baseline access to more non-core spells in their specialties (also fix the progression here too). I might let the Beguiler pick up Shadowcaster Mysteries just to avoid writing a fix for that. That's probably enough for the Beguiler and Dread Necromancer, though since Planar Binding is not a thing that should be allowed to exist, the Dread Necromancer might deserve something in compensation.

The Warmage needs more, but I'm not sure exactly what. I'm fond of the idea of combining it with the Duskblade. For utility, your options are essentially infinite. It turns out most magic is pretty good for war. You could give them divinations to monitor troop movements, walls to build fortifications, summoning spells to get reinforcements, the sky's the limit. Hell, you could rename the Wizard to Warmage and that would be close to 100% on theme.


The same thing can be done with powers, maneuvers, soulmelds, invocations, etc. (probabily requiring more options to be written). For other things, it might be necessary to come up with lists of abilities and let people choose from them, e.g. maybe Barbarians and Rangers can pick up things like Scent or Blindsense somehow.

My thoughts are something like this:

-Tome of Battle classes use something like the Age of Warriors project. More maneuvers (both overall and per character), better high level maneuvers, utility options.
-Most non-Tome of Battle martial classes should just be Tome of Battle ACFs. The Swashbucker does not have enough going on to be a full class without a total rework.
-Partial casters get bumped up to Bard progression and use Recharge Magic.
-The casters-but-not (e.g. Binder, Incarnate) get 6/9 casting (not Recharge) off of a curated list that covers their weaknesses.

I've thought about writing it up, but I'm too damn lazy.


If you are trying to balance classes, aim for low tier 2 or tier 3. Trying to bring everything up to tier 1 will get messy very fast.

If you are trying to balance classes, it doesn't make sense to talk about the tiers. The tiers are a tool that is designed to accomplish a particular goal: describe the imbalance that exists in the system. They are not well suited to accomplishing other goals like "tell people which classes are the most fun to play" or "provide a framework for balancing new classes". If you're going to write a new set of balanced classes, you have to give up on the notion that the tiers are a useful guide. If you don't, you end up with comically absurd solutions like "6 levels of spells are inherently more balanced than 9 levels of spells" or "abilities that recharge every combat are inherently more balanced than abilities that recharge once per day".

What you have to do is look at the properties classes have, not relative power level. What does the Wizard actually do that's different from the Sorcerer? Not "be better", we've assumed we're balancing things, so that no longer matters. And if you do that, it's not at all clear to me that the Wizard is a worse model than the Sorcerer. Specialization (particularly with ACFs and the Master Specialist PrC) offers a degree of character customization that the Sorcerer doesn't natively get. Spell Preparation isn't clearly better or worse than Spontaneous Casting.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It seems like no matter what class everyone takes it always have to be the Tier 1 dominates everything from combat to non-combat and all the other Tiers really stinks.

I also see this attitude from a few forumites but that doesn't mean its assertions are true.

As was pointed out, if you know the right hax then there's no functional difference between classes. There's also no functional difference between high and low levels. As soon as you can gather the cash to buy a candle of invocation, the whole thing shatters into a million tiny, indistinguishable pieces as long as you take the common interpretation of planar binding for wishes. Also the final iteration of pun pun was a level 1 character.

If PB is handled reasonably, economy breaking is disallowed, and sarrukh are simply hucked into the garbage bin of "bad game design elements that should never have existed" then you've made levels matter again but class still falls to the way side as you push on toward epic, so long as you're sufficiently skilled at manipulating WBL and can get a decent UMD modifier.

Then you -finally- hit the level of optimization where class actually becomes relevant and the tier list becomes (mostly) accurate. Even at this level, every class is still functional at its obviously intended role. That does leave the lower tiers in a bit of a pickle when it comes to situations outside of their fields but then you choose your class based on the fields you want to cover, don't you. Don't let the caster fans oversell though. It's -very- difficult for casters to be as skilled in a specialist's field as the specialist is. Adequate when a specialist isn't absolutely necessary, certainly; as good, no.

Then you start to get on towards the average level of optimization. The tiers are generally describing this area of expertise in the game and are pretty accurate. The bottom of the list can't even really do the thing they're supposed to unless they're the most optimized character in the party and T1s can accidentaly stumble into breaking a campaign by selecting stuff that the GM wasn't prepared to deal with.

At the lowest level of optimization, the whole list becomes a total jumble compared to its normal order. T1's end up at the bottom because of the minimum competence level required to be relevant while monk's naturally defensive nature and martial adepts narrow optimization window make it difficult to screw them up so bad you'll be killed with certainty in a hurry. If you're still in this realm after a few adventures/campaigns then 3.P is probably the wrong game for you to be playing.



It there some way to make A Tier 6 class to Tier 2 class be good as Tier 1 class? :frown:

I mean, not really? If you take the classes that are normally set below T1 and improve them until they're just as powerful and versatile as T1s then two things happen: the game is so dramatically changed and you've done so much writing of homebrew that you may as well have written a whole new game and been done with it and you now get a new tier list in which the differences are narrow enough that breaking it down into several broad categories isn't really productive anymore.

[Psyren]

No. Not really. The game I play everybody gets along really well.

Okay, then... what's this thread for?

[Bartmanhomer]

Okay, then... what's this thread for?

I just feel like Tier 1 outclass everything here. Which everybody explain their input on it.

[Psyren]

I just feel like Tier 1 outclass everything here. Which everybody explain their input on it.

They can, potentially, in theory. But what happens in your actual game is always more important than theory.

[Buufreak]

No. Not really. The game I play everybody gets along really well.

No, seriously. If you are going to make broad sweeping statements about how big and bad tier 1 classes are, and how they absolutely dominate the game, but simultaneously have never played in a single situation where that exact thing has ever happened, then you are at most parroting what you heard on the internet, and at least blowing smoke out your own ass.

[Bartmanhomer]

They can, potentially, in theory. But what happens in your actual game is always more important than theory.

Well to be honest I actually play a wizard. My team is a Cleric, Factotum, Fighter and Bard. And so far my team is alive and well. We're going to compete in a tournament.

[Buufreak]

Well to be honest I actually play a wizard. My team is a Cleric, Factotum, Fighter and Bard. And so far my team is alive and well. We're going to compete in a tournament.

Okay, with that team comp, and your cartoonish skew of how you view tiers, then you and the cleric should be completely demolishing every challenge and battle in literally seconds while the other 3 are busy playing poker.

Is that, in fact, what happens?

[Bartmanhomer]

Okay, with that team comp, and your cartoonish skew of how you view tiers, then you and the cleric should be completely demolishing every challenge and battle in literally seconds while the other 3 are busy playing poker.

Is that, in fact, what happens?

Well, we did have some trouble with the wolves and the wolves retreated. So my team have a lucky win on that note. The Cleric and I didn't actually dominated in battle.

[Buufreak]

Well, we did have some trouble with the wolves and the wolves retreated. So my team have a lucky win on that note. The Cleric and I didn't actually dominated in battle.

I'll take that as a no. So then my next question: if you are actively playing as a tier 1 class, and you aren't doing what some random people on the internet say a tier 1 class consistently does, why are you under the delusion that they do as prescribed? You have yourself experienced personal concrete evidence to the contrary, so as psyren asked, why is this thread even here?

[NigelWalmsley]

This seems like a lot of unnecessary hostility for someone who's trying to understand how to fix problems. If you don't think the exercise is valuable, don't participate in it. Running these super aggressive interrogation tactics just makes it seem like you're personally threatened by the idea imbalance might exist, which is a weird look.

[Buufreak]

Hi Nigel, you seem new here, let me explain a bit. Bart here comes up with asinine postulates almost daily, and sometimes has trouble understanding meaning. What you are seeing isn't an attempt at aggression or hostility, but instead being incredibly straight forward and thorough, because otherwise the point gets entirely missed.

[Bartmanhomer]

I'll take that as a no. So then my next question: if you are actively playing as a tier 1 class, and you aren't doing what some random people on the internet say a tier 1 class consistently does, why are you under the delusion that they do as prescribed? You have yourself experienced personal concrete evidence to the contrary, so as siren asked, why is this thread even here?

I just wanted The other tiers to be more useful just like Tier 1. That was basically it. Also I never even said how to play a tier 1 class. You completely misunderstand what I just said. :annoyed:

[Kelb_Panthera]

I just wanted The other tiers to be more useful just like Tier 1. That was basically it. Also I never even said how to play a tier 1 class. You completely misunderstand what I just said. :annoyed:

I'm not trying to come at you with any anger or remonstration here but that's just not a good goal to have.

If someone wants that kind of power and complexity they can already pick one of the six T1 classes or use optimization trickery to bring virtually any of the casters that get 9th level spells up to that same level.

Attempting to pull all of the other classes up to that level is actually taking away the option to play something simpler, nevermind something simple.

Even in your own game, you note that the problem that mixing high tier and low tier classes can cause hasn't cropped up. I'll take it a step further and say it probably won't. Not unless something in your group changes pretty significantly.

In american parlance we have an expression: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The idea is that you shouldn't waste time trying to address a problem that doesn't yet exist. I think it seriously applies here.

[Bartmanhomer]

I'm not trying to come at you with any anger or remonstration here but that's just not a good goal to have.

If someone wants that kind of power and complexity they can already pick one of the six T1 classes or use optimization trickery to bring virtually any of the casters that get 9th level spells up to that same level.

Attempting to pull all of the other classes up to that level is actually taking away the option to play something simpler, nevermind something simple.

Even in your own game, you note that the problem that mixing high tier and low tier classes can cause hasn't cropped up. I'll take it a step further and say it probably won't. Not unless something in your group changes pretty significantly.

In American parlance, we have an expression: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The idea is that you shouldn't waste time trying to address a problem that doesn't yet exist. I think it seriously applies here.

Ok, thank you for your input. I wasn't trying to make anybody angry about it. I just wanted all tiers to be equal. But I guess that ship has sailed already. :frown:

[NigelWalmsley]

Hi Nigel, you seem new here, let me explain a bit. Bart here comes up with asinine postulates almost daily, and sometimes has trouble understanding meaning. What you are seeing isn't an attempt at aggression or hostility, but instead being incredibly straight forward and thorough, because otherwise the point gets entirely missed.

But "how do I change the balance of classes" isn't an "asinine postulate". It's an entirely reasonable question. It doesn't have to be ruining his game for the exercise to be worthwhile. Understanding the flaws of the classes and how to fix those flaws deepens our understanding of the game.

[Melcar]

Play low levels?

An option to balance things somewhat is tiered gestalt (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm).

For example,

Tier 1s can't gestalt
Tier 2 can gestalt with Tier 5 or higher
Tier 3 can gestalt with Tier 4 or higher
Tier 6 should really be NPCs only or I guess deliberately low power campaigns as they don't have any interesting abilities

Also, use these tiers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?600635-Why-each-class-is-in-its-tier-2019-update!)

This helps with the combat part, but out of combat usefulness past low levels is pretty hard to balance as prepared full casters are way better at that

Why not have it be:
Tier 1s can't gestalt
Tier 2 can gestalt with Tier 5 or higher or can tristalt with tier 6
Tier 3 can gestalt with Tier 4 or higher or can Tristalt with tier 5 and higher.
Tier 4 can gestalt with Tier 3 or higher or can Tristalt with tier 4 and higher or can quatrostalt with tier 5 and higher
Tier 5 can gestalt with Tier 2 or higher or can Tristalt with tier 3 and higher or can quatrostalt with tier 4 and higher
Tier 6 can tristalt with tier 2 and higher or can quatrostalt with tier 3 and higher or can quitstalt with tier 4 or higher or sextstalt with tier 5 or more

Wouldn't that be more fun? It would add something extra for sure, and people don't have become very high level before having fun!

[Bartmanhomer]

Why not have it be:
Tier 1s can't gestalt
Tier 2 can gestalt with Tier 5 or higher or can tristalt with tier 6
Tier 3 can gestalt with Tier 4 or higher or can Tristalt with tier 5 and higher.
Tier 4 can gestalt with Tier 3 or higher or can Tristalt with tier 4 and higher or can quatrostalt with tier 5 and higher
Tier 5 can gestalt with Tier 2 or higher or can Tristalt with tier 3 and higher or can quatrostalt with tier 4 and higher
Tier 6 can tristalt with tier 2 and higher or can quatrostalt with tier 3 and higher or can quitstalt with tier 4 or higher or sextstalt with tier 5 or more

Wouldn't that be more fun? It would add something extra for sure, and people don't have become very high level before having fun!

Why Tier 1 classes can't gestalt? Where did you hear that? :confused:

[Buddy76]

Ok, thank you for your input. I wasn't trying to make anybody angry about it. I just wanted all tiers to be equal. But I guess that ship has sailed already. :frown:

Bart, what people are saying is that's not a good idea, specially if you want all classes to operate at tier 1 levels of power and flexibility. Let's look at the definition of a tier one class from the most recent tier list (I think this definition was written by eggynack):


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

Now, classes at this tier can present two problems (Some tier 2 classes can also run into both of these, by the way):

1- They can break the game, even if the player playing them is a good sport and not activelly trying to do so. Seriously, challenging a smart wizard player once their character is past ,say, level 14 or 15 can be really hard for the DM.

2- On the other hand, tier 1 classes are defined by having an absurd amount of good options for dealing with things and thus may require lots of bookdiving, bookeeping and forethought to be played to their fullest potential. There's an user here in this forum (forgot their handle) with a quote at their signature that says something like (and I'm paraphrasing here): "playing a wizard the way giantitp says it should be played requires a time and effort investment equivalent to a university minor". Not everyone wants to (or has time to) play at this level of complexity.

So if you're trying to make the other classes fit the tier 1 definition, you'll probably need to dump a bunch of spells or powers or whatever in the laps of players that may not want that kind of complexity or playstyle while also increasing the chance of someone accidentally breaking the game.

Tiers 2 and 3 have lots of powerful and useful classes (I don't know who said they were usuless or poorly designed) tier 4 classes are mostly perfectly playable and even powerful with the right tricks. Even tier 5's can work, though it might take some effort.

So the lesson is: higher tier doesn't mean better designed or more fun to play. If no one you play with has an issue with that and you try to make every class operate at tier 1 levels you might have to do a bunch of homebrew work that end up solving no problems while potentially creating a bunch of new ones.


Why not have it be:
Tier 1s can't gestalt
Tier 2 can gestalt with Tier 5 or higher or can tristalt with tier 6
Tier 3 can gestalt with Tier 4 or higher or can Tristalt with tier 5 and higher.
Tier 4 can gestalt with Tier 3 or higher or can Tristalt with tier 4 and higher or can quatrostalt with tier 5 and higher
Tier 5 can gestalt with Tier 2 or higher or can Tristalt with tier 3 and higher or can quatrostalt with tier 4 and higher
Tier 6 can tristalt with tier 2 and higher or can quatrostalt with tier 3 and higher or can quitstalt with tier 4 or higher or sextstalt with tier 5 or more

Wouldn't that be more fun? It would add something extra for sure, and people don't have become very high level before having fun!

That's not an official rule. Melcar and radthemad4 are proposing the gestalting of lower tier classes as a way of resolving power imbalances. If you're dead set on rebalancing the game, this might be a good solution.

[ShurikVch]

"Useful" is a broad term, though. Outside of Commoner (chicken-infested aside), pretty much any class can be built to be "useful."From the "Flaws for Commoners", there is also Weresheep: it turns Commoner not just into the best tank in the game, but in a sense, into the only tank - since it generating no-save-no-immunity aggro while giving the Commoner DR/silver and Dex/Con/AC bump...

[Bartmanhomer]

Bart, what people are saying is that's not a good idea, specially if you want all classes to operate at tier 1 levels of power and flexibility. Let's look at the definition of a tier one class from the most recent tier list (I think this definition was written by eggynack):



Now, classes at this tier can present two problems (Some tier 2 classes can also run into both of these, by the way):

1- They can break the game, even if the player playing them is a good sport and not activelly trying to do so. Seriously, challenging a smart wizard player once their character is past ,say, level 14 or 15 can be really hard for the DM.

2- On the other hand, tier 1 classes are defined by having an absurd amount of good options for dealing with things and thus may require lots of bookdiving, bookeeping and forethought to be played to their fullest potential. There's an user here in this forum (forgot their handle) with a quote at their signature that says something like (and I'm paraphrasing here): "playing a wizard the way giantitp says it should be played requires a time and effort investment equivalent to a university minor". Not everyone wants to (or has time to) play at this level of complexity.

So if you're trying to make the other classes fit the tier 1 definition, you'll probably need to dump a bunch of spells or powers or whatever in the laps of players that may not want that kind of complexity or playstyle while also increasing the chance of someone accidentally breaking the game.

I'm sorry. I didn't know that my idea was that bad. I just thought that all the other tiers should equal the same as Tier 1 would be a great idea. But now I know it isn't. :frown:

[NigelWalmsley]

Let's look at the definition of a tier one class from the most recent tier list (I think this definition was written by eggynack):

Actually, let's not. Because as I've said, that definition isn't especially useful if your goal is to balance the game, instead of to understand how the game is imbalanced. It basically amounts to "the character is not useless in any situation" (which is unambiguously good) and "the character is better than classes that aren't in T1" (which is no longer relevant). So it sounds to me like "T1" is exactly where you want characters to be.


1- They can break the game, even if the player playing them is a good sport and not activelly trying to do so. Seriously, challenging a smart wizard player once their character is past ,say, level 14 or 15 can be really hard for the DM.

The game-breaking powers of these classes are overstated, or the result of an extremely small subset of spells that no one is actually defending. Without access to Planar Binding and company, T1 casters are quite manageable, and no one here thinks unrestricted, RAW Planar Binding is a good idea.


2- On the other hand, tier 1 classes are defined by having an absurd amount of good options for dealing with things and thus may require lots of bookdiving, bookeeping and forethought to be played to their fullest potential.

This is what I was getting at when I said that trying to use the tiers as a guideline for balancing isn't helpful. Yes, the existing T1 classes behave that way. But you don't have to behave that way to be able to keep up with them.

[Buddy76]

Actually, let's not. Because as I've said, that definition isn't especially useful if your goal is to balance the game, instead of to understand how the game is imbalanced. It basically amounts to "the character is not useless in any situation" (which is unambiguously good) and "the character is better than classes that aren't in T1" (which is no longer relevant). So it sounds to me like "T1" is exactly where you want characters to be.



The game-breaking powers of these classes are overstated, or the result of an extremely small subset of spells that no one is actually defending. Without access to Planar Binding and company, T1 casters are quite manageable, and no one here thinks unrestricted, RAW Planar Binding is a good idea.



This is what I was getting at when I said that trying to use the tiers as a guideline for balancing isn't helpful. Yes, the existing T1 classes behave that way. But you don't have to behave that way to be able to keep up with them.

I'm not trying to balance the game. At this point I'm trying to understand what Bart wanted to acomplish when he named the thread " How Can You Make All The Class From Tier 6 To Tier 2 Useful?". I'm using this forum's latest definitions of tiers to try and make sense of it. If your point is "tiers are usueless when balacing the game" you can make that point to Bartman. If you want to change the definitions of tiers or abolish it completely you can make a thread for that. I was using tiers beacause that's the milieu he chose for his balancing efforts (I think).

[Gnaeus]

The game-breaking powers of these classes are overstated, or the result of an extremely small subset of spells that no one is actually defending. Without access to Planar Binding and company, T1 casters are quite manageable, and no one here thinks unrestricted, RAW Planar Binding is a good idea.
.

That’s not entirely true. Or it is, but with a definitional problem. Let’s start with the assumption that planar binding is nerfed. And that everything most of us think of as TO like wish loops is just off the table. No selling walls of salt. No adventuring by astral projection.

So, what is game breaking? Does making the party monk or swashbuckler or samurai look like a worthless exp sink count? Because the T1s can do that pretty trivially. Is Animate Dead gamebreaking? Summon Monster? Dominate? Is taking 5 turns to the fighters 1 gamebreaking? I hardly need planar binding for that.

Or how about narrative breaking.
What if DM say “the scouts have reported that the orc army is on the move. You have 2 weeks to do these side quests to generate enough goodwill to spark intervention from the dwarf king before they get through the mountains and devastate city-ville.”
And Druid answers “LOL. I’m gonna wait for them to get halfway in and then fly as a bird into the middle of their army about 900 feet up and then summon perpetual blizzards over their entire army until they starve, freeze, surrender or retreat.”

DM “the murderer must still be in this room”
Player: “sweet. Y’all search for clues if you want. I’m just gonna cast commune.”

There are lots of situations where tier 1-3 solutions are leagues above tier 3-6 solutions (and yes I put 3 in both. There are lower tier ways to access higher tier powers). Is that game breaking? I guess that depends on how open you are to sandbox solutions and how much you REALLY want the PCs to wander the dungeon you set up to find the mcguffin.

[NigelWalmsley]

I'm not trying to balance the game. At this point I'm trying to understand what Bart wanted to acomplish when he named the thread " How Can You Make All The Class From Tier 6 To Tier 2 Useful?".

That seemed pretty clear to me. He wanted to know how to make one collection of classes (the low tier ones) competitive with another (the high tier ones). That he used the tiers to classify them doesn't mean that's the tool he wants to use to accomplish the task.


So, what is game breaking? Does making the party monk or swashbuckler or samurai look like a worthless exp sink count?

Game breaking is stuff that causes the game to break, not stuff that makes one character more effective than another. Planar Binding allows you to have an arbitrarily large army. SLA Wish allows you to have as much power as you can describe in terms of a magic item. One class being better than another is a different problem. There are a lot of potential balance points where the game can work. You could have people be about as good as the Fighter. You could have people be about as good as the Warblade. You could have people be about as good as the Wizard. I happen to favor the last one, but I can understand people favoring one of the others (or a different one I didn't name). But none of those balance points are game breaking just because they happen to be above one or more of the others.


And Druid answers “LOL. I’m gonna wait for them to get halfway in and then fly as a bird into the middle of their army about 900 feet up and then summon perpetual blizzards over their entire army until they starve, freeze, surrender or retreat.”

I don't think that's narrative-breaking, I think that's a player easily defeating a challenge because it wasn't actually challenging for them. And that's not unique to casters either. If the DM said to a 15th level party "your quest is to go kill a CR 1/3 goblin", no one would be surprised that they didn't have much trouble with it. To put that in concrete terms for your example, if the Orcs don't have casters of their own to correct the weather, flying auxiliaries to attack the Druid, or units tough enough to survive in blizzard conditions, they deserve to get trounced by a Druid who is (assuming we're talking about Control Weather) at least 13th level.


There are lots of situations where tier 1-3 solutions are leagues above tier 3-6 solutions

I don't think that's quite correct. It's true that the Wizard has better tools for solving problems than the Fighter does, but that's because he gets new solutions to problems from leveling up in a way the Fighter doesn't. Consider your example again. At 1st level, the T1 party and the T5 party solve it about the same way. Maybe someone throws out a Detect or something. At 10th level, the T1 party busts out Commune, and the T5 party does ... probably the exact thing they did at 1st level. It seems to me that the way the T1 party worked is broadly superior to the way the T5 party did. "Whodunnit" mysteries aren't, and shouldn't be, enough to challenge high level parties. Just as combat encounters are more complicated at that point, non-combat ones should be too. The players should have to deal with (for example) competing interests, weird standards of proof, or time constraints.

[radthemad4]

All the Sorcerer really needs is to get enough spells known that it doesn't cripple its combat effectiveness picking up utility spells (and to get the same spell progression as Wizard, because the status quo is dumb). The fix you linked might be good enough, TBH. One interesting possibility would be to make Dragonpacts better. The basic idea of getting a pile of linked utility spells works, it's just the the spells you actually get are largely bad to mediocre.Could also make Bloodline feats grant more and better spells with some utilitiy options. More PrCs that grant a bunch of spells known (like Sand Shaper, but without the progression loss and with better spells) would also be neat (maybe make them grant more spells known with additional levels so it's not just 'dip a bunch of these to get all the spells'). And yes, spontaneous full casters getting shafted by a level should not be a thing, and they should just new spell levels at odd levels.


The first thing I'd do there is make Esoteric Learning the default (probably without the level penalty) and give the classes baseline access to more non-core spells in their specialties (also fix the progression here too). I might let the Beguiler pick up Shadowcaster Mysteries just to avoid writing a fix for that. That's probably enough for the Beguiler and Dread Necromancer, though since Planar Binding is not a thing that should be allowed to exist, the Dread Necromancer might deserve something in compensation.Agreed.


The Warmage needs more, but I'm not sure exactly what. I'm fond of the idea of combining it with the Duskblade. For utility, your options are essentially infinite. It turns out most magic is pretty good for war. You could give them divinations to monitor troop movements, walls to build fortifications, summoning spells to get reinforcements, the sky's the limit. Hell, you could rename the Wizard to Warmage and that would be close to 100% on theme.I kinda like this one (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=54502), but it might be somewhat OP. Combining Duskblade and Warmage feels a bit strange as gishing and blasting seem to be warrant different feats and builds, but maybe some bonus feats or class features or something could alleviate that.


My thoughts are something like this:

-Tome of Battle classes use something like the Age of Warriors project. More maneuvers (both overall and per character), better high level maneuvers, utility options.Age of Warriors project? Utility maneuvers seem a bit uncommon, even amongst 3rd party material (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/path-of-war/disciplines-and-maneuvers/Veiled-Moon-maneuvers/#TOC-Ghostwalk) or homebrew (https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Oasis_Shade_Stance_(3.5e_Maneuver)) (at least on a skim, though I did find some for stealth and/or mobility), but more stuff could definitely be written up. I'd like to see a stance or something that grants a burrow speed for instance.

-Most non-Tome of Battle martial classes should just be Tome of Battle ACFs. The Swashbucker does not have enough going on to be a full class without a total rework.Total reworks might be worth doing or smuggling from existing homebrew though. I like ToB, but it shouldn't be compulsory to play a martial.

-Partial casters get bumped up to Bard progression and use Recharge Magic.
-The casters-but-not (e.g. Binder, Incarnate) get 6/9 casting (not Recharge) off of a curated list that covers their weaknesses.

I've thought about writing it up, but I'm too damn lazy.Sounds good. 6 casting should be written so the spells are actually appropriate for the levels they're gotten at and not just stuff the Wizard, Cleric and Druid were doing several levels ago though.


Why not have it be:
Tier 1s can't gestalt
Tier 2 can gestalt with Tier 5 or higher or can tristalt with tier 6
Tier 3 can gestalt with Tier 4 or higher or can Tristalt with tier 5 and higher.
Tier 4 can gestalt with Tier 3 or higher or can Tristalt with tier 4 and higher or can quatrostalt with tier 5 and higher
Tier 5 can gestalt with Tier 2 or higher or can Tristalt with tier 3 and higher or can quatrostalt with tier 4 and higher
Tier 6 can tristalt with tier 2 and higher or can quatrostalt with tier 3 and higher or can quitstalt with tier 4 or higher or sextstalt with tier 5 or more

Wouldn't that be more fun? It would add something extra for sure, and people don't have become very high level before having fun!Tier 6 classes feel rather empty to me, but sure. I guess they can get full BAB and/or some extra skill points and class skills. Two classes already feels like a lot to me, but I'm more worried about chargen/levelling up complexity than actual balance if doing more. Personally three classes per level seems about the max I'd be comfortable with, but since it's optional, people can choose to not do that.


I'm sorry. I didn't know that my idea was that bad. I just thought that all the other tiers should equal the same as Tier 1 would be a great idea. But now I know it isn't. :frown:
Your idea definitely isn't bad. A lot of folks have fun games with players using characters from different tiers and honestly at low levels it's not even a big deal. If your group is okay with it, it might not even be problem at high levels.

However, bringing more classes to Tier 1 is a perfectly okay thing to want to do if you feel like you would enjoy a Tier 1 party more.


You should have a multi post instead of a double post.Sure. Deleted the second post and added it to this one instead

[Bartmanhomer]

Your idea definitely isn't bad. A lot of folks have fun games with players using characters from different tiers and honestly, at low levels, it's not even a big deal. If your group is okay with it, it might not even be a problem at high levels.

However, bringing more classes to Tier 1 is a perfectly okay thing to want to do.
You should have a multi post instead of a double post. Just saying. :sigh: Anyway I'm glad that you think that my idea was good. :smile:

[NigelWalmsley]

I kinda like this one (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=54502), but it might be somewhat OP. Combining Duskblade and Warmage feels a bit strange as gishing and blasting seem to be warrant different feats and builds, but maybe some bonus feats or class features or something could alleviate that.

I would probably make the Duskblade hybrid one option of a couple. I like it because the overlap is pretty strong, and it's a good way to boost the "use damaging spells" niche of the Warmage. The fact that the builds would be different is a good thing I think, good classes can be built multiple ways. Let some people build Warmage gishes, some people build artillery Warmages, and some people build support Warmages with utility and buffs.

I expect the variant you linked is overkill, but there are good ideas there.


Age of Warriors project?

Something on the homebrew forms here. I've only skimmed it, but it looks interesting. It's supposed to be a ToB tune-up.


Total reworks might be worth doing or smuggling from existing homebrew though. I like ToB, but it shouldn't be compulsory to play a martial.

Sure. The reason I like ToB is that it's a lot easier, and I think in practice versatile enough to satisfy most people.


However, bringing more classes to Tier 1 is a perfectly okay thing to want to do if you feel like you would enjoy a Tier 1 party more.

Absolutely. Even if you don't do it, it's good to have an accurate understanding of what the differences are and why they exist. That helps avoid making silly claims or unhealthy changes.