Terrible PC classes party (credit to sonofzeal)

[BardicDuelist]

On annother thread, sonofzeal posted an ideal which got me thinking of making a party of "optomized" terrible PC classes. Here are the requirements:
-Must stay 20 lvs in the class. No multiclassing or PrCs, as it can be proved that a dip into some very bad classes isn't nearly as bad.
-Any WoTC book is usable.
-You can take two flaws.
-You can be any non-LA race (20 lvs in the class, remember?)

Potential classes:
Monk, Healer, Soulknife, CW Samurai, Favored Soul, Wu-Jen?

Perhaps some of the classes from Incarnum or ToM?

[AmberVael]

Honestly I'm not sure the Wu Jen deserves to be on this list. I mean, they're a full caster and have a fairly versatile spell list...
And Favored Soul is hardly bad.

[sonofzeal]

Potential classes:
Monk, Healer, Soulknife, CW Samurai, Favored Soul, Wu-Jen?
See my post in that thread. I like the idea though, but here's the class list I'd suggest, in approximate order of increasing suckiness:

ninja, fighter, hexblade, divine mind, marshal, monk, healer, spellthief, truenamer, soulknife, samurai

[Tengu]

Honestly I'm not sure the Wu Jen deserves to be on this list. I mean, they're a full caster and have a fairly versatile spell list...

Yeah, and Favored Soul doesn't deserve to be here either - it's still CoDzilla, even if CoDzilla light. And Healer is not a bad alternative if your cleric is a pansy healbot (let's try again...) plays the class as the short-sighted idiots at Wizards expects it to be played (grr...) prefers healing to self-buffing.

[Nebo_]

I don't know why people say the ninja sucks. It isn't particularly good, but I'd hardly put it on that list. Favoured Soul and Wu-Jen hardly deserve to be there either; they're full casters with good and decent lists, respectively. CW Samurai and Soulknife deserve another mention because they just suck so much.

[sonofzeal]

I don't know why people say the ninja sucks. It isn't particularly good, but I'd hardly put it on that list. Favoured Soul and Wu-Jen hardly deserve to be there either; they're full casters with good and decent lists, respectively. CW Samurai and Soulknife deserve another mention because they just suck so much.
I think Ninja makes it on because it's like halfway between a Rogue and a Monk, but lacking the principal merits of either - they're not as durable as Monks, and not as deadly in combat as Rogues. I've never seen a Ninja build that wouldn't have been nicer with Rogue levels. Feel free to show me one though.

Definitely agreed about the others.

[Nermy]

Arcane Gnomes from Dragon Magazine #291 get Use Magical Device as a class skill.

Level 20 Arcane Gnome <insert class here>

Optimize for UMD and you can have a Batman Samurai / Commoner / Truenamer / etc.

[Jimp]

Perhaps some of the classes from Incarnum or ToM?

The Incarnum classes and the Binder from ToM are decent classes. They are very flexible and the CharOp fourm has shown that they can be pretty powerful. Not full caster powerful, but still very good.
The Shadowcaster isn't a terrible class, but it is not great either.
Truenamer is terrible only because of the poor scaling. It would be kinda nifty otherwise.

[Draz74]

CW Samurai and Soulknife deserve another mention because they just suck so much.

Hey now. Even the awful Soulknife doesn't deserve to get put in the same category of suckiness as the Samurai.

My list of the worst classes in the game, from worst to better, would go:

Commoner
Warrior
Samurai
Aristocrat
Expert
...
Soulknife
Monk
Swashbuckler
Truenamer
...
Ninja
Marshal
Adept

That seems like a good stopping place -- the best class listed being the best of the NPC classes.

Note that the Soulknife is quite a bit better than the Expert, and the Ninja is quite a bit better than the Truenamer. (Also that the Swashbuckler, although it sucks as a 20-level class, is fun to play and makes a great dip.)

[Chronos]

Wait, what are Spellthieves doing on the suck list? They can do everything rogues can do, they can cast some spells (admittedly, not that many, but drawn from the Sorc/Wiz list), they can double the actions available for your other party spellcasters' spells, and they can cripple enemy spellcasters. OK, so they're not Beguilers, but they're still pretty darned good.

[Starbuck_II]

Honestly I'm not sure the Wu Jen deserves to be on this list. I mean, they're a full caster and have a fairly versatile spell list...
And Favored Soul is hardly bad.

Agreed, the Wu Jen spell Snake darts is awesome. Magic missile that deals con damage in addition.
No save for the damage like MM and Con damage helps. I've killed things with that spell.

Favored Soul is a Cleric wannabe. He has to learn cure spells or be behind the Cleric. And MAD.

[Dode]

The Incarnum classes and the Binder from ToM are decent classes. They are very flexible and the CharOp fourm has shown that they can be pretty powerful. Not full caster powerful, but still very good.
The Shadowcaster isn't a terrible class, but it is not great either.
Truenamer is terrible only because of the poor scaling. It would be kinda nifty otherwise.
The Incarnate is below-average (Even the CharOp boards could only make it "close enough" to average classes like Healer or Warlock) and the Soulborn (effectively a warrior NPC for 6 levels before it even gets a soulmeld or Essentia) truly belongs with the Hexblade and Truenamer.

[GammaPaladin]

Bizarrely though, with the restrictions given, Soulknife would be ok. Their main horrible weakness is their utter inability to multiclass. At all.

[Tengu]

Favored Soul is a Cleric wannabe. He has to learn cure spells or be behind the Cleric. And MAD.

Being worse than one of the most overpowered classes does not mean you're terrible - in Favored Soul's case, it actually means it's more balanced.


Bizarrely though, with the restrictions given, Soulknife would be ok. Their main horrible weakness is their utter inability to multiclass. At all.

No, their main weakness is that they don't have a set party role (partial BAB, light armor, no utility or casting... what is that supposed to be, anyway?) and that their main feature can be replaced by a magic item.

[AmberVael]

Favored Soul is a Cleric wannabe. He has to learn cure spells or be behind the Cleric. And MAD.

I've seen a Favored Soul in action. They're no Batman or CoDzilla, but they are far beyond any of these other class suggestions being tossed out. They're balanced.

[Narmoth]

A party of bards would maybe not be the worst in combat, but they'd get killed very fast.

[Riffington]

A party of bards would maybe not be the worst in combat, but they'd get killed very fast.

Wouldn't even require any NPCs.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Meh, I've seen evil and lawful incarnates do damage like you wouldn't believe.

Airstep sandals + lightning braces + incarnum weapon + necrocarnum weapon + flyby attack can by horrible. They're not massive damage dealers like the 2H power attackers, but they are much more useful in a real game.

[Tengu]

A party of bards would maybe not be the worst in combat, but they'd get killed very fast.

If executed poorly. But if they are executed well, they'd be the most awesome Fantasy Rock Band you'd ever see!

[Stabby]

4 bards with Dragonfire Inspiration and Harmonizing weapons can add +20d6 elemental damage per bard per hit if built right. +80d6 per swing can be pretty nasty in my opinion.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

If it's just quickest to die, CE Warlock, LG Paladin, NG Cleric, LE Monk. I expect exactly one to escape. No NPC's needed.

[Telonius]

All-Warforged party.

CW Samurai - tank.
Monk - skillmonkey.
Artificer (must include Vow of Poverty) - arcanist.
Artificer 2 (also Vow of Poverty) - "healing."

[Dethcom1]

I am so bad at picking classes, it isn't funny. It's not funny so much that it has circled back thrhough curved space into being hilarious (yes, I failed physics).

Let's examine a party that my first few characters would have made up - a human monk ("They're so cool! Look how fast they can run! And they beat people with their fists!"), a dwarven samurai ("TWO weapons?! Count me in!"), a soulknife ("Miiindblaaaade" :drool:) and a ninja (no explanation necessary).

It might not be too bad. at least they can do moderate damage in combat, if given a head start.

[Nebo_]

4 bards with Dragonfire Inspiration and Harmonizing weapons can add +20d6 elemental damage per bard per hit if built right. +80d6 per swing can be pretty nasty in my opinion.

I agree, numbers always look bigger when you multiply them by four.

[Overlard]

I agree, numbers always look bigger when you multiply them by four.
Unless they're negative numbers.

Or zero.

[Nebo_]

Unless they're negative numbers.

Or zero.

Well they might still look bigger, even with the unfortunate side effect of not actually being bigger.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Unless they're negative numbers.

Or zero.

Or i.

Still, especially in an urban setting, you could do a lot worse than four bards. Glibness, anyone?

[ZekeArgo]

Or i.

Still, especially in an urban setting, you could do a lot worse than four bards. Glibness, anyone?

Nevermind that you don't even need 4 with dragonfire inspiration. Two dragon inspirers, an inspire courage-focused, and a spellcasting focused bard makes one hell of a party, even outside of multiclassing.

Bards are not a bad class, a little tougher/less obvious to tweak, but by no means bad.

[Chronos]

If it's just quickest to die, CE Warlock, LG Paladin, NG Cleric, LE Monk. I expect exactly one to escape. No NPC's needed.I dunno... A NG cleric and a paladin might have some long philosophical debates over what exactly constitutes perfect good, but they're not going to come to blows over it, and in fact probably wouldn't hesitate to team up if either were attacked. And with that team including the cleric, I'd expect both of them to survive.

[sonofzeal]

Meh, I've seen evil and lawful incarnates do damage like you wouldn't believe.

Airstep sandals + lightning braces + incarnum weapon + necrocarnum weapon + flyby attack can by horrible. They're not massive damage dealers like the 2H power attackers, but they are much more useful in a real game.
This is true. Incarnates have solid combat potential, in addition to huge utility. Soulborns are rather pathetic though - paladins, without the spiffiness you'd expect from paladins.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Indeed. It's amazing how easily they screwed up such a potentially badass class (Look at the soulborn in golden armor!). Luckily, it's just as easily fixed, by lowering the moment you get essentia and soulmelds by 2 or three, giving them the totemist's soulmelds, and making extra smite work for them. A Smitemonkey is rather powerful, and with the totemist list, they'd be pretty strong.

[Artanis]

There was a thread on the WotC forums somewhere (that I have bookmarked at home, but not here at work :smallfrown: ) that was basically a poll ranking the classes in terms of power. Warrior, Aristocrat, and Commoner were at the bottom, but Soulknife and CW Samurai were beaten by the Expert. Several more classes were between Expert and Adept (I think Monk and Ninja were among them).

The Fighter was about where I expected (down near the bottom), but the Bard was...I don't want to say "high", but it wasn't as far down as I thought it would be. Apparently it has enough going for it to beat out the truly god-awful classes and some of the below-average ones.

The Wu-Jen, on the other hand, was near the top. It wasn't as powerful as the Wizard, but it was still pretty d*** good, and could probably at least avoid being utterly humiliated.

As to the Artificier, it was way the hell up there, one of the top three IIRC, even beating CoDzilla. While Telonius is probably right in the VoP would utterly cripple it, I think that that falls outside the scope of the post since it isn't the class that's terrible, but the combination of the class with the feat. It would be like saying that a Wizard is an utterly terrible class if you decide to burn your spellbook and never get another.

[Sinfire Titan]

The Incarnate is below-average (Even the CharOp boards could only make it "close enough" to average classes like Healer or Warlock) and the Soulborn (effectively a warrior NPC for 6 levels before it even gets a soulmeld or Essentia) truly belongs with the Hexblade and Truenamer.

What? This is blasphemy! I wrote the damn Incarnum Handbook (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1002996)! I should know that the Incarnate is actually about on-par with classes like the Bard, Factotum (sans Font of Inspiration awesomeness), Binder, and can even keep up with the Swordsage. It is the full-caster of Incarnum, the only class that gets the Soul Chakra without spending a feat, and can be a very potent opponent in combat. It can double as the Skill Monkey when it is needed (and when it is planned out). Those guys who said the Incarnate is average didn't know the way to play one.

The trick behind them is to leave your Soulmelds empty, and make sure you win Init. Then just use your judgment on what Soulmelds you will need, and if you will need the Radiance feature this combat. LN Incarnates can easily tank for an entire party (and I have had experience with such characters first-hand), NE and CN Incarnates make hellish sniper builds, and NG Incarnates can easily be a living Wall of Essentia. Do not insult the Incarnate, for there are real applications that can be made with it.

But the assessment of the Soulborn is very on-target. ECL 20 Soulborns don't even match up to a Paladin 20. And that is just sad.

The Totemist and Incarnate are about equal in terms of sheer potency. I put the Totemist at a higher tier of power though, just due to how overwhelming it can be when you get a charging pounce off and eviscerate the opponent in one round with the Threefold Mask of the Chimera.


There was a thread on the WotC forums somewhere (that I have bookmarked at home, but not here at work ) that was basically a poll ranking the classes in terms of power. Warrior, Aristocrat, and Commoner were at the bottom, but Soulknife and CW Samurai were beaten by the Expert. Several more classes were between Expert and Adept (I think Monk and Ninja were among them).

The Fighter was about where I expected (down near the bottom), but the Bard was...I don't want to say "high", but it wasn't as far down as I thought it would be. Apparently it has enough going for it to beat out the truly god-awful classes and some of the below-average ones.

The Wu-Jen, on the other hand, was near the top. It wasn't as powerful as the Wizard, but it was still pretty d*** good, and could probably at least avoid being utterly humiliated.

As to the Artificier, it was way the hell up there, one of the top three IIRC, even beating CoDzilla. While Telonius is probably right in the VoP would utterly cripple it, I think that that falls outside the scope of the post since it isn't the class that's terrible, but the combination of the class with the feat. It would be like saying that a Wizard is an utterly terrible class if you decide to burn your spellbook and never get another.

I know what thread you speak of. And the reason the Bard is up so high is because of a PrC and Dragonfire Inspiration+Words of Creation+Song of the Heart allowing you to get huge bonuses to damage, all the while casting whatever spells you want to.

Adept and Magewrite (did I get that second one right?) are actually decent for NCP casters. They don't compare to a Full Caster of any sort, but they are decent class in and of themselves. IMO, if the Full Casters are banned for any reason, those two do make an adequate (if underwhelming) replacement.

And the top 5 classes are:

Druid
Cleric
Wizard
Archivist
Artificer

In about that order. Wizard is above Archivist due to Shadowcraft Mage and Incanatrix/Iot7FV, and for being the general God class. It is Batman after all. Artificer is the lowest of the five because Disjunction absolutely shuts the class down. At least the others can kill the bastard who fired the MD at them. Artificer just sits down and cries until he goes KIA.

Wu-Jen actually does have some power behind it. It just takes a little while to find it. Giant Size and Transcend Mortality are the two spells it has that get mentioned a lot. Jade-Phoenix Mage is considered the best way to optimize it.

[Charlie Kemek]

I think it is here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=968062).

[Dode]

Meh, I've seen evil and lawful incarnates do damage like you wouldn't believe.

Airstep sandals + lightning braces + incarnum weapon + necrocarnum weapon + flyby attack can by horrible. They're not massive damage dealers like the 2H power attackers, but they are much more useful in a real game.
Meh, I'd rather just get a 2H weapon fighter, or a spellcaster, or a warlock, or a rogue or any of the other classes. Even as a Necrocarnate with every soulmeld maxed their damage is around Monk-levels (and even a monk gets avg BAB)

[Artanis]

I think it is here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=968062).
Yup, that's the one! :smallbiggrin:

[Dode]

I think it is here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=968062).
Yeah the averaged vote for Incarnate is ranked in the middle, below-average. Between the Ranger and the Lurk. Sounds about right.

[Dode]

Anyways, what are the criteria for this optimization contest? Point-Buy? Can they all get wands of Polymorph and have all their buddies buff them so Giacomo can champion them in Monk threads?

[Da King]

Could someone please explain why a Samurai is so horrible? I have a Samurai and a Batman Wizard in the same party for the campaign I'm DMing, its only low level right now, but Batman is incredibly useful and the Samurai is just a sack of hitpoints who kills things for Batman. Could someone give specific reasons, as well as suggest a good melee class for a replacement?

[Artanis]

Could someone please explain why a Samurai is so horrible? I have a Samurai and a Batman Wizard in the same party for the campaign I'm DMing, its only low level right now, but Batman is incredibly useful and the Samurai is just a sack of hitpoints who kills things for Batman. Could someone give specific reasons, as well as suggest a good melee class for a replacement?
I'll leave the explaining to those with more insight than me, but "anything other than Samurai" would be a step up as far as replacements go. For something more specific, check out the ranking thread that's being linked to...while keeping in mind that anything short of about 6.00 probably couldn't even pretend to keep up with a Batman, much less actually come close to doing so.

[Frosty]

Well, try not to replace the Samurai with a Truenamer.

[Dode]

Okay, first off we're talking about the Complete Warrior Samurai, not OA (just getting that out of the way)

Simply put: A Fighter can simply take the Two-Weapon Fighting and Exotic WP feat tree and call himself a Samurai and be just as effective. But a Fighter is customizeable with a slew of bonus feats while a Samurai just gets specific feats and incredibly weak class abilities. A Samurai gives up all the Fighter's versatility and instead gets abilities like "being able to do Cha Mod +1 extra damage 1/day. A fighter can be a Shock Trooping Power Attacking Combat Bruting Spiked Chain machine-gunning badass while a Samurai is spending those bonus feats on "Improved Initiative" and gimped versions of Quick Draw. A Samurai is truly a fighter minus the versatility.'

As the classes continue gaining levels, the fighter's bonus feats keeping coming at the same rate while the crappy preset feats of the Samurai slow to a trickle and instead gets stuff like "Intimidate multiple people as a move action".

[sonofzeal]

Anyways, what are the criteria for this optimization contest? Point-Buy? Can they all get wands of Polymorph and have all their buddies buff them so Giacomo can champion them in Monk threads?
My idea in the other thread was just to take them, and try to do something that is {a} powerful, and {b} makes use of what little merit the class has. For example....

The CW Samurai gets full BAB, a number of free feats, and Cha-based powers. Now, a lot of the feats are the same ones that provide a bonus to Perform: Weapon Drill, making the CW Samurai one of the best classes for getting obscenely high scores there. With an obscenely high Weapon Drill score, you can use "Epic uses for Perform" to make Helpful people "Fanatic", which is effectively like casting "Mass Rage", except with less AC penalty, can be done in an AMF, no limit on times-per-day, has a duration on the order of weeks, and has no limit on number of targets. Throw in a splash of Leadership, and you can use it to buff every single cohort, follower, fellow party member, and random Helpful NPC at the same time for no expenditure of resources. Fighters are the only other class I know of who get the BAB and feats to pull this off, but CW Samurai gets far more mileage out of Charisma since it powers their Smite and Intimidate skills too. As far as I can tell, CW Samurai is the single best choice in the game for pulling off this combo.

[Overlord]

Well they might still look bigger, even with the unfortunate side effect of not actually being bigger.

"I will trade you 8,000,000,000^0 Gold Pieces in exchange for all of your magic items."

"Done!"

5 Seconds Later:

"I hate you so much."


That's actually a pretty good list. My votes would be a little different in a few cases, but that's a pretty good summary of how the optimization community views the classes.

[Chronos]

So there actually is a Perform: Weapon Drill skill? Where is it from? It sounds like it works differently from a normal skill, if BAB is relevant.

[Renegade Paladin]

If it's just quickest to die, CE Warlock, LG Paladin, NG Cleric, LE Monk. I expect exactly one to escape. No NPC's needed.
The paladin and cleric kill the other two; unless there's something really screwy going on, they have no reason not to cooperate against the evil and less reason to kill each other.

[sonofzeal]

So there actually is a Perform: Weapon Drill skill? Where is it from? It sounds like it works differently from a normal skill, if BAB is relevant.
It does indeed work differently. It's found in the rarely-consulted Skills section of CW, and allows you to add half your BAB to the check, and gives you a +2 for any of five or six different combat feats, including Quick Draw and TWF. Hence being uniquely suited to the Samurai. As a bonus, by the time you've finished pumping it up you can probably qualify quite easily for Crescent Moon, which while not overpowered is certainly nice to have. And because all these bonuses are non-magical (including the Fanatic bonuses), we're looking at a good candidate for a permanent AMF effect too.

Now, the one complaint I can see for this build is that, really, he's just a combat-focused Diplomancer, using Perform instead of Diplomacy to achieve exactly the same effects. However, I'm a little dubious about the ability of a Diplomancer to achieve the same effect in an AMF like the Samurai can. It's not a major issue, granted, but it's still nice.