What role do Tier 1's play in your groups.

[Acero]

Question in the title.

Brought it up because There always seems to be discussion about the Tier 1 classes. They can support a party and make everyone else do their best, but they can also steal the show. With enough cheese, a single wizard can destroy and entire game-world.

So how do they function in your gfames and how do you play them?

[Warlawk]

I have played exactly 2 wizards since 3.X was released.

The first one was back near the release of 3.0, he died at 3rd level because of bad dice and my own refusal to metagame. (I knew damn well if he touched that book he was screwed, but it was something the character would have done and didn't have any way of knowing).

The other is our current game, and I am dropping the character because he is skewing game balance pretty badly. Arcane Thesis: Ray of Enfeeblement, extend, empower, Chain spell and easy metamagic: Chain Spell made it very easy to just gut any non caster based encounter and leaves plenty of other tools for dealing with casters.

The players in our group who usually play wizards tend heavily toward blasting, buffing and utility magics. It is pretty balanced and there aren't issues most of the time. With my own focus on buffed control/debuff spells... well, things were going south fast.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

There's always a wizard thread. Always. If I can get away with a modern sports metaphor about the Lakers, CoDzilla is Kobe Bryant while the Wizard is Pau Gasol. Kobe takes the spotlight, acts as the team leader, makes the big flashy plays, and is certainly incredible, but Pau is the smooth workhorse that quietly orchestrates the brutally efficient offense (and has underrated defense).

To needlessly extend the metaphor, skill monkeys are Lamar Odom (sometimes very useful, sometimes barely even there), and the Monk is Derek Fisher during the regular season.

[BobVosh]

Can you do it with an ancient sports metaphor instead?

Only cleric sees a lot of play in T1 from my group, unless I'm wizarding it up. Even then its usually fairly unoptimized.

[Yukitsu]

I play my wizards as the triarii of the group. When I'm doing stuff, it's because the DM underestimated a CR, and I have to go deal with it to prevent a TPK.

[warmachine]

In my groups, that's mostly me. I only optimize from a limited set of books and my Clerics do the utility, buff/debuff, healing with some blasting or melee. No one seems to mind that my character does a lot of the out-of-combat, utility magic whilst some others can't.

[Vknight]

They die in mine. Either from in party fighting or they won't help the party & later get ambushed and die.

[Waker]

I often have to DM, so I haven't acted as a player as much as I'd like. But in my limited experience as Tier 1
Wizards
-Evoker equipped with Ward Cestus. He was the Fist-Fightinest D**n Wizard around. Yes, this was mostly a joke character. He was hilarious to play though.
-Transmuter. I can't remember much about him since I think I only got to play him for one or two sessions.

Clerics
-I tend to focus more on the healing/buffing aspect of the class. I am well aware that I could best the warriors in melee if I wanted to, but I'm content to play the character as I do.

Druids
-Only played once for one session. I only remember one amusing scene with a few bandits being awed by me when I used Flamestrike while wildshaped into a horse "What the h*ll is wrong with that horse?!"

Haven't played the others.

[Greenish]

I often have to DM, so I haven't acted as a player as much as I'd like. But in my limited experience as Tier 1
Wizards
-Evoker equipped with Ward Cestus. He was the Fist-Fightinest D**n Wizard around. Yes, this was mostly a joke character. He was hilarious to play though.

Greater Mighty Wallop + Wraithstrike + Haste + Fist of Stone…

[Waker]

Greater Mighty Wallop + Wraithstrike + Haste + Fist of Stone…

While I obviously could make this work, my wizard did no such planning. This was also in the earliest days of 3.5 so most of those spells didn't exist. As I said before, the character was a bit of a joke, so I played him like an idiot.

[Lurkmoar]

They die in mine. Either from in party fighting or they won't help the party & later get ambushed and die.

Teamwork, the most important skill in D&D... that people neglect ALL the time.

In the group I'm running, there are two wizards and a cleric. One wizard mostly hangs back, debuffing enemies and neutralizing dangerous targets. The cleric focuses mainly on buffing and support; if things get heavy, then he starts going on a massive tear.

The other wizard(Chaotic Evil) robbed the party blind(Teleport+Permanent Illusion+Fool's Good= embezzlers dream) until the cleric cast a Forbiddance on their vault and trapped it out the wazoo. They blame me for it while still remaining ignorant of the fact that the wizard has gone... you know... evil.

edit: missed a word

[Vknight]

Teamwork, the most important skill in D&D... that people neglect ALL the time.

In the group I'm running, there are two wizards and a cleric. One wizard mostly hangs back, debuffing enemies and neutralizing dangerous targets. The cleric focuses mainly on buffing and support; if things get heavy, then he starts going on a massive tear.

The other wizard(Chaotic Evil) robbed the party blind(Teleport+Permanent Illusion+Fool's Good= embezzlers dream) until the cast a Forbiddance on their vault and trapped it out the wazoo. They blame me for it while still remaining ignorant of the fact that the wizard has gone... you know... evil.

Exactlly! The wizard in the current campaign is trying to kill and eat the rest of the party. The Cleric wishes for them to all be made into undead.

[senrath]

In the games I'm in, Tier 1s are usually played by people who have no clue what the heck they're doing. So they generally just mess around and get overshadowed by the fighter.

[Lurkmoar]

So... the wizard is a true humanitarian? Is this like an total card carrying evil group of the 'I eat babies for fun' blend? Surprised it hasn't imploded yet.

[ericgrau]

Well technically they're not wizards but I played a couple sorcerers both as support. I've done one cleric mostly as melee + turning pretty much fighting alone or asking for support, though sometimes buffing others when appropriate. No druids yet but ever since I tried out sleet storm (wiz/sorc 3, druid 3) I've been thinking of trying yet another control/support caster in druid form. I've also done a wizard // monk gestalt but he's mostly blasty with as much control / support from the monk side as the wizard side (not much on either). Only b/c I wanted to switch styles.

EDIT: Other casters I've played with generally went boom, or did healbot / other minor support and also went boom. No one dominated encounters but not many besides me played support either.

[Vknight]

So... the wizard is a true humanitarian? Is this like an total card carrying evil group of the 'I eat babies for fun' blend? Surprised it hasn't imploded yet.

The reason they haven't fallen apart is because whenever they do things like this we do a evil campaign. So once. After it happened I told them we were doing this and then going back to 4e so it would be much less likely to happen again.
Also yes yes he was. No the others were all pretty much neutral or just jerks.

[Czin]

Typically Tier 1s are the most able people in my 25 man group (5 DMs including me with 20 players) but in my last session the tier I characters were the first to die as described here. But of course, they were level 20s going up against an Epic level BBEG well before they were supposed to (the encounter being caused by the party Sorcerer and Psion's constant attempts at upstaging one another that quickly became the greatest massacre of high level characters of all time.)

[Stallion]

My druid was able to fill the role of healer, tank, melee extraordinaire (mostly through the animal companion), battlefield control, and debuffer. Then my DM started fudging numbers and randomly increasing hp, so I used him to single-handedly crush the rest of that encounter.



I had to roll another character and haven't been allowed to go near anything higher than a tier 3 since.

[FMArthur]

For the most recent two of the groups I've played with, the tier 1s were the most unoptimized. Maybe it's just because picking out cool feat combos is more fun for building melee characters than picking out spells is for casters. I'm pretty much the only 'munchkin' around; I honestly don't know why they let me DM, since I'm always trying to jam psionics and ToB and other fun nuances of 3.5 down their collective throats in the campaign material, and they're just happy to beat on things, heal, and taunt NPCs.

[RndmNumGen]

My group primarily plays low-level, low-optimization games, so Tier 1 characters aren't that different from Tier 5 characters, aside from filling a different role.

[Arutema]

So far, in our Pathfinder game which just hit level 4:

The druid, as expected is the do-everything guy. Melee? Healing? Battlefield control? Blasting? Tracking? He has it covered, though not always as well as the ranger, barbarian and paladin. Kept somewhat in check by his preference for blasting.

The sorcerer's chief role is getting knocked into the negatives with one hit thanks to his whopping 7 Con. It's become something of a running gag in the party. He's thinking of writing a book on near-death experiences in his downtime.

[umbrapolaris]

as a wizard, i blast , control if necessary and summons if really needed. i never try to do what my companions are able to do, unless they fail.

[faceroll]

Can you do it with an ancient sports metaphor instead?

I play my wizards as the triarii of the group.

Preeeetty good.

[dsmiles]

With the group I currently game with (thankfully low- to medium-optimization) the T1s are still the workhorse of the group, but they never (intentionally) outshine the other characters.

[umbrapolaris]

With the group I currently game with (thankfully low- to medium-optimization) the T1s are still the workhorse of the group, but they never (intentionally) outshine the other characters.

it is what a normal d&d game should be, a teamwork not a "most-efficient guy" competition.

my group are bored with Roleplaying since we have less time to play together, we going to play more like a diablo 2/Gauntlet style game. with the few roleplay needed.

all characters will be redesigned to fit the change.

[Merellis]

I played a Druid in my first real campaign and it turned into the best melee, if only because it was the only real melee character there. Though I'm not sure if it still counted as Tier 1 as I had taken the Rage Variant of Druid, and threw in different classes to up the dmg of a raging, frenzying, warshaping, Dire Bear with a crazy splash of Natures Warrior. (Huge Claw and Bite damage on a Large Bear, and a DM fiated feat for Pounce, then add Enlarge Person. It was hilarious.)

It was an evil campaign, we were gonna destroy the world and the DM had a friend send a Deva/Monk Gestalt at us and three regular Deva's to kill us.

It was fun, deadly, and I invaded the heavens when the Deva/Monk tried to shift away from my grappling death, at 2000 feet up in the air. Deathless Frenzy is fun. Shame they pulled me off the Deva, I was about to Coup De Grace him next turn.

[umbrapolaris]

Though I'm not sure if it still counted as Tier 1 as I had taken the Rage Variant of Druid, and threw in different classes to up the dmg of a raging, frenzying, warshaping, Dire Bear with a crazy splash of Natures Warrior. (Huge Claw and Bite damage on a Large Bear, and a DM fiated feat for Pounce, then add Enlarge Person. It was hilarious.)

W.O.W melee druid, the one make me used all my Hemo rogue cooldowns to beat him ^^

[Merellis]

W.O.W melee druid, the one make me used all my Hemo rogue cooldowns to beat him ^^

I don't play W.O.W so I have no clue what you're talking about.

[umbrapolaris]

I don't play W.O.W so I have no clue what you're talking about.

in fact at the beginning of the game the druid was mostly a healer but with some updates later he becomes so good at melee in bear form that he even replace the warrior as tank with a awesome amount of HP and AC ^^

[Leon]

What role do Tier 1's play in your groups.

None. We don't have any need for so called tiers of classes.
Fighters, Monks, Wizards, Clerics, Whatever all are fine and work well without any special ranking.