Worst class in the entire game.

[Turalisj]

There's a reason it's called MADness. It's completely insane.

And I'd say that out of the Core classes, the Fighter is the worst. The worst in mechanics, it gives you feats and nothing else. The worst in flavor, it tastes like a stale cracker.

[Emmerask]

There's a reason it's called MADness. It's completely insane.

And I'd say that out of the Core classes, the Fighter is the worst. The worst in mechanics, it gives you feats and nothing else. The worst in flavor, it tastes like a stale cracker.

Yeah the fighter really has very little going for it, some of the feats in CW went somewhat in the right direction with multiple "tricks" combined in one feat but really it is not enough... overall I agree

[Elricaltovilla]

If Thebar accepts that, once everything else has been resolved, then I for one will be amazed. Mostly because that was precisely what I was going for with the 'retrieve the necklace stolen by a bunch of bandits, now camped in a forest' setup.

Though I suppose the objection might have been that he didn't get to design the encounter himself, and thus it wasn't balanced. Because as we all know, no one can possibly make a scenario as balanced and level as Thebar99... unless of course he's personally trained them in his own methodology which everyone else for some reason disputes the sheer perfection of. Heathans.

Right now I'm waiting on Thebar99 to approve the map that molten_dragon supplied to us via PM. I'm going to go ahead and suggest that if he does approve it, he say so in the OOC thread link I so kindly provided. That way everyone can return to their regularly scheduled programming.

[angry_bear]

There's a reason it's called MADness. It's completely insane.

And I'd say that out of the Core classes, the Fighter is the worst. The worst in mechanics, it gives you feats and nothing else. The worst in flavor, it tastes like a stale cracker.

The thing about the fighter though, is that it's intended to be a near blank slate at level one. It allows the player to get almost exactly what they want out of the character. It's not as flashy as other classes, but it does the job you give it, without too much difficulty. A class like the monk, it's an uphill battle just to make it play reasonably well.

As far as it's flavour goes, just make sure to add some cheese.

[Venger]

You do realize they can breath fire 10 times in a row as a free action for a combined 30d6 damage, this after they deal upwards of 26d8 per melee hit (with a 40 str you're capable of wielding a small (~2500lb) boulder as an improvised weapon)?

Sometimes classes require a little ingenuity, and Drunken Master has the potential to be a devastatingly good class.

glad that that's finished.

with that business out of the way, drunken masters' breath of flame ability is a standard action, not a free. the damage of 3d12 is abysmal once you're the requisite level 15. there is no way to boost that damage (with the class's own innate abilities) and it burns drinks in your body, reducing your physical ability boosts.

your math on improvised weapon hulking hurler style is fine, but I'm unsure of where you heard about breath of flame working that way.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

Why do you need skills for that? The barbarian can just use his axe to break into a store and can obviously OHKO a guard because BARBARIANS DO EVERYTHING BETTA!

Barbarians are a tier six class, since it's just an alternate name for Aristocrat.

[kiryoku]

By the gods I didn't realize so many would rage at some classes a few people kept a level head they know who they are and gave valid arguments that I liked reading. The reasoning is sound. Others though..... well they tried but they just can't seem to grasp a lot of the concepts. Seemed like a few got screwed by their DM or were just trolling us. I am honestly not sure because I have seen wizards fall to a well built rouge. each level twenty and each having the same money and no prep time just like you said put in a room with cover that honestly gave the rouge better chances then the fighter. it was over in very few attacks honestly and if you use the rouge right its a thing of terror. It kills before being seen if its ever seen. Hell a lot of them carry staffs or wands with improved invisibility. that pretty much makes them gods of sneak attacks. As for the truenamer it needs a fix to work even half like it says it should. I have no Idea about the divine paladin like one. as I hate the little goody two shoes. I also have very little experience with a few others but they gave a lot of clear written reasons they sucked and I understood where they were coming from.

[Elricaltovilla]

By the gods I didn't realize so many would rage at some classes a few people kept a level head they know who they are and gave valid arguments that I liked reading. The reasoning is sound. Others though..... well they tried but they just can't seem to grasp a lot of the concepts. Seemed like a few got screwed by their DM or were just trolling us. I am honestly not sure because I have seen wizards fall to a well built rouge. each level twenty and each having the same money and no prep time just like you said put in a room with cover that honestly gave the rouge better chances then the fighter. it was over in very few attacks honestly and if you use the rouge right its a thing of terror. It kills before being seen if its ever seen. Hell a lot of them carry staffs or wands with improved invisibility. that pretty much makes them gods of sneak attacks. As for the truenamer it needs a fix to work even half like it says it should. I have no Idea about the divine paladin like one. as I hate the little goody two shoes. I also have very little experience with a few others but they gave a lot of clear written reasons they sucked and I understood where they were coming from.

Heheh... sorry your thread got derailed there. There's some really interesting arguments for or against different classes in here that's for sure.

[kiryoku]

It did just a little but it was interesting until that one guy seemed to not drop that rouges suck even though we all know they are pretty good. I mean for all the things they do. most of the other jacks of all trades seem to suck a great deal more.

[Thebar99]

No self respecting 9+ Wiz ever dies to a Rogue. It's called better init = precision immune + 0 def Rogue.

PS: If you want me to not post here don't talk to or about me here.

Be wrong on the internet if you must but leave me out of it.

On phone so map approval later.

[molten_dragon]

No self respecting 9+ Wiz ever dies to a Rogue. It's called better init = precision immune + 0 def Rogue.

A theoretical wizard might not. A wizard actually built and played in a game certainly might, since the sorts of wizards that people actually play don't generally resemble the uber-optimized, always prepared for every last eventuality, 12 contingencies, 4 prestige classes, uses 23 books type of wizard that is generally brought in wizard vs. X threads.

[Lhurgyof]

I'd have to go with Paladin. You're pretty narrow in what you can do, and the DM can easily screw your entire class over by interpreting how you act in a certain way.

[Just to Browse]

Run a melee rogue SGT, that will solve problems far better than a "My campaign can kill your character" catfight.

Also, for worst class, I think totem druid deserves an honorable mention. It's certainly a strong class, and it gets some nice benefits like free Natural Spell, but the horrible thing is its replacement for Wildshape, called Totem Shape.

The Totem Shape feature lets you only wildshape into your totem animal, but you are restricted to the standard 1HD/lvl of the regular wildshape ability, which means that when you get the feature at level two you probably can't use it anyways. Some of the creatures, like tiger, have more than 5 HD so by the time you can access the class feature you could have just used wildshape to get it anyways.

The same problem exists for animal companions. It's like the person who wrote the ACF didn't even think about the rules for wildshape. But it's a dragon mag class, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised...

[kiryoku]

<.< Iam talking a wizard built for the game. Not one built for the purpose of countering the rouge. most wizards do not have every spell in all the books on hand. Most are good at damage. Glass cannons. Most of my group would rather be a cleric. Though your argument is rouges would have lower initiative how? most have extreme Dex so they can sneak attack effectively. Where the wizards I have seen have moderate Dex and extreme Int. Some take improved initiative would make them even with the rouge if not still worse. coupled with the fact the rouge has access to all spell classes worth of spells up to a certain level. They can be very dangerous when built properly with all books like the wizard. Your assuming its just a DPS and not a proper rouge. Hell some PRCs make him a even bigger issue to find and pin down. I honestly loved playing one. it gives near limitless options in all kinds of directions. some rouges only use one spell and it pretty much makes the wizard useless http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Antimagic_Field. What self respecting rouge solos anything without access to it in some form. its almost a sure thing to run into magic in some form while your at that level and unlike the wizard who has nothing outside his magic. because all his items just lost power. the rouge still has his melee and possibly bow depending on his build. Their are also mundane ways of blinding people as well. so all he has to do to get sneak attacks is for you to be blind. I know thier is a poison and a few dust type bombs in splat books. Just because we don't play glass cannons doesn't mean we don't understand their power. sure if protected they are awesome. but in the grand sceme of things wizards are frail with low hit points, reflex saves, fort saves, and terrible BAB. Without magic in the picture they suck worse then any of the classes and cling to their spell books and Items with none of those they are killed rather easily.

[Doug Lampert]

Fixed that for you. Most games will find the listed strategems intolerably rich in lactose. (Even though, of course, fire resistance applies to each breath separately, so a mere 10 resistance reduces it to an average of 5 damage total.)

Minor correction.

3d6 fire damage vs. resistance 10 averages 1.46 damage per roll not 0.5.

Thus a total of 14.6 damage.

The thing is that while the rolls are individually an average of 10.5, when you roll a 3 it doesn't do -7 damage, it does 0, but when you roll an 18 it does do 8 damage. The average damage actually done is thus higher than the average roll -10.

[TuggyNE]

Minor correction.

3d6 fire damage vs. resistance 10 averages 1.46 damage per roll not 0.5.

Thus a total of 14.6 damage.

The thing is that while the rolls are individually an average of 10.5, when you roll a 3 it doesn't do -7 damage, it does 0, but when you roll an 18 it does do 8 damage. The average damage actually done is thus higher than the average roll -10.

Fair enough, I didn't run the math in detail. That'll teach me.

(Actually, AnyDice suggests it's 14.58 total average, but that's largely irrelevant. )

[sonofzeal]

Not really. Find ANY game where the Shining Blade of Heironieous is useful. I challenge you!

JaronK

The campaign starts after the high-lvl PCs have been stripped of all their gear and put in a jail cell. All they have are a few nonmagical improvised weapons. The place isn't AMF'd, but there's a Dimensional Anchor and periodic high-level dispel checks everywhere. The PCs have to fight their way out past a bunch of guards with heavy armor - something like +5 fullplate, +5 tower shields, belts of heavy fortification all around.



The SBoH can turn any slashing or piercing improvised weapon into a Brilliant one, bypassing the armor. With a two-handed one, they could then powerattack for quite a bit of damage. Unlike a Paladin's Holy Avenger spell, the SBoH's nift weapon isn't dispellable. A few T1/T2 classes might be able to do better, but most of them will be rather
impared by the lack of spell components / spellbooks, the dimensional anchor, and the dispel checks. There's probably a few other martial artist builds that could do well here, ToB or even Soulknife or Monk, but I think SBoH outperforms most any Paladin under these circumstances, and would likely even hold their own in a party chosen with this challenge in mind.

[Sith_Happens]

A theoretical wizard might not. A wizard actually built and played in a game certainly might, since the sorts of wizards that people actually play don't generally resemble the uber-optimized, always prepared for every last eventuality, 12 contingencies, 4 prestige classes, uses 23 books type of wizard that is generally brought in wizard vs. X threads.

Spoken like someone who isn't playing a NG wizard in the same party as a CE rogue/assassin.

[Golden Ladybug]

*Reads thread*



Well, anyway, here is a link to my Mountebank fix if people are interested in taking a gander.

[ArcturusV]

Minor correction.

3d6 fire damage vs. resistance 10 averages 1.46 damage per roll not 0.5.

Thus a total of 14.6 damage.

The thing is that while the rolls are individually an average of 10.5, when you roll a 3 it doesn't do -7 damage, it does 0, but when you roll an 18 it does do 8 damage. The average damage actually done is thus higher than the average roll -10.

Eh, doesn't QUITE work out that way because "DnD Math". Fractions, even if they are over half, always get dropped.

So your average would be 1 damage. For a total of 10 damage, presuming strictly average rolls.

But yeah, practically it's going to be less than 10 damage done in the field.

Still not really stellar.

Think I ran out of "Bad class fuel". The ones that have bothered me in the past I've mentioned. Or someone else mentioned. There's quite a list in here. Been interesting to see what and why people think.

[TuggyNE]

Eh, doesn't QUITE work out that way because "DnD Math". Fractions, even if they are over half, always get dropped.

So your average would be 1 damage. For a total of 10 damage, presuming strictly average rolls.

Wait, what? You (should) only do that for math that isn't real-world; meta-statistics like average damage shouldn't just randomly get truncated!

Otherwise, because your average roll on a d20 is 10.5, clearly you should only get an average of 10, and any longish sequence that gives a higher average is because you're cheating.

Put another way, you never actually roll average damage; it's an average from multiple rolls, each of which is properly rounded individually. You don't then round the whole thing again.

[Pickford]

glad that that's finished.

with that business out of the way, drunken masters' breath of flame ability is a standard action, not a free. the damage of 3d12 is abysmal once you're the requisite level 15. there is no way to boost that damage (with the class's own innate abilities) and it burns drinks in your body, reducing your physical ability boosts.

your math on improvised weapon hulking hurler style is fine, but I'm unsure of where you heard about breath of flame working that way.

No it's a free action, says so right in the text. And the logical order of operations is a full attack 'followed' by breathing fire.

edit: Yep double-checked.
pg. 29 of Complete Warrior

Breath of Flame (Sp): A 10th-level drunken master can ignite some of the alcohol within his body and spew it forth from his mouth as a free action.

(bolded by me).

CW Errata provides no change, therefore this is correct.

[Venger]

No it's a free action, says so right in the text. And the logical order of operations is a full attack 'followed' by breathing fire.

edit: Yep double-checked.
pg. 29 of Complete Warrior
(bolded by me).

CW Errata provides no change, therefore this is correct.

how the hell did I miss that?

thanks for the info. it takes DM's capstone from being complete garbage (as a standard) to being pretty damn awesome as a free. usually when a su/sp ability isn't a standard, they say it at the beginning.

one thing I'm not clear on though:

why is it a SLA? it's not mimicking any particular spell. all this means is it requires a concentration check (which a drunken master not only wouldn't need, but also doesn't offer as a class skill) and provokes AoOs. that's unfortunate.

[Pickford]

how the hell did I miss that?

thanks for the info. it takes DM's capstone from being complete garbage (as a standard) to being pretty damn awesome as a free. usually when a su/sp ability isn't a standard, they say it at the beginning.

one thing I'm not clear on though:

why is it a SLA? it's not mimicking any particular spell. all this means is it requires a concentration check (which a drunken master not only wouldn't need, but also doesn't offer as a class skill) and provokes AoOs. that's unfortunate.

Except it's a free action, those don't provoke.

[Xerxus]

Isn't it amazing that despite all your irrefutable arguments, no one else thinks that the rogue is the worst class?

I still think it's the fighter out of the core classes, especially before all the splatbooks.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Utterly derailed with a fair amount of flaming, too. Thread locked.