Person_Man's Niche Ranking System

[Shining Wrath]

This is good.

May I suggest a modification to the table? Group in-combat ratings together, not-in-combat ratings together.

It would make clear that, e.g., a Warblade is more useful in combat than out, while a Bard is pretty utile across the board.

[INoKnowNames]

Maybe that's actually how it should be. Summoning is ridiculously versatile sometimes. Making it a niche comes across a lot like making spellcasting itself a niche. That's not too far off the mark either, with all the SLA's summons can get.

There are really only two options here:

1) Like with Transformations, remove Summoning as a Niche, and then account for the ability to summon something to do what job you need when looking through the rest of the niches a character fan fill.

2) Keep Summoning in it's own Niche, and account for the rest of the character's abilities as is, while giving them a high summon score. If this was done, I'd probably due the same to Transformations: How much of a character's ability to cover a niche comes from their own abilities, or abilities they've stolen from / hired someone else to take care of?

[Amphetryon]

There are really only two options here:

1) Like with Transformations, remove Summoning as a Niche, and then account for the ability to summon something to do what job you need when looking through the rest of the niches a character fan fill.

2) Keep Summoning in it's own Niche, and account for the rest of the character's abilities as is, while giving them a high summon score. If this was done, I'd probably due the same to Transformations: How much of a character's ability to cover a niche comes from their own abilities, or abilities they've stolen from / hired someone else to take care of?

If Option 2 is selected, it seems to me that we'd need to weight Transformations and Summoning more heavily, to account for their ability to fulfill other functions to a larger degree than the other Niches.

[eggynack]

If it is distinct, it shouldn't be. (And if it is distinct, why does the Paladin have a 3 rather than a 4 in Summoning?)

Animal Companion is basically a permanent-duration summon with a 24-hour casting time and a limit of "one at a time."

I think the real problem here is still the existence of summoning as a category. Druids make good meat shields, because they have an animal companion and summons. I don't know if it matters how they get to that point.

Except that's already the 'Scout' niche. I agree with the Druid having a 2 in that niche (even though Initiate of Milil, which makes him a really good scout, is a pretty obscure and costly feat).

I thought scout was more spot/listen, while thief was more hide/move silently, and there's some crossover between the two. Druids can get some pretty sky high spot/listen, by the way. Also, blindsight. Might be worth a boost of some kind.

[Talya]

It seems that the objections to the trap-finding capabilities of those with access to summons have been overlooked. Reposting the petition that Wizard/Sorc/Cleric/Druid/etc. be bumped to a 3 in the Trapfinding category, as they can do it, but it's not the best use of resources.

EDIT: I'd also recommend that Grappling be considered in the debuff category if it's not really being considered elsewhere. It's not exactly BFC, but it does shut an enemy down.

If you use summons for trapfinding, you can bump bard up to 3 there, too.

[Kennisiou]

Wizard and Sorc are at least a 3 on trapfind. They have access to the summon spells, which when combined with summoning something capable of speaking/understanding orders can be used to run ahead and trigger traps. They're not great at it, but they can summon things that work at it and are at least better at it than fighter.

[Shining Wrath]

There may also be a column / category for just plain breaking stuff. Doors, walls, artifacts that the BBEG intends to use to achieve world domination, et cetera.

Another might be capturing / subduing people. Sometimes you have to take someone alive, or remove them from combat for a while, in non-lethal ways. Classic example is the Fighter who failed his Will save and is now dominated or confused. You don't want to kill your own Fighter, but you do want to keep him from killing you.

[Shining Wrath]

I'm curious why no class gets a '4' in "Meat Shield". Isn't there any class that's bad at this?

Also, a wizard being a '2' at meat shield must mean that they are summoning something. Maybe the chart needs to use a different color or font or something to indicate "No, the wizard doesn't meat shield, his summoned critter does".

Otherwise, it's pretty ridiculous for a D4 HD wizard to soak up damage as well as a D12 HD Warblade.

[Draz74]

I think the real problem here is still the existence of summoning as a category. Druids make good meat shields, because they have an animal companion and summons. I don't know if it matters how they get to that point.

That would be fair, sure. I'm ok with either method as long as it doesn't end up as a double standard.

I thought scout was more spot/listen, while thief was more hide/move silently, and there's some crossover between the two. Druids can get some pretty sky high spot/listen, by the way. Also, blindsight. Might be worth a boost of some kind.

Person_Man's description of the 'Scout' niche says:

Locates enemies, threats, and other useful things while remaining hidden.

As I understand it, 'Thief' is more stuff like Sleight of Hand (picking pockets), Open Lock, and so forth. Not Hide/Move Silently, which are more relevant to 'Scout'.

I'm curious why no class gets a '4' in "Meat Shield". Isn't there any class that's bad at this?

Hmmm, that's actually another category where I could argue that Rogue is worse than almost any other class.

Also, a wizard being a '2' at meat shield must mean that they are summoning something. Maybe the chart needs to use a different color or font or something to indicate "No, the wizard doesn't meat shield, his summoned critter does".

Otherwise, it's pretty ridiculous for a D4 HD wizard to soak up damage as well as a D12 HD Warblade.

The description of the 'Meat Shield' niche says:

Can stand in the front line of combat with a reasonable chance of not getting killed.

The Wizard can meet that description without summons. Invisibility, Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Blur, those types of things.

[eggynack]

Person_Man's description of the 'Scout' niche says:

As I understand it, 'Thief' is more stuff like Sleight of Hand (picking pockets), Open Lock, and so forth. Not Hide/Move Silently, which are more relevant to 'Scout'.

Yeah, I guess that makes some sense. Still, if you're stealing from a place, rather than directly from a person, then it's going to end up looking a lot like scouting. There's a ton of crossover there. The burrowing and stoneshape stuff seems like it falls only on the thief side of things, rather than the scout side of things. It's like, scouting tells you what's going on in a place you're going to be, while thievery is often about getting places where you're usually not going to be otherwise. There's some crossover with mobility too, I think. Dimension door seems like it'd help with thievery.

[Epsilon Rose]

There are really only two options here:

1) Like with Transformations, remove Summoning as a Niche, and then account for the ability to summon something to do what job you need when looking through the rest of the niches a character fan fill.

2) Keep Summoning in it's own Niche, and account for the rest of the character's abilities as is, while giving them a high summon score. If this was done, I'd probably due the same to Transformations: How much of a character's ability to cover a niche comes from their own abilities, or abilities they've stolen from / hired someone else to take care of?

Given their nature, I'm inclined to agree with your second solution: Summoning and Transformation should be standalone niches and their contributions should not be factored into other niches. I think this is the most elegant solution, because factoring summoning and Transformation tells you more about summoning than the rest of the classes abilities. On one hand, I'd wager a commoner modified to have polymorph as a class feature would outscore a fighter. On the other, any class with rank 1 summoning/transformation is going to get the same additions as any other class with the same ratings; this probably also holds true for rank 2, though I'm less sure about rank 3.

If Option 2 is selected, it seems to me that we'd need to weight Transformations and Summoning more heavily, to account for their ability to fulfill other functions to a larger degree than the other Niches.

That seems like the most sensical thing. They're both incredibly powerful and versatile abilities, so it makes sense that they recieve a higher weight, but it doesn't make sense to multi-count them.

[Alabenson]

So, it's essentially an incredibly limited ability, but is still sighted enough to be a viable strategy... that -does- sound like a 3...

I still don't see it particularly fair that Summoners will automatically rank high in most categories when it should just be their summon score that gets that high, since their own class features aren't actually doing anything, they're just getting someone else to do it for them... it's like receiving double credit.

It's a viable strategy, but is also wholly dependent on other party members allocating resources in order to make it work. Saying that Dread Necromancers can heal because other party members can take Tomb Tainted Soul makes almost as much sense to me as saying that Monks are perfectly mobile because the party casters can cast mobility enhancing spells on them.
If a class can only fill a niche when other party members allocate their own resources to enable it, than that class should not be considered capable of filling that niche for the purposes of this exercise.

Summons, on the other hand, are a legitimate part of many classes abilities, and their utility inside and outside of combat should not be marginalized.

[malonkey1]

Saying that Dread Necromancers can heal because other party members can take Tomb Tainted Soul makes almost as much sense to me as saying that Monks are perfectly mobile because the party casters can cast mobility enhancing spells on them.
If a class can only fill a niche when other party members allocate their own resources to enable it, than that class should not be considered capable of filling that niche for the purposes of this exercise.

This was exactly my reasoning for setting it to 4. Perhaps in Ghostwalk, or another setting where undead PCs are common, it might be as much as 2 or even 1. But in most circumstances, based only on the class's own resources, the Dread Necro has squat in the healing department.

[Komatik]

It is truly a tragedy. If druids have one big flaw, and they don't, cause they're amazing, it's the general dearth of long term minionmancy options. They have to rely on dumb stuff like awaken (and its variants), or sanctified spells that are available to everyone like cry of ysgard or valiant steed. They can always go moonspeaker, and pick up a couple of those types of spell at really high levels, but it's just not the same as it being a native druid thing, and it's similarly not the same as having an army of nature friendly zombies.

Edit: Actually, wait a second here. Nature friendly zombies. Y'know what totally does nature friendly zombies? Yellow musk creepers from the fiend folio page 190. This feels something like a plant. A vaguely necromantic druid might work after all.

Was wrong, fixed now. Some issues with the plan: Victim must succeed on a DC18 Fort save to become a zombie, zombies live only a couple of days as free-ranging entities.

[eggynack]

Was wrong, fixed now. Some issues with the plan: Victim must succeed on a DC18 Fort save to become a zombie, zombies live only a couple of days as free-ranging entities.

It's certainly somewhat imperfect, but I think that any druid necromancy plan is going to be at least a little imperfect, and that the real goal is to hit the archetype in broad thematic strokes. However, it's notable that the zombies can last for months if the yellow musk creeper sticks around, and that a high level druid is capable of becoming one. Getting shambly plant zombies for a couple of days from summoned creepers is good too, however. As another idea, blackwater tentacle (Storm, 114) deals negative levels that last for the duration of the spell, so killing enemies in that fashion could lead to some fun times.

[Komatik]

Also, I support the addition of a Flexibility indicator or two. I'd say the type and degree of flexibility is as important as what a character can do well to the feel of playing it. Are you encouraged to whip stuff up on the fly, or prepare meticulously, and so on? Sounds more important to note than "Curiosity" at any rate.

[malonkey1]

Also, I support the addition of a Flexibility indicator or two. I'd say the type and degree of flexibility is as important as what a character can do well to the feel of playing it. Are you encouraged to whip stuff up on the fly, or prepare meticulously, and so on? Sounds more important to note than "Curiosity" at any rate.

Curiosity, to me, always should have been called "general utility", as the abilities it mentions in the description are more utilitarian than curious.

[Deaxsa]

out of curiosity, what about "Tank" or "threatener".. someone who can stop allies from being attacked.. mechanically, not just by having the biggest numbers and being the most urgent problem for the PCs. or would that be a combination of BC and Meatshield? has this already been adressed? is this TOO niche, in that only a few classes have the abilities to try this?

[Ilorin Lorati]

Personally, I'd say that the typical definition of a tank role would be one of Battlefield control, yes.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Question: If we're going to have a melee and ranged combat niches, should there be a mounted combat niche, too?

[Lans]

Quibbles:
[*]Incarnate: Why does it get a 1 in 'Meat Shield' when the Dragonfire Adept gets a 3? They seem quite similar to me in this category. Make them both 2's or both 1's, IMO. I've heard good things about Incarnates' melee potential that might earn a 2 in 'Melee', but I don't have much experience with that myself. Maybe keep this at 3, but drop classes with even less Melee ability (like Beguiler and DFA) to a 4?

Incarnates are one of the tankiest classes in the game, capable of getting DR 6/magic and a fire shield for 3d6 damage. Later getting 1-7 * level hp, and a bunch of defense boosts.

[*]Sorcerer: I have a hard time seeing a pureclass Sorcerer achieving a 2 in 'Meat Shield' or especially 'Melee'. Otherwise I can't argue with these high marks, although your rating system is very generous to Sorcerers since a single Sorcerer build will struggle to be good at all of these niches at once.

My guess polymorph+wraithstrike+arcane strike+other buffs+PA

[malonkey1]

Question: If we're going to have a melee and ranged combat niches, should there be a mounted combat niche, too?

Well, "Mounted Combat" is only as deserving of a category as "Underwater Combat" or "Combat with Clown Shoes." It's not really mutually exclusive with any other type. You can fight in melee while mounted, or ranged while mounted. You can not, however fight in melee and ranged at the same time (you can alternate, but not do both).

[Joe the Rat]

Question: If we're going to have a melee and ranged combat niches, should there be a mounted combat niche, too?

Mounted Combat: Melee + Mobility. On a Horse.

[Optimator]

Ranks look good to me.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Well, "Mounted Combat" is only as deserving of a category as "Underwater Combat" or "Combat with Clown Shoes." It's not really mutually exclusive with any other type. You can fight in melee while mounted, or ranged while mounted. You can not, however fight in melee and ranged at the same time (you can alternate, but not do both).

Except that mounter combat has an entire line of feats associated with making it better, and can require multiple skills to take advantage of.

So it might be worse, all in all, but it's still a distinct style.

[eggynack]

Except that mounter combat has an entire line of feats associated with making it better, and can require multiple skills to take advantage of.

So it might be worse, all in all, but it's still a distinct style.

But as long as you're doing damage that's melee, the end result is pretty similar. If you're using archery, then the end result is pretty similar to non-mounted archery. In the same fashion, there's no separate niche for two weapon fighting, or for precision damage, or even for blasting spells versus using a bow. There's a good amount of niche subdividing I'd do before I would touch mounted combat.

[Squirrel_Dude]

But as long as you're doing damage that's melee, the end result is pretty similar. If you're using archery, then the end result is pretty similar to non-mounted archery. In the same fashion, there's no separate niche for two weapon fighting, or for precision damage, or even for blasting spells versus using a bow. There's a good amount of niche subdividing I'd do before I would touch mounted combat.

Fair enough.

Welp, now that we've touched on why mounted combat isn't a separate niche, there shouldn't be another pointless argument that will go nowhere between the same people about the same classes.

[malonkey1]

Fair enough.

Welp, now that we've touched on why mounted combat isn't a separate niche, there shouldn't be another pointless argument that will go nowhere between the same people about the same classes.

...Not sure if serious or sarcastic.

[Draz74]

out of curiosity, what about "Tank" or "threatener".. someone who can stop allies from being attacked.. mechanically, not just by having the biggest numbers and being the most urgent problem for the PCs. or would that be a combination of BC and Meatshield? has this already been adressed? is this TOO niche, in that only a few classes have the abilities to try this?

I proposed the same thing earlier, but yeah, it might be TOO niche.

Incarnates are one of the tankiest classes in the game, capable of getting DR 6/magic and a fire shield for 3d6 damage. Later getting 1-7 * level hp, and a bunch of defense boosts.

DR 6/magic ... yeah, that and a silver piece will get you a hunk of cheese.

And DFAs have some pretty cool defensive abilities of their own. Not many, but some.

My guess polymorph+wraithstrike+arcane strike+other buffs+PA

Maybe. Wraithstrike only lasts a round without cheese, though.

[Silva Stormrage]

I disagree with several points on DN. Healing should be at least a three, because even if they can't heal allies due to them not taking tomb tainted they can heal themselves which saves party resources. Its an easy at will heal that should at least put them above fighters and barbarians for healing. And if the party takes tomb tainted soul than the DN can heal everyone to full out of combat, better than many characters.

For meat shields/summoner (Not sure which one is have minions take the hits) DN's have to be 1. They are the #1 undead creation class, they can have their own personal army following them around and there are numerous ways to get animate dead free as well. Plus as above they can heal them at will out of combat. Druid's summoning is good, but its not as good as DN's army

For sage shouldn't DN's be at least at a 3 since they get knowledge religion and arcane? I don't see why they are on the same rank as barbarians for knowledge and sage like skills

For scout they also have their incorporeal familiar the ghostly vestige. That alone should be enough for a 3 as its a linked creature that can pass through walls. That combined with awakened zombies with burrow or earth glide and you can get minions that are pretty good at scouting

For trap finding does sending minions forward and triggering traps and then healing the minions of all damage count? Because personally I think it does but I wouldn't argue that one if you disagree.