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  1. - Top - End - #331
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    Default Re: Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

    Quote Originally Posted by noce View Post
    Can I vote only classes I'm familiar with?
    Dread Necromancer: 3,4
    Highly flavourful. Unfortunately this flavor often is unsuitable in the campaign you're playing, or puts you at risk.
    Not as versatile as a beguiler, with less skill points and worse skill list.
    You're still a caster and a competent one, and you can do your shtick better than a sorcerer.
    Why 3,4 if you think the Dread Necromancer can do their shtick better than a sorcerer? Tier 2 can outperform Tier 4 even in the Tier 4's shtick. Your reasoning seems more compatible with a vote of 3,2,4 than 3,4.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2017-01-16 at 10:31 AM.

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    Default Re: Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    Tier 2 can outperform Tier 4 even in the Tier 4's shtick.
    Not necessarily - at low optimisation levels especially I'd much rather sneak into a place full of traps with a rogue than a sorcerer, and much rather use a barbarian to take down a monster than a sorcerer.

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    Default Re: Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

    I'd pretty much always rather have a Sorcerer for taking down a single monster.

  4. - Top - End - #334
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jormengand View Post
    Not necessarily - at low optimisation levels especially I'd much rather sneak into a place full of traps with a rogue than a sorcerer, and much rather use a barbarian to take down a monster than a sorcerer.
    I deal with the Tiers, not the lists. The definitions have priority.

    Tier 2: Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes.
    Okay so Tier 2 can do anything Tier 1 can do but with limitations, what can Tier 1 do?
    Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing.
    So Tier 2 can do absolutely everything(just not as much of everything in the same build), often better than classes that specialize in that thing. What was Tier 4 again?
    Tier 4: Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competence without truly shining.
    So since Tier 2 can outperform classes that specialize in a thing(Tier 4), even at that thing, then if you think a class can perform its own shtick better than a Tier 2 class can imitate that shtick then you would be voting either 2,3 or 3,2 and not 3,4.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2017-01-16 at 11:44 AM.

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    Default Re: Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    I deal with the Tiers, not the lists
    I assumed you were dealing with the lists from the fact that you automatically jumped from "Sorcerer" to "Tier 2" - which is a perfectly logical move, but only because of the lists.

  6. - Top - End - #336
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    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    So since Tier 2 can outperform classes that specialize in a thing(Tier 4), even at that thing, then if you think a class can perform its own shtick better than a Tier 2 class can imitate that shtick then you would be voting either 2,3 or 3,2 and not 3,4.
    It is quite possible that when 'noce' said that it can perform it's shtick better than a sorcerer, he was referring to it's theme. The Dread Necromancer is thematically better at being a Necromancer than a Sorcerer, even if mechanically the Sorcerer out-performs the Dread Necromancer as someone who specializes in the Necromancy school? Does that make sense?

    Ofcourse, I am not 'noce' and may very well be wrong in defending the person's viewpoint. But I just wanted to point that out.
    Last edited by Mehangel; 2017-01-16 at 11:51 AM.

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    No way is a Sorcerer outperforming a Dread Necromancer at necromancy. That's not gonna happen.

  8. - Top - End - #338
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    Default Re: Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    Why 3,4 if you think the Dread Necromancer can do their shtick better than a sorcerer? Tier 2 can outperform Tier 4 even in the Tier 4's shtick. Your reasoning seems more compatible with a vote of 3,2,4 than 3,4.
    What I mean is that the Dread Necromancer is a better necromancer than a Sorcerer that focuses on necromancy.
    This is thanks to both a wider range of necromancy spells at his disposal and Undead Mastery class feature, allowing him to control more/stronger undeads.

    Given this, his power is still nowhere near the Sorcerer's, in my opinion, so no, I won't put Dread Necromancer in T2.

    I was trying to say that I see Dread Necromancer as a T3 class.
    If I must choose a tier other than T3 in order to break a voting tie, I'd rather pick T4 than T2.
    Last edited by noce; 2017-01-16 at 01:23 PM.

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    Default Re: Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

    Does a Sorcerer drop to T3 if she builds for necromancy?

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    What tier would a sorcerer who took the best of the Dread Necromancer spell list be? Crowd control, undead creation/control, debuffing, magic jar and its associated shenanigans, planar binding? Throw in Actual Class Features. Throw in the fact that you either get to acquire an undead army from all the undead you run across / make, or largely eliminate undead as a concern? I think that counts as distorting the game world around yourself.

  11. - Top - End - #341
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    Default Re: Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

    Quote Originally Posted by Troacctid View Post
    Does a Sorcerer drop to T3 if she builds for necromancy?
    Can a poor build change a tier overall?

    No, because tiers are based on how well a character can be built, not how poorly.

    It's quite possible to be a Wizard who deliberately burns his own spellbook during the first session, and thereby become useless deadweight for the foreseeable future. The class tier is not based around how stupid you can be.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nifft View Post
    Can a poor build change a tier overall?

    No, because tiers are based on how well a character can be built, not how poorly.

    It's quite possible to be a Wizard who deliberately burns his own spellbook during the first session, and thereby become useless deadweight for the foreseeable future. The class tier is not based around how stupid you can be.
    What would a Sorcerer spell list look like that would be better than the Dread Necromancer's list?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Troacctid View Post
    What would a Sorcerer spell list look like that would be better than the Dread Necromancer's list?
    Would someone please take up this challenge? Regardless of the result, it would be useful to have in this thread.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2017-01-16 at 03:56 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Troacctid View Post
    What would a Sorcerer spell list look like that would be better than the Dread Necromancer's list?
    What would a generally optimized Sorcerer list look like?

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    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    Would someone please take up this challenge? Regardless of the result, it would be useful to have in this thread.
    As someone who loves the DN spell list and class I might take a crack at this but the main problem is what is the sorcerer supposed to be building so his spell list is "Better" than the dread necromancer's? Better at animating undead? You only really need the following spells, command undead, animate undead, desecrate, create undead/create greater undead.

    Better at inflicting negative levels? Most builds focus on just stacking metamagic on enervation so you really just need that one spell. Any other spell that might be useful DN's can pick up with advanced learning such as necrotic skull bomb.

    Where sorcerers take advantage over DN's IMO is that they can improve their necromancy with non necromancy. They can buff their undead with things like haste. They can use arcane fusion to cast true strike + metamagic pumped enervation.

    DN's are better at animation of undead than sorcerers solely because they have rebuke undead and undead mastery.

    As for my votes.

    Crusader: 34, putting my two cents into the discussion I have seen Crusader's healing, charisma based skills (Diplomacy+ intimidate) and the few utility manuvers (Mountain Hammer mostly) contribute enough out of combat that I think they qualify for 3 but I could reasonably see them dropping to tier 4.

    Death Master: 2, It has rebuke undead and many many problematic spells from core. Most notably being shapechange but it has others (Magic jar, Blasphemy/Holy Word line, Mind Blank, Astral Projection, Alter Self) and just some good spells (Web, Hideous Laughter, Animate Dead (At 2nd level), Command Undead, Slow, Stinking Cloud). It's almost a Wizard//Cleric thats restricted to core spells. Also gains lich template at 20th so thats a plus. It has enough ability to contribute and shatter balance that its probably worth the tier 2 slot.

    Divine Mind: 65, Terrible class is terrible. If Samurai is rated at tier 6 than Divine Mind is as well. I would literally rather play a Aristocrat with it's +2 skill points and a decent skill list.

    Dragon Shaman: 5, It's auras really don't do enough to justify any higher than 5. When your main class feature can be replaced by a feat you know you're not knocking anything out of the park.

    Dragonfire Adept: 34, I feel it has enough splatbook support with metabreath feats and it's breath effects and reliable enough to push it higher than Warlock. Plus it's invocations have some pretty useful utility (Draconic Knowledge, Humanoid Heritage, Geas, Beguiling Influence) and has some top tier abilities (Chilling Fog, Draconic Flight). It would probably be fairly low tier 3 though.

    Dread Necroamancer: 2, This is likely the only unusual pick I have so let me elaborate. Frankly I think any class with create undead + rebuke undead almost qualifies for tier 2 by default simply due to how much rebuke can scale out of control.

    Dread Necromancers have a quite wide variety of abilities in combat (Healing, AOE Damage + Healing, DR, Disease Touch, etc), fairly decent spell list containing mostly debuffing and save or loses and a few gamebreakers (Magic Jar, Planar Binding) and a horde of undead to follow it around. This alone would place it fairly well into the tier 3 category but it has 2 abilities which it can use to just break the game horribly. That being Planar Binding and Rebuke Undead.

    Planar Binding is absurd most people would agree on this, and while DN's don't have magic circle against X (For some reason...) they can easily get this from a runestaff or similar item with a UMD check (Cha based casters!) or they can just call and kill and then animate the creature (See below)

    Rebuke undead is quite often underrated as a class feature often used to power divine feats and then ignored. For a decent reason as without any effort you need to be level 16 to control a CR 3 ogre zombie. However, with items you can boost that ability into the stratosphere. Most notably being Lyre of the Restful Soul and the Rod of Defiance. But with even a moderate amount of emphasis in rebuking once you get access to create undead you can animate pretty much any enemy you come across. How? Bone and Corpse creatures from BoVD can be animated via create undead and they keep all their memories, intelligence and abilities plus whatever bonuses you can pile onto their now undead bodies.

    Just beat a wizard enemy? Congrats you now have a pet. Beat a miniboss with crucial information? Animate him and you now have him as a pet and all of the plot info he had. Come across any monster that has abilities that would be absurd in a players hand (Deepspawn, Thoon Madcrafter, Anything with wish)? You now have them! DM not giving you any corpses to animate? Who cares! You have planar binding, anything you can bind from planar binding you can animate.

    You can pretty much start a steamroller effect on many campaigns simply by existing. While true DN's have a lot of their abilities based around minionmancy they can solve pretty much any problem with minionmancy. Even limiting themselves to only what they can animate with lesser planar binding they have Baralguas (At Will Greater Teleport others + other SLA's), Succubi (High DC scouts and dominators), Artaagliths (5th level clerics + SLA's including desecrate and animate dead!)and Amnizus (Long ranged fireball dispensers). They have a stupid amount of versatility from that alone.

    For numbers and an actual example taking a level 12 Dread Necromancer with Rod of the Netherworld (+3 on Rebuke Level) and a single selection of the improved turning feat to get his rebuking level to 16 and for other items a rod of defiance and lyre of the restful soul. He and his party have just beaten their grand foe the Dread Wizard Steve (Level 16) and are looting his body.

    Playing the Lyre and wielding the rod the DN casts create undead on the wizard animating him as a bone creature. With both the lyre and the rod giving -4 Turn Resistance the newly formed bone creature has -8 Turn Resistance meaning his effective HD is 8. The DN proceeds to rebuke him and literally can't fail. He now has a permanent 16th level wizard follower at 12th level. Plus all the information the boss may have about the campaign at large.

    And he can have two of them as turn resistance is only checked at the initial time of the rebuke check (Otherwise whenever you bolstered your own undead it would break them free of your control) and thus he only takes 8 HD out of your 16 HD of control.

    This is mostly reliant on items though so I am not sure if this should be taken into account but considering how easy and how many items there are to supplement this I feel it should be taken into account.
    Last edited by Silva Stormrage; 2017-01-16 at 05:27 PM.
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    Sorcerer hasn't been voted on at this point. There is no point in comparing a class that doesn't have a tier to another class that doesn't have a tier. If you arrive at the conclusion one is clearly superior to the other you haven't come to a conclusion on what tier either class is.


    That said, I see very few options a Dread Necromancer has for targeting a reflex save. A shame, really, since they can make a weak save weaker and reliably take someone out with Crushing Despair and Ray of Exhaustion. Oh well, guess someone else is going to have to exploit that particular weakness. Teammates can take finish off those giants, heavily armored combatants, less-dexterous aberrations, plants and larger vermin. Druids aren't known for their good reflex save, either.
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    Default Re: Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

    Quote Originally Posted by Silva Stormrage View Post
    And he can have two of them as turn resistance is only checked at the initial time of the rebuke check (Otherwise whenever you bolstered your own undead it would break them free of your control) and thus he only takes 8 HD out of your 16 HD of control.
    Do you have a source for that, or is it just your reasoning?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nifft View Post
    Can a poor build change a tier overall?

    No, because tiers are based on how well a character can be built, not how poorly.

    It's quite possible to be a Wizard who deliberately burns his own spellbook during the first session, and thereby become useless deadweight for the foreseeable future. The class tier is not based around how stupid you can be.
    I believer JaronK's original post mentioned that sabotaging your build can produce atypical results. He also mentioned being inordinately high or low op can boost or drain your tier a couple of steps.

    It's not that you can't take it into consideration when tiering. Part of what makes a tier involved how easy it is to unintentionally sabotage your build with a class that looks nice on paper and plays poorly on the table.
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    Quote Originally Posted by GilesTheCleric View Post
    Do you have a source for that, or is it just your reasoning?
    Generally speaking thats my own reasoning on that as it isn't explicit. From the following line you could argue the other way.

    "The cleric must take a standard action to give mental orders to a commanded undead. At any one time, the cleric may command any number of undead whose total Hit Dice do not exceed his level. "


    But that still leads into the issue of Bolster undead would immediately break your own rebuke undead which seems hilariously out of RAI. Would be interesting to see that occur to a BBEG though.

    Still even without that they would still be able to rebuke a single 16th level wizard as they would still be commanded and the DN would have 16 HD worth of rebuke cap. Thats kinda silly.
    Last edited by Silva Stormrage; 2017-01-16 at 05:24 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Karl Aegis View Post
    Sorcerer hasn't been voted on at this point. There is no point in comparing a class that doesn't have a tier to another class that doesn't have a tier. If you arrive at the conclusion one is clearly superior to the other you haven't come to a conclusion on what tier either class is.
    And when we do have Sorcerer up for vote, Dread Necromancer discussion will be closed. So we can't discuss it now, and we can't discuss it later—when exactly do you propose we discuss it?

    Quote Originally Posted by Nifft View Post
    What would a generally optimized Sorcerer list look like?
    Beats me. I couldn't come up with a Sorcerer list that was better than the Beguiler list, and I think it would take a fair amount of optimization to beat the Dread Necromancer list. Can you do it?
    Last edited by Troacctid; 2017-01-16 at 05:20 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Troacctid View Post
    And when we do have Sorcerer up for vote, Dread Necromancer discussion will be closed. So we can't discuss it now, and we can't discuss it later—when exactly do you propose we discuss it?


    Beats me. I couldn't come up with a Sorcerer list that was better than the Beguiler list, and I think it would take a fair amount of optimization to beat the Dread Necromancer list. Can you do it?
    The problem is better at what?

    There are only so many spells that are relevant for animate dead or any one aspect of necromancy.

    A lot of the DN's spell list is somewhat redundant.

    To quote myself just above,
    "You only really need the following spells, command undead, animate undead, desecrate, create undead/create greater undead.

    Better at inflicting negative levels? Most builds focus on just stacking metamagic on enervation so you really just need that one spell. Any other spell that might be useful DN's can pick up with advanced learning such as necrotic skull bomb.

    Where sorcerers take advantage over DN's IMO is that they can improve their necromancy with non necromancy. They can buff their undead with things like haste. They can use arcane fusion to cast true strike + metamagic pumped enervation. "
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    Quote Originally Posted by Silva Stormrage View Post
    Generally speaking thats my own reasoning on that as it isn't explicit. From the following line you could argue the other way.

    "The cleric must take a standard action to give mental orders to a commanded undead. At any one time, the cleric may command any number of undead whose total Hit Dice do not exceed his level. "


    But that still leads into the issue of Bolster undead would immediately break your own rebuke undead which seems hilariously out of RAI. Would be interesting to see that occur to a BBEG though.

    Still even without that they would still be able to rebuke a single 16th level wizard as they would still be commanded and the DN would have 16 HD worth of rebuke cap. Thats kinda silly.
    It does make sense as the way things ought to work. I'll have to do some digging to see if there's some RAW on the subject.

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    Quote Originally Posted by GilesTheCleric View Post
    It does make sense as the way things ought to work. I'll have to do some digging to see if there's some RAW on the subject.
    Ya Rule Compendium doesn't really change anything either. You could make the argument in core than since bolster only affects "the undead creatures’ effective Hit Dice as far as turning is concerned " that it doesn't do anything against rebuke undead.

    Unfortunately rule compendium made rebuke a subset of turn undead so that argument doesn't work either.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Troacctid View Post
    And when we do have Sorcerer up for vote, Dread Necromancer discussion will be closed. So we can't discuss it now, and we can't discuss it later—when exactly do you propose we discuss it?


    Beats me. I couldn't come up with a Sorcerer list that was better than the Beguiler list, and I think it would take a fair amount of optimization to beat the Dread Necromancer list. Can you do it?
    You have a tier 1 and a tier 2 class you can compare it to already.

    Archivist can get most spells and smash the world.

    Ardent has access to a variety of effects, can manifest several powers every round (many of which will get you closer to winning), can use actions to get actions, can use power points to get more power points, can turn into Godzilla and smash Tokyo, and can literally rebuild their entire character on a round-to-round basis.

    If you can't get up to the power of Ardent, you can't get up to their tier.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Karl Aegis View Post
    You have a tier 1 and a tier 2 class you can compare it to already.

    Archivist can get most spells and smash the world.

    Ardent has access to a variety of effects, can manifest several powers every round (many of which will get you closer to winning), can use actions to get actions, can use power points to get more power points, can turn into Godzilla and smash Tokyo, and can literally rebuild their entire character on a round-to-round basis.

    If you can't get up to the power of Ardent, you can't get up to their tier.
    DN's can animate and control an ardent higher level than themselves.

    Sure they need to find the ardent's corpse but even simply having access to any outsider they can call by planar binding they have a stupid amount of versatility, easily on par with and probably surpassing the ardent.

    The advantage the ardent has is that the DN needs prep time similar to the artificer, they need to find and animate the corpses and are often item reliant. Still I think this is enough for tier 2.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Karl Aegis View Post
    You have a tier 1 and a tier 2 class you can compare it to already.

    Archivist can get most spells and smash the world.

    Ardent has access to a variety of effects, can manifest several powers every round (many of which will get you closer to winning), can use actions to get actions, can use power points to get more power points, can turn into Godzilla and smash Tokyo, and can literally rebuild their entire character on a round-to-round basis.

    If you can't get up to the power of Ardent, you can't get up to their tier.
    How are Ardents doing these things? A lot of the powers you're talking about aren't on their list.

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    Default Re: Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

    Quote Originally Posted by Troacctid View Post
    How are Ardents doing these things? A lot of the powers you're talking about aren't on their list.
    Ardents have a "Make your own mantel" ACF with Substitute powers.

    That plus psychic reformation and linked power does let you design your own powerset basically at will. It costs XP and I think most DM's wouldn't let you pull it off but they are able to do it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Hazuki View Post
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  28. - Top - End - #358
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    Default Re: Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

    Quote Originally Posted by Troacctid View Post
    Beats me. I couldn't come up with a Sorcerer list that was better than the Beguiler list, and I think it would take a fair amount of optimization to beat the Dread Necromancer list. Can you do it?
    Let's see...

    Level 1: Grease, Color Spray, Silent Image, Magic Missile, Identify... a Sorcerer can do better things with her level 1 slots.

    Level 2: Detect Thoughts, Glitterdust, Web.

    Level 3: Crushing Despair and Ray of Exhaustion are both good, but they're pure combat debuff, and compared to other debuffs they're less useful at high level than BFC spells like Sleet Storm (which forces Balance checks) or Slow (which restricts action economy). They've got no social tools (e.g. Suggestion or Tongues) and no encounter-evasion (e.g. Gaesous Form or Fly), and no anti-magic (because Dispel Magic is 4th level for a DN).

    Level 4: Polymorph, yeah. Dimension Door and Dimensional Anchor. DN do get Black Tentacles, which is great.

    Level 5: Lesser Planar Binding is great, but without Magic Circle + Dimensional Anchor, it's not nearly as strong. A Sorcerer with those two spells is a better summoner, period.

    At the high end, a DN lacks capstone tools like Greater Planar Binding, Plane Shift, Greater Teleport, Limited Wish, Polymorph Any Object, Gate, or Wish.

    ---

    That's just core. If I were building a Sorcerer, I'd probably go for stuff like Ruin Delver's Fortune, Heart of Water (for FoM) and Heart of Earth (for cheap Stoneskin), plus some eternal wands for all-day buffs like Primal Instinct, and a Runestaff for a few more commonly-used spells.

    DN lacks mid-level action-economy wreckers like Celerity and Arcane Fusion.

    DN lacks access to Sorc-only fun like Wings of Cover and Wings of Flurry.

    ---

    Finally, DN lacks access to cheese like Dragonwrought Kobold Loredrake Spellhoard Battle Stalwart Sorcerer, which gets Wizard casting at (HD+2) until 6th level, at which point it becomes (HD+3), while technically being 100% Sorcerer.

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    Default Re: Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

    Quote Originally Posted by Silva Stormrage View Post
    Ya Rule Compendium doesn't really change anything either. You could make the argument in core than since bolster only affects "the undead creatures’ effective Hit Dice as far as turning is concerned " that it doesn't do anything against rebuke undead.

    Unfortunately rule compendium made rebuke a subset of turn undead so that argument doesn't work either.
    Sorry to keep asking for sources (I have a document in which I keep citations for reference), but I don't see where RC made one a subset of the other. The Turning heading on RC 146 doesn't seem to create such a relationship, or at least not one that can't be explained by “Regardless of the effect, the general term for the activity is ‘turning’” (PHB 159).

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    Default Re: Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

    Quote Originally Posted by GilesTheCleric View Post
    Sorry to keep asking for sources (I have a document in which I keep citations for reference), but I don't see where RC made one a subset of the other. The Turning heading on RC 146 doesn't seem to create such a relationship, or at least not one that can't be explained by “Regardless of the effect, the general term for the activity is ‘turning’” (PHB 159).
    I don't mind, Rule Compendium page 146 has the big header "Turning" contain the following descriptor " Turning
    Some creatures can channel positive energy, which can drive off or destroy undead, as well as rebuke, command, or bolster deathless. Others can channel negative energy, which can drive off or destroy deathless, as well as rebuke, command, or bolster undead. Some creatures have the ability to turn creatures of other types."

    Which means yes rebuke undead and all the other odd turning effects are counted as "turning". Or at least thats the most straight forward interpretation I can possible find from that.

    Edit: Whoops didn't read your reply thoroughly enough. Editing my post.
    Last edited by Silva Stormrage; 2017-01-16 at 06:26 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Hazuki View Post
    ...Silva, you are a scary person.
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