Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

[Cosi]

However a question for you, can I select the feats and skill ranks of my summon?

No. However, a Djinn with UMD is not called out from distinct as Djinn without it.

Show me where in the spell description you ask the target's permission first.

It's also instant. You're not really being kidnapped at all. It's like a Jehova's Witness, but instead of the witness coming to you, you come to the witness.

Okay, so since I've cited several things and you've done no work or research, you are now saying that you do not want to win the argument.

You know, the fact that this board doesn't support nested quotes really takes the fun out of moments like this. You just dismissed me asking for sources, then followed that up with talking about how you cite sources. This is what experts refer to as "irony".

An argument for why you can't just summon a noble djinn? Yes, that's because there is no such separate creature, and they are defined explicitly as 1% of the population of djinn (which is an actual creature and can be summoned).

Are Zombie Chimeras not a percentage of the population of Zombies?

[Hurnn]

Paladin: 5
I have horse. Horse no fit in door. Horse go to Celestial Realms. I still by door.

I am a smart paladin, I am a halfling, dog fits through door.......

[eggynack]

What you're wrong about is the whole idea that you can always know in advance what an NPC will do, and therefore you can make plans which will 100% always work out as planned, even after contact with the enemy.

If you've identified a location in the plan where things would plausibly go awry, name it. Just saying, yeah, there are totally ways they can screw you over, isn't really productive.

Noble Djinn are defined in the SRD:


They are not a separate monster. That's why they have no separate stat block. You can't summon one specifically, unless you know an individual Noble Djinn's name.

It doesn't matter whether you define them as a separate monster or whatever. Noble djinni is a well defined game entity, whatever category you assign it to. The text says you get to call an elemental or outsider within specified HD limits. A noble djinni is such an entity. There's nothing stopping you from calling one. You're not even running afoul of the specific creature rules, because these are apparently non-unique, and neither are you calling something that may not exist, as noble djinn are defined as a being within the context of the game. There's nothing stopping you from calling one specifically within the rules. There's nothing about planar binding that defines the need for a stat block.

[Karl Aegis]

This "Bards with clouds Tier 2" meme is quite a virulent strain. Is there a cure?

[eggynack]

This "Bards with clouds Tier 2" meme is quite a virulent strain. Is there a cure?

What are you talking about?

[Lans]

I am a smart paladin, I am a halfling, dog fits through door.......

This is one of those things where the optimal build is counter intuitive. Paladins are guys in shiny armor using big swords and lances, so people don't think small.

[Jormengand]

Also, serious question: what kind of door is too small to fit a horse through? Because I'm pretty sure that a horse could go through every door in this building quite easily. Did they really have much, much thinner doors in medieval times?

[Troacctid]

Squeezing rules are a thing.

[Gnaeus]

If you read why the Dread Necromancer is in its tier, it literally says that its because they can't use planar binding effectively. Apparently JaronK forgot that feats exist, and no one bothered to correct him.

I did. Repeatedly. Apparently Arcane Disciple is the same optimization level as dragonwrought kobold loredrakes.

[Karl Aegis]

It's less to do with doors being thinner and more to do with everything in D&D is pretty dangerous. You'd probably want to at least inconvenience anything trying to invade your home at least some of the time. Beholders make vertical shafts they can retreat to that are only long enough to get the enemy into eye beam range, at least one kobold den has made a rolling log trap, elves live in trees, gnomes have small houses and aboleths generally have water between you and them. Horses generally aren't convenient when invading homes.

[Troacctid]

Dragons are legal as mounts too. They tend to be a bit more resilient than horses.

[remetagross]

So I'll vote for the only class I have first-hand experience with.

Ranger: 4, 5. This class has a good chassis, good skills, a little bit of bonus feats, a little bit of spellcasting, a little bit of an animal companion. This class has the ability to contribute in a moderately efficient way in a number of situations: scouting, nature-oriented skill-monkeying, TWFing melee battle/ranged combat. Since it can be quite useful (but not the best at the job) in one of those situations, and somewhat useful in all the others, I rank this Ranger as a Tier 4. A player that lets himself fooled by the many directions the Ranger class features seem to invite to follow, and does not focus on any of them, will end up with a build that can't do anything even remotely properly.

Wild Shape or Mystic Ranger: 3, 4. My assumption here is that a player who is aware of those rather well-hidden ACFs and decides to play them is a player with a broad enough knowledge of the game to make good profit of them. Else, that would be a 4, 3. The Wild Shape ACF allows the Ranger to reduce MAD, and to increase both its scouting and its fighting abilities. It gains Ex flight and Swim, Climb and Burrow speeds, and all manners of useful combat abilities like Pounce, Improved Trip or Improved Grab; and he has a full BAB to make good use of those. He can now contribute in a very meaningful way in melee battle and in scouting.
The Mystic Ranger is actually Tier 1 from levels 1-10. He can now afford to daily prepare Lion's Pounce, Hunter's Eye and Rhino's Rush in addition to more specialised spells like Scent or Tree Shape. He gets Summon Nature's Ally to make up for the loss of his (weak anyways) animal companion. He is a very good Gish and scout. Even at higher levels, he can use an utility spell or two to contribute, if modestly, in pretty much any other situation.

[eggynack]

Wild Shape or Mystic Ranger: 3, 4. My assumption here is that a player who is aware of those rather well-hidden ACFs and decides to play them is a player with a broad enough knowledge of the game to make good profit of them. Else, that would be a 4, 3. The Wild Shape ACF allows the Ranger to reduce MAD, and to increase both its scouting and its fighting abilities. It gains Ex flight and Swim, Climb and Burrow speeds, and all manners of useful combat abilities like Pounce, Improved Trip or Improved Grab; and he has a full BAB to make good use of those. He can now contribute in a very meaningful way in melee battle and in scouting.

Don't forget that wild shape offers a lot of cool optimization paths. Aberration wild shape doesn't work too well here, both due to a lack of enhance wild shape and the size limitation, but even that offers some cool stuff. More interesting are dragon wild shape and exalted wild shape. The former offers a ton of cool utility, tending to be more of an active source of powers than it is on a druid where the powers are a kind of passive spell platform. For example, song dragon form grants true seeing, which would be a way to see things that you want to toss spells at on a druid, but it as intrinsic value as just a way to see stuff. Something like the li lung, with its more active earthquake powers, seems especially applicable. Exalted, meanwhile, still offers a lot of the best stuff that it was giving to the druid. Blink dog form for insane dimension door and miss chance powers, unicorn for the odd utility that form grants, and the Ex special qualities of all your animal forms. This would be a really good place for mantle of the beast, because you can blink dog to get in close to an enemy before swift action wild shaping into a bear or dinosaur or whatever. Or, because so many combat forms have pounce, you could pounce in, deal a bunch of damage, swift shape into a blink dog, and get a pile of distance along with a solid position for your next attack. Sounds strong.

All this stuff is more ceiling expanding than floor expanding, because this kinda optimization would likely come after form optimization, but it definitely pulls the class upwards. Anyways, this stuff will probably get more relevant when we evaluate the individual ACFs near the end, but I think it's an interesting thing. I think the overall averaging of normal ability usage with this higher order stuff definitely gets a three for the class.

[remetagross]

Sure, it does expand the ceiling tremendously, but I think it expands the floor nicely too: even if a newbie player (though I guess newbie players don't often stumble upon this AVF) just flipped through the MMI, and didn't actively look for Wild Shape enhancing abilities, he would genuinely pick a wolf, a black bear, an eagle, a snake, and get good mileage out of it.

[eggynack]

Sure, it does expand the ceiling tremendously, but I think it expands the floor nicely too: even if a newbie player (though I guess newbie players don't often stumble upon this AVF) just flipped through the MMI, and didn't actively look for Wild Shape enhancing abilities, he would genuinely pick a wolf, a black bear, an eagle, a snake, and get good mileage out of it.

Nah, wild shape definitely ups the floor. I'm saying these fancy upgrades to wild shape mostly apply to more ceiling oriented analysis.

[Troacctid]

I'm not convinced that Wild Shape gets the Ranger up to T3 on its own without form-adding shenanigans.

[AnachroNinja]

I'm not convinced that Wild Shape gets the Ranger up to T3 on its own without form-adding shenanigans.

The argument can be made that wildshape ranger is tier 3 because it allows access to form adding shenanigans. The variant itself, I'd agree, is too limited on its own but it adds a lot of potential.

[eggynack]

I'm not convinced that Wild Shape gets the Ranger up to T3 on its own without form-adding shenanigans.

Maybe not. You get a lot out of it though. Fleshraker is sweet business as a combat form, and a lot of the fancy non-combat utility was mentioned. Really good movement modes is a big part of it. Reminds me a bit of psychic warrior, actually, because a lot of the non-combat power there was centered in movement stuff. It's possible that four makes sense when you only consider the floor, and three makes sense when you average that together with the ceiling.

[Lans]

Let's look at what wild shape gives- Movement, scouting and combat. Not much but its something.

Lets look at what the ranger gives focusing on class features and 1st level spells- Scouting, battle field control, divinations, minionmancy between charm animal and animal companion, warding spells

Whats its missing from a glance Social skills and teleport/dimension door effect

This look accurate to people?

[AnachroNinja]

Let's look at what wild shape gives- Movement, scouting and combat. Not much but its something.

Lets look at what the ranger gives focusing on class features and 1st level spells- Scouting, battle field control, divinations, minionmancy between charm animal and animal companion, warding spells

Whats its missing from a glance Social skills and teleport/dimension door effect

This look accurate to people?

I'm going to have to say no to them providing meaningful battlefield control or minionmancy. Their best case is providing the same degree of minion support that a commoner does, which is essentially handle animal abuse. They have some versions of those abilities, yes, but not the kind that "solve encounters" generally. And with very limited spells per day, they aren't even doing much of that. And it would come at the sacrifice of using their spells for combat, which is a big loss IMO.

[Bucky]

I'm going to have to say no to them providing meaningful battlefield control or minionmancy. Their best case is providing the same degree of minion support that a commoner does, which is essentially handle animal abuse.

As with Dread Necromancer, there's a large difference between getting whatever animal minion you want and being stuck with the animals that show up on their own.

Also, Entangle is still solid BFC a few levels late.


-----

Wildshape Ranger has the unique capacity of combining Swift Tracking with Scent tracking and fast movement. This alone would put them into T4 IMO.

[Lans]

I'm going to have to say no to them providing meaningful battlefield control or minionmancy. Their best case is providing the same degree of minion support that a commoner does, which is essentially handle animal abuse. They have some versions of those abilities, yes, but not the kind that "solve encounters" generally. And with very limited spells per day, they aren't even doing much of that. And it would come at the sacrifice of using their spells for combat, which is a big loss IMO.

I am assuming wild shape with a full BAB lets him do combat 'quite well', and past that I was just looking for their ability to 'being useful' .

Those two terms are debatable

I think the ranger is better with animals than the commoner. I think an important aspect with minionmancy is putting bodies on the field.

[AnachroNinja]

I am assuming wild shape with a full BAB lets him do combat 'quite well', and past that I was just looking for their ability to 'being useful' .

Those two terms are debatable

I think the ranger is better with animals than the commoner. I think an important aspect with minionmancy is putting bodies on the field.

Well to be honest, plain wild shape being limited to small and medium forms may not even hit "quite well". I haven't personally run the numbers, and they certainly aren't incompetent at it, but they aren't leading the melee pack either. Natural attacks are expensive to upgrade and generally don't benefit from power attack as much. Most of the stronger forms rely on multiple attacks so they lose attack bonus and tend to fare poorly against DR. Your full BAB but you lose iterative attacks unless you go the imp unarmed strike route, in which case your natural attacks suffer further.

What is it about their minionmancy that you feel puts them ahead of just handle animal abuse? Their companion is pretty much a joke. Their charm animal DC is going to be junk and like the aforementioned undead for dread necrosis, animal HD scale for crap so the things you can charm are usually going to be weak compared to what your fighting at most levels. I just don't really see anything great here.

Don't get me wrong, wild shape ranger is amazing as a lead in for MoMFs and warshaper, it's great combined with other ranger ACFs like mystic ranger. On its own though, it's essentially a new combat style that is about on par with most other tier 4 melee classes, with the addition of movement mode boosts on demand. It's pretty good, but especially in a thread where beguilers and dread necros are tier 3, Wildshape Ranger just doesn't make in my opinion.

[Grod_The_Giant]

It's pretty good, but especially in a thread where beguilers and dread necros are tier 3, Wildshape Ranger just doesn't make in my opinion.

I thought that final consensus was that they're mi-tiered and actually T2 in power? Regardless, given the controversy, we probably shouldn't use them for comparisons.

In any case, being a leopard gets you five attacks on a pounce, which is pretty fierce. Full BAB means you can easily power attack on all of them; fewer returns than a greatsword but a lot more swings. If DR is an issue, be a crocodile with a big tail slap or a bite attack plus grappling. Mobility? Plenty of fish and birds, and the Dire Badger can dig a person-sized tunnel through most terrain.

The Wild Shape Ranger reminds me of the Factotum in terms of T3-ness. (Only better, because Wild Shape is a lot easier and punchier than Iajutsu Focus). Never overwhelmingly strong, but between a small-but-strong spell list and wild shape, anyways capable of pulling out something useful.

(Minionmancy I don't really buy, though. Even your companion is useless and should be replaced, at least by an Urban Companion)

[Bucky]

This community tier list seems to be using a rather broad T3; it already includes classes I'd put in both T2 and T4. I don't think this is inherently a problem, though; we can hand out +s and -s afterwards to indicate that Dread Necromancer is better than Duskblade.

[Lans]

(Minionmancy I don't really buy, though. Even your companion is useless and should be replaced, at least by an Urban Companion)

What is it about their minionmancy that you feel puts them ahead of just handle animal abuse? Their companion is pretty much a joke. Their charm animal DC is going to be junk and like the aforementioned undead for dread necrosis, animal HD scale for crap so the things you can charm are usually going to be weak compared to what your fighting at most levels. I just don't really see anything great here.

They get wild empathy, speak with animals and a couple of spells that make finding the animals a bit easier. They might not be much better than the commoner, but I don't think they are the same.

I don't think the minions will be effective in combating things, but they could provide value in disrupting melee attackers by just being a body.

Outside of that its just for senses.

Basically I see the rangers minionmancy as 'being useful' in a very narrow and incredibly minor way. Like a 2/10 vs a 1/10 for the commoner

[eggynack]

This community tier list seems to be using a rather broad T3; it already includes classes I'd put in both T2 and T4. I don't think this is inherently a problem, though; we can hand out +s and -s afterwards to indicate that Dread Necromancer is better than Duskblade.

I mean, it's a problem when classes in our tier three are equal to or better than some classes in tier two. And they are, by my estimation. It makes using them as a tier three point of comparison less passively wrong, because there should maybe be a + there, and more actively wrong, because we're working with an objectively wrong tier.

Anyways, fleshraker is still sweet business. The sailsnake is also notable for its debuffing capacity. Not necessarily something you'd expect out of ranger style wild shape. Swindlespitter does that as well, but I like the sailsnake version. Also, this might finally be the place for proportionate wild shape. Large base forms obviously aren't ideal when you're using wild shape for combat (cause they're costly and such), but large wild shape is neat. Opens a lot of doors for the ranger. I'd still vastly prefer dragon, and prefer exalted by a wide margin as well, but it's not an awful strategy.

[Zanos]

This community tier list seems to be using a rather broad T3; it already includes classes I'd put in both T2 and T4. I don't think this is inherently a problem, though; we can hand out +s and -s afterwards to indicate that Dread Necromancer is better than Duskblade.

Tiers are pretty broad. We're evaluating 67 classes and there's only 6 tiers. The gap between the most and least powerful tier 3, or any other tier for that matter, is pretty wide. Except for maybe tiers 1 and 6, which are sort of defined by having all of the power and none of the power respectively.

[Cosi]

Wild Shape Ranger is also the only class (off the top of my head) that wants to take Master of Many Forms. I'd guess that most people who take Wild Shape Ranger probably do so intending to go Master of Many Forms (the class is pretty exactly optimized for it). That's outside the scope of what the tiers are nominally talking about, but probably needs to be considered if you want a useful ranking. Otherwise you eventually get to the Tier System for PrCs and it either says that MOMF is good for Druids (which is wrong), says its bad for Wild Shape Rangers (which is wrong), or has separate entries for each (which is stupid because they are, IIRC, the only two classes which can qualify for it).

[eggynack]

Wild Shape Ranger is also the only class (off the top of my head) that wants to take Master of Many Forms. I'd guess that most people who take Wild Shape Ranger probably do so intending to go Master of Many Forms (the class is pretty exactly optimized for it). That's outside the scope of what the tiers are nominally talking about, but probably needs to be considered if you want a useful ranking. Otherwise you eventually get to the Tier System for PrCs and it either says that MOMF is good for Druids (which is wrong), says its bad for Wild Shape Rangers (which is wrong), or has separate entries for each (which is stupid because they are, IIRC, the only two classes which can qualify for it).

My thinking is that you consider wild shape ranger outside the context of MoMF, but you consider MoMF largely within the context of wild shape ranger. It sounds weird, but that's just kinda how it'd have to work in general. After all, there are nearly no prestige classes that can be taken before any base class, and few that aren't dependent on particular base classes for some of their utility or entry specifications. Either way, considering the MoMF as a high end average increasing force probably isn't enough to pull the wild shape ranger out of tier three, even if MoMF on a wild shape ranger can arguably hit two. Alternatively, if we do wind up doing prestige classes somehow, it might make sense to ask what the tier is of the "typical builds" associated with the prestige class, instead of using a tier adjustment thing. That method actually wouldn't be that different from what we already had, because the old system had that entry point emphasis anyway, and it'd rate druid and ranger entry more or less the same.