Questions On 3.5, Article 1: "Why Is This A Bad Class?"

[Neon Knight]

Wow, ya think? That's why I said "whoops, sorry, I'll not use MAD to describe that, and explain what I meant and where the misunderstanding was." The issue was RESOLVED. YOU are trolling on.

You'll pardon me, but I did not interpret that from what you posted. Also, your tendency to add edits 3 minutes after you post has led to some confusion, as only after going back to re-read to respond to this did I notice the edits, including one in which you ironically noted this tendency.

From the first drafts I read, it appeared that you said that you understood what I meant, and acknowledged the difference between our definitions, but never particularly said that you would attempt to use the more commonly accepted definition.

Going back and reading the sum of the edits, this is made more clear, and had I been aware of this, much of my previous responses would not have been made. I can assure you that no trolling was occurring; I honestly believed that you were merely conceding to use the definition I was using temporarily, which I thought was an error on your part which would lead to future strife, which I then attempted to correct with disastrous results, as the malady I imagined did not exist.

Therefore, I apologize and withdraw my complaint.

[TimeWizard]

*holds up a picture of some yarn*
Have you seen this thread? It got hijacked at the last juncture and I'm looking to find it. Damn that Jesse James, thread bandit.

[Neon Knight]

*holds up a picture of some yarn*
Have you seen this thread? It got hijacked at the last juncture and I'm looking to find it. Damn Dreaded Thread Bandits.

I berated him for going offtopic even as I drove offtopic. Whatever force makes the world spin, it is surely powered by irony.

And even this is offtopic. Curses.

On an ontopic note: I would like to see more of these articles.

[tainsouvra]

Wow, ya think? That's why I said "whoops, sorry, I'll not use MAD to describe that, and explain what I meant and where the misunderstanding was." The issue was RESOLVED. YOU are trolling on.

You might want to tread a little lighter here, and check out the Forum Rules regarding flaming. They're about halfway down the page, although honestly you might want to brush up on the rest of them while you're at it. Kasrkin wasn't trolling you, but even if he were, the above quote would not be the right way to go about fixing the situation.

[OneWinged4ngel]

You'll pardon me, but I did not interpret that from what you posted. Also, your tendency to add edits 3 minutes after you post has led to some confusion

I'm very sorry about that. It's a long-time habit and I can hardly help myself :(

Therefore, I apologize and withdraw my complaint.

Glad it's resolved.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Please return to the original topic of this thread and tone down the rudeness. Calling each other names, including "troll" is expressly prohibited by the Rules of Posting.

[Hawriel]

umm oh hay is that the topic??? OH!! it is!!

Fax this is a very well done guide. Exept for the Fighter, Monk, and maybe druid (little over power) the core classes are the only ones that I know of messure up to the standerds you layed out. Some prcs do as well. It seems to me that most classes out side the PHB are thrown together just to have content. Alot of the alternative classes do the same thing with different fluff. Like the swashbuckler, I find that a fighter/thief is mutch more effective for portraying the consept.

Any way very good job of putting together a guide on what I half hazerdly had thought about for the past few years.

edit some spelling. its 2am cant think, must go to bed.

[Jasdoif]

Oh, almost forgot! Very nice article.

I was considering a "Why Is This A Good Spell", a "Why Is This Broken", and "Why Is This Level-Adjusted".

I nominate "Why is This Level-Adjusted" for a future article, and hope it covers why something is LA'd instead of RHD'd, and to what degree. Wait, can I nominate articles?

[Fax Celestis]

Oh, almost forgot! Very nice article.

I nominate "Why is This Level-Adjusted" for a future article, and hope it covers why something is LA'd instead of RHD'd, and to what degree. Wait, can I nominate articles?

My next article will depend on popular demand.

[Starsinger]

My next article will depend on popular demand.

I demand them all!!! but next I would like "Why is this level adjusted" or the spell one.

[psychoticbarber]

I'm more interested in "Why Is This Broken?" myself, but that's because I'm not an optimizer and I'd love some help on how to figure out what's broken and what isn't.

[Reinboom]

This was a pleasant read. I would love to see a "Why is this broken?" just to see your take on it or a "Why is this a good spell?".
I'm also interested in one covering Feats.

[Rockphed]

My next article will depend on popular demand.

Hurry up with it then! The People are demanding!

[Townopolis]

[x] "Why is this broken?"

/me casts his ballot.

[knightsaline]

Go for "Why this sucks. A treatise on the more useless features of D&D" or "houserules: optimization or DM powertrip?". If I must have one of the more popular topics, "why this is broken" or "why is this a good spell?"

[Bassetking]

I'm more interested in "Why Is This Broken?" myself, but that's because I'm not an optimizer and I'd love some help on how to figure out what's broken and what isn't.

I'd be happy to extend a helping hand as to Optimization, in all the forms it takes.

[Krellen]

I want to see the article "Why is this Broken: Reasons to Remove the Wizard".

[psychoticbarber]

I'd be happy to extend a helping hand as to Optimization, in all the forms it takes.

It's funny, I hear that sometimes. Honestly, I'd rather it wasn't necessary. But thank you, I shall probably take you up on it occasionally.

[Lemur]

Personally I'd rather not see yet another thread flaunting the word "broken" around. I get tired of reading that stuff after a while. It's generally easy to tell when something is broken in context, because things stop being fun for everyone.

The top of my preferences would be a "why this is a good spell" one. Generally spells are the harder part of the system for beginners to pick up on, simply because there's so many of them, and the only way to really learn about them is to read the descriptions. That can be a pretty daunting task, and even then, there are always traps, which look like they're good, but are not very good in practice. I think a guide of what to look for in a spell of a given level and why would be the most useful, for both a player and DM perspective.

[Jack Mann]

Surely some over-pedantic person will appear now and lecture everyone about the etymology being from the swashing sounds of sword-and-buckler fighting. oops, I'm the monster at the end of this book!

Yo.

A swashbuckler swashes (meaning strikes) his buckler, as a taunt. As Rex says, it goes back to a style involving swords and bucklers. It refers to a style involving a certain amount of bravado and posturing, wherein fighters would show their opponents that they weren't worried about them.

Today, of course, they'd just post nasty things about each other on internet message boards.

[Glyphic]

I'd love to hear about "Why is this level adjusted"

[Sir Giacomo]

Hi everyone and Fax_Celestis,

the rules given by Fax_Celestis are well-written and nicely sum up what various posters on these and other boards believe classes in DD3.5 or whereever should be and how they should be measured.

Unfortunately, imo, these rules are also completely wrong.

Let me try to explain along Fax_Celestis' original 6 rules.

Rule 1: I Have A Party Role

The class can help to define your party role, but you can be virtually everything with every class you choose. There is a lot of flexibility available. Want to be a scholar with fits of strange rage? Choose the barbarian class and get cross-class skill ranks for languages and scholarly stuff (you even have craft as a class skill, you could be a jeweller or some such). Want to be a fighting wizard? Get high STR and use your spells for melee purposes. It does not matter.
The problem in hunting for classes to do this and that is that, in particular, newbies asking for help on the boards can get swamped by strange advice saying "you want to swing your sword really well? Be a Czilla. Want to go melee? Become a dire bear shaped druid and get a fighting machine ac alongside. Want to be a cool wizard? Forget about fireball and read (insert logicninjaguide etc)". While using some concepts to replace other classes completely is most of the time ignoring the drawbacks for doing so, it often also opposes the fluff that players wish their characters to have. You simply CANNOT replace a fighter if you want to play a good melee fighter with a druid if you do not wish to have any magical abilities.

Furthermore, your party role greatly varies with what the other players choose. If you wish to be the one wading into melee why then try to top another one's niche by replacing your fighter (original idea) with a cleric and then make someone less useful who wanted to play a bard who specialises in healing and medicine for the party? (note that this situation is completely independent of whether mechanically for overcoming certain foes a cleric is stronger than a bard)

Conversely, if you love to use the game mechanics to your heart's delight to overcome challenges way above what the game intended for the level, and your fellow players also like to do that, go ahead and have fun.

But ranking a class for what kind of "role" it offers is not a good idea.

Rule 2: I Can Do Something No One Else Can

This is a much better rule idea, because once the game introduces a concept of classes, it should offer something that distinguishes it from others. Unfortunately, Fax then maintains that there are weaker and less useful unique abilities and this misses the point completely.

In a game that is meant to simulate some kind of fantasy reality, it is simply impossible to say that a fighter's +2 damage from weapon specialisation will not in some instances be more useful than a 9th level spell (vulnerabilities/probabilties for losing/wasting/activating either come to mind, for instance).

It all, therefore, depends on the kind of game. If your DM is having a campaign where magic rarely is opposed, of coure wizards will rule. If, on the other hand, there is a DM who has his campaign full of obstacles for magic, then of course non-magic abilities will rule. Most of the style (not RAW! or even RAI) I encounter on these boards is full of spellcasters never needing to fear that they run out of spells, for instance. Which is no problem - but it becomes a problem if this is assumed to be normal and classes are rated and recommended in general on this basis.

Rule 3: I Am Unique
Classes that reward uniqueness and ingenuity are good classes. For instance, the Spellthief rewards those who find inventive ways to steal their foes' own powers to use against them.

This is essentially a variant of the first two rules, so it does not really need a separate commenting.

Rule 4: I Am Not Dependent On More Than Three Stats
...and even three stats is pushing it.

The MAD myth at some point came up and has lingered since in many posters' minds. Why, I wonder?
NO class is MAD.
ALL classes make use of high stats, and lose from having lower stats.
The ONLY classes that really NEED high stats at all are, funnily, the spellcasting classes, because even a fighter with STR 8 can wield a two-handed sword, while a wizard with INT 8 cannot cast a single spell.
Of course, feats often need minimum stats, but ALL classes have access to feats (the fighter only feats do not have minimum stats as far as I know). It may be argued, therefore, that the fighter has some sort of MAD if he wants to develop several combat styles. But the stats required for most chains are around 13, so not completely out of range for most characters, in particular with point buy systems.

Fax here commits a widespread error by saying an "effective" monk or "effective" paladin needs that and that high stat. This is not true. For instance, there are various ways to build great monks (in terms of power or fluff) with the highest and second highest stat going to either DEX/WIS, or STR/WIS or CHR/INT, or CHR/DEX or whatever.

Stats are basically there, most of the time, to portray how you believe your character should be like in the campaign relative to others. If it were not for spells, you could choose your stats completely independent from class.

Rule 5: I Have Room For Personalization
Classes that look exactly like every other member of their class are generally bad classes. Good classes have the ability to personalize the class--even if merely through bonus feats. In this regard, a Fighter is a decent class: it is the ultimate in personalization (but see Rule 2 for why it's still a bad class). Spellcasters are also good classes since their spells known, prepared, carried on scrolls, et al. are different from one spellcaster to the next. No two Wizards will have the same spellbook; no two Sorcerors will know the same spells.

On the other hand, the Paladin class--aside from its spellcasting--has no room to personalize the class. Every Paladin gains the same features, and as such presents a very one-sided "kind" of Paladin. Certainly, one can personalize through other means--race, feat selection, spell use, personality--but the class itself does not assist in that regard.

Another misconception. No one paladin (although quite focused) will be similar to another. Skill choices, feat choices, mount choices, background, culture (Arthurian knight, samurai, kung fu master, temple guard, renaissance philosopher, whatever), all can be used to create your own personal paladin, and it is this way with all core base classes.
All the base classes offer enough potential for individuality.

Rule 6: I Have A Reason To Not Enter A Prestige Class
Surprisingly, most classes are bad offenders of this--the spellcasting classes even more so than others. A good class rewards a player for staying within its bounds for his entire career; a bad one has no reason for a player to stay inside it.

Here in part I have to agree - if you design prestige classes that offer more but do not take away much from the original class, it could mean that it is not well-balanced vs the base classes.
However, entry requirements (for instance, the loremaster) can push you into a direction that you do not wish to take. Even the widely celebrated Abjurant Champion that has virtually no drawbacks vs a pure spell user means your character develops into a direction (more combat-oriented) that not all players would want to like.
Prestige classes, much more than base classes, are meant to provide a certain kind of flavour or "fluff" which may deter many players. For instance, while the dervish makes a fighter very powerful, its style may not be for everyone.

- Giacomo

[Jasdoif]

Another misconception. No one paladin (although quite focused) will be similar to another. Skill choices, feat choices, mount choices, background, culture (Arthurian knight, samurai, kung fu master, temple guard, renaissance philosopher, whatever), all can be used to create your own personal paladin, and it is this way with all core base classes.
All the base classes offer enough potential for individuality.

Interesting...so you feel it's OK that the Paladin class only has the avenues of potential customization that the Commoner class has?


Hmm. I think that's where a lot of your complaints are coming from. The article looks to be not about all the characters that can take a class, but about the classes themselves on an abstract level. As I've mentioned before, a character concept for "warrior fighting in the name of his deity" can fit with a lot of classes: Paladin or Crusader are the obvious ones, but Cleric, Barbarian, Fighter, etc. could also fit; depending on the specifics of your concept.

Having a particular character concept in mind doesn't mean you have to take the most obvious class for it, anymore then picking a class means you have to take the obvious descriptives associated with it. To that end, this is article is handy for evaluating your class options (or if you're so inclined, for building a new class).

[Journey]

Interesting...so you feel it's OK that the Paladin class only has the avenues of potential customization that the Commoner class has?

Hmm. I think that's where a lot of your complaints are coming from. The article looks to be not about all the characters that can take a class, but about the classes themselves on an abstract level.

Let's look at it from a different angle. Why should playing with a different in-game style necessarily lead to a mechanical effect? You yourself note that a character concept can be represented by a multitude of classes. Likewise the same class can be played with different styles by different characters and bring a completely different, unique flavor to the character and class without altering the mechanics at all.

[Starsinger]

Hi everyone and Fax_Celestis,


The class can help to define your party role, but you can be virtually everything with every class you choose. There is a lot of flexibility available. Want to be a scholar with fits of strange rage? Choose the barbarian class and get cross-class skill ranks for languages and scholarly stuff (you even have craft as a class skill, you could be a jeweller or some such). Want to be a fighting wizard? Get high STR and use your spells for melee purposes. It does not matter.
The problem in hunting for classes to do this and that is that, in particular, newbies asking for help on the boards can get swamped by strange advice saying "you want to swing your sword really well? Be a Czilla. Want to go melee? Become a dire bear shaped druid and get a fighting machine ac alongside. Want to be a cool wizard? Forget about fireball and read (insert logicninjaguide etc)". While using some concepts to replace other classes completely is most of the time ignoring the drawbacks for doing so, it often also opposes the fluff that players wish their characters to have. You simply CANNOT replace a fighter if you want to play a good melee fighter with a druid if you do not wish to have any magical abilities.

Furthermore, your party role greatly varies with what the other players choose. If you wish to be the one wading into melee why then try to top another one's niche by replacing your fighter (original idea) with a cleric and then make someone less useful who wanted to play a bard who specialises in healing and medicine for the party? (note that this situation is completely independent of whether mechanically for overcoming certain foes a cleric is stronger than a bard)

Conversely, if you love to use the game mechanics to your heart's delight to overcome challenges way above what the game intended for the level, and your fellow players also like to do that, go ahead and have fun.

But ranking a class for what kind of "role" it offers is not a good idea.

Not what kind, but the fact that Monk offers no real role. Not dying isn't a particularly useful party role. Anyone can take cross class skills, so saying that a monk can pump up their charisma and take cross class ranks of UMD doesn't make monk a useful character because they can fill the "use magic items" role, especially since such a role doesn't exist, and even if it was a role, Bards and Rogues, and hell even Sorcerers who have it cross class, can do it better.

This is a much better rule idea, because once the game introduces a concept of classes, it should offer something that distinguishes it from others. Unfortunately, Fax then maintains that there are weaker and less useful unique abilities and this misses the point completely.

In a game that is meant to simulate some kind of fantasy reality, it is simply impossible to say that a fighter's +2 damage from weapon specialisation will not in some instances be more useful than a 9th level spell (vulnerabilities/probabilties for losing/wasting/activating either come to mind, for instance).

It all, therefore, depends on the kind of game. If your DM is having a campaign where magic rarely is opposed, of coure wizards will rule. If, on the other hand, there is a DM who has his campaign full of obstacles for magic, then of course non-magic abilities will rule. Most of the style (not RAW! or even RAI) I encounter on these boards is full of spellcasters never needing to fear that they run out of spells, for instance. Which is no problem - but it becomes a problem if this is assumed to be normal and classes are rated and recommended in general on this basis.

Some mechanics aren't unique. Sudden Strike for example is totally inferior to Sneak Attack (Ambush is slightly, but has some bonuses because it's based on movement rather than being in the right spot).
Sudden strike is an example of a non-unique class feature.
This is essentially a variant of the first two rules, so it does not really need a separate commenting. Infact, Ninja can do next to nothing that someone else can't. Neither can the CW Samurai, or the Bear Warrior PrC which turns barbarians into Druids who can only wild shape bear and can't cast spells.

The MAD myth at some point came up and has lingered since in many posters' minds. Why, I wonder?
NO class is MAD.
ALL classes make use of high stats, and lose from having lower stats.
The ONLY classes that really NEED high stats at all are, funnily, the spellcasting classes, because even a fighter with STR 8 can wield a two-handed sword, while a wizard with INT 8 cannot cast a single spell.
Of course, feats often need minimum stats, but ALL classes have access to feats (the fighter only feats do not have minimum stats as far as I know). It may be argued, therefore, that the fighter has some sort of MAD if he wants to develop several combat styles. But the stats required for most chains are around 13, so not completely out of range for most characters, in particular with point buy systems.

Fax here commits a widespread error by saying an "effective" monk or "effective" paladin needs that and that high stat. This is not true. For instance, there are various ways to build great monks (in terms of power or fluff) with the highest and second highest stat going to either DEX/WIS, or STR/WIS or CHR/INT, or CHR/DEX or whatever.

Stats are basically there, most of the time, to portray how you believe your character should be like in the campaign relative to others. If it were not for spells, you could choose your stats completely independent from class.

Bard- Your unique class features (Bardic Music and Spellcasting) require a good charisma score

Fighter- Needs a decent Strength or Dex to be an effective fighter, then the other stats are all kinda gravy, except Charisma which doesn't do much for fighter types.

Cleric- All you need is a good wisdom score for your most powerful class feature (spell casting). And for Turn Undead you just need a decent charisma (10 works).

Monk- Hurt badly by point buy, since monks have great use for dex, wis, con, and str. You could get by without strength and be some weapon finesse monk (who won't do much damage). That's 3 stats you want good. When you go to the magic item wal-mart to get your +2 stat item which do you buy? When your buddy the Wizard is buying a +6 int item you're debating between a bunch of +2s or a pair of +4s.

Another misconception. No one paladin (although quite focused) will be similar to another. Skill choices, feat choices, mount choices, background, culture (Arthurian knight, samurai, kung fu master, temple guard, renaissance philosopher, whatever), all can be used to create your own personal paladin, and it is this way with all core base classes.
All the base classes offer enough potential for individuality.

Individuality is not mechanical difference! All level 2 paladins have the same class features. The only other point of customization (besides spells) is if one paladin takes an improved mount over the standard magical pony.

Here in part I have to agree - if you design prestige classes that offer more but do not take away much from the original class, it could mean that it is not well-balanced vs the base classes.
However, entry requirements (for instance, the loremaster) can push you into a direction that you do not wish to take. Even the widely celebrated Abjurant Champion that has virtually no drawbacks vs a pure spell user means your character develops into a direction (more combat-oriented) that not all players would want to like.
Prestige classes, much more than base classes, are meant to provide a certain kind of flavour or "fluff" which may deter many players. For instance, while the dervish makes a fighter very powerful, its style may not be for everyone.

- Giacomo

Loremaster gives you free feats, to cover what you spent, so basically you get something for nothing, especially since wizards easily fall into the other requirements. So no, Loremaster doesn't particularly put you down a path you didn't want to tread. Unless you mean flavorwise... But I'm fairly certain that this is a mechanical discussion, I could be wrong.

[Person_Man]

Nice article Fax. I hope to see others.

There's a very thin needle that needs to be threaded on class design. You want the class to have a niche, to be powerful within its niche, but to be flexible enough that you're not playing a machine that constantly does the same thing over and over again (the trap of many melee builds that focus on high charge damage, or tripping, or ranged attacks). This tension between niche, power, and flexibility is very difficult to do well.

Essentially, your gaming group just has to sit down and discuss what each person wants to do, and how they want to do it. This gives each person niche protection. Then you need to agree upon a general power level (always hard to balance in a party with casters and non-casters). And then you need to choose your magic items/feats/spells in such a way that you have more then one useful thing to do.

Discussions like this one help. Hopefully, 4th ed will help even more.

[Saph]

Very nice article. Please write more, Fax. :)

- Saph

[dyslexicfaser]

Not what kind, but the fact that Monk offers no real role. Not dying isn't a particularly useful party role.

I would just like to mention that 'not dying' can be a very useful party role. That is the purpose of a tank, yes?

Anyway, to me the monk is one of those classes that isn't great at any one thing, but can be useful in several capacities. Other classes fit the 4 basic roles better, it's true, but there's something to be said for being able to take up various roles depending on changing battle conditions.

Fax, a good little article overall. I'd like to hear your thoughts on LA: we get more than enough topics about broken/not-broken on this board.

EDIT: I like - and am defensive about - monks. Can you tell?

[Ulzgoroth]

Loremaster gives you free feats, to cover what you spent, so basically you get something for nothing, especially since wizards easily fall into the other requirements. So no, Loremaster doesn't particularly put you down a path you didn't want to tread. Unless you mean flavorwise... But I'm fairly certain that this is a mechanical discussion, I could be wrong.

It gives you one feat, assuming (probably safely) that you pick that as one of your secrets. You can't re-pick it, and the class takes 4 feats to get into. Though a wizard gets one of those for free, and probably takes another with their level 5 bonus feat.

I would just like to mention that 'not dying' can be a very useful party role. That is the purpose of a tank, yes?

Anyway, to me the monk is one of those classes that isn't great at any one thing, but can be useful in several capacities. Other classes fit the 4 basic roles better, it's true, but there's something to be said for being able to take up various roles depending on changing battle conditions.

That isn't really the purpose of the tank. The tank's purpose is either to draw attention away from the squishies, or failing that (as is very likely to happen unless you've got a Knight) to inflict improbable quantities of damage very fast. Just staying alive is useless...any remotely intelligent foe will just walk around you and eat the wizard.

The problem with the monk is that there's almost nothing it can do to the enemy. A monk can grapple a magic user, if there is one, and that's good if freedom of movement doesn't interfere, and if you don't get homogenized by a nearby enemy while you're standing still without dex to AC. But besides that, what have you got? You hit like a healbot and have AC like a rogue.

Monks off the battlefield do one thing nicely, at least. They're good escorts for a rogue on an infiltration mission, probably better than a second rogue would be.

[firemagehao]

Interesting...so you feel it's OK that the Paladin class only has the avenues of potential customization that the Commoner class has?

Actually, the Commoner class can be customized very effectively using the 'flaws for Commoners' article in Dragon #330.