Why each class is in its tier: 2019 update!

[illyahr]

I would like to note that the shugenja gets an expanded spell list from the Rokugan Campaign Setting and Magic of Rokugan books. With the influx of an additional 100-200 spells, the versatility of the class expands greatly.

Second note: It also adds several clan techniques for OA samurai to use their bonus feats for, such as The Pincer Hold, The Tail Strikes which allows you to automatically threaten a critical on a hit after a feint.

[Sutr]

I know those are third party, and since this thread doesn't have Rokugan Ninja or Courtier on the list going to assume that it doesn't factor 3.0 third party publishers. Those feats include some really nice things for samurai though and I think the spells were pretty good.

[Luccan]

I would like to note that the shugenja gets an expanded spell list from the Rokugan Campaign Setting and Magic of Rokugan books. With the influx of an additional 100-200 spells, the versatility of the class expands greatly.

Second note: It also adds several clan techniques for OA samurai to use their bonus feats for, such as The Pincer Hold, The Tail Strikes which allows you to automatically threaten a critical on a hit after a feint.

Every d20 Rokugan product that isn't OA is third-party and thus falls outside the consideration of the tier list. Though if you started a different thread you might get some input on whether or not it would move Shugenjas and OA Samurai.

[Luccan]

Having spent some time looking at Sohei's spell list with Exalted spells, I think it might scrape the edge of T4, but I just don't think it's enough to escape T5, especially since it relies so heavily on that one source to do so. For now, that's my vote.

[Troacctid]

And it's back in T5 once more! That didn't last too long.

[illyahr]

I know those are third party, and since this thread doesn't have Rokugan Ninja or Courtier on the list going to assume that it doesn't factor 3.0 third party publishers. Those feats include some really nice things for samurai though and I think the spells were pretty good.

The third edition OA is the WotC version of L5R, used with permission from AEG. AEG saw it and asked to create a series of books with it. They are, in effect, extensions of Oriental Adventures made by the people who WotC made OA from. Weird legal loopholes, go!

Having spent some time looking at Sohei's spell list with Exalted spells, I think it might scrape the edge of T4, but I just don't think it's enough to escape T5, especially since it relies so heavily on that one source to do so. For now, that's my vote.

Is that with the 3.5 conversion or without? They got a lot better when they were converted to 3.5 in Dragon Magazine

[Luccan]

The third edition OA is the WotC version of L5R, used with permission from AEG. AEG saw it and asked to create a series of books with it. They are, in effect, extensions of Oriental Adventures made by the people who WotC made OA from. Weird legal loopholes, go!



Is that with the 3.5 conversion or without? They got a lot better when they were converted to 3.5 in Dragon Magazine

Whatever the case, further L5R products aren't first party and material that isn't first party tends to be left out of the tier considerations (the closest exceptions being the Dragon Compendium classes and the OA update to 3.5 from Dragon Magazine).

I am thinking of the 3.5 conversion with my vote. I'm even throwing in Exalted spells for good measure, even though probably a third or less sohei could actually use it.

Sohei did get better. Relative to their most similar classes, though, it isn't a big shift. They're still dependent on a lot of limited per day features that aren't particularly impressive and these abilities are backing up a lackluster chassis. You basically have some of the benefits of a single classed Barbarian, Paladin, or Monk, but weaker. Sohei is a victim of being too weak initially and not important enough to properly update. It's obviously lacking compared to the prime 1/3 casters Paladin and Ranger in casting. It can't benefit from almost anything that buffs Rage like a Barbarian. And like a Monk their BAB holds them back from being a true beatstick, plus they don't even get Flurry of Blows whenever they want, it's tied to their worse-Rage.

[illyahr]

Whatever the case, further L5R products aren't first party and material that isn't first party tends to be left out of the tier considerations (the closest exceptions being the Dragon Compendium classes and the OA update to 3.5 from Dragon Magazine).

It's a shame, too. Some of that stuff is really good.

I am thinking of the 3.5 conversion with my vote. I'm even throwing in Exalted spells for good measure, even though probably a third or less sohei could actually use it.

Sohei did get better. Relative to their most similar classes, though, it isn't a big shift. They're still dependent on a lot of limited per day features that aren't particularly impressive and these abilities are backing up a lackluster chassis. You basically have some of the benefits of a single classed Barbarian, Paladin, or Monk, but weaker. Sohei is a victim of being too weak initially and not important enough to properly update. It's obviously lacking compared to the prime 1/3 casters Paladin and Ranger in casting. It can't benefit from almost anything that buffs Rage like a Barbarian. And like a Monk their BAB holds them back from being a true beatstick, plus they don't even get Flurry of Blows whenever they want, it's tied to their worse-Rage.

Fair. It's been a while since I looked at it.

[Luccan]

It's a shame, too. Some of that stuff is really good.



Fair. It's been a while since I looked at it.

Some of it is good, but choosing to include 3rd party material is too broad and any limitations on that would be extremely arbitrary. Even more than banning 3rd party material outright is, since at the very least there's a good chance a first party product will be allowed at any theoretical table. And most classes' tier placements aren't effected by the banning of one or two books (and those that are have been discussed extensively at this point).

I really do like sohei, if I'm honest. If only for the sheer strangeness of its existence as said Barb/Pally/Monk. It's got a lot wrong with it that Hexblade has: special abilities and casting spells in armor were way overvalued in 3.0/early 3.5. If Cleric and Druid weren't legacy classes, I think they would've been hit pretty bad by this too, if I'm honest. I can easily see the "introduced in 3e" Cleric being basically a slightly improved Adept.

[ShuckedAeons]

I think an honorable mention should be made for the feat Mind Cleave (CP page 56) and its ilk for increasing the power of the Soul Knife.

It increases the uses of Psychic Strike by a small margin in my play experience, but those saved actions are precious. Possibly I felt like it was better than it actually was. I don’t think it deserves anything but tier 5, but there wasn’t much discussion on the topic.

As a side note: the mind blade is often called inferior to the Soulbound Weapon ACF for the Psychic Warrior, but I feel like that’s a bit disingenuous as well. I feel this way because the mind blade is always free, while the Psychic Warrior will always need to spend power points to summon his weapon, which he doesn’t have a ton of until later levels.
(Even though soulbound weapon is much more flexible in practice)

[Troacctid]

I definitely agree that soulbound weapon is not the same as a mind blade. I'm not sold on Mind Cleave though. Personally, I'm more into Dire Flail Mind Blade + Dire Flail Smash.

[ShuckedAeons]

One of the main reasons I mention mind cleave is because I’m led to believe by the wording that when you drop a foe with Knife to the Soul it will automatically recharge Psychic Strike, so suddenly if Knife to the Soul can trivialize some encounters.

Is this a good trick? I dunno, not really I’d say, but there wasn’t really any mention of it before.

[RedMage125]

I posted this in the Warmage thread, but I realized it more properly belongs here:

No, the existing 6-tier system is a straightforward ranking of power. That's why classes like spirit shaman, urban druid, death master, and erudite are T2, despite their versatility. You should really read over "Why each class is in its tier" again. https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...r-2019-update!

I would say it ranks "power and versatility", because versatility is a consideration for Tier standing. But Power is slightly more important, because being able to chose among many mediocre actions in play is not as good as having 2 really good ones. But versatility is still important for ranking, as it is basically the distinction between Tier 1 and Tier 2. If you think about it, Tier 2 is barely a distinct Tier by itself. But Tier 1 classes are SO powerful, that the classes that can do any, but not all of the things that Tier 1 can do are still above a Tier 3. So I would say the difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 is versatility, but only because POWER sets both them above other Tiers.

An important distinction, though, and one that seems to be completely missed by people who somehow "object" to the system is that the Tier System does, in fact, consider that Player>Build>Class. And the Tier System only ranks Class. Because some specific feat/spell/gear/PrC choices (all of which fall under "build") can move a class up or down a Tier, that has no bearing on the abilities of the class itself. Someone could build a wizard and only take damage-dealing "blasting" spells, and that character will be worse it doing that than a warmage, who would have more spells per day, more spells to choose from spontaneously, more hp and better armor. And of course, the skill of the player is even more important, because a 3e veteran could build a "batman wizard" for an inexperienced player, and that character may still perform below Tier 1 guidelines. The Tier System works to set a baseline for DM expectations of party capabilities, and to perhaps give guideline for where more leeway in other areas (+LA races and such) can and should be given freely.

To that end, I actually disagree with this new list's placement of the Fighter in Tier 4. I think the Fighter still clearly belongs in Tier 5. Why? Because the Fighter has no actual class features, beyond bonus feats. And while there are a lot of them, that doesn't make up for a lack of clear class identity (as opposed to, say Barbarian or Rogue). Is the Fighter a heavy armor-wearing melee guy? Is he an archer? Is he a TWF-er? The Fighter's massive amount of feats to select don't count as much of an advantage due to Red Mage Fallacy*: Versatility In Choice is not an Advantage when that Choice cannot be changed. To highlight this, I need to make a slight tangent about why, for example, I would say that the Core Pathfinder Fighter (no archetypes or ACFs) counts as Tier 4. First, the PF Fighter gets actual class abilities (Armor Training, Weapon Training, etc.), and more importantly, one of the core rule changes in PF affects the Fighter even more sharply. Feat retraining built into the Core Rules. A Fighter may, upon levelling up, trade away a feat that was useful early on, for a better one, provided it is not a prerequisite for a current feat or PrC. So the Fighter has an identity. He is someone who wears armor better (less ACP, higher max DEX) and can have higher to-hit with weapons than anyone else. A level 9 Fighter with a bastard sword, for example, has a higher to-hit with that weapon than any other Full-BAB class, even with the same feats and same magic bonus to the weapon. And after level 7, he can "Tumble" (I know PF uses the Acrobatics and the check is different, but same concept) in heavy armor, something previously only in the purview of dwarves in 3.5e. The PF Fighter now meets JaronK's definition of Tier 4, someone who is "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. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength.". Low Tier 4 to be sure, but meets the definition by itself with no need for build considerations.

This point is, of course, predicated on using JaronK's definitions. I like eggynack, but I don't find that his Tier definitions are very clear. I can't look at any one Tier definition and understand what it is by itself. While I stand by what I said about Tier 2 earlier, that's more of a result of looking at all the Tiers together. JaronK's Tier 2, for example, said "while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes.". That tells me that a class that can do ANYTHING, but not EVERYTHING in one build is a Tier 2. You'll note that in JaronK's original post, Tier 2 is the only Tier that defines itself by relation to another Tier (hence why I said it is barely a distinct Tier). The rest of JaronK's Tiers have a description that I can read as a distinct understanding. All of eggynack's are: "like [Tier above this one], but slightly less powerful", and most include an example class as a part of the definition of the tier. Calling a Tier "Ranger/Barbarian territory" before you even define what else that Tier could be, really poisons the well as far as having an objective understanding of how we are ranking each of the classes.

*

Spoiler: Red Mage Fallacy

Show

I should clarify that this is something I came up with years ago on the old WotC Gleemax boards, when I had a different forum handle. It's named after the 8-Bit Theatre character, much like my current handle, and is not named after me. If you're not familiar with the webcomic, it uses Final Fantasy sprites, and Red Mage is a character obsessed with being the most versatile. He also has 4th-wall breaking access to his own character sheet, and he will cheat by erasing and marking it to give himself new skills he did not have before.
It came about when discussing, early in 4e, how most races got +2 to two fixed stats, but humans got only +2 to one stat, but they could pick it. But once you chose that stat (let's use DEX for example), you were now 2 stat points behind every other race that got a bonus to DEX and something else.
To be clear, Red Mage Fallacy is only really the case in situations where one is being offered Versatility in choosing less powerful options, as opposed to just being offered more powerful options, and this dichotomy is somehow presented as "equitable".

[NigelWalmsley]

Player>Build>Class

This is not nearly as true as it is typically taken to be, for a variety of reasons. The biggest one is that those things are not independent. Your class is a build choice, and people who build powerful characters typically play them effectively as well. It's also much harder to go up from a bad class than down from a good one, which undermines the spirit the truism is often used it. You can build a Wizard who's worse than the average Fighter, but it's much harder to build a Fighter who's as good as the average Wizard. Finally, it's typically not really relevant in practice, as most groups don't have large differentials in player skill.

And the Tier System only ranks Class.

I mean, that might be the platonic intent of the tier system as handed down by JaronK or whatever, but it's pretty obvious in practice that the things people expect to use the tiers for include some measure of ranking builds. If you tell someone that the Fighter is T5, but admit that the Fighters people play in practice are T3, you are not providing them with useful information.

The Tier System works to set a baseline for DM expectations of party capabilities, and to perhaps give guideline for where more leeway in other areas (+LA races and such) can and should be given freely.

If your system doesn't take into account the benefit people get from "other stuff", it can't safely be used to decide how much "other stuff" to get. If a favorable ruling on a PrC can take a class from T3 to T1, the tier system can't be used to decide which classes should get favorable rulings on PrCs. Not to mention that most of the DM traps are specific abilities, not classes. Telling a DM "watch out for Wizards" isn't actually useful, because the Wizard tricks are all "this spell does crazy things", and not anything in particular to do with Wizard class features.

And while there are a lot of them, that doesn't make up for a lack of clear class identity (as opposed to, say Barbarian or Rogue). Is the Fighter a heavy armor-wearing melee guy? Is he an archer? Is he a TWF-er?

I don't understand how you think this is relevant. "Having a clear identity" doesn't make a class powerful. Being powerful makes a class powerful. Whether a class is tightly themed or not doesn't particularly matter. The Samurai is tightly themed, but the stuff the get to support that theme is slightly less than you'd get from just cashing in your Fighter Bonus Feats, so the class is bad.

All of eggynack's are: "like [Tier above this one], but slightly less powerful",

Yes, because that's what tiers actually are. Look at, say, Smogon viability ratings. The difference between A and A+ is just that things in A+ are better than things in A. Some of them are more versatile, some of them are just stronger. JaronK's "detailed tier descriptions" are just things constructed post hoc from the categories you happen to get when you group 3e's classes in different piles.

Calling a Tier "Ranger/Barbarian territory" before you even define what else that Tier could be, really poisons the well as far as having an objective understanding of how we are ranking each of the classes.

No, not having an objective mechanism for deciding rankings poisons the well for objective understanding. Both JaronK's tiers and eggynack's tiers have the methodology of "a group of people argue about things". That's not objective, and it's not magically more objective because JaronK didn't make his biases explicit. If you wanted an objective ranking, you'd define an objective, testable standard for "Tier 1" and "Tier 2" and so on, so that people could meaningfully reproduce your results. You can't do that with either set of tiers, you can just agree with them or not agree with them.

[RedMage125]

This is not nearly as true as it is typically taken to be, for a variety of reasons. The biggest one is that those things are not independent. Your class is a build choice, and people who build powerful characters typically play them effectively as well. It's also much harder to go up from a bad class than down from a good one, which undermines the spirit the truism is often used it. You can build a Wizard who's worse than the average Fighter, but it's much harder to build a Fighter who's as good as the average Wizard. Finally, it's typically not really relevant in practice, as most groups don't have large differentials in player skill.

Class still provides the baseline for what a character can do, and obviously the best Fighter will not reach the abilities of the average Wizard.

Welcome to the point of the Tier System.

The Tier System judges the classes in a vacuum. Only what the class can do is relevant. And I've known plenty of people who have used guides to build "optimized" characters that they play like low-op characters, which is why Player > Build > Class. Everything else you've said actually supports that, so I don't understand your opening claim.

And as far as "most groups don't have large differentials in player skill", I'd like to see the data you have to support that claim, if you are claiming that to be an objective fact. My experience, and what I have seen from testimonials on the boards, is that it is very common for a group to have a less experienced, or even brand-new player at the table. In the last few years, I have moved from playing with consistent groups at people's houses, to playing at my FLGS. The people that drop in and out of those games vary from experienced veterans who keep great track of their abilities and use tactics wisely, to brand new noobs that can barely remember which die the d20 is.

I mean, that might be the platonic intent of the tier system as handed down by JaronK or whatever, but it's pretty obvious in practice that the things people expect to use the tiers for include some measure of ranking builds. If you tell someone that the Fighter is T5, but admit that the Fighters people play in practice are T3, you are not providing them with useful information.

So...you claim that "the things people expect to use the tiers for" is something that the Tier System explicitly says it does not cover?

Look, here is the link to the original Tier System. In the introduction, JaronK spells out what it is for. Maybe you should familiarize yourself with it so you know what you're talking about.

And I am aware that there are some people who act like the Tier System is some be-all-end-all of "you should only play Tier 1 classes, everything else sucks", but those people are also misunderstanding the Tier System. Not to mention being A-holes.

If your system doesn't take into account the benefit people get from "other stuff", it can't safely be used to decide how much "other stuff" to get. If a favorable ruling on a PrC can take a class from T3 to T1, the tier system can't be used to decide which classes should get favorable rulings on PrCs. Not to mention that most of the DM traps are specific abilities, not classes. Telling a DM "watch out for Wizards" isn't actually useful, because the Wizard tricks are all "this spell does crazy things", and not anything in particular to do with Wizard class features.

This is kind of nonsensical to me, and I think it was in part because I was less clear in what I said that you responded to this with. Allow me to clarify.

To do so, I'm just going to quote JaronK: "To help DMs judge what should be allowed and what shouldn't in their games. It may sound cheesy when the Fighter player wants to be a Half Minotaur Water Orc, but if the rest of his party is Druid, Cloistered Cleric, Archivist, and Artificer, then maybe you should allow that to balance things out. However, if the player is asking to be allowed to be a Venerable White Dragonspawn Dragonwrought Kobold Sorcerer and the rest of the party is a Monk, a Fighter, and a Rogue, maybe you shouldn't let that fly."

I don't understand how you think this is relevant. "Having a clear identity" doesn't make a class powerful. Being powerful makes a class powerful. Whether a class is tightly themed or not doesn't particularly matter. The Samurai is tightly themed, but the stuff the get to support that theme is slightly less than you'd get from just cashing in your Fighter Bonus Feats, so the class is bad.

No, "having a clear identity" helps judge how effective the class is, and helps judge its placement in Tier ranking. One of the things that keep the Fighter in Tier 5 is the lack of class features that keep it from being able to meet Tier 4 rankings. Since feats choices are a factor of "Build", and the Tier System is meant to judge Class only (all other factors assumed to be equal), one cannot adequately judge whether or not the Fighter's class abilities allow it to "be effective" at anything, really.

And honestly, the CW Samurai is so bad that even though this ranks it as "low Tier 5", I agree with JaronK that it's down in Tier 6 with the Commoner.

Yes, because that's what tiers actually are. Look at, say, Smogon viability ratings. The difference between A and A+ is just that things in A+ are better than things in A. Some of them are more versatile, some of them are just stronger. JaronK's "detailed tier descriptions" are just things constructed post hoc from the categories you happen to get when you group 3e's classes in different piles.

Nope. Wrong.

Having a distinct definition of "Tier 3 means X, Tier 4 means Y" clarifies, for each class, what the criteria of each Tier is.

Having just a gradient scale like this is just ranking classes in order (like A vs A+), with no real coherent identity of the Tier itself.

No, not having an objective mechanism for deciding rankings poisons the well for objective understanding.

That's exactly what I said. But you say "No"?

Are you just being contentious because you don't like Tier rankings?

Both JaronK's tiers and eggynack's tiers have the methodology of "a group of people argue about things". That's not objective, and it's not magically more objective because JaronK didn't make his biases explicit. If you wanted an objective ranking, you'd define an objective, testable standard for "Tier 1" and "Tier 2" and so on, so that people could meaningfully reproduce your results.

...
Which is what JaronK's system does.

You can't do that with either set of tiers, you can just agree with them or not agree with them.

Are you one of those people that thinks there is such a thing as a "Tier Style game"? Because the Tiers are just meant to be an examination of the power and versatility of each class, taking the class' abilities in a vacuum. Gonna quote JaronK one more time: "This post is NOT intended to state which class is "best" or "sucks." It is only a measure of the power and versatility of classes for balance purposes."

Maybe you should just go and read JaronK's system for yourself, and set aside what you think you know about it, and what you've interpreted based on what other people have said. Because you REALLY don't seem to remember it very well.

[Troacctid]

Versatility is a form of power, the difference between T1 and T2 is overall power level, a wizard with all blasting spells is usually stronger than a warmage, sorcerer doesn't have class features either, and JaronK's "definitions" were always descriptive rather than prescriptive.

I'm not going to relitigate the same discussions we already had in the original discussions. Eggynack already responded to most of these criticisms whenever ago. If you think you have something new to add, then by all means go and read the old threads, find a point that was unaddressed, quote the old post here, and circle back to that point. Otherwise, please spare my poor inbox the notifications.

[RedMage125]

Versatility is a form of power, the difference between T1 and T2 is overall power level,

They use the same spells as their Tier 1 counterparts. If you're distinguishing between "power" and "versatility" as 2 separate things, then the difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 is versatility.

a wizard with all blasting spells is usually stronger than a warmage

How so? They'd be using the same spells (save that a Warmage gets a few extra like Flame Strike), but the Warmage would have more per day, get bonus instant metamagic feats, and have more hp. The wizard with only blasting spells gets a familiar, and a handful of bonus metamagic feats.

sorcerer doesn't have class features either

Kind of my point about why Tier 2 is barely a distinct Tier. Tier 1 class spell lists are SO POWERFUL that the classes that have access to those spell lists (even if limited in spells known), are significantly more powerful than the next Tier down.

and JaronK's "definitions" were always descriptive rather than prescriptive.

...yes, that was my point.
I could look at JaronK's definitions for each Tier and then start off with any class and determine which Tier it belonged in. Eggynack's Tier definitions are only clear as they relate to each other.

Example: JaronK defined Tier 3 as "Able to do one thing quite well, but still able to contribute outside their primary strength" (paraphrased). Eggynack's definition was "not as strong as Tier 2, stronger then Tier 4". This tells me nothing about what makes Tier 3 distinct and WHY a class is Tier 3.

And you can turn inbox notifications off.

[Troacctid]

How so? They'd be using the same spells (save that a Warmage gets a few extra like Flame Strike), but the Warmage would have more per day, get bonus instant metamagic feats, and have more hp. The wizard with only blasting spells gets a familiar, and a handful of bonus metamagic feats.

Warmages have more spells per day on even levels, but wizards have more spells per day on odd levels (after 1st), IIRC. Since wizards get access to new spell levels sooner, I'd say wizard is the winner there. Meanwhile, wizards have better bonus feats as well as a familiar that they can either make use of during combat or trade for another powerful class feature like immediate magic, aligned spellcaster, or energy affinity. Also, they have access to all the spells warmages would have to spend advanced learnings on in order to get, like force hammer, frost breath, shockwave, Boccob's rolling cloud, channeled pyroburst, flame sands, mark of the enlightened soul, storm touch, overland flight, and, well, high-level spells in general. (Warmages get kinda shafted in regards to 7th–9th level spells.) It's true that prepared casting is a drawback, but the upside of wizard is more than high enough to give them the edge.

...yes, that was my point.
I could look at JaronK's definitions for each Tier and then start off with any class and determine which Tier it belonged in. Eggynack's Tier definitions are only clear as they relate to each other.

Example: JaronK defined Tier 3 as "Able to do one thing quite well, but still able to contribute outside their primary strength" (paraphrased). Eggynack's definition was "not as strong as Tier 2, stronger then Tier 4". This tells me nothing about what makes Tier 3 distinct and WHY a class is Tier 3.

No, if you're starting with the definitions and then using them to determine a class's placement, that's prescriptive, not descriptive.

[Gnaeus]

The problem with JaronK’s descriptions of tiers is that:
1. Many of them weren’t very useful
2. They blurred the purpose of the tiers.

Like the thing about having campaign nukes. What a pointless criterion. A class that can nuke the campaign isn’t actually any better than one that can’t, and having 2 isn’t more useful than having 1. But when comparing beguiler with Sorcerer with wizard we wound up talking about how many nukes classes had access to. As has been repeatedly pointed out, a commoner can trash a game. You don’t need to be a tier 1 caster to do it.

Or just going by prepared versus fixed casting. That only works in 3.5 because the core prepared casters>the core spontaneous ones. The mechanic of prepared casting, in a vacuum, is better. But you CANT just say “prepared = T1, fixed = T2” and still have that mean what you want tiers to mean. A sorcerer was just better than a spirit shaman. His spells were stronger and more flexible. The shaman couldn’t functionally use half his list. And unlike the cleric or Druid he didn’t get enough spells retrieved to compete with a sorcerer just taking solid spells like polymorph or summon monster. And it gets worse if you are dealing with anything out of the 3.5 ordinary. Like gestalt. Or even the PF sorcerer with his 3 extra spells known/level. CLEARLY, there is a point at which better class features or more spells known exceed the mechanical superiority of prepared casting. We can debate where that point is exactly. But it obviously exists. Because there is no argument that a home brewed sorcerer class with 30 spells known per level is better than a wizard at almost everything, even if the wizard also knows the 31st and 32nd best spell of that level.

[RedMage125]

Warmages have more spells per day on even levels, but wizards have more spells per day on odd levels (after 1st), IIRC. Since wizards get access to new spell levels sooner, I'd say wizard is the winner there. Meanwhile, wizards have better bonus feats as well as a familiar that they can either make use of during combat or trade for another powerful class feature like immediate magic, aligned spellcaster, or energy affinity. Also, they have access to all the spells warmages would have to spend advanced learnings on in order to get, like force hammer, frost breath, shockwave, Boccob's rolling cloud, channeled pyroburst, flame sands, mark of the enlightened soul, storm touch, overland flight, and, well, high-level spells in general. (Warmages get kinda shafted in regards to 7th–9th level spells.) It's true that prepared casting is a drawback, but the upside of wizard is more than high enough to give them the edge.

You've got some "non-blasting" spells in that list, which is moving the goalposts.

Again, the point was that a wizard who strictly used blasting spells would be worse than a warmage. And yes, there are a few spells in the Spell Compendium (read as: Forgotten Realms spells with the names changed) and later Complete Books that the Warmage misses out on, but they're hardly as drastic as to change the dynamic. Because Warmage casts spontaneously from their entire spell list, with sorcerer-equivalent spells per day. And has better hit points and defenses.

To be clear, this is all in support of my point that Player > Build > Class, something I don't really think you're disagreeing with, so unless you content THAT point, why argue?

No, if you're starting with the definitions and then using them to determine a class's placement, that's prescriptive, not descriptive.

What are you saying? Earlier you said JaronK's Tier descriptions were DESCRIPTIVE and not PRESCRIPTIVE. Will you make up your mind?

And for the record, having clear definitions and using them to determine a class' placement is what I am saying is BETTER.

Otherwise, all you're doing is ranking classes against each other, and the delineation of "Tier" is arbitrary.

[NigelWalmsley]

And I've known plenty of people who have used guides to build "optimized" characters that they play like low-op characters, which is why Player > Build > Class.

That doesn't mean what you think it means. Just because you play a good build badly doesn't mean your "Player" is more important than your "Build". It means that the net result is bad. If you add -15 to 10, you get a negative number. That doesn't mean the -15 was the only thing that mattered or that it mattered more than the 10.

So...you claim that "the things people expect to use the tiers for" is something that the Tier System explicitly says it does not cover?

If you call something a hammer, it doesn't matter how clearly the manual says it's used to drill holes, or how useful it is for drilling them. People will expect it to be a hammer and judge accordingly. If JaronK was not making something that ranked the power of classes, he should not have called the thing he made a Tier System.

"To help DMs judge what should be allowed and what shouldn't in their games. It may sound cheesy when the Fighter player wants to be a Half Minotaur Water Orc, but if the rest of his party is Druid, Cloistered Cleric, Archivist, and Artificer, then maybe you should allow that to balance things out. However, if the player is asking to be allowed to be a Venerable White Dragonspawn Dragonwrought Kobold Sorcerer and the rest of the party is a Monk, a Fighter, and a Rogue, maybe you shouldn't let that fly."

But "how effective is a White Dragonspawn Dragonwrought Kobold Sorcerer relative to a Monk" is the exact question JaronK says the Tier system doesn't cover. The whole point is that we're asking "how good is Sorcerer" as a question independent of "how good is White Dragonspawn".

No, "having a clear identity" helps judge how effective the class is

No, it doesn't. It can help judge how well a class fulfills its design goals, but that has very little to do with its effectiveness. The way to judge how effective a class is is to look at how effective it is. Nothing more, nothing less. If you replaced the Wizard's fluff with "the Wizard does stuff and things", that would not make the Wizard any more or less effective. In fact, any change you made that did not change the Wizard's mechanics could not make the Wizard any more or less effective. Any argument to the contrary can only represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the word "effective" means.

Since feats choices are a factor of "Build",

There is no reasonable standard by which feat choices are build and spell choices are class. If the Fighter is T4 because all its abilities are a pointer to a big pile of abilities you can choose from, so is every single caster (except arguably the fixed-list ones).

Having a distinct definition of "Tier 3 means X, Tier 4 means Y" clarifies, for each class, what the criteria of each Tier is.

So does "is worse than classes in the better tier". It's a little confusing, but basically Eggynack's tiers (or at least the tiers in this thread, which I think are the same thing?) are basically "rank the power level of classes, slice into six groups". It's a little oddly worded, and the mechanism used to get there is probably not ideal given what it is, but that's what it is. And wouldn't you know, that's exactly the thing people expect when you say "this is a tier system"!

Which is what JaronK's system does.

No, it doesn't. It provides some post hoc descriptions of common properties, but none of them are defined in a testable way. The definition of T1 is a class that "can easily break a campaign". What does that actually mean? I don't know, because JaronK doesn't bother to define it. Am I "breaking the campaign" if I can skip to the end of a published adventure path? If I can beat up a EL+10 encounter solo? If I can generate infinite wealth and buy a solution to any and all of my problems? What does it mean to do those things "easily"? Presumably you have some intuitive answer to those questions, but by its very nature an intuitive answer isn't objective.

Maybe you should just go and read JaronK's system for yourself

It seems kind of insulting to suggest that the only reason someone would disagree with you is not reading the source material. Moreover, the fact that JaronK's tiers produce warped perceptions is one of the problems I have with them. There's a mismatch between "what JaronK said" and "how people understand Tiers" because JaronK described something that is not a set of tiers as a "Tier System".

Versatility is a form of power

I agree with what you're saying overall, but would tweak this to say that both "power" and "versatility" are contributors to "problem solving ability", which is what people actually care about. It doesn't really matter if you solve problems by having a wide range of silver bullets or one hammer. It matters how many problems you can solve, and how effectively you solve them.

The mechanic of prepared casting, in a vacuum, is better.

This is actually backwards, if we're talking about specifically "prepared versus spontaneous casting" rather than "prepared versus spontaneous classes". The mechanic of spontaneous casting is better. You get to decide what you want to use your spell slots on when you use them, and you therefore have more information and make better choices. This is why Hathran + Acorn of Far Travel or Spontaneous Divination + Versatile Spellcaster are considered to be so good. The reason prepared spellcasters are better than spontaneous ones is that they all have A) much larger spell lists and B) faster casting progressions. If the Favored Soul had the Cleric's spell progression and spell access rules, it would be the best class in the game by a large margin.

[Gnaeus]

This is actually backwards, if we're talking about specifically "prepared versus spontaneous casting" rather than "prepared versus spontaneous classes". The mechanic of spontaneous casting is better. You get to decide what you want to use your spell slots on when you use them, and you therefore have more information and make better choices. This is why Hathran + Acorn of Far Travel or Spontaneous Divination + Versatile Spellcaster are considered to be so good. The reason prepared spellcasters are better than spontaneous ones is that they all have A) much larger spell lists and B) faster casting progressions. If the Favored Soul had the Cleric's spell progression and spell access rules, it would be the best class in the game by a large margin.

No. The reason prepares spell casters are better than spontaneous ones is that they get access to their entire list. I’m not sure what you mean by “spell access rules” since that is part of the mechanics of spontaneous versus prepared casters. Spontaneous casters get a few, prepared casters, mechanically, get the whole list. Or in the case of the wizard as much of the list as they can be bothered to write on their sheet. If the favored soul could spontaneously cast from the entire cleric list, yes, it would be better than cleric. I pretty much said that exact thing with regard to Sorcerer vs wizard. But with the spells known issue, which is part of the mechanics of spontaneous casters, unless significantly expanded via houserules or other, even with a clerics faster spell access the favored soul would still be weaker. The reason every spontaneous caster is tier 2 or lower is a weaker mechanic. Which, again, doesn’t mean that you can’t make a tier 2 spontaneous caster that beats a tier 1.

[NigelWalmsley]

No. The reason prepares spell casters are better than spontaneous ones is that they get access to their entire list. I’m not sure what you mean by “spell access rules” since that is part of the mechanics of spontaneous versus prepared casters.

That's what I meant by "spell access rules". But that's different from "spontaneous casting", at least IMO. "Spontaneous casting" is the thing where you choose which of your spells to use which spell slots for as you use the slots, rather than when you wake up in the morning. It's straightforwardly better than prepared casting. It's just not the only difference between spontaneous and prepared casters, and it happens not to be important enough to overcome larger problems like "they get way less spells" or "their progression is lagged for no reason".

And maybe you think that's a semantic point. But I think it's important to be precise about these things, because otherwise you risk making changes that don't address the problems you have, or cause problems of their own.

[RedMage125]

That doesn't mean what you think it means. Just because you play a good build badly doesn't mean your "Player" is more important than your "Build". It means that the net result is bad. If you add -15 to 10, you get a negative number. That doesn't mean the -15 was the only thing that mattered or that it mattered more than the 10.

Yes, it literally does. That the negative number was high enough to entirely cancel out the 10 and plunge the total into the negative means the -15 was more significant.

If you call something a hammer, it doesn't matter how clearly the manual says it's used to drill holes, or how useful it is for drilling them. People will expect it to be a hammer and judge accordingly. If JaronK was not making something that ranked the power of classes, he should not have called the thing he made a Tier System.

This makes no sense, because it DOES measure the power of the classes.

It's only problematic if you equate "more powerful" = "better" and "not as powerful" with "not worth playing".

I recognize that there are some people who view the Tier System like that. And like I said before, we call them A-holes.

But "how effective is a White Dragonspawn Dragonwrought Kobold Sorcerer relative to a Monk" is the exact question JaronK says the Tier system doesn't cover. The whole point is that we're asking "how good is Sorcerer" as a question independent of "how good is White Dragonspawn".

You missed the point.

The point was that because the Tier System DOES, in fact, tell us that the sorcerer is more powerful than the Monk, that letting the sorc also be a Venerable White Dragonspawn Dragonwrought Kobold is giving a power boost to the character who is already leagues more powerful than his companions. OTOTH, allowing the Fighter to be a Half Minotaur Water Orc, but if the rest of his party is Druid, Cloistered Cleric, Archivist, and Artificer is probably okay. Because the Tier System showcases how much more powerful those classes are than Fighter.

No, it doesn't. It can help judge how well a class fulfills its design goals, but that has very little to do with its effectiveness. The way to judge how effective a class is is to look at how effective it is. Nothing more, nothing less. If you replaced the Wizard's fluff with "the Wizard does stuff and things", that would not make the Wizard any more or less effective. In fact, any change you made that did not change the Wizard's mechanics could not make the Wizard any more or less effective. Any argument to the contrary can only represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the word "effective" means.

Are you intentionally using Reducto Ad Absurdum, or was that an accident?

Putting your ridiculousness aside, the PF Fighter has class abilities that make it a more effective combatant (boosts to attack and damage rolls on top of what other classes will be able to get, and the ability to wear heavy armor without being encumbered as much). Combat is still the one shtick he has, but now there are class features beyond "a bunch of feats" that help the Fighter achieve that goal.

There is no reasonable standard by which feat choices are build and spell choices are class. If the Fighter is T4 because all its abilities are a pointer to a big pile of abilities you can choose from, so is every single caster (except arguably the fixed-list ones).

And so you move on to Straw Man, now, is it?

Swell.

When did I say that specific spell choices were NOT "build choices"? *looks back* Oh! Look at that! I never said that. And I never would, because specific choices of spells ARE a build choice. One would have to be a colossally incompetent cretin to claim otherwise, and I am not. And I will thank you to not to project such onto me.

No, access to the class' spell list and what the spells on that list are capable of is a factor of Class. i should think that would be obvious and not need to be spelled out, but apparently that's necessary. Obviously, most Wizards aren't going to actually have every single spell that allows them to "do everything" that makes the Wizard Class a Tier 1. But since the Wizard as a class is capable of those things, the class is Tier 1.

Do you seriously not understand that Tier Ranking applies only to what the class as a whole is capable of? At no point is EITHER Tier System (JaronK or egynack's) meant to say "Every single Wizard character is individually better than every single Paladin at all levels of play". I assumed you knew that, but your recent post here is making me doubt that.

So does "is worse than classes in the better tier". It's a little confusing, but basically Eggynack's tiers (or at least the tiers in this thread, which I think are the same thing?) are basically "rank the power level of classes, slice into six groups". It's a little oddly worded, and the mechanism used to get there is probably not ideal given what it is, but that's what it is. And wouldn't you know, that's exactly the thing people expect when you say "this is a tier system"!

Except that the delineation of each "Tier" is completely arbitrary. There's no point of even BEING six groups, since each group shares no delineation of common factors or identity by classification. You might as well lump them all in one big group and have a power ranking, and abolish the thought of separating "Tiers" altogether.

THAT'S my issue with his system.

No, it doesn't. It provides some post hoc descriptions of common properties, but none of them are defined in a testable way. The definition of T1 is a class that "can easily break a campaign". What does that actually mean? I don't know, because JaronK doesn't bother to define it. Am I "breaking the campaign" if I can skip to the end of a published adventure path? If I can beat up a EL+10 encounter solo? If I can generate infinite wealth and buy a solution to any and all of my problems? What does it mean to do those things "easily"? Presumably you have some intuitive answer to those questions, but by its very nature an intuitive answer isn't objective.

I'm sorry, but you are objectively WRONG.
From the JaronK System: "Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played with skill, can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party."

So before any mention of "can easily break a campaign", which is a comment about the level of power these classes have in practice we have (I bolded for you) a clear-cut definition of what makes a class Tier 1. Which you claimed did not exist.

It seems kind of insulting to suggest that the only reason someone would disagree with you is not reading the source material. Moreover, the fact that JaronK's tiers produce warped perceptions is one of the problems I have with them. There's a mismatch between "what JaronK said" and "how people understand Tiers" because JaronK described something that is not a set of tiers as a "Tier System".

So, I apologize if you found my assumption insulting. A lot of what you say really reminds me of an older poster here who used to claim to know all about the Tier System, but hadn't actually read it (or he did years ago, and assumed his memory was perfect), and he had all kinds of bad things to say about "Tier style games" (whatever that nonsense means).

HOWEVER, you just demonstrated in the last bit I quoted that you were not, in fact, that familiar with it. The defining attribute of Tier 1 is "can do absolutely everything, often better than the classes that are supposed to be good at it". Not "campaign smasher".

That some people misunderstand Tiers and think it's about "X class is better than Y class" in not a problem with the Tier System, it's a problem with THOSE PEOPLE. Especially because JaronK's post explicitly says such is not what the Tier System is.

And it absolutely IS a Tier System. It still ranks the power of the classes, but it judges the classes' capabilities in a vacuum. Obviously, a character who is very experienced at playing, say, Paladins, is going to make a very good and capable paladin, while someone who has never played any kind of caster may not make the most effective wizard. That's because everyone's play style and preferences are different. People like different kinds of games, and so people's mileage with each class may vary. So JaronK measured the only thing that wasn't based on subjective factors. The mechanics of the classes themselves. And it IS a Tier System.

Just because some people chose to cherry-pick what they read to conform to their own preconceptions about what they expected does not make it "not a Tier System". If their expectations did not match the fact, I say their expectations were the problem, you are saying the facts are the problem.

[NigelWalmsley]

Yes, it literally does. That the negative number was high enough to entirely cancel out the 10 and plunge the total into the negative means the -15 was more significant.

No, that's not how math works. It's a linear addition. Both parts contribute equally. That the result had the same sign as one input doesn't mean that was "more significant". It was just larger. The numbers could as easily have been -10 and 15, at which point the result would have been 5. And that would not have implied that Build > Player.

The point was that because the Tier System DOES, in fact, tell us that the sorcerer is more powerful than the Monk, that letting the sorc also be a Venerable White Dragonspawn Dragonwrought Kobold is giving a power boost to the character who is already leagues more powerful than his companions.

How? How do we know that build choice is making him stronger without stepping outside the Tier System? It wouldn't make the Monk stronger. And if we've accepted that the Tier System isn't a useful tool for answering this question -- the very question it purports to be intended to answer -- why use it at all?

Are you intentionally using Reducto Ad Absurdum, or was that an accident?

I think the term is "happy coincidence"? You made an absurd argument, I didn't really have to reducto anything. "Focus" doesn't make you any more or less powerful. It doesn't matter if your class features are raw resources or a predefined build. What matters is how effective those class features make you when used.

When did I say that specific spell choices were NOT "build choices"? *looks back* Oh! Look at that! I never said that.

Then you agree that the Wizard is T6, with the Commoner? Either we can approximate the value of undefined choices (and the Fighter can be assumed to take useful feats) or we can't (and there is no coherent argument for any of the major casters being higher than T5). You can't have it both ways. My objecting to that is not a strawman, it's you making a bad argument.

You might as well lump them all in one big group and have a power ranking, and abolish the thought of separating "Tiers" altogether.

No, for the same reason that the viability rankings I mentioned don't do that. It is useful to be able to mention cohorts as shorthand. By the very nature of what a tier list actually is, there is no inherent meaning to "in T1". It just means "better than the things that aren't T1". If you want inherent meaning, you need objective tests, and neither tier system provides that.

So before any mention of "can easily break a campaign", which is a comment about the level of power these classes have in practice we have (I bolded for you) a clear-cut definition of what makes a class Tier 1. Which you claimed did not exist.

If that's clear cut, so are eggynack's tiers. "Classes in T1 are better than classes in T2" is a claim that is exactly equivalent to "classes in T2 are worse than classes in T1", which you rejected as an objective basis. And you were correct to do so. That's not objective. But if you're rejecting it there, you should reject it here. Anything else is transparently intellectually dishonest.

The reason I picked the later definition is because it's the thing that is actually external to the tier system, and therefore potentially objective. But it turns out that it isn't objective either. Because the tiers aren't objective. And this is probably okay. Not everything needs to be objective, and if your question is "how broadly effective is this class going to be", the averaged opinions of a bunch of people who all understand the game fairly well is adequate for that.

[RedMage125]

No, that's not how math works. It's a linear addition. Both parts contribute equally. That the result had the same sign as one input doesn't mean that was "more significant". It was just larger. The numbers could as easily have been -10 and 15, at which point the result would have been 5. And that would not have implied that Build > Player.

You're so deep into "proving RedMage wrong makes my ego feel better" that you lost track of what you were talking about.

Allow me to bring you back to the point.

There are individual build choices that can affect how well a given class performs-for both better and worse. Therefore, Build can modify the power level of a given Class, and Build options are so varied as to be impossible for a ranking system to account for all of them. Therefore: Build > Class. But build isn't everything. A bad player playing a good build will not be playing even to the expected power level of Build+Class. Furthermore, people who know their classes well and have made good choices can stretch the limits of even mid-tier classes into the territory of higher tier classes. Player+Build can go way beyond what simple Class mechanics limit. Therefore Player > Build > Class. That's what that means, and in your initial volley before you decided to hike up your arrogance bitches and condescend to me, you actually seemed to agree with that principle, but felt the need to denigrate what I was saying anyway.

But that's all that that means. Of course Class creates some strict limits on HOW much better Build and Player can make them. It's like a post in the ground, and Player and Build choices determine the length of the leash, but ultimately there is a hard cap on the leash.

How? How do we know that build choice is making him stronger without stepping outside the Tier System? It wouldn't make the Monk stronger. And if we've accepted that the Tier System isn't a useful tool for answering this question -- the very question it purports to be intended to answer -- why use it at all?

What are you even talking about?

You do understand that some races in 3.5e are more powerful races, right? A lot of them have Level Adjustments and so on...? And you get that allowing a more powerful race to the most powerful character would only exacerbate the amount of "spotlight" such a powerful character would take, right? I hope this is all making sense.

What I was talking about was using the understanding gleaned from the Tier System, and applying it to a game. As soon as I was discussing party composition and options for an individual character I thought that was obvious. What do you mean "stepping outside the Tier System?" You don't USE the Tier System like some kind of constant tool during the game. You're sounding a lot more like an older poster on these boards, one who always had bad things to say about "Tier-Style Games", because he fundamentally did not understand that all the Tier System is is just a power measurement between each of the classes in a vacuum, assuming everything else except the mechanics of the classes are equal. Which is the only fair way to judge them. Because, like I said, someone who is really good at playing bards may outshine the character of the newbie playing the wizard. That ties back into "P>B>C", as well.

I think the term is "happy coincidence"? You made an absurd argument, I didn't really have to reducto anything. "Focus" doesn't make you any more or less powerful. It doesn't matter if your class features are raw resources or a predefined build. What matters is how effective those class features make you when used.

Saying "the Fighter's only real thing is combat" is absurd?
Or perhaps "the Fighter as a class has no ACTUAL class features to make them better at combat"? Is that one absurd?
Or how about "When PF gave the Fighter actual class features like benefits to wearing armor, boosts to attack and damage rolls above what other classes get, and made feats interchangeable so the Fighter's huge selection of feats were more of an advantage because they could be interchanged to accommodate changing value of those feats over time; all of those things made the Fighter BETTER AT the one thing he does (combat)"? Is that the absurd thing?
I'm really having a hard time tracking down which of these things you think is absurd. Unless the fact that I didn't continue to repeat WHAT it was the PF Fighter was better at makes you think I was being vague about it? I didn't think it was necessary to repeat, I mentioned it in my first post, and I assumed you knew what a Fighter was and what they do.

So yes, saying that "the wizard does some stuff" is equivalent to anything having to do with it's Tier Ranking is Reducto Ad Absurdum. Whether it was an accident on your part (because you misunderstood what I was saying), or intentional (because you have some personal vested interest in make me "wrong" now to soothe your ego) is irrelevant. It was still Reducto Ad Absurdum.

Then you agree that the Wizard is T6, with the Commoner? Either we can approximate the value of undefined choices (and the Fighter can be assumed to take useful feats) or we can't (and there is no coherent argument for any of the major casters being higher than T5). You can't have it both ways. My objecting to that is not a strawman, it's you making a bad argument.

And here's more of it. And yes, that is a straw man.

Perhaps you did not understand.

The Fighter's glut of feats are limited by what feats are available (i.e. they must be Fighter Bonus feat eligible). No amount of feats represent the sheer amount of power that is what is available to the wizard by the possibility of what the wizard can accomplish with his spells. That's the reason they are different Tiers. For you to claim otherwise would mean that you are saying that "a bunch of combat feats" is EQUAL IN POWER to "the entire gamut of Wizard spells". As you are obviously not claiming something so idiotic, but saying so to try and undermine my point, this is Reducto Ad Absurdum. That you claim MY point is in any way like this, is a Straw Man.

You're ommitting what I said about why the Core PF Fighter would be Tier 4 by JaronK's system. The fact that low-level feats can be good at low levels and terrible to useless at high levels is problematic. Great Cleave, for example. At level 6, when the party may still be facing foes that can be dropped with a single high-damage melee hit? Great. By level 12 it's completely useless. Now, remember when I discussed Red Mage Fallacy? PF allowing characters to retrain feats at higher levels means the Fighter's glut of feats represent more of an actual power advantage than the 3.5e Fighter. This is al one coherent point with what I said about PF Fighter also gaining actual class abilities. You, for some reason, chose to dissect what I was saying because you have some obscure desire to prove me wrong, and in doing so, you neglected to understand that all my points made one coherent whole, and thus you misrepresented my point.

So I'm not "making a bad argument". You're intentionally refusing to understand my argument, choosing only to represent it as a twisted version of it, for you to better undermine. Which is absolutely a Straw Man.

No, for the same reason that the viability rankings I mentioned don't do that. It is useful to be able to mention cohorts as shorthand. By the very nature of what a tier list actually is, there is no inherent meaning to "in T1". It just means "better than the things that aren't T1". If you want inherent meaning, you need objective tests, and neither tier system provides that.

This is ridiculous. "Tier 1" should mean something distinct. As should "Tier 3". Otherwise, why are the multiple classes in each Tier included in THAT Tier?

I find that JaronK's accomplishes that, and eggynack's does not. And, since you claim that you ARE in fact familiar with JaronK's Tier System, you will then remember that he DID include some objective tests. They were further along in the post. Since you find it insulting, I'll not repeat them, but if you try and claim they don't exist again, then I will.

If that's clear cut, so are eggynack's tiers. "Classes in T1 are better than classes in T2" is a claim that is exactly equivalent to "classes in T2 are worse than classes in T1", which you rejected as an objective basis. And you were correct to do so. That's not objective. But if you're rejecting it there, you should reject it here. Anything else is transparently intellectually dishonest.

This is again a Straw Man, to the point that it is deliberate dishonesty on YOUR part. You cut what I posted, what I was CLEARLY referring to when I said "this is clear-cut", and made it look like I was referring to something else.

So let me be clear: "Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player." is clear-cut. "Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with." is clear-cut. "Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the encounter matches their strengths." is clear-cut. I can look at ANY of those and determine which of those Monk belongs in, which Cleric belongs in, which Bard belongs in.

That is clearly defined parameters for what a given Tier MEANS.

For you to misrepresent what I am saying again would be transparently dishonest to the point that it would be readily apparent that you are ONLY capable of debating a point if you misrepresent it to make it easier for you.

The reason I picked the later definition is because it's the thing that is actually external to the tier system, and therefore potentially objective. But it turns out that it isn't objective either. Because the tiers aren't objective. And this is probably okay. Not everything needs to be objective, and if your question is "how broadly effective is this class going to be", the averaged opinions of a bunch of people who all understand the game fairly well is adequate for that.

If all you want to do is "rank" the classes, yes. But then what's the point of organizing them into "Tiers"? That's my whole bone of contention. "Tier 3" in eggynack's system means nothing distinct or coherent between those classes in it. It's just "a collection of classes ranked as more powerful than Tier 4 classes, which is also an arbitrary collection with no coherence". Unlike JaronK's Tier 3, which is: "Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with."

I don't object to "ranking the classes by power", but calling it some kind of "new Tier system" is, to me, complete nonsense. What makes them "Tiers"? NOTHING. They are not "Tiers". There is no meaningful cutoff between "low Tier 3" and "high Tier 4" besides a completely arbitrary cutoff line. The Tiers themselves have no identity AS Tiers that would make ranking them together coherent.

I actually agree that "the averaged opinions of a bunch of people who all understand the game fairly well" is an adequate means of effectively "ranking the classes by power". And that's all egynack's system is. And if that was all it purported to be, I wouldn't have boo to say about it. But calling it a "Tier System" when there's no rhyme or reason to the grouping of individual "Tiers" is maddeningly nonsensical.

[NigelWalmsley]

There are individual build choices that can affect how well a given class performs-for both better and worse. Therefore, Build can modify the power level of a given Class, and Build options are so varied as to be impossible for a ranking system to account for all of them.

Campaigns are so varied that it's impossible to account for a class's performance in all of them. So we don't do that. Instead, we try to evaluate class power over a wide range of possible campaigns, roughly weighed by some measure of likelihood. Similarly, you can evaluate the rough expected value of build options, and doing so gets you a more useful answer than pretending you can't do that.

Therefore: Build > Class.

No. Therefore "build also effects performance". You haven't proved that "Build > Class" you've proved "Class is not the only factor". Which, sure, but that seems like a very good argument against a system that only ranks classes. In terms of a concrete example, consider the fixed list casters. They have almost no impact on their power from build. If you can avoid making build choices that actively harm you, you're hitting 70%-80% of the class's overall power ceiling.

A bad player playing a good build will not be playing even to the expected power level of Build+Class.

And a good player playing a bad build won't be playing to even the expected power level of Player+Class. Your position is nonsensical, because you seem to be asserting that if you add a number later in a sequence of operations, that causes it to count more. That's just ... not how addition works. 5+10-15 is not a different number from -15+5+10.

You do understand that some races in 3.5e are more powerful races, right? A lot of them have Level Adjustments and so on...? And you get that allowing a more powerful race to the most powerful character would only exacerbate the amount of "spotlight" such a powerful character would take, right? I hope this is all making sense.

You say that like "more powerful" is universal. Consider a race that gives you +10 Strength, +10 Constitution, and -6 Intelligence. That's a pretty great race if you're a Fighter. Worthy of a couple of points of LA, easy (well, maybe, LA works poorly). But if you're a Wizard, getting that race is like getting punched directly in the crotch. Or at least, I think it is. You seem to think the value of build options is unknowable.

Saying "the Fighter's only real thing is combat" is absurd?

No, but that's not what you said. And in any case, that has nothing to do with the power of the class. A class that is very good at solving combat problems, and can't solve non-combat problems is not inherently worse than one that is pretty good at solving combat problems and pretty good at solving non-combat problems.

Or perhaps "the Fighter as a class has no ACTUAL class features to make them better at combat"? Is that one absurd?

That one is absurd. The Fighter gets bonus feats that can be used to make him better at combat. That's a class feature that makes him better at combat. If it isn't, and is instead a pointer to "build choices", so is the Wizard's "Spells" class feature, and the Wizard belongs in T6 with the Commoner.

Or how about "When PF gave the Fighter actual class features like benefits to wearing armor, boosts to attack and damage rolls above what other classes get, and made feats interchangeable so the Fighter's huge selection of feats were more of an advantage because they could be interchanged to accommodate changing value of those feats over time; all of those things made the Fighter BETTER AT the one thing he does (combat)"? Is that the absurd thing?

It's absurd to claim that actual class features are inherently better than ones that let you choose from a list of options. Sometimes they are (Dread Necromancer v Fighter). Sometimes they are not (Wizard v Monk). Things are better because they are better, not because of the amount of choice you do or do not have in what things you get.

The Fighter's glut of feats are limited by what feats are available (i.e. they must be Fighter Bonus feat eligible). No amount of feats represent the sheer amount of power that is what is available to the wizard by the possibility of what the wizard can accomplish with his spells.

That seems suspiciously like taking build decisions into account. How did we make the decision that the Wizard's list of things -- which are not Wizard class features -- was better than the Fighter's list of things -- which are not Fighter class features -- if all we're allowed to look at is the class?

PF allowing characters to retrain feats at higher levels means the Fighter's glut of feats represent more of an actual power advantage than the 3.5e Fighter.

3e has retraining rules too. Even has the DCFS.

So let me be clear

Just as an FYI, that's not actually any clearer. I do not, despite what you seem to think, have a learning disability that prevents me from reading text that is not either bold or all caps. I simply disagree with you. You seem to not be okay with that, but you're doing very little to change it, because you seem more concerned with trying to work some ref into striking me out for "being like this one guy who you remember" or "condescending to you" or "doing things you think are fallacious" than making persuasive arguments.

Anyway, quoting more text is not making your point stronger. I know what the tiers say. But what they say is not objective. It's not defined in a way that I can take the Wizard class and the tier definitions and figure out where the Wizard goes. I have to have other information, like "what encounters do we expect players to deal with" and "what are the areas of specialization, and the classes that specialize in those areas" and "what does it mean to break the campaign". JaronK gestures to that information, but he does not define it. So his answers are not objective. They're not clear-cut either, before you move the goalposts. They depend profoundly on how you answer those questions.

I can look at ANY of those and determine which of those Monk belongs in, which Cleric belongs in, which Bard belongs in.

Of course you can. But you can also do that with a series of definitions that read "about as good as the Truenamer", "about as a good as the Wizard", and "about as good as the Warblade". The question isn't if you can do it, the question is if anyone, regardless of their personal feelings about the system, can come to the same answer is you. That's what it means for the answers to be objective. And it's quite obvious that, using JaronK's set of definitions, that is not true. What if someone thinks the appropriate benchmark for a specialist is the Wizard? What if they think it's the Truenamer? You may disagree with them -- no doubt you do -- but the Tier System doesn't say they're wrong. It says that we need some benchmark for specialist, but it doesn't make a decision about what that benchmark is, and is therefore not objective.

If all you want to do is "rank" the classes, yes. But then what's the point of organizing them into "Tiers"?

What's the point of labeling different levels of WAR in baseball stats? Even if all you're measuring is "goodness", it can be useful to have a shorthand for a particular range of "goodness".

I don't object to "ranking the classes by power", but calling it some kind of "new Tier system" is, to me, complete nonsense. What makes them "Tiers"? NOTHING.

No, it's the fact that "rankings by power" is exactly what "Tier System" means to everyone except JaronK. The outlier here is the guy who used a term of art to mean something it doesn't mean, not the people who used it to mean what it does mean.

[RedMage125]

Campaigns are so varied that it's impossible to account for a class's performance in all of them. So we don't do that. Instead, we try to evaluate class power over a wide range of possible campaigns, roughly weighed by some measure of likelihood. Similarly, you can evaluate the rough expected value of build options, and doing so gets you a more useful answer than pretending you can't do that.

No. Therefore "build also effects performance". You haven't proved that "Build > Class" you've proved "Class is not the only factor". Which, sure, but that seems like a very good argument against a system that only ranks classes. In terms of a concrete example, consider the fixed list casters. They have almost no impact on their power from build. If you can avoid making build choices that actively harm you, you're hitting 70%-80% of the class's overall power ceiling.

*facepalm*
Are you serious right now?
When I talk about "Player>Build?Class" I'm only talking about performance. And because all possible level of player performance/skill and all possible combinations of builds are impossible to account for, it means the only fair thing to be able to judge is the classes themselves, and assume all other factors are equal. Having a system that judges the power and versatility of each class as a whole, by virtue only of what its class abilities allow is simply a baseline. Everything else the DM is going to have to adjudicate based on subjective matters.

You are seriously arguing against such a misrepresentation of what I have been saying that you have more than once made points that are what I actually am saying, and in a tone like you're enlightening me.

And a good player playing a bad build won't be playing to even the expected power level of Player+Class. Your position is nonsensical, because you seem to be asserting that if you add a number later in a sequence of operations, that causes it to count more. That's just ... not how addition works. 5+10-15 is not a different number from -15+5+10.

A good player playing a bad build of a low-tier class is more like 15 + -10 + 5. He's not going to be completely useless, but build and class options are going to limit and hamper him. But you put that same build and class in the hands of an inexperienced player, and the character's group contribution is going to be demonstrably worse than it was in the hands of the good player.

Which has been my point this whole time, no matter how hard you try and twist what I am saying.

You say that like "more powerful" is universal. Consider a race that gives you +10 Strength, +10 Constitution, and -6 Intelligence. That's a pretty great race if you're a Fighter. Worthy of a couple of points of LA, easy (well, maybe, LA works poorly). But if you're a Wizard, getting that race is like getting punched directly in the crotch. Or at least, I think it is. You seem to think the value of build options is unknowable.

I think this is an entirely disingenuous point, and I think you know it.

It is, once again, Reducto Ad Absurdum and a Straw Man together. Nothing about what I was saying suggested taking subpar, character-hampering options. You've decided to act like I'm making such a ridiculous point because your ego is assuaged by tearing down such a ridiculous stance.

Whatever makes you happy, dude.

No, but that's not what you said. And in any case, that has nothing to do with the power of the class. A class that is very good at solving combat problems, and can't solve non-combat problems is not inherently worse than one that is pretty good at solving combat problems and pretty good at solving non-combat problems.

No, but a class that is "decent at solving combat problems and can't solve non-combat problems" is better than a class that is "only able to solve combat problems (but doesn't really have any concrete class abilities that allow it to do so, and has lots of customizable options, many of which do not continue to be advantageous throughout the career) AND can't solve non-combat problems".

GASP! It's almost like that's the exact definition of Tier 4 and Tier 5, respectively! Which has been my point the entire time!

That one is absurd. The Fighter gets bonus feats that can be used to make him better at combat. That's a class feature that makes him better at combat. If it isn't, and is instead a pointer to "build choices", so is the Wizard's "Spells" class feature, and the Wizard belongs in T6 with the Commoner.

Point Blank: Are you claiming the list of Fighter Bonus feats are equivalent in power to the Wizard spell list?

If "Yes", then we fundamentally disagree (and just about every 3.x veteran disagrees with you, too)

If "No", then you acknowledge that you are intentionally engaging in Reducto Ad Absurdum AND making a Straw Man of my point.

Which is it?

Because I'm not even trying to create equivalency between Fighters and Wizards, I'm comparing 3.5e Fighters with PF Fighters in this regard.

It's absurd to claim that actual class features are inherently better than ones that let you choose from a list of options. Sometimes they are (Dread Necromancer v Fighter). Sometimes they are not (Wizard v Monk). Things are better because they are better, not because of the amount of choice you do or do not have in what things you get.

You're getting close to understanding what I have been saying.

When the list of options you can choose from are mediocre, with a low significance of impact on performance (in combat, as is the case of the Fighter), and you can't ever switch out an option for a better one when the old option is no longer useful, then the advantage is not as great as fixed options which are actually powerful.

It's like saying the 3.5 Fighter gets to choose from a whole bunch of options that are about a 1/5 or 2/5 in power (or start good, but lose effectiveness quickly -like Great Cleave). At Higher levels they may get a few that are 3/5. And those options can never be traded out. Compared to the Pathfinder version that gets even more feats, gets to retrain feats that have lost effectiveness for new ones (and yes, they can trade away a low-level feat into a feat that they only just now meet prerequisites for, getting more "high level" feats), and ON TOP OF THAT gets fixed class features that improve their defenses, mobility in heavier armor, and attack/damage rolls that go above and beyond what other classes get. Shocking that I think that's a better option, I know.

That seems suspiciously like taking build decisions into account. How did we make the decision that the Wizard's list of things -- which are not Wizard class features -- was better than the Fighter's list of things -- which are not Fighter class features -- if all we're allowed to look at is the class?

Again, see what I just said about how the Fighters options are a bunch of "1/5 or 2/5", while the Wizard has spells that run the whole gamut, to include some so overpowered that they're practically "6/5".

Not equivalent in power. Just looking at access to the feat list vis the spell list respectively. Also, Wizards can easily acquire scrolls (cheapest magic item ever) to expand their list, and can change their spell load out from day to day. Fighters cannot.

So not equivalent in power or versatility. Do you yet understand why I consider your point intellectually dishonest?

3e has retraining rules too. Even has the DCFS.

So...an optional rule from I think it was the DMG2? And a feat-swapping option that REQUIRES a Tier 1 or 2 spellcaster?

You think that in any way is equivalent?

Just as an FYI, that's not actually any clearer. I do not, despite what you seem to think, have a learning disability that prevents me from reading text that is not either bold or all caps. I simply disagree with you. You seem to not be okay with that, but you're doing very little to change it, because you seem more concerned with trying to work some ref into striking me out for "being like this one guy who you remember" or "condescending to you" or "doing things you think are fallacious" than making persuasive arguments.

I don't give a whit about "changing your opinion". I'm perfectly okay with you disagreeing with me. But you are proving more and more that you either genuinely do not understand what I am saying, and keep misrepresenting it, or you're intentionally trolling me. I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, quoting more text is not making your point stronger. I know what the tiers say. But what they say is not objective. It's not defined in a way that I can take the Wizard class and the tier definitions and figure out where the Wizard goes.

That sounds like a failing on your part. If you have enough of an understanding of what kinds of things that can be accomplished with the spells on the Wizard's spell list, and you have a list of JaronK's Tier definitions, then you should absolutely understand which one Wizard goes in.

I have to have other information, like "what encounters do we expect players to deal with" and "what are the areas of specialization, and the classes that specialize in those areas" and "what does it mean to break the campaign". JaronK gestures to that information, but he does not define it. So his answers are not objective. They're not clear-cut either, before you move the goalposts. They depend profoundly on how you answer those questions.

Those are all subjective and dependent on factors that are too subjective to possibly account for.

And Eggynack's system doesn't account for them, either.

And you know what? Neither one of them is even trying to. In fact, JaronK's explicitly says it is not.

Tell me, do you think toasters are "useless" because they don't make ice cream? No? Then why deride the Tier System for not doing something that wasn't even a design goal?

JaronK "gestures to that information" when talking about how people could actually use an understanding of the Tier System when they run their games. But it's not meant to some be-all, end-all of "X is too powerful to be allowed" or "Y is too weak to be worth playing". It is only a measure of the mechanics of each class while assuming anything that is NOT those mechanics is "equal" (which it quite obviously could never actually be equal in practice), for the purposes of establishing a baseline understanding of what a class, outside of specific build choices CAN be capable of.

That you have utterly missed that is not a failing of JaronK's system, eggynack's system, or my arguments.

Of course you can. But you can also do that with a series of definitions that read "about as good as the Truenamer", "about as a good as the Wizard", and "about as good as the Warblade". The question isn't if you can do it, the question is if anyone, regardless of their personal feelings about the system, can come to the same answer is you. That's what it means for the answers to be objective. And it's quite obvious that, using JaronK's set of definitions, that is not true. What if someone thinks the appropriate benchmark for a specialist is the Wizard? What if they think it's the Truenamer? You may disagree with them -- no doubt you do -- but the Tier System doesn't say they're wrong. It says that we need some benchmark for specialist, but it doesn't make a decision about what that benchmark is, and is therefore not objective.

This entire paragraph is nonsense. It has nothing to do with what you quoted from me, and is not even remotely related to the subject at hand. Unless your point is "I think everyone's subjective opinion is super valid, including the DMs who boost sorcerers and nerf monks for being too powerful".

I said the definitions of what makes each Tier distinct should be objective. As in, each Tier has some kind of [generalized] "identity" that all classes in said Tier share in common.

What's the point of labeling different levels of WAR in baseball stats? Even if all you're measuring is "goodness", it can be useful to have a shorthand for a particular range of "goodness".

What makes that range distinct from the range right below it? What makes a "low Tier 3" still "Tier3" while a "high Tier 4" is still Tier 4?

Example: Death Master is the top of Tier 2 at 1.55. Generis Spellcaster is right below it at 1.66. These things are 0.11 apart from each other and are in the same Tier. Mystic Ranger is at the bottom of Tier 2 at 2.44. Wilder is at the top of Tier 3 at 2.55. They are also only 0.11 apart from each other. What makes one a "Tier 2 class" and the other a "Tier 3 class"? Clearly the gulf between them in power differential is not enough. What does the Mystic Ranger have in common with the Death Master that makes them both Tier 2? And what is so different bewteen it and the Wilder that Wilder is in a separate Tier?

Do you understand my bone of contention now?

No, it's the fact that "rankings by power" is exactly what "Tier System" means to everyone except JaronK. The outlier here is the guy who used a term of art to mean something it doesn't mean, not the people who used it to mean what it does mean.

Lolwut? What "term of art"?

The first thing that comes to mind with the word "tier" (for me at least), is architecture. A building like the Aztec/Inca pyramids. Tiered structures. Composed of several distinct levels atop one another.

One of the definitions of "Tier" is: a level or grade within the hierarchy of an organization or system. Much like how, for example, military pay is conducted. Everyone in the same paygrade and "years of service" bracket get the same pay. This is the definition meant by both of these class ranking systems.

The difference is: eggynack's system provides no continuity or identity within each "Tier". Calling the classes in each group a "Tier" is entirely arbitrary.

But please, share with us how JaronK used "a term to mean something it doesn't mean". I would LOVE to hear how his Tier system isn't related to "tiers". Or the meaning of the word "tier".

I'l even help you out:

Spoiler: Dictionary definitions of "Tier"

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Spoiler: Miriam Webster

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tier noun (1)
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\ ˈtir \
Definition of tier (Entry 1 of 3)
1a: a row, rank, or layer of articles
especially : one of two or more rows, levels, or ranks arranged one above another
b: a group of political or geographic divisions that form a row across the map
the southern tier of states
2: CLASS, CATEGORY

Spoiler: Dictionary.com

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tier1[ teer ]SHOW IPA
SEE SYNONYMS FOR tier ON THESAURUS.COM
noun
1. one of a series of rows or ranks rising one behind or above another, as of seats in an amphitheater, boxes in a theater, guns in a man-of-war, or oars in an ancient galley.
2. one of a number of galleries, as in a theater.
3. a layer; level; stratum:
The wedding cake had six tiers. All three tiers of the firm's management now report to one director.
4. Australian. a mountain range.

Spoiler: Cambridge English Dictionary

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tier
noun [ C ]
UK /tɪər/ US /tɪr/

- one of several layers or levels:
We sat in one of the upper tiers of the football stands.
My wedding cake had four tiers, each supported by small pillars.
I don't understand why you think we need yet another tier of management.

Spoiler: Oxford Dictionary

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tier noun
/tɪə(r)/
/tɪr/
​1. a row or layer of something that has several rows or layers placed one above the other
a wedding cake with three tiers
in tiers The seating is arranged in tiers.
2. ​one of several levels in an organization or a system
We have introduced an extra tier of administration.
a two-tier system of management
the lower tier of government

[eggynack]

This is ridiculous. "Tier 1" should mean something distinct. As should "Tier 3". Otherwise, why are the multiple classes in each Tier included in THAT Tier?

I find that JaronK's accomplishes that, and eggynack's does not. And, since you claim that you ARE in fact familiar with JaronK's Tier System, you will then remember that he DID include some objective tests. They were further along in the post. Since you find it insulting, I'll not repeat them, but if you try and claim they don't exist again, then I will.

Tier one and tier three should mean absolutely nothing distinct besides, y'know, that tier one is stronger than tier three. Cause if the tiers mean anything else, and I hand you something that's as strong as a tier one class that happens to not fit these weird extra parameters of tier ones, then you either break your definitions or you break your list's capacity to do what it was designed to do. This is not a hypothetical problem either. Tier arguments often feature utterly ludicrous arguments centering on how Jaronk's definitions dictate that this thing or that thing should happen while a simple power level evaluation would yield a different result.

Whether it's people thinking that level 20 evaluation is the main thing that matters (because of the system centering on nukes for its high tier evaluation), or that a class cannot be tier two because it has less power than a tier one class (made up for by versatility), or endless jockeying about exactly how many things a class can do at exactly what level of competence (for tier 3, 4, and 5 comparisons), this stuff eats away at tier quality. It bad. Tiering threads often descend into this kind of nonsensical definition wrangling, and it has literally no bearing on anything.

So, no, the tiers do not have fancy definitions. Yes, the exact number of tiers is 100% arbitrary. I picked six to leverage existing tiering conventions, but we could have used more or less if we wanted to. Six is fine, I think. There are difficulties along the margins, but I think those difficulties are kinda inevitable for any tiering system, and some of that issue is eschewed by listing exact numbers instead of giving only a final integer result. These things you take issue with about this system were intentionally baked into it because doing otherwise produces a worse system.

Edit:

What makes that range distinct from the range right below it? What makes a "low Tier 3" still "Tier3" while a "high Tier 4" is still Tier 4?

Example: Death Master is the top of Tier 2 at 1.55. Generis Spellcaster is right below it at 1.66. These things are 0.11 apart from each other and are in the same Tier. Mystic Ranger is at the bottom of Tier 2 at 2.44. Wilder is at the top of Tier 3 at 2.55. They are also only 0.11 apart from each other. What makes one a "Tier 2 class" and the other a "Tier 3 class"? Clearly the gulf between them in power differential is not enough. What does the Mystic Ranger have in common with the Death Master that makes them both Tier 2? And what is so different bewteen it and the Wilder that Wilder is in a separate Tier?

This is actually a really excellent extra reason to not have weird definitions. Mystic ranger and wilder are really close together in power level, right? Close enough that it could theoretically make sense for them to be in the same tier. And you want to have definitions that indicate that these classes are really different in a way that's essentially impossible to reconcile? So different that the mystic ranger gets saddled with a whole pile of extra qualities, like a pile of nukes but not that many? And the wilder also picks up a pile of qualities that renders it extra distinct? All this you do for the sake of .11 difference. It's a lot of baggage that you're necessarily associating with a narrow distinction.

[RedMage125]

Tier one and tier three should mean absolutely nothing distinct besides, y'know, that tier one is stronger than tier three. Cause if the tiers mean anything else, and I hand you something that's as strong as a tier one class that happens to not fit these weird extra parameters of tier ones, then you either break your definitions or you break your list's capacity to do what it was designed to do. This is not a hypothetical problem either. Tier arguments often feature utterly ludicrous arguments centering on how Jaronk's definitions dictate that this thing or that thing should happen while a simple power level evaluation would yield a different result.

Then why separate into distinct "Tiers" at all? Like I shared in the definition of "tier", that means "layers or levels". The tiers in amphitheater seating, for example, are all the same height. What makes all those classes "the same Tier"?

I get that you just wanted a ranking system. And your system is, perhaps better at showcasing relative power level between classes, and how close some classes are respective to each other.

But the distinction of "Tier" is 100% meaningless.

And JaronK's system provides descriptions that are general enough that the classes don't really have a problem of "breaking the definitions" or "break list's capacity to do what it was designed to do". Especially not the second one, because the ONLY THING the list was designed to do is rank the classes by virtue only of what the mechanics of those classes permit in terms of power and versatility.

That some people misunderstand the purpose and get into Tier arguments about classes being strictly "better" or "not even worth playing" has nothing to do with what the list was "designed to do".

If a system (any system) only fails when it is misused by people who don't understand it, how is that a fair indictment of the system itself? Especially when it DOES do what it WAS designed to do. Jeez, that sounds a lot like an alignment thread argument.

Whether it's people thinking that level 20 evaluation is the main thing that matters (because of the system centering on nukes for its high tier evaluation), or that a class cannot be tier two because it has less power than a tier one class (made up for by versatility), or endless jockeying about exactly how many things a class can do at exactly what level of competence (for tier 3, 4, and 5 comparisons), this stuff eats away at tier quality. It bad. Tiering threads often descend into this kind of nonsensical definition wrangling, and it has literally no bearing on anything.

Doesn't seem to me that the Tiers are exclusive to level 20 evaluation. A lot of Tier 1 classes are capable of doing almost anything by mid levels (7+). Let's not forget how many games never go to high levels, and all the level 1 Wizards that are frail, helpless glass cannons (or glass pea shooters in some cases), that are quite dependent on their allies to get through combat and noncombat encounters. These "Tier jockeying" arguments sound like a lot of people forget that it's still D&D. It's not about which class can get some kind of "high score". It's like people I see who argue about Super Smash Bros. character "tiers", then get knock TF out by a "C" Tier character while they only pick "S" tiers.

Re-read the into to JaronK's post again sometime. Most of what the intent of it boils down to is a tool for DMs. Whether for having an approximation of what the party members are capable of, for determining where some leeway in what may be allowed might shore up a weaker character, as opposed to boosting an already strong one, or for figuring how house rules could be applied in a balanced manner, or for figuring out how to model new, homebrewed material, based on what classes the homebrew is similar to in the creator's mind. The only mention of players is for when one is joining an existing group, and what level of power and versatility would be a "good fit" without being a spotlight hog or an albatross.

So, no, the tiers do not have fancy definitions. Yes, the exact number of tiers is 100% arbitrary. I picked six to leverage existing tiering conventions, but we could have used more or less if we wanted to. Six is fine, I think. There are difficulties along the margins, but I think those difficulties are kinda inevitable for any tiering system, and some of that issue is eschewed by listing exact numbers instead of giving only a final integer result. These things you take issue with about this system were intentionally baked into it because doing otherwise produces a worse system.

I'm actually glad you said this, because I was going to, lol.

Your last sentence there is entirely opinion, but you and I have different outlooks on the matter.

For what it's worth, I think your system is a good ranking of the classes. And it showcases which classes actually aren't that far apart in terms of power. I just don't see the "Tiers" as anything other than arbitrary.

But I'm wondering if you didn't just call it that to call attention to it, so all those people who are interested in things like how classes are ranked, and already know (or already argue about) the Tier System will click on it, thinking it's relatable to something they already have an idea about. In that sense, it's a form of click-bait. And it certainly invites this exact kind of argument from someone who may have expected...you know...TIERS. And perhaps you did that FOR all those people who wanted JaronK's Tier System to be something other than what it was. But they didn't really understand that, and I don't understand catering to a misunderstanding and changing a system to make their misunderstanding "correct", instead of just helping them understand why their assumptions were incorrect.

I have kind of a fixed idea of what I expect from certain things. And as much as I cop to being Lawful Neutral, I mean that in a lot of the negative associations, too. This thing you have made...I am by no means saying it is "without value". But it it NOT a "Tier System" in any kind of meaningful way. It might as well be 50+ different "Tiers", each with only one or two classes (those that scored the exact same), because it's just ranking them all individually. Or just...not call it a Tier System

Edit:
This is actually a really excellent extra reason to not have weird definitions. Mystic ranger and wilder are really close together in power level, right? Close enough that it could theoretically make sense for them to be in the same tier. And you want to have definitions that indicate that these classes are really different in a way that's essentially impossible to reconcile? So different that the mystic ranger gets saddled with a whole pile of extra qualities, like a pile of nukes but not that many? And the wilder also picks up a pile of qualities that renders it extra distinct? All this you do for the sake of .11 difference. It's a lot of baggage that you're necessarily associating with a narrow distinction.

So what makes Mystic Ranger belong in a category with Death Master, with a 0.89 difference between them?

Why is the 0.11 difference not distinct between Death Master and Generic Spellcaster, but it somehow "is distinct" between Mystic Ranger and Wilder?

And if your answer is that "it's not", then I ask "why have them in 'tiers' at all?"

Spoiler: personal note

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eggynack, I want you to know that I like you as a poster and we agree on a lot, and even when we disagree , you've always been one for civil discourse, which I appreciate. It seems like a lot of your answers to my issues with your system are "it's not a flaw, it's a feature", which means that you and I have fundamentally different ideas about and expectation from, something called a "Tier System", and I don't know that we're going to change each others' minds. It seems that you literally intentionally designed the thing to not do the one thing I expect and think it should, properly, if it's going to be called a "Tier System", and once you acknowledged that Tier Distinction is utterly arbitrary, I just don't think we're gonna see any more eye-to-eye on the matter.
But I want to close with a more positive note and tell you that I do think your system of ranking the classes is neat. I think it's interesting to have them all kind of ranked up on one board like that (especially when I have never even heard of a handful of those, I didn't ever play with any of the wildly different variants like 'Mystic Ranger' or 'Psychic Rogue'). I think that actually makes it MORE interesting to me, because it showcases which ACF had such a huge impact as to drastically change a class' ranking.
I don't want you thinking that just because I don't think it's a "Tier System", that I'm in anyway denigrating what you have put a lot of thought and effort into, because it is very cool.