Hypothetical Question

[Yogibear41]

Say I am a level 17 character with 17 levels of various NPC classes.
But:
I can Cast Gate 3/day as a SLA (no xp cost), but I can only Gate in Creatures native to the Nine Hells.

Am I tier 2? By nature of being able to do one incredibly powerful but limited thing?

Same Question, but assume I can summon splat book fallen angels that are basically evil Solars.

Then Same question, but assume I have 17 levels of Tier 3 or lower player character classes.

[Quentinas]

I think the answer is no at least in the first case, and a counter example I think at the Truenamer. Is he able to cast gate without limits? Yes . Is he an high tier?
From the retiering post of the truenamer (LINK) he is only a tier 5 even if he can have Gate and being a knowledge machine or a support class for others

As for the second question it would depend on the class probably you could be near the power of a tier 2 class, but I'm not sure because for example there is the Healer that by the retiering post is a tier three but he can use gate (and is not his main thing) without paying any cost would be better but it would be limited on the type of the monster (Link about the healer)

EDIT Found another source

[Kayblis]

The tier system doesn't address builds or specific levels, it's a general rank of classes taking into consideration all levels of play and different optimization levels. What you're asking is kinda like asking "How many liters of water away is the next city?". It's the wrong measuring stick, and any answer you do get is tangential at best.

[ixrisor]

Pit fiends are native to the nine hells and have wish as a sla. This gives you wish 3/day, plus whatever else the pit fiends do. At this level, you can do pretty much anything, at any time, so are tier 1.

[ExLibrisMortis]

The tier system doesn't address builds or specific levels, it's a general rank of classes taking into consideration all levels of play and different optimization levels.

This.

Now, as it happens, there are two classes that get gate as a class feature at or around level 17: the Truenamer and the Incarnate. Both are usually considered average to weak classes (tier 4 or thereabouts), even taking into account their ability to cast gate. That's because most of the time, Truenamers and Incarnates are not going to be level 17 or above--there are a lot more lower levels, and many campaigns simply don't reach a level that high. So it is a little disingenuous to rate these classes "tier 2" when most players will find their Truenamers and Incarnates a lot weaker than that.

If you consider your NPC class levels to be in the same ballpark as levels in those classes, power-wise, you can reasonably call your character tier 4. However, that rating only makes sense if you could play that "virtual class" (i.e. treating the specific levels in the build as if it's a base class) at any level from 1 to 20, and it assumes that the class grants gate at level 17, no sooner. A class with 3/day gate from level 1 would be tier 2. If you're only considering the levels past 17--because this is a unique NPC that's only going to see high-level play--the tier system simply isn't suitable anymore.

[NigelWalmsley]

I don't really care what broken thing your character can do at 17th level, and the fact that there are tier definitions out there that imply that is a thing you should care about is one of the stupider things about the tier system. Lots of characters that do impressive-sounding things at 17th level. But most people don't play at 17th level, so what matters is how the character can contribute to the game over the course of a campaign. The Wizard is not awesome because he gets Gate, Wish, and Shapechange at 17th level or because he has access to obscure loops that break the game. He is awesome because he spends every level casting spells that win encounters and adventures.

The tier system doesn't address builds or specific levels, it's a general rank of classes taking into consideration all levels of play and different optimization levels. What you're asking is kinda like asking "How many liters of water away is the next city?". It's the wrong measuring stick, and any answer you do get is tangential at best.

Not really. The tier system is, fundamentally, about character power. The reason the Warmage is in T3 is because the things you can do with the Warmage fall in the T3 band. You can. in fact, look at a specific build and say what tier it is in. Insofar as you claim that people can't, you're basically saying the tiers don't measure things we care about, which I would hope is not the case.

A class with 3/day gate from level 1 would be tier 2.

That would be T1. If it isn't, the Tier System is useless, because that would be the most powerful class in the entire game. So powerful, frankly, that in practice it would not be allowed to use that ability and it would probably be correct to rank it as if it did not actually get it.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Not really. The tier system is, fundamentally, about character power. The reason the Warmage is in T3 is because the things you can do with the Warmage fall in the T3 band. You can. in fact, look at a specific build and say what tier it is in. Insofar as you claim that people can't, you're basically saying the tiers don't measure things we care about, which I would hope is not the case.

The tier system is about seeing a trend in the power classes achieve under (average) optimization, and expressing that trend by putting classes in tiers. It's an abstract meta-metagame thing, not a practical tool for rating character power. Yes, it gets used that way, and it can be a useful shortcut, but it's not what the tier system is about.

That would be T1. If it isn't, the Tier System is useless, because that would be the most powerful class in the entire game. So powerful, frankly, that in practice it would not be allowed to use that ability and it would probably be correct to rank it as if it did not actually get it.

*shrug* It might be. I'm not particularly concerned about the exact rating, given that it's very much not what the tier system is supposed to do. It's somewhere north of "game-breaking", and that's accurate enough.

"The tier system can't rate weird edge cases" doesn't say anything about its quality overall. In fact, this 3/day gate is a good illustration of why the tier system doesn't do builds. It's really hard to tier a single trick on its own, especially if it doesn't line up to any existing class (or even monster). How good is gate, really, as a class? Only when you zoom out to the point where all high-level spells are roughly interchangable do you get the level of abstraction that tiers function at.

[NigelWalmsley]

The tier system is about seeing a trend in the power classes achieve under (average) optimization, and expressing that trend by putting classes in tiers.

Sure. That is a thing you could describe the tier system as doing. But if you ask other people, they will describe it as doing different things. Some people will tell you that it is about "equivalent" rather than "average" optimization. Some people will tell you it is about "versatility" instead of or in addition to "power". Some people claim that it counts only those forms of optimization that are "class-based" for some definition. What the tier system is, in practice and in expectation, is a list of classes by how could you expect characters built using those classes to be. Everything else is back-filled from that.

"The tier system can't rate weird edge cases" doesn't say anything about its quality overall.

This isn't really a weird edge case. The example OP is proposing is basically the same as a Truenamer, and Gate 3/day from 1st level is just a caster with a spell list that is extremely broken. You can rate those things just fine, it's just that they are stupid things to allow in your game and the rating isn't terribly important.

Only when you zoom out to the point where all high-level spells are roughly interchangable do you get the level of abstraction that tiers function at.

That's very much not the level of abstraction they function at. As evidenced by the fact that the Healer, the Dread Necromancer, and the Wizard are all in different tiers.

[ExLibrisMortis]

This isn't really a weird edge case.

No, I think it is. But, as you say, it's not terribly important to rate, so let's waste no more time on it.

That's very much not the level of abstraction they function at. As evidenced by the fact that the Healer, the Dread Necromancer, and the Wizard are all in different tiers.

Okay, point, abstacting a bit too much there . Spell lists are important. Speaking of, healer is another one of those classes that gets gate. I knew there was a third one.