Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

[Grod_The_Giant]

Druid: "I have special abilities that are more powerful than your entire class!" Tier 1, no questions asked. Arguably the strongest class in the game at low-to-mid optimization levels, with the special distinction of being game breaking even when played in the most straightforward way.

Duskblade: Tier 3, 4. The Duskblade is one of what I like to call the "tier 3.5" classes, with a hell of a combat punch but few options outside of that... buuuut they're spellcasters, with all the power that entails-- and casters with an impressive number of slots, at that. The base class is right on the cusp with its knowledge skills, mobility spells, and secondary attack methods, but easily crosses with just a bit of list expansion, which-- as we've seen-- isn't hard to do.

Expert: Tier 6. Probably the best and most dip-worthy of the T6 classes, but still pretty bad. Will be able to contribute in a mediocre fashion to most noncombat stuff, but no real options in-combat. Getting Iajutsu Focus to work probably gets you up to T5, but that's serious and specific enough optimization work that I don't feel good about including it in the main rating.

Expert (UA): Tier 5. As the NPC Expert, plus a weak sneak attack and a bunch of bonus feats. Still pathetic without some fairly serious optimization-- I mean, I guess you could do some sort of Iajutsu Focus/Incarnum pseudoWarlock type thing, but you're not going to be very good at it.

Factotum: Tier 4. The Factotum certainly has the breadth of a T3 character, but I honestly don't think they have the punch-- thus, T4 by virtue of "capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competence without truly shining." You really need to go book-diving for a useful offense. You can get there, if you try hard enough, but it takes a disproportionate amount of effort to be combat-effective compared to other T3s. Things like the Beguiler were T2 because they outshine the Sorcerer even at low-op levels through having a stronger base; not the case here.

Favored Soul:: Tier 2. They're a full caster with a great list; no questions here. Not as good as a Cleric, obviously, and the Spontaneous Cleric, if available, stomps all over you, but... great chassis, 9th level spells, and more spells known than a Sorcerer, and it's not that hard to get Turning and Domains back if you really want them.

[JBarca]

Druid - I honestly can't imagine any arguments for anything other than T1 holding any weight. 1

Duskblade - Not super familiar, but spellcasting combined with decent combat ability seems to be 3-4 to me. I hesitate to put into T4 someone getting Color Spray and Dispels, tactical teleportation and blasts, debuffs and buffs. So I'll stick with a solid 3

Expert: On the merits of getting UMD (plus social skills and some Knowledges), I think T5 is where I'll go. If they pack their bag of tricks well, they can at least partially contribute pretty widely. Because bad decisions can utterly cripple you, though, I guess X applies too - a player who doesn't understand optimization could choose to make a character who is great at jumping, balancing, tumbling, swimming, and climbing and waste the only thing the class can do. 5, 4, X

Expert (UA): Wholly unfamiliar. Abstaining.

Factotum: Solid T3. It can do a whole variety of things, can do most of them pretty well, and has access to some really neat tricks to really shine if necessary in high-op games. I've never seen a Factotum show up in a game and not be at least somewhat useful almost all of the time. 3

Favored Soul: So the Cleric's Sorcerer? I've never liked them or been entertained by them, but I can't see them not being T2 without some serious failure to optimize. 2, X

[Troacctid]

Not at all. Iajitsu Focus is merely one of the things they can do. Iajitsu Focus, on its own, probably wouldn't be worthy of T5.

All the other things they do are things an Aristocrat can do too, and Aristocrats are T6.

Where's Wand Bonding from?

City of Stormreach.

[Hurnn]

Druid: 1,x
This class is so good I could build 8, 10, 18, 12, 12, 14, generate my spells at random every day, and randomly choose feats from the PHB and still dominate a campaign.

Duskblade: 4,3,5
Good at combat, has some ok spells outside combat, not spectacular but not bad.

Expert (npc): 5,6
Possibly the best skill monkey out side factotum, can use skill tricks to boost its combat abilities. can cherry pick the 10 best / most relevant skills.

Expert (generic): 5,4
Worse rogue, that does have a few interesting options.

Factotum: 3
Another poster child for T3 can do a bit of everything pretty well. On another note, Iajitsu focus tricks is mentioned a lot when discussing why they are T3.

Favored Soul: 2,3
At the low end of T2 its only not t 3 because it can get all of the more broken spells available to a cleric, that said I think it doesn't really hit T2 until at least 10th level.

[eggynack]

Here's what you're missing: the UA expert gets class features which can be exchanged for feats.

They don't just get crappy Fighter feats as a class feature.

They get real class features.

For example: at 1st level, a UA Expert can have +2d6 sneak attack.

Not really. Sneak attack is fine, but there aren't that many instances of that you can take, and most of these generic feats are decidedly unimpressive. It's not like these kinda class features are good class features, mostly. Ranger isn't getting a shot at 4 because they have favored enemy, y'know? Fighter feats aren't the best thing, but when you mostly lack class features (and in spite of the generic feats, experts mostly lack class features that interact well with feats), they're not that much worse than purely unassociated feats. Even sneak attack is just alright. Would I rather this than the shock trooper line, or improved trip?

You have them the wrong way around.

Yep.

Your only native way of catching them flat-footed is to win initiative. That's one Iaijutsu Focus roll per combat. And you still have a crappy hit die and no weapon. Meanwhile, as long as we're spending feats, the Aristocrat can just spend one to get UMD as a class skill—does that make it T5 too?

Native, sure, but flat-foot methods aren't super hard to find. Marbles and a wand of grease are two classic low-cost methods. On using a feat here, I think it's a relevant disadvantage for the expert in the comparison, but it's not like UMD is all you're getting here. Also, you put forth an objection to iajatsu focus based on obscurity below, so I figure that, at the very least, the expert is getting either UMD advantage or iajatsu focus advantage. Plus various other things.

(What if your game isn't set in Rokugan and you don't have access to OA? Now how are you contributing in combat?)

Probably a good amount less, realistically. I mean, you do have simple weapons and average BAB, so you can kinda hit stuff, but a lot of your advantage is out of combat in this scenario. I think that counts for a bunch, though.

So in order for Expert to be T5, you have to have a single specific build that takes into account items, multiple feats, and setting-specific 3.0 material? Is that really a reasonable basis for a tier ranking? What if you don't use OA? Are we just assuming that most games are set in Rokugan?

Just cause it's an advantage being listed doesn't mean it's the only advantage. There're a bunch of skills that experts can get that aristocrats don't. And skill point quantity is always a pertinent advantage in this weird skill monkey fight.

I mean, hey, if we're getting that specific, we're going to need to move Sorcerer up to T1, since we can assume they're all going to take Wand Bonding and have more spells known than a Wizard. Beguiler too—they have UMD, so not only do they have more spells known than a Wizard, they can also take them off of any list.

The two have similar specificity, but the expert thing is decidedly closer to class given that the obscure thing doesn't require investment for accessibility. It's technically just a thing you can do. Anyway, I think they're both relevant factors. We shouldn't strictly assume that every expert can or will use iajatsu focus, but it's in your possibility space.

Nearly every class has access to Profession skills, so this isn't an advantage for a pick-your-own-skills class.

It can't change one class's tier when all classes have it.

It's an advantage over aristocrat.

For what it is worth, I'm in agreement with Troacctid on this; you can't use one really well-optimised build to move a class up a tier without being able to do the same for all classes. There is value in that (look at optimisation level tiering lists), but JaronK's tier system (which this thread uses) presumes only average optimisation.

I don't think this necessarily is one specific build. Experts have a bunch of potential powerful skills on their list as compared to aristocrat, and also as compared to most classes in general. Striking out a particular path to power obviously hurts, because we're not working with a crazy amount of stuff this far down the tier list, but there are always other choices. It's like weirdly barring fighters from improved trip (not saying there's an equivalency of likelihood). It sucks, cause that was a low cost path to some reasonable effectiveness, but there are other tricks in the sea.

On the topic of Duskblade, we seem be to stuck in the same rut as the Crusader and Psychic Warrior discussion; does being able to do different things in combat make it Tier 3 worthy (along with the "one thing quite well" premise that Tier 4 has)? Does having little to nothing to do outside of combat not matter for consideration of being Tier 3? Is this just a problem that Tier 4 feels wrong because they are more useful than Barbarian, but that they are not anywhere near as useful as Bards and so don't fit Tier 3, either? Is the only right answer Tier 3.5?

Looking at their list, their list does seem lacking in non-combat orientation. Y'know, we're talking in somewhat vague terms, so I'ma just make a list of what they have that can be considered useful in this arena (cause their small number of such things makes it relatively easy).

First: Jump, which I doubt anyone is taking, along with maybe swift expeditious retreat, obscuring mist, and resist energy.

Second: The stat boosting spells all have some minor non-combat applications. Also, darkvision, dimension hop, swift fly, swift invisibility, see invisibility, and spider climb.

Third: Crown of might, dispelling touch, regroup.

Fourth: Dimension door and dispel magic.

Anything missing or in excess? Either way, it's halfway decent but not precisely good. Skills help.

All the other things they do are things an Aristocrat can do too, and Aristocrats are T6.

That's just not accurate. Aristocrats do not have access to all but one of the best skills in the game. Their list is good, but it's not that good.

Overall, my feeling is that experts don't get all that much, but aristocrats don't get all that much even more. Skill power is generally considered a bit better than melee power in the grand scheme of things. And, critically, they're really good at skills. They're one of the better classes in the game at it, and I think that's a valuable thing.

[Nifft]

Not really. Sneak attack is fine, but there aren't that many instances of that you can take, and most of these generic feats are decidedly unimpressive. It's not like these kinda class features are good class features, mostly. Ranger isn't getting a shot at 4 because they have favored enemy, y'know? Fighter feats aren't the best thing, but when you mostly lack class features (and in spite of the generic feats, experts mostly lack class features that interact well with feats), they're not that much worse than purely unassociated feats. Even sneak attack is just alright.

Yeah, but at the point where we're mining ACFs and setting books for obscure skills, the section on DM-permission adaptations for the UA Expert becomes relevant:

You can't recreate all of the standard character classes with these generic versions, particularly classes with complicated, unique, or specialized features such as bardic music, a wizard's familiar, or a druid's wild shape ability. If your game master allows it, you might be able to select other class features in place of one or more feats.

Above this section, a Wizard's familiar is priced at one bonus feat.

Therefore, Wild Shape is also (kinda) implied to be priced at one bonus feat.

Would you rather have Wild Shape or a Fighter feat?

How about Bardic music or a Fighter feat?

That's just not accurate. Aristocrats do not have access to all but one of the best skills in the game. Their list is good, but it's not that good.

Overall, my feeling is that experts don't get all that much, but aristocrats don't get all that much even more. Skill power is generally considered a bit better than melee power in the grand scheme of things. And, critically, they're really good at skills. They're one of the better classes in the game at it, and I think that's a valuable thing.

Expert (NPC) is NOT one of the better classes in the game at skills.

The better skill classes are the ones that can break the skill check curve: Incarnate, spellcasters with skill boosters, Bard songs, people who can cast Extract Gift, people who can craft custom +30 Wondrous Items.

Expert (NPC) may be able to compete at using skills during the span of low levels before any of that stuff comes online, but that's exactly the span of low levels where an Aristocrat having armor & martial weapon proficiency is a solid benefit.

[VisitingDaGulag]

Druid is T1: still a core list with 9s. WS and AC are gravy. Natural spell is the 6th level's real class feature.

Duskblade is T3: good class features but no 6th level spells. :( Think bard with more combat.

Expert is T5: because you wish you were a savant and you dream of being a factotum. Still UMD can do things for you. Atleast rogues can SA with effort.

"Generic Class" Expert is T4 when houseruled to play with the the other classes: Totally depends on whether you are explicitly breaking the "no mixing generic classes with nongeneric classes" rule. If you aren't, then these classes need a separate tier category or marker. Otherwise the reason for the vote is that it's a straight improvement from the NPC class (you can go good fort+will rather than just will, profession+craft+2 more of any skill as in class, and 7 chose able class features / feats at 1st and 2nd then multiples of 4. The class becomes much better (and is rated so) when it is assumed to multiclass. If not, you're basically comparing it to the non-houseruled version, in which case there's no point in tiering it because everyone is one of two versions (arcane/divine or tank/not) of two classes (mundane vs caster). I suppose in that non-houseruled version it would be t5 and very close to the generic warrior.

Factotum height of t3 almost by definition. It does everything but is master of none. Often responsible for lots of flame wars about font of inspiration.

Favored Soul: T2. This is to cleric as sorc is to wizard.

[eggynack]

Yeah, but at the point where we're mining ACFs and setting books for obscure skills, the section on DM-permission adaptations for the UA Expert becomes relevant:


Above this section, a Wizard's familiar is priced at one bonus feat.

Therefore, Wild Shape is also (kinda) implied to be priced at one bonus feat.

Would you rather have Wild Shape or a Fighter feat?

How about Bardic music or a Fighter feat?

I don't buy this as an argument. That line is in the same possibility space as, say, magic item creation guidelines. They don't even necessarily enter your gaming life when the surrounding book does, and any individual application of this strategy would need DM approval. In essence, while the line you're citing is RAW, the claim you're essentially making on that basis, "Experts can use their bonus feats to take wild shape," is not RAW. And where more obscure sources and ACF's make sense to me to include, non-RAW does not. If experts can get wild shape through these feats, unambiguously, then absolutely, UA expert is tier three, and so is the UA warrior, because that's about how highly that ability is valued.

Expert (NPC) is NOT one of the better classes in the game at skills.

The better skill classes are the ones that can break the skill check curve: Incarnate, spellcasters with skill boosters, Bard songs, people who can cast Extract Gift, people who can craft custom +30 Wondrous Items.

That's fair. They're pretty alright at it though. They definitely do the wide variety of well invested in skills thing better than most.

Expert (NPC) may be able to compete at using skills during the span of low levels before any of that stuff comes online, but that's exactly the span of low levels where an Aristocrat having armor & martial weapon proficiency is a solid benefit.

I dunno that that aspect of it matters. If they're just better than the aristocrat at stuff from like 6-20, that seems like it'd be enough even if they'e also worse than various other classes at their shtick during that range.

[BaronDoctor]

Druid: T1. You're a day away from any spell you could ever want, and until then you can be a bear, with a bear friend, that summons bears, and if you can't solve a problem by throwing tons of bears at it, you're not trying.

Duskblade: T3. Combat chassis + knowledge skills (you're an Int caster, you're taking Int, you're getting skills, these are the best skills for you to take) + abbreviated casting. Is it perfect? No. Can you generally work with others and get the job done? Yeah.

Expert (NPC): T5. 10 class skills gets you the ability to participate in a lot of the game (UMD, Face, Perception, Stealth lets you play an Embassy Spy), even if you don't have that "wow" moment. Also, no class features hurts.

Expert (Generic): T4. more class skills, more class features, better chassis. It's worth a notch up.

Factotum: T3. Even more class skills, even more (good) class features, sharply limited (but very powerful) spellcasting.

Favored Soul: T2. Spontaneous casting where you pick the best spells you can find off the cleric list. It's a good list and you get a lot of spells.

[Lans]

What advantages do the Aristocrats advantages over the Expert?

They have a higher HD, medium and heavy armor proficiency, shields, and martial weapons.

Now what does these mean?

-Higher HD =1+Level hp.

Medium, heavy armor, and shield proficiency Chain shirt vs fullplate or breastplate. This is +1-8AC, unless the expert uses armor or shields he is not proficient in, which would nuke his dexterity and strength skills and checks. Mainly relevant for initiative.

Martial weapons For melee weapons the difference is roughly 1 point of damage+ the option to use a tripping weapon. For ranged its the ability to make more than 1 attack a round.


Say an Expert wants to use melee, he will use an d8 weapon, the Aristocrat will use a great sword. The damage difference between the two is 2.5. The Expert with a 14 charisma will get 7.35 points of damage on the first round of combat with iajutsu focus if he gets it off. This should increase by .8 a level till it starts to cap. So for 3 rounds they could deal about the same damage. At these levels he can have a golf bag full of weapons, to take advantage of additional flat footedness.

Now if we look at other factors like burst damage on the first round of combat, the expert has a major advantage in this area over the aristrocrat. A good roll can give an extra 4d6 damage which could end a fight.

I think the aristocrat has the advantage in ranged and defense, but thats it.

Edit- Maybe not defense, an expert has light armor and could take tumble to move to a safer location, and I think he can still pull out a tower shield and hide behind it. So it might be more of a toss up.

[Lans]

I'd probably almost always rather be an Aristocrat and actually have some native fighting ability with AC and HP and damage and maybe energy resistance.

TL;DR Experts are roughly the same power level as Aristocrats and should be in the same tier.

Are you talking about the dragon husk thing?

[eggynack]

So, went searching for 7th level druid spells, cause I said I would, and I found perhaps the least tier impacting spell that's worth mentioning, mark of the unfaithful from champions of ruin. Weird spell, that, and the list of advantages a 13th level druid has over a 12th level one continues to be oddly underwhelming for a full caster that happens to get a lot of neat advantages at various levels (like huge wild shape, which is one of several saving graces of 15th). I suppose the search continues, moderately daunted. Least I got an entry out of the deal.

[remetagross]

Aren't we forgetting the Erudite as a base class for this week, or is it considered too close to the Psion to warrant being looked at separately?

[Jormengand]

The results from last round:

Crusader 3
Death Master 2
Divine Mind 5
Dragon Shaman 5
Dragonfire Adept 3
Dread Necromancer 3

One more time: variants will be considered at the end, I will not reopen nominations for classes just because you think they've been mis-tiered no matter how much you protest, and this is not the thread to discuss classes which have already been tiered unless you're using that tier to inform later classes.

[AnachroNinja]

So basically it doesn't matter if things change after the fact, you don't care about the list actually being right once the week is up. What's the point of this then?

[D.M.Hentchel]

One more time: variants will be considered at the end, I will not reopen nominations for classes just because you think they've been mis-tiered no matter how much you protest, and this is not the thread to discuss classes which have already been tiered unless you're using that tier to inform later classes.

Well, that is very disheartening, this is going to be a wildly inaccurate tier list with bizarre gaps, that doesn't even confine to the communities general consensus. The discussion is still good though.

Going to change my duskblade vote based on the crusader tier, the two belong next to each other.

[Jormengand]

So basically it doesn't matter if things change after the fact, you don't care about the list actually being right once the week is up. What's the point of this then?

A few points:

- It's unreasonable to expect people, the vast majority of whom don't intend to change their votes, to re-vote every time the beguiler lobby is sad that the beguiler isn't T2, or any other class's lobby calls for a re-vote.
- It's unreasonable to expect me to call said re-vote every time that happens.
- If I did call a re-vote every time someone was upset by the location of a class, I would be calling so many re-votes that we'd never actually reach the end of the list, let alone hear the case for the tens of variants being nominated.
- The actual tier of the beguiler isn't going to change. If you wanted to vote T2, you should have voted T2 when you had the opportunity rather than lobbying for special favours. Allowing people to push me around just by being rude at me or questioning my motives is actually less conducive to creating a tier list which the playground tends to agree on.
- I think that several classes are in the wrong tier, but I'm not complaining because this thread operates on the majority opinion, not the opinion of whoever shouts at me loudly enough.
- This is a relatively high-procedure thread, which is the only thing making it at all easy to follow. Breaking that procedure is just going to make it impossible to follow what's actually going on.

For those in the proverbial back: this thread's procedure is not changing. If you don't like it, that's certainly your prerogative, but I don't intend to respond to any more complaints on the issue.

[remetagross]

So this means the Erudite is considered a variant rather than a separate class, then. Mind you, it does not really make a difference to judge it now or in a few weeks, as long as we don't forget it.

Also, Jormengand, maybe the duration of the vote should depend of the level of consensus there is to be found? For example, if we see that everyone more or less agrees on the ratings of one round, you could close it after four or five days maybe, thus allowing the more heated debates (like the last one) to last a bit longer, say, a tenday? How does that sound? It just seems a cleverer way to use up the eleven weeks this should last.

[Jormengand]

The erudite does bill itself as a variant psion - in general, I'm not going to treat variants as separate even if they're written out as full classes (I did at one point put Urban Druid in the list, this has since been redacted after I realised just how many variants are written as full classes).

The voting duration is going to be about a week for each class, just so that people who can only be here to vote once per week can do that. In general, as we've seen, any discussion beyond a week is likely to turn nasty and counterproductive which is why I'm also not going to extend discussion beyond a week.

[Jopustopin]

@Jormengand any chance we can add the Nightstalker from Races of Ansalon to the base class list to vote on?

[Jormengand]

@Jormengand any chance we can add the Nightstalker from Races of Ansalon to the base class list to vote on?

The Dragonlance books are so rarely considered that I doubt we'd get a consistent vote on it (I doubt most of the people voting will have heard of the nightstalker class, let alone actually obtained the book it's in, let yet alone seen it used) but if more people are interested we can certainly vote on it.

[remetagross]

In general, as we've seen, any discussion beyond a week is likely to turn nasty and counterproductive which is why I'm also not going to extend discussion beyond a week.

Well I was under the impression that actually, the fact that many people changed their mind about the Beguiler tended to show that discussion could remain thorough and hepful even after more than a week since its beginning, hence my suggestion.

[Pleh]

A lot of people are getting discouraged because the tier isn't "accurate".

The point of this work isn't to really make it accurate to the real game (though that is a hoped for consequence). The idea more is to give an average forum consensus. If most people are wrong, then the average will be off. But it's still accurate to the consensus being measured.

It's not useful to what you're hoping for. That doesn't mean it isn't useful at all.

[Nifft]

Regarding vote changes -- it's my impression that this Community Tiering will happen more than once, so the vote changes will be relevant and counted next time around.

Save the good parts of the discussion, the bits that convinced other people, and be sure to present them next time.

Until then, please let the thread continue.

[Lans]

Why not at the end of all the variants go over the list to see if we want to re-vote on any class? Say we revote on 3 or 5 or 10 classes? People who feel beguiler or divine mind or sorcerer wound up in the wrong tier can wait patiently or make another thread about it. You would be looking at 2 or 3 more rounds of voting at the end.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Why not at the end of all the variants go over the list to see if we want to re-vote on any class? Say we revote on 3 or 5 or 10 classes? People who feel beguiler or divine mind or sorcerer wound up in the wrong tier can wait patiently or make another thread about it. You would be looking at 2 or 3 more rounds of voting at the end.

That's not a bad idea.

[OldTrees1]

A few points:

- The actual tier of the beguiler isn't going to change. If you wanted to vote T2, you should have voted T2 when you had the opportunity rather than lobbying for special favours. Allowing people to push me around just by being rude at me or questioning my motives is actually less conducive to creating a tier list which the playground tends to agree on.
- This is a relatively high-procedure thread, which is the only thing making it at all easy to follow. Breaking that procedure is just going to make it impossible to follow what's actually going on.

For those in the proverbial back: this thread's procedure is not changing. If you don't like it, that's certainly your prerogative, but I don't intend to respond to any more complaints on the issue.

It seems that most of those initially asking for a revote are people that changed their judgement. This is not a case of "if you want Tier 2 now, you should have voted for Tier 2 then". Additionally an ideal community sampling poll would accommodate people changing their minds.

That said, you are absolutely right to stick to the procedure of this thread! You have a long list to go through and that is difficult to do on a forum like this.

[Nifft]

Why not at the end of all the variants go over the list to see if we want to re-vote on any class? Say we revote on 3 or 5 or 10 classes? People who feel beguiler or divine mind or sorcerer wound up in the wrong tier can wait patiently or make another thread about it. You would be looking at 2 or 3 more rounds of voting at the end.

This seems pretty reasonable.

That said, you are absolutely right to stick to the procedure of this thread! You have a long list to go through and that is difficult to do on a forum like this.

I totally agree with this. The show must go on. We have a lot of classes to cover.

[Cosi]

Here is JaronK's original thread tiering classes. I bet that the total shift in tiers between that thread and this one is less than five, and propose that the person who gets closest but not under to the actual number of shifts wins bragging rights.

Any takers?

Now, a few rebuttals.

- It's unreasonable to expect people, the vast majority of whom don't intend to change their votes, to re-vote every time the beguiler lobby is sad that the beguiler isn't T2, or any other class's lobby calls for a re-vote.

Then have re-votes count the original votes, unless someone actively votes a different way when re-voting.

- It's unreasonable to expect me to call said re-vote every time that happens.

If you don't want to count people's votes on class tier, why are you hosting a thread where people vote on class tier? Generally, when I don't want to do something, I achieve that by not doing that thing. For example, I don't go around punching bears in the face.

- If I did call a re-vote every time someone was upset by the location of a class, I would be calling so many re-votes that we'd never actually reach the end of the list, let alone hear the case for the tens of variants being nominated.

So far, eighteen classes have been tiered, with one call for a re-tier (though, depending on how the Beguiler re-vote goes, it might be reasonable to have a Dread Necromancer re-vote). Even if we assume that's a base rate, rather than a one-off deal, we'd expect to vote on three or four classes for re-tiering. That's not even a whole round of voting. Lans' suggestion of doing it at the end seems very reasonable.

- The actual tier of the beguiler isn't going to change. If you wanted to vote T2, you should have voted T2 when you had the opportunity rather than lobbying for special favours. Allowing people to push me around just by being rude at me or questioning my motives is actually less conducive to creating a tier list which the playground tends to agree on.

If you held the vote now, it would (by someone's count) change.

- I think that several classes are in the wrong tier, but I'm not complaining because this thread operates on the majority opinion, not the opinion of whoever shouts at me loudly enough.

I don't think it's fair to categorize the "Beguiler is Tier Two" people as bad actors. They've made more arguments, provided more justification, and engaged more, than most other people on most other topics in this thread. Whereas the "Beguiler is Tier Three" people mostly just posted "Beguiler 3", which seems to me much worse for reaching a consensus than continued discussion.

But there are obvious ways to deal with this, that are not "never ever revote anything, even if consensus has changed" and still do not allow "malicious" actors to warp the system. Earlier, I suggested keeping old votes. You could also require a threshold of five votes for re-voting to re-vote a class. You could only re-tier classes that get more votes in the re-voting.

[Gnaeus]

Another way to do it might just be to take the handful of classes that are close to even in votes and subject to significant debate and mark them as debated. Ultimately, whether beguiler is 17/15 or 15/17 says only that there is not a clear strong concensus on the class. While I strongly feel that beguiler is T2, whether they end up up or down a few votes, I think T3* or T2* is more reflective of opinion than having one side "win". If we take the same vote in 3 months, it could easily go the other way.