Tiering Classes

[Username17]

First, an aside about making fun of people from other websites that you are exasperated with:

We don't have threads about linking up to retarded arguments followed by headdesking. That kind of thing is for Fundies say the darndest things. Over here it gets off topic and makes genuine discussion hard to deal with. But that really does not mean that you can't link up to something that's very bad if you intend to exhaustively dissect it. Angry reviews is totally something that we do. Angry yet constructive reviews even more so.

So for example since this is a discussion about tiered classes, it is only natural that someone or several someones will link to the work of JaronK. Because while that work is mostly useless and has gotten increasingly out of touch over the years, it's posted in a lot of places and we would be remiss to even have this discussion without at some point at least referencing his output at least to draw clear distinctions.

The key point is that while I understand that JaronK is a douche and his material is mostly worthless, his stuff will be linked as a point of discussion. Like how you might talk about Descartes despite the fact that no one takes dualism seriously any more philosophically.

There are of course a lot of different ways to tier classes. But it s interesting to me to tier them in how difficult it is to make, play, or destroy the game with a class. These are different lists, and as such it makes no sense whatsoever to try to organize the game into a single class hierarchy. It is incredibly difficult to make a Fighter "build" that can contribute much of anything you care about past the first couple of levels (and most of the levels won't be "fighter" anyhow), but actually playing such a character is usually pretty easy since once you've done all the work to have a really good Trip bonus you pretty much just make a trip attack every turn and then wail on people.

This makes D&D warriors a decent choice for your girlfriend, because they don't know enough about the game to make a character (thus allowing someone rules savvy to build it for them), but they do know enough about the game to roll the attack dice every turn. This makes D&D warriors a very crappy choice for your friend Mike. He knows the game well enough to get bored rolling the attack dice every round, but he doesn't know the game well enough to realize that he needs to take Planar Touchstone to go lick the statue of scorpions to keep his trip bonus level appropriate.

-Username17

[NineInchNall]

So, perhaps the spellcasters, even the easiest ones to play (Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Sorcerer) rate higher on the difficulty scale than pretty much all warriors in terms of playability?

[ubernoob]

nm

[Emerald]

So, perhaps the spellcasters, even the easiest ones to play (Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Sorcerer) rate higher on the difficulty scale than pretty much all warriors in terms of playability?

I'd say they rank towards the middle, between the martial types and the sneaky types. Building a caster is a pain in the ass for beginners--What do I pick for spells known? Should I spend money on scrolls to copy into my spellbook? What spells are good?--and preparing spells is a pain in the ass even for intermediates--How do I know what I'll need two of today!?--but playing isn't as difficult. If you give someone a pre-built sorcerer and say "Okay, you're a level 4 sorcerer; you can cast 6 spells today from Group 1, and your choices are magic missile, shield, and ray of enfeeblement, and you can cast 3 scorching rays," it's fairly easy to explain what the spells do and then each round they can think "Hmm, do I want to hit 2 people with fire damage, auto-hit 1 person, or make someone weak?"

Rogues are probably among the toughest to play for beginners, because if you're going the TWF flasks route (which is how someone here would most likely build one), they have to know touch attacks, TWF, grenadelike weapons, ways to make people flat-footed, and so on, and then they need to roll their attacks, damage, and possibly misses for the flasks.

[Username17]

So, perhaps the spellcasters, even the easiest ones to play (Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Sorcerer) rate higher on the difficulty scale than pretty much all warriors in terms of playability?

Dread Necromancers and Beguilers can be quite difficult to play, because every round they have dozens of options, many of which are defensible life choices. They are very easy to build, because there are almost no choices at all that seriously impact your awesomeness. You can't fail to have spells on your list that make you level appropriate because they are just there for being whatever level you happen to be.

So here is an example of a simple tier system:

Building a Character

Easy

Beguiler, Cleric, Dread Necromancer, Rogue

Not Easy

Druid,

Hard

Wizard

Very Hard

Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Sorcerer

Playing a Character

Easy

Barbarian, Fighter

Not Easy

Monk, Rogue, Sorcerer

Hard

Beguiler, Dread Necromancer

Very Hard

Cleric, Wizard

Breaking the game.

Easy

Monk

Not Easy

Wizard

Hard

Cleric, Druid

Very Hard

Rogue

-Username17

[virgil]

I'd almost argue on rogues being very hard to break, unless you mean breaking in terms of excess power; as opposed to breaking the monk in terms of underwhelming power, which is definitely very easy to do.

Let me tell ya, seeing someone play a rogue that would only use a heavy crossbow at low levels is something special.

[Kaelik]

I notice you don't have Druid under playing a character at all.

May I recommend Very Hard.

They are like Wizard +

A) crap ton of spells to choose both prepare and cast.
B) Shit ton of Wildshapes to maybe do.

[Spaghetti Western]

For breaking the does easy mean it's easy to break the game or it's easy to have an optimized character and not break the game?

In other posts I've read in the forum there seems to be a consensus that the monk is woefully underpowered. Curious as to how this relates to your definition of breaking the game?

Thanks
SW

[Kaelik]

For breaking the does easy mean it's easy to break the game or it's easy to have an optimized character and not break the game?

In other posts I've read in the forum there seems to be a consensus that the monk is woefully underpowered. Curious as to how this relates to your definition of breaking the game?

Thanks
SW

Breaking the game is making it unplayable.

If you have a Wizard who has DC OVER NINE THOUSAND save or dies. That's a broken game, IE unplayable.

If you have a Monk in your party, that's an unplayable game, because there is literally nothing that Monk can do to actually look like a real PC, and everyone is going to see that.

[NineInchNall]

I am puzzled by your build difficulty placement of the druid. Sine they really are a 1-20 class that requires only one specific core feat to be awesome and all ...

[NineInchNall]

<double post>

[IGTN]

Maybe he's counting everything that you do on your own without input from the other players or much input from the DM (like, say, spell preparation) as building.

[ggroy]

[NineInchNall]

I notice you don't have Druid under playing a character at all.

May I recommend Very Hard.

They are like Wizard +

A) crap ton of spells to choose both prepare and cast.
B) Shit ton of Wildshapes to maybe do.

A) Wizards have almost as many to choose when shopping.
B) Wizards have more forms for polymorph.

Seems a wash.

[Kaelik]

A) Wizards have almost as many to choose when shopping.
B) Wizards have more forms for polymorph.

Seems a wash.

No, in play Wizards don't have nearly as many, in build, they have many more.

And no, A wizard has to actually prepare polymorph and then use it. And Polymorph is actually a really shitty spell except for bullshit cheese.

Druids have a class feature of automatically having a bunch of polymorphs prepared. The are going to use them, and much more often than a Wizard.

[Judging__Eagle]

I'd put Fighters in "Hard to play" imo. I've seen players with all kinds of feats that they picked, but didn't actually use in situations that would have warranted them.

Juggernaut's "I can grapple you! Ho ho ho ho!" ability is one really sorry offender. Every full BaB character that I've seen with it, doesn't use it as often as possible.

They've got so many possible options; and if you mix in a level of say.. Rogue, or just get maxed UMD; they've got the skill points and the armour to look like a cleric, with wizard spells, and more BaB than a cleric.

Mind you, this is at higher than level 16 games.

[Username17]

Druids need wildling clasps, wildarmor, and natural spell to get their shit together. This sounds obvious, but it's not. Those required items are simply scattered through the books and there isn't any mention of them in the original class.

In addition to being an actual nightmare to play a Druid, just building one requires that you know ahead of time that absolutely everything is a trap except Natural Spell.

-Username17

[ggroy]

[Judging__Eagle]

Yes, yes it really is.

Imagine a character that can do "whatever"; as long as it doesn't involve turning/rebuking undead, or using SA dice. This character can come up with a different battle-winning combo each fight and not run out of options or variations for a long time.

Most fights will probably consist of "Yeah... I play my lute." or "Mass Cure Critical Wounds!". I'll probably just sandbag.

[hogarth]

I'd almost argue on rogues being very hard to break, unless you mean breaking in terms of excess power; as opposed to breaking the monk in terms of underwhelming power, which is definitely very easy to do.

Let me tell ya, seeing someone play a rogue that would only use a heavy crossbow at low levels is something special.

I would say that 9 out of 10 rogues that I've seen were useless in a fight (e.g. melee rogues with 10 Con who would flail away ineffectively with a rapier).

[ggroy]

[ggroy]

[MGuy]

I get that kind of thing at mid levels and from newer players. Otherwise at low levels my players tend to try to avoid combat or subvert what would be a bigger combat into a shorter one by using the environment/situation to separate, confuse, kill, shock, or delay enemies. At mid levels I see a lot of attack routines played out. 10+ is where I usually see various uses of people's abilities mixed with some of the shenanigans they pulled off at lower levels.

[JonSetanta]

Druids need wildling clasps, wildarmor, and natural spell to get their shit together. This sounds obvious, but it's not. Those required items are simply scattered through the books and there isn't any mention of them in the original class.

In addition to being an actual nightmare to play a Druid, just building one requires that you know ahead of time that absolutely everything is a trap except Natural Spell.

-Username17

Peculiar. Setting up combinations (builds) for players through specialty wizards works, perhaps a specialty druid would as well.
Rather than Natural Spell as a feat it would be a class feature. Spell selection would be limited to only those that assist animal shapes and summoning.

For instance:
• Animalistic Druid (w/e Natural Spell, of course.. or some variation)
• Plant Druid (w/ Greenbond Summoning or whatever it's called)
• Elementalist (Weather) Druid (amped up with Tome combat magic feats)

[NineInchNall]

Why not be all three?