Author Topic: How do these factors affect a class's tier?  (Read 15190 times)

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Mixster

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Re: How do these factors affect a class's tier?
« Reply #80 on: June 15, 2011, 05:00:56 PM »
What book is that in? I haven't seen it.  Certainly sounds like it's got potential.  Does it have UMD?

...yes, I really want Ninjas to have UMD.  Also very upset about Swashbucklers not having buckler proficiency.  It's right there in the freaking name...

JaronK
Sword and Fist Pg. 31, that's perhaps the best chassis I've seen, all good saves, full BAB, D8 Hp, 4+Int skills and a Decent skill list that sadly lacks UMD.
Base Attack Bonus: +6.
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Moon leadership.

I kindda like it. It's not OMFG good, but a decent Tier 4 build can be made with it, sadly it requires level 7+ to enter. The best core entry probably being Ranger 3/Monk 2/Rogue 2, with partial BAB.
Monks are pretty much the best designed class ever.

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Nachofan99

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Re: How do these factors affect a class's tier?
« Reply #81 on: June 15, 2011, 07:22:43 PM »
Having seen a lot of DMs that don't factor that sort of thing in (resulting in Ninjas that can't do anything... stupid blindsighted enemies, undead, constructs, etc!), I've seen Ninjas get really screwed regularly.
JaronK

Now we're completely on the same page.  I blame uncreative DMs, not players, and really it's the bad game designers who didn't do enough to help newer DMs learn how to make the game fun.  I mean you can substitute "Ninjas" with any class really if your DM is not up to task.

See, I see a lot of is how players are playing wrong.  To me, that's usually, but not always, garbage.

The way we play, if your Fighter doesn't get to Bull-Rush someone into lava or off a cliff, the DM is the one at fault.  Same with Disarm/Trip/Sunder etc.

If there isn't a perfect line of mooks just begging to be lightning bolted at least once per campaign, the DM is doing it wrong.

No, you sure as hell are not going to get to Bullrush-instakill someone every combat, but you sure as hell are going to do it *sometime* in the campaign.

If the entire party isn't left beaten half to death in a cell with only the Monk capable of saving everyone, we blame the DM for a missed opportunity.  Everyone is supposed to get their time in the spotlight.

Now to throw this sort of back to the OP, adding BaB, HD, etc doesn't really let your DM be more creative with his encounters, it just makes them raise the bar a little and maybe add in Skills as another possible test, maybe.

Mixster

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Re: How do these factors affect a class's tier?
« Reply #82 on: June 15, 2011, 08:04:38 PM »
Having seen a lot of DMs that don't factor that sort of thing in (resulting in Ninjas that can't do anything... stupid blindsighted enemies, undead, constructs, etc!), I've seen Ninjas get really screwed regularly.
JaronK

Now we're completely on the same page.  I blame uncreative DMs, not players, and really it's the bad game designers who didn't do enough to help newer DMs learn how to make the game fun.  I mean you can substitute "Ninjas" with any class really if your DM is not up to task.

See, I see a lot of is how players are playing wrong.  To me, that's usually, but not always, garbage.

The way we play, if your Fighter doesn't get to Bull-Rush someone into lava or off a cliff, the DM is the one at fault.  Same with Disarm/Trip/Sunder etc.

If there isn't a perfect line of mooks just begging to be lightning bolted at least once per campaign, the DM is doing it wrong.

No, you sure as hell are not going to get to Bullrush-instakill someone every combat, but you sure as hell are going to do it *sometime* in the campaign.

If the entire party isn't left beaten half to death in a cell with only the Monk capable of saving everyone, we blame the DM for a missed opportunity.  Everyone is supposed to get their time in the spotlight.

Now to throw this sort of back to the OP, adding BaB, HD, etc doesn't really let your DM be more creative with his encounters, it just makes them raise the bar a little and maybe add in Skills as another possible test, maybe.

Well, now we are in complete agreement.
What I think to be the problem is that many "bad" DMs assume that players should make characters that can meet their threats, but not surpass them by a huge margin. Thus players will make all manner of characters from their own perception of what the DM will throw at them.
Then the DM will throw something at them that can't be suitable for everyone, unless he had a very strict way of telling his players what their characters should be able to do.

I, however, unlike you, think the Tier system takes this into account geniously, as Tier 1 and 2 Classes can easily surprise an unfamiliar DM and do something completely different from what you'd think they'd do.

Here's an example:
[spoiler] I had a DM fairly unfamiliar with wizards that didn't blast (my silly group told me it was an underpowered way to play a wizard if you banned evocation), since I usually played gishie buffer types, and our other caster played a blaster wizard, but the blaster wizard dude asked me to play the wizard so he could play something else.
And so I did, and I made a Conjurer. Now our DM had a kindda silly campaign design where we would be dropped in different campaign worlds, to return the night after, so as we were dropped too far from any major city, the chances, he thought of us getting any reliable information on how to stop this were pretty small. However, as soon as we were dropped a group of Brigands attacked us, and we intimidated them into telling us how far it was to the nearest town. Three days on horseback, in gallop. The DM told us. Well I said, I cast Phantom Steed, and then I ride there, with the halfling from our Party on my horse.

This totally took our DM by surprise and thus he had to change the layout of his campaign to follow this change of events. It was minor, and wind walk would have done the same thing, but it was still so dramatically different from what he was used to, that the high tier class took him completely by surprise.[/spoiler]

Thus Tiers are IMO a great tool for predicting how much the players can actually do. High level tier 1 and 2s can do almost anything, travel almost anywhere and kill almost anything in a matter of seconds. High Level tier 5s and 6s can struggle to deal with level appropriate encounters.

A good DM would alleviate this, and find a strength in everybody's build, and then let that build play out to its' strengths. A bad DM will assume that the players will act within his campaign, and if they aren't strong enough to face his challenges, they are poor optimizers, but if they beat the challenges to easily and generally wipe the floor with his campaign, they are just munchkins.

Sorry, that was sort of a rant.
Monks are pretty much the best designed class ever.

JaronK

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JaronK

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Re: How do these factors affect a class's tier?
« Reply #83 on: June 15, 2011, 08:21:20 PM »
Nacho, you realize that's part of the point of the Tiers?  Low tier classes (like Fighters, Monks, CA Ninjas, etc) require the DM to change their campaign to suite the strengths of those classes.  For example, I had a DM complain to me that he hates having Fighters in the party, because he had to throw a fight into the gaming session every time to keep the player doing something.  Likewise, I had a campaign set up where in the start the players could pick four options... go West to deal with a Necromancer in his tower, go South to go tomb raiding and find ancient treasures, go East to join mercenary groups in their war against the Drow, or go North to have an intrigue and spy game with an evil Dwarven empire.  I had come up with this without knowing what classes would be played, but I figured this was plenty of variety.  When the players got to the decision point, they accused me of railroading because I made fake choices for them.  Why?  Because one of them was focused on sneak attacking (and thus didn't want to go anywhere near the Necromancer or tombs), and another was a Warlock (and thus didn't want to deal with Drow SR), so they assumed I was intentionally forcing them to chose North.  Meanwhile, two players were heavily combat focused, so they were upset to be dealing with intrigue since there wasn't enough combat.

This is not to say that having to change the campaign to match the appropriate strengths of the characters is bad per se... in fact, that's exactly how the game was intended to be run, and that's how the playtest players ran things.  But that's how low Tier folks tend to play.

By comparison, the really powerful tiered folks have the opposite issue... the campaign has to change to reign them in, lest they change it on their own.  We had a game that was supposed to be set in the underdark, but was low magic, and the DM had set it up that the City of Brass was the major magic item market, but we were stuck in the underdark.  Then a Sorcerer joined the party... taking Plane Shift was a perfectly reasonable choice in that situation, but it would have broken the game, so that spell had to be essentially removed from existence to preserve the game style the DM wanted.

I wouldn't call it "bad dming" to make campaigns without worrying about what the player's strengths are, it's just one particular style that some like and some don't.  If you want to play that style, you'll want mostly T3 classes (maybe some T4).  If you prefer games where the DMs make sure the players have something to do and where the players can't really go out of control, then T5 is more appropriate.  If you want to just let your players run rampant all over the place, or want to throw insanely hard challenges at your players and see if they can survive, or think good DMing is when the DM is effectively playing chess against the players via abilities and threats and seeing if they can compensate, perhaps T1 is better.

Which brings this back to the OP in the end... changing the base skeleton really won't get you up to any better than "can hang with the campaign as is without hand holding from the DM." 

JaronK

Nachofan99

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Re: How do these factors affect a class's tier?
« Reply #84 on: June 15, 2011, 08:45:09 PM »
Yeah I think we're in fairly high agreement all around.

I like the way JaronK is putting it where the DM is either hand holding the low tiers or quashing the high tiers.  That's a more direct way of saying the same thing I was trying to say.  Tier as a reflection of DM's job regarding the PC at that Tier whether helping hand or whack a mole.

I think that just really good/high T4 is the inflection point and I know quite a few others who believe that as well.  It's interesting that T4 is right around where the OP's stats will balance someone out.

Quote
A good DM would alleviate this, and find a strength in everybody's build, and then let that build play out to its' strengths. A bad DM will assume that the players will act within his campaign, and if they aren't strong enough to face his challenges, they are poor optimizers, but if they beat the challenges to easily and generally wipe the floor with his campaign, they are just munchkins.

Can't agree more really Mixster.

And like JaronK says, the base skeletons (BaB, Saves, HD etc) just won't get you much farther than baseline.

This actually almost motivates me enough to make a new thread kind of regarding this more exacting topic with far more specifics.

PlzBreakMyCampaign

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Re: How do these factors affect a class's tier?
« Reply #85 on: June 16, 2011, 02:33:38 PM »
This totally took our DM by surprise and thus he had to change the layout of his campaign to follow this change of events. It was minor, and wind walk would have done the same thing, but it was still so dramatically different from what he was used to
Aside from whatever falls in his ban list (like the dirty handbook fixes) this is the hallmark of mediocre DMing. Call it railroading or not thinking outside the box or whatever, but players are supposed to be able to do whatever PG13 actions they want. Talk down the dragon and sell the princess to the highest bidder? If they are non-good, sure. They can solve problems however they want so long as they are not butt-hurt about the consequences (e.g. king putting a bounty on their head -> ambushes until they deal with it.)

"However, I see that kind of play discouraged because of what I call the "whining players factor."  Waaah my item got sundered!  Waaah we were captured!   Waah level loss!  Waah death effects!  Waah grappled!  Waah waah waah!" = so true
« Last Edit: September 26, 2011, 10:54:32 PM by PlzBreakMyCampaign »
[Spoiler]
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An interesting read, nice to see a civil discussion
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JaronK

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Re: How do these factors affect a class's tier?
« Reply #86 on: June 16, 2011, 04:18:22 PM »
Unfortunately, it's pretty common DMing.  And for DMs who do get upset when you go outside their pregenerated ideas for what you're going to do, T5 classes are generally best... the DM can plan in advance what you're likely going to do and won't get thrown off (the Fighter will hit things until they're dead at an expected rate, the Ninja will use whatever skills you know he has in advance, the Healer will heal stuff, etc).  I've got a housemate right now playing in a TTRPG game with a new DM who keeps getting frustrated when he solves problems via battlefield control and creativity instead of just blasting stuff, so I helped him out by suggesting he make a new character that was a pure durability tank (much like a D&D Dwarven Defender).  It seems to have worked... the DM is no longer upset at him for having been too creative.  Hopefully that DM will grow into a more experienced one and then he can play something interesting.

JaronK

veekie

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Re: How do these factors affect a class's tier?
« Reply #87 on: June 16, 2011, 09:04:53 PM »
Unfortunately, it's pretty common DMing.  And for DMs who do get upset when you go outside their pregenerated ideas for what you're going to do, T5 classes are generally best... the DM can plan in advance what you're likely going to do and won't get thrown off (the Fighter will hit things until they're dead at an expected rate, the Ninja will use whatever skills you know he has in advance, the Healer will heal stuff, etc).  I've got a housemate right now playing in a TTRPG game with a new DM who keeps getting frustrated when he solves problems via battlefield control and creativity instead of just blasting stuff, so I helped him out by suggesting he make a new character that was a pure durability tank (much like a D&D Dwarven Defender).  It seems to have worked... the DM is no longer upset at him for having been too creative.  Hopefully that DM will grow into a more experienced one and then he can play something interesting.

JaronK
Naw, T4 is better for that. In T5 they may assume the character is actually effective at what they're doing at all, so every so often you're going to get overwhelmed.
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Endarire

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Re: How do these factors affect a class's tier?
« Reply #88 on: June 17, 2011, 02:04:07 AM »
Regarding class features, they're meant to be desirable.  Sometimes this works.  No amount of esoteric yet ineffective class features will keep me tethered to this class.
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Speaking of which:
Don't even need TO for this.  Any decent Hood build, especially one with Celerity, one-rounds [Azathoth, the most powerful greater deity from d20 Cthulu].
Does it bug anyone else that we've reached the point where characters who can obliterate a greater deity in one round are considered "decent?"

lans

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Re: How do these factors affect a class's tier?
« Reply #89 on: July 10, 2011, 12:31:48 AM »
The Basics - Everyone Gets These
-HD size (HP per level)
-Skill points per level
-Class skills
-BAB
-Saves
-Proficiencies (weapon, armor, shield)

My Input
Individually, none of these will affect a class's tier.  Giving a Commoner full BAB, all good saves, 8+INT modifier skill points per level, all skills as class, d12 HP, and proficiency with all  armor/shields/weapons might bring it to tier 4.  (It's still probably a tier 5.)
I wanted to expand on this
All classes also get stat boosts and feats, what would happen if we added a feat and ability point per level(counting the normal 1/3 and 1/4)

Keep in mind that general feats are way better than Fighter feats
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