Author Topic: Tier System For Classes (Repost)  (Read 514954 times)

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InnaBinder

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #420 on: December 15, 2010, 06:10:25 PM »
The divine mind is kinda like if the fighter and healer had a baby and decided to drop it on its head multiple times.
:lmao
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Sinfire Titan

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #421 on: December 15, 2010, 07:01:50 PM »
The divine mind is kinda like if the fighter and healer had a baby and decided to drop it on its head multiple times.

:rofl

We now know why its a Psionic class. It's special.


[spoiler][/spoiler]

Lycanthromancer

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #422 on: December 15, 2010, 11:13:40 PM »
The divine mind is kinda like if the fighter and healer had a baby and decided to drop it on its head multiple times.

:rofl

We now know why its a Psionic class. It's special.
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ninjarabbit

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #423 on: December 16, 2010, 11:31:29 PM »
The fighter can be optimized, the healer can be optimized, most of the tier 5 classes can be optimized to a degree. Even with heavy optimization the divine mind is still a gigantic piece of turd that has no place in even a tier 4 party.

bearsarebrown

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #424 on: December 16, 2010, 11:40:21 PM »
The fighter can be optimized, the healer can be optimized, most of the tier 5 classes can be optimized to a degree. Even with heavy optimization the divine mind is still a gigantic piece of turd that has no place in even a tier 4 party.
I disagree. Divine Minds still get 6th level powers, have the option of a Psicrystal and can do pretty much anything a Fighter can.

Lycanthromancer

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #425 on: December 16, 2010, 11:43:06 PM »
The divine mind is basically a psionic NPC class. Vaguely useful, but not by much.
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lans

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #426 on: December 18, 2010, 12:37:05 AM »
This might be true, but NPC classes run from T6-T4. I don't think its as good as the adept, but it does get access to some nice things like suggestion, metamorphosis, Planeshift, Astral Construct, Fabricate, a couple of Save or Sucks, and a couple of other things.

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bearsarebrown

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #427 on: December 18, 2010, 12:38:12 AM »
nice things like suggestion, metamorphosis, Planeshift, Astral Construct, Fabricate, a couple of Save or Sucks, and a couple of other things.
Exactly. It gets them late but these alone power it over the Fighter any day of the week.

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #428 on: December 18, 2010, 12:56:39 AM »
nice things like suggestion, metamorphosis, Planeshift, Astral Construct, Fabricate, a couple of Save or Sucks, and a couple of other things.
Exactly. It gets them late but these alone power it over the Fighter any day of the week.
Not really.  The power of Metamorphosis and other effects like it is that it lets a pure caster take the role of a front-liner.  Put in the hands of a Divine Mind, who is already a front-liner and not much of a manifester at all, and you just have an above-par buffing power.  Add to that the fact that a Divine Mind has to burn a feat just to be as effective as a Psion in using his paltry array of powers, and that he lacks enough PP to use them very often at all and you have a shit class.

lans

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #429 on: December 19, 2010, 06:07:02 AM »
I would like to say that Tier 5 is still pretty shitty, I mean its the tier for the monk and swashbuckler.
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jeco

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #430 on: December 25, 2010, 05:08:11 AM »
Q:  My players want to play classes of wildly different Tiers.  What can I do about this?


It terms of balancing the tiers, has any one ever tried implementing a tier based XP bonus/penalty? If so, what type of XP curve have you tried?

It seems like it could be an effective approach. Lower tiers would progress through levels quicker and gain more class features and such. On the other hand, since the higher tiers can do so much anyway, being behind a few levels isn't really going to over penalize them.





Garryl

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #431 on: December 25, 2010, 05:13:21 AM »
People have thought about it before. Check out this for an idea similar to what you're talking about.
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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #432 on: December 25, 2010, 12:25:15 PM »
Sounds like it would work pretty decently in theory. I imagine a 20th level adept, hexblade, spell thief, ranger, bard, and divine mind are  on  par with or better than a level 10 wizard or cleric.
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Kuroimaken

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #433 on: December 25, 2010, 07:42:47 PM »
It SOUNDS like it would work in theory. I'm skeptical because the higher the levels get, the more higher tier powers are required. A Fighter 20 isn't going to be much help navigating a Balor's magic-trap-filled fortress.

A friend of mine has theorized that by eliminating spells of 6th level and above you eliminate a lot of problems in D&D. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that creates just as many...
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ninjarabbit

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #434 on: December 25, 2010, 07:54:43 PM »
Every spell level has its broken and game-changing spells, even a wizard with only 1st and 2nd level spells could give most non-magical characters problems.

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #435 on: December 25, 2010, 08:42:49 PM »
Every spell level has its broken and game-changing spells, even a wizard with only 1st and 2nd level spells could give most non-magical characters problems.

This is somewhat true. Basically, no matter what spell levels you remove, you're still going to have to remove or nerf some spells from lower levels, just because there are so many spells published and you only need a few broken spells at each level before the wizard can fill up his slots with them.

On the other hand, with lower level spells, making the game unplayable for non-spellcasters is not yet the baseline, but rather the outliers on the spell spectrum. The number of spells you need to remove to make the game continue running smoothly on the basis of removed spells alone increases with each higher spell level, and above a certain point (you can make arguments for anywhere from fifth to seventh level spells) the number of spells you need to remove or fix becomes so many that you might as well chop spells from there on up out entirely.

With low-level spells you have to go out of your way to make non-spellcasters unplayable. With high-level spells you have to go out of your way not to.

Sinfire Titan

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #436 on: December 26, 2010, 02:34:36 AM »
Q:  My players want to play classes of wildly different Tiers.  What can I do about this?


It terms of balancing the tiers, has any one ever tried implementing a tier based XP bonus/penalty? If so, what type of XP curve have you tried?

It seems like it could be an effective approach. Lower tiers would progress through levels quicker and gain more class features and such. On the other hand, since the higher tiers can do so much anyway, being behind a few levels isn't really going to over penalize them.


The problem with that is twofold:
  • Multiclassing/PrCing
  • The XP system of 3.5 favors characters who are lower level than the rest of their party.


[spoiler][/spoiler]

PlzBreakMyCampaign

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #437 on: December 26, 2010, 02:38:33 AM »
Just outta curiosity since even this repost is still getting bumped (and your still interested in it, ie posting) why didn't you include the extra base class categorizations I did? It would be nice to have all base classes listed after all...
Is there a link to this?
ardent (3)
Battledancer (5)
deathmaster (2)
divine mind (5)
dragon shaman (5)
dragonfire adept (4 with but slightly lower than warlocks)
eidolon (5)
eidoloncer (variable like a PrC, but technically a ghost only non ECL1 base class. Without casting to advance 6)
jester (high 4)
incarnate (3)
lurk (Definately tier 5. I wish they could actually do something)
montebank (4)
mystic (Tier 2, one of my favorites despite the fact that it is a favored soul minus the umph)
noble (Tier 5=weak sauce bard without the spells)
savant (low 4)
Sha'ir (2, but ... strange)
shadowcaster (4)
shugenja (3)
sohei (4)
soulborn (5)
spirit shaman (tier 2 because it tries to do too much and doesn't quite succeed)
totemist (4?)
Wilder (low 2, wishes it could be a psion)

Like Jaron said most every seperate variant is in the same tier, including:[spoiler]
bardic sage
battle sorcerer
cloistered cleric
divine bard
domain wizard
druidic avenger
paladin of freedom, slaughter, tyranny and the Drag Mag ones
psionic artificer
savage bard
urban adept
thug
totem barbarian [UA kind]
urban ranger[/spoiler]
[Spoiler]
Quote
An interesting read, nice to see a civil discussion
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Tenebrus

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #438 on: December 26, 2010, 01:08:52 PM »
Every spell level has its broken and game-changing spells, even a wizard with only 1st and 2nd level spells could give most non-magical characters problems.
On the other hand, with lower level spells, making the game unplayable for non-spellcasters is not yet the baseline, but rather the outliers on the spell spectrum. The number of spells you need to remove to make the game continue running smoothly on the basis of removed spells alone increases with each higher spell level, and above a certain point (you can make arguments for anywhere from fifth to seventh level spells) the number of spells you need to remove or fix becomes so many that you might as well chop spells from there on up out entirely.

I'm sure this can generate a spirited discussion, but has someone attempted a list of "Most Egregious Spells by Level?"  And if several someones have, is there a favored list?

ninjarabbit

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #439 on: December 26, 2010, 02:45:31 PM »
Treanmonk's excellent guide to being a wizard god and evaluation of thevarious school's is a great place to start.

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=394.0