Or, instead I can say that we should judge classes based on some metric besides arbitrary ability to destroy the game.
This entire time your whole justification for why Dread Necromancers are so amazing is that they can use Planar Binding. Either drop that and judge them based on a game with slightly more sane limits, or don't complain about people using game destroying tricks in comparison.
Well, your other claim is that DNs destroy encounters, but having played one I can guarantee that for the most part, they don't (not compared to Sorcerers, anyway). Sure, when they finally get Cloudkill (level 10) and Evard's Tentacles (level 8) they get a few effective spells, but before that, what have they really got for destroying encounters?
And why do you keep harping on the number of spells they have, as opposed to how effective those spells are? Does anyone really care that they have Bane, Bestow Wound, Detect Undead, and Doom at level 1? Or Death Knell, False Life, Gentle Repose, Ghoul Touch, and Scare at level 2? They have a lot of useless trash in their list. Cut that out and they have as many spells as a Sorcerer... but they don't get to pick the best of the best. Sure, they've got some solid ones, but what level 2 spells do they have to compare to Glitterdust and Alter Self? What at level 1 is competing with Grease and Colorspray?
...no. Free unfettered access to the entire Wizard/Sorcerer list is not "on par" with a regular Dread Necromancer, even one who spends every single feat on Arcane Disciples to get the best spells he can find. Claiming that is exactly like claiming Dread Necromancers are on par with Wizards. It's just not the case at all.
It's not free or unfettered or the entire Wizard Sorcerer list, so that statement literally could not be more wrong.
Perhaps you need to read over Mage of the Arcane Order again. He may not get every spell any time he wants (there's per day limits), but he can get what he wants when he needs it. He gets the spell he needs with a single full round action. That's enough to find out you're about to fight a dragon and just take a round to get Shivering Touch, or find out you really need to get somewhere now and grab a teleportation spell. It means you never have to spend a spell known on a utility spell ever again... just take as spells known only the stuff you want to use every day. Everything else you can have.
Yeah, it's the whole Wizard/Sorc list, at your fingertips.
I am not advocating turning anyone into a dual stat caster. And yes, if they don't use any spells with a saving throw, they can dump Wisdom, but then they can't use any spell with a saving throw.
But you are advocating dual stat. You keep talking about how DNs are so great because they can use Arcane Disciple, which means they now need Wisdom for their casting. Now they're Charisma/Wisdom. Every time someone says you're requiring feats and wisdom casting you say you're not, but everytime you want to show how powerful Dread Necromancers are you bring up Planar Binding, which requires at least one Arcane Disciple (two, for many creatures) as well as a decent Wisdom score. So which is it?
And yet, you didn't name any.
I would have thought it was obvious. Miracle. Planar Ally. Black Sand. Animate Dead (at level 3). Bodak Birth. Consumptive Field. Desecrate (why is that not on the DN list?). Haunt Shift. Shivering Touch. Lesser Mass Vigor. Righteous Wrath of the Faithful. Hero's Feast. Freedom of Movement. All the various return to life spells. And so on. There's PLENTY.
And now we're back to needing two Arcane Disciples. And effectively dual stat casting. And since you keep assuming all day healing, Tomb Tainted Soul is in there too (I'd use that feat too, but the feat costs are getting pretty high, so you should factor that into your calculations).
Or zero, and single casting stat.
See? You need to pick one. Either you're talking about Dread Necromancers with Arcane Disciples, or without. Pick one. If it's with, they get one trick that's usually banned in most games and are dual stat casters, plus they've burned two to three feats (you said they self heal too). If it's zero feats as you say here, they can't do any of that Planar Binding stuff, and they can't self heal at all.
Binders give up a lot to bind those two.
What, precisely, do you think a Binder is giving up to Bind Zceryll? Seriously, what the heck are you talking about? That one vestige does more than virtually any other! That's like saying a Wizard gives up a lot when he decides to cast Shivering Touch on a dragon. Sure, he can't cast anything else in that slot, but he just killed a dragon in one hit, so who cares? Buer means losing out on other vestiges just for this day, but as a Binder you pick whatever vestige would help out most. Heck, with Expel Vestige you can always chuck Buer for something else if you need.
Charnel Touch is free, in addition to full spellcasting.
You mean free healing if you and the rest of your party took Tomb Tainted Soul. But remember just before when you said "Zero" for the number of feats you were dedicating? So you can't free heal yourself. Charnel Touch isn't completely free, you spend a feat (or turn Necropolitan) for it. It's a good idea to do this of course, but don't call it free.
Last I checked, Crusaders do not have that. I didn't say it was a big deal, I listed it along with some, but not all, and honestly, not the most important or powerful, free extra powers they get in addition to being full spellcasters with a long and good spell list.
You keep saying "full spellcaster" like that alone is amazing, but Healers are full spellcasters too, and so are Warmages. What matters is the quality of spells, and while DNs have some decent ones, they're not Wizard or Cleric caliber (which is what most people assume when people say "full spellcaster") nor are they Sorc caliber. Decide what sorts of DNs you're talking about here, as this is getting silly.
Wings of Flurry isn't as good as you like to pretend it is when you are comparing Sorcerers to Dread Necros. You like to pretent it is so good, that it is so much better than EBT/Fear/ect. But it's not. It's a one round stun with some medicore damage. Dread Necros have more than one round cripples, and infinite beat sticks for damage.
It does enough damage to kill the majority of even CR opponents in two hits (one with metamagic)... and denies actions in between those hits. It does twice as much damage as most blast spells (on a save, it does the same damage). It hits all enemies in an area but doesn't hit friends. It hits the weakest of the higher level saves (Ref) and does a type of damage that's the least likely to be resisted. Yeah, it's an encounter killer, far more than Fear (too many high level enemies are immune to that) or EBT (useless on anything that's flying or strong enough to get around the grapple... which is more and more stuff at higher levels). The "etc" you mention is probably Cloudkill, which is a solid spell to be sure but needs something else to keep people inside it or it's not very effective (EBT might help here, or not, depending on the monster).
And you're making it clear you haven't played a DN before when you refer to "infinite beat sticks for damage." You don't even get any until level 8, and when you do get them they're MUCH weaker than normal stuff. They lack the feats that make most mundane types strong (Shock Trooper, archery feats, etc). They hit for pathetic damage. You can't fit that many of them around any particular target. It's hard to get ones that both fly and are actually useful for more than transport. Mostly, what they have is a lot of hitpoints... that's about it. Seriously, the damage output from your Animate Dead minions is really not going to end fights like you seem to think it will... plus they're not intelligent at all.
Oh woe is me. If 90% of constructs are giant bags of HP and attacks that lose to undead armies, the Dread Necro would easily defeat them, but since that's not true... Oh wait, yes it is. Anything else? (And yes, they miss out on solid defensive spells, and instead rely on solid walls of undead, and DR and immunities).
Consider the types of undead you're likely to have when you fight a construct vs the construct itself, and you'll realize those melt like butter and can't hurt them. And DN DR matters at level 2, but that's about it... it doesn't scale up nearly fast enough to count as a reasonable defense against even CR monsters. Nor are their immunities that important either (unless you go Necropolitan, but that's the race doing it, not the class). Solid walls of undead can be bypassed like a sword and board Fighter.
Remember, I played one of these guys from 1 to 12 in a multi year campaign. You do NOT have the defenses you think you have... and notice the short range of most of your spells.
Without that one trick, they still have more spells, and plenty good ones, than a Sorcerer at pretty much every level, and they still have infinite undead armies, and they still break the game. But I'm not the one claiming that not having bullshit tricks that break the game is why Dread Necromancers are not as good as Favored Souls or Sorcerers, and that classes should be judged based on their ability to pull out gamebreaking tricks.
Yes, you really are. You've mostly just been using Planar Binding as your great reason to judge DNs. So I'd love to hear how you think a level 6 (just picking a random level here, if you prefer you can pick a different one) Dread Necromancer has plenty of good spells, and more of them, than a Sorcerer. The DN has Ray of Exhaustion, Summon Undead III, Inflict Serious Wounds... and really not much else to work with there unless they got a particularly good Advanced Learning (I went with Ghoul Glyph). Me, I'd use Imperious Command as a feat to get a good reuseable attack. Meanwhile, the Sorc can almost certainly be using Glitterdust as a primary attack, which is plenty for the vast majority of encounters, and then pick and choose appropriate other spells for other situations (Alter Self and Wings of Cover are solid choices).
Without bullshit cheese, the Dread Necro is better than Favored Soul, and about as good as the Sorcerer.
With bullshit cheese, the Dread Necro is better than the Favored Soul and the Sorcerer.
Except I played a "without bullshit cheese" DN and you know what? The Sorcerer was WAY out in front. I found that with the DN, my limited spell range and lack of versatility really hurt.
Absolutely your Sorcerer with Arcane Thesis: Wings of Flurry, Sculpt Spell, Twin Spell, (Repeat Spell is also a great meta for Wings of Flurry by the way) can be compared against the Dread Necro with Planar Binding for who wins encounters better. And the answer is... Dread Necro, sorry +arbitrarily large number Belt of Magnificence gives 100% success rate against all encounters.
Didn't you JUST say "But I'm not the one claiming that not having bullshit tricks that break the game is why Dread Necromancers..."? A blaster Sorc is hardly a game breaking bullshit trick (just a solid optimized archetypal caster), but a Dread Necromancer using Planar Binding with Arcane Disciple to get infinite wishes (and somehow using them to get a +arbitrary Belt of Magnificence despite that being too valuable for wish) absolutely is. You want to compare a Sorc to that guy? Compare one who did the same thing, except he spent his wealth on Knowstones and now can spontaneously cast the entire Wizard/Sorc list. And heck, that's even legal with wish.
JaronK