Author Topic: Tier System For Classes (Repost)  (Read 514993 times)

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Kaelik

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #700 on: March 21, 2011, 03:04:23 AM »
Kaelik, perhaps you've forgotten something about Planar Binding.

Whatever you bound hates you. 

You ripped it from its home plane and are trying to tell it to do your bidding.  A Dread Necro without Arcane Disciple...has no way of keeping the critter there save killing it, which is a little counterproductive to world-altering power.  It can just walk off and ignore you because you have no way of keeping it bound.  Without keeping it in one spot, you don't even get to try and convince it otherwise.  This is how the spell itself works if you don't have the Magic Circle cast first.

Which is why you cast Magic Circle first. Man, this is so much fun.

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #701 on: March 21, 2011, 03:07:31 AM »
Edit-  I put the MoI Classes at 5,4,3 Soulborn, Incarnate, Totemist.  I go back and forth on whether Incarnate should be 3 or 4.

A bit late of a reply, but the Incarnate relies on 3.5 as a whole, not its own class abilities. The soulmelds all rely on pre-existing rules, a trait shared with the Tier 4's and Tier 5's. What sets the Incarnate apart from the lower Tiers is that it has the ability to use all of those rules, not just two or three per build.

In other words, the Wizard is a Swiss Army Knife+Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (plus or minus the towel, at your option), the Incarnate is a Universal Remote. You can make anything work with an Incarnate, provided you can program it properly, whereas the Wizard just says "Screw the rules, I have HAX!"


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snakeman830

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #702 on: March 21, 2011, 03:32:45 AM »
Kaelik, perhaps you've forgotten something about Planar Binding.

Whatever you bound hates you. 

You ripped it from its home plane and are trying to tell it to do your bidding.  A Dread Necro without Arcane Disciple...has no way of keeping the critter there save killing it, which is a little counterproductive to world-altering power.  It can just walk off and ignore you because you have no way of keeping it bound.  Without keeping it in one spot, you don't even get to try and convince it otherwise.  This is how the spell itself works if you don't have the Magic Circle cast first.

Which is why you cast Magic Circle first. Man, this is so much fun.
And how do you plan on doing that when it isn't on your list?  After all, you seem to think it's possible with zero feat investment.
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JaronK

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #703 on: March 21, 2011, 03:33:53 AM »
This entire time your whole justification for why Dread Necromancers are so amazing is that they can use Planar Binding.

No, that was my response to the claim that Dread Necros have no game breaking.

Then stop bringing it up... the claim is that they're non game breaking out of the box.  Every class can be made to break the game with the right gear or other combo.  I can break the game with a Commoner if I buy a Candle of Invocation... does that mean Commoners are game breakers?

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So you have admitted it is not free or unfettered, Now you can read the Mage of the Arcane Order, and see that it is PHB spells, not all spells. Also the levels that you actually get access to all those spells is not "level 1" or "level 7" the level you first get into the class.

It was a hyperbole, but the main thing is you get access every single spell in the PHB (and potentially more than that).  Unless you think core Wizards aren't that strong, your claim that a Dread Necromancer is on even footing with a Sorc/MotAO is absolutely ludicrous.  I don't know what this bit about level 1 and level 7 is referring to, but the class gives access to plenty of spell levels right away... you first enter the class at level 6 (you have the prerequisites by level 5, it only needs 8 ranks) and at that level you already have spell pool access to 3 spell levels.  There's a slight delay where at level 8 you don't get 4th level spell pool... but as soon as you hit level 9 (and from then on) you always have access to spell pool spells at the highest level you can cast.  

So what exactly is your issue here?

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No it doesn't. Man this is hilarious, how are you even claiming to know anything at all about the game when you can't figure out how to Planar Bind any creature you can Planar Bind without taking Arcane Disciple at all.

Ah, you mean with items, which have nothing to do with what the class can do?  Yay, a Sorcerer can take Knowstones too (so can Favored Souls) and have any spell off the Sorc/Wiz list they want (Cleric, for the FS).  And they can have Runestaffs to for the same effect.  So what?  And see how we're back to Planar Binding being your main thing here?


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So... Two spells that are worth a spell known slot. Well, and Miracle, but level 18 doesn't impress me too much.

You know, you whine about how everything I mention is all about game breakers, but when I list solid useful spells that are reasonable in game you immediate call them all worthless.  At some point you're going to have to chose between "JaronK is all about game breaking stuff" and "JaronK doesn't know how to optimize."  Trying to accuse me of both just looks silly.

But I'll take this as an admission that you don't know much about the Cleric list, if you really can't find any good spells in it.

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1) You can Planar Bind anything without ever using a single feat on Arcane Disciple.

2) You are being disingenuous, even if it did in fact require two feats, you wouldn't spend those feats in a game that bans it. It's also actually an infinite number of tricks that the DM has to ban, but whatever. I also didn't say zero feats as in "has zero feats" I said zero feats are spent being able to Planar Bind.

You said "Zero feats" in response to the claim that it took two feats to Planar Bind and one feat for self healing.  And yes, you can use items instead, but so can a Sorcerer (and he gets a LOT more out of Knowstones than a DN does).

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So now we are adding feats to the Binder to get it to bind things that are crap, and then replace them with non crap bindings, so we can say they can heal and still do other things. Okay.

You don't need to spend any feats to bind Buer.  Expel Vestige is just if you decide that all day healing isn't what you want that day.  Point is, all day healing is really really easy to get and a number of classes do it MUCH better than a Dread Necromancer (who has to burn actions to do it, does it really slowly, and can only do it to people who are powered by negative energy).

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Yes, they are, as they are literally Sorc/Wizard/Cleric spells, and some of the better ones.

They get ONE of the big power Sor/Wiz spells.  Maybe two if you call Animate Dead one (but you didn't seem impressed by Animate Dead a full spell level lower when the Favored Soul was being talked about, so I assume you think that spell isn't good enough).  It's hilarious watching you talk about how Sorcerers aren't good enough, but think that one Sorc spell makes DNs godly.  Newsflash: the Sorcerer gets 43 of the best spells on that list, and with Knowstones (since you wanted to talk so much about gear) they get even more.  

What's bigger, one or 43?  Even if you want to try and count a few more of the DN spells as being on the top, you're not getting anywhere near what the Sorcerer's rocking out with.

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Are you kidding? Have you ever even read the spell? It does fireball level damage. It does the same 1d6 per CL that every other blast spell does, and it's reflex half too. It doesn't kill CR appropriate enemies in two hits, or even 3, and yes, if you apply so much metamagic that it would be a 12th level spell without reduction it can be pretty solid, but so can four hundred other spells. It's a blasting spell that doesn't suck ass thanks to force damage and a one round stun, and being party friendly. Great. That's not the best spell out there.

Kaelik, Fireball caps at 10d6.  Wings of flurry is uncapped (and many blast spells do 1d6/two caster levels).  Fireball is the most resisted energy type (fire) while Wings of Flurry is the least resisted type (force) and can tag ethereals easily.    Wings of Flurry gets a bonus d6 if you're dragonblooded (Kobolds, Spellscales, Dragonborn).  Wings of Flurry hits enemies only, Fireball hits friendlies (often times the way people get clumped is they're fighting in a melee).  They're not comparable.  And while you can talk about a 12th level spell without reduction all you want, but if you're a blaster, it's the way to go... Arcane Thesis + Twin Spell + Sculpt Spell (which is appropriate if you want to blast) means a 7th level spell that does, for a 14th level Kobold with an Orange Ioun Stone and no dragonwrought cheese or anything, 126 damage on average with two saves or be dazed for a round to everything you can hit (which should really be every enemy if done right, and shutting down enemy actions while killing them is amazing).  That'll two shot a CR 18 Nightcrawler or CR 16 Nightwalker, sometimes one shotting the lower hp of those, and it'll even stun lock the Terrasque (though SR might be an issue on that last one).  Mindflayer Sorcerers at CR 17 go down in a single shot (you think their +9 ref save will save them?) as do CR 15 Maruts.  Plus it has no trouble dropping groups of the same (especially lower CR groups), usually doing it in a single hit.

This ain't fireball (which would, with the same combination, do a whopping 70 damage with no stun).

And no, it's not the best spell out there, it's the best blasting spell out there, and it's great for ending encounters... and it works better than any comparable DN spell for that purpose.

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1) Oh goody, more insults about how I've never played a class. That's totally new and different from every argument you've ever had with anyone.

You think DNs get an infinite number of goons to fight for them.  Ergo, you haven't played the class.  Watch:

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2) Let me explain how infinite works. It means that it doesn't matter if they suck, because you have infinity.

Right, that's not how infinity works.  Here's what you actually get:

After each fight, assuming you have onyxs to burn (which you should try to have), you can raise the dead critters.  What you get is zombies or skeletons (preferably the latter), which now have halved BAB and no interesting special abilities.  Their CR is often far lower than the stuff you're fighting, making them rather useless.  They can't share the same space, so you can't get too many of them, and while they don't die from hp damage easily they still can't last long.  They're worthless against anything that can evade them (read: flying stuff, ranged stuff, hidden ambushy stuff in any form of difficult terrain) and in general against the really dangerous fights.  Their damage is usually incredibly low.  The DM gets to pick what critters you're allowed to have... if the DM is sending lots of casters and such against you, their skeletons will be almost worthless to you.  Consider that a Mindflayer Sorcerer is CR 17, but a Skeleton Mindflayer Sorcerer is overconned at CR 8 with no interesting abilities at all.

So no, not infinite.  Just a decent number of things that get in the way of each other and don't do much of anything.

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Not by most Constructs, hence the statement.

Remember, you keep talking about level 12+ when you'd have Planar Binding.  At that level you're starting to see Inevitables and such, which do in fact have intelligence and will happily bypass your troops.  Golems, meanwhile, just smash them to pieces VERY fast... but you're past the level where Golems are an issue at this point, with only Greater Stone Golems and maybe Iron Golems being of appropriate CR.

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So your example Sorcerer has Glitterdust, and what for a third level spell Stinking Cloud? Meanwhile, the Dread Necro has Fort save or lose, Will save or suck, Ray of Exhaustion, Summon Undead III, and an advanced learning, let's say Kelgore's Grave Mist, a fear aura, DR, Negative Energy Burst, and probably some undead minions. Yeah, those sound about on par.

Okay, which spells are you talking about here?  If you meant Blindness for the fort save or lose, that's single target and completely inferior to Glitterdust (which is AoE and negates invisibility/hide).  The will based save or suck... which one is that?  I hope you don't mean Crushing Dispair with the piddly -2 penalties.  Notice your really low range, and the fact that all you've got here is the ability to stop charging (lots of fatigue tricks).  You're screwed against a Flesh Golem (see, at levels where you see those you don't even have that undead screen) or any other thing that doesn't care about most of your effects.  And Rebuke Undead isn't exactly getting you great minions unless you can afford some serious turn resistance reducers and the DM is being really nice.  Heck, even a few archers would ruin your day (all you have at serious range is Kelgore's).  And did you just list DR 2 as being useful here?  Do you realize how much of what you just mentioned (fear aura, negative energy burst, most of your spells) requires you to get close enough to get charged with your d6 HD, light armor, and DR 2?

Meanwhile... just Glitterdust seems to do it better than everything you just mentioned.  That's a one shot fort based save or lose that hits an area for a level 2 spell.  

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Probably because you suck as a human being, and can't figure out how to Planar Bind, and you don't consider Arcane Thesis + Easy meta on a Loredrake Kobold to be cheese.

Ad Hominems aside, I've never said a Loredrake Kobold wasn't cheese (go ahead, try to quote me saying anything like that), and I know exactly how to Planar Bind stuff.  It's not that hard.  Heck, I regularly say that using Dragonwrought Kobolds is over the top for most games.

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So... that was funny. 1) Yes, your favorite bullshit cheese is too cheese,

You just got finished saying that Arcane Thesis + Twin Spell wasn't all that strong, now you turn around and call it cheese.

It's a blaster Sorcerer.  That's not cheese, that's actually a weaker way to play.  If it were a Venerable Dragonwrought Loredrake Kobold, that might be cheese (though if all he does is blast, maybe not).  

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that's the whole point of why your tier system is made of ass, you assume that things you don't like are banned, and things you do like are never touched.

Yes, that's got to be it.  Or I just said equivalent optimization is the name of the game.  One of the two is correct.

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So Sorcerers can dip into Dragon for feats that meta reduce ontop of Arcane Thesis, the third most absurd feat in the game, but if a Dread Necromancer tries to Planar Bind a legal target, the Banhammer must fall.

Wait, what feats in Dragon have I mentioned in this?  YOU brought up Easy Metamagic.  I didn't.  Are you saying you wouldn't ban Efreeti bindings?  Or that anything I've said for Sorcerers is as powerful as that?

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"But I was using Item Familiar and Warbeast Template responsibly on my Factotum, so it's allowed, but you are using Item Familiar and Warbeast unfairly on your Rogue, so it shouldn't be allowed, and that's what Factotums are better than Rogues."

I've never said anything like that.  I believe what I said was closer to "don't whine about a Human with an Item Familiar riding a domesticated mount being cheesy when you're using a Necropolitan Strongheart Halfling with an Item Familiar and an even bigger mount."   Equivalence, mate.  If you want to test the power of classes, you have to make sure that everything other than the class is the same.  It's really rather basic.

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Also, learn to read. There is no limit on Wish, it's so funny how little you actually know about the rules.

Ah, so now you're using that reading of Wish.  So let me get this straight, you think a system designed to be functional for most games should take into account wishing for items of any arbitrarily high value via Planar Binding combined with buying specialized items, but not something overpowered like blasting with a Sorcerer.  Got it.

I guess I haven't figured out why you aren't arguing that Warmages are overpowered too.  I mean, they can do every single thing you've attributed to Dread Necromancers, given the right items.  Of course, so can a Monk if he pumps UMD...

JaronK

JaronK

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #704 on: March 21, 2011, 03:41:35 AM »
And how do you plan on doing that when it isn't on your list?  After all, you seem to think it's possible with zero feat investment.

He's planning on casting it off an item (Eternal Wand of Magic Circle), because as we all know you should judge classes based on the items they can buy.

He's evidently not aware that it requires a save when used as a trap (such as with Planar Binding) and off an item will have such a low save DC that it will fail (Will DC 12).  He's also unaware that when used as a trap this way SR is tested, so it will also fail against critters with decent SR due to it still being off an item (Caster level 5!).  He also doesn't realize Efreetis can plane shift, so he needs dimensional anchor too for his plan (which would also be off an item, so it has SR problems for creatures where that's an issue).

And he wonders why I know he's never actually tried this.

JaronK

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #705 on: March 21, 2011, 04:13:38 AM »
I was epicly swordsage'd by JaronK.

Kaelik, you really need to stop and consider what you're doing here.  You're arguing that a DN with feats/items is better than a Sorcerer without items in a thread specifically made to discuss the relative power of classes without item support.  This is for the same reason JaronK just gave: anyone with some 8k gold in a MagicMart game can buy a Candle of Invocation and shit on everything.  In that sense, anyone with the Profession skill is a Tier 1 character.

If you want to rag on the Sorcerer's lack of versatility, then just remember that the Sorcerer has Wands, Eternal Wands, Runestaves, and Scrolls to improve it just like the Dread Necromancer does, with the added bonus that they don't need to make UMD checks to use a much wider variety of these items.  They can also make use of PrCs to expand the spells available to them, most notably the MotAO PrC.  What's more, Sorcerers don't have to be blasters or necromancers, but can be pretty much anything a GOD Wizard can be, just not all at once.  A Dread Necromancer just can't do that.

Benly

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #706 on: March 21, 2011, 04:42:57 AM »
My basic issue here is: what, exactly, can a dread necromancer do spellwise that a sorcerer can't do? I don't mean an abstract ur-sorcerer here. I mean that a sorcerer who picks his spells appropriately will be able to hit all the good things a dread necromancer can do with leftover spells known. Any party trick a dread necro can do, this appropriately-built sorcerer can also do. The exception is Tomb-Tainted Soul/Charnel Touch healing, which becomes outdated when Black Sand comes online anyway. The dread necro has more spells known, but not more useful spells known - and any stunt a DN can pull to expand his list, the sorc can also do.

What the dread necro gets in return is a butt-ton of skeletons and zombies. And, y'know, that's a good trick, but it's a limited one. I mean, cripes, look at the DN's third-level spell list. Have you seen a sadder thing?

Littha

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #707 on: March 21, 2011, 05:31:15 AM »
They can also make use of PrCs to expand the spells available to them, most notably the MotAO PrC. 

I would leave PrCs out of the argument, Dread Necro has Rainbow Servant which beats MitAO as far as versatility goes. I consider the two to be of equivilent levels of optimisation too.

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #708 on: March 21, 2011, 06:14:52 AM »
They can also make use of PrCs to expand the spells available to them, most notably the MotAO PrC. 

I would leave PrCs out of the argument, Dread Necro has Rainbow Servant which beats MitAO as far as versatility goes. I consider the two to be of equivilent levels of optimisation too.
Only true if you follow the line that Rainbow Servant is a 10/10 PrC.  RAW it is, but I feel most DMs won't follow RAW on that particular point and say it's 6/10.  In that case, MotAO is a far superior choice for both.

Besides, more than half of my post goes into detail about how it's silly to compare them based on stuff like PrC and Item options.  I like how you edited that out of the quote you took of me.  :eh

lans

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #709 on: March 21, 2011, 12:35:16 PM »
Edit-  I put the MoI Classes at 5,4,3 Soulborn, Incarnate, Totemist.  I go back and forth on whether Incarnate should be 3 or 4.

A bit late of a reply, but the Incarnate relies on 3.5 as a whole, not its own class abilities. The soulmelds all rely on pre-existing rules, a trait shared with the Tier 4's and Tier 5's. What sets the Incarnate apart from the lower Tiers is that it has the ability to use all of those rules, not just two or three per build.

In other words, the Wizard is a Swiss Army Knife+Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (plus or minus the towel, at your option), the Incarnate is a Universal Remote. You can make anything work with an Incarnate, provided you can program it properly, whereas the Wizard just says "Screw the rules, I have HAX!"
I'm not entirely sure what you mean about the Incarnate relying on 3.5 as a whole, and the soulmelds relying on pre-existing rules. Want to clarify?
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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #710 on: March 21, 2011, 02:18:34 PM »
Can't you guys just agree that a DN is at the top end of Tier 3? Even without trying too much that should be evident.

And the point also isn't that you can or can't turn a DN into a Tier 1 - I think you can, but you have to try much harder than the real Tier 1s. (With the distinction made between Tier 2 and Tier 1, that a Tier 2 can sometimes do their trick better, but with less versatility, then a DN rather becomes Tier 1 than Tier 2.)

Now I'll agree that many other classes on Tier 3 can't do that. That's just the basic inequality in D&D.

(And that being said, IMHO the best way to expand the DN or Beguiler list is one of the Bloodline feats from Dragon Compendium, which, being a book, should make it into far more games than regular dragon mag.)

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #711 on: March 21, 2011, 02:35:28 PM »
Edit-  I put the MoI Classes at 5,4,3 Soulborn, Incarnate, Totemist.  I go back and forth on whether Incarnate should be 3 or 4.

A bit late of a reply, but the Incarnate relies on 3.5 as a whole, not its own class abilities. The soulmelds all rely on pre-existing rules, a trait shared with the Tier 4's and Tier 5's. What sets the Incarnate apart from the lower Tiers is that it has the ability to use all of those rules, not just two or three per build.

In other words, the Wizard is a Swiss Army Knife+Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (plus or minus the towel, at your option), the Incarnate is a Universal Remote. You can make anything work with an Incarnate, provided you can program it properly, whereas the Wizard just says "Screw the rules, I have HAX!"
I'm not entirely sure what you mean about the Incarnate relying on 3.5 as a whole, and the soulmelds relying on pre-existing rules. Want to clarify?

Take a look at the Incarnate's soulmelds. How many of them grant a unique ability that no other class can mimic? Not that many. In fact, the Incarnate functions best when you use the soulmelds that provide a pre-existing effect (such as SR or UMD boosts). It piggybacks on 3.5's existing rules, but does so more efficiently than most other classes do (by being able to shift focus every round, or every 24 hours at worst). Kinda like the Factotum, but on a more numerical level and less spontaneity.


I mean, take a look at it. The Incarnate has the best possible defenses this side of Spellcasting/Manifesting thanks entirely to its soulmelds providing those same effects (Deflection, SR, Natural Armor, Concealment), and it has the ability to emulate spellcasting (UMD). It does this with class features, not GP or item creation.


Its easier to see in Gestalt. What side do you focus on when you are an Incarnate/Warblade? The Warblade, because the Incarnate provides for itself. What more, you can neglect buying a few items because the Incarnate's soulmelds can cover for you. You can freely focus your efforts on the Warblade without having to worry about being a glass cannon or a one-trick pony, because you have your Soulmelds to shift your focuses to other rules. Like going from a Chain Tripper to a UMD caster to Skill Monkey at the drop of a hat.






I think, ultimately, it's similar to using the WBL to accomplish any goal. Everyone knows that you can just spend a metric ton of GP and become the best grappler in DnD, or spend even more gold and pretend you are a spellcaster for a few days. The Incarnate just needs considerably less of the WBL to do so.


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Kaelik

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #712 on: March 21, 2011, 02:56:27 PM »
Can't you guys just agree that a DN is at the top end of Tier 3? Even without trying too much that should be evident.

No, because I was never saying that the Dread Necromancer is placed wrong, I was saying that what the Tiers purport to measure in the first place is deliberately left vague, and is largely meaningless in the first place.

A Dread Necromancer has Planar Binding Efeerti with basically no optimization at all, but you have to assume that is banned for the game to even function, so any claims about Dread Necromancers balance are always really claims about Dread Necromancers balance after you ban everything they do that is too powerful with no optimization at all. The very idea of comparing a Dread Necromancer at equal optimization as a Sorcerer, at any level of Optimization, requires the assumption that you start by banning the Dread Necromancers most powerful ability (but not the Sorcerers.) So the idea of comparing them at "equal levels of optimization" where you let the Sorcerer spend all his resources on unbanned tricks, but explicitly ban all the tricks that come for free with the Dread Necro class (Hell, we just had a poster say that it's not fair for the Dread Necro to take Rainbow Servant, but of course all Sorcerers have MotAO) you aren't making an accurate comparison of anything. It is literally meaningless to sort these classes into tiers based on their banned tricks.

Now, JaronK has worn me down, as he always does, with walls of text that consist of about 20% claims that I've never played the class, 20% being confused at how the class or associated rules work, 20% claims that doing X isn't a part of the class, because it requires feat or race or items, and 40% useless trash that has nothing to do with what I just said, or just straight up lies. So fuck it.

"I've never said anything like that.  I believe what I said was closer to "don't whine about a Human with an Item Familiar riding a domesticated mount being cheesy when you're using a Necropolitan Strongheart Halfling with an Item Familiar and an even bigger mount."   Equivalence, mate.  If you want to test the power of classes, you have to make sure that everything other than the class is the same.  It's really rather basic."

You would be wrong. What you said was that you were throwing a tantrum, and you wouldn't play in the test, because it wasn't fair for me to have used the Warbeast Template and Item Familiar better than you.

I asked you not to use those two. You said that your Factotum absolutely had to have them, and that if he didn't, we were nerfing him, I said fine, and built my characters, and used both of them better than you, and you responded by quitting the test in protest of how unfair it was for me to use those two the way I did.

It was literally a perfect example of you using tricks, and then complaining that other classes gain more from those exact same tricks than your favorite class, so it's not fair when they use them.

It also wasn't Necropolitain.

AleksanderTheGreat

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #713 on: March 21, 2011, 03:22:28 PM »
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(Hell, we just had a poster say that it's not fair for the Dread Necro to take Rainbow Servant, but of course all Sorcerers have MotAO)
My optimization knowledge is not very good, but from what I understand, Rainbow Servants vague description of spell class feature makes it possible to give classes with spontanous casting like Beguiler or Dread Necro ALL spells on their spell list (or something like that). Meanwhile MatAO is rather clear and works like he's supposed to work.
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Optimizing is the antithesis of roleplaying because it takes focus away from the important parts of the game.
I'm inclined to disagree. People work hard on there characters, there personality, back ground, appearance, so forth. No one wants there character that they have invested time, energy, thought, and probably emotion in to be killed because they didn't take strong enough feats or skills or spells or what have you.

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #714 on: March 21, 2011, 03:43:05 PM »
Rainbow Servant is actually very clear with the descriptions. At level ten you gain access to Cleric spells. If one follows the old text trumps table rule it is straightforward, but understandably not every DM is willing to let that slide and houserule it for balance reasons.

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Littha

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #715 on: March 21, 2011, 03:45:22 PM »
Quote
(Hell, we just had a poster say that it's not fair for the Dread Necro to take Rainbow Servant, but of course all Sorcerers have MotAO)
My optimization knowledge is not very good, but from what I understand, Rainbow Servants vague description of spell class feature makes it possible to give classes with spontanous casting like Beguiler or Dread Necro ALL spells on their spell list (or something like that). Meanwhile MatAO is rather clear and works like he's supposed to work.

The trick with dread necro and rainbow servant is that dread necro can spontaneously cast any spell off of its spell list but its spell list is really small. Rainbow Servant adds the entire cleric spell list to your dread necro list allowing you to spontaneously cast the entire cleric spell list.... which is absolutely enormous.

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #716 on: March 21, 2011, 04:03:37 PM »
To be clear, I don't even think that the Rainbow Servant trick is that good. Yeah, it's great at level 16, but for level 1-15, you are just a Dread Necro and then a Dread Necro with some domains. That's not bad by any means, but if your main trick doesn't kick in until level 16, it's not going to come into play in most games.

And of course, Mage of the Arcane Order isn't that good either. It's only a few times a day, only PHB spells, and it comes with a debt to pay, which means that if you intend to adventure pretty constantly, or engage in multiple days of adventuring for a single goal that has any kind of negative effect from taking a break, you end up just giving up lots of spells to pay that off, or giving opposition a day to prepare, while you hole up and avoid everything. It's not bad, and it's greatly useful for Sorcerers, but I could see a character just as good without that PrC, who just doesn't pull out every situational PHB utility spell, but has a better PrC features for combat, and has a wide selection of spells.

The problem is not that Rainbow Servant Dread Necro is better than MotAO Sorcerer. The problem is that there is no such thing as equal optimization, because no matter the game, at least some tricks are going to be banned, and the tricks most in need of banning are not high optimization. It takes no optimization at all to use Planar Binding on an Efeerti, and demand it Wish for something. But that absolutely has to be banned for the game to even function. So wherever the ban line is drawn, it will always be arbitrary, and there is no way to compare classes that interact with baned things differently.

Littha

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #717 on: March 21, 2011, 04:53:28 PM »
you are just a Dread Necro and then a Dread Necro with some domains.

You get Magic Circle against Evil at level 1 of rainbow servant because of this. You also get Magic Circle against Chaos with the 7th level

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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #718 on: March 21, 2011, 05:00:18 PM »
To be clear, I don't even think that the Rainbow Servant trick is that good. Yeah, it's great at level 16, but for level 1-15, you are just a Dread Necro and then a Dread Necro with some domains. That's not bad by any means, but if your main trick doesn't kick in until level 16, it's not going to come into play in most games.

Just to inform:

Apparently the Rainbow Warsnake comes online at 11 assuming your DM allows flaws and shit because you can get early entry into Rainbow Servant at 2. (Heighten, Earth Spell, something else, RelentlessImp told me about it)

I can't see allowing it personally, but I'm not the GM of the world.
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Re: Tier System For Classes (Repost)
« Reply #719 on: March 21, 2011, 05:29:51 PM »
To be clear, I don't even think that the Rainbow Servant trick is that good. Yeah, it's great at level 16, but for level 1-15, you are just a Dread Necro and then a Dread Necro with some domains. That's not bad by any means, but if your main trick doesn't kick in until level 16, it's not going to come into play in most games.

Just to inform:

Apparently the Rainbow Warsnake comes online at 11 assuming your DM allows flaws and shit because you can get early entry into Rainbow Servant at 2. (Heighten, Earth Spell, something else, RelentlessImp told me about it)

I can't see allowing it personally, but I'm not the GM of the world.

Probably Illumian.

But does no good, I'm not in the habit of letting people write into the backstory of their level 1 characters that they discovered the hidden jungle temple of the couatls, and you have to actually be able to do that, either by paying for spells, or casting them yourself, or doing it in game once it's started, to get that.