Tier System for Classes

[The_Mad_Linguist]

I'd say it's a long way from tier 1. Like... knowing every one of its spells away. The tier 1 guys each know hundreds or thousands of spells, having access to every spell in every book with their names on it (or in the archivist and artificer's cases, with any name at all).

Hey, that isn't exactly true.  The wizard has a large but finite amount of spells at any given time (cash constraints), and there are certainly six or seven spells that are outstanding of each level.  Doubling the sorcerer's spells known and dumping the spontaneous metamagic caveat would probably push them over the edge.

After all, specialist wizards give up access to a quarter of their spells known for an extra spell per level per day.

[Kuroimaken]

I'd say it's a long way from tier 1. Like... knowing every one of its spells away. The tier 1 guys each know hundreds or thousands of spells, having access to every spell in every book with their names on it (or in the archivist and artificer's cases, with any name at all).

Hey, that isn't exactly true.  The wizard has a large but finite amount of spells at any given time (cash constraints), and there are certainly six or seven spells that are outstanding of each level.  Doubling the sorcerer's spells known and dumping the spontaneous metamagic caveat would probably push them over the edge.

After all, specialist wizards give up access to a quarter of their spells known for an extra spell per level per day.

Two words: Secret Page.

[lans]

I would say that many of the spells are going to be redundant after a certain point. Shape change,  polymorph etc cover a huge amount of utility, as does planar binding, and animate dead. Save or dies, how many do you need? Direct damage might take up a slot with force orb, a wall spell, a cloud spell. After a certain point the benefit  to having the extra spells is going to be almost nothing.

[ErhnamDJ]

Yeah, but there are a ton of spells you'll want that you're not going to blow a spell known on. Has any Sorcerer ever learned Genesis? Permanency? Clone? Even something like Contingency costs more than they'll want to spend. Even picking up Mind Blank is bothersome. There are so many things they need that they won't want to cast all the time: GMW, Veil of Undeath, Ironguard, Energy Immunity, Superior Resistance, Elemental Body, the 'Heart of' spells, and many more.

Being trapped in one small set of known spells is a huge drawback. The Sorcerer really should have had the Spirit Shaman's ability to trade out spells every day.

Plus, they still have that whole 'half the time, I'm casting lower level spells for no reason' thing (unless they're a kobold). Who was it that made the sorcerer? Skip Williams? Man, he must have really loved wizards.

[lans]

Yeah, but there are a ton of spells you'll want that you're not going to blow a spell known on. Has any Sorcerer ever learned Genesis? Permanency? Clone? Even something like Contingency costs more than they'll want to spend. Even picking up Mind Blank is bothersome. There are so many things they need that they won't want to cast all the time: GMW, Veil of Undeath, Ironguard, Energy Immunity, Superior Resistance, Elemental Body, the 'Heart of' spells, and many more.

Mostly true, Energy Immunity can be covered with shape change, and superior resistance is can be covered by the complete champion alternate feature, if it needed clones I think it could planar bind something for that.

Being trapped in one small set of known spells is a huge drawback. The Sorcerer really should have had the Spirit Shaman's ability to trade out spells every day.

That is why I want to know where the break point is, if a sorcerer got 10 spells known per level then picking up those spells you listed would be a snap.

[ErhnamDJ]

My main concern is that they still won't be able to do *anything* like a wizard can. They can learn that there's an underwater temple guarded by krakens and merfolks or something. After a week of preparation, they can get a submersible ship enhanced by other magics, water breathing on the whole party, and a whole slew of other things.

Even with ten spells a level known, the Sorcerer probably won't be able to pull something like that off, and it makes me sad .

I have this image in my head of the wizard floating in the air, pulling up huge blocks of stone from the ground, shaping them into a castle, then casting tons of protective magic on the castle and making it permanent. The next day, he can go swat at demons in Hell, or stare down the legions of dragons ravaging the land. Either way, the wizard can have what he needs. There are like fifty spells he can use on those dragons (demons too, I bet).

I guess it's just a feeling of being trapped. No matter how big the spell list is, the sorc is still just stuck with what he has. There will always be that 'what if?' in the back of my mind. None of the tier 1 guys have that.

[Rebel7284]

That is why I want to know where the break point is, if a sorcerer got 10 spells known per level then picking up those spells you listed would be a snap.

Each class can jump up or down a tier based on relatively minor factors.  Therefore finding the exact break point is impossible as it will vary from campaign to campaign and even from player to player in the same campaign.  For example, if the sorcerer can afford all the runestaves he/she wants, the sorcerer easily jumps into tier one.  Or alternatively at low levels, versatile spellcaster + low cash can make the sorcerer bypass the wizard easily.

[Flay Crimsonwind]

I noticed the Wilder isn't listed... I guess it's a lot less versatile, but nearly as "powerful" as the psion, so probably a tier down, to Tier 3? Or should it drop totally to 4?

[Akalsaris]

I'd ballpark it at T4, given just how inferior it is to psion.  Like the Healer in T5 with Gate, the Wilder can eventually get 1-2 very powerful and useful powers like Reality Revision at higher levels, but it has so few powers known and such a short list to choose from that the wilder will have difficulty filling more than a single role, and probably won't be particularly competent even in that role.  So the Wilder can break the game, but with only 1 new trick every 2 levels the DM will probably be prepared to deal with it each time. 

Even a sorcerer gets about 33 spells known, that's 3x what the wilder can work with.  And every time the wilder spends a feat to learn a new power, that's 1 less feat she has to work with.

(Coincidentally, I'm just about to start playing a wilder in a PBP game right now)

[ErhnamDJ]

We just went over the Wilder in the Tier 4 thread. You might want to take a look there.

[Akalsaris]

Ah, good call.  Looks like the discussion is about wrapped up though. 

[The_Mad_Linguist]

I'd say it's a long way from tier 1. Like... knowing every one of its spells away. The tier 1 guys each know hundreds or thousands of spells, having access to every spell in every book with their names on it (or in the archivist and artificer's cases, with any name at all).

Hey, that isn't exactly true.  The wizard has a large but finite amount of spells at any given time (cash constraints), and there are certainly six or seven spells that are outstanding of each level.  Doubling the sorcerer's spells known and dumping the spontaneous metamagic caveat would probably push them over the edge.

After all, specialist wizards give up access to a quarter of their spells known for an extra spell per level per day.

Two words: Secret Page.

Secret page doesn't produce the vague, unspecified, special ink necessary to prepare a spell.

Knowstones/runestaffs can also add to a sorc's spells available.

[Samb]

I noticed the Wilder isn't listed... I guess it's a lot less versatile, but nearly as "powerful" as the psion, so probably a tier down, to Tier 3? Or should it drop totally to 4?

The gist of the convo is that wilder is better than psion when casting the same power at the same level, but inferior overall due to lack of powers even with educated variant factored in. This can be circumvented with alter reality powers as well research and psychic chigurery. All legal by RAW and would in fact make wilder better than a psion. Whether or not a DM would allow this is another issue.

[Endarire]

Secret page says: Secret page alters the contents of a page so that they appear to be something entirely different. The text of a spell can be changed to show even another spell. Explosive runes or sepia snake sigil can be cast upon the secret page.

In the strictest, most prohibitive RAW reading, you can turn one page containing a spell into a page containing another spell.  One casting can turn ray of frost into time stop.  More liberal readings allow secret page to turn blank pages into spell pages.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Secret page says: Secret page alters the contents of a page so that they appear to be something entirely different. The text of a spell can be changed to show even another spell. Explosive runes or sepia snake sigil can be cast upon the secret page.

In the strictest, most prohibitive RAW reading, you can turn one page containing a spell into a page containing another spell.  One casting can turn ray of frost into time stop.  More liberal readings allow secret page to turn blank pages into spell pages.

Just because it looks the same as the spell, though, doesn't mean you can actually prepare from it.  Again, the whole special quills and inks thing. 

For the strictest possible reading, only the "text" of the spell can be changed, and given the "power word kill" takes up nine pages, obviously text isn't the only thing on the page.  You could just as easily end up with something that *looks* like you can prepare time stop, but is actually ray of frost.

And you have to specify what you want it to look like, and since it isn't a divination, you can't change a spell you know into a spell you don't know any more than you can say "I change it into a complete list with dates and timestamps of who entered and exited my room on july the sixth".

[Endarire]

I also speculate an appropriate Spellcraft check could tell me enough about the spell to put it on a secret page, but that ain't RAW.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

I also speculate an appropriate Spellcraft check could tell me enough about the spell to put it on a secret page, but that ain't RAW.

At that point, you're doing spell research.

[ErhnamDJ]

For the strictest possible reading, only the "text" of the spell can be changed, and given the "power word kill" takes up nine pages, obviously text isn't the only thing on the page.

What else could there be, besides text? Spellbooks aren't magical items.

Sure, when you actually cast a 'power word' spell, you're only saying one word, but what sort of twisted geometries must one run through their mind to achieve such power? What manipulations of magic must be expressed on the page? In what manner? None of that is ever gone into in any sort of detail (not in any of the books I've seen), though it is hinted at to be quite the laborious process. Should we look to Jack Vance's writings as some indication? That's the closest thing I know of. Those pages and pages are instructions for how to cast the spell. Maybe it is just that one word. It could require tonal variances with such an exacting degree of accuracy that it takes pages to explain the vocal chord movements required. That's another thing: if it requires a verbal, somatic, and material component, the instructions have to include what to do with each of those (which hand movements, vocalizations, and where to shove that guano). If anything, it should be surprising that so much fits on one page.

A first level wizard with eleven intelligence (about what we see in the real world when it comes to your normal worker carrying out a task) takes an hour to prepare three cantrips and a first level spell. That's twelve minutes each per cantrip, and twenty-four minutes for a first level spell. I don't know what, exactly, he's doing that's taking so long, but it must be a lot for him to get that one Sleep into his head.

Making some basic assumptions, I'll say he reads one hundred words per minute and all he needs to do to prepare a spell is read it. We also know that a page must contain an entire first level spell. That gives us 2,400 words he has to read (being generous; it could be three or four times as much, considering his training). Maybe there are diagrams or somesuch, but who's to say? What font size does that have to be?

'Normal' black ink costs 8gp an ounce. Other colors cost twice that. How many ounces of ink will he need for one page? It has to be a large page. But he also needs super-heavy-duty ink that won't blur when he writes his teeny-tiny words. In a pseudo-medieval world, it's not surprising that it would cost so much for the ink. Especially when you take into consideration the demand for this stuff. Most wizards will need it (unless they want to carve spells on bones or get it tattooed on; and the amount of information a finger bone can hold when compared to a whole page of a spellbook is nonsensical).

[Kuroimaken]

Secret page says: Secret page alters the contents of a page so that they appear to be something entirely different. The text of a spell can be changed to show even another spell. Explosive runes or sepia snake sigil can be cast upon the secret page.

In the strictest, most prohibitive RAW reading, you can turn one page containing a spell into a page containing another spell.  One casting can turn ray of frost into time stop.  More liberal readings allow secret page to turn blank pages into spell pages.

Just because it looks the same as the spell, though, doesn't mean you can actually prepare from it.  Again, the whole special quills and inks thing. 

The special inks and quills part is covered by the fact that it was already inscribed in special inks (since you changed a spell into another). If we're speaking in practical terms no one wizard gets to have all the wizard spells in every book or even do a single game-breaking trick, because the DM will just tell him to fuck off. The spell itself doesn't mention you can't prepare from a secret page'd page. Nor does the spell say you have to know what you want it to look like.

Heck, you can still Planar Bind an Efreeti and have him Wish for a Boccob's Blessed Book full of spells that you don't know, or order him to get you the scroll plus the inks. It takes a while longer but you get there anyway.

Clearly this wasn't the intent when they wrote the spell down, but by RAW, it can be done just fine. The problem is not what's there, it's what isn't.

[Endarire]

Secret page says nothing against preparing a secret page spellbook.  Basic Wizard training may have some formulaic method for determining how something should be scribed.  It's up to the DM.

As DM, I'd typically allow free spells with secret page because even if each casting gives 1 spell, that's still 2 or 3 spells per day at level 5.  Filling a spellbook would take weeks and making an entire collection would require over a year.