I would add classes to the tier system in this fashion, might be off by a tier on some
tier 1 Wujen, Spirit Shaman-might be high tier 2, but I think its low tier 1. These classes are slightly used versions of other tier ones. Get some off class abilities, and looses out on others.
Tier 2 Wilder text book tier 2, its can have a couple of broken powers, but not nearly as a tier 1 would have,
Tier 3 Shadowcaster*, imagine if a wizard and sorcerer had a kid, and this is what their kid would be like if they were brother sister, low spells per day and low spells known, but can cover most of the bases.
Incarnate and Totemist, these classes can do almost anything decently.
Tier 4 Coutier* diplomatic awesomeness. In combat has UMD and gets leadership at 9th level. Healer If it gets access to corrupt and/or sanctified spells
The shadow caster can do a fairly wide variety of things as a class. It can root targets in place, deal d6+5 wisdom damage, shadow evocations a level lower in effect, two levels lower in power, immediate action counter spelling, summon shadow elementals with a minute per level duration, timestop+3, mage armor+sheild, incendiary cloud, a fore cage effect, hold monster or slow, blink, scrying, wail of the banshee, control water or winds, displacement or l/5 blurs, will save or die and be under control, 75 temporary hp. So it has a decent range of options, project image, Dominate monster at 15th.
That's save or dies, battle field control, buffs, dominate, summuning, scrying, direct damage, contingency, anti-spell casting and some utility.
Courtier is really good in social encounters, at fourth anybody that lies to him has to make a will save or be found out, like zone of truth but with out the target knowing, or have the opponent in opposed Int, Wis, or Chr checks use the lowest of his mental scores for the effect and always on, a bardic knowledge effect. At 9th level it gets a restricted leadership, it gets a samurai or fighter body guard and the normal assortment of followers.
