Before I start, I am a big fan of the tier system, so I am not critizing the system per se here.
I just have some questions about the ranking of some classes.
First and most important, the
druid.
I am very unexperienced with druids, so I'm surely missing something. My impression is that the druid is a really strong class, but that it misses what takes to be a real Tier 1.
Both wild shape and the animal companion are wonderful and they make the druid very flexible: he can tank, he can travel (by air, water and so on), he can scout, et cetera. But his spell list seems to me very limitated: he can't teleport, can't plane shift, can't planar bind, can't polymorph any object, can't gain extra actions, can't create planes or extradimensional spaces, no great BC spells expect for entangle. All he's got are good buffs, reincarnate and awaken.
Which are surely powerful, but is that enough to make him a Tier 1 class or am I missing some fundamental spells/tricks? What makes him so better than a sorcerer with
polymorph? It doesn't seem to me much more versatile anyway (and raw power is not a problem for the sorcerer).
I am also unconvinced the
favored soul is a Tier 2 class.
It has no access to domains or to turn undead (even though it's easy for a good favored soul to gain the latter via exorcist, it's not a class features). That limits him to the cleric spell list (no domains to expand it).
That means that the favored soul is very limited, since he must choose his known spells. He can be a great tank (buff spells), but he's no better than a crusader in that. He can be a great undead master (animate dead + dissecrate), but he's no better than a dread necromancer. He can be a great skillmonkey (divine insight and the like), but he's no better than a factotum. He can hardly be good at more than one of these roles. Moreover his lack of Knowledge (religion) as a class skill hinders the access to many options for divine spellcasters.
On the other hand, a sorcercer is really flexible, even with few spells known, because he has access to a better list.
Another ranking that seems wrong to me is the OA samurai's.
JaronK says that a fighter is already high in its tier, so high that a single class variant that merely improves his Intimidate checks is enough to make it tier 4 material.
I really don't see why the same reasoning doesn't apply to the OA samurai. He's basically the same as a fighter, but:
- It gives 2 more skill points.
- Its class skills are much better than the fighter's. It includes Diplomacy, Iaijutsu Focus, Intimidate and Sense Motive!
- It exchanges the first bonus feat with the ability to create a magic weapon in exchange of gold. And this ability is based on the samurai's
character level, so multiclassing is not a problem. It's basically an Ancestral Relic feat that you take even if you aren't good aligned.
- It gives three fewer feats, but only
on 20 levels. Before 6th level the amount of feats is the same. And at 6th level, you are already taking your first prestige class, so really doesn't matter.
I think it's a better class than the Zhentarim fighter, which is already ranked Tier 4.
One last doubt. Would someone explain me why the rogue is Tier 4 and the Rokugan ninja is Tier 5?
The only answer I can think of is: no UMD. Because its class skills stay good (it's got both stealth and diplomatic skills), even if its skill points decrease dramatically. But in exchange, its fighting capacity improves (high BAB).
Or maybe was it converted to 3.5 and got nerfed (I'm looking at a 3.0 version right now).
Thanks for the clarifications.
