The question "How do we close the gap between tiers?" often comes up around here. One of the ideas presented usually is "have monks start with more stat point!" or something similar. While this is a pretty good idea imo, it has a few flaws; it gets wonky with multiclassing, doesn't help you keep up once you hit mid levels, and doesn't fix the core problems of the class.
I'm not here to fix the core problems with the classes, but I have an idea for the wonkyness and leveling. As an added bonus, it de-incentivies pumping character stats at creation and then putting all your points into it.
The suggestion consists of two parts/steps:
1.)You do not gain stat increases as you level. Instead, you get build points every levelup, from which you can buy higher stats for the same cost as at character generation.
1a.)Optional: you also don't get feats, but get 1 more build points/level, and an extra 2 at start. You can buy a feat for 2 build points.
2.)The amount of points is based on the tier of your character. Wizard(T1) gets 1/level. Fighter(T5) gets 5. Or some variation on that.
1 makes shoring up your weaknesses easier and cheaper, and honing your strengths harder. 2 helps out the little man, making the Fighter, Monk and the Rogue real powerhouses, but not overpoweringly so, because of 1.
One more thing, after dwelling on it, this could work for a "low/no magic gear" style of play, where you just double the build points you get /level, to make up for the loss of bonuses from magic weapons/armor. You can't really do that with the core book stat point increase system, because it does not favor all classes equally (SAD guys win MAD guys lose).
Thoughts?
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Owly wrote: There are no tiers. There are tiers, but they don't have much to do with power and even less to do with need for stats.
For instance Clerics are MADer than fighters. They don't have the spell list for pure casting at low levels so they need physicals. They need more wisdom if the game will go to high level because they don't have the BAB and boost for high level combat so they need to transition to casting. They are discouraged from dumping charisma because of channeling. Thematically they need more skills so are discouraged from dumping int. Clerics are far higher tier than fighters and are just about the only practical solution to many problems.
Then there's the spell sunder barbarian running around proving that power is no longer the exclusive domain of the top tiers.
Or the Paladin. Low tier and SADer than most classes, but power competitive with the bard, inquisitor, and magus.
A single level of fighter and nothing but cleric levels afterward will let you create something quite close to the old Clericzilla. I'm just sayin'.
@Atarlost:
There's correlation between MADness and tier placing, but I never claimed there's causation. Also, this is not a solution (I stress this even) just a small something to shorten the gap. It's most visible at lower tiers, like a Barbarian/Fighter comparision, the fighter gets a small leg up the barb in raw stats; could use it to shore up his bad Will save, get some more skill points, or make use of armor training, etc. It's not going to put the fighter on par with the cleric, but that's not the goal.
@The Beard
Actually, the point is that that's not true. Other suggestions usually stop at character building, which is where, as you say, you could make a CoDzilla by picking a monk for first level or something. Over 20, 10, or even 5 levels, the stat boost from a 1 level dip is going to mean less and less.
Say, lvl 5:
Fighter 5: 25 build points
Cleric 5: 5 build points
Fighter1/Cleric4: 9 build points
And these are build points not stat-up points; that extra 4 could do, what, raise his agility from 10 to 13? Not that it's bad, it's just not as good as you imagine probably, especially not in the long run.
Furthermore, if this makes t5 classes actually desirable, mission accomplished.
What is this tier you are talking about?
LoneKnave wrote:
@The Beard
Actually, the point is that that's not true. Other suggestions usually stop at character building, which is where, as you say, you could make a CoDzilla by picking a monk for first level or something. Over 20, 10, or even 5 levels, the stat boost from a 1 level dip is going to mean less and less. Meanwhile as my Pathfinder version (admittedly weaker than the 3.5e version) of CoDzilla is capable of soloing encounters of up to +5 CR above itself with minimal risk. The extra feat and proficiencies help a lot more than you'd think they would.
Another thing you need to take into account is that a correctly built fighter has by far the highest damage output in the game, period. Now I know people will say "lulz dealing HP damage isn't optimal." Well, taking something with over a 1000 HP to less than half that in a single swing is a pretty damned nice way to get its attention. Between that, the high AC, and the sheer ease Pathfinder has allowed in raising saves far higher than they were ever mechanically meant to be, you can turn even these theoretically "bad tier" classes into absolute killing machines without neglecting other things. What happens if you're giving them these enhancements only to realize they've built something that makes even Gorum shudder a little? More importantly, you realize it would've been that strong without the enhancements. Imagine what it would do WITH them.
Fighters generally do the worst damage among Full BAB classes, have the worst saves, and the worst out of combat utility. And only get 1-2 more build points than Ranger/Paladin/Barb anyway.
Also, I haven't done the math but with build points stats become more and more expensive over time. Even if a character gets 50% more of them, it could translate into a lot less, especially if you try to channel everything into one stat.
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