Asurendra's page

Disclaimer: English is NOT my first language, may contain grievous errors.

A comprehensive Class-Tier List?!

I'd like to have one :)

Though I am not the most mechanics-minded player/gm out there, I find mechanics quite important and an enjoyable part of the game. I – as many others – have the feeling that some classes simply do better than others in the grand scheme of things.

So I'd like there to be a resource analyzing this “apparent” phenomenon. This would have to be the first step to heal parts of the class-tier slope :)

I stumbled over the concept of a class's floor-performance and it's ceiling-performance in a forum-post lately (to be honest I don't know which one, or if it even has been on the Paizo-boards... but: credits to you!).
The floor- and ceiling-performance shows just how much system-mastery affects the performance of said class.

I'd like to include this concept, because it helps (new) players, who are then able to choose a class with a high floor-perfomance. And it may help gms (and maybe designers?) to raise the floor- (and/or ceiling-) performance of the low tiers.
This would also be a help in the recurring discussions where build-mastery is often brought up as “evidence” that a class can perform (which may well be true – but not for everyone or only with very specific builds).

I think the focus should be on Paizo's published classes, though I see no reason why 3pp classes should be excluded from this list.

I suggest we use the following format for the classes:

Class/Archetype

Combat Tier This obviously rates the combat performance of the class.
-Defensive How hard is it to damage the class? Does it have many ways to avoid HP-damage? Does it have a high AC, good saves etc.? Does it gain Special abilities that help it devensively? Does it simply have tons of HP?
-Floor-Tier:
-Ceiling-Tier:
-Offensive How much damage does the class? How consistently can it do this (¾ or full bab for example)? Can it target various things like HP, the saves (and which of them), attribute-scores, etc.?
-Floor-Tier:
-Ceiling-Tier:

Utility Tier How well does this class function as a general problem-solver? Does it have many skillpoints? Does it have access to a good array of class-skills, to a many of them? Does it have other abilities for problem-solving, i.e. spells or class-abilities?
-Floor-Tier:
-Ceiling-Tier:

I will likely have missed tons of things in this opening post, so please post them at your leisure!

As we gather content for this list (to say: IF we do that, maybe we just discuss the whole time, heh.) I'll make a new thread with said content or maybe it would warrant a google-doc?!

Yay. Bump after half a year :)