As has always been, and will always be, the case, the power of a given class depends entirely upon the GM in question and the player in question. Trying to rank them is a fool's errand.I don't agree. It's a simple statement of fact. At level 1, the wizard's casting Color Spray, and the fighter is hitting things with a sword. At level 20, the wizard is casting Prismatic Sphere, summoning demons, teleporting across the world and controlling minds, and the fighter is... hitting things with a sword really well.
There's definitely a quantifiable disparity here.
Uh huh. And yet the effect of any of the wizard's high level toys is going to vary depending on the player and his specialization (save or dies, debuffs, direct damage, party utility, spells prepared) and the GM (type of game, opponents, how various spells are interpreted, availability of high level spells, targeting of vulnerable points like spellbooks, ect).
Laying that aside, all of those wizard options are open to a fighter that is built with any sense (hint: use magic device is pretty awesome). Even laying that aside, the suggestion that the wizard teleporting around and raising prismatic sphere and summoning is more game breaking than the fighter dishing out 500 damage a round is somewhat questionable to me.
At that point you are really playing around with questionable definitions of game breaking.
I find it interesting that so many people put the barbarian in the tier 4 category. It is in my opinion a solid tier 3.
Clerics at least have Miracle, and that alone makes them Tier 1. They may have had some of their abilities nerfed, but they still have the flexibility and power of a Tier 1 character.
Nothing is more fun when seeing a topic you want to read than opening it up and the first half of a page is people saying don't talk about it. Thanks for the meaningful contributions.
On a more serious note, Mort, I am glad it seems your thread finally took off.
As has always been, and will always be, the case, the power of a given class depends entirely upon the GM in question and the player in question.As a thought exercise, I wonder if anyone has tried to figure out which classes are the hardest to mess up via takng poor options?That's a tough one - "Nothing is foolproof, because fools are so ingenious." Just how poor are we talking in regard to the options?
After all, you can always make a fighter with 8s in Str/Con/Dex. :-P
Vanilla Monks. Think about it, You won't notice much of a difference anyway, and you'll always be really good at running away. ;p
Peter, you are right to an extent. If people over rely on the tier list or treat it as unquestionable fact it becomes a problem. How a character is built and played also has an effect on its tier.
The reason I'm bothering is the tiers still work as a guideline. A fighter is almost always not going to be tier 1, if they can ever be. Oracles in tier 3 makes no sense to me and yeah, it's pretty clear they can be extremely versatile in multiple different ways. That said, I don't see how the monk is every going to be tier 1.
Kolo, the tiers don't have to be filled. It's fine for one or more to turn out completely empty and be useless.
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As has always been, and will always be, the case, the power of a given class depends entirely upon the GM in question and the player in question. Trying to rank them is a fool's errand.I don't agree. It's a simple statement of fact. At level 1, the wizard's casting Color Spray, and the fighter is hitting things with a sword. At level 20, the wizard is casting Prismatic Sphere, summoning demons, teleporting across the world and controlling minds, and the fighter is... hitting things with a sword really well.
There's definitely a quantifiable disparity here.
That is your fighter.
My high level fighter is teleporting across the world, self-buffing, self-healing, banishing, generally giving casters nightmares and hitting things with sword really well.
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Fighters are hard to mess up with poor options too. Despite what happens, you still kill stuff with your weapon pretty damn well.
Wizards on the other hand can go from being quite powerful to almost useless if you don't know what you're doing.
cheers
This is in my view almost exactly the wrong way around. Fighters are extremely easy to screw up because their main feature, feats, are to a large extent fixed. The difference between a well built fighter and a poorly built one is huge.
Wizards on the other hand get to change their main class feature every day which allows a new player to actually learn through play.
Interesting challenge.
I would go for a Sorcerer with all the wrong spells in his Known Spells list.
As has always been, and will always be, the case, the power of a given class depends entirely upon the GM in question and the player in question. Trying to rank them is a fool's errand.I don't agree. It's a simple statement of fact. At level 1, the wizard's casting Color Spray, and the fighter is hitting things with a sword. At level 20, the wizard is casting Prismatic Sphere, summoning demons, teleporting across the world and controlling minds, and the fighter is... hitting things with a sword really well.
There's definitely a quantifiable disparity here.
That is your fighter.
My high level fighter is teleporting across the world, self-buffing, self-healing, banishing, generally giving casters nightmares and hitting things with sword really well.
Because you have unlimited money?
Because you have unlimited money?
As has always been, and will always be, the case, the power of a given class depends entirely upon the GM in question and the player in question. Trying to rank them is a fool's errand.I don't agree. It's a simple statement of fact. At level 1, the wizard's casting Color Spray, and the fighter is hitting things with a sword. At level 20, the wizard is casting Prismatic Sphere, summoning demons, teleporting across the world and controlling minds, and the fighter is... hitting things with a sword really well.
There's definitely a quantifiable disparity here.
That is your fighter.
My high level fighter is teleporting across the world, self-buffing, self-healing, banishing, generally giving casters nightmares and hitting things with sword really well.
Aranthos you have just been called out. I think he indirectly just said "post a build or go home".