With 3rd edition, 3.5, Pathfinder, the idea of class tiers emerges as an unofficial but impressively widely acknowledged fact of the game. Characters who can do everything in the game at least as well as any specialist are tier 1, Characters who can excel at nothing are tier 6, everyone else is strewn somewhere between.
My question is - what happens to the tactics of enemies in a campaign when class tier is treated as something that sufficiently experienced characters understand? How would you run that campaign, how would you react as a player if savvy became active antagonists of the PCs before the PCs yet had any impact on them?
As a caveat, this is about how enemies behave, not about adjusting encounter CR to cater for a highly effective party.
Two examples of what I'm wondering:
1) The party faces a mighty warlord as a mid-level villain, who is, for the sake of the argument, a fairly smart 9th-level fighter who retreats when things go bad. They meet him again a few months later, and he's not only gained a couple of extra levels, he's retrained his old ones - he's now an Eldritch Knight who can cast fifth-level spells. The character has realized there was an upper limit to his potential as a fighter, and if he's going to stay ahead of his enemies and remain powerful as he grows older, he needs to start becoming a wizard. The same character is kept with all his story, but he is a tactically fresh threat, and not one that will be trivialized by the expanding powers of the party's own level 8-9 casters.
2)The PCs have a party that is a little too high-tier; let's say they've got a wizard, a cleric, a druid, and one DPR ace such as an archer paladin. Once word gets around of this party of brave heroes, does that word ring alarm bells? When a good-aligned wealthy NPC rewards the party for their heroic efforts on his behalf, and the spies in his establishment pass this fact on to his rivals, do they get much more worried about this than they would about a more rag-tag collection?
Basically, would the actions or even existence provoke hostility from foes that are worried about their potential?
For example, a mature adult green dragon hears about this party operating within the region he calls home. Why wouldn't it set out to neuter the party as a threat long before they were a direct danger to it or its family, simply because it was intelligent and experienced enough to recognise the enormity of the potential threat such a party poses? Why wouldn't anyone of an Evil bent who has heard of the great and terrible powers of grandmaster wizards and Archmages hesitate to at least prepare contingencies against such a party, if not plotting their downfall outright.
This is not to suggest a screaming green dragon emerging from the skies to devour the party at level 3. This is also not to suggest that in a mixed-tier party, the wizard would find that someone was casting 'Nightmare' on him all the time, and that someone Sleight of Handed Tears of Death onto the contents of his spell component pouch when he was walking through the market while the rest of his party went untroubled.
This is not to suggest a screaming green dragon emerging from the skies to devour the party at level 3. This is also not to suggest that in a mixed-tier party, the wizard would find that someone was casting 'Nightmare' on him all the time, and that someone Sleight of Handed Tears of Death onto the contents of his spell component pouch when he was walking through the market while the rest of his party went untroubled.
It actually is to suggest that, is the problem.
In this hypothetical tier-savvy world, Screaming Green Dragon has dealt with brave, honorable and horribly misinformed mundanes before. He saw them catch bandits, fight tyranny, and eventually grow into higher level big boys who wanna slay the dragon. He has no reason to torch the town, they provide dinner and a movie eventually.
When he hears about Angel Summoner and his crew, however, he gobbles their 1st level asses up pronto. Those people are not the same pawns on his board as the rest. Not for long, anyway. The Wizard approaches his own prowess with magic and the Druid turns into beasts not too much smaller than him. The Cleric is under the watchful eye of a god, beyond even a Dragons paygrade. The Paladin, while a more straight forward threat, still has abilities specifically tied to hunting and killing his kind. Old Grandma Screaming Green Dragon died to a Paladin, in fact.
Any class that would eventually become a threat to Dragons (or Liches, or Demons, or Inevitables, or Psychopomps, etc.) would be wiped off the face of the earth the moment they chose such a career path. These beings have the numbers and, in this world, the savvy to find and destroy them ASAP.
That doesn't make a world of adventure, it makes a world of ants playing games with other ants while the big scary forces of the world do the actual questing and adventure. The world is more game-friendly when every single high-level being is dumb enough to believe that the PCs can't be a threat until it's too late.
This has already been a thing in a general sense for a long while.
"Shoot the Mage First" is as common a trope as "Shoot the Medic (Cleric) first" in fiction. Magic has LONG been known as being ludicrously powerful in-universe in most universes.
This is kind of the plot of Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls.
Malthael, Archangel of Death, considers the following:
1. Humans are weak.
2. Humans can become more powerful than angels and demons.
3. Most humans are evil.
And decides to destroy all humans (and gets trounced by the same human that took out the Prime Evil).
It actually is to suggest that, is the problem.
I made sure my example was generously peppered with the idea of enemies needing to be informed of this party. A level 1 Druid/Wizard/Cleric/DPR ace party doing an urban adventure doesn't get on Screaming Green's radar. They have to get high enough level that word about them spreads, and it has to spread from sufficiently sophisticated observers to note the differences various classes.
Special conditions for triggering a symbol of death can be based on a creature's name, identity, or alignment, but otherwise must be based on observable actions or qualities. Intangibles such as level, class, HD, and hit points don't qualify.
For example, without actually knowing that someone can wildshape or chain summon nature's ally after summon nature's ally, a druid doesn't stand out as a druid. Their animal companion is not inherently different from a domesticated animal, lots of people wear leather or fabric armour or use wooden weapons, and they don't have a druid nametag.
So this isn't asking what happens if Screaming Green kills the party in the cradle.
'Class tier' would require class to be a concept in the world, and I hate that idea. Just because my warrior gets angry and starts trying to eat the boar before it's been killed doesn't mean she's barbaric, does it?
That said, it should be accomplishments that get you on enemy radars. If you're the king, you're a target. The way you became king will affect how you're dealt with: if you're king because you inherited the title, and all you have to show for yourself is three levels of Aristocrat, you'll be treated by in-the-know foes differently than if you're king because you came in, put the prior evil outsider overlords to the sword/axe/fire, stuck the crown on your head, declared yourself King Jennifer the First, and filled the court with your appreciative if less royally-ambitious party mates.
'Class tier' would require class to be a concept in the world, and I hate that idea. Just because my warrior gets angry and starts trying to eat the boar before it's been killed doesn't mean she's barbaric, does it?
Well that act is definitely barbaric but that doesn't make her a barbarian per say.
'Class tier' would require class to be a concept in the world, and I hate that idea.
But there is a different between the training and investiture of Paladins and Clerics. Generals would know the difference between a berserker and a professional soldier. A wizard would be able to recognise the difference between someone casting arcane spells through their scholarly art, or through the sorcerer's inherent magic, or through a bard's traditional art. Class is not tangible in game, but it is not unreasonable to suggest it may exist as a concept.
And while it should be accomplishment that gets you on the enemy radar, I'm simply wondering about how you are treated when you get on that radar. Is a warrior on the radar treated as a threat by their most likely enemies, but dismissed by more distant potential foes, while a wizard on the radar treated as a particularly dire concern.
'Class tier' would require class to be a concept in the world, and I hate that idea.But there is a different between the training and investiture of Paladins and Clerics. Generals would know the difference between a berserker and a professional soldier. A wizard would be able to recognise the difference between someone casting arcane spells through their scholarly art, or through the sorcerer's inherent magic, or through a bard's traditional art. Class is not tangible in game, but it is not unreasonable to suggest it may exist as a concept.
And while it should be accomplishment that gets you on the enemy radar, I'm simply wondering about how you are treated when you get on that radar. Is a warrior on the radar treated as a threat by their most likely enemies, but dismissed by more distant potential foes, while a wizard on the radar treated as a particularly dire concern.
I'd say it's the accomplishments themselves that get you the attention and counterattention. I will admit there are some stereotypes--if you make it a habit of punching out enemies, stunning them before finishing them, you're probably going to be looked at as a 'monk' sort. But people will likely not see an overt difference between a wizard and a sorceror, and possibly even not with a witch involved either. And until you show something specialised, a warrior, paladin, fighter, ranger, or barbarian can look awfully similar. And with the right refluffing, even then it could be a blur. 'I frenzy in the name of Sarenrae! Have at thee!' Is this a paladin smiting, a barbarian raging, or a fighter just yelling at someone?
Actually if you make a habit of stunning people before finishing them, nobody will think you're a Monk.
That would imply Stunning Fist worked often. =)
'I frenzy in the name of Sarenrae! Have at thee!' Is this a paladin smiting, a barbarian raging, or a fighter just yelling at someone?
Agreed - certain features blur the lines. But not every feature blurs the lines - if someone knew Frenzy had also healed the injured and fearlessly tended those stricken with plague, or had taken vows as a Paladin of Sarenrae... someone in-game might guess they were a Paladin. Someone might even be able to tell the difference between a Fighter's quintessentially martial training and a Barbarian's primarily physical self-improvement by how the Fighter moves in armour, or by the Barbarian's outrageous feats of strength without the aid of discernible magic.
A caster isn't massively different from another caster - until a spy finds that one caster buys mundane spell ingredients, composes scrolls, and maintains a grimoire and tells Lord Evil Heading Ever Lichwards "Your excellency, your enemy has attracted a wizard to his service."
I don't treat class as a tangible thing in-game, but when you allow for a sufficiently intelligent and experienced observer, there are enough differences between classes, their methods, and their effectiveness that in-game awareness of class as a concept is reasonable.
If you allow Lord Evil Heading Ever Lichwards to know that a wizard and some high-tier friends have allied with his enemies, how would you have Lord E.H.E.L. react?