Class Tier List 5e Low Levels (1-12)

[FoxDropz]

Hey guys,

Im starting a game with my friends, but we never get pass level10-ishh...

Could you guys elaborate a Tier List for Low Level sessions? Maybe from level 1 to 12?

Thanks! =D

[Zweisteine]

If you want to follow the same versatility>specialization model as the 3.5e tiers, Wizard is still at the top. I suspect that Cleric maintains that spot as well, but maybe not.

Druid (and maybe Cleric) are probably tier 2.

Sorcerer would be Tier 2 now.

Warlock is probably tier 3 (can be highly effective blastercaster, but can't do nearly as well at other specializations).

I would probably drop Bard in T2 as well.


I don't know enough to judge the non-primary-casting classes.

[Yorrin]

Well, the tier list is largely the same as high level play with a couple minor alterations (Monks are better at low levels than they are at high ones, for example). Overall the tiers are just closer together at low levels, getting further apart as you climb up the level ladder.

[Zweisteine]

Thought of some more:

If T3 is still effective at everything or great at one thing, Fighter might have gotten the bump it needs to get in.

[FoxDropz]

I've always played the meele classes.. I thought they were just easier to build and develop, etc..
The 4 classes that I am interested in this edition are:
Wizard, Paladin, Monk and Cleric.

How do You guys feel about them?

Besides Wizard being top utility/versatility..

[Daishain]

Disclaimer: The following is the subjective opinion of someone who is still waiting for a slow DM to finish a campaign so he can actually test these classes out.

T1: wizard, cleric, druid (all three are down in power and versatility from before, but they're still gods among men)
T2: Sorcerer, Bard
T3: Fighter, Paladin, Warlock, rogue
T4: Monk

I'm not yet decided on how to judge the barbarian. It would either be T3 or T4 (I'm leaning more the former).

But what do you know, T5 and T6 are no more. At least until they reintroduce the NPC classes.

[Rfkannen]

I've always played the meele classes.. I thought they were just easier to build and develop, etc..
The 4 classes that I am interested in this edition are:
Wizard, Paladin, Monk and Cleric.

How do You guys feel about them?

Besides Wizard being top utility/versatility..


Hmm well.

From what I understand at low levels a paladin is actualy a better healer than a cleric. Monks are fairly strong at low levels.

So for a healer I would go paladin, cleric, wizard/monk

Tanking would be something like this. Cleric, monk, paladin, wizard (not sure about this)

Damage wise; wizard, monk, paladin, cleric. (maby.

Versatility; wizard, cleric, monk, paladin

[BranMan]

I don't know if it's as true in lower levels, but Bard definitely could qualify for Tier 1 or 2 with their spell-from-any-list shenanigans. They might not be able to do everything better than any other class, but Wizard has a tough time with that as well in this edition.

[Yorrin]

Well, Wizard is Wizard. They get the most spells and the broadest variety of spells to pick from.

Cleric is Cleric. They get the best support list and depending on your domain you can either mix it up in melee or pew-pew from a distance.

Paladin is pretty good compared to 3.5, perhaps a touch nerfed compared to 4e (imho). I've got one in my group right now and he's the muscle of the party, a role which the class fills admirably. They have a good deal of both offensive and defensive power, and that's before you even look at their very nice spell list.

Monk is perhaps the most powerful it's ever been. Levels 1-10 it's one of the highest damage output classes in melee, they have great melee CC in the form of Stunning Fist, and they've got solid all-round subclasses.

[Lokiare]

A lot of people don't seem to understand the tier system. So let me just refresh everyone's memory:

From http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293


My general philosophy is that the only balance that really matters in D&D is the interclass balance between the various PCs in a group. If the group as a whole is very powerful and flexible, the DM can simply up the challenge level and complexity of the encounters. If it's weak and inflexible, the DM can lower the challenge level and complexity. Serious issues arise when the party is composed of some members which are extremely powerful and others which are extremely weak, leading to a situation where the DM has two choices: either make the game too easy for the strong members, or too hard for the weak members. Neither is desireable. Thus, this system is created for the following purposes:

1) To provide a ranking system so that DMs know roughly the power of the PCs in their group

2) To provide players with knowledge of where their group stands, power wise, so that they can better build characters that fit with their group.

3) To help DMs who plan to use house rules to balance games by showing them where the classes stand before applying said house rules (how many times have we seen DMs pumping up Sorcerers or weakening Monks?).

4) To help DMs judge what should be allowed and what shouldn't in their games. It may sound cheesy when the Fighter player wants to be a Half Minotaur Water Orc, but if the rest of his party is Druid, Cloistered Cleric, Archivist, and Artificer, then maybe you should allow that to balance things out. However, if the player is asking to be allowed to be a Venerable White Dragonspawn Dragonwrought Kobold Sorcerer and the rest of the party is a Monk, a Fighter, and a Rogue, maybe you shouldn't let that fly.

5) To help homebrewers judge the power and balance of their new classes. Pick a Tier you think your class should be in, and when you've made your class compare it to the rest of the Tier. Generally, I like Tier 3 as a balance point, but I know many people prefer Tier 4. If it's stronger than Tier 1, you definitely blew it.

This post is NOT intended to state which class is "best" or "sucks." It is only a measure of the power and versitliity of classes for balance purposes.

Psionic classes are mostly absent simply because I don't have enough experience with them. Other absent classes are generally missing because I don't know them well enough to comment, though if I've heard a lot about them they're listed in itallics. Note that "useless" here means "the class isn't particularly useful for dealing with situation X" not "it's totally impossible with enough splat books to make a build that involves that class deal with situation X." "Capable of doing one thing" means that any given build does one thing, not that the class itself is incapable of being built in different ways. Also, "encounters" here refers to appropriate encounters... obviously, anyone can solve an encounter with purely mechanical abilities if they're level 20 and it's CR 1.

Also note that with enough optimization, it's generally possible to go up a tier in terms of tier descriptions, and if played poorly you can easily drop a few tiers, but this is a general averaging, assuming that everyone in the party is playing with roughly the same skill and optimization level. As a rule, parties function best when everyone in the party is within 2 Tiers of each other (so a party that's all Tier 2-4 is generally fine, and so is a party that's all Tier 3-5, but a party that has Tier 1 and Tier 5s in it may have issues).

As a further note, some classes have specific variants or options to them that drastically change their abilities. These classes are noted on multiple tiers. If a variant is not mentioned, it's in the same Tier as the standard class (for example, the Cloistered Cleric is not mentioned because it's T1 like the Cleric. The same goes for the Battle Sorcerer and the Wilderness Rogue). Classes in blue are on the high side of their Tier and can easily move up. Classes in red are on the low side of their Tier and can easily move down.

The Tier System

Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played with skill, can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

Examples: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Archivist, Artificer, Erudite (Spell to Power Variant)

Tier 2: Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes. Still potentially campaign smashers by using the right abilities, but at the same time are more predictable and can't always have the right tool for the job. If the Tier 1 classes are countries with 10,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, these guys are countries with 10 nukes. Still dangerous and easily world shattering, but not in quite so many ways. Note that the Tier 2 classes are often less flexible than Tier 3 classes... it's just that their incredible potential power overwhelms their lack in flexibility.

Examples: Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Psion, Binder (with access to online vestiges), Eurdite (No Spell to Power)

Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Can be game breaking only with specific intent to do so. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.

Examples: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psychic Warrior

Tier 4: Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competance without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribute to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well.

Examples: Rogue, Barbarian, Warlock, Warmage, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshal, Fighter (Zhentarium Variant)

Tier 5: Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the encounter matches their strengths. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly.

Examples: Fighter, Monk, CA Ninja, Healer, Swashbuckler, Rokugan Ninja, Soulknife, Expert, OA Samurai, Paladin, Knight, CW Samurai (with Imperious Command available)

Tier 6: Not even capable of shining in their own area of expertise. DMs will need to work hard to make encounters that this sort of character can contribute in with their mechanical abilities. Will often feel worthless unless the character is seriously powergamed beyond belief, and even then won't be terribly impressive. Needs to fight enemies of lower than normal CR. Class is often completely unsynergized or with almost no abilities of merit. Avoid allowing PCs to play these characters.

Examples: CW Samurai (without Imperious Command available), Aristocrat, Warrior, Commoner

And then there's the Truenamer, which is just broken (as in, the class was improperly made and doesn't function appropriately). Highly optimized (to the point of being able to spam their abilities) a Truenamer would be around Tier 4, but with lower optimization it rapidly drops to Tier 6.

Now, obviously these rankings only apply when mechanical abilities are being used... in a more social oriented game where talking is the main way of solving things (without using diplomacy checks), any character can shine. However, when the mechanical abilities of the classes in question are being used, it's a bad idea to have parties with more than two tiers of difference.

It is interesting to note the disparity between the core classes... one of the reasons core has so many problems. If two players want to play a nature oriented shape shifter and a general sword weilder, you're stuck with two very different tiered guys in the party (Fighter and Druid). Outside of core, it's possible to do it while staying on close Tiers... Wild Shape Variant Ranger and Warblade, for example.

Note that a few classes are right on the border line between tiers. Duskblade is very low in Tier 3, and Hexblade is low in Tier 4. Fighter is high in Tier 5, and CW Samurai is high in Tier 6 (obviously, since it's pretty much strictly better than the same tier Warrior).

For the most part the tier system doesn't change much. Fighters are still only good at one thing, dealing damage. They are still neck and neck with wizards at dealing that damage to single targets. Its possible that other classes can out damage the fighter at early levels also. We know the wizard can basically do everything at all levels. At low levels they are limited to a few times per day but still have rituals. So a clever wizard would only use their spells for challenging encounters and use cantrips the rest of the time. While the fighter and wizard only get one attack/damage die for their basic attacks they are within 2-4 points of damage to each other. They are within 1-2 points if you pick the wizard school that adds int to damage.

Everything else falls between those two.

You an almost argue that the Fighter is tier 5 instead of tier 6, except that its not best at damage until it pulls ahead with extra attacks, which is past level 10 or so.

[FoxDropz]

Well, Wizard is Wizard. They get the most spells and the broadest variety of spells to pick from.

Cleric is Cleric. They get the best support list and depending on your domain you can either mix it up in melee or pew-pew from a distance.

Paladin is pretty good compared to 3.5, perhaps a touch nerfed compared to 4e (imho). I've got one in my group right now and he's the muscle of the party, a role which the class fills admirably. They have a good deal of both offensive and defensive power, and that's before you even look at their very nice spell list.

Monk is perhaps the most powerful it's ever been. Levels 1-10 it's one of the highest damage output classes in melee, they have great melee CC in the form of Stunning Fist, and they've got solid all-round subclasses.

Great insight Yorrin! Thats the info I'm aiming for, some important details on these classes gameplay...

So far on this thread, a lot of diferent opinions about Y class belonging to X Tier.. thats really interesting!

[Daishain]

snip

Have you actually taken a good look at what the fighter is packing these days?

At this point, they are quite simply the best at what they do, trading blows toe to toe, which is the first definition of T3. The barbarian can edge ahead while raging, but once that's gone the fighter is still trucking. No, you can't say the wizard does it better anymore, the abilities that previously let them wade into the fray are gone or seriously nerfed.

And that's just the shell. While the champion archetype doesn't do much that is unique, the other two options add maneuvers or spells, either of which greatly expand what the fighter is capable of. Both of which I should remind you, were modeled after old T3 classes that are no longer with us.

the fact that they still get nearly twice as many feats as everyone else, in an edition where feats are FAR more powerful and versatile than ever before, is also a factor.

They will never be T2, they're locked into their one role for good or ill, but they sure as hell are no longer T5. And they were never T6, in spite of what you implied.

[Galen]

The definition of T1: can blow up the world in many ways; can do anything best, including classes that are supposed to be the best in <thing>
There are no T1's in 5e, because there aren't that many different 9th level effects that blow up the world. And Clerics/Wizards/Druids can't overshadow fighters in pure combat, etc.

The definition of T2: can blow up the world, but in a small number of ways
By this definition, all the 5e full casters are T2

Everything else has a bunch of tricks that can sometimes win an encounter, but no world-shattering abilities, which is more or less the definition of T3. Ranger is the weakest of the bunch, so T4. Everything else that's not a ranger or a full caster is T3.

[Cambrian]

...
Why are we even worrying about tier systems? The tier system itself was made for a very specific purpose. It's right there in the first paragraph:

My general philosophy is that the only balance that really matters in D&D is the interclass balance between the various PCs in a group. If the group as a whole is very powerful and flexible, the DM can simply up the challenge level and complexity of the encounters. If it's weak and inflexible, the DM can lower the challenge level and complexity. Serious issues arise when the party is composed of some members which are extremely powerful and others which are extremely weak, leading to a situation where the DM has two choices: either make the game too easy for the strong members, or too hard for the weak members. Neither is desireable.Has anyone had issues in 5th where the power differential between classes has adversely affected the experience? If not then is there any point in discussing it?

The tier system was born out of 3rd's lack of balance. 5th isn't as tightly balanced as 4th, but it is so much more balanced than 3rd it warrants questioning if we need a tier system. If there are few party class-combinations that don't function well together (my prediction and experience so far) then what does the tier system tell us? If anything we should be looking at 5th and figuring out how to best approach it, not trying to analyze it with a system not intended for it.

That being said... A fighter has core access to 4 levels of wizards spells without multiclassing-- How can that be less than tier 3 under the previous system?

[EvilAnagram]

The definition of T1: can blow up the world in many ways; can do anything best, including classes that are supposed to be the best in <thing>
There are no T1's in 5e, because there aren't that many different 9th level effects that blow up the world. And Clerics/Wizards/Druids can't overshadow fighters in pure combat, etc.

The definition of T2: can blow up the world, but in a small number of ways
By this definition, all the 5e full casters are T2

Everything else has a bunch of tricks that can sometimes win an encounter, but no world-shattering abilities, which is more or less the definition of T3. Ranger is the weakest of the bunch, so T4. Everything else that's not a ranger or a full caster is T3.

I agree, save that the Ranger is tier 3. It might not reach the single target potential of a Fighter, but the spells available bump it up to tier 3, especially Hunters.

[FoxDropz]

What about subclasses?
Which ones do you guys think its fun to play?

Besides this discussion about tier lists and etc, Im also trying to decide which class I should play.. =)

[squashmaster]

I dunno I feel like low level the playing field is WAY more even for 5th edition vs. 3.5.

Full casters vs. martials pretty much. And the spread isn't that big.

[Yorrin]

What about subclasses?
Which ones do you guys think its fun to play?

Besides this discussion about tier lists and etc, Im also trying to decide which class I should play.. =)

Of the ones you listed that you were interested in:

Wizards- I'm not really interested

Cleric- All of them! Cleric is a class I really enjoy, and each of the domains plays so differently! If I had to list my top 3 right now I'd probably say Knowledge, Nature, and Tempest.

Paladin- while all of them are quite powerful I think I'd go Oath of Ancients and make an anti-mage

Monk- Shadow is the only one that interests me, but it interests me a lot! It would be my top choice for a stealthy melee build (with perhaps some Rogue levels splashed in).

[Cambrian]

Paladin- while all of them are quite powerful I think I'd go Oath of Ancients and make an anti-mage
That subclass really caught my eye too. In previous editions I wouldn't be interested in playing a Paladin but with the three different subclasses it is obvious a 'paladin' is more broad of a concept than in previous editions.

With a Wizard the Abjurer would be a fun subclass to explore. You would be more survivable during first couple levels (a legitimate consideration), and then by level 5-6 you get access to abilities to protect the party while still retaining all the versatility of the wizard. You might want to consult your DM about how they want to treat counterspell (Do you know what spell is being cast? Is there a check you can make to identify it?).

[Da Beast]

I've just started looking into 5e and I'm wondering how people feel about the elemental monk subclass.

[Yorrin]

I've just started looking into 5e and I'm wondering how people feel about the elemental monk subclass.

There are mixed feelings about it. On the one hand it can get some great damage output and it has some great flavor to the subclass overall. On the other hand casting spells eats up valuable ki points that could be spent on Stunning Fist and/or Flurry of Blows. I'm personally not a fan of that, but you'll find some people very enthusiastic about those Nova rounds.

[MadBear]

I'm curious if the wizard might be more of a 1.5 tier class then 1 when looked at.

The main reason a wizard was tier 1 was their ultimate flexibility they had in 3.x. With "Ye Olde Magic Shoppe" open, and the expected wealth by level table, it wasn't possible through RAW to limit the amount of spells that a wizard had access too. Every new spell a wizard gets broadens their ability to be effective in everyone else's role.

With the new book, there is no assumption of wealth by level, and no guaranteed magic shoppe where they can just go and buy scrolls for the spell book willy nilly. It's now completely in the DM's control how much "ultimate arcane power" a wizard can collect. (btw, all of this could change with the DM manual, and therefore render this analysis moot, and so it is based solely on what we currently have/see).

I still think they're better then a Tier 2 class, but I'm not quite sure they fit the definition of a tier 1 class anymore either. To go back to the nuke analogy, if a tier 1 has 10,000 nukes, and a tier 2 has 10, then the wizard in this edition has somewhere between 100-1,000 nukes at their disposal.

[Yorrin]

With the new book, there is no assumption of wealth by level, and no guaranteed magic shoppe where they can just go and buy scrolls for the spell book willy nilly. It's now completely in the DM's control how much "ultimate arcane power" a wizard can collect.

They still get more spells than any other class without buying a thing, and have more flexibility in their casting due to the way they do ritual casting, and have arcane recovery to use those options more often. I'll agree it's not to 3.5 levels of absurd, but they're still king of the hill.


To go back to the nuke analogy, if a tier 1 has 10,000 nukes, and a tier 2 has 10, then the wizard in this edition has somewhere between 100-1,000 nukes at their disposal.

Lets not go back to the nuke analogy- it's a bad analogy. Because the difference between T1, T2, and T3 are not how big your numbers are. T1=10nukes T2=10nukes T3=10nukes. But T1 can also make their nukes invisible, raise anti-nuke shields, make illusions of a dozen nukes heading right for you, and to top it off make other people fire nukes at their friends. It's not about how many nukes you've got.

[FoxDropz]

That subclass really caught my eye too. In previous editions I wouldn't be interested in playing a Paladin but with the three different subclasses it is obvious a 'paladin' is more broad of a concept than in previous editions.

With a Wizard the Abjurer would be a fun subclass to explore. You would be more survivable during first couple levels (a legitimate consideration), and then by level 5-6 you get access to abilities to protect the party while still retaining all the versatility of the wizard. You might want to consult your DM about how they want to treat counterspell (Do you know what spell is being cast? Is there a check you can make to identify it?).

I guess the DM would let me make a check to identify the spell.

About the subclasses:
For paladin the most interesting would be Oath of the Acient.
For Wizard maybe abjuration or transmutation?
For monks, shadow?

What do you guys think? What are the great points of those subclasses?

[Shining Wrath]

I think the consensus from the earlier Tier thread was:

Tier 1: Not there any more. Wish is nerfed, Gate is nerfed, most of the Save or X spells require concentration and so they diminish the caster's capabilities while making him or her a very tempting target; intelligent foes will absolutely go after any caster with a concentration spell going. One high-opt Wizard will beat one high-opt Fighter; one high-opt Wizard will *not* beat two high-opt Fighters. That's a big change from 3.5.

Tier 2: All the full casters. Debate as to order depends in part on DM, as the Wizard cannot purchase new spells from Ye Olde Magic Mart and thus relies upon DM good will to fill spellbook. Druid *severely* nerfed, no more animal companion. I think Wizard, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock is defensible but your mileage may vary and if the DM likes skill challenges the half-elf Lore Bard rules the world.

Tier 3: All the melee classes except perhaps Ranger. Ranger is no better at melee than anyone else, worse than most, and gets poor casting compared to the Paladin. I'm mulling homebrew fixes to Ranger right now. Order: Paladin probably rules as it has solid spellcasting and good melee. The Rogue has excellent skill monkey features and as usual good backstabbing abilities. The Monk is much improved, the Fighter is a solid class, and Barbarians are pretty much the loveable bundles of rage they've always been. There's overlap, too, as an argument could be made that the Assassin Rogue is better than any Paladin, and the Champion Fighter might be worse than a Ranger.

Tier 4: Ranger?

Ideas for Ranger fixes while I'm here:
1) Each time they choose favorite enemies, they choose two enemies instead of one, with the usual two humanoids = one category trade. There are 12 categories IIRC, so by level 20 a ranger should have a 50% chance, more or less, of fighting a favorite enemy; more if they have a good handle on the DM's campaign.
2) The "scan terrain" feature no longer requires the expenditure of a spell slot to know if a creature of a listed type is near; knowing direction and number does require burning a slot.
3) ???

EDIT:


They still get more spells than any other class without buying a thing, and have more flexibility in their casting due to the way they do ritual casting, and have arcane recovery to use those options more often. I'll agree it's not to 3.5 levels of absurd, but they're still king of the hill.


Agreed.



Lets not go back to the nuke analogy- it's a bad analogy. Because the difference between T1, T2, and T3 are not how big your numbers are. T1=10nukes T2=10nukes T3=10nukes. But T1 can also make their nukes invisible, raise anti-nuke shields, make illusions of a dozen nukes heading right for you, and to top it off make other people fire nukes at their friends. It's not about how many nukes you've got.

The guy who invented Tiers invented that analogy, and by "nukes" no one means "damage dealing spells", they mean "win this encounter" spells, which includes invisibility, defense, illusions, and enchantments. The difference between the 3.5 Sorcerer and Wizard is that the Sorcerer can sometimes win an encounter with a single spell, while a Wizard who knows what he's about to go up against will ALWAYS have a single-spell win button. And Divination (ab)use makes it very likely the Wizard knows.

Versatility, then, is the ONLY difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2. And while the 5e Wizard is still the most versatile, the lack of the magic mart pulls him back towards the others (especially Clerics and Druids who have access to their entire PHB list every morning), and Bards have awesome versatility as well.

[Lokiare]

I think the consensus from the earlier Tier thread was:

Tier 1: Not there any more. Wish is nerfed, Gate is nerfed, most of the Save or X spells require concentration and so they diminish the caster's capabilities while making him or her a very tempting target; intelligent foes will absolutely go after any caster with a concentration spell going. One high-opt Wizard will beat one high-opt Fighter; one high-opt Wizard will *not* beat two high-opt Fighters. That's a big change from 3.5.

Tier 2: All the full casters. Debate as to order depends in part on DM, as the Wizard cannot purchase new spells from Ye Olde Magic Mart and thus relies upon DM good will to fill spellbook. Druid *severely* nerfed, no more animal companion. I think Wizard, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock is defensible but your mileage may vary and if the DM likes skill challenges the half-elf Lore Bard rules the world.

Tier 3: All the melee classes except perhaps Ranger. Ranger is no better at melee than anyone else, worse than most, and gets poor casting compared to the Paladin. I'm mulling homebrew fixes to Ranger right now. Order: Paladin probably rules as it has solid spellcasting and good melee. The Rogue has excellent skill monkey features and as usual good backstabbing abilities. The Monk is much improved, the Fighter is a solid class, and Barbarians are pretty much the loveable bundles of rage they've always been. There's overlap, too, as an argument could be made that the Assassin Rogue is better than any Paladin, and the Champion Fighter might be worse than a Ranger.

Tier 4: Ranger?

Ideas for Ranger fixes while I'm here:
1) Each time they choose favorite enemies, they choose two enemies instead of one, with the usual two humanoids = one category trade. There are 12 categories IIRC, so by level 20 a ranger should have a 50% chance, more or less, of fighting a favorite enemy; more if they have a good handle on the DM's campaign.
2) The "scan terrain" feature no longer requires the expenditure of a spell slot to know if a creature of a listed type is near; knowing direction and number does require burning a slot.
3) ???

EDIT:



Agreed.




The guy who invented Tiers invented that analogy, and by "nukes" no one means "damage dealing spells", they mean "win this encounter" spells, which includes invisibility, defense, illusions, and enchantments. The difference between the 3.5 Sorcerer and Wizard is that the Sorcerer can sometimes win an encounter with a single spell, while a Wizard who knows what he's about to go up against will ALWAYS have a single-spell win button. And Divination (ab)use makes it very likely the Wizard knows.

Versatility, then, is the ONLY difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2. And while the 5e Wizard is still the most versatile, the lack of the magic mart pulls him back towards the others (especially Clerics and Druids who have access to their entire PHB list every morning), and Bards have awesome versatility as well.

The thing you are missing is that the wizard gets to pick their spells and they get a good number of known spells. So short of DM house ruling they will have the spells they want. It's extremely flexible to. They can pick spells of any level and they get two per level. If some of the play test feats are still in the game they can learn even more spells and have more spell slots. With utility spells like spider climb, knock (which is about as loud as combat) and other utility spells they can do everything in the game. By that definition they are tier 1.it doesn't matter that their power is diminished compared to 3e.they are still the most powerful class in the game. Remember the tier system is talking about potential not averages. Everybody though the average caster might not be much more powerful than the fighter they have the potential to be, while the fighters maximum potential is to deal just slightly more damage than everyone else over the course of the day.
An argument can be made that the fighter moved up a tier, but there is no logical Argument that can be made that the wizard (and other casters) have moved down a tier.

[squashmaster]

Ideas for Ranger fixes while I'm here:
1) Each time they choose favorite enemies, they choose two enemies instead of one, with the usual two humanoids = one category trade. There are 12 categories IIRC, so by level 20 a ranger should have a 50% chance, more or less, of fighting a favorite enemy; more if they have a good handle on the DM's campaign.
2) The "scan terrain" feature no longer requires the expenditure of a spell slot to know if a creature of a listed type is near; knowing direction and number does require burning a slot.
3) ???

My idea I posted in another thread is have the Extra Attack feature let you (or your animal companion) optionally do one weapon attack as a bonus action when you cast a spell as your main action.

[Z3ro]

If some of the play test feats are still in the game they can learn even more spells and have more spell slots.
See, this is why people are frustrated with you. You're stating things without actually going through the PHB; neither of those things made it into the final product. At best, a wizard can learn one level one spell and two cantrips (the same as any other class) with a feat, in general a spectacularly bad trade off.



With utility spells like spider climb, knock (which is about as loud as combat) and other utility spells they can do everything in the game. By that definition they are tier 1.it doesn't matter that their power is diminished compared to 3e.they are still the most powerful class in the game. Remember the tier system is talking about potential not averages. Everybody though the average caster might not be much more powerful than the fighter they have the potential to be, while the fighters maximum potential is to deal just slightly more damage than everyone else over the course of the day.
An argument can be made that the fighter moved up a tier, but there is no logical Argument that can be made that the wizard (and other casters) have moved down a tier.

And see, once again, this is where game experience tells a different story. The logical argument is the lack of spell slots. Without a larger number of spell slots (or lots of magic items), those wizards aren't preparing as many utility spells. Why cast knock when the rogue can do it? You only get 3 2nd level slots a day. Having a spell to solve every problem (not as much anymore) it great, but if you don't actually cast the spell, it doesn't actually matter.

[Daishain]

My idea I posted in another thread is have the Extra Attack feature let you (or your animal companion) optionally do one weapon attack as a bonus action when you cast a spell as your main action.

Just letting the animal companion have its own action economy would help that half of the class immensely. Seriously, who wants to invest in a major class feature only to have it sit in a corner and lick its balls 95% of the time?

[FoxDropz]

What if we tried to rank the subclasses?
A Subclass Tier List!

Can sombebody pull this one of?! =o

[squashmaster]

Yeah, I mean, you should always, every turn, have both you and your companion do at least one useful thing. Anything less is broken. Plus the Ranger has access to a lot of nice situational/utility spells, but it might not be able to do anything but cast it that turn, sacrificing its damage that round. Totally unacceptable for a martial class.

[Yorrin]

What if we tried to rank the subclasses?
A Subclass Tier List!

Can somebody pull this one off?! =o

Subclasses are already accounted for in the tier list, and the base class influences the subclass to such a degree as to render this largely useless. Moreover in many cases subclasses specialize a class in a different direction entirely, making them basically equal in different directions. Monk's a good example of this. You've got Open Hand (melee CC), Shadow (Stealth/Scout) and Elements (Damage), each of which is about the same tier but plays with different purpose.

[Gnomes2169]

Well, really, it depends on your subclass for the most part. That being said, here is a list of classes as they seem to fall at the mid game:

Levels 1-6

Everyone is pretty much tier 3, with bards, clerics, druids and warlocks pulling up to tier 2 near the end of it.

Tiers for level ~7-12

Tier 1: Wizard (any), Cleric (any), Druid (Circle of the Moon and some Land druids), Bard (College of Lore is broken).

All of them are extremely capable, and they all have an absolutely sickening number of options. College of lore has the fewest spells, but enough skills/ expertise and the ability to get a busload of spells from any spell list (including the wonderful level 5 paladin smiting spells) to make the minor lack of game-changing spells from their list negligable.

Tier 2: Sorc (any), Warlock (Any), Bard (College of Valor)

Despite the raw power and godliness of meta magic and the number of spells you can get from sorcery points, the sorc just doesn't have the raw options to be chillin' like a villain with the tier 1's.

For the Warlock, their specialties and the awesomness of their spell recovery mechanic (on a short rest? Hells to the yeah, sign me up!) just don't make up for their lack of spell slots and options over all. Though their at-will options do try to make up for that... If I had to rank each specialty, then Pact of the Blade has the least story/ world impact (though the bladelock is a very capable melee combatant because of it) so it is the lowest, Pact of the Chain gives you a super-familiar, so it gives you more story shaping power depending on your patron (though, not toomuch power, it depends entirely on what your familiar can do/ give you) so I'll give that one second place... And then Pact of the Tone gives you every single ritual spell in the game. The sheer number of options this opens up rockets the pact of the tome to the position in my (and most people's) books, making him the king qof the 'Lock.

Bard of Valor, while a pretty good magic-focused melee gish, however, as a gish the focus is less on magic, and the college of Valor suffers for it in the way of fewer options (notably, the loss of spells from any list). However, level 9 spellcasting and the ability to go toe-to-toe with others in melee (for about two rounds before exploding) does give the college of valor a good bit of power.

Borderline tier 2: Paladin (Vengeance)

I would like to make special mention of the paladin at this point. With his impressive tanking abilities against any saving throws, godly powerful smite spells and impressive martial abilities (as well as their channel divinity options), paladin is an awesome base class. The sub classes make him even more impressive, with the mid game absolutely being dominated by the Paladin of Vengeance. Early game, Devotion is ahead (due to their extra bonus on attack rolls/ access to Lesser restoration and protection from good and evil) and late game Ancients just butchers casters (and doesn't go down easy), but mid game? The paladin of Vengeance is your man all day, every day. Almost to the point where I want to put it in tier 2, but I feel like that would betray the spirit of the rating system, since as awesome as they are, the Paladin of Vengeance does not have the raw options and world shaping power of a tier 2. Their spells are almost entirely combat-oriented, and they don't have enough skills to really be masters of the trade. So instead, I'm putting them at borderline tier 2 (note, at levels 13-20, the Oath of Ancients pulls Up to this spot, while Vengeance becomes tier 3 at about level 16/17)

Tier 3: Paladin (Oath of Ancients and Devotion), Barbarian (Totem, many rests Berzerker), Rogue (Any), Monk (Way of the Elements and Way of Sadows), Ranger (Hunter), Fighter (Battle master and Eldrich Knight)

Now then, this list is massive. And I'm going to try to make this as quick as possible.

Paladin I have already gone through, but just to say it again; Devotion at these levels will start to drop off in effectiveness, while Ancients is starting to pick up. That being said, both are still paladins, and are solid tier 3's if only by that simple virtue.

Barbarian is an amazing tank, with the Bear Totem barbarian being the best one in the game aside from the onion druid (and even then, onion druid doesn't have resistance to energy damage...). If combine with an Oath of Ancients paladin late game, the bear totem barbarian can just laugh at every attack, all day long. The effectiveness of the Berzerker... Comes down to what kind of campaign you are in and how often you can long rest. Early-mid game with resting, the berzerker can get an extra attack with his greatsword all day, every day. Without resting, however... He's asleep after three fights, and ineffective in the second one. So I'm going to divide the Berzerker between tier 3 and 4 based on getting those rests. Beyond that, the toughness and DPS, as well as their selection of useful skills, gives the barbarian a rather solid chasis, enhanced and perfected by their subclass.

Rogues are batman. That is all.

Monks are interesting. At these levels, the Way of Shadows takes off with its incredible mobility and caster-assassin roles, and the Way of the Elements has a bit of battle field control. Also, their unarmed damage catches up with their weapon damage, and they can move so very, very fast. All of this combined with their skills makes them effective first-strikers and scouts, and enemies will be hard pressed to pin them down. They are an effective tier 3, and well worth the effort.

Rangers, despite all the moaning and complaining, are not horrible wastes of a party member. Well... the hunter isn't, at least. The hunter is an awesome skirmisher both from range and in melee, but mostly from range. Their ability to buther hordes or hunt down a single target gives them good options in combat, and their spells make sure that their shots pack a hefty punch. Their skills are good for the role, making them effective... Hunters and giving them a bit of an edge on their scouting/ tracking ability. Over all a solid tier 3, in my opinion, though admittedly on the low end (they could use more spells known).

And then there was the fighter. Now we all know that the base class is... Solid. A decent chassis with enough ability score bumps/ feats to make a brutally effective front line fighter, but not really enough to rocket him to tier 3 alone. Which is where the subclasses come in. The Battlemaster is a brutally effective controller the first or second turn of an encounter, dealing massive damage in his nova and inflicting a handful of solid secondary effects. The Eldrich Knight, on the other hand, has more range with his magical attacks, and a bit more staying power with their larger number of limited resources (spells vs superiority dice) and their unlimited resources (cantrips). While the battlemaster has more raw power when given ample short rests, the eldrich knight can start sustaining his nova capabilities longer in any given encounter, ad has plenty of gishy goodness to help him along.

Tier 4: Barbarian (No rests Berzerker), Fighter (Champion), Monk (Way of the Open Hand)

The Champion archetype for the Fighter is... BORING. While a good front liner, all it does is smack people and get some minor passive bumps. Now, while these bumps do add to their overall effectiveness, they are not enough to do anything for the base chassis' position, and champion is solidly in tier 4 territory.

Way of the Open Hand monk is in a similar boat as its 3.5 cousin, though they do get pulled up by their base class admirably. After level 3, the open hand does not get many effective or interesting abilities, and while Quivering Palm was buffed, it still has the problem of taking two turns to maybe kill someone if they have bad con. Though, that last bit is out of the level range, soooooo...

I would not say that there are any tier 5 or 6 classes at the moment, so that will complete the list here. Hope this helps!

[Gnomes2169]

What about subclasses?
Which ones do you guys think its fun to play?

Besides this discussion about tier lists and etc, Im also trying to decide which class I should play.. =)

Paladin all the way mang. Such fun, much smiting. Wow.

[Cambrian]

Tiers for level ~7-12

Tier 1: Wizard (any), Cleric (any), Druid (Circle of the Moon and some Land druids), Bard (College of Lore is broken).

All of them are extremely capable, and they all have an absolutely sickening number of options. College of lore has the fewest spells, but enough skills/ expertise and the ability to get a busload of spells from any spell list (including the wonderful level 5 paladin smiting spells) to make the minor lack of game-changing spells from their list negligable.
I disagree, the power levels of those classes is not so great at those levels that they fit the definition for tier 1 under 3.5:

Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played with skill, can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.I don't see wizards, druids, etc... "doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing." I haven't witnessed those classes "solv[e] encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player."

Around level 7-12 the spell access is still too low to even say they "can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules".

It's not that I don't agree that wizards, druids, clerics, etc... are not a notably a step above other classes in versatility and potential power. It's that unless we can establish a new system for tiers in 5th (or any alternate classification that is useful) there will be large amounts of disagreement because the 3.5 tiers system wasn't designed for 5th, and it doesn't work with 5th.

If all classes are tier 2-4 (according to the definitions of the tier system) then the system doesn't serve a purpose. As the original author wrote: As a rule, parties function best when everyone in the party is within 2 Tiers of each other .

[FoxDropz]

Well, really, it depends on your subclass for the most part. That being said, here is a list of classes as they seem to fall at the mid game:

Levels 1-6

Everyone is pretty much tier 3, with bards, clerics, druids and warlocks pulling up to tier 2 near the end of it.

Tiers for level ~7-12

Tier 1: Wizard (any), Cleric (any), Druid (Circle of the Moon and some Land druids), Bard (College of Lore is broken).

All of them are extremely capable, and they all have an absolutely sickening number of options. College of lore has the fewest spells, but enough skills/ expertise and the ability to get a busload of spells from any spell list (including the wonderful level 5 paladin smiting spells) to make the minor lack of game-changing spells from their list negligable.

Tier 2: Sorc (any), Warlock (Any), Bard (College of Valor)

Despite the raw power and godliness of meta magic and the number of spells you can get from sorcery points, the sorc just doesn't have the raw options to be chillin' like a villain with the tier 1's.

For the Warlock, their specialties and the awesomness of their spell recovery mechanic (on a short rest? Hells to the yeah, sign me up!) just don't make up for their lack of spell slots and options over all. Though their at-will options do try to make up for that... If I had to rank each specialty, then Pact of the Blade has the least story/ world impact (though the bladelock is a very capable melee combatant because of it) so it is the lowest, Pact of the Chain gives you a super-familiar, so it gives you more story shaping power depending on your patron (though, not toomuch power, it depends entirely on what your familiar can do/ give you) so I'll give that one second place... And then Pact of the Tone gives you every single ritual spell in the game. The sheer number of options this opens up rockets the pact of the tome to the position in my (and most people's) books, making him the king qof the 'Lock.

Bard of Valor, while a pretty good magic-focused melee gish, however, as a gish the focus is less on magic, and the college of Valor suffers for it in the way of fewer options (notably, the loss of spells from any list). However, level 9 spellcasting and the ability to go toe-to-toe with others in melee (for about two rounds before exploding) does give the college of valor a good bit of power.

Borderline tier 2: Paladin (Vengeance)

I would like to make special mention of the paladin at this point. With his impressive tanking abilities against any saving throws, godly powerful smite spells and impressive martial abilities (as well as their channel divinity options), paladin is an awesome base class. The sub classes make him even more impressive, with the mid game absolutely being dominated by the Paladin of Vengeance. Early game, Devotion is ahead (due to their extra bonus on attack rolls/ access to Lesser restoration and protection from good and evil) and late game Ancients just butchers casters (and doesn't go down easy), but mid game? The paladin of Vengeance is your man all day, every day. Almost to the point where I want to put it in tier 2, but I feel like that would betray the spirit of the rating system, since as awesome as they are, the Paladin of Vengeance does not have the raw options and world shaping power of a tier 2. Their spells are almost entirely combat-oriented, and they don't have enough skills to really be masters of the trade. So instead, I'm putting them at borderline tier 2 (note, at levels 13-20, the Oath of Ancients pulls Up to this spot, while Vengeance becomes tier 3 at about level 16/17)

Tier 3: Paladin (Oath of Ancients and Devotion), Barbarian (Totem, many rests Berzerker), Rogue (Any), Monk (Way of the Elements and Way of Sadows), Ranger (Hunter), Fighter (Battle master and Eldrich Knight)

Now then, this list is massive. And I'm going to try to make this as quick as possible.

Paladin I have already gone through, but just to say it again; Devotion at these levels will start to drop off in effectiveness, while Ancients is starting to pick up. That being said, both are still paladins, and are solid tier 3's if only by that simple virtue.

Barbarian is an amazing tank, with the Bear Totem barbarian being the best one in the game aside from the onion druid (and even then, onion druid doesn't have resistance to energy damage...). If combine with an Oath of Ancients paladin late game, the bear totem barbarian can just laugh at every attack, all day long. The effectiveness of the Berzerker... Comes down to what kind of campaign you are in and how often you can long rest. Early-mid game with resting, the berzerker can get an extra attack with his greatsword all day, every day. Without resting, however... He's asleep after three fights, and ineffective in the second one. So I'm going to divide the Berzerker between tier 3 and 4 based on getting those rests. Beyond that, the toughness and DPS, as well as their selection of useful skills, gives the barbarian a rather solid chasis, enhanced and perfected by their subclass.

Rogues are batman. That is all.

Monks are interesting. At these levels, the Way of Shadows takes off with its incredible mobility and caster-assassin roles, and the Way of the Elements has a bit of battle field control. Also, their unarmed damage catches up with their weapon damage, and they can move so very, very fast. All of this combined with their skills makes them effective first-strikers and scouts, and enemies will be hard pressed to pin them down. They are an effective tier 3, and well worth the effort.

Rangers, despite all the moaning and complaining, are not horrible wastes of a party member. Well... the hunter isn't, at least. The hunter is an awesome skirmisher both from range and in melee, but mostly from range. Their ability to buther hordes or hunt down a single target gives them good options in combat, and their spells make sure that their shots pack a hefty punch. Their skills are good for the role, making them effective... Hunters and giving them a bit of an edge on their scouting/ tracking ability. Over all a solid tier 3, in my opinion, though admittedly on the low end (they could use more spells known).

And then there was the fighter. Now we all know that the base class is... Solid. A decent chassis with enough ability score bumps/ feats to make a brutally effective front line fighter, but not really enough to rocket him to tier 3 alone. Which is where the subclasses come in. The Battlemaster is a brutally effective controller the first or second turn of an encounter, dealing massive damage in his nova and inflicting a handful of solid secondary effects. The Eldrich Knight, on the other hand, has more range with his magical attacks, and a bit more staying power with their larger number of limited resources (spells vs superiority dice) and their unlimited resources (cantrips). While the battlemaster has more raw power when given ample short rests, the eldrich knight can start sustaining his nova capabilities longer in any given encounter, ad has plenty of gishy goodness to help him along.

Tier 4: Barbarian (No rests Berzerker), Fighter (Champion), Monk (Way of the Open Hand)

The Champion archetype for the Fighter is... BORING. While a good front liner, all it does is smack people and get some minor passive bumps. Now, while these bumps do add to their overall effectiveness, they are not enough to do anything for the base chassis' position, and champion is solidly in tier 4 territory.

Way of the Open Hand monk is in a similar boat as its 3.5 cousin, though they do get pulled up by their base class admirably. After level 3, the open hand does not get many effective or interesting abilities, and while Quivering Palm was buffed, it still has the problem of taking two turns to maybe kill someone if they have bad con. Though, that last bit is out of the level range, soooooo...

I would not say that there are any tier 5 or 6 classes at the moment, so that will complete the list here. Hope this helps!

Hands Down!!! Gnomes2169 awesome tier break down!! =D

[Gnomes2169]

I disagree, the power levels of those classes is not so great at those levels that they fit the definition for tier 1 under 3.5:
I don't see wizards, druids, etc... "doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing." I haven't witnessed those classes "solv[e] encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player."

Around level 7-12 the spell access is still too low to even say they "can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules".

It's not that I don't agree that wizards, druids, clerics, etc... are not a notably a step above other classes in versatility and potential power. It's that unless we can establish a new system for tiers in 5th (or any alternate classification that is useful) there will be large amounts of disagreement because the 3.5 tiers system wasn't designed for 5th, and it doesn't work with 5th.

If all classes are tier 2-4 (according to the definitions of the tier system) then the system doesn't serve a purpose. As the original author wrote: As a rule, parties function best when everyone in the party is within 2 Tiers of each other .
True enough, I suppose. I do think that the tier system needs a major renovation for 5th, as the ability to do everything, all the time, ever (tier 1) is gone.

Though I will respectfully disagree with the notion that a tier 4 can be played effectively beside a tier 2 (at least in 3.5) as I have tried that a few times... And it never really worked. >_> In 5e, the tier 2 will have too few resources to invalidate a tier 4 (meaning that even tier 2 has to be redefined) and since the majority of classes are tier relatively 2-3 I don't see the problem coming up all that much, but a tier 4 just isn't satisfying to play at high levels in 3.5, even without a wizard or archivist in the party.


Hands Down!!! Gnomes2169 awesome tier break down!! =D

Thank you my good sir.

[Cambrian]

True enough, I suppose. I do think that the tier system needs a major renovation for 5th, as the ability to do everything, all the time, ever (tier 1) is gone.

Though I will respectfully disagree with the notion that a tier 4 can be played effectively beside a tier 2 (at least in 3.5) as I have tried that a few times... And it never really worked. >_> In 5e, the tier 2 will have too few resources to invalidate a tier 4 (meaning that even tier 2 has to be redefined) and since the majority of classes are tier relatively 2-3 I don't see the problem coming up all that much, but a tier 4 just isn't satisfying to play at high levels in 3.5, even without a wizard or archivist in the party.I know what you mean about T2/4-- even though they are within 2 of each other there is a very real divide between T3 and T2 that makes the difference more notable.

My experience has been that your correct; a caster no longer has the resources to invalidate the less versatile characters. A wizard in general is much better off casting fly on the melee character than themselves, and that kind of enabling was never a tier issue.

For the record I absolutely agree with your analysis on relative power of classes; as FoxDropz said it was an awesome analysis. I just don't think they fit into 3.5's tier definitions.

[Shining Wrath]

The thing you are missing is that the wizard gets to pick their spells and they get a good number of known spells. So short of DM house ruling they will have the spells they want. It's extremely flexible to. They can pick spells of any level and they get two per level. If some of the play test feats are still in the game they can learn even more spells and have more spell slots. With utility spells like spider climb, knock (which is about as loud as combat) and other utility spells they can do everything in the game. By that definition they are tier 1.it doesn't matter that their power is diminished compared to 3e.they are still the most powerful class in the game. Remember the tier system is talking about potential not averages. Everybody though the average caster might not be much more powerful than the fighter they have the potential to be, while the fighters maximum potential is to deal just slightly more damage than everyone else over the course of the day.
An argument can be made that the fighter moved up a tier, but there is no logical Argument that can be made that the wizard (and other casters) have moved down a tier.

The most powerful class in the game is not what is meant by Tier 1. Tier 1 is no matter what the DM throws at you, there is a spell in your repertoire that lets you win that encounter with little effort. You have 10,000 nukes; that is, for 10,000 different situations you have a nuke that blows them up.

By that definition, no 5e class is Tier 1. The Wizard with 44 spells known and able to cast the highest level spells once per day is not going to be able to finish a four to six encounter day having single-handedly won every encounter as was oft the case in 3.5.

As I said, a well-optimized Wizard can no longer defeat two well-optimized Fighters of the same level. So if you want to call Wizards Tier 1 and Fighters Tier 5, you have to admit that Tier 1 < 2 * Tier 5. At which point the granularity of the Tiers is getting pretty fine.

EDIT

Gnomes2169 has a good ordering, but I think I'd collapse Tiers 1&2 together. I don't see that much distinction in power between, e.g., a Cleric and a Sorcerer. I also still think that any Ranger variant is strictly inferior to any Paladin variant, because the Ranger gets the worst way of choosing spells known (select at level up) with what looks to me like the worst list to choose them from and no rituals nor method of getting spells from other lists. Given their weak spell casting, they'd have to really shine in combat to justify Tier 3, and I don't see the shine.

[FoxDropz]

Thanks for all the info you guys provided!
I'll try to decide if I run Paladin, Wizard or Monk! XD

[Gnomes2169]

I know what you mean about T2/4-- even though they are within 2 of each other there is a very real divide between T3 and T2 that makes the difference more notable.

My experience has been that your correct; a caster no longer has the resources to invalidate the less versatile characters. A wizard in general is much better off casting fly on the melee character than themselves, and that kind of enabling was never a tier issue.

For the record I absolutely agree with your analysis on relative power of classes; as FoxDropz said it was an awesome analysis. I just don't think they fit into 3.5's tier definitions.

Yeah, we should prooobably make a new tier system for 5e. I don't see it as being a "never play these classes with these classes ever" guide, but more of a "these characters have more potential 'story changing' potential (where the options given are varied and powerful enough to pull off some hard-to-overcome situations and change the world by themselves) and these classes over here typically have less quantifiable 'story shaping' potential." A hypothetical array of categories would be:

Tier 1: These classes have a dizzying array of ever-expanding options and powers. While their resources may be limited, they are powerful and varied. They can fill many roles, and their abilities may be used both in and outside of combat. Most commonly, these are classes with powerful spell casting who can change what they have prepared each day, and if played with even a modicum of intelligence they will have a spell or ability that can contribute to a situation that would reasonably come up in a day. (For instance, if you were in the middle of a Red Dragon's lair, you likely would not be prepared for a Yeti or Water elemental, as they would make no sense to encounter given the environment.) Some of the tools of classes in this tier will be "all purpose", or at least useful in many situations (e.g, the Druid's Wild Shape ability is both useful as a health buffer in combat, and useful for the secondary abilities it grants him). Some classes might make it to this list just because of the raw scope of abilities they can learn and master, or the sources that they can draw on readily (the bard(especially college of lore)'s ability to learn spells from other lists, for example).

These classes truly shine in the late game, where their resources to both draw upon and use their abilities begin to outpace the most effective techniques of those below them, though it should be noted that even a tier 1 class, with their vast power, cannot handle every challenge on their own, and must still rely on the strength of their allies in situations that they did not foresee. A party of tier 1 classes is only really viable in the mid to late game (levels 13-20) when they have the resources to hopefully negate or recover from the hit point damage their enemies can throw at them. (A notable exception to this rule is the Druid, which has incredible durability in the early game and late game alike)

Tier 2: The largest difference between this tier and tier 1 is the sheer scope of abilities a tier 1 class may draw upon. Where a Tier 1 class can typically prepare for any one role on any given day, while still being able to contribute in other areas, a tier 2 class will typically have to focus on one role or generalize, and often cannot change their decision once they have chosen. While this gives them relatively less flexibility than a tier 1 class, this does not mean that the tier 2 class is weak by any means. In fact, a tier 2 class that is in their element will often out-perform a tier 1 prepared to the same purpose due to powerful class abilities and powers that augment that role. These classes are still typically spell casters with effective spell lists, and they typically can call on the same resources that their tier 1 cousins rely on.

Classes in this tier can typically play with those in the tier 1 category and have fun without feeling overshadowed in any way, and if played intelligently they can contribute to many situations. These classes are typically more reliant on their allies for assistance than a tier 1 if they specialize, and their presence is less felt if they generalize. A party of tier 2 classes is typically rather powerful starting around level 9-13, though it could still use the assistance of lower tier, more durable classes.

Tier 3: An incredibly diverse and variable tier, classes of this category are differentiated from tier 2 classes in the spectrum of options they may draw from and their spell casting ability (either having only partial casting or being entirely mundane, for the most part). While still having powerful and unique options, there is less potential for these classes to differentiate themselves from a member of the same class or subclasses, and most of their options tend to deal directly or indirectly with combat. (Ex: While there is no doubt that the paladin's spell list is incredibly powerful, the overwhelming majority of the options deal directly with combat. How would you use spells such as Banishing Smite and Dazzling smite to make food for the poor or to build a shelter for them instantly, after all?) Those abilities that deal with out of combat situations tend to be limited to certain situations or preparation for combat, leaving a tier 3 class to rely on their (typically quite good and vast) class and background skills to deal with out of combat situations.

Tier 3 classes are typically good, solid contributors to the team from level 1, shining brilliantly in the role (or roles, as the case may be) they were designed for and making their presence felt throughout the entire game. These classes may be played with a tier 2 class without needing to be too concerned with having their fun or role stolen, and may even be played with a tier 1 class and still be a valued team member. In fact, classes of this tier might be seen as the Tier 1 and Tier 2 character's best friends, as they tend to be the front line or just straight-up effective enough in combat to draw the heat from their more fragile tier 1/ 2 allies. A party of tier 3 classes is a perfectly valid, varied and powerful group of individuals who can complement or empower each other without having to worry too much about running into something that they cannot handle.

Tier 4: As a whole, classes of this category tend to be like their tier 3 cousins, but with a few core and key abilities that have harsh or unnecessary drawbacks. Often times a specific subclass attached to a unique and effective class is what would find itself in this category, a class as a whole will usually not be dropped into here. Tier 4 classes will rely on the assistance of their allies to be effective in most situations, though they are still effective in what they choose to specialize in. Note that in this case, effective means that they will be able to do the job at all, not that they will exceed or even shine in it. This is not to say that they cannot contribute, but their class features rely on the power of another class or character combining their abilities with them to be truly effective. While this makes them good team players, it also makes them ineffective on their own

A tier 4 class can be played with a tier 1, 2 or 3 class, but will often be outdone unless that class focuses on assisting them. A tier 4 party will start to have some problems with enemies that their features are not necessarily designed to deal with, and their adventuring day will typically feature much more resting to recover from damage or status effects, where a higher tier party would be able to heal either through the proper application of magic/ abilities.

Tier 5: A class that has only situationally useful abilities and abilities with rather questionable use would fall under this category. Bonus points for a class who's situationally useful abilities revolve around a questionably useful class feature! While often it is easy enough to homebrew fixes for these classes/ subclasses, and only one or two tweaks are needed to bring them to tier 3, by RAW they are terribly underpowered and should only be played if the character has a massive amount of supporting abilities from their party to be effective, or if the campaign is much, much easier than most. That being said, there are still situations where this class can feel unique and contribute, but said situations rely on the circumstances that their situational abilities key off of, and a DM will be hard pressed to make sure the player can contribute consistently.

This is the tier that does not bring anything useful to the table that the tier 1 and 2 classes cannot emulate through their own magical or mundane means, and even tier 3 classes will have to be careful to avoid stepping on a tier 5's toes. A tier 5 can be optimized to compete along side a tier 3 and 4, but their options will be severely limited, and rely mostly on DM fiat or approval. A tier 5 party will not be able to handle an encounter of their level's weight class, so it is not recommended that such a party be made.

((Currently, the only class that fits into this tier is the Beastmaster ranger, who gives up too much for his animal companion to justify having his entire subclass based around it. Additionally, the chassis of the class itself is mostly based off of situationally useful powers that complement the Hunter but do not mesh well with the minor minionmancy of the pet. All together this makes the class... A poor choice))

Tier 6: The class that literally cannot do anything. Since no classes fit this tier currently, I will not expand on it.


EDIT

Gnomes2169 has a good ordering, but I think I'd collapse Tiers 1&2 together. I don't see that much distinction in power between, e.g., a Cleric and a Sorcerer. I also still think that any Ranger variant is strictly inferior to any Paladin variant, because the Ranger gets the worst way of choosing spells known (select at level up) with what looks to me like the worst list to choose them from and no rituals nor method of getting spells from other lists. Given their weak spell casting, they'd have to really shine in combat to justify Tier 3, and I don't see the shine.

I was more basing my ordering off of the idea of a "5e tier system" (look above to see that), otherwise yes, no class in 5th matches a tier 1 in 3.5. That was a given, and if I hadn't been going for a "given system only" feel, I would not have put anything above tier 2, or even borderline tier 2.

The cleric and sorc are vastly different, both in mechanics and power/ flexibility (potential)... I'll assume you know the mechanics bit, and just stick to the differences in their potential. The sorc has in its favor their metamagic ability... Which is pretty damn powerful. It's what makes them a solid tier 2 if we change the definitions of tiers in 5e to what I have above. However, their metamagic does not make up for the fact that, at level 20, they only ever have 15 spells known and prepared at any given time, which vastly gimps their potential (that's less than 2 spells per level, and only 1 at level 9 for sure!) Let's compare this to the cleric: 25 "flexible" spells prepared/ day at level 20, along with their 10 "hard set" domain spells that are always ready. That's a total of 35 spells to draw from, or more than double what the sorc has... And the cleric could potentially prepare literally every single level 9 cleric spell in the game if she wanted, because she has access to her full list and there are not 25 level 9 cleric spells in the game (yet) :P Since the tiers are based only partially on raw power and more on valid, flexible options, the cleric is easily the higher tiered class. Could the sorc kick the cleric's sorry ass in a straight-up fight? Most likely! But that is not what we are looking at here.

For the ranger... I am going to defend the hunter a little bit here. The ranger is a solid tier 3 skirmisher, who's class abilities, skills and spells support stealthy approaches, powerful and easily pulled off alpha strikes and anti-horde ranged attacks. And hordes of weaker, but still threatening, creatures will be a lot more common in 5e than they were/are in 3.5 or PF. Let's just look at the AOE burst from a ranger, shall we? A long bow gives us 1d8+dex damage (let's say a +5 bonus), colossus slayer brings us up to 2d8+5, or 14 damage on each volley, with two more attacks on a bonus action with swift quiver (so 42 damage to one target, likely the leader, and 14 damage to each of the buddies that target has 10' around it). Or instead of swift quivering, the ranger could volley a lightning arrow and deal a base 4d8+2d8*X, where X is the number of creatures in the radius of the volley. That's a base of 6d8 potential damage (since why would you volley for only one creature?) to two creatures, or 8d8 for three creatures, 10d8 for four... Assuming you hit and they fail the ref save, that is. So somewhere in the ballpark of a measly 7d8 damage can be expected on any given creature in that circle of death. That's all. You know, just 28.5 damage to a bunch of moons who can't handle [s]the truth[/i] nearly that much damage. For one spell and one class ability. Sure, the wizard can cast a really high level fire ball and blow up people in a large area, but after he's out, he's out. The ranger, after he's expended all of his level 3-5 spell slots, can still swift quiver and spam volley until he either tuns out of arrows or the enemies run out of corpses to poke full of holes.

As well, as a skirmisher the Ranger should not be engaging an enemy head on until such a time as the enemy is so ragged and run down that the fight is completely one-sided. The stealth skill being a class skill, along with terrain mastery, makes this job incredibly easy. A dip into rogue for SA damage and cunning action is more than acceptable for this role, in my opinion, but the class can do pretty damn good on its own. Very few other classes can pull off this tactic this consistently, and neither of them (the monk or the rogue) can AOE nova down a large group all day long. That is where the strength of the ranger lies, in its hit-and-run tactics, which are more effective against armies, but he can still good against single targets (56 damage with swift quiver and Colossus Slayer... not bad at all). The hunter has its niche, can do things outside of that niche, and is an effective combatant for it. Which is why I put it higher than, say, the Berzerker and Champion. Call it a low tier 3 if you want, but it's still above tier 4.

[Ashrym]

See, this is why people are frustrated with you. You're stating things without actually going through the PHB; neither of those things made it into the final product. At best, a wizard can learn one level one spell and two cantrips (the same as any other class) with a feat, in general a spectacularly bad trade off.



And see, once again, this is where game experience tells a different story. The logical argument is the lack of spell slots. Without a larger number of spell slots (or lots of magic items), those wizards aren't preparing as many utility spells. Why cast knock when the rogue can do it? You only get 3 2nd level slots a day. Having a spell to solve every problem (not as much anymore) it great, but if you don't actually cast the spell, it doesn't actually matter.

It's not even lack of spells slots. It's using spell slots to do things anyone can do. Knock in a bad spell; anyone can loudly break a lock. Most players would use a vial of acid (found in the equipment list) on it to do it quietly, or using thieves' tools until rolling high enough. The only thing it's useful for is quickly opening a lock or bypassing arcane lock. Otherwise it just plain sucks. Spider climb isn't really better. "Yay! I can spend a slot to do what any thief with expertise and reliable talent autosucceeds on!!"

Heck, the champion gets skill benefits, a bonus to initiative, heals hit points every round, and can easily action surge smash face for more damage than a meteor swarm to inflict the best status effect ever (dead) and players will still carry over old biases from 3e casters just to argue magic is superior because it exists instead of actual comparisons. Some things never change. ;-)

[Ashrym]

Well, really, it depends on your subclass for the most part. That being said, here is a list of classes as they seem to fall at the mid game:

Levels 1-6

Everyone is pretty much tier 3, with bards, clerics, druids and warlocks pulling up to tier 2 near the end of it.

Tiers for level ~7-12

Tier 1: Wizard (any), Cleric (any), Druid (Circle of the Moon and some Land druids), Bard (College of Lore is broken).

All of them are extremely capable, and they all have an absolutely sickening number of options. College of lore has the fewest spells, but enough skills/ expertise and the ability to get a busload of spells from any spell list (including the wonderful level 5 paladin smiting spells) to make the minor lack of game-changing spells from their list negligable.

Tier 2: Sorc (any), Warlock (Any), Bard (College of Valor)

Despite the raw power and godliness of meta magic and the number of spells you can get from sorcery points, the sorc just doesn't have the raw options to be chillin' like a villain with the tier 1's.

For the Warlock, their specialties and the awesomness of their spell recovery mechanic (on a short rest? Hells to the yeah, sign me up!) just don't make up for their lack of spell slots and options over all. Though their at-will options do try to make up for that... If I had to rank each specialty, then Pact of the Blade has the least story/ world impact (though the bladelock is a very capable melee combatant because of it) so it is the lowest, Pact of the Chain gives you a super-familiar, so it gives you more story shaping power depending on your patron (though, not toomuch power, it depends entirely on what your familiar can do/ give you) so I'll give that one second place... And then Pact of the Tone gives you every single ritual spell in the game. The sheer number of options this opens up rockets the pact of the tome to the position in my (and most people's) books, making him the king qof the 'Lock.

Bard of Valor, while a pretty good magic-focused melee gish, however, as a gish the focus is less on magic, and the college of Valor suffers for it in the way of fewer options (notably, the loss of spells from any list). However, level 9 spellcasting and the ability to go toe-to-toe with others in melee (for about two rounds before exploding) does give the college of valor a good bit of power.



Valor bards gain magical secrets at levels 10, 14, and 18 to add spells from any list, and using magical secrets to add paladin smite spells suck because they are all tagged for concentration and therefore break any other concentration spell. Lore bards are good because they can manipulate initiative and go first rather well, and use controlling effects limits incoming damage. A valor bard can add smites and can also cast meteor swarm or wish if he adds them.

[Lokiare]

See, this is why people are frustrated with you. You're stating things without actually going through the PHB; neither of those things made it into the final product. At best, a wizard can learn one level one spell and two cantrips (the same as any other class) with a feat, in general a spectacularly bad trade off.

You'll note I put an 'if' in front of it. Acknowledging that it might not be in there. Nice try though.


And see, once again, this is where game experience tells a different story. The logical argument is the lack of spell slots. Without a larger number of spell slots (or lots of magic items), those wizards aren't preparing as many utility spells. Why cast knock when the rogue can do it? You only get 3 2nd level slots a day. Having a spell to solve every problem (not as much anymore) it great, but if you don't actually cast the spell, it doesn't actually matter.

They don't need as many spell slots. An average adventuring day is 6 encounters and that includes non-combat encounters with traps and environmental hazards. If you have 6 encounter ending spells then you don't need any more than the 6 spell slots. By levels 3-4 they get more than 6 spell slots.

On top of that they have an advantage that 3E didn't give them. They can spontaneously cast any spell they have prepared. So they might prepare knock, spider climb, and flaming sphere. Then if they end up in a lot of combat encounters they might cast flaming sphere often. If they don't see a single combat they won't cast it at all. They might instead cast spider climb to climb down one side of a pit and back up the other. They might cast knock to open a chest and a door. Their flexibility got improved not lessened.

Did they reign casters in? Yep, sure. Was it enough to bring them out of tier 1? No, not even close. Not when they can spontaneously (for the 3E people) cast any spell they have prepared and use rituals. They are still clearly tier 1 because they literally can solve any problem in the game with a single spell, because they can choose to prepare a number of useful spells and simply choose the one that matches the situation at hand to use a spell slots on.


The most powerful class in the game is not what is meant by Tier 1. Tier 1 is no matter what the DM throws at you, there is a spell in your repertoire that lets you win that encounter with little effort. You have 10,000 nukes; that is, for 10,000 different situations you have a nuke that blows them up.

The problem is you don't need 10,000 nukes to solve every problem in the game. You don't even need 10. You need 6 and wizards get somewhere in the range of 30 nukes. They can choose the right nuke for the right situation and configure it specifically for the problem at hand with each of those nukes.


By that definition, no 5e class is Tier 1. The Wizard with 44 spells known and able to cast the highest level spells once per day is not going to be able to finish a four to six encounter day having single-handedly won every encounter as was oft the case in 3.5.

Actually, yes they can. 44 known spells is enough to grab the creme of the crop and then prepare 20+ spells. By level 2 they have enough spell slots to cast one spell per encounter (6 average encounters) each of those can be chosen to trivialize encounters. When they do that they have 2 + int mod spells prepared. meaning they have quite a bit of choice if they have even a slightly decent intelligence score. By the mid levels they can prepare all the goods spells in the game.


As I said, a well-optimized Wizard can no longer defeat two well-optimized Fighters of the same level. So if you want to call Wizards Tier 1 and Fighters Tier 5, you have to admit that Tier 1 < 2 * Tier 5. At which point the granularity of the Tiers is getting pretty fine.

This doesn't matter at all since 5E is not a PvP game. The tiers don't measure power on a scale of who beats who. It measures power as a scale of who can participate in the game, and how much. Which is why they are useful.


EDIT

Gnomes2169 has a good ordering, but I think I'd collapse Tiers 1&2 together. I don't see that much distinction in power between, e.g., a Cleric and a Sorcerer. I also still think that any Ranger variant is strictly inferior to any Paladin variant, because the Ranger gets the worst way of choosing spells known (select at level up) with what looks to me like the worst list to choose them from and no rituals nor method of getting spells from other lists. Given their weak spell casting, they'd have to really shine in combat to justify Tier 3, and I don't see the shine.


It's not even lack of spells slots. It's using spell slots to do things anyone can do. Knock in a bad spell; anyone can loudly break a lock. Most players would use a vial of acid (found in the equipment list) on it to do it quietly, or using thieves' tools until rolling high enough. The only thing it's useful for is quickly opening a lock or bypassing arcane lock. Otherwise it just plain sucks. Spider climb isn't really better. "Yay! I can spend a slot to do what any thief with expertise and reliable talent autosucceeds on!!"

Heck, the champion gets skill benefits, a bonus to initiative, heals hit points every round, and can easily action surge smash face for more damage than a meteor swarm to inflict the best status effect ever (dead) and players will still carry over old biases from 3e casters just to argue magic is superior because it exists instead of actual comparisons. Some things never change. ;-)

Anyone can break a lock, but can anyone do it guaranteed and without costly resources? Not really. Only the Rogue and the Wizard can do that. Any old wizard grabs knock and comparing that to a very specialized optimized Rogue. Who can just barely do what the spell can do. I also apparently have to point out that the only time knock is disadvantageous is when you haven't had any combats and are trying to sneak around, because otherwise a single combat makes enough noise to let everyone within 300 feet know you are there. Just look at the listen skill and the rules for noticing things.

Spider Climb auto succeeds and the only other class that can come close is the rogue. Except in most cases the rogue still has to roll. Not only that the target of the spell has their hands free and can move along ceilings. So its actually better than a rogue doing the same thing. Nice comparison though.

Action surge can miss as well as not dealing as much damage as meteor swarm unless the fighter is somehow getting 40d20 damage, which is doubtful. They also can't target a large area from a mile away either. So no action surge isn't worth a meteor swarm even under the best of circumstances.

It helps if you compare the actual things in 5E, nice try though.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

There's ways to get climbing speed other than being a Wizard (like wildshape.) Being good at climbing is not a defining feature of the Rogue.


They don't need as many spell slots. An average adventuring day is 6 encounters and that includes non-combat encounters with traps and environmental hazards. If you have 6 encounter ending spells then you don't need any more than the 6 spell slots. By levels 3-4 they get more than 6 spell slots.


I'm not seeing it. What spells would you class as encounter enders?

[Lokiare]

I'm not seeing it. What spells would you class as encounter enders?

There are a lot of them.

Web if the targets don't have ranged attacks or fire (or don't want to burn themselves).

Sleep against low hp targets.

Hold Person, two or three rounds is all you need to finish just about anything in the game off that can be affected by hold person.

Harm, against single target BBEGs.

Silent Image in the right situations such as low intelligence/wisdom targets.

Charm Person against single target BBEGs, at higher levels can be cast at more than 1 target. Friends don't beat down friend's friends.

Suggestion against single target BBEGs unless cast out of higher level slots, then it can be used against multiple targets. If half of the encounter suddenly has a burning urge to go fishing at a lake 3 miles away, the encounter is trivialized.

Fireball for hordes of low level enemies. It can target up to 44 medium sized creatures, but can easily wipe out an entire encounter of 20 kobolds with no problem.

Major Image used against many more types of creatures and situations.

Greater Invisibility, advantage to your attacks while granting disadvantage to your enemies with the added benefit that if you move silently you can avoid being attacked altogether. This trivializes many encounters.

Wall of Fire in a ring around the enemies guarantees they will take damage each round or be force to take a lot of damage to pass through the wall. Heavily damaged creatures are much easier to defeat than creatures at full hp.

Dominate Person, I'm not sure I have to explain this one.

Wall of stone, see Wall of Fire, but you just concentrate on it until its permanent and then walk away.

Globe of Invulnerability against spell casting creatures.

Mass Suggestion, see suggestion, but en mass.

Otto's Irresistible dance, this one is covered in other threads.

Mordenkainen's Sword, an invulnerable sword floating around attacking on a bonus round, yeah, that's going to trivialize a few encounters.

Foresight, auto advantage on all rolls while your enemies get disadvantage on all rolls against you, for 8 hours. That's enough time to clear about 50 dungeons.

That's mostly out of the wizards list. There are others out of the other lists and this is just from the basic rules. The PHB adds many more encounter ending spells such as force cage.

[Ashrym]

You'll note I put an 'if' in front of it. Acknowledging that it might not be in there. Nice try though.



They don't need as many spell slots. An average adventuring day is 6 encounters and that includes non-combat encounters with traps and environmental hazards. If you have 6 encounter ending spells then you don't need any more than the 6 spell slots. By levels 3-4 they get more than 6 spell slots.

On top of that they have an advantage that 3E didn't give them. They can spontaneously cast any spell they have prepared. So they might prepare knock, spider climb, and flaming sphere. Then if they end up in a lot of combat encounters they might cast flaming sphere often. If they don't see a single combat they won't cast it at all. They might instead cast spider climb to climb down one side of a pit and back up the other. They might cast knock to open a chest and a door. Their flexibility got improved not lessened.

Did they reign casters in? Yep, sure. Was it enough to bring them out of tier 1? No, not even close. Not when they can spontaneously (for the 3E people) cast any spell they have prepared and use rituals. They are still clearly tier 1 because they literally can solve any problem in the game with a single spell, because they can choose to prepare a number of useful spells and simply choose the one that matches the situation at hand to use a spell slots on.



The problem is you don't need 10,000 nukes to solve every problem in the game. You don't even need 10. You need 6 and wizards get somewhere in the range of 30 nukes. They can choose the right nuke for the right situation and configure it specifically for the problem at hand with each of those nukes.



Actually, yes they can. 44 known spells is enough to grab the creme of the crop and then prepare 20+ spells. By level 2 they have enough spell slots to cast one spell per encounter (6 average encounters) each of those can be chosen to trivialize encounters. When they do that they have 2 + int mod spells prepared. meaning they have quite a bit of choice if they have even a slightly decent intelligence score. By the mid levels they can prepare all the goods spells in the game.



This doesn't matter at all since 5E is not a PvP game. The tiers don't measure power on a scale of who beats who. It measures power as a scale of who can participate in the game, and how much. Which is why they are useful.





Anyone can break a lock, but can anyone do it guaranteed and without costly resources? Not really. Only the Rogue and the Wizard can do that. Any old wizard grabs knock and comparing that to a very specialized optimized Rogue. Who can just barely do what the spell can do. I also apparently have to point out that the only time knock is disadvantageous is when you haven't had any combats and are trying to sneak around, because otherwise a single combat makes enough noise to let everyone within 300 feet know you are there. Just look at the listen skill and the rules for noticing things.

Spider Climb auto succeeds and the only other class that can come close is the rogue. Except in most cases the rogue still has to roll. Not only that the target of the spell has their hands free and can move along ceilings. So its actually better than a rogue doing the same thing. Nice comparison though.

Action surge can miss as well as not dealing as much damage as meteor swarm unless the fighter is somehow getting 40d20 damage, which is doubtful. They also can't target a large area from a mile away either. So no action surge isn't worth a meteor swarm even under the best of circumstances.

It helps if you compare the actual things in 5E, nice try though.

Yes, anyone can guarantee being able to open a long loudly be eventually breaking it and without costly resources. Anyone with either proficiency or DEX bonus or both can just keep using thieves' tools until it works. Knock sucks and it certainly doesn't cover trivializing every encounter. Regarding climbing, indomitable might works just as well, or other classes levitating, or monks just running up vertical surfaces. Rogues rolling a 1 and still succeeding is irrelevant and the DM rules state only to roll when the outcome is in doubt. Nice try though.

If you doubt an actions surging high level fighter can easily hit 140 average damage on 6+ attacks and actually do it twice per short rest instead of once per day it might help if you actually knew what things are in 5e when looking at the comparison. Interesting response though.

[Lokiare]

Yes, anyone can guarantee being able to open a long loudly be eventually breaking it and without costly resources. Anyone with either proficiency or DEX bonus or both can just keep using thieves' tools until it works. Knock sucks and it certainly doesn't cover trivializing every encounter. Regarding climbing, indomitable might works just as well, or other classes levitating, or monks just running up vertical surfaces. Rogues rolling a 1 and still succeeding is irrelevant and the DM rules state only to roll when the outcome is in doubt. Nice try though.

If you doubt an actions surging high level fighter can easily hit 140 average damage on 6+ attacks and actually do it twice per short rest instead of once per day it might help if you actually knew what things are in 5e when looking at the comparison. Interesting response though.

Wow. First off knock can't be replicated by anyone loudly breaking the lock because locks have relatively high DCs. If you'll look up locks and the associated skill you'd see that. Second if you break the lock it can't be reused where knock doesn't break the lock. Third no you can't just keep trying. Read the skills and lock sections. The DC can be outside the range of a decent dex bonus, and it's entirely possible for the DM to say you can't try again. Lastly trying to pick a lock over and over wastes time that the party might not have.

As to climbing, not even close. Even if you manage to get auto success you still move slower and can't use your hands for anything. Sorry.

Edit: Now that I'm at my computer.

A lock has a base DC 15 chance if the person is proficient in thieves tools. If they are not proficient they get DC 15 with disadvantage. It also says the DM can raise the DC. So the minimum chance a character has to open the lock is DC 15. If they have proficiency and a +4 dexterity modifier they have a 50% chance to pick that lock, which means multiple attempts averaging around 2-3 attempts. If they don't have proficiency with thieves tools they have a 25% chance, which means they can be sitting there quite a while trying to pick the lock if the DM allows them to. If they don't have a +4 dexterity bonus but they have proficiency they have a 30% chance which means they will likely fail several times on average before getting it. If they don't have either they have a 9% chance which means they can try it all day and they won't get it on average. And that's all with the base DC 15 lock. That's not talking about a lock that's harder than that.

Climbing you move at half speed and can't use your hands.

[Gnomes2169]

Valor bards gain magical secrets at levels 10, 14, and 18 to add spells from any list, and using magical secrets to add paladin smite spells suck because they are all tagged for concentration and therefore break any other concentration spell. Lore bards are good because they can manipulate initiative and go first rather well, and use controlling effects limits incoming damage. A valor bard can add smites and can also cast meteor swarm or wish if he adds them.

These... are all very good points, actually. I still feel that the Lore bard (with those two additional spells and three extra skill proficiencies, as well as cutting words and peerless skill) just give him the advantage in options over the Valor bard (who's class features heavily gear him towards combat and not much else). But definitely a good call on the paladin spells, a bard won't be able to use them as effectively, and they really only want things like Find Steed and Divine Mantle...

[Ashrym]

Wow. First off knock can't be replicated by anyone loudly breaking the lock because locks have relatively high DCs. If you'll look up locks and the associated skill you'd see that. Second if you break the lock it can't be reused where knock doesn't break the lock. Third no you can't just keep trying. Read the skills and lock sections. The DC can be outside the range of a decent dex bonus, and it's entirely possible for the DM to say you can't try again. Lastly trying to pick a lock over and over wastes time that the party might not have.

As to climbing, not even close. Even if you manage to get auto success you still move slower and can't use your hands for anything. Sorry.

Edit: Now that I'm at my computer.

A lock has a base DC 15 chance if the person is proficient in thieves tools. If they are not proficient they get DC 15 with disadvantage. It also says the DM can raise the DC. So the minimum chance a character has to open the lock is DC 15. If they have proficiency and a +4 dexterity modifier they have a 50% chance to pick that lock, which means multiple attempts averaging around 2-3 attempts. If they don't have proficiency with thieves tools they have a 25% chance, which means they can be sitting there quite a while trying to pick the lock if the DM allows them to. If they don't have a +4 dexterity bonus but they have proficiency they have a 30% chance which means they will likely fail several times on average before getting it. If they don't have either they have a 9% chance which means they can try it all day and they won't get it on average. And that's all with the base DC 15 lock. That's not talking about a lock that's harder than that.

Climbing you move at half speed and can't use your hands.

What page is the rule about disadvantage on? Proficiency gives the bonus to the check, lack of proficiency does not give the proficiency bonus to the check. A fighter with a criminal background and 16 DEX is going to open a DC 15 lock with 55% success rate at first level and might take a few attempts but will get it open. A rogue or fighter can just learn spider climb too by taking the right subclass or spending one of their bonus feats.

[Ashrym]

These... are all very good points, actually. I still feel that the Lore bard (with those two additional spells and three extra skill proficiencies, as well as cutting words and peerless skill) just give him the advantage in options over the Valor bard (who's class features heavily gear him towards combat and not much else). But definitely a good call on the paladin spells, a bard won't be able to use them as effectively, and they really only want things like Find Steed and Divine Mantle...

The nice thing about lore bards is the extra spells known come early at a good time to learn them, and being able to use bardic inspiration for your own personal use instead of being required to use it on others like a valor bard is nice. The nice thing about valor bard combat inspiration is that it can make an actual AC increase when needed while the penalty from cutting words on the attack roll requires being heard and not being immune to charm.

Extra attack is also kind of nice because bard damage cantrips suck for actual damage and magical secrets is in limited quantity. Valor bard armor proficiencies help quite a bit too, at least for a while. Lore bard seems more popular, and my preferred choice as well, but it becomes rather subjective.

[Lokiare]

What page is the rule about disadvantage on? Proficiency gives the bonus to the check, lack of proficiency does not give the proficiency bonus to the check. A fighter with a criminal background and 16 DEX is going to open a DC 15 lock with 55% success rate at first level and might take a few attempts but will get it open. A rogue or fighter can just learn spider climb too by taking the right subclass or spending one of their bonus feats.

My bad they changed it: "For example, trying to open a lock requires proficiency with thieves’ tools,..." page 59 Basic rules left side near the bottom.

So you can't even attempt to open a lock without proficiency in thieves' tools. This line makes knock much more valuable. You either have a rogue or someone with a thieves' tools background or you are forced to use knock or to break the thing that is locked.

Yes, if you multiclass into a caster class you have just joined the ranks of the casters. Non-casters still don't stack up. Just because they threw EK into fighter doesn't mean its somehow not a caster.

Spending a feat to gain spells is the same as multiclassing. A wizard can do the same to gain expertise dice or armor proficiency or other class skills.

[Gnomes2169]

My bad they changed it: "For example, trying to open a lock requires proficiency with thieves’ tools,..." page 59 Basic rules left side near the bottom.

So you can't even attempt to open a lock without proficiency in thieves' tools. This line makes knock much more valuable. You either have a rogue or someone with a thieves' tools background or you are forced to use knock or to break the thing that is locked.

Let's consider, for exactly six seconds, how likely it is that a character that does not have peoficiency in thieves tools will have said thieves tools (hint, it's 0 unless they are being trained in it.) Also, I would like to remind you that the criminal background, which is the only background that gives you thieves tools, gives you proficiency with thieves tools. I don't think that this is even a secret in the Basic rules, since I'm pretty sure the criminal background is in there, but regardless, I digress: Your claim that a knock spell is more efficient and less time consuming than someone using a set of thieves tools to open the door is patently false. Ignoring the simple fact that literally anyone can get proficiency with the tools with the right training/ background, and it will require maybe a minute (10 rounds) for someone with proficiency and a +1 dex bonus at level 1 to open up your DC 15 lock, and that is with horrendously bad luck. (The character would have a 45% chance of meeting or exceeding the DC, meaning that on average, it takes closer to 2 tries than it does 3 to get through.)

Also, no, not having proficiency does not prevent you from using the thieves tools. Here is the entire entry from the PHB, on page 154, quoted word for word, and emphasis for emphasis:


Thieves' Tools. This set of tools includes a small file, a set of lock picks, a small mirror mounted on a metal handel, a set of narrow-bladed scissors, and a pair of pliers. Proficiency with these tools lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to disarm traps or open locks.[/qoute]

Hmmmm, point out exactly where it says: "You must be proficient in the use of these tools to disable traps or open locks with them", because I'm not seeing it? This is another case where you should actually get the game before screaming that everything is horrible and that there is no reason anyone should like 5e unless they are grognards and love caster superiority. I mean... Seriously. This isn't even hard to find, and I'm honestly surprised you got it wrong.

[quote=Lokaire]Yes, if you multiclass into a caster class you have just joined the ranks of the casters. Non-casters still don't stack up. Just because they threw EK into fighter doesn't mean its somehow not a caster.

Spending a feat to gain spells is the same as multiclassing. A wizard can do the same to gain expertise dice or armor proficiency or other class skills.

1: Taking a subclass is not multiclassing. Just like taking an archetype in pf is not multiclassing, and just like paragon paths in 4e are not multiclassing (they just expand on the basic core class, after all). As well, are you telling me that the barbarian can never contribute, ever, and that the same goes for the rogue and monk? Oh but wait, I almost forgot that you don't have the ability to look at the capabilities of two of those classes, and that you can only see the assassin rogue. (Also, the Battlemaster is nowhere near worthless, despite your constant objections, and is has both awesome damage potential, and pretty darn good rider effects. Could it use more dice to apply these effects? Yes. However, this lack is not the worst thing to happen to the game ever.)

As for a feat being the same as multi-classing: ... What? Spending a feat does not prevent you from losing your capstone, does not change the size of your hit dice, does not delay the progression of your casting or class abilities, does not give you a new class name, and does not (potentially) give you a new subclass. Taking a feat in this way is spending a limited resource (feats) to gain access to something that you would not normally be able to access, in this case spells and armor, or you take it to improve what you have (Heavy armor master for fighter/ paladin to get damage reduction, magic initiate for a caster to get a spell and two cantrips from a different list, or ritual caster to get access to more ritual spells). They are not the same as multiclassing, I don't think they ever were, and it's silly to compair them in this way. :/

[Lokiare]

Let's consider, for exactly six seconds, how likely it is that a character that does not have peoficiency in thieves tools will have said thieves tools (hint, it's 0 unless they are being trained in it.) Also, I would like to remind you that the criminal background, which is the only background that gives you thieves tools, gives you proficiency with thieves tools. I don't think that this is even a secret in the Basic rules, since I'm pretty sure the criminal background is in there, but regardless, I digress: Your claim that a knock spell is more efficient and less time consuming than someone using a set of thieves tools to open the door is patently false. Ignoring the simple fact that literally anyone can get proficiency with the tools with the right training/ background, and it will require maybe a minute (10 rounds) for someone with proficiency and a +1 dex bonus at level 1 to open up your DC 15 lock, and that is with horrendously bad luck. (The character would have a 45% chance of meeting or exceeding the DC, meaning that on average, it takes closer to 2 tries than it does 3 to get through.)

Yes, so everyone in the party has to take that specific background in order to invalidate the spell, and even then they still have a pretty decent chance of failure. One minute is enough time for a random encounter or for the pursuers that were chasing you to catch up and engage you.


Also, no, not having proficiency does not prevent you from using the thieves tools. Here is the entire entry from the PHB, on page 154, quoted word for word, and emphasis for emphasis:


Thieves' Tools. This set of tools includes a small file, a set of lock picks, a small mirror mounted on a metal handel, a set of narrow-bladed scissors, and a pair of pliers. Proficiency with these tools lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to disarm traps or open locks.

Hmmmm, point out exactly where it says: "You must be proficient in the use of these tools to disable traps or open locks with them", because I'm not seeing it? This is another case where you should actually get the game before screaming that everything is horrible and that there is no reason anyone should like 5e unless they are grognards and love caster superiority. I mean... Seriously. This isn't even hard to find, and I'm honestly surprised you got it wrong.

You are trying to prove a negative. No where in the quoted passage does it say you automatically have the ability to use thieves' tools. It only says you add your proficiency bonus to any checks you make to disarm traps or open locks.

Here let me quote it again since you seem to have missed it:
"For example, trying to open a lock requires proficiency with thieves’ tools,..."
Page 59 Basic rules left side near the bottom.

By RAW you cannot even attempt to open a lock without proficiency with thieves tools. I don't know how to make it any clearer. Except maybe to bold it and put it in a larger font. I have the game. I downloaded the basic game and have been keeping up with updates. Its still in the Basic Rules PDF that anyone can download. Meaning that its an official rule.


1: Taking a subclass is not multiclassing. Just like taking an archetype in pf is not multiclassing, and just like paragon paths in 4e are not multiclassing (they just expand on the basic core class, after all). As well, are you telling me that the barbarian can never contribute, ever, and that the same goes for the rogue and monk? Oh but wait, I almost forgot that you don't have the ability to look at the capabilities of two of those classes, and that you can only see the assassin rogue. (Also, the Battlemaster is nowhere near worthless, despite your constant objections, and is has both awesome damage potential, and pretty darn good rider effects. Could it use more dice to apply these effects? Yes. However, this lack is not the worst thing to happen to the game ever.)

As for a feat being the same as multi-classing: ... What? Spending a feat does not prevent you from losing your capstone, does not change the size of your hit dice, does not delay the progression of your casting or class abilities, does not give you a new class name, and does not (potentially) give you a new subclass. Taking a feat in this way is spending a limited resource (feats) to gain access to something that you would not normally be able to access, in this case spells and armor, or you take it to improve what you have (Heavy armor master for fighter/ paladin to get damage reduction, magic initiate for a caster to get a spell and two cantrips from a different list, or ritual caster to get access to more ritual spells). They are not the same as multiclassing, I don't think they ever were, and it's silly to compair them in this way. :/

If you gain the ability to cast a spell you are by definition a spell caster. Its as simple as that. Cast a spell? You are a spell caster. See... easy to grasp.

[Ashrym]

You can open a lock without proficiency per the description for thieves's tools and tools heading on page 154 of the PHB, and this has been confirmed by the designers on twitter. The criminal background, variant background for spy, and urchin background include proficiency proficiency in thieves' tools and anyone can learn proficiency by spending the gold during enough downtime. Any first level character can have proficiency and a DEX bonus, and because it's possible to roll a success there's not even a need to roll it outside of combat because they will succeed quickly, guaranteed, and the lock will be open.

On top of that, opening locks doesn't meet the previous tier 1 criteria. Knock is a borderline trap with the one redeeming feature of opening arcane locks quickly. Spells the replicate skills are generally no better than the skills they represent in 5e. Spells definitely have advantages but these days they tend to enhance the skill roll instead of replace it in most cases. I can gather information instead of scry, climb instead of levitate, ride a flying mount instead of fly, hide with a good bonus or wait until night fall instead of hide with a bad bonus in broad daylight, use expertise on persuasion instead of roll with advantage using charm person, etc. Even cunning action is a strong contender for haste because it gives the rogue that mobility and an extra action, doesn't use up a finite resource in spell slots, and doesn't require the concentration mechanic. I'll take evasion over resist elements or uncanny dodge over stoneskin for the same reason when it comes to personal protection; concentration mechanics kill them and the best way to use them is on the fighter as support as he does high damage and increase his already good survivability.

Locks don't keep any group out, caster or not. Opening a lock using magic instead of opening a lock without magic ends up with the same end result -- the lock is open. The difference is one wasted a spell slot and attracted attention while the other did not and maintains stealth.

[Rummy]

A lot of people don't seem to understand the tier system. So let me just refresh everyone's memory:

From http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293



For the most part the tier system doesn't change much. Fighters are still only good at one thing, dealing damage. They are still neck and neck with wizards at dealing that damage to single targets. Its possible that other classes can out damage the fighter at early levels also. We know the wizard can basically do everything at all levels. At low levels they are limited to a few times per day but still have rituals. So a clever wizard would only use their spells for challenging encounters and use cantrips the rest of the time. While the fighter and wizard only get one attack/damage die for their basic attacks they are within 2-4 points of damage to each other. They are within 1-2 points if you pick the wizard school that adds int to damage.

Everything else falls between those two.

You an almost argue that the Fighter is tier 5 instead of tier 6, except that its not best at damage until it pulls ahead with extra attacks, which is past level 10 or so.

This is not an accurate representation of 5e at low levels. Until level 5, wizards are significantly worse in combat than most other classes. Most pure casters are. I've played with four people that grimace in disgust when their single die roll yields 1 or 2 points of damage. It is basically a wasted turn... They would have been better off spending an action to give advantage to a Melee ally. Even at fifth level, fireball rules, but it's a whole lot of 2d10 attacks while everyone else does more damage per attack, and gets 2 off them.

[Gnomes2169]

Yes, so everyone in the party has to take that specific background in order to invalidate the spell, and even then they still have a pretty decent chance of failure. One minute is enough time for a random encounter or for the pursuers that were chasing you to catch up and engage you.

As opposed to the 10 minutes you would need to cast Knock and alert the entire dungeon that someone is coming. Brilliant! A much more efective method than the typically 12-18 seconds it would take a bad thief to open your average lock (or the 6 seconds it takes your actual rogue to do it) completely silently, and then re-lock it behind you to slow pursuit!


You are trying to prove a negative. No where in the quoted passage does it say you automatically have the ability to use thieves' tools. It only says you add your proficiency bonus to any checks you make to disarm traps or open locks.

Here let me quote it again since you seem to have missed it:
"For example, trying to open a lock requires proficiency with thieves’ tools,..."
Page 59 Basic rules left side near the bottom.

By RAW you cannot even attempt to open a lock without proficiency with thieves tools. I don't know how to make it any clearer. Except maybe to bold it and put it in a larger font. I have the game. I downloaded the basic game and have been keeping up with updates. Its still in the Basic Rules PDF that anyone can download. Meaning that its an official rule.

Actually, since it says "lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to disarm traps or open locks" in the player's hand book, (which I, every DM/ player with the PHB and the designers of the game will always take over the Basic rules) that means you can try to pick a lock without proficiency in thieves tools. In fact, since it says it in that way, it's implied that you do not even need the tools to attempt to perform the action, since the only thing they let you do is add proficiency if you have proficiency in the tools themselves.

But to play your game some more, I looked up rules for lock picking in the PHB. It specifically tells you to reference the thieves tools entry in the table of contents, under the entry for how to use Dexterity and Dexterity checks on page 177, it specifically calls out that a DM might ask for a dex check to "Pick a lock" and "Disable a trap", and there are literally no other mentions of the thing in the entire book. So. Which is more likely, did they scrap that part of the entry and just forget to update it in the updated online Basic PDF, and haven't fixed it because no one cares enough to fix the outdated online resouce that the vast, vast majority of players will not use, ever, and which no one uses after they get the (correct) PHB, or they made a hidious oversight when they were adding the rules to the Player's Hand Book and forgot to copy-paste that passage of the basic PDF that makes no sense? (And no, it does not make sense. You can use every tool, regardless of if you have proficiency, you just won't be good with it. Why would thieves tools be different?)


If you gain the ability to cast a spell you are by definition a spell caster. Its as simple as that. Cast a spell? You are a spell caster. See... easy to grasp.

Yes, you are a spell caster if you have spells. No, a single class character with the ability to cast spells is not multi-classed. The difference is substantial, and I don't know if you are just trying to be cheeky here, or legitimately forgot that the quoted response was to you saying that the Eldrich Knight by itself (a single class that is one of three flavors of fighter) was multi-classing, and that taking a feat that let you cast was multi-classing.

Just in case, let's go over this again:

Being able to cast spells =/= multiclassing. Taking a feat =/= multiclassing. Only taking a level in a class that is not your starting class = multiclassing.

Are we good here?

[Shining Wrath]

I strongly suspect that were I Lokaire's DM, I'd set up every single out of combat encounter so one of the mundane's could handle it better than he could until he rage-quit the campaign.

[FoxDropz]

Back to ranking classes/subclasses, how do you guys feel about the Wizard's Magic Schools?

Are they equally strong or can we break them into tiers as well?

[Ashrym]

Back to ranking classes/subclasses, how do you guys feel about the Wizard's Magic Schools?

Are they equally strong or can we break them into tiers as well?
Diviners practically cast divinations for free and portent is a nice "gotcha" ability. I'm sure that's why legendary creatures get auto-save abilities. I'm not sure about tiers but some abilities seem better than others.

[Lokiare]

You can open a lock without proficiency per the description for thieves's tools and tools heading on page 154 of the PHB, and this has been confirmed by the designers on twitter. The criminal background, variant background for spy, and urchin background include proficiency proficiency in thieves' tools and anyone can learn proficiency by spending the gold during enough downtime. Any first level character can have proficiency and a DEX bonus, and because it's possible to roll a success there's not even a need to roll it outside of combat because they will succeed quickly, guaranteed, and the lock will be open.

On top of that, opening locks doesn't meet the previous tier 1 criteria. Knock is a borderline trap with the one redeeming feature of opening arcane locks quickly. Spells the replicate skills are generally no better than the skills they represent in 5e. Spells definitely have advantages but these days they tend to enhance the skill roll instead of replace it in most cases. I can gather information instead of scry, climb instead of levitate, ride a flying mount instead of fly, hide with a good bonus or wait until night fall instead of hide with a bad bonus in broad daylight, use expertise on persuasion instead of roll with advantage using charm person, etc. Even cunning action is a strong contender for haste because it gives the rogue that mobility and an extra action, doesn't use up a finite resource in spell slots, and doesn't require the concentration mechanic. I'll take evasion over resist elements or uncanny dodge over stoneskin for the same reason when it comes to personal protection; concentration mechanics kill them and the best way to use them is on the fighter as support as he does high damage and increase his already good survivability.

Locks don't keep any group out, caster or not. Opening a lock using magic instead of opening a lock without magic ends up with the same end result -- the lock is open. The difference is one wasted a spell slot and attracted attention while the other did not and maintains stealth.

I've gotten a hold of a copy of the PHB so let me quote you a few parts of it:
Page 152 under the lock heading (bolded for emphasis):
"Lock. A key is provided with the lock. Without the key, a creature proficient with thieves’ tools can pick this lock with a successful DC 15 Dexterity check."

Page 152 under manacles (bolded for emphasis):
"Manacles. These metal restraints can bind a Small or Medium creature. Escaping the manacles requires a successful DC 20 Dexterity check. Breaking them requires a successful DC 20 Strength check. Each set of manacles comes with one key. Without the key, a creature proficient with thieves’ tools can pick the manacles’ lock with a successful DC 15 Dexterity check. Manacles have 15 hit points."

Page 154 under tools (bolded for emphasis):
"A tool helps you to do something you couldn't otherwise do, such as craft or repair an item, forge a document, or pick a lock."

So you can see you can't in fact even attempt something that requires a tool without having a tool present. They did not 'forget to remove it'. Its part of the rules, even in the PHB.


This is not an accurate representation of 5e at low levels. Until level 5, wizards are significantly worse in combat than most other classes. Most pure casters are. I've played with four people that grimace in disgust when their single die roll yields 1 or 2 points of damage. It is basically a wasted turn... They would have been better off spending an action to give advantage to a Melee ally. Even at fifth level, fireball rules, but it's a whole lot of 2d10 attacks while everyone else does more damage per attack, and gets 2 off them.

At level 1 the Wizard can end 2 encounters out of 6 with a sleep spell, by level 3 they can do that 6 times per day. Remember an average adventuring day is 6 average encounters. I wouldn't call that worse. I'd say that if they successfully shut down 3 or more encounters with their spells that they are doing much better than their non-caster party members.

As to bad rolls non-casters can get those same bad rolls. The evocation wizard can also use cantrips that require saving throws at 6th level to deal damage on a miss. This means they can potentially keep up or even out damage the non-casters at that time. Poison spray for instance deals 1d12 damage save for half at 6th level. This will drastically increase their damage potential.


I strongly suspect that were I Lokaire's DM, I'd set up every single out of combat encounter so one of the mundane's could handle it better than he could until he rage-quit the campaign.

Yes, instead of being a good and impartial DM, you'll try to hide the flaws of the system behind the wall of DM fiat. I used to think like that, but then I graduated school and got a life so I no longer have the time or the desire to do that.


As opposed to the 10 minutes you would need to cast Knock and alert the entire dungeon that someone is coming. Brilliant! A much more efective method than the typically 12-18 seconds it would take a bad thief to open your average lock (or the 6 seconds it takes your actual rogue to do it) completely silently, and then re-lock it behind you to slow pursuit!

That assumes that the entire dungeon hasn't already been alerted to your presence with the sounds of combat. So unless you have proficiency in thieves' tools your only option is to go with knock.


Actually, since it says "lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to disarm traps or open locks" in the player's hand book, (which I, every DM/ player with the PHB and the designers of the game will always take over the Basic rules) that means you can try to pick a lock without proficiency in thieves tools. In fact, since it says it in that way, it's implied that you do not even need the tools to attempt to perform the action, since the only thing they let you do is add proficiency if you have proficiency in the tools themselves.

But to play your game some more, I looked up rules for lock picking in the PHB. It specifically tells you to reference the thieves tools entry in the table of contents, under the entry for how to use Dexterity and Dexterity checks on page 177, it specifically calls out that a DM might ask for a dex check to "Pick a lock" and "Disable a trap", and there are literally no other mentions of the thing in the entire book. So. Which is more likely, did they scrap that part of the entry and just forget to update it in the updated online Basic PDF, and haven't fixed it because no one cares enough to fix the outdated online resouce that the vast, vast majority of players will not use, ever, and which no one uses after they get the (correct) PHB, or they made a hidious oversight when they were adding the rules to the Player's Hand Book and forgot to copy-paste that passage of the basic PDF that makes no sense? (And no, it does not make sense. You can use every tool, regardless of if you have proficiency, you just won't be good with it. Why would thieves tools be different?)

AS to the rest of this see the quotes above. Its conclusive that you can't open locks without proficiency in thieves' tools. You are again trying to include something into what was said that isn't present.

Of course this entire side debate has no bearing because even if we go with your interpretation that the knock spell is worse than anyone with a decent dex score or proficiency with thieves' tools, it isn't a requirement that they do all things better, only that they do all things 'often' better. So some things can be worse. They certainly climb better than other classes because they not only gain a move speed they have their hands free which is something no other class can do.


Yes, you are a spell caster if you have spells. No, a single class character with the ability to cast spells is not multi-classed. The difference is substantial, and I don't know if you are just trying to be cheeky here, or legitimately forgot that the quoted response was to you saying that the Eldrich Knight by itself (a single class that is one of three flavors of fighter) was multi-classing, and that taking a feat that let you cast was multi-classing.

Just in case, let's go over this again:

Being able to cast spells =/= multiclassing. Taking a feat =/= multiclassing. Only taking a level in a class that is not your starting class = multiclassing.

Are we good here?

That was my point. I don't care about multiclassing. I care about the caster / non-caster divide. If you step over to the caster side you are a caster and therefore you suddenly can outdo the non-casters. An EK with true strike is probably a thing to be feared.

Also page 159 gives prices for hiring mercenaries for the discussion on replacing the fighter.

[Shining Wrath]

I've gotten a hold of a copy of the PHB so let me quote you a few parts of it:
Page 152 under the lock heading (bolded for emphasis):
"Lock. A key is provided with the lock. Without the key, a creature proficient with thieves’ tools can pick this lock with a successful DC 15 Dexterity check."

Page 152 under manacles (bolded for emphasis):
"Manacles. These metal restraints can bind a Small or Medium creature. Escaping the manacles requires a successful DC 20 Dexterity check. Breaking them requires a successful DC 20 Strength check. Each set of manacles comes with one key. Without the key, a creature proficient with thieves’ tools can pick the manacles’ lock with a successful DC 15 Dexterity check. Manacles have 15 hit points."

Page 154 under tools (bolded for emphasis):
"A tool helps you to do something you couldn't otherwise do, such as craft or repair an item, forge a document, or pick a lock."

So you can see you can't in fact even attempt something that requires a tool without having a tool present. They did not 'forget to remove it'. Its part of the rules, even in the PHB.



At level 1 the Wizard can end 2 encounters out of 6 with a sleep spell, by level 3 they can do that 6 times per day. Remember an average adventuring day is 6 average encounters. I wouldn't call that worse. I'd say that if they successfully shut down 3 or more encounters with their spells that they are doing much better than their non-caster party members.

As to bad rolls non-casters can get those same bad rolls. The evocation wizard can also use cantrips that require saving throws at 6th level to deal damage on a miss. This means they can potentially keep up or even out damage the non-casters at that time. Poison spray for instance deals 1d12 damage save for half at 6th level. This will drastically increase their damage potential.



Yes, instead of being a good and impartial DM, you'll try to hide the flaws of the system behind the wall of DM fiat. I used to think like that, but then I graduated school and got a life so I no longer have the time or the desire to do that.



That assumes that the entire dungeon hasn't already been alerted to your presence with the sounds of combat. So unless you have proficiency in thieves' tools your only option is to go with knock.



AS to the rest of this see the quotes above. Its conclusive that you can't open locks without proficiency in thieves' tools. You are again trying to include something into what was said that isn't present.

Of course this entire side debate has no bearing because even if we go with your interpretation that the knock spell is worse than anyone with a decent dex score or proficiency with thieves' tools, it isn't a requirement that they do all things better, only that they do all things 'often' better. So some things can be worse. They certainly climb better than other classes because they not only gain a move speed they have their hands free which is something no other class can do.



That was my point. I don't care about multiclassing. I care about the caster / non-caster divide. If you step over to the caster side you are a caster and therefore you suddenly can outdo the non-casters. An EK with true strike is probably a thing to be feared.

Also page 159 gives prices for hiring mercenaries for the discussion on replacing the fighter.

Let me quote you some facts the Sleep spell, which you seem to have missed some details on:
1) Range 90 feet - so right there are some encounters it can't help with
2) 5d8 = 22.5 average HP affected. An Orc has 15. You get no benefit from left-over HP, so unless the encountered consists of a single Orc, you didn't end it with your spell. And look! An Orc is CR 1/2, which means even at first level you meet more than one. And the creatures affected need to be within a 20' radius circle, which also leaves out some encounters.
3) You start with the creature with the lowest current HP and work up. In other words, you take out the creatures the Fighter was about to trivially defeat, leaving the ones that will require more effort.
4) If you didn't win initiative and melee has commenced, good luck not hitting your friends.
5) Maybe you ran into 4 CR 1/4 wolves, with 11 HP each. You might get two of them, if they are bunched together. Or 3, or 1.

To say "the sleep spell ends an encounter" is approximately the same as saying "the wizard always dies the first round of combat because of low AC and HP" - that is, it's a ridiculous oversimplification.

Similarly for the rest of your discussion, although I do admit you need thieves' tools to pick a lock.

Anyone who views a mercenary NPC as a replacement for a PC Fighter is both completely unfamiliar with the rules for Fighters (where, after all, it explicitly says Fighters are far superior to ordinary soldiers) but also with the history of mercenaries throughout history (their loyalty in tough battles is often suspect) and the role of NPC hirelings in most D&D games (fighting Hobgoblin soldiers is one thing; they won't go anywhere near undead or dragons or aberrations because they have no idea how to deal with those things).

Serious question - have you actually played this game? Any edition?

[Ashrym]

I've gotten a hold of a copy of the PHB so let me quote you a few parts of it:
Page 152 under the lock heading (bolded for emphasis):
"Lock. A key is provided with the lock. Without the key, a creature proficient with thieves’ tools can pick this lock with a successful DC 15 Dexterity check."

Page 152 under manacles (bolded for emphasis):
"Manacles. These metal restraints can bind a Small or Medium creature. Escaping the manacles requires a successful DC 20 Dexterity check. Breaking them requires a successful DC 20 Strength check. Each set of manacles comes with one key. Without the key, a creature proficient with thieves’ tools can pick the manacles’ lock with a successful DC 15 Dexterity check. Manacles have 15 hit points."

Page 154 under tools (bolded for emphasis):
"A tool helps you to do something you couldn't otherwise do, such as craft or repair an item, forge a document, or pick a lock."

So you can see you can't in fact even attempt something that requires a tool without having a tool present. They did not 'forget to remove it'. Its part of the rules, even in the PHB.



At level 1 the Wizard can end 2 encounters out of 6 with a sleep spell, by level 3 they can do that 6 times per day. Remember an average adventuring day is 6 average encounters. I wouldn't call that worse. I'd say that if they successfully shut down 3 or more encounters with their spells that they are doing much better than their non-caster party members.

As to bad rolls non-casters can get those same bad rolls. The evocation wizard can also use cantrips that require saving throws at 6th level to deal damage on a miss. This means they can potentially keep up or even out damage the non-casters at that time. Poison spray for instance deals 1d12 damage save for half at 6th level. This will drastically increase their damage potential.



Yes, instead of being a good and impartial DM, you'll try to hide the flaws of the system behind the wall of DM fiat. I used to think like that, but then I graduated school and got a life so I no longer have the time or the desire to do that.



That assumes that the entire dungeon hasn't already been alerted to your presence with the sounds of combat. So unless you have proficiency in thieves' tools your only option is to go with knock.



AS to the rest of this see the quotes above. Its conclusive that you can't open locks without proficiency in thieves' tools. You are again trying to include something into what was said that isn't present.

Of course this entire side debate has no bearing because even if we go with your interpretation that the knock spell is worse than anyone with a decent dex score or proficiency with thieves' tools, it isn't a requirement that they do all things better, only that they do all things 'often' better. So some things can be worse. They certainly climb better than other classes because they not only gain a move speed they have their hands free which is something no other class can do.



That was my point. I don't care about multiclassing. I care about the caster / non-caster divide. If you step over to the caster side you are a caster and therefore you suddenly can outdo the non-casters. An EK with true strike is probably a thing to be feared.

Also page 159 gives prices for hiring mercenaries for the discussion on replacing the fighter.

Confused about tools in game. Is it necessary to have proficiency in any of them to use them? nope - you can still use them, just without the proficiency bonus. - Mike Mearls

Like I said, it's already been confirmed because of the confusion in the past. You're joining a debate that ended some time ago. The text on page 154 regarding the bonus under the tools heading and thieves' tools description is correct and the difference is with adding proficiency bonus or not.

You are also incorrect about potent cantrip. While it does increase the damage a lot with half damage on a save (not half damage on a miss - attack roll cantrips get no benefit from potent cantrip) the DPR from poison spray as the highest damage available in a cantrip for wizards is only 26 DPR at 17th level if all saves are failed and goes down as saves are made. That doesn't even come close to melee DPR. An increase in damage doesn't mean it's more damage than other options just because the damage increased. Melee options are doing ~40 DPR depending on the builds by 11th-13th level without much difficulty. At level 6 when potent cantrip becomes available it's only 13 DPR if all saves are failed; with no CON bonus and no CON proficiency on the save, and 18 CHA the DC is 15 for a 30% save rate cutting the damage back to 11 DPR. Extra attack and sneak attack are better, and weapons are adding ability modifier damage right from level 1. A fighter with a greatsword and great weapon fighting style has 18.2 DPR going battle master and not spending superiority dice if he takes no feats and spends the extra ABI he has over the evoker on another STR increase. That's nearly twice as much damage using a 16 AC target for the attacks and absolutely no save bonus for the highest die cantrip available. At least warlocks can sport 12 DPR on the same target with eldritch blast.

You haven't even demonstrated doing things "often better". You've ignored thief's ability to climb full speed and take cunning action for bonus movement in your speed example, and a monks ability to simply run up vertical surfaces. The ability to use free hands while climbing is rather situational in it's usefulness but a person can hold on with one hand to a hand hold and fight with the other if necessary, and a climbers kit allows the character to anchor himself or herself as an action.

We're not even talking about multiclassing to use thieves' tools, or cast spells. Anyone can use them and knock does suck. It doesn't take any odd interpretation for that to be true.

Also, true strike also sucks because it takes an action to cast so the character is throwing away his attacks for a bonus on one attack next round. That's decreases DPR.

What's really clear is that you seem to be pushing a caster bias with limited familiarity with the rules and without actual game experience.

[Lokiare]

Let me quote you some facts the Sleep spell, which you seem to have missed some details on:
1) Range 90 feet - so right there are some encounters it can't help with

What common encounter is had at greater than 90 feet? I'd have to check the vision rules, but 90 feet is insanely far. Regardless you just ready an action to cast it when they get within range.


2) 5d8 = 22.5 average HP affected. An Orc has 15. You get no benefit from left-over HP, so unless the encountered consists of a single Orc, you didn't end it with your spell. And look! An Orc is CR 1/2, which means even at first level you meet more than one. And the creatures affected need to be within a 20' radius circle, which also leaves out some encounters.'

You don't have to end it. You have to trivialize it. So lets see what an Orc encounter looks like for a level 1 party using the rules in the DM PDF starting on page 57:

1 Orc = 100xp, CR 1/2

XP for a party of five level 1 characters = 250.

2 Orcs = 300xp (due to 1.5x multiplier) oh sorry you went outside of your budget for an average encounter so 2 Orcs is a hard encounter for a level 1 party.

3 Orcs is greater than a deadly encounter (100*3*2= 600 compared to the max budget of 500).

Taking out 1 Orc out of 2 at level 1? Priceless....er... I mean trivialized encounter. The other Orc either wastes their turn trying to wake the first Orc or they have an entire round without backup. 1 Orc is an easy encounter for a five level 1 characters. Consider the encounter trivialized.

Notice that I used the maximum amount of characters the game is designed to handle by default. I erred in your favor.


3) You start with the creature with the lowest current HP and work up. In other words, you take out the creatures the Fighter was about to trivially defeat, leaving the ones that will require more effort.

In a 20' radius which can catch creatures that are 40' apart at the ends. Good luck having the level 1 fighter move around and catch more than 1 of those enemies. They don't even get action surge until level 2 which means they are only hitting one creature per round. Look the wizard took out all of them with a single spell, which at 1st level they can use 2 times per day. The fighter was going to trivially defeat them over the course of 3-7 rounds.


4) If you didn't win initiative and melee has commenced, good luck not hitting your friends.

I only have to worry about that if the creatures have more hp than the party members, which at 1st level if the encounter includes more than one creature is likely. The other option is to just hit the party members and wake them up after the fact. Who cares if they fall asleep if you make most or all of the enemies fall asleep. Party members also have higher saves than monsters so that's a factor in the parties favor.


5) Maybe you ran into 4 CR 1/4 wolves, with 11 HP each. You might get two of them, if they are bunched together. Or 3, or 1.

Well now lets look at a wolf encounter using the encounter building rules:

Wolf is 50xp, 1/4 CR.
1 Wolf is 50xp which is an easy encounter.
2 Wolves are 150xp which is somewhere between an easy encounter and an average encounter.
3 Wolves are 300xp which is somewhere between an average encounter and a hard encounter.
4 Wolves are 400xp which is somewhere between a hard encounter and a deadly encounter.

So first they are up against a hard/deadly encounter at level 1. Removing a single wolf turns this encounter into a average encounter. If you manage to remove 3 it becomes an easy encounter. Consider the encounter trivialized. The wizard has a good chance of turning a deadly encounter into an easy encounter with a single action, which they can do twice a day.


To say "the sleep spell ends an encounter" is approximately the same as saying "the wizard always dies the first round of combat because of low AC and HP" - that is, it's a ridiculous oversimplification.

Unless of course you look at the facts and then you realize that sleep is an encounter ending spell at lower levels or against low level creatures at any level.


Similarly for the rest of your discussion, although I do admit you need thieves' tools to pick a lock.

Apparently Mearls the D&D god ruled that the RAW in the PHB and the Basic rules means nothing. Or if you are like me he went 'oops did we do that, we didn't mean that.'


Anyone who views a mercenary NPC as a replacement for a PC Fighter is both completely unfamiliar with the rules for Fighters (where, after all, it explicitly says Fighters are far superior to ordinary soldiers) but also with the history of mercenaries throughout history (their loyalty in tough battles is often suspect) and the role of NPC hirelings in most D&D games (fighting Hobgoblin soldiers is one thing; they won't go anywhere near undead or dragons or aberrations because they have no idea how to deal with those things).

Mercenaries get paid to keep you safe in a world with all kinds of magical creatures I would think a mercenary would have encountered the unknown or at least know they are going to encounter the unknown and you only need 1 mercenary per attack the fighter would normally get. Not even that really. You just need a number of mercenaries that equal the fighters hp so at 1st level you might have to hire 2 of them and by level 6 you might have to hire 4 or 5.


Serious question - have you actually played this game? Any edition?

Serious question - have you actually read the rules of this game? Any edition?


Confused about tools in game. Is it necessary to have proficiency in any of them to use them? nope - you can still use them, just without the proficiency bonus. - Mike Mearls

Like I said, it's already been confirmed because of the confusion in the past. You're joining a debate that ended some time ago. The text on page 154 regarding the bonus under the tools heading and thieves' tools description is correct and the difference is with adding proficiency bonus or not.

Yeah, basically this is a Mearls moment "We totally meant that you can pick locks without using tools, we just put all of that stuff in the PHB that says you can't to start internet arguments and confuse new players."


You are also incorrect about potent cantrip. While it does increase the damage a lot with half damage on a save (not half damage on a miss - attack roll cantrips get no benefit from potent cantrip) the DPR from poison spray as the highest damage available in a cantrip for wizards is only 26 DPR at 17th level if all saves are failed and goes down as saves are made. That doesn't even come close to melee DPR. An increase in damage doesn't mean it's more damage than other options just because the damage increased. Melee options are doing ~40 DPR depending on the builds by 11th-13th level without much difficulty. At level 6 when potent cantrip becomes available it's only 13 DPR if all saves are failed; with no CON bonus and no CON proficiency on the save, and 18 CHA the DC is 15 for a 30% save rate cutting the damage back to 11 DPR. Extra attack and sneak attack are better, and weapons are adding ability modifier damage right from level 1. A fighter with a greatsword and great weapon fighting style has 18.2 DPR going battle master and not spending superiority dice if he takes no feats and spends the extra ABI he has over the evoker on another STR increase. That's nearly twice as much damage using a 16 AC target for the attacks and absolutely no save bonus for the highest die cantrip available. At least warlocks can sport 12 DPR on the same target with eldritch blast.

Fortunately for us we are talking about levels 1-12 and focusing on the lower end of that. So what we have now is:

1d12 damage save for half. Save DC on the low end is 13 (8 base +2 proficiency +3 Intelligence). Monsters in the DM PDF up to CR 1 have an average dex bonus of +1.38061 which we will round to +1. That means they have to roll 12 or higher on a D20 this means they have a 45% chance to succeed.
Failed save 55% of 2d12 (13) = 0.55 * 13 = 7.15; Successful save 35% of 2d12 (13 / 2 = 6.5) = 0.45 * 6.5 = 2.925; Total = 10.075

The fighter can do two attacks at 1d12 + 5 re-roll 1's and 2's (remember this is 6th level so the fighter upped their strength by 4) Their attack bonus is +7 (+2 proficiency +5 strength). The average AC of monsters in the DM PDF is 12.38462. We'll round down to 12. Which means the fighter has a hit chance of 80% the top 5% of that is critical chance.
Hit 75% of 1d12 + 5 (7.33 (http://anydice.com/program/47a0)+5=12.33) = 0.75 * 12.33 = 9.2475; Critical 5% of 2d12 + 5 (14.66 +5=19.66) = 0.05 * 19.66 = 0.983; Total = 0.983 + 9.2475 = 10.2305;

2 attacks per round = 20.461;

So the fighter does deal more damage with their attacks compared to the casters cantrips. Unfortunately that is before the caster casts concentration spells that also deal damage on top of their cantrips.

Cloud of daggers cast out of a level 3 slot sounds good.

6d4 average 15.
Failed save 55% of 15 = 8.25; Successful save 45% = 3.2175; Total = 11.4675; Grand total = 10.075 + 11.4675 = 21.5425

Oh look the low level wizard can outdo the fighter in damage at level 6, and that's without me really looking hard at the wizards spell list. That's just at a glance.


You haven't even demonstrated doing things "often better". You've ignored thief's ability to climb full speed and take cunning action for bonus movement in your speed example, and a monks ability to simply run up vertical surfaces. The ability to use free hands while climbing is rather situational in it's usefulness but a person can hold on with one hand to a hand hold and fight with the other if necessary, and a climbers kit allows the character to anchor himself or herself as an action.

Neither can walk along ceilings which spider climb allows. Neither can have free hands. A particular build of rogue using everything it has can move slightly faster. I'd call that doing things better than other classes. Of course I now have access to the full PHB so lets look at all the nice utility spells the wizard has that do things non-casters do as well or better than they do:

Mage Hand / Unseen Servant - Check for traps without being in danger at all.
Friends - Social checks, about as good as having proficiency in the relevant skill.
Alarm - Auto success on standing watch, sorry Champion fighter (I still think that ability is a joke on the developer teams part).
Charm Person - Any social check, see Friends, except auto success on a failed save.
Disguise Self / Alter Self - Infiltration, auto success.
Expeditious Retreat/Long Strider - Better than any non-casters ability to move fast.
Feather Fall - Climbing Down, avoiding some traps, any ability that reduces falling damage. Auto success.
Grease - Escape attempts, any ability that trips opponents.
Identify - Any ability that IDs items.
Jump - Jump skill or any feature that increases jumping.
Tenser's Floating Disc - Weight limits, carrying capacity. Auto success.
Dark Vision - Any ability to see in the dark or perception checks.
Detect Thoughts - Any kind of opposed social check to gain knowledge.
Knock - Open locks automatically with no roll.
Locate Object - Any kind of tracking skill (you use it on an item the target is wearing).
Rope Trick - Free short rest, any ability that hides the party safely for 1 hour or allows the use of hit dice. Auto success.
See Invisibility - Any ability that allows detection of hidden creatures. Auto success.
Spider Climb - Climb better than any other class.
Suggestion - Getting people to do what you want, invalidates things like intimidate.

and that's just up to level 2. I'm sure there's more like fly that invalidates many traps and exploration difficulties.


We're not even talking about multiclassing to use thieves' tools, or cast spells. Anyone can use them and knock does suck. It doesn't take any odd interpretation for that to be true.

Also, true strike also sucks because it takes an action to cast so the character is throwing away his attacks for a bonus on one attack next round. That's decreases DPR.

What's really clear is that you seem to be pushing a caster bias with limited familiarity with the rules and without actual game experience.

Yeah, no. I've played the play tests and I've played 2E, 3E, and 4E extensively. I've pointed out beyond a shadow of a doubt where spells like knock and spider climb are more useful than the class features of other classes. I've also given you a list of spells that are as good as or better than the things non-casters can do. Its pretty clear the wizard is hands down a tier 1 class even at low levels.

[Z3ro]

Charm Person - Any social check, see Friends, except auto success on a failed save.


I was debating going through your whole spell list one-by-one, but I don't have that kind of time today. In addition, I think this one spell neatly encapsulates what I, and many others, like about 5E, as well as showing your definition of "encounter" is different than most peoples.

The spell charm person makes someone, on a failed save, treat you as a "friendly aquitance". Now, how much would said aquitance help you? Totally up to the DM. Would they help you move? Maybe; some friends do, some find any excuse not to. Help you commit a crime? Probably not. Or take one of the classic examples; would a guard help his friend get out of jail? Tough to say; most of my friends wouldn't jeapordize their jobs to help me, especially if it was illegal. All of which is a long way to say this is hardly a fool-proof spell that will end an encounter (such as our prison example).

But, even if you ignore that part of it (say you have a permissive DM, and if so, great), the spell explicitly says they know they were charmed when it wheres off. This is fantastic; that means that, while yes, you could use it on some random castle guard you'll never see again, you have to think long and hard about using it on, say, a recurring NPC. That makes a great difficult decision; use the spell for an almost guaranteed one-time success, or try a persuade skill check with higher rate of failure, but no long-term consequences. I love decisions like that, and feel that 5E provides plenty of them all over the place.

[Fwiffo86]

Mage Hand... snipped for space

Mage Hand / Unseen Servant - Check for traps without being in danger at all. Inability to actually remove said traps without the casting of another spell.

Friends - Social checks, about as good as having proficiency in the relevant skill. Except the target knows they have been charmed. Sort of like drugging a stranger.

Alarm - Auto success on standing watch, sorry Champion fighter. *shrugs* I don't think anyone actually considers this to be important, and is just reaching for anything to validate your though process.

Charm Person - Any social check, see Friends, except auto success on a failed save. See "Friends"

Disguise Self / Alter Self - Infiltration, auto success.Inability to actually impersonate, or have actual knowledge of the disguised target. Even guards have a working knowledge of procedures, pass phrases, and environment layout.

Expeditious Retreat/Long Strider - Better than any non-casters ability to move fast. Temporary.

Feather Fall - Climbing Down, avoiding some traps, any ability that reduces falling damage. Auto success. This is pointless to argue as there is only one comparable ability, see Monk

Grease - Escape attempts, any ability that trips opponents. And your friends, and yourself.

Identify - Any ability that IDs items. All characters can Identify magic items by concentrating on them for one hour without the need for magic. This spell is now functionally useless

Jump - Jump skill or any feature that increases jumping. See "Feather Fall"

Tenser's Floating Disc - Weight limits, carrying capacity. Auto success. Cannot move beyond a 10 foot change in height

Dark Vision - Any ability to see in the dark or perception checks. Most races have Darkvision already

Detect Thoughts - Any kind of opposed social check to gain knowledge. This does not make one superior in any way, an y more than being telepathic makes you a good debater. Knowing what someone is thinking does not confer effective use of that knowledge

Knock - Open locks automatically with no roll. And alerts everyone in the area. Good bye stealth mission.

Locate Object - Any kind of tracking skill (you use it on an item the target is wearing). Until they take it off

Rope Trick - Free short rest, any ability that hides the party safely for 1 hour or allows the use of hit dice. Auto success. So does closing and guarding a door. No resource expenditure.

See Invisibility - Any ability that allows detection of hidden creatures. Auto success. Is often the ONLY way to detect them. Thus it is not superior to anything other than blindsense/hearing

Spider Climb - Climb better than any other class. This is at least correct.

Suggestion - Getting people to do what you want, invalidates things like intimidate. See "Friends"

[Gnomes2169]

... Lokaire, the CR system's multipliers apply when you have a number of creatures more than the number of characters in the party (otherwise, literally every single encounter in the Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure path is a deadly envounter. Only 3-4 are at low levels, and that's because of poor creature choice, not the swarms themselves). So in the wolves example, the actual xp weight of 4 wolves for 4 party members (the number of party members the CR system is designed to handle) is 200xp. I believe this was your "average" difficulty, yes? If you want to get to deadly, well, add in 2 more (bringing the encounter to 6 wolves, not 4) and you have your wolf pack that will overrun your best laid sleeps and eat your character's faces.

Unless you are saying that your wizard is going to expend both of his level 1 spell slots on sleep, leaving him with absolutely nothing but subpar cantrip damage for every other encounter over the course of the day and no shield/ mage armor, he does not trivialize a deadly encounter. In fact with how the CR system is designed, the wizard taking out 1-2 wolves is actually just about right as far as his contribution to a fight should go, since each character should be able to take out at least 1 creature on their own in an equally CR'd fight.

As for everything else... There is no way you will have 10 minutes of down time to cast a ritual spell if everyone in a dungeon knows where you are unless they are making a trap for you, or they are leaving the dungeon and you are not getting anything else because of it. If they do not know you are there, then sleep still takes 10-50 times as long as a lock pick to cast as a ritual, and tells the dungeon you are there. I don't know what DM you had that let you had that let you galavant around, casting knock and faffing about for 10 minutes to cast every ritual spell under the sun without punishment, but I will tell you that they are not typical.

Also, I would like to remind you that you have two spell slots at level 1, and that your vaunted sleep and Shield both eat them up in a single round. But that doesn't matter, because you can 12-second work day everywhere in every situation, right? So even at level 1, wizards will have eeeeeverything they could eeeeeeeeeever need to end eeeeeeevery encounter or RP situation!

Done. Back to the block list with you.

[Lokiare]

... Lokaire, the CR system's multipliers apply when you have a number of creatures more than the number of characters in the party (otherwise, literally every single encounter in the Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure path is a deadly envounter. Only 3-4 are at low levels, and that's because of poor creature choice, not the swarms themselves). So in the wolves example, the actual xp weight of 4 wolves for 4 party members (the number of party members the CR system is designed to handle) is 200xp. I believe this was your "average" difficulty, yes? If you want to get to deadly, well, add in 2 more (bringing the encounter to 6 wolves, not 4) and you have your wolf pack that will overrun your best laid sleeps and eat your character's faces.

Nope, go back and read it again. It says nothing about having more than the number of party members. Here is an excerpt from the example:

"Now you look at the encounter you’ve designed, a fight with four hobgoblins. Each hobgoblin has an XP value of 100, so the total XP is 400. Since there are four hobgoblins, you double the XP value of the encounter; the encounter’s XP value, for the purposes of figuring out its difficulty, is 800 XP. That makes this encounter tougher than a medium encounter, but not higher than the hard threshold—so it’s a hard encounter."

So in other words I am correct. They updated the DM PDF after Mearls put out his article. XP value of the encounter goes up with the number of creatures. Party composition has nothing to do with it.


Unless you are saying that your wizard is going to expend both of his level 1 spell slots on sleep, leaving him with absolutely nothing but subpar cantrip damage for every other encounter over the course of the day and no shield/ mage armor, he does not trivialize a deadly encounter. In fact with how the CR system is designed, the wizard taking out 1-2 wolves is actually just about right as far as his contribution to a fight should go, since each character should be able to take out at least 1 creature on their own in an equally CR'd fight.

As for everything else... There is no way you will have 10 minutes of down time to cast a ritual spell if everyone in a dungeon knows where you are unless they are making a trap for you, or they are leaving the dungeon and you are not getting anything else because of it. If they do not know you are there, then sleep still takes 10-50 times as long as a lock pick to cast as a ritual, and tells the dungeon you are there. I don't know what DM you had that let you had that let you galavant around, casting knock and faffing about for 10 minutes to cast every ritual spell under the sun without punishment, but I will tell you that they are not typical.

Also, I would like to remind you that you have two spell slots at level 1, and that your vaunted sleep and Shield both eat them up in a single round. But that doesn't matter, because you can 12-second work day everywhere in every situation, right? So even at level 1, wizards will have eeeeeverything they could eeeeeeeeeever need to end eeeeeeevery encounter or RP situation!

Done. Back to the block list with you.

Yep. Go back outside the argument and let me finish it without a response from you. Basically letting my viewpoint win by default.

You are incorrect. Your entire post is based on the foundation that you don't multiply xp value for multiple enemies when its clear you do from the DM PDF.

[Fwiffo86]

Strikes me as kind of like arguing that the United States of America isn't a country because it says "To the republic" in the pledge of allegiance.

An occasional instance of this or that doesn't indicate a problem any more than your television being broken because Channel 16 doesn't come in.

[Easy_Lee]

A lot of people don't seem to understand the tier system. So let me just refresh everyone's memory


I don't agree with Lokaire's conclusion since he is forever biased against anything that's not 4e, and wants everyone to know it. However, the definitions he reposted are very important when talking about tiers.

There is no longer a tier 1for most levels because no one can do absolutely everything (with the same character build) as well as anyone else. Wizards arguably fit this definition with wish copying all level 8- spells with no component cost, but not until 9th level spells.

As far as tier 2, still nothing because no one has those kinds of encounter-shattering powers at most levels. Closest contender is moon druids from levels 2-4, ending most encounters with one wildshape : Brown bear.

Tier 3, two good examples would be moon druids and wizards.

Wizards can build to be as good at one thing as anyone else while still being useful when that thing is not required. Social encounters (enchanter), stealth and trickery (illusion), damage (evoker), none are outside the wizard's domain. However, a non-evoker wizard will be easily outdamaged by a warlock throwing agonizing blasts.

Moon druids don't fit the do one thing better than everyone build (except at 2-4), but they are capable of doing many things well. By wildshaping into an appropriate creature, this druid can fly, tank, travel, dps, stealth, etc. They're also the only class that will survive very long in extreme environments, such as a tarrasque's stomach (at level 10 they can become immune to acid damage by transforming into an elemental, IIRC).

Then you have the do one thing well and be useless when that one thing is not useful classes tier 4. Fighters are a perfect example. They either dps (GWF), tank (shield), or do a bit of both (twf + defensive duelist + dex focus). When those things aren't useful (social encounters), the fighter basically becomes a commoner. You can argue that fighters can use intimidation, etc, but how useful is rolling intimidation when compared to an enchanter just charming the person (no roll required) and wiping the person's memory afterwards?

Nobody is as bad a tier 5 or 6 except maybe some kinds of ranger (BM I'm looking at you).

I think we have the information we need to make some pretty good tier lists just using core. Even multiclasses (like warlock 2 sorcerer 18) can br tiered using the above guidelines (it does dps at least as good as anyone and is still useful when dps isn't required, tier 3). The dmg and splat books will no doubt cause changes to those tiers, but good options will still be good.

[Geoff]

Hey guys,

Im starting a game with my friends, but we never get pass level10-ishh...

Could you guys elaborate a Tier List for Low Level sessions? Maybe from level 1 to 12?

Thanks! =D Wouldn't really change it much. Class Tiers are about the full class potential, by 12th, most classes have got some potential going. Maybe very low level, like 5th and under, it'd be different.

The 5e Tiers I've seen go like this:


Tier 1:
Wizard, Cleric, Druid

Tier 2:
Sorcerer, Warlock, Bard

Tier 3:
Paladin, Ranger

Tier 4:
Eldritch Knight, Battlemaster, Arcane Trickster, Monk, Barbarian

Tier 5:
Champion, Thief, Assassin

Tier 6:

Not sure why the Fighter and Rogue get cut up by sub-class, spellcasting I guess. That's what the tiers always seemed like to me, a spellcaster appreciation list. The more you cast, the higher you ranked.

The fighter gets no recognition, again. I always thought the fighter deserved higher than Tier 5. All those bonus feats, even if they are combat focused, mean you can use all your regular feats to open up other aspects - and there are 'do one thing really well' effective fighter builds you can pull off with just the bonus feats. Should have been Tier 3.

The 5e fighter has far fewer bonus feats relative to regular feats, but the feats are 'bigger.'

And everyone can grab some non-combat features from their Background, so, while a class might be 'useless outside the one thing they do well,' if that 'one thing' is combat, the character taking that class probably won't be, thanks to his Background.

[Lokiare]

Wouldn't really change it much. Class Tiers are about the full class potential, by 12th, most classes have got some potential going. Maybe very low level, like 5th and under, it'd be different.

The 5e Tiers I've seen go like this:

Not sure why the Fighter and Rogue get cut up by sub-class, spellcasting I guess. That's what the tiers always seemed like to me, a spellcaster appreciation list. The more you cast, the higher you ranked.

The fighter gets no recognition, again. I always thought the fighter deserved higher than Tier 5. All those bonus feats, even if they are combat focused, mean you can use all your regular feats to open up other aspects - and there are 'do one thing really well' effective fighter builds you can pull off with just the bonus feats. Should have been Tier 3.

The 5e fighter has far fewer bonus feats relative to regular feats, but the feats are 'bigger.'

And everyone can grab some non-combat features from their Background, so, while a class might be 'useless outside the one thing they do well,' if that 'one thing' is combat, the character taking that class probably won't be, thanks to his Background.

All of the classes are divided by sub-class. Its just that all Wizard, Druid, and Cleric sub-classes are tier 1. All Sorcerer, Warlock, and Bard sub-classes are tier 2, etc...etc... We only see the divide in the fighter because the EK gets quite a boost because of its ability to cast spells. Even the battle master gets boosted because of the versatility of its dice and maneuvers. The champion is tier 5 literally because the only thing it does well is deal damage. Personally I think it might fall to tier 6 again if we find a good combo of things another class or sub-class can do to rise above the damage of the champion.

In 3E even if you spent a bunch of feats to become a one hit wonder at tripping, disarming, grappling, or bull rushing the casters could do it better. Tripping was trivial for a high level wizard because they had spells like grease that would trip a fire giant more often than a fighter could. There was Evard's Tentacles grappled a large group of enemies and dealt more damage than a fighter could while grappling. If they managed to escape they had to make another save if they didn't move out of the area. No concentration required.

The real problem is they could have solved this by giving the fighter some versatility. They could have easily gave the fighter something similar to the 4E 'Martial Practices'. Things like the ability to spend a hit dice to repair items, stonework, and structures. The ability to spend a hit dice to auto intimidate a crowd of people. The ability to spend a hit dice to play dead convincingly enough to trick a spell by slowing their heartbeat and brain activity to unnoticeable levels. Spend a hit dice to assess and destroy a structures foundations or supports enough to make it collapse. Spend an action to study an enemy and gauge its hit points, and any weaknesses or strengths it might have. There are literally hundreds of things they could have done to make the fighter have the versatility it needed to move from tier 5/6 to tier 3 at least. They simply chose not to do that.

Basically they dropped the ball. Hopefully in 2 years when 6E comes out they will have learned their lesson.

[archaeo]

On the subject of the tier list, I remain broadly agnostic; I think that some classes pull ahead of others at low levels, by some metrics, but the system is built such that disparities will be driven far more by individual player skill than by mechanical bias. However,


Basically they dropped the ball. Hopefully in 2 years when 6E comes out they will have learned their lesson.

According to reports, 5e just had the most successful PHB release of the WotC era of D&D. It has received glowing reviews in the mainstream hobbyist press, the Monster Manual and Players Handbook remain in the top 50 books sold on Amazon.com (PHB is at 40, today, more than a month after its release), and the general reception online has been quite positive. Why in the world would WotC choose not to build on that success and instead throw the system under the bus in just two years, especially after they've told us that they plan on treating this as a "living edition," with all that entails?

[Easy_Lee]

{{scrubbed}}

[Lokiare]

On the subject of the tier list, I remain broadly agnostic; I think that some classes pull ahead of others at low levels, by some metrics, but the system is built such that disparities will be driven far more by individual player skill than by mechanical bias. However,



According to reports, 5e just had the most successful PHB release of the WotC era of D&D. It has received glowing reviews in the mainstream hobbyist press, the Monster Manual and Players Handbook remain in the top 50 books sold on Amazon.com (PHB is at 40, today, more than a month after its release), and the general reception online has been quite positive. Why in the world would WotC choose not to build on that success and instead throw the system under the bus in just two years, especially after they've told us that they plan on treating this as a "living edition," with all that entails?

What reports? citations please. If it just Mearls spouting his usual nonsense then we can safely ignore it. I doubt that 5E has sold more PHBs than 3E. That would be nearly impossible since 3E sold PHBs for 8+ years.

Besides everyone knows its not how many PHBs you sell in the first month of an edition. Its how many PHB 4's you sell several years down the road that tells you when there will be a new edition.

[Lokiare]

{{scrubbed}}

Sorry no. I like 2E, I even liked playing 3E back when it was just the core books at low level. I also enjoy 13th Age and a few other games.

{{scrubbed}}

[archaeo]

What reports? citations please. If it just Mearls spouting his usual nonsense then we can safely ignore it.

Classy.

As an example the 4e PHB topped out at #33 on the bestseller chart (https://web.archive.org/web/20080615055504/http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Players-Handbook-Roleplaying/dp/0786948671). Pathfinder managed a measly #369 (https://web.archive.org/web/20090815115757/http://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Roleplaying-Game-Core-Rulebook/dp/1601251505), but of course, those rules are free on the Internet.

Mearls tweeted this screenshot (https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/507228635552415746/photo/1) of the PHB topping the Publishers Weekly nonfiction list, and also said that the PHB sales were stronger this time around than during the 3e and 4e release (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?357835-PHB-is-3-right-now-on-quot-Amazon-s-Hot-New-Releases-quot/page9). I got the figures from the thread I just linked.

Note that even Mearls would agree with you that the sales over the next year are more important than these initial sales figures, but I think we have solid evidence for my contention that "5e just had the most successful PHB release of the WotC era of D&D."

[Lokiare]

{{scrubbed}}

[archaeo]

{{scrubbed}}

I'm not sure I can think of an example of Mearls outright lying about something as simple as sales figures, or really anything else. Nor am I really sure what to make of your use of scare quotes, there.


{{scrubbed}}

That's because the books aren't ranked in "Puzzles and Games." They are ranked in "Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Gaming." Pulling up the page right now, I see that the MM, for example, is ranked 10th overall in Books, 9th in Science Fiction & Fantasy. 5e books make up 6 of the top 8 spots in SF & Fantasy Gaming. It seems that Amazon reorganized its categories at some point between 2008 and 2014.


{{scrubbed}}.

I think you may have missed what my link showed; the date was June 15, 2008, a little more than a week after the release, and the ranking figures could be found in the "product details" section. During the previous capture of the product page, on June 4, 2008 (just two days before the release), it was only at #128 in books (https://web.archive.org/web/20080604141432/http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Players-Handbook-Roleplaying/dp/0786948671). In comparison, 5e was at #78 in all books a full month before its release (https://web.archive.org/web/20140717182614/http://www.amazon.com/Players-Handbook-Dungeons-Dragons-Wizards/dp/0786965606). On September 6th, it was still at #14 overall (https://web.archive.org/web/20140906232932/http://www.amazon.com/Players-Handbook-Dungeons-Dragons-Wizards/dp/0786965606).


{{scrubbed}}

Given that the list seems to be sales across the entire year, it's little wonder that the PHB hasn't been able to outsell books that have been on the market for the entirety of 2014. I also see a ton of books that are going to be big sellers every year; do you really expect a niche product like D&D to compete with books that millions of high school and college students purchase every year? I hardly think it's damning that the PHB has been out for little more than a month and hasn't sold more copies than Goodnight Moon has all year.


{{scrubbed}}

"Real" best seller lists? Publishers Weekly is hardly some two-bit rag, and Amazon.com, the largest bookstore in the country, probably deserves some credit too. And this is all in addition to Mearls outright saying that this was D&D's biggest release in the WotC era, something I can't imagine he'd just glibly lie about when his bosses would know he was lying.

[Lokiare]

I'm not sure I can think of an example of Mearls outright lying about something as simple as sales figures, or really anything else. Nor am I really sure what to make of your use of scare quotes, there.



That's because the books aren't ranked in "Puzzles and Games." They are ranked in "Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Gaming." Pulling up the page right now, I see that the MM, for example, is ranked 10th overall in Books, 9th in Science Fiction & Fantasy. 5e books make up 6 of the top 8 spots in SF & Fantasy Gaming. It seems that Amazon reorganized its categories at some point between 2008 and 2014.



I think you may have missed what my link showed; the date was June 15, 2008, a little more than a week after the release, and the ranking figures could be found in the "product details" section. During the previous capture of the product page, on June 4, 2008 (just two days before the release), it was only at #128 in books (https://web.archive.org/web/20080604141432/http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Players-Handbook-Roleplaying/dp/0786948671). In comparison, 5e was at #78 in all books a full month before its release (https://web.archive.org/web/20140717182614/http://www.amazon.com/Players-Handbook-Dungeons-Dragons-Wizards/dp/0786965606). On September 6th, it was still at #14 overall (https://web.archive.org/web/20140906232932/http://www.amazon.com/Players-Handbook-Dungeons-Dragons-Wizards/dp/0786965606).



Given that the list seems to be sales across the entire year, it's little wonder that the PHB hasn't been able to outsell books that have been on the market for the entirety of 2014. I also see a ton of books that are going to be big sellers every year; do you really expect a niche product like D&D to compete with books that millions of high school and college students purchase every year? I hardly think it's damning that the PHB has been out for little more than a month and hasn't sold more copies than Goodnight Moon has all year.



"Real" best seller lists? Publishers Weekly is hardly some two-bit rag, and Amazon.com, the largest bookstore in the country, probably deserves some credit too. And this is all in addition to Mearls outright saying that this was D&D's biggest release in the WotC era, something I can't imagine he'd just glibly lie about when his bosses would know he was lying.

Your own links show the 4E PHB was #2 and #3 in the relevant categories:

http://i.imgur.com/VhwZSwM.png
Its #128 in books overall and #2 in Science Fiction & Fantasy > Gaming and #3 in Puzzles & Games > Role Playing & Fantasy. That still beats out 5E which is #10 or so last I checked with the MM which just came out.

Its basically the same. Each time an edition of D&D hits shelves they top the short term bestseller lists and then quickly fall off. The fact that 5E isn't topping the specific category charts for its Genre should be an indication that its not doing as well as hoped.

The other thing to look at on these weekly and daily best seller lists is what they are up against. Are there any other RPGs on those lists? If not it could mean there is little to no competition. I haven't heard of any RPG that's putting out books in this time frame.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

so are you taking back the thing about mearls lying about sales data or what

[Lokiare]

so are you taking back the thing about mearls lying about sales data or what

You gotta understand how Mearls works. He doesn't outright lie, but he says the truth in a way that misleads.

For instance he says that the 5E books are on the best sellers lists. Well its on a weekly list with no real competition.

He says its the best release in the WotC era of D&D, but we plainly see it did poorly when compared to 4E's release on Amazon.

So I'm basically saying don't trust what Mearls has said because he twists the truth.

[archaeo]

Your own links show the 4E PHB was #2 and #3 in the relevant categories...Its basically the same. Each time an edition of D&D hits shelves they top the short term bestseller lists and then quickly fall off. The fact that 5E isn't topping the specific category charts for its Genre should be an indication that its not doing as well as hoped.

Note that you're comparing PHB to MM here, and given that most players don't need the MM, it shouldn't be much surprise. Of course, in the relevant categories that you're, for whatever reason, not looking at, the MM is right up at the top, along with every other 5e book right now (http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/16211/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_1_3).


The other thing to look at on these weekly and daily best seller lists is what they are up against. Are there any other RPGs on those lists? If not it could mean there is little to no competition. I haven't heard of any RPG that's putting out books in this time frame.

That's why these category lists are categorically useless. We can't say anything useful about D&D sales from those numbers, because of course they're going to top the "books>>>fantasy games" charts or what have you. There is no competition in the TRPG market when a new D&D release comes out. That's why it's useful to look at the list of all books Amazon is selling, where the MM is currently at number 10, and where the PHB spent weeks in the top ten and a fair bit of time at number 1.


You gotta understand how Mearls works. He doesn't outright lie, but he says the truth in a way that misleads.

For instance he says that the 5E books are on the best sellers lists. Well its on a weekly list with no real competition.

Again, the PHB hit number 1, and the MM is at 10 and rising, on the list of every book Amazon sells.


He says its the best release in the WotC era of D&D, but we plainly see it did poorly when compared to 4E's release on Amazon.

Are you not reading what I'm saying? :smallfrown:


So I'm basically saying don't trust what Mearls has said because he twists the truth.

Mearls posted a screen shot of the book at the top of Publishers Weekly's list, and I have sat and given you ample data showing how well 5e is performing on Amazon. In what possible way do you think Mearls is trying to mislead you?

[Scirocco]

The minute anyone starts invoking logical fallacies they've already lost the thread. It's pretty much the twenty-teens' version of Godwinning.

Of course I already lost the thread here because I pointed out Lokiare's propensity for shoveling out that popular drivel, but it must be said.

[Lokiare]

Note that you're comparing PHB to MM here, and given that most players don't need the MM, it shouldn't be much surprise. Of course, in the relevant categories that you're, for whatever reason, not looking at, the MM is right up at the top, along with every other 5e book right now (http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/16211/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_1_3).



That's why these category lists are categorically useless. We can't say anything useful about D&D sales from those numbers, because of course they're going to top the "books>>>fantasy games" charts or what have you. There is no competition in the TRPG market when a new D&D release comes out. That's why it's useful to look at the list of all books Amazon is selling, where the MM is currently at number 10, and where the PHB spent weeks in the top ten and a fair bit of time at number 1.



Again, the PHB hit number 1, and the MM is at 10 and rising, on the list of every book Amazon sells.



Are you not reading what I'm saying? :smallfrown:



Mearls posted a screen shot of the book at the top of Publishers Weekly's list, and I have sat and given you ample data showing how well 5e is performing on Amazon. In what possible way do you think Mearls is trying to mislead you?

At best you can say that 4E and 5E as well as every edition to hit amazon are tied on their releases on Amazon. Its mostly worthless information though as people still seem to think 4e was a complete and utter failure even after having several books on big name best seller lists.

I'm reading what you are saying, but its all deceptive bragging on Mearls's part that doesn't prove anything about anything.

Its bound to hit the best selling list somewhere. There are about a hundred big name lists, some you pay to get on and others you don't. Not sure which Publisher Weekly is though. Checking now, its already dropped off the end of the list. Which is just as I predicted. Its a momentary blip that has no bearing on the overall success of the edition.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/nielsen/HardcoverNonfiction.html

[archaeo]

its all deceptive bragging on Mearls's part that doesn't prove anything about anything.

Dude, come on. Mike Mearls is not in the practice of just outright lying, and one imagines that he probably has a good idea how many books WotC sold. If he says it's the best release they've had, it's probably the best release they've had!

But whatever, I'm tired of the back and forth now, especially since you're not going to believe me. In the long run, we'll just have to wait and see how 5e and WotC does, but given the response thus far, it seems totally reasonable to assume that 5e will at least stick around as long as 4e did. I can't imagine they're going to gear up for 6e any time soon, anyway.

[Lokiare]

Dude, come on. Mike Mearls is not in the practice of just outright lying, and one imagines that he probably has a good idea how many books WotC sold. If he says it's the best release they've had, it's probably the best release they've had!

But whatever, I'm tired of the back and forth now, especially since you're not going to believe me. In the long run, we'll just have to wait and see how 5e and WotC does, but given the response thus far, it seems totally reasonable to assume that 5e will at least stick around as long as 4e did. I can't imagine they're going to gear up for 6e any time soon, anyway.

Mearls said 5E would support all major play styles. It doesn't. Mearls said 5E is for everyone who's ever played D&D. It isn't. And that's just the falsehoods he's told since the end of 4e.

We can't know how long 5E will stick around for, but my guess is they will start pumping out editions on a 2 year basis, because that's what makes money. Either that or 5E will be the last edition and other than a supplement once a year they won't make anything else for it. Mearls will get his dream job working on the MTG side of things or just retire or move on to other things as the D&D division is shut down or shrunk to a skeleton crew.

[archaeo]

Mearls said 5E would support all major play styles. It doesn't. Mearls said 5E is for everyone who's ever played D&D. It isn't. And that's just the falsehoods he's told since the end of 4e.

Oh, right, the old "but Mearls said I could play 4e with 5e" line. I forgot. Welp! I would imagine that the DMG will include enough optional "tactics" rules that many people will be able to scratch their 4e itch within the 5e rules. But I seem to recall we disagree about this too, so, whatever. Heck, it wouldn't surprise me that, if people (and more people than just you, Lokiare) still feel like they're left out of the big D&D tent, a big Tactics module won't be too long in coming, either from WotC or from a licensee or talented homebrewer.


We can't know how long 5E will stick around for, but my guess is they will start pumping out editions on a 2 year basis, because that's what makes money. Either that or 5E will be the last edition and other than a supplement once a year they won't make anything else for it. Mearls will get his dream job working on the MTG side of things or just retire or move on to other things as the D&D division is shut down or shrunk to a skeleton crew.

Well, you don't believe Mearls, but every indication is that the plan is indeed to keep D&D as a small division and release fewer books with a bigger splash. Everything I've read on the subject, all the interviews I've heard, all agree: the idea is that 5e was intended as an evergreen edition, and they're going to try to keep it going for as long as possible. We still don't know everything about how they intend to do that, but hey!

[Steel Mirror]

Its #128 in books overall and #2 in Science Fiction & Fantasy > Gaming and #3 in Puzzles & Games > Role Playing & Fantasy. That still beats out 5E which is #10 or so last I checked with the MM which just came out.http://s30.postimg.org/danjwuxwx/D_Dsalescap.jpg
Not too shabby, considering it came out more than a month ago! I'm not excessively worried about whether 5E beat any previous edition in sales, but no matter how you slice it that's some pretty good numbers.

EDIT: These are the numbers for the 5E PHB, by the way. I just realized that the screen cap didn't show that.

[Shining Wrath]

Monster Manual now #10 overall: Amazon top 100 (http://www.amazon.com/best-sellers-books-Amazon/zgbs/books/ref=pd_dp_ts_b_1)

Among all books, not just Science Fiction.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: This digression has continued long enough. Cease discussion here about relative sales ranks, and, if you choose to continue it, do it without insulting.

[Geoff]

Tier 1:
Wizard, Cleric, Druid

Tier 2:
Sorcerer, Warlock, Bard

Tier 3:
Paladin, Ranger

Tier 4:
Eldritch Knight, Battlemaster, Arcane Trickster, Monk, Barbarian

Tier 5:
Champion, Thief, Assassin

Tier 6:


All of the classes are divided by sub-class. Its just that all Wizard, Druid, and Cleric sub-classes are tier 1. All Sorcerer, Warlock, and Bard sub-classes are tier 2, etc...etc... We only see the divide in the fighter because the EK gets quite a boost because of its ability to cast spells. Even the battle master gets boosted because of the versatility of its dice and maneuvers. So the Battlemaster gets ranked as equal to a spell caster, even though it doesn't get spells. That's not such a bad sign, is it?


The champion is tier 5 literally because the only thing it does well is deal damage. Personally I think it might fall to tier 6 again if we find a good combo of things another class or sub-class can do to rise above the damage of the champion. I've seen calculations that put the Battlemaster's extra damage from CS dice above the extra damage a Champion can expect from improved crits. Of course, that turns somewhat on the fact the Battlemaster can front-load his damage in a short fight, and how much he gets to rest...


In 3E even if you spent a bunch of feats to become a one hit wonder at tripping, disarming, grappling, or bull rushing the casters could do it better. Tripping was trivial for a high level wizard because they had spells like grease that would trip a fire giant more often than a fighter could. World of difference between knocking prone on your round, and knocking prone as an AoO, and doing damage, and doing it again, all in a big, honking threatened area.


The real problem is they could have solved this by giving the fighter some versatility. They could have easily gave the fighter something similar to the 4E 'Martial Practices'. Would a few non-combat tricks like that really have helped that much? Better than a +2 bonus to Athletics isn't hard, but actually /good/ would have to be a /lot/ better.


There are literally hundreds of things they could have done to make the fighter have the versatility it needed to move from tier 5/6 to tier 3 at least. They simply chose not to do that. Sure, like hundreds of powers in 4e. That didn't go over so well, though.


Basically they dropped the ball. Hopefully in 2 years when 6E comes out they will have learned their lesson. They'd have to start working on it now. 5e took almost 3 years from announcement to shelf.

[Easy_Lee]

Geoff, your tier list is done in the style of normal tiers like what you might see debated for smash bros. Tiers mean very different things when you start talking about D&D, particularly in regards to these forums.

A tier 1 character is one that can do literally anything imaginable. The only class with even close to this kind of power (that anyone's found yet) is high level wizards using the wish-simulacrum combination.

Everyone else is at best tier 2, meaning someone who is extremely powerful but only in one area, reduced to merely competent in situations not requiring that area of expertise. Warlock 2 / sorcerer X might fit this build depending on a lot of DM interpretation, since it consistently outputs high DPR in all currently-known situations.

Just read the tier descriptions that Lokaire posted on a previous page, which were reposted from the original thread.

[MeeposFire]

Geoff, your tier list is done in the style of normal tiers like what you might see debated for smash bros. Tiers mean very different things when you start talking about D&D, particularly in regards to these forums.

A tier 1 character is one that can do literally anything imaginable. The only class with even close to this kind of power (that anyone's found yet) is high level wizards using the wish-simulacrum combination.

Everyone else is at best tier 2, meaning someone who is extremely powerful but only in one area, reduced to merely competent in situations not requiring that area of expertise. Warlock 2 / sorcerer X might fit this build depending on a lot of DM interpretation, since it consistently outputs high DPR in all currently-known situations.

Just read the tier descriptions that Lokaire posted on a previous page, which were reposted from the original thread.

Personally I think this is a big error in judgement. Using the Tier listing for 3e on any other game is silly unless you are specifically trying to show how they rate compared to the other game rather than trying to rate it to its own game.

If you are going to bother making a tier listing for 5e then it should be based on what classifications of tiers make sense in context of 5e. As an example using the tier listing for 3e makes no sense for 4e because all the classes really fit into tiers 3-5 and if you have no tier 1s or 2s then the listing needs to be changed. Also the ways they define those tiers are not really as helpful as it could be because it was designed for the things that were issues in 3e not 4e. 5e tiers need to be defined to best fit where real power changes occur in 5e if they are going to be of real use.

I also happen to think that we don't know enough yet to actually make effective tiers in 5e with what limited info we have. Consider how long it took to even begin to understand tiers 3e that took a long time to figure out and people still argue about it.

[Demonicattorney]

The idea of a tier list is kind of stupid this time around. Spell-casting is substantially worse, mundane characters are substantially better. For example, the Wizard can climb with Spider-Climb, and stealth with Invisibility, however he cannot climb a wall while stealthed because of the new concentration mechanic, atleast not with anywhere near the same success as a Rogue.

Against most of the game's tougher creatures, Paladins and Fighters are the best combatants. Look at the amount of immunities and spell resistance that CR10+ enemies have. Like, casters have a hard time doing anything worthwhile against most of the Fiends, and can routinely be killed in a single round if they eat a full attack. Wizards, Sorcs, and even Warlocks are fragile. AC 17-18 is a good way to die when creatures can have attacks of +13-+15.

Remember that the game is played against the MM, not against other players. Charm, Illusions, Fire Damage, are all weak against a substantial portion of the game's monsters. Look at how many creatures have truesight or blindsight, or see invisibility, its more than a few.
The most versatile class in the game is the Bard, it comes closest to being able to solve a ton of problems a number of different ways AKA being Tier 1.5. It has good hit dice, can have decent armor, or the best skill selection in the game.

I am just looking at these lists and all I see is 3.5 thinking. It doesn't work like that. Casters die in high level combat-often. Defensive abilities like Paladin auras are a big freakin deal. Your Fighter have +6 AC and 80 more HP than your Wizard is a big deal. Casters don't have the same repetoire of spells they did in 3.5, and most of the spells they do have are substantially weakened. However, when your fighting a Marileth or Pit Fiend, I'd much rather be the Paladin than the Wizard in this edition.

[AmbientRaven]

What is it that makes cleric tier 1? I have only ever seen one played as a heal bot in most campaigns

[Daishain]

What is it that makes cleric tier 1? I have only ever seen one played as a heal bot in most campaigns
Then you haven't seen them played at anywhere near their full potential, and should probably stop pressuring people into playing the ineffective and boring heal bot role, (or tell others to stop as the case may be) a cleric can indeed be an effective healer, but that doesn't have to come at the expense of everything else they can do. (also, for levels 2-8, a paladin is actually more effective at the healer role if they choose to use it)

Simply put, the easy access to L9 spells alone puts them at a high tier level. They can have significantly more spells prepared than the wizard (via domain), and do not have to seek out new spells to expand their repertoire. The fact that they can hold their own in melee combat unlike nearly every other full spellcaster is a nice bonus.

Frankly, the only thing keeping them from clearly being the highest ranked class of all is the fact that their spells are on the whole not quite as versatile as that of the wizard.

That stated, they have taken a serious nerf in this edition by comparison to 3.x. Gone are the days of clerics simultaneously being a full spellcaster and the best melee unit available. Seriously, with the right buffs, a single cleric could at one point replace any combat role you could name, and probably do the job significantly better than those specialized for it.

[andhaira]

Wow guys, it appears many people making lists have not actually played or at least seen the Paladin in action.

Paladin is Tier 1, no doubt about it. The only level the Paladin is lower than Tier 1 is level 1, and that's it. Once Paladin spellcasting and divine smite kick in, he gets a major boost. The auras are just cream on top.

[Lokiare]

Opinions that say the tier list are only for 3.x don't take into account that the tier list is defined in such a way it can literally be applied to anything.

You can apply tier lists to any edition of D&D.

You can apply tier lists to any game that has different mechanics for different characters.

In fact you can apply the tier list to just about any video game that has multiple characters to choose from or create.

In other words the tier list is a generalized list of rankings between the different power levels of characters and it works well in 5E.

At low levels its possible that some classes aren't tier 1 yet. However the definition is that they can do everything that other characters can do often times better. Not that they can do anything in the game. They don't even have to do everything all at the same time. They just have to be able to do it.

So yes most casters are tier one beyond a couple levels.

Level 1 fighter can deal X amount of damage.
Level 1 Bard/Cleric/Wizard can deal X-5 amount of damage. Yep, they can deal nearly as much damage as the fighter.
etc...etc...

Repeat that with everything each of the classes can do and you'll see quite clearly that most casters are tier 1.

[MaxWilson]

Then you haven't seen them played at anywhere near their full potential, and should probably stop pressuring people into playing the ineffective and boring heal bot role, (or tell others to stop as the case may be) a cleric can indeed be an effective healer, but that doesn't have to come at the expense of everything else they can do. (also, for levels 2-8, a paladin is actually more effective at the healer role if they choose to use it)

Simply put, the easy access to L9 spells alone puts them at a high tier level. They can have significantly more spells prepared than the wizard (via domain), and do not have to seek out new spells to expand their repertoire. The fact that they can hold their own in melee combat unlike nearly every other full spellcaster is a nice bonus.

I understand why cleric was Tier 1 in previous editions--but the Concentration nerf to buff spells in 5E hit them hard. It appears to me that Druids and Wizards are both far superior to clerics in 5E due to more/better utility/instantaneous spells and especially the Conjure Animal/Fey/Minor Elemental series. It's still nice to have some cleric buffs around (e.g. Bless) but a Paladin can do that just as easily and also contribute more effectively in melee due to Extra Attack.

[Cambrian]

Opinions that say the tier list are only for 3.x don't take into account that the tier list is defined in such a way it can literally be applied to anything.Correct, but 5 =/= 3e, and it is erroneous to assume the tiers are the same.


You can apply tier lists to any edition of D&D.

You can apply tier lists to any game that has different mechanics for different characters.

In fact you can apply the tier list to just about any video game that has multiple characters to choose from or create.Sure, you can rank anything, but, given most play experience I've seen (especially where magic was applied properly) there appears to no compatibility with the 3.Xe tiers. This is not a fighting game-- characters do not face off against eachother, but as work a team. If you continue to assume it's one character versus another, or that the tiers of 3.Xe are still relevant, then you will continue to critique a game that is not D&D 5e.

[charcoalninja]

Correct, but 5 =/= 3e, and it is erroneous to assume the tiers are the same.

Sure, you can rank anything, but, given most play experience I've seen (especially where magic was applied properly) there appears to no compatibility with the 3.Xe tiers. This is not a fighting game-- characters do not face off against eachother, but as work a team. If you continue to assume it's one character versus another, or that the tiers of 3.Xe are still relevant, then you will continue to critique a game that is not D&D 5e.

The teir list is a way of showing how capable your team is going to be. A team of mundanes isn't going to be nearly the force a team of spellcasters is. The scope of adventures and obsticles a team of Wizard, Warlock, Bard, Druid for example can tackle is leaps and bounds beyond what a Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Barbarian can.

That's why the teir list is still relevant.

[Anubis Dread]

The teir list is a way of showing how capable your team is going to be. A team of mundanes isn't going to be nearly the force a team of spellcasters is. The scope of adventures and obsticles a team of Wizard, Warlock, Bard, Druid for example can tackle is leaps and bounds beyond what a Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Barbarian can.

That's why the teir list is still relevant.

Honestly I kind of agree that the old 3.5 tier list isn't really all that applicable to 5e. I mean you could apply it, but the general consensus with the old tier list was 'make sure all the PCs are within two tiers of each other'. You could argue that there are still tier 1 casters, or that all casters are down to tier 2, or that Fighters are tier 3/4 now and so on, but the overall consensus seems to be that all the classes in the PHB would fall in that range if the 3.5 tier list was applied. So it's kind of redundant, since now all it says is 'it's okay to have a party with any combination of classes'.

[Gnomes2169]

The teir list is a way of showing how capable your team is going to be. A team of mundanes isn't going to be nearly the force a team of spellcasters is. The scope of adventures and obsticles a team of Wizard, Warlock, Bard, Druid for example can tackle is leaps and bounds beyond what a Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Barbarian can.

That's why the teir list is still relevant.

I haven't actually seen much of this in play. Really, the only situation a caster is 100% necessary is when you need the entire party to be flying... and even then, if your DM is locking a quest behind that, then they will offer a mundane party the ability to get there without necessitating that the party has casters. Will it maybe be a bit harder to fight through higher-than-your-CR encounters than it would be for a party of full casters? Actually... no, not really. The way magic has been neutered, how few options casters have the early-mid game (and even the majority of the late game) compared to previous systems, the general resilience of monsters of the proper CR and just how much fewer options a caster will be able to prepare day-to-day (the loss of the ability to prepare a spell per slot massivelyreduced the number of spells a prepared caster can have readied at a time, which is not counterbalanced by their pseudo-spontaneous casting (Compare 25 spells per day (lvl 20 wizard with 20 int) to the 90-110 spells per day in 3.5 with a high-int wizard+ring of wizardry+other items+A PrC... and these are both the extreme levels of high-op without dipping into another base class.)), Casters just don't have the ability to overrun encounters all day every day anymore.

Meanwhile, despite not having spells, mundane characters have not had their options or effectiveness reduced from a 1e/2e/3.5 perspective. I will not count 4e characters in this, because all of them are basically magic and pseudo-exhalted characters, and they don't have a direct comparison to the other editions. In fact 5e mundanes are given more assistance with their out and in combat capabilities. The backgrounds tool, while helpful for casters as well, grants extra skills and a typically no-fail or normally inaccessible background feature. The first bit helps with, obviously, skill checks of a certain field. The second one lets the mundane classes function with a sense of independence, giving them the power to shape the story in some way and potentially giving them allies or actions with far-reaching consequences. In combat, they are powerful and durable, able to outlast monsters with raw damage potential combined with their higher hit points, and a party of four mundanes can pretty much mow down anything of appropriate CR in a round or two, and the loss of casters, while they do help with healing and locking down particularly dangerous critters, will not stop them from roflstomping their way through dangerous situations if the players have even the slightest bit of intelligence in their play style. They will handle them in a mundane way, but even that can overcome magical problems within the D&D universe. Obtaining a magical artifact can be done by actually retrieving the magical artifact instead of by figuring out what the artifact does with magic and then "cheating" your way into having the artifact without going on the quest to get it.

Off topic, I've found that solving things in a more mundane way actually tends to make an adventure feel more... heroic. To the point were magic feels more like a crutch to me, or even just a tool to help with the mundane method. "Doing magic to it" has killed the drama in so many campaigns that every time I see it happen, I have to groan a bit, and wonder if some of my fellow players have read epic-level fantasy. Bloody munchkins. :smalltongue:

Anyway, just categorically stating that casters will always (in every situation) be the better choice is in no way true in this edition. There are problems/ enemies that casters cannot handle (Rakshasa, anyone?) and many of their roles can be covered by a "mundane" class or by "mundane" means. Need a healer? Medicine skill and short rests. Minionmancy? Hire people. They can even obey your commands without needing to be 60' away from you! AOE damage? Use the environment in clever ways... or siege machines when they come out. Basically, play smart or even just play to your strengths, and the only thing you'll really need magic for is reliable flight... which you can get from an item or artifact. ((No, I do not consider flying creatures to be reliable flight. They die too easily, and tend to be rare... or dragons, and then they tend to refuse to be ridden because they're mother effin' dragons, why should they be your taxi outside of dragonlance? :smalltongue:)) Mundane classes are capable, they are reliable and they can overcome challenges on their own, they don't need "papa wizard, mama cleric and creepy cousin psion" hanging over their shoulder and solving all of their problems for them.

"My babies are all grown up." *Sniff*

[Demonicattorney]

The teir list is a way of showing how capable your team is going to be. A team of mundanes isn't going to be nearly the force a team of spellcasters is. The scope of adventures and obsticles a team of Wizard, Warlock, Bard, Druid for example can tackle is leaps and bounds beyond what a Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Barbarian can.

That's why the teir list is still relevant.

The point is the tiers used to mean something, but tier 1 and arguably tier 2 would be completely unoccupied. Nearly all of the classes would be lumped into tier 3 or 4, and so the entire tier system becomes useless as a descriptor.

Moreover, people are applying the same ranking of classes as though its 3.5, even though virtually everyone who has played the game for any significant amount says that its not the case (outside of contagion and mb animate object, both of which are poorly written).

For example, most people are placing Paladins as tier 3, anyone that has played one in high-level play knows they are the nuts, the stone-cold killers of this game, because the game is played against the monster manual. Saves matter, AC mattes, HP matters, doing Radiant damage is almost always does good damage, fire, cold and poison are the most commonly resisted types.

Casters are weaker than in 3.5 , they have to choose between defense and offense, they don't get to have both at once. You can say that Wizards are tier 1 or Tier 2, but they really don't have any good solutions to a Pit Fiend or a Goristo, or even most Golems, heck they run the risk of being killed before they even act by any of those creatures. Your level 17 caster is even money to be one shot by an Ancient Red Dragons breath weapon, unless you use your conc on Protection from Energy, but than its physical attacks can kill you in one turn because you dont have stoneskin. . . start to see the problem?

[FoxDropz]

Wow guys, it appears many people making lists have not actually played or at least seen the Paladin in action.

Paladin is Tier 1, no doubt about it. The only level the Paladin is lower than Tier 1 is level 1, and that's it. Once Paladin spellcasting and divine smite kick in, he gets a major boost. The auras are just cream on top.

Tell us more about your experience with paladins!

[Easy_Lee]

Personally I think this is a big error in judgement. Using the Tier listing for 3e on any other game is silly unless you are specifically trying to show how they rate compared to the other game rather than trying to rate it to its own game.

If you are going to bother making a tier listing for 5e then it should be based on what classifications of tiers make sense in context of 5e. As an example using the tier listing for 3e makes no sense for 4e because all the classes really fit into tiers 3-5 and if you have no tier 1s or 2s then the listing needs to be changed. Also the ways they define those tiers are not really as helpful as it could be because it was designed for the things that were issues in 3e not 4e. 5e tiers need to be defined to best fit where real power changes occur in 5e if they are going to be of real use.

I also happen to think that we don't know enough yet to actually make effective tiers in 5e with what limited info we have. Consider how long it took to even begin to understand tiers 3e that took a long time to figure out and people still argue about it.

It's not so much that it took a long time to understand 3e as that the splatbooks kept changing things. Given core alone, it was clear in 3.5 that wizards were much stronger, mechanically, than fighters.

I tend to agree that 3.5's tiers don't make sense outside 3.5. However, I question whether tiers make sense at all for 5e. The reasoning behind tiers in 3.5 was to make sure that everyone in a given party was able to contribute. You wouldn't want a tier 2 in a party with a bunch of tier 4-5's. Is this really needed in 5e?

In 5e, everyone can contribute so it's hard to step on other players' toes. Everyone has proficient skills and hopefully at least one near-max stat, so characters don't find themselves in situations where they can do nothing. It takes deliberate effort for one character to totally outshine another and render it unable to contribute. 5e was setup to make sure that didn't happen. No matter how crappy one designs their character, the character is still one more body acting within the bounded-accuracy system.

Basically, I don't think we really need tiers. If you want to talk about which characters are useful in a wider variety of situations vs. who's pigeonholed, it'll always be casters > mundanes just because of the nature of magic. I'm not sure that any more needs to be said.

[Daishain]

Wow guys, it appears many people making lists have not actually played or at least seen the Paladin in action.

Paladin is Tier 1, no doubt about it. The only level the Paladin is lower than Tier 1 is level 1, and that's it. Once Paladin spellcasting and divine smite kick in, he gets a major boost. The auras are just cream on top.
I don't think you quite understand what the tiers are defined by. It is not a matter of simple power.

A Tier 1 class is one capable of (with sufficient preparation) tackling pretty much any job they set their minds to, often with greater efficacy than the classes that are specialized to the job at hand. It is actually somewhat debatable whether or not 5E actually has ANY Tier 1 classes at present, given the hard nerf full spellcasters were hit with.

Paladins are good at three things. They are is roughly on par with specialist melee fighters, if a little bit behind some specific cases. They are good healers, but behind clerics and druids in that category. And a little bit ahead of other classes in terms of easy buffing ability (only in some respects, and only due to the BS concentration rules they introduced for spells) That is however the full extent of their capabilities, and there are plenty of jobs that they can't touch at all.

This places it solidly into the Tier 3 category, possibly nudging up to a very low Tier 2. But it is nowhere near a Tier 1.

This edition looks like it might prompt a redefining of the tier system, and under those new definitions, the paladin may or may not qualify for the new tier 1. But that has yet to occur.

[Cambrian]

I don't think you quite understand what the tiers are defined by. It is not a matter of simple power.

A Tier 1 class is one capable of (with sufficient preparation) tackling pretty much any job they set their minds to, often with greater efficacy than the classes that are specialized to the job at hand. It is actually somewhat debatable whether or not 5E actually has ANY Tier 1 classes at present, given the hard nerf full spellcasters were hit with.The sort of amazingly powerful high level spells allow a wizard to do most of the single powerful things as before (like teleport and planeshift) still exist. But between nonscaling slots, less slots, rewrote spells, less magic items, and concentration they can no longer outclass everyone; infact in many ways their ability to emulate classes often is worse and limited by spell slots. This is especially true in combat where defense, offense, and utility have to be chosen between rather than being capable of all three at once.

It puts us in a strange place of not knowing what to make of 5e. Casters still have campaign warping abilities (not as warping as some seem to think if held to the stated limitations) but in combat they are probably less capable than many.


This edition looks like it might prompt a redefining of the tier system, and under those new definitions, the paladin may or may not qualify for the new tier 1. But that has yet to occur.I very much agree with this statement.

[Ashrym]

The teir list is a way of showing how capable your team is going to be. A team of mundanes isn't going to be nearly the force a team of spellcasters is. The scope of adventures and obsticles a team of Wizard, Warlock, Bard, Druid for example can tackle is leaps and bounds beyond what a Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Barbarian can.

That's why the teir list is still relevant.

Except a group with a fighter, ranger, rogue, and barbarian can tackle things in leaps and bounds beyond what a wizard, warlock, bard, and druid can on that same token because of the much higher concentrated damage available and lower reliance on shared finite resources.

[MaxWilson]

There are problems/ enemies that casters cannot handle (Rakshasa, anyone?) and many of their roles can be covered by a "mundane" class or by "mundane" means. Need a healer? Medicine skill and short rests. Minionmancy? Hire people. They can even obey your commands without needing to be 60' away from you!

While I approve of this strategy, it should be noted that magic does make the logistics much easier. Next time you run across a tribe of lizardmen or orcs, instead of killing them for pitiful XP consider hiring them (on retainer). "200 gp to borrow 12 of my warriors for an hour? Sure!" Then when your advance scout spots a party of drow priestesses, you message the leader via Sending and have him line all his guys up at the oak tree for Transport Via Plants. With 3x as many bodies the drow will have a much tougher time putting you down with Save or Be Paralyzed poisons, and the orcs are unlikely to betray you because if they do they can't get home. (They could anyway, because they're chaotic evil, but they probably won't, and you can take precautions.) If you lose some orc warriors the chieftain probably doesn't even care as long as he gets paid.

Basically 5E rewards you for playing Praetorian Guard: instead of smashing the enemy directly (and maybe taking casualties), you hire auxiliaries to do the bulk of the work. As long as you can kill the auxiliaries they will keep working for you, and you minimize your own risk of permanent injury.

[Shining Wrath]

In 5e, one high-tier class can defeat someone in a low-tier class. But they can't defeat two characters from low-tier classes.

One Wizard does not defeat two Beastmaster Rangers in 5e. He may teleport away to fight another day, but he'll leave the field to the Beastie Boys.

Compare 3.5 Wizard versus two Fighters.

[MaxWilson]

One Wizard does not defeat two Beastmaster Rangers in 5e. He may teleport away to fight another day, but he'll leave the field to the Beastie Boys.

Split Enchantment + Dominate Person. Depends on how the dice roll but quite plausible.

[Geoff]

Geoff, your tier list is done in the style of normal tiers like what you might see debated for smash bros. Tiers mean very different things when you start talking about D&D, particularly in regards to these forums.

A tier 1 character is one that can do literally anything imaginable. The only class with even close to this kind of power (that anyone's found yet) is high level wizards using the wish-simulacrum combination. Not my list, but OK. To me, it looks like it's just spellcasting ability, and what you say doesn't change that much. So Wizard is Tier 1 because wish, and Cleric 2 because he doesn't get the comparable 'Miracle' anymore? It comes down to /one/ spell?


Everyone else is at best tier 2, meaning someone who is extremely powerful but only in one area, reduced to merely competent in situations not requiring that area of expertise. Sure any caster who can prep a different set of spells each day is powerful in more than one area? That'd bump the Cleric and Druid back up to tier 1, no?

Warlock and Sorcerer can't casual change their known spells that way, though they could still have quite a range of known spells.



Just read the tier descriptions that Lokaire posted on a previous page, which were reposted from the original thread. I saw them.

The Tier System

Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played with skill, can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

Examples: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Archivist, Artificer, Erudite (Spell to Power Variant)

Tier 2: Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes. Still potentially campaign smashers by using the right abilities, but at the same time are more predictable and can't always have the right tool for the job. If the Tier 1 classes are countries with 10,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, these guys are countries with 10 nukes. Still dangerous and easily world shattering, but not in quite so many ways. Note that the Tier 2 classes are often less flexible than Tier 3 classes... it's just that their incredible potential power overwhelms their lack in flexibility.

Examples: Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Psion, Binder (with access to online vestiges), Eurdite (No Spell to Power)

Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Can be game breaking only with specific intent to do so. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.

Examples: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psychic Warrior

Tier 4: Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competance without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribute to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well.

Examples: Rogue, Barbarian, Warlock, Warmage, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshal, Fighter (Zhentarium Variant)

Tier 5: Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the encounter matches their strengths. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly.

Examples: Fighter, Monk, CA Ninja, Healer, Swashbuckler, Rokugan Ninja, Soulknife, Expert, OA Samurai, Paladin, Knight, CW Samurai (with Imperious Command available)

Tier 6: Not even capable of shining in their own area of expertise. DMs will need to work hard to make encounters that this sort of character can contribute in with their mechanical abilities. Will often feel worthless unless the character is seriously powergamed beyond belief, and even then won't be terribly impressive. Needs to fight enemies of lower than normal CR. Class is often completely unsynergized or with almost no abilities of merit. Avoid allowing PCs to play these characters.

Examples: CW Samurai (without Imperious Command available), Aristocrat, Warrior, Commoner


I guess I can see how they do overly favor casters. Casters that can prep spells have a lot of versatility from day to day, as well as a lot of power from the one-shot/high-impact grenade nature of spells. Casters who just have a static list of known spells have the power, not the versatility. Sounds like Tier 1 vs Tier 2.

But it also sounds like its designed to 'force' casters into high Tiers and devalue what non-casters could do, even in 3.5, where it originated, as well as in 5e. So the 3.5 chargemonkey or 5e fighter can only do high DPR? High DPR ends fights quickly. Sounds like doing one thing well.

That said, if we're comparing 3.5 to 5e on the basis of class tiers, it would only make sense to use the same definitions, prejudicial though they may be.

[Shining Wrath]

Split Enchantment + Dominate Person. Depends on how the dice roll but quite plausible.

Duration: concentration with both Rangers getting a new save each round. While the Wizard is trying to kill two melees with cantrips (or a dagger), people with good Wisdom scores are trying to break free.

Given DC 19 for the Wizard (8 + 5 from Int + 6 proficiency), against +2 (only a middling Wis) for the Rangers, that's still a 20% chance of success for the Rangers, each round. After 3 rounds each ranger has a 50-50 chance of being undominated. And the minute a Ranger breaks free the Wizard takes a lot of damage very quickly.

[Anubis Dread]

Duration: concentration with both Rangers getting a new save each round. While the Wizard is trying to kill two melees with cantrips (or a dagger), people with good Wisdom scores are trying to break free.

Given DC 19 for the Wizard (8 + 5 from Int + 6 proficiency), against +2 (only a middling Wis) for the Rangers, that's still a 20% chance of success for the Rangers, each round. After 3 rounds each ranger has a 50-50 chance of being undominated. And the minute a Ranger breaks free the Wizard takes a lot of damage very quickly.

What's more, this is just with Rangers in particular. If it were a Fighter, Paladin or Rogue it would be even worse, as those have even more ways to pass a save. And that's even ignoring that 'elf ranger' is the most popular race/class combination in existence, and elves get bunches of anti-charm goodies.

[Lokiare]

The only relavent point I've seen made is if all the classes fall within a certain range then the tier list may not be needed. The other points are just repeating things that have already been refuted.

Redefining the tier list would be pointless if the current one doesn't work. If all the classes are relatively equal then ranking has no purpose.

Because casters can do what other classes can do and sometimes do it better. That's Literally all that's needed to qualify for tier 1. It doesn't matter if they can't do it at the same time or they can't do it all day (hint: they can past 3rd level). It's the fact that they can trivialize the contributions of other classes. It's also the fact that it's difficult to challenge them and other classes at the same time, leading to the side kick/ janitor syndrome.

[Easy_Lee]

I think it makes the most sense to just redefine the tiers, if they're needed, since 3.5's no longer make sense. No wizard is going to out-melee the champion fighter, or out-sneak a shadow monk, and certainly no single build can even attempt both, so I don't think God-mode tier 1 applies anymore.

That said, the things conjurerer wizards can do are potentially game-breaking in the right hands. And a rogue/shadow monk hybrid is basically undetectable, producing a very different kind of campaign.

In light of that, I propose that we define tiers in terms of the role a character wants to fill, with certain baseline numbers to meet.

A character able to fill many roles with a high degree of competency could be considered tier 1. Conjurers and moon druids come to mind.

Tier 2 would be high competency in just one role. GWF Barbarians are an obvious choice, very high damage and not much else.

Tier 3 would fail to achieve high competency in any role, but have moderate competency in many. Some versions of half elf bards would fit here, and likely some blade pact warlocks and eldritch knight fighters.

Tier 4 would be moderate or low competency in only one area. Someone trying to max all skills and failing to be good at anything would fit here. I'm unsure if beasmaster rangers would qualify.

[Shining Wrath]

I think it makes the most sense to just redefine the tiers, if they're needed, since 3.5's no longer make sense. No wizard is going to out-melee the champion fighter, or out-sneak a shadow monk, and certainly no single build can even attempt both, so I don't think God-mode tier 1 applies anymore.

That said, the things conjurerer wizards can do are potentially game-breaking in the right hands. And a rogue/shadow monk hybrid is basically undetectable, producing a very different kind of campaign.

In light of that, I propose that we define tiers in terms of the role a character wants to fill, with certain baseline numbers to meet.

A character able to fill many roles with a high degree of competency could be considered tier 1. Conjurers and moon druids come to mind.

Tier 2 would be high competency in just one role. GWF Barbarians are an obvious choice, very high damage and not much else.

Tier 3 would fail to achieve high competency in any role, but have moderate competency in many. Some versions of half elf bards would fit here, and likely some blade pact warlocks and eldritch knight fighters.

Tier 4 would be moderate or low competency in only one area. Someone trying to max all skills and failing to be good at anything would fit here. I'm unsure if beasmaster rangers would qualify.

OK, here's a thought: create a benchmark test as is done with new computer chips. That is, don't just look at one problem; try to come up with a reasonably representative set of D&D encounters, both combat and non-combat.

Builds could then be evaluated against the benchmark. More points would be scored for solving an encounter without using a finite resource; e.g., picking a lock is better than Knock, even setting aside the noise factor, because the wizard may need that spell slot later. Using something that recharges on a short rest is better than using something that recharges on a long rest.

So if the character trivializes the encounter award 10 points. If they contribute lots, 7 points. If they contribute the same as a typical party member, 5. If they barely contribute, 2.
If they make this contribution using a "free" ability or feature or cantrip, multiply by 2. If they do it using a short rest feature or low-level spell, multiply by 1.5.

Designing a fair benchmark suite is of course the hard part.

[archaeo]

Because casters can do what other classes can do and sometimes do it better. That's Literally all that's needed to qualify for tier 1. It doesn't matter if they can't do it at the same time or they can't do it all day (hint: they can past 3rd level). It's the fact that they can trivialize the contributions of other classes. It's also the fact that it's difficult to challenge them and other classes at the same time, leading to the side kick/ janitor syndrome.


Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played with skill, can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

Absolutely none of these things are true in 5e. A Wizard, Bard, Cleric, or Druid can not do "absolutely everything" on any given adventuring day, certainly not with "little thought from the player." The "world changing powers" are incredibly limited. They are not "very hard to challenge," require relatively little "DM fiat," and play nicely with other PCs. And they can't do it all day if you follow the advised "6-8 encounters of medium and hard difficulty," especially if there's stuff in between those encounters.


If all the classes are relatively equal then ranking has no purpose.

Welcome to 5e!

[Giddonihah]

Do we need to have just one tier list? I kinda prefer Role based Tier lists like in LoL where the tiers are: Top,Mid,AD Bot, Jungle, Support. Course not the same categories, but perhaps something like Support, Disabler, Damage Sponge, Damage Dealer, Utility. With classes being able to be different tiers in different categories.

[Easy_Lee]

Do we need to have just one tier list? I kinda prefer Role based Tier lists like in LoL where the tiers are: Top,Mid,AD Bot, Jungle, Support. Course not the same categories, but perhaps something like Support, Disabler, Damage Sponge, Damage Dealer, Utility. With classes being able to be different tiers in different categories.

That was my general idea, though I also like the thought of using benchmarks.

[Shining Wrath]

That was my general idea, though I also like the thought of using benchmarks.

Benchmarks would tease out roles pretty quickly if you categorize the ways in which a build solved various encounters, e.g., Barbarians would tend to shine in situations where hitting things repeatedly with an axe was a good solution, but probably do less well in social encounters.

Given the importance of backgrounds, you're really going to have to do this by build, not by class; a Barbarian with a Noble background will benchmark differently than one with a Sailor background.

[Easy_Lee]

Given the importance of backgrounds, you're really going to have to do this by build, not by class; a Barbarian with a Noble background will benchmark differently than one with a Sailor background.

Agreed, that's why I used the word "character" rather than class.

Edit: if scoring characters for benchmarks, I think it's also important to consider whether a character needs to roll. Rolling poorly is the bane of doing anything, and not needing to roll is very useful. That consideration puts expertise stealth rogues above other characters trying to sneak without expertise or a similar bonus (e.g. pass without trace).

[Gnomes2169]

Ehhh, ranking each class with a background seems a little too... Variable to be put into a ranking system (and way too much work, especially since you have to rank each and every class/ subclass/ background together). Additionally, your class will not typically be tied to a particular background. Though some backgrounds may fit a particular class, they are about as related to the particular class's features and effectiveness in a role as the character's race. And I don't think we want to start ranking classes by base class, subclass, background and race...

Instead, if we are going with the roles idea, then dividing which class is best at the particular roles, and then making separate sections for which backgrounds are useful for that role (since they will be suited for their particular roles regardless of which class takes them) and a third one for how compatable the races are as well seems like it would be the most optimal method to make the list.

Say for example you wanted to make the best tank to ever tank. You would go to the "tank" role and then find a dropdown that would hypothetically look like this:

1. Barbarian (Bear totem)
2. Paladin (Ancients)
3. Paladin (Devotion)
4. Etc

1. Hill Dwarf
2. Half-Orc
3. Mountain Dwarf
4. The crazier of the magic resistant gnomes, aka, etc

1. Soldier
2. Sailor
3. Outlander
4. Etc

Note: Instead of numbering, color coding and organizing by alphabetical order/ book appearance could also work.

Of course, class and race might not be 100% compatible or optimal when it comes to "the best at X" (see, half elf paladins make awesome tanks, but half elves themselves aren't the best tanks), and as such a little blurb explaining why each class/ race/ background is where it is would be a good thing to eventually add... But it would be easier/ more sane to order things like this instead of listing every race of every class (and subclass) and every background for every category in the same category. Being able to just mix and match from three lists and special exceptions in each list just feels like it would be more user friendly and easier to design.

[Easy_Lee]

We'd also need to break it down by level. Nobody tops moon druid DPR or beefiness 2-4, but they run out of strong shapeshift options at later levels.

[Geoff]

The only relavent point I've seen made is if all the classes fall within a certain range then the tier list may not be needed. The other points are just repeating things that have already been refuted.

Redefining the tier list would be pointless if the current one doesn't work. If all the classes are relatively equal then ranking has no purpose. Wouldn't it be nice to know where they ranked though, even if it were the case? Even in 4e, which had much tighter class balance than 5e and could conceivably make the "all one tier" claim, you could make a case for an under-supported class like the Seeker, or a no-dailies sub-class like the Knight, or a few-options class like the Vampire, being of a lower Tier.


Because casters can do what other classes can do and sometimes do it better. That's Literally all that's needed to qualify for tier 1. It doesn't matter if they can't do it at the same time or they can't do it all day (hint: they can past 3rd level). It's the fact that they can trivialize the contributions of other classes. It's also the fact that it's difficult to challenge them and other classes at the same time, leading to the side kick/ janitor syndrome. Only if they have the right spells available. A prepped caster might be able to do what /some/ other classes, even other casters, can do, if they have all the spells to do it on their lists. But, the spell lists aren't yet as huge as they were in 3.5, are they?

Also, isn't there /any/ way a non-caster could ever get into the top tiers? Or is the whole idea strictly spell-caster-appreciation?



Ehhh, ranking each class with a background seems a little too... Variable

And I don't think we want to start ranking classes by base class, subclass, background and race...
You could do each independently. Any class can have any background, so you could just have Background Tiers to complement class tiers.

Presumably Race, too.

[Shining Wrath]

Wouldn't it be nice to know where they ranked though, even if it were the case? Even in 4e, which had much tighter class balance than 5e and could conceivably make the "all one tier" claim, you could make a case for an under-supported class like the Seeker, or a no-dailies sub-class like the Knight, or a few-options class like the Vampire, being of a lower Tier.

Only if they have the right spells available. A prepped caster might be able to do what /some/ other classes, even other casters, can do, if they have all the spells to do it on their lists. But, the spell lists aren't yet as huge as they were in 3.5, are they?

Also, isn't there /any/ way a non-caster could ever get into the top tiers? Or is the whole idea strictly spell-caster-appreciation?


You could do each independently. Any class can have any background, so you could just have Background Tiers to complement class tiers.

Presumably Race, too.

I think some Backgrounds synergize better with some classes, though. The Cleric class guide, for example, contains a Background discussion.

[Geoff]

I think some Backgrounds synergize better with some classes, though. The Cleric class guide, for example, contains a Background discussion. Isn't part of the idea of Tiers, though, /not/ to worry about specific builds?

[Gnomes2169]

You could do each independently. Any class can have any background, so you could just have Background Tiers to complement class tiers.

Presumably Race, too.

Which, if you read the rest of my post, you would see is what I was proposing.

[Geoff]

Which, if you read the rest of my post, you would see is what I was proposing. Sorry, completely mis-understood what you were getting at, I saw "Tank," assumed ranked tank builds, and skipped it.

But Tiers aren't by Role, since 3.5 didn't have Roles, and neither does 5e. Why make em up? Also, the definition of Tier 1 would imply that a class can poach a variety of roles, somehow, even if indirectly - Tanking via a summoned monster or whatever, for instance.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

It's probably hard to rank roles, but you can rank some things.

survivability versus warriors
survivability versus mages
single target damage
aoe damage
sustainability
out of combat utility

For example, a low level moon druid probably has pretty good survivability versus mages, but less against warriors than you might think; piles of HP with low AC can melt away.

Any form of multiattack is single target damage, AoE damage only comes from radius effects.

[Gnomes2169]

Sorry, completely mis-understood what you were getting at, I saw "Tank," assumed ranked tank builds, and skipped it.

But Tiers aren't by Role, since 3.5 didn't have Roles, and neither does 5e. Why make em up? Also, the definition of Tier 1 would imply that a class can poach a variety of roles, somehow, even if indirectly - Tanking via a summoned monster or whatever, for instance.

Officially, 3.5 also didn't have tiers. In fact, class tiers are 100% player constructs based on the perceived potential differences between differing classes played at the same level of optimization. The tiers are based on the 3.5 system, and their scaling as such is off for a 5e ranking system. To pin down the largest problem, there is no tier 1 class in 5e according to the 3.5 system. One class cannot pull off every possible role all day, every day. One class will not have all the answers to every possible situation every single day, and the solutions they have often cannot be used simultaneously due to the concentration mechanic. Arguably, tier 2 is only obtainable through one incredibly late game build that no sane DM would allow (via wish+simmulicrum abuse). On the other end of the spectrum, no class is so worthless that they fit tier 5 or 6 (though the Beastmaster comes close to tier 5, it has a very solid niche for its melee dpr, which through the use of spells and the general glass-cannony nature of the animal companion, is shockingly high (until the derpy companion dies)).

So if tier 1, 5 and 6 don't exist at all, and tier 2 can only be obtained in a single consistent way, then how do we use the tier system from 3.5 to judge 5e? The answer is... We really can't. The 3.5 tier system really doesn't have a point when everyone is within 1, maybe 2 tiers of one another, and the sheer variability of a character's race/ subrace, class/ subclass and background really do defy any tiers we might give them.

However, one thing does stand out between classes when we compare their potential... And that is the way each class fits and competes in a certain role (or roles). In the tank example, there is literally no way a wizard or other solitary caster can compete with a Paladin, especially not with a Paladin of the Ancients. Their spells, auras and channeled divinity options are either geared towards preventing damage/ effects from happening in the first place, or they remove the effects/ destroy the creature that might apply them before they can take effect (qualifying paladins for the healer and the melee DPS roles as well).

Certain classes fit more roles (the cleric is a good healer (potentially the best bar none with the Life domain), good buffer (about the same as the Abjuration wizard) a summoner, a protector, a melee soldier (better with the war, life or tempest domain), a controller (better with tempest/ light) and a magical striker (better with the Light domain). However, they are only really the best at healing and party-wide buffing, where they are leaps and bounds ahead of the competition (the closest contestants are the Druid (for healing) and the abjuration wizard (for party-wide buffing). Neither of them can fulfill both rolls as well as a cleric, leaving the god worshiping heretic (...wait...) on top of that particular niche)). However, no class will be adequate in all roles, which promotes class variety.

The most powerful classes will obviously hit the top as far as the number of categories they are good at (See; Cleric. Wizard will be in most every category as well), but they likely will not top every role they are strong in. This is okay, as no class needs to be the best at everything (in fact, it's actually detrimental to have a class that does everything all the time in a team based game like D&D). Not all roles are created equal and YMMV, of course, but typically a class at the top tier of a role does not have to worry too much about becoming invalidated by someone in a pointy hat who spends basically no resources on being better, and then is better because 4 spells are better than an entire class.

Along the same line of thought, Backgrounds and races seem to be geared towards specific roles, and combining them with the right class is generally a good recipe for a powerful character. Some exceptions exist of course (Dragonborn, Teiflings and Half Elves typically are not seen as the most tanky, but make awesome paladins), but for the most part taking a top of its role class with the corresponding top tier race will be very, very potent.

Where the 3.5 mechanic was party balance to make sure everyone has fun and no one feels left out, the 5e system proposed here would be more of an optimization aid, helpful for new and veteran players alike when it comes to making classes and filling in team roles. Hopefully, it would be a bit less controversial because of it... :smalltongue:

[Geoff]

The tiers are based on the 3.5 system, and their scaling as such is off for a 5e ranking system. The definitions really are system independent, though. There's barely a mechanic mentioned in the definitions, let alone an edition-dependent one.


To pin down the largest problem, there is no tier 1 class in 5e according to the 3.5 system. One class cannot pull off every possible role all day, every day. The definition of Tier 1 doesn't reference the concept of Roles, at all. Just the ability to do what any/every other class can do, sometimes even better than the 'specialists' in that thing. So it's relative to the edition, system or competing classes. You can be less overpowered than a 3.5 high-tier class, but still fill the same tier in a different game.

I don't think you can say with certainty that no 5e class can fit definition. Any prepped caster has the potential, for instance, since they can optimize their spell prep every day for whatever it is they need that day. Even if you decide the current spell lists don't quite put them there, future spells added to the game could put them over the top.

Hypothetically, for instance, think about a prepped caster class and a fixed-known-spell class that use the same spell list (IDK if there actually /are/ two classes like that in 5e, but even having many of the same spells or spells of similar power/utility would be enough). The prepped caster can 'do anything' the other class can by prepping the spells the other guy knows. The limited-spells-known class casts the same spells that are just as powerful, but lacks the ability to cast all of them at different times. That's the major difference between a Tier 1 wizard vs a Tier 2 Sorcerer in 3.5, and it seems to more or less hold true in 5e. It might hold true on a lower scale of absolute power than in late 3.5 when power creep had produced many broken spells and combos, but that doesn't mean it's not there.


Along the same line of thought, Backgrounds and races seem to be geared towards specific roles, and combining them with the right class is generally a good recipe for a powerful character. Sure. There's plenty of room for specific builds that defy the Tier system for one of their components. A Champion might not be able to do much more than DPR, but with a Criminal Background he can pick locks. A Wizard with the Sage background is even more knowledgeable. Sure.

[Ashrym]

The definitions really are system independent, though. There's barely a mechanic mentioned in the definitions, let alone an edition-dependent one.

The definition of Tier 1 doesn't reference the concept of Roles, at all. Just the ability to do what any/every other class can do, sometimes even better than the 'specialists' in that thing. So it's relative to the edition, system or competing classes. You can be less overpowered than a 3.5 high-tier class, but still fill the same tier in a different game.

I don't think you can say with certainty that no 5e class can fit definition. Any prepped caster has the potential, for instance, since they can optimize their spell prep every day for whatever it is they need that day. Even if you decide the current spell lists don't quite put them there, future spells added to the game could put them over the top.

Hypothetically, for instance, think about a prepped caster class and a fixed-known-spell class that use the same spell list (IDK if there actually /are/ two classes like that in 5e, but even having many of the same spells or spells of similar power/utility would be enough). The prepped caster can 'do anything' the other class can by prepping the spells the other guy knows. The limited-spells-known class casts the same spells that are just as powerful, but lacks the ability to cast all of them at different times. That's the major difference between a Tier 1 wizard vs a Tier 2 Sorcerer in 3.5, and it seems to more or less hold true in 5e. It might hold true on a lower scale of absolute power than in late 3.5 when power creep had produced many broken spells and combos, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

Sure. There's plenty of room for specific builds that defy the Tier system for one of their components. A Champion might not be able to do much more than DPR, but with a Criminal Background he can pick locks. A Wizard with the Sage background is even more knowledgeable. Sure.

There isn't any one class does all, however, Geoff. Prepped casters don't do the damage that the damage classes do with the exception of meteor swarm once per day and thereby eliminating all other 9th level spells for that day. There are only 3 classes that can prep high level spells and swap them out, and only one of them has meteor swarm. Paladin and fighter burst damage gets obscene because of the fighter number of attacks, action surges, combat feats while paladins have very strong burst damage between divine strike, buffing spells, and smiting. 5e doesn't empower casters with high damage spells because those damage spells don't keep up. The opposite is happening -- combat classes overshadow focused burst damage of spell casters and can do it more often.

Future spells requires the assumption that they will exist, that they will break the current design philosphy, and that future feats and maneuvers won't do the same for other classes. A person cannot acknowledge future assumptions regarding spells and ignore future assumptions regarding feats simultaneously. The best approach in the comparison is to acknowledge things can change but use current spells et al because those do exist. What might happen some day is pure conjecture and has nothing to do with how classes actually compare.

Prepared casting gives customization options to tailor to the current day provided the caster knows what to expect, but requiring to take 24 hours off (because the limit is one long rest per 24 hour period) to take another long rest while everyone else can simply continue playing because they don't require the long rest doesn't strike me as particularly beneficial given that the events around the character continue to transpire during that time, and generally in response to the characters' actions. Long rests are normally paced by the DM and not necessarily a given.

Another point of contention is in that spell casters only need so many attack spells and concentration mechanics limit active spells regardless so how many spells does a caster actually need to be effective? It's easy enough to select a couple of combat spells, a defensive spell, and the rest buffing and utility as the caster levels and swap some out during leveling for improved effectiveness in the selection. I don't think that changing spells on a long rest is nearly as effective as metamagic can be, for example, even if the sorcerer is a more focused caster, and the sorcerer can rely on CHA skills more than the wizard by default due to caster stat. Wizards are more versatile in their spells, but less in their skills. Given than most utility spells duplicate skills but less effectively (bonus is better than advantage as classes level and bonuses increase when more slots do become available) it becomes more than a bit challenging to see those spells as skill replacements. Wizards, to continue with the example, are squishy, cannot heal worth a darn, generally don't replace skills more effectively, and are good at area and controlling effects. Changing their spell selection doesn't change what they are good at or not good at. They don't cover everything.

The champion that you mentioned also gets an ability called natural athelete that gives him half proficiency on STR, DEX, and CON checks. Those include things like survival checks and initiative. That means the champion who already has decent STR or DEX and CON can spend proficiency in other skills as well, rely on high natural ability score and half proficiency, and become very rounded in his skills available on top of huge damage. Spells that get a person from point A to point B don't stop a fighter from getting from point A to point B. Fighters can self heal with second wind, do a ton of damage, can use skill options, and can use bonus ABI's that wizards don't have for additional options. Being up by a healer feat and ritual caster feat and still have the same number left that a wizard starts with, for example.

Wizards are so far from tier anything it's odd that players still hold on to that opinion. There are some spiffy high level spells, but in general the shine moments aren't any better than other classes and they certainly don't cover it all in a group game. The closest thing to covering everything would be a valor bard, IMO.

[Cambrian]

Wizards are so far from tier anything it's odd that players still hold on to that opinion. There are some spiffy high level spells, but in general the shine moments aren't any better than other classes and they certainly don't cover it all in a group game. The closest thing to covering everything would be a valor bard, IMO.It's probably just the high level spells available to a wizard. What you've said is certainly true for what most games will look like. But in theory a wizard with plenty of time on their hands can orchestrate some rather ridiculously powerful things. Key word being in theory.

The main counterpoint, and it certainly is valid, is that wizard abuse essentially requires DM consent. The sorts of powers that only a wizard is privy to are also completely guarded by the DM-- without a 'magic-mart' high level spells can not just be expected to be easily accessible. Even if an organization has them they should be extremely selective in who they grant access to such knowledge. Beyond that most of these game breaking things people mention wizards are capable of require a lot of set up and can be countered.

As an example: If a player wants to play the "minionmancer" necromancer they should be easy to stop-- a single level 5 cleric can force a Wis save (skeletons get 1-, zombies -2) and on a fail destroy any skeletons or zombies with 30'. It also helps that in most settings any necromancer, no matter their intent, would attract unwanted attention of such individuals if they attempted to make an army of skeletons. Once the horde has been stopped the necromancer has few slots left thanks to blowing them all on keeping his horde operational.

There's other potential for abuse, but so long as you're reasonable enough to apply common sense the game is perfectly functional, well balanced, and a whole lot of fun.

[Shining Wrath]

It's probably just the high level spells available to a wizard. What you've said is certainly true for what most games will look like. But in theory a wizard with plenty of time on their hands can orchestrate some rather ridiculously powerful things. Key word being in theory.

The main counterpoint, and it certainly is valid, is that wizard abuse essentially requires DM consent. The sorts of powers that only a wizard is privy to are also completely guarded by the DM-- without a 'magic-mart' high level spells can not just be expected to be easily accessible. Even if an organization has them they should be extremely selective in who they grant access to such knowledge. Beyond that most of these game breaking things people mention wizards are capable of require a lot of set up and can be countered.

As an example: If a player wants to play the "minionmancer" necromancer they should be easy to stop-- a single level 5 cleric can force a Wis save (skeletons get 1-, zombies -2) and on a fail destroy any skeletons or zombies with 30'. It also helps that in most settings any necromancer, no matter their intent, would attract unwanted attention of such individuals if they attempted to make an army of skeletons. Once the horde has been stopped the necromancer has few slots left thanks to blowing them all on keeping his horde operational.

There's other potential for abuse, but so long as you're reasonable enough to apply common sense the game is perfectly functional, well balanced, and a whole lot of fun.

It's like the Wightpocalypse; a lot of these game breaking things assume the wizard exists in a vacuum and the rest of the world won't notice.

Create horde of undead, every deity with the Life domain notices; some care; some care enough to send the very best, e.g., a cleric or three with a few Paladins to help get the point across.

Start mass-producing armor using Fabricate, armorer's guild sends some coin over to the Assassin's guild - or the wizards who thought of the idea first 500 years before you were born show up and give you an offer you can't refuse about joining their "guild". Which has rather high application and membership fees.

Still not too sure the Simulacrum trick even works, as each new copy is supposed to be under the control of a previous copy - at the very least, you're now playing "Telephone" across a chain of copies with possible errors in transmission and 100% certainty of transmission delays.

[Easy_Lee]

It's like the Wightpocalypse; a lot of these game breaking things assume the wizard exists in a vacuum and the rest of the world won't notice.

Create horde of undead, every deity with the Life domain notices; some care; some care enough to send the very best, e.g., a cleric or three with a few Paladins to help get the point across.

Start mass-producing armor using Fabricate, armorer's guild sends some coin over to the Assassin's guild - or the wizards who thought of the idea first 500 years before you were born show up and give you an offer you can't refuse about joining their "guild". Which has rather high application and membership fees.

Still not too sure the Simulacrum trick even works, as each new copy is supposed to be under the control of a previous copy - at the very least, you're now playing "Telephone" across a chain of copies with possible errors in transmission and 100% certainty of transmission delays.

Those are all rather cruel ways of telling players they can't do what RAW says they can, IMO.

[Geoff]

There isn't any one class does all, however. Prepped casters don't do the damage that the damage classes do with the exception of meteor swarm once per day and thereby eliminating all other 9th level spells for that day. That's not what I've heard. There's another thread going claiming that DPR is mostly equivalent across class lines, and over on the WotC boards there were numbers for reasonably-equivalent archer vs caster DPR that came very close (not always in the archer's favor) depending on level.

All a prepped caster has to do to maximize his DPR is prep the optimal DPR spell for each level slot he can cast. So top-level, that'd be 9 or fewer damaging spells (since the optimal spell might be a lower-level one cast in a higher-level slot for some levels) prepped, plenty of room for lots more options.

And, since they prep but cast spontaneously, they can devote as many slots to damage - or to something else - as the day turns out to call for. That's /more/ flexibility than the Tier-1 prepped casters of 3.5, not less.

The bar for sheer power may be less in 5e than it was in 3.5, between bounded accuracy and numbers repression (the opposite of numbers porn, right) and lack of power creep, but that's just everyone being a little less crazy than they were, how the most flexible/powerful stack up against the least may not be that different.


Future spells requires the assumption that they will exist, that they will break the current design philosophy, and that future feats and maneuvers won't do the same for other classes. Well, that is how it's played out in all past editions over the last 40 years (even in 4e, which treated balance like some sort of sacred human right or something), but, sure, it could be different this time. I wouldn't bet a lot of money on it, but it could be.


Prepared casting gives customization options to tailor to the current day provided the caster knows what to expect, but requiring to take 24 hours off (because the limit is one long rest per 24 hour period) to take another long rest while everyone else can simply continue playing because they don't require the long rest doesn't strike me as particularly beneficial given that the events around the character continue to transpire during that time, and generally in response to the characters' actions. Long rests are normally paced by the DM and not necessarily a given. Not any more or less true now than it was when those classes were Tier 1 in 3.5, though. Those points were often brought up in discussions of how to challenge prepped casters. Don't telegraph the day's challenges, throw unexpected 'gotchyas' at them, create hard time limits to deny rests, etc. All that, still Tier 1.

And now they're prepping but casting spontaneously.



The champion that you mentioned also gets an ability called natural athelete that gives him half proficiency on STR, DEX, and CON checks. That he's not proficient in. So you suck less when you're untrained in things you really should be trained in. Yipee.

[Shining Wrath]

Those are all rather cruel ways of telling players they can't do what RAW says they can, IMO.

Really?

So the players can do what RAW allows them to do, but other wizards cannot, in the case of Fabricate? Maybe, instead, we just go New Tippyverse and just assume that anything that can be made by Fabricate is so cheap that you pay only transportation costs. Anything you can do, my NPCs can do, and you aren't the world's first wizard.

So the players can do what RAW allows them to do, but other wizards cannot, in the case of Animate Dead? Why is the world not divided into fiefs each ruled with a bony fist by a necromancer and his undead horde? Oh - maybe there would be a natural, logical response to such things by those who object to undead dictatorships, and you aren't the world's first wizard.

So the players get to create as many copies of themselves with Simulacrum as they like, but no other wizard has ever thought of that? Why is the entire world not filled with copies of Urgnatz the Narcissistic, 20th level wizard and chaotic evil egomaniac? Because there has to be some limit imposed by the DM on these shenanigans, and you aren't the world's first wizard.

Although a world populated almost entirely by copies of one crazy wizard would be fun place for the characters to visit after passing through a portal. It'd be like the scene in Being John Malcovich where John Malcovich passed through the portal into the mind of John Malcovich and everyone he saw looked like him and said only "Malcovich".

[TheDeadlyShoe]

There's a cool race in Endless Space made entirely of clones of a single eccentric wealthy guy who decided that he was the only beautiful thing in the universe and the universe needed to be filled with beauty. Horatio!

Would work well in DND!

[Easy_Lee]

Really?

So the players can do what RAW allows them to do, but other wizards cannot, in the case of Fabricate? Maybe, instead, we just go New Tippyverse and just assume that anything that can be made by Fabricate is so cheap that you pay only transportation costs. Anything you can do, my NPCs can do, and you aren't the world's first wizard.

So the players can do what RAW allows them to do, but other wizards cannot, in the case of Animate Dead? Why is the world not divided into fiefs each ruled with a bony fist by a necromancer and his undead horde? Oh - maybe there would be a natural, logical response to such things by those who object to undead dictatorships, and you aren't the world's first wizard.

So the players get to create as many copies of themselves with Simulacrum as they like, but no other wizard has ever thought of that? Why is the entire world not filled with copies of Urgnatz the Narcissistic, 20th level wizard and chaotic evil egomaniac? Because there has to be some limit imposed by the DM on these shenanigans, and you aren't the world's first wizard.

Although a world populated almost entirely by copies of one crazy wizard would be fun place for the characters to visit after passing through a portal. It'd be like the scene in Being John Malcovich where John Malcovich passed through the portal into the mind of John Malcovich and everyone he saw looked like him and said only "Malcovich".

Multiple sources explicitly state that powerful wizards are rare, and they're still limited by availability of spells. Presumably, one wizard in X knows of fabricate and can cast it. And who says powerful wizards don't fabricate whatever mundane gear they need? They live in towers for a reason, and presumably that reason is magical. And it's not like a single wizard can outfit an army, since it would take years for the typical wizard to have that many spell slots.

Wizards using undead for evil are a popular villain in D&D settings, particularly in FR where they're a constant hazard. Given that the most optimized wizard still can't summon and control enough of these to threaten more than a small town, I don't see the problem. It would take an evil artifact or an army of max-level wizards to threaten a kingdom with just undead hoards.

The Simulacrum-Wish thing seems like it's ripe for errata. If not, I can see a deity stepping in to stop it, particularly since it requires 9th-level casting.

On a more practical level, it's no fun for anyone but you when you say no to the players.

[Fwiffo86]

On a more practical level, it's no fun for anyone but you when you say no to the players.

I disagree. If I am in a game where zippy the similacrum wizard is monopolizing all of the game time because a single player has to make a series of "maintenance" decisions, I'm not having any fun. Saying NO to a single player is sometimes the only way the rest of the players get to have any fun. It's why DMs get to say it.

Fun of the many, greatly outweighs the fun of one.

[Easy_Lee]

I disagree. If I am in a game where zippy the similacrum wizard is monopolizing all of the game time because a single player has to make a series of "maintenance" decisions, I'm not having any fun. Saying NO to a single player is sometimes the only way the rest of the players get to have any fun. It's why DMs get to say it.

Fun of the many, greatly outweighs the fun of one.

If you're in a group with another player monopolizing the group, just kick him out or kill his character. It's not that hard to do...

[TheDeadlyShoe]

youd rather kick a player out of a group than make a house rule?

[Easy_Lee]

youd rather kick a player out of a group than make a house rule?

A player who's intentionally doing this kind of thing to take control of the game was going to play out his power fantasies in any way he could. We've all heard (and experienced) horror stories of the things this kind of player will do, no reason to play with him. Just let the other players kill his character to make him stop, or drop rocks if they can't. If he doesn't want to stop, or tries to find some other way to do it, then yeah, kick him.

Just because a rule abuse exists doesn't mean players will automatically abuse it. 5e, unlike 3.5, is balanced well enough that unoptimized characters are all still useful in a party full of optimizers. It's only the true munchkins, who try to find the most broken tactics and use them exclusively, who need to be reigned in. Thinking back to 3.5e, I played games as recently as a year ago where players, fully aware of the many broken tactics, kept the broken stuff to a minimum. We all had fun because we were all playing the game, rather than trying to dominate it.

For every abusive rule abuse, there's a way to use the same trick to do something really cool. Think of the kinds of stories that get posted on 1d4chan, and consider how many of them involve what's technically a rule abuse. Have your players keep the broken stuff in the back of their mind, to pull as a last ditch effort to survive a bad day or do something really unique. It's one of the ways that the most memorable stories happen.

Houseruling out all of the unique or potentially broken strategies leaves the game feeling pretty mundane, IMO. I'd much rather trust in players to do what's best for the table, or resort to DM intervention only when the players can do nothing. Also, from a game design perspective, taking content away just doesn't appeal to me.

If you really want to houserule the most broken tactics, like using simulacrums for wishing (or, arguably, controlling more than one simulacrum at once), then that's fine. But, to me, that's like telling your players you don't trust them not to break the game. I don't personally like it. But that's just my opinion.

[Gnomes2169]

If you're in a group with another player monopolizing the group, just kick him out or kill his character. It's not that hard to do...

How do you kill a guy who literally has an infinite army of hims? Each of which can potentially wish themselves into real hims (for a 33% chance of never casting wish again)? The answer is... You don't. Either a god nopes it from existence (DM fiat) or homebrewing it so that it can't happen ever (DM fiat) and those are the only ways short of removing the player from the group.

Or, you know, the wizard can't actually go infinite by himself according to RAW if you accept "Has a simulacrum" as a statistic (much like "Has red hair" or "Is a human" are statistics). That works too.

[Easy_Lee]

How do you kill a guy who literally has an infinite army of hims? Each of which can potentially wish themselves into real hims (for a 33% chance of never casting wish again)? The answer is... You don't. Either a god nopes it from existence (DM fiat) or homebrewing it so that it can't happen ever (DM fiat) and those are the only ways short of removing the player from the group.

Or, you know, the wizard can't actually go infinite by himself according to RAW if you accept "Has a simulacrum" as a statistic (much like "Has red hair" or "Is a human" are statistics). That works too.

Why did you play with someone who was going to do that in the first place?

[Gnomes2169]

Why did you play with someone who was going to do that in the first place?

There are times when the person is new to you, or the person starts okay, but things happen in-game that make them hostile to the DM, game or fellow players. If you know that the person is a power gamer and disruptive but still play with him, yes, it is your fault... But there are times when you don't see it coming until it's too late.

[Ashrym]

That's not what I've heard. There's another thread going claiming that DPR is mostly equivalent across class lines, and over on the WotC boards there were numbers for reasonably-equivalent archer vs caster DPR that came very close (not always in the archer's favor) depending on level.

The other thread would be wrong. Now you've heard something different and since you've heard it, it must be true. ;-)

The WotC threads were also wrong in that they required focusing spells on damage and ignoring defense and utility, which by following that policy excludes being able to handle everything because the caster already threw away his slots all on damage and still fell behind the great weapon battle master while using an evoker, at high levels, where other wizards don't have the damage bonus. Those same threads assume the fighter needs to stop dealing damage at the same time the wizard does, which isn't correct. They also assumed neither would stop attacking due to dropping when fighters were also more survivable with less likely to do so because wizards were using their spells for things other than defense.

Those were slanted comparisons at best.


All a prepped caster has to do to maximize his DPR is prep the optimal DPR spell for each level slot he can cast. So top-level, that'd be 9 or fewer damaging spells (since the optimal spell might be a lower-level one cast in a higher-level slot for some levels) prepped, plenty of room for lots more options.

That's all is it? The damage calculations have nothing to do with slot preparation. That's easy to fit in and why a sorcerer can fit in enough damage spells easily enough. The calculations are based on average damage over an assumed average day over an assumed average length of each encounter. Those were thrown out of whack when the DM pdf came out and we found that 6-8 average encounter of moderate to hard difficulty was the assumed daily amount when a groups would run out of resources and that meant having more total rounds in a standard day than calculations previously used.

I might do a comparison again but not tonight. The basic gist is that wizards are still filling out cantrip damage as they level and even at higher levels for 14 points of damage on a turn while fighters of the same level are making 3 attacks on a standard turn for 39 points of damage. Being able to do 61.5 average damage on a daily ability with finger of death at 14th level doesn't match the damage done on an action surge as a short rest mechanic. When a wizard is down to his best level one damage spells he's losing ground in DPR every round.

The only way wizards do more damage is by using total AoE and that suffers in a comparison on focused damage facing low numbers of monsters in an encounter.


And, since they prep but cast spontaneously, they can devote as many slots to damage - or to something else - as the day turns out to call for. That's /more/ flexibility than the Tier-1 prepped casters of 3.5, not less.

And in doing so every other slots spent on damage is a drop in damage and every single slot spent on damage is a missed opportunity for that something else as the the day progresses. Mud sorcerer's tomb, for example, was for 4 characters of 14th level. There are 36 encounter areas, more locks than a 14th level wizard has slots to knock, and a dozen creature combats. A 14th level wizard has 17 spell slots in total and can renew 7 levels worth up to 5th level on a short rest.

Your wizard is limited to short healing rest mechanics and in combat healing doesn't exist for him, barring spending a feat on it. He has 4 ABI's and given 2 have gone to INT to get to 20 for DC's and attack bonus he as 2 left. A healing feat isn't outside the realm of possibility. He can also take a criminal, spy, or urchin background; or could have spent downtime for thieves' tool proficiency to help cover some of the traps and locks. That healing feat means 1 more ABI for DEX or CON, but not both, and on a standard spread your wizard will have 15 or 16 AC spending one slot on mage armor.

So he can cover locks, most traps but not all, can spend d6 hit dice during short rests for healing, and has a once per short rest d6+18 hit point heal until he runs out of healer kit supplies. If he spends his renewal on low level slots he can recover 3 first and 2 second level spells, or something similar to get most spells possible.

That wizard, using some spells for utility as the day requires it is down several spells and his defense sucks, and his healing is limited, and he's still at the mercy of a single concentration spell active at a time, and he's got a single seventh level spell, a single sixth level spell, and a couple of fifth level spells. Since, he's preparing 19 spells, and using 7 of them for attack spells and 1 for mage armor he has 11 left to prepare for utility and possibly other defense. So a bit over a single additional spell per spell level.

He has some flexibility but not in concentration spells or slots available, and is forced into an either / or for high level spells due to low slots. He will run out of spell slots if he doesn't ration them and rely on skills, cantrips, and rituals. He needs to rest after pretty much every encounter if he survives for healing.

Put a 14th level battlemaster in the same situation and he has twice as much healing between the feat and second wind, can also rely on the same skills, has higher hit points, AC, and consistent damage, and since a lot of short rests are given in either case gets his actions surge back every encounter that outdamages 7th level spells, and all superiority dice back for more damage and some effects.

The adventure is time sensitive, but because wizard/magic that shouldn't be an issue because wizard/magic and tier 1 etc. How do you see the wizard pulling off the hype?


The bar for sheer power may be less in 5e than it was in 3.5, between bounded accuracy and numbers repression (the opposite of numbers porn, right) and lack of power creep, but that's just everyone being a little less crazy than they were, how the most flexible/powerful stack up against the least may not be that different.

A comparison of power between a wizard in 3.5 and 5e is irrelevant to a comparison between a wizard in 5e and a fighter in 5e and an invalid comparison. A comparison between a fighter and wizard in 5e determines relative balance. I wouldn't agree with anyone who said wizards compare better because they were cut in power because that's doesn't relate to how good or bad the fighter is or isn't. It's true casters were cut back, particularly in instant death save abilities, stackable defenses, and other odds and ends. They are also better in several ways. That stuff is beside the point.


Well, that is how it's played out in all past editions over the last 40 years (even in 4e, which treated balance like some sort of sacred human right or something), but, sure, it could be different this time. I wouldn't bet a lot of money on it, but it could be.

That's a generalization, subjective, and ignores the same thing happening for other classes. Book of 9 swords, for example. Additionally, even if it were the case past performance is never a guarantee of future performance.


Not any more or less true now than it was when those classes were Tier 1 in 3.5, though. Those points were often brought up in discussions of how to challenge prepped casters. Don't telegraph the day's challenges, throw unexpected 'gotchyas' at them, create hard time limits to deny rests, etc. All that, still Tier 1.

And now they're prepping but casting spontaneously.

Something isn't tier 1 just because you say it is, or read it on a forum on the internet. The spells just don't end encounter like you are saying they do. You aren't even demonstrating how they do. You're stating "you heard", "this thread", and "often brought up in discussion" but don't have a valid argument provided yet. 3.5 isn't relevant to 5e regardless of discussions about it because 5e casters aren't 3.5 casters.


That he's not proficient in. So you suck less when you're untrained in things you really should be trained in. Yipee.

This just demonstrates lack of understanding of the basic premise behind skills. The math behind DC's is designed to be open for all classes regardless of proficiency based on ability checks. Proficiency in 4 skills plus 1/2 proficiency in 6 more plus 1/2 proficiency in checks for which there is no skill beats proficiency in 4 skills. It's questionable whether the character does suck when the reality is that it's relative to the standard DC's and almost every character is typically not getting proficiency bonus of any sort the majority of the time.

The wizard example from mud sorcerer's tomb also needs to rely on skills to complete the same challenge, but he does not have the bonus to nearly as many checks nor the STR to back up athletics by itself. He doesn't have the spell slots to complete the challenge and has weaker skills and has weaker damage most of the time and has weaker survivability. More bonuses start looking very attractive to wizards low on magic, which is inevitable in the mud sorcerer's tomb challenge, particularly when one of them is a bonus to initiative and going first can mean preventing damage to oneself.

[Shining Wrath]

Multiple sources explicitly state that powerful wizards are rare, and they're still limited by availability of spells. Presumably, one wizard in X knows of fabricate and can cast it. And who says powerful wizards don't fabricate whatever mundane gear they need? They live in towers for a reason, and presumably that reason is magical. And it's not like a single wizard can outfit an army, since it would take years for the typical wizard to have that many spell slots.

Wizards using undead for evil are a popular villain in D&D settings, particularly in FR where they're a constant hazard. Given that the most optimized wizard still can't summon and control enough of these to threaten more than a small town, I don't see the problem. It would take an evil artifact or an army of max-level wizards to threaten a kingdom with just undead hoards.

The Simulacrum-Wish thing seems like it's ripe for errata. If not, I can see a deity stepping in to stop it, particularly since it requires 9th-level casting.

On a more practical level, it's no fun for anyone but you when you say no to the players.

If you can't have fun without game-breaking RAW trumps RAI, maybe you shouldn't play with me.

You cannot have fun unless your Wizard gets to make tons of gold Fabricating stuff while the rest of the table watches?

Your fun is ruined if you can't have as many copies of yourself as you need to totally dominate any and all encounters - oh, and every other player gets to take one turn to your 5 or 10 or 20?

The rest of the table must allow you to have an undead horde, again meaning that your turn is 5 or 10 or 20 times as long in the real world as that of the other players, or its just no fun?

Notice that in every one of these scenarios your wizard is the focus of attention at the table, with a turn taking much longer than anyone else, and more power than anyone else.

In the interests of good, practical, fun, I don't really have a choice, do I?

NO. You doing these things is not fun for the rest of the table.

[Easy_Lee]

If you can't have fun without game-breaking RAW trumps RAI, maybe you shouldn't play with me.

You cannot have fun unless your Wizard gets to make tons of gold Fabricating stuff while the rest of the table watches?

Your fun is ruined if you can't have as many copies of yourself as you need to totally dominate any and all encounters - oh, and every other player gets to take one turn to your 5 or 10 or 20?

The rest of the table must allow you to have an undead horde, again meaning that your turn is 5 or 10 or 20 times as long in the real world as that of the other players, or its just no fun?

Notice that in every one of these scenarios your wizard is the focus of attention at the table, with a turn taking much longer than anyone else, and more power than anyone else.

In the interests of good, practical, fun, I don't really have a choice, do I?

NO. You doing these things is not fun for the rest of the table.

Perhaps you should read some of my other posts on this subject. I don't think players abusing these things is a good thing. I think a DM feeling the need to remove or houserule everything that might be abusable is showing a lot if contempt for the players.

Tell your players not to abuse the game, and most won't. Let the other players (or falling rocks) deal with the ones who want to play out power fantasies.

[Steel Mirror]

Tell your players not to abuse the game, and most won't. Let the other players (or falling rocks) deal with the ones who want to play out power fantasies.Wait, you won't tell a player a polite "no", and then explain why you think that the particular trick he is trying to pull exploits the game in an immersion-breaking way that violates how you interpret rules at your table in order to maximize the fun for everyone. But you will let a player start something like that thinking that the table is okay with it, only to metagame kill him with "falling rocks"?

There seems like there could be a happier middle to be found somewhere that doesn't lead to DM executions or player versus player witch hunts...

[Easy_Lee]

Wait, you won't tell a player a polite "no", and then explain why you think that the particular trick he is trying to pull exploits the game in an immersion-breaking way that violates how you interpret rules at your table in order to maximize the fun for everyone. But you will let a player start something like that thinking that the table is okay with it, only to metagame kill him with "falling rocks"?

There seems like there could be a happier middle to be found somewhere that doesn't lead to DM executions or player versus player witch hunts...

I generally put a lot of trust in the players not to do things they consider broken. In my time, I've only seen a major abuse come up once, with a hulking hurler. I just threw a bunch of will saves at him. It was 3.5 and everyone was pretty powerful, so the players didn't mind him. If they had, I would have just eaten the character with a mindflayer and turned him into the new BBEG.

Eventually, he tried to pick up and throw something too large. He missed, hitting the ground instead. We calculated the damage and figured out that he just destroyed the planet. It was so funny that no one was upset. We started a new campaign after that.

[Steel Mirror]

I generally put a lot of trust in the players not to do things they consider broken. In my time, I've only seen a major abuse come up once, with a hulking hurler.That's cool! Your games sound awesome, but part of that I suspect is having a group that knows each other, trusts each other, knows the game pretty well, and works well. Some groups will have a lower experience level, or will include some people who are fun to play with but tempted to get carried away by powergaming, or other issues. Trusting your players not to ever look for exploits works in some groups, and is the ideal mode of operations, but for some groups it is (unfortunately) just not viable, and then a "no" or two in circumspect places can be the difference between a great game and a recurring headache.

[Easy_Lee]

That's cool! Your games sound awesome, but part of that I suspect is having a group that knows each other, trusts each other, knows the game pretty well, and works well. Some groups will have a lower experience level, or will include some people who are fun to play with but tempted to get carried away by powergaming, or other issues. Trusting your players not to ever look for exploits works in some groups, and is the ideal mode of operations, but for some groups it is (unfortunately) just not viable, and then a "no" or two in circumspect places can be the difference between a great game and a recurring headache.

Whatever works best for your table is the right thing to do. If you need to limit things then by all means.

[Z3ro]

I generally put a lot of trust in the players not to do things they consider broken. In my time, I've only seen a major abuse come up once, with a hulking hurler. I just threw a bunch of will saves at him. It was 3.5 and everyone was pretty powerful, so the players didn't mind him. If they had, I would have just eaten the character with a mindflayer and turned him into the new BBEG.

How is using in-game means of targeting a problem character meaningfully different than just saying no?

[Shining Wrath]

Whatever works best for your table is the right thing to do. If you need to limit things then by all means.

I think that when all is said and done we are in violent agreement. We agree these things ought not to be done in most cases; you want to trust the players to not abuse them, I want to set guidelines in advance. It's not so much a problem with 5e (yet), but in 3.5 you could easily have a player build his entire character around a trick and then the first time he used it, DM fiat that it was "broken".

And actually, if someone wanted to use his Simulacrum to pretend to be him surrendering to the BBEG (a la Harry Potter in Deathly Hallows, and then Wish for a Solar to appear or some such, that's not breaking the game, that's cleverness.

I'm against one character ruining the game for others; I'm all for cleverness. Which is why the game needs a DM, and why these arguments usually work themselves out in the end.

[Easy_Lee]

How is using in-game means of targeting a problem character meaningfully different than just saying no?

Player choice, basically. I've had enough bad experiences with moderators in other games that I like to keep the moderation aspect of DM'ing to a minimum. If the players have a good way of dealing with a problem, I'd rather let them utilize it than have the DM step in. It's a personal choice.

[Z3ro]

Player choice, basically. I've had enough bad experiences with moderators in other games that I like to keep the moderation aspect of DM'ing to a minimum. If the players have a good way of dealing with a problem, I'd rather let them utilize it than have the DM step in. It's a personal choice.

But the DM stepping in is just another form of moderation. What is the fundamental difference between "no, you can't make that character, that combo's too powerful for the campaign," and "during the first fight, monsters target your one weakness, you never get to use the ability that is too powerful for the campaign, make a weaker character".

[Shining Wrath]

Player choice, basically. I've had enough bad experiences with moderators in other games that I like to keep the moderation aspect of DM'ing to a minimum. If the players have a good way of dealing with a problem, I'd rather let them utilize it than have the DM step in. It's a personal choice.

I just don't like finding out a player became a necromancer especially because they wanted to have a huge army of undead minions and having to "ruin" their character concept for them after 4 or 5 levels.

[EvilAnagram]

Player choice, basically. I've had enough bad experiences with moderators in other games that I like to keep the moderation aspect of DM'ing to a minimum. If the players have a good way of dealing with a problem, I'd rather let them utilize it than have the DM step in. It's a personal choice.

But if you kill them off immediately without their having any recourse, then they don't have any meaningful choice.

[Gnomes2169]

But if you kill them off immediately without their having any recourse, then they don't have any meaningful choice.

I think he's basically saying that he will trust his players until they give him reason not to, and then (hopefully after asking for them ti reign in things first) he will take action as necessary.

[Geoff]

The WotC threads were also wrong in that they required focusing spells on damage and ignoring defense and utility The Tier 1 requirement is that they be able to do 'anything' (another class might be able to do), not everything all at once. It also says sometimes do it better - which is not the same a always doing it better, or even always doing it as well...

Tier 2, the class might be able to do 'anything,' in theory, but any given character won't be able to.


Those same threads assume the fighter needs to stop dealing damage at the same time the wizard does, which isn't correct. The assumption is you only need to output damage when there's something you need to kill. It's a good assumption. The idea that the fighter can 'attack all day' is silly, that way, you can attack when there's nothing to fight, but it doesn't accomplish anything.


They also assumed neither would stop attacking due to dropping when fighters were also more survivable with less likely to do so because wizards were using their spells for things other than defense. Nod. That's why the archer comparison was one of the better ones, because there's generally a lot less pressure on ranged combatants.


The calculations are based on average damage over an assumed average day over an assumed average length of each encounter. Those were thrown out of whack when the DM pdf came out and we found that 6-8 average encounter of moderate to hard difficulty was the assumed daily amount when a groups would run out of resources and that meant having more total rounds in a standard day than calculations previously used. Very true. The earlier ones found the wizard pulling ahead of the archer, but they assumed a relatively short day. The 6-8, 4-5 round encounters, in the DM .pdf suggest a much longer day. The one analysis thread that was tending to find parity in DPR had people screaming about it's assumed 42-round day being rediculously long - until the DM pdf came out. :)

But, that's still parity. It becomes problematic when a campaign averages much shorter days. But, it doesn't matter to assigning Tiers. The Tier 1 character doesn't need to beat the lower Tier character at his best trick all day, every day, he just has to be able to do so.


A comparison of power between a wizard in 3.5 and 5e is irrelevant to a comparison between a wizard in 5e and a fighter in 5e and an invalid comparison. A comparison between a fighter and wizard in 5e determines relative balance. I'm glad we can agree on that. The point keeps being made that the wizard has 'fewer slots than when it was Tier 1,' so it must not be Tier 1 anymore. Well, it also has more flexibility. Maybe there are fewer broken spells, so far, but the challenges faced aren't exactly the same as they were, either.


That's a generalization, subjective, and ignores the same thing happening for other classes. Book of 9 swords, for example. Additionally, even if it were the case past performance is never a guarantee of future performance. Indeed, there is no guarantee that, just because every prior edition has had power creep that 5e will have power creep. Similarly, just because Bo9S couldn't boost non-casters without giving up on existing non-caster classes and just plain creating new ones that were mechanically more like classes, doesn't mean that it's impossible that non-casters will get as many and as broken new toys as 5e progresses, even though that's happened in no prior edition, as well.

No guarantee.


The spells just don't end encounter like you are saying they do. I haven't gotten to play a lot of 5e yet, nor at high level, but I've already seen spells end a number of encounters. YMMV, but is it hard to see how a large AE could end an encounter with a number of dangerous-due-to-bounded-accruacy lower-CR monsters? There were a lot of such encounters with Kobolds in HotDQ, with Goblins in the basic set, etc... The encounter guidelines weight superior numbers heavily, so such encounters are meant to be quite challenging...


This just demonstrates lack of understanding of the basic premise behind skills. The math behind DC's is designed to be open for all classes regardless of proficiency based on ability checks. That's nice, I suppose. But if the net effect is that it doesn't much matter if you have a skill or a feature that enhances a skill, then that just makes it that much easier for a class to qualify for Tier one by doing another classes traditional skill specialty as well or better, since you wouldn't have to generate a lot of alternative bonuses to match a specialists bounded ability, and with those bounds failure's always a danger, so auto-successes are just that much better.

[Fwiffo86]

The Tier 1 character doesn't need to beat the lower Tier character at his best trick all day, every day, he just has to be able to do so.


I disagree with this statement entirely. The fact that class A can be class B in anything in one instance does not qualify a ranking of anything. At best this describes a fringe instances.

You could have an high elf fighter that slings his one firebolt cantrip all day long as well as having 4 attacks, action surge, etc.

In order to be ranked properly the class must be able to outperform a class at their best trick more often than not. Minimum 51% of the time. So far, I do not see that happening in 5e.

*****
Unrelated Note:
I couldn't find it earlier, but I remembered someone talking about Cleric gating and mage charming a Solar in a different thread. Take a moment and read their immunites. This is impossible.

[Ashrym]

The Tier 1 requirement is that they be able to do 'anything' (another class might be able to do), not everything all at once. It also says sometimes do it better - which is not the same a always doing it better, or even always doing it as well...

Doing something well isn't doing something better, however; it's doing something differently. This gets back to things like skills provide hiding well and invisibility providing a place to hide, charm providing advantage on social checks but skill bonuses working out as a high benefit to those social checks, stoneskin preventing damage on the wizard while requiring a concentration check every time it prevents such damage or it could be cast on a fighter and used better.

There's more teamwork to be the most effective in 5e, while no class really pulls ahead in opportunity to shine or contribute.


The assumption is you only need to output damage when there's something you need to kill. It's a good assumption. The idea that the fighter can 'attack all day' is silly, that way, you can attack when there's nothing to fight, but it doesn't accomplish anything.

The assumption everything is complete because the wizard needs to rest is more silly.


Very true. The earlier ones found the wizard pulling ahead of the archer, but they assumed a relatively short day. The 6-8, 4-5 round encounters, in the DM .pdf suggest a much longer day. The one analysis thread that was tending to find parity in DPR had people screaming about it's assumed 42-round day being rediculously long - until the DM pdf came out. :)

The damage was was dis-proven in subsequent threads and the great weapon fighter pulled ahead, while the archer did well, and both did much more than the evoker looking a focused damage while wizards in general do much better on area damage when it's pertinent. Duelist was a good choice as well for bonus damage while keeping the shield.


But, that's still parity. It becomes problematic when a campaign averages much shorter days. But, it doesn't matter to assigning Tiers. The Tier 1 character doesn't need to beat the lower Tier character at his best trick all day, every day, he just has to be able to do so.Rough breakdown before the higher crit damage for the fighter or extra attacks for the fighter or bonuses like superiority dice damage for the fighter, even assuming the fighter needs to stop when the wizard does. Evoker brings up wizard DPR by ~5. One short rest allowed and renewal used on 2 3rd level slots and 1 4th. More short rests also favor the fighter. Cantrip damage selected for remaining rounds because lower levels slots are allowed for utility while cantrip damage exceeds low level spell damage at high levels.

42 round day

meteor swarm 140*.9+70*.1=133
disintegrate 8 96*.9=86.4
disintegrate 7 twice 85.5*.9 for 153.9
disintegrate 6 twice 75*.9 for 135
cone of cold*3 36*.9+18*.1 for 102.6
fireball*4 31.5*.9+15.75*.1 for 119.7
fireball*5 28*.9+14*.1 for 133
firebolt*24 VS AC 16 22*.8 for 422.4


1286/42=30.619 DPR


4attacks/turn+4 action surges given the same 1 short rest

8.33+10+5 VS AC 16
184 attacks 55% accuracy

2360.996/42=56.214 DPR

That is not parity. It's not precise but a quick breakdown that does demonstrate the difference accurately enough.


I haven't gotten to play a lot of 5e yet, nor at high level, but I've already seen spells end a number of encounters. YMMV, but is it hard to see how a large AE could end an encounter with a number of dangerous-due-to-bounded-accruacy lower-CR monsters? There were a lot of such encounters with Kobolds in HotDQ, with Goblins in the basic set, etc... The encounter guidelines weight superior numbers heavily, so such encounters are meant to be quite challenging...

I do a lot of testing inside and outside of games. At low levels area damage is nice, and at higher levels you are better off with controlling effects. The DC's scale better picking and choosing weak saves while hit points increase. The thing with that is, however, that dead is still the best status effect for controlling effects and fighters literally do more damage than 9th level spells to single targets while action surging at those levels and action surges recover on a short rest.


That's nice, I suppose. But if the net effect is that it doesn't much matter if you have a skill or a feature that enhances a skill, then that just makes it that much easier for a class to qualify for Tier one by doing another classes traditional skill specialty as well or better, since you wouldn't have to generate a lot of alternative bonuses to match a specialists bounded ability, and with those bounds failure's always a danger, so auto-successes are just that much better.

Rogues do auto-succeed on a lot because of reliable talent. Most checks don't stop a PC from simply rolling again and costing an action if it's important, and without danger involved it's pretty much auto-success as well. That's why knock sucks so badly. Any first level character can open a lock by simply continuing to roll until successful. It's only useful under specific circumstances.

[Geoff]

In order to be ranked properly the class must be able to outperform a class at their best trick more often than not. Minimum 51% of the time. So far, I do not see that happening in 5e. I didn't see any percentages quoted in the Tier definitions. If a class can beat a specialist class at it's own game at a time of it's choosing, whatever the opportunity cost, that'd seem to be a step towards Tier 1 status. If any given member of that class can do that sort of thing with a whole range of other classes, even if not all at once or even all on the same day, that'd seem to get it there.

As much as has been made of broken spells being reigned in, spells are still very powerful and versatile compared to other class abilities, so prepped casters seem prime candidates for Tier 1 - and non-prepping ones for Tier 2.



Doing something well isn't doing something better, however; it's doing something differently. 'Differently' doesn't really matter, though, does it? Isn't this about results - being able to 'do anything,' doesn't come with a qualifier that the 'anything' be done in specific ways.


There's more teamwork to be the most effective in 5e, while no class really pulls ahead in opportunity to shine or contribute. Sounds like you're talking about 4e, with its tight class balance and defined roles. 5e doesn't have anything like that. The classes are quite different and distinctive, in both what they can do, as well as how they can do it. There's no restriction of high DPR to just strikers, for instance. No concept that the 'defender' needs more hps/AC/healing because of his role.


The damage was was dis-proven in subsequent threads If you say so. I didn't see that, and I thought I'd been paying some attention. ;)

Thanks for crunching some numbers, though. It's interesting how those turn out, sometimes.

It would be nice if the fighter could point to DPR as a thing that it was uniquely best at. I've only seen one 6-8 encounter day in a published adventure, so far - and it resulted in a TPK, I guess time will tell if it sticks as the norm.

It does seem like the fighter only pulls ahead in outright grinds, though. The caster can decide whether a given combat is worth his best damage and when. If that ends a combat early, the trailing off over many rounds of cantrip damage doesn't happen. For that fight. Presumably the DM forces it to happen eventually, or it happens in less important fights while the caster is conserving his best spells. Still seems like it's hard to claim 'best' when you're best by virtue of your worst performance being better than the next guy's worst performance. Heh. I guess consistency counts, like in the Olympics. ;)

[Demonicattorney]

The uncalculated factor is defenses. The DPR comparisons are genorous because in many high level fights, Wizards only get off one or two spells before they are mashed, many high level creatures can turn a Wizard into swiss cheese in one round of attacks. A Goristro charge will one shot a Wizard of equal CR about half the time, a full attack from a Marileth will kill a Wizard, etc. Ancient Dragon Breath Weapon is above 50% to one shot a level 18 Wizard etc. Con saves are a huge deal as well, they are the most prevalent save, and most con attacks are devastating.

Its nice to think that you will get 3 or 4 spells off, but that seems ambitious in any combat where the Fighters arne't locking down their big hitters with Sentinel.

[Geoff]

The uncalculated factor is defenses. The DPR comparisons are genorous because in many high level fights, Wizards only get off one or two spells before they are mashed, many high level creatures can turn a Wizard into swiss cheese in one round of attacks....
Its nice to think that you will get 3 or 4 spells off, but that seems ambitious in any combat where the Fighters arne't locking down their big hitters with Sentinel. Or another caster isn't Concentrating on locking them down with something.

A shorter combat isn't going to have those long cantrip-only damage tails, though. And, a melee-oriented fighter is likely to get attacked a lot more often, anyway - that's what the extra hps are for.

I guess if you're only going to go a round or two it'd make as much sense to compare a Fighter's Action Surge damage (102, if I'm reading Ashrym's caculations right) to the Wizard's top-level spell damage (133), as to compare overall daily DPR.

[emeraldstreak]

Damage is secondary to control in DnD, so a class needs a massive advantage in damage to offset lacking options in control.

Other than introducing Enrage mechanics, that's how it's going to be.

[Lokiare]

Doing something well isn't doing something better, however; it's doing something differently. This gets back to things like skills provide hiding well and invisibility providing a place to hide, charm providing advantage on social checks but skill bonuses working out as a high benefit to those social checks, stoneskin preventing damage on the wizard while requiring a concentration check every time it prevents such damage or it could be cast on a fighter and used better.

There's more teamwork to be the most effective in 5e, while no class really pulls ahead in opportunity to shine or contribute.



The assumption everything is complete because the wizard needs to rest is more silly.



The damage was was dis-proven in subsequent threads and the great weapon fighter pulled ahead, while the archer did well, and both did much more than the evoker looking a focused damage while wizards in general do much better on area damage when it's pertinent. Duelist was a good choice as well for bonus damage while keeping the shield.

Rough breakdown before the higher crit damage for the fighter or extra attacks for the fighter or bonuses like superiority dice damage for the fighter, even assuming the fighter needs to stop when the wizard does. Evoker brings up wizard DPR by ~5. One short rest allowed and renewal used on 2 3rd level slots and 1 4th. More short rests also favor the fighter. Cantrip damage selected for remaining rounds because lower levels slots are allowed for utility while cantrip damage exceeds low level spell damage at high levels.

42 round day

meteor swarm 140*.9+70*.1=133
disintegrate 8 96*.9=86.4
disintegrate 7 twice 85.5*.9 for 153.9
disintegrate 6 twice 75*.9 for 135
cone of cold*3 36*.9+18*.1 for 102.6
fireball*4 31.5*.9+15.75*.1 for 119.7
fireball*5 28*.9+14*.1 for 133
firebolt*24 VS AC 16 22*.8 for 422.4


1286/42=30.619 DPR


4attacks/turn+4 action surges given the same 1 short rest

8.33+10+5 VS AC 16
184 attacks 55% accuracy

2360.996/42=56.214 DPR

That is not parity. It's not precise but a quick breakdown that does demonstrate the difference accurately enough.



I do a lot of testing inside and outside of games. At low levels area damage is nice, and at higher levels you are better off with controlling effects. The DC's scale better picking and choosing weak saves while hit points increase. The thing with that is, however, that dead is still the best status effect for controlling effects and fighters literally do more damage than 9th level spells to single targets while action surging at those levels and action surges recover on a short rest.



Rogues do auto-succeed on a lot because of reliable talent. Most checks don't stop a PC from simply rolling again and costing an action if it's important, and without danger involved it's pretty much auto-success as well. That's why knock sucks so badly. Any first level character can open a lock by simply continuing to roll until successful. It's only useful under specific circumstances.

Why are you using the worst damaging spells in the game? Try using meteor Swarm, boosted flaming sphere. You'll get within a few points of the highest DPR in the game.

[EugeneVoid]

Pre-boosted Delayed Fireballs/ (?

[Ashrym]

Sounds like you're talking about 4e, with its tight class balance and defined roles. 5e doesn't have anything like that. The classes are quite different and distinctive, in both what they can do, as well as how they can do it. There's no restriction of high DPR to just strikers, for instance. No concept that the 'defender' needs more hps/AC/healing because of his role.

No, I definitely am referring to 5e and even included some examples. Other examples might be the compulsion spell or the dissonant whispers spell. The spells are junk by themselves but they are effective used with higher damage party members for opportunity attacks. Stone skin is a junk spell for a self buff, but on someone else heavily involved in melee it's fantastic. Stealth skills from the rogue plus invisibility from the wizard makes the effective combination neither accomplishes on it's own. It doesn't take defined roles to have interacting abilities present.

It also doesn't matter that there is no actual striker role. Removing clear roles doesn't automatically make everyone equivalently high damage. The fact there is no striker role doesn't give wizards high damage. The fact is, wizards have burst damage instead of consistent damage, and great area damage and effects. Fighters have better single target damage, sustained damage, are less susceptible to overkill loss on damage inflicted, and can action surge for more damage twice per short rest than the highest damage spell in the game does once per day (I would say long rest but the rules state a PC can only gain the benefits of the long rest once in a 24 hour period).


If you say so. I didn't see that, and I thought I'd been paying some attention. ;)

I also paid attention, saw the assumptions used, saw the responses, saw the subsequent threads, and looked at the math myself. Damage on a wizard is pretty decent compared to a lot of classes, but it's not on par with more than a few heavy hitting classes like fighters or paladins; it averages middle of the pack with higher bursts and lower dips throughout the day. The best thing to do with spells is usually status effects and control, situational AoE damage, and sometimes buffing other PC's due to concentration mechanics.

I would be better off casting hold on a strong creature successfully and causing action denial plus auto-crit than a disintegrate or finger of death using a lower level slot because the additional crit damage can out damage the higher level spell quickly.


Thanks for crunching some numbers, though. It's interesting how those turn out, sometimes.

Yes, particularly when the numbers assumed no proficiency bonus or ability modifier to the spells so the spell damage is actually inflated a bit, and leaving out benefits that favored the fighter so the fighter damage is understated a bit.


It would be nice if the fighter could point to DPR as a thing that it was uniquely best at. I've only seen one 6-8 encounter day in a published adventure, so far - and it resulted in a TPK, I guess time will tell if it sticks as the norm.


It does seem like the fighter only pulls ahead in outright grinds, though. The caster can decide whether a given combat is worth his best damage and when. If that ends a combat early, the trailing off over many rounds of cantrip damage doesn't happen. For that fight. Presumably the DM forces it to happen eventually, or it happens in less important fights while the caster is conserving his best spells. Still seems like it's hard to claim 'best' when you're best by virtue of your worst performance being better than the next guy's worst performance. Heh. I guess consistency counts, like in the Olympics. ;)

They are also great at burst damage and have some self healing options to fall back on that wizards do not have, or at least not until giving up their 9th level slot for wish to replicate healing once per day. Survivor is available at really high levels for fighters and is better than wish for healing. Any high level spell not spent on damage is a significant drop in overall average damage for that same wizard.

All a fighter needs to do for burst damage is action surge and bigger damage happens, often for 6 or 7 attacks doing over 20 damage per hit at 11th level or higher. A fighter can decide if it worth it to use his best damage and when. It's area damage at which caster's excel.

The problem with area spells is focused damage is usually better. It's easy to think damage spells are a good option when looking at goblins and kobolds, and other assorted lower-than-CR1-monsters, but AoE spells are not normally party friendly and they don't simply end encounters quickly because hit points increase rapidly with CR. Put in enough creatures and wizards are your best friend as they can inflict a lot of area damage quickly and have a lot of controlling effects to manage those groups. High damage on key enemies isn't where they excel at. That's what controlling effects are for while other PC's do the damage.

Cantrips happen because damage spells don't end combats because of the high hit points enemies have. They might eliminate some trash and then the higher single target spells are just doing similar damage to a non-surging fighter but on a more limited basis while the area spell did less.

[Ashrym]

Damage is secondary to control in DnD, so a class needs a massive advantage in damage to offset lacking options in control.

Other than introducing Enrage mechanics, that's how it's going to be.

Dead is the best control status in the game. It doesn't take a massive damage advantage to enact, either, just as many hit points as the target has.

[Lokiare]

42 round day

meteor swarm 140*.9+70*.1=133
disintegrate 8 96*.9=86.4
disintegrate 7 twice 85.5*.9 for 153.9
disintegrate 6 twice 75*.9 for 135
cone of cold*3 36*.9+18*.1 for 102.6
fireball*4 31.5*.9+15.75*.1 for 119.7
fireball*5 28*.9+14*.1 for 133
firebolt*24 VS AC 16 22*.8 for 422.4


1286/42=30.619 DPR


4attacks/turn+4 action surges given the same 1 short rest

8.33+10+5 VS AC 16
184 attacks 55% accuracy

2360.996/42=56.214 DPR

That is not parity. It's not precise but a quick breakdown that does demonstrate the difference accurately enough.

Check my signature. I started a thread where I easily get a Wizard up to 43 DPR, which puts them much closer to the top DPR in the game. Well above several others.

I'm interested in your math behind the 56.214 DPR can you go into details please?

[Lokiare]

Dead is the best control status in the game. It doesn't take a massive damage advantage to enact, either, just as many hit points as the target has.

Or a save or die/suck spell to make them as good as dead. At that point the only cost is the time it takes to clean up.

[Ashrym]

Check my signature. I started a thread where I easily get a Wizard up to 43 DPR, which puts them much closer to the top DPR in the game. Well above several others.

I'm interested in your math behind the 56.214 DPR can you go into details please?

184 attacks over 42 rounds with 4 action surges for the one rest also given the wizard

20 STR (+5 hit and damage)
great weapon fighting style and greatsword (8.33 avg damage)
great weapon master feat

AC 16 assumed and -5 penalty to add +10 damage per hit for 55% accuracy and 1 rest for 4 action surges

8.33+5+10=23.33
*184 attacks=4292.72
*.55 accuracy=2360.996
/42 rounds=56.214 DPR

Before adding in critical hits, extra attacks from GWM feat, or superiority dice, or magical weapons, or additional short rests. It was a rough illustration and is understated.

I looked at your signature, and it's not wizards. It's evokers. There's a difference.

Add in a +1 greatsword, 15% crit from a champion (champion for the survivor ability)

15% 8.33+8.33+5+10+1 with additional chances to bonus attack on crits
45% 8.33+5+10+1
40% miss chance

.45*(184*24.33)=2014.524
.15*(184*32.66)=901.416

Bonus attacks from crits: 47.799375% (higher on action surge rounds, omitted because I don't care to work it out as small impact overall) chance per round = 20.0757375 bonus attacks over 42 rounds.

.45*(20*24.33)=218.97
.15*(20*32.66)=97.98

3232.89 damage over 42 rounds puts us at 76.974 DPR

Your evoker is ~55% of a basic champion with a big weapon in DPR. That's still ignoring buffs that apply to weapon attacks because the fighter isn't powering those himself.

[EugeneVoid]

Or a save or die/suck spell to make them as good as dead. At that point the only cost is the time it takes to clean up.

save or sleep for 8 hrs. pretty gud

[Lokiare]

184 attacks over 42 rounds with 4 action surges for the one rest also given the wizard

20 STR (+5 hit and damage)
great weapon fighting style and greatsword (8.33 avg damage)
great weapon master feat

AC 16 assumed and -5 penalty to add +10 damage per hit for 55% accuracy and 1 rest for 4 action surges

8.33+5+10=23.33
*184 attacks=4292.72
*.55 accuracy=2360.996
/42 rounds=56.214 DPR

Before adding in critical hits, extra attacks from GWM feat, or superiority dice, or magical weapons, or additional short rests. It was a rough illustration and is understated.

I looked at your signature, and it's not wizards. It's evokers. There's a difference.

Add in a +1 greatsword, 15% crit from a champion (champion for the survivor ability)

15% 8.33+8.33+5+10+1 with additional chances to bonus attack on crits
45% 8.33+5+10+1
40% miss chance

.45*(184*24.33)=2014.524
.15*(184*32.66)=901.416

Bonus attacks from crits: 47.799375% (higher on action surge rounds, omitted because I don't care to work it out as small impact overall) chance per round = 20.0757375 bonus attacks over 42 rounds.

.45*(20*24.33)=218.97
.15*(20*32.66)=97.98

3232.89 damage over 42 rounds puts us at 76.974 DPR

Your evoker is ~55% of a basic champion with a big weapon in DPR. That's still ignoring buffs that apply to weapon attacks because the fighter isn't powering those himself.

Is an evoker a wizard? yes, well my statement is correct. Also your numbers are way off. I redid your math with that same build and come up with a maximum of 66 DPR

[Ashrym]

Is an evoker a wizard? yes, well my statement is correct. Also your numbers are way off. I redid your math with that same build and come up with a maximum of 66 DPR

Please feel free to demonstrate how my math is off. EDIT: NVM, I see you did it in your other thread so I pointed out the errors made there.

[Geoff]

No, I definitely am referring to 5e ...examples might be the compulsion spell or the dissonant whispers spell. The spells are junk by themselves but they are effective used with higher damage party members for opportunity attacks. Stone skin is a junk spell for a self buff, but on someone else heavily involved in melee it's fantastic. Stealth skills from the rogue plus invisibility from the wizard makes the effective combination neither accomplishes on it's own. It doesn't take defined roles to have interacting abilities present. OK, I misunderstood, I thought you were claiming balance, contribution & synergy among the classes, not just pointing out that there were some pretty good control & buff spells. If anything, I feel like that point was more the case in 3.0 than in 5e or 3.5, in 3.0 there were key buff spells that only boosted the physical stats most useful to non-casters, not caster stats, and were easy to cast, low-level, and of long duration. It was a 'no brainier' buff the melee types instead of yourself, and actually a pretty obvious tactic to do so instead of use flashy spells. In 3.5, those buffs were nerfed, and self-buffs became more attractive - in 5e, spell resources and the 'action economy' around reactions, concentration, and bonus actions also make casting buffs less than obviously optimal (they may be mathematically optimal, but it seems like a tough choice to dedicate you only possibly concentration spell at a time to one). Pathfinder also re-established buffing as an optimal strategy.



It also doesn't matter that there is no actual striker role. Removing clear roles doesn't automatically make everyone equivalently high damage. It doesn't make giving a 'non-striker' class too much damage an obvious problem, either. It's just a level of ambiguity in design goals that makes the whole thing murkier. You can claim there's balance or imbalance in that murk or that an imbalance is justified by some ambiguous design goal, but it's harder to test such claims.


The fact is, wizards have burst damage instead of consistent damage, and great area damage and effects. Fighters have better single target damage and sustained damage Looking at you and Lokaire arguing it, I'm not so sure.

Casters do have a lot of flexibility, so you'd expect to see those who lack that flexibility to be compensated with greater power (rewarding specialization). You don't see that so much (or, maybe /you/ do, and Lokaire doesn't, and I'm not so sure), because casters are compensated for limited-use grenade-like 'slots,' with greater power, too.

AFAICT, whether an analysis concludes casters are competative in DPR or pull ahead or fall behind, they all seem to assume that the difference is because the non-caster's damage is consistent. Casters can get more damage, some of the time, and trail off to less when reduced to cantrips. Wherever the numbers you plug in, if you assume more rounds the caster is going to be using more cantrips and not doing as well, while the fewer rounds you assume, the better they'll do.

While that 'balances' - at some theoretical point, you have just the right number of rounds to force just the right number of cantrips to put caster DPR where it needs to be (wherever /that/ is, to make up for their greater versatility) - it doesn't seem like it'd take much optimization to break that balance in the caster's favor (just engineer shorter & more predictable days - something that's in all players' interest for the success of the party, even as it benefits their characters differently). Similarly, the DM could break it the other direction by forcing 'long' days with hard time limits and many encounters to deny rests.

Which, I'm afraid, brings us back to Tier 1 & 2 - classes that can easily break the campaign which the DM must actively work to impose balance upon. That, not in spite of, but because of, the theoretical balance built into those classes.


I would be better off casting hold on a strong creature successfully and causing action denial plus auto-crit than a disintegrate or finger of death using a lower level slot because the additional crit damage can out damage the higher level spell quickly. I'm sure that arguable, and there are a lot of things that could factor into that choice. Still, it's a choice...



[qoute]Yes, particularly when the numbers assumed no proficiency bonus or ability modifier to the spells so the spell damage is actually inflated a bit[/quote] How does that inflate spell damage?


The problem with area spells is focused damage is usually better. It's easy to think damage spells are a good option when looking at goblins and kobolds, and other assorted lower-than-CR1-monsters Bounded accuracy is supposed to keep larger numbers of lower-CR monsters a meaningful threat longer.


Cantrips happen because damage spells don't end combats because of the high hit points enemies have. Except enemies don't necessarily have high hps, and direct damage isn't the only way to end or trivialize a combat. 5e combats are meant to be fast, if they don't last a lot of rounds and you don't pack a lot of combats into a day, you won't see 'forced' cantrips where the caster is just hard out of spells for a protacted period like you see in these analysis.

Instead you'll see cantrip vs spell (and high- vs low- level spell) prioritized by the player's judgement. The caster brings high damage when it seems most important to do so, he uses AE damage, instead, when that seems critical, he uses control or defense or buffing or utility when /those/ seem more critical - and falls back on cantrips when the situation doesn't call for his best efforts.

Some posters call it 'agency.' The caster decides when he's going to make the best use of his best slots and shines accordingly. The non-caster shines when no caster chooses to, and the situation matches his less versatile capability. That really seems like the same sort of caster-appreciation scheme as the Tiers, just with a different spin.

[Ashrym]

Some posters call it 'agency.' The caster decides when he's going to make the best use of his best slots and shines accordingly. The non-caster shines when no caster chooses to, and the situation matches his less versatile capability. That really seems like the same sort of caster-appreciation scheme as the Tiers, just with a different spin.

You've repeated it, but you haven't demonstrated it.

You'll find that often the caster isn't allowing others to shine and really can't stop them because the caster is both forced to manage resources and those other classes have their own moments that cannot be taken away. In the battlemaster's case, single target damage is something he consistently shines at, and he makes a conscious choice to action surge regardless of what the wizard is doing, triple-stack superiority dice twice, and average over 200 damage in a single action (level 20) against AC16 (with a +1 weapon). Meteor swarm averages 136 at a 95% save fail rate. Meteor swarm comes back on a long rest. The fighter has a second action surge to use, and gets them both back on a short rest. At level 17 the battlemaster would do 157 and rival that meteor swarm damage per short rest in a single action easily enough and similar to the evoker with empower evocation. The wizard is only catching up on a very limited basis by using the most damaging spell in the game. Before level 17 when meteor swarm becomes available battle masters only have one action surge but it's still doing 146 average damage at level 16 while a wizard is more limited.

We are talking about burst damage that exceeds high level spells if building for damage. What I posted earlier is true -- dead is almost always the best status effect. It doesn't matter what other status effect a wizard might add, dead tends to trivialize all of them. The difference is battlemaster maneuvers add addition options and the bonus damage is more controllable than relying on crit damage while a champion gets some skill bonuses (and initiative bonus) and has that strong healing option in the survivor ability, and wizards are falling short compared to either.

What exactly is the wizard doing that is taking away that ability to do more damage than the wizard can on burst, or sustained (as demonstrated earlier), or establishing better control than dead when the wizard decides and not the fighter?

To be clear, the fighter can split that up a bit too because in 5e we can move between attacks. This is where the fighter falls short, however, as multiple-target damage eats at his total while area spell damage does not, and area controlling effects are in abundance. Wizards shine with controlling and area effects, and can add additional utility easily enough but that fits into a different role-space instead of direct competition with a fighter's role-space (generally give and take damage).

Between items, standard actions, direct damage, maneuvers or spells, skills removed from class via background and designed to be inclusive, and feat options plus bonus feats, and actual role-play opportunity fighters are doing fine and wizards aren't remarkable in contrast beyond flavor because magic. Want to get past the troll guarding the bride without killing him and keep a low profile? Disguise, persuasion, and bribery are options for the fighter. Need to open a lock? Break it or use acid on it, or learn proficiency with thieve's tools. Need to get from point A to point B? Walk, caravan, ride a horse, acquire a flying mount as a possibility. Need some information about the layout of a castle? Bribe a servant, research it at public records if they exist, consult a sage, hire a spy, or just plain old gather information and rumors.

I am likely going to stop debating, however. You seem set in your opinion and you are entitled to it. I didn't find an issue playtesting that concerns me, and enjoy the current fighter options.

[Demonicattorney]

This whole argument is skewed because DPR is a terrible metric of the strength of a character. All the squishy Wizard/Sorc/Warlock types will find out that spells aren't all that in high-level play. High-level monsters are almost universally magic resistant or legendary, some like Empyrions are both.

Many of these creatures can also kill a caster in a round, while it takes between 2 and 4 to drop the party's Paladin, Fighter or Barb.

In 3.5, casters had better defenses than martials, in this edition that is not the case.

[Shining Wrath]

The proper metric probably isn't DPR, it's DPR / Rounds_Class_Survives.

Rounds_Class_Survives means taking a CR20 creature and having it make full attacks against the character. For example, IIRC a Balor is CR20.

If the Fighter does 100 DPR and lasts 1.5 rounds on average, that's 150 damage to a Balor if the Fighter goes up against it toe-to-toe.

If the Wizard does 80 DPR and lasts 0.75 rounds on average, that's 60 damage to a Balor.

In both cases you have to run the "Balor wins initiative" case and the "PC wins initiative" case.

Of course, sane Wizards don't get anywhere near a Balor. Sane Fighters sometimes do. Which is why the DPR value by itself is misleading; the Wizard can only generate those numbers if there's a melee type keeping the baddies out of his face, which is the Fighter (Barbarian, Paladin, ...). The Fighter generates his DPR *and* gives the Balor someone to beat on while the Wizard does that voodoo that he do.

[MaxWilson]

The proper metric probably isn't DPR, it's DPR / Rounds_Class_Survives.

With the caveat that Rounds_Class_Survives depends on party composition. If you have a Moon Druid tank who lets all your archers fire for three rounds, it doesn't even matter if the Moon Druid himself has a poor DPR--he's boosting total damage by letting your glass cannons use his three rounds of survival with their DPR.

[Shining Wrath]

With the caveat that Rounds_Class_Survives depends on party composition. If you have a Moon Druid tank who lets all your archers fire for three rounds, it doesn't even matter if the Moon Druid himself has a poor DPR--he's boosting total damage by letting your glass cannons use his three rounds of survival with their DPR.

Someone suggested that our optimization conversations may shift from "optimize this character" to "optimize this party" with the advent of 5e. If that happens I for one will heartily approve. Down with Munchkins! Up with utility wizards, tanks, and skill bots!

[Geoff]

Someone suggested that our optimization conversations may shift from "optimize this character" to "optimize this party" with the advent of 5e. If that happens I for one will heartily approve. Down with Munchkins! Up with utility wizards, tanks, and skill bots!Did you heartily approve of the Radiant Mafia and other notorious whole party optimization schemes in 4e?


It's funny, because Ashrym also said something like that, where it sounded exactly like what 4e proponents said about that edition...


There's more teamwork to be the most effective in 5e, while no class really pulls ahead in opportunity to shine or contribute. True of 4e, but for reasons, like formal Roles and AEDU, that 5 hasn't really emulated.

Is it just that 3.5 was so bad at that sort of thing - so prone to 'munchkinism' or caster dominance or whatever - that any system, 5e or 4e, seems to be group-oriented and balanced by comparison?

That'd be depressing.




You'll find that often the caster isn't allowing others to shine and really can't stop them because the caster is both forced to manage resources and those other classes have their own moments that cannot be taken away."Forced to manage resources" and "chooses when to shine" are the same thing. The caster has spells that tend to do something fairly awesome and dependable, but only so many of them. He chooses which spells to prepare and when to expend slots. The initiative is all on his side of the comparison. He can make bad choices or good choices (and we could debate whether choosing to out-shine the low 'agency' non-casters at their one or few tricks is a good choice or not), but he has those choices to make.


To be clear, the fighter can split that up a bit too because in 5e we can move between attacks. This is where the fighter falls short, however, as multiple-target damage eats at his total while area spell damage does not I don't think that's really at issue.

There seems to be some disagreement as to whether or where the fighter achieves his DPR superiority - is it strict, only with certain builds, on the 'tail' of the calculations when casters are perforce down to cantrips? I'm not sure I follow that disagreement, as the numbers seem to be oddly different depending upon who's throwing them out.

For instance, in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?375185-Class-Comparisons-for-Ranged-Damage), the OP determines that fighters, with feats available, top a ranged-damage contest at levels 11-15 (and 20, according to the charts, though he doesn't give them credit for it), and never make the top without feats. Specifically, it's the Sharpshooter feat that seems to make all the difference.



Wizards shine with controlling and area effects, and can add additional utility easily enough but that fits into a different role-space instead of direct competition with a fighter's role-space (generally give and take damage). 5e doesn't have neatly defined roles. I suppose you could define the fighter's role as exactly what it seems to do well, single-target DPR, combined with second best hp/HD, heavy armor, good CON & STR saves and a smattering of athletic ability and self-healing, in exactly those proportions. But it sounds like a tautology, to me.

If you declare the fighter's role-space is one easily measured, obviously critical in combat, sliver of the game, and a caster's is everything else, much of it a lot murkier, you can say that each is merely filling their proper role. But are those their proper roles? Are those hypothetical roles, themselves 'balanced' and equally PC-worthy?

[emeraldstreak]

5e doesn't have neatly defined roles. I suppose you could define the fighter's role as exactly what it seems to do well, single-target DPR, combined with second best hp/HD, heavy armor, good CON & STR saves and a smattering of athletic ability and self-healing, in exactly those proportions. But it sounds like a tautology, to me.


HP doesn't mean as much without Resistance in 5e.

[Geoff]

HP doesn't mean as much without Resistance in 5e.True, it's not like the fighter is taking half damage or anything. Though I can confirm from experience what a huge difference that heavy armor feat that gives 3 resistance makes at 1st level - huge for humans who choose a class, like fighter, paladin or Life cleric, that can wear heavy armor - by 4th level (or 6th, when a fighter gets his first bonus feat) maybe not so much, but at first: wow.

[Demonicattorney]

HP doesn't mean as much without Resistance in 5e.

I'm not sure I understand this point. Clearly having resistance is better if you have more HP. A setup where the Wizard casts Stoneskin on the Fighter is often better than the Wizard casting Stoneskin on himself.

Also, Fighters literally have twice the HP of most casters, so it doesn't seem like resistance is better than HP in the context of Casters vs Fighters.

[emeraldstreak]

I'm not sure I understand this point. Clearly having resistance is better if you have more HP. A setup where the Wizard casts Stoneskin on the Fighter is often better than the Wizard casting Stoneskin on himself.

Also, Fighters literally have twice the HP of most casters, so it doesn't seem like resistance is better than HP in the context of Casters vs Fighters.

The context is Resistance is crucial to proper risk management in 5e (as is HA Master at low lvls). Any "tank" character must have it, whether from his class features or party buffers. Mind you, it not only doubles hp but also healing.

So, the fact that the Fighter cannot access it in two variants and can hardly access in its third means the class is either reliant to party composition or a fairly bad tank that trails miles behind the Bear barbarian and probably loses out even to elemental monks and such.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

isn't the fighter reliant on AC instead?

[Demonicattorney]

The context is Resistance is crucial to proper risk management in 5e (as is HA Master at low lvls). Any "tank" character must have it, whether from his class features or party buffers. Mind you, it not only doubles hp but also healing.

So, the fact that the Fighter cannot access it in two variants and can hardly access in its third means the class is either reliant to party composition or a fairly bad tank that trails miles behind the Bear barbarian and probably loses out even to elemental monks and such.

Incorrect, the Figher doesn't trail because his AC is higher than a Barbarians and a Monks, and he has more hitpoints (from second wind). So while a Barbarian or Monk might be the best tank without outside help, a Fighter is the best tank in an actual party. Moreover, people seems to be undervalueing AC, a Fighters AC will be at least 2-3 pts higher than a Barbarians, that translates into roughly 20-30% less damage taken. The Fighter will also be stickier, more feats allow maximization of stats and grabbing critical tank feats like Sentinel, and Resilient (Will). Monks aren't very good tanks through the first 14 or so levels, given they dont have a good con save, and dont have enough Ki to dodge every round. Barbarians rely heavily on Rage, which can dissipate after only a round of being locked down, or say a failed fear save. Both advantage and resistance are conditions that do not stack, meaning that they are less valuable as part of your own ability set if your teammates can generate them. It is a team game,There are trade-offs to each class, and its hard to say which is clearly better. I suspect the Fighter and Paladin will surprise you.

[emeraldstreak]

Incorrect, the Figher doesn't trail because his AC is higher than a Barbarians and a Monks, and he has more hitpoints (from second wind). So while a Barbarian or Monk might be the best tank without outside help, a Fighter is the best tank in an actual party. Moreover, people seems to be undervalueing AC, a Fighters AC will be at least 2-3 pts higher than a Barbarians, that translates into roughly 20-30% less damage taken. The Fighter will also be stickier, more feats allow maximization of stats and grabbing critical tank feats like Sentinel, and Resilient (Will). Monks aren't very good tanks through the first 14 or so levels, given they dont have a good con save, and dont have enough Ki to dodge every round. Barbarians rely heavily on Rage, which can dissipate after only a round of being locked down, or say a failed fear save. Both advantage and resistance are conditions that do not stack, meaning that they are less valuable as part of your own ability set if your teammates can generate them. It is a team game,There are trade-offs to each class, and its hard to say which is clearly better. I suspect the Fighter and Paladin will surprise you.

Barbarians have higher AC than Fighters too.

[emeraldstreak]

isn't the fighter reliant on AC instead?

There's no such thing in DnD. Every edition has an optimal way of tanking. For the Fifth, autoconfirm criticals and bounded accuracy devalue AC.

Next, you have the golden rule of risk management: averages don't matter. Mitigating risk is all about these encounters that are not average - due to bad luck or high CR.

As a result, AC alone doesn't cut in 5e if you want a capable party that cannot be TPK by anything remotely appropriate for it. You need damage resistance.

[Demonicattorney]

Barbarians have higher AC than Fighters too.

No, they don't, not in any game that follows some semblance of 4d6 or point buy. Your required to have 20 Con and 16 Dex to match non-magical plate.These 18+ Dex Barbarian builds do not exist, at least not if you want a strength bonus. In addition, Fighters can get Armored, and have Battlemaster abilties that improve their defenses.

[Demonicattorney]

There's no such thing in DnD. Every edition has an optimal way of tanking. For the Fifth, autoconfirm criticals and bounded accuracy devalue AC.

Next, you have the golden rule of risk management: averages don't matter. Mitigating risk is all about these encounters that are not average - due to bad luck or high CR.

As a result, AC alone doesn't cut in 5e if you want a capable party that cannot be TPK by anything remotely appropriate for it. You need damage resistance.

Sort of true, and sort of not. Most high level monsters rely on lots of iterative attacks rather than single large attacks, meaning that averages are pretty good since the encounters contain enough attacks to minimize some risk. (some exceptions apply like the Goristro.) In most challenges, a single monster crit won't end your day. And if anything AC is more important against low attack creatures, an AC 18 or 19 Barbarian will literally take 3x the damage of an AC 24 Paladin, even before Heavy Armor Mastery.

[emeraldstreak]

No, they don't, not in any game that follows some semblance of 4d6 or point buy. Your required to have 20 Con and 16 Dex to match non-magical plate.These 18+ Dex Barbarian builds do not exist, at least not if you want a strength bonus. In addition, Fighters can get Armored, and have Battlemaster abilties that improve their defenses.

Fighters dont get plate from the get go either.

[emeraldstreak]

Sort of true, and sort of not. Most high level monsters rely on lots of iterative attacks rather than single large attacks, meaning that averages are pretty good since the encounters contain enough attacks to minimize some risk. (some exceptions apply like the Goristro.) In most challenges, a single monster crit won't end your day. And if anything AC is more important against low attack creatures, an AC 18 or 19 Barbarian will literally take 3x the damage of an AC 24 Paladin, even before Heavy Armor Mastery.

the reason monsters are statted like that, and the reason crits were nerfed from their most powerful version in the playtest, is exactly how devastating they were to no resistance parties during the playtest. Simultaneously, sources of resistance or similar (ie the pt etherealness) were also toned down because they were too good in the hands of those who used them.


right now, both AC and resistance are key to capable parties. As fun as Fighters are, having one in my party without a way to grant him resistance is a no go.


edit: by the way, the reason ha master feels so great is because it is the equivalent of resistance for the low levels; and another proof of AC limitations as dmg mitigator in 5e.

[Oscredwin]

Fighters dont get plate from the get go either.

Can you show your barbarian tank build? With point buy stats? By my math, barbarians can either do good damage or have good AC, not both.

[Demonicattorney]

the reason monsters are statted like that, and the reason crits were nerfed from their most powerful version in the playtest, is exactly how devastating they were to no resistance parties during the playtest. Simultaneously, sources of resistance or similar (ie the pt etherealness) were also toned down because they were too good in the hands of those who used them.


right now, both AC and resistance are key to capable parties. As fun as Fighters are, having one in my party without a way to grant him resistance is a no go.


edit: by the way, the reason ha master feels so great is because it is the equivalent of resistance for the low levels; and another proof of AC limitations as dmg mitigator in 5e.

We don't play the playtest, we play the game as it is today. Heavy Armor mastery is awesome, its something that the Fighter has easy access to, and the Barbarian doesn't, which was my point. No one is arguing that resistance isn't good, because clearly it is, but AC is relevant.

And, most fighters will get Plate by level 4, perhaps 5. Most Barbarians will get 20 CON/DEX never.

[Geoff]

edit: by the way, the reason ha master feels so great is because it is the equivalent of resistance for the low levels; and another proof of AC limitations as dmg mitigator in 5e. Heh. When a bunch of kobolds hit you for 3-6 damage (and, in HotDQ*, they do, a lot), HAM's resist 3 is strictly better than 1/2 damage.

* Half of Episode 1 of Horde of the Dragon Queen - maybe more than half - can be summed up as "Oh, look, more kobolds." Kobolds with slings seem to have little trouble concussing first level characters in the heaviest armor they can afford, which is usually chain, and d4+2 adds up. They seem to have pretty good DEX, and wisely use only ranged weapons and weapon finessed daggers, not STR based spears like in the playtest. There are lots of cultists, too, but they don't seem to carry ranged weapons, nor do they seem to hit as often.

[emeraldstreak]

We don't play the playtest, we play the game as it is today. Heavy Armor mastery is awesome, its something that the Fighter has easy access to, and the Barbarian doesn't, which was my point. No one is arguing that resistance isn't good, because clearly it is, but AC is relevant.

And, most fighters will get Plate by level 4, perhaps 5. Most Barbarians will get 20 CON/DEX never.

Classes change. New ones are added, ACF are added, old ones are errated.

The underlying mechanics of 5e won't change. AC is good, but not that good as to be able to rely on it alone. Damage resistance (or HA Master early) are a must have. Well, unless you enjoy TPKs, some do.

This cornerstone mechanic is staying regardless which class is doing best under it at a given point.

[emeraldstreak]

Heh. When a bunch of kobolds hit you for 3-6 damage (and, in HotDQ*, they do, a lot), HAM's resist 3 is strictly better than 1/2 damage.

* Half of Episode 1 of Horde of the Dragon Queen - maybe more than half - can be summed up as "Oh, look, more kobolds." Kobolds with slings seem to have little trouble concussing first level characters in the heaviest armor they can afford, which is usually chain, and d4+2 adds up. They seem to have pretty good DEX, and wisely use only ranged weapons and weapon finessed daggers, not STR based spears like in the playtest. There are lots of cultists, too, but they don't seem to carry ranged weapons, nor do they seem to hit as often.

Still, DR becomes better against crits. Again, risk management is not about the average, it's about managing critical situations.

Without spoiling too much we four-manned HotDQ with a front line of bear barbarian, ha master paladin and moon druid. Zero tpks of course.

[Oscredwin]

I think the best stats a 20 Barb can have (with point buy) is:
24
18
24
8
8
8

Which is 21 AC. This is a Mountain Dwarf who focus' his physical stats and doesn't have any feats. At level one he has an AC of 15 (compared to a fighter's 16). The barbarian stays at 15 while the fighter gets up to 18 with better armor (what level depends on wealth) until level 8, when the barbarian gets +1 AC every 4 levels (level 4 is a STR boost, level 8 is hitting both STR and Con, level 12 is Con, levels 16 and 19 are Dex) A fighter is ahead of him on AC till level 16 when they match and then at 20 the Barbarian shoots ahead to 20 vs 18. While the Barbarian does this (as well as spending some of his parth resources getting resistance to non-psychic damage) the fighter is getting 20 STR, 20 CON and feats.


I'm assuming no shields because both can use a shield so the difference is moot.

[Demonicattorney]

So basically, Barbarians have worse AC, until level 20, and are down about 5 feats on the Fighter.

[emeraldstreak]

So basically, Barbarians have worse AC, until level 20, and are down about 5 feats on the Fighter.

be my guest if you want to prove resistance-less fighter can tank lvl 20 encounters better than a barbarian

[Gnomes2169]

So basically, Barbarians have worse AC, until level 20, and are down about 5 feats on the Fighter.

Until the fighter gets magic armor. Because that still exists.

[emeraldstreak]

Until the fighter gets magic armor. Because that still exists.

Im sure my party is one of those that most abused the magic items in the playtest. Looking forward for the DMG.

[Oscredwin]

Until the fighter gets magic armor. Because that still exists.

Yeah but there are bracers that give a +3 bonus to AC if you're not wearing armor. That's comparable to +3 armor, so I think magic items are a wash.

[MeeposFire]

A bear barbarian would also have resistance to everything (except psychic) which can combo with the high AC for pretty sweet defense. Damage will be lower though as by going max dex and con you either have to go with no feats or go a dex build which makes you unable to get the damage bonus from rage and the loss of reckless attack. The question is whether you can deal enough damage that enemies consider you enough of a threat to keep attacking your high defenses.

[Demonicattorney]

Or whether a character built like that even matters at high level because they won't have Sentinel, or a good Wisdom save. Fear effects are real things.

[Ashrym]

"Forced to manage resources" and "chooses when to shine" are the same thing. The caster has spells that tend to do something fairly awesome and dependable, but only so many of them. He chooses which spells to prepare and when to expend slots. The initiative is all on his side of the comparison. He can make bad choices or good choices (and we could debate whether choosing to out-shine the low 'agency' non-casters at their one or few tricks is a good choice or not), but he has those choices to make.

It doesn't matter if a few good tricks exist when those don't matter. Hold monster is a good trick. What difference does it make if the creature is dead in one round with or without it? Pick a good trick and we can compare. I agree they exist, but not to the extent the wizard is this "tier 1" something or other.


There seems to be some disagreement as to whether or where the fighter achieves his DPR superiority - is it strict, only with certain builds, on the 'tail' of the calculations when casters are perforce down to cantrips? I'm not sure I follow that disagreement, as the numbers seem to be oddly different depending upon who's throwing them out.

For instance, in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?375185-Class-Comparisons-for-Ranged-Damage), the OP determines that fighters, with feats available, top a ranged-damage contest at levels 11-15 (and 20, according to the charts, though he doesn't give them credit for it), and never make the top without feats. Specifically, it's the Sharpshooter feat that seems to make all the difference.

Wizards use cantrips instead of spell slots because they do more damage than low levels spells, and use cantrips because if they are aren't casting anything they drop in damage. They also use cantrips because 6-8 encounter is a day is more spells than they actually have if they are trying to inflict direct damage every round that is in a reasonable damage range. My example with the 200+ burst damage battlemaster was not using the feat bonus damage, btw. The accuracy drop has a lot of impact on blowing through superiority dice quickly.

It's not just the sharpshooter feat. It's the number of attacks fighters get to make use of anything that increases damage. If you have 2-4 times as many attacks as other classes you have 2-4 times as much bonus from bonuses. I would not, for example, use sharpshooter on a rogue. The benefit of the rogue or fighter, as well, is more feats than other classes to better take advantage of powerful feats.

I can explain my number if it helps you. What I posted is accurate. If you aren't sure which numbers you believe in, you could do the math yourself too.

Also, I'm not posting top damage builds either. I'm posting straight-forward fighters using big weapons. I can build higher damage and don't see the point when it's clear this damage works. Are you disputing the 200+ burst damage, or are you trying to convince me the wizard can do that too?


5e doesn't have neatly defined roles. I suppose you could define the fighter's role as exactly what it seems to do well, single-target DPR, combined with second best hp/HD, heavy armor, good CON & STR saves and a smattering of athletic ability and self-healing, in exactly those proportions. But it sounds like a tautology, to me.

If you declare the fighter's role-space is one easily measured, obviously critical in combat, sliver of the game, and a caster's is everything else, much of it a lot murkier, you can say that each is merely filling their proper role. But are those their proper roles? Are those hypothetical roles, themselves 'balanced' and equally PC-worthy?

You don't need neatly defined roles to see clerics are good at healing and fighters are good at damage and bards are good at skill checks and wizards are good at area effects. Role-space is murkier than defined roles and there is overlap in several classes. In the single target vs area there isn't competition between fighters and wizards. This discussion is only going on because because it's clear fighters do a lot more damage than wizards best spells and people continue to argue when it's clearly calculated and demonstrated.

If it's easier to compare, 4 great sword attacks per round with great weapon fighting style and +5 ability bonus is approximately 16d6 damage per round without adding feats. Compare that to most of the spells for damage.

16d6 damage = 56 avg

2d6 with rerolls (8.33) * 4 is 33.32
+5 per attack * 4 is 20
+1 weapon *4 is 4

That's already 57.32 without crits or feats. It's like being able to do disintegrate or finger of death damage every round instead of a couple of times per day.


As others have mentioned, it's more than damage in the comparison, but damage was the easy one to demonstrate that wizards do not cover everything. Healing is another obvious shortcoming for them, and so is survivability. Magic doesn't cover there ability checks better than actual ability bonuses so I think the tier 1 thing people are pushing is malarkey. They are more like 3rd ed bards that could do a lot of things but not everything and not better than other classes, in many cases less so. I would take my chances with a fighter instead if it were a single class comparison instead of a group, although if it were only a single class a bard is likely my choice for covering just about everything.

[emeraldstreak]

This discussion is only going on because because it's clear fighters do a lot more damage than wizards best spells and people continue to argue when it's clearly calculated and demonstrated.


Very few things have been demonstrated for 5e. Scrabbing some numbers on a white list doesn't count as demonstration.

I personally feel the DMG is essential to running actual demonstrations for 5e, so there's no need to rush demonstrations now. Eventually, we'll have them.


PS. As of RAW right now a great weapon fighter's regular attack action doesnt outdo the most damaging evoker cantrip.

[Gnomes2169]

PS. As of RAW right now a great weapon fighter's regular attack action doesnt outdo the most damaging evoker cantrip.

Can you demonstrate how a 4d10+5 attack (at maximum) out-damages 6d6+15, or even 8d6+20? Especially when you can reroll 1's on the fighter's end, and potent cantrip literally only applies to acid splash (which only deals 4d6+5 (8d6+10 if you hit two targets) damage, maximum).

[Geoff]

Very few things have been demonstrated for 5e. Scrabbing some numbers on a white list doesn't count as demonstration.

I personally feel the DMG is essential to running actual demonstrations for 5e, so there's no need to rush demonstrations now. Eventually, we'll have them.
Will the DMG make a big difference to classes, though? Won't everything in it be more or less "optional?"


It doesn't matter if a few good tricks exist when those don't matter. Hold monster is a good trick. What difference does it make if the creature is dead in one round with or without it? IDK, are we assuming novas and super-short combats all of a sudden? Or are we still assuming 42 round days?


Pick a good trick and we can compare. I agree they exist, but not to the extent the wizard is this "tier 1" something or other. AFAICT, the Tiers weren't about comparing specific power builds or exploits (which is part of what we see in some damage comparisons - comparing, say, Evokers and Sharpshooters, for instance), but about the broader optimization potential of the class, both in builds and in play.

When you think about the potential of every possible member of the class, or the potential of a single one, you can't help but see the impact of flexibility that separated Tier 1 form Tier 2 classes, for instance. Those differences remain in the design of 5e classes. Maybe, if spells turn out to be just consistently bad, so that prepping a different batch of spells and spontaneously casting on the fly are just so much re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic compared to some as yet unnoticed iceberg, that difference won't matter. ..


Wizards use cantrips instead of spell slots because they do more damage than low levels spells, and use cantrips because if they are aren't casting anything they drop in damage. Before 12th?


They also use cantrips because 6-8 encounter is a day is more spells than they actually have if they are trying to inflict direct damage every round that is in a reasonable damage range. So, now monsters are tough enough to stick around more than a round or two in each combat?

Using cantrips to conserve slots actually makes a lot of sense to me - any time the situation doesn't warrant wasting a slot, use a cantrip. When the situation is important enough, use a spell, when it's critical, use a high level slot (highest level slots being valuable to 5e casters for the same reason they were to 3.5 Sorcerers, because that top level spell slot could be used to cast /any/ spell knew, as well as because they were just more potent).

Which is fine to help even things out in Damage-Per-Day calculation, but it still leaves the 'agency' aspect, which, like flexibility, seems important in tier ranking, or casters wouldn't have always been bubbled up the way they were.


It's not just the sharpshooter feat. It's the number of attacks fighters get to make use of anything that increases damage. Multiple attacks have always been like that. Accumulate static damage bonuses and they're positively broken. In 5e, though, there aren't a lot of such bonuses and the cap fairly low. Sharpshooter is the standout exception (and, in the analysis I linked, /doubled/ the damage capacity of most of the weapon-users being tested, taking the Warlock from 1st to last place, amusingly enough).


I can explain my number if it helps you. It would, thanks. Not so much the math, DPS calculations aren't that involved, but the assumptions behind it...


Are you disputing the 200+ burst damage, or are you trying to convince me the wizard can do that too? I just want weigh the conflicting claims I've heard.




You don't need neatly defined roles to see clerics are good at healing and fighters are good at damage and bards are good at skill checks and wizards are good at area effects. Role-space is murkier than defined roles and there is overlap in several classes.

In the single target vs area there isn't competition between fighters and wizards. This discussion is only going on because because it's clear fighters do a lot more damage than wizards best spells and people continue to argue when it's clearly calculated and demonstrated.


If it's easier to compare, 4 great sword attacks per round with great weapon fighting style and +5 ability bonus is approximately 16d6 damage per round without adding feats. Compare that to most of the spells for damage. Without feats or items seems reasonable, feats are optional and items not assumed, no item is pretty minor, just 1 point per attack in your calcluation. 4 attacks/round is the level 20 capstone, so casters will have 9th level spells for several levels before that 4th attack cuts in. So that's 11d6 damage, 22d with action surge, vs 9th level spells, such as the notorious Meteor Swarm's 40d of area (huge, somewhat selective area) damage, even if your 20th level fighter with his magic sword action surges he's doing the equivalent of 32d, right? Maybe that spell is 'broken,' but it's just a spell choice, not an optional sub-system and it doesn't require any optimization beyond taking enough levels of a class able to cast it and choosing it. Or, Maybe I completely misunderstood what you meant by the dice equivalencies...? Anyway, I'm confident you'll be able to massage the numbers to come out the way you like, so I don't expect that obvious observation to 'prove' anything - which is why I say I'm not trying to argue it, just trying to understand the arguments better.



As others have mentioned, it's more than damage in the comparison, but damage was the easy one to demonstrate that wizards do not cover everything. DPS is always the easy thing to calculate, and it's obviously the fighter's big thing. If a caster can match other class's features, and match the fighter's damage, even some of the time, it's "doing everything" - if it can often spit out superior peak performance, say with a top level spell, it's a Tier 1 or, if it can only do so build-by-build, Tier 2, candidate. Beating the fighter's peak DPS is just one hurdle on the way to Tier 1, it's a calculable one and it should be easy to see if it's happened or not, but I'm not sure from the range of numbers I've seen, if it has. OTOH, the super flexibility of prepping spells daily and also casting slots spontaneously, certainly clears another hurdle on the way to Tier 1.


Healing is another obvious shortcoming for them, and so is survivability. Neither seemed to hold them back, before. d4 HD didn't keep the 3.5 wiz out of Tier 1. Not sure if there are exploits like unicorn summoning to get healing, yet, and there certainly aren't Wands of Cure Light Wounds. ;) Of course, in the absence of such things, healing is also a "burden" since it consume slots that, if there were Wands or Healing Surges, would otherwise go to casting other things.


Magic doesn't cover there ability checks better than actual ability bonuses so I think the tier 1 thing people are pushing is malarkey. Not seeing that one. It's a check to climb, for instance, possible a very difficult check with dire consequences to climb a high, difficult, surface with danger below. Several spells render that sort of check moot. Just one example. Checks are mostly left to the DM. A DM could make checks easy and highly effective or difficult, of limited value on success, and dire when failed. Spells have always been more defined and certain, though 5e certainly goes back to more vague bits in many spell descriptions, they're more often in leaving the spell open to do more, like in the Command spell, where you have some uses that work cleanly, and a DM-moderated, open-ended clause that could let you get away with a lot, or just be a trap, depending on the DM.

[emeraldstreak]

Can you demonstrate how a 4d10+5 attack (at maximum) out-damages 6d6+15, or even 8d6+20? Especially when you can reroll 1's on the fighter's end, and potent cantrip literally only applies to acid splash (which only deals 4d6+5 (8d6+10 if you hit two targets) damage, maximum).

Evokers can Overchannel cantrips unlimitedly. For a white room, Poison Spray will do the most damage (53), while a greatsword fighter rerolling ones does 53.33.

[Finieous]

Evokers can Overchannel cantrips unlimitedly.

That will be errata. Mearls suggested 1d12 necrotic damage progressive for each use after the first.

[Gnomes2169]

Evokers can Overchannel cantrips unlimitedly. For a white room, Poison Spray will do the most damage (53), while a greatsword fighter rerolling ones does 53.33.

Okay... So you are having your wizard overchannel each time they cast a conjuration spell (it doesn't get int to damage, I'm afraid) for 48 damage to almost match a fighter's basic attack. However, I think you forgot something. Sure, the first overchannel is free, and if you cast a cantrip with the second one, that's free as well (it's dealing its level (0) in D12's)... But after that, the self-inflicted damage increases by 1d12 for all spells, regardless of level. And then another 1d12. And then another. And another. So the flow chart looks something like this:
1st: Free
2nd: Free (if it's a cantrip)
3rd: 1d12
4th: 2d12
5th: 3d12
Etc
Etc

And how long can a wizard keep that up, I wonder?


That will be errata. Mearls suggested 1d12 necrotic damage progressive for each use after the first.

So does the RAW, oddly enough. (Just read the last two or three sentences of Overchannel)

[Easy_Lee]

Can you demonstrate how a 4d10+5 attack (at maximum) out-damages 6d6+15, or even 8d6+20? Especially when you can reroll 1's on the fighter's end, and potent cantrip literally only applies to acid splash (which only deals 4d6+5 (8d6+10 if you hit two targets) damage, maximum).

I can. If the target is resistant to physical damage or outside the fighter's range, the wizard will do more damage. This is one of the reasons why eldritch blast is so strong: in addition to invocations and range, it's force damage. Never underestimate the power of bringing consistent damage rather than just high numbers.

That said, wizards probably have better things to do past low levels than throw damaging cantrips.

[Geoff]

I can. If the target is resistant to physical damage or outside the fighter's range, the wizard will do more damage. This is one of the reasons why eldritch blast is so strong: in addition to invocations and range, it's force damage. That's not the wizard beating the fighter at what he's good at, though, just an example of one of the many things the wizard can do that the fighter can't.

[Finieous]

So does the RAW, oddly enough. (Just read the last two or three sentences of Overchannel)

1d12 x spell level, which is 0. If the white-room caster only casts a cantrip and no other spell, he wouldn't take damage. Unless you interpret 1d12 per spell level to mean 1d12 for a 0-level spell, 2d12 for a 1st-level spell, etc.

I think it's worded poorly and will receive needed clarification in errata. But I have no interest in involving myself in a RAW/RAI debate for a white room damage modeling.

[emeraldstreak]

That will be errata. Mearls suggested 1d12 necrotic damage progressive for each use after the first.

Mearls confirmed by RAW it doesnt do damage.

[Finieous]

Mearls confirmed by RAW it doesnt do damage.

LOL. That's one way of looking at it.

[Demonicattorney]

The evoker-overchannel cantrips is an exploit. Its clearly not intended by the designers of the game. The fluff of the ability is that you can get a little extra juice at a critical point, but if you push too hard it hurts you (which is awesome).

I don't think it has any bearing on this conversation about the class as a whole, only about 1/8 of Wizards are Evokers, and most DMs will not permit overchannel to be spammed that way, given what Mearls said, and how stupid it is.