Quote Originally Posted by Beheld View Post
HMMMMM. Am I changing my mind from my previous argument that Bard is Tier 4? Or did you just refuse to read what I actually said over and over and repeatedly assign an opinion I did not state or hold to me. Probably that second one.

If a class had only bard spellcasting and nothing else, it would belong in Tier 4, the Bard has something else, and belongs in Tier 3, as I said, the Jester who has similar casting, but (the impression I get is) worse other features is on the bubble.
It struck me as a somewhat ambiguous position, as it tends to be when you have a class right on the line, along with a probably. If you're that adamant on it, I should probably stick that down as a vote. This argument is probably pretty pointless if we all more or less agree. Maybe we should just start looking at the jester or something.

Like I said, that's because I didn't think anyone was seriously going to contend that a level 1 Wizard is a really a level 4 character because Silent Image + Sleep + Alarm is what a level 4 character does.
I don't think I've ever listed alarm. The third choice was generally charm person or grease. And, of course, in about 1/4 of these encounters, you have glitterdust too. I mean, yeah, on this allotment, silent image is clearly your only combat ready first level spell. With grease and/or charm person, maybe both if you ditch sleep (seems smart on a low spells known spontaneous caster), you have a decent variety of combat options.
I mean, if you are so committed I can do analysis of literally all the SRD CR 3-5 monsters and see how that goes.

Being pretty generous, I have Centuar, Large and Huge Animate Object, Ankeg, Juvenile Arrowhawk, Giant Eagle/Owl, Gargoyle, all 10 mephits, all 8 vermin, Ogre, all 3 Oozes, Pegasus, 3 Skeletons and 3 Zombies (as far as computing these, I usually just assign the ones that show up on d20 monster filter, since there are theoretically nearly as many of these as everything else combined, but people aren't going to use them to the exclusion) Ravid, and Spider Eater. Altogether, 39 of 153, or about 25%. Contributing equivalent to a 4th level character is 25% of 75% of encounters and (basically 100%) of 25% encounters, comes out to contributing at your level 43% of the time. That's not level appropriate, that's more than 50% of the time you aren't level appropriate. (This is, as I feel obligated to mention since you keep refusing to believe me when I say it, spellcasting alone.)
I'm honestly not sure at all what is acting as input to your decision that a given creature is one you're contributing to, or where your lines are for meaningful contribution to a combat, or anything, really. You kinda just listed a bunch of numbers and a percentage.

Under the metric of "at least 8 rounds of combat a day" and the Bard being able to cast Glitterdust in only one of those 8 rounds, it follows that in 7 of the rounds he is using First level spells. (Hence why I assume such a character, Bard casting only, would use Silent Image a great deal, since that would allow him to stretch his 3 first level spells across 6 combat rounds in the three encounters he has each day without glitterdust.)
I tend to go more by what the character is doing in a combat rather than what a character is doing in a round. Glitterdust doesn't take up multiple bard-rounds, but it takes up multiple enemy-rounds. Your mode of analysis would really weirdly overcount effects like silent image, as you say, just because they eat more of the bard's attention.
Remember when I said "not level appropriate" that doesn't mean literally useless, it just means that you aren't level appropriate, and aren't contributing your fair share to encounters when you are using first level spells as your only input to an EL 4 encounter. Like, 25% of encounters contributing at level and 75% not at level contribution.
As I noted above, it's not clear what you mean by not level appropriate.

Like I have said, bard casting. Not Bard.
I think it's useful to consider the intersection of these abilities, even when looking at just casting. Like, we can ferret out the +1 granted by inspire courage itself, and say, "Nah, this effect isn't coming from spells," but we can still assume inspire courage exists as a thing the bard has such that the bard can cast inspirational boost. In this context, we would still attribute the second +1 to spells, rather than class features. It's a model that allows for analysis of all of the bard's spellcraft, and not just the stuff that works if cast by a commoner.

Those are both absolutely bat**** crazy interpretations that no one would ever make if they weren't committed to trying to weasel bluff into the most powerful thing in the universe. You are only advocating them because you want to defend bluff as actually crazy good, and you are willing to stab sense to death in a dark alley to do it.
The second definitely isn't. You've constructed a restriction that doesn't exist in the text at all. The first, I don't think is all that crazy, given a direct reading of the text, but I don't care to argue it anymore. I don't need the spell to be crazy good. I don't even really need the spell to be good, though it helps. I think the spell is good enough to contribute to a party in this level range, and higher level ranges too. It is, in fact, more than enough.

1) If you claiming to be king without evidence is new evidence, then him saying you aren't is also new evidence. If you have to present evidence for your claims, then you are up **** creak without a paddle, because the Bard never has evidence for any of his claims ever.
Yeah, but if he says it, and you say he's lying, and everyone believes you (it's well within the realm of possibility), then repeating it is not new evidence.
2) You can say "that information is false for whatever reason" and every time, the king can respond with "except it's true for whatever reason" and you are still trapped in the same inescapable loop of never being able to meaningfully convince someone for more than one round when they are in the presence of new information.
In this case, and the previous case, the king has no manner by which to get people to automatically believe him like you do with bluff. Also, convincing the king himself seems like it would be helpful here, cause then he wouldn't present counter-evidence at all.

1) I literally can't tell the difference between what you are saying here, and someone complaining that it's unfair that the enemy Wizard had cast Detect Scrying and responded to their Scry spell. You are mad that people respond to the abilities that exist in their world by protecting themselves against them?
Mostly that it seems weirdly esoteric, and easier than you're claiming to bypass. Spells are cool cause they just do exactly what they say they do. Detect scrying is like that.
2) No you can't, because literally by their nature, the veracity of the deaf guy is beyond question, and any attempt to doubt him is too incredible to consider, that's the point of procedures.
I don't really know why the veracity of some arbitrary deaf guy would be beyond question. Maybe he was replaced by a spy. Procedures are generally not infallible.
3) Please stop talking about the spell level. Glibness is an ability you get at 7th level. If it was a 4th level spell it would be an ability you get at 11th level. I mean, you might as well be talking about how Dispel Magic is way too good as a First level spell. Spell level only meaningfully effects Globe of Invulnerability and saving throw, so aside from being negated by Globe of Invulnerability placed in the right locations, it's spell level is meaningless in evaluating it's power, the relevant consideration is what level you get the spell. If you got the spell at level 11, that would be as singularly impressive as most of the other bard spells, instead of approximately nearly as good as what level appropriate casters are getting (but way fewer times per day).
I'm talking about spell level because you were kinda talking about spell level. You were asserting that spells below a certain spell level at certain levels were not level appropriate. I was countering that the underleveled nature of some spells means that a certain spell means that those spells remain level appropriate even if your general claim holds accurate (which it isn't, in my opinion).

"I'm not sure why my boss would expect me to follow proper procedures." Yeah, that might be your problem.
They wouldn't think they need to follow proper procedures because you're telling them they don't, and you're the boss who implemented them in the first place.

But really, if your argument is "my credibility is never affected by the fact that I've been wrong 100 times in a row" then sure, Bluff is godmode, but since in fact, credibility is affected by constantly being wrong, papering over your failed lies with more lies is a non-effective strategy. Whether this is evaluated as a single mega lie or a series of minor lies to cover for each previous lie being figured out as false, either of those things scales into "too incredible to consider."
But you've never been wrong yet. All your bluffs have succeeded, which means that, while they might have doubts aligned with some particular evidence, you have thus far been right every time leading up to that moment. Less, "Hah, you're wrong, what of this password?" more, "I totally agree up to this point, but now let's assess this password issue."

Except that the encounters do in fact scale with potency. First level Barbarians don't lose AB or damage as you level, they just face enemies with more HP and AC. It's the same thing. As evidenced by the 25% contribution rate of Bard with 3 spells and 3 spells known going into 3 encounters.
Spells don't always, or even necessarily usually, interact with enemies the way stabbing does. As you note, there's obvious and direct statistical increases on both sides, and so the value of the monster relative to the value of the barbarian stays relatively constant, though not fully constant for various reasons. Saving throws, occasionally touch AC, and a variety of defenses that any given monster may or may not have are the things we're assessing here, and the first isn't always present, the second tends to not be a big issue, and the third is heavily dependent on specific situation rather than strict level analysis. A first level enemy and a fourth level enemy will have pretty similar reactions to silent image most of the time. If they're humanoid, then charm person will work on them only a bit worse than a second level spell. If they're on the ground, then that aforementioned only slightly higher saving throw from a second level spell is still in play, and the effects that don't require a save continue to be in play. Magic tends to be rooted in differences in kind, rather than differences in quantity, especially at higher levels but also frequently at lower levels.