Blood, Sweat and Tiers: Epic Adventures in a World of Grievous Power Imbalance

[Jormengand]

Blood, Sweat and Tiers is a fantasy adventure in OOTS style whose entire premise is explained pretty well in the first comic.

Updates are mostly going to be on a "Whenever I'm up to it, and if there's enough interest" basis, I'm afraid. Express your interest if you're interested!

Spoiler: For those not so versed in optimisation theory...

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This is a repository of quick guides to the concepts and classes represented in Blood, Sweat and Tiers.

Spoiler: Tiers?

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Tiers are a set of categorisations devised by the optimisation theorist JaronK. Essentially, it ranks classes into the following categories:

1: Classes which have campaign-shaping powers which they CAN swap out every day or so (eg wizard, cleric, druid).
2: Classes which have campaign-shaping powers which they CANNOT swap out very often (eg sorcerer, psion).
3: Classes with the ability to contribute well at their speciality AND adequately always (eg bard, psychic warrior).
4: Classes with the ability to contribute well at their speciality OR adequately always (eg barbarian, rogue).
5: Classes with the ability to contribute adequately at their speciality (eg fighter, monk).
6: Classes without the ability to provide level-appropriate responses to the situation (eg aristocrat, commoner).

One class, the truenamer, was not considered to fit well into the tier system as small amounts of optimisation could make drastic differences to the power level of the class. I think that the truenamer is about tier 4, the monk about tier 5, the soulknife about tier 6 and the samurai tier 5 or 6 depending on build choices, but the original tiering for the classes had them as truenamer X, monk 5, soulknife 5, samurai 5-6.

Numerous attempts have been made to tier the classes communally: one which allowed anyone to vote unless they attacked and belittled others on the forum, and one where the original poster got to choose whose votes counted and whose didn't, for example.

The tier system attempts to measure ability to contribute to a campaign rather than just competence at encounters with a listed CR; its value is disputed by the proponents of the "Same game test", a test which pits a single character (even if that character has a support or noncombat role) through a series of combat or trap encounters which are an appropriate challenge for that character (except that in a lot of instances they aren't). This produces unsurprisingly similar results to the tier system when used for classes which are good at solving problems with a listed CR alone and unsurprisingly different results when used for classes which are good at talking or supporting.

Spoiler: If the Truth Fits, Name it

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A truenamer is a class which, instead of casting spells, can speak up to 29 different utterances: 20 from the Lexicon of the Evolving Mind, 5 from the Lexicon of the Crafted Tool and 4 from the Lexicon of the Perfected Map. In order to speak an utterance, the truenamer must pass a truespeak check while obeying the Law of Sequence and the Law of Resistance.

The Lexicon of the Evolving Mind contains utterances which affect creatures, divided into 6 levels, and in order to utter one you need to pass a truespeak check, DC 15 plus double the CR of the target creature. They can be spoken backwards, or "Reversed", in order to have a negative effect on the target instead of a positive one, or just have a different positive one (like granting invisibility instead of see invisibility). You get an utterance from this lexicon with each level of truenamer you take.

Notable utterances include the Word of Nurturing utterances, which grant fast healing or reverse to deal damage, the universal aptitude utterance which provides +5 or -5 to all skills for 5 rounds, the hidden truth utterance which gives a +10 bonus to either knowledge or bluff, the energy negation utterance which causes energy resistance or energy damage over time, and general utility utterances like seek the sky (give or remove flight). The mortalbane feat from the Book of Vile Darkness (which doesn't actually require the user to be evil, nongood or even nonexalted) adds 2d6 to the damage of any utterance against living creatures.

The Lexicon of the Crafted Tool affects objects, and you get one of each of the five levels of utterances contained within. They require a truespeak check, DC 15 plus double the CL of the object, or plus 10 if the object is nonmagical (which means that minor magic items are easier to utter on).

Notable utterances include analyse item (identify) and transmute weapon (change a target weapon into a special material).

The Lexicon of the Perfected map contains four levels and you get four of them. They require a truespeak check. A testament to Tome of Magic's poor editing, the DC of 15 plus ten times the utterance level was only added in the errata. They affect areas, or more commonly the creatures in them.

Notable utterances include fog from the void (emulates various fog spells from the PHB up to Solid Fog) and conjunctive gate, an utterance which allows a truenamer to cast gate at no cost whenever they like.

The law of resistance adds 2 to the DC of truespeak checks for each time you've spoken that particular utterance today, and the law of sequence prevents you from speaking an utterance while the utterance of the same name and level is active (fortunately you can add 1 to an utterance's effective level by increasing the truespeak DC by 4).

The truenamer in Blood, Sweat and Tiers is an illumian. They get a bonus to certain values (+1 at first level then +2 thereafter) and can choose two things to add to, such as their caster level (maximum of their HD) and various skill checks. The illumian in the comic has the sigils which give a +2 to dexterity-based checks including initiative and a +2 to intelligence-based checks including truespeak. Her name is a possible illumian name according to races of destiny.

You can read more about truenamers in the tome of magic.

Spoiler: Knife and Soul of the Party

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The soulknife can summon a mind blade to help her fight, but the sword starts as a nonmagical short sword and the soulknife only has the medium base attack bonus and few proficiencies. A soulknife gets the ability to throw her mind blade and re-summon it at level 2, but can only make a full attack with a thrown mind blade at level 17. Her psychic strike ability allows her to deal damage to creatures without shielding against mind-affecting abilities by using her move action, but the damage pales in comparison to sneak attack or other damage bonuses. At 13th level she can deal mental ability score damage with the psychic strike instead of hit point damage. Her mind blade is, on average, worth 37% of her wealth by level, but it only averages 0.031% over the first three levels. You can read more about soulknives here.

A soulknife may choose to wield the slightly more devastating power of a soulbow instead when she gains levels. You can read about the soulbow here.

Spoiler: The Honour of a Samurai

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A samurai has a full base attack bonus. Much like the soulknife, the Samurai recieves a short sword at first level, but it's masterwork and you also get a masterwork bastard sword to go with it, alongside full base attack bonus and armour proficiency. A samurai learns to fight with both weapons at level 2, and can smite any creature from level 3 (although it's usually slightly less effective than a paladin's smite). The samurai get some questionably useful bonus feats as they advance, but the main selling point is their intimidation skills. At level 6, they gain an ability which gives them a +4 bonus to intimidate checks (it's meant to do something else, but cuts off partway through a sentence). At tenth level, they can intimidate multiple enemies with a single standard action and at 14th, a move action. This is exceptional when combined with the Imperious Command feat from Drow of the Underdark, which causes the target of your intimidation to be Cowering for one round and then Shaken for one round.

A samurai must remain lawful and maintain allegience to his daimyo (lord). A disgraced samurai may continue to advance without his smite or intimidation abilities, or become a Ronin to regain them while also becoming able to make powerful "Banzai charges" which can slay an enemy instantly by dealing an arbitrarily high penalty to his AC for one round, because of sloppy wording. Ronin also gain sneak attack, and actually useful bonus feats, and it's impossible for a disgraced samurai of at least 6th level to fail to meet the prerequisites.

You can read more about both classes in complete warrior.

Spoiler: Punching with Class

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The monk is a class whose unarmed strikes start as powerful as short swords, but eventually even the mighty fullblade can't stack up to their damage. Further, they can unleash a flurry of blows, granting them extra attacks. The flurry of blows incurs a penalty at low levels and they only have medium base attack bonus, making these otherwise-powerful attacks unlikely to hit. They cannot wear armour but get a somewhat respectable bonus to armour class, allowing a human monk with a decent intelligence to act as a decent infiltrator. The monk gets the ability to slow their falls and move quickly, as well as an array of weak but relevant supernatural abilities. The monk is a passable melee combatant but cannot apply any of their abilities to any decent ranged weapons.

You can read more about the monk here.

Spoiler: Don't Explain the Joke!

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Confused about any of the jokes in the comic? This explains them in detail, presumably spoiling the fun if you haven't read the comic yet.

C1P1: Nessus is the ninth of the nine planes of existence collectively called Baator or the Nine Hells. The eighth hell, Cania, is a frozen wasteland; the implication of the cyan background is that the sign is placed in Cania. 4000 move actions is probably 12000 feet.
C1P4-9: The psion (P5), cleric (P6), wizard (P7) and swordsage (P8) are vastly more powerful (Tiers 2, 1, 1 and 3) than the soulknife, monk, truenamer and samurai (Tiers 5/6, 5, 4 and 5/6) (P9).
C1P8: Some maneuvers add high enough bonus damage that the difference between hitting people with a stick and a greatsword is minimal. Assuming that the stick is a club, a creature with 18 strength using the Lightning Throw maneuver does an average of 45 damage with a greatsword and 41.5 with a club, for example. Some of the swordsage's maneuvers don't take the base damage into account at all. The assertion that the tome of battle classes are really martial is somewhat disputed on this basis.
C1P10: This panel contains a tier ranking, missing out tier 4. Because the truenamer doesn't traditionally fit into the tier system, she instead lists tier 4 classes that she should have been to fill out the missing tier. The soulknife wonders aloud why she's in tier 5 and not tier 6, since soulknives were placed in tier 5 despite not really being effective enough to meet the criteria.
C1 Title: Adept is another tier 4 class, which is somewhat amusing because it's an NPC class and the idea that it's stronger than many player character classes is a little silly.
C2P2: Ninja is a tier 4 class which requires strength to hit in close combat, intelligence and dexterity to use skills, wisdom for its ki abilities, constitution for hit points, and charisma to use important skills like disguise and diplomacy. Samurai get the two weapons which they're expected to dual wield from level 1 but two-weapon fighting at level 2.
C2P3: The Imperious Command feat, from Drow of the Underdark, is a powerful feat choice for samurai. At sixth level a samurai can use the intimidate skill to demoralise an opponent (as written in the intimidate skill description). Presumably, there is meant to be something written after the second parenthesis (such as "As a move action") but as written the ability allows you to use the skill to do what it normally does.
C2P5: Mortalbane is a powerful feat for truenamers; it's found in the Book of Vile Darkness. While one doesn't actually have to be evil to learn it, one might not want to tell the king about having done so.
C2P7: The penalties for two-weapon fighting without the feat are so monstrously powerful that even without Dan's relatively high AC, Toshiro would have trouble hitting him. Toshiro could actually fail to hit a mountain with the offhand attack without even rolling a 1.
C2P9: No, that's literally the only thing first-level soulknives have going for them.
C2 title: A refernce to the phrase "The pen is mightier than the sword" and the fact that the swordsage could easily kill the sword-armed warrior with his stick.
C3: This comic is mostly advancing the polt but contains a reference to The Order of the Stick. Check it out on the panel on the left!
C3 title: Spellcasters are far better at fighting without any equipment than monks, because a monk needs magic items to keep his ability scores up while spellcasters are powerful irrespective.
C4: The spell Fire Trap sucks. Tauruth sends Lilly to check for traps, but the one trap that she finds (and can't disable) is a very weak trap.
C4 title: Firetrap is a clothing brand by whom I am not actually sponsored.
C5P1: Fire Trap explicitly doesn't harm the warded object; it's a testament to Lilly's klutziness that she broke the door. The fire trap is inexplicably CR ("Challenge rating") 3, which means that it should be a difficult challenge for a level 1 party, an average challenge for a level 3 party, and a 50/50 chance to defeat a level 3 character. It is none of those things.
C5P2: A level 3 character is CR three, and fire trap can be cast (and is assumed to have been cast) by a level 3 druid. That Damned Crab (the monstrous crab) has a listed CR of 3 despite having the combined hit points of an entire level 3 party, claws which deal enough damage to kill a party member in a single full attack, immunity to mind-affecting abilities and the ability to hold creatures in its claws and crush them to death while continuing to fight, as well as an unbeatable grapple bonus. Toshiro and Dan are EL ("Encounter level") 3, because challenge rating only applies to single creatures. Since the EL of a single creature is equal to its CR and multiple creatures don't have a combined CR at all, the terms are often used interchangeably.
C5P4: Halberds don't have reach (the weapon quality which allows you to attack enemies 10 feet away but not ones 5 feet away), but the halberd was, in real life, primarily used for its reach. A first-level adept has two hit points, plus additional hit points from their constitution modifier. The adept who is speaking was exaggerating and actually has a decent constitution.
C5P5,6,8: The grapple rules are stupid and no-one remembers them.
C5P9: The withdraw action is the action you take to run away from someone in your face, which is useful if you're a spellcaster and a maniac with a short sword is on you.
C6P3: "Sample text" is a phrase commonly used in Montage Parodies, also known as MLG videos due to the connection with Major League Gaming, which are videos which reference memes common in the video gaming community.
C6P4: The moderators of Giant in the Playground are well known for mind contrThere is no mind control, citizen. Go back to your fun.
C6P6: The succubus is CR 7. The party is APL ("Average party level") 1. The text is taken from the real Dungeon Master's Guide.

Comic 1: Adept?
Comic 2: The Stick is Mightier...
Comic 3: Spellcasters, for example.
Comic 4: They do make good clothes though.
Comic 5: Grappling with the rules.
Comic 6: Can't we just cuddle instead?