Quote Originally Posted by Endarire View Post
Greetings, all!

I am familiar with the 10 Commandments of Practical Optimization and the 10 Commandments of Optimization. In my 15ish years of playing 3.x and Pathfinder, I noticed discrepencies between 'forum logic' (as our current GM calls it) and the game in practice. My favorite character class for a long time has been Wizards, and I've played a variety of them, but even after reading and enjoying Treantmonk's guide a decade ago, I felt like high-tier characters, most notably tier 1 and 2 casters, were somewhere between balanced and weak due to the campaign never reaching above level 10 and rarely above level 6. In short, I felt like I was entranced by the potential[ of these classes and builds much more than the practicality of them, especially before level 11 or so.

Meanwhile, tier 3 and below classes have gotten a bad reputation from forumites over the decades (and I have echoed some of this logic largely in ignorance) while having greater stamina and greater immediate effect. For example, in the Red Hand of Doom module, I played a Wizard/Hathran/Incantatrix as a main character with a Hood cohort. The cohort, despite being 2 levels below the party, soloed a boss in one round meant to challenge the group due to this cohort's tremendous damage output while the main character died (perhaps by being one-shot) in the campaign despite her high defenses.

I've also noticed that low level high-tier classes generally don't get to do much over the course of the adventuring day. Wizards (and to some degree also Sorcerers) are the extreme example since their competence is mostly in their spell slots, though Archivists and Psions are similar. Druids don't do much until Wild Shape or Natural Spell depending on details, though their animal companions do more. Clerics cast (often healing and buffing) and attack physically sometimes. Artificers? Unsure due to too little experience with them.

Meanwhile, a multiclassed Wizard/Warblade or such can attack each round and still be more competent in more situations (in practice from my experience) than a full Wizard.

What say you?
A level 1 wizard has three spells per day of spell level 1, a sorcerer has 4. Assuming they pace the casting to 1/encounter and use sleep/color spray they will be slightly more effective over the course of a day as a fighter.

At higher levels you aren't playing the same game as mundanes. You mention the cohort doing more then the caster, but not whether they do better then the Gargan3tuan animated object the caster is hiding in at level 7 (on the front page right now), or the bound Glabrezu, or their army of dragon zombies, or the crafted contingencies moving them to another plane of existence and them then teleporting back later with said minions.

Tier 1s can be played like a tier 3 and not be broken. They can even be weak. But a fighter can't make a time altered dimension where they full rest between encounters or chain gate solars, tier 1s can.