I obviously don't understand a wizard's power

[Greenish]

As you are entitled to your No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination.

I'm not quite sure what that, or banana-gaming for that matter, are supposed to mean, but I gather that it's supposed to be something less than flattering.

Spoiler

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This is probably it.

[Alchemistmerlin]

I'm not quite sure what that, or banana-gaming for that matter, are supposed to mean, but I gather that it's supposed to be something less than flattering.

Spoiler

Show

This is probably it.

Obviously not a man who has ever had a conversation with someone who has played WAY too much Super Smash Brothers.

I apologize, I did not mean to derail this thread as I did, merely a sigh of frustration that escaped me.

[AmberVael]

I fail to see the problem
Charging is like explosives: if it can't solve a problem, you need more of it.

Maxim Six: If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.


Like others have said, you can increase your numbers all you please, but if you don't have options then you're going to have trouble anyway. It's not really about magic or specifics classes, it's just about capability to perform well in a wide variety of situations... thing is, in D&D, magic is really good at performing well in a wide variety of situations.

[Calintares]

It's fine if they want to play that. The issue is with optimization over enjoyment. If the group as a whole enjoys the game as they play it, then there is no harm, and coincidentally, the whole point of D&D is realized.

It's only when gamers come in with their power gaming tactics that the game gets broken. I imagine that's why the tiers were invented. For the optimizers.

The point of the game is (was?) not who gets to press the save-or-die button first, but simply fun. And that's possible with any combination of characters and classes, if the players have the right mindset.

The thing is that the higher tier classes will almost always overshadow the lower tier characters a lot of the time because the classes simply have much more to contribute. If people in the group is fine with being overshadowed then that's ok. But make no mistake about it, this occurs even if no optimization is attempted beyond not dumping ones primary casting stats and suchlike.

It's not a huge effort in optimization to simply go Druid 20 and at some point after level 6 take natural spell, often times a new player will chose it based on it sounding cool, but when that player plays together with someone who chose monk because it also sounded cool you might have a problem unless the monk-player is fine with always having less to contribute to the situation

[Veyr]

It's only when gamers come in with their power gaming tactics that the game gets broken. I imagine that's why the tiers were invented. For the optimizers.

There are so many things wrong with this post.

1. There is no "right" way to play the game. Your statement that the game works fine "if the players have the right mindset," is inherently insulting to anyone who cares about mechanics.
   
2. Believe it or not, tier issues come up in unoptimized play! There are plenty of stories of people playing with no looking stuff up on the Internet, no analyzing spell lists and feat, just naturally playing the game — and the Fighter 6 complaining after 3 combats about how the Druid 6 is two Fighters plus spells. And without tiers, this is very likely to devolve into "he must be cheating!" if people are convinced that the rules couldn't possibly be as unbalanced as they are.
   
3. As Cog points out, you're making a classic case for that old idiom about assuming, here.

[Yora]

However there are also stories of people complaining that the monk doesn't give the druid any chance to be useful. Every class can completely outshine another when the players are not aware of the full potential of their characters.

[Leon]

Or any other tier 1 for that matter.

I mean, I know they're strong, but it seems to me that an uber charger who wins initiative and has some magic defense piercing would kill anything. Surely I'm missing something, as Wizard is tier 1 and Barbarian is tier 4.

Ignore the crap that is the tier system and you will have a better game. All the classes have Strengths and Weaknesses that will be better or worse in a given situation.

[Cog]

The more sources of variability you have, the more likely you are to end up with inequality. Player skill will be a problem either way. Awareness of the tiers lets you remove one of the sources of variability, or even take advantage of it to help lessen the other sources.

[Tael]

Let us examine the various Shticks of classes.

A Barbarian's Shtick is to beat things up. He does this rather well, and beating things up is a highly valued Shtick in D&D. Unfortunately however, he is rather limited is his means of beating things up, so he is only tier 4.

A Warblade's Shtick is also beating things up, but in addition, he can lead, talk to people, and has greater variety in the way that he beats things up.

A Wizard's Shtick however... is using magic. Which does everything. He does everything rather well, and thus is tier 1. A Wizard can do virtually the same amount of damage as a Barbarian, and will have more defenses while he does it, not to mention the many more ways he can damage things. And then tomorrow he teleports the party to the city, crafts some magic items, divines the future, Summons/Dominates some minions, and charms his way into being best buds with the king. And then while the Wizard is defending the kingdom from the evil lich army, the barbarian is still walking back to the city.

[Alchemistmerlin]

Let us examine the various Shticks of classes.

A Barbarian's Shtick is to beat things up. He does this rather well, and beating things up is a highly valued Shtick in D&D. Unfortunately however, he is rather limited is his means of beating things up, so he is only tier 4.

A Warblade's Shtick is also beating things up, but in addition, he can lead, talk to people, and has greater variety in the way that he beats things up.

A Wizard's Shtick however... is using magic. Which does everything. He does everything rather well, and thus is tier 1. A Wizard can do virtually the same amount of damage as a Barbarian, and will have more defenses while he does it, not to mention the many more ways he can damage things. And then tomorrow he teleports the party to the city, crafts some magic items, divines the future, Summons/Dominates some minions, and charms his way into being best buds with the king. And then while the Wizard is defending the kingdom from the evil lich army, the barbarian is still walking back to the city.

And the GM's Shtick is to take the Wizard's Shtick and beat him with it to make sure everyone at the table is having fun.

[Tael]

And the GM's Shtick is to take the Wizard's Shtick and beat him with it to make sure everyone at the table is having fun.

Of course. And the Tier system helps you do that by informing you about the relative power levels of characters. Wizards and Barbarians can be perfectly fine in a party together if:
a) No one is optimizing at all
or
b) The Wizard player acknowledges his power, and doesn't go crazy.

[Cog]

Or, rather than dealing out beating after the fact, you can use the tiers as intended, looking at them beforehand, and the Wizard player who's new to the game and had no reason to suspect that the classes weren't balanced now knows ahead of time that he'll have to watch himself... or, better, that if he wants to go side by side with his Barbarian buddy, he's maybe better off playing a Beguiler or Warmage or such.

[danzibr]

As you are entitled to your No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination.

I prefer Sheik for anything but 1v1v1v1 and Ganondorf for that, all items are go, all levels are go.

Except in Brawl I like Ike.

But the most fun (at least for a short while) is Mega Bowser Coin Mode.

[shadow_archmagi]

And the GM's Shtick is to take the Wizard's Shtick and beat him with it to make sure everyone at the table is having fun.

If the DM is having to intercede in game and constantly either design encounters around negating magic, or directly step in and say "No you can't do that" then that sounds like a problem, and something that isn't fun.

I know my players really resent it when the DM has to muscle in and nerf someone because they're "too good"

[Curious]

I believe both of the common fallacies have been used in this thread already, that is;

"I'm having fun so nothing is wrong."

This is an invalid argument because regardless of the specific conditions within your group that make it fun to play with a wizard and a monk in the same party, whether it be aggressive non-optimization or something else, their respective tiers still apply. And when thousands of other people play, they will notice the difference and have their fun diminished. This is a problem.


"I can fix it, so it's not broken."

This argument does not hold water, because if you need to fix something it is already broken. Just because it is possible to nerf the wizard directly after he sends your plot spiraling down the loo, it doesn't mean he wasn't broken in the first place.


Optimization isn't a crime. It is stretching the bounds of the system to create characters with the ability to actually contribute to the party. The tier system allows for a quick and easy way to get a grasp on the respective power levels of similarily optimized characters.

[Tael]

Optimization isn't a crime. It is stretching the bounds of the system to create characters with the ability to actually contribute to the party. The tier system allows for a quick and easy way to get a grasp on the respective power levels of similarily optimized characters.

Well, I'd hardly call most optimization "stretching the bounds of the system". That's more like very high level Practical Optimization to Theoretical Optimization.

[shadow_archmagi]

Optimization isn't really relevant to the discussion; just reasonable spell selection is 90% of a wizard achieving tier 1. Did you take fly? Fly is pretty great. Anyone can see fly is pretty great. Fly pretty much solves chasms, castle walls, rivers, floods...

That line of thought is all you really need.

[Tael]

Optimization isn't really relevant to the discussion; just reasonable spell selection is 90% of a wizard achieving tier 1. Did you take fly? Fly is pretty great. Anyone can see fly is pretty great. Fly pretty much solves chasms, castle walls, rivers, floods...

That line of thought is all you really need.

And yet there are many people who rarely take Fly, instead filling up their spell list with more ways to make things explode. Played with a guy whose 3rd level spell list was Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Vampiric Touch, and Keen Edge.

Just saying, it's not that hard to screw up a wizard.

[Cog]

Wizard is one of the flakiest tier ones, yes. That's even more reason to limit your sources of variability.

[Yuki Akuma]

Hey, Keen Edge is good. It makes the beatstick better at beating things with his stick.

(As long as his stick is actually not a stick but a bladed weapon of some description.)

[Tael]

Hey, Keen Edge is good. It makes the beatstick better at beating things with his stick.

(As long as his stick is actually not a stick but a bladed weapon of some description.)

Ah, you might think that, but no. He was an Elf, and he cast Keen Edge on his own Rapier.

[Yora]

Optimization isn't really relevant to the discussion; just reasonable spell selection is 90% of a wizard achieving tier 1. Did you take fly? Fly is pretty great. Anyone can see fly is pretty great. Fly pretty much solves chasms, castle walls, rivers, floods...

That line of thought is all you really need.

Beginners logic: But how often do you face those things? Goblins you face all day!

[Elric VIII]

I would like to provide some anecdotal evidence to address the point of a Wizard/Druid/Artificer/Monk party.

I am in a game with a Blasty Sorcerer, a Dervish/Warblade, a Rogue that can one-shot pretty much anything that isn't a boss, and a Ninja/Shadowdancer. I'm playing the Cleric. Our party was, before the Ninja arrived (and with a little op help from me), between tier 2-3 (I lost a few CL to be more melee-ish).

The Ninja showed up and has pretty much skirted death each session. I originally spent the first few trying to buff her and bring her up to the party's level of usefulness, but now I just keep her alive and let her do her own thing.

Now, here's the rub. She has been having fun the whole time, but I was missing out on a chance to contribute (and have fun) myself while I was trying to strengthen her.

So, it's not always the low tier player that will be robbed of fun. Sometimes it's the more powerful classes that are expected to do things like cast Fly on the VoP Monk that will not enjoy the game.

Basically, the porpose of tiers is to attempt to get everyone on a equal playing field. There is nothing wrong with Tier 4, but you should make sure that the rest of the party will be of the same power level.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I think the main disconnect here is that while Tiers are a signal of how powerful a character can get (and an upper bound), they're a very noisy one. Sure, if you hold optimization constant and DM style neutral, the tiers show through at most levels of optimization, but in my experience optimization can vary wildly at the table. Worse, empirically speaking, we all have very little data, and it suffers from serious sample selection bias. For optimization levels below "high," the level of optimization and the few out-of-the-box powerful classes (ahem, Druid) are going to determine character power and versatility moreso than a difference in potential between, say, a rogue and a wizard.

Edit: My point is we can all take a step back. If some poster comes here talking about his fighter in a group of Wizard, Beguiler, and Druid, the pro-tier group will probably be concerned about balance due to facts about the game system. There's no need for anti-tier folk to resort to insults and condescension. But even though there is a real difference between the potential of these classes, there's a very large chance it's not a problem at that table unless the poster brings it up.

[nyarlathotep]

Of course. And the Tier system helps you do that by informing you about the relative power levels of characters. Wizards and Barbarians can be perfectly fine in a party together if:
a) No one is optimizing at all
or
b) The Wizard player acknowledges his power, and doesn't go crazy.

I'd disagree. An optimized wizard (one that focuses in buffs and battlefield control) is much more fun to play with because he's making the other characters better at their job rather than doing their own job better than them (like an unoptimized blaster). Wizards make the game less fun when they step on other people's shticks (dealing damage) or play with inherently unfun spell-types (divine every single last spell for the situation in advance/save-or-dies).

Also just a side not it really really bugs me when role-playing elitists talk about the tier systems or optimization without knowing anything about it. For instance an optimized wizard does not use save-or-dies as those fail to do anything at least out of 20 times and are frequently flat-out useless against immune creatures. Or when people claim the tier system is about one on one arena fights, which is exactly what it is not measuring. The tier system measures how well a class can contribute to any situation (puzzle, travel, combat, or social).

And yet there are many people who rarely take Fly, instead filling up their spell list with more ways to make things explode. Played with a guy whose 3rd level spell list was Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Vampiric Touch, and Keen Edge.

Just saying, it's not that hard to screw up a wizard.

That wizard is a bad player because he is stealing the fighter's shtick (dealing damage) and is unoptimized.

[Tael]

I'd disagree. An optimized wizard (one that focuses in buffs and battlefield control) is much more fun to play with because he's making the other characters better at their job rather than doing their own job better than them (like an unoptimized blaster). Wizards make the game less fun when they step on other people's shticks (dealing damage) or play with inherently unfun spell-types (divine every single last spell for the situation in advance/save-or-dies).

That's sort of what I was trying to say with "not go crazy", but yeah, almost everyone loves buff wizards.

That wizard is a bad player because he is stealing the fighter's shtick (dealing damage) and is unoptimized.

This however, I disagree with. You're not a bad player if you don't optimize, and having more than 1 person in the party do damage isn't a bad thing. The party paladin did much more damage to single targets than he did, and everyone was happy. One is only a bad player if they are making the game less fun for the others, and this guy was actually a pretty smart player in many instances.

[Alchemistmerlin]

You're a bad player if you are less concerned with "Are we defeating monsters, saving kingdoms, and participating in a great story" and more concerned with "The guy 2 chairs over did 2.5916 more damage than me and was 13% more useful! That means I'm losing DKP!"

[Curious]

You're a bad player if you are less concerned with "Are we defeating monsters, saving kingdoms, and participating in a great story" and more concerned with "The guy 2 chairs over did 2.5916 more damage than me and was 13% more useful! That means I'm losing DKP!"

You see, this is the problem. Most optimizers don't think of the game as a competition, as you seem to think. You optimize in order to have a competent character who can contribute, not so you overshadow your team-mates.

[Vladislav]

Hey, Alchemistmerlin

Defeating monsters, saving kingdoms, and participating in a great story is more fun when you're actually useful for that story.

Here's a story for you:

A fighter and a druid reached a village, where everyone was sad. The fighter tried to talk to people, but they didn't listen. He wanted to try and Intimidate them into talking, but the druid said, "wait, I have Diplomacy as class skill!". The druid talked to the people, and they told him about a huge dragon menacing the countryside. The heroes decided to set out to find the cave of the evil dragon, and to punish him for his crimes and make the countryide safe again. The druid sent his pet wolf to pick upon the dragon's scent. The fighter waited. The druid says "he went that way, toward that forest!", and the fighter followed. They got into a forest. When they got hungry, the druid found some berries for them to eat. Then, he used magic to speak to the plants and animals of the forest. The fighter waited. The druid said "the plants told me the cave is that way!" and the fighter followed. Before they entered the cave, the druid cast all manners of spells on himself, the wolf, and the fighter. The fighter waited. Then the druid changed into a huge Dire Bear, and lead the way. The dragon breathed fire on the group, but this didn't affect them, thanks to the druid's magic. The druid and his wolf rended the dragon's flesh hard, and the fighter helped a bit too, the druid's magic giving him strength. They defeated the dragon and lived happily ever after!

Great story, eh?

[Sacrieur]

You see, this is the problem. Most optimizers don't think of the game as a competition, as you seem to think. You optimize in order to have a competent character who can contribute, not so you overshadow your team-mates.

Aye, there be a difference between munchkins and optimizers.