3.5 Classes that Broke Your Heart

[Spore]

Most "multiclassing" prestige classes. They're always terrible in comparison to the AD&D counterparts of multiclassing. They either loose too much casting power: Particularly the Mystic Theurge, a MT is behind two SPELL levels in on both sides while a dual classed Wizard/Cleric in AD&D is behind one spell level (which is still a hefty amount if you think about how they reverse gestalt you picking the worse etw0, making it unable to wear armor and don't let you pick a wizard specialization or provide domains.

I'd love to have a MT basic class that ignores domains or specialist schools in favor of dual casting. It would even be fine if the casting was capped at 7th level.

[Milo v3]

well, IIRC skeletons don't take damage from shatter, even though they actually should

Maybe in an old edition, but I've never seen that in 3.5e. Though, you would have to target individual bones unless they are brittle.

[dextercorvia]

I take it you never played a 1st level wizard in AD&D if you think being a low-level caster in 3.5 is bad.

Quoted for so much truth. A moderately optimized wizard* gets one 1st level slot per encounter in the average day in 3.5.

In 2ed, if a wizard had bonus spells available, you needed a 19+ to get even 1. So you either got 1 (generalist) or 2(specialist) 1st level spells. Oh, and cantrips were not 0 level spells during 2e. So, you had 2 spells until useless, but there was no expectation of a 4 encounter day. We often slogged through 6 or more with nothing but a staff or dagger (no Xbow proficiency) saving our precious spell until we thought it might make a difference.

*moderate here is defined as getting a +2 Int race for a 20, or taking one of the options like Focused Specialist that gets 2 extra spells per day.

[Chronos]

Bone is solid, but a skeleton (at least the animated undead kind) is not an object, it's a creature. And creatures are only affected by Shatter if they're crystalline, which skeletons are not.

[Marlowe]

Quoted for so much truth. A moderately optimized wizard* gets one 1st level slot per encounter in the average day in 3.5.

In 2ed, if a wizard had bonus spells available, you needed a 19+ to get even 1. So you either got 1 (generalist) or 2(specialist) 1st level spells. Oh, and cantrips were not 0 level spells during 2e. So, you had 2 spells until useless, but there was no expectation of a 4 encounter day. We often slogged through 6 or more with nothing but a staff or dagger (no Xbow proficiency) saving our precious spell until we thought it might make a difference.

*moderate here is defined as getting a +2 Int race for a 20, or taking one of the options like Focused Specialist that gets 2 extra spells per day.

Also, Con didn't help your hit points, and Dex didn't help your AC or your attack rolls. So you'd have about 3 hit points and AC 10. Oh, and no battle grid, so if the DM wanted to say "All the Orcs attack the wizard", they could and would.

[SimonMoon6]

And, at least in first edition, your class had the dorky name of "magic-user" instead of the cool name of "wizard".

[Spore]

Bone is solid, but a skeleton (at least the animated undead kind) is not an object, it's a creature. And creatures are only affected by Shatter if they're crystalline, which skeletons are not.

But undead are immune to Fort saves unless it can target objects. Which brings the interpretation of undead as animated objects closer to the gaming reality.

[dextercorvia]

And, at least in first edition, your class had the dorky name of "magic-user" instead of the cool name of "wizard".

I believe it was 'mage' in 2e.

[Lvl45DM!]

Also, Con didn't help your hit points, and Dex didn't help your AC or your attack rolls. So you'd have about 3 hit points and AC 10. Oh, and no battle grid, so if the DM wanted to say "All the Orcs attack the wizard", they could and would.

Con gave up to a +2 bonus and dex gave up to a -4 bonus

[Gnaeus]

The one big advantage I found in MoMF is to get the extraordinary special qualities of the form. But there's a 4th level druid spell for that, enhance wildshape. Otherwise it's a permanent polymorph or PAO. I suppose if you don't have both a wizard and a druid in the party then the combo is a small advantage. Now you can get the extraordinary special qualities of forms that a normal druid can't usually take. A fairly large portion of this guide is devoted to extraordinary special qualities: http://community.wizards.com/forum/p...hreads/1060931

Other than that it does gain next to nothing and I can see the difficulty of accomplishing anything else useful with the class... the guide actually suggests leaving the PrC at level 7 after getting extraordinary special qualities and picking a different PrC that advances wildshape. I suppose it is also nice to effectively have polymorph and enhance wildshape on for 24 hours without any cheesy trick. Since you can change forms so rapidly, maybe what we need is a library of Ex abilities and those can act like your "spells" after your druid spells fall behind. Also it's cool fluff to rapidly change to a new form every round purely to use some special ability it has.

It's actually worse than that. It takes 2 feats to enter. I can take Dragon Shape and either Aberration or Frozen Wild shape, get most of the best parts of MOMF, and get some nice wild shape tricks they lack, like the dragon's SU abilities.

[Gnaeus]

Con gave up to a +2 bonus and dex gave up to a -4 bonus

Yeah, it's Monk that couldn't get an AC bonus from dex. Creating the problem that the unarmored wizard had a better AC than a monk and would beat him up with his staff. Poor monk.

[Agincourt]

Really, I just don't think lawyers should play D&D.

I assume you mean rules lawyers and not literal lawyers. Nonetheless, I'm going to take a moment and defend the standard lawyers. A lawyer is accustomed to deference to a judge (DM). Also, no matter how clear a law or precedent appears to the lawyer, there is always the chance that a judge disagrees with you. As a lawyer, you have to move on. Your goal is to win the case. You can seethe about a bogus ruling or you can move on and focus on the ultimate goal.

And sometimes, as a lawyer, even the Supreme Court disagrees with your interpretation. You have to accept that there is more than one way to interpret words, which do not have the precision of mathematics, and figure out how to win your cases anyway.

[Urpriest]

I assume you mean rules lawyers and not literal lawyers. Nonetheless, I'm going to take a moment and defend the standard lawyers. A lawyer is accustomed to deference to a judge (DM). Also, no matter how clear a law or precedent appears to the lawyer, there is always the chance that a judge disagrees with you. As a lawyer, you have to move on. Your goal is to win the case. You can seethe about a bogus ruling or you can move on and focus on the ultimate goal.

And sometimes, as a lawyer, even the Supreme Court disagrees with your interpretation. You have to accept that there is more than one way to interpret words, which do not have the precision of mathematics, and figure out how to win your cases anyway.

Note that Tippy's group famously contains at least one lawyer.

[Agincourt]

Note that Tippy's group famously contains at least one lawyer.

And therefore, what?

[YossarianLives]

To a great extent this is a problem endemic to 3.5. It's probably what bothers me most, moreso than rampant balance issues and the poor editing that enables some(many) of them. If you start at low levels, you don't have much to do. Period. Across every class. Either you can do a lot during the day, but it's from the same tiny subset of abilities day after day (warlocks, ToB), or you can do a lot of different things, but you're dry after just a few rounds (clerics, druids), or you're even worse off than that (barbarians have a single 1/day ability that's just a numbers boost, shadowcasters have a single spell/level/day, rogues don't even getactivated abilities). As a rough example, I would considering quadrupling a sorcerer's spells known, using twice their normal spells known as those available for the day (chosen on the fly per erudite casting), and giving a flat +3 spells/day of each level to make sorcerer tolerable in low/low-mid-level play. Barbarians, rogues, and a lot of others would require complete rewrites, though, because they don't really even have a framework to build off of.

Yes, casters sure do need a buff in 3.x.

[squab]

Yes, casters sure do need a buff in 3.x.

No, they need their power to increase linearly. And probably completely revise the spellbook while we're at it, lower the level of some spells, raise the levels of others, and some just remove.

As for my lawyer comment, it's more that completely following the letter of the law in rulebooks generally leads to some bad or silly things.

[Honest Tiefling]

Yes, casters sure do need a buff in 3.x.

Actually, I don't think the fact that the class goes from 'Crap' to 'God-King of the Universe' really makes anything better. If anything, it makes some newer DMs assume casters suck and try to favor them because of early experiences.

[Seerow]

Actually, I don't think the fact that the class goes from 'Crap' to 'God-King of the Universe' really makes anything better. If anything, it makes some newer DMs assume casters suck and try to favor them because of early experiences.

I once had a DM whose solution to the 5 minute workday was to give casters more spells per day. Specifically, any spell you prepared you could cast a number of times equal to the spell's spell level before the spell slot was lost.


Yeah think about that for a few minutes and marvel at how awful some people can be at 'fixing' mechanics.

[Vhaidara]

I once had a DM whose solution to the 5 minute workday was to give casters more spells per day. Specifically, any spell you prepared you could cast a number of times equal to the spell's spell level before the spell slot was lost.


Yeah think about that for a few minutes and marvel at how awful some people can be at 'fixing' mechanics.

Wait, if I'm reading that right, it does nothing until you get second level spells, at which point you double the slots. Then you triple thirds, and so on.

[Seerow]

Wait, if I'm reading that right, it does nothing until you get second level spells, at which point you double the slots. Then you triple thirds, and so on.

Yep, you're reading that right.

Edit: This was also the same DM who during the transition from 2e to 3e didn't quite understand the difference between a feat and a skill, since he was used to non-weapon-proficiencies, but still insisted on houseruling everything. Which led to really weird stuff like 1 feat cost 1 skill point (and thus the Fighter had fewer feats than just about anyone in the game), being able to take multiple ranks in a feat to improve its benefits, and custom skills/feats (most notably was "Trains of Thought", which for every rank you took you gained an extra full round action every round, but that extra action could not use your body in any way. So a caster preparing silent/still spells was legit getting 20-40 spells per round at high levels, and had the spell slots to back it up).

Oh and none of his houserules were ever actually written down, so anything on your character sheet could mean something totally different from one session to the next. One player's favorite minigame was convincing the DM that he had ruled in a certain way in a previous session (whether he actually had or not) to be able to pull off some stupidly ridiculous stunt.

The game was interesting for no other reason than a brilliant example of what not to do while homebrewing.

[Vhaidara]

[Seerow]

Check the edit if you want more facepalmery. I really wish I had kept a campaign log while playing with this DM, it was an even mix of frustrating and insane back then, but today it would be pretty hilarious to read through.

[Honest Tiefling]

I was going to say that you sorta proved my point, but ah...I don't think he was very good at houseruling so nevermind.

Oh, and here's another one to add to the old pile: Assassin. I don't really know why I cannot make a good aligned assassin, and I am not terribly fond of prestige classes with their own spellcasting. Death attack is very much an NPC ability.

[lsfreak]

Yes, casters sure do need a buff in 3.x.

They do, really, along with everything else. Not a buff in terms of raw power, but a buff in terms of available actions. I find the options are staggeringly dull if you're starting at 1st level unless your DM speeds up progression, and heaven forbid you'd prefer to go the other direction and slow it down. I'm not saying the amount of spells casters get should be increased without considering carefully what other classes get, or without taking into consideration changes to spells to balance them out (both those on the low end and the high). I was also careful with my wording, such a blanket increase in spells available isn't appropriate for games that progress beyond low/low-mid levels and much more nuanced changes would be needed. For some other examples, binders need to be able to switch vestiges multiple times other than a 1/day feat, ToB classes need an increase to known and available maneuvers just as spellcasters, and both need a (significantly) larger number of vestiges/maneuvers to choose from. Paladins needs encounter-available smite with rider effects, significantly more spells starting from 1st level, and probably some other additions; PF's rage powers are a good starting point for barbarian but need to change from predominantly passive effects to 1/rage or always-available-to-activate abilities and the speed at which they're gained needs to be doubled or tripled. The default combat maneuvers need to be worth using for any (martial) character without needing significant investment, too; if they were actually functional that alone would go a long way towards making martial characters more interesting to play.

Like I said, I think this problem is endemic to 3.5, not something limited to particular classes.

[Story]

Binders can change vestiges an extra time per day with a Vestige Phylactery (15k). Admittedly the cost means that you can't get it until mid to high levels.

[NomGarret]

By that token, Binders need an extra vestige at level 1, maybe 2. If so many cool tricks have a recharge, let me cycle between them.

[YossarianLives]

snop

I see your point but since casters are just so incredibly powerful in 3.5 I'm very reluctant to do anything to buff them, even if I'm houseruling other classes to make them better and I think the RAW mechanics for casters are broken and stupid.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Death attack is very much an NPC ability.

I disagree. It may not be a combat-time ability, but it's certainly useful for PCs in any instance where the party ambushes their enemies or at least can see them beforehand (such as having flying enemies approaching from the distance while the assassin is hidden), which can be quite frequently depending on party composition and general tactics. It could certainly stand to see an enhancement at higher levels to allow it to be used when the target knows the assassin is an enemy, so it could be used to turn the tables on pursuers, used multiple times against the same target in longer combats, and so forth, but it's not strictly necessary.

I find the options are staggeringly dull if you're starting at 1st level

Class-based options, yes, but that's because the low levels are the "normal people and animals with a few handy tricks" tier. You don't need to rage in every encounter when one or two plain ol' two handed weapon attacks will be lethal to most things you'll face, you don't need a bunch of long-duration buffs to protect you from ambushes when special senses and movement modes don't come online for a while, you don't need a lot of slots for blasting spells when HP inflation from high Con hasn't kicked in and a single burning hands or shocking grasp is still fairly effective, and so forth. The intention is, and has been since 1e, for players to use their mundane gear, their environment and positioning, and their creativity to explore dungeons, make allies, and win fights at low levels, with class features serving as limited-use abilities to get past certain obstacles or overcome particularly difficult challenges; everything is about using tactics effectively to survive. Not to mention that only having 1 rage/combat spell/smite/music/etc. per day at the early levels isn't a problem when you're probably only going to have one combat encounter per day, since a single 1d6 goblin attack can seriously mess up your 6 average HP wizard and three of them can put a crimp in the plans of your 12 average HP fighter, so a handful of cantrips/orisons and skills for out of combat use is perfectly serviceable.

And then this phases out in the low-mid levels (5-8) in favor of a setup where mundane gear and environments are helpful but not dominant in comparison to class features and multiple encounters per day without serious risk of death are a possibility, and thinking about strategy becomes important along with the tactical side of things. That then phases out in the mid levels (9-12) in favor of a setup where everyone slowly stops caring about encumbrance or high-ground bonuses because magical gear and class features are more effective, and strategy becomes more important than tactics when running out of rations isn't a problem anymore, pretty much everyone is flying most of the time, and controlling the pace and location of engagements is more important than ever. In the mid-high levels (13-16) logistics begins to replace strategy, as plot concerns start involving nations rather than towns, the casters can teleport all over the place and martial types can run cross-country between cities, and class features become a binary matter: either you have the thingy that lets you get to X in time/avoid getting killed by Y/find out Z or you don't, too bad. At the highest levels, logistics rules everything: if you want an army and/or stronghold, you have them; if you need money or certain gear, you can get them; if you want to be somewhere in the multiverse, you can go there.

The changes you proposed making would remove this progression of foci as you level, which I argue is not at all a good idea; if you don't like the playstyle in a particular level range, just don't play there. Except when introducing the game to new players who need the tutorial, I haven't run a game that started below 6th level in years, because I (and most of my groups) prefer more strategic play, whereas the other DM in my current group likes keeping things in the 1-9 range because he doesn't want mundane concerns to ever stop mattering. Drastically increasing spells per day, making smites and rages spammable, and so forth removes the resource management that's a big part of D&D; it's only starting in 3e that people started to think that you need to use cast a spell (or multiple spells) every single round to contribute, when in fact casting fewer spells more judiciously can have a bigger impact.

Binders need to be able to rebind vestiges frequently only if you view not having the right vestige for every encounter as a bad thing, rather than as a tradeoff for making the decision "I'm going to turn myself into a skirmisher today with Andras and Paimon, and if socializing with Naberius and Dantalion or stealth with Malphas and Marchosias would've been better, oh well" just like Vancian casters have to make tradeoffs in their spell prep. Paladins need a lot more spells per day only if you view them as clerics with a stunted spell progression, rather than as warriors who have some spells for self-buffs and whose primary differentiating features should be their smites and their mount. Some of your points I certainly agree with--martial characters should get combat maneuver enhancements out of the box, ToB characters should have more discipline choices if they're going to be well-rounded martial characters instead of backported-4e-playtest experiments, barbarians need to have more round-by-round choices to make them more interesting to play for those players who like that--but what you view as an "endemic problem" in 3e is simply a clash of desired playstyles.

By that token, Binders need an extra vestige at level 1, maybe 2. If so many cool tricks have a recharge, let me cycle between them.

The problems here, I think, are that (A) the designers overestimated the average combat length, expecting binders to be able to use each ability 2 or 3 times when in fact they only get them once or maybe twice per combat most of the time at lower levels, and (B) vestiges have too high of a passive-ability-to-active-ability ratio in general, with many having just one active ability and that ability having a recharge. Dropping the recharge to every 3 rounds and ensuring that every vestige has at least one recharge and one at-will active ability, at least one of which is usable in combat (I'm looking at you, Andras, Eurynome, Haagenti, Ipos...) would go a long way towards making each vestige more interesting to use.

[Seerow]

The problems here, I think, are that (A) the designers overestimated the average combat length, expecting binders to be able to use each ability 2 or 3 times when in fact they only get them once or maybe twice per combat most of the time at lower levels, and (B) vestiges have too high of a passive-ability-to-active-ability ratio in general, with many having just one active ability and that ability having a recharge. Dropping the recharge to every 3 rounds and ensuring that every vestige has at least one recharge and one at-will active ability, at least one of which is usable in combat (I'm looking at you, Andras, Eurynome, Haagenti, Ipos...) would go a long way towards making each vestige more interesting to use.

While this would work, I'd rather have the higher variety of ability use than have the abilities you do have used more often. NomGarret suggesting an extra Vestige at level 1 is something I agree with, though giving each vestige a second active cooldown ability is another possibility. Either way I wouldn't want to see the cooldown go below 4 rounds. Though I wouldn't mind seeing a class ability that lets you reset cooldowns on a vestige ability X times per day, so you can mix stuff up occasionally.

[ShurikVch]

I don't really know why I cannot make a good aligned assassin

I think it's because

Special

The character must kill someone for no other reason than to join the assassins.

Still, there is Avenger, and Aleam Valassar, Paladin Assassin

Death attack is very much an NPC ability.

Deathsight spell fix it a bit