T1 test

[Arbane]

T1 test:
Do you have abilities that can actually literally ruin the typical D&D campaign if not stopped either through not abusing them or DM fiat preventing them?

Can you name more than 5?

TVTropes has a good list of these: Story Breaker Powers

Adaptive Ability
Anti-Magic or its equivalents in a setting where magic is used frequently.
Flying Brick, at least at higher levels of power
Any convenient way of bringing people Back from the Dead
Imagination-Based Superpower
Intangible Man, especially when the character can't be attacked or restrained in any way while intangible, and/or they can still affect the physical world
Mass Mind Control/Brainwashing
Master of Illusion; a person with enough creativity and power over hallucinations and other such trickery could get away with whatever they wanted to, especially if their target doesn't know that they have such powers.
Nigh-Invulnerability
Omniscience/prescience
A One-Hit Kill attack if there is no way to resist it and/or a limit to how powerful a target can be affected by it.
Power Copying when it doesn't have limits to how much it can copy
Probability manipulation
Reality warping, especially when The Omnipotent is involved.
Super Speed
Super Strength
Telepathy
Teleportation, when it isn't limited by range or some sort of other drawback.
Three Wishes, especially when there is no law against making each individual wish as long and as elaborate as one wants, or can wish for more wishes.
Time Master, especially stopping it entirely and Time Travel unless there's some immutability
A normal Stock Superpower dialed Up to Eleven
Weather manipulation
Voluntary Shapeshifting

Seems like a good start to me.

[Elandris Kajar]

Then you are a candidate for Tier 1 provided you don't fail the Tier 3 test.

And what might this be?

At high levels, you should be able to achieve anything you put your mind to with little effort.

You should be able to set up advanced, stable defenses, similar to things like glyph of warning, symbols, ins other fortification type things, though they will probably not be spell-like.

Is this about your Veteran class?

[OldTrees1]

What's the Tier 3 test?

And what might this be?

The Tier 3 test (as I see it) is
1) Are you good at what you do?
2) Are you always useful?

If yes to both then you are a candidate for Tier 3. So a Tier 1 is someone that passes the Tier 3 test with ease(they are good at lots of things and can do any of the things) and also passes the Tier 1 test(can they ruin campaigns in multiple ways if not kept in check).

Is this about your Veteran class?

Huh? I do not have a Veteran class. So I presume you were talking to someone else at this point.

TVTropes has a good list of these: Story Breaker Powers

Seems like a good start to me.

Good to know TvTropes has a term for this. That list is a very good start.

[Jormengand]

Kudos to AmberVael for the big list, most of the things on which I can probably do.

Huh? I do not have a Veteran class. So I presume you were talking to someone else at this point.

Yeah, he's talking to me, because yes, yes it is about the veteran class. I imagine that no more than the first line of the post was even talking to you.

[Segev]

You need to be able to do the following given 24 hours advanced notice:

After level 2 or 3 you need to be able to substantially contribute to combat, whether that is buffing, direct combat, damage, or battlefield control.

Why would you not be able to do this from level 1? I cannot think of anything, really, that fails this test at level 1, just by virtue of class. (NPC classes take a little optimization, but even a commoner with a longspear proficiency is able to contribute meaningfully to combat.)

Or is this "you must still be able to contribute past low levels?"

After level 2 or 3 you need to be able to succeed at a host of social situations. These include convincing a neutral individual that it is in their best interest to aid you, and survive generally cut-throat political situations, and figure out if someone is deliberately thwarting you behind your back.

Can you give examples for how known T1s would do these, particularly the bolded one? That seems more an element of RP skill, at least in D&D. (Not saying you can't find reasons, but rather that I can't think of how, so would like edification.)

After level 7, you need to be able to figure out deep amounts of information, whether about subtle political issues, the stories behind ancient artifacts, the current military goings on in major kingdoms, the economic situations, the agricultural situations. And you need to be able to figure out how those situations are all likely to change.

Again, I think most T1s fail this aspect, as well, just because level 4 spells aren't really going to cover such subtle divinations.

By level 15, you need to be able to change planes.

Should this have a caveat of "at will, from anywhere" applied? Because by level 15, if plane-hopping is a thing at all, even a fighter is likely to be able to find and use a few planar portals.

By level 17 you need to be able to bring beings back from the dead.

This one's a tall order. It's almost definitely magic. At the same time, it's also one of the few so-specific effects that anybody at this level can do it via wealth and buying magic items. I know that tiers are supposed to exclude magic item use (because otherwise rogues are T1 thanks to UMD yadda yadda yadda), but any time older editions come up and it's mentioned how they favored fighter-types, the fighters' insane magic item access (magic swords were their exclusive property) is one of the big reasons. Given that, at this level, the DM has to be going out of his way to DENY you the ability to buy one-spell-copying magic items...

I do get your point with this one, but I think it a touch arbitrary as a T1-distinguisher.

The exact level of these can move up or down. I've made each of the conditions deliberately broad. These are all major things that will come up in a campaign.

It's a pretty good list. A couple of them seem like things that a "standard" T1 caster might have trouble with, though. (My minor objections to those which are too easy don't really merit response; this is a list of necessary, not sufficient, conditions.)

[Hiro Quester]

There is a difference between being good at LOTS of these things and being good at doing ALL these things.

And there's a difference between a class whose PCs can potentially do any of the things on the list, and actual PCs in that class who will likely focus on some at the expense of others (e.g. wizards' specializations could omit some of these abilities for being more awesome at others).

Most T1 players are going to be in a party whose combined abilities do all these things. I think a well-designed Tier 1 PC should be designed with the rest of the party in mind. (I don't need to be excellent at X --just okay at it as a backup-- because that's the domain or shtick of another player in our party.)

So a test that expects ALL of there above is great for a go-it-alone player. But a well designed Tier 1 character who adventures with a party could fail on several of these abilities; intentionally, through good design.

[Telonius]

Ability to access any given ability.
Ability to change which abilities you have available on (at the very least) a daily basis.

[Jormengand]

Ability to access any given ability.

Nonsense. A core wizard can't counter the spell of a creature on another plane as a free action. That's a "Given ability" to which no T1 class, nor any other class, has access to my knowledge.

[Telonius]

"Ability" in the sane, non-Punpun sense. If any other class can do it, a T1 can do it (or a reasonably close facsimile). It's the best way I can think of to codify the versatility that separates T1 from T2.

[Jormengand]

"Ability" in the sane, non-Punpun sense. If any other class can do it, a T1 can do it (or a reasonably close facsimile). It's the best way I can think of to codify the versatility that separates T1 from T2.

Really? Well, how's about "Raise someone at level 9 with a single spell"? Because I'm pretty sure that's in the cleric's abilities, but not the wizard's or druid's. I'm not even sure how a core druid does it with any number of spells. Or how's about "Heal someone at level 1", see any wizards doing that? Or I don't catch any clerics or wizards turning a quarterstaff into a 2d6 weapon with a +1 enhancement bonus at first level.

T1s cannot, and do not need to, do everything.

[Telonius]

It's true that Wizards can't do that at level 9; they have to wait until Level 13 when they get access to Limited Wish. (Druids can do it a version of it at level 7, with Reincarnate; and if you leave Core, there's Revivify). It's not going to be level-on-level equivalent, particularly at the lower levels.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I imagine a good use of planar binding will let a 9th-level wizard raise someone. It's a bit of a workaround, but planar binding will solve virtually any problem all by itself, and that is one of the most characteristic things about tier 1 classes: they have the means - the class feature - to access whole lists of abilities, suitable for practically every problem. Polymorph and cousins are gateways to monster abilities, a wizard's spellbook is a gateway to any spell, and various spells can grant any commodity necessary (actions, gold, feats, ability scores - subject to cheese limits, of course).

'Heal someone at level 1' is a rather unfair challenge, not relevant to tier 1-ness. The tier system doesn't work at any single level, and in any case, it's well-known that during the first couple of levels, tier 1-ness doesn't come into play quite yet. However, if you wanted to, you could get your wizard to learn a cure spell from an arcane scroll, perhaps scribed by a wizard with Arcane Disciple, a Wyrm Wizard, or a Rainbow Servant. There might also be a summonable monster out there somewhere, that has heals right at level 1, though I doubt it (this reference only lists the elysian thrush, which doubles natural healing, not so useful with a 1-round duration).

[Jormengand]

Okay, how's about "Deal 10d6+d3 damage to an antimagic fielded opponent with your pinky finger?" Tier 1s can't, and don't need to, be able to do everything.

[AmberVael]

Its better to state what Tier 1 characters can do not as "can use any ability" but rather "have access to enough abilities to solve any obstacle." A Druid, Cleric, and Wizard might not all approach a problem the same way, but generally they all will be able to handle the vast majority of problems they encounter. As was really driven home to me while making my list, there's a lot of potential overlap between spells and abilities, especially if you're creative with their use. And even if there is a gap in a Tier 1 character's abilities there is generally a selection of ways to overcome an obstacle or end an encounter, and a Tier 1 character will be able to perform some relevant action.

[Elandris Kajar]

Sorry, that was unclear. When I mentioned Veteran I was talking to Jormengand. I think it is cool that he is shooting for a T1 martial.

[Telonius]

Okay, how's about "Deal 10d6+d3 damage to an antimagic fielded opponent with your pinky finger?" Tier 1s can't, and don't need to, be able to do everything.

A sufficiently large rock thrown by a summoned or controlled creature, possibly.

Being able to do everything is part of the definition of a Tier 1 class:

Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played well, can break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

It's that ability to do everything that sets them apart from Tier 2s, which have many (if not all) of the other abilities listed in the thread, but either aren't able to readily change out abilities or do everything all at once.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Okay, how's about "Deal 10d6+d3 damage to an antimagic fielded opponent with your pinky finger?" Tier 1s can't, and don't need to, be able to do everything.

10d6 + 3 damage is a game construct. You don't get the problem 'I need to deal 10d6 + 3 damage with my pinky finger, to someone inside an antimagic field', you get the problem 'I need to kill/incapacitate x, who is in an antimagic field, and I can only move my pinky finger'. It's not relevant to t1 to have access to all mechanical ways to solve a problem, as long as you can solve the problem.

In any case, a wizard can kill someone in an antimagic field, by using shrink item + telekinesis for example, by using summoned, dominated or cloned giants (as Telonius noted), or by using instantaneous conjuration spells, like orb of acid. The first and last of which might actually count as 'with your pinky finger', if you use that to aim (refluffing spells is free, after all).

If we take the focus off wizards a little bit, and look at StP erudites (also t1), they can fight unarmed, using Tashalatora. Other t1s, like the cleric and the druid, make passable melee combatants, and they easily qualify for Initiate of Mystra, or use planar bubble shenanigans to deal with antimagic fields.

tl;dr and less specific to your examples: Yes, t1 classes can do anything. Telonius said it, and I'll repeat it: anything, by definition. With the caveat that the relevant optimization level must be allowed - limiting the wizard to standard-action damaging spells is seriously going to crimp their style.

[Aegis013]

So, the answer to the OP in its most basic terms is that a T1 should have sufficient variety of fluid (changeable given a reasonable time frame, usually 1 day or less) options to meaningfully contribute to all level appropriate encounters, and instantly solve some level appropriate encounters, regardless of the type of encounter. So what we need to look at, then, is what kind of obstacles and problems are faced in what kinds of level ranges?

Once we have that kind of deal, you would come up with what tools the class should have to approach, or instantly solve, those encounters/obstacles.

Starting from level 1, these are the kinds of things that might frequently come up:
LEVEL 1:
1. Combat - this is a huge part of D&D.
A T1 character needs to be able to effectively alter the tactical scenario of a level-appropriate combat with a single standard action. This could be achieved in a number of ways: deal enough damage to kill a single enemy with a single attack, alter the terrain sufficiently to effectively lock out an enemy from the combat for a substantial period (without losing your actions from then on), incapacitate at least one enemy without killing them, substantially improve allies' combat abilities, substantially weaken enemies' combat abilities. I'm sure there are others, and you don't need to be capable of all of them, but you should typically have a dramatic effect on the course of the battle every time you take an action.

2. Social - this is another substantial part of most D&D games.
A T1 character needs to be able to effectively influence NPCs without the need for clever or creative roleplay. This may be to make contacts, get jobs, gather information, etc. This also can frequently mean overcoming language barriers, but doesn't necessarily mean that. Diplomacy or Intimidate as a class skill is sufficient to get this done, but something like Charm Person tends to be better received.

3. Mundane Stealth/Infiltration/Scouting (other various skill-monkeying or skill-monkeying work arounds)
This is less likely and less important than the other two, but most T1s can do this at level 1, and all of them can do some form or another within the first few levels. It doesn't need to be perfect but there should be class features the player can use to pull this off. Raven familiar does a fly-by, or druid casts Spider Hand, or Cleric casts Omen of Peril.

LEVEL 5:
By level 5, the T1 should be able to gain access to various abilities that allow the character to bypass obstacles. This includes things such as:
1. Alternate movement modes. Flight, swim, burrowing, tactical teleportation. These need not be continual, but a T1 should be able to utilize these types of things if given sufficient foreknowledge and preparation time.

2. Alternate sense. Blindsense, Blindsight, Mindsight, Touchsight, Tremor sense. As above, but a character needs to be able to gain access to some, not necessarily all, alternate senses by at least level 5.

3. Protections or answers for some status conditions. Some kind of protection from mental influence (Protection from X style), save boosts, immunity to some status conditions or access to abilities that allow the character to gain such. This also includes ways to recover from some debilitating effects such as ability damage (which something like having Lesser Restoration on the character's spell list would be sufficient for) or similar.

4. Answers or bypasses to most enemy defenses. Enemy is incorporeal? Ethereal? Absurdly huge AC? Attacking from a range of 440ft? Hiding inside of a wall? Is the wall? A T1 should be able to find a tool in their tool box that can overcome any of these defenses if they know to expect such a thing. If not, they should be able to re-kit relatively soon and handle it. The solutions don't need to be perfect all of the time, they just need to be capable of dealing with the problem, even if less effectively than snapping one's fingers. E.g. Attacks have a 50% chance to hit Incoporeal and Ethereal enemies is good enough, but a character needs to not be totally incapable of dealing with the problem when a single enemy defense appears.

As a side note, a T1 character should have options, other than the standard ones, for all actions types by this level (Full round, Standard, Move, Swift, Immediate) in order to fully utilize every round of actions during encounters.

LEVEL 10:
By level 10, a T1 character should have much improved on all things levels 1-5, but now they begin wielding strategic power, rather than merely tactical power.

1. Unrealistically fast long distance travel, for the whole group. By level 10, long range teleports, or something equivalent to effectively being your own airship, submarine, or whatever else you might need to be to get your team from A to B before the BBEG can finish having the thought to start concocting his dastardly plan. This should include planar travel somewhere during the level 10-15 range.

2. The ability to deal with most conditions immediately, whether through removal, immunity, or whatever, and particularly the ability to remove the Dead condition from others or yourself. This should generally not take in-combat actions at this point. Most of these defenses should not require the character's continued attention, with the exception of the Dead condition.

3. The ability to make contingencies (not the spell, the actual word), for most expected problems, or possibly, more obscure and unlikely problems in some way or some form, in order to protect the character from anticipated problems.

4. The ability to gain significant information rapidly, remotely, and with very little risk to oneself. Generally including predicting the future, within limitations.

LEVEL 15:
By this level the T1 characters should have come into their own, wielding strategic power in absurd, "normal"-campaign shattering ways at every turn.

1. The ability to deal with the overwhelming majority of status effects, passively, and enemy attempts to affect them, in some combination of passive and active responses. Planar travel should be almost entirely safe by this point, as any problem the plane could provide via environment should be handled passively without continuous effort or attention of the character. Exceptions may exist for the Far Realms or the like.

2. At this point, the T1 character should be potentially capable of directly controlling the actions of other creatures. Whether they are monsters, influential NPCs, or what have you. They should be able, through class features, to gain access to the monsters or abilities they desire to implement their plans.

3. Given sufficient foreknowledge, at this point, the T1 character should be able to accomplish enormously large scale tasks like: stopping an invading army on multiple fronts, negotiating peace between beings who are incapable of communicating with each other, moving/creating/shaping a city's worth of material, creating a city (structures, anyway, maybe not inhabitants) from scratch - each task within no longer than day.

4. This is also the point where a T1 character should have a good deal of ability to reliably and continuously swing the action economy in their favor.

LEVEL 17:
By this level, a T1 character should be capable of doing anything within reason, and lots and lots of things that are simply unreasonable.

You want to be a living ball of obdurium that's 30 miles in diameter for the day? You ought to be able to find some way to achieve this with your tool box.

You need a nation to have never existed? Well, you might not be able to pull that off, but you should be able to wipe out all traces that it existed.

Things like Wish and Miracle should be par for course at this level. Temporarily becoming literally invincible? You should be able to pull that off. The chances that any monster as-written can permanently end you given intelligent use of your toolbox should be a flat 0% at this point. This is the point where statements like

If any other class can do it, a T1 can do it (or a reasonably close facsimile).

should be entirely true.

LEVEL 21:
Epic Spellcasting is derp. Let's not talk about this level.

[JoshuaZ]

Why would you not be able to do this from level 1? I cannot think of anything, really, that fails this test at level 1, just by virtue of class. (NPC classes take a little optimization, but even a commoner with a longspear proficiency is able to contribute meaningfully to combat.)

Well, I mean more than that just a little contribution. I included the minimum here partially because so few games occur at level 1, that it doesn't matter if you can't really do much at level 1. And a level 1 wizard definitely has this problem: after they run out of spells they are generally going to be stuck missing with a crossbow repeatedly.

Can you give examples for how known T1s would do these, particularly the bolded one? That seems more an element of RP skill, at least in D&D. (Not saying you can't find reasons, but rather that I can't think of how, so would like edification.)

Making high level diplomacy checks and gather information checks with people who know more, or intimidation checks against underlings of baddies. You don't have to do all these checks yourselves but if you can boost the skills of other PCs a lot that's still pretty important.

Again, I think most T1s fail this aspect, as well, just because level 4 spells aren't really going to cover such subtle divinations.

Yes, they have trouble doing it that way, but there are spells which bump skill checks.

Should this have a caveat of "at will, from anywhere" applied? Because by level 15, if plane-hopping is a thing at all, even a fighter is likely to be able to find and use a few planar portals.

Yes. Good point there. I essentially meant, at will from anywhere for a large variety of planes.

This one's a tall order. It's almost definitely magic. At the same time, it's also one of the few so-specific effects that anybody at this level can do it via wealth and buying magic items. I know that tiers are supposed to exclude magic item use (because otherwise rogues are T1 thanks to UMD yadda yadda yadda), but any time older editions come up and it's mentioned how they favored fighter-types, the fighters' insane magic item access (magic swords were their exclusive property) is one of the big reasons. Given that, at this level, the DM has to be going out of his way to DENY you the ability to buy one-spell-copying magic items...

Well, here's one where the 24 hour advance notice comes in as important. If one is doing this purely by wealth, finding the resources to do this get to a lot tougher.

It's a pretty good list. A couple of them seem like things that a "standard" T1 caster might have trouble with, though. (My minor objections to those which are too easy don't really merit response; this is a list of necessary, not sufficient, conditions.)

Yeah, my levels for some of them may be too low. I may however just be too used to having to deal with a pretty optimized wizard. The last campaign I DMed, the player playing the wizard knew pretty much every official splatbook out there. And I was in a recent campaign where one of the players had a cleric and the DM in that campaign had essentially decided that a cleric didn't have any limit on getting more obscure spells from splatbooks or supplements because they could essentially pray "I need a spell that does X" and have the player point to the DM what the spell was. And that got pretty ridiculous around level 5 or 6 or so for skill boosting, which was very helpful given some political issues in the campaign. So it depends on how far outside core I think you are willing to go?