Tier One Martials: A discussion

[Heliomance]

How would one go about having a Tier One character that wasn't a spellcaster? How would you go about creating such a thing, a character that feels like they get by on their impossible skill and prowess? Conceptually, what would they feel like? What abilities would they need?

I'm not intending this discussion to be restricted to the classes in D&D. It's impossible to do without excessive quantities of TO. I'm more interested in concepts and hypotheticals, and maybe theories as to the general shape such a class might take.

What would be needed to make a character that could match spellcasters, without making them a spellcaster in all but name?

[ryu]

How would one go about having a Tier One character that wasn't a spellcaster? How would you go about creating such a thing, a character that feels like they get by on their impossible skill and prowess? Conceptually, what would they feel like? What abilities would they need?

I'm not intending this discussion to be restricted to the classes in D&D. It's impossible to do without excessive quantities of TO. I'm more interested in concepts and hypotheticals.

What would be needed to make a character that could match spellcasters, without making them a spellcaster in all but name?

I mean... What exactly is the criteria for not being a spellcaster in all but name? I suppose I could work on making the most exhaustive summary of all the reasons magic is power that need to be competed with... And then we can talk about attempting to imitate that without having something people would call spellcasting. The reason I say imitate is that you simply aren't going to find something magic is incapable of. Only people with magic being better or worse at certain things relative to each other at a given non-maximum level within the tier one wheelhouse. Should I get to work on that list/try to find the last one I posted when this idea was brought up?

[Heliomance]

I mean... What exactly is the criteria for not being a spellcaster in all but name? I suppose I could work on making the most exhaustive summary of all the reasons magic is power that need to be competed with... And then we can talk about attempting to imitate that without having something people would call spellcasting. The reason I say imitate is that you simply aren't going to find something magic is incapable of. Only people with magic being better or worse at certain things relative to each other at a given non-maximum level within the tier one wheelhouse. Should I get to work on that list/try to find the last one I posted when this idea was brought up?

I mean, I guess, not wiggling your fingers/thinking really hard/spouting some gobbledegook, and having something happen based on the exact pattern in which you wiggled/thought/spouted. A character that feels like it's their own personal skill they're using, rather than commanding abstract forces of the universe to do their bidding.

Think of Solar Exalted, for example. They're incredibly powerful, they can fight gods, they can attain mastery of however many fields. But they do it all themselves. It's physical ability perfected - only spellcasters feel like spellcasters, everyone else runs off impossible skill.

[JyP]

You want a character concept which would not be a Vancian wizard nor a miracle worker but having close to the same abilities ?

=> "ninja" from Naruto manga, all about secret techniques and being ninja, with pacts with big surnatural entities.
=> a god's avatar waking up on the mortal world after having angered Ao in the Forgotten Realms (AD&D1 -> AD&D2 for the win)
=> a hacker like Neo in The Matrix - or any member from any faction in Planescape, where Belief is Power
=> a cosmic entity like The Beyonder

[Emperor Tippy]

How would one go about having a Tier One character that wasn't a spellcaster? How would you go about creating such a thing, a character that feels like they get by on their impossible skill and prowess? Conceptually, what would they feel like? What abilities would they need?

I'm not intending this discussion to be restricted to the classes in D&D. It's impossible to do without excessive quantities of TO. I'm more interested in concepts and hypotheticals.

What would be needed to make a character that could match spellcasters, without making them a spellcaster in all but name?

You can't. Tier 1 means a degree of versatility and strategic power that you are never going to be able to justify without a differently fluffed spellcaster. Tier 1 needs the kind of strategic mobility that Teleport (at a minimum) and Plane Shift (again at minimum) makes possible.

In X-Men terms, Tier 1 is Xavier, Wolverine, Magneto, Cyclops, Mystique, Kitty Pride, and Magik all rolled into one individual. And with a dozen or so other, lesser, powers thrown on for good measure.

You could fluff all of the necessary abilities as things like tech but in the end it is still spellcasting by a different name.

I mean, I guess, not wiggling your fingers/thinking really hard/spouting some gobbledegook, and having something happen based on the exact pattern in which you wiggled/thought/spouted. A character that feels like it's their own personal skill they're using, rather than commanding abstract forces of the universe to do their bidding.

Think of Solar Exalted, for example. They're incredibly powerful, they can fight gods, they can attain mastery of however many fields. But they do it all themselves. It's physical ability perfected - only spellcasters feel like spellcasters, everyone else runs off impossible skill.

Solar Exalted are spellcasters. They get fluffed differently but their abilities are no more "physical ability" than those of a Naruto character throwing out fireballs. In D&D terms you would do something like an Exalted as Supernatural racial abilities probably.

[Heliomance]

You can't. Tier 1 means a degree of versatility and strategic power that you are never going to be able to justify without a differently fluffed spellcaster. Tier 1 needs the kind of strategic mobility that Teleport (at a minimum) and Plane Shift (again at minimum) makes possible.

In X-Men terms, Tier 1 is Xavier, Wolverine, Magneto, Cyclops, Mystique, Kitty Pride, and Magik all rolled into one individual. And with a dozen or so other, lesser, powers thrown on for good measure.

You could fluff all of the necessary abilities as things like tech but in the end it is still spellcasting by a different name.

I can think of three different ways immediately to justify strategic movement that aren't spellcasting. You could use your impossible swordsmanship to cut a hole in reality and step through. You could be the Flash, and just be that damn fast. You could have a seven-league stride. Interplanar movement is a little trickier, but still possible.

[weckar]

It's a bad example, but say we used a 20-level monstrous progression into the Tarrasque as a class.

You wouldn't even get close.

Tier 1 is an indicator of more than sheer power. It's a matter of versatility. And it's hard to beat "The ability to do anything" with anything but magic (or psionics), in that field. No matter what trick Batman learns or engineers, Tier 1s have that and 5 others before lunchtime.

[eggynack]

One punch man is a decent starting point. He's like a significantly more versatile version of the classic "character that can kill everything they look upon" construct. Strength enough to beat anything in combat that he can hit, resilient enough to shrug off anything including magic, accurate enough that most anything he targets will die instead of just dodging, and maybe you could up his speed some, to start competing with teleportation effects in a more serious way. He emulates quite a few classic spell effects, including, as I recall, mirror image and flight. You'd really want to beef up his non-combat some, though. He can handle armies and dragons more than fine, but he can't really go invisible, or control someone's mind, or cross planar thresholds, or call up minions, all things which could conceivably be desired by someone with those kinds of physical powers. On the other hand, invisibility isn't even as good as sufficiently potent stealth, so you could just give him that without leaving martial stuff, and mind control reads a lot like sufficiently high social skills, and calling up minions is more a means to an end that you can already reach than anything, so that leaves planar travel from this arbitrary list, and punching into planes sounds cool enough to work.

So, I dunno. Is that enough? I have to admit, in a lot of parties I'd prefer a one punch man to any other tier one. You'd have to be right at the top of the optimization curve, and high in level, to seriously challenge that dominance, and what distance there is can be narrowed with some work. I feel like he's close, but I might be missing something. The addition of invulnerability to the combat capabilities helps a lot, and if you toss on the ability to destroy magical constructs then you're even closer. One of the big problems might actually be the minion thing. OPM can protect himself well enough, but it can take more than a single hand to deal with wider reaching problems. Again though, that sort of thing isn't going to happen in most games. So, it's tricky. But I suspect it's close.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Agreed with Tippy. You can remove any mechanical association with 3.5 spellcasting, for example by not requiring any expendable resource, but the ability to take other forms is going to be magic, no two ways about it.

You can do what (greater) teleport/plane shift does by 'slipping between the planes', using an Escape Artist check.

You can do what ice assassin does with a Craft check, fusion with a Heal check, and astral seed with a Survival check.

Are those things less magical because they are (Ex) and done via skill checks? I really doubt it.

[Emperor Tippy]

I can think of three different ways immediately to justify strategic movement that aren't spellcasting. You could use your impossible swordsmanship to cut a hole in reality and step through. You could be the Flash, and just be that damn fast. You could have a seven-league stride. Interplanar movement is a little trickier, but still possible.

Those are all re-fluffed spellcasting. In the first case it is a somatic component spell requiring a focus component, just fluffed slightly differently. In the second it is being, essentially, the chosen avatar of a God.

If you want some semi plausible re-fluff then that is one thing. Just go the Iron Man or Reed Richards route and have it be advanced technology. Or go with "gifts from the gods for services rendered". Or "skill of such an extreme bull**** tier that reality itself is persuaded to realize your desires.".

None of that makes it a martial character though.

[eggynack]

Agreed with Tippy. You can remove any mechanical association with 3.5 spellcasting, for example by not requiring any expendable resource, but the ability to take other forms is going to be magic, no two ways about it.

Taking other forms seems irrelevant. It's not so much a thing to do as a way to do things.

You can do what (greater) teleport/plane shift does by 'slipping between the planes', using an Escape Artist check.

If you're on-plane, sufficient movement speed to reach the area combined with insane stealth to get to the specific place along with some way to physically bypass magical defenses seems fine. Plane shift does need that weird kinda solution though.

You can do what ice assassin does with a Craft check, fusion with a Heal check, and astral seed with a Survival check.

These effects too seem more like ways to accomplish a thing than a thing to accomplish. They're very good at what they do, but as long as you can solve any problem through other means it seems fine.

[weckar]

eggynack makes a good point. There is no need for your abilities to replicate spells, if they can replicate the results of those spells.

[HappyElf]

The thing is, if you go through every RPG, you'd probably only find a fairly small number of powers (hurt thing, go place, resist damage, learn information etc) with minor mechanical changes. What makes one these superpowers "magic" rather then "psionics" or "superpowers" or "invisible reality-warping goblins" is just what fluff they have, and a martial tier-one is just a matter of fluffing "able to do pretty much anything" as super-combat:

Teleportation? Cutting holes through time and space
Summoning? Monsters are intimidated into appearing and serving you, lest you strike them down
Scrying? Your expert combat experience lets you anticipate what your enemies and allies must be doing in perfect detail, wherever they are
Healing? punch the blood back into their body! Or, more seriously, years of combat experience make you an expert at getting downed soldiers back in the fight.

Continue through all the generic powers, and voila, martial tier one! It isn't a magic user because it uses super-combat rather then magic, which really is the only criteria for what is and isn't a wizard in a given system.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Taking other forms seems irrelevant. It's not so much a thing to do as a way to do things.

[...]

These effects too seem more like ways to accomplish a thing than a thing to accomplish. They're very good at what they do, but as long as you can solve any problem through other means it seems fine.

I disagree. There is a reason to have redundant means of accomplishing the same goal: one way may be blocked or countered. There is, in fluff and crunch, a difference between "take the form of a cat", "use an illusion to look like a cat", and "possess a cat". A wizard can do all three. If we take a hypothetical mundane, who can do only one of the three, the wizard still has the edge. The wizard simply uses an appropriate counter, and the mundane is back to being mundane, whereas the mundane needs three counters.


That doesn't completely invalidate your point: a lot of high-OP tricks are about getting Ability A without Investment X, and you don't need a billion ways to do that. In PO however, there are some considerations, such as role-playing ("I can't possess a cat, that's immoral!") or practical ("Diamonds are heavily regulated, resurrection won't be easy to get"), which promote the use of different methods. You might call it 'practical versatility' versus 'theoretical versatility'. A commoner can chain-wish to do anything, but practically, a wizard is far more versatile.

[D.M.Hentchel]

So if we evaluate tier 1s by their ability to infinite loop than I suppose a handful of abilities like:
-Goad any creature in the multi-verse to attacking you
-Convince anyone to serve you with a word
Then you could wish farm which would kinda make you tier 1 if you also had:
-Basically can't be killed
-5 extra standard and move actions a turn
-Super comical levels of speed
-Some ability to make your own plane
-Pretty much unlimited knowledge of things

Then I guess you would be tier 1

Outside of the infinite stuff though I'm not sure Tier 1 is possible without making it a spell per day thing; you could give them capabilities relitive to the wizard, but without the per day limit they become even more powerful tier 0 (arcane swordsage anyone) or you appropriately compensate their extra consistenty with lesser versitility, but then you'll probably sink into tier 2 or tier 3.

The best way I could think of would be to rig the christmas tree effect in their favor so they get more milage out of their items, but that kinda seems to ruin the idea of 'not just magic'

[Thurbane]

The general consensus would be they need the following:

1. Ability to full attack as a standard action
2. Innate ability to fly and/or Teleport.
3. Innate Freedom of Movement (or equivalent).
4. Innate Mindblank (or equivalent).
5. Decent amount of skill points and good range of skills to chose from.
6. Bonus feats (selectable from all feats, not just Fighter feats).
7. Martial maneuvers and stances (or a similar kind of subsystem) for versatility and attack options.

So, basically gestalt Warblade//Expert//Generic Warrior (UA)//with tacked on Fly, FoM and Mindblank as all day Su abilities, and some kind of Pounce.

...even then, this would only likely push them to low tier 2, if you're lucky. You can't seem to push a class into tier 1 without access to world altering spells or an equivalent.

The tier system just generally makes me sad.

[MisterKaws]

Or "skill of such an extreme bull**** tier that reality itself is persuaded to realize your desires."..

Isn't that just Truenaming? I always thought of it as 'System Diplomancy'...

[Gnaeus]

Let's look at mythological sources.

Cuchulainn: Alternate form. Hero has an alternate form he can shift to. In that form he may have special immunities, attacks like a fear aura, better action economy.
Salmon leap: better movement modes. That one is almost flight. Or look at Beowulf for swim speed/virtual water breathing. Or Bran for the ability to wade across seas.
Achilles or Antaeus: virtual immunity to common forms of damage. Instant healing. There is a Celtic legend about a guy who can only be hurt by a javelin thrown through a rock under specific conditions.
Hercules: world changing terrain alteration. The people of the city pissed you off? Drop a mountain on them. Reroute a river to flood them.
Resurrection: walk into the underworld, wrestle or charm some demigods, bring your dead friend out
Roland: hero can defeat an army in melee combat
Other European legends:
A marksman who can hit anything he aims at at any distance, even over miles
A trickster who can deceive gods or primal forces, like tricking death or the devil into a bag they can't get out of, then forcing bargains from them
Talking with animals is pretty common

That's just off the top of my head.
You call the class Demigod. Give it a stat boost at most/all levels, and when the stat exceeds 20 let them pick from a list of stat related powers with power levels comparable to spells available at that level. It wouldn't be tier 1, because the powers can't change daily. But it could easily be a strong T2

[ShurikVch]

Isn't that just Truenaming? I always thought of it as system dyplomancy...

Yes. It is!

[Aharon]

I think Frank and K's fixes are pretty successful at creating Tier One Martials (that being the explicit design goal).

Here's their fighter. He get's stuff like forging magic items at 7th level (because he got so good at forging that the stuff he creates is magical), or Improved Delay, also at 7th level:

Improved Delay (Ex): A Fighter of 7th level may delay his action in one round without compromising his Initiative in the next round. In addition, a Fighter may interrupt another action with his delayed action like it was a readied action (though he does not have to announce his intentions before hand).

They also have feats that scale with BAB, for example their version of Mage Slayer:

Mage Slayer [Combat]
You have trained long and hard to kill magic users. Maybe you hate them, maybe you just noticed that most of the really dangerous creatures in the world use magic.
Benefits: You gain Spell Resistance of 5 + Character Level.
+1: Damage you inflict is considered "ongoing damage" for the purposes of concentration checks made before the beginning of your next round. All your attacks in a round are considered the same source of continuing damage.
+6: Creatures cannot cast defensively within your threat range.
+11: Your attacks ignore Deflection bonuses to AC.
+16: When a creature uses a [Teleportation] effect within medium range of yourself, you may choose to be transported as well. This is not an action.

[Heliomance]

Let's look at mythological sources.

Cuchulainn: Alternate form. Hero has an alternate form he can shift to. In that form he may have special immunities, attacks like a fear aura, better action economy.
Salmon leap: better movement modes. That one is almost flight. Or look at Beowulf for swim speed/virtual water breathing. Or Bran for the ability to wade across seas.
Achilles or Antaeus: virtual immunity to common forms of damage. Instant healing. There is a Celtic legend about a guy who can only be hurt by a javelin thrown through a rock under specific conditions.
Hercules: world changing terrain alteration. The people of the city pissed you off? Drop a mountain on them. Reroute a river to flood them.
Resurrection: walk into the underworld, wrestle or charm some demigods, bring your dead friend out
Roland: hero can defeat an army in melee combat
Other European legends:
A marksman who can hit anything he aims at at any distance, even over miles
A trickster who can deceive gods or primal forces, like tricking death or the devil into a bag they can't get out of, then forcing bargains from them
Talking with animals is pretty common

That's just off the top of my head.
You call the class Demigod. Give it a stat boost at most/all levels, and when the stat exceeds 20 let them pick from a list of stat related powers with power levels comparable to spells available at that level. It wouldn't be tier 1, because the powers can't change daily. But it could easily be a strong T2

So some ideas have been rattling round in my head since I posted this thread, and I've come up with something that could be a decent skeleton for such a class.

For every skill point you spent in that class, you'd also gain a bonus point to that skill. I want to call them "Epic skill points", after Scion's Epic Attributes, but that would cause confusion. So essentially, they'd get two points in a skill for every point they put in, though it wouldn't count for prereqs. Actually, they should probably give a Competency bonus to help limit the silliness you could get into with magic items, and the number of Epic skill points in any skill could never exceed your class level.

Then there'd be a whole slew of abilities, somewhere between feats and spells. Not sure what you'd call them. Trappings, maybe. You'd gain these at a regular rate as you progressed through the class. Each one would have prereqs requiring you to have a certain number of Epic Skill Points in appropriate skills. Once you learned them, they'd just be abilities you could do, like feats, but they'd generally require an appropriate skill check.

Trappings would give points of mental or physical fatigue, listed in the ability description. Each point of fatigue would give a -1 penalty to all mental or physical skill checks, respectively, and would clear at a certain rate (one per class level perhaps?) per hour that you don't use any Trappings.

Sample Trappings that I've thought of could be:

• Take a point of physical fatigue when making a Jump check to multiply your distance by your Epic Jump (low level one)
• Take a point of physical fatigue and make a Weapons Drill check as part of an attack to cut through Force effects
• Take a point of mental fatigue and make a Concentration check to gain the benefits of Mind Blank for an hour
• Take a point of physical fatigue to increase your speed by the highest of your Epic Balance, Climb, or Jump times 5ft
• Take a point of physical fatigue to move your speed as a swift action (can be combined with the last one)
• If someone takes an immediate action or readied action in response to your action, take a point of physical fatigue and make an opposed Initiative check to have your action resolve first

[Fizban]

There have been several attempts to make tier 1 martial classes, and they probably found their marks more or less. All failed to realize a rather significant point of tier 1, however: tier 1's don't actually do all of that simultaneously at-will. Barring the highest of ridiculous ops, the vast majority of tier 1 characters actually obey a significant number of rules and restrictions upon their supposedly unchecked power. They have definitive weaknesses which no matter how hard they compensate, are still weaknesses that must be compensated. The defining problem of a "tier 1 martial," is that the defining feature of a "martial" type is being able to do your stuff at-will, if not every round than at least with no daily limit and with extreme ease in switching between your maneuver loadout. The weaknesses of a spellcaster are the very things that a martial is always good at, so a tier 1 martial's weaknesses are. . . what?

When people try to make tier 1 martials, they often write up a massive list of all the magical effects they want to duplicate and set up how to do so, with little or no limits on daily use or knowledge. They give out constant abilities that are blatantly better than any spell version which exists. And so instead of a theoretically overpowered tier 1 caster who has to jump through a bunch of hoops and effectively get permission, the tier 1 martial is just bonkers overpowered.

In order to make a tier 1 martial which can actually be played with tier 1 casters, they must follow similar rules. Once those rules become similar enough to play nice, the martial is effectively just using refluffed casting. It's a catch-22: if you're better than a caster you're too strong, if you're the same as a caster then you're not a non-caster anymore. That leaves being worse than a caster, back to square one.

[Thealtruistorc]

It just so happens that many people have homebrewed classes with exactly this intent, this one in particular being my favorite.

But anyway, besides what was mentioned above, the Chuck Norris mythos that developed on the internet is a phenomenal example of a tier 1 character who doesn't use magic. The premise is somebody who is just so strong that his very presence warps reality in his favor. If a martial would ever be tier one, I can think of no better way.

[Darrin]

I try to think of it more in terms of narrative control. Most of the structure of D&D is predicated on the idea that narrative control is determined by HPs. Your character gets to fight, talk, negotiate, find traps, collect treasure, etc. so long as HPs are above zero. Everything your PC can influence in the world around him is determined by whether he can reduce its HP to zero. If so, then the PC gets to control what happens to that thing in the story.

Tier 2 is where one PC has transcended the structure of that game. No other agent in that story can interact with or assert narrative control over that PC until they satisfy some sort of requirement. It could be the PC now has flight, and no other creature can harm him unless they do X, where X is get some form of flight, a powerful ranged attack, or whatever. Essentially, the PC has a huge "NOPE" card, whether it's always-on invisibility, astral projection, backup clone bodies, etc. If some other agent in that game has the counter for that ability, then they can continue to play the "HP = control" game.

Tier 1 is another whole level above that second game, where one PC has so many inexhaustible resources that the hoops someone in a lower tier has to jump through are essentially unlimited. It's not "you have to have X, Y, and Z to attack me", it's "I have completely changed the rules of the game so that before you even think about doing X, Y, and Z, I have teleported through time so I act just before you do, and you are now a potted plant on my window sill. No saving throw. Thank you for playing, and you can go home now." HPs have irrevocably become meaningless for that PC. Tier 1 is essentially where the PC has pretty much the same narrative power as the DM, and they are now playing a more freeform "Because I said so" game. They may fool themselves into still thinking that there is a structure there that says if you have X, Y, and Z then maybe this ability ABC combined with DEF under these specific circumstances may hurt you, but it's largely an illusion.

So, I'm not really sure it's structurally possible to bring a Tier 3 up to the same footing as Tier 1. It's like sitting down to a game of backgammon and then your opponent informs you that under his house rules, he gets to pick 11 players from the Pittsburgh Steelers before the game starts, he gets to use lightsabers instead of hockey sticks, and he scores 100 points every time his imaginary fruitbat lands on a triple word score.

And yes, there are ways to structure things at the Tier 1 level where you can play that way with other Tier 1s and still have an enjoyable, challenging game. But it's just not going to work well with lower tiers.

[Red Fel]

The bottom line is this:

What separates Tiers 1 and 2 from everyone else is the ability to have a solution for any encounter. Teleportation, flight, invisibility, the ability to charm NPCs, the ability to strike incorporeal targets, etc. What separates Tier 1 from Tier 2 is the ability to have, with some preparation, access to all of the solutions - or at least, whichever you might need that day.

To make a martial Tier 1, then, you need to isolate those things which constitute solutions, and then give the martial a way to access all of them, either all at once or on a daily basis. Now, to be fair, things like Incarnum gave us a hint of this - short-range teleports, ranged and incorporeal attacks, limited flight, and so on. But you need your martial to do this in a not-visibly-magic way.

And therein lies the wrinkle. As has been mentioned repeatedly, a lot of people have this hangup about martials - when they are no longer doing what "the guy at the gym" could do, at least in terms of kind, if not scale, they are no longer purely martial, and have become (at least in part) functionally spellcasters.

If we can ignore that hangup, of course, sky's the limit. In that case, I'd simply suggest rebuilding Tome of Battle to your needs. ToB brought martials up a bit, after all; the model works.

I'd suggest setting aside all of the disciplines, and creating a set of new ones. For example, you could have a "Fist of the Sky" discipline, with stances that give you (progressively) levitation, gliding, and eventually proper flight, and maneuvers that let you perform ranged attacks with melee strikes. A "Blade of Spacetime" discipline could include teleportation maneuvers (which technically Shadow Hand already gets), perhaps a Haste-style spell, strikes that add the Force descriptor to your melee attacks, and so forth. A "Face of the Champion" discipline would basically sub out your combat maneuvers for skill-type bonuses, letting you function outside of combat - which a martial sorely needs. A "Soul of Steel" discipline would let you engage in weapon crafting, and give you benefits with any weapon you've crafted. A "Hammer of the Gods" discipline could give you a Miracle-type effect as a capstone, perhaps let you summon Celestial allies and the like.

Basically, just run down the Lists of Necessary Magic Items. These are benefits pretty much every character needs or could want, and almost every Tier 1 spellcaster can have. If it's on the list, find a way for a martial to have it innately. That's your first step.

[Gallowglass]

You know, I read the first post this morning and I thought of many things to say, then I come to work and find out most of them have already been said...

The main problem with this scenario design is this: "Tier one" no matter what they state is the definition, the real definition is "What a wizard 20 can do." That's it. Because its a system built around sorting and allocating D&D classes by their ability to do whatever needs to be done in any scenario (flexibility AND power) So they took the classes and sorted them and "What a wizard 20 can do" became Tier 1. Sure they put some other classes up there with the wizard (Druid, Cleric) but that's kind of halfhearted.

So anytime you posit a scenario design which is "what can we do to get X to tier 1" It immediately turns to "what can we do to make this class as powerful and versatile as a wizard 20 within the game system design with as little homebrew as possible"

That's why you end up making a list of all the things that make the wizard 20 tier 1 (wish, plane shift, tactical teleport, divination, shapechange, time manipulation) and try to figure out how to get that martial or whatever to be able to do all of that. And you end up with "spells with swords" like what someone suggested up above.

I think, yeah, its theoretically possible to finagle with the skill system enough to make a "nonmagic" tier 1 character who exploits the skill system to be able to handle any scenario within a reasonable timeframe. First, if you want to be able to have a PvP tier1 non magical, you are going to have to let diplomancy and other social skills effect other players. Assuming this isn't PvP and you are just trying to win any given scenario, then diplomancy as it already exists plus allowing creation of magic items through mundane crafting is close to tier1 already. Just add some skill tricks like "planar black market - your knowledge base and contact base is so broad you are treated as if you are in the middle of a giant planar city for locating magic items and information no matter where you are." and a knowledge: geography/knowledge: planes skill trick "Planar roads: your knowledge of the planes and local geography is so great you know how to find folds and secret wormholes hidden in the world around you" And you are getting close to a character who can handle any scenario within a reasonable timeframe already.

"But, Gallowglass, a wizard 20 would just ice assassin, travel through time, pwn this guy no problem!" Yeah yeah yeah. Notice I differentiated between PvP and scenario handling up above? Everytime I see one of those "the wizard just sits in his demiplane and sends his ice assassin out to deal with you" threads I just think "You are basing this off of you, the player, thinking through every possible scenario and accounting for it, but you don't seem to realize a mundane can put just as much thought an effort into thinking ahead as you can." Either way, is skilltrick boy going to survive in PvP against wizard 20? Probably not, but so what. I already stated I'm not looking at this as PvP tier 1.

[digiman619]

No. Just... just no.

I'll agree that as a general rule, martials need nice things too, but Tier 1 is a mistake. Tier 1 brings the game down to Calvinball: Though they claim there are rules, the T1 can more or less do whatever they want and barring DM fiat, there nothing anyone who isn't another T1 can do about it. It trivializes everyone else, because if your life's work wasn't "I study magic" or "I devoutly channel my god/nature", then you are inherently inferior regardless of your skill: you're Bruce Lee dropped into DBZ. Yeah, you have skill, but in a world were everyone of note flies and can move faster than you can blink, and do enough damage to destroy a mountain... and that's before they buff themselves, it doesn't matter.

Tier 3 is what the game is supposed to be; Your character is very good in their chosen area of expertise and decent in a bunch of other things. No one player has all the answers. The whole in-universe reason you're in a party in the first place is that you need someone to the things that need to be done that you don't know how to do yourself. Not everyone knows how to pick a lock, or be good at convincing others, or be a great swordsman; but if Joe the Wizard has knock, charm person, and tenser's transformation, he doesn't need to. And those are the spells themselves, not counting all the incredibly broken cheese that you can get without too much trouble. All a wizard needs to do is look at his big book in the morning and say "How will I bust reality today?". Everyone else has to put years of practice into being good at one thing.

This is why my games use Spheres of Power and Path of War; it makes everyone T3; not only does it make magic cool and thematic (you can't just pick and choose the best abilities; you actually have to invest in in the Alteration sphere and get lesser transformations before you can just decide to be a Terrasque today.), it also lets the martials have cool stuff too. It also separates the divine and 6th level casters from the lower end martials; even though a cleric and a rouge both have a moderate BAB (+15 at Lv 20), the rogue is a far better fighter, as he has martial maneuvers and stances that enhance his fighting. It's the difference between a boxer and a football player getting in a street fight; both are strong athletes, but the boxer has far more things he can do here, as that's his primary focus. They also multiclass really well, so a Magus might want to mix up his mystic and martial skills by dabbling with maneuvers. All he needs is one feat (Advanced Magical Training) to let his abilities scale as he dabbles in the second field. Similarly, if a Stalker wants to dabble in magic (in order to, say, get some teleportation via the Warp sphere), his non-martial levels still count towards his initiator level. It's easy and fun to mix and match while keeping both sides balanced and fun.

tl;dr: Don't make T1 martials; make T3 magicians and let everyone have fun.

[Flickerdart]

I agree, T1 is stupid, and T1 with at-will abilities. What's not stupid is being able to do things T1s do. Teleporting, plane shifting, mind control.

There is a really cool ability in 4th Edition that you get from some Epic Destiny. With 24 hours of travel, you end up anywhere you want. Other continent, other plane, whatever. It's not really described how - you're just that good.

One of Hercules' only feats that don't translate to "CR6 or lower monster encounter" is the labour of the Augean Stables, where he spent a day digging a ditch, and redirected the flow of two nearby rivers.

Given that one of the biggest gaps in martial capability is what to do during downtime, this seems like a decent solution to the T1 martial problem. Give them progressively better things they can do by being just that good, and let it take a while. Yes, it's not useful to encounters. Yes, wizards will be better. But it's something, and it lets mundanes do something in the tail end of the game.

Essentially, this is a meta-narrative tool. Martial characters get the ability to say "I am too much of a big famous hero to schlep through miles of plains on the way to the Caves of Doom" and the story fast-forwards to the Caves of Doom. "My fame is too great to have to scrape and bow at the feet of the king to raise an army." Bam, you got an army. Do a dice roll if it makes you feel better. The stuff that was necessary happened off-screen. The most basic of these abilities can be something like "infinite arrows" because you're too heroic for "I go shopping for arrows" plots.

[digiman619]

I agree, T1 is stupid, and T1 with at-will abilities. What's not stupid is being able to do things T1s do. Teleporting, plane shifting, mind control.

There is a really cool ability in 4th Edition that you get from some Epic Destiny. With 24 hours of travel, you end up anywhere you want. Other continent, other plane, whatever. It's not really described how - you're just that good.

One of Hercules' only feats that don't translate to "CR6 or lower monster encounter" is the labour of the Augean Stables, where he spent a day digging a ditch, and redirected the flow of two nearby rivers.

Given that one of the biggest gaps in martial capability is what to do during downtime, this seems like a decent solution to the T1 martial problem. Give them progressively better things they can do by being just that good, and let it take a while. Yes, it's not useful to encounters. Yes, wizards will be better. But it's something, and it lets mundanes do something in the tail end of the game.

Essentially, this is a meta-narrative tool. Martial characters get the ability to say "I am too much of a big famous hero to schlep through miles of plains on the way to the Caves of Doom" and the story fast-forwards to the Caves of Doom. "My fame is too great to have to scrape and bow at the feet of the king to raise an army." Bam, you got an army. Do a dice roll if it makes you feel better. The stuff that was necessary happened off-screen. The most basic of these abilities can be something like "infinite arrows" because you're too heroic for "I go shopping for arrows" plots.

I saw a comment in a different discussion that postulated that if the martials could full attack as a standard and that all casting had a casting time of at least a full-round, things might be more balanced without massive changes. I think that would combo very well with this; martials are better in the spur of the moment, while wizards are better when they take their time.

[Extra Anchovies]

The issue with saying "but that replicates [spellcasting]/[a spell]" is twofold.
1. There exists a spell or combination of spells for anything that characters are expected (by the designers) to have to do in D&D.
2. Dismissing [being able to do things that spells can also do] as refluffed spellcasting means dismissing most of 3.5. Psionics, invocations, incarnum, pact magic; there's so many different subsystems, all of which are designed to help characters meet the challenges they're expected to face, a purpose for which spellcasting is also designed. Heck, there are spells that grant full BAB and fighter feats - is the fighter as printed in the PHB, then, just refluffed spellcasting?

In X-Men terms, Tier 1 is Xavier, Wolverine, Magneto, Cyclops, Mystique, Kitty Pride, and Magik all rolled into one individual. And with a dozen or so other, lesser, powers thrown on for good measure.

Sentry and Jean Grey as (Phoenix) are both good examples of Marvel comics characters who approach or meet t1. Scarlet Witch, too, at the height of her power.

Thinking along those lines, Doctor Doom could be a way to approach the concept of a Tier 1 noncaster. With time and materials he can build gadgets that have pretty much whatever effects he needs, he has a number of various "NO button" effects (paralysis ray, doombots, jetpack), and he has incredible leadership ability, e.g. his own kingdom. He's also gained mystical powers by observing and learning from others or from building a gadget to steal them from someone else, but he notably does not have any mystical powers that he develops on his own.

A Doctor Doom class wouldn't be a fighter, sure, but T1 has nothing to do with fighting and everything to do with not having to fight, by having gadgets or spells or powers or minions or anything else that deals with obstacles without having to get your hands dirty.