Community Tiering for all 3.5 Base Classes

[Jormengand]

First round of votes is over, second round is the:

Bard
Battle Dancer (DrC)
Beguiler (PH2)
Binder (ToM)
Cleric
Commoner

Results of the previous round: Adept 4, Archivist 1, Ardent 2, Aristocrat 6, Artificer 1, Barbarian 4.

Place your votes now!

[eggynack]

Bard: 3. Bard is practically the archetypal 3. Some say that the bard picks up a lot of that 3-ness from outside of core, but while a lot of the best bardic build optimization, especially feats, comes from outside of core, I think that core spell use alone is a generally sufficient factor, at the very least in this more limited core environment. Bards simply get great spells, and at every level. Silent image, grease, sleep, and maybe charm person at first, alter self, glitterdust, invisibility, and mirror image at second, and then glibness, dispel magic, haste, slow, and glibness at third, all set the bard up as very powerful in the early to mid-game. I think that the potency of casters relative to martial classes beyond that general point is sufficiently well known, but suffice to say that the higher level spells are good enough to continue justifying the bard's positioning. Bardic advancement isn't all that slow, and while the very early levels are a problematic time for spells/day, I think the overall spell situation is enough to justify this position. And then they just so happen to get bardic music, great skill use, average BAB, and high optimization potential if you ever need to make a non-core comparison, and the bard seems great for this slot.

Battle Dancer: 5. Hadn't looked at this class before just now, but it looks like a monk with less optimization potential to me. The abilities seem sweet, but they also seem bad until you hit level 11, and that's not when you want to start picking up steam as a class that's supposed to be crushing late. It seems like they gave a monk the stuff you're supposed to in order to "fix" it, with full BAB, pounce, and flight, but the latter two come too late to matter, and what you lose in the exchange seems worse than what you gain.

Beguiler: 23: I'm not fully convinced that beguilers are straight up better than sorcerers. They have real and meaningful advantages, but sorcerers get a capacity to pick and choose the best stuff available that represents an advantage of its own. However, the power level comparison between the two classes is one I'd best describe as... complicated. And when that's the case, it's a solid indication that the classes are in the same tier. More importantly, I'm very likely going to end up putting favored soul in tier two, and the advantages a beguiler has against a sorcerer are magnified by a lot when the opposing class is pulling from a significantly less borked list. I haven't seen extensive comparisons between the two, but beguiler might actually be straight up better than favored souls, and that'd be a pretty ironclad argument for tier two. Still, I don't think they come all that close to tier one, for a whole lot of reasons, and beguiler definitely still has some of those tier three elements, so I'd err towards the lower side of two.

Binder: 3. Don't have that much to say about these. I've looked at them a bit, and their abilities seem good enough to justify tier three without coming all that close to two. Zceryll is obviously a big upgrade, but first, that's a really specific piece of optimization, and second, I think I need to see a serious argument that that ability alone gets you to two before I'm convinced of the original system's placement.

Cleric: 1. Seems pretty obvious. I'm not the most knowledgeable about the cleric's exact capabilities, but their baseline list alone is sufficient for tier one, domains get them a really solid spot in that tier, and turn undead optimization (especially DMM, obviously) along with those other things makes clerics capable of holding their own against just about anything power-wise.

Commoner (without chickens): 6. Commoner is obviously the worst class in the game. You can do semi-useful stuff with a commoner, but that's only because a basic chassis can get you surprisingly far if you know what you're doing.

Commoner (with chickens): 32x. Commoner is a pretty great class. Sure, wizards can make a wall of stone, but commoners can make a wall of chickens that can be constantly regenerated and which leaves time to attack or whatever. Druids can launch earthquakes, but if you're trying to take out a town or fortress, what better way than filling that area with chickens? Clerics can use planar ally, but what better ally than a pile of chickens that you've arbitrarily shaped into humanoid form? And all this stuff is doable from level one. Facing traps? Fill the hall with chickens. Need to get your allies across a chasm? Fill the chasm with chickens. Need to slow down enemies in a section of the battlefield? Chickens could do the job just fine. It's an ability that's really difficult to tier, because it's simultaneously incredibly versatile and incredibly one note. You're always somewhat limited by the angle of repose of chicken piles, but you're always somewhat unlimited by the fact that the chickens are unlimited. Three is a decent baseline guess, and I wouldn't want to go lower than that, but the raw power here might be tier two, and the insanity is such that a lack of tier could make sense.

To be clear, for all the amusement value of chickens, my claims here are pretty close to completely serious, so make of that what you will.

[Inevitability]

Do we get to count commoner flaws when determining their tier?

[Pleh]

Do we get to count commoner flaws when determining their tier?

Short answer, no.

Long answer:

E) Please don't use this vote for joke votes, protest votes, or discussion of whether or not the tier system is a good idea. If you don't think the tier system is an accurate decription of classes, then what can you possibly hope to gain by posting in a thread for making the tier system? This is meant to be a useful resource for DMs and players, so the tier 1 commoner meme isn't a good idea - even if it's an obvious joke, it will throw doubt on whether or not the rest of this thread is serious. This thread is also not for arguing about how the tiers should be defined - they are what they are, and having more than one conflicting standard for tiering is only really going to cause confusion.

[D.M.Hentchel]

Adept: 5 4
Other people have brought up just about everything there is to this. If possible I would like to modify my vote once we have more tiers established.

Archivist: 1
Not much to say here, doesn't get Turn Undead, but gets pretty much everything else. Class features are not irrelevant either.

Ardent: skip
I'm unclear how much power can actually be attained with this class. Definately tier 2 or 3 though

Aristocrat: 4 5 6 3
The aristicrat gets no class features, but it does get Diplomacy, all synergy skills, Intimidate, Knowledge (religon), and skill points enough for them all. This makes them good enough at being a face to contribute effectively and sacrifices gives them the tools to go even further. Aristocrats can still take Power Attack, Leap Attack, and Shock Trooper. Or Mounted Combat, Ride-by Attack, Spirited Charge. The Aristocrat proves to be a one and a half trick pony, but that one trick can do A LOT. Really this just demonstates how broken diplomacy and sacrifice are. But if I was making a party of Tier 3 and I had to include a fighter or aristocrat I would pick aristocrat.

Artificer: 1
Access to every spell in the game 2 levels early through scrolls goes a long way. Even newer players can figure out the craft construct can trivialize many encounters.

Barbarian: 4 5 3
Can charge for massive damage and not a whole lot else. Other people have covered this better than I can.

Edit: Oops

[eggynack]

My feeling is that, for all the chicken infested commoner's humorous memetic value, there's something to be said for it as a serious thing to be considered. It reads a lot like that occasional thought experiment of a class with only a single ability at first level that enables it to kill just about anything it wants. Except here, there's a trade of obvious direct combat potential for a more versatile and creativity driven problem solver. What effects can chickens duplicate, and what are their limitations? How do we evaluate something with this degree of non-scaling? It's a non-trivial set of problems, one that makes a proper assessment more approximation than most, but I think 32x captures a lot of the truth of the situation. And if one can capture truth, even chicken truth, then that's a thing I value a whole lot more than being taken seriously.

[Mehangel]

Bard: 3
Battle Dancer: 54
Beguiler: 2X31
Binder: 3
Cleric: 1X2
Commoner: 6

Spoiler: Regarding Beguiler & Cleric

Show

The beguiler is one of those classes that I feel has a higher floor, but in the hands of a wrong player may either be non-game breaking but always contributing or always game breaking. Does that make sense? Meh, whatever, point that I am trying to make is that Beguiler's standard Tier will be 2, but unoptimized may drop into 3, while particularly clever players may boost it up-to Tier 1

The cleric on the other hand will always be Tier 1, except where plot/staying in-character keeps the cleric from performing actions that will break the game (Clerics performing actions that are contrary to their own philosophy or god's beliefs may cause them to momentarily lose their spellcasting, etc). Of course the Cleric will usually know what is and isn't appropriate behavior and wont encounter such hindrances often, but it may mean not being Tier 1 all the time, hence Tier 2 (when appropriate)

[Inevitability]

Bard: 3X4. Casting is as good as it gets without being full, plenty of interesting class features to throw around... I'd say the bard is a typical 3. If anything, their occasional lack of focus makes them a 4, but I don't really back that notion.

Battle Dancer: 564. Monk without the stuff that makes monks usable. At worst it's a MAD warrior with bad class features, at best it's a clunky ubercharger (though it need be said that few classes get Pounce as a class feature). Most of the time, a typical tier 5.

Beguiler: 324. Full caster with additional tricks (going to say that's pretty much a tier 3 poster child), but limited list. Still, I guess that with some very powerful spells available to them (Shadow Evocation, Shadow Conjuration), they are high tier 3s, and perhaps even tier 2s.

Binder: 32X4. Lots of versatility, reasonable raw power, and even ways to swap out vestiges on the fly. Another archetypical tier 3 able to break the game with the right vestiges *cough*Zceryll*cough*.

Cleric: 1X2. Great default magic, the ability to nab some off-list spells, and the capacity to say 'no' to metamagic costs. If this isn't a tier 1, it's because it's too strong to properly list.

Commoner: 6. Its one class feature is proficiency with a simple weapon. I rest my case.

Commoner (with chickens): 34. Sure, I'm willing to jump on the chicken train. A good rule of thumb is that something has no limits, it can be abused, and CI is no exception. I'm not going to say the flaw is sufficient to get commoners to tier 2, but 3 and 4 are definitely attainable.

[Zanos]

Bard: 324
1-6 spell progression from a very solid list including some spells that are higher levels on other lists, good skillpoints, good skill list. A bard can focus on one aspect of it's character and by excellent, and with the right optimization can pretty much shatter the numbers game. Even when it's main tricks aren't relevant, it can be built to contribute meaningfully to nearly any situation.

Battle Dancer (DrC): 56
I'll admit I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually play this class outside of charisma to AC dips, and even then there's better ways to get that. Actually reading it's abilities, it seems to be a worse charisma based monk. You'd think someone would have learned. At least this class can fly(at level 17, really?) and pounce(at level 11), but it takes a standard action to even activate it's magical unarmed strikes, and actions for many of the other dance abilities.

Beguiler (PH2): 32
Spell list and skill list are extremely potent when combined with int SAD, 6+int points, and it's class features. Spell list contains many staple spells, and is very, very strong at low levels, being one of the best lists among the fixed list casters. Their 3rd level list contains twenty spells they can cast any of spontaneously, many of which are top picks for wiz/sorc, like haste, slow, dispel magic, arcane sight, legion of sentinels, and invisibility sphere. But the list weakens at higher levels, not generally getting the spells that allow wizards and sorcerers to obtain infinite cosmic power. Advanced Learning spell choices can make a difference, though, and with stuff like (Greater) Shadow Conjuration and Shades available, the gap becomes much smaller.

Binder (ToM): 342
The binder can do a lot of different stuff, although it's sort of hamstringed by only being able to bind a single vestige until level 8. Still, vestiges are a little weird in that higher level vestiges aren't more powerful as any sort of rule, and low level vestiges tend to scale very well. This gives the binder a lot of viable options even at high levels, and they can be built to succeed at a lot of tasks, and switch to being good at other things the next day. They can't do a bunch of stuff at once like a bard, but they can still do a bunch of stuff with a bit of time. Summon Monster every 5 rounds is not enough to push them into tier 2, although it's pretty clearly the best vestige.

Cleric: 1
No other tier for it, really. Cleric can be built do to pretty much anything, and some can do all of it at the same time. Amazing spell list with every spell on it known automatically, 3/4 BAB, casting in heavy armor from level 1, and domains. Turn undead can fuel a variety of potent feats, but the core of the class is so strong that you don't even need to take that into account for the cleric to be tier 1.

Commoner: 6
It has no class features. It has a d4 hit die with poor BAB, all poor saves, and one simple weapon. I guess it gets spot and listen, at least? The only argument this isn't 6 is the april fools flaws, which are just goofy.

[Pleh]

My feeling is that, for all the chicken infested commoner's humorous memetic value, there's something to be said for it as a serious thing to be considered. It reads a lot like that occasional thought experiment of a class with only a single ability at first level that enables it to kill just about anything it wants. Except here, there's a trade of obvious direct combat potential for a more versatile and creativity driven problem solver. What effects can chickens duplicate, and what are their limitations? How do we evaluate something with this degree of non-scaling? It's a non-trivial set of problems, one that makes a proper assessment more approximation than most, but I think 32x captures a lot of the truth of the situation. And if one can capture truth, even chicken truth, then that's a thing I value a whole lot more than being taken seriously.

I still categorize it as TO, since most tables wouldn't actually allow it. It's a joke feature that is for use in joke games.

[javcs]

Bard: 3 Classic T3.

Battle Dancer: 5 It's a variation on Monk that's not any better.

Beguiler: 3. It's arguably got the potential to contend with specific T2 builds, but it lacks the same degree of scope that T2 classes can pick from for their focus. That is, I'm differentiating between T2 and T3 here because any given Beguiler isn't going to be particularly different from any other Beguiler - there's no significant degree of variation between potential builds, at least to the extent expected of T2 classes. I'm not sure I'm explaining that as well as I'd like.

Binder: 3. Really depends on which vestige(s) are chosen, but it's easy enough to switch them out. Pretty good as a dip or as a primary. Probably the best designed and built base class from Tome of Magic.

Cleric: 1. There's no alternative. Unless you're running one as a pure healbot or something else horrifically anti-optimized, then it's probably still a 3 or 4.

Commoner: 6.

[Troacctid]

Especially against foes immune to mind-affecting stuff, a beguiler can easily become nothing more than a cheap buffer.

That's not fair. Look at their list again—they have plenty of non-mind-affecting offensive spells. They just don't have any that deal damage. But it's not like you were spamming whelm even against enemies that weren't immune to it.

[GrayDeath]

Bard: 3. I`d say the Epitome of what it means to be T3.

Battle Dancer: 5. A Monk with some small improvements and some stuff even worse ... totals at the same tier.

Beguiler: 3X2. Well, its one of those classes that offer little Variety. Yes any given beguiler is quite good. No I dojnt see them hopping into "full" T 2 without serious optimization ... almost always the same ones too. So yeah, ....

Binder: 3. Seems very flexible and quite cool, but not really powerful. Like the Bard very T 3 (attention: only saw it played, never got to play it myself...)

Cleric: 1. Obviously.

Commoner: 6. Also obviously.

[stanprollyright]

Bard: 32. Great class that can do anything, but doesn't have the raw power of 9th level spells (at least without a PrC). Can trivialize encounters with buffs, or break the game with social abilities, or generally be useful 100% of the time with skills and versatile spell choices. My favorite class ever.
Battle Dancer (DrC): no idea what this is.
Beguiler: 23. Better than a focused Sorcerer, albeit more limited - more spells, nice class features, lots of skills, plenty of the best spells in the game, and UMD for the rest. Rides the line between Tiers 2 and 3.
Binder: no experience with this class.
Cleric: 12. Of the prepared 9th level casters, Cleric has the weakest list and fewest class features. Its best spells are often wizard spells it gets from domains, or the ones that make Fighters useless. But still, it's got Wish and Planar Binding and Divine Metamagic and can change its spells every day. This class is the bare minimum for Tier 1.
Commoner: 6X. Can be Tier 1 with enough chickens.

[neriractor]

Bard 3, 4, 2, x
Battle Dancer (DrC) 5, 4, 6 (bolded meanns high italiced means low)
Beguiler (PH2) 2, 3, x
Binder (ToM) 3, 4, 2, x
Cleric 1, x
Commoner 6, 5, x

[Aegis013]

Bard 3,4,2,5,6,1
Battle Dancer (DrC) 5,4,6,3,2,1
Beguiler (PH2) 3,X,4,5,6,2,1
Binder (ToM) X,4,3,5,6,2,1
Cleric 1,2,3,4,5,6
Commoner 6,5,4,3,2,1

[Karl Aegis]

Bard: 34 Core Bards suck. They are worse sorcerers, worse fighters, and worse rogues. They really needed to specialize in something besides being near-omniscient at mid-levels. Throw enough splats at them and they can become better fighters, better rogues, still-not-as-good sorcerers(sorcerer/wizard list is really good) and can get some druid-like class features(nowhere near as good at being a druid as a druid). Can target Fortitude and Will Saves, AC, Touch AC (wraithstrike isn't hard to get). Can get both animal companion and familiar if they didn't like going Snowflake Wardance and Dragonfire Inspiration. Can get enough rider effects on their limited list of martial and exotic weapons to make hitting things viable. Now with healing!

Battle Dancer (DrC): 65 Target AC deal Hit point damage. These are not class features. No Charisma based skills besides Perform. Honestly would prefer hitting things with farm implements than whatever this class does. No, giving someone -2 AC is not a 14th level ability. I would say Dominate Fodder, but the fluff tells me they are not common enough to know that they are dominate fodder. Really bad class.

Beguiler (PH2): 34 They have good skills, Use Magic Device and plenty of ways to Target Will Saves. Can become a worse Cleric if they wanted to, but why not play a Cleric at that point? Cleric chassis can be better if the cleric wanted to. How many ways do you need to target a Will Save anyways? Can take advantage of Dominate Fodder like Battle Dancer if they wished to.

Binder (ToM): 3 Two good saves. Ability to pick up what skills they need. BIRDS. Birds are cool. Can get armor or archery if they want. First level ability to bind Ronove which can replace both Monk and Fighter if they wanted to. Can target Reflex, Fort and Will Saves. Target AC as well. Deals hit point damage. Can get enough natural attacks to not need BAB.

Cleric: 1 Anything that is on both the Wizard and Cleric lists, you want a Cleric casting. Their better chasis and unique spells put them ahead of core Wizard and remain good enough to remain in Tier 1 with splats. They can become invulnerable if they wish, while retaining their ability to turn into Godzilla and smash Tokyo.

Commoner: 6 Dominate fodder that isn't really worth spending the spell slot on. Sure, you can customize commoners to do specific tasks, but you're using things not native to the class. May be tier 5 because of Handle Animal, but not really.

[flare'90]

Bard: 3. They get a decent chassis (d6 HD, Good Ref/Will, 3/4 BAB), a generous amount of skill points drawing from an expansive list (Balance, Tumble, Hide/Move Silently, Concentration, Spellcraft and UMB are all class skills, with plenty of other skills), spells and some good class features. The spells in particular bring a lot to the table, even in Core, with a mix of offense (grease, hideous laughter, glitterdust, slow, etc...), defense (blur, invisibility,...) and utility (identify, magic aura, detect toughts,...). Pretty much the poster child of Tier 3.

Battle Dancer: 5. A good-ish chassis (d8 HD, Good Ref, Full BAB), but lacking in skill points and with a middling list (they get Listen/Spot, Tumble, Balance, Hide/Move Silently and that's basically it). They are basically a Cha-focused, Tumble-centric monk, with almost all the problems that this brings over. At least they get pounce at 11th level. All in all a Tier 5 class, probably below even the fighter.

Beguiler: 3 2. The chassis is basically the wizard one with d6 HD and 6 skill points-level. The skill list, on the other hand, is based heavily on the rogue and so features lots of useful skills for every situation, featuring: Spot/Listen, Hide/Move Silently, Tumble, Spellcraft, Open Lock/Disable Device, Diplomacy/Bluff, Balance, Sense Motive, UMD, with some other oddball skills like Forgery and Appraise. Befitting the rouguish nature of the class, they also get trapfinding. The class features are situationally useful at best (cloacked casting might come in play in the surprise/first round, free Silent/Still Spell is nice I guess?), with one notable exception. What makes beguilers Tier 3 at least, if not Tier 2, is the fact that they are spontaneous full casters with a fixed list. This means that they know their entire list and so can pull out the spell they want without problems. The list itself is focused on enchantments and illusions, but features also some buff (mage armor, haste), debuff (glitterdust, slow)and utility (disguise self, spider climb). In addition to these spells, beguilers can also add some other enchantment/illusion wizard spell to their list via the advance learning feature, so they can cherry-pick from a quite expansive list of versatile spells (the shadow x line, mostly). This combines to make the beguiler at least a solid Tier 3 class, and arguably a Tier 2 one. A very real problem is the aboundance of creatures with immunity to mind-affecting at high level, which neuters many possible strategies.

Binder: 3. This class gets the cleric chassis (d8 HD, 3/4 BAB, good Fort/Will, 2+ s.p./level) with a nearly the same skill list. The class features revolve around bingding vestiges and this gives the binder an excellent versatility, since a binder can perform well in almost any role just by switching around their bound vestiges. The also get some addtional bonuses when they have at least one bound vestige, which is nice. The amount of versatility the class has points to Tier 3, but one vestige (Zceryll, the Star Spawn) can arguably put the binder on Tier 2 by dint of summon monster spam. I'm not completely sold on the whle Tier 2 Binder thing, but it's worth noting.

Cleric: 1. While having a good chassis (d8 HD, 3/4 BAB, good Fort/Will, 2+ s.p./level) and a narrow skill list, the main features that puts the cleric in Tier 1 are the spells and turn undead. Turn undead by itself is not an amazing ability, normally good enough to repel mook, but the true value is using it to power Divine and Devotion feats. Those feats give buffs ranging from simple extra damage (Divine Might) to free movement (Travel Devotion) or free metamagic (Divine Metamagic). The cleric spell list is of the three largest and most inclusive spell lists, with options for everything. The spell list can be expanded with the choice of domains, that also grant extra abilities. These factors combine to make the cleric Tier 1.

Commoner: 6. Let's see, they have the worst chassis (d4 HD, poor saves, 2+ s.p.), weak skills (Spot/Listen, maybe Handle Animals if you really know what you're doing) and no features. Tier 6, no doubt. With chicken-infested I dunno, you can arguably break WBL by selling infinite chickens, and those infinte chickens should be able to resolve a lot of problems with enough creativity. Maybe Tier 4?

[eggynack]

Beguiler (PH2) 3,X,4,5,6,2,1

This strikes me as a very strange rating, gotta say. Would you really consider beguilers as tier four, five, or even six before you'd think them a two? Also not sure how X fits on the beguiler in this or any other rating. Their marginal utility from optimization seems relatively low.

[Zanos]

This strikes me as a very strange rating, gotta say. Would you really consider beguilers as tier four, five, or even six before you'd think them a two? Also not sure how X fits on the beguiler in this or any other rating. Their marginal utility from optimization seems relatively low.

I agree with your general argument, but Advanced Learning and spontaneous casting from your full list are both class features that lend themselves very well to optimization.

[flare'90]

This strikes me as a very strange rating, gotta say. Would you really consider beguilers as tier four, five, or even six before you'd think them a two? Also not sure how X fits on the beguiler in this or any other rating. Their marginal utility from optimization seems relatively low.

He's trolling, even for the other classes before he voted 123456X for everyone.

[eggynack]

I agree with your general argument, but Advanced Learning and spontaneous casting from your full list are both class features that lend themselves very well to optimization.

I'm not saying they lack a gap between floor and ceiling. Mostly just that the gap is somewhat atypically small, due to the high ceiling provided by a decent sized static list that you don't even have to make daily decisions about. The gap is a lot smaller here than for the warmage and dread necro, because your list is already really good.

He's trolling, even for the other classes before he voted 123456X for everyone.

How is using all the numbers trolling? All it does is declare preference in every comparison between two possibilities. I just think this particular preference declaration is really illogical. The rating given for the other classes seems close to fine, even if I'd obviously support the ratings I gave over them.

[Inevitability]

He's trolling, even for the other classes before he voted 123456X for everyone.

They did not, they merely used all numbers. Please do not accuse others of trolling if they aren't.

[GilesTheCleric]

Cleric: 1 Anything that is on both the Wizard and Cleric lists, you want a Cleric casting. Their better chasis and unique spells put them ahead of core Wizard and remain good enough to remain in Tier 1 with splats. They can become invulnerable if they wish, while retaining their ability to turn into Godzilla and smash Tokyo.

What spells in core were you thinking of that put the Cleric list ahead of Wizard? Not to put words in your mouth here, but all I can think of is the divination line, glyphs, and gish buffs. I'm not overly familiar with the Wizard list, though, so maybe I'm missing something.



Cleric: 1 There is almost literally no way to mess up this class. You'd have to intentionally drop your wis below 11, or intentionally mess up your relationship with your deity (and even then, there's some leeway [FRCS 236, ECS 35-36], not to mention Atonement, which in higher op you can always have at the ready, just in case). Outside of those two things, any Cleric build at any level can be restored to T1 within 24 hours.

For folks not as familiar with TO for Clerics, I'd like to assure you that they're not TX -- they do scale to the same NI as Wizards, given that they can create demiplanes and have Miracle, Gate, and Elder Glyph; they also have access to any domain or other spell lists if you prefer Time Stop/ Shapechange/ Planar Binding/ insert other spell here. DCFS DMM means that Clerics don't need to invest levels into a PrC/ other less-efficient feat-based reducers if they want to break caps. Even at lower levels, they can gain access to Shadow spells, the polymorph line, glyphs, and of course the planar binding line as well. There's the notorious Initiate of Mystra, too, if AMF is more your style (I don't think it scales as well into TO, but it's still very good).

Further, with turning op (yes, it can be used for something other than powering feats), Clerics can also outright destroy (or deal copious amounts of actual damage) nearly any type, subtype, or alignment of creature, effectively giving them as many uses of AoE Implosion per day as they have turns. That's not as high OP as the above, but it's nice PO.

You could also give yourself things like contingent True Resurrections; with Dragon material, things get even more out of hand. You can become a pseudo-lich without all the weight of LA, being an undead, or other templates, for example.


I might come back later to add tiers to the other classes for this week, but I've been busy with projects and would have to invest time in learning more about them.

[flare'90]

They did not, they merely used all numbers. Please do not accuse others of trolling if they aren't.

He's voting using all votes for every class and not explaining their reasoning.
Ok, maybe it's not trolling, at worst it's passive-aggressive voting.
I apologise.

[Nifft]

Bard: 3

Battle Dancer (DrC): 5

Beguiler (PH2): 3

Binder (ToM): 3

Cleric: 1

Commoner: 6X

The only X here is for chickens.

[OldTrees1]

He's voting using all votes for every class and not explaining their reasoning.
Ok, maybe it's not trolling, at worst it's passive-aggressive voting.
I apologise.

The use of all votes is a consequence of the voting system this thread is using. The voting system wants you to put "number closest to my guess", "next number closest to my guess", "next number closest to my guess", ... until you have listed all 7 options.

For instance: 1,2,X,3,4,5,6 is an example vote for if you think the class is a Tier 1-2 class but certainly not anything below that. This is in contrast to 1,2,3,4,X,5,6 which is if you think the class is a Tier 1-2 class but certainly not a Tier 5-6 class.

[Jormengand]

To be clear, I'm going to ask people not to consider chicken-infested commoners, as the use of dragon magazine content, let alone april fools material, is unlikely in a normal game.

While technically there is no real difference between 65X4321 and 65X432, and there is unlikely to be much difference between either of those and just plain 6, there is no especial reason not to use all the numbers and nothing wrong with doing so.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Bard: 3, 4, 2, 5. We all know the drill. The basic Bard class is, to be entirely honest, a piece of crap-- even if not for the "useless bard" stereotype, you're probably going to try to fight for your offense, and you'll be useless. You're certainly not expecting to play a cut-rate sorcerer, which is what you are. The spell list improves with work and the SpC, though you never have quite enough spells, but getting Bardic Music to do anything useful requires spending a lot of resources chasing wildly scattered small bonuses. But then there's Dragonfire Inspiration and Sublime Chord, which make you into a full caster with the best, most reliable bonus damage in the game. Sooo...

Battle Dancer: 6. Quite possibly the crappiest PC class ever published. Like a Monk, if you gave up everything that makes the Monk even remotely interesting or useful. For seven levels you get nothing, except for the ability to not wear armor. Then you get a fun bit of fluff. Three useful abilities, and one of them is running on water for a round at a time. Otherwise, you get... pounce, I guess? And fly, long after you picked it up via an item. Warrior is probably better than you; at least they can wear armor and aren't MAD.

Beguiler: 3, 2, 1. Great skills, great spell list that you really can't go wrong with, and plenty of easy ways to expand the list. Going into Shadowcraft Mage probably lifts you all the way up to T1, as does Rainbow Servant fun.

Binder: 4, 3, 2. Very cool class, lots of options, but you kind of either have to choose between focusing on one vestige and being okay (at the cost of versatility), or having build flexibility but being mediocre at everything. Would straight up kill someone for a few floating bonus feats. Gets better above 8th level when you can bind a second vestige. And then there's that one vestige for at-will Summon Monster...

Cleric: 1, 4. Yes, you can switch between the two on a day-to-day basis, but for a lot of people, Cleric is going to be "swing a mace, cast a few healing or buff spells." The floor is a lot higher than most of the PHB casters, but...

Commoner: 6. C'mon, now.

[AvatarVecna]

Spoiler: Bard: 3/4/5

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A well-built Core-only Bard doesn't have enough options to really be a good enough specialist for T4, but they're versatile enough to technically qualify on the "doing many things well enough" angle; outside of Core, Bards get tons of support due to their Jack-of-all-Trades status, and you can make specialist bards that are good enough at everything else they do (regardless of what their specialty is) to push them into being a solid T3. Itgoes without saying, though, that a Bard not so well-built is pretty terrible.

Spoiler: Battle Dancer: 6/5

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A few useful tumbling-based movement abilities do not make up for the fact that this is a chaos/Cha monk that gave up a bunch of things. If you're really pushing it, you might be able to make them a solid enough meleer to contend with a monk (based solely on BAB and Cha to AC with good feat choices) but enough unarmed options are too dependent on Monk bonus feats/class features to come online very early for the Battle Dancer, making it an uphill battle to make this class solid enough to be worth using outside of maybe a dip for a Cha-based Sacred/Enlightened Fist build.

Spoiler: Beguiler: 3/X/2

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Class features are mostly pretty meh (a couple fairly situational metamagic feats, casting in armor, casting while hidden, yawn), but a super-solid skill list and 6+Int skill points on an Int caster is great, and the Beguiler's casting is one of the most difficult to mess up in the game: you have a wide, versatile spell list, and you can cast from your entire list spontaneously, making you almost entirely immune to poor spells known choices. Unfortunately, the list on its own doesn't really have a ton of game-breakers in the higher levels, but a well-built straight Beguiler could potentially be broken enough between their existing game-breakers, Diplomancy, and Abuse Magic Device to be a solid T2. They can also break into T1 with the right PrC, but that's not really a product of the Beguiler class as much as the class/PrC combo, so I'm not giving credit for it to the Beguiler.

I am abstaining from placing a Binder vote, due to being completely unfamiliar with it.

Spoiler: Cleric: 1/2/3/X

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One of the best spell lists in the game, spontaneous casting of cure/inflict spells, a couple divine domains granting access to useful abilities and spells outside the cleric spell list, and an additional customizable sub-system in the form of Turn Undead and the various Divine feats it can fuel. Combine that with an ACF that grants you a solid bonus doman and a pile of extra skill points, and you've got one of the most powerful and versatile classes in the game

Spoiler: Commoner: 6/5/X

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They get...nothing. No class features, no chassis upgrades at all, a crap skill list...literally the only thing they get outside of April Fools BS is a single simple weapon they're proficient in...which means that even a commoner can be a more competent unarmed combatant at lvl 1 than a Monk.