What classes do you hate?

[Arbane]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of-- knew I was forgetting some details of the stupidity. I really have to wonder about the playtest, sometimes... like, I understand missing a lot of unintended interactions and individual spells, and I understand that 3e has lower HP totals, which probably threw their damage output impressions off, but how did you not notice that the Monk is fundamentally incapable of skirmishing? Or that, you know, "I turn into a bear!" is the first thing you'd do as a druid?

Other way around, actually - 3rd edition increased hitpoints across the board compared to AD&D, without boosting the blasty spells to match, leading to the Save-Or-Cry Supremacy we have now. (Weapon damage DID get a bit of a boost, I think.)

And I agree about how bland Clerics are in the system.

[PacMan2247]

Celerity and Abrupt Jaunt are great, if you're not flat-footed. I did say a prepared enemy.

[ryu]

Celerity and Abrupt Jaunt are great, if you're not flat-footed. I did say a prepared enemy.

Are you familiar with the tinfoil hat trick? I don't even need to waste actions to mostly negate your silly farce of a spell, and it works even if not only surprised, but stunned/dazed until my turn.

[Morphic tide]

True, but it doesn't let you ignore the normal rules for sighting targets or the massive spot penalties at that range. And arcane archer doesn't progress casting. A half mile range fireball sounds OP on paper, but I don't think most encounters really benefit from super long ranges.

There's a spell or two to get +20 on that spot check Oh, and I could swear there's a Psionic feat to ignore such petty barriers. And Arcane Archer gets some tricks to lower that problem further.

[Vampire1]

Are you familiar with the tinfoil hat trick? I don't even need to waste actions to mostly negate your silly farce of a spell, and it works even if not only surprised, but stunned/dazed until my turn.

Celerity and Abrupt Jaunt are great, if you're not flat-footed. I did say a prepared enemy.

A wizard does that better. Abrupt Juant when the AMF is dropped (AMF has small radius), pelt with instantaneous conjurations. A fighter in an AMF has the magic items he needs to operates shut down.

OMG, I love counter it!!

[Nifft]

The 1e Cleric was a Pantheonic Priest.

2e tried to introduce god-specific "Specialty Priests", but IIRC that was mostly for FR where gods were objectively real and every character was supposed to pick exactly one of them to favor.

3e and 5e are both more about the Pantheon as a whole. You will tend to favor one deity over others, but you can call upon the powers of any of the members. This is a good fit for both ye olde settings (Greyhawk) and new more modern settings (Eberron).

My house rule for 3.5e Clerics was: you can add splatbook spells to your list, but you must exchange each one for a Core spell of the same level. That Core spell is forever removed from your list.

That both limited the size for each Cleric's list, and forced each individual character to customize his or her magic.

IMHO this houserule allows the benefits of the 2e "specialty priest" without the 2e conceptual straight-jacket.

- - -

Anyway, classes that I hate...

- the ones that look cool but chronically under-deliver (Monk, Fighter, Spellthief, Truenamer, Shadowcaster, Lurk, Soulknife, Soulborn, Divine Mind, Dragon Shaman, Hexblade, etc...)

- Factotum. Milquetoast as a single class, yet broken in Gestalt -- thus bad for either of the types of game that I enjoy. Ugh.

- Chameleon, specifically because I love Chameleon. What I hate is that only 2/5 of the options are any good. Give me 5 good choices -- e.g. make combat worth using -- and then I can actually enjoy being something other than a spellcaster.

- Racial Paragon Classes, some are quite decent, but others seem to do the opposite of what they should -- instead of boosting the strengths of some races, they remove the weaknesses. Boo! I don't think that a Kobold Paragon should enjoy hanging around in direct sunlight. That's not the epitome of Koboldness. (Full disclosure: this annoyed me such that I re-wrote racial paragons, link in my sig.)

- Marshal, for being a really interesting idea which seems to only get used on niche skill-exploit builds.

- Arcane Archer, for being terrible at arcane archery, unless you use it as a 2-level dip after you finish Chameleon 10.

[PacMan2247]

Are you familiar with the tinfoil hat trick? I don't even need to waste actions to mostly negate your silly farce of a spell, and it works even if not only surprised, but stunned/dazed until my turn.

I've had a lot more experience with the "anything a player can do, the DM can do, and with the infinite resources and population of the multiverse" trick.

[Vampire1]

I've had a lot more experience with the "anything a player can do, the DM can do, and with the infinite resources and population of the multiverse" trick.

Wizard tinfoil hat trick?


It's bad, Easily Countered.

[ryu]

I've had a lot more experience with the "anything a player can do, the DM can do, and with the infinite resources and population of the multiverse" trick.

DM fiat has never been respected as a legitimate argument here, and likely never will be. Care to say something actually relevant about fighters not being garbage tier with something that meets the frankly generous criteria I've given?

[digiman619]

Paladins. Not because of the concept; it's because no other class has a such a huge self-destruct button built into it. Sure, a monk, barbarian or druid can lose if they change alignment, but 90%+ of the time that happens because the player chose to make a change; I can't count the number of times I've seen stories of a-hole GM's that just arbitrarily decide that they want the paladin to fall and decides to do so for bull**** reasons and/or at the drop of a hat. As if the class wasn't already weak enough, the one thing that makes them mechanically interesting can be ejected by the DM at any time.

Personally, I'd just recommend building the character with a different chassis rather than have that Sword of Damocles hanging over your head at all times.

[PacMan2247]

DM fiat has never been respected as a legitimate argument here, and likely never will be. Care to say something actually relevant about fighters not being garbage tier with something that meets the frankly generous criteria I've given?

Awful lot of hostility there considering you missed the point: if a player character can pull a stunt, that means other characters within a given setting also have that capacity. It has nothing to do with DM fiat, which as you noted, in no way resembles a legitimate argument. Stuff your ego in your bag of holding.

[Zanos]

The argument that circumvents all of that is that fighters can't really survive a fight against a prepared enemy at the appropriate CR without their magic items.

If you're referring to the sarkrith thane specifically, it's stats are across the board higher than what a magicless fighter's are at that CR, and the AMF is only 5 feet big. A spellcaster, even assuming the creature could reach them since it can't fly, can 5ft step out of that AMF and teleport.

[elonin]

Haven't read all the responses, so maybe I'm just repeating what has already been said. For those who complain about this class or that being bland my comment is that the classes are just a framework or mechanic to put your character on. One thing I've hated about 3.5 is winth some of the expansions in which someone slaps an adjetive on a new set of class abilities and calls it a class. This is one that Rich played with using Miko. She's a samurai but not carrying a class called samurai.

I've thought that the factotum fits into the class slot that bard fit into in adnd (being good at a lot of things but specializing in none). And I think they could be toned back a bit. I don't agree that factotums are directly competing with clerics directly. The abilities they get aren't rated that well by cleric guides. I recall a piece of advice being given often is to use turning attempts to power dmm cause turning undead doesn't scale. So if clerics are being overshadowed I just don't see it. The suggestion that someone would be more powerful playing a factotum instead of playing as codzilla seems laughable.

[Aeturo]

Barbarians tick me off solely based on the idea that someone from a tribal setting is automatically a bezerker type guy and that they lose the ability to rage if they half integrate into society by becoming neutral.
Duskblades because I was talked into playing one when I was new to D&D and wanted to play a gish. I thought I'd be like a skyrim wielding magic and sword but could also channel spells through my sword. What I got was an awkward mess and the few spells worth using with Arcane Channeling aren't even that great.
Favored Soul for being the most underwhelming thing I ever played. "I'm the chosen of this great and powerful god who gave that guy in a robe awesome power and I get...nothing special. I'm a sorcerer without the perks of being a sorcerer."
In pathfinder I'm annoyed with the Summoner but it's nothing wrong with the class. It's the lack of support they give the class because the devs don't like it. I want more feats and content for it but never get any.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Barbarians tick me off solely based on the idea that someone from a tribal setting is automatically a bezerker type guy and that they lose the ability to rage if they half integrate into society by becoming neutral.

You know the cut-off is lawful, not non-chaotic right? A barb that becomes lawful loses the ability to rage, presumably because the mindset of lawful creatures requires setting one's own emotions aside for the group or organization to which they're dedicated while rage requires throwing yourself into those emotions whole-heartedly.

As for its association with barbarism, it throws away any pretense at finesse or sofisticiation for raw power and brutality. Sounds pretty barbaric to me.

Besides, you can be rustic without being full-on tribal. Never heard of country-nobles before?

I get not liking the default flavor of a class but when even a minor reexamination, not even reimagining just looking at it different, can get more palatable results, it seems a touch overblown.

Well, that and complaining about misremembered rules.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Duskblades because I was talked into playing one when I was new to D&D and wanted to play a gish. I thought I'd be like a skyrim wielding magic and sword but could also channel spells through my sword. What I got was an awkward mess and the few spells worth using with Arcane Channeling aren't even that great.

Sorry, could you explain this to me? I completely agree the spell list is lackluster, but I felt the class abilities meshed really well together. It's basically what you described there, minus the dual wielding spell and sword. Though, the PF Magus fixed that.

[ryu]

Awful lot of hostility there considering you missed the point: if a player character can pull a stunt, that means other characters within a given setting also have that capacity. It has nothing to do with DM fiat, which as you noted, in no way resembles a legitimate argument. Stuff your ego in your bag of holding.

The tinfoil hat trick is merely why Anti-magic field is a pointless spell no one ever actually bothers with. Create a large dome or cone depending on your hat of choice. Make it large enough to cover your square, surrounding you. Shrink item plus permanency to make a hat out of it. If you make it admantine good luck breaking in to get at the wizard even IF you get a turn to try before he teleports out. Congratulations. AMF is no longer a thing. You want to make a point that anyone can do this? Yes, and that's precisely WHY AMF is a useless spell. In response to having AMF called out as utterly pointless you called on DM fiat which is roughly translated to: ''I have nothing more to say and concede the argument.'' around here. Now do you have an actual, relevant thing a fighter in any way does superior to a wizard? AMF isn't one of them. Fighters don't have the tools to make tinfoil hats, nor the teleportation to make proper use of them. An AMF of sufficient size is actually significantly more of an impediment to a fighter than a wizard. They lose all their little magic items, and then just die to instantaneous conjuration orb of X spells.

[Aeturo]

New to giantitp so I don't know how to reply directly to people but to Jack_Mcsnatch it was awkward because I essentially became a one trick pony. "I arcane channel [best touch spell I have atm, which wasn't ever very impressive]" Granted I was new to D&D and it could have been my build.
To Kelb_Panthera, it may be my history major talking. My main tick is the labeling really. The whole barbarian feel is a bit misrepresented since barbarians were pretty tame cattle ranchers. "Hate" is strong, granted, but the barbarians were one of the first to develop law in the west so non lawful irked me is all. What they're based on is the beserker, which were warriors who were what we know as barbarians. I completely forget they couldn't be neutral though so sorry about that. I'm shaky on alignment in general. It's not my favorite thing, and restrictions bug me more than anything. But I guess with my argument I should dislike bard more...can you explain why they can't be lawful?

[Kelb_Panthera]

New to giantitp so I don't know how to reply directly to people

There's a brown button labeled "quote" at the bottom of each post. You can click that to quote an individual immediately.

Alternately, there's a button that looks like the quotation mark that you can use to mark a post you'd like to quote when you hit "reply to thread" and by selecting multiple posts this way, you can "multi-quote" and respond to multiple persons simultaneously.

Welcome to the forum

To Kelb_Panthera, it may be my history major talking. My main tick is the labeling really. The whole barbarian feel is a bit misrepresented since barbarians were pretty tame cattle ranchers.

You're conflating barbarian culture in general with barbarian warriors in particular. The tribal villagers would be better modeled with commoners and experts with an odd noble and/or adept. Same as any other community in the game world.

"Hate" is strong, granted, but the barbarians were one of the first to develop law in the west so non lawful irked me is all. What they're based on is the beserker, which were warriors who were what we know as barbarians.

Yeah, I know. Can't take the labels quite so literally and need to remember that a lot of labels have multiple meanings. A "barbarian" can simply be someone who is barbaric without any cultural consideration at all.

Oh, and nobody mentioned hate. Rage and hate can be related but they are not inherently so.

I completely forget they couldn't be neutral though so sorry about that. I'm shaky on alignment in general. It's not my favorite thing, and restrictions bug me more than anything.

A popular enough sentiment 'round here. Not one I share, mind, but a popular one.

But I guess with my argument I should dislike bard more...can you explain why they can't be lawful?

Sure. The default fluff is the wandering minstrel archetype. Lawful characters tie themselves to a group, organization, cause, or some other external locus of behavioral acceptability (don't buy the "holds to their own code" nonsense, that's chaotic alignment stuff.) As a consequence of this, someone who wanders the world with no attachments is fundamentally incompatible with the lawful alignment.

[Aeturo]

There's a brown button labeled "quote" at the bottom of each post. You can click that to quote an individual immediately.

Alternately, there's a button that looks like the quotation mark that you can use to mark a post you'd like to quote when you hit "reply to thread" and by selecting multiple posts this way, you can "multi-quote" and respond to multiple persons simultaneously.

Welcome to the forum

Well hey thanks. I've been around but only lurking. And you make otherwise fair points. My opinion still stands but I will forfeit. I can always play a Dwarven Orator and ask my DM for the exception to be lawful. As for the barbarian bit I suppose that's DMs I've had having the entire town be barbaric warriors. Thank you for your insight.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Well hey thanks. I've been around but only lurking. And you make otherwise fair points. My opinion still stands but I will forfeit. I can always play a Dwarven Orator and ask my DM for the exception to be lawful. As for the barbarian bit I suppose that's DMs I've had having the entire town be barbaric warriors. Thank you for your insight.

Hey, everyone's entitled to an opinion and one of the perks of a game run by a human being is that you -can- ask for rules to be excepted even for arbitrary reasons. Heck, I often advise people that are nonplussed by the alignment rules to simply outright discard them, in spite of my own fondness for them.

As for insight, The Giant phrased it well enough so I'll paraphrase; rather than making an assumption about the game world and getting irritated when what's printed doesn't match up, why not adjust your assumptions to fit what's printed? Not like you're going to argue the printed page into changing its mind, eh?

[Morphic tide]

As for insight, The Giant phrased it well enough so I'll paraphrase; rather than making an assumption about the game world and getting irritated when what's printed doesn't match up, why not adjust your assumptions to fit what's printed? Not like you're going to argue the printed page into changing its mind, eh?

But you can argue the DM into changing the game you play to fit. Sure, the printed stuff isn't changed, but now you have an AU campaign world to explore!

[Kelb_Panthera]

But you can argue the DM into changing the game you play to fit. Sure, the printed stuff isn't changed, but now you have an AU campaign world to explore!

You can but if you're not sufficiently familiar with the system you can end up creating more problems than you solve. Do you want to play a game or design one?

[Morphic tide]

You can but if you're not sufficiently familiar with the system you can end up creating more problems than you solve. Do you want to play a game or design one?

Some would answer with "Why not both?" I am not quite one of those people.

[YossarianLives]

I gotta agree with wizards. And Clerics. Druids. Their insane power is definitely a huge downside, but my real problem is their ability to switch spells everyday, destroying any individuality the character may have had. At least with a sorcerer or psion it feels like the character has a certain theme. Every prepared caster just feels same-y and overpowered.

[Stealth Marmot]

I gotta agree with wizards. And Clerics. Druids. Their insane power is definitely a huge downside, but my real problem is their ability to switch spells everyday, destroying any individuality the character may have had. At least with a sorcerer or psion it feels like the character has a certain theme. Every prepared caster just feels same-y and overpowered.

Well, 3.5 wizards can be specialists and do, at least at lower levels, have limited spellbooks. 3.5 Clerics have domains and deities that can make them unique.

The real problem with those two classes is not the potential of being different, but the fact that people expect them to pretty much fill their very specific role without any sort of variance. A battle cleric who is a frontline fighter is actually quite viable, but the second you say "cleric" everyone expects you to be the healbot. Everyone expects the wizard to be the firepower throwing things that do massive d6s of damage.

These two classes are highly variable through their preferred spell choice and even stat arrangements, but are shoehorned by expected class practices.

3.5 Druid on the other hand, is both OP and invariant. Aside from spell choice and animal companion choice, there is no difference in different druids mechanically. Heck, even stats have little difference since druids usually depend on their wild shape form for physical stats.

[Calthropstu]

Calculus. That stupid teacher had it in for me I swear!

[Cosi]

- Factotum. Milquetoast as a single class, yet broken in Gestalt -- thus bad for either of the types of game that I enjoy. Ugh.

I wouldn't say broken. Extra actions are good, but in a lot of games one BFC spell will be totally sufficient to win encounters. The class is very poorly written (IP gain is broken, their extra action ability doesn't have a type).

- Chameleon, specifically because I love Chameleon. What I hate is that only 2/5 of the options are any good. Give me 5 good choices -- e.g. make combat worth using -- and then I can actually enjoy being something other than a spellcaster.

Well, it would be kind of weird for it to get better options for fighting than the fighting classes did.

I've had a lot more experience with the "anything a player can do, the DM can do, and with the infinite resources and population of the multiverse" trick.

Yes, you can get into an arms race with the players. But despite the fact that the players cannot win such a race, they generally do not back down from one either. In most cases, trying to stomp on optimized characters just results in people optimizing more.

I gotta agree with wizards. And Clerics. Druids. Their insane power is definitely a huge downside, but my real problem is their ability to switch spells everyday, destroying any individuality the character may have had. At least with a sorcerer or psion it feels like the character has a certain theme. Every prepared caster just feels same-y and overpowered.

If you want to have a theme, why not just not switch spells? No one is forcing you to wake up and pick a new set of options. Also, I generally disagree with the view that imbalance is the fault of the casters.

3.5 Druid on the other hand, is both OP and invariant. Aside from spell choice and animal companion choice, there is no difference in different druids mechanically. Heck, even stats have little difference since druids usually depend on their wild shape form for physical stats.

This is true. There's one good Druid PrC (which is so good every Druid would take it if they could), and very few competitive Druid feats. This results in Druid builds converging very rapidly.

[Doug Lampert]

What is iaijutsu focu- *googles*...

Who in Pelor's shiny bumhole thought adding that to a game was a good idea? That's not a skill, that should be a class ability. Then again, back in 3.0 there was no cross class skills, but yeah technically the Factotum would have that as a skill somehow.

Umm, from the 3.0 SRD:

Depending on a characters' race and class, some skills are "class skills" and some skills are "cross-class skills" Cross-class skills require 2 skill points per rank, class skills require 1 skill point per rank.
The maximum number of ranks a character can have in a class skill is equal to that character's level +3. The maximum ranks a character can have in a cross-class skill is half that number.

Looks effectively identical to the 3.5 rule to me, it's in both the PHB and the SRD for 3.0.

Now, a few skills were exclusive (which is probably what you are thinking of), the rules for that were split up in multiple places. But an exclusive skill could only be taken by a listed set of classes and only levels in those classes counted for determining the cap, I assume that's what you're thinking of, [Edited to remove untrue statements].

[Nifft]

I wouldn't say broken. Extra actions are good, but in a lot of games one BFC spell will be totally sufficient to win encounters. The class is very poorly written (IP gain is broken, their extra action ability doesn't have a type).

Agree that it's poorly written. Rulings are required to make some features function at all, and that means it's going to perform differently at different tables.

I would say the class is broken, so apparently our opinions about that are at odds. Oh well.

Well, it would be kind of weird for it to get better options for fighting than the fighting classes did.

There are fighting classes which have better options than other fighting classes. It's not weird at all.

Some fighting classes are awful, and other fighting classes are not awful.

I'd prefer more of the latter in my Chameleon.

For example: grant Maneuvers.