Retiering the Classes: Barbarian, Fighter, Samurai (CW), and Samurai (OA)

[eggynack]

This is the first run of big burly mundane beatsticks. Plenty of classes are about doing things besides hitting stuff in the face with as powerful a sword as is plausible, or they can hit stuff and also do things besides hit stuff. While the occasional not-stabbing utility is offered here, these classes are not those classes. The vast majority of the abilities on offer here are about doing direct damage by means of a melee weapon. Not a path to great versatility, but there can be some power in it. Because we're evaluating both samurai here, make sure to denote which you're talking about. The classic notation here is "CW samurai" and "OA samurai".

Barbarian: Between rage at the baseline and things like spirit lion totem and whirling frenzy when optimized, the barbarian is one of the more directly damaging classes in the game. They also get a bit more variety than most mundane melee classes, with decent skill points (and intimidate as a class skill), cheap tripping with wolf totem, and maybe some trap disabling capabilities through trap killer if you decide to eschew the wolf totem thing. If you haven't noticed yet, a lot of these are ACFs. Because the barbarian's ACFs are frequently fantastic.

Fighter: Feats, feats, and nothing but feats, as far as the eye can see. You can do some reasonable to strong things with these feats, allowing you to hit stuff with variety and competency alike. The ACF situation here is tricky as compared to the barbarian, because there are so few of them worth much. The main two worth note are dungeoncrasher, which may get split off (obviously less likely if the fighter lands in tier four for whatever reason), and zhentarim soldier, which you probably have to consider alongside non-ACF optimization tools to get a tier bump.

Samurai (CW, 8): This is quite possibly the worst non-NPC class in the game, better than the warrior but not by way of that much. The original tier system had them all the way down at tier six, which may be a justified position. Still, you get some decent intimidation abilities, diplomacy as a class skill, and a few marginal improvements. It's not an ideal situation when the ideal strategy might be hucking a huge pile of class features out the window, not because you're getting anything in return, but just because the plan they imply is so awful.

Samurai (OA, 20): This class really bares more similarity to the fighter than to the other samurai. The primary utility here is a pile of bonus feats, though fewer in number and variety as compared to what the fighter gets. You also get a fancy sword along with better skill use. Not a great class, or even a particularly good one, though it compares favorably to its CW reboot.

What are the tiers?

The simple answer here is that tier one is the best, the home of things on the approximate problem solving scale of wizards, and tier six is the worst, land of commoners. And problem solving capacity is what's being measured here. Considering the massive range of challenges a character is liable to be presented with across the levels, how much and how often does that character's class contribute to the defeat of those challenges? This value should be considered as a rough averaging across all levels, the center of the level range somewhat more than really low and really high level characters, and across all optimization levels (considering DM restrictiveness as a plausible downward acting factor on how optimized a character is), prioritizing moderate optimization somewhat more than low or high.

A big issue with the original tier system is that, if anything, it was too specific, generating inflexible definitions for allowance into a tier which did not cover the broad spectrum of ways a class can operate. When an increase in versatility would seem to represent a decrease in tier, because tier two is supposed to be low versatility, it's obvious that we've become mired in something that'd be pointless to anyone trying to glean information from the tier system. Thus, I will be uncharacteristically word light here. The original tier system's tier descriptions are still good guidelines here, but they shouldn't be assumed to be the end all and be all for how classes get ranked.

Consistent throughout these tiers is the notion of problems and the solving thereof. For the purposes of this tier system, the problem space can be said to be inclusive of combat, social interaction, and exploration, with the heaviest emphasis placed on combat. A problem could theoretically fall outside of that space, but things inside that space are definitely problems. Another way to view the idea of problem solving is through the lens of the niche ranking system. A niche filled tends to imply the capacity to solve a type of problem, whether it's a status condition in the case of healing, or an enemy that just has too many hit points in the case of melee combat. It's not a perfect measure, both because some niches have a lot of overlap in the kinds of problems they can solve and because, again, the niches aren't necessarily all inclusive, but they can act as a good tool for class evaluation.

Tier one: Incredibly good at solving nearly all problems. This is the realm of clerics, druids, and wizards, classes that open up with strong combat spells backed up by utility, and then get massively stronger from there. If you're not keeping up with that core trio of tier one casters, then you probably don't belong here.

Tier two: We're just a step below tier one here, in the land of classes around the sorcerer level of power. Generally speaking, this means relaxing one of the two tier one assumptions, either getting us to very good at solving nearly all problems, or incredibly good at solving most problems. But, as will continue to be the case as these tiers go on, there aren't necessarily these two simple categories for this tier. You gotta lose something compared to the tier one casters, but what you lose doesn't have to be in some really specific proportions.

Tier three: Again, we gotta sacrifice something compared to tier two, here taking us to around the level of a swordsage. The usual outcome is that you are very good at solving a couple of problems and competent at solving a few more. Of course, there are other possibilities, for example that you might instead be competent at solving nearly all problems.

Tier four: Here we're in ranger/barbarian territory (though the ranger should be considered largely absent of ACF's and stuff to hit this tier, as will be talked about later). Starting from that standard tier three position, the usual sweet spots here are very good at solving a few problems, or alright at solving many problems.

Tier five: We're heading close to the dregs here. Tier five is the tier of monks, classes that are as bad as you can be without being an aristocrat or a commoner. Classes here are sometimes very good at solving nearly no problems, or alright at solving a few, or some other function thereof. It's weak, is the point.

Tier six: And here we have commoner tier. Or, the bottom is commoner. The top is approximately aristocrat. You don't necessarily have nothing in this tier, but you have close enough to it.

The Threads

Tier System Home Base


The Fixed List Casters: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, and Warmage


The Obvious Tier One Classes: Archivist, Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Sha'ir, and Wizard


The Mundane Beat Sticks (part one): Barbarian, Fighter, Samurai (CW), and Samurai (OA)


The Roguelikes: Ninja, Rogue, and Scout


The Pseudo-Druids: Spirit Shaman, Spontaneous Druid, Urban Druid, and Wild Shape Ranger


The Jacks of All Trades: Bard, Factotum, Jester, and Savant


The Tome of Battlers: Crusader, Swordsage, and Warblade


The NPCs: Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert, Magewright, and Warrior


The Vaguely Supernatural Melee Folk: Battle Dancer, Monk, Mountebank, and Soulknife


The Miscellaneous Full Casters: Death Master, Shaman, Shugenja, Sorcerer, and Wu Jen


The Wacky Magicists: Binder, Dragonfire Adept, Shadowcaster, Truenamer, and Warlock

The Rankings

Barbarian: Tier four

Fighter: Tier four

CW Samurai: Tier five

OA Samurai: Tier five

And here's a link to the spreadsheet.

[Lans]

You should add knight and swashbuckler to this

CW Samurai Tier 6 4 with Imperious Comand

Either its a warrior that got improved initiative as a bonus feat, some one who is using a subpar fighting style or it took imperious command and is actually quite useful. It never falls in tier 5 for me.

With out Imperious Command

The skill list being better is debatable. If the samurai had more skills per level I would give it to him, but as it stands Handle Animal is a good enough of skill to make the situation debatable and campaign dependent.

The shield proficiency of the warrior is better than everything the samurai gets combined except for improved initiative, and thats before people start actually using the samurai 'features'.

[OldTrees1]

RE Feats

All 4 of these martial characters expend some (let's say 3-5) of their feats on things like Power Attack or Combat Reflexes. Perhaps even Hearing the Unseen. While other classes need to spend their HD feats on these, these feats are on the Fighter Bonus Feat list. This means that the Fighter is uniquely able to leverage their bonus feats to effectively grant them more non Fighter feats than these other martial characters.


So I posit that the Fighter's greater ability* to take NON [Fighter] feats should be considered when tiering the Fighter.
*relative to other martial characters


As such it might be wise to presume the Fighter makes smart HD feat choices that expand their non combat options. Obviously mentioning a set of specific feats would be too specific since not every Fighter would take that set. However there are a lot of quality feats (Shape Soulmeld, Aberrant Blood->Starspawn, Dragon Wings->Improved Dragon Wings, ... the list goes on for awhile)

[eggynack]

You should add knight and swashbuckler to this

I'm trying to keep the count low. Closer to three than to six. I made something of an exception for tier one classes, because I, perhaps mistakenly, thought we'd just be getting these classes out of the way in one big batch so we could move on to less straightforward things. These classes are very much non-obvious. The only one that I'd tier in a particular way without reservation is OA samurai in tier five. They deserve our attention in a relatively non-diffuse way. Later on, probably a decent amount later on (we're liable to do some set of "interesting" non-casters like ToB before we come back to these), we'll do mundane beatsticks part II, and both those classes are gonna be there unless there are like six or more of these.

Edit: And, as I mentioned in the other thread, I'm really not sure what to do with these "X except under condition Y" votes. We are neither assuming that every samurai has imperious command, nor assuming it fully absent. Could theoretically be worth splitting out, if we get some support for that notion (which you could be trying to drum up with your vote, in which case, continue voting like that), but as is you really have to make some personal determinations about how much it should be counted, how much it's worth when it is counted, and what the ultimate singular tier is as a result.

[Zancloufer]

Barbarian: Straight Tier 4. They can front-line and smash faces VERY WELL. Can't do much else with any effect, but if the problem can be solved by hitting it with a giant stick till it stops moving you don't get much better than this. Unfortunately decent HP damage all day can only get you so far, especially with your HP being somewhat limited and having no buffs other than RAGE which just makes you better at hitting things.

Fighter: Tier 5. As they stand full BaB + d10 HD + most proficiency doesn't make you good at anything. Combined with the fact you need 4 feats + stats all over the place to get anywhere without class features makes straight fighter kind of bad. Mostly because of ridiculous feat chains and per-requisites though. Also don't get much in the way of ACFs that don't make them worse versions of other martial classes.

Complete Warrior Samurai: Tier 6. Bonus feats are meh. Samurai trade away those for. Wait one second. Hmm, free weapon, the ability to TWF with his free weapons, the ability to draw his free weapons slightly faster, slight bonus to intimidate. So! If you wanted to TWF with a Bastard Sword and a Short sword, quick draw with them and where putting 1/3-1/2 your skill points into intimidate you would be equal to a fighter who could AoE intimidate [Only in Combat!] and had 5 fewer feats. And a code of conduct like a Paladin.
AoE intimate at +4 is not worth 5 feats. Also Kai smite and frightful prescience are worth jack (require a pile of Cha to be worthwhile. Not like you need Str, Con, Dex, or Int right??). Essentially you are pigeonholing yourself into a very niche corner [that kind of sucks] that the fighter could pull off and still have feats left over to, IDK, do something better.

Oriental Adventures Samurai: Tier 5. It's the fighter with different bonus feats and two free weapons that has some alternate options for enchanting. I mean yeah it takes a while and a pile of money, but it's pretty much Craft Magical Arms and Armour, but only applicable to your free weapons and costs no EXP. Still weaker than the Fighter, mostly because they have a few less feats and they are on a more limited list. Still better to be down 3 feats and have choice vs being down 5 feats and no choice in your bonus feats.

[Lans]

OA Samurai Tier 5 like the fighter but high will save, 4 skill points a level with a good skill list, and it gets ancestral daisho which can be enchanted by the samurai to give flight, displacement and other effects. Worse feat selection, looking at the varios clans only gives 3 good feats.

[eggynack]

and it gets ancestral daisho which can be enchanted by the samurai to give flight, displacement and other effects.

Doesn't this cost the exact same to enchant as a normal sword, and are the enchantment options not identical? Doesn't seem like that big of an advantage, aside perhaps from kinda increased ease of accessing weapon enchantment.

[Lans]

Doesn't this cost the exact same to enchant as a normal sword, and are the enchantment options not identical? Doesn't seem like that big of an advantage, aside perhaps from kinda increased ease of accessing weapon enchantment.

It eases the magic mart problems, and it lets you convert goodies at a 100% instead of half.

[Zancloufer]

Doesn't this cost the exact same to enchant as a normal sword, and are the enchantment options not identical? Doesn't seem like that big of an advantage, aside perhaps from kinda increased ease of accessing weapon enchantment.

DM gives you a +3 flaming Towershield? You can convert the full price of said shield into your weapons, instead of selling it for half price and spending the gold on enchantments.

[Lans]

Edit: And, as I mentioned in the other thread, I'm really not sure what to do with these "X except under condition Y" votes. We are neither assuming that every samurai has imperious command, nor assuming it fully absent. Could theoretically be worth splitting out, if we get some support for that notion (which you could be trying to drum up with your vote, in which case, continue voting like that), but as is you really have to make some personal determinations about how much it should be counted, how much it's worth when it is counted, and what the ultimate singular tier is as a result.

I think low occurring instances of feats, situations, or items that dramatically increase a classes power should be listed separately on the tiers. Imperious Command for samurai, expanded spell access for wizards, truespeak amulet for truenamers

[eggynack]

I think low occurring instances of feats, situations, or items that dramatically increase a classes power should be listed separately on the tiers. Imperious Command for samurai, expanded spell access for wizards, truespeak amulet for truenamers

Some things are like that, but we generally gotta agree on which additional things to bring in. There are other truename items for truenamers (and the one you mentioned is super not obscure), expanded spell access is something that's pretty low barrier to entry, and imperious command is solid, but not necessarily too much more solid than it is for a bunch of other classes. Fighters and barbarians, for example, two classes we're assessing right now, do intimidation really well. Never outnumbered copies a lot of mass staredown, and I think there's some armor that can copy improved staredown (and barbarians can intimidating rage). Also, a lot of the intimidation stuff takes awhile to come on line. I'm not saying this necessarily shouldn't be separately considered, but the idea of just averaging it in seems reasonable.

[Troacctid]

Barbarian is often held up as an example of T4. I don't think the core class is all that great, but it is at least better enough over most T5 classes that it's not unreasonable to put it in T4. For me, it's the ACFs that push it over the top, because there are some very good ones, and a healthy share of marginal ones that offer small but cheap upgrades.

Fighter is either at the top of 5 or the bottom of 4. I think the ACF that pushes it over the top is Thug; the extra skills are a pretty big deal. Thug for T4, non-Thug for T5.

Both of the Samurai are obvious T5s; not much to discuss there.

[eggynack]

Fighter is either at the top of 5 or the bottom of 4. I think the ACF that pushes it over the top is Thug; the extra skills are a pretty big deal. Thug for T4, non-Thug for T5.

This kinda thing is tricky. My thinking is that the solution in cases like this, and in the case of the imperious command vote, is to count these as tier four until and unless we split out the game object for separate consideration, at which point the other vote becomes the one used. My more personal feeling on thug is that it's quite good, but that it might need other stuff, like zhentarim soldier, to get to four. Fighter is kinda interesting, because all of these ACFs offer what is objectively a rather limited quantity of stuff, but the fighter has so little to start with that it becomes plausibly tier increasing.

[ryu]

This kinda thing is tricky. My thinking is that the solution in cases like this, and in the case of the imperious command vote, is to count these as tier four until and unless we split out the game object for separate consideration, at which point the other vote becomes the one used. My more personal feeling on thug is that it's quite good, but that it might need other stuff, like zhentarim soldier, to get to four. Fighter is kinda interesting, because all of these ACFs offer what is objectively a rather limited quantity of stuff, but the fighter has so little to start with that it becomes plausibly tier increasing.

Fighter and the samurai are pretty much the only classes in this game where I would consider gaining a level in it and bringing up CR accordingly unilaterally a liability for the player regardless of previous build. Even if you completely disallow me from taking levels in any class with spells or spell equivalents I would still rather agree never to cast spells as a wizard, trade out my familiar for an animal companion, go faerie mysteries initiate stacking necropolitan, and only use spells from UMDed scrolls/wands I bought myself than actually take levels in fighter. I'm suddenly tankier, have a bunch of immunities, an extra free dump stat for higher other stats, an extra body, and am essentially a bad artificer. Really puts it in perspective doesn't it? That wizard is more useful WITHOUT THE CASTING PROGRESSION?!

[Bucky]

The crazy-long feat chains actually work in the fighter's favor, relative to other martials, at low levels (until level ~5) because fighters get the capstone a level or two early compared to everyone else, and the capstones' usefulness won't fall off for a bit.

[Aimeryan]

If you take Fighter as meaning Fighter 20, not with ACFs, then yeah Tier 5 makes sense. However, since we are not so rigid here, allowing minor dips and taking into account ACFs with some weighting (frequency of being taken, mainly), it becomes quite possible to call a Fighter Tier 4.

For example, take a Barbarian 1 dip (for pounce) coupled with Shock Trooper - add in Leap Attack if you want to be sure. None of that is obscure, or even close, but would be hard not to rate Tier 4. How many Fighters going charger would not seriously take those? It is as low optimisation as you can get without just picking at random. Furthermore, you could take Dungeoncrasher ACF and Knock Back to make this pretty nasty, indeed - bit higher optimisation, but I would be surprised if it wasn't quite common. You also still have all the HD-feats left over to add a couple of non-combat contributions if you chose to do so.

Even if you don't really want to ubercharge, the cost to the Fighter of picking up those Fighter Feats to do so is very minor, so you might as well anyway. Would many Fighters really not pick up the Shock Trooper feat chain and grab a Barbarian 1 dip unless by not doing so they are still Tier 4 in some other way?

[Gnaeus]

Barbarian T4. An 8 YO can make a barbarian good at combat, as long as all you need is charge/full attack. Few hard counters to melee problems, but good at what it does.
Fighter high T5. An optimized fighter is as good as an optimized barbarian, but it's a class with a ton of non-obvious traps. Build your fighter around TWF, thrown, S&B, or several maneuvers and you are probably done before you begin. May not even be good at combat, depending. And good design on a fighter includes both (what is a good feat) and (what feat will get me to the end of the chain I need 5 levels from now). Picking good feats isn't enough, you have to weigh the opportunity costs of entire feat chains way ahead in your build.
Samurai (CA) T5 A fighter with poor build choices. You can make one that works, but it's more like a single working build than a working class. And that route is hardly obvious or low op.
Samurai (OA) no rank. I'm pretty sure it's a T5 but no experience with this class

[Troacctid]

If you take Fighter as meaning Fighter 20, not with ACFs, then yeah Tier 5 makes sense. However, since we are not so rigid here, allowing minor dips and taking into account ACFs with some weighting (frequency of being taken, mainly), it becomes quite possible to call a Fighter Tier 4.

For example, take a Barbarian 1 dip (for pounce) coupled with Shock Trooper - add in Leap Attack if you want to be sure. None of that is obscure, or even close, but would be hard not to rate Tier 4. How many Fighters going charger would not seriously take those? It is as low optimisation as you can get without just picking at random. Furthermore, you could take Dungeoncrasher ACF and Knock Back to make this pretty nasty, indeed - bit higher optimisation, but I would be surprised if it wasn't quite common. You also still have all the HD-feats left over to add a couple of non-combat contributions if you chose to do so.

Even if you don't really want to ubercharge, the cost to the Fighter of picking up those Fighter Feats to do so is very minor, so you might as well anyway. Would many Fighters really not pick up the Shock Trooper feat chain and grab a Barbarian 1 dip unless by not doing so they are still Tier 4 in some other way?

We're rating the class as 20 levels. If we weren't, then Thug would absolutely not be a tier increase, but over 20 levels I think the extra skills are a pretty big deal. They certainly help Barbarian up to T4.

Either way, it's close. You could certainly make a case for top of 5 or bottom of 4. And optimization level matters a lot.

I dunno. I'm not sure if it's better as 4- or 5+. Monk is kind of the same way. I do think it's better than Dragon Shaman, Knight, Samurai, Swashbuckler, and Soulknife, which are all pretty clear T5s in my mind. But it's also worse than Ranger, Rogue, Fast Rogue, Smart Rogue, and Magic Rogue, which I see as clear T4s.

[bekeleven]

So, forget optimization. What assumptions are we making about playstyle?

if D&D is played close to the books, all of these classes are 1-2 tiers higher than everyone is currently rating them.

[eggynack]

So, forget optimization. What assumptions are we making about playstyle?

if D&D is played close to the books, all of these classes are 1-2 tiers higher than everyone is currently rating them.

How ya mean that? Like combat versus non-combat focused?

[TIPOT]

How much are we factoring in the background fluff? I played a OA samurai in a OA game and it was important because I was a Samurai ie a noble. Does allowing OA Samurai imply that all OA stuff is in effect?

Overall though: I'd say Barbarian is tier 4 (for similar reasons to other people), OA samurai is tier 4 (they're basically a better fighter in that they get most things a fighter gets + a high will save and better skills), fighter is low tier 4 high tier 5 depending on what your baseline level of optimisation is and CW Samurai is tier 5 (as it can still go power attack with a two handed weapon and has some ok class features)

[eggynack]

How much are we factoring in the background fluff? I played a OA samurai in a OA game and it was important because I was a Samurai ie a noble. Does allowing OA Samurai imply that all OA stuff is in effect?

Near or actually zero, I'd expect. Any character can plausibly have some background nobility if they really want it, and a samurai can not have that much of a nobility connection if they want. You can even be a samurai without being a "samurai". You can be a non-cleric with church connections, or a cleric that prays to an ideal or has had a falling out with the larger church structure. I don't think it makes much sense to be predicting where tables hold to or diverge from the fluff that's written into the game.

[bekeleven]

How ya mean that? Like combat versus non-combat focused?

Let's start with "Three encounters per day."

[ryu]

Let's start with "Three encounters per day."

I thought standard was four?

[Jopustopin]

Barbarian: I've never seen a pure barbarian ever. With that said, I'd always rather have a barbarian than a fighter. They are SAD (compared to the Fighter who can be quite MAD), have the capability for a celerity like win button (instantaneous rage + Intimidating rage + blah blah blah + I win) and that's before we get into their ACF which are simply some of the best in the game for non-casters. Tier 4

BMX Bandit: WotC should have included an update to the fighter IN the Tome of Battle. Like an errata or just a Re-do. It's an insult to the fighter that the warblade exists. By level four the fighter is regularly failing his will save and spending fights asleep, running in fear, or some other pathetic end result. If he is able to pop a wheely with his BMX and there is a wall and he has dungeoncrasher he's still completely overshadowed by just about everyone in the game (and especially you know Crusaders who could divine surge for 8d6 points of damage and doesn't need a wall). Yes, a large sized fighter or one with powerful build and the dungeoncrasher ACF and the feat Knockback is now tier 4 but the fighter class as a whole, holistically, is tier 5. His job is to fight and he can't even accomplish that one purpose let alone all the other non-fighting related challenges in the game. He is a straight upgrade to the Warrior... so there is that.

CW Samurai: It's hard to make fun of the Monk when there is this monstrosity. I agree with JaronK - if you have imperious command he's the worst class in tier 5. Otherwise he's the best tier 6 class in the game. For purposes of my vote: Tier 6.

OA Samurai: This is 3.0 material; my opinion is that the CW supersedes this material. In the same way that the Ranger in the Player's Handbook 3.5 supersedes the Ranger in the Player's Handbook 3.0.

[Lans]

OA samurai is tier 4 (they're basically a better fighter in that they get most things a fighter gets + a high will save and better skills), fighter is low tier 4 high tier 5 depending on what your baseline level of optimisation

OAS suffers from having a weaker bonus feat list, I'm not sure if the rokugan book gave them anything. In a lower op game I'm thinking they might edge out the fighter, while in a higher op game the better fighter feats should give it the advantage over the OAS.

CW Samurai is tier 5 (as it can still go power attack with a two handed weapon and has some ok class features)

If you look closer at its class features and get rid of the ones that are traps you wind up with improved inititive at 8th and fear at 20th. + a few weak smites per day. Its actually debatable whether the warrior has better features or not.

[ryu]

Barbarian: I've never seen a pure barbarian ever. With that said, I'd always rather have a barbarian than a fighter. They are SAD (compared to the Fighter who can be quite MAD), have the capability for a celerity like win button (instantaneous rage + Intimidating rage + blah blah blah + I win) and that's before we get into their ACF which are simply some of the best in the game for non-casters. Tier 4

BMX Bandit: WotC should have included an update to the fighter IN the Tome of Battle. Like an errata or just a Re-do. It's an insult to the fighter that the warblade exists. By level four the fighter is regularly failing his will save and spending fights asleep, running in fear, or some other pathetic end result. If he is able to pop a wheely with his BMX and there is a wall and he has dungeoncrasher he's still completely overshadowed by just about everyone in the game (and especially you know Crusaders who could divine surge for 8d6 points of damage and doesn't need a wall). Yes, a large sized fighter or one with powerful build and the dungeoncrasher ACF and the feat Knockback is now tier 4 but the fighter class as a whole, holistically, is tier 5. He is a straight upgrade to the Warrior... so there is that.

CW Samurai: It's hard to make fun of the Monk when there is this monstrosity. I agree with JaronK - if you have imperious command he's the worst class in tier 5. Otherwise he's the best tier 6 class in the game. For purposes of my vote: Tier 6.

OA Samurai: This is 3.0 material; my opinion is that the CW supersedes this material. In the same way that the Ranger in the Player's Handbook 3.5 supersedes the Ranger in the Player's Handbook 3.0.

Best tier 6 in the game?! Clearly someone has never witnessed an apocalyptic doom-chicken singularity commoner at work.

[Lans]

Best tier 6 in the game?! Clearly someone has never witnessed an apocalyptic doom-chicken singularity commoner at work.

I am standing by the warriors class features being stronger in combat

[eggynack]

Let's start with "Three encounters per day."

You should account for this to the extent a game would force you to account for it. So, you can't always expect the rope trick 15 minute adventuring day to work, but you can sometimes. I don't think that forcing encounters to be really helps these classes nearly so much as you've indicated. I'd take the classes that are currently in the tiers that these classes are supposedly landing in before these classes any day of the weak.

Best tier 6 in the game?! Clearly someone has never witnessed an apocalyptic doom-chicken singularity commoner at work.

The chicken infested commoner is obviously amazing. I don't think it's tier six though. I think I had it at a three or four, when I rated it back in the other thread. Chickens can do a lot of things.

I am standing by the warriors class features being stronger in combat

You can stab things better, certainly, but the infinite chickens can do tons of random crap. Wall of chickens (a giant mound of chickens between you and your foes), chicken walk (generating chickens beneath you until you've essentially levitated, and maintaining this chicken mountain as you move about), chickenquake (filling an enclosed space with chickens until said space collapses from the chicken pressure), chickenfireball (pile chickens atop your opponent and set them aflame, perhaps with some energy resistance on) and more can all help you handle a variety of combat situations. You really handle combat more like a wizard than a fighter.

[Lans]

You can stab things better, certainly, but the infinite chickens can do tons of random crap. Wall of chickens (a giant mound of chickens between you and your foes), chicken walk (generating chickens beneath you until you've essentially levitated, and maintaining this chicken mountain as you move about), chickenquake (filling an enclosed space with chickens until said space collapses from the chicken pressure), chickenfireball (pile chickens atop your opponent and set them aflame, perhaps with some energy resistance on) and more can all help you handle a variety of combat situations. You really handle combat more like a wizard than a fighter.

I meant better than the samurai