Is magic inherently the least selfish class feature?

[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

This thread is likely controversial. However, when advising a new player to the game on a 'Monk' build (we eventually settled on Unarmed Swordsage/Ardent/Barbarian), I was wondering if a magic/mundane problem is how inherently selfish most class features are.

For purposes of this thread, a 'class feature' is anything that a class gives you. This could be spells, maneuvers, feats, meldshaping, psionic powers, or otherwise. Some class features can be gotten by other means (like Martial Study granting a maneuver) or by using a power stone to manifest a psionic power.

Let us also make this clear: 'Selfish' class features are ones that can't be shared directly with others. A Warblade's maneuvers aren't normally shareable with his party, but his party can benefit from such, like one less foe to fight. Likewise with a Factotum's skills: That lock is now open, the trap disarmed, and the beautiful person persuaded to be your spouse. And so on. Yes, there are exceptions, like maneuvers and stances that heal allies (and, of course, White Raven Tactics) as well as a Marshal's auras, but these are the exception and not the expectation.

Psionic powers and meldshaping have a similar theme. They're useful, but most the non-offensive stuff can't target others or include others as benefactors. Energy ball can target an area, but how frequently do you want allies to be in that area when the ball explodes? (The answer is normally 'never.') Dispel psionics can affect allies, but how often do you want it to? (The answer is normally 'rarely.') If you know of any way besides rule 0 to legally share meldshaping abilities like Strongheart Vests, go ahead and post 'em in the thread.

Magic is different. The number of spells that are personal only (and, thus, very legal targets for Persistent Spell) is small compared to spells (including buffs and beneficial utility spells) that can affect others (including allies) at range, be it touch range, close range, medium range, long range, fixed range, or otherwise. The Hierophant PrC from the SRD and DMG has an interesting clause about sharing Wild Shape and Turn Undead uses with allies which are from caster classes. On a similar note, Bards get Bardic Music which they can share with allies, and, of course, they're casters with a base caster level equal to their Bard class level.

Magic and psionic items are debatably either way or both: You give allies the effects (you made a belt) and they get some benefit (+4 STR from a belt).

Perhaps this is part of why tiers are as they are: Top tier characters can share their beneficial abilities with allies.

[eggynack]

Depends on the magic. Wizards have a lot of fancy party buff spells and team oriented utility spells. Druids don't have as much of either, especially party buffs. There's nothing inherent about magic that makes it non-selfish. The warmage is operating in the same general magic space as the wizard, but their team help list has way less party aid than wizard or druid. Helping allies is great, but I don't think it's a necessary condition for being top tier at all. Sometimes, being great means just bringing and helping out your personally generated team rather than making the most of party abilities. You can polymorph the party fighter, or you can wild shape yourself, and either way something pretty great is happening. And, as decent as hierophant may be once you've gained 9th level spells, it's very far from why casters are sweet. This obviously isn't inherent to magic on any conceptual level either. There's no particular reason why psionics must necessarily be more selfish than magic, whether it actually is or not.

[Sam K]

The tier system is based on flexibility (the number of problems that can be overcome), so it's no surprise that the highest tiers will also have a greater amount of flexibility.

That said, it's not a major thing: a wizard that takes Wov of Selfishness, forbidding him from casting beneficial spells on anyone but himself, would still be T1.

[Florian]

I was wondering if a magic/mundane problem is how inherently selfish most class features are.

Let me offer you a different POV on this. We have Force and Force Multipliers.
The classes you label as "selfish" provide the former and spell casters can provide the later, enhancing performance (or replicating Force on themselves, which can be considered to bug).

[RoboEmperor]

The tier system and the magic/mundane problem is based on breaking the game and doing everything, a.k.a. power and versatility.

A wizard can completely dwarf the fighter in melee combat on top of all of its spellcaster shenanigans, making the class obsolete.

At level 8 I can replace every single one of my party members with an outsider and beat the campaign solo, which is why it is my opinion that selfishness is a non-factor when determining tiers.

I think the least selfish class features would be class features that help allies exclusively rather than yourself.

[Castilonium]

The Healer is one of the least selfish classes, but it's Tier 5. Just more evidence that the ability to use your class features for the benefit of other people doesn't have anything to do with the caster/martial disparity.

[Pleh]

While mundane fighters often don't tank well, it doesn't change the fact that their increased HD was meant to be tactically "shared" by keeping enemy attacks hitting the person who can shoulder the damage costs.

[Jormengand]

Marshal may suck, but it does exist. So do damaging evocations.

Also, there's nothing particularly special about spells (as opposed to psionics, initiation, invocations and utterances) that makes it selfless - for that you probably want utterances, which are almost universally buffs (or almost universally can be buffs) and which mostly aren't very useful on a truenamer. But there's nothing inherent about the way that either works that makes them selfless.

[Eldariel]

Let me offer you a different POV on this. We have Force and Force Multipliers.
The classes you label as "selfish" provide the former and spell casters can provide the later, enhancing performance (or replicating Force on themselves, which can be considered to bug).

Ultimately, a party of nothing but force multipliers allows each individual to act as a very up-and-proper force as well. I think that's the crux of the matter - not just that they can try to replicate Force on themselves but that the force multipliers cumulate even on other force multipliers.

[ShurikVch]

Taker PrC (Dragon #287)

Spells gained from being a taker cannot be cast on others. All of the spells cast from the taker spell list are treated as though they have a range of personal.

After all, another nickname of the Fated faction is the "Heartless"...

[Psyren]

Let us also make this clear: 'Selfish' class features are ones that can't be shared directly with others. A Warblade's maneuvers aren't normally shareable with his party, but his party can benefit from such, like one less foe to fight. Likewise with a Factotum's skills: That lock is now open, the trap disarmed, and the beautiful person persuaded to be your spouse. And so on. Yes, there are exceptions, like maneuvers and stances that heal allies (and, of course, White Raven Tactics) as well as a Marshal's auras, but these are the exception and not the expectation.

The problem I have with the term "selfish" is that it's a word with negative connotations. It implies "bad" or at the very least "to be avoided if possible." But how useful an ability or even a class is has little correlation with whether it buffs allies or not; in some cases, you want a buff, but in others, using your finite resources (actions and otherwise, e.g. slots) to remove the threat directly (and quickly) is preferable.

Thinking only in terms of "selfish" and "not selfish" can lead to erroneous conclusions. A Psion's abilities for example are much more "selfish" than those of a Healer, but if my group were only able to have one primary caster, I would go with the more "selfish" Psion every time.

[Elkad]

While mundane fighters often don't tank well, it doesn't change the fact that their increased HD was meant to be tactically "shared" by keeping enemy attacks hitting the person who can shoulder the damage costs.

And it works REALLY well in the right terrain. 10' hallway. 2 fighters up front, reach-using clerics/rogues behind them, a couple casters, then a rear guard or two, and suddenly getting past the fighters isn't just an int-check for the monsters to know to target the mages, it's an actual tactical problem.

But as soon as you add open terrain, or even a big enough area that the fighters decide the best thing in the world is to stack up a bunch of charging feats and go zipping around the room every round instead of holding the line, it all breaks down.

[Eldariel]

And it works REALLY well in the right terrain. 10' hallway. 2 fighters up front, reach-using clerics/rogues behind them, a couple casters, then a rear guard or two, and suddenly getting past the fighters isn't just an int-check for the monsters to know to target the mages, it's an actual tactical problem.

Even there, the survivability advantage awarded by the HD to Fighters over e.g. additional Clerics is miniscule. The fact that most of the characters' HP tends to be Con-based higher up and the fact that Clerics and Druids have rather good HD themselves raises the question of why have a wall of HP that can't heal itself, buff itself, buff allies, CC enemies and have even more expendable sacks of HP as class features (summons, animal companion, planar allies, undead, what-have-you). Imagine the frontline Fighters replaced by Clerics supported by 2 more Clerics from behind and I have a hard time seeing anyone ever break through.

This is why one of my favourite minor buffs to martials is to double Con bonus-based HP for every level in a martial class (that is, a Fighter 10/Wizard 10 would get d10 + Con x 2 from each Fighter-level and d4 + Con from each Wizard level). That way, instead of the difference in HP between 24 Con (14 base + 6 item + 4 inherent) Wizard 20 and Barbarian 20 being 191,5 vs. 275,5, mere 30% more HP for the Barbarian (just considering d4 vs. d12 HD; in this particular case class features would change things of course), it would be 191,5 vs. 415,5, which is good 54% higher HP. Does this solve anything balance-wise? Of course not. But it's nice to have. Of course it's just a port: in AD&D, martials got much more out of Con than everyone else and that makes sense since they're expected to train their body and be taking hits: I think porting that over is crucial. The difference between 4 and 12 HP is immense; the difference between 191 and 275 much less so. 191 vs. 415 is more like how it should be.

And characters are just way too squishy in high level D&D 3.5 far as HP goes - casters can stack temporary HP, different damage resistance/immunity abilities, etc. but martials need to be able to take some hits to the face (and some second wind-sort of self-healing mechanic á la Iron Heart Endurance would be really sweet too, so you can use your own actions to keep yourself going and make your HP count for something).

[zergling.exe]

This is why one of my favourite minor buffs to martials is to double Con bonus-based HP for every level in a martial class (that is, a Fighter 10/Wizard 10 would get d10 + Con x 2 from each Fighter-level and d4 + Con from each Wizard level). That way, instead of the difference in HP between 24 Con (14 base + 6 item + 4 inherent) Wizard 20 and Barbarian 20 being 191,5 vs. 275,5, mere 30% more HP for the Barbarian (just considering d4 vs. d12 HD; in this particular case class features would change things of course), it would be 191,5 vs. 415,5, which is good 54% higher HP. Does this solve anything balance-wise? Of course not. But it's nice to have. Of course it's just a port: in AD&D, martials got much more out of Con than everyone else and that makes sense since they're expected to train their body and be taking hits: I think porting that over is crucial. The difference between 4 and 12 HP is immense; the difference between 191 and 275 much less so. 191 vs. 415 is more like how it should be.

Nitpicky, but your percentages don't match what you are advertising, they are the Wizard's health less than the Barbarian's (191 is roughly 70% of 275 and roughly 46% of 415). In the first case a Barbarian has nearly 44% more HP (191.5 * 1.44 is ~275.76) and in the second roughly 117% more.

Otherwise good points all around. Martials are just too squishy.

[Eldariel]

Nitpicky, but your percentages don't match what you are advertising, they are the Wizard's health less than the Barbarian's (191 is roughly 70% of 275 and roughly 46% of 415). In the first case a Barbarian has nearly 44% more HP (191.5 * 1.44 is ~275.76) and in the second roughly 117% more.

Otherwise good points all around. Martials are just too squishy.

Oops. Yeah, you're correct, I rolled the numbers around ((A-B)/B reported as (A-B)/A). Thanks for the correction.

[Elkad]

This is why one of my favourite minor buffs to martials is to double Con bonus-based HP for every level in a martial class (that is, a Fighter 10/Wizard 10 would get d10 + Con x 2 from each Fighter-level and d4 + Con from each Wizard level). ...

Prior to 3.x, we had a similar disparity. Con bonus hp were capped at +2/level for every non-martial class.

[tiercel]

Arguably, one of the least selfish class features is trapfinding.

A character with this class feature is generally expected to use it, and doing so actively increases that character's risk of "rolled bad; dead." Use of this class feature brings no special direct benefit to the character using it, except a share of the benefit insofar as it benefits the party.

All of the personal risk and no direct personal benefit seems pretty unselfish to me.

(Yes, you can get direct personal benefit from trapfinding *by going off on an actual solo thief run*, but that's less about the class feature's benefit and more about a total change of playstyle, together with the attendant risk of *not having a rest-of-the-party around if you should need them*.)