Results 31 to 60 of 61
-
2019-01-23, 09:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2012
- Location
- UNKNOWN
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Okay, that makes sense. I forget how much effort goes into making stealth and sneak attacks functional.
A cleric that can effectively overcome obstacles is functioning pretty well. A cleric that expends spell slots on healing is not functioning at all.I am rel.
-
2019-01-23, 09:30 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
I started playing in 2018, and I think I'm addicted to T1 classes.
See, I always wanted to play back in the 90s, but never found a group. I have now. And now all my decades of planning of how to wizard should I get the chance are coming to fruition...
But after playing a one-shot where I forced myself to build a Rogue who is basically a very specialised fear-inducing wizard in rogue pants, I think I also enjoy martial classes if I give them feats to be ridiculous.
But that's like adding sugar to corn flakes. You can, but is it really the corn flakes you're enjoying?
I dunno. There's something about being intrinsically special, about the superiority complex over ordinary common folk, that magic gives me a lot of joy. I kinda want to try playing a monk to see how I can break it to be fun, but I imagine it'd be a lot more effort than 'play a wizard, do magic, keep away from the heavy hitters'OI YOU! Join this one Discord where people talk 3.5 stuff! Also chicken infested related things! It’s pretty rad! https://discord.gg/6HmgXhUZ
-
2019-01-23, 10:20 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2011
-
2019-01-23, 11:49 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Fair enough, I suppose.
I had to honor of playing with a fighter who knew what he was doing. This fighter outperformed any creature I raised, summoned, or bound. It wasn't until level 11 where I could stand on equal footing as him and even then our party members viewed him as superior to me because he was medium sized, the magic items he had made him have more utility than me, and he could overcome DR while I couldn't. And at level 15 i switched to blasting so no overlap.I am not seaweed. That's a B.
Praise I've received A quick outline on building a homebrew campaign
Avatar by Tiffanie Lirle
-
2019-01-23, 12:07 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2014
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
I think there was a miscommunication. You were trashing on PB creatures and called them trash compared to mundanes (not your exact words) and therefore unworthy of buffs, in addition to having a hefty, hefty RP cost. I came to the defense of PB creatures to show that they can and do more damage than mundanes against creatures without DR especially thanks to Girallon's Blessing. In the end I admitted that a properly built and equipped mundane was better than a PB creature.
Last edited by RoboEmperor; 2019-01-23 at 12:08 PM.
-
2019-01-23, 12:10 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2015
-
2019-01-23, 01:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Seems we were both making some presumptions about the other's position. I said in that thread that conjured minions could be adequate but not as good as a dedicated PC in the beat-stick department. I still maintain that if there's a fighter in the party and you're tossing out buffs anyway, he's a better target than minions most of the time.
But let's not derail this thread.I am not seaweed. That's a B.
Praise I've received A quick outline on building a homebrew campaign
Avatar by Tiffanie Lirle
-
2019-01-23, 02:18 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Location
- Baltimore, MD
- Gender
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
In the 4+ decades I've been playing, I've had the most fun with Rogues, Warlocks, Binders, Witches, Warblades, Bards, Investigators, and most recently, Kineticists. So mostly 3-4.
“Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us, come because we actually deserve them? So now I take comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the Universe”- Marcus Cole
This has become my philosophy!
-
2019-01-23, 05:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2008
- Location
- Italy
- Gender
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
I prefer the lower tiers.
there's nothing heroic in doing greatstuff when you have exceptional powers. Everyone could do the same, given the same powers.
that regular guy who hangs around the superpowered people and find ways to be useful regardless of power imbalance? that's the real hero.
Plus, fun is struggling to overcome a challenge, and it's not fun if you can trivialize it regularly.In memory of Evisceratus: he dreamed of a better world, but he lacked the class levels to make the dream come true.
Ridiculous monsters you won't take seriously even as they disembowel you
my take on the highly skilled professional: the specialized expert
-
2019-01-23, 05:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2019
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
I used to find Tier 3 and Tier 4 the funnest to hang around, until I played Rappan Athuk, a. k. a. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Tier 1s.
-
2019-01-23, 09:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2016
- Location
- Colorado, USA
- Gender
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Originally Posted by Peelee
-
2019-01-24, 02:05 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2013
- Location
- Montreal, QC
- Gender
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Aww, poor bards. What did they ever do to you?
I usually play around T3-4, although I end up as some sort of wizard around one time out of three. Now, most of the tables I have played at or am playing at are somewhere between no-op and mid-op, and my real concern is just about table balance. Often in the past I've played purposefully gimped wizard to provide support without overshadowing anyone, but more recently I've decided that just spelling that B-A-R-D is less complicated. Plus, I like my skill points. I could be getting ten per level with no group pressure to be a skill monkey, and I'll still end up feeling like I don't have enough. This is also why I like rogues and scouts, except that I also want some easy, in-house magic.
-
2019-01-24, 05:59 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2015
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Also bards are great in that they allow you if you discover you like one play-style more than the others to specialize into it after the first few levels(for example if you like casting then you can become a sublime chord and if you like bardic music there is awesome feats for supporting bardic music and if you like to slice people into parts your bardic music will make you appropriate at that)
And even if you decide to stay an all around bard you will be awesome(even more true in 5e).
The only problem is the need to spend actions to drop immunity to bardic music when you have mind blank and other buffs like that.
-
2019-01-24, 04:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2016
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
I generally fill party composition and I try to make any class i play T1 but then play down to the tables optimization because I enjoy playing support
-
2019-01-24, 04:57 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2016
- Location
- The Old West
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
I like Tier 3 conceptually. Everyone is supposed to be flexible enough, but not so powerful they don't need help. However, I really want to DM a T4 game, I think the limitations are interesting and I like that the heroes will always need to rely on their allies against appropriate threats.
Avatar by linklele
Spoiler: Build Contests
E6 Iron Chef XVI Shared First Place: Black Wing
E6 Iron Chef XXI Shared Second Place: The Shadow's Hand
-
2019-01-24, 06:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
I've enjoyed classes from every rung above 5.
T5s I generally need some kind of archetype or other buff to make them worth playing. Like I'll never just play a base Fighter, I need Advanced Weapon Training or Combat Stamina or Lore Warden or Martial Master etc. Similarly, I won't just play a base monk, it has to be Qinggong or Unchained or MoMS etc.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
-
2019-01-24, 08:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Defining these things in terms of tiers is useless. The tiers are designed to do a very specific thing which they do in a vaguely passable if you squint way. But they do that by smuggling in a bunch of assumptions that are not fundamental to the classes they describe, and by adding a bunch of implications that don't follow at all.
I like to play Wizards. The nominal description of Tier One has almost no relation to what I like about them, or why I think they are good. The good things about Wizards have essentially nothing to do with "breaking the game" or "trivializing encounters" and the only reason the tiers emphasize those things is because they are supposed to provide an assessment in a context where you are potentially evaluating all classes. If you assume that a game where you are playing reasonably optimized Wizards doesn't include Fighters -- because obviously it shouldn't -- it is no longer true that having the power of a Wizard breaks the game. The Tiers would have you believe that "wanting to cast teleport" necessarily implies "wanting to break the game", which is simply absurd.
I mean, look a the definition of Tier Three. It's not in any way specific to features Tier Three classes have that other classes lack, it's just a description of how the game works when you play characters who are relatively balanced and face challenges that are scaled to those characters. Saying "I like Tier Three" is just saying "I expect that the characters in a party will be basically playing the same game and will not be confronted with challenges radically above or below their power level". That's almost certainly something you want, but it doesn't have anything to do with the party tank being a Crusader instead of a Druid or a Knight.
-
2019-01-24, 11:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2012
- Location
- UNKNOWN
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
But parties built to different power tiers do play differently:
A tier 5 party will really struggle solving a lot of the typical problems adventurers are expected to face.
They will have trouble completing published adventures.
A GM will have to put in a lot of extra effort or adjust the opposition on the fly to prevent defeat; simply picking a random monster of appropriate CR will not end well.
The characters are cripplingly dependent on magical gear to shore up their deficiencies.
The game is a LOT more swingy, a few bad rolls can hurt the party and when things go bad they have little to fall back on.
A tier 3 party will find a typical game challenging but surmountable.
They might struggle on occasion but they will get through a published adventure.
The GM can place opposition without too much concern; picking random monsters will usually work out pretty well. They usually have some way of defeating a typical non-combat challenge.
If the party is behind on gear for a level or two they can probably still hold their own with careful play. The GM needs to watch the loot level but not that closely.
If the party get into trouble they probably have a few tricks to escape with.
A tier 1 party will trivalise normal play.
A published adventure will at best be a walk in the park and at worst break entirely in short order.
The GM has to work hard to challenge the players. striking a balance where a challenge is legitimate but not overwhelming requires a good knowledge of the rules and the players builds or a lot of fudging to keep things running.
The party is much more able to handle a lack of gear and usually have ways to sort out their own equipment. The GM need not be cautious about what loot to drop where trusting the players to sort it out.
If things go badly for the party they can often recover or at least escape, legitimately pressuring the party is tricky.
Now, nothing is inherently wrong with any of this. At the end of the day you can have fun with any type of game with a party at any tier.
But the tier of the party undeniably changes the dynamic of a game and knowing the particulars of play at a particular tier is helpful when designing a campaign, adjusting one during play, building a character to fit a group, etc.
And using Tiers in conversation is a quick way to put people familiar with the system in general on the same page.I am rel.
-
2019-01-25, 12:19 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2016
- Location
- The Old West
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Avatar by linklele
Spoiler: Build Contests
E6 Iron Chef XVI Shared First Place: Black Wing
E6 Iron Chef XXI Shared Second Place: The Shadow's Hand
-
2019-01-25, 12:24 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2019
-
2019-01-25, 12:37 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2016
- Location
- The Old West
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Oh, absolutely agree that rel's response was good. It's just that this thread is only on the second page and these things tend to sidetrack threads. I'd be interested in seeing more feedback about the initial topic before that (admittedly, inevitably) happens. But it was just a bit of advice on my part, people are free to engage as they'd like.
Avatar by linklele
Spoiler: Build Contests
E6 Iron Chef XVI Shared First Place: Black Wing
E6 Iron Chef XXI Shared Second Place: The Shadow's Hand
-
2019-01-25, 01:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Gender
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Low 2 High 3 is my prefrence, you get to do some of the cool stuff but it's fairly telegraphed and gives the DM time to prepare.
-
2019-01-25, 02:11 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2009
- Location
- Michigan
- Gender
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
The way I feel about a tier 5 melee character is that it's chance to defeat a bruiser monster that has the same or higher CR than its ECL with out help or assistance, will be on the low side, but should be able to do it easily with a bit of assisstance. Maybe another character throws a net and then flanks, or a caster casts bulls strength and a CMW.
A tier 4 melee character will do the same task pretty regularly with out assistance, but will not have much to do outside that role.
A tier 3 will do the above, but have more flexibility in non melee combat
T6 will need significant assistance.
-
2019-01-25, 02:14 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2010
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Aw, geeze, I dunno. I like tier 1-5 classes playing at the tier 2-4 mindset, and I break rules so that characters can do things that aren't allowed in a typical game of any tier because I find the ruleset limiting for what I actually want sometimes and perfectly fine other times.
Is there a tier for constantly playing with (what for a lack of a better term I'll call) artifacts that bring unique rules into play? Like, one of my setting villains was a clockmaker who developed timepieces that prevented his adversaries from doing anything to oppose him if it took longer than three seconds (standard actions being temporarily defined as four seconds for the purpose of that story.) I wanna say it was a tier 3 or 4 or 2 game, but it was kind of all over the map. I guess tier 3?
-
2019-01-25, 03:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2015
- Gender
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
T3 all the way, with some T4 and T2 outliers, which are still more or less powerful than most of their tiermates.
By using T3 classes you don't have to actively cripple yourself to NOT break the game, and you're still very, exceedingly competent at the thing you want to do, while having weaknesses that justify having other people around to cover those. So the game doesn't turn into 4D chess with the DM, and nobody has to actively support a weak link all the time.Elezen Dark Knight avatar by Linklele
Favourite classes: Beguiler, Scout, Warblade, 3.5 Warlock, Harbinger (PF:PoW).
-
2019-01-25, 03:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2018
- Location
- Tokyo, New Jersey
- Gender
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Well, I'm not very keen on spellcasting so tier 1 and 2 are kinda right out. Then one time I played a Stone Giant using the progression in Savage Species and really lamented the fact that you can't do anything other than power attack mooks, so tier 5 and below aren't fulfilling me. So that leaves tier 3 and 4, which I think are both fine. Exception is if psionics is involved, then I'll play that in tier 1 or 2 instead.
-
2019-01-25, 03:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2015
-
2019-01-25, 07:23 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
Well, yes, you'll note that I totally acknowledged that you do need to scale challenges to different characters. But that's not "Wizards are inherently broken". And, frankly, Wizards don't really trivialize normal play outside of a very small number of broken spells. Different characters have different power levels, but the specific way the Tiers describe those power levels is stupid. Yes, Wizards behave differently from Fighters. But using the Tiers to describe that difference is just a way to avoid having a serious conversation about the advantages of Wizards by preemptively declaring them "broken".
And, of course, there's a great deal of point in trying to convince you they aren't. The Tiers are, factually, bad. The thing they measure isn't useful, they don't accurately measure it by their own standards, they're not consistent with the term "Tier" as it is used in almost any other context, and they're not testable or falsifiable. People on this forum like them because they endorse the forum groupthink that Wizards are inherently broken and people who like Wizards are powergamers.
-
2019-01-25, 10:46 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2016
- Location
- The Old West
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
That you completely and willfully mischaracterise everyone who disagrees with you is just part of the problem with trying to debate you on this subject, as you have just perfectly demonstrated. I've seen you argue against many people on these forums about the Tier system. None of them have ever
claimed, by my memory, that people who like wizards are power gamers. I like wizards (and especially druids) and I also find the tier system useful. I wouldn't consider myself much of a powergamer.
Regardless, now I'm ignoring my own advice. I don't want to be involved in derailing this thread. I've said my piece on the matter, everyone else is free to do as they wishLast edited by Luccan; 2019-01-25 at 10:52 AM.
Avatar by linklele
Spoiler: Build Contests
E6 Iron Chef XVI Shared First Place: Black Wing
E6 Iron Chef XXI Shared Second Place: The Shadow's Hand
-
2019-01-25, 10:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2015
Re: Which Tier is your favorite to play?
And, of course, there's a great deal of point in trying to convince you they aren't. The Tiers are, factually, bad. The thing they measure isn't useful, they don't accurately measure it by their own standards, they're not consistent with the term "Tier" as it is used in almost any other context, and they're not testable or falsifiable. People on this forum like them because they endorse the forum groupthink that Wizards are inherently broken and people who like Wizards are powergamers.
Ability is not obligation.