ToB Question

[Noedig]

Summation of situation: One of my players is playing a tank-y Crusader in my game. Everyone else is playing core. The core classes are Wizard, Druid, Ranger/Rogue. All players are starting at level 1. The player playing the crusader is doing an excellent job at his chosen role. One of my other players, an individual of some 20+ years of gaming experience, has expressed concern about the balance of this class. I have explained that the Crusader is potent at level 1 but will plane out with the other classes soon, before level 7. Doubts are expressed. Hop on here to seek objective assessments of my claim.

Question: I would like to know at what point the Crusader becomes roughly equal with the other classes, from an objective standpoint. It would be even better if I can show evidence of my claim with math or hard data. Would someone be kind enough to help me?

Warning: Please, please, please do not tell me the ToB should be banned. I have read it, and while my understanding of it may not be perfect, I feel my knowledge is complete enough to justify its inclusion into my game. Telling me to ban it will solve nothing. Thank you.

[Agent_0042]

I imagine the crusader will remain more powerful than the ranger/rogue for his entire career, unless that player has crazy tricks up his sleeve. How optimized are your wizard and druid?

[huttj509]

Originally Posted by Agent_0042

I imagine the crusader will remain more powerful than the ranger/rogue for his entire career, unless that player has crazy tricks up his sleeve. How optimized are your wizard and druid?

Yeah, Wiz and Druid can have large swings.

Druid? Well, if Nat spell's on the table, level 6 at the latest is when the druid will surpass, though really even without nat spell the druid can be a strong contender.

I think the main issue is, "The player playing the crusader is doing an excellent job at his chosen role." The crusader seems to be building to be tanky, which the crusader can be good at (not 'aggro', but in terms of durability), and is focusing on his chosen role. How specific are the others' roles? Does the wizard have more in mind than "wizard"?

[DaTedinator]

Yeah, I think it'd help to know if the one expressing balance concerns is the one playing the Ranger/Rogue. Because if the Crusader is being played competently, a Ranger/Rogue is going to have to be built and played pretty stinkin' well to feel important.

Also, does "Everyone else is playing core," mean that they're only using core material? Or just that they're only using core classes?

EDIT: I think it'd help the Ranger/Rogue if you pushed your Crusader to a heavy White Raven focus. That might help assuage balance concerns.

[Andreaz]

Originally Posted by Noedig

Warning: Please, please, please do not tell me the ToB should be banned. I have read it, and while my understanding of it may not be perfect, I feel my knowledge is complete enough to justify its inclusion into my game. Telling me to ban it will solve nothing. Thank you.

We won't. I at least won't.

Important things!
Thing #1: ToB is not overpowered.
Plain and simple like that, unless you pull serious chicanery ToB doesn't break anything (and chicanery breaks everything with any book).
Thing #2: ToB is powerful.
Playing a weak character in ToB is rather hard. They are designed so that the gap between "bad build" and "good build" is relatively small.
Thing #3: Core is not balanced.
Rogues, Rangers, Fighters, Barbarians...they really get the shaft. Cleric, Druid, Wizard and Sorcerer outperform them at all their jobs. The bard too if you open more books.
Now, this is not to say these classes are lame...but they require very specific builds to have advantages, and they tend to be limited. Barbarians and Fighters can easily do hundreds upon hundreds of damage with the right builds for example.
But rule of thumb is that the presentation in the core book has enormous flaws as far as balance goes.


The other guys are already giving you the advice... but be prepared for your friend that complained about the crusader. He already doesn't like the class, so it'll take some serious convincing for it to work. There's a good chance you'll only bash heads at this point.
But DO NOT BEND! His argument is flawed, and bending just to ease his ache will harm the crusader's player. Better stick to the objective knowledge here.

[Jerthanis]

Yeah, a Ranger/Rogue is going to need to be sneak attacking a favored enemy in almost every fight to keep up with a Crusader as far as combat ability is concerned.

I'd say that your assertion that Crusader begins strong and plateaus is only true to a degree. While it begins play with an assortment of powers, and the rate it gains new ones is relatively slow, the higher level powers increase in strength, and their non-maneuver HP, BAB, feats and class features are not significantly weaker than ranger's or rogue's class features ect, particularly since the rogue side won't gain access to its higher level rogue-only powers and the ranger side won't gain its higher level combat style feats until well past their time.

I think there are a few "Patch 3.5's terrible multiclass system" homebrew tweaks you could use to improve the Ranger/Rogue's potency to keep up with the rate at which the Crusader will gain power. First, I suggest you make the Combat Style class feature trigger at Character Level 2, 6, and 11, rather than Ranger level 2, 6, and 11. This will allow a TWF Ranger/Rogue to get the extra offhand attacks before it's a moot point. Second, I think you should make Rogue levels stack with Ranger levels for purposes of Rogue special abilities. Abilities like Improved Evasion and Crippling Strike are pretty fundamental to the opportunistic fighter.

If you feel like that'd show undue favoritism, even though it's just (incompletely) fixing the fact that multiclassing without a PrC sucks and only gets worse as it goes, you could instead (or in addition) play to the Ranger/Rogue's strengths in the way you structure fights.

Have his Favored enemies come up a lot, and start fights with the enemies only 5 feet away if he's a TWF Ranger, and in clear view if he's a bow Ranger. Have them average fairly low initiative, guaranteeing he gets at least a couple sneak attacks in per fight.

If you're running default fights that don't play to his strengths, and don't tweak multiclass rules, the Crusader will absolutely outperform the Ranger/Rogue in every meaningful aspect of combat except saves... HP, AC, damage, healing, potentially even mobility.

[Noedig]

Thanks for the responses so far.

My apologies for not being specific as to the nature of the other players. All 3.5 books are open to everyone at the table. The wizard will be playing a master specialist conjuror/malconvoker focusing on rapidly summoning monsters. He is currently larval and incapable of doing his summoning goodness, but the player is brilliant and has years of experience and so makes do. He is the doubting player. To be fair he has never read ToB in great detail and this is the first time he's played in a game in which it is used.

The druid will almost definitely be using nat spell and she is also a player of much experience. She knows her way around the game, so she will be potent.

The ranger/rogue will be mixing his roll as a skill monkey and an archer. He is the most likely to have issues with the crusader later on, but suggesting white raven for our tank may well allay his fears.

Both the druid and the wizard are familiar with optimization, and it would be safe to say the wizard will be moderately to heavily optimized. The ranger not so much, but I work closely with him in that regard.

[The-Mage-King]

First off...

May I suggest pointing the ranger/rogue to a Swift Hunter build, instead of the one that's being gone with? Skirmish is a little better for archers than sneak attack, and it will clearly differentiate the roles. Also, skirmish on favored enemies that would be immune.

[Knight13]

In that case, I have to say that the complainer has no reasonable basis for his complaint. He's playing an optimized Tier 1 and worrying about the power level of a Tier 3. By the time his summoning comes online he'll be vastly outperforming the Crusader, if not sooner. You said he's never looked at ToB much and never played a game with a ToB class in it, so he's probably just been listening to the "ToB is ovapowered lol" thing too much.

Ditto for the Druid. The only thing you really need to worry about is the Ranger/Rogue feeling overshadowed.

[DaTedinator]

I second The-Mage-King and Knight13. I do understand why the Wizard is a little upset right now - even a well-optimized level 1 Wizard can be quickly made to feel useless - but in a few levels things will look a lot better.

And yes, the Ranger/Rogue should really strongly consider going Swift Hunter instead.

[Noedig]

I will look into swift hunter and ranger/scout rather than ranger/rogue. My one concern with that is the fact that Scout does not have Open Lock/Disable Device, which is fairly inconvenient for the rest of the party. From a relevance standpoint though, the idea looks promising.

I also feel like my wizard is displaying a knee jerk response when it comes to ToB. He sighted some maneuvers and stances that have deceptively powerful sounding flavor text, but are actually far more tame in execution. The druid expressed concern, but not as actively as the wizard, and probably only because the wizard did.

[TheOOB]

Right now you have two Tier 1 classes, a Tier 3 class, and an upper Tier 4.

The wizard and druid will only get more and more powerful, and will eventually become the most powerful people in the party(druid will be tops around 5-7, wizard will beat the druid out from around level 9+). The crusader will start strong, but will become a little weaker, but will always be strong enough to be relevant to the party. Unless they take a good PrC or use some varients, the rogue/ranger will start getting less powerful, until they eventually become use-impaired next to the casters.

[Noedig]

That is what I suspect will happen and what I tried to privately explain to the wizard.

I suppose this naturally leads to the question on how do I help keep the Tier 4 happy and relevant? The crusader I'm not worried about, he's having lots of fun now and will likely continue to have fun.

[RedWarlock]

Originally Posted by Noedig

I will look into swift hunter and ranger/scout rather than ranger/rogue. My one concern with that is the fact that Scout does not have Open Lock/Disable Device, which is fairly inconvenient for the rest of the party. From a relevance standpoint though, the idea looks promising.

The scout does have DD, it's in the CompAdv errata. Can't help you for open lock, though.

[Kelb_Panthera]

You asked for math, and math you shall receive.

Click here for a mathematical comparison of the paladin and crusader. The math starts on post 135, and after that the numbers get broken every which-way to determine the comparative combat capability.

The conclusion reached was that at similar optimization levels crusader and paladin are in a dead-heat for most of their careers. The only notable advantage for the crusader, IMO, is divine surge; a strike whose damage is anomolously high for its level.

We only compared the two under the assumption of core+ToB, but adding other splats will favor one or the other differently depending on the splat.

[Noedig]

That helps in the capacity that it shows how much damage the crusader will be doing. I don't suppose there is a wizard comparison? Not necessarily one that disputes which of the two classes is 'better' but one that shows how much damage a wizard 5 vs. a crusader 5 for example?

[pffh]

Originally Posted by RedWarlock

The scout does have DD, it's in the CompAdv errata. Can't help you for open lock, though.

All locks can be opened with the right key and in Noedigs game that key could be in the hands of the crusader (Mountain hammer strike and its ability to ignore hardness and damage reduction, yay)

[Answerer]

Originally Posted by Noedig

That helps in the capacity that it shows how much damage the crusader will be doing. I don't suppose there is a wizard comparison? Not necessarily one that disputes which of the two classes is 'better' but one that shows how much damage a wizard 5 vs. a crusader 5 for example?

No one's bothered because they're not even close.

A Wizard can make his save DCs higher than a Crusader's Will save bonus, even with Indomitable Soul. That means the Crusader is likely to fail one. Grease, glitterdust, haste, fly, etc. etc.

A 7th-level it becomes no contest. A Crusader doesn't have any particularly good answer to solid fog.

[LTwerewolf]

As others have said, your wizard has the least room to talk than anyone. At level 1 of course he'll feel overshadowed, but it's going to change very quickly and very drastically. After around level 9, your crusader and skill-monkey may as well hang up their hats, because they'll be unnecessary. The druid and wizard will be able to do their jobs better than they can by a large margin.

[Kazyan]

Let's not push the "Wizard and Druid will become slightly more powerful than the DM" thing. The boards don't like to hear it, but it is easy to horribly screw up when you're a squishy prepared caster and have to rely on your wits out-of-game. Ditto for Druid--wildshape isn't infallible (ask SonofZeal).

[LTwerewolf]

But read what the op said. The wizard and druid are optimizers. That makes it exactly the case.

[ahenobarbi]

Originally Posted by Kazyan

Let's not push the "Wizard and Druid will become slightly more powerful than the DM" thing. The boards don't like to hear it, but it is easy to horribly screw up when you're a squishy prepared caster and have to rely on your wits out-of-game. Ditto for Druid--wildshape isn't infallible (ask SonofZeal).

Yes but player screwing up Wizard doesn't make Crusader overpowered

Originally Posted by LTwerewolf

But read what the op said. The wizard and druid are optimizers. That makes it exactly the case.

In fact they may mistakenly think they are optimizers, I mean OP asked this:

Originally Posted by Noedig

Not necessarily one that disputes which of the two classes is 'better' but one that shows how much damage a wizard 5 vs. a crusader 5 for example?

[Grendus]

Originally Posted by Noedig

Summation of situation: One of my players is playing a tank-y Crusader in my game. Everyone else is playing core. The core classes are Wizard, Druid, Ranger/Rogue. All players are starting at level 1. The player playing the crusader is doing an excellent job at his chosen role. One of my other players, an individual of some 20+ years of gaming experience, has expressed concern about the balance of this class. I have explained that the Crusader is potent at level 1 but will plane out with the other classes soon, before level 7. Doubts are expressed. Hop on here to seek objective assessments of my claim.

Question: I would like to know at what point the Crusader becomes roughly equal with the other classes, from an objective standpoint. It would be even better if I can show evidence of my claim with math or hard data. Would someone be kind enough to help me?

Warning: Please, please, please do not tell me the ToB should be banned. I have read it, and while my understanding of it may not be perfect, I feel my knowledge is complete enough to justify its inclusion into my game. Telling me to ban it will solve nothing. Thank you.

The Wizard and Druid should surpass the Crusader by level 5-7 at low op (at high op they should already be more threatening ). By that point, they have enough spells that the Crusader's longevity advantage isn't as overwhelming. The Rogue/Ranger will never catch up unless he starts optimizing right now. Drop Rogue and go wildshape ranger, take the dual progression feat in complete adventurer, leverage Rogue into Chameleon, or take a fast casting Rogue PrC later on. Otherwise he'll be deadweight by level 10 max.

[LTwerewolf]

Originally Posted by ahenobarbi

Yes but player screwing up Wizard doesn't make Crusader overpowered



In fact they may mistakenly think they are optimizers, I mean OP asked this:

That's true, or it could just be the dm that wanted clarification

[tyckspoon]

Levels 1-5 are the high point of ToB class power curves, relative to other classes (and especially compared to traditional melee/physical damage attackers.) At those levels, you are comparing Strikes to (usually) single standard attacks, and the Strikes clearly win. Especially if the ToB player wants to go all out in damage and also enhances them with a Boost and a damage-increasing Stance. As you level toward 5, the comparison mostly gets worse for the 'regular' classes, because the ToB class has a built-in method of scaling with higher-level maneuvers while the regular fighter is still using single attacks and hasn't yet completed many key melee feat combinations. At level 6, a well-built non-ToB fighting type can start competing; he gets his iterative attack, he gets the critical feat that makes his chosen style really start working, and he stops looking sad next to the ToB class's damage output. (He may still be sad for other reasons, such as being a really terribly designed class, but his damage will be alright.)

[TopCheese]

Perhaps let the Rogue/Ranger gestalt. Sure he won't be able to match the tier 3 but it will ease some of the burden.

And if you want to add in some of the UA variants that may help.

[Noedig]

My question regarding the wizard v. crusader now seems to be poorly worded in retrospect. What I was getting at was if Crusader does X manuever and produces Y damage, does the wizard have a spell that does X and produces a >= Y result. Like a mountain strike vs an orb spell or something of the kind. Is that any clearer?

[Aegis013]

Originally Posted by Noedig

My question regarding the wizard v. crusader now seems to be poorly worded in retrospect. What I was getting at was if Crusader does X manuever and produces Y damage, does the wizard have a spell that does X and produces a >= Y result. Like a mountain strike vs an orb spell or something of the kind. Is that any clearer?

Anything the Crusader can do, the Wizard can do better if he really wants to.

[Grendus]

The Wizard's biggest problem early on is his limited spell slots. He can (theoretically) do almost everything the Crusader can, but the Crusader can do it over and over while the Wizard only has a few slots per day. Once the Wizard has enough spell slots, or learns to pick the right spells, he catches up and even eclipses anything the Crusader can do, but early on the Crusader can look overpowered by comparison.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by Noedig

That helps in the capacity that it shows how much damage the crusader will be doing. I don't suppose there is a wizard comparison? Not necessarily one that disputes which of the two classes is 'better' but one that shows how much damage a wizard 5 vs. a crusader 5 for example?

To answer the question as you later clarified, the wizard will almost always do more damage if he chooses to use damage dealing magic. Nearly all damage dealing arcane spells scale at a rate of 1d6/CL. Except for the anomolous divine surge, there's no crusader maneuver that accomplishes the same or greater damage without a significant drawback. Compound this with the fact that the wizard is doing his damage from, in some cases, as much as a half-mile away, or to an entire cluster of enemies instead of just one, and there's really no contest there.

More importantly though, a wizard and a crusader are playing entirely different games if they both being played at even the upper end of low-op. Wizards use BFC, Debuffing, Ally buffing, or any of a handful of other methods to negate or trivialize an encounter and let either their allies or their summoned minions do the actual hit-point damage if they've left anything alive that still needs killing.

It's like comparing an apple to a cantaloupe to begin with, the only thing they have in common is that they're both fruits (read; adventurers) and even if they're both weapons it's comparing a handgun to a handgrenade.