Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Bob Loblaw 02-14-08, 06:34 PM	I've been in several debates on why this class sucks and why that one doesn't. There seems to be two ways people approach their favored classes. They either use emotion or fact. Those who use facts interest me the most. We each have our list of facts. Sometimes we use the same facts, sometimes we ignore or hand-wave away the facts we disagree with. Sometimes those facts are just plain wrong. I'm looking to see what makes each class great. I'm not looking to see what makes any class suck. For each class in the PHB, which features do you find the most appealing? Which features make that class unique? If you had to choose four roles, what are the primary roles you see each class filling? How does the class fill secondary roles in a meaningful way? Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity, so be honest -- how do you feel?
Stado 02-14-08, 08:22 PM	I'm actually something more of the former group. For th most part, emotion or inclination guides me to favourite certain roles or classes, not the mechanics of the classes themselves. Still, it'd be a lie to say that mechanics don't mean anything to me. Even I dislike anything that's destined to fail or act poorly on any sort of level. For one, like many people, I very much find the aspect of spellcasting to be a very appealing feature. In fact, while I have a strong emotional inclination to these classes, my three most favourite bases classes (in descending order) are the Cleric, the Shugenja, and the Battle Sorcerer (Unearthed Arcana variant), all of which are full spellcasters. Now, this is not to say that I wholly dislike non-spellcasting classes on an emotional or mechanical level, it's just that I largely prefer the opposite. Generally, when looking at any class or class feature, I ask questions like "How is this going to help me help my party members?" or "Will this improve one's chance of survival?" I ask this question because I'm a person whose very fond of the support-type role. Even if my inclination is toward spellcasting, it's only so because spells are often the best form of support, and rightfully so. With that in mind, it's obvious to see why the Cleric is my favourite base class, 'though I also very much appreciate the fluff and flavour represented by clerics. But then one might question me as to why the Shugenja is my second favourite base class, as it generally performs very poorly in terms of mechanics. And while this is true, the overall flavour of the class and its theme are, moreover, what make it a favourite of mine. The Battle Sorcerer on the other hand, being less or a spellcaster than a normal sorcerer and more of a physical combatant is what places this class behind the Shugenja and third on my list of favourites. I find this aspect of the class to be equally appealing on both an emotional and mechanical level; I'm simply not one to play squishy-types, even if they do fulfill the role or support.
LoneFlame 02-14-08, 08:44 PM	Here are everything a well-rounded party needs(how they get them is up to the players): Melee Warrior, Ranged Warrior, Scout, Skills Guy, Healer, Support, Blaster, & Utility Core classes & rolls they can or do fill(not necessarily well): Barbarian: Melee & Scout Bard: Support, Healer, & Skills Cleric: Healer, Support, Melee Druid: Healer, Utility, Blaster, Melee, & Support Fighter: Melee or Ranged Monk: Melee & Scout Paladin: Melee & Healer Ranger: Scout, Skills, & Melee or Ranged Rogue: Scout & Skills Sorcerer: Melee, Blaster, Utility, and/or Support Wizard: Blaster, Support, & Utility Noteworthy Non-core classes & rolls they can/do fill: Artificer(Eberron): Blaster, Support, Healer, Skills, & Utility Spirit Shaman(Complete Divine): Healer, Blaster, Utility, & Support Scout(Complete Adventurer): Skills, Ranged, Melee, & Scout Swordsage(Tome of Battle): Scout, Melee, & Blasting Crusader(Tome of Battle): Healer, Support, & Melee Warblade(Tome of Battle): Melee & Support Binder(Tome of Magic): Melee, Ranged, Skills, Support, Healer, Utility, Scout, and/or Blasting Rage is pretty cool. Not only is it potent, but it's flat out cool. The Fighter's bonus feats are nice, but not good enough by themselves to make a good class. Spells, of course are great. Familiars, Animal Companions, & Mounts are neat, but I find that they can be a liability(especially after they've been left of the Fire Plane for the 50th time). Those things are nice, but not high on my list of things to get Sneak Attack, while appealing, is by itself too limited. Not only do you have to meet 1 of 2 requirements(which may or may not be hard to do depending on circumstances & your build) to even use sneak attack, but, there's a whole lot of monsters who are immune to Sneak Attack. Often, this is from being immune to Criticals, having Uncanny Dodge, or, in melee, simply having reach(apparently if you aren't directly on someone, which is the case when fighting creatures who are larger than you, you can't sneak attack them). Bardic Music is pretty cool. Hell, the whole lightning striking your hand & an electric guitar appears in it, followed by you playing metal, thing is very appealing. It's just a shame that the stuff it does often isn't very useful. A combat style(such as Ranger's or that UA variant for Monk) is neat. When you can pick yours for yourself, it's nice. When you're locked into a specific one(like in the case of Complete Warrior's Samurai), it sucks. Now, I happen to like customizability in a class. It helps make me feel more like my character is how I want him to be, rather than some generic, prefabricated piece of garbage(which is probably why I variant most of the classes I play now until they're almost unrecognizable). Now, I've got no problem with specialized classes, such as Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, or Barbarian. In fact, I think those classes are great for novices who are just getting into D&D(especially if they do exceptionally well in whatever field it is they're designed for).
JaronK 02-14-08, 08:45 PM	First, I should say that the best classes are not in the PHB, and for good reason. Remember, the PHB classes were the first ones made in 3.5. Later classes were made with the knowledge learned from playing those classes (which means, btw, that the CW Samurai has absolutely no excuse). It's also worth mentioning that core is the most unbalanced way to play, for the same reason... three of the Big 5 power classes are in core, as are two of the weakest. Thus, balance is really hard with just core classes. Okay, running down the list: Bard. This class was much maligned, but I believe that's because of the reputation it earned in 3.0. Bards make incredible diplomancers when used with one level dips into Warlock, Binder, and Marshal, and that's quite useful. While they tend to be poor in combat, they can fix this by PrCing into Sublime Chord or other useful Bard based PrCs. Though they lack the raw power of some of the overpowered core classes, they're a nice flexible class with a lot of potencial. They're very good for people who want to play as a dabbler, especially when using the Bardic Knack varient. Plus, you can play a very effective arcane healer by going Bard 9/War Weaver 1/Sublime Chord 6/War Weaver +4. Nifty. The one danger of Bards is that you have to know how to optomize them well to really play one effectively. Barbarians. Very straightforward... they hit things hard. The Complete Champion Pounce Varient, the Unearthed Arcana Wolf Totem Varient, and the Unearthed Arcana Whirling Frenzy Varient (all of which can be put together) give them a lot of different options for smacking people in the face. They also have the highest damage non casting PrC available to them in the form of the Frenzied Berserker. They're very good at the whole "I hit it hard" style of play when sticking to core, and with their strength bonus they're good at tripping as well. They're the strongest core melee class after the first few levels, but a bit boring... in the end, they come down to "I hit it. I hit it again. Now... I hit it." They are, however, very good at hitting things. Clerics. One of the Big 5 (though often seen as the weakest of that class), Clerics are very strong, though are often seen as a lot weaker than they are by unimaginitive players who see them as a walking Band Aid box. If you just ignore healing except for a few downtime heal spells, they're actually a lot stronger. Using Divine Metamagic: Persistant Spell they can easily out melee the core melee classes, especially since so many of their best buffs are personal only. Like all of the Big 5 their power is limited only by the player's imagination... as long as you get out of the "I don't want to play a Band Aid!" trap you'll be fine. Heck, Persistant Lesser Mass Vigor solves the downtime healing issue completely with a single third level spell (and 7 turning attempts)... and healing in combat is not a good plan. Better to kill the target first, then heal later. Late in the game when they can cast spells like Persistant Shapechange, they get insanely strong. A big issue with these guys is that if built for combat they will quickly overwhelm the Fighters and Barbarians (a problem shared by the Druid). They're also kind of boring in the class feature department, though spells make up for this. Their ability to get access to their entire spell list is a big part of their power. Druids. Dear god, what were they thinking. Wild Shape alone blows Fighters and Barbarians (and to a lesser extend, Rogues) out of the water entirely. Consider the power of a level 5 Druid who has not dedicated himself to combat at all when he turns into a Fleshraker Dinosaur. Suddenly, he's making the Fighter look bad, and he can do that for 5 hours a day. And yes, he knows what a Fleshraker is... Knowledge Nature is on their class list, and they can cast Summon Nature's Ally to check out whatever critter they want to become. Then they can play rogue by turning into a Desmoderu Hunting Bat and scouting about. And that's not even counting the 9th level spells. Obviously, these guys are another member of the big 5. As one fine example of Druid power goes, "do you see that bird over there? The one in the tree that looks like any other bird, about 100 feet away in a forest full of birds? Yeah, that's a 20th level Druid... and he just summoned a lighting storm. You're dead." Their animal companion can, with just a few buffs (Venomfire on a Fleshraker, for example), make the melees feel obsolete... and that's without the Druid himself smashing people to bits. Like other members of the Big 5, a Druid can simply decide today what role he'd like to have in the party, and then he can do that role better than people who've dedicated their entire lives to being good in that role. Druids are also the easiest to optimize... enough that you can do it accedentally as a newbie. Fighter. Yeah, these guys. Especially weak in core (due to lack of enough good feats to take), they suffer from the problem that their level 20 is exactly the same as their level 2 (and since they've often run out of strong feats to take at 20, especially in core, their level 20 is often worse than their level 2). If they want to do something they have to dedicate permanent resources to it (i.e. feats and such), while the casters just memorize a new spell that day. They're helped out noticeably by certain enhancements in various books (Dungeoncrasher, Weapon Mastery), but the fact that they're basically just commoners when doing anything other than fighting is a serious problem (at least the Barbarian has 4 skill points per level). The problem with fighters is that when people imagine playing one in a party, they're imagining playing Conan or Xena alongside Gandalf, but especially in core they end up playing the nameless henchman alongside Batman with a Green Lantern ring. You want to play the brave sword weilder who hacks through enemies while protecting the squishy Wizard, but in reality the Wizard has Mirror Image, Phantasmal Steed, cover and concealment effects, scry and die tactics, Wings of Cover, and so on, and thus has absolutely no need for you to defend them, while simultaneously being able to launch devastating spells onto the battlefield that, when chosen correctly, can nuetralize whole encounters, which ends up putting the fighters on clean up duty (and if the casters wanted meat shields, they've already got Animal Companions or Animate Dead or Summon Monster or Planar Binding. Sure, they have to burn spells for most of those, but they have to burn spells healing the Fighter anyway). Fighters have mostly been replaced by Warblades and Crusaders, who do the melee hero job a lot better while being more interesting. While a Fighter can be effective compared to a Barbarian, Rogue, or Monk, they just aren't needed if you've got casters, and the Druid blows them away in their own role. Monk. Oy. In some ways, these are a well designed class (new class abilities at nearly every level, lots of interesting class features), but they're horribly underpowered and have horrible in class synergy. For example, their Flurry of Blows abilities only works with full attacks, but their movement speed bonus is only useful if you're running around... which you can't do with full attacks. They're poster boys for MAD, as they need Dexterity, Wisdom, Strength, and Con to be effective in combat. Their damage is lackluster, since high melee damage tends to come from high strength with two handed weapons, which they can't have due to their need for other stats, or Power Attack, which again works with two handed weapons, and therefor requires them not to use their unarmed strike abilities. Plus, too many of their abilities become useless at high levels (high movement speed doesn't mean much when you need flight anyway to engage targets... and who uses Safe Fall anyway?). Ugh. The nice thing is that they have a lot of flavorful abilities... if only they had more synergy and more power, they could be quite good. Swordsages have mostly replaced Monks, as they do the Monk concept a lot better. Just take the Unarmed Varient and call it a day. Paladin. Often RPd horribly due to their various restrictions, these guys can be useful, but often end up looking second rate next to Clerics. After all, if I want to play a melee religeous type, Cleric just does that better (without all the in built roleplay restrictions). Their skills aren't great, but they do have use for raising charisma, so they can at least use diplomacy and handle animal relatively well, and they have a certain style that's appealing to some players. Later Paladin varients like the Paladin of Tyranny can be quite impressive when used well, but like the other non-full casters (except perhaps the Rogue and Bard) they have a lot of trouble keeping up with the casters. Their self healing abilities are useful though. Ranger. Like a paladin, they often look poor compared to their obviously related Druid cousins, but these guys make good archers (especially when combined with Scout and Daring Outlaw), and the inclusion of the Wild Shape varient from UA puts them in the big leagues alongside the ToB classes (especially with Master of Many Forms in the mix). Their respectable skills give them plenty to do during down time, and they have a few nifty abilities (tracking, hide in plain sight) that make them generally useful to most parties in most situations. Generally a flexible class with a nice flavor that's useful and fun, so if there aren't any casters in the party (or the people playing casters don't know what you're doing) you won't ever feel useless, which is a very good thing. Their Animal Companion is sadly too weak to be worth considering (it really should have Druid progression). Rogue. In some ways a very well designed class, in others a really poorly designed class. Their lack of a level 20 capstone is just sad, and the fact that they so often become useless in combat is a major issue (undead, enemies with Blindsight, constructs, etc). Plus, with just D6 HD and light armour only, they're very defensively weak for a class that's intended to get in there and flank (which puts you on the opposite side as the meat shields... a dangerous place to be if you're fighting multiple opponents). A DM can easily screw you over very quickly, and can do so even accidentally. For example, I'm DMing a game right now where we had two new players coming in and I didn't know what classes they were playing. It's an open sandbox sort of game with a world to explore, so I set up four adventure hooks to let the party chose where to go. To the south, they could explore long forgotten tombs and cities in the desert. To the west, a Necromancer was creating a stir. To the east, a war between Drow Raiders and Half Orcs lead to mercenary opportunities (the Half Orcs being the good guys in this case). To the North, Dwarven slave raiders were attacking Goliaths. When the players showed up, we had a Rogue, a Warlock, and a Martial Adept. The Rogue wouldn't go tomb hunting or after the Necromancer, because of all the undead. The Warlock wouldn't go after the Drow, due to spell resistance. The martial adept didn't care. Thus, it wasn't the characters that chose where they went, it was the fact that their classes had weaknesses that meant going after the Dwarfs was the only option that didn't screw someone in the party. Pesky. With all that said, Rogues do have a few strong points. Having lots of skills (including two very strong skills, UMD and diplomacy) means they rarely feel useless in non combat situations. Their trapfinding is a blessing and a curse... they are basically required to burn a bunch of skills to find those traps (Move Silently, Hide, Search, Disable Device, Open Lock), but they're always needed in a party. Despite their 8 skill points per level, Rogues often don't have enough skills (just to be scouts, they need the 5 above skills, plus Spot and Listen... that's 7 skills already, and we haven't touched Tumble to get into flanking positions, Diplomacy and UMD, Bluff to help with Diplomacy, etc). Compare that to Druids, who usually just want Knowledge Nature, Concentration, Spot, Listen, and Handle Animal... and have virtually no need for anything else. Rogues also have the problem that casters can sometimes do the skill monkey thing better... for example, no amount of Open Lock will get you past an Arcane Lock, but Knock will do it every time. UMD mitigates this to an extent though, as a Rogue can just take UMD and a wand of Knock and forget the Open Lock thing entirely. Rogues also have the nice advantage of having an ability at almost every level (except 20, why is that?). This makes it fun to level up, and some of their abilities (such as Skill Mastery, Crippling Strike, and the always fun Sneak Attack) are quite nice. I think the major flaw of Rogues is how much you need magic to do the whole Black Ops proactive plan an attack and execute it style of play, because really that's how a skill monkey should operate, but Wizards do that better. This is why Factorums and Beguilers make such better skill monkeys in the long run. Note that I'm saying this as someone who loves playing skill monkeys. Sorcerers. Often seen as weak because they're so similar to Wizards and yet so much less powerful, they're actually one of the more balanced core classes. While they have access to all the same awesome spells that a Wizard has (and a few that Wizards don't, such as the Wings of X spells), they don't have the Wizard ability to have the right tool for the right job every time. Runestaffs from MIC help them out a great deal in this respect. They're somewhat boring as far as class features go (like a Cleric in that respect) and will often PrC out as fast as possible (as there is little reason not to). The key to power for a Sorcerer is usually to expand their spell list, usually through Eternal Wands, Runestaffs, or PrCs like the Sandshaper, Shadowcraft Mage, or Mage of the Arcane Order (which they can get into with some trickery). It's still very hard for them to get out from the shadow of Wizards, though. Extra spells per day and spontaneous casting just doesn't make up for the massive decrease in available spell options. They can, of course, lay down all kinds of destruction, and a Sorcerer with Sleep at level 1 is nearly unstoppable. In the end, while they're not members of the Big 5, they still have incredible power from being a 9th level caster that gets new spells with nearly every book. Wizards: The last of the Big 5 to appear in the PHB, Wizards are, quite simply, Batman. With a little preparation, they can do absolutely everything (and yes, they can breathe in space). A Wizard player is limited only by their imagination. Many of their best and most broken spells are found in core, such as Shapechange, Gate, Explosive Runes, and the Polymorph line. Consider, for example, the fact that a level 3 Wizard can cast Alter Self to become a Crucian and gain +8 Natural AC for 30 minutes. Not bad for a class that's supposed to be a glass cannon. Like the rest of the Big 5, they gain new spells and abilities with every new book, and at the beginning of the day can completely change their abilities to match new situations. They can easily make endless money (buy a cow, cast flesh to salt on the cow, sell the salt for money... that's one of many possibilities). Given a little down time, they have little trouble taking over the world. Plus, they're inhearently proactive classes... what ever the player wants to do, he can look through his spell list and find something that does that. You want to break in and steal something? Divination to locate the target, teleport in while invisible with Greater Invisibility, grab the target (or have a summoned critter grab it, in case of traps), teleport out. You want to create an army? Animate Dead, then Wall of Iron + Fabricate to equip them. Solve a mystery? Divination. No matter what, all you need is preparation. Plus, they're supposed to be limited by spells per day and multiple encounters, but a simple Rope Trick lets them rest and recover (this is a major flaw in Vancian spellcasting systems). As stated before, they're supposed to be balanced by being glass cannons, able to have great effect but needing protection from the rest of the party... but they have such a wide variety of extreamly powerful defensive buffs that they simply don't need that protection. Where a DM with Fighters and Rogues needs to be careful not to make those classes feel powerless (due to untrippable targets vs a tripping fighter, or situations where fighting is not the solution vs most fighters, or undead/golems for rogues), a DM with a Wizard needs to be very creative just to find a challenge for a Wizard player that can't be solved with a single spell. Terrasque? Summon an Allip and fly on a Phantasmal Steed. Eldest Dragon? Shivering Touch and Spectral Hand, with a Celerity to make sure you take him out before he has a chance. Find the secret murderer in a town? Divinations will handle it for you. Reigning these guys in is hard without significant DM nerfage. All you need is imagination to make a Wizard downright godlike. Hopefully that was helpful. By the way, the other two members of the Big 5 are Archivists and Artificers. JaronK