# Tier list for PF classes, or summary of each?



## aboyd

Although I've dabbled in the past, it looks like I'm about to get into Pathfinder a lot.  I will be selecting a character to play every other week, for probably the next 4 years, and I'll probably only be level 13 or 14 when it ends.  I need to pick a class that will remain interesting throughout.

In the game that just ended for me, I played a cleric, D&D 3.5, and he made it to level 11.  It took 5 years of real-world time.  Until the last few months, playing the cleric was pretty fun.  There were lots of spells and feats and alternative class features to enjoy.

So, I am hoping those who have played Pathfinder could give me something like a power gamer's guide to the classes.  I can use any class from a Paizo Pathfinder product, so things like the APG are fair game.  I'd love to see just a few sentences about why particular classes are fun to play and capable.  If you can write out something for each class, great, I'll read it.  If you are only motivated to write about your few favorites (or loathed) then that's great too.

Basically, help.  I need to decide now about what will be fun/useful to still be playing 2 or 3 years from now.


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## Angrydad

Frankly, I think pretty much every PF class is interesting for the full 20 levels now. Classes like Fighter, Bard, etc. got some nice upgrades and just about every class gets something neat every single level up. I like the way Fighters have changed, personally. They get weapon training every few levels, which gets them bonuses to hit and damage with certain weapon types, and armor training to reduce Armor Check penalties and movement restrictions. Get a hold of the Core book and just peruse the classes.


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## StreamOfTheSky

Well, I have very little experience with a lot of the new classes, but some I've either seen in play for a while or thoroughly examined myself, just due to my own interest in them.  So, here is my incomplete list.  There's gonna be a lot of tiers, I don't like the idea of vast groupings, the difference between adjacent tiers may be small.

Tier:

1
Wizard
Cleric

2
Sorcerer
Druid
Summoner

3
Oracle
Magus

4
Alchemist
Bard

5
Inquisitor
Paladin
Ranger

6
Fighter
Barbarian

7
Ninja
Rogue
Monk

I don't know much about Cavalier/Samurai other than they seem really boring (IMO), I'd guess they're slightly below Fighter in the same "tier."

My only experience seeing a witch in play, the character was utterly pathetic and worthless, though that player, upon making 2 new characters later, proved to simply be atrocious at optimization and battlefield tactics (I don't mean like a newbie picking weak options, I mean a guy who was multiclassing like mad and digging into 3rd party stuff and STILL somehow failing badly).  So to be fair to the Witch class, it was likely just him.  Still leaves me without a clear picture of what it can do.

Gunslinger I don't want to touch with a 10 ft pole, I hate the class and the UC gun rules more than I even hate 4E, and that's saying a lot.  I was actually willing to try 4E, I would outright leave a game if someone tried to bring that garbage in.  So, I can't rate it terribly acccurately.

Magus I've seen in a gestalt game and its spell combat seems to dish out a lot of pain, and the spell pool thing is obviously very awesome.  My view still might be skewed due to it being gestalt, maybe it should be dropped a tier.  But seems pretty amazing to me.

Summoner I've seen lots of, and I'm positive it belongs where I put it.  Damn class gets 1, 2, even 3 (!!!!) levels reduced on like 80% of its spell list at level 3 and up, that's nuts!  The lots of summoning per day and the eidolon that can out strength and outdamage the Fighter by a wide margin, and the action economy advantage such things provide are icing.


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## MortonStromgal

In my experience it breaks down like this, granted I have not played all of them so some of them may be better than I thought after watching other people play them.
(power rating + to +++++)
Tier 1 [does everything well] - Cleric(++++), Druid(+++++), Wizard(++++), 

Tier 2 [does multiple things well] - Bard(+++), Inquisitor(+++), Magus (+++), Oracle(++++), Sorcerer(++++), Witch(+++), 

Tier 3 [does one thing well] - Cavalier(+++), Fighter(+++), Gunslinger (++), Ninja(++++), Paladin(++++), Samurai (++++), Summoner (+++++)

Tier 4 [someone does your job better than you]  Alchemist(+++), Barbarian(++), Ranger(++), Monk(+), Rogue(+++)

The best way to look at the above is look at how much you want to do, then pick how good you want to do it. A Wizard, Oracle, and Paladin all work great in the same party but the Paladin needs to stick to fightin and the Oracle needs to pick only one or two things and let the Wizard handle the rest. You also don't all have to be at the same power level if your ok with not doing everything and sticking to your thing. Try to keep it within 2 so you get to contribute in a meaningful way. Fighter & Wizard = ok, Barbarian & Wizard = not so great but still passable. Id also like to point out the Gunslinger is really hard to judge on power rating, they are great against mook/minons as they regain their grit points quickly against those foes but against the BBEG you may find you are not contributing in a meaningful way. If you want to play something that encourages you to spend your "spells" (grit points) as quickly as possible hoping you roll well enough to get them back, you have the chance to be +++ or even ++++ but because its all on your die roles you could end up with only + as well. You do get to refill them daily but your pts don't go up as you level, you simply gain better stuff to spend it on.


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## Varthol

*re*

Well... every class in PF can be fun and powerful.

Generally martial/fullBAB classes are really boosted-up so unless you are rly focused on such a build you will rarely be reaching their capability (such as with CoDzilla). Druid is the only class clearly NERFED in PF, if you seek optimazation only and you could care less about flavor dont play one.

Spontaneous casters (mainly the Sorcerer and the Oracle[Spontaneous Cleric]) got a HUGE buff with the APG, allowing you to pick an !extra spell known! of the second highest level you can cast instead your favored class bonus HP/skill rank. That said, they tend to be specialized though. Humans and half-elves only pull this trick though.

I've only played Alchemists and Oracles in PF so I can only advice you on these:
If you play an alchemist dip into bombs, at lvl 6 you can make a full-attack with bombs dishing out lotsa damage, plus you hit touch AC. At 10th you get force bombs (BB elemental resistances ). Also take the preservionist archetype from UM, allowing you to effectively cast Summon Nature's Ally IX as 6th level spell and as standrard action (1d4+1 Tyrannos or Rocs can never be bad ) After lvl 6 you take all the extra atk feats (Rapid Shot, TWF etc) but you will probably run out if you NOVA-Bomb every fight. Bombers get a nice boost at 16 with Transformation (you can still make the summons  if needed in trans )

Oracles can be very diverse on the other hand. Each oracle gets a curse (on the long run the best one is Haunted [more extra spells ]) which has some negative effect but provides bonuses as you level up. If you dont care much about high level power pick either Tongues (might hurt you later when you get Greater Command) or Wasting.
Oracles also select a mystery, sort of like a domain. A mystery gives you extra spells and a list of class features to pick as you level up. Mysteries kinda specialize you so I'll tell you about those I've played.
Life --> Best healer in game (ridiculously powerful, get Mass Heal as 8th)
Heavens --> Perhaps best mystery for offensive caster builds. Plays with Illusions early levels and switchs to Evocation at higher.
Metal --> Very good if you want to play with a bow. Not great otherwise.
Fire --> Nice BAM-BOOM early levels. Of course, you suck vs immune fire.
Time --> Good at 18th+. Moderate up to that level.
Winds --> Not great spell BUT! you can actually do SOMETHING in an antimagic-field (my DM loved that one ), look the thunderstorm revelation
Combat --> Probably the best for Melee-based combat. However, Divine Power has been nerfed (A LOT).

Paladin is ridiculously OPed in PF. Gunslinger also becomes ridiculously OPed at 6th.


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## Fishbone

The tiers are pretty much the same as they've always been in the core, except everything is significantly better, playable 1-20 and can contribute in a party so you have less to worry about with tiers.

I'd say of all the core classes that got taken into Pathfinder, Paladin got lovvvvvvvvvved up. They are so, so, so much better than they used to be. Everything got lots of tweaking and more power except Druids I would say.

These went from markedly weaker than most all core classes to real assets. By tenth level you can have a 16 or 18 Charisma and have jacked saves and also be healing something like 30d6+ on a daily basis. Not only does Lay On Hands heal, it also fixes things like Disease, Blindness/Deafness and all other sorts of status effects. It is so nice.

You bond with a weapon which gives you modifiers above pure plusses to weapons way above market value and you can change the abilties. This is phenomenal for a Paladin who doesn't want a mount.

You cast at a higher caster level, sooner, get more spells and they are keyed off Charisma instead of Wisdom which is great for MAD issues and will give you so many more bonus spells. 

Smite lasts for an entire encounter, not one hit. Its basically like giving the Paladin another 10 smites a day or better. AND IT WORKS AT RANGE.

Everybody got something from Pathfinder but Paladins got the works.

Edit: Response to Aboyd
My general rule of thumb, if you want straight power you go for something with full casting, then there is debate between d8 6th level casters and the full BAB Martials fighting with one another, with everybody contributing (all equal, some more equal than others). The d8 3/4 attackers who don't have spells are probably the weakest. D8, no spells, and 3/4 seems to be a rough spot to be in Pathfinder nowadays. P.P.S. on the Paladin, Lay on Hands is a swift action. Yep. 30d6 healing a day by level 10 assuming 16 charisma, as a swift action and it can resolve status effects. In other words, totally effing bonkers.


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## Mad Hamish

Not having played a lot of pathfinder yet this is a bit of theorycraft but I think it's pretty reasonable, although some classes require more optimisation than others and they can all be wrecked by bad builds...

(not in order in tiers)

1st tier
Wizard, Cleric

2nd tier 
Sorceror, Druid, Oracle

3rd 
Bard,Inquisitor

4th tier 
Ranger, Barbarian, Fighter, Alchemist, Paladin

4th tier 
Monk, Rogue

(not rated Summoner, Magus, Gunslinger, Ninja, witch, cavalier, samurai, anti-paladin)

Wizards and clerics are the flexible, full casting classes and clerics still have a fair amount of hth and self buffing potential. 
The range of spells they have and options they have to change them daily makes them unmatched IMO 

Druids I don't think have quite the same flexibility in their spell lists so I see them as a bit behind but I could well be wrong as I haven't seen one in play.
Sorcerors & Oracles have the restricted list of known spells but have more spells per day, not as flexible but commonly still up there.

Bard and Inquisitor have a balance of spells, buff and self buff abilities that make them flexible, typically they're both pretty useful in social and skill situations as well.  

Ranger, Barbarian, Fighter, Alchemist, Paladin all have strengths and weaknesses (and the alchemist could go up or down a tier pretty easily not having seen one in play)
The rest of the ones in the tier are combat based and all do that well, the fighter has a large range of tricks they can add with their feats, the paladin has a lot of defensive ability and some large offensive boosts (smite evil, bond to weapon), the ranger has a fair amount of skill support and favoured enemies can be huge. The barbarian's rage and rage powers give them a fair bit.

The monk and rogue are worse in combat than the previous tiers and the skills of a rogue don't really make up for it, nor do the monk abilities & defences make up for the lack of offence or flexibility with power.

(Ninja is probably around here, might move up to the previous tier)
(Magus is probably low 2 or 3)
Summoner and Gunslinger I'm not sure about. 
I've seen a level 13 character who was largely a gunslinger in action for a session and it was powerful but it had a few levels of rogue a revolver and I don't think it would have stayed as effective given a bit of time for the GM to figure it out.
Summoner I haven't figured out yet. It's probably 2nd, maybe 3rd.

The other classes cavalier, witch, samurai & anti-paladin I haven't looked at 

I will say that I think any class is playable and capable of having fun with and how well a party works together and how much other characters are willing to do to help out can make a huge impact on effectiveness (a buffing wizard can make a rogue very powerful once he has greater invisibility for instance) but I'd expect that getting a straight rogue or monk to be effective requires a lot more work than other characters. 

I think the traditional power breakdown of full casters, partial casters, non-casters is still pretty close.

Of course that's dependent on a 'standard' campaign. In a low combat espionage based campaign then the fighter would be less useful (as would the paladin & barbarian) and the rogue and ninja would probably go up and a sorceror who focused on blast spells wouldn't be that much use...


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## Drathir

I will say Stream is pretty much right overall, however number crunchers have chrunched and wizard normally kills cleric (its like a 52/48 thing) and the only class that can consistantly kill one of those is the Barbarian, if you use the exact build... which makes u all but useless at killing  non-spellcasters


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## Fishbone

The good thing is though, even though there are tiers, it still isn't this GIANT EFFING GAP where a full spellcaster is just so much markedly better than a less frequently played 3.0/3.5 class that as a Full BAB class you'd have to be really digging for feats and equipment to be within a million miles of them by the time they get 4th and 5th level spells.

It is totally, totally valid to go Fighter 10. Not Fighter 2/Crazy Crap 3/2/XY 2 with a Level Adjustment buyoff and crap from 3.0 and Dragon Magazine.
Fighter 10 works. Also, the tier thing isn't in a vacuum. It depends on party composition. There are lots of parties with D6/d8 guys, no full attacking, and they'd probably be thrilled to have a Fighter or a Paladin or a Ranger with a bad ass companion.


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## Kaisoku

When I see those lists, I have to think of the archetypes that really start to mix some of this stuff up. The Arcane Duelist is arguably as-good-or-better than the Magus at the same job (and then the Bard has 40-odd spells that are gained early while the Magus gets *one*).

There's some Ranger archetypes that throw his tier for a loop (you can open up some versatility, or hamper yourself even further). Also, there's the "treat anyone like a favored enemy" spell.

The summoner is being listed low on some peoples tiers, however seeing one in play, the combination of minutes long, level appropriate summons + standard action to cast can really scare up some versatility on the spot. Having 4 mephits toss out their cones of fire, then unsummoning them and immediately bringing in a bralani to blast a lightning bolt is a terrifying round of actions true story!. At least a tier 2 character.

The Zen Archer monk is a scary character to behold, and a completely viable option for a ranged fighter, despite using Monk as a base. I wonder what style feats does to that kind of build...


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## Dingo333

Here is how I have seen them played and gone through in theory

Tier 1
Druid
Wizard

Tier 2
Sorcerer
Summoner
Cleric
Oracle

Tier 3
Inquisitor
Magus
Witch
Alchemist
Bard

Tier 4
Fighter
Barbarian
Paladin
Ranger
Rouge

Tier 5
Cavalier
Gunslinger
Monk

The cleric and orcle are in tier 2 because, to me, a character who only buffs/heals is not all that interesting. They are still strong characters but the focus of their abilities detracts from their overall fun.

Tier 3 is full of guys who are mild to medium combat with spells to enhance and make up for the medium BAB. Witch is the exception as they are a full caster, they are a powerful option but not my bag in their style.

Tier 4 is still good, they are the tanks. There are fun ideas to be had with them all, but the averageness of their abilities knocks them down from Tier 4.
Consider how different a fighter with a 2 handed weapon is from another fighter with a 2 handed weapon

Tier 5 is the bad ones, cavalier is someone who has a strict code to follow and does not get much for following it. Gunslinger imo is just bad. It is slightly op, but the concept is terrible. The monk (with exception to the drunken master and zen archer archtypes) is another bad option, the 2 archtypes help but the overall class is still down here

There are archtypes that will move a class up or down, these are simply just the average considering all archtypes available. Race also has an effect on the over all power of a class, for example, a Zen archer Dwarf gets into tier 3 while a zen archer elf finds itself in tier 4


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## StreamOfTheSky

Dingo333 said:


> The cleric and orcle are in tier 2 because, to me, a character who only buffs/heals is not all that interesting.




I guess if that's all they did, this would be true.



Dingo333 said:


> Tier 4 is still good, they are the tanks. There are fun ideas to be had with them all, but the averageness of their abilities knocks them down from Tier 4.
> Consider how different a fighter with a 2 handed weapon is from another fighter with a 2 handed weapon




Rogue is a tank?!



Dingo333 said:


> Tier 5 is the bad ones, cavalier is someone who has a strict code to follow and does not get much for following it. Gunslinger imo is just bad. It is slightly op, but the concept is terrible. The monk (with exception to the drunken master and zen archer archtypes) is another bad option, the 2 archtypes help but the overall class is still down here




I agree Gunslinger is overpowered and a stupid concept.  Tier lists rank power, not how much you like the class, though.  Drunken Master isn't enough to move monk a tier.  Zen Archer might be, but just barely.



Dingo333 said:


> There are archtypes that will move a class up or down, these are simply just the average considering all archtypes available. Race also has an effect on the over all power of a class, for example, a Zen archer Dwarf gets into tier 3 while a zen archer elf finds itself in tier 4




Elf is a terrible, horrible choice for Zen Archer.  The proficiencies are wasted, the con hurts, the int and dex do very little to help, the elven magic does squat...  Dwarf is the optimal core choice (Oread is probably the best non-core and Human is decent as always).  Even so, Dwarf Zen Archer is not much better than core monk, maybe a tier higher.  It's still inferior to Ranger and a hell of a lot more boring.  Rangers have spells, and a pet, and are skill monkeys.  Zen Archers...do respectable barrages of damage round after round, and can sneak alright.  I played one, it was playable and could do its job, but was boring as hell and still clearly inferior to most other classes/archetypes that weren't monks.


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## Samurai

As Fishbone said, anyone putting Paladin at a low rank has never seen one in PF... they are absolute monsters.  And Fishbone didn't even mention one of their most powerful new abilities:  Aura of Justice (gained at 11th level) = Group Smite.  Yes, by spending 2 Smite uses as a free action, all nearby allies gain the Paladin's Smite bonuses for 1 minute... So, +5 or 6 to attack rolls, + Paladin's level on all damage rolls (doubled to 2x lvl vs evil dragons, outsiders, or undead) and +5 or 6 to AC against target.  *For the whole party!*

Also, the most powerful character in our game is by far the Barbarian/Fighter.  He does massive damage on every hit, and has done *600 points of damage in a single round* at 11th level.  Regular hits do 50-60 damage, and when he criticals, he typically does 150 points of damage.  And while spellcasters can be stopped with high saves, SR, energy resistance, etc, almost nothing can stop sword damage in the amounts he does.  He laughs at DR 10/-, as 40-50 damage per hit still gets through (and he gets 4 attacks per round while hasted).

The sorcerer wishes she could do damage like the Barb/Ftr...


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## TheAuldGrump

I do have to say though that you are better off playing what you like - my top three are Wizard, Paladin, and Rogue, more because of the way they feel than because of power. Rogue is a utility class - if all you look at is combat effectiveness then he make a poor showing, if you have things to do other than stick pointy things into soft things that scream and bleed then the rogue does a lot better.

Magus and Bard are the next on my list, magic using classes that support another role as well.

So, look at past experiences with the DM, but mostly, play what will be fun.

The Auld Grump


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## Mad Hamish

Samurai said:


> As Fishbone said, anyone putting Paladin at a low rank has never seen one in PF... they are absolute monsters.  And Fishbone didn't even mention one of their most powerful new abilities:  Aura of Justice (gained at 11th level) = Group Smite.  Yes, by spending 2 Smite uses as a free action, all nearby allies gain the Paladin's Smite bonuses for 1 minute... So, +5 or 6 to attack rolls, + Paladin's level on all damage rolls (doubled to 2x lvl vs evil dragons, outsiders, or undead) and +5 or 6 to AC against target.  *For the whole party!*




It's partly a matter of flexibility, the Paladin, Fighter, Ranger... can hit things and do damage well (in different ways) but they can't do as much as a full progression spellcaster in other ways.

A Paladin gets good defences and can hit things hard. 
There's also the point that smite is vs 1 target so good versus a big bad, not so good versus a lot of similar targets - and no use at all against anything neutral or good...
If you use Aura of Justice at 11th level that's half of your smite uses for the day. 

As a comparison a fighter gets Weapon Training which gives a bonus on all hit and damage against any foes. Nowhere near as big a damage bonus as the Paladin but the fighter also doesn't need to boost charisma for the hit bonus which means he can focus more on str and has about twice the feats of a Paladin including some nice fighter only options for combat.
(It also makes power attack more effective than a non-smiting Paladin)



Samurai said:


> Also, the most powerful character in our game is by far the Barbarian/Fighter.  He does massive damage on every hit, and has done *600 points of damage in a single round* at 11th level.  Regular hits do 50-60 damage, and when he criticals, he typically does 150 points of damage.  And while spellcasters can be stopped with high saves, SR, energy resistance, etc, almost nothing can stop sword damage in the amounts he does.  He laughs at DR 10/-, as 40-50 damage per hit still gets through (and he gets 4 attacks per round while hasted).
> 
> The sorcerer wishes she could do damage like the Barb/Ftr...




I'd be interested to see the Barbarian/Fighter build.


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## Walking Dad

The real utility classes from level 6+ are the spellcasters, not the rogues.

And doing much damage in combat is very nice. How does the sample barbarian/fighter handles flying or incorporeal opponents? And there are still the save or suck spells.


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## TheAuldGrump

Walking Dad said:


> The real utility classes from level 6+ are the spellcasters, not the rogues.



Not in my experience.

Wizards can do all sorts of wonderful things _if those spells are prepared_ - if they have infinite time to do things then a wizard can disarm traps, open doors, etc.. But if there is a time crunch, and there should _often_ be a time crunch, then the rogue opens the door, disarms the trap, and fakes being a cleric so he can use the wand of cure light wounds on the cleric who is now in negative hit points....

I run a lot of urban adventures, and rogues end up being some of the busiest characters around.

The Auld Grump


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## Walking Dad

You can keep slots open. And there is an arcane discovery that let you fill the slots even faster.
And use magic device is more the domain of the bard and the sorcerer, who have usually a higher charisma and the skill as class skill, too.


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## TheAuldGrump

Walking Dad said:


> You can keep slots open. And there is an arcane discovery that let you fill the slots even faster.
> And use magic device is more the domain of the bard and the sorcerer, who have usually a higher charisma and the skill as class skill, too.



As I said - not in my experience.

Your experience obviously differs, but it is by no means universal.

More often I have seen a wizard that _has_ _knock_ etc. wait until after the rogue makes his attempts. For that matter, I have seen the wizard buff the rogue more often than cast _knock_ and open the door himself.

Rogues differ, some are charismatic con men, others daring sneak thieves, and still others that are simple thugs. Most often, some mix of the options. But rogues in my game are often built with an urban setting in mind, so, again, experiences can differ.

Personally, I like playing a charismatic con man, I like banter and bluff.

The Auld Grump


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## Celtavian

*re*

Some people are giving you perceived power levels rather than actual opinions based on experience involving each class. _Pathfinder_ is dramatically different from 3E and class power is relative and based on what paths you choose.

1. Wizard: Still the most versatile and powerful class in the game at high level. It's impossible to match spell versatility. But still very boring at low levels and stands out as such when other classes are getting very cool abilities as they level up. No longer can do everything equally well to other classes. Like you can't make a wizard that does melee as well as a fighter or barbarian. You attempt this and you will get torn apart. But you still have incredible versatility with your spells at high level.

2. Cleric: Highly versatile. The most powerful healing caster in the game still. Powerful summoner. More general survivability than the wizard. Not far behind the wizard, but still can't match the wizard on sheer versatility and spell power.

3. Barbarian: You can build an absolutely sick beast barbarian now. A barbarian that can take most encounters and stomp them into garbage. A barbarian that casters hate because he only misses saves on a 1. A barbarian that eats magic, sunders spells, and can rip  summoned creatures apart like cotton candy. That has insane hit points and can also dish insane damage. Probably the best melee class in the game right now.

4. Sorcerer: Because of a sorcerer's more limited spell selection, I place them on tier 2. They're still very powerful. What they lose in spell versatility, they make up for with bloodline arcana and bloodline powers. You can get all sorts of nifty abilities and make insane mind controllers with DCs that can allow you to dominate dragons. You can make blasters that wizard's can't touch. You can make shapechangers that can go toe to toe in melee. You can be immune to crits, stun, and combine powers to make for a beastly character that is very hard to deal with.

5. Druid: Druid is a druid. You get a lot of different abilities, but don't really stand out at anything in particular. You're a jack of all trades divine caster. You can gain access to some spells to make the druid a little more interesting, but it's still basically a druid.

6. Oracle: This class is pretty fun. Basically the divine version of the sorcerer. Oracle of Life is the best healer in the game and can be made really hard to bring down. Some of the other oracle paths are interesting, but not as interesting as the sorcerer. Some of the interesting oracle paths: Time, Metal, Dark Tapestry, Ancestor, Wind.

7. Fighter: Two-hander fighter is the sickest damage dealer in the game. Archer fighter is most dangerous damage dealer in the game. They beat you on initiative, chances are you won't live long enough to get a spell off. Archery does insane damage now. You can do a lot of things with fighters now. Even the two-weapon fighter is pretty nasty. I'm playing one right now and if you can feed on AoOs and get a good crit range, you crit a lot and do a lot of damage.

8. Monk: This class just got a huge boost with the release of the _Ultimte Combat_. Martial arts styles are fun and effective. Some of the new archetypes are cool and effective. You can make a sick Tertori Grappler or a non-lawful physically tough Martial Artists or a vampiric Hungry Ghost Monk or a Master of Many Styles using three or four martial arts styles together. Monk was already a pretty fun class, but they are more fun now. Probably still not as enjoyable if playing in a 15 point campaign, but if you get to roll or play in a 20 point campaign or above, you can have some fun.

9. Bard: The best physical damage dealer support class in the game. If you have a party with a few physical damage dealers, they will love you as a bard. Fairly good spell selection. They have one melee option bard now called the Dervish Dancer that looks pretty effective.

10. Magus: They did a real nice job on this class. Finally a fighter/mage hybrid that is appealing. They have some very intersting archetypes like Bladebound Magus and Kensai.

11. Rogue: Rogue is still the red-headed step child of the classes. If you like playing rogues, they can be effective. But are probably the least interesting of the classes. Bad archetypes and overall uninteresting abilities unless you play in a skill heavy campaign.

12. Ninja: This class seems very interesting. So far watching my friend play one shows they are more powerful than the rogue. Easier to set up sneak attack and far more interesting rogue powers. He's setting up this cheesy Sap Master build that any sneak attack class can do, but your DM will hate.

13. Ranger: This class is surprisingly powerful now. A ranger archer is vicious. Rangers have an effective spell list now. They are definitely a physical damage dealing class to be reckoned with. Really fun to play too. 

14. Paladin: Paladin is a truly powerful destroyer of evil now and a near invincible holy warrior that is as hard to kill as any class in the game. Can have the best saves of any class in the game and gets more immunities now. Spell list is more effective. Smite Evil is a truly frightening ability now. When you smite an evil creature, they will feel it. Not once, but until they are dead or flee.

15. Inquisitor: This class offers a level of versatility that is hard to match. I can't really list everything they can do at an effective level. But so far I've been able to heal, fight in melee, and use a bow very effectively. I do so much damage with every hit I'm called the clean up man because once I bring the hammer, not much can withstand me. The amount of attack and damage bonus stacking you can do is insane. I'm averaging 60 plus points a hit at level 12 and I haven't even bought him optimal gear or had a chance to fully buff. Judgments are versatile and this class is very powerful and fun to play. I recommend melee over ranged if you play one, but I think a ranged guy could be real tough too.

16. Samurai: Ran one was an enemy. Does great damage to his target. Not a lot of versatility. I have to see more.

17. Cavalier: No experience with this class. No one has played one yet.

18. Witch: Can be nasty. Has some nasty hexes and a versatile spell list. Had one witch mess up the fighter badly with a hex. Not a great deal of experience with them. No one wants to play one as a PC because of the familiar. Somone kills your familiar, you lose all your spells. Very few people want to risk this.

19. Alchemist: No real experience. Friend says Ragechemist is a nasty archetype if you want to build a melee alchemist. 

20. Summoner: Looks fun. No real experience with it. We fought a summoner. Eidolon was weak against optimized characters. AoE damage messed them up pretty good as the eidolon and summoner both took heavy damage. 

21. Gunslinger: Too new. No real experience. Looks like it could be fun in a campaign with a DM that enjoyed running a campaign with an Old West feel.


----------



## Celtavian

Walking Dad said:


> The real utility classes from level 6+ are the spellcasters, not the rogues.
> 
> And doing much damage in combat is very nice. How does the sample barbarian/fighter handles flying or incorporeal opponents? And there are still the save or suck spells.




A lot of the utility classes are spellcasters now. What utility classes are you speaking of? Rogue is the only class that is severely limited. Ranger, Inquisitor, and Ninja are extremely effective at scouting and other utility activities without wasting spells, though they have them if they need them.

Incorporeal creatures take 50% damage now. Fighter and barbarians smash them to ectoplasm. 

If the flying creature gets close enough, they hit it. Otherwise they buy _fly_ potions or a cloak or boots that let them fly. Or maybe the wizard casts _fly_ on them so they don't have to waste a bunch of spells killing them.

If they're an archer, they kill it. They kill everything. They kill wizards if they aren't ready. They murder whatever they face and do it from a few hundred feet away. Cast _mirror image_ or _invisibility_, they by seeking and blindsense for their bow so they can locate your square and destroy you. Most caster types can't last a round against an optimized archer.


----------



## Celtavian

Drathir said:


> I will say Stream is pretty much right overall, however number crunchers have chrunched and wizard normally kills cleric (its like a 52/48 thing) and the only class that can consistantly kill one of those is the Barbarian, if you use the exact build... which makes u all but useless at killing  non-spellcasters




I never much understood rating classes in this fashion. Do the majority of people's games end with the PCs getting in a battle royale? Is that how most people play?


----------



## StreamOfTheSky

I agreed with your list through the first 2, after that...

Any way, I just felt the need to say:



Celtavian said:


> 19. Alchemist: No real experience. Friend says Ragechemist is a nasty archetype if you want to build a melee alchemist.




Ragechemist IS a nasty archetype, but not in the way you think.  It gives you an extra +2 str in return for int and will save penalties every round you're hit!  Ok, you get a will save to resist, but considering will is by far the alchemist's worst save and that every failure just makes the next will save all the harder, plan to fail a lot.  Then you hit 0 int eventually and go comatose, yay!  You remain that way until one hour AFTER your mutagen wears off!  Fun fact: There is presently no way to dismiss a mutagen early.  So tack on remaining time and the hour, and you could easily be out for several hours!  And then hope the party's willing to wait another hour to brew a new mutagen to repeat the process over again!

Later on it gives small boosts to nat armor in return for ALSO penalizing dex when you fail your saves!

Never never never never never ever use Ragechemist archetype!  Hands down the worst (both in how weak it is mechanically and in how it utterly fails to project the invoked image by leaving you as a hospital vegetable after 7-8 rounds of combat) archetype in all of pathfinder, and theres a LOT of godawful ones, so that's really saying something!

/public service announcement


----------



## aboyd

TheAuldGrump said:


> I do have to say though that you are better off playing what you like



Thanks!  What I like playing is whatever classes are at the top of the tier list.  So this really is what I need to be investigating.

I don't need to play a powerful character, but I do need to play a successful one, and I need to play one that won't bore me.  Since the tier list not only is about power but also versatility and range of options, those at the top should generally do well for me.  Their presence at the top of the tier suggests that if I get bored doing 1 or 2 things with the class, it should be capable of going in a different direction.

As a general comment for everyone, here is more info.  We played our first game last night, and I played a rogue.  I understand that rogues are near the bottom of the tier list, and so that flies in the face of my own needs.  However, rogue is the only class I've previously played in Pathfinder, and I wanted to start with something I knew I could build well.

And in fact, I did build it well, and in fact, it sucked.  I couldn't get enough sneak attack opportunities.  Sneak attack relies far too much on the generosity of a DM who will say, "Yeah, that provides cover."  In the game I'm in, the DM actually ruled that his bad guys could get cover bonuses from some logs in the forest, but that I could not use those same logs to get cover and attempt a hide check.  While there may be good reasons for that which are beyond my understanding, the reasons would also be beyond my interest -- by which I mean, I'm not interested in having to negotiate for class features.

This DM also runs a very poor game -- not in the sense that it is "poorly run," as he is a master of running games -- but in the sense that our characters are typically poor and never able to get desired or even necessary items.  In a previous campaign which started under a different DM, I received the ghost touch +1 shortspear featured in the Freeport module, probably at level 2.  It was an amazing, powerful weapon at that level.  However, our current DM then took over, ruled that any item with a + bonus would cost double, and I never saw another item better.  We ended the game at level 11, and I was still using that same +1 shortspear I had received at level 2.  I'm not really grousing about that as he is a very good DM, but I am noting it as important to my decision making moving forward.

So I'm looking for classes which will maintain my interest, but also serve two new purposes: class features which do not require adjudication from the DM; and a class which can sidestep a poor economy.  Oh, also, it needs to work with a 15 point buy, as that's what the DM has set our game to.  I've been thinking about these classes, long term:


Wizard - can craft scrolls, so I am less beholden to the DM for resources.  I can eventually fill my backpack with a few dozen utility spells and become a bit of a batman to overcome challenges.  However, and this is big, I will _never_ gain _any_ spells other than the 2 per level that come with the class.  Why?  As hinted, spell acquisition is a class feature that the DM can adjudicate, so it will be gone.  I may find a _few_ scrolls during the course of the campaign, so that provides some hope, maybe.  But never will I find a full spellbook to complement my own.  In any case, the wizard can do so many things that it will maintain my interest.
Druid - I'm sad that it's the one class that was neglected in Pathfinder, and has apparently dropped a tier.  However, doesn't the druid's spell casting work like a cleric?  That is, no spellbook, so I can just select from the _entire_ range of spells every day?  If so, getting a druid with scribe scroll would enable me to have a massive range of spells.  The druid's summons would also be interesting....
Summoner - this class isn't really as useful as the others, and getting scribe scroll would be stupid, as a summoner's small spell selection means there really wouldn't be much for me to scribe.  However, the very large range of summoned critters would be something that would capture my interest for quite some time.  I played a 3.5 edition summoner-like class in a previous game, and with augment summoning I really enjoyed printing out modified stat blocks and managing my "builds."  Some of you may have seen those on EnWorld -- I really worked up detailed Word documents of augmented monsters.  Very fun.  Might try the master summoner archetype.
I've also considered an alchemist for the various bombs, but that seems like a one-hit wonder too.  Not sure, haven't tried it.  Also, inquisitor sounds beefy but I don't know enough yet.

Ideas?  Feedback?


----------



## TheAuldGrump

It sounds like your GM would be happier running Iron Heroes or Fantasy Craft, where items are less important.

It also sounds like I would not much enjoy his Pathfinder game, since he seems to have enforced power gaming by the way he runs things. He does not sound like a 'master of running games' but rather like a 'control freak'.  The incident with the logs being my primary illustration.

I have played in games run by control freaks, and do not play in them anymore. 

We had one for the old World of Darkness that never let us spend XP. When challenged on this he said that if he allowed spending then he would have to be 'less generous with XP'.... 

He typically gave less than half the suggested XP. Halfway through his third adventure without being allowed to spend XP he discovered that he had no players.

But, if you are having fun then have at. Perhaps you enjoy the extra challenge.

If not... find another game, maybe? Or, if you aren't the only one having problems, perhaps have a sit down between players and the GM? If he is rendering classes unplayable by his decisions then there is a problem.

The Auld Grump


----------



## prosfilaes

TheAuldGrump said:


> Not in my experience.
> 
> Wizards can do all sorts of wonderful things _if those spells are prepared_ - if they have infinite time to do things then a wizard can disarm traps, open doors, etc.. But if there is a time crunch, and there should _often_ be a time crunch, then the rogue opens the door, disarms the trap, and fakes being a cleric so he can use the wand of cure light wounds on the cleric who is now in negative hit points....




My experience comes from 3.5, not PF, but my wizards and sorcerers have not been learning Knock. At 7th level, a sorcerer has 3 2nd level spells known; I'm not wasting a slot on Knock if there's a rogue handy. Perhaps my current wizard should have Knock in her book (I blame the DM, who's been really strict with spells), but last night I could have used all four second-level spells just opening doors. Unless there's been some big change in PF that I missed (and none of those numbers changed between 3.5 and PF), 6th level is way too early to expect a wizard to start throwing around Knock.


----------



## Celtavian

*re*

*aboyd*

Every class cannot do everything any more. The Tier system is flawed because of archetypes.

Let me give you some examples:

1. Ranger Archer: This class now has spells like _instant enemy_, _bow spirit_ and _hunter's eye_. Build them as an archer with a harsh bow and you're sick. This character killed a Huge red dragon in two rounds at lvl 8. Did something like 242 points of damage. Has great skills. And a lot of fun class abilities.

2. Human Invulnerable Rager Barbarian: Take Beast Totem to eventually get the ability to pounce and make a full attack with a two-handed weapon. Take Superstitious and the human favored class bonus for +17 on all saves versus spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities on top of your other bonuses. Basically you only miss on a 1 at high level against gnarly DCs.

You have DR 10/-. If you get Come and Get Me, you do so much fricking sick damage you kill anything you face the majority of the time. You rip stuff apart.

3. Monk Zen Archer: You get up to 8 attacks with your own power with a bow. 9 with _haste_. My friend took four levels of ranger for _gravity bow_ and +16 BAB for Deadly Aim. He gets a huge number of attacks and does insane damage from long range. It's a nasty combination. Has a great AC because he is fully wisdom focused. He can boost his arrow damage to 4d8 with _gravity bow_active.

There are countless powerful combinations in the game.

You cannot equal melees at their specialty as a wizard any longer. Polymorph is not the same. So druids, clerics, and wizards cannot change spells and be better fighting than melee classes. They get tons of stuff that makes them very powerful and stand out.

The hardest class I have to deal with right now is the Human Invulnerable Rager Barbarian. He rarely misses his saves. He does nutty damage which got even worse with Raging Brutality. He has Come and Get Me so that nothing in the game built by standard D&D rules can survive a round against him while attacking him. He can kill leveled giants and balors in one round if they try to go toe to toe with him. 

This is not 3.0. Things are not the same. Folks that try to tell you they are don't have much experience running or playing _Pathfinder_ and thus haven't seen well-built classes in action.

I have. 

Though I'll still tell you that a wizard with time to prepare can kill every class one on one a great deal of the time.

I won't tell you the wizard does everything as well as every class. Not even close. No matter how you build a wizard,  they will never match other classes focused on what they do. The physical damage dealers in general outclass them by a huge margin on damage. They can do all sorts of crazy stuff.

The two-hander fighter in my group can run up to a group, use lunge, and AoE stun every creature within 10 feet of him for indefinite periods while averaging roughly 60 points plus a hit and making them all make a save versus stun and a save versus massive damage every round.

_Pathfinder_ is a very different game from 3.x. Thinking of it in tiers is not the best way to go about it. You might make a wizard thinking "I'll be really tough". Then watch Mr. Barbarian ripping through stuff like some kind of Tazmanian chainsaw or watching a Magus _dimension door_ like nightcrawler while slashing an enemy apart or watching a two-hander fighter crit something for 200 plus points of damage. Capabilities are very different  now, very, very different.


----------



## aboyd

TheAuldGrump said:


> But, if you are having fun then have at. Perhaps you enjoy the extra challenge.
> 
> If not... find another game, maybe?



No, he's good.  He can do things as a DM that I cannot, and I admire him for being more capable.  But he also has a play style that rewards certain types of classes -- those that are more self-sufficient and self-contained.  So I'm here to see if anyone can collaborate with me on what those classes might be in a Pathfinder game.

I feel as though I'm settling on the druid.  He can have many critters which I will enjoy statting out over the course of months.  He gets access to all his spells, without needing the DM to drop scrolls or spell books.  He isn't as diverse as a wizard or cleric, but there are a lot of various things he can do.  He will complement the party paladin, so that between us we probably won't need a cleric for healing.

My issue right now is that I don't know how to get the 3 feats I need at 1st level.  I need scribe scroll, spell focus (conjuration), and augment summoning.  Are there ways in Pathfinder to get more than 2 feats at 1st level?

I guess if I had to settle on only 2, I'd hold augment summoning for later.  At low levels, there is a paucity of spells, so being able to scribe many backup scrolls would be paramount.

(Summoners & Sorcerers -- they cannot scribe just "any" scroll available to the class, right?  They can only scribe scrolls of spells that they've learned.  Yeah?  Somewhat similarly, though not as limited, a wizard can only scribe scrolls of spells that are in his spell book.  If he never added Knock to his spell book, then he can't scribe a scroll of it.  Correct?)

If I choose a druid, what are some excellent choices for a deity?  In particular, a deity that doesn't provide a prohibitive alignment restriction that would wall off a bunch of spells.  Not interested in losing spells, if possible.

Also, I'm still open to hearing what other classes are self-contained & interesting long term.  Is there a reason why _not_ to choose the druid long term?  (Exception: I already know that the cleric fits all my criteria and is even better than the druid, and thus should be what I select; however, I just played a cleric for 5 years, so I've lost interest and need to look at other classes).

Thanks everyone.  I'll try to give some more XP now.  Much appreciated.


----------



## StreamOfTheSky

Druid got significantly nerfed (both directly and indirectly -- all of its compatriot full casting brethren got boosted -- by comparison), but it's still at least as good as sorcerer, it's hardly a weak class.

One thing druids did get is that their items now remain functional while wildshaped, other than armor (and iirc shield by eratta, though originally you retained shield AC by strict RAW), which is a significant boon.  You also get wildshape earlier, though IME the medium animal forms are pretty weak in combat, you don't start getting awesome till level 6 when you can be large and get pounce.  In other words, about the same time as in 3E.  You do get huge (ie, reach) 2 levels earlier, which is nice.  Another note, paizo made a feat to speak while in Wildshape, in UM I think, which basically with Natural Spell removes any reason 3E druids ever had to not spend all day wildshaped.

If you plan to go well past the early levels and the Boon Companion feat is allowed, IMO you're a fool to not go Feather or Fur (Animal subdomains; I like Feather better) rather than taking the animal companion.  Because...then you still get the companion at level 4 (at 3 levels down, which is why you need that feat)!  Free spells and a small bonus class feature seems totally worth a feat to me!  You will suck much more at 1st level, though.

Druid spellcasting seems to be about as good as before.  Entangle got nerfed so that it's not as good late game anymore.  For some reason Poison got super nerfed to be nigh useless now, which is a shame since it's one of the druid's early access spells.  Baleful Polymorph is exactly as awesome as it used to be, though.  Summoning compared to 3E seems to be weaker at spell levels 1-2 or 1-3, and then suddenly gets a major boost in the relative CR of creatures you can summon compared to your CL at 4th or 5th spell level.  The splats have added some nice Druid spells, my favorite is Strong Jaw.

All that said, though, Druid is actually more item dependent now than in 3E since you can actually dress yourself in wondrous items w/o any hassle.  If you can't take Craft Wondrous Items feat and use it, your DM's game sounds inhospitable for even a Druid.


Summoner on the other hand... Is possibly the least stat and item dependent class in the game (if not him, then Sorc/Wizard, of course).  They do rock a sexy charisma and UMD as a class skill, so no magical gadgets hurts, but not that much.  And scribe scroll is still useful, just to supplement your battery of spells.  Wand might actually be better if you can't count on buying them.  I mean, how many mage armor spells do you need for your eidolon?  Answer: However many times it gets dispelled +1.  Similarly, you'll ideally want to enlarge person your pal every fight.  The great thing about summoner is that you can standard action summon monsters that scale with your level ver well, many times per day, and summons never wear gear, so the less the party has, the more powerful the summons seem to be.  Further, while you and the eidolon still would like gear, the eidolon's evolutions can buff itself pretty well, and you have a "shared slots" drawback, so you wouldn't have been using those body slot items as well as anyone else anyway.  At higher levels, Craft Rod might actually be a good summoner feat.  You get quite a few normally 4th level spells at 3rd and can thus buff them with a much cheaper lesser rod.  And you get TONS of normally 7th, 8th, even 9th level spells at level 6 or earlier, likewise.


----------



## Angrydad

TheAuldGrump said:


> Not in my experience.
> 
> Wizards can do all sorts of wonderful things _if those spells are prepared_ - if they have infinite time to do things then a wizard can disarm traps, open doors, etc.. But if there is a time crunch, and there should _often_ be a time crunch, then the rogue opens the door, disarms the trap, and fakes being a cleric so he can use the wand of cure light wounds on the cleric who is now in negative hit points....
> 
> I run a lot of urban adventures, and rogues end up being some of the busiest characters around.
> 
> The Auld Grump



I'm glad to see someone else who shares my opinions on the "overpoweredness of wizards/clerics/druids". Sure, if the DM gives you enough hints as to what you're facing and you have time to prep, the wizard is unstoppable. No DM should ever do that, however.


----------



## Fishbone

A full spellcaster with access to things as powerful as Hexes at 18 out of 21? Absolutely, positively not. I also disagree vehemently with Summoner at 20.

But just the fact that this conversation even exists in Pathfinder shows how much of a step up it is from 3.0, and even 3.5 in my opinion.


----------



## StreamOfTheSky

Fishbone said:


> A full spellcaster with access to things as powerful as Hexes at 18 out of 21? Absolutely, positively not. I also disagree vehemently with Summoner at 20.
> 
> But just the fact that this conversation even exists in Pathfinder shows how much of a step up it is from 3.0, and even 3.5 in my opinion.




...Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that's about my limit for posts I can read extolling Pathfinder's superior balance and design qualities.

Pathfinder has neither going for it, and is horribly unbalanced.  Yeah, you got some new faces at the top like the summoner, but in the end, it's still the full spellcasters at the top.

In 3E, it took a lot of obscure splat books to find a race that raised a mental stat without costing LA or racial HD.  Grey Elf and Fire Elf for Int were the easiest to find, but at least were balanced with a painful con loss and the general suckiness that is the elven racial features.  Charisma you had like...Spellscales?  Some things out there, but not common.  Wisdom?  I think you actually had to go back to 3.0 and the horrifically unbalanced Savage Species to find something for that, the anthro animals.  I don't know Tortles and Buomann I think had wisdom bonus...  In Pathfinder, ANY caster can have a 20 in their casting stat, very easily!

Pathfinder also nerfed the combat maneuver feats by breaking them up into 2.  You need THREE freaking feats just to push someone so your allies can AoO him now, something you could do with NO feats in 3E!  The CMB system itself is borked, so many things add to CMD that in my experience, actually succeeding at combat maneuvers requires extremely high specialization just to get like a 60% success rate.  Grapple was horrifically nerfed, it's a standard now, not an attack replacement, you need to waste an action and risk a failed roll each round to "maintain," and being grappled isn't nearly as much of a hindrance as it used to be.  These are all very major areas of martial combat that PF outright nerfed the hell out of, to the detriment of noncasters.  Caster feats weren't really hurt at all.  Heck, they added some sweet new ones.  Like that one I mentioned to speak in wildshape.  Or a +1 level metamagic to bounce a failed targeted spell to a new target.  Or the +2 level metamagic to just plain require 2 successful rolls instead of one.

PF did give more stuff to pad out the mid and higher levels for martial classes, yes.  But they also completely demolished most of the benefit of multiclassing, and made prestige classes pretty clearly inferior to just sticking in the same class instead.  Maybe those are good things, but my point is... noncasters were the ones who multiclassed like crazy in 3E, they were the ones who could afford to do so and got great benefits from doing so.  Any gains the martial classes got in PF came at the expense of multiclassing be much less viable, so in the end, the power level hasn't really changed.  It's just more newbie friendly and easy to obtain.  Again, that's fine and all, but stop saying melee got buffed in PF.  It did not.

Finally, everyone always complains about the system mastery and "trap" options of 3E.  Would you believe that PF is actually worse in this regard?  Because it is.  3E at least tried to make options that were balanced (but turned out to not be because the designer just wasn't very good at measuring balance) or at least useful to someone, somewhere.  The much maligned Toughness feat was great for wizards in 1st level one shot games, which IME are not THAT uncommon.  Pathfinder is not like that, though.  They care more about "flavor" and "roleplaying" than how powerful or worthless some mechanic is.  Let's start with the worst example in possibly all of tabletop gaming history -- the monk Vow of Poverty.  The designers explicitly knew the rule they were writing sucked and that it was a ridiculous power down for anyone that took it.  But wrote it the way they did anyway, because they were balancing it on "roleplaying" terms -- if you want to RP someone that gives up most material possessions, you SHOULD suffer...just close your eyes and ignore the cleric, druid, paladin, and other myriad examples we printed that make seemingly arbitrary self-restrictions and are repaid handsomely for them -- rather than being mechanically balanced.  At least the 3E designers of VoP TRIED to make its benefits commensurate with what you were losing and simply failed to understand how great a loss magic items were.  PF just didn't even care about thinking about that.
Look at all the archetypes that are just pathetic.  The archetypes that make you give something up at one level, but not get the replacement benefit until several later -- or in some cases, vice versa.  Look at the embarassing number of corrections they need to make with each released book, despite pending more time on development of said books than WotC and putting out much fewer of them.  How can you honestly say PF is a better designed game?


----------



## Viashimo

StreamOfTheSky said:


> How can you honestly say PF is a better designed game?



'Cause it's more fun and easier to play than both 3.5 and 3.0.


----------



## TheAuldGrump

StreamOfTheSky said:


> Rant.



 Let us just say that not everyone agrees with you. 

Some of us disagree quite a bit, actually. 

The Auld Grump


----------



## Systole

StreamOfTheSky said:


> ...Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that's about my limit for posts I can read extolling Pathfinder's superior balance and design qualities.




While I generally agree with you, on this we have to part ways.  Yes, the classes are not balanced.  Monks and rogues kinda suck; gunslingers are broken; Vow of Poverty is idiotic.

With that said, 3.x was bloated and unwieldy.  And it had dozens of inferior publishers churning out hundreds of inferior (and wildly unbalanced) products.  Pathfinder _is_ superior, in a purely comparative sense.  You may be disappointed that it's a &@*#ing far cry from perfect, but it's the best thing out there at the moment.

I speak from experience here.  I've been playing D&D in since 1e, and I'm currently in a PF campaign with a 7th level rogue that I brought up from 1st.  She's awful.  Just ... bloody awful.  But I'd still rather play her than  anything from 3.5 or before.  It's just better.


----------



## TheAuldGrump

Angrydad said:


> I'm glad to see someone else who shares my opinions on the "overpoweredness of wizards/clerics/druids". Sure, if the DM gives you enough hints as to what you're facing and you have time to prep, the wizard is unstoppable. No DM should ever do that, however.



A side effect of the '15 minute adventuring day' - if the GM curbs that behavior then the wizard is a lot more balanced.

I only experienced the 15 MAD once, and I let the bad guys win - if the PCs are busy napping then the villains can (and did) steal a march on them.

The players were surprised that the bad guys didn't sit arond waiting for them, and that they were willing to attack the PCs while they were camped with their spells down.

The Auld Grump


----------



## Celtavian

aboyd said:


> No, he's good.  He can do things as a DM that I cannot, and I admire him for being more capable.  But he also has a play style that rewards certain types of classes -- those that are more self-sufficient and self-contained.  So I'm here to see if anyone can collaborate with me on what those classes might be in a Pathfinder game.
> 
> I feel as though I'm settling on the druid.  He can have many critters which I will enjoy statting out over the course of months.  He gets access to all his spells, without needing the DM to drop scrolls or spell books.  He isn't as diverse as a wizard or cleric, but there are a lot of various things he can do.  He will complement the party paladin, so that between us we probably won't need a cleric for healing.
> 
> My issue right now is that I don't know how to get the 3 feats I need at 1st level.  I need scribe scroll, spell focus (conjuration), and augment summoning.  Are there ways in Pathfinder to get more than 2 feats at 1st level?
> 
> I guess if I had to settle on only 2, I'd hold augment summoning for later.  At low levels, there is a paucity of spells, so being able to scribe many backup scrolls would be paramount.
> 
> (Summoners & Sorcerers -- they cannot scribe just "any" scroll available to the class, right?  They can only scribe scrolls of spells that they've learned.  Yeah?  Somewhat similarly, though not as limited, a wizard can only scribe scrolls of spells that are in his spell book.  If he never added Knock to his spell book, then he can't scribe a scroll of it.  Correct?)
> 
> If I choose a druid, what are some excellent choices for a deity?  In particular, a deity that doesn't provide a prohibitive alignment restriction that would wall off a bunch of spells.  Not interested in losing spells, if possible.
> 
> Also, I'm still open to hearing what other classes are self-contained & interesting long term.  Is there a reason why _not_ to choose the druid long term?  (Exception: I already know that the cleric fits all my criteria and is even better than the druid, and thus should be what I select; however, I just played a cleric for 5 years, so I've lost interest and need to look at other classes).
> 
> Thanks everyone.  I'll try to give some more XP now.  Much appreciated.




I don't really care for druids much. They don't do anything particularly well: damage dealing, heaing, casting versatility.

I like the ranger for versatility. You have a lot of skills. You get some nifty spells to make you a very good damage dealer. You're great with stealth. Good hit points. Good saves. Evastion. Hide in Plain Sight. Fairly decent spell list. Remember Rangers caster level is 3 levels less now, not half. And you can get an animal companion or Hunter's Bond for your group. Which can be pretty nice. When our ranger uses Hunter's Bond to give us an untyped bonus on to hit and damage, it helps a lot.

The reason I can't give you much more information on particulars is because there is too much diversity in _Pathfinder_. In 3.x I could tell you such and such class sucks or is boring. Can't do that any longer. Each class has some really fun combinations that are a blast to play.

No matter what class you take, you'll have some versatility. You'll have some power. There is no real class that has to stand there doing nothing save for perhaps the rogue. The rogue class is weak and has problems given how much other classes can do.

Go to the Pathfinder PRD and read over some of the crazy stuff each class can do. Play with feat combinations. Think about what you want to do. 

If you try to focus too much on versatility thinking it's like 3.x and you'll be able to do a little bit of everything well, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Physical damage dealers are untouchable by other classes, including the druid, for what they do. You can't summon a creature or transform into one that can touch their damage unless you're playing with people that cannot build an even halfway decent character.

If you don't mind sitting there wondering why you're doing 1d6+7 damage in bear form while Mr. Barbarian just made a full move followed by a full attack for 2d6+25+ per hit and is attacking back each time the creature attacks him for more damage, then enjoy the druid. If you mind sitting there wondering why everyone around you is becoming a sickening freak of a character, while your stagnate then choose something else.

I don't know how much I can emphasize to you how different _Pathfinder_ is. I have run multiple campaigns. One up to lvl 20, one to lvl 14, one to lvl 5, one to lvl 10 with many, many different characters. It's a very different game with so many options that listing them as tiers in one thread is impossible.

You need to put in your due diligence checking spell lists, character abilities, and the like to find out what would be fun and interesting.


----------



## Celtavian

StreamOfTheSky said:


> ...Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that's about my limit for posts I can read extolling Pathfinder's superior balance and design qualities.
> 
> Pathfinder has neither going for it, and is horribly unbalanced.  Yeah, you got some new faces at the top like the summoner, but in the end, it's still the full spellcasters at the top.
> 
> In 3E, it took a lot of obscure splat books to find a race that raised a mental stat without costing LA or racial HD.  Grey Elf and Fire Elf for Int were the easiest to find, but at least were balanced with a painful con loss and the general suckiness that is the elven racial features.  Charisma you had like...Spellscales?  Some things out there, but not common.  Wisdom?  I think you actually had to go back to 3.0 and the horrifically unbalanced Savage Species to find something for that, the anthro animals.  I don't know Tortles and Buomann I think had wisdom bonus...  In Pathfinder, ANY caster can have a 20 in their casting stat, very easily!
> 
> Pathfinder also nerfed the combat maneuver feats by breaking them up into 2.  You need THREE freaking feats just to push someone so your allies can AoO him now, something you could do with NO feats in 3E!  The CMB system itself is borked, so many things add to CMD that in my experience, actually succeeding at combat maneuvers requires extremely high specialization just to get like a 60% success rate.  Grapple was horrifically nerfed, it's a standard now, not an attack replacement, you need to waste an action and risk a failed roll each round to "maintain," and being grappled isn't nearly as much of a hindrance as it used to be.  These are all very major areas of martial combat that PF outright nerfed the hell out of, to the detriment of noncasters.  Caster feats weren't really hurt at all.  Heck, they added some sweet new ones.  Like that one I mentioned to speak in wildshape.  Or a +1 level metamagic to bounce a failed targeted spell to a new target.  Or the +2 level metamagic to just plain require 2 successful rolls instead of one.
> 
> PF did give more stuff to pad out the mid and higher levels for martial classes, yes.  But they also completely demolished most of the benefit of multiclassing, and made prestige classes pretty clearly inferior to just sticking in the same class instead.  Maybe those are good things, but my point is... noncasters were the ones who multiclassed like crazy in 3E, they were the ones who could afford to do so and got great benefits from doing so.  Any gains the martial classes got in PF came at the expense of multiclassing be much less viable, so in the end, the power level hasn't really changed.  It's just more newbie friendly and easy to obtain.  Again, that's fine and all, but stop saying melee got buffed in PF.  It did not.
> 
> Finally, everyone always complains about the system mastery and "trap" options of 3E.  Would you believe that PF is actually worse in this regard?  Because it is.  3E at least tried to make options that were balanced (but turned out to not be because the designer just wasn't very good at measuring balance) or at least useful to someone, somewhere.  The much maligned Toughness feat was great for wizards in 1st level one shot games, which IME are not THAT uncommon.  Pathfinder is not like that, though.  They care more about "flavor" and "roleplaying" than how powerful or worthless some mechanic is.  Let's start with the worst example in possibly all of tabletop gaming history -- the monk Vow of Poverty.  The designers explicitly knew the rule they were writing sucked and that it was a ridiculous power down for anyone that took it.  But wrote it the way they did anyway, because they were balancing it on "roleplaying" terms -- if you want to RP someone that gives up most material possessions, you SHOULD suffer...just close your eyes and ignore the cleric, druid, paladin, and other myriad examples we printed that make seemingly arbitrary self-restrictions and are repaid handsomely for them -- rather than being mechanically balanced.  At least the 3E designers of VoP TRIED to make its benefits commensurate with what you were losing and simply failed to understand how great a loss magic items were.  PF just didn't even care about thinking about that.
> Look at all the archetypes that are just pathetic.  The archetypes that make you give something up at one level, but not get the replacement benefit until several later -- or in some cases, vice versa.  Look at the embarassing number of corrections they need to make with each released book, despite pending more time on development of said books than WotC and putting out much fewer of them.  How can you honestly say PF is a better designed game?




_Pathfinder_ is much better designed. I like DMing it and playing it better than I liked 3.x.   I can't even take you seriously. You don't sound like you know what you're talking about at all.

What you sound like reading through your post is a power gamer that had some of his options and toys taken away, so he's railing against the replacement game that took them away. Yet there are still plenty of cheesy combos you power gamer types are coming up with. I guess you must have missed those on the _Pathfinder_ boards.

Whining about Vow of Poverty when there are so many other options forthe monk now that make it better makes you sound ridiculous. I hated the design of the old _Vow of Poverty_. It was a Vow with no real drawbacks in a party environment. It was basically a "Here you go. Here's something much better for a monk than he will most likely ever get with magic items." 

Grapple is still extremely dangerous, especially to spell casters. Adding an extra feat for Combat Maneuvers isn't a big deal when they give you three more feats isn't a huge cost. It takes generally two feats and possibly a pre-req to get combat maneuver feats. A lot of classes get more bonus feats anyhow, which you seem to be discouting and a ton more abilities.

The lack of Prcs isn't significant when playing a base class is worthwhile. Prcs were never meant to replace base classes. Yet that is all they did in 3.x. No one played a straight class all the way up when PrCs were available. Now they are an alternative like they always should have been.

And once again the idea that a party is a battle royale rather than a team game. The cry of spell casters are at the top. They don't fight. Physical damage dealers crush face and have more options. So what if a prepared high level caster can kill a fighter. The fighter is still a highly effective class that is fun to play that can do way more than they used to be able to do.

Totally different game. Sounds to me like you haven't built many effective characters and are still in the 3.x mindset. Glad I'm not. I and my players are doing all kinds of fun things with the _Pathfinder_ system and enjoy it a great deal more than the 3.x system.


----------



## StreamOfTheSky

Celtavian said:


> I hated the design of the old _Vow of Poverty_. It was a Vow with no real drawbacks in a party environment. It was basically a "Here you go. Here's something much better for a monk than he will most likely ever get with magic items."




Monks are one of the most item dependent classes in the game and VoP was a horrific trap option for them, more so than almost any other class.  And you're thinking of PF VoP for the no real drawbacks in a party environment.  Because in 3E, you had your share donated to charity.  In PF, you just don't get your share, which means more loot for everyone else.  THAT is the scenario PF VoP was "balanced" around.  Being the party gimp.



Celtavian said:


> Grapple is still extremely dangerous, especially to spell casters. Adding an extra feat for Combat Maneuvers isn't a big deal when they give you three more feats isn't a huge cost. It takes generally two feats and possibly a pre-req to get combat maneuver feats. A lot of classes get more bonus feats anyhow, which you seem to be discouting and a ton more abilities.




Grapple is no more dangerous to casters than 3E, the only exception is the ludicrously high concentration check DC you have for being grappled, which is poorly balanced in the exact opposite direction...  You can still freedom of movement your way to immunity.  On the other hand, grapple is a lot less dangerous for actually killing people, you can only make one grapple check per round now.  Heck, in 3E you could easily get someone pinned in the same round you initiated the grapple.
Yes, everyone does get more feats in PF.  Keyword _everyone_.  But it takes more feats to do the same things you could do in 3E for melee classes.  Caster feats weren't divvied up like that.  Ergo, casters effectively netted more feats than melee classes, who sort of ending up tredding water.  Do you understand?



Celtavian said:


> The lack of Prcs isn't significant when playing a base class is worthwhile. Prcs were never meant to replace base classes. Yet that is all they did in 3.x. No one played a straight class all the way up when PrCs were available. Now they are an alternative like they always should have been.




And what I said in my post wasn't that this change was a bad thing (I actually went out of my way to state that wasn't what I was saying...).  My point was that taking away cherry picking, dipping, and prestige classing in return for better base classes is the same end result, power-wise.  In sum total, it was not a power boost for martial classes compared to 3E, you just don't have to jump through hoops anymore.  Which is awesome.  But it didn't actually _strengthen_ martial characters much, which is what everyone claims.



Celtavian said:


> And once again the idea that a party is a battle royale rather than a team game. The cry of spell casters are at the top. They don't fight. Physical damage dealers crush face and have more options. So what if a prepared high level caster can kill a fighter. The fighter is still a highly effective class that is fun to play that can do way more than they used to be able to do.




Like what?  They got a few new skills like dungeoneering and survival... Still only 2 + int points and a dearth of social skills.  All the Fighter's changes in PF just gave him bigger numbers in combat, which as I said long ago in my Fighter houserules thread (link in sig) is the one thing fighters did NOT need.  Yeah, you can roleplay things without skill checks.  You can do that in 3E as well.

[sblock]







Celtavian said:


> _Pathfinder_ is much better designed. I like DMing it and playing it better than I liked 3.x.   I can't even take you seriously. You don't sound like you know what you're talking about at all.
> 
> What you sound like reading through your post is a power gamer that had some of his options and toys taken away, so he's railing against the replacement game that took them away. Yet there are still plenty of cheesy combos you power gamer types are coming up with. I guess you must have missed those on the _Pathfinder_ boards.
> 
> Whining about Vow of Poverty when there are so many other options forthe monk now that make it better makes you sound ridiculous.
> 
> Totally different game. Sounds to me like you haven't built many effective characters and are still in the 3.x mindset. Glad I'm not. I and my players are doing all kinds of fun things with the _Pathfinder_ system and enjoy it a great deal more than the 3.x system.



[/sblock]

Of course, with all those personal attacks, you do a far better job of discrediting your arguments than my responses ever could.


----------



## Systole

Celtavian said:


> You don't sound like you know what you're talking about at all.




In this, you are badly mistaken.

SotS may be highly opinionated, and he may be ranting a bit here, and I might even disagree with him completely on this ... but he knows PF backwards and forwards.  For confirmation, you might want to check out pretty much any of the threads he started.


----------



## Fishbone

I haven't seen any of the Advanced Player's Guide stuff in action. Just how good are those? I'd have to put the Summoner on the higher end as opposed to the lower end. 4 skills, 3/4 BAB, 6th level spells with some of them being moved down, like Evard's Black Tentacles at level 3, hell yeah. Summoning guys as a standard action, sometimes Augmented, they sound pretty good just off that. Throw in all the bonkers stuff you can do with an Eidolon...

Inquisitor looks quite good as well. Cavalier looks like a weakened version of the 3.5 Knight, if anything. Has anybody got any experience with the APG classes?

Same with the Magus. Has anybody playtested those guys? Same with the Witch. I'd love to play one. I think they get derided as Wizard lite, but those Hexes look great and the Patron spells look fun as well.


----------



## SteelDraco

The only one of those classes I've seen in play is the witch. She's our arcane caster for our current PF game, and roughly seems as effective as a wizard in most things. She has been able to fly for a while with a class ability, which is very nice for a caster type. She's a blaster and occasional buffer, mostly buffing with hexes - there's one that lets an ally roll twice for any d20 roll that's very handy in a pinch. Keep in mind that we're a moderately casual table that doesn't powergame too much. I'm usually the biggest powergamer, and I'm playing an arcane archer. 

I'm looking forward to trying a magus, inquisitor, and alchemist - they all seem like useful and flavorful classes to me. Action economy seems like the great strength of a summoner. Inquisitors can make good mobile tank types, as near as I can tell. Alchemists just seem fun to play. 

I don't like the cavalier. I jettisoned it and added a homebrew commander class that functions as a tactical leader-type. The rest of the cavalier stuff is rolled into archetypes and feats.


----------



## Mad Hamish

aboyd said:


> I don't need to play a powerful character, but I do need to play a successful one, and I need to play one that won't bore me.  Since the tier list not only is about power but also versatility and range of options, those at the top should generally do well for me.  Their presence at the top of the tier suggests that if I get bored doing 1 or 2 things with the class, it should be capable of going in a different direction.




You've got a bit of versatile in design or versatile in play.
as an example a fighter can be designed to do different things but once you've picked ability scores & feats it can be tough to change options.

A cleric can pick a new set of spells overnight but no class can change their skills and if you've specialized as a wizard you've restricted your options for large changes (if you picked summoning as your main school with enchantment and divination as the opposition schools then you aren't going to do great reworking to use a lot of mind affecting spells and divination)



aboyd said:


> As a general comment for everyone, here is more info.  We played our first game last night, and I played a rogue.  I understand that rogues are near the bottom of the tier list, and so that flies in the face of my own needs.  However, rogue is the only class I've previously played in Pathfinder, and I wanted to start with something I knew I could build well.
> 
> And in fact, I did build it well, and in fact, it sucked.  I couldn't get enough sneak attack opportunities.  Sneak attack relies far too much on the generosity of a DM who will say, "Yeah, that provides cover."  In the game I'm in, the DM actually ruled that his bad guys could get cover bonuses from some logs in the forest, but that I could not use those same logs to get cover and attempt a hide check.  While there may be good reasons for that which are beyond my understanding, the reasons would also be beyond my interest -- by which I mean, I'm not interested in having to negotiate for class features.




There's rules for low obstacles and cover and how it applies.
If the logs are big enough they could provide cover as low cover to enemies but if you're larger than them they might not be big enough to give you cover or if you're ranged you could be far enough back that they won't give you cover or concealment.




aboyd said:


> This DM also runs a very poor game -- not in the sense that it is "poorly run," as he is a master of running games -- but in the sense that our characters are typically poor and never able to get desired or even necessary items.  In a previous campaign which started under a different DM, I received the ghost touch +1 shortspear featured in the Freeport module, probably at level 2.  It was an amazing, powerful weapon at that level.  However, our current DM then took over, ruled that any item with a + bonus would cost double, and I never saw another item better.  We ended the game at level 11, and I was still using that same +1 shortspear I had received at level 2.  I'm not really grousing about that as he is a very good DM, but I am noting it as important to my decision making moving forward.
> 
> So I'm looking for classes which will maintain my interest, but also serve two new purposes: class features which do not require adjudication from the DM; and a class which can sidestep a poor economy.  Oh, also, it needs to work with a 15 point buy, as that's what the DM has set our game to.  I've been thinking about these classes, long term:
> 
> 
> Wizard - can craft scrolls, so I am less beholden to the DM for resources.  I can eventually fill my backpack with a few dozen utility spells and become a bit of a batman to overcome challenges.  However, and this is big, I will _never_ gain _any_ spells other than the 2 per level that come with the class.  Why?  As hinted, spell acquisition is a class feature that the DM can adjudicate, so it will be gone.  I may find a _few_ scrolls during the course of the campaign, so that provides some hope, maybe.  But never will I find a full spellbook to complement my own.  In any case, the wizard can do so many things that it will maintain my interest.
> Druid - I'm sad that it's the one class that was neglected in Pathfinder, and has apparently dropped a tier.  However, doesn't the druid's spell casting work like a cleric?  That is, no spellbook, so I can just select from the _entire_ range of spells every day?  If so, getting a druid with scribe scroll would enable me to have a massive range of spells.  The druid's summons would also be interesting....
> Summoner - this class isn't really as useful as the others, and getting scribe scroll would be stupid, as a summoner's small spell selection means there really wouldn't be much for me to scribe.  However, the very large range of summoned critters would be something that would capture my interest for quite some time.  I played a 3.5 edition summoner-like class in a previous game, and with augment summoning I really enjoyed printing out modified stat blocks and managing my "builds."  Some of you may have seen those on EnWorld -- I really worked up detailed Word documents of augmented monsters.  Very fun.  Might try the master summoner archetype.
> I've also considered an alchemist for the various bombs, but that seems like a one-hit wonder too.  Not sure, haven't tried it.  Also, inquisitor sounds beefy but I don't know enough yet.
> 
> Ideas?  Feedback?




I'd see your best options as a spellcasting class because they have more chance to cover a lack of items.
For a full caster either Cleric or druid (praying for spells so can change them every day exactly as required) or sorceror or oracle (known spells always learnt)
Summoner is probably also an option

if you're looking at a weapon using combat character you probably need to look at getting spells or other abilities to compensate 

inquisator, magus give you a fair amount of options with spells 
paladin lets you choose to bind to your weapon so you can give it magic abilities and you also have spells that can partially compensate for lack of equipment

and a bard can be very useful for the party providing buffs which again helps to compensate lack of items.


----------



## Celtavian

Fishbone said:


> I haven't seen any of the Advanced Player's Guide stuff in action. Just how good are those? I'd have to put the Summoner on the higher end as opposed to the lower end. 4 skills, 3/4 BAB, 6th level spells with some of them being moved down, like Evard's Black Tentacles at level 3, hell yeah. Summoning guys as a standard action, sometimes Augmented, they sound pretty good just off that. Throw in all the bonkers stuff you can do with an Eidolon...




Summoner seems tough on paper. Not so tough as you get into the upper levels. He's pretty tough at lower levels. That eidolon is a beast. But once you start running into things like outsiders with access to word spells, powerful AoE and melee damage dealers like dragons or giants, the eidolon gets wasted. The summons are nice, but as inconsistent and situational as ever. But if you don't play past lvl 12 or so much, summoner can be pretty tough.



> Inquisitor looks quite good as well.




Inquisitor is a beast of a class. The stacking bonuses for damage are insane. You must not have read my above post, but I'm averaging 60 points of damage a hit at lvl 12 not fully buffed with a greatsword.

I can do lots of little nifty things like _invisibilty purge_, restore my own ability damage, heal myself, and self-buff against mind control. I have Stalwart which lets me shrug off many of the most dangerous attacks. And judgements are versatile. You can go from boosting your hit and damage to boosting your saves and AC as needed.

A bit of a mad class, so need to focus on dex, con, wis or str, con, wisdom. Basically melee or ranged. You can't gimp intelligence either. You need Knowledge skills to take advantage of Bane.

_Cavalier looks like a weakened version of the 3.5 Knight, if anything. Has anybody got any experience with the APG classes?_

No experience with cavalier. Done some sick mathematical calculations for damage with a lance while charging. But haven't tried one yet.



> Same with the Magus. Has anybody playtested those guys?




Magus seems pretty tough. They seem pretty focused around one spell: _shocking grasp_. Not sure another spell would work for them. But the Kensai Magus does good damage even without the spell. At 2nd level, the magus did a 50 point crit. It was pretty devastating. The weapon abilities he can add with the arcane pool are pretty nasty. The magus in our group is already able to add keen to his katana giving him a 15-20 crit range at level 5.



> Same with the Witch. I'd love to play one. I think they get derided as Wizard lite, but those Hexes look great and the Patron spells look fun as well.




I used a hex that causes a melee attacks to do half damage to the attacker to great effect on a two-weapon fighter. I also used the hex that gives a + half-level bonus on skill checks, saves, and attack rolls and a equal negative to other two to great effect. I had the witch give the character a half-level bonus on skills and a half-level negative on saves and attack rolls. It was pretty devastating.

Their spell list is fairly good.

Just can't get past the familiar having all their spells and if it dies, they basically lose their spell book. That's not a fun thing to worry about as a DM.

Haven't found too many classes that aren't fun and effective in _Pathfinder_. The rogue is the only class I've seen that is easily made useless. It also has really boring archetypes that don't provide much bang forthe buck and fairly useless powers.


----------



## Walking Dad

TheAuldGrump said:


> Let us just say that not everyone agrees with you.
> 
> Some of us disagree quite a bit, actually.
> 
> The Auld Grump




For the record, I do agree with StreamOfTheSky and completely disagree with Celtavian.

So, yes, there are two sides with a disagreement.

---

BTW, Pathfinder is (nearly) as badly balanced as 3.5 (Monk equal to a wizard? Sunder as good an option as trip? Non-casters have as many options as non-casters?), NPC and monster creation is a mess (size of the statblocks and build like PCs) and forward steps are taken back.

(Sample for the last: they removed LA from the races. At least the last playtest reintroduces them.)

I really hope Wizards doesn't try to make D&D similar than it (I have my fears after reading there Witch subclass).

---

That said, I still like and play (low-level) Pathfinder and was one of the founders of the Living Pathfinder game here, so please don't act like I just hate the game.


----------



## TheAuldGrump

Walking Dad said:


> For the record, I do agree with StreamOfTheSky and completely disagree with Celtavian.
> 
> So, yes, there are two sides with a disagreement.
> 
> ---



In which case, I disagree with you, too. 

As I said above, my experience does not match your own, in part, I think, because I am typically the GM, and take steps to prevent such imbalance from becoming an issue - and have for long enough that I don't even think about it. I do not actively write things in to prevent a power mad wizard from destroying my setting, but it gets done anyway - I like timelines, and the idea that the bad guys don't wait around for the wizard to regain spells. It also makes for a more believable setting. I have run games this way since 1981 or thereabouts, so it long predates second edition, let alone third.

So, I am not saying that your experience is invalid, merely that it does not match mine, at all.


> BTW, Pathfinder is (nearly) as badly balanced as 3.5 (Monk equal to a wizard? Sunder as good an option as trip? Non-casters have as many options as non-casters?), NPC and monster creation is a mess (size of the statblocks and build like PCs) and forward steps are taken back.



 This I can't address - I don't have monks in my campaign setting - based on Reformation/Counter-Reformation, D&D style monks are thin on the ground....


> (Sample for the last: they removed LA from the races. At least the last playtest reintroduces them.)



I am waiting on watching in regards to the Races book - I did manage to recreate the variant Ogres from my settings without an LA, but then they aren't all that much like standard Ogres. 

Not sure on the pricing on a special racial feature - Ogres in my setting are slow, not stupid. A negative modifier to Int, but a bonus when taking 20 on Int based tests. Astronomers, mathematicians, philosophers, chess players... but they do very badly on Jeopardy. 



> I really hope Wizards doesn't try to make D&D similar than it (I have my fears after reading there Witch subclass).
> 
> ---



 And if Wizards produce a balance-at-the-cost-of-anything-like-enjoyment D&D again then I will pass on the thing. Sorry, as I have said before, I have literally enjoyed watching paint dry more than playing 4e. (As I have also said before, I like painting miniatures, so it is not quite as bad as that sounds - watching drying paint shows if the shading is going on right.)







> That said, I still like and play (low-level) Pathfinder and was one of the founders of the Living Pathfinder game here, so please don't act like I just hate the game.



I like low level play as well, but I do not have a problem with higher level play in the 3.X architecture, either.

Mind you, it is a lot easier to write a mystery for low level characters, higher level produces more of a challenge in that regard. Not impossible, but a challenge.

The Auld Grump


----------



## prosfilaes

Walking Dad said:


> (Sample for the last: they removed LA from the races. At least the last playtest reintroduces them.)




I think pointing to a playtest as an example of what PF is doing is a bit unfair.

Taking all powerful races out of the game isn't much of a step forward, and it's a solution terribly easy to implement by houserule (no LA races). Is it really that bad for LAs of 1 or 2 and no HD? It seems like the primary solution for D&D 3, since level is the primary quantum of power boost. Suggestions on better solutions?


----------



## Celtavian

Walking Dad said:


> For the record, I do agree with StreamOfTheSky and completely disagree with Celtavian.
> 
> So, yes, there are two sides with a disagreement.
> 
> ---
> 
> BTW, Pathfinder is (nearly) as badly balanced as 3.5 (Monk equal to a wizard? Sunder as good an option as trip? Non-casters have as many options as non-casters?), NPC and monster creation is a mess (size of the statblocks and build like PCs) and forward steps are taken back.
> 
> (Sample for the last: they removed LA from the races. At least the last playtest reintroduces them.)
> 
> I really hope Wizards doesn't try to make D&D similar than it (I have my fears after reading there Witch subclass).
> 
> ---
> 
> That said, I still like and play (low-level) Pathfinder and was one of the founders of the Living Pathfinder game here, so please don't act like I just hate the game.




Neither of you have a good foundation for your argument. I've played _Pathfinder_ at all levels, it's a well-designed game.

You sound like folks with almost no experience with high level play. I can only gather that this is by choice as high level play reaches a level of power you don't enjoy or choose to parcitipate in because it does reach absurd levels and needs a great amount of prepartation.

But it is playable. And is fun for many people.

And the whole melee/caster disparity does not exist unless two things occur that almost never happen:

1. You are fighting each other.

2. The caster has time to prepare for that melee in particular.

Melees are nasty now. Very friggin nasty. The fact that both you and *Stream of the Sky* discount the power of an archer indicates to me you haven't had much experience with them at high level. They win initiative, any caster they fight might as well say goodbye unless he has a prepared a _contingency_ to deal with it.

Same with many physical damage dealers. They are beasts to deal with. I have a much harder time coming up with enemies to deal with them than I do with casters. Casters often deal with enemies that are outright immune or completely negate what they're doing. Wheras nothing negates physical damage and physical damage dealers deal even more physical damage than they used to.

I see now why you both post mostly on this board. Your arguments against _Pathfinder_ are so easily dissected and shown to be false by experienced _Pathfinder_ gamers that most only participate in the discussion for their own amusement.

Neither you nor *Stream of the Sky* are making cogent arguments based on the game system, your arguments are solely based on your personal preferences which you want to impose on the rest of us. Which is why you both probably write house rules.

I'm ok with that. I write house rules as well. And in our campaigns the rogue is like the monk must be in both your campaigns. No one plays them. They have shown to be weak in actual play over and over again. Whereas the monk is a gigantic pain to deal with because the one guy that likes monks makes bad to the bone monks. I can only gather than you two play with players that don't spend the time to make a monk worth a darn or are following the 15 to 20 point buy system to the letter.

Until you grasp that the advantage of _Pathfinder_ is system flexibility as in the game fits many different styles even though it is written one way, I can't consider your arguments as valid in any way. Style arguments shouldn't exist for a game system. You want a particular style, then modify the system to obtain it as you are both doing. Don't waste your time acting as though your viewpoint is somehow "how it should be". It isn't how it is should be. It's merely your preference and yours differs from mine.

In my experience, which is just as valid and real as either yours or *Stream of the Sky*'s, monks rip it up. Monks have not had any trouble whatsoever being powerful contributors in a party in _Pathfinder_, and are even more dangerous with the addition of the _Ultimate Combat_. Your experience differs. So be it.


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## StreamOfTheSky

Wow, my name is worth bolding now.  I'm so honored!


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## Celtavian

Systole said:


> In this, you are badly mistaken.
> 
> SotS may be highly opinionated, and he may be ranting a bit here, and I might even disagree with him completely on this ... but he knows PF backwards and forwards.  For confirmation, you might want to check out pretty much any of the threads he started.




When you attempt to support a position that is entirely founded in personal preference and make it seem as though this something that can be proven empirically, you don't know what you're talking about.

I don't care how well someone knows the rules. That person should still know the difference between personal preference and empirically proveable fact. 

The way *Stream of the Sky* and quite a few others speak, you can tell they very much confuse the two. Just like they confuse ideas of balance with comparable power rather than party role. I can prove that _Pathfinder_ is a very balanced system according to party role. I can also prove it is balanced according to character capability. I can also name what classes have advanatages in certain areas like versatility and what classes have advantages in areas like damage dealing, damage taking, and saving throws.

Which players like *Stream of the Sky* seem to want to boil down into "If this class went against this class, this class would win. Thus the game isn't balanced". That isn't how D&D has ever been balanced or ever should be balanced in my opinon.

It should be balanced as _Pathfinder_ is currenlty balanced, which is balance built around party roles. If you look at it from that perspective rather than like this is some kind of battle royale, you can empirically prove the game is balanced.

I always hear the example of _time stop_ and _gate_ being tossed around like that combination is easy and inexpensive execute. Yet I rarely hear anyone say "Wait a minute. By the time you can summon a balor, a lvl 20 physical damage dealer can vastly outdamage and can probably kill one or more balor level enemies a round in melee combat". Because physical damage dealers do indeed do that much damage.

So it's irritating to see someone post on a game, claiming knowledge of the game, when things have changed dramatically from the previous edition and I have experenced these changes first hand at 1st through 20th level for multiple classes. 

So when a person claims _Pathfinder_ is imbalanced while I'm having a tougher time dealing with the Come and Get Me Invulnerable Rager Barbarian and the Two-hander Fighter than I am the wizard or cleric, I have to call "horse puckey" on that person.

That person pointing about "But you can do this and this and this to deal with them", all of those options involving statting out a caster with the perfect spell set up to deal with them as though they were alone, sounds like a ridiculous fool to me. When I do set up that spell option to deal with them, they seem to forget Mr. Wizard or Mr. Cleric in the group is cleaning off whatever spell I just tried because he knows Mr. Barbarian or Mr. Fighter does way more damage than he could ever do and pretty much guarantees that whatever Mr. Fighter and Mr. Barbarian get their hands on is going to die. 

Whereas all I have to do to deal with Mr. Gloryhound Wizard or Cleric is make a creature with high spell resistance or high saves that shrugs off their save or die spell, toss on a _spell turning_ so they're saving against their own spell, or make the creature outright immune.

While I can't even allow a big powerful physically damage dealing creature like a dragon or shoggoth near Mr. Barbarian or Mr.Two-weapon Fighter or Mrs. Archer because each one of them does 1.5 times to 2 times the damage the dragon or shoggoth can and they have magic items to counter some of their best attacks like grapple.

The Come and Get Me barbarian once he enters melee range hits for 60 points a hit with +40 bonus to hit or so using power attack, gets his 4 attacks, and then gets to attack every time the dragon or creature swings at him, took the Step Up line of feats so the dragon couldn't use reach against him, and is dead by round two if tries to go toe to toe with the barbarian who has over 450 hit points while raging and a DR of 12/- against every physical attack and saves where he only misses on a 1. He bought a _ring of evasion_ so he evades easier than the rogue.

The two-hander fighter can do a standard action attack that averages 270 points of damage against any creature not immune to crit. 

The archer can fire 7 times a round without _haste_ for an average of 35 points an arrow. If she crits, it gets much, much worse.

There's no save against these forms of attack. And I can't make every encounter a powerful magic using creature with the perfect defenses. Even when I do toss one in, all the party wizard or cleric has to do is counter the guy and any one of the physical damage dealers can end him in a round or two.

So when I hear about this caster-phyiscal damage dealer disparity, I think "What game are you playing and who are you playing with?" Physical damage dealers are nightmares to deal with. They have their weaknesses like any class. But within the group dynamic that D&D is built around, they aren't lacking. They have more options in _Pathfinder_ than they ever had in 3.5.

And liking Prcs versus Archetypes is purely a matter of preference with nothing to do with balance.

I would say given the success of _Pathfinder_, it is much improved over 3.5 in terms of intersting options for physical damage dealers. The caster-martial disparity in power versus each other was never as big an issue as people made it out to be. The issue was making physical damage dealers more fun to play with more options. _Pathfinder_ successfully accomplished that without neutering casters, which only a small minority cared about because this game is not now, and never has been, a battle royale.

I'll leave the discussion as it is never ending. *Stream of the Sky* has his opinion...and it is nothing more than an opinion...I made sure to let new players wanting to try out _Pathfinder_ know the tier system is not the same any longer.

Casters cannot do everytying. CoDzilla does not exist anymore. Wizards cannot summoner creatures or buff themselves to equal physical damage dealers any longer. Physical damage dealers have quite a few options for their builds. And physical damage dealers are quite fun to play.

Including the monk, which just got a whole lot better with the expanded number of weapons they can use and the new martial arts. I've never seen it so good for physical damage dealers as they have it now.


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## enrious

Bolding the names of people you disagree with as an attempt to (unsuccessfully) discredit them is cruise-control for cool, evidently.

Really weird too, given Umbran's admonishment.  http://www.enworld.org/forum/5703018-post16.html


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## Systole

Ohhhhh, _now_ I get it.   Everything Celtavian says is a fact, while everything Stream of the Sky -- excuse me -- *Stream of the Sky* says is an opinion, because *Stream of the Sky* has never played Pathfinder before.  Clearly.


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## StreamOfTheSky

*The Stream of the Sky* approves of this thread.

[sblock]Since *The Stream of the Sky* is already being bolded, separated into individual words, and referred to in the third person, *The Stream of the Sky* thinks adding "The" to his formal name is appropriate.[/sblock]


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## Samurai

Look, some of you may not like Celtavian getting a bit angry, but as far as the facts he is stating, I can 100% confirm it.  His game sounds almost exactly like my game.  Casters are simple to counter, but the massive physical damage dealers make mincemeat of every enemy I throw at them.  A 2-headed, 600 hp dragon vs a party of 11th level characters... the dragon is *dead in 1 round thanks to the melee characters.*  The Sorcerer doesn't even bother casting fireballs and such most of the time, he uses his wand of Enlarge to make the Barbarian/Fighter size Large, increasing his damage even further.  How long would it take a Sorcerer to get through the SR and very high saves of a dragon?  A long time.   But when a martial character like Celtavian described or like the one in my game can chew through such a foe in a round or 2 (and now the monk in our group is getting up there too, especially against lower AC enemies... his attack bonuses are nowhere near as high, but to compensate his defenses are the best in the party with evasion, massive AC, high saves, dodge/mobility chain, and Ki point in defense, he's almost impossible to hit)


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## enrious

Look, some of you may not like *The Stream of the Sky* not getting even a little bit angry, but as far as the facts he is stating, I can 100% confirm it.  His game sounds exactly like my game.  

And so on.

And so forth.

Blah blah blah lolmelee.  Lolrogue.  Lolmonk.  Loldexbasedmelee.  Lolnon-caster.  LolCMD.  Loltumble.  Lolranger.  Lolmonk.  (It bears saying twice.)


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## Flatus Maximus

aboyd said:


> My issue right now is that I don't know how to get the 3 feats I need at 1st level.  I need scribe scroll, spell focus (conjuration), and augment summoning.  Are there ways in Pathfinder to get more than 2 feats at 1st level?
> 
> I guess if I had to settle on only 2, I'd hold augment summoning for later.  At low levels, there is a paucity of spells, so being able to scribe many backup scrolls would be paramount.




You shouldn't be summoning at level 1 since you'll only have it for one round, so Augment Summoning can wait.


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## TheAuldGrump

Flatus Maximus said:


> You shouldn't be summoning at level 1 since you'll only have it for one round, so Augment Summoning can wait.



But, going by personal internet experience, Argument Summoning can be used by anyone, of any class, at any level, and lasts for an indefinite amount of time....

The Auld Grump


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## StreamOfTheSky

Yes, unless it's a summoner (who can summon for 1 min / CL), summoning at CL 1 is pretty pointless.  That said, to answer the question on getting more feats at level 1 in a PF-only game... The only option *The Stream of the Sky* is aware of is in APG, where option hero point type rules were introduced.  IF your DM uses them, there is an optional to not receive any and never be able to benefit from them, even via spells that give temporary points.  In return, you get a bonus feat.


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## Walking Dad

TheAuldGrump said:


> ...
> 
> And if Wizards produce a balance-at-the-cost-of-anything-like-enjoyment D&D again then I will pass on the thing. Sorry, as I have said before, I have literally enjoyed watching paint dry more than playing 4e. ...




Tastes vary. I personally enjoy 4e gaming much more than 3.5 or Pathfinder. And character creation is much less work (epically equipment).
(But I prefer Mutants & Masterminds as a system even more.)


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## Walking Dad

Just re-reading 'Come and Get me'. How can it be used against flying enemies with reach? Or massive breath weapons?

And why I not often play high level Pathfinder games, I did so in 3.5.

My druid and shadowcaster gnome kept usually in the back, purposefully not using many spells or abilities to avoid overshadowing the other characters. The spellcasters in other games I DMed also dominated the game.
So that it was no big issue is simply false from my experience.

BTW, dealing massive amounts of damage was never what made D&D or any other RPG fun to me. Having many options to reach the goal was more like it.


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## TheAuldGrump

Walking Dad said:


> Tastes vary. I personally enjoy 4e gaming much more than 3.5 or Pathfinder. And character creation is much less work (epically equipment).
> (But I prefer Mutants & Masterminds as a system even more.)



I prefer Pathfinder to M&M, but I like Spycraft just as much as Pathfinder. (More of a genre thing in the case of M&M - I think that the system is very elegant, but I don't play Supers much.)

In honesty though  - if 4e floats your boat, why try to inflict an arguable tier system on Pathfinder? Those who disagree will never agree with you, and the ones who do will argue about which class goes where. (Unless the argument is the point - in which case you can enjoy the bustle.  )

When I read someone's post that talks about the lack of balance, or looking to create a more powerful character, I'm afraid my thoughts run along the lines of 'He/She is/has a lousy GM.' I certainly would not want to play in their game.

The Auld Grump


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## Wiseblood

Perhaps the OP should play a fighter. Not much in there to nerf.

I would add this warning though. You will get tired of saving the spellcasters. They talk a big game...but 


Rarely have the right spell ready.

Sleep when they should be keeping watch.

Rub it in when you get charmed.

Are thankless when you are taking hits for them.

Are the first to whine when the party gets AoE'd

And are least likely to be targeted with an offensive spell.

Most likeley to target themselves with defensive spells.

They are most capable of all classes at fleeing the scene.

Will want to take a break after casting the one spell that might actually be useful again today.

Lets face it.. if they were half as bad as they think they are, SoD and AoE would be all anyone would ever memorize.


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## Walking Dad

TheAuldGrump said:


> ...
> 
> In honesty though  - if 4e floats your boat, why try to inflict an arguable tier system on Pathfinder? Those who disagree will never agree with you, and the ones who do will argue about which class goes where. (Unless the argument is the point - in which case you can enjoy the bustle.  )
> 
> ...



Some of my friends enjoy Pathfinder more than me and I enjoy playing with them.
I don't enjoy the bashing of other games and the undue over much praise for Pathfinder's game balance.
And the OP *asked for a Tier list* or summary.


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## MortonStromgal

TheAuldGrump said:


> why try to inflict an arguable tier system on Pathfinder?




I think the tier system can be a useful tool for players and GMs to know what to expect from classes and be prepared to say give the monk and extra feat if it feels like that player isnt contributing much. I think its mostly used for powergaming and assuming a GM will allow some shinanigans (part of the new say yes philosophy rather than the Gygax AD&D 1e, beat them down mentality) but it can be a useful tool. I also feel alot of players misunderstand that the tier system. It is less about damage and more about ability to take on multiple rolls with a particular class.


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## TheAuldGrump

MortonStromgal said:


> I think the tier system can be a useful tool for players and GMs to know what to expect from classes and be prepared to say give the monk and extra feat if it feels like that player isnt contributing much. I think its mostly used for powergaming and assuming a GM will allow some shinanigans (part of the new say yes philosophy rather than the Gygax AD&D 1e, beat them down mentality) but it can be a useful tool. I also feel alot of players misunderstand that the tier system. It is less about damage and more about ability to take on multiple rolls with a particular class.



I think that it is the powergaming aspect that sticks in my craw.

Personally, I sure as heck would not want to run a wizard solo through most adventures, but would have less difficulty as a bard or a rogue - so the tier system seems off when it comes to the ability to 'take on multiple roles'.

No sir, don't like it. (And I am of the OD&D generation - but have _always_ allowed shenanigans... players trying stupid silly crazy _innovative and creative_ things is part of what makes GMing worthwhile. 

The Auld Grump


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## MortonStromgal

The wizard starts out weaker sure, and less versatile than a rogue, but when you start casting 3rd level spells you start catching up and eventually when 3rd level spells are weak you pull ahead, not in terms of raw damage but in terms of "Today I will memorize spells to be a rogue, tomorrow I will memorize spells to be a fighter" But I will agree most people get stuck in "how powerful am I in combat" and incorrectly look to the 3.X tier system. Wizards are powerful but that Paladin hits like a Mac truck... and keeps going, don't even get me started on the Summoner...

I think a lot of the power gaming tier stuff comes from people who never played AD&D where your 1 HP fighter caught diptheria and died for crawling through a sewer.


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## enrious

I think categorizing people who look at the numbers as being unfamiliar with gaming history to be dangerously short-sighted.

Sure, there are likely to be some who have only started playing with 3.x.  But I would caution ascribing the majority of such players to that category.  

It's as dangerous a position as saying that the people who think that looking at the numbers are johnny-come-lately people who got their start larping in the park and scaring all the neighbors with bad hair and the smell of cloves.

Both are equally inane.

Also, I hasten to add, are arguments that say that powergamers are the minority of the gaming populace or that larping interferes with math skills.

Empirical data showing your gaming statistics argument or it didn't happen.



In any event, there's a reason why tier discussions have combat as a major (if not *the*) component.

A large part of D&D is about combat.

And the combat discussions tend to revolve around the numbers, because the numbers are empirical.  

Let me give you a demonstration.

Everyone, please rank the classes by tier, in terms of role-playing potential.

I rest my case.



Hey, let's face it - D&D has always had combat as a major (if not *the*) component to the game - one could argue that as time progressed role-playing become more prominent than in the beginning (which I think is a good thing).   

You can define the tier system to be utility over combat capability - hey, that's your right and if you make it clear at the outset that it's your expectation, then I'm all for it.  I think part of the problem is someone says "tier" and a lot of people think "combat tier" while others think "utility tier" and then they start arguing definitions instead of realizing they have two different arguments.  Heck, throw in some more "x tier" discussions too (such as "self-sufficient tier") and IMO, you make for a more productive discussion.

Y'know, any class can thrive in any campaign.  The factors that go into it are the same - rules, GM, player, luck.

The question is to what degree much one of those factors compensate for another.

I started out a long time ago and I rarely let the rules get in the way of the story (note: I didn't say *my* story) - but I'd be lying if I told you the rules never got in the way of that story and often an area of rules-weakness are the classes.

I noticed this the most with a recent Kingmaker campaign - the encounters are built according to the RAW and they expect characters to have certain combat requisites. 

That's not a subjective opinion, that's part of the core of the rules set, and yes, combat numbers are something that are very important.  (I again suggest people who are so bad at math that they have to role-play* drop $5 on a copy of the Trailblazer PDF to understand the fundamentals of the mechanics - and why it's important to know them.)

*It should also be noted that people who are good at math are out role-played by a pet rock, which is why they do the math.**

**Obviously failed attempts to insert levity.  

Look, the main thing is that, IMO, you shouldn't ignore the basic math issues any more than you should ignore the role-playing - they are part and parcel for the game.  At the end of the day, the most important thing is that you spend some time with people you enjoy spending time with, while doing something you enjoy.  And the same for the other people.

tl;dr - The more tiers, the fewer tears.


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## MortonStromgal

enrious said:


> I think categorizing people who look at the numbers as being unfamiliar with gaming history to be dangerously short-sighted.




Thats not what I was saying at all. I was saying "those who give a bad name to the tier system" are usually people who started with 3e. That would be those who look at T1 as being the most powerful in combat, they aren't really groking the numbers at all because T1 is not about combat power. Even the wizard "god" builds are focus on summoning and controlling the battlefield not blasting with the most damage.

[edit] Its also not their fault, because 3.0 introduced choice into character creation more than where to put that attribute you just rolled. 2e had this as well but it wasnt built into the core it was in skills & power and other optional books. 3.0 also included many options that were not equal (toughness, dodge, etc) so picking them was bad/wrong depending on your build. In 1e all we had to worry about was 6 attributes and placing them in the best place for the class and sometimes some spells or skills). 3e added feats and more granularity to the bonus structure as a whole. All these options make someone who knows the rules and someone who doesn't on polar opposite ends of the combat power scale, thus making someone who played a "useless" character see his/her friend slay everything think about how to gain more combat power.



enrious said:


> Everyone, please rank the classes by tier, in terms of role-playing potential.




Fine

T1 - Rogue, Fighter

T2 - Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer

T3 - Paladin, Monk, Ranger, Barbarian, Druid


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## Systole

MortonStromgal said:


> T1 - Rogue, Fighter
> 
> T2 - Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer
> 
> T3 - Paladin, Monk, Ranger, Barbarian, Druid





Barbarians are T3?  Come on!  All you gotta do is give 'em a BFAxe and a dirty loincloth, and you've got the life of the party!


In terms of role-playing potential:

T1: Bard, barbarian, rogue, sorcerer, oracle, inquisitor

T2: Fighter, rogue, alchemist, ranger, summoner, cavalier

T3: Cleric, wizard, witch, paladin, monk, druid


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## Epametheus

What classes will work and won't work will depend greatly on your group.  Do people coordinate?  Can they perform tactics?  Are they willing to support each other?

If the answers to those are yes, then you can pretty much do anything and be fine.  A lot of classes don't function well in a vacuum (rogue is a good example of this) but can be staggeringly effective if they're supported, or are doing the supporting (a rogue who actually gets buff spells is a good example of this).

If the answers to those are no, then (a) I'm glad I don't have your group and (b) you should probably be a caster that has a little bit of durability, because self-sufficiency will be everything.  A sorcerer, witch, or wizard will eventually be strong, but you'll be leaning on the rest of the not-helpful party before that happens.  Cleric, magus, druid, summoner, oracle, or one of the "selfish" bard archetypes, like arcane duelist or the dancing dervish, may be your best bets.  I haven't seen alchemist or inquisitor in action, so I have nothing to say about those.


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## DDogwood

MortonStromgal said:


> Thats not what I was saying at all. I was saying "those who give a bad name to the tier system" are usually people who started with 3e. That would be those who look at T1 as being the most powerful in combat, they aren't really groking the numbers at all because T1 is not about combat power. Even the wizard "god" builds are focus on summoning and controlling the battlefield not blasting with the most damage.




QFT. I've been catching up on this thread, and I keep seeing people talk about the amazing things barbarians and fighters can do in combat - but nobody's denying that the fighting classes are good at fighting. There is a bit of an issue with spells like Wind Wall totally negating most archer builds, or melee fighters being limited against flying monsters, but those things are fairly easily handled by a competent DM. 

The bigger issue is that casters can do combat well, but can also handle anything and everything outside of combat, too, while the dedicated combat builds are mostly useless outside of the one or two areas where their skills can help. High level casters can literally warp the fabric of reality by creating new planes of existence and bargaining with gods, and that makes the Rogue's trap finding or the Barbarian's ability to finely dice dragons seem a bit lame in comparison. 

The Tier 1 classes are the worst offenders in this way, because they literally or effectively have access to every spell on their lists. No, a Wizard won't always have the exact spells he needs to slay a raging Barbarian, but the raging barbarian will never be able to teleport his entire party halfway around the world. 

Again, a good DM can manage this to some extent, but it can take a LOT of work, and it's more about roleplaying and storylines than anything the rules support directly.


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## MortonStromgal

Systole said:


> Barbarians are T3?  Come on!  All you gotta do is give 'em a BFAxe and a dirty loincloth, and you've got the life of the party!




Yes, T3 because Barbarians are more the same than Fighters. Its not about fun its about versatility. The Fighter could be a Viking or a Centurion or a Knight, heck even a pit fighter. The Barbarian class means your going to get your rage on and I doubt your a Knight. The more generic your class the closer your are to T1 the more restricted (but perhaps cooler) your class the closer you are to T3


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