Talk to me about tiers in D&D

The Game Room
21

It seems unwise to get into an arms race with one’s players unless a certain kind of forensic play appeals to everyone. If so, power to you. But this is not to everyone’s taste. I like games to focus on set-piece battles, cinematics, and character development. There is somewhat less touching everything with a pole. We kick down doors because, dammit, Aragorn never listened to a door and puttered around it first.

Then you might as well just deal a little damage to everyone every few rounds then and not bother with letting the players come up with solutions that actually work. If you are just going to escalate things to make sure the players step on the trap, then just be up front with it and deal the damage already.

This, for the record, is one of the many reasons why my group usually just hates traps and such. They are a novelty every now and again where the fit the flavor. But every player and every group has a different style. I don’t mean to criticize you so much as present an alternative viewpoint.

No matter what your style, as a DM, Dispel is usually a bad idea. If I induce an enemy spellcaster to burn a standard action to dispel my polymorph, then victory is mine. That’s like having a 1-round mage lockdown with no save or spell resistance. Please, please try to dispel my mid-level buff instead of Avasculating me. My caster level will usually be rather higher than most enemies’. Even if this were not the case, there would at best be even odds. Dispel is usually the last refuge for people who have nothing better to do. For a spellcaster, that should be rare. Ignore the polymorph and just Enervate or something.

This is kind of true, but only for the most egregious strategies. If your player has a strategy integral to his concept, why punish him for doing what he wants to do? A character built around polymorphing is canonical. Why should I be a dick and deny the player actually realizing this character? Sometimes I might make it a little harder, but I am not convinced there is a lot of value to countering what the players are actually trying to do. As long as the characters are balanced to each other, what difference? Just triple the monster’s HP, throw in a few extra Horrid Wiltings, and call it a day.

22

Yes, really. A Fighter gets no class features except extra fighting-related feats, and the lowest number of skill points. A Barbarian, a Warblade, a Crusader or a Cleric can all play the same role, but they’ve also got the skill points and the non-feat class abilities to do more than just hit people. Hell, I’ve even played a Wu Jen gish who turned out to be the hardest hitter in the party, and still had near full spellcasting on the side.

23

Most definitely. My group and I ended up wasting way too much time with one of those fools in recent memory.

24

I’m not disagreeing with you at all. I’m just pointing out that there are indeed spells in the Player’s Handbook that could be useful in avoiding traps, healing or “tanking” (whatever that may be). They might do a relatively poor job, but that’s a big difference than not doing that job at all (if we’re talking about versatility).

(Personally, I find “Well, if you do A, I’ll do B!” “But if you do B, then I’ll do C!” “But if you do C, etc.” hypothetical jousting to be pretty boring.)

25

I don’t buy it. The huge number of bonus feats a Fighter gets IS a feature! Look at a Barbarian. What does he get? Rage, Uncanny Dodge, etc. Things that let him get all Hulk Smash on the Big Bad Evil Guy. A Fighter, on the other hand, has a list of feats. He can choose to take feats that will let him focus on whatever style of fighting he likes best, be it heavy armor and tower shield, two weapons, or a giant axe.

26

Gotcha. I’ll admit, I’m not a hard-core character optimizer, and I strongly suspect that the “all over the place” skews towards sites and message boards for optimizers. (I note that the above URL has a note that says those boards are closed to new posts, and redirects readers to a newer site called “minmaxboards.com”) I still note that, in 12 years of being a regular on the EN World and WotC message boards, I’ve never seen any sort of formalized tiering system like this before.

Having read through that guy’s post, I don’t necessarily disagree with the relative assessment of the classes, though I do disagree with some of the absolute language he uses (e.g., "Tier 5: Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. ")

My general take: if you’re the kind of player who really gets into optimization, or strongly values the tactical side of the game, it might be a worthwhile exercise for you. Me, I just don’t care that much about that aspect of the game.

27

Thanks for the answers. Now at least I have a better idea of the situation. On a strange side note, now I also am stuck wondering as to how anybody would actually go around carrying a 10 foot pole that didn’t screw together in the middle, or something.

28

Here’s the original thread from the WotC message boards.

29

Actually, the problem with the Tiers isn’t that it’s wrong (because on its own terms it’s completely correct), it’s just that it misses something important: the game isn’t, and probably shouldn’t be, just based around rules-based combat. But everybody thinks in those terms and the way the Big Three put together 3.0 contributed to that way of thinking. And the fact that people were promised balance, along with all kinds of preconstructed ECL’s and everyting laid out nice and neatly, made many of them think that Wizards actually intended to do it.

Well, yes. A Fighter acn only do one thing, and he’s really only so-so at it. This isn’t about Tiers. The Fighter’s ability to specialize in some kind of fighting is actually pretty cruddy, and isn’t worth very much in ro out of the game. He’s unlikely to be the best at anything, unless nobody else is trying very hard. Frankly, most of the Fighter feats are either extremely limited application, or of moderate utility.

Mean while, the Fighter gives up everything else. He’s got poor saves, no special defenses or resources in a world of very unpleasant magic and other trouble, and few skills to round out. If you’re considering character ability in any way, shape, or form, the Fighter is not a great class, although sometimes quite useful to splash in.

While I have no problem with traps that target areas, or do some other nonsense, a trap which simply hit an area exactly ten feet away is, (and I can’t even believe I’m saying this) the GM metagaming all over his players. Unless the trapmaker had some insane reason to worry about exactly that, it’s patently absurd.

Beside, any sensible adventurer will open the chest from down the corridor and behind two locked doors.

First off, this is a very stupid answer. What, all the traps always reload now? Even if we grant there are a lot of magic-based ones, this is starting to get rather silly. That’s simply getting angry and saying, “Screw you! Nobody gets to use their brains for once.” In that case, might I suggest playing Chutes and Ladders?

Basically, the entire point of DnD is to have fun, and for a lot of people, that means things like* intelligent problem solving*. I know, shocker. But some twisted bastards actually like coming up with creative solutions.

30

Interesting. It’s from a part of the forums I don’t often frequent, and it’s from 2008 (when 4E was already out)…at that point, I’d already started to shift some of my play focus to 4E.

At any rate, my point is this: the OP shouldn’t assume that thinking about “tiers” in 3.x is the standard, or that every player does so (though it may be that the players with whom he’s playing are doing so). In short: if high levels of character optimizing, particularly for combat, is an important part of game play for you, it might be worth taking a look at. If you strongly dislike it when other characters of your level seem to be “better” than you, maybe it’s worth taking a look at. If neither of these describe you, don’t worry about it.

31

No, no! You completely misunderstood me. My goal isn’t to prevent creative solutions; it’s to encourage them. And not every trap would be repeated, of course. Let me use an example.

Wizard, Fighter, Rogue, and Cleric are a party of level 1 adventurers. They enter the Kobold Tunnels, searching for the fabled Shiny Gem. On the way to the Kobold Tunnels, they hit level 3.

Now, kobolds are notorious for simple, cruel, and effective traps. So as soon as they enter the tunnels, rocks fall from above, bamboo spears spring out at them, etc. Finally, after many hardships, they reach the Hall of the McGuffin. Ahead is a long corridor, clearly trapped, with the gem at the end.

Rogue starts searching for traps, but happens to miss a few. After the third time Fighter is impaled, Wizard comes up with an idea: He summons a Celestial Monkey and sends him to fetch the Shiny Gem. The monkey dashes ahead, setting off dozens of traps, and with one hit point left retrieves the Gem. The party returns home, happy and rich. Wizard even earns a few bonus experience points for his creative solution.

Fast forward past a few quests. The party now enters the Ancient Mountainhomes of the Very Secretive Dwarf Clan, in search of the Adamantine Battleaxe. Finally, they come to a long hallway, at the end of which lies the Battleaxe. Wizard smiles as he summons a Celestial Water Buffalo and sends him to retrieve the axe. The buffalo sets off the first few traps and is totally fried fifty feet in. Wizard decides to summon another buffalo, and sends him in; to his surprise, all of the set off traps have reset themselves.

This is because Dwarves are very cunning trapsmiths, which is why all these years after the Ancient Mountainhomes of the Very Secretive Dwarf Clan has been abandoned the traps still function. This is why they set up repeating traps.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean that every trap in the world is now repeating. Only the most cunning trapsmiths, such as Dwarves or Drow, would be able to craft repeating traps. The Troll Tunnels might have a single log set to roll over and crush people at the entrance, but it obviously would not be repeating. The rich human noble might trap his treasure room, but his trap would not be as reliable or hard to disarm as the Dwarven traps.

Regarding the 10 foot pole thing, that happened in only one dungeon, which was under a Drow city deep in the Underdark. This particular dungeon belonged to a very powerful Drow matriarch who was also a powerful sorceress. If anyone in the whole world is paranoid and cunning enough to put a trap ten feet away from a button (Which happened to be a decoy button, by the way) it would be her.

32

Tiers are generally accurate generalities that can be useful if considered as rough guidelines. As long as players are being socially intelligent, there should be no problem with mixing tiers widely, but, the greater the power disparity, the more adept people will have to be to make sure everyone feels like they are contributing. In terms of player enjoyment, there’s that, and then there is the fact that, as Maeglin mentioned, the crunch does not always match the fluff. The best way to play a monk is not a Monk. But I digress…

33

Practically speaking, the canonical 10’ pole should be extensible in some fashion. I always picture the one the Grey Mouser used while climbing Stardock.

34

There are many, many ways to carry a standard-issue 10 foot pole. The Rogue usually places it in his Bag of Holding, along with a sac marked “Loot that I won’t be sharing with the rest of the party”. The Wizard places his 10 foot pole on the Astral Plane. The Fighter’s 10 foot pole is retractable, and can be used as a weapon in a pinch. All of these classes must purchase a 10 foot pole, however. There is one class that gets a 10 foot pole as a class feature: The Paladin. And conveniently, they can keep it stuck up their ass.

35

If you enjoy creative problem solving, why would you want the creative solution you came up with the very first time you dealt with a trap to work for every trap from there on?

If the players treat every problem like a nail, give 'em a screw, I say. More fun for everyone.

36

Find traps and heal, maybe not. Remove magic traps? Dispel Magic. Fight as a tank? Ploymorph, Mage Armor, Shield, Haste, Tenser’s Transformation, etc. etc.

But when I think of wizards outclassing others, the examples that spring to mind are:
Rogue: I can climb walls! Wizard: Nice, I can fly.
Monk: I can jump like a wire-fu Jet Li! Wizard: still flying over here.
Rogue: I can hide in the shadows! Wizard: I can turn invisible. Or turn you invisible. Here you go, buddy!
Rogue: I can open locks. Wizard: Knock!
Monk and Barbarian: We’re fast! Wizard: Haste, Expeditious Retreat, Phantom Steed
Fighter: Finally! I got whirlwhind attack! I can hit everyone I can reach! Wizard: So… you can hit 8 guys in 5’ radius? with 1dX+Y damage? How about a 20’ radius Fireball (44 guys if they are packed together) for ZdX damage?

The only real balance is that the Wizard can do these things only a certain number of times a day. It’s the DM’s job to make that matter by not always giving the party enough chances to rest and replenish. (And IMHO sometimes the Wizard player’s job to back the heck off and pick different spells so as not to step on his friends toes.)

37

Thing is, it really wasn’t. D&D has, from its inception, been based off wargames. The rules have always been based around tactical skirmishes on a grid. I mean, this is the original dungeon-crawler game, after all. The social and non-combat stuff got tacked on when the needs arose, and some of them aren’t all that great (Diplomacy all by itself is as potentially abusable as a Cleric or Druid).

Go look at any other tabletop RP system like White Wolf or FATE. They don’t bother with miniatures on a grid or easily quantifiable classes and abilities. They use dice for conflict resolution, but it’s much more obvious in those kinds of games that the conflict resolution is in service to the story, whereas in D&D the story provides an excuse for conflict.

I’m not saying D&D can’t be used to tell some good stories – it certainly can – but it really is based around tactical combat at its core, and looking for a little balance in the classes isn’t a bad thing (though I disagree to the extent 4E went). There’s a reason many many successful computer RPGs used one variant or another of D&D as their rulebases rather than White Wolf (though certainly Vampire: the Masquerade wasn’t too bad).

38

An awareness of the tiers is necessary to prevent the game from turning into something resembling a bad computer RPG. And imbalances are not necessary to make the classes distinct. Yes, there are some things that a fighter can do better than a wizard, but the problem is that those things aren’t very useful. And yes, it’s possible to run characters of widely different tiers together without party friction, but it requires both a highly skilled DM and highly skilled players.

39

That would be my objection: I want to give people screws (and staples or paperclips), rather than declaring that you can’t pull out the nails. You will note that I specifically noted a better and more reasonable counter, instead of denying that a counter ought to be used.

But by 2nd Edition it had come very far from those roots, and was no longer a “Here are the rules and you must use them” game. 2nd Edition players were much more comfortable with the idea of creatig or modifying things to suit, without worry quite as much about balance. To me it’s basically because they were never promised things would be easy, and they knew going in their options were a bit limited.

Basically, I never heard anybody use “But it was in the book!” before 3rd edition, with the exception of Rules Lawyers who were looking for loopholes in applying the text, not in grabbing overpowered character classes.

40

In my experience, Pathfinder (a third-party offshoot of third edition that’s taken a big chunk of the D&D market share away from fourth edition) makes fighters much more interesting by extending feat chains so far that most characters can’t ever explore them fully. And the fighter in our game does ridiculous damage–I think at 6th level he averaged 25 damage per hit and nearly always hit. When he crit, it got much worse. As the party wizard, I was loath to cast Haste, not because it wasn’t useful, but because a single round of a hasted fighter, samurai, and archer-ranger often ended the battle and meant that I didn’t get to cast a second spell.

My tendency in play is to go for wizards, clerics, and druids, not because they’re so powerful, but because they have so many fiddly bits, and the fiddly bits of the character can keep the hamsters spinning in their wheels in my brain for a long time.