Mind you in previous editions I found it way too easy to use a spell I could understand taking a certain amount of damage. Yet one point of damage and one loses the spell despite being a high level caster. It's not even so much the magic as well so much that feats unlike spells do not scale upwards by level. The Dodge Feat is simply a +1 to AC. It never gets worse nor better. Yet spells that cast damage even lower level ones gets stronger. I think if they had at least made it so that Feats scale like spells the casters would be less stronger. As well may spells simply make many skills obsolete. Who needs Climb when a wand of Spider Climb will do.

Pathfinder was more balanced. No PC class except for the Shifter is lower than tier 4 and it is possible to make Fighter that is OK at high levels. Pathfinder is also Mathfinder. Their answer was to add lots of fiddly numbers and most of the options they printed were absolute crap which lead to power seep rather than creep (hence why anyone thought the Shifter was a good class to end the edition on).

The Shifter is hot garbage.

Quote from: Chris24601;1090933To be fair, 3.5 also fixed the Paladin, they just called it the Crusader (also their fixed fighter is called the Warblade and the fixed Monk is called the Swordsage). After the gripes of having to rebuy everything going from 3 to 3.5e they'd never have gotten away with a third iteration of the PHB, so they made them new classes instead.

Indeed, if you use the splats there are solid tier 3-4 subtitutions for all the overperfoming and underperforming classes;

- Barbarian: Already tier 4, but skill tricks and some of the later feats really make it shine.
- Bard: the definitive tier 3 class, particularly with skill tricks and complete adventurer spells.
- Cleric: The tier 3 approach is to use the Divine Bard option (from the SRD). The Adept NPC class is a tier 4 alternative, but could be bumped to Tier 3 by giving them cleric domains and spontaneous casting of their domain spells.
- Druid: Use the Savage Bard variant (available in the d20 SRD) combined with the "Other Variant" from the SRD that drops its Bardic Lore and Music to gain the Druid's animal companion, nature sense, resist nature lure and wild empathy features. For one more focused on Wildshape, go with the Wild Shape variant Ranger (also from the SRD).
- Fighter: Replace it with the Warblade. It's everything the fighter should have been.
- Monk: Replace it with the Swordsage or Psychic Warrior depending on your preference.
- Paladin: Use the Crusader. It is to the Paladin what the Warblade is to the Fighter.
- Ranger: The Ranger is a strong tier 4, but look at alternate class features since the previously mentioned Wildshape variant can hit a solid tier 3.
- Rogue: The Rogue is also tier 4. For a more flexible skill monkey type, go with the tier 3 Factotum.
- Sorcerer and Wizard: Pick a focus and use one of the following classes; Beguiler, Binder, Dread Necromancer or Warmage. If you want sorcerers to feel very different from traditional casters, try the Warlock, Dragon Disciple or Totemist.

This is exactly the sort of thing which makes me dislike modern D&D.  Picking a class by combat power instead of actually something you'd like to roleplay is anathema to me.

Quote from: goblinslayer;1091093This is exactly the sort of thing which makes me dislike modern D&D.  Picking a class by combat power instead of actually something you'd like to roleplay is anathema to me.

Actually the tiers are explicitly NOT about combat power. If it were the Fighter might score higher. The tiers are about overall ability to solve problems.

The Bard ranks significantly higher than the Fighter not because it's better in a straight up fight; best case it's about 2/3 of a fighter on it's own; but because it can also handle social situations, has bardic knowledge, lots of skill points and has a suite of flexible spells that range from enchantments to illusions to buffs and healing. In short, they're good problem solvers in a wide array of situations (but unlike wizards and clerics rarely has a flat-out "I win" button they pull out of their spell list).

Tier 3s are considered ideal because they're flexible enough to be able to contribute in a variety of situations, but lack the ability to warp the campaign world to their whims like a high level tier 1-2 character can).

By contrast fighters have such limited skill points and such a restricted skill list and no features other than a list of combat related bonus feats that it really only has use in one situation; combat; and is pretty mediocre at that compared to other options. It's tier five because all it can do is fight and there are others who can it as well or better (or as well and do other things too).

The reason the Warblade (i.e. Fighter+) ranks so much better in the tiers (3) is that unlike the fighter it has a broader skill list, more skill points (and class features that encourage a good Int score so you'll have even more than those listed) and other abilities that are actually useful outside of just hitting things (ex. the White Raven discipline makes you a competent at persuading and directing others and the Diamond Mind discipline sharpens your senses and mental defenses).

So no, those options I provided had nothing to do with actual combat strength, but overall flexibility and being able to do interesting things without also having options that let them completely obviate whole challenges with a single spell.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1091058Pathfinder was more balanced. No PC class except for the Shifter is lower than tier 4 and it is possible to make Fighter that is OK at high levels.

I don't disagree about the Shifter being garbage, but I disagree that Pathfinder improved the fighter out of tier 5 (in fact I've seen tier guides for PF that explicitly put it at tier 5; bottom of the barrel for PC classes.

The Pathfinder fighter still has the same 2+Int skill points and crappy skill list and all it's additional class features focus only on marginally improving it's ability to deal damage while constrained to the "if you move more than 5' you only get one attack" paradigm.

The main reason the Ranger is tier 4 while the fighter isn't is that the ranger gets enough skill points with a nice enough list coupled with class features and spells that let it do more than just hit people for a lot of damage.

The Rogue is also tier 4 because of all the skills (notably Use Magic Device), skill points and class features (Trapfinding) it gets that allow it to pull off more than just sneak attacking (the people who've assembled the list also stated the only reason it's not tier 3 is the Factotum flat-out does skill monkey problem solver who can fight if they have to better).

Meanwhile the Pathfinder Wizard gets a better HD and, improved cantrips and improved spell school (univeralist casters getting some free metamagic) over their 3.5e kin.

So no, I don't buy for one second that Pathfinder made things "more balanced." It bent them all up a bit and, I'd argue the wizard actually got made even stronger and more flexible while the fighter got a few trinkets to let them hit a little harder.

Compare a 3.5e Warblade to the PF Fighter and it's no contest who figured out how to fix the fighter. The Warblade can actually do more than just fight if it chooses to.

One of the most solid D&D games I've ever played in was a "classic party" consisting of a Warblade (as the Fighter), Factotum (as skill-monkey Thief), Divine Bard (filling the role of Cleric) and Binder (Magic User of the "messes with things mortals aren't meant to know" variety). Everyone had a solid niche and was flexible enough to be useful in other areas while still able to be challenged by general encounters (instead of needing specialized opponents with exploitive munchkin tricks to provide any sense of danger... The 3.5e CR system actually WORKED as written).

My experience with Pathfinder is that the people in charge were okay when they were just hanging things off the existing framework WotC had provided, but had no real understanding of WHY that framework worked the way it did so their attempts to innovate beyond it were absolutely scattershot in terms of balance and usability (see the Shifter as an extreme miss).

By contrast, as 3.5e developed, its design innovations more consistently skewed towards a sort of sweet spot (i.e. tier 3-4 in the case of PCs) that indicated they were getting a better understanding of the system's strengths and weaknesses the more they worked with it.

Quote from: Chris24601;1091096By contrast, as 3.5e developed, its design innovations more consistently skewed towards a sort of sweet spot (i.e. tier 3-4 in the case of PCs) that indicated they were getting a better understanding of the system's strengths and weaknesses the more they worked with it.

   I'm not well-grounded in late 3.5 ... how obvious is the connection between it and 4E? I do know Star Wars Saga Edition pretty well and can see the precusors and abandoned directions there.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1091098I'm not well-grounded in late 3.5 ... how obvious is the connection between it and 4E? I do know Star Wars Saga Edition pretty well and can see the precusors and abandoned directions there.

There are definitely some points of connection. The 4E designers mentioned in their preview books that many of their later products were definitely testing grounds for some ideas that made their way into 4E.

At the same time though you can still tell these are concepts solidly rooted in 3e's ethos. The manuevers used by the crusadee, swordsage and warblade look a bit like 4E powers if you squint, but each class knows a different number of maneuvers and employs and regains them differently so there's nothing like the AEDU framework for their use.

The warblade regains every maneuver they can employ just by using a swift action and then making a normal attack (or using a standard action to recenter), but has the least manuvers. The Swordsage by contrast has the most (and, like the monk it supercedes, only a medium BAB) but it must use a full-round of meditation just to regain use of one maneuver. The Crusader has only limited control of which maneuvers it can employ (they're described as divine inspiration and many are actually supernatural) and regain any expended ones as soon as they cycle through that control system with no action at all needed by the PC.

So you can see the Tome of Battle as the something of a starting point for 4E's martial classes, but it's rather like comparing a velociraptor and a bird; you can see the shared ancestry if you squint, but there's a LOT more differences than similarities.

Most notably for all the late 3.5e material was the complete absence of narrative-based mechanics. The Warblade wasn't arbitrarily limited to 1/encounter or 1/day for their maneuvers; just can't use the same one twice in a row and has to periodically make a "basic" strike to regain any they've already used.

A lot of 4Es DNA shows up earlier than you'd think in 3.5e too, but as optional rules. The roots of 4Es approach to skills, scaling AC, defenses instead of saves and heroic surges can all be found in the 2004 Unearthed Arcana that is also included in the 3.5e SRD (3.5e only launched in 2003).

One of the other notable elements that worked its way into 4E that showed up mid-to-late 3.5e was the Reserve feat; a way to give spellcasters some at-will spellcasting abilities in exchange for keeping one or more spells "in reserve" (i.e. you trade a spell slot for an at-will spell whose power was scaled to the slot used (ex. Fiery Burst did 1d6/spell slot level fire damage to a 5' burst within 30' with a Reflex save for half that equalled a spell of the slot used... so by not casting your fireball, you could use drop a 3d6 fireball on a target or two each round as a standard action). Basically, these were the precursors of the at-will attack spells every class got in 4E (and the cantrips in 5e).

A lot of people act like 4E was some vast break from what came before it, but it's right there on the continuum (and I think lends a lot to the argument that marketing and presentation did as much to kill 4E as anything specific to the mechanics). A lot of the "this is so different" sense was largely if you were just looking at 3.5e as it existed in the core books from 2003 and 4E as released in 2008 (versus what was being released in 2006-7).

But if you compared even the late 2e Skills & Powers era material to the first printing of 3e though... you'd see an even greater divergence there than there ever was between late 3.5e and 4E.

Quote from: Chris24601;1091124A lot of people act like 4E was some vast break from what came before it, but it's right there on the continuum (and I think lends a lot to the argument that marketing and presentation did as much to kill 4E as anything specific to the mechanics). A lot of the "this is so different" sense was largely if you were just looking at 3.5e as it existed in the core books from 2003 and 4E as released in 2008 (versus what was being released in 2006-7).

But if you compared even the late 2e Skills & Powers era material to the first printing of 3e though... you'd see an even greater divergence there than there ever was between late 3.5e and 4E.

Except the reason that a lot of people "act" like there was a vast break from one edition to the next is that they were not playing with every book leading up to the edition change.  Most likely they were going from one Players Handbook to the next.

Quote from: Shasarak;1091125Except the reason that a lot of people "act" like there was a vast break from one edition to the next is that they were not playing with every book leading up to the edition change.  Most likely they were going from one Players Handbook to the next.

Yeah - there were a lot of us who never liked the vibe of Tome of Battle.

I can recognize that it was better balanced with full casters while still not liking it - largely for those non-narrative reasons Chris24601 mentioned. I was pretty active on the 3.5 boards, and there was a pretty substantial schism of those who thought Tome of Battle was amazing and those who disliked it. And that's amongst players who knew about it.

And of course - 4e made it worse by having all classes use variations of the same mechanics. (Symmetry is the easiest & most boring way to balance. Fine for 1v1 games - but not a good choice for co-op long-running games like TTRPGs.)

Quote from: Chris24601;1091124The warblade regains every maneuver they can employ just by using a swift action and then making a normal attack (or using a standard action to recenter), but has the least manuvers. The Swordsage by contrast has the most (and, like the monk it supercedes, only a medium BAB) but it must use a full-round of meditation just to regain use of one maneuver. The Crusader has only limited control of which maneuvers it can employ (they're described as divine inspiration and many are actually supernatural) and regain any expended ones as soon as they cycle through that control system with no action at all needed by the PC.

Most notably for all the late 3.5e material was the complete absence of narrative-based mechanics. The Warblade wasn't arbitrarily limited to 1/encounter or 1/day for their maneuvers; just can't use the same one twice in a row and has to periodically make a "basic" strike to regain any they've already used. .

I have to say, the last time I played 3.5, I played a Barbarian/Warblade, and it was probably the most satisfying experience I have ever had playing a marital character.  When I had a maneuver to actually ... deflect a spellcaster's spell with the flat of my broadsword... that was pretty friggin cool.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1091126And of course - 4e made it worse by having all classes use variations of the same mechanics. (Symmetry is the easiest & most boring way to balance. Fine for 1v1 games - but not a good choice for co-op long-running games like TTRPGs.)

Topic adjacent, but relevant to a project of mine; what do you think of a system where symmetry is possible, but not required? Specifically, the mix of always available, recharge with short rest and recharge with long rest abilities is not determined by your class, but by assigning scores. Making one score strong gives you more short rest ability uses (but fewer long rest uses), making another strong gives you the opposite and going medium on both gives you a balance.

Likewise, you can choose between getting and focusing on just one attack (be it a weapon maneuver or spell) or can learn  several different types (with less focus on each). But the choice is determined outside of the character class.

Ex. You could have one Maledictor (a spellcaster who focuses on damaging spells) with everything focused on a single spammable attack spell that is basically steady state with no daily ability uses to speak of and another Maledictor with multiple offensive spells and almost no short rest ability uses, but enough daily uses to completely dominate a big fight (or parcel the uses out throughout the adventuring day on smaller fights).

Does the fact that you can make these sort of choices for every class count as symmetry to you or does the fact that any one character can only choose one version from those choices (and people who make different choices could be in the same party) make it asymmetrical?

In 3.0 / 3.5 / PF, Wizards were casting spells from their spell list.

In 4.0, all classes had powers.  Ritual magic was a thing, but casting spells from your spell list was not.

Did WOTC really think that wouldn't piss off long time fans of D&D?