Min/Max Boards

I've been playing an Evil character for several years now and one of the long running goals I have been working towards is the creation of an Artifact.

The concept I have is a Book "called the Charter" that when touched instantly transforms your alignment to one of an Evil bent as well as binding you to a blood oath of sorts that kills you if you betray other members of the Organization. I do not want a save allowed for either effect what so ever.

I am not sure what other powers it should have but I want those two for certain.

To this end I have been collecting signatures  and blood of various evil entities and of anyone/anything particularly powerful.

All signatures were made willingly under the rp concept that names hold some sort of intrinsic power and that evil entities that willingly sign their names will invest some miniscule portion of that essence into their signature.


So far I have: a White dragon signature, a Demon templated /black dragon signature, a Wraith lord signature, 1 Ghost's signature, a Frost giants signature, A drow signature, an Ogre Magi's signature, several human evil rogues signatures, a djinn's signature, and a devils (kyton's) signature.

And signatures from slightly over 500 evil minions. (Thrallherd minions and leadership followers both mine and other  affiliated npcs.)

I have also been collecting blood from every monster that we encounter of appreciable strength as well as from every PC to have adventured along side me, regardless of their alignment.

I for certain want to use the evil aligned assets I have gathered, however I am not deadset on using some of the neutral or good aligned blood or signatures I have gathered.

I haven't yet decided if adding those aligned assets to the mix would dilute the evil or if using them for an evil purpose would corrupt them sufficiently or not.

I have also not decided on the materials I should construct the charter out of yet but one trait I would like is nigh indestructibility. With a specific method for the destruction of this artifact require much like other items I have read about over the years.

I am not yet sure how I will combine these things to create the Artifact I desire but I am looking for input from others if anyone has any thoughts.

If you have a few ideas I would love to hear them.

Thank you for your time.

So last night a member of our party playing an artificer decided he wanted to use one of his class abilities on a magic gate of some kind.

I'm not overly familiar with the specific class mechanic but knew enough about how this particular DM runs magic objects of this sort to want to get fairly far away from this event (Things tend to be explosive).

At any rate the DM tried to warn the player that this course of action would likely be lethal but the player persisted and was subsequently killed outright by a "trap".

The player complained that the DM did not roll any dice to see how much damage the character would take, and pressed the DM about it who said something along the lines of 40D6 but later amended that to outright disintegration. (Later this complaint would move to the DM not following rules in the DMG for trap creation.)

The complaint then moved to not being allowed a save of any kind and the player began asserting that his death was a result of "magical tea party" type Dming.

Personally I view the PC death as the players own fault having watched the DM that night already kill two rogues on the party after they wandered off solo and then warn the player in question that his proposed action would likely be suicide.

Also it may be pertinent to note we are in a recently deceased black dragons lair.

Thoughts?

For most of my adventuring career I've played as chaotic good straying towards neutrality in my more recent years. In the last two years however myself, as well as the rest of my gaming group have taken towards roleplaying the "deep end of the alignment pool" as Belkar once said.

I'm writing this to share my observations about playing an evil pc and the group of evil pc's I play with. I have no real layout planned as of yet for this thread but may format what amounts to stream of consciousness at a later date.

It all started one day with an idea to make a group of evil characters to serve as a foil to the younger players in our gaming group who play on the weekends. As our group meets on Wednesdays we hit on the idea of a campaign in which we slowly subverted the heroes ( the saturday group) and their adventures to some vague evil plan that we would hatch.

After a little bit of discourse we settled on the idea of an evil corporation we've come to refer to as "The Organization" Or just ORG for short.

Our alignments run the gamut with many players initially starting off as neutral or chaotic neutral but our actions slowly changing our alignment in time. I started as Neutral evil myself but tend towards a much more L/E outlook in practice.

So we had the name of our evil enterprise settled but what then was our purpose? More discussion removed the concept of world domination or simply "being evil" as too vague  and largely unproductive goals. Wed experimented previously with assassin type characters who toed the L/N quite heavily some time in the years prior.

It was at this time one of the players suggested bureaucracy as an evil that might be fun to play. Thus the concept of a group of evil adventuring bureaucrats was born. This would eventually transform into the concept of controlling a cities criminal underworld and from their into an illuminati like entity that above all seeks to make a profit from its global enterprises.

We've adventured in the same homebrew world for the better part of 11 real life years for some of the players and our group numbers about ten people.

The players
*********
Name: Aurora
Alias': The frost "mage."
Race: Uldra
Age: ???
Gender: Male
Rank: Tier 1 Founding Member
Class: Druid.
Key notes: Organization head of intelligence and reconnaissance.

Name: Enfernus Ronfare
Alias': All Spark
Race: Ice Elf; Magically altered
Age: 151 years old
Gender: Male
Rank: Tier 1 Founding Member
Class: Artificer variant (homebrew) Nonmagical mad scientist.
Key notes: Organization Head of R&D, Mechanical craft smith and alchemist

Name: Dr. Lazarus
Alias: "The good doctor"
Race: Trueborn; Psionically engineered human
Age: 25 years old
Gender: Male
Rank: Tier 1 Founding Member
Class: Psion (Telepath)
Key notes:  Organization Chief Surgeon/Psychiatrist

Name: Rurik Shieldweaver
Alias: "The Accountant"
Race: Dwarf
Age: 81
Gender: Male
Rank: Tier 1 Founding Member
Class: Wizard
Key Notes: Organization Artillery and Chief Treasurer


*I'll add in more of the members at a later date.

Early on much of our planning consisted of starting up various unrelated small businesses to later use as fronts for our illegal/illicit activities.

We settled on a Bar/inn we named Meals and music AKA M&M's, a shipping company we named Utopia shipping and our druid named Aurora settled on the concept of a messenger service with letters being delivered via animals.

With a basic plan in place we set about researching places to go dungeon delving for a quick source of income. We made note of any rumors in the city we had decided to set up operation in and began taking extensive notes. From our outset we had decided that information for our characters would truly be turned to power.

It was around this time that we hit upon our first major hurtle, as most players who have dealt with evil player characters before would know betrayal of fellow pc's can be quite crippling to a game and certainly treasure or other rewards could prove to be a dangerous lure. We solved this in game and out.

In game our characters researched a ritual to allow us to take a blood oath that would literally prevent us from betraying a fellow member while out of game we simply entered into an agreement to work towards a common goal above everything else.

This also is how we came to create what we call the "metagame".

As we have quite a large gaming group and not all of its members were aware of our newly created plans nor part of our Organization we discussed our options concerning the well being of other party members. It was decided we would create a point system for our characters to compete with that would be awarded when a player managed to subtly and successfully engineer the death of a non organization member.

This would be the first time we had collectively built characters for a purpose in the gaming world we play instead of the random mishmash of disparate heroes and character concepts we usually played.

So far it has proven to be extremely rewarding and have recently hit 15th level.

The ironic thing is for evil characters with nefarious plans such as ours we seem to do an awful lot of good.

We are based in a region named "Arcos" by the DM. A setting based largely on the frostburn book with cities and inhabitants of mainly a homebrew nature.

Originally it was intended to be a lowmagic setting with a frontier feel as far as developed npc's are concerned but that hasnt lasted.

Adventuring in the arctic setting had several minor challenges initially. Cold can kill but winter clothing was readily available and proper use of endure elements kept most of our party that required it comfortable early on.

We tend to make most of our decisions as a group with a voting system in place for actual members. Non members are traditionally brought on as "hirelings" for specific tasks with a previous arrangement in regards to pay.

 Our first significant adventure consisted of the group using its collective research tools to track down rumors or nigh forgotten legends (thank you bardic knowledge) of artifacts or mysterious and powerful items we might explore the frigid northern lands for.

Among our initial haul of rumors was a strange ship locked in an iceburg, a falling "star" that had come to land not far from a small town whos inhabitants had begun to vanish and a majestic mountain upon which a hermit famous for oracular "visions" lived.

After consulting a map that had a rough outline of the continent we decided that we would head far to the north towards the strange ship trapped in the ice off the coast. Along the way we decided to make a detour to the aforementioned Oracle to see what we might learn. It was only a day out of the way so our main objective was not impeded in any significant fashion.

The rumors of a strange ship we had decided to investigate had apparently originated in a small frontier village known as "Salt" after a bit of discussion we decided to bring with us a wagon laden with mundane goods that might be of use to a village that did not often receive villagers. A small amount of asking local merchants suggested the potential for profit to be made so after a small investment we had ourselves a wagon loaded with all manner of dried goods and tools. All manner of things that would be useful in such a far away place. As far as we were able to determine no trading caravans or merchants of anykind had been able to reach salt for several months due to harsh snows and bad weather conditions. We had initially planned to charge twice our investment in gold to the village for our goods but after visiting the Oracle we decided that with the village of Salt being so isolated and without supplies for quite some time (as confirmed by the nice npc) that charging the villagers double was out of the question and morally we could not justify it.

 I recall the DM at that point nodding sagely to himself before the player whos character was named Aurora and was a particularly harsh druid piped up with "I couldnt agree more, any beings foolish enough to decide to live out in the harsh tundra without the ability to sustain themselves deserves to die... or at the very least pay triple the going rate for our supplies we have generously decided to share."

Aurora is an oddity when it comes to druids, most I had seen since then had been the cheerful/hippy type up until this players portrayal of a Druid obsessed with  natural selection. From his perspective any being that could not take care of itself deserved to die. I suggested that with so many druids bent on preserving life that perhaps he was the other end of the equation. The balance to life so to speak. It was an interesting thought until the thought of a wounded party member being unable to help themselves entered into it.

We came to the conclusion that this outlook of his character while a cornerstone of his roleplay would find it more efficient to help those in our group what with our aforementioned plans should one fall. As his characters own survival may well hinge on it and our "pack" mentality. In the end he played his character as fantastic mix of brutal blaster and battlefield control as the situation required. When no one else was available he used a cure light now and again but for the most part left the majority of our party healing to the party cleric "Orin" and myself.

I could only find these first two pieces if anyone else has the rest.

LordofProcrastination's Dirty Tricks

Welcome to a series of short articles dedicated to sharing optimization concepts and combos from my personal playbook. While not as ground-shaking as my larger projects like the 100^10 Elite Optimization Challenge, Nanobots, the Twice-Betrayer of Shar, etc, I hope you enjoy these Dirty Tricks for what they are -- carefully explored pathways to optimization power.


Dirty Trick #1: Behold!

Summary

    Through use of Polymorph any Object and Metamorphic Transfer, characters can qualify for Beholder Mage, a kickarse class.

Ingredients

    Beholder Mage (prestige class) [Lords of Madness, pg 42-44]
    Polymorph any Object (spell) [Players Handbook, pg 263]
    Beholder (creature) [Monster Manual, pg 25]
    Metamorphic Transfer (feat) [Expanded Psionics Handbook, pg 48]


The Trick

The Beholder Mage has three tricky requirements to meet. Two are listed up front: the character must be a "true beholder," and must "put out central antimagic eye." Hidden in the Spells section, the third requirement surfaces: "whenever a beholder mage gains the ability to cast a new level of spells, it must sacrifice the use of its eye rays from one of its ten small eyestalks."

The first is fairly simple. A "true beholder" is a racial distinction, differentiated from type, subtype, and even the "beholderkin" psuedotype. Normally, polymorph, alter self, and shapechange grant the "type" or "form" of a creature, but not race. However, Polymorph any Object spell is different. It says:
Quote:
Originally Posted by SRD 3.5, Polymorph any Object
This spell functions like polymorph, except that it changes one object or creature into another.
In the above wording there is none of this "form of" crap -- one creature or object becomes another creature or object, a ruling specifically differentiated from the previous half-arsedness of polymorph/alter self. So, if we were to pick "true beholder" as our designated new creature type, the target (presumably a character wanting to get some Beholder Mage power) would change into a true beholder, race and all. Due to quirks of the spell, the new true beholder would retain previous class features and abilities, but would be no less the beholder for it.

The second, "must put out central antimagic eye" has been a real stumbling block for people who previously considered entry into Beholder Mage. The trouble centers around the fact that while Polymorph any Object does grant the target a true central eye, the lack of supernatural abilities means that there is nothing formally "antimagic" about this semi-vestigial oculus. There are two ways to go about answering this problem -- one is to say that "central antimagic eye" refers to the eye commonly known for its antimagic properties, and thus "antimagic" is just an extra clarifier term since the phrase "central antimagic eye" literally never appears as-is anywhere else in any 3.5 book. According to this school of thought, poking out the vestigial central eye should be enough to count. I don't buy it. It would be a tough sell at best, especially to a potentially hard-line DM or RAW Lawyer.

The other way of thinking about the matter is to identify "antimagic central eye" with the eye from with the "Antimagic Cone" supernatural ability of true beholders is emitted. Thus, to give up such an antimagic ability, one must possess it in the first place. This is where Metamorphic Transfer comes in. This nifty feat actually lets you "gain" a supernatural ability from the powers of a creature that you shapechange into. The uses of said ability are limited, but what is important is the gaining, or possession of the ability, not the exercise thereof. Thus, the antimagic cone (su) ability can be obtained at the price of one feat, and can be then sacrificed for the greater good.

Once we're familiar with Metamorphic Transfer, the third issue, eye-ray-to-spell-stalk conversion matter falls into place quite nicely. As it turns out, all of the eye rays are listed as a single supernatural ability, "Eye Rays (su)" in the descriptive text and the stats block for the True Beholder, and can be thus snagged in one fell swoop with a single Metamorphic Transfer. I know some people may be saying, "hey, but the rays can do different things, aren't they individual powers?" The answer is typical D&D rules quirkiness -- by all measurable standards of power-identification (grouped listing in the statistics block for supernatural abilities, a single descriptive text header with (su) identifier, non-distinctive power listing, etc), the disparate capabilities of a Beholder's little eyes are technically all part of one single supernatural capability. One psionic feat later, you have the use of eye-rays to sacrifice, and your Beholder-Mage is set for liftoff!


The Possibilities

Making It Work
So, how soon can we slide into the Beholder Mage Class? Assuming that the character has 17 Int or higher a single application of Polymorph Any Object is can be permanent. Whether through Use Magic Device'ing a scroll (3,000 gp) or paying up for NPC spellcasting (1,200 gp), Beholderification should be available around 4th level for the average PC by DMG wealth standards.

Metamorphic Transfer is a slightly slower matter -- the "manifester level 5th" requirement means that obtaining it twice will have to wait until 5th or 6th level, taking advantage of a Psion/Psychic Warrior's 5th level bonus feat and the usual 6th level freebie. Of course, obtaining the prerequisite supernatural abilities could be accomplished through Shapechange or Master of Many Forms, but these options are generally slower and more time-sensitive than the aforementioned options.

Double Your Pleasure
So, now you're a Beholder Mage. Enjoy gaining a new level of available spells every time you advance. Have fun advancing in caster level twice as fast as everyone else. Spontaneous casting from an unlimited spell list? To put it colloquially, "Daaaaaang."

Decuple Your Fun
Did I forget to mention that you can cast 10 spells a round... all as free actions? Let that one brew for a while, then treat yourself to the first build opportunity ever to grant 9th-level arcane spellcasting and 9th level manifesting, simultaneously.

Sample Builds

    PsiArcane Abomination: Psion 9/Beholder Mage 2/Cerebremancer 8/XYZ 1
    Monstrous Ur-Theurge: Psychic Warrior 5/XYZ 1/Beholder Mage 2/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 8/XYZ 2
    Pure EyeMage: Psion 6/Beholder Mage 2/Cerebremancer 1/Incantrix 10/XYZ 1
    Dedicated Beholderform Caster: Psion 6/Beholder Mage 2/Cerebremancer 2/Master Transmogrifist 10



LordofProcrastination's Dirty Tricks

Welcome to a series of short articles dedicated to sharing optimization concepts and combos from my personal playbook. While not as ground-shaking as my larger projects like the 100^10 Elite Optimization Challenge, Nanobots, the Twice-Betrayer of Shar, etc, I hope you enjoy these Dirty Tricks for what they are -- carefully explored pathways to optimization power.


Dirty Trick #2: The Perpetual Damage Machine

Summary

    A number of damage-creating/redirecting spells can be used in tandem to create a self-sustaining pattern of infinite damage involving creatures of your choice. This infinite damage can be used for your own benefit.

Ingredients

    Share Pain (power) [Expanded Psionics Handbook, pg 132]
    Glory of the Martyr (spell) [Players Guide to Faerun pg 103, Book of Exalted Deeds, pg 99-100]
    Delay Death (spell) [Races of Destiny pg 165]
    Beastland Ferocity (spell) [Planar Handbook, pg 95]
    Four or more participants other than the primary character.
    A bucket of water.


The Trick

Cast Glory of the Martyr, targetting four or more willing creatures of your choice. These could be teammates, hired NPCs, animal companions, etc. Then, cast Share Pain once per creature, establishing the link directionality such that damage dealt to you is sent to them.

Consider the relationship between the caster and a single creature. The caster deals himself X damage. Thanks to Share Pain, the creature takes X/2 damage. Thanks to Glory of the Martyr, the caster takes X/4 damage. Since the caster gets back 1/4 of his original damage input from a single participant-spell-loop, we need four or more participants to get back the same amount we put in.

Let's do a test run. The caster drops a rock on his toe for 8 points of damage. The share pain iterations mean that 4 damage would be dealt to each of the participants. However, the glory of the martyr spell means that each of the participants only takes half of the share pain damage, while the caster is dealt 2 points per participant, resulting in 8 points total dealt to the caster.

That's one cycle. In the end, the caster is dealt 8 points of damage, the same amount as when we started. This 8 damage starts the whole cycle over again instantaneously, and the system begins to loop infinitely. Result: 4 damage dealt to the caster an infinite amount of times, resulting in infinite damage. The participants take 2 damage an infinite amount of times, also resulting in infinite damage. Given that no time is expended for this to work, this infinite damage is effectively dealt all in the same round, for as long as the system persists.

It's also important to note that if there are more than four participants, the amount of damage will continue to increase, as the cycle will be ending with more damage dealt to the the caster than was done at the start. The approximate formula is: (Original Damage) x (Number of Participants x 1/4)^(Cycle Number). The end result of this situation is infinite damage dealt an infinite amount of times. This is normally not desirious, especially if your participants are not immune to death from massive damage or would like to make concentration checks to cast spells.

The Possibilities

To do more than spectacularly explode with this trick, you need to do three things: stay alive during the loop, power some useful ability, and make it back afterwards.

Staying Alive
The first priority is simply not instantly collapsing as your hit points zoom to negative infinity. I suggest the Delay Death spell or the Frenzied Berserker's "Deathless Frenzy" ability. Both have limited duration, but your damage is no object.

Still, being alive but unconscious (in the "dying" state) is pretty uncool, too. You can use Beastland Ferocity, the Diehard feat, Boar's Ferocity (a Wild feat from Complete Divine), or Shifter Ferocity from Eberron to maintain functionality, i.e. continue to take actions.

I'm all ears for other options, since none of these have particularly nice durations without my Twice Betrayer persistification trick.

If you want to cast spells more efficiently, you can effectively share these "life support" spells by virtue of the War Weaver prestige class's "Eldritch Tapestry," the Affinity Field power, those spell-sharing gloves from the DMG II, or by having your participants be your familiar/animal companion/special mount and benefit from the "Share Spells" ability.

Damage converted to Power
So, you're bursting with infinite damage. Now do it with style.

The bland way to do this would be to redirect the damage to your enemies. Affinity Field or Forced Share Pain are probably the best way to do this.

However, if you're really interested in versatility, consider the "Holy Suffering" ability of the Martyred Champion of Ilmater (Players Guide to Faerun, page 185. Whenever dealt more than 50 damage in a round, the next round your character receives a +1 sacred bonus to attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks for every 10 points of damage. That's right, +Infinity on your vital stats. Kickarse.

The masochism spell from the Book of Vile Darkness produces the same effect, too, if you're into that sort of thing.

While we're talking about the BoVD, check out the rules for sacrificing creatures. The power outputs (spell effects, virtual XP and GP) are dependent entirely on a Knowledge: Religion check. Combo with masochism for infinite craft-xp/gp gain from sacrificing a kobold...

Making it Back
Alright, you've had your power trip, and now it's time to pay the price. There are two ways out: suck it up and die, or somehow bring your hit points back to manageable levels. In both situations, you should dismiss your damage-dealing spells and let the loop fizzle first.

If you're feeling dirty, go the cheap way and stick your head in a bucket of water. The DMG's rules on drowning say that if you fail your constitution check, you go directly to 0 hit points exactly. So, voluntarily fail your constitution check and go from negative infinity to 0 without any hassle. Talk about baptismal rebirth...

A few spells replicate this drowning mechanic, or other wise set hit points at a manageable point from which contingent healing spells, fast healing, or your friendly cleric can take over. Miasma [Complete Divine] and drown [Underdark] are such spells to consider.

If you're feeling studly, don't be afraid to bite the dust. Contingent true resurrections are alright if you have the cash, and taking the 10th level in Ardent Dilettante means that you'll suffer no side effects even from lesser (i.e. cheaper) raise-dead/resurrection spells. Still, if you're dirty and cheap, snag Revivify from the Miniature's Handbook. It's a 5th level spell that resurrects with no side effects, but only works the round after someone's death. A friendly cleric could pick up the slack, but if you're the self-reliant type, cast/UMD it on yourself in conjunction with Delay Spell, and time it to activate the round after you bite it.

Sample Build: The Infinite Martyr of Ilmater

Race: Human
Classes: Cleric 7/Martyred Champion of Ilmater 5/Wizard 1/Psion 3/Beastmaster 4
Relevant Feats: Endurance, Nimbus of Light, Skill Focus (handle animal), Psicrystal Affinity, Delay Spell, Divine Metamagic (Delay Spell)
Relevant Special Abilities: Holy Suffering, 2 Animal Companions, Psicrystal, Familiar

Not exactly elegant, but that's never been Lawful Good's forte. However, the Infinite Martyr is entirely self-sufficient to produce a Perpetual Damage Mechanism, benefit from it, and make it out alive. The assorted magical companions are there to provide willing participants which efficiently share sustaining spells without the insecurities of relying on teammates or unfortunate peasants.


FAQ

Q:Wouldn't the original damage be split up between the different Share Pain iterations and thus give diminishing returns?
A: In answering this question, the first thing to remember in resolving this damage loop is that damage is not a conserved quantity. The spells/powers involved actually deal damage according to a trigger, not move around a limited amount of damage. All of the damage-related spells involved prevent "one half of the normal hit point damage" from a wound, and then deal damage equal to the amount "not dealt to the warded creature." This means that multiple iterations of Share Pain (etc) result in the caster taking one-half of the normal damage from a wound, rather than [1/(2*Number of Share Pain iterations)] damage. We could also make the argument from the standpoint of the spell-stacking rules, but the result is the same: having a bunch of Share Pains on your character still means s/he takes exactly half damage from any given wound.

Q: I like this dirty trick, but it's not as good as...
A: Yes, there are a few other infinite loop or nigh-infinite loop combos out there. This trick is just a new one with its own quirks, possibilities, and a healthy dose of style.

Q: Haven't you made enough [Descriptive Title] of [Faerunian God] builds?
A: Apparently, not quite yet.


Special Note

A specific version of the Perpetual Damage Machine is currently being used to challenge mighty Pun-Pun. Please go here to read the details and direct any Pun-Pun related comparisons or comments there as well.

Thanks to Soundwave for doing the work of porting this over for me.

This is the third repost of this thread, which gets locked occasionally for going over 50 pages.

Introduction


The Tier System

Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played with skill, can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

Examples: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Archivist, Artificer, Erudite (Spell to Power Variant)

Tier 2: Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes. Still potentially campaign smashers by using the right abilities, but at the same time are more predictable and can't always have the right tool for the job. If the Tier 1 classes are countries with 10,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, these guys are countries with 10 nukes. Still dangerous and easily world shattering, but not in quite so many ways.  Note that the Tier 2 classes are often less flexible than Tier 3 classes... it's just that their incredible potential power overwhelms their lack in flexibility.

Examples: Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Psion, Binder (with access to online vestiges), Erudite (No Spell to Power)

Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Can be game breaking only with specific intent to do so.  Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.

Examples: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psychic Warrior

Tier 4: Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competence without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribute to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well.

Examples: Rogue, Barbarian, Warlock, Warmage, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshal, Fighter (Zhentarium Variant)

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. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the encounter matches their strengths. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly.

Examples: Fighter, Monk, CA Ninja, Healer, Swashbuckler, Rokugan Ninja, Soulknife, Expert, OA Samurai, Paladin, Knight, CW Samurai (with Imperious Command available)

Tier 6: Not even capable of shining in their own area of expertise. DMs will need to work hard to make encounters that this sort of character can contribute in with their mechanical abilities. Will often feel worthless unless the character is seriously powergamed beyond belief, and even then won't be terribly impressive. Needs to fight enemies of lower than normal CR. Class is often completely unsynergized or with almost no abilities of merit. Avoid allowing PCs to play these characters.

Examples: CW Samurai (without Imperious Command available), Aristocrat, Warrior, Commoner

And then there's the Truenamer, which is just broken (as in, the class was improperly made and doesn't function appropriately).  Highly optimized (to the point of being able to spam their abilities) a Truenamer would be around Tier 4, but with lower optimization it rapidly drops to Tier 6.

Now, obviously these rankings only apply when mechanical abilities are being used... in a more social oriented game where talking is the main way of solving things (without using diplomacy checks), any character can shine. However, when the mechanical abilities of the classes in question are being used, it's a bad idea to have parties with more than two tiers of difference.

It is interesting to note the disparity between the core classes... one of the reasons core has so many problems. If two players want to play a nature oriented shape shifter and a general sword weilder, you're stuck with two very different tiered guys in the party (Fighter and Druid). Outside of core, it's possible to do it while staying on close Tiers... Wild Shape Variant Ranger and Warblade, for example.

Note that a few classes are right on the border line between tiers.  Duskblade is very low in Tier 3, and Hexblade is low in Tier 4.  Fighter is high in Tier 5, and CW Samurai is high in Tier 6 (obviously, since it's pretty much strictly better than the same tier Warrior).

JaronK