Why is Warblade tier 3?

[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

Ever since I've seriously thought about the Tome of Battle base classes, I wonder again and again why Warblades are tier 3.

Out of the box, they're billed as the Fighter++.  They get some bonus feats (from a small list) and some class features.  They get maneuvers and stances.  They can whack to refresh their maneuvers, but get the fewest readied and known.  (Maybe it's me, but my fights tend not to last long enough to warrant continual refreshing.)

They don't get native access to Devoted Spirit for healing (Crusader's Strike and Martial Spirit are still useful at level 9!) like a Crusader.  They don't have the skill selection of a Swordsage, the spiffy Shadow Hand maneuvers (like Shadow Jaunt and Cloak of Shadow), nor the DEX synergy for the TWF feats.

Warblades using damaging maneuvers have similar DPS to a raging Barbarian, all else equal.  (Going by hearsay.)

Finally, as a minor note, they have fewer proficiencies than Crusaders.  (No heavy armor, no tower shields, and, by RAI, fewer ranged weapon options.)

So what do Warblades have in their favor?

Warblades, have slight INT synergy with their class features.  They can swap their weapon-specific feats each day, like Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization.  They get Uncanny Dodge @2, which is nice.

Maneuver-wise, they're the only base class with native access to Iron Heart (for Steel Wind, Iron Heart Surge, and Punishing Stance) and White Raven (for White Raven Tactics).  They can use their best strike or other maneuver every other round (go White Raven Tactics spam!), and refresh by whacking.  (This includes charging and full attacking.  Debatably, this also includes 'special attacks' like tripping or bull rushing.)  They choose their maneuver loadout and have it ready for when they need it.  Unlike Crusaders, they get native access to swift and immediate action maneuvers, but these are mostly defensive in nature.

Their capstone is Stance Mastery for being in 1 extra stance at a time.  Still, that's level twenty!  (It's rare that I play in a game that reaches level 7!)

In short, Warblades fight.  They fight and fight and fight.  Their best abilities can be gained with a well-timed dip of a level or 3.  (For example, Warblade 1 @9 means Steel Wind, Iron Heart Surge, Bolstering Voice, and White Raven Tactics!)

[Bauglir]

I believe the reason is that they have options for how they fight. As a general rule, maneuvers either add damage to a single attack competitive with a non-optimized power attacker's full attack, or they do something weird to the enemy in addition to letting you keep up your damage output. It's that latter one that really puts them in Tier 3, in my opinion - it gives you a niche to fill, and gives you ways to find synergy with other abilities in the game, which allows you to reach levels of potential effectiveness that damage alone just can't accomplish. You can still do damage, but even if you encounter a situation where that's non-optimal, you still are likely to have something else available.

For instance, even a 1st level Warblade can have Scent. 2 levels later, they can ignore the hardness of an object every other round, which is tremendously useful out of combat for lateral thinking (one of the things that makes Wizards so powerful - they can choose how to approach their problem, instead of having to let the problem dictate its own solution).

[ImperatorK]

A note on the Warblade: Warblades are tier 3 only because 9th level spells are better than the rule books and not because the monster manuals are packed full of monsters that can kill them. Being the horseman War is great and all, but it will always be second best to a god. -SorO_Lost

 
 Cons: They don't have ranged attacks and always have to use mithral as their armor's material if they want to use full-plate. That's it. -SorO_Lost

 Pros: Warblades are simply the best melee class ever.

Ok to reiterate, Warblades pack a d12 hit dice, full BAB, proficiency with all melee martial weapons, and up to medium armor as their basic class stats meaning they are meant for melee combat. From there things go uphill at a staggering pace.

For one thing they are the smart fighter, none of that 'Thorg smash puppies' stuff fighters do. Warblades get bonuses for having intelligence such as adding their int bonus to reflex saves, crit confirmation, damage rolls when flanking, all those combat maneuvers in the PHB, and finally attack and damage rolls for AOOs. Oh and did I mention they sport 4 skill points per level and can pick up skills like balance,tumble and intimidate?

Another thing to mention is Weapon Aptitude which not only lets you have access to but lets you swap your Weapon Focus chain of feats on the fly. Did you focus on longswords but find this awesome mace? Spend an hour playing with it and poof, instant retraining with no XP cost!

By the 6th level a warblade has improved uncanny dodge and a bonus feat. Later on they will pick up an additional three bonus feats from a limited but useful list. It's kinda like stealing class abilities from the Barbarian and Fighter at the same time.

Then there is the maneuver system the ToB introduced of course, the warblade gets the best recovery mechanic of all the classes. When you run out of maneuvers just attack someone. Yes I said attack them. I mean in a boring no maneuvers used sort of way, but it's the same exact (full) attack actions that you are used to using and the monsters still are. Walk over and beat the every living crap out of something to recover your maneuvers to beat the remaining blood out of them next round. Fun times.

Warblades can choose from any of the unsupernatural style of schools. They are realistic and in your face. They don't care about such things like fire, ghosting people, or purifying the wicked. Keep it simple, the pointy end goes into the foe a dozen times or the sharp edge slices them into pieces. Expect your average warblade to ignore save or die effects, to break battle control effects cast at them, to set the battle field in favorable conditions and exploit it, and to be seen helping the entire party's melee capabilities.

Finally, even those high nosed RPers will love the warblade. Now they have rules and effects backing such stories as 'I leap up and slice the snake's head clean off'. Even the most boring of players will find them selves shouting out the names of their attacks and bragging about how cool their character looks while swinging his sword. No more boring 'I attack..." comments. Ever. Well, unless it's part of a small joke, such as 'I attack... With my Finishing Move after flash stepping behind them and my blade lights up resembling molten lava to burn away their very soul!'. Maneuvers are so flavorful...
-SorO_Lost

[Mithril Leaf]

I was about to tell you to delve deeper into what you linked, but ImperatorK already quoted it. Kudos to him.

[StreamOfTheSky]

They are the only class with access to IH Surge AND WR Tactics.  Not only are those the 2 best maneuvers in the book, they're also the 2 most versatile.  IH Surge can shout down an antimagic field!  WR Surge's versatility is limited only by what your friends can do with the action gained.

That alone is huge.  Seriously huge.  Crusader, the only other class to get WR Tactics, can't choose exactly when to use it, either.

The Diamond Mind and IH saving throw counters greatly boost ablative defenses, and Lightning Recovery all but guarantees that your strike will land.

While all adepts get it, the utility of mountain hammer is immense, too.

[Cyclone Joker]

Honestly? I personally disagree with their place. Now, I doubt the majority of the community will agree with me, but I'd place the Crusader and Warblade in high T4 and the Swordsage in low-mid tier 3. The reason is simple; The swordsage is simply more useful out of combat. Yes, they are inferior in combat, or at least longer combats with more enemies, but look at the scenarios JaronK gave: Dungeoncrawling/Dragonslaying, socially-stuffs/espionage/intrigue, and strategic-level stuff. Let's go one by one:

The evil dragon in the cave: The Warblade finds traps like a monk. It can auto-pass one at a time, yes, but it does have a bad reflex save, although it does get Int to reflex saves, that's a +2 at max, assuming no magical gear. The crusader is even worse off. The swordsage can also auto-pass reflex saves, but it also has a better one, and it has more skills, so it wins by a little. In combat with the dragon, the Swordsage can do reasonably well, although it doesn't quite have the same damage as the others(Unless it's pulling out Assassin's Stance and spamming Invis), and it loses a turn every so often Adaptive Style recharging. Warblade and crusader get a slight win(Favoring the Warblade).

Making contact with the resistance leader: Swordsage wins by a mile. Sense Motive, Knowledge(Local), and Intimidate? Plus stealth? And, of course, it gets Diplomacy as a class skill at level six, just for WRT. In comparison, the Warblade has Diplomacy, Know(Local), and Intimidate, but no Sense Motive and no stealth capabilities. The crusader fails with just Diplomacy and Intimidate. A moderate victory for the Swordsage, but the Warblade is okay here. Crusader fails, though.

The army thingy: Well, beyond the Swordsage having AoEs, his stealth lets him assassinate enemies ahead of time, Know(Local, Nobility) further help with this, identifying targets and making him useful in a diplomatic situation, and Knowledge(History) includes knowledge of war, thus making him useful there. The Warblade makes a poor assassin, but makes a passable diplomat, maybe, but also has Know(History), and can maybe rally troops or something? The Crusader loses even worse. Overall massive win for the swordsage.

The Swordsage is vastly more versatile than the others, and so I'd rank it higher. But, that's just me.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Swordsage is more versatile, but it's also much weaker in combat, not just a little, and its recovery system is abhorrent (Adaptive Style helps a lot, but it's still by far the worst "recovery" system at that point).  No access to the best maneuvers, either.  Warblade has a medium reflex save, possibly even good if you're in a high point buy high wealth game.  And reflex isn't really important anyway (sadly).

Army: Crusader drinks an enlarge potion, uses a reach weapon, and stuffs a 50 ft diameter with Thicket of Blades.

I've played all 3 classes, swordsage was clearly the weakest IME (though the most fun to play).  They're the bards of adepts, without the save-or-lose spellcasting or party buffing or social skills.   Being decent at lots of things, master of none is not a way towards success in D&D.

[Cyclone Joker]

I beg to differ. While their damage is slightly inferior to a crusader, they both have Shadow Hand, which has several low-level Save-or-Effectively-Dies and some other VERY nice abilities, the damage of Tiger Claw, which is nice, and the all-around usefulness of Diamond Mind. I am arguing that its slight inferiority(Seriously, Shadow Hand and Tiger Claw get you most of what you need) is compensated for by their superior versatility.

The tier system is more about versatility than power. I mean, if power was the important thing, Chargerbarians would be tier 3. Instead, t3 is home to the Factotum.

[Jackinthegreen]

Make note that JaronK does say heavily optimized or poorly optimized classes can move around in the tier list a bit.  An optimized barbarian would of course be T3, but a moderately optimized one falls into T4.  The bonehead barbarian in one of my groups that didn't take Power Attack because he didn't like doing 3rd grade math? T5, maybe.

The tier system is about both versatility and power.  T2 is noted as being less versatile than T3 or even T4, but its sheer power more than makes up for it.  T3 is also noted as being the top tier for classes that can only deal damage, so the barbarian that can do 5,000+ damage is still only T3 because damage isn't as powerful as certain other options.

[Cyclone Joker]

Uh, bro? I really hope, and can only assume, that he meant in comparison to t1. There is no way a Sorcerer, or a Psion, is less versatile than a melee guy. Sorry, it just doesn't work that way. Wieldskill, Charm, Alter Self, Polymorph, it just doesn't work that way. Look at T2. It contains Zceryll, which is versatility incarnate, and binders can do anything, given a day to prep, the Sorcerer, the Psion, which is just as versatile, The Erudite, which I'd call T1, and is just as versatile as the Wizard, and the Favored Soul, which I'd consider T3 at best, a wannabe King of Smack, until it gets the stupid spells, and if we counted high-level shenanigans the Truenamer and Healer would be T1.

And a Barbarian cannot be T3, because all but the most bizarre barbarians and/or inefficient barbarians I've seen aren't useful for much outside of combat and RP. Well, ignoring RSB, anyways. I'd love to see a barbarian be mechanically useful in any of the listed situations besides Monk-school trapfinding and stabbing the dragon in the face, while still being good at those.

[SorO_Lost]

A. Doesn't matter what "JaronK" said. Tier is a real concept employed by every multi-character game ever with real sets of criteria and mathematical practices. JaronK's Tiers are his personal rankings based on what he felt like surrounded by text everyone already knew about but didn't put down on paper. This is why the Barbarian is ranked higher than the Monk or Dungeoncrasher bumps a Fighter up in ranking.

B. T3 is home to the Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Martial Adapts, and Warmage. Notice how most of that list is spellcasters not "melee guys". And yes, the Bard is often more versatile than the Sorcerer as it's not remotely hard to build a Bard that handles skills, combat, party buffs, CC and even access to Polymorph, all of which is better diversity than generally any Sorcerer Spell list posted before replies start improving it. The Sorcerer is ahead because he can pick through the books and optimize his list and he does have 9th level spells over the Bard.

C. On Warblade vs Swordsage.
There seems to be a lot of focus on the Swordsage's ability to hide. Stealth is a skill, any moron can do it. Shadow Hand doesn't have any good Save-or-Dies and they are based on Wisdom which is fundamentally a AC only thanks to another Class Feature, not exactly synergistic for combat unlike Strength or versatile like Int's extra skill points. The already mentioned greatest Shadow Hand maneuvers are the teleports, but they have no prerequisites so for 3k~45k the Warblade has them too.

Now lets talk real versatility. You know what kicks the crap about of using the Hide skill? White Raven. You know, they entire disciple focused around party tactics, maneuvering, and buffs. Sharing is caring and the Warblade isn't playing dark emo in the corner. You're typical Warblade can shut AOOs down, reposition allies, grant extra turns, and savelessly stun the crap out of people. And I'm still only talking about things the Swordsage doesn't have here. Iron Heart claims less but while the Swordsage is sneaking off pretending to prevent an ambush, the Warblade breaks the mass CC effect dropped on the party, and then regrants his CC caster another chance to f*ck up the other side. We could literally be talking about which side is getting raped by some Black Tentacles here, not omg I can blink around uselessly because my feet are faster. And when turn 3 or 4 rolls around, the real weakness of the Swordsage sets in and he calls time out while the rest of the party if ripping out doorways like wrappers to get the uncooked fear soaked candy-meat cowering inside.

[Cyclone Joker]

A. Doesn't matter what "JaronK" said. Tier is a real concept employed by every multi-character game ever with real sets of criteria and mathematical practices. JaronK's Tiers are his personal rankings based on what he felt like surrounded by text everyone already knew about but didn't put down on paper. This is why the Barbarian is ranked higher than the Monk or Dungeoncrasher bumps a Fighter up in ranking.

Congrats. You posted a definition everyone knows, and raised no point. Given that they are posted up, what most people are familiar with, and is at least mostly accurate, it was a good baseline for discussion.

B. T3 is home to the Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Martial Adapts, and Warmage. Notice how most of that list is spellcasters not "melee guys". And yes, the Bard is often more versatile than the Sorcerer as it's not remotely hard to build a Bard that handles skills, combat, party buffs, CC and even access to Polymorph, all of which is better diversity than generally any Sorcerer Spell list posted before replies start improving it. The Sorcerer is ahead because he can pick through the books and optimize his list and he does have 9th level spells over the Bard.

In what universe is the bard more versatile than the Sorcerer. The Sorcerer is a full caster, its whole job is singing "Anything you can do, I can do better." Even the most basic optimization will get you there. Your bard build either using a mediocre prestige class, or is using an inferior sorcerer as a prestige class. Either way, I am unimpressed. And the others: Oh noez, an inferior sorcerer-wanabe, someone who thinks he's a CC-wizard who loses to anything with any protections, or is undead, a golem, has extra senses, or any number of other ways to make it cry, an inferior arcane cleric-wanabe, and sword-bitches. Yeah, I'll stick with the sorcerer. Hell, excluding Rainbow Servants and Sublime Chords, I'd bet a Sorcerer could do ANYTHING a team if all of the other classes you just mentioned better and faster. Actually good spells are just too superior to Plague of Undeath, Programmed Image, Meteor Swarm, wannabe Wuxia, and bagpipes. Okay, maybe not bagpipes, due to their sheer win, but the person playing them.

C. On Warblade vs Swordsage.
There seems to be a lot of focus on the Swordsage's ability to hide. Stealth is a skill, any moron can do it. Shadow Hand doesn't have any good Save-or-Dies and they are based on Wisdom which is fundamentally a AC only thanks to another Class Feature, not exactly synergistic for combat unlike Strength or versatile like Int's extra skill points. The already mentioned greatest Shadow Hand maneuvers are the teleports, but they have no prerequisites so for 3k~45k the Warblade has them too.

Stealth is very useful at low levels, and Shadow Hand does have plenty of useful maneuvers. Even their crappiest SoS has plenty of synergy, and, once again, has out-of-combat versatility. Yes, any moron can do it, but they can do it well, with no real investment, better than any real non-caster. They also have the only mundane teleport, and the out of class access works both ways, plus, at low-mid optimization(IE, where people aren't throwing around gods and mailmen), the Swordsage leads directly into Mo9 without any work. While it is strictly inferior to the Idiot Crusader, it plays better with others.

Now lets talk real versatility. You know what kicks the crap about of using the Hide skill? White Raven. You know, they entire disciple focused around party tactics, maneuvering, and buffs. Sharing is caring and the Warblade isn't playing dark emo in the corner. You're typical Warblade can shut AOOs down, reposition allies, grant extra turns, and savelessly stun the crap out of people. And I'm still only talking about things the Swordsage doesn't have here. Iron Heart claims less but while the Swordsage is sneaking off pretending to prevent an ambush, the Warblade breaks the mass CC effect dropped on the party, and then regrants his CC caster another chance to f*ck up the other side. We could literally be talking about which side is getting raped by some Black Tentacles here, not omg I can blink around uselessly because my feet are faster. And when turn 3 or 4 rolls around, the real weakness of the Swordsage sets in and he calls time out while the rest of the party if ripping out doorways like wrappers to get the uncooked fear soaked candy-meat cowering inside.

Who said anything about hide? You have Invis. And mundane teleports. And you have access to all their toys, if you want to go down that path. Getting Iron Heart Surge is 6K and a feat. Same with WRT. Oh, the horror, I cannot believe the difficulty. Hell, it costs anyone 6K and a feat. And you ignore out of combat versatility, which is just as important. Oh, and the Swordsage has much nicer PrCs.

Also? If your CC Mage was actually caught in CC, urdoinitwrong. Tentacles are nice, if you're into that stuff, but any caster should get out of it, just like any caster worth their spell slots should bring, or have up, plenty of ways to get out of most CC. In fact, Effective immunity to Evard's Kinky Tentacles is 2600 GP. Immunity to AMFs costs an extra thousand or two GP per item. Immunity to a whole host of unpleasant crap including dazing, stunning, fatigue, and so on costs your buddy taking two levels of Incantatrix and you spending 11200. So your points are all mooted by something you said or basic WBL-mancy. Yawn. Hell, all of the things you're touting as so amazing, a mid-level commoner could do. Do, and be immune to.

Basically, at low-mid levels of optimization, the swordsage can do most of what you can do better, and has more tricks. At high optimization, all of your tricks are accomplishable by a commoner. Should I post a build?

Honestly, I think ToB could use its own little tier stuck between tiers 3 and 4. ToB is strictly inferior to all of T3, but generally superior to most of T4.

[Unbeliever]

...
I'd bet a Sorcerer could do ANYTHING a team if all of the other classes you just mentioned better and faster. Actually good spells are just too superior to Plague of Undeath, Programmed Image, Meteor Swarm, wannabe Wuxia, and bagpipes. Okay, maybe not bagpipes, due to their sheer win, but the person playing them.

A Sorcerer is an inferior party buffer to a Bard and inferior minion master to a Dread Necromancer.  That's not to say a Sorcerer can't buff or have minions, but he's way behind the curve on those, assuming even a smidge of optimization.  That's also not to say that I can't build a Sorcerer who can't buff well -- by taking say War Weaver -- but that says more about War Weaver than it does about Sorcerer, and I assumed we weren't talking about PrCs that radically change up a base class. 

I'm not going to get into a big Tiers debate with anyone, though, mostly b/c I don't find them useful as a concept and therefore never rely on them. 

I will point out, though, as is often the case in these debates, Cyclone Joker is seriously overstating things.  First, all the WBL-mancy applies to all characters, so it's at best a wash.  If a "commoner can do it" then a Warblade can do it and so can a Wizard.  Second, Iron Heart Surge and the like works on a huge variety of things, not just the thing that you happened to buy to make yourself immune to.  And, there's a huge difference between being able to use it or White Raven Tactics every other round if needs be than once per encounter. 

Finally, if you have to sneak Incantatrix + gold + Persistent Spell into your explanation for why a class' abilities "suck" then you've kind of proven how good they are ...

[Cyclone Joker]

...
I'd bet a Sorcerer could do ANYTHING a team if all of the other classes you just mentioned better and faster. Actually good spells are just too superior to Plague of Undeath, Programmed Image, Meteor Swarm, wannabe Wuxia, and bagpipes. Okay, maybe not bagpipes, due to their sheer win, but the person playing them.

A Sorcerer is an inferior party buffer to a Bard and inferior minion master to a Dread Necromancer.  That's not to say a Sorcerer can't buff or have minions, but he's way behind the curve on those, assuming even a smidge of optimization.  That's also not to say that I can't build a Sorcerer who can't buff well -- by taking say War Weaver -- but that says more about War Weaver than it does about Sorcerer, and I assumed we weren't talking about PrCs that radically change up a base class.

I've got to disagree here. Between Arcane Fusion and its big brother, the Bite line, and all the other very nice Sor/Wiz buffs, I'm gonna disagree on the bard. Planar Binding and Simulacrum laughs at the Dread Necromancer's idea of minions. The Sor/Wiz list is just too big and too good.

I'm not going to get into a big Tiers debate with anyone, though, mostly b/c I don't find them useful as a concept and therefore never rely on them.

Actually, I am curious about this. Can you please explain? Tiers as a concept, or the levels of power between classes, just doesn't seem like it can't be useful.

I will point out, though, as is often the case in these debates, Cyclone Joker is seriously overstating things.  First, all the WBL-mancy applies to all characters, so it's at best a wash.  If a "commoner can do it" then a Warblade can do it and so can a Wizard.

Oh, absolutely. I am saying that at really high optimization, everyone has everyone else's toys, and, if you're good, you have immunity to whatever you need. If he starts going down the road of the Warblade getting all the Swordsages toys, I'll pull out the Commoner who gets all his toys, but better. I actually have several working builds floating around in my head already.

Second, Iron Heart Surge and the like works on a huge variety of things, not just the thing that you happened to buy to make yourself immune to.  And, there's a huge difference between being able to use it or White Raven Tactics every other round if needs be than once per encounter.

Who said once per encounter? Adaptive Style, bro.

Finally, if you have to sneak Incantatrix + gold + Persistent Spell into your explanation for why a class' abilities "suck" then you've kind of proven how good they are ..

Not at all, that's just the easiest. Minor Schema of Favor of the Martyr is the easiest way, and my personal favorite based on style, but there are plenty of easier ways on a budget. Third Eye Clarity does most of the important bits for 3K, Third Eye Freedom gets you FoM, and so on. Plus, if the caster these are on can't end the encounter in one round, theyredoinitwrong. So, can anyone give me one thing IHS can solve that can't be ignored or circumvented for dirt cheap?

I mean, don't get me wrong, IHS is VERY nice if you get caught with your pants down, but I'd rather just not get caught with my pants down.

[Unbeliever]

...
I'd bet a Sorcerer could do ANYTHING a team if all of the other classes you just mentioned better and faster. Actually good spells are just too superior to Plague of Undeath, Programmed Image, Meteor Swarm, wannabe Wuxia, and bagpipes. Okay, maybe not bagpipes, due to their sheer win, but the person playing them.

A Sorcerer is an inferior party buffer to a Bard and inferior minion master to a Dread Necromancer.  That's not to say a Sorcerer can't buff or have minions, but he's way behind the curve on those, assuming even a smidge of optimization.  That's also not to say that I can't build a Sorcerer who can't buff well -- by taking say War Weaver -- but that says more about War Weaver than it does about Sorcerer, and I assumed we weren't talking about PrCs that radically change up a base class.

I've got to disagree here. Between Arcane Fusion and its big brother, the Bite line, and all the other very nice Sor/Wiz buffs, I'm gonna disagree on the bard. Planar Binding and Simulacrum laughs at the Dread Necromancer's idea of minions. The Sor/Wiz list is just too big and too good.

I said the Bard is a better party buffer.  I should have emphasized that in my earlier post, though.  The Sorcerer can buff himself, as you note, and he could even maybe buff someone else if you set it up right.  But, it's hard to beat a Bard's "everyone gets +X to hit and damage and a +Xd6 to damage all at once" effect. 

I have to cop to the power of Planar Binding.  But, and these are kind of big caveats in my experience (but, ymmv), Planar Binding is a bit of a high level option, and crucially a high OP one.  It's been de facto banned in almost all the games I play, which is why I didn't think of it.  And, it's kind of like Incantatrix in a way:  if PB is what levels the playing field, then that shows you how badass the other thing is b/c PB is one of the most broken, open-ended, and abusable things around. 

I'm not going to get into a big Tiers debate with anyone, though, mostly b/c I don't find them useful as a concept and therefore never rely on them.

Actually, I am curious about this. Can you please explain? Tiers as a concept, or the levels of power between classes, just doesn't seem like it can't be useful.

Sure, I'll try.  The problem I have with the Tiers approach is that it's pitched at the level of class.  We talk about Warblade being in Tier X, Sorcerer being in Tier Y.  However, in 3E I find the idea of comparing base classes not particularly helpful.  One of the things I love about 3E is its kind of modular approach to character creation.  Telling you someone's class isn't all that much information about the character, necessarily.  This is particularly true when you get to non-casters.  Most of a Wizard's oomph comes from his spell list, and most Wizard builds are pretty much "spellcasting + some neato thing." 

I don't see many Rogue 20s around, though.  Probably, to be fair, b/c Rogue 20 sort of sucks.  But, if someone wants to play, for example, sneaky guy who throws daggers and murders people, a good build will hop around to various classes to nab abilities that build that concept.  All of this gets swept under the rug in the Tiers system, as it is commonly expressed, under the rubric of "equal levels of optimization."  But, that seems to be where the entire game/character creation system is happening. 

In short, when talking about power of various characters, it really should be at the level of builds, not classes.  This is 3E D&D, there's no reason to assume that people are not going to hop from class to class to find abilities that help them out.  At best, then, the Tiers system is useful for neophytes to get a general baseline of single class builds (e.g., Druid good, Paladin bad).  Among veterans, though, I find its usefulness quite limited. 


I don't have a dog in the rest of this fight, but I am going to throw 2 more comments out. 

Second, Iron Heart Surge and the like works on a huge variety of things, not just the thing that you happened to buy to make yourself immune to.  And, there's a huge difference between being able to use it or White Raven Tactics every other round if needs be than once per encounter.

Who said once per encounter? Adaptive Style, bro.

is a full-round action, bro.  That's a big cost. 

Plus, if the caster these are on can't end the encounter in one round, theyredoinitwrong.

This is very much outside of my D&D experience.  And, I play with solid, reasonably well-optimized people frequently.  Don't get me wrong, spellcasters can do awesome things.  But, whether its due to our restraint (which I highly doubt) or good DMing, rarely can an encounter be ended in a single round by our casters. 

[ImperatorK]

In short, when talking about power of various characters, it really should be at the level of builds, not classes.

Except that Tier System is about classes, not builds or characters.

This is very much outside of my D&D experience.  And, I play with solid, reasonably well-optimized people frequently.  Don't get me wrong, spellcasters can do awesome things.  But, whether its due to our restraint (which I highly doubt) or good DMing, rarely can an encounter be ended in a single round by our casters.

It's more about effectively ending an encounter in one round.

[SorO_Lost]

I'm not going to get into a big Tiers debate with anyone, though, mostly b/c I don't find them useful as a concept and therefore never rely on them.

Actually, I am curious about this. Can you please explain? Tiers as a concept, or the levels of power between classes, just doesn't seem like it can't be useful.

Probably considers Tier debates stupid and pointless. And they are. For instance, when I mentioned WRT usefulness over pretty much everything the Swordsage ever gets, your counter to it is a TO Wizard never gets hit with anything.

On the same token, you take for granted the Feat tax of Adaptive Style, and with it the consequences of a Full-Round action of doing nothing while everyone else does something. And still not stopping there, WRT requires another White Raven Maneuver so barring custom items means blowing a second (or even third feat) just to pretend you're one thirteenth of a Warblade. And you think you can keep up with me on the subject of acquiring other class's abilities? You don't even understand the price you're paying to keep up with your own line of thinking.

I agree with Unbeliever, but yet a step farther in.
All the vets don't need Tiers because they already know what they are doing.
The noobs people don't need tiers because people like you exist.
New players can get a crash course of tiers in thirty seconds, relative to the DM's campaign, without being bogged down with BS.
So what good is arguing about how your favorite class isn't #1 going to do, and more importantly, who the hell cares?

[Unbeliever]

In short, when talking about power of various characters, it really should be at the level of builds, not classes.

Except that Tier System is about classes, not builds or characters.

Yeah, I was just contending that it's not so useful in a game like 3.5 where you can be mixing and matching classes all the time. 

It's not that I don't understand the Tiers approach.  I understand it very well, I just don't find it very useful.  I've happily played Rogues alongside Conjurers and what have you and not been outclassed in the slightest. 

This is very much outside of my D&D experience.  And, I play with solid, reasonably well-optimized people frequently.  Don't get me wrong, spellcasters can do awesome things.  But, whether its due to our restraint (which I highly doubt) or good DMing, rarely can an encounter be ended in a single round by our casters.

It's more about effectively ending an encounter in one round.

Again, I understand what is meant by effectively ending encounters.  It just still doesn't seem to work out that way.  And, I say that as the guy playing the spellcaster more often than not.  Don't get me wrong, Solid Fog, Evard's Black Tentacles, Mudslide, Confusion, Slow, and so on are all awesome.  And, I've seen my fair share of encounters ended by a well-timed Ray of Dizziness or Illusory Pit.  But, it's not de rigeur in my gaming groups.  Perhaps that's from a little bit of IP-proofing on the DM's part, just like the bad guys don't get one-shotted in our games, even though the damage totals are quite healthy.  Or, perhaps b/c the utility of such powers is a bit overstated in charopp circles. 


P.S.:  please give me a little credit.  I've been doing this a long time, and I'm not a total idiot.  I posted a reasonably thoughtful set of paragraphs in response to a query.  It's not that I don't understand basic ideas, like what the hell the JaronK, et al. were aiming for or what it means to effectively end an encounter.  I was just disagreeing with it. 

[Cyclone Joker]

...
I'd bet a Sorcerer could do ANYTHING a team if all of the other classes you just mentioned better and faster. Actually good spells are just too superior to Plague of Undeath, Programmed Image, Meteor Swarm, wannabe Wuxia, and bagpipes. Okay, maybe not bagpipes, due to their sheer win, but the person playing them.

A Sorcerer is an inferior party buffer to a Bard and inferior minion master to a Dread Necromancer.  That's not to say a Sorcerer can't buff or have minions, but he's way behind the curve on those, assuming even a smidge of optimization.  That's also not to say that I can't build a Sorcerer who can't buff well -- by taking say War Weaver -- but that says more about War Weaver than it does about Sorcerer, and I assumed we weren't talking about PrCs that radically change up a base class.

I've got to disagree here. Between Arcane Fusion and its big brother, the Bite line, and all the other very nice Sor/Wiz buffs, I'm gonna disagree on the bard. Planar Binding and Simulacrum laughs at the Dread Necromancer's idea of minions. The Sor/Wiz list is just too big and too good.

I said the Bard is a better party buffer.  I should have emphasized that in my earlier post, though.  The Sorcerer can buff himself, as you note, and he could even maybe buff someone else if you set it up right.  But, it's hard to beat a Bard's "everyone gets +X to hit and damage and a +Xd6 to damage all at once" effect. 

No, I'm going to have to go with Enlarge Person and Polymorph. Oh, and Have-Any-Maneuver-You-Want, and basically every other good buff in the Spell Compendium

I have to cop to the power of Planar Binding.  But, and these are kind of big caveats in my experience (but, ymmv), Planar Binding is a bit of a high level option, and crucially a high OP one.  It's been de facto banned in almost all the games I play, which is why I didn't think of it.  And, it's kind of like Incantatrix in a way:  if PB is what levels the playing field, then that shows you how badass the other thing is b/c PB is one of the most broken, open-ended, and abusable things around

Planar binding is superior to the DN's horde of crap-goons. It kind of proved my point. Trying to claim it doesn't count because it's broken further proves my point. The Sorcerer is just a superior class because of its spell list. But, if you want to ignore Planar Binding, the Sorcerer's Simulacra also work. Yeah, the DN is the best at getting a bunch of crap goons, but some mid-level casters or high-level outsiders are simply superior to a bunch of crap-goons. But, wait! The Sorcerer has Dominate, so he can throw ANOTHER enemies crap-goons at yours, and otherwise has plenty of crap-goons. Also, Sonorous Hum+Big summons like Monolith, or the Elemental-Swarm-esque spells(Even though they tend to be mediocre). Or, you know, simulacra

If a DN gets into a minion-off with the Sorcerer, he is going to lose. Undead, despite having the awesome NecroDeathBlimps, aren't very effective for their HD. A sorcerer, although it might be costly if he uses his good minions, has better minions, simple as that.

Oh, and the Sorcerer can do things besides throw crap-goons at things. Divination is pro, and last I checked, DN don't get them.

I don't have a dog in the rest of this fight, but I am going to throw 2 more comments out. 

Second, Iron Heart Surge and the like works on a huge variety of things, not just the thing that you happened to buy to make yourself immune to.  And, there's a huge difference between being able to use it or White Raven Tactics every other round if needs be than once per encounter.

Who said once per encounter? Adaptive Style, bro.

is a full-round action, bro.  That's a big cost. 

WRT begs to disagree with you. It's mildly annoying at best

And "happened to buy?" You wound me. There is no "Happened to," only skill and analysis.

Plus, if the caster these are on can't end the encounter in one round, theyredoinitwrong.

This is very much outside of my D&D experience.  And, I play with solid, reasonably well-optimized people frequently.  Don't get me wrong, spellcasters can do awesome things.  But, whether its due to our restraint (which I highly doubt) or good DMing, rarely can an encounter be ended in a single round by our casters.

Against non-full NPC WBL enemies, Kinky Tentacles can end an encounter right there. Solid Fog can end a bajillion encounters, as can Stinking Cloud. Force Cage ends a encounter. Wall of Stone and Shape Stone end crap-goon mobs. Arcane Casters are made of "you suck." They enter a combat, and its over.

I'm not going to get into a big Tiers debate with anyone, though, mostly b/c I don't find them useful as a concept and therefore never rely on them.

Actually, I am curious about this. Can you please explain? Tiers as a concept, or the levels of power between classes, just doesn't seem like it can't be useful.

Probably considers Tier debates stupid and pointless. And they are. For instance, when I mentioned WRT usefulness over pretty much everything the Swordsage ever gets, your counter to it is a TO Wizard never gets hit with anything.

The wizard(Not TO, just decent playing) was because you brought it up. And WRT costs anyone in the world 6K(Or is it 3?) and a feat. I've built a wizard with WRT.

On the same token, you take for granted the Feat tax of Adaptive Style, and with it the consequences of a Full-Round action of doing nothing while everyone else does something. And still not stopping there, WRT requires another White Raven Maneuver so barring custom items means blowing a second (or even third feat) just to pretend you're one thirteenth of a Warblade. And you think you can keep up with me on the subject of acquiring other class's abilities? You don't even understand the price you're paying to keep up with your own line of thinking.

Since when is Crown of the White Raven(Or whatever it's called) a custom item? And, again, given out-of-combat utility, because D&D is more than just dungeoncrawling, the Swordsage is more useful in more situations.

Oh, also? WRT costs 12K. Now, I'm sure you'll excuse me for now bowing down in reverence to your bizarre fetish. WRT is only as good as you're claiming when attached to an idiot crusader

I agree with Unbeliever, but yet a step farther in.
All the vets don't need Tiers because they already know what they are doing.
The noobs people don't need tiers because people like you exist.
New players can get a crash course of tiers in thirty seconds, relative to the DM's campaign, without being bogged down with BS.
So what good is arguing about how your favorite class isn't #1 going to do, and more importantly, who the hell cares?

Tiers matter because the OP ASKED ABOUT THEM. It's not that complicated, bro.

Define "People like me."

Also, you have yet to give me anything IHS can solve that cannot be solved easily for cheap. But I didn't really expect reason or in-depth critical thinking from someone who can't understand basic RAW.

[ImperatorK]

Chill out bros. It's not like you're discussing politics or anything, so you don't have to get so passionate and borderline rude.