An Autistic Analysis on Dungeons and Dragons 3.x Classes

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

5e is clearly the superior system.

 

[Kongo-Müller]

Unfortunately search is failing right now... but was the Truenamer ever actually reviewed? Its late and I don't feel like searching through the whole thread.

Truenamer is in Tome of Magic, which is among the unreviewed books yet.

 

[Snekposter]

Truenamer is in Tome of Magic, which is among the unreviewed books yet.

I can't wait given its the source of a rating all its own.

 

[Kongo-Müller]

I can't wait given its the source of a rating all its own.

You'll be in for a wild ride. It was in the final book rushed out for D&D 3.5's ending, even more poorly edited than the other parts of the book, and introduced a completely new grandiose magic system - one for which even the basic math doesn't check out, leading to Truenamers actually becoming worse the more levels they have as the difficulty of using Truespeak rises faster than their Truespeak skill can.

And the deal is actually getting worse all the time from this point on. The flaws of Truenamer might need their own post to stay within the character limit.

 

[Adamska]

You'll be in for a wild ride. It was in the final book rushed out for D&D 3.5's ending, even more poorly edited than the other parts of the book, and introduced a completely new grandiose magic system - one for which even the basic math doesn't check out, leading to Truenamers actually becoming worse the more levels they have as the difficulty of using Truespeak rises faster than their Truespeak skill can.

And the deal is actually getting worse all the time from this point on. The flaws of Truenamer might need their own post to stay within the character limit.

Tome of Magic also has a fuckload of monsters and a dungeon each for those three classes, so you also get the worst thing ever: the Word Archon.

That's gonna be a fun one to video, because it's a bitch to navigate due to how much they put into each class. Shame the only good thing in it is the Binder. Shadowcasting sucks, but is viable to a degree.

 

[Snekposter]

You'll be in for a wild ride. It was in the final book rushed out for D&D 3.5's ending, even more poorly edited than the other parts of the book, and introduced a completely new grandiose magic system - one for which even the basic math doesn't check out, leading to Truenamers actually becoming worse the more levels they have as the difficulty of using Truespeak rises faster than their Truespeak skill can.

And the deal is actually getting worse all the time from this point on. The flaws of Truenamer might need their own post to stay within the character limit.

To quote M. Bison: "YES! YES!"

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

I realized something: I've never actually looked at the truenamer class. The times I've cracked Tome of Magic were to look at the binder, which I thought was far more interesting.

So I went and took a cursory look and... hoo boy. I now know where Pathfinder's words of power variant magic system came from, but that was in no way near as fucked up as this thing. That scaling DC based on target CR just breaks the class at higher levels.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Out of all gods it requires you to worship Pelor, the goody two shoes sun god who is as subtle as the rising sun and has as much to do with shadows and stealth as a midsommar party in Svalbard with disco balls and light shows.

"If I blind all of the Guards with the light of the sun it counts as not being seen right?"

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

"If I blind all of the Guards with the light of the sun it counts as not being seen right?"

Reminds me of the tale of the half-orc rogue who put his skill points into intimidate, and if he was caught, would scream at the person 'YOU DON'T SEE ME!'.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Reminds me of the tale of the half-orc rogue who put his skill points into intimidate, and if he was caught, would scream at the person 'YOU DON'T SEE ME!'.

I mean, if the alarms don't get sounded..did he REALLY get caught?

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

I mean, if the alarms don't get sounded..did he REALLY get caught?

True. If they're all too terrified to raise a fuss, he doesn't really count as being detected.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

True. If they're all too terrified to raise a fuss, he doesn't really count as being detected.

When all you have is an Ugly Orc Face and a Booming Orc Voice...every problem is a tiny Human to scream at.

 

[Kongo-Müller]

Complete Mage



Why just publish Complete Arcane when you can publish another supplement with goodies for arcane spellcasters? If you know half a thing about D&D 3.5, you do know that WotC plainly loves to fellate Wizards and provide them with all kinds of neat toys, and this book doesn't disappoint on this frontier - some of the very best prestige classes ever published for arcane spellcasters are found in it.

Abjurant Champion

We are already off to a strong start with one of the definitive gish classes in all of D&D 3.5. For those of you playing at home, "gish" refers to a spellcaster who doesn't hide in the back, but focusses on getting into melee by buffing themselves and whacking things with a beatstick. With all the wizard-fellating WotC does, gishes often end up being better at hitting people with a big stick than any pure martial could ever hope to.

Entry can be a bit of a pain without losing caster levels due to the BAB +5 requirement, but the feat is trivially easy, and the need to be proficient in a single martial weapon can be easily solved by being an elf or through the Militia feat.

In return, you get 5/5 spellcasting, full BAB and a d10 hit die. If the PrC stopped there, it would already be gold for gishes and super-solid for any other spellcaster, but it just doesn't stop there - you also get actual class features on top. Abjuration spells that improve AC get improved (greatly helpful for gishes who tend to be squishy), all abjuration spells (not only those who raise AC, all of them) get double duration, and you can eventually cast abjuration spells as swift actions without extra cost. Arcane Boost is a bit weaksauce (converting spell slots for a small bonus for a single round), but we'll take it while we are at it like those sportsball stickers you get with your groceries.

The real fun is Martial Arcanist:

From this point on, your caster level in a chosen arcane spellcasting class is equal to your base attack bonus (unless it would otherwise be higher).

This has lead to some fun arguments on D&D forums (and by "fun", we mean "autistic", "overtly nitpicking" and "super-anal"). Depending on how generously your DM reads this sentence, this could undo the penalties of Mage Slayer or other juicy feats who come with the drawback of reduced caster level. Even if you have the most downpressing fun-hating DM in the world who reads this sentence in the worst possible way, this class is still solid gold.

Rating: Amazing

Eldritch Disciple

The Eldritch Disciple is one of those theurge-style prestige classes that advances two different classes at the same time, in this case Cleric and Warlock. Cleric 3/Warlock 1 is the intended entry way, other than that the prereqs are trivial.

This class provides 9/10 Cleric advancement and 10/10 Warlock advancement, so if you take the minimum amount of Warlock levels required, by level 20 you end up with the abilities of an 18th level Cleric and an 11th level Warlock. If you use the secret ingredient of the Practiced Spellcaster feat, you can push you Warlock's eldritch blast up to be the equivalent of a 15th level Warlock.
tl;dr: This is overall a downgrade on a Cleric other than having some at-will abilities, but for Warlocks, this greatly increases their flexibility and versatility.

The class features are a bit light - you gain extra uses for your turning attempts, and eventually you can add eldritch essences as riders for free to you damaging and debuffing spells. You'll be on this ride mostly for the dual progression, so you shouldn't mind too much.

Rating: Decent

Eldritch Theurge


Another theurge-style PrC for warlocks, but this time in wizard/warlock flavour. You might think that the prerequisites of 2nd level arcane spells and 2d6 eldritch blasts force you to be a Wizard 3/Warlock 3 before you can enter, but there are easy early entry tricks. Practiced Spellcaster to boost your eldritch blasts beyond your actual warlock level has already been mentioned above. On the wizard side, Precocious Apprentice gives you access to lvl2 spells before your time.

ET has great dual progression, 10/10 for both the wizard and warlock side. Assuming early entry tricks are allowed (which absolutely should be for theurge-style classes, they are already falling behind the curve enough) and you focus on the much stronger wizard side, you end up with the abilities of a 19th level wizard and an 11th level warlock (with eldritch blasts as if you were a 15th level warlock). This is only a mild inconvenience for wizards other than the opportunity costs of losing out on other PrCs, while the warlock side greatly benefits from the flexibility. See a common theme here?

The actual class features are once more unexciting, though. You get shoe-horned into the role of the blaster/debuffing mage, gaining the abilities to infuse your spells with eldritch essences, infuse your eldritch blasts with spells and deliver touch spells at range through your eldritch blasts.

Rating: Decent

Enlightened Spirit


Enlightened Spirit is like an anti-Blackguard - where the Blackguard is a paladin who has fallen and now fully embraces evil, the Enlightened Spirit is a warlock who has been redeemed and now fully embraces good.

You keep advancing eldritch blast, but your forsake your invocation progression. Instead, you get some fixed celestial-flavoured invocations that are largely garbage.

There is niche use in epic games as Enlightened Spirit is a way to keep advancing some Warlock abilities past level 20, but if you play unironically play epic level games with a pure tier 4 class you are already more autistic than I want to deal with.

Rating: Garbage

Holy Scourge

Holy Scourges are blaster mages who abhor evil and seek to eradicate it one fireball at a time.
The prereqs are largely trivial, although Knowledge (religion) 2 ranks - at a time you are supposed to know 3rd level spells - make me chuckle. The implication seems to be that you don't need to know a lot about religion to become a witch-burning fanatic, in fact, too much knowledge may distract you from your witch-burning mission.

The drawbacks are that you only gain 4/5 spellcasting advancement, and that you have to follow a code of conduct that requires you to autistically dedicate your life to drive all evil, crush it and then burn their lamenting women (who are likely witches anyway).

In turn, you get a meaningless +1 caster level boost to [good] spells (that gets more than negated by 4/5 spellcaster advancement), a meaningless damage bonus to your blasting spells, and the ability to add a smite effect to your attack spells 1-2x per day. This works like the Paladin ability, but derived from your Holy Scourge level, so as a capstone you get to add a whopping +5 damage to a single spell.
tl;dr: Even if you make heavy use of blasting spells (which you shouldn't in D&D 3.5), these are garbage features not worthy the loss of a caster level and the need to follow a code.

The only somewhat useful feature is Devoted Arcanist adding your HS level to your caster level for caster level checks to overcome spell resistance, but that isn't worthwhile enough to deal with this blazing dumpster of a prestige class - although I have to admit that a blazing dumpster is in-theme for a witch-burning class. Along with the low knowledge requirements this class might be some clever 4th wall breaking metacommentary rather than just bad design.

Rating: Garbage

Lyric Thaumaturge


Here is a prestige class for the bards, and it is easy to enter for them. The only non-trivial requirement is the Melodic Casting feat, which is already neat to have anyway - it allows you to use Perform in place of Concentration for Concentration checks. Bards already want to maximize Perform, so this frees up a skill point each level to use for something different.

Lyric Thaumaturge grants 10/10 spellcasting advancement, and it makes you even more magical than a regular bard - you get more spell slots, and you also gain more spells known. Even better, the extra spells known come from the Wizard/Sorcerer list rather than the Bard list, so you can greatly improve your versatility and fill out gaps in your spell list.

The other class features are nothing to write at home about. Captivating Melody has use for social situations by allowing you to turn one of your many, many daily Bardic Music uses into a +2DC on enchantments and illusions. Sonic Might allows you to convert Bardic Music into extra sonic damage on certain spells - so it helps with something Bards should avoid even more than other spellcasters, blasting spells. Once more we'll just take it while we are at it, the spellcasting improvements more than make up for it.

Rating: Good

Master Specialist


Yo dawg, I heard you liek specialist wizards, so I put specialist wizards into your specialist wizard. The biggest stumbling block for entry is that you must be a specialist wizard, which hampers versatility. If you already went down this route, this PrC is a good choice to prestige out of Wizard, though.

You gain 10/10 spellcasting advancement, some minor bits like free spells known, and some actual class features in the form of School Esoterica, free extra effects that are either always on or triggered by casting spells of your specialization school.

Rating: Decent

Nightmare Spinner


Nightmare Spinner is a 4/5 spellcasting-advancing PrC focussed on fear and mind-affecting illusion spells. That is also where the trouble of this PrC lies - it is incredibly easy to shield yourself from fear and mind-affecting effects, and the share of outright immune monsters keeps growing the higher the CR goes. Within its niche, the abilities of Nightmare Spinner are respectable when they work (especially Spirit Chill is neat when you like to stack fear effects), but they become less and less applicable as you grow in level.

One neat feature that gets commonly overlooked is Bonus Spells - a single level of NS is enough to add another spellslot for every spell level you can cast. This spell slot is limited to illusion spells, but you can still use it to fuel abilities like Arcane Strike or Divine Companion, or cast them through a staff to convert them into a different spell.

Rating: Playable

Ultimate Magus


Another theurge-style PrC, this time intended for mixing a prepared arcane spellcaster with a spontaneous arcane spellcaster. In core, this usually means Wizard+Sorcerer, but the possibilities don't end there. You could go with one of the variant prepared spellcasters like Wu Jen or Sha'ir, or become a specialist wizard and then recover the banned schools through a fitting fixed list caster - say, ban Evocation, then combine with Warmage to gain access to the blasting spells anyway.

As usual for theurge-style classes, this a slight downgrade for the stronger half (usually the prepared side), but greatly improves versatility for the weaker half (usually the spontaneous side).

(And yes, the image could have been used for any theurge-style PrC, but I came up completely blank with fitting images, so I went with the most bland solution I could come up with.)

Rating: Decent

Unseen Seer


The Unseen Seer is a sort of Wizard/Rogue multiclass. Unlike the Cleric/Rogue mish-mash of Shadowspy in the last installment, US is actually good at its job - it is 10/10 spellcasting advancing, it has decent skills, it keeps advancing sneak attack, it gives free Silent Spell to stealthily use your magic, and it comes with some flavourful divination-themed features.

Rating: Good

Wild Soul


Wild Souls are nature-loving arcane spellcasters with a special affinity to fairies, so depending on alignment they swear allegiance to either the Seelie or Unseelie court and gain special features for it.

Entry is very easy, and 9/10 spellcasting is decent enough.

Main feature is that you add another spell known to every spell level you can cast. The list is fixed, but for spontaneous caster you'll take whatever can expand your tiny and/or restricted list of spells known.

Another need feature is that you add some fairies to your Summon Monster selection. Summon Monster is already pretty versatile, so a very good choice for spontaneous casters. Becoming even more versatile by increasing the selection makes it even better.

Rating: Good

Tier List (Complete Mage)
Tippy Tier: N/A
Amazing Classes: Abjurant Champion
Good Classes: Lyric Thaumaturge, Unseen Seer, Wild Soul
Decent Classes: Eldritch Disciple, Eldritch Theurge, Master Specialist
Playable Classes: Nightmare Spinner
Garbage Classes: Enlightened Spirit, Holy Scourge
Truenamer Class: N/A
NPC Class (Fuck you Book): N/A

 

[Kongo-Müller]

Wew, my autistic WoT survived... This is why I type up and save long WoTs offline.

 

[Adamska]

Wew, my autistic WoT survived... This is why I type up and save long WoTs offline.

Did the same thing with my own ones.

I think part of the reason I went to video format is because I realized that just what few books I did was already at 40k, making it the second longest thing I ever wrote.

 

[Kongo-Müller]

I prefer text, for a.) with text-heavy content like D&D 3.5 it allows to follow and check cross-references at your own pace, and b.) I have enough introspection to anticipate that if I'd put my own ugly mug and voice on video I would end up in a resident lolcow thread.

 

[Helvítis Túristi]

Having only played crpg's which are a homebrew, some of these pen and paper classes seem weaker. For example, the arcane archer's enhancement bonus stacks with the bow and arrow in crpg's. Arcane trickster was a means to get caster levels and level up sneak attacks for doing max sneak attack damage with spell like weapons. Dragon disciple wasn't even a spellcaster class, it was just for strength builds and getting some extra stacking ac. It's kinda interesting how much weaker they are in pen and paper and how pathfinder would buff them. Speaking of which.

@Adamska In one of the magic books, there were sorcerer bloodlines similar to what is seen in pathfinder. Would having that make sorcerer better in your opinion for 3.5 or would it just be pointless? I'm not familiar with the rules very well, so I can't really say.

 

[Adamska]

Having only played crpg's which are a homebrew, some of these pen and paper classes seem weaker. For example, the arcane archer's enhancement bonus stacks with the bow and arrow in crpg's. Arcane trickster was a means to get caster levels and level up sneak attacks for doing max sneak attack damage with spell like weapons. Dragon disciple wasn't even a spellcaster class, it was just for strength builds and getting some extra stacking ac. It's kinda interesting how much weaker they are in pen and paper and how pathfinder would buff them. Speaking of which.

@Adamska In one of the magic books, there were sorcerer bloodlines similar to what is seen in pathfinder. Would having that make sorcerer better in your opinion for 3.5 or would it just be pointless? I'm not familiar with the rules very well, so I can't really say.

I don't actually know Pathfinder all that well since I've played like 2 or 3 games and I don't really see or feel much of a difference tbh; whoever says it's more balanced is lying. I can tell you why the Arcane Archer stacks like that though; they stole that from 3.0 when you could do that.

And I'm not surprised that they're "stronger"; Pathfinder was made with the OGL after 4e was out and disliked, meaning they had dozens of splats and new books that showed how classes could be done better. As for why they used them? OGL only covers the SRD, meaning any book part of the SRD database, ie the Players Handbook, the DM's guide, Unearthed Arcana, and Psionics, you can literally steal for your own shit and there's nothing Wizards can do about it. It's why there were loads of d20 systems during the 90s.

 

[MysticLord]

I've wanted to do a 3.5/Pathfinder rebalance for a while.

My take is that every class and all their add-ons and alternatives and so on should be done with a point-buy system. Sort of like the Qigong monk, but without the Ki requirement to use your skills. You get a certain number of points per level that you can spend on various things.

Only issue is that this creates a parallel feat system, with all the problems that entails with regards to prerequisites, building characters in a timely manner, gameplay being even more of a fucking nightmare, and so on. From a modder's perspective, rebalancing becomes a full time job of unfucking everything wrong with all the "content" Paizo shits out. May as well go play Labyrinth Lord, ain't nobody got time for that.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

I've wanted to do a 3.5/Pathfinder rebalance for a while.

My take is that every class and all their add-ons and alternatives and so on should be done with a point-buy system. Sort of like the Qigong monk, but without the Ki requirement to use your skills. You get a certain number of points per level that you can spend on various things.

Only issue is that this creates a parallel feat system, with all the problems that entails with regards to prerequisites, building characters in a timely manner, gameplay being even more of a fucking nightmare, and so on. From a modder's perspective, rebalancing becomes a full time job of unfucking everything wrong with all the "content" Paizo shits out. May as well go play Labyrinth Lord, ain't nobody got time for that.

Have you taken a look at the Savage Worlds adaptation for Pathfinder? That might be interesting to check out.

But like you said, unfucking Paizo's spectacular screw up with PF is probably more trouble than it's worth. The World Is Square houserule set might come closest, though it's tough for martials to top the sheer amount of ridiculousness that spellcasters can get up to (honestly, a good solution might be to reduce wizard and sorcerer HD back to d4, and strip a good portion of the self-buff spells from clerics and druids).