Character Tiers: Difference between revisions
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* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''
** In 3rd edition, versatility (how many problems a character can contribute to solving) is at least as important as power (how powerful the character's abilities are for problems) in tiering. The top tier is characters who, with the right spells prepared, can solve nearly anything the GM can come up with as a standard action. Lesser tiers either have [[Crippling Overspecialization|less versatility]] or [[Master of None|less power]]. In general, while a character of any tier can be a [[Game Breaker]] with the right factors, only a high-tier character can be a [[Story-Breaker Power|Story Breaker]] - imagine how ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' would have turned out if Gandalf could teleport any distance, read minds, identify any item instantly, and make anyone [[Won't Work On Me|immune]] to mental influence... and that was just a fraction of his abilities.
** More in-depth: [https://web.archive.org/web/20130818110005/http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293 The generally agreed list] is six tiers. Tier 1 is for characters like wizards, clerics, and druids, who learn loads of powerful spells and abilities and learn even more with every new book. Tier 2 is for characters like sorcerers, psions, and favored souls, who learn powerful spells and abilities, albeit more restrictively (the creator compared it to the difference between a nation with a thousand nukes and one with ten). Tier 3 is for characters like bards, factotums, and duskblades, who can either do one thing pretty well and still be useful, or do everything appreciably. Tier 4 is for characters like rogues, barbarians, and rangers, who can do one thing pretty well and only that thing, or can do a lot of things without ever really shining. Tier 5 is for characters like fighters, monks, and paladins, who can do only one thing (and not all that well), or can only ever achieve [[Master of None]] level. Tier 6 is for [[Joke Character]]s, plus [[Tier-Induced Scrappy|the samurai.]] And then there's [[Broke the Rating Scale|Truenamer]], which is like Tier 7 in uselessness, and Planar Shepard, a [[Prestige Class]] that's referred to as being "Tier 0".
** Tiers themselves are based on "As Written" comparisons based on how effectively the class can deal with different situations. The original author pointed out that optimized fighters can still be a low tier but capable of taking down the [[Physical God|Tarrasque]] in a single turn. In the hands of the right munchkin many classes can be equal to higher tiers.<ref>except for the Complete Warrior Samurai</ref> The Truenamer breaks the tier system by dint of its mechanics not being properly thought out, getting worse by every level, until level 19 when it will just spam Gate Celestial Angels.
** The 4th edition of D&D sought to remove this by making all the classes follow the same progression, so ''everyone'' is [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards|linear]]. Predictably, this nevertheless didn't result in a uniform power level, and discussions about which classes are higher-tier than which others are common. For example, "iconic" classes like the fighter and wizard have ''many'' more spells, feats, and abilities printed than "what on earth is that" classes like the Battlemind or the Seeker..
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