D&D General The Hall of Suck: Worst Classes in D&D History (Spoiler Alert: Nothing from 5e)

[Blue]

My vote would go to 4e Runepriest: the forgotten class.

• No feat support, yet a strange feat chain that only them could take that added mostly nothing.
• A leader role, yet the powers did not really support the role and offer measly boni quickly overshadowed by any other leaders.
• A weird mechanic where you could switch the riders from your powers by being in a ''rune stance'', which makes little sense
• All in all, it looked like an homebrewe class added to the 3rd book (which was about psionics) to keep company to the equally bad Seeker.

I played a shifter runepriest from 1st through mid paragon. They were pretty fearsome in actual play.

EDIT: Found an old character sheet.

I granted allies near me either +1 to hit or damage reduction just all the time. I had decent healing (boosted by a feat) that granted other bonues. Serene Blade gave me access to miliary heavy blades, use WIS for AC when not in heavy armor, and a mess of tHP once a round when I hit which paired nicely with my Beasthide Shifting feat damage reduction and my shifting regeneration, making me quite resilient. Huge flexibility on power riders due to the runestate choice. Including doing things like debuffs with at-wills. All of my powers gave either buffs or debuffs, it was a real force multiplier.

 

[Mort]

I'm going to go with what might be a controversial pick (though I don't think so), the 3e rogue:

1. Sneak attack has way too many exclusions because the target had to be living and with discernable anatomy. Most notably undead; I feel very sorry for anyone who got stuck with a rogue in Age of Worms for example;

2. The rogue's shtick was, for the most part, way too easy to duplicate with low level spells (which tended to do the job as well or better). Knock, for example, automatic success at opening doors for a 2nd level spell. Sure it's a limited resource but with 3e ready access to crafting magic items, that's not a problem - a wand of knock wasn't exactly a high ticket item. The reverse btw, was even worse! A wizard could Wizard Lock a door and a rogue could not pick it - until you got to the epic level handbook, the modifier was something like +25 or +50 to pick the lock (that's on a d20). A poster on this board mentioned, just to mess with him, the party wizard created a staff that could do just about everything he could - then named it after the character.

 

[Alzrius]

A poster on this board mentioned, just to mess with him, the party wizard created a staff that could do just about everything he could - then named it after the character.

Do you have a link to this? It sounds hilarious.

 

[Mort]

Do you have a link to this? It sounds hilarious.

Just looked it up, and I misremembered a bit. Apparently the Wizard just joked about doing it, but did say exactly how he would!

Link fixed - here you go. Post #24.

It wouldnt let me link to the post directly for some reason. @Remathilis was the poster with the comment.

The thread is actually worth a read. I particularly like how a poster claimed that there was an agreement in his group that wizards wouldn't step on the rogue's toes (completely missing the fact that if such an agreement was needed - there was a problem).

 

[Laurefindel]

Just looked it up, and I misremembered a bit. Apparently the Wizard just joked about doing it, but did say exactly how he would!

Link fixed - here you go.

It wouldnt let me link to the post directly for some reason. @Remathilis was the poster with the comment.

The thread is actually worth a read. I particularly like how a poster claimed that there was an agreement in his group that wizards wouldn't step on the rogue's toes (completely missing the fact that if such an agreement was needed - there was a problem).

Considering that the core concept behind the thief was “a wizard that doesn’t need spell slots to cast wizard utility spells, but not as good”, that is not surprising.

 

[TheSword]

The Adventures in Middle Earth 5e, Scholar. Everything that was bad about a 2nd ed Cleric without the spells. There’s nothing quite as disappointing as class abilities that any class can attempt as part of role playing or a skill check. Just bad... reeeeaaaaaallly bad.

Made worse by how awesome the rogue, ranger and fighter were.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I have to vehemently disagree with your assessment of the 1e Monk. You have a few details wrong, but there's more to it.

First - they use the Cleric matrix not the Thief's, which is 2nd only to the Fighter's. They use the Thief SAVING THROW table, though.

Right, I forgot about that little discrepancy between PHB and DMG. Not that it helps the Monk a whole lot; the Cleric matrix is typically only 1 or 2 points better than the Thief matrix at the same levels.

Also the Paladin has the largest xp requirement of core 1e, at 2750xp for level 2, where the monk is on par with the Ranger at 2250. (So yes, it still speaks to your point that monks have a high XP requirement, but they are certainly not the worst. Wizards and Paladins have a slower time advancing.)

I was looking at the higher levels, where Monks take 500K XP past level 12 to gain new levels, while the Paladin only takes 350K to do the same at that level.

Also, Paladins can qualify for the 10% XP boost with high enough stats. Monks never get that.

The stun feature is very effective and certainly not a mathematical improbability, you merely need to score a hit by a margin of five over your minimum target #, which happens fairly often - and the stun lasts d6 rounds with no save. A monk attacking an unarmoured enemy (hello enemy wizards!) is +4 to attack (if you're using weapon-type-vs-AC, which you should be) meaning a first level monk need only score an 11 or higher on a d20 (50%). Yes that number is reduced with better armoured enemies, but the average AC in 1st Ed hovers in the 5 range. So even a 1st level monk will usually score that stun on a 19 or 20 more often than not.

That same enemy MU casts Shield, which lasted an absurdly long time in 1e (5 rounds/level!) and sets AC to 4 against melee attacks, and has anything at all (even a simple wall) protecting its rear, and the Monk isn't getting much, if any, stuns.

Thing is, though, if that same MU can get hit by weapons at all, that MU is likely dead that turn. So the stun in practice was far more often than not academic, and Fighters and Paladins actually hit things better.

 

[billd91]

I'm going to go with what might be a controversial pick (though I don't think so), the 3e rogue:

1. Sneak attack has way too many exclusions because the target had to be living and with discernable anatomy. Most notably undead; I feel very sorry for anyone who got stuck with a rogue in Age of Worms for example;

2. The rogue's shtick was, for the most part, way too easy to duplicate with low level spells (which tended to do the job as well or better). Knock, for example, automatic success at opening doors for a 2nd level spell. Sure it's a limited resource but with 3e ready access to crafting magic items, that's not a problem - a wand of knock wasn't exactly a high ticket item. The reverse btw, was even worse! A wizard could Wizard Lock a door and a rogue could not pick it - until you got to the epic level handbook, the modifier was something like +25 or +50 to pick the lock (that's on a d20). A poster on this board mentioned, just to mess with him, the party wizard created a staff that could do just about everything he could - then named it after the character.

I definitely disagree. 3e's rogue was the first one that could actually stand on its own. 1e's thief flat out sucked at most stuff he did until he was fairly high level and his backstabs were even harder to pull off than 3e's sneak attack. 2e fixed a few things by allowing the thief to specialize with his skills but his attack matrix and saves still sucked. Oh, my god did the saves ever suck. 3e's rogue suffers a bit because of the magic item creation/buying system that makes it too easy to for a wizard to horn in on its job. While that was a thing a wizard could do in 1e/2e on a limited basis, the opportunity cost of devoting a spell slot vs having utility wands/scrolls was much higher.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I definitely disagree. 3e's rogue was the first one that could actually stand on its own. 1e's thief flat out sucked at most stuff he did until he was fairly high level and his backstabs were even harder to pull off than 3e's sneak attack. 2e fixed a few things by allowing the thief to specialize with his skills but his attack matrix and saves still sucked. Oh, my god did the saves ever suck. 3e's rogue suffers a bit because of the magic item creation/buying system that makes it too easy to for a wizard to horn in on its job. While that was a thing a wizard could do in 1e/2e on a limited basis, the opportunity cost of devoting a spell slot vs having utility wands/scrolls was much higher.

I was close to putting the 1e Thief on the list but decided against it because, while it has the flaws you said, its skills were at least useful once they got to that high level. Also, the 1e Thief levels up insanely fast all the way through.

 

[Mort]

I definitely disagree. 3e's rogue was the first one that could actually stand on its own. 1e's thief flat out sucked at most stuff he did until he was fairly high level and his backstabs were even harder to pull off than 3e's sneak attack. 2e fixed a few things by allowing the thief to specialize with his skills but his attack matrix and saves still sucked. Oh, my god did the saves ever suck. 3e's rogue suffers a bit because of the magic item creation/buying system that makes it too easy to for a wizard to horn in on its job. While that was a thing a wizard could do in 1e/2e on a limited basis, the opportunity cost of devoting a spell slot vs having utility wands/scrolls was much higher.

It's mostly opinion so disagreement is inevitable!

That said, while 1e/2e rogues were a bit lackluster, they still had a set of skills that other classes couldn't easily replicate. 3e made it WAY to easy to marginalize the rogue.