D&D General "March Madness" - Let's Rank The D&D Classes

[Gradine]

The way the bracket is set up makes that impossible. We’ll have cleric and wizard for the casters, but rogue and fighter go head-to-head earlier. So one of those will be knocked out before the final four. For the inaccurately labeled “martials,” the final two will be either fighter or rogue, plus one of paladin, monk, warlord, or swordmage.

Interesting. As a fan of brackets I didn't even notice the weird seedings. The 2-7 bracket and the 4-5 brackets should be switched on both sides.

 

[Gradine]

Also, in absolute fairness, but the seeding in the actual March Madness is even more strange and arbitrary. You will have plenty of west coast teams in the "East" side of the bracket, for instance.

 

[overgeeked]

Interesting. As a fan of brackets I didn't even notice the weird seedings. The 2-7 bracket and the 4-5 brackets should be switched on both sides.

Also, in absolute fairness, but the seeding in the actual March Madness is even more strange and arbitrary. You will have plenty of west coast teams in the "East" side of the bracket, for instance.

Ah. I am not a sportsball guy so this is all news to me.

 

[CleverNickName]

Interesting. As a fan of brackets I didn't even notice the weird seedings. The 2-7 bracket and the 4-5 brackets should be switched on both sides.

Woops! Good catch, thanks. I'll revise my spreadsheet accordingly.

 

[overgeeked]

Woops! Good catch, thanks. I'll revise my spreadsheet accordingly.

So…you’re going to change the bracket in such a way that eliminates any chance of surprises and ensures the end result becomes a foregone conclusion?

 

[CleverNickName]

So…you’re going to change the bracket in such a way that eliminates any chance of surprises and ensures the end result becomes a foregone conclusion?

I don't know what you want me to say. It's a popularity contest, which means the popular choices will probably win.

Sure, I could have rigged the game to keep that from happening--I could have prohibited people from voting for certain options, or I could have worked the bracket so that the popular choices can only eliminate each other--and make it harder for the higher-rated options to win. But that's silly. The NCAA March Madness isn't a scientific measure of greatness, this won't be either.

 

[mellored]

I picked monk, but specifically the high movement and battlefield manipulator monk.

Not the the unarmed fighter who just stands still and punches.

 

[CleverNickName]

I picked monk, but specifically the high movement and battlefield manipulator monk.

Not the the unarmed fighter who just stands still and punches.

My spouse is playing a monk in Baldur's Gate 3 right now and I gotta say, it's working out a lot better than I had assumed it would.

 

[Gradine]

Yeah. There's a ton of different ways that it could be done, and none of them perfect. As a measure of popularity, this is the one that probably makes the most sense.

But you could definitely thumb the scale in different ways by breaking the selection down even further and splitting the bracket into four different groups, although like with Arizona State ending up in the "East" bracket you'll have some weirdness either way.
You could go by Class Group:
Warriors (Fighter, Warlord, Barbarian, Swordmage)
Priests (Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Psion)
Rogues (Rogue, Bard, Monk, Ranger)
Wizards (Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Artificer)

Or by age, if you wanted a "one main-4 to rule them all" free-for-all early on
OD&D (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric)
AD&D (Ranger, Paladin, Druid, Bard)
3.X (Monk, Barbarian, Sorcerer, Artificer)
4e (Warlord, Warlock, Swordmage, Psion)

Or by 4e-style Power Sources
Martial (Fighter, Warlord, Ranger, Rogue)
Arcane (Wizard, Warlock, Sorcerer, Bard)
Divine/Nature (Cleric, Paladin, Druid, Barbarian)
Psionic/Wild Card (Psion, Monk, Artificer, Swordmage)

But again, I think splitting the group in half and ranking them based on their overall popularity is as fine as any. Besides, while Rogue and Wizard might be sitting pretty at 1/3 of the vote, you never know if enough people might show up to say "to hell with these boring OG classes!" and vote for Barbarian or Ps-... ...whichever wins the Artificer/Bar... ...Warlock

 

[CleverNickName]

Yeah. There's a ton of different ways that it could be done, and none of them perfect. As a measure of popularity, this is the one that probably makes the most sense.
...
But again, I think splitting the group in half and ranking them based on their overall popularity is as fine as any. Besides, while Rogue and Wizard might be sitting pretty at 1/3 of the vote, you never know if enough people might show up to say "to hell with these boring OG classes!" and vote for Barbarian or Ps-... ...whichever wins the Artificer/Bar... ...Warlock

Heck, I considered just putting them in alphabetical order (Artificer-Paladin on the left, Ranger-Wizard on the right), but that had its own problems and it didn't really have a "team" feel to it.

I also considered seeding them with random numbers, but in the end I felt that having "playoffs" would be more fun and drive more engagement--and give people a chance to recommend their favorite wildcard. So that's how it ended up.