Zardnaar
Legend
low level wizards run out of resources fast, other classes that cast spells have things like bard dice and channel divinity so I don't think wizards are tier 1 low levels.
-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
D&D 5E The New Class Tiers
- Thread starter Zardnaar
- Start date
low level wizards run out of resources fast, other classes that cast spells have things like bard dice and channel divinity so I don't think wizards are tier 1 low levels.
Public service announcement:
Class tiers is a way of categorizing classes by how powerful and versatile they are. A "tier 1" class can do pretty much anything, a "tier 5" class is mediocre at its specialty and sucks at everything else. It has nothing to do with level. The concept originated in the 3E community, as a way to describe the extreme lack of class balance in that edition.
Level tiers is a grouping of experience levels into categories, with the idea that new options will open up and the themes and scope of adventures will change from one tier to the next. The concept dates back to the Red Box era, although I think the use of "tier" to describe it comes from 4E. In 5E, "tier 1" encompasses levels 1-4, "tier 2" encompasses 5-10, "tier 3" is 11-16, and "tier 4" is 17-20.
This thread is about class tiers, but a lot of people are taking the word to refer to level tiers.
Class tiers is a way of categorizing classes by how powerful and versatile they are. A "tier 1" class can do pretty much anything, a "tier 5" class is mediocre at its specialty and sucks at everything else. It has nothing to do with level. The concept originated in the 3E community, as a way to describe the extreme lack of class balance in that edition.
Level tiers is a grouping of experience levels into categories, with the idea that new options will open up and the themes and scope of adventures will change from one tier to the next. The concept dates back to the Red Box era, although I think the use of "tier" to describe it comes from 4E. In 5E, "tier 1" encompasses levels 1-4, "tier 2" encompasses 5-10, "tier 3" is 11-16, and "tier 4" is 17-20.
This thread is about class tiers, but a lot of people are taking the word to refer to level tiers.
Indeed - the Rogue is the only one not played up from low level! The other 4 are the survivors
of two prior campaigns - and the 5th survivor, not in this game, was a Berserker Barbarian-20!
I wish they'd explicitly called the 4 Level Tiers Novice-Heroic-Paragon-Epic - but they didn't want to make the 4e derivation too obvious I guess.
If it were up to me, they would be Basic, Expert, Companion, and Master. And the title for each class feature would be red, blue, cyan, or black.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
A divination wizard gets 2 divination dice > 3-4 bard inspiration dice
A divination wizard gets 4 spellslots to the bard 3. 7-8 to the bards 6, 8-9 to the bards 7.
Wizards even in tier 1 They know a lot more spells.
The only additional thing the bard gets at this point is healing word and +2 to two proficient skills and +1 to all non proficient skills. Is that really enough to push bards over the wizard in tier 1?
Autumn Bask
Villager
Bards can heal, and I personally place a lot of value on healing spells. They also don't need to cast Mage Armor on themselves/use Shield as a Reaction to have a livable armor class. As a result, they have less of a Spell Tax, and with Expertise and Jack of All Trades, they aren't as reliant on Spells for their Exploration and Social Pillars.
Divination Die vs Bardic Inspiration is debatable, but I can certainly see an argument for that. You're leaving out Song of Rest, but that's understandable. Its degree of usefulness can be somewhat campaign dependent.
The issue is that a low level Wizard (pre-3rd level Spells) has to take and use spells for Combat, Defense, Social, and Exploration, but doesn't have enough Spells Known to do all at once, and any spell used for something out of combat, is one not being used in-combat. Bards already have the Social and Defense stuff covered in their class features.
And I assume Tier 1 cuts off at 4th level, otherwise we would need to talk about Bardic Inspiration refreshing on Short Rests.
Last edited:
The class tier should be broken up into level tiers. So there should be a tier list for level 1-4, a tier list for level 5-10, a tier list for levels 11-16 and a tier list for level 17-20.
Not breakup the class tier in this way makes the information next to useless as play is usually restricted to a level tier or two.
And maybe use a word other than tier for the ranking within each tier - such as "rank," for example. I realize "tier" is correct for both, but it's quite confusing.
As to the rest of your comment, I agree, while some classes are consistent (such as cleric) some shoot way up (Paladin comes to mind, a bit lackluster early but at tier 2+ moves solidly to near the top). Off the cuff, can't think of any that go down but might be different with some analysis.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Nothing natural about it, it's DM-selection. If the DM likes big noses, the surviving PCs will all be male proboscis monkeys.
Well, or gnomes.
;P
I may be a cynical old man (OK, I am, no 'may be' about it), but it seems like the confusion is intentional. In the 3.x era, the community created a language of dissatisfaction (or glee, depending on which side of the fence you were on) that included terms like 'Tier' and 'exploit' and 'build' and 'core only' - low & behold, come 4e, Tier, exploit & build were all given jargon meanings, and /everything was core/.
Last edited:
