What edition had the ideal version of each class?

[Belorin]

Fighter: 3E/4E
Cleric:2E (Specialty Priests)
Rogue:2E
Wizard:3E/4E

Bel

 

[Ratinyourwalls]

Fighter: 4E (hey I can do stuff other than be the speed bump, yaaay!)
Cleric: 4E (hey I can heal AND kick ass! yaaaaay!)
Rogue: Pathfinder (hey finally I'm not overshadowed by the ranger yaaaay!)
Wizard: 4E (Hey finally I'm no longer shackled by the Vancian system, yaaaay!)

 

[Rolflyn]

Cleric: 3e, domains!
Fighter: 1e with UA
Magic User: 1e
Rogue: 3e over 2e by a smidgeon

 

[The Human Target]

Fighter- 4th
Rogue- 4th
Cleric- 4th
Wizard- 4th



And its the only edition in which I actually want to try playing all 4 of them!

 

[Ratskinner]

Honestly, I'd generally take bits from 2e on for all of them.

Fighter: mostly 3 with some 4
Rogue: 3\4 with some 2
Priest: heavily 2e with some 4 and bits of 3
Wizard: primarily 2e, I guess, but this class is generally such a train wreck...

The Wizard, especially, is not so much an issue of the class as an issue with the surrounding mechanics and spells.

 

[Dedekind]

Interesting responses. The only clear trend I see is towards the 2e specialty priest cleric. I thought I would see more people favoring the 4e fighter.

Though it could be the vagueness of what "ideal" means...

 

[Dedekind]

Honestly, I'd generally take bits from 2e on for all of them.

Fighter: mostly 3 with some 4
Rogue: 34 with some 2


<Snip>...

What part of the 2e thief would you take? I remember thinking nothing positive of the 2e rogue.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Interesting responses. The only clear trend I see is towards the 2e specialty priest cleric. I thought I would see more people favoring the 4e fighter.

Well, that's kind of the breaking point isn't it (the fighter)? 4e fans liked it pretty well, but it's an absolute deal-breaker for a large portion of the non-fans (including me). Frankly I'm surprised the 3e version isn't polling stronger, though I suppose its execution was weak compared to the concept (the definition of ideal coming into play, perhaps).

 

[Rolflyn]

Interesting responses. The only clear trend I see is towards the 2e specialty priest cleric.

I agree that's the trend, and that it is quite interesting. But I find the 2e specialty priests my last choice for clerics or any class for that matter. I didn't know there was such love for them.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Frankly I'm surprised the 3e version isn't polling stronger, though I suppose its execution was weak compared to the concept (the definition of ideal coming into play, perhaps).

I think you're right about this. The use of feats for the 3E fighter was a kind of precursor to the exploits of the 4E fighter... the one major difference being the list of prerequisite feats needed for several of the better ones. So in 4E when you could get the same kind of ability just by selecting it at a certain level, you didn't feel like you had to "waste" anything like you sometimes did with some feat pre-reqs in 3E.

The big difference between having multiple attacks with degrading BABs versus 4E Close attacks with no loss of attack bonus is probably another thing that separates the folks who do/don't like the two systems.