Which class is the most useless?

[Sigurd]

Bards and Monks operate very well in a social fabric.

Try disarming a monk.
Watch a bard work a crowd.

Too many games have a social fabric no deeper than 'what do we kill next'.

Its really hard to represent court intrigues, social manipulation, and political struggle. If it were easier I think the bard & monk would get more love.


Sigurd

 

[anhar]

I went with monk. They really need an overhaul. I suppose in a low magic game, or a game where the PC's get captured and disarmed all the time they might be nice, but never really seen one I thought was worthwhile.

Bard rocks once you've got more than 4 people in the party. In my campaign, it's a 9 person party with 4 melee types. The bard is pretty consistently the MVP. Haste and Inspire Courage (w/that swift spell from CV that gives +1 to the inspire courage bonus) FTW.

Did somebody really vote cleric?

 

[Xyanthon]

Back in the day I really thought that bards were fairly cool. However, for whatever reason, the concept has just come to seem a little lame to me. I know others like it and that is great; but for me, I just can't get into the concept enough to even care about the game mechanics.

 

[green slime]

I voted Fighter in terms of "most useless."

They can't do anything but fight, and then they're not even that amazing at fighting.

Yes, I'm sure you can all roleplay the crap out of a fighter. So can I.

But mechanically, they aren't helpful outside of combat.

I seconded that vote. With two skill points, they are definitely the most useless outside of a very narrow band.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

The last option on this poll is a bit self-contadicting, isn't it? Apart from wrapping it together with the "I don't know" option, which makes it completely nonsensical?

All classes are useful, if you know how to use them right, and get the opportunity to use them right. I guess that's why D&D is still a group effort by players and DM equally.

 

[Sarellion]

Monk.

Even if you are playing a game of courtly intrigue where the characters are able to run around unamred, what´s the monk supposed to do? Be a bodyguard in the case of combat that is so rarely occuring that the other players don´t prepare for it?

And a monk can´t be disarmed and is still fully functional when other melee characters do not have access to their weapons. But how often does that work before the other melee guys look at the DM funny?

 

[molonel]

Bard. When I played 1st Edition, bards rocked the house. The 3.0 bard was a complete - and rather unfunny - joke, and the 3.5 bard was only marginally better. I have no problem with the imaginative concept, or the fantasy precadent. I dislike the mechanics they used to express that concept.

I much prefer Monte's bard in the Complete Book of Eldritch Might, and use it in my games.

 

[Disconzi]

Bard. When I played 1st Edition, bards rocked the house. The 3.0 bard was a complete - and rather unfunny - joke, and the 3.5 bard was only marginally better. I have no problem with the imaginative concept, or the fantasy precadent. I dislike the mechanics they used to express that concept.

I much prefer Monte's bard in the Complete Book of Eldritch Might, and use it in my games.

Couldn't agree more. I'm a huge fan of the Bard concept—the class I like to play the most—, but the mechanics just seem odd. It's said that bards use their music to achieve magical effects, alright—but why do they have bardic music and the spells, two different abilities to express the very same thing?! It would be very nice if the folks at Wizards did something to fix that in the future; they could either go on a Fell Caller (from Iron Kingdoms) direction—no spells whatsoever, just bardic music abilities—or on a Monte Cook's Variant Bard (from the Complete Book of Eldritch Might) direction— no "bardic music", just music-oriented spells (that depend only on the verbal component).

I'd vote for Monte's approach, 'cause it's much more "flavorful", wih the spells divided in a musical hierarchy, with the Notes, Chords (alright, 5-note chords, in real music, are a bit rare if we're not talking about orchestras, but it's okay) and Melodies.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Did somebody really vote cleric?

Maybe they had experiences with overly strict cleric codes, or they had to spend half their actions healing wounded comrades, etc. Clerics are powerful, but they're not really a beginner class. I've seen newbies to DnD mess clerics up several times.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Monk. Because it's what a fighter focused on Unarmed Combat should be... and these Su abilities should form a PrC. The monk is a Fighter/PrC mix, and should be modelled as such.