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Which Class or classes do you feel are unbalanced-Underpowered

Which classes are a tad on the weak side?

  • Barbarian

    Votes: 14 6.0%
  • Bard

    Votes: 125 53.4%
  • Cleric

    Votes: 7 3.0%
  • Druid

    Votes: 8 3.4%
  • Fighter

    Votes: 55 23.5%
  • Monk

    Votes: 90 38.5%
  • Paladin

    Votes: 22 9.4%
  • Ranger

    Votes: 25 10.7%
  • Rogue

    Votes: 12 5.1%
  • Sorcerer

    Votes: 83 35.5%
  • Wizard

    Votes: 13 5.6%
  • None-The classes are all more or less balanced

    Votes: 22 9.4%

KarinsDad said:
Actually, what is dumb is having a campaign with a lot of locations which have traps.

The NPCs and monsters LIVING in such locations would sooner or later spring their own traps.

Traps should be rare, instead, some DMs (evidently) make tham a staple of a campaign.

Why?

I'm not sure.

It's like having a dungeon without a latrine. It is totally nonsensical to have a lot of traps, just so that having a Rogue is required.

Having traps on some entrances? Sure. Having a lot of traps within a location with creatures in it? Stupidity and beyond the suspension of belief.

You don't need a lot of traps to make a rogue esential. 2 to 3 traps in a dungeon makes the rogue essential. Heck 1 trap can make the rogue essential. But hey if you want to suck up the symbol of death, or the poison needle more power to you at least with a bard on your team you can get a nice dirge.
 

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Merlion said:
Overall I agree though. The Sorcerer, if spellcasting is left mostly alone, needs some bonus feats or some other little thematic class abilities or something to make up for the massive lack of versatility.

Look up the link, they get a bit more than just skills there. ;)

Bye
Thanee
 

Shard O'Glase said:
You don't need a lot of traps to make a rogue esential. 2 to 3 traps in a dungeon makes the rogue essential. Heck 1 trap can make the rogue essential. But hey if you want to suck up the symbol of death, or the poison needle more power to you at least with a bard on your team you can get a nice dirge.
You don't need a rogue. You just need a tough tank and (optional) a cleric/druid to patch him up. We called it "barbarian trapfinding".

Traps are rarely more than a nuisance.
 

Iku Rex said:
You don't need a rogue. You just need a tough tank and (optional) a cleric/druid to patch him up. We called it "barbarian trapfinding".

Traps are rarely more than a nuisance.

Precisely.

And death traps are like save or die spells. If you use them a lot, your players will get discouraged and your game will disintegrate.
 

So the bard

Bards are a completely useless class, except in a HIGHLY specialized campaing. There is nothing a bard brings to the table that you would not be better off playing a rogue for.

And druids? Seriously, who plays a druid. The idea itself is lame. Why do they keep dragging it along, edition after edition?

BTW, I have played a high-level (retired at 39th Lvl) sorcerer. I disliked the limited spell selection and the limiting number of times per day spells can be cast (because thereafter he was useless), but I would definitely not qualify him as underpowered. Nor would anyone else in the party.

And for one final word: in a straight fight, a fighter will kick a spellcaster any day, if he can win initiative, and he should be able to do enough damage to take a spellcaster out. Even if not, it is near impossible for a spellcaster to actually spellcast in combat in 3.x because of the concentration and AoO rules. But in a tricksy trap, oh yeah: money's on the spellcaster.
 

silyolpooh said:
Bards are a completely useless class, except in a HIGHLY specialized campaing. There is nothing a bard brings to the table that you would not be better off playing a rogue for.

Yea, those rogues have some great enchantment spells.

And druids? Seriously, who plays a druid. The idea itself is lame. Why do they keep dragging it along, edition after edition?

I think you just got disqualified. Druid doesn't really belong in this thread at all. Just the SNA are some of the better spells of their level for quite a while.
 

Thanee said:
The monk would do good with full BAB, hitting is their biggest problem in combat.

I'm not so sure about full BAB on monks. They already get two extra attacks if they get to 12th level. Instead, I think maybe adding Wis to their attack and giving a few bonus feats sprinkled through the later levels would help.

The rogue could maybe need some more hit points, or some ability to increase AC, something to make them more stable in combat.

A friend and I were tossing around switching out Trap Sense for something else. After all, Reflex is already the rogue's good save, and he shouldn't need that to live through a trap going off. Heck, IF HE'S DOING HIS JOB, THE TRAP DOESN'T GO OFF IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! Sorry, I get a bit heated about that. :) At the very least, Trap Sense should add to all saves vs. traps, not just reflex saves.

I was thinking maybe let the rogue use the ranger combat styles, both of which would work very well for most rogue builds. Also, bump them up to a d8 hit die.

Brad
 

I'm not so sure about full BAB on monks. They already get two extra attacks if they get to 12th level. Instead, I think maybe adding Wis to their attack and giving a few bonus feats sprinkled through the later levels would help.


Well the trouble with those two extra attacks is they can rarely hit anything.


However, your idea of Wis to attack rolls peaks my interest.


I was thinking maybe let the rogue use the ranger combat styles, both of which would work very well for most rogue builds. Also, bump them up to a d8 hit die.


I'd rather just give them a few general-use bonus feats from a fitting list. The d8 hit die idea isnt bad.
 

sillyolpooh said:
Bards are a completely useless class, except in a HIGHLY specialized campaing. There is nothing a bard brings to the table that you would not be better off playing a rogue for.


Except Inspire Courage, various buff spells, enchantment spells, summons..

Bards are at their best in a party with at least a couple of meleers, but your assertion that they are useless outside a specialized campaign is simply innacurate.

They could use a little more offense of their own, and more variety in thier Bardic Music and bonus types.


sillyolpooh said:
And druids? Seriously, who plays a druid. The idea itself is lame. Why do they keep dragging it along, edition after edition?


Conceptually because the idea of a nature-caster is a common and wanted one, whatever your opinion of it may be.

mechanically, Druids are strong to the point of being overpowered.


sillyolpooh said:
BTW, I have played a high-level (retired at 39th Lvl) sorcerer. I disliked the limited spell selection and the limiting number of times per day spells can be cast (because thereafter he was useless), but I would definitely not qualify him as underpowered. Nor would anyone else in the party.


They arent precisely underpowered in the traditional overall sense, however compared to the other primary casters they are slightly behind due to their lack of versatility. Even the PH itself agrees.


sillyolpooh said:
And for one final word: in a straight fight, a fighter will kick a spellcaster any day, if he can win initiative, and he should be able to do enough damage to take a spellcaster out


But what if the caster isnt in melee range, even if the Fighter wins iniative? All it takes is a Hold or Charm, and bye bye fighter.

What if the caster is already flying?

Its very circumstantial, which is part of why one on one duels are poor estimations of class balance (usually).


sillyolpooh said:
Even if not, it is near impossible for a spellcaster to actually spellcast in combat in 3.x because of the concentration and AoO rules


Thats why spellcasters stay out of melee range.

However I do think AoOs are a little overused.
 

I'm not so sure about full BAB on monks. They already get two extra attacks if they get to 12th level. Instead, I think maybe adding Wis to their attack and giving a few bonus feats sprinkled through the later levels would help.

Now that's an interesting idea. The monk's AB would increase depending on what items he used to increase his wisdom stat. He wouldn't be subjected to making weird or unsual magical items in order to avoid being shafted by the periapt of wisdom only increasing his AC and stunning fist DC a few notches. He may even get double-served he were to still create a strange item like some gloves of might fists or something. That would at least give the monk, using the appropriate amount of gold, to at least have decent AB while still being unable to tread on the fighter's shoes necessarily (considering the fighter can still just invest in magic items to increase his already high AB).

And I also agree that feats is what the monk could use. But what kind of feats are we talking about. The fighter already suffers, somewhat, from the diminishing returns effect in terms of feats. A monk has access to the exact same feats, which has always confused me. They put in the monk, claim it's a mystical class, but then have it take feats that better serve full BAB characters. If we don't want to give the monk full BAB, at least give it access to feats early on that increase its own unique strengths.

They give monks limited stuns per day? Why not use those collection of stuns for a variety of different monk techniques that would allow them to do what they seemed to be designed to do in the first place - create weird effects in combat.

Stunning Fist was unique enough, but it doesn't go any further than that. 3rd Party books try to expand on it. Oriental Adventures did a good job with the variant stunning fist feats. But that's not core rules, of course.

I think the monk serves fine with its low HP and relatively low AC. Even the mid BAB is cool. It's just that when a monk hits, it's rather ineffectual, and at times just as purposeful as a fighter, which isn't much good because the fighter, barbarian, and paladin all do it better, and more often.

I'd always suggest having monks use their stunning fist attempts as a kind of "token" or action point pool, which they would then use to perform a variety of their monk feats, whether that be different kinds of stuns, or defensive maneuvers. Kind of make them like a pseudo-spellcaster with spells per day, rather than the awkward mishmash it is now. I still love monks to death though, regardless.
 

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