D&D 3E/3.5 Which D&D 3.5 Core Base Class is the Most Powerful (Prepared Casters Excluded)?

[sr123]

High skills = versatility up to a point. With a wee bit of intelligence on a Rogue, the Rogue will quickly saturate all the must-have abilities and be left with obscure or redundant ones.

For conservative in-house nerfing of the Wizard, Cleric, and Druid, I'd advocate for Concentration checks with high DCs to cast in combat on every round and/or long ritualistic manipulation of spell components. The other classes besides Rogue are designed to shine on the battlefield, so put a bit of shade on casting in combat.

 

[Ahnehnois]

If I ever do 3.5 again, I'm really considering replacing cleric and wizard with mystic and sorcerer and doing something similar with druid...

I've been doing spontaneous divine casters for a while. Memorization sucks.

 

[Dandu]

We could make sample builds at a certain level (perhaps 10?) in order to determine how "powerful" each class is.

 

[Stormonu]

If we were excluding 1E/2E and BECMI, I'd actually say the rogue - I've seen lots of versatility and damage potential. However, I picked ranger, especially an archery ranger. With a good mix of skills, combat talent and some creative spell use I've seen them get pretty good.

In the games I've encountered sorcerers have always seemed to ended up getting plastered. Usually from spamming a tactic that works until the DM gets tired of it. Same goes for the bard - glibness is can be great, but it only goes so far, and I've seen too many bards crumple into uselessness once someone in the group decides they'd rather roll some dice in combat.

 

[Dandu]

In the games I've encountered sorcerers have always seemed to ended up getting plastered. Usually from spamming a tactic that works until the DM gets tired of it.

Like sneak attacking people repeatedly?

Same goes for the bard - glibness is can be great, but it only goes so far, and I've seen too many bards crumple into uselessness once someone in the group decides they'd rather roll some dice in combat.

Inspire Courage optimization helps when people roll dice in combat.

 

[Empirate]

If we were excluding 1E/2E and BECMI, I'd actually say the rogue - I've seen lots of versatility and damage potential. However, I picked ranger, especially an archery ranger. With a good mix of skills, combat talent and some creative spell use I've seen them get pretty good.

In the games I've encountered sorcerers have always seemed to ended up getting plastered. Usually from spamming a tactic that works until the DM gets tired of it. Same goes for the bard - glibness is can be great, but it only goes so far, and I've seen too many bards crumple into uselessness once someone in the group decides they'd rather roll some dice in combat.

So what you're saying is basically "This Class is the most powerful, because the people I've seen play That Other Class have done a horrible job". What?!



EDIT: Upon rereading, that should be "This Class is the most powerful if we were including some altogether different editions of the game - or if we weren't [which we aren't, btw], I'd pick a different class, because the people I've seen play That Other Class have done a horrible job".

Now I can make even less heads nor tails of your point...

 

[airwalkrr]

So what you're saying is basically "This Class is the most powerful, because the people I've seen play That Other Class have done a horrible job". What?!

I would consider this trolling. As I stated in the OP, please do not belittle other people's opinions. I asked for opinions based on experience and this is what Stormonu gave me. You may feel free to disagree with him, but please try to be respectful and polite in your disagreement no matter how out of touch you might feel he is.

In Stormanu's defense, I should say that ease of access is an important factor in determining class power. While most of us would probably agree that clerics, wizards and druids are the most powerful classes, some groups might consist of players who can never grasp the way to use the most effective combinations of spells or play in campaigns where the DM somehow manages to marginalize spellcasters using areas of wild magic, anti-magic and enemies like beholders a lot. So if Stormanu's experience is that the ranger has consistently outperformed the other classes on this poll when he has seen them played his point is certainly valid. He may have a different idea of medium fantasy or might never have played it, but if he is using the best data he has available to him we ought not to belittle his opinion.

 

[Empirate]

I wasn't referring to Stormonu's opinion in my post at all, which I see no reason to belittle - although I do disagree. However the way s/he put it was utterly strange to me, and I was trying to provoke her/him into putting it in a more consistent fashion. The argument goes as follows, if I understand correctly:

1) Say we're excluding older editions of the game...
[this being a 3E discussion, we are in fact excluding them, so this is a given]

2) ...then the Rogue is the most powerful...
[which I disagree with, but that's not what gives me a headache]

3) ...but I'm not sticking to this judgement...
[the modus irrealis in "if we were excluding" implies the reason for the change of opinion which class is the most powerful; post now seems to assume that we are, in fact, not excluding older editions - but we are excluding those, so what follows is hard to make sense of]

4) ...so I'll pick the Ranger over the Rogue for reasons...
[which I don't agree with, but again, that's beside the point]

5) ...furthermore, Sorcerer and Bard players in my experience have done a terrible job tactically and "got plastered" repeatedly.
[implying that's the reason the classes suck compared to Rogue - or was it Ranger?]


Am I trolling when I ask another regular to rethink her/his - IMO - botched argument? Also, ease of access was nowhere adressed in the post I commented on.

 

[airwalkrr]

Maybe I overreacted a bit, but I'm not gonna have a meta discussion about the method someone chose to explain their point. I got the gist of what he was saying and I'd rather stick to the topic.

 

[MoonSong]

Ok, after giving it a second thought, I think I mostly agree with the people who think sorcerer is too powerfull if and only if knowstones are available in the campaign (most DMs I know would never allow Knowstones in the campaign), with them in play and rapid metamagic the sorcerer goes on to become godly without major problems. However under most normal circusmtances I still think Bard is better, A bard can get more out of UMD and Leadership than a sorcerer (the UMD because it is a class skill, and nlike the rogue, bards are cha primary, leadership, because the bard doesn't have the negative modiffier a familiar brings)