Question Workshop: Are the new Bard Class Options Tier 1

Question

I tried to ask a question, but it was closed as opinion based. The version of the question at time of writing is given here:

The tiers as defined here https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Tier_System

Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played with skill, can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

Are the new Bard class options Tier 1? New class options: college of glamour, college of swords

I'm looking for a detailed analysis of the new bard colleges (and bard base class features) compared to the capabilities of all other classes and class options.

An easy way to answer would be to show a single thing the bard can't do that another class, class option can.

I'm looking for mechanical analysis of features. Mainly the result of features. Such as healing word having nearly identical results as the fighters second wind. It takes the same resources (something the fighter and bard can only do a few times a day)

The tier system can be applied to any game system. For instance a queen is clearly a tier two piece in chess because it can do almost everything other pieces can do.

My goals with this question are to get a sense of what I should expect of the new Bard Colleges (Glamour and Swords) over the course of a level 1-20 campaign and how they compare to the other classes. I'm willing to remove mentioning of the Tier system as it seems to offend a lot of people. I really don't want one character intentionally or not intentionally showing up other character on a regular basis, which I've seen from a few builds.

In the past in 5E I've seen the Battle Master Fighter outdone at almost every turn by a Bladesinger Wizard unintentionally. It was built in such a way to have an AC of 24 when necessary and could dish out as much damage as the Fighter round by round in the official adventures (It used a combination of haste and two weapon fighting).

I've seen PHB Bards nearly do this to casters (but in general all my caster players have held back for the sake of non-casters, so it was hard to tell).

I mainly want to know if I need to keep an eye on these class options.

How can I frame this for it to work on the stack? What do I need to provide, add, or clarify for it to be answerable?

Answer 1

The question is either Too Broad or Opinion-based

The first step in getting a question reopened is to identify what is wrong with it in the first place. You have received some comments to that effect, but it appears not all of them were as clear as they could be. Therefore, I will try to lay out the issues some users have with the question in its current form.

The Tier list doesn't suit 5e

You post is built on the premise that 5e classes can be sorted into a neat tier list as they were in previous editions. As this question explains, 5e does not fit a tier list very well due to being inherently better balanced than previous editions. While you are technically correct that the tier system can be used in any game system, by being a relatively balanced system the tier list for 5e would be just a list of all the class in the same tier.

I believe almost all the issues with this post stem from this single cause, but there are still some others worth mentioning.

Comparing all class abilities is too broad

Often optimisation questions get closed for lacking a criteria to optimise for. This is a similar problem. Currently you are asking for a general analysis of entire subclasses against every other class in the game. If there was a community ranking already, this would be fine; as there is not, this makes this single question unfortunately too broad.

When a question is too broad to be answerable on every possible criteria, we are forced to choose the criteria that we personally find most important. This is an opinion-based assessment, which likely led to the question getting closed as such.

You make an inaccurate example

In your question you compare Second Wind to Healing Word. Several users have comments to explain that while on the surface these features are similar (they are healing abilities), when doing this kind of analysis they are actually extremely different in terms of action-economy, opportunity-cost and availability.

Examples should be used to clarify a question. By having a contentious example, you unfortunately have the opposite effect, making the question less clear and adding an additional source of confusion.

How to fix it

I hope you can now understand what led to your question being closed in the first place, so let's work on fixing it to get it reopened. I don't believe it is a bad question, so it shouldn't take too much work. Here are some things you might like to try.

Establish a base understanding

Linking the tier list was a good start. The next step would be to provide good examples of how you interpret it for 5e. Users don't need to agree with the ranking system to answer the question; we just need to understand how you interpret it. Particularly focus on where you rank the other bard subclasses on this list.

Once everyone is on the same page, we can answer questions even if we don't agree with the premise.

Restrict the criteria

Narrow the scope of the question by focusing on specific criteria. Lay some ground rules for comparison. For instance, you mentioned that the DMG has recommendations for the number of encounters and rests per day. Explicitly stating that answers should assume these are adhered to makes comparison simpler.

Another good restriction would be ruling out magic items and feats to only focus on the class features. Also ruling out multiclassing interactions makes analysis much simpler.

Finally, specify the level of optimisation we should be comparing against. Do we assume that all classes are maximally optimised? Giving a clear reference frame helps us write answers that will be useful to you.

Use clearer examples

If someone questions your example as unclear, it is often a good idea to swap it to a different one or remove it entirely. The last thing you want to do is distract from your core question with comment discussions around the validity of your example.

Other notes

It has always been my personal policy on SE to assume good faith from other users. Comments are short and not a great way to communicate; often they appear rude or uncaring even when we don't mean to be. When a question gets closed, try to listen to the commenters that explain the reasons, and ask for clarification if you don't understand.

If you still don't agree, bring it here to meta, and do so in a calm non-confrontational manner. Mostly of us are human and we make mistakes. Explaining your side of disagreement is a clear manner is more likely to get results you want than stating that the other side is simply wrong without supporting evidence.

Good luck. As I said, I think this is a good, valid question - but one that has some issues. Work with other users rather than against them, and it should get reopened and hopefully see some great answers.

Answer 2

Narrow your scope

I think there's a way to get to the heart of your question in a very stackable manner: simply asking if the subclasses are more powerful than the existing bard subclasses.

The measuring stick

Ultimately, your premise is that the new bard classes are significantly better than any other class. However, you don't actually need to do a comparison against all other classes to see if that's true.

You can begin by comparing against the existing Bard subclasses. If the new subclasses aren't significantly superior, then that theory is disproved. If they are, then we can move on to a new question.

But by starting with a simple comparison of power between the subclasses in question against the existing ones, we have a very narrow scope and one that we've looked at previously on the stack (beastmaster ranger for example.)

This would turn the question into a very narrow comparison that may result in the answer you were looking for.