What is the hardest character to play as from low to high level?

Question

So mages at low levels are pretty pathetic but they grow up to be pretty dangerous. Most Fighter classes are pretty balanced from bottom to top.

So my question is what is the hardest class to play as from square one up to a high level campaign?

Edit: Due to interesting answers I will define 'Hardest' as either most complex character to play as, or hardest to keep alive (which was my original meaning.)

Answer 1

Mages in 4e are actually not pathetic at low level; in general, the designers made a strong effort to keep classes balanced and effective from top to bottom. Most of the time, it worked.

However, I do think that in general some classes are harder to play than others, which I think is relevant to your question. I've bolded the classes that appear in the original Players Handbook, since I'm not sure what source you're using.

Easy: ranger, sorcerer, avenger, barbarian. These are all sort of point and shoot classes; you choose a target, you do your damage.

Simple: warlock, cleric, warlord, druid, invoker, warden, monk, psion, seeker, assassin. We see a few more damage-oriented classes here, but these have more choices to make. For example, the assassin has to decide when to use his shrouds for additional damage. I've also included a few control-oriented classes; the druid can be played as a damage-dealer with some additional control effects, and the invoker is similar in that regard. Finally, the warden is probably the easiest defender to play, because he can use his ability to mark everything around him for free. Again, fewer choices than other defenders.

The warlord and the cleric are leaders, or healers; I think to get the most out of them, it's a bit harder, but you can certainly play them simply. And minimaxing is not always the point of the game.

More complex: rogue, fighter, paladin, wizard, bard, shaman, ardent, battlemind. I consider leaders to be fairly tricky because you need to make good decisions about when to heal. The wizard has so many control effects you need to think harder about when to use them. Finally, the remaining defenders (fighter, warlord, and battlemind) have lots of decisions about who to mark and how to control marked enemies.

If I was going to call any of those really complex, it'd be the shaman, since you need to think about both the character and the location of the spirit companion you summon.

Big disclaimer: this ranking may change with the new builds available in Essentials this fall.

Answer 2

(By "hardest", I'm going to assume you mean "most difficult to have survive while actually participating", rather than "most difficult to role-play", which is purely subjective, or "most difficult to use well, tactics-wise", something Bryant has answered in his usual (excellent) fashion.) Hmm. I think this question may be working from a false assumption based on your experiences with earlier versions. While generic "magic users" were very weak and underpowered in early editions of D&D, they are not nearly so underwhelming in 4e. They still do not do the kinds of damage that a melee character would, but they have considerably more defensive and offensive strength than they used to, and can whack away at various enemies using spells for the entire combat (something that was difficult in some earlier D&D versions).

One of the primary considerations for D&D 4.0 was to try to balance it. I have no doubt it's not perfect, but it's a lot closer than other versions (in my opinion).

That isn't a rant or rave so much as it's a commentary about what you're getting into with this question...I don't think any character class in D&D 4e is particularily difficult or easy to level, especially if you assume that you are with a well balanced party.

Answer 3

Without doubt, the Wizard is a complex class to play, due to the high amount of study you have to put into it, and important strategic decision during encounters.

In my opinion, however, the most complex class is the cleric. Similar to wizards, the cleric has to learn many spells, choose the right ones, deal with domain spells and skillset. He can be a strategic healer or a face-to-face fighter. The player has to perform some proper in-character acting because the cleric will probably have high charisma and diplomacy skills, will have to stick to a divine belief, and conform to his alignment.

I started my roleplaying with a cleric, but I would not recommend this choice to anyone recently introduced to the game and without a strong commitment upfront.