Are Superior Weapons "worth it"?

[vaultdweller]

I know this is nitpicking, but I just feel I have to take issue with a recurring example in this thread.

The Greatbow is not the ranged Superior Weapon of choice for ranged Warlords from an optimization perspective. The Superior Crossbow is. Warlords don't care so much about a bigger damage dice - that isn't strong role-reinforcement. They do care about a higher proficiency bonus, because Warlords do need to be very accurate for the awesome Leader riders on their powers to work.

{Edit}
As for the discussion around optimization being a moot point in a game with a DM... I disagree.

When I DM, I don't pull punches. The players aren't in kindergarten (well, unless they are), and I won't insult them by acting like they're pre-schoolers and throwing an Easy Mode at them. Neither will I play in any game where the DM is so patronizing. If the party is highly optimized I may increase the difficulty to maintain the challenge, but I don't do this by "cheating" the monsters in a way that invalidates their accomplishment. If the L1 party is butchering goblins too easily, fudging the rolls on the goblins to maintain challenge is stupid when you can instead give them hobgoblins or bugbears. I'll give them more enemies, or more dangerous enemies. Their optimization isn't made moot, it's made visibly successful by allowing them to be the Big Damn Heroes that can tackle greater threats and feel awesome about it.

 

[Herschel]

The Superior Crossbow has an even more harsh cost though. It takes two feats to run most efficiently because the leader needs his minor actions. On another count, take Daze (save ends). Without speed loader in a round where you don't heal someone, a missed save essentially escalates it to a stun next round because your only action is to reload.

It also isn't about "pulling punches" it's about actively being a douche as a DM. The more optimized a party is the more I challenge them on it. That's just standard game play IMO. I like a good story and if the characters want to do things mechanically with their character to enhance that character and the story I'm not going to punish them in combat for it.

I'm also far more likely to encourage and reward good team play rather than single, glory-seekers as a DM. So, from my view, sacrificing "personal" damage output isn't necessarily bad for the party.

 

[Dausuul]

If the DM will compensate by cranking up the difficulty level when you take combat-optimal feats, what's the point in having combat-optimal feats? Stuff like Superior Weapon Proficiency and Weapon Focus do literally nothing except crank up your damage output; it's hard to come up with a "roleplaying reason" to take them.

(That's not entirely a rhetorical question. IMO, feats like Superior Weapon Proficiency and Weapon Focus are a great argument for scrapping the feat system.)

Oh, and you are aware that the DPR challenge on the Char-OP forum is a game? It's intentionally done with rules read to the letter and set situations. At one point one of the serious contenders on the DPR challenge was a mounted warlock using a charge attack with Eldritch Strike and a Polearm. Not something anyone in their senses would do in a real game? Probably not.

That sounds like a freakin' awesome character concept.

 

[vaultdweller]

If the DM will compensate by cranking up the difficulty level when you take combat-optimal feats, what's the point in having combat-optimal feats?

The reason you consider combat-optimal feats to be pointless is the reason I consider them to be so rewarding. Combat-optimal feats are fun because they allow the DM to raise the difficulty level with more monsters and/or higher level monsters.

Also, the assumption that the DM will always increase the difficulty level is false. The assumption that the DM always can increase the difficulty level is also false. In LFR or any other organized play, the DM has no power to do so. The monsters are run as written, encounters cannot be changed, and dice rolls cannot be fudged.

 

[mneme]

In LFR or any other organized play, the DM has no power to do so. The monsters are run as written, encounters cannot be changed, and dice rolls cannot be fudged.

Actually, this is totally untrue. An LFR DM is empowered to do most sensible things (explicitly including modding the difficulty level up or down) in order to keep the game fun.

 

[Aenghus]

The opportunity cost for taking feats like Superior Weapon Proficiency varies a lot between classes. Some classes are more feat starved than others.

While Ultimate Min-Max is effectively a theoretical exercise, not for real PCs, a minimum amount of PC optimisation can be useful in most groups. A major source of grind in combat is unoptimised PCs, particularly unoptimised strikers. A referee can and should adjust his game to suit his players, but this is hard to do for newbie referees.

Many strikers and some defenders can definitely benefit from superior weapons as other posters have mentioned.

Obviously, combat feats are less valuable in low combat games. I have seen people mention in other threads not liking combat and optimising their PCs so that combat when it happened ended as quickly as possible.

 

[wayne62682]

Neonchameleon, I don't consider it "badwrongfun" as I've used the CharOp boards myself many times in the past when I want to optimize. I'm more concerned with the overall mentality I've seen there since the 3.5 days where it's not just a desire to be efficient, but a desire to come as close as possible to breaking the game as one can without actually resorting to dubious rules and interpretations (which are/were the Character Theory forum or whatever it was called, Theoretical Optimization perhaps, that gave rise to the real game-breaking builds). There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not like WoW where people feel the need to ridicule those who can't pull a certain amount of damage.

My point is that you don't have to eke out every tiny miniscule bit of performance because it won't guarantee kill you like in WoW and other MMOs. Sure, I know the CharOp guys do it mostly as a "What can I achieve within the rules" and I appreciate their efforts as I turn to CharOp all the time for making a build good (although I don't go as far as they do since I do care about flavor), but I see a lot of people who have the WoW-style mentality of "Do at least x damage or you're a scrub" simply because CharOp exists with the mathematically-proven way of getting the most damage - it basically degenerates the game into "Research x, y and z before you sit down to play a class" like WoW is where you are expected to research the ins and outs of your class to establish the optimal gear, spec and normal rotation at sites like EliitistJerks (basically WoW equivalent of CharOp forums) or you are a bad player. D&D hasn't gotten to that level, but I find CharOp's fascination with eking the most out by any means necessary to tread a dangerous line between optimizing with flavor in mind and taking anything and everything to give a DPR boost, flavor be damned.

Does that make more sense now?

 

[WalterKovacs]

Neonchameleon, I don't consider it "badwrongfun" as I've used the CharOp boards myself many times in the past when I want to optimize. I'm more concerned with the overall mentality I've seen there since the 3.5 days where it's not just a desire to be efficient, but a desire to come as close as possible to breaking the game as one can without actually resorting to dubious rules and interpretations (which are/were the Character Theory forum or whatever it was called, Theoretical Optimization perhaps, that gave rise to the real game-breaking builds). There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not like WoW where people feel the need to ridicule those who can't pull a certain amount of damage.

My point is that you don't have to eke out every tiny miniscule bit of performance because it won't guarantee kill you like in WoW and other MMOs. Sure, I know the CharOp guys do it mostly as a "What can I achieve within the rules" and I appreciate their efforts as I turn to CharOp all the time for making a build good (although I don't go as far as they do since I do care about flavor), but I see a lot of people who have the WoW-style mentality of "Do at least x damage or you're a scrub" simply because CharOp exists with the mathematically-proven way of getting the most damage - it basically degenerates the game into "Research x, y and z before you sit down to play a class" like WoW is where you are expected to research the ins and outs of your class to establish the optimal gear, spec and normal rotation at sites like EliitistJerks (basically WoW equivalent of CharOp forums) or you are a bad player. D&D hasn't gotten to that level, but I find CharOp's fascination with eking the most out by any means necessary to tread a dangerous line between optimizing with flavor in mind and taking anything and everything to give a DPR boost, flavor be damned.

Does that make more sense now?

At the very least, while CharOp has been pretty hard on the binder and vampire ... it for the most part tries to optmize the classes, not just give a "you want to be a striker, so be a ranger because they have the best DPR", they do say "Ok, you want to play class X ... here is how to make the 'best' version of that class" and they generally go down the different builds available. A lot of the guides, at the very least, are more of a list of suggestions. While some stuff is basically said to be bad, they at least explain why it's bad for the most part, so people can make their own decisions.

 

[SSquirrel]

I enjoy the CharOp forums as I've always liked making characters and I had a bad experience when I started in a Dark Sun game recently. I made an Assault Swordmage. I thought he was ok when I built him, but I had the worst rolling. Even when I did connect, things weren't really meshing well. I was a crappy defender and didn't contribute much to fights. I switched to a Wizard and it's been great since. My rolling cleared up for some reason and even when I have bad rolls, I have so many Miss effects. Then again, I hit a majority of enemies w/a Fireball, but rolled 4 1s, so sometimes you just can't win

I designed a Shielding Swordmage the other day and it stomps the crap out of the old Assault Swordmage I had. I read the CharOp post about Swordmages and made some better choices. Given the problems I had early on, I'm all about weapon accuracy so I end up making sure to stack as much as I can. Not hitting is no fun. I want to have fun.

Also, chalk me up in favor of the DM not pulling punches. If we're having a bad day of things, well maybe a hero or 2 will fall. That happens. The GI Joe cartoon and comic were fun, but the cartoon never saw any serious harm and it tool till issue #109 for them to really start killing some Joes off. The comic was better for putting characters in real danger. I like the Raymond Fiest Riftwar saga. He's had over 20 books out in the same world and the timeline has moved on. He has killed major characters from illness, ion battle, heck some have died of old age! No one is safe, anything can happen. I like that. Yes, the heroes in 4E are heroic and the general goal of the game is that they win, but you can win and still suffer losses. You can also just plain lose sometimes, and that's just how it goes. The CB is quick and easy and people can hide behind the pile of dead Hagen's as I keep bringing in new characters to replace the old one if needed

EDIT: Does anyone have a link to that mounted warlock idea? Sounds great

 

[Herschel]

Funny you should mention the Swordmage and the CharOp forum. The Swordmage guidebook is awful and a good example of where CharOp falls short. It's not a good guide for building an Assault Swordmage at all but does okay for Shielding. The criteria used for it is in trying to make a Swordmage that plays more like one of the other defenders rather than using the gifts and tricks unique to it.

In other words, there's no thought on how to play the class in the manner it was designed but rather on how to make the class play like the poster's limited view of a defender playstyle.

Intelligent Blademaster is a fine feat, for example, but a good Assault Swordmage shouldn't need it. I've played one for 17 levels now to great effect and have found the advice on that thread to be quite limited in scope.