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Differing opinions about 5e
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7120687" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>Again, depends on the DM and their style of DMing.</p><p></p><p>Some DMs create all the encounters beforehand and that's it-- that's the challenge and the party faces it. No fudging of rolls, no extra enemies showing up outside of the encounter or scheduled enemies not showing up, no changing of stats mid-combat depending on the flow of the fight. The numbers are the numbers and the challenge set up for the players is to combat them. In a game like this, optimization of your PC might be a good idea, or possibly even a determinant for survival.</p><p></p><p>Whereas other DMs offer up the "story" of a fight-- the kind of narrative for how an attack and defense is expected to go. In other words, a random encounter as the party marches towards the ruins is narratively set up by the DM as a sign-post for what's to come, not as a deadly encounter in of itself. And thus the DM might not be all that concerned with the numbers (not bothering to calculate out precisely just how many goblins are needed to get the baseline results expected.) Instead, the DM just throws out some enemies, the party fights them, and if things go way overboard in either direction without enhancing the story of the game, they have no issue having a few more goblins show up, or a few goblins run away.</p><p></p><p>In both cases... "optimizing" a PC will result in different things. In some campaigns it would be expected, and indeed the DM would set up the challenges with that type of power level in mind. In others, an optimized character for combat might find itself way overpowered for most fights, making them less fun to do (while at the same time being woefully incompetent in other parts of the game when skills come into play for example.) Thus, optimizing isn't inherently a good or bad thing... it just is more or less worthwhile depending on the style of DMing and type of campaign that DM is running, plus where they sit compared to the other PCs.</p><p></p><p>So see where you expect the fun-level to be in your game, and create characters appropriate for the game. And if what you want for a character does not produce that fun, that means either you need to adjust your PC, or you just aren't up for that DM's particular style and game. Which happens all the time, and it's up to you to decide whether to stick with it or not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 7120687, member: 7006"] Again, depends on the DM and their style of DMing. Some DMs create all the encounters beforehand and that's it-- that's the challenge and the party faces it. No fudging of rolls, no extra enemies showing up outside of the encounter or scheduled enemies not showing up, no changing of stats mid-combat depending on the flow of the fight. The numbers are the numbers and the challenge set up for the players is to combat them. In a game like this, optimization of your PC might be a good idea, or possibly even a determinant for survival. Whereas other DMs offer up the "story" of a fight-- the kind of narrative for how an attack and defense is expected to go. In other words, a random encounter as the party marches towards the ruins is narratively set up by the DM as a sign-post for what's to come, not as a deadly encounter in of itself. And thus the DM might not be all that concerned with the numbers (not bothering to calculate out precisely just how many goblins are needed to get the baseline results expected.) Instead, the DM just throws out some enemies, the party fights them, and if things go way overboard in either direction without enhancing the story of the game, they have no issue having a few more goblins show up, or a few goblins run away. In both cases... "optimizing" a PC will result in different things. In some campaigns it would be expected, and indeed the DM would set up the challenges with that type of power level in mind. In others, an optimized character for combat might find itself way overpowered for most fights, making them less fun to do (while at the same time being woefully incompetent in other parts of the game when skills come into play for example.) Thus, optimizing isn't inherently a good or bad thing... it just is more or less worthwhile depending on the style of DMing and type of campaign that DM is running, plus where they sit compared to the other PCs. So see where you expect the fun-level to be in your game, and create characters appropriate for the game. And if what you want for a character does not produce that fun, that means either you need to adjust your PC, or you just aren't up for that DM's particular style and game. Which happens all the time, and it's up to you to decide whether to stick with it or not. [/QUOTE]
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