Do people in your games actually use "builds"

[Michael Silverbane]

I use 'builds' for characters primarily because it takes me about 10 minutes to come up with a character, and for the next hour after that, I have nothing to do but wait for the other players to fill in the mechanics for their characters, so in that time I can figure out what mechanics I want to use for the next few dozen levels of my character.

When given the choice between rolling and point buy, I always choose rolling. I can almost always roll better scores than I would get if I were using a point buy, and if not, I can generate a dozen more characters in the time that it takes the rest of my group to do one.

 

[Serendipity]

Nah, not that interested in system optimization. Much more to the point, pre-plotting my character's development takes all the fun out of the game.

 

[NewJeffCT]

It depends on what you mean by builds.

In the 4E campaign I'm running, choices you make at level 1 affect what powers you can choose as you go up in level - a fighter that picks a great weapon works better if you choose Power X, while a fighter that uses a sword & shield works better if you choose Power Y. However, most of the group doesn't really plan too far ahead - so, at level 1, they weren't thinking of which path they would take at level 11 and 21. I think once they got to around level 9, they started thinking about it more seriously. I didn't really think of that as a "build", though.

In 3E, my 3.5E campaign didn't see a lot of prestige classes - we had a sorcerer that was a sorcerer from level 1-18, as well as two fighters, a cleric and a barbarian that stuck with one class for the duration. One guy that used a PrC had an in-game reason for it, another guy designed his own PrC for his psion, so had his own in-game reason for it as well that was built into his background, and then the guy playing the rogue ended up multi-classing into spellthief and had his own reason for that.

Back in 2E days, I remember people making sure their stats were good enough to qualify for certain popular "kits" (like Bladesinger). But, again, it was usually with some reasoning behind it and not just because they liked a certain kit.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I've used builds every time I've played 3e and point buy systems such as Champions, as it results in a much more capable character.

My experience has been that I enjoy playing in rpgs a lot more when:
1) My PC makes a significant contribution to the party's goals.
2) They are fast paced. A more capable character results in a faster moving game as they can defeat more opponents, travel quicker, escape imprisonment, and solve mysteries more readily.
3) I'm not out of the game for long periods due to being imprisoned, unconscious or dead.
4) My PC is resistant to being threatened, manipulated or bullied, either by NPCs or other PCs.

I fit the roleplaying to the build so the character as a whole makes sense, but the build always comes first.

 

[Nifft]

3) I'm not out of the game for long periods due to being imprisoned, unconscious or dead.

Indeed, it is often impossible to role-play when your character is unconscious or dead.

Therefore, role-playing demands optimization.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Ahnehnois]

No. Some people might list a prestige class as a goal. At most, they'll have a specific set of class levels planned out, and have a few feats planned in mind. But I've never seen players pick everything in advance, and whatever plans they make end up being pretty flexible. I encourage flexibility and versatility.

When I play characters myself, it's usually not for the long haul, so I design them precisely, but the whole build phenomenon doesn't come into play.

 

[Janx]

I level up organically based on things that the PC seems to be doing a lot, or might be doing and could be good at type thing. However, I do have a rough list or any feats/options that i noticed during creation that i consider first when leveling up (but it is by no means an extensive list to carry through all levels, just a small handful of any options that jumped out at me that i didn't want to forget to at least consider).

We do something similar, here's our behavior and chain of reasoning:

Generally, me and my group do not design our PCs with their entire advancement plotted out (a build). When we level up, often we ponder and chat about what to take next (thus proving that we didn't have a Build specification to simply look at and take the next thing on the list).

Due to how some feats require prerequisites, we MIGHT plan out a chain of feats to take, mainly because if you don't take the right feats in the begining, you won't be able to get the higher level feat you wanted. So it does pay to take some notes to remind yourself of what to take when, so you can achieve the end goal of Feat X at the earliest possible time.

I don't consider that a Build, however, as that is a fully defined leveling path for the PC's entire lifecycle.

 

[Alan Shutko]

In one very tactically oriented game, I used a build because the character I built organically was terribly ineffective and died a few times. I worked hard to make sure I created roleplaying reasons to follow the build, for example working on my religious conversion for a few adventures and several levels before multi classing cleric, but it was a build nonetheless.

 

[blargney the second]

I'm seeing more buildy type characters in our current game. I think it's because we're running E6, which imposes very heavy class constraints.

The really funny part is that our DM haaaaates builds and it drives him kinda nuts when players do anything remotely optimal.

 

[Impeesa]

Absolutely, though of the games I have any non-trivial experience with, only 3E really demands it. Other games, you'll still have a long-term plan, but it's probably just a priority list of skills, perks, and equipment to advance or obtain. 3E characters are a little more... structurally complex, I guess.