What happens to the "suboptimal?"

Warpiglet · Apr 27, 2018

OK...this is what I had in mind....(bear with me, I know this sounds bizarre)...

I was thinking of playing a lawful neutral hobgoblin warlock with the celestial patron.

He was a very honorable duty bound and brave standard bearer in a hobgoblin legion. He was starting to come into conflict with others due to his focus on honor and honesty which was occasionally seen as an excuse for softness and mercy.

I have not figured out HOW this happens but an Angel decides that he needs a herald. The herald needs to be militant, fierce, brave and honest. Somehow the hobgoblin is choses against all odds.

He will be a tome pact warlock so that he can do rituals that help him get his messages across (e.g. comprehend languages and so forth).

He will use a war horn when battle begins or he announces his patron. I will take thaumaturgy to make the ground shake! That sounds sort of angel-like.

He has proficiency in two martial weapons so will use a greatsword with greenflame blade.

(I was debating about multiclassing from fighter or paladin or cleric for that sweet armor/spell slots). Maybe to heck with it. Crap AC would be a challenge).

Mask of many faces would help him appear fairer in human, elven or other places...

Is he doomed? I dunno! DnD is exercise in survival! He might die! Let the gods (dice) decide!

Bardbarian · Apr 27, 2018

One of the benefits of understanding optimization is that when you know the maximum ability of a character, you can very easily decide where on the scale you want to find yourself. If you do not know what a character is capable of then you have a much harder time ramping up than ramping down. I often build an optimal character then step back and decide what I can give up to fit the expected power curve of the campaign. If optimization doesn't interest you at all there is no harm in suboptimal choices, the only issues arise when your expectations and those of your group don't align. I play a lot of AL and My samurai is above the usual power curve so I often don't use certain abilities and focus on the role play aspect of the characters. (one of the reasons I love samurai is the benefits the subclass gets to out of combat interactions) If I find myself in a group that is focused on hack and slash I simply ramp up to their level. On the other hand if I was not built to face such challenges then I might feel disappointed when I find that my actions don't feel as impactful as others at the table. Optimization is as much a tool as a backstory but it is only a guide of what you might be capable of. Nothing says your character can't change personalities over time and likewise nothing prevents you from changing your tactics to suit your situation.

jasper · Apr 27, 2018

The Optimized Ogres visit you at your next session. They destroy enough of your dice so you don't have a matching color set. Then they break your pinky finger as a warning. You don't want to know where the dice go on the second offensive.

ccs · Apr 27, 2018

Warpiglet said:
Online, you see so many admonitions about optimization. What happens if you do not follow them? Even if it is called broken or a trap?

I end up playing something that's fun, memorable, & has rules attached that help me express the character I'm envisioning.

Current 5e character:
1/2ling (lightfoot) barbarian (Ancestral Guardian), Folk Hero. Str.14 Took the Healer feat at 4th lv. Generally uses a hand axe, sometimes two. Wears a breastplate & shield. ALWAYS recklessly attacks.
I do not envision increasing this characters strength come 8th lv. Or at 12th, or at.... (soon, at 8th lv I'll probably pick up the Linguist feat as that'll fit the story)

Does any of that character fit the hive-minds idea of what the optimized Barbarian is?
If I were to believe folks online:

* Starting, current, & future Str.14 - I'm a fool for not A) Placing my highest starting stat in Str. B) Not increasing it, let alone maxing it out to 20. Not maxing out the hive-minds idea of what my primary stat should be is like the ultimate blasphemy of how to make a character. Especially something as simple as a barbarian....

*1/2ling (lightfoot) - I'm missing out on the beginning Str bonuses of other races - 1/2orc, goliath, mountain dwarf, human, whatever.
I'm missing out on 1/2orc features that make for very effective barbarians.
As a 1/2ling I'm missing out on darkvision.
As a 1/2ling (small) I'm at disadvantage if I use a heavy weapon.
As a 1/2ling (small) I'm also at a great disadvantage in general - I'm only 3'3" tall! Do you have any idea of how many things are out of reach etc?? Granted, there's no exact rules penalty for this, but it IS a Roleplaying game. Ex: In the last session we encountered a stone stairway we had to ascend who's steps were 2' high. Not terribly hindering to the rest of the party.... But each step was 2/3s of my height. And there were 200 of them!
As a Lightfoot I don't get the Stouts advantage vs poison.

* Ancestral Guardian. You ever hear anything said about this path? No.
Clearly not the hive-minds pick.

* Folk Hero
So many other backgrounds grant features more useful than Rustic Hospitality.
And virtually none of them fit the actual character I made better than Folk Hero.

* Feats
Healer doesn't aid me in dealing damage - how DARE a barbarian not do as much DPR as possible. Since I'm as prone to using two hand axes as often axe/shield one would assume that Duel Wielder would've been my 4th lv pick. But the character is not actually trained/skilled at fighting so....
And mechanically Healer is not the best feat for a character who's got a negative on Wis based skills.
But it's a RP thing. This character comes from a family who's got a natural affinity for healing (established in previous campaigns). They're not as good at it as their mother, or sister, but it's still there.
At 8th lv, like I sad, I'll probably take Linguist. The party is stranded in the Desert of Desolation & will be for two more modules. Learning some D&D Arabic/Eqyptian & getting better at deciphering hieroglyphs/runes seems natural. This will not help me kill things. But it will aid in the social/exploration segments of the game. And it'll get a relative new player more engaged in the game as I'll turn to their Wizard to help me learn this stuff
What!??? A barbarian doing things other than damage???

* Always recklessly attacks. Mechanically I don't HAVE to do this. I do this because RP. The character lacks training. They don't fight smart.

* Weapons & Equipment.
Mechanically there's no reason not to use the best non-heavy weapons on the list.
I don't because of aesthetics. Especially when I built the miniature. It just looked silly to see a 1/2ling wielding oversized weapons. And it doesn't fit the character I made. So hand axe it is for general purposes.
Wears a breastplate - once again, something I do because of the aesthetics. It's what looked best when I built the character. So even if I later up Dex/Con I'll keep the armor. (right now my unarmored defense + shiled is the same as what the breastplate + shield +dex gives)

What ill effects has my poor hopelessly non-optimized barbarian had on the party?
1) We need a light source.
2) We need to carry more food (1/2ling...)
3) Sometimes the party has to help me deal with physical obstacles.
4) Maybe it takes us a round or two longer to kill something.
5) Since poor judgment is my characters defining characteristic (low Wis) sometimes we have to deal with the problems that causes. I'm (indirectly)responsible for releasing an Efreeti who intends to destroy the land/world. Oops. I sold the info of where to find it's lamp & how to bypass its wards to some traders a few sessions ago. This will become important in the next two modules of the Desert of Desolation series.

Warpiglet · Apr 27, 2018

ccs said:
I end up playing something that's fun, memorable, & has rules attached that help me express the character I'm envisioning.

Current 5e character:
1/2ling (lightfoot) barbarian (Ancestral Guardian), Folk Hero. Str.14 Took the Healer feat at 4th lv. Generally uses a hand axe, sometimes two. Wears a breastplate & shield. ALWAYS recklessly attacks.
I do not envision increasing this characters strength come 8th lv. Or at 12th, or at.... (soon, at 8th lv I'll probably pick up the Linguist feat as that'll fit the story)

Does any of that character fit the hive-minds idea of what the optimized Barbarian is?
If I were to believe folks online:

* Starting, current, & future Str.14 - I'm a fool for not A) Placing my highest starting stat in Str. B) Not increasing it, let alone maxing it out to 20. Not maxing out the hive-minds idea of what my primary stat should be is like the ultimate blasphemy of how to make a character. Especially something as simple as a barbarian....

*1/2ling (lightfoot) - I'm missing out on the beginning Str bonuses of other races - 1/2orc, goliath, mountain dwarf, human, whatever.
I'm missing out on 1/2orc features that make for very effective barbarians.
As a 1/2ling I'm missing out on darkvision.
As a 1/2ling (small) I'm at disadvantage if I use a heavy weapon.
As a 1/2ling (small) I'm also at a great disadvantage in general - I'm only 3'3" tall! Do you have any idea of how many things are out of reach etc?? Granted, there's no exact rules penalty for this, but it IS a Roleplaying game. Ex: In the last session we encountered a stone stairway we had to ascend who's steps were 2' high. Not terribly hindering to the rest of the party.... But each step was 2/3s of my height. And there were 200 of them!
As a Lightfoot I don't get the Stouts advantage vs poison.

* Ancestral Guardian. You ever hear anything said about this path? No.
Clearly not the hive-minds pick.

* Folk Hero
So many other backgrounds grant features more useful than Rustic Hospitality.
And virtually none of them fit the actual character I made better than Folk Hero.

* Feats
Healer doesn't aid me in dealing damage - how DARE a barbarian not do as much DPR as possible. Since I'm as prone to using two hand axes as often axe/shield one would assume that Duel Wielder would've been my 4th lv pick. But the character is not actually trained/skilled at fighting so....
And mechanically Healer is not the best feat for a character who's got a negative on Wis based skills.
But it's a RP thing. This character comes from a family who's got a natural affinity for healing (established in previous campaigns). They're not as good at it as their mother, or sister, but it's still there.
At 8th lv, like I sad, I'll probably take Linguist. The party is stranded in the Desert of Desolation & will be for two more modules. Learning some D&D Arabic/Eqyptian & getting better at deciphering hieroglyphs/runes seems natural. This will not help me kill things. But it will aid in the social/exploration segments of the game. And it'll get a relative new player more engaged in the game as I'll turn to their Wizard to help me learn this stuff
What!??? A barbarian doing things other than damage???

* Always recklessly attacks. Mechanically I don't HAVE to do this. I do this because RP. The character lacks training. They don't fight smart.

* Weapons & Equipment.
Mechanically there's no reason not to use the best non-heavy weapons on the list.
I don't because of aesthetics. Especially when I built the miniature. It just looked silly to see a 1/2ling wielding oversized weapons. And it doesn't fit the character I made. So hand axe it is for general purposes.
Wears a breastplate - once again, something I do because of the aesthetics. It's what looked best when I built the character. So even if I later up Dex/Con I'll keep the armor. (right now my unarmored defense + shiled is the same as what the breastplate + shield +dex gives)

What ill effects has my poor hopelessly non-optimized barbarian had on the party?
1) We need a light source.
2) We need to carry more food (1/2ling...)
3) Sometimes the party has to help me deal with physical obstacles.
4) Maybe it takes us a round or two longer to kill something.
5) Since poor judgment is my characters defining characteristic (low Wis) sometimes we have to deal with the problems that causes. I'm (indirectly)responsible for releasing an Efreeti who intends to destroy the land/world. Oops. I sold the info of where to find it's lamp & how to bypass its wards to some traders a few sessions ago. This will become important in the next two modules of the Desert of Desolation series.

I am being very genuine here: reading this post is exciting and liberating. It reminds me of why the hell I play.

I do not think I should worry about armoring up my new warlock. I will use what he has and have fun and better yet, might be freed to do something that just seems cool. He will start play with a 14 str, 12 dex 16 con 11 int 8 wis and 14 chr.

maybe I will go with toughness and play up his scarred up hobgoblin hide. or, since i think he was an unflinching hobgoblin standard bearer, perhaps look at inspiring leader...

Tony Vargas · Apr 27, 2018

Warpiglet said:
In the old days, we just played whatever we were in the mood for. We knew damn good and well that the fighter with exceptional strength and specialization would whip a thief one on one. We knew cleric could never martial the firepower of a wizard. Yet there we were playing stuff that was less optimal a good amount of the time.

We actually have very little in the line of optimization (or even customization) tools or rewards for system mastery, back in the day. You rolled some stats, maybe fairly high ones depending on luck and the DM's permitted methods, maybe even shuffled them around a bit, and then picked a race and class, bought some fairly standard gear with your random store of gp, and off you went to die in the dungeon, if you didn't, by 5th level, maybe you gave the character a name. ;P

And that was the end of your 'build' input, the rest of it was what EGG had decided your class would get at each new level, and the magic items (and, if you were a magic-user or illusionists) spells, that the DM placed or randomly rolled for you to find.

Online, you see so many admonitions about optimization. What happens if you do not follow them? Even if it is called broken or a trap?
Would love to hear about the careers of some of these "subpar" characters.

It's all relative, of course. I was able to a play a fighter effectively for years (through 12th before he started to feel irrelevant) in 3.x, because I was in a campaign where the casters were sub-optimally built and played. You can play an optimized Tier 1 character without overshadowing everyone, if you're all competently-played Tier 1 casters, and maybe the occasionally wildly-optimized lower tier character. Balance, within an individual party, is a moving target, and it just moves more the less robustly balanced the game is.

With 5e, specifically, I've run a lot more than I've played, and my few characters have been far from sub-optimal. When I DM, I mostly run introductory games some for AL, others at Conventions, and as much as I can get away with it, I use pregens - so, again, no one's going to be that sub-optimal.

In spite of that, what I have found, at low-level, when the game can turn suddenly quite deadly, is that having an optimized PC or two in an otherwise normal party can be something of a boon. They end up 'carrying' the party when things go bad, but everyone else can be put in the spotlight other times, and everyone can have some fun roleplaying, regardless. Once we're out of those low-levels and the new players have moved on or acclimated, the 'OP' guy is less of a boon...

But, sub-optimal characters can have it kinda rough. I've seen some great (or at least amusing) character ideas that just ended up sitting out portions of the game waiting for their 1d4 hours of unconsciousness (0 hps & party tapped out of healing resources) to be up, or just outright dying before they got to do much with the cool idea. Of course, I've seen the odd optimized character hosed, too. ;P

Ancalagon · Apr 27, 2018

77IM said:
Sub-optimal covers a very broad range from "not quite optimal, but still pretty good" to "totally sucks and is useless." Somewhere in the middle is "can keep up with the party; can pull their own weight." I feel it's important to hit that point: I've gamed with, and DM'ed for, PCs who were below that, and it's not fun for anyone.

It's definitely a spectrum... I firmly believe that you should play the character you want, but said character should be able to contribute to the party !

Dannyalcatraz · Apr 27, 2018

Would love to hear about the careers of some of these "subpar" characters.

Just as a fer’zample...

In a 3.5Ed campaign that collapsed, I played ANTARES WHITECHAPEL- a Marshal2/Duskblade2/Battle Sorcerer6 w/Stalwart Sorcerer ACF.

The character was essentially built to be an arcane Paladin in his role as a “SWORD OF THOTH” (of the ILLUMINATED SOCIETY OF THOTH)*. The ISoT was a benificent organization devoted to the gathering, saving and dissemination of knowledge. The Swords were ISoT members who were the adventuring & enforcement arm.

He was LG. To mimic the mechanics of a standard Paladin, he needed auras of some kind (hence Marshal) partnered with some armored (arcane) spellcasting and melee combat options (Duskblade & BttlSorc). Feats were Celestial Sorcerer, Celestial Sorcerer Lance, Practiced Spellcaster (BttlSorc), Celestial Bloodline, and Knowledge Devotion.

The Marshal auras enhanced the combat prowess of his party. In place of Smite, he used the Knowledge Devotion feat to enhance his personal combat effectiveness.

While admittedly a kludge, he still worked. While Smite is consistent in its enhancement and initially more powerful each use, KD has no set limit on how many times it could be used beyond the successes of your dice rolls. And that +1-5 insight bonus (on a successful check) to Att/Dam for each foe of a given type was pretty potent, it adds up fast. Because it was based on the character’s knowledge, it was a perfect marriage of crunch & fluff.

Loads of fun!

* things I made up for the PC, with the DM’s permission.

Swarmkeeper · Apr 27, 2018

Sacrosanct said:
No one remembers that PC that always succeeded and always did well because it wasn't challenging. We remember when the PC who has challenges overcame the challenge (either through luck, or creative play) to win the day. Flaws and weaknesses are what accentuates the strengths and heroic actions.

Yes to this.

Playing the way the hive mind wants ("must max your main stat!", "only use certain race/class combos!", "don't take spells that are red or brown on the interweb lists!", etc) results in a less memorable experience, IMO. Which is kind of missing the point of the fun of playing. Suddenly everything is very samey and mechanical and about "winning" with very little flavor. It's the heroic failures and unlikely victories that make for the grand stories we tell years from now. No group will wax poetic (or want to listen to the hyper-optimizing player who remembers) about the UA Revised Ranger Wood Elf who single-handedly wiped out the low level humanoids in that one combat. I'll take @ccs's Halfling Barbarian or @Ath-kethin's grappling VHuman Warlock or @Warpiglet's Hobgoblin Celestial Warlock in a party any day.

Warpiglet · Apr 27, 2018

DM Dave1 said:
Yes to this.

Playing the way the hive mind wants ("must max your main stat!", "only use certain race/class combos!", "don't take spells that are red or brown on the interweb lists!", etc) results in a less memorable experience, IMO. Which is kind of missing the point of the fun of playing. Suddenly everything is very samey and mechanical and about "winning" with very little flavor. It's the heroic failures and unlikely victories that make for the grand stories we tell years from now. No group will wax poetic (or want to listen to the hyper-optimizing player who remembers) about the UA Revised Ranger Wood Elf who single-handedly wiped out the low level humanoids in that one combat. I'll take @ccs's Halfling Barbarian or @Ath-kethin's grappling VHuman Warlock or @Warpiglet's Hobgoblin Celestial Warlock in a party any day.

Hooray!

In fact, this discussion is just my latest reminder to get immersed; it leads to fun every time.

(with the idea that you are not purposely ineffectual or something...that's not fun for others either)

What happens to the "suboptimal?"

Warpiglet

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Bardbarian

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jasper

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ccs

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Warpiglet

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Tony Vargas

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Ancalagon

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Dannyalcatraz

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Swarmkeeper

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Warpiglet

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