Is an 18/19/20 an absolute must?

[AbdulAlhazred]

I mostly agree with this, sounds like a fun exercise. Show me a highly effective gnome warden, that one's been troubling me for quite some time.

Gnomes do seem to put the system to its hardest test, but I think you could make a pretty decent gnome warden. Their racial traits are going to be fairly unhelpful to a warden for the most part, but lets work with it.

I'd concentrate on being stealthy and mobile and try to play it up as a character that can scout ahead and take care of himself if he's jumped. He's going to be a reasonable defender obviously. There are a couple of MC options you'd have that might work reasonably well. Rogue perhaps. Wizard is an obvious possibility. Anyway, I'd envisage the character as a sneaky sort of scout that can use his powers to get himself out of trouble if he runs into trouble while acting as party advanced scout and then falls back into the line of battle when the fighting gets hot and heavy.

I think that would work OK and the cool thing about it is working within the limitations of this very "off" combination definitely stretches your ingenuity. What would be particularly original about simply making a dwarf warden and calling it a gnome? Dwarf wardens are a dime a dozen regardless of how you skin them. Not that dwarf is the only best choice, but if you just reskin characters to whatever race then 70% of the choices that would make really interesting and unique characters will never get played.

And yeah, it will certainly be a 16 prime req character, lol. Honestly it probably will be slightly underpowered, but you have to admit its about THE most non-optimal build in the game. I can't think of one that has less natural synergy. Yet it will work reasonably well and is certainly playable and probably a lot of fun for that player who's into it as a concept.

 

[the Jester]

You certainly DON'T need a starting 18 to be a functional character, but if you want to hyper-optimize, it helps.

Which is yet another reason why I never use point buy; I insist on rolling stats for pcs in my game. I am not a fan of building your character strictly to be optimized. I like to see players work with their stats rather than choosing them outright.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Which is yet another reason why I never use point buy; I insist on rolling stats for pcs in my game. I am not a fan of building your character strictly to be optimized. I like to see players work with their stats rather than choosing them outright.

Not sure if this should be forked, but I see this is a non sequitur. Rolling dice for stats has nothing whatsoever to do with "working with stats." All it does is lead to overpowered and/or underpowered PCs that are completely unbalanced as a party. In short, I find rolling for stats a really bad way to do things.

 

[Nifft]

You certainly DON'T need a starting 18 to be a functional character, but if you want to hyper-optimize, it helps.

It is my experience that the opposite occurs more: those who hyper-optimize are the ones who break away from the 18 (post-racial). Examples include the lockdown Elf Orb Wizard (16 Int, 18 Wis) and the mono-focus multiattack Ranger (20 in either Str or Dex).

IMHO an 18 (post-racial) isn't a requirement, but it's an excellent starting point. If you don't want to optimize, just make sure you have an 18 (post-racial) in your primary attack stat, and you're pretty much done.

If you do want to optimize, the 18 (post-racial) is the baseline that your optimized build ought to beat.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nai_Calus]

Annnd this is exactly what I was saying I hate. This mentality that you must have an 18 period and if you don't you're doing it wrong.

I just want to play my Eladrin cleric. Do I get a damned thing out of it? No, I'm not even going to be a STR cleric so Eladrin Soldier is useless to me. Do I have any feats that do me or my party any good because of my race? Not a damned thing, *Elves* get the shiny racial class feat for my god of choice. If I want to take the one racial PP I have open, I have to pay a feat tax to do it. I'm going to have a 16 WIS, period, because otherwise all my other stats are completely hosed instead of just mostly. Eladrin cleric has nothing special going for it at all, other than 'Eladrin Cleric of Corellon' making vast amounts of *fluff* sense.

And you know what? There's your justification, right there, all you need for it. Is it an OMG awesome character? Gods no, there's no mechanical benefits at all. Is it workable? Sure. You take your 16 and suck it up and do the best you can with what you have. Because, yeah, that's the *character* you want to play.

Refluffing an elf is just... Wow. I think it's telling that I have yet to come across a single DM who'd let you pull off that level of munchkin. Hells, I have yet to find one that'll let me say a half-elf is half-eladrin and take Eladrin feats instead of Elf, the hell with using another race entirely. And yes, elves make massively better clerics than Eladrin do. It's too bad I don't want to play an elf, isn't it? I *do* suck it up. Is it annoying that the option has nothing going for it at all? Yes. Do I try to munchkin my way around it? No. I want an Eladrin cleric, not an elf cleric, not even an "elf"imeaneladrin with solid-colour eyes who got picked on as a kid because he couldn't fey step like the rest of his supposed race.

I am far, far more concerned with Eladrin clerics that there is absolutely no meaningful racial support(Seldarine Dedicate doesn't even count, enjoy your feat tax) for them than with their lack of 'on' stats for cleric. The 16 is fine. I'm not that arsed about it. It's the lack of anything *else* that makes them a crappy choice. But yeah you know what oh well, brb, being a pansy fairy pardon me while I'm fey and mysterious and pretty and playing the character I want to play, mechanical consequences be damned. :|

 

[Nifft]

Annnd this is exactly what I was saying I hate. This mentality that you must have an 18 period and if you don't you're doing it wrong.

Can you quote anyone actually saying that?

Refluffing an elf is just... Wow. I think it's telling that I have yet to come across a single DM who'd let you pull off that level of munchkin. Hells, I have yet to find one that'll let me say a half-elf is half-eladrin and take Eladrin feats instead of Elf, the hell with using another race entirely.

Who said anything about Eladrin feats instead of Elf feats?

If you don't want Eladrin for the mechanics, what exactly is preventing you from using all the Elf mechanics? 4e is really good about reskinning.

Cheers, -- N

 

[renau1g]

Annnd this is exactly what I was saying I hate. This mentality that you must have an 18 period and if you don't you're doing it wrong.

I'm going to have a 16 WIS, period, because otherwise all my other stats are completely hosed instead of just mostly. Eladrin cleric has nothing special going for it at all, other than 'Eladrin Cleric of Corellon' making vast amounts of *fluff* sense.

Good for you. Nobody's saying you HAVE to have an 18 to hit. Hell you don't even have to put a 16 in it if you don't want to. Just don't be expecting to hit as often. You can have a 10 in your WIS if you want, you'll just hit 15% less often than the 16 WIS, or 20% less often than the 18 WIS cleric. Assuming with a 16 you'll hit about 50% of the time, with a 10 you'll hit 35% of the time. Is that character unplayable? No, but I certainly wouldn't play him as it would suck missing all the time. I prefer to try and have an 18 post racial if I can, but my dwarf warden in LFR has a 16 STR, 18 Con and 14 WIS and does pretty good

 

[Mengu]

I just want to play my Eladrin cleric. Do I get a damned thing out of it? No, I'm not even going to be a STR cleric so Eladrin Soldier is useless to me. Do I have any feats that do me or my party any good because of my race? Not a damned thing, *Elves* get the shiny racial class feat for my god of choice. If I want to take the one racial PP I have open, I have to pay a feat tax to do it. I'm going to have a 16 WIS, period, because otherwise all my other stats are completely hosed instead of just mostly. Eladrin cleric has nothing special going for it at all, other than 'Eladrin Cleric of Corellon' making vast amounts of *fluff* sense.

You can certainly play an eladrin wisdom cleric. But I think it's a disservice to a group, playing a sub-optimal character for the sake of playing a sub-optimal character. You need to explore the options, and make your eladrin cleric a worthy ally.

As an eladrin cleric of corellon, you can give yourself a good Int (say stats are 8/12/13/16/16/14), get Arcane Initiate with Winged Horde, and Power of Arcana to use with Lance of Faith. Grab a Star of Corellon Holy Symbol. Maybe get a Toad Familiar. Maybe get a Master's Wand of Vicious Mockery and Dual Implement Caster. In a lot of cases, it's possible to make "fluff" work with the rules to yield a quite playable and exciting character.

I'm not a proponent of playing an optimized character for the sake of playing a powerful character, but I do believe the system was designed in a way that you should always look at optimizing and getting the best bang out of the concept you do have. This can sometimes mean refluffing your wizard/arcane powers to say they come from Corellon. It can sometimes be refluffing your toad to look like a fey cat. And it can sometimes be biting the bullet and buying that 18 stat out right.

 

[Derren]

You can certainly play an eladrin wisdom cleric. But I think it's a disservice to a group, playing a sub-optimal character for the sake of playing a sub-optimal character. You need to explore the options, and make your eladrin cleric a worthy ally.

I can really feel how such thinking enhances the role playing experience.

RPGs, even D&D, are not about combat and combat effectivness is no prerequisit for it, even if 4E want to tell you something different.

 

[Mengu]

I can really feel how such thinking enhances the role playing experience.

RPGs, even D&D, are not about combat and combat effectivness is no prerequisit for it, even if 4E want to tell you something different.

I enjoy role playing. I enjoy good challenging encounters where characters contribute evenly to the party's success. I don't see the two as mutually exclusive.