Why is it a bad thing to optimise?

[Man in the Funny Hat]

But that's not the issue here though. He's not talking about making some insane monstrocity that breaks game balance. He's talking about making a mechanically competent character.

There's a difference between mere competence and excelling at specific, key tasks. I don't think most people have an issue with competence. It's when characters are developed to skew well beyond mere competence that hackles are raised.

Why should a player who is mechanically competent be forced to play down to the level of players who cannot be bothered to spend even a minor amount of time making a character which is baseline?

Whose baseline? The DM? The individual player? The rest of the players at the table? Why should players at the table be required to to "play up" to the level of time and effort to create a character when they don't NEED to or want to? This sort of argument does work both ways and comes down largely to differing preferences in style of play.

But, you and (Psi)SeveredHead seem to advocating that I roll back my character, make him less effective, so that I don't overshadow his character.

I'd say that even in the simplest versions of D&D a certain amount of optimization is normal because it IS a game, and not JUST a roleplaying exercise.

The DM is the one who has to arrange all the challenges for any given group of characters. The closer the characters are to "average" competence or even INcompetence the easier his job is. The higher the degree of optimization the more difficult his job is so it's natural for a DM to fight against that to one degree or another. It also naturally focuses not just the DM's attention but the point of the game upon mechanics. For a DM and/or other players who do NOT wish to obsess about mechanics and for whom a completely unoptimized character can get them what THEY want from the game it can feel like an impostion even if it isn't.

The Stormwind Fallacy is that NEITHER focus (roleplaying versus optimization) is necessarily exclusive of the other. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that because someone illogically believes that your highly optimized character is a bad thing that their LESS optimized character is in turn a bad thing. Granted they may not mix well in the same party where players clearly have different focuses upon what THEY want from the game, but no matter how much better you think the party/game will work if everybody put more effort into optimizing their characters that is still a choice they are ALLOWED for their character unless the DM has set some other prerequisites for participation.

 

[Umbran]

The problem with that premise is that many RPGs, and certainly most modern main-stream RPGs, presume that the characters are heroes to start with, even at their weakest and lowest levels. They aren't designed to handle that trope.

Though I agree with you that the reluctant hero trope is very wide spread I am not sure that DnD even nods it head in that direction.

Guys, how do you reconcile the idea that the OP talks about spending *hours* going through the process of optimizing , and coming up with characters that are better than those at the table, and the idea that somehow the system isn't built to do sub-optimal characters?

The idea that the system doesn't support this, or doesn't even nod to this being possible, flies in the face that system mastery, time, work, and analysis is required to optimize. It is *easier* to make a sub-optimal character than an optimal one.

The class system means there's a lower limit to how badly you can shoot yourself in the foot, but look at how high the system allows you to build beyond that bare minimum.

Don't pick your stats to maximally support your role (like, don't use a dump stat!), don't plan out how your feats synergize with skills other feats, or class powers. Voila! One sub-optimal character. Easy-peasy.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The DM is the one who has to arrange all the challenges for any given group of characters. The closer the characters are to "average" competence or even INcompetence the easier his job is. The higher the degree of optimization the more difficult his job is so it's natural for a DM to fight against that to one degree or another.

I only half agree with this here. It's less an issue of how powerful the group is (it's easy to adjust for that) than how powerful the PCs are too each other. If they're all weak, it's easy. If they're all average, it's easy, and if they're all powerful (but the same amount of power) it's also easy.

But that doesn't mean internally I'm not frustrated when the 20 int mage with 8 strength chooses all strength-based skills and we fail at skill challenges constantly because of him, or when the 12 strength fighter never hits anything so our strikers, leaders and controllers are always dying and fights take twice as long as they have to, or our controllers specialise in single-target attacks and their rider bonuses are from their dump stat, or any other trillion situations which make the game run slower and be more frustrating for everyone at the table.

Sounds like those other players don't want to learn the system. You need to a new group; it'd be too frustrating to sink to their level.

 

[Greg K]

But I get enjoyment out of making a character that can do cool stuff in the game. And when I do that cool stuff, this is somehow ruining other people's fun? How about they pick up THEIR game? I'm more than happy to offer advice or help in building characters. If they're not enjoying the game because their character sucks and fails at everything that I succeed it, how is that my fault?

You want a minimum set level of power to be happy. This is power gaming (as opposed to min/maxing or optimizing). This is a play style issue if it is conflicting with the rest of the group. People play for different reasons. If your preferences are clashing, it is up to you to either conform to their preferred style or find another group.It is not up to the group to "up THEIR game" and conform to your play style if you are the outlier. You are not the special snowflake that everyone else revolves around.
And that you think the group should conform to your style rather than the other way around is an being selfish as mentioned by another poster.

 

[MrMyth]

Hmm. A few of my thoughts on the various downsides... speaking as someone who tends to optimize and run for highly-optimized parties.

1) You mention not talking about 'char-op' builds and gamebreaking stuff, but it can be hard to draw the line. Is the very effective ranger - who at epic levels fires 10 shots a round, doing three times the damage of other strikers in the party - too optimized? Should he be punished for choosing multi-attack powers and useful damage boosting feats and items? Should he be forced to choose a different Paragon Path other than Punisher of the Gods? How far is too far is a very tough question.

2) I'm a fan of 'optimizing the character you want to build' rather than 'building a character to be optimized'. Which is to say - first, settle on concept. Say you want to be a powerful storm-mage. Then feel free to build the best one you can. That tends to be much better than trying to fit a bunch of disparate mechanics together in order to create an optimized character, and then figuring out a background that makes sense.

Seriously, I've seen some characters like this, and it can get pretty silly. "I am a humble dwarf, raised by drow in the underdark, who apprenticed me out to an elven artificer, who trained me in the ancient heritage of skymagic, and then orcs killed my community, so I pledged myself to the dragon god of vengeance and manifested a powerful dragonmark and..."

I mean, some stuff can make for a good story. But the more you choose feats for power alone, and then try to figure out a reason why your character has such things... it can get to be a bit much.

3) As others have mentioned, party disparity is the tough part. Because there is really no good answer - do you intentionally cripple yourself in order to let others shine? An ideal system would let you be as capable as you want without overshadowing everyone else. But without that, asking players to self-monitor... can be frustrating.

Conclusion: I don't think optimizing is bad in-and-of-itself. It may not be as appropriate for every game, and one should be willing to acknowledge and adapt in situations where that may be the case. I tend to recommend trying to optimize within an existing concept, rather than force your concept to fit your optimization, but I recognize not everyone feels the same.

 

[Greg K]

Guys, how do you reconcile the idea that the OP talks about spending *hours* going through the process of optimizing , and coming up with characters that are better than those at the table, and the idea that somehow the system isn't built to do sub-optimal characters?

I don't see him as a casual gamer. I see him both as a power gamer (to what degree I don't know other than he claims not to carry it to the extremes of WOTC's CharOPs) and an optimizer. Optimization is his tool to power game. He expects characters to have at least 18 in the prime stat for the bonuses (I have seen others say a 16 is just fine). He looks for racial synergies to class. And , then he spends hours looking for more synergies. He expects others to do the same.This is not casual. It is also setting a minimum acceptable level of power for him to have fun which flies against what others have said is necessary for the game to work (hence the power gaming).

 

[Pbartender]

Guys, how do you reconcile the idea that the OP talks about spending *hours* going through the process of optimizing , and coming up with characters that are better than those at the table, and the idea that somehow the system isn't built to do sub-optimal characters?

Because there is a difference between a "sub-optimal character" and the "reluctant, unprepared hero trope". While a character can be both, one doesn't necessarily have to be the other and vice versa.

Saying that D&D is not designed to handle the reluctant hero trope, does not mean that sub-optimal characters are not possible... in fact they can be all too easy to make, because of the necessary system mastery.

Also, just because sub-optimal characters are possible does not mean that the system was designed for them, nor does it mean that the system handles them well.

My point was simply that, if you look at all the choices available for characters in D&D -- classes, feats, powers, equipment, etc. -- and you look at the challenges that those characters will face, it becomes obvious that the game was specifically designed with high-powered, high-action, high-fantasy heroics in mind.

It was not designed to simulate an assistant pig-farmer and his attendant band of bumbling misfits taking on the Evil Sorcerer and his hordes of undead soldiers.

 

[Kzach]

Seriously, I've seen some characters like this, and it can get pretty silly. "I am a humble dwarf, raised by drow in the underdark, who apprenticed me out to an elven artificer, who trained me in the ancient heritage of skymagic, and then orcs killed my community, so I pledged myself to the dragon god of vengeance and manifested a powerful dragonmark and...

I concede that I'd definitely draw the line at chimera characters like that, even as a DM I hate seeing poor character histories thinly justifying bizarre min/maxing like that.

A lot of the game-breaking charop builds are chimeras. Haphazard combinations that only meld because of mechanical synergies. I'm definitely not a fan of those sorts of characters. I do think there's a line that is crossed in optimisation, I just don't feel that I cross it. What I think is really happening is that people lump me in with people who do break the system, when in reality my characters simply have some nice synergies that suit its personality and backstory.

As much as I don't like to play a character that doesn't have some nice synergies going on, I equally dislike playing a character that I just can't gel with on an emotional level. I have a lot of favourite PC's I've built since 1e, but yet don't quite 'work' in other editions either mechanically or thematically, and I don't play them because of that. In fact, until recently one of my favourite characters just didn't work stat-wise with any class. Along came the Essentials Knight and it is such a perfect fit that I now play him whenever possible. Point being is that I wasn't willing to sacrifice the integrity of the character's character just to force him into a min/maxed or powergaming niche.

Perhaps there needs to be a new term? Someone who balances between optimisation and personality?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Perhaps there needs to be a new term? Someone who balances between optimisation and personality?

I don't think that's necessary. The two have little to do with each other. Spend enough time and you could justify any sort of chimera, whether they be superpowerful, incredibly weak or somewhere in between. It could also recreate the Stormwind Fallacy. "You're not an X, I think you're leaning toward powergaming and not RP" as if there's a sliding scale between them, when there isn't.

 

[Kzach]

And , then he spends hours looking for more synergies. He expects others to do the same. This is not casual.

I think you and Umbran are taking the "hours" comment a little to the extreme. "Hours" can easily represent one hour, twice a week, or two hours once a week. I think the longest I've ever spent on one character is about four hours spread out over two weeks. That's hardly extreme.