Rule of the Three (1st of May)

[am181d]

I still see some people saying "I want themes to include abilities that aren't feats." What does this mean? If there's an ability you would want included in a theme, why couldn't it be a feat?

For example, they've already said that the wizard's At Will is a feat in the current version of the rules, presumably part of a mage-themed theme.

There also seems to be a concern that themes will be sub-optimal if you can pick and choose the best feats. Surely:

a) that's where playtesting comes in
b) that's where pre-requisites come in
c) sometimes it's OK for things to be sub-optimal but still awesome

 

[nightwalker450]

They can make themes more viable simply by allowing theme's to bypass pre-requisites...

Giving you the options of using a theme, and just getting what it gives...

Or taking your own path, but not able to reach the same feats as if you had taken the theme, due to stat requirements, or skill requirements, or needing to have x, y, or z feat first.

Theme is then focused training, whereas build your own is the mercenary picking up whatever ability they can easily get.

In my experience this was always my problem with feats, I have a good idea for a character theme, but the feats required to pull it off, or stats are just too far out of the way for character to pull it off in a reasonable number of levels.

 

[dkyle]

Whoa I'm hesitant to say NEVER.

If a player can choose a Character C that is exactly the same as Character B, and a whole bunch of other options, it will NEVER be the case that Character C will be worse than Character B, in their own judgement, unless they're just being irrational. Custom feat selection is a full substitute for choosing a Theme.

It is highly likely that there will be a Character C that is superior to Character B, simply because there are so many possible Character Cs.

Speed of generation. I'm en experienced player but I tend to go with suggested options and stuff because I'm also lazy.

So if they printed a pregen character for each class, would you go with that, even if it was woefully ineffective compared to what others in your group were playing?

See, I have players like you in my group. They don't like building characters much, so they switched over to Essentials characters when they came out. But I know they would not have done it if the Essentials characters weren't solid characters in their own right. If Essentials had simply been a bunch of pregen versions of the original classes, I seriously doubt they'd even consider them, because they'd almost certainly be far less effective than the characters they had before.

But in any event, if you don't care about how effective your character is, only that there be a simple easy thing to pull from the book, then I'm not sure what there is for you to dislike about my suggestions. You'd still get a simple thing to pull from the book, you'd just end up with a character that's better than it would be under the current design, and more likely to not be overshadowed by others who chose their feats by hand.

This is the part that I'm confused about. No matter what you want to call it, it's still a collection of powers that mix together to form a certain power level.

This isn't about calling things different things. This is about the specifics of how things are mixed together, and how the power levels result.

"choose a Theme that gives 5 specific feats" is almost guaranteed to be inferior in power level to "choose any 5 feats you want, including all the feats Themes give". The latter could reasonable be expected to compare equitably with "choose a Theme with its own unique features".

If a certain combination of feats is inevitably outpaced by an experienced min/maxer all the time, then it will be the same in this case as well.

It's a matter of degrees.

If a Theme is designed to be good in its own right, and cannot be literally duplicated by the custom feats options, then that puts a much higher bar for the optimizers to outpace it. Will the optimal feat combinations still be better? Probably, but not by nearly as much as if the Theme was just a collection of feats, that could be literally duplicated custom feats options.

Consider that an optimized 4E Slayer vs and optimized 4E PHB Fighter is quite likely to be about on par, even though the 4E Slayer is much simpler. It's almost inconceivable that WotC would publish a pre-gen Fighter that was on-par with an optimized Fighter.

I think the only way to solve this, based on what your saying is one or the other in total. You can't have feats in the game if you have ability collections, and you can't have ability collections if you have feats. (Provided you agree with your other statements.)

I don't think that's at all true.

Well designed Themes could certainly be competitive with custom feat selections. I only think Themes that are just pre-gen packages of those feats are a bad idea, and almost certainly won't be balanced with custom feat selections.

Just as class options with a lot of class features (4E Slayer) can be competitive with classes with a lot of customizable power choices (4E's original Fighter).

Would you say 4e ran into the problems you described with their power groupings?

4E deftly avoided the problem, with Essentials. I want 5E to take the same approach with Themes. Simpler should not be weaker, and Simple mechanics being a strict subset of Complex, customizable mechanics almost invariably leads to that.

Outside of Essentials, 4E didn't do many tradeoffs between mix-and-match-able options, and monolithic collections of abilities. I guess there's Paragon Multiclassing, but that just goes to show how mix-and-match options can be inferior to the monolithic collections of abilities.

 

[Dausuul]

Whoa I'm hesitant to say NEVER.

This isn't a subjective question. It's simple math. If you have a set of options (A, B, C), and another set of options (A, B, C, D, E, F, ... Z), then no matter what values you assign to those options, the best option from the first set is included in the second set.

Therefore, the best option from set #1 is never going to be better than the best option from set #2. It will, at most, be equally good.

 

[DEFCON 1]

That all seems like an awful large amount of work all in an effort to "defeat" the optimizers and min-maxers.

Especially considering "defeating the optimizers and min-maxers" is a fool errand anyway.

 

[Scribble]

If a player can choose a Character C that is exactly the same as Character B, and a whole bunch of other options, it will NEVER be the case that Character C will be worse than Character B, in their own judgement, unless they're just being irrational. Custom feat selection is a full substitute for choosing a Theme.

It is highly likely that there will be a Character C that is superior to Character B, simply because there are so many possible Character Cs.

Sure I get that- min-maxers always find a way to make better stuff. I guiess the question is how much better.

So if they printed a pregen character for each class, would you go with that, even if it was woefully ineffective compared to what others in your group were playing?

I guess the question is how much less effective do you consider woefully.

But in any event, if you don't care about how effective your character is, only that there be a simple easy thing to pull from the book, then I'm not sure what there is for you to dislike about my suggestions. You'd still get a simple thing to pull from the book, you'd just end up with a character that's better than it would be under the current design, and more likely to not be overshadowed by others who chose their feats by hand.

I'm not saying I dislike your idea- just confused by how you see much of a difference.

This isn't about calling things different things. This is about the specifics of how things are mixed together, and how the power levels result.

But the end result is the same a character of X power level. I'm willing to say this might just be me misunderstanding what you're saying, and if so I appologize, but I seriously do not see a difference if the end result is a character of X power level pre-determined by the designer.

"choose a Theme that gives 5 specific feats" is almost guaranteed to be inferior in power level to "choose any 5 feats you want, including all the feats Themes give". The latter could reasonable be expected to compare equitably with "choose a Theme with its own unique features".{/quote]

For a short period of time I'd say, if what you say is true. (Most likely about the same amount of time it took the min-maxers to recombine feats into another working combo.)

If a Theme is designed to be good in its own right, and cannot be literally duplicated by the custom feats options, then that puts a much higher bar for the optimizers to outpace it.

How? I'm not talking about flavor here- I'm talking shear power level.

Will the optimal feat combinations still be better? Probably, but not by nearly as much as if the Theme was just a collection of feats, that could be literally duplicated custom feats options.

Still just don't see how collection of abilities protects their power level any more then collection of feats does.

Consider that an optimized 4E Slayer vs and optimized 4E PHB Fighter is quite likely to be about on par, even though the 4E Slayer is much simpler. It's almost inconceivable that WotC would publish a pre-gen Fighter that was on-par with an optimized Fighter.

What if WoTC publishes optimized theme collections?

4E deftly avoided the problem, with Essentials. I want 5E to take the same approach with Themes. Simpler should not be weaker, and Simple mechanics being a strict subset of Complex, customizable mechanics almost invariably leads to that.

I'd say for a short period of time if your thesis holds true.

Outside of Essentials, 4E didn't do many tradeoffs between mix-and-match-able options, and monolithic collections of abilities. I guess there's Paragon Multiclassing, but that just goes to show how mix-and-match options can be inferior to the monolithic collections of abilities.

Wait- it's been a while since I made a character, but I'm pretty sure you could either opt to go with the standard power selections, or make up your own combination of powers for a given class couldn't you?

Isn't that the same idea?

 

[Argyle King]

I'm not really seeing the point to themes/backgrounds if I can just cherry pick what I want anyway. I don't want themes/background to be a straight jacket, but I also feel as though not giving them any concrete structure at all renders them mostly pointless.

On one hand, I see the appeal of quick character creation. "I pick, dwarf, fighter, religious background, and religious theme -done." However, how long does that remain a viable option. When I start looking across the table and realizing that the package themes aren't nearly as good as just picking what I want, and also simultaneously realizing that picking feats/skills doesn't take much longer than picking a theme (really... 1 choice versus a handful of choices isn't a huge difference,) I feel as though I'm going to start ignoring the pre-made packages. That's already what I do when I look at most of 4E's (pre-essentials) character builds. Spreading that into more areas of the game doesn't seem like the way to go.

...and I'm not even a power gamer nor very proficient at CharOp. I simply don't like being told "hey, this is a perfectly good and viable option" when I read the book, and then realizing that I'm trailing the rest of the group in actual play.

 

[Scribble]

This isn't a subjective question. It's simple math. If you have a set of options (A, B, C), and another set of options (A, B, C, D, E, F, ... Z), then no matter what values you assign to those options, the best option from the first set is included in the second set.

Therefore, the best option from set #1 is never going to be better than the best option from set #2. It will, at most, be equally good.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong. I took it to mean anyone who chooses stuff from the first set, will always make a character who isn't better then someone who makes a character from the second set... which isn't true. There are people who are sucky at making characters just like there are min maxers.

The themes I;'d say give the second set, and people who are just not into min/maxing a place to quickly grab a bunch of powers/abilities that match an idea they're going for.

Can min/maxers out do them with some weird combo? Yeah most likely, but I'm not sure I've ever seen that not the case.

The trick is to try to ensure that even though a mechanically better option might be available the pre-packs don't suck so much that they're worthless... and I think there might just be a difference in opinion as to how much worse a character combo has to be to be worthless.

 

[dkyle]

But the end result is the same a character of X power level. I'm willing to say this might just be me misunderstanding what you're saying, and if so I appologize, but I seriously do not see a difference if the end result is a character of X power level pre-determined by the designer.

The point is that a Theme that is custom designed can have a higher power level than a Theme that is just 5 feats, and still be balanced with a custom choice of 5 feats, because that custom choice is likely to produce a great deal of power.

Suppose a Theme that is simply 5 pre-determined feats has power level X

5 feats chosen by a competent player will always have at least power level X, almost certainly significantly more.

This is an imbalance. What I want is:

Designers build a Theme that is more than power level X, more powerful than the Theme they would design if they could only design Themes as pre-determined packages of feats.

Thus, this new Theme at least has a reasonable chance of being balanced with the custom feats option. Is balance guaranteed? Of course not. But at least there's a fighting chance.

The designers cannot do the same with the current Theme designs, because any increase in power level to pre-built Themes is inherently an increase in power level to the feats.

How? I'm not talking about flavor here- I'm talking shear power level.

I'm not talking about flavor either... I'm saying that if a customizable system can duplicate a Theme, thus trivially equaling its power level, it is extremely likely that other customized feat layouts will exceed it. If it takes some effort to even match a Theme's power level, it'll be that much harder to exceed it.

What if WoTC publishes optimized theme collections?

If they think they can actually do that successfully, and build their system's balance around doing so, they are fooling themselves. WotC has never published a pre-gen even remotely close to optimized.

They have, however, published simpler versions of classes that were not simply pre-gens, that are quite well balanced with the original versions of those classes. I'm looking for them to do the same with Themes.

I'd say for a short period of time if your thesis holds true.

Essentials has been out for a long time now. There's no clear consensus among optimizers which is better, Slayer or PHB Fighter. They're just... different.

4E's a lot more balanced, and resistant to optimization, than you seem to think.

Wait- it's been a while since I made a character, but I'm pretty sure you could either opt to go with the standard power selections, or make up your own combination of powers for a given class couldn't you?

Isn't that the same idea?

There are suggested builds for first level that you could use. Nothing beyond first level. I'm not sure if that's what you're talking about.

But anyway, those "suggested builds" just prove my point about pregens. They're at best not-terrible. And those are just the first level, where it's pretty hard to screw up 4E characters, anyway.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong. I took it to mean anyone who chooses stuff from the first set, will always make a character who isn't better then someone who makes a character from the second set... which isn't true. There are people who are sucky at making characters just like there are min maxers.

What I was talking about was a player weighing several options. Even if they aren't good at making characters, they're not going to choose a set of feats that they think is worse than the preset Theme feats, unless they're being intentionally perverse.

There's no absolute measurement of how "good" a build is. Only the comparisons a player can make according to their own priorities.

 

[Ratskinner]

That all seems like an awful large amount of work all in an effort to "defeat" the optimizers and min-maxers.

Especially considering "defeating the optimizers and min-maxers" is a fool errand anyway.

I don't care so much about defeating them. I'd be happy if was just the case that non-optimizers didn't feel regularly outshone by someone putting minimal effort into the task. That is, if they're going to give me a game where min/maxing is possible that also has some easy-peasy choices available...just go ahead and make the easy-peasy choices min/maxed or close to it.

Of course, I'm also an advocate for themes which are "essential" style abilities rather than collections of feats.