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lowkey13
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That assumes combat is balanced, but there's no guarantee that you'll ever get a fair fight...
...There is some benefit to specialization, at least some of the time...
From Gygax's AD&D PHB (pp 7, 104) and DMG (p 61):
The Dungeon Master will act the parts of "everyone else", and will present to you a variety of new characters to talk with, drink with, gamble with, adventure with, and often fight with! . . .
Combat occurs when communication and negotiation are undesired or unsuccessful. The clever character does not attack first and ask questions (of self or monster) later, but every adventure will be likely to have combat for him or her at some point. . . .
Combat is a common pursuit in the vast majority of adventures . . .
I don't think AD&D was presented as a game in which combat was to be avoided. And once the PCs reach 2nd or 3rd level and start to make their way out of single-digit hit points, the risks of death tend to drop somewhat.
I completely agree (and gave XP). I also noted that it's not all optimizers.
I'm pointing out that based on my anecdotal observations, there is a subgroup of optimizers that is most vocal about the "playing wrong," if you're not optimizing. I have my own personal theories as to why this is which may or may not be wrong-
1. Math! Optimization necessarily involves math, math is a certain thing, and you're finding the "best" solutions for a problem. To a certain mindset, this means that you are correct. You have solved a problem with the right solution.
2. Playstyle. Many (although not all) optimizers favor much more combat-oriented games, and combat is the most math-intensive part of D&D. As such, it's the most amenable to optimization.
3. "You're doing it wrong." Character creation, as it has become such a large part of D&D, creates a number of options (and resources on the web to help you through those options). Many optimizers, in good faith, attempt to choose the best options at all times, and cannot fathom why someone might choose character options that don't advance their own characters in ways that the optimizer believes would maximize that character's utility.
4. We're all geeks here. Let's face it- D&D is a relatively niche product, and the people that play it are idiosyncratic. People like to say that their way is best. And, yes, Kirk is the best.
That's not a reasonable assumption, though. I'm not sure if it actually says that anywhere, but there's no way that they could not expect you to put your ability boosts into your main stat as soon as possible. They certainly didn't balance anything around the assumption that a fighter would throw their +2 into Intelligence.I was referring to the suggested combat difficulty guidelines in the DMG, which assume only that you took the standard array and put the highest score (15) in your primary combat spot, giving you a +2. All other combat math in the game is based off of your proficiency bonus and does not assume raising that stat either through synergy with your race or spending ASIs on it.
Right, except the way that the game math works, the fighter making an INT save isn't going to perform any differently whether their score is 8 or 20, because that's just one save that they have to make and the variability in the die is a larger factor than your ability modifier.As to specialization, there is possibly some benefit here, until your fighter is facing a INT save or your Wizard a STR save and have to face the consequences of having a -1 in those saves.
Go back to D and D's original 3 brown books. Read them and look at the sample dungeons therein (like Blackmoor's). It's a miniatures game turned into an individual combat game (in fact, ranges are indicated in inches), with the purpose of killing/circumventing stuff and getting treasure. Look at lost of the modules put out for first decade. The role-playing aspect generally consisted of some background....then you go in the dungeon, beat the guardians with a club over the head (or a garrote to the neck in the dark), get their loot, and eventually have enough to go buy a castle and retainers.
...in my games.And unless your fighter has a sage background, you might see a total of six or seven Intelligence checks over the course of twenty levels.
I don't agree with this.
As far as I can tell, from posting on these boards, I am more inclined to "indie-style"/narrativist RPGing than the typical ENworld poster. As far as I know, I am the only regular poster who is also GMing a fairly regular BW game.
But in these sorts of threads, I generally find myself more sympathetic to the "optimisers". Because, like "indie" RPGers, optimisers recognise that action resolution, and hence the mechanics of PC building, are pretty central to RPGing. (Without mechanics it's either negotiation between players and GM over the content of the shared fiction, or GM fiat. I guess player fiat is a third alternative, but many ENworlders seem to be against that.)
I know I'm not a very good wargamer (I have friends who are, and they utterly clean my clock in those sorts of games). But I appreciate the wargamer's or optimiser's eye for the difference that mechanics make.
I'll go back to the example of Rufus. That character would be viable in BW. That he is presented as an obvious example of deliberate sabotage tells us something about D&D, and it's focus as a game. For instance, in D&D overcoming challenges is taken to be quite important. In BW, the mechanics of the game make it much more important to confront challenges than to overcome them. That mechanical difference makes a big difference to the tone and content of the RPGing that results. It makes a difference to the ways in which players can shape the shared fiction.
Once you recognise that, in D&D, overcoming challenges is where it's at, you've already set a floor. Rufus is out. I'm happy to accept it as true that, in 5e, "merely competent" characters are good enough (or, to put it another way, that the marginal increase in success rates resulting from "optimisation" is not noticeable at the typical table running the typical 5e adventure); but look at the amount of design and development work that WotC had to put in to achieve this! Even with the learning of 40 years of D&D design, it still took them a two-year playtest.
If the OP sets the floor a bit higher, well, who are we other D&D players to judge?
Go back to D and D's original 3 brown books. Read them and look at the sample dungeons therein (like Blackmoor's). It's a miniatures game turned into an individual combat game (in fact, ranges are indicated in inches), with the purpose of killing/circumventing stuff and getting treasure. Look at lost of the modules put out for first decade. The role-playing aspect generally consisted of some background....then you go in the dungeon, beat the guardians with a club over the head (or a garrote to the neck in the dark), get their loot, and eventually have enough to go buy a castle and retainers.
Unless you're playing an "Against the Illithids" campaign, or your DM makes you roll an Intelligence check to remember where you parked your horse....in my games.