D&D 5E Dealing with optimizers at the table

[overgeeked]

You forgot the spellcasting multiclassing rules.

Pact Magic. If you have both the Spellcasting class feature and the Pact Magic class feature from the warlock class, you can use the spell slots you gain from the Pact Magic feature to cast spells you know or have prepared from classes with the Spellcasting class feature, and you can use the spell slots you gain from the Spellcasting class feature to cast warlock spells you know.

It explicitly lets you use Pact Magic slots to cast non-Warlock spells, but nothing states you can use Pact Magic slots to fuel other non-Warlock class features.

Outside of Coffeelock, using Warlock slots to fuel non-Warlock class features doesn't cause a problem. With Coffeelock, it does.

So you read the rules strictly, and state "there is no rule stating that Warlock slots can be used to fuel non-Warlock class features", and the Coffeelock dies. All RAW.

Now, the common sense version of 5e multiclassing is "slots are slots are slots", but that isn't what the rules actually say.

You forgot the text of the sorcerer class feature in question: "Converting a Spell Slot to Sorcery Points. As a bonus action on your turn, you can expend one spell slot and gain a number ofsorcery points equal to the slot's level." Nothing there says you can't use non-sorcerer slots to fuel this feature.

Note that this a problem of characters obsessed with combat, not optimization.

No. There are two problems. One, they're obsessed with combat. Two, they're hard-core optimizers. Obsessed with combat I can generally handle. Optimizers who want to break the game, not so much.

But the optimization isn't the problem here.

Yes, it is.

If their PC where incompetent at combat and they still Leroy Jenkinsed every single situation, the problem remains basically the same.

And if they weren't obsessed with combat the problem of super-optimized characters would remain.

The option of "don't play with them" was presented.

The option of "use mechanical levers to fix optimization issue" was presented.

The option of "modify the game so they have fun as well" was presented.

Every option was shot down as something you don't want to do.

As stated in the OP, I've run through the possibilities.

Mechanical levers will utterly destroy the non-optimizers in combat. That's bad.

Modifying the game so the optimizers have fun will directly cause the destruction of the fun of the non-optimizers. Modifying the game so the non-optimizers have fun will directly cause the destruction of the fun of the optimizers. When my goal is for us all to have fun...

What more, you are using "optimizer" to include "a player who refuses to do anything but combat and is disruptive at the table when things don't go their way".

You appear to have 4 problems.

1. 2 players uninteresting in anything except combat.

You left out the real problem that they're optimizers.

2. Those players are disruptive when they don't get the combat they want.

3. Those players optimize their PCs to be good at combat.

No, they optimized their PCs to the point where combat trivial.

4. You don't feel any responsibility to do anything about any of the above.

Right. Which is why I'm here trying to get advice or at least some commiseration.

 

[iserith]

Give us an example of a combat where these two guys trivialized it.

I bet plenty of people here can tell you how to tweak it so that it challenges the optimizers without killing everyone else.

 

[overgeeked]

RAW is irrelevant though. The rules serve the DM, not the other way around.

I'm aware. I didn't say the guy actually played a coffeelock, I said he tried.

If the PCs are dead, they can't immerse themselves in heavy RP. Why isn't this seen as doing you a favor?

Because it makes combat trivial and drains all the tension of out it.

Nobody is saying these players aren't a problem, by the way. It's just that optimization isn't the real issue; rather it's their steadfast refusal to compromise.

It's both. Honestly.

You really can please everyone if you just design your game that way. The DMG offers ways on how to do this.

No, you can't. I have two optimizers whose sense of fun is diametrically opposed to the rest of the table. The two playstyles are literally incompatible. If it were low-key optimization, it would be fine.

 

[overgeeked]

People aren't saying that because you're wrong. Optimizing IS fine. It's just not a good fit for your table.

So coffeelocks are fine? Pun-pun is fine? Game-breaking optimization is fine?

One of the big agreed upon principles of this forum (earned through years of acrimony) is that no one's play style is inherently wrong; sometimes players, DMs, and systems simply don't mesh with each other. Your players aren't wrong for optimizing, they're wrong for not listening when you asked them to stop.

As I've repeatedly said, if it were low-key optimization, it would be fine. It's not low-key.

But if you're going to continue to insist that optimization is bad, prepare to continue to get a lot of pushback.

Optimization to this degree is disruptive. Being disruptive is bad. But somehow even disruptive optimization is good. Okay. But it sounds like a bit of war is peace.

I should have taken a longer break.

 

[auburn2]

It's two separate clerics, one Twilight, one Peace. You keep the party members in the Twilight Sanctuary bubble to give out temp HP to the whole party, and then you use the Peace ability to teleport and absorb damage so that the character that can best handle big chunks of damage is the one that takes it.

It's a good combo, but I think its overall utility is overstated. Having to stay in a 30' bubble would wipe a party in my encounters.

This is so true. This seems OP in a whiteroom, but not so much in actual play. To start with you need to use a reaction every time you teleport, meaning a character is only going to be able to do that once per turn. You are using channel divinity and another limited-use feature and you need two clerics to make it work. Then there is practical aspects - BBEG hits fighter, so wizard teleports to the front to take the damage. Now wizard is stuck in the front with BBEG and has no reaction to use.

Twilight Cleric is a powerful subclass in its own right, and Peace Cleric is an ok subclass. This combo, while having some practical uses is a very limiting corner capability.

 

[TwoSix]

So coffeelocks are fine? Pun-pun is fine? Game-breaking optimization is fine?

Coffeelocks are dumb. You can't have more spell slots or sorcery points than your max, ever. Easy rule to make, since 5e RAW is so ambiguous in general. Pun Pun is so in the realm of theorycraft it's not worth being concerned about. In general, if people "break the game", that's bad, and I encourage players not to do that.

As I've repeatedly said, if it were low-key optimization, it would be fine. It's not low-key.

We have no idea if it's low-key or not, because we have no examples. Some people think a barbarian using Reckless Attack and GWM is gamebreaking, while I'd consider that just a baseline level of smart play.

Being disruptive is bad. But somehow even disruptive optimization is good.

The first statement is true, the second is something no one has said.

 

[TwoSix]

This is so true. This seems OP in a whiteroom, but not so much in actual play. To start with you need to use a reaction every time you teleport, meaning a character is only going to be able to do that once per turn. You are using channel divinity and another limited-use feature and you need two clerics to make it work. Then there is practical aspects - BBEG hits fighter, so wizard teleports to the front to take the damage. Now wizard is stuck in the front with BBEG and has no reaction to use.

Twilight Cleric is a powerful subclass in its own right, and Peace Cleric is an ok subclass. This combo, while having some practical uses is a very limiting corner capability.

AoE is going to mess a grouped party up. A 10th level party should be running into spellcasting enemies pretty frequently.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I play with optimizers

Every game I’ve DM’d I’ve limited to phb races and classes

I allow multiclassing but it has to make sense for the character. Any other classes from other book are acceptable as long as there is a story reason for their characters to learn the skills that come with that class.

To be honest, the reason I do this is I don’t have time to read every new class from every book and know every spell and optional rule that exists. I’m too lazy to figure out if something is broken. If I limit the classes and races, I can research on a case by case basis.

 

[Marc_C]

Optimizers usually stop coming to my games once they realize I do a lot of non-combat and exploration encounters during my sessions. My dungeons are very short. They get bored, I guess, because they can't use their super-combat-combos often enough.

 

[dmhelp]

As far as I can tell, it kinda started in AD&D2E with kits, but gained momentum in the Skills & Powers era, then hit its stride with 3E and 4E.

Ad&d with 18/100 str (I rolled it when no one was around or I only got 18/92). Eventually add weapon spec from unearthed arcana.

The idea of Twilight and Peace was a big hit because they’d never worry about dying again.

Are they all of the clerics in the party? You could have an evil cult whose goal is to rid the world of all other gods. They perform a ritual that lasts 8 hours before battling with the adventurers. This ritual grants +4d6 necrotic damage to a neutral or good cleric once per turn with a weapon or spell attack, to all recipients of the ritual. Essentially those 2 party members are hunted and need to try and pretend they aren’t clerics or be prepared to ultra tactics defend themselves.