No. Simply no. What I'm saying is that sometimes you are not even aware of what you are doing. It happens to me all the time. I can't count the number of times when I was sort of dissatisfied with something in a game or another, without being able to point out what the problem was. In some cases, it was external, in others it was with me (for example for disengaging from remote games for one reason or another and then just feeling dissatisfied with it, which was very easily solved by making sure I was engaged, taking notes, writing summaries, etc.).
"you might not be aware you are doing it" is not the same as "be honest with yourself". It also assumes I am not self-reflective enough to realize why I do the things I do. Either way, this you telling me that you know me better than I know myself.
My apologies if you took it this way, it was certainly not the intent, believe it or not. I am certainly not calling you a liar.
I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you have to understand that the way you have been posting has consistently implied that everyone who is disagreeing with you, or who has put forth examples is lying and trying to deceive you, because we are reallly all powergamers who want the most technically powerful things for all the wrong reasons.
Oh, stop that, everyone is dishonest with themselves more or less continuously.
Which is why I have taken great pains to self-reflect and try and catch myself when I do so. Which is why you, who do not know me, is constantly telling me that I have no idea what I am really thinking or feeling is very frustrating.
No, sorry, it's not the way it's presented. If it's a choice at a level that oyu just obtained, then just ask your DM what the ruling is, where is the difficulty in that ? Asking a DM, at the start of the campaign, what al lhis rulings will be so that you can build a progression over the next 20 levels is powergaming, undeniably.
You understand how people work right? The entire point of the post was that people will ask this question, and then there will be disagreement. Maybe the player did ask when they leveled up, and the DM went "hmm, this is unclear, let me check with the internet so I don't make the wrong call" (yes, I know that whatever ruling they make is the "right call" for their table, but people like validation and often ask others to confirm their decisions are correct, especially in a complex ruleset) and then the discussion starts online.
Or maybe they ask at level 1, because they know they want to take armorer, and they don't get a new cantrip until level 10, so they want to make sure that the cantrip they take now will be usuable at level 3 when they are going to have this unclear interaction.
The problem is, you can't read minds. You have no idea what their "real intent" is. Some people just like planning ahead. I've met people with sticky note boards who are planning out their next year in advance. I think those people are crazy, but since they exist it is easy to imagine a player might take five minutes to plan out their choices for the next few levels.
I would tell him for a local situation in general, but again this is not what we are discussing here, we were on the "the DM must divulge in advance of the campaign all the rules he is going to use", which is just ridiculous
Every single rule, even the ones he hasn't come up with? Clearly ridiculous. A lot of them so we get an idea of how they will likely handle situations? No, it isn't ridiculous, it is making sure that the expectations match and everyone is on the same page.
Although, thinking about the case above, I would probably give a rough idea as to whether it was easy, dangerous or suicidal, but I would not give precise numbers. And I would not wait for hours for the players to decide and minmax all options. And I would certainly not explore all hypothetical situations with players so that they can decide on a build or another.
And if he asks at a specific point during his character development, it's fine. But if it's to create a 20-level build, no. It's not the point of the game as I see it.
And no one is talking about hours of minmaxing or dozens of hypotheticals. But, you know, if a player chooses a Thief Rogue because they want to use their Fast Hands ability to throw Alchemist Fire, and the DM is going to rule that Alchemist Fire takes an attack action and Fast Hands doesn't allow for that, then that is a pretty fundamental part of their character that just got changed. Maybe enough that they want to play a different character now, because the only reason they went with Thief was to throw alchemist fire.
And right now, you are just going to accuse them of being a "powergamer" because you think they are only thinking about the power of the ability, but they are thinking about the story of a guy throwing bombs all over the battlefield. You can keep judging people by what you think their intent is, but I don't think you are going to get very far with that.
And it's a DM's right to keep some information hidden, and to leave his options open. Just as an example, it might be that, at some point in time, the campaign will shift to another plane with other physics. Maybe some spells will not function, or function differently. Should he inform the players in advance so that they can plan for this at build time ? No, it's just ridiculous.
And no one is suggesting this, though it might be fair to allow an arcana check to figure this out once the player's end up there, if this is a known plane of existence. And I certainly would be very cautious about doing this in the first place, because there is no way for the player's to make meaningful decisions in the story if they have no idea what is going on. Perhaps a short rest spent studying the effects of the plane on their magic to get an idea of the changes they are facing?
But, before the game starts? Obviously not. Though, I will also point out that I wonder about the point of homebrewing a plane of existence specifically to mess up certain spells the players are using. It is often a bit heavy-handed I've found.
At level 1, when a character has never cast a fireball in his life and will not for several years, why would he know what happens if it turns to frost ? After that, maybe, during the adventures, he can research that. But until there is in character reason for having that knowledge, why would the player possess it ? The ONLY reason that a player might insist on that is because he is afraid for his precious power curve.
What about at level 4 when they take the feat and they are one level away from learning fireball? Is there still no reason they would know what happens if they cast a spell they are studying using an effect they know? Maybe the player is asking you early just because they know they are planning on taking the feat to be Elsa and they are curious about how you are going to handle things. Maybe they want to catch everything on the ground on fire, because they like the idea of their spell being shunting all the heat out of an area and into the ground.
You keep judging that their only intent and their only concern is power. With zero evidence other than "you know their type"
And this is where the selfishness of the powergamer shows itself. He does not care about the campaign and what will happen there. He does not care about the circumstances, the NPCs encountered, the situations, and especially he does not care about the other players, what they will do, etc. He only cares about guaranteeing his own personal power curve throughout the levels.
Seeing this, it almost makes we want to allow all powergaming options so that a powergamer imagines his best dream come true, and then create a cataclysm on the campaign world that completely changes simple basic rules of magic and screws up everything. Most players would adapt, change their tack, and consider it a challenge, make it part of their story, etc. But the powergamer would just be lost without his precious build and his early level options all chosen in preparation for a future that would never happen.
Of course, I would never do this, as I respect my players too much for it, but honestly, it's all that this behaviour deserves. Just FYI, in our campaigns, were we all love Planescape, changes of context happen all the time, magic works or not, some school are dangerous or skewed, etc. The players adapt at the time, find solutions, live the story about these difficulties. The sorceress sent into Avernus finds a solution for her fire magic in the game, not only in a rulebook for optimising purposes.
And I'm glad she had fun, but you know if a person's story is they want to play a pyro who uses fire, and then you make all fire magic worthless, you've pretty well slaughtered the story they want to play. Sure, in real life when your plans are upended and ruined and everything changes, you have no choice but to adapt, but in a game the player would have been more than happy to play something else, and then let their pyro character shine in a different game. That isn't powergaming, that is just avoiding unneeded frustrations.
And this is why people also keep getting annoyed at you. You really think that people who are powergamers care for nothing but personal power, yet you have at least one poster on here who is a proud power-gamer and they powergame for GROUP power. And then you accuse other people of being powergamers because we want to be in-line with the curve, and therefore by association we are selfish jerks who don't care whose fun we ruin as long as imaginary numbers get bigger.
And also FYI, no, I don't know at the start of the campaign all the rulings I'll make (it's an absolutely ridiculous demand to make),
Which is why no one is making it. What we are acknowleding is that there are certain points of the rules that are heavily debated. And, the players who know this, often ask the DM how they fall on those rules. Not to selfishly destroy the game, or because they are obsessed with power, but because they figure it is likely to come up and they'd rather ask before the game rather than have to interrupt the game to ask you then. They may be trying to be considerate, and instead you will accuse them of being selfish.
and I don't even know all the circumstances of the campaign, because I run sandboxes where the players can go almost where they want in the multiverse to solve what they want to solve. For example, in Avernus, they've had the opportunity to go to other planes of Hell, a PC Bhaalspawn want to go to Gehenna and Hades, they had the opportunity to take the Infinite Staircase and took it, and now want to go to Sigil, they have a side intrigue with a rakshasa prince that might take them to a Domain of Dread, etc. In each of these cases, the circumstances will be different and the answers to "what happens to a cold fireball?" might be different in Caina and on Avernus. I don't want to gimp myself and our collective imagination just for the sake of the POWER of one powergaming PC.
Then don't. An easy "this is the standard way, but different planes have different rules" is likely sufficient. And, if they know planar travel is going to be a big thing, then they can study the planes and have a reason to know things like how the different planes affect magic. This isn't about "gimping" collective imagination, it is about trying to figure out what the collective imagination is, because people have different views.
And what I certainly don't want is to have him whinge every step of the way because his masterful plan to be more powerful is gimped at every turn because of local rulings.
Especially since, FYI, I almost never refuse a backtrack on a character's choice, even from 10 levels ago. There are two notable exceptions, one is if the choice was iconic for the character, is part of his history and is well known by the party and the adversary, i.e. a kind of signature move or spell. And the other one is obviously refusing backtracks made for pure powergaming purposes, like suddenly needing a choice that could have been made at a low level but was not taken because it ws not optimal at levels 1-10 but suddenly becomes really powerful because of a synergy at level 11.
And what if they are getting rid of something they haven't used for six levels? Are they not allowed to pick a good option because now that option is good when before it wasn't? When they retrain abilities are they supposed to analyze every option and then pick the one that doesn't increase their power, or are they expected to just pick what they want?
Because there is a difference between someone who plans to retrain from level 1, and someone who is retraining, and looking at the options as they currently stand.
But for some reasons, my players never do this, they trust me to make sure that they have fun, whether their character is technically optimised or not. And if a character is lagging behind and a player is obviously not having as much fun, you can be sure that will be discussed and that steps will be taken.
And just the same if a character is hogging the spotlight all the time (technically or not), there will be a discussion about it, maybe followed by some action, because it's not a normal situation around a table.
And I can guarantee that if some rulings are made at that time to adjust the extremely complex dynamic of a party, individual characters and a varied environment, they will not have been obvious during session 0.
And if those rulings are made after a group discussion and with the group understanding why they were made, then there is no problem.
We aren't talking about locking you in Amber, never to move from strict rules, from session zero. We are talking about people are expecting a situation to come up, and are asking ahead of time, so you don't have to make a split-second decision in the heat of the moment. Heck, I'd love for players to come to me like this, because it gives me time to look it over, check and make sure I'm not missing something that will cause problems, and give them a single clear answer, instead of having to do it at the table, tell them I might change it, then go and scramble to look at the various rules to make sure I have an answer by next session.
And here we are, the simple proof, it's for combo. Guess what, I don't care about technical combos.
Proof of what? You are saying the only reason for this is powergaming for MOAR POWER. I'm just pointing out that from what I know of optimizing and powergaming, it actually is considered a bad choice to do. It's like saying someone only cares about horsepower when they are asking for the specs on a Tesla. They might not, and a person who DOES only care about horsepower is probably not looking at this car anyways.
Yes, especially for a value of 1 sp, I can see how important that is compared to a whole campaign.
I'm being sarcastic man. You are jumping on every single thing as though the player is screaming in your face at session 0 to demand you bow before their build. Instead, there might be a dozen different reasons for their choices and/or questions.
Personally? I ignore the material component cost of spells like Booming Blade. I find the idea of a Booming Blade cast by smashing a bottle of beer over someone's head hilarious. Other people would tell me that the only reason I could possibly have for making that change is to powergame by... doing something. I literally don't know what, but I'm sure someone will accuse me of it.
Oh yes, because any DM not able to make in advance all the rulings that will be needed for a campaign is so stupid that he will change things on a whim and have less memory than a fish in its bowl. What a convincing argument.
It has literally happened to me. The DM made a ruling on my Rogue's Fast Hands ability, then later they changed it because they forgot the original ruling. Then I ended up asking again later on because I knew they had changed it and neither one of us could remember which way she had changed it.
It isn't about being stupid, it is about information overload. And when you have a game that can go months without combat (we are doing a play-by-post) then it becomes really easy to forget. Heck, I've forgotten the names of NPCs and even the name of the villain. Sometimes people forget things, especially when they have to make it up on the fly instead of when there is a consensus and discussion at the start.
