D&D 5E How does “optimization” change the game?

[overgeeked]

Pointless.

 

[Umbran]

Don't deny it, you've said it in both posts.

I will deny it for them. Do not mistake a generalization for an absolute statement. When you make such an error, and aggressively press like this, you are setting up for a complete failure to be constructive.

So, slow your roll. Breathe a bit, please and thanks.

 

[Steampunkette]

You are tarring all optimizers with the same brush, with obsolete thinking that playing the character build minigame off-table requires a specific approach in game. Don't deny it, you've said it in both posts.

You are the one saying that optimizers play only one way - they always try to turn things into what they are good at - and that is not "fact". That may be your anecdotal experience, but trying to pretend it's a universal fact is trivially shown not to be true. And then you are muddying the issue with throwing in "evidence" that a horndog bard - an RP descision without a way in 5e to optimize for - is the fault of an optimizer.

Sorry, for all of your offended language you are the one with a strawman that all optimizers play the same way.

Wow... Yeah... no. Just no, Blue. You don't get to tell me what I think or what I mean. NO ONE gets to tell me what I'm "Really" saying.

If you don't understand, that's on you. Don't assign motivation or greater intention than is presented.

Again, I never said "Optimizers Play Only One Way". That is -your- Strawman. I'm saying that people who build their character up for a specific purpose, whether Seducing Everything or Optimizing for Combat, are going to narrow the game by looking for opportunities to do what they've made their character good at.

No freaking CLUE how you took the Horny Bard as the "Fault" of Optimizers. I have a feeling you're not reading my posts in good faith. Could be wrong, though. Lemme try -one- more time.

If a player creates a Noble Diplomat, whose whole schtick is talking their way out of situations rather than fighting, they're -going- to try and talk their way out of every situation they can rather than fight. 'Cause that's what they made their character to do.

If a player creates an Optimized Killbot, whose whole schtick is killing everything in their path with awesome efficiency, they're -going- to try and fight whenever possible. 'Cause that's what they made their character to do.

If a player creates a Skill Monkey, whose whole schtick is overcoming every encounter by bypassing it through skill checks around stealth and thiefliness, they're -going- to try and roll those skill checks whenever possible. 'Cause that's what they made their character to do.

If a player creates a Seductive Bard, whose whole schtick is fading to black on every monster, noble, guard, and object in their path, they're -going- to try and seduce your NPCs whenever possible. 'Cause that's what they made their character to do.

This is not "All Optomizers are Murder Hobos!" or "All Roleplayers are Pacifist Tree Huggers" or "All Rogues are Cowards" or "All Bards are Horndogs!".

This is "People create the character they want to play, and play to whatever strengths they've created for their character."

And people will get REALLY BORED if what they -want- to do isn't front and center a reasonably amount of the time. With "Reasonable" being incredibly variable and determined entirely by the player in question. Try putting a player who put together a DPR Optimized character into a game with minimal opportunities for Combat and a whole lot of RP and you're liable to frustrate that player.

Thanks, @Umbran, for the support. But they're not just turning generalization into Absolute. Blue is actively putting words into my mouth. And I cannot abide that. Never have been able to. Never will be able to. It's an ugly, deceitful, and aggravating tactic that I do not appreciate.

 

[Umbran]

Thanks, @Umbran, for the support. But they're not just turning generalization into Absolute. Blue is actively putting words into my mouth. And I cannot abide that. Never have been able to. Never will be able to. It's an ugly, deceitful, and aggravating tactic that I do not appreciate.

So, it looks to me like he ends up putting words in your mouth because he made the generalization into an absolute strawman. Having done that, the ball rolls downhill into the ditch - and that's exactly what I meant when talking about a failure to constructively communicate.

 

[Steampunkette]

So, it looks to me like he ends up putting words in your mouth because he made the generalization into an absolute strawman. Having done that, the ball rolls downhill into the ditch - and that's exactly what I meant when talking about a failure to constructively communicate.

Fair.

Still boggled by the idea I'm blaming Optimizers for Horny Bards existing. That's just... the most radical interpretation of the text available.

 

[Steampunkette]

Lemme give a REALLY SIMPLE allegorical example. Wolverine of Marvel Comics.

Wolverine, Logan, Patch, James Howlett, whatever you wanna call him, is an EXPERT fighter. He's been fighting with knives, swords, bayonets, guns, bare knuckles, bone claws, adamantine claws, and every other weapon you've ever heard of for literal centuries. That's not an exaggeration he's been around for -centuries- and constantly winds up in wars and street brawls and Japanese Sword Duels 'cause the man is written to have no chill.

So why, for the love of -god-, does he ALLOW himself to constantly get shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, and mutilated? Why does the guy with a metal skeleton fling himself metal-fists first toward the guy who can manipulate any kind of metal? Why doesn't he -dodge- or -take cover- or just not fastball special his tiny metal booty toward Magneto?

Because of his Regeneration, right? Sure.

Except it still hurts. It still hurts enough and does enough damage, however temporarily, that he can be -disabled- for a few minutes, captured, contained, and moved around. It still hurts enough and does enough damage that people see him get shot in the head, collapse, and think he's dead.

It still hurts enough that he stops what he's doing to throw his head back and let out a manly screaming roar of pain.

WHY DOES HE LET THE SHOTS LAND IF IT HURTS?!

Because he has Regeneration and the WRITERS and ARTISTS want to show off his power.

If there were -any- real world soldier with that kind of superpower in a world where freaking LASER RIFLES and SUPER ARMOR exist there is 0 reason they'd run around in a spandex leotard knife-punching their enemies as their first course of action while making no effort whatsoever to avoid injury.

Yeah, you can regenerate. You can still get hurt so badly you can't fight for a while, and also EXPERIENCE PAIN.

But the writers ignore all that. Instead he doesn't dodge and just gets shot. Instead he throws his head back in pain and rage. Instead he gets the Adamantium ripped out of his body by Magneto 'cause he's got the tactical acumen of a vanilla wafer.

Because otherwise they couldn't show off his Superpower.

If you've got Wolverine in a comic you can rest assured he's gonna get stabbed, slashed, shot, punched, magnetically torn apart, nuked, or otherwise seriously injured just so he can walk it off. Are there comics where he doesn't? Oh, absolutely. There's comics where he's just there to talk or has a cameo or whatever. But the vast majority of his appearance in comics involves Snikt and Screaming.

'Cause he's the best at what he does, Bub.

Bleeding.

Apply that understanding to D&D players. 'Cause we're also all Writers and Artists who create characters to be good at things and want to do the things we make our characters good at.

 

[NaturalZero]

People always come to these kind of discussions with loaded definitions of "optimizer" that vary from everyone else in the discussion. You'll have 10 people arguing past each other from 10 different versions of "optimization."

I cut my teeth on 3.5 when it came out and it was designed out of the gate with "timmy" choices and optimal choices. It was a powergamer's game, by design. Optimization could completely skew a campaign because one character could literally do 100x the damage of another character of the same level, while having better AC, spells, et al. I loved creating gods, but I eventually grew tired of tables where PCs in the same party were essentially Superman along side of Aunt May. Extreme optimization differential hurts the game.

That said, in my 20 years of experience and countless groups, I would say that optimizers are generally at least as invested in roleplay and world-building as non-optimizers. They put effort into optimization because they care about the game and the character, and the fact that they're invested in the game and character means they're more likely to write a long background or have a plot hook than a casual player. When i get someone who's an optimizer at my table, I know that I'm more likely to have someone that's invested in the game at large and be a collaborator.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Wow... Yeah... no. Just no, Blue. You don't get to tell me what I think or what I mean. NO ONE gets to tell me what I'm "Really" saying.

If you don't understand, that's on you. Don't assign motivation or greater intention than is presented.

Again, I never said "Optimizers Play Only One Way". That is -your- Strawman. I'm saying that people who build their character up for a specific purpose, whether Seducing Everything or Optimizing for Combat, are going to narrow the game by looking for opportunities to do what they've made their character good at.

No freaking CLUE how you took the Horny Bard as the "Fault" of Optimizers. I have a feeling you're not reading my posts in good faith. Could be wrong, though. Lemme try -one- more time.

If a player creates a Noble Diplomat, whose whole schtick is talking their way out of situations rather than fighting, they're -going- to try and talk their way out of every situation they can rather than fight. 'Cause that's what they made their character to do.

If a player creates an Optimized Killbot, whose whole schtick is killing everything in their path with awesome efficiency, they're -going- to try and fight whenever possible. 'Cause that's what they made their character to do.

If a player creates a Skill Monkey, whose whole schtick is overcoming every encounter by bypassing it through skill checks around stealth and thiefliness, they're -going- to try and roll those skill checks whenever possible. 'Cause that's what they made their character to do.

If a player creates a Seductive Bard, whose whole schtick is fading to black on every monster, noble, guard, and object in their path, they're -going- to try and seduce your NPCs whenever possible. 'Cause that's what they made their character to do.

This is not "All Optomizers are Murder Hobos!" or "All Roleplayers are Pacifist Tree Huggers" or "All Rogues are Cowards" or "All Bards are Horndogs!".

This is "People create the character they want to play, and play to whatever strengths they've created for their character."

And people will get REALLY BORED if what they -want- to do isn't front and center a reasonably amount of the time. With "Reasonable" being incredibly variable and determined entirely by the player in question. Try putting a player who put together a DPR Optimized character into a game with minimal opportunities for Combat and a whole lot of RP and you're liable to frustrate that player.

Thanks, @Umbran, for the support. But they're not just turning generalization into Absolute. Blue is actively putting words into my mouth. And I cannot abide that. Never have been able to. Never will be able to. It's an ugly, deceitful, and aggravating tactic that I do not appreciate.

So in other words you hate gnomes.

Gnome-hater.

 

[Stormonu]

I don't think anything changes one way or another. The level of challenge is 100% up to the DM.

Not 100%. What the players do on their side has nearly as much influence as what the DM does. Folks on both side of the screen can choose to build and interact with the game in ways that can dramatically alter the course of the game.

The game does well when pretty much everyone is in sync with what they want out of the game. Conversely, I've seen games fall apart when the players want a high-RP game with little combat and the DM is bound and determined to instead make the players fight everything and those enemies are 4+ CRs above the party to boot, and the reverse. And just about everything in-between, including the hilarity of a player who builds a one-trick pony ...and then doesn't know how to use it, and the player who can charm the socks off a DM to get just about any result they want, damn the dice.

PS, As for "high AC" characters being a problem - two easy solutions. Abilities that use saves, and Heat Metal.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Wolverine, Logan, Patch, James Howlett, whatever you wanna call him, is an EXPERT fighter. He's been fighting with knives, swords, bayonets, guns, bare knuckles, bone claws, adamantine claws, and every other weapon you've ever heard of for literal centuries. That's not an exaggeration he's been around for -centuries- and constantly winds up in wars and street brawls and Japanese Sword Duels 'cause the man is written to have no chill.

whoah...really?

I must be way behind on my Wolverine lore because I didn't know half that stuff.

By the way...X-Men #205: best Wolverine story EVER.