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

[tetrasodium]

Given things you've said in previous posts, I'm not surprised that you don't agree with the video.

I personally wouldn't call it Stormwind Fallacy because she's not saying that optimizing a character diminishes your roleplay--just that a non-optimized character can be fun if you're at a table with people who are okay with that. Or, to put it another way, that not prioritizing optimization opens up some fresh areas to explore.

Anyway, I'm not saying it's the only or "best" way to play, just posting it to represent one more take on the OP's question.

Listen to the details she drops about the character. A warlock with low charisma, no eldritch blast, and "crappy spells" is not unoptimizesed, its sugar in the gas tank alongside a full throated endorsement of the purity and greatness of running your sportscar on a gin& vermouth blend because everyone agrees to martinis and isn't complaining about helping you change out the engine session after session.

I've seen sorlocks who didn't take eldritch blast that were fine, but the key there was that they didn't also have low charisma "crappy spells" and levels in druid for flavor.

In my earlier post I talked about my Savage Worlds game where most of the party is optimized except for one player. It got me thinking about the reverse case -- when only one member of the party is highly optimized and the rest are not. This is what I call the "Diana Ross & the Supremes" or "Gladys Knight & the Pips" syndrome. Usually the optimized player winds up being the star of the show and the rest turn into sidekicks.

And yes, I can think of some games where I was a "supreme" as "Diana Ross" did all the talking for the party and took out half the enemies all by herself.

It can work the other way around where bob is leagues ahead but is a class like 3.5 god wizard or to a lesser degree codzilla who plays it cool until there is a need to open a can of incredible and save the group from disaster. That however requires a system where force multiplier type builds can really multiply things and failure can be seen further ahead than 5e's razor edge between meh whatever/"oops FINISH HIM". A highly optimized force multiplier is a dream because they are at their best when they turn the spotlight into a supernova for everyone to back in & the gm can rig things a bit to shift more narrowed elevated spotlight around as needed rather than just bob the barbarian always having the haste or rob the rogue always getting commander's strike. There is probably some sports or acting/directing/warfare analogy where someone pulled together a bunch of awesome people and was able to squeeze 200% out of each without anyone giving more than the usual effort

 

[jayoungr]

A warlock with low charisma, no eldritch blast, and "crappy spells" is not unoptimizesed, its sugar in the gas tank alongside a full throated endorsement of the purity and greatness of running your sportscar on a gin& vermouth blend because everyone agrees to martinis and isn't complaining about helping you change out the engine session after session.

But it nowhere says or implies that optimizing makes your roleplaying worse. That's the Stormwind Fallacy.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

But it nowhere says that optimizing a character makes your roleplaying worse. That's the Stormwind Fallacy.

It’s just not true.

that said, I think adding some off center colorful choices with the purely effective ones can be fun.

things like magic initiate for example don’t figure prominently into most “builds” but I like what it brings when appropriate.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Listen to the details she drops about the character. A warlock with low charisma, no eldritch blast, and "crappy spells" is not unoptimizesed, its sugar in the gas tank alongside a full throated endorsement of the purity and greatness of running your sportscar on a gin& vermouth blend because everyone agrees to martinis and isn't complaining about helping you change out the engine session after session.

I've seen sorlocks who didn't take eldritch blast that were fine, but the key there was that they didn't also have low charisma "crappy spells" and levels in druid for flavor.


It can work the other way around where bob is leagues ahead but is a class like 3.5 god wizard or to a lesser degree codzilla who plays it cool until there is a need to open a can of incredible and save the group from disaster. That however requires a system where force multiplier type builds can really multiply things and failure can be seen further ahead than 5e's razor edge between meh whatever/"oops FINISH HIM". A highly optimized force multiplier is a dream because they are at their best when they turn the spotlight into a supernova for everyone to back in & the gm can rig things a bit to shift more narrowed elevated spotlight around as needed rather than just bob the barbato always having the haste or rob the rogue always getting commander's strike. There is probably some sports or acting/directing/warfare analogy where someone pulled together a bunch of awesome people and was able to squeeze 200% out of each without anyone giving more than the usual effort

This is true but perhaps they are running with a 14-16 chr and not an old 18-20 when they can.

or perhaps some flavorful invocations that don’t just rev up eb. Heck take a blade pact and buff him up as much as you can without multiclassing.

Sabotage to the point of sucking is it’s own thing. And I assumed most were not even doing that! I would probably be sadly surprised.

I was thinking more like taking 1 killer feat instead of 2 or not doing some super combo with encounter wrecking potentials but still being reasonable.

how much different is capable ans absurdly good?

 

[tetrasodium]

But it nowhere says that optimizing a character makes your roleplaying worse. That's the Stormwind Fallacy.

It goes all in on how that worse character allows better roleplay however. Stormwind is implied as a result

 

[jayoungr]

It goes all in on how that worse character allows better roleplay however.

Nah, not better, just opening up different options that aren't available when you optimize. But I won't press the point.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

My problem with this thread...

What is "Optimized"?
What is a "low stat"?
What is "sucking"?

In regards to 5e, this would be my interpretations:

Optimized: Scoured through all the source books and options available looking for the most +'s and looking for ways to try and "interpret in a blatantly not-intended way" (e.g., trying to use the english language as 'RAW' and falling back on "But it doesn't say I can't do this...").

Low Stat: Anything with a -2 or worse.

Sucking: You need to constantly roll a 15+ for almost anything you do...and some things that a commoner can do you specifically can't because of flaws/hinderances/choices.

From reading what I have read in this thread... I get the impression that "Optimized" means focusing on one specific "trick" that lets you "win in any situation"...somehow. (e.g., "I suck at everything, but I get an extra attack at +9th and +1d6+8 damage"... and when they can't convince a guard to let them go, they just attack; or they can't pick a lock, so they just attack the door; or they can't get passage on a ship, so they just attack a fisherman and take his boat; or they can't pay for their week's stay in an inn and try and walk out, get stopped, and attack because 'they were assaulted and feared for their life'; etc...etc). ... I also feel that "low stat" means anything lower than +2 as a bonus...and that "sucking" means you aren't the character that THEY would have made.

I disagree as much as I agree with Genny (the video girl posted above)...half the time I think "Huh, yup. Never thought of it like that", and the other half of the time I think "WTF girl?! Are you daft?!". If she and her group are cool with this style of play...go for it. The problem often, IME, doesn't come from someone "not optimizing at the table", but from the person or persons who DO "optimize at the table". I have encountered what she stated she is; she has an unoptimized character, and the only people upset with her choice are the "optimizers". The 'regular' gamers don't care, for the most part. These "optimizers" remind me of Cal from the movie "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising"

...{{{SPOILERSS!!!!}}}...

who absolutely looses it when the new girl in the group (his ex) has an un-optimized/expected Fighter and uses a Wish on an NPC.

For me, the bottom line is this: Are you having fun? If so, keep going. Because if you are having fun but several of the other players are annoyed and not having fun because "you suck as a [class]"...chances are that you will NOT be having fun in the very near future. This results in them learning to accept it, or you leaving the group because of playstyle differences. Either way, problem solved.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Amrûnril]

It was was painful to watch that strmwind fallacy endorsement in ways that hurt my soul. "My dm & fellow players have no problem with how I've built [this character]". Earlier in the video she herself described it as a warlock without eldritch blast and "crappy spells". Humans are generally cooperative & agreeable to the point that agreeableness even has a scale in psychology. As the video goes on she talks about a low charisma on said warlock & other deliberate choices that force the rest of the party to carry her deliberately craptimized character as Ogre Mage described earlier. It's not even till the very end after talking up how great this spotlight hog dead weight craptimized character will be for the story everyone will be forced into enabling so they can stop carrying it even slightly & get it over with so they can maybe try doing some of the things they wanted to do that didn't involve carrying a craptimized party member.

Maybe she went around to her dm/fellow players and asked them before starting with this character & made it clear just how unbelievably bad this character would be on a mechanical level & just how much plot/story time it would need before it "makes sense" to do things like not have poor charisma on a warlock. In my experience however it's the other way around & "I'm a roleplayer not rollplayer roleplaying my character" type excuses get used to bludgeon the slightest whiff of frustration from others

I'm not sure why you're so convinced a character who's mechanically weaker in combat is a burden for the rest of the party. If the DM adjusts encounter difficulty to suit the party (as most do, according to this thread), then you're not actually ending up at any sort of disadvantage compared to where you'd be if everyone played "effective" characters.

Maybe you'd feel burdened by such a character anyway, and you're certainly entitled to that opinion. But there's no reason to project it onto players you've never met. I suppose Ginny's party members could secretly feel resentful about her character, but doesn't it seem more likely that she simply plays with a group that shares her attitudes towards character creation?

Finally, I'll add that if not taking one specific cantrip and not prioritizing one specific ability score are evidence of a "craptimized" character, it seems to me like the primary issue lies with the game's balance, not the choices a given player is making.

 

[Blue]

I'm not sure why you're so convinced a character who's mechanically weaker in combat is a burden for the rest of the party. If the DM adjusts encounter difficulty to suit the party (as most do, according to this thread), then you're not actually ending up at any sort of disadvantage compared to where you'd be if everyone played "effective" characters.

That's not quite how I read the thread you are posting. Only a few comments talk about mixed power parties, and none of those that address them are positive.

Maybe you'd feel burdened by such a character anyway, and you're certainly entitled to that opinion. But there's no reason to project it onto players you've never met. I suppose Ginny's party members could secretly feel resentful about her character, but doesn't it seem more likely that she simply plays with a group that shares her attitudes towards character creation?

As a DM it is much harder for me to consistently balance challenges for every scene when one member of the party is significantly more or less powerful than the the rest.

 

[tomBitonti]

Hmm, I‘m considering some confounding issues.

These are from 3/3.5E.

Feats that added background to a character (my character grew up on a fishing boat; he has skill focus swimming), which take away combat focused feats. The consequence is that effectiveness and background are mutually exclusive. I think this is a system design fault.

Feats that are very different in power. Toughness vs Improved Toughness. More design failure (I am blaming System Mastery, which I think is a terrible thing to build in.). But, this was also caused by power creep, for example, many of the reserve feats from the complete books.

Broken game elements .. for example, basing the save DC against a power on a skill check of the power user. Not just a design flaw, but one egregiously contrary to the core system design, and terribly easy to abuse.

No gaming system will be perfect. I have had many hours of enjoyment with 3/3.5E. But it seemed especially built to have power gaming/extreme optimization problems.

Thanks!
TomB