D&D 5E A simple questions for Power Gamers, Optimizers, and Min-Maxers.

[smbakeresq]

Yes, its called role-playing and playing to your character YOU created. Your DM has to also control your knowledge as compared to character knowledge. How do you justify a 70 IQ character coming up with brilliant plans? The PC is the one contributes, not the player. The player has to play through his character.

When a play any character in any published adventure I have almost always read the whole adventure, I read them right when the come out. So I have to watch what I say unless its a complete home brew. In addition, I have played every edition of this game, so my monster knowledge skill check roll is always about 35, but my character doesn't know what I know.

Its not playing sub-optimally. Its playing by the parameters that were created. If a player has a 10 strength would let him play as if he 20 strength? No, and mental abilities are the same way.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

There's Charisma, for one. Most people would consider it bad form if you play your Charisma 4 half-orc barbarian as a smooth-talking con man, even if you accept the -3 to checks.

When it comes to Intelligence (or Wisdom), most of the traits associated with the stat aren't even things you would roll for, so you can get away with behavior that's even more out-of-line than that. The mechanical deficiencies are insufficient to describe the in-game reality associated with what those stats mean.

I see what you are saying but I suppose I just approach D&D from a more gamist point of view.

y brother can be that way when he plays his PC in our side game. He just doesn't help at all at the table as a player since he says his guy is too stupid. So for the most part he is a hindrance at the table and we have to play around him. Maybe its part of the argument about long term players using their knowledge and skill to deal with things like trolls without assuming they have to try a bunch of stuff they know will not work before finally saying OK we can use fire now.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Yes, its called role-playing and playing to your character YOU created. Your DM has to also control your knowledge as compared to character knowledge. How do you justify a 70 IQ character coming up with brilliant plans? The PC is the one contributes, not the player. The player has to play through his character.

When a play any character in any published adventure I have almost always read the whole adventure, I read them right when the come out. So I have to watch what I say unless its a complete home brew. In addition, I have played every edition of this game, so my monster knowledge skill check roll is always about 35, but my character doesn't know what I know.

Its not playing sub-optimally. Its playing by the parameters that were created. If a player has a 10 strength would let him play as if he 20 strength? No, and mental abilities are the same way.

A player cannot play as a 20 strength unless he can make all the strength checks that a 20 STR character can, and even then he has a weight limit in the chart to dictate how much he can lift. Though a lower STR character would be much more effective in a lot of strength situations if he is always rolling much better than the stronger character who can't seem to get higher than a 4 on his dice checks. As a player I would have little fun in playing a module I've already played and as a DM don't run stuff my players have played or read. I'm pretty much the DM for my group and I don't police player knowledge. These guys have been playing RPG games for 30+ years, I expect them to use the knowledge and skill they have picked up.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

There is a war game from many years ago, Storm over Arnhem, that did exactly that in a different way. You had chits with numbers on them that correlated to a IIRC 2d6dice roll, except you choose when to play them and they were limited in number just like the range of 2d6 rolls. So you could choose a perfect roll this time, but then later had to play a terrible roll. You mitigate randomness by choosing when to be very lucky and when to get screwed. The rolls were opposed in the same way by the other player. It worked out ok

That is a very awesome concept.

 

[TwoSix]

Its not playing sub-optimally. Its playing by the parameters that were created. If a player has a 10 strength would let him play as if he 20 strength? No, and mental abilities are the same way.

Just want to point this is a point of divergence between old-school games and newer versions (I think 2e was when "play your stats" came to the forefront), and it's existed for a long time. It's a playstyle, not a right/wrong thing.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Just want to point this is a point of divergence between old-school games and newer versions (I think 2e was when "play your stats" came to the forefront), and it's existed for a long time. It's a playstyle, not a right/wrong thing.

yeah I'm not saying anyone is doing it wrong if that is how they are having fun, I just find it iffy personally and in my games.

 

[TwoSix]

yeah I'm not saying anyone is doing it wrong if that is how they are having fun, I just find it iffy personally and in my games.

No worries, it wasn't YOU coming across as "badwrongfun".

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I see what you are saying but I suppose I just approach D&D from a more gamist point of view.

y brother can be that way when he plays his PC in our side game. He just doesn't help at all at the table as a player since he says his guy is too stupid. So for the most part he is a hindrance at the table and we have to play around him. Maybe its part of the argument about long term players using their knowledge and skill to deal with things like trolls without assuming they have to try a bunch of stuff they know will not work before finally saying OK we can use fire now.

Sounds like everyone including your brother might be better off if he just rolled up a higher-Int character (or have the DM give him a Potion Of Setting Int to 13) so that both you and he are okay with him engaging with his full abilities. Or is being "stupid" something he is deliberately seeking and would miss if it went away?

P.S. In a lot of ways it's easier to play someone completely stupid than someone who's just moderately less intelligent than yourself. As Greg Cochran once put it (https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/the-object-of-emulation/), "Probably one would have to be a lot smarter than average to effortlessly simulate normality, particularly in real time. It is said that John von Neumann could do this."

(The joke here is that von Neumann was basically a human supercomputer. Smarter than Einstein in raw IQ terms, but less creative: http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2012/03/only-he-was-fully-awake.html)

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Sounds like everyone including your brother might be better off if he just rolled up a higher-Int character (or have the DM give him a Potion Of Setting Int to 13) so that both you and he are okay with him engaging with his full abilities. Or is being "stupid" something he is deliberately seeking and would miss if it went away?

I'm not totally sure, he's a mess of contradictions. But we roll stats and he wanted to play a fighter so the 7 went to INT. He doesn't complain about it, I find it annoying when he doesn't seem to be pulling his weight at the table outside of combat situations where he is a beast admittedly. I just find it puzzling when we spend a half hour trying to plan out how to accomplish something and he sits there and acts like he can't give us his two cents.