Char-op Box

[Nifft]

It really doesn't matter which defender or which leader the group has, as long as they have a leader. If I optimize my Striker to strike, I expect any Leader to heal me on occasion and any Defender to be out in front defending.

Really. So you think that a melee Rogue would be just as happy in a party with a Shielding Swordmage as he would be in a party with a Fighter.

So specific party combinations will be more powerful as a group

Well, duh. That is the point here. You may encounter a fight in which you need to be "more powerful" to win, and where losing means death. That would mean you live or die based on your party synergy.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Blackbrrd]

I think they have made some nice feats that support off-class builds. Want to play a tactical Warlord? Str is the main stat, but there is a lot going for an Eladrin due to racial feats. Want to play a Fighter? Str is your main stat, but some of the best Fighters are actually Dwarves. There is actually quite a lot of these examples.

It should also be noted that you can buy an 18 in your primary stat before racial modifiers without coming out badly at all. You will probably have strengths and 18+2 primary stat build won't have.

 

[outsider]

The original post isn't the only way to build a successful character in 4e. It's not even the only way to build an optimized character in 4e.

Race selection is more complicated than just picking whatever gives you a bonus to both your primary and secondary attribute. Such a race is going to be one of your best options, and is certainly the most obvious one. There's several different things races give you though, and you have to figure out from your class/feature how important each thing is.

1. Bonus to primary attack stat: this is probably the best thing a race can give you for any class. It can, however, be beaten with the right combination of other race features though.
2. Bonus to secondary stat: depending on your class/feature, this may be awesome, or not very important. Some classes might even be able to put a bonus to two secondary stats to good use.
3. Bonus to tertiary stats: by this, I mean stats that don't directly affect the class or it's powers. These are sometimes useful for picking up highly powerful feats(weapon mastery especially). For example, the +2 dex an Eladrin Warlord has opens up the possibility of Heavy Blade Mastery, which a +2 str/int race would not be able to get.
4. Racial powers/abilities: there are plenty racial abilities that are appealing to various builds. Defenders of all sorts enjoy the Dwarf's minor action healing surge. Any striker class that doesn't teleport drools over the Elf's +1 movement and shifting through difficult terrain bonus.
5. Racial feats: some of these are FANTASTIC, and the best ones are typically found for races/class combos where the race doesn't boost the class's attack stat.
6. Racial paragon paths/epic destinies: there isn't alot of these yet, but there's some potential there.

You don't neccessarily need advantage 1 if your build gains advantage of multiple things from categories 2-6. It's quite easy for many builds to gain more benefit from 3-6 than from 2. Just don't expect any one individual racial feature to match/outdo a bonus to your attack stat(it'll take at least 2 or 3 things).

As far as attribute spreads go, 16/16/13/10/10/8 is frequently more useful from the optimization perspective than 18/14/11/10/10/8. I'd only use the 18 spread on dex or int attackers, or when the secondary stat is nearly irrelevant. Both spreads are good though, and just about every 4e character should use one or the other.

The original post lists the most obvious set of guidelines to get an optimized character. It will definitely get you one of the top builds for your class. If you really want to get into the mechanics though, you can create optimized characters in other ways that wind up being roughly as good as the obvious way. Personally, I think it's cool that this time around that there's an obvious way for people who don't want to monkey with the system too much, and more mechanically complex ways to go for the tinkerers, and they'll both come out around the same powerlevel.

 

[xXElaDriNDrizZztXx]

In my case, Role play comes from the character I'm building...rather than building a character around a role play concept.

I typically build characters by choosing class, then paragon path, then class features, then race, then feats, then skill points to best suit my desired feat progression. Finally powers.

Example: I've wanted to play a Fighter. I figure I'd end up going STR and CON since that seems to be the most predominant type. However, after review or paragon paths I caught sight of Pit Fighter. The Pit Fighter add Wisdom to its attack rolls. Upon review of feats, it started to make sense that this should be a shield bearer. As such, I focused my race on STR/WIS/dex. I ended up going Half-Orc Flail wielder which supports my primary and tertiary stats.

I could have gone with a Shifter to optimize primary and secondary roles, but the half-orc race seemed to better suit what I was building for a sense of RP based on prior decisions made.

Wizards definitely designed the races to focus on certain classes. I consider it a design flaw of sorts. The positive being that this sort of design ensures a large variety in races being played in 4E as a whole. The negative being that I could never see myself taking Gnome, or Eladrin, Half-elf, Halfling etc for the above fighter build due to the current design.

Though I've never implemented it, I like the house rule of using one of the two Ability boost options per race as a mandatory, and allowing anything else as its secondary. Thus opening up a lot more options to the players to choose from without sacrificing their vision of 'optimization'.

The thing that bothers me most about character optimization in 4th Edition is that with this game, more than any other edition of D&D I've ever played, the DM is encouraged to challenge the players more than just beat the crap out of them.

I've never had the kind of control that I have now when building encounters. Matching the power level of the players against a bunch of baddies is a lot easier than I've ever found it before.

If the focus on building a party, or a character is "ride the jagged edge and make the characters as powerful as we possibly can, so that a challenging encounter is way at the upper bounds of what we're supposed to be able to handle", then fine. But if you don't make that party of characters, the DM has absolutely no reason to build those encounters.

Saying that you there's ONLY one character build that you HAVE to play to be able to play the game well is completely ignoring the fact that the DM is going to just adjust the window of what he's going to throw at you to match what that character finds challenging.

You deviated from your own process... Just sayin... Super sayin...

From what I have seen, it is the players who create characters with race+class combinations that are rich with roleplaying potential but poorly matched for ability scores who possess a large collection of strangely unlucky dice.

Quelle coincidence.

Character Optimization apparently effects dice rolls. I'm screwed.

In real life it can go either way.

In the case of Deion Sanders, phenomenal talent (high ability scores) led to his career in the NFL and a certain amount of arrogance and flamboyance. In the case of Spud Webb, an incredible amount of drive and persistence (roleplaying) led to his career in the NBA.

(It's just an analogy. Reductio ad absurdum arguments need not apply.)

They play DnD? What classes and race?

Really. So you think that a melee Rogue would be just as happy in a party with a Shielding Swordmage as he would be in a party with a Fighter.

Well, duh. That is the point here. You may encounter a fight in which you need to be "more powerful" to win, and where losing means death. That would mean you live or die based on your party synergy.

Cheers, -- N

Do I get combat advantage? I'm happy either way.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

xxeladrindrizzztxx: Don't quit your day job.

 

[Nytmare]

Stuff.

Apparently contradictory different stuff.

You deviated from your own process... Just sayin... Super sayin...

Sometimes, when brilliantly pointing out inconsistencies in the logic between two things that one person has said, it helps if the same person actually said the two different things.

Just sayin... Super sayin...

 

[DracoSuave]

As a DM, part of my job is to ensure fun is being had.

So, if a player has a character concept, I'll actually work with them to help realize that concept, including optimization advice and such. The players are not my enemy, so there's nothing to gain by not helping them.

 

[eamon]

A DM can fix most any imbalance 4e throws at him. I don't think that's an excuse for the system to encourage trade-offs between power and roleplay. Aligning a class's primary stats to racial bonuses matters, just as expertise does and buying a high primary stat. If half of the party does these things and the other half does not (and we're not talking super-OMG-te-brokzors optimization here, this is simple stuff), then the "optimizing" half will noticeably outshine the non-optimizing half.

And many DM's will choose to use premade adventures with little to no rebalancing; or may DM at a living X campaign and will not compensate for optimization much. Others might not compensate much by choice - it is, after all, not unreasonable to let the players reap the fruits of their labors. Others may rebalance but choose to award XP+treasure strictly according to the rules.

I'm a staunch supporter of math-fixes to avoid this dilemma. Optimization can be fun, and some amount of divergence between optimized and non-optimized characters is inevitable and even fun. But false choices - where one option is strictly superior to the other, in terms of power - aren't a good thing, and there are too many too obviously in basic character building.

Avoiding expertise and aligned stats frankly doesn't bring many advantages to the out-of-combat front; and when it comes to roleplaying, it's the player much more than the PC that matters anyhow - having a mere +1 or +2 to this skill rather than that isn't going to be a driving force here.

I think the idea of granting a flexible bonuses to all races (requiring just one aligned bonus) is an interesting suggestion - though for races with some flexibility already, primarily human, you may want an alternate bonus, and there may be a few balance issues, so tread carefully. Separately, I also think that at levels 4/8/14/etc. all stats should rise, that expertise etc. should be banned and finally that a blanket +1 bonus to attacks + non-AC defenses at levels 5/15/25 be instituted instead (which would avoid the most egregious non-choice feat+build options, and almost balance attack/defense progression with those of monsters (even for non-typical character builds such as light-armor shamans without a dex/int primary or secondary stat), along with reducing other stat-related imbalances (as ability scores diverge over levels, all ability-dependent stats such as skills necessarily also become less balanced).

The problem is real; blaming the community is an exercise in futility; the balance issues detract from 4e's strength in gameplay (being team-oriented combat) by diverting attention from team play individual optimization.

The idea of a PC using some non-optimal combo is potentially cool, and the players that want to try these don't deserve the cold shower they get now. If you've a character that doesn't play by the book, then, right now, you're negatively impacting the team effort.

 

[Baumi]

Just want to throw my experience in this discussion.

1. Find a race you want to play.

Most players I know do the class first since it has more influence on your character, but that is just a matter of taste and does lead to the same points...

2. Find a class which has its secondary and primary stats line up with your races bonuses.

Not always, but most of the time.

I personally don't think that's necessary since the unusual Race/Class Combinations often has other advantages (Race Features, Feats are often stronger for unusual Combinations). For example Thiefling and Halfling Fighters have weak Stat-Singery but their Features and Feats make them really good Warriors (Thieflings become very offensive and Halfling extremely defensive Fighters).

3. Ability scores at 1st level should be something like: 20, 16, 11, 10, 10, 8

I nearly never see anyone taking a 18 (without Race Modifier). Most settle with a 16 which give them a well rounded Character which allowes much more feats and give fewer weaknesses.

3. If you are a weapon class, take weapon prof first.

Superior Weapons Feats are very rare in my Groups, except when it is a racial Feat like Dwarfen Weapon Training. But I do agree that they are quite good and I do recommend them often.

4. Take expertise and "necessary" feats like painful oath before any skill or RP related feats.

While we have a few literacy and other Roleplaing-Feats, nearly all players concentrate on Class and Race Feats since they strengthen their most important Abilities (and they are quicker to overview than the ton of generic feats).

 

[Roger]

Now my question is this. Is this something that has been created by the community in its "optimization furor" (this is my personal opinion). Or is it a product of WOTC and thus a design flaw.

If it was a community creation, I would expect it to be rare or non-existent among the large number of players who are not part of that community.

In my experience, it certainly isn't a rarity among players who never visit D&D sites.

This would imply that it stems from the WotC products themselves, which seems to be a reasonable conclusion. There are certainly other RPGs out there in which the concept of character optimization is alien at best.


I hope that answers your question.



Cheers,
Roger