Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Do people in your games actually use "builds"
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="TKDB" data-source="post: 5938548" data-attributes="member: 6690697"><p>When I play 3.5, I plan my character build very thoroughly. Mostly because I tend to have kind of wonky character concepts that require careful selection of classes and feats to make feasible. I don't really powergame (in fact, if I know I'm working with something with a reputation for being overpowered, I tend to deliberately hold back), but I do optimize for my concept.</p><p>Mainly I think this is because the game generally just encourages careful character building -- you need to plan ahead to meet prereqs for feats and PrCs, most choices you make are more or less set in stone once picked, and there are a lot of options that wind up simply being a waste if you don't know what you're doing. The first time I ever played, I rolled a human sorcerer with Dodge and Scribe Scroll as his starting feats. After a few levels in, I hated it. <em>Hated</em> it. Those feats did nothing for me, and I really wished I had taken something a little more worthwhile -- or at least a little more <em>interesting</em>. Fortunately, my DM allowed me to retrain them to feats that better fit the character concept I had in mind.</p><p>Plus in 3.5 (and really most class-and-level based games), I don't really see the conflict between planning a build and roleplaying. Generally speaking, a character (much like a person in real life) is going to pick something they have a knack or interest for and work to get better at it. Real people plan their educations and careers to reach a certain goal, so I don't see anything out of character with planning level-up choices in advance to continue improving your character's main focus and overall theme. Barring something really incredibly drastic, the main points of the build plan aren't likely to change significantly. Your sword & board fighter's going to keep learning how to better use his sword & board, your pyromaniac wizard's going to keep finding better ways to burn things, and your dashing rogue's going to keep figuring out how to better charm the petticoats off barmaids.</p><p></p><p>That said, I don't have any qualms about deviating from my plan if the in-game circumstances call for it. When I swapped <em>Fireball</em> out of my sorcerer's spell list for another spell that's generally considered more optimal, I soon found myself regretting that choice and made sure to get <em>Fireball </em>back on my list ASAP. It wasn't what I had planned, but even the best-laid plans can't account for anything.</p><p></p><p>Of course, the emphasis on "building" in 3.5 might also have something to do with the somewhat rigid and abstract nature of the class-and-level system. I find it kind of difficult to connect the choices I'm making when I level up to what my character's been doing, because the process of levelling up doesn't really feel like an organic consequence of any particular thing I've done. I find it a lot easier to do organic, on-the-fly character advancement in point-buy systems where you get XP to spend on advancement after every session. Then it's very clear what that chunk of XP corresponds to -- "ok, this session had a lot of intrigue and social stuff, so it would make sense for me to buy up social skills with the XP from it". It doesn't quite work so well with a level-based system, though, because in the time between one level and the next you tend to do a little bit of everything. It's a lot easier to build a character organically when you do so gradually in little bits rather than in big chunks at a time. Of course, it also probably helps that character creation and advancement in these systems is generally a lot less intricate and complex as in 3.5 anyway, and there generally isn't the risk of "trap" options like in 3.5. But even in point-buy systems, though I don't tend to plan ahead in quite so much detail as I do in 3.5, I still have a general idea of where I want to go, which skills I want to prioritize, etc.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TKDB, post: 5938548, member: 6690697"] When I play 3.5, I plan my character build very thoroughly. Mostly because I tend to have kind of wonky character concepts that require careful selection of classes and feats to make feasible. I don't really powergame (in fact, if I know I'm working with something with a reputation for being overpowered, I tend to deliberately hold back), but I do optimize for my concept. Mainly I think this is because the game generally just encourages careful character building -- you need to plan ahead to meet prereqs for feats and PrCs, most choices you make are more or less set in stone once picked, and there are a lot of options that wind up simply being a waste if you don't know what you're doing. The first time I ever played, I rolled a human sorcerer with Dodge and Scribe Scroll as his starting feats. After a few levels in, I hated it. [I]Hated[/I] it. Those feats did nothing for me, and I really wished I had taken something a little more worthwhile -- or at least a little more [I]interesting[/I]. Fortunately, my DM allowed me to retrain them to feats that better fit the character concept I had in mind. Plus in 3.5 (and really most class-and-level based games), I don't really see the conflict between planning a build and roleplaying. Generally speaking, a character (much like a person in real life) is going to pick something they have a knack or interest for and work to get better at it. Real people plan their educations and careers to reach a certain goal, so I don't see anything out of character with planning level-up choices in advance to continue improving your character's main focus and overall theme. Barring something really incredibly drastic, the main points of the build plan aren't likely to change significantly. Your sword & board fighter's going to keep learning how to better use his sword & board, your pyromaniac wizard's going to keep finding better ways to burn things, and your dashing rogue's going to keep figuring out how to better charm the petticoats off barmaids. That said, I don't have any qualms about deviating from my plan if the in-game circumstances call for it. When I swapped [I]Fireball[/I] out of my sorcerer's spell list for another spell that's generally considered more optimal, I soon found myself regretting that choice and made sure to get [I]Fireball [/I]back on my list ASAP. It wasn't what I had planned, but even the best-laid plans can't account for anything. Of course, the emphasis on "building" in 3.5 might also have something to do with the somewhat rigid and abstract nature of the class-and-level system. I find it kind of difficult to connect the choices I'm making when I level up to what my character's been doing, because the process of levelling up doesn't really feel like an organic consequence of any particular thing I've done. I find it a lot easier to do organic, on-the-fly character advancement in point-buy systems where you get XP to spend on advancement after every session. Then it's very clear what that chunk of XP corresponds to -- "ok, this session had a lot of intrigue and social stuff, so it would make sense for me to buy up social skills with the XP from it". It doesn't quite work so well with a level-based system, though, because in the time between one level and the next you tend to do a little bit of everything. It's a lot easier to build a character organically when you do so gradually in little bits rather than in big chunks at a time. Of course, it also probably helps that character creation and advancement in these systems is generally a lot less intricate and complex as in 3.5 anyway, and there generally isn't the risk of "trap" options like in 3.5. But even in point-buy systems, though I don't tend to plan ahead in quite so much detail as I do in 3.5, I still have a general idea of where I want to go, which skills I want to prioritize, etc. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Do people in your games actually use "builds"
Top