Dragon 374: Arcane Options - Character Concepts

Unfortunately 4E has not stopped (though it has slowed) all the Character Optimizers, the "competent" players, as said above, from telling everyone how to play the game.

So my character starts with an 18, or even worse a 16 in his prime stat. Obviously I should burn my sheet to a crisp, preferably when soaked in gasoline, by the OP view, but I don't think I will.

I'll play him, and have a good time, thank you very much.

Sorry for the rant, but I am sick of being told how to play the game. And the elitist attitude that others think they actually know.
 

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I don't quite see it as telling others how to play the game. If you were writing an advice column, you would want your advice to actually be the best and as useful as you could make it, wouldn't you? Whether they actually care for your advice is their business (as you said, not everyone may care for 2 18s in their key stats), the best you can really do is to simply do the best job you can, for those who are interested.

Or at least lay out all the facts so that the readers can make an informed decision for themselves. Rather than go thinking "It is from wotc, the very designers of the 4e, so the build has to be good", only to play it and find it lackluster (not entire sure of the track record for 4e concepts so far, but that was pretty much the case in 3e).
 

If you were writing an advice column, you would want your advice to actually be the best and as useful as you could make it, wouldn't you?
As useful for who? People who optimize there characters, squeezing out every fraction of DPR they can? Or people who don't care if their main stat starts out higher than 16 (and that's WITH the racial bonus), and are more interested in making their character fit their concept?

Frankly, I thought it was pretty clear that article was aimed squarely at the latter group, that it was trying to show a couple examples of building a character that fits a certain concept.
 

Honestly trying to optimise simply by looking to max out DPR or defenses is close to moronic. 4E tactical game is all about synergies and stacking effects, calculated bursts of damage and having enough resources to block the enemy. At high levels there is certainly a lot of RNG because crits hits for a lot more damage than normal hits, but that's it. And it is never the people at the CharOP board that I'd care for if playing but rather the chance one of them is playing in my group and forcing the effect of that research in combat.

My ideal would be that the choices we make in creating our characters affect our playstyle, with only a slight delta on how effective we are. Then we could focus better on telling part of our story with the choices we make for our character instead of simply picking the best feats and powers available.
 

There's nothing wrong with WotC catering to the "middle" crowd in the "This is fully optimized" vs. "I pick for flavor only" war - in fact I'd much prefer that and I think that should be the style of play everyone adheres to (on a tangent, I see most of the complaints seem to come not from the powergamers, but from the people who think powergaming is stupid and choose useless feats/abilities, then complain when their character is outshone by someone who actually knows what they're doing. That's been my experience at least. Powergamers never have a problem offering advice, its the other group that refuses to take any assistance at all, even if it could keep their precious "flavor" intact or even make it better in some cases - if anyone wants to continue this tangent, feel free to start a new thread :) ).

One of the things I love the most about 4E is that you really can't make a worthless character. There are different tiers of optimization still, but the gap isn't anywhere near as wide as it was in 3.x where if you chose wrong your character was basically outright useless and yes, you might as well just burn your character sheet and create a new character, this time picking better choices. I'll flat out admit that I'm a powergamer but I don't go all out; I'm more than willing to choose a few "not as good" feats or powers if they fit my character concept, and not choose very good things because I don't like how their flavor is in regards to how I envision my character.

My main gripe though is that WotC has a fairly common track record of getting the basic rules wrong... rules that they wrote. That's outright inexcusable, in my opinion. I can forgive choosing some inferior choices based on flavor reasons, since not everybody plays the WAAC (win at all costs) mentality, but if you wrote the fraking game then you should know the fraking rules. How many WotC articles have we seen that give outright illegal and/or wrong advice in the context of the rules?
 
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As I said in the Rules forum, the main issue I see is that WotC sucks at game grammar. In fact I think most character built problems belong to three categories:
Bad player vs monster math that forces them to fix it (instead of changing the math to work)
Obviously overpowered effects (myriad stacking saving throw penalties, orb wizards and orb of ultimate imposition anyone?)
And the worst offender, bad game grammar! The game grammar of 4E reminds me of MtG and that is a good thing. The syntax for feats and powers should be specific so as to avoid confusion. And 4E largely has the tools to do this. Yet the designers ignore their own efforts to create this system by botching it with feats that are not specific enough. The implement/weapon exploits that are all over the system are ridiculous and could have been changed by making sure they reference implement and weapon powers in their descriptions. Those alone are like half the list of things that need to be errata'd.

Overall I am impressed by the designers creativity, especially with PHB2. I am convinced that 4E can introduce tons of new mechanics with each book giving each class good flavor. But it feels as if they are lazy or inattentive when they proofread their mechanics, which could work so much easier if they had better syntax. I don't want to see a 4.5 but honestly I might prefer it from a huge feat tax made to fix the math and houserules to clear up inconsistencies.

End rant.
 

I'll flat out admit that I'm a powergamer but I don't go all out; I'm more than willing to choose a few "not as good" feats or powers if they fit my character concept, and not choose very good things because I don't like how their flavor is in regards to how I envision my character.
This is pretty much where I am as well. My Avenger, for instance, didn't choose Tempus as his deity in LFR, despite the fact that Righteous Wrath of Tempus is clearly the best Channel Divinity feat. I have a number of my friends who harp on me for that. But I wanted an Avenger that was Lawful Good and was a protector of innocents and justice. So I picked Torm. Even though the feat that goes with Torm isn't very good.

However, that character has an 18 Wis and 18 Int. I don't like my chances to hit if I have less than an 18 in my primary stat. It is frustrating how often I miss with an 18 in my prime stat and a +2 proficiency weapon. I'm certainly not going to decrease that any further.

That's outright inexcusable, in my opinion. I can forgive choosing some inferior choices based on flavor reasons, since not everybody plays the WAAC (win at all costs) mentality, but if you wrote the fraking game then you should know the fraking rules. How many WotC articles have we seen that give outright illegal and/or wrong advice in the context of the rules?
There's a couple of reasons for this. There is a tinkerer's culture in R&D and WOTC in general. They are employed as game designers. They are used to coming up with new rules all of the time. They aren't used to consulting a book to see what the actual rule is.

Unlike the rest of us who wait for a book to be released and then consult it a couple of times to make sure we have it correct, they are used to going through 5 or 6 iterations of the same rule. Often they change the rule every session in order to try something new.

Plus, a lot of the rules were designed in committee. Two or three different designers may have wrote different rules for the same thing. They get together, discuss the good and bad points of each and decide on the one they are going to use. Not everyone agrees. Some of the designers keep using their own version of the rule in their home games.

Unlike some of us who may get on message boards and complain that a certain rule doesn't work well, they just change a rule as soon as they don't like it in their own home games.

I sometimes think that it might be better for the game if all the designers were forced to play or run at least one game on a regular basis that was nothing but the published rules with no house rules or development rules. But, their time is probably better spent testing stuff that isn't out yet.
 

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