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<blockquote data-quote="Mengu" data-source="post: 4398495" data-attributes="member: 65726">Why do people keep drawing analogies between roleplaying and numbers on a sheet of paper? Roleplaying has very little to do with those numbers. And 4th edition pretty much made sure of that.&nbsp;The numbers are used to resolve conflicts.&nbsp;Everything else is roleplaying.&nbsp;One does not negate the other.&nbsp;So, if you want to be effective in combat, you work around a concept and pick the powers you think will work nicely. Call it min-maxing, power gaming, munchkinizing, optimization, or common sense, it doesn't matter. It will not affect how your character interacts with the world once you put the dice down.&nbsp;People *should* listen to character building advice. The reason they are asking is because they have an idea, but aren't quite sure how to make it work within the rules framework. It is not helpful to tell them &quot;play what you want.&quot; Encounters are designed to be balanced for reasonably built characters. They're not designed to work for a bunch of ignorant clowns.&nbsp;However, once you get the numbers down, if it suits your campaign, there is nothing to stop you from acting like a clown as you fight, twisting your opponent's nose for 13 points of damage, or blowing raspberries at them when you miss with a Reaping Strike for 3 points of damage.&nbsp;Roleplaying and optimization can (and do) exist in the same game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mengu, post: 4398495, member: 65726"] Why do people keep drawing analogies between roleplaying and numbers on a sheet of paper? Roleplaying has very little to do with those numbers. And 4th edition pretty much made sure of that. The numbers are used to resolve conflicts. Everything else is roleplaying. One does not negate the other. So, if you want to be effective in combat, you work around a concept and pick the powers you think will work nicely. Call it min-maxing, power gaming, munchkinizing, optimization, or common sense, it doesn't matter. It will not affect how your character interacts with the world once you put the dice down. People *should* listen to character building advice. The reason they are asking is because they have an idea, but aren't quite sure how to make it work within the rules framework. It is not helpful to tell them "play what you want." Encounters are designed to be balanced for reasonably built characters. They're not designed to work for a bunch of ignorant clowns. However, once you get the numbers down, if it suits your campaign, there is nothing to stop you from acting like a clown as you fight, twisting your opponent's nose for 13 points of damage, or blowing raspberries at them when you miss with a Reaping Strike for 3 points of damage. Roleplaying and optimization can (and do) exist in the same game. [/QUOTE]

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