D&D 5E How does “optimization” change the game?

[tomBitonti]

To follow up: Two kinds of failure can occur. These result from a core system features: Fun is obtained, for the most part, by being successful. Success in turn depends on a combination of character effectiveness and player skill. Character effectiveness is measured against the game’s expectations as well as against the effectiveness of other characters.

A player can be ineffective, either because they didn‘t have enough system skill, or because they put too many of their options in character background (hence, they put too few options into their core competency.). This is more of a problem if other players didn‘t make similar choices, and more of a problem if the characters are vastly below the game’s expectations.

A player can be too effective. They overcome challenges with too much ease, possibly better than can the other characters.

TomB

 

[tetrasodium]

Hmm, I‘m considering some confounding issues.

These are from 3/3.5E.

Feats that added background to a character (my character grew up on a fishing boat; he has skill focus swimming), which take away combat focused feats. The consequence is that effectiveness and background are mutually exclusive. I think this is a system design fault.

Feats that are very different in power. Toughness vs Improved Toughness. More design failure (I am blaming System Mastery, which I think is a terrible thing to build in.). But, this was also caused by power creep, for example, many of the reserve feats from the complete books.

Broken game elements .. for example, basing the save DC against a power on a skill check of the power user. Not just a design flaw, but one egregiously contrary to the core system design, and terribly easy to abuse.

No gaming system will be perfect. I have had many hours of enjoyment with 3/3.5E. But it seemed especially built to have power gaming/extreme optimization problems.

Thanks!
TomB

3.x had a lot more room for optimization and feat chains+PrCs with their own requirements often allowed strange choices to ultimately be useful (or at least a minor loss) long before the campaign was wrapping up. 5e by comparison has a much greater weight attached to each of the precious few choices it allows resulting in suboptimal or worse deliberately bad choices having a dramatically higher opportunity cost that can charge into the realm of being unconscionable &beyond the pale for the burden it places on the rest of thevpsett.

 

[ECMO3]

I am genuinely curious what folks find in their games.

I want to say from the outset that I don’t find any play style “wrong” so long as it promotes fun for the table.

but to my question….

If we avoid hard optimization and follow a more casual approach, how does the game change? In other words, if I take some feats for flavor (perhaps not all top tier “effective” or push my prime score mostly without “dumping” everything to an 8?) how does this change things?

1. How much more likely is the party to die?

2. How much more challenging is the game?

3. How much if any is balance improved?

I ask with genuine curiosity from the standpoint of someone who does not greatly care about balance and is happy to be challenged and to retreat from encounters when necessary.

I look forward to learning what others find! I have essentially one primary group of friends and really am most familiar with what we have done and found over the years…

After writing this it occurs to me that folks will say the DM can always adapt. So let’s say with typical published WOTC adventures!

I have found optimization is heavily influenced by playstyle.

Combat optimization is relatively straightforward, assuming you have a primary combat role identified for your character, but such characters can be very one dimensional and very poor at the other pillars. This leads to a character that is largely not fun to play in a game which is heavily roleplay and exploration focused.

Those characters are not "optimized" for the game. The never scout because they lack stealth, they don't help find food, they don't act as a face. They can't recall history. About the only thing they are good for is killing bad guys and when you are not in combat they are bit players.

I find this is particularly true for a strength-based fighter as they always devote points to the most useless abilities (Constitution and Strength).

If you take a view towards all the pillars you are more likely to build a more fun character and you are more likely to take feats like skill expert or prodigy. That is when I play a fighter I typically don't put more than 12 in constitution or more than 10 on a non-fighter/barbarian. I would rather have my character weaker in combat but better in other areas. It is also why I play a lot of half elves and play more Rogues than any other class.

 

[FrogReaver]

I am genuinely curious what folks find in their games.

I want to say from the outset that I don’t find any play style “wrong” so long as it promotes fun for the table.

but to my question….

If we avoid hard optimization and follow a more casual approach, how does the game change? In other words, if I take some feats for flavor (perhaps not all top tier “effective” or push my prime score mostly without “dumping” everything to an 8?) how does this change things?

1. How much more likely is the party to die?

2. How much more challenging is the game?

3. How much if any is balance improved?

I ask with genuine curiosity from the standpoint of someone who does not greatly care about balance and is happy to be challenged and to retreat from encounters when necessary.

I look forward to learning what others find! I have essentially one primary group of friends and really am most familiar with what we have done and found over the years…

After writing this it occurs to me that folks will say the DM can always adapt. So let’s say with typical published WOTC adventures!

The truth of the matter is that optimization only really matters in the small space where a 'normal' party would have failed and the optimized party would have succeeded. The truth of the matter is that most adventuring days don't result in anywhere near that kind of pressure on a normal party (especially given published adventures). So optimization is mostly about being better in a theoretical space that you'll never play in unless your DM is simply scaling difficulty to match party strength.

The normal party is more likely to die in a similar adventure, but it's not like they have an extremely high chance to die anyways.

An optimized party makes the game feel like a cakewalk. An unoptimized party makes the challenge level more appropriate.

This is not just about combat either. Optimized parties perform better out of combat as they need to use fewer spells in combat, leaving more available for out of combat. They also are more likely to pick at least some of the 'strong out of combat spells'.

If we are talking about martial optimization, it's not like they are significantly behind their non-optimized counterparts in out of combat ability anyways.

 

[ECMO3]

If we are talking about martial optimization, it's not like they are significantly behind their non-optimized counterparts in out of combat ability anyways.

Optimized martial characters in general, and fighters in specific are IMO significantly behind those same classes if purposely built to be broader. For example, assuming a 16 in S/D; a battlemaster who starts with a 14 Charisma, 12 Intelligence, 14 Wisdom and takes commanding presence and tactical assessment, along with the prodigy feat at 4th level is going to be WAY ahead of a fighter who starts with a 16 Constitution and takes only combat oriented maneuvers and either a strength/dex ASI, GWM or heavy armor mastery. That first example character will be noticably better out of combat and substantially worse in combat.

I think there is a tradeoff in casters are too, although they can fill a lot of gaps with spells. That said at high levels a combat-optimized caster is not going to have a ton of prepared spells for out of combat use. A Wizard has rituals, but after 4th level there are not a lot of those, so you are going to have to start cutting into things like knock and tongues so you can add synaptic static and forcecage if you really want to stay combat-optimized.