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

[tetrasodium]

People always come to these kind of discussions with loaded definitions of "optimizer" that vary from everyone else in the discussion. You'll have 10 people arguing past each other from 10 different versions of "optimization."

I cut my teeth on 3.5 when it came out and it was designed out of the gate with "timmy" choices and optimal choices. It was a powergamer's game, by design. Optimization could completely skew a campaign because one character could literally do 100x the damage of another character of the same level, while having better AC, spells, et al. I loved creating gods, but I eventually grew tired of tables where PCs in the same party were essentially Superman along side of Aunt May. Extreme optimization differential hurts the game.

That said, in my 20 years of experience and countless groups, I would say that optimizers are generally at least as invested in roleplay and world-building as non-optimizers. They put effort into optimization because they care about the game and the character, and the fact that they're invested in the game and character means they're more likely to write a long background or have a plot hook than a casual player. When i get someone who's an optimizer at my table, I know that I'm more likely to have someone that's invested in the game at large and be a collaborator.

That has been my experience as well. The inability to easily pick out those individuals at a glance in 5e is one of my biggest frustrations as they gave me two very wide avenues I could use to draw them in as my loyal minion keeping the less invested players involved.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Back in my vanilla World of Warcraft days raiding in Molten Core, I got an addon that let me switch equipped gear on the fly. I put on all my +fire gear for the core hound packs and used Hellfire (damages caster as much as targets) instead of Rain of Fire. The healers gently yelled at me to never ever do that again. But I was OPTIMIZED! For fire damage.

We always had dps competitions between rogues and warlocks. On our final MC run we rogues decided that if any of us got Geddon's bomb, instead of running to the designated safe spot we would run to the warlocks.

Wish I had recorded our Vent channel that night. It was epic.

 

[tetrasodium]

It was was painful to watch that strmwind fallacy endorsement in ways that hurt my soul. "My dm & fellow players have no problem with how I've built [this character]". Earlier in the video she herself described it as a warlock without eldritch blast and "crappy spells". Humans are generally cooperative & agreeable to the point that agreeableness even has a scale in psychology. As the video goes on she talks about a low charisma on said warlock & other deliberate choices that force the rest of the party to carry her deliberately craptimized character as Ogre Mage described earlier. It's not even till the very end after talking up how great this spotlight hog dead weight craptimized character will be for the story everyone will be forced into enabling so they can stop carrying it even slightly & get it over with so they can maybe try doing some of the things they wanted to do that didn't involve carrying a craptimized party member.

Maybe she went around to her dm/fellow players and asked them before starting with this character & made it clear just how unbelievably bad this character would be on a mechanical level & just how much plot/story time it would need before it "makes sense" to do things like not have poor charisma on a warlock. In my experience however it's the other way around & "I'm a roleplayer not rollplayer roleplaying my character" type excuses get used to bludgeon the slightest whiff of frustration from others

 

[niklinna]

It was was painful to watch that strmwind fallacy endorsement in ways that hurt my soul. "My dm & fellow players have no problem with how I've built [this character]". Earlier in the video she herself described it as a warlock without eldritch blast and "crappy spells". Humans are generally cooperative & agreeable to the point that agreeableness even has a scale in psychology. As the video goes on she talks about a low charisma on said warlock & other deliberate choices that force the rest of the party to carry her deliberately craptimized character as Ogre Mage described earlier. It's not even till the very end after talking up how great this spotlight hog dead weight craptimized character will be for the story everyone will be forced into enabling so they can stop carrying it even slightly & get it over with so they can maybe try doing some of the things they wanted to do that didn't involve carrying a craptimized party member.

Maybe she went around to her dm/fellow players and asked them before starting with this character & made it clear just how unbelievably bad this character would be on a mechanical level & just how much plot/story time it would need before it "makes sense" to do things like not have poor charisma on a warlock. In my experience however it's the other way around & "I'm a roleplayer not rollplayer roleplaying my character" type excuses get used to bludgeon the slightest whiff of frustration from others

Eh, as long as they don't take 10+ minutes to figure out what they're gonna do on their turn....

That's getting into yet another kind of optimization, though.

But seriously, their group is cool with it. They've all signed on to play D&D in a particular way, one that, apparently, doesn't invove optimizing every PC for combat effectiveness, but rather to tell an interesting story. Sounds like a group I'd really enjoy playing with. (But I would still optimize, myself. But it wouldn't necessarily be for combat effectiveness.)

 

[Warpiglet-7]

It was was painful to watch that strmwind fallacy endorsement in ways that hurt my soul. "My dm & fellow players have no problem with how I've built [this character]". Earlier in the video she herself described it as a warlock without eldritch blast and "crappy spells". Humans are generally cooperative & agreeable to the point that agreeableness even has a scale in psychology. As the video goes on she talks about a low charisma on said warlock & other deliberate choices that force the rest of the party to carry her deliberately craptimized character as Ogre Mage described earlier. It's not even till the very end after talking up how great this spotlight hog dead weight craptimized character will be for the story everyone will be forced into enabling so they can stop carrying it even slightly & get it over with so they can maybe try doing some of the things they wanted to do that didn't involve carrying a craptimized party member.

Maybe she went around to her dm/fellow players and asked them before starting with this character & made it clear just how unbelievably bad this character would be on a mechanical level & just how much plot/story time it would need before it "makes sense" to do things like not have poor charisma on a warlock. In my experience however it's the other way around & "I'm a roleplayer not rollplayer roleplaying my character" type excuses get used to bludgeon the slightest whiff of frustration from others

I guess my default is to be effective but not be absurd to the point that it precludes a good character.

there is no “wrong” in whatever is fun. My go moving forward though is to balance effectiveness with “color.” But not to win points online or to puff up but rather if I add in more roleplay features, I just get more into it and have more fun.

I always fight the tendency though to take what is “optimized.” I just have more fun with balance. Some people drop it all to 8s ans 15s. If that’s fun for them, all good right? Only reason to play is fun!

 

[jayoungr]

It was was painful to watch that strmwind fallacy endorsement in ways that hurt my soul.

Given things you've said in previous posts, I'm not surprised that you don't agree with the video.

I personally wouldn't call it Stormwind Fallacy because she's not saying that optimizing a character diminishes your roleplay--just that a non-optimized character can be fun if you're at a table with people who are okay with that. Or, to put it another way, that not prioritizing optimization opens up some fresh areas to explore.

Anyway, I'm not saying it's the only or "best" way to play, just posting it to represent one more take on the OP's question.

 

[Ogre Mage]

I have another thought about optimization as regards to my current Savage Worlds game.

This group has been playing Savage Worlds off-and-on since 2013. We are very experienced with the system. Our characters are optimized. But there is one exception. We have one player who is new to both Savage Worlds and roleplaying. Understandably, his character is not optimized and much weaker than the rest of the party. He is a good guy and his character is able to contribute, just not to the degree of everyone else.

The rotating GMs throw tough challenges at us which might kill or force a retreat from inexperienced players. I am playing one of two magical healers in the group. When we are in a tough fight and both the new player and someone else are injured during combat, I prioritize the more optimized party member for healing first. They are more important toward party survival.

When some PCs are optimized and others are not, it can create a pecking order. I am enabling the pecking order.

 

[TheSword]

I guess my question on optimizers would be, do they expect the DM to set difficulty to increase in tandem with level of optimization.

Hmmm I feel a poll coming on.

D&D General - Should difficulty increase to match optimization

A spin off from the optimization poll. The question is simple, when players optimize should difficulty be dialed up to match?

www.enworld.org

 

[Ogre Mage]

In my earlier post I talked about my Savage Worlds game where most of the party is optimized except for one player. It got me thinking about the reverse case -- when only one member of the party is highly optimized and the rest are not. This is what I call the "Diana Ross & the Supremes" or "Gladys Knight & the Pips" syndrome. Usually the optimized player winds up being the star of the show and the rest turn into sidekicks.

And yes, I can think of some games where I was a "supreme" as "Diana Ross" did all the talking for the party and took out half the enemies all by herself.

 

[Blue]

I have another thought about optimization as regards to my current Savage Worlds game.

This group has been playing Savage Worlds off-and-on since 2013. We are very experienced with the system. Our characters are optimized. But there is one exception. We have one player who is new to both Savage Worlds and roleplaying. Understandably, his character is not optimized and much weaker than the rest of the party. He is a good guy and his character is able to contribute, just not to the degree of everyone else.

The rotating GMs throw tough challenges at us which might kill or force a retreat from inexperienced players. I am playing one of two magical healers in the group. When we are in a tough fight and both the new player and someone else are injured during combat, I prioritize the more optimized party member for healing first. They are more important toward party survival.

When some PCs are optimized and others are not, it can create a pecking order. I am enabling the pecking order.

Agree with what you've said. My biggest issue with varying power levels is when one/a minority are quite different then the rest of the party. Stronger or weaker. It makes it harder as DM for me to consistently come up with challenges that are satisfying both for the majority of the party and for the outlier.

I have played in games where I purposefully "detuned" an optimized character I was running because they were outside the power range of the others. Though it's funny - I enjoy playing support characters, and I've found that it doesn't not take from other people's enjoyment when a character designed to make the others shine and give them spotlight is a bit too well built.