NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 8400198" data-attributes="member: 6799660">There's never going to be a consensus. Mostly what 'counts' is going to be relative -- a level of dedication towards mechanical optimization above the baseline of those around you, or against whom you are comparing yourself. This is my own categories, I tend to think in broad groups-- unoptimized(silly), unoptimized, non-optimized, optimized, and highly optimized.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Unoptimized (silly): a wizard who in point-buy ends up with 8 in Str, Con, and Int who insists on mixing it up in melee and fighting with a greatsword with which they are not proficient. This is technically possible in the game, but really not worth including in comparisons because it doesn't really prove anything (except that the game doesn't have guard rails stopping you from making this character).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Unoptimized: Maybe a dual-weapon Fighter, a great-sword-and-longbow fighter that someone played in AD&D and wants to port to 5e, or Monk-Paladin multiclass, or other things that a reasonable person might want to play, but the rules (or implied rules, such as MAD with regards to the Monk-Paladin) kinda get in the way of making work.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Non-optimized: a not-bad choice someone might want to play that simply don't include any combos that the rules deliberately or accidentally make highly powerful. An example that fits your 'useful in many situations' criteria might be a fighter who spend their first ASI on the feat Ritual Caster: wizard or druid -- it's actually really helpful and fleshes out your utility, but an optimizer might come by and say, 'why didn't you let someone else take that and you take [PAM/GWM/SS/XBE/Sentinel/etc.]?'</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Optimized: This is stuff that anyone opening up the books will eventually stumble upon and realize have really good synergy. The -5/+10 feats go really well with the ones that give bonus action attacks (and classes, subclasses, and fighting styles which have easy access to advantage or pluses to-hit). Warlocks have the ability to cast darkness and to see through magical darkness. Sorcerers and bards are Charisma-based full-advancement-casters that can power paladin smites at a faster advancement than the paladin proper. Quarterstaves can be wielded one-handed (so, with a shield), get a bonus to damage with the dueling fighting style, and get a bonus action attack with Polearm Master. And so on and so forth. They are easy, often 'the optimal choice,' and at most are controversial in that people find them annoying or something (or why doesn't such and such preferred weapon-fighting style have an optimal feat combo to match, or the like).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Highly Optimized: the cutoff line here is going to be arbitrary, but this is going to be things that come down to hair-splitting reading of rules (the nuclear wizard), massive combinations of classes clearly not done for flavor reasons (some hexblade1/paladin 2 or 6/ sorcerer X concoction being a common example). Generally, a guideline might be 'this would not make sense to do, and is too complicated to be something you just wanted to try out natively, were it not for some very specific ways the game rules panned out.' Again, the distinction between this and normal Optimized is going to be a hazy one.</li> </ul>Once again, whether it is fine or not in your campaign is mostly based on whether it excessively steals the limelight or drags the effective party contribution (and presumably challenge faced to match) to the point where others aren't having fun.</blockquote>

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