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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Storm Raven" data-source="post: 4287675" data-attributes="member: 307">Sure. I don't think your objections carry much weight though, at least not from my perspective.Yes. And? So it is possible to build a character who is sub-optimal. Why is that bad? Some people like that sort of character, and aren't always focued on seeing if they can get the most plusses.I played a lot of the B5 CCG. The bulk of games were "standard" - get the most power and win. But on a regular basis, Precedence would run "social" tournaments in which the focus was on who provided the table with the most fun - through role-playing, doing interesting things, or otherwise engging in what might be termed "suboptimal" strategies (like the guy who sponsored cards that he could use the first letter of to spell out "Zathras" over and over).The "social" tournaments were a blast - why is a game that ostensibly all about role-playing deciding that that sort of game element should be eliminated?Yes. And? Why is having the option to specialize bad? its a trade-off. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Having only choices that always pay off is dull.We had pretty much all of those in the games I played in. They were fine. Heck, I played in a campaign with a rogue with a 7 Strength, 12 Dexterity, no search/disable device and who traded away his sneak attack ability for sage like skills. He was one of the best characters in the campaign. When he died, and was replaced by the player with another "standard" style character (a dwarven cleric), the rest of the party went out of its way to get the original character raised from the dead so he could go back to playing the rogue.Maybe in your experience, but not in mine. The thing is, in 3e you could play the maximized character with all the "best" options, or you could play something less focused, and the system supported both as viable options. In 4e, you don't have that choice.yes. And? If you have the second party, you have to have a DM who notices the type of party he is dealing with and takes that into account. So they face lower CR foes than the "normal" optimized party. I don't see this as a big problem.So? Where is the problem?Because a lot of people like to play something that isn't a combat optimized character and would like to have that option?Sure, but that is the consequence of eliminating player choices. I like choices more than I like certainty. If I wanted to have this kind of certainty, I could have simply stuck with playing 1e or OD&D, where a 7th level fighter is pretty much the same as about every other 7th level fighter and a 9th level thief is about the same as every other 9th level thief and so on. I moved to a more flexible game because I wanted flexibility. For me, as I said, 4e is a step backwards in this regard - it just gives me what I could have had if I had stuck with older editions of D&D: limited choices and more "certainty".So why switch to 4e, when I already had that in 1e, but decided to opt instead for 3e? If I want that sort of experience, I'll just play 1e again.</blockquote>

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