I don't optimize. Forked Thread: Dragon Magazine #365's Character Concepts

[Rechan]

The problem isn't characters that aren't completely optimized in every way. The problem is characters whose concept makes them inherently less optimized than others, compounded with being poorly optimized even within that concept. At the very least you should be optimized within the framework of your concept.

This.

In addition, there's a real difference between 3e and 4e when it comes to the system framework. 3e's assumption was System Mastery. There intentionally were bad choices, like Toughness, because the game was designed to reward you for figuring out what choices were good and what weren't.

In 4e, it's tougher to make an utterly bad choice that makes you unworkable. Sure, if your character is a pacifist, taking combat feats is pointless. But most of the combat powers do something beneficial, most of the feats do something assisting.

My biggest issue with the "System mastery" notion are gamers who care just about the story. They make decisions based on roleplaying. And then get utterly frustrated when they suck at doing anything. I once saw a party whose only divine caster was a Clr2/Pal3. Whose only arcane spellcaster was a Sor3/Rogue2. They constantly got creamed in fights, because their choices were the opposite of optimization.

This is one reason why I like many of the things 4e has done. Ritual Caster and the Multi-class feats make me happy. They let the roleplayers expand their concept in steps. Retraining is another nice one, because it lets you deal with things that didn't work out so well.

 

[Aria Silverhands]

Forked from: Dragon Magazine #365's Character Concepts: Masterful optimization advice by WotC
Optimization is a nightmare from which I wish D&D would wake.

I don't optimize. I play characters I like, with cool abilities that seem effective and I have a good time. Optimization creates cookie cutter builds, pointless rules-wankery and obscures personalization. Optimization took away Dungeon Magazine years ago during the dark Paizo years.

I agree, 100%. I'm sick of optimizing power gaming number crunchers ruining my fun.

My biggest issue with the "System mastery" notion are gamers who care just about the story. They make decisions based on roleplaying. And then get utterly frustrated when they suck at doing anything. I once saw a party whose only divine caster was a Clr2/Pal3. Whose only arcane spellcaster was a Sor3/Rogue2. They constantly got creamed in fights, because their choices were the opposite of optimization.

They got creamed in fights because the DM was an idiot who didn't tailor the encounters to the group.

 

[Ahglock]

They got creamed in fights because the DM was an idiot who didn't tailor the encounters to the group.

If the entire party was like that I'd agree. But if the rest of the party was built somewhat with a nod towards optimization. Then it would be really hard to tailor make an encounter for that group.

 

[Rechan]

If the entire party was like that I'd agree. But if the rest of the party was built somewhat with a nod towards optimization. Then it would be really hard to tailor make an encounter for that group.

I've seen entire parties that are suboptimal. The one I reference above (with the only divine caster being Clr2/Pal3) had a bard, a monk, a sor3/rog2, and... a fighter. The bard soon left the group, too. The Fighter was the only person purely optimized, because his player was bound and determined to make the group survive.

 

[Ahglock]

I've seen entire parties that are suboptimal. The one I reference above (with the only divine caster being Clr2/Pal3) had a bard, a monk, a sor3/rog2, and... a fighter. The bard soon left the group, too. The Fighter was the only person purely optimized, because his player was bound and determined to make the group survive.

It is easier to build the adventure for parties that are totally suboptimal. When various players have different levels of power it gets hard.

Now I have played in a game where we had one competent combat character and it was a blast. We acted like she was our body guard, we were mere scholars investigating the ruins. It was her job to keep us alive and well. Sure we'd help out, we were not above getting our hands dirty. But we were there for knowledge.

Still while it was fun, the DM had a hard time coming up with fights that would challenge the fighter and not slaughter us.

 

[Ginnel]

It is easier to build the adventure for parties that are totally suboptimal. When various players have different levels of power it gets hard.

Yup I agree and below is most of my post from a thread forked from this one.

"The reason I dislike optimising is that everyone has to keep up with the optimiser to feel useful in combat, otherwise you get encounters that the non optimised can't handle or encounters that the optimiser just walks through.
I feel 4th edition has handled this better because as far as I can tell the difference between optimised and non optimised has been reduced.

Note: this does not mean I like having "useless" characters about, a 4th ed fighter class with 12 Str 10 Dex 8 Con 16 Int 15 Wis 17 Cha would seem pointless to me in a game with regular combat.
I would expect a class to have at least a 16 in their primary attack stat 15 at a minimum.
If you wanted to play a weak fighter type character thats perfectly fine describe him as weak but still have that 16 in str defeating enemies with his dexterity maybe, or even better have a look at rogue/paladin and see if you can fit your concept into those, but don't bring a deliberately mechanically weak participant to a combat focused game"

 

[Dykstrav]

My biggest issue with the "System mastery" notion are gamers who care just about the story. They make decisions based on roleplaying. And then get utterly frustrated when they suck at doing anything. I once saw a party whose only divine caster was a Clr2/Pal3. Whose only arcane spellcaster was a Sor3/Rogue2. They constantly got creamed in fights, because their choices were the opposite of optimization.

Multiclassing in 3E/3.5 was usually suboptimal for spellcasters. I really liked the mystic theurge in concept, but it was really tough to play. When my old group did City of the Spider Queen, my mystic theurge was killed in the first session. I has an enlightened fist that died in the second session of a different campaign. Multiclass characters could rarely handle the same challenges that a more focused character could.

A certain amount of optimization is unavoidable (and even a good thing, since it shows that you care about your character's success). But fundamentally, characters getting killed still boils down to either one of a few root causes: 1) the character does something extremely stupid; 2) the dice are just totally against the players and the DM lets the dice fall where they may; 3) the DM threw something too hard at the party. It's usually the last one.

Characters who aren't able to take on a challenge indicates a DM who isn't able to read a character sheet. Think of character sheets as checklists: players are telling you the sorts of things they want their characters to be able to do. It's facetious to think that a cleric 2/paladin 3 can take on a challenge appropriate to a 5th-level cleric or paladin, they need challenges appropriate to a 2nd-level cleric AND a 3rd-level paladin. They're trading depth of expertise for variety.

My 4E party is very striker-heavy; out of six characters we have four strikers and two leaders. Hence, I don't include challenges for defenders or controllers. I don't clog the battlefield with minions since there is no controller to blast them away or a defender to wade through them with a melee weapon. I give the party combat challenges where they have to fight high hit-point monsters to accomodate all those strikers. We still haven't had a character death (although we've been close twice), and no one has noticed a shortcoming in the group. I'm not going to "punish" players for not wanting to play defenders or controllers.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I don't optimize.

Really? Care to post an example character build that you are playing now? I'd like to see just how un-optimized it is...

 

[Ginnel]

My 4E party is very striker-heavy; out of six characters we have four strikers and two leaders. Hence, I don't include challenges for defenders or controllers. I don't clog the battlefield with minions since there is no controller to blast them away or a defender to wade through them with a melee weapon. I give the party combat challenges where they have to fight high hit-point monsters to accomodate all those strikers. We still haven't had a character death (although we've been close twice), and no one has noticed a shortcoming in the group. I'm not going to "punish" players for not wanting to play defenders or controllers.

Trouble is I think you are "punishing" your players by not letting them experience a wide range of different fights and type of monsters.

I'd recommend using the same variety of monsters as you would with a party which has all the bases covered and let the players figure a way to deal with them better, if you really want to lower the xp amount when they are fighting combats which go against the groups "weaknesses"

 

[Rechan]

What I find funny is people keep referencing "The weak fighter with a fat charisma".

Isn't that just a Warlord? A fighter who isn't that impressive with a sword, but who is greatly charismatic?

A weak-str but dextrous fighter is a, well, a rogue.