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

[Rechan]

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.

I agree with Ginnel. It is only punishment when you continually club your players over the head saying "Don't you wish you'd picked a different class? Hahaha."

A fight that is against 6 soldiers and brutes would be punishment. But, a fight with four or eight minions would force the party to change tactics. Because they are strikers, the party can easily do "Hit and Run" type encounters.

Furthermore, with two leaders, the party has a little more staying power. An encounter that is a controller and a soldier with several waves of minions showing up would be an interesting challenge.

To use 3e terms, if you have a party with rogues, clerics, and wizards, a golem is a tough enemy. However, if you give them a little for-warning, or engineer the encounter area, the fight rewards creative thinking and spell usage where raw numbers don't work. Relying on summoning creatures to create a "wall" while you exploit the golem's weakness, or using force walls to block it while you move around it, etc.

Designing an encounter that hammers a party on their weakened role is mean. Designing an encounter where the party has to adapt around a missing role is engaging and interesting.

 

[Storminator]

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?

No. A combatant with a high charisma might be a warlord, but a fighter is a fighter.

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

Only if you use "fighter" generically without reference to the rules, and rogue in a precise rules meaning.

PS

 

[Rechan]

Only if you use "fighter" generically without reference to the rules, and rogue in a precise rules meaning.

PS

Yes, I mean in a general rule. A "Fighter" mean ssomething very specific in 4e: A sword and board, or a two handed wielder.

A swashbuckler/fencer is, mechanically, a rogue. An archer or a warrior who fights two handed is, rules wise, a ranger.

Don't get hung on the class names.

 

[firesnakearies]

I don't care for too much of this "optimization" stuff, either. It's not necessary, and often the pressure to have an "effective build" pushes players into making a character that isn't really what they wanted to play. I think that's lame.

 

[renau1g]

I think Gene is referring to the ultra optimized characters who are little more than sheets of paper... for example my group has a tiefling paladin, not a great choice according to optimization, but the player concept is a lot of fun (trying to find the origin of tieflings and if they can truly be redeemed... she follows Ohgma) or the elven ranger, which is an optimized race/class combo, but he took powers from both sides of the class, because it fit his concept better.

 

[Ginnel]

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.

I've got to disagree with you here the mechanics and roles of all 3 of the above mentioned classes are different.

If I want to play a weak but nimble fighter I could either be talking about

Playing a fighter as in a melee combatant, therefore I might go play a rogue
Or
Playing a fighter as in the mechanics of the game, therefore I put a 16 in str and roleplay him as weaker but nimble and precise.

 

[Eldorian]

What the heck is with all this talk of a "weak fighter". A weak fighter is like a clumsy rogue or a stupid wizard. Fighters are strong. If you don't want to be strong, don't be a fighter. It's not like it's the only class in the game.

4e optimization is simply about not making obviously bad decisions when building your character. You don't have to work hard to optimize a 4e character, just take an 18 in the primary stat for your class and you're golden, you can't mess it up after that. Sure, you can go nuts and try to exploit every loophole or combo that makes you even more powerful, but if you just put an 18 in your class's primary stat, you'll be able to compete with the guys who squeeze out the extra inch, and you should be able to fit the 18 into your concept.

 

[renau1g]

What the heck is with all this talk of a "weak fighter". A weak fighter is like a clumsy rogue or a stupid wizard. Fighters are strong. If you don't want to be strong, don't be a fighter. It's not like it's the only class in the game.

4e optimization is simply about not making obviously bad decisions when building your character. You don't have to work hard to optimize a 4e character, just take an 18 in the primary stat for your class and you're golden, you can't mess it up after that. Sure, you can go nuts and try to exploit every loophole or combo that makes you even more powerful, but if you just put an 18 in your class's primary stat, you'll be able to compete with the guys who squeeze out the extra inch, and you should be able to fit the 18 into your concept.

Well... in 3.5e you could play a weak fighter and focus on the bow...& in any addition your clumsy rogue could focus more on social skills and less on trapfinding (not a far stretch for some games/settings). I'll give you the wizard.

 

[Eldorian]

Well... in 3.5e you could play a weak fighter and focus on the bow...& in any addition your clumsy rogue could focus more on social skills and less on trapfinding (not a far stretch for some games/settings). I'll give you the wizard.

What is this, edition wars? Who cares how it worked in previous editions? In 4e, fighters are strong. If you're not strong, and you become a fighter, you should sue your guidance councilor. Pick a concept which fits into some class, don't pick a class and expect the class to fit into your concept. This is a class based game, if you don't like that, play a classless game. There are several fine ones out there.

Your concepts from previous editions don't necessarily have the same class in this one. Fighters are not archers. They're not weak but agile melee combatants. They don't fight unarmored with one hand empty. If you want to play the fighter class in some atypical fashion, then you need to find some rules that allow this character to be effective, or play a different class that suits your concept more closely.

 

[Sir Brennen]

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

There's a difference between not seeking to create the most mechanically optimized characters and purposely creating suboptimal ones. And just because one's character creation/development goal isn't optimization doesn't mean their PCs will automatically be suboptimal, either. Of course most people are going to give their fighter a decent Str and wizard a decent Int. This has been a given since the inception of D&D. It's pretty much passive or inherent "optimization".

I think the OP is talking about going beyond that as some players do and milk every power, feat, skill, item and rules loophole for the "best" choices for that high Str Fighter or high Int Wizard.

Non-optimizers (like myself) still often make choices to the benefit of the character which match those of the Optimizers, because they're logical or just seem plain cool for the character concept.

Also, as mentioned, I think 4E helps close the gap between optimal and suboptimal choices, so no-one feels hosed by trying to play the character they want as opposed to the best one mechanically possible.