May Daggermaster Nerf Rumour

[Dice4Hire]

But oddly enough, you can optimize and still roleplay--funny thing, that.

You can also not optimize and role-play. Funny that.

Optimizing, in my experience, can make a game a lot less fun for those who do not optimize in a party.

 

[FireLance]

Optimizing, in my experience, can make a game a lot less fun for those who do not optimize in a party.

It's pretty group-dependent, though. According to some other posters, not optimizing can make a game less fun for the players who do. And in the case of my group, everyone appreciates optimization, even if they don't always optimize their characters 100% themselves (I know I don't).

When the dwarven ranger/pit fighter in a previous campaign spent an action point to use armor splinter and followed up with blade cascade and dealt over 300 points of damage to a beholder in a single round, everyone had fun*, including the DM.

Optimization, in itself, is neither good nor bad. It really boils down to the attitude of the group, and in some cases, the individual player.

* EDIT: I guess it helped that it was a group effort. The dwarven ranger had attack bonuses from my tactical warlord's lead the attack, and damage bonuses from the paladin's wrath of the gods and the invoker's pennant of Heaven's armies.

 

[renau1g]

wizard (where, yes, it's made slightly more balanced by enemies-only powers being rare, with no enemies-only at wills in-class that are usable with Enlarge Spell) than it was killing a broken build.
.

Well....except Winged Horde, but yeah, besides that one.

 

[mneme]

True. For some reason I was thinking Winged Horde didn't have a damage die, like chilling cloud.
Soyeah. There's nothing special about Swordburst + Enlarged Spell vs Winged Horde + Englarged Spell (plus enough static bonuses to make sure you always do damage)--this isn't a case where the feature is better as a borrow than it is for the primary class. It's reasonable enough for Wizards to decide that it's not the kind of feature that -should- be borrowed, but that's another issue.

 

[Storminator]

It's pretty group-dependent, though. According to some other posters, not optimizing can make a game less fun for the players who do. And in the case of my group, everyone appreciates optimization, even if they don't always optimize their characters 100% themselves (I know I don't).

In RPGs, the odd man out is always wrong.

PS

 

[sigfile]

True. For some reason I was thinking Winged Horde didn't have a damage die, like chilling cloud.
Soyeah. There's nothing special about Swordburst + Enlarged Spell vs Winged Horde + Englarged Spell (plus enough static bonuses to make sure you always do damage)--this isn't a case where the feature is better as a borrow than it is for the primary class. It's reasonable enough for Wizards to decide that it's not the kind of feature that -should- be borrowed, but that's another issue.

Swordmages weren't the problem, though. Daggermaster sorcerers with enlarge spell and ruthless spellfury were the problem. I'm not sure that particular build needed to be gutted every way possible, but there it is.

 

[keterys]

I'd not be surprised if Swordmages doing burst 3 sword bursts with White Lotus Master Riposte every round instead of most other powers were considered at least a small part of the problem.

 

[sigfile]

I'm sure it got mentioned in discussion, but I don't think it contributed much to the decision. A fully pimped out swordburst killed minions and made for some unpleasant choices for the enemy forces. A fully pimped out Blazing Starfall ate encounters.