Not Everyone is Interested in Powergaming [merged]

[Nifft]

Ditto. Never heard of either, prior to this thread.

Clearly, not everyone is interested in powergaming.

-- N

 

[billd91]

Clearly, not everyone is interested in powergaming.

-- N

And just as clearly, not everyone is interested in powergaming in exactly the same way or toward the same goals.

 

[Nifft]

What's most amusing is that this thread is probably doing more to corrupt the non-powergamers than it is to educate anyone about non-powergaming...

-- N

 

[buzz]

The irony here is that I am currently playing a DMM cleric, and I think it totally rocks.

Thanks for the info, folks!

 

[wingsandsword]

DMM is universally known amongst those who hang out (or just lurk) in the WotC board's Character Optimization forum.

Same deal with the stormwind thingy.

Which is a pretty small subset of D&D players as a whole I'd imagine. The original quoted post said that pretty much every player who isn't a novice knows it and uses it regularly.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I'm definetly not new, and I had to look what DMM means. I do know the feat Divine Meta Magic.

But I'm not using it. I never used it, and I'm not sure whether I ever will.

It's not that I'm against powergaming - my characters are usually effective enough - or that I don't play clerics - I'm playing one right now, and that's not my first one, either - I just think that the feat is a bit too much for my tastes, clerics can and do rock without it, and so on.

 

[shurai]

Optimization isn't the Only Road to Effectiveness

In the vein of what I was getting at earlier, there is a lot of room (a lot of room) between effective characters and what I'd call optimized characters (alternate terms might be min/maxed or powergamed characters). I'll offer some definitions, so everyone is clear on how I'm framing this proposition:

* Effective characters: Characters that are useful to their adventuring parties on a regular basis, in many or few ways.
* Optimized characters: Characters that are designed by careful intent to approach maximization of usefulness in a small number of ways or one specific way.

As you can tell from my definitions, I believe that non-optimized characters can make valuable contributions to the group in rules-mechanical ways. This is what I mean by being effective but not being optimized. I'll give an example:

Say I set out to play an effective but not optimized melee'er; it's easy to do: Barbarian with a high strength and a greatsword, plus decent armor, Dex, and Con. Almost everyone agrees that this would be simple and obvious. Two or three feats are oriented at dealing damage, no wacky prestige classes, no particularly combat-oriented race (say, Human), and just taking whatever is sensible out of the party loot and not purchasing any specific magic items. That character is still effective at dealing a lot of melee damage and standing up to a fair quantity of punishment, and that's useful to the adventuring party on a pretty regular basis in standard D&D gameplay.

That and his other talents (skills and other feat selections) would make the character effective enough to warrant inclusion in most D&D campaigns.

This is only one example; there are many others.

 

[Piratecat]

Before I merge them, is there a reason this is a separate thread than your other one?

 

[shilsen]

Before I merge them, is there a reason this is a separate thread than your other one?

Beat me to to the question. Damn your super moderator powers, paraplegic feline!

 

[shurai]

Er, not especially. Now that I read it again it might as well be in in the same thread; sorry for the confusion.