Optimization and optimizers...

[soviet]

Obviously we have different experiences and opinions and preferences, here, and I'm not going to try to argue you out of yours (and you don't seem to be trying to argue me out of mine, sincerely thank you). I will say I think the players at the tables I'm GMing are thinking about the game a good deal, and the game does seem to be working for everyone.

It occurs to me you might find this interesting.

I'm a player in a very long-running D&D campaign that always uses the current ruleset and started under 2e. We're currently at level 16. We've been using 2014 5e and will switch to A5e soon. My character is a fighter/ranger/barbarian. I like to think I'm pretty good at optimisation and that my build is sort of the best way to translate a legacy solely-martial character into a tier where those things are not very strong.

What my GM sees is that because I have a relatively high AC, the Lucky feat, OK saves, and stacks of hit points from the Toughness feat, plus I tend to play quite tactically, my character is very hard to kill and may even be overpowered.

What I see is that yes I'm hard to put down but I don't do anything. I steam in and have fun and hit the bad guys for 1d10+10 damage a couple of times a round while making a nuisance of myself. All the real enemies and problems are solved by the level 16 cleric and the level 16 warlock/assassin. I can't do much at range, or to flyers, or to invisible creatures. Realistically the enemies should just ignore me and take out the spellcasters. But because they don't do that, and the GM seems to notice how characters are at the end of the fight rather than what they did during the fight, I've been told my L16 barbarian is the more powerful of the two.

It's telling that when I read back the GM's journal of each week's session I continually see situations where I hit an orc for seven points of damage, while the cleric used flame strike to take out the rest of the warband, mashed together and reframed as 'the fighter and the cleric defeated the orcs'.

 

[prabe]

It occurs to me you might find this interesting.

It's telling that when I read back the GM's journal of each week's session I continually see situations where I hit an orc for seven points of damage, while the cleric used flame strike to take out the rest of the warband, mashed together and reframed as 'the fighter and the cleric defeated the orcs'.

It interesting, thanks for sharing! (sorry for the snip)

What I'll say is that in the games I run, it's the martials who tend to deal the most damage to single targets, not the casters. And I've run 5e campaigns through level 20. There were extenuating circumstances, though. That said, I'm not surprised your GM sees things differently from you--I'm curious if your fellow players do, as well. I have a barbarian/fighter in my third campaign (just got to 8th level) and I'll be curious to see how that scales at higher tiers.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There's a lot of memes about "inventing a person to be mad at"... this feels a lot like inventing a person to be concerned about. A person who truly cares about how much they are contributing are much more likely to build a character that can contribute. If I make a character who isn't designed to contribute as much, then I'm not going to care as much.

You'd think, but it doesn't always work that way. Among other things, they can go into it thinking they're going to be contributing adequately, and then in play, find out otherwise.

The concepts of "game mastery" and "trap options", for instance, are far overblown. It's hard, especially in 5e, to make a non-functioning character on accident. I say that as someone who routinely DMs for new players, like dozens, and I've never seen this become an actual issue for anyone.

I'm not going to speak of 5e, because I'm not qualified. But I will say that, for examples, it was entirely possible to do that in 3e (and presumably PF1e).

Now this is a game design problem.

I'm on record as saying the gap between how much mechanics focuses on combat compared as compared to other things is not virtuous (though I'm not a fan of the usual solution of just making there less of the former; I'd rather have more of the latter).

There has never been and will likely never be a D&D game that reaches above "poorly balanced". Even 4e, which is touted as being the game most designed with balancing characters in mind, was wildly unbalanced; forget D&D, it's the only RPG period I've played in ever that I've managed to unintentionally make an ineffective character. 3.5 is undoubtedly the worst contender here, and even in 3.5 the whole "don't mix the class tiers" thing has never remotely been an issue in any game I've ever been a part of.

I just have to tell you if you think your experience here is typical, all evidence I have is to the contrary.

I say that as someone who regularly played non-spellcasters in 3.5. Hell, one time I played a Truenamer, a class that has been universally acknowledged as fundamentally, objectively broken (negative), and not only did I have a blast, but I also never really felt like I wasn't actually meaningfully contributing.

With no intention to be insulting or dismissive, you aren't everyone.

 

[Gradine]

I just have to tell you if you think your experience here is typical, all evidence I have is to the contrary.

With no intention to be insulting or dismissive, you aren't everyone.

That's entirely fair. But then, the same is also true for you.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The typical way over-optimization is a problem is when a given character outshines other characters, and makes the players of those characters feel relatively ineffective by comparison. This impinges on their fantasy.

If that's what they care about, they should have built powerful characters. I really don't understand that argument.

I mean, it does speak to "play with people who share your playstyle," but in no way is the optimizer to blame if another player a) refuses to build a powerful character, and b) complains about characters more powerful than their own.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's entirely fair. But then, the same is also true for you.

Absolutely, but I've seen this enough to have what seems at least adequate evidence it isn't just me, either. I mean, just look at a number of other posts in this thread.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If that's what they care about, they should have built powerful characters. I really don't understand that argument.

I mean, it does speak to "play with people who share your playstyle," but in no way is the optimizer to blame if another player a) refuses to build a powerful character, and b) complains about characters more powerful than their own.

As I noted earlier, there's matters of degree here; its entirely possible to think you don't care someone has a bit more oomph, but not expect them to be essentially turning themselves into the Main Character and you into a spear-carrier. Often people who are not naturally inclined toward optimization aren't exactly oriented toward the system analysis required to realize the implications if someone else is; they'll find it out--the hard way--in play.

Of course the proper answer is to design your game system in character generation and advancement so the difference between an average build and someone really working the screws isn't that large. Some have said that's true of D&D 5e (as noted, I'm not qualified to say); my experience says that's usually true with PF2e. It was absolutely not true, with, say D&D 3e and sometimes is not true in many build systems unless there's a secondary capping mechanism and some flags on some indirect power-buttons.

This can't help if someone has a perverse desire to deliberately low-ball a character in their avowed functional area, of course, but that's a self-inflicted wound if they don't like it (though the rest of the group may be less than amused if they assumed the player would actually hold up their own end).