Roll-playing, is it utterly condemnatory?

[Alzrius]

but until then, at least having a chart for "Okay, if my guy has no emotional stake in it at all, what's the best damage output per round at +8/+3 with a longsword if I'm shooting for AC20?"

Table 6-10, page 66; at +8/+3 with a longsword, you'd do 2.925 points of damage per round against AC 20 (Strength bonuses, enhancement bonuses, etc. notwithstanding).

 

[Count Arioch the 28t]

There is no problems with making a character that's able to do what you want to do.

I come up with a concept first, then I figure out the mechanics to make said character do what I want it to do.

However, I have been reamed by so many "high roleplayers" that they bother me at this point. I've been told that I'm ruining the game for everyone else, I've been told that I was an inferior person, and I've been told that it should be against the law for people like me to play D&D, and that I should take up diablo 2.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

As a GM, I hate having players feel frustrated because their character can't do what they imagine him as being able to do. Sometimes, that's because they're thinking of a higher-level character, and sometimes it's because they were unwilling to focus that deeply in something (Note that my lock-god doesn't have a ton of other abilities to buy -- he can be okay at a few other things, but he'll only be great at that. And that was my concept.), but sometimes it's because they didn't build their character very well.

I do not say this lightly, so I ask for everyone's polite attention: TAKYRIS WINS THIS THREAD.

There is a place for min-maxing, and a place for books advising people on how to min-max. The reason there is a place for these things is because many RPGs have rules, and the full import of many of those rules is not something that you can simply pick up from common sense or a cursory walkthrough of the basics. It's hard to make a character concept really fit the setting and the rules if you don't understand how those rules are actually going to work, I think.

So having a book chug through the necessary math and tell you clearly what the rules allow you to do and what (if anything) might be considered the most or least optimal designs is actually kind of cool; it's not like the math underneath the system is going to vanish if none of us look at it, after all. This book could be a neat little reference for players and GMs looking to go into a combat-heavy game, and a way to give some interesting ideas to players looking to make characters who are genuinely impressive in combat.

And it's hardly abolishing roleplaying, or even discouraging it. It's a toolbox: it's telling you that, given the way the rules are written, these feats and weapons and tactics are particularly effective in combat, while those may not be. If your character concept involves being effective in combat, this is saving you a lot of legwork and possibly preventing you from being really frustrated with your character. If (like me), you sometimes don't particularly give a rat's ass how effective your character is in combat, then I don't see why you'd feel bad at all about not using one of the suggested optimum builds.

--
besides, one of the authors posts on another forum I read, and he's
ryan

 

[wedgeski]

I say, if you NEED TOHAVE NO combat to tell yourself you're a good roleplayer, I say go for it.

You make some good points, but this is purely inflammatory. I love combat. I love the strategy, I love the excitement, I love the threat of losing my character. And when it gets dramatic, I love that too. But believe me when I say that when I'm skipping about on a battle grid rolling d20's, analyzing opponent's tactics and trying to maneuver myself for the killing blow, I know that I'm doing everything *except* roleplaying. At that point, D&D does sometimes become a strategic board game. And you know, I'm quite happy with that.

 

[Sledge]

I feel like I've been caught red handed...

I have to disagree, and I see the example as a bit skewed... consider the following:

Player1:"Hail, fine shopkeeper! How goes your business to-day?"
Player2:"I want to purchase the following items..." <hands DM a list>
Player1:"..And your family, good sirrah? How fare they?"
DM:" He replies "very well, sir. What may I get you this day?"
Player1:"Oh, some supplies, most are mundane, though it may be very hard to get good wolfsbane this year. Abominable crop weather, I say."
DM:"He asks you for your list"
Player1:"I tell him 'I shall require some wolfsbane, two sprigs, though more if you have a line on a fresh supply. Second, I shall require a fresh travel blanket, though lined with down would be preferable, I am fine with mere cotton..."
Player2:...
Player 2: (minutes later) "...DM, my list? did I get the stuff?"
DM: Hmh? Oh, I'll get to you in a second. "Yes, good sirrah, the down blanket shall cost you 20 gold."
Player1: "Twenty Gold? you slight me, sir, I see no recourse but to look for a lesser blanket."
Player2: "Guys? Are you two done yet? I'd like to finish this before Monday."


----------------

A little skewed, too, to be sure, but also to prove a point. I've seen as many people trying to monopolize a game through role-play as through sheer "gamism."

 

[the Jester]

If you have to slow down to figure out your damage, you're doing it wrong.

I disagree, especially at high levels. When you have to factor in ability buffs, power attack, the effects of being enlarged, bardic music, recitation and more, and lots of it changes every round... well, it's a lot harder than just writing down "1d12+5" or something.

 

[Chris Parker]

In the end, its all about The King In Yellow

I have recently had a relevant experience. Good friend of mine DM's a game largely consistant of other close friends, but some who are near strangers. The Campaign has been going on for 2 years or so, on or off. Started at level 1, and more characters have been added over time. Im one of the fairly new characters, and I created at the average party level 24, but with reduced gold. Im an Iajitsu Master.

Most of you know what this means.

My Iajitsu skill is well into the triple digits, with a BAB in the 60's. Now, Im no doubt a PowerGamer. However... one of the original characters recently had a problem during the game. His character design is highly skill oriented... his purpose is to forsake most other things and be there when that ridiculously high check in an obscure skill was needed. This said, his highest skill (PickPocket, DM doesnt have 3.5 books) was just barely in the 40's after ability score modifiers. His BAB was a pitiful 22. Less then a third of mine.

This caused some problems.

Party is assaulting an epic mage tower (had an antimagic field that blocked out all nonepic magic), and after being ambushed twice before, we head up a flight of stairs. A group of glooms drop down on the party (1 for 1) and backstab us all. Some of them run away (specifically since they cant get past mine or the monk's AC [or the assassin's, had he been there that session]), however, they almost one round the skill monkey rogue, dropping him to just barely still double digit damage (good thing hes immune to criticals, elsewise hed have been dead).

I yell out, in character, "Come back, come back you miserable cowards!" because I see these guys as free exp (more then half of them were dead on the first round, mage even helped out, because he had some epic staff's he had picked up).

Player for the rogue starts yelling at me (the player, not the character), exclaiming he was being ganged up on, was almost dead, couldnt do anything against them, etc etc(note- each of the staffs was sufficient to fry one of them in a round). Even though he only took 1 round of attacks, not even a sneak attack, from one of them. I try reasoning with him, explaining that I had offered to help him turn his character into one that can compete at Epic, and he turned it down. He wasnt Hiding or Moving Silently (If he had been the Glooms wouldnt have seen him, incidentally). He eventually gets out of control and keeps yelling "Shut up!" like a angry mantra.

Once he calmed down, he said he never got a chance to use his skills.

That specific campaign has always been about the battle system, it was the one they used to get acclimated to the game as a whole. He also complained of us never RPing. While we very rarely do, we each have very flavorful characters. Our Barbarian wanted to be a unstopable Crit Machine, so decided to be a Half Orc Half Halfling (His mother was the halfling... ouch) [also, incidentally, he is a very well accomplished PlayWrite, legendary in thier home kingdom... despite his 6 Charisma], our mage is an Alienist (nuff said), the Bow Assassin has an infamous quote "Come on guys, we can take it!", and is always right (cept for that time he tried to death attack a CR31 golem at level 12...), the Monk is a HalfElf who gets a ridiculous amount of damage per round, and has an AC that resembles a zipcode. To top it off, Im a freaking evil Ferret Hengeyoki Iajitsu Master Swashbuckler Blackguard Dervish WarShaper WeaponMaster. When we do RP, all of those sides of our characters come out, and its a great fun time (what isnt amusing about a 11' tall half orc half halfling giving a speech to an auditorium of people on his two latest plays, "High Or Low, The Tragic Comedy" and "The King In Yellow" [yes, the Alienist had influences there...])

In short, I learned the following lessons -

If you want to RP, dont do it in a Power Gamer campaign.
If you want to do something good at the cost of everything else, make sure you actually do that one thing very well.
If you turn down a chance to made into a combat monster, make sure you dont care about combat.
Dont ever take a D&D game in such a way that you stand up yelling at your friends. IT IS NOT THAT IMPORTANT.
Always take Use Magic Device, always.

~Chris.

-----Moderatly more relevant side note: Seeing as how Im a poor ass college student, anyone have an online version of that book? Id love to see it [writing out those equations by hand would be tedious ]

 

[S'mon]

It sounds like a cool product to me - far more interesting than yet another splatbook full of unbalanced Feats and Prestige Classes for players to harrass their poor overworked DMs with.

D&D is a Gamist game - for most campaigns, part of the challenge of the game is creating a viable character who can pull his weight in the party, who can face and overcome challenges suited to his character level. This doesn't necessarily require heavy min-maxing, but it does mean that if your PC couldn't hope to face a 25-point buy Iconic in battle with a ca. 50% chance of success, your GM is going to have to work extra-hard to avoid killing you off. So to an extent, min-maxing is both predicated into the game, and makes everyone's life easier.

 

[S'mon]

The book is fine, Roll-playing and role-playing are fine.

What must be considered is when you have a clash of playing styles. If a player turns up to play in Psion's campaign with this book, then it's likely there's a clash of playing styles.

That is the problem, not Roll-Playing.

Cheers!

What's the problem with this book? From what's been said, a player could use this book (along with the PHB) without the DM ever knowing anything about it. Worst that could happen is that the DM and other players say "Wow, that guy's a great min-maxer!" with varying possible levels of approbation and/or disdain.
This book makes NO demands on the DM at all, as far as I can see - although DMs could use it to create extra-nasty NPCs with which to challenge the PCs, if they wished. That's a big contrast from splatbooks like the Quintessential series*, where the GM has to go over every requested new Feat or PrC to make sure they won't unbalance his campaign.

*Actually, I've spent as long _increasing_ the powers of Feats & PrCs in Quint Rogue to make them viable & attractive in my game as I did earlier _reducing_ the powers of Feats & PrCs in Quint Fighter, likewise. Different authors, different ideas of what makes a reasonable rule.

 

[S'mon]

Actually, re min-maxing - in our Midnight game we have 1 player who's a brilliant min-maxer, playing a jungle elf Wildlander-Channeller the rest of us are kinda average. The Wildlander-Channeler is a *lot* more powerful than the other PCs. My (fantastic) Midnight GM got a bit concerned about this and wondered if she needed to eg nerf some of the Midnight multiclassing rules to maintain parity. I argued against this - if a player wants to min-max _within the ruleset_ to create a powerful PC, they've earned it, that's their prergoative. It only becomes a problem if the uber-PC overshadows the other PCs and detracts from their players' enjoyment of the game. That's not the case in our game - the Wildlander-Channeler is very valuable to the group, and performs many vital services (healing, battle magic, scout), but the rest of us meat-shields are also performing a vital task when we prevent the orcs getting all over him and stomping him into the dirt. Keeping him alive so he can keep on using his powers to help us succeed is a fun challenge in itself.