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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AngryPurpleCyclops" data-source="post: 4705262" data-attributes="member: 82732">Forum posters represent a lot of the more hard core gamers and frequently there's a slant toward power gamer mentality especially in charop threads.  Power gamers are actually the best play testers since they are vastly more likely to search out broken combo's, undercosted, overcosted, etc.  This works for CCG players as well.  The point being that power gamers undoubtedly brought the math discrepancy to the attention of the powers that be and like any good game designer when presented with the math that something doesn't work they develop a fix.  This is that fix.  Players here just feel that it's not an elegant fix and it detracts from the game.  I think there's a very good case for this being made.It's based upon a lot of mathematical analysis, the game developers own words and the overwhelming empirical evidence.  For example I just took a look at the pre made characters in 2 modules.  In every instance they used a primary stat number of 16 and a secondary of 14 then added in racial modifiers.  The dwarven fighter had a 16/16 build because dwarves down't have +2 str.  Every pc with an optimized race to class had an 18 and the other 3 had a 16.  So 70% of the builds had an 18 to start.  Do you think this is coincidence that the premade characters have 18's?  (or 16 if there race doesn't line up with their class).  We can agree to disagree here, or you can show me what you base your optimum on.  My supposition is that the game was designed to have a 16 ability score in the primary stat (before racial mods) more often than not (it's 100% in what I could find but let me know if you have a different experience).  Then race is added and anyone who's read the players handbook can tell you that 70% of the suggested races for a class pump the primary stat.  Is a 16 primary attack stat close to optimum? Yes.  It's weak but not awful. What about an 18 with a +2 prof weapon?  Weapon prof is already accounted for by the mathematically higher numbers for AC.  These offset to a large degree. 16 is weak and 20 is strong.  16 is usually caused by racial variance.  20 has a significant cost in that getting a stat to 18 before racial bonus is very costly.  How many parties have you been in?  DM'd for?  I've seen 2 20's and 1 16 primary in about 8 parties.  IMO 20 is not the optimum build because of the costs but it is the max attack value which definitely has an upside.  Don't include weapon profs as they're accounted for elsewhere.  The various weapons have different damages and this has been balanced to some degree by the prof number.  comparing 16 to 20 is probably not the right angle to take here as 20 has some costs that make 18 the better choice in most cases.  There is a lot of argument that a 20 AC rogue with the right weapons and feats gets ridiculously high to hits.  The normal damage is low but this is offset by sneak damage.  We could take this thread on a lot of tangents that all involve mathematical analysis.  You're taking a lot of tangential paths that have been explored in great detail on a lot of forums.  There's some math to support rogues being a little too powerful but nothing even remotely approaching +3 to hit for one feat in terms of game impact.   I totally agree and I've never advocated min maxing here.  I've tried to logically explain why the current encounters aren't broken and the pc build was the problem as well as point out the detrimental impact the new feat has on the game.I agree again.  I made the same point that if everyone in your party was a poorly optimized build the dm could cap hard encounters at n+3 and max level monsters at L+6 and probably you would all have a great campaign with little or no troubles.  When you mix optimized and crappy builds is when the trouble starts.</blockquote>

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