What happens to the "suboptimal?"

[Dannyalcatraz]

Neat... but isn't 3X5 15 and not 45 hp? Or am I not understanding the combo?

Nope, I think you’re right.

I’m trying to remember details of a PC I haven’t played in years and can’t find my MM to look up FH3. I found a group email discussing Sycamore’s healing of everyone in the party for 45HP at one point- I must have burned 3 Turn Undeads to do it.

So divide that total by 3: 2160. Less, but still loads. And he had 11TUs to burn daily.

Had I gotten to play a Paladin in 3.5 post-Sycamore, CompDiv’s Sacred Healing would have been a standard option for me, but several of the DMs in the group disallowed Paladins in their campaigns.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Does not playing with feats count as sub-optimal?

The use of feats is an optional feature in 5E. If your campaign does not include them then saying a character without feats is sub-optimal makes as much sense as saying that a character who chooses not to use an M240 machine gun is sub-optimal.

 

[jasper]

T... sense as saying that a character who chooses not to use an M240 machine gun is sub-optimal.

BUT BUT GRANNY MORRUS said I could have one when she dmed. You are just a bad icky nasty dm and I am telling mom.
Whimper whine whimper whine

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Builds?

I've yet to meet an optimal player..

 

[Tony Vargas]

What happens to the "suboptimal?"

The suboptimal must submit and become subservient to subsist, but may subsequently subvert the subsystems that subsumed them.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The suboptimal must submit and become subservient to subsist, but may ultimately subvert the subsystems that subsumed them.

Some surprisingly sly syllables slipped in there...

Sublime, even.

 

[Erechel]

Hello fellow adventurers,
Might take STR over dex even when I should not.

That isn't really an issue. Furthermore, Strength saving throws are more usual than Dex saving throws for most of the game. Dex saves are spellcaster and dragon issues, and Strength saves are very common in beasts, mounts and whatnot. Strength martials have usually better AC and damage, and more ways to deal with enemies than Dex ones (grapples, shoves, shield, disarms, better weapons as the Polearms, etc). Dex is good for Initiative, and does a decent amount of damage, but isn't nearly as OP as many people believe. It is only more useful for characters without heavy armor.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Meh. From my xp as DM, I’ve run a game for a group of up to 6 players.

They were all suboptimal in some way (they all wanted to roll), either stats or spell choices or just plain silly choices made. And they were FAB. Apart from the youngest player who optimised everything and was basically unkillable. It was played like a MMO character and had very little ‘character’.

I tried to make sure there were challenges other than straight combat as much as possible, but at one point they did literally ‘send in the tank’ and hide behind a rock.

 

[Warpiglet]

That isn't really an issue. Furthermore, Strength saving throws are more usual than Dex saving throws for most of the game. Dex saves are spellcaster and dragon issues, and Strength saves are very common in beasts, mounts and whatnot. Strength martials have usually better AC and damage, and more ways to deal with enemies than Dex ones (grapples, shoves, shield, disarms, better weapons as the Polearms, etc). Dex is good for Initiative, and does a decent amount of damage, but isn't nearly as OP as many people believe. It is only more useful for characters without heavy armor.

Note the conditional.

There is a fair argument against strength rogues and blade pact warlocks. These are not necessarily efficient from the char op crowd position. You will often see admonitions about MADness etc.

Strength based paladin? No I agree. Heavy armor sorts it out for the most part.

 

[ClaytonCross]

Even max/min implies a minimum which is sub optimal.

You can be a rogue scout with expertise in stealth, investigation, perception, and survival with an reliable talent at level 11 for a minimum role for 10 and +9 with 13 dexterity, wisdom, and intelligence being considered very suboptimal with a minimum of 19 on those checks.

At the same time an "optimized" wood elf Tome Warlock with stealth, investigation, perception, survival, devil's sight, dexterity 18, wisdom 14, intelligence 14 and observant feat would have minimum of stealth of 1+8 so minimum 9 , investigation & perception of 1+6 or minimum 7 (passive 21), survival of 1+6 or minimum 7, guidance from tome for an extra 1d4 sometimes and be considered very good compared to the rest of your group working very well as a scout/tracker for the group.

So optimization can be a little ... subjective. I actually play the warlock above and got complaints about "optimizing" then rolled bad a couple of times and they were like wow you suck. I replied, sure ... you do it then. They were then happy to let me lead the way into the traps without complaining and because I do fail once in a while the healer needs to do his job a bit more and wizard investigates arcane traps instead of me sometimes if I see them first while I catch enough of the trouble that no one doubts that I should be doing it instead of them. If I seem to be failing my way through we beak and also provides some interesting story hooks.

I don't think sub optimal matters unless someone else in the group is better than you at "your job".