what is the diff between optimized and not??

[GMforPowergamers]

ah. and this? Heavy blade duelist training

what book is this from?

it is brand new DDi in the rouge articale this month...use heavy blades as if they are light blades...

 

[Herobizkit]

As a random aside, having "non-optimized" characters is what made me hate and eventually quit WoW. No one wants to bring you to an instance or raid unless you have "the best build evar", which essentially means you have to make a character everyone else wants you to play, or you don't play. If this is the attitude that new and old 4e players are starting to have, I fear for the future.

 

[Dausuul]

As a random aside, having "non-optimized" characters is what made me hate and eventually quit WoW. No one wants to bring you to an instance or raid unless you have "the best build evar", which essentially means you have to make a character everyone else wants you to play, or you don't play. If this is the attitude that new and old 4e players are starting to have, I fear for the future.

My attitude throughout 20 years of gaming has been, I want a basic level of competence, such that our party is at least as powerful with you as it is without you (i.e., we don't have to spend all our time protecting you and hauling you out of trouble while you contribute nothing in return).

As long as you can pull your own weight to that extent, it's all good. Most DMs scale challenges to match the party's total power level. If you don't mind contributing a smaller share of that power level than I do, then I don't mind either.

(If you do mind, well, then, we'll have to figure out whose build is farthest from the party baseline. I don't mind "unfocusing" a super-optimized character so as to fit better in a group of more casual players. On the other hand, I don't feel like I should have to gimp my character so someone else can keep up.)

 

[nightwyrm]

I am right now in a once a month 3.5 every wotc book allowed game, it started at 6th level...

I have multi SoS (save or suck) spells starting with 2nd level tasha's Laughter spell...I also have charm, and...shoot I can;t even remember what 3rd level spells I have right now... but my save DC is so high most creatures need 17+ to make them so far...

I also used command undead (maybe control undead...the 2nd level one) to take control of a big undead creature with a nasty str drain aura that is my new best friend...

(by the way I am a grey elf with the 3rd age catagory and a headband of Int, and I started with an 18 INt...25 Int, that jumped to 26 at 4th level)

I think that was my point. A very optimized 4e wizard is weaker than an average 3.5 wizard. An unoptimized (but competent) anything is arguably comparable to one of the ToB classes. That should give an idea of how different between optimized and not in 4e.

If we use the tier system invented for 3.5, I'd say all classes are tier 3 with very optimized builds at low tier 2.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

As a random aside, having "non-optimized" characters is what made me hate and eventually quit WoW. No one wants to bring you to an instance or raid unless you have "the best build evar", which essentially means you have to make a character everyone else wants you to play, or you don't play. If this is the attitude that new and old 4e players are starting to have, I fear for the future.

you know this is why I started this thread, becuse more and more I am seeing thise attitude in D&D.

Example 1: I want to play a wand wizard Hafling (+2 dex helps this build) that spent his first 3 feats multi into warlock, taking linguastics, and taking the first feat for the vistini... but I was told that would be a lag on the group...

Example 2: in a thread the other day I spoke of 'gale' our taclord who is a huge advantage to our group...but she started with low attributes, and used an axe/kopesh (+2 profs) and didn't have leading the attack, and is by general assumtion 'un optimized'...but she is a valibal member of the group, and yet I was told on these boards "Well if she chose to gimp herself"

when did math become more important then fun???

I understand that if you make a bad character that is a drain mroe then a benfit, there is no reason others should suffer...but if you contribute can you really complain they don't contribute enough??

 

[rjdafoe]

Yes.

More then that, 4e hosts itself up as a team based combat game, where each member is meant to contribute as much as they can to the team during the fight. As such, you have a responsibility to your team and to your other players to be good at your job.

If you're in a fight and your leader slacks off, it's not just him that loses fun, but the whole team. 4e has, if anything, made it MORE important to optimize yourself.

I don't agree with that at all.

IME, optimised makes easier fights, or the DM can throw harder things at you for harder fights.

I am glad none of this happens in any of my groups at all. IME, this is a carry over from MMOs, as I had not seen these problems so widespread until alot of people played them.

 

[rjdafoe]

As a random aside, having "non-optimized" characters is what made me hate and eventually quit WoW. No one wants to bring you to an instance or raid unless you have "the best build evar", which essentially means you have to make a character everyone else wants you to play, or you don't play. If this is the attitude that new and old 4e players are starting to have, I fear for the future.

The same as me... the same as me.

I don't want D&D to turn into a WoW raid with every player "inspecting" my gear and spec.

To me, this is what sets PnP games apart from that. I loath DPS calculcations for PnP games. It makes them unfun to me.

 

[Kzach]

looking back it looks like I gave them +1 weapons and CA (the warlock doesn't get the CA becuse he is at range)

Range doesn't negate the benefit from combat advantage. If the target is granting combat advantage to all attackers, then everybody gets the benefit regardless of what attack they're using. It's only flanking that requires being in melee.

 

[Kzach]

As a random aside, having "non-optimized" characters is what made me hate and eventually quit WoW. No one wants to bring you to an instance or raid unless you have "the best build evar", which essentially means you have to make a character everyone else wants you to play, or you don't play. If this is the attitude that new and old 4e players are starting to have, I fear for the future.

That's not 100% true.

I levelled and geared up my belf rogue in TBC as a hemo build with maces. *Everyone* canned the build as being useless, and yet until I got into full-time raiding T5 content, I proved them all wrong by beating all the 'uber' builds in DPS. Wiping the smirk off a huntard player's face after they'd criticised me for my build, and on top of that having ten times the utility and survivability of the other rogue players, was priceless.

Having said that, it was a build that was optimised for DPS and I knew how to play a rogue better than most of the people claiming build choice was the be all and end all of the game. I also eventually switched to a combat-fists build which, once again, everyone criticised until I beat them in DPS... again

 

[Dice4Hire]

I consider my games to be 75% optimized and it really helps if everyone is at that level. If people are low, or do not know the rules, then they are constantly doing less than the 75% they need to do to survive and keep their end up.

On the other hand very optimized people are a pain as they take away the spotlight and the only way to challenge them is either brutally exploit their weakensses or let them run rampant, doing everything htey want to do.

So yes, I seriously dislike optimization beyond a certain point as it ruins the party atmosphere.

But a certain level is nice to havein a group.