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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6621167" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Well, if you've got room for another--and more importantly, run it online or are willing to consider it--I am, as stated, "on the market" so to speak <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />Hear hear!Yeah, I think people are blinded by "prejudice" (e.g. "CharOp is the ENEMY of roleplay") and thus don't consider the flipside of it: Someone else has *already* put in the time and effort to rank things. As long as they aren't *bad* at it (and public opinion should've already killed the bad ones), you can use that filter to deal with all the unwanted cruft, whether to cherry-pick the good (teal/gold rated) or ward off the bad (red/purple rated). You don't even need to read the whole guide; they're usually very simply laid out, and what with 4e being so balanced, you only need to look at the options you can *currently* choose from--so none of the dreaded "level 1-max pre-planned" stuff people bemoan so much!Well, at risk of being a hypocrite, that's kind of unavoidable. Analysis must start from a common baseline, but true common baselines universally valid at all possible tables simply cannot exist. On the one hand, it's pretty much incontrovertible that, if you haven't multiclassed yet, a multiclass feat is strictly superior to the skill training feat, since it gives an identical bonus (training in a skill) plus a huge other set of benefits (dabbling in another class). On the other hand, in a game where combat only happens once in a blue moon, and most powers are used for social/roleplay effect, the skill training feat might actually be worth taking after that; such a game is highly unlikely but not impossible. Guides cannot possibly be expected to take these sorts of things into account.That said, though, I don't really disagree with your point. Much of the analysis is either left open-ended (e.g. "X is mediocre, but if you have/can get Y, it gets much better"), but even after that, there's still a degree to which highly complex effects from the DM are simplified out or ignored altogether. Dealing with that pretty much has to be the reader's responsibility. If you know your DM likes undead and solos, abilities that are AWESOME at minion-clearing or that do lots of poison damage? Probably not very useful, even if they're teal-, or hell, gold-marked. If your DM loves to stock combats with lots and lots of tricky terrain and pitfalls, charging may not be very useful--and a lot of charop guides expect that charging is a valid option. Etc. The charop guides are not golden words flowing straight from the mouths of angels, and we shouldn't expect them to be. They're bundles of analysis and guidance presented from a particular perspective. The reader must make sure--as all readers always should, when taking in any information from another human--that that perspective actually applies to them.</blockquote>

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