Why is it a bad thing to optimise?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Quick Rapier is a 3rd-level magical weapon type with a daily power. The daily power gives you a free action melee attack against any target after you've successfully hit a target already in the turn. It's from Adventurer's Vault (I just looked it up on Compendium).

Takedown strike is no action, again triggered by hitting someone and just adds damage and a prone.

Backstab just adds damage to any attack. So... yah, they all stack.

It's all legal.

Wow. You've just described why I hate the Character Builder. It's so hard to "throttle sources" (that's something I ranted about once). One of these days, soon, I'm going to post my little rant on the CB, and I'm going to quote you as one of my examples. I don't think anyone playtested all that stuff together. I can picture whoever playtested the Rapier of Quickness might have used it with a thief, or the mercenary background the same, but I'm reasonably sure they weren't all playtested together.

Actually, I have been a WotC playtester before (just once, and did some third party stuff too) and there's no way that stuff was all playtested together.

Hard to do when you have to bring characters to a game either online or before the game starts, like at a game store where you don't know who or even how many people will be playing. In a home game, ok, you might discuss these things before playing, but even then it depends on who you're playing with and how well you know each other.

Seems like you have to try.

I used to assume everyone would play DnD the same way, a view I developed with 18 years RPG experience, and got frustrated when some players decided to build wealth rather than build adventurers (as one example). I was "forced" to explain this before my current Dark Sun campaign. I haven't had such problems since, but it really felt like I suddenly realized these DnD players I'd known for years playing RPGs for years had grown up on other planets.

You really need to talk to them. Even if it's just by IM.

 

[DEFCON 1]

ok, to me this is one of the most offending and wrong conclusions I've ever read in this forum.

It appears to me that the only wrong conclusion was the one you took from what I said and the very specific part of Kzach's post that I quoted.

 

[Kzach]

Actually, I have been a WotC playtester before (just once, and did some third party stuff too) and there's no way that stuff was all playtested together.

I'd have to disagree. A quick weapon seems squarely aimed at strikers. Sure, everyone can benefit from getting an extra attack in a turn, but it's pretty obvious that a striker benefits most from it. When I was searching, it immediately popped out at me as a choice to review because "quick" is synonymous with thieves.

The same for the Mercenary theme. I mean, no-one can convince me that a casual read through of that screams, "I can do more damage and tack on a prone as a freebie? Awesome!"

One of the things I'd probably agree is broken and seriously needs to be addressed in the system is items like Bracers of Mighty Striking. Flat bonuses to damage are the real problem with big damage characters. It's the primary reason why Twin Strike is so powerful. The two attacks are pretty meaningless without all the static, stackable bonuses.

Take my thief as an example. 6d8+1d6 is impressive, no doubt, but it only amounts to an average of 30.5 points of damage. This is most definitely NOT outside the realm of most strikers who use an action point and a daily item power and rely on three successful hits. When you put it into that perspective, it's actually pretty reasonable when compared to even an average-built striker.

Where the REAL problem comes in, is all the stackable bonus damage. Takedown Strike = 5 (from a Dexterity of 20), Acrobat's Trick = 2, Weapon Finesse (thief core ability) = 2, Bracers of Mighty Striking = 2, Dexterity (Weapon Finesse) = 5. Across three attacks that's 33 damage plus another 5 for Takedown Strike. So just through stacked damage on the three attacks, I've doubled the damage output, putting it into the realm of overpowered.

And yet again I argue that this isn't powergaming. Again, I didn't know about Bracers of Mighty Striking. It took me a minute or two to find them and think, "Gee, they're good for me, I'll take those!" The same for the Quick Weapon. If I'm a powergamer simply because I looked at the options and thought, "Hey, that's good and suits my character, I'll use that," then... I guess I'm a powergamer. But then if I can do all that in ten minutes, what's stopping everyone else?

When I spend hours creating a character, it's always for a very particular concept that requires that I search high and low to suit it. The irony here is that I'm looking for things that suit the CHARACTER CONCEPT. So I spend less time optimising than I do focusing on the character's character. Hell, I wrote up a character history for that thief above and it took about half an hour. That's three times the amount of time I devoted to creating him in the first place.

 

[Hussar]

To some people playing RPGs, it's not about the rules at all.

And I totally get that. I really do. I've played with those kinds of players for years and it's fine.

But, don't then turn around and bitch about the fact that you can't hit anything, can't succeed at anything you try and your character is a complete failure while the guy sitting beside you can function quite nicely.

 

[Pentius]

Yeah, that nova round for your Thief sounds alot more impressive before you factor in that it uses an action point, a daily power, three encounter powers and then relies on three attacks hitting.

I don't see him as a casual gamer. I see him both as a power gamer (to what degree I don't know other than he claims not to carry it to the extremes of WOTC's CharOPs) and an optimizer. Optimization is his tool to power game. He expects characters to have at least 18 in the prime stat for the bonuses (I have seen others say a 16 is just fine). He looks for racial synergies to class. And , then he spends hours looking for more synergies. He expects others to do the same.This is not casual. It is also setting a minimum acceptable level of power for him to have fun which flies against what others have said is necessary for the game to work (hence the power gaming).

While a 16 in one's primary stat works just fine, expecting an 18 is not terribly optimize-y. The 22-pt point buy method easily allows for a pre-racial 16 and the standard array includes one as well. I'd call it common sense to have your primary stat as your highest, so if you have a racial bonus to it, there's your 18. A pre-racial 18 is a sometimes used method, but also not always worth it. As for race synergies, those often tend to be obvious and thematic. For example, Elves make great Archer Rangers and Druids, in part because they have stat bumps to the most used stats of those classes. As for spending hours going through looking for synergies, it's not necessarily that non-casual. The character builder makes it easy, and if you have a fairly lax schedule, you can end up tinkering with a couple character ideas in it for awhile. I've done it. Heck, I'm pretty sure I've spent an hour or so, on at least one occasion, just reading through different rituals.

Obviously Kzach isn't a casual gamer, in the sense of the type of player who just shows up to hang out, but he's also not a terribly gung-ho power gamer, at least from what I've seen of him.

 

[Greg K]

Obviously Kzach isn't a casual gamer, in the sense of the type of player who just shows up to hang out, but he's also not a terribly gung-ho power gamer, at least from what I've seen of him.

Which is why I mentioned that that degree of power gaming is on a continuum and he does not seem to be at the extreme far end. However, the impression that I get from his posts is that he rates much further to the right than me.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'd have to disagree. A quick weapon seems squarely aimed at strikers. Sure, everyone can benefit from getting an extra attack in a turn, but it's pretty obvious that a striker benefits most from it. When I was searching, it immediately popped out at me as a choice to review because "quick" is synonymous with thieves.

The same for the Mercenary theme. I mean, no-one can convince me that a casual read through of that screams, "I can do more damage and tack on a prone as a freebie? Awesome!"

I mean I doubt anyone playtested a thief with both that theme and the weapon, as they come from different products.

One of the things I'd probably agree is broken and seriously needs to be addressed in the system is items like Bracers of Mighty Striking.

If it's broken, why use it? You admitted it yourself, so why take something you yourself feel is broken?

And yet again I argue that this isn't powergaming. Again, I didn't know about Bracers of Mighty Striking. It took me a minute or two to find them and think, "Gee, they're good for me, I'll take those!" The same for the Quick Weapon. If I'm a powergamer simply because I looked at the options and thought, "Hey, that's good and suits my character, I'll use that," then... I guess I'm a powergamer.

You figured the math, and you had to know that's a lot of damage. Simply picking something that suits your character isn't broken, but picking several powers/items from different sources that let you break the action economy (with a broken item) is.

But then if I can do all that in ten minutes, what's stopping everyone else?

Haven't I repeatedly said I hate the Character Builder? Maybe for my next campaign I'll ban it, or say PH1 or Essentials book 1 only.

I wish I could remember a thread I participated in a year or some ago about why DMs ban non-core products. The CB only exacerbates the problem.

When I spend hours creating a character, it's always for a very particular concept that requires that I search high and low to suit it. The irony here is that I'm looking for things that suit the CHARACTER CONCEPT. So I spend less time optimising than I do focusing on the character's character. Hell, I wrote up a character history for that thief above and it took about half an hour. That's three times the amount of time I devoted to creating him in the first place.

Like I said before, I'm not talking about RP at all. That's another issue. It seems to me the CB makes it too easy to power-game though. That kind of thing used to take hours and hours of crawling through multiple products, and (hopefully) asking the DM about each of them, then (hopefully) being flexible about taking stuff away if the DM changes his mind after seeing the combo in play.

This is on top of having other players who won't even do "standard" optimization. I wonder if that group that contributed to all those Sultans of Smack thread is still around, and if they do 4e?

 

[Saeviomagy]

I mean I doubt anyone playtested a thief with both that theme and the weapon, as they come from different products.

Unless the products came out at the same time and nobody saw all the products at the same time, how could that combo be missed? Is it a wizards policy that each book should be reviewed in isolation or something? It's a pretty straightforward combination of thematically appropriate elements.

The damage he's pumped out isn't that big: it is, after all, a daily, a weapon daily, a couple of encounter powers and an action point. You can get pretty close to that level of damage with a PHB build using just a daily and an at-will (and a little tactical play).

YOU see a powergamed character with ludicrous damage output. I see a damage level that's not significantly bigger than what I can get from skimming through the PHB.

But that's not even what Kzach's issue is. I'm sure he doesn't mind you being amazed by the numbers at all. He's even willing to help YOU hit those numbers. The problem comes when you try to make out that Kzach is some kind of bad person for hitting those numbers, and his help or advice will somehow taint you and make you a bad person too.

 

[Kzach]

Unless the products came out at the same time and nobody saw all the products at the same time, how could that combo be missed? Is it a wizards policy that each book should be reviewed in isolation or something? It's a pretty straightforward combination of thematically appropriate elements.

The damage he's pumped out isn't that big: it is, after all, a daily, a weapon daily, a couple of encounter powers and an action point. You can get pretty close to that level of damage with a PHB build using just a daily and an at-will (and a little tactical play).

YOU see a powergamed character with ludicrous damage output. I see a damage level that's not significantly bigger than what I can get from skimming through the PHB.

But that's not even what Kzach's issue is. I'm sure he doesn't mind you being amazed by the numbers at all. He's even willing to help YOU hit those numbers. The problem comes when you try to make out that Kzach is some kind of bad person for hitting those numbers, and his help or advice will somehow taint you and make you a bad person too.

Apparently I have to spread more XP around before giving it to Saeviomagy again. Darnit. He's spot on.

 

[Nightson]

I think generally, problems with optimization come not from the players but from the game.

First to prevent boring sameness, there needs to be multiple paths of optimization. Aka, you don't want every single player to be wearing the same armbands that give +2 damage on every hit. Having multiple paths of optimization allows stuff to fit in more closely with the character archetype. You could have one item give a small bonus to damage while flanking, one that gives a medium bonus when charging and one that gives a really big bonus on the first hit in a combat. All of them can be balanced to give the same average damage per round, but the different expressions of that makes for fun choices.

The second is a lack of flavor protection. Things should cost based on their usefulness. When "+1 to hit with all attacks" and "You can reroll an atheletics check" cost the same thing then you have a problem. The game could simple silo off the different options, and give you a certain number of points for combat effectiveness and a certain number for things that help fit or round out the character concept but aren't very useful. Say, training in the Heal skill for you fighter even though you have a bad wisdom and there's a cleric, it's not a useful option, you'll probably never roll it, but it fits a lot better for a lot of characters who might have been treating battle injuries.