How much you optimize in an absolute sense is far less important than how much you're optimized in a relative sense (i.e., vs the rest of the party).
+1
Also, what class you are matters tremendously too . . .
I would go a little farther and say, what build you're making matters. For example, I would put more work into optimizing a throwing-knives wielding fighter than a Falchion wielding fighter. (Falchion Fred has a shot at being the most damaging melee build, while throwing weapons are generally inferior to melee or ranged builds.)
I think that optimization is overrated. The greatest appeal of this game for me is the fact that rules allow for you (and at times encourage you) to push boundaries. Now I'm not talking about people who start dissecting wording and looking for unintended loopholes. I mean that a creative player can accomplish enormous feats of ingenuity. I see great attention given to hard numbers on this post, but there there are many aspects of the game that are ignored by these players (and that can be quite useful when proper attention is given to them). For example, one of the most effective characters I've ever played was a beguiler in 3.5. He was far from optimized - most of his spells and feats were taken straight out of the PHB and PHB2, with one or two selected from the spell compendium (I recall suspended silence being a favorite). However, by using his enchantments, illusions, and a handful of transmutations in a creative fashion, he nearly broke the campaign.
So like the title suggests, I was wondering what peoples' opinions were about where or when character optimization becomes a negative thing in regular dnd games.
I actually had DMs who where completely fearful of this, and would exclaim min/maxing to almost any build. So we started to make jokes about this. Your Two weapon fighting rogue is going to get Two weapon fighting, AND IMPROVED TWO WEAPON FIGHTING?!?!?! MIN/MAXER!!!
Your going to to greater spell focus? MIN MAXER!!!
Your going to take all 20 levels of Fighter? MIN MAXER!!!
Basically, if we did anything that built upon our characters previous strengths, we where called out for min/maxing.
At some point we intentionally built in glaring flaws to some of our characters. Some of us took random Skill focuses for skills we hardly ever used. Feats like 3.0 toughness. I remember one player did out of protest, made a fighter where none of his feats where interconnected. So we had Dodge, Power attack, Combat expertise, Rapidshot, Two weapon fighting, Tower shield, ect. Pretty much just random feats......
The DM loved him.... because he was never useless, but never too powerful...........
So like the title suggests, I was wondering what peoples' opinions were about where or when character optimization becomes a negative thing in regular dnd games.
My personal experience as a player has been that the offensive character gets the attention. So several of the times I have created characters that lay waste to encounters I have found myself the target of DM targeting. Which led to my second theory of character creation. Make somewhat strong offensive characters but make their main attribute a really strong defense. The theory revolves around the idea that anything that can kill me will waste the party as well. Thus a DM was unlikely to kill me.
It wasn't until I started DMing where I did a monster campaign where I allowed a savage species pixie into a game that I was put face to face with an annoyingly hard to deal with defensive character. It had greater invisibility, flying, spell resistance and it also happened to be a beguiler. Suddenly I had to design encounters(some but not all of them) with this character in mind. DM effort went up. Untouchable was just as difficult as offense.
Having been on both ends of the experience, I was wondering what does everyone else think? A DM definitely doesn't want a weak party. A bunch of lemmings can't be called adventurers, but where does the line of too much optimization start?
I think it depends on the group(including the DM). I currently allow monsters with an LA(3.5 term) of up to 3. However most players don't take the bait. One factor should be how much experience do you have as a DM, and how much free time do you have to account for special abilities. I would also never allow a race I had not looked over.
How much you optimize in an absolute sense is far less important than how much you're optimized in a relative sense (i.e., vs the rest of the party). Also, what class you are matters tremendously too---you can be a hyperoptimized fighter or rogue and you'll make far fewer problems than if you were a full caster.
Just so. At the end of the day, if the entire party is at the same level of 'optimisation' then there isn't an issue. But if half the players don't optimise and the other half push it to the max, there's an issue and the players - all of them - need to think about making compromises. As was mentioned, optimised fighters generally cause a DM less of a headache to challenge than optimised druids.
The problem with an optimised game in my view is that it makes some 'sub-optimal' choices non-viable, and less choice = less fun for me.
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It's relative. If they do it more than you do then it is too far ;-)
Also as mentioned a creative player can make an OK character a real challenge.
Fortunately strong creativity and the attention to detail required for deep min-maxing don't usually go together.
Generally though I think it is more the attitude that goes with it that makes it a problem or not. I would rather have a min-maxer who was out to have fun and was clearly playing well than any badly behaved player who was out just for himself or disruptive.
Also some min-maxed PCs are optimised team players. So it's hard to get upset with them. Optimised action-control wizards for example generally set the bad guys up so their team mates can more effectively finish the job and shine.
In my opinion and experience the game works best (which I define as making the game long-term fun and immersion for the players and GM) when the following are true:
1) The party has combined arms. Parties of all casters are very powerful, but they're seriously unfun for the GM and often for the players also.
2) The martial players are optimized pretty heavily---usually in the form of having all the feats that support their particular schtick and a small secondary schtick when they can afford it. Defensive spec martial players have feats to synergize with the rest of the party (e.g., shield slam with greater bullrush to move the battlespace around and open AoO up for the bruisers). They also generally have stats that primarily support their main roles.
3) The caster players are less optimized and often have 'team player' feats, like craft arms&armor for wizards.
4) The caster players play to a god style rather than heavily SoS/SOD. This helps avoid bruising the egos of the martial characters at upper levels.
5) Nobody relies on the PC stamped on their forehead to explain 'why is Joe a member of our group?'. Less mechanically able characters take extra pains to be good team players. Woe to the highly suboptimal prima donna.
+1
I fully agree.
As long as everyone is having fun, who cares? It's only when players start taking things like Defending Armor Spikes that I start to reach for my Rule 0 Hammer.
Something to keep in mind though Dabbler, is that the core unmodified game (based on CR's and such) ALREADY makes some of the 'sub-optimal' choices nonviable. When you reach the point of deliberate de-optimization as discussed in Lockgo's post above, you're forcing the GM to work in the opposite direction. (I can't speak for everybody, but personally I have a far easier time augmenting the opposition than I do nerfing it.)
That depends on what you mean by de-optimized. I mean, I wouldn't design a 25 point buy wizard with an intelligence of 11, but at the same time I do not consider 20 to be mandatory ...
Something to keep in mind though Dabbler, is that the core unmodified game (based on CR's and such) ALREADY makes some of the 'sub-optimal' choices nonviable. When you reach the point of deliberate de-optimization as discussed in Lockgo's post above, you're forcing the GM to work in the opposite direction. (I can't speak for everybody, but personally I have a far easier time augmenting the opposition than I do nerfing it.)That depends on what you mean by de-optimized. I mean, I wouldn't design a 25 point buy wizard with an intelligence of 11, but at the same time I do not consider 20 to be mandatory ...The only character I could see that somewhat working with is a 'spartan type' with a shield and spear (although I wonder where he would store all the spare spears he would need while rapid-shotting) and even then not very well when the character had no 'interconnected' feats (which I interpret meaning no Shield feats, or Improved Two Weapon Fighting, etc)I remember one player did out of protest, made a fighter where none of his feats where interconnected. So we had Dodge, Power attack, Combat expertise, Rapidshot, Two weapon fighting, Tower shield, ect. Pretty much just random feats......
The DM loved him.... because he was never useless, but never too powerful...........
Actually the Greek heroes/warriors did use throwing spears as well as thrusting ones to pepper their enemies at short range (opening sequence of Achilles fighting an enemy hero in Troy, anyone?). Half a dozen javelins would do the trick for a round or two of bombarding before the fun started.
I see no problem with it. If it's within the rules it is okay to me. You're supposed to find the limits. If I want to play a character that is the best at something I'm going to make that character as good at that thing as possible. No sense creating a sneak that is mediocre at Stealth or an Archer that is average unless you want to roleplay that guy who thinks he's good at something but really isn't.
The DM has to be able to deal with it.
Rules are boundaries. The DM can play within those boundaries just as much as the Players can.
I see no problem with it. If it's within the rules it is okay to me. You're supposed to find the limits. If I want to play a character that is the best at something I'm going to make that character as good at that thing as possible. No sense creating a sneak that is mediocre at Stealth or an Archer that is average unless you want to roleplay that guy who thinks he's good at something but really isn't.
The DM has to be able to deal with it.
Rules are boundaries. The DM can play within those boundaries just as much as the Players can.
By the same token, you don't have to be the best at something to be an effective party member.
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1 Come up with a charter consept.
2 Make it work. Use and abuse the rules untill it dose.
3 If it dose not work? Don't bring it to the table.
4 Problem solved.
Almost any build can be made to work. That sayed the more out there consepts require alot more work. There are a few things that won't work. No matter how hard you try.
1 Being good at combat and haven high save DC on the same charter.
Thats about it. Every thing else. You can do.
The only character I could see that somewhat working with is a 'spartan type' with a shield and spear (although I wonder where he would store all the spare spears he would need while rapid-shotting) and even then not very well when the character had no 'interconnected' feats (which I interpret meaning no Shield feats, or Improved Two Weapon Fighting, etc)
Indeed, he could have done that. What the player actually did was pretty much change his weapons on the fly. He would pull out a bow if he thought we needed range. He would use a two handed weapons if he wanted to hit something really hard. He would go two weapon fighting if he wanted to make a lot of attacks. He would use a tower shield if he felt the need to hide behind something. Technically he could have done all this without the feats.
The player was actually very good, and this "build" he just did all sort of crazy things. It was actually pretty funny. The point was though, he was never really "great" at anything, he could just "do" everything in combat. By interconnecting I mean any feat that required a previous feat to use. So no Cleave, spring attack, greater weapon focus, or improve trips "not counting weapon proficiency". He got exotic weapon hand crossbows and rapid reload at one level, since he got 1 for character, and 1 for fighter. The DM nearly shat himself when we told him you could use two weapon fighting and rapid-shot at the same time.
Almost any build can be made to work. That sayed the more out there consepts require alot more work. There are a few things that won't work. No matter how hard you try.
1 Being good at combat and haven high save DC on the same charter.
Thats about it. Every thing else. You can do.
Not true, make a dwarf inquisitor with the steel soul feat;)
Well, first problem is that rapid-shot requires point blank shot, so either there were house-rules in play there or he DID take a feat that required another one :PThat aside, that character sounds like a lot of fun to play, if the GM is setting the campaign up in such a manner that he can be effective without the focus usually required of martial characters.
Oops :p . This was years ago, so I don't even really remember what his "build" was. He probably had point blank shot. He probably picked it because it just might have seemed like a "good idea" anyway. I remember he then did the same thing later on with Quick Draw and throwing daggers, "Two weapon, rapid shot, fighting at -4 penalty too all attacks :p" . This actually also reminded me that one of the DMs "There was more than one that feared min/maxing" thought Quick Draw was one of the most broken feats in the game, since it "negated disarm" since you could pull another weapon out and "didn't make sense you could use it so many times during combat".
I then joked about making a monk/ninja (3.5) with flurry of blows, rapid shot, and two weapon fighting shuriken expert. Like I would have hit anything with a -6 to attack :p . O was he angry at the thought so many sudden strikes.
Another thing I saw many DMs do, not even ones afraid one min/maxing, but of balance issues. "They do go hand in hand." I went through 3 different DMs nerfing sneak attack, as they all thought it worked on only your first attack, and then where completely stunned when you explain to them that it could be applied to every attack.
"With Greater Two weapon fighting, That's 60d6+weapon of damage. You could two round a Great wyrm dragon!!!!"
I got called a min/maxer for playing a straight cleric... and one who didn't ever do righteous wrath/divine power etc. I think it's because they're playing a warlock in a campaign where we regularly have 1-3 encounters a day, rather than 6-8.
By the same token, you don't have to be the best at something to be an effective party member.I see no problem with it. If it's within the rules it is okay to me. You're supposed to find the limits. If I want to play a character that is the best at something I'm going to make that character as good at that thing as possible. No sense creating a sneak that is mediocre at Stealth or an Archer that is average unless you want to roleplay that guy who thinks he's good at something but really isn't.
The DM has to be able to deal with it.
Rules are boundaries. The DM can play within those boundaries just as much as the Players can.
Really nobody should HAVE to do anything with their character but have fun with it.
I got called a min/maxer for playing a straight cleric...
I don't get that. What is the logic behind calling someone a min/maxer for NOT multi-classing? Isn't the point of multi-classing usually to get the most out of combining abilities from different classes?
Min/Max? Sure it can be an issue.
But, only when a player cannot be convinced to play anything other than the one-true-build of his dreams. When a player sees a character as "non-viable" because it is not perfect. This concept of an 'ideal' character hurts my soul. It takes the wonder from gaming and turns it into a math problem. And, as I have always said, "if you want to throw dice and kill stuff, we can play Mordheim" :D You cannot *win* at D&D.
For my part as a player I want a PC that is good, very good at what they do. As a GM I want players to have very capable characters. I have told many novices that there are no bad-builds, but there are lots of gimped builds. That is, if you play the character you want, it's a good character. It does not mean it is an effective character though :)
One thing that I find just as silly as complaints of min/max or powergaming is a overly strict adherence to archtypes. Not every fighter is full plate and shield. Not every cleric is a righteous slayer of evil. Not every wizard dwells in a tower and does experiments. The game is (thankfully) open ended enough to let us make very personal characters. I cannot imagine going back to a system of 1=1 and never may you stray! :D
GNOME
So like the title suggests, I was wondering what peoples' opinions were about where or when character optimization becomes a negative thing in regular dnd games.
When its out of synch with the theme of the game and stops being fun for those around you.
I decided to make the point buy in our group higher (from 15 to 20) and disallowed dumping any stat below 8. It helps somewhat. Whenever I saw someone take two or more 7s I couldn't help but groan. This arrangement helps a lot, and encourages people to spend their points more evenly.
I got called a min/maxer for playing a straight cleric...I don't get that. What is the logic behind calling someone a min/maxer for NOT multi-classing? Isn't the point of multi-classing usually to get the most out of combining abilities from different classes?
And it was from a fellow player!
And it was from a fellow player!I got called a min/maxer for playing a straight cleric...I don't get that. What is the logic behind calling someone a min/maxer for NOT multi-classing? Isn't the point of multi-classing usually to get the most out of combining abilities from different classes?
Next time play a gay cleric. :)
Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll try harder next time.
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A little late to this party but a couple quick comments which cover some of the stuff covered above.
Encounter Design - Over optimize and things get pretty boring and your GM is constantly having to tweak stuff to keep you challenged. Overall the solution here is if your group finds things are getting boring try using a lower point buy or maybe less magic items to make things tougher. I recall (back in the day) it was a big deal to go back through Doom and play the whole level with only the pistol. Think of your game in those terms.
Player Contribution - Players whose characters don't contribute don't have a lot of fun*. If you build uberdude the and wondercompanion who single a typical encounter your tablemates will get frustrated. If you are the only one at the table who optimizes you might seriously consider making a more team oriented character. Very few of your tablemates will complain about a wizard or witch who focuses on debuffing and let the other characters kill everything off. Bards and buffing/ healing clerics are welcome in just about any party as long as they share their buffs around regardless of how min-maxed they are.
Concept Characters - If I want to come up with an oddball character that normally wouldn't work... a halfling tank, or dwarf bard. Then I take it as a challenge to make the crazy idea work and treat it as a license to go nuts with practical optimizing (I stay clear of gray areas).
And then, hopefully you showed said GM the odds of actually hitting with those later attacks. Greater Two Weapon Fighting is never worth taking as a pure rogue, and goes to the very bottom back end pile of 'feats to get' for a two weapon Fighter lol.
O that didn't matter, I did explain that to him. the fact that something had the "potential" was bad enough. He was deadly afraid that I would roll two twenties on the last 2 attacks. Since we are talking about min/maxing, even if my rogue was a +2 dex race like a halfling or elf, and rolled an 18, dumped everything in dex for the 5 stat points for level 20. That would give you a +10 dex bonus with appropriate cat's grace items. As well as just a +5 item"not counting things like bane". That would make the attacks with twf, +28/28/23/23/18/18. Your average great wyrm has an ac over 40.... rolling anything but a 20 would miss on those last two. Also, I'm STANDING NEXT TO A DRAGON!!! :p
I think another DM I had, had a different problem about it. He didn't like the fact that one character would be completely useless unless it was what he min/maxed for. There for, he would have to right encounters that made use of his abilities and it would be a cake walk, or right a "normal" encounter in which he would constantly ask if it was over.
"Charm school mage vs undead" "Invisable blade high sneak attack rogue vs undead" "Undead hunting paladin vs fire elementals".
That being said, I remember a DM actually min/maxing his mobs against the players. He even showed us the stats afterwards when we complained these guys where way too powerful for us to fight. Basically, any situation when half the party drops below 0 on the first turn, and it was a surprise attack for the players to the random encounter, tend to not be very fun. "He really did think they where fair, and they technically where."
While running as a DM, I had a weird case of min-maxing. I had a Cleric necromancer character. With his build he could get well over 40HD of undead followers for level 5 "or something ridiculously high, I forget". I wasn't too bothered by it. Until came combat..........
His turn took about the same time as everyone else's turn combined, including mine moving the enemy encounter...... After a while I stopped throwing "living" creatures at him so he couldn't raise them, he noticed. Everyone else did too, but only he complained. "I still let him loot the local cemetery for corpses."
When the rule exploit drives the character concept. I'm looking at you, whiplomancer from that Thursday night game...
The easiest way to sight Min/Maxing is if there is a "min" and a "max." If the player holds that the only way to make a viable one hand fighter is through using X feats, Y weapons, & Z items, the rigidity suggests min/maxing.
How much you optimize in an absolute sense is far less important than how much you're optimized in a relative sense (i.e., vs the rest of the party).
This sums it up pretty well. It is a sliding bar.
I got called a min/maxer for playing a straight cleric...I don't get that. What is the logic behind calling someone a min/maxer for NOT multi-classing? Isn't the point of multi-classing usually to get the most out of combining abilities from different classes?
No, not in the slightest.
A straight cleric will, 99/100 times, be significantly more powerful then a heavily multiclassed one.
This is a bizarre mental trap people find themselves in. In almost every case, the guy with levels in five or six different classes? He's going to be terrible because, unless he had a very strong overlying mechanical theme, he's stretched himself out way too much.
The guy who's straight 20 wizard? He's the one that destroys your game.
As long as everyone is having fun, who cares? It's only when players start taking things like Defending Armor Spikes that I start to reach for my Rule 0 Hammer.
I think you have summed up the discussion very well sir.
That being said last session in our Forgotten realms campaign we were fighting some evil clerics of cyric and our dwarven battle rager did like 77 points of damage in one criticle strike at 5th level.
The rest of us were doing ok danage(10-18pts per round) but when the BIG bad ogre fighter that was supposed to be a challeenge for the whole party gets almost taken down in one shot our DM was a little bit miffed.
Now in the players defense we REALLY needed that fighter. we have a paladin(same player) a druid(me) and a theif and a debuffing mage. The paladin is useful because he can use wands and be a partial cleric but he can't even come close to the damage the barbarian does. My druid was built as a spellcaster for the direct damage spells because the mage has NO damageing spells. The druid only gets into combat in his wildshaped forms so his strength goes from a 9 to a 15 or so then he can be a halway decent fighter with a pretty nasty bite.
Long and short of it was the barbarian was asked to retire and player asked to play the paladin because the rest of the party would be totally overwhelmed by anything that could take down that dwarf.
As a side note the paladin gets along better with the lawful neutral theif than the true neutral druid but that makes for some good rp.
Not all optimization is created equal. A weak class, such as a Fighter can go all out, with a full hivemind of optimizers backing them and still top out at average. If a Wizard, or Cleric, or Druid takes the safety off at all, they will immediately go from immensely powerful to flat out dominant.
I dont know that this is absolutely true. I have seen optimized fighters cause havoc for games. I have always thought it's about the player's system mastery more then anything when it comes to characters. At my table, though we all optimize, I certainly know who I expect to turn up with world beaters and who I dont. Even in the age of internet optimization boards, players have preferences in how they put together a character.
As for where the line is drawn, are you going for a Normal difficulty campaign, a Hard difficulty campaign, or a Very Hard difficulty campaign? It makes a significant difference. Anything easier than Normal is unplayable, because the DM will have to spend too much time finding enemies that won't slaughter the party to make interesting plots and games and such. It's also considerably more likely any given player will cross the line on the too weak side than they will on the too strong side in any of those. System Mastery as an inherent part of the design concept will do that. Because there are so many things that are made intentionally bad to "reward" players for realizing they are intentionally bad.
I disagree that a hard campaign is unplayable. More work for the DM, certainly, but not unplayable. I have done it myself with some pretty absurd optimized characters. The challenge is that A the DM has similar or better system mastery then his players (or at least takes the time to examine the character's abilities and determine appropriate ways to keep his encounters from getting rolled over), and B that he puts in the time to use this knowledge to challenge the players.
I have run highly optimized gestault games with above average point buy and wealth levels and kept the fear of death in my players at the same time. Was it more work? Absolutely, but it also was a challenge I enjoeyed, as I enjoy the mechanical side of the game.
With that in mind, I have to add a 3rd item C, the DM needs to enjoy working out and understanding mechanics. With a party full of highly optimized characters, if you want to challenge them, you cant just park a dragon in front of them and call it done. You really have to look at your monsters and NPCs and sort out how their abilities will interact with those of your party. If you are the kind of dm that would rather write up a page of dialogue or backstory for a minor npc then work out the abilities of a new monster or character class, then you would definately have alot of difficulty challenging a highly optimized party.
I also dont know where you are going with the 'things are made intentionally bad' remark. I think that is a pretty big claim with not much evidence to back it up. Sure lots of abilities dont make as much sense as others, but usually they serve a purpose of some kind. Options may be less optimal then others, but they are not intentionally bad to reward optimizers. If anything they are flavorful/amusing to reward those who dont optimize.
I do think in a highly optimized game it can be pretty easy for someone to fall behind, but that again is on the dm to keep an eye on that, and find a way to balance that in game or out of game with the player/character if the situation arises.
Personally I think that its all about balance in the party. I can munchkin with the best of them, and I have all the resources a DM has at my disposal when running my own game. So its more important that everyone be on the same page then to set any specific power limit. In the end its about the preferences of the group and the dm, and how much work the dm is willing to put in to account for optimization
Though in my experience the extra work only comes from trying to use published materials. If you are creating your own story and encounters, then you can create them to suite your player's abilities from the start, adding in only a little extra work to deal with the optimization. Where as published material saves you far less time with an optimized party as you have to re-work alot of things to account for the baseline assumption most or the material makes.
A super-de-doper optimized fighter can at best be really good at killing monsters.
A mildly optimized caster destroys your entire dungeon, then creates his demiplane, and becomes the new DM because he literally just made his own setting.
A mildly optimized caster destroys your entire dungeon, then creates his demiplane, and becomes the new DM because he literally just made his own setting.
That reminds me of this recent Penny Arcade strip.