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From a society perspective in defense of optimization of characters:
If I've invested 40+ hours of game play into a character, I am pretty invested into it. I don't want it to die or be ruined (due to having to spend all of the prestige or gold for a res) due to some party load causing a wipe or dead PC. Often a weak character doesn't actually die, its the guy being forced to cover for the weak character that dies. Similar to how a geriatric driver doesn't get into accidents, but they sure do cause a lot of them.
Being forced to carry a party just sucks, and I've had to do so in the past, even taking my witch into melee combat since it had the best AC and damage potential (in a party with a figher and oracle...)
PFS scenarios are very hit and miss when it comes to lethality. Some are cakewalks you can hop and skip through, others are brutal multiple PC deaths are the norm scenarios. Season 4 is particularly brutal at that. Some GMs are also more brutal and less forgiving. PCs that are played by people who complain the most about optimization are often party loads that do nothing other than waste spot in the party. This is not an exaggeration. The most annoying wastes of space are the "skill monkey" and the party white mage that only heals. The skill monkey is utterly worthless when life and death is on the line 90 percent of the time, and the healing make specializes in fixing failures instead of contributing to success. Instead of running to a downed PCs side to cast stabalize, perhaps you could help the combat actually end?
You should be able not just contribute, but contribute well and contribute in a way that is actually needed. Often people who complain the most about other people being "optimized" or "powergaming" can't even pass this low bar. I would say the majority of people who get butthurt over optimization I've met in person are in this camp.
THIS ^^^^
Saying that making a character that does his job well would make the game less fun for you really just tells me we belong at different tables. That's fine, there's plenty of tables. But if we get thrown together and my guy gets killed trying to cover for you I'm not going to be happy.
I have the opposite problem. I'd like to see more optimization out of people, especially since they tend to make poor decisions and then whine about how poorly their characters are doing.
Besides, from an in-character perspective, optimization makes sense. I'm imagining a military unit where the troops are in okay shape, moderately trained, and fairly competent. The unit commander shrugs and says 'good enough' and sends them into battle to get slaughtered.
Or Batman saying 'I'm a yellow belt ... that's all the training I need'.
Instead of running to a downed PCs side to cast stabalize, perhaps you could help the combat actually end?
or, you know, reading the description of the spell, since half the point of it is being able to stabilize someone from across the room.
With that said, if someone is down, don't let them bleed out, but it shouldn't be a habit.
I kind of blame MMOs for that
You mean, all those MMOs that ripped off D&D ... so you're blaming D&D for D&D. Sorry, this has ALWAYS been a part of not just D&D, but every game where numbers and decisions actually matter.
A lot of good points being made, here's my 2cp.
Optimization, regardless of your exact definition, is generally used to describe the process by which characters are made mechanically 'better' often but not always at the expense of more diverse or creative options. The thing is there really isn't anything inherently wrong with that, the problem comes when (as others have noted) there are vastly different levels at the same table (and in PFS, but I'll get to that).
A hyper-optimized character exceedingly good at dealing damage, for example (this is where most of the over-optimized complaints I see come from) can easily make the rest of the average or under-optimized group feel useless. Even if it isn't so bad that they still get to do their part, if 75% of the damage goes to 25% on the damage dealing characters the other three are going to feel incompetent. In such a case it's generally best to get the player in question to either tone back the character optimization or just tone back the play style to a less-than-ideal set of behaviors. The reverse can happen too, when one character doesn't pull their weight, though the options for that are somewhat more varied depending on the group dynamic (I've seen a case where one character was grossly incompetent and near useless... but that was the point, everyone had a good laugh at his expense several times throughout each session).
Even when everyone is on he same optimization level there can be problems with the GM, either throwing up encounters that are too hard or too easy. Personally I feel like a basic GM responsibility is to adjust the difficulty level of encounters to fit the group, be it homebrew or an adventure path (like the siege weapon example earlier), to get a nice spread of fights going from 'lets clear the trash, just be careful' up to 'oh crap we might wipe here'.
The real situation when it becomes a problem, in my opinion, is in PFS. The scenarios are designed very specifically and the GMs have only the slightest amount of wiggle room to adjust the encounters. Because of that, there IS somewhat of a responsibility to at least bring decent characters (if not uber ones) that won't drag the group down. Even then, you can run into situations where someone's character dies due to a fault of another player. Though this can happen in any game, in a dedicated group campaign the players generally know each other and know what to expect from the group, so it doesn't become a complete surprise. Personally, this factor is one of the things I don't like about PFS, I would constantly be paranoid that my character choices would kill someone else. This, among other factors, led me to decide that PFS wasn't for me and that I could just play Pathfinder in other ways (but that doesn't at all mean PFS is 'bad' it just has it's own set of difficulties that don't match up with my play style).
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uhh, dude, you can't slice everything with an axe...gotta have contingencies...
Well, now that's clearly just not true.
the only problem i have with the "hardcore" optimizers is those who stick to the same builds because they are mathematically "the best", and even then they aren't playing wrong just in a game that personally im not interested in playing.
If in a game that is accepted and encouraged cool go for it! Nor do i mind if in another game where you optimize a less then stellar concept say personally i like clubs so have optimized fighters around using a club / greatclub. The only time it is a problem is when you come with pun-pun when we all agreed to play a low op game. It's like back in the day when you made a gentleman's agreement not to use BFG in doom (or farsight in perfect dark if you are younger), there was always "that guy" who used it anyway :-/
That's optimizing for an effective character. The other way is optimizing for maximum fire damage. Both are optimizing, but in different ways.
This is what I was talking about. I see too much optimizing for damage, and not enough versatility.
That's optimizing for an effective character. The other way is optimizing for maximum fire damage. Both are optimizing, but in different ways.This is what I was talking about. I see too much optimizing for damage, and not enough versatility.
That's because PF, like most games, rewards specialization. It's far better to be very good at one or two things than kinda good at several.
Does anyone else get bothered by the push for optimization of characters?
The best part about running games is that you can ban anything you don't like. Usually there is only 1 thing you can change about a broken build to make it livable.
The best part about being a player is that you can walk from any game you don't like.
And the best part about PFS is that you see all kinds of play types. I've gamed with a lot of players and I've met very few powergamers (and yes they are annoying), but I think everyone has their own opinion of powergaming. For example, if a 4th level 2H fighter is doing 15 damage per swing, some people find that powergaming. Obviously not, but yeah, opinions differ.
That's because PF, like most games, rewards specialization. It's far better to be very good at one or two things than kinda good at several.
I find that's only true to a point. Yes, it's a terrible idea to have one level in every class, and yes it's a terrible idea to take the first feat in every tree.
But I have seen characters so overspecialized that they can't effectively act when their one good trick goes away. It doesn't matter if it's the underwater archer, or the enchanter vs. undead, but a helpless character isn't fun for me.
So, my enchanters learn magic missile, and my archers take power attack, because I tend to find myself in a wide variety of circumstances, and want to at least have something I can do in all of those circumstances.
This is why you make sure that one trick your pony does is always useful.
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I'm not bothered at all about it. I do notice though that if one tries to make a non-optimized character imo the system does not reward him/her for doing so. A fighter without the bread and butter feats can still hit and do damage yet be less useful than a optimized fighter. mind you some of the optimized builds I have seen make no sense. A Gunslinger with a low Strength. How is that character supposed to move let alone lift his weapon and carry all his equipment.
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This is admittedly down to my personal experience, but I've had more problems with mechanically incapable characters run by anti-optimizers than the other way around. Like the kobold fighter who had a -1 attack bonus at level three because he had ten strength and dual-wielded two non-light weapons, or the witch who kept trying to poke things with a spear instead of casting spells or using hexes (thankfully, these were in different games). The kobold's player was horribly annoying when it came to constantly complaining about how the rest of the party were all power-gamers because our characters could actually hit and do more than 1d4 damage.
Really, the thing that bothers me most when it comes to optimization is how narrow most of the optimized choices are. A ranged attacker has to use a composite longbow (unless they're a gunslinger), a magus has to be a dervish dancing scimitar wielder, BSF's use a two-handed weapon while power-attacking, etc. Those issues are inherent to the Pathfinder rules though, so not really a comment on optimization as such.
At the end of the day, all that matters is that everyone at the table is having fun.
Instead of running to a downed PCs side to cast stabalize, perhaps you could help the combat actually end?
or, you know, reading the description of the spell, since half the point of it is being able to stabilize someone from across the room.
With that said, if someone is down, don't let them bleed out, but it shouldn't be a habit.
Sadly the person most likely to actually prepare stabilize is also the one most likely to think its a touch spell. It is part of the point I was making.
I won't let somebody bleed out by any means, but if you get dropped by a soft hit like 7 damage to knock you out, I'm not exactly going to run over there the first round and use the heal skill, cure spells, or get close enough to cast stabilize. The heal bot every hit point must be healed now clerics will though.
This is admittedly down to my personal experience, but I've had more problems with mechanically incapable characters run by anti-optimizers than the other way around. Like the kobold fighter who had a -1 attack bonus at level three because he had ten strength and dual-wielded two non-light weapons, or the witch who kept trying to poke things with a spear instead of casting spells or using hexes (thankfully, these were in different games). The kobold's player was horribly annoying when it came to constantly complaining about how the rest of the party were all power-gamers because our characters could actually hit and do more than 1d4 damage.
Really, the thing that bothers me most when it comes to optimization is how narrow most of the optimized choices are. A ranged attacker has to use a composite longbow (unless they're a gunslinger), a magus has to be a dervish dancing scimitar wielder, BSF's use a two-handed weapon while power-attacking, etc. Those issues are inherent to the Pathfinder rules though, so not really a comment on optimization as such.
At the end of the day, all that matters is that everyone at the table is having fun.
The problemw ith that lies more on the system and Paizo. The problem is that due to How things like dervish dancing and such are limiting, it pigeon holes people into certain builds. If The pwoer level for two-weapon fighting was increased and Dervish Dancing opened to all light weapins, you would see a bit more versatility (on the martial side of things).
In home games, as long as everyone optimizes about the same amount, everything works out well. In PFS, I normally like at least one melee to be optimized and then everyone else can play for flavor as they like. But if you have a "killer GM" or one that aspires to such a title, there is a very strong push to optimize. The ability to have fun with a character that is mechanically weaker pretty much disappears at that point. "Oh you can sneak and speak with amazing skill, don't plan on enjoying that aspect of the game long if that is all you have got, I have a body count to brag about."
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This is admittedly down to my personal experience, but I've had more problems with mechanically incapable characters run by anti-optimizers than the other way around. Like the kobold fighter who had a -1 attack bonus at level three because he had ten strength and dual-wielded two non-light weapons, or the witch who kept trying to poke things with a spear instead of casting spells or using hexes (thankfully, these were in different games). The kobold's player was horribly annoying when it came to constantly complaining about how the rest of the party were all power-gamers because our characters could actually hit and do more than 1d4 damage.
Really, the thing that bothers me most when it comes to optimization is how narrow most of the optimized choices are. A ranged attacker has to use a composite longbow (unless they're a gunslinger), a magus has to be a dervish dancing scimitar wielder, BSF's use a two-handed weapon while power-attacking, etc. Those issues are inherent to the Pathfinder rules though, so not really a comment on optimization as such.
At the end of the day, all that matters is that everyone at the table is having fun.
But they don’t. Really, honestly. If you build a Sword & board fighter who focuses a little more on AC and tanking and a little less on DPR you will still be an asset and have fun.
I play a inquisitor with a heavy repeating crossbow. Could a archer who specializing in the Comb LB beat him out in DPR? Sure. I don’t care. He’s still a major party asset and I have fun. You do NOT HAVE TO TAKE the most optimized path. Just take a well built path.
Now sure, I agree that one can gimp a character into being a waste of air, but having 2 less DPR is hardly that. "Oh woes is me, this other choice, which I really want for cool roleplaying reasons gets 2 less DPR, thus the nasty folks at Paizo have forced me to play the optimized choice!" Yes, SKR will personally drive to your house during your game and aim a Composite LongBow at your head while you play. ;-) You want the choice with 2 less DPR as it's cool and fun? PLAY IT!
But at the end, you’re right- "At the end of the day, all that matters is that everyone at the table is having fun."
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I have the opposite problem. I'd like to see more optimization out of people, especially since they tend to make poor decisions and then whine about how poorly their characters are doing.
Besides, from an in-character perspective, optimization makes sense. I'm imagining a military unit where the troops are in okay shape, moderately trained, and fairly competent. The unit commander shrugs and says 'good enough' and sends them into battle to get slaughtered.
Or Batman saying 'I'm a yellow belt ... that's all the training I need'.
That depends on what take you have on an adventuring party. Parties can be trained professionals, yes, or they can be "accidental heroes" where they are talented but otherwise normal folks who fate casts into an adventure. For example, starting the game as passengers on a ship, shipwrecked on an island, you are likely to be just anybody. However, how you start is not how you may choose to develop...
That's optimizing for an effective character. The other way is optimizing for maximum fire damage. Both are optimizing, but in different ways.This is what I was talking about. I see too much optimizing for damage, and not enough versatility.
I agree. However, versatility depends as much on equipment and class as on choices within a class. It's good to be really good at something, and have at least one other good option and a couple of mediocre ones.
That's because PF, like most games, rewards specialization. It's far better to be very good at one or two things than kinda good at several.
On the flip side, it's a good idea to be able to do a few things outside your comfort zone, or you could be in trouble. For example, I never take a combat class without a bow. They may not be good at using it, but if for any reason they cannot charge in and attack, they can contribute to doing something as opposed to twiddling their thumbs.
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Does anyone else get bothered by the push for optimization of characters? More and more I get tired of sitting down to a table of outrageous damage output where battles end ridiculously fast. Using feats to make a monster characters that immediately win the battle in the first round just is boring. It turns into the one optimized character getting all the fun each and every fight.
I've also run into the problem lately of bringing my characters to games that are not optimized for damage but are fun to play and everyone looking down on them.
-Mounted paladin gnome of erastil (why not be medium sized with a big weapon?)
-Combat Maneuver monk specializing in trip and grapple (Wait...you don't do damage?)
-Sea Reaver barbarian that, when raging, has a swim and climb speed (aquatic campaign) (why didn't you take all these ridiculous rage powers to cause a bunch of ridiculous damage?)Society games are the worst. I witnessed one guy a few months ago convince someone not to use archetypes of the bard class until the person played a bunch of games with a base bard and learned how the class worked. Getting to level 5 in PFS is a 60 hour investment. The guy knew what he wanted his character to do and an archetype would have served that better and he didn't want to play every week. This awful advice came from a 5-star GM.
I'm not out to change the world with this, but man...powergaming can be pretty obnoxious. Who cares if that wizard didn't prepare "Create Pit"? If everyone built the same character all the time the game would die.
Like many have suggested, it depends on the timbre of the game. If you have 3 players around the table who took a break from a year's worth of highly strategic board and war gaming who also happen to listen to a lot of metal, enjoy b-grade action movies and work highly intellectual, stressful jobs and you hand these 3 an elaborate cat-and-mouse plotline of very subtle clues and political gamesmanship with barely any combat, chances are you'd have 3 PCs optimized for a combat that never happens and a revolt ensues. Trust me...it's happened.
Frankly I watch and see what my players do as they make characters. If they optimize for DPR, cruise build threads and are constantly perusing equipment lists to maximize their AC while minimizing their penalties, chances are I'm not running a highly-RP centered game. On the other hand if my PC paladin takes Skill Focus: Diplomacy and puts 2 stats at a 10 to give himself an 18 Cha, more than likely I'll have a lot of conversational scenes ahead.
Your players will optimize for what they want. Those who frankly DON'T know exactly what they're going to want won't optimize at all. This is life.
Now, you can optimize for one and play the other. You have lots of action hero movies where the lead is very honestly highly optimized for combat but then, at that crucial moment, he turns to the villain and says: "One day, one of us is going to kill the other. If we keep going on this way, that's the only outcome. But it doesn't have to be that way. We don't HAVE to fight. So you had a bad day once and that got you to here. Well maybe I had a bad day too. But we can decide, RIGHT NOW, to sit down in a room together and talk, and try to figure this out. Together." (paraphrased BADLY from The Killing Joke - go read it).
My point is: optimization isn't inherently bad. Everyone wants to be great at their job. If your job involved wandering and murdering, your skillset would be honed in those areas. But there's a difference between "I talk to the town people for Gather Info. I have +20. I rolled a 30." and "I go into the bar, sidle up to the first serving girl I see and ask her if she's tired. (GM reply in girl's voice: why do you ask?) Because she's been running through my mind all day long. I then smile winningly and ask her if she's got a minute to chat... FYI I rolled a 30 for Diplomacy..."
It's EASY to measure a character by numbers and some folks need those kinds of benchmarks to make sense of their world. That is true in RL as well as at the table. We all know those straight-laced types who live their lives on a schedule, or by a set of rules and for them numbers are like mana from heaven.
It's far more difficult to optimize something as esoteric as roleplaying.
Repeat after me: Just because I can or cannot inflict 20 DPR that does not define me as a person...
Just because I can or cannot inflict 20 DPR that does not define me as a person...
Oo very true. Or Just because I can or cannot inflict 20 DPR that does not stop me from having fun or allow me to have fun otherwise.
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Haven't read the thread, just responding to the OP.
Does anyone else get bothered by the push for optimization of characters? More and more I get tired of sitting down to a table of outrageous damage output where battles end ridiculously fast. Using feats to make a monster characters that immediately win the battle in the first round just is boring. It turns into the one optimized character getting all the fun each and every fight.
I've also run into the problem lately of bringing my characters to games that are not optimized for damage but are fun to play and everyone looking down on them.
This might sound weird at first, but it sounds like folks in your area need to learn more optimization, as they can't seem to think outside the box of damage-dealing, even if something else would actually be more optimal. For that matter, they don't even seem to be that great at damage-based optimization.
For example:
-Mounted paladin gnome of erastil (why not be medium sized with a big weapon?)
Most people know that the best mounted character is a small mounted character, largely because you can take your mount more places. Some GMs have actually called it a cheese move to pick a small race for a mounted character.
Weapon damage is all about the static bonuses, not the die size. You have lower STR, but your size bonus to hit helps make up for it, and you're full-BAB anyway (and charging whenever possible for another +2). Power Attack scales with level regardless of your STR (as long as you have what you need to take it in the first place) and is your main source of damage (doubled on a charge with a lance, of course).A mounted gnome paladin is a BEAST, and is also ridiculously hard to kill. If people responded with "should've been medium", they are NOT optimizers.
-Combat Maneuver monk specializing in trip and grapple (Wait...you don't do damage?)
I've heard GMs talk about how to handle grapple/trip builds all the time. Some have even gone so far as to suggest taking the table hostage by saying "stop grappling everything or I don't GM". Some have called for the banning of the Tetori archetype because of grappling. Lots of GMs get annoyed at trip builds as well. If someone thought you should have been doing damage instead of grappling and tripping, then again, they're NOT optimizers.
-Sea Reaver barbarian that, when raging, has a swim and climb speed (aquatic campaign) (why didn't you take all these ridiculous rage powers to cause a bunch of ridiculous damage?)
Don't know as much about this one, so I can't comment specifically.
Society games are the worst. I witnessed one guy a few months ago convince someone not to use archetypes of the bard class until the person played a bunch of games with a base bard and learned how the class worked. Getting to level 5 in PFS is a 60 hour investment. The guy knew what he wanted his character to do and an archetype would have served that better and he didn't want to play every week. This awful advice came from a 5-star GM.
What's that got to do with optimization? That sounds like the GM was just helping a new player to not get in over their head. The bard is a complex and often misunderstood class; understanding how it works seems like a good thing to me. Why is "please understand your class" being labeled as "awful advice"?
I'm not out to change the world with this, but man...powergaming can be pretty obnoxious. Who cares if that wizard didn't prepare "Create Pit"? If everyone built the same character all the time the game would die.
I agree that powergaming can get obnoxious (I've got some stories of my own that would probably make you pull your hair out), but the stories in your OP don't sound like powergaming to me; pretty much the opposite, in fact.
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But they don’t. Really, honestly. If you build a Sword & board fighter who focuses a little more on AC and tanking and a little less on DPR you will still be an asset and have fun.
I play a inquisitor with a heavy repeating crossbow. Could a archer who specializing in the Comb LB beat him out in DPR? Sure. I don’t care. He’s still a major party asset and I have fun. You do NOT HAVE TO TAKE the most optimized path. Just take a well built path.
Now sure, I agree that one can gimp a character into being a waste of air, but having 2 less DPR is hardly that. "Oh woes is me, this other choice, which I really want for cool roleplaying reasons gets 2 less DPR, thus the nasty folks at Paizo have forced me to play the optimized choice!" Yes, SKR will personally drive to your house during your game and aim a Composite LongBow at your head while you play. ;-) You want the choice with 2 less DPR as it's cool and fun? PLAY IT!
But at the end, you’re right- "At the end of the day, all that matters is that everyone at the table is having fun."
The problem is, the gap between the choices that the system is built to favor and the ones it hates is a lot larger than 'two DPR.' As I recall, the threads where people crunched the numbers showed that a dedicated composite longbow character is going to do at least 50% more damage than a dedicated character using any other ranged weapon.
Simply put, the current optimization gaps in Pathfinder results in too many choices where it's not a matter of "Your DPR is 1% lower" but "Your character is far less effective in every single way."
Sure, lots of people can have fun playing non-optimal characters. The question is, how non-optimal? I don't feel the need to tweak my characters to the max, but I still want them to be good at doing whatever it is they're supposed to do. Since I actually know how the system works, it does rankle me and reduce how much fun I have when I know that my character is only half as good as he could be because I like crossbows more than longbows.
So yeah, all that matters is that everyone at the table is having fun. But for a lot of players, part of the fun is having mechanically effective characters. As a general rule, "My character did this really cool thing that helped the party" is going to be more fun for everyone at the table than "My character is a load dragging the rest of the party down."
But let's not turn this into the ump-teenth thread that derails into "Pathfinder isn't 100% perfect" vs. "How dare you make a post that doesn't verbally felate the Paizo Devs, you filthy heretic!"
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Chengar - speaking as a guy that got his thread locked, please don't mention any of the following words in regards to gaps in optimal choices:
- Sling
- Monk
- Paladin
- Scribe Scroll
- Halfling cavalier
- Gunslinger
Bottom line is - everything has its strengths and weaknesses, and while I disagree with the Devs that the gulf between option efficacy should be so great with some of these, I agree wholeheartedly that some choices might be optimal when compared to all others.
I think where the issue comes in though isn't in these numerical differences...but in HUMAN ones. I am not very good at optimizing for combat, but I want to be. Some of my players however are RIDICULOUSLY good at it; they've gotten so bored they're purposely hamstringing themselves. However they enjoy high-combat games and they as players aren't very good at the "talky-talky" part of the game. I enjoy/am passionate/have studied and practiced for/taken classes for/joined a group for public speaking so I get into this a lot.
My players and I; we play very differently and optimize differently as well. But I respect them and our differences. I hope they respect me. I'm never going to say they're doing it wrong or criticize them for hinderning my enjoyment of the game.
My happiness in this game is ultimately MY responsibility.
That bears repeating: My happiness in this game is ultimately MY responsibility. Just because they're optimized for combat, this does not mean I can't have fun. If they make comments on how to optimize my build, I can choose to see that they genuinely are concerned for my enjoyment of the game and this is how they know to express that concern, or I can choose to be mad at them for what I perceive as their criticism. Also, if it does become hostile or negative feedback in some way, I can choose to leave this group of gamers and find others more conducive to my style.
Ultimiately my enjoyment is my choice, my responsibility.
I made a character recently: Bucky Brambletramp. When I first made him, all I wanted was a halfling ranger with a dog focused on using a sling-staff and being outdoorsy. I wanted him kind, helpful; a genuine hero. Then I got sucked into an arms race w/another player - not his fault; I lost my mind a little and blame only me. The campaign was described as a military one and I was afraid with as much combat as I expected I'd fall behind, be useless. I was OBSESSED with squeezing out every ounce of damage with my chosen weapon. I revised his concept 3 times trying to optimize for ranged DPR. The only thing I wouldn't budge on was the Staff-Sling since I wanted it as central to the build.
I got upset. My little Bucky became more about damage than fun. We gestalted and I went cavalier along with ranger to maximize charging damage. I didn't have any fun while finalizing the character gen process and I had very little fun playing him. I couldn't SEE Bucky in my mind's eye the way I wanted to.
The game ultimately disbanded. In fact, I don't even talk to the very nice couple I alienated through the course of that game.
I could blame the other guy who optimized his PC to do everything I could only SLIGHTLY better based on DPR. I could blame the GM for a military style campaign that was more about exploration than combat. I could blame the game for making the sling-staff a crappy weapon.
None of those are truths though. I had no fun because of the choices I made.
Bucky Brambletramp, the way I see him in my head, is a 3' tall guy with a heart of gold and a mouth like a sailor. He's lived his whole life in one small village and the wilds around it. His family was his family, but so were his neighbors, his friends; heck, even the regulars off the road who drank at the Hobnob House. He and his wolf-hound, Blitzer; they're good people caught in a bad moment. When that village was razed by the goblin mercenaries of a distant power, Bucky didn't care about politics, or soldiers or war. He did his level best to get a handful of friends and family to safety through the wilds; he did this with skill, determination, and he's not ashamed to admit a fair amount of tears along the way. But Bucky Brambletramp isn't a quitter and he's not just going to roll over and take it. So he fights; he fights for those what can't fight for themselves.
That's the Bucky I SHOULD'VE played.
Optimization isn't the problem. It isn't even the other players at the table. If you're not having fun, it's because of choices and decisions YOU'VE made. Own your choices, your character, your game and your fun.
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Well , as long as the guy made himself useful , i dont mind.
But if someone comes up with some crazy concept that does not help and wants to be protected during fights ... well , he better pray , cause there is 0% chance im risking myself for him.
Better dead and making a more useful char next time.
Here is my take. I want you to play what is going to be most fun. If I had to pick between two new players.. One with a fighter that kills everything in one round. (Oh look you got him again, yea we beat the bad guy and get the foozle) or a player playing a gnome chef with no redeeming combat or social value, but has everyone laughing their buts off all night, then good bye fighter. I'm not in it for the win. There are video games for that. I here for the good time with friends or strangers, and the person that is best at that gets to be at my table, even if they can't make a character that manages to tie his shoes right.
If your your playing a drunken paladin that drops his sword at the climax of a battle, but starts the whole sweaty palm joke that has us all almost off our chairs by the end of the night your good. no optimization needed. if all 40 hours I put into my character are like that I'm having an awesome time. Even if I have to go through 20 characters cause they keep dying.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My happiness in this game is ultimately MY responsibility.
That bears repeating: My happiness in this game is ultimately MY responsibility. Just because they're optimized for combat, this does not mean I can't have fun. If they make comments on how to optimize my build, I can choose to see that they genuinely are concerned for my enjoyment of the game and this is how they know to express that concern, or I can choose to be mad at them for what I perceive as their criticism. Also, if it does become hostile or negative feedback in some way, I can choose to leave this group of gamers and find others more conducive to my style.
Ultimiately my enjoyment is my choice, my responsibility.
This is a very good point. It's why, when I play Pathfinder, I stay a long way away from any of the option whose mechanics I don't like. I do not play ranged physical damage dealer characters in Pathfinder, because I know trying to do that would end up leaving me dissatisfied and make the game less fun for me and, if I go into the game with a bad attitude because I don't like my character, everyone else at the table.
So that is why I play stuff like a Saurian Shaman, a sword-and-board ranger, or an alchemist instead. Because I have a lot more fun playing those characters than I ever would getting bothered over how I don't like the way ranged weapons work. If I really want to do a physical ranged damage dealer, I'll just play one in a different game system whose rules I like better than Pathfinder's. Not because Pathfinder is a terribad game where nobody should ever play archers, but because I personally dislike the current rules so much that I can't have fun playing in that role in Pathfinder.
i don't go overboard with optimization
i usually have with a 25 point allotment
15
16
14
14
12
7
before modifiers
certain concepts, i might turn the 12 into a 2nd 7 and the 15 to a 17
i usually don't care what i do with the 16, it usually goes to a secondary stat and the 15 a primary. i figure i will beef up the primary anyway
if doing the
17
16
14
14
7
7
array, it's often for very specific concepts and typically the 17 goes to a secondary stat, such as intelliegence for a bard (bumped every level in this case) or strength for an elven switch hitter ranger and the 16 might recieve a racial boost. might not. the 17 gets bumped at least once. sometimes more
i don't go overboard with optimization
i usually have with a 25 point allotment
15
16
14
14
12
7before modifiers
certain concepts, i might turn the 12 into a 2nd 7 and the 15 to a 17
i usually don't care what i do with the 16, it usually goes to a secondary stat and the 15 a primary. i figure i will beef up the primary anyway
if doing the
17
16
14
14
7
7array, it's often for very specific concepts and typically the 17 goes to a secondary stat, such as intelliegence for a bard (bumped every level in this case) or strength for an elven switch hitter ranger and the 16 might recieve a racial boost. might not. the 17 gets bumped at least once. sometimes more
The thing of it is people would still probably consider that 7 "too far" in terms of optimization.
\
But they don’t. Really, honestly. If you build a Sword & board fighter who focuses a little more on AC and tanking and a little less on DPR you will still be an asset and have fun.I play a inquisitor with a heavy repeating crossbow. Could a archer who specializing in the Comb LB beat him out in DPR? Sure. I don’t care. He’s still a major party asset and I have fun. You do NOT HAVE TO TAKE the most optimized path. Just take a well built path.
Now sure, I agree that one can gimp a character into being a waste of air, but having 2 less DPR is hardly that. "Oh woes is me, this other choice, which I really want for cool roleplaying reasons gets 2 less DPR, thus the nasty folks at Paizo have forced me to play the optimized choice!" Yes, SKR will personally drive to your house during your game and aim a Composite LongBow at your head...
The problem with the example of the sword and board vs gs is larger than 2 damage. Much larger. lvl 1 18 str power attack fighter with good weapon 2d6+9=16 damage. Sword and board fighter at lvl 1 1d8+6 = 10.5. difference of 5.5 damage. That is a sizable percentage better. One of them 1 shots the typical CR 1 monster (15hp iirc)on average, the other only drops the enemy when it crits (max damage is only 14, comes up short every time) . The sword and board fighter idealy will have TWF and can shield bash for some additional DRP, but at the cost to hit numbers (HUGE drop off on DPR) and one or more feats. Feats that could be better spent. Heck they can even be spent to improve AC. Sword and board builds are inherently poor at low levels since they hit like a wet noodle, eats up feats for dubious benefit, and honestly doesn't scale at high levels well either (sure you can enchant the shield, but you still won't catch up to monsters + to hit without burning more and more character choices).
The case of the crossbow: the resources needed to make the repeating crossbow to get up to the default bow in quality could have been used to either make a bow better than the crossbow could ever be, or to buff other areas of the characters design. Wasting resources on mechanically poor options actually decrease the leeway you have when building characters. You aren't able to fit in as many personalized options if you go with difficult and intensive feat chains. And at the end of said feat chains you are still questionable anyways. Take the good options, conserve resources for actual choices instead of feat traps and false choices.
The thing of it is people would still probably consider that 7 "too far" in terms of optimization.
Indeed. Where you cross the line from "I want my character to be able to do their job effectively" to "min-maxing power-gamer" is almost entirely subjective.
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i don't go overboard with optimization
i usually have with a 25 point allotment
15
16
14
14
12
7before modifiers
certain concepts, i might turn the 12 into a 2nd 7 and the 15 to a 17
i usually don't care what i do with the 16, it usually goes to a secondary stat and the 15 a primary. i figure i will beef up the primary anyway
if doing the
17
16
14
14
7
7array, it's often for very specific concepts and typically the 17 goes to a secondary stat, such as intelliegence for a bard (bumped every level in this case) or strength for an elven switch hitter ranger and the 16 might recieve a racial boost. might not. the 17 gets bumped at least once. sometimes more
The thing of it is people would still probably consider that 7 "too far" in terms of optimization.
I do. I don't think any adventurer should have a stat that low.
The case of the crossbow: the resources needed to make the repeating crossbow to get up to the default bow in quality could have been used to either make a bow better than the crossbow could ever be, or to buff other areas of the characters design. Wasting resources on mechanically poor options actually decrease the leeway you have when building characters. You aren't able to fit in as many personalized options if you go with difficult and intensive feat chains. And at the end of said feat chains you are still questionable anyways. Take the good options, conserve resources for actual choices instead of feat traps and false choices.
I took PB and Precise shot. How is that a long feat chain?
And, you see, I define 'good choices" as "fun to play and contributes to the team". Your definition appears to be different.
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I do. I don't think any adventurer should have a stat that low.
The thing of it is people would still probably consider that 7 "too far" in terms of optimization.
I am always amazed that people find 7 a crippling value while 8 is perfectly ok in their book. Really the only difference between the 2 is that 7 was not allowed in 3.5.
I am always amazed that people find 7 a crippling value while 8 is perfectly ok in their book. Really the only difference between the 2 is that 7 was not allowed in 3.5.I do. I don't think any adventurer should have a stat that low.
The thing of it is people would still probably consider that 7 "too far" in terms of optimization.
I am not terribly happy with a 8, either. But a 7 does put one below one in a million human type NPCs, whereas almost every NPC has a 8, so yes, there's a difference.
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I am not terribly happy with a 8, either. But a 7 does put one below one in a million human type NPCs, whereas almost every NPC has a 8, so yes, there's a difference.
How can this be ?
I build NPCs just like I build PCs. Many of them will have 7 in an ability or another. That is VERY far from one in a million
EDIT - Come to think of it, I feel that I have hit the nail on the head here.
If, in your game, a 7 value is one in a million, then the PCs having them (or worse several) is indeed cheesy to the max.
However, if it is rather commonplace for NPCs, then there is nothing special about PCs with values of 7.
The crux of the problem then is that such a viewpoint/truth of the game world, though far from naturally shared by all players and GMs, always stays implicit instead of being clarified beforehand. Then it falls in the exact same situation as alignments where people, without realizing it, are actually talking of different things while using the same words.
And that always generate heated arguments whatever the topic. Classic miscommunication/misunderstanding.
I am not terribly happy with a 8, either. But a 7 does put one below one in a million human type NPCs, whereas almost every NPC has a 8, so yes, there's a difference.How can this be ?
I build NPCs just like I build PCs. Many of them will have 7 in an ability or another. That is VERY far from one in a million
I suspect he subscribes to the idea that since the baseline NPC stat array for the quick NPC building rules is 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 that means that no NPC will ever have base stats that are different from that.
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I suspect he subscribes to the idea that since the baseline NPC stat array for the quick NPC building rules is 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 that means that no NPC will ever have base stats that are different from that.
Only if all you build are humans. If you build anything else getting multiple stats at 9 or below is really quite easy.
But it does illustrate my point. I recently had a conversation with a man convinced that fighters were straight up more powerful than wizards.
Think about that. This man is out there running games with players in them.
It gives you a chilling picture of the wide variety of opinions regarding what is too much and in regards to optimization.
Sometimes I find that the problem with optimization lies not with the player whose playing by the rules but the gm who isn't. Or in the case that they are, they're not designing encounters well enough to cope with whatever silly trick the powergamer is pulling.
I mean hoenstly I'm seeing lines like "Oh the fighter ended the encounter in one round". Seriously? That's not a player or character issue. That was a dumb encounter in the first place.
i'm more likely to use
15
16
14
14
12
7
than
17
16
14
14
7
7
the 7 isn't too far, the 2nd 7 is only for highly specific concepts that demand it
I mean hoenstly I'm seeing lines like "Oh the fighter ended the encounter in one round". Seriously? That's not a player or character issue. That was a dumb encounter in the first place.
From what I've seen, good encounter design is one of the rarest GM skills out there. Single Monster vs. The Party is still one of the most common types of encounters for a lot of GMs to crank out, regardless of the fact that it almost never works well in Pathfinder. Combat classes do a lot of damage on a full attack. casters have Save or Die/Suck spells, etc.
One thing I have run into a lot from newer DMs seems to be an MMO-influenced encounter design philosophy that...
*Cue the 99th "MMOs are ruining tabletop gaming for grognards" argument.*
Okay, I should clarify that. What I mean is, a lot of GMs who got their start in MMOs want to see encounters play out the way they do in WoW or whatever game they enjoy. Long, multi-phase combats against a single powerful boss, with a tank trying to soak damage, a healer spending all their time keeping the tank up, and the other characters slowly wearing the boss down.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with liking that type of combat, or MMOs in general (I've had lots of fun with MMOs myself). But I do think that when a GM is used to the paradigm of long, slogging fights against a single really tough bad guy, they try to replicate that in Pathfinder, and it really doesn't work. Not because one is better than the other, but because WoW has very different rules and base assumptions than Pathfinder.
That's not to say that the desire for long, epic combat encounters is solely down to MMO players; if nothing else. Everyone likes a long and epic combat encounter with the boss. Plus, MMOs just used a lot of concepts that video game RPGs were already using before the internet was even a thing. But I do think it's a factor in why a lot of new GMs have issues with encounter design. They grew up playing Final Fantasy and WoW, so they come to Pathfinder with an idea of how RPGs are supposed to work that just doesn't fit the system.
Again, I'm not saying this is exclusive to gamers; anyone can have trouble with Pahtfinder if they bring in too many pre-conceived notions about how the game should work that don't match the system they're playing. However, I think people who have played a whole lot of other, non-tabletop RPGs are a lot more likely to come into a game with a pre-conceived notion of how RPGs should work. And they're a lot more likely to get upset when the game doesn't fit their notions of how things ought to be. If you've spent years learning that RPG combat is slow and methodical, there's going to be a bit of an adjustment to how quick and brutal Pathfinder fights can be.
pathfinder fights are different from the combat systems of most console RPGs, there are no such things as boss fights in pathfinder
the closest thing to a boss fight in pathfinder, is the use of multiple weaker yet level appropriate foes, that make up a level appropriate or slightly stronger encounter
when you have more foes, foes gain more actions, more chance to harm the PCs and make them use resources.
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I'll admit, as a child of 3.0, 7's bother me because there's a voice in my head saying "I hope you don't ability drained." (I, of course, am perfectly safe with my 8).
I'll admit, as a child of 3.0, 7's bother me because there's a voice in my head saying "I hope you don't ability drained." (I, of course, am perfectly safe with my 8).
i'm also a former player of 3.5 and to a lesser extent 3.0, i have no issues with a 7, just like i have no issues with an 8. i don't see much difference between the two, just like i see little difference between a 5 and a 6. a dump stat, is a dump stat is a dump stat. most 3.5 characters of nonhuman races had a 6 or lower in their dump stat, in many cases, as low as 4 and even 1, depending on the race.
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I suspect he subscribes to the idea that since the baseline NPC stat array for the quick NPC building rules is 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 that means that no NPC will ever have base stats that are different from that.I am not terribly happy with a 8, either. But a 7 does put one below one in a million human type NPCs, whereas almost every NPC has a 8, so yes, there's a difference.How can this be ?
I build NPCs just like I build PCs. Many of them will have 7 in an ability or another. That is VERY far from one in a million
I can't speak to whether DrDeth sees it as an absolute like that, but if we're talking about baseline assumptions of the system at hand, then yeah, the bulk of the population of the planet has scores ranging from 8-13 before racial adjustments; anyone outside of that is a special case (such as the 4 INT "Village Idiot" from I forget which book).
So a human with 7 CHA is outside "normal" - for a human. Fully one-third of typical dwarves have 7 CHA or less, though, so the 7 CHA human's companions probably make remarks along the lines of "Geez, it's like having a friggin' dwarf on the team!"
Which I suppose means that when you have a dwarf PC with 7–2=5 CHA, he's the one the other dwarves point at and say "You know you're the reason we have such a reputation, right?"
But again, that's the built-in defaults of "normal". If your campaign world routinely includes huddled masses with 7s in their stats (or in the other direction, if you use prior systems' all-10s model), then the meanings of those stats will of course be different.
The case of the crossbow: the resources needed to make the repeating crossbow to get up to the default bow in quality could have been used to either make a bow better than the crossbow could ever be, or to buff other areas of the characters design. Wasting resources on mechanically poor options actually decrease the leeway you have when building characters. You aren't able to fit in as many personalized options if you go with difficult and intensive feat chains. And at the end of said feat chains you are still questionable anyways. Take the good options, conserve resources for actual choices instead of feat traps and false choices.I took PB and Precise shot. How is that a long feat chain?
And, you see, I define 'good choices" as "fun to play and contributes to the team". Your definition appears to be different.
PB and precise are the baseline feats that all ranged specialized characters get. I forgot that Inquisitors get prof with the repeating bow too. That being said the weapon is still suboptimal because you can't add strength (or dex like a gunslinger) to it, you can't take multishot, and a whole host of things that makes ranged combat effective rather than a backup plan. Also the round where you reload the bolts is pretty much lost. Once you get iterative needing to reload every 2 rounds is going to seriously crimp your damage output, which was pathetic to begin with.
My idea of good choices is "fun to play and EFFECTIVELY contributes to the team" When DR2 reduces your DPR by 1/3, that isn't a great place to be. DR5 reduces this concept to .5 damage per round. That is laughable. You know what outpaces .5 damage per round? An acid splash (resist acid is less common than DR).
I am not terribly happy with a 8, either. But a 7 does put one below one in a million human type NPCs, whereas almost every NPC has a 8, so yes, there's a difference.How can this be ?
I build NPCs just like I build PCs. Many of them will have 7 in an ability or another. That is VERY far from one in a million
EDIT - Come to think of it, I feel that I have hit the nail on the head here.
If, in your game, a 7 value is one in a million, then the PCs having them (or worse several) is indeed cheesy to the max.
However, if it is rather commonplace for NPCs, then there is nothing special about PCs with values of 7.
Not “my game” games set in Golarion. “standard array (13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8), “. Jams Jacob has confirmed that this makes up the vast majority of NPCs, with elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) filling in another 10% or so. Anyone coming with a different array is one in a million or so (they have some examples in the NPC codex). Golarion doesn’t roll for stats.