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The more I play, the more I hate the feeling as if I have to optimize my characters. If I don't, I question whether or not I'm really contributing to the group. If I force myself not to, I get questions like "that's all?" when I mention a save DC or get frustrated because I can't land attacks or my spells get saved against often. It's infuriating and deflating, honestly. When I do it, and I can do it well, my characters are capable but often shallow in build.
Does anyone else feel the same? Is there a balance between the worlds?
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This has been a constant topic on and off and to answer your question...No, I do not feel that way
There is optimizing, there is min/maxing, and then there is building a reliable character. Honestly, you need a character that is reliable in combat. You really don't have to do much to accomplish this but you would be surprised how often I run into a character that cannot function in combat at all. It is troubling IMO.
People often complain about having to optimize for combat or people min/maxing for combat. I'm not sure why, combat is a large part of the game (Yes, I am aware that there is a role playing aspect and that some published adventures can be beaten with little to no combat and that in a homebrew there could very likely be adventures designed with zero combat, but in general combat is a large part of the game).
When I design a character I keep what I want them to do in combat and what I want them to do out of combat in mind. I meet a happy medium. If you optimize your character for out of combat situations then of course it is going to suck in combat and you will get frustrated. If you try to make them a jack of all trades then yes, you will find that you have made your character bad in all areas and a jack of no trades.
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See: Stormwind fallacy.
This has been a constant topic on and off and to answer your question...No, I do not feel that way
There is optimizing, there is min/maxing, and then there is building a reliable character. Honestly, you need a character that is reliable in combat. You really don't have to do much to accomplish this but you would be surprised how often I run into a character that cannot function in combat at all. It is troubling IMO.
I'm just glad someone early in the thread made sure to note the difference between optimizing and min/maxing.
Personally I think optimizing and building a reliable character are one and the same.
I partly place the blame on the game itself. Often you have to take things to make your class function. For some classes this isn't much. For others its everything they have.
For example, all a Barbarian really needs to function well in combat is power attack. Everything he chooses is either for a boost in mechanical power or flavor.
On the other hand, the Fighter has to endure through several specific choices in order to function well. He has to take boring numeric feats just to stay on par with others. Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec all only put you on par with a Barbarian's rage.
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"But the group is of my friends and they are the only people I know who play?" -again...too lazy to find another group...too overly sensitive to tell them that you are not having a fun time playing that way.
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Not as easy as you might think. I have searched for 6 years to find a new group to play on a saturday, wednesday or thursday night with no lucl. I have tried to find a 6th member for 4 years with no luck. We use an online program and VOIP program. So location does not matter. AND YET still have been unable to despite using 5 different forums, and contacting all my local game stores.
that being said, we still have room for a 6th!
I don't mind the game's definition of balance. I quite like the average statistics of a given CR across all its members. I don't like when PCs throw off this curve and treat DC 22 saves at level 10 as nothing.
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Not sure what to say about not wanting to optimize. I think everyone does this more or less in creating their characters. What can be done is to prevent players from building characters only focused in one thing, assuming your GM is engaged in helping out. Since efficiency in combat is the one thing that offers the easiest payout, the GM and players have to agree to emphasize or re-value other aspects of the game to balance the desire to combat focus characters.
For instance, if you create a circumstance or a regular check for every and all players where they have to use CHA/STR/INT/WIS, whatever they are dropping to 7-8s, then they are encouraged to build a more well-rounded character. If not, once person builds a "face" character and everyone else stands behind them and does a "yeah, what he said", while he rolls stellar CHA based checks. If there are other in-game penalties for choosing certain weapons, whether they are perceived as dishonorable/against the latest fashion,etc, you can influence the benefits of using say a falchion vs a great axe.
Bottom line is that if you are a single player who feels this way in a group, there is little that can be done. If most or all feel this way, the game can be geared towards more balanced characters with a bit of work on the GMs part.
Eh. Hate the game, not the player.
That's something I haven't tried: a slow in-game paced campaign that spans years. Kingmaker sounds cool. But, something more episodic and more locally focused.
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Are you saying I can actively build superior mechanical characters and still navigate them through a killer narrative story? Come on? I don't believe those two things can coexist.
While a person can make a superior mechanical character and also be an amazing roleplayer, there is definitely a connection between trying to build the best character mechanically and poor roleplaying.
The art of roleplaying often requires setting aside what would be the best mechanical option in order to act as your character really would. If a good character faces a situation where slaughtering babies nets them a permanent +5 to their stat of choice, they would of course refuse to do so because they are good.
The player that is very concerned about their character's mechanical power would likely start complaining that the alignment system is dumb, or couldn't those babies be evil, or their character lost control of himself for just a moment, etc.
It is often times hilarious watching a player of this type bend their character concept to the point of breaking in order to justify doing what the player wants them to in order to obtain more mechanical power.
But again, it IS possible to be both.
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Hmmm?
This game is pretty balanced. More than 3.5 by a shot.
Hilariously wrong. While the extreme upper end of 3.5 is out and some tricks no DM would allow (no Punpun, no Wall of Iron for Money, etc), the big imbalances are still there. It even adds in some new ones, such as Disjunction being BETTER in Pathfinder for players to spam.
The disparity between casters and non-casters has not changed at all. Heck, given the overall nerf to the Rogue, splitting of combat maneuver feats, and so forth...for every improvement there's a problem. To say nothing of the fact that some improvements really didn't fix problems (such as how the Fighter was changed).
If you say "hilariously wrong" and then follow it up with "the extreme upper end of 3.5 is out", you've just contradicted yourself. I used to hang around on the optimization board, and there were a dozen builds that quadrupled the top end of the best (non-mythic) Pathfinder characters.
Feel free to laugh...but ragelancepounce pales in comparison to tossing asteroids.
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When creating a new character I always wait to be the last player to do so, I like to know what is missing in our mischievous band of murder hobos.
My current group is comprised of a jack of all trade diplomacy focused monk. My friend playing that character did little to no research before building him, his character can maybe throw one or 2 good diplomacy check per 6 hour sessions. His flurry of blow is to laugh at, his saving throw are not too bad but no great either. On top of that the player as the worse luck in the world and often roll "1". But he enjoys himself and compensate with stellar role-play. But both of these thing does not affect each other, you see, he was lazy when building his monk, did not research any archetype, traits and feat progression to make something that work or at least kind of work.
My girlfriend (kind of new to pathfinder but an avid role player nevertheless) wanted to make a very strong female character, she categorically refused to play the bikini chain mail babe and did not want to touch anything with magic. She spent about 10 hours doing research into her character, background story, classes choices and more overall information on what she would do. She came back to me with a barbarian armored hulk with some horizon walker level dip to be able to Rage cycle. She figured that on her own, by browsing forums asking for feedback on her build. Her character makes Krados from god of war look like a kitten, she tears down wall using strategically invested rage powers and basically instill fear in the heart of anything she face with incredible intimidate checks. When all else fails she goes hulk smash, charges and deal about 2d12 + 30 DMG with her adamantine great axe.
The third party member of our group is a gentle soul by nature, she spend most of her day typing on RP forums about imaginary friend and characters and every time we start a campaign she pulls one of her character out of these stories to slam them in the game, she often has no clues of how to make it work but always politely ask the DM for a hand. Now she plays "Edgar" a healer (cleric with the liberation and travel domain), she has about 25 pages of back-story but never really bother using them in-game, she has a hard time expressing herself. So basically if the DM feels down that day she get's a half ass character. She has no clue of what her character is able to do and does very little research into game mechanic, the only important thing for her is that "Edgar" is somewhere on the table. Needless to say, we often have to tell her what to do for the first 6-7 sessions.
So if we look at the 3 character up there we need a arcane magic user and a rogue. But I still want to play a very interesting character, so let's see what is useful and work well together. So I came up with a Bladebound Hexcrafter Magus with 2 dip level of rogue. With the magical knack trait I have still 100% of my HD in caster levels, I have excellent combat abilities and an astounding amount of skill points.
I have an incredible +16 to my perception check (17 VS traps), awesome lock picking abilities, spell casting abilities, a sneak attack bonus of 1d6, evasion and many other bonuses that make my character a very efficient character all round, but it's not because he's optimized, you see I made 26 build before ending up with the one I am using, I have spent about 15 hours making the best character to fit my Role playing needs. I have also spent a good 4 hour to develop a very short but well written character back story for my character that explains his classes and desires to be an adventurer.
It's because Pathfinder is a game and I invested a lot of time to master that game. Meaning that I can bend the system back and forth on a whim to make any character concept work. Throw anything at me, I bet I can make a halfling pig farmer into a force to be reckoned with, I bet I can make a 70 year old shoe maker into the most powerful wizard the kingdom has ever seen, I can build an elf fisherman into a master thief. All you need is to invest a bit of time and if you are not able to respect that, take some time to acknowledge that with effort, experience and intelligence comes great powers in pathfinder.
So you don't have to optimize your character.
You have to take some time to respect the heroes you are creating for what they are and crafting them well.
If you want to play a wizard with 9 intelligence and 18 STR, be my guest, if you want to build a rogue with 7 DEX, 8 INT and 18 WIS, be also my guest.
But at this point it's not the system that has a problem, it's your lack of common sense.
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You really just prove my point. Sure, 3.5 had some crazy high-end stuff that in 99.999% of groups would never see the light of day. A massive amount of the stuff on the TO boards would never be allowed in any real game. As far as actual gaming practice is concerned, PF and 3.5 are not really different.Hmmm?
This game is pretty balanced. More than 3.5 by a shot.
Hilariously wrong. While the extreme upper end of 3.5 is out and some tricks no DM would allow (no Punpun, no Wall of Iron for Money, etc), the big imbalances are still there. It even adds in some new ones, such as Disjunction being BETTER in Pathfinder for players to spam.
The disparity between casters and non-casters has not changed at all. Heck, given the overall nerf to the Rogue, splitting of combat maneuver feats, and so forth...for every improvement there's a problem. To say nothing of the fact that some improvements really didn't fix problems (such as how the Fighter was changed).
If you say "hilariously wrong" and then follow it up with "the extreme upper end of 3.5 is out, you've just contradicted yourself. I used to hang around on the optimization board, and there were a dozen builds that quadrupled the top end of the best (non-mythic) Pathfinder characters.
Feel free to laugh...but ragelancepounce pales in comparison to tossing asteroids.
Seriously, for every asteroid hurler, there were a dozen that were clearly overpowered, but not in the very top. Pathfinder clearly got rid of them.
Again, if you want seriously unbalanced, look at Stormbringer, where 3 races utterly rule any others...or Rifts, where some character types can both be immune to others, and do 100x the damage... standard.
I find that optimizing a character makes me MORE likely to come up with a good story and personality for them.
After all, if I'm not in constant fear that they're going to die horribly, I can be more comfortable getting attached to them.
See: Stormwind fallacy.
Thank you for the great read!
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I say pick your concept and optimize within it! But going the opposite way (mechanics -> concept, and maybe back to mechanics) can also be fun, and sometimes leads to creative inspiration I might not have had in the first place.
Thank you Paulicus. A man with a plan.
I find that optimizing a character makes me MORE likely to come up with a good story and personality for them.
After all, if I'm not in constant fear that they're going to die horribly, I can be more comfortable getting attached to them.
I've enjoyed great success with the background generator to get me started on these as I don't always have the time or wherewithal to get my head into Pathfinder. Once there, it's smooth sailing. I tend to build to the background after that.
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I tend to look at what I would enjoy from a mechanical standpoint before I begin forming the story. Fact is that you can have a backstory/personality you love, but the character will still grow tiresome to you if its mechanics don't appeal. It's a lot easier to come up with the story aspects after choosing mechanics than it is to fit mechanics to the story, at least in my opinion. I'm sure others will have had a different experience. In any case, I guess what I'm getting at is that there's a point where you have to consider balance.
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I like to play heroes and character that are larger than life.
I have little interest in playing a level 10 barber or a 4th level grave digger. I want to play Billy Bob Barbarian McBada$$.
Now to play a larger than life character a amount of optimization is required as long as it is within the scope of the character.
Look, I'm sure Ron Harper, Toni Kukoc and Randy Brown all has awesome personalities. Probably dumped a lot of points into charisma and grabbed several feats that rounded them out as people. But they would never have NBA championship rings had Michael Jordan not optimized the hell out of his build.
Hey if you want to be Ron Harper, god bless you. I'll be happy to play as Michael Jordan. Besides, I need someone to pass me the rock.
-MD
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See: Stormwind fallacy.
Actually, most of the time, it’s NOT a fallacy at all. Sure, it’s possible to roleplay with a combat optimized min/maxed PC, but there’s two things:
Since you often have few skills, and little RPing abilities, the PC doesn’t have much character to Roleplay.
And next, while it’s possible, most of us mere mortals have just so much brain power. If you’re spending all your time calculating DPR and the best chess-like move for your character, it’s just human to spend less time on role-playing.
So, the “Stormwind Fallacy” is more of a fallacy itself.
MOST OF THE TIME, more combat focused optimization means less Roleplaying.
At least in my experience, anyway.
I like to play heroes and character that are larger than life.
I have little interest in playing a level 10 barber or a 4th level grave digger. I want to play Billy Bob Barbarian McBada$$.
Now to play a larger than life character a amount of optimization is required as long as it is within the scope of the character.
Look, I'm sure Ron Harper, Toni Kukoc and Randy Brown all has awesome personalities. Probably dumped a lot of points into charisma and grabbed several feats that rounded them out as people. But they would never have NBA championship rings had Michael Jordan not optimized the hell out of his build.
Hey if you want to be Ron Harper, god bless you. I'll be happy to play as Michael Jordan. Besides, I need someone to pass me the rock.
-MD
I love you for that man. We are on the same page. And yes, thankfully, there are people out there willing to stand in our glorious "optimized" shadows.
See: Stormwind fallacy.Actually, most of the time, it’s NOT a fallacy at all. Sure, it’s possible to roleplay with a combat optimized min/maxed PC, but there’s two things:
Since you often have few skills, and little RPing abilities, the PC doesn’t have much character to Roleplay.
And next, while it’s possible, most of us mere mortals have just so much brain power. If you’re spending all your time calculating DPR and the best chess-like move for your character, it’s just human to spend less time on role-playing.
So, the “Stormwind Fallacy” is more of a fallacy itself.
MOST OF THE TIME, more combat focused optimization means less Roleplaying.
At least in my experience, anyway.
1.) Combat focused optimization is not the only optimization. Your Bard with +36 Diplomacy who can sweet talk his way into and out of everything is also optimized.
2.) Combat focused characters who provide NOTHING out of combat are NOT optimized characters. It is generally quite possible to have an optimized character who can also contribute out of combat, unless you are a Fighter because you need to optimize a Fighter for skills to even have them be on par with the average Barbarian.
3.) Even if you don't have much in the way of skills, that doesn't stop you from roleplaying. It just stops you from affecting anything really. I have a character with 5 Cha. I play that up for all it's worth in RP scenarios. He has no social graces, whatsoever. He asked an Asian woman if she was jaundiced, in genuine curiosity, not out of malice. He doesn't understand much besides beating people and things (and, well, 16 languages but whatever), but I can still RP him just fine. And since he's an Orc he's also the trap guy. Trap Wrecker is the most hilarious but also surprisingly useful Feat in existence.