What is optimizing?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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I know what the term means in a general sense. However, in my 41 years on this globe I have learned that some terms can have a variety of meanings to a variety of people. What I am looking for a conversation about what it means to you, what is a good optimized character.

For instance I tend to build for a goal, and that goal is often not what most would value. My current character is about knowing things for instance, he is not "weaponizing" his KS, but rather just trying to be as helpful and useful by knowing stuff...


As a physics guy, I think of optimization as maximizing or minimizing a certain parameter within specific constraints. In the case of PF characters, this may be "maximize all knowledges without being terrible out of combat" or "make something as similar to (insert fictional character here without houseruling."

Liberty's Edge

It's definitely different among different people.

To me, optimizing is about making the best of a build, while keeping the concept. Fine tuning the order of abilities picked up to get the most streamlined result, without creating a twisted abomination. In that respect, I see a difference between optimizing and min-maxing. It may be arbitrary, but it's how my mind has always approached the subject.

Optimizing would be giving my glaive-wielding finesse user 13-14 strength for power attack. For giving my Warpriest the Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain archetype to toy with advanced weapon training and gloves of dueling. These things don't really affect the character much

Min-maxing would be using monstrous physique to turn my investigator into a Kalikang, making my making my Arsenal Chaplain a half-orc with Sacred Tattoo/Fate's Favored then trying to pass them off as being very, very human. For playing a devil-sired tiefling but using the demonspawn variant heritage because of the +str/+cha stat array.

And yeah, really, there's a bit of a double-standard with using a regional class archetype but not being so okay with a variant complete racial heritage, but they have very significant differences when it comes to how I perceive/play the character. I can look past archetype choices, but races I find much more inherent to the character.


As a computer guy, I think of optimization as modifying a system so it works more efficiently or on less resources. In the case of PF characters, this may be "get this guy to have as many skills as high as possible" or "get this guy combat ready with less than 20,00 gp".


Making the best of a build without bastardising the concept is generally what I consider optimising.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I wish the original poster good fortune on this endeavor. The biggest obstacle may be that we are to explain not the defined definition of optimizing; we are to explain what it means subjectively to us.

We might as well try defining "what is art".

At this point in my life, all I ask is that players avoid joke characters and stop trying to force square pegs into round holes. A sorcerer with an 8 strength shouldn't try to frontline fight with weapons, a socially awkward barbarian with a 7 charisma shouldn't be the face person of the party, the intelligence 9 low level fighter without knowledge skills shouldn't be the monster lore expert. Sadly, I see a joker in the deck in most RPG groups.


KestrelZ wrote:
We might as well try defining "what is art".

Art is the creative manipulation of the environment for a specific reason or function. That's actually much easier than defining 'optimization' in a RPG character sense.


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The Sideromancer wrote:
As a physics guy, I think of optimization as maximizing or minimizing a certain parameter within specific constraints. In the case of PF characters, this may be "maximize all knowledges without being terrible out of combat" or "make something as similar to (insert fictional character here without houseruling."

This is close to how I view optimization, however I've stepped away from high optimization (except in theory crafting to explore options). With my level of system mastery increasing, I've come to realize that the game isn't designed to need such high levels of optimization and I now craft my characters to reflect that. It is no longer as fun to create a character that excels at everything (for me). I now play characters that make mechanical choices based on their perspective and experiences.


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Jason Wedel wrote:
I know what the term means in a general sense. However, in my 41 years on this globe I have learned that some terms can have a variety of meanings to a variety of people. What I am looking for a conversation about what it means to you, what is a good optimized character.

It's kind of a trick question. Optimizing is more of an adjective (Optimal) and requires a context. If you say "Help me optimize my Monk"; it still requires qualifiers to "What are we optimizing?"

F.E. What if he wants a weird Archer-Monk? He puts out restrictions, and people work within that framework to give him an optimal solution that fits those restrictions as best they can.

This means it's very much like you said; "Help me optimize <a thing>" is usually finished in the post as "Help me optimize <a thing> <with these restraints>." Thus it could be skills, a wand-using barbarian, etc..

When someone says it without qualifiers, they are (in my mind anyway) likely looking for the highest DPR/battle-utility they can get.


You also have to consider what play environment you are optimizing for. Optimizing for a monster hunter game is going to be hugely different from optimizing for an intrigue game. Optimizing for a "sandbox" game is going to be different than optimizing for modules/adventure-paths. Is your game going to be centered on combat? exploration? subtlety? social?

What kind of party are we talking about?

Oh,art is so much more that a soulless sentence.


Daw wrote:
Oh, art is so much more that a soulless sentence.

Yes, it is but the sentence is an accurate definition. It just doesn't take into account the message that art is trying to convey nor the reaction that message was designed to evoke from the viewer. 'Soulless' is an accurate summary of that definition.


Optimising, to me, is dedicating most (or all) your resources to squeeze every last bonus into your character to become the best at <subject>. A friend is a melee optimizer. Almost all his builds have Bloodrager dips, maybe Medium dips for the Champion spirit. Almost all his feats go towards dealing as much damage as possible.

A lesser form of opumising is simply, "how do I get good at <subject>, without going overboard?" Taking Power Attack is a given for a melee build, Bloodrager levels I can understand, but then adding Medium levels for a +2 on every damage roll is meh. You've already multiclassed, no need to dip even more. My Occultist is a damage monster, but I dedicated only a handful of feats to it. Two or three others are simply to broaden his abilities. He's optmised for damage, but not excessively so. That friend I just mentioned has a few tricks up his sleeve, but he's mostly just a punchy guy. In an investigative scenario, he'll fall flat on his face. But on the other hand, his attack bonus is so high, he usually hits on a 2+, even on iteratives.


Quentin Coldwater wrote:
But on the other hand, his attack bonus is so high, he usually hits on a 2+, even on iteratives.

Sorry, but I couldn't help myself. (Meme ahead)


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Quentin's version of optimising is what I call min-maxing


Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:
Quentin's version of optimising is what I call min-maxing

I call it hyperoptimizing.

BTW, min-maxing is a tactical style. Minimum Risk fo Maximum Reward. Most simply it is a conservative approach. You do not go "all in" in almost any situation, and you choose only those risks that have the most likely and profitable returns.

What you call min-max is actually antithetical to min-max philosophy. It is literally going "all in" from the beginning. This is much more the "Mainchance" philosophy.


All characters need some level of optimization to do their job in the party. The problem comes when a player goes too far and it spoils the game for the other players and/or the GM. I'd personally much rather players didn't overdo it and just played a simple optimized character.


Trying to make the character mechanically as powerful as possible. Powerful is nice and vague, so it can be whatever you want.

I figure it as tweaking with the mathematics and being as efficient as possible. Dipping from paladin into bloodrager for example costs +1 attack and damage from smite (and some other traits) but can gain +3 damage and +2 attack (with two handing). You can decide if that's worth it, I think it is.

To get around having shoehorned concepts I like to make the background after the mechanics. Okay, so I have a half Orc with shoanti tattoos, but also the Molthuni arsenal chaplain archetype.

Their mother was shoanti and left her Tribe since they didn't approve of her Orc husband. She still believes in the mystical value of the tattoos, but moves to Molthune for the improved treatment of her child.

I'm much better at picking mathematically beneficial traits than coming up with my own story so this approach works well for me.


To me, Optimizing is a pejorative term. It involves the selection of options in such a way to gain a result significantly greater than the sum of parts. Its goal is to produce a character who is much stronger than would normally be expected for the level range (and consequently trivializes encounters that would normally be appropriate for that range).

In my experience, this tends to cause an Optimization Arms Race between the GM and the players. The players try to eek as much power out of their characters as possible; the GM tries to maximize monster power at the lowest CR possible. It appears to be some sort of mini-game.


I wouldn't say it means that, a lot of the time on these boards you'll find people optimising a weak option to make in serviceable in their group but not overwhelming due to the starting point being weak.

Optimising and trivialising needn't be joined at the hip in my opinion.


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I usually think of optimizing as "aiming to be pretty good at X". So a character might optimize themselves for damage-dealing (preferring things that increase their to-hit and damage), for tanking (things that improve AC and Saves, plus some self-recovery), and so forth.

It's good to contrast that to viability, a mathematical determination of how effective a character is usually going to be. A viable character is generally one that's ~70% successful in each area against a same-CR foe. (So, passing seven out of ten saving throws, successfully disabling seven traps, landing seven hits, and so on.) That has absolutely nothing to do with how optimized for a role they could be - it's just the minimum level a character should aim for in a role they want to have. If they're not around that range as a minimum, they may not be successful enough to feel like they're actually doing the thing they want to be doing.

It's also good to consider diminishing returns. There's a point where continued investment doesn't make any real difference, so over-optimizing in one area can actually make your character weaker than they might otherwise be.


Optimizing is: Within preset parameters identifying goals and discriminating between those options which are effective towards those goals and those that are not, then choosing the former.

When people use the term pejoratively they are generally referring to those goals being too limited (e.g. the character who can do damage and nothing else.)


Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:
Quentin's version of optimising is what I call min-maxing

Eh, it's a sliding scale. One easily flows into the other. Grabbing Power Attack makes sense for a melee type. Getting a Furious Amulet of Mighty Fists for your natural attacking Bloodrager is also smart, though maybe overkill (Bloodragers already tend to hit hard, +2 doesn't really matter except for maybe piercing DR). Grabbing a trait for a +1 on every damage roll with natural attacks is just unnecessary. If your goal is to do obscene amounts of damage, each step seems like a logical choice, but at some point you have to look back and see when it's enough. When the guy with this build was audited for PFS, it took him 5 minutes to explain where all his damage bonuses came from.


If you want to make it easier, dealing 1/4 (good) to 1/2 (damage-focused characters) of a same-CR enemy's HP in one round, on average, is appropriate. In general, a party of four players should be able to take down one same-CR opponent in a round of attacks. Anything higher than half a foe's HP is excessive, and probably providing diminishing returns. (If it takes two 75%-damage sets of attacks to bring down an enemy, that's no improvement at all from two 50%-damage attacks. The foe isn't dying faster. The resources put into the excessive damage could have been used to provide other benefits, such as making the character tougher or more flexible.)

Of course, not all damage is direct. For example, a Wizard might never bother with fireballs, and instead just cast Haste on the group. If that adds damage roughly equal to a quarter of a foe's HP per-round, then he's still contributing the appropriate amount.

And there's some table variance, of course. If you have a four-party team and one person just doesn't add to damage done, everyone else should probably do at least 1/3 of a foe's HP. Or you should try to make sure one character does half and the other two do at least a quarter each. If the GM usually has encounters at least 1 CR above the party, people should probably use that as a base instead. There's some flex based on individual games, but in general, 1/4 to 1/2 is viable for a party.


The guy I'm describing can reliably one-round PFS bosses, usually creatures 2 to 3 CR higher than him. I don't want to dunk on him too much, but some players are feeling inadequate as he can solo most scenarios.


Mm-hmm. And I think it's fair to call that excessive, since Pathfinder is a social game and it is a bit of a problem if one person seems to be taking things away from everyone else. That feels like something the GM may want to bring up outside of the game. How best to do so is something I can't say from here... although this player sounds like they have a lot of system mastery, so it might work to present things as a challenge.

Scarab Sages

Wizards with 9 INT and that sort of thing notwithstanding, what isn't optimization? Every skill, feat, and spell has some application, and this is meant to be a game of infinite possibilities - there's really no such thing as 'optimal' in such a game. The term, and the mentality that seems to go along with it, has always bothered me immensely. You're supposed to be building a character, not an industrial widget.

I associate the term with a very upsetting and aggressive broader movement I've witnessed over the past 10 years or so to try to impose a kind of "Church of Gaming" that implicitly (sometimes even explicitly) demands everyone talk and think in the same kind of ordered, shallow, unimaginative, conservative, groupthinking sort of way, and relegates everyone who doesn't conform to a second-class status. It seems to have something to do with the influence of MMORPGs.


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And yet I've felt that the groupmind swings the other way, rejecting those who come for a expansive ruleset of interesting combinations because they can't write a backstory.

Besides, if the cause is MMOs, shouldn't the trend have started 20 years ago rather than 10? Heck, D&D derived videogames date back to the 70's.


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I defiantly agree that "optimizing" has been affected by MMORPG. However having been at this for 30+ years I can say that Min/Maxers, Power Gamers, and Munchkins, have always been a factor...

I would also agree that everyone has a certain tolerance for, and appreciation of, optimizing. We all do it to some degree, but it is a lot like driving...anyone who does not do it as much as we do "Should learn to play" and everyone who does it more is a "min/maxer"


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If you can make a character build on this board without going 3 posts in and being told you did it wrong, you're optimized.

GOOD LUCK


LOL


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Optimizing is making the most effective character within established conditions.

Fighters are never the most generally optimal class. You can optimize a fighter
You make even pick fighter if Spell-less, calm headed, non-racist, big muscle guy in full plate are your initial conditions.

Any player who actually cares about pathfinder optimizes their character. There is no such thing as a good roleplayer who is poorly optimized, unless their character concept was "useless wet blanket". Not investing in the mechanical basis of your roleplaying is the same thing as poorly roleplaying. The game doesn't allow you to actualise your concept without mechanics that back it up.


Hahaha no


Optimizing. Getting the most effect out of the least resources

Think about each feat, class level, skill point, gp, and race as its own recourse to be spent. How can we spend them to get the most "effect" out of the resources spent


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Rhedyn wrote:
Not investing in the mechanical basis of your roleplaying is the same thing as poorly roleplaying. The game doesn't allow you to actualise your concept without mechanics that back it up.

I think this is worth re-stating. I think the idea that people can lose sight of their role play in the midst of optimisation is well established (there is a fallacy related to it). Some people don't seem to realise however that your character crunch impacts your characters place in the lore as well.

If you want to build a super badass ranger of great renown you're going to be disappointed with the reputation he garners when he can't hit the broad side of a barn and if he does it carries the impact of a wet noodle. It's very much a two way street.


KestrelZ wrote:

I wish the original poster good fortune on this endeavor. The biggest obstacle may be that we are to explain not the defined definition of optimizing; we are to explain what it means subjectively to us.

We might as well try defining "what is art".

What doth life?

Seriously though, I agree with the view that "optimizing" is essentially "building the best __________ you can with a given box of parts". Straw min-maxers (or people who like to build characters as a thought exercise e.g for the DPR Olympics threads) build for damage to the exclusion of utility and defense, but optimization in a well-designed system will require you to find the optimum compromise between the three. Benchmarks are somewhat arbitrary but the best is still the Same Game Test (adapted for Pathfinder).

The Sideromancer wrote:
And yet I've felt that the groupmind swings the other way, rejecting those who come for a expansive ruleset of interesting combinations because they can't write a backstory.

I wouldn't call it a groupmind, but those people are out there. Personally I resent the hyperbolic, hysterical implication that The Eternal Munchkin can neither optimize mechanics to fit a given concept, nor write a good background and personality to fit a given set of mechanics. Characters' ability scores influence their life choices, their skillsets reflect their backgrounds, and convergent evolution is real.


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OK, the big problem with overoptimizing is that you lose effectiveness with everything else. This means you tend to force play towards what you do well and away from everything else. GameMastery Guide says it is bad GMing to take advantage of such a character's weaknesses. I respectfully disagree. If he is screwing up the game for everyone else, don't forget, you are the GM. Focus your game to bring out the other PCs strengths, and highlight his weaknesses. Then suggest he might consider some retraining to broaden his focus.


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Daw wrote:

OK, the big problem with overoptimizing is that you lose effectiveness with everything else. This means you tend to force play towards what you do well and away from everything else. GameMastery Guide says it is bad GMing to take advantage of such a character's weaknesses. I respectfully disagree. If he is screwing up the game for everyone else, don't forget, you are the GM. Focus your game to bring out the other PCs strengths, and highlight his weaknesses. Then suggest he might consider some retraining to broaden his focus.

over specializing is sub optimal


Rhedyn wrote:
Daw wrote:

OK, the big problem with overoptimizing is that you lose effectiveness with everything else. This means you tend to force play towards what you do well and away from everything else. GameMastery Guide says it is bad GMing to take advantage of such a character's weaknesses. I respectfully disagree. If he is screwing up the game for everyone else, don't forget, you are the GM. Focus your game to bring out the other PCs strengths, and highlight his weaknesses. Then suggest he might consider some retraining to broaden his focus.

over specializing is sub optimal

I would agree, personally. Unless, of course, you can always force play into your strength and away from everything else. Then it is merely impolite and self-centered.


In all fairness, a hyper focused character that DOES not take the light from others can be a nice thing, if the player does not mind sitting back and letting thickneck the barbarian do his thing as well


Quentin Coldwater wrote:
The guy I'm describing can reliably one-round PFS bosses, usually creatures 2 to 3 CR higher than him. I don't want to dunk on him too much, but some players are feeling inadequate as he can solo most scenarios.

I can understand a reason for that though, A lot of my characters are pretty amazing and solo's PFS fights regularly, but they were made when I switched lodges to a lodge where the most competent damage character was a 14 dex core rogue that had TWF with masterwork battle fans and normal non-magic chain shirt, parties would sometimes lose to the first fight of a PFS scenario and be done. (might be a little dramatized but want to make sure the point was clear). Another was for emerald spire with a set group me the damage, then a skills guy, a healing cleric and a slumber witch, not a bad party, but if the slumber didn't win the fight it was up to me to do so. So I built bloodragers that could basically solo fights, with him, the parties started to succeed missions and be able to defeat bosses. But now that some new people that started are getting higher levels and don't all have bad combat characters the bloodragers that haven't retired yet aren't needing to solo, yet still can. My current characters are far toned down in damage due to being able to rely on party to do damage.

Now I'm not saying that the player is completely justified or that this situation applies completely, but I've experienced the feeling of needing to DO ALL THE DAMAGE since I was often the only damage the party had.


When I speak of optimizing in terms of Pathfinder I mean how well your character is designed to do your job in an adventuring party. Basically, choosing generally good options not bad ones. And that means that while you need to maximize your strengths, you also can't ignore your weakness (an archer that can put out tremendous damage is often a liability if he will never be able to make a will save.)

Mostly I mean using a reasonable amount of system mastery to build at least a solid character that can do his job.

If I am just talking about an optimized character (or more likely, talking about generally well optimized vs. generally poorly optimized characters) I am speaking of fulfilling the core functions of a character in relation to a typical Pathfinder campaign. A character that had spent every feat and ability he could to maximize appraise but had no functional ability during an adventure would be 'optimized' in once sense of the word, but I would view that as a poorly optimized character when talking about Pathfinder in general.

The system is complex enough, and there are enough choices out there, that even characters that look similar on paper (2 fighters of the same level for instance) can be dramatically different in capabilities, with one being incredibly effective in combat and the other being borderline useless. This difference is what I personally am talking about when I speak of the degree of optimization.

I don't think you have to make a perfectly optimized character to have fun and play a good game. I think even poorly optimized characters can be fun to play, sometimes not being 'great' can be more fun. However, I do think that if the characters are optimized to different degrees within a party, it often greatly reduces the fun of the game as those with lesser effective characters feel useless and struggle to really be a part of the game. Understanding this, and ameliorating it, is one of the challenges of being a GM.


---DISCLAIMOR---
This is for serious discourse, not slamming on anyone, please take it as a bit of Devil's advocate, and a bit of theory crafting...
---END OF DISCLAIMOR---

However, what decides "your job" in the adventuring group? Is it the class you chose? Is it what the player said it is? Is it what your character organically grows into? Are you forever stuck that role? If you ill define what you feel your role is, what recourses do you have?

I currently play an arcanist (Arcanist-5/Evan-1). His role to me is not being "The magic-user" his role is being "The sage" or "Mr Know it all"...I almost want to buy him a dog and name it Sherman...:). So I have chosen to optimize my KS (Scion of Lore, Breadth of XP, 18 INT)...Should I have gone Bard instead...Probably honestly, but as a player I wanted to try out Arcanist...


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Daw wrote:

OK, the big problem with overoptimizing is that you lose effectiveness with everything else. This means you tend to force play towards what you do well and away from everything else. GameMastery Guide says it is bad GMing to take advantage of such a character's weaknesses. I respectfully disagree. If he is screwing up the game for everyone else, don't forget, you are the GM. Focus your game to bring out the other PCs strengths, and highlight his weaknesses. Then suggest he might consider some retraining to broaden his focus.

My impression is that Optimization worked differently. For example:

An (unoptomized) Wizard with a penchant for social flair may have the following stats:

Str 10 Dex 14 Con 10 Int 16+2 Wis 10 Cha 14

---

A min-maxed Wizard may have the following stats (and eschew social interaction):

Str 7 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 18+2 Wis 11 Cha 7

---

An Optimized Wizard with a penchant for social flair may have the following:

Str 7 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 18+2 Wis 11 Cha 7

Thrush Familiar
Half-Orc alt racial trait Fey Thoughts (Bluff and Diplomacy as class skills)
Half-Orc alt racial trait Burning Assurance
Social trait Student of Philosophy
10 charge Wand of Monkey Fish (for climbing or swimming)
Handy Haversack

Maximizing effectiveness without suffering drawbacks is the goal of Optimizing, right?


That's probably a good example of optimised to me.


To me optimizing is squeezing or seizing a characters power to achieve maximum effectiveness or Min Maxing. I consider Power Gaming and Optimizing the same thing. Sometimes it can be appropriate but how powerful a character is shouldn't matter in a good game. I keep a notebook of power gamed builds but I tend to not use any of my existing builds when a new game comes around or when I die.

I mostly optimize to make certain concepts work and to make the goofiest ideas actually playable and not a hindrance to the party. I troll the srd site looking for synergies in a build as I find doing so is fun. Building a vanilla fighter isn't too much fun compared to Barbarian with a brawler dip or a ratfolk eldritch knight.


Kitty Catoblepas wrote:
Daw wrote:

OK, the big problem with overoptimizing is that you lose effectiveness with everything else. This means you tend to force play towards what you do well and away from everything else. GameMastery Guide says it is bad GMing to take advantage of such a character's weaknesses. I respectfully disagree. If he is screwing up the game for everyone else, don't forget, you are the GM. Focus your game to bring out the other PCs strengths, and highlight his weaknesses. Then suggest he might consider some retraining to broaden his focus.

My impression is that Optimization worked differently. For example:

An (unoptomized) Wizard with a penchant for social flair may have the following stats:

Str 10 Dex 14 Con 10 Int 16+2 Wis 10 Cha 14

---

A min-maxed Wizard may have the following stats (and eschew social interaction):

Str 7 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 18+2 Wis 11 Cha 7

---

An Optimized Wizard with a penchant for social flair may have the following:

Str 7 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 18+2 Wis 11 Cha 7

Thrush Familiar
Half-Orc alt racial trait Fey Thoughts (Bluff and Diplomacy as class skills)
Half-Orc alt racial trait Burning Assurance
Social trait Student of Philosophy
10 charge Wand of Monkey Fish (for climbing or swimming)
Handy Haversack

Maximizing effectiveness without suffering drawbacks is the goal of Optimizing, right?

Your character is an example of clever optimization, not OVERoptimization. Had all of his traits, etc been about improved spell damage, spell DC, and penetration, then I would call it overoptimized. If said OVERoptimized character then insisted on tossing hostile spells to disrupt another character's negotiations because out of combat he is mostly useless, then that (hypothetical) player is a bit of a dick, and needs to be dealt with.

Kitty, optimization isn't a bad thing. Taking it too far generally is.


Jason Wedel wrote:

However, what decides "your job" in the adventuring group? Is it the class you chose? Is it what the player said it is? Is it what your character organically grows into? Are you forever stuck that role? If you ill define what you feel your role is, what recourses do you have?

I currently play an arcanist (Arcanist-5/Evan-1). His role to me is not being "The magic-user" his role is being "The sage" or "Mr Know it all"...I almost want to buy him a dog and name it Sherman...:). So I have chosen to optimize my KS (Scion of Lore, Breadth of XP, 18 INT)...Should I have gone Bard instead...Probably honestly, but as a player I wanted to try out Arcanist...

In my opinion, your job is defined out of game by an agreement with the other players (who is going to handle what) and in game by the other characters (yes, we would like you on our team because we need someone who can ...)

I don't think it is good behavior in a team game to just define your own role without consideration for others (in PFS you have to to an extent, but you should at least choose a pretty well established role.)

Personally, I don't think the 'knowledge guy' is a 'role' in most campaigns. It is a good secondary specialty and making sure knowledges are covered as well as possible among the PCs is good group planning, but in most games most of the time is spent in combat, and it is contributing there where it typically matters. There are lots of ways to do that, but if your optimization in other areas means you can't contribute solidly to what is probably the most important part of the game (in terms of both time spent and consequences for failure) then I personally wouldn't want that character in my party.

Obviously if everyone is happy then it is all good. In a big group for example, having a PC or two huddle in the corner while the fight happens may be perfectly fine (as long as the players involved don't mind essentially just watching everyone else play the game).

Of course an Arcanist, like all tier one classes, can contribute meaningfully without really spending any character resources besides automatic class features (spells).


I've always found over and under optimized to be dependent on the table. I've been at tables of minmaxers and of RP fanatics. The expected level of optimization was very different between these two extremes. Literally any character suitable for the first would've been able to murder the entire second party. Meanwhile anyone from the second would've had to hide for any fight at the first's table. That said I favor more optimized builds for my characters. After all it is fantasy. Its all about going out and doing cool stuff


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Optimization is like driving

Anyone going faster than you is a raving lunatic

Anyone going slower than you needs to learn how to drive.

Most of the problem is your relative speeds.


To me, optimizing a character for a Pathfinder game is making sure the character doesn't get killed by one bad throw or stupid move. That happened to me in my very first game. I had never played a d20 game before and my poor little gnome ended up dead a little after we reached level 2. Now that I've played the game a little longer, I can look at her build and see just how bad it was. She had tons of Knowledge skills, being a bard archetype, but I hadn't put any thoughts into her traits or feats other than Weapon Finesse. She also couldn't carry anything at all. I'm trying to rebuild her so if I ever play her again, she won't die so fast.

The character I'm currently playing with is a halfling hunter, and my focus for her is damage dealing and healing other players. So I put a rank in Heal for several levels along with the CLW spell and picked out a trait that lets her deal extra damage when flanking. Plus one to cover her weak Will Save a bit. I then began picking out feats for Dex to Damage and flanking bonuses. Even though the Dex to Damage feat doesn't come online until level 5 without houserule-given-feats, the combination of the trait Dirty Fighter and the feats Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus, Outflank (hunters get it for free), and Pack Flanking ensure that she's hitting fairly often and doing decent damage even with a strength mod of only +1 at level 3. Then I planned out feats that will allow both to force the opponent to provoke AoOs from them. I did put ranks into several knowledge skills that would make sense for her hunter class that would also be usefully outside of combat, hopefully. I gave the companion standard tricks like Attack, Defend, and Come, as well as two Skirmisher Ranger tricks that will allow him to move out of danger or get a free AoO that doesn't actually use up an AoO. I also gave him Light and Medium Armor proficiency so I can put armor on him to up his AC while not taking away from his chances to hit and Iron Will to up his will. I'm debating whether or not to give him Heavy Armor Proficiency or Improved Iron Will at the next level that he gets a feat.

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