They're both close to death every other day, sure, descriptively. How many times in those stories were they ever stopped from doing something because of their dump stat?
I've only read about 5 novels with Raistlin (and admittedly 2 were before the tower so he wasn't that bad off at that point) but I've read the majority of Elric, missing only the dream thief's daughter and books more recent than that, and there's 1 real point that I can think of where either of them attempted to do something and can't do it because they're simply too weak and that's in the first novel of Elric, on the golden ship. Beyond that they cough, they scrape by, they may have to be propped up on their sword, staff, or brother, but they always get what they want done done. The rest is just window dressing.
If you have read them, it must have been awhile back. If Raistlin's health weren't so bad, he would have left his brother behind and furthered his own desires. The only reason Raistlin stayed with his brother, and became a hero, was because he couldn't make it on his own, and got dragged along with his brother.
EDIT : In other words, every page of the books is evidence of Raistlin's poor health preventing him from doing something he wanted.
I don't think you've really read that much DragonLance either. Almost EVERY time Raist cast a spell he would end in coughing fits, and cough up blood. He had what closely resembeld tuberculosis. All that was at an 8 Con. Can you imagine what a 6 or 7 would be if an 8 is coughing up blood, multiple times a day?
None of which appears to affect his effectiveness, combat or otherwise. In fact despite dumping that stat, in a couple short years he's able to kill the very gods of the world.
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I will concede to the majority of your points. In the instance involved, yes that is what I am saying, it may not necessarily be what the rest of the anti-min/max crowd is saying
But I will go a little off topic to argue your Scrabble/Boggle comparison. (Especially as an avid Scrabbler)
Ah, but here's the beauty of it. Scrabble and Boggle are almost IDENTICAL, both in gameplay and purpose. One plays more slowly and is more tactically oriented, but the basic principle holds up. You try to get as many large words as you can to score the most points and win the game. They SEEM like different games because they come in different boxes and use different pieces, but the fundamental system is pretty much identical. Some people prefer playing Scrabble, some Boggle. They're still the same game, but with slightly different rules and mindsets.The games may be identical in some aspects: Using a set number of letters to build words for number of points. But the gameplay is SO different. One is precise and meticulous, and the other is frantic.
Boggle is a 5x5 grid (or is it 4x4?) of letters that all players have available to them at same time to craft as many words as they can before time runs out. The one with the most words, that no one else has wins.
In Scrabble each player has different letters to work with, and are unaware of the letters at the opponents disposal. They have to plan carefully when using a word to not allow the others to profit off their placement (double/triple word/letter score). After playing a word, they are given a whole new set of letters to replace the ones they used, until all they are left with is that last few tiles to make the last 2-3 letter words before the other players.
I see the Boggle as min/max, go as fast as you can doing the most you can before the other players get more than you.
The Scrabble as the casual gamer, work with what you have, not always getting to use all 7 letters, and planning your moves to avoid giving away advantage....
How very interesting. I've always seen Scrabble as more of a hardcore, "min-maxer" style game (probably because my wife's family is AWESOME at it), with Boggle being the game accessible to all. Though I digress within our digression (ooo... grammar headache).
I understand that, mechanically, comparing Scrabble and Boggle to min-maxers and "roleplayers" isn't a perfect metaphor. However, what I am saying is that the two games have, essentially, the same UNDERLYING mechanic which represents the entirety of the Pathfinder system.
You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the differences in gameplay styles between the games, and that's really why I mentioned those two specifically. Yes, I would never worry about a Scrabble gaming suddenly turning into a game of Boggle, but with a little tweak, it definitely could. And, in that sense, the game style is very close to that of most Pathfinder games, where a group tends to focus on one specific style, but could just as easily "switch gears" to the point where the two styles of roleplaying feel entirely different, despite being fundamentally similar.
Honestly, many (not all!) of the people I've gamed with over the years wouldn't get as high as average Charisma scores if they were statted up fairly as PCs. Because it's near impossible to really RP a high Charisma if you're a little socially awkward or challenged in real life, dumping CHR to 7 or 8 is probably the best thing those guys can do to be accurately RPing their stats. :P
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...7 Int
10 Wis
7 Cha....
It can be rather difficult to collect Society faction prestige-awards when you look like a brick and are about as smart.
One fighter in our last game was having so much fun swinging her greatsword at everything that moved, that the DM didn't have the heart to tell her until the end that she had inadvertently slaughtered her own faction contact.
"Whoopsie!"
...7 Int
10 Wis
7 Cha....It can be rather difficult to collect Society faction prestige-awards when you look like a brick and are about as smart.
"Whoopsie!"
Great point. Why would elite guilds or prestigious factions want to recruit someone that's dumb (and before someone says 7 INT isn't dumb, realize that there are 7 numbers below average, and 7 is nearly half-way down that stack, so slightly better than half the intelligence of the average person) who also can't play well with others (again, slightly better than half the personality of the average person), when they can get someone who's 95% as good as them at <insert ability> who's also either not dumb, can be shown off in public, or both?
Again, we're looking at this from a world view. Even in the real world, when people put up with someone who's a social misfit and dumb as a box of rocks, they have to have an extreme amount of raw talent at something else. Let's take Mike Tyson for example. He's a 7 INT 18 STR 18 CON 7 CHA kind of guy. The only time he makes any sort of impression is when he's beating the snot out of someone. If you listen to him talk, your eyes kind of glaze over and you have to bite your lip to not snicker at the voice and words. People may be thrilled to see him beat the snot out of someone, but they don't want him dating their daughter... or hanging out at their house (unless they are a fanboi or gold digger). I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable around him. Nobody I know would be either. Would you rather hang out with him, or Ali? Ali may not be as good at beating the snot out of people, but he was pretty damn good at it, and he had both personality and brains (at least, average brains, loads more than Tyson). I know which one I'd rather invite to join my prestigious faction or guild. Tyson I'd always be afraid would haul off and bite someone's ear off at a society function, or rape the king's mistress or something. Ali I can trust not to get my faction or guild in trouble just being himself.
I side with optimization insofar as 20 Int 7 Cha is effective mechanically, is totally legal by the rules, doesn't make you autistic, and can be roleplayed with or without amusing exaggerations, but I'm not going to judge someone who plays, say, a 17 Int Wizard. If they're inexperienced, I'll warn them that their dependence on casting is higher than they might think, and that at later levels they won't really care about that Strength much, but if they believe they can make the build work, or just want to try it, more power to them. They don't have to be perfectly tactically efficient, because I'm expecting the GM to accommodate the group's ability level.
At the same time, we all know the 14 Int Wizard is flawed to the point where no one really wants to be burdened with defending the idea (though there was that one thread discussing the possibilities with a sort of morbid fascination.) Short of multiclassing, mid-level buffing/utility and other niches (which will still benefit from a bit more Int honestly) it has distinct mechanical problems such as needing magic item boosts just to cast its own spells at higher levels. No one's advocating 10 Int, 18 Cha Wizards, so we all know there's a line somewhere - intentionally and perpetually riding the fence on that line like some True Neutral devotee doesn't seem any better to me (nor glaringly worse) than optimizing as far as the game will allow.
I will say that if you're significantly less optimized than the rest of the group, and you're not a skilled enough player to make it work (and particularly if you refuse/ignore advice and suggestions ranging from suitable feats or spells to that of team strategies) I think you're just as much of a problem to your group as the cheesed min-maxer who attempts to dominate every encounter while the rest of his group isn't interested in aggressive optimization. I.e., getting everyone killed is as bad as, and I would say worse than, trying to kill everything, because at least killing everything is a practical goal in line with the game rules. So yes, if you can't "pull your weight" you should do something about it unless your group is pretty "c'est la vie" about a TPK every once in awhile.
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You only need (optimize) a 20-stat caster if you're going N-caster/N-level lobs-saving-throw-magic route. If you're a buffer, summoner or wall-layer, you can get by with a LOT less points chucked into your prime stat. Just lowering the 20 to a 19 (and bumping it at 4th) saves a whomping 4 build points.
An INT18 wizard casts Haste just as well as an INT20 one, and he has 7 more build points for other stats.
I hope no-one ever plays a character with more than 14 in charisma. That would be impossible. According to the only logic that can be derived from all the people who want cha 7 to be a wretched foulmouthed stink-golem with the personality of a diseased seagull, and cry foul when you play that character as "slightly introvert", a cha14+ character just cannot be played unless you've at very least done drama, have a good singing voice, is extrovert and winning in real life, and have absolutely NO personal flaws.
Not to mention Int14+. Holy cow! Where do I even start? Are you as a player part of Mensa? No? Then you cannot put more than 12 in intelligence. There is just no way you can portray such vast intellect, and letting you get away with having a higher score would be metagaming, as you get benefits while not enduring the disadvantages.
Wisdom 14+? Oh man. Your patience is so bottomless that you can never get upset with anything. The saints have you as a rolemodel, Ghandi and Mother Theresa are complete n00bs, and should teach children to strive to be like you.
Seriously, people. Just because the game caps 7 as the lowest a HERO can put in a stat does not mean it is in the retardation range. This whole mentality reeks of spoiled players who freak out as soon as they see a negative.
Mike Schneider: That sounds like a summoner to me. A real wizard should not limit himself. And sure, 18 is OK, especially for a 15 point buy game. But if there ever was a poster-child for "Get 20, disregard most everything else"-min/maxing, it is the wizard. No other class is quite as rewarded for having a 20 in their primary stat.
Kamelguru, I like when you say things.
Real quick, gonna have to get this out there right now; 3d6, in order, SUCKED!
I think if you want to dump X stat, then the game will take care of the negatives. There is no need for the DM to go out of his way to make a PC "pay" for anything. It's the same thing with an 18 INT. I don't have that kind of mental acuity, but my Wizard does. Lucky for me, the game takes care of it.
As a player, I hate negative stats so I rarely dump anything. If I were of a mind to take a dump stat, then CHA would be the most logical choice. I'm not alone in this conclusion. For me, for my play-style, it's just the odd stat out. Now if I were to play a Sorcerer, well okay then I'd pump the hell of it.
Someone said rocking a 20 from level 1 was the [key] to great Awesome Sauce©. I get that. I want that. Having said that, if I can't get that 20 at 1st level, the character isn't ruined. Know how you ruin a character? Roll 3d6 and play 'em in order.
Rambling done.
a lot of my Low Charisma PCs have reasons for thier low charisma.
and it's never appearance nor hygiene.
it's something mental or personality based.
i listed some examples a page or few back.
certain ones are more common than others
like sheltered lifestyles, autistic savants with obscessive compulsive disorder, shyness, and the occasional arrogant PC. but i can say i've had my fair share of bloodthirsty creepy cold hearted psychopaths.
Those are good examples. When I do get to play, as opposed to DM, one example I've used in the past for a high int, low cha and low wis wizard is the cheerful, overtalkative to the point of butting in and cutting off, know-it-all who honestly thinks you want an erudite answer to a rhetorical question.
Real quick, gonna have to get this out there right now; 3d6, in order, SUCKED!
Even in 1E, 3d6 arranged to taste was a ubiquitous house rule.
When I do get to play, as opposed to DM, one example I've used in the past for a high int, low cha and low wis wizard is the cheerful, overtalkative to the point of butting in and cutting off, know-it-all who honestly thinks you want an erudite answer to a rhetorical question.
This form of negative CHA flavoring, if you take the DMs on these boards as an example, is universally reviled. [sarcasm]You see, you're cheating! You're taking a negative modifier and attempting to cast it in a different light. Low CHA means you stink and are ugly and no one likes you![/sarcasm]
Even in 1E, 3d6 arranged to taste was a ubiquitous house rule.Real quick, gonna have to get this out there right now; 3d6, in order, SUCKED!
We always played that way. Also, we did the old 2-for-1 thing as well. You want that 16 you rolled to be a 17? Okay, reduce any other stat by 2 and you can have it!
We always played that way. Also, we did the old 2-for-1 thing as well. You want that 16 you rolled to be a 17? Okay, reduce any other stat by 2 and you can have it!Even in 1E, 3d6 arranged to taste was a ubiquitous house rule.Real quick, gonna have to get this out there right now; 3d6, in order, SUCKED!
You have no idea how many warriors have been saved from the dismal Str16-17 fate with this one in my games. Got a little out of hand towards the end. Would usually roll 1d100 at once to see if there was even a point to making a warrior. Anything less than 18/76 was considered crap. Which I kinda understand, as the damage bonus for 18/00 was twice of what 18/50 had. And three times more than 17.
Man, I almost miss the times when the developers didn't care one lick about balance :P
When I do get to play, as opposed to DM, one example I've used in the past for a high int, low cha and low wis wizard is the cheerful, overtalkative to the point of butting in and cutting off, know-it-all who honestly thinks you want an erudite answer to a rhetorical question.This form of negative CHA flavoring, if you take the DMs on these boards as an example, is universally reviled. [sarcasm]You see, you're cheating! You're taking a negative modifier and attempting to cast it in a different light. Low CHA means you stink and are ugly and no one likes you![/sarcasm]
That's actually NOT what a lot of them were saying. Many of us were complaining that people would take the negatives and NOT role-play them. If someone takes a negative, fine, but it should AT LEAST be reflected in the personality of the character.
Once I played low CHR as someone who always says something that ends up being rude when it was meant to be nice. The unintended insults. "Here have a few gold, I know how you poor farmers scrape by with next to nothing and have nothing to show for it. You need this much more than I do". To a proud farmer, that is insulting enough to refuse the charity.
That's actually NOT what a lot of them were saying. Many of us were complaining that people would take the negatives and NOT role-play them. If someone takes a negative, fine, but it should AT LEAST be reflected in the personality of the character.
For every DM who thinks the way you do, it seems like there are 2 who subscribe to the theory that says "low CHA means you're ugly and no one likes you because of it."
I always enjoy these kinds of threads for some reason, no matter how many times they come up. It’s interesting to see how other people play and the choices they make. I think that when one has the pleasure of playing with a strong stable group for a long period of time, it’s easy to forget that there are other ways to play the game. So before I toss my two cents out there let me thank you all for the good read.
Thank you.
Personally, I’ve never been one to punish a player for having a low statistic and I let the system punish the characters for it. However I’m lucky enough to have a group that is for the most part good about keeping their characters abilities in mind. Physical statistics are easy, and the system is in my opinion good at rewarding and punishing them as need be. The mental statistics are a bit rougher, which in some ways strikes me as a good thing, and as such are more dependent on the Dungeon Master to oversee. I like to ask the players to describe what their statistics mean to them, positive and negative, and then take my cues from there.
If memory serves there was a similar thread a while back where someone mentioned that they have their players come up with a short phrase about their character for each +/- 1 modifier the character has in a statistic. I’ve been thinking about trying that out for fun.
While in general I avoid it, in some characters I do reduce statistics to get the idea that I have for them. I have no problem playing a wizard with strength 7, and have done so no matter if it was a fifteen point buy or a twenty-five point buy. The difference is in fifteen point buy I have to dump it to get the needed points and in twenty five point buy I do it because my character is weak as part of the concept. Why is the first unacceptable but the second would normally be considered fine?
To me it’s a personal choice to reflect a kind of character to be played. That being said I would have difficulty having in playing anything less than 10 in any of the mental statistic because I enjoy playing characters that are smart and clever, but I’ll fault no one if they want to play a character that's not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Not sure why, but this particular thread got me thinking lately about what a low statistic would mean in real life. I know a few people that I would give a strength score of seven based solely on carrying capacity and lifting. Several of the women that I’ve been working with lately served as good examples to me. One is allergic to a fair range of things, sick often, and lately has been red eyed and swollen face from the nearing of summer, had trouble moving a folding table but pitches softball with some skill (strength 7, dexterity 12, constitution 7), another is a wonderful speaker, energetic and engaging, but requires lots of help with research and needs things explained fairly often (charisma 14, intelligence 8), and a third is good at developing complex understandings of basic principles and following other’s thought processes but is like watching paint dry when she’s talking (wisdom 12, charisma 7, intelligence 12). I would give my-self a 7 in dexterity, maybe less.
As for wizards having to have a maxed-out intelligence; I have to agree to an extent. I don’t think I would ever play a wizard with less than an 18 in intelligence. As others have already mentioned, it’s the lack of resources that make me want to squeeze all I can from a wizard/sorcerer’s primary statistic. I have no problem with a 14 strength fighter for instance because if he misses, well I’ll get to swing again next round, but a spell failed is a spell wasted. Yes, I could play a buffing wizard or the like, but personally I want to play an activate member of the action. It’s just not the same to me when you tell the epic story of slaying the dragon and my major contribution was giving the barbarian a +4 to strength. I want to split open the heavens, bend minds to my will, and kill with a stern look. I want all my characters to have the potential to become the stuff of legends and bard’s tales.
But, hey, that's just me.
Coming up with a character concept that works (the weakling wizard, for example) once in a while is one thing. The issue most GMs seem to have (myself included) is the cookie-cutter optimized characters with the same stat dumps, the same feats, the same items, etc.
I am old school by definition. I started playing when you rolled and hoped for the best. My first wizard started with a 14 int and there were no racial boosts or feats. Yes he was weak compared with other wizards, but since the only other wizards he encountered were NPCs the GM made up, that was a game balance issue and the GM balanced the game.
He is still one of my all-time favorite characters. His int was boosted over time with magic items, tomes, wishes and one Deck of Many things, so that he eventually ended up with an 18 int, when 18 was the max you could have.
I understand the one-off stat dump for a character concept, but that is a rare, rare thing these days. Stat dumps are virtually guaranteed in the game today to be done to optimize a key stat and the end result looks pretty much like every other optimized member of that class. That sort of thing bugs some of us old school type GMs who know that we can deal with stats, and work the story to do what's necessary to make sure the characters remain heroic.
Or at least that used to be our jobs.
Coming up with a character concept that works (the weakling wizard, for example) once in a while is one thing. The issue most GMs seem to have (myself included) is the cookie-cutter optimized characters with the same stat dumps, the same feats, the same items, etc.
I am old school by definition. I started playing when you rolled and hoped for the best. My first wizard started with a 14 int and there were no racial boosts or feats. Yes he was weak compared with other wizards, but since the only other wizards he encountered were NPCs the GM made up, that was a game balance issue and the GM balanced the game.
He is still one of my all-time favorite characters. His int was boosted over time with magic items, tomes, wishes and one Deck of Many things, so that he eventually ended up with an 18 int, when 18 was the max you could have.
I understand the one-off stat dump for a character concept, but that is a rare, rare thing these days. Stat dumps are virtually guaranteed in the game today to be done to optimize a key stat and the end result looks pretty much like every other optimized member of that class. That sort of thing bugs some of us old school type GMs who know that we can deal with stats, and work the story to do what's necessary to make sure the characters remain heroic.
Or at least that used to be our jobs.
The problem is, with the wizard in Pathfinder, there really is only one stat. Int. That's all you need to be successful. In fact, if you devote all of you points to it, the game rewards you immensely. Back in the day, this may not have been the case. But it is the case now.
Yes, this leads to PCs who look exactly the same as far as stats go. But that's not the same as saying their backgrounds or school of magic have to be the same. Is this bad? Maybe, but again, the game passively punishes you if you don't max Int.
The problem is, with the wizard in Pathfinder, there really is only one stat. Int. That's all you need to be successful. In fact, if you devote all of you points to it, the game rewards you immensely. Back in the day, this may not have been the case. But it is the case now.Yes, this leads to PCs who look exactly the same as far as stats go. But that's not the same as saying their backgrounds or school of magic have to be the same. Is this bad? Maybe, but again, the game passively punishes you if you don't max Int.
I don't think I agree. It is true that I have not played a wizard in a long time, but the PF game is not that different from 3.5 in this regard. I once played a wizard with equal int and dex, and played him as what would today be called an arcane archer or something like that. He used hiw wizard powers to boost his archery abilities, usually with dex buffs, but also with some custom spells I worked with the GM to create. With mage armor, shield, protection from missiles, cat's grace, magic weapon... He did fine as an archer, and he could cast the odd wizard utility spell (knock, levitation, etc.) when needed. He was a lot of fun to play, and was not remotely optimized for intelligence.
Of course, like most of my characters, he never got to epic levels. But that's probably more by design than by accident, the game just gets too bizarre to me at high levels, and I would usually rather play a new level 6 character than play a level 20 character.
This is why in 4e I play a melee/ranged balanced ranger. Everyone says it can't be done, that you have to optimize either dex or str to be an effective ranger, but I've taken him from level 8 to level 16 and for that entire time he has been by far the most effective damage dealer in the party, and that is either with ranged or melee. That's because I do everything I can to boost his attacks when needed, and while he is better in melee than ranged, he's still pretty dang effective at ranged. And having str and dex both pretty high means he has lots of skill options to role play with too.
I really just don't buy the whole argument here. In fact I think that this desire to optimize is in part a demonstration of a trend for characters to rely on their own powers instead of working on effective whole-party strategies. There are plenty of effective ways for a wizard to temporarily boost their int, or temporarily decrease a target's saves. But that sort of thing takes cooperation, planning and a willing to sacrifice certain goals to achieve others.
Or that's how it seems to me.
The problem is, with the wizard in Pathfinder, there really is only one stat. Int. That's all you need to be successful. In fact, if you devote all of you points to it, the game rewards you immensely. Back in the day, this may not have been the case. But it is the case now.Yes, this leads to PCs who look exactly the same as far as stats go. But that's not the same as saying their backgrounds or school of magic have to be the same. Is this bad? Maybe, but again, the game passively punishes you if you don't max Int.
I don't think I agree. It is true that I have not played a wizard in a long time, but the PF game is not that different from 3.5 in this regard. I once played a wizard with equal int and dex, and played him as what would today be called an arcane archer or something like that. He used hiw wizard powers to boost his archery abilities, usually with dex buffs, but also with some custom spells I worked with the GM to create. With mage armor, shield, protection from missiles, cat's grace, magic weapon... He did fine as an archer, and he could cast the odd wizard utility spell (knock, levitation, etc.) when needed. He was a lot of fun to play, and was not remotely optimized for intelligence.
Of course, like most of my characters, he never got to epic levels. But that's probably more by design than by accident, the game just gets too bizarre to me at high levels, and I would usually rather play a new level 6 character than play a level 20 character.
This is why in 4e I play a melee/ranged balanced ranger. Everyone says it can't be done, that you have to optimize either dex or str to be an effective ranger, but I've taken him from level 8 to level 16 and for that entire time he has been by far the most effective damage dealer in the party, and that is either with ranged or melee. That's because I do everything I can to boost his attacks when needed, and while he is better in melee than ranged, he's still pretty dang effective at ranged. And having str and...
It works because you aren't casting fireball, lightning bolt, charm person, etc. All of which require a save. You are playing a buffer. None of those spells requires a save. If you want to cast save or something bad happens spells, as I stated above, you NEED high INT.
So, yeah, it does work, as long as you play around with defensive and utility spells. Anytime you cast spells that require saves, however, I'm sure you'll notice a distinct difference.
It works because you aren't casting fireball, lightning bolt, charm person, etc. All of which require a save. You are playing a buffer. None of those spells requires a save. If you want to cast save or something bad happens spells, as I stated above, you NEED high INT.
So, yeah, it does work, as long as you play around with defensive and utility spells. Anytime you cast spells that require saves, however, I'm sure you'll notice a distinct difference.
Well, I wasn't clear. He was still a wizard. He cast plenty of fireballs and other wizard spells. He just didn't focus on them. He saw himself primarily as a buffed archer, but with the ability to blast away with wizard spells if necessary. Pearls of Power are wonderful things. His fireballs did plenty of damage, and when someone made their save, he could full attack the next round and finish that one off.
Also, he had other characters in the party who helped out. He wasn't the all-powerful, all important wizard who must kill everything. He was part of an adventuring party where they worked together.
This is simply going to be something we will have to agree to disagree on. When my archer-type wizard felt he needed to cast a big wizardly spell, he would typically buff up with fox's cunning instead of cat's grace and boost his int instead of his dex.
I just don't see the need to hyper-optimize characters and I do believe the trend to do so reduces the richness of character conceptualization. That's just my opinion. I frankly don't care if a monster makes a save now and then, if the party isn't prepared for the wizard's spell to be saved against, they shouldn't be fighting that monster. And of course there is always the most famous strategy of all. "Run away!!" Live to fight another day.
Personally I think this focus on optimization is specifically due to a "must win at all costs" attitude. The wizard's spells have to work, or the party is screwed. That's just a bad dynamic in my opinion.
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Also, he had other characters in the party who helped out. He wasn't the all-powerful, all important wizard who must kill everything. He was part of an adventuring party where they worked together.
Exactly. A character is a part of a party of adventurers. Not simply a solitary character. Too many rpg's these days are made with single character in mind. I look back fondly at Baldur's gate and Icewind dale, games where you HAD to have a party of adventurers and complement their abilities well in order to survive.
The problem with stat dumping and min/maxing i have is that it is a gamist approach to the game, not a player approach. I want my players not to think only about their character being effective in combat. I don't want players at my table who optimise their characters only for combat. If you want combat, play wow. This is a role-playing game, not a tactical miniatures game.
If you roll stats and have a 7 and put it in CHA, that is ok, because you had no choice, but to purposefully put a 7 in a stat just to gain that +1? And not roleplay it? Not gonna happen.
See this is another of those things about viewpoints I find so interesting. To me being part of a party of adventures means that you should be pretty dang powerful in of your-self. This doesn't mean you have to be an absolute combat machine, just that if need be you should be able to handle things on your own for at least a little while. Many times in my gaming experience has an adventure, through bad luck, failed plans or whatever, come down to whether or not the wizard/sorcerer could make his spell stick.
To me it would be more gamist to play some weak character than optimised characters. Wizards with 14 intelligence don't go adventure, they spend a couple months training before their teacher tells them their not cut out for wizardary or they get them-selves killed. In my homebrew world that's where adepts come from; wizard wash outs.
Yes, I can see some times were they would accepted. Things like old friends that grew up to adventure together or people that are forced to work together. Even then I imagine that after awhile their friend would come to them and say something like "Listen man, you know I love you like a brother and we've been friends forever, but I think it would be best if you didn't come with us this time. Last time was awful close and it got me think about how much I don't want to have carry your body back to your mother. I hope you can understand."
I'm also sort of against the idea of characters that depend heavily on each other to function properly. You in essence have two characters to do the work of one. Yes, parties should work together to achieve their goals but to me they should so by each being very good at what they do.
At the moment my group is fairly large, seven people, which means that we can afford to have less then optimal characters, but when we only had four players we needed everyone to bring their A-game. We had one guy at the time that would always play, to be frank, moranic character ideas. In one campaign it ended up leading to an In Character discussion about why he was receiveing an equal cut of the treasure and the first (and so far last) time I've ever seen a character voted out of the party in character.
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I never understood why people assume that Paizo made PF with the idea that a 1st level character MUST have a 20 in their primary stat to be effective.
To me it would be more gamist to play some weak character than optimised characters. Wizards with 14 intelligence don't go adventure, they spend a couple months training before their teacher tells them their not cut out for wizardary or they get them-selves killed. In my homebrew world that's where adepts come from; wizard wash outs.
Where did you get that idea? The majority of adventurer characters in any campaign setting have their primary stat in the 14-16 range. Does that make them suboptimal? Maybe. Does that mean that they are unplayable? Absolutely not.
The last game we played, most of us began with a 16 in our primary stat. And it was fun, and great, and with good teamwork, even encounters with CRs several levels higher were a breeze. And my 16 int wizard kicked ass. It is true, that some monsters made their saves more often than they would if my int was 20 (10% is not THAT much), but that isn't the end of the world. We went from lvl 1 to lvl 18, and only one character died. And that was the fighter.
Also, a primary stat 16 character isn't weak, anything above 11 isn't weak.
And obviously you don't understand what being gamist means. It means to win at any cost, be the best, the strongest and cetera no matter what. I do not like that kind of players.
Plus, any normal GM would adjust his game to the power level of the party. The goal here, is after all to have fun.
Plus, any normal GM would adjust his game to the power level of the party. The goal here, is after all to have fun.
+10 to this. As I said myself several times. It's the job of the GM to make sure the encounters are challenging, not the job of the player to make their players unbeatable. I have had this discussion so many times with so many players:
"Why did you min/max this guy?"
"I need him to kick ass."
"If he's too powerful, I'm just going to throw more powerful monsters at you to balance it. Why don't you balance your character and not stat dump and pick all the standard feats?"
"Because I don't want my spells to fail."
"Well, some of your spells are going to fail. But if I'm doing my job right, a failed spell or two isn't (literally) going to kill you. And if you optimize, then I am going to have to do the same, and that makes the game more swingy, which actually makes it more likely that you will die if you fail a spell. Understand?"
"No."
Sigh.... Oh well, I do what I can, and somehow I manage to have fun with sub-optimal characters and I somehow manage to put the fear of God into optimized ones.
But something is getting lost in the translation. I think it's the whole concept of what the GM is supposed to do with their campaigns to keep them challenging and fun, but not overpowering or wimpy. I guess some players think they are always going to run into standard CR level +5 encounters and the GM is going to do everything they can to kill them, thus their "I have to make my spells work or we're all gonna die!" attitude.
Makes me wonder about the other GMs out there...
Hmm, I've never heard the term gamist used that way before. My previous encounters with the word gamist have been to mean some that comes at the game as, well, a game rather than looking at from a character viewpoint.
While that does normally mean people that focus on the numbers aspect of the game, I was using it this time to refer to the assumation that a character no matter their skill or ability would be a worth while addition to an adventuring party just because they have a player behind them. To which I mean not just characters with lacking combat abilities, but also party thieves, obviously evil characters or anyone that works to weaken the general flow of the party.
I agree that any statistic above 11 wouldn't be considered weak, I just don't think the kind of people who don't have at least a 16 in their primary statistic wouldn't become adventures in the average campaign world.
I used wizard as an example because it's a class that by it's very nature requires a lot of work to even get started at, not just from the character but also from a teacher or mentor, and in most cases I would imagine said teacher wouldn't invest the time if the student didn't have the potential. I think that 16 is a good cut off for that.
Other classes would have more flexibly because the don't have the one statistic to focus on the exclusion of all else, save for sorcerers who are born into their power. One of my personal favorite characters was a fighter with a 14 strength, and an 18 intelligence. He was a sufficent fighter, but I think that a wizard that had the reverse would be a sad addition to the party. I guess it would just be easier to say that many people, my-self included, hold primary spellcasters to a seperate standard.
Additional, I don't think I've encountered a 'normal' Dungeon Master, every one I've ever played with was different. I suppose in my case I expect the players to adjust their characters to the power level of the game, since I like to run high power, epic games and inform them of such before we start. In my world adventures aren't above-average, or even great, their the paragons of what people can strive to become.
However that's just my group's style, and if that's not what you want then I'm not going to try and convince you otherwise. Play, have fun, that's the point, no?
"Why did you min/max this guy?"
"I need him to kick ass."
"If he's too powerful, I'm just going to throw more powerful monsters at you to balance it. Why don't you balance your character and not stat dump and pick all the standard feats?"
"Because I don't want my spells to fail."
"Well, some of your spells are going to fail. But if I'm doing my job right, a failed spell or two isn't (literally) going to kill you. And if you optimize, then I am going to have to do the same, and that makes the game more swingy, which actually makes it more likely that you will die if you fail a spell. Understand?"
"No."
I've had that exact conversation multiple times. Once I explained it to the group, and showed them the modifications I had to make to monsters to handle the min/maxing the system doesn't assume for, they all got quiet and thought about it, and then redid their characters a bit.
i actually played a character that dumped constitution and strength.
she was also a bard.
she was a baron's sickly niece who had both a supernatural form of anemia and a supernatural form of tuberculosis.
she can only dance for so long or with so much pressure before she starts coughing up blood.
she invested resources to mitigate some of the drawbacks.
she can really sweet talk a person though.
There are plenty of effective ways for a wizard to temporarily boost their int, or temporarily decrease a target's saves. But that sort of thing takes cooperation, planning and a willing to sacrifice certain goals to achieve others.
I'm not sure why you don't think the 20-INT-at-first-level wizard can't also do these things and be even more effective.
Plus, any normal GM would adjust his game to the power level of the party. The goal here, is after all to have fun.
Tastes vary, but as a player I can't stand this style of GMing.
If everything's handicapped to the PCs, then they basically can't succeed or fail on their own merits -- they've always won or lost because of the GM's choices. Again, I understand some people like this.
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Not really. Most NPCs that the PCs meet have straight 10s and 11s across the board. Any character who has a +1 or higher in any of his ability modifiers is a gifted person. All of them are eligible to be adventurers. Not terribly effective ones, and maybe on a smaller scale, but still eligible.
Normal GM. A person who understands that this is a game everybody is supposed to be having fun playing. Who will make the game challenging but not impossible and will not go:"Shucks, you're too weak for what i planned. DIE!" He would scale the challenge, and it would still be epic in the mind of the players.
Wanting to win at all costs (even when winning isn't really the objective) is gamist. It also means that you have to approach the game as a game and not as play pretend world where you have fun with your alter ego. You have to approach it from the numbers standpoint. IMO the wrong way to play.
If you expect your players to optimize, tell them that beforehand and actualy enocourage that behavior and have fun, kudos to you and your players. Having fun is all that matters. If your player enjoy playing your games, you are a good GM. AS long as you understand that not all players are the same and adjust accordingly. Players shouldn't adjust to the playstyle, the GM should adjust to the players. Not 100% of course, but at least 70%.
Tastes vary, but as a player I can't stand this style of GMing.
If everything's handicapped to the PCs, then they basically can't succeed or fail on their own merits -- they've always won or lost because of the GM's choices. Again, I understand some people like this.
I never said that everything should be handicapped so the players plow through everything. I said that encounters should be adjusted accordingly to player power level. Every important encounter should be challenging. But that doesn't mean that if you planned that every player should have a 26 in their primary stat by now, and they don't that you should say "meh who cares..let them suffer". Players should feel that their Character's lives are in danger, and should play carefully. I didn't mean that the BBEG should be a lame kobold commoner 1/2.
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Tastes vary, but as a player I can't stand this style of GMing.If everything's handicapped to the PCs, then they basically can't succeed or fail on their own merits -- they've always won or lost because of the GM's choices. Again, I understand some people like this.
If you're running a high school team, do you want them to go against professional league teams? Or would you rather be matched against other high school teams? Note that nowhere in this statement have I said that the other teams must be exactly as good as your team.
I'm not sure why you don't think the 20-INT-at-first-level wizard can't also do these things and be even more effective.
There are plenty of effective ways for a wizard to temporarily boost their int, or temporarily decrease a target's saves. But that sort of thing takes cooperation, planning and a willing to sacrifice certain goals to achieve others.
I never said that :)
If you're running a high school team, do you want them to go against professional league teams? Or would you rather be matched against other high school teams? Note that nowhere in this statement have I said that the other teams must be exactly as good as your team.
Tastes vary, but as a player I can't stand this style of GMing.If everything's handicapped to the PCs, then they basically can't succeed or fail on their own merits -- they've always won or lost because of the GM's choices. Again, I understand some people like this.
Excellent response. :)