Since I first started gaming, nearly every gamer I've come across was trying to get the most bang for their buck. Trying to come up with just the right chemistry to where they could, as one friend of mine put it "take down a party of level 15's with my level 9 rogue." Or other such craziness such as that. We've had the half-dragon monk, somehow using psionics to create a giant weightless final-fantasy style buster sword, plus many more I can't think of right now.
Then I come across a game where one player right now is a Fighter 1/Paladin (Undead Scourge variant) 3/Monk 1, taken in that order. He fights in full plate behind a tower shield with a bladed whip. That's right. A whip. Did I mention his Strength of 11? And the rest of the party is not really concerned with optimizing either. We have a 16 year old Sorcerer with a Wisdom of 8. He spent one scene drawing genitalia in every book in a Wizard's library.
I guess my question is: How often have you guys run across this blatantly different way of gaming? Or have you had it the other way around, just going from having fun to the total optimization?
I am admittedly an optimizer (although better at it in 4e where I have a clearer understanding of the rules) and I have played with polar-opposite people.
IT DROVE ME NUTS!
Honestly, it was not fun for me as they usually completely disregarded tactical play, which 4e being a very tactical game was a very big problem, once this ended with a single fight taking 3 DAYS real world time to complete. It was torture as they where also very boring people to be around and tended not to have much in role-play potential (admittedly the role-play opinion is subjective at best).
After the 3 day battle I simply gave up and left the group. Lesson learned on my part I guess.
Edit: This all occurred in a 4e game, but I feel the experience still applies to the question you asked. If not feel free to disregard me then.
My favorite 3.5 character was a warforged cleric with a wisdom of 14 (I think) and strength and intelligence as high as he could get - he was wandering the world writing a book about everything called his 'encyclopedia'. He generally fit in fine, since the rest of our group werent particularly well specialised. When we were 6th level we were probably as effective as a 'typical' 5th level group or a group of 4th level PCs built by people with decent system mastery.
I think the answer to the question of whether to optimise or not is that it's best to do what the rest of the group is doing. Mixing things up can lead to resentment in both directions, in my view. (I wouldnt play that warforged character if I was sitting down with Kitsune Knight, for example).
Optimize a kobold barbarian :-D
I think there is something to be said for optimizing but sprinkling in choices make a well rounded character.
Personally, I wouldn't put together a character without a clear idea of what his roles are both in and out of combat and how he can do that effectively without creating unnecessary weaknesses. If you like to have a well-built character but the rest of your group isn't of the same mindset or knowledge level you can look to build a character that can significantly buff his allies, bringing them up to his effectiveness rather than making them unnecessary. You get to be the guy that makes everyone's gaming experience that much more fun rather than making the other PCs superfluous.
Off the top of my head the cleric, bard and cavalier are all buffing classes that you can optimize the buffing aspect without outshining the rest of the party and still have other interesting things to do.
I think I'm blessed with a group right in the middle. We all like to make and play powerful well built characters, but almost always with some roleplaying quirks. so in addition to making all the bad guys heads explode as expediently as possible, we arent playing the game exclusively for combat. It removes the worry about giving the group too much power thru rolled stats or lots of magic items and still expect to have a fun game.
Asta
PSY
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ive run into all kinds of gaming from hard core optimizers to people who just play crazy combinations for the sake of playing crazy combinations
In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with either style of play. Theyre both legitimate. I do think its wrong for optimizers to expect and even force other players to optimize their characters. Likewise people who play these crazy things shouldnt be expecting other players to also play something crazy if they dont want to.
On the table top RPG scale of rules heavy(crunchy) games to the more free form rules light(fluffy) system. Anything from 3.0 forward has been on the 'crunchy' side of things.
I tend to find 'most' people who build characters for a system like pathfinder 'generally' start building a character with stats/feats/skills then build the personality and character second. This approach tends to create more of what most of you guys would probably call an optimized character.
Also a side effect of how combat heavy(say what you like, but most conflict in the pathfinder system is going to be combat) the system is, having an adventurer who is not directing the majority of his focus towards effects and abilities that will make himself or his party more proficient in battle is generally going to be looked at as 'doing it wrong'. This is because the most danger your characters are going to face, is going to be because someone-thing decided to slice him up and eat his brains, not because he could not talk his way out of a paper bag.
There are plenty of other systems out there, where being socially inept will get you killed and/or see that your character is effectively removed from the game just as quick as a swift blow to the head. There are also plenty of other settings/systems where totally strange, off the wall character concepts make total sense and are expected/encouraged. There are even role playing systems that encourage inter party conflict, and just outright expects its players to be able to laugh it off and have a good time with it.
I suspect most likely what you are encountering is either a 'new' player to the system or most likely a veteran of another style of gaming where the specific, optimal, set of widgets and sprockets didn't make a huge difference in how well the character was able to perform.
Depending on the characters motivations his choices might make sense to him. On the other hand, he may just be trying to go by what feels appropriate at the time. Generally in the case of the latter, i've found it helps to get a general idea from the player on what they are going for and help them with some options that seem appropriate.
Perhaps that errant monk level was picked up because the player wanted to be able to punch things and didn't realize he could have just taken a feat? Or perhaps his characters had a sudden crisis of faith due to some god taking notice of him and granting him holy powers so he sought out a more rigid training regime to harden him emotionally and physically for what his sudden new path in life requires?
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
when i play i dont really care what the other players play as long as we dont have gaps in out group. for instance no healer, no arcane caster, no skills monkey ect...
i make concepts for my characters first, then optimize in the confines of that concept. i wont ever play a character because it hits for 10 million points of damage, but if im making a polearm fighter and i can make him hit for 10 million points of damage without compromising my concept then i would play him.
so with that being said, my advice to you i play the character you want to play, if they make charcters that are not pulling their weight in combat you will need to make up for it.
but dont think of that as a bad thing, because you gm will, assuming he cares, adjust the adventures to fit the group better. that will allow people with disfunctional characters to still do well, and make your character look that much more beefy.
I suspect most likely what you are encountering is either a 'new' player to the system or most likely a veteran of another style of gaming where the specific, optimal, set of widgets and sprockets didn't make a huge difference in how well the character was able to perform.Depending on the characters motivations his choices might make sense to him. On the other hand, he may just be trying to go by what feels appropriate at the time. Generally in the case of the latter, i've found it helps to get a general idea from the player on what they are going for and help them with some options that seem appropriate.
Perhaps that errant monk level was picked up because the player wanted to be able to punch things and didn't realize he could have just taken a feat? Or perhaps his characters had a sudden crisis of faith due to some god taking notice of him and granting him holy powers so he sought out a more rigid training regime to harden him emotionally and physically for what his sudden new path in life requires?
He is by no means a new player, he started with D&D and Warhammer in high school and he's in his 30's now. And the monk level was because during the first session our characters got captured and our armor and weapons were taken away for the first half of the battle when we were escaping prison. He felt that Lucian (the Paladin) was feeling rather helpless after that, so as soon as he gets to a Temple, he seeks out a monk to help him train a little so that next time we are without armor and weapons, he's a little better prepared.
It's not taking away from the game by any means, it's just a little odd when compared to what I'm used to. I asked him about it, and apparently this is the first time he's done this to a character. I personally like it. And any GM worth his salt should be able to adjust the encounters accordingly. An optimized character simply means optimized enemies.
I optimize my characters and I don't see anything wrong with it. However, I think you can go overboard and make it not fun for the rest of the table.
So what I do is start with a character concept that is based off of role-playing. Once I have an idea for who that character is, I then fit that into a class and stats. This way I am optimizing my character within the confines of the concept and not choosing things based solely on whether it is the best choice.
I think there is something to be said for optimizing but sprinkling in choices make a well rounded character.
Totally agree with you there, Gnomezrule.
One game I ran, I came up with all the NPC's by first rolling up very hardlined columns of stats: the first number i physically rolled was STR, the second DEX, no mixing them up. Then, I took those columns and asked "what type of character do these stats look like?" So basically, I was creating young adults who were looking to their own strengths and deciding for themselves what class to go into.
When I was playing with the optimizers, many of them didn't realize how clueless I was to the rules, and I was in it more for the RP value. I'd originally met the group in a Vampire the Masquerade LARP. I thought they'd be the same way. However, they were in it for both. They'd get their geek on by optimizing, and brush up on their acting chops with the RP (they were all thespians as well).
So far, the game is going great. I'm even playing a character that's statted out a lot different than I'm used to. I usually play high DEX/INT/CHA. WIS or STR is usually my dump. I like Rogues and Bards, and usually end up freeing some enslaved people at some point. However, my Witch for this game is STR 10, DEX 10, CON 14, INT 19, WIS 16, and CHA 10. It was a 25 point-buy, and I min-maxed like that because of what I was used to. I figured, Don't step on anyone else's toes. You are the caster of this group. Everyone else has said they are playing fighters.
I can't imagine not optimizing. If you're not optimizing you're skipping half the game. Optimizing is not powergaming. For example I'm currently optimizing a fighter to make knowledge checks.
I guess it depends on what you're optimizing for. Your example isn't powergaming because it's not something that is typically a strength of the class. When you go down the path of optimizing the crud out of nothing but the particular class's strengths, severe min-maxing, then that's powergaming.
|
|
I tend to find certain game systems lend themselves to optimisation. Pathfinder has some "golden" elements that can hamper your character if you don't meet them. Its entirely possible to play enjoyable games without optimising but these are the elements that I believe encourage optimisation:
1. CR for encounters. The DM sets encounters to be balanced against the APL. If you are optimised you are less likely to die.
2. Roles. This isn't really fixed in Pathfinder, but you still need someone to heal, someone to deal with big hitters with low will saves and someone to do the damage. Generally people tend to optimise one of these roles.
3. Point buy. Its the best way of balancing characters, all the groups I rolled stats with ended up with over powered stats. However it lends itself to optimisation.
4. Fixed progression. With a level based system you can plan your progress from level 1 to level 20 with no need to worry about availablitiy of abilities etc.
The "golden" elements are things like 18 strength for a 2 handed melee fighter. You have an additional +4 to hit and +6 damage. Compair that to a 16 strength, +3 to hit but only +4 damage. If you are made to hurt low will save characters you need a high caster stat.
I enjoyed playing non-optimised characters in other systems, in Pathfinder, you can add you RP elements from your dump stat, but I have yet to enjoy playing a non-optimised character.
I'm considering taking my ranger in a less optimised way in the current game, but I will be sacrificing power attack for iron will. Something you can use every round to something you use once per session. The rest of the party isn't particularly optimised so we will see how the group moves forward...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It sounds like the difference between optimize and min/max. If I want to make a fighter that uses a lance and tower shield on foot, I'm going to pour over archetypes and feats that allow me to do it with some amount of competence. I think that's normal optimization.
But if while going through the feats, I find I would be doing way more damage if i changed to a one handed weapon and light shield, or kept the lance but picked up a mount, then i'm min/maxing at the expense of my character concept.
I think one of the strengths of the pathfinder system is it's kinda hard to build unplayable characters. It might not be the best, but they can all generally contribute. Again, so much of this comes down to the group you play in.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think it's important to keep a balanced approach. Your character needs to be at least moderately effective in combat, but backstory, personality, and some level of quirkiness are essential in my book for a compelling, fun-to-play character.
Honestly, all the talk about character optimization and how to craft the "perfect character" who can dish out the most damage-per-round takes a lot away from the game for me. I'm much more interested in coming up with an interesting character concept and a backstory, and then coming up with a reasonably-effective build based on the concept.
e.g. the last character I played as a primary PC was Baron Drax, the penniless heir to a barony whose father had squandered both the treasury and the goodwill of the populace. His goal was to restore honor to his family name by performing great deeds, and to pay off his father's debts and return his barony to its former glory. I envisioned him as an aristocratic warrior, the kind who led from the front lines. The concept came first, and then I built a character around it, and I made some deliberately unconventional choices (including his first character level to be in the Aristocrat NPC class.)
As a GM, I tend to have little patience for the highly-optimized character, but as long as the player crafted a decent personality and backstory for the character, and is is actually role-playing, it tends to work out fine. Still, I've occasionally vetoed some min-maxing and asked the player to tone it down a bit, especially when running for a group with a varied level of experience with the system.
At the same time, it's possible to go a bit too far: I tend to suggest alternate builds for, say, the ranger whose highest stats were INT and CHA, fights with a quarterstaff, and chose Nimble Moves, Skill Focus (Survival), and Throw Anything for feats, even if all of that makes perfect sense with regard to the character's three-page backstory.
I guess the problem lies when you have one or two highly-optimized characters with a group of less-than-optimized ones; or, the reverse. When all of the PCs are of differing power level or effectiveness, it makes it hard to design interesting encounters without resorting to gimmickry.
For me, optimizing is the only way to play the game. I like going over the numbers and playing with various versions of the character. I take everything into account, go so far as to develop a 17 level progression matrix in Excel. Thus, all my characters have a "plan". That's not to say that plans can't change. Once I get into the game and get a feel for my character and t the party as whole, then the plan can change.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For me, optimizing is the only way to play the game. I like going over the numbers and playing with various versions of the character. I take everything into account, go so far as to develop a 17 level progression matrix in Excel. Thus, all my characters have a "plan". That's not to say that plans can't change. Once I get into the game and get a feel for my character and t the party as whole, then the plan can change.
As they say, "different strokes for different folks." I find doing the above to be tedious and boring.
If I enjoyed character creation as an exercise in complex arithmetic, I'd play Hero System, a game designed around min/maxing character points.
I do recognize that for some people, optimizing is the fun part of PFRPG. I'm just not one of those.
On a couple of other message threads I tried to describe the process of "concept optimization" which is not remotely the same thing as "mechanical optimization."
I am omni-playable. I can play any style. I like 'em all.
My 4e ranger is a DPR machine. When he uncorks all of his tricks, he can deliver damage that is three to four times as much as any other striker in our party. On top of that he's a magic item munchkiner. He's Batman. He has a trick for virtually any situation. My group loves him because he is the encounter-ender. I think he's a fun role-play character too. And as optimal as he is, I could actually make him even more powerful if I wanted to. I've deliberately avoided the most common munchkin tricks for 4e rangers. But there's no doubt he's a mechanical monster of the first order.
At the other extreme is my Pathfinder witch with the high charisma and the strength of 9. He's also a drug addict and frequently suffers from withdrawal and so his con is damaged as well. He has been known to sleep through his watches and has gone through entire encounters contributing nothing beyond a misfortune or evil eye while he has done his best to hide out of sight.
In between I have my PF druid converted from 3.5 who has focused on archery.
I love 'em all. I played a 4e wizard who was a complete physical coward who had to be dragged bodily through a portal she didn't want to go through.
All of my characters contribute in their own way. But more importantly to me, all of my characters are fun to play, and all of my game partners insist that my characters make the group more fun to play. Even when they do "sub-optimal" things.
It's not all about combat. I love combat, but my favorite part of the game is the role playing stuff. I work hard to make each session memorable for the group as a whole. Even when that means my characters sometimes do "stupid" things. That's part of the fun.
Optimising the concept is the way to do it you get to play a character you want to play and not suck at combat. I could make a rouge that fights with two sickles and take optimised stats even though it is not the most powerful concept.
|
|
As much as I find optimising a fun part of the game, without a story or concept the character isn't fun for me.
I have a stone oracle, who was built around throwing rocks, it was fun for a while, but he had no real back story, and rock throwing was only really competitive in the damage stakes at lower levels. Now I don't get much fun out of the character except for role playing a few character quirks.
My other character was going to be an inquisitor, but was switched to a ranger as the GM decided to play core only. I already had the backstory and fitted it to a ranger. So far its playing out well, but its early days. I hope the strong backstory carries the character.
Much depends on your group. The stone oracle is played along side an optimised druid and an optimised magus. We are 6th level, so the magus has just had his sweet spot of massive shocking grasp damage and now the druid has just got to change into a large cat. Both do obscene amounts of damage. The ranger is in an unoptimised group and is possible the most optimised character as he has an 18 strength and uses a greatsword.
For me, optimizing is the only way to play the game. I like going over the numbers and playing with various versions of the character. I take everything into account, go so far as to develop a 17 level progression matrix in Excel. Thus, all my characters have a "plan". That's not to say that plans can't change. Once I get into the game and get a feel for my character and t the party as whole, then the plan can change.As they say, "different strokes for different folks." I find doing the above to be tedious and boring.
If I enjoyed character creation as an exercise in complex arithmetic, I'd play Hero System, a game designed around min/maxing character points.
I do recognize that for some people, optimizing is the fun part of PFRPG. I'm just not one of those.
Played Hero, it's way too cumbersome. As appealing as it is to play a marksmen who's afraid of the dark, it was just too much after awhile.
You may not want to build a level progression matrix, but how else are you gonna know if your concept works? Look, there's A.) fluff and there's B.)crunch and then there is C.)fluff that is supported by the crunch. With the help of my matrix, I can achieve C.) every time.
I don't know about y'all, but the last 2 characters that I've built were for the long haul. We're talking 2 years of play. I'm not winging it.
I am just trying to figure out how fluff and story can be achieved by number crunching...but whatever makes you happy...
I guess I've always interpreted fluff as "those things our characters can achieve without game mechanics", those things that are achieved through the role-play aspect. So many times I've tried to say "hey I wanna be able to do *insert task here*, how do I do that mechanically in game?"
Half the time, the GM tells me, "honestly hun, that stuff's just fluff, so role-play it and see how it works out."
Roleplaying games are about making choices and seeing how those choices work out. Does my wizard burn up his strongest spell this combat, or save it for a later encounter? Does my fighter rush ahead or guard the weaker party members? The fun is in seeing how the choices work out.
The first choices are in character design. What race and class should I play? What can this character do? What is his personality and background story? To play only characters optimized to the min/max point would rob me of many choices. But to play a subpar character who is never effective would mean that I learn only that bad choices work out badly. Inbetween, where I optimize the choices rather than the power, is my path.
It sounds like the difference between optimize and min/max. If I want to make a fighter that uses a lance and tower shield on foot, I'm going to pour over archetypes and feats that allow me to do it with some amount of competence. I think that's normal optimization.
But if while going through the feats, I find I would be doing way more damage if i changed to a one handed weapon and light shield, or kept the lance but picked up a mount, then i'm min/maxing at the expense of my character concept.
I think one of the strengths of the pathfinder system is it's kinda hard to build unplayable characters. It might not be the best, but they can all generally contribute. Again, so much of this comes down to the group you play in.
Kakitamike's "character concept" is what I call choice in character design. I recently asked my wife and adult daughter to create some 6th-level characters for short game for a monk playtest and gave them a few restrictions: three characters who supposedly have been adventuring with an acrobatic monk for a while, one a front line melee combatant, one arcane caster, and one non-cleric divine caster. 15-point build.
My wife started on the arcane caster. She chose a halfing aberrant sorcerer. The spell and feat choices emphasized the aberrant sorcerer's reach touch attack, but she was also building a theme of creepiness into this sorceress, such as Strangling Hair for the third-level spell.
My daugher started on the divine caster. She chose a halfling life oracle with the lame curse. Her plan is to use Life Link (redirects damage to her) on the entire party to keep them on their feet while she attacks through nonconventional means. She devoted her feats, such as Animal Affinity, into controlling a combat-trained riding wolf. This oracle has Con 18 and Cha 16, but had to dump Strength down to 5. She is deliberately playing off the non-encumberance advantage from the lame curse.
Start with a concept. Give it character. Then optimize that character concept.
The nonfamily players in my games have other styles of playing their characters. Some know how to build well upon their character concepts, but do not know enough tactics to put those character strengths to full advantage. Some just coast along from level to level, chosing a feat or spell that looks nice but does not build toward any plan. One master roleplayer choses to optimize his character for the social, story-based side of the game, and being a telekinesis-based sorcerer is part of being an aristocratic businessman.
And I also remember two munchkin players that we kicked out of our group after three months. They had built their characters around flashy abilities that turned out to be ineffective, and tactics that were essentially, "Hey, look at me! I am doing something big!" Their goal was to have fun, but to them fun was being the center of attention by being loud and annoying.
My optimization is now set to fun.
I'm very happy with the decision.
Start with a concept. Give it character. Then optimize that character concept.
This is, in my opinion, is the very best way to go. My first step in the process is the level progression matrix and after that I look at personality. As I said, personality and in-game play can and often does change the plan.
In my experience (30 years of rpgs), optimization is for combat - fight with optimal tactical advantage. Building characters should be about creating a believable person, and complimenting other players. I look at all the threads about creating optimal builds, and I am glad that I don't play with those people. Be an optimal team member, not an optimal individual.
In my experience (30 years of rpgs), optimization is for combat - fight with optimal tactical advantage. Building characters should be about creating a believable person, and complimenting other players. I look at all the threads about creating optimal builds, and I am glad that I don't play with those people. Be an optimal team member, not an optimal individual.
Amen!
|
I take it as a "when in Rome" situation. You don't want to overpower the game; you don't want to feel worthless at a power table. I usually go with the group mentality. Though I would be unlikely to want to play with someone who wants their sorcerer drawing genetalia all the time; those players just annoy me.
Start with a concept. Give it character. Then optimize that character concept.This is, in my opinion, is the very best way to go. My first step in the process is the level progression matrix and after that I look at personality. As I said, personality and in-game play can and often does change the plan.
Amen. Most of us probably don't write it out as much as you seem to, though. I tend to keep most of the "hey what if I did this..." in my head, usually when I'm at work.
And since we are talking optimizations, has anyone noticed that the first two levels of Fighter seem way too good to pass up when you're trying to make something that either is decent at combat or needs a little boost in feats.
I played a first session a few weeks ago as a level 8 Gunslinger. I then realized that feat-wise, she stunk. The GM let me rewrite her as a Gunslinger 6/Fighter 2. I traded a little reflex save, gun training, and 4 skill points for 2 feats. So far, it seems worth it.
I optimize a character if the character cares about being the best at what they can do.
|
I am not an optimizer. I prefer an organic approach to creating characters. That isn't to say that I will intentionally will make useless characters, but they will not be one dimensional cut-outs that are only good at one thing...
I guess that is why I keep dropping in our Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign! :p
My boyfriend once had an Orc Ranger that collected ears from his kills in battle. He kept a tally of the races and quantities of the ears. When it came time for Grimfang (aka Skinny) to take a Favored Enemy, it went to the race with the most ears.