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Optimizing is different from min-maxing and power gaming. If that was the OP's question, power gaming is not important to a player who is actually sitting down at a table with other people who plan on actually having an adventure. Optimizing itself is only as important as your job to your party. If your party doesn't have a job for you to do, then why is your character with them?Totally this. If you can't give a legitimate answer to the question "Why doesn't the rest of the party ditch my character and hire someone else?" there's a problem.Sorry, couldn't resist responsing to this, even if it sounds provocative.
My answer would be: Umm, maybe because your character is a friend and colleague they have worked, struggled and bled with, rather than just a replaceable set of stats on a piece of paper. Or maybe because there are not an infinite number of potential partners out there for them to choose from.
Seriously, if all the character is is a set of stats on a piece of paper, then they are infinitely and easily replaceable, and why wouldn't you replace them with a better set of stats?
If, on the other hand, they actually have a personality and a history and contribute to the party and the story (even if they don't carry their weight in combat, which, let's face it, is pretty much what most people optimize for) it's not so easy to kick them to the curb. Do you kick your less than optimal friends to the curb every time someone "better" or "cooler" shows up? Assuming you answer no, why would your characters be any different?
Exactly this.
My answer would be: Umm, maybe because your character is a friend and colleague they have worked, struggled and bled with, rather than just a replaceable set of stats on a piece of paper. Or maybe because there are not an infinite number of potential partners out there for them to choose from.
Seriously, if all the character is is a set of stats on a piece of paper, then they are infinitely and easily replaceable, and why wouldn't you replace them with a better set of stats?
If, on the other hand, they actually have a personality and a history and contribute to the party and the story (even if they don't carry their weight in combat, which, let's face it, is pretty much what most people optimize for) it's not so easy to kick them to the curb. Do you kick your less than optimal friends to the curb every time someone "better" or "cooler" shows up? Assuming you answer no, why would your characters be any different?
Adventuring is the world's most lethal profession. If someone isn't capable of performing their job in an adventuring party adequately (in other words, pulling their weight) they have no business being there. They are a danger to themselves and everyone else they're adventuring with.
You could be the most amazing person I've ever met. Great! Let's be friends. But if you can't pull your weight in a dungeon I'm not going to go with you. We can sip ale in a city but if I can't depend on you I'm sure as hell not going to place my life in your hands.
Understand what you're saying, but disagree. Me, I want people I like and trust at my back, whether they are "the best" at what they do or not. I want someone I know will throw themselves between my thin-skinned caster/nerd and that charging fire giant with barbarian levels rather than some guy with an impressive resume we just hired off the streets.
Pulling their weight is a very subjective term, and characters can pull their weight in a lot of different ways, rather than just in combat, or in any way that can be measured in a stat block. For example, that character may be the one who has all the great ideas, or keeps the rest loose with his humor, or is party peacemaker when the Type A elephants are charging at each other.
Optimizing is different from min-maxing and power gaming. If that was the OP's question, power gaming is not important to a player who is actually sitting down at a table with other people who plan on actually having an adventure. Optimizing itself is only as important as your job to your party. If your party doesn't have a job for you to do, then why is your character with them?Totally this. If you can't give a legitimate answer to the question "Why doesn't the rest of the party ditch my character and hire someone else?" there's a problem.Sorry, couldn't resist responsing to this, even if it sounds provocative.
My answer would be: Umm, maybe because your character is a friend and colleague they have worked, struggled and bled with, rather than just a replaceable set of stats on a piece of paper. Or maybe because there are not an infinite number of potential partners out there for them to choose from.
Seriously, if all the character is is a set of stats on a piece of paper, then they are infinitely and easily replaceable, and why wouldn't you replace them with a better set of stats?
If, on the other hand, they actually have a personality and a history and contribute to the party and the story (even if they don't carry their weight in combat, which, let's face it, is pretty much what most people optimize for) it's not so easy to kick them to the curb. Do you kick your less than optimal friends to the curb every time someone "better" or "cooler" shows up? Assuming you answer no, why would your characters be any different?
The new bane of my DM existence is the notion that players can use their 'backstory' as a means to get away with things like this. 'Our characters know each other' is different from 'My character knows his character, and knows he is a good fighter and would be a valued adventuring partner.'
If the other players at the table are okay with having someone there who wastes space because he can't do his job, more power to them. That is not what this discussion is about. If you and your co-players are okay with it, then why bring it up? When you have other players sitting at the table that are counting on you to do something and you choose to not have your character invest into it because it's not part of your back story, it will not matter how good of friends you are because chances are, you all die.
Optimizing is just about playing to your character or class's strengths. Ignore your strengths because you just want to have an interesting character and you end up dead... a lot. I know this from experience, we had a player who was intent on testing every single prestige class out of the 3.5 DMG. None of them made it past a campaign.
I'm not telling you that I expect you to min-max, I'm telling you to do your job, you owe it to your fellow players, especially because no one has fun sitting at a table for several hours crawling through this dungeon only to die at the end and lose outright because our 'friend' that we love so dearly couldn't pull his own weight for the party.
Do you kick your less than optimal friends to the curb every time someone "better" or "cooler" shows up?doesn't everyone? Starts humming "I'm an a%%!!&+" - Dennis Leary
Thanks for making me laugh! Been a rough week at the office.
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My answer would be: Umm, maybe because your character is a friend and colleague they have worked, struggled and bled with, rather than just a replaceable set of stats on a piece of paper. Or maybe because there are not an infinite number of potential partners out there for them to choose from.
Seriously, if all the character is is a set of stats on a piece of paper, then they are infinitely and easily replaceable, and why wouldn't you replace them with a better set of stats?
If, on the other hand, they actually have a personality and a history and contribute to the party and the story (even if they don't carry their weight in combat, which, let's face it, is pretty much what most people optimize for) it's not so easy to kick them to the curb. Do you kick your less than optimal friends to the curb every time someone "better" or "cooler" shows up? Assuming you answer no, why would your characters be any different?
Adventuring is the world's most lethal profession. If someone isn't capable of performing their job in an adventuring party adequately (in other words, pulling their weight) they have no business being there. They are a danger to themselves and everyone else they're adventuring with.
You could be the most amazing person I've ever met. Great! Let's be friends. But if you can't pull your weight in a dungeon I'm not going to go with you. We can sip ale in a city but if I can't depend on you I'm sure as hell not going to place my life in your hands.
I am sorry to call you out on this but... no.
The GM runs a balanced scenario against the characters she has. If they are weak then she runs lower powered scenarios, if they are strong she runs higher powered scenarios... So I flatly reject the idea that creating a less powerful but more interesting character will hurt your chances at all. A good GM knows her players and adjusts her game to suit their characters.
Which means your mentality boils down to a sort of elitism meant to exclude anyone not optimizing to the best of their abilities. This is great if you have only gamists at your table. BUT the other 67% of us see past this artificial logic and reject it.
Optimization works best as a supporting element to make the story more memorable. NOT as a goal itself. But that is just my opinion.
The GM runs a balanced scenario against the characters she has. If they are weak then she runs lower powered scenarios, if they are strong she runs higher powered scenarios... So I flatly reject the idea that creating a less powerful but more interesting character will hurt your chances at all. A good GM knows her players and adjusts her game to suit their characters.
Which means your mentality boils down to a sort of elitism meant to exclude anyone not optimizing to the best of their abilities. This is great if you have only gamists at your table. BUT the other 67% of us see past this artificial logic and reject it.
Optimization works best as a supporting element to make the story more memorable. NOT as a goal itself. But that is just my opinion.
From my experience... No. My last GM even went as far as to think a group with a rogue, fighter, monk, and healer cleric would do as well as one with a summoner, cleric, sorcerer, and paladin. He failed to see the difference in classes or players(I only knew the first group and it was... not pretty). One of the reasons I left was he told me he wanted us to face off against the level 6 barbarian were-tiger I made. He thought it would make a good "scare". 4 natural attacks and pounce against a level 4 group!
It does vary greatly by group. I wish I was with groups who change things based on the players and optimization, but I'm lucky if I get one that does CRs correctly. Players and DMs both vary greatly.
I don't think anyone disagrees with that last statement really.
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Optimizing is different from min-maxing and power gaming. If that was the OP's question, power gaming is not important to a player who is actually sitting down at a table with other people who plan on actually having an adventure. Optimizing itself is only as important as your job to your party. If your party doesn't have a job for you to do, then why is your character with them?Totally this. If you can't give a legitimate answer to the question "Why doesn't the rest of the party ditch my character and hire someone else?" there's a problem.Sorry, couldn't resist responsing to this, even if it sounds provocative.
My answer would be: Umm, maybe because your character is a friend and colleague they have worked, struggled and bled with, rather than just a replaceable set of stats on a piece of paper. Or maybe because there are not an infinite number of potential partners out there for them to choose from.
Seriously, if all the character is is a set of stats on a piece of paper, then they are infinitely and easily replaceable, and why wouldn't you replace them with a better set of stats?
If, on the other hand, they actually have a personality and a history and contribute to the party and the story (even if they don't carry their weight in combat, which, let's face it, is pretty much what most people optimize for) it's not so easy to kick them to the curb. Do you kick your less than optimal friends to the curb every time someone "better" or "cooler" shows up? Assuming you answer no, why would your characters be any different?
The new bane of my DM existence is the notion that players can use their 'backstory' as a means to get away with things like this. 'Our characters know each other' is different from 'My character knows his character, and knows he is a good fighter and would be a valued adventuring partner.'
If the other players at the table are okay with having someone there who...
First off, I hate the term "wastes space". The only people who waste space at a gaming table are those who just aren't fun to play with, and even that is subjective. Any player who is involved and fun to be around and any character that gives it his all for the party is fine by me, no matter what his stats are.
Second, what is "their job"? Their job is to be an adventurer. They don't have to fit neatly into any predefined roles. It is the whole party's job to overcome obstacles, not any one character's. They succeed or fail as a group.
Finally, you don't "lose" just because the group fails at a certain task, or even if there is a TPK. The only way you lose is if you aren't having fun, because that what this is about. It's a game. We do it to have fun, and everybody "wins" if fun is had, regardless of whether the characters succeed or not. Granted most people have more fun if they are succeeding, but fun is the ultimate goal, not in-game success for the characters.
As a GM it may indeed drive you crazy to have non-optimal or even stupid or silly characters, but if the players are having fun I would just roll with it and adapt to their style. Of course, you have the right to have fun, too, so if it truly drives you crazy, then maybe it's time to have someone else sit behind the GM screen so you can drive them crazy.
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Understand what you're saying, but disagree. Me, I want people I like and trust at my back, whether they are "the best" at what they do or not. I want someone I know will throw themselves between my thin-skinned caster/nerd and that charging fire giant with barbarian levels rather than some guy with an impressive resume we just hired off the streets.
Pulling their weight is a very subjective term, and characters can pull their weight in a lot of different ways, rather than just in combat, or in any way that can be measured in a stat block. For example, that character may be the one who has all the great ideas, or keeps the rest loose with his humor, or is party peacemaker when the Type A elephants are charging at each other
I don't think everyone has to be "the best" either. They just have to be "good enough". The problem is that with adventuring "good enough" is a very, very high standard. If you are performing a role in an adventuring party you need to be able to reliably keep yourself and the rest of the party alive in deadly situations.
The way I see it is that while you just want someone who'll defend the less physically tough characters, I want someone who can do that on a reliable, constant basis and survive. If you can't do that but you've got a great personality I'll see you back in town.
I am sorry to call you out on this but... no.
The GM runs a balanced scenario against the characters she has. If they are weak then she runs lower powered scenarios, if they are strong she runs higher powered scenarios... So I flatly reject the idea that creating a less powerful but more interesting character will hurt your chances at all. A good GM knows her players and adjusts her game to suit their characters.
Which means your mentality boils down to a sort of elitism meant to exclude anyone not optimizing to the best of their abilities. This is great if you have only gamists at your table. BUT the other 67% of us see past this artificial logic and reject it.
Optimization works best as a supporting element to make the story more memorable. NOT as a goal itself. But that is just my opinion.
That's a pretty significant playstyle difference. The way I run games (and how it's been in all the games I've played) is that the PCs inhabit a world. That world exists in the same state no matter who the PCs are. It doesn't care how powerful they are or how weak they are; that doesn't change what the world contains. I'd see changing the challenges of a world based on who the PCs are as very much more "gamism" or "artificial logic" than expecting a consistent world.
...Optimizing is different from min-maxing and power gaming. If that was the OP's question, power gaming is not important to a player who is actually sitting down at a table with other people who plan on actually having an adventure. Optimizing itself is only as important as your job to your party. If your party doesn't have a job for you to do, then why is your character with them?Totally this. If you can't give a legitimate answer to the question "Why doesn't the rest of the party ditch my character and hire someone else?" there's a problem.Sorry, couldn't resist responsing to this, even if it sounds provocative.
My answer would be: Umm, maybe because your character is a friend and colleague they have worked, struggled and bled with, rather than just a replaceable set of stats on a piece of paper. Or maybe because there are not an infinite number of potential partners out there for them to choose from.
Seriously, if all the character is is a set of stats on a piece of paper, then they are infinitely and easily replaceable, and why wouldn't you replace them with a better set of stats?
If, on the other hand, they actually have a personality and a history and contribute to the party and the story (even if they don't carry their weight in combat, which, let's face it, is pretty much what most people optimize for) it's not so easy to kick them to the curb. Do you kick your less than optimal friends to the curb every time someone "better" or "cooler" shows up? Assuming you answer no, why would your characters be any different?
The new bane of my DM existence is the notion that players can use their 'backstory' as a means to get away with things like this. 'Our characters know each other' is different from 'My character knows his character, and knows he is a good fighter and would be a valued adventuring partner.'
If the other players at the table are
Again, you miss the point. If you are having fun, then there is no reason to have this discussion. My issue is when my players (or myself) do not have fun because someone at the table is dragging us down. That is what I mean when I say a character wastes space. If someone obsessed with having an interesting character wants to play, let them DM, because that really is the best venue to play interesting characters with no real optimal advantages while adventuring.
I'm not saying you have to exactly fill one of the party roles, but if we are counting on your character to not get us killed, and he does, and we feel like we wasted 4 hours of our life that resulted in us not having fun, that is a problem.
I'm gonna say it again, if you and everyone else at the table are having fun with it and you don't feel like you wasted your time, then this is a non-issue.
I am sorry to call you out on this but... no.
The GM runs a balanced scenario against the characters she has. If they are weak then she runs lower powered scenarios, if they are strong she runs higher powered scenarios... So I flatly reject the idea that creating a less powerful but more interesting character will hurt your chances at all. A good GM knows her players and adjusts her game to suit their characters.
Which means your mentality boils down to a sort of elitism meant to exclude anyone not optimizing to the best of their abilities. This is great if you have only gamists at your table. BUT the other 67% of us see past this artificial logic and reject it.
Optimization works best as a supporting element to make the story more memorable. NOT as a goal itself. But that is just my opinion.
I am no longer on this side of the fence. In a balanced and well designed campaign you should have a standard to meet as a competent adventurer. If you cannot meet it, you die. The DM cannot be blamed for something being too difficult because you were unprepared on purpose.
I do understand the logic of having a character that is fun. I get the logic of not min-maxing. I get the logic of doing something sub-optimal for flavor. I do not understand why it is on the GM to cater to your whims. There's a bar, reach it. If you can't, don't whine. Don't play a fighter with no STR or DEX. Don't play a wizard with only a 13 INT. Interesting characters are great, unplayable ones are not.
If you are confusing optimizing with min-maxing and power gaming to completely blow out any competition that a DM could possibly throw at you for an appropriate challenge rating, please disregard this comment, but be advised to communicate more clearly what culture of gamers you are insulting.
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Title says it all when you create a character how much effort do you put in to optimizing your characters stats and skills etc
I have character with wildly varying degrees of optimization. I often find myself stepping back and deliberately making sub-optimal choices when I believe I have gone too far.
My capacity for optimization far exceeds what I am willing to bring to the table.
Would the iconic pregens meet your standard?
Some, not all.
To answer the topic question: It's very important to me. I tend to start my characters by looking at fun, interesting (and good) mechanics and then thinking to myself "what would a guy with this skill set be like?" and then I go through personalities until I find one I like with it. I also don't tend to go with poor build choices for flavor (no sword cane, I'm not being a bad Magus for you, no matter how stylish and fitting to concept you are!), but I don't pick things that I can't reasonable re-skin to my liking.
I don't try to out do people and do everything myself, but I like knowing that if our barbarian turned on us I could take his ass down.
I am no longer on this side of the fence. In a balanced and well designed campaign you should have a standard to meet as a competent adventurer. If you cannot meet it, you die. The DM cannot be blamed for something being too difficult because you were unprepared on purpose.
I do understand the logic of having a character that is fun. I get the logic of not min-maxing. I get the logic of doing something sub-optimal for flavor. I do not understand why it is on the GM to cater to your whims. There's a bar, reach it. If you can't, don't whine. Don't play a fighter with no STR or DEX. Don't play a wizard with only a 13 INT. Interesting characters are great, unplayable ones are not.
If you are confusing optimizing with min-maxing and power gaming to completely blow out any competition that a DM could possibly throw at you for an appropriate challenge rating, please disregard this comment, but be advised to communicate more clearly what culture of gamers you are insulting.
That's part of what I was trying to get at earlier. Where is that bar?
Is it only, don't deliberate cripple your characters? Which is what you seem to be suggesting here. Does everyone agree with that?
Are some claiming it should be higher?
Would the iconic pregens meet your standard?
The iconic characters blatantly exceed my standards. The bar should not be un-possible to reach, unless you are specifically trying to not reach it. If you cannot reach it, the DM should not have to leave mindless, clothless, clawless, worthless enemies just standing there for you to hit and let you get XP for it.
If I can roll a commoner with equal HD to yours and be more effective than your character, then I have an issue.Observe Seelah here has weapon focus and power attack. She also has a 17 AC and a STR of 16. This is far above where I feel the line is. In my opinion, this character is optimized. I could definitely see someone taking a substitute for one of those feats, and can even see a smaller STR of like 14 being effective enough to say your character does their job.
Does that help give perspective?
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The cast of Scooby Doo were by all definitions an adventuring party.
Aratrok would have kicked Daphne to the curb.
TBH if I were Fred I'd have ditched Scooby and Shaggy and kept the other two for "roleplay" reasons.
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In a balanced and well designed campaign you should have a standard to meet as a competent adventurer. If you cannot meet it, you die. The DM cannot be blamed for something being too difficult because you were unprepared on purpose.
Balanced and well designed against WHAT?
It isn't well designed if your players can't handle it.It isn't balanced if they all die.
Balancing a game is truly one of the most challenging and rewarding tasks a GM can be faced with. Thejeff says it best. Where is that bar? YOU as GM place it. You could make it as hard or as easy as YOU want. So why not place the bar where the PCs will enjoy it the most? And don't say realism... that is false. You as the GM could have anything from Goblins to Demons stirring up trouble and still have realism. But if the PCs are first level then a greater demon equals TPK however optimized they are.
That does help. I had the impression we were talking about a much higher level of optimization.
Do the other posters advocating that characters have to reach a certain level of optimization agree that it's somewhere around this level?
And is this really a problem? Is it common for groups to have PCs not meeting this (low) bar?
It would seem there is someone championing that scnerio in this very thread.
If you're facing the right direction metaphorically (build wise) and literally and not acting like a dumbass, I think that's all I can really ask for.
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TBH if I were Fred I'd have ditched Scooby and Shaggy and kept the other two for "roleplay" reasons.The cast of Scooby Doo were by all definitions an adventuring party.
Aratrok would have kicked Daphne to the curb.
If you're going to that extreme, Scooby and Shaggy gotta have at least a few hit points each, they're as good as any summoned monster for soaking hits.
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If you're going to that extreme, Scooby and Shaggy gotta have at least a few hit points each, they're as good as any summoned monster for soaking hits.TBH if I were Fred I'd have ditched Scooby and Shaggy and kept the other two for "roleplay" reasons.The cast of Scooby Doo were by all definitions an adventuring party.
Aratrok would have kicked Daphne to the curb.
Um...hmmm...what I think chaoseffect was trying to say is that when a man and a woman and another woman love each other very much, or have a little bit to drink and are of a certain openness of mind...
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You don't need to ditch Scooby and Shaggy for that. Just go "investigate" something and leave them with a box of "Scooby Snacks".Um...hmmm...what I think chaoseffect was trying to say is that when a man and a woman and another woman love each other very much, or have a little bit to drink and are of a certain openness of mind...If you're going to that extreme, Scooby and Shaggy gotta have at least a few hit points each, they're as good as any summoned monster for soaking hits.TBH if I were Fred I'd have ditched Scooby and Shaggy and kept the other two for "roleplay" reasons.The cast of Scooby Doo were by all definitions an adventuring party.
Aratrok would have kicked Daphne to the curb.
Hang a sock on the mirror of the van, and let them know if the van is a rockin'...
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That's a pretty significant playstyle difference. The way I run games (and how it's been in all the games I've played) is that the PCs inhabit a world. That world exists in the same state no matter who the PCs are. It doesn't care how powerful they are or how weak they are; that doesn't change what the world contains. I'd see changing the challenges of a world based on who the PCs are as very much more "gamism" or "artificial logic" than expecting a consistent world.
Fair enough I DO use gamism to build a good story. I don't have anything against any of the three gaming ideologies. I do build a consistent world the PCs can explore and enjoy. BUT there is a huge difference in blindly creating stories without any regard for the character's levels and capabilities and balancing the current story against your PCs AS THEY ARE. The second one is fun and engaging, the first one often ends in boredom or TPK. Every player I have encountered favors the second method. SURE if your world is consistent and your players jump off track to go attack a kingdom single handedly they bypass your balance and face the world at it's own merit. But for goodness sake the prepared storyline should be built balanced to the PCs.
Hey guys, I wanna play a wizard-type character.
Okay, we'll make other character types to compensate so we get our bases covered.
He's a dwarf, I know it's not optimal, but I'm doing it for role-playing purposes.
Okay, cool. That sounds neat.
Also he only has an INT of 11. His father never approved of his choice to become a wiz..(long and boring expository of background continues from here, easily killing a half hour of The Guy's valuable play time for the evening.)
Ummmm..... okay?
Wild Bad-Guy appears.
My character attempts to cast Scorching Ray at the bad guy! But it failed...
The bad guy rushes you, what's your AC?
8.
He hits, you take 7 damage.
I collapse because of my negative CON score.
Great, we just got TPK'd because our wizard did literally nothing and we could not accommodate for the fairly appropriate challenge because we had one less combatant on the field for the entire fight. Well, {nameless member of The Guys} has to work early and has to leave now, so I guess this was a big waste of time. So much for spending all day developing these awesome character concepts.
HAY GuiYz WAZNT DIS FHUHNNNNNNNN?
If your night goes like this, I have a problem.
To me, optimizing simply means making your character the best he can possibly be within the role/concept you designed for him. If all you do is avoid crippling your character in some fashion, that's not optimization, it merely ensures you aren't "less than."
For these purposes, by "role" I don't mean blaster/striker/controller, I mean diplomat, explorer, ranged combatant, whatever you like. Decide what your character's function is, independent of the party, and give him every available benefit to enhance that function.
This doesn't put him in competition with anyone else in the group, nor does he need to be considered suboptimal if he's a paladin with a bow and doing less than 150 DPR.
I'm pleased to see that a number of people in this thread have similar attitudes. I get discouraged seeing the number of character builds that are clearly about nothing but the mechanical advantages.
And the alternative is to balance it to a generic expected standard based on level. And then kill the party if they don't meet it or bore the players if they exceed it.
Balancing to a standard is fine if you don't know what your players are bringing to the table. Conventions or published adventures MUST use this method. But think of how much more fun it is when the GM knows you and can anticipate your character. Building her game around you rather than in spite of you?
And that has happened exactly 0 times.
It was clearly an exaggeration, but the point remains that if you don't meet the bar on purpose, you should not complain to the DM. And optimizing in general does not mean min-max to the absolute finest detail. It also shows my definition of wasting space.
Again, that is my line. I have actually had players who did this (albeit at a lesser extent, but it was still pretty bad) at my table as I was attempting to have a decent adventure. You have to be considerate of the other people sitting at the table.
If your character cannot do what it is designed to do, and you are the only one who has fun at the rest of the party's expense, then I have a problem.
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Is this like a thing in games people play in, where there is just this massive disconnect between the GM, the players, common sense, communication and fun? Do all of the items just not overlap in any way, in a significant number of games out there?
And that has happened exactly 0 times.
I could see it. I once played with a Magus with straight 10s in physical stats and nothing but Skill Focus for feats. Not exaggerating and he saw nothing wrong with it.
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And that has happened exactly 0 times.It was clearly an exaggeration, but the point remains that if you don't meet the bar on purpose, you should not complain to the DM. And optimizing in general does not mean min-max to the absolute finest detail. It also shows my definition of wasting space.
Again, that is my line. I have actually had players who did this (albeit at a lesser extent, but it was still pretty bad) at my table as I was attempting to have a decent adventure. You have to be considerate of the other people sitting at the table.
If your character cannot do what it is designed to do, and you are the only one who has fun at the rest of the party's expense, then I have a problem.
Strawman all you want, but no one makes a wizard that can't cast spells...
If your character can't do what it was designed to do it should be OBVIOUS before play starts and VETOed by the GM or the player VETO if you use one. No one likes special snowflake characters. The GM should give out creation guidelines when starting a new game to prevent things like inappropriate characters.
Actually good Int, so at least there was that. He spent his whole point 25 point buy on Int, Wis, and Cha.
Absolutely agreed. Who is arguing for that being OK?
Whoever keeps accusing me of having too high of a bar set for my players is. For real, I don't expect that much of my players or my teammates at the table. I just don't want to waste a whole night because out of our 3 man party, one of us decided to focus more on having a fun character to portray when everyone else at the table wanted to have some combat. There are other venues to indulge character acting that don't involve making 3 or 4 other people waste several hours of their life.
And that has happened exactly 0 times.It was clearly an exaggeration, but the point remains that if you don't meet the bar on purpose, you should not complain to the DM. And optimizing in general does not mean min-max to the absolute finest detail. It also shows my definition of wasting space.
Again, that is my line. I have actually had players who did this (albeit at a lesser extent, but it was still pretty bad) at my table as I was attempting to have a decent adventure. You have to be considerate of the other people sitting at the table.
If your character cannot do what it is designed to do, and you are the only one who has fun at the rest of the party's expense, then I have a problem.
Strawman all you want, but no one makes a wizard that can't cast spells...
If your character can't do what it was designed to do it should be OBVIOUS before play starts and VETOed by the GM or the player VETO if you use one. No one likes special snowflake characters. The GM should give out creation guidelines when starting a new game to prevent things like
There is the line then. I only say optimize to the point where your character is appropriate, using your own words as the standard.
That is the point, making a character appropriate requires some optimization. That exact level of optimization is all I ask.
Some campaigns may require a bit more, and that's okay if the player's know in advance. But expecting to play a character with any less than appropriate optimization and blaming the DM's campaign design for it is unacceptable.
It took a while, but I think we are finally on the same page.
I'd define the 'bar' as "provides more resources and abilities to the party than they're draining from its other members."
For example, if a character requires a lot of healing to sustain themself but only provides mediocre powers, they're not up to snuff because they drain resources (healing wands, spells per day, healer's kits, whatever) but don't provide much in return for that expenditure (plinking away for 1d6+1 with a rapier and offering little else).
Some of the pregens are good enough, from what I've seen. Seelah and Ezren are competent (though 8 Dex on a frontliner makes me nervous), while Valeros certainly isn't.
Actually good Int, so at least there was that. He spent his whole point 25 point buy on Int, Wis, and Cha.So he could still cast spells and probably had ridiculous social skills.
The goal isn't pentultimate, the goal is viable and useful.
A bag full of skill foci (knowledge - non-monster identifying related) and having no way to ever hit with a weapon isn't something I'd call useful for a Magus... plus we already had two charisma based casters, so it's not we desperately needed someone else to talk to people >_<
Has anyone continued to accuse you, now that you've made it clear where your bar is set?Whoever keeps accusing me of having too high of a bar set for my players is. For real, I don't expect that much of my players or my teammates at the table. I just don't want to waste a whole night because out of our 3 man party, one of us decided to focus more on having a fun character to portray when everyone else at the table wanted to have some combat. There are other venues to indulge character acting that don't involve making 3 or 4 other people waste several hours of their life.Absolutely agreed. Who is arguing for that being OK?
Admittedly I didn't get a chance to update the thread while I was typing up my ridiculous scene up there. Like I said, I think we are all on the same page here now.