I think the big take-away from this is 'don't piss off the table', whether GM or fellow players. I know in some fights in my group the others envy my character..because someone had to be the barbarian and everyone else seemed to defer to me to bring it. And she's got reasonable skills for when problems aren't supposed to be solved with an axe to the face. But she's no expert in magic, and she's been intentionally going against social conventions so forget about party face. Think this hits the 'good barbarian' checklist given earlier. (And she's the one who had to yell at our cleric to get a ranged weapon; once she got a good bow, she forced him to use the sling she'd hauled around since first level.)
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I've found that it's somewhat suboptimal to optimize when it's only a portion of the group that does it. Mostly it has to do with DM trying to keep combat challanging, often resulting in more monsters with more hp.
For example, when a Fighter is optimized for damage and the goons have twice the amount of hp, a fire ball is only half as effective. Meaning that the fire ball flicker of the party is suboptimal, making the entire party suboptimal.
But of course it's not always the case with different levels of optimizations in groups, I don't even know if it's a common problem. Most fire ball flickers can probably pick something else up to do and be more effective. I just wanted to mention that optimizing can close off some options, even for other party members.
The optimized fighter didn't de-optimize the fireballs, because he's not the one who boosted the monsters' HP. The GM did that, and it was his own choice to do so.
Instead of attributing the GM's decisions to the player of the fighter, it would be wiser to have the GM take responsibility for his own choices, and perhaps contemplate why he made them.
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I've found that it's somewhat suboptimal to optimize when it's only a portion of the group that does it. Mostly it has to do with DM trying to keep combat challanging, often resulting in more monsters with more hp.
For example, when a Fighter is optimized for damage and the goons have twice the amount of hp, a fire ball is only half as effective. Meaning that the fire ball flicker of the party is suboptimal, making the entire party suboptimal.
But of course it's not always the case with different levels of optimizations in groups, I don't even know if it's a common problem. Most fire ball flickers can probably pick something else up to do and be more effective. I just wanted to mention that optimizing can close off some options, even for other party members.The optimized fighter didn't de-optimize the fireballs, because he's not the one who boosted the monsters' HP. The GM did that, and it was his own choice to do so.
Instead of attributing the GM's decisions to the player of the fighter, it would be wiser to have the GM take responsibility for his own choices, and perhaps contemplate why he made them.
And find a new GM. I don't tolerate cheating by players, so it's only fair that I don't tolerate cheating from myself.
Instead of attributing the GM's decisions to the player of the fighter, it would be wiser to have the GM take responsibility for his own choices, and perhaps contemplate why he made them.
While the GM should take some responsibility, players should too. If the GM decides to increase difficulty because of said fighter, it might make things worse. That's always the risk of doing something, it can end up bad. But blaming is easy - it's more challenging to contribute to a good solution.
An example of players contributing / taking responsibility would be not bringing PCs which are much stronger than the rest of the party. Another would be to talk with the GM.
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You're right, it wouldn't be a problem if a DM let players rofl-stomp their way through the game.
Why would they need to let them roflstomp through the game? The purpose of martial damage is that it's heavy and consistent. It's expected.
I don't see the need to cheat to challenge players. I don't and I frankly don't believe anyone else does either, unless they have orchestrated their own lamentations. I use normal NPC wealth for NPCs, and I generally use Bestiary monsters and core rulebook material for most of my games because I can't be bothered to dumpster dive much when making NPCs and adventures and such.
Cheating is never necessary.
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Cheating is never necessary.
Decent tactics, however, might be.
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Creating encounters using multiple enemies and mooks will make everyone happy.
When a fireball kills/damages a bunch of people blaster is happy.
When a fighter turns 1-2 people into mist they are happy.
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You're right, it wouldn't be a problem if a DM let players rofl-stomp their way through the game.
I didn't say that, and it's very rude and inappropriate of you to put words in my mouth like that.
What I said was that boosting monster HP was the GM's choice, not the fighter player's choice, and therefore responsibility for the direct consequences of that choice lies with the person who made that choice.
How you jumped from what I said to what you attributed to me is your own issue.
Creating encounters using multiple enemies and mooks will make everyone happy.
When a fireball kills/damages a bunch of people blaster is happy.
When a fighter turns 1-2 people into mist they are happy.
I think some care needs to be taken though.
4 hour long fights are just grinding.
Creating encounters using multiple enemies and mooks will make everyone happy.
When a fireball kills/damages a bunch of people blaster is happy.
When a fighter turns 1-2 people into mist they are happy.
I think some care needs to be taken though.
4 hour long fights are just grinding.
Maybe new players will have trouble at high levels, but in all other cases a proper encounter should take an hour at most
Well if there's a ton of things (mooks) in the way so the fighter cant mystify the tougher enemies then it might take a while. But if the fireball clears them all out then it makes it a hell of a lot faster as the murder-bot can get into position and do his job more effectively.
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Well if there's a ton of things (mooks) in the way so the fighter cant mystify the tougher enemies then it might take a while. But if the fireball clears them all out then it makes it a hell of a lot faster as the murder-bot can get into position and do his job more effectively.
Hence why they both feel good. They bith got to show off their respective specialties.
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Yup, and neither is being intentionally marginalized. Which is a side effect of just making enemies tougher. The worlds power isn't directly scaling in proportion to yours but rather your foes need to commit more resources (enemies) to try and stop you.
Opposed to the same number of guys as before but with better stats. Oh you're level 10 suddenly all the town guards are too! (Which is rather silly and annoying).
On the whole adding more mobs rather than tougher mobs, I agree it is benificial. My GM is running Carrion Crown right now and rather than putting in tougher mobs he is just doubling all encounters. This neatly makes up for the fact that there are 5 players and we are all at least minimally optimized. It is fun as well.
<wraithstrike has a worked example, Boomerang quotes Wikipedia, wraithstrike wants my definitionI think the Wikipedia quote is a more than reasonable summary of the meaning of optimisation. It does mean different things to different people but ultimately it is to get a mechanical advantage in the game rules.
As I said in my OP I've noted that there are a lot of threads that discuss optimisation, which seem to have a focus of how can I get the best x or help me build the best y. Invariably these seem to concentrate on maximising a particular attribute, aspect or capability for level 20. My question was, really is this sensible and the consensus appears to be no but there are a number of different views on what actually constitutes optimisation.
To my mind, optimisation should be about building the party to be the most effective team and as I tend to GM rather than play I absolutely encourage that. I think that if all the players over-specialise independently then the team is likely to suffer and have huge holes in their capability. Similarly, if all the players over-generalise then the group is not maximising its potential.
An effective team should be able to handle any level appropriate thing thrown at it. A group of independently created highly optimised PCs are likely to find certain types of threat very easy and others fatally difficult.
Thanks for replying. I agree that making sure all bases are covered is a very good way to do things.
I don't think its cheating to use give the NPC's full value for their hp rolls vs 1/2, BUT I do think that in some cases it devalues the hard work they player put into doing hit point damage.
Personally, I let players roll over any non-boss fight if they optimize to do so. For boss fights I step things up or at leat try to. :)
Back to the original post, I see it in much the same way I see life.
You can splurge now, or you can save for later. I could drive expensive cars, live in expensive houses, really live it up right now, but I'd have nothing in the bank for the future. Or I can live modestly now so that in the future I have enough money to do whatever I want.
Its much the same in character building. If I want to make the most out of the character at the low levels, the high levels will suffer for it. If I make due with less early on, then I will have more at high levels.
Which path I take depends primarily on how long I expect the game to last. If I think the group is going to fall apart before I even hit level 5, screw the long term goals, whoop it up and live the high life now, dead by 30 yo! If I expect to get a full run out of a character, yeah, pinch those pennies till they scream now so that I can buy and sell your ass later on.
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I don't like the attitude that GM is alone in the charge of the game balance.
GMs are there to run the game, not to be on-demand game designers to try and fix the game on the run.
"Adjusting difficulty" is easy to say, but lot of GMs already struggle with making good fights for a "normal" party, lopsided party is probably even worse. And this is not damning GMs, I am just saying from anecdotal evidence. They are still human.
Agree completely. Many players say that it is the GM's job to fix things for anything they bring to the table. It is not an easy job, either for the weak party with one super optimized char or for the fully optimized party. The result is more swingy fights that are harder to predict, and more character deaths. If the players do their part, this can be avoided. Remains to see if the players are ready to take some part of the responsibility for the shared experience.
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The most important thing the Paizo forums have taught me about optimization is that most of the community doesn't actually know what that word means.
Well, to me it means that the players are playing characters that have no difficulties whatsoever to beat standard (and even more difficult) challenges as presented in official adventures (which is the baseline with which I create my own encounters). Which is fine by me as long as they don't expect me to waste my time creating more difficult encounters.
So what it does in my games is that it drastically increases their chances to play their character through the whole story (becaause they will very rarely come into danger of actually dying). If that's what they want, good for them. If not, thay can either tone down their optimization (so that the game get's more challenging for them); or they can look for another GM more to their taste.
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So if you give your intelligent monster a class level or two is it somehow 'cheating'?You're right, it wouldn't be a problem if a DM let players rofl-stomp their way through the game.Why would they need to let them roflstomp through the game? The purpose of martial damage is that it's heavy and consistent. It's expected.
I don't see the need to cheat to challenge players. I don't and I frankly don't believe anyone else does either, unless they have orchestrated their own lamentations. I use normal NPC wealth for NPCs, and I generally use Bestiary monsters and core rulebook material for most of my games because I can't be bothered to dumpster dive much when making NPCs and adventures and such.
Cheating is never necessary.
No, and here's why (though it should be fairly obvious).
Monster advancement and the rules for monster advancement exist. Advancing monsters with class levels, additional HD, templates, and other methods detailed in the Bestiary have certain consequences to doing so. For example, if I add 4 levels of warrior to an Ogre, the ogre's CR advances by +2 and he gets additional treasure. So while his HP has increased he now is worth more for defeating. It's also not just his HP, he's more robust all the way around, having additional saves, HD (which help protect against spells like sleep, deep slumber, holy word, cloudkill, colorspray, etc).
It makes the creature harder in lots of different ways and is nothing like artificially boosting HP. The creature is harder, defenses are a little better all around, and you typically get an NPC that's worth more experience, which actually rewards players for being able to defeat them more readily (since defeating a CR 5 ogre is just as much experience as defeating a CR 3 ogre plus a small group of lackies totaling CR 5).
Now when a GM arbitrarily ups the statistics of creatures, it's not in accordance with the rules and as noted before by others produces undesirable results: most notably invalidating choices.
See, everything is a choice. If I decide to go with less damage output, it means that I got something else instead of damage. If the other guy goes for damage output, it means he didn't get something else. By arbitrarily raising HP, you've increased the cost of my choices and you've invalidated the choices of the other guy with no recompense. That's not right and it's a sign of a bad GM.
Encounter building in Pathfinder has never been easier. There's no reason to artificially inflate the statistics of creatures. Especially since just making better encounters is both the easiest it's been in d20 since its conception, while also providing much more interesting and fun gameplay.
Example of a Good Encounter vs Bad Encounter
Bad Encounter: The party is supposed to face a CR 7 encounter with ogres and bandits in the wilderness. The GM has the party encounter them in a mostly nondescript area doubles their HP, and has them fight with little to no care for tactics. The encounter is boring, the GM's cheatery has unfairly diminished the agency of the players, it's just all around bad.
Good Encounter: The GM spreads the XP budget out similar to the previous encounter, choosing something like 2 ogres + 8 CR 1/3 bandits + 2 CR 1/2 sorcerers. The GM has the encounter in an area that's somehow interesting, such as in a forest with lots of trees, bushes, and ditches to use for cover, concealment, or to create terrain considerations (such as gaps in the ground that you have to jump over or climb across). The bandits have some bows, some nets, and some alchemical weapons such as acid flasks or alchemist fires. The ogres are wielding longspears and some cheap (like leather) armor or somesuch. The sorcerers do things like cast enlarge person on the ogres and use other spells to hinder or help as their loadout permits.
The result is that players quickly become more involved in the encounter. Characters who've specialized in damage don't ruin the fight because the damage has to be spread around, but it does mean they are well equipped to take out high profile targets quickly, or to assuredly remove a low profile target easily. Characters who've opted for non-damage choices still have a fighting chance and can use their other benefits (such as skills like Stealth and Acrobatics) to their advantage in the terrain.
Having NPCs and the party play out the encounter using the environment as well also increases the impact of the encounter, and depending on the positioning of the badguys can increase difficulty in fair ways (such as using cover) while also rewarding player choices that aid in dealing with those problems.
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A good example of why on the fly extreme buffing of enemies is a bad play.
A gm was running us through a 3.0 version of temple of elemental evil. I was playing a cleric, and as the GM was newish to it was playing it pretty soft, basically as a fighter with some buffs and heals, no ridiculous summoning or anything like that. The only nod toward being the power class was that i always kept a single Harm spell in memory, for emergencies.
It never got trotted out through the entire campaign until the very final boss. When the boss splattered our 200 hp barbarian in one round and the gm laughed about how he'd given the BBEG an extra 1000 hp because we'd had it so easy throughout the module it was clearly time. I harmed it, the gm wished he'd upped the SR, and the wizard finished him with a ray of frost.
Its always a bad idea to breed escalation.
If you want interesting encounters, inflating hit points literally accomplishes nothing. That's the inference your missing.
I agree that it's more fun to have combat take place in an enviroment, but that's not what boosting HP was supposed to solve.No I did not miss that.
Touché, reading fail. That said, what does super hit points do aside from making investment in damage a requirement? I just don't see the advantage.
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Dude your character is not optimized if you have stats as low as 7 or 8 in anything!!
Not sure if sarcasm but since charisma does jack and s#+@ and what little jack it does can be replaced with traits any class that doesn't use it as their main stat is just fine dropping it to 7, or 5 if they're a class with a cha penalty.
Strength can also be dumped to hell since aside from melee damage each one of its duties can be handled by a spell, usually a first level one.
It's the other way around, the hit points are in some cases a solution (a requirment) because of the investment in damage.
Yes, there are other ways to create challanging encounters. But sometimes that's not enough. "But look at Tucker's kobolds". Yes, that's proof that tactics can go a long way. Never disagreed with that. But I can't throw Tucker's kobolds (or the similar) at my players every encounter to keep them challanged. As soon as a DM can't justify a very elaborate, planned encounter from the enemy side, there'll need to be another tool (so that rofl-stomping is avoided).
I'm not saying that you should buff HP instead of applying tactics. I'm saying that sometimes players should be challanged by something that isn't Tucker's kobolds.
More HP does help. Sometimes it's necessary to even be able to enjoy the encounter, as the low amounts that are stated isn't enough to challange the party (even for someone that isn't optimized).
EDITED
But there are so so many ways that you can modify an encounter to be more challenging than having ultra prepared super tactics which Ashiel isn't even really suggesting.
The game world is supposed to be reasonably realistic. Lizardfolk making use of the marshlands and their swim speed is what they likely do in their day to day lives. Goblins using stealth hit and run tactics with their disgusting +14 Stealth modifier is a no brainer. A group of orcs with a low level Skald Warhorner is still a huge threat to a party in their 5th level.
You can pretty much look at any statblock in the bestiary and throw out an interesting scenario that would make the fight more difficult.
All this stuff can be read in the DMG. In home games, I use favorable terrain all the time.
It doesn't take Tucker's Kobolds to challenge a party.
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Tucker's kobolds eh?
Let's look at what the encounter actually had.
A pair of ogres with a longspear and leather armor.
Some 1HD warriors whose complexity begins and ends with "we have weapons".
A pair of 1HD sorcerers who season the encounter with a couple of buffs and/or other spells (like magic missile or something).
A map that allies and enemies can move around on, which isn't a boring map, because it has things like cover and concealment for characters to use to their advantages (on both sides).
This isn't even the slightest bit complicated. Unless you think "greatsword or longspear" is complicated.
More HP vs No More HP
Characters who've specialized in damage don't ruin the fight because the damage has to be spread aroundMore than in your "bad example"?
Technically no, because I instinctively made the "bad" encounter with a few extra minions because I'm used to building encounters that way. However, it means that the character isn't going to just 1-shot the encounter (which is the point) but the player's agency isn't denied. When GMs up the HP of enemies, it's generally expressed that they wouldn't have done so if the party didn't do much damage - thus stealing the agency of the players who decided to be good at dealing damage.
And in the end, it wouldn't have solved anything. The encounter still would be boring, uninteresting, and crap. Because that's all it was set out to be. Inflating HP just means it's a longer, boring, uninteresting, crap encounter.
What if your given encounter still is too easy?
Figure out why it's too easy. Damage is among the least worrisome things that players can do. If the encounter is "too easy" because the PCs can deal damage, there's something wrong. And even if it was: woop-de-friggin'-doo. If the players are having fun, then you're succeeding as a GM.
But if we're talking about sheer difficulty, well, there's a lot that you can't just beat down with sticks (which is part of the issue of martial agency but that's a different topic). And HP scales so damn fast in this game that martials struggle to keep up as is (they are never as strong as they are at 1st level relative to anything in their CR range after 1st level), and blasting is arguably worse.
Good encounters tend to have a couple of themes to them, or one major theme, and sometimes characters excel at certain obstacles but struggle with others. That's okay. If they're good at dealing with those obstacles, that's a good thing. That's what you're trying to do. You're trying to work together as a team to succeed where others would fail. If the GM is making your choices irrelevant, you're being robbed of the choices.
For example, if you get a +2 to hit and the GM raises the AC of everything by +2, then you've gained nothing. You still have the same % chance to hit your foe, so what good is the +2? Not worth a thing. This is a mark of a bad GM and also someone who doesn't understand the game on a fundamental level.
Same deal with HP. If you're happy because you can deal another +3 damage per swing and your GM ups the HP of the monsters to "compensate"...well...screw that guy! He's making it so your choices, your efforts, your character doesn't matter, since you aren't doing anymore to contribute to the group than if you didn't have the +3 and the GM didn't up their HP. Whatever you sacrificed to try to perform in an area better was wasted. You were cheated. You deserved better.
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But again: If the DM has to up anything (HP was just an example) because of one specific party member, it still affects the rest of the party, putting them in a tighter spot just because of one high optimizer (and again, damage was ONE example).
Yes - if the GM is bad it affects the entire party. You are correct.
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Please provide a clear example where this isn't the case and the DM doesn't target a specific player (since that's also a bad DM move). Preferebly a generic method that can be applied to as many situations as possible.Yes - if the GM is bad it affects the entire party. You are correct.
But again: If the DM has to up anything (HP was just an example) because of one specific party member, it still affects the rest of the party, putting them in a tighter spot just because of one high optimizer (and again, damage was ONE example).
Let them succeed and fail? It's really that simple.
If an enemy has a high AC, then the person who has invested in +hit is going to do well. Those who have less +hit will generally fail. This is how the system works and that is good thing.
The way a good GM resolves this is to have a variety of threats in their encounter. HP and AC are not the only things that can be attacked. If one of your players has high AC for example, you can target saves, use combat maneuvers, area effects, etc. If some enemies have high AC, others have high Saves, some have high hit, some have high DCs, etc. you can target everyone in the party. And if they succeed, great! If they fail, also great!
Let them succeed and fail? It's really that simple.If an enemy has a high AC, then the person who has invested in +hit is going to do well. Those who have less +hit will generally fail. This is how the system works and that is good thing.
The way a good GM resolves this is to have a variety of threats in their encounter. HP and AC are not the only things that can be attacked. If one of your players has high AC for example, you can target saves, use combat maneuvers, area effects, etc. If some enemies have high AC, others have high Saves, some have high hit, some have high DCs, etc. you can target everyone in the party. And if they succeed, great! If they fail, also great!
I'm confused about one thing. What does it mean for an encounter to be "too easy"? To easy for whom? A player who wants to be good at doing hit point damage will enjoy doing lots of hit point damage. I don't see why making him bad at what he wants to be good at is a good idea.
At any rate, the preceding post is correct. If you mix up the enemies' weak spots, then they won't be able to overpower all encounters because not all encounters will require hit point attrition. The strength of optimization is that you become very good at one single thing. The weakness of optimization, of course, is also that you become very good at one single thing.
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Extra hit points can provide extra time for other interesting elements to come into play.
It can.
But so can designing encounters so you both have the time to get them into play and so you don't have to wait.
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The strength of optimization is that you become very good at one single thing. The weakness of optimization, of course, is also that you become very good at one single thing.
No, this is poor optimization.
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There is way too much generalization in this thread. Adding hit points is not 100% a good or bad thing. It really depends on the situation. Now if a GM sees a fight is going to end too soon and he magically tacks on hit points that is bad in my opinion*, but more because I think it could lead to more lazy GM solutions.
*Yes I am aware that the party could have found a way around whatever he came up with, if he actually put effort into the encounter.
What it boils down to is what your party is doing, and what results you are trying to obtain. Do you want the enemy to be more dangerous? Do you want to extend the fight to burn more of their resources?
Etc etc
To answer the OP's question no. Optimizing will never be suboptimal ever, and everyone optimizes.
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Extra hit points can provide extra time for other interesting elements to come into play.
Well, given that combats in my games tend to last 3-6 times longer than what I hear the average combat is, I really don't think it's necessary.
And HP only makes it take longer if they're focusing on doing damage. Turning people into lawn ornaments, dealing negative levels, or disabling and coup de gracing them really doesn't care about HP at all.
So next the GM decides to cheat on things like saving throws.
It's the devil's dice. It starts out as "It'll be okay, it's just a few more hit points" and before you know it, it's more HP, fudging saves, ignoring abilities, granting random immunities, all in the name of "making the game better for the players".
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But again: If the DM has to up anything (HP was just an example) because of one specific party member, it still affects the rest of the party, putting them in a tighter spot just because of one high optimizer (and again, damage was ONE example).
Yes. So just don't do that.
It's like these dumb threads that are like "One of my PCs has a high AC, how do I invalidate / ignore it?". The answer is "You don't". You don't need to. If they've worked to become this near-unhittable tanking machine, they're supposed to be hard to hit. That's the whole point of armor class.