PDA

View Full Version : One prestige class limit?



Pages : [1] 2

ken-do-nim
2009-10-04, 07:47 AM
I'd like to know how many - if any - DMs make it a rule to limit pcs to one prestige class each.

TengYt
2009-10-04, 07:49 AM
I've never heard of this house rule before. Apart from a very few specific builds, usually adding more than one PrC just ends up limiting a character in the long run.

Temet Nosce
2009-10-04, 07:49 AM
I've seen occasional advertisements for games like this, but I can't recall off the top of my head any of my DMs doing it. It's not the kind of game I'd actively seek out though, since I enjoy character building.

Kurald Galain
2009-10-04, 07:50 AM
I've never heard of this house rule before.

Neither have I.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-04, 07:55 AM
"No dipping", yes. But most DMs allow one to move on to another prestige class when you've finished a first.

Yora
2009-10-04, 07:55 AM
I guess I could be talked into allowing two prestige classes, if the player has really good reasons. But since I've seen almost no games that got beyond 9th level, that has never become an issue yet.

SparkMandriller
2009-10-04, 07:57 AM
Better not restrict PrCs. Tampering with the system might ruin the perfect balance WotC created. Be as bad as bringing in books from outside core, it would.

Saph
2009-10-04, 07:58 AM
"No dipping", yes. But most DMs allow one to move on to another prestige class when you've finished a first.

Yeah, this. I think I've very occasionally seen games advertised with a one PrC limit, but much more often I see something like "don't dip classes, try to justify what you're doing in RP terms".

Eldariel
2009-10-04, 08:20 AM
The principal issue here is that it mechanically gimps some concepts. For example, arcane gish PrCs are always 10 levels or less and yet, you need 15 levels in dual progression to get to 20.

Same with e.g. Druid/Wizard; Arcane Hierophant is only 10 levels. And by these rules, you'd practically never be able to enter Archmage by a Wizard since you can only enter level 13-14 which means you'd have to go without a PrC all the way up until then.


I don't think restricting PrCs really accomplishes the intent I think people are after with it. Asking for "finished PrCs" does work, but even then, it mechanically gimps many classes that would be usable as dips; 1 level of Spellsword is doable and 3 levels is ok, but 10 levels? You absolutely destroy your spellcasting capability. Same with Mindbender; the first level is good, but all the way is horrible. And that's only the tip of the iceberg; a lot of PrCs that suck all the way are playable specifically because you can dip them (Arcane Archer, Rage Mage, Shadowbane Stalker, Deepwarden, etc.).

And really, as long as we focus on the character, not his classes, I don't think there is much of an issue with multi-PrC builds.

Riffington
2009-10-04, 08:38 AM
And by these rules, you'd practically never be able to enter Archmage by a Wizard since you can only enter level 13-14 which means you'd have to go without a PrC all the way up until then.


Presumably, the attitude that "going without a PrC all the way to 13 is implausible" would be precisely what such a limit is trying to accomplish.
Personally I'd rather beef the base classes (like Pathfinder tries) or nerf the strongest PrCs a bit... but surely a premise behind that rule is that "straight Wizard" is a totally valid choice.

Gorbash
2009-10-04, 09:17 AM
My DM uses that houserule... Except in cases of Wizard and Cleric who can take Archmage/Hierophant in addition to one prestige class. Yeah, he actually nerfes everyone except wizards and clerics! :smallbiggrin: But his grasp on what's overpowered/underpowered is kinda silly, so he nerfes everything he deems OP (which sometimes isn't) and allows something that's OP, so blah.

I have a houserule in my campaigns that you have to finish a prestige class once you start it (or you can alternate between your base class and prestige class) just to avoid Conjurer 3/Master Specialist 5/Iotsv 3/MotAO 3/Incantatrix 2/Archmage 1 type of builds.

Reaper_Monkey
2009-10-04, 09:20 AM
There are plenty of prestige classes intended to be entered at level 6, and are only 10 levels deep. Considering only spell casting prestige classes allow +1 level equivalence for base classes, that means as soon as you hit level 16 you have to pick up either level 1 of as base class or level 6 of your previous base class.

Perhaps limiting it to two prestige classes might work, but limiting it to one is devastating to the intended purpose of the prestige class. If you want to stop dipping, just say you have to take at least 3 levels in any prestige class (as this will prevent most cheese builds and is an acceptable investment overall).

Curmudgeon
2009-10-04, 09:26 AM
Since the multiclassing XP penalties apply only to base classes, also restricting PrCs can lead to some severe constraints. Especially when you consider that a lot of PrCs are only 5 levels long.

This seems like a bad idea.

PId6
2009-10-04, 09:31 AM
I have a houserule in my campaigns that you have to finish a prestige class once you start it (or you can alternate between your base class and prestige class) just to avoid Conjurer 3/Master Specialist 5/Iotsv 3/MotAO 3/Incantatrix 2/Archmage 1 type of builds.
Why in the world would you ever only take 3 levels of IotSV? Or 2 levels of Incantatrix when all 10 is infinitely better? Most of the best PrCs you want to take all the way through, while a lot of PrCs are completely unusable if you take every level of it.

Basically, what Eldariel said.

woodenbandman
2009-10-04, 09:55 AM
I go on a case by case basis. I won't limit prestige classes across the board, but I might not let you play Incantatrix3/IotSFV7/Shadowcraft Mage5

tyckspoon
2009-10-04, 10:08 AM
I go on a case by case basis. I won't limit prestige classes across the board, but I might not let you play Incantatrix3/IotSFV7/Shadowcraft Mage5

Poor build anyway, as Wizards go. Incantatrix and Shadowcraft Mage both want to be taken all the way to 10, one for the capstone universal metamagic reduction and the other because the effectiveness of your shadow magic scales directly and significantly with the class levels. You're more likely to see those capped with Archmage 4 or something like Fatespinner 3/Mindbender 1.

Korivan
2009-10-04, 10:17 AM
I've seen quite a few people on these threads post that you can't (or by thier house rules) get more prestige class levels then you have base class levels. I.E. no Wizard 5/Incantrix 10/Archmage 5, but rather Wizard 10/PrC's 10.

But beyond that I havn't heard of anyone limited to just 1 PrC. I know I wouldn't use it as a DM, but I also don't limit the number of PrC levels vs Base class levels.

I could see me using something like this if my players were munchkins or trying to break the game with PrC's. But, my players arn't like that. Mine are ones who play hack n slash...often poorly. Untill I started building thier characters with them (except for one guy, he knows what he's doing), I was seeing gestalt ranger/rouges with no focus on builds (feats bounced around from melee AND ranged. And no spell casting cause that was thier dump stat). Monks with focus on charisma. Multiclassed Fighter/Wizards spending 2-4 rounds buffing themselves up before participationg in the fight. Or clerics that only cure X wounds, but nothing else.

Talya
2009-10-04, 10:43 AM
d20 is entirely built around multiclassing. That's why so many people love it...the freedom to make a character with 20 different classes over 20 levels (while probably not a good idea from an optimization standpoint) allows for a near limitless variety of builds and concepts. Any house rule which restricts this freedom is a bad thing, imo. (This includes silly "no dipping" rules.)

Diamondeye
2009-10-04, 10:54 AM
What Talya said. Rules about numbers of base classes allowed or numbers of PrCs allowed are really pretty arbitrary. Not all PrCs are created equal.

It may be a good idea to restrict some PrCs that are specific organizations or pertain to specific things or entities in your game world, but you can usually do this just fine with the entry requirements. For example in FR a Red Wizard is required to A) not be good and B) be a human from Thay which is more than enough restriction for RP.

There's an unfortunate number of PrCs out there, however, that have excessive baggage in terms of fluff tacked onto them. The daggerspell mage/shaper, for example. Why exactly did these mages and druids get together to train to cast spells with daggers? That's the sort of fluff that can pretty easily be dispensed with. Another good example is Ruby Knight Vindicator. I would just dispense with "Ruby" and remove any reference to Wee Jas so that if you wan to use this PrC with some other diety you can.

As long as the player can describe how the mechanics of the classes he selects support his roleplaying concept in a logical fashion, I don't see any reason to put limits on PrCs, base classes, or even to make someone finish ne PrC before taking the next.

ken-do-nim
2009-10-04, 10:56 AM
d20 is entirely built around multiclassing. That's why so many people love it...the freedom to make a character with 20 different classes over 20 levels (while probably not a good idea from an optimization standpoint) allows for a near limitless variety of builds and concepts. Any house rule which restricts this freedom is a bad thing, imo. (This includes silly "no dipping" rules.)

I think the urge comes from the desire to mix both kinds of players at the table, those who enjoy character building and those who just want to play and will usually stay in their base class all the way.

The "no more levels in prestige than you have in base" idea is quite interesting, btw. But ultimately, imposing any artificial limits is always going to turn some players off.

mostlyharmful
2009-10-04, 10:58 AM
But PrCs and dipping them is for combat builds, casters main power is casting which doesn't change whether you add a few cool beanies or not whereas it kills a whole lot of build options for other characters. Seriously, if a caster can just take one PrC then ok, Incantatrix here we come, or Iot7 or whatever... even just straight big five works fine. sucks to be anything other than a full caster though.

Quirinus_Obsidian
2009-10-04, 12:03 PM
Better not restrict PrCs. Tampering with the system might ruin the perfect balance WotC created. Be as bad as bringing in books from outside core, it would.

That is not entirely true. It depends on the game world the DM has created. There are a ton of non-WoTC books that are utterly fantastic and very well balanced.

On the idea of limiting prestige classes, I have instituted a rule of "You must finish a prestige class before you take another". That has been groused about, but has eventually made for better characters. also, most of the players that I have experience with don't like to mix and match and combine etc. takes too much extra work, and ends up being shaky at best.

Reaper_Monkey
2009-10-04, 12:07 PM
The "no more levels in prestige than you have in base" idea is quite interesting, btw.

Again, this wouldn't work though, there are many prestige which allow the Base 5/Prestige 10/Second prestige 5 build (in that order mostly too) which this rule would not allow to exist. If you want balance, they easiest way is to just say that some builds can be dismissed due to their overpowered nature, and handle it on a case by case method.

ShadowsGrnEyes
2009-10-04, 12:17 PM
i also go with a case by case. justify to me how and why your character actually aquired this variety of training/knowledge/abilities without stretching the limits of my imagination and maybe if it doesnt look like your trying to OP i'll allow it. some PrC's are only good for dips, some you really should take the whole way. some are realy good for dips but based on the design of the class wouldnt make sense to dip in for role play purposes.

Kaldrin
2009-10-04, 12:25 PM
I'd like to know how many - if any - DMs make it a rule to limit pcs to one prestige class each.

The second to last game I played in the rule was that you had couldn't get another PrC until you finished the levels on the one you already started.

That group had quite a few peculiar house rules though. One was they didn't start epic levels until 40. Another was PrC compression... if that's what you can call it. The ten level PrCs were generally compressed into 5 and 5 were down to 3 for the most part.

Kaldrin
2009-10-04, 12:28 PM
On the idea of limiting prestige classes, I have instituted a rule of "You must finish a prestige class before you take another". That has been groused about, but has eventually made for better characters. also, most of the players that I have experience with don't like to mix and match and combine etc. takes too much extra work, and ends up being shaky at best.

I've always preferred to stick with a single class and see it through. The only two times I've done it was when it made sense for the character... Ranger/DWS and dragonborn Sorcerer/Dragonheart mage. Other than that nothing really ever made sense. I've always had the weaker combat character in the party because of it.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-10-04, 12:33 PM
I've had several DMs who have imposed this rule, and it irks me to no end. Not only is it a ridiculous restriction on build flexibility, it also makes no sense whatsoever from a roleplaying point of view.

ken-do-nim
2009-10-04, 12:41 PM
Okay so the "must finish one before starting another" philosophy is clearly superior to the "one and only one".


i also go with a case by case. justify to me how and why your character actually aquired this variety of training/knowledge/abilities without stretching the limits of my imagination and maybe if it doesnt look like your trying to OP i'll allow it. some PrC's are only good for dips, some you really should take the whole way. some are realy good for dips but based on the design of the class wouldnt make sense to dip in for role play purposes.

I just think the case-by-case basis approach would lead to a lot of arguments, but I guess it could work with the right group of players.

Boci
2009-10-04, 12:45 PM
i also go with a case by case. justify to me how and why your character actually aquired this variety of training/knowledge/abilities without stretching the limits of my imagination and maybe if it doesnt look like your trying to OP i'll allow it. some PrC's are only good for dips, some you really should take the whole way. some are realy good for dips but based on the design of the class wouldnt make sense to dip in for role play purposes.

Would you accept "This is the best way I can think off to mechanically represent the character I described in my background story?"

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-04, 12:49 PM
Not only is it a ridiculous restriction on build flexibility, it also makes no sense whatsoever from a roleplaying point of view.

True. It might make sense for some characters, but by no means is it universal. Several of my characters have been too erratic to ever see a tradition through. If my wizard wants Geometric Spellbook, and has to slog through two whole levels to get it, he's gonna be damn tired of Geometer. He'll leave as soon as he gets it. Go into mindbender for a level, then leave because have to learn so many social skills at the expense of magic (his life's vocation) is annoying, and he already got the cool telepathy he came for.

Zovc
2009-10-04, 12:58 PM
The only friend of mine who DMs disapproves of "cherry picking," but I don't think he's against multiple prestige classes. He wouldn't like you for taking three, though, probably.

sadi
2009-10-04, 01:21 PM
I'm playin in a game now where it's one prestige class and that's it. It makes when I run that you have to finish half (3 of 5) or (5 of 10) levels of a prestige class to take another look generous.

Lycanthromancer
2009-10-04, 01:25 PM
The game I'm in is gestalt, but the DM only allows one PrC. I don't really understand why, since it really curbs flexibility in the character types you can play (granted, less so with gestalt, but still).

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-10-04, 01:43 PM
My perspective on limiting classes is twofold.

1) Fluff =/= crunch. If the mechanics for a fighter/rogue/barbarian/ranger/scout fit what you want your character to do better than a straight fighter, go for it, even if he's not the illiterate backwoods outdoorsy type.

2) Sturgeon's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_Law) says that 90% of everything is crud, and that definitely holds in the case of base classes and PrCs. Swashbuckler is a 3 level class, mindbender is a 1 level class, and so on. I'm not going to force a PC to keep going through a PrC or base class or restrict them somehow just because WotC wouldn't know class design if it slapped them across the face.

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-04, 02:23 PM
The idea itself is horrible.


Few classes are playable to 20th level (Druid, Artificer, Archivist, Warblade, Swordsage, Crusader, Dread Necromancer, and three or four others). EVen then, some of those classes get a lot of benefit for PrCing.
Most PrCs are not worth all of their levels.
The characters who need to multiclass the most are playing the weakest classes, such as Fighters or Monks. These classes need PrC dips to make their builds viable, otherwise they end up fairly weak by comparision to the classes that don't need to multiclass.


The third one there is the reason it is a bad idea. What does a Wizard lose from being limited to a single PrC? A little, but he can easily deal with the weakness. What does the Fighter lose? A lot of options that could have made him very competent for the party. What does the Warblade lose? Nothing really, as Dual Stance and the rest of his class features are worth considering.

Tackyhillbillu
2009-10-04, 02:43 PM
The fact that all three ToB Classes are all on that list says something about that book that makes me very happy.

DragoonWraith
2009-10-04, 03:03 PM
d20 is entirely built around multiclassing. That's why so many people love it...the freedom to make a character with 20 different classes over 20 levels (while probably not a good idea from an optimization standpoint) allows for a near limitless variety of builds and concepts. Any house rule which restricts this freedom is a bad thing, imo. (This includes silly "no dipping" rules.)
This, a thousand times this.

I really cannot stand multiclassing restrictions. Yes, that includes dipping. No, it's not because I'm a power gamer who needs to squeeze every ounce of power into a build - but because I prefer to only have the mechanics that actually fit my character.

And seriously, the idea that it's impossible to RP a mish-mash of classes is just silly. There are plenty of related classes out there.

For example, I just posted a 20 class character in another thread - and I can definitely come up with a theme for him. He's an arcane abjurist, with a strong tendency for religion and philosophy - hence Abjurer, Suel Arcanamach, Abjurant Champion, Iot7V, etc, and Sacred Exorcist, Paragnostic Apostle, Divine Oracle, etc.

ken-do-nim
2009-10-04, 03:38 PM
This, a thousand times this.

I really cannot stand multiclassing restrictions. Yes, that includes dipping. No, it's not because I'm a power gamer who needs to squeeze every ounce of power into a build - but because I prefer to only have the mechanics that actually fit my character.

And seriously, the idea that it's impossible to RP a mish-mash of classes is just silly. There are plenty of related classes out there.

For example, I just posted a 20 class character in another thread - and I can definitely come up with a theme for him. He's an arcane abjurist, with a strong tendency for religion and philosophy - hence Abjurer, Suel Arcanamach, Abjurant Champion, Iot7V, etc, and Sacred Exorcist, Paragnostic Apostle, Divine Oracle, etc.

Okay, so what you are saying is that you are taking so many classes for character theme reasons and not over-powering reasons. I hadn't considered that.

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-04, 03:45 PM
Okay, so what you are saying is that you are taking so many classes for character theme reasons and not over-powering reasons. I hadn't considered that.

So this entire thread was posted under Stormwind Fallacy?


:smallsigh: I hate days like this.

Lycanthromancer
2009-10-04, 03:45 PM
It'd be cool to come up with a list of classes that are easily worth all 20 levels, without PrCing or multiclassing.

So far, we have:
1. Druid
2. Artificer
3. Archivist
4. Warblade
5. Swordsage
6. Crusader
7. Dread necromancer

And I propose:
8. Psion (all types)
9. Psychic warrior
10. Factotum
11. Totemist

Psions because there are only perhaps two full-manifesting PrCs (Thou Shalt Not Lose Manifester Levels!), and those extra bonus feats are very useful for a class that has so many useful (and sometimes required) feats it needs.

Psychic warriors because the class grants such good things at each level.

Factotums because they're just that awesome (also, nothing grants most of the things the class gives to you).

Totemists because the chakra binds and essentia boosts are hard to get otherwise (that, and the incarnum PrCs mostly suck).

Any more?

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-04, 03:51 PM
It'd be cool to come up with a list of classes that are easily worth all 20 levels, without PrCing or multiclassing.

So far, we have:
1. Druid
2. Artificer
3. Archivist
4. Warblade
5. Swordsage
6. Crusader
7. Dread necromancer

And I propose:
8. Psion (all types)
9. Psychic warrior
10. Factotum
11. Totemist

Psions because there are only perhaps two full-manifesting PrCs (Thou Shalt Not Lose Manifester Levels!), and those extra bonus feats are very useful for a class that has so many useful (and sometimes required) feats it needs.

Psychic warriors because the class grants such good things at each level.

Factotums because they're just that awesome (also, nothing grants most of the things the class gives to you).

Totemists because the chakra binds and essentia boosts are hard to get otherwise (that, and the incarnum PrCs mostly suck).

Any more?

The Incarnate. There's not that many powerful builds for it (the ones that involve multiclassing do so for the PrC's abilities, and usually ignore the Incarnate's advancement entirely).

DragoonWraith
2009-10-04, 03:53 PM
Losing Manifester Levels doesn't hurt so much, the real rule should be Thou Shalt Not Lose More than Four Manifester Levels!

On the other hand, yes, of course Psion 20 is reasonable, same as Wizard 20. But like Wizard 20, the Psion 20 could gain a lot from PrCs, even with some lost MLs.

Psychic Warrior, Factotum, and Totemist, I agree with.

Also, Beguiler gets decent stuff at each level. Most people just do Beguiler 20.

ericgrau
2009-10-04, 04:01 PM
While I only sometimes is it specifically a one prestige class limit, I frequently see limitations on taking prestige classes.

Reaper_Monkey
2009-10-04, 04:05 PM
So this entire thread was posted under Stormwind Fallacy?

Stormwind Fallacy? Huh? :smallconfused:

lsfreak
2009-10-04, 04:08 PM
Stormwind Fallacy? Huh? :smallconfused:

The fallacy that optimization and roleplaying are mutually exclusive; that an optimized character is inherently roleplayed more poorly than an unoptimized character. Many of us here take the opposite stance of this fallacy, saying that an optimized character can be better roleplayed because of the nature of optimization making a character actually good at what they do.

*casts protection against ninjas*

Lycanthromancer
2009-10-04, 04:10 PM
Stormwind Fallacy? Huh? :smallconfused:The Stormwind Fallacy states that you cannot be good at roleplaying and rollplaying at the same time; that one precludes the other.

This is the fallacy often espoused by people who think you have to have a crappy character (and cannot optimize on any feasible level) and still have good storytelling.

...which is total crap.

[edit] Apparently protection vs ninjas is Range: Personal.

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-04, 04:11 PM
Stormwind Fallacy? Huh? :smallconfused:

BG's down right now, so I can't pull up that link. Here's the TVTropes article on Min-Maxing, which gives a Laconic version of the Stormwind Fallacy. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MinMaxing) Here's the version posted on this very forum. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40903)

Gorbash
2009-10-04, 04:19 PM
Why in the world would you ever only take 3 levels of IotSV? Or 2 levels of Incantatrix when all 10 is infinitely better?

...that's just an example. Why be so literal?

Mushroom Ninja
2009-10-04, 04:25 PM
I've also had DMs who have imposed a "thou shalt finish your PrC before getting a new one" rule. Although it's not quite as annoying as the "thou shalt haveth only one PrC" bunch, it still seems very restrictive and arbitrary. Also, it skews the game even more in favor of classes who are happy with a straight 20 (like my druid :smallbiggrin:).

Also, I've yet to find one RP reason to restrict a character to a single PrC or forcing them to finish one they start. My Figher/Beastmaster/Halfling Outrider doesn't know what class he is. He just knows that he is a warrior of the Talenta Plains who rides a dinosaur into combat like his fathers before him. If I were to dip a level of Horizon Walker with him, he wouldn't know that he's just gained a fourth class. All he'd know is that his training for combat against creatures of the plains has paid off and he is becoming better and better at killing them.

Riffington
2009-10-04, 04:34 PM
I can definitely come up with a theme for him.


Okay, so what you are saying is that you are taking so many classes for character theme reasons and not over-powering reasons. I hadn't considered that.


You didn't consider it because it isn't true. He's taking those classes for power reasons, and just now invented (post facto) a character theme to match the overpowered idea he came up with. That's not to say he won't roleplay it, just that roleplaying it isn't his primary motivation.

/Stormwind isn't a fallacy, but people who invoke it are committing the Strawman Fallacy.

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-04, 04:41 PM
/Stormwind isn't a fallacy, but people who invoke it are committing the Strawman Fallacy.

Tempest Stormwind, the man who coined the name, said it is a subset of the False dilemma fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma). Others have agreed.

Saying someone is invoking the Sotrmwind Falalcy is not a Strawman. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman) Repeating their argument, but editing words and making their argument look worse than it really is, however, fits the bill.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-04, 04:55 PM
You didn't consider it because it isn't true. He's taking those classes for power reasons, and just now invented (post facto) a character theme to match the overpowered idea he came up with. That's not to say he won't roleplay it, just that roleplaying it isn't his primary motivation

1) Accusing people of lying is terribly impolite.
2) The build isn't even close to overpowered. It trips over itself trying to meet PrC requirements, ignores the truly overpowered abilities the rest of those levels offer (he only has one level of IotSV), etc.


Stormwind isn't a fallacy



Main Entry: fal·la·cy
Pronunciation: \ˈfa-lə-sē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural fal·la·cies
Etymology: Latin fallacia, from fallac-, fallax deceitful, from fallere to deceive
Date: 14th century
2: false or mistaken idea
So you're saying that roleplaying and optimization are mutually exclusive? That's an odd stance to take.

PhoenixRivers
2009-10-04, 05:03 PM
Presumably, the attitude that "going without a PrC all the way to 13 is implausible" would be precisely what such a limit is trying to accomplish.
Personally I'd rather beef the base classes (like Pathfinder tries) or nerf the strongest PrCs a bit... but surely a premise behind that rule is that "straight Wizard" is a totally valid choice.

Except that Archmage is one of those exceptions. It represents a mage at the pinnacle of his art.

Surely a Mage of the Arcane Order can do this as well as a straight wizard.

Now, I can see "only one 10 level PrC". These, by WotC, are major undertakings that represent a significant investment. Shorter PrC's, such as Archmage, Horizon Walker, and the like, are not.

Even so, I'd be willing to make exceptions, if thematically appropriate. For example, two different Abjuration focused PrC's. This represents a concrete devotion for the character, and can be justified through RP, and even originated via RP.

Boci
2009-10-04, 05:04 PM
You didn't consider it because it isn't true. He's taking those classes for power reasons, and just now invented (post facto) a character theme to match the overpowered idea he came up with. That's not to say he won't roleplay it, just that roleplaying it isn't his primary motivation.

/Stormwind isn't a fallacy, but people who invoke it are committing the Strawman Fallacy.

You can read other people's mind? Sweet. Are your services up for hire?

It is possible. For exmaple, lets say I mentioned in my characters background that he left home and quickly found himself half starved. he was only saved by some monks who took him in and fed him in return for him attending their teachings. Not feeling much kinship for them he soon ran away. I could just keep that as fluff, or I could take a single level dip into the monk to represent this.

Tyndmyr
2009-10-04, 05:07 PM
"No dipping", yes. But most DMs allow one to move on to another prestige class when you've finished a first.

It's kind of a silly rule. After all, you can make quite powerful, optimized characters without dipping, and you certainly can make plenty of bad, or just mediocre ones with dips.

Tyndmyr
2009-10-04, 05:10 PM
I have a houserule in my campaigns that you have to finish a prestige class once you start it (or you can alternate between your base class and prestige class) just to avoid Conjurer 3/Master Specialist 5/Iotsv 3/MotAO 3/Incantatrix 2/Archmage 1 type of builds.

Is it bad that I saw this and immediately thought about optimizing it?

Dhavaer
2009-10-04, 05:12 PM
Shorter PrC's, such as Archmage, Horizon Walker, and the like, are not.

Horizon Walker has 10 levels.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-04, 05:14 PM
Is it bad that I saw this and immediately thought about optimizing it?

Not necessarily. For all the flak Riffington is getting (and I regret attacking him/her. Maybe I should go back and edit/delete my post), he made the point that even if roleplaying isn't your primary motivation with that character/build; you might still roleplay. And if you're roleplaying, than it's not bad. The badness comes in when your build and the character you set up for it are incongruous, or the optimization levels/expectations within your group are divergent.


Horizon Walker has 10 levels.

I think (s)he meant Wayfarer Guide. It's what I thought, somehow, upon reading Horizon Walker.

Riffington
2009-10-04, 05:23 PM
1) Accusing people of lying is terribly impolite.
2) The build isn't even close to overpowered. It trips over itself trying to meet PrC requirements, ignores the truly overpowered abilities the rest of those levels offer (he only has one level of IotSV), etc.

I never accused anyone of lying. He made up a theoretical build designed for one purpose: to be as overpowered as possible while complying with a bizarre hypothetical rule that you can have only one level of any class. He is now inventing a hypothetical justification for it, but the only real justification is that it's a power exercise given an unusual constraint.



You can read other people's mind? Sweet. Are your services up for hire?

No, I can read other people's posts though. I'd charge for that, but it seems unfair.


Regarding Stormwind: it's not a subset of the false dilemma fallacy because the false dilemma fallacy requires the arguer to claim that all players who do not optimize must roleplay well. The Stormwind Fallacy does not include this claim, and is thus not a subset of that fallacy.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-04, 05:29 PM
You made up...

I didn't make that build. DragoonWraith did, and I'll stop defending him/her before I do something else I regret. >_<

Boci
2009-10-04, 05:38 PM
No, I can read other people's posts though. I'd charge for that, but it seems unfair.


Regarding Stormwind: it's not a subset of the false dilemma fallacy because the false dilemma fallacy requires the arguer to claim that all players who do not optimize must roleplay well. The Stormwind Fallacy does not include this claim, and is thus not a subset of that fallacy.

You cannot claim to know what motivates other people. I once had a player who at level 10 did not have more than 3 levels in a single class. He accounted for each one in his background story with at least a sentance. Was it perfect? No, but his background story was probably better than the favoured soul 10 who he was in a party with.

Riffington
2009-10-04, 05:39 PM
I didn't make that build. DragoonWraith did, and I'll stop defending him/her before I do something else I regret. >_<
Ok, 3rd person. Anyway, he didn't write the character as a character, he wrote it as an exercise. He could turn it into a character, but that wasn't the point originally.

Anyway, the other thing about having lots of classes is that it defeats the point of classes. Now, that may be a good thing: I generally prefer points-based systems to class-based ones. But if you are picking a level or two of a class just to get a specific ability you want (whether because it's a powerful ability or because it fits your character concept), then you are getting away from the whole thing of classes. The cost is paid in levels instead of points, but that's not so terribly different. The only difference from a point-based system is that every power you want comes with baggage (getting sneak attack means a package with skills, instead of a package with shapeshifting) Whether that's good or bad is another question



You cannot claim to know what motivates other people.
I can too. He specifically said "my goal was 9th level Arcane spellcasting" despite not being permitted more than one level of any one class. I can read his claim and assume he's telling the truth. Why do you need to make this a mindreading question?

ericgrau
2009-10-04, 06:21 PM
The fallacy that optimization and roleplaying are mutually exclusive; that an optimized character is inherently roleplayed more poorly than an unoptimized character. Many of us here take the opposite stance of this fallacy, saying that an optimized character can be better roleplayed because of the nature of optimization making a character actually good at what they do.

*casts protection against ninjas*

I'd agree on optimizing, but disagree on powergaming cheese. When players do something to make themselves stronger than only makes sense from a metagame POV, then it disrupts the in-character world and thus roleplaying. Taking 1-2 prestige classes usually falls within the former. Taking 5 is usually part of some special metagame trick. It doesn't have to be, but it usually is. And these tricks aren't limited to prestige classes.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-10-04, 06:28 PM
I'd agree on optimizing, but disagree on powergaming cheese. When players do something to make themselves stronger than only makes sense from a metagame POV, then it disrupts the in-character world and thus roleplaying.

Could you give an example please?

sentaku
2009-10-04, 06:44 PM
I'd agree on optimizing, but disagree on powergaming cheese. When players do something to make themselves stronger than only makes sense from a metagame POV, then it disrupts the in-character world and thus roleplaying. Taking 1-2 prestige classes usually falls within the former. Taking 5 is usually part of some special metagame trick. It doesn't have to be, but it usually is. And these tricks aren't limited to prestige classes.

Taking any levels ever only makes sense in a metagame POV.

Gorbash
2009-10-04, 06:46 PM
It's kind of a silly rule. After all, you can make quite powerful, optimized characters without dipping, and you certainly can make plenty of bad, or just mediocre ones with dips.

You can, but best builds are made of dipping.

I enforce that houserule because I want to avoid people taking Shadowdancer for Hide in Plain Sight, Mindbender because of Telepathy etc.

ericgrau
2009-10-04, 06:47 PM
Could you give an example please?

Eh, no one's posting a char op question right now so no one's posting a cheesy build. And I gotta go eat so no time to search. But basically there's a line between powerful and well planned builds and cheesy tricks. As a crude example that only comes up sometimes, how about unconvential ways to gain early entry into a prestige class which players could not have thought of in character because they both use metagame knowledge and make no sense in the game world.


Taking any levels ever only makes sense in a metagame POV.
Meh use common sense when interpreting. There are degrees of metagame, and the term almost never applies to this even though it technically fits.

Boci
2009-10-04, 06:49 PM
Mindbender because of Telepathy etc.

Why? Telepathy is a wonderful feature that can lead to rich rp potential, and the mindbender as a whole sucks. Why would you bare a way to get such a nice ability?

Mushroom Ninja
2009-10-04, 06:49 PM
I enforce that houserule because I want to avoid people taking Shadowdancer for Hide in Plain Sight, Mindbender because of Telepathy etc.

What's the problem with just dipping into those classes? HiPS and Telepathy don't exactly overpower a character.

lsfreak
2009-10-04, 06:56 PM
What's the problem with just dipping into those classes? HiPS and Telepathy don't exactly overpower a character.

Not to mention it makes perfect sense for a character (not the player) to say, you know what? I want to learn telepathy. And then they do, with no interest in learning more than that that a class has to offer, but instead they decide they want to expand their knowledge in another direction. Or go into MotAO specifically for the first two levels and nothing more, because the know even from an in-game perspective what those two levels have to offer and that after that they'd prefer to train in something else.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-04, 06:57 PM
Hide in Plain Sight or Dexterity to Damage are abstractions, and might be difficult to justify, but Telepathy 100' is a pretty massive milestone. Easily recognized, and thus simple to aim for (and leave once acquired) in-character.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-10-04, 06:59 PM
Not to mention it makes perfect sense for a character (not the player) to say, you know what? I want to learn telepathy. And then they do, with no interest in learning more than that that a class has to offer, but instead they decide they want to expand their knowledge in another direction. Or go into MotAO specifically for the first two levels and nothing more, because the know even from an in-game perspective what those two levels have to offer and that after that they'd prefer to train in something else.

Also, IC, the character doesn't know all that much about his/her class. He/She knows that he/she is a wizard who studied telepathy and is a member of the arcane order.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-04, 07:02 PM
Well, to be fair, you can be in the Arcane Order and not take any ranks in the PrC...
What about a Champion of Corellon Larethian? Why, in-character, would one go out of the PrC once they get their Dex to damage with the dip?

Amphetryon
2009-10-04, 07:27 PM
Well, to be fair, you can be in the Arcane Order and not take any ranks in the PrC...
What about a Champion of Corellon Larethian? Why, in-character, would one go out of the PrC once they get their Dex to damage with the dip?

Because you, as a character, found out about [insert other organization represented by a PrC].
Because you, as a character, had a crisis of faith where your belief in Corellon Larethian wavered.
Because you, as a character, lack the focus to see something through to its completion (might be represented by a low WIS, as an aside).
Because you, as a character, found a dormant ability (Incarnum feat, or Wild Talent, for instance) that you found yourself compelled to investigate via the metagame representation of a different PrC.

I'm sure this isn't an exhaustive list of reasons.

lsfreak
2009-10-04, 07:29 PM
Add to that, "You call yourself a Champion of Corellon Larethian because the character has zero knowledge of what's on the character sheet in the first place."

DragoonWraith
2009-10-04, 07:35 PM
Sure, the primary goal was to fulfill the requirements of the exercise while still making a character capable of 9th level spells. That's where I started from, and that was the number one constraint on the build.

That does not mean it was the only thing I thought about while building it.

This is really important. Seriously, are you so single-minded that you cannot handle a constraint of "cannot take a class more than 1 level, must gain 9th level arcane spells by level 20", while at the same time having the objective of "should make as much sense flavor-wise as possible"?*

I went through several iterations on the character, and I tried to stick to those PrCs I thought were fitting - even when feat requirements became very difficult (and they certainly did). Abjurer, Suel Arcanamach, Abjurant Champion, and Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil all reflect a strong interest in Abjuration, martial skill, and defense. Crusader, Warblade, Fighter, Suel Arcanamach also focus on martial skill. Sacred Exorcist, Paragnostic Apostle, Divine Oracle, and Loremaster (the latter two not in there because of feat requirements but I wanted to) all show a religious bent with a strong interest in lore, and Bard, Monk, and Sublime Chord add to the interest in lore. Ultimate Magus, Mage of the Arcane Order, and Archmage are all pretty generic "learn about magic" classes.

So he's a man interested in how best to protect himself and others - and he tries a few things at first - magic, music, faith, pure martial skill, and in his wanderings finds the Grimoire Arcanamach and learns how to blend his skills with his magic to be exceptional at defense. Then he trains himself martially and magically, while continuing his wanderings. He stumbles upon the greater magic to be had with the Sublime Chord, and realizes that magic is probably the best way to defend himself, so he focuses on it. He continues his wanderings, sampling from a variety of traditions and disciplines for the most effective techniques. He's a wanderer, he's a scholar and explorer, and he uses his magic to defend himself.

Not every class fits that theme to a T, but overall considering the constraints, I think I did a pretty good job, thank you very much. If I had a couple of flaws, I could easily ditch Mindbender, Fatespinner, and Wayfarer Guide for the much more fitting Loremaster, Divine Oracle, and possibly Unseen Seer (to go with the exploring/learning theme).

And it's hardly optimized. Ignoring the one class level constraint, here's a much more powerful character that follows the same themes:
Bard 4/Ranger 1/Horizon Walker 1/Abjurant Champion 1/Suel Arcanamach 1/AC +2/Sublime Chord 1/Sacred Exorcist -and/or- Paragnostic Apostle -and/or- Divine Oracle -and/or- Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil -and/or- Abjurant Champion 9

There, a very similar character, focusing on Abjuration and being fairly religious, with a lot fewer classes, and a ton more power. But the mechanics function similarly, and lend themselves to a very similar flavor. What's the difference? The number of names written down on your sheet? What difference does that make?

I don't even see this as a thematically complicated character; I'd have to question your roleplaying skills if you told me that you couldn't imagine this character making sense in an actual campaign.*

* Both of the marked sentences are intended to be rhetorical; I am not trying to impugn either your intelligence or your skills, I assume that you most certainly can do these things. I am merely pointing out that this is not especially difficult or hard to imagine.

Ultimately, though, I don't see why I have to defend myself to you. I find the Stormwind Fallacy insulting (that is, I agree that it is a fallacy and think it is insulting to state is as true), and I find your attacks on my statement insulting as well.

Sometimes I start with flavor, and find mechanics to fit them. For example, for my Dualist (see homebrew link in sig), I wanted a character who could stand in the middle of the field, draw attacks to her, and parry them and make her enemies regret it. So she needed the ability to force enemies to attack her - hence, my Dualist is Knight 5/Dualist 5. She's a very finesse character, so I wanted Dex to Damage - hard to get without ToB. Champion of Corellon Larethian gets it, but the character's not an Elf. OK, how about Knight 5/Dualist 5/Ruathar 3 - now she's an honorary Elf - does that count? DM loves the idea and says, sure, that's awesome. OK, so now I'm Knight 5/Dualist 5/Ruathar 3/Champion of C.L. 2 for the Dex to damage. What for those last 5 levels? Well, Champion of C.L. fits pretty well - lots of extra mobility in armor. Not really a religious character though, those abilities don't fit - but there's only the one at Champ of C.L. 1, since I'm not getting the capstone - OK, reasonable, maybe I'll trade it for something, or maybe she'll adopt the Elven religion when she's staying with them as a Ruathar. Great.

Those aren't dips, but it is a lot of PrCs. And I very much had the character idea in mind first, hell, that was what I had in mind when I homebrewed the Dualist.

Other times, I start with mechanics, and build a character around it. I made a Bard/Abjurant Champion/MotAO/Sublime Chord/Recaster/War Weaver, and I definitely came up with the build and then imagined a character to fit it. She's a Changeling who ran away from home to join the army, dissatisfied with her parents' attempts to force her to fit in in their mostly-human town. In the army, her magical skill and inspirational presence were noted, and she was trained as a military Bard, to support her platoon with music and magic. However, she turned out to be more magically skilled than they thought initially, and so the army enrolled her in the Arcane Order and had her train her magic skills. She so succeeded in this that she eventually managed to gain acceptance to the War Weaver specialist classes, and after completing her first semester of that at the military academy, she spends her break trying to reconnect with her Changeling roots, that her family had always ignored. Thus, she begins to learn the ways of the Recaster, and will spend the rest of the campaign focusing on her War Weaving and Recaster.

Is my character's background any the worse for having started as a character build? I do not think so.

So seriously, stop with the Stormwind Fallacy. It's insulting and it's inaccurate.

Diamondeye
2009-10-04, 08:32 PM
The fallacy that optimization and roleplaying are mutually exclusive; that an optimized character is inherently roleplayed more poorly than an unoptimized character. Many of us here take the opposite stance of this fallacy, saying that an optimized character can be better roleplayed because of the nature of optimization making a character actually good at what they do.

*casts protection against ninjas*

The Stormwind Fallacy is really not it's own fallacy; it's a False Dilemma.


Regarding Stormwind: it's not a subset of the false dilemma fallacy because the false dilemma fallacy requires the arguer to claim that all players who do not optimize must roleplay well. The Stormwind Fallacy does not include this claim, and is thus not a subset of that fallacy.

The False Dilemma requires no such thing. The dilemma in this case is stating ou can either optimize well or roleplay well, or do neither well, but you cannot do both well. It's a False Dilemma with 3 possible positions, but excluding the possibility of doing both well.

As for wanting 9th level Arcane Casting, the fact that this is extremely powerful does not establish that the player wanted it for that reason, or even primarily for that reason if that is one of them. It's perfectly reasonable that someone wants it because they want to roleplay a powerful spellcaster.

Soras Teva Gee
2009-10-04, 09:13 PM
Not to exactly champion the Stormwind Fallacy but it IS true that taking gobs of PrCs makes a roleplaying argument difficult. Its not that there aren't possible stories to explain why someone has six different classes, do they remain decent stories or after-the-fact explanations for a Mary Sue. Not which is exclusive but which comes first, the roleplay or the rollplay. And if a DM takes Prestige Classes to mean Prestige Classes where they are quasi-organizations (at least) not merely a bunch of mechanics then it becomes harder and harder to argue multiple dips as a coherent character beyond merely excusing a bunch of mechanics. Emphasis on multiple there is because its a matter of scale more then anything else, where it breaks suspension of disbelief.

A lot of people don't give a crap about classes as actual fluff though, which is rather told by the name fluff itself I think.

Diamondeye
2009-10-04, 09:30 PM
Not to exactly champion the Stormwind Fallacy but it IS true that taking gobs of PrCs makes a roleplaying argument difficult. Its not that there aren't possible stories to explain why someone has six different classes, do they remain decent stories or after-the-fact explanations for a Mary Sue. Not which is exclusive but which comes first, the roleplay or the rollplay. And if a DM takes Prestige Classes to mean Prestige Classes where they are quasi-organizations (at least) not merely a bunch of mechanics then it becomes harder and harder to argue multiple dips as a coherent character beyond merely excusing a bunch of mechanics. Emphasis on multiple there is because its a matter of scale more then anything else, where it breaks suspension of disbelief.

A lot of people don't give a crap about classes as actual fluff though, which is rather told by the name fluff itself I think.

This is true if, and only if, the DM actually does regard the PrCs in question as an organization, and in the case of a lot of PrCs that sound like an organizaion they're just generic combinations of abilities with the facade of an organization fluffed in, often one that doesn't fit into the game world in the first place.

More importantly, the character isn't actually aware that he has "classes". If he takes a "dip" in a PrC, all hat really represents to what he can see is that he's developed a certain skillset to that degree. Multiple PrCs, and even base classes, really just represent the different ways in which people become specialized, especially when being mostly self-taught as PCs generally are.

In some cases, such as PrCs like Red Wizard or Neverwinter Nine from Forgotten Realms, where the PrC is a specific organization, this makes somewhat more sense, but since no one in the game world is aware of "classes" or "levels", there's no reason a character has to be a member of the PrC to be a member of the organization, unless that PrC grants a specific ability that one has to demonstrate to be in the organization, and isn't obtainable any other way. Even if that is the case, that only accounts for one level of the PrC; there's no particular in-character reason one needs to keep progressing in that PrC.

Tyndmyr
2009-10-04, 09:35 PM
Ok, 3rd person. Anyway, he didn't write the character as a character, he wrote it as an exercise. He could turn it into a character, but that wasn't the point originally.

Which purpose was the "original" has little bearing on the quality of the work. Many times in roleplaying, I happen upon something unexpected that later turns out to be better than what I was originally going after.

A character designed for crunch can also be made fluffy. A fluffy concept can also, usually, be made effective. I don't really see the order these are chosen in as important at all, merely a matter of player preference.

Tavar
2009-10-04, 09:40 PM
Plus, some PrC's really don't make sense as an organization. For example, Avenging Executioner from Complete Scoundrel. Really, the "organization" PrC's are in the minority, the default assumption for most is that these are just special abilities that you've unlocked through some means.

Riffington
2009-10-04, 09:42 PM
Ultimately, though, I don't see why I have to defend myself to you.
You don't particularly because I'm not attacking you. I never said you couldn't roleplay it. I said it was an optimization exercise and you're adding RP afterwards. And maybe you'll like it and maybe you won't.


Is my character's background any the worse for having started as a character build?
I don't know.



The False Dilemma requires no such thing. The dilemma in this case is stating ou can either optimize well or roleplay well, or do neither well, but you cannot do both well. It's a False Dilemma with 3 possible positions, but excluding the possibility of doing both well.

First, I suppose you can have a false Trilemma, but those don't work very well rhetorically, so if you think you see one you usually are missing something. Second, there's nothing fallacious about the claim that optimization precludes good roleplay. It's an empirical claim, and it might be true and it might be false, but it's not fallacious. There's simply nothing logically wrong with the position (it's perhaps factually incorrect, but that's different). A false dilemma fallacy exists when your argument rests on the unexamined premise that there's only two possibilities, whereas your listeners would reject that premise if they examined it. If you see that logically one could both optimize and roleplay, and then reject that possibility, you're not committing any fallacy.

DragoonWraith
2009-10-04, 10:12 PM
You don't particularly because I'm not attacking you. I never said you couldn't roleplay it. I said it was an optimization exercise and you're adding RP afterwards. And maybe you'll like it and maybe you won't.
In a discussion about the fluff-wise validity of multiple PrCs, or classes in general, I brought up the build as an example of an extreme - a very large number of classes - which still manages to maintain a coherent theme. Your statements indicate that it is unacceptable because of your perception of how it was created. I find that insulting, and thus, an attack. It's insulting because you imply that a particular play/character creation style is inherently inferior and incapable of creating a thematically coherent and appropriate character.

Also, for the record, your statement is also factually inaccurate (even though I would still object to it if it were accurate) - I did not sprinkle fluff over the build after I'd finished it, I looked at my options for classes that would fulfill the constraints I set for myself, and consciously and purposefully chose the ones that worked together nicely for a thematic character. That is to say, I added RP to the class as I created it, not afterwards. I am still insulted by your claim that having done it afterwards would invalidate the character, but regardless that was not actually the case.


First, I suppose you can have a false Trilemma, but those don't work very well rhetorically, so if you think you see one you usually are missing something. Second, there's nothing fallacious about the claim that optimization precludes good roleplay. It's an empirical claim, and it might be true and it might be false, but it's not fallacious. There's simply nothing logically wrong with the position (it's perhaps factually incorrect, but that's different). A false dilemma fallacy exists when your argument rests on the unexamined premise that there's only two possibilities, whereas your listeners would reject that premise if they examined it. If you see that logically one could both optimize and roleplay, and then reject that possibility, you're not committing any fallacy.
The dilemma posed by the advocates of the Stormwind Fallacy are that you can either create a flavorful character, or an optimized character, but never both. This is a False Dilemma, because no where is the "never both" condition justified or explained - because it is not justifiable, it is wrong.

Yes, there's a third possibility (failure to do either well), but that's entirely besides the point anyway and has nothing to do with anything. No one will deny that it is possible to fail at both, but that does not eliminate the False Dilemma posed above.

sonofzeal
2009-10-04, 10:19 PM
Not to exactly champion the Stormwind Fallacy but it IS true that taking gobs of PrCs makes a roleplaying argument difficult. Its not that there aren't possible stories to explain why someone has six different classes, do they remain decent stories or after-the-fact explanations for a Mary Sue. Not which is exclusive but which comes first, the roleplay or the rollplay. And if a DM takes Prestige Classes to mean Prestige Classes where they are quasi-organizations (at least) not merely a bunch of mechanics then it becomes harder and harder to argue multiple dips as a coherent character beyond merely excusing a bunch of mechanics. Emphasis on multiple there is because its a matter of scale more then anything else, where it breaks suspension of disbelief.

A lot of people don't give a crap about classes as actual fluff though, which is rather told by the name fluff itself I think.
Diamondeye makes some good points; I'll elaborate with some examples.


I'm currently about to start playing a new character. In a sentance, he's an emissary from the Fey lands, weilding Fey magics to do strange and exotic things. Actually, he's a Sorcerer with really odd feat choices, not a single Core spell, and the "Sentinel of Bharrai" and (eventually) "Nightmare Spinner" Prestige Classes. Normally, those various choices don't have much to do with eachother and are actually rather contradictory, but they all work together to produce the effect I wanted - someone whose magic and morality work from a different frame of reference from the human world. Fey are in tune with the natural world, and have no qualms about messing with peoples minds, and I think this character in play will capture that essence mechanically. He'll also be pretty darn effective, but at no point did I sacrifice on the concept to increase power.


Another example - in another game, on these very forums, I'm playing a level 10 Barbarian / Fighter / Factotum / Berserker / Champion of GwynharwyffOdin. He's pretty massively multiclassed by any standards, but it reflects the idea I had. The character is from savage lands, with a savage personality, devoted to his savage patron, but with the seeds of raw intelligence and a cunning built out of his extended time among more "civilized" lands. He's the wily hunter, the noble savage, the shaman, the chieftain, the one who hides under his rough exterior but is more than he may seem. I could have a lvl 10 Barbarian act the same way, but not without sacrificing some of what (to me) makes him who he is. His massive multiclassing produces a "gestalt", in the german sense, subtly different in tone than any of the pieces, that captures exactly what I was going for. Yes it's also very effective at what it does, probably more so than the lvl 10 Barbarian version, but in this case the power and the flavour dovetail perfectly. A loss of any one of his classes would hurt both, and yet he'd fail almost any of the multiclass restrictions proposed in this thread.

Soras Teva Gee
2009-10-04, 10:22 PM
More importantly, the character isn't actually aware that he has "classes". If he takes a "dip" in a PrC, all hat really represents to what he can see is that he's developed a certain skillset to that degree. Multiple PrCs, and even base classes, really just represent the different ways in which people become specialized, especially when being mostly self-taught as PCs generally are.

I always dislike the characters are 'unaware' of classes argument. Even something basic like Rogue or Fighter implies certain things about a background to me. Its roughly analogous to highly trained occupations in our world, which is certainly something we can be aware of. For something truly just modular and unfocused compare D&D to say d20 Moderns Smart/Tough/Strong type classes or even the NPC classes. Now there's a lot to be said for a modular approach, I don't think this is how D&D is ultimately set up.

Now sure one can have some side skills, hybrids, or straight splits, but where does the line get drawn? I've got no problem with dipping and multi-classing up to around three or so, but when you get more then that you start to erode classes as actual specialties. Its hard enough to justify characters randomly picking up a whole new class in the first place, but you argue they'd been training for it up to that point and they'd only now got the class down enough to put into practice meaningfully. That's works once, but studying since your apprenticeship to be a Master Specialist and IotSV and Incantrix is an entirely different beast.


In some cases, such as PrCs like Red Wizard or Neverwinter Nine from Forgotten Realms, where the PrC is a specific organization, this makes somewhat more sense, but since no one in the game world is aware of "classes" or "levels", there's no reason a character has to be a member of the PrC to be a member of the organization, unless that PrC grants a specific ability that one has to demonstrate to be in the organization, and isn't obtainable any other way. Even if that is the case, that only accounts for one level of the PrC; there's no particular in-character reason one needs to keep progressing in that PrC.

Sure there is an argument to keep progressing in any PrC: if you aren't progressing you aren't really using the skills thus aren't entitled to them.

Yes that statement is completely subjective, but if one take PrC to represent a particular specialized branch of knowledge then they aren't something that is nessecarily easy to master. If someone puts all their efforts into some other branch of knowledge how are they apply themselves to their other path. Again sure someone can dabble a little, but how much can any one person dabble? And with organization type PrC, its like being delinquent in that organization on top.

Yes I'm aware of how subjective this is, but that to me is more an argument against the class level approach entirely. If one wants to be truly modular in character design, there's Generic Classes variant rules, or other systems entirely.

sonofzeal
2009-10-04, 10:34 PM
I always dislike the characters are 'unaware' of classes argument. Even something basic like Rogue or Fighter implies certain things about a background to me. Its roughly analogous to highly trained occupations in our world, which is certainly something we can be aware of. For something truly just modular and unfocused compare D&D to say d20 Moderns Smart/Tough/Strong type classes or even the NPC classes. Now there's a lot to be said for a modular approach, I don't think this is how D&D is ultimately set up.

Now sure one can have some side skills, hybrids, or straight splits, but where does the line get drawn? I've got no problem with dipping and multi-classing up to around three or so, but when you get more then that you start to erode classes as actual specialties. Its hard enough to justify characters randomly picking up a whole new class in the first place, but you argue they'd been training for it up to that point and they'd only now got the class down enough to put into practice meaningfully. That's works once, but studying since your apprenticeship to be a Master Specialist and IotSV and Incantrix is an entirely different beast.
I understand your argument here, that classes represent recognizable archetypes, but I think it makes a critical assumption that people reliably fit into those archetypes. Sam may be the traditional Fighter, trained as a mercenary or as a soldier, perhaps top of his class but still fighting in the same generic style as his peers. Mike, on the other hand, may be a street urchin with anger management problems, handpicked by a noble to be trained to fight in the grand arena. Mike (whose last name might well be Tyson) may have a mix of levels in Rogue, Barbarian, and Fighter, and may further develop his own unique style by a mix of dips and feats. Mike might be more effective than Sam, but could also be more flavourful at the same time. He just doesn't fit into the established archetypes. And I fail to see why that's a bad thing.

DragoonWraith
2009-10-04, 10:38 PM
I always dislike the characters are 'unaware' of classes argument. Even something basic like Rogue or Fighter implies certain things about a background to me. Its roughly analogous to highly trained occupations in our world, which is certainly something we can be aware of.
Yes, highly trained operatives, special agents who are trained in... martial combat and a wide variety of weaponry (Fighter), stealth, subterfuge, and deception (Rogue), are required to know a great deal of technology, history, politics, and geography (arguably Bard, Wizard, Loremaster, or something similar), knowledge of how to survive on their own in the direst of situations (Ranger), remain devoutly loyal to their country even in the most dangerous, difficult, or morally challenging situations (arguably a Paladin)... Really? That's at least four different classes to cover the concept of a Secret Agent in core. Why is this difficult to imagine? What's wrong with a "Secret Agent" build taking a bit from all these varied disciplines? After all - that's what Secret Agents often do in real life (or at least in real fiction).


For something truly just modular and unfocused compare D&D to say d20 Moderns Smart/Tough/Strong type classes or even the NPC classes. Now there's a lot to be said for a modular approach, I don't think this is how D&D is ultimately set up.
So? Who cares how it's "set up" to be? What's wrong with doing what you want to get the character you want? I think classes help with inspiration and organization, and are a useful balancing mechanic, but are ultimately secondary to creating the character that matches the one you want to play.


Now sure one can have some side skills, hybrids, or straight splits, but where does the line get drawn?
Why must it be drawn at all?


I've got no problem with dipping and multi-classing up to around three or so, but when you get more then that you start to erode classes as actual specialties.
And who says that they're supposed to be specialties? Or maybe, for example, your "specialty" is being a Secret Agent - who can do this, that, and the other thing, which is found by having several different classes.

Classes are a meta concept. They have no place in the actual in-character game. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html)


Its hard enough to justify characters randomly picking up a whole new class in the first place, but you argue they'd been training for it up to that point and they'd only now got the class down enough to put into practice meaningfully. That's works once, but studying since your apprenticeship to be a Master Specialist and IotSV and Incantrix is an entirely different beast.
Why is the character aware that anything has changed? "Hey, I've been studying magic, and I learned more about Spellcraft and my chosen specialty (Master Specialist), I've learned how to manipulate magic to my whims (Incantatrix), and to form physical and magical barriers by my will alone (Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil)" As far as the character's concerned, they're just a spellcaster, who has learned how to do unique and powerful things with magic, in addition to their spells. Why is this hard to conceive of?


Sure there is an argument to keep progressing in any PrC: if you aren't progressing you aren't really using the skills thus aren't entitled to them.
Read: "I don't like your character so I'm going to make you play the one I like" - I'd leave.


Yes that statement is completely subjective, but if one take PrC to represent a particular specialized branch of knowledge then they aren't something that is nessecarily easy to master. If someone puts all their efforts into some other branch of knowledge how are they apply themselves to their other path. Again sure someone can dabble a little, but how much can any one person dabble?
I'm studying to be an engineer. That hasn't stopped me from taking a ton of classes in Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Psychology, Literature, History, and Economics. So, in answer to your question - a lot. Because plenty of people do it a lot better than I do, and PCs are inherently special and amazing at whatever it is they do - including dabbling.


And with organization type PrC, its like being delinquent in that organization on top.
This is a somewhat reasonable concern, but lots of organizations are not mutually exclusive. I'm a member of the Boy Scouts (or was), a large number of school clubs, etc etc., and there's no conflict there. In my example, you've got the Pagagnostic Assembly, the Sublime Chord, the Wayfarer's Guild, the Arcane Order - various organizations devoted to the study of various aspects of magic. A person can't be interested in faith, music, teleportation, and be a member of the local mage's guild at the same time?

Or even "yeah, I joined the Arcane Order, they seemed to have a lot to offer, but really they were just holding me back, so I left. I still pay my guild dues so I can access the Spellpool, but that's about it." I know people who do this in real life! I know a man who is a "retired" lawyer, who owns his own company in a field completely unrelated to the legal profession - he still pays his dues to the bar association, because there are some situations where it is useful to still officially be a lawyer, even though he no longer practices. So?

On the other hand, someone proposed an Ur-Priest/lots of other stuff/Church Inquisitor, and that, we agreed, was probably untenable - there's no reasonable way (usually) to conflate those two positions, so that's not a good match. But even then, you could explain it in the right setting or with extraordinary circumstances, if you really wanted to. And what's wrong with that?


Yes I'm aware of how subjective this is, but that to me is more an argument against the class level approach entirely. If one wants to be truly modular in character design, there's Generic Classes variant rules, or other systems entirely.
Perhaps, but I like D&D 3.5. I like the classes for certain things, but I do not feel the need to be restricted to the pre-designed WotC classes - I prefer to make my own classes by multiclassing. Why do you have a problem with that?

grautry
2009-10-04, 11:07 PM
Or even "yeah, I joined the Arcane Order, they seemed to have a lot to offer, but really they were just holding me back, so I left. I still pay my guild dues so I can access the Spellpool, but that's about it." I know people who do this in real life! I know a man who is a "retired" lawyer, who owns his own company in a field completely unrelated to the legal profession - he still pays his dues to the bar association, because there are some situations where it is useful to still officially be a lawyer, even though he no longer practices. So?

You are of course right in regard to the real world but this is not real world we're talking about.

If PrCs represent organizations(and their specific teachings) then you might run into a problem with two or three PrCs behind you. Why? Maybe nobody really wants to teach you because they figure that you're not going to be a devoted member for long anyway. That makes training you in their ways is a waste of time, they've got nothing to gain from it.

It gets even worse if you consider PrCs to be something as important as trade secrets, where leaving the PrC organization is considered akin to betrayal/treason(for example, I've got no problem whatsoever seeing Red Wizards acting like this). Now, even then, learning multiple PrCs should not be truly impossible - rather, the problem would be in finding a willing teacher(or stealing those secrets, which just might lead to an interesting plot hook).

So yeah, I'd say that the "PrCs as organizations" approach can impose a "soft limit" on just how many PrCs can you learn.

On the other hand, if PrCs are something that can be self-taught or no one really places much value/importance on those teachings(or they're generally available) then having several PrCs is an entirely normal option.

Just how the world works is very much an important thing in that regard.

DragoonWraith
2009-10-04, 11:16 PM
You are of course right in regard to the real world but this is not real world we're talking about.

If PrCs represent organizations(and their specific teachings) then you might run into a problem with two or three PrCs behind you. Why? Maybe nobody really wants to teach you because they figure that you're not going to be a devoted member for long anyway. That makes training you in their ways is a waste of time, they've got nothing to gain from it.

It gets even worse if you consider PrCs to be something as important as trade secrets, where leaving the PrC organization is considered akin to betrayal/treason(for example, I've got no problem whatsoever seeing Red Wizards acting like this). Now, even then, learning multiple PrCs should not be truly impossible - rather, the problem would be in finding a willing teacher(or stealing those secrets, which just might lead to an interesting plot hook).

So yeah, I'd say that the "PrCs as organizations" approach can impose a reasonable limit on just how many PrCs can you learn.
I agree that in some cases this is totally the case. I'd also point out that this is very much a specific thing that is not the general rule, even when a PrC is tied to an organization. After all, just because you're not gaining the mechanics set forth in the class progression of the PrC tied to that organization, does not mean you are necessarily abandoning that organization or falling short of their expectations of you. I agree in some cases this makes sense. I'd point out that in most cases it does not.

Especially when the mechanics themselves have nothing to do with the organization. The Spellpool, OK, that's tied directly to the Arcane Order. And the Improved Range/Enhanced Capacity of the Wayfarer Guide could easily be trade secrets of the Wayfarer's Guild. But the Sublime Chord? The Paragnostic Assembly? You could very easily get those mechanics without those organizations.


On the other hand, if PrCs are something that can be self-taught or no one really places much value/importance on those teachings(or they're generally available) then having several PrCs is an entirely normal option.

Just how the world works is very much an important thing in that regard.
Exactly. It depends on what these PrCs mean in the setting. In Eberron, for example, how elementals are bound to airships is a very closely guarded secret - you could not reasonably take the Bind Elemental feat unless you somehow got that knowledge. In another setting with Bound Elemental Airships, it might be common knowledge and there you could.

But as a general rule, there definitely should not be any restrictions.

Ozymandias9
2009-10-05, 12:54 AM
Classes are a meta concept. They have no place in the actual in-character game. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html)

That's at the heart of this conundrum. When a DM or a table tends to place limits on multi-classing, its because they view classes as having specific character implications.
To give a real world analog, a lawyer or doctor rarely has more than one primary specialty: you'll not often find a constitutional law specialist who also specializes in tort. Likewise, you'll not find a large number of General Practitioners who are also Neurosurgeons.
Its a mentality that holds over from 2nd edition, when rather than multi-classing, people would design a specialist class progression (druid, for example, was the given example of a specialist priest as opposed to a generic cleric IIRC). It has to do, in my opinion, with a gradual shift to the point where people have stopped thinking of classes as an analog to professions and started regarding the profession of their characters in general as "Adventurer."

Its not necessarily good or bad, but if you're playing a heavy RP game, I find its best to have people at least of what page people are on regarding this so that there's no bad blood merely from a disparate point of view.

DragoonWraith
2009-10-05, 01:10 AM
OK, that may be, but my response to that is that classes in 3.5 are not presented that way. That's perhaps not an unreasonable way to see them, but by no means should be the default. Especially for most of the Core classes, as most of them are intentionally exceptionally generic.

Tackyhillbillu
2009-10-05, 01:15 AM
I disagree that classes are entirely meta in concept.

Perhaps the base classes, that can be defended on (though the existence of things like the Sorcerer and such make me think not.)

But Prc's are by their very nature, a specialization. You aren't talking about being a Lawyer, you are talking about being a Constitutional Scholar, you aren't Physicist, you are a specialist in Quantum Thermodynamics.

And you know what happens when a Lawyer decides to be both a Constitutional Law Scholar, and an expert on Environmental Litigation? You get a Lawyer who can't do either very well. PRC's are specializations. Perhaps taking multiple PRC's in a very specific area, like say MoMF and Warshaper is acceptable. But beyond that, probably not.

sonofzeal
2009-10-05, 02:19 AM
I disagree that classes are entirely meta in concept.

Perhaps the base classes, that can be defended on (though the existence of things like the Sorcerer and such make me think not.)

But Prc's are by their very nature, a specialization. You aren't talking about being a Lawyer, you are talking about being a Constitutional Scholar, you aren't Physicist, you are a specialist in Quantum Thermodynamics.

And you know what happens when a Lawyer decides to be both a Constitutional Law Scholar, and an expert on Environmental Litigation? You get a Lawyer who can't do either very well. PRC's are specializations. Perhaps taking multiple PRC's in a very specific area, like say MoMF and Warshaper is acceptable. But beyond that, probably not.
I wouldn't argue that the classes are entirely meta. However, I do think that they're imperfect categorizations, and anything that doesn't fall evenly into one category or another is best handled through multiclassing and dipping.

Real world example (true story, too) - I want to specialize in Simulation Design. My university has a lot of programming classes in the comp sci department, and a lot of statistics classes in the math department. I take a Double Major, cherrypicking the classes in each department that suit my concept and let me do what I want to do. Because I'm not falling evenly into one of the major categories, "multiclassing" lets me do what I want to do far better than "singleclassing".

Same principal for PrCs. If you want to be exactly what a Red Wizard Illusionist is, take the full Red Wizard class... but maybe you don't. Maybe you want that focus, but expressed in different ways. Perhaps you're better served by Shadowcraft Mage because you're into Shadow spells, or perhaps by Nightmare Spinner because you like Phantasms, or maybe you see yourself as an Illusionist/Abjurer and mix one or all of the previous with Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil. Perhaps your self-image isn't defined by the options the various books represent, so you carve out your own territory for yourself.

Zen Master
2009-10-05, 02:39 AM
I'd like to know how many - if any - DMs make it a rule to limit pcs to one prestige class each.

Definitely only one prestige class. But I don't even have to house rule it - my group is pretty much one class all the way. Single class wizard (necro specialist), ranger, rogue, psion and a bugbear barbarian.

Tackyhillbillu
2009-10-05, 02:40 AM
That doesn't answer my inherent point.

The Base Classes in DnD would be the majors in your example. A Double-Major would be a PRC. That's what a lot of the PRC's are.

And I'm not saying a limit of one PRC is a good thing. In fact, I think it is not. I think the GM has to make the decision on case by case basis. But allowing someone to stack together a bunch of level on Dips because they like the abilities seems like an inherently suspiscious idea. Maybe they have fluff good enough to deal with it. But the burden of proof is with them.

Ozymandias9
2009-10-05, 02:47 AM
OK, that may be, but my response to that is that classes in 3.5 are not presented that way. That's perhaps not an unreasonable way to see them, but by no means should be the default. Especially for most of the Core classes, as most of them are intentionally exceptionally generic.

No, but the 3rd presented them far more in that flavor, particularly in terms of the DMG presentation of prestige classes. Not, admittedly, unimpeachably so, but they presented more in the way of design and structure than the 3.5 book, and it tended that way. Again, I see this mostly as a carry over from 2nd.

(Disclaimer : I'm going to be a bit heavy handed in my advocation. I don't mean to be offensive. I take no offense to people viewing classes as a different element of abstraction than I: it makes an interesting and varried game: this is merely how I see things.)

Personally, in a heavy RP game, I find dipping usually feels like playing a dilettante. Being a Loremaster implies, to me, that the character has a desire to seek out obscure knowledge. The class features are a result of following that desire. If the character was following that desire and took Loremaster 1, I would feel the need to present a reasonable explanation were they to cease to do so. Were they frightened by what they found? Is another interest taking precedent?

Excluding fighter and rogue, the base classes are only vague by modern standards of extreme specialization. Its fairly clear what a druid is, what a wizard is, etc.. There is a level of abstraction from actual professions they might represent (an academic wizard vs. magical advisor to a king), but they are still a rough analog.

How would you say classes are presented? If the goal was to present classes merely as avenues for acquisition of abilities, it would make more sense to use an ability buy system and cut out classes all together. The very idea of classes and progression implies specialization.

sonofzeal
2009-10-05, 02:49 AM
That doesn't answer my inherent point.

The Base Classes in DnD would be the majors in your example. A Double-Major would be a PRC. That's what a lot of the PRC's are.
If majors were base classes, a double-major is pretty obviously a multiclass. You take bits and pieces from each, and you take roughly the same number of years (ie levels) but gain a more diverse set of skills. A PrC would then involve going for your Masters / PhD where you're forced to specialize fairly narrowly, and taking multiple PrCs would involve getting, or at least starting, Masters in different subjects. It's harder to qualify for multiple ones, but there's no actual rule against starting one and abandoning it. You just don't get the cred from the organization, and you miss out on some of the stuff you never got around to. Heck, I know plenty of people who did half their Masters and spent years before going back to finish it.

Point is, it's allowed in real life, even in the highly artificial and categorized context of university. In the rest of the world, where categories are rarely so neat, I completely fail to see why someone has to choose to be an Invisible Blade OR a Duelist OR a Master Thrower, why they can't train a little in each combat style and put it all together to construct their own form.

Tackyhillbillu
2009-10-05, 02:51 AM
I don't agree. What about the huge number of PRC's along the lines of the Mystic Theurge?

sonofzeal
2009-10-05, 02:55 AM
I don't agree. What about the huge number of PRC's along the lines of the Mystic Theurge?
That's rather belaboring this already strained and artificial analogy. Suffice it to say that a MT-style PrC is yet another form of specialist, one whose domain is the intersection of two otherwise unrelated fields. For example, Graphic Design combines Comp Sci and Art. My university offered a Graphic Design stream, and hence that "PrC" was available to me. However, there was no stream for Simulation Design, so I invented my own by mixing and matching (ie, dipping). Happy?

Ozymandias9
2009-10-05, 02:57 AM
Real world example (true story, too) - I want to specialize in Simulation Design. My university has a lot of programming classes in the comp sci department, and a lot of statistics classes in the math department. I take a Double Major, cherrypicking the classes in each department that suit my concept and let me do what I want to do. Because I'm not falling evenly into one of the major categories, "multiclassing" lets me do what I want to do far better than "singleclassing".

You're multi-classing. This is good. Let's say you go to grad school and do your research in simulation design: this is a good representation, in my opinion, of a PrC. Wouldn't you find it a bit unusual if you suddenly wanted to, after that, go back to grad school to research Machine Learning? That would be taking a 2nd prestige class.

Not to say this is a bad thing. But it represents a very unusual situation.

PhoenixRivers
2009-10-05, 03:18 AM
You're multi-classing. This is good. Let's say you go to grad school and do your research in simulation design: this is a good representation, in my opinion, of a PrC. Wouldn't you find it a bit unusual if you suddenly wanted to, after that, go back to grad school to research Machine Learning? That would be taking a 2nd prestige class.

Not to say this is a bad thing. But it represents a very unusual situation.

Or perhaps you research simulation design, and then go back, and take a statistics major.

Now Simulation/Statistics are different, yet complementary, specializations.

Saying someone can't be specialized in two things without being bad at both is a lot like saying someone can't learn two languages without speaking them poorly.

It all depends on the capabilities of the individual, much moreso than the subject matter.

sonofzeal
2009-10-05, 03:24 AM
You're multi-classing. This is good. Let's say you go to grad school and do your research in simulation design: this is a good representation, in my opinion, of a PrC. Wouldn't you find it a bit unusual if you suddenly wanted to, after that, go back to grad school to research Machine Learning? That would be taking a 2nd prestige class.

Not to say this is a bad thing. But it represents a very unusual situation.
Well yes. And I addressed this in one of my previous posts - a student is entirely capable of approaching and attempting various different Masters, in different fields, as long as the requirements are met. The student may even finish the different Masters straight through, or abandon one entirely, or partially complete it and come back to it in a few years.

Now, granted that situation isn't common. It's still entirely possible to do, and an entirely plausible thing to see happen for your character even if character classes aren't meta. If they are meta as many claim, or at least partially meta (which is perhaps more reasonable), the situation becomes far easier still, and far more rewarding.




Side-note: if you as a DM don't see PrCs as meta at all, then create social structures that encourage completion. Have a special title given to those who finish a PrC, and have the ones with the title show less respect to those without even if the one without is otherwise more powerful. Make credentials and titles a general part of the game, with employers looking for "Certified Master Red Wizards" or "Magus of the Sevenfold Veil" or "Champion Invisible Blades", or whatever. Encourage finishing the darn things, but don't penalize those who want to be creative.

DragoonWraith
2009-10-05, 03:36 AM
I agree. If PrCs imply an actual non-meta commitment to something, make it an actual in-character commitment, complete with responsibilities and rewards - including RP rewards in addition to the actual class features. Even if it's just the friendliness of your superiors, access to cheap lodging, healing, and supplies, etc, make it actually part of the world.

Otherwise it's just an arbitrary restriction that makes no sense in-character, and is therefore entirely meta. Which, I believe, is precisely the opposite of the goal, because what you're trying to do is to get people to play a character than that munchkining up an optimized character.

Munchkins will be munchkins no matter what you do. If you don't like it, don't play with them. Trying to set arbitrary rules to curb them won't do anything of the sort, but will restrict legitimate players who want to do something a little different than whatever WotC has thought up.

Riffington
2009-10-05, 05:29 AM
So, the DMs who have allowed only one PrC: do they allow you to work with them to homebrew a PrC? It seems like that way it could work. You would just figure out what abilities you want to have, write them up into a coherent PrC that fits your character, and then the DM can look at the PrC and say "oh, this looks fine and interesting", or "wow, overpowered", or "makes no sense". If you're just restricted to WotC stuff, it's not a huge help.

If we take PrCs to be real organizations, it seems like "physics PhD" or "Art school" are not the correct analogies. It would be more like "Country X Marine" or "Terrorist Group Y leader" or "Monk (the celibate kind, not the Bruce Lee kind) of religious denomination Z". Some of those are purported to give powers that would help others... some monastic traditions purport to learn to float, but if you join trying to float, you're never going to make it off the ground. Some military groups give good antiinterrogation training, but it might be the case that they don't actually train "former" terrorist leaders. Or it might be the case that they do eagerly. That's all stuff for the DM. This board can give theoretical builds because we have no idea what the meat is in your campaign - only what skeletons fit together well mechanically. Whether they fit together in your campaign will depend on the meat of your campaign.

Also: DragoonWraith: I'm sorry. Didn't realize what I initially said looked like an attack, I'm rereading it now and I think it might. Didn't mean to.

Gorbash
2009-10-05, 05:48 AM
So, the DMs who have allowed only one PrC: do they allow you to work with them to homebrew a PrC? It seems like that way it could work. You would just figure out what abilities you want to have, write them up into a coherent PrC that fits your character, and then the DM can look at the PrC and say "oh, this looks fine and interesting", or "wow, overpowered", or "makes no sense". If you're just restricted to WotC stuff, it's not a huge help.

IMHO, there are enough PrCs that you don't have to homebrew your own. Some maybe need a fix or two, but I'm sure that from ~700 prestige classes you can find one to fit your concept.

And yeah, my DM allows tweaking prestige classes. For example changing the feat prerequsites for Stormlord and Invisible Blade and allowing that Stormlord's javelin enhancements work on spears, Inivisible Blade can feint more than once per round, Earth Dreamer's Earth Glide is a free action to activate etc.

Diamondeye
2009-10-05, 06:45 AM
First, I suppose you can have a false Trilemma, but those don't work very well rhetorically, so if you think you see one you usually are missing something.

No, that's not the case. A) it's called a false dilemma no matter how many choices are presented in the fallacy because it's unnecessary to the concpet to specify numbers and B) it doesn't matter how it works rhetorically; rhetoric and reasoning are not dependant on each other.. You're not missing anything by pointing one out.


Second, there's nothing fallacious about the claim that optimization precludes good roleplay. It's an empirical claim, and it might be true and it might be false, but it's not fallacious.

Ye, there is something fallacious about it because there A) is no causal relationship demonstrated and B) is no reason one muct choose betweent eh two. It's not an "empirical claim" at all, because merely observing someone who optomizes well but roleplays poorly in no way establishes that one causes the other. That's *** hoc ergo propter hoc and is also poor reasoning


There's simply nothing logically wrong with the position (it's perhaps factually incorrect, but that's different). A false dilemma fallacy exists when your argument rests on the unexamined premise that there's only two possibilities, whereas your listeners would reject that premise if they examined it. If you see that logically one could both optimize and roleplay, and then reject that possibility, you're not committing any fallacy.

Yes you are. By rejecting that possibility you're creating a false dilemma because you are creating the appearance that there's only two possibilities (or three). It's both logically and factually incorrect because it relies on a factually incorrect premise to create the appearance that only two possibilities exist.


I always dislike the characters are 'unaware' of classes argument. Even something basic like Rogue or Fighter implies certain things about a background to me. Its roughly analogous to highly trained occupations in our world, which is certainly something we can be aware of. For something truly just modular and unfocused compare D&D to say d20 Moderns Smart/Tough/Strong type classes or even the NPC classes. Now there's a lot to be said for a modular approach, I don't think this is how D&D is ultimately set up.

Well, you can dislike it all you want but it's the case. In the real world we're aware of "professions" but they aren't the same thing as a character class. To take the most obvious example, in the Army there are over 200 Military Occupational Specialties. Is each of those a class, a PrC, or a "package" of skills with the class being "soldier"? Are "Army Infantry Soldier" and "Marine Infantry" separate classes or different PrCs or skillsets? I don't know and I suspect it could be debated ad nauseum without meaningful progress. It's the same in D&D; 2 rogues have similar skills, but they are rarely exactly the same in their emphasis, and their outlook and activities may make it very hard for characters to know they are both "Rogues".


Now sure one can have some side skills, hybrids, or straight splits, but where does the line get drawn? I've got no problem with dipping and multi-classing up to around three or so, but when you get more then that you start to erode classes as actual specialties. Its hard enough to justify characters randomly picking up a whole new class in the first place, but you argue they'd been training for it up to that point and they'd only now got the class down enough to put into practice meaningfully. That's works once, but studying since your apprenticeship to be a Master Specialist and IotSV and Incantrix is an entirely different beast.

Except that it's really not that hard to justify. The entire position relies on "not liking" the idea of characters being unaware of classes, which makes little sense. "Eroding the classes as specialties" is even more problematic: A) so what and B) base classes aren't all that specialized in the first place


Sure there is an argument to keep progressing in any PrC: if you aren't progressing you aren't really using the skills thus aren't entitled to them.

That's rather silly, espcially if the character actually is using the skills in play. There's also nothing that separates skills by class once a character has them; they combine to form a whole.


Yes that statement is completely subjective, but if one take PrC to represent a particular specialized branch of knowledge then they aren't something that is nessecarily easy to master. If someone puts all their efforts into some other branch of knowledge how are they apply themselves to their other path. Again sure someone can dabble a little, but how much can any one person dabble? And with organization type PrC, its like being delinquent in that organization on top.

I don't see that any of this is true. A character achieves a certain level of ability within a certain area then moves on to other things. They put "all their effort" into a certain area for 3 levels then move on to something else. The amount of dabbling is represented by the number of levels.

As for organizations, it isn't being delinquent in the organization to stop progressing in its PrC unless the organization actually tests or requires demonstrated proficiency in things only that PrC provides.


Yes I'm aware of how subjective this is, but that to me is more an argument against the class level approach entirely. If one wants to be truly modular in character design, there's Generic Classes variant rules, or other systems entirely.

I'm glad you understand its subjective because the basic truth is that the system is completely modular while still having levels.

Riffington
2009-10-05, 08:08 AM
[QUOTE=Diamondeye;7059253]B) it doesn't matter how it works rhetorically; rhetoric and reasoning are not dependant on each other.. You're not missing anything by pointing one out.



Ye, there is something fallacious about it because there A) is no causal relationship demonstrated and B) is no reason one muct choose betweent eh two. It's not an "empirical claim" at all, because merely observing someone who optomizes well but roleplays poorly in no way establishes that one causes the other. That's *** hoc ergo propter hoc and is also poor reasoning[quote]

How does that all differ from this example: You cannot both be human and have been born on Mars.
It's merely an empirical claim that you can't. There's no logical reason you can't, it's just empirically false.

Asgardian
2009-10-05, 08:59 AM
We play one PRC only UNLESS you have an in-game reason for a second one.
(ie you find a teacher/trainer, visit another plane that opens up a new set of related interests, etc..)

Ozymandias9
2009-10-05, 09:05 AM
So, the DMs who have allowed only one PrC: do they allow you to work with them to homebrew a PrC? It seems like that way it could work. You would just figure out what abilities you want to have, write them up into a coherent PrC that fits your character, and then the DM can look at the PrC and say "oh, this looks fine and interesting", or "wow, overpowered", or "makes no sense". If you're just restricted to WotC stuff, it's not a huge help.

Always I'll always help you home-brew a PrC, even if I'm not limiting multi-classing in any way. The one exception is a no PrC game, which I only run if there are people new to the game and it seems warranted because they're being put off by complexity.

I may not always give you the abilities you want: if the game's got restricted multi-classing, there are probably some fluff concerns that need to be met. By the same token, I might not allow all PrCs in all campaigns if they don't fit the fluff. I generally don't allow Archmage in Dragonlance, for example.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-10-05, 09:30 AM
The Base Classes in DnD would be the majors in your example. A Double-Major would be a PRC. That's what a lot of the PRC's are.


Some schools let you create your own major. Cherry-picking classes to accomplish your goal is the equivalent of this.

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-05, 09:38 AM
Munchkins will be munchkins no matter what you do. If you don't like it, don't play with them. Trying to set arbitrary rules to curb them won't do anything of the sort, but will restrict legitimate players who want to do something a little different than whatever WotC has thought up.


I agree on a personal level. The problem is that there are so many people who don't know that there is a vast difference between "Munchkin" and "Optimizer". There's many who use the terms interchangeably, despite the two having different meanings. Sure, the two can be linked together, but it's more likely that the two will be separate.

Its prevalent here. GiantITP has a large number of posters, but only a handful of those posters are considered dedicated optimizers. The occasional request for optimization help is made from time to time, and in almost every one I've seen there's people claiming some of the tactics as "Munchkinery" without presenting an argument to prove that the method suggested doesn't work. They just call it and never justify the claim, at least not with facts and numbers.

I don't know how many times I've been called a Munchkin for posting advice. It may be questionable advice on occasion, but the ones claiming I'm a Munchkin rarely ever have facts and numbers to prove me wrong (this doesn't make me right, it just means their argument is weak). When they start spouting their opinions as facts, I start getting irritated.

Random832
2009-10-05, 09:53 AM
I agree on a personal level. The problem is that there are so many people who don't know that there is a vast difference between "Munchkin" and "Optimizer". There's many who use the terms interchangeably, despite the two having different meanings. Sure, the two can be linked together, but it's more likely that the two will be separate.

As I see it:

An optimizer is someone who creates character builds that are intended to be more powerful than a 'typical' character of that level

A munchkin is someone who actually attempts to play the more extreme examples of such characters.

A semi-related issue is what I call the "standard of optimization".

Back in the old days, this was, well... blaster wizard, healbot cleric, sword and board fighter. Later on, it was discovered what all those utility spells could do, what the cleric's 3/4 BAB and heavy armor usage really means in combination with casting, and that two handed power attack is much better.

The line between optimization and "munchkinery" is at the same point - for actually playing a character, as the line between optimization and theoretical optimization is for just making builds. The problem is determining where that line is.

The Glyphstone
2009-10-05, 10:01 AM
I agree on a personal level. The problem is that there are so many people who don't know that there is a vast difference between "Munchkin" and "Optimizer". There's many who use the terms interchangeably, despite the two having different meanings. Sure, the two can be linked together, but it's more likely that the two will be separate.
.

My definition has always been between those who push the RAW to its max (optimization) and those who twist it in ways it's not intended.

A good example would be Ultimate Magus. Using Practiced Spellcaster to arrange things so your Wizard CL is always the one boosted is optimization. Getting into the class via Precocious Apprentice or Earth Spell shenanigans is munchkinry.

Boci
2009-10-05, 10:13 AM
My definition has always been between those who push the RAW to its max (optimization) and those who twist it in ways it's not intended.

Personally I'd say the former is a powergamer, optimizers just choose a concept and do more planning.


We play one PRC only UNLESS you have an in-game reason for a second one.
(ie you find a teacher/trainer, visit another plane that opens up a new set of related interests, etc..)

My character made a knowledge check, found out about this really cool organization of martial warriors and wants to see how effective their fighting style is?

Xenogears
2009-10-05, 10:19 AM
Because you, as a character, found out about [insert other organization represented by a PrC].
Because you, as a character, had a crisis of faith where your belief in Corellon Larethian wavered.
Because you, as a character, lack the focus to see something through to its completion (might be represented by a low WIS, as an aside).
Because you, as a character, found a dormant ability (Incarnum feat, or Wild Talent, for instance) that you found yourself compelled to investigate via the metagame representation of a different PrC.

I'm sure this isn't an exhaustive list of reasons.

I think the very simplest reason would just be "I think I can best serve Corellon Larethian by advancing these skills over here instead...


I think an optimizer is someone who generally picks a concept then tries to make the character as strong as possible without abandoning the concept. Like I at one point wanted to make a pacafist monk and spent a long time scouring books and online resources trying to find feats and PrC's and whatnot to make it more powerful.

Jayabalard
2009-10-05, 10:33 AM
Saying someone can't be specialized in two things without being bad at both is a lot like saying someone can't learn two languages without speaking them poorly.No, those aren't the same sort of statements at all. It's a really bad analogy.

Boci
2009-10-05, 10:37 AM
No, those aren't the same sort of statements at all. It's a really bad analogy.

I don't know. In the D&D universe it bears mentioning. I was surounded by nayive speakers for 3 years before I learn my second language. Now it is one of the oldest and hardest languages of europe (not latin) but still, a character in D&D could replicate it by spending 1 or 2 skill points. So wouldn't it be possible for a D&D character to specialize in two things, even though we cannot? (You just need a good knowledge of the system)

tyckspoon
2009-10-05, 10:39 AM
As I see it:

An optimizer is someone who creates character builds that are intended to be more powerful than a 'typical' character of that level

A munchkin is someone who actually attempts to play the more extreme examples of such characters.

A semi-related issue is what I call the "standard of optimization".


My view is admittedly strongly colored by SJGames' Munchkin card game and Munchkin Guide (which.. I seem to have lost somewhere. Damn.) But in that definition, 'munchkin' and 'optimizer' are very, very different things. An optimizer is simply somebody who enjoys the mathematical aspects of the game and finding novel ways to make the numbers work; an optimizer can work on making a character *less* powerful as well, such as in a few "how negative can I get my AC/Attack bonus" threads around here. Those just tend to be not as interesting, because games are almost always designed to limit your bonuses and just don't care about how you stack your penalties. Notably, optimizers need not always play what they discover; they're pretty happy just puttering around with a system out of game, although it's always nice to have a chance to pull out a particularly elegant discovery and show it off in game.

That's distinct from powergamers, who do care and want their characters to be more powerful. They might not have the optimizing knack to figure out what actually is more powerful, however; we've all heard the stories and seen the threads about people who Monkey Grip Fullblades because "OMG 4d8 damage!" This player type can cause some headaches when a strong powergamer runs into a strong optimizer (or is the same person), but they're still usually reasonable people and will step down some if needed.

Which is very different from a munchkin, whose defining feature is that he thinks you can in fact Win D&D, and that you should attempt to do so at all times. His character is better than yours, better than the monsters, better than the DM's world and game. Munchkins do not respect the normal conventions of the game. The rogue who steals from everyone he meets and his own party may not be mechanically powerful, but he is a munchkin. He's using the skills he has and most other characters do not to express mastery of them and the gameworld, without regard for how the rest of the players feel about it. He'll resort to outright cheating if his chosen build doesn't display sufficient awesomeness in the game. Munchkins break games. Optimizers don't.. I don't mean the mechanics here. If a munchkin seriously gets loose in your game, you may soon not have a game anymore.

Superglucose
2009-10-05, 11:00 AM
First, I suppose you can have a false Trilemma, but those don't work very well rhetorically,
Fine. Fallacy of false choice.

Roderick_BR
2009-10-05, 11:07 AM
(...)
Perhaps limiting it to two prestige classes might work, but limiting it to one is devastating to the intended purpose of the prestige class.(...)
Now I'm genuinely curious. Why is it allowing only one PrC devastating to the intended purpose of a prestige class? As far as I recall, PrCs were not meant to be multiclassed with others PrCs to be able to work.

To the OP: My group never limited PrCs because we never did much multiclass at all. Most of them either went pure base class (including druids AND fighters), or took one or two levels in some PrC (I think I went the furthest by taking 3 levels in Blood Magus (yeah, that one that doesn't give you full spellcasting progression *gasp*)

I wouldn't mind a limit on 2 or 3 PrCs.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-05, 11:16 AM
I don't recall ever taking more than 3 prestige classes. A cleric of mine went Divine Oracle to represent his search for divine direction, Warpriest to represent his resolution to carry out their will on earth, and Contemplative to represent his conversion to a less militant, more contemplative faith. A wizard of mine dipped into Geometer and Mindbender for their cool abilities, while remaining mostly in Divine Oracle because he was the cult leader for a dead god. Even my "cheese" builds have only used three - IotSV/Master Specialist/Archmage; Ur-Priest/sublime Chord/Mystic Theurge, et cetera.

So, while a 3-PrC limit wouldn't hurt, it would be pretty pointless.

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-05, 11:20 AM
Now I'm genuinely curious. Why is it allowing only one PrC devastating to the intended purpose of a prestige class?

Because some PrCs have a few nice abilities, but the Devs didn't make every level as good as the first two or three. They thought the PrC would be fine as they made it, and didn't expect people to just take the best, dump the rest.

Some classes are also very underpowered unless you take several PrCs designed for that class. The Monk, for example, is at its weakest if you play it to 20th. Multiclassing out at 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 6th level is the most widely recommended path (Giacomo, please start a different thread if you want to debate this with me). A properly optimized Monk is an asset to the party, but only two or three PrCs are actually worth all 10 levels to a Monk.


As far as I recall, PrCs were not meant to be multiclassed with others PrCs to be able to work.

This sounds nice until you look at classes like the Archmage or Fist of the Forest. Even as early as 3.0, PrCs were not meant to be the end-all, be-all. The idea of multiclassing out of PrCs as soon as you got what was worth it has been around since CO was born.

Riffington
2009-10-05, 11:50 AM
My view is admittedly strongly colored by SJGames' Munchkin card game and Munchkin Guide (which.. I seem to have lost somewhere. Damn.) But in that definition, 'munchkin' and 'optimizer' are very, very different things. An optimizer is simply somebody who enjoys the mathematical aspects of the game and finding novel ways to make the numbers work; an optimizer can work on making a character *less* powerful as well, such as in a few "how negative can I get my AC/Attack bonus" threads around here. Those just tend to be not as interesting, because games are almost always designed to limit your bonuses and just don't care about how you stack your penalties. Notably, optimizers need not always play what they discover; they're pretty happy just puttering around with a system out of game, although it's always nice to have a chance to pull out a particularly elegant discovery and show it off in game.

That's distinct from powergamers, who do care and want their characters to be more powerful. They might not have the optimizing knack to figure out what actually is more powerful, however; we've all heard the stories and seen the threads about people who Monkey Grip Fullblades because "OMG 4d8 damage!" This player type can cause some headaches when a strong powergamer runs into a strong optimizer (or is the same person), but they're still usually reasonable people and will step down some if needed.

Which is very different from a munchkin, whose defining feature is that he thinks you can in fact Win D&D, and that you should attempt to do so at all times. His character is better than yours, better than the monsters, better than the DM's world and game. Munchkins do not respect the normal conventions of the game. The rogue who steals from everyone he meets and his own party may not be mechanically powerful, but he is a munchkin. He's using the skills he has and most other characters do not to express mastery of them and the gameworld, without regard for how the rest of the players feel about it. He'll resort to outright cheating if his chosen build doesn't display sufficient awesomeness in the game. Munchkins break games. Optimizers don't.. I don't mean the mechanics here. If a munchkin seriously gets loose in your game, you may soon not have a game anymore.

This (although less extremely). A munchkin may or may not be within the rules. He may or may not be powerful. The defining feature is that he is playing to Win, instead of playing for fun. If you are interested in personal power even when it conflicts with others' fun, you're a munchkin. Your build might be "Barbarian 4/Rogue 4", but that doesn't matter. What matters is that you're hurting the game you're in, and you do it anyway.



Some schools let you create your own major. Cherry-picking classes to accomplish your goal is the equivalent of this.

Actually, the equivalent of that is being Aristocrat 1 :smalltongue:


Fine. Fallacy of false choice.

But it *isn't* one. Not every claim that A is incompatible (or unlikely to be compatible) with B is a Fallacy of False Choice. Most such claims are just that: claims (which can be accepted or rejected on their own merits). To be a fallacy, you must hide the excluded middle so that the listener doesn't notice that you've introduced a premise. If you introduce it explicitly, then he examines it and either accepts or rejects it on its merits. That's a valid argument form.

Boci
2009-10-05, 11:55 AM
This (although less extremely). A munchkin may or may not be within the rules. He may or may not be powerful. The defining feature is that he is playing to Win, instead of playing for fun. If you are interested in personal power even when it conflicts with others' fun, you're a munchkin. Your build might be "Barbarian 4/Rogue 4", but that doesn't matter. What matters is that you're hurting the game you're in, and you do it anyway.

Maybe its just me, but I always imagined munchkins are people who disrupt the game with unbalanced characters. If they aren't powerful and try to disrupt the game, they are just jerks.

Lycanthromancer
2009-10-05, 11:57 AM
I optimize to a theme.

If that means I have to take 2 templates, 3 base classes and 4 PrCs to grab the abilities that best represent what I'm trying to make (such as a human necropolitan/evolved undead/incarnate/necrocarnate/psion/thrallherd/soul manifester/etc) then so be it.

The fact that some people can't wrap their heads around using abilities from classes to best represent my character has no bearing on whether the outcome is a richly-fleshed-out persona or not.

Some class abilities work for my themes. Other class abilities from the same classes do not. Multiclassing is easy and required for the vast majority of my ideas, because the standard archetypes as defined by WotC simply don't match up to what I want to play at the moment. I don't want to play a 'blaster wizard,' even though that's how Wizards of the Coast sees them. Maybe I want to play as someone who specializes in protecting my companions at any cost, and decides to sift through the protective magics that various PrCs have to offer (while eschewing the more aggressive abilities that those self-same PrCs have at later levels). Thus, I become a defensive whirlwind, keeping my party safe and living up to the personality of the character I'd envisioned.

We're playing characters in fantasy worlds. "Fantasy," by definition, encompasses everything that doesn't actually exist. And the scope of that definition is so infinitely broad that you cannot solidly delineate everything "fantasy" could possibly be. You simply can't. My fantasies are different from your fantasies, and that's fine.

But telling someone they can't have the fantasies they want because they don't match up to yours is like saying that my Swiss isn't cheese because it's not your cheddar.

Person_Man
2009-10-05, 12:10 PM
Heavy Multiclassing and Prestige Classing does not equal more power. If someone is intent on being a munchkin, they can do so with Druid 20 or Archivist 20 or Artificer 20. Crunch can be almost entirely independent of fluff. And dipping just allows you to get the abilities you want to use. So why impose my pre-conceived notion of fairness on a player? As long as every player is roughly in the same basic ballpark of power as the other players in the party, who cares what they want to play? And if they aren't, just ask them to tone it down.

Riffington
2009-10-05, 12:34 PM
Maybe its just me, but I always imagined munchkins are people who disrupt the game with unbalanced characters. If they aren't powerful and try to disrupt the game, they are just jerks.

Well, basically, except one thing: they are trying to be powerful, which may or may not translate to actually being powerful. They may think that Rage+Sneak Attack = real ultimate power. They may be correct or incorrect, but that's not the point. You can be an optimizer or a munchkin without being good at it. The point is they're trying to seek personal power even when it disrupts the game. Whether they succeed or not is a different question.

ken-do-nim
2009-10-05, 02:47 PM
As the thread's original poster, I don't think I've properly articulated my concern - because it wasn't properly formulated in my mind at the thread's creation, but now it is.

There are 2 categories of players I'm interested in mixing together, and maybe it can't be done.

Category 1 players enjoy showing up to the games, and they do enjoy using all their class abilities, but they don't think about their character between games. They certainly don't own any books but the Player's Handbook. They may very well pick a full caster class and rock, but they aren't interested in character builds and browsing through many books to find the right feat or prestige class or starting class dip.

Category 2 players thoroughly enjoy character building, with all that implies.

My concern is that Category 1 players will feel intimidated by Category 2 players, feel that they are "falling behind" if they don't browse all the books to look at the feats, classes, and prestige classes (not to mention magic items and spells), and will either drop out or force the other players out.

My wife is a perfect example of a category 1 player. I have other friends who are perfect examples of category 2 players. I was looking for a compromise way to limit things so as to keep the game casual and fun, without boring the character builders. Any other ideas? (Core only is quite overkill).

Tavar
2009-10-05, 02:53 PM
Well, you could have type 2 players offer to help type 1 players, though that might create feelings on one side of being forced to play like the others.

Another option is to Use Psionics, Incarnum, Tome of Battle, and Binders. Encourage the Type one players to use Tome of Battle, and it should be good, as those classes are pretty decent out of the box, and don't really require much work.

DragoonWraith
2009-10-05, 03:04 PM
As the thread's original poster, I don't think I've properly articulated my concern - because it wasn't properly formulated in my mind at the thread's creation, but now it is.

There are 2 categories of players I'm interested in mixing together, and maybe it can't be done.

Category 1 players enjoy showing up to the games, and they do enjoy using all their class abilities, but they don't think about their character between games. They certainly don't own any books but the Player's Handbook. They may very well pick a full caster class and rock, but they aren't interested in character builds and browsing through many books to find the right feat or prestige class or starting class dip.

Category 2 players thoroughly enjoy character building, with all that implies.

My concern is that Category 1 players will feel intimidated by Category 2 players, feel that they are "falling behind" if they don't browse all the books to look at the feats, classes, and prestige classes (not to mention magic items and spells), and will either drop out or force the other players out.

My wife is a perfect example of a category 1 player. I have other friends who are perfect examples of category 2 players. I was looking for a compromise way to limit things so as to keep the game casual and fun, without boring the character builders. Any other ideas? (Core only is quite overkill).
The solution here is to talk to your players. It's the only way you'll ever come to an equitable solution. All you need to do is make sure the character builders build to the appropriate power level - that can be done. Your wife never need know how many classes/templates/rituals they used to achieve that level of power, if she doesn't want to.

sonofzeal
2009-10-05, 03:15 PM
As the thread's original poster, I don't think I've properly articulated my concern - because it wasn't properly formulated in my mind at the thread's creation, but now it is.

There are 2 categories of players I'm interested in mixing together, and maybe it can't be done.

Category 1 players enjoy showing up to the games, and they do enjoy using all their class abilities, but they don't think about their character between games. They certainly don't own any books but the Player's Handbook. They may very well pick a full caster class and rock, but they aren't interested in character builds and browsing through many books to find the right feat or prestige class or starting class dip.

Category 2 players thoroughly enjoy character building, with all that implies.

My concern is that Category 1 players will feel intimidated by Category 2 players, feel that they are "falling behind" if they don't browse all the books to look at the feats, classes, and prestige classes (not to mention magic items and spells), and will either drop out or force the other players out.

My wife is a perfect example of a category 1 player. I have other friends who are perfect examples of category 2 players. I was looking for a compromise way to limit things so as to keep the game casual and fun, without boring the character builders. Any other ideas? (Core only is quite overkill).

Mwahaahahahaaaaa! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125802) Hope you enjoy!

Riffington
2009-10-05, 04:07 PM
The solution here is to talk to your players. It's the only way you'll ever come to an equitable solution. All you need to do is make sure the character builders build to the appropriate power level - that can be done. Your wife never need know how many classes/templates/rituals they used to achieve that level of power, if she doesn't want to.

I basically agree with this.
One other thing: there's a large subset of your "Category 1" (let's call them 1B) who enjoy leveling up and all, they just don't want to spend hours looking through books. So for them, you just suggest a prestige class that does what they want to do and works well with the character. No need to overwhelm, just "Hey, I was thinking about your Paladin the other day, maybe you might be interested in Fist of Raziel (or whatever), it looks cool"

Diamondeye
2009-10-05, 06:49 PM
How does that all differ from this example: You cannot both be human and have been born on Mars.
It's merely an empirical claim that you can't. There's no logical reason you can't, it's just empirically false.

Because a false dilemma is exactly that: A dilemm a person must address. You can't choose to be born on Mars or to be human since A) we can't get to Mars and B) no one makes a choice about their birth.

A person does, however, choose whether to optimize their character or not. Making that choice, however, does not in any way necessarily impact their roleplaying ability. The two are unrelated, so the claim that one must avoid optimizing in order to roleplay well is a false dilemma; it is perfectly possible to do both well. There is no zero-sum relationship.

In order to make a dilemma work, you need to show some actual causality where making ne choice precludes the others. For example, if you choose to drive at very high speeds, you will reduce fuel economy. If you want the best fuel economy for a given car, there is a speed band where you will get the most miles per gallon. You cannot simultaneously floor the accelerator and get the best fuel economy.

Furthermore, there is no meaningful empirical evidence that the two are related. Anecdotal evidence suffers from being a Hasty Generaliztion.

Riffington
2009-10-05, 07:08 PM
Because a false dilemma is exactly that: A dilemm a person must address.

No. It's presenting a dichotomy when the listener would not (if it were spelled out) actually believe that there is a dichotomy.



A person does, however, choose whether to optimize their character or not. Making that choice, however, does not in any way necessarily impact their roleplaying ability. The two are unrelated, so the claim that one must avoid optimizing in order to roleplay well is a false dilemma; it is perfectly possible to do both well. There is no zero-sum relationship.

You assert this, but we don't know. It's an empirical question. It's certainly possible (neither of us has data) that there is a relationship between the two, and that this relationship is inverse. This is a question that can have evidence for/against; it can't be simply dismissed as illogical prior to obtaining any evidence.



In order to make a dilemma work, you need to show some actual causality where making ne choice precludes the others. For example, if you choose to drive at very high speeds, you will reduce fuel economy. If you want the best fuel economy for a given car, there is a speed band where you will get the most miles per gallon. You cannot simultaneously floor the accelerator and get the best fuel economy.

Furthermore, there is no meaningful empirical evidence that the two are related. Anecdotal evidence suffers from being a Hasty Generaliztion.

No causality is needed. All that is needed is for the two groups to actually be dichotomous.

We have not gathered empirical evidence that the two are related or unrelated*. As long as we're playing the fallacy game, you just committed the Argument from Ignorance. Anyway, I'm not saying that there is or isn't a relationship. Just that a belief in such a relationship is not inherently fallacious.

*and it's not worth doing on this thread, and if it were worth doing, I don't even know which side I'd be on.

Akal Saris
2009-10-05, 09:23 PM
As the thread's original poster, I don't think I've properly articulated my concern - because it wasn't properly formulated in my mind at the thread's creation, but now it is.

There are 2 categories of players I'm interested in mixing together, and maybe it can't be done.

Category 1 players enjoy showing up to the games, and they do enjoy using all their class abilities, but they don't think about their character between games. They certainly don't own any books but the Player's Handbook. They may very well pick a full caster class and rock, but they aren't interested in character builds and browsing through many books to find the right feat or prestige class or starting class dip.

Category 2 players thoroughly enjoy character building, with all that implies.

My concern is that Category 1 players will feel intimidated by Category 2 players, feel that they are "falling behind" if they don't browse all the books to look at the feats, classes, and prestige classes (not to mention magic items and spells), and will either drop out or force the other players out.

My wife is a perfect example of a category 1 player. I have other friends who are perfect examples of category 2 players. I was looking for a compromise way to limit things so as to keep the game casual and fun, without boring the character builders. Any other ideas? (Core only is quite overkill).

As DragoonWraith said, the best solution is to talk to your players and get a feel for the power level that everyone is comfortable with, and then just managing the fine art of keeping them at that level and making sure they are having fun. JaronK's tiers of play thread (it must be around this forum somewhere) is a decent attempt (with its own problems of course) at figuring out what the comfort zone is - most groups probably want to be in the 2-4 area.

Most optimizers/powergamers do so for the fun of the challenge - so if you place restrictions, the game changes to 'what's the most interesting character I can devise under these restrictions?' If you restrict them to 1 base class and 1 PrC and only 1 non-core book, most will think, 'Okay, so I can do a Cleric 20 with the spell compendium, Wiz 10/Incantatrix 10, but the Cleric 4/Crusader 1/Vindicator 10/Contemplative 5 is out,' but they won't necessarily think 'Okay, so the DM wants me to stay at XYZ level of power.'

So in other words, when placing restrictions, make it clear what level of play you're looking for, and encourage the powergamers to shoot for that. If the optimizers aren't willing to work with the other PCs to stay roughly within the same level (or if they are 'munchkins'), then the restrictions won't really matter anyhow, and you'll have to work thinks out with them again.

Still, here's the rules I often use:
-Check with the DM (me) before using a non-core book for anything - even if it's harmless (a monkey pet!), I'm still interested in how your character develops and if I should be including stuff from those books to interest your character later on.
-Let me know what you're planning to do with the character so I can help with the plot.
-Don't assume everything is available for play - your druid probably doesn't know about the dinosaurs from MM II, for example. Again, if there's stuff you really want, work with me beforehand to involve your character in it (Dinosaur Wrangler!).
-Keep things fun for everyone, including the DM. This generally means no Leadership feat unless the group is small and everyone agrees to it, for example, and not stealing the show in general.

Aldizog
2009-10-05, 10:10 PM
As the thread's original poster, I don't think I've properly articulated my concern - because it wasn't properly formulated in my mind at the thread's creation, but now it is.

There are 2 categories of players I'm interested in mixing together, and maybe it can't be done.

Category 1 players enjoy showing up to the games, and they do enjoy using all their class abilities, but they don't think about their character between games. They certainly don't own any books but the Player's Handbook. They may very well pick a full caster class and rock, but they aren't interested in character builds and browsing through many books to find the right feat or prestige class or starting class dip.

Category 2 players thoroughly enjoy character building, with all that implies.

My concern is that Category 1 players will feel intimidated by Category 2 players, feel that they are "falling behind" if they don't browse all the books to look at the feats, classes, and prestige classes (not to mention magic items and spells), and will either drop out or force the other players out.

My wife is a perfect example of a category 1 player. I have other friends who are perfect examples of category 2 players. I was looking for a compromise way to limit things so as to keep the game casual and fun, without boring the character builders. Any other ideas? (Core only is quite overkill).

1) Don't ban dipping, but fix the PrCs so that dipping isn't advantageous and seeing one through to the end is a better option. For most PrCs, make the first level not grant spellcasting, except for things like Mystic Theurge (so Spellsword would grant casting at the even levels, and Fatespinner would switch levels 1 and 5). For most caster PrCs as it is now, what you give up is trivial (especially since Immediate Magic means you aren't sacrificing familiar advancement), and you get quite a lot. The fact that PrC dipping is so often advantageous is in many cases a *bug*, not a feature, of 3.5's game design. Does anybody think that Mindbender was intended as a 1-level PrC? No. But some poor design choices on the entry requirements and level-1 abilities made it so. So fix the bug.

2) Boost the Core choices. Maybe GWF allows reroll of 1s, and GWS allows 2d20, take better 1/round. Stealthy lets you hide from blindsense, blindsight, scent, and tremorsense (Darkstalker), Toughness becomes Improved Toughness, Endurance gives a save vs. enfeeblement, fatigue, or exhaustion, Great Fortitude gives a save vs. energy drain (Font of Life), Iron Will gives a save each round to recover from daze/stunning (Quick Recovery), and Lightning Reflexes negates Power Attack damage from a Dodge target (Elusive Target). Take inspiration from the non-core material, but don't make the Type 1 players have to hunt. Just boost those non-optimal core choices. "Oh, I see you have Spring Attack. That also lets you make a full attack on a charge if you want." Just wing it. The Type 1 players can make their choices from the PHB on the basis of "This looks cool, this is generally what I want to be better at, and the DM will adjust things to make it fun."

3) Back to PrCs, ask the Type 2 players what PrCs they might eventually want to use, make the necessary adjustments, and then find a way to incorporate the organizations into the game (if they are organization-based PrCs). While you can have PrCs exist as just a bundle of abilities, it's often cooler if the Hunters of the Dead are an actual organization with a base of operations, missions, secrets, and a few notable high-level champions.

4) Boost the monsters *against the common powerful non-core options*. Give at least some enemies the Elusive Target or Cometary Collision feats, if they live in a world where Leaping Shocktroopers destroy everything in sight. Have golems built to be immune to nonmagical energy attacks, if their creators live in a world where Conjuration has beaten up Evocation and stolen its lunch money. Make the Lasting Life feat at least somewhat more common if Sudden Maximized Sudden Empowered Split Ray Enervation is every wizard's opening salvo. Don't overdo it (except for the golems). (Seriously -- "magic immunity" used to mean something.) (Poor golems.)

Diamondeye
2009-10-05, 10:18 PM
No. It's presenting a dichotomy when the listener would not (if it were spelled out) actually believe that there is a dichotomy.

That's exactly what I said. The listener is presented with two choices, generally equally unpalatable ones, when in fact there ar more thn two choices. That's why it's fallacious; the speaker intentionally fails to spell it out.


You assert this, but we don't know. It's an empirical question. It's certainly possible (neither of us has data) that there is a relationship between the two, and that this relationship is inverse. This is a question that can have evidence for/against; it can't be simply dismissed as illogical prior to obtaining any evidence.

Burden of Proof lies on the positive. If it cannot be positively shown that there is a causal relationship, then yes, it can be dismissed as illogical.


No causality is needed. All that is needed is for the two groups to actually be dichotomous.

You need some causal relationship between the two choices in order to show that there is a dichotomy. One choice must necessarily preclude the other, which means a causal relationship in which the choice of one causes the other to be unobtainable.


We have not gathered empirical evidence that the two are related or unrelated*. As long as we're playing the fallacy game, you just committed the Argument from Ignorance. Anyway, I'm not saying that there is or isn't a relationship. Just that a belief in such a relationship is not inherently fallacious.

I did no such thing. I have certainly observed cases of a person who is both a good optimizer and a good roleplayer at the same time, as have others here. If that occurs in even one case, then it cannot be that good optimization and good roleplaying are mutually exclusive. At best it can be said that they are usually exclusive, but no evidence has been presented to that effect.

Once again, the burden of proof is on the positive (the positive assertion being that the two are mutually exclusive). Even one anecdotal incident contrary to that disproves the positive as an absolute.

In other words, not only is the assertion that good roleplay and good optimization a false dilemma in a logical sense, it is empirically unsupportable as an absolute. It can, at most, be said to be usually true, but no evidence to that effect exists.

sonofzeal
2009-10-05, 11:04 PM
Four cases....

Poor Optimizer, Poor Roleplayer - Usually only casually interested in the game, or plays to make their friends or Significant Other happy. Anyone who's not really into the game probably falls here, but there's also people who just don't have the head for numbers or the acting/improv ability, but enjoy the game for other reasons.

Poor Optimizer, Good Roleplayer - These people spin fantastic narratives and play vibrant characters, and often end up DMing because it gives them more range. They often play a wide variety of system, and spend more time writing their backstory than on their character sheet.

Good Optimizer, Poor Roleplayer - The bane of the previous category. Plays highly complicated concepts with very little justification, just runs around trying to show off and get huge numbers. These guys usually try too hard, and it'll be pretty obvious to a real pro that they're trying too hard. Conversely, there's a number here who used to be in the fourth category but eventually got bored of the roleplay aspect and still enjoy working their rules-mastery.

Good Optimizer, Good Roleplayer - The veteran players who've been using the system for years/decades and have a solid mastery of it. People plugged into the online community often fall into this category, as any D&D forum will expand their knowledge of the rules and the various tricks exponentially. People in this category usually started out as Poor Optimizer / Good Roleplayer, until they gained enough comfort and familiarity with the rules. Their character are usually considerably more effective than everyone else's, even when they aren't trying.

Riffington
2009-10-06, 04:45 AM
Burden of Proof lies on the positive. If it cannot be positively shown that there is a causal relationship, then yes, it can be dismissed as illogical.

Maybe "burden of proof is on the positive" is a good razor, and it's related to a points-scoring mechanism in certain types of debate games. But that's a way of choosing between two insufficiently-supported hypotheses, not a way of dismissing one as illogical.



You need some causal relationship between the two choices in order to show that there is a dichotomy. One choice must necessarily preclude the other, which means a causal relationship in which the choice of one causes the other to be unobtainable.

I did no such thing. I have certainly observed cases of a person who is both a good optimizer and a good roleplayer at the same time, as have others here. If that occurs in even one case, then it cannot be that good optimization and good roleplaying are mutually exclusive. At best it can be said that they are usually exclusive, but no evidence has been presented to that effect.

So if I understand your position correctly, the Stormwind Fallacy exists only when person A states (or their argument relies upon the premise that) it is in all cases impossible to be both a good optimizer and a good roleplayer at the same time. If person A says something less than this (for example, that optimization interferes with good roleplaying), and person B calls this the Stormwind Fallacy, then person B is guilty of a strawman. Yes?

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-06, 09:30 AM
So if I understand your position correctly, the Stormwind Fallacy exists only when person A states (or their argument relies upon the premise that) it is in all cases impossible to be both a good optimizer and a good roleplayer at the same time. If person A says something less than this (for example, that optimization interferes with good roleplaying), and person B calls this the Stormwind Fallacy, then person B is guilty of a strawman. Yes?

If person A claims something along the lines that if he optimizes his characters, he will be less of a role player and more of a roll player, it is called Stormwind Fallacy. While it is possible to be entire Role and no Roll, adding Roll doesn't subtract from the Role.

The latter example is actually the Stormwind Fallacy, the former is outright commitment to the concept the Fallacy stands against.


Optimization does not stand in the way of Role Playing. Optimization is vital for ensuring your character can survive long enough to be Role Played. Saying that it doesn't invokes the Stormwind Fallacy.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-06, 10:07 AM
"Optimization and roleplaying are inversely proportional", then? Is that the Stormwind fallacy?

Honestly, as a vaguely defined internet-spawned semi-fallacy, it doesn't have much rigorous definition. It's convenient shorthand to describe a range of behaviors. If the position is identified ("optimization interferes with good roleplaying", to use your example), using it is usually preferable.

Is Stormwind a strawman in those cases? Possibly. But no more of a strawman than "strawman" itself is. Accusing somebody of strawman is the largest strawman I see in most forums. And now I'm guilty of strawman. :P

Ozymandias9
2009-10-06, 12:59 PM
Optimization does not stand in the way of Role Playing. Optimization is vital for ensuring your character can survive long enough to be Role Played. Saying that it does invokes the Stormwind Fallacy.

To say that "Optimization is vital [to character survival.]" is an equally absurd position. It implies that the DM would not alter the difficulty of the encounters as appropriate to table's level of optimization (or lack thereof).

But, like most overstatements, both have a smidgeon of truth.

If DM goes strictly by CR, regardless of whether the table routinely performs over or under CR, then CharOp is a good method to ensure survival. This is even more true if they go above it.

On the flip side, there are many role players who feel that metagame reasoning should be keep to an absolute minimum by players because it often substitutes for in-character decision making. In such a case, power-gaming (which is requires a certain degree CharOp) is looked down upon.

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-06, 01:39 PM
"Optimization and roleplaying are inversely proportional", then? Is that the Stormwind fallacy?

That's it. The Stormwind Fallacy IDs that statement as fallacious, and then goes on to define it as Sonofzeal put it. The relationship between Optimization and RP isn't linear, it's quadratic. You're not on one end or the other on a line, you're a point on a graph with 4 quadrants.


To say that "Optimization is vital [to character survival.]" is an equally absurd position. It implies that the DM would not alter the difficulty of the encounters as appropriate to table's level of optimization (or lack thereof).

I've explained myself with regards to this stance before, I don't want to have to explain it again.


But, like most overstatements, both have a smidgeon of truth.

If DM goes strictly by CR, regardless of whether the table routinely performs over or under CR, then CharOp is a good method to ensure survival. This is even more true if they go above it.

On the flip side, there are many role players who feel that metagame reasoning should be keep to an absolute minimum by players because it often substitutes for in-character decision making. In such a case, power-gaming (which is requires a certain degree CharOp) is looked down upon.

The problem is that metagaming will occur as long as stats are involved. If you want to avoid metagaming, throw away the pieces of paper your players have written their sheets on. Tell them flat-out that the numbers are meaningless in this campaign.

Even that may not solve it, but it helps.


Seriously, if you are taking the time to write numbers on paper, you should at least expect to use those numbers some of the time. I've seen every end of the spectrum here, and it infuriates me when the DM tells me to put my character sheet away when it's clear he wants to have an encounter. Everything from Cutscene Power to the Max to Curbstomp Battles. If it's going to be a Curbstomp, then let the dice show the victim who is boss. If fate says otherwise, so be it, Tzeentch has his ways. Hell, if anything it meant you weren't aware they were capable of that kind of power, and need to retool the BBEG to that kind of optimization.

valadil
2009-10-06, 01:51 PM
My games are more about story than game. Therefore I allow whatever makes sense to represent a character. If someone really wanted to, they could probably game my system by writing a background about being cast out from a half dozen organizations with powerful prestige classes.

aje8
2009-10-06, 02:47 PM
My games are more about story than game. Therefore I allow whatever makes sense to represent a character. If someone really wanted to, they could probably game my system by writing a background about being cast out from a half dozen organizations with powerful prestige classes.

But what if my backstory has me (or the player in question) not joining ANY organizations. What if, those are just what my Wizard can do? I simply have some ability to manipulate fate, thus I'm a Fatespinner. Also, I have the ability to enchance my spells with Meta-Magic. Thus, Incantrix. Finally, I'm devoted to my chosen school of Conjuration, thus Master Specalist. Oh, and at the high levels, I just go Archmage. I'm a demi-god by that point..... me being an Archmage needs no explanation.

I take whatever PrCs fit my characters abilities. My character is a Wizard.... if he works on his defensive magic and goes IoSFV....... that does't mean he's enetering into some organization.

This is my stance on PrCs. Mechanics are fundamentally seperate from flavor. I try to make my characters mechanics powerful while giving them good backstories. Unless the PrC is something Mage of the Arcane Order which specifically requires a group in order to make any sense, I don't let it effect my backstory whatsoever.

Diamondeye
2009-10-06, 03:46 PM
Maybe "burden of proof is on the positive" is a good razor, and it's related to a points-scoring mechanism in certain types of debate games. But that's a way of choosing between two insufficiently-supported hypotheses, not a way of dismissing one as illogical.

It's neither a "razor" nor a "points scoring mechanism". It is, however perfectly legitimate to dismiss a positive assertion that has no evidence supporting it.

There's an invisible dragon in my garage. I can provide no evidence to support this statement. Are you really going to tell me it's illogical to dismiss that assertion because I can't demonstrate any reson to think the dragon exists?

See, burden of proof is not a way of choosing between two unsupported hypothesis, because a negative is not a hypothesis. A negative is a default position until some positive is demonstrated.


So if I understand your position correctly, the Stormwind Fallacy exists only when person A states (or their argument relies upon the premise that) it is in all cases impossible to be both a good optimizer and a good roleplayer at the same time. If person A says something less than this (for example, that optimization interferes with good roleplaying), and person B calls this the Stormwind Fallacy, then person B is guilty of a strawman. Yes?

No. It depends on how much less than "always" person A is asserting. If they are asserting that it is impossible to optimize and roleplay well in, say, almost all cases, or a large majority of cases than it is really not a strawman since the statement "it is not possible to optimize well and roleplay well at the same time" would still be true as a general rule of thumb, even if it were not precisely literally true, in either of those cases.

If, on the other hand, person A asserted tht "occasionally", "sometimes", or "certain types of people" could not optimize and roleplay well, then it would be a strawman since stating that the two are exclusive all, or most, of the time, is a significant distortion of "sometimes" or "occasionally". Person A would also be making a much stronger argument since it is much easier to demonstrate that something happens occasionally than always or most of the time.

A strawman is not "failing to address the argument exactly as written" it's distorting or caricaturing it. That means a significant deviation from the actual argument.

Now, if person A specifically said that this occurs most, but not all of the time, then saying he argued it would happen all the time is a strawman.

Ozymandias9
2009-10-07, 03:06 PM
The problem is that metagaming will occur as long as stats are involved. If you want to avoid metagaming, throw away the pieces of paper your players have written their sheets on. Tell them flat-out that the numbers are meaningless in this campaign.

Even that may not solve it, but it helps.


Seriously, if you are taking the time to write numbers on paper, you should at least expect to use those numbers some of the time. I've seen every end of the spectrum here, and it infuriates me when the DM tells me to put my character sheet away when it's clear he wants to have an encounter. Everything from Cutscene Power to the Max to Curbstomp Battles. If it's going to be a Curbstomp, then let the dice show the victim who is boss. If fate says otherwise, so be it, Tzeentch has his ways. Hell, if anything it meant you weren't aware they were capable of that kind of power, and need to retool the BBEG to that kind of optimization.

Of course metagaming is possible whenever you use the simulation engine. That's what metagaming is. My point is that there are tables were its expected that you try to avoid it: that you actively try to put actions that are rational for your character through the engine, rather than taking actions that will rationally give the best result given your knowledge of the engine.

There are a plethora of things that are clear from a bird's eye grid that are not necessarily clear from a ground's eye level. There are assumptions that can be made about a the story structure of a campaign and the decisions of a GM that cannot rationally be made about the structure of a fantasy universe by someone living in it.

Moreover, you're pointing at an unrealistic extreme. I'm not suggesting that major encounters should, ever, be run as a cut scene. But those sheets of paper are tools for the players, not the characters. And the tools are used to create a simulation of battle. If you expect reasoning to be in character, then the characters should be reasoning based on the campaign as the character would see it, not the simulation there of.

Remember, one of the biggest complaints about second edition was the introduction of a not combat skill system.



See, burden of proof is not a way of choosing between two unsupported hypothesis, because a negative is not a hypothesis. A negative is a default position until some positive is demonstrated.

You are quite right: burden of proof is explicitly not a method of choosing between two unsupported hypothesizes. It implies differential support for them.

But it is only valid if a default position is taken. That is: skepticism is only ontologically sound in the process of examining the truth or fallacy of a specific proposal. It does not enter into the process of creating a hypothesis or emergentist constructivism.

Moreover, you're not making a valid default position: the negative is only a valid default position in a demonstrably binary situation, which is almost always not the case. Most often, the valid default position is that we don't know. Thus, the negative of "CharOp has a demonstratable negative effect on Role Playing" is not "CharOp has no negative effect on Role Playing," but rather "The effect of CharOp on Role Playing cannot be demonstrated." That would, incidentally, be the default position for "CharOp has no negative effect on Role Playing" as well.

Any other position carries with it a burden of proof. Only if none of them can muster that burden do razors become a valid primary tool.


I've explained myself with regards to this stance before, I don't want to have to explain it again.

I don't believe I've read it, but I have come across your views on optimization before. They seem to presume that party is made up primarily of mercenaries, adventurers, or a reasonable simulacrum thereof. It presumes that your character's primary interpersonal ties to the rest of the party are based on their usefulness in the acquisition of experience and loot. Would you do the same if the weak link character happened to be your character's brother? Or their lover? How long would you put up with someone your character actively hated merely because they're useful? How selfish are you willing to be around the holy man who is risking his life to raise your dead children?

PhoenixRivers
2009-10-07, 03:25 PM
Belief in hypothesized relationships without demonstrating an actual causality is the hallmark of many of the great scientific errors made.

For instance, did you know that rotting meat spontaneously creates maggots?

12th century Europe did. Meat rots, it gets maggots. Must mean that the meat makes maggots.

It was only when someone decided to be skeptical, and performed an experiment, that he discovered that it wasn't true.

The difference between two things occurring often, and two things being related, is a fine one, but it exists. In the above example, meat didn't create maggots. It was an excellent food source for them, though, and so flies laid eggs. There is a relationship between rotting meat and maggots, but not the one assumed.

For the same reason, assuming that because you often see an optimizer focus on the mechanics to the point of obviating roleplay, that there's a relationship. But the data is neither complete, nor founded in anything other than circumstantial observation.

I optimize. I optimize well. I know many of the tricks out there. I believe I also roleplay well. Those that support this inverse relationship tell me that this cannot be so. They see the ease at which I navigate the rules, and they tell me, by that, that I don't know how to roleplay. That I can't play their way.

Personally? I find that statement unfounded, and insulting. So, darn skippy that I'm going to demand more than circumstantial observations at the gaming store.

ken-do-nim
2009-10-07, 03:42 PM
I optimize. I optimize well. I know many of the tricks out there. I believe I also roleplay well. Those that support this inverse relationship tell me that this cannot be so. They see the ease at which I navigate the rules, and they tell me, by that, that I don't know how to roleplay. That I can't play their way.

Personally? I find that statement unfounded, and insulting. So, darn skippy that I'm going to demand more than circumstantial observations at the gaming store.

I know you guys have headed off on a tangent, but as the OP I just wanted to mention that I don't care if you can roleplay well on top of your optimization. If you're intimidating the other players with your build, it's a problem. Now if you're taking a huge amount of classes just to fit a character concept that isn't overpowered, that's okay. Knock yourself out. So I guess I can't make a draconian ruling and say only one prestige class, I just have to go case-by-case and hope I can avoid arguments.

Ozymandias9
2009-10-07, 03:46 PM
Belief in hypothesized relationships without demonstrating an actual causality is the hallmark of many of the great scientific errors made.

For instance, did you know that rotting meat spontaneously creates maggots?

12th century Europe did. Meat rots, it gets maggots. Must mean that the meat makes maggots.

Wouldn't it be interesting is spontaneous generation were real?

Back on (our admittedly ancillary) topic, not everything is scientifically demonstrable. (Also, modern science demonstrates, first and foremost, correlation rather than causation.) Where a hypothesis is capable of being falsified, experimentation should be used.

But when you are left with more than one hypothesis and you cannot, either by lack of means or lack of possibility, prove of falsify one or the other, there are still means for making a logical choice.

I for one, don't believe that CharOp and role playing are, in most cases, counterposed.

There are, however, role playing tables that focus on limiting the impact of the engine on the simulation. When that is the case, CharOp, which requires a certain degree of metagame reasoning, does run directly counter to that goal. Moreover, many of the tables that I've sat at that use such conventions look down on CharOp merely because it draws attention to the engine.

It's still very possible to meet the role playing level of the table, particularly if you are creative and skilled at it. But keep in mind that people who view the game as a story simulation and people who view it as an adventure game have different goals for the system.

I tend to dislike the extreme versions of the former just as much as the later. Quite possibly because the table with such conventions that I've sat at most was very uptight and restrictive. Also, he used 3d6 in order, no switch.

Tyndmyr
2009-10-07, 03:48 PM
large amount of prestige classes /= optimization
optimization /= bad roleplaying.
large amount of prestige classes /= bad roleplaying.

Yes, in specific instances, they might, but overall, it's certainly not always the case.

If something specific is causing a problem in your campaign, deal with it, sure, but there's no need to get ban happy on everything vaguely related.

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-07, 03:58 PM
I don't believe I've read it, but I have come across your views on optimization before. They seem to presume that party is made up primarily of mercenaries, adventurers, or a reasonable simulacrum thereof. It presumes that your character's primary interpersonal ties to the rest of the party are based on their usefulness in the acquisition of experience and loot. Would you do the same if the weak link character happened to be your character's brother? Or their lover? How long would you put up with someone your character actively hated merely because they're useful? How selfish are you willing to be around the holy man who is risking his life to raise your dead children?

If they're lack of ability poses a threat to the party, or if they are unable to protect themselves competently, then I would ask them to stay behind in a safer location.

If the holy man was another party member, I tolerate 4 failed attempts. After that, I find a new ally. If I actually hated their character, but they kept proving themselves powerful/useful in a number of common situations, then I bite my tongue. I swallow my grudge. If it starts becoming a problem, I RP it out with that player's character IC, letting them know that I dislike them but also telling them that I think they are too valuable an asset to not have. If it comes to blows, then that's his way of dealing with me and I am forced to exert my strength to demonstrate. If I fail, then I either bring in a new character (and leave the grudge behind, this is assuming I die), or grant them my respect (if they spare me) and never bring it up again.

If a player in my group is playing a character too incompetent to provide serious support (this ranges from Healbot Cleric when its clear that we're not taking damage to Blaster Wizard who has no regards for his allies, to even the amalgam multiclasser who just doesn't realize it), I point out that their character is harming the group more than they are helping (in the case of the Healbot, I point out that he's an XP and Treasure sink and we're doing just fine without in-combat healing, then ask him to prepare some other spells and be less wasteful). If it continues, I step up and offer the player help with the character, and ask them to reassess their abilities in a way that can contribute a positive output. If it still doesn't end, then the character has become a liability. At that point I ask the player to make a new character. If they refuse, then I ask them to justify their character's presence in the party, and point out his weaknesses to the others. If he still refuses to back down, then the diplomacy isn't working. I try to assess the problem from every angle I can until I find an answer.


I focus on party efficiency when dealing with our character sheets. If I notice a severe deficiency, I root it out and deal with the problem so the party will not have a major liability. I'm perfectly willing to do this to even my character's best friend, or my own IRL if need be. I don't tell them how to play their characters, I let them know that their character is holding us back and offer advice on how to resolve the issue if needed.


My justification for this is simple: I'm putting myself in my character's shoes. If the weakness created by that player's character is too large, then I do my best to cover for them while offering assistance to the player so he can amend this weakness. I view a party as a machine; if one of the parts is faulty, apply maintenance. If the part cannot be repaired, replace it. I make it sound a little cold-blooded, but I'm actually very caring about it when IC. I do my best to show that my character places party survival at a higher value than individual friendship. In the case of Evil characters, I make the pecking order clear to them. If they step outside of it, then they have to deal with me directly.

Ozymandias9
2009-10-07, 04:16 PM
My justification for this is simple: I'm putting myself in my character's shoes. If the weakness created by that player's character is too large, then I do my best to cover for them while offering assistance to the player so he can amend this weakness. I view a party as a machine; if one of the parts is faulty, apply maintenance. If the part cannot be repaired, replace it. I make it sound a little cold-blooded, but I'm actually very caring about it when IC. I do my best to show that my character places party survival at a higher value than individual friendship. In the case of Evil characters, I make the pecking order clear to them. If they step outside of it, then they have to deal with me directly.

Does your character view the party as a machine? What role does if fulfill in their world view? Why do they have a durable concept of party? If the zombie apocalypse came and threw you together with 4 random people you knew from your town, would you ask one of them to leave and likely die merely because they aren't as combat ready?

The very idea that your character has no goal higher than the success of a particular mission would seem to me to provide a very limited range of characters to role play. It seems almost like every character you play is behaving like a professional soldier. Even such basic tropes as the pacifist village priest or the devoted bodyguard would seem out of place.

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-07, 04:37 PM
Does your character view the party as a machine? What role does if fulfill in their world view? Why do they have a durable concept of party? If the zombie apocalypse came and threw you together with 4 random people you knew from your town, would you ask one of them to leave and likely die merely because they aren't as combat ready?

1: Some of them do. Others have different ideas, but that one forms the backbone of most of my characters. I prioritize efficiency and survival, with the rest beneath those two goals.

2: Tanking usually.

3: Don't quite understand this question, could you rephrase it?

4: Upon finding a safe haven for the person, yes. At least, only if they hadn't tried to amend their weaknesses in some decent way. If it is at that point, I make sure to establish safety somewhere (likely another plane of existence).



The very idea that your character has no goal higher than the success of a particular mission would seem to me to provide a very limited range of characters to role play. It seems almost like every character you play is behaving like a professional soldier. Even such basic tropes as the pacifist village priest or the devoted bodyguard would seem out of place.

You'd be surprised at what a good writer can come up with. I generally don't have that as the direct background of my character, and I'm fairly flexible when it comes to fulfilling that goal. In the case of a Wizard, I usually play the GOD role and buff the party to the point where their individual optimization doesn't really matter that much. As I said, I cover for my allies as much as my character is capable of.

PhoenixRivers
2009-10-07, 04:38 PM
I know you guys have headed off on a tangent, but as the OP I just wanted to mention that I don't care if you can roleplay well on top of your optimization. If you're intimidating the other players with your build, it's a problem. Now if you're taking a huge amount of classes just to fit a character concept that isn't overpowered, that's okay. Knock yourself out. So I guess I can't make a draconian ruling and say only one prestige class, I just have to go case-by-case and hope I can avoid arguments.

Oh, I can make an unbalanced and overpowered character with nothing but base classes. I can also do it with Prestige classes. My favorites are the ones with power that scales easily. Thus, I can perform on par with a weaker group, and not steal the show, and, when dire circumstances dictate, I can nova, and pull a last ditch effort when all is lost. Something like, reserves of strength you didn't know you had. Mother lifting a car to save her son, and that.

Intimidation of a build comes from dominating a table. That's the issue that needs addressing.

Ozymandias9
2009-10-07, 04:57 PM
1: Some of them do. Others have different ideas, but that one forms the backbone of most of my characters. I prioritize efficiency and survival, with the rest beneath those two goals.

Why? What makes that the goal of every character that you play? Is there a reason that you never play an inefficient character? Such people do, after all exist.



2: Tanking usually.

3: Don't quite understand this question, could you rephrase it?
These were actually more or less the same question. What role does the idea of a "party" play in the game world in most your games? A "party" is a meta-game abstraction for a group of people facing danger together. What usually brings those people together and places them in danger?


You'd be surprised at what a good writer can come up with. I generally don't have that as the direct background of my character, and I'm fairly flexible when it comes to fulfilling that goal. In the case of a Wizard, I usually play the GOD role and buff the party to the point where their individual optimization doesn't really matter that much. As I said, I cover for my allies as much as my character is capable of.

I didn't mean to imply that they were all actually professional soldiers, but rather that they were looking at the danger with an outlook the is similar thereto. Nor do I doubt that you can role play them effectively.

But it would seem to be an outlook most realistic for someone who faces such danger regularly, and most likely on a professional/semi-professional level. Put another way, this only seems like it would fit easiest for characters who are "adventurers" by choice.

What about the people who are drawn from their peaceful lives into combat? Would you play the tower wizard the same way? The cloistered cleric? If your character had never before been in anything more serious than a bar-fight, why would he reason that way?

ken-do-nim
2009-10-07, 09:05 PM
Oh, I can make an unbalanced and overpowered character with nothing but base classes. I can also do it with Prestige classes. My favorites are the ones with power that scales easily. Thus, I can perform on par with a weaker group, and not steal the show, and, when dire circumstances dictate, I can nova, and pull a last ditch effort when all is lost. Something like, reserves of strength you didn't know you had. Mother lifting a car to save her son, and that.

Intimidation of a build comes from dominating a table. That's the issue that needs addressing.

Oh I realize that, I just don't want anyone at the table to feel like they *have* to buy all those other books - or even browse through them - to keep up. I don't want my D&D to become Magic the Gathering; that's really all I ask.

Kaldrin
2009-10-07, 11:00 PM
Oh I realize that, I just don't want anyone at the table to feel like they *have* to buy all those other books - or even browse through them - to keep up. I don't want my D&D to become Magic the Gathering; that's really all I ask.

It's odd that out of all the systems I've played D&D is the only system where I've seen this feeling being generated in the players. I think I own all of about four books.

You could just challenge your players to make up an old school one class per character group... and don't allow any of those dirty multi-class elves into the game. They'd just mess it up. :)

Riffington
2009-10-08, 01:36 AM
It's neither a "razor" nor a "points scoring mechanism". It is, however perfectly legitimate to dismiss a positive assertion that has no evidence supporting it.
Since this positive assertion has no evidence supporting it, I suppose I'll discard it.



There's an invisible dragon in my garage. I can provide no evidence to support this statement. Are you really going to tell me it's illogical to dismiss that assertion because I can't demonstrate any reson to think the dragon exists?
Logic != best course of action. Logic is a formal system of proof and disproof. You cannot "logically" dismiss any premise. You can only logically dismiss an argument whose conclusions do not follow from the premises, or a set of mutually contradictory premises.



No. It depends on how much less than "always" person A is asserting. If they are asserting that it is impossible to optimize and roleplay well in, say, almost all cases, or a large majority of cases than it is really not a strawman since the statement "it is not possible to optimize well and roleplay well at the same time" would still be true as a general rule of thumb, even if it were not precisely literally true, in either of those cases.



if that occurs in even one case, then it cannot be that good optimization and good roleplaying are mutually exclusive

Diamondeye, which of these statements you made would you like to recant or back away from? I want to make sure I understand your actual position - I'm not just trying to trip you up.


Anyway, the most reasonable way to phrase the optimization vs roleplaying problem is really this: Excessive optimization interferes with roleplaying. That formulation everyone should agree with; it simply leaves open the very large question of "when exactly does it start to get in the way?"

Ozymandias9
2009-10-08, 02:19 AM
Anyway, the most reasonable way to phrase the optimization vs roleplaying problem is really this: Excessive optimization interferes with roleplaying. That formulation everyone should agree with; it simply leaves open the very large question of "when exactly does it start to get in the way?"

There are several people posting in the thread that would disagree with it, both in terms of the idea of excessive optimization being possible and with the idea that it inherently interferes with role-playing.

I for one, think that it does have a tendency to interfere with certain extremes of role playing, particularly those with high thresholds for what needs to be in character. But even extreme CharOp might not interfere with more casual methods of role play.

I would be interested to know whether or not people feel there is a correlation amongst role players of the relative levels of CharOp and Role Playing they aim for. That is, whether or not we can agree that there are a large number of CharOpers who are dismissive of Deep Immersion Roleplayers and/or Deep Immersion Roleplayers who are dismissive of CharOpers.

Personally, I have found both to be true (again: correlation, i.e. not in every individual cases).

DragoonWraith
2009-10-08, 02:35 AM
If you're defining "excessive" optimization as "so much that it interferes with roleplaying", as you seem to be defining it, then yes, it does - by definition. But then the question becomes, when is that point reached? Is there some theoretical limit to optimization where it becomes impossible to maintain one's roleplaying skills?

The maximum limit of optimization, I'm sure pretty much everyone will agree, is Pun-Pun. Certainly not actually playable, because he automatically wins at anything he attempts, and may attempt to do anything he can imagine (and his imagination is limited only by his players', as by rights anything that is imaginable should be easy for him to imagine, with his mental scores). That doesn't make for a good game.

Does it prevent roleplaying? I think role-playing Pun-Pun would be rather easy; it practically writes itself. You're a Kobold, you're weak, downtrodden, neglected, and lauged at. So you decide to show them all, break all the rules, and become infinitely powerful - and you succeed. That's a character, if a somewhat tunnel-vision one. Of course, with that much power, how you roleplay what he does with it also becomes extremely interesting; I think the character is rife with roleplaying potential.

If you can roleplay Pun-Pun, I don't think I agree that there is any such thing as "excessive" optimizing to the point where it prevents roleplaying. "Excessive" roleplaying might easily negatively affect a great number of other things (balance, other players' enjoyment, etc etc), but I don't think roleplaying is one of them as a rule. There may certainly be a correlation, but there is by no means a causal relationship here.

And, as has been said repeatedly - the optimization of a character has nothing to do with the number of classes it takes, as a rule. Some combinations improve power, some combinations lower it, so simply knowing the number of classes involved tells you nothing about the actual power level of a character. And again - some combinations of classes are trivially simple to roleplay - to go back to my 20-class build, Abjurer, Master Specialist, Suel Arcanamach, Abjurant Champion, Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil are all dedicated to one thing - Abjuration. Not only is it not difficult to imagine one person with all of that, it is almost to be expected that a truly focused Abjurer would be interested in all of that, except maybe the Suel Arcanamach. Other combinations are harder - but by no means impossible. Ur-Priest and Church Inquisitor? Uh, well, OK, how'd you convince a church to sanction you, considering your about as heretical as you can possibly be? More challenging, but an appropriate backstory can answer the question quite well and lead to a potentially very interesting character.

sonofzeal
2009-10-08, 02:48 AM
There are several people posting in the thread that would disagree with it, both in terms of the idea of excessive optimization being possible and with the idea that it inherently interferes with role-playing.

I for one, think that it does have a tendency to interfere with certain extremes of role playing, particularly those with high thresholds for what needs to be in character. But even extreme CharOp might not interfere with more casual methods of role play.

I would be interested to know whether or not people feel there is a correlation amongst role players of the relative levels of CharOp and Role Playing they aim for. That is, whether or not we can agree that there are a large number of CharOpers who are dismissive of Deep Immersion Roleplayers and/or Deep Immersion Roleplayers who are dismissive of CharOpers.

Personally, I have found both to be true (again: correlation, i.e. not in every individual cases).
I've found the latter to be true far more than the former. Many of the best optimizers in the business are also solid roleplay, able to play convincing and evocative characters. I've not personally met a single one who's outright dismissive of "deep immersion roleplay". Most are outright in support of it, actually, whether or not it's their personal preference. The process of building characters is always meta, and it's just as meta no matter how good you are at it. They happen to be very good, balancing all sorts of concerns to try to bring an interesting concept to life in a way that'll be effective at the table. But as soon as game begins, the ones I know play their character in a reasonable and compelling manner, often making "mistakes" in order to stay in character, like being overaggressive against racial enemies or standing down from a fight they know OOG they could win. Optimizing is all about the challenge of character creation, and nothing to do with actually playing the game.

Now, that said I do think there's a bit of a correlation, in that people who start the game as hardcore RPers from the get-go are unlike to become (or want to become) solid optimizers. I've yet to meet an optimizer who couldn't RP, but I've met plenty of RPers who couldn't optimize, and really that's probably enough to establish some sort of minor correlation. I don't really think it means anything though.

Riffington
2009-10-08, 03:26 AM
If you're defining "excessive" optimization as "so much that it interferes with roleplaying", as you seem to be defining it, then yes, it does - by definition. But then the question becomes, when is that point reached?
Yes, and I don't have a full answer to that.


Is there some theoretical limit to optimization where it becomes impossible to maintain one's roleplaying skills? The maximum limit of optimization, I'm sure pretty much everyone will agree, is Pun-Pun.
I don't agree (and the rest of your stuff is well-written, but relies on this premise that I disagree with, so I'll cut it off). Overoptimization does not refer to a certain power level. Yes, Pun-Pun is infinitely powerful. But he's not particularly optimized. He has an infinite loop built in, and that means he never needs to optimize anything once he gets that loop. He just adds it on if he feels like it and doesn't if he doesn't. Optimization involves tradeoffs, and he doesn't need any.

So I'll give a concrete example of optimization getting in the way: morality paths in Vampire. Say you are on the Path of Honorable Accord. You are bound to respect the honor of honorable foes, and this is a genuine drawback (and interesting to roleplay). Simply define your belief system so as to disbelieve your mortal enemies' honor, and you have an easier time, a more powerful character, and lose out on good roleplay. A similar example can be seen when players decide that they don't want to care much about relationships. That's fine if you do it in the tough-guy or angsty way where you then care about your inability to care, but the cheesy way is anti-roleplaying.

Now, there's a huge amount of grey area, and I don't know that I can define it. A good example of the grey area might be "I have spent $10,000,000 on my cyberware and armor. For eating, there's ramen noodles."

sonofzeal
2009-10-08, 03:50 AM
I don't agree (and the rest of your stuff is well-written, but relies on this premise that I disagree with, so I'll cut it off). Overoptimization does not refer to a certain power level. Yes, Pun-Pun is infinitely powerful. But he's not particularly optimized. He has an infinite loop built in, and that means he never needs to optimize anything once he gets that loop. He just adds it on if he feels like it and doesn't if he doesn't. Optimization involves tradeoffs, and he doesn't need any.

So I'll give a concrete example of optimization getting in the way: morality paths in Vampire. Say you are on the Path of Honorable Accord. You are bound to respect the honor of honorable foes, and this is a genuine drawback (and interesting to roleplay). Simply define your belief system so as to disbelieve your mortal enemies' honor, and you have an easier time, a more powerful character, and lose out on good roleplay. A similar example can be seen when players decide that they don't want to care much about relationships. That's fine if you do it in the tough-guy or angsty way where you then care about your inability to care, but the cheesy way is anti-roleplaying.

Now, there's a huge amount of grey area, and I don't know that I can define it. A good example of the grey area might be "I have spent $10,000,000 on my cyberware and armor. For eating, there's ramen noodles."
Hmm, I can't speak for DragoonWraith, but I see your point. That's rather different than how D&D is set up though; can you give an example inside the system we're actually discussing?

But honestly, I see roleplay potential even here. It certainly raises interesting questions - why does the character refuse to accept his opponent's honour? What's his history with those opponents that makes him distrust them so much? In what other ways does his personal bias show? Is he fundamentally "racist" (or the nearest V:tM parallel) and what does that mean inside the game? Is that, perhaps, an even bigger disadvantage than the one he's avoiding?

As for the techie with multi million dollar gear and instant noodles, hey, that's a well-established archetype, and just as roleplayable as the casual playboy with the fast car and faster women.

Killer Angel
2009-10-08, 04:09 AM
I'd like to know how many - if any - DMs make it a rule to limit pcs to one prestige class each.

Wow... I join late the discussion.
Yes, in our group the prcs are often (not always) limited to one per pc.
This is justified by the fact that the Prc are usually tied with a specific organization, with specific training, almost always at the service of kingdoms.
If a pc is trained by such an organization, almost certainly will not be trained by another specialized group.
Exceptions exist, but are rare and justified with good backgroung or in-game developement.

PhoenixRivers
2009-10-08, 08:53 AM
If you're defining "excessive" optimization as "so much that it interferes with roleplaying", as you seem to be defining it, then yes, it does - by definition. But then the question becomes, when is that point reached? Is there some theoretical limit to optimization where it becomes impossible to maintain one's roleplaying skills?


I doubt there's an optimization level that interferes with RP, in and of itself. It's a difference in optimization levels among party members, or, more importantly, the more optimized players stealing the spotlight that does this.

In short, it's action, not optimization, that intimidates players. Nobody in their right mind will be intimidated by a sheet of paper with game information on it. It's only when you use it in a manner that marginalizes other players that people feel bad.

Riffington
2009-10-08, 09:08 AM
Hmm, I can't speak for DragoonWraith, but I see your point. That's rather different than how D&D is set up though; can you give an example inside the system we're actually discussing?

But honestly, I see roleplay potential even here. It certainly raises interesting questions - why does the character refuse to accept his opponent's honour? What's his history with those opponents that makes him distrust them so much? In what other ways does his personal bias show? Is he fundamentally "racist" (or the nearest V:tM parallel) and what does that mean inside the game? Is that, perhaps, an even bigger disadvantage than the one he's avoiding?

As for the techie with multi million dollar gear and instant noodles, hey, that's a well-established archetype, and just as roleplayable as the casual playboy with the fast car and faster women.

So, I think you can *theoretically* justify any of those things taken individually, particularly if you don't take them too far. There's no one thing that can't be roleplayed. But good roleplaying requires weaknesses, and for those weaknesses to be ones that come up and affect the character. Optimization involves getting rid of the weaknesses. That's fine to a point. There's a point after which it stops being fine and just becomes lame. For example, the techie who spends all his money on tech is indeed an archetype, but that archetype exists because his vices (for shiny, for new, for zoom, for entertainment, for drugs) happen not to be food. Turning him into Batman-minus-Bruce Wayne is lame.

I'd say one example in D&D is if you play with flaws, it is highly unlikely that the two most interesting flaws to fit your character will happen to be the two that are least likely to ever come up.
Another would be a specific type of wizard that we like to call "paranoid" who scries before crossing his own front door and refuses to trust anyone except for the three people he happens to know are PCs.

DragoonWraith
2009-10-08, 09:10 AM
I think the only way you can argue that optimization, as a rule, negatively affects roleplaying, is when your character honestly should be making a mistake, and by optimizing and doing the best possible thing, you are breaking character.

However, you could also very easily optimize a character for in-character effectiveness - if you've got 20+ Int and Wis, by rights you shouldn't be making mental mistakes, except perhaps in social situations (since I didn't list Cha).

Even without the Wis, that really is mostly about your perception - and so you do worse on Spot and Listen and Survival. But you're still Intelligent enough that you should be taking the best possible option every time.

I don't think metagaming inherently falls into optimization. If you include metagaming, then yes, optimization is a problem.

Personally, I optimize character builds, but then play the character. If we're talking about optimization of character actions rather than just the build, I have less input - unless your character is mechanically designed to be too smart to make such mistakes (very high Int) and has extremely accurate sources of information (which may very likely require high Wis and/or Cha), I think that optimizing character actions may in fact negatively impact roleplaying. But that's not what we'd been discussing previously, or at least I hadn't.

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-08, 09:15 AM
Why? What makes that the goal of every character that you play? Is there a reason that you never play an inefficient character? Such people do, after all exist.

There's a leeway on inefficiency. If the player is playing a Chain Tripper Fighter, then I accept his inadequacy in other areas because he's capable at doing his primary job quite well (tanking).

The goals of my individual characters varies based on the DM or module I'm in.

There is a reason for me to play inefficient characters myself: To find out what's wrong with that particular class or combination. The thing is, I can make up for my weaknesses through WBL expenditure as I have a strong sense of system mastery. Even my weakest character (a Soulborn 20, to date) was capable of sinking his GP into improving the party's survivability, and I did so to ensure that party wouldn't notice my class' deficiency.

The thing is, I don't feel that underpowered characters should call themselves adventurers. At best, the Healbot Cleric is a Cohort to the entire party, doing nothing but popping heal spells off whenever the party takes damage. An underpowered Blaster Wizard? At most, a mook or cult leader. IMO, underpowered characters do not fit into a proper adventuring party.


These were actually more or less the same question. What role does the idea of a "party" play in the game world in most your games? A "party" is a meta-game abstraction for a group of people facing danger together. What usually brings those people together and places them in danger?

The definition of the word can be stretched to include thousands of characters. I use it to refer to the other Players and their characters, with the occasional cohort or NPC being involved. I don't see what this question has to do with my playstyle.




But it would seem to be an outlook most realistic for someone who faces such danger regularly, and most likely on a professional/semi-professional level. Put another way, this only seems like it would fit easiest for characters who are "adventurers" by choice.

What about the people who are drawn from their peaceful lives into combat? Would you play the tower wizard the same way? The cloistered cleric? If your character had never before been in anything more serious than a bar-fight, why would he reason that way?

1: The Tower Wizard isn't a PC. That concept doesn't fit with a campaign unless the DM builds around it.

2: Flavor is mutable. This is the single most important thing behind optimizing a character (equal in priority is CO's Thou shall not lose caster levels motto). Because this flavor is so flexible, I can play any class without worrying about the underlying context, at the DM's digression.

3: Then he wouldn't have that mentality IC.



The main point you are overlooking is this: Its far easier to finish a campaign if no one in the party dies. You can't RP if your character is dead during the downtime. I optimize to ensure that my characters can survive that long. If a player's character is so inefficient that it actually prevents him from RPing due to death count, I have reason to step in. However, I don't wait until it all ready happened to step in; I intervene if I feel his level of optimization is too low and the risk of his character dying is higher than it should be.

Riffington
2009-10-08, 09:40 AM
I don't think metagaming inherently falls into optimization. If you include metagaming, then yes, optimization is a problem.

Personally, I optimize character builds, but then play the character. If we're talking about optimization of character actions rather than just the build, I have less input

So this might be a difference in definition. Does optimization mean optimization in-game? Or does optimization just mean optimization of the starting statistics? If the latter, then well - statistics aren't really a character then. The character is personality and history. And you'd think PrCs are history, but with the emphasis on "refluffing", they aren't history. Perhaps not everyone goes to the point of creating their wu shu martial arts guys as Druid/Planar Shepherd, with all the spells "refluffed" as martial arts moves, but something in that direction. So a Build isn't a character.

But wait then: if you're leveling a character, and you have an optimal build planned out, but the character would make different suboptimal choices in game for the next level given the chronicle's events... do you pick the "in-character" choice, or the "optimal" choice?



- unless your character is mechanically designed to be too smart to make such mistakes (very high Int) and has extremely accurate sources of information (which may very likely require high Wis and/or Cha),

This is a separate problem, it's actually totally unclear how to roleplay mental stats 4 (or so) above your own.

Jayabalard
2009-10-08, 10:00 AM
You'd be surprised at what a good writer can come up with. I don't think he would be; his point remains, you're limited to a very narrow set of characters compared to the total set of all characters that can be roleplayed.

DragoonWraith
2009-10-08, 10:16 AM
So this might be a difference in definition. Does optimization mean optimization in-game? Or does optimization just mean optimization of the starting statistics? If the latter, then well - statistics aren't really a character then. The character is personality and history. And you'd think PrCs are history, but with the emphasis on "refluffing", they aren't history. Perhaps not everyone goes to the point of creating their wu shu martial arts guys as Druid/Planar Shepherd, with all the spells "refluffed" as martial arts moves, but something in that direction. So a Build isn't a character.
Character comes from the build or the build comes from the character. They're related, but they are not the same.


But wait then: if you're leveling a character, and you have an optimal build planned out, but the character would make different suboptimal choices in game for the next level given the chronicle's events... do you pick the "in-character" choice, or the "optimal" choice?
The "level up" mechanic is basically impossible to roleplay, really. I make some attempts at it - I plan on having my Sorcerer take a few levels of Human Paragon to get some Knowledge (The Planes) and Sleight of Hand, so I had him ask the Rogue to teach him some Sleight of Hand and the Wizard pick up some books on the planes for him from the local Arcane University library. But it's very difficult to do, really, and so I usually don't make more than a token attempt at it. D&D 3.5, unfortunately, does not do a good job of letting characters evolve, because you need to do so much pre-planning to meet pre-requisites. It's a weakness of the system, but a difficult one to remove. As such, I don't really worry about it too much.

Basically, level-ups are discontinuities on the graph of verisimilitude that is the game. They're wonky and inherently meta-y, and there's very little you can do about it.

Boci
2009-10-08, 10:20 AM
So this might be a difference in definition. Does optimization mean optimization in-game? Or does optimization just mean optimization of the starting statistics? If the latter, then well - statistics aren't really a character then. The character is personality and history. And you'd think PrCs are history, but with the emphasis on "refluffing", they aren't history. Perhaps not everyone goes to the point of creating their wu shu martial arts guys as Druid/Planar Shepherd, with all the spells "refluffed" as martial arts moves, but something in that direction. So a Build isn't a character.

The mechanics are the bones of the character, the fluff is just the flesah. You can play a D&D without any fluff and you've got a skeleton: it works, but its really dull. However, you cannot play D&D without the bones.


But wait then: if you're leveling a character, and you have an optimal build planned out, but the character would make different suboptimal choices in game for the next level given the chronicle's events... do you pick the "in-character" choice, or the "optimal" choice?

I control my character. Why would he want to do something different to me? Maybe my frenzied beseker admires the dervish NPC he met, in which case he gives it a lot of though and realizes that as beautiful as it is, the fighting style is not for me.

Ozymandias9
2009-10-08, 10:23 AM
IMO, underpowered characters do not fit into a proper adventuring party. [...]The definition of the word can be stretched to include thousands of characters. I use it to refer to the other Players and their characters, with the occasional cohort or NPC being involved. I don't see what this question has to do with my playstyle.

What does an "adventuring party" represent storywise? Likewise, what does an "adventurer" represent storywise? The party plays a very different story function if they are operating for in a fairly mercenary manner than if they are, say, a group of young friends that returned home and found many of their village taken by slavers. What is the common motivation? And, from there, how does it figure into your character's larger motivation?

There are a lot of good story hooks beyond the have the characters acting with motivations other than the pursuit of the rather mercenary rewards of "adventuring."


The thing is, I don't feel that underpowered characters should call themselves adventurers.
I don't believe any character should call themselves an "adventurer" in any game with more than casual role playing. It's a plot cop out, for both the DM and the players.


1: The Tower Wizard isn't a PC. That concept doesn't fit with a campaign unless the DM builds around it.

The tower wizard or the healer can fit in fine if your group was brought together out of chance and not organized with combat prowess in mind.


2: Flavor is mutable. This is the single most important thing behind optimizing a character (equal in priority is CO's Thou shall not lose caster levels motto). Because this flavor is so flexible, I can play any class without worrying about the underlying context, at the DM's digression.

The default fluff is mutable, certainly. In an immersion game, the stuff that defines your character should not be: at least, no more so than a normal person's motivations are. The basic convention at such tables I've played at is to make the character as a person first, then fit the class levels he would take to the personality.


The main point you are overlooking is this: Its far easier to finish a campaign if no one in the party dies. You can't RP if your character is dead during the downtime. I optimize to ensure that my characters can survive that long. If a player's character is so inefficient that it actually prevents him from RPing due to death count, I have reason to step in. However, I don't wait until it all ready happened to step in; I intervene if I feel his level of optimization is too low and the risk of his character dying is higher than it should be.

No, I don't overlook it. I know that the campaign will be slower if people die. The point is that in heavy role playing games, that's often beyond a secondary concern. Indeed, in heavy role playing games, a death or two might be leveraged as a method of focusing the danger in the campaign.


As for the techie with multi million dollar gear and instant noodles, hey, that's a well-established archetype, and just as roleplayable as the casual playboy with the fast car and faster women.
Yes, but if all your characters fall into that archetype, you're not really demonstrating much skill as a role player.

Boci
2009-10-08, 10:25 AM
What does an "adventuring party" represent storywise? Likewise, what does an "adventurer" represent storywise? The party plays a very different story function if they are operating for in a fairly mercenary manner than if they are, say, a group of young friends that returned home and found many of their village taken by slavers. What is the common motivation? And, from there, how does it figure into your character's larger motivation?

Ultimatly, an adventuring party is a group of people who for whatever motivation go cruising for bruising. This could be fore money, to rid the world of evil, because fighting is the only thing they can do or because they are scared to live a normal life. But one element remains the same: they fight on a regular bases. Being an unoptomized adventurer is like decidng to be a teacher even though you hate kids. It could work, but its a stupid choice.


The default fluff is mutable, certainly. In an immersion game, the stuff that defines your character should not be: at least, no more so than a normal person's motivations are. The basic convention at such tables I've played at is to make the character as a person first, then fit the class levels he would take to the personality.

So its bad to have a character whose class was decided first? Even though it was through his class that I decided what his personality would be like?


No, I don't overlook it. I know that the campaign will be slower if people die. The point is that in heavy role playing games, that's often beyond a secondary concern. Indeed, in heavy role playing games, a death or two might be leveraged as a method of focusing the danger in the campaign.

If I invest emotional resources into my PC, I want him to stay alieve. If your PC keeps dying, roleplaying him will be harder.


Yes, but if all your characters fall into that archetype, you're not really demonstrating much skill as a role player.

What is wrong with a character whose two sentance discription is a well established archetype? Archetype are common because well, you know, they stay alieve.

Riffington
2009-10-08, 10:50 AM
I control my character. Why would he want to do something different to me?

Because if you do it right he becomes a real person who can surprise you.
Good authors remark on this fact all the time: they write out a plot, and then their characters derail it by doing something the author hadn't anticipated.



The "level up" mechanic is basically impossible to roleplay, really. I make some attempts at it - I plan on having my Sorcerer take a few levels of Human Paragon to get some Knowledge (The Planes) and Sleight of Hand, so I had him ask the Rogue to teach him some Sleight of Hand and the Wizard pick up some books on the planes for him from the local Arcane University library. But it's very difficult to do, really, and so I usually don't make more than a token attempt at it. D&D 3.5, unfortunately, does not do a good job of letting characters evolve, because you need to do so much pre-planning to meet pre-requisites. It's a weakness of the system, but a difficult one to remove. As such, I don't really worry about it too much.

Basically, level-ups are discontinuities on the graph of verisimilitude that is the game. They're wonky and inherently meta-y, and there's very little you can do about it.

Ok, that's fine and I agree so far. But if you realize that (based on events and his personality) he really isn't going to be interested in learning Sleight of Hand at this time even though it's required for his next PrC... that he'd really be focusing all his efforts on Knowledge Religion and Concentration, do you skip that PrC and go with what feels right, or do you take the planned skills and PrC anyway?

lsfreak
2009-10-08, 11:27 AM
Ok, that's fine and I agree so far. But if you realize that (based on events and his personality) he really isn't going to be interested in learning Sleight of Hand at this time even though it's required for his next PrC... that he'd really be focusing all his efforts on Knowledge Religion and Concentration, do you skip that PrC and go with what feels right, or do you take the planned skills and PrC anyway?

The sorcerer realizes he can expand his power in other areas by incorporating a small amount of what's basically stage magic into his routine. He doesn't like doing it, as stage magic is beneath a sorcerer, but realizes that sometimes it's necessary. Just like I hate doing tests, as papers or discussions actually allow you to show what you know creatively rather than just list off useless and disconnected facts, but I do them anyways because I have to.

PhoenixRivers
2009-10-08, 11:37 AM
Ok, that's fine and I agree so far. But if you realize that (based on events and his personality) he really isn't going to be interested in learning Sleight of Hand at this time even though it's required for his next PrC... that he'd really be focusing all his efforts on Knowledge Religion and Concentration, do you skip that PrC and go with what feels right, or do you take the planned skills and PrC anyway?

To be fair:

I'm really not interested in working. I'd really rather prefer focusing my efforts on theoretical optimization and logical and intuitive reasoning.

And yet I work.

Does this mean I'm not playing myself correctly?

Or rather, does it mean that I recognize that to meet certain goals, I must sometimes do things that I don't necessarily enjoy or prefer?

People don't usually follow their heart, to be honest. We don't live in a leisurely society of poets. The med student pulling her hair out due to the pace of studies may loathe her teachers, and feel lost... But she wants to be a doctor. So she does what she doesn't feel like doing, to accomplish what she wants.

Boci
2009-10-08, 03:03 PM
Because if you do it right he becomes a real person who can surprise you.
Good authors remark on this fact all the time: they write out a plot, and then their characters derail it by doing something the author hadn't anticipated.

Shrug. Its never happened to me, at least not in a mechanical sense. Guess I'm not roleplaying right.

Riffington
2009-10-08, 03:16 PM
The sorcerer realizes he can expand his power in other areas by incorporating a small amount of what's basically stage magic into his routine. He doesn't like doing it, as stage magic is beneath a sorcerer, but realizes that sometimes it's necessary. Just like I hate doing tests, as papers or discussions actually allow you to show what you know creatively rather than just list off useless and disconnected facts, but I do them anyways because I have to.

That's sometimes a fine explanation. It isn't always. First, sometimes it doesn't make sense to know your next few steps (ok, first I'm going to become a faithful follower of Mystra, but I need to study this stuff so I can betray her to Shar). Sometimes it does, of course, just not always.

Second, sometimes there are multiple legitimate options, but you realize your character would not take the most optimal one. Marrying the nicer girl instead of the richer one, studying history instead of physics, focusing on your swordplay when your casting would be more powerful overall, whatever. Not every time, but what do you do in those cases when the character wouldn't follow the build.



Does this mean I'm not playing myself correctly?


Why are you wasting any time on theoretical optimization? That time could be better spent stripping, right?


Shrug. Its never happened to me, at least not in a mechanical sense. Guess I'm not roleplaying right.

Sorry to hear that :p

sonofzeal
2009-10-08, 03:21 PM
So, I think you can *theoretically* justify any of those things taken individually, particularly if you don't take them too far. There's no one thing that can't be roleplayed. But good roleplaying requires weaknesses, and for those weaknesses to be ones that come up and affect the character. Optimization involves getting rid of the weaknesses. That's fine to a point. There's a point after which it stops being fine and just becomes lame. For example, the techie who spends all his money on tech is indeed an archetype, but that archetype exists because his vices (for shiny, for new, for zoom, for entertainment, for drugs) happen not to be food. Turning him into Batman-minus-Bruce Wayne is lame.

I'd say one example in D&D is if you play with flaws, it is highly unlikely that the two most interesting flaws to fit your character will happen to be the two that are least likely to ever come up.
Another would be a specific type of wizard that we like to call "paranoid" who scries before crossing his own front door and refuses to trust anyone except for the three people he happens to know are PCs.
Optimization is still about the character sheet, and roleplaying is still about the personality. No matter how optimized his sheet is, my character can still be, and often is, a quivering ball of neurosis. I may be getting rid of weaknesses (actually, a lot of optimization is less about this than it is about building on strengths and covering for weaknesses rather than eliminating them), but the weaknesses I'd be getting rid of are purely physical ones with little roleplay potential. It's the mental state, attitudes and opinions and personality and emotions, that inspire the really dynamic roleplay.


Yes, but if all your characters fall into that archetype, you're not really demonstrating much skill as a role player.
Neither is the person who always plays half-elven Rangers. People at all optimization levels have their own little favorites, and optimizers are more capable of mixing it up while staying within the paradigm. That's not a criticism of optimization, that's a criticism for a fairly broad selection of players.

Boci
2009-10-08, 03:38 PM
That's sometimes a fine explanation. It isn't always. First, sometimes it doesn't make sense to know your next few steps (ok, first I'm going to become a faithful follower of Mystra, but I need to study this stuff so I can betray her to Shar). Sometimes it does, of course, just not always.

I once wanted to use a feycraft shortsword, so I asked my DM to toss me an adventuring hook iwth a fey smith. Gamewise it doesn't make any sense that suddenly after an OOC discussion my character hears of a kidnapped fey smith that he had not planned beofre, but what was my DM supose to do? Ignore my request? Just let me buy one at a market?


Second, sometimes there are multiple legitimate options, but you realize your character would not take the most optimal one. Marrying the nicer girl instead of the richer one, studying history instead of physics, focusing on your swordplay when your casting would be more powerful overall, whatever. Not every time, but what do you do in those cases when the character wouldn't follow the build.

The first example isn't even about your build and I am having a really hard time imagining someone suddenly realizing that the sorceror they are rping wants to learn how to use a raper.


Why are you wasting any time on theoretical optimization? That time could be better spent stripping, right?

Because its fun?


Sorry to hear that :p

Often story wise my character takes a route for himself, but since all mechanics are very flexable, again, I cannot really see it happening in that area.

Fitz10019
2009-10-08, 03:44 PM
As the thread's original poster...

Don't you hate it when the OP butts in to a lively discussion? Heh.

Jayabalard
2009-10-08, 03:44 PM
Neither is the person who always plays half-elven Rangers. People at all optimization levels have their own little favorites, and optimizers are more capable of mixing it up while staying within the paradigm. That's not a criticism of optimization, that's a criticism for a fairly broad selection of players.People who heavily into optimization have the same type of handicap to roleplaying that the guy who always makes the same half elf ranger does; they both play a particular narrow set of characters, it's just the degree to which you choose to limit yourself.

sonofzeal
2009-10-08, 03:58 PM
People who heavily into optimization have the same type of handicap to roleplaying that the guy who always makes the same half elf ranger does; they both play a particular narrow set of characters, it's just the degree to which you choose to limit yourself.
It's not even a "heavy optimization" thing though! Most heavy optimizers I know play a vast array of character archetypes, and there's only a few who reliably play the same things. Similarly, most novices play a variety of characters, and there's only a few who always play basically the same character. If anything, I'd say the correlation goes the other way - optimizers are less likely to play repetitive characters, because they know the depths of variety out there.

"Optimized" is a very broad term; generally, it means taking the character concept and "optimizing" it, making it better at what it does. A Swashbucker/Rogue can be optimized (probably with Daring Outlaw, Darkstalker, and maybe a ToB dip). A Conjurer Wizard can be optimized (Abrupt Jaunt, Master Specialist, etc). A Fighter can be optimized (see Lockdown 2.0). A Cleric can be optimized (DMM:Persist). A Monk can be optimized (use Swordsage rules with Monk flavour).

At what point is this a "particularly narrow set of characters"?

sadi
2009-10-08, 04:05 PM
I optimize not as much as some, the most any build I have will have at most 4 different classes. There is nothing wrong with optimization, there is a line and in my opinion it is when you tell another player that their character is useless and tell them how to make their character. I also believe that you should optimize to the level the rest of the players optimize. Remember it is a game, and the object is not to win, the object is for everyone to have fun.

Jayabalard
2009-10-08, 04:12 PM
It's not even a "heavy optimization" thing though! Most heavy optimizers I know play a vast array of character archetypes, Archetypes really have have nothing to do with what I'm talking about; sure, I'll agree that an optimizer may play more roles than someone who always plays exactly the same character, but they still are limiting themselves to a particular subset... it's just a larger subset than Joe McHalfelvenranger plays.

lsfreak
2009-10-08, 04:15 PM
Archetypes really have have nothing to do with what I'm talking about; sure, I'll agree that an optimizer may play more roles than someone who always plays exactly the same character, but they still are limiting themselves to a particular subset of the characters that can be played.

Except they're not limiting themself in any way, because any character, any archetype, anything you can come up with can be played. You can play a "holy warrior" about a thousand different ways, each of them fluff-wise absolutely identical, it's just that mechanically they differ drastically. So I suppose you could say optimizers cut out their options by cutting out the stuff that it weak, gets you killed, and so on, but they can still play any character concept you can possibly come up with.

Jayabalard
2009-10-08, 04:17 PM
Except they're not limiting themself in any way, because any character, any archetype, anything you can come up with can be played. Not so... They can only play characters of a certain level of competence; that cuts out a significant number of possible characters, and the more that you focus on optimization, the larger that set gets.

sonofzeal
2009-10-08, 04:19 PM
Archetypes really have have nothing to do with what I'm talking about; sure, I'll agree that an optimizer may play more roles than someone who always plays exactly the same character, but they still are limiting themselves to a particular subset of the characters that can be played.
Not really. Or, well, look at it this way - there's about 30 base classes, maybe 200 playable races, and maybe 200 PrCs (complete estimates, btw). If you disallow multiclassing and limit to only one PrC, then that's 1,200,000 character concepts. If you allow free multiclassing, that number's closer to 1,295,850,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000. And that's without taking feat/equipment into account, which are a significant part of optimization, as well as class feature options, spell selection, ability score placement, and variant class features.

Are you really, seriously, honestly going to complain that optimizers are stuck with the same concepts over and over?

lsfreak
2009-10-08, 04:25 PM
Not so... They can only play characters of a certain level of competence; that cuts out a significant number of possible characters, and the more that you focus on optimization, the larger that set gets.

So refusing to be incompetent is a bad thing? Refusing to play a character that's useful at nothing is a bad thing? Refusing to play a character that is nothing more than a resource drain and XP leech is a bad thing?

Okay.

(You also seem to have missed the point of optimization, which is not to make a character good at everything possible, but to make a character good at what you want it to be good at. An optimized character can easily have flaws, character weaknesses, and mechanical weaknesses, it's just that there is something he's good at.)

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-10-08, 04:38 PM
Not so... They can only play characters of a certain level of competence; that cuts out a significant number of possible characters, and the more that you focus on optimization, the larger that set gets.

Having one character weaker than the rest tagging along with the party works in a novel, where they have a plot shield to a greater or lesser degree. In a game where weak characters simply drain resources from the other characters, not so much. Frodo wasn't exactly great in combat, but because the whole purpose of the Fellowship was to protect him (and because he had to survive to the end) he managed to survive to sneak into Mt. Doom; unless you're playing the same way, with one PC deliberately being supported by the rest, having what amounts to a halfling expert on the team isn't the best plan.


(You also seem to have missed the point of optimization, which is not to make a character good at everything possible, but to make a character good at what you want it to be good at. An optimized character can easily have flaws, character weaknesses, and mechanical weaknesses, it's just that there is something he's good at.)

Precisely. You very rarely optimize "a wizard" but rather optimize "a fire-themed blaster" or "a sneaky illusionist" or whatever else. The fact that you are the best fire wizard on the face of Toril and the gods' gift to humanoidkind says nothing about your personality, character flaws, weaknesses, or anything else...except the simple fact that when combat starts you fling fireballs and scorching rays instead of lightning bolts and acid arrows.

Tyndmyr
2009-10-08, 04:45 PM
Not so... They can only play characters of a certain level of competence; that cuts out a significant number of possible characters, and the more that you focus on optimization, the larger that set gets.

Wrong on two counts.

1. Optimizers are not optimizing for effectiveness. I see occasional threads optimizing for some unusual goal.

2. Non-optimizers do not magically have access to all levels of competence. They are limited to what they know, and their very lack of optimization makes them only able to play characters of a certain level of competence.

Riffington
2009-10-08, 07:26 PM
So refusing to be incompetent is a bad thing? Refusing to play a character that's useful at nothing is a bad thing? Refusing to play a character that is nothing more than a resource drain and XP leech is a bad thing?


There are different kinds of stories that can be told. It's not very helpful to send a pastry chef against the legions of Jezzerath the Black, but if your story is about a ragtag bunch of misfits ready to show up the Academy boys then there's nothing wrong with a rapid reload crossbow fighter.


2. Non-optimizers do not magically have access to all levels of competence. They are limited to what they know, and their very lack of optimization makes them only able to play characters of a certain level of competence.

Only able to generate "builds" of a certain level of power. The character is not just the numbers.

Boci
2009-10-08, 07:32 PM
Only able to generate "builds" of a certain level of power.

Is limiting in the same way that if you role play a teacher, you include in your character concept that you are good with children.


The character is not just the numbers.

Aye, but a badly optomized character without role play is just numbers as well.

Riffington
2009-10-08, 07:41 PM
Is limiting in the same way that if you role play a teacher, you include in your character concept that you are good with children.

More so. I don't actually have a problem with a teacher who's bad with kids (as a character). But there's way more interesting stories out there about unlikely adventurers: people who are willing to explore the ruins/battle evil/conquer Belgium/whatever despite the fact that their best qualifications seem to be inordinate bravery and "in the right place at the right time".




Aye, but a badly optomized character without role play is just numbers as well.
Sure. It's certainly true that many poorly-optimized characters are also poorly-roleplayed. My claim is that good roleplayers should have a willingness to follow their characters wherever they take them - even if they start taking them down a suboptimal path.

Ozymandias9
2009-10-08, 07:48 PM
So its bad to have a character whose class was decided first? Even though it was through his class that I decided what his personality would be like?
As a personal answer? No, its what I do for most games.
But at most heavy role playing games I've sat in over they years, it would be at least questionable, especially with a complicated build (or, say, a specialist priest build from 2nd Ed).


If I invest emotional resources into my PC, I want him to stay alieve. If your PC keeps dying, roleplaying him will be harder.
Emotions aren't all positive. Loss and sadness can be powerful story advancers. Now, if you are constantly dying in excess of your fellow players, yes, some optimization may be in order. But the mere presence of the occasional unplanned death isn't always bad (in every game).


What is wrong with a character whose two sentance discription is a well established archetype? Archetype are common because well, you know, they stay alieve.

No, Archetypes are common because they represent entrenched ideas, not because of a game mechanic. And nothing is wrong with an archetype. But if you are constantly playing the same archetype, you're not going to grow as a role player. The same is true if you only use minimal character descriptions: the restrictions of well expounded character back-stories often force you to adapt and grow as a role player.


Neither is the person who always plays half-elven Rangers. People at all optimization levels have their own little favorites, and optimizers are more capable of mixing it up while staying within the paradigm. That's not a criticism of optimization, that's a criticism for a fairly broad selection of players.

I agree. Stagnation is possible in many areas of the game. But the point was that even if you regularly vary your class choice, if all you characters have the same basic world outlook, you're still playing very close to the same character from an immersion role playing perspective.


Ultimatly, an adventuring party is a group of people who for whatever motivation go cruising for bruising. This could be fore money, to rid the world of evil, because fighting is the only thing they can do or because they are scared to live a normal life. But one element remains the same: they fight on a regular bases. Being an unoptomized adventurer is like decidng to be a teacher even though you hate kids. It could work, but its a stupid choice.

Certainly. It does not always make sense, however, to assume that they have anticipated adventuring playing a large part in their lives for all of their lives. Or even, necessarily, for the limited portion thereof that they have been gaining levels.

To use your analogy: you may not particularly like or hate kids, and you may not grow up wanting to be a teacher. But if you are, say, an environmental scientist or a statistician and decide you dislike your current job, you may end up teaching high school. The profession wasn't planned, and you probably don't have more education credits than were necessary to get a professional qualification teaching certificate in your state. You're not optimally skilled or educated for the situation, but you're still in the situation. (On a personal note, this was the case with both High School teachers in both the fields mentioned. Sadly, Mr. Lawton, the statistics teacher, passes away earlier this year. That was sad: all but one of my nieces and nephews through stats over the years. Mrs. Amris, the Environemntal Science teacher (actually, it was Ecology and Earth Science back in my day), is still going strong though).

Boci
2009-10-08, 07:49 PM
More so. I don't actually have a problem with a teacher who's bad with kids (as a character). But there's way more interesting stories out there about unlikely adventurers: people who are willing to explore the ruins/battle evil/conquer Belgium/whatever despite the fact that their best qualifications seem to be inordinate bravery and "in the right place at the right time".

Natural selection take cares of them.


Sure. It's certainly true that many poorly-optimized characters are also poorly-roleplayed. My claim is that good roleplayers should have a willingness to follow their characters wherever they take them - even if they start taking them down a suboptimal path.

You say that and I cannot understand you. I cannot see it heppening. If I feel the flavour of a suboptimal option suits my character better, I will reflavour the optimal choice.


As a personal answer? No, its what I do for most games.
But at most heavy role playing games I've sat in over they years, it would be at least questionable, especially with a complicated build (or, say, a specialist priest build from 2nd Ed).

I'm a heavy role player and it isn't at all questionable for me.


Emotions aren't all positive. Loss and sadness can be powerful story advancers. Now, if you are constantly dying in excess of your fellow players, yes, some optimization may be in order. But the mere presence of the occasional unplanned death isn't always bad (in every game).

I find loss to be more effective if I mention someone in the background story who then dies (before or doing the game). Or maybe an NPC of the DM.


No, Archetypes are common because they represent entrenched ideas, not because of a game mechanic. And nothing is wrong with an archetype. But if you are constantly playing the same archetype, you're not going to grow as a role player. The same is true if you only use minimal character descriptions: the restrictions of well expounded character back-stories often force you to adapt and grow as a role player.

Not neccisarily. You can play the same ice mage 10 times, each with a different personality. How is that not roleplaying?

sonofzeal
2009-10-08, 08:03 PM
My claim is that good roleplayers should have a willingness to follow their characters wherever they take them - even if they start taking them down a suboptimal path.
And the optimizer's talent is in taking a "suboptimal path" (because, really, all paths are suboptimal compared to Pun-Pun), and making it practical.

You mentioned a Rapid Reload Crossbow Fighter earlier; an optimizer might decide to do that and then tailor his feats to make it work. There's plenty of crossbow feats out there, and I've seen a few good Crossbow builds. Just because it's not the best out there doesn't mean it won't get played. The difference between an optimizer and a non-optimizer is not in the concepts that'll be chosen, it'll be in how those concepts are executed, and how effective the character will be inside those concepts.

Ozymandias9
2009-10-08, 08:05 PM
Not neccisarily. You can play the same ice mage 10 times, each with a different personality. How is that not roleplaying?

I should have noted that I wasn't talking about class Archetypes in that. I was talking more about characterization archetypes: the grizzled veteran, the gruff antihero, the reluctant pacifist, etc. If we're talking about an archetype that is demonstrated through a class rather than role-play, then you're probably letting your mechanical skill in the game lax rather than your role playing skill.


You say that and I cannot understand you. I cannot see it heppening. If I feel the flavour of a suboptimal option suits my character better, I will reflavour the optimal choice.
And if the choice is that the character shouldn't be optimally built for adventuring? Again, the idea that people should be ideally suited for "adventuring" to take part in it puts a rather low level, basic restriction on a lot of back stories and plot lines, particularly in the unlikely hero and survivalist directions.



I'm a heavy role player and it isn't at all questionable for me.

We could probably narrow down the difference (how deep is the expectation of immersion, what are the conventions on OOC at the tables, how long has the average player at the table been playing D&D, etc.), but its easier to simply say that we play at different tables.


I find loss to be more effective if I mention someone in the background story who then dies (before or doing the game). Or maybe an NPC of the DM.

That's certainly an effective option, though I usually find it less so than if a character dies who they've had to make an interactive relationship with. To some extent, this is possible with a DM NPC. Why, however, do you find it ineffective if a PC dies? Do your players get inordinately upset if it happens?

The most extreme example I've gotten was someone who really liked her cleric, but was a little saddened after it died because she didn't think it would be in character for the cleric to consent to resurrection. She picked up one of her other prepared back-stories, adapted it to another cleric that was a member of the same church, and we rolled out a character and advanced it up to level. But rather than being an old-fashioned and somewhat xenophobic village priest, this one was a pontificating and zealous member of the bureaucratic wing of the church. She ended up having great fun playing a character that the other characters got easily annoyed by.

DragoonWraith
2009-10-08, 08:34 PM
Ok, that's fine and I agree so far. But if you realize that (based on events and his personality) he really isn't going to be interested in learning Sleight of Hand at this time even though it's required for his next PrC... that he'd really be focusing all his efforts on Knowledge Religion and Concentration, do you skip that PrC and go with what feels right, or do you take the planned skills and PrC anyway?
Actually, I have no intention of taking any PrC that requires ranks in Sleight of Hand. The character's entire backstory is that he dabbles in a lot of different things, and his magical skills have been somewhat left to the wayside as a result. He's learning sleight of hand because both the rogue and the fighter have ranks in it, and their skills in it have come in useful in the past - and he wants to learn some of it. He's a con-artist, they're thieves, etc.

The learning about the planes is because I want to take the Loremaster PrC. But again, it fits the character well - he's a lover of stories, he read a lot about the Drow and learned Undercommon (much to the somewhat annoyed amusement of the Drow in the party), he's going to read a lot about the planes, etc.

Actually, I think I did make a mistake with the character - he should have started as a Human Paragon. It fits his fluff really well, because the Paragon does so many different things.


And the optimizer's talent is in taking a "suboptimal path" (because, really, all paths are suboptimal compared to Pun-Pun), and making it practical.
Exactly.

Boci
2009-10-09, 06:41 AM
I should have noted that I wasn't talking about class Archetypes in that. I was talking more about characterization archetypes: the grizzled veteran, the gruff antihero, the reluctant pacifist, etc.

But how does playing the same archetype relate to optimization? Optimizers are not the only ones who sometimes play a single archetype, since they are not mechanical.


And if the choice is that the character shouldn't be optimally built for adventuring? Again, the idea that people should be ideally suited for "adventuring" to take part in it puts a rather low level, basic restriction on a lot of back stories and plot lines, particularly in the unlikely hero and survivalist directions.

I have nothing wrong with someone whose background states he is a simple farm boy. I once had a duskablade who had never trained with weapons, he was just naturally gifted. As long as you do not feel a need to represent your farmboyness by being a fighter and taking the non-combatant flaw.



We could probably narrow down the difference (how deep is the expectation of immersion, what are the conventions on OOC at the tables, how long has the average player at the table been playing D&D, etc.), but its easier to simply say that we play at different tables.

So its actually happened to you? You've siddenly realized your character doesn't want to do what you want them to?


That's certainly an effective option, though I usually find it less so than if a character dies who they've had to make an interactive relationship with. To some extent, this is possible with a DM NPC. Why, however, do you find it ineffective if a PC dies? Do your players get inordinately upset if it happens?

If my characters dies I will be upset, and it won't improve my roleplaying, because I will have to start all over again or accept a ressurection which I hate doing (although I do occasionaly). If a fellow PCs dies then its good for my roleplaying, but unfair on him. If you want you PC to die he can die. Optimization doesn't stop this, it just lessons the chance of your PCs dying when you didn't want him to.


The most extreme example I've gotten was someone who really liked her cleric, but was a little saddened after it died because she didn't think it would be in character for the cleric to consent to resurrection. She picked up one of her other prepared back-stories, adapted it to another cleric that was a member of the same church, and we rolled out a character and advanced it up to level. But rather than being an old-fashioned and somewhat xenophobic village priest, this one was a pontificating and zealous member of the bureaucratic wing of the church. She ended up having great fun playing a character that the other characters got easily annoyed by.

And how would optimization have prevented that? She wouldn't have died? So now the DM has a duty to kill off your character occasionaly, for no reason other than it might be good for your roleplay effort?

Jayabalard
2009-10-09, 07:36 AM
Having one character weaker than the rest tagging along with the party works in a novel, where they have a plot shield to a greater or lesser degree. In a game where weak characters simply drain resources from the other characters, not so much. That depends entirely on the people you're playing with and the style game you're playing.


So refusing to be incompetent is a bad thing? Refusing to play a character that's useful at nothing is a bad thing? Refusing to play a character that is nothing more than a resource drain and XP leech is a bad thing?I didn't say that it's a bad thing... but you are limiting yourself if you chose not to play those characters in way that people who do not care about optimization are not limiting themselves.

By all means, if you are happy with this limitation (and a lot of people are, it's very very common), then by all means, then go for it; it's a game, and you should play it the way that makes you happy. But you should get rid pf the preconception that everyone is ok with that limitation, because some people aren't.


Are you really, seriously, honestly going to complain that optimizers are stuck with the same concepts over and over?No, I'm obviously not making that complaint... since that's not what I said. Certainly, the mechanical combination that an optimizer can pick are very very large, but that has little to nothing to do with the types of characters they can roleplay.


(You also seem to have missed the point of optimization, which is not to make a character good at everything possible, but to make a character good at what you want it to be good at. An optimized character can easily have flaws, character weaknesses, and mechanical weaknesses, it's just that there is something he's good at.)I havn't missed that in the slightest.



I'm a heavy role player and it isn't at all questionable for me.Just from reading though the discussion, I don't think that you and Ozymandias mean the same thing when you use that term.

Boci
2009-10-09, 07:39 AM
I didn't say that it's a bad thing... but you are limiting yourself if you chose not to play those characters in way that people who do not care about optimization are not limiting themselves.

And people who do not optomize are limiting themselves as well. They are not playing the best, who people useually imagine heroes to be. Your not pun-pun? Its still belieable your the best graduate of the fighters academy. But if you've taken power attack and use a one handed weapon with nothing in your off hand then it is.


Certainly, the mechanical combination that an optimizer can pick are very very large, but that has little to nothing to do with the types of characters they can roleplay.

Hasn't that been the point all along?

Jayabalard
2009-10-09, 07:44 AM
And people who do not optomize are limiting themselves as well. They are not playing the best, who people useually imagine heroes to be. Your not pun-pun? Its still belieable your the best graduate of the fighters academy. But if you've taken power attack and use a one handed weapon with nothing in your off hand then it is.I'm not sure I follow your argument; people who don't focus on optimization can still make mechanically effective characters. They just don't limit themselves to any particular power level in the way that optimizers do.

for example, they don't limit themselves to playing only "the best, who people useually imagine heroes to be"

I think you're mixing up "people who don't focus on optimization" with "people who don't have any understanding of the game mechanics" ... there are certainly people who fall into both categories, but there are certainly people who are the former but not the latter.


Hasn't that been the point all along?No; not in anything that I've argued. The point that I've been making since I started posting on this thread is that very large is not the same thing as all; you've taken on a very specific sort of limitation to the characters (the people, not the mass of mechanical effects) that you can play.

Kesnit
2009-10-09, 07:45 AM
And people who do not optomize are limiting themselves as well. They are not playing the best, who people useually imagine heroes to be.

Define "best."

In a Vampire: the Requiem game my now-fiancee ran, there was a PC who was a computer and electronics whiz. Anything you can imagine, she could do. On the other hand, she had no combat abilities whatsoever. Whenever the party went to combat, she ran away and hid until it was over. She was far from useless because of everything she could do in support of the party and she was optimized for what she was designed to do.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-09, 08:19 AM
she was optimized for what she was designed to do.

She was optimized, and you're using her as an example of "people who do not optimize"?

Jayabalard mentioned that Ozymandias and Boci were not using the same definition of "heavy roleplayer". I can agree with that, and almost certainly propose that we are using different definitions of "optimizer".

Example:

I'm not sure I follow your argument; people who don't focus on optimization can still make mechanically effective characters. They just don't limit themselves to any particular power level in the way that optimizers do.

If you are optimizing, by my definition and perception of the word, you are an optimizer. You don't have to focus on it - I don't, because I easily get my daily dose of optimization on the forums and prefer character development at the game. But as I optimize my characters, despite focusing on RP rather than optimization, I consider myself an optimizer.

Jayabalard
2009-10-09, 08:24 AM
Jayabalard mentioned that Ozymandias and Boci were not using the same definition of "heavy roleplayer". I can agree with that, and almost certainly propose that we are using different definitions of "optimizer".It's possible... I'm using it to mean "someone who picks paths the characters they build with a very heavy bias toward more the optimal mechanical choices"

Kaiyanwang
2009-10-09, 08:24 AM
I optimize not as much as some, the most any build I have will have at most 4 different classes. There is nothing wrong with optimization, there is a line and in my opinion it is when you tell another player that their character is useless and tell them how to make their character. I also believe that you should optimize to the level the rest of the players optimize. Remember it is a game, and the object is not to win, the object is for everyone to have fun.

Well, more than that, you could be in a situation in wich the character concept you want is spread over 4 classes.

Maybe what I consider "Monk" is Monk20/Ninja20//Psywarrior20/Swordsage20 and every thing less is a compromise :smalltongue:

Jayabalard
2009-10-09, 08:49 AM
Maybe what I consider "Monk" is Monk20/Ninja20//Psywarrior20/Swordsage20 and every thing less is a compromise :smalltongue:If so, it sounds like you might be happeri playing a superhero based game set in a medieval fantasy world.

Kaiyanwang
2009-10-09, 08:55 AM
If so, it sounds like you might be happeri playing a superhero based game set in a medieval fantasy world.

Just a silly, exaggerated example, don't take it too seriously. And consider that I would play such a character, but from level 1.

My point was that yes, sometimes you multiclass because of powergaming, but sometimes because the character concept you have in mind requires you to do so.

Boci
2009-10-09, 10:30 AM
I'm not sure I follow your argument; people who don't focus on optimization can still make mechanically effective characters. They just don't limit themselves to any particular power level in the way that optimizers do.

I consider something mechanically affective to be optimized.


No; not in anything that I've argued. The point that I've been making since I started posting on this thread is that very large is not the same thing as all; you've taken on a very specific sort of limitation to the characters (the people, not the mass of mechanical effects) that you can play.

Almost every concept can be optimized. What exact character's are out of reach for me?

Jayabalard
2009-10-09, 10:48 AM
I consider something mechanically affective to be optimized.I find that to be a rather absurd definition.


Almost every concept can be optimized. What exact character's are out of reach for me?ineffective ones.

Boci
2009-10-09, 10:50 AM
I find that to be a rather absurd definition.

I don't.


ineffective ones.

If I want to play an ineffective character I'll just make an optimized one and then not use his abilities occasionaly. Problem solved.

PhoenixRivers
2009-10-09, 10:57 AM
Optimized is when something uses synergy among abilities to create an effective character. Str on a barbarian is an example of optimization at its most basic level.

Power attack takes it a step further, with a 2 handed weapon.

Then there's leap attack.

Then Shock Trooper.

That's the idea. Everything works together, nothing is wasted. That's optimization.

Riffington
2009-10-09, 11:16 AM
So its actually happened to you? You've siddenly realized your character doesn't want to do what you want them to?

Why are you so incredulous that this happens?



And how would optimization have prevented that?

A properly optimized character has no hangups about being resurrected. My goodness, basic personality optimization 101. I realize you missed this for a completely different reason since you say "accept a ressurection which I hate doing". Why do you hate doing it? Is it against each of your characters' personalities, or does it just feel like losing to you?

Jayabalard
2009-10-09, 11:17 AM
I don't.Obviously not... you probably wouldn't have said that's what you consider optimization if you thought it was absurd, now would you?

But really, I don't see how being Mechanically emotional has anything to do with optimization (the act of making as perfect, effective, or functional as possible).




If I want to play an ineffective character I'll just make an optimized one and then not use his abilities occasionaly. Problem solved.Not at all. That's someone who chooses not to use thier abilities, which is something quite different.

Tavar
2009-10-09, 11:25 AM
Not at all. That's someone who chooses not to use thier abilities, which is something quite different.

Why? He's a character who doesn't use his abilities effectively. Therefore, he uses them ineffectively. I'm not seeing how this doesn't qualify.

Also, why would this guy be adventuring? It's easily one of the most leathal careers avaible. I'd think that most people would therefore at least attempt to play towards their strengths.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-09, 11:26 AM
A properly optimized character has no hangups about being resurrected. My goodness, basic personality optimization 101.

This goes back to varying definitions of "optimization". you don't "optimize" a personality. There is no concrete way to "optimize" a personality, and I'd invest in Nigerian money-making schemes before I took a class in Personality Optimization 101. You optimize a build and a class set for combat. That's all. "Optimizing personality" makes you into a boring douchebag munchkin.

The difference in perceptions is becoming even more glaringly obvious. Boci finds independently "living" characters absurd, and Jayabalard finds Boci's definition of optimization similarly absurd. I think that "munchkin" and "powergamer" were developed to subdivide these definitions.

I will admit that making an ineffective yet optimized character is extremely difficult due to its near-oxymoron status. But it is theoretically "possible" - see the various threads about optimizing for weakness. But yeah, optimization closes off the lower rung of competence. That's its definition - making effective characters. An optimizer is somebody who makes mechanically effective characters (actually effective is ambiguous due to possible neuroses.)

What was the purpose of this debate again?

lsfreak
2009-10-09, 11:26 AM
A properly optimized character has no hangups about being resurrected.

Uh, what? You've gone from mechanically optimizing a character's role, to optimizing their personality? I'm pretty sure that's not even considered when most of us think "optimization." In fact, personality is not on the table at all when optimizing - personality is what you start with so that you know how to optimize.

I really dislike the ineffective character argument, mostly because with very few exceptions it will completely disrupt a party both IC and OOC. Even if you ignore that, it's still possible to optimize an "ineffective character"; i.e. someone who's cowardly, horrible at fighting, and has the personality of a troll. But you see, they'll likely realize this and be able to take some advantage of it - they'll be able to flank with a longspear, or act as lookout, or something else. People aren't dumb, neither are characters; if they're ineffective they'll know it and try their damnedest to fix that. Until you get down to people with around 6 in both Int and Wis, they'll still be able to realize their own shortcomings and know they need to overcome them as best as they can.

Jayabalard
2009-10-09, 11:28 AM
why would this guy be adventuring? It's easily one of the most leathal careers avaible. I'd think that most people would therefore at least attempt to play towards their strengths.Who says that we're limiting ourselves to characters who are out adventuring? Or people who choose to go out adventuring?

Boci
2009-10-09, 11:32 AM
Why are you so incredulous that this happens?

Because I just cannot imagine: And for my 9th level feat I'm going to take gloomrazor. Oh wait, my character doesn't want to.


Who says that we're limiting ourselves to characters who are out adventuring? Or people who choose to go out adventuring?

Have you ever rolled a commoner? If not, your limiting yourself.



But really, I don't see how being Mechanically emotional has anything to do with optimization (the act of making as perfect, effective, or functional as possible).

Isn't that branching into power gaming?


Boci finds independently "living" characters absurd

Just a side note. I do not find this absurd. I find the idea of a living character making my planned mechanical options unusuable absurd. I've had character's who have come alieve in a role play sense, i.e. I had new idea about the character.

Kylarra
2009-10-09, 11:40 AM
Who says that we're limiting ourselves to characters who are out adventuring? Or people who choose to go out adventuring?I suppose you could be playing an NPC? I'm not sure why you'd have a character in D&D who doesn't adventure. Are we playing some 2e/stronghold stuff now? That can be fun, but it isn't the generally isn't the foci of games in general.

lsfreak
2009-10-09, 11:40 AM
Because I just cannot imagine: And for my 9th level feat I'm going to take gloomrazor. Oh wait, my character doesn't want to.
Look at Craven. I really wanted the feat out-of-character, but there's no way my character would willingly make himself more vulnerable. Even if it meant more stabby.


Isn't that branching into power gaming?
Whatever the word is you use for optimizing taken to the point of the exclusion of everything else, yes. This is not optimizing.

Jayabalard
2009-10-09, 11:41 AM
Have you ever rolled a commoner? If not, your limiting yourself.Yes. I've also played a plain vanilla human in a game where there were super heroes, which is an even more extreme case than a D&D commoner. The only limits I have is the amount of time I have to play, not the types of characters that I will play.


Isn't that branching into power gaming?That's what the words mean. If you don't like what the words mean, then you should chose some words that mean what you're trying to say.


I suppose you could be playing an NPC? I'm not sure why you'd have a character in D&D who doesn't adventure. Are we playing some 2e/stronghold stuff now?No, you can play a PC that doesn't go off adventuring. There's also the "doesn't choose to adventure" part of that, where you don't go off looking for trouble, trouble just finds you.


That can be fun, but it isn't the generally isn't the foci of games in general./shrug ... that's your experience.

Boci
2009-10-09, 11:43 AM
Yes. I've also played a plain vanilla human in a game where there were super heroes, which is an even more extreme case than a D&D commoner. I've also played a non-anthropomorphic, non awakened bunny (gurps: bunnies and burrows). The only limits I have is the amount of time I have to play, not the types of characters that I will play.

Wow, I really was not expecting that response. But to be fair, how many other people do you think have tried this?


That's what the words mean. If you don't like what the words mean, then you should chose some words that mean what you're trying to say.

Optimization does not equal power gaming. Otherwise we wouldn't need the two terms.

Boci
2009-10-09, 11:44 AM
Look at Craven. I really wanted the feat out-of-character, but there's no way my character would willingly make himself more vulnerable. Even if it meant more stabby.

So he takes craven and after a while realizes that his fighting style has led him to be more fearful than he was. Took me one minute. If i tried harder I could probably come up with something better.

lsfreak
2009-10-09, 11:47 AM
So he takes craven and after a while realizes that his fighting style has led him to be more fearful than he was. Took me one minute. If i tried harder I could probably come up with something better.

Possibly, but if that was the case he would then go about trying to fix that weakness (feat retraining) because he absolutely despised weaknesses. Like I said, personality is where I start. I flesh out a character's personality, and then optimize things in order to fit in with that personality. I never go against a character's personality when optimizing.

Kylarra
2009-10-09, 11:49 AM
No, you can play a PC that doesn't go off adventuring. There's also the "doesn't choose to adventure" part of that, where you don't go off looking for trouble, trouble just finds you.

/shrug ... that's your experience.Er yes, my experience is that most D&D games tend to have adventurers. Like I said, there are Stronghold/DS9-esque games, where the trouble comes to you, but it's not generally the focus of games. I'm not saying it can't be done or that it isn't done, but speaking in generalizations, you exclude statistical outliers, which this would be.

Jayabalard
2009-10-09, 11:51 AM
Wow, I really was not expecting that response. But to be fair, how many other people do you think have tried this?At a guess? Ozy probably has. Plenty of people that I've gamed with over the years have.


Optimization does not equal power gaming. Otherwise we wouldn't need the two terms.that's what the word means - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/optimization

Boci
2009-10-09, 11:53 AM
At a guess? Ozy probably has. Plenty of people that I've gamed with over the years have.

I have as well. But never in D&D, which given the thread title I assume is the game we are discussing.


that's what the word means - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/optimization

The dictionary doesn't list epic as above level 20.


Possibly, but if that was the case he would then go about trying to fix that weakness (feat retraining) because he absolutely despised weaknesses. Like I said, personality is where I start. I flesh out a character's personality, and then optimize things in order to fit in with that personality. I never go against a character's personality when optimizing.

But how does your character know that forgetting how to backstab better will make him braver? And maybe he has seen the advantage and judged it a fair trade. Infact, did he even notice fear spells have become more effective against him? Maybe he notices but is too proud to admit it?

Tavar
2009-10-09, 11:56 AM
At a guess? Ozy probably has. Plenty of people that I've gamed with over the years have.
Still, it's not a normal game, and generally would be set up specifically with the goal in mind: I can't think of many general games on the PbP forums that wouldn't blink at a commoner submission. Also, look at her reference of statistical outliers.


that's what the word means - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/optimization

And a dungeons (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dungeon) is strong, dark prison or cell, usually underground, as in a medieval castle. Obviously, going from that the specialized definition of Dungeon used in DnD is wrong. Similarly, all slang is meaningless or misleading.

Jayabalard
2009-10-09, 12:01 PM
Possibly, but if that was the case he would then go about trying to fix that weakness (feat retraining) because he absolutely despised weaknesses. Like I said, personality is where I start. I flesh out a character's personality, and then optimize things in order to fit in with that personality. I never go against a character's personality when optimizing.Are you saying tat you always use that particular personality, where you absolutely despise weaknesses? That's what it sounds like to me.


Er yes, my experience is that most D&D games tend to have adventurers. Like I said, there are Stronghold/DS9-esque games, where the trouble comes to you, but it's not generally the focus of games. I'm not saying it can't be done or that it isn't done, but speaking in generalizations, you exclude statistical outliers, which this would be.Absolutely not... I'm pointing out why Tavar's question is irrelevant, since even in D&D not all characters are adventurers. The group of people running for their life trying to survive what fate is throwing at them is not an uncommon story; it's all well and good that you've never played in such a game, but you can't generalize that into "noone plays that sort of game".

The question was "What exact character's are out of reach for me?" and I'm providing a specific class of characters as an example. In such a case, there's absolutely no reason exclude statistical outliers.


I have as well. But never in D&D, which given the thread title I assume is the game we are discussing.Yes, that's why I cut out the bunnies and burrows reference, to keep it more D&D focused; the others were D&D and a D&D based crossover.

Boci
2009-10-09, 12:09 PM
The question was "What exact character's are out of reach for me?" and I'm providing a specific class of characters as an example. In such a case, there's absolutely no reason exclude statistical outliers.

Okay, fair enough, I admit their are character concept I will never play. Along with 90% of the rest of the D&D playing world.

Stormthorn
2009-10-09, 12:10 PM
Neither have I.

I used it once.

Then again, im really strict with my players. They dont have the books, and if i let them do what they want they will go online and find out how to build pun-puns.

So I say: D20srd is all you can do without asking me for specificly. And then you limit Prestige classes too. Of course, i dont believe in multiclass pentalties so you can still have one character with 12 classes.

Kylarra
2009-10-09, 12:13 PM
The question was "What exact character's are out of reach for me?" and I'm providing a specific class of characters as an example. In such a case, there's absolutely no reason exclude statistical outliers.Considering we do get occasional threads about optimizing commoners, I'd say that even being a commoner isn't out of reach for an optimizer, but sure, I'll agree that there are concepts that the majority of people, optimizing or not, will not play, but I'll also add the fact that the majority would not enjoy playing such characters either, in common games.

Ozymandias9
2009-10-09, 12:25 PM
Edit: Yes, I have done games where everyone starts with some levels in NPC classes, be they commoner or expert. It makes a good start for an unexpected hero campaign. If the gruff older guy was a blacksmith before the initial plot hook, why not make him an expert and skill him out as a smith. If the wiry kid was a farmhand, commoner fits.


But how does playing the same archetype relate to optimization? Optimizers are not the only ones who sometimes play a single archetype, since they are not mechanical.
The initial comment was derived from someone saying that all their characters are concerned first and foremost about survival of the party and are behaving like seasoned veterans.


I have nothing wrong with someone whose background states he is a simple farm boy. I once had a duskablade who had never trained with weapons, he was just naturally gifted. As long as you do not feel a need to represent your farmboyness by being a fighter and taking the non-combatant flaw.

Nobody is "naturally gifted" enough with a sword or a flail or a fair number of other the things listed as martial weapons to safely wield them. An untrained person using a sword places himself and his nearby allies in as much danger as his enemies. If the back-story doesn't reasonably include martial weapon training, classes with martial weapon proficiency are probably out of reach.


So its actually happened to you? You've siddenly realized your character doesn't want to do what you want them to?
Yes, often.


If my characters dies I will be upset, and it won't improve my roleplaying, because I will have to start all over again or accept a ressurection which I hate doing (although I do occasionaly). If a fellow PCs dies then its good for my roleplaying, but unfair on him. If you want you PC to die he can die. Optimization doesn't stop this, it just lessons the chance of your PCs dying when you didn't want him to.
Hm. I'm not used to players getting upset enough about character death that it interferes with their playing. If that were the case, I would take greater efforts to avoid the random ones for that table.


And how would optimization have prevented that? She wouldn't have died? So now the DM has a duty to kill off your character occasionaly, for no reason other than it might be good for your roleplay effort?
That's not at all what I said. The comment was responding to a prior comment on character death, not to optimization in particular. It wasn't a planned death, and I wasn't going out of my way to try and kill her.

And yes, had she been optimizing, she likely would have survived: it was an entirely random death, caused by her having a relatively low HP pool (she was half dumping con, and it bit her in the ass because the character advanced into Old in game) and a couple of max damage criticals.

Boci
2009-10-09, 12:36 PM
Nobody is "naturally gifted" enough with a sword or a flail or a fair number of other the things listed as martial combatants to safely wield them. An untrained person using a sword places himself and his nearby allies in as much danger as his enemies.

In the real world. In D&D on the other hand...


Yes, often.

I mean in a mechanical sense. You couldn't take the feat you planned. Has that ever happened?


Hm. I'm not used to players getting upset enough about character death that it interferes with their playing. If that were the case, I would take greater efforts to avoid the random ones for that table.

Its not that it interfers with my ability to rpole play, I still can. Its that I have to start all over agian. Make new friends, re-establish my PCs position in the party and its dynamics ect. and it can feel like all the time with theformer PC was wasted.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-09, 01:06 PM
Are you saying tat you always use that particular personality, where you absolutely despise weaknesses? That's what it sounds like to me.

Possibly, but if that was the case he would then go about trying to fix that weakness (feat retraining) because he absolutely despised weaknesses. Like I said, personality is where I start. I flesh out a character's personality, and then optimize things in order to fit in with that personality. I never go against a character's personality when optimizing.

lsfreak used the pronoun "he". "he" is a singular pronoun. It refers to a single character. If lsfreak always used a particular personality, he would use the plurual in some way.


The initial comment was derived from someone saying that all their characters are concerned first and foremost about survival of the party and are behaving like seasoned veterans.

That initial comment came from Sinfire Titan. IIRC, he freely admitted that he limited his characters to incorporate such viewpoints. I never said thus, and Boci never said thus, and such a viewpoint is not an integral part of optimization.

Jayabalard
2009-10-09, 01:24 PM
lsfreak used the pronoun "he". "he" is a singular pronoun. It refers to a single character.Not really; "he" is also appropriate in the general case, where you're talking about some arbitrary single individual rather than some specific single individual.
If lsfreak always used a particular personality, he would use the plurual in some way.Not necessarily; counting on good grammar/spelling on a web forum isn't a reasonable expectation.

sonofzeal
2009-10-09, 01:27 PM
No, I'm obviously not making that complaint... since that's not what I said. Certainly, the mechanical combination that an optimizer can pick are very very large, but that has little to nothing to do with the types of characters they can roleplay.
There may be limits on the types of characters they can build, but there is no limit on the types of characters they can roleplay. As a quick example, both an optimizer and a non-optimizer can choose from pretty much any fantasy or heroic fiction and represent their character as someone from that. Let's say, Catwoman. Nonoptimizer plays her as Rogue20 with a whip, an optimizer might plays her as Rogue3 / Swashbuckler16 (with the Seduction variant) / Swordsage 1 with a whip and spiked gauntlets, a few of the "skill tricks" from CS, and Darkstalker. One is almost certainly more effective than the other, but which is more flavourful? Which is more faithful to the source?

Or let's take, oh, Archie Andrews. If there's a popularly-known character who's more counterintuitive to try and optimize, I can't think of one. The nonoptimizer goes, maybe, straight Commoner - fits the fluff, right? The optimizer, instead, asks what Archie's capable of (making people like him out of proportion with his virtues (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_jrOCxwrEVhg/Sq_-Tu-iQ3I/AAAAAAAADfE/6u9vuoBSngs/s1600-h/74+Analysis+5.jpg), playing music (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jrOCxwrEVhg/Spbh_NQHuXI/AAAAAAAAAt4/bG1zjSigyk8/s1600-h/Name+That+Tune+5.jpg), seducing girls (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_jrOCxwrEVhg/Sp1qAh9w29I/AAAAAAAAB-g/Z6-X3PGWMCQ/s1600-h/Teamwork+2-629x940.jpg)). He's been known to excel at a variety of sports, including boxing, despite his general clumsiness in day to day life. Bard seems to suit him well, especially a Diplomancer Bard who voluntarily doesn't use his diplomancing on anyone outside of his age category. Given his general temperament, there could be some nice BoED that could be worked in there, perhaps also Virtuoso from CA. Given his rather charmed life, optimizing for high saves would probably fit. Leadership to grab a cohort (Jughead, who's a challenge all his own). Otherwise, just focus on the standard diplomancing tricks and various Bardic Music skills, and only use the magic rarely and in passive ways, such as buffs.

Is there another character you think couldn't be optimized? Can you give an actual example of a context where the optimizer is restrained?

Anyway, even assuming you're right (which I strongly dispute), the number of characters an optimizer can "roleplay" is still really frigging big. The number is very certainly large enough that they could play D&D their whole lives without repeating themselves. Why, exactly, is that a problem?



Edit: Further proof that Archie is a bard. (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jrOCxwrEVhg/Sq0mPzX1-BI/AAAAAAAACzE/9rsZ1DaFcys/s1600-h/005.jpg) Who else can use music to Fascinate at a distance?

lsfreak
2009-10-09, 01:30 PM
It was a single character. A rogue that despised weakness and truly trusted no one and so kept enough on him to be prepared for pretty much everything. Mechanically optimized to fill his role as an assassin that dabbled in a bit of everything, except for Craven, and the fact that he carried a ton of scrolls on him (which ate up quite a bit of his money).

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-09, 01:41 PM
Not necessarily; counting on good grammar/spelling on a web forum isn't a reasonable expectation.

True. Case in point: "plurual". But the issue has been directly addressed.

IMO, in the context of these forums, http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18512 would be a helpful common source for definitions. It's linked to by the "notable threads" sticky. The definitions are "contentious", but they're as good as any to use.

- Min/Maxing*: The practice of attempting to derive the maximum benefit for the minimum penalty. Oft times looked down upon as power gaming or munchkinism, but in most cases is merely attempting to build the best character given a certain set of stats and other restrictions. Usually does not attempt to exploit rules loopholes intentionally. Someone who does this is a “min/maxer.”
- Munchkin*: Sometimes a synonym for power gaming, especially when the desire for power overrides all other concerns and is a detriment to the game, more often refers to someone who has the same goals as a power gamer but violates or ignores rules in order to achieve his goals. Also someone who ignores issues of suspension of disbelief, ability to fit into a campaign in a role-play sense, and common sense in their quest for power in game. Can also refer to the process of doing things the way a munchkin would. Munchkinism refers to the mindset that leads to this, or the practice itself.
- Optimizer: 1. A poster on WotC's Character Optimization boards. 2. A synonym for the given definition of min/maxer. Has generally replaced that term as it is less pejorative.
- Power Gaming*: Varying definitions, but usually refers to attempting to “break” certain aspects of the game in the player’s favor. Also, the intent to gather as much power in game as possible, sometimes to the detriment of the campaign. Someone who does this a “power gamer.” Differs from munchkinism in that a power gamer nominally still works within the system's rules, though they often exploit loopholes and questionable rule interpretations. Sometimes used as a synonym for the given definition of “min/maxing,” and other times as a synonym for “munchkin.”

Alaris
2009-10-09, 01:49 PM
While our DM doesn't limit us to one prestige class, getting into a second one is rather difficult.

You see, when a character in his campaign world wishes to take a prestige class, they have to go out of there way to find someone to train them in it, pay a large amount of gold, and spend anywhere from 1-3 months in-game time to complete the training.

We tend not to have that much time to spend willy-nilly... maybe once or twice per chapter... so the maximum, if the character maximizes time, taking all the time he can, he COULD theoretically get two prestige classes into his build... but that's the maximum.

HenryHankovitch
2009-10-09, 02:21 PM
It seems to me that the philosophy of class/PrC dipping, is one significantly different than the archetypical nature of "historical" D&D.

D&D has always been a game of archetypes--classes of characters that share attributes in common with each other. Wizards cast spells, fighters do not. A fighter may prefer bashing things with a greatsword, or poking with a rapier, or hurling spiked footstools; but he doesn't cast spells, or pick locks, or shapeshift into small woodland animals. Until he takes levels in those classes, adopting characteristics of -that- archetype.

So we end up with a conflict between the context (usually the "fluff") of an archetypical class, and the ability of the players to gain drastic new abilities by multiclassing. A wizard goes into a dungeon; a day later he comes out of the dungeon suddenly proficient with a rapier, even though he never even picked up a rapier in the intervening amount of time. It's the sort of thing that is very easy to make jokes about (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0126.html).

And I think this is why many "core" and prestige classes seem so bizarrely front-loaded. The fluff tends to assume that your character has spent an undetermined amount of off-screen time training and learning his class abilities. And if a PrC has its better abilites tucked away five or ten levels away, that just means an "optimizer" is likely to ignore it in favor of a different PrC from a different book by a different author, which is more obligingly front-loaded.

As I see it, PrC dippers are entirely opposed to the idea of archetypes to begin with. Classes and PrCs serve only as methods to obtain the abilities/skills/feats/proficiencies that you want for your 'build,' and they are of varying degrees of usefulness based on how efficiently they supply those abilities. The player is basically doing something like, "I want to be able to wear full plate armor, shapeshift into a beluga whale, and sneak attack with my seven ethereal tentacles. What's the best set of PrCs that will let me do that?" In a sense, they're only begrudgingly playing D&D. They're using the game for common rules of damage/armor class/monster encyclopedias, but playing it as close to a "classless" system as they can get.

Now, I don't want to come across as saying that PrC dipping is bad, or that they're "playing D&D wrong," or something like that. I'm just saying that there's an essentically conflicting set of philosophies at the core of the discussion. Basically, one side wants the fluff to have some level of implicit, in-game restriction. The other, essentially, considers the class description to be irrelevant compared to their own checklist of abilities, and will combine anything, in any way, so long as it matches what they want to be able to do at level 20.

"I spent my life learning the mysteries of arcane lore, seeking out esoteric new incantations to add to my library of knowledge...except I got bored after two levels and went off to do pushups in a monastery, slowly mastering my physical body and honing it into a work of art and a deadly weapon. Until I realized that being able to bleed was dumb, and so I turned myself into an undead, skeletal corpse."

tyckspoon
2009-10-09, 02:43 PM
It seems to me that the philosophy of class/PrC dipping, is one significantly different than the archetypical nature of "historical" D&D.


"Historically", D&D gave you no choice other than the archetypes already packaged into the classes. 3.x's open multiclassing was one of the biggest new things it did; before that, you either started off multiclassed (which allowed such 'archetypes' as the Elf-who-is-good-at-everything and the Sneaky Cleric) or you had to meet nigh-impossible requirements to take another class, and then the rules kicked you in the head for doing it anyway. So mostly you just stuck to one class because it was the only really feasible way to do it.

sonofzeal
2009-10-09, 02:51 PM
As I see it, PrC dippers are entirely opposed to the idea of archetypes to begin with. Classes and PrCs serve only as methods to obtain the abilities/skills/feats/proficiencies that you want for your 'build,' and they are of varying degrees of usefulness based on how efficiently they supply those abilities. The player is basically doing something like, "I want to be able to wear full plate armor, shapeshift into a beluga whale, and sneak attack with my seven ethereal tentacles. What's the best set of PrCs that will let me do that?" In a sense, they're only begrudgingly playing D&D. They're using the game for common rules of damage/armor class/monster encyclopedias, but playing it as close to a "classless" system as they can get.

Now, I don't want to come across as saying that PrC dipping is bad, or that they're "playing D&D wrong," or something like that. I'm just saying that there's an essentically conflicting set of philosophies at the core of the discussion. Basically, one side wants the fluff to have some level of implicit, in-game restriction. The other, essentially, considers the class description to be irrelevant compared to their own checklist of abilities, and will combine anything, in any way, so long as it matches what they want to be able to do at level 20.

"I spent my life learning the mysteries of arcane lore, seeking out esoteric new incantations to add to my library of knowledge...except I got bored after two levels and went off to do pushups in a monastery, slowly mastering my physical body and honing it into a work of art and a deadly weapon. Until I realized that being able to bleed was dumb, and so I turned myself into an undead, skeletal corpse."
I disagree. I PrC-dip from time to time, but it's not because I don't believe in archetypes, it's because the archetype I'm after isn't exactly reflected by the PrC options available to me. See my post over here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7085597&postcount=77) for more details.

Spoilered for your convenience...

f two classes are thematically linked, then multiclassing is a good way to play up the intersection of the two and define your character very quickly and effectively. If two classes are not thematically linked, then it's up to the player to draw the line between them and that can be in many ways more evocative.

A Barbarian/Rogue is a Barbarian who's also Rogue-y. He's almost automatically going to be a vicious bastard, strong and stealthy, the type who savours the hunt. Great flavour, lot to work with.

A Cleric/Rogue is much more vaguely defined. Perhaps it's a reformed thief who saw the light, like Jean Valjean. Perhaps it's a caring pastor with some surprising skills, like Nightcrawler. Perhaps it's someone who plays up holiness and then robs people blind, like certain televangelists I won't mention by name. Perhaps it's a devoted foe of evil who trained himself in counter-espionage and detective work, like Batman. Perhaps it's a Cleric of Olidammara or Farlaghan who uses stealth and subtlety in service of their god, perhaps a wanderer who honestly doesn't know what he wants, perhaps a priest who trained to gain more persuasiveness and people-skills. This combination is seemingly-directionless, but that just makes it ripe to write a direction on top of it. Its very ambiguity serves as a vehicle for roleplay as the player tries to resolve that ambiguity.

Not to say that multiclassing produces better roleplay; a Cleric20 or Rogue20 could be almost all of those things too. Still, "nonassociated" multiclassing should be seen as an opportunity rather than a drawback. It's the kickstart that can get a player's mind rolling and coming up with all sorts of interesting backstory and personality to fill in the gaps. Some can do that on their own, and that's great. Some have trouble even with that nudge, and hey it happens. That'll go for all players though, whether they're optimizers or not.


As it relates to your post: associated multiclassing (and a good 90% of multiclassing is usually associated on some level) is making downright deliberate use of archetypes. It's not that we're forgetting that Barbarians are big and strong and Rogues are small and dextrous, it's that we're remembering that both Barbarians and Rogues have a very aggressive combat style that emphasises offense over defence, both are liable to have more "cunning" than "intelligence", and that we can easily picture many people who share characteristics of both. We're not discarding archetypes, we're blending them to produce something more specific.

For your Wizard/Monk/Lich (presumably) idea... well, that's nonassociated multiclassing, which is a little more awkward but can still work. "Wizard" contains the idea of mental discipline, "Monk" of spiritual discipline, and "Lich" of dedication to live forever. This can fit. Perhaps the person wanted to become a Lich from the start, so they rigorously trained themselves in the arcane arts, spending years and decades mastering the eldritch skills and forbidden lore. But when the time came, they found that they were not ready to take the final step, even though they knew all the secret signs and motions and words. Their spirit was disquiet, and they could not bring themselves to complete the process. Rather than abandon their life's work though, they pursued a state of spiritual discipline, meditation and inward focus, learning a degree of self-control and self-knowledge that they never had before. Finally ready, they return to the necromantic ritual fully prepared to handle the mental as well as physical dangers of the process...

So voila, using archetypes produces good results even under nonassociated multiclassing.

(Now, many optimizers claim, and rightly so, that fluff is mutable. This isn't so much a discarding of archetypes as it is a freedom to invent your own as long as they fit the game mechanics. Psychic Warriors as a more exotic form of Monk, Barbarians as a type of mage who focuses on manipulating his body and emotions, Rogue as a courtesan rather than a thief.... This sort of manipulation is still embracing the concept of archetypes, but being more flexible in their definitions. Certainly one could make a homebrew class to fit this new proposed archetype, but it's far easier to make an official class serve dual purpose.)

Jestir256
2009-10-09, 03:58 PM
Uhh... nine pages, wow. On the OP:

I tell my players that they have to finish any PrC before they start another. I do this partly as an anti-munchkin regulation, but mostly because I want some thematic commitment to the character's development. A prestige class is a serious step in the character's personal thematic growth; it's kind of like entering a PHD Program, or perhaps writing a Master's Thesis.

HOWEVER, in exchange for this, I treat PrC's as favored classes, so they don't impede the growth of characters who had to multi-class to get INTO the PrC. Also, players may "interrupt" their progression in their PrC with base class levels if they wish to do so.

tyckspoon
2009-10-09, 04:05 PM
HOWEVER, in exchange for this, I treat PrC's as favored classes, so they don't impede the growth of characters who had to multi-class to get INTO the PrC. Also, players may "interrupt" their progression in their PrC with base class levels if they wish to do so.

That's.. uh, not really 'exchanging' anything. PrCs already don't count toward multiclass penalties under the normal rules.

Jestir256
2009-10-09, 05:33 PM
Why, so they don't, even with multiple classes. Better not tell my players that.:smallsmile: