*Should* mid- to high-level characters be optimized?

[danzibr]

From a D&D-emulates-fantasy-life-which-is-dangerous point of view, it seems survival of the fittest would kick in and weed out almost all of the non-optimized characters. Like, I remember playing Baldur's Gate and you kill all sorts of scrubs and hear about other adventurers that die. If you're not good (as in optimized) and go out doing serious adventuring you'd die before you get very far.

Then again, even an optimized character could come across something way out of their league and get killed.

There is, of course, a point where optimization becomes silly (I remember someone's sig saying RAW is 100% legal and 110% silly; appreciated it), but I still think if you make a character at level... say 7 or higher all your feats and skills and gear should synergize with your class levels. You won't be The Wish or The Word or Pun-Pun or something, but still, there's no reason to have a unoptimized character.

And just to clarify, I'm *not* saying everyone should play CoDzillas or Incantatrix or the like, and I even promote dipping Fighter and Monk, and... I even like the CW Samurai for its fear abilities, but I also dislike seeing mechanically terrible characters.

[Cuaqchi]

You are forgetting that "good" doesn't just mean build/career path. It is also knowing your limits and not biting off more than you can chew, playing it smart. From a meta standpoint, all of the crappy PrC's and base classes wouldn't exist if they couldn't survive beyond level 4.

[ahenobarbi]

Yeah, they just keep fighting challenges with minimum CR that gives them experience :smallwink:

[Rejakor]

If you mean 'optimized' in that certain feats, PrCs, and whatnot would get characters killed? Then yes.

If you mean 'should all mid to high level barbarians and fighters be a lockdown, charger, archer, or jack b quick barbarian or fighter?' then no.

Ideally the class should be good enough that a number of different 'versions' of it exist realistically in the game world.

That only certain fighter builds would survive an equal CR encounter is a failure of balance in 3.5.

[nedz]

Yeah, they just keep fighting challenges with minimum CR that gives them experience :smallwink:

I think that the Run feat might be optimal for them. :smalltongue:

[rockdeworld]

It seriously depends on your gameplaying philosophy.

If you believe, as the WotC official material would seem to, that an average party (fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard) should be able to handle 4 equal-CR encounters per day - or alternatively, that each PC should by themselves be able to handle an equal-CR encounter 50% of the time - then yes. Mid-high level characters should be optimized. To paraphrase Tippy, a level 20 wizard gets there by surviving levels 1-19. And that optimization is especially relevant with tiers 3 and below, because they need more of it to contribute to the equal-CR encounters - or survive them at all. And as I mused on recently, at level 10 that means taking on 9d6 flaming breath weapons from a Pyrohydra in addition to attacks, or monsters that are actually sorcerers and clerics. At level 15 it means fully-fledged adult dragons.

On the other hand, if you believe that everyone in the group - including the DM - should play at the level of the lowest player - roleplaying or no - then no, they should not. They should suck it up and try to have fun without thinking of the numbers - except for the DM, who will spend a while trying to figure out how to challenge the players without killing them. He'll probably use a lot of mental or plot puzzles that have no numerical consequences.

On the other hand, if you believe that everyone should play tier 3 in order to match the standard enemies, obstacles, and traps they'll face, then it doesn't really matter, because almost regardless of what you do, you won't be too far out of range from any of the other characters. I say "almost" because you can still play terribly, at least until you learn basic skills.

So pick your own answer. What do you want out of the game, and what do your fellow players want?

[NichG]

I would say this is entirely dependent on your table's culture, but also on the setting and on things which the D&D rules leave unspecified.

For instance, it is nowhere said how much voluntary control characters have over their build. I think its usually assumed that a person could not voluntarily choose their stat allocation (since they have it from birth) but you could have it such that a person's stats are a function of how they spent their childhood rather than a fixed at-birth thing, in which case they do have voluntary control over it. How much control do characters have over their classes? Well, you could just say 'anyone in isolation can take any class they want', or you might require characters to have gone to the right school, be accepted by that school, have the right economic opportunities, whatever. Or even that someone's class is entirely an abstract representation of the progression of their innate ability. D&D doesn't say explicitly which of these is true (at least for non-PrCs). How accessible is non-combat experience in the setting? Are there lots of nonlethal challenges to be had? Even for combat experience, is nonlethal fighting the norm between people (i.e. duel to first blood and the like), or is everything a duel to the death? Feats are pretty clearly voluntary due to retraining rules, but for a non-PC, how much awareness of the options exists? Do NPCs take Toughness because they aren't aware that, e.g., Leap Attack exists? Do NPC spellcasters know about all the spells they could take before they choose which spells they do take? Especially for spontaneous casters like sorcerors, where spell selection is fluffed as 'emergent power of their bloodline', do they even get to choose in character?

From an evolutionary point of view (which is how the original post is couched), these factors determine the selection strength (how lethal is the world, are lethal challenges the only way to advance) and something about the space in which 'genetic' drift lives (of course in this case, a mutation is a permutation of the character's build by the addition of a new feature, rather than the next generation of adventurer). Of course, even if build choices are totally random, you will get some optimization if selection is strong enough (just nothing like you'd get if the build space is clearly visible and accessible). But with weak enough selection, you wouldn't expect to get very extensive optimization (though you would always find a little). Basically, you could get a gradient where the weak end is 'Lv18 Fighters don't have Skill Focus(Basketweaving)' and the high end is 'Lv18 Fighters don't exist'.

Also, the ability to form collaborative groups (parties) is very similar to multicellularity and colony dynamics in biofilms, which has the effect of decreasing the selection pressure on individuals in the group but extending the timescale over which evolution can occur (e.g. it enables builds that only gain power at late times). It also creates a niche for parasites - characters who aren't powerful, but are good at being included in groups of powerful people and gain xp from the party's encounters.

[ericgrau]

Should they use silly optimization things that make no sense? No, none at all if possible if you want the character to make sense. Should they show some optimization to do well? Yes... kinda. Because an in character point of view isn't perfect, and because of personality quirks they should turn out good not great. So as long as it fits your concept and isn't too major you should do some suboptimal things to make a reasonable high level character, stormwind fallacy be damned.

[Tvtyrant]

I don't think an evolutionary point of view works well with D&D as it is written. In 3.5 every monster can gain class levels, and many of them start off more powerful than a mid-level party member. Why would there even be humans in a world with Balors, Pit Fiends, Dragons, Beholders, and Spellweavers? To say nothing about regional creatures like Sharn, Phaerimm, Daelkyr, Quori, etc.

The fact that humans may be the most dominant species in D&D is entirely due to the fact that humans write D&D, much like their predominance in Doctor Who. A bonus feat does not a cosmos dominating power make.

That having been said, once we assume that the civilizations in D&D already exist and aren't going to be immediately eradicated, suboptimal party members are not a problem. Humans in real life can live exciting lives without having optimal scores after all.

[HunterOfJello]

They definitely shouldn't be unoptimized. Nup Nup would be insanely unlikely to make it to level 10, nevermind level 20.

You have to make sure that you can reliably continue to handle encounters that at least give your character experience. Level 15 character only need to be able to handle tons of CR 8 encounters, but if they can't handle that, then they'll go stagnant.

[Azoth]

I think to a degree yes. I mean there are always cases of people being forced to do things they suck at for various reasons, but an adventurer isn't some guy born into a blacksmith family with an 8 STR and 10 WIS.

He chose the career, and by mid level has survived enough life threatening situations to know what does and does not work for him. The guy with 10 STR and 18DEX isn't going to be toting a bastard sword, tower shield, and fullplate because it is cool. He knows that he can't move right and will wear a chain shirt or breastplate. He is also not going to muscle through with a big sword. He is probably using a scimitar, rapier, or dagger so he can weild it in a way that feels natural (weapon finess). If he uses a shield at all it will probably be a buckler.

That isn't a terribly optimized build notation, but one that is reasonable. He may not have had the chance to dip swordsage or take martial study and stance to qualify for shadow blade, or started out where he could learn to aim for vital spots (sneak attack), but he is making reasonable optimization decisions.

Casters...well even crappy ones are effective. Even if he grew up in a city learning from a wizard handyman has a few gems if he knows how to use them. Picking up pyrotechnics as a party trick...grease as a prank...using silent image to sneak out and party in his younger days...knock because he constantly looses his keys...locate object for the same reason.

Some optimization are things that are easily influenced by just day to living and personalities. Plain and simple. We all do it even in real life.

[Eldariel]

I don't think an evolutionary point of view works well with D&D as it is written. In 3.5 every monster can gain class levels, and many of them start off more powerful than a mid-level party member. Why would there even be humans in a world with Balors, Pit Fiends, Dragons, Beholders, and Spellweavers? To say nothing about regional creatures like Sharn, Phaerimm, Daelkyr, Quori, etc.

The fact that humans may be the most dominant species in D&D is entirely due to the fact that humans write D&D, much like their predominance in Doctor Who. A bonus feat does not a cosmos dominating power make.

That having been said, once we assume that the civilizations in D&D already exist and aren't going to be immediately eradicated, suboptimal party members are not a problem. Humans in real life can live exciting lives without having optimal scores after all.

I always thought it was because humanoids gain levels much faster and more easily than anything else so on average it's not a Balor Wizard 20 vs. Elf Wizard 20 but Elf Wizard 30 vs. Balor Wizard 20 (a fight the Elf Wizard wins easily).

[Emperor Tippy]

As I have said before "A character lives to level 20 by being the most ruthless, lucky, capable, and paranoid bastard around.". You either need what amounts to divine intervention and the god of luck crushing on you or to be so hideously capable that you can survive without said intervention.

Every cheap trick, unfair tactic, unbalanced build, and optimized choice will be chosen. Either because the individual gets to choose and he is good enough to know what to choose if he wants to win or because his build is organic and he was lucky enough to stumble into an optimized build.

[Man on Fire]

As I have said before "A character lives to level 20 by being the most ruthless, lucky, capable, and paranoid bastard around.". You either need what amounts to divine intervention and the god of luck crushing on you or to be so hideously capable that you can survive without said intervention.

Every cheap trick, unfair tactic, unbalanced build, and optimized choice will be chosen. Either because the individual gets to choose and he is good enough to know what to choose if he wants to win or because his build is organic and he was lucky enough to stumble into an optimized build.

With all due respect, but that says more about you and people you play with than actual reality of games. School of roleplaying I'm coming from preffers to punish such behaviors and teach players they are playing cooperative game, not an ego trip and the point of the game isn't to abuse the rules to get what
you want but to have adventures together. Really dude, I mean you no disrespect and no offense, but it terrifies me that somebody would see what I and most roleplayers I know call "munchkinism" to be default way people roleplay.

On-topis: You should optimize to the level you can say you're actually good at what you are supposed to do. It may require different levels of optimization depending on whatever class you play, tier 1 generally doesn't need much optimization while tier 5 needs quite some. It's important to remember to not overshadow the party an not become hindrance for them, whatever it means banning best wizard school, getting Monk high Str or wasting level and feats to get Steadfeast Determination, so your Frenzied Berserker won't kill entire party.

[NichG]

I don't think an evolutionary point of view works well with D&D as it is written. In 3.5 every monster can gain class levels, and many of them start off more powerful than a mid-level party member. Why would there even be humans in a world with Balors, Pit Fiends, Dragons, Beholders, and Spellweavers? To say nothing about regional creatures like Sharn, Phaerimm, Daelkyr, Quori, etc.

The fact that humans may be the most dominant species in D&D is entirely due to the fact that humans write D&D, much like their predominance in Doctor Who. A bonus feat does not a cosmos dominating power make.

That having been said, once we assume that the civilizations in D&D already exist and aren't going to be immediately eradicated, suboptimal party members are not a problem. Humans in real life can live exciting lives without having optimal scores after all.

Well, this isn't necessarily inconsistent. After all, humans more or less coexist with tons of species of varying scales, despite humans pretty much having the ability to systematically wipe them out if we put our minds to it. Predators don't do well if they wipe out the entirety of their prey. Also, monsters seem to gain class levels much more slowly than humans, even beyond the effect of LA and RHD which often stick them with very suboptimal (would be considered unplayable in a PC) circumstances. These things change the balance a lot.

Anyhow, I brought up evolution more because the initial post was concerned with the effects of selection on a population of adventurers, so its relevant there even if the D&D world isn't globally well-modeled by an evolutionary origin or process.

[Rejakor]

Tippy is referring to iterative probability. Using the rules of DnD for gaining xp, and how many fighters survive the SGT (Same Game Test), some impossible amount of Fighters have to die for a single fighter to get to level 20 (like, billions). So what he's saying is just like in real life, people would pass around hints and tips and tricks in order to be the best fighter, and due to the way the mechanics affect the world, it would just end up that the most successful fighters (i.e. the ones that train more followers/apprentices) would be the ones with more optimized builds.

That said, I think there is enough data loss that that wouldn't necessarily be so.

And that it makes more sense to build a fighter class that doesn't need to do that than to use the existing one and try to model the stupid into the actual worldsetting.

[nedz]

For instance, it is nowhere said how much voluntary control characters have over their build. I think its usually assumed that a person could not voluntarily choose their stat allocation (since they have it from birth) but you could have it such that a person's stats are a function of how they spent their childhood rather than a fixed at-birth thing, in which case they do have voluntary control over it. How much control do characters have over their classes? Well, you could just say 'anyone in isolation can take any class they want', or you might require characters to have gone to the right school, be accepted by that school, have the right economic opportunities, whatever. Or even that someone's class is entirely an abstract representation of the progression of their innate ability. D&D doesn't say explicitly which of these is true (at least for non-PrCs). How accessible is non-combat experience in the setting? Are there lots of nonlethal challenges to be had? Even for combat experience, is nonlethal fighting the norm between people (i.e. duel to first blood and the like), or is everything a duel to the death? Feats are pretty clearly voluntary due to retraining rules, but for a non-PC, how much awareness of the options exists? Do NPCs take Toughness because they aren't aware that, e.g., Leap Attack exists? Do NPC spellcasters know about all the spells they could take before they choose which spells they do take? Especially for spontaneous casters like sorcerors, where spell selection is fluffed as 'emergent power of their bloodline', do they even get to choose in character?
I think you are looking at this the wrong way around. If you meet a random person then they will have random stats, but if you meet a random Sorcerer, say, then they will have high Cha.
Similarly if you meet a random high level Sorcerer then they will tend to have a good choice of spells simply because they will have swapped out the duff ones or failed to survive.
This is why I tend to ramp up the OP level as the game proceeds into higher levels, though I sometimes optimise low level ones also.

It also creates a niche for parasites - characters who aren't powerful, but are good at being included in groups of powerful people and gain xp from the party's encounters.

I've seen plenty of these but mainly as PCs. :smallbiggrin:

There is also the question of the Peter Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle). Perhaps you should meet NPCs who optimised until their last level, when they made some dumb choices ?

[Emperor Tippy]

With all due respect, but that says more about you and people you play with than actual reality of games. School of roleplaying I'm coming from preffers to punish such behaviors and teach players they are playing cooperative game, not an ego trip and the point of the game isn't to abuse the rules to get what
you want but to have adventures together. Really dude, I mean you no disrespect and no offense, but it terrifies me that somebody would see what I and most roleplayers I know call "munchkinism" to be default way people roleplay.

And with all due respect you have proven that you care nothing about internal consistency or the setting, plot, and world making sense.

At level 1 *any* PC is capable of making an upper class living with minimal risk.

At level 5 *any* PC is one of the best in their kingdom in their chosen field.

At level 10 *any* PC is a legend, their name and deeds are known to all in the kingdom, and their power (economic, military, political) is enough to make them one of the most important people in the kingdom.

At level 15 *any* PC is a myth, they can raise villages to be world spanning empires, shatter the mightiest of nations, and are (in the view of the average man) demigods.

At level 20 *any* PC is akin to a god. They can, with no real effort, break armies, the gold value of their regular gear is more than enough to beggar nations, their enemies are the stuff of nightmares and legends, their allies are the generals of the gods armies.

Adventuring is not a remotely safe profession, 90% of those who go adventuring die by level 5. 90% of those that reach level 5 die before reaching level 10. 90% of those that reach level 10 die before reaching level 15. 90% of those that reach level 15 die before reaching level 20. And remember that those who go adventuring in the first place are already some of the best and most capable individuals in the world.

What does this mean? It means that no one reaches level 20 without being insanely driven (you have to be to willingly risk the total obliteration of your immortal soul or worse on a daily basis), insanely skilled (you have to be to have survived the challenges you faced to reach this point), and insanely powerful (if you weren't you would be dead).

D&D (every setting) is a death world where life is cheap and wandering monsters can level cities in hours. You choose to fight that world on a daily basis as an adventurer. You needs must be one of the following: 1) incredibly lucky, 2) incredibly powerful, 3) incredibly cunning, or 4) dead. One mistake and you will die.

You are supposed to face 13 challenges per level that each have at least a 25% chance of killing a member of your party. In higher level play this isn't that big a deal but to survive to when resurrection is common you must have survived a hundred + such challenges.


----
Playing D&D with a DM who plays the world and monsters as they are meant to be played is not remotely a walk in the part, think Dante's Inferno on Dante Must Die mode or Halo on Legendary.

[Frozen_Feet]

Tippy has the right mindset here. Think of real life olympic athletes, professional musicians, whatever - to be the cream of the crop, you need to be incredibly devoted as well as lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. No-one, period, has ever become renowned without arduous work behind their achievement. Our culture, or sometimes the persons themselves, might downplay it from time to time, but the only three ways to the top are practice, practice and practice.

And here's the punchline: whatever you are doing, you need to practice it correctly. Otherwise, you'll plateau or stagnate, or perhaps injure yourself or otherwise lose opportunity to continue.

[123456789blaaa]

On the above two posts: While "realistically" the above would happen, in the game the first priority should be to have fun. If the players and dm don't have fun by optimizing than internal consistancy be damned (IMO).

[Lord_Gareth]

Tippy, would you think it forward of me to deify you in my campaign setting?

[2xMachina]

On the above two posts: While "realistically" the above would happen, in the game the first priority should be to have fun. If the players and dm don't have fun by optimizing than internal consistancy be damned (IMO).

Depends why you play. Is it for fun, or is it for a good consistent story without plotholes?

[Emperor Tippy]

Tippy, would you think it forward of me to deify you in my campaign setting?

Not at all. I prefer the domains of Sneakiness and Magic. More Vecna than Boccob or Mystra though. :smallwink:

[Lord_Gareth]

Depends why you play. Is it for fun, or is it for a good consistent story without plotholes?

Does that second one not lend aid to the first?

[2xMachina]

Does that second one not lend aid to the first?

Some people don't give a damn about plotholes, and just suspension of disbelief it all. To them... plotholes/no plotholes, same fun.

[Emperor Tippy]

On the above two posts: While "realistically" the above would happen, in the game the first priority should be to have fun. If the players and dm don't have fun by optimizing than internal consistancy be damned (IMO).

And that is entirely irrelevant to what the OP asked.

[toapat]

top are practice, practice and practice.

practice, opportunity, and talent more accurately.

Although the 1/10000 seems like a pretty high estimate for how many adventurers survive action

[Frozen_Feet]

On the above two posts: While "realistically" the above would happen, in the game the first priority should be to have fun. If the players and dm don't have fun by optimizing than internal consistancy be damned (IMO).

Say that to professional gamers of any game. :smalltongue: Whether they have fun or not, they still need to be extremely skilled to actually play on that level.

As a funny sidenote, Gary Gykax was against ) giving players any stuff without them earning them through actual play. (Especially magic items.) He explicitly stated he hated to see unskilled players play gods due to having unearned stuff through lousy GMing.

So for players, it really is about rules of the game, and if you actually play by the rules, a certain level of optimization (and skill) is necessary to get ahead.

For the GM, it's a matter for creating a believable and logical world - in which case things said by Tippy and me are in full effect.

[Lord_Gareth]

Some people don't give a damn about plotholes, and just suspension of disbelief it all. To them... plotholes/no plotholes, same fun.

Eh, I find that disbelief is easier to suspend in the face of consistency. The idea of a level 20 Monk boggles my mind to the point where it wrenches me out of the game, for example.

[Flickerdart]

practice, opportunity, and talent more accurately.

Although the 1/10000 seems like a pretty high estimate for how many adventurers die in action
A CR+4 encounter (a single adventurer VS a creature of his CR) will kill him half of the time (assuming that the character is optimized roughly on par with system expectations). Logically, the same encounter against four people will kill someone a quarter as often (or 12.5% of the time). 87.5% survival chance for 13.3 encounters = 16.9% chance for a party to not lose anyone every level. And there's 20 levels.

Or you can look at it another way. That CR+4 encounter is expected to expend ~100% of the party's resources, and thus gives the 50% win chance (whether or not the needle passes 100% and takes away all your HP). A regular CR+0 encounter expends 20% of the party's resources, and thus has a 10% chance of killing someone (in a case where the HP resources are expended disproportionately, i.e. when the fighter is tanking hits). The survival rate per level with this calculation is higher, at 24.6%.

The rate will obviously fluctuate, since not all encounters are CR+0. Higher-CR encounters make that chance of death go up. Without optimizing for better odds than that, and using the 25% rate, you need 1 trillion adventurers to die just to get 0.9 20th level adventurers.

So no, it's not 1/10,000. It's 1/1,000,000,000,000.

[Emperor Tippy]

Eh, I find that disbelief is easier to suspend in the face of consistency. The idea of a level 20 Monk boggles my mind to the point where it wrenches me out of the game, for example.

Oh, a level 20 monk doesn't shatter believability for me. What it does tell me is that this god is the most cunning, devious, bastard around. He's so good at using what he has that he can compensate for his power disadvantage.

What does this mean? Basically that the Monk's "player" is one of those masters of the D&D system and is incredibly good at doing everything IC to tilt things in his favor.

So if the Monk 20 isn't essentially Bruce Wayne levels of parinoia, planning, and sheer badassness then it breaks SoD for me (because he should be dead already).

[Jack_Simth]

From a D&D-emulates-fantasy-life-which-is-dangerous point of view, it seems survival of the fittest would kick in and weed out almost all of the non-optimized characters. Like, I remember playing Baldur's Gate and you kill all sorts of scrubs and hear about other adventurers that die. If you're not good (as in optimized) and go out doing serious adventuring you'd die before you get very far.A character should be optimized to the level of expectation of the gaming table. As long as all players are on a roughly even keel, the DM can adjust the game fairly readily. When you've got a Planar Shepherd Druid, an Incantantrix Wizard, an Ubercharger, and a text-trumps-table Rainbow Servant Beguiler, everyone's at close to the same level, so the game is balanced. Sure, the DM might be throwing +5 CR encounters at the party four times a day, but people get about the same spotlight time. When you've got a core Bard, a core Monk, a Truenamer, and a core Fighter, everyone is at close to the same level, so the game is balanced. Sure, the DM might be throwing -5 CR encounters at the party four times a day, but people get about the same spotlight time.

It's when there's a significant power discrepancy between players that there's a problem. Unless the DM is unusually good, the DM is stuck with a choice of sending encounters at the party that will be a good challenge for the low op characters and get curb-stomped by the high op characters, or sending encounters at the party that will be a good challenge for the high op characters and make the low op characters feel rather useless.

[Emperor Tippy]

A CR+4 encounter (a single adventurer VS a creature of his CR) will kill him half of the time (assuming that the character is optimized roughly on par with system expectations). Logically, the same encounter against four people will kill someone a quarter as often (or 12.5% of the time). 87.5% survival chance for 13.3 encounters = 16.9% chance for a party to not lose anyone every level. And there's 20 levels.

Or you can look at it another way. That CR+4 encounter is expected to expend ~100% of the party's resources, and thus gives the 50% win chance (whether or not the needle passes 100% and takes away all your HP). A regular CR+0 encounter expends 20% of the party's resources, and thus has a 10% chance of killing someone (in a case where the HP resources are expended disproportionately, i.e. when the fighter is tanking hits). The survival rate per level with this calculation is higher, at 24.6%.

The rate will obviously fluctuate, since not all encounters are CR+0. Higher-CR encounters make that chance of death go up. Without optimizing for better odds than that, and using the 25% rate, you need 1 trillion adventurers to die just to get 0.9 20th level adventurers.

So no, it's not 1/10,000. It's 1/1,000,000,000,000.
The thing is that death is not permanent, especially in higher level play. That skews the odds drastically.

[Flickerdart]

The thing is that death is not permanent, especially in higher level play. That skews the odds drastically.
True, but it still requires one trillion deaths, even if they jump right up, and until very late levels, resurrection puts them behind a level and now they need to risk their lives just to get back where they were.

Even if nobody dies after level 9 (when the party Cleric can Raise Dead them), you still need a million deaths for 3.8 adventurers of 9th level to crop up.

[Rejakor]

I don't think a party of four facing an equal CR encounter (i.e. one quarter their combined added CR) is necessarily facing a 100% chance of one of them dying. In fact, that seems rather unlikely in most cases. So the number of deaths is somewhat lower than is being postulated.

Still high, but lower than a trillion.


Specifically, force multiplication means that if the enemy does damage at the same rate the party does, even if the enemy focus fires, the party can't lose anyone before the enemy dies. And specialization mean that with the adoption of basic tactics most fights against enemies without superhuman intellect/tactics will allow the party the advantage of presenting the enemy with their best defense instead of their worst, and their best attack instead of their worst, etc.

[NichG]

The whole 'is expected to kill X%' thing is really not borne out by any actual play I've seen. The real way to do this analysis is to take a huge poll of everyone's gaming experience, a database of thousands of campaigns. For each level and each class, ask how many people had a character die at that level and that class, and compare to the total number of characters at that level. This gives you the actual chance that a character survives that level. Then concatenate them as before.

I mean, I've played in parties with monks, and the monks did not die. Nor were they incredibly optimized. Often, it was the wizards who died. Even if they were mechanically more powerful than the monks, they also drew more enemy attention. Being weak can be a strong survival advantage, so long as you're adventuring with a sufficiently strong party and you're sufficiently cautious.

But even beyond that, lets take this assumption of X CR Y encounters. If you have someone who is very cautious, they could make it to Lv20 by always only fighting encounters that are CR-2 or easier. They won't gain XP as quickly, but they will still make it there eventually. The death chance isn't linear with CR - its probably more like exponential with CR, so as long as the death chance decays more quickly with dropping CR than the number of fights to level increases with dropping CR, you can pretty much guarantee survival by only fighting weak enemies.

[Flickerdart]

The statistics above, as I mentioned, only work if the players are optimized to CR system expectations, and the DM gives them encounters in accordance with the system. Obviously, a lot of the time this will not be the case.

[123456789blaaa]

And that is entirely irrelevant to what the OP asked.

Was it? To me (and I assume some other people considering some of the responses) it seemed like you were saying that people should be forced to optimize. Apoligies if I misinterpreted your post :smallfrown:.


Say that to professional gamers of any game. :smalltongue: Whether they have fun or not, they still need to be extremely skilled to actually play on that level.

As a funny sidenote, Gary Gykax was against ) giving players any stuff without them earning them through actual play. (Especially magic items.) He explicitly stated he hated to see unskilled players play gods due to having unearned stuff through lousy GMing.

So for players, it really is about rules of the game, and if you actually play by the rules, a certain level of optimization (and skill) is necessary to get ahead.

For the GM, it's a matter for creating a believable and logical world - in which case things said by Tippy and me are in full effect.

Well yes but don't they create a believable and logical world in order to have fun? I like it because having an unbeliebable and illogical world can break my suspencion of disbelief and cause me to have less fun.

In the end, don't these things all come down to wanting more fun?


Eh, I find that disbelief is easier to suspend in the face of consistency. The idea of a level 20 Monk boggles my mind to the point where it wrenches me out of the game, for example.

Yup. It's the same for me too. However there are many people out there who don't have a problem with that. What you do depends on the game and the people involved.

[Story Time]

I'd like to ask a question if I could. It's not strictly related to the points of the original post, but answers will probably respond to my curiosity.

The question is, "What about war?"

Does one optimize their character differently for a campaign that always features appropriate encounters than, say, a series of significant battles which the Party is present for? The kinds of battles that start with hundreds, but then swell to thousands. Multiple armies in the field. Very cinematic stuff.

I realize that War, with so many opponents, makes characters with infinite use class skills shine, but do the choices for the character change with war, or just the philosophy behind those choices?

[Flickerdart]

I realize that War, with so many opponents, makes characters with infinite use class skills shine, but do the choices for the character change with war, or just the philosophy behind those choices?
Realistically, there aren't enough characters of even 2nd or 3rd level that have PC classes to make a difference if you deploy them in a battlefield scenario. PCs are special forces that attack high value targets, not rank and file soldiers slugging it out on the field.

If you deployed a character with infinite use skills, it still wouldn't matter, because they'd be overwhelmed by the action advantage of the enemy and killed quickly. The important thing in that scenario is to first make sure you can't be killed easily, and you pretty much need spells for that.

[Coidzor]

If someone is trouncing villains or dealing with a lot of enemies and assassins or unruly starscreamy subordinates a lot, then, yeah, they should be able to at least give as good as they get against someone who isn't a blithering, incompetent ninny in a fight/the spy game/casting.

Otherwise they get waxed.

Now what optimized means beyond "not incompetent," is a bit of a troublesome thing, but synergy and savvy would be encouraged in my view, though there might be some places where rounding is favored over focused specialization.

[Rejakor]

The problem with war in DnD is that the writers of books like 'heroes of battle' and indeed everyone playing it seems to assume that war would be like medieval battle (and they usually even get that completely wrong).

In reality, DnD warfare would be incredibly based around monsters and magic. When you can take a beholder for a drive and wipe out infinite knights, armies are based around who has the better beholder to drive around.

So DnD battles are more like skirmishes between high powered fighter jets than anything chivalric warfare would recognize.

You'd still get cavalry and archers and footmen and stuff, but they'd be mostly in support and garrison roles, or organized as anti-monster squads with bards and marshals and nets, to die in great numbers to mildly inconvenience the War Troll raiding party sent to wipe out the wizard using Love's Pain to kill all the enemy generals.

[Flickerdart]

There's another issue that crops up with fighting only low-CR encounters and thus never risking your life. In order to be able to fight low CR encounters, you need to reach a certain level first. For a level 1 party, CR-2 is a solitary orc or kobold. How often are you going to find one of those? Most of the fractional CR creatures travel in packs (because they know that alone, they're hilariously weak, and the ones that don't are already dead at the hands of higher CR wandering monsters, or much too paranoid for the party to ever find them). At level 1, you also don't really have the resources to avoid the notice of anything at all, so not having level-appropriate fights is, a lot of the time, simply not an option.

[NichG]

Realistically, there aren't enough characters of even 2nd or 3rd level that have PC classes to make a difference if you deploy them in a battlefield scenario. PCs are special forces that attack high value targets, not rank and file soldiers slugging it out on the field.

If you deployed a character with infinite use skills, it still wouldn't matter, because they'd be overwhelmed by the action advantage of the enemy and killed quickly.

Based on DMG population statistics, there are plenty, especially since the ability of a character to influence a large scale event like that increases exponentially with level (to the point of a party of 9th level characters having good odds against an army of any size consisting of only 1st level ones due to greater invisibility, flight, and the WBL to purchase AoE wands).

To the original question about optimality in war versus optimality in adventure, war strongly favors defense over offense for the individual. The ability to be hit less, to take more hits, and to successfully flee if your side is routed means that you can survive to fight another day. In a party, there are only ~5 other people to lean on - if you aren't doing damage, that might be another round for an enemy to act against you and kill you. If you're in an army and you don't do damage, you aren't significantly affecting the outcome of the battle (of course its different if this is taken up systematically amongst your ranks), but you are significantly affecting your chance of survive. Additionally, rather than a few highly dangerous and swingy attacks (save or dies, very high damage AoEs, etc) that you find in adventure, a battle is more likely to be a slow grind, where if you take out one foe another falls in and replaces him.

So in war, optimize for defense; in adventure, optimize for offense.

[Flickerdart]

Based on DMG population statistics
I said "realistically", not "according to the DMG".

[Rejakor]

There's another issue that crops up with fighting only low-CR encounters and thus never risking your life. In order to be able to fight low CR encounters, you need to reach a certain level first. For a level 1 party, CR-2 is a solitary orc or kobold. How often are you going to find one of those? Most of the fractional CR creatures travel in packs (because they know that alone, they're hilariously weak, and the ones that don't are already dead at the hands of higher CR wandering monsters, or much too paranoid for the party to ever find them). At level 1, you also don't really have the resources to avoid the notice of anything at all, so not having level-appropriate fights is, a lot of the time, simply not an option.

And that's why most low level adventurers start out in the army. Or the militia or whatever.

Because 40 kobolds is a CR appropriate encounter for 20 level 1 fighters.

[Flickerdart]

And that's why most low level adventurers start out in the army. Or the militia or whatever.

Because 40 kobolds is a CR appropriate encounter for 20 level 1 fighters.
Kobolds live in caves that make a massed attack like that foolish and pointless, and scavenge in small groups rather than make mass excursions for head-on battles, so this is not a fight that would ever take place.

[NichG]

I said "realistically", not "according to the DMG".

You yourself said that the 'realistic' statistics you gave earlier were dependent on certain assumptions about how the game is populated and run that are not necessarily held on average as far as the game is actually played. The DMG's distribution has the advantage that it is RAW, so its a common ground to discuss things around.

Even with your statistics though, if there is an army of 10000 Lv1 people that campaigned for enough time to have 13 encounters, you'd have an army of 2460 Lv2 people, then later about 605 Lv3 people. Those are not insignificant numbers.

Edit: fixed stats.

[Rejakor]

Kobolds live in caves that make a massed attack like that foolish and pointless, and scavenge in small groups rather than make mass excursions for head-on battles, so this is not a fight that would ever take place.

Your lack of understanding of socioeconomics disturbs me, general.

Overpopulated, overconfident, desperate, or terminally stupid kobolds would definitely do dumb things and get slaughtered.

If not, amend my example to 8 kobolds vs 8 first level fighters/2 fighters and 6 warriors.

Or do low CR enemies not move in groups all of a sudden? In which case, they are on their own, and thus.

[Story Time]

Woah!

Let's be civil. Please.

All of the answers were of help in one form or another. The one which addressed my question the closest was this one:


The ability to be hit less, to take more hits, and to successfully flee if your side is routed means that you can survive to fight another day. [...] So in war, optimize for defense; in adventure, optimize for offense.


So I'll just kindly thank every-one for their answers. I'm sorry for sending the thread into such a tangent. :smallfrown:

[Flickerdart]

Overpopulated, overconfident, desperate, or terminally stupid kobolds would definitely do dumb things and get slaughtered.
They would get slaughtered by monsters before they ever got close to civilization. Your band of warriors isn't the only threat out there that wants itself a koboldy snack.

[Man on Fire]

And that is entirely irrelevant to what the OP asked.

And so is your entire rant about internal consistency. Games are to be played for fun. If that means setting has to be inconsistent with the rules, then let it be. Or change the rules. Even in the books it's pretty much said that developers aren't gods and Game Master can and should change everything he feels like. I don't care about how it should work by the rules, it has to be fun. The level of optimization should be on whatever level the players want it and it's DM ***ing job to provide challenged adapted to that setting. Forcing players to heavily optimize just because you feels that's consistent way of doing so is basically forcing people out of the way they want to play into the way you want them to play. Not everyone wants to have fun by acting like bunch of power-obsessed, paranoid psychopaths, some of us enjoy other things. Good Gm will make game enjoyable even for the guy who wants to play a Monk without any psionic or sacred fist sheningans, thinks Unarmed Swordsage's name is stupid and refuses to take levels in Psychic Warrior and feat he can't pronunce. Sometimes it means playing monsters like they're meant to be played and beating players up to make them feel humble, sometimes it means to throwing players weaker challenge to make them feel propud and strong.

And in all honestly, I don't want to be rude and I mean you no disrespect, but it's thinking like this that makes D&D players such a burden for everybody else when you throw them into a different game, more focused on different aspects of rpgs, and they are still conditioned to think and act like a bunch of psychos.

[Rejakor]

From a realism point of view most monsters are top predators and thus, rare.

Unless the wightocalypse has happened.

And who says these kobolds aren't close to your settlement? They're exactly the kind of threat no-one would bother dealing with until children were being stolen and eaten.

[Emperor Tippy]

And so is your entire rant about internal consistency.
No, it's really not. The OP asked, in character, if characters should be decently optimized in mid to high level play. The answer is yes, because if they weren't then they would not survive the world to reach those levels. Fun and ease of play are utterly irrelevant to the OP's question.


Games are to be played for fun. If that means setting has to be inconsistent with the rules, then let it be. Or change the rules. Even in the books it's pretty much said that developers aren't gods and Game Master can and should change everything he feels like. I don't care about how it should work by the rules, it has to be fun. The level of optimization should be on whatever level the players want it and it's DM ***ing job to provide challenged adapted to that setting. Forcing players to heavily optimize just because you feels that's consistent way of doing so is basically forcing people out of the way they want to play into the way you want them to play. Not everyone wants to have fun by acting like bunch of power-obsessed, paranoid psychopaths, some of us enjoy other things. Good Gm will make game enjoyable even for the guy who wants to play a Monk without any psionic or sacred fist sheningans, thinks Unarmed Swordsage's name is stupid and refuses to take levels in Psychic Warrior and feat he can't pronunce. Sometimes it means playing monsters like they're meant to be played and beating players up to make them feel humble, sometimes it means to throwing players weaker challenge to make them feel propud and strong.
Which all might or might not be true but is *utterly* irrelevant to this thread.


And in all honestly, I don't want to be rude and I mean you no disrespect, but it's thinking like this that makes D&D players such a burden for everybody else when you throw them into a different game, more focused on different aspects of rpgs, and they are still conditioned to think and act like a bunch of psychos.
In any game it is the GM's job to run the world and setting and let the PC's interact with said world how they will. In D&D (and Shadowrun, and V:tM, and several other RPG's) the default setting is that the world is an incredibly dangerous and deadly place where one **** up will kill you. You run that world, providing plot hooks tailored to the PC's, and then let the PC's survive, die, fail, or succeed on their own merits.

Play D&D and want to end the Blood War? That's fine, you are free to work towards that goal, but it is incredibly unlikely you will succeed (and to succeed will require you basically becoming beyond most gods in raw power). Want to knock off a Great Dragon in Shadowrun? You are free to try but you will almost certainly fail. Want to overthrow the Camilla and Sabbat in V:tM? Again that's a perfectly acceptable character goal but you will almost certainly fail in it.

The GM's job is not to ensure your success, make the challenge survivable, or otherwise help you achieve that goal. It's to create a world and run that world realistically, have it respond to the PC's actions in a realistic manner.


From a realism point of view most monsters are top predators and thus, rare.

Unless the wightocalypse has happened.

And who says these kobolds aren't close to your settlement? They're exactly the kind of threat no-one would bother dealing with until children were being stolen and eaten.

Some monsters are top predators, most aren't. That doesn't mean that CR 3-5 monsters can't wipe out entire villages with ease.

The thing is that unlike real life the PC races are very much at the near bottom of the food chain, on average.

[Man on Fire]

No, it's really not. The OP asked, in character, if characters should be decently optimized in mid to high level play. The answer is yes, because if they weren't then they would not survive the world to reach those levels. Fun and ease of play are utterly irrelevant to the OP's question.

With all due respect, bullmanure. Sure they could. Monk could have get to 20 level training in a temple his entire life, meditating and studying the martial arts until he reached the higher level of conciousness. Lina Inverse is typical 15-20 level 3.5 Wizard, yet she started this way, she leaved the wizard academy being extremely powerful already. I could create almost any high-level class who didn't earned the way up to that level traditional way easily.
And if we're starting at high level, why should I expect the characters to be made to reflect the style completely different from the one I'm using? Why should everyone be build like everything everywhere wanted to kill them when I want to run the game where things don't want to kill them all the time.


Which all might or might not be true but is *utterly* irrelevant to this thread.

Because what, you said so? Again, no offense, but so far I see you saying that your way is the only good way of doing things and when somebody points things you ignores, you just claim that its irrevelant, instead of adressing our points. You say that character must all be insanely optimized because othertwise the world is inconsistend with the rules, I say "just change the rules", how it's that irrevelant?


In any game it is the GM's job to run the world and setting and let the PC's interact with said world how they will. In D&D (and Shadowrun, and V:tM, and several other RPG's) the default setting is that the world is an incredibly dangerous and deadly place where one **** up will kill you. You run that world, providing plot hooks tailored to the PC's, and then let the PC's survive, die, fail, or succeed on their own merits.

Too bad that what you claim so far is not doing this. Instead you want to make every single challenge at the level forcing players to roleplay jsut because that's how things should work for you. You don't let players die, fail, survive or succed on their own merits, you force them to play on your terms in order to survive. Listen, I love having monsters playing smart, I love kobolds hiding in tunnels and stabbing you in the feets from the ground, I love dragons flying around you and throwing spells at you and I love goblins having adopting gureilla tactics. But, and there are fews:
One - not every monster needs to be like that. There are smart and stupid people, why should monsters be all played as ruthless murderous predators who have great master plan to eradicate entire village. Sometimes the dragon is just to full of himself to get out his cave, an Orc just wants to protect his village and bunch of goblins jumps at you from a bush, demanding your cloak because it's cold. Some enemies may be honorable, some may decide it's not worth the trouble and run, some may be just pathetic, not every opponent needs to be CR-Can_And-Will-Kill-You, that's what I'm saying.
Second - not every ecounter needs to be highest challenge possible, I really preffer when my games are how Spoony described his here (http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/03/12/counter-monkey-the-importance-of-wearing-pants/) - that for the most of part, if you don't act like an idiot or ain't very unlucky, you probably won't die. That makes the important enemies, where this rule is out and who can kill you in one blow, feel more special and teaches players to be smart, not to heavily optimize but just don't to dumb things.
- monsters as they are meant to be played are not something that you should use often, really, kobolds stabbing you in the feet gets old pretty quickly.
- optimization is not the main answer to every problem and shouldnt be. There should be other, more climatic ways to dealing with enemy than getting right set of spells and it's gms job to do so.
- Challenges should be appriorate to the characters your players are playing. Don't attack them with things only wizard can deal with because you think it's consistent with the rules for every group to have wizard, while nobody wants to be a wizard, that's what I'm saying.


Play D&D and want to end the Blood War? That's fine, you are free to work towards that goal, but it is incredibly unlikely you will succeed (and to succeed will require you basically becoming beyond most gods in raw power). Want to knock off a Great Dragon in Shadowrun? You are free to try but you will almost certainly fail. Want to overthrow the Camilla and Sabbat in V:tM? Again that's a perfectly acceptable character goal but you will almost certainly fail in it.

I love what an insane fallancy you're making here, bringing up everything you can do in the world towards the most higher level challenges possible. Some people don't aim that high, some are happy with just simple things, like getting their own castle and some land or fighting their father's killer, not every challenge needs to be on that level you are saying here.


The GM's job is not to ensure your success, make the challenge survivable, or otherwise help you achieve that goal. It's to create a world and run that world realistically, have it respond to the PC's actions in a realistic manner.

Too bad that what you are advocating is not dealing with thing in realisting manner, it's sacrificing all individuality in your character to get the best powers and play as everybody else. There is nothing realistic about everybody acting like bunch of paranoid psychopaths, your way actively removes what you're advocating from the game. Seriously there is "treasure chest guarded by so many monsters is probably trapped" and there is "every woman who wants to have sex with me is a succubi, the floor is probably a lava, the bed is a mimic and the inn is really tarrasque in disguise".

[danzibr]

Just to clarify, I was not asking about looking at D&D from the player point of view. I wasn't considering how much fun you have and whether you should match your party's optimization levels or not. I mean, I've played with unoptimized parties and the DM had to do some serious fudging to keep us from having TPKs, which I really dislike. I mean, we totally should've died.

I think if D&D were real then if you're not good you're dead. Now, being good can mean a number of different things. As some people said, perhaps it's extreme cunning but not necessarily the blasting power some classes get.

Also, just a note on some of the earlier math... you don't have to kill dudes to get experience. You can overcome obstacles and the like. Now that doesn't mean there won't be any killing at all, but also I don't think 100% of the experience comes from killing scrubs.

[Emperor Tippy]

With all due respect, bullmanure.
The OP, the individual most likely to know what the OP meant, said that that was exactly what he was asking.


Sure they could. Monk could have get to 20 level training in a temple his entire life, meditating and studying the martial arts until he reached the higher level of conciousness.
Yeah no. In D&D you must overcome challenges, to be a challenge in D&D for purposes of XP the possibility of you dieing must exist, to reach level 20 you must overcome on average (according to the DMG) 260 challenges which each stands a 25% chance of killing you.


Lina Inverse is typical 15-20 level 3.5 Wizard, yet she started this way, she leaved the wizard academy being extremely powerful already. I could create almost any high-level class who didn't earned the way up to that level traditional way easily.
Lina Inverse is also not a D&D character.


And if we're starting at high level, why should I expect the characters to be made to reflect the style completely different from the one I'm using? Why should everyone be build like everything everywhere wanted to kill them when I want to run the game where things don't want to kill them all the time.
Because you will not survive as a high level adventurer otherwise.


Because what, you said so? Again, no offense, but so far I see you saying that your way is the only good way of doing things and when somebody points things you ignores, you just claim that its irrevelant, instead of adressing our points. You say that character must all be insanely optimized because othertwise the world is inconsistend with the rules, I say "just change the rules", how it's that irrevelant?
Because the OP said, to summarize, "Under the rules as they are written; how optimized should a mid to high level character be while remaining in character?". Anything that doesn't answer that question (such as the fun level of playing the character in question or playstyle) is irrelevant in this thread.


Too bad that what you claim so far is not doing this. Instead you want to make every single challenge at the level forcing players to roleplay jsut because that's how things should work for you.
No, if you want to go and be a merchant or set up a mages academy in a small town (that is your goal) then that is fine with me. You can roleplay however you want, the issue is that if you don't role play a paranoid, lucky, competent, powerful, capable, badass then you will not survive undertaking traditional adventuring tasks. The world will kill you. If you want to gain the power that a mid or high level character has then that is fine, but doing so is incredibly difficult and risky. And if you want to alter the world on a noticeable scale then you need a great amount of power.


You don't let players die, fail, survive or succed on their own merits, you force them to play on your terms in order to survive.
No, I run a realistic world. What you do in that world and the consequences is entirely up to you.


Listen, I love having monsters playing smart, I love kobolds hiding in tunnels and stabbing you in the feets from the ground, I love dragons flying around you and throwing spells at you and I love goblins having adopting gureilla tactics. But, and there are fews:
One - not every monster needs to be like that. There are smart and stupid people, why should monsters be all played as ruthless murderous predators who have great master plan to eradicate entire village. Sometimes the dragon is just to full of himself to get out his cave, an Orc just wants to protect his village and bunch of goblins jumps at you from a bush, demanding your cloak because it's cold. Some enemies may be honorable, some may decide it's not worth the trouble and run, some may be just pathetic, not every opponent needs to be CR-Can_And-Will-Kill-You, that's what I'm saying.
Irrelevant. It does not matter what any specific challenge is like, what matters is the average. And on average, if you are not playing smart then you will die.


Second - not every ecounter needs to be highest challenge possible, I really preffer when my games are how Spoony described his here (http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/03/12/counter-monkey-the-importance-of-wearing-pants/) - that for the most of part, if you don't act like an idiot or ain't very unlucky, you probably won't die. That makes the important enemies, where this rule is out and who can kill you in one blow, feel more special and teaches players to be smart, not to heavily optimize but just don't to dumb things.
And that is gaining power by deus ex machina. The gods are quite literally shaping challenges so that you survive unless you are highly incompetent. It is incredibly unrealistic.


- monsters as they are meant to be played are not something that you should use often, really, kobolds stabbing you in the feet gets old pretty quickly.
- optimization is not the main answer to every problem and shouldnt be. There should be other, more climatic ways to dealing with enemy than getting right set of spells and it's gms job to do so.
- Challenges should be appriorate to the characters your players are playing. Don't attack them with things only wizard can deal with because you think it's consistent with the rules for every group to have wizard, while nobody wants to be a wizard, that's what I'm saying.
None of which is true in game or in-universe. From a metagame and an out of character perspective that might all be true, it is also irrelevant in this thread.


I love what an insane fallancy you're making here, bringing up everything you can do in the world towards the most higher level challenges possible. Some people don't aim that high, some are happy with just simple things, like getting their own castle and some land or fighting their father's killer, not every challenge needs to be on that level you are saying here.
Then those characters will stop adventuring by level 10. To adventure for 20 levels requires an individual that is insane. The risks are mindbogglingly horrible and the chances of success are miniscule. Manage it however and you will have the power to achieve your epic goal. If your reason for adventuring is to gain the wealth to buy a castle then you aren't adventuring after you reach level 7-10 or so, you are then capable of achieving your goal and continued adventuring is idiotic and wasteful.



Too bad that what you are advocating is not dealing with thing in realisting manner, it's sacrificing all individuality in your character to get the best powers and play as everybody else. There is nothing realistic about everybody acting like bunch of paranoid psychopaths, your way actively removes what you're advocating from the game. Seriously there is "treasure chest guarded by so many monsters is probably trapped" and there is "every woman who wants to have sex with me is a succubi, the floor is probably a lava, the bed is a mimic and the inn is really tarrasque in disguise".
Do you want to gain the power to alter the course of societies and nations? To reshape the world to match your desires? To break the power of gods and devils? To create worlds? To cast magics that can shatter planes?

Those who gain such power (both in real life and in game) are surprisingly similar because gaining such power requires such a mindset.

Do you go from an LA 0 race in D&D to the power of a level 20 character? Then you are a paranoid bastard; otherwise you would not have lived to gain that power.

[Lord_Gareth]

To quote a friend of mine: "Adventurers have more lethal combats every day than they do meals. These are the most psychotic freaks in all of reality, and if they want to keep living they get more psychotic, not less."

[Kazyan]

Tippy knows his rules, and that's how it logically happens if every character functioned as a PC. NPCs, however, are different in that they gain XP for doing things related to their job, surviving as murderhobos.

Even if the rules say the game should be that lethal, I prefer my group to houserule so that it's easier and faster to become powerful and rewarded. Say what you will about gods of luck or not deserving it if one doesn't play smart, but I don't want to have to deal with living up to arbitrary expectations or being "challenged" to avoid having an emotional investment cut short--not in something that's supposed to be my leisure activity.

[Emperor Tippy]

Tippy knows his rules, and that's how it logically happens if every character functioned as a PC. NPCs, however, are different in that they gain XP for doing things related to their job, surviving as murderhobos.

Even if the rules say the game should be that lethal, I prefer my group to houserule so that it's easier and faster to become powerful and rewarded. Say what you will about gods of luck or not deserving it if one doesn't play smart, but I don't want to have to deal with living up to arbitrary expectations or being "challenged" to avoid having an emotional investment cut short--not in something that's supposed to be my leisure activity.

Which is perfectly fine and acceptable. The point of playing an RPG is to have fun. It's also irrelevant in regards to answering the OP's question.

[123456789blaaa]

Which is perfectly fine and acceptable. The point of playing an RPG is to have fun. It's also irrelevant in regards to answering the OP's question.

I think there was a bit of miscomunication going on here. It really did sound like you wanted to force people to play optimized characters instead of just saying that was how it would work out "realistically.

The OP further muddled this by also being a bit ambiguous:


There is, of course, a point where optimization becomes silly (I remember someone's sig saying RAW is 100% legal and 110% silly; appreciated it), but I still think if you make a character at level... say 7 or higher all your feats and skills and gear should synergize with your class levels. You won't be The Wish or The Word or Pun-Pun or something, but still, there's no reason to have a unoptimized character.

And just to clarify, I'm *not* saying everyone should play CoDzillas or Incantatrix or the like, and I even promote dipping Fighter and Monk, and... I even like the CW Samurai for its fear abilities, but I also dislike seeing mechanically terrible characters.



Do you see what I'm talking about?

[Kazyan]

Which is perfectly fine and acceptable. The point of playing an RPG is to have fun. It's also irrelevant in regards to answering the OP's question.

Yeah, and I'm just echoing you on the point of what happens if you take the Darwinism approach. The OP just about assumes that, and, well, that's how Darwinism works, doesn't it? If you stewed random combinations of ability scores, feats, classes, skill point distributions, and player attitudes in a vat of a quintillion level 1 characters, and ran them through a guantlet of 40 CR±4 encounters, you'd only end up with an optimized batch of all variables by the time the survivors got to level 4, minus a few preposterously lucky people smiled upon by the dice gods.

[Coidzor]

I often wonder just what they thought or intended to be the mechanism to explain NPCs' levels or if they never thought on it beyond fiat everything.

[NichG]

So on further consideration, even if we assume we are functioning in the strong selection limit, there are some interesting paradoxes. This is in the context of 'sieve through a quintillion random permutations' by the way. You will see optimized builds, but it is highly unlikely you will see a certain class of optimized builds - those that come into their own at high level. This is kind of obvious, but let me point out something silly that is a consequence of it.

At one time I was curious what the optimal feat and gear selections for a 1st level Fighter would be, given core and fights against equal numbers of other 1st level Fighters. I found that certain feats were surprisingly good for this particular challenge. The one in particular that came up as absolutely transformative was Diehard. For 1st level fighter-vs-fighter optimization, Diehard is the best feat in core by a longshot. The reason is that it basically doubles the number of hits it takes to make you stop killing things - effectively doubling your hitpoints. Toughness was decent for similar reason.

It also becomes more or less useless outside of specific builds at higher levels. If we stick to core, there's no retraining, so you're stuck with it once you have it. So we'd expect to see a lot of Diehard in 'Fighter-world'. Furthermore, we'd also expect to see a lot of builds that make specific use of Diehard (because if you're forced to have it, you might as well make it work for you).

[Kazyan]

Diehard requires Endurance, but man, that would be bizarre. Heck, we might see builds that look terrible to optimization sensibility in that arena, but make perfect sense. I'd really like to see what would happen in a evolutionary D&D 3.5 model, honestly, if the rules could have a strict enough interpretation and the processing power existed. The weirdest things would come out of the other end of that--imagine every Barbabian having Bear Spirit Totem, because low-level monsters tend to be smallish.

[Emperor Tippy]

So on further consideration, even if we assume we are functioning in the strong selection limit, there are some interesting paradoxes. This is in the context of 'sieve through a quintillion random permutations' by the way. You will see optimized builds, but it is highly unlikely you will see a certain class of optimized builds - those that come into their own at high level. This is kind of obvious, but let me point out something silly that is a consequence of it.

At one time I was curious what the optimal feat and gear selections for a 1st level Fighter would be, given core and fights against equal numbers of other 1st level Fighters. I found that certain feats were surprisingly good for this particular challenge. The one in particular that came up as absolutely transformative was Diehard. For 1st level fighter-vs-fighter optimization, Diehard is the best feat in core by a longshot. The reason is that it basically doubles the number of hits it takes to make you stop killing things - effectively doubling your hitpoints. Toughness was decent for similar reason.

It also becomes more or less useless outside of specific builds at higher levels. If we stick to core, there's no retraining, so you're stuck with it once you have it. So we'd expect to see a lot of Diehard in 'Fighter-world'. Furthermore, we'd also expect to see a lot of builds that make specific use of Diehard (because if you're forced to have it, you might as well make it work for you).
Yep, but without a build reasonably optimized for high level adventures you won't survive them.

The thing is that you are more likely to survive the low levels with a build that comes into it's own in the high levels than you are to survive the high levels with a build that is optimized for low levels.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Locked for review.