Playgrounder's Optimization

[nolongerchaos]

I'm curious to know, fellow Playgrounders, how much optimization do you generally find yourselves using in actual games? I'm sure you all aren't running around with CoDzillas and Planar Shephards and whatever the plural for Incanatrix may be. Do you actually carry bags 'o Nightsticks and Candles of invocation on a regular basis?

Also, as a subquestion, what is the relative optimization levels of your play groups?

[hymer]

It depends. I do like to play druid, but I prefer to keep the big guns in my pocket until they're needed. My current druid's feat selection is hardly optimal (apart from Natural Spell at lvl 6), nor my ability distribution (I used perfectly good points on charisma, and I kept my dex and str off the floor too). But then, all of that matters little. When push comes to shove I'm still a bear riding a bear summoning bears.

In another game, I played a simple archer Swift Hunter, patiently waiting for Imp. Multishot as my source of Skirmish + Full(ish) Attack. It was nothing close to optimized, and not that powerful class choice either, but that had a lot to do with the campaign. I was 'old reliable' when it came to dealing damage, nowhere close to the fighter/rogue, but keeping up a steady trickle of damage from the first round.

Unfortunately, I don't get to play nearly as much as I'd like.

As for the subquestion, optimization varies widely. We have one guy who likes to play fighters, and prefers to pick feats from the PHB, so he won't have to look around. On the other hand, we have a player who makes a competent psion and is building towards the Intimidating Rage + Instantaneous Rage + Imperious Command feats (we'll see if the DM will allows skill tricks). So we really have all sorts.

[Tim Proctor]

My build are for theme more than anything... I found that the more you min/max the more the DM compensates, and after a while its just a giant pissing match.

I mainly DM now, but generally the op level is low, enough to keep them competitive with the CR and such but not enough they could go beyond 2 CR higher.

[Fax Celestis]

I min/max pretty heavily, but I do so in a fashion that works towards an intended theme. Like, I won't optimize to be The Tier Oneingnest of Druids: instead, I'll build something more thematic.

Example: I played a druid in a fairly low-op PF party. I took the cavern domain instead of an animal companion and themed my spells around earth magic. I used the Rootwalker ACF from Dungeonscape, disdained wild shape except for Stone Form, and focused on blasty and buffy spells instead of I Win buttons. When I could, I prestiged into Stonespeaker Guardian and then into Earth Dreamer (which give full casting but aren't terribly powerful), took Brew Potion to support the party, and bought a bunch of elemental grafts (MoE).

End result: my druid turned basically into an earth elemental. I very heavily optimized towards my desired result (being an Earth Dwarf, Earth Druid with Earth grafts, Earth magic, and Earth form), but my desired result wasn't a gamebreaking nightmare.

[ArcaneGlyph]

Currently playing a Lesser Aasimar Radiant Servant of Pelor, With DMM Persist. Persisting Divine Power. Also took spontaneous domain (healing) for bigger heals cheese. So far I haven't been misbehaving.. with great powers comes great responsibility to not ruin the game. I try to provide support to the melee, unless we need some bigger guns, then I use offensive spells. My favorite spell right now is Mass Aid. My party would likely complain I don't heal until after a battle, but I only have so many slots for so many situations.


Rest of the group:
My party is A Warlock, A Fighter (I helped build this, Zhentarium Soldier, Dungeon Crasher, going in to Dwarven Defender), A Monk (Who is allowed to use full BaB because Med BaB was just bad), A Swashbuckler (with house ruled dodge bonus applies to all), and a Rogue with some homebrew poison stuff.

[Eldariel]

Depends. I've been in campaigns where a Wizard 5/Incantatrix 10 would be underpowered. I'm currently in a campaign where I'm holding back with my Sublime Way Ranger (basically Warblade with Ranger-chassis instead of Barbarian-chassis), however. Usually I play to match the playgroup; generally in the Tier 3 region with relatively good optimization (higher tier classes with progressively less optimization).

Right now I'm kinda itching to play a proper Tier 0.5 game but it's such a huge amount of work for the DM (and not an insignificant amount for the PCs either), and requires players with such solid system mastery, that they're just hard to come by.

[AmberVael]

I try my best to tailor my optimization to the group I'm in, which can vary pretty widely. I'm actually happy to play in a game or two with world dominating batwizards (though I'd hardly want all of my games to be like that- it can be a somewhat demanding exercise to make such a game actually work), but I'm also fine playing as a bog standard straight classed warlock.

In general I do try and tweak my characters to my satisfaction and to have some fun tricks, and I really do enjoy optimizing, but I'll play all over the spectrum and be happy. Different games provide different kinds of enjoyment.

I would say I tend towards high over low, and that I do avoid games where the optimization ceiling is incredibly low (I once played a monk for a core game that needed a martial character... never again), but other than that...

[GilesTheCleric]

I play a high-op character (so many nightsticks), but I always let the rest of the party shine when I can.

All of my extra wealth is used in ways that don't directly affect the main plot. Eg. I own what is now the largest church in waterdeep and have a seminary in the mountains with hundreds of students. However, I spend most of my wealth establishing new churches (Thay, Cormyr, small villages). Our campaign just ended with the defeating of the Leviathan, so now I'm spending my wealth rebuilding the land. Other than that, the gear I have is definitely below my WBL, but as a cleric I don't really need much gear anyway.

In terms of power, I've been doing little all campaign. Most of the spells I cast are dimensional anchor, constricting chains, divination, lower SR, and bear's endurance. Other than that, I usually just swing my mace and move during my turn. The only time I've had to actually break out the good spells on my list are those times when it's clear that the party can't handle things. Eg. the cult leader trying to summon the leviathan had with him a wizard custom-built by one of the optimizers who hangs out with our group.

The wizard had previously killed one our members when I wasn't there, so we already knew that he was powerful. However, as soon as we ported into the cultists' chamber, the wizard opened up with a red tide and prismatic wall. Of the four party members, one was killed instantly, and the other was ported naked to the outlands, leaving just me and the PF oracle (I would have saved one of them, but I had already used my immediate action). I let the oracle deal with the cult leader and the mooks, while I went one-on-one with the wizard. Three rounds later, the oracle and I had everything cleaned up and were able to go and rez/plane shift the party.

Other than extreme situations, it's pretty easy to just chip in when it's necessary. Having extreme power makes this easier than being just slightly powerful, so I find it best to be extremely optimal, rather than just a little bit.

[Captnq]

I am the gathering theoretical optimized storm.
I am the the perfect confluence of rules from the first 3.0 hard bound book to the last 3.5 dragon magazine.

I treat the animated series handbook as core.

I worked for a law firm doing nothing but tearing apart contracts and looking for loopholes in thousand page federal documents concerning credit card fees. The rule set of d20 3.0/3.5 is but child's play to me.


All Will Bow Down In Supplication Before
My Min/Maxed Character

Before play even begins, my character rules from on high.
He sits upon a throne of skulls lashed together with sinew and pain.

When he enters your campaign, the first sign of his arrival will be the appearance of a giant black sphere that will blot out the sun plunging the world into darkness, from which will burst forth a thousand starving game designers begging for a merciful death.

As my reality melting form claws it's way into your world, all sentient NPCs will be both driven insane and blind from the sheer beauty and perfection of my existence. Like a demi-urge walking among mortals, all will become transfixed in horror and awe.

Finally, when my turn actually begins, with a single tear that rolls down my angelic cheek, I will pick up a d20 and roll the die that DESTROYS THE WORLD.


And that's why I only DM.

[nedz]

I normally have several character concepts I want to try out, so I take note of what everyone else is playing and select a concept which will fit into the general optimisation level of the group. I will normally choose a lower tier class than everyone else and build upwards.

[Arcane_Snowman]

I optimize with a goal in mind, or a theme, but usually try to keep myself from doing exceedingly better than my fellow players, or I choose a niche they haven't and go for gold.

I'm currently playing:
A Halfling Barbarian, not terribly optimized, but a hilarious idea and that's good enough reason for me.

A duelist/face, the character can stomp all over most people around his tier in a duel, though his social skills are only mediocre.

The best magical architect/librarian you ever did see. This one requires perhaps a bit of explanation: I'm playing in a game where the magic system is quite diverse, and the player group has a base of operations. My character was made with "home improvement" as his ultimate goal, which he's slowly working his way towards. At the moment he doesn't do much interesting stuff but, probably, starting sometime next year he'll start getting some traction.

[Squirrel_Dude]

I think I try to do as much optimization of my character concept as possible, avoiding cheese (paragon surge, mystic past life, gate loops, etc.) to a solid degree. I often find myself avoiding classes that require heavy optimization to be effective but boring (hey rogues), or the wizard class.

I like optimization to be meaningful, but for the class to still be fun outside of that. For there to be room for me to pick less optimal choices to make the character more interesting and still be effective.

[PraxisVetli]

My build are for theme more than anything... I found that the more you min/max the more the DM compensates, and after a while its just a giant pissing match.

I mainly DM now, but generally the op level is low, enough to keep them competitive with the CR and such but not enough they could go beyond 2 CR higher.


I normally have several character concepts I want to try out, so I take note of what everyone else is playing and select a concept which will fit into the general optimisation level of the group. I will normally choose a lower tier class than everyone else and build upwards.

These.
I'll choose a theme, a story from my character, and go from there. Depending on the group determines the amount of cranking I do, if the group is balls-to-the-wall, then I will. Or if I'm joining a DM's first campaign, and its a bunch of newbies, despite the urge to Pun-Pun, my friends and I usually hold back. Or play massively optimized, but support, characters.
I definately find theme more important than power though. If my characer is less powerful, but freakin Cool, I'm happy, ya know?

[AttilaTheGeek]

In general I do try and tweak my characters to my satisfaction and to have some fun tricks, and I really do enjoy optimizing, but I'll play all over the spectrum and be happy. Different games provide different kinds of enjoyment.


I normally have several character concepts I want to try out, so I take note of what everyone else is playing and select a concept which will fit into the general optimisation level of the group. I will normally choose a lower tier class than everyone else and build upwards.

These quotes summarize my usual optimization level. However, unlike many of the other playgrounders, I tend towards low over high; perhaps it's because I'm the only one of my playgroup who reads optimization forums, but I enjoy playing evocation Wizards, Paladins, and Rogues as long as the game isn't too high level.

[ArcturusV]

I'm with Attila the Geek. When I play, sadly not as often as I'd like to (But then again who does play as often as they'd like?), I rarely go high power anything, or high optimization. I've found as a DM people who try to optimize at my tables were very rare. Like 1/12 players. And often those players were people who more or less ripped entire builds off a forum like this to be cheesy as hell. Heck.. a few times they were so "proud" of it, they even passed me a print out of "their" plan trying to pass it off as something they just "came up with". Generally such things were Pun-Pun or the ilk and I slapped them down, hard.

I've played a lot of Clerics. But they weren't terribly optimized in my mind. Nothing like CoDZilla or Persisted Night Sticking Shenanigans. Mostly they were item crafters, out of combat healers, diviners of fate, etc. I also like to play low power options when I get the chance. I roll my stats hardcore because I like seeing what I come up with to fit whatever fate throws me... "4 int but 14 Wis and 16 Charisma?" I get enamored with ideas I "know" are bad, like my Half-Orc Paladin, my non-wild shaping Half-Orge Druid, my Vasharan Ninja-Disciple of Baalzebub.

[Ortesk]

I find something i wanna try and i push it for all it can do. I will as a future character play a truenamer and see just what i can do. Im no munchkin, but i get all i can from the character. I have lately dropped my class tiers to the bottom and go up, if i start really good then no real fun in it. And i usually save my nukes for later, i've seen the group about to be TPK then i laid a CL 98 holy word down and dropped the BBEG like a joke. I built for this spell mind you

[Amphetryon]

I start with a concept, then optimize as best I can toward that concept, right up to where it would start to impede the fun of others in the game. It's no good being the Guy With The Big Red S on his chest when the others are mook reporters for the local paper, and it's no good being the photographer for the Team Awesome Super Angel Avenger Squad.

[Ansem]

I always pick a goal and work towards it and I wont take things that dont contribute to it.
Sometimes I'll add a second part to this, say a Psion with decent melee for my deep crystal quarterstaff but I always try to aim and have everything contribute to the cause.

[MeiLeTeng]

I usually build around a specific idea for a character, but I usually select more optimal character ideas (That is to say, I'm more likely to pick a two-handed charging idea than a sword 'n board idea.)

[Story]

I generally play a god Wizard with as much optimization as I can get away with (though even I have limits). But it's a lot easier to tone power down then up.

In my current group, I was initially worried about balance, but it turns out the rest of the group likes optimization too. I wonder how many 1 round combats it will take before the DM figures out that he needs to start customizing the monsters or giving us higher level challenges.

[Firechanter]

I would call my op level "moderately optimizing". Apart from one game where I really pulled out all the stops (Incantatrix/Ultimate Magus Gish), I usually try to achieve a solid powerlevel without taking anything too far. Also, I virtually always play humans, no matter what the Op-gurus say about monster races with so many half-something templates tacked on them they must have been bred in a sideshow.

I did play DMM Persist Clerics and loved it, but without Nightstick Stacking (I didn't even ask, because I think they simply don't and shouldn't stack). That was probably my second-highest op character.

Often when I don't know the DM or the group, or know them all too well, I play Clerics, preferrably skilling them for DMM and/or Devotion feats.

Actually I love playing melee characters; Warblade being my favourite class. I do invest in Ubercharger qualities, but again I don't take it to the max. I do use Shock Trooper, Leap Attack and a Valorous weapon, which in combination is more than enough to one-shot anything you might conceivably encounter, so I see absolutely no reason to play a fugly Orc-somethingorother with feats normally reserved for savage mountain apes.

Most importantly however, "Optimized" for me doesn't mean "one trick pony" but "well rounded without glaring weaknesses". And oh, I hate dumpstats. You normally won't find any character of mine with any stat below 10.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

I optimize hard, but play it down. I scale myself to roughly the power level of every one else, but I like keeping the big guns in reserve just in case someone does something stupid or the DM decided to be vindictive. Better to have the tools and not need them, than to need the tools and not have them.

[ryu]

I play D&D as high complexity chess with literally nothing outside a small list of no-nos held back. Even the no-nos get waived occasionally when people just wanna have Pun.

What does the high level norm look like? Stack ALL the crafted contingent spells. If you don't have at least two hundred you can call upon instantly and at the same time with mental actions you feel vulnerable. This is also to be expected from enemy mages. It's exactly the kind of silly a game with rules like these demands in my opinion.

[Story]

Also, I virtually always play humans, no matter what the Op-gurus say about monster races with so many half-something templates tacked on them they must have been bred in a sideshow.

That humans are the best race anyway? It's like Wizards and the myth of Core-only being balanced all over again.

[Firechanter]

That humans are the best race anyway? It's like Wizards and the myth of Core-only being balanced all over again.

Well, hoomins are good for anything, but you'll find lots of guides and handbook out there that go "Be a whisper gnome / strongheart halfling / dragonwrought kobold" etc and advise you to slap on a bunch of templates. That's exactly what I'm talking about: humans are _good enough_, I don't need to optimize the race beyond that.

[Khosan]

About enough to feel like I can make a meaningful contribution to the group. Typically what I do is I figure out what I want to play, then I'll look up a guide/handbook for that class and work from there.

I'm not particularly good at optimization anyway, I frequently make poor decisions when left to my own devices. Spell preparation is one of my bigger weakpoints, I've always had trouble figuring out how to figure out what spells I should prepare. Usually that means coming up with a generic set of spells with a few I end up swapping out based on a rough guesstimate of what might be around the corner.

[prufock]

I would say our table's optimization level is low-moderate, with mine being on the higher end of that scale. I usually develop the concept first, then try to make an effective build around that concept. I've never created world-shattering characters. Some examples:

- Fear-based sorcerer/dread witch/nightmare spinner/mage of the arcane order. I had great fear-escalating effects, which were generally very useful (considering dread witch's ability to overcome immunity to fear). I also had a good deal of flexibility with limited wish as a spell known and MotAO giving me any low-level spell I needed. I also had celerity and wings of cover for defense. Despite this, I played him as essentially fearless, so he was the character that died the most often (we had a dedicated healer/resuscitator, so I felt comfortable taking those kinds of risks).

- Diplomancer of the bard/marshal/virtuoso variety. High social skills checks, can talk my way out of just about anything and make anyone my friend. With spell support, diplo check was about +40, but I didn't abuse it as much as I could have. Not a great combatant though, and got knocked out quite often. Played him as naive and goody-two-shoes, didn't like killing any creature that could be befriended instead.

- Factotum with Fonts of Inspiration. The party's jack of all trades, took a backseat but when any problem came up always had an idea of how to solve it. Catch phrase was "I can do that!" In combat used IF and sneak attacking for good damage, sometimes one-shotting enemies from under cover, basically blowing his load to make way for our party's main melee to mop up.

- Warlock/anima mage with bloodlines. Best warlock/binder theurge I could come up with, but only played at low levels. Would have gone Hellfire Warlock with bloodline and uncanny trickster to boost damage through the roof. Team's blaster and utility.

- Conjurer with the rapid summoning ACF and eventually planning to go master specialist/thaumaturgist for CL boosts, free extends, etc. Very much a swiss army knife, but used most for combat.

- Pirate captain (fighter/rogue/scarlet corsair) with some decent damage from power attacking with a 2-handed weapon, sneak attack, and easy ways to make people flat-footed and demoralized. Played as a faux dread pirate, who was actually a personable cheery guy (just don't tell the crew that). Think Robert de Niro in Stardust. Had leadership for his crew, which mostly stayed on ship or in port taking care of the menial duties. Had a druid cohort with a giant sea croc animal companion.

- Half-ogre grapple monkey; barbarian/fighter/monk. Probably the least optimal of those listed, but did good damage and could shut down a fairly good area with his reach, especially using a ring of expansion. Had his drawbacks (grapple is a poor tactic against many things, and there are lots of ways around it), but was fun to play. Overly heroic, died when he took on a higher-level wizard one-on-one to allow the rest of his party to escape.

None of this was particularly game-breaking, but all were pretty useful.

[LordBlades]

My group's preferred level of power is around decently optimized tier 1s. Our average party will include quite a few CoDzillas, Batman Wizards, Archivists, Artificers or similar (our last 3.5 party was Druid, DMM Persist Cleric, Blaster Psion and Cloistered Cleric/Ardent/Cerebremancer.

We do run lower power games (usually around tier 3) on occasion.

[gooddragon1]

I find that it depends mainly on how much casting the class in question does. In the case of a cleric I don't even care what feats I take or gear I get so much as what spells I prepare. In the case of a warlock I might look at a few feats here and there, use eldritch glaive, pick up punishing stance, and there's some gear I wouldn't go without (chausible of fell power) but it's not too much optimization. Where optimization really comes into play is straight melee classes (even the warblade :/). I have to plan out feats, skill points, gear, and other options from 1 to 20 just to eek out the few points I need to make them work. It's not as bad with warblade as it is with fighter but the gear and feat dependence really take their toll. Personally, I hate preparing spells but I also don't like having to squeeze every point I can out of a build. So the middle ground is a glaivelock. Example:

Warlock 8/Warblade 1/Warlock ...

Eldritch Glaive
Chausible of Fell Power
Whatever feats and skill points I feel like (generally the 2 spell penetration feats)
Punishing Stance, White Raven Maneuver, White Raven Tactics, Iron Heart Surge
The Flight Invocation
Don't even care about the rest of the invocations.

So it's not really that much of a deal. I can live without freedom of movement by just blasting from a distance against nasty grapplers. Bad guy has 30' reach and I don't want to tumble? Blast him from a distance. Closes the distance? It's glaive time.

Also, I don't have to worry about alignment problems. "But you have to be chaotic or evil to be a warlock?" Yes, to get in, but you'll notice there's no such thing as an ex-warlock. And if you're worried about making deals with dark powers just say you are a "fey-pact" (4e term) warlock.

[FullStop]

...and whatever the plural for Incanatrix may be...

Probably "Incanatrices".

[Eldariel]

Probably "Incanatrices".

The "-trix" suffix does indeed suggest for the plural to be "Incantatrices". Male version of "Incantatrix" is "Incantatar" according to the book (even though the correct form according to Latin would be "Incantator"), which would receive the normal plural of "Incantatars" (see e.g. "executor" or "legislator" for words of the same class from Latin).

[Forrestfire]

The Magic of Faerun (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20010803) excerpt puts it as "incantatrixes," so I guess Faerunian Common doesn't follow normal language rules.


In any case, I find that most of the time that I play, the majority of the party has heavy optimization, but it's generally on a theme. For instance, in an age of worms gestalt campaign I'm in (with doubled PrCs allowed on a case-by-case basis), we have the an unarmed charger with a homebrew dragon-based class, a houseruled-to-work-with manticore tail spikes totemist//swift ambusher build, a rainbow warsnake//master of many forms, an Ubermount build, and a Warblade//Wizard/Swiftblade gish that juggles levels to get full casting, full BAB, and 17th-level initiation.

I'd say that none of us are built to be tier 1. We all do tons of damage, but in combat, the charger and the swift ambusher can do the most. The rainbow warsnake is focused on a dinosaur and blasty theme, the ubermount is currently being the one who can get to any enemy and takes out fliers when the charger can't reach them, and my own character, the gish, is heavily focused on buffs and themed blasty spells (ice and lava, specifically, and avoiding any flight spells because the character is afraid of heights).

Ironically, my current character is actually a step back in damage from my previous character (ghost telekinetic thrower), whom I retired because it did more damage than I expected it to and being a ghost was problematic for the DM's purposes. I mean, I could make the wizard a tier 1 batman wizard, but where's the fun in that? I'd much rather focus my optimization on other stuff, like moving really fast and attacking, using archmage to get around the disease component of Crushing Fist of Spite, and making the floor lava with stuff like Ring of Fire and Transmute Rock to Lava.

I'm not sure where my point ran off to during that, but in summary: my party is extremely optimized... towards each individual theme. Each option is meticulously chosen, but chosen so that the character can do the stuff the player wants them to do for their own mental image of their character, or in-character plot advancement.

[Novawurmson]

I make logical character decisions. I never take something that would actively hurt me (i.e. an Int-penalty race on a Wizard), but I will take something that isn't the absolute "best" option (i.e. I'll play a dwarf wizard).

I usually aim for tier 3 with my characters - I want my character to be useful to the party, but not invalidate the other players' characters.