Should I be discouraged?

[G.Cube]

I've been trying to learn my way into being a knowledgeable optimizer for a while now, and nearly everything I've picked up so far has been from you guys! So both as a test of my own skills, and as sort of a dedicated thank you to the Playground, I've been thinking about attempting to build and present to you all, a new PO build! The thing is, 3.5 has been around for so long now, and so many knowledgeable and experienced players have done so much with nearly all the material, I can't help but feel like everything note worthy has been done.

So I ask you guys this, is it worth it to try to break into the 3.5 high PO and TO scenes, or has everything there is to think up been dreamed up already?

[Kazudo]

Ok. Yes, and no.

I can imagine that since D&D 3.5 has been out (and done with) for a little while now, somewhere, someone has thought of everything. Maybe not the same person, maybe not at the same time, but someone has.

The question isn't "has this been done before" it's "has anyone taken credit for this" or even "has anyone who HAS thought this up shared it with the gaming community as a whole"? If your answer to either one is "I dunno" then you're better off helping the community by doing it anyway.

The other thing is that PO and TO are skills that only improve by doing. If you post a new PO or TO build, get it critiqued, make it better, etc., then you begin to learn more about the craft. The best PO and TO folk are people who started out listening to other people, then breaking into the scene with a foray of their own and really owning it, improving their skills as a result!

Basically, show it to us. if it's a carbon copy of something else, we'll probably end up advising you on how to improve your google-fu to make sure it doesn't happen again. If it's not, it's different enough and if different is good, then you win!

[Zanos]

I will laugh, and I will encourage others to laugh.

Really though, what's the worst that could happen? Most of the most famous TO/PO builds were made with considerable input from other people.

[ryu]

I've been trying to learn my way into being a knowledgeable optimizer for a while now, and nearly everything I've picked up so far has been from you guys! So both as a test of my own skills, and as sort of a dedicated thank you to the Playground, I've been thinking about attempting to build and present to you all, a new PO build! The thing is, 3.5 has been around for so long now, and so many knowledgeable and experienced players have done so much with nearly all the material, I can't help but feel like everything note worthy has been done.

So I ask you guys this, is it worth it to try to break into the 3.5 high PO and TO scenes, or has everything there is to think up been dreamed up already?

Depends. What sort of optimization are you looking to do? Just pure power for pure power's sake? The answer is Pun-pun. A particular class optimized for power at a specific level? Probably been done in most cases. Now something you might enjoy mixing together various ideas to do something unorthodox that's still highly effective. This gets a lot more diverse as a field if you're gestalting as classes from tiers lower than one have actual merit when paired with synergistic tier ones for high effects.

[eggynack]

I think there's always room for new stuff, or even old stuff that people don't think about enough. For example, I've been poking around in druid optimization for something like a year now, and I'm still finding new and interesting stuff all the time. I don't know if I've constructed something as big as an entirely new build, especially because there's not an infinite amount of variance in the build side of things when it comes to druids, but there's always something to learn. Like, I think it's only been a couple of days since I figured out that protection from winged fliers (Shining South, 48) seems to maintain all of the charm/compulsion protection that protection from evil provides, which is cool, especially because I think this may be the best source of protection of that kind that druids get.

[G.Cube]

Ok. Yes, and no.

I can imagine that since D&D 3.5 has been out (and done with) for a little while now, somewhere, someone has thought of everything. Maybe not the same person, maybe not at the same time, but someone has.

The question isn't "has this been done before" it's "has anyone taken credit for this" or even "has anyone who HAS thought this up shared it with the gaming community as a whole"? If your answer to either one is "I dunno" then you're better off helping the community by doing it anyway.

The other thing is that PO and TO are skills that only improve by doing. If you post a new PO or TO build, get it critiqued, make it better, etc., then you begin to learn more about the craft. The best PO and TO folk are people who started out listening to other people, then breaking into the scene with a foray of their own and really owning it, improving their skills as a result!

Basically, show it to us. if it's a carbon copy of something else, we'll probably end up advising you on how to improve your google-fu to make sure it doesn't happen again. If it's not, it's different enough and if different is good, then you win!

It's creeping up on 3 a.m. where I am, so I will respond to all of the kind posts fully in the morning, but I will say in response to part of yours right now that I was thinking about possibly presenting, what I think, is a rather neat build using key features from Enlightened Fist and Spellwarp Sniper.

[Valtu]

Nice, that sounds like it could be very interesting. I'm currently playing an Enlightened Fist now, (only my 2nd character), and pretty much as soon as I started getting into optimization and reading through the forums it became pretty clear that this character isn't particularly optimized :P

Oh well, future ones certainly will be a lot more powerful, but I'm still really having fun with this one and would love to see the Enlightened Fist be useful in an optimized build. I really like the idea/flavor of the class.