Need help! - group is hostile

[Shin]

ADDITION: My "problem" has been solved so far. I do play my character as a god wizard now, doing mainly buffing/debuffing/battlefield control. My group's attitude towards my character has improved a lot, and the DM is happy to have such a "supporter" in the group. I enjoy the game more now. Should I want to/have to roll a new character in the future I'll probably stay in that role and maybe play something a lot lower in the tier list.

Hey there, fellow players!

I need your advice concerning my character.
A group opinion in my gaming group has established that deems every character I play broken and the simple fact that I play my third character disgraceful. No matter what I do, the group gets more and more hostile. It has gone so far that I hate them in return for that and that I miss the fun lately. And no, sadly, looking for a new group is not an option.

The rest of our group are a ranger, an incantatrix wizard, a cleric/radiant servant of pelor, a druid, a pirate soon going to become a sacred watcher, a druid, a twf centaur and so on. First I played a rogue/assassin, then a druid, now a standard unseen seer wizard. And I don't know what to do. The DM (who thinks that he is a 3.5 pro, as everyone else does - although that isn't true) has done "calculations" and again came to the conclusion that in this group my unseen seer is broken as heck and game-breaking on purpose. Everyone tells me that I'm mean because I "try to break the game" all the time, and I'm also mean because I didn't stick with the first character. That said, I did put my first character (the rogue) ad acta because it had 2 levels of totemist and blink shirt, which the DM told me was annoying as heck and game-breaking - and not welcome. The second char - my druid - did face an equal amount of hatred.
We're all 10th level, any amount of damage over ~30 in a round is mean and everything that doesn't make an encounter with a few commoner soldiers a tough fight is mean as well.

The group won't listen to my opinion anyway, so I think it is best to just stick with the hated wizard now, and do no sneak attacks or blast spells. I guess the best thing I can do right now is to try to keep my casting at a minimum in general and only do hidden buffing/debuffing/battlefield control, in a way that nobody will recognize the effect. Oh, and the fact that I'm a skill-monkey is game-breaking on purpose as well.

What can I do to not give my group any additional reasons to think that I only play broken characters to break the game on purpose? I'm really desperate, help me please.

[Juntao112]

Withdraw action.

An Incantatrix has no business telling you your character is broken.

Nor a druid, for that matter.

[Shin]

The other players in my group have no clue of the game or balancing, and I'd say their characters are mostly "unoptimized as heck", so it is really hard to not be better as a wizard. That said, the best thing the incantatrix wizard can do right now is to cast a single scorching ray per round and the cleric does turn undead. The former druid player now is the soon to be sacred watcher pirate, and the new druid is new to the group in general. The DM did introduce his former character, a kender rogue, as an NPC. He told us today that the true strength in our campaign lies in looking for opportunities at the battlefield. That said, he gave us an example of how to win a fight - his npc kender pushed a warehouse container down on the enemy boss mob in the last fight. Truly broken.

The problem is that my group plays "randomized". The tier 1s know nothing about the options and versatility they have and pick spells and feats almost randomly. It looks like a case of "unknowingly unoptimized". So they don't think that their druids and clerics and incantatrix wizards are strong in any way. They think that my sneak attacking is broken, the damage I do with sneak attacks is broken, and my skillpoints are broken.
They simple don't know anything about the game's balance, although they think they do.

So best would be if I do little to nothing in fights and social situations?

Edit: Additional question: If my character should ever die, would it be a **** move to play a commoner or samurai? I'm just sick of that bull****.

[NickChaisson]

D&D is a great game, but sometimes its better to not play than go through this kind of crap. This just basically sounds like a bunch of OP people getting mad that you are OP. My advice is to leave and start your own group. Sorry that I'm not much more help X_X

[emeraldstreak]

Kill ther characters. Leave the group.

[Shin]

It's as I said: this is, sadly, not an option. They are my friends, basically nice people I really like and I don't have any problems with aside from D&D. I want to and I have to stick with that group, so I'm looking for ways to not be strong in any way until, hopefully, the hostility ebbs off in the future. I don't think that they have any right to hate me for my characters, but they do and I have to stick with them. They're just "bad" at D&D.

I have to make them believe that I do participate in the (combat) action but do nothing they think is too strong. Doing nothing at all would be no fun for me and only make them mad because I don't help in game. God, I need a cigarette now...

[draken50]

Nothing ruins the fun of D&D like a bad group.

Optimization concerns aside... why not DM yourself? Nothing helps you get over a bad group like starting your own.

[Shin]

I'd have to wait at least until the current adventure is done. That said, the DM told us that this adventure will probably last for months...
Edit: Again, guys. Please don't be mad at me, but I want to stick with the group because they're my friends and I want to keep playing D&D. I'm optimistic that if I play my cards well now, the fun will come back. I'm ok with not having fun right now, but I don't want to give up playing.

[NickChaisson]

Talk to them OOC about how you feel? Its usually a very good option. Also, offer to help them optimize better. Introduce them to this board and show them different tricks.

[Juntao112]

I'd have to wait at least until the current adventure is done. That said, the DM told us that this adventure will probably last for months...
Edit: Again, guys. Please don't be mad at me, but I want to stick with the group because they're my friends and I want to keep playing D&D. I'm optimistic that if I play my cards well now, the fun will come back. I'm ok with not having fun right now, but I don't want to give up playing.

Some friends.

[Shin]

I did try to talk with them about my problem countless times. They started to think that I'm mad at them because they don't let me break the campaign. They just won't listen and they don't want to optimize. They think my characters are, and that is basically the problem. Half of the group thinks roleplay and giving one's character senseful feats and class/prc levels doesn't synergize at all. Heck, prcs are mean anyway.

[Juntao112]

I did try to talk with them about my problem countless times. They started to think that I'm mad at them because they don't let me break the campaign. They just won't listen and they don't want to optimize. They think my characters are, and that is basically the problem. Half of the group thinks roleplay and giving one's character senseful feats and class/prc levels doesn't synergize at all. Heck, prcs are mean anyway.

I can only assume these people are saints outside of the game.

[eggynack]

You should try to tend towards the god wizard archetype more. Instead of sneak attacking, and applying your power to problems directly, you should buff team mates, or control the battlefield to make it easier for them to kill things. It's a plan that lets you be fully optimized, maybe even more than you are now, except you look like you're not doing much at all. It looks like that's something like what you're doing now, but you should probably try to adopt the role more fully, because it seems to be a thing that won't cause much in the way of problems. You don't need to keep your casting at a minimum for that though. This is a thing that wizards are great at. For details, check out Treantmonk's wizard handbook (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCYQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcommunity.wizards.com%2Fforum%2Fp revious-editions-character-optimization%2Fthreads%2F1146876&ei=xfOtU9XHG4eWyATPiICQCw&usg=AFQjCNHuJjUQFzmHQgpBsa7648OuBpIdIw&sig2=P2gyiDdcF7_5h_u2dk1ckA), which is about this stuff.

[jjcrpntr]

D&D is a great game, but sometimes its better to not play than go through this kind of crap. This just basically sounds like a bunch of OP people getting mad that you are OP. My advice is to leave and start your own group. Sorry that I'm not much more help X_X

Ya this. I'd talk to them and ask them just how you are breaking the game. Then explain to them you aren't. Then I'd tell them that they are good friends but that you aren't having any fun and apparently you don't know how to create characters without said character being game breaking. So that said, i'd leave.

And the DM should have stepped in in my opinion. After your second character i'd have had you run your character ideas by me first to make sure I was ok with things.

And if they are bitching because you didn't stick to the same character it sounds like they didn't give you much choice.

[draken50]

I'll be honest. I've got a fair number of friends I can't game with.

I've DM'd for em and been players, and for my gaming style, they are problem players. Long story short, and this come from experience. IF what you are doing for a hobby isn't fun. Don't do it. Don't waste your time, you can stop playing with the group and just say:
"I'm not having any fun so I'm going to do something else on game nights"

Honestly, I'm assuming you feel stuck. I got moved around a bunch when younger, and it can be hard finding social outlets. Ultimately you can find more people to hang out with, and more stuff to do.

If, you absolutely must stay with the group your in. Realize that your normal style may not be compatible. Work with your friends to make a different character, a fighter or a monk, something, nice and low tier, and if you're still too powerful, use actions that you may not excel in. Try tripping people, disarms and sunders without the improved feats.

Do stuff that could be cool if successful but may not be the best number-wise. I expect you've got a decent head for numbers, and reasonable memory. Most of the people I've seen frustrated by bad optimization tend to. Make a point of playing the character at 50-75%, and figure out how to have it make sense. I played a monk that would always attempt to disarm his opponents and beat them into submission. Not exactly, easy, but the RP challenge helped keep me more interested an entertained.

If you're characters die... that's life, doesn't' seem like you feel like you're "winning" right now anyhow.

[Shin]

They aren't saints, but they're really good friends. I have a bunch of other friends, but neither do any of them play P&Ps, nor am I inclined to do less stuff with the gaming group. Really, aside from my current problems with D&D, I feel comfortable around them. It is a D&D specific problem I face, and the problems only do arise at gaming sessions.

The DMs / the group look over my characters but come to the conclusion that they don't like them after they "allow" them. We play shadowrun as well, and neither do I face problems of that kind when we play shadowrun, nor are they hostile when we do other stuff than playing P&P. They get annoyed because they have to face different chars over and over again. Well, not my fault, I guess. They just nerf my characters down, and if they don't - as it was with the rogue - I decide to roll a new character because I don't have fun when the character I play receives that much hatred all the time.

I considered playing a god wizard the best option myself. I'll try to lean my spell selection and my playstyle towards treantmonk's guide. Hopefully that'll do the trick. I'd be happy if any of you who know that playstyle well could help me with my spell selection, because I don't have enough experience with that yet. Thank you all for your advice!

[BWR]

So basically these people can't build or play characters as well as you can.
Build something at their level and play that. Problem solved.

You can try to lecture them about how powerful their characters could be if done correctly, but this will most likely just result in them being resentful of you. No one likes being told they suck, especially when you can prove it.
You can try to point out how their characters, even poorly built, can be far more versatile and useful than you. This is unlikely to work. I've seen this before: you build something that is technically not as good as whatever someone else has, but they can't play it worth a damn so you always end up better, and that means whatever you choose is broken. Pointing this out results in the same problems as above.
You can make a clone of one of their characters and show them how it's supposed to be done - build exactly the same then show how you can do better with the same build. Again, big chances of resentment, but it's the best way for getting your point across.

Or you can just shrug your shoulders and build and play down to their level. Regardless of what has the most potential of builds, characters should be roughly on par within a group. If whatever you bring to the table is better than anything else, you are too powerful, they aren't too weak. This option has the lowest chance of causing friction between you and your friends

[jedipotter]

What can I do to not give my group any additional reasons to think that I only play broken characters to break the game on purpose? I'm really desperate, help me please.

Just play your ''broken'' character and tune them out.

If you can't talk to them and have them understand, even though they are friends, what else can you do?

I guess you could make a gnome monk and like ''knock over boxes on the bad guys''? And name him Shortsky Hutch.

Maybe make a Hulking Hurler with improvised weapons and like throw rocks, wooden boxes and sheep' around?

[Shin]

That's what I thought, BWR. They have no right to be that hostile, but that doesn't help me much if they are. So no point in lecturing them any more. I'll try to play at my group's power niveau when we play again today, and I hope that this will be enough to soften the tensions over time.
I guess the god wizard really is the best wizard for some reason...

Edit: jedipotter, I refrain from being a broken box thrower gnome! :smalltongue:

[WesleyVos]

Try making a Dragonfire inspiration bard. You have to do nothing but sit there and sing, maybe fire a buff spell off occasionally, but their damage is increased by your singing. It makes them feel better, it doesn't step on anyone's toes, and it's a fun option to play.

[Juntao112]

Just play your ''broken'' character and tune them out.

If you can't talk to them and have them understand, even though they are friends, what else can you do?

He could stop cheating.

[Chaosvii7]

The next best option I can think of is to offer to optimize everybody's characters. That's what I do at my FLGS and it works pretty well. To be fair they're starting to understand the "mundanes are worse than spellcasters" thing, so they're slowly enlightening themselves, but they're still in the dark in every other respect to balance except maybe sneak attack.

Though personally I'd drop a group that isn't willing to listen with you and only wants to argue that you are too powerful because they are not as powerful as you because they didn't bother to do their homework on the game. It's OK if they genuinely haven't heard of a single thing regarding the tier system, optimization, and the power curve of the game, but if they insist that they know how the game is balanced but turn a blind eye to how powerful their characters could be, then they're not worth the time to argue with.

If you absolutely must stay with them, then the best advice I can give would be to play tier 3. If they still argue with you, show them the tier system, tell them how it works, and mention that your build falls in tier 3 for whatever reasons that are applicable to the build.

Alternatively, find a few friends on here that live in your area and ask the DM if it's OK to allow them to join with their own characters. Bring your own posse if you need to.

[Regissoma]

What you should do is play an optimized Inspire Courage with Dragonfire Inspiration bard with Bardic Knack and Jack of All Trades. And while doing all that go into Seeker of the Song and shoot fire while you sing giving everyone else fire.

[WesleyVos]

What you should do is play an optimized Inspire Courage with Dragonfire Inspiration bard with Bardic Knack and Jack of All Trades. And while doing all that go into Seeker of the Song and shoot fire while you sing giving everyone else fire.

As I said a few posts ago, this is actually not a bad idea, so I'm not sure the reason for the sarcasm. Except let the rest of the party do the dirty work - play the character like Breeze from Mistborn (if you haven't read it, go get a copy and read it - excellent book). Doesn't like to get his hands dirty or do anything resembling work, and is more than happy to let others face danger, but actually helps more than the others know.

[Shin]

Trust me, they don't improve on that matter :smallwink:
TOB classes and rogue (because of their high damage output) are deemed op in my group. And thought of as stronger than a wizard or a cleric. I did argue with them about tiers, balancing and all the stuff, but they won't understand because they don't understand the mechanics behind everything. An example: When I was new to D&D/3.5 I thought that the TOB classes' maneuvers were a waste of time because power attack + full attacks made them obsolete. What a fool I've been. Well, my group is at that level of understanding the game, I guess.

They are good friends, but they don't know much about D&D balancing. I guess that is the reason I don't face those problems in Shadowrun. I had toxic friends, I know the difference. It may seem like they're jerks, but they're stubborn only when it comes to D&D. Admittedly, not the whole group is hostile towards my characters. Some (the girl) don't mind, and the incantatrix wizard is my brother and told me that he understands both sides.

If my character should die during this campaign, I'll probably reroll a low tier character. But as they don't like me changing characters because they want to have a rather continuous party, I'll give the god wizard a try (and help them without them notice it). I want to give it at least another try today before I storm off.

Edit: If I wanted to screw my team over, I'd probably play an (un-)optimized frenzied berserker or an apostle of peace like that dude who started that other thread today :smallbiggrin:

[Seclora]

Try making a Dragonfire inspiration bard. You have to do nothing but sit there and sing, maybe fire a buff spell off occasionally, but their damage is increased by your singing. It makes them feel better, it doesn't step on anyone's toes, and it's a fun option to play.

I second this. stay out of the limelight, don't contribute anything directly, just let them take point and pitch in with your 'Don't forget the +X from Blank' whenever they forget. Put all your skill ranks into spot, listen, and other low-profile skills. Help out, without standing out. Eventually, they should stop hating on your character.

Or they'll make bad bard jokes and complain you're not contributing enough. At that point you should point out your past characters and how they responded to them.

[Shin]

Thank you for the tip, I'll keep the bard as an option for the next character. But let's not confuse these poor people with another new character right now :smallwink:
And thank you #2. Talking to other people than my group for once did help me cool down.

[Doc_Maynot]

Run it. Run the Optimized Truenamer, item familiar and everything.

[cobaltstarfire]

It sounds like your friends are being very toxic, and their behavior really is bordering on emotional abuse from the way you describe it, whether they realize it or not.

If you still find they are being nasty to you once you decide to change how you approach things (or if you find you don't really enjoy playing a wall flower) you may want to consider not playing with them. You can still be their friend in other things, but for gaming you may want to find a new group.

[Trundlebug]

I have seen this before and it's sad really.

Honestly?

These people are not your friends. That is not how friends act. I've seen it before and will probably see it again. Groups that stick together out of misplaced loyalty,

"we've been friends so long!"

No they often haven't, they just hang out together, because. People change, just because Timmy was your friend when you were 5 doesn't mean you, or Timmy, are the same people now.

Do yourself the best thing ever. Let them go. Don't keep toxicity in your life out of misplaced loyalty. Chances are in 10 yrs you wouldn't know them any more any ways.

[NichG]

It probably doesn't fit with a campaign in progress, but what about using pregens that the group agrees on beforehand? And if anyone says 'you took the broken one!' offer to trade with them.

[Inevitability]

Ask the DM: 'I apparently have trouble making a character that is on a good power level compared to yours. Could you please give me a few suggestions?'

That way, you're talking OOC about it, they can't accuse you off 'getting mad because you can't break the campaign', and you'll end up with a character they accept.

[Tedective]

I used to have a group of 'evil' characters.

Mainly just hyper-optimized characters like a 'neutral' were-bear, psion thing with a reach of 200ft, a spell-stitched death knight, and my lich.

My character wasn't optimized for fighting, or even in controlling undead. He was optimized in making very powerful undead... which didn't even compare to the truly most broken character of all...

Gorgrumm.

This thing was so massive, so strong, that it could attack every square around it, trip everything, smash them together a couple times, and next turn throw a condensed hydrogen ball at the big bad evil guy for millions of D6.

We really liked Gorgrumm though, because he didn't actually go all out in combat. He stayed back and watched until the party seemed to be slightly losing, then smooshed the npc end game boss person by picking up and setting down /the tavern/. You know, that centerpiece building that has stood place for eons or whatever and just so happens to be made entirely out of adamantine?

No dice were needed to be rolled. Not even a reflex save for half of the incoming damage.

Rambling aside though, Gorgrumm was a fun addition to the party, not because he was horrendously broken, but because he knew it and didn't want to bog down the rest of the party's antics with his own.

A divination wizard's nice for that role, you can be a direct beneficiary to the party and let them do all the fun smashing things around.

Also... read this. http://dictummortuum.blogspot.com/2011/09/wizards-handbook-part-one-attributes.html

[Arbane]

I see playing a level 10 Commoner has already been suggested. :smallamused:

How about offering to swap characters with someone else? Show them what they could be doing.

Other than these antics, the 'god wizard' is probably your best bet.

[Tedective]

If you want to play a god wizard and remain unnoticed, prepare buffs and invisibility. I once cast Web indoors and felt like the slimiest, most useful wizard ever.

Mostly to gain respect between Avasculates and Sphere of Ultimate Destructions, I cast Bull's Strength on the melee guy, Cat's Grace on the rogue, ask who has the lowest armor and add a +4 (Shield or Mage Armor) bonus to it.

Separating groups of mobs can also be a handy dandy tactic while remaining in the backdrop. Your buddies still get to hack and slash at half the mobs while you block the other half with a Wall of Force, Web, or Field of Icy Razors.

As well, when preparing spells, whisper to some people something like "I could prep Holy Power (Arcane Disciple (War)) and put it in a bottle for you, that way your base attack equals my character level... Wanna try that plus a Haste and you use your Belt of Battle's full charge?"
Even if you never go through with this quick-thought out dumb idea, it's still fun to hypothesize character synergy and establish an equal playing field...

As a god wizard, you need your team as much as they need you too, think about what buffs/debuffs are fun and which are save-or-dies. Reserve the fun ones for trash and easy encounters, and then test out a save-or-die or two on the tougher looking enemies.

I guess it can be stressful to play a metagame of friendship Sims while playing D&D, huh?

My group's entirely power-gamers and I like to roleplay. :> We are opposites. [:I]

[singera]

my suggestion is fairly simple.. prove you don't want to break the game... next character you roll up for what ever reason... build as silly a concept as you can or even build someone designed to aid the party and not do much himself such as a marshal bard of some sort just to calm them down for a while

[Rolero]

In my experience I have had some problematic players or some haters because op characters or optimization problems, but never the whole group itself.
For what I have read on the thread, playing a buffer migth be the best choice, but I think I can offer you another: Why don't you DM?

Suggest your current master you want to run a campaign and invite everyone to play. Then, just lower the difficulty of the encounters appropriately to their characters. You solve two problems: one, They don't bitch about you being broken anymore, and two, You get to keep playing with your friends. As long as you emulate the game style of your current DM you should not have any problems with it.

[Shin]

As said, it's not the whole group, but some of my fellow players think that they're D&D pros and keep bitching around. I'll do buffing/debuffing/battlefield control only now. I can't DM right now because the current campaign will probably go on for a while.

[Ansem]

Don't play with Scrubs. Leave and find a group with decent people. Can't be put simpler than that.

[Andezzar]

Ask the DM: 'I apparently have trouble making a character that is on a good power level compared to yours. Could you please give me a few suggestions?'

That way, you're talking OOC about it, they can't accuse you off 'getting mad because you can't break the campaign', and you'll end up with a character they accept.


It probably doesn't fit with a campaign in progress, but what about using pregens that the group agrees on beforehand? And if anyone says 'you took the broken one!' offer to trade with them.Both are good suggestions.

I give you another one. Offer to play the druid cleric/RSoP or the Incantatrix (use those character sheets) for a couple of encounters as a test. Play them properly. No infinite loop tricks just good use of the resources. I.e. Summons, Wildshape, Buffing, BFC etc. and then ask them how those are less broken than the rogue/assassin.

[Bronk]

From what's been said so far, it sounds to me as if part of the problem is that the rest of the group isn't making the full mental switch between Shadowrun and D&D... or maybe they're just letting them blend in with each other in a weird way.

Shadowrun is a game with a lot fewer rules, magic is weaker, and the boss fights can be unwinnable as written. There's a lot more flying by the seat of your pants and winging it kind of stuff going on. How is a regular dude going to off a dragon in that game? Not with your regular character, those things are nearly invincible! I'll tell you how... after a 4 hour argument, then knocking a building onto it, just like what happened in your D&D game.

I'll bet that most of those guys see Shadowrun as the power game and D&D as the artsy roleplaying game. They'll see you do some damage, and in their mind you just pulled out the equivalent of a six foot assault cannon you somehow hid under your unzipped armored trench coat. Of course, they probably wanted to do that too, but whatever character concept they had for dealing with stuff like that hasn't come to fruition yet by level ten, and they're frustrated because you can't just make your character how you want from the start like you can in the other game. Having more skills just makes it that much worse, because you can do more out of combat too... and combat sounds like its only a small part of your game.

I think some of the other posters have the right idea... keep the character you have now, hang back a bit, give the others time to shine, make a point to talk to them in character and seek their 'in game' advice about things to make them feel included, use your skills to 'aid another' a bunch, try to feel out the DM's style (more things to kick?), and only go all out if you really need to.

[The Insanity]

They are my friends
they're my friends
they're really good friends
They are good friends
No.

No, they aren't.

[Bundin]

This isn't an ingame problem, so it won't be fixed by an ingame solution. That'll be a stopgap at best.

Talk to your DM about you not having fun anymore because of the frequent comments. Don't go into "my char is perfectly legal and they're doing it wrong" territory at all, just start with talking about what's happening out-of-character during sessions. Don't blame anyone, but ask for his help and suggestions on fixing this. He may not be willing to step up to the plate and talk to the others, but that's not too relevant. Not talking to him doesn't change anything either.

The same goes for your brother, who has stated that he sees both sides. Have the same chat. Then maybe the girl that you mentioned as not being hostile to your characters.

Even if they dislike your characters and playstyle, they're your friends. Telling them that you're not enjoying the evenings that you spend together because of this.. tension, should at least get some reaction. And if not, suggest to keep this campaign short and switch to a different game sooner rather than in a few months.

Gimping your character may shut them up now, but it doesn't deal with the real problem: a group of friends not being able to work out a social problem. I'd hang out with them, and play games if that's usually a good time. But I'd not count them as good friends in that case, real friends wouldn't dismiss what you have to say.

[Renen]

If I was in your position, heres what I would do (I am not saying do it, as I am a strange person who rarely does smart things)

Me: Gents. I understand you think me OP. I will switch. Tell me what class you think is least OP.
Group: Fighter (for example)
Me: Ok
*I leave and make an ubercharger, while leaving out a few things. In other words not THE most optimized one I can make, but a 8 on a scale where 10 is the max of my optimization skill.*
Me: Im back gents. Look at this fighter I got!
*leaps at a dragon and one shots him*
Group: OMG OP!
Me: Well actually... I can go higher!
*Show them things I purposefully left out that now would allow me to kill 2 more dragons in one round*
Me: Now dont tell me I try to break the game when I am holding back because you gents think a clerics only job is turning undead.


Or id take the clerics/druids character sheet and say that ill show them how to play said character if I can vhange whole spell list and 1/2 the feats.
Then proceed to show them what a fully buffed cleric can do. And how good druids shapeshifting is.

[Trundlebug]

If I was in your position, heres what I would do (I am not saying do it, as I am a strange person who rarely does smart things)

Me: Gents. I understand you think me OP. I will switch. Tell me what class you think is least OP.
Group: Fighter (for example)
Me: Ok
*I leave and make an ubercharger, while leaving out a few things. In other words not THE most optimized one I can make, but a 8 on a scale where 10 is the max of my optimization skill.*
Me: Im back gents. Look at this fighter I got!
*leaps at a dragon and one shots him*
Group: OMG OP!
Me: Well actually... I can go higher!
*Show them things I purposefully left out that now would allow me to kill 2 more dragons in one round*
Me: Now dont tell me I try to break the game when I am holding back because you gents think a clerics only job is turning undead.


Or id take the clerics/druids character sheet and say that ill show them how to play said character if I can vhange whole spell list and 1/2 the feats.
Then proceed to show them what a fully buffed cleric can do. And how good druids shapeshifting is.

Ya. Try this. It'll work :smallannoyed:

[Renen]

My helpful advice work 140% of the time because im Russian

[Synar]

Wait what, guys?
Some guy has a problem because he is optimized and his group ain't, so he is actually breaking the game (since caster or not, and whatever the absolute potential of classes, being more optimized probably makes him actaully more powerful than the other players) and overshadowing the other players,
so his group is complaining and he is too, which is legit, classic problem,
so... what do you tell him?
That his friends that you don't know ain't his friends at all and are toxic because ... they don't want to optimize and think they're better at d&d than they actually are?
I think you should refrain from making such accusations when you know nothing about the persons involved.:smallannoyed:


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


:smallsmile:So, to answer your question, the first options that come to mind would be to play a buffer without optimizing too much, or play a concept that would otherwise be weak but flavorful, but that becomes powerful with a small side of optimization.
Or just don't optimize your character during character creations. yes, optimization can be fun, but this is not the only fun part of the game. So you have the option of playing a deliberately non-optimized character. And you are actually more free to try fun things without the risk of being overshadowed! So playing a deliberately anti-optimized character, but with a decent range of options and abilities, or fun concept, is definitely an option. And even with such a character, you can keep all the fun of roleplaying or using his abilities cleverly in combat. Heck, actively trying to build a non-op character to be on the same power level than your teammates could be a fun challenge in itself. And this is not incompatible with playing a buffer. Just don't play an op buffer.
Finally, remember, if aspects of the game are forbidden, just find fun in the others. This is a game, after all. And when life give you lemon, make lemonade.:smallwink:

[Synar]

If I was in your position, heres what I would do (I am not saying do it, as I am a strange person who rarely does smart things)

Me: Gents. I understand you think me OP. I will switch. Tell me what class you think is least OP.
Group: Fighter (for example)
Me: Ok
*I leave and make an ubercharger, while leaving out a few things. In other words not THE most optimized one I can make, but a 8 on a scale where 10 is the max of my optimization skill.*
Me: Im back gents. Look at this fighter I got!
*leaps at a dragon and one shots him*
Group: OMG OP!
Me: Well actually... I can go higher!
*Show them things I purposefully left out that now would allow me to kill 2 more dragons in one round*
Me: Now dont tell me I try to break the game when I am holding back because you gents think a clerics only job is turning undead.


Or id take the clerics/druids character sheet and say that ill show them how to play said character if I can vhange whole spell list and 1/2 the feats.
Then proceed to show them what a fully buffed cleric can do. And how good druids shapeshifting is.
Ya. Try this. It'll work :smallannoyed:

Judging from your smiley, I guess this is sarcasm? At least I hope it is. This is a badTM idea.

[Juntao112]

Wait what, guys?
Some guy has a problem because he is optimized and his group ain't, so he is actually breaking the game (since caster or not, and whatever the absolute potential of classes, being more optimized probably makes him actaully more powerful than the other players) and overshadowing the other players,
so his group is complaining and he is too, which is legit, classic problem,
so... what do you tell him?
That his friends that you don't know ain't his friends at all and are toxic because ... they don't want to optimize and think they're better at d&d than they actually are?
I think you should refrain from making such accusations when you know nothing about the persons involved.:smallannoyed:
Let's see...


A group opinion in my gaming group has established that deems every character I play broken and the simple fact that I play my third character disgraceful. No matter what I do, the group gets more and more hostile.
...
I played a rogue/assassin, then a druid, now a standard unseen seer wizard. And I don't know what to do. The DM (who thinks that he is a 3.5 pro, as everyone else does - although that isn't true) has done "calculations" and again came to the conclusion that in this group my unseen seer is broken as heck and game-breaking on purpose. Everyone tells me that I'm mean because I "try to break the game" all the time, and I'm also mean because I didn't stick with the first character.
...
The group won't listen to my opinion anyway, so I think it is best to just stick with the hated wizard now, and do no sneak attacks or blast spells. I guess the best thing I can do right now is to try to keep my casting at a minimum in general and only do hidden buffing/debuffing/battlefield control, in a way that nobody will recognize the effect. Oh, and the fact that I'm a skill-monkey is game-breaking on purpose as well.


Praytell, what kind of behavior is this?


Finally, remember, if aspects of the game are forbidden, just find fun in the others. This is a game, after all. And when life give you lemon, make lemonade.:smallwink:
Don't make lemonade, make life take the lemons back. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt6iTwVIiMM)

[Trundlebug]

Judging from your smiley, I guess this is sarcasm? At least I hope it is. This is a badTM idea. Of course. Taking the low road and fighting pettyness with pettyness is never a good idea.

[Synar]

Of course. Taking the low road and fighting pettyness with pettyness is never a good idea.

I agree.


Let's see...



Praytell, what kind of behavior is this?


Don't make lemonade, make life take the lemons back. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt6iTwVIiMM)

Well, his characters are probably more optimized and powerful than the other's characters. So while they should be assuming good intent, from what they can see of the results, they are not totally wrong. And we don't know their point of view, we don't know what was actually said, what actually happened, and we have so little elements that saying that they are bad friends is a bit arbitrary.
And since optimizing is the process of making your character good the best at what he does, even if the intent is not to break the game, it is not very far and its results can be pretty much the same. Furthermore, op char with a good enough base will inevitably be relatively better than unop ones, and since D&D has been balanced by a happy familly of flying trees, this difference can be brutal.

Finally, I will reiter that someone who does not optimize at the level of his group, be it under or over, will inevitably encounter problems, and it is nor his fault nor the group fault, but one has to change, and it is easier for the one person. After all , toning down your skills is easier than inventing inexistent ones. And finally, good practical optimization is not to make the best character ever, it is to make a character on the power levels of your friends and teamates.




Also, to the original poster, if you detailed to the forum the builds of your friends, maybe the forumers could help you create charcters on the same power level? Or like other said, build one with your DM without optimizing, but securing a fair numbers of fun/flavorful/versatile/whatever options and abilities, so you don't end up with the meatshield fighter who does nothing.

[PaucaTerrorem]

Make a DMM Cleric or a Planar Shepherd. Generalist Wizard who only uses core material. Show them Pun-Pun. Show them what OP and broken really is. Maybe then they'll understand that you're just good/better at building characters. But do it in a non smart-assy way. Inform the ignorant. If that doesn't work than you're probly stuck being a buffer.

[Juntao112]

I agree.
Finally, I will reiter that someone who does not optimize at the level of his group, be it under or over, will inevitably encounter problems, and it is nor his fault nor the group fault, but one has to change, and it is easier for the one person. After all , toning down your skills is easier than inventing inexistent ones. And finally, good practical optimization is not to make the best character ever, it is to make a character on the power levels of your friends and teamates.

Do you advise smart, outspoken women who have trouble getting dates and making friends to downplay their intelligence, interests, and opinions?

[PaucaTerrorem]

Do you advise smart, outspoken women who have trouble getting dates and making friends to downplay their intelligence, interests, and opinions?

Yes.

Now before anyone goes on a tirade about how that's sexist; I would say it to a smart, outspoken man as well.

One of humanities greatest strengths it the ability to adapt.


edit: Punctuation was horrendous and poor grammar is why everyone else hates us Americans.

[Synar]

Do you advise smart, outspoken women who have trouble getting dates and making friends to downplay their intelligence, interests, and opinions?

Is optimizing a fictinnal character in an arbitrary game system really that important? I believe your comparison is a bit flawed. First, the consequences are very different. Secondly, optimizing characters does not mean making them the best possible, and even if ti does meant that, and was what the op found the most fun, this is not the only fun part of playing d&d. Arguably, he would still have fun playing and roleplaying a character a bit weaker, or in a different system. After all, playing a character with the same power level than your party does not refrain you from: -roleplaying your character
-using your character to the best of its ability, including playing tactically/intelligently/originaly/whatever
-having fun or flavorful or intersting or at the same power level than the party abilities
-buffing and using teamplay and trying to solve challenges as a team
-finding fun in the challenge of optimizing a really weak or/and flavorful or/and fun concept
-optimizing within limits (yes, the limits of this group are low)
-having no limits in concepts since building a weak character is inevitable if you don't ignore half of published material
-having fun playing, roleplaying and hanging out with your friends


(while what you propose is very, very offensive and a badTM idea for reasons I don't believe I should state out)

[Bluydee]

For one session, show up with Pun-Pun. They'll never call you OP after that. :smallwink:

[Vizzerdrix]

I've been in this exact position, and it ended quite a few friendships for me. My advice is to let them know that you are willing to hang out and remain friends, but that P&P is off the table for a while. Remember, No Game is much better than Bad Game.

[Juntao112]

Is optimizing a fictinnal character in an arbitrary game system really that important?
Only about as important as men are.


I believe your comparison is a bit flawed. First, the consequences are very different. Secondly, optimizing characters does not mean making them the best possible, and even if ti does meant that, and was what the op found the most fun, this is not the only fun part of playing d&d.
Agreed. The most fun part of playing d&D is interacting with your friends... which is impossible if they're going to automatically assume bad things about you. Hence, the suggestion that he remain friends but withdraw from the game.


Arguably, he would still have fun playing and roleplaying a character a bit weaker, or in a different system.
I think you should refrain from making such assumptions when you know nothing about the person involved. :smallannoyed:


(while what you propose is very, very offensive and a badTM idea for reasons I don't believe I should state out)
Obviously not, given that at least one person things it is appropriate advice.


Yes.

Now before anyone goes on a tirade about how that's sexist; I would say it to a smart, outspoken man as well.
That doesn't make it less sexist, that just makes it more wrong.


One of humanities greatest strengths it the ability to adapt.
We didn't become the planet's dominant force by adapting, we did it by outthinking the competition and eating them.

[Kalmageddon]

I don't have much in the way of advice to give you, but I do have a question: you said that one of the characters you tried playing was a druid and was deemed OP, but then one of the other players also play a druid.
Why is his druid ok but yours wasn't?

[Tohsaka Rin]

Just have the party MAKE your character FOR you.

Any issues they have from then on, are entirely upon their shoulders.

Simple problem, simple solution.

[Renen]

Have the party make a caster for you, with the only thing that you have a say over being the spell list. Proceed to still be the best, because spells are OP.

[AvatarVecna]

My suggestion: build a character you'll have fun roleplaying. Intentionally build them to be virtually useless in just about every situation. When they complain about how useless your character is, tell them you were tired of getting yelled at for overpowering your characters.

Also, anything over 30 damage per round is OP?! That's ridiculous.

Let's look at core only.

At 10th level, a barbarian should have a +2 Greataxe, Power Attack, Weapon Focus, and raging Str of...let's say 22 (base 16+2 level+4 raging; hardly optimized). Taking only a -2 to attack with Power Attack, they have attack +17/+12 and damage 1d12+15. If both hit (reasonable), that's an average of 43 points of damage.

At 10th level, a fighter with a +3 Greatsword, WF, WS, GWF, and Power Attack with a Str of 18 (base 16+2 level), taking a -2 to the attack from PA, has an attack bonus of +17/+12 and damage of 2d6+15. Average damage, assuming both hit (reasonable, as above), is 44.

At 10th level, a rogue with Weapon Finesse, Dex 20(base 16+2 gloves+2 level), a +2 Dagger, Weapon Focus, and has a dependable flanking partner (which they should, unless the party loves losing), attack bonus is +17/+12 and damage per hit (2 is reasonable still) is 1d4+5d6+2, averaging 22 per hit, for 44 per round.

At 10th level, a monk who has Weapon Focus, Amulet of Mighty Fists +1 (terrible), and Str 16 (less than reasonable; see Treantmonk's guide to know why) has an attack bonus of +12/+12/+7 (of which maybe two can reasonably hit) and damage of 1d10+4 each. Average is 19 per round. So the monk is average power, according to this.

At 10th level, a ranger should have Imp. TWF, Str 18, 2 +1 daggers, Weapon Focus, Power Attack, and a consistent flanking partner (animal companion). Taking a -2 penalty to the attacks with PA, attack bonus is +14/+14/+9/+9, and damage per hit is 1d4+7; assuming 3 hit, it's about 28.5, or almost too OP for this group. Of course, the animal companion could take that over the top, as could facing any of the ranger's favored enemies. So that IS OP!

Let's talk spells.

Cleric?
Let's talk Mass Inflict Light Wounds (Cleric 5): 1d8+10 to up to 10 enemies. All together, assuming an average of...3 people targeted, that's average 43.5. 3 people targeted. 3.

Oh! How about Empowered Inflict Serious Wounds (Cleric 5): (3d8+10)*1.5, averaging 35.25, so it's OP.

There's also Flame Strike (Cleric 5): 10d6 with Ref save for half; fail the save, and average damage is 35, so it's OP. And that's if it just hits one person.

Extended Divine Power (Cleric 5). Gain full BAB and +6 to Str; you probably have Weapon Focus, and two-hand your weapon. Add in Power Attack (-2 penalty) and a +2 warhammer, and you're looking at (assuming base Str 16 before spell) +17/+12, with 1d8+15, averaging 39 a round for 20 rounds. Have fun!

Sorcerer/Wizard!

Cloudkill (Src/Wiz 5) either kills targets or does Con damage. And that's to a large area.

Cone of Cold (Src/Wiz 5): 10d6 to an area with Ref save for half; see Flame Strike above.

Empowered Fireball (Src/Wiz 5): (10d6)*1.5, averaging 52.5 to each person hit, with Ref save for half. Huge area, and even the half damage is almost OP by these standards.

Maximized Scorching Ray (Src/Wiz 5): 2 rays doing 24 damage each, no save. Virtually guaranteed 48 damage. It's overpowered!


Bottom line: assuming that "30+ dpr is OP" line is an accurate assessment of their optimization level, it looks like the core-only monk is about average by their standard.

CORE-ONLY MONK IS AVERAGE. That's bull****.

Please, show them these calculations, or similar calculations. Show them how terribly underpowered their assumptions are. The core-only monk should not be anybody's measuring stick in terms of power; hell, the "everything is legal" monk shouldn't be anybody's measuring stick in terms of power. Either talk some sense into your group, or play something weak for the roleplaying experience. If they complain at you for being useless, tell them you were playing down to their level.

WARNING: following the advice immediately above this warning can possibly cause bodily injury from the retributive ass-kicking you may receive after delivering such an arrogant one-liner. Do not try snark like this at home; leave it to the professionals: they have experience in making quick escapes.

[Shin]

Sorry for the wall of text! I did try to answer all new suggestions and questions which did arise.

It got a lot better today! I told to the DM/co-DM that I'll adapt my power niveau to the group's, and tensions got lowered quite a bit. They probably also did see that they alienated me and that I lost interest in the game. Both sides tried to be sympathetic today when we did talk out of character about the matter.

Bronk, you could be right. As things look to me, my group just doesn't really understand the system all that well, and they didn't spend as much time as I did to educate myself about the game. I tried to improve my group's understanding of the game through advice and comparison, but that didn't work so far. I guess that I just have to be patient until they learn more about the game through their own effort. Alternatively, maybe I can make them read more handbooks and topics about balance and the tier system. I did talk to my brother a lot about that kind of stuff and did show them interesting new things I did discover myself, like pun-pun, the omniscifier, or the ways wizards own without blasting. He did read for himself and grew to be the second most educated member of our group.

I agree with Synar - I'm still the best to judge my group's intentions, and aside from the fact that they dislike my characters they're nice people. Some dudes in my group just have a fiery temper sometimes - as do I, from time to time. To dump them because of D&D isn't something I'd even consider. Would you dump a good friend because he doesn't agree with you on the balancing in League of Legends?
I admit that there are times in every session where I enjoy the game. Then comes an argument with one of the players over my character which does upset me again. Today I had the argument with the co-DM, but he literally told me that he didn't mean to upset me again but just wanted to understand how that other feat I took did work. I myself told him that it's ok and that I try to not take it the wrong way.

If I say that I "optimize" my characters, I talk about the fact that I like to play characters that fit my style (mostly roguish characters) and have well-chosen feats, skill, acf's, class/prc levels and spells so that >everything< the character has synergizes well with the rest. My current character is almost identical to the standard unseen seer build, but as AvatarVecna did point out, my group plays at a rather low degree of optimization, which makes other team members like the incantatrix or the cleric look really bad. I hate it when my characters have feats or other stuff that don't improve the main strategy, which can be things as little as favoring elemental dart over orb of acid because the former gives more "rays" per spell for sneak attack purposes. That said, today I did use an orb of cold only.

I have to make a correction of my first post in terms of terminology: The hostility stopped to improve some time ago, but as it was up until today, they >were< quite annoyed by my characters, and I was upset by that. Half of the group did blame me for playing overpowered characters and doing that on purpose. I told them that that wasn't my intention when I build or play a character, but as they deemed my characters op because they get that impression when they see my characters in action, they didn't believe me. And I in return get annoyed because I get the feeling that no matter what I do they always deem my characters to be op simply because I did build them. It just did take me some time to recognize that they probably simply don't know better.

The "stick with one character" problem mainly stems from one particular person. He seems to think that rolling new characters from time to time is disgraceful for whatever reason. Don't ask me why he thinks that.

@ Kalmageddon: The other character who played a druid when I did before is...how do I put it? He is the one of us concerned the most with not being behind the other characters. When I did play a druid, he did copy my "good decisions". He for example started to use blinding spittle a lot too after he saw me defeating Strahd of Zarovich when we first encountered him. He also did face some hatred for his characters, as did I. But that player is one of those that grow hostile towards my characters, and I think that is because he sees that I take good options and am strong because of that. I readily did show him how to do the things I did with my druid (like - use blinding spittle, it can be very handy!), which maybe is the reason he did court the rest of the group's resentment.

Having the party make a character for me isn't really an option. I did offer the others/the DMs to have a closer look over my characters countless times, but they won't have a look before I started to play them and were upset by things I did in game afterwards. I even did suggest to the DM that he "may please build a character he accepts for me and stop bitching around".

@ AvatarVecna: Aside from my brother who got that knowledge through me, the rest of the group probably has never really heard of the hundreds of options a full spellcaster could win a fight except straight damage. I did receive a few wry looks for my 32 dmg orb of cold. I tried to teach them such stuff before, but they can't know that there's more than doing straight blasting if they've never seen something different in game.
Today's boss encounter were a pair of medium sized oozes with like 40 hp in the city sewers (fighting our group of 8 people). The intended strategy was to press some buttons on the wall which would cause the sewer sink to suck the oozes in. I was basically the only one able to fight the oozes, and the DM didn't expect us to fight them directly.
The only annoying part was that they were "anti-magic" oozes which did let every arcane spellcaster lose 1 highest level spell per round, and the DM did expect the three arcane casters (including me) to kite them so the others could press the buttons when the oozes were in the right spot. I simply did refuse to sacrifice my spells for that and ran away, accompanied by the incantatrix and the sorcerer. They current DM probably hates arcane spellcasters and basically we are commoners not able to use our spells all the time. That strategy we were expected to apply against the oozes would have made it impossible for us to properly cast again. He didn't tell us that before we started his campaign and we're stuck in that big "AMF city". But that is another problem I'll hopefully solve through being a god wizard over time.

[Raven777]

Is optimizing a fictinnal character in an arbitrary game system really that important?
hjgdfhghgdfhtfdhfthfdhfdhfd
YES.

[Renen]

YES
/10 chars

[eggynack]

I don't have much in the way of advice to give you, but I do have a question: you said that one of the characters you tried playing was a druid and was deemed OP, but then one of the other players also play a druid.
Why is his druid ok but yours wasn't?
Presumably because the other druid was played in a mediocre fashion. Druids vary a great deal in power level on the basis of in-game decision making, like spell selection, and to a lesser extent on the basis of build stuff, like feat or item selection.


YES.
Indeed so. Seems obvious enough to me.

[Graypairofsocks]

As said, it's not the whole group, but some of my fellow players think that they're D&D pros and keep bitching around. I'll do buffing/debuffing/battlefield control only now. I can't DM right now because the current campaign will probably go on for a while.

Have you tried having them read about optimization online?

For example optimizing damage dealing.


Edit:

My post looks like it could have come off as rude, if you thought of it that way it wasn't my intent.

[Shin]

Yes I did. I'm afraid that they won't learn it by me lecturing them but eventually by own effort.

[Synar]

Hope this work out for you.
It's a good thing that hostility seem yo be decreasing.:smallsmile:



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But still, I can't let such answers go unanswered.:smallwink:



Yes
My bad, I should know better than to ask question on such a forum.:smalltongue:


Only about as important as men are.

So being able to play the strongest character you can rather than a character a bit weak and with strange building decision, but still on the power level of your friends,
is as important as building a healthy relationship with someone you will spend a great part of your life with? Really? Really?


I think you should refrain from making such assumptions when you know nothing about the person involved. :smallannoyed:

Well, it seemed to me that it was the case, since firstly he plays other RPGs, and secondly the immense majority of rpg players [also] like other things than optimizing builds, like actually playing and roleplaying their characters, and hanging out with their friends.

[Edit for clarification: I'm not saying buildings builds is unfun, just that other parts of rpgs are fun too, hence the addition of[also]]

However, you are right, optimizing and trying to make good builds is fun too: but it is possible, if you don't have the occasion to do it in your usual games, to participate in various and fun optimization challenges on these very boards! By the way, original poster, you might be intersted by them, so you should check them out, but also might not, since you didn't appear to me as one really focusing on making builds (plus the game mastery needed to participate is relatively high). But still, give them a try, it can be fun.



Obviously not, given that at least one person things it is appropriate advice.



I was talking about the women should appear less intelligent and play dumb part of your post, that you don't appear yourself to agree with, having qualified it of "wrong" and "sexist" in this very post, so I will assume you did not understand what part of your post I was referencing. I would also clarify than in no way was my intent to make it seem like you seriously advocated this idea, hence the "proposed" part of my post only meant that you were the one to bring it up.




That doesn't make it less sexist, that just makes it more wrong.



Actually, if you give the same non-genred advices to men and women alike, I hardly see what remain sexist, regardless of it being "wrong". Also, this advice can be sound if it means :"act less pedantic/comptentuous/listen to others/consider other opinions". Of course, if it means : "act and look dumber", I still believe I don't need to point out why it is very wrong.

By the way, why did you bring sexism on the table to make your comparison? Isn't it quite the same than if I said: "You're vegetarian? Well Hitler also was vegetarian!"




We didn't become the planet's dominant force by adapting, we did it by outthinking the competition and eating them.

Actually, we did, but it is more a play on words than anything:smalltongue:

[The Insanity]

My bad, I should know better than to ask question on such a forum.:smalltongue:
What forum?


So being able to play the strongest character you can rather than a character a bit weak and with strange building decision, but still on the power level of your friends,
is as important as building a healthy relationship with someone you will spend a great part of your life with? Really? Really?
Who said anything about "strongest character"?
Also, what if it does? We're allowed to treat our hobbies as seriously as we want.


and secondly the immense majority of rpg players like other things than optimizing builds, like actually playing and roleplaying their characters, and hanging out with their friends.
How do you know? You asked them all personally? Because the immense majority of RPG players that I know do and enjoy all three.

[Renen]

What forum?


Who said anything about "strongest character"?
Also, what if it does? We're allowed to treat our hobbies as seriously as we want.


How do you know? You asked them all personally? Because the immense majority of RPG players that I know do and enjoy all three.

In this forum you ask how to optimize some simple concept, and playground will give you a build that can juat tear anything like paper.

[Andezzar]

In this forum you ask how to optimize some simple concept, and playground will give you a build that can juat tear anything like paper.What is wrong with getting what you asked for?

[Synar]

What forum?

This was a joke? Hence the smiley? Cause people here love to optimize? And I thought most people answering yes were also joking? Maybe I was wrong thought.



Who said anything about "strongest character"?
Also, what if it does? We're allowed to treat our hobbies as seriously as we want.

When one try to optimize like I guess the original poster did, it may not be in the intent to play the strongest character ever (else it would be Pun-Pun), but still often to make the best of its options and try to use the strongest non-cheesy things available and in the spirit of the chosen concept,
so I was arguing that taking some subpar but fun to play/flavorful options was not the end of the world? Especially since there is no risk being overshadowed by the others, since they do it naturally?

And taking some subpar options in a silly balanced game to stay on the power level of your friends, minimize drama, and have fun with your friend,

is definitely not as bad as building a toxic romantic relationship where one is trying to appear and act dumb and submissed because it is the 'right role of their gender' and they should know their place, which is after all in the kitchen, and certainly not have any interests or opinions of their own?

I mean, are you seriously comparing one with the other? Seriously? Seriously? If you do, I'm done here.



How do you know? You asked them all personally? Because the immense majority of RPG players that I know do and enjoy all three.

Hum, yeah, I did not meant to imply that they do not like all three, but that they also like other things than the first, so not being able to do the first is not that bad when you still have the rest and you can still have fun,
because the other poster was kind of saying: if optimization is not possible because overshadowing others (regardlessof their own competency at the game and the truth of such claims), then better not play at all.

[Doc_Maynot]

I hate it when my characters have feats or other stuff that don't improve the main strategy, which can be things as little as favoring elemental dart over orb of acid because the former gives more "rays" per spell for sneak attack purposes. That said, today I did use an orb of cold only.

While unrelated to the thread in general, I noticed this and felt I should mention a few things.
This is all according to the rules compendium, so you may want to take it with a grain of salt.
If you do, I ask that you take it with one of Kosher Salt for no reasons other than it's the best salt I've ever had the chance of putting on my tongue.
Two things:
A form of attack, typically referred to as a volley, that allows an attacker to make multiple attacks except in the case of a full round action only lets one apply precision damage (Skirmish, sneak attack, ect) to the first attack in the group.
Ranged attacks can deal precision damage only if the range is 30 feet or less.

[Alent]

...now a standard unseen seer wizard...

I know you seem to have resolved the problem, but I just wanted to extend some sympathy. I lost two friends the last time I played an unseen seer, and I didn't even do more than 30 damage the entire campaign. Something about bringing that particular divinationist PRC to the table brings out the worst in some D&D groups.

[The Insanity]

In this forum you ask how to optimize some simple concept, and playground will give you a build that can juat tear anything like paper.
What's wrong with that? If you don't want optimization, don't ask for optimization on an optimization sub-forum. If you want a certain amount of optimization, you make clear how much, we can't read minds over internet.


And I thought most people answering yes were also joking? Maybe I was wrong thought.
Why would they be joking?


I mean, are you seriously comparing one with the other? Seriously? Seriously? If you do, I'm done here.
Again, we're free to treat our hobbies as seriously as we wish.


Hum, yeah, I did not meant to imply that they do not like all three, but that they also like other things than the first, so not being able to do the first is not that bad when you still have the rest and you can still have fun,
because the other poster was kind of saying: if optimization is not possible because overshadowing others (regardlessof their own competency at the game and the truth of such claims), then better not play at all.
Well, optimizing is fun to him. Lets assume on a fun chart it would look like that: 35% Roleplaying, 35% hanging with friends, 30% optimizing. If he's not allowed to optimize then 30% of his fun is gone. That's not good. Hell, even if the % is smaller, it's still X% of his fun.

[Shin]

Yes, that is true, Doc. You can though make them full-round actions (metaphysical metamagic, ocular spell, etc.) and make all of the rays sneak attacks this way.

@ Norren: Didn't know that. Maybe it is because you can be a wizard, a sneak attacker and a skillmonkey, all rolled into one character. That was one thing my current DM didn't like about my character, although the group is happy with my god wizard now.

TheInsanity has a point there. Part of why I do enjoy playing is because I like the challenge of optimizing my characters and playing well-rounded characters. It bugs me when a character I play doesn't use his given resources well. I'm fine with not being stronger than my team, but I don't want to play unoptimized characters like they do.

[Synar]

Then you should probably try to take weak concepts at your base (which is different from low tier classes) or play buffers/characters strong in more subtle ways than numbers (such as battlefield control (which is different from debuffing in my opinion)), like was already advised, since you would be more free to optimize (and if your friends don't learn, since that frustate you, you should probably try to play other games, but with some luck and time...). But I don't really have anything that was not already said to add anymore. So good luck with your group!





-------------------------------------------------
To the insanity: 1)The way they answered looked that way?
2)And you may also believe that not optimizing is worse than murder (which is not very far, since you seem to believe that exploitation and soumission of women is not more serious or worse than not being able to optimize, since it was the discussed subject), but I will not take your opinion seriously, sorry. But by any means, feel free to think that.
3)Of course, what I was saying is that 70% (or even 50%) of fun cake is better than no fun cake (noting that half a fun cake is different from a bad fun cake).

[Lord of Shadows]

The rest of our group are a ranger, an incantatrix wizard, a cleric/radiant servant of pelor, a druid, a pirate soon going to become a sacred watcher, a druid, a twf centaur and so on.
<Snip>
First I played a rogue/assassin, then a druid, now a standard unseen seer wizard.

There are generally three very broad categories of RPG player skill sets:


1) Those who are just starting out, who are learning the rules and how everything interacts. This is a whole new world to them.

2) Those who have a fairly good handle on the basics, and enjoy exploring new options (i.e., prestige classes and simpler forms of "optimization"). Some players are perfectly happy at this skill level and don't make any real effort to "get better."

3) Those who are very knowledgeable in the rules, including supplements, advanced class options, and more difficult character classes. They enjoy the challenge of finding interactions and synergies that improve a character. Advanced optimization lies here, but also just more advanced player knowledge and skill.

Most commonly, people who have never played RPG's before start out at skill set 1, with a Basic rule set or with only a Core rulebook. If they are part of a group of knowledgeable players, this stage can sometimes be shortened. For people who are familiar with RPG's, there is often a quick scan of the Core rules to see what is different and a quick advancement to skill set 2. Moving upward in player skill can happen either by playing, by reading the materials, or both. The DM/GM, the group dynamics, and other forces can also influence the level of skills present in a gaming group.

It almost sounds like your group has players at skill set 1 who want to use books/rules/options from skill set 3, but don't fully understand how to use them, or even make intelligent choices. You have a head-start on them, and they are resentful of your being better at this than they are. In a curious sort of reversal, you might also be affecting their level of enjoyment of the game, as shown by their hurtful comments. They are frustrated and suspicious, and take it out on you. They see something new and cool in the rules, and want to play that, but they don't quite yet have the skills to do so. Then they see you blowing enemies to bits and think that you are either cheating, or are bending the rules, because they don't yet understand how it all works. Unfortunately, this seems to also include your DM.

One of the worst things that has happened in our group is when a new player starts looking over what sort of character class to play, and sees something "advanced" that appeals to them. We always try to steer them toward the four basic Core classes - fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue - just for the sake of learning the system. And a lot of times we steer toward basic sword and board Fighter. It's human nature to want to play with the biggest, most powerful toys right away, but it becomes frustrating when you don't know what you are doing and end up with a marginal character. Then along comes your character, who is so powerful that there must be something wrong. Rather than admit their weakness, they suspect something is up with your character. They don't even realize how marginal their characters really are.

Starting a brand new player out with a 1st level fighter is a lot easier (and often less frustrating for them) than starting them out with a fully optimized, fully geared up 10th level Summoner. Most of the time they can't possibly play the Summoner effectively, and may lose all interest in RPG's, seeing it as too complicated and not any fun.

Several solutions have been proposed here that are very good. Such as:


Ask the DM: 'I apparently have trouble making a character that is on a good power level compared to yours. Could you please give me a few suggestions?'

That way, you're talking OOC about it, they can't accuse you off 'getting mad because you can't break the campaign', and you'll end up with a character they accept.

And:


It probably doesn't fit with a campaign in progress, but what about using pregens that the group agrees on beforehand? And if anyone says 'you took the broken one!' offer to trade with them.

Using pre-gens is a classic "introductory" strategy, and a lot of game systems come with an introductory module that includes pre-gens. Another option is to make a character using an NPC class, and only using what is in the Core Rulebook. No prestige classes, no alternate class features, just a simple, basic character. In fact, some optimizers have taken this route as a challenge, and try to make the best character within certain limits, like only using "core rules."


I'll bet that most of those guys see Shadowrun as the power game and D&D as the artsy roleplaying game. They'll see you do some damage, and in their mind you just pulled out the equivalent of a six foot assault cannon you somehow hid under your unzipped armored trench coat. Of course, they probably wanted to do that too, but whatever character concept they had for dealing with stuff like that hasn't come to fruition yet by level ten, and they're frustrated because you can't just make your character how you want from the start like you can in the other game. Having more skills just makes it that much worse, because you can do more out of combat too... and combat sounds like its only a small part of your game.

This is some valuable insight too, and since I know nothing about Shadowrun this might explain a lot of the reasons behind why they are acting the way they are acting.


I think some of the other posters have the right idea... keep the character you have now, hang back a bit, give the others time to shine, make a point to talk to them in character and seek their 'in game' advice about things to make them feel included, use your skills to 'aid another' a bunch, try to feel out the DM's style (more things to kick?), and only go all out if you really need to.

This too is a possible solution, although I get the impression that you would rather "go all out" with what's available than try to restrain yourself in some way. I go back to the idea of using only a limited number of resources, or perhaps even just the core rules and nothing else, as a way to set some limits. There is still the opportunity to "optimize," although with fewer bells and whistles, and you should stay closer to what the other players are capable of creating at this stage in their development.

Sooner or later they should begin to realize how much better their gaming experience could be if they knew how all the options fit together. It's like learning to paint using paint by numbers, or learning to ride a bicycle using training wheels. Eventually they should become good enough at it that it all starts to make sense, and they will be able to see - and appreciate - what you were doing all along.

[ace rooster]

I'm doing my best to not be insulting, but it is impossible to point out a (percieved) failing without refering to it. Apologies if this causes any offense. My only intention is helping you with your situation, which may be in part your fault.


Yes, that is true, Doc. You can though make them full-round actions (metaphysical metamagic, ocular spell, etc.) and make all of the rays sneak attacks this way.

This is the kind of rules lawyering that annoys people (particularly beginners and low op groups), and as a DM I would just say no to (houserule that I have the right to say flat no to anything that uses more than one book). Avoiding an arguement would be difficult (especially with the type of player who likes that sort of trick), and particularly upsetting if the player in question is a good friend. If a DM lets it through but didn't want to they will feel conned. No matter which way the decision goes this sort of thing causes arguements, which are not fun in a lighthearted game.



TheInsanity has a point there. Part of why I do enjoy playing is because I like the challenge of optimizing my characters and playing well-rounded characters. It bugs me when a character I play doesn't use his given resources well.

There is an important distinction to be had between building a character and playing a character. Building a character is not playing the game, it is building the game. Imagine a game of chess where you get to pick which pieces you want, the your opponent (the DM) picks his pieces. The powergamer reflex is to take a row of queens, but that will not make the most fun game, particularly if the DM is worse than you at chess. A 'sub optimal' character is one with less given resources, rather than one that doesn't use them well. One of my mantras is 'build for fun, play to win'.

Best of luck.

[The Insanity]

1)The way they answered looked that way?
Not to me.


2)And you may also believe that not optimizing is worse than murder (which is not very far, since you seem to believe that exploitation and soumission of women is not more serious or worse than not being able to optimize, since it was the discussed subject), but I will not take your opinion seriously, sorry. But by any means, feel free to think that.
And you feel free to think whatever you want of my opinions, but you putting words in my mouth makes me not wanna take your posts seriously either.

[Kalmageddon]

Again, we're free to treat our hobbies as seriously as we wish.

Of course you are, just don't be surprised if you get weirded out stares sometimes.
Like the one I'm giving you right now for taking so personally what Synar said. :smallconfused:

[Synar]

And you feel free to think whatever you want of my opinions, but you putting words in my mouth makes me not wanna take your posts seriously either.

That was the discussed subject, and you interceded quoting me, so if you were actually speaking of something completely different, you probabaly should not have quoted me. If you are rather speaking of the comparison I made, it is much less putting words in anyone mouth than the comparison that started this very discussion (i.e. not optimizing==sexism, more precisely telling women they should act dumb and submissed and not have any opinions or interests of their own), and permit me to doubt you when you say the two seem to be equal in problem caused. I would personally never speak agaain to someone arguing the second, I hope you don't do the same to those who don't optimize in their game.




There is an important distinction to be had between building a character and playing a character. Building a character is not playing the game, it is building the game. Imagine a game of chess where you get to pick which pieces you want, the your opponent (the DM) picks his pieces. The powergamer reflex is to take a row of queens, but that will not make the most fun game, particularly if the DM is worse than you at chess. A 'sub optimal' character is one with less given resources, rather than one that doesn't use them well. One of my mantras is 'build for fun, play to win'.


I must say this was put very eloquently, and I kind of agree.

[weckar]

Like the one I'm giving you right now for taking so personally what Synar said. :smallconfused:Insanity will do that.

[Renen]

What is wrong with getting what you asked for?

1st person says: I should knkw better than to ask something like that on such a forum.
2nd person says: What forum?
Then I quote that person and explain what forum this is.

So you clearly didnt get the point of my post.

[Harlot]

Haven't read the whole thread, so this might have been said already, but here goes:

I understand where you're coming from, being in a bad game/campaign with really nice guys. My current DM doesn't read English, so he makes up rules and monsters as he goes. Placed my Warlock in an anti-magic prison for two full gaming sessions. And allowed another player to have a LEVEL 5 barbarian TROLL (ECL 13!!) in a game where the rest of the us are level 3. Now THATS broken!!!

As you have no alternative group and like those guys OOC, you have to play the game their, rather unispiring, way. They are seemingly amateurs, and I disagree with the soulution of you helping them optimizing whatever boring build they have. It wont help - they don't know how to play the optimized characters as intended, can't see what the builds are capable of, and thus you'll probaly be accused of making poor builds for them on purpose. You're simply better at D&D than they are, and they can't handle it. It's that simple.

Instead: THIS

Have the party make a caster for you, with the only thing that you have a say over being the spell list. Proceed to still be the best, because spells are OP.

Renen's solution is perfect. You still get a wizard at the same level as your current one and most importantly: You can show the group that you can do AMAZING stuff with a basic character, and that the problem is not your builds but their own lack of imagination.
If they're still hostile ... well, they built the damn character, didn't they? So they're to blame. It should end the blame game.
Make it so its not 'another character, your fourth'. Rather tweak the current one. Something like:
"I understand that my choice of characters poses a problem. Now, it's not very important to me to have an optimized build. Its more important to me that we all have fun. You don't have fun if you find my character broken, and I don't have fun when you think I break the game. If you think my unseen seer wizard is broken, we have to fix it. So if I remove the 'unseen seer' part, make him a straight wizard, and swith the magic items you find unfair with others of your choosing, would that be ok?"

PS: Your DM seems daft. If he finds something broken, he should have never allowed it in the first place, like giving you items that you put to good use. Accusing a player of breaking the game is simply ridiculous. As DM you ought to always be able to 'unbreak' it, i.e. challenge that character specifically through sidequests, theft, misfortune, curses etc. to balance out the game.
He can't manage that, which turns him hostile. What an ***hat.

[Regissoma]

Also one thing I have done in a similar situation to what you went through was I offered a chance to DM for the group. They reluctantly agreed to try out my game as the DM was growing tired of being the only one not playing for an extended amount of time. I used this chance to let everyone experience the wide ranges of things I have learned and even had builds each person could use if they didn't want to build their own characters. I had spreadsheets and text files I could send them of tables and charts to use for the different kinds of tactics and rules they should be aware of. Sure it was a lot of work but as you said they just might have to experience it themselves. Maybe you could offer to DM a game for a few sessions or maybe an entire campaign. Offer them the chance to try something new, and maybe use this chance to ask the DM if he wants a break from DMing so he can finally play in a game. Heck one day you guys might be playing in high power campaigns together like my group which btw is kinda sad news as my few sessions of DMing turned into for the last two years, "Hey Soks, I got this awesome new build. Whens your next game?"

Tl;dr: Was in same situation as you before. After things calmed down a bit I offered to share my knowledge by DMing a game. End result: Still DMing, they liked what they learned, and now I am enjoying myself by making some of the hardest creatures in my sense to have it beaten down in turn one or two. Maybe you can try doing the same thing.

[137beth]

The other player who's druid wasn't considered broken was probably just using weaker spells. It doesn't even need to be a matter of feats--a druid can be powerful and versatile even without feats.

If things are improving, though, then the most you can probably do is hope they continue to improve.

If you do, I ask that you take it with one of Kosher Salt for no reasons other than it's the best salt I've ever had the chance of putting on my tongue.


Kosher Salt is underpowered. It's like, tier 5! Himalayan Pink Salt is substantially better.

[PaucaTerrorem]

The other player who's druid wasn't considered broken was probably just using weaker spells. It doesn't even need to be a matter of feats--a druid can be powerful and versatile even without feats.

If things are improving, though, then the most you can probably do is hope they continue to improve.


Kosher Salt is underpowered. It's like, tier 5! Himalayan Pink Salt is substantially better.

Himalayan Pink Salt is feat intensive. You can get the same thing at lvl 3 with Kosher or lvl 5 with Sea Salt.

[Dornith]

I did try to talk with them about my problem countless times. They started to think that I'm mad at them because they don't let me break the campaign. They just won't listen and they don't want to optimize. They think my characters are, and that is basically the problem. Half of the group thinks roleplay and giving one's character senseful feats and class/prc levels doesn't synergize at all. Heck, prcs are mean anyway.

Have you considered that they disprove of optimizing? Some players don't like it because they feel like it's more focused on trying to win than to role play, and that D&D should be about role playing.


The tier 1s know nothing about the options and versatility they have and pick spells and feats almost randomly. It looks like a case of "unknowingly unoptimized".

Maybe they're picking spells and feats for story reasons, and not because it's "optimal".

Edit: What are all you people doing, telling Shin to dump his friends?! To me, this seems like a simple discrepancy in expectations, but you are saying that is somehow justifies him suddenly turning around and saying, "No, you're terrible people"! I haven't seen anything to suggest any problems outside of this disagreement, and this itself seems pretty mild-mannered. To leave your friends over this would be like saying, "You have an ant problem in you kitchen? I found flamethrowers to be very effective."

[eggynack]

There is an important distinction to be had between building a character and playing a character. Building a character is not playing the game, it is building the game. Imagine a game of chess where you get to pick which pieces you want, the your opponent (the DM) picks his pieces. The powergamer reflex is to take a row of queens, but that will not make the most fun game, particularly if the DM is worse than you at chess. A 'sub optimal' character is one with less given resources, rather than one that doesn't use them well. One of my mantras is 'build for fun, play to win'.

Feh. Screw that. It's just a different game. Sure, if you're playing chess, and the optimal game winning strategy is, "Use a lot of queens," then sure, that's not very fun. However, in this game, with its insanely massive number of possible build options and strategies, character design is a game in and of itself.

[WarKitty]

I do think it would be interesting to propose a character swap day. It sounds like there's several options that could be quite powerful with minimal effort, and it would be interesting to see their reactions to seeing how their characters can play.

[137beth]

Feh. Screw that. It's just a different game. Sure, if you're playing chess, and the optimal game winning strategy is, "Use a lot of queens," then sure, that's not very fun. However, in this game, with its insanely massive number of possible build options and strategies, character design is a game in and of itself.

A better comparison might be Stratego or Arimaa, where you can freely arrange your pieces' starting positions before the "real" game starts. You can play well with any starting position, but a good one will help a lot. The main difference is that a lot of people enjoy both character building in D&D and the part of the game that comes after it, whereas I don't think very many people would say the initial placement of pieces is their favorite part of Stratego.

[Synar]

Himalayan Pink Salt is feat intensive. You can get the same thing at lvl 3 with Kosher or lvl 5 with Sea Salt.

Why shoehorn yourself in such limited options? Chemical salts are so much more versatile! After all, it is why it is considered tier one.

[Shin]

@ Harlot: I did excactly that. I'll keep the character but won't sneak attack or do damage, as damage is what makes my group nervous. I'll keep the unseen seer part to not give the part of my group annoyed by me rolling new characters any more reason to be hostile. I'll play god wizard and do buffing/debuffing/battlefield control. The others will kill the enemies, I'll help them achieve that from the back of the battlefield. I'll be patient about tweaking the character and eventually ask the DM for help to change my build in a week or two (it's only the sneak attack class feature that won't be used, isn't it? I'm still a focused conjurer and a divination specialist, which I guess is fine).
The DM did promise to me today that the arcane spellcasters in our group will play a bigger role in the future (we'll finally get that stupid permit which allows us to cast in that city).

@ Regissoma: When I did have an extended phone chat with my DM today, he also pointed out to me that he's growing tired of DMing. I at least started to consider to DM next, but I'm still not sure about that as I like to be a player a lot. We'll see...

@ Dornith: They don't dislike optimization because of that reason, I guess - they dislike it because they think that it only serves the purpose to show the whole team who has the longest...magic rod. I guess they pick feats, spells and other stuff like my brother does. My brother did read through the PHB spell list and took the spells who he liked/thought of as strong choices. It's that simple.

137ben has a point. I want the characters that I play to be "well-designed" and I'd dislike to for example play a ranger that does power attacking. The fact that my sneak attack class feature from unseen seer will be a rather "wasted" resource of my character now is a good example too.

[GreyBlack]

To the OP:
I feel the same way sometimes with my group. I often feel like I'm overly optimized just because of who I play with (my current group in Pathfinder is a fighter, ninja, Paladin and my magus),but I've also noticed a tendency for my dm to throw extremely hard encounters at us that are far outside of our level range (e.g. we are level 6 and fighting 2 marsh giants). Therefore, I have taken my character to stay back, let everyone else do their thing, but when things start to go nanners, I pull out my trick bag and begin with stupidity. Maybe that's what you should do? Hang back until a TPK is threatened then pull out the stops?

[Bluydee]

Wait; they call you OP for using the sneak attack feature on your character? What level of unoptimized do they have to be if 30 damage a round is broken when an average fighter with power attack can do that much damage, using things only from core? Forcefully show them how much they suck, even more than you already tried. If they're your friends, they won't be mad. Any person who thinks they somehow are a pro needs to be enlightened fast. Skillmonkeys are also some how broken, so when the next time there is a skill test where you are needed, just say you can't as it is too broken for the group.

[Yawgmoth]

It has gone so far that I hate them in return for that and that I miss the fun lately. I have a sig for this.

[ahenobarbi]

Try playing powerfull-but-not-visible character. Bufferm battlefield controller etc. Don't deal any damage. Don't affect your enemies directly at all. Just make your allies more effective. This way:

[Hopefully] rest of your group will not see you as oerpowered because "you don't do anything".
[Hopefully] rest of your group will get used to a little bit more competent characters.

If that doesn't work make an incompetent character. You should be able to do this (if you can optimize for power you should be able to optimize for lack of power). Don't be too obvious about it (wizard with 3 int will look wierd). There are many fun chracters that can be unoptimized. For example such low-op group presents you with opportunity to play an githyanki monk/wizard that is extremly competent (despite LA, alternating levels in unsynergistic classes, depending on almost all attributes and poor spell selection)(I want to play this character because reasons... but you probably can think of chartacter that is weak (for d&d) but you want to play it... that's your chance to do it! (with your optimization skills you probably can make any concept you can think of work in the group.. Apostle of Peace / War Hulk? np. :D )).

If that doesn't work then you probably are better off choosing your friendship with group members over gaming and not playing with them.

[137beth]

When I did have an extended phone chat with my DM today, he also pointed out to me that he's growing tired of DMing. I at least started to consider to DM next, but I'm still not sure about that as I like to be a player a lot. We'll see...

If you haven't DM'd much before, it's at least worth giving it a shot (I didn't think I would like it until I tried.) If your current DM is getting tired of DMing, it could be a good opportunity to try.

[ace rooster]

Feh. Screw that. It's just a different game. Sure, if you're playing chess, and the optimal game winning strategy is, "Use a lot of queens," then sure, that's not very fun. However, in this game, with its insanely massive number of possible build options and strategies, character design is a game in and of itself.

Yes building optimised characters can be considered a game (not in the technical definition, but it is definately a puzzle, and an enjoyable one), but it is a distinct game from DnD (At best it would be considered a sub-metagame of DnD). DnD works absolutely fine without optimisation of character design. In a group with experienced players who are all able to optimise evenly this works fine if the DM knows how to handle it. It burns a few hours at the start of the first session, which tends to annoy me, as I would rather be playing, but if thats what people want to do then I'll run with it. It is a problem if only one of the group is gaming their character creation, particularly with an inexperienced DM who doesn't know what to do about it. The DM could do some research, and optimise their encounters, but then the player is implicitly demanding that the DM do work that they do not want to do in order for the game to function. This is plain rude, and will put off many DMs that just want a lighthearted game with friends.

The first rule of DnD is that anything that causes the DM to quit is a loss.



The other thing I would like to bring up is using builds off the internet. I think of it as taking a Grand master's opening book (including all traps and responses to suboptimal responses) into a chess club. It is fine if everybody has their own copy, and you play from where it ends, but using it against somebody without it is plain cheating. It is not cheating on the board, but it is definately cheating. Telling your opponent that they could go out and get a copy does not make it better, it is just rude. If your opponent is the host, and has already put a lot of work into getting the sets and venue then do not expect to be invited back.


I would definately try DMing for a bit, as much to see how much work it is as anything else. You will start to see how some things that players don't think much about can make a DMs job considerably easier or harder, which will make you a better player (maybe not in terms of success, but in terms of how much the DM and you will enjoy the game).

[Synar]

Yes building optimised characters can be considered a game (not in the technical definition, but it is definately a puzzle, and an enjoyable one), but it is a distinct game from DnD (At best it would be considered a sub-metagame of DnD).

Well since D&D is a rule heavy system with xp character advancement, designing and testing builds is actually a big part of D&D fun: you design something, and then you get to play and roleplay it. Stratego is a poor example here. Dwarf fortress or dungeon keeper are better exemples in different ways: in the first, you design fortress layout, job assignations, cunning traps and system, and then you try to implement them and enjoy their creation, their use and their interaction with actual environnement and try solving the problem that inevitably occur; in the second, youbuild a dungeon before (and while) problems arise, but you also use spells, send and possess creatures to destroy invaders. So designing characters and getting to play them is a big part of D&D, both in the fluff part, and because it is a rule-heavy game, in the crunch part.

It is not very different in fact from being a DM: you devise dungeons/worlds/traps/NPCs/plots/whatever and enjoy their interaction with players, while also getting to possess play your whatever.


DnD works absolutely fine without optimisation of character design. In a group with experienced players who are all able to optimise evenly this works fine if the DM knows how to handle it. It burns a few hours at the start of the first session, which tends to annoy me, as I would rather be playing, but if thats what people want to do then I'll run with it. It is a problem if only one of the group is gaming their character creation, particularly with an inexperienced DM who doesn't know what to do about it. The DM could do some research, and optimise their encounters, but then the player is implicitly demanding that the DM do work that they do not want to do in order for the game to function. This is plain rude, and will put off many DMs that just want a lighthearted game with friends.

The first rule of DnD is that anything that causes the DM to quit is a loss.



Well now you're creating a confusion between designing builds and designing power gaming builds, and designing power gaming builds and actively abusing them.
Also, optimization should try to attain a certain level of power, which is not necessarily pun-pun. For example by taking some initial restricitions, such as certain classes, feats or concepts, trying to play around them to end up with a decent but not too poweful character. Or just by taking restricitons.
So such things are either OOC problems or the fact that everyone at the table lack experience, the one optimizing included.
Finally Dming and playing D&D take quite some time, and asking for some advices on the internet take very little time compared to it and may improve gaming experience, even if it is true that you should not force someone to do it.




The other thing I would like to bring up is using builds off the internet. I think of it as taking a Grand master's opening book (including all traps and responses to suboptimal responses) into a chess club. It is fine if everybody has their own copy, and you play from where it ends, but using it against somebody without it is plain cheating. It is not cheating on the board, but it is definately cheating. Telling your opponent that they could go out and get a copy does not make it better, it is just rude. If your opponent is the host, and has already put a lot of work into getting the sets and venue then do not expect to be invited back.



Actually, having knoweldege of openings make you a better player. If you learned a lot about openings, way to "counter" them, and advanced tactics, and retained the information and learned to apply it, then, well you're just a better player, and your friends can't really complain. In fact, they themselves will learn about such tactics and openings by playing against you, and they themselves will become better without ever having to read such a boring book. So actaully, you are an asset to the chess club. [And most openings are not "I win" buttons, eh, they just might give a slight or heavy advantage or disadvantage depending on the moves that follows, but often only give a "flavor" to the party by deciding where the "tension" will arise, so knowing openings is a big advantage, but you still have to play from there.] And no, becoming better at chess is not cheating. It's often the point of chess clubs, after all. And one should not forget either that game is a competitive game, where unlike D&D you play to win [with some variants much funnier and less competitive (like 4/6 players blitz), even if less tactic and more random].

[usuakari]

As a DM with a group that features a couple of munchkins and several "1st tier" players (and boy does your use of that term tell me a lot about you), it's absurdly hard to balance. When you have a couple of clerics and druids straight out of PHB side-by-side with min-maxxed Tome of Battle stuff, it's impossible to gauge encounter levels. Either the munchkins kill the easy challenge instantly and the others are useless, or the munchkin-level challenge is untouchable by the others and they get killed off. You are with the wrong group, because you obviously aren't having fun unless you're optimizing the hell out of your character, and they don't have the time/energy/experience/desire to do so (which is fine). What you should have done was obvious--make a straight PHB core character without any bull**** or broken tweaks--but it sounds like you couldn't stand to play that. Nor are you willing to find an expert all-munchkin group. Instead you're unbalancing a group you shouldn't be playing with.

I just started a new adventure with my group and leveled the field a bit by making everyone stick to PHB for class, race, feats, spells, and weapons. No psionics, no ToB, no Incarnum, no crap brought in from Faerun or Eberron. They can start munchkinizing when they get to prestige territory, but at least the horribly unbalanced party won't happen right away. Even so, every night I have to answer long emails from my frustrated munchkins, trying desperately to break the game so they can be more powerful, and it's a huge drain on my time and energy. If you're talking to your DM all the time over this stuff, please stop it. You're taking your damage per round way too seriously. If all else fails, let your DM roll you up a core class and go from there. No god wizard, no unseen seer, back to basics.

[WesleyVos]

As a DM with a group that features a couple of munchkins and several "1st tier" players (and boy does your use of that term tell me a lot about you), it's absurdly hard to balance. When you have a couple of clerics and druids straight out of PHB side-by-side with min-maxxed Tome of Battle stuff, it's impossible to gauge encounter levels. Either the munchkins kill the easy challenge instantly and the others are useless, or the munchkin-level challenge is untouchable by the others and they get killed off. You are with the wrong group, because you obviously aren't having fun unless you're optimizing the hell out of your character, and they don't have the time/energy/experience/desire to do so (which is fine). What you should have done was obvious--make a straight PHB core character without any bull**** or broken tweaks--but it sounds like you couldn't stand to play that. Nor are you willing to find an expert all-munchkin group. Instead you're unbalancing a group you shouldn't be playing with.

I just started a new adventure with my group and leveled the field a bit by making everyone stick to PHB for class, race, feats, spells, and weapons. No psionics, no ToB, no Incarnum, no crap brought in from Faerun or Eberron. They can start munchkinizing when they get to prestige territory, but at least the horribly unbalanced party won't happen right away. Even so, every night I have to answer long emails from my frustrated munchkins, trying desperately to break the game so they can be more powerful, and it's a huge drain on my time and energy. If you're talking to your DM all the time over this stuff, please stop it. You're taking your damage per round way too seriously. If all else fails, let your DM roll you up a core class and go from there. No god wizard, no unseen seer, back to basics.

Um...except that the Core-only Druid is one of the most broken classes there is. Cleric and wizard are close seconds. They beat the crap out of the poor fighter any day. Tome of Battle allows the melee classes to at least be useful in a group with such characters. It could be argued, and has been, that all you do by restricting to core is make the party more unbalanced than it already was.

[Segev]

What you should have done was obvious--make a straight PHB core character without any bull**** or broken tweaks--but it sounds like you couldn't stand to play that.

His second character was a druid. There is no reason to assume it was anything but a straight-forward druid played right out of Core as conceptually designed. Druids will still be overpoweringly shiny in the hands of somebody who knows what they're doing and isn't deliberately making actively bad choices.

And yes, he said that making actively bad choices isn't fun for him. Are you suggesting that he should deliberately choose not merely to build something that doesn't use "broken tweaks," but that he should also decide that his animal companion needs grooming mid-combat in order to avoid taking two sets of actions and being both a primary caster and a beatstick?

[Trellan]

As a DM with a group that features a couple of munchkins and several "1st tier" players (and boy does your use of that term tell me a lot about you), it's absurdly hard to balance. When you have a couple of clerics and druids straight out of PHB side-by-side with min-maxxed Tome of Battle stuff, it's impossible to gauge encounter levels. Either the munchkins kill the easy challenge instantly and the others are useless, or the munchkin-level challenge is untouchable by the others and they get killed off. You are with the wrong group, because you obviously aren't having fun unless you're optimizing the hell out of your character, and they don't have the time/energy/experience/desire to do so (which is fine). What you should have done was obvious--make a straight PHB core character without any bull**** or broken tweaks--but it sounds like you couldn't stand to play that. Nor are you willing to find an expert all-munchkin group. Instead you're unbalancing a group you shouldn't be playing with.

I just started a new adventure with my group and leveled the field a bit by making everyone stick to PHB for class, race, feats, spells, and weapons. No psionics, no ToB, no Incarnum, no crap brought in from Faerun or Eberron. They can start munchkinizing when they get to prestige territory, but at least the horribly unbalanced party won't happen right away. Even so, every night I have to answer long emails from my frustrated munchkins, trying desperately to break the game so they can be more powerful, and it's a huge drain on my time and energy. If you're talking to your DM all the time over this stuff, please stop it. You're taking your damage per round way too seriously. If all else fails, let your DM roll you up a core class and go from there. No god wizard, no unseen seer, back to basics.

Wow, that was a needlessly aggressive post that really just reeks of you projecting issues you are having onto the op. Other people have already started jumping on the many misconceptions you have displayed about "munchkinizing", so I won't even touch that, but I will throw out the general life advice that you might want to consider being nicer to people and controlling that anger a bit more. :/

[137beth]

As a DM with a group that features a couple of munchkins and several "1st tier" players (and boy does your use of that term tell me a lot about you), it's absurdly hard to balance. When you have a couple of clerics and druids straight out of PHB side-by-side with min-maxxed Tome of Battle stuff, it's impossible to gauge encounter levels. Either the munchkins kill the easy challenge instantly and the others are useless, or the munchkin-level challenge is untouchable by the others and they get killed off. You are with the wrong group, because you obviously aren't having fun unless you're optimizing the hell out of your character, and they don't have the time/energy/experience/desire to do so (which is fine). What you should have done was obvious--make a straight PHB core character without any bull**** or broken tweaks--but it sounds like you couldn't stand to play that. Nor are you willing to find an expert all-munchkin group. Instead you're unbalancing a group you shouldn't be playing with.

I just started a new adventure with my group and leveled the field a bit by making everyone stick to PHB for class, race, feats, spells, and weapons. No psionics, no ToB, no Incarnum, no crap brought in from Faerun or Eberron. They can start munchkinizing when they get to prestige territory, but at least the horribly unbalanced party won't happen right away. Even so, every night I have to answer long emails from my frustrated munchkins, trying desperately to break the game so they can be more powerful, and it's a huge drain on my time and energy. If you're talking to your DM all the time over this stuff, please stop it. You're taking your damage per round way too seriously. If all else fails, let your DM roll you up a core class and go from there. No god wizard, no unseen seer, back to basics.
Wow, hostility much?
Anyways, if you want to avoid having wide power disparities within the group, ban all PHB classes and PHB spells. All of them. Use only noncore stuff.

[Amphetryon]

As a DM with a group that features a couple of munchkins and several "1st tier" players (and boy does your use of that term tell me a lot about you), it's absurdly hard to balance. When you have a couple of clerics and druids straight out of PHB side-by-side with min-maxxed Tome of Battle stuff, it's impossible to gauge encounter levels. Either the munchkins kill the easy challenge instantly and the others are useless, or the munchkin-level challenge is untouchable by the others and they get killed off. You are with the wrong group, because you obviously aren't having fun unless you're optimizing the hell out of your character, and they don't have the time/energy/experience/desire to do so (which is fine). What you should have done was obvious--make a straight PHB core character without any bull**** or broken tweaks--but it sounds like you couldn't stand to play that. Nor are you willing to find an expert all-munchkin group. Instead you're unbalancing a group you shouldn't be playing with.

I just started a new adventure with my group and leveled the field a bit by making everyone stick to PHB for class, race, feats, spells, and weapons. No psionics, no ToB, no Incarnum, no crap brought in from Faerun or Eberron. They can start munchkinizing when they get to prestige territory, but at least the horribly unbalanced party won't happen right away. Even so, every night I have to answer long emails from my frustrated munchkins, trying desperately to break the game so they can be more powerful, and it's a huge drain on my time and energy. If you're talking to your DM all the time over this stuff, please stop it. You're taking your damage per round way too seriously. If all else fails, let your DM roll you up a core class and go from there. No god wizard, no unseen seer, back to basics.

1. Tier 1 refers to Classes, not Players, so perhaps it doesn't tell you what you think it does about those who use the term (correctly).

2. The Druid and the Cleric could ROFLstomp most any encounter that anything from Tome of Battle can kill in a reasonably fair fight, and the Druid doesn't even need to leave Core to do so.

3. Restricting the game to Core only is more likely to unbalance the game, not less, as most of the largest power disparities are in Core (see also: Linear Fighters & Quadratic Wizards), with most of the most powerful Spells (and Feats to modify them) available through core.

4. "God Wizard" is a play-style focused on buffing the party's melee combatants, debuffing the enemy, and using battlefield control Spells in order to set the rules of engagement to favor the party; saying "no God Wizard" is disallowing one of the more group-friendly choices available to the party arcane caster.

[TheIronGolem]

I just started a new adventure with my group and leveled the field a bit by making everyone stick to PHB for class, race, feats, spells, and weapons.

No, you didn't.

A PHB-only game is relatively simple, and there can be value in that simplicity, especially with newer players.

However, it is not balanced. The only way you'll get anything close to a balanced game that way is with gentleman's agreements. And since such agreements would serve equally well in a game with ToB/psionics/whatever, you're not actually gaining anything, balance-wise, by forbidding that material. You're actually taking a loss on that front, since most of that later material is in fact more balanced than the PHB material.

[Segev]

I suppose it is worth noting that the use of non-core material can SEEM to cause higher-optimization builds, but I think that's a matter of correlation being mistaken for causation. Those who are new to the game and seeking the simplicity of "cutting their teeth" may well start with nothing but the Core rules. They will also not know how to get the most bang for their buck out of them without some practice. Those who are experienced in the game are more likely to be ready to branch out into all the optional material out there in order to build the exact character they want. These players will know what to take to make their character the best at being what they want to play that the character can be.

Therefore, the "min/maxed" ToB characters might outshine the "Core-Only" Druid and Cleric, but only because the players of the latter don't know how to build their PCs as well as the players of the ToB classes, nor how to use them as effectively. Restrict the ToB players to Core Only and give access to ToB to the other guys, and you'll likely still see the people now restricted to Core outshine, unless they take deliberate (and sometimes extreme) steps to avoid doing so.

[usuakari]

I suppose it is worth noting that the use of non-core material can SEEM to cause higher-optimization builds, but I think that's a matter of correlation being mistaken for causation. Those who are new to the game and seeking the simplicity of "cutting their teeth" may well start with nothing but the Core rules. They will also not know how to get the most bang for their buck out of them without some practice. Those who are experienced in the game are more likely to be ready to branch out into all the optional material out there in order to build the exact character they want. These players will know what to take to make their character the best at being what they want to play that the character can be.

Therefore, the "min/maxed" ToB characters might outshine the "Core-Only" Druid and Cleric, but only because the players of the latter don't know how to build their PCs as well as the players of the ToB classes, nor how to use them as effectively. Restrict the ToB players to Core Only and give access to ToB to the other guys, and you'll likely still see the people now restricted to Core outshine, unless they take deliberate (and sometimes extreme) steps to avoid doing so.

Very logical. I actually DM with several house rules that balance out the core classes a bit (in my opinion, and with my players) and tend to forget the straight versions. More importantly, I see that my comment was irritating to several folks (I'm sure you won't believe me, but I hadn't intended to be hostile or aggressive. I obviously didn't consider my words and was projecting my own frustrations far too much). Anyway, I won't debate points, or add fuel to the fire. I'm in the wrong, and would like to withdraw my opinions/rant. Cheers.

[Shin]

usuakari, I get what you tried to tell me, yet you did impute wrong motives to me. I did decide to play a wizard because the incantatrix's character and my character are siblings born into a great family of wizards (Amell (inspired by dragon age)), so the logical choice was to play a wizard myself.
The rest of my group is >mostly< taking options they find in the player's handbook - the first book to have a look into if any new decisions are to make. They use options from other books though, and the group as a whole decided to include, like, many different books from different settings. We even play with BoEF allowed. The sorcerer is about to become a sacred watcher, the cleric is a radiant servant of pelor, and part of our group consists of houseruled creatures instead of playable races (the swamplight lynx, the half water elemental / half human druid, ...). Yet they have a different opinion about balance and mostly just don't know which options are good and which ones are bad (similar to new players who play wizards/sorcerers and who favor the enchantment school because of the funky spells from that school). I did teach them a lot - especially the incantatrix - but they will mostly argue differently.

I did decide to play the god wizard now, and that choice is set. The DM likes the concept of a god wizard. It lets me keep my current character so no one has reason to complain, and I can still use sneak attacking in case of emergency only - if the team should ask me to prevent a TPK or something. I'll talk to my DM about my build again and if he should come to the conclusion that he'd like me to tweak the build, I can still do that. It's up to him.

[Doc_Maynot]

We even play with BoEF allowed.
And your Incantatrix brother ISN'T playing a Metaphysical Spellshaper?


Kosher Salt is underpowered. It's like, tier 5! Himalayan Pink Salt is substantially better.
As I said, the best I've had the chance of putting on my tongue, I'll have to try Himalayan Pink Salt if I can find it nearby.

[Synar]

Also, playing a god wizard with a bunch of low-power mooks who believe they are your equal fellow teammates is one of your only chance of playing Gandalf.

(Without the sword and not really Gandalf actually, but you see what I mean).(Lets say roleplaying Gandalf.)

[Juntao112]

Edit: What are all you people doing, telling Shin to dump his friends?! To me, this seems like a simple discrepancy in expectations, but you are saying that is somehow justifies him suddenly turning around and saying, "No, you're terrible people"! I haven't seen anything to suggest any problems outside of this disagreement, and this itself seems pretty mild-mannered. To leave your friends over this would be like saying, "You have an ant problem in you kitchen? I found flamethrowers to be very effective."

We are telling him that his friends seem to be difficult to play D&D with, so he should refrain from playing D&D with them. I do not think that is quite the same as dumping your friends.

[Harlot]

So glad to read it worked out for you. Hopefully, as you all game on, and the others learn the game properly, you can start optimizing again. Hope you don't get bored while waiting for them to catch up :-)

[Synar]

We are telling him that his friends seem to be difficult to play D&D with, so he should refrain from playing D&D with them. I do not think that is quite the same as dumping your friends.

Well, you might not have, but other certainly did. I remember the words "toxic" and "not really your friends" were thrown a lot (mostly people reacting to the word "hostility").

[Azraile]

Make the most ineffective char you can possibly make, one so bad that it will actualy hurt the group rather than help it.....

Maybe something like a fairy bezerker that specializes in caltrops as melee weapons.

[Faily]

Happy to read that it seems to be working out. ^_^


Also, straight-PHB party lol I can just see the players sit down and go "alright people, time to roll out the Core-only Druids and eat the world". Druid hardly, if ever, need to go out of Core, considering they just need to pick up Natural Spell asap after getting Wild Shape, oh and maybe go Spell Focus: Conjuration+Augment Summoning if they wanna swarm the encounters with summons.

I'm more of the mind of enforcing a "everyone must play a Tier 4 or 5" rule for one campaign, just because it would be fun to see how that would work out. :smallbiggrin:

[137beth]

Very logical. I actually DM with several house rules that balance out the core classes a bit (in my opinion, and with my players) and tend to forget the straight versions. More importantly, I see that my comment was irritating to several folks (I'm sure you won't believe me, but I hadn't intended to be hostile or aggressive. I obviously didn't consider my words and was projecting my own frustrations far too much). Anyway, I won't debate points, or add fuel to the fire. I'm in the wrong, and would like to withdraw my opinions/rant. Cheers.

For what it's worth, I believe you. Intention is hard to discern over a forum.

[Hurnn]

Honestly my first thought is actually play something truly gamebreaking, full on balls to the wall tier 1 insanity level optimization, and show them what "breaking the game" actually looks like. They may stop giving you **** for playing what you want after.

[Segev]

Honestly my first thought is actually play something truly gamebreaking, full on balls to the wall tier 1 insanity level optimization, and show them what "breaking the game" actually looks like. They may stop giving you **** for playing what you want after.

He's already sort-of done so with the druid, I suspect. Possibly unintentionally. Playing his current character in a fashion which makes everybody else feel like they're the ones making things happen seems to be working for him, so that is the right move.

[Amphetryon]

He's already sort-of done so with the druid, I suspect. Possibly unintentionally. Playing his current character in a fashion which makes everybody else feel like they're the ones making things happen seems to be working for him, so that is the right move.

Hopefully, the DM won't decide that he deserves a lesser share of the XP, because "everbody else feel[s] like they're the ones making things happen."

I've had 'that guy' for a DM before.

[Svata]

As a DM with a group that features a couple of munchkins and several "1st tier" players (and boy does your use of that term tell me a lot about you), it's absurdly hard to balance. When you have a couple of clerics and druids straight out of PHB side-by-side with min-maxxed Tome of Battle stuff, it's impossible to gauge encounter levels. Either the munchkins kill the easy challenge instantly and the others are useless, or the munchkin-level challenge is untouchable by the others and they get killed off. You are with the wrong group, because you obviously aren't having fun unless you're optimizing the hell out of your character, and they don't have the time/energy/experience/desire to do so (which is fine). What you should have done was obvious--make a straight PHB core character without any bull**** or broken tweaks--but it sounds like you couldn't stand to play that. Nor are you willing to find an expert all-munchkin group. Instead you're unbalancing a group you shouldn't be playing with.

I just started a new adventure with my group and leveled the field a bit by making everyone stick to PHB for class, race, feats, spells, and weapons. No psionics, no ToB, no Incarnum, no crap brought in from Faerun or Eberron. They can start munchkinizing when they get to prestige territory, but at least the horribly unbalanced party won't happen right away. Even so, every night I have to answer long emails from my frustrated munchkins, trying desperately to break the game so they can be more powerful, and it's a huge drain on my time and energy. If you're talking to your DM all the time over this stuff, please stop it. You're taking your damage per round way too seriously. If all else fails, let your DM roll you up a core class and go from there. No god wizard, no unseen seer, back to basics.

Three words to explain why core-only balances nothing. Solar Gate chaining.


EDIT: I had not seen your apology post when I wrote this. Its alright.

[Segev]

Hopefully, the DM won't decide that he deserves a lesser share of the XP, because "everbody else feel[s] like they're the ones making things happen."

I've had 'that guy' for a DM before.

If that happens, it's time for another OOC discussion with the whole table:

"Okay. So, when I play characters that are effective and obviously pull their own weight - or more than their own weight - I am told I'm being mean and that I am ruining the game for everybody. I have tried to make a character who helps everybody else out rather than takes the glory for himself in order to be a team player. I am now being told that my character is not contributing enough. I contend that he is, but it's more subtle, but I don't want to be a jerk and prove it by really doing nothing just to demonstrate the difference. Instead, I'd like to find out: what do you want from me? How can I play a character that is neither going to frustrate everybody for being too good without playing one that is seen as not contributing? I am really trying, guys; do you just not want me to play? What can I do?"

[137beth]

If that happens, it's time for another OOC discussion with the whole table:

"Okay. So, when I play characters that are effective and obviously pull their own weight - or more than their own weight - I am told I'm being mean and that I am ruining the game for everybody. I have tried to make a character who helps everybody else out rather than takes the glory for himself in order to be a team player. I am now being told that my character is not contributing enough. I contend that he is, but it's more subtle, but I don't want to be a jerk and prove it by really doing nothing just to demonstrate the difference. Instead, I'd like to find out: what do you want from me? How can I play a character that is neither going to frustrate everybody for being too good without playing one that is seen as not contributing? I am really trying, guys; do you just not want me to play? What can I do?"

I remember one time I gave a group that explanation/line of questions, and they said I was being whiny and indecisive. I left.

[Segev]

I remember one time I gave a group that explanation/line of questions, and they said I was being whiny and indecisive. I left.

At that point, that's all you really can do. They don't really want you to play with them, and are too passive-aggressive to admit it.