"Optimized" characters or parties?

[Lolth]

I have to admit that since lurking, then becoming a poster here, I've been interested to see how much time and effort goes into the "optimised" or "crunch over fluff" characters.

Without any value judgment whatsoever attached to either end of the spectrum, how often do people make/play characters in their home games that adhere so closely to these "optimal" builds?

For my part, I've learned some things, considered some options, use some of the (good) advice I've gotten and passed on others, for personal preference reasons or because my experiences in my own games tell me not to. (YMMV of course.)

I mean, my Dervish build would be more effective with a reach/trip weapon, but it wouldn't match the image I had going into the build, so I snipped that part out. Does it make her sub-optimal? Sure. Does it make her useless? I hope not!

I'm just curious to hear/see where peoples' own experiences/preferences fall on the spectrum.

[Morgan_Scott82]

I want my characters to fall as close to the "useful" mark as I can, not too far past it, but not behind it either. I typically play "concept characters" which is my way of saying fluff first, cruch second. With some concepts optimization is easy, too easy and I reign myself back so as to not overshadow the rest of the party, and with other characters the concept is so marginal or god forbid ineffective that I have to stretch for every rules advantage I can find. So I would definitely say that the level of "optimization" that goes into my builds varies considerably based on my vision of the character and the extent to which other party members seek to optimize their characters.

[Talya]

I'm playing a 2 Brd/6 sorc/5 Heartwarder(PrC), despite the "non-optimal" bard/sorceror multiclass right off the start, entirely for "fluff." It fits the character background.

[Theodoxus]

I don't use optimal builds at all... my closest is my friend and I are twin halfling rogues who use spiked chains... we could be total cheese-holes, but we aren't. I haven't even tried to trip or sunder or anything.

I enjoy reading the optimization boards, because I learn something new all the time. Be it spell or feat, or just a new (to me) trick, it's great. There are so many splatbooks, and so many feats and abilities and classes and spells spread out all over, I can't take the time to check out every last bit of information - so that's what I use the boards for.

I do think, the next character I play will be a wizard - all batman styled out. Both wizards in our game went pure evo build - and it really is suboptimal. I'm definitely gonna do something better :)

Theo

[Bears With Lasers]

I'm playing a 2 Brd/6 sorc/5 Heartwarder(PrC), despite the "non-optimal" bard/sorceror multiclass right off the start, entirely for "fluff." It fits the character background.

How does it fit the background any better than 1 bard/7 sorc, say, or with sorcerer cross-classing Perform (unless you need Bard to enter Heartwarder).

With its CHA boosts, Heartwarder isn't exactly bad or anything for a CHA-based caster, mind you.

[Talya]

How does it fit the background any better than 1 bard/7 sorc, say, or with sorcerer cross-classing Perform (unless you need Bard to enter Heartwarder).

With its CHA boosts, Heartwarder isn't exactly bad or anything for a CHA-based caster, mind you.

Her background is a harem girl who won her freedom from her mostly benevolent calishiite master. 1/7 would probably have worked alright. But her earlier focus was on entertainment in every possible form.

(As for needing bard, i don't. One level of it did get me into the PrC sooner though, as proficiency with a whip is a class requirement, as are a number of other feats i needed to take, and skill ranks which are all class for bard.)

[Epiphanis]

The decision to go hardcore optimal or more lax is dictated a lot by the group you are gaming with and the DM's style.

[Dark_Wind]

Honestly, I've yet to play a truly optimized character. Generally I'll come up with a character first, and then I'll build the character as best I can while adhering to the concept. If I can't come up with a playable build for the concept, I start over. So I won't deliberately nerf myself to the point of uselessness, but I don't just grab things for power, either. It works for me, anyway.

[Dhavaer]

I tend to take stuff that I think sounds cool, and avoid mechanics I don't like. I'd never play a wildshaping druid, for example, because I don't like the way the ability works. I do like shapeshift, though. Once I have an idea of what the character is, and a few things to bolster that, I'll take powerful stuff when I have room for it. My judgement on powerful isn't the best, though.

[Grr]

I hate min-maxxers. They aren't allowed in my games. You build the character based upon background, concept, and how the character "matures" for lack of a better word, as they experience the world and change because of it. And before any number crunching munchkins chime in, I don't care how convoluted your background is. It's very easy to spot when you're writing the background around the classes and levels chosen, rather than choosing classes based upon the background.

[Fax Celestis]

I don't optimize per se...I ensure my character's survival. I attempt to make them both thematically and mechanically sound, erring to the side of thematics when in a quandry.

However, I have been known to make the occasional cheesebuild, but those are mostly for arenas and for display.

[Bears With Lasers]

I hate min-maxxers. They aren't allowed in my games. You build the character based upon background, concept, and how the character "matures" for lack of a better word, as they experience the world and change because of it. And before any number crunching munchkins chime in, I don't care how convoluted your background is. It's very easy to spot when you're writing the background around the classes and levels chosen, rather than choosing classes based upon the background.

Min-maxing and background have very little to do with each other.
The same background could describe a mechanically competent character and a mechanically highly feeble one. Fluff is fluff, crunch is crunch. There are dozens of ways to represent any given background mechanically, especially when you consider how broad and flexible the fluff of many classes is. Some of these ways will be better than others.

[Innis Cabal]

i have been known to min/max if thats the party i am with so i dont fall behind..its nice to feel useful. But i mostly play alot of RP heavy games with my old buddies when they have time so i guess thats fun to. Min/Maxing is ok with in reason, there just needs to be a level you have to see your not going to have fun. When i DM i DM more for RP, and my wife's school run D&D program seems to like that just fine.

[Annarrkkii]

I find something I like—a theme, an image—and go with it. In my mind, I generally decide 4 things.

1. Race, gender, and approximate physical build.

2. Obvious equipment (weapons, armor).

3. Fighting style (TWF, ranging, spellcasting)

4. Background theme or hook.

From there, I try to optimize as much as I can. I have yet to discover a new "broken" build, or even play and existing ownage build. I do, however, greatly enjoy having an effective character, and try to make my character as true to theme as possible while remaining as effective as can be managed.

[Deel]

I hate min-maxxers. They aren't allowed in my games. You build the character based upon background, concept, and how the character "matures" for lack of a better word, as they experience the world and change because of it. And before any number crunching munchkins chime in, I don't care how convoluted your background is. It's very easy to spot when you're writing the background around the classes and levels chosen, rather than choosing classes based upon the background.

So you aren't allowed to maximizes your characters effectiveness as he levels or you're a "munchkin"? A munchkin is someone who will munch numbers and have no regard for background, there shouldn't be a problem with people who do create a background, pick a class dependant on that, and maximize what that class can do. You say it's easy to spot, but is it? You see someone picking all the right feats to maximize an archers efficiency(manyshot, greater manyshot, ect.) and in his background it says he was from a tribe and he was a scout for the tribe, and that is how he developed into an archery specialist. Now did the background come from the character or did the character come from the background? It doesn't matter as long as they all fit together in the end.

The only "optimal" things that people should worry about are rule-benders, there is nothing wrong with "optimizing" when it comes to simply picking the right feats and such for what your character is supposed to specialize in.

Edit: Also, by optimal, I don't mean you have to play a certain standard build. Right now I'm playing a monk who specilializes completely in hand-to-hand combat, while he could carry a guisarme for tripping, I don't make him, because it wouldn't fit. Is he still optimized? For what I want of him, he is quite optimal, maybe not by the standards of what he could be, but if we were going by that, I'd just make him a level 1 kobold-soon-to-be-god.

[Morgan_Scott82]

I would also like to cite the occasionally overlooked principle of the adventurers outlook. From an in character perspective, being one who knows they're about to face emminant demise, it makes every bit of sense to pursue the course of greatest power. I don't play a low dex fighter who doesn't wear armor because he thinks it "uncomfortable" for good reason, after just one encounter the character has either died, or survived and decided that a bit of discomfort is worth it if it means living through the next encounter. To not try to make your character as effective as possible within the confines of the rules and the characters background, and surrounding environment is to be decidely out of character.

[Dark_Wind]

I would also like to cite the occasionally overlooked principle of the adventurers outlook. From an in character perspective, being one who knows they're about to face emminant demise, it makes every bit of sense to pursue the course of greatest power. I don't play a low dex fighter who doesn't wear armor because he thinks it "uncomfortable" for good reason, after just one encounter the character has either died, or survived and decided that a bit of discomfort is worth it if it means living through the next encounter. To not try to make your character as effective as possible within the confines of the rules and the characters background, and surrounding environment is to be decidely out of character.

Quoted for veracity and sigg'd (only partially, as the whole thing would not fit).

I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly. Well, unless your character has a death wish, or something, but that's the exception, not the rule.

[Kiero]

I play a system that's impossible to optimise or otherwise "game". Should give you a fairly clear indication where I stand.

[Indon]

Back before I knew how to optimize properly, I often tried to do so. Once I learned how, I realized I no longer wanted to.

So no, I guess I've never optimized a character.

[Agatsuma]

From all the comparison threads, one would think the majority of people are optimizers, or at least wanting to be as efficient as possible.

I cannot say I optimize a whole lot beyond "this gives me a higher armor class" or "this is a more useful spell than that." If I use a two handed weapon, it is because it fits the character, not because it does more damage than two weapon fighting. I want to be functional, but it is not like I live by the Wizards as Batman guide and such...

[Knight_Of_Twilight]

I hate min-maxxers. They aren't allowed in my games. You build the character based upon background, concept, and how the character "matures" for lack of a better word, as they experience the world and change because of it. And before any number crunching munchkins chime in, I don't care how convoluted your background is. It's very easy to spot when you're writing the background around the classes and levels chosen, rather than choosing classes based upon the background.

Ok, look, thats awesome, but there is no need to be so elitist about it. Why can't someone who optimizes there character have a good story for it?

[Bears With Lasers]

Because there is only ONE TRUE WAY to play, and anyone who does it differently is having BADWRONGFUN.

[Counterspin]

I'm much more interested in weird or new than optimal, so I rarely learn enough about a class to get down into the true stinking guts of optimization. I mean, I've put courtier levels on a plesiasaur. I have issues.

On the other hand, I generally feel that the non-optimal silliness of my ideas allows me to the go buck wild with whatever ruins of optimization I'm left with after the weirdness. So I'll make a goliath wilder, sacrificing a manifester level and not even getting a primary stat bump, but I'll also spend a lot of time massaging his power list. Little from column A, little from column B, like most people I would imagine.

[Lemur]

I generally like to make sure that the character is both effective and unique. This means that there's usually a good amount of so-called optimization, and also interesting thematic choices so that no one can ever accuse me of being cliche.

I like being surprising and upredictable, so one of the things I like to do is make a character who is very powerful in terms of game mechanics, but rarely utilizes any of the really powerful abilities. Unless of course, the situation is a real bind, or I want to be dramatic. I blame this quirk of mine on watching too much anime.


From all the comparison threads, one would think the majority of people are optimizers, or at least wanting to be as efficient as possible.


In all fairness, a lot of threads that involve comparison start with questions asking for help building a character. I'm not gonna say no one, but most people enjoy playing characters that have some special ability, and can be useful for the situations they find themselves in.

[Zincorium]

From all the comparison threads, one would think the majority of people are optimizers, or at least wanting to be as efficient as possible.

I cannot say I optimize a whole lot beyond "this gives me a higher armor class" or "this is a more useful spell than that." If I use a two handed weapon, it is because it fits the character, not because it does more damage than two weapon fighting. I want to be functional, but it is not like I live by the Wizards as Batman guide and such...

Well, the comparison threads often focus on what can be done by a general member of the class, even an averagely played wizard can do horrible things with time stop once they get it, and clerics require little gaming experience to work well in melee as well as spellcasting.

When someone asks for help with a build, as opposed to a character concept, that's taken to mean that they want advice on the mechanical aspects. Thus, that's what we help them with, and see if any of the suggestions fit.

Personally, I play a character with an interesting concept, and then optimize within that to where I've got a good chance of survival and always have something to do within a given campaign. I'll do a 180 as far as feat/Prc selection in the middle of the campaign if I think I'd have more fun with the way the character would be.

As far as disallowing anyone who min-maxes, without taking into account whether they're decent roleplayers, is going to mean you'll be losing good players. Experienced people should be able to do both unless they simply don't care about being good at one or another. And I think someone who can't be bothered to create a character that will survive conflict should have to deal with the consequences, same as an RP-averse character who just lights things on fire and kills people.

[Enzario]

Whenever I make a character, I make whatever I'm feeling like at the moment, then tweak it as I see fit. I might not be the strongest in the group, but I sure as **** have the most fun with my character. What I hate the most are people who play the same type of character all the time. I never use a single class for two characters that I make at about the same time. (I also hate parallel universe concepts, so you can see where that one came from.)

[Woot Spitum]

I'm fairly ambivelant about optimization. I prefer to be about the same as my party. What does irritate me is the idea that certain parts of your character background require you to take certain feats and skills "for flavor." Your character background is what you make it. Blatant contradictions aside, you do not have to build your character based on buzzwords about your background. Saying your character is skilled with the bow and the sword does not mean you have to take weapon focus for both those weapons.

[Grr]

Ok, look, thats awesome, but there is no need to be so elitist about it. Why can't someone who optimizes there character have a good story for it?
The point of playing an RPG is to play a role. Not be the best at rolling some dice because you "optimized" the best. I never min-max or cheese and I'm pretty sure I have the most fun when it comes to playing my character. I don't need to be in combat to have my "fun".

[bladesmith]

I'm much more interested in weird or new than optimal, so I rarely learn enough about a class to get down into the true stinking guts of optimization. I mean, I've put courtier levels on a plesiasaur. I have issues.

On the other hand, I generally feel that the non-optimal silliness of my ideas allows me to the go buck wild with whatever ruins of optimization I'm left with after the weirdness. So I'll make a goliath wilder, sacrificing a manifester level and not even getting a primary stat bump, but I'll also spend a lot of time massaging his power list. Little from column A, little from column B, like most people I would imagine.
I'm with you there, Counterspin, though I can't say I've tried the courtier levels on a plesiosaur... Maybe later.

But, yeah, I always go with a character concept first. Sometimes its a concept of what the character will act like, sometimes its something I want the character to do. Lately, I tend to stick to the second one more, for some reason. That tends to result in things like my goliath monk/fighter/reaping mauler that I just wanted to have a massive grapple check and be able to fling people(enemies or allies) all over the battlefield. Then again, things like my kobold barbarian are just to see if I can make something like that work. I don't "min-max", and you can hardly call what I do optimizing, but I enjoy the challenge of making some absurd character battle ready. Or something like that. Just my two-cents.

[WildBill]

I play with a mostly inexperienced group, so I have a tendency to play optimized support characters. In the game we just finished playing, my wizard was basically a debuff/buff machine in combat. I had a great time playing the character and seeing his personality grow, and the rest of the group had a blast hacking slowed hordes apart with their hasted charaters weilding (greater) magic weapons. I also helped the rest of the group make better characters from a purely mechanical standpoint while staying in line with their character concept. Because it is a lot more fun to play the campaign through and succeed than to have a TPK. And we all had fun. People who thought RPGs were only played by weirdos who live in their parents basements and haven't seen the light of day or the inside of a shower in months saw that they are fun games where a group of friends can relax, leave their real world problems at the door and have fun together. I'm such a terrible DnD player though because I played an optimized character, and helped other to optimize their characters. One day I hope to learn the true fun of playing gimpy mcgimps a lot the first level commer with the straight 3 stat array and know the true joy of DnD

And the fact that threads like this come up almost everyday is why I think every RPG board should have the Stormwind Fallacy stickied.

[Gralamin]

The point of playing an RPG is to play a role. Not be the best at rolling some dice because you "optimized" the best. I never min-max or cheese and I'm pretty sure I have the most fun when it comes to playing my character. I don't need to be in combat to have my "fun".

Emphasis mine. Most fun out of who?
For that matter why do you think that their is only combat cheese?
Also, have you ever played a Video game RPG? If you have, you know that some characters never see much use. Most of the time, this is because they are inept. Making a competent character is not a bad thing. Making a strong character may be a bad thing if you hog the glory. Making Pun-Pun is a bad thing. Making an Inept character, and claiming it is truer to playing the game, and therefore more fun, I find that more ignorant.

[JaronK]

So much Stormwind Fallacy in here...

Just because you play a wizard with low intelligence, or a core only fighter, does not mean you can roleplay. You can have no personality with your samurai. Likewise, you can play a druid with plenty of character.

Roleplay has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with your mechanics. You can be a bad roleplayer or a good one. You can play optomized characters or characters who can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. Those two things have nothing to do with each other.

In fact, very often I've found that powergamers are better roleplayers. They care a lot about their characters, and they don't tend to think that by giving their fighter a high wisdom score that they've somehow satisfied their roleplaying duties.

JaronK

[Deel]

The point of playing an RPG is to play a role. Not be the best at rolling some dice because you "optimized" the best. I never min-max or cheese and I'm pretty sure I have the most fun when it comes to playing my character. I don't need to be in combat to have my "fun".

And you think people that do optimize can't do that too? You can have a character that is good in combat and a character that is good outside of combat. You choose what you want your character to be and build around that, you can still optimize like that. The example I posted above(catfolk ranger/scout archer) is an optimized build that I have tons of fun with in and out of combat, I made it the best I could in combat, but also has a good backstory and has a lot of personality when not in combat.

I could kind of agree with people who never do anything outside of combat being munchkins as they are pretty much doing nothing besides seeing how much they can do in battle, but there is nothing wrong with building a character that is both good in combat, and has a good backstory/personality outside of combat, despite popular belief, you can have both sides.

Also, I hate the Stormwind Fallacy, it just breeds more elitism to counter the elitism that seems so common among the roll vs role playing debates, which gets either side no where. Plus, it's so common sense, it really doesn't need a name, much less named after one particular poster at one particular message board.

[Tor the Fallen]

Because there is only ONE TRUE WAY to play, and anyone who does it differently is having BADWRONGFUN.

Your fun is doubleplusungood.


But, eh, it usually goes cool concept -> optimization. TWF sounds cool, looks cool, IS cool, but requires far more finnagling to make it work than the straight-forwardness that is THF.

[Jannex]

I'm hearing a lot of what I would describe as the Reverse Stormwind Fallacy at work here. Just because a person doesn't like obscenely twinked-out characters, doesn't mean he wants to play blind, deaf, and comatose goblin apprentice-commoners. And it certainly doesn't mean he's using a "non-optimized" build as an excuse not to think deeply about his character or roleplay well.

To answer the OP, my priorities are character concept first, player amusement second, optimizing third. (Though admittedly, most of the time 1 and 2 go hand-in-hand.) What that means is, most decisions will be made based on what makes the most sense for the character I'm playing, given his/her personality, background, and style. Any decision not adequately determined by that will be made based on what amuses me the most--like taking Improved Critical rather than a more "optimal" feat, just because I like Improved Critical, or continuing to put skill points into a +23 Listen modifier, because I enjoy seeing it climb even higher. After that, if there are decisions to be made that have not been determined by either of these factors, I refer to what's most "optimal" (usually asking someone else's opinion, because my brain doesn't really work that way). This way, I usually end up with reasonably effective, fun, and vivid characters.

[JaronK]

I'm hearing a lot of what I would describe as the Reverse Stormwind Fallacy at work here. Just because a person doesn't like obscenely twinked-out characters, doesn't mean he wants to play blind, deaf, and comatose goblin apprentice-commoners. And it certainly doesn't mean he's using a "non-optimized" build as an excuse not to think deeply about his character or roleplay well.

Actually no. The assumption here is that people who believe in the Stormwind Fallacy, who believe that optomizing a character makes it less roleplayable, therefor believe that making characters less optimal makes them better roleplayers. Thus, such people are indeed making their characters weaker in an attempt to roleplay better, which of course doesn't work.

This is not a comentary on people who simply chose not to optomize their characters, or people who take some feats because they find them amusing, entertaining, or fitting to their characters.

JaronK

[Grr]

Stormwind Fallacy. Haha, what a fuggin' joke. Go ahead and think that two word phrase makes your arguments somehow valid. Think it if you want to, but you're wrong.

I've never once said that choosing to specifically gimp a character makes for good roleplaying, nor have I said choosing to optimize a character makes for bad roleplaying. It is however, my experience that the number crunchers spend more time worrying about how their character does in combat than about how their character grows and matures over the course of the campaign.

I start with a concept, based partly on the level the campaign starts at. I choose skills and class based on that concept. *gasp* I even spend my oh so precious skill points on Profession and Craft! OMG! Minmaxxing number crunchers would never do that. No matter how much it adds to the character's overall concept. I'll even spend points in Profession while leveling if it makes sense that that is what the character would do.

I realize that doesn't make me a better roleplayer, but they are tools that I can use to better portray that character true to the concept.

[Deel]

That's fine if that's what you want to do, just don't rag on people who do maximize on what their character concept is. Your character calls for those kind of things? Go for it. Don't complain that other people put what they think fits their character, even if it seems to be the best option. I mean, most groups are adventurers anyway, so it's quite likely for them to want to maximize what they can do, well, adventuring, which in itself leads to... what's the word... optimizing! Optimizing your abilities for what you plan to do!

There really is no reason to think that you can't have a good character in concept and in mechanics. The only time I'd ever consider that is if you tried to make a knight in shining armor concept under a druid class, because combinations like that are just silly. Your concept should have connection to your class, but that doesn't mean you can't optimize that class for what you want to do.

[Maryring]

I want my characters to survive. Unfortunately, with my RL group, it often forces me to "optimize" as best I can. Still, I never optimize against the function of the character. I won't choose a different alternative if it breaks the character's type and/or style, but I will do my best to create a surviving character within the limits of the character's theme.

[Grr]

The problem with the number crunchers, is that they make the rest of the party feel like they have to "optimize" their character to just keep up.

[Tellah]

I've never once said that choosing to specifically gimp a character makes for good roleplaying...


I even spend my oh so precious skill points on Profession and Craft! OMG! Minmaxxing number crunchers would never do that.

Nice high horse, Grr. Can I ride?

[Deel]

Well, that's half the fun of DnD for some people. Others should try it too, I even give advice to the newer people I play with on making a good character around their concept, and they like it when they can do more, as I got advice from more experienced players in the same way when I played.

When people start bending rules and such to outshine everyone, that's where the problem begins, simply doing the best you can with what you're given is a perfectly acceptable thing.

[Bears With Lasers]

Stormwind Fallacy. Haha, what a fuggin' joke. Go ahead and think that two word phrase makes your arguments somehow valid. Think it if you want to, but you're wrong.
Why do you think that stating how right you are is a valid substitute for an actual argument?


I've never once said that choosing to specifically gimp a character makes for good roleplaying, nor have I said choosing to optimize a character makes for bad roleplaying. It is however, my experience that the number crunchers spend more time worrying about how their character does in combat than about how their character grows and matures over the course of the campaign.
First of all: not all games are about characters that grow and mature. Pulp-style games, for example, have characters that are at the top of their game and don't improve significantly from there. It's about how the character deals with things, not how he grows.
That aside--"your experience" is a tiny sample. When you've gamed regularly with a thousand people, maybe an argument from experience will be viable. Until then, sorry.
Number-crunching a character is mechanics. It has no effect on the roleplaying or the character concept. What you mean is "I hate poor roleplayers", not "I hate min-maxers", because plenty of min-maxers can roleplay just fine, portray a character growing and maturing just fine, et cetera. The two are unrelated. Assuming they are related is the stormwind Fallacy.


I start with a concept, based partly on the level the campaign starts at. I choose skills and class based on that concept. *gasp* I even spend my oh so precious skill points on Profession and Craft! OMG! Minmaxxing number crunchers would never do that. No matter how much it adds to the character's overall concept. I'll even spend points in Profession while leveling if it makes sense that that is what the character would do.
First of all, there's "what would the character do?"--something that, in part, you decide on a personal level, since your character won't be as developed as a real person--and then there's examining dramatic effect and narrative weight. Sometimes, doing whatever your character can do can be bad. If your character would kill the rest of the party in their sleep, it's still a poor decision. Immersing yourself in your character isn't the only or the best way to roleplay. It's usually not the best way to shape a cohesive narrative.


I realize that doesn't make me a better roleplayer, but they are tools that I can use to better portray that character true to the concept.
No, they're not. "Profession: Baker" is just some words and a number. That number is used mechanically. If you want your character to be a baker, have him bake things occasionally. You can do that without a Profession: Baker check (especially since you'd use craft anyway--Profession is strictly for making a living with it).

If you want to protray the character, then portray him. Roleplay. Scribbling down "Profession: Baker - 4" doesn't make you portray him better. You could have those numbers written down and never have that reflected in the character.

The things that make the character are how you play him, not what numbers are on his character sheet.

[asqwasqw]

The problem with optimization and roleplay is that sometimes it doesn't work. I may min/max my stats to be all strength and no int, but what if I want to be intelligent? What if I want to be a sailor but can't because my skill points are used up? If you are a good roleplayer, then you can adapt your character to fit the concept. But what I seen of min/max, they fit the concept to the character. Just my 2 cp.

Edit: What if I forgot to add question marks?

[Bears With Lasers]

If you want to play an intelligent character, you either separate the stats and the roleplaying a little further, or you optimize within constraints. No one optimizes 100%, or all optimizers would play Pun-Pun.

[Artemician]

In whatever games I play, I usually play characters that are built around a concept. While a few of the newer players will do otherwise, I have otherwise seen no reason to go for really cheesy optimization.

I also follow BWL's way of separating fluff and mechanics, for the most part. For example, I'm currently playing a Bard/Assassin. It may not be insanely optimal, but I have fun with it.

However, I also created an uber-optimized Ego Whip Psion build called Psymon Cowell. I have as much fun playing him as I do from the sub-optimal Bard/Assassin.

The fun in playing characters does not come from his competency, or lack thereof. The fun is from the concept, the character interactions, overcoming challenges.

That said, completely dominating a party or being the useless McJoe is not very fun. However, you can have just as much fun playing an optimized character in an optimized party as you do playing an unoptimized one in an unoptimized party.

[Hallavast]

So much Stormwind Fallacy in here...

Just because you play a wizard with low intelligence, or a core only fighter, does not mean you can roleplay. You can have no personality with your samurai. Likewise, you can play a druid with plenty of character.

Roleplay has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with your mechanics. You can be a bad roleplayer or a good one. You can play optomized characters or characters who can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. Those two things have nothing to do with each other.

In fact, very often I've found that powergamers are better roleplayers. They care a lot about their characters, and they don't tend to think that by giving their fighter a high wisdom score that they've somehow satisfied their roleplaying duties.

JaronK

Did you know that there is a wizard prestige class in the Dragonlance Campaign setting that makes you prohibit three schools of magic in order to take it. Furthermore, you can only pick these prohibited from a chosen list. It is very sub-optimal. The reason you must specialize so profusely is because certain schools of magic are the exclusive domains of certain orders of magic. Do you know why my character took the prestige class? Fluff. I gimped myself in the name of fluff. This decision affected the character's life. It confines you to an order of magic whose laws must be obeyed upon penalty of death. So, saying fluff and crunch are mutually exclusive isn't really true.

If the fighter you depicted above had a personality that dicated a high wisdom score, but your powergaming friend dumped wisdom so his con could be higher, then yes, he is favoring crunch at the expense of fluff. It would be especially bad if this person roleplayed the fighter as being exceptionally wise regardless of his wisdom score. That's not being true to the spirit of roleplaying.

I have another example for you. I made a character concept and fleshed him out. I gave him a background and personality (along with an accent and a sketch of his physical appearance). He was particularly dashing, charming, flirtatious, and had table manners any English Queen would admire. However, he was a bit absentminded at times, he wasn't very perceptive to people's feelings, and he frequently made careless mistakes.

I had all his abilities assigned but two: wisdom and charisma. The two scores i was left with were 16 and 9. Charisma would have been a much better dump stat for him mechanically. After all, it's nice to have spot checks and high will saves, and his party role wasn't going to call for too many charisma based checks in his career. However, I couldn't in good conscience give him a 9 charisma with a 16 wisdom. It didn't fit his personality. It didn't fit his fluff. So I gave him a 9 wisom and 16 charisma. He has been charmed and dominated on more than one occasion, but my friends and I had a blast roleplaying the situations. He contributes heartily to the parties endeavors, and we generally meet with success on our endeavors.

How would you defend your opinion in light of these points?

[JaronK]

Did you know that there is a wizard prestige class in the Dragonlance Campaign setting that makes you prohibit three schools of magic in order to take it. Furthermore, you can only pick these prohibited from a chosen list. It is very sub-optimal. The reason you must specialize so profusely is because certain schools of magic are the exclusive domains of certain orders of magic. Do you know why my character took the prestige class? Fluff. I gimped myself in the name of fluff. This decision affected the character's life. It confines you to an order of magic whose laws must be obeyed upon penalty of death. So, saying fluff and crunch are mutually exclusive isn't really true.

And yet you could have taken the Incantrix PrC, dropping the same schools of magic, and gotten more power out of the trade. Could you not have had the same RP? I don't know your character's, well, character, so I can't say much on this. But the point is, you could probably roleplay the same character by being an Incantrix, or by taking whatever this PrC you took was, or by just not using spells from that school. Either way, you could have had the same personality, and a similar character feel. The mechanics simply define what your character can do in combat, which spells he can cast, and the save DCs for those spells. It does not determine whether your character has issues with authority, or his sense of humor, or his feelings towards his friends.


If the fighter you depicted above had a personality that dicated a high wisdom score, but your powergaming friend dumped wisdom so his con could be higher, then yes, he is favoring crunch at the expense of fluff. It would be especially bad if this person roleplayed the fighter as being exceptionally wise regardless of his wisdom score. That's not being true to the spirit of roleplaying.

Or my power gaming friend, deciding he wants to play a wise melee character, could have taken levels of Swordsage instead. Now his character is more optimal. He took a character concept ("wise fighter") and optomized it. He can roleplay just fine. The fact that he took levels of Swordsage, in no way changes the character... it can still be roleplayed exactly the same. However, that character will now take fewer hits due to higher AC.


I have another example for you. I made a character concept and fleshed him out. I gave him a background and personality (along with an accent and a sketch of his physical appearance). He was particularly dashing, charming, flirtatious, and had table manners any English Queen would admire. However, he was a bit absentminded at times, he wasn't very perceptive to people's feelings, and he frequently made careless mistakes.

I had all his abilities assigned but two: wisdom and charisma. The two scores i was left with were 16 and 9. Charisma would have been a much better dump stat for him mechanically. After all, it's nice to have spot checks and high will saves, and his party role wasn't going to call for too many charisma based checks in his career. However, I couldn't in good conscience give him a 9 charisma with a 16 wisdom. It didn't fit his personality. It didn't fit his fluff. So I gave him a 9 wisom and 16 charisma. He has been charmed and dominated on more than one occasion, but my friends and I had a blast roleplaying the situations. He contributes heartily to the parties endeavors, and we generally meet with success on our endeavors.

So? The character in mind gets lower will saves and higher diplomacy checks. Without knowing the rest of the character, I can't say much.


How would you defend your opinion in light of these points?

As shown, any one of the characters could be optomized further, easily, and would in no way change the roleplay of the characters. Yes, it's possible to mess with your roleplay by making contrasting mechanics. Taking the Samurai class when you want to be a Katana wielding Samurai character, for example, would get in the way, since that class requires you to dual wield a katana with a wakasashi. Likewise, taking levels of Wizard when the character you had in mind was a dumb melee brute would get in the way. That's not the point.

The point is that taking a character and optomizing the mechanics of that character does not get in the way of roleplay. Such is the case with your high wisdom Fighter being turned into a high wisdom Swordsage, who now can actually use his high wisdom in combat. The character is roleplayed the same, but now he can contribute more in the mechanics of combat.

JaronK

[Sir Giacomo]

Hi everyone,

it may come as a bit of surprise from me (if some of you have read my other posts on game balance), but I think optimisation (to varying degrees) is ABSOLUTELY necessary for having a good roleplaying experience in DD3.5.

The point is that eventually, optimisation is nothing but a deep knowledge of the rules. And the rules are out there to balance what you imagine, into something that everyone at the table can found a common ground in.

Everyone starts out with a character concept. There may be some "munchkins" who just get sort of "inspired" by what the rules appear to give: frenzied beserkers allowing stellar damage, cleric prestige classes that offer great abilities with no caster level loss etc., ur-priests that give 9th level divine spells in 9 levels to anyone making a fort +3 save entry requirement etc...But even that may lead to roleplaying inspiration. However, most of the time it can lead to the fallacy that you want to be mechanically the best in everything there is and/or compete vs the other players, which is against the spirit of a group-game. But I digress...

Anyhow, you NEED optimisation to transfer your character concept with the rules.
Say, you want to play an old paladin who is still quite strong in combat. Now "still quite strong in combat" would imply that you somehow have to maximise his combat prowess given your (self-inflicted) restriction that he is old, has age penalties in physical stats. So basically: you want to have an experienced fighter fighting more with tactical feats than mere damage output.
If you just happily go and pick power attack (despite having only STR 13), weapon focus, weapon specialisation and a big weapon, you are going to end up being quite depressed that your character concept will not work our as you imagined. It is CRUCIAL that you optimise the rules to do what you imagine your character to be.
If you pick up a harem girl as background with high skills in entertainment (not just superficially, as in "cross-class" proficient), but wish to make her into a sorceress later, it is CRUCIAL that you "optimise" it in such a way that you pick a class first that allows entertainment skills without cross-classing (like rogue or bard), rather than just get a sorceress at first level and put cross-class ranks into perform; although it contradicts a more general optimisation rule "thou shalst not give up caster levels".

Now one thing that needs to be co-ordinated is how your rules/optimisation/kung-fu performs relative to that of your DM and the other players. This is key because if, say, you wish to make the above old paladin and still achieve something like combat effectiveness to prevent him from becoming ridiculous in combat, it would not be so great of you played alongside players eager to maximise their combat prowes to such an extent that their combat ability is double that of the paladin. He should be weaker, yes (so it is shown that the paladin is not as strong as his younger comrades), but not to the extent that he is completely unnecessary in his core role of the party: contributing in combat. Additionally, it would be great if he had a focus on some stuff that the others do not (which is the normal result if everyone has the same start): say, he has higher mental stats, could function as the party face, and provide tactical benefits to the party (there are plenty of feats for that kind of thing).

- Giacomo

[Grr]

When you've gamed regularly with a thousand people, maybe an argument from experience will be viable.
I've gamed with enough people to see that the min-maxxing munchkins are generally poor roleplayers. All they're interested in, is killing stuff and making big numbers get bigger.


Number-crunching a character is mechanics. It has no effect on the roleplaying or the character concept. What you mean is "I hate poor roleplayers", not "I hate min-maxers", because plenty of min-maxers can roleplay just fine, portray a character growing and maturing just fine, et cetera.
Oh no... I hate min-maxxers. Has nothing to do whether they're a poor roleplayer or not. Poor roleplaying can be fixed. Munchkins are a lost cause. If it doesn't have numbers or lots of combat, they get bored and whine.


If you want to protray the character, then portray him. Roleplay. Scribbling down "Profession: Baker - 4" doesn't make you portray him better. You could have those numbers written down and never have that reflected in the character.
I said it was a TOOL to better portray my character. Also, let's go back to the RAW crap you keep spewing everywhere else. It would be unfair to the other players if I were allowed to roleplay as a Baker and make a living in game doing it between adventures, even though I didn't have the profession skill. Since that would violate RAW. :insertrolleyeyessmiley:

Same thing for dump stats. I guarantee every single, min-maxxing munchkin never roleplays their character properly when they have a six charisma. I had some player in an RPGA event try to be a smooth talking, swashbuckling fighter/rogue with a charisma in the dungheaps so he could have a high strength and dex. He got pissed and left after I forced him to roll a charisma check.


And yet you could have taken the Incantrix PrC, dropping the same schools of magic, and gotten more power out of the trade.
You obviously don't get why concept and staying true to that concept is important for some people. It doesn't matter that someone could choose a different PrC and be more "optimized". What matters to them is staying true to the concept and being consistent in the campaign setting. The fluff and flavor are more important than maxxing out some sterile statistic.

[Emperor Tippy]

I've gamed with enough people to see that the min-maxxing munchkins are generally poor roleplayers. All they're interested in, is killing stuff and making big numbers get bigger.
Then you game with generally poor roleplayers. Roleplaying has nothing to do with optimization at all.


Oh no... I hate min-maxxers. Has nothing to do whether they're a poor roleplayer or not. Poor roleplaying can be fixed. Munchkins are a lost cause. If it doesn't have numbers or lots of combat, they get bored and whine.
This is an utterly asinine statement. You seem to hate people who are effective. I'm guessing that it is because you can't DM outside of your own little box and throw a tantrum if the players beat your challenges to easily.


I said it was a TOOL to better portray my character. Also, let's go back to the RAW crap you keep spewing everywhere else. It would be unfair to the other players if I were allowed to roleplay as a Baker and make a living in game doing it between adventures, even though I didn't have the profession skill. Since that would violate RAW. :insertrolleyeyessmiley:
Craft checks can be done untrained and are intelligence checks. You can also take 10 or 20 on them if you are so inclined.


Same thing for dump stats. I guarantee every single, min-maxxing munchkin never roleplays their character properly when they have a six charisma. I had some player in an RPGA event try to be a smooth talking, swashbuckling fighter/rogue with a charisma in the dungheaps so he could have a high strength and dex. He got pissed and left after I forced him to roll a charisma check.
That guy can't roleplay. It doesn't mean that every person or even most people who optimize their characters can't roleplay.

And have you ever played a 10 or lower Int character and had them solve a difficult puzzle? If you ahve you aren't roleplaying. Your cheating.


You obviously don't get why concept and staying true to that concept is important for some people. It doesn't matter that someone could choose a different PrC and be more "optimized". What matters to them is staying true to the concept and being consistent in the campaign setting. The fluff and flavor are more important than maxxing out some sterile statistic.

You can't get the concept through your head that fluff and flavor have absolutely nothing to do with mechanics at all.

[Zincorium]

I've gamed with enough people to see that the min-maxxing munchkins are generally poor roleplayers. All they're interested in, is killing stuff and making big numbers get bigger.


Right, so of all the people you've ever gamed with, those who build mechanically effective characters who can successfully fulfill their role in the party (which is what everyone else means when they say 'optimized') can never immerse themselves in their characters, come up with interesting hooks, or create a complex narrative through their actions?

Just trying to reconcile what you mean with what I think you're saying, here.



Oh no... I hate min-maxxers. Has nothing to do whether they're a poor roleplayer or not. Poor roleplaying can be fixed. Munchkins are a lost cause. If it doesn't have numbers or lots of combat, they get bored and whine.


Whining because a game does not fit what they want to play is what any immature person will do, it has nothing to do with optimizing as most people practice it. D&D is a game with numbers and lots of combat, you wouldn't have one of the larger chapters of the PHB if that wasn't the case. If that's all they want, and they don't care about the other aspects of the game, they are poor roleplayers, and you claim that can be fixed, while munchkins can't. Assuming of course that they do in fact need 'fixing' in some manner.

I'm sure by your definitions, you aren't contradicting yourself, but by mine you are. I'm sure you can see that's a barrier to understanding.



I said it was a TOOL to better portray my character. Also, let's go back to the RAW crap you keep spewing everywhere else. It would be unfair to the other players if I were allowed to roleplay as a Baker and make a living in game doing it between adventures, even though I didn't have the profession skill. Since that would violate RAW. :insertrolleyeyessmiley:


If you were receiving game benefits, in your example gaining wealth during down time, yes, you would need to have a mechanical way of doing so to keep the game fair. Otherwise, fairness doesn't enter into it, and you wouldn't need to put points in.

If you do not craft things, and you do not gain money from it, by RAW you don't need the skill to be a baker. Heck, with a high enough wisdom you can be a reasonable baker, mechanically if not rp-wise, without a single skill point by RAW. I'm pretty sure that's what BWL was talking about.



Same thing for dump stats. I guarantee every single, min-maxxing munchkin never roleplays their character properly when they have a six charisma. I had some player in an RPGA event try to be a smooth talking, swashbuckling fighter/rogue with a charisma in the dungheaps so he could have a high strength and dex. He got pissed and left after I forced him to roll a charisma check.


That reaction is either pure immaturity or misunderstanding of how the game is played. What you've cited just now is the polar opposite of what has been stated, that you should have stats which fit the concept. Playing a smooth talking swashbuckler with a low charisma is as unoptimized as playing a smooth talking swashbuckler who has the druid class.



You obviously don't get why concept and staying true to that concept is important for some people. It doesn't matter that someone could choose a different PrC and be more "optimized". What matters to them is staying true to the concept and being consistent in the campaign setting. The fluff and flavor are more important than maxxing out some sterile statistic.

You can, in D&D, have your cake and eat it too.

Everyone has character concepts, many of them good. By your stated way of thinking, if you make that character then mechanically effective, it somehow erases the fact that it's a good concept.

If I decide to play a swashbuckling Warforged, Jeeves who I've stated the backstory of in several other threads, and take things like Mithril Body at first level and go into the Invisible Blade prestige class to enhance the traits he has to the level that I imagine them to be at, I'm then happy with my character. He's complete. I have an interesting personality and I fulfill my party role with distinction.

Fluff and Crunch. Yin and Yang. You separate the two, or act like one doesn't matter, the fun of the game is diminished overall.

[Reinboom]

Hmmn, I thought a game was to have fun and to each his own, oh, and to make WotC or WW or similar money.
Given that, let's say there are alot of people that enjoy making and playing optimized builds and lacking on roleplaying - which there are - numerously. Now, given that there is a significant population that thinks this way, why would a game company directly "intend" for a product to not appeal to this group? Wouldn't that be losing money? There's Free Form and then there's competitive math, D&D, as well as most 'RPGs' sit in the middle and being able to apply to the strongest deviation from the middle is what sells so I won't take "intent" ever as just for people to role play from these games for to me, this is clearly not the intent.

Personally I love see things work in numbers, that's how I think, and for that I tend to lack in role-playing even though I try. Even when I draw or paint I'm still thinking in numbers, always trying to make sure things are appropriately in perspective and proportion via equations or techniques I have memorized - in high contrast to most artists.
I would hate for someone to tell me that I can't have fun in the way I do, then what would be the point of playing?

Seriously, if everybody is having fun, even if you have an army of kobolds, who cares?

So to respond to the original question:
I generally play characters that are optimized but I always try to restrict myself in some way. If I'm playing a spellcaster I will normally take 1 to 2 levels in another minor class that appeals to that characters personality for example and try to roleplay it, this helps me try to roleplay better and at the same time make not steal glory from my fellow party members through overoptimization. Other times if I know a concept is just very weak I will overoptimize it just to make it playable without restrictions.

[Grr]

Then you game with generally poor roleplayers. Roleplaying has nothing to do with optimization at all.
Actually, I game with some very intelligent people that are excellent
roleplayers. I don't game with min-maxxing munchkins.
This is an utterly asinine statement. You seem to hate people who are effective. I'm guessing that it is because you can't DM outside of your own little box and throw a tantrum if the players beat your challenges to easily.
:rofl: You don't have to be min-maxxed to be effective. I DM quite well outside of my "box" because I don't have a box. I make up everything on the spot pretty much. Remember?

Craft checks can be done untrained and are intelligence checks. You can also take 10 or 20 on them if you are so inclined.
Yeah, because my character's going to make a great living as a baker untrained. Again, you're sacrificing fluff so you can "optimize" your character better for combat or utility. People like you just don't get it and never will, which is why I said munchkins were a lost cause.

And have you ever played a 10 or lower Int character and had them solve a difficult puzzle? If you ahve you aren't roleplaying. Your cheating.
Nope, never have. There's been times where I was playing a dumb fighter or barbarian or whatever and I knew the answer, but I knew that my character wouldn't. So I kept quiet. Didn't even offer any hints to other members of the party. We suffered for it because the wrong answer was guessed and we had to fight the sphinx or whatever species of monster it is that gives out the riddles. Cost us some valuable resources to heal up from that fight.


You can't get the concept through your head that fluff and flavor have absolutely nothing to do with mechanics at all.
You're the one that can't understand that mechanics have absolutely everything to do with the concept... the fluff and flavor of your character. You can't just say you're a baker. You can't just say you're a blacksmith. There are skills for that. It's called staying true to the concept and being fair to the other players. You can't say you've got keen eyesight and expect bonuses to spot and search. You can't just say you've got great hearing and expect to have a good listen check.

It doesn't work that way. If you want to be a baker, you take the profession: baker skill. It's that simple. You're sacrificing something to meet the concept of the character you want to make.

[Reinboom]

You're the one that can't understand that mechanics have absolutely everything to do with the concept... the fluff and flavor of your character. You can't just say you're a baker. You can't just say you're a blacksmith. There are skills for that. It's called staying true to the concept and being fair to the other players. You can't say you've got keen eyesight and expect bonuses to spot and search. You can't just say you've got great hearing and expect to have a good listen check.

It doesn't work that way. If you want to be a baker, you take the profession: baker skill. It's that simple. You're sacrificing something to meet the concept of the character you want to make.

What if a person's concept is a paranoid wizard due to constant threats that he keeps for some reason encountering (as in many games) who, because of so, prepares each day equivalent to batman? Letsay he doesn't even trust people making his food anymore so he took a few points in baker for that "sacrifice". From my understandings, you would allow this.

[Bears With Lasers]

I've gamed with enough people to see that the min-maxxing munchkins are generally poor roleplayers. All they're interested in, is killing stuff and making big numbers get bigger.
No, you haven't. There's this thing called statistics. Until you've games with hundreds of people, your sample size is statistically insignificant.

Furthermore, correlation does not equal causation. If you know min-maxers who don't roleplay well, that doesn't mean min-maxing causes poor roleplay.

You're also conflating min-maxing (or optimizing) with "munchkins". The two are different.



Oh no... I hate min-maxxers. Has nothing to do whether they're a poor roleplayer or not. Poor roleplaying can be fixed. Munchkins are a lost cause. If it doesn't have numbers or lots of combat, they get bored and whine.I am an optimizer, i.e. a min-maxer. I prefer roleplay-heavy games, for the most part, although in D&D combat is part of What It's About. Still--my favorite tabletop D&D game I was in, we had combat once every few sessions (rather than, say, four times a session). I was, I'll note, playing a fighter. And yes, I was playing my 8 CHA.


I said it was a TOOL to better portray my character. Also, let's go back to the RAW crap you keep spewing everywhere else. It would be unfair to the other players if I were allowed to roleplay as a Baker and make a living in game doing it between adventures, even though I didn't have the profession skill. Since that would violate RAW. :insertrolleyeyessmiley:How is it a tool? Does having that "4" instead of a "0" on your character sheet somehow make you able to roleplay better?

Why would it be unfair to the other players if you were allowed to roleplay as a baker? The rules just say you use profession to make a little money. You can roleplay whatever you want, just don't make that check...

...not that I actually play by the rules as written. They need heavy editing, and lots of house-ruling.


Same thing for dump stats. I guarantee every single, min-maxxing munchkin never roleplays their character properly when they have a six charisma. I had some player in an RPGA event try to be a smooth talking, swashbuckling fighter/rogue with a charisma in the dungheaps so he could have a high strength and dex. He got pissed and left after I forced him to roll a charisma check.Great. And I've known people with completely unoptimized characters who were equally poor roleplayers.


You obviously don't get why concept and staying true to that concept is important for some people. It doesn't matter that someone could choose a different PrC and be more "optimized". What matters to them is staying true to the concept and being consistent in the campaign setting. The fluff and flavor are more important than maxxing out some sterile statistic.No, you don't get it. The point is that for any given concept/piece of fluff, there are multiple ways to implement it mechanically. Some of those ways are better than others. You can pick the best way without giving up your character concept.



As for "if you want to be a baker, you have to take profession: baker"... that's crap. You could just describe your character baking. If it has no mechanical effect, why would you need mechanics for it?
When you say "you can't be a baker without ranks in profession: baker", you are saying that the mechanics are more important to you than the flavor.
Incidentally, there is no mechanic for "baking". Profession: Baker is a check you can make to see how much money you make in a week when you are selling your baking services.

Letting your party suffer an IC consequence because your character can't solve a riddle is lame, unless everyone in the group was low-intelligence. If you knew the answer, you, as a player, could easily have told it to the player of a high-INT character, since their character would know it.


Furthermore, you're fine with breaking the rules and making things up as you go. For some reason, however, you don't seem to give players that luxury. "No Craft: Woodcarving? Then no, you CAN'T whittle pretty figurines in your downtime!"

[argentsaber]

The problem with optimization and roleplay is that sometimes it doesn't work. I may min/max my stats to be all strength and no int, but what if I want to be intelligent? What if I want to be a sailor but can't because my skill points are used up? If you are a good roleplayer, then you can adapt your character to fit the concept. But what I seen of min/max, they fit the concept to the character. Just my 2 cp.

Edit: What if I forgot to add question marks?

I often find that in the course of optimizing, I add depth to a character's background. Recently, I was working on a level 10 bardic gish, and found the dragonslayer PRC. At this point, the character's background has changed considerably, and I think for the better. If my DM bars the class, I will still use the background even though I would have never thought of it without trying to optimize.

[Sir Giacomo]

OK, I have to jump here in opposition to what Grr posts...:smallsmile:



:rofl: You don't have to be min-maxxed to be effective.

But you have to, if you want to transfer your idea of the character in the best way possible with the DD rules.
Note: min/maxing is not "getting the lowest/highest number", but it is exactly trying to get the rules to back up what you want to do, if you say: "I would like to play an often absent-minded illiterate kitchen maid who cannot cook- but still does so- and is subject to violent madnesses sometimes, which she is ashamed of, since she is otherwise a sweet person. As a vague idea I'd like to develop into the role of the group's fighter and/or skilled fighter (probabe development: fighter, rogue levels, acrobat prestige class? Who knows...)"
So, at 1st level you could get an INT 8, WIS 6 (therefore blah cooking skill even with some ranks put into it), quite low STR, but charmingly cute (high CHR), very resilient and dextrous (high DEX, CON).
Class: Barbarian, 1st level. You do not even need to take all the wilderness skills, since you have a city background.

This way, you are not "maxed" in the standard munchkin sense of trying to be the best/best everyone at the table, but have "maxed" your very own character concept.



I DM quite well outside of my "box" because I don't have a box. I make up everything on the spot pretty much. Remember?


Hmm yes, I also confess doing that from time to time. The problem is: it is a narrow way between getting into (suspense-reducing) rules inconsistencies and (supsense-enhancing) speed/ease of play.
"Making up everything on the spot" does not sound like a good idea to me (as is the reverse extreme of doing EVERYthing by the RAW). It also depends on the improvisation talent/mental endurance of the DM, so it's at best highly group/campaign-specific.



Yeah, because my character's going to make a great living as a baker untrained. Again, you're sacrificing fluff so you can "optimize" your character better for combat or utility.

You can have both fluff and utility.
If the same character concept can get you more utility with the same fluff in one version than in the other, that is efficient and you should go for it (also the other way round!)
If you want your character to be not that -mechanically- useful to the adventuring group, optimise (as in reach it with the best possible approach given by the rules) that concept to get as many of the fluff aspects you wish to have!



People like you just don't get it and never will, which is why I said munchkins were a lost cause.


But BWL and all other posters have repeatedly said that they, almost 100% (that is, except in mental game statistic excercises/fun sessions) of the time, play very role-playing-heavy, non-munchkined (as in playervsplayervsDM) games. Why do you not believe them?



Nope, never have. There's been times where I was playing a dumb fighter or barbarian or whatever and I knew the answer, but I knew that my character wouldn't. So I kept quiet. Didn't even offer any hints to other members of the party. We suffered for it because the wrong answer was guessed and we had to fight the sphinx or whatever species of monster it is that gives out the riddles. Cost us some valuable resources to heal up from that fight.


This is a good point.
However, how can people actually ever ROLEplay characters with high mental stats? The rules only go so far to support it (say, in-game mechanics like skill checks). It is a group/team game, and as such, you should help the DM and the other players as much as possible out of character/metagaming to get the best roleplaying experience for everyone. If the answer to the riddle is obvious to a high-INT-guy but your party wizard does not get it, and by any chance you know it (playing the stupid babarian), you could even hint it IN PLAY by making a barabarian-typical statement that will give that wizard's player to pick up the clue and the opportunity to shine (and roleplay his character). The game is not a competition. Withholding such information actually is closer to munchkinism than getting good combat statistics to fill a role as a strong fighter.



You're the one that can't understand that mechanics have absolutely everything to do with the concept... the fluff and flavor of your character. You can't just say you're a baker. You can't just say you're a blacksmith. There are skills for that. It's called staying true to the concept and being fair to the other players. You can't say you've got keen eyesight and expect bonuses to spot and search. You can't just say you've got great hearing and expect to have a good listen check.
(....)
It doesn't work that way. If you want to be a baker, you take the profession: baker skill. It's that simple. You're sacrificing something to meet the concept of the character you want to make.


I absolutely agree here. The rules actually are quite balanced in this way, in that, if you want to have special abilities for your characters, you will fall short in other aspects automatically (no wizard with barbarian rage at 1st level, for instance). If you want to be the most charismatic guy there is already at 1st level (CHR 18), then you have to pay for it with the point-buy-system with much lower stats elsewhere.

- Giacomo

EDIT (after seeing argentsaber's post): argentsaber makes a very good point there: the rules may even give you inspiration what to play; in particular when you are new to the game and say: I would like to be some kind of knight....
...look at paladin class or knight class and see what fits you best. For instance, you may as a player not have thought about a mount before looking at the paladin abilities, but then come up with the idea that the character should revolve around a very strong bonding between that character and the mount from an early age...etc.

[Saph]

As for "if you want to be a baker, you have to take profession: baker"... that's crap. You could just describe your character baking. If it has no mechanical effect, why would you need mechanics for it?
When you say "you can't be a baker without ranks in profession: baker", you are saying that the mechanics are more important to you than the flavor.

Mmm . . . no. I see where you're coming from, and I agree that the profession skill isn't a good example, but I can't agree with this. If your character's background is supposed to be that you spent 90% of your adult life as a baker, and 1% as a wizard, then for me, it really strains credibility when you spend all your skill points on wizard skills and don't have a single point in anything else. "Sure, I'll roleplay a character, just as long as I don't have to give up even the tiniest bit of mechanical effectiveness to do it." I don't particularly want to play in the kind of game that Tippy seems to like, where a player's character sheet tells you absolutely nothing about their character.

I'd never demand that someone took the Commoner or Expert class, or anything that would really gimp them, as part of a background, but a guy who's unwilling to pay even a few skill points? That's like someone who claims to be generous and open-handed, but won't leave a shop until he's gotten his 1 cent change from his $10 bill.

- Saph

[Vyker]

Early on in my gaming days, I had a character. He was an interesting character, very fleshed out, in depth, detailed. But all that fascinating background, complete ancestory chart, and favorite color couldn't hide the fact that he sucked.

Was that bad? Well... yeah. I could never do anything with him in game, so it rapidly made the whole session something of a waste of time for me, and my turns a waste of time for everyone else. Honestly, it would have been better for all involved if I'd just sat out and watched.

In the next game, I made another character. This one was brutally effective, and could easily have blasted his way through every encounter the DM threw at us and trumped the rest of the party at the same time. But he was horribly one-sided and dull.

Was that bad? Well... yeah. I ended up sitting around waiting for The Problem to show up so I could smash it. Then everyone else sat around waiting for me to finish smashing it. More with the time wasting and the boredom.

Both of these characters I abandoned. I didn't enjoy them, my DM didn't enjoy them, and my party didn't enjoy them. Since then, I'd like to think I've learned my lesson and tried to avoid either extreme, and I always caution others in my gaming group to try and find a concept which matches their build and a build which matches their concept.

In my eyes, role playing and roll playing each work best when they compliment each other. Leastwise, I can't seem to care about any character who doesn't have both of 'em, 'cause it'll either be totally ineffectual or insufferably boring. All of my best characters, the ones I've enjoyed and my gaming groups have told stories about later, were neither "unique snowflakes" who melted at the first sign of trouble nor nameless stats roving in search of "phat lewts." They were successful blends of both role/roll playing schools of thought, who had good backstories and motiviation as well as the ability to back up their reputation.

So what's the optimal build for me? A character whose in-game mechanical stats align properly with his out of game concept. One who both role plays and roll plays.

Oh, and one who looks cool while doing so!

-----

Grr, let me ask you this. What difference, if any, exists between the following two people:
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good.
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good and a satisfactory backstory which explains it all.

I'm asking because I understand many points being made from many folks, but I don't understand yours. What makes a minmaxxer worse than someone who creates the exact same character but has a fluff concept for that character?

-----

*Note: Don't get me wrong, I love a good mindless dungeon crawl now and then, and a one off hack'n'slash is a great way to test out new classes and ideas. In the above, I'm referring entirely to characters in campaigns with at least a modicum of balance between role/roll playing.

[Rigeld2]

-----

Grr, let me ask you this. What difference, if any, exists between the following two people:
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good.
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good and a satisfactory backstory which explains it all.

I'm asking because I understand many points being made from many folks, but I don't understand yours. What makes a minmaxxer worse than someone who creates the exact same character but has a fluff concept for that character?

-----
From what hes said, the second one can never exist - minmaxers always have a shallow, dull backstory, without fail.

[Zincorium]

Mmm . . . no. I see where you're coming from, and I agree that the profession skill isn't a good example, but I can't agree with this. If your character's background is supposed to be that you spent 90% of your adult life as a baker, and 1% as a wizard, then for me, it really strains credibility when you spend all your skill points on wizard skills and don't have a single point in anything else. "Sure, I'll roleplay a character, just as long as I don't have to give up even the tiniest bit of mechanical effectiveness to do it." I don't particularly want to play in the kind of game that Tippy seems to like, where a player's character sheet tells you absolutely nothing about their character.


Well, if you spent 90% of your adult life as a baker, and 1% of it as a wizard, that both leaves 9% of your life unaccounted for and means you shouldn't ever go on typical adventures. You'll die, and unless your character is terminally unobservant, they probably realize that. 1% of wizard means your wizard percentage equals your probably survival rate.

Seriously, campaigns where the characters are essentially normal people can be fun and certainly have their place, but it isn't representative of the 'reality' of most campaigns.

Or, you can just be a seriously terrible baker, never learning recipes and always forgetting to take the bread out before it burns. After the bakery burns down while you left it unattended to spend time on your hobby, wizardry, you decide to make being a wizard your career and seek out others with your distaste for the working life, robes still covered in flour and egg whites.



I'd never demand that someone took the Commoner or Expert class, or anything that would really gimp them, as part of a background, but a guy who's unwilling to pay even a few skill points? That's like someone who claims to be generous and open-handed, but won't leave a shop until he's gotten his 1 cent change from his $10 bill.

- Saph

You'd be well within your rights as a fellow player in the game or as the DM to tell him he's being unreasonable. Changing a character's background, well before the game, doesn't hurt anyone. A character who will not back down about both his character being a baker and his lack of points in that seems more like a straw man to argue against than a person you're willing to roleplay with.

[Lolth]

I've gamed with enough people to see that the min-maxxing munchkins are generally poor roleplayers. All they're interested in, is killing stuff and making big numbers get bigger.

Oh no... I hate min-maxxers. Has nothing to do whether they're a poor roleplayer or not. Poor roleplaying can be fixed. Munchkins are a lost cause. If it doesn't have numbers or lots of combat, they get bored and whine.

This leads me to ask another, hopefully not too inflammatory question:

Is all optimization about combat? I didn't think or assume so when I started this thread. I mean, what about optimizing your Bard to be the suavest, swingin'est performer/seducer around, or your Wizard to be the ablest of diviners, learning the mysteriest of the universe, or your Rogue to be the most daring of trapsmushers?

Not to imply that being combat-capable makes one a poor RPer, though some seem to think the two go hand in hand, but what about these other bits?

I guess I think of "optimization" as "working the rules to be the best, mechanically, at what you do" as opposed to "working the rules to be the best killer of stuff you can be."

[Lolth]

Jargon check: Stormwind Fallacy?

[Sir Giacomo]

I guess I think of "optimization" as "working the rules to be the best, mechanically, at what you do" as opposed to "working the rules to be the best killer of stuff you can be."

Actually, in my opinion, it is a third version: "optimisation" as "working the rules to be exactly/as close as possible, mechanically, at what you intend your character to do".

In this, of course, you should be somewhat consistent- within a general consensus on what that means, with the DM providing the final call.

If in the above example you play someone who spent 90% of the time in a kitchen and only 1% with magic (too little to justify an evening school of wizard apprenticeship), at 1st level he should maybe be a bard (explaining why he can only cast cantrips), with all his skills focused on something that has to do with a kitchen:
Profession, craft, hide (from the angry kitchen chef, but not move silently since it is always loud in a big kitchen), knowledge-nature (for some poison knowledge, alternatively take healing), some perform-juggling (with kitchen stuff), a bit of tumbling and balance (to mirror the ability to tread between unkempt kitchen floor, slippery surfaces etc.), gather information etc..
And THEN some single skill points onto spellcraft, knowledge arcana, whatever,.

If you as a player find out that your initial idea ("90% of your life in a kitchen") does not fit with that kind of character outcome ("but I'd love to play a powerful wizard with a start into his career as a kitchen boy"), then adjust accordingly your background.
The rules help you a lot in callibrating some sort of consistency into getting your character concept into something that can be played and enjoyed.

- Giacomo

[The Glyphstone]

Jargon check: Stormwind Fallacy?

In a very abbreviated nutshell, it's the assumption that if you have an effective character, you are a poor role-player, and vice versa. AKA the "roll-play" vs. "role-play".

[Bears With Lasers]

f in the above example you play someone who spent 90% of the time in a kitchen and only 1% with magic (too little to justify an evening school of wizard apprenticeship), at 1st level he should maybe be a bard (explaining why he can only cast cantrips), with all his skills focused on something that has to do with a kitchen:


D&D isn't a realistic simulation. It's okay to prioritize things based on narrarative importance and dramatic weight. Someone whose character is only 10% wizard at level 1 is still playing a wizard; presumably, they want the character to be a wizard, rather than a cook. Therefore, marginalizing the cookery (which could warrant a couple of mechanically character-ruining levels of Expert, "realistically") and taking a standard first-level wizard setup and just spending a little RP time on his cooking the party's meals is just fine.

Your character isn't--or at least, probably shouldn't be--purely reactive to the game world. It says something about what you want. If most of your character sheet is focused on cooking, that says that that's what you want your character to do. If you make a reach/tripping/stand still fighter, that says that you want to play a warrior who controls the flow of combat. If you make a bard focusing on social skills, it says you want to sweet-talk people and have various other social adventures. If you make a character who isn't any good at anything... well, you want to explore failing, I suppose.
I'm not sure why people think that a character sheet should model a character as "realistically" as possible.

[Talya]

A few ideas being tossed around as arguments that don't actually contradict each other.

Optimizing isn't "bad roleplaying." Even my 2 bard/6 sorceress/5 heartwarder is as optimized as I can make her, within the limitations of the bard multiclass and heartwarder prerequisites. (While the charisma bonus from heartwarder is truly great, the requirements of dodge/mobility/proficiency: whip are certainly not sorceror-friendly...so much so that my DM houseruled out mobility and said if I took the "harem trained" feat to fit my character background it would suffice.) I still take feats and skills and spells to try to make her as effective as I possibly can. (BTW, as I mentioned in another thread, no sorceror should be without the spell "Ruin Delver's Fortune.") Apart from that, she still avoids most necromancy...she's a sunite, and necromancy is generally anything but pretty, no matter how effective it is. (The lone exception I considered was the healing touch spell, which seemed very noble and pretty and good for a necromancy spell, and would fit her divine focus well. I still ruled against it in the end though.)

Also, you should not separate your character's fluff from the numbers...they tie-in to each other. If you want to rolepay Roy the leader of the Order of the Stick, you're going to have a high intelligence and wisdom score. Obviously not as high intelligence as Varsuuvius, or as high wisdom as Durkon, but unnaturally high for a fighter. Is that optimal? No. (Combat expertise aside.) But if you minmax out an intelligence of 8 and then play a university grad, you aren't getting it. Your ability scores represent your character's *gasp* abilities...mental and physical. Those certainly have an effect upon the personality of the character...someone with a charisma of 26 who roleplays a completely unlikeable ass**** needs a smack to the head. Heck, the fighter with the dex of 8 who pretends to be all skilled and graceful is also way off base...you're a clumsy oaf who has enough strength to compensate for it. The character's ability scores do represent a framework that the character's personality sits on top of...they don't singularly define your character, but they won't support a personality that doesn't fit them.

[Bears With Lasers]

Why do you need INT/WIS stats that high? Surely just "above average" should cut it? Stats are very abstract. A high INT does not guarantee a knowledge of tactics and a high WIS could cover philosophical insights but not interpersonal understanding. Meanwhile, an INT 13 (for Combat Expertise) character could be very good at tactics but just not be particularily adept at book-learning.

Charisma isn't likeability, it's force of personality. A high-charisma character can be an ass--negative attention is still attention. You can have a caustic, bastardly personality... that people take seriously rather than dismissing, because it's also charismatic.

What's more, if you roleplay your Dex 8 character as graceful, why does it matter? You're not gaining any mechanical advantage out of making your character look cooler, you're just getting pure enjoyment out of it.

Again--D&D is not a simulation. There's no need for a character sheet to be as perfectly representative of all of your fluff as you can make it.

[Talya]

Why do you need INT/WIS stats that high? Surely just "above average" should cut it?

I consider "13" rather high. 14 is probably where I'd put Roy. (At least on a point buy, 14 is efficient. No sense going 13 just for combat expertise and not taking advantage of the extra skill points.) I distinctly said he's not as high as Varsuuvius or Durkon, who are likely in the 16-18 range for their respective casting stats.


Charisma isn't likeability, it's force of personality. A high-charisma character can be an ass--negative attention is still attention. You can have a caustic, bastardly personality... that people take seriously rather than dismissing, because it's also charismatic.

Absolutely, but it does represent the ability to manipulate others. If a high charisma character wants you to like them, you're probably going to like them. If a high charisma character wants you to be afraid of them, you're likely to be afraid of them.



What's more, if you roleplay your Dex 8 character as graceful, why does it matter?

It doesn't "matter" from a gameplay perspective...but you're not graceful. You're a clumsy oaf. That's what the dexterity represents.



Again--D&D is not a simulation. There's no need for a character sheet to be as perfectly representative of all of your fluff as you can make it.

I feel it does need to represent the fluff as closely as possible.

[Bears With Lasers]

I consider "13" rather high. 14 is probably where I'd put Roy. (At least on a point buy, 14 is efficient. No sense going 13 just for combat expertise and not taking advantage of the extra skill points.) I distinctly said he's not as high as Varsuuvius or Durkon, who are likely in the 16-18 range.
13 is rather high? Er, okay. And here I thought it wasn't much above average (+1). The point is, you could play an absolutely brilliant tactician... with a 13 INT.


Absolutely, but it does represent the ability to manipulate others. If a high charisma character wants you to like them, you're probably going to like them. If a high charisma character wants you to be afraid of them, you're likely to be afraid of them.
If they don't have any ranks in any social skills, it's more likely, but far from guaranteed.


It doesn't "matter" from a gameplay perspective...but you're not graceful. You're a clumsy oaf. That's what the dexterity represents.
My character is whatever my group agrees he is. By default, yes, but mechanically, dexterity is AC bonus, initiative, reflex saves, et cetera.
So, from a gameplay perspective, it doesn't matter. All that happens when you describe your 8 dex character as graceful is... you have more fun. Oh noes?


I feel it does need to represent the fluff as closely as possible.
Why? What's bad or wrong about separating them a little (like with dexterity), or focusing on the more dramatically important parts of your character (which some games do by default)?

[Talya]

If they don't have any ranks in any social skills, it's more likely, but far from guaranteed.


Heh...at level 13, my heartwarder is now at a minimum +12 to use any charisma based skill...untrained. I think her highest one is Use Magic Device (with 9 ranks and synergies it's at about +23 - +25).

[Bears With Lasers]

True, but that's a particularily high Charisma. A CHA of 18 won't have such a dramatic effect (but is still large).

Plus, you can auto-fail skill checks, can't you?

[Talya]

True, but that's a particularily high Charisma. A CHA of 18 won't have such a dramatic effect (but is still large).

Plus, you can auto-fail skill checks, can't you?

Na. Skill checks succeed on a roll of 1 if your total with bonuses exceeds the DC, and still fail on a roll of 20 if your total with bonuses is less than the DC. No critical rules for skill checks per RAW.

[Roethke]

...
Also, you should not separate your character's fluff from the numbers...they tie-in to each other. If you want to rolepay Roy the leader of the Order of the Stick, you're going to have a high intelligence and wisdom score. Obviously not as high intelligence as Varsuuvius, or as high wisdom as Durkon, but unnaturally high for a fighter. Is that optimal? No. (Combat expertise aside.) But if you minmax out an intelligence of 8 and then play a university grad, you aren't getting it. Your ability scores represent your character's *gasp* abilities...mental and physical. Those certainly have an effect upon the personality of the character...someone with a charisma of 26 who roleplays a completely unlikeable ass**** needs a smack to the head. Heck, the fighter with the dex of 8 who pretends to be all skilled and graceful is also way off base...you're a clumsy oaf who has enough strength to compensate for it. The character's ability scores do represent a framework that the character's personality sits on top of...they don't singularly define your character, but they won't support a personality that doesn't fit them.


At least in D&D, this isn't quite true. Believe me, I've met some dumb*** university grads :). Most of the RP value comes from where you put your skill ranks. An 8-DEX character with 8 ranks in tumble, is still a pretty darned good acrobat. A 6-INT character who has many ranks in knowledge skills, may actually know something. As for a 26-CHA player being a jerk, well, I've heard that psychopaths are actually very, very charming. The ability scores represent natural aptitude, but levels and skill ranks sort of nullify this. And, due to the unequal distribution of skill ranks, and the mechanically useful vs. useless ones, most players are end up making the 'fluffier' skill ranks not as pronounced in their character sheets or not using them at all.

[Bears With Lasers]

Fair enough, but you can just say "Eff you, mothereffer" instead of making a check, which should mean that you just don't roll a check at all.

[Reinboom]

There are a lot of historical world leaders that are now considered "psychotic" or otherwise not very pleasant or well liked who clearly had "maxed out leadership". Many of these figures I would consider to be extremely charismatic.
But even more clearly, they maxed out Diplomacy as well as made sure to get the bare synergies with everything to make them as diplomatic as possible, taking every stat increase to CHA to make them even more so.. Those optimizing bastards! :smallfurious:

[Talya]

Sure, hence my qualification if a high charisma character wants you to like them, you're probably going to like them. If they don't care, well, then you very possibly won't.

For the record, my charisma bonus is only +8. Heart of Passion is a heartwarder ability that adds +2 to all charisma based skill checks, and Nymph's Kiss [BoED] was a "quest reward" my DM gave me as a free feat for rescuing an actual nymph from a succubus queen in the abyss.

(How's that for a non-RAW reward for going above what the DM intended in an adventure?)

[Bears With Lasers]

Sure, hence my qualification if a high charisma character wants you to like them, you're probably going to like them. If they don't care, well, then you very possibly won't.
Not quite.
If a high-charisma character's player wants you to like them, you probably will. The character can be trying his best despite the fact that his player is intentionally fudging.
We call that "roleplaying". ;)

[Indon]

Personally, I think we're confusing two quite different things and calling both of them optimization.

One of these things is taking a character concept and utilizing knowledge of the rules to make that characters' abilities appropriate to that concept, while still maintaining a balanced position in the party.

The other is to use the rules for maximum effect, justifying the character abilities gained with backstory.

The first approach to creating a character focuses on the character, and creates the mechanics for that character as an afterthought. These mechanics may be very optimized for the concept, but they will be limited by that concept.

The second approach to creating a character focuses on the mechanic, and creates the character for that mechanic as an afterthought. These characters may be quite interesting given the mechanic, but they will be limited by that optimization.

Can a good roleplayer do both, approaching from neither the conceptual nor the mechanical side alone? Yes, and clearly many do. Some create their characters and mechanics simultaneously, while others decide to divorce their characters' personae from their mechanics, both alternate examples of character development.

Are any of these approaches better than any other? In a free-form game like D&D, I doubt it.

Can people who use these approaches come into conflict in a game, decreasing everyone's enjoyment? YES.

So, I propose, each to their own, flock together, yadda yadda. If you have a problem with a gamer of a radically different school of thought, it's not a massive-scope philosophical problem as to the True Nature of Gaming, it's a personal problem between you and them.

That said, *whips out the marshmallow bag* mmm, toasted...

[Saph]

Again--D&D is not a simulation. There's no need for a character sheet to be as perfectly representative of all of your fluff as you can make it.

There's no need to roleplay your character, or make her have a distinctive personality, either, but it's still a good idea.

Divorcing fluff from crunch is a bad idea because it negates the whole point of having a rules system. If you say your character is supposed to be really good at something (like cooking), but you have neither the ability scores nor the skill points to back it up, then by the rules, you aren't good at cooking. Sure, the DM can ignore it, just like he can houserule ignore any part of the rules he doesn't like - but if you're always going to do that, why bother having any numbers on your character sheet at all?

- Saph

[Bears With Lasers]

There's no need to roleplay your character, or make her have a distinctive personality, either, but it's still a good idea.
Er, a little different, don't you think? I just said the sheet didn't need to be perfectly representative--see that concept of dramatic weight again, for example.


Divorcing fluff from crunch is a bad idea because it negates the whole point of having a rules system. If you say your character is supposed to be really good at something (like cooking), but you have neither the ability scores nor the skill points to back it up, then by the rules, you aren't good at cooking. Sure, the DM can ignore it, just like he can houserule ignore any part of the rules he doesn't like - but if you're always going to do that, why bother having any numbers on your character sheet at all?
- SaphThere are no rules for cooking. Profession is for using it for income; Craft is based on how much something is worth. If you can make a pastry that's worth a gold piece, you must be the world's greatest chef... only the DC on that is incredibly low if you took Craft(cooking).
Sure, you could invest in Craft(cooking) anyway to lend verisimilitude to the idea that your character is a cook, or to give it dramatic weight (there's that idea again) and indicate you'd like it to come up occasionally, but your character can be a great cook without a single skill point.
Similiarily, your character can be keen-eyed without taking Skill Focus: Spot, an Archmage without taking the Archmage prestige class, and so on.

The mechanics, even where they are representative, are something of a generalization. Emulating your fluff as close to 100% as you can isn't particularily good--it's kind of pointless. It doesn't add anything to the game, and it can detract from abilities you'll be using regularly in-game.

[Mauril Everleaf]

To go back to the original post (which asked that we not place any preference on one method or another) I would say that I rarely play optimized characters. In fact, I would venture to say that any true optimization happens by accident. I just go with what I like.

I play Sword-and-Board fighters because I don't like Two-handed or Two Weapon fighters. My clerics are more like WWII Medic, slightly less effective than the true infantryman since part of his time is spent healing (and casting some buffing spells). I rarely play a rogue, but I like being a skill-monkey. I like playing a Warlock, even though they suck. I have never played a bard, paladin or monk, but people in my party have. I may use some battle field control spells with my mage, but he will usually specialize in Evocation (if only by the fact that those are what he selects most often). I almost always play dwarves, regardless of the class, because I can identify better with a dwarf's motivations than with the other fantasy races, and we tend to have a few humans in the party already. I also tend to play straight class, since I don't want to have to mess with multi-classing penalties and since I rarely make a character that qualifies for a PrC.

I rarely have a storyline set out for my character and build around that, nor do I build character and set a story around the build. I may start with something akin to "X is a dwarf from Y. Having been trained to be a Z, he sets out adventuring (occassionally I include) for reasons A, B and/or C."

Do I make characters that are impossible to play or ruin the team dynamic in one way or another? Nope, because most of the people in my group do about the same as I do. If I was in a group that tweaked every possible advantage out of a build, I would learn to do so, so that I can stay up with them and not be a drag. I don't think I would (or could, for that matter) play a character that was less optimized, so if I played with a group that was less about optimization than I am (again, not really possible) I would keep my play style and just play something a little more fluff intensive (like a warlock).

[Reinboom]

The fact that a standard, unoptimized, untweaked, weak, basic, wizard with 8 dex, 8 wis, 8 str, and 8 con can run at 13.63¯ miles per hour (21.9456 kilometers per hour) and has the background story of always being trapped up in a study... studying... until coming out to adventure has led me to believe that what's on a character sheet doesn't represent characters well at all and that cat girls should just stay out of it.
With this... I believe the whole optimizing, roleplaying, etc. entwined fiasco should be done like this:
As long as (most) everybody is having fun.

[Saph]

Sure, you could invest in Craft(cooking) anyway to lend verisimilitude to the idea that your character is a cook, or to give it dramatic weight (there's that idea again) and indicate you'd like it to come up occasionally,

Yes, exactly. Putting a skill rank in it lends verisimilitude.


but your character can be a great cook without a single skill point.

How? You don't have the skill. A character who actually does have the skill will consistently outperform you.


Similiarily, your character can be keen-eyed without taking Skill Focus: Spot

Do you have any Spot ranks? A very high Wisdom score? Racial bonuses? If not, then you're not keen-eyed. If you insist that you are, then you're going to end up in awkward situations where your supposedly 'keen-eyed' character can't spot a white whale on a black background.


The mechanics, even where they are representative, are something of a generalization. Emulating your fluff as close to 100% as you can isn't particularily good--it's kind of pointless. It doesn't add anything to the game, and it can detract from abilities you'll be using regularly in-game.

It adds verisimilitude, and it gives you a set of rules to use.

If you don't want players to have to use their skill points on non-combat skills, then you can play with a house rule that gives players +X/level skill points to be used on background or fluff skills. Or have some kind of proficiency system like HeroQuest where you can do everything mentioned in your background. But this is a house rule. D&D already has a rules system for managing this kind of stuff.

- Saph

[Ayrynthyn]

Er, a little different, don't you think? I just said the sheet didn't need to be perfectly representative--see that concept of dramatic weight again, for example.

There are no rules for cooking. Profession is for using it for income; Craft is based on how much something is worth. If you can make a pastry that's worth a gold piece, you must be the world's greatest chef... only the DC on that is incredibly low if you took Craft(cooking).
Sure, you could invest in Craft(cooking) anyway to lend verisimilitude to the idea that your character is a cook, or to give it dramatic weight (there's that idea again) and indicate you'd like it to come up occasionally, but your character can be a great cook without a single skill point.
Similiarily, your character can be keen-eyed without taking Skill Focus: Spot, an Archmage without taking the Archmage prestige class, and so on.

The mechanics, even where they are representative, are something of a generalization. Emulating your fluff as close to 100% as you can isn't particularly good--it's kind of pointless. It doesn't add anything to the game, and it can detract from abilities you'll be using regularly in-game.
I agree with this to a point. My only advice with this kind of thinking, is make sure that the entire group is on board. It's no fun if you role play the greatest sailor since Jason, when Bob the rogue wanted to be Popeye, and sunk 10 ranks in Profession:Sailor because of (discussed ad nauseum previously) misconceptions and the desire to make his sheet's numbers reflect his fluff.

[Dausuul]

Do you have any Spot ranks? A very high Wisdom score? Racial bonuses? If not, then you're not keen-eyed. If you insist that you are, then you're going to end up in awkward situations where your supposedly 'keen-eyed' character can't spot a white whale on a black background.

It adds verisimilitude, and it gives you a set of rules to use.

If you don't want players to have to use their skill points on non-combat skills, then you can play with a house rule that gives players +X/level skill points to be used on background or fluff skills. Or have some kind of proficiency system like HeroQuest where you can do everything mentioned in your background. But this is a house rule. D&D already has a rules system for managing this kind of stuff.

- Saph

I agree. Going back to the cook example, suppose your character declared that he was trying to impress the king by cooking a really good pastry. As DM, I'd call for a Craft (Cooking) or Profession (Cook) check at that point, your choice. If you didn't put any ranks in, well... you're not going to make a very good pastry. That's why D&D has rules, to help establish just how good a pastry your character can or cannot make.

[Roethke]

I agree. Going back to the cook example, suppose your character declared that he was trying to impress the king by cooking a really good pastry. As DM, I'd call for a Craft (Cooking) or Profession (Cook) check at that point, your choice. If you didn't put any ranks in, well... you're not going to make a very good pastry. That's why D&D has rules, to help establish just how good a pastry your character can or cannot make.

But that doesn't make any more sense than using background fluff-- I mean, many cooks are bad bakers and vice versa. It's the background fluff that determines what kind of cook you are.

House-ruling in extra skill points for 'fluff' skills is fine, but really no different than just forgetting about the points and handwaving it in as background

[Tor the Fallen]

House-ruling in extra skill points for 'fluff' skills is fine, but really no different than just forgetting about the points and handwaving it in as background

What happens when you, the group's handwaved gourmand, get coerced to enter the town's annual cook off?
Roll off or more handwaving?

[Indon]

What happens when you, the group's handwaved gourmand, get coerced to enter the town's annual cook off?
Roll off or more handwaving?

Well, clearly you have to obtain the Legendary Sauce of Groth'narz, the only copy of the recipe of which is held by Sillaz the Goblin warlord, who homes in...

...what?

[Cyborg Pirate]

Well, clearly you have to obtain the Legendary Sauce of Groth'narz, the only copy of the recipe of which is held by Sillaz the Goblin warlord, who homes in...

...what?

...I wouldn't object. This Is D&D afterall! :smalltongue:

[Talya]

Well, clearly you have to obtain the Legendary Sauce of Groth'narz, the only copy of the recipe of which is held by Sillaz the Goblin warlord, who homes in...

...what?

You really don't want to know what's in that stuff.

[Leush]

This leads me to ask another, hopefully not too inflammatory question:

Is all optimization about combat?

Ah, this reminds me of one occasion that I personally found very amusing. Now for this you have to understand, that in my heart of hearts I am a min-maxer (and powergamer most of the time): I see nothing more fun in a character than to get a single number to the stratosphere, or/and get such a combination of numbers that I am as unbeatable as I can be, without using 'dishonorable (read:broken CODzilla Batman) tactics'.

When I make a character, the first thing I think of is class, then stats, race, skills and finally backstory. In tabletop I don't even bother with one half the time.

Now once, our DM announced a one off dungeon crawl and I thought, "great! battle! I'll make something that can fight!" Now since we had a relatively low level party, I went with a barbarian, rolled insanely high, took dwarf, took power attack, took cleave,. Had about twice as many hitpoints as everyone else, higher attack and damage, decent saves and a not-bad AC. What happened?

There wasn't a single monster in the dungeon. It was a great dungeon. Everyone had mounds of fun. I mean the traps were creative, the 'evil character only' players (Of the "oo a puppy, let's eat it!" variety) turned out very useful in creating just the right amount of conflict to keep people on their toes. That was possibly the best game I ever played- and ironically, all the combat orientated feats I took were useless. Was it bad DMing not to warn us? Heck no! I should be bold enough to say that people who suggest it should be summerily shot, because the mystery added to the suspense, keeping us on our toes. Everyone had fun, by the looks of it.

My combat feats were literally wasted (HP wasn't- in fact having the crappiest of feats- Toughness, would have been a help). I could have taken greater skill focus backer for all that mattered, or taken skill focus in (Use rope or Climb or balance) and gotten more use of it. That is to say two things: Combat orientated =/= optimised, as optimisation is circumstancial. Optimised, unpotimised, munchkin, good roleplayer, bad roleplayer, those terms are worth spit when everyone at the table is initiated into havefun-fu.

[Tor the Fallen]

Diplo-builds.

[Lolth]

What's more, if you roleplay your Dex 8 character as graceful, why does it matter? You're not gaining any mechanical advantage out of making your character look cooler, you're just getting pure enjoyment out of it.

Again--D&D is not a simulation. There's no need for a character sheet to be as perfectly representative of all of your fluff as you can make it.

Remember this the next time you tell me my Dervish isn't willowy, mister. :sabine:

[Talya]

Remember this the next time you tell me my Dervish isn't willowy, mister. :sabine:

Ooooh. Ouch. Touché.

Edit: BTW, I tend to agree with him on your "willowy" description. I just think it needs to be consistent that your ability scores bare some resemblance to the character. Just as a character with a strength of 14 is not willowy, a character with a dex of 8 is not graceful.

[WildBill]

What I'm seeing here is that the (in my experience) relatively small portion of munchkins to powergamers gives all of us who spend time trying to make the most effective character within our concept a bad name. I love the roleplaying aspects of DnD. If I didn't, I would stick to tactical and strategy games. However, I hate putting a ton of work into a character concept just to have them die because they are ineffective, or have to rely on DM mercy to keep said ineffective character alive.
Optimization doesn't mean playing Pun-Pun or any of the record breaking thought experiment builds on the CO boards, it means making sound mechanical choices that go along with the concept I am playing. Like choosing improved critical: falchion for my warrior rather than weapon focus: falchion, because he has specialized in using that weapon. The fluff and the crunch match well, a character who has trained long and hard at using a chosen weapon and has become highly effective at using it. Either improved crit or WF would match the fluff, but improved crit is a vastly superior feat to WF.

[Lolth]

Ooooh. Ouch. Touché.

Edit: BTW, I tend to agree with him on your "willowy" description. I just think it needs to be consistent that your ability scores bare some resemblance to the character. Just as a character with a strength of 14 is not willowy, a character with a dex of 8 is not graceful.

I actually agree too, I was writing it (the description up) independently of the stats, which changed when I decided to go two-handed and all. I've since changed it for the actual PC (as well as a few other tweaks) but, well... I couldn't resist here.

I'm in the camp that says if your Dexterity is 8, you ain't graceful as a rule, and if you don't have some skill points in cooking, your untrained bonus had better be comparable to someone who does before you go claiming to be a good cook.

[Lemur]

This leads me to ask another, hopefully not too inflammatory question:

Is all optimization about combat? I didn't think or assume so when I started this thread. I mean, what about optimizing your Bard to be the suavest, swingin'est performer/seducer around, or your Wizard to be the ablest of diviners, learning the mysteriest of the universe, or your Rogue to be the most daring of trapsmushers?

Not to imply that being combat-capable makes one a poor RPer, though some seem to think the two go hand in hand, but what about these other bits?

I guess I think of "optimization" as "working the rules to be the best, mechanically, at what you do" as opposed to "working the rules to be the best killer of stuff you can be."

That's an interesting question. The answer is no, not all optimization is about combat. However, it gets a little bit more complex than that.

Combat typically plays a significant role in D&D- the largest part of the rules revolves around the combat system, and D&D originally developed out of war games. A general guideline that works for D&D most of the time is "it never hurts to have a little extra kick in combat."

However, there's definitely more to optimization, and when your designing a character, your main focus certainly doesn't have to revolve around combat. Sometimes it's fun to focus on certain concepts, such as being the fastest, sneakiest, or jumpiest bastard around.

Also, keep in mind that power is relative. Anything you can do, the DM can do better, if he so desires. And sometimes, as Leush illustrated, some abilities that are good for certain campaigns isn't always good for others. So in one respect, you have to keep in mind what sort of DM you're playing with and the setting you're in when designing a character.

Finally, the ultimate point of D&D is to have fun, so optimization should focus on whatever you'd have fun doing. Ideally, a good character is one that not only you have fun playing, but the other people in your group enjoy playing with. A general rule of thumb is to play at the level of the other players in your group, so you're not outshining everyone else, or dragging them down with you.

[asqwasqw]

I see three schools here:

1) Fluff matches crunch

2) Fluff is independant of crunch

3) Lets all have fun!

I agree with 1 and 3. It doesn't make sense in your background if you spent your entire life as a sailor and have no skills in profession: sailor. But if your group allows it, and you can find people like you, then the most important thing is to have fun.

[JaronK]

What happens when you, the group's handwaved gourmand, get coerced to enter the town's annual cook off?
Roll off or more handwaving?

You take a 10 on the check, because cooking a basic meal is easier than making leather armour, which is only DC 12 to make. With masterwork tools (perhaps a decent set of cookware?) you don't even need an int bonus or any ranks in the skill.

JaronK

[asqwasqw]

You take a 10 on the check, because cooking a basic meal is easier than making leather armour, which is only DC 12 to make. With masterwork tools (perhaps a decent set of cookware?) you don't even need an int bonus or any ranks in the skill.

JaronK

Na, this is the town's annual cook-off, not a common meal. Roll for the NPC's who spent their entire life cooking, then roll for your untrained stats. Pray you get high and they get low. Then cry.

[JaronK]

Too bad those NPC are probably level one, with a max of four ranks in the skill eh?

But that's besides the point. Honestly, I wasn't really talking about leaving off skills relevant to RP. The point was that a character with cooking is not necessarily a better roleplayed character than one without cooking. Saying you want a character that's a good cook is basically chosing to RP a character that isn't well represented within the more combat oriented D&D system. There are no PrCs that I know of that make cooking useful for anything other than a background thing.

The point is that you can make an optomized character, or a not optomized character, and you can roleplay either one. It's more likely that an optomized character will have a personality and background that matches his feel. For example, you could roleplay your cook well, though you probably chose the wrong system for playing a cook. You could also roleplay your student of the arcane arts well. The fact that your cook took a skill which is not well represented in D&D does not mean the character is more interesting to interact with.

JaronK

[asqwasqw]

Yes, but the skills make it more realistic. It just doesn't make sense when you can say: I spent my entire life farming and the past month working on my sword and then have him be entirely combat oriented. But DnD is a game of combat, and that is part of the trouble with modeling it realistically. I say we have background skill points and feats for free that are utterly useless but are revelant to your background.

[Grr]

To Everyone: You obviously don't know what min-maxxing means. Min-maxxing is maximizing capability while minimizing weakness, aka munchkinism, powergaming, and generally being a disruptive pain in the bum for the DM because now they have to specifically deal with your poopy character without killing the other PC's off.


No, you haven't. There's this thing called statistics. Until you've games with hundreds of people, your sample size is statistically insignificant.
I have gamed with hundreds of people. I ran RPGA events at a local con for years. I ran D&D games on AOL for years. I still run D&D games online over irc. Been doing so for years. I have a small core group that stays the same, but there's also hundreds of people that have passed through my games at one point or another, both online and offline.


Furthermore, correlation does not equal causation. If you know min-maxers who don't roleplay well, that doesn't mean min-maxing causes poor roleplay.
Get this through your addled skull... I have never said min-maxxing causes poor roleplay. Not once. You keep trying to say I have, but I haven't. What I have said, is that it is my experience that min-maxxing munchkins are usually poor roleplayers. I never said why they sucked at it. I never even speculated on that. I was only relating my personal experience as a DM and player for over fifteen years.


You're also conflating min-maxing (or optimizing) with "munchkins". The two are different.
Nope. They're the same thing.


How is it a tool? Does having that "4" instead of a "0" on your character sheet somehow make you able to roleplay better?
It's a tool because all the stats, all the skills, all the feats, the classes are part of the whole character. It also keeps it fair for everyone in the game.


The point is that for any given concept/piece of fluff, there are multiple ways to implement it mechanically. Some of those ways are better than others. You can pick the best way without giving up your character concept.
Again, you don't get it. You should be used to that by now. That and being wrong. If the player has a concept in their mind, that fits a specific campaign setting, there's only one way to play that concept. For example, let's say the player wants their character to be a knight in a famous order devoted to the main religion in the setting, a Paladin/Order of the Radiant Sword. The only way they're going to be a member of that order is to take levels in that PrC.

There's no multiple ways about it. Same thing with the Dragonlance PrC's for wizards based upon the moons. It's that way or no way. Duh.


As for "if you want to be a baker, you have to take profession: baker"... that's crap. You could just describe your character baking. If it has no mechanical effect, why would you need mechanics for it?
When you say "you can't be a baker without ranks in profession: baker", you are saying that the mechanics are more important to you than the flavor.
Incidentally, there is no mechanic for "baking". Profession: Baker is a check you can make to see how much money you make in a week when you are selling your baking services.
Mechanics are more important in that regard, because you have to be fair to each player. Your character is not a baker, unless they've taken skill ranks in the profession: baker skill. You can try to say you were a baker, but without the skill ranks, I'm going to rule that you suck as a baker, burning the bread, oversalting the stew, to the point that you can't earn a living as one.


Letting your party suffer an IC consequence because your character can't solve a riddle is lame, unless everyone in the group was low-intelligence. If you knew the answer, you, as a player, could easily have told it to the player of a high-INT character, since their character would know it.
Just because someone is intelligent, doesn't mean they have the wisdom or wit to puzzle out the answer to a riddle. Some people just aren't very good at riddles... even though they may be considered a genius.


Furthermore, you're fine with breaking the rules and making things up as you go. For some reason, however, you don't seem to give players that luxury. "No Craft: Woodcarving? Then no, you CAN'T whittle pretty figurines in your downtime!"
As the DM, it's my job to make sure everyone has fun, including myself. That means I enforce the rules as they pertain to character creation and leveling as fairly and strictly as needed. I only break the rules during gameplay when it would make sense to keep the game interesting and entertaining.

They can try to carve a figurine, but it's going to turn out like crap. The kind of stuff people would look at for five, ten minutes and still not know what it is. You know, the kind of crap that passes for modern art these days.


I'd never demand that someone took the Commoner or Expert class, or anything that would really gimp them, as part of a background, but a guy who's unwilling to pay even a few skill points? That's like someone who claims to be generous and open-handed, but won't leave a shop until he's gotten his 1 cent change from his $10 bill.

- Saph
One of my most memorable games comes from when I started all the players off as citizens in a very small town on the outskirts of the kingdom. We had four or five sessions of just roleplaying as those people. Up until the autumn harvest was to start. Some fire elementals tore through the fields, burning up wheat and corn... the townsfolk elected to send a group out to find food or help.

[Dausuul]

Nope. They're the same thing.

Nope. They're not.

[asqwasqw]

Nope. They're not.

Elaborate, please.

[Roethke]

I see three schools here:

1) Fluff matches crunch

2) Fluff is independant of crunch

3) Lets all have fun!

I agree with 1 and 3. It doesn't make sense in your background if you spent your entire life as a sailor and have no skills in profession: sailor. But if your group allows it, and you can find people like you, then the most important thing is to have fun.

Well, I think everyone agrees with 3), and of course, usual disclaimer, everyone's game/DM is different.

But lets say you're a sailor, but a none-too bright (11-INT) fighter. You know, average tough guy, deckhand/pirate type.

A nice, fluffy, sailor would have ranks in
Profession(Sailor), Climb, Balance(not a class skill), Swim (maybe), Use Rope (not a class skill), and maybe a Knowledge (Weather) or something.

So for 1st level human, you have 12-skill points to distribute. For a non-human, that's 8-points. All those ranks end up being spread pretty thin, before you even get to his pet Scruffy, the ship mascot, which would imply Handle Animal.

Mechanically, it's just very difficult for this character to make his crunch reflect his fluff.

Make this character a rogue, and all of a sudden it gets easier. It just doesn't make sense, and it's not really supposed to.

So for mundane tasks, I'd vote keeping the fluff and crunch separate. Not every ladder requires that climb check. You want your PC to wax eloquent about life at sea, no Profession sailor ranks necessary, just RP it. When crunch time comes (in both senses), though, such as climbing rigging in a storm, then you go to the character sheet.

In my mind this keeps the mechanics from being constricting, but also prevents player abuse (e.g. well, in my background it says I can survive anywhere, therefore give me the benefit of the survival skill).

[Dausuul]

Elaborate, please.

Hmm, well, mostly I was making a point about using "No, it's this way because I say so" as a debating tactic.

But very well, to elaborate: Optimizing, min-maxing, and munchkinism are three different things.

Optimization is the effort to make a character do whatever it is he/she does as well as it's possible to do it, given restrictions on level, wealth, etc. Just about any character build is optimized to some degree, unless you habitually play wizards with Intelligence 8.

Min-maxing is similar, but suggests a tendency to strain disbelief in terms of taking abysmal weaknesses in areas where you don't expect that weakness to come up. The standard example is taking a crap score in Charisma because it's so seldom useful, yet declaring your character to be handsome/beautiful/whatever.

Munchkinism is the effort to "win D&D" by making one's character invincible and unstoppable, using any and all tactics including the Kobold Who Must Not Be Named, and is generally associated with childish and obnoxious behavior.

These are the holy definitions of these terms, from which none shall deviate. Because I say so.

[Roethke]

Grr Wrote:


Quote:
The point is that for any given concept/piece of fluff, there are multiple ways to implement it mechanically. Some of those ways are better than others. You can pick the best way without giving up your character concept.
Again, you don't get it. You should be used to that by now. That and being wrong. If the player has a concept in their mind, that fits a specific campaign setting, there's only one way to play that concept. For example, let's say the player wants their character to be a knight in a famous order devoted to the main religion in the setting, a Paladin/Order of the Radiant Sword. The only way they're going to be a member of that order is to take levels in that PrC.

There's no multiple ways about it. Same thing with the Dragonlance PrC's for wizards based upon the moons. It's that way or no way. Duh.


Come off the high-horse, man. Enough with the hostility.

I think this is patently wrong. You want to be a knight in a famous order devoted to the main religion of the setting?
You can:
A) Be a fighter, but play-up the religious aspect. The Order, has no idea what your class is.
B) Be a cleric. Heavily armored holy warrior? Looks like knight to me.
C) Be a paladin. A religious fighter with a strict moral code, and divine blessings. Ditto.
D) Ranger: This is less obvious, but every military organization needs its scouts. Play as fighter.
E) Monk: This may not fit the flavor of the campaign, but I could see several ways it could be worked in, if it does.


So you have 3 obvious choices, along with a couple of pretty good ways to go about being a holy warrior in a particular order.

Now, as in DragonLance, the setting may spec out a specific PrC to do this. But I'd venture that assuming that every 'Knight of Solamnia' is an NPC Knight of Solamnia PrC, is not necessarily a good assumption, if only for the levels involved. Of course you CAN, play it that way, but I don't see any reason why you'd have to.

[Grr]

A) Be a fighter, but play-up the religious aspect. The Order, has no idea what your class is. Paladin / Cleric only order.

B) Be a cleric. Heavily armored holy warrior? Looks like knight to me. Sure.

C) Be a paladin. A religious fighter with a strict moral code, and divine blessings. Ditto. Duh, it was made for this.

D) Ranger: This is less obvious, but every military organization needs its scouts. Play as fighter. Nope. Don't have the proper skills.

E) Monk: This may not fit the flavor of the campaign, but I could see several ways it could be worked in, if it does. Never.


Now, as in DragonLance, the setting may spec out a specific PrC to do this. But I'd venture that assuming that every 'Knight of Solamnia' is an NPC Knight of Solamnia PrC, is not necessarily a good assumption, if only for the levels involved. Of course you CAN, play it that way, but I don't see any reason why you'd have to.
I don't know... maybe because it might be a crime to impersonate the station and honors accord of being a Knight of Solamnia? I know in my setting, anyone impersonating a Knight of the Radiant Order gets locked away by the church and tried for heresy.

[spotmarkedx]

Grr. It doesnt help when people use same words for different definitions.

Minmaxing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min-max) =/= Munchkinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchkin_%28role-playing_games%29)

Also, I'm glad you're not my DM, if you force class choices on characters based on their concept. Must you take the "archmage" PrC to have your character call themselves an archmage, or be granted the title by a council of wizards? I significantly prefer games that that is not the case, thank you very much.

[Dausuul]

I don't know... maybe because it might be a crime to impersonate the station and honors accord of being a Knight of Solamnia? I know in my setting, anyone impersonating a Knight of the Radiant Order gets locked away by the church and tried for heresy.

I'll accept the idea that you have to fulfill the fluff requirements (the Code and the Measure, knightly vows, et cetera) to gain the Knight of Solamnia PRC. But saying that you have to have the PRC to have the fluff is silly. What if I join the Knights, swear holy vows and everything, but I haven't gained enough XP to take a level in the PRC? Do the Knights check my XP total and say, "Sorry, Lord Nobleandmighty, you've done heroic deeds and we'd love to make you a Knight of the Rose, but you have to kill three more glabrezu first?"

And if I do swear the vows and everything, but then put my next level into fighter instead of Knight of Solamnia, how will they know I didn't take the PRC? Do all PRCs based on a particular organization get see character sheet as a spell-like ability?

The Radiant Order might be a different matter, since they could require you to demonstrate the ability to use divine magic before accepting you. Of course, then they wouldn't take paladins with Wis 10 or less.

[Bouldering Jove]

A fair number of people here are basing their arguments on what I consider to be a misunderstanding of the relationship between flavor and mechanics.

The mechanics of D&D constitute a highly abstract representational system. That is the entirety of what they constitute. The SRD provides the rules framework for resolving all actions meaningful to that representational system, and nothing more. Every tabletop RPG's system represents things differently, whether by different rules, differently weighted factors, or different aspects included (D&D's levels of experience, Storyteller's willpower, etc.).

Flavor is the names, storytelling, description, and all other "roleplaying" elements that surround those mechanics. Whether a character is named Bob or Baughb, has blue eyes or brown eyes, or has an outgoing or indrawn personality, is absolutely meaningless in mechanical terms because none of those things have an impact on the representational system. If Bob had been named Baughb, that wouldn't make any difference to his BAB. Abstract mechanics can also be described in different ways: a critical hit could be presented as skillfull or lucky, as focused and precise or sweeping and devastating. The choice is really yours, as long as it doesn't change the system one whit. What color is your magic missile? It's flavor, because the mechanical properties of it (spell level, casting time, spell effects, damage) aren't affected by your choice.

Where people start getting lost is that even the SRD includes a superficial level of flavor. For example, the class names: what is a "barbarian" character? Mechanically, they're a set of abilities and stats. The vast majority of the time, though, people attach flavorful "barbarian" qualities to these mechanics, making them primitive warriors from the frozen north or what have you. But that really isn't necessary! You could just as easily describe a character with the "barbarian" mechanics as a gladiator, or a character with the "fighter" mechanics as a primitive warrior. For that matter, a "fighter" could in fact have his fighting prowess granted by the gods. The absence of actual divine magic in the "fighter" class rules doesn't matter, because your description of what grants those bonus feats doesn't affect what they mechanically do. Heck, maybe a "divine" spellcaster is tapping into natural magical power and the "arcane" spellcaster is channeling the power of the gods. It's flavor. It just doesn't matter as long as the functions of the abstract game system are all working the same way.

So now we come to things like the hypothetical baker who has no ranks in a cooking-related skill. Why shouldn't the man be able to bake? If he can create a pastry, so what? Danishes aren't mechanically modified. Mechanically, Profession generates gold pieces, while Craft can also generate some particular items. As long as our hypothetical baker can't create the effects of the Profession skill, giving him the flavor to allow him to whip up pastries doesn't affect anything except other flavor elements. So why disallow it?

[Roethke]

Bouldering Jove,

Why am I hungry after your explanation? Mmm. Flavor.

[Grr]

So why disallow it?
It's not fair to the other players.

[Ulzgoroth]

So now we come to things like the hypothetical baker who has no ranks in a cooking-related skill. Why shouldn't the man be able to bake? If he can create a pastry, so what? Danishes aren't mechanically modified. Mechanically, Profession generates gold pieces, while Craft can also generate some particular items. As long as our hypothetical baker can't create the effects of the Profession skill, giving him the flavor to allow him to whip up pastries doesn't affect anything except other flavor elements. So why disallow it?

Well, now we've got a character who can create this pastry which, while not detailed in the RAW explicitly, presumably does have some value by virtue of its edibility and tastiness. However, he has no ranks in an applicable profession, and thus there's no way he could ever earn more than one silver piece/day by applying this ability. Unless we decide that any sort of logical consistency falls second to allowing this strange pastry savant, there has to be some reason that the ability to produce this pastry is no more marketable than the ability to carry crates around.

Does it take so much in ingredients that no one is willing to pay above cost? That's got to be pretty costly stuff. Better charge for it, and be sure to stock up.
Is it just not good? I just assumed that we were talking about something people would actually be happy to eat, I suppose.
Does it take a really huge amount of time to make? Considering the one silver a day in profits, it's going to have to take a sizable chunk out of your day to make.

EDIT: I do agree about the classes. Some classes have highly integral fluff, but most of them don't. While there's certainly good reason that at least those in the know will recognize 'Wizard' and 'Sorcerer' as different things, there's no reason a Barbarian (class) has to be from a primitive background, or a Fighter (class) to have come from some sort of regimented training.

[Zincorium]

Grr, I believe right now that I have a superior ability to have fun over a wide range of games than you, based on your posts, appear to.

Here's why:

You hate being in a game with people who only want combat and numbers and dungeon crawls. I don't really mind. I will thus have more fun in a game like that.

You're manifestly unwilling to be flexible as far as character concepts, such as not allowing a ranger to serve in a particular order simply because they lack a particular skillset. I'm flexible (as a DM) when it would be more fun, so I enjoy games that would work better when used flexibly than you.

Essentially, I think you're sabotaging your own experience by holding the views that you do. It also might be advisable to relax a bit, but that's strictly optional.

[Grr]

If my fun "quota" is 100%, then you can't have more fun than me. =p


You're manifestly unwilling to be flexible as far as character concepts, such as not allowing a ranger to serve in a particular order simply because they lack a particular skillset. And how is a ranger supposed to demonstrate their devotion by passing a test wherein they have to channel positive energy?

[Bouldering Jove]

It's not fair to the other players.
Nonsense. It's no more unfair than getting a free choice in your eye color, because it doesn't affect anything mechanical. It's purely a matter of flavor.


Well, now we've got a character who can create this pastry which, while not detailed in the RAW explicitly, presumably does have some value by virtue of its edibility and tastiness. However, he has no ranks in an applicable profession, and thus there's no way he could ever earn more than one silver piece/day by applying this ability. Unless we decide that any sort of logical consistency falls second to allowing this strange pastry savant, there has to be some reason that the ability to produce this pastry is no more marketable than the ability to carry crates around.

Does it take so much in ingredients that no one is willing to pay above cost? That's got to be pretty costly stuff. Better charge for it, and be sure to stock up.
Is it just not good? I just assumed that we were talking about something people would actually be happy to eat, I suppose.
Does it take a really huge amount of time to make? Considering the one silver a day in profits, it's going to have to take a sizable chunk out of your day to make.
Two things. First, keep in mind, you're talking about an economic system where the daily wage for an unskilled laborer is only half as much as a single poor quality meal costs. I understand what you're saying, but the problem isn't this instance of flavor, it's the fact that D&D's system as a whole is an abominably poor economic model. As long as the problem is the mechanic itself, why restrict a player from having a charming bit of fluff? By definition, as pure flavor, it's not exploitable.

Second, I have very, VERY little experience with baking, but I don't see anything inherently unreasonable about an amateur baker not being able to make more money with it than they would hauling crates. There's a combination of factors at work: they're probably good at baking only a limited range of things, they're not going to be as quick or efficient as someone trained in making a profession out of it, and they're paying for the ingredients themselves rather than selling their skill to a bakery. Even if that doesn't satisfy you, I'm not the one who matters; ask the player who wants to bake for flavor reasons to justify it. Maybe they'll come up with something interesting (perhaps what they make looks like a sloppy hideous mess, even though it tastes great).

As a sidenote, if you're worried about logical consistency in general, I think there are much bigger fish to fry with D&D.


EDIT: I do agree about the classes. Some classes have highly integral fluff, but most of them don't. While there's certainly good reason that at least those in the know will recognize 'Wizard' and 'Sorcerer' as different things, there's no reason a Barbarian (class) has to be from a primitive background, or a Fighter (class) to have come from some sort of regimented training.
Alignment restrictions are definitely the big culprit here (and also part of how flavor and mechanics get confused in the first place). Alignment is a mechanical issue with mechanical effects, but because of the way it's tied to character personality and actions, it makes alternate flavor for something like the paladin almost impossible without making at least minor mechanical changes (and thus stepping beyond mere fluff).

[Roethke]

Well, now we've got a character who can create this pastry which, while not detailed in the RAW explicitly, presumably does have some value by virtue of its edibility and tastiness. However, he has no ranks in an applicable profession, and thus there's no way he could ever earn more than one silver piece/day by applying this ability. Unless we decide that any sort of logical consistency falls second to allowing this strange pastry savant, there has to be some reason that the ability to produce this pastry is no more marketable than the ability to carry crates around.

Does it take so much in ingredients that no one is willing to pay above cost? That's got to be pretty costly stuff. Better charge for it, and be sure to stock up.
Is it just not good? I just assumed that we were talking about something people would actually be happy to eat, I suppose.
Does it take a really huge amount of time to make? Considering the one silver a day in profits, it's going to have to take a sizable chunk out of your day to make.


Well, granting all you say, there's still two problems. First, the 'Game not Simulation' argument, but that's relatively weak. So, throwing even that aside...

It's no more logical that someone without ranks in profession(cook) can make a tasty pastry, than it is to say that someone with ranks in Profession(Cook), can cook anything equally well. So you either have to go down the road of sub-specialization (e.g., Profession(French Pastry Chef)), which quickly gets ridiculous, or admit it's an abstraction of the ability to cook professionally.

For a real-world example, I present my wife. She bakes wonderful pies. I mean really, good, easily the equal of what you get in a bakery, and so on.

However, I wouldn't expect her to be able to quit her day job and take up pie-making to earn her living. It's a different skill. So, even without 'ranks' in profession(Bake Yummy Pies), (i.e. she can't earn a living doing it) she can still render a delectable treat when inspired to do so.

[Dausuul]

So now we come to things like the hypothetical baker who has no ranks in a cooking-related skill. Why shouldn't the man be able to bake? If he can create a pastry, so what? Danishes aren't mechanically modified. Mechanically, Profession generates gold pieces, while Craft can also generate some particular items. As long as our hypothetical baker can't create the effects of the Profession skill, giving him the flavor to allow him to whip up pastries doesn't affect anything except other flavor elements. So why disallow it?

Because Danishes are mechanically modified; namely, by the cooking-related skill. If it should ever happen that you have to bake a pastry, in a situation where the quality of your cooking counts, then you'll need to make a check against that skill to see how good your pastry is. If you don't have that skill, then you'll have to explain how it is that this superior baker doesn't know how to, uh, bake.

It is true that there is no "quality of pastry based on Craft (Baking) skill check" chart anywhere in the Player's Handbook. However, from the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/craft.htm):


The basic function of the Craft skill, however, is to allow you to make an item of the appropriate type. The DC depends on the complexity of the item to be created. The DC, your check results, and the price of the item determine how long it takes to make a particular item. The item’s finished price also determines the cost of raw materials.

So in this situation, where you want to make a pastry, the DM would need to figure out how much such a pastry was worth, how complex it was to make, and assign a DC and time-to-create on that basis. It's not just a flavor element; it has potential to affect the campaign storyline, whether you're using your skills to convince the trolls not to eat you ("I cook better than I cook," to use Bilbo's phrase), to get yourself a job in the kitchen of the Evil Overlord so you can spy out the castle, or to impress the gourmand king and earn a reward.

[Vyker]

Grr, this got lost a couple pages back, but let me ask you this -- what difference, if any, exists between the following two people:
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good.
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good plus a satisfactory backstory which explains it all.

I'm asking because I understand many points being made by many folks, but I don't understand yours. What makes the first character worse in-game than the exact same character who also happens to have a favorite color? Are they somehow incapable of doing the same things?

[Talya]

Grr, this got lost a couple pages back, but let me ask you this -- what difference, if any, exists between the following two people:
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good.
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good plus a satisfactory backstory which explains it all.

I'm asking because I understand many points being made by many folks, but I don't understand yours. What makes the first character worse in-game than the exact same character who also happens to have a favorite color? Are they somehow incapable of doing the same things?


The fact that you asked this question from that perspective is going to get you all manner of grief here.

Most roleplayers will say the backstory is paramount, without one you don't actually have a character. Those other things are all secondary.

[asqwasqw]

Grr, this got lost a couple pages back, but let me ask you this -- what difference, if any, exists between the following two people:
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good.
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good plus a satisfactory backstory which explains it all.

I'm asking because I understand many points being made by many folks, but I don't understand yours. What makes the first character worse in-game than the exact same character who also happens to have a favorite color? Are they somehow incapable of doing the same things?

One makes sense, the other one does not. You should be able to explain what you can do. But you forgot this guy:

A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good but he says he can do something else entirely different.

Look ma, I'm a archer!
Why do you have that sword and no bow?
No reason...

[Charity]

Grr Can rangers not cast divine spells?
anyhow
As far as I know folk are entitled to pursue their hobbies as they see fit.
It must be terribly taxing to be the only right thinking person here.

Back to the reality that the rest of us inhabit for a while, I am possibly not as flexable as some... using the baker analogy from earlier I would expect at least a rank or two in the skill if you are having baker as a background, but thats just me.

[Counterspin]

Asqwasqw - I don't understand your point. Do the quick use NPCs in the DMG not make sense? They're just npcs without the backstory provided. What about them doesn't make sense?

If you said that one is a character and the other isn't, that it's just a systemic skeleton, I'd side with you. Is that what you mean?

[Vyker]

Originally Posted by Vyker View Post
Grr, this got lost a couple pages back, but let me ask you this -- what difference, if any, exists between the following two people:
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good.
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good plus a satisfactory backstory which explains it all.

I'm asking because I understand many points being made by many folks, but I don't understand yours. What makes the first character worse in-game than the exact same character who also happens to have a favorite color? Are they somehow incapable of doing the same things?


The fact that you asked this question from that perspective is going to get you all manner of grief here.

Most roleplayers will say the backstory is paramount, without one you don't actually have a character. Those other things are all secondary.

Believe me, I know the difference. I want to see what Grr's answer is.

[Grr]

Yeah, they can cast divine spells, but they can't turn undead... an optional use of which is channeling positive energy.

[asqwasqw]

Yes, I mean they are a skeleton that does nothing but kill. And the quick use NPC's don't need a backstory because

A) You are supposed to make one yourself.
B) You don't need to know the life story of a NPC.

[Counterspin]

So they both make sense, you just think one is superior to the other.

[asqwasqw]

I am saying that one doesn't make sense because it has no life, no fluff.

[Counterspin]

The phrase "make sense" has nothing to do with fluff. One has a backstory, the other doesn't. You prefer the first. Sense doesn't play into it.

[Grr]

- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good.
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good plus a satisfactory backstory which explains it all.
One is a character for a role and the other is a character for an adventure game.

[Talya]

The phrase "make sense" has nothing to do with fluff. One has a backstory, the other doesn't. You prefer the first. Sense doesn't play into it.

Actually it is entirely about sense.

The backstory, the "fluff" is the life of the character. Without it, you don't actually have a character...you have a mindless construct. Most DMs won't even let you come to the table without the fluff. It is, afterall, a roleplaying game. Ability scores, feats, skills and such are not a character on their own, you don't yet have the role to play. The character is who you write into that backstory, whether you do it by affixing them to your character concept after the fact like a poorly fitted suit, or whether you build the character mechanics to fit your idea, it doesn't matter.

[asqwasqw]

I think it does. Otherwise you start asking weird questions that have no justificable answer. Where did you get that sword? I, uh, I... etc. But yeah, make sense is not the best of terms to use. You get my meaning though.

[Vyker]

One is a character for a role and the other is a character for an adventure game.

Would you mind expanding on that concept a bit? I'm going somewhere with this, I promise, but I want to make sure I understand exactly what you mean first.

[Counterspin]

Talya - Urr, yes I understand that. In fact I said it on this page. To quote myself.

If you said that one is a character and the other isn't, that it's just a systemic skeleton, I'd side with you. Is that what you mean?

asqwasqw - Sorry, I'm was just perturbed at what was probably unmeant subtext in the phrase.

[BardicDuelist]

In my group we have a guy who plays solely story oriented characters and will even refuse to make a character "optomized" at times. Other times, in more difficult campaigns or with more difficult builds (a barbarian who didn't wear armor and had a 9 int) he will optomize to make up for weaknesses.

My characters focus on a story concept, then I try to create the best possible way to represent that concept. I generally focus on one or two aspects and try to max those out. These aspects are based on the character, not what I feel will be useful in a game. I have one character which I "power gamed" because I created him to be more powerful than normal.

[Indon]

- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good.
- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him really good plus a satisfactory backstory which explains it all.


I don't feel that these examples contrast Grr's point. I'd bring up a collorary, if you would:

- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment which makes him very effective in-game, and who has a backstory that justifies that capability.

- A character with a given selection of stats, feats, skills, spells, and equipment dictated by a backstory which happens to be very effective in-game.

It's about priorities. If you place the game first, you risk sacrificing the quality of your story. If you place the story first, you risk sacrificing your effectiveness in the game. Grr is stating that placing the game first is bad, presumably because he's more story-oriented in his game.

At least, that's what I figure.

[Bouldering Jove]

Because Danishes are mechanically modified; namely, by the cooking-related skill. If it should ever happen that you have to bake a pastry, in a situation where the quality of your cooking counts, then you'll need to make a check against that skill to see how good your pastry is. If you don't have that skill, then you'll have to explain how it is that this superior baker doesn't know how to, uh, bake.
Danishes are mechanically modeled (what I meant to type, by the way, apologies) in only the very loosest sense of the word. The Profession skill only generates money. The Craft skill can generate items, but if you're creating anything that doesn't already exist by D&D rules, it has no real mechanical attributes besides type, complexity and price. In other words, such an item might be useful for roleplaying or storytelling purposes, but mechanically, it's only good for resale.


It is true that there is no "quality of pastry based on Craft (Baking) skill check" chart anywhere in the Player's Handbook. However, from the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/craft.htm):

The basic function of the Craft skill, however, is to allow you to make an item of the appropriate type. The DC depends on the complexity of the item to be created. The DC, your check results, and the price of the item determine how long it takes to make a particular item. The item’s finished price also determines the cost of raw materials.
So in this situation, where you want to make a pastry, the DM would need to figure out how much such a pastry was worth, how complex it was to make, and assign a DC and time-to-create on that basis.
Perfectly true, if you want to make a pastry that mechanically has a type, complexity, and price. Our hypothetical baker doesn't, he just wants the flavor, which has no mechanical properties.


It's not just a flavor element; it has potential to affect the campaign storyline, whether you're using your skills to convince the trolls not to eat you ("I cook better than I cook," to use Bilbo's phrase), to get yourself a job in the kitchen of the Evil Overlord so you can spy out the castle, or to impress the gourmand king and earn a reward.
Storytelling concerns are entirely flavor elements, as they have nothing to do with what D&D's system mechanically models. The SRD would be pretty hilarious if it included Craft (Cooking) DCs by which every monster could be "defeated," though.

More to the point, I honestly wouldn't have any problem as a DM letting our hypothetical flavor-based baker's fluffy creations satisfy those kinds of challenges. The best way to articulate my reasoning is by example: per RAW, any character whose background fluff includes spending their entire life in one town (over 100 years for an elf) will know only the most ludicrously basic things about their hometown unless they invest in Knowledge (Local), which will grant them a comparable level of knowledge for every town on the face of the planet. When the issues at hand are about the story and its progression, rather than making gold or dealing damage or something else that actually affects D&D's mechanical system, I don't see any good reason not to indulge players' flavor. In fact, if you restrict players' flavor from having any influence on the events of the story, you're discouraging them from coming up with any flavor in the first place. Taken to its logical extreme, forcing mechanics to dictate the story turns every single conversation in the game into a diplomacy, bluff or intimidate check, without any actual roleplaying involved. Not exactly thrilling, and not exactly playing as intended.

[BardicDuelist]

This character, a Bard 8, Arcane Duelist 2 (WOTC web pages), Sublime Chord 1 (CAr), Seeker of Song 1 (CAr), Spellsinger 3 (RoF), will seem like a Min Maxed character to you.
Let me give you the story.
He is a fey'ri raised by an elven high mage who trained him to be a bard instead of following his sorcerous inclinations to try to channel his power to a cause which would be less distructive. While he was adventuring, he was taught sword play by a number of characters, which he learned to combine with his magic (hence the ArD). Discovering that he could use his magical talents in other ways, he became obsessed discovering more secrets. Thus he discoverd the way of the Sublime Chord (which I made several Spellcraft, Knowledge Arcana checks, and had to spend sessions RPing it out with various mages). Upon realizing the relation of music to magic, he began to search for the origins (annother quest which the DM created when I came up with the idea). He then discovered Primal Music and became a Seeker of the Song. Upon returning home, his "father" presented him with an anchient elven songbook. This taught him the secrets of combining music with more advanced arcana. He became a Spellsinger (which combined SbC and SoS effectively).

This "build" was created with coperation with the DM and while very optomized, it has a long and well developed story wich focused on RP. Would you consider this built around classes or optimization?

[Ulzgoroth]

Nonsense. It's no more unfair than getting a free choice in your eye color, because it doesn't affect anything mechanical. It's purely a matter of flavor.
Er, no. Because, you see, making pastry impacts on the simulated world, and is non-random. None of the character features that you can select freely are like that, even if they ought to be (height and weight, say, are mechanically both largely irrelevant and random despite what reality might suggest).


Two things. First, keep in mind, you're talking about an economic system where the daily wage for an unskilled laborer is only half as much as a single poor quality meal costs. I understand what you're saying, but the problem isn't this instance of flavor, it's the fact that D&D's system as a whole is an abominably poor economic model. As long as the problem is the mechanic itself, why restrict a player from having a charming bit of fluff? By definition, as pure flavor, it's not exploitable.

Second, I have very, VERY little experience with baking, but I don't see anything inherently unreasonable about an amateur baker not being able to make more money with it than they would hauling crates. There's a combination of factors at work: they're probably good at baking only a limited range of things, they're not going to be as quick or efficient as someone trained in making a profession out of it, and they're paying for the ingredients themselves rather than selling their skill to a bakery. Even if that doesn't satisfy you, I'm not the one who matters; ask the player who wants to bake for flavor reasons to justify it. Maybe they'll come up with something interesting (perhaps what they make looks like a sloppy hideous mess, even though it tastes great).
To the first, you've got your facts wrong...one silver buys a day's worth of poor meals, by PHB. And of course, the wiser laborers, and especially the ones with families, will probably be shopping at the market that gets you a pound of flour or a whole chicken for 2 coppers. If they can afford it, maybe whole half-pound loves of bread for the same price. Buying prepared meals is an extravagance for the likes of them.

For the second, maybe they can cripple their special talent badly enough so as not to absolutely force a non-zero profession(cook/baker) rank. Even so they're trying to extract a mechanical ability for their character at no cost whatsoever. Is it intended for 'crunchy' applications? Probably not. To me, there's no such thing as a truly non-crunchy application. At least one skill rank and a decent modifier, that's all I ask.

As a sidenote, if you're worried about logical consistency in general, I think there are much bigger fish to fry with D&D.
Noted, but I'm optimistic enough to think they can all be fried. At least, well enough to not disturb me too much.


It's no more logical that someone without ranks in profession(cook) can make a tasty pastry, than it is to say that someone with ranks in Profession(Cook), can cook anything equally well. So you either have to go down the road of sub-specialization (e.g., Profession(French Pastry Chef)), which quickly gets ridiculous, or admit it's an abstraction of the ability to cook professionally.
And a fighter, of course, can use absolutely any weapon not deemed 'exotic', whether or not it even resembles anything they've ever seen before in their lives. And for that matter, climbing rock walls, ropes, and trees require the exact same skillset.

To deal with this without inventing a hundred sub-specialties, the default is to say that any proficient cook has general skills and knowledge necessary to work through just about anything at their skill level. This denies them the ability to do anything exceptionally well, unless they do it by a voluntary penalty on everything else. If DMing, in that particular field, I'd probably be convinced that +2 on pastrymaking-related checks and a -1 on all other cooking checks was a fair character trait.

For a real-world example, I present my wife. She bakes wonderful pies. I mean really, good, easily the equal of what you get in a bakery, and so on.

However, I wouldn't expect her to be able to quit her day job and take up pie-making to earn her living. It's a different skill. So, even without 'ranks' in profession(Bake Yummy Pies), (i.e. she can't earn a living doing it) she can still render a delectable treat when inspired to do so.
Are you sure she couldn't? Probably, without knowing the pies in question, not at an actual bakery or restaurant. I doubt they're in the market for people who only make pie and don't have fancy certificates or widespread fame. But maybe at a truck stop (If any of them don't use frozen pies...). And very probably, in a D&D setting. Any prosperous inn would be seriously tempted by a decent pie-maker, at least if she could make passable stew or bread at the same time.

I'd require a trained check and a decent modifier to reliably make a really good pie. If a player wants to restrict their ability by assigning their character total non-proficiency in the non-pie culinary arts, that would be an interesting and flavorful decision.

[Counterspin]

I find the bakery argument pretty disingenuous. The truth of the matter is that it is very rare that a profession or trade will have any significant effect on a game from a system standpoint. The whole problem would be solved rather neatly in my opinion, by doling out four extra skill points at first level for a profession or craft. Bam! Characters aren't any more powerful, and every character has an identifiable civilian job. No fuss no muss.

[Tellah]

Profession: Baker will probably never see use in a lot of campaigns. If you're running through Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and you want your 5th-level fighter to say, "Man, I wish I were back in Albuquerque baking delicious pies," there's no need to have a single rank in Profession: Baker. If you never intend to actually roll the check to make a paltry amount of silver pieces in a week, what's the point in putting ranks in? Wave your hand, say, "He used to be a baker," and continue playing a game where 75% of the rules deal with fighting ugly things and taking their treasure.

[Bouldering Jove]

Er, no. Because, you see, making pastry impacts on the simulated world, and is non-random. None of the character features that you can select freely are like that, even if they ought to be (height and weight, say, are mechanically both largely irrelevant and random despite what reality might suggest).
"The simulated world" doesn't exist unless you conflate mechanics and flavor (which, as I explained before, is misguided). There's a sort of abstract world that's governed by explicit and strictly codified rules, and there's the flavorful realm where players actually visualize their characters and actions. There are all kinds of details in the latter realm that have no bearing on the former, such as the colors of objects. Making a pastry without mechanical properties doesn't have any more mechanical impact than choosing to have blue eyes or a suspicious personality. All can influence the events of the story, of course: a beggar helps the players after getting a pastry, eye color is related to mythological heritage, the character refuses to accept a job that was offered by a shady character. The story will change by the outcome, but they just don't influence anything that D&D's game mechanics actually track.


To the first, you've got your facts wrong...one silver buys a day's worth of poor meals, by PHB.
Ah yes, you're right. Which makes it only marginally less ridiculous.


And of course, the wiser laborers, and especially the ones with families, will probably be shopping at the market that gets you a pound of flour or a whole chicken for 2 coppers. If they can afford it, maybe whole half-pound loves of bread for the same price. Buying prepared meals is an extravagance for the likes of them.
It doesn't say in the SRD that they're pre-prepared meals, just the cost of meals for a day. Of course, the same SRD doesn't require any specific amount of food to avoid starvation effects in the environment section.


For the second, maybe they can cripple their special talent badly enough so as not to absolutely force a non-zero profession(cook/baker) rank. Even so they're trying to extract a mechanical ability for their character at no cost whatsoever. Is it intended for 'crunchy' applications? Probably not. To me, there's no such thing as a truly non-crunchy application. At least one skill rank and a decent modifier, that's all I ask.
How are they trying to extract a mechanical ability for their character? It's purely flavor. There IS no mechanical ability. If they want a mechanical ability that isn't pure fluff, they have to invest ranks in Craft (whatever). The only way it can possibly have any crunchy application is if you're confusing a "crunchy" application to mean any way whatsoever of influencing the game being played.

There's an implicit assertion here that player-created flavor beyond personality isn't allowed to influence the game in any fashion, or at least that every flavor decision must be represented by mechanics. I think that it's a fallacy (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html) and a very restrictive way to play the game.

[Grr]

Profession: Baker will probably never see use in a lot of campaigns. If you're running through Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and you want your 5th-level fighter to say, "Man, I wish I were back in Albuquerque baking delicious pies," there's no need to have a single rank in Profession: Baker. If you never intend to actually roll the check to make a paltry amount of silver pieces in a week, what's the point in putting ranks in? Wave your hand, say, "He used to be a baker," and continue playing a game where 75% of the rules deal with fighting ugly things and taking their treasure.
Guess what my warrior does in between adventures... he whittles. He sells those figurines. It's a paltry sum compared to what can be acquired adventuring, but it makes me feel better about the character's personality / work ethic / etc. Instead of loafing around spending money from treasure hoards, he's still earning a living. I've actually had it come into play. We were hired to guard the vault of a wealthy merchant during a rather decadent festival. Thieves liked to use that time, when everyone's drunk and partying, to break into places.

We sent the thieves packing, but not before a small statue that was worth a tidy sum was broken. So I carved a fake and we used an illusion to finish the look of it until we could get the real one mended and replaced the next day.

[Roethke]

Guess what my warrior does in between adventures... he whittles. He sells those figurines. It's a paltry sum compared to what can be acquired adventuring, but it makes me feel better about the character's personality / work ethic / etc. Instead of loafing around spending money from treasure hoards, he's still earning a living. I've actually had it come into play. We were hired to guard the vault of a wealthy merchant during a rather decadent festival. Thieves liked to use that time, when everyone's drunk and partying, to break into places.

We sent the thieves packing, but not before a small statue that was worth a tidy sum was broken. So I carved a fake and we used an illusion to finish the look of it until we could get the real one mended and replaced the next day.


Ah, but the pertinent question is "Did your character put ranks in Craft(Whittlin')?" (or similar skill).

[Grr]

Yup. Has 10 ranks in craft: woodworking and 10 ranks, profession: carpenter.

[Merlin the Tuna]

Neat. And since you used an illusion, presumably none of those 20 ranks made a difference.

[clarkvalentine]

There's no multiple ways about it. Same thing with the Dragonlance PrC's for wizards based upon the moons. It's that way or no way. Duh....

(snip)

I don't know... maybe because it might be a crime to impersonate the station and honors accord of being a Knight of Solamnia?

It's expressly allowable to be a Knight of Solamnia or a Wizard of High Sorcery in the Dragonlance setting without taking levels of the prestige class - Membership in the order/organization is a prerequisite to take the PrC, not the other way around.

[Grr]

Neat. And since you used an illusion, presumably none of those 20 ranks made a difference.
They did. The illusion was visual only. Didn't provide any feel of weight or touch to it.

[ImperiousLeader]

I think background fluff and backstories are a dime a dozen. Feats are limited, stories of my character's childhood are not. I prefer to start a character from an optimization standpoint first, because the first question I ask about a new character is "what do I want this character to do"? The personality and backstory flow from that first question.

[Grr]

Optimizers worry about what they can do.
Role players wonder what they did.

Big difference in how you build a character at that point. One is obviously better for the consistency and story. That's the one I prefer.

[Vyker]

Not... true.

Not all optimizers worry about what they can do. Some of us wonder how we can do it.

Nor are all role players wondering about what they did yesterday. Some of us enjoy going somewhere and moving forward, contemplating what we can do today or -- for the real dreamer -- tomorrow.

Attaching such blanket statements to two very, very broad and diverse groups is only gonna end up with you overlooking some very good players.

[Bears With Lasers]

Overly Developed Backstories don't good roleplayers make. You could be stuck in your character's past and refuse to have them adapt because of attachment, or the backstory may simply never really come up. D&D characters generally evolve in play, especially since they often go from "incompetent bunglers" (level 1) to "masters of the universe" (level 20).

Compare D&D to, say, Spirit of the Century, where your character is a Pulp Hero, and is therefore already at the top of his game--there is next to no advancement, but your Aspects all depend on your character and his past. There, "what you did" is a good way to define your character. In D&D, "what you want to do" is probably better.

[Grr]

In D&D, "what you want to do" is probably better.
Maybe if everyone started off as an infant and had to roleplay up from age 0 to age whatever age you finish your training or whatever to become a level one something.

[Rigeld2]

Maybe if everyone started off as an infant and had to roleplay up from age 0 to age whatever age you finish your training or whatever to become a level one something.
So when you were 18, you based everything on how you acted in the past, not at all looking at where you wanted to be in your life in the future?

[Bears With Lasers]

Maybe if everyone started off as an infant and had to roleplay up from age 0 to age whatever age you finish your training or whatever to become a level one something.

I'm sure I've said this before: you may see D&D as a simulation, but that's not the only or the right way to play. Your character's background (except when it comes back to haunt him) is, dramatically and narraratively, less important than his current adventures. Sure, maybe you used to be a baker. You also liked yellow flowers better than all the others, your mother died when you were ten, and those things partially shaped your character's personality. But what really matters is what your character is like now. The details can help you shape that, but filling in every detail isn't necessary or automatically good. Your character will be interacting with others. His current adventures are the dramatic bit--the past is just context.

Edit: I am currently optimizing myself by working towards a degree and skillset I know will get me more GP, rather than towards one that follows the things I enjoyed most as a kid.

[Grr]

If I were to make a character of myself, I would look at where I've been, what I've done, what I've learned. Not what I plan on doing. Where the character goes from there is left to fate.


Your character's background (except when it comes back to haunt him) is, dramatically and narraratively, less important than his current adventures.
You're wrong. People like you are why WotC keeps churning out splatbook after splatbook full of number crunching bullcrap. Money money money. It's no longer about the quality of the game or the fun. It's all about the money and you people are buying right into it.

[Bears With Lasers]

So, you... don't have goals?

[Grr]

Long term and short term goals are part of the character concept, but they're not based on game mechanics.

[Rigeld2]

If I were to make a character of myself, I would look at where I've been, what I've done, what I've learned. Not what I plan on doing. Where the character goes from there is left to fate.
So... none of your characters make any plans for the future?

Thats... sad. Like, clubbing baby seals sad.

"Lets see... today I woke up. I'm going to sit in the street and see who or what comes by today! I shouldnt bother planning what I'm doing tomorrow, because fate may change my plans!"


You're wrong. People like you are why WotC keeps churning out splatbook after splatbook full of number crunching bullcrap. Money money money. It's no longer about the quality of the game or the fun. It's all about the money and you people are buying right into it.Thats... not snarky at all.

edit:

Long term and short term goals are part of the character concept, but they're not based on game mechanics.
So a Fighters long term goal to be a master of the Bastard Sword (IE fighter going to exotic weapon master) has nothing to do with game mechanics? Or is that not something that any of your characters would aspire to (a prestige class)?

[ImperiousLeader]

Optimizers worry about what they can do.
Role players wonder what they did.

As a roleplayer, I'd sooner worry about what my character does in the game, and that is a combination of mechanics deciding what the PC is capable of and backstory deciding how the PC thinks. If I was so worried about what my character did, I'm not playing the game, I'm writing a novel.

To be honest, an overfluffed character seems to be more hazardous to story and to consistency than an optimized one because that character gets too rigid and inflexible. You end up with in a game without players, having instead actors all working off their own scripts.

[Bouldering Jove]

Your character's background (except when it comes back to haunt him) is, dramatically and narraratively, less important than his current adventures.
You're wrong. People like you are why WotC keeps churning out splatbook after splatbook full of number crunching bullcrap. Money money money. It's no longer about the quality of the game or the fun. It's all about the money and you people are buying right into it.
Wow. Simply stating that the current adventures of a character, the ones a game group is actively playing, have more dramatic and narrative importance than backstory is enough to provoke all that from you? I can't even fathom how you drew those frankly bizarre assertions out of his statement, let alone how you'd begin to make a convincing argument that his (rather common sense) position is wrong.

[JaronK]

True enough, Imperious. The best roleplayers I've worked with have very simple backstories. Complicated backstories may not mesh with the other characters. Roleplay is what happens during the game. Backstories are just the novel writing that happens before hand.

A backstory is not roleplay. Sometimes, it can even get in the way, such as a character who has to be a cook, even when it's really not appropriate to the campaign or the party.

JaronK

[Bears With Lasers]

You're wrong. People like you are why WotC keeps churning out splatbook after splatbook full of number crunching bullcrap. Money money money. It's no longer about the quality of the game or the fun. It's all about the money and you people are buying right into it.
1) Cut it out with the insults. It is an unnaceptable way to discuss things.
First of all, ALL splatbooks have crunch and fluff. Why? BECAUSE D&D IS A HIGH-CRUNCH GAME. You can't change that. D&D splats have crunch and fluff. The PHB II is one of the best splatbooks released--the crunch is almost entirely balanced (the Celerity line, the conjurer Immediate Magic variant are the most glaring exceptions)--the book is certainly better-balanced than the PHB--and the book has a lot more fluff on building your character than the PHB.
The Tome of Battle has great crunch, and awesome fluff about the Nine Swords, how to integrate them into your game, and the like.
Meanwhile, the Complete Psionic had lame crunch and lame fluff.

As for money, GASP! A company wants to make money! Gee, who'd've thought! If they were releasing crappy products, they wouldn't be making as much money. Complete Psionic is crappy, and it sold much worse than, say, the PHB II or Tome of Battle.
WotC is a company. The purpose of companies is to profit. If they didn't turn a steady profit, they couldn't keep producing and supporting D&D.

As a side note, "it's no longer about the fun"? Do you REALLY think that everyone who plays different from you doesn't actually have any fun and is just, what, lying to themselves? WotC is very successful, so obviously, somebody--or rather, lots of somebodies--is having fun with their books.

2) You're wrong IS NOT AN ARGUMENT. If you think I'm wrong, prove it. You can't just say "you're wrong" and expect that to be the end of the line. You seem to like trying, though. Saying "you're wrong" doesn't make you right. It does nothing other than making it look like you don't have any way of backing up your point. I have explained to you that drama and the narrative can be just as important as realistic representation--or more. There are entire games, good games, based on that premise. That doesn't change just because you say "you're wrong", and if you want to be taken seriously, you'll have to learn to back up your points.


Long term and short term goals are part of the character concept, but they're not based on game mechanics.
Wait... why not? A goal to master the Dervish Dance (hit Dervish 10), or learn the most powerful spells in existence as soon as possible (9th level spells), et cetera are perfectly viable goals.
Weren't you talking about how characters should back their fluff up with mechanics, no matter what!? Well, why are their goals exempt from this?

[EvilElitest]

I don't need to optimize, though I often do to a certain extent
My group knows i the smartest guy their, i'm valulble no matter what happens
from,
EE

[Grr]

A backstory is not roleplay. Sometimes, it can even get in the way, such as a character who has to be a cook, even when it's really not appropriate to the campaign or the party.
A background story is only part of the overall character concept which in turn is merely a tool used to better understand why the character would be motivated to do what they do. If the concept gets in the way, it gets in the way and you deal with it. It's part of making tough decisions and dealing with the consequences.

Like the riddle example. I knew the answer. The others players didn't and there was no way my character would know the answer, so I didn't tell them. We paid a heavy price for that choice, but I'd make that same decision again and again, because it was staying true to the character's concept.


As a side note, "it's no longer about the fun"? Do you REALLY think that everyone who plays different from you doesn't actually have any fun and is just, what, lying to themselves?
I was talking about the people making the product, not the consumers... The suits don't care if the game's fun anymore. All they care about is making as many splatbooks as they can get away with before they bring out a new edition and start the process all over again. And you people are lapping it up like manna from the sky.

[Bears With Lasers]

So why didn't you, as a PLAYER, tell one of the other players the answer, so their (smarter) character could come up with it?

[JaronK]

1) Wait... why not? A goal to master the Dervish Dance (hit Dervish 10), or learn the most powerful spells in existence as soon as possible (9th level spells), et cetera are perfectly viable goals.
Weren't you talking about how characters should back their fluff up with mechanics, no matter what!? Well, why are their goals exempt from this?

Because, you foolish little man, Grr is such a great roleplayer. He gets so in touch with his characters that he knows his fighter, when confronted with a world ending threat of daemonic invasion, would realistically spend his time practicing cooking instead of making darn sure he has a reasonable chance of taking out said world ending menace.

After all, cooking was in the backstory. So you're wrong.

:smallbiggrin:

JaronK

[Vyker]

Folks, when you get right down to it, taking enough ranks in both Game (Roll Playing) and Game (Role Playing) gives you a synergy bonus in Game (Having Fun).

Your beautiful snowflake is only improved by being a beautiful snowflake who can act within the story of the game. Being the beautiful snowflake in the corner who sulks (beautifully) because if he even looks at the encounters he dies is probably gonna get old real fast. He is not less of a beautiful snowflake for being doing cool things (beautifully).

And likewise, that opti-meatgrinder becomes even cooler when he's got some personality behind him -- imagine the stench of a barbarian/frenzied berzerker sitting atop a pile of corpses, drinking the blood of the slain from a cup made from the skull of that evil cleric you just spitted.

And while it's easier for a stat-line to function in D&D over a character with a novel of backstory but no real in-game abilities, neither is truly superior. Both help. Both have their place. Both enhance the game. Moreover, there is nothing wrong with doing either (or both!) well. If you enjoy one over the other, that's great. But if you like one to the exclusion of the other, you may be missing out. Your mileage may vary.

[Ulzgoroth]

"The simulated world" doesn't exist unless you conflate mechanics and flavor (which, as I explained before, is misguided). There's a sort of abstract world that's governed by explicit and strictly codified rules, and there's the flavorful realm where players actually visualize their characters and actions. There are all kinds of details in the latter realm that have no bearing on the former, such as the colors of objects. Making a pastry without mechanical properties doesn't have any more mechanical impact than choosing to have blue eyes or a suspicious personality. All can influence the events of the story, of course: a beggar helps the players after getting a pastry, eye color is related to mythological heritage, the character refuses to accept a job that was offered by a shady character. The story will change by the outcome, but they just don't influence anything that D&D's game mechanics actually track.
My first reaction is, if there is no simulated world, what is it that all these rules, combat or otherwise, govern? No, the written rules don't govern it in infinite detail, because if they did you'd just have a computer simulation with neither DM nor players. This doesn't make it not exist.

Now, going further...Color of objects, your mechanically irrelevant feature of choice. Right off, there's a core spell (prestidigitation) that explicitly influences color of objects. And for that matter the Rod of Wonders has some color-influencing effects. So it's most certainly the case that the mechanics can directly govern that bit of fluff. Also, would you say that being covered in mirrors and bright colors is functionally the same as being painted a uniform, nonreflective black, with regard to spotting an object in a dimly lit room? Admittedly, the rules say nothing of any difference...but I'd hope there would be one all the same. Or the props and makeup noted in the disguise description...clearly, it shouldn't be in any way more demanding to disguise yourself as someone with a different skin, hair and eye color than someone who corresponds well in all those regards, as color is mechanically irrelevant. Right.

Our pastry has mass, it has ingredients, it has a taste, And it presumably has some market value if the hypothetical great market, though it may be less than a copper. Other than the mass, which is most assuredly part of the rules, none of these necessarily factor into any specific part of the PHB. But they all still have to exist in some form to define the item.

It doesn't say in the SRD that they're pre-prepared meals, just the cost of meals for a day. Of course, the same SRD doesn't require any specific amount of food to avoid starvation effects in the environment section.
The meals, however, are defined in terms of cooked food and grouped with rooms in the inn. Furthermore, those are the only prices on 'meals' offered, so if you want to assume it's the price of inn food that isn't defined anywhere, go right ahead.

And there actually is such information in the DMG, p304. Though some care is suggested, since the rules given indicate that eating one 'adequate' meal every 3 days will prevent all effects beyond general discomfort.

How are they trying to extract a mechanical ability for their character? It's purely flavor. There IS no mechanical ability. If they want a mechanical ability that isn't pure fluff, they have to invest ranks in Craft (whatever). The only way it can possibly have any crunchy application is if you're confusing a "crunchy" application to mean any way whatsoever of influencing the game being played.
Other than objecting to the word 'confusing' that's almost exactly what I mean. If you do something for which no crunch exists (homebrew spur-of-the-moment crunch included) there is no way to:
Conduct opposed checks in whatever-it-is.
Determine how successful it is.
Control when it can be done or how long it takes.
Bring the mechanic-less object into contact with any object or action with clear mechanics.

Would you continue to consider it 'harmless fluff' if rather than merely making pastry we were making (by player fiat) the most delicious pastry in the world? If not, why is it less bad when we simply have no way to compare it to any other pastry in the world?

There's an implicit assertion here that player-created flavor beyond personality isn't allowed to influence the game in any fashion, or at least that every flavor decision must be represented by mechanics. I think that it's a fallacy (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html) and a very restrictive way to play the game.
Over stretching the fallacy. Certainly, there can be facets of life not governed by class. No problem. Can there be facets of life not governed by anything that can be quantified? Yes. Can their be facets of interaction with the material (including arcane, ethereal, or otherwise fantastic) world not governed by any quantifiable? Not so much. Because anything may need to be quantified at some point.

If it's quantifiable, the problem goes away. My favored quantification is a skill rank. Yours seems to be 'promise you'll never make me quantify this'.

[JaronK]

And likewise, thatopti-meatgrinder becomes even cooler when he's got some personality behind him -- imagine the stench of a barbarian/frenzied berzerker sitting atop a pile of corpses, drinking the blood of the slain from a cup made from the skull of that evil cleric you just spitted.

Wow, you just described one of my characters. And yes, he is an absolutely awesome character, with a nice backstory that gives him plenty of motivation, as well as flexibility to deal with developing events. Having played him in multiple games, I actually just carry over his story from one to the other. And he's damned hilarious when he's not taking over the world one cleaving target at a time.

JaronK

[Dausuul]

Overly Developed Backstories don't good roleplayers make. You could be stuck in your character's past and refuse to have them adapt because of attachment, or the backstory may simply never really come up. D&D characters generally evolve in play, especially since they often go from "incompetent bunglers" (level 1) to "masters of the universe" (level 20).

I agree wholeheartedly with this. I know a guy who comes up with incredibly elaborate backstories for his characters... but those same characters are often a pain to play with, because they don't work well as part of a group. They're too caught up in their elaborate, self-involved backstory motivations. From both the DM and player perspective, I'd much rather have a character with no backstory who worked well with the rest of the group.

Obviously, if you can get backstory and plays-well-with-others, that's great. But the one is not a prerequisite for the other. Of the coolest characters I've played and played with, many had sketchy backstories or no backstories at all, and their personae only developed in-game.

For instance, there was the elf druid I played in an Arthurian campaign. No backstory whatsoever. I just figured we ought to have a divine caster in the party, and an elf seemed appropriate for druidic magic. But as the game progressed, the character became really interesting; as she witnessed the withdrawal of magic from the world and the rise of religion, she became more and more concerned about her own soul or lack thereof, to the point that she finally converted to Christianity. Some very fond memories of that character.


Compare D&D to, say, Spirit of the Century, where your character is a Pulp Hero, and is therefore already at the top of his game--there is next to no advancement, but your Aspects all depend on your character and his past. There, "what you did" is a good way to define your character. In D&D, "what you want to do" is probably better.

That's... a very interesting way to think about it. That hadn't really occurred to me until just now. I'm going to keep that in mind for future characters.

[Bouldering Jove]

My first reaction is, if there is no simulated world, what is it that all these rules, combat or otherwise, govern? No, the written rules don't govern it in infinite detail, because if they did you'd just have a computer simulation with neither DM nor players. This doesn't make it not exist.
There's the imagined world, which is essentially a version of "let's pretend," where most players actively think about their actions. Then there's the mechanical system, where most details in the imagined world are irrelevant compared to cold, hard figures. You roleplay in the former and the things that the system models, like combat, are covered in the latter. You can say that they're the same game, but it isn't particularly meaningful to do so, because you can bring any imagined world setting into a different mechanical rules systems. How things are modeled changes, but the described world doesn't.


Now, going further...Color of objects, your mechanically irrelevant feature of choice. Right off, there's a core spell (prestidigitation) that explicitly influences color of objects. And for that matter the Rod of Wonders has some color-influencing effects. So it's most certainly the case that the mechanics can directly govern that bit of fluff.
Of course. Mechanics can certainly influence fluff components. But the color of an object doesn't affect its system-relevant mechanical properties, such as the bonuses it gives or the damage it can deal. Changing something's color doesn't mean anything by the SRD; the only influence it can have on its game is on the story components.


Also, would you say that being covered in mirrors and bright colors is functionally the same as being painted a uniform, nonreflective black, with regard to spotting an object in a dimly lit room? Admittedly, the rules say nothing of any difference...but I'd hope there would be one all the same. Or the props and makeup noted in the disguise description...clearly, it shouldn't be in any way more demanding to disguise yourself as someone with a different skin, hair and eye color than someone who corresponds well in all those regards, as color is mechanically irrelevant. Right.
By the RAW, the color of your garb makes absolutely no difference to a "hide" skill check, and a disguise check to appear as an entirely different race (which will sometimes include color changes) is only a -2. Those are the mechanics for you. Houserule as you will.


Our pastry has mass, it has ingredients, it has a taste, And it presumably has some market value if the hypothetical great market, though it may be less than a copper. Other than the mass, which is most assuredly part of the rules, none of these necessarily factor into any specific part of the PHB. But they all still have to exist in some form to define the item.
As fluff, it has whatever components the DM allows players to ascribe to it. Ascribing qualities to a fluff item is just about pointless; by definition, its qualities don't include any relevant qualities that the D&D system mechanically models. Remember here that our hypothetical baker is baking for flavor purposes, not trying to jury-rig stale pastries into free sling ammunition or sell them for gold. Of course a pliant DM may allow jury-rigged mechanical uses, just as they may allow players to pick flavorful stones off the ground to suit the mechanical role of sling bullets, but they don't have to.


The meals, however, are defined in terms of cooked food and grouped with rooms in the inn. Furthermore, those are the only prices on 'meals' offered, so if you want to assume it's the price of inn food that isn't defined anywhere, go right ahead.
They're not really defined in terms of any type of food; each description is what the meal "might consist of," and the meal prices aren't grouped with inn prices any more closely than the prices for a loaf of bread or hunk of cheese are.


And there actually is such information in the DMG, p304. Though some care is suggested, since the rules given indicate that eating one 'adequate' meal every 3 days will prevent all effects beyond general discomfort.
You're right, and it's in the SRD too. For some reason I read the water requirement but skipped over the "pound of decent food" part and didn't really see it.


Other than objecting to the word 'confusing' that's almost exactly what I mean. If you do something for which no crunch exists (homebrew spur-of-the-moment crunch included) there is no way to:
Conduct opposed checks in whatever-it-is.
Determine how successful it is.
Control when it can be done or how long it takes.
Bring the mechanic-less object into contact with any object or action with clear mechanics.
You're quite right, there's no way to reconcile fluff items with mechanical ones, and there's absolutely no need to. If a player says they always keep a comb in their hair, that comb doesn't need to have any mechanical properties attached to it, because the character is never going to be able to have that comb affect any of D&D's mechanical factors. That's the entire point of flavor. None of it matters in the language of hit points and saving throws, but people can enjoy roleplaying with flavorful items and qualities without trying to find some way to describe their exact effects in a system that simply does not care about such things as combs unless they can be sold for money.


Would you continue to consider it 'harmless fluff' if rather than merely making pastry we were making (by player fiat) the most delicious pastry in the world? If not, why is it less bad when we simply have no way to compare it to any other pastry in the world?
Why not? That could lead to some fantastically amusing story and roleplaying possibilities. Obviously, the player would need to justify why they aren't able to make any significant money off of it, like Profession and Craft allow. Maybe their explanation would be that their potent family recipe requires so much time investment and so many expensive ingredients that, despite being the most delicious pastry of its kind in the world, they can only make a single silver of profit off a day's baking. Maybe it's such a pain in the ass to make that the character became a wizard and just doesn't want to bake any more, but the land's elite pastry connosieurs recognize him on sight and desperately try to convince him to make more. Why should Craft or Profession ranks enter into any of this? These concepts are story hooks and roleplaying fodder, and they're not about making gold or gaining abilities relevant to D&D mechanics. So why force skill point investment, which is relevant to D&D mechanics like combat and thus punishes a player for giving their characters interesting talents, rather than just letting such things exist as flavor?


Over stretching the fallacy. Certainly, there can be facets of life not governed by class. No problem. Can there be facets of life not governed by anything that can be quantified? Yes. Can their be facets of interaction with the material (including arcane, ethereal, or otherwise fantastic) world not governed by any quantifiable? Not so much. Because anything may need to be quantified at some point.
No, it really doesn't. If you're using D&D's system, you don't need to quantify blue eyes, you don't need to quantify a comb, and you don't need to quantify our hypothetical baker's pastries, because none of them affect anything mechanical. What would you do with quantified information about how good a pastry tastes? None of the D&D rules have anything to do with how good food tastes, so you're just creating phantom statistics that aren't actually bound to the rules.


If it's quantifiable, the problem goes away. My favored quantification is a skill rank. Yours seems to be 'promise you'll never make me quantify this'.
There's a problem if you don't quantify things that are relevant to D&D, such as swords and the damage they deal. There's no problem at all if you don't quantify the things that aren't relevant to D&D's mechanics, such as an amateur baker's pastries and how good they taste. "If it can be interacted with, it must be quantified" just isn't a necessary or even useful principle. Do you model the HP of twigs that a fighter takes a chop at? Or do you just let the fighter bisect them without rolling anything?

[Grr]

Most vehicles of the Evil Sunz are painted red with flames down the side to tie in with their main belief that "Da red wunz go fasta!".
Colour has an effect on the rules. Ork vehicles painted red get 1" extra movement. Is it such a stretch that in some planar situation, that colors could suddenly have meaningful consequences and benefits?

[PnP Fan]

For the OP: I usually decide, in general terms, the type of character I want to play (for example: Battle Priest, human). I then sit down and talk with my GM about the setting, particularly if it's a setting I'm unfamiliar with (say. . Mystara). Once I have a handle of my limits (things I'm not allowed to do) and the eventual results (things I must do in order for the character to be part of the party, such as "make sure your character is loyal to the Thyatian Empire"), I start weaving the character's background (say a priest of a military order that was involved in hunting down an Alphatian lich and his armies during the last Alphatian/Thyatian war). Then I sit down and look at crunch. Obviously for the character described, Cleric is one option, Paladin is another, however, the party was lacking in primary divine spellcasting, so I chose cleric, followed by battle priest PrC. Lots of undead hunting and leadership in the background, so I loaded up on Leadership style feats (we use 3rd party material sometimes) and undead dealing stuff, as well as group buffs, and things to improve my turning ability. I mostly optimize because a number of people in my group do, but also, it's nice to be a functional character in a niche. I don't obsess over things like CoDzilla or anything (I've never actually seen the build, and I don't really care to), but I try to make sure that my character is effective at whatever he's supposed to be good at (i.e. crunch matches the fluff).

For the Bears-Grr discussion (and let me tell you how funny that looks on my screen ;-):
I'm not entirely sure that I agree with either position entirely, and quite frankly, I got tired of reading around page 2 or 3, and wanted to go ahead and put up my own 2cp. So I apologize if I'm restating previous material.
1. As far as ALL min-maxers being bad RPers, yeah, that sounds like a logical falacy. However, in my experience frequently (NOT ALWAYS!) the folks who are interested in numbers, and focus the numbers alone, will come up with any old concept to back up their numbers, and are often not "in" to character development/heavy/deep/etc. . . RP. They tend to be more interested in the "video game" experience of pounding the bad guys, rather than some of the other options out there. Is this "wrong"? No of course not. Does it ruin the fun for other folks sometimes? Clearly it ruins Grr's fun, so that's a yes for at least one person out there, and I'm guessing he's not the only one. And if he doesn't want those sort of players around, well, that's his prerogative. And honestly, since he seems to feel so strongly, it's probably a good thing that he doesn't allow them to play, because I suspect that it would just be misery all around.
2. Form and Function: I don't quite understand how folks get the idea that fluff and crunch are unrelated. If I say that my concept is "an elegant swordsman who participates in duels of both wit and dexterity (think Cyrano de Bergerac w.o. the nose)", and then creat a Fighter, with a high strength, low wisdom, int, and Cha, give him a 2-Handed sword, and the feat "Power Attack", well clearly the fluff and crunch don't match at all, and you'd tell me to revise either fluff or crunch, I hope. Is there more than one crunch way to meet the fluff? Of course. I can think of at least 3 ways off the top of my head to start this character, some may be better than others, and I might explore all three during character creation, to see which way had the best feel. For example, Swashbuckler is the obvious choice, Fighter/Rogue being another option, and someone will say look at the Sword Sage. Undoubtedly, from a mechanics standpoint, the Sword Sage probably is the best mechanical option, except for one thing. Nothing in my character concept indicates that his abilities are supernatural in origin. That sort of takes most of the reasons for going Sword Sage out of the picture, even though it might be the "optimal" mechanic, the crunch doesn't match the fluff. (This is actually my only gripe with ToB, it makes mellee a better option than in the past, but you've got to have these bizarre supernatural things going on. If you want to play an ex-townguardsman, you're still stuck with Fighter as being the only crunch that matches the fluff. <insert fighter's suck at high levels commentary>)
3. Similarly, the sheet should match the concept. If you say your character is a cook/baker/candlestick maker in his off time, then he should have at least a few ranks in Craft:cooking/baking/candlestick making to represent this. As far as taking 10/20, well . . . okay, but that's the equivalent of being the donut fryer at the local donut shop. You aren't really a baker, you know how to follow a recipe/instructions, barely. Taking 20 means that the task takes longer, which can be quite a big deal in the food industry (typical meal might take 30 minutes to prep, taking 20 means 600 minutes, or 10 hours, you're restaurant would go out of business, or you'd get fired). So representing this in any sort of meaningful way requires skill points. Why would you do this? In some campaigns these sorts of skills can make the difference in a social environment. Perhaps these points of baking/candlestick making give you the edge in currying favor with someone (a gift of master crafted gourmet dessert rolls for the king, who knows?). This is largely dependent upon GM though.
umm. . I'm longwinded, so I'll stop now. I've more to add to this, but it's 1:30 here, and I've got to go to work in the morning.

[Dausuul]

[
There's a problem if you don't quantify things that are relevant to D&D, such as swords and the damage they deal. There's no problem at all if you don't quantify the things that aren't relevant to D&D's mechanics, such as an amateur baker's pastries and how good they taste. "If it can be interacted with, it must be quantified" just isn't a necessary or even useful principle. Do you model the HP of twigs that a fighter takes a chop at? Or do you just let the fighter bisect them without rolling anything?

If it's important to know whether the fighter did in fact bisect the twig in one chop, I'd require an attack roll versus AC 9 (base AC 10, -5 Dex, +4 size modifier). I'd house-rule that the twig had zero hardness and one hit point, so if he hit it at all he'd bisect it.

If it's not important, sure, I'd hand-wave it away... but the reason I'd hand-wave it away is that the fighter has the crunch to back up the fluff. He's a fighter, he's got a good BAB and a high Strength, bisecting things with a greatsword is what he does. If I actually did make him roll for it, he'd almost certainly succeed.

If it were the grey elf wizard with a Strength of 6 trying to hack the twig apart with the fighter's greatsword, I'd make him roll for it, because the wizard actually has a fair chance of missing the twig. To do otherwise brings up the question: How come the wizard can reliably hit an object the size of a twig when it doesn't affect anything, yet as soon as it matters (even if the wizard doesn't know it) he becomes a total klutz with the blade?

That's where I have a problem with our hypothetical baker. You're the best baker in the world, yet you can't make any money by selling your pies? How the hell does that work? What if someone with more business savvy goes out and sells your pies for you, how come your pies don't sell any better than anyone else's? Suppose you try to ingratiate yourself with the blind king by baking him a wonderful pie, how come you don't get a bonus on your Diplomacy check?

If there's a baking contest and you take part, what determines whether you win or lose? If you lose, why, since yours are the best pies in the world? If you win, what if another PC has (unknown to you) bet money on your winning? If I were in a party with this self-proclaimed uber-baker, I'd damn well bet money on him in a baking contest, and if he lost I'd want to know how the hell that happened.

Your approach is based on the faulty assumption that the baker's skill will never have any impact on any crunch-related aspect of the game, and that just isn't so. Everything has potential to affect the crunch. If you play a high elf and declare that you've got black skin, white hair, and red eyes, you're going to be facing a lot more Hostile NPCs and a lot fewer Friendly and Helpful ones. You just got what amounts to a massive Diplomacy penalty, based purely on "fluff" details. Conversely, a drow with pale skin, black hair, and blue eyes would get what amounted to a huge Diplomacy bonus.

The reason I don't make players justify their characters' hair, skin, and eye color with some kind of mechanic is that in most cases, hair, skin, and eye color are "neutral" modifiers. A character with green eyes does not have a substantial advantage over a character with blue. In the case of the high elf with the black skin and white hair, I'd still allow that because being a drow look-alike is more of a disadvantage than it is an advantage. However, if somebody wanted to play a drow who looked like a high elf, I'd require some sort of game-mechanical price for that*, since looking like a drow is one of the built-in drawbacks of being a drow.

Now, being the best baker in the world? That's a significant advantage. It opens up a whole lot of options for your character. If you want that advantage, I'm going to require you to pay something for it, unless you can come up with a very convincing in-game explanation for how you can never derive any mechanical benefit whatsoever from this wondrous talent.

You could say that you were the best baker in the world, but someone slipped poison into the pie you made for the king and you nearly got executed for regicide. Now you can't so much as knead dough without messing it up, and the smell of flour makes you break out in a cold sweat. I'd be fine with that; it'd be a cool bit of backstory, and it doesn't provide you with a substantial in-game advantage. And if you someday decide to dump 20 ranks into Craft (Baker)--hey, the baker's got his groove back!

But if you actually are the best baker in the world, that's too big an advantage to just hand-wave it.

*Actually, I'd probably house-rule that the game-mechanical price is "You paid 2 character levels for a net +4 stats and a little SR, you sorry bastard." But that's just because drow are horribly underpowered.

[Hallavast]

And yet you could have taken the Incantrix PrC, dropping the same schools of magic, and gotten more power out of the trade. Could you not have had the same RP? I don't know your character's, well, character, so I can't say much on this. But the point is, you could probably roleplay the same character by being an Incantrix, or by taking whatever this PrC you took was, or by just not using spells from that school. Either way, you could have had the same personality, and a similar character feel. The mechanics simply define what your character can do in combat, which spells he can cast, and the save DCs for those spells. It does not determine whether your character has issues with authority, or his sense of humor, or his feelings towards his friends. Actually, you have to take the prestige class to join the Order of High Sorcery. If you refuse to join the order, you're hunted down like a dog and killed. So there is a certain fluff factor that puts a restraint on your crunch options.


Or my power gaming friend, deciding he wants to play a wise melee character, could have taken levels of Swordsage instead. Now his character is more optimal. He took a character concept ("wise fighter") and optomized it. He can roleplay just fine. The fact that he took levels of Swordsage, in no way changes the character... it can still be roleplayed exactly the same. However, that character will now take fewer hits due to higher AC.
what if this friend wants his character to wear heavy armor? What if he wants his build to reflect something that can't really be represented well with mechanics? Will he choose to follow the mandates of fluff or those of crunch?



So? The character in mind gets lower will saves and higher diplomacy checks. Without knowing the rest of the character, I can't say much.
Lets say this is a fighter. And lets say it isn't one who is very interested in diplomacy. His high charisma doesn't do much for him mechanically, and his low wisdom actually further exploits his weakness of a low will save. I wouldn't call this optimized.



As shown, any one of the characters could be optomized further, easily, and would in no way change the roleplay of the characters. Yes, it's possible to mess with your roleplay by making contrasting mechanics. Taking the Samurai class when you want to be a Katana wielding Samurai character, for example, would get in the way, since that class requires you to dual wield a katana with a wakasashi. Likewise, taking levels of Wizard when the character you had in mind was a dumb melee brute would get in the way. That's not the point. I'm not arguing that there is any reason to take the Samurai class. Ever. However, I'd like to think that I've given examples of fluff that hinders crunch options.


The point is that taking a character and optomizing the mechanics of that character does not get in the way of roleplay. Such is the case with your high wisdom Fighter being turned into a high wisdom Swordsage, who now can actually use his high wisdom in combat. The character is roleplayed the same, but now he can contribute more in the mechanics of combat.
I'm not saying that mechanics by necessity get in the way of fluff or vice versa. I'm saying it's plausible. It can happen, and it does happen sometimes. For example, what if your fighter-turned-swordsage wants to wear heavy armor, is turned off by the style of martial maneuvers, and has no mention of any kind of training in the sublime way in his background? What if the player wants to be a half-elf for roleplaying reasons? Half-elves are nowhere near optimal. Will some of his decisions cause conflict involving fluff vs. crunch? Not necessarily, but it very well could happen. There may come a time when crunch gets in the way of fluff. What happens then?

[Ulzgoroth]

Dasuul says everything I would want to, only better and more concisely.:smallsmile:

[Bouldering Jove]

If it's important to know whether the fighter did in fact bisect the twig in one chop, I'd require an attack roll versus AC 9 (base AC 10, -5 Dex, +4 size modifier). I'd house-rule that the twig had zero hardness and one hit point, so if he hit it at all he'd bisect it.

If it's not important, sure, I'd hand-wave it away... but the reason I'd hand-wave it away is that the fighter has the crunch to back up the fluff. He's a fighter, he's got a good BAB and a high Strength, bisecting things with a greatsword is what he does. If I actually did make him roll for it, he'd almost certainly succeed.

If it were the grey elf wizard with a Strength of 6 trying to hack the twig apart with the fighter's greatsword, I'd make him roll for it, because the wizard actually has a fair chance of missing the twig. To do otherwise brings up the question: How come the wizard can reliably hit an object the size of a twig when it doesn't affect anything, yet as soon as it matters (even if the wizard doesn't know it) he becomes a total klutz with the blade?
There's a reason I was talking about the HP of a twig rather than ease of hitting. In high-pressure situations, the ability to reliably hit a small target is modeled by D&D's mechanical concerns. Infinitesimal levels of damage absorption are not among those concerns (should you check to see if the plant is in a "dying" state?). I'm really not talking about any physical case, I'm talking about principles for handling subjects and items that simply aren't modelled by the D&D mechanical system and have no relevance to it.


That's where I have a problem with our hypothetical baker. You're the best baker in the world, yet you can't make any money by selling your pies? How the hell does that work? What if someone with more business savvy goes out and sells your pies for you, how come your pies don't sell any better than anyone else's? Suppose you try to ingratiate yourself with the blind king by baking him a wonderful pie, how come you don't get a bonus on your Diplomacy check?

If there's a baking contest and you take part, what determines whether you win or lose? If you lose, why, since yours are the best pies in the world? If you win, what if another PC has (unknown to you) bet money on your winning? If I were in a party with this self-proclaimed uber-baker, I'd damn well bet money on him in a baking contest, and if he lost I'd want to know how the hell that happened.
I already said that it's the business of the player to justify to the DM why their flavor doesn't have anything in the way of mechanical influence (and I even gave specific examples for the "uber-baker", such as massive time/ingredient cost or even the lack of desire on the character's part to actually perform the baking he's capable of). If you as a DM would reject this particular bit of flavor as being too implausible or difficult to keep away from intruding on mechanical issues, go ahead, you don't have to allow flavor that doesn't make much sense. But certainly something more in the line of an amateur baker who makes the odd cake or pastry for the party and doesn't make any profit off of it doesn't strike me as something that needs to be cracked down on.


Your approach is based on the faulty assumption that the baker's skill will never have any impact on any crunch-related aspect of the game, and that just isn't so. Everything has potential to affect the crunch.
What mechanical effect do blue eyes potentially have? There are certainly some types of flavor that lean closer towards mechanical influence than others, but asserting that every described element of a character must have some potential mechanical influence (and thus must be quantified and accounted for) is bunk.


If you play a high elf and declare that you've got black skin, white hair, and red eyes, you're going to be facing a lot more Hostile NPCs and a lot fewer Friendly and Helpful ones. You just got what amounts to a massive Diplomacy penalty, based purely on "fluff" details. Conversely, a drow with pale skin, black hair, and blue eyes would get what amounted to a huge Diplomacy bonus.
Default hostility or friendliness towards a character based on their appearance is a story and/or setting component and thus an element of flavor, not mechanics.


The reason I don't make players justify their characters' hair, skin, and eye color with some kind of mechanic is that in most cases, hair, skin, and eye color are "neutral" modifiers. A character with green eyes does not have a substantial advantage over a character with blue. In the case of the high elf with the black skin and white hair, I'd still allow that because being a drow look-alike is more of a disadvantage than it is an advantage. However, if somebody wanted to play a drow who looked like a high elf, I'd require some sort of game-mechanical price for that*, since looking like a drow is one of the built-in drawbacks of being a drow.

*Actually, I'd probably house-rule that the game-mechanical price is "You paid 2 character levels for a net +4 stats and a little SR, you sorry bastard." But that's just because drow are horribly underpowered.
By the SRD, drow don't suffer diplomacy penalties. If you give them the Forgotten Realms flavor, then sure, they're going to run into a lot of hostile people. If you're running a different campaign setting with entirely different flavor, then their SRD rules still work just fine, and don't suffer from any sudden imbalance. If a certain type of flavor creates more favorable story situations in the campaign you're running than you want them to have, that's fine, restrict it. But that has nothing at all to do with the inherent and definitional separation of flavor from mechanics.


Now, being the best baker in the world? That's a significant advantage. It opens up a whole lot of options for your character. If you want that advantage, I'm going to require you to pay something for it, unless you can come up with a very convincing in-game explanation for how you can never derive any mechanical benefit whatsoever from this wondrous talent.
Being the best baker in the world under specific conditions that prevent them from getting any mechanical benefit from it? No, that really doesn't open up any mechanical advantage for a player character.


You could say that you were the best baker in the world, but someone slipped poison into the pie you made for the king and you nearly got executed for regicide. Now you can't so much as knead dough without messing it up, and the smell of flour makes you break out in a cold sweat. I'd be fine with that; it'd be a cool bit of backstory, and it doesn't provide you with a substantial in-game advantage. And if you someday decide to dump 20 ranks into Craft (Baker)--hey, the baker's got his groove back!
And that is... exactly the kind of flavor I'm talking about. You could cry out "Hey, that's still an advantage, because surely they can use hirelings to do all the physical work for them and dictate instructions and blah blah blah etc.," but that would be ignoring the player's responsibility to keep their flavor out of the mechanical realm if they want non-mechanical flavor in the first place.


But if you actually are the best baker in the world, that's too big an advantage to just hand-wave it.
Both your terrified baker and an extremely apathetic baker (who's still physically and mentally capable of doing the work but now finds it as enjoyable as pulling teeth) are functionally identical. Their still-existent baking skills will have no mechanical impact on the game, only some potential influence on roleplaying and story. The only difference is their motivations. You're free to find one more allowable than the other, but both are still matters of flavor.

[Dhavaer]

Infinitesimal levels of damage absorption are not among those concerns (should you check to see if the plant is in a "dying" state?).

I fairly sure that plants are considered objects (they don't have Wisdom and Charisma scores) and so would be destroyed on reaching 0hp.

[Zincorium]

I've just gotta ask, since the baker thing has gone round and round and round:

Does anyone actually play with (meaning, has not kicked out or otherwise shunned) a player who does something analogous to claiming their character is the greatest baker, puts no points into craft or profession in those areas, and absolutely refuses to alter either of them?

Seriously, on the surface this guy appears to be the most battered straw man I've ever seen. If it's not a bizarre theoretical situation gone horribly wrong, and instead represents an actual subset of people who play, then I'll recant. I do, however, reserve the right to make fun of them if that's the case.

[Saph]

Does anyone actually play with (meaning, has not kicked out or otherwise shunned) a player who does something analogous to claiming their character is the greatest baker, puts no points into craft or profession in those areas, and absolutely refuses to alter either of them?

Seriously, on the surface this guy appears to be the most battered straw man I've ever seen. If it's not a bizarre theoretical situation gone horribly wrong, and instead represents an actual subset of people who play, then I'll recant. I do, however, reserve the right to make fun of them if that's the case.

I think it's just that several people are saying that you should be allowed to play like that, ie that crunch and fluff should be completely divorceable.

It's not as much of a straw man as it looks, because how you answer that is going to determine how you resolve any situation where a player wants to do something mechanically that makes no sense story- and flavour-wise.

And I think Dausuul put it pretty well. It makes absolutely no sense to decide that the D&D rules should apply to stuff like combat, but shouldn't apply to flavour stuff, because there's no way to separate the two. Unless you're playing Diablo, story and flavour will have a real big impact on the kind of combats you get into.

- Saph

[PnP Fan]

Zinc,
I think we had a kid who did something like that once, and we didn't boot him over it. He eventually left because, well he was 17, and the next youngest person was 23-ish. The kid just didn't fit in well with the rest of us, mostly because of maturity level. I know, I know, it seems a bit silly to bring up "maturity" when one is essentially talking about a complex game of pretend, but it's the truth.

[Dhavaer]

Unless you're playing Diablo, story and flavour will have a real big impact on the kind of combats you get into.

I don't know. Some of the monster in Diablo 2 are quite well integrated into the story of the area they appear in. (example: Corrupted Rogues in Act 1) :smallwink:


I know, I know, it seems a bit silly to bring up "maturity" when one is essentially talking about a complex game of pretend, but it's the truth.

I would submit that maturity is more important in a game of Let's Pretend than in most other games.

[Saph]

I would submit that maturity is more important in a game of Let's Pretend than in most other games.

Seconded. :)

- Saph

[Sir Giacomo]

For the Bears-Grr discussion (and let me tell you how funny that looks on my screen ;-):
I'm not entirely sure that I agree with either position entirely, and quite frankly, I got tired of reading around page 2 or 3, and wanted to go ahead and put up my own 2cp.

Completely in agreement with PnP Fan here (and the following analysis)!
Optimisation=knowledge of rules is there to get a character concept through in the best way you would want to; in the framework of a) the rules (could be also a different system than DD3.5) and b) in agreement with everyone else at the table. It's quite simple, really.
This covers the purely fluff/DM on the wing-group having fun as well as the number-crunching/dungeoncrawl/combat group with RAW DM having fun. And everything in between.*

- Giacomo

*Actually "Munchkinism" can exist in both extreme worlds, since it means nothing but "trying to win the game" with whatever means were agreed to beforehand, which is against the spirit of both games above.
In a numbercrunching game, it is the obvious, more known concept of a Munchkin with uber character builds dealing 1,000 damage/round at 10th level and having "auto-win" wizards etc. AND this resulting in a character by far better than everyone else's (stealing their fun, since they "lose").
In a fluff game, it is the player trying to capture the attention of the DM with an effort to catch the spotlight and tries to win this way at the expense of everyone else's fun.

[Dausuul]

There's a reason I was talking about the HP of a twig rather than ease of hitting. In high-pressure situations, the ability to reliably hit a small target is modeled by D&D's mechanical concerns. Infinitesimal levels of damage absorption are not among those concerns (should you check to see if the plant is in a "dying" state?). I'm really not talking about any physical case, I'm talking about principles for handling subjects and items that simply aren't modelled by the D&D mechanical system and have no relevance to it.

Just because it's not explicitly modelled in the D&D mechanics doesn't mean no mechanics are possible for it. The D&D system is open-ended; part of DMing is figuring out how to extend the rules on the fly to cover these odd situations. In the case of the twig, it's a simple extension: If you make your attack roll to hit the twig, then the twig breaks, no matter what you get on your damage roll. Theoretically, somebody might cast a spell on the twig to give it hardness 10, in which case you'd have to do 10 points of damage to break it.


I already said that it's the business of the player to justify to the DM why their flavor doesn't have anything in the way of mechanical influence (and I even gave specific examples for the "uber-baker", such as massive time/ingredient cost or even the lack of desire on the character's part to actually perform the baking he's capable of). If you as a DM would reject this particular bit of flavor as being too implausible or difficult to keep away from intruding on mechanical issues, go ahead, you don't have to allow flavor that doesn't make much sense. But certainly something more in the line of an amateur baker who makes the odd cake or pastry for the party and doesn't make any profit off of it doesn't strike me as something that needs to be cracked down on.

Then perhaps this is a bad example. If a character wants to be an amateur baker, that's fine; nobody says you have to be good at something to be an amateur at it. And even a lousy baker's efforts might seem pretty good after a month in the wilderness living off wild herbs and half-raw deer meat.

What I'm saying, I guess, is that I can't see any reasonable way to explain how a character can make pastries that are good when the party eats them, but suddenly go horribly bad whenever money or NPC gourmands are involved.


What mechanical effect do blue eyes potentially have? There are certainly some types of flavor that lean closer towards mechanical influence than others, but asserting that every described element of a character must have some potential mechanical influence (and thus must be quantified and accounted for) is bunk.

Of course I'm not saying every described element must be quantified and accounted for. What I am saying is that if something is going to give a character a significant in-game advantage, that needs to be considered and the character shouldn't get it free of charge. For blue eyes: Say there's a major NPC who has a thing for blue-eyed women. Any female PC with blue eyes should then get a circumstance bonus on her Diplomacy checks when dealing with that NPC. But because that's a very rare situation, it's not worth putting a price on it.

I think where we differ is that you're arguing there are some aspects of the game that are pure fluff, and others that are pure crunch, whereas I believe there is no such distinction. Everything in the game is both fluff and crunch. Whenever a character tries to do something and the outcome is in doubt, the DM applies the rules to determine what happens. If the rules do not explicitly cover this situation, the DM extrapolates from the existing rules--circumstance bonuses, related skills, modified saving throws, ability checks, whatever.

Of course, in some cases the DM might override the rules entirely in the interests of story, but that's a different question and not at issue here.


Default hostility or friendliness towards a character based on their appearance is a story and/or setting component and thus an element of flavor, not mechanics.

Again--no such distinction. If you look like a drow, lots of NPCs are going to be Hostile when you meet them. If you don't, they won't. Hostility is in the rules. Hence, there is a mechanical consequence to looking like a drow, even if it's not explicitly spelled out in the race's stats.


By the SRD, drow don't suffer diplomacy penalties. If you give them the Forgotten Realms flavor, then sure, they're going to run into a lot of hostile people. If you're running a different campaign setting with entirely different flavor, then their SRD rules still work just fine, and don't suffer from any sudden imbalance.

Actually, that's a flaw in the rules and a significant balancing factor. If everybody hates drow, then a PC drow is going to have to adopt disguises and illusions in order to take part in any adventure that happens in a city or town. I'd probably give the drow some small benefit to make up for that.

Of course, drow need a huge mechanical boost anyhow.

[SpiderBrigade]

I think it's just that several people are saying that you should be allowed to play like that, ie that crunch and fluff should be completely divorceable.

It's not as much of a straw man as it looks, because how you answer that is going to determine how you resolve any situation where a player wants to do something mechanically that makes no sense story- and flavour-wise.It's not so much the "flavor and crunch should be divorcable" part of that example that's a straw man. It's the "Be the best baker in the world" part. When someone says you don't need ranks in Craft: Tasty Pies to bake a tasty pie, they're not talking about epic god-enticing superpies. They're talking about the kind of pie *I* could bake, in my kitchen, right now, if I wanted to. I can take 10 and bake a pie that people would enjoy eating. Could I win a pie-baking competition? Probably not unless I "rolled well" and outdid my usual level of skill.

Similarly, the point is not that the rules on skills should be disregarded all the time. They should be used when they are relevant. When you're in a pie-baking competition, you need to refer to the skill ranks. Mr. Baker NPC with 6 ranks will probably beat you. BUT, if you're entertaining your fellow PCS in your private stronghold and decide to make a pie for them, there is no point in saying "you cannot bake a tasty pie, you have no ranks in piecrafting."

The question of "dramatic weight" is also vital here. Is baking pies really more important to your character concept than your newfound calling as a warrior monk seeking to drive out the forces of darkness? Really? Then why aren't you taking levels in Expert so you can really boost those skill ranks? Again, we're not talking about a backstory that says "I am the world's greatest baker!" That would require some crunch backup because you'd have to prove you were better than any other baker. What is meant is a backstory more like "before I took up the blade, I liked to bake a tasty pie. I probably still could bake one."

Furthermore, why is this entire argument getting bogged down on "I put skill ranks in this fluff-centered profession skill," anyway? Except for one or two specific cases (diplomancers, certain rogue concepts) skill ranks are NOT a central ingredient for making your character good at things. You don't realy sacrifice much by putting ranks in Craft: Whittling instead of Use Rope, when you're a fighter with 2+INT skills per level. You're not going to be a Use Rope Master anyway.

If you're a rogue, and instead of boosting up Search and Disable Device you put ranks in Craft: Scrimshaw and Profession: Sailor, you'll never be a good trapfinder. Which is FINE, but your character concept of "I am a master seaman, skilled at delicate carving" is not somehow superior to "I am a master trapfinder, skilled at deft disarming." Similarly "I am the master baker, with 16 ranks in Craft: Pies" is in no way superior to "I am the shrewd liar, with 16 ranks in Bluff," as far as character concepts go.

And this is where we run right into the Storwind Fallacy again. Taking a bunch of skills that make you a really crappy rogue (because you haven't invested any ranks in your class skills) doesn't make you a better roleplayer. You're just playing a different character concept, one that is really good at a bunch of things that are basically useless in any normal D&D game. If all that matters to your character is being awesome at scrimshaw, sailing, and brewing grog, why are you adventuring again? If you're caught up in a quest to rid the world of evil or whatever, wouldn't you, completely in character, think of getting better at some skills to help you do that? You know, get past the arch-villain's evil traps and put a stop to him, instead of being KILLED by the traps, because you have spent all your skill points since level 1 on arts and crafts?

Aaaaand we're back to the "real" example as opposed to the strawman. NO skill-based-class player is going to put 18 ranks in nothing but Profession: and Craft: skills. That's the strawman. Meanwhile, a character with, say, 2 ranks in a few crafts and professions is not "anti-optimized."

On another note (and I realize this post is going to be so long that no one will read it) why do the same people yelling about "roleplay is more important than mechanics" get so hung up on the idea that certain class equals a certain archetype? How many times have we seen the "well, I'm a basic Fighter but because of my backstory I'm really very weak, so I rely on my agility and cunning to succeed in combat" model of character building? At some point, guess what, a Fighter-the-class might not be the best choice for representing that concept. How about picking a class that actually works better if you're dextrous? Similarly, "I am a righteous warrior of good!" does not mean you have to be a Paladin. It really doesn't. Just about ANY class could fit that concept. As you flesh out the personality, you'll see which classes let you be good at what you want to be good at. That's NOT bad role-playing. Because I said so.

[Saph]

And this is where we run right into the Storwind Fallacy again. Taking a bunch of skills that make you a really crappy rogue (because you haven't invested any ranks in your class skills) doesn't make you a better roleplayer.

But it does mean that you're willing to make an effort to make your character's stats match his background, at least to some degree. And it means that you have some concept of the character that goes beyond 'rogue'. You see, one of the defining traits of munchkins and combat wombats is that they're unwilling to sacrifice any degree of mechanical effectiveness, no matter how small the cost.

So while having non-combat skills doesn't make you a better roleplayer, on simple statistical probabilities it does mean you're more likely to be a better roleplayer. This is why I've always thought the 'Stormwind Fallacy' is a bit dishonest.

- Saph

[Vyker]

And this is where we run right into the Stormwind Fallacy again. Taking a bunch of skills that make you a really crappy rogue (because you haven't invested any ranks in your class skills) doesn't make you a better roleplayer.


But it does mean that you're willing to make an effort to make your character's stats match his background, at least to some degree.

Doesn't that presume that there exists a mismatch between stats and background in the first place? Isn't it possible to have an interesting character with no "dump skills" whose player is a good roleplayer? Say, a monk who never saw the outside world, and was trained only to fight. You could play them as very naive and unable to deal with cities or large crowds, or maybe very unconcerned for the thoughts of others who behaves like a bull in a china shop because he doesn't know any better, or something. That strikes me as a perfectly legitimate character concept.

Does tossing one skill point at a "dump skill" make for a better roleplayer? Two? Three?

The answer: There is no magic threshold.

Now, to be fair, you do touch on this by saying "So while having non-combat skills doesn't make you a better roleplayer, on simple statistical probabilities it does mean you're more likely to be a better roleplayer." You admit that there is a difference. I recognize that. I disagree with the statistical bit, largely because it's a reference to evidence which neither you nor I nor anyone here (I presume) can actually prove, but I still recognize that you admit the difference.

However, I think we can all conjure up the horror story example. The roleplayer who's so self-absorbed in his intricately-craft backstory that he hogs the limelight or can't accomodate the needs and goals of the party. The twink who constantly harangues the other players about how terrible their characters are.

But we should really steer clear of that sort of thing. We've all seen bad gamers (and if you haven't, hats off to you!). We know they're bad. And let's face it, for whatever reason they're bad, I don't think anyone has any desire to play with them one moment longer than is necessary. So what does it prove to use them as examples?

Moreover, equating character build with player skill, ability, or inclination isn't going to get anybody anywhere. At best, you might get lucky. On the other hand, you might be wrong. An RP-optimized character (full ranks in decorative cake frosting!) does not mean that the player will be good at roleplaying. A combat-optimized character can still have a player who roleplays well. Where you put your skills, stats, feats, gear, and spells is less important -- in terms of roleplaying -- than what you do with your character and how you, the player, behave.

I like dump skills. I find them fun and flavorful, and to me, they're not dump skills at all, even if I can never find an in-game use for them which contributes to The Problem facing the party. But it is neither proof nor indicative of a "better roleplayer" to start throwing skills, feats, spells, money, or anything else at something which has no bearing on the game. It can help. It is not guaranteed. And, like most things in D&D, it can also hinder. It's all in how you use it.

You can synergize both roleplaying and optimizing. It is not bad. It does not make you a worse person to be good at something, just as it does not make you a worse person to explain why you're good at it. It is my opinion, personal and subject to failure and ridicule though it may be, that games are best when they feature both and feature both well.

--

P.S. Does anyone else find it amusing that we have people trying to twink out a twinkie?

[PnP Fan]

Twink a twinkie :-) . . lol.

Just a minor point, the origin, as I recall, of the whole baker example was that the character concept included (not restricted to) that the character was a baker, as in a professional baker who made his living that way. Not the gawds Gift to the Pastry, nor Some Guy That Likes to Bake at Home. It's in between, neither twinked, nor twiddled. The idea is that you are claiming proficiency in something, so the character sheet should reflect this. And the logic should be applicable to any skill, not just the RP skills, last time I checked they all cost the same, and so should have equal value in game. Yet, I think everyone on this thread would balk if I said my character is a skilled rider (note: not a Great Rider, nor unskilled), but didn't put points in the Ride skill. Why should Craft: Tasty Stuff be treated differently? Is there a double standard? The rules don't indicate this.
I fail to see what any of this has to do with the stormwind fallacy (which, I understand to mean the idea that number crunchers are bad RP'ers, and good RP'ers don't number crunch). It has more to do with the character sheet matching the words coming out of the player's mouth.

[JaronK]

Here's what's being missed in the baker example, which is a complete derail and not relevant at all (and Spider noticed this too):

A character who is a baker is not necessarily better roleplayed than a character who is not. The baker character simply doesn't fit as well within the goals of a standard D&D game. A different character, who perhaps spent his time as a lumberjack and thus is good with an axe, could be just as interesting a character, if played by a decent player, and his skills would likely be more relevant (good skills with an axe, for example).

The fact that you put some skill points into baking does not make you a good roleplayer. In fact, all it says is that you made a character who, in some way, likely does not fit in the campaign as well as another character you could have made. Unless of course the campaign somehow requires baking, in which case you have in fact optomized him (oh no, the world is going to end... we need a pie, stat!)

Imagine, if you will, a play. The play is Romeo and Juliet. Since Shakespeare does not normally discuss the background of his characters, the actors in question must come up with appropriate backstories. The actor playing Romeo decides to exactly match the play with his thoughts about Romeo. He decides that Romeo had an older brother who died in a duel, which makes Romeo very sensitive about swordplay. He also decides that he is somewhat lonely, due to his mother not paying attention to him, so he has a subconscious need to be attached to a woman, any woman. He then lets these little things about his life guide his playing of the role. It puts a little more emotion and need in his attempts to woo Juliet, for example, and makes Mercutio's death that much more tragic.

The actress who plays Juliet, meanwhile, decides that Juliet is alergic to shellfish. Deathly so. She's absolutely terrified of shellfish. This of course has little to no impact on the main storyline of the play, which is about duels and romance and death. However, she recoils away from a table of food that the audience can't see during the party scene.

Juliet thinks that because she put something in the backstory which was totally different from anything in the play, that she is a better actor. Shellfish alergies really have little to do with plots about death and romance (unless someone dies of shellfish poisoning, but that doesn't happen in Romeo and Juliet). Her choice, in fact, is not fitting. Perhaps it's fine for her to decide to have that little quirk in her thoughts about Juliet, but having her get scared by a plate of food at a party, with no other relevance to the plot, actually distracts the audience and damages the telling of the play.

This is the situation at hand here. D&D games are sometimes about high fantasy, or world saving heroics. Sometimes, horror and survival. Perhaps they're about a quest for meaning. Who knows. It depends on the DM. But a Fighter is advancing the story when he's fighting. A wizard is advancing the story when he's casting his spells. If the fighter is messing about cooking when the rest of the party is trying to come up with a plan to stop the rampaging dragon, that's actually a problem.

The point here is that optomizing a character to fit within the story, which is really what powergaming is, can often be helpful. Randomly throwing in skill points in Profession: Pastry Chef is a distraction at best and a liability at worst. If your rogue, who was expected to deal with the traps, took a bunch of points in various baking skills instead of search, he's not moving the story along in a productive way.

And in either case, it doesn't make the rogue's player a better roleplayer.

JaronK

[Saph]

The point here is that optomizing a character to fit within the story, which is really what powergaming is, can often be helpful.

Yes.


Randomly throwing in skill points in Profession: Pastry Chef is a distraction at best and a liability at worst.

No it isn't. It's simply false to say that any character who isn't 100% uber-combat-optimised is a 'distraction' or a 'liability' to the party. By your standards, just about every one of the ordinary D&D characters I see in my groups would be a 'distraction' or 'liability', because they're half-optimised at best. And yet, it doesn't spoil the game or our combats. Why do you think that is?


If your rogue, who was expected to deal with the traps, took a bunch of points in various baking skills instead of search, he's not moving the story along in a productive way.

This is a real straw man that you guys are setting up here. When did I, or anyone else, say that the best way to make a good character is to gimp them as completely as possible? I suggested that you sink a few skill points in your background, if you have it. Rogues have a minimum starting total of THIRTY-TWO skill points, for crying out loud. You're seriously telling me sparing two or three of those is going to make your character ineffective? No? Then why does the 'totally ineffective character' keep getting brought up, when no-one's advocating it?


And in either case, it doesn't make the rogue's player a better roleplayer.

Straw man again. It doesn't make you a better roleplayer, it's the kind of thing that good roleplayers do, because good roleplayers usually try and come up with some kind of distinctive personality and story for their characters, and usually try and reflect it to some degree in their character sheet. Without making their characters totally ineffective.

- Saph

[The Glyphstone]

Yes.


[quote]
No it isn't. It's simply false to say that any character who isn't 100% uber-combat-optimised is a 'distraction' or a 'liability' to the party. By your standards, just about every one of the ordinary D&D characters I see in my groups would be a 'distraction' or 'liability', because they're half-optimised at best. And yet, it doesn't spoil the game or our combats. Why do you think that is?


Because when everyone is "non-optimized", then the problem is removed. Everyone is equally "distracting" or "liable", thus there's still balance, everyone's important, and necessary for success. The spoiling problem comes when 5 of them are cool, balanced, interesting, fun characters but not "optimized", while #6 is a cool, interesting, fun Batman McWizard who renders the entire remaining party redundant because he was optimized out the ***.



This is a real straw man that you guys are setting up here. When did I, or anyone else, say that the best way to make a good character is to gimp them as completely as possible? I suggested that you sink a few skill points in your background, if you have it. Rogues have a minimum starting total of THIRTY-TWO skill points, for crying out loud. You're seriously telling me sparing two or three of those is going to make your character ineffective? No? Then why does the 'totally ineffective character' keep getting brought up, when no-one's advocating it?


Two or three of them, no...but if that 1st lvl rogue has 4 ranks in Craft(Whittling), 4 in Craft (Furniture), 4 in Profession (Lumberjack), 4 in Profession (Storekeep), 4 in Diplomacy, 4 in Craft (Construction Materials) and 2 (cross-class) in Knowledge: Architecture and Engineering, then yes, he's a totally ineffective character. Though he may be a terrific builder, capable of crafting an entire house very quickly and cheaply, he's going to be almost useless in a dungeon.

"The best way to make a character is to gimp them as completely as Possible" - is the Stormwind Fallacy. The "character" above (who is ridiculous, and would never be played by anyone with even a fragment of sense), under the SF, would be vastly superior to the 1st lvl Rogue with ranks in UMD/Open Lock/Disable Device/Etc.

[Zincorium]

No it isn't. It's simply false to say that any character who isn't 100% uber-combat-optimised is a 'distraction' or a 'liability' to the party. By your standards, just about every one of the ordinary D&D characters I see in my groups would be a 'distraction' or 'liability', because they're half-optimised at best. And yet, it doesn't spoil the game or our combats. Why do you think that is?

You're swinging it around 180 degrees and charging off in the opposite direction with a full head of steam.

What use is profession: baker in a life-threatening conflict with armed opponents? None. Seriously. Only with characters who have the leeway and opportunity to develop those skills without fear of death would reasonably do so as the campaign progressed.

For a modern example: you are lost in the woods with a few other hikers, miles from civilization, and must work quickly to ensure your mutual survival. Even if you are a world-famous painter, continuing to improve your skills when there is so much left to be done might very well get you killed, possibly by the other people who's survival is threatened by your use of time and materials that could be used better elsewhere. Being an adept painter may well make you a better member of society in the larger world, but in that microcosm it makes you a liability unless you rapidly shift your priorities.

Any of the profession or craft skills can be like that, and it all depends on the campaign. Taking craft: woodcarving as a skill is almost never a bad thing unless it's at the expense of more commonly used skills (such as concentration for a wizard). It may provide a hook that you use to develop your character's personality (although in my book that's not a very interesting trait to base a character off of). However, in a campaign where your survival is repeatedly threatened by, say, traps, and you know that no one else has the skills to deal with them, your character would be very stupid to not maximize those skills which will let him survive over those which will earn him a bit of silver and provide recreation once the adventure is over. Not to say you can't play a stupid character, but the rest should rightly replace you for someone who can help their survival better.

[Saph]

Two or three of them, no...but if that 1st lvl rogue has 4 ranks in Craft(Whittling), 4 in Craft (Furniture), 4 in Profession (Lumberjack), 4 in Profession (Storekeep), 4 in Diplomacy, 4 in Craft (Construction Materials) and 2 (cross-class) in Knowledge: Architecture and Engineering, then yes, he's a totally ineffective character. Though he may be a terrific builder, capable of crafting an entire house very quickly and cheaply, he's going to be almost useless in a dungeon.

No-one is doing this. No-one is advocating doing this. No-one is even talking about doing this, except for the people making these ridiculous straw man arguments. I suggested sinking two or three skill points. TWO OR THREE.

This is getting tedious. Every time I enter one of these optimisation debates and come down even the tiniest bit on the side of non-optimisation, then without fail, within a page or two I'll re-open the thread to find someone telling me that what I'm really saying is that you should all be playing comatose, retarded, paraplegic kobolds and that anyone who doesn't gimp their character is a bad RPer.


"The best way to make a character is to gimp them as completely as Possible" - is the Stormwind Fallacy. The "character" above (who is ridiculous, and would never be played by anyone with even a fragment of sense), under the SF, would be vastly superior to the 1st lvl Rogue with ranks in UMD/Open Lock/Disable Device/Etc.

I'm getting sick to the back teeth of this 'Stormwind Fallacy'. It's become a mantra that's repeated even when it has no relevance to the discussion. I'm seriously starting to think about writing a post on everything that's wrong with the 'Stormwind Fallacy', just to shake up the people who keep quoting it at me and expecting me to take it as absolute truth.

- Saph

PS, Zinc - yes. If your campaign is pure combat, then it does make no sense to be improving your non-combat skills. But most campaigns aren't pure combat, and it's not much of a stretch to say that your character might have spent a while as something other than an adventurer/soldier. Either way, though, it generally makes sense to improve the skills you're using, not the ones you're not.

[Zincorium]

No-one is doing this. No-one is advocating doing this. No-one is even talking about doing this, except for the people making these ridiculous straw man arguments. I suggested sinking two or three skill points. TWO OR THREE.


And two or three of them was a flat 'no, it would not be a problem'. It's in his post, trust me.



This is getting tedious. Every time I enter one of these optimisation debates and come down even the tiniest bit on the side of non-optimisation, then without fail, within a page or two I'll re-open the thread to find someone telling me that what I'm really saying is that you should all be playing comatose, retarded, paraplegic kobolds and that anyone who doesn't gimp their character is a bad RPer.


I have not seen this. Except as a clearly labeled joke. The point is, you are optimizing if you do not play those characters. You have decided that those are not something you want to play because they are, simply put, too pathetic to be in a dungeon at all. You are not completely optimizing, or even going very far, but you are to some extent, because you have taken the bad options, the paraplegic kobolds to use your example, compared it to a character with some use, and chosen the useful one that is in fact more optimized.

You can't be truly anti-optimization without saying everyone should play characters with no utility, no purpose, and no reason to live. The presence of any of those gets a character much closer to optimal. That you restrict the level of optimization that you feel is appropriate does not make you non-optimalist (yes, I'm just making up words here). No one I've ever seen is truly anti-optimization, although some like Grr are incredibly antagonistic and bigoted about what degree of optimization is acceptable and labels anyone beyond his as munchkins.



I'm getting sick to the back teeth of this 'Stormwind Fallacy'. It's become a mantra that's repeated even when it has no relevance to the discussion. I'm seriously starting to think about writing a post on everything that's wrong with the 'Stormwind Fallacy', just to shake up the people who keep quoting it at me and expecting me to take it as absolute truth.


Because it doesn't mean what you think it means. I am a person who does optimize. I make fighters who can fight well, wizards who have a good selection of spells, optimized.

If the stormwind fallacy was not a fallacy, I would have to be a bad roleplayer for this to be true. Now, am I? My group certainly doesn't think so. I've gotten compliments on a character idea on these boards.

The other side of it is just as easy to understand if you don't freak out and misconstrue it.

Do you not like over-optimizing (which is always subjective)? Fine. You have a preference. But tell me this, straight and true, is it because you have that preference that you have the roleplaying skill you do?

Or is it completely independent?

I think it's the latter. Unless you have a mental block on it all, I'd guess that if you were handed a character sheet that was optimized, you'd still be able to figure out a way to create a colorful backstory and interesting personality that you could have fun with. If the character's build being good makes the game less fun for you, that would be sad. It really would.

If it isn't that way, the stormwind fallacy remains unchallenged. You, me, anyone on this board, has an ability to roleplay. It's not a derivative of whether or not we optimize to the same extent. It just is. That's all the stormwind fallacy is really talking about.

[Artemician]

@Saph, I agree mostly with what you are saying, but I'm a little confused about your beef with the Stormwind Fallacy.

In my understanding, the Stormwind Fallacy simply states that comatose, retarded, paraplegic kobolds are not better RPers than well-played wizards. I do not see anything wrong with that statement.

[Saph]

And two or three of them was a flat 'no, it would not be a problem'. It's in his post, trust me.

But then he segued straight into this ridiculous example of the woodcarver-shopkeeper, and presented it as a counter-example. So:


I have not seen this. Except as a clearly labeled joke.

If that wasn't what he was saying, what was he saying? Why have you written a long post justifying optimisation when I wasn't saying that optimisation was a bad thing in the first place?

The reason I'm irritated is that I started off this argument saying that if a character is supposed to have a background skill, then they should have a few skill points in it. That was it. Nothing else. And yet, now we're talking about 'Woody the Unable-To-Dungeon-Crawl Woodcarver'. Right in the very first post I made I said that I would never ask a player to do anything that would actually gimp their character - yet, the argument's now revolving around having to gimp your characters. It's really annoying. If you want to defend optimisation, find someone who's anti-optimisation to argue against!

- Saph

[Zincorium]

If that wasn't what he was saying, what was he saying? Why have you written a long post justifying optimisation when I wasn't saying that optimisation was a bad thing in the first place?

He was probably saying that it's a bad idea to go that far, and anything that doesn't go anywhere near that far is good.

Him: A few skillpoints in non-combat stuff is fine, don't go beyond that. That would suck

You: A few skillpoints in non-combat stuff is fine, why is everyone saying anything about anything else?

I was defending the use of the stormwind fallacy in my last post, since you seem to have a severe, and as far as I can see, unjustified hatred of it's mention.

Bad arguments are endemic in this thread, on BOTH sides. I've called this out already. The bad arguments are actually products of people committing this stormwind fallacy you rant against, I find it ironic that you simultaneously condemn people who claim that roleplayers want everyone to suck and a school of thought which says they're wrong in the same manner you do.

[Saph]

I was defending the use of the stormwind fallacy in my last post, since you seem to have a severe, and as far as I can see, unjustified hatred of it's mention.

Because this is the second time within three days that I've had it quoted against me when it had little to no relevance to what I was talking about (check out Scorpina's thread for the first one). Maybe that's unjustified, maybe not, but I'm certainly getting sick of the way it's used.

- Saph

[Dausuul]

Because this is the second time within three days that I've had it quoted against me when it had little to no relevance to what I was talking about (check out Scorpina's thread for the first one). Maybe that's unjustified, maybe not, but I'm certainly getting sick of the way it's used.

- Saph

I agree with Saph. It's irritating when someone responds to a post saying, in short, "Two or three ranks in background skills is often a good thing, and a willingness to spare a few ranks for background skills is often a sign of a good RPer" by saying:


Two or three of them, no...but if that 1st lvl rogue has 4 ranks in Craft(Whittling), 4 in Craft (Furniture), 4 in Profession (Lumberjack), 4 in Profession (Storekeep), 4 in Diplomacy, 4 in Craft (Construction Materials) and 2 (cross-class) in Knowledge: Architecture and Engineering, then yes, he's a totally ineffective character. Though he may be a terrific builder, capable of crafting an entire house very quickly and cheaply, he's going to be almost useless in a dungeon.No one had brought up Architect-Boy here, so why are we talking about him? Sure, he's a total loss as an adventurer. Sure, it's not fair to the other PCs to play such a character in a dungeon crawl, nor does it make any sense that such a character would be dungeon crawling to begin with. But nobody was arguing this point, not even Grr.

Thus, Architect-Boy is a straw man, and the Stormwind Fallacy is not relevant in this particular spin-off discussion. It is relevant to what Grr was saying a few pages back, but that debate seems to have died down.

[Indon]

@Saph, I agree mostly with what you are saying, but I'm a little confused about your beef with the Stormwind Fallacy.

In my understanding, the Stormwind Fallacy simply states that comatose, retarded, paraplegic kobolds are not better RPers than well-played wizards. I do not see anything wrong with that statement.

I think I know, I have a similar problem with people who cite it.

The Stormwind Fallacy means that powergaming, munchkining, min-maxing, whatever you like to call it, does not neccessarily decrease the quality of roleplaying for that character or campaign. This is perfectly sensible, a case of correlation =/= causation.

The problem is when you take it to mean that it doesn't decrease the quality of roleplaying for any characters or campaigns. It can and does, it just doesn't always do so. Bad roleplaying is not neccessarily CAUSED by powergaming, but it is strongly LINKED to powergaming, and powergaming has the POTENTIAL to cause bad roleplaying.

Or, in other words, there are many people who can't roleplay and powergame at once. I'd go so far as to say the people who can create a mechanically powerful AND interesting character are far less common than those who can't, though of course there is no meaningful data on the subject. To commit the Stormwind Fallacy is simply to say that such people don't exist at all.

[Dausuul]

I think I know, I have a similar problem with people who cite it.

The Stormwind Fallacy means that powergaming, munchkining, min-maxing, whatever you like to call it, does not neccessarily decrease the quality of roleplaying for that character or campaign. This is perfectly sensible, a case of correlation =/= causation.

The problem is when you take it to mean that it doesn't decrease the quality of roleplaying for any characters or campaigns. It can and does, it just doesn't always do so. Bad roleplaying is not neccessarily CAUSED by powergaming, but it is strongly LINKED to powergaming, and powergaming has the POTENTIAL to cause bad roleplaying.

Or, in other words, there are many people who can't roleplay and powergame at once. I'd go so far as to say the people who can create a mechanically powerful AND interesting character are far less common than those who can't, though of course there is no meaningful data on the subject. To commit the Stormwind Fallacy is simply to say that such people don't exist at all.

Actually, the Stormwind Fallacy does not mention powergaming or munchkining, except in a parenthetical side comment. It does speak to optimization, which is a different issue. Putting points in background skills is not a non-optimal choice, because part of your objective in creating the character is to be good at those background skills and putting ranks in them is generally the best way to do that (compared to, say, blowing a feat on Skill Focus). It is a non-munchkin choice, because munchkins don't have background skills.

This is not to imply that anyone who does not put points in non-adventuring background skills is a munchkin; only that anyone who does put points in such skills is probably not a munchkin.

The original "Stormwind Fallacy" post:


The Stormwind Fallacy, aka the Roleplayer vs Rollplayer Fallacy
Just because one optimizes his characters mechanically does not mean that they cannot also roleplay, and vice versa.

Corollary: Doing one in a game does not preclude, nor infringe upon, the ability to do the other in the same game.

Generalization 1: One is not automatically a worse roleplayer if he optimizes, and vice versa.
Generalization 2: A non-optimized character is not automatically roleplayed better than an optimized one, and vice versa.

(I admit that there are some diehards on both sides -- the RP fanatics who refuse to optimize as if strong characters were the mark of the Devil and the min/max munchkins who couldn't RP their way out of a paper bag without setting it on fire -- though I see these as extreme examples. The vast majority of people are in between, and thus the generalizations hold. The key word is 'automatically')

Proof: These two elements rely on different aspects of a player's gameplay. Optimization factors in to how well one understands the rules and handles synergies to produce a very effective end result. Roleplaying deals with how well a player can act in character and behave as if he was someone else.
A person can act while understanding the rules, and can build something powerful while still handling an effective character. There is nothing in the game -- mechanical or otherwise -- restricting one if you participate in the other.

Claiming that an optimizer cannot roleplay (or is participating in a playstyle that isn't supportive of roleplaying) because he is an optimizer, or vice versa, is committing the Stormwind Fallacy.

[TRM]

I generally make my character concept (including background, etc..). Then give it the game mechanics, and I don't actively try to make a bad character, but neither do I attempt to be the most powerful character in the universe.
But it's not like I'm going to be a shurikan weilding Barbarian with a 6 dex just because I would be "role-playing more" by being completely inferior. Of course neither will I use 28 splatbooks in order to be invincible.

Not angry,
Not dead,

--Me

[spotmarkedx]

Saph, I think what got everyone's (or at least my own) hackles up in this thread was this:

I start with a concept, based partly on the level the campaign starts at. I choose skills and class based on that concept. *gasp* I even spend my oh so precious skill points on Profession and Craft! OMG! Minmaxxing number crunchers would never do that. No matter how much it adds to the character's overall concept. I'll even spend points in Profession while leveling if it makes sense that that is what the character would do.

Guess what my warrior does in between adventures... he whittles. He sells those figurines. It's a paltry sum compared to what can be acquired adventuring, but it makes me feel better about the character's personality / work ethic / etc.

Yup. Has 10 ranks in craft: woodworking and 10 ranks, profession: carpenter.
emphasis all my own.

So what we have here is was someone advocating having a warrior that makes most of his money adventuring (by admission) with what is probably the majority of his skill points in a craft and profession that have nothing to do with his primary role in the group, i.e. the physical strength-based character in the group.

See on the one hand our warrior has A> the majority of his income, and B> chance of death if his skills are subpar.

On the other hand we have A> something to do while between adventures. B> the chance of someone not buying his work if his skills are subpar. Note that even subconsciosly Grr admitted that this was something done only when he wasn't adventuring, which indicates that he visualized the character focused on the adventure, not the woodworking.

And yet how do we see the skill points spent on leveling? This side job for something to keep busy when there isn't a job in the adventuring life.

This is what we (or at least myself, I cant speak to the others) are calling Stormwind fallacy. Grr was pretty much shoving not "one or two", but 20 skill ranks (for a fighter!) in our face, saying "See! This subobtimal choice is what makes my character a better character!", when in truth, I would hope that the fighter might have a little concern for the typical dangers found in dungeoneering (and thus take jump/climb/swim), or on watch (painfully buy spot/listen crossclass), or other dependant on the storyline. Having such a prime example of it in this thread makes swallowing complaints about the use of the term "Stormwind Fallacy" hard to do.

I personally agree that a skill rank here or there on background skills will have little effect in the long run of a character, and thus is not a horrible optimizaton "never do this". Similarly, though, I would have to say that having taken those background points does not necessarily make the player that has done so the better roleplayer over, say, the wizard who has devoted all his early years to his apprenticeship and thus only has wizard skills (or who relied on his natural ability int bonus to bake bread instead of skill ranks or whatever)

[Leush]

Okay, lets pick at the stormwind fallacy post, because we feel like it.For the most part it is correct. One thing does not neccessitate the other, however there is a mistake...

Mistake: " Corollary: Doing one in a game does not preclude, nor infringe upon, the ability to do the other in the same game."

"A person can act while understanding the rules, and can build something powerful while still handling an effective character. There is nothing in the game -- mechanical or otherwise -- restricting one if you participate in the other."

Emphasis mine. Indol has really adressed it pre-emptively, but here it goes again with a different spin: Someone who focuses on role-playing aspect, may be in such a frame of mind that they do not manage to optimise (and optimising is very strongly related to powergaming). Someone who focuses on optimising a character, for combat or something else, may well get carried away and not focus on the role playing because they get 'too' caught up in the numbers. It, in a way, has nothing to do with the game (so the fallacy may be right from that point of view), but rather with the way the mind works- ie it is difficult to focus on two things at a time. A psychologist may even start babbling on about left/right side brain dominance which determines whether you're more concerned with emotions or numbers(and hence roleplaying and numbercrunching), but that would be a stretch with my very limited knowledge of the subject. It is, however, unfair to say that someone who focuses on optimising will likely focus on roleplaying just as much, and visa versa.
-----------------------
As for my view on the matter of craft related skills: a) If you have games with long stretches of downtime- which are damn rare- they can become useful.
b)Whether you connect fluff and crunch is really a measure of how freeform your game is, to a limit. Obviously if you say "it doesn't matter if he has ranks in craft or not, if it's in the backstory, he can have it", then your game is simply leaning towards freeform outside of combat. If, however, you actually use and possibly extend the crafting and profession rules, then you are simply leading a more rule bound game- I personally prefer the latter, because ya know, there is more to d&d than killing them and taking their stuff... Or so they say....

[Bears With Lasers]

Um, focus on two things at once? 99% of the roleplaying stuff happens in-game. Optimizing happens before the game.

[Leush]

So that depends on how you look at it: Shopping for weapons, spells, splitting up treasure, choosing tactics, preparing spells, levelling up, looking at the pluses on your character shee, keeping your character's strength and weaknesses in mind, bragging about your charcter... This can all be viewed from the optimising side of things. Not to say that it always the case or that everyone looks at it that way, in fact it may make an interesting poll of worded neutrally, but it's like the picture of the vase and faces- sometimes when you get one, it's hard to change to the other. It is harder still to see both at the same time.

EDIT: Although I think you're spot on on the roleplaying being 99% in game.

[Indon]

Playing a character optimally is in-game, and it seems to me that this is a part of optimization as well.

Say you have two (low-level) sorcerors, one is cocky and arrogant, the other is pensive and clever.

Say you have two orcs charging these sorcerors.

The cocky and arrogant one readies an action for Burning hands, or Shocking Grasp, or something that clearly demonstrates his power and superiority, 'cause he rocks, you know.

The pensive and clever one casts grease or sleep, knowing that you can vanquish a foe without neccessarily harming him.

Now say you're using optimal tactics. First thing, you probably cast grease or sleep. All well and good, but your characters' personality could, theoretically, have dictated your actions instead of character optimization.

[Bears With Lasers]

...

But the pensive and clever one is pensive and clever. That's his personality. He's playing his personality just fine. What's more, the arrogant one could use spells like Sleep just as arrogantly, snapping his fingers and making his enemies topple.

[Knight_Of_Twilight]

...

But the pensive and clever one is pensive and clever. That's his personality. He's playing his personality just fine. What's more, the arrogant one could use spells like Sleep just as arrogantly, snapping his fingers and making his enemies topple.

"Foolish Kobolds! Watch how my amazing power dictates you're every action! You shall sleep on my command!"

Grease may be harder...but...

"Hah! Even the simplest of tools becomes mighty in hands such as these!"

There you go. Its hard for me to imagine a sorcerer as anything but Arrogant- Wizards slightly less so.

[JaronK]

No-one is doing this. No-one is advocating doing this. No-one is even talking about doing this, except for the people making these ridiculous straw man arguments. I suggested sinking two or three skill points. TWO OR THREE.

Actually, some are. The earlier arguement was "I am a better roleplayer because I don't optomize. Instead, I put skill points into craft: baking because my fighter is going to be a baker."

If he doesn't optomize, then those points in craft bakering must somehow make the character non-optimal, which means he's lost skill points that would make him more powerful. If he's a fighter, perhaps he has a horse but didn't put his points into Ride instead. He really was removing his ability to fight as effectively by instead putting points into craft baking. If he was just putting points into craft baking when he already had all the skill points he needed, then he was in fact optimizing fully... he just threw a few free skill points that he didn't need anyway into something else, which negates his arguement.

So yes, people ARE argueing that they're better roleplayers because they put skillpoints into Craft: Baking that they could have put somewhere necessary or at least significantly more useful.

JaronK

[Kiero]

I've come to a realisation on reading some of these threads (and this one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41371) in particular): optimal builds are dull. Why? They're all the same. If you want to be a melee combatant, there's only one option: greatsword and a bunch of pre-selected Feats to maximise it's efficiency, along with heavy armour. If you want to be a ranged person, again there's a "best" set of combos and deviating from it nerfs you.

No colour, no differentiation, no personalisation. And that's before we touch on the cheesy, ridiculous nonsense involving spikes and/or chains.

[Bears With Lasers]

I've come to a realisation on reading some of these threads (and this one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41371) in particular): optimal builds are dull. Why? They're all the same. If you want to be a melee combatant, there's only one option: greatsword and a bunch of pre-selected Feats to maximise it's efficiency, along with heavy armour. If you want to be a ranged person, again there's a "best" set of combos and deviating from it nerfs you.

No colour, no differentiation, no personalisation. And that's before we touch on the cheesy, ridiculous nonsense involving spikes and/or chains.

Except that's not true. If you want to be a melee combatant, you could be a greatsword hacker, a guisarme battlefield controller, a mounted or unmounted charger, a gish, a cleric, a psychic warrior weapon- or claw-wielder, a Martial Adept...

[Vyker]

Eh. Again, the presumption is that roleplaying and stats are somehow inexorably intwined. While either might limit the other, they can also enhance.

Really, though, the key to both is the player. A good RP'er can take a highly twinked-out character and still make it a vibrant, fresh character. A good optimizer can take an incredibly detailed set of fluff and make a functional character out of it.

And, of course, a bad player can horribly maul both and make everyone else groan.

[Roethke]

I've come to a realisation on reading some of these threads (and this one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41371) in particular): optimal builds are dull. Why? They're all the same. If you want to be a melee combatant, there's only one option: greatsword and a bunch of pre-selected Feats to maximise it's efficiency, along with heavy armour. If you want to be a ranged person, again there's a "best" set of combos and deviating from it nerfs you.

No colour, no differentiation, no personalisation. And that's before we touch on the cheesy, ridiculous nonsense involving spikes and/or chains.

Um, in the very thread you mentioned, there's this suggestion...


Use an alternative fighting style - not archery or TWF. The rules are optional, but you can replace the feats you get at 2, 6, 11 with:

Imp Un Str, Imp Grapple, Stunning Fist (bear-wrestling, lol!)

Ride-by attack, spirited charge, trample (mounted)

Power attack, imp sunder, great cleave (strong-arm)

Quick draw, pbs, far shot (throwing)


Strong arm looks good for you - free power attack, works GREAT with a big sword or axe. Be a glass cannon - light armour so you're fast and scoutey, but massive damage when you charge (leap attack etc.).

Proposing three viable builds, not specifying what weapon to use.

And yes, for melee-oriented classes, it's been argued that the easiest way to do the most damage is to hit something while using two hands and power attack.

Certainly there are some feats that are common for an 'optimal' build. But, in particular if you play a fighter, you have so many feats to play around with that you can end up with a specialty outside those common feats. It's just how the game hangs together.

Finally, you miss the point of optimization-- given the set of constraints, whats the best I can do? you can build an 'optimal' 2-weapon fighter. He probably just won't do as much damage as the two-hander.

[Kiero]

Eh. Again, the presumption is that roleplaying and stats are somehow inexorably intwined. While either might limit the other, they can also enhance.

Really, though, the key to both is the player. A good RP'er can take a highly twinked-out character and still make it a vibrant, fresh character. A good optimizer can take an incredibly detailed set of fluff and make a functional character out of it.

And, of course, a bad player can horribly maul both and make everyone else groan.

Yet when it goes pear-shaped, the two guys who fight with greatswords are going to be using the same maneuvers in the same fashion.

Really, I just find the notion that there are a finite number of "viable" character builds (and not even a very large number without going well outside any particular concept) rather sad. Which is probably why I don't play D&D.

[Roethke]

Probably shouldn't respond, but seeing where the thread already is....


Yet when it goes pear-shaped, the two guys who fight with greatswords are going to be using the same maneuvers in the same fashion.

Not quite sure what you mean by 'pear-shaped' but they're probably not both using greatswords. One might be defense focused, the other offense focused. One might be mobile, one stand-your ground, controlling. Mounted, vs. unmounted (and that's before you even get into the different kinds of mounts). And there's more.

All that's just the crunch. Any decent roleplayer will augment the differences above with a good description of what's going on, and it's not just going to be "I swing my sword at my opponent".




Really, I just find the notion that there are a finite number of "viable" character builds (and not even a very large number without going well outside any particular concept) rather sad. Which is probably why I don't play D&D.

Those three I quoted were just one person's suggestion off the top of their head. There was plenty of very varied advice in the thread.

Now, if your complaint is that there's maybe something like 20 factorial decent warrior 'builds' in D&D, and that's a finite number, I'll grant you that. It's not completely freeform combat. But for some folks that's a feature (as is the ability to wargame some battles with miniatures). Saying you find it 'sad' is all well and good, but a little annoying to the people who do like it, without at least offering up an alternative.

[Nahal]

Hey, the campaigns I've played in have required optimization just to SURVIVE. My GM has this habit of putting us in plots with the forces of "light" (or rather the forces of "PC's and people that don't want us dead") arrayed against vastly superior foes with truly epic and machiavellian plans for domination. But I see where the "base the stats on the concept" argument comes from. So long as your character concept isn't "use x loophole from combining y feats and z spells to break the game" I don't see anything preventing you from using the RAI to optimize your wizard, fighter, rogue, or what have you. If you want to gimp your character because you like the challenge of playing from a disadvantage, that's a perfectly legitimate point of view. Just bear in mind that not everyone shares it, and it doesn't necessarily stop them from being effective roleplayers.

[Vyker]

Yet when it goes pear-shaped, the two guys who fight with greatswords are going to be using the same maneuvers in the same fashion.

Well, if by that you mean, "they hit the baddies 'til they fall down," I can't really dispute that. A greatsword... well, there's only so many ways to kill a man with a greatsword. Most of them involve hitting the other guy with the sharp end.

But that's just straight mechanics. Are all rogues the same because they all sneak attack with the same mechanic?

You could take the exact same character sheet (stats, or "how to hit the baddies with my greatsword 'til they all fall down") and roleplay it many different ways. Two players might target different enemies, even with the exact same stats. Two players might describe their attacks in different ways. Heck, one player might not even choose to fight (it sounds weird, but check out Durkon (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0200.html) in this sequence!). There's a wide variety within just "I stick sharp pokies into the bad guys."

Again, I think there's too much equating of roleplaying and stats going on without regard for the differences and seperation between them.


If you want to gimp your character because you like the challenge of playing from a disadvantage, that's a perfectly legitimate point of view. Just bear in mind that not everyone shares it, and it doesn't necessarily stop them from being effective roleplayers.

Emphasis is mine, but thanks to Nahal for expressing that.

Stats do no, DO NOT, determine your ability to roleplay.

[Indon]

If you want to gimp your character because you like the challenge of playing from a disadvantage, that's a perfectly legitimate point of view. Just bear in mind that not everyone shares it, and it doesn't necessarily stop them from being effective roleplayers.

I don't generally 'gimp' my characters because I like playing from a disadvantage. I don't optimize them (or optimize them around highly sub-optimal, or 'gimped' I guess you'd put it, concepts), because a story with conflict that causes the characters to change and grow seems to me to be more interesting than a story with conflict that doesn't.

Say you have a theoretical character who can solve all problems. This character never needs to grow or change; not a very interesting story character. In that way, optimization can restrict the possibility of character growth (at least, character growth that has anything to do with the game mechanics).

Though, I can definitely understand needing to optimize because you're in a campaign designed for a high degree of optimization; a high power campaign, as it were. Challenges designed to, well, challenge a more optimized character could well get around the lack of spice that same character would have in a less 'optimized' campaign.

[Counterspin]

Indon - I don't avoid optimizing out of fear that a campaign won't be challenging because I presume that the GM will respond to the power level of the party. And they always have. Though I suppose if one is dealing with a premade adventure that could be a problem.

[Dausuul]

Indon - I don't avoid optimizing out of fear that a campaign won't be challenging because I presume that the GM will respond to the power level of the party. And they always have. Though I suppose if one is dealing with a premade adventure that could be a problem.

Indeed. RP questions aside, the real danger in optimizing heavily is that if another player isn't as good at it as you are, that player may end up feeling useless and unable to contribute. This is especially the case if the two of you are filling similar roles--the sword-and-board fighter next to the Tiger Claw dual-wielding warblade.

[Indon]

I agree that the largest danger of optimizing is an uneven level of optimization between players, or between the players and the DM's expectations.

[Vyker]

Indeed. RP questions aside, the real danger in optimizing heavily is that if another player isn't as good at it as you are, that player may end up feeling useless and unable to contribute. This is especially the case if the two of you are filling similar roles--the sword-and-board fighter next to the Tiger Claw dual-wielding warblade.

I don't deny this, though in your specific example I don't think it's so much a problem of optimizing as it is poor coordination between players before/during the game. If you've got two very similar characters whose spheres overlap to such a degree that the difference between their effectiveness is "who optimized better," y'all might want to take a long hard look at your character creation process.

Still, it is possible for one character to outshine the rest of the party. Though again, I think that's as much a player problem as a stat problem. If one character proves to be more effective, that's one thing. If that character keeps being more effective to the detriment of the other players, that's quite another. A good player will be able to "throttle back."

Heck, TLN's Batman Wizard guide was pretty explicit about how many of your spells are group buffs or designed to let your party deal with the mobs in small, easily manageable chunks. Even the Batman exists for the party.

[Kiero]

Stats do no, DO NOT, determine your ability to roleplay.

I'm not quite sure who you're arguing with here, since I've never said anything of the sort. But what optimal builds do is curtail the scope of differentiation, assuming everyone is going for the most efficient characters they can.

Having to rely on the magnanimity of other players is not what I'd call a defense.

[Annarrkkii]

But what optimal builds do is curtail the scope of differentiation, assuming everyone is going for the most efficient characters they can.


The flaw in your reasoning here, however, is that everyone will try to play THE MOST efficient character they can, and not just a more efficient character. Sure, if your fighter plays a bruising orc Shock Trooper, your Rogue TWFs, you Wizard is a generalist Batman, and your Cleric CoDzilla's his way to an Ur-Theurge, you're going to have a less wide of a scope. However, if your fighter optimizes AFTER he's already come up with a concept—say, and elven rapier-wielder—then he isn't going to take the Shock Trooper tree. If your caster is a warlock, and then optimizes, he won't be a Batman, but just a more powerful warlock. If your halfling Cleric decides he wants to multiclass to Bard, take a few levels of Divine Trickster, and THEN optimize, you're fine. Maybe then your Rogue decides he wants to do archery and then optimizes, then you're set.

Optimization doesn't determine what character you play, just how you play the character you choose.

[Rasumichin]

If i would live in a place where everybody plays a system designed for good, clean, numbercrunching fun, where every gamer optimizes and people clinging to the stormwind fallacy where a neglectable minority, instead of living in a place where more than half of all gamers are somehow ashamed of min/maxing and feel a need to excuse for it, internal setting plausibillity and stimmungsgewichse are commonly taken to extremes where narrative possibilities outside of stale clichés are just plain strangled and you get flamed on rpg-forums for not fudging dice as a DM, then i might possibly consider to advocate cutting back on optimizing and focussing more on "character history" or whatever (and might, quite probably, also think about writing shorter sentences:smallsmile: ).

But since this isn't the case, i'll just go and second this :


Optimization doesn't determine what character you play, just how you play the character you choose.

[Vyker]

Stats do no, DO NOT, determine your ability to roleplay.


I'm not quite sure who you're arguing with here, since I've never said anything of the sort. But what optimal builds do is curtail the scope of differentiation, assuming everyone is going for the most efficient characters they can.

It was a statement disagreeing with folks over the last eight pages who hold to one of the following beliefs: that stats determine roleplay, that stats somehow prove dedication to roleplay, or that a combat optimal character is somehow worse for roleplaying.

There are many, many optimal builds. Whether you subscribe to the belief that "optimal" means making your character the "most accurate portrayal of your concept" or the "most effective within the concept," there's a wide variety of mechanical options and a nigh-infinite number of fluff ones. Heck, even if "optimal" means "BEST" to you, there's a lot of ways to go about that. Like Bears said,


If you want to be a melee combatant, you could be a greatsword hacker, a guisarme battlefield controller, a mounted or unmounted charger, a gish, a cleric, a psychic warrior weapon- or claw-wielder, a Martial Adept...

...which is, even for a short list, a variety of "best" close combat characters well beyond Kiero's claim that:


"If you want to be a melee combatant, there's only one option."

And, since it is my belief that stats do not determine roleplay, even if you've got "THE ONE PERFECT BUILD!" you can still get a lot of different characters out of that build. The fluff, the style, the goals, the personality, all of that can change without changing the stats.

It is my belief that a good roleplayer can make any character interesting. If given a set of stats and no fluff, that does not prevent a creative player from coming up with said fluff. Five different players with the same character sheet (however optimal) will come up with five different characters. These characters may not, as you claim, have "no colour, no differentiation, no personalisation," but instead could all be very vibrant, detailed characters.

Actually, I'd like to prove that empirically. Take a set of optimal-build stats and see what fluff-rich characters can be made from that. Any volunteers?

[Dausuul]

Actually, I'd like to prove that empirically. Take a set of optimal-build stats and see what fluff-rich characters can be made from that. Any volunteers?

Count me in.

[JaronK]

Actually, I'd like to prove that empirically. Take a set of optimal-build stats and see what fluff-rich characters can be made from that. Any volunteers?

Sure, I'm game. I can either make some optimal characters or some fluff to fit, either way.

JaronK

[Matthew]

I like my game to be optimised for maximum fun...

[Bears With Lasers]

The obvious first step is taking the Improved Fun feat.

[Matthew]

It's just a pity that Perfect Fun is an Epic Feat...

[JaronK]

The obvious first step is taking the Improved Fun feat.

The DM doesn't get to take an Attack of Opportunity at you when you're having fun?

In some groups, I've needed that feat...

JaronK

[Tor the Fallen]

I was reading that thread on monks and how swordsage20 would make a better monk than the monk class.

Then it struck me- wizard 20 would make a better monk than the monk class. And since fluff and crunch are seperate, I could call him a monk. Neither wear armor. Forcecage is like a grapple. They can both dimension door. Um. Wizards can put buffs on that make them hard to hit, and monks are hard to hit. They can also wear monk's belts, to gain wis to ac.
Right? The two are seperate of each other.

[Roethke]

I was reading that thread on monks and how swordsage20 would make a better monk than the monk class.

Then it struck me- wizard 20 would make a better monk than the monk class. And since fluff and crunch are seperate, I could call him a monk. Neither wear armor. Forcecage is like a grapple. They can both dimension door. Um. Wizards can put buffs on that make them hard to hit, and monks are hard to hit. They can also wear monk's belts, to gain wis to ac.
Right? The two are seperate of each other.

Absolutely. Nothing wrong with a 'Monastery' devoted to Arcane teachings. Spin the crunch any way you like it, there's something cool about the concept of an ascetic wizard.

But, it depends on what you mean by 'Monk'. If you mean someone who doesn't wear armor, engages in hand-to-hand combat to dispatch his foes, and has a preternatural awareness of his surroundings, then Forcecage really isn't like a grapple, so probably not. (though Cleric as Monk could work just fine)

If you mean a religious ascetic, who forsakes worldly things in pursuit of inner strength and power, then there's nothing stopping you from playing your wizard as a monk, though sorcerer, to my mind, would be even better.

[Counterspin]

Way to take a reasonable concept and turn it into a straw man Tor. "Most fluff is separable from crunch" is the argument. No one suggests that you play a half orc fluff with halfling crunch, up to including being small sized. That's silly.

Additionally, people suggest that a swordsage would be a better monk because it is. That's obviously what it was made to be. If you take the unarmed swordsage option, you become an unarmed fighter who doesn't wear armor, which is the core of the monk fluff.

[Roethke]

No one suggests that you play a half orc fluff with halfling crunch, up to including being small sized. That's silly.



Then again, there is :belkar:, but he is pretty silly.

[Vyker]

(with regards to the "same stats/different character" concept, would someone who's really keen on the whole optimization thing spin a really nasty set of stats for our volunteers to take a shot at? Pure twink, no fluff... that's for other folks to chuck in!)

--

Tor, I've actually been thinking about that very subject, and I'm inclined to sorta agree. Just as the Samurai class (whether OA, CW, or the Master Samurai PrC) is not necessary for one to be a "samurai," one need not take the monk class to be (as Roethke so succinctly put it) "a religious ascetic who forsakes worldly things in pursuit of inner strength and power."

I'm actually working on a character like that right now. I figure a wizard, toss in geometer once I can (the guy likes everything clear and orderly, being from a monastery, and the geometer class is a great way to "simplify" your spellbook... plus I like the image of a guy tracing geometric symbols in the air before the whole world goes BOOM! Makes it look like a martial arts kata or something).

So yeah. That could work, if you played it up right.

[Tor the Fallen]

But if you can be a gourmet cook and not put ranks in craft: gourmet food, why can't you be a monk that doesn't actually have the improved unarmed strike feat?

BWL suggests playing an 8 dex character as 'graceful.' He says other than roleplaying, what's the difference between ranks in a skill and not having any? Clearly, this only pertains to combat skills, as optimizers neglect 'roleplay' stats.

I'm saying take it a step farther. Don't even just neglect roleplay stats, neglect non-casters, then roleplay them like they're not casters. It's not a wizard studying a spell book- it's a monk studying his training tome to hone the maneuvers in his mine for the day. Then he conjurs forth things form his fists with a lot of 'hiayahs' and kicking. Like fireballs. Or grapple with black tentacles. Fluff wise, those tentacles could be anything.

See, no reason to play any classes but CoDzilla and the wizard, as you can roleplay everything else. That is, if you really wanted to optimize, and still pretend to be a martial character.

[Counterspin]

I was a little tremulous at first, but Roethke and Tor have shown me the true way. They're right. If you have a sufficiently flexible GM, you really can associate any fluff with any crunch.
Of course, you end up with a monk who needs a lot of concentration to pull off his maneuvers, and who can be disrupted in the channeling of his ki, but I don't see anything wrong with that. You see that sort of stuff in kung fu movies, which is the fluff basis for monk anyway.

[Vyker]

Err... what?

I mean, I guess you could, if you really wanted to. It'd fit in with a more anime-esque campaign, I s'pose. And they do have a few monk/wizard combo PrCs, so clearly it's not so far out in left field that nobody's thought of it.

But...


See, no reason to play any classes but CoDzilla and the wizard, as you can roleplay everything else. That is, if you really wanted to optimize, and still pretend to be a martial character.

...seems a tad extreme, doesn't it?

Playing a wizard who was a "monk" (i.e., trained in a monastery) and has a few fluff traits is one thing. Playing a wizard who tries to emulate the Monk Class (features and all) seems like you're bending over backwards to get something that's easily available.

(couldn't you just play a Monk Class with the fluff that his stunning attacks or flurries or whatever were the result of magical training, and have nifty visual effects? That seems a lot easier than wizarding your way into the Monk Class)

Of course, I'm from the school o' thought which runs that "optimization" means "matching crunch to concept and still be effective," so if I want a martial character I'll take a martial class. For a touch of magic, I might take a duskblade or a paladin or something.

I guess my confusion arises mostly from wondering whether you're being serious or whether you're trying to prove a point.

[Tor the Fallen]

...seems a tad extreme, doesn't it?

Playing a wizard who was a "monk" (i.e., trained in a monastery) and has a few fluff traits is one thing. Playing a wizard who tries to emulate the Monk Class (features and all) seems like you're bending over backwards to get something that's easily available.

(couldn't you just play a Monk Class with the fluff that his stunning attacks or flurries or whatever were the result of magical training?)

But when it really comes down to the wire, you just timestop+cloudkill+forecage. Can a monk do that? Nope.


Of course, I'm from the school o' thought which runs that "optimization" means "matching crunch to concept and still be effective," so if I want a martial character I'll take a martial class. For a touch of magic, I might take a duskblade or a paladin or something.

BWL has shown me that matching 'numbers on a page' with fluff isn't necessary. Fluff and crunch are sepeare

[Counterspin]

Tor, this is an entirely honest question, and I'm hip either way, but are you being sarcastic in this thread? I'm getting that vibe and I'm curious.

[Tor the Fallen]

No.
I'm seriously thinking of trying to convince my DM to let me play a 'monk' that happens to be wizard 20 with only spellcasting feats. I think it would be hilarious.


Do I think that fluff and crunch are related? Absolutely, positively, of course. Do I tolerate players poking through all sorts of sources for optimizing a character idea that may otherwise not be as great as a different core achetype? Yes. Would I like to see classes like 'monk' actually function as an unarmed combatant, where rules anf fluff coincide, as opposed to say, the swordsage going the unarmed route? Yes. Do I think that optimizing excludes good roleplaying? No. Some builds just need more help to get to work than other more obvious ones.