Class Confusion

[RingofThorns]

I have been the DM in games and the player in others with every thing ran straight out of the books and well I have to say I dont get all the class elitism I keep seeing. What I mean by that is I have ran and seen friends run characters that if posted here would be called out on being crap. So I suppose the question is this, is there something I am not getting when it comes to how to build a character?

[eggynack]

Some classes are more powerful than others, and some builds are more powerful than others. There's really not much else to it. Sometimes that superiority comes in a rather indirect way, with wizards capable of a much broader set of things than a fighter, and sometimes it comes in an incredibly direct way, with druids capable of a much broader set of things than a monk, while also having an animal companion that's about as powerful as they are. I can't say that I know what your specific issue is without knowing what it is you're doing, but know that not every game need be played with the most powerful options. Power means nothing more and nothing less than power, so if you have fun with less powerful builds, or if less powerful builds are competitive in your games, then that's fine. But, y'know, it doesn't make powerful things less powerful, or less powerful things more powerful.

[frogglesmash]

This is a forum where optimization is more often than not the topic of discussion and as such classes/builds will inevitably be rated as less or more powerful, but that does not mean that we all think you should always go for the most powerful options. I'm fairly certain that most giantitp users agree that the best build/class for any campaign is one that you can have fun with while not diminishing any other player's fun, and this will often mean something suboptimal.

[OldTrees1]

I have been the DM in games and the player in others with every thing ran straight out of the books and well I have to say I dont get all the class elitism I keep seeing. What I mean by that is I have ran and seen friends run characters that if posted here would be called out on being crap. So I suppose the question is this, is there something I am not getting when it comes to how to build a character?

The class elitism is a result of a mechanical analysis of the game combined with some entrenched opinions.

If you and your friends are having fun then you are not missing anything of note.

[Amphetryon]

I have been the DM in games and the player in others with every thing ran straight out of the books and well I have to say I dont get all the class elitism I keep seeing. What I mean by that is I have ran and seen friends run characters that if posted here would be called out on being crap. So I suppose the question is this, is there something I am not getting when it comes to how to build a character?

Generally, folks coming to this forum looking for help with a Character are looking to make it more mechanically efficient at whatever roles it is supposed to fill. I would speculate that this is largely because the people asking believe that doing better at these roles will make the game more interesting and fun for them. If you and your friends already find the game interesting and fun enough to hold your attention without focusing on optimizing efficiency, then you're not missing anything.

For an analogy: If everything you want out of riding a bike is to enjoy a pleasant ride through the local park, then you're unlikely to gain anything by spending thousands of dollars on an elite racing bike and training to compete in the Tour de France. Having a pleasant ride through the local park isn't 'riding your bike wrong.'

[Telonius]

If your group is having fun, you're doing it right. It's perfectly possible for there to be a Truenamer and a Wizard in the same party, and everybody has fun.

The problems generally start happening when some (but not all) of the players figure out that some classes (like Wizard, Cleric, Druid, and so on) are capable of a lot more powerful things than others (Monk, Paladin, Truenamer, etc). This shows up especially at higher levels, but it can happen even at the lower levels. It's a common enough occurrence that many posters think it's near-universal: some of the players feel like they're being constantly outdone, and have little to contribute in the session, so it becomes less fun for them. There are a lot of ways that this can be headed off: the higher-power players can tone things down, the DM can give out treasure specifically for the lower-powered characters, alter encounters to fit each group's strengths and weaknesses, or even come up with house rules to fix things. But each of those solutions brings their own potential problems with them. (You need players' buy-in, more work for the DM, possibility of an "arms race" between the DM and the higher-powered player, the higher-powered player feeling like they're being unfairly targeted, the house rules might cause as many problems as they solve).

Again, this does not happen with every group. Sometimes groups are able to work things out without too much trouble. Those groups generally don't ask for suggestions on the boards, because things are working smoothly for them.

[Flickerdart]

I have been the DM in games and the player in others with every thing ran straight out of the books and well I have to say I dont get all the class elitism I keep seeing. What I mean by that is I have ran and seen friends run characters that if posted here would be called out on being crap. So I suppose the question is this, is there something I am not getting when it comes to how to build a character?
"Straight out of the books" isn't really a meaningful statement. A wizard that takes Toughness for all his feats and prepares only fireball is straight out of the books. A wizard/master specialist/incantatrix abusing Quicken, Persist, and Craft Contingent Spell is also straight out of the books.

The most important thing to remember is that power levels are always relative. It doesn't matter that there are wizards who can throttle the heavens if your table's wizard has problems with basic arithmetic. It doesn't matter if fighters can't really do much outside of "punch the thing" if "punch the thing" is your campaign's central focus.

[Fouredged Sword]

Your group seems to be a functional group that plays at roughly the same level of optimization.

The "elitism" you see on the forum tends to be driven by two major elements that can completely disappear when seen IRL.

First, this is an optimization focused forum. Many of the discussions focus on achieving the most of each build, and as such, tend to consider some classes inherently to have a higher ceiling of power.

Second, the forum also has an active PBP set, and that requires playing with strangers with very little space to get to know one another ahead of time. This means having a language to communicate the style of game one wants to play. Some games want a tier 1 superbash. Others want a tier 3 adventure. Others still have fun with a tier 5 survival or more Gygaxish game. The tier system helps communicate the power and optimization level for the game.

Alot of this just doesn't come up IRL. The group tries to get along and can talk things through. DM's can be alot more talkative during character creation and players more attentive the the needs of the game.

[Flickerdart]

*snip* Alot of this just doesn't come up IRL.
That's not even remotely true. A huge number of threads on these boards are people asking for help with a character at their table who's either falling behind or overpowering everything.

As for PbP vs RL tables, the PbP people make up a tiny amount of all posters, which is plain to see when you look at the number of PbP threads (not even filtering by system) compared to the number of posts in just the 3.5 forum.

[OldTrees1]

That's not even remotely true. A huge number of threads on these boards are people asking for help with a character at their table who's either falling behind or overpowering everything.

True, that is evidence that these issue do exist for some fraction of IRL games. However I would not classify the number of threads as huge considering the number of threads not posted due to lack of problems is probably much larger given the forum's size. So it seems to be an infrequent problem IRL even if this forum attracts frequent reports of it due to this forum's helpful nature.

[Flickerdart]

So it seems to be an infrequent problem IRL even if this forum attracts frequent reports of it due to this forum's helpful nature.
I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion. All you say is "oh there are probably games where this isn't a problem and so they don't post here," assuming for some reason that everyone with such a problem would run to post it to GitP.

All we can say without a comprehensive survey of gaming groups is that a non-zero percentage of them have problems with class balance.

[OldTrees1]

I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion. All you say is "oh there are probably games where this isn't a problem and so they don't post here," assuming for some reason that everyone with such a problem would run to post it to GitP.

All we can say without a comprehensive survey of gaming groups is that a non-zero percentage of them have problems with class balance.

Number of forum members that made threads about problems / Number of forum members is much smaller than one would expect if these problems were frequent IRL*. Simple Bayesian Probability.

*If they were frequent IRL you would expect this number to at least equal 1/Average number of people per IRL group(which although we do not have exact stats for we do know the order of magnitude and have an estimated range based on minimum and maximum comments on questions of that kind).

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I have been the DM in games and the player in others with every thing ran straight out of the books and well I have to say I dont get all the class elitism I keep seeing. What I mean by that is I have ran and seen friends run characters that if posted here would be called out on being crap. So I suppose the question is this, is there something I am not getting when it comes to how to build a character?

There's nothing wrong with playing a weak character!

What might be a problem is playing a character who simply can't contribute. Being a Rogue, say, who can't hurt things in combat or a Fighter who finds himself useless because he can't reach creatures with fly speeds; that's not fun. It really stinks, and so people try to figure out how to be better at things. And, ultimately, in 3.5 the way to be better at tasks is to get more casting. That's where the elitism comes from.

[MukkTB]

Understanding high levels of optimization helps with the game. If you haven't hit upon it yet, there is some pretty serious theory underpinning optimization.

I won't be able to replicate that for you but I can provide a digest. Here is some of the foundational work. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=bc18425e5fa73d30e4a9a54889edf4 4e&topic=1002.0) For starters, optimization is not the only correct way to do things. Level of optimization is a choice the player makes. Being strong in a fantasy game is not better than being weak. You can have fun playing a carpenter's apprentice, and you can have fun playing a wizard with phenomenal cosmic power. In many fantasy stories, even when the main character eventually becomes a powerful caster, they start with very little ability. That said, some classes are stronger than others. No judgement again, because D&D is a game without a real explicit win condition, and the journey is just as important as the destination. Generally classes with strong magic can accomplish things that mortals without magic cannot compete with. This is particularly evident in the higher levels. Turning into a dragon, casting wish, building a castle overnight, and summoning a celestial army are things that a caster could accomplish. At the same time, a fighter starts out solid, and at high level he can whack things a bit harder with his weapon of choice, or possible trip/push/grapple enemies.

[Flickerdart]

Number of forum members that made threads about problems / Number of forum members is much smaller than one would expect if these problems were frequent IRL*. Simple Bayesian Probability.

*If they were frequent IRL you would expect this number to at least equal 1/Average number of people per IRL group(which although we do not have exact stats for we do know the order of magnitude and have an estimated range based on minimum and maximum comments on questions of that kind).
That's still assuming that everyone who has a problem is going to join GitP and post about it. In fact, the people already on the forums are going to be biased against posting such a thread because they already have the tools to resolve the situation.

[OldTrees1]

That's still assuming that everyone who has a problem is going to join GitP and post about it. In fact, the people already on the forums are going to be biased against posting such a thread because they already have the tools to resolve the situation.

My critique of your claim assumed that GitP is representative, just as your claim assumed. So either you claim holds no water or my critique does.

[Flickerdart]

My critique of your claim assumed that GitP is representative, just as your claim assumed. So either you claim holds no water or my critique does.
My claim is "it happens in real life." As evidence, I offer threads of people saying it's happening to them in real life. Unless those threads literally do not exist, that claim is correct. Whether or not GitP is representative of anything is utterly irrelevant. There are starving children in Africa, you don't need to put words in my mouth.

[OldTrees1]

My claim is "it happens in real life." As evidence, I offer threads of people saying it's happening to them in real life. Unless those threads literally do not exist, that claim is correct. Whether or not GitP is representative of anything is utterly irrelevant. There are starving children in Africa, you don't need to put words in my mouth.

Your claim was ambiguously worded. My initial reply agreed with the weaker claim(the one you apparently intended) and critiqued the stronger claim.

I apologize for presuming you meant the stronger claim when you replied solely to the part of my post addressed to the stronger claim.

[Amphetryon]

OldTrees1,

Could you demonstrate how you arrived at anything like a reasonable approximation of numbers to support the claim that a majority of D&D gamers that don't post on GitP (or other gaming forums) don't have problems with optimization levels? They're not represented on the forums, so their numbers cannot be gleaned from traffic here. There's nothing to say with any reasonable certainty what percentage of gamers are owners of books/pdfs they've purchased, particularly with so much content available for free online, so sales data is unreliable at best, particularly given an out-of-print edition as a large segment of this board's traffic skewing overall impressions.

How was your data derived?

[OldTrees1]

OldTrees1,

Could you demonstrate how you arrived at anything like a reasonable approximation of numbers to support the claim that a majority of D&D gamers that don't post on GitP (or other gaming forums) don't have problems with optimization levels? They're not represented on the forums, so their numbers cannot be gleaned from traffic here. There's nothing to say with any reasonable certainty what percentage of gamers are owners of books/pdfs they've purchased, particularly with so much content available for free online, so sales data is unreliable at best, particularly given an out-of-print edition as a large segment of this board's traffic skewing overall impressions.

How was your data derived?

The number of GitP forumers that did not start a thread on that topic = The number of forumers - The number of forumers that did start such a thread.

All the rest of the math is explicitly stated above.

[Gale]

My goals when it comes to character building are generally as follows:

Come up with a good backstory
Define their personality; make it interesting but not disruptive.
Ensure the character is useful both in and out of combat.
Avoid picking options (feats, class levels, skills, etc.) that will be suboptimal or of little use.
Make sure the character has the ability to survive.
I personally have difficulty accepting anything less than optimal. I don’t see why someone would want to be less effective at their job. There aren’t many chances to gain new abilities in D&D and it’s easily to mess something up. Hence I tend to stress over these things my options more than others. Ultimately, I want my character to be as useful as possible and maximize their chances to succeed.

That being said, characters don’t need to be optimal to be effective. It’s the DM’s job to scale encounters to the power level of the party. Thus there usually isn’t a need to focus much attention on optimization unless everyone else is. It ultimately comes down to how your character measures up to the rest of the party. Preferably, they should be as important as any other member of the group. It’s about being a useful addition instead of a waste of space.

As long as players feel they are relevant and contributing to the group then there isn’t a problem. There is no real need to worry about whether or not your character build is supposedly good or not. If you’re having fun then nothing else should matter. Personally, I have more fun when my characters are optimized because I feel it gives me a safety net. But it’s by no means necessary. Simple character builds can be just as good in the right circumstances.

[Amphetryon]

The number of GitP forumers that did not start a thread on that topic = The number of forumers - The number of forumers that did start such a thread.

All the rest of the math is explicitly stated above.

"Explicitly stated" would indicate you've put actual numbers above, since that's what I asked for. I looked again; there are no such numbers posted. That either means you've done the research and statistical analysis to determine the actual number of gamers worldwide - including those with no personal investment in books/pdfs - and been able to do a comprehensive study of their play in order to come to actual, concrete numbers that tell you the real (not extrapolated) percentage of them who actually have optimization-based issues within their games without posting to any forum anywhere and then chose not to share with the class, or that you've simply made a bunch of assumptions off of which you've based conclusions grounded in your own preconceived notions that aren't actually statistically derived in any meaningful way.

[OldTrees1]

"Explicitly stated" would indicate you've put actual numbers above, since that's what I asked for. I looked again; there are no such numbers posted. That either means you've done the research and statistical analysis to determine the actual number of gamers worldwide - including those with no personal investment in books/pdfs - and been able to do a comprehensive study of their play in order to come to actual, concrete numbers that tell you the real (not extrapolated) percentage of them who actually have optimization-based issues within their games without posting to any forum anywhere and then chose not to share with the class, or that you've simply made a bunch of assumptions off of which you've based conclusions grounded in your own preconceived notions that aren't actually statistically derived in any meaningful way.

Or it means that I shared the formula and allowed you to do your own unbiased data sampling(try a day's worth of the 3.5 subforum for example). It would be rather silly for me to presume you would innately trust numbers I give you so why not cut out that wasted step. However I can tell from your continued misrepresentation of the formula that you have no interest in doing so.

[RingofThorns]

So far those still on topic have made some good points and really it is great to hear. Though and this may ramble some but I will do my best, a guy on the forums posted a thread about a throwing weapon character. I may be wrong but if I remember right everyone pretty much told him his idea was crap and he HAD to take this certain class, and these feats, and only use these certain weapons and if he didnt then he would be so worthless it would be the same as if he wasnt even playing. Yet a friend of mine made a throwing weapon character that didnt have any of that and still just wrecked people.

[OldTrees1]

So far those still on topic have made some good points and really it is great to hear. Though and this may ramble some but I will do my best, a guy on the forums posted a thread about a throwing weapon character. I may be wrong but if I remember right everyone pretty much told him his idea was crap and he HAD to take this certain class, and these feats, and only use these certain weapons and if he didnt then he would be so worthless it would be the same as if he wasnt even playing. Yet a friend of mine made a throwing weapon character that didnt have any of that and still just wrecked people.

Yeah, this forum can be a bit ... too eager to share their suggestions and sometimes this means they push for a change that the OP did not want. Luckily it is not always like that in those threads.

[AvatarVecna]

The number of GitP forumers that did not start a thread on that topic = The number of forumers - The number of forumers that did start such a thread.

All the rest of the math is explicitly stated above.

And as we all know, when we have an optimization question, we are filled with an uncontrollable urge to post a new thread asking about it, so that the magical compulsion we've all been put under will be appeased. And thus, we know that everybody who's never posted an optimization thread must have no interest in optimization.

Incidentally, I'd like to thank you for sharing your genius with the world. I thought predicting and interpreting the social interactions of the human animal via statistics required advanced mathematics and a long, thorough data collection process, but nope! Turns out that the only equation you need to determine the intent of the general populace via online forum posts is a simple subtraction formula that even a five-year-old could figure out. My god, I must share this amazing discovery with my statistician professor; the world must know of this amazing discovery!


So far those still on topic have made some good points and really it is great to hear. Though and this may ramble some but I will do my best, a guy on the forums posted a thread about a throwing weapon character. I may be wrong but if I remember right everyone pretty much told him his idea was crap and he HAD to take this certain class, and these feats, and only use these certain weapons and if he didnt then he would be so worthless it would be the same as if he wasnt even playing. Yet a friend of mine made a throwing weapon character that didnt have any of that and still just wrecked people.

There's a lot of reasons that could be the case, but without seeing your friend's build and your DM's houserules, I couldn't say. Maybe the DM ruled it so that his thrown weapon always returned to him, or gave him a magic item that accomplishes that. Hell, Pathfinder has such a magic item; maybe your DM ported that in...or maybe you guys were playing Pathfinder? It's also possible that magic items were just really common in your game, or that he optimized for damage so much that he only needed to throw a single dagger to win at combat. Maybe he was a CoDzilla that liked turning nonmagical daggers into a deity's ammunition. Who knows the exact reason.

The simple fact is that mundane ranged combat, and especially thrown weapons, got the shaft in 3.5, even in comparison to mundane melee (which isn't that much better). At the higher levels, it requires too much magic or too many items to be maintainable without Bloodstorm Blade.

[Telonius]

A lot of it would depend, too, on what sorts of enemies the DM was setting you up against, and how intelligently the monsters (and the players for that matter) use their tactics. A very good DM can smooth over that sort of thing, and the players might never notice the difference. But that can involve a lot of work on the DM's part; and the fact that he needed to fix something means that it wasn't working right. (If you've ever heard of the "Oberoni fallacy," that's basically what it is: the idea that everything is balanced because a DM can fix it through Rule Zero).

[RingofThorns]

I was the DM it was 3.5 DnD, he had started to take levels in whisper blade or whisper knife its a class out of races of the wild. He used none magical shurikan which the only special rule was one found in the books that shuriken can be thrown three at a time. The enemies were goblins and orcs that were statted out to be appropriate for the level of characters. My friends halfling would hide get the sneak attack plus his three shuriken and shred people.

[Telonius]

I was the DM it was 3.5 DnD, he had started to take levels in whisper blade or whisper knife its a class out of races of the wild. He used none magical shurikan which the only special rule was one found in the books that shuriken can be thrown three at a time. The enemies were goblins and orcs that were statted out to be appropriate for the level of characters. My friends halfling would hide get the sneak attack plus his three shuriken and shred people.

Okay, yeah, that's a significant bonus; it's basically tripling the amount of damage that can be done in a round. Add in sneak attack (which benefits from additional attacks) and (if he has it )Craven, and that adds up to some pretty nice numbers. You might even be able to outdo a typical charge build with something like that.

[AvatarVecna]

I was the DM it was 3.5 DnD, he had started to take levels in whisper blade or whisper knife its a class out of races of the wild. He used none magical shurikan which the only special rule was one found in the books that shuriken can be thrown three at a time. The enemies were goblins and orcs that were statted out to be appropriate for the level of characters. My friends halfling would hide get the sneak attack plus his three shuriken and shred people.

So...a character specialized in sneaking and throwing shuriken got to triple his attacks per round against flat-footed, low-AC targets with poor perception skills and was thus able to get 3 times as much sneak attack per round as any similar character is supposed to? I wonder why he seemed overpowered...

More seriously, the rule you're referring to (that shuriken can be thrown 3 at a time) is a 3.0 rule that wasn't carried over for this exact reason: it breaks the action economy. to keep shuriken damage from getting totally botched, they upped the damage die and allowed you to add Str to damage (where you couldn't in 3.0). Needless to say, using the "3 throws per attack" rule with 3.5 Sneak Attack optimization, it's no surprise that a ranged sneak could dominate enemies consisting of oblivious melee specialists.

[Telonius]

Even so, there are two important points. First, if you hadn't included that house rule, it would have been a much, much different experience. Thrown weapons are a weakness in the system. Either you or the player noticed that, and you took steps. Second, it was a houserule that worked for your group, and made the experience a lot more fun. You worked with him to help him play a character that he wanted to play. However you got there, that's what a good DM should be aiming for.

[eggynack]

So far those still on topic have made some good points and really it is great to hear. Though and this may ramble some but I will do my best, a guy on the forums posted a thread about a throwing weapon character. I may be wrong but if I remember right everyone pretty much told him his idea was crap and he HAD to take this certain class, and these feats, and only use these certain weapons and if he didnt then he would be so worthless it would be the same as if he wasnt even playing. Yet a friend of mine made a throwing weapon character that didnt have any of that and still just wrecked people.
I don't really agree with the tone, but the core sentiment of those past posters is one critical to optimization. That sentiment being, what about this character are you willing to compromise? Let's assume that someone makes a thread seeking optimization advice for his monk. The first question that must be asked is what being a monk means to him, and what about his character he's willing to change. He has to change something, after all, or else character optimization is fundamentally impossible, but he may be willing to change everything as long as it holds to the flavor of a monk (a flavor that the poster would explain), or he may be willing to change literally everything aside from the class, or he may only have a few feats to work with.

The best threads of this type are the ones where the original poster discovers something that fulfills the core concept of his character better than he ever thought possible. The idea of switching out a monk for an unarmed swordsage is so common that it's practically become a cliche, something sometimes insulted by those opposed to some ideas of optimization, but I've seen cases where people had no idea this was even an option, and they were able to do the things with their characters they'd always dreamed of. The worst threads of this type are the ones where the original poster never finds what they're looking for, the goal lost in a web of arbitrary argument and fitting square pegs into round holes, but those threads need to start in pretty much the same place, and that place is determining what elements of the original build can be trashed completely. That idea, of removing parts of your character for others to reach an optimized state, can sometimes be a harsh pill to swallow, and it can be presented in an unkind way, but it's critical if optimization is a thing you seek.

[Chronos]

You can have fun in the game without knowing about optimization. But knowing about optimization makes it easier to have fun. And this is true even if you don't go for maximum power. Some players like taking weak options as a challenge (see Zaq and his experiences with the Truenamer, for instance), but that doesn't really work unless you know it's a challenge from the start. Alternately, you can take strong options, but then deliberately choose to restrict them in some other way. That can also be fun.

[atemu1234]

Statistically we can assume nothing, because of a flawed sampling pool. Arguments based on either 'most do' or 'most don't' hold no water because of this.