The 'making a build' mini-game - dead? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Waazraath

2018-05-28, 03:43 PM

Over the years, in 5e discussions, also on this forum, the mini-game of 'making a build', as in, an optimized build, has been declared dead, or irrelevant. Recently in this thread: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?559891-3-5-to-5

I disagree. Or at least, up to a point. Of course, compared with 3.x, but also Advanced D&D, it's less of a thing. Optimization is less of a thing, because fifth edition is much, much more balanced. But, as I said in the aforementioned thread: there are classes, subclasses, races, feats, spells and items, which can work together, create synergy, or not. Optimization is possible, though (no longer) needed.

And that's good!

But here I'd like to explore the question how much room there is in the optization mini game. To illustrate this, some examples.

Example no. 1: The rogue vs the rouge, or, eh, the optimized rogue vs the non-optimized version.

Let's take normal, fun, rogue. A Thief. The player doesn't want to optimze, but doesn't want to make unoptimized choices, so he takes a wood elf. Some extra speed, +2 to dex, so start with 17, and enough room to go for a 14 or 15 constitution. He doesn't want to have the hassle of multiclass or feats, and doesn't use those optional rules. Has a fun character that can do relevant things, in combat do decent damage with sneak attack, sometimes be creative with fast hand and use magic deveice. Out of combat relevant with loads of skills. Hurrah!

Then there is the optimized rogue. Picks variant human, with the magic initiate feats, for Find Familiar and the booming blade cantrip. Also starts with a +3 dex modifier. Can do extra damage with booming blade / cunning action (disingage) combo. Regardless, from level 5 onward he does 1d8, 2d8 or even 3d8 extra damage without this combo (and up to 7d8 when using it succesful - extra damage, over what a rouge does anyway). Summons an owl familiar, that with the "help" action, and the ability to use it without provoking an attack of opportunity, gives adantage A LOT of times, greatly increasing the damage output. And this rogue takes 3 levels in fighter, for Battlemaster and the riposte maneuver. Now, he can make a sneak attack on another persons turn, effectively doubling the damage output of Rogue 1, if it wasn't higher already due to the owl familiar and booming blade. In addition to all this, the rogue can be just as creative with skills, fast hands, and use magic deveice as rogue 1, and have just as fun a character. Hurrah!

Conclusion: "hurrah", up to the point where rogue 1 and 2 are in the same party, and no 1 will feel woefully inadequate and vastly outperformed in combat. And that both sucks, and shows imo that optimiztion is still very much alive in 5e. And relevant.

Example no. 2 stacking extra attack, Elven accuracy, crossbow expert, sharp shooter, and spells that give advantage

Seems obvious. make 3 attacks, with -5/+10, but with advantage, rolling 3d20! Man. If you can pull this off, you're way ahead of the curve, right? Well, not really. You can pull this off. Pick half-elf valor bard, start with +3 dex and cha modifiers, pick the 3 relevant feats (CE, SS, EA), pick maybe Nature's Guardian as lvl 10 spell pick, to get advantage on ranged attacks as a bonus action and you have everything you need.

Except: compared with a basic Battlemaster fighter and Valor bard without combat feats, you're not that hot. Let's take the fighter. Even disregarding non-human, it only takes SS, and CE, and by level 12, it has maxed out dexterity. With the archery fighting style, it has an extra +4 on attack roles compared with the optimized bard above. It also has an extra attack (at 11). If he misses, he spends a maneuver. Without doing the math, I daresay that even at level 12 and higher, when the bard has its combo complete, the fighter can outdamage the bard. And that's disregarding that it needs less resources for optimal performance, has a higher AC, more HP, is much stronger when all rescourses are spended.

Compared with a valor bard that just raises Cha to 20 and doesn't take combat feats, and sees combat as a back up option: that bard totally out-bards the optimzed bard. Spells are harder to resist, and it has much more uses of 'bardic inspiration' - 2 more up to lvl 5, and after that 6 to 8, depending on the number of short rests.

Does our optimized bard suck? Hell no. When he gets his combo going, and spends his rescources, rolling 3d20 per attack roll for 1d6 + 3 + 10, on 3 attacks, regularly scoring some crits, is awesom. But this is just.... balance. He can't do it all day, needs an action or bonus action to set it up, and is significantly weaker in other eareas to achieve all this. And at level 4, shooting 2x 1d6 + 3 isn't that impressive use of an action. Ok, but not great. At level 8, 1st round casting greater invisibility (and after that prolly using bardic inspiration), and then attack three times for 1d6 + 3 + 10 with advantage is very nice, but not overpowered. There is always the risk of failing a concentration check as well.

Conclusion for this example: I really like how this works out. You can optimze for an impressive effect; but doing so has its cost. Reflecting on how it was on 3.x, if a caster wanted to use weapons, it was much stronger than a fighting class with some effort (the right spells). In 5e, this isn't the case, not even when the caster spends resources like feats.

Example no 3 - melee clerics (or other classes that melee with 1 attack)
This could be named "SCAG cantrips" as well. For these classes, just like the rogue in the first example, at the choice of a class, or feat, you can get a cantrip, and simply get a few extra d8 of damage. At hardly any opportunity cost.

Not enough to make the game unbalanced, but in a game with 2 war clerics, one with and one without a SCAG cantrip, I wouldn't want to be the one without.

Plenty of more to discuss about this, about the question of the 'uber damage feats' like SS, PAM and GWM are as needed as sometimes said; and the benifits of group optimization vs individual optimization, and how an individual optimized character might really not be that hot depending on the group, or the not-optimized be much stronger than when seen in a vacuum; but I've rambled enough I think.

Your thoughts?

ZorroGames

2018-05-28, 04:09 PM

On this forum?

Hardly.

There many extreme optimizers here.

There is a difference between effective and optimized.

As a non-fanatic sometimes optimizer I get the point but blatantly ignore it when I choose to.

Hence all Mountain Dwarf characters for all 12 classes.

Hence Bard dipping Fighter, though PeteNutButter’s Ultimate Optimizers Guide to Multiclassing actually made me want to play this MC. Okay, I optimize if it seems like fun. (See my signature block for my philosophy for D&D since 0D&D)

And why I have spent the past year plus testing characters (not just Mountain Dwarf - a Variant Human and a Forest Gnome,) until now I think I know what I will enjoy playing and what I leave to others.

Sometimes I stir the pot with the optimizers here but calling it dead? Nope.

Lombra

2018-05-28, 04:21 PM

MrStabby

2018-05-28, 04:23 PM

Unoriginal

2018-05-28, 04:29 PM

Conclusion: "hurrah", up to the point where rogue 1 and 2 are in the same party, and no 1 will feel woefully inadequate and vastly outperformed in combat.

Except it doesn't happen, because Rogue 2 is not actually good enough to make anyone feel woefully inadequate.

And that both sucks, and shows imo that optimiztion is still very much alive in 5e. And relevant.

No. Optimization is about as relevant as trying to win a collaborative game

Conclusion for this example: I really like how this works out. You can optimze for an impressive effect; but doing so has its cost. Reflecting on how it was on 3.x, if a caster wanted to use weapons, it was much stronger than a fighting class with some effort (the right spells). In 5e, this isn't the case, not even when the caster spends resources like feats.

So your conclusion is "even if you try to optimize, you just end up with a build basically equal to the others"?

Your thoughts?

My thoughts is that people are much too obsessed with minimal difference in powers. I'm not a fan of being told being a great Monk apparently means you're a socially inept ignoramus who has trouble climbing walls, or that not having 16 in your primary stat(s) is an aberration.

Is optimization dead? Well, people sure are trying hard to keep it alive, in any case.

Is optimization relevant? If your goal is "have the most powerful character", then no.

War_lord

2018-05-28, 05:42 PM

Except that you've literally compared the cartoon version of unoptimized (literally doesn't use feats, really) to totally optimized. And as you yourself say, the actively unoptimized character is just as enjoyable and largely just as capable (particularly when the optional feat rules aren't used) as the optimized character. Contrast that with 3.5e where it was quite possible to make an ineffective character, and in fact the system was deliberately filled with trap options to give participants in the character building minigame a sense of "system mastery" over players who actually want to play instead of pouring over splats (a skeezy design tactic lifted from Magic the Gathering).

So lets see, in your opening post you've:

1. Accidentally confirmed that there's not all that much distance in play between "optimized" and the worst case scenario.

2. Admitted that as a consequence of this, there's no way to "lose" at character creation the way you could in 3.5 (it's not a game if there's no lose state).

3. Displayed the exact attitude (not one suited to a cooperative game) I associate with people who are heavily into the 3.5 character building minigame.

PeteNutButter

2018-05-28, 06:19 PM

There is absolutely a difference between optimized characters and those that aren’t. The gap just isn’t nearly as big as it was in 3.x but it still exists.

Ignoring my own characters (which tend to be on the overpowered side), it really helps to know in advance which players are going to play at my AL table. If it’s a group of 5-7 optimizers I’ll have to greatly increase the enemies or it’ll be a snooze for the players. If it’s a group of more casual players I would end up killing PCs doing that.

The difference in output and survivalability between an optimized character and an “average” character makes the optimized character about 2.5 times as effective. The difference can start small, but grows over time as the optimizer has more levels to play with and more tools to combine. By tier 3 the difference is quite extensive, especially in AL as optimized characters have only the best available items attuned.

There are still many trap options in 5e. Tons of feats are trash compared to others. Tons of spells are a complete waste of an action and slot. Half the stats are dump stats where new players waste points. I’ve seen all of these choices in PCs. Optimizers often make a few unoptimal choices but know enough to make them work. Inexperienced players can struggle with bad choices.

LudicSavant

2018-05-28, 06:31 PM

To say that 5e is less unbalanced than 3.5e is to leap a very low hurdle indeed. By the broader standard of gaming in general, 5e is not particularly well balanced, and the gulfs between different characters in terms of power can be pretty enormous.

As for the optimization is dead thing... it's a case of same ****, different day. Those old enough will remember that people were going around saying optimization was dead and that Fighters were balanced against Wizards even back in 3e, complete with 50 page threads arguing the case. It wasn't true then, either. For whatever reason, D&D's community has always been saddled with people who will vehemently deny that disparity exists.

War_lord

2018-05-28, 06:35 PM

There is absolutely a difference between optimized characters and those that aren’t. The gap just isn’t nearly as big as it was in 3.x but it still exists.

Lets look at what I said:

And as you yourself say, the actively unoptimized character is just as enjoyable and largely just as capable (particularly when the optional feat rules aren't used) as the optimized character. Contrast that with 3.5e where it was quite possible to make an ineffective character, and in fact the system was deliberately filled with trap options to give participants in the character building minigame a sense of "system mastery" over players who actually want to play instead of pouring over splats (a skeezy design tactic lifted from Magic the Gathering)

2. Admitted that as a consequence of this, there's no way to "lose" at character creation the way you could in 3.5 (it's not a game if there's no lose state).

There's a difference between "there's no difference" and "the difference is not significant enough for character creation to be a minigame in the way it was in 3.5.". That's what prompted this. My pointing out that there's no character creation minigame in 5th edition. The op insisted on creating a thread for it despite the fact that, as we know from every other time a version of this thread has existed there's no productive discussion to be had. The people who dropped massive amounts of money into 3.5 splat books and currently spend hours pouring over guides on the internet have a huge personal stake in maintaining a sense of "system mastery" even in a system that isn't catering to that crap.

MrStabby

2018-05-28, 06:35 PM

For me the archetypal example is the friend who thought dragons were cool. He built a black draconic sorcerer. It sucked compaired to the gold draconic sorcerer. One single optimisation decision on the character and he was behind all game.

There are trap options. Most of them are not about race or (within bounds) stat allocation. Feats a little more - great weapon fighting vs two weapon fighting as a style... the big gaps are between the good spells and the less good but also about balance in spell selection. It isnt about having just good spells but having spells that can target weak saves or have collectively a broad range of effects. The gap in efficacy between an optimised spell book and an unoptimised one is pretty big and getting the balance right is actually not trivial.

Unoriginal

2018-05-28, 07:11 PM

For me the archetypal example is the friend who thought dragons were cool. He built a black draconic sorcerer. It sucked compaired to the gold draconic sorcerer. One single optimisation decision on the character and he was behind all game.

How?

Nothing about the black dragon sorcerer makes it inherently weaker than the gold one, from what I know.

Naanomi

2018-05-28, 07:24 PM

How?

Nothing about the black dragon sorcerer makes it inherently weaker than the gold one, from what I know.
Just lack of spells available to utilize the damage bonus. Green, of course, is even worse (few spells, and common resistance)

The optimization ‘build’ game still exists... especially if you are trying to do something silly instead of just making an enjoyable character (maxing out run speed or something)... but it isn’t necessary, nor (with very few high level exceptions) particularly disruptive to a game.

As an aside, one can make a fairly useless character if they really try to... ‘deoptimization’ is more possible than classic optimization

MeeposFire

2018-05-28, 07:29 PM

I think you are looking at this the wrong way.

Yes you can optimize in 5e just like in every other edition of D&D/AD&D but that was not really the issue here is it?

We are supposed to talk about the build mini game and frankly that is mostly dead. Not 100% dead but mostly dead.

IN this regard 5e is more like AD&D and the older versions of D&D. In all of those games you do get options to optimize your character (people like to act like there is no optimization in say 2e but it is frankly not true if you go into the books). However despite optimization existing in those games the build mini game did not really exist. 5e does much the same thing as you can optimize your character but build porn is just not the same.

Now build porn was at its height in 3e and 4e and in like what some are saying here it is not always due to optimization part of it was just the sheer novelty of building something. In 3e make a character that was functional as a sandwich or in 4e playing a lazy commander character were not the power combos but were done for the novelty of it. Heck if you look back at it there are many times where the character was not really playable for most of a game or was not even fun to play at all.

That is a big difference too was that in many cases the building of the character was more fun than actually paying the character whereas in 5e (and AD&D for that matter) building the character tends to be far less interesting than actually playing the character (I think that is healthy for the game but I do miss that build porn every once in a while).

Kane0

2018-05-28, 08:05 PM

If you're looking for synergy between options when building a character, you're playing the minigame.

The rules, options and extent vary from edition to edition and table to table, but the game ain't dead nonetheless.

mephnick

2018-05-28, 08:59 PM

Someone should create a videogame where you just build characters out of thousands of options and then every time you complete one the game ends and says "You could not find a table to join. Nice build though. GAME OVER."

jas61292

2018-05-28, 09:18 PM

2D8HP

2018-05-28, 10:14 PM

I'd say 5e WD&D has less of a mini-game than Champions, GURPS, and Pendragon, but far more of one than old D&D.

To me, the game is indeed dead, because when you are reusing the same exact options nearly 100% of the time without any real variation (the same couple feats and spells) it ceases to be a game. There is no mixing and matching. There is just choosing the general character archetype and having everything pretty much already done from there.

:confused:

Really?

You have the huge amount of options all sussed out?

Well please make a guide, or post some builds to save me the toil then.

I'd like to have my PC's sometimes (with luck and/or skill)

Fire arrows

Swing swords

Track

Sneak

Hide

Climb

Swim

Convince,

Run,

Walk,

Speak,

and

Heal

Please advise (unless your advice consist of a list of spells, I want Robin Hood and Indiana Jones, not Dr. Strange, and Gandalf please!).

strangebloke

2018-05-28, 10:36 PM

Pretty much agree with what you say... It is the things that are not said that I think are significant.

Things like out of combat optimisation for skills and ritual spells. Spells like teleport that change the way campaign works. Divination Spells, illusions to hide from divination. Optimisation can also be at the strategic level, you can change the course of a campaign whilst doing no damage.

THIS.

My PCs who died ignoramously? It was because they had bad tactics or bad strategy, almost as a rule. The ones that were powerful and had high agency? Those were the ones that had the will to play attentively and thoughtfully. Seriously, just remembering all the ritual spells you have available is a huge boon.

A party that uses tactics, spacing, stealth, and their equipment effectively is going to massively outperform a group of super-built sorcadins who are played by ignoramuses.

Someone should create a videogame where you just build characters out of thousands of options and then every time you complete one the game ends and says "You could not find a table to join. Nice build though. GAME OVER."

Hey, be gentle now, for some people it isn't their optimizing that's offputting, it's their stench.

Lombra

2018-05-29, 03:37 AM

Unoriginal

2018-05-29, 03:39 AM

If you're looking for synergy between options when building a character, you're playing the minigame.

It's only a game if the individual looking at the options make it a game.

Ignimortis

2018-05-29, 03:55 AM

I'd rather say that the game turned into a mini-game. There are very few ways to optimize towards one of the niches, and they're usually very explicit. You want to swing a giant axe and kill people left and right? Barbarian, GWM, there you go, until enemies' AC goes into 20s, you'll be the best damage dealer around and hard to kill, too. You want to heal people well? Life Cleric. You want to use magic to do absolutely everything? Wizards get half the spells in the game. You can crank it up a notch with a dip into another class, but those usually rarely count as much as the basic choices.

The issue is that there is usually a single best path towards anything. This is part of why I dislike 5e's mechanics. In 3.5 and PF, I've had various builds for various characters with various roles in mind and I've never felt underpowered compared to my party members if I put some effort into it, because there was no single way to do X well enough to contribute your share. In 5e, that happened two times out of four, because the best way to do X was already taken and I was trying to cobble up something original that would perform similarly and failed miserably.

Armored Walrus

2018-05-29, 07:50 AM

I'm only here to say I love that you used "rouge" for the unoptimized rogue.

JAL_1138

2018-05-29, 08:11 AM

I'd say 5e WD&D has less of a mini-game than Champions, GURPS, and Pendragon, but far more of one than old D&D.

:confused:

Really?

You have the huge amount of options all sussed out?

Well please make a guide, or post some builds to save me the toil then.

I'd like to have my PC's sometimes (with luck and/or skill)

Fire arrows

Swing swords

Track

Sneak

Hide

Climb

Swim

Convince,

Run,

Walk,

Speak,

and

Heal

Please advise (unless your advice consist of a list of spells, I want Robin Hood and Indiana Jones, not Dr. Strange, and Gandalf please!).

Literally a standard thief rogue with a healer's kit.

Probably add in the Healer feat to make the Healer's Kit work better.
If you're dead-set against spellcasting, then yeah Rogue's probably your jam here.

Swashbuckler instead of Thief might iwork too, although you don't get Fast Hands to use your Healer's Kit as a bonus action, so you won't be as good at healing, but you can still do it. Wouldn't get Second-Story Work for the climb speed either, but if you invest in Athletics and don't dump Str, you can be okay at it.

But you'd be a bit better at making use of Charisma through Rakish Audacity and Panache, and you're likely investing a little in Cha for the "convincing" part anyway. Plus, you don't have to be sneaky or depend on allies being adjacent or getting Advantage to get Sneak Attack with Swashbucklers (although only in melee range. You can still get Sneak Attack with a hand-crossbow at that range if you have Crossbow Expert). Their whole schtick is basically "being Erroll Flynn."

2D8HP

2018-05-29, 08:49 AM

strangebloke

2018-05-29, 09:25 AM

To me, the game is indeed dead, because when you are reusing the same exact options nearly 100% of the time without any real variation (the same couple feats and spells) it ceases to be a game. There is no mixing and matching. There is just choosing the general character archetype and having everything pretty much already done from there.

Pff.

Tell that to all of the ridiculous(ly awesome) barbarian rogues, sorcerer paladins, and hexblade bards. Tell that to the paladin I most recently played who had expertise in deception and proficiency with thieve's tools.

I'd rather say that the game turned into a mini-game. There are very few ways to optimize towards one of the niches, and they're usually very explicit. You want to swing a giant axe and kill people left and right? Barbarian, GWM, there you go, until enemies' AC goes into 20s, you'll be the best damage dealer around and hard to kill, too. You want to heal people well? Life Cleric. You want to use magic to do absolutely everything? Wizards get half the spells in the game. You can crank it up a notch with a dip into another class, but those usually rarely count as much as the basic choices.

1. swing a giant axe? Could also go fighter, hexblade, paladin, or ranger, all of those builds having various merits. Yes, a barbarian is the most straightforward, but a hunter ranger with a great axe will be much more effective against large groups. You've never touched true power until you've unleashed a whirlwind attack for -5/+10 against 8 targets.

2. Heal people well? Life cleric is decent, but a dreams druid with a life cleric dip is almost certainly better. Lore bard with a life cleric dip is also better by level 7. Paladins are better burst healers. A thief with the healer's feat is actually pretty stinking decent at heals.

3. Use magic for everything? Wizard is of course very good. Fey warlock with a book of shadows is nearly as flexible out of combat, and just as reliant on magic in combat.

The issue is that there is usually a single best path towards anything. This is part of why I dislike 5e's mechanics. In 3.5 and PF, I've had various builds for various characters with various roles in mind and I've never felt underpowered compared to my party members if I put some effort into it, because there was no single way to do X well enough to contribute your share. In 5e, that happened two times out of four, because the best way to do X was already taken and I was trying to cobble up something original that would perform similarly and failed miserably.

Okay, here's a fun question for you: Which class is the best at stealth? Shadow monks can get expertise via prodigy and can cast pass without trace and can shadow-teleport. Gloomstalkers get greater invisbility in darkness for free, can get expertise via prodigy, and can cast pass without trace. Rogues have the best skill checks without spells, by virtue of being a DEX-focused class, by having some crazy high-level features like reliable talent, and by being able hide as a bonus action. And then there's always my favorite: the warlock in half-plate who turns invisible in darkness without concentration and then casts silence on himself.

My conclusion based off of your post here is that you are trying to do very non-intuitive things. In which case... yeah. Non-intuitive builds should be ineffective. A barbarian who fights at range shouldn't be some super awesome build. (also, if you never felt underpowered in 3.5, odds were that you were making others feels underpowered. Balance was simply not a concept with meaning in 3.5.

Don't get me wrong, I liked 3.5, that was my first system... and I distinctly remember the moment when I realized that my fighter was literally less effective than any of the druid's spell slots, or her pet dog, or her wildshape form.

Waazraath

2018-05-29, 09:39 AM

I just find optimization boring in this edition. You can combine so few stuff together that the path to your build is often very explicit and easy to reach, which is a very good thing for the game, but does leave me with a little hunger for more crunch.

Fair enough if it feels this way to you. But don't you find it interesting to look for other ways than the obvious? For example, if you want to build a great weapon wielding warrior, it's very easy to just go for the GWM feat. Pick barbarian for auto advantage and you're done, and you have a decent build. But you could also try to avoid it, maximze your number of attacks, or skip the feat and instead find spells that increase damage (hex, hunter's mark, etc.), or combine those two.

As I see it, feats, skills, class, subclass, race, spells and (optionally) items isn't "few". Especially combined with the fact that 1) there's the action economy to take into account (bonus, action, reaction), and the 'passive' abilities a character has: hp, AC, save proficiencies; mostly the defenses.

Pretty much agree with what you say... It is the things that are not said that I think are significant.

Things like out of combat optimisation for skills and ritual spells. Spells like teleport that change the way campaign works. Divination Spells, illusions to hide from divination. Optimisation can also be at the strategic level, you can change the course of a campaign whilst doing no damage.

Yes, also very relevant! But I had enough text as it was :smallwink:

Except it doesn't happen, because Rogue 2 is not actually good enough to make anyone feel woefully inadequate.

Well, if you feel that way, fair enough. But at no table I ever played, it wouldn't have been a problem if there are two rogues in the party, at, lets say, level 12, where:
- no 1 rolls 1d8 + 6d6
- no 2 rolls 1d8 + 2d8 + 4d6 with advantage // as a reaction rolls 1d8 + 4d6
This will end up about double the damage, without any opportunity costs (on the contrary, no 2 could play with the 'booming' effect', and a familiar can also be a great asset in the exploring piller off the game).

No. Optimization is about as relevant as trying to win a collaborative game
This is a very weird statement. Optimization helps the collective to win the collective game. It seems like you see optimizing as something you do opposed to your party members.

So your conclusion is "even if you try to optimize, you just end up with a build basically equal to the others"?
YES! In this case it is! I wonder if you understand what I try to do with this thread: I've thrown in a number of examples with different results. For the rogue, I see a big difference between optimized and non-optimized version, up to the point that it can pose problem. With my second example, I show how somebody can totally optimize for an effect, uses a build that requirers specific feats, race, spells and (sub)class... and despite all the effort, it isn't unbalanced.

And my conclusion is that I'm happy with it. Let me ask you a question: somebody had fun with this mini-game. Went through the books, combined all those different parts to achieve something cool, that probably very few characters will ever be able to do (attack 3 times with 3d20 with big fat damage bonus). And it doesn't even unbalance the game! Where is the harm? Why deny that this game exists in the first place?

My thoughts is that people are much too obsessed with minimal difference in powers. I'm not a fan of being told being a great Monk apparently means you're a socially inept ignoramus who has trouble climbing walls, or that not having 16 in your primary stat(s) is an aberration.

Is optimization dead? Well, people sure are trying hard to keep it alive, in any case.

Is optimization relevant? If your goal is "have the most powerful character", then no.

This doesn't have to with "power" per se. That's what you make of this, not me. The character building mini game can just as much be aimed to a fun concept, an illogical clas/race combination, to make something work that is poorly supported (grapple, weapon throwing), etc. Optimization is only a part of it: I focussed this post on it, cause it is the most common, and through DPR the most measurable.

Except that you've literally compared the cartoon version of unoptimized (literally doesn't use feats, really) to totally optimized. And as you yourself say, the actively unoptimized character is just as enjoyable and largely just as capable (particularly when the optional feat rules aren't used) as the optimized character. Contrast that with 3.5e where it was quite possible to make an ineffective character, and in fact the system was deliberately filled with trap options to give participants in the character building minigame a sense of "system mastery" over players who actually want to play instead of pouring over splats (a skeezy design tactic lifted from Magic the Gathering).

So lets see, in your opening post you've:

1. Accidentally confirmed that there's not all that much distance in play between "optimized" and the worst case scenario.

2. Admitted that as a consequence of this, there's no way to "lose" at character creation the way you could in 3.5 (it's not a game if there's no lose state).

3. Displayed the exact attitude (not one suited to a cooperative game) I associate with people who are heavily into the 3.5 character building minigame.

Eh, no. Cartoon version of unoptimized in nonsense. A cartoon version wouldn't have taken a dex race. And a really unoptimized version wouldn't raise his its dex score at 4, 8 etc., for role play reasons. Not using feats is quite common, most of my games are without feats, and those with feats, most players dont'take one. The fact that the first character can be just as enjoyable as the second doesn't exclude the (imo rather big) possibility that having both of them in the same party would pose a problem - the differences are big enough for that. Of course 3.5 was a totally different story, tough you're too cynical to see it as a "cheep design tactic". The huge disparity in power was already there in the core books. One could, after 100 splat books appeared, build a core wizard that was overpowered.

As for your 3 statements, I find:
1: "that much" open to interpretation. I think the difference between rogue 1 and 2 quite big. Not as bit as in earlier editions, but I said so much in my OP.
2: Eh.... it never was my point that one can "lose" at character creation. I don't 'admitted' anything.
3: Wut?! Dude, that you can't see the character building mini-game apart from power play and a non-cooperative attitude, that's entirely your problem. Maybe it explains your hostile attitude. I optimze my characters to help my party. To fill in blanks in a party. Or I create some characters for fun (not even 'optimize' per se), as an intellectual excersise, instead of reading a book. So I'm really not that impressed with your accusations about my noncooperative attitude, nor interested that you think I'm having badwrongfun.

There is absolutely a difference between optimized characters and those that aren’t. The gap just isn’t nearly as big as it was in 3.x but it still exists.

Ignoring my own characters (which tend to be on the overpowered side), it really helps to know in advance which players are going to play at my AL table. If it’s a group of 5-7 optimizers I’ll have to greatly increase the enemies or it’ll be a snooze for the players. If it’s a group of more casual players I would end up killing PCs doing that.

The difference in output and survivalability between an optimized character and an “average” character makes the optimized character about 2.5 times as effective. The difference can start small, but grows over time as the optimizer has more levels to play with and more tools to combine. By tier 3 the difference is quite extensive, especially in AL as optimized characters have only the best available items attuned.

There are still many trap options in 5e. Tons of feats are trash compared to others. Tons of spells are a complete waste of an action and slot. Half the stats are dump stats where new players waste points. I’ve seen all of these choices in PCs. Optimizers often make a few unoptimal choices but know enough to make them work. Inexperienced players can struggle with bad choices.

Interesting, thnx. Yeah, there are a few trap options, feats, but more importantly probably spell selection for those classes that only have a few spells known (sorcerer, warlock, bard). There a player can really gimp him/herself for the long term. Any experience with optimizers and non-optimizeers in the same party? Did it lead to trouble?

The op insisted on creating a thread for it despite the fact that, as we know from every other time a version of this thread has existed there's no productive discussion to be had.

So far there's only 1 person who contributes to this not being a productive discussion, and that's you. Feel free to leave. You already said you weren't interested in this discussion, so why are you even here?

The optimization ‘build’ game still exists... especially if you are trying to do something silly instead of just making an enjoyable character (maxing out run speed or something)... but it isn’t necessary, nor (with very few high level exceptions) particularly disruptive to a game.

Yes, this! Though a silly character can just as well be enjoyable, afaic.

I think you are looking at this the wrong way.

Yes you can optimize in 5e just like in every other edition of D&D/AD&D but that was not really the issue here is it?

We are supposed to talk about the build mini game and frankly that is mostly dead. Not 100% dead but mostly dead.

IN this regard 5e is more like AD&D and the older versions of D&D. In all of those games you do get options to optimize your character (people like to act like there is no optimization in say 2e but it is frankly not true if you go into the books). However despite optimization existing in those games the build mini game did not really exist. 5e does much the same thing as you can optimize your character but build porn is just not the same.

Now build porn was at its height in 3e and 4e and in like what some are saying here it is not always due to optimization part of it was just the sheer novelty of building something. In 3e make a character that was functional as a sandwich or in 4e playing a lazy commander character were not the power combos but were done for the novelty of it. Heck if you look back at it there are many times where the character was not really playable for most of a game or was not even fun to play at all.

That is a big difference too was that in many cases the building of the character was more fun than actually paying the character whereas in 5e (and AD&D for that matter) building the character tends to be far less interesting than actually playing the character (I think that is healthy for the game but I do miss that build porn every once in a while).

Didn't the "skills and power" series greatly encouraged and stimulated "build porn", as you call it, in AD&D?

I'm only here to say I love that you used "rouge" for the unoptimized rogue.

Thnx :)

2D8HP

2018-05-29, 09:56 AM

Swashbuckler

For the record, Swashbuckler is probably my favorite subclass, with Champion a close second.

...My conclusion based off of your post here is that you are trying to do very non-intuitive things. In which case... yeah. Non-intuitive builds should be ineffective. A barbarian who fights at range shouldn't be some super awesome build. (also, if you never felt underpowered in 3.5, odds were that you were making others feels underpowered. Balance was simply not a concept with meaning in 3.5.

Don't get me wrong, I liked 3.5, that was my first system... and I distinctly remember the moment when I realized that my fighter was literally less effective than any of the druid's spell slots, or her pet dog, or her wildshape form.

As I posted before, I played some 0e, 1e, and B/X before 5e, and have never played 3.x.

I want to learn some 3.5/PF so I may expand what tables I may play at, but frankly that I need to chose a Feat to play a Fighter is a big hurdle for me, as is how very complex and un-intuitive they advice at the 3.5 sub-forum.

With 5e I could just play a standard human Fighter Urchin, with a 9 INT, and a 14 everything else, and just play.

I don't see any obvious "training wheels" class/options for 3.5/PF.

Admittedly, the advice on this sub-Forum for 5e is also complex and non-intuitive, but at least I was told "You really can't make too bad of a character", so I could just play.

...Didn't the "skills and power" series greatly encouraged and stimulated "build porn", as you call it, in AD&D?..

I've heard that, but I started my boycott of new AD&D rules with the game-breaking OP options in 1985's Unearthed Arcana came out, so I skipped those.

Waazraath

2018-05-29, 10:07 AM

I've heard that, but I started my boycott of new AD&D rules with the game-breaking OP options in 1985's Unearthed Arcana came out, so I skipped those.

It's a long time, but I remember something of trading in character abilities for CP's (character points?), which in turn could be used to purchase abilities of other classes. The Cleric had the most CP's, cause it could trade in domains (or whatever they were called back then - the default was you knew them all) for a lot of CP's, for which you could purchase a bigger HD, better weapon proficiencies, the abilites to wield 2 weapons, the best wizard school (the one including Disintegrate, at that time, I think); you only needed to keep a few domains, like healing and time.

And that's disregarding the total cheese, of investing all command points in the throwing proficiency, to throw 25 darts / turn, a mile far, with an enourmous damage bonus. Ah, it's coming back. Oh happy days.

Good you started your boycot earlier ;-)

strangebloke

2018-05-29, 10:50 AM

As I posted before, I played some 0e, 1e, and B/X before 5e, and have never played 3.x.

I want to learn some 3.5/PF so I may expand what tables I may play at, but frankly that I need to chose a Feat to play a Fighter is a big hurdle for me, as is how very complex and un-intuitive they advice at the 3.5 sub-forum.

With 5e I could just play a standard human Fighter Urchin, with a 9 INT, and a 14 everything else, and just play.

I don't see any obvious "training wheels" class/options for 3.5/PF.

Admittedly, the advice on this sub-Forum for 5e is also complex and non-intuitive, but at least I was told "You really can't make too bad of a character", so I could just play.
Yeah, this is the cost of the 'fun' of the mini-game.

Some players don't get how to win at the minigame, and have to deal with weak, ineffectual characters. Other people rock at the minigame, but because they can't throttle their desire to optimize they get driven away from other tables. 5e is full of niche builds that are super-effective at one thing. The "world's best counterspeller" for example is a very non-intuitive build. What 5e really lacks to make the minigame 'fun' is 100% trap options and 100% overpowered options.

Good riddance to those, say I.

How much optimization matters in 3.5e is really dependent on the table you're playing at. At many tables, a stupid-simple barbarian with power attack and the lion totem Alternative Class Features (think of alternative class features as a subclass) will be a very effective character. for later feats, just grab endurance->steadfast determination, or just load up on skill focus feats, since that's your interest.

At more high-optimization tables, a druid is probably your best best for 'simple build, but powerful...' and a druid ain't that simple, from a bookkeeping perspective, even if it is very simple from a build perspective.

If you can handle it, the best class to match the sort of archetype you seem to like to play is the factotum, but the factotum does have some ugly, nasty spellcasting. The factotum is basically a jack-of-all trades who can always be second best at everything skill-related, and can cast high level magic a few times a day.

Willie the Duck

2018-05-29, 11:19 AM

2D8HP

2018-05-29, 11:37 AM

[...]

How much optimization matters in 3.5e is really dependent on the table you're playing at. At many tables, a stupid-simple barbarian with power attack and the lion totem Alternative Class Features (think of alternative class features as a subclass) will be a very effective character. for later feats, just grab endurance->steadfast determination, or just load up on skill focus feats, since that's your interest.

At more high-optimization tables, a druid is probably your best best for 'simple build, but powerful...' and a druid ain't that simple, from a bookkeeping perspective, even if it is very simple from a build perspective.

If you can handle it, the best class to match the sort of archetype you seem to like to play is the factotum, but the factotum does have some ugly, nasty spellcasting. The factotum is basically a jack-of-all trades who can always be second best at everything skill-related, and can cast high level magic a few times a day.

Thanks!

:smile:

willdaBEAST

2018-05-29, 11:51 AM

This may not fully apply, I apologize if it doesn't, but I noticed in games like Dota there often is a perceived meta of top tier heroes/abilities/items that players hold an almost dogmatic view towards. A lot of the time they're correct, there is an optimization difference, but I think people often underestimate the effect of running predictable strategies in both video games and especially table top games. When the DM is personally designing combat encounters (or social), they're likely going to expect and account for typical power gamer approaches. Whenever that happens, I think it opens up room for creative builds that exploit some of the compensation that a DM might use to deal with a powerful melee combo or spell.

With Moba games like Dota, you'd often seen huge regional play-style differences between Asia, America and Europe. Each region would religiously adhere to the established "meta", but in big international tournaments there could be huge upsets when radically different approaches clash.

TL;DR Even if there aren't as many options to customize in 5e, we're still scratching the surface in respect to understanding how all the classes, abilities, feats and items can interact. I guarantee you that if no more supplemental material was released, within a year the consensus on what are the most powerful builds would change.

jas61292

2018-05-29, 11:52 AM

Pff.

Tell that to all of the ridiculous(ly awesome) barbarian rogues, sorcerer paladins, and hexblade bards. Tell that to the paladin I most recently played who had expertise in deception and proficiency with thieve's tools.

My only point was that, from the optimization point of view expressed by the OP, there is very little to actually do. When I said archetype, I meant it as in the general character type, not subclass. Because basically, you pick that, and there will just be one or two things to choose and you are about as optimized as you are going to get in 5e.

Want to be any archer? Take sharpshooter. Done. Yeah, yeah, other choices matter too, but, so long as you are not actively trying to sabotage your character that one choice probably does more to optimize your character than every choice in the rest of your build combined. It's the same with a handful of other archetypes and feats. And for spellcasters, there are a few spells considered absolute must haves, and everything else is mostly irrelevant from am optimization standpoint, again so long as you are not trying to be bad.

Yes, there are tons of fun characters you can make, with plenty of variety. I'm not debating that. I actually love that about 5e. But the ability to make fun characters was not what the OP was talking about. It was about working out the most optimized characters, and with there being so few options that make up so much of the optimization, there simply is not the minigame there used to be.

Picking Shield, Misty Step and Counterspell for the millionth time is hardly a game.

Waazraath

2018-05-29, 12:15 PM

Pff.

Tell that to all of the ridiculous(ly awesome) barbarian rogues, sorcerer paladins, and hexblade bards. Tell that to the paladin I most recently played who had expertise in deception and proficiency with thieve's tools.

1. swing a giant axe? Could also go fighter, hexblade, paladin, or ranger, all of those builds having various merits. Yes, a barbarian is the most straightforward, but a hunter ranger with a great axe will be much more effective against large groups. You've never touched true power until you've unleashed a whirlwind attack for -5/+10 against 8 targets.

2. Heal people well? Life cleric is decent, but a dreams druid with a life cleric dip is almost certainly better. Lore bard with a life cleric dip is also better by level 7. Paladins are better burst healers. A thief with the healer's feat is actually pretty stinking decent at heals.

3. Use magic for everything? Wizard is of course very good. Fey warlock with a book of shadows is nearly as flexible out of combat, and just as reliant on magic in combat.

Okay, here's a fun question for you: Which class is the best at stealth? Shadow monks can get expertise via prodigy and can cast pass without trace and can shadow-teleport. Gloomstalkers get greater invisbility in darkness for free, can get expertise via prodigy, and can cast pass without trace. Rogues have the best skill checks without spells, by virtue of being a DEX-focused class, by having some crazy high-level features like reliable talent, and by being able hide as a bonus action. And then there's always my favorite: the warlock in half-plate who turns invisible in darkness without concentration and then casts silence on himself.

My conclusion based off of your post here is that you are trying to do very non-intuitive things. In which case... yeah. Non-intuitive builds should be ineffective. A barbarian who fights at range shouldn't be some super awesome build. (also, if you never felt underpowered in 3.5, odds were that you were making others feels underpowered. Balance was simply not a concept with meaning in 3.5.

Don't get me wrong, I liked 3.5, that was my first system... and I distinctly remember the moment when I realized that my fighter was literally less effective than any of the druid's spell slots, or her pet dog, or her wildshape form.

This was posted while I was typing the long reply below, missed it earlier. Agree with the points you make. 5e has interesting ways to have other routes towards a goal then the obvious one.

I guess I'm kind of not seeing a point, here. I mean, is optimization/build-making dead? No, and it can't be, and I don't think anyone really thinks it is.

Except people claim it to be! Both in this thread, the one that this whole thread was a reaction to, and in numerous other instances.

What is dead (or dying, or muted, or pushed-back-against, or however you want to define it) is the culture of celebration of coming up with a really optimized build. It is no longer (whether it ever was at all, excepting on the OP sections of boards, being an open question not really addressed here) particularly a feather in one's cap to post a highly optimized build here or on other boards (particularly one hinging upon a particularly abusive reading of rules).

Afaic, that was only a CharOp-forum thing anyway. Even for 3.x, I never encountered the balance problem until very late levels, in real play, because DM's waivered the most outrages rules interpretations and interactions, because the optimizers focussed on making weak classes playable, or playing a support class to empower the non-optimizers. It's a social game, and if you play with social folks and friends, nobody wants to dominiate / break the game. Except That Guy, that every circle of friends seems to have, but even he's reasonable enough when talked to.

You raise a good point, that the relative power level between optimized and un-optimized builds is an important factor. This (along with relative inter-class balance) means that there is less incentive (/sense that you 'have to') to optimize.
thnx.

TL;DR Even if there aren't as many options to customize in 5e, we're still scratching the surface in respect to understanding how all the classes, abilities, feats and items can interact. I guarantee you that if no more supplemental material was released, within a year the consensus on what are the most powerful builds would change.

This is a very good point. The Batman Wizard took some time to emerge in 3.x, and the God-wizard was much later then that.

My only point was that, from the optimization point of view expressed by the OP, there is very little to actually do. When I said archetype, I meant it as in the general character type, not subclass. Because basically, you pick that, and there will just be one or two things to choose and you are about as optimized as you are going to get in 5e.

Want to be any archer? Take sharpshooter. Done.

But it's not that obvious, really. What I tried to explain with not going for the obvious: "if you want to build a great weapon wielding warrior, it's very easy to just go for the GWM feat. Pick barbarian for auto advantage and you're done, and you have a decent build. But you could also try to avoid it, maximze your number of attacks, or skip the feat and instead find spells that increase damage (hex, hunter's mark, etc.), or combine those two."

For the archer, do it without SS, but with damage bonusses; build one with and one without Crossbow Expert, and find different ways to utilize that bonus action. Make a monk or warlock archer, if sticking SS on a fighter chasis is to easy. Find builds that might have a little less DPR, but that (more than) compensate for it in other ways.

jas61292

2018-05-29, 01:17 PM

But it's not that obvious, really. What I tried to explain with not going for the obvious: "if you want to build a great weapon wielding warrior, it's very easy to just go for the GWM feat. Pick barbarian for auto advantage and you're done, and you have a decent build. But you could also try to avoid it, maximze your number of attacks, or skip the feat and instead find spells that increase damage (hex, hunter's mark, etc.), or combine those two."

For the archer, do it without SS, but with damage bonusses; build one with and one without Crossbow Expert, and find different ways to utilize that bonus action. Make a monk or warlock archer, if sticking SS on a fighter chasis is to easy. Find builds that might have a little less DPR, but that (more than) compensate for it in other ways.

I actually agree with you for the most part. I was mainly looking at it from the way the OP seemed to be looking at it. To me, optimization without constraints was never a game in the first place. It was simply boring. It only ever became a game when you had the limits of a concept within which to optimize. 5e certainly has all sorts of viable characters, and if you are starting with a concept more detailed than "archer" or "wizard," there is a lot of fun to be had I making a build.

That said, what I like even more about 5e is that I don't have to do that. I can supply pick what I feel like without any plan, and it will almost always work well enough. And, in that sense, since no real thought is needed, there really is little point to the optimization game, even if it does exist.

Waazraath

2018-05-29, 01:26 PM

I actually agree with you for the most part. I was mainly looking at it from the way the OP seemed to be looking at it. To me, optimization without constraints was never a game in the first place. It was simply boring. It only ever became a game when you had the limits of a concept within which to optimize. 5e certainly has all sorts of viable characters, and if you are starting with a concept more detailed than "archer" or "wizard," there is a lot of fun to be had I making a build.

That said, what I like even more about 5e is that I don't have to do that. I can supply pick what I feel like without any plan, and it will almost always work well enough. And, in that sense, since no real thought is needed, there really is little point to the optimization game, even if it does exist.

Ah. Being the OP (or having written it, depending on definition of OP), I probably wasn't totally clear. I agree with your points (optimizing without constraints isn't the most interesting, there s stil a lot of fun to be had, you don't have to do it to have fun and that's good.

"little point in playing the char building game", well.... the point of the game is to have fun, and as long as people building having fun, there's lots of point ;)

Lombra

2018-05-29, 01:53 PM

Probably add in the Healer feat to make the Healer's Kit work better.
If you're dead-set against spellcasting, then yeah Rogue's probably your jam here.

Yeah I intended the feat but wrote the kit, my bad, be an aasimar for more "nonmagical" healing.

Waazraath

2018-05-29, 02:26 PM

Ignimortis

2018-05-29, 02:28 PM

1. swing a giant axe? Could also go fighter, hexblade, paladin, or ranger, all of those builds having various merits. Yes, a barbarian is the most straightforward, but a hunter ranger with a great axe will be much more effective against large groups. You've never touched true power until you've unleashed a whirlwind attack for -5/+10 against 8 targets.

2. Heal people well? Life cleric is decent, but a dreams druid with a life cleric dip is almost certainly better. Lore bard with a life cleric dip is also better by level 7. Paladins are better burst healers. A thief with the healer's feat is actually pretty stinking decent at heals.

3. Use magic for everything? Wizard is of course very good. Fey warlock with a book of shadows is nearly as flexible out of combat, and just as reliant on magic in combat.

Okay, here's a fun question for you: Which class is the best at stealth? Shadow monks can get expertise via prodigy and can cast pass without trace and can shadow-teleport. Gloomstalkers get greater invisbility in darkness for free, can get expertise via prodigy, and can cast pass without trace. Rogues have the best skill checks without spells, by virtue of being a DEX-focused class, by having some crazy high-level features like reliable talent, and by being able hide as a bonus action. And then there's always my favorite: the warlock in half-plate who turns invisible in darkness without concentration and then casts silence on himself.

My conclusion based off of your post here is that you are trying to do very non-intuitive things. In which case... yeah. Non-intuitive builds should be ineffective. A barbarian who fights at range shouldn't be some super awesome build. (also, if you never felt underpowered in 3.5, odds were that you were making others feels underpowered. Balance was simply not a concept with meaning in 3.5.

Don't get me wrong, I liked 3.5, that was my first system... and I distinctly remember the moment when I realized that my fighter was literally less effective than any of the druid's spell slots, or her pet dog, or her wildshape form.

1. And none of them except will be as effective+tanky in all situations which don't favor them.
My BM Fighter 3/Hexblade 5 in the party with the barbarian had to literally burn everything he had, from action surge to Hex to maneuver dice, to exceed the GWM bearbarian's damage output for one turn. The barbarian was literally dealing 50+ damage per turn every turn, and if there was a kill or crit in there, that swiftly turned into 75+ damage with some rare cases where he missed an attack and still did my full DPR in one that hit. By that point the DM was throwing deadly (as in, one attack routine from one enemy had me from full HP to single digits without crits) encounters just to keep the party from steamrolling everything by pointing the barbarian at the enemies. And he could keep that up for as long as he had rage uses remaining.
In three years of 5e, I have never actually seen an encounter where a PC was surrounded by more than four enemies at once, so while theoretically your Ranger example is solid, I can't even imagine that happening in the games I played in.

2. I've said that dips can make things better, and that's one of the noticeable cases. A Divine Soul sorcerer with a Life Cleric dip can do good stuff too, I think. But that's the trick, Life Cleric is so good for healing, that this dip decides more or as much as the base class does.

3. Except you've blown half your class features you get before level 5 on being "nearly" as good as a wizard, who actually gets everything that you get as a spell, except for Eldritch Blast and some Warlock-specific spells which are usually less useful than the wizard spells you lose.

The best stealth class at low levels is the shadow monk. I have never seen a campaign go past level 13, so I might be biased, but Shadow Monks get most of their hiding tricks that are not conspicuous ("oh boy a cloud of super-thick darkness, wonder what made that here") later on...but Pass without Trace, cast with Ki, is the earliest you can get a +15 to stealth which means you beat most creatures passive perception almost automatically. Rangers get that spell later and have way more limited slots to cast it with.

The only time I had a really good thing going was with a Hunter Ranger with a longbow, so the most basic stuff, really. Lots of damage, some utility, ignoring exploration problems - that was nice. Storm Sorcerer had a nice story and he was the only arcane caster, so I wasn't overshadowed by anyone and it went okay. Two other times were terrible.

I want to note that I am a poor powergamer, since I always optimize (or try to) around concepts. 3.PF always gave me the ability to do the thing I want to do, often in various ways, and do it at least well enough to be useful at most times. For instance, in my current PF game I'm playing an unarmed Harbinger. This is usually a poor choice, but with some fumbling around and finding options which do what I want to do, it works well (one of my teammates does melee combat better by the numbers, but his mobility and utility are abysmal, whereas mine are excellent for a non-caster).
When I apply the same idea to 5e, it usually turns out that it either has one specific way to do this thing really well (for example, I can't replicate the Harbinger with anything but Shadow Monk and it'd be a strictly inferior version in every aspect), and it doesn't mesh with my concept, or that it just doesn't support my thing well enough for me to compete head-to-head with people who follow the system's expectations closer.

While I do understand the "Fighter problem", I think that everyone who plays 3.5 or Pathfinder these days does too, and takes some measures to prevent that. It's not a coincidence the 3.5 forum is replete with topics about balancing the casters and the martials even now. Almost anyone has their own way to do that. 3.PF is a huge box of Lego parts from various sets. Some obviously don't fit with the others, but you can still use them in various designs and build almost anything you want. 5e is a box of colored bricks. You can do a lot with them, but not too much.

TheFryingPen

2018-05-29, 02:55 PM

Example no. 1: The rogue vs the rouge, or, eh, the optimized rogue vs the non-optimized version.

Let's take normal, fun, rogue. A Thief. The player doesn't want to optimze, but doesn't want to make unoptimized choices, so he takes a wood elf. Some extra speed, +2 to dex, so start with 17, and enough room to go for a 14 or 15 constitution. He doesn't want to have the hassle of multiclass or feats, and doesn't use those optional rules. Has a fun character that can do relevant things, in combat do decent damage with sneak attack, sometimes be creative with fast hand and use magic deveice. Out of combat relevant with loads of skills. Hurrah!

Then there is the optimized rogue. Picks variant human, with the magic initiate feats, for Find Familiar and the booming blade cantrip. Also starts with a +3 dex modifier. Can do extra damage with booming blade / cunning action (disingage) combo. Regardless, from level 5 onward he does 1d8, 2d8 or even 3d8 extra damage without this combo (and up to 7d8 when using it succesful - extra damage, over what a rouge does anyway). Summons an owl familiar, that with the "help" action, and the ability to use it without provoking an attack of opportunity, gives adantage A LOT of times, greatly increasing the damage output. And this rogue takes 3 levels in fighter, for Battlemaster and the riposte maneuver. Now, he can make a sneak attack on another persons turn, effectively doubling the damage output of Rogue 1, if it wasn't higher already due to the owl familiar and booming blade. In addition to all this, the rogue can be just as creative with skills, fast hands, and use magic deveice as rogue 1, and have just as fun a character. Hurrah!

Conclusion: "hurrah", up to the point where rogue 1 and 2 are in the same party, and no 1 will feel woefully inadequate and vastly outperformed in combat. And that both sucks, and shows imo that optimiztion is still very much alive in 5e. And relevant.

You heavily argued for #2 in an ideal combat situation. Also this build is only available due to using two variant rules that play in it's favor and an additional book. When you enable strong additional customization options of course those not making use of these options might miss out on something (that's what players will have to expect). While having greater damage potential (SCAG cantrips are a good fit especially for rogues, no denying that) #2 is more situational and comes with some downsides compared to #1 you are overlooking or just not mentioning. There are more ways to interfere with it's "game plan" and some other variant rules can make it less appealing and balance it out.

Familiar: might get killed and then has to be re-summoned, costing time and money. If you use the "cleaving through creatures" variant rule (DMG 272) the familiar equals to a damage reduction of 1 if there's an ally next to it. If there's any AoE around it will die easily too.
Also, if there's someone in the group who can easily provide Advantage (e.g. a fighter knocking enemies prone) or you play with the optional flanking rule (DMG 251) the advantage you can get from a familiar gets much less important.
Multiclassing: while Fighter -> Battle Master offers some nice benefits for a combat-specialized rogue build, this also means delaying 3 levels of rogue. This means you might miss something important like Evasion, Reliable Talent, Blindsense, Slippery mind etc. when you'd need it.
Riposte is a limited option that requires you to be attacked and missed in melee and consumes your reaction. It's amazing if you can use it to bring a target down fast, but you won't be able to use a potentially life-saving Uncanny Dodge afterwards if you do so.
SCAG cantrip is a spell. It could be countered or prevented by an anti magic field or silence effect, there could be some foe with a Mage Slayer - like ability around, while invisible it could reveal your position due to a foe detecting magic or hearing the verbal component. You also can not target an invisible / obscured creature with it because it isn't a valid target.
The BB / disengage combo only works reliably if the target has nothing else to attack in melee (harder to gain sneak attack then) and no means to attack from a distance. Also it requires your bonus action. Making this work often is very much a team effort, so the damage proc on move would be the last thing to bother me. The scaling default damage might seem much but mind it requires you to get into melee, while #1 could just shoot from behind with a bow. Getting up close should enable you to do more damage.
No off hand attack. SCAG cantrips don't allow for a second attack with your offhand. You have other uses for your bonus action, but if you miss with your main attack / a SCAG cantrip you might have preferred to attack a second time and gain another shot at delivering a good chunk of sneak attack damage.
Starting race differences / niches: While variant human offers a instant feat, Wood Elves (also other races, but staying on your example here) have some things going for them too: hiding in "bad weather", less sleep needed, a bit more movement, one more attribute point, advantage vs charm, immunity to magical sleep and probably most important: Darkvision. This means #1 is a much better sneaker at night and underground (doesn't reveal it's position with light) and a much better fighter in unlit encounters. As long as #2 doesn't get fighter levels #1 also enjoys better range damage due to longbow and after that due to a higher sneak attack damage.

Not saying the optimized build isn't better, just trying to point out all the extra effort it needs and all the little weak points some of its strategies might have. The combat potential is higher, but it requires more effort to play it to that potential and to build it well. Compared to that the "simple" rogue who just takes rogue level + ASIs and can get lower but easy, less risky and less complicated damage from range. Or decides to go melee (admittedly less worth it with that build) but has one more chance to deliver damage. And the non-optimized version also has strengths the optimized one doesn't have.
That's why there are lots of opportunities for a DM to make the optimized build less "overpowered" when the #1 "don't care so much"-player gets frustrated. Make them travel + sneak / fight in darkness. Give them other ways to gain advantage or make keeping the familiar alive a challenge. Make casting spells in melee harder. Make range combat required / important.

As long as an optimized build has some shortcomings (the extent to which they apply is up to the DM) I think it's fine for them to exist in this way. Honestly, even this rather significant example between optimized and un-optimized characters probably would bother me less than playing a campaign where long rest - resource classes frequently get time to rest while you're playing a class not relying on such resources. If someone's character is fitting too well in too many situations they can always be tweaked (not the characters, the situations they get put in).

JNAProductions

2018-05-29, 02:57 PM

So, the BearBarian had GWM, to hit at -5/+10. Presumably, they had a greatsword and a strength of 20, for 22 damage a hit. Which means they're VHuman and therefore lack Darkvision, but let's focus on just combat. It DOES mean his AC is, at most, 17, so even with resistance, he's getting hurt.

They have a +3 to-hit, with advantage from Reckless Attack. Against a few CR 2-8 monsters, just flipping through the MM...

Gith! Perfect!

Githyanki Warrior has AC 17 and 49 HP at CR 3
Knight has 18 AC and 91 HP at CR 8
Githzerai Monk has AC 14 and 38 HP at CR 2
Githzerai Zerth has AC 17 and 84 HP at CR 6

So, his odds of hitting on each creature are:
Warrior: 57.75%
Knight: 51%
Monk: 75%
Zerth: 57.75%

And the odds of that hit being a crit are 9.75% each.

Average DPR is... Probably less than useful here. Let's look at his odds of one-rounding a Warrior or a Monk, since they're able to be one-shotted.

To one-shot a Monk, he has a 97.3% chance of doing it if two attacks hit, and is guaranteed to do it if he gets three hits. Then again, he's got 99.98% odds if he crits once and hits once, so we'll just check the odds of hitting twice. (Also, odds of killing him with one crit and nothing else? .39%, so not worth calculating in.)

Odds of hitting and NOT critting are 65.25% chance, odds of each attack critting are 9.75%.
Odds of getting at least one crit on the first two attacks? 18.55%.
Two swings gives odds of just under 56.25% chance of one-rounding the Monk, three swings gives an about 84.38% chance.
So, total odds are (.8145*.5625)+(.1855*.8438)=.4582+.1565=.6147, or a 61.47% chance.

To one-shot a Warrior, he has a 9.72% chance with two hits, a 72.06% chance with one hit and a crit, and it's guaranteed with three hits.

Odds of hitting and NOT critting are 48% chance, odds of each attack critting are 9.75%.
Odds of getting at least one crit on the first two attacks? 18.55%.
Two swings gives odds of 33.35% chance of two hits, minus 18.55% for 14.8% chance of just two hits and no crits. If either crit, we get an extra swing, for 19.26% chance of three hits and 61.53% chance of two hits, one of which is a crit.
So, total odds are (.148*.0972)+.1855(.1926*1)+.1855(.6153*.7206)=.01 44+.0357+.0822=.1323, or a 13.23% chance.

Meanwhile, let's say the Warrior lives. Assuming Mr. Bearbarian has Half-Plate, for AC 17, and 16 Con for 85 HP, the Warrior can attack back for an average of...

.64 chance of hitting, for 9 (halved for 4) plus 7 damage, for 11 damage per hit.
Slightly over 14.08 damage back to the Barbarian on average (I didn't calculate crits). Nothing crazy, but not something he wants to take constantly.

And hey, looking at the Githzerai, they actually have Shield 3/day! So yeah, he's not hitting the Monk 75% of the time, he's hitting 43.75% of the time.

Okay, that was way too many maths. But the point is, with only a +3 to-hit, he should NOT have been outpacing you excessively, unless he had very hot dice.

MeeposFire

2018-05-29, 02:58 PM

Didn't the "skills and power" series greatly encouraged and stimulated "build porn", as you call it, in AD&D?

Thnx :)

It might if it came out earlier or was far more popular. For those who had it and wanted to use it then you could try to play the building a character game for a bit but like all pre 3e games most of your choices (not all since you do get WP, NWP, or CPs as you level) right at level 1 from a relatively limited pool of choices. You do get to make trades so yes you can get that game feeling from it but I think it would be disingenuous to say that those rules were common or popular. Heck I have a hard time finding people even willing to try them out either from not liking the look of it or having had previous experience and thinking they were too much.

Frankly the skills and powers books were more a controversial footnote especially when it came to player class options less so for the combat and tactics I think. Considering that those options were rarely used and not popular I do not think I would say that they promoted build porn or the build game for AD&D on the whole. You could use it for that but on the whole they did not end up doing that.

Ignimortis

2018-05-29, 03:20 PM

JNAProductions

2018-05-29, 03:24 PM

Most enemies we faced had around 14-16 AC, his greatsword was +1, and if the enemies had 18+ AC he just didn't GWM and used Reckless which still allowed better hit chances and better damage (2d6+8 against my 1d10+1d6+5). And absolutely nobody did Psychic damage except for one specific boss...which promptly got shut down with a potion of psychic resistance bought earlier.

So, he had a magic item (two, actually) both of which were very good for him, somehow got +2 damage from nowhere (2d6 is greatsword damage, +5 is 20 Strength, +1 is magic, +2 from... Where?) and even with all that managed to get one point of damage more per attack.

When you had third level spells.

I fail to see the issue here.

Quoxis

2018-05-29, 03:31 PM

I found myself playing with GMs where you had two choices: optimize to an extent or roll up a new character every few sessions because the old one died without chances of resurrection.

Also i‘m not optimized irl, so once a week i like to play someone who is. Being cooler and better than my real self is pretty much why i‘m playing this game, because why would i if my reallife was equally interesting?

strangebloke

2018-05-29, 04:42 PM

1. And none of them except will be as effective+tanky in all situations which don't favor them.
My BM Fighter 3/Hexblade 5 in the party with the barbarian had to literally burn everything he had, from action surge to Hex to maneuver dice, to exceed the GWM bearbarian's damage output for one turn. The barbarian was literally dealing 50+ damage per turn every turn, and if there was a kill or crit in there, that swiftly turned into 75+ damage with some rare cases where he missed an attack and still did my full DPR in one that hit. By that point the DM was throwing deadly (as in, one attack routine from one enemy had me from full HP to single digits without crits) encounters just to keep the party from steamrolling everything by pointing the barbarian at the enemies. And he could keep that up for as long as he had rage uses remaining.
In three years of 5e, I have never actually seen an encounter where a PC was surrounded by more than four enemies at once, so while theoretically your Ranger example is solid, I can't even imagine that happening in the games I played in.

2. I've said that dips can make things better, and that's one of the noticeable cases. A Divine Soul sorcerer with a Life Cleric dip can do good stuff too, I think. But that's the trick, Life Cleric is so good for healing, that this dip decides more or as much as the base class does.

3. Except you've blown half your class features you get before level 5 on being "nearly" as good as a wizard, who actually gets everything that you get as a spell, except for Eldritch Blast and some Warlock-specific spells which are usually less useful than the wizard spells you lose.

The best stealth class at low levels is the shadow monk. I have never seen a campaign go past level 13, so I might be biased, but Shadow Monks get most of their hiding tricks that are not conspicuous ("oh boy a cloud of super-thick darkness, wonder what made that here") later on...but Pass without Trace, cast with Ki, is the earliest you can get a +15 to stealth which means you beat most creatures passive perception almost automatically. Rangers get that spell later and have way more limited slots to cast it with.

The only time I had a really good thing going was with a Hunter Ranger with a longbow, so the most basic stuff, really. Lots of damage, some utility, ignoring exploration problems - that was nice. Storm Sorcerer had a nice story and he was the only arcane caster, so I wasn't overshadowed by anyone and it went okay. Two other times were terrible.

I want to note that I am a poor powergamer, since I always optimize (or try to) around concepts. 3.PF always gave me the ability to do the thing I want to do, often in various ways, and do it at least well enough to be useful at most times. For instance, in my current PF game I'm playing an unarmed Harbinger. This is usually a poor choice, but with some fumbling around and finding options which do what I want to do, it works well (one of my teammates does melee combat better by the numbers, but his mobility and utility are abysmal, whereas mine are excellent for a non-caster).
When I apply the same idea to 5e, it usually turns out that it either has one specific way to do this thing really well (for example, I can't replicate the Harbinger with anything but Shadow Monk and it'd be a strictly inferior version in every aspect), and it doesn't mesh with my concept, or that it just doesn't support my thing well enough for me to compete head-to-head with people who follow the system's expectations closer.

While I do understand the "Fighter problem", I think that everyone who plays 3.5 or Pathfinder these days does too, and takes some measures to prevent that. It's not a coincidence the 3.5 forum is replete with topics about balancing the casters and the martials even now. Almost anyone has their own way to do that. 3.PF is a huge box of Lego parts from various sets. Some obviously don't fit with the others, but you can still use them in various designs and build almost anything you want. 5e is a box of colored bricks. You can do a lot with them, but not too much.

1. Gonna side with JNA here, that seems improbable. Just thinking about this super basically, he'd have to be dealing twice as much damage per hit, since you are getting nearly double the number of attacks. And that's just considering action surge, and not your maneuvers, eldritch smites, your curse, or your hex. Like those riders add up to 4d8+(potentially)4d6+12=44 damage. This isn't a 5e thing, this is a "He had way better items than you" thing. Or a "he had godly stats thing." Or a "You're exaggerating" kind of thing.

2. Even just a straight ranger can heal better than a cleric, if healing spirit is on the table.

3. And in a campaign where you rarely get long rests, the warlock will massively outperform the wizard.

And yes, there are 'fixes' for 3.5 as a system. But I'd argue that those fixes, which generally run along the lines of "Make Fighters into Sword Wizards" or "rewrite all of the spells" or most frequently "Both of those at the same time" rather illustrate how utterly pants-on-head broken 3.5 is as a system.

I do miss the incredibly customized PCs I had in 3.5, but on the other hand, I can actually play a wider range of concepts, instead of just "Wizard But this Time With Blue Swords." The fluff and mechanics were all very specific and precise and that's cool, but 3.5 was basically "Wizards: the game" and sometimes I didn't want to be a wizard, dangit. Sometimes I wanted to be Grog.

Chaosmancer

2018-05-29, 05:44 PM

Well, phone deleted my original response when it decided to reset my internet. Stupid piece of junk.

What I had typed was that a big part of why people no longer enjoy building like they did in 3.5 is that it is easier to get a concept "finished" in 5e.

Let's take Dual wielding as an example. I never got to play 3.5 but I had plenty of dual wielding characters I tried to build.

In 3.5 you need two or three feats to get the baseline of two weapon fighting. You need another two to three feats to be good at it. And to be optimized you probably need a specific prestige class or two, another system like psionics, and another feat or two.

In 5e, how do you get to the baseline? Pick up a second weapon. How do you get adequate? Take either the style or the feat. Fully optimized? Take both and maybe be a battlemaster or ranger, something to get consistent bonuses on every hit.

There are just a lot fewer moving parts. And while a 3.5 character might not feel like they are complete until level 12 or further, a variant human in 5e can have all the pieces by level 1 or 2.

Now, I don't feel like this is a bad thing, in fact I love this aspect of the game which makes it incredibly easy to do what you want to do,but I can see how the challenge that certain people got from constructing builds over 20 levels and five different books is gone now, and they loved that challenge to their skill.

DnD 5e is just not a system that requires a deep analysis of build options. You certainly can do it (I helped talk a new player through whether he wanted two handed weapons or dual wielding for his Blood Hunter, and a few days before I talked with my own group about which feat and path forward would be best for my Barbarian) but it is far simpler than in the last two systems.

Chaosmancer

2018-05-29, 06:08 PM

I want to note that I am a poor powergamer, since I always optimize (or try to) around concepts. 3.PF always gave me the ability to do the thing I want to do, often in various ways, and do it at least well enough to be useful at most times. For instance, in my current PF game I'm playing an unarmed Harbinger. This is usually a poor choice, but with some fumbling around and finding options which do what I want to do, it works well (one of my teammates does melee combat better by the numbers, but his mobility and utility are abysmal, whereas mine are excellent for a non-caster).
When I apply the same idea to 5e, it usually turns out that it either has one specific way to do this thing really well (for example, I can't replicate the Harbinger with anything but Shadow Monk and it'd be a strictly inferior version in every aspect), and it doesn't mesh with my concept, or that it just doesn't support my thing well enough for me to compete head-to-head with people who follow the system's expectations closer.

I suppose this is at least 2 parts ignorance from me... But why would you expect to be able to replicate a character from another system that uses a unique class in a system that a) isn't very compatible and b) doesn't have that class?

And, I'll also point out that, yes, people who are building in line with what the system expects are likely to be stronger than someone who builds against the system.

I do sympathize that you can't always get your concept to work in a manner you'd like, that is familiar pain, but if you want the system to be something it isn't then you are only setting yourself up to be disappointed.

5e does not have the same scale of options that 3.5 and 4e had, it probably never will even as it keeps growing. It just has a different framework at work.

Ignimortis

2018-05-29, 08:23 PM

So, he had a magic item (two, actually) both of which were very good for him, somehow got +2 damage from nowhere (2d6 is greatsword damage, +5 is 20 Strength, +1 is magic, +2 from... Where?) and even with all that managed to get one point of damage more per attack.

When you had third level spells.

I fail to see the issue here.

+2 would be the Rage damage bonus. As for spells, see below.

1. Gonna side with JNA here, that seems improbable. Just thinking about this super basically, he'd have to be dealing twice as much damage per hit, since you are getting nearly double the number of attacks. And that's just considering action surge, and not your maneuvers, eldritch smites, your curse, or your hex. Like those riders add up to 4d8+(potentially)4d6+12=44 damage. This isn't a 5e thing, this is a "He had way better items than you" thing. Or a "he had godly stats thing." Or a "You're exaggerating" kind of thing.

2. Even just a straight ranger can heal better than a cleric, if healing spirit is on the table.

3. And in a campaign where you rarely get long rests, the warlock will massively outperform the wizard.

And yes, there are 'fixes' for 3.5 as a system. But I'd argue that those fixes, which generally run along the lines of "Make Fighters into Sword Wizards" or "rewrite all of the spells" or most frequently "Both of those at the same time" rather illustrate how utterly pants-on-head broken 3.5 is as a system.

I do miss the incredibly customized PCs I had in 3.5, but on the other hand, I can actually play a wider range of concepts, instead of just "Wizard But this Time With Blue Swords." The fluff and mechanics were all very specific and precise and that's cool, but 3.5 was basically "Wizards: the game" and sometimes I didn't want to be a wizard, dangit. Sometimes I wanted to be Grog.

Basically the issue was more about us rarely getting a short rest and combats usually being something more of "here's one or two hard encounters, that's it, day's over", so I didn't get to use any short-rest recharged mechanics three times per long rest. And with 2 slots per long rest, basically, you spend one on Hex and you keep the other one saved up for a Misty Step or Mirror Image to save yourself from getting blown up, not Eldritch Smite, because that's just one big boom and then you can't do anything at all. Same with Hexblade Curse - while it's useful at times, the fact that it's gone the second the enemy dies, and most encounters were 4-5-6 enemies at once, not one big target - it rarely did anything. So I guess that's a "he had everything going for him, while I had made some questionable decisions" thing, mostly.

Also, I've never seen a campaign where you would rarely get long rests as compared to short rests. Short rest mechanics always seemed weird - there are few situations in which you can afford to take an hour break but not an eight hour one, unless you're on a strict timetable.

I suppose this is at least 2 parts ignorance from me... But why would you expect to be able to replicate a character from another system that uses a unique class in a system that a) isn't very compatible and b) doesn't have that class?

And, I'll also point out that, yes, people who are building in line with what the system expects are likely to be stronger than someone who builds against the system.

I do sympathize that you can't always get your concept to work in a manner you'd like, that is familiar pain, but if you want the system to be something it isn't then you are only setting yourself up to be disappointed.

5e does not have the same scale of options that 3.5 and 4e had, it probably never will even as it keeps growing. It just has a different framework at work.

Because the basic concept is quite simple. A character who has a lot of combat tricks in his arsenal, can short-range (tactical) teleport at will, and would fight unarmed or with gauntlets or something similar. But to be fair, you can't do any of the initiating classes justice in 5e, even the simplest Warblade, because almost everything fun has a "X/rest" tag on it.

JNAProductions

2018-05-29, 08:26 PM

Ah, that's the +2 I missed! Thanks.

And yeah, a short-rest based class (both Fighter and Warlock) are not as good as a long-rest based class when you have a fifteen minute adventuring day. That's... Not exactly surprising.

Chaosmancer

2018-05-29, 09:40 PM

Because the basic concept is quite simple. A character who has a lot of combat tricks in his arsenal, can short-range (tactical) teleport at will, and would fight unarmed or with gauntlets or something similar. But to be fair, you can't do any of the initiating classes justice in 5e, even the simplest Warblade, because almost everything fun has a "X/rest" tag on it.

So, all you are missing is an at-will teleport and perhaps a decent version of the 4 element monk. Maybe multi-class or go full Mystic.

But saying that is disingenuous of me, because free at-will teleportation is something we are highly unlikely to see. It just doesn't fit the perception of the world of DnD 5e is presenting. Perhaps you could find it in a homebrew or 3rd party set of material, but I would never expect them in an official source book.

Actually, don't have Mordenkainens yet, but I wonder how many times Eladrin can teleport?

Edit: turns out level 11 Horizon Walker Rangers have a version of at-will teleport when they take the attack action. 10ft to an unoccupied space before each attack.

So multiclass horizon walker and monk seems like it covers most of your bases, if not as powerfully as you may like

strangebloke

2018-05-29, 10:00 PM

Because the basic concept is quite simple. A character who has a lot of combat tricks in his arsenal, can short-range (tactical) teleport at will, and would fight unarmed or with gauntlets or something similar. But to be fair, you can't do any of the initiating classes justice in 5e, even the simplest Warblade, because almost everything fun has a "X/rest" tag on it.

You're complaining about a mechanical discrepancy. Stuff works differently now. That's kind of obvious. There's no way to build a 3.5 fighter, monk, or wizard, either. It's a different game.

That said, I will note that a shadow monk has at-will teleportation and has hand-to-hand abilities, and has (by 3.5 standards) a pretty complete set of tricks, able to grapple, shove, knock prone...

Horizon walker can at least theoretically fight unarmed (pst: get your DM to refluff daggers as gauntlets) and also gets at will teleportation. It's a high-level ability, but that's just the nature of how the power curve works in 5e. A full warblade would be completely overpowered in 5e.

Ignimortis

2018-05-29, 10:09 PM

So, all you are missing is an at-will teleport and perhaps a decent version of the 4 element monk. Maybe multi-class or go full Mystic.

But saying that is disingenuous of me, because free at-will teleportation is something we are highly unlikely to see. It just doesn't fit the perception of the world of DnD 5e is presenting. Perhaps you could find it in a homebrew or 3rd party set of material, but I would never expect them in an official source book.

Actually, don't have Mordenkainens yet, but I wonder how many times Eladrin can teleport?

Edit: turns out level 11 Horizon Walker Rangers have a version of at-will teleport when they take the attack action. 10ft to an unoccupied space before each attack.

So multiclass horizon walker and monk seems like it covers most of your bases, if not as powerfully as you may like
Most of my problems with 5e indeed stem from my perception differing from what 5e expects to be the norm. It's been something that bothered me invisibly for a few years, and now that I've realized this, I'm just thinking that 5e not the game for me, which is a shame, since most people I play D&D with swear by it (obviously, it matches their perception much better) and nobody's gonna DM 3.5 or PF after the current PF game is done.

Eladrin get one teleport per short rest. While the Horizon Walker is actually pretty nice and I have no idea how I missed that, level 11 is the point where campaigns I've played in 5e either ended or started their final act - barely any time to use that, much less multiclass into a monk. Still, thanks.

You're complaining about a mechanical discrepancy. Stuff works differently now. That's kind of obvious. There's no way to build a 3.5 fighter, monk, or wizard, either. It's a different game.

That said, I will note that a shadow monk has at-will teleportation and has hand-to-hand abilities, and has (by 3.5 standards) a pretty complete set of tricks, able to grapple, shove, knock prone...

Horizon walker can at least theoretically fight unarmed (pst: get your DM to refluff daggers as gauntlets) and also gets at will teleportation. It's a high-level ability, but that's just the nature of how the power curve works in 5e. A full warblade would be completely overpowered in 5e.

My DM had problems with refluffing a shield as a dueling cape. But I'll keep that in mind if I ever want to do that concept again.

Waazraath

2018-05-30, 03:08 PM

You heavily argued for #2 in an ideal combat situation. Also this build is only available due to using two variant rules that play in it's favor and an additional book. When you enable strong additional customization options of course those not making use of these options might miss out on something (that's what players will have to expect). While having greater damage potential (SCAG cantrips are a good fit especially for rogues, no denying that) #2 is more situational and comes with some downsides compared to #1 you are overlooking or just not mentioning. There are more ways to interfere with it's "game plan" and some other variant rules can make it less appealing and balance it out.

Familiar: might get killed and then has to be re-summoned, costing time and money. If you use the "cleaving through creatures" variant rule (DMG 272) the familiar equals to a damage reduction of 1 if there's an ally next to it. If there's any AoE around it will die easily too.
Also, if there's someone in the group who can easily provide Advantage (e.g. a fighter knocking enemies prone) or you play with the optional flanking rule (DMG 251) the advantage you can get from a familiar gets much less important.
Multiclassing: while Fighter -> Battle Master offers some nice benefits for a combat-specialized rogue build, this also means delaying 3 levels of rogue. This means you might miss something important like Evasion, Reliable Talent, Blindsense, Slippery mind etc. when you'd need it.
Riposte is a limited option that requires you to be attacked and missed in melee and consumes your reaction. It's amazing if you can use it to bring a target down fast, but you won't be able to use a potentially life-saving Uncanny Dodge afterwards if you do so.
SCAG cantrip is a spell. It could be countered or prevented by an anti magic field or silence effect, there could be some foe with a Mage Slayer - like ability around, while invisible it could reveal your position due to a foe detecting magic or hearing the verbal component. You also can not target an invisible / obscured creature with it because it isn't a valid target.
The BB / disengage combo only works reliably if the target has nothing else to attack in melee (harder to gain sneak attack then) and no means to attack from a distance. Also it requires your bonus action. Making this work often is very much a team effort, so the damage proc on move would be the last thing to bother me. The scaling default damage might seem much but mind it requires you to get into melee, while #1 could just shoot from behind with a bow. Getting up close should enable you to do more damage.
No off hand attack. SCAG cantrips don't allow for a second attack with your offhand. You have other uses for your bonus action, but if you miss with your main attack / a SCAG cantrip you might have preferred to attack a second time and gain another shot at delivering a good chunk of sneak attack damage.
Starting race differences / niches: While variant human offers a instant feat, Wood Elves (also other races, but staying on your example here) have some things going for them too: hiding in "bad weather", less sleep needed, a bit more movement, one more attribute point, advantage vs charm, immunity to magical sleep and probably most important: Darkvision. This means #1 is a much better sneaker at night and underground (doesn't reveal it's position with light) and a much better fighter in unlit encounters. As long as #2 doesn't get fighter levels #1 also enjoys better range damage due to longbow and after that due to a higher sneak attack damage.

Not saying the optimized build isn't better, just trying to point out all the extra effort it needs and all the little weak points some of its strategies might have. The combat potential is higher, but it requires more effort to play it to that potential and to build it well. Compared to that the "simple" rogue who just takes rogue level + ASIs and can get lower but easy, less risky and less complicated damage from range. Or decides to go melee (admittedly less worth it with that build) but has one more chance to deliver damage. And the non-optimized version also has strengths the optimized one doesn't have.
That's why there are lots of opportunities for a DM to make the optimized build less "overpowered" when the #1 "don't care so much"-player gets frustrated. Make them travel + sneak / fight in darkness. Give them other ways to gain advantage or make keeping the familiar alive a challenge. Make casting spells in melee harder. Make range combat required / important.

As long as an optimized build has some shortcomings (the extent to which they apply is up to the DM) I think it's fine for them to exist in this way. Honestly, even this rather significant example between optimized and un-optimized characters probably would bother me less than playing a campaign where long rest - resource classes frequently get time to rest while you're playing a class not relying on such resources. If someone's character is fitting too well in too many situations they can always be tweaked (not the characters, the situations they get put in).

Yeah, I agree that there is a lot more to it than I written down. I realized some of the points you make (though not all), but deceided to stick to the main ones, cause I also didn't mention a few other advantages of the no2 build (like benefits from a familiar in the exploration pillar of the game). But I might have stacked the deck too much in favour of no2. Still, I think the over all point stands.

It might if it came out earlier or was far more popular. For those who had it and wanted to use it then you could try to play the building a character game for a bit but like all pre 3e games most of your choices (not all since you do get WP, NWP, or CPs as you level) right at level 1 from a relatively limited pool of choices. You do get to make trades so yes you can get that game feeling from it but I think it would be disingenuous to say that those rules were common or popular. Heck I have a hard time finding people even willing to try them out either from not liking the look of it or having had previous experience and thinking they were too much.

Frankly the skills and powers books were more a controversial footnote especially when it came to player class options less so for the combat and tactics I think. Considering that those options were rarely used and not popular I do not think I would say that they promoted build porn or the build game for AD&D on the whole. You could use it for that but on the whole they did not end up doing that.

Wouldn't know how common or popular they were... it was my early teens, there were about 10 people playing AD&D, we had (and used) them. If you say they weren't widely spread, fair enough.

I found myself playing with GMs where you had two choices: optimize to an extent or roll up a new character every few sessions because the old one died without chances of resurrection.

Also i‘m not optimized irl, so once a week i like to play someone who is. Being cooler and better than my real self is pretty much why i‘m playing this game, because why would i if my reallife was equally interesting?

Fair point. Though speaking for myself, there's still some difference between real life me and even an unoptimized char ;)

PeteNutButter

2018-05-31, 02:41 PM

Interesting, thnx. Yeah, there are a few trap options, feats, but more importantly probably spell selection for those classes that only have a few spells known (sorcerer, warlock, bard). There a player can really gimp him/herself for the long term. Any experience with optimizers and non-optimizers in the same party? Did it lead to trouble?

Delayed reply, but yes. We have about one third of our 20 or so players that are optimizers of varying degree. There isn't too much trouble usually, unless one of them is just a jerk. It's a team game, and if you are trying to show everyone up, you aren't winning. This is usually fixed with an out of character conversation with the player.

I find there is a lot of hostility towards optimizers on these forums from various posters. I think they must just play with unchecked narcissistic jerks that also happen to be optimizers, so that to these people the two are synonymous.

You can be an optimizer without ruining the fun of your team. In my limited experience that is the majority. The disparities tend to crop up when a certain character hits their "online" level and wants to show off for an encounter or two. That's fine, as any good DM will know how to exploit said character's weakness(es) and keep the playing field level after allowing them to show off. Any optimized character has it's weakness. If they NOVA hard the DM just drags out the adventuring day to let the other players shine. If they have good AC, let the enemies use saving throw effects. If they use a lot of devil's sight darkness, have some devil's show up from time to time. In my anecdotal experience, optimizers tend to enjoy challenge, and have no problem with enemies focusing them hard and fast, after they've shown what they can do. Players using GWM/SS often find themselves making death saves. If you do 100 damage on round 1, enemies are going to focus you.

I guess the only times I've really seen the optimizer/non-optimizer disparity be a real problem is if the optimizer's mastery of the system far outstretches that of the DM's so that the DM has trouble challenging them while still providing balanced encounters and if that optimizer is too much of a jerk to realize he is ruining others fun.

Waazraath

2018-05-31, 04:30 PM

Delayed reply, but yes. We have about one third of our 20 or so players that are optimizers of varying degree. There isn't too much trouble usually, unless one of them is just a jerk. It's a team game, and if you are trying to show everyone up, you aren't winning. This is usually fixed with an out of character conversation with the player.

I find there is a lot of hostility towards optimizers on these forums from various posters. I think they must just play with unchecked narcissistic jerks that also happen to be optimizers, so that to these people the two are synonymous.

You can be an optimizer without ruining the fun of your team. In my limited experience that is the majority. The disparities tend to crop up when a certain character hits their "online" level and wants to show off for an encounter or two. That's fine, as any good DM will know how to exploit said character's weakness(es) and keep the playing field level after allowing them to show off. Any optimized character has it's weakness. If they NOVA hard the DM just drags out the adventuring day to let the other players shine. If they have good AC, let the enemies use saving throw effects. If they use a lot of devil's sight darkness, have some devil's show up from time to time. In my anecdotal experience, optimizers tend to enjoy challenge, and have no problem with enemies focusing them hard and fast, after they've shown what they can do. Players using GWM/SS often find themselves making death saves. If you do 100 damage on round 1, enemies are going to focus you.

I guess the only times I've really seen the optimizer/non-optimizer disparity be a real problem is if the optimizer's mastery of the system far outstretches that of the DM's so that the DM has trouble challenging them while still providing balanced encounters and if that optimizer is too much of a jerk to realize he is ruining others fun.

Thanks. I share your experiences and observations. Fortunately, I only play with groups of friends, so the 'jerk-factor' is cancelled out. And in practice, most optimizers are more interested in helping the party, and where differences exist, there's the DM who can make differences in power a bearable. In theory though, I still think there is enough 'optimization room' in 5e that some difficulties could arise, in a party with both otpimized and non-optimized.

Familiar 'aid' trick:
Round 1: gets advantage
Round 2: familiar targeted, familiar dead, needs to pay 15gp and an hour to get a new one
This is not unfair; any half-assed smart opponent would spare a smack to kill that bird - or get a henchman to do it for them. If they're willing to pay 15gp for 1-3 of attacks at Advantage, it's up to them and their pocketbook.

Booming Blade:
In my campaign, we've moved those cantrips to the Eldritch Knight spell list.
So, they're not there for melee munchkins of every class, the same way Hail of Thorns isn't there for archer munchkins of every class.
Problem solved.

Battlemaster:
That's no problem. They delay all the things that make a Rogue a Rogue. Sneak Attack always suffers. If they do it early Uncanny Dodge, Expertise, and the like come way later and they suck at skills and take far more damage. If it's late they delay Blindsense, Slippery Mind, and say goodby to ever having Elusive and the capstone Stroke of Luck. I think it would be a dumb, bland character.

Well, as far as the familiar goes: having an enemy spend one (or more) actions without any action cost on your part, is a very nice ability. If they try to kill it. If they have a ranged weapon ready. If they hit it in the first place. Besides, this tactic might be logical for an intelligent opponent (though killing the bird instead of hitting the guy waving the sword in your face is also from that perspective up to discussion), but fighting animals or near-mindless opponents, this would be pretty bad DM'ing in my book, these kind of highly tactical, smart decisions.

Booming blade: so you need a houserule to fix it. Fine, and fine rule for your table, but that doesn't make the problem go away in the rest of the world.

Battle master: you say "I think it would be a dumb, bland character." This is an extremely weird statement. Whether a character is "bland" depends on how interesting it is roleplayed, it's background story, that kind of stuff. Not on a few levels fighter or not. As for "dumb", that's a bit uncalled for hostile, isn't it? It's a multiclass choice: win some, loose some. For you, the delaying of rogue features might be a big thing, others might prefere a big boost in the combat piller. Point is that, espcially in combination with the two things above, is that the difference in the combat piller get's a bit big. "Suck at skills" is also a bit strange talking about a rogue 17 / fighter 3 ; assuming a (pretty standard) rogue 5 / fighter 3 / rogue + 12 build, it's probably still the skills master in the party.

Waazraath

2018-06-01, 05:04 AM

Yeah, that was a bit much. My reaction was about it being a 'superior' choice.

Where did you read that? The point isn't that it's 'superior', whatever that may mean in a D&D context, but that it has a dpr that is that much higher than the unoptimized version that it could pose a balance problem in a party including both of them.

Unoriginal

2018-06-01, 05:48 AM

Where did you read that? The point isn't that it's 'superior', whatever that may mean in a D&D context, but that it has a dpr that is that much higher than the unoptimized version that it could pose a balance problem in a party including both of them.

You literally said that the "optimized" rogue would make the other feel woefully inadequate due to its strength.

Waazraath

2018-06-01, 06:02 AM

You literally said that the "optimized" rogue would make the other feel woefully inadequate due to its strength.

Yes, having both at the same time in a party and one of them doing double the damage, without too much downside, can, and in my experience often will. "Superior" has for me a meaning that goes way beyond that; it includes a judgement that optimized is the better way to play, that non-optimized would be 'wrong'. As I said in my OP, there's nothing wrong with a non-optimized rogue, it can be fun, you can do nice things with it, also in combat. My issue is that the difference in power is that big that that optimization is a thing.

Edit: btw, now that I see you entering the thread again, I noticed you never replied to my reply to you. Specificly, the question I asked you:

Let me ask you a question: somebody had fun with this mini-game. Went through the books, combined all those different parts to achieve something cool, that probably very few characters will ever be able to do (attack 3 times with 3d20 with big fat damage bonus). And it doesn't even unbalance the game! Where is the harm? Why deny that this game exists in the first place?

MoiMagnus

2018-06-01, 06:36 AM

"Making a build" mini-game is dead, for the better of D&D as a role playing game.

Don't get me wrong, building characters in 3.5 / Pathfinder is funny. But it is the funniest part of the game. The time where you actually have to play with your characters is:
+ Either horribly unbalanced due to optimizations
+ Or horribly complex for what it does (If you play 3.5 without optimization, it can be fun, but you should rather use a narrative system, or 5e)

In 5e design, building characters is oriented toward playing. Just building a character is boring in 5e. Building a character, with an associated background, and an character evolution in the universe, is the interesting part in 5e.

The change 3.5 -> 5 is something I would heavily critic if it was a single player computer game. But for a paper role playing game, I am glad to see D&D being centered again around the "playing" part.

As other people said, 5e it is old-school D&D, but with modern quality standards (Game design significantly improved in the last 50 years)

Unoriginal

2018-06-01, 06:56 AM

Edit: btw, now that I see you entering the thread again, I noticed you never replied to my reply to you. Specificly, the question I asked you:

Let me ask you a question: somebody had fun with this mini-game. Went through the books, combined all those different parts to achieve something cool, that probably very few characters will ever be able to do (attack 3 times with 3d20 with big fat damage bonus). And it doesn't even unbalance the game! Where is the harm? Why deny that this game exists in the first place?

Yeah, because asking me to answer a question that inherently implies that I agree with you and your premise by affirming non-demonstrated claims as if they were indiscutable facts is totally a legit rhetorical tactic, and totally a good way to get me to respond.

Do you *really* want me to answer that question?

Waazraath

2018-06-01, 06:59 AM

Yeah, because asking me to answer a question that inherently implies that I agree with you and your premise by affirming non-demonstrated claims as if they were indiscutable facts is totally a legit rhetorical tactic, and totally a good way to get me to respond.

Do you *really* want me to answer that question?

Wut? What the hell are you talking about?

Edit: I'm starting to doubt wether you are discussing in good faith. In the thread that was the reason for the start of this one, you said you think there shouldn't be a conversation about this topic. Fine, your opinion. In this thread, you nevertheless do show up, not understanding the point I make (deliberately?), trying to point out inconsistencies in my examples (while I pretty clearly gave examples of two different situations), and making weird claims and being borderline insulting ("obsessed", suggesting that I am only interested in "the most powerful character", making the bizar claim "I'm not a fan of being told being a great Monk apparently means you're a socially inept ignoramus" - which is related to absolutely nothing nobody said anywhere).

I tried to explain my position, and figure out where your hostility towards optimization, and to my post, is coming from. The questions I ask are pretty straithgforward, and have absolutely nothing to do with retorics, whatever you choose to read in them. You ignore them, ignore my clarifications, but do show up a few days later to walk into a discussion I'm having with somebody else, to disagree with me.

I find it quite ironic that the two persons who claim that have claimed that we shouldn't have a discussion about this topic because it leads to nothing are exactly the same two persons that drop in and are rude and disturbing. Warn people not to go to a restaurant, cause it stinks, and when people do you poop on the floor to show you were right. Classy.

At this point, I don't really care. Answer my questions, for it might show some light on where your behaviour is coming from. Or ignore them, but in that case please stay away and don't derail my thread.

Unoriginal

2018-06-01, 07:56 AM

Wut? What the hell are you talking about?

"Somebody had fun with this mini-game" implies that seeing this as a mini-game is the correct manner.

"Went through the books, combined all those different parts to achieve something cool, that probably very few characters will ever be able to do (attack 3 times with 3d20 with big fat damage bonus)" implies that you need to "play the mini-game" to do that, and that it somehow exceptional to get that a result of that magnitude, when the example you used is literally any lvl 5+ Elf Monk with Elven Accuracy and that this build won't actually do things only they are capable to do.

"And it doesn't even unbalance the game!" means either two things: powergaming/optimization doesn't work in 5e because no matter the options you take you'll still be roughly in the same weight class as any other character, or (what I think you were implying since you disagreed with that previous point earlier) that people who are trying to make characters who can do what "very few characters will ever be able to do" aren't optimizing or trying to make characters more powerful than the rest.

" Why deny that this game exists in the first place?" implies, once again, that this "game" existing is a fact that it'd be stupid to deny.

Now, to answer your question, since you wished me to:

A game has rules, and a game as a goal/objective to meet. People who treat character creation has a mini-game separate from D&D act as if it was a different game with a goal other than creating a playable character.

Yes, sometime they just like building different kinds of characters, but almost always they don't want any build, they want *the most powerful*, because anyone can create any kind of character, but making a *truly effective* one demanded what one calls "system mastery", back in the days. No one spend hours reading rulebooks and searching ways to combine rules just to achieve what anyone can do. In 5e, try as you might, you'll only end up with characters who are more or less equal in power, with some slightly above and others slightly below the average, so you're always going to end up in the "anyon can create any kind of character" category.

And IF you're just interested in your character concept without caring about optimization, then you wouldn't be interested by a "character creation mini-game", because you can get that character concept on the road with a build made in two minutes.

So yes, you can either have character creation as a separate game, which 5e does not support, or you can create characters for the game, which will all be roughly equivalent in power due to how the game is.

If you have fun doing character optimization or coming-up-with-fun-character-concepts, I'm not telling you you have badwrongfun. But you can't excise a part of the game like character creation, claim it's a mini-game, and then try to say it's relevant to the game.

JAL_1138

2018-06-01, 11:41 AM

CharOp isn't dead. It's just not what it was. There's not many outright gamebreaking combos, and you have to try to make a useless character--it's hard, maybe impossible, to stumble into a completely useless build by accident. It can be done, though.

Consider that, say, Valor Bard is very nearly just a worse Swords Bard, or that a Hexblade/Swords Bard multiclass (or Fighter/Valor, or Fighter/Swords, etc.) can just about out-Ranger a PHB Ranger for a good chunk of the game at higher levels. But it doesn't out-Ranger the Ranger so badly the Ranger shouldn't bother.

A Standard Human Champion with no feats...still kinda works, actually. It's going to be lackluster compared to a Variant Human Battlemaster with GWM or Sharpshooter or Polearm Master+Sentinel, but...it still kinda works.

There's also a few different ways to get at the same basic concept. A Rogue/Ranger multiclass can do a lot of what a Hex/Bard can do. A Paladin 2/Sorc 18 and Paladin 6/ Lore 14 can do a lot of similar stuff, but have different strengths and weaknesses. And a straight Paladin 20 can hold their own with either. A Paladin with PAM+Sentinel plays a lot differently than the same one as a sword-and-board with Resilient: Con.

And of course though no DM will actually allow it, there are shenanigans that break the game like Wish+Simulacrum cheese. It ain't Pun-Pun, but it's certainly campaign-wrecking.

Or there's non-gamebreaking but still ridiculous silliness like the (ugh) coffee-lock.

There's also feats that are broken, both ways--some are overpowered and some are worse than just not taking one and getting an ASI.

At the same time, I've played a character a couple levels behind another of the same class, using a weaker-in-combat subclass than the other character, with the other character having stronger feat selection and a few bonkers-good magic items mine couldn't come close to matching and higher stats due to Tomes...and I still felt like I was pulling my weight well enough to matter. So...y'know...it doesn't quite matter like it used to.

In the sense that there's still a bunch of options to make a build, with both different ways to approach a similar concept or with certain things being flat-out stronger versions of the same concept, and with it being possible (albeit difficult) to make a basically-useless character, the minigame is still there. But you can also just say "hey, that looks neat" and play it and be fine if you try even a little to put your stats in the right places.

Unoriginal

2018-06-02, 07:12 AM

Edit: I'm starting to doubt wether you are discussing in good faith. In the thread that was the reason for the start of this one, you said you think there shouldn't be a conversation about this topic.

You said something like "might as well not have any conversation at all on this forum" and I said "sure, sounds good, we should do that". It was not serious.

not understanding the point I make (deliberately?), trying to point out inconsistencies in my examples (while I pretty clearly gave examples of two different situations)

And you did not understand my point about those two situations, either, which was that a) I disagreed with the premise that "optimized" rogue would make the "non-optimized" rogue or anyone else feel "woefully inadequate" and b) the fact the end result of that character building was not more impressive than any other character showed why the "mini-game" was not relevant to 5e.

suggesting that I am only interested in "the most powerful character"

That wasn't you in particular, it was about all optimizers. Which is the point of optimization, you know. Get the "optimal" character. Which does mean the most powerful inside the given caveat.

making the bizar claim "I'm not a fan of being told being a great Monk apparently means you're a socially inept ignoramus" - which is related to absolutely nothing nobody said anywhere).

Actually, yes, it's related to something somebody absolutely said somewhere.

It was a reference about how the newest Monk character building/optimization guide, which is clearly saying that you should dump INT, CHA and/or STR, and avoid basically all skill proficiencies related to those ability scores.

I admit I should have given more context.

I tried to explain my position, and figure out where your hostility towards optimization, and to my post, is coming from. The questions I ask are pretty straithgforward, and have absolutely nothing to do with retorics, whatever you choose to read in them. [/QUOTE]

You didn't ask "what's your beef with optimization", you used an example that's basically "see, this is a completely harmless instance of X." then asked "how is this instance harmful?", which, regardless of your intentions, is nevertheless a rhetorical method to get people to agree to your point.

but do show up a few days later to walk into a discussion I'm having with somebody else, to disagree with me.

I pointed out that claiming A made B feels "woefully inadequate" implied A was considered superior to B.

I find it quite ironic that the two persons who claim that have claimed that we shouldn't have a discussion about this topic because it leads to nothing are exactly the same two persons that drop in and are rude and disturbing. Warn people not to go to a restaurant, cause it stinks, and when people do you poop on the floor to show you were right. Classy.

See, that's a typical rhetorical trick. Re-framing the situation to literally claim I'm ****ing your thread up.

[QUOTE=Waazraath;23117286] and don't derail my thread.

That was never my intent.

In any case, I apologize for my rudeness. I shouldn't have let my feelings on the subject make me unpleasant.

War_lord

2018-06-02, 07:48 AM

It's not "your" thread, that's not how threads work on this forum. If you create a thread, anyone can come in and discuss the topic, and you don't have the right to declare anyone arbitrarily barred for dissent from "optimization". Which, yes, is about vomiting forth the highest DPR at the expense of literally everything else. I believe that's for two reasons. One, the rules of D&D 5e are such that it's impossible to attempt to exploit the exploration and roleplay pillars, because they're inherently up to DM adjudication, and thus the PHB cannot be used as a coercion tool in the same way it can be used to try and force through something like a coffee-lock.

Thus most "optimization" (DPR) guides are very quick to crap on things like utility spells and the intelligence linked skills, because they aren't linked to mechanics directly. Second, high DPR at the expense of everything else suits the optimizer just fine, as we have seen in this very thread the optimizer's goal is to demonstrate that his/her (though I suspect mostly a male preoccupation) character is superior to every other "useless" character at the table, and that everyone else should either "optimize" or leave. It's this feeling of power and control the "optimizer" seeks and high DPR at low levels will create that effect long before the deficiencies of the character (in 5e, 3.5e was built for the "ivory tower") shine through.

Tanarii

2018-06-02, 10:46 AM

CharOp isn't dead. It's just not what it was. There's not many outright gamebreaking combos, and you have to try to make a useless character--it's hard, maybe impossible, to stumble into a completely useless build by accident. It can be done, though.
The fairly easy way is to do something random. Ability score placement random, or roll down the line, can do it. Or worse, randomly determine race, class, background, and prioritize the background's skills your secondary ability scores, along with Con.

For example, one of my (short lived) AL characters was a Dragonborn Sorcerer Outlander, those being rolled randomly. So following my 'background skills rule' for ability score placement after Cha being primary, I prioritized my secondary scores in Str, Con and Wis. Being able to hit thing hard with my quarterstaff wasn't a particularly useful thing with my low AC. :smallyuk:

Edit: oh yeah, if you randomly determine cantrips and known spells, that'll do it real fast too.

Waazraath

2018-06-02, 01:54 PM

"Somebody had fun with this mini-game" implies that seeing this as a mini-game is the correct manner.

Geez. I didn't expected the term to come under discussion. "mini-game" is just a term, but you seem to give it some meaning that I don't. I could have used "building a character", or any other term. "Mini-game" is as far as I concerned any part of the game: character creation, but also a chess match or solving a puzzle during play, are all 'mini-games'. But somehow you seem to give it some other significance, and in doing so, me asking you a question using the term is rethorics, cause you'd agree to use it? Something like this?

"Went through the books, combined all those different parts to achieve something cool, that probably very few characters will ever be able to do (attack 3 times with 3d20 with big fat damage bonus)" implies that you need to "play the mini-game" to do that, and that it somehow exceptional to get that a result of that magnitude, when the example you used is literally any lvl 5+ Elf Monk with Elven Accuracy and that this build won't actually do things only they are capable to do.

Two things:
1) no. You miss a pretty large point. Elf monk 5 with elven accuracy is quite a bit different, cause 1) you need to succesful stun on the first hit, and then flurry, to get 3 attacks with super-advantage. Disregarding te fact that assuming an enemy to fail a con save is a bit optimistic, it's not that interesting. Most attacks will hit anyway with advantage, and damage isn't that impressive. The big difference with my second example, and I thought it'd be obvious, is the use of Sharp Shooter, for -5 attack / + 10 damage. Because of the -5, getting Elven Accuracy is much more releant than for a character without minusses on attack, and because of the high damage, it has a big impact.
2) What you did was making a build. Combining some synergetic race, feat and class features. Playing the mini-game. Or any other name you want to give it that doesn't offend you.

"And it doesn't even unbalance the game!" means either two things: powergaming/optimization doesn't work in 5e because no matter the options you take you'll still be roughly in the same weight class as any other character, or (what I think you were implying since you disagreed with that previous point earlier) that people who are trying to make characters who can do what "very few characters will ever be able to do" aren't optimizing or trying to make characters more powerful than the rest.

I explained several times now in this thread what I want to do: explore the differences between optimimized and non-optimized builds. I gave one example in which optimization does lead to unbalance, at least imo. I gave another example where it leads to something special (yes, making 3 attacks with a -5/+10 effect with super advantage is special) but not unbalancing. I don't know why you drag a negative term as 'powergaming' in it. Based on my 2 examples, I come to the conclusion that 1) there are situations where optmization can lead to unbalance in a party, and that it's also possible to optimize without leading to unbalance (which means that the designers did a pretty good job, imo).

Using only my second example and to draw conclusions on optimization in general is silly, cause my different examples are on different extremes. The bolded part: I seriously don't have a clue what you're saying. But in general, if my meaning is unclear, I think it's better to ask what I'm mean, instead of thinking for yourself what I might imply and draw conclusions on that.

" Why deny that this game exists in the first place?" implies, once again, that this "game" existing is a fact that it'd be stupid to deny.

Yes, it is. Hence my incomprehension of your point. But my all means, give it another name, I'm not adamant in using the term "game". "Why deny that people are making builds", if that's easier.

Now, to answer your question, since you wished me to:

A game has rules, and a game as a goal/objective to meet. People who treat character creation has a mini-game separate from D&D act as if it was a different game with a goal other than creating a playable character.

Do they? You assume a lot, filling in how all those folks act... Sometimes character creation is simply session 0, preparing for the real game. Sometimes it's passing the time and an intellectual excersise. Sometimes it's both. Even seeing 'buid making' as a seperate game, I don't see how that has a different goal than the rest (unless somebody deliberately is trying to create something broken - but you don't want that kind of people in your game anyway). When I make (random examples) for fun a skirmish warrior who fights like a monk (and has monk-like abilities) on a barbarian chasis, or a caster with as much as possible 'fortification' spell and abilities, and I can later use it in a game, the goals coincide.

Yes, sometime they just like building different kinds of characters, but almost always they don't want any build, they want *the most powerful*, because anyone can create any kind of character, but making a *truly effective* one demanded what one calls "system mastery", back in the days. No one spend hours reading rulebooks and searching ways to combine rules just to achieve what anyone can do. In 5e, try as you might, you'll only end up with characters who are more or less equal in power, with some slightly above and others slightly below the average, so you're always going to end up in the "anyon can create any kind of character" category.

Bolded by me for emphasis

.... eh. Yeah. "They" are like that. Them. All the same. Of course, you know, knowing all of them. Good we dont do gross generalisations here. Seriously, sorry you have bad experiences with optimizers, but don't project it on the rest of the world. In this forum, I see optimization threads on fun things (high speed, high AC), building guides to help new players, people asking advice and getting it. What you don't see is people mindlessly chasing DPR, powergaming, "I want to make my DM cry" kinda nonsense. There is one (1) guy here that posts silly over the top builds, and he gets deleted every time.

And you confuse "not overpowered" with "everybody can do it without effort". Those are very different.

And IF you're just interested in your character concept without caring about optimization, then you wouldn't be interested by a "character creation mini-game", because you can get that character concept on the road with a build made in two minutes.

You assume too much. And too easily waiver the build options that the system does have, which a number of other posters have pointed out. The idea that you can make any character concept in 2 minutes is boasting; even though there isn't that much material out, there are dozens of feats, hundreds of spells, dozens of subclasses, dozens of races, and the combinations are legion. A fortification mage, to stick to the example in this posts, does require you to go through all spell list and think about all interactions. It does require "work" and some knowledge (system mastery, if you wish), though of not real work since folks do it for fun.

If you have fun doing character optimization or coming-up-with-fun-character-concepts, I'm not telling you you have badwrongfun. But you can't excise a part of the game like character creation, claim it's a mini-game, and then try to say it's relevant to the game.

We end as we started. You make too much out of the term 'mini-game'.

CharOp isn't dead. It's just not what it was.

...

In the sense that there's still a bunch of options to make a build, with both different ways to approach a similar concept or with certain things being flat-out stronger versions of the same concept, and with it being possible (albeit difficult) to make a basically-useless character, the minigame is still there. But you can also just say "hey, that looks neat" and play it and be fine if you try even a little to put your stats in the right places.

Yeah, that's how I see it as well. And that's good game design imo.

Yeah, somewhat higher DPR, at the expense of sucking up much more combat damage with that mediocre AC and no Uncanny Dodge, contributing **** to skills with no Expertise, and sucking up much more spell damage without Evasion.

The few rounds they pulled off more with those Maneuvers would be chewed up by the traps they didn't find, the Fireballs they didn't dodge, the huge hits they didn't roll with, the easy ways they could have bypassed but couldn't since they couldn't sneak, couldn't talk, couldn't steal, couldn't climb... the list goes on.

That is a high damage dealing, high damage taking, skill-gimped rogue.

IF your game begins and ends at 'Roll Initiative!', sure, it's better. IF your DM doesn't throw a wide variety of challenges at you, sure, it's better.

In my game? The entire party would suffer due to an entire pillar of the game being sacrificed on the altar due to chasing spreadsheet DPR calculations rather than a well-rounded party.

Isn't this too much exegaration? Without using riposte, it can use free advantage from familiar, use booming blade, move out with bonus action disingage. Still much more damage on average, still a reaction ready for uncanny dodge, used some extra battle field control. "skill gimped", with my build suggestion in the earlier post, we're still talking a build with 9 skills and expertise in 2 of them.... fine if you think it is too much combat focussed for your games, but that it "makes the entire party suffer because an entire piller of the game is sacrificed" is too much drama for my taste - like I said earlier, the familiar greatly contributes to the other pillars, definitely exploration but with some creativity also social. And the char is still very skilled compared to the average character.

Which is the point of optimization, you know. Get the "optimal" character. Which does mean the most powerful inside the given caveat.

Not going to reply to all you say here, since some of it is covered already.What annoys me is that, in this entire thread, I made pretty clear what my difinition of optimization is, and that it's not about power, and can be a gimmick. That it's not even about optimization per se. You focus only on the optimzation part, choose an alternative definition, and attack me on that. It seems to me you're not arguing with me, you're arguing with yourself.

Actually, yes, it's related to something somebody absolutely said somewhere.

It was a reference about how the newest Monk character building/optimization guide, which is clearly saying that you should dump INT, CHA and/or STR, and avoid basically all skill proficiencies related to those ability scores.

I admit I should have given more context.

Yeah, since it has nothing to do with me, or this thread.

See, that's a typical rhetorical trick. Re-framing the situation to literally claim I'm ****ing your thread up.

You see rethorics a lot, don't you? A metaphor isn't a rethoric trick. You are derailing the thread, this doesn't have anything to do with reframing. Instead of exploring the topic "how relevant is optimization and how much room is there for making builds in 5e", you bring in your own definition (which differs from mine, and I daresay the common definition here on the forum), and argue that by your definition optimization is bad, my examples make no sense, etc. That's derailing and leading to naught.

That was never my intent.

In any case, I apologize for my rudeness. I shouldn't have let my feelings on the subject make me unpleasant.

Fair enough, accepted. I want to leave open the possiblity that I haven't been totally clear, English isn't my native tongue. Then again, my intent seems to be clear to the majority of the folks that reply, also most of the ones who disagree with me. Oh well, no worries.

It's not "your" thread, that's not how threads work on this forum.

I'm very well aware, thank you. That's why I asked him to leave, and even said please.

If you create a thread, anyone can come in and discuss the topic, and you don't have the right to declare anyone arbitrarily barred for dissent from "optimization". Which, yes, is about vomiting forth the highest DPR at the expense of literally everything else.

Gee, a lot of anger here, isn't there? Even if you would be correct that this is what optimization is about on these boards (and it isn't), than you could, if would have read my thread instead of condemning it beforehand, have seen that this isn't what I mean with it in this thread.

I believe that's for two reasons. One, the rules of D&D 5e are such that it's impossible to attempt to exploit the exploration and roleplay pillars, because they're inherently up to DM adjudication, and thus the PHB cannot be used as a coercion tool in the same way it can be used to try and force through something like a coffee-lock.

"coercion tool" - man, you must have had some sad game experiences in the past.

Thus most "optimization" (DPR) guides are very quick to crap on things like utility spells and the intelligence linked skills, because they aren't linked to mechanics directly. Second, high DPR at the expense of everything else suits the optimizer just fine, as we have seen in this very thread the optimizer's goal is to demonstrate that his/her (though I suspect mostly a male preoccupation) character is superior to every other "useless" character at the table, and that everyone else should either "optimize" or leave. It's this feeling of power and control the "optimizer" seeks and high DPR at low levels will create that effect long before the deficiencies of the character (in 5e, 3.5e was built for the "ivory tower") shine through.

Did an optimizer stole your girlfriend / boyfriend? Besides al the nonsense about optimization guides you spew here (generally fine attempts by nice folks, spending time and effort to help out other players), and the nonsense about this "very thread": if you are so worked up about optimization, why not create your own thread on "why optimization is terri-bad!', where you can cry and whine all you want about it. Instead of running into another persons thread (one you said that shouldn't be there in the first place!), purposly misunderstanding what it is about, and flail around? Adding nothing constructive.

Waazraath

2018-06-02, 02:45 PM

If you find yourself responding with a literal wall of text to most of the other participants in the thread, that is generally a good time for a moment for reflection.

Yes, on what it is with the topic of 'optimization' that, though the majority of the people post interesting insights and toughts, it does pushes the wrong buttons with a few people, going into hostile mode and using strong words like "bland" and "dumb" in their first reaction.

And why I bother replying to those in the first place.

Unoriginal

2018-06-02, 04:23 PM

Not going to answer everything because there's no point to make the bad blood boil again, but there's two points I'd like to discuss:

You see rethorics a lot, don't you? A metaphor isn't a rethoric trick.

Yes, metaphors are rhetoric tricks. Nothing wrong with that, rhetoric is inherently part of any discussion by definition. But let's call a cat a cat.

which differs from mine, and I daresay the common definition here on the forum

Now THIS is something that'd be worth making a thread about. I'm sure we'd have interesting responses.

Chaosmancer

2018-06-02, 05:42 PM

Thus most "optimization" (DPR) guides are very quick to crap on things like utility spells and the intelligence linked skills, because they aren't linked to mechanics directly. Second, high DPR at the expense of everything else suits the optimizer just fine, as we have seen in this very thread the optimizer's goal is to demonstrate that his/her (though I suspect mostly a male preoccupation) character is superior to every other "useless" character at the table, and that everyone else should either "optimize" or leave. It's this feeling of power and control the "optimizer" seeks and high DPR at low levels will create that effect long before the deficiencies of the character (in 5e, 3.5e was built for the "ivory tower") shine through.

I think you are either being a bit reductionist here or the terms are getting mixed up.

What you are describing is what I've heard of as a munchkin or a power-gaming munchkin.

I say that because, despite my best efforts sometimes, I'm a bit of an optimizer. Nothing huge, but if I'm building a warlock I'm taking hex and agonizing blast. It isn't that I must put others to shame, simply that I know the best options so I can't not take them. It would be like hanging a picture crooked, I just can't stand it.

So, I think if you get a lot of push back, it could be your use of terms to over generalize things

Waazraath

2018-06-03, 12:12 AM

Not going to answer everything because there's no point to make the bad blood boil again, but there's two points I'd like to discuss:

Yes, metaphors are rhetoric tricks. Nothing wrong with that, rhetoric is inherently part of any discussion by definition. But let's call a cat a cat.

Now THIS is something that'd be worth making a thread about. I'm sure we'd have interesting responses.

Fair enough. A rethoric trick is for me something in the category 'fallacy' while a metaphor is a 'figure of speech'. But nvm. As for another thread: be my guest :smallsmile: I think it's good manner for a thread creator to follow it and respond to most of the folks posting in it, and I won't have the time for that in the near future. Edit: especially given the feature "summon controversy" that optimization appearently has.

Waazraath

2018-06-03, 01:45 PM

You move the goalposts, yet again. The issue is when it's 'every other single person in the thread wrong except me', then what's more likely? One person being wrong? Or twenty?

Hell, I'm even saying this in web forums, which is the single greatest breeding ground for optimizer behavior. The fact that you're getting so much push-back from people who are the least likely to disagree with you is telling.

Another way of saying it:

'If one person calls you an ass, blow it off. If it's two? Consider it. If it's three? Buy a saddle.'

From what I can see, you like to type a lot of words to prove points that have no bearing on what was said.

Dude.

Not a goalpost have been moved in this thread, what you would have known if you read it seriously. I don't make any other claim in the latter posts than I did in the first.

Go count how many folks reacted to my thread. The number of people who agreed, agreed partly, or politely disagreed. There are only three (3) who gave a lot of pushback. Unoriginal, with whom most of it seems to be mutual misunderstanding. 1 person who is plain rude from the first post onward, and now appearently you, though I replied to you in a polite way.

You make some aggressive claims about one of my examples, and if I reply to it, you jump to the meta, and something is wrong with me, or my thread. Whatever.

As for the content, your claim that Rogue 20 is fine, and Roge 17 / Fighter 3 is terrible (and 'dumb' and 'bland') is frankly one of the stupidist things I've seen on these boards. I understand you don't want to defend it, especially after grotesqly exaggerated claims about the latter "making the entire party suffer" "couldn't sneak, couldn't talk, couldn't steal, couldn't climb" "skill-gimped rogue" "the huge hits they didn't roll with" (cause somebody who plays a rogue with both Riposte and Uncanny dodge would be unable to make a smart choice between them) etc.

But don't take it out on my personally. Especially since you don't have a bloody point there (either).

DeAnno

2018-06-03, 02:38 PM

You move the goalposts, yet again. The issue is when it's 'every other single person in the thread wrong except me', then what's more likely? One person being wrong? Or twenty?

I think you and your ilk are the bullies instead of optimizers or people like the OP, on this forum at least. This hostile attitude of "optimization is wrong, talking about optimization is wrong, if you try to make your character good you're doing it wrong, and also you probably smell" is the most toxic part of this forum (I mean the 5e forum specifically, not gitp as a whole), and why I increasingly don't even bother posting here anymore.

On the actual topic, I agree with what's been posited by some posters that the problem is actually one of variety. 5e has the difference between "thrown together" and "optimized" in a pretty good place, but the issue is that there's largely a lack of real variety in trying to optimize various things. A good example is the hate for GWM/SS, which exists mainly because the only other similarly viable source of big-damage from weapon attacks in this game is Paladin 2 + Spell slots (Booming Rogue is cute but aside from weird rules interactions suffers from enough other problems; Mystics have their own viable stuff but it looks like the current version will never see official print). Personally I'm of the opinion that you're better off fixing the issue by adding more viable things than choking off the best options, but that's a whole different argument.

The issue of variety is also part of the core structure of the game, in that not getting a Feat until level 4 (outside VHuman) can really make the early levels feel samey and autopiloted, and it can be difficult to make a character at level 3 or below that doesn't just feel boilerplate. I find this is less of an issue with theoretical builds and more of an issue for real games, that often spend a lot of time at low levels. In general there just aren't as many choices to make outside of spellcasters, with less available feat slots than before and many classes and setups where after choosing your subclass you're sort of done choosing things. I think in a better world multiclassing would alleviate this a lot, but the frontloadedness of classes tends to make that kind of degenerate in a different way.

On the other topic of how optimizers tend to interact at mixed tables, I can suppose it's very DM dependent but in my experience when the actual campaign is challenging these issues of resentment and showboating don't really come up too much. I find it's actually easier when the experienced players focus on Striker/DPR type hijinx; the one thing they're good at is killing things, and a party rarely resents having too much murder in an actually dangerous situation (this requires that combats are scary enough to be actually dangerous, I guess). Outside of these dangerous situations those builds tend to have a lot less utility, so unoptimized party members can take a lot of the spotlight just by having more versatile classes.

In one campaign, I played a mishmash UA-centric Archer character from levels 3-8 and after an unfortunate but appropriate demise played a general goodstuff Mystic from 9-13. My table didn't really mind either, but the Mystic definitely turned out to be way more oppressive in being the focus too much of the time (scouting easily, teleporting everyone around, mind controlling people, etc etc), despite not having gaudy DPR numbers complete with a 7 attack nova.

mgshamster

2018-06-03, 02:56 PM

I think you and your ilk are the bullies instead of optimizers or people like the OP, on this forum at least. This hostile attitude of "optimization is wrong, talking about optimization is wrong, if you try to make your character good you're doing it wrong, and also you probably smell" is the most toxic part of this forum (I mean the 5e forum specifically, not gitp as a whole), and why I increasingly don't even bother posting here anymore.

Wow.

With an attitude like that, no wonder you think everyone else is a bully. They're only responding in kind to your own words.

Waazraath

2018-06-04, 03:04 PM

Wow.

With an attitude like that, no wonder you think everyone else is a bully. They're only responding in kind to your own words.

His attitude? Serious? As the Original Poster, I and / or my ideas have been called an ass, dumb, bland; my integrity on wanting having a fair discussion has been questioned; and people suggest I'm a powergaming munchkin, unable to play in a cooperative game (without knowing me, let alone having ever been at my gaming table, or by the looks of it without even bothering to read my posts).

Maybe weird, but I can follow him quite a bit. "Toxic" is exactly the right word for an environment where only raising the topic of optimization / character building and asking the question on "what role it plays in 5e" leads to the above. And leads to a very vocal minority distubring the conversation in such a way that all regular posters get the hell out of the thread. Can't blame them. But 2-3 people, intentional or not, create an environment where a normal conversation can't be had on this subject, and that's bad.

I think you and your ilk are the bullies instead of optimizers or people like the OP, on this forum at least. This hostile attitude of "optimization is wrong, talking about optimization is wrong, if you try to make your character good you're doing it wrong, and also you probably smell" is the most toxic part of this forum (I mean the 5e forum specifically, not gitp as a whole), and why I increasingly don't even bother posting here anymore.

Thanks. I appreciate it. The weird thing is, I've always been interested in the same stuff: practical optimization, useful in normal play, to help the party, and have as much options as possible. That meant that in 3rd edition, I was mostly busy with handbooks and builds making non-standard (and for that edition: non-casters) playable, without being grossly underpowered. So I wrote stuff like:
- a guide for mundanes to be competative - http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=11381.0
- a paladin build compendium - http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=8971.0
- a guide to how to heal in combat - http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=6656.0
- a guide to an obscure prestige class for an obscure system - http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=12106.0
I had some very angry people back then replyng, annoyed that I couldn't see that The Only Class Worth Playing Is A Wizard or with the fact that I tried to create playable builds without using any ubercharging Because Hah You Stupid N00b That Is Never Powerful Enough.
Now, 2 editions later, I'm doing exactly the same thing and I'm getting flak for Being A Dirty Muchkin Powergamer. Oh, how the times change.

Now back to the contents!

On the actual topic, I agree with what's been posited by some posters that the problem is actually one of variety. 5e has the difference between "thrown together" and "optimized" in a pretty good place, but the issue is that there's largely a lack of real variety in trying to optimize various things. A good example is the hate for GWM/SS, which exists mainly because the only other similarly viable source of big-damage from weapon attacks in this game is Paladin 2 + Spell slots (Booming Rogue is cute but aside from weird rules interactions suffers from enough other problems; Mystics have their own viable stuff but it looks like the current version will never see official print). Personally I'm of the opinion that you're better off fixing the issue by adding more viable things than choking off the best options, but that's a whole different argument.

I can follow this up to a point, but the more splat is appearing, the smaller this problem becomes IMO. Yeah, GWM / SS is very nice for high damage builds. But in Xanathar's, you have Shadow Blade, optimized builds (especially using EK 11 / full caster +9) can do about the same damage as GWM / SS users. From the PHB, you can make a barbarian with Eagle Totemic attunement and Eagle Spirit, that can attack, attack again with Tavern Brawler, start a grapple (advantage on the ability check), fly 80ft in the air, and having the opponent drop to the ground for another 8d6. (yeah, you take the damage yourself as well, but resistance - bonus points if your DM let you drop on top of your opponent for extra damage). Moon druid can be optimized (DPR-wise) way higher than most GWM / SS builds.

I'm convinced that with more stuff like Hexblade, and spells like Shadow Blade, Nature's Guardian, Tensers Transformation, other high damage options can be build easier and easier. It's up to the developers to make sure those high damage options can't be stacked for serious unbalance. But so far they are doing a great job (see my second example in the original post).

The issue of variety is also part of the core structure of the game, in that not getting a Feat until level 4 (outside VHuman) can really make the early levels feel samey and autopiloted, and it can be difficult to make a character at level 3 or below that doesn't just feel boilerplate. I find this is less of an issue with theoretical builds and more of an issue for real games, that often spend a lot of time at low levels. In general there just aren't as many choices to make outside of spellcasters, with less available feat slots than before and many classes and setups where after choosing your subclass you're sort of done choosing things. I think in a better world multiclassing would alleviate this a lot, but the frontloadedness of classes tends to make that kind of degenerate in a different way.

Truth, though mostly a problem for people who play a lot of characters, I think. Could be one of the big reasons Variant Human is so popular, even more than raw power.

On the other topic of how optimizers tend to interact at mixed tables, I can suppose it's very DM dependent but in my experience when the actual campaign is challenging these issues of resentment and showboating don't really come up too much. I find it's actually easier when the experienced players focus on Striker/DPR type hijinx; the one thing they're good at is killing things, and a party rarely resents having too much murder in an actually dangerous situation (this requires that combats are scary enough to be actually dangerous, I guess). Outside of these dangerous situations those builds tend to have a lot less utility, so unoptimized party members can take a lot of the spotlight just by having more versatile classes.

In one campaign, I played a mishmash UA-centric Archer character from levels 3-8 and after an unfortunate but appropriate demise played a general goodstuff Mystic from 9-13. My table didn't really mind either, but the Mystic definitely turned out to be way more oppressive in being the focus too much of the time (scouting easily, teleporting everyone around, mind controlling people, etc etc), despite not having gaudy DPR numbers complete with a 7 attack nova.

Yeah; the old 'versatility vs power' or 'versatility is power' discussion. As long as everybody has a niche, it doesn't matter in real play. Also because, as I think I said earlier, at a normal table nobody is out to steal other peoples thunder, but to maximize the party's potential.

MeeposFire

2018-06-04, 04:59 PM

Waazraath

2018-06-05, 02:07 PM

I think there is some confusion here is the discussion about optimization or the "build a character" game? I thought this was about the build a character game more than anything which often uses optimization but is not in fact optimization itself. One can optimize and not feel like making a character is a game and one can play the character making game and make something, on purpose, that is not optimal.

Yes, this is spot on.

As my example again using 3e one fun character to make was the psion sandwich where using your rules technique (not optimization though they can be related) you can make a fully functional character that is a sandwich. Fun but not something that is at any sort of full potential.

Lol, yeah, this. The options of 3e were almost limitless, both in creating weird stuff, as in raw power.

On the other hand I could make a 5e barbarian with the ultimate two weapon fighting prowess that deals boat loads of damage but I would not say I was playing the create a character game because there just isn't enough special skill to it so at least for me in terms of making a character the fun is very low. Playing it could be very fun but making it was nothing special. To me the rule critical mass is nowhere near high enough in 5e to where it is particularly fun in creating a character and I am fully ok with that because again in 5e I make characters to play the game while in say 3e making the character was the best part of the game as playing them was far less fun.

Yeah, I think that's a bit the conclusion of the thread. For at quite a lot of you folks, the character building mini-game is mostly gone, for the reasons you state. For some, including me, there is enough material for it to be fun, also to create weird builds, making illogical concepts work, or maximize a characters complementation to an existing party.

Optimization is still there; it's not very technical / challenging (or at least doensn't need to be), and often as straightforward as 'take the best feat / spell'. There is still quite a difference in power between anti-optimized, non-optimized and optimized. I think somebody said here that selecting spells at random would be an interesting way to check the these there are no longer 'good' and 'bad' options (of course there are). The difference is a lot smaller than in earlier editions, 5e is very nicely balanced, but difference there is. Fortunately, for I'm pretty sure an edition without any meaningful differences and options between classes and characters wouldn't be appreciated.

Differnces in power between character doesn't need to lead to problems in games, usually a DM should be able to handle it (as PeteNutButter mentioned), and it shouldn't happen in the first place if you have a bunch of good, social players, since people won't be trying to be 'best'. I've never seen a problem with it, in a few decades of playing, in any case.

Maybe, somewhere in time, I'll try to convince you folks who think character building isn't worth it anymore with a nice build compendium or something.

2D8HP

2018-06-05, 05:15 PM

Alternative option: half-elf (for extra skills - or any other race that gives bonus skills, lizardfolk or vhuman should work as well), with athletics, stealth, persuasion, survival skills (1 or 2 free for customization); class: paladin (any), and since you don't want to cast spells, use all slots on smite. Heal with lay on hands.

The Oath of Ancients ("Kindle the Light, Shelter the Light, Preserve Your Own Light, Be the Light") Tenets have real appeal to me for a character to play but, like most spell casting classes, I found it too complex for me to play, but just "Smites" looks pretty simple.

Thanks Waazraath!

:smile:

DeAnno

2018-06-05, 07:09 PM

mgshamster

2018-06-05, 08:34 PM

The recent Crawford Shield Master controversy is a good example. Crawford apparently saw something in a game that rubbed him the wrong way, and flips a twitter ruling over it, throwing insults all around as he does so.

I just went through that entire Twitter thread, and not once did he insult a single person. If you saw him "throwing around insults all around," then perhaps your own perception of what is and is not an insult is clouding your judgment of others writing.

Perhaps the reason why you think so many people here are bullies is because you see insults where they don't exist, and then get mad at people for your own misperception. Meanwhile, they get mad at you for what they perceive as an out-of-nowhere aggression. And then it devovles from there.

Try to read other's writing in a positive light, as if they do not intend to insult (or if they do, perhaps it was accidental). It will enhancements your online discussions and increase your enjoyment of the forums.

Chaosmancer

2018-06-05, 11:50 PM

I just went through that entire Twitter thread, and not once did he insult a single person. If you saw him "throwing around insults all around," then perhaps your own perception of what is and is not an insult is clouding your judgment of others writing.

Perhaps the reason why you think so many people here are bullies is because you see insults where they don't exist, and then get mad at people for your own misperception. Meanwhile, they get mad at you for what they perceive as an out-of-nowhere aggression. And then it devovles from there.

Try to read other's writing in a positive light, as if they do not intend to insult (or if they do, perhaps it was accidental). It will enhancements your online discussions and increase your enjoyment of the forums.

Not sure if the original twitter thread had it, or if it was an off shoot, but I think he's referring to the comment by JC about Shield Master being a "cheese factory" for easy advantage.

That commemt is kind of hard to take in a postive light, especially since it heavily implies that he sees people who were using a mid-tier feat in a way they believed was intended to instead have been abusing a rules loophole to the detriment of the game.

It's easy to tell people not to be offended, but many people have different contexts and triggers that they are reacting to and implying they are wrong to be offended can come across as patronizing instead of helpful, which only leads to further problems.

mgshamster

2018-06-06, 07:18 AM

Not sure if the original twitter thread had it, or if it was an off shoot, but I think he's referring to the comment by JC about Shield Master being a "cheese factory" for easy advantage.

That commemt is kind of hard to take in a postive light, especially since it heavily implies that he sees people who were using a mid-tier feat in a way they believed was intended to instead have been abusing a rules loophole to the detriment of the game.

It's easy to tell people not to be offended, but many people have different contexts and triggers that they are reacting to and implying they are wrong to be offended can come across as patronizing instead of helpful, which only leads to further problems.

What you say is absolutely correct.

However, I cannot find any mention of Crawford saying it was cheese in any of the Twitter threads related to this topic or even the more general topic of "If X allows Y, then X must come before Y." Not even the word Cheese" by any of the posters in the thread.

I did find a Reddit thread, which Crawford was not in, which used the word fairly often. Perhaps were attributing insults that other people use to Crawford? And then we're getting mad at him for it?

Perception is a big deal here. Since this is text-based communication, we are unable to use body language and facial expressions to give context to our words. We cannot see the smile or the anger behind the eyes of those we're conversing with. We cannot see the sarcasm or the humor.

What we see - the emotions we perceive - is entirely of our own choosing. Unless there is some extremely obvious clues (all caps, cuss words, flat out insults with no ambiguity such as "stupid" or something like that), then we decide how we want to read other's words.

I can make attempts to be polite - and I often do - but that doesn't gauruntee others will read it that way. Even in this thread, we had a miscommunication where someone used the word Rhetoric to mean "a tool used to provide an argument" and another perceived it to mean "a negative fallacy" - because they had never seen the word used in it's traditional meaning, they thought it was an insult.

But here, those of us writing only have so much we can do to try and get others to understand our words. It's difficult to quickly change what our readers think when they read what we write. There *are* things we can do - language we can avoid and phrasing we can write to help give a positive meaning. But that doesn't stop someone from reading our words in a negative fashion, or misunderstood the definition of a word and finding insult where none was given, or even misattributing other's words to someone else and assuming insult there. And in these situations, it's best that we help one another better understand and better communicate.

And I am not above this at all - please help me learn.

pothocboots

2018-06-06, 02:56 PM

mgshamster, one of the things you are missing is that Crawford deleted the tweet in question.

This is one of the threads that replied to that tweet: https://twitter.com/LongbowJon/status/994996838850842624

[too low on post count to make links, sorry]

Waazraath

2018-06-06, 03:28 PM

What you say is absolutely correct.

However, I cannot find any mention of Crawford saying it was cheese in any of the Twitter threads related to this topic or even the more general topic of "If X allows Y, then X must come before Y." Not even the word Cheese" by any of the posters in the thread.

I did find a Reddit thread, which Crawford was not in, which used the word fairly often. Perhaps were attributing insults that other people use to Crawford? And then we're getting mad at him for it?

Perception is a big deal here. Since this is text-based communication, we are unable to use body language and facial expressions to give context to our words. We cannot see the smile or the anger behind the eyes of those we're conversing with. We cannot see the sarcasm or the humor.

What we see - the emotions we perceive - is entirely of our own choosing. Unless there is some extremely obvious clues (all caps, cuss words, flat out insults with no ambiguity such as "stupid" or something like that), then we decide how we want to read other's words.

I can make attempts to be polite - and I often do - but that doesn't gauruntee others will read it that way. Even in this thread, we had a miscommunication where someone used the word Rhetoric to mean "a tool used to provide an argument" and another perceived it to mean "a negative fallacy" - because they had never seen the word used in it's traditional meaning, they thought it was an insult.

But here, those of us writing only have so much we can do to try and get others to understand our words. It's difficult to quickly change what our readers think when they read what we write. There *are* things we can do - language we can avoid and phrasing we can write to help give a positive meaning. But that doesn't stop someone from reading our words in a negative fashion, or misunderstood the definition of a word and finding insult where none was given, or even misattributing other's words to someone else and assuming insult there. And in these situations, it's best that we help one another better understand and better communicate.

And I am not above this at all - please help me learn.

You ask us to help you learn, so I take the invite. I'm the one who considered the word 'rethorics' in this thread insulting. Not because I don't know the traditional meaning, as you think, I'm well aware of it. But because the first time, it was in used in a very sarcastic manner " is totally a legit rhetorical tactic, and totally a good way to get me to respond" - implying it is not; and the second time not calling something rethorics, but a rethoric trick - as in, according to the first meaning in the first dictionary google gives me, is "a crafty procedure or practice meant to deceive or defraud". These are very negative ways of using the word rethorics.

On the one hand, I appreciate what you're trying to do, help people communictate, avoid misunderstanding. But as Chaosmancer said, "implying they are wrong to be offended can come across as patronizing instead of helpful, which only leads to further problems" - and it does. In this case, you present insulting phrases as neutral. They were not, not by itself and especially not in the context of the conversation. Also DeAnno was spot on, on the toxic environment created by a few posters derailing the thread - yet you attack him for it, for his choice of words. In doing that, supporting the people who started throwing insults. So on that hand: not cool.

The Oath of Ancients ("Kindle the Light, Shelter the Light, Preserve Your Own Light, Be the Light") Tenets have real appeal to me for a character to play but, like most spell casting classes, I found it too complex for me to play, but just "Smites" looks pretty simple.

Thanks Waazraath!

:smile:

You're welcome :smallsmile:

One thing I didn't mention earlier was that part of why 5e is a bit of a downer optimization wise is that the dev team itself is so hostile to those elements of the community (this is probably responsible for a significant part of my bitterness.) Starting from the intentionally vague language in the PHB (which has led to no end of issues), disappointingly imprecise and reactionary rules for items, continuing with a drought of official content, and culminating in the intentionally restrictive AL 1-book rule. I probably shouldn't get so angry at the more hostile posters, as the devs have made it pretty clear that they want our building mini-game as dead as possible.

The recent Crawford Shield Master controversy is a good example. Crawford apparently saw something in a game that rubbed him the wrong way, and flips a twitter ruling over it, throwing insults all around as he does so. Of course, if there was a reasonable system for errata or rules written in a clear way we wouldn't need twitter to be the be-all end-all of rules in this edition in the first place.

You're probably right that there are some interesting things to dig up in this edition, as troubled as it's been, but the feeling of constantly fighting your way uphill against it is disheartening.

Ah, I missed that entire episode. Oh well... to be honest I haven't been following any of de developers on Twitter, and can't be bothered too much by them. This seems a very weird ruling, cause it causes more disbalance than it causes balance (it makes sword & board weaker compered to great weapon fighting in a game using feats). But if you do follow it, and play in games where these Tweets are Law, then yes, I can imagine it isn't very stimulating. Not for character building, but not for playing in general. Damn, people who had a shield basher build when that Tweet came out and had this new 'rule' enforced by their DM must have had a pill to swallow. It would feel really random to me, if I had my character concept and power severely weakend because of a Tweet.

Tanarii

2018-06-06, 04:06 PM

Try to read other's writing in a positive light, as if they do not intend to insult (or if they do, perhaps it was accidental). It will enhancements your online discussions and increase your enjoyment of the forums.Well said. It's easy to be quick to take umbrage or see yourself as attacked. Especially by those of us that post very direct counterpoints without considering that our "presenting an alternative view" could even possibly come across as an attack on their view, let alone a personal attack on them as a person.

I've been on both sides of that myself. Quick to take offense, and quick to fire off an ill thought out response. Hounding someone with my alternative takes without even realizing I'm hounding. And (many) others telling me I appear to be the one attacking another when I feel like I'm defending myself.

DeAnno

2018-06-06, 04:24 PM

But if you do follow it, and play in games where these Tweets are Law, then yes, I can imagine it isn't very stimulating. Not for character building, but not for playing in general. Damn, people who had a shield basher build when that Tweet came out and had this new 'rule' enforced by their DM must have had a pill to swallow. It would feel really random to me, if I had my character concept and power severely weakend because of a Tweet.

It's even worse at an AL table, from what I understand. It isn't an official errata, so it doesn't merit a rebuild credit or whatever they use, but at the same time I'd guess most, or at least some, DMs are going to follow the Crawford ruling and use the more restrictive interpretation now. Characters built under the aegis of the earlier ruling now have to deal with the latter. And even worse, those characters have been labeled as "cheese factories", which is going to limit any sympathy for what happened on the part of a lot of DMs who don't really follow all this logic super closely. I guess deleting the tweet might limit that, but deleting and not actually retracting is a pretty cowardly move in any case.

I think all this is a good example of why the building mini-game being a thing is healthy for the greater game, as the detail oriented nature of it usually tries to sharpen lines and prevent stuff like this from happening. "Rulings not Rules" is all well and good until you need actual rules.

JoeJ

2018-06-06, 04:28 PM

Well, if you feel that way, fair enough. But at no table I ever played, it wouldn't have been a problem if there are two rogues in the party, at, lets say, level 12, where:
- no 1 rolls 1d8 + 6d6
- no 2 rolls 1d8 + 2d8 + 4d6 with advantage // as a reaction rolls 1d8 + 4d6
This will end up about double the damage, without any opportunity costs (on the contrary, no 2 could play with the 'booming' effect', and a familiar can also be a great asset in the exploring piller off the game).

No opportunity cost? Compared to the 1st rogue, the 2nd rogue moves slower, has to sleep, and has given up Darkvision, Fey Ancestry, Mask of the Wild, two ASIs and Reliable Talent. And their initial ability scores got a +1/+1 bonus as opposed to a +2/+1 (or half an ASI difference) for rogue no. 1. That doesn't sound to me like no opportunity cost. Nor does it seem likely that rogue no. 1 will feel inadequate unless the DM refuses to let them use what they've got.

Unoriginal

2018-06-06, 04:44 PM

I think all this is a good example of why the building mini-game being a thing is healthy for the greater game, as the detail oriented nature of it usually tries to sharpen lines and prevent stuff like this from happening. "Rulings not Rules" is all well and good until you need actual rules.

You mean that it would have somehow have prevented Crawford, the guy who decides what the D&D rules are, to say what the intended use of the feat was (keeping in mind that DMs can rule it out as they wish thanks to "ruling, not rules")?

I don't see how it's supposed to be "healthy" for a game.

DeAnno

2018-06-06, 09:37 PM

You mean that it would have somehow have prevented Crawford, the guy who decides what the D&D rules are, to say what the intended use of the feat was (keeping in mind that DMs can rule it out as they wish thanks to "ruling, not rules")?

I don't see how it's supposed to be "healthy" for a game.

I mean that if you build the game in a precise way with wording that's definitive in the first place, or if you responsibly issue errata when things are legitimately unclear in a dangerous way, every little thing doesn't need to be clarified on twitter in the murky realm of the official-but-not-quite.

Tanarii

2018-06-06, 10:26 PM

I mean that if you build the game in a precise way with wording that's definitive in the first place, or if you responsibly issue errata when things are legitimately unclear in a dangerous way, every little thing doesn't need to be clarified on twitter in the murky realm of the official-but-not-quite.
3e proved this is not true. There were ten times the rules arguments on the forums*, and errata and SA failed to clear them up.

*I'm specifically thinking of the WoTC forums. I didn't participate in GitP at the time.

Phoenix042

2018-06-06, 11:21 PM

Your thoughts?

My thoughts are that this post took me MASSIVELY off guard.

If such threads are dead, that's news to me. I love those threads, and find them just as satisfying and interesting in 5e as I did in 3.5; no, MORE satisfying, because the game is so much more full of substance and real, actual content, and significantly less crammed with bloat and traps.

I started a "making a build" mini-game thread a few days ago, actually, and I'm really enjoying it. Trying to figure out how to get the most damage on a single attack (buffed and unbuffed versions) has been fun and enlightening. It helps me learn the game and what it can do.

For example, apparently a Hexblade 9 / Assassin 11 can deal 199 damage to a target, without magic items or poisons, no pre-buffing, and no help from allies. He needs surprise, which is obviously a huge caveat, but still, this edition makes for some fun exercises.

I'd firmly argue that this edition has more content than 3.x, in much the same way that a clean fridge with a few things in it contains "more food" than my friends fridge full of spoiled leftovers, half-opened containers of random stuff without dates on them, and a bunch of spills and stuff.

Saying that there's more content in 3.x is like saying that your book is longer than mine when I'm reading Harry Potter, and you're reading the phone book.

There's a lot less to sift through, and you don't need waders, a wetsuit, or breathing protection to plumb the depths of this editions rulebooks, but for those of us who enjoy such things, building characters for fun is still very much a thing.

I enjoy it more now than ever before.

And FYI, I was a die-hard 3.5 player for 15 years. Owned every book, read them all multiple times, used to play the character building game back then too (made a skip-thrower once who could do a few hundred damage to each of two adjacent targets in a turn, and a shield thrower who could knock groups of people back / prone from a distance, constantly). And I followed all the old, amazing build threads, like the Queen Paladin of Rock and Roll and Arcane Casting, or the mega-man build (using warforged and trying to get the most out of the arm cannon), or the pinball brothers (using dungeon crasher and a few other mechanics to make a pair of fighters who could slam enemies repeatedly into walls while moving them long distances for big damage and CC).

Those builds were fun and silly, but now when we put together an awesome combo, it usually makes some kind of sense, and still fits into what we'd expect the game to be able to handle. You can't peg someone with 8,000 damage in a turn like you could back then, and that's a GOOD thing.

Willie the Duck

2018-06-07, 07:55 AM

One thing I didn't mention earlier was that part of why 5e is a bit of a downer optimization wise is that the dev team itself is so hostile to those elements of the community (this is probably responsible for a significant part of my bitterness.) Starting from the intentionally vague language in the PHB (which has led to no end of issues), disappointingly imprecise and reactionary rules for items, continuing with a drought of official content, and culminating in the intentionally restrictive AL 1-book rule. I probably shouldn't get so angry at the more hostile posters, as the devs have made it pretty clear that they want our building mini-game as dead as possible.

The recent Crawford Shield Master controversy is a good example. Crawford apparently saw something in a game that rubbed him the wrong way, and flips a twitter ruling over it, throwing insults all around as he does so. Of course, if there was a reasonable system for errata or rules written in a clear way we wouldn't need twitter to be the be-all end-all of rules in this edition in the first place.

You're probably right that there are some interesting things to dig up in this edition, as troubled as it's been, but the feeling of constantly fighting your way uphill against it is disheartening.

I honestly think whether Crawford and Mearls really are insulting or dismissive is kind of past the point. I think it is absolutely a correct assertion that the D&D fandom, as an aggregate whole, has moved away from at least endorsing optimization. This is one of those 'feels like' things that focuses on a cultural zeitgeist where you just can't prove it, so if anyone disagrees I'm not going to be able to support it. But overall, I think you are right. In general, the fandom isn't into optimization/build mini-game/etc. in the way it was in 2004 or whenever and the showrunners are playing to that audience.

Mind you, I find that completely understandable, historically speaking. I also understand why they decided on the rulings-over-rules metric and the current hand-wavy not-entirely-official errata/update/ruling system. I remember discussions in 3e about how, because the core books had been reprinted without update (and thus by some arguments qualified as 'latest release' that they superseded the Rules Compendium which was designed as a method to clarify the too-often-angrily-debated rules of that edition. I remember vitriolic debates on the Wizards.com forums about how the what was posted in the FAQ about something was clearly errata (I'm sure the WotC people considered it a clarification), and thus, since it was in the FAQ, was nonbinding.

So yeah. Is the fanbase and authors against optimization? At least in part. In no small part because that fanbase made things very unpleasant not that long ago. Sorry your entirely reasonable passion coincides with what some other people embraced and behaved rather toxically, thus turning a lot of people off of it. And I mean the sorry part. But I'm still glad we haven't, as a whole, gone back to that in this edition.