Some Personal Musings

[AnimeTheCat]

I've thought a lot lately about the balancing act that has come to be called the linear fighter quadratic wizard. I've thought long about "how does one make this balancing act work?" I know that when I DM, I do whatever I can to challenge all of my players simultaneously in mechanics and roleplay and seek to keep all parties engaged.

Still, I've also thought about the experiences of others and how their experiences were shaped in reference to my own. For example, I regularly see complaints or arguments revolving around a Fighter (or other similar class) not being able to "meaningfully contribute" to a situation, at which point things such as traveling long distances, raising the dead, or solving a crime are referenced. Those experiences, as are had by the complaining or arguing person, are different from my own. They aren't different because I masterfully found a meaningful way to contribute, but rather I understood that there wasn't really any way for me to meaningfully contribute, and it was ok with me. I knew that when there was combat, my area of meaningful contribution would arrive and I had faith that my DM would provide me the opportunity to do so.

That flows in to one of my other tangent thoughts, "Maybe my expectations of the game are simply different from everyone else's?" I mean, that's the only explanation I can think of for why I would be ok with a Fighter only fighting, or a wizard wielding the arcane arts to perform seemingly unimaginable feats, all in the same party. I don't expect fighters to teleport, but I also don't expect wizards to "Fight" (that is to pick up a sword or regularly turn in to a hydra). I expect the party to work as a team, and in my experience the fighter doesn't usually drag the party down even a little.

Then I continue to think "Why do I still prefer fighters to warblade or other initiators?" The only thing I can think of is that, for me, initiators change the expectation. When imitators are introduced, non-magical characters start to do things that magical characters do and, while that's not a bad thing, it makes non-initiators obsolete. I've never been a fan of any class making another obsolete, and I feel that the tome of battle initiators do that to nearly all other martial combat focused classes, thus making the other classes 1-2 levels long.

I count myself lucky that I can consistently find like minded groups. I feel as though I have more fun that way, when I can play anything without fear of being a drag on the party. That includes classes like Paladin, Soulborn, or Monk as well. I know many say "it's a gentleman's agreement" but, I've never had to talk to anyone and say "hey, can you stop being awesome please? Jimmy doesn't like it." It just kind of.... happens organically. I've been in both shoes, the front-line cleric, the elven generalist or conjuration specialist wizard, the wild shaping, laser beam shooting dinosaur riding dinosaur druid, but I've never taken another person's spotlight. I read some posts that are written with such seething disdain for anything that isn't a spellcastee that it makes me wonder if I'm playing a different game sometimes. I can't fathom how or why another person would willingly go out of their way to completely and utterly embarrass another player and force them out of their chance to shine and have a good time.

I know that above musing can be flipped to be "I can't imagine why a person would willingly play something that isn't so overbearingly powerful that the game crumbles around it." I see the argument that "fighters can't even handle CR appropriate enemies" and other (Which I personally considervfalse and nonsense). CR appropriate for a single character is not the same as CR appropriate for a party of 4. Because one class can handle above CR challenges does not mean thatvthe standard is set to that point, the standard is still based off of level. I know that in the event that someone brings a single less powerful character into a more powerful environment that it can be frustrating, and I'm not condoning that activity. Based on personal experience, I don't think that this happens all that often, and If it does there are likely other things going on, such as the DM ignoring XP or using their own form of XP and thus having more challenging enemies the norm of their games. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does alter the experience and expectation of the game.

I guess that's all for my thoughts... just wanted to share.

[daremetoidareyo]

Some of us have more toxic groups than you.

[Venger]

You play in low-op games. Consequently, unoptimized characters can contribute meaningfully and not feel overshadowed by stronger characters.

If you and your friends are having fun together, it doesn't sound like you really have a problem.

[AnimeTheCat]

You play in low-op games. Consequently, unoptimized characters can contribute meaningfully and not feel overshadowed by stronger characters.

If you and your friends are having fun together, it doesn't sound like you really have a problem.

I disagree that the games are low-op. I would agree they may be lower power, but not necessarily low-op. My reasoning is that a low-op game means low optimization (unless I'm misunderstanding) right? I explained this in a different thread that there are different things you can optimize. You can optimize a class or a function. Usually optimizing a function does not necessarily mean optimizing a class. For instance, if you're optimizing a tripper, you're going to bounce between all sorts of classes. If you optimize a class, you're simply finding the most effective way to accomplish a desired task while remaining in your class.

In my group, we usually try to optimize classes as opposed to functions. That doesn't make the game low-op, but it does lend towards lower power as the function tends to bear the power, not the class.

All that being said, just because we are lower power does not mean that we are under powered. I don't think my groups have ever struggled to handle CR appropriate challenges unless they didn't plan ahead properly.

I don't intend any offense, but optimization doesn't really have any bearing on a person choosing not to obviate another person's character by their own willful choices, nor does it effect the expectations put forth by the game for what a party can or should be able to handle, or the reality of available options inherent to a class upon initial evaluation. Optimization is really just an abstraction of people seeking the META for a desired class or function. It does not change classes or the baseline expectations of the game.

[JNAProductions]

An issue is that people can, purely by accident, overshadow others. A Druid with Natural Spell and a good animal companion is miles beyond anything but the most optimized of Monks, even in places the Monk is supposed to be good at.

[Venger]

All right, then you play in a low power game. Optimization doesn't mean obviating weak classes.

[Nifft]

I don't intend any offense, but optimization doesn't really have any bearing on a person choosing not to obviate another person's character by their own willful choices

It's my impression that a high-OP character can inadvertently obviate a large number of other characters, without deliberately trying to do so.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't expect fighters to teleport, but I also don't expect wizards to "Fight" (that is to pick up a sword or regularly turn in to a hydra).
Maybe your party is medium-OP, but (consciously or accidentally) very much set in the few archetypes the game assumes, instead of freely mixing the kitchen sink.

Turning into a hydra is, once you get polymorph, and especially, draconic polymorph, a sort of medium-OP way for a wizard to contribute to a fight. One spell, several rounds of mayhem. Certainly, if you don't expect wizards to do that or anything stronger, you're playing a low-mid-OP game at best.

[AnimeTheCat]

Maybe your party is medium-OP, but (consciously or accidentally) very much set in the few archetypes the game assumes, instead of freely mixing the kitchen sink.

Turning into a hydra is, once you get polymorph, and especially, draconic polymorph, a sort of medium-OP way for a wizard to contribute to a fight. One spell, several rounds of mayhem. Certainly, if you don't expect wizards to do that or anything stronger, you're playing a low-mid-OP game at best.

I mean... Is turning into a hydra really the best thing to do if there's a fighter? That's just doubling down on the same thing, physical damage output. Wouldn't that spell slot be better served casting, I don't know, black tentacles, haste, or other similarly debilitating or enhancing spell? Truthfully, if there is no other option than to polymorph, so be it. But if there's a character dealing adequate physical damage, what point is there in more of the same?

All that is not to say that a wizard polymorphing is wrong, especially if that what the player has their heart set on. I just can't see doing more of the same as any more efficient than doing different. What makes polymorphing into a hydra more optimized than locking down the whole battlefield? Or enhancing all your allies (and yourself) to do more in the same amount of time? It strikes me as selfish and overall a less efficient use of your actions.

EDIT: also, there isn't anything wrong with sticking to archetypes, especially when doing so helps to prevent problems inherent to the game when rules are ignored and classes are made to be useless by an overanalyzation of function and rules.

Conversely, there's nothing wrong with doing the above either, so long as all members are on the same page a la gentleman's agreement so commonly referenced.

I guess my thoughts were that I've never had to verbalize such an agreement.

[Nifft]

I mean... Is turning into a hydra really the best thing to do if there's a fighter? Sure, a naive Wizard might think something like...

"Hey, the Fighter is trying to hit that guy. I'll turn into a hydra and help the Fighter by flanking it!"

... and then two rounds later, the Wizard-Hydra has solo'd the thing and the Fighter only hit it once, in spite of the flanking bonus, because 10 attacks at full BAB are better than 3 iterative attacks.


But if there's a character dealing adequate physical damage, what point is there in more of the same? Damage is one of those mechanics where two people doing the same thing actually does help, because damage stacks.


EDIT: also, there isn't anything wrong with sticking to archetypes, especially when doing so helps to prevent problems inherent to the game when rules are ignored and classes are made to be useless by an overanalyzation of function and rules.

Conversely, there's nothing wrong with doing the above either, so long as all members are on the same page a la gentleman's agreement so commonly referenced.

I guess my thoughts were that I've never had to verbalize such an agreement. Sure, there's nothing wrong with it.

I've seen the Gentlemen's Agreement in other games, too -- like Shadowrun in some editions, with wired reflexes and the like.

Being faced with a gentleman's agreement can reduce some types of fun, especially if you've got players who enjoy competitive challenges and winning in their games, but it's nothing a well-adjusted group of mature adults can't handle.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I mean... Is turning into a hydra really the best thing to do if there's a fighter?
Well, killing things is the goal, right? So two people killing is better than one. And every round the enemy is dead, is one round you don't need to lock them down.


EDIT: also, there isn't anything wrong with sticking to archetypes, especially when doing so helps to prevent problems inherent to the game when rules are ignored and classes are made to be useless by an overanalyzation of function and rules.
I don't think sticking to archetypes has much of an impact on balance issues in 3.5 (which I presume are what you mean, here). After all, the archetypal "mage" (Gandalf, Sauron) is far more powerful than the archetypal "warrior" (Boromir, Eomer). Game balance cares more about how much you optimize your casters, and how high-power the game is (primarily: what the highest available spell level is). Sticking to the archetypes is a form of niche protection, which does prevent the wizard from outshining the fighter, but also prevents the wizard from outshining the fighter.

Also, problems that arise when rules are ignored are not inherent to the game (by definition).

[Cosi]

I mean... Is turning into a hydra really the best thing to do if there's a fighter? That's just doubling down on the same thing, physical damage output. Wouldn't that spell slot be better served casting, I don't know, black tentacles, haste, or other similarly debilitating or enhancing spell?

haste seems pretty directly worse than polymorph. Your Fighter has to be doing some absurdly large damage numbers for giving him +1 on attack rolls and one extra attack to be better than an entire Hydra's worth of extra attacks. evard's black tentacles is a BFC spell, but locking down your enemy so the Fighter can go punch them in the face is not quite as useful as you'd think.


Truthfully, if there is no other option than to polymorph, so be it. But if there's a character dealing adequate physical damage, what point is there in more of the same?

I don't know, you tell me why you played a Fighter.

Seriously though, I don't understand this attitude. Why is it that by playing a Fighter you get to put "hits things in the face" on lockdown? Even if we accept the premise that the party only needs one frontliner, why should the Incantatrix or the DMM Cleric rather than the Fighter switch to a different role? Are we supposed to allow you to take the role we wanted because you played a character who is less able to fill alternate roles? Why shouldn't you have to come back with a character who supports the frontline WIzard?


It strikes me as selfish and overall a less efficient use of your actions.

And yet, you want to play a character who not only does not, but cannot support your allies. We've been over this before. Either it is selfish for you to play a Fighter, because you do not provide party support, or it is not selfish for me to play a Wizard who does not provide party support. I am not obligated to use options I don't want just because I have them, any more than you were obligated to play a frontliner like a Swiftblade or a Bardblade who could provide support for the rest of the party.


EDIT: also, there isn't anything wrong with sticking to archetypes, especially when doing so helps to prevent problems inherent to the game when rules are ignored and classes are made to be useless by an overanalyzation of function and rules.

You're coming at this from the wrong perspective. No one is making your class useless. You are choosing to play a useless character. If that is what you want to do, feel free to do it. But while there are characters that play to the same archetype that don't get overshadowed, you can't complain about being overshadowed.

[Darth Ultron]

An issue is that people can, purely by accident, overshadow others. A Druid with Natural Spell and a good animal companion is miles beyond anything but the most optimized of Monks, even in places the Monk is supposed to be good at.

I think the big point is: it is never an accident.

I guess the ''theory'' is Player Bob has a druid character and just picks things for his character as they level up at random. And then, much to Bob's shock and surprise, one day his druid character just ''suddenly'' purely by accident, overshadow others. And, naturally, to make it worse, once Bob suddenly realizes he is overshadow others....he just keeps doing it.

Of course, the above does assume Bob just picks things like feats and spells at random....and that is not always true.

Enter: The Optimizing Roll Player. One of the main goals of this player IS to make powerful character. And when you do that, you are going to over shadow others....and it will be no accident. When ever you do anything to the maximum extreme, or otherwise go above and beyond the norm, you will over shadow others. Just take a simple birthday party, where everyone will bring a gift. Of course no one knows what everyone will bring, but you can roughly guess the gift amount. So when you get a gift that is say twice, or five times that amount: you will over shadow someone. And it will not be an accident.

And so you get the dual problem of the The Optimizing Roll Player: they both HAVE to have a powerful character and they HAVE to use that character to it's fullest no matter what.

This is the real telling bit of such a person. A normal person, one that did accidentally make a powerful character for real, would be more then open to doing something to not disrupt the game by over shadowing others. The normal person has the ability to do things like: not use their characters over powering abilities or even simply change those abilities.

So when the character encounters a group of foes, instead of blowing them all away with the powerful ability, the player can choose to do something else. The Optimizing Roll Player can't.

[Mechalich]

Still, I've also thought about the experiences of others and how their experiences were shaped in reference to my own. For example, I regularly see complaints or arguments revolving around a Fighter (or other similar class) not being able to "meaningfully contribute" to a situation, at which point things such as traveling long distances, raising the dead, or solving a crime are referenced. Those experiences, as are had by the complaining or arguing person, are different from my own. They aren't different because I masterfully found a meaningful way to contribute, but rather I understood that there wasn't really any way for me to meaningfully contribute, and it was ok with me. I knew that when there was combat, my area of meaningful contribution would arrive and I had faith that my DM would provide me the opportunity to do so.

This means you are a patient, and - to at least some extent - low involvement player. Some, in fact a great many, players are perfectly content to sit around the table and mostly watch while one or two players take the lead for the party and handle most of the interactions with the GM. These types of players build a character that fulfills a niche they recognize that they are capable of role-playing sufficiently to fill, and only really drop into the action flow when the time comes to express that niche.

This is actually, generally a very good thing, since it fits with how storytelling actually works. You have one or two leads who handle the bulk of the action and then a bunch of supporting characters who only periodically chime in even if they are on stage the whole time. This role, at a game table, also allows players to put in less effort if they have other demands on their time or emotional resources - playing a fighter is simply easier than playing a wizard because there are fewer things the character can do and fewer sub-systems to manage - and many players wish their RPG time to be primarily relaxing (which is one of the reasons why GMs are so difficult to find, because the GM never gets to relax).

However, this disparity can create problems. First, many players simply lack this sort of patient approach, or they get bored easily - a problem exacerbated in our current age of cell phones where anyone can disappear down a rabbit-hole of distraction and check out completely in less than a minute. For these players they are not going to passive pay attention to what other party members do, they need a way to be meaningfully engaged in every scene or they'll either wander off or cause a disruption. If such a player builds a character who can't contribute with regularity then you have a problem. In D&D, because of the class structure restrictions, this creates mismatches. If your highly-involved player makes a fighter, they are going to get bored and frustrated because the class chassis is largely incapable of fulfilling their playstyle.

This is much less of a problem in point-buy systems because you can usually build a character who can contribute to most circumstances at a modest cost to specialized efficacy in a way you simply cannot do in a class-based system.

[Quertus]

Still, I've also thought about the experiences of others and how their experiences were shaped in reference to my own. For example, I regularly see complaints or arguments revolving around a Fighter (or other similar class) not being able to "meaningfully contribute" to a situation, at which point things such as traveling long distances, raising the dead, or solving a crime are referenced. Those experiences, as are had by the complaining or arguing person, are different from my own. They aren't different because I masterfully found a meaningful way to contribute, but rather I understood that there wasn't really any way for me to meaningfully contribute, and it was ok with me. I knew that when there was combat, my area of meaningful contribution would arrive and I had faith that my DM would provide me the opportunity to do so.

Burn the heretic! Power Rangers has shown us the One True Way of Balance: each Main Character must get exactly the same number of lines in each scene. Any deviation from this perfect expression of Balance is a perversion of the natural order, and must be punished!"


I mean... Is turning into a hydra really the best thing to do if there's a fighter? That's just doubling down on the same thing, physical damage output. Wouldn't that spell slot be better served casting, I don't know, black tentacles, haste, or other similarly debilitating or enhancing spell? Truthfully, if there is no other option than to polymorph, so be it. But if there's a character dealing adequate physical damage, what point is there in more of the same?

All that is not to say that a wizard polymorphing is wrong, especially if that what the player has their heart set on. I just can't see doing more of the same as any more efficient than doing different. What makes polymorphing into a hydra more optimized than locking down the whole battlefield? Or enhancing all your allies (and yourself) to do more in the same amount of time? It strikes me as selfish and overall a less efficient use of your actions.

I'd say that it depends. As has been mentioned, dealing damage is something where adding more helps - otherwise, the Mailman wouldn't be a thing.

I would say that, having wizards who see the value in turning into a hydra, but usually feel that they have better things to do, means that either your wizards are wrong, or that you play at higher-OP, tactically, than your average Playgrounder.

So, let's look at some random math. Let's say that the Fighter is contributing D1 damage per round, and that a Hydra would contribute D2 damage per round, at resource cost R1. Buffing the Fighter has a resource cost of R2, and provides a force multiplier F1. If D1+D2 >= D1*F1, and R1<=R2, then one might conclude that becoming a hydra was the superior plan. Whereas, if D1+D2 <= D1*F1, and R1>=R2, one might say that becoming a hydra was clearly suboptimal. Of course, this ignores the other effects of becoming a hydra on AC, size, movement, gear usage, future spells, etc, as well as the opportunity cost of learning / memorizing Polymorph vs whatever buffs were used.

Debuffing the enemy, or the use of BFC, is even harder math. For that, you need to calculate the expected duration of combat with Fighter vs max (Fighter + Hydra or buffed Fighter) damage, the expected enemy DPS before and after Debuffing/BFC, and compare (full DPS * shorter combat) vs (lower DPS * longer combat).

And all this even ignores whether the opponents are intelligent or not, and how various strategies will affect their targeting priorities.

So, yeah, I make no claims about how high OP your group's tactics are from your assertion that your wizards usually have something better to do than step on the Fighter's toes.

[Cosi]

Enter: The Optimizing Roll Player. One of the main goals of this player IS to make powerful character. And when you do that, you are going to over shadow others....and it will be no accident.

I feel like a broken record here, but I have to point out -- it takes two to overshadow. If you notice that the Wizard is performing better than you, and your response is exclusively to demand that the Wizard tune her character down, you are just as much of a problem as she is. D&D is a cooperative game and a social game, and compromise is important. If someone is overshadowing your Fighter with a Swiftblade, you should at least pull out a Warblade or something before complaining about their character. They aren't playing that character to make you feel bad, they are playing it because they enjoy it. If you are going to ask them to change their behavior to allow you to have more fun, you should take the opportunity to show good faith by changing your character to allow them to have more fun.

[Darth Ultron]

I feel like a broken record here, but I have to point out -- it takes two to overshadow. If you notice that the Wizard is performing better than you, and your response is exclusively to demand that the Wizard tune her character down, you are just as much of a problem as she is. D&D is a cooperative game and a social game, and compromise is important. If someone is overshadowing your Fighter with a Swiftblade, you should at least pull out a Warblade or something before complaining about their character. They aren't playing that character to make you feel bad, they are playing it because they enjoy it. If you are going to ask them to change their behavior to allow you to have more fun, you should take the opportunity to show good faith by changing your character to allow them to have more fun.

If you can think it is wrong for a person not to ask someone to be an Optimizing Roll Player, why do you think it is wrong for the Optimizing Roll Player to willing change?

A good example is taking a walk with a group of people: Some people walk slow, some walk average and some walk fast.

Now, if you are a good person you will say ''everyone should walk at the pace of the slowest walkers''. This keeps the whole group together and everyone is happy.

Now, the bad person, is just going to walk at whatever pace they feel like at the moment...and if they walk fast and leave the group way behind...well that is the groups fault for not keeping up, right? the bad person will (lie) and say they ''can't'' walk with they group(though they can, of course)....

[Nifft]

I think the big point is: it is never an accident.

This is blatantly wrong, and everything built upon this is wrong for the same reason.

It's quite possible to break D&D wide open entirely by accident, simply by making random decisions in good faith.

With a large enough sample population, all making random choices, the probability that someone will randomly choose the options which break them game approaches certainty.

[tiercel]

It's my impression that a high-OP character can inadvertently obviate a large number of other characters, without deliberately trying to do so.

I feel like we need at least two different words for “optimization” — there’s one kind that makes, say, my character as powerful/have as many options/be as good as possible at one or more of those options as possible, and another kind that tries to do the same thing for the whole party.

The first kind of optimization could render other characters a lot less useful seeming (e.g. an optimized DMM Persist Cleric with a Fighter, Monk, and Paladin) while the second kind would be more focusing on enabling other characters (e.g. a Batman Wizard with the same group).

Sure, at high enough levels even Batman will be casting an awfully long shadow, but someone with “system mastery” isn’t accidentally overshadowing others — he/she has made a choice to play a character at a certain individual power level, and if that power level is a lot different from the DM’s and/or much of the rest of the group’s, it’s likely to make for awkward gameplay.


I feel like a broken record here, but I have to point out -- it takes two to overshadow. If you notice that the Wizard is performing better than you, and your response is exclusively to demand that the Wizard tune her character down, you are just as much of a problem as she is. D&D is a cooperative game and a social game, and compromise is important. If someone is overshadowing your Fighter with a Swiftblade, you should at least pull out a Warblade or something before complaining about their character. They aren't playing that character to make you feel bad, they are playing it because they enjoy it. If you are going to ask them to change their behavior to allow you to have more fun, you should take the opportunity to show good faith by changing your character to allow them to have more fun.

I’d counter by saying it is a group game. If the DM is running an out-of-the-box module, and three players are playing Lidda, Regdar, and Jozan, then the onus is probably on the fourth person to NOT play some kind of Ur-Priest dual-9s caster build. On the other hand, if the DM has highly optimized encounters and the party consists of knowledgably played Druid, Batman Wizard, and even IC-optimized Bardblade, then the fourth person probably shouldn’t be playing Sir Simple the Single-Classed Core Paladin.

If, as may be more likely, there is a range of power levels (due to “system mastery” or preference or even just time outside the gaming table), then some kind of consensus where everyone pulls together for group power — and group fun — is generally to be desired, I’d think. Not so much “I’m right” or “you’re right.”

[Darth Ultron]

This is blatantly wrong, and everything built upon this is wrong for the same reason.

It's quite possible to break D&D wide open entirely by accident, simply by making random decisions in good faith.

With a large enough sample population, all making random choices, the probability that someone will randomly choose the options which break them game approaches certainty.

As I said, this is true. It is possible, to to random things and suddenly, by accident ''break the game'', as you say.

But this is rare, and not what happens most of the time. The Optimizing Roll Player IS ''breaking the game'' on purpose. It is not an accident.

[Nifft]

I feel like we need at least two different words for “optimization” — there’s one kind that makes, say, my character as powerful/have as many options/be as good as possible at one or more of those options as possible, and another kind that tries to do the same thing for the whole party.

The first kind of optimization could render other characters a lot less useful seeming (e.g. an optimized DMM Persist Cleric with a Fighter, Monk, and Paladin) while the second kind would be more focusing on enabling other characters (e.g. a Batman Wizard with the same group).

Sure, at high enough levels even Batman will be casting an awfully long shadow, but someone with “system mastery” isn’t accidentally overshadowing others — he/she has made a choice to play a character at a certain individual power level, and if that power level is a lot different from the DM’s and/or much of the rest of the group’s, it’s likely to make for awkward gameplay.

The trouble with that sort of distinction is that the latter often includes the former, and you're only a few good spells away from overshadowing someone with a poor build anyway.

Tricks to break the game are easily visible with a Google search.

The system mastery necessary to play a T1 caster to full effect without overshadowing anyone in the party is a significantly less-available skill as compared to just looking up weird caster tricks.

[Cosi]

Now, if you are a good person you will say ''everyone should walk at the pace of the slowest walkers''. This keeps the whole group together and everyone is happy.

Only if no one values walking quickly.

The idea that people would be just as happy playing unoptimized characters rests on the implicit assumption that no one enjoys optimizing, and people do it exclusively to overshadow their fellow players. As someone who plays optimized characters, I can safely say that this is entirely untrue. I play optimized characters because I enjoy playing optimized characters.


I’d counter by saying it is a group game. If the DM is running an out-of-the-box module, and three players are playing Lidda, Regdar, and Jozan, then the onus is probably on the fourth person to NOT play some kind of Ur-Priest dual-9s caster build. On the other hand, if the DM has highly optimized encounters and the party consists of knowledgably played Druid, Batman Wizard, and even IC-optimized Bardblade, then the fourth person probably shouldn’t be playing Sir Simple the Single-Classed Core Paladin.

If, as may be more likely, there is a range of power levels (due to “system mastery” or preference or even just time outside the gaming table), then some kind of consensus where everyone pulls together for group power — and group fun — is generally to be desired, I’d think. Not so much “I’m right” or “you’re right.”

I generally agree. But even in the two extreme cases, you should have an out-of-character conversation where you try to compromise. The desires of the group may not be entirely opposed, and there may be solutions that keep everyone happy (or at least, happier than the presumed alternatives of "play a different character" and "don't play"). Giving the Paladin arbitrary DM pity bonuses that make her level appropriate is a tried and true solution, and an optimized War Weaver is a way of making a powerful character that doesn't overshadow the rest of the group.

But what you shouldn't do is declare that the Wizard is being "selfish" for having fun playing his character differently than you'd like. That makes you a problem player. Just as the Wizard demanding that you instead play a Cleric would have him a problem player

[tiercel]

The trouble with that sort of distinction is that the latter often includes the former, and you're only a few good spells away from overshadowing someone with a poor build anyway.

Tricks to break the game are easily visible with a Google search.

The system mastery necessary to play a T1 caster to full effect without overshadowing anyone in the party is a significantly less-available skill as compared to just looking up weird caster tricks.

You're right, but if the point is to use op-fu to help the group, and your actual knowledge as a player is strong, then for the most part - at least until higher levels, for a given value of "higher" - then any overshadowing can be avoided by choice, generally.

Someone who is basing their character off a Google-search build without reference or care to their party is making a non-accidental choice about power level. (For goodness's sake, there are plenty of character builds online that would wreck at least some tables, and those are just the "PO" ones, never mind TO.)



I generally agree. But even in the two extreme cases, you should have an out-of-character conversation where you try to compromise. The desires of the group may not be entirely opposed, and there may be solutions that keep everyone happy (or at least, happier than the presumed alternatives of "play a different character" and "don't play"). Giving the Paladin arbitrary DM pity bonuses that make her level appropriate is a tried and true solution, and an optimized War Weaver is a way of making a powerful character that doesn't overshadow the rest of the group.

But what you shouldn't do is declare that the Wizard is being "selfish" for having fun playing his character differently than you'd like. That makes you a problem player. Just as the Wizard demanding that you instead play a Cleric would have him a problem player

As long as the group is on board with boosting/nerfing and there are no hard feelings because of it, cool says I. And I agree that one shouldn't declare BadWrongFun just because someone has a different playing style -- up to the point where it interferes with the game. If the Wizard is single-handedly trouncing every encounter, the DM is grinding teeth finding an encounter that will challenge the Wizard without turning the rest of the party into a fine red mist, and/or the rest of the players are sitting around bored on their smartphones for the entire game, then it's gone from "personal preference" to "conversation time, please." (The same would likely apply to a Wizard who ONLY ever memorized utility spells, even if the campaign is currently amidst a combat-heavy dungeon crawl - at least unless the party is large enough to not have a problem with having a purely out-of-combat-Bat-utility-belt.)

[Darth Ultron]

Only if no one values walking quickly.

The idea that people would be just as happy playing unoptimized characters rests on the implicit assumption that no one enjoys optimizing, and people do it exclusively to overshadow their fellow players. As someone who plays optimized characters, I can safely say that this is entirely untrue. I play optimized characters because I enjoy playing optimized characters.


Except in both cases, the person did agree to be in and part of the group. See that is the part the Optimizing Roll Player does not care about.

A group of five people go for a walk, together as a group. Then one person, the jerk, ''suddenly'' walks faster and leaves the group way behind. And it's odd as they did ''want'' to be in the group...yet, they willing almost ran away from the group and ''could not help themselves''.

And this is the big difference between the Jerk and the Good Person: the good person has the ability to change the things they do and still be happy about it.

And it's no less true in a RPG where you have a couple normal people with normal characters playing a normal game....and that One Guy Jerk Optimizing Roll Player who just ''likes'' to ruin the game for everyone.

[JNAProductions]

Except in both cases, the person did agree to be in and part of the group. See that is the part the Optimizing Roll Player does not care about.

A group of five people go for a walk, together as a group. Then one person, the jerk, ''suddenly'' walks faster and leaves the group way behind. And it's odd as they did ''want'' to be in the group...yet, they willing almost ran away from the group and ''could not help themselves''.

And this is the big difference between the Jerk and the Good Person: the good person has the ability to change the things they do and still be happy about it.

And it's no less true in a RPG where you have a couple normal people with normal characters playing a normal game....and that One Guy Jerk Optimizing Roll Player who just ''likes'' to ruin the game for everyone.

And what about the "My Way Or The Highway" Jerk? You know, the one who plays a Fighter with the Toughness feat and insists anyone who overshadows him is being a jerk, so everyone should go down to his level instead of him putting any effort into improvement.

DU, I'm not gonna say players like you describe don't exist. However, I will say they are VASTLY less common than you are saying they are.

[skunk3]

Still, I've also thought about the experiences of others and how their experiences were shaped in reference to my own. For example, I regularly see complaints or arguments revolving around a Fighter (or other similar class) not being able to "meaningfully contribute" to a situation, at which point things such as traveling long distances, raising the dead, or solving a crime are referenced. Those experiences, as are had by the complaining or arguing person, are different from my own. They aren't different because I masterfully found a meaningful way to contribute, but rather I understood that there wasn't really any way for me to meaningfully contribute, and it was ok with me. I knew that when there was combat, my area of meaningful contribution would arrive and I had faith that my DM would provide me the opportunity to do so.


I agree 100% with everything that you said.

Not everybody plays in super high optimization games in which you have to be insanely powerful to stand a chance of surviving. In fact I'd say that those types of games are quite rare in comparison to the majority. Some people prefer playing in those types of games, and I think they're fun too, but I can have just as much fun playing a typical low-to-medium OP module or campaign, regardless of 'role' or class. If I play something like a fighter I just know that there's some things I will be good at and some things I will be not so good at. Also, just because someone in your party is better than you at something, like diplomacy for example, that doesn't mean that you can't attempt it. For me a big part of D&D is rolling the dice and trying things that aren't usually your forte.

I think that the problem is that a lot of people approach D&D as number-crunchers rather than true roleplayers. They are heavy optimizing min/maxers whose idea of fun is being as hard to kill as possible (or as powerful as possible), with all kinds of buffs and immunities and crazy abilities in addition to carefully-selected magic items that accentuate their strengths or shore up their weaknesses. I play that way too sometimes, but I don't HAVE TO. Some people have to. They just can't have fun playing anything that isn't perfectly optimized. I know people like this personally.

Also, as far as people 'accidentally' making their character overshadow others... b.s.! It's never an accident. All they would have to do is just consider whatever feat they are taking, or class level, or whatever it is... just think about it and how it would affect the way their character plays and how it would overlap or overshadow the other players in the group. It isn't that hard. Even though new players start playing 3.5 all of the time, it is a fairly old system at this point and I'd daresay that the average 3.5 player has sense enough to figure out whether or not something is going to adversely affect the game in some way.

As far as ToB initiator classes go, I personally don't use them because the mechanics of it seem so weird to me... not that I don't understand them. I know that they are flat-out better martials. I just think that the way they are played feels like an entirely different game from 'normal' D&D.

[Crake]

As I was reading this thread, I was going to make an amusing quip about the wizard being able to polymorph his familiar and still continue casting other spells in the meantime, thus being able to pull off both :smalltongue:

But then as I kept reading, the thread took a nosedive when DU decreed that all accidents are lies.

[Quertus]

The Optimizing Roll Player IS ''breaking the game'' on purpose. It is not an accident.

This assumes that the Optimizing Roll Player realizes that the game can be broken.

I certainly didn't realize it was possible until I'd broken a game (or two). :smallredface:


Only if no one values walking quickly.

The idea that people would be just as happy playing unoptimized characters rests on the implicit assumption that no one enjoys optimizing, and people do it exclusively to overshadow their fellow players. As someone who plays optimized characters, I can safely say that this is entirely untrue. I play optimized characters because I enjoy playing optimized characters.

Consider, also, the notion of breaking the game through optimized choices. Playing Battleship methodically, vs firing at random spaces. Buying / trading / building intelligently at Monopoly vs more random behavior. Playing tictactoe as a child vs adopting a never lose strategy. Moving pieces at random in chess vs having an actual planned strategy. Putting the point end in random fleshy bits vs having an actual strategy.

Is one way of playing the game more "right" than the other?


I think that the problem is that a lot of people approach D&D as number-crunchers rather than true roleplayers. They are heavy optimizing min/maxers whose idea of fun is being as hard to kill as possible (or as powerful as possible), with all kinds of buffs and immunities and crazy abilities in addition to carefully-selected magic items that accentuate their strengths or shore up their weaknesses. I play that way too sometimes, but I don't HAVE TO. Some people have to. They just can't have fun playing anything that isn't perfectly optimized. I know people like this personally.

Which fallacy is this? Me, I strongly tend to pump more defenses on a character the more interested I am in the role-playing side.

For the record, few defenses can match "I'm just a sentient potted plant - why the **** would you attack me?" :smalltongue:


Also, as far as people 'accidentally' making their character overshadow others... b.s.! It's never an accident. All they would have to do is just consider whatever feat they are taking, or class level, or whatever it is... just think about it and how it would affect the way their character plays and how it would overlap or overshadow the other players in the group. It isn't that hard. Even though new players start playing 3.5 all of the time, it is a fairly old system at this point and I'd daresay that the average 3.5 player has sense enough to figure out whether or not something is going to adversely affect the game in some way.

Never? All I have to do is point to a single example to disprove that. Ok, there was the time that I made / brought a character of roughly the power level of a friend's character, only to discover that the rest of the group wasn't at that level. Boom! Done.

[skunk3]

Never? All I have to do is point to a single example to disprove that. Ok, there was the time that I made / brought a character of roughly the power level of a friend's character, only to discover that the rest of the group wasn't at that level. Boom! Done.

That doesn't prove anything. All you're saying is that you created a character roughly of the same power level as your friend, and your friend's character was OP compared to the rest of the group. Also, you didn't mention whether or not you knew exactly what the other people were playing. If you are playing with a group of people from the very start and know what everyone takes as they level up, you would know where they are at power-wise and what they are best at doing, generally speaking... unless you have someone at the table who refuses to provide any of his info to the rest of the party and only to the DM, but screw that guy anyway. Last but not least, being OP in comparison to others in the group doesn't necessarily mean that you're totally overshadowing them in their particular fields of specialty. That depends on overlap. What I am saying is that overlap AND a disparity in general 'power level' leading to one or more characters feeling overshadowed is easy to prevent and easy to fix, and that these sudden, massive power boosts that players receive are not accidental unless we are talking about ignorant newbies playing - and most people who play 3.5 aren't newbies.

[Nifft]

You're right, but if the point is to use op-fu to help the group, and your actual knowledge as a player is strong, then for the most part - at least until higher levels, for a given value of "higher" - then any overshadowing can be avoided by choice, generally.

Someone who is basing their character off a Google-search build without reference or care to their party is making a non-accidental choice about power level. (For goodness's sake, there are plenty of character builds online that would wreck at least some tables, and those are just the "PO" ones, never mind TO.)

The thing is, you don't get to be an experienced system-mastery player without spending a lot of hours playing as a (relatively) naive non-master of the system.

Even when you know the system pretty well, it's easy to overshoot your intended power level when you're trying something new, or when you're facing unknown opponents. "Let's thin the ranks, I bet maybe half of them will fail to save vs. this... WHOOPS none saved, guess I just solo'd this encounter."

[MultitudeMan]

There's an interesting example from OOTS that addresses this issue of spellcasters overshadowing their less powerful comrades. Vaarsuvius starts out blasting everything that moves to demonstrate his superior magical skill, but after the Soul Splice plotline, he becomes aware that he needs to learn self-control and coordinate better with the others (see #684 as an example).
I guess DMs can find artificial ways of nerfing casters, but since D&D is fundamentally a social hobby, it's necessary for everyone in the playgroup to be playing the same game, and to have OOC conversations to facilitate this, so that there's not too much of an optimization/power-level disparity in any particular game. The disparity doesn't have to be zero, there can still be a most powerful character and a least powerful character, but any game that includes both an SRD-legal bard and a 12-source-book-multiclass-multiPRC-demigod is going to have issues.

[Mordaedil]

If you really think you have to intentionally attempt to break the game to do so, then I don't think you really know how easy it is to make a really good caster in 3.5.

Nearly every guide to making a powerful wizard usually just outlines the most obvious picks that everyone does anyway. Sleep, Bull's Strength, Glitterdust, Invisibility, See Invisibility, Dispel Magic, Haste, Fly, Teleport, Stoneskin, True Seeing.

These are all spells in core and nearly always on the recommended list for making optimized wizards because of the effect they have on ending encounters, and they are really simple spells that you could just glance over and pick because they "seem pretty decent". And it turns out they are really strong. Glitterdust can end encounters and prevent enemy spellcasters from escaping. Invisibility is basically perfect defense in any fight where most of your enemies are just mundanes and never mind how broken things get with an Improved Invisibility. Teleporting just is obvious once you get to the level as a handy feature for getting from A to B. Dispel Magic has a lot of uses and carefully reading it over can even reveal tricks that you as a DM might not even expect.

Fighting a big bad orc in fullplate and using a big sword? First round, dispel the sword, it is now a mundane sword. Second round, cast shatter on the sword, it's now broken and useless. Cast dispel magic on his armor, it is now mundane. Shatter that too and your big bad is reduced to a crying pile on the floor.

This isn't even digging through any supplements to find any strange combinations, this is just what anyone could find. It's not super obvious, but it's not hard to stumble across, even by accident.

[Darth Ultron]

And what about the "My Way Or The Highway" Jerk? You know, the one who plays a Fighter with the Toughness feat and insists anyone who overshadows him is being a jerk, so everyone should go down to his level instead of him putting any effort into improvement.

DU, I'm not gonna say players like you describe don't exist. However, I will say they are VASTLY less common than you are saying they are.

The low-op highway jerk is rare, and they have the ability to say they want a low op game and find such a game to join and play in.

What is rare? The ''accidental optimizer'' who just randomly does stuff and then one days is ''surprised'' that they have made a super high op character? Yes, that is rare...so rare it's just about impossible.

High Optimization Roll Playing is never an ''accident''. It would be near impossible to randomly pick classes, feats, skills, spells, magic items and such to ''suddenly on accident'' have a high optimized roll playing character.


If you really think you have to intentionally attempt to break the game to do so, then I don't think you really know how easy it is to make a really good caster in 3.5.

Nearly every guide to making a powerful wizard usually just outlines the most obvious picks that everyone does anyway. Sleep, Bull's Strength, Glitterdust, Invisibility, See Invisibility, Dispel Magic, Haste, Fly, Teleport, Stoneskin, True Seeing.


Of course if the players is reading and using an optimized guide for making a character, note it is, yet again, not an accident, that they ''suddenly'' have a highly optimized character.

And, sure, a clueless player that does not really know the game rules might just glance at the spells and think ''haste'' for example is a ''cool spell''. But just going by the fluff descriptions there are tons of spells to take that ''sound cool'', but are not exactly ''optimal''.

Though note that ''accidentally'' taking a ''cool spell'' really is only the ''tip'' of the jerk overshadowing optimized roll playing. The players must also have the system mastery to use the spell to it's fullest and have the desire to ruin the game for others.

After all a random clueless player might for example cast 'dispel magic' on a troll...for no effect. Or cast glitterdust on a creature with detection abilities, or cast fly and fly right into a foes line of fire. It does take skill to ''accidentally'' use a character with extreme game and system mastery.

[BassoonHero]

Part of the problem, I think, is that "optimization" is being used in two different senses.

In one sense, it's being used to mean "powerful" on an absolute scale. In this sense, a monk can't be optimized, because an optimized monk is still low-tier.

In another sense, it's being used to mean "using system mastery to increase a character's power". In this sense, it is definitionally impossible to accidentally optimize.

It is unlikely that a player will accidentally end up with a tier-1 character. However, it is entirely possible that a group of novice players will accidentally create characters of wildly differing power levels.


What is rare? The ''accidental optimizer'' who just randomly does stuff and then one days is ''surprised'' that they have made a super high op character? Yes, that is rare...so rare it's just about impossible.
The problem here is that you are raising the standard of a disruptive power level to "super high op". In other words, you're assuming your conclusion by framing the problem only in terms of "super high op" characters and ignoring the possibility that a character that falls short of that extreme standard might still be disruptively powerful.


High Optimization Roll Playing is never an ''accident''. It would be near impossible to randomly pick classes, feats, skills, spells, magic items and such to ''suddenly on accident'' have a high optimized roll playing character.
This is the second sense of "optimization" I describe above, making this a tautology, and therefore vacuous.


Of course if the players is reading and using an optimized guide for making a character, note it is, yet again, not an accident, that they ''suddenly'' have a highly optimized character.
This is not related to the comment you're quoting.


And, sure, a clueless player that does not really know the game rules might just glance at the spells and think ''haste'' for example is a ''cool spell''. But just going by the fluff descriptions there are tons of spells to take that ''sound cool'', but are not exactly ''optimal''.
It sounds like you're dividing players into two classes. One class is basically illiterate and picks spells more or less at random or based on flavor test. Another class uses sophisticated system mastery to choose spells optimally. But this is a false dichotomy. A novice player with little experience may choose "cool spells" that they evaluate as being useful or powerful without understanding the balance ramifications of those spells. This is especially true if there is no seasoned optimizer in the group to warn them that those spells can be disruptive -- a novice player is more likely to implicitly trust the system.


After all a random clueless player might for example cast 'dispel magic' on a troll...for no effect. Or cast glitterdust on a creature with detection abilities, or cast fly and fly right into a foes line of fire. It does take skill to ''accidentally'' use a character with extreme game and system mastery.
This is a particularly extreme example of the dichotomy you present. On one hand, you have players using abilities in ways that are obviously ineffective. The alternative to this is supposedly "extreme game and system mastery".

This is nonsense. There is a middle ground. You don't need "extreme game and system mastery" to read the rules text of your own spells. A player casting dispel magic on a troll isn't merely making an unoptimized decision; either they don't understand the rules text of the spell they're casting or they are under some other gross misapprehension about how the rules work (such as not understanding what a spell is).

[Darth Ultron]

Part of the problem, I think, is that "optimization" is being used in two different senses.

In one sense, it's being used to mean "powerful" on an absolute scale. In this sense, a monk can't be optimized, because an optimized monk is still low-tier.

In another sense, it's being used to mean "using system mastery to increase a character's power". In this sense, it is definitionally impossible to accidentally optimize.

I would note that you can optimize anything. You can optimize a monk, or anything else. To say otherwise is just a more personal thought.



The problem here is that you are raising the standard of a disruptive power level to "super high op". In other words, you're assuming your conclusion by framing the problem only in terms of "super high op" characters and ignoring the possibility that a character that falls short of that extreme standard might still be disruptively powerful.

Well, there is no such thing as ''a little optimization'', as if you do that, your not optimizing. So all optimizing is ''super high'', otherwise it would not count.



It sounds like you're dividing players into two classes. One class is basically illiterate and picks spells more or less at random or based on flavor test. Another class uses sophisticated system mastery to choose spells optimally. But this is a false dichotomy. A novice player with little experience may choose "cool spells" that they evaluate as being useful or powerful without understanding the balance ramifications of those spells. This is especially true if there is no seasoned optimizer in the group to warn them that those spells can be disruptive -- a novice player is more likely to implicitly trust the system.

I never mentioned just two player types.

A novice player with little experience may choose "cool spells", but without system mastery of the rules they won't get the full optimal use out of the spells, or anything else. And this is even on top of the novice player being clueless : they see an ooze and cast the spell sleep on it.

Just having and using a good spell does not ''amazingly accidentally'' make a character optimized. To say, cast the spell 'Haste' to run away from some goblins is not an optimized use of the spell.



This is a particularly extreme example of the dichotomy you present. On one hand, you have players using abilities in ways that are obviously ineffective. The alternative to this is supposedly "extreme game and system mastery".

Well, you do need game and system mastery to be a good player. 3X/P is a very complicated game. you can't just randomly ''do stuff''.




This is nonsense. There is a middle ground. You don't need "extreme game and system mastery" to read the rules text of your own spells. A player casting dispel magic on a troll isn't merely making an unoptimized decision; either they don't understand the rules text of the spell they're casting or they are under some other gross misapprehension about how the rules work (such as not understanding what a spell is).

The point is that you can't ''accidentally optimize''.

Take the druid with wild shape:

1.The clueless player will just use the animals found in core, and pick the one that ''sounds cool''.
2.The average player might flip through a couple books and pick out an animal that has powerful and useful abilities.
3.The Optimizer is not only scorching every single book for the perfect mechanical creature, but they are also piling on the class abilities, feats, spells and such to make their ''animalzila''.

[BassoonHero]

I would note that you can optimize anything. You can optimize a monk, or anything else. To say otherwise is just a more personal thought.
As I said, this is true in the second sense but not the first sense. That is, you can use system mastery to increase a monk's power, but a monk is not "optimal" in the first sense because monks overall are not very powerful. I think that everyone agrees with these statements.


Well, there is no such thing as ''a little optimization'', as if you do that, your not optimizing. So all optimizing is ''super high'', otherwise it would not count.
Here you are using "optimize" in the first sense, not the second. In this sense, "optimized monk" is an oxymoron, because monks are not optimal.

It's very important to recognize that these two senses are different and that a character may be "optimized" in one sense and not the other. If we conflate the two senses, then we run into contradictions almost immediately.


I never mentioned just two player types.
No, but your argument collapses if you allow a middle ground.


A novice player with little experience may choose "cool spells", but without system mastery of the rules they won't get the full optimal use out of the spells, or anything else.
True. The character will not be played "optimally" in the first sense. However, that does not mean that the character will not be disruptively overpowered.


Just having and using a good spell does not ''amazingly accidentally'' make a character optimized.
That is optimization in the second sense (choosing a spell because it is powerful) but not in the first sense (playing the most powerful character possible).


Well, you do need game and system mastery to be a good player. 3X/P is a very complicated game. you can't just randomly ''do stuff''.
You're downplaying the dichotomy you established. You're contrasting cluelessness with "extreme system mastery". But the middle ground exists.


The point is that you can't ''accidentally optimize''.
This is circular reasoning. You're using your own definition of "optimize" to make this a tautology -- but that definition has nothing to do with the discussion.

The claim is that a novice player can accidentally create a character that is disruptively overpowered. You're talking in circles about "optimization" without addressing that claim at all. You want to conflate "disruptively overpowered" with "optimized", but you're defining "optimized" to mean something more specific than "disruptively overpowered", so what you say about "optimized" characters does not in general apply to "disruptively overpowered" characters.

This would make sense if you were claiming that a character that is not "optimized" in that very narrow sense cannot possibly be "disruptively overpowered", but you're not explicitly claiming that. Instead, you're trying to imply it by presenting situations in which a novice player uses potentially-powerful abilities ineffectively. But that sort of argument by example can't prove anything; it only illustrates the incredible gap in your analysis between players who don't read their own spells and "extreme game and system mastery".

[Andor13]

The point is that you can't ''accidentally optimize''.

Take the druid with wild shape:

1.The clueless player will just use the animals found in core, and pick the one that ''sounds cool''.
2.The average player might flip through a couple books and pick out an animal that has powerful and useful abilities.
3.The Optimizer is not only scorching every single book for the perfect mechanical creature, but they are also piling on the class abilities, feats, spells and such to make their ''animalzila''.

The topic is not broken build high op play, it's optimizing well enough to overshadow another player. Classes matter. the OP in his first post admits he considers the Bo9S classes to completely overshadow the PHB fighter, with no mention made of optimization levels.

You number 2 style player, an average skill Druid with no splat diving, can easily over shadow the entire rest of a party made of a monk, a rogue and a bard made at that same skill level, without having had the slightest intention to do so.

[Zombimode]

Sure, a naive Wizard might think something like...

"Hey, the Fighter is trying to hit that guy. I'll turn into a hydra and help the Fighter by flanking it!"

... and then two rounds later, the Wizard-Hydra has solo'd the thing and the Fighter only hit it once, in spite of the flanking bonus, because 10 attacks at full BAB are better than 3 iterative attacks.

True, this is what may happen with a naive wizard. A more experienced wizard will cast polymorph on the fighter. The fighter becomes an unstoppable terror of biting heads, more terrifying than the wizard could ever hope to be, while the wizard can still bring their arcane might to the battle.

Seriously, a wizard casting polymorph on itself is not actually all that impressive. The warrior on the other hand has the HP, the bab and (hopefully) a whole host of other combat-related feats/class features. Polymorph into a combat form is force multiplier. The greater the base value the greater the effect of the spell. And considering that a wizard's combat chassis is that of a glorified Commoner...

[Crake]

The point is that you can't ''accidentally optimize''.

Take the druid with wild shape:

1.The clueless player will just use the animals found in core, and pick the one that ''sounds cool''.
2.The average player might flip through a couple books and pick out an animal that has powerful and useful abilities.
3.The Optimizer is not only scorching every single book for the perfect mechanical creature, but they are also piling on the class abilities, feats, spells and such to make their ''animalzila''.

Except that 1 can still overshadow a fighter built in the same vein. Imagine a clueless fighter picking feats like toughness, dodge, mobility, spring attack and whirlwind as his first few feats, compared to a druid with a wolf companion who decided he thought it would be cool to transform into a wolf next to his animal companion. At level 7 he upgrades his wolf to a dire wolf, because who doesn't want a giant wolf companion, how cool is that? And suddenly at level 7, the druid is wildshaping into a dire wolf, with a dire wolf companion, probably picked natural spell, becasue, well, being able to cast spells while in wild shape, even a clueless person can see that's huge, and now suddenly you're twice as scary as the fighter, with spells on the side, while the fighter is left in the dust.

The point is: it doesn't take "super high op" to overshadow someone. You're misinterpreting the argument as "someone can accidentally be super high op" when the argument is "someone can accidentally overshadow someone else". A clueless druid can easily overshadow a clueless fighter, especially with all the trap feat options in core.

[ExLibrisMortis]

[...] natural spell [...] even a clueless person can see that's huge [...]

A clueless druid can easily overshadow a clueless fighter, especially with all the trap feat options in core.
I can vouch for this. Natural Spell is literally the first and only feat my sister absolutely knew she wanted to have, the first time she picked up the PHB. And while outshining wasn't much of an issue (the group being fairly novice and laid-back), a more experienced player (in casu, yours truly) would notice that she got more done than anyone else in the party.

[upho]

The low-op highway jerk is rare, and they have the ability to say they want a low op game and find such a game to join and play in.Maybe. I haven't really met any, but I've read quite a few posts written by a few, usually consisting of emotionally charged rants where hyperbole is used to fill the gaping holes caused by the lack of logic and good arguments. They often include claims any and all kinds of mechanical optimization - or even having a good knowledge of the mechanics - is bad for the game and only done by low-empathy powergamers/roLLplayers/munchkins who can't RP.


What is rare? The ''accidental optimizer'' who just randomly does stuff and then one days is ''surprised'' that they have made a super high op character? Yes, that is rare...so rare it's just about impossible.Strange then that:

No games I've run/played in/seen have been broken by intentionally created PC balance issues. I've never played with jerks, and I probably never will (at least not for long), yet I have experienced two games being broken by PC balance issues.
Neither of the two PCs primarily causing those two games to break were the most optimized PCs in their respective games, at least not if "optimized" is a measure of the amount of effort and system mastery required for a PC of a certain general type to achieve a certain mechanical result. For example, a druid has a high risk of becoming OP in a low-power game, and is easy to make sufficiently powerful for a mid- or high-power game, while the opposite is generally true for a fighter.


High Optimization Roll Playing is never an ''accident''.No. Neither is "High Optimization RoLeplaying". Yes, that exists. In fact, most people and PCs I've played with would fit with that description, so I'd appreciate if you'd stop confusing roLLplaying with mechanical optimization, especially since the relationship between the two is typically the exact opposite of the one you seem to imply. Likewise, "high optimization" is extremely rarely the reason a game played by at least somewhat decent and mature human beings breakes IME, since high-op requires the player is able to correctly identify and accurately measure different forms of actual in-game power, which in turn also means such a player typically knows what to do in order to avoid disrupting/breaking the game.

Speaking of, I cannot remember having ever met any of the munchkin roLLplayer type jerks - nor any of the system-ignorant roLeplayer type jerks - which other people seem to run into.


It would be near impossible to randomly pick classes, feats, skills, spells, magic items and such to ''suddenly on accident'' have a high optimized roll playing character.Yes. And? High-op PCs are virtually never the cause of unintentional balance issues.

And again, please stop ruining your arguments with fallacious expressions like "high optimized roll playing".


Part of the problem, I think, is that "optimization" is being used in two different senses.

In one sense, it's being used to mean "powerful" on an absolute scale. In this sense, a monk can't be optimized, because an optimized monk is still low-tier.

In another sense, it's being used to mean "using system mastery to increase a character's power". In this sense, it is definitionally impossible to accidentally optimize.

It is unlikely that a player will accidentally end up with a tier-1 character. However, it is entirely possible that a group of novice players will accidentally create characters of wildly differing power levels.This.

I'd also add it's not only fully possible but IME also much more common for system-savvy players to optimize PC build qualities other than maximum in-game power, often including versions of "the most perfect mechanical representation of my character concept possible at a power level most appropriate for the party, game and group". And such PCs can most definitely be very high op, despite usually being far from able to break the games they were built for.

[Darth Ultron]

there are likely other things going on, such as the DM ignoring XP or using their own form of XP and thus having more challenging enemies the norm of their games. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does alter the experience and expectation of the game.


This is very true and it causes a lot of the ''problems'' to snowball.

1. First off, the biggest reason why this problem exists: Gentle Games. This comes right off the Gentleman agreement: The DM agrees to run a Gentle game. For example, saying ''You agree to act in good faith towards others in the game and create a environment which supports having fun. You agree to act courteously and respectfully towards one another." is fine for the agreement, but most agreements don't stop there. And the worst limit what the DM can do in the game: specifically stuff the Players won't like, but stuff that will, if used correctly, balance out the game.

There are tons of things that many player demand the DM not use, like Traps or Poison or save or suck/save or die effects. Though many DMs also willing don't use these things too. And this has a HUGE effect on the whole game balance.

Even more so is when the Gentle Game makes Combat as Cartoon, or in other words Combat is just so ''fun action adventure'', where the player characters can never get hurt or killed(like a cartoon). This type of Gentle Game really unbalances the game. A lot of foes, monsters, spells and effects are amde to do bad things, harm and even death to PCs, and if you remove them the game is way too cartoony. A basilisk is a huge big deal of an encounter as it can turn a character to stone and ''take them out of the game for a time, and yes, that does suck. But if you take that away from the basilisk it is just a ''big lizard'' and not even a foot note.

A good test, to see if a game is Gentile or not is to pick a powerful monster that is a chaotic evil killing machine. A Beholder is perfect. Then ask the question, if this murderhobo was to encounter some player characters and surprise them, what would it do?

For the Hard Fun game the answer is easy: kill the characters: a blast of turn to stone, distengrate and death ray.

For the Gentile Game the same murderhobo beholder will instead use the ''killer'' rays of sleep, hold and inflict some wounds.

2. No Scaling. D&D and PF are both made for the game to get harder and tough as the levels go up. However the rules are very vague about this. So while high level spells, traps and monsters exist...the game rules never really tell a DM how to use them. And this is has a huge effect on spellcasters, if used.

3. No lasing consequences. This game does use things like poison and harmful ability....but almost pointlessly so, as the game is tailored so the PC can recover in seconds.

4. A Dm that simply is not up to the challenge. This is simple enough.

5 Houserules. Houserules can change the game, and very often for the worse. And very often in ''unintended ways''.



The point is: it doesn't take "super high op" to overshadow someone. You're misinterpreting the argument as "someone can accidentally be super high op" when the argument is "someone can accidentally overshadow someone else". A clueless druid can easily overshadow a clueless fighter, especially with all the trap feat options in core.

I think you missed the second half of my point: Just picking the ''cool stuff'' is not enough. The player must also know what they are doing in a real world ''common sense'' way AND have game system rule mastery.

Take the new player with a dire wolf character with natural spell, sure that is all ''powerful''...if used correctly. Like say have the character rush into battle...and cast magic fang. Wow. And if the player does not use the wolf trip ability...oh, and the player just has the wolf character ''rush into the middle of a group of foes and bite!'' This player is not going to over shadow anyone...

[upho]

Me, I strongly tend to pump more defenses on a character the more interested I am in the role-playing side.Me too!


For the record, few defenses can match "I'm just a sentient potted plant - why the **** would you attack me?" :smalltongue:And this is awesome! As soon as I get the chance, I'm so gonna play an awakened petunia. Hmm... If nothing else, I'm at least gonna give whoever carries my pot a logically sound reason to talk to me, which I'd guess very few people who talk to their plants in RL have... :smallamused:

[Crake]

I think you missed the second half of my point: Just picking the ''cool stuff'' is not enough. The player must also know what they are doing in a real world ''common sense'' way AND have game system rule mastery.

Take the new player with a dire wolf character with natural spell, sure that is all ''powerful''...if used correctly. Like say have the character rush into battle...and cast magic fang. Wow. And if the player does not use the wolf trip ability...oh, and the player just has the wolf character ''rush into the middle of a group of foes and bite!'' This player is not going to over shadow anyone...

Well, if the fighter plays using the exact same tactics, but the druid hits more often for more damage, simply by the nature of having 26 strength and the ability to cast greater magic fang at the start of the day on himself and his companion, lasting most of the adventuring day, along with barkskin to have at least a decently close AC to the fighter? And why wouldn't the druid use the trip ability? Surely he'd look at the dire wolf's stats and see it, and think "oh, that could be useful", why would a new player ignore that?

And the problem here isn't that the druid is necessarily straight up better in combat, even being reasonably on par with the fighter can make the fighter feel overshadowed, simply because fighting is supposed to be his thing, yet the druid is just as good as him, while also being able to talk to nature, and turn into animals, and run through the forest unimpeded without leaving a trail, and have an awesome companion that gets stronger with him, while his own horse stays at the same level forever, PLUS he can cast these awesome elemental spells that can call down lighting, or shoot fire, or hell, wield a lightsabre (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/flameBlade.htm)!

You're forgetting that while a newbie druid will play dumb, so will a newbie fighter, and thus, both being played dumbly, the druid still overshadows the fighter, simply by accident.

[Darth Ultron]

Maybe. I haven't really met any,

Maybe you just need to meet more gamers?

Or maybe the players in Europe are of a different mold then the ones in America. It could very well be a culture type thing.



You're forgetting that while a newbie druid will play dumb, so will a newbie fighter, and thus, both being played dumbly, the druid still overshadows the fighter, simply by accident.

Your still stuck on the newbee player just somehow by accident being so overshadowing?

Like you really think a new player is going to be all like ''I wildshape into a dinosaur from that Eberron book and add five templates!''

Or you think they will be a dire wolf and, oops, accidentally ''win the game''?

When, very often they will do stuff like wild shape into a hawk and then cast magic stones from a distance. Why? No real reason...

It's true the IF the fighter player is a newbee too, they will not be ''a great player''....but then they don't need to be: It is easy to remember ''see foe, attack foe" and that is really all the rules they need to know.

[Andor13]

Your still stuck on the newbee player just somehow by accident being so overshadowing?

Like you really think a new player is going to be all like ''I wildshape into a dinosaur from that Eberron book and add five templates!''

Or you think they will be a dire wolf and, oops, accidentally ''win the game''?

When, very often they will do stuff like wild shape into a hawk and then cast magic stones from a distance. Why? No real reason...

It's true the IF the fighter player is a newbee too, they will not be ''a great player''....but then they don't need to be: It is easy to remember ''see foe, attack foe" and that is really all the rules they need to know.

Your posts are very strange. Except for one line in a single post, you give no indication that you understand that there is a spectrum of play between "Make random choices in the same manner as a gerbil on espresso." and "Pun-Pun".

Within that range is the game the rest of us are discussing.

Also, if you think the only way for a druid to not over shadow a fighter is to take utterly random actions each turn that show no grasp of tactics, goals, or basic arithmetic, then are you not fundamentally accepting the premise that a Druid played with minimal competence can overshadow a Fighter, or Rogue, or Monk? (or all three?) Is that not what your posts seem to indicate will happen as the players advance past the "Take random actions" stage and into the "I can read a d4 by myself" skill levels of normal play?

Power levels are funny things. Each class has a range of power available to them, usually describe as an optimization ceiling and an optimization floor. A wizard who fills his spell books with illusions is going to be almost as effective as a commoner vs undead or oozes, but many people will tell you the Wizard is the most powerful class in the game.

This thread starts off with a sidenote that the poster doesn't like ToB classes because they obsolete the fighter, even though there seems to be consensus that they actually have a lower optimization ceiling than a Fighter. But the floor is much higher, to the point that an even mildly competent ToB character can outshine even a well made fighter who isn't getting to do the one thing he does well.

Even the worst built Druid, one who spent all his feats on "Skill focus: Basket Weaving" is one morning prayer session away from having a decent spell list. Likewise all it takes is the player grasping difficult concepts like "More attacks are better" and "Bigger numbers are better than smaller numbers" and the Druid player can start wildshaping into a Dire Wolf instead of a song bird.

This is a game. The point of the game is to have fun. While there are many ways to have fun in the game, if you built a fighter, odds are, it's because you wanted to see him fight some times. And when he does get into a fight it is actually not difficult AT ALL for a player to feel overshadowed by another PC. I remember a fighter player blowing his stack because he thought the rogue was making him useless. Even though he was doing more damage than the rogue, all he saw was that he was picking up more damage dice than he was, and therefore he felt slighted.

Now obviously that was a situation where one PC felt overshadowed by another PC, and it was certainly not due to "Roll playing high op" character building.

[Crake]

Your still stuck on the newbee player just somehow by accident being so overshadowing?

Like you really think a new player is going to be all like ''I wildshape into a dinosaur from that Eberron book and add five templates!''

Or you think they will be a dire wolf and, oops, accidentally ''win the game''?

When, very often they will do stuff like wild shape into a hawk and then cast magic stones from a distance. Why? No real reason...

It's true the IF the fighter player is a newbee too, they will not be ''a great player''....but then they don't need to be: It is easy to remember ''see foe, attack foe" and that is really all the rules they need to know.

Yeah, that's exactly what happens. Well, not quite, we're not talking about "winning", we're talking about "overshadowing". You don't need to solo an encounter to overshadow someone, you just need to do their job better than them. Two dire wolves trumps a fighter at the most basic level, but one of the wolves can also do so much more than just fight, wheras the fighter pretty much can do nothing but fight, so he might feel a little overshadowed when he's not only unable to do much outside of combat, but also in combat isn't even as effective as the guy who can do stuff out of combat with spells and skills.

[skunk3]

This all goes back to the previous thread about buffing martials / balancing.

Obviously certain classes are going to be mechanically better than others given the same general degree of optimization. I don't think that anybody disagrees that a Druid is going to outshine a Fighter in every possible way, or any number of similar examples. My only point then, in the previous thread, (and now) is that rarely does this overshadowing happen by accident. I can begrudgingly accept that it CAN happen by accident because people have stated they have personally seen it happen... but it's very rare. I've never seen it happen accidentally - only on purpose. My take on it all is that as long as you're not a total newbie to 3.5, you more or less understand which classes are the most powerful tier-wise and can choose a party-appropriate class/role. Starting level and group optimization level also makes a big difference when it comes to selections.

I think that if a player was going to play in a new game starting at level 10 with medium-to-high optimization, they'd know better than to pick a class that can be so easily overshadowed, like a fighter. Fighters are great at low levels but by level 10 they are glorified meat shields. If this player had their sights set on being a melee character there's other options that could let them scratch that itch. Take Cleric, for example. Clerics can do basically anything fighters can do and so much more.

The DM should make it clear from the start what the overall optimization / power level of the game is going to look like so players can make informed decisions. Also, DM's should counsel newer players regarding their choices if they can foresee this character being outshined after X levels. It's not an issue for everyone. Some players like to be a support role. They don't want to be the star of the show, they don't want to be the party face, etc. They just want to do their part, however minor, and enjoy a good story. Not everyone is going to get upset if another PC starts doing their shtick better than they can. It all depends on the person. Generally speaking people want to feel important, of course, and that they meaningfully contribute. However, I do know some players who seem to enjoy the roleplaying more when their character is kind of a weakling, so to speak. Every table is gonna be different. Generally speaking, I like T3-and-under parties with medium-to-high optimization. I feel like that's the sweet spot for both ROLLplaying and ROLEplaying.


In just about ANY game with a Druid wildshaping, with Natural Spell and an animal companion, they're going to be powerful and a typical fighter is going to be a joke in comparison after about 6-7 levels. Also, I don't see many newbies choosing to play a Druid. I'm sure it happens sometimes but Druids are complicated to play with a lot of bookkeeping involved.

[Mordaedil]

Of course if the players is reading and using an optimized guide for making a character, note it is, yet again, not an accident, that they ''suddenly'' have a highly optimized character.
Hey McFly, I'm not talking about someone else looking up a guide and optimizing their game, I'm talking about US taking a look at said guides.


And, sure, a clueless player that does not really know the game rules might just glance at the spells and think ''haste'' for example is a ''cool spell''. But just going by the fluff descriptions there are tons of spells to take that ''sound cool'', but are not exactly ''optimal''.

Though note that ''accidentally'' taking a ''cool spell'' really is only the ''tip'' of the jerk overshadowing optimized roll playing. The players must also have the system mastery to use the spell to it's fullest and have the desire to ruin the game for others.

After all a random clueless player might for example cast 'dispel magic' on a troll...for no effect. Or cast glitterdust on a creature with detection abilities, or cast fly and fly right into a foes line of fire. It does take skill to ''accidentally'' use a character with extreme game and system mastery.
My point wasn't anything to do with a clueless player, I assume at least basic compentence of reading the spell that they are using. I don't think that's particularly optimal, but maybe you operate by some insane lunar-man logic where that makes more sense or something.

My point was that it's very easy to take the optimal choice for spells by complete accident. And the application of using those spells effectively isn't actually something only an optimizer would know. Using dispel magic on a troll is a really dumb, bad example, as most players would see a swampy mass of a creature that seemingly heals its wounds, casting dispel magic, if one were to read the spell, doesn't striktly follow. A player might have read the Hobbit however, and remember the story of how the trolls turned to stone at the dawn of day, pick the spell called Daylight and cast that, hoping to turn the trolls to stone, with no effect.

Also it is easier to avoid jerk overshadowing optimized roll playing if you possess system mastery and know how to avoid ruining the game for others, as I far more often see the opposite being the case, where they think their spellcasting is harmless, but it accidentally overshadows the other players because they don't know how much their spells actually basically auto-solves any encounter.

As an example, let's take knock and invisibility. A beginning wizard player upon reaching level 3, reads over his second level list and sees these two spells and thinks "wow, we sure had problems with that door earlier, maybe this knock spell can help us bypass doors more easily in the future. And this spell makes it hard for monsters to see me, that's certainly useful." But, because he's not possessing proper system mastery, he fails to recognize what these spells can implicate for a rogue in the party. Sure, the rogue could go scout on his own and risk getting caught, be separated from the party and die behind enemy lines. Or you could just cast invisibility and scout without any danger to yourself. Sure, the rogue could spend a minute opening the door while the party holds off the rushing gnolls coming at you from behind. Or you could just cast knock and go through the door in an instant.

You can't really help jerk players at your table. Jerks will be jerks. But someone who doesn't realize that they are stepping on someone elses toes will do the most damage with that. Without intending to.

[AnimeTheCat]

haste seems pretty directly worse than polymorph. Your Fighter has to be doing some absurdly large damage numbers for giving him +1 on attack rolls and one extra attack to be better than an entire Hydra's worth of extra attacks. evard's black tentacles is a BFC spell, but locking down your enemy so the Fighter can go punch them in the face is not quite as useful as you'd think.

I don't know, you tell me why you played a Fighter.

Seriously though, I don't understand this attitude. Why is it that by playing a Fighter you get to put "hits things in the face" on lockdown? Even if we accept the premise that the party only needs one frontliner, why should the Incantatrix or the DMM Cleric rather than the Fighter switch to a different role? Are we supposed to allow you to take the role we wanted because you played a character who is less able to fill alternate roles? Why shouldn't you have to come back with a character who supports the frontline WIzard?

And yet, you want to play a character who not only does not, but cannot support your allies. We've been over this before. Either it is selfish for you to play a Fighter, because you do not provide party support, or it is not selfish for me to play a Wizard who does not provide party support. I am not obligated to use options I don't want just because I have them, any more than you were obligated to play a frontliner like a Swiftblade or a Bardblade who could provide support for the rest of the party.

You're coming at this from the wrong perspective. No one is making your class useless. You are choosing to play a useless character. If that is what you want to do, feel free to do it. But while there are characters that play to the same archetype that don't get overshadowed, you can't complain about being overshadowed.

I enjoy fighters. Couldn't tell you why, but I do. I also enjoy most other classes, in the right circumstances. I do understand that everyone in the party is all doing the same thing, kill the bad guy. I do understand that a DMM Cleric or Incantatrix is going to be "better" at that than the Fighter. What is difficult for me to put in to words is that the reason the Incantatrix or DMM cleric should fill another role is because they can, and the Fighter can't? I mean, Imagine that you are in the position to do nearly anything. You could be an astronaught, or an olympic athelete, or ANYTHING and everyone knows it. Now imagine you have three friends, one who is a business owner of a chain of gas stations and doing well for himself, one owns a farm and does well for himself, and one is an IT consultant and does well for himself. Now, finally imagine that you, the one who can do nearly anything, has now decided to go and open a farm, but not just any farm, a farm that produces 20 times the amount of food AND you still have time to go compete in Olympic Games and win Gold Medals in all of your events. By your decided actions, you have made it harder for your friend to make a living, as you've taken away his customers. You willingly chose to put your friend out of business.

That analogy can be applied to a party of a Cleric, Beguiler, Bard, and Fighter. The Cleric is the one that can do anything, and instead of rounding out the group in a robust way, he doubles down on something already being adequately done, and causes a problem. The fighter didn't cause the problem, he's doing his job adequately. The cleric DID cause the problem because he bullied one character out of his job. I think this way because of a principal called Noblesse Oblige - It's a moral inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged. The fighter is literally less priviliged because the developers of the game made some in-game creation errors (i'm of the personal opinion that the Fighter is fine and the Cleric/Druid/Wizards are the problem children, but I do my best to not let that influence my objective observations, unless that opinion is asked of me.)

I don't think I'm looking at anything from the "Wrong Perspective" because when looking at an issue, object, argument, anything there isn't ever a "wrong perspective" there's only "a different perspective from my own" which is what we're running in to here. My perspective is that the class Fighter is not useless, and playing a fighter does not immediately make any character useless. In the groups I play in, there's usually a Fighter or Barbarian that is mostly single-classed and they never seem to have any problems dishing out enough damage. Then, the party spellcasters never have any problems casting buff or debuff spells instead of turning in to a fighter. We did experience a player who wanted to play a polymorphing stalwart battle sorcerer and that character loved turning in to a Hydra. This wasn't even a problem for the Party's Fighter because when it came down to it, the Fighter was a Medium creature and could fight in more places. What would usually happen is the Sorcerer would Polymorph into whatever (usually large or larger) and then the enemies would run to where the polymorphed form couldn't get them, effectively wasting that spell. The sorcerer would usually get an attack or two off, but ultimately more enemies got away than when a Black Tentacles spell was cast, which meant more XP.

Of course, when that happened the Sorcerer player got upset at the DM. The player said things like "You can't make every enemy run away whenever I polymorph, that's just not fair." to which the DM replied "Let me get this straight... You're a level 5 goblin whatever with your 4 buddies and you see a heavily armed and armored warrior. 'we can take it' you may think. Then the lightly armored guy turns into a FREAKING Hydra, and you still think that you could win? nah, they're running to get friends and to live another day. Enemies aren't all mindless automatons that will throw themselves on the blades of the party at your whim."

Now, that DM also went on later to provide plenty of opportunity for the Polymorphing Sorcerer to use his abilities and when the time came for the game to end, nobody was unhappy. A fighter and a polymorphing entity coexisted peacefully (and happily) in a party together, it's not impossible. It did take the DM being smart, and I guess that's important as well. So, I suppose something to add to my musings about overshadowing others is that a reliable and smart DM can make up the differences in power levels by crafting unique encounters that will enable another character's abilities more. That, however, is less about builds and class, and more about DM ability and skill.


I feel like a broken record here, but I have to point out -- it takes two to overshadow. If you notice that the Wizard is performing better than you, and your response is exclusively to demand that the Wizard tune her character down, you are just as much of a problem as she is.

Two sides of the same coin... If you notice that you are outperforming another player, and then your response is exclusively to demand they step up their game, you are just as much of the problem. There has to be compromise. Either side demading and not budging will end the game, but both sides moving towards the middle solves the issue. (I know you say similar to this later in your post :smallwink: I'm not trying to ignore parts of what you have to say.)

I've noticed from your attitude towards non-magical characters that you seem kind of like the player who would be unwilling to lower your power level even a little for another party member, however I've never played a game with you so I can't say that definitively. It's solely based on my interpretation of the words you have typed (more than once) in an online forum.


D&D is a cooperative game and a social game, and compromise is important. If someone is overshadowing your Fighter with a Swiftblade, you should at least pull out a Warblade or something before complaining about their character. They aren't playing that character to make you feel bad, they are playing it because they enjoy it. If you are going to ask them to change their behavior to allow you to have more fun, you should take the opportunity to show good faith by changing your character to allow them to have more fun.

As for overshadowing other player's characters with similar characters, I've never really seen this problem personally. I'm sure it exists, but usually I don't see forum posts saying "The party's Swiftblade is overshadowing my Fighter... what do I do?!" I more commonly see "The party Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer, Druid is overshadowing my Fighter... What do I do?!" I really see it most with the cleric and druid because something about those two classes makes other players think they don't have to take the rest of the party in to consideration. I see these posts and the parties aren't "Fighter, DMM Cleric, Wizard/Incantrix, Druid/Planar Shepard" They're usually "Fighter, Rogue or Beguiler, DMM Cleric, Specialist Wizard" and the complaint isn't coming from feeling overshadowed by the wizard or rogue, but by the DMM Cleric.


Only if no one values walking quickly.

The idea that people would be just as happy playing unoptimized characters rests on the implicit assumption that no one enjoys optimizing, and people do it exclusively to overshadow their fellow players. As someone who plays optimized characters, I can safely say that this is entirely untrue. I play optimized characters because I enjoy playing optimized characters./[QUOTE]

So, being happy playing an unoptimized character does not imply any assumption on the enjoyment, or lack there of, of optimizing. Nor does it imply an assumption that the only reason to optimize is to overshadown another player. I think where your views and source of enjoyment differ from my own is that, I like to play a TTRPG with my friends, regardless of the level of power, optimization, or roleplaying involvement. I'm there for my friends. To that end, I enjoy playing any character, which includes an unoptimized fighter that has selected feats based on whimsical desires and roleplaying (as Darth Ultron suggests) and a more heavily optimized Crusader/Cleric/Ruby Knight Vindicator. They both nominally do the same thing, hit the bad guy with the pointy end, one just does it far better and with more options than the other. I enjoy all of the various facets of the game, the lower end and the higher end. I enjoy the versatility the system as a whole presents. It would seem that you don't enjoy the lower end of the power spectrum, and that's fine. I would just need to know that if I were to ever step in to a game with you and I would flex my brain to make sure I'm matching you, and the groups, power level.

[QUOTE]I generally agree. But even in the two extreme cases, you should have an out-of-character conversation where you try to compromise. The desires of the group may not be entirely opposed, and there may be solutions that keep everyone happy (or at least, happier than the presumed alternatives of "play a different character" and "don't play"). Giving the Paladin arbitrary DM pity bonuses that make her level appropriate is a tried and true solution, and an optimized War Weaver is a way of making a powerful character that doesn't overshadow the rest of the group.

But what you shouldn't do is declare that the Wizard is being "selfish" for having fun playing his character differently than you'd like. That makes you a problem player. Just as the Wizard demanding that you instead play a Cleric would have him a problem player

I'm personally against giving "pity bonuses" because they're just that... Pity. Nobody likes being pitied and whenever I'm pittied I'm a little insulted. That's just me I think though. Most people would probably be thankful for a power boost. I'm also willing to improve my characters rather than need a DM pity buff, so there's that too. The only time I would request someone tone something down is if I have already exhausted all of my other resources to improve myself first.

Eww... That's a long winded response...


If you really think you have to intentionally attempt to break the game to do so, then I don't think you really know how easy it is to make a really good caster in 3.5.

Nearly every guide to making a powerful wizard usually just outlines the most obvious picks that everyone does anyway. Sleep, Bull's Strength, Glitterdust, Invisibility, See Invisibility, Dispel Magic, Haste, Fly, Teleport, Stoneskin, True Seeing.

So, I'm not really sure that picking Sleep, Color Spray, Glitterdust, Fly, or Haste are game breaking. I was playing just last night with a level 2 party, I am a Cleric 1/Wizard 1 (Mystic Theurge at level 7, it works with the party) with 16 Int/Wis, giving my Color Spray a DC of 14. That's not a game breaking DC, and on average, the enemy won't succeed at level 2. One of my Cleric Domains is the Domination Domain, which gave me Spell Focus (Enchantment) making my Sleep DC 15. I used both Sleep and Color Spray and I knocked out 3 of 8 enemies. Sleep and color spray are not game breaking, nor are most of the spells above you either. Most of those spells are fantastic spells that promote smart decision making and inter-party involvement. A powerful wizard, one using those spells you outlined above, won't break your game.

The spells that can become game breaking are Planar binding, the Alter Self line, Gate, wish, miracle, etc. Spells that say "you know those rules and system expectations that we constructed... ignore them" and that's the problem. Most of the games I've played in, the players read those spells and say "those will be nice if we really f***ing need it... Better make a scroll or two and move on. There are better options for my party". Those spells are why I think that the actual balance issue is due to the higher level spells from the Wizard and Cleric spell list, not with the lower inherent power level of the fighter or barbarian.


These are all spells in core and nearly always on the recommended list for making optimized wizards because of the effect they have on ending encounters, and they are really simple spells that you could just glance over and pick because they "seem pretty decent". And it turns out they are really strong. Glitterdust can end encounters and prevent enemy spellcasters from escaping. Invisibility is basically perfect defense in any fight where most of your enemies are just mundanes and never mind how broken things get with an Improved Invisibility. Teleporting just is obvious once you get to the level as a handy feature for getting from A to B. Dispel Magic has a lot of uses and carefully reading it over can even reveal tricks that you as a DM might not even expect.

Fighting a big bad orc in fullplate and using a big sword? First round, dispel the sword, it is now a mundane sword. Second round, cast shatter on the sword, it's now broken and useless. Cast dispel magic on his armor, it is now mundane. Shatter that too and your big bad is reduced to a crying pile on the floor.

This isn't even digging through any supplements to find any strange combinations, this is just what anyone could find. It's not super obvious, but it's not hard to stumble across, even by accident.

The italics portion seems like... I dunno a really bad idea... First you have to be in close range to use Shatter, more than close enough for the big bad orc to close and cut you. Also, you're using one round to dispel, then another to shatter, then another to dispel, then another to shatter. What about the backup weapon? What about the object will save? What about the fact that it takes you 4 turns to do literally no damage to the target... it just seems, not the smartest or even all that crafty. Maybe your experience has been different, but that just doesn't seem like a very effective use of actions.

EDIT: I know there were a ton more posts, but those two just stuck out to me for some reaon...

[BassoonHero]

I think you missed the second half of my point:
Speaking of missing things, the argument you're making here was dissected in detail in my post.


Just picking the ''cool stuff'' is not enough. The player must also know what they are doing in a real world ''common sense'' way AND have game system rule mastery.
You keep saying this, over and over, and you haven't provided any support for it other than fictional examples of players not reading their own abilities.


Like you really think a new player is going to be all like ''I wildshape into a dinosaur from that Eberron book and add five templates!''
And this seems to be what you consider the only alternative to the player who doesn't read their own ablities: a seasoned powergamer who knows every trick. Your entire argument ignores the vast majority of players. As Andor13 points out:


Your posts are very strange. Except for one line in a single post, you give no indication that you understand that there is a spectrum of play between "Make random choices in the same manner as a gerbil on espresso." and "Pun-Pun".

Within that range is the game the rest of us are discussing.

[Cosi]

I mean, Imagine that you are in the position to do nearly anything.

Yes, at character creation you could choose to play anything. You chose to play a Fighter because you wanted to be a frontline combatant. Someone else chose to play a DMM Cleric because they wanted to be a frontline combatant. They're not wrong for doing that because your character is ineffective. You could have been anything. You could have been a carbon copy of their character. You chose to be ineffective. That's not their fault, and you have no right to complain about what your choice did.


The fighter didn't cause the problem, he's doing his job adequately. The cleric DID cause the problem because he bullied one character out of his job.

And if the Cleric doesn't play a DMM build because the Fighter doesn't want him too, how is that not being bullied out of his job? You're saying that instead of you being overshadowed while playing the character you want, the other player shouldn't play the character he wants at all. And somehow he's the bad guy.


It's a moral inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged. The fighter is literally less priviliged because the developers of the game made some in-game creation errors (i'm of the personal opinion that the Fighter is fine and the Cleric/Druid/Wizards are the problem children, but I do my best to not let that influence my objective observations, unless that opinion is asked of me.)

The Fighter is less privileged. You are not. It's the difference between being in an accident that mangles your legs, and cutting off your own legs. You did this to yourself, no one owes you anything. At character creation you are just as able to play a Wizard as the player who made an Incantatrix. You chose not to, just like she chose not to play a BFC Wizard. If your choice is legitimate because you wanted to play a Fighter, so is hers if she wanted to play an Incantatrix. If hers is not, neither is yours.


I've noticed from your attitude towards non-magical characters that you seem kind of like the player who would be unwilling to lower your power level even a little for another party member, however I've never played a game with you so I can't say that definitively. It's solely based on my interpretation of the words you have typed (more than once) in an online forum.

Yes, my attitude of making a ten page thread about making those characters more effective. My problem is that the solution is invariably to put 100% of the blame on the Wizard. The same action (playing the character you want the way you want) is selfish when a Wizard does it, but not only not problematic, but valuable enough to allow you to demand others change their characters when the Fighter does it.


As for overshadowing other player's characters with similar characters, I've never really seen this problem personally. ... They're usually "Fighter, Rogue or Beguiler, DMM Cleric, Specialist Wizard" and the complaint isn't coming from feeling overshadowed by the wizard or rogue, but by the DMM Cleric.

A DMM Cleric is a similar character to a Fighter. It's a frontline Cleric build just like a Gish is a frontline Wizard build.


I'm personally against giving "pity bonuses" because they're just that... Pity. Nobody likes being pitied and whenever I'm pittied I'm a little insulted.

And you weren't against your DM playing enemies to minimize the effectiveness of the Sorcerer? That has the same effect as a pity buff, except it makes the Sorcerer feel bad instead of making your character more effective. Personally, that seems like a strictly worse solution to the same problem.

[Darth Ultron]

You keep saying this, over and over, and you haven't provided any support for it other than fictional examples of players not reading their own abilities.

Yes, fictional examples from a fictional game. Guess you want what...some Offical notarized Game Transcripts and Sworn Legal Statements?



And this seems to be what you consider the only alternative to the player who doesn't read their own ablities: a seasoned powergamer who knows every trick. Your entire argument ignores the vast majority of players. As Andor13 points out:

1.I said there are jerk players that do things to disrupt the game.
2.People made the wacky defense that ''somehow'' a player can just ''accidentally'' make a disruptive character.
3.I said: This is No Accident. You can't just ''make a character'' and ''suddenly'' have a disruptive character. You have to plan to do it.
4.And even IF it was possible to ''accidentally'' do so: A good player could choose NOT to do so. Even if the character can 'zap' the whole army in one round..the good player knows they don't have to do that and they can take another action(or even change the character).
5.The Optimizers came in to say they must and have to always be overshadowing and disruptive, no matter what.
6.Others said how ''easy'' it was to ''accidentally'' make a disruptive character.
7.I pointed out the level of disruption is equal to the players game and rule skill mastery. And only a player of great skill in both can be disruptive. A new or casual or clueless player can not ''accidentally'' do anything disruptive.

It does not look like I mentioned ''only two types of players''...

[AnimeTheCat]

Yes, at character creation you could choose to play anything. You chose to play a Fighter because you wanted to be a frontline combatant. Someone else chose to play a DMM Cleric because they wanted to be a frontline combatant. They're not wrong for doing that because your character is ineffective. You could have been anything. You could have been a carbon copy of their character. You chose to be ineffective. That's not their fault, and you have no right to complain about what your choice did.

Ok, you're nitpicking at the analogy in a way I didn't anticipate. You're saying that the players are the people and friends in the analogy, I'm saying the classes are. But let's go with your interpretation. Now you have 4 friends capable of doing anything and they all choose different things and there isn't a problem... yeah, the anaolgy doesn't work when it starts at character Creation. It would work if the was once a party of 3 and then a 4th came along, but even then, that 4th later person would need to conform to the group, not the other way around. They came later and they have the obligation to conform to the group if they want to be a member of the group.

Also, I contest your assertation that a Fighter is "Ineffective". They're not, and never have been. They aren't the most effective, but they are also not "Ineffective". To prove my point, does D&D or does D&D not invlove large amounts of killing of things? If a class, regardless of what it is, can kill things, it is automatically not "ineffective" as you assert. If something else can kill things better, that class may be more effective (at that role) but that does not inherently make the other class "ineffective". You're wrong to say that a fighter is ineffective because it is less effective than another class. And I think that's where your logic is flawed when you begin to discuss things like this.


And if the Cleric doesn't play a DMM build because the Fighter doesn't want him too, how is that not being bullied out of his job? You're saying that instead of you being overshadowed while playing the character you want, the other player shouldn't play the character he wants at all. And somehow he's the bad guy.

If you're looking at this from a well thought out character creation point, yeah, the fighter is wrong for "bullying" the cleric out of that and should probably talk about other ways to fill the role or fill a different role. If you're lookin at it from a standpoint of an established party adding another player who just does what he wants without regard for the rest of the party, the new player is clearly wrong. If you're looking at it from an in-game, random group of people who are cobbled together from without an coordination, it's a toss up. Is the cleric vastly outperforming more of the party? The cleric should conform. Is the Fighter vastly underperforming compared to the party and opposition? The fighter should step up their game.

My analogy hinged on the concept that in a game where all of the members of a party are performing well that, when given the choice, a player willingly and knowingly chooses something DESPITE knowing it will make another player's character obsolete, that person is absolutely in the wrong. Pretty much every time. Knowingly and willingly making another player's character obsolete is disruptive, even more so when that player's character is not underperforming for the tasks at hand. Fighters do not, as a rule, underperform at fighting. They may underperform at hitting ghosts, but then again maybe not if they have an oil of magic weapon or a magical weapon at all. The word fighter does not inherently mean "underperformer".


The Fighter is less privileged. You are not. It's the difference between being in an accident that mangles your legs, and cutting off your own legs. You did this to yourself, no one owes you anything. At character creation you are just as able to play a Wizard as the player who made an Incantatrix. You chose not to, just like she chose not to play a BFC Wizard. If your choice is legitimate because you wanted to play a Fighter, so is hers if she wanted to play an Incantatrix. If hers is not, neither is yours.

So, what do you say to the player who doesn't want to use any magic or supernatural effects? Are they any more wrong for wanting that than you are for wanting to play something that is, let's be honest, way more powerful than the CR system plans for? That player has, in no way, cut off their own legs. In a party of 4 I can pretty much assure you that a fighter is capable of contributing to a CR appropriate encounter, through all levels even. To claim they can't is just wrong. If they can put their sword on it, they can contribute.

Also, you've consistently argued extremes, suggesting Incantatrix and assuming a fighter that takes trap feats for bonus feats and toughness for character feats. If the wizard is building an incantatrix, the fighter should be building a similarly optimized build and therefore more able to contribute. Fighters can hit the leap attack point more easily and with more flexibility than most other classes thanks to their bonus feats, why wouldn't they do that if you're building to an incantatrix, known for being powerful.

Honest question for you, are you ignoring my point of view or are you honestly trying to tell me that my opinion is wrong?


Yes, my attitude of making a ten page thread about making those characters more effective. My problem is that the solution is invariably to put 100% of the blame on the Wizard. The same action (playing the character you want the way you want) is selfish when a Wizard does it, but not only not problematic, but valuable enough to allow you to demand others change their characters when the Fighter does it.

A DMM Cleric is a similar character to a Fighter. It's a frontline Cleric build just like a Gish is a frontline Wizard build.

I don't think I've ever put 100% of the blam on any one class or type of character. I've always said it's relative to the power level of the group and how the group is faring compared to the challenges being presented. A DMM Cleric is Similar to a fighter but, there's that thing called magic that it uses, and I don't know if you've gotten this yet or not but there are some people who just straight up dislike magic, yet your solution for them is to "Suck it up". That's absurd, you could just as easily suck it up yourself. D&D is as much about the feel of a character as it is about the actual mechanics.


And you weren't against your DM playing enemies to minimize the effectiveness of the Sorcerer? That has the same effect as a pity buff, except it makes the Sorcerer feel bad instead of making your character more effective. Personally, that seems like a strictly worse solution to the same problem.

Uhm... no? I certainly was not against the DM playing enemies as they would be portrayed, especially when he turned around 2 combats from then and had the enemies regrouped with something that catered to the Sorcerer. It does not have the same effect as a pity buff because no mechanics were changed and nobody had anything added to their build. Apparently you missed the part where I said the DM later had encounters that catered to both individuals and there was no problem, but that's fine because I'll just repeat it here.

First encounter, 7-10 goblin expert 3-4. Fighter engages, sorcerer polymorphs. Goblins un in to tunnels out of terror, allowing the fighter 2 attacks of opportunity, killing 2 more and the Sorcerer only got 1 attack of opportunity and missed.

2 ambushes in the 5 ft wide 5ft tall tunnels are quickly handled by the rogue working in concert with the other party members.

the tunnels open up into a large chasm (60 ft wide, 100 ft tall) with waterfalls that flow into a shallow pool where the party see an ogre mage, 3 orcs, and the remaining goblins (4 I think). The only way out was up where the waterfalls were flowing from and the entrance the PCs had just come in, there was no choice but to fight the party.

Those 4 encounters catered to each party member differently and each party member was satisfied by the whole quest.

How exactly is that a poor solution if all of the party members ended up happy? Do you think it was a poorly run game because one player had a kneejerk reaction and complained immediately after something happened? You mean to tell me you've literally never done that?

[JNAProductions]

]1.I said there are jerk players that do things to disrupt the game.
2.People made the wacky defense that ''somehow'' a player can just ''accidentally'' make a disruptive character.
3.I said: This is No Accident. You can't just ''make a character'' and ''suddenly'' have a disruptive character. You have to plan to do it.
4.And even IF it was possible to ''accidentally'' do so: A good player could choose NOT to do so. Even if the character can 'zap' the whole army in one round..the good player knows they don't have to do that and they can take another action(or even change the character).
5.The Optimizers came in to say they must and have to always be overshadowing and disruptive, no matter what.
6.Others said how ''easy'' it was to ''accidentally'' make a disruptive character.
7.I pointed out the level of disruption is equal to the players game and rule skill mastery. And only a player of great skill in both can be disruptive. A new or casual or clueless player can not ''accidentally'' do anything disruptive.

It does not look like I mentioned ''only two types of players''...

1) Yes, that is true. There are jerks, and they will be disruptive and jerky regardless of whether or not they're any good at building characters.

2) That's not wacky-many examples were given of how it can be done, from Druids liking wolves to Wizards turning into Hydras. No template-stacking shenanigans, no splat-diving, just picking a few good options from Core. If you allow for players who are competent, but still inexperienced, this is very easy to see.

3) And that's wrong. For instance, you can build Sir Wolfs-A-Lot, the wolf-loving Druid who turns into wolves and summons wolves with a wolf companion. You will vastly overshadow a Monk in that same party, even if you're both pretty new, since Monks suck without serious work and knowledge while Druids kick a lot of butt right of the box. Alternatively, on the roleplaying side, you can have a player who thinks being a lone wolf would be cool. They don't think it through and realize that it's a party game, so their character ends up being disruptive because they're such a loner.

The first example is harder to fix for newer or less skilled players, since they probably won't know exactly what to adjust and how to adjust it. The second example is relatively easy to fix for mature people, since it mostly just requires talking it out and finding a reason for the lone wolf to stick with, work with, and trust the party.

4) And what about players who are new enough to not know the full extent of their abilities, but smart enough to pick what's good? (Not necessarily the BEST or most powerful, but good.) Again, a Wizard turning into a Hydra, or a Druid taking Natural Spell are something that competent players can easily do even with little experience, but they won't realize until AFTER the fact how damn powerful those options are compared to a Monk or a Fighter. And sure, they might not do that again, in the case of the hydra... But everyone now knows they're more powerful, and can still feel overshadowed simply by understanding that the Wizard is more powerful and simply CHOOSING to hold back.

Or, for Sir Wolfs-A-Lot, what would you have them do? They're a very thematic build (raised by wolves, turns into wolves, summons wolves, has a wolf companion) that simply happens to be miles beyond Monks and Fighters without a lot of optimization. Should they just scrap their character?

5) No one's said that but you. Literally no one. You are, quite literally, making things up.

6) Yes, we did, because it's true.

7) You did indeed say that. I can also say 2+2=84. That doesn't make what's said accurate.

[BassoonHero]

2.People made the wacky defense that ''somehow'' a player can just ''accidentally'' make a disruptive character.

6.Others said how ''easy'' it was to ''accidentally'' make a disruptive character.
Yes. This is what people are claiming, and you haven't meaningfully addressed it.


3.I said: This is No Accident. You can't just ''make a character'' and ''suddenly'' have a disruptive character. You have to plan to do it.

7.I pointed out the level of disruption is equal to the players game and rule skill mastery. And only a player of great skill in both can be disruptive. A new or casual or clueless player can not ''accidentally'' do anything disruptive.
You have correctly identified the point of disagreement. What you haven't done is argued effectively for your position. Instead, you've posted examples of how a novice player could play a character that isn't disruptive. But no one is arguing that novice players will always accidentally play disruptive characters, so your examples are meaningless.


4.And even IF it was possible to ''accidentally'' do so: A good player could choose NOT to do so. Even if the character can 'zap' the whole army in one round..the good player knows they don't have to do that and they can take another action(or even change the character).
The word "good" is ambiguous here. The underlying system problem we're discussing is that reliably not breaking the game requires a fairly solid understanding of the system. A well-intentioned novice may lack this understanding. Your hypothetical about choosing not to zap an entire army is overly reductive; the balance issues aren't only about single, obvious, isolated events, but about the aggregate impact of dozens of things. A well-meaning player may try to counteract these balance issues, but a novice player is unlikely to succeed.


5.The Optimizers came in to say they must and have to always be overshadowing and disruptive, no matter what.
You're equivocating on "optimize" again, and consequently misrepresenting others' positions.

[Cosi]

Also, I contest your assertation that a Fighter is "Ineffective". They're not, and never have been. They aren't the most effective, but they are also not "Ineffective".

Then they're not being overshadowed, and you can stop telling people not to play the characters they want because they tread on your character's toes. As far as I can tell, your entire argument rests on the notion that the Fighter is, at least relatively speaking, ineffective. If the Fighter is capable of making a valuable contribution, what's the problem with someone else playing a similar character? Would you complain if someone came in with another frontliner who was also a Fighter?


If you're looking at this from a well thought out character creation point, yeah, the fighter is wrong for "bullying" the cleric out of that and should probably talk about other ways to fill the role or fill a different role. If you're lookin at it from a standpoint of an established party adding another player who just does what he wants without regard for the rest of the party, the new player is clearly wrong.

First, that's not what the player is doing. The question isn't "can you break the norms of your group", because that answer to that is no, but the problem is that you are violating the norms of your group, not what you are doing. It's a problem to insist on playing a Red Wizard of Thay in an Eberron campaign. It's a problem to insist on a Gestalt character in a non-Gestalt game. It's a problem to insist on playing a character more powerful than the group standard. But that's not because playing a Red Wizard of Thay is a problem in and of itself.

Second, this standard leads to results that are basically absurd. If I join an established group, every other player gets a veto on my character (even if that character would have been okay from the beginning)? If someone else decided to play a Fighter, that locks out every build that is better than a Fighter for everyone else in the game? Do I have to intentionally play a gimped character I join a balanced group?


My analogy hinged on the concept that in a game where all of the members of a party are performing well that, when given the choice, a player willingly and knowingly chooses something DESPITE knowing it will make another player's character obsolete, that person is absolutely in the wrong.

No, he's not. You played a Fighter because you enjoy whatever part of the Fighter you enjoy. Does someone else also dealing damage effectively make you enjoy that less? Is your character less able to wield a sword and stand against his foes? Does he deal any less damage? If having someone do damage more effectively than you takes away your fun, why did you build such a suboptimal damage dealer to begin with?


So, what do you say to the player who doesn't want to use any magic or supernatural effects?

I don't know if you've gotten this yet or not but there are some people who just straight up dislike magic, yet your solution for them is to "Suck it up"

That's not a high level concept. I don't insist on getting shapechange at 1st level, stop insisting on playing a 1st level character at 20th level. Not every concept is appropriate in every context. A grizzled New Orleans cop who is in debt to the mob is not an appropriate D&D concept. That doesn't mean you're telling someone to "suck it up" when you tell them not to play it. It just belongs in a noir game, not an epic fantasy game.


Are they any more wrong for wanting that than you are for wanting to play something that is, let's be honest, way more powerful than the CR system plans for?

The Trumpet Archon is a CR 14 monster that casts as a 14th level Cleric and is also an archon. I am quite confident is not the casters who fail to conform to the CR system.


Honest question for you, are you ignoring my point of view or are you honestly trying to tell me that my opinion is wrong?

Your opinion that I am not allowed to make the character I want because it is better than the character you want is wrong. It's unhealthy for the game, and it holds the rest of the group hostage to your fun. Most of your points don't even really impact to that assertion.


A DMM Cleric is Similar to a fighter but, there's that thing called magic that it uses

Yes, they are literally asking to be equally powerful without having access to the same sources of power. Why on earth should the game cater to that? It's a contradiction in terms.

[Andor13]

The question isn't "can you break the norms of your group", because that answer to that is no,

Second, this standard leads to results that are basically absurd. If I join an established group, every other player gets a veto on my character (even if that character would have been okay from the beginning)? If someone else decided to play a Fighter, that locks out every build that is better than a Fighter for everyone else in the game? Do I have to intentionally play a gimped character I join a balanced group?

If the norms of the group are T3-T4 no high op, then yes, you should gimp your character to play. You just admitted violating group norms is a no go. Aide from the level of Meta it's no different from telling someone they can't bring a paladin to a crime family game, or a cleric of Tharzidun to a city watch campaign.

I like pretty much everything DSP has made for Pathfinder, but if I go to a game and they say "no 2nd party stuff" I'm not going to spend a session trying to talk them into letting me, I'll build a character that fits that group.

On topic, I feel I should point out that a character who overshadows another is not in the least the same as a disruptive character. In my current game I'm playing a cavalier who is by far the least effective member of the party in combat, so I suppose I'm being overshadowed. I'm still contributing, and having fun though so why would I kick up a fuss? Otoh the fact that I'm not disruptive is unrelated to the power level of my character, but to the fact that I'm actually engaging with the plot of the game. IME the disruptive characters are either the "lone wolf" types mentioned or the joker types who just want to cause chaos. Even a Monk with straight 8s can be plenty disruptive if they're prone to spontaneous murder confessions in front of the town guard.

[Quertus]

If nothing else, I'm at least gonna give whoever carries my pot a logically sound reason to talk to me, which I'd guess very few people who talk to their plants in RL have... :smallamused:

IIRC, scientists discovered decades ago that talking to plants actually has an effect on their growth...


If someone else decided to play a Fighter, that locks out every build that is better than a Fighter for everyone else in the game? Do I have to intentionally play a gimped character I join a balanced group?

If having someone do damage more effectively than you takes away your fun, why did you build such a suboptimal damage dealer to begin with?

I agree with almost everything in your previous two posts, but these stood out as things that I disagree with the sentiment behind.

Most groups have a range of acceptable power levels. Some groups have a pathetically small range. If the group has established that, for this game, the valid power range is from 3-5, then, yes, bringing someone who lives at power level 17 to this game is wrong, even if it would have been fine with the group to set the range at 17-20 at character creation. Although you are within your right to attempt to negotiate a change of the bounds of the range, you do not have the right to bring a character clearly outside the established range.

The other is a bit harder to explain, but... for the challenge?

[Cosi]

I think people are misunderstanding that line (to be fair, it's not written super clearly). I don't mean balanced in the mechanical sense, I mean it more in the sense of having every niche covered. As far as I can tell, AnimeTheCat's logic is that you can't build a character that overshadows an existing character, so to do that you have to aim low if you want to do the same thing anyone else is doing, which implies that in a group that has whatever you consider the niches of the game to be covered, you have to intentionally gimp yourself. That's bad for the game.

[Darth Ultron]

Yes. This is what people are claiming, and you haven't meaningfully addressed it.

Sure I did, you just did not like my answer.

First, we all agree..right..that no average player can ''accidentally'' make a problem character. Any player that knows the rules, knows what they are doing.

So this only leaves clueless players that don't know the rules and don't know how to play the game. And, sure, they might random pick something ''good''. BUT even if they do so...they don't have the game and rule skill mastery to use it: They are clueless after all.

Like sure, lets say they ''accidentally wildshape'' into a Super Optimized Dire Wolf of Overshadowing. Ok, so they are a big wolf....they still have have to play the game with even a slight bit of compliance and knowledge. They can't just sit there ''be the wolf'' and ''be all that''.

And it's a basic truth of D&D: the crunch does not match the fluff. A spell or feat or whatever ''sounds or looks good'', but in reality ''is worthless''. But, a player can only know this with game and rule mastery.




You have correctly identified the point of disagreement.

So, everyone agrees that being a disruptive overshadowing jerk is never an accident?



The word "good" is ambiguous here. The underlying system problem we're discussing is that reliably not breaking the game requires a fairly solid understanding of the system. A well-intentioned novice may lack this understanding. Your hypothetical about choosing not to zap an entire army is overly reductive; the balance issues aren't only about single, obvious, isolated events, but about the aggregate impact of dozens of things. A well-meaning player may try to counteract these balance issues, but a novice player is unlikely to succeed.

Good and Bad are very simple.

A Good Player does not be an Over Shadowing Jerk. Very simple. They either simply choose NOT to do it or even just change the character so they can't do it.

Like, if as has been said ''a wolf'' is so powerful...the player simply chooses to have the character turn into another animal. Maybe, say, a Dog.



You're equivocating on "optimize" again, and consequently misrepresenting others' positions.

Really, I'm sure we will get an Optimizer to respond and say they ''can't'' have their druid character, for example Wildshape into a dog instead of a wolf. They will say they ''have to'' and ''must'' always got to the powerful high end extreme. This is the big difference between a good player and an optimizer.

[Andor13]

I think people are misunderstanding that line (to be fair, it's not written super clearly). I don't mean balanced in the mechanical sense, I mean it more in the sense of having every niche covered. As far as I can tell, AnimeTheCat's logic is that you can't build a character that overshadows an existing character, so to do that you have to aim low if you want to do the same thing anyone else is doing, which implies that in a group that has whatever you consider the niches of the game to be covered, you have to intentionally gimp yourself. That's bad for the game.

I don't think I'm grasping your point here, but I am trying to.

To be fair this thread is more about perception then mechanics, so I can kind of see where your going when you say you don't mean mechanically balanced, but mechanics are pretty much the only thing that can be meaning fully discussed online. Otherwise you're talking about taking the fighter I mentioned above and holding his hand as you walk him through the math of why he's doing more damage than the rogue, even if the rogue sometimes gets to roll more dice, and that's purely an interpersonal issue.

As far as niches go, that's sometimes a by table issue (trapfinding is a niche, but it's a useless niche if the GM hates traps, Knowledge: Planes may be a critical niche in one game, and useless in another), and sometimes a perception issue, where a fighter might be jealous of the rogue but thinks nothing of the ranger who is out damaging both of them because he thinks melee and ranged are different niches. IME in that kind of situation it's usually possible to build yourself a niche that the table is happy with.

How is it bad for the game if you build a character that is in line with table expectations, even if it is 'gimped' compared to what you usually play? What alternative do you propose that isn't worse for the game?

[Cosi]

How is it bad for the game if you build a character that is in line with table expectations, even if it is 'gimped' compared to what you usually play? What alternative do you propose that isn't worse for the game?

I don't mean gimped in an absolute sense. I mean gimped relative to the table. As far as I can tell, if you follow the argument AnimeTheCat is making to its conclusion, you have an obligation to ensure your character is worse than every other character at the table. Not that it's within the power guidelines of the group, that it's actively inferior to the existing characters. I have nothing against making a different character at a different table. My problem is being told that having that character be better than an existing character -- even if that's not violating some group expectation -- is the problem. Frankly, I don't even see how that's consistent with the overall argument. It's not like the Fighter is any less a Fighter if a Warblade or a Cleric does a better job fighting.

So my solution is that you set down power guidelines, and then people make whatever characters they want that fall within those guidelines. And sometimes other people's characters will be better at something than yours. And that's fine. That has to be fine, or you're saying that everyone who joins the game has to be overshadowed.

[Andor13]

First, we all agree..right..that no average player can ''accidentally'' make a problem character. Any player that knows the rules, knows what they are doing.

Nope, that's just you. Everyone else is saying not only can it happen, but we've seen it, more than once.


So, everyone agrees that being a disruptive overshadowing jerk is never an accident?

Again, no. And again, disruptive and overshadowing are very different. Being disruptive is always bad form, and usually bad roleplaying, but has little do with mechanics.


Good and Bad are very simple.

A Good Player does not be an Over Shadowing Jerk. Very simple. They either simply choose NOT to do it or even just change the character so they can't do it.

Like, if as has been said ''a wolf'' is so powerful...the player simply chooses to have the character turn into another animal. Maybe, say, a Dog.

Really, I'm sure we will get an Optimizer to respond and say they ''can't'' have their druid character, for example Wildshape into a dog instead of a wolf. They will say they ''have to'' and ''must'' always got to the powerful high end extreme. This is the big difference between a good player and an optimizer.

No. Good and Bad are not very simple. They are matters of perception and opinion. My current Pathfinder character is a cavalier in a party consisting of a archer ranger, a slayer, and a spell caster (we just lost our oracle and picked up a summoner/cleric.) My character is by far the least effective in combat from a DPS perspective, mostly due to a long run of tight spaces (I was 8th level before I actually got to make a mounted lance charge for the first time) and similar opportunity costs that plague mounted combat in pathfinder. Nonetheless I don't feel overshadowed, and I'm certainly not demanding that either of the other martial players nerf themselves to make me feel better. You seem to be saying that they should never choose to use power attack if there is the slightest chance that they might out damage me, and if not their characters are bad and they should feel bad.

Cosi is right when he mentions niches, but they are matters of perception as well. If someone brings in a Fighter thinking he's going to be dominating the battlefield and he sees the Druid McWolferson and his animal companion tripping everyone, the fighter might get his panties in a bunch even if he's out-DPSing them (which is not unlikely), where as a more damage focused player might be delighted in that same circumstance due to the extra AOOs he's getting from the Druid's shenanigans.

But you absolutely can make problem characters, without meaning to, and often in unexpected ways. Often it's a character who has a playstyle that demands the rest of the party adapt to his tactics, and when they don't becomes useless. Sneaky character and defender types in particular are prone to this. Consider that rogues serving as sneaky scouts appears to be encouraged by the system, even though they are one failed roll away from death. (And both the 1st and 3rd edition DMGs have play examples showcasing that fact.)

[Andor13]

I don't mean gimped in an absolute sense. I mean gimped relative to the table. As far as I can tell, if you follow the argument AnimeTheCat is making to its conclusion, you have an obligation to ensure your character is worse than every other character at the table. Not that it's within the power guidelines of the group, that it's actively inferior to the existing characters. I have nothing against making a different character at a different table. My problem is being told that having that character be better than an existing character -- even if that's not violating some group expectation -- is the problem. Frankly, I don't even see how that's consistent with the overall argument. It's not like the Fighter is any less a Fighter if a Warblade or a Cleric does a better job fighting.

So my solution is that you set down power guidelines, and then people make whatever characters they want that fall within those guidelines. And sometimes other people's characters will be better at something than yours. And that's fine. That has to be fine, or you're saying that everyone who joins the game has to be overshadowed.

Ahhh. I don't thinks that's what was being propossed. "Matching" does not mean "Overshadowing" to me. I have seen some 'niche protection' threads veer into that territory, so I get what your saying, but I don't think that's what was being discussed here.

[Darth Ultron]

Nope, that's just you. Everyone else is saying not only can it happen, but we've seen it, more than once.

Well, to be fair, I'm sure most have seen:

1.The player that is pretending to be a ''new player''. Like gosh, D&D, oh I will randomly be a Doo-Da, that likes nature Dire Wolf...you know all randomly as I am a new player.

2.The coached player. This is very common, as it's what optimizers do. Other players, even the DM, just tell the new player what to take and what to do. and the poor clueless play just does.




Again, no. And again, disruptive and overshadowing are very different. Being disruptive is always bad form, and usually bad roleplaying, but has little do with mechanics.

I count over shadowing as disruptive.




No. Good and Bad are not very simple. They are matters of perception and opinion. You seem to be saying that they should never choose to use power attack if there is the slightest chance that they might out damage me, and if not their characters are bad and they should feel bad.

Well, good and bad are easy to see for the good people, anyway.

But your example is just what, counting the damage numbers? But that would only be if the game was a pure endless combat game. A lot of games are much more rounded with things other then combat.

Power attack, by it self, is not much to ''over shadow''. I'm talking about other stuff.





But you absolutely can make problem characters, without meaning to, and often in unexpected ways. Often it's a character who has a playstyle that demands the rest of the party adapt to his tactics, and when they don't becomes useless. Sneaky character and defender types in particular are prone to this. Consider that rogues serving as sneaky scouts appears to be encouraged by the system, even though they are one failed roll away from death. (And both the 1st and 3rd edition DMGs have play examples showcasing that fact.)

This does get to more of the bigger picture of the game play itself. And was one of my points above.

If the game is pure endless combat damage counting, then yes a bard character with social skills and abilities will be overshadowed by the Murderhobos

Same way a group of half giant hulking hurlers will overshadow a halfling sneak.

[Andor13]

Well, to be fair, I'm sure most have seen:

1.The player that is pretending to be a ''new player''. Like gosh, D&D, oh I will randomly be a Doo-Da, that likes nature Dire Wolf...you know all randomly as I am a new player.

2.The coached player. This is very common, as it's what optimizers do. Other players, even the DM, just tell the new player what to take and what to do. and the poor clueless play just does.

1.) I've never seen that, that I'm aware of. I'm not sure what the point would be. It's not like it's a poker game where faking a lower skill level than you possess can help you win. I've seen players exaggerate their experience/skill level far more often than I've seen them sandbag.

2.) I've certainly seen players be coached. Being a good coach is certainly not a universal trait of optimizers in my experience. Coaching tends to have three favors IME:
a) Good coaching. Here the player wants to acquire skill, and a more experienced player not only shows him what to do, but why it should be done, and alternatives. This leads to rapid skill growth.
b) Utility coaching. Here the player doesn't want to acquire the skill but does like to play (or just hang out.) Here you just want to the coach to make sure the character is functional, legal, and offer basic tactics.
c) Bad coaching. Here the player may want to acquire skill but the coach is toxic, either because they are a jerk, or because they are trying to turn the other PC into a free cohort who helps their character shine. Here you have to pry the toxic coach away from the player before skill can be acquired.


I count over shadowing as disruptive.

Over shadowing can be disruptive, when the over shadowed persons feelings get hurt. However, barring a serious case of showboating, it's not in the same league as the "I attack the King" guy or people who start in party conflict for the lulz.

And below that bar, someone can very easily accidentally overshadow someone. Let's go back to the OP.


I've thought a lot lately about the balancing act that has come to be called the linear fighter quadratic wizard. I've thought long about "how does one make this balancing act work?" I know that when I DM, I do whatever I can to challenge all of my players simultaneously in mechanics and roleplay and seek to keep all parties engaged.

...

Then I continue to think "Why do I still prefer fighters to warblade or other initiators?" The only thing I can think of is that, for me, initiators change the expectation. When imitators are introduced, non-magical characters start to do things that magical characters do and, while that's not a bad thing, it makes non-initiators obsolete. I've never been a fan of any class making another obsolete, and I feel that the tome of battle initiators do that to nearly all other martial combat focused classes, thus making the other classes 1-2 levels long.

I count myself lucky that I can consistently find like minded groups. I feel as though I have more fun that way, when I can play anything without fear of being a drag on the party. That includes classes like Paladin, Soulborn, or Monk as well. I know many say "it's a gentleman's agreement" but, I've never had to talk to anyone and say "hey, can you stop being awesome please? Jimmy doesn't like it." It just kind of.... happens organically. I've been in both shoes, the front-line cleric, the elven generalist or conjuration specialist wizard, the wild shaping, laser beam shooting dinosaur riding dinosaur druid, but I've never taken another person's spotlight. I read some posts that are written with such seething disdain for anything that isn't a spellcastee that it makes me wonder if I'm playing a different game sometimes. I can't fathom how or why another person would willingly go out of their way to completely and utterly embarrass another player and force them out of their chance to shine and have a good time.

For the OP, being a Fighter (or Soulborn even) in a party with a Wizard and a Cleric isn't a problem, because he expects the Wizards to Wiz and the Cleric to healbot and he gets to punch things in the face. But stick a Warblade in the same party, and now he has an issue. And, oddly, he feels that way not because the Warblade can out fight a fighter (he might, but higher floor, lower ceiling remember) but because the Warblade isn't useless outside his niche, and therefore exposes the flaws of niche protection.

Again, overshadowing is a matter of perception. The rogue isn't out damaging the fighter, but because he rolls more dice, the fighter is in a snit. The rogue just wants to be a ninja and stab from the shadows, but the fighter has no ranks in stealth and wears heavy armour so a deaf man can hear him coming and rogue is sad. I've seen both of these things happen, and neither one was a case of someone trying to be a jerk or ruin someone else's fun.

[JNAProductions]

*Raises hand*

I've never seen a player lie about their skill level either. Overestimate their skills, maybe. But not lie.

[BassoonHero]

First, we all agree..right..that no average player can ''accidentally'' make a problem character. Any player that knows the rules, knows what they are doing.

So this only leaves clueless players that don't know the rules and don't know how to play the game.
You're trying to draw another false dichotomy. You're treating “knowing the rules” as a binary, but then using it as a proxy for system mastery, which is anything but binary. I have no idea where on the continuum of system mastery you imagine the “average player” to be. You stipulate that an “average player” has sufficient mastery of the system that they can't accidentally make an overpowered character, which implies a substantial degree of experience and expertise. But then, you say that a player with less experience than that doesn't know the rules or how to play the game, and it seems clear that you're referring to the examples you used earlier of players who don't even understand the text of their own abilities. This is nonsense.

I wish to be absolutely clear on this point: there is a wide gap between the level of expertise required to create and play a disruptively overpowered character and the degree of system mastery required to deliberately and consistently tailor a character to an appropriate power level.


So, everyone agrees that being a disruptive overshadowing jerk is never an accident?
Here, you're piling on adjectives to muddy the issue. Specifically, you're talking about a player with a disruptively overpowered character who is also a “jerk”. What does this mean? It depends on how broadly you construe the word. If you would only call someone a “jerk” who is acting maliciously, then of course being a jerk can't be an accident. If you would call someone a “jerk” who unknowingly made a mistake, then of course it is possible to accidentally be one.

I am happy to stipulate that a “jerk” is someone who does something deliberately. In this sense, of course I would agree that “being a disruptive overshadowing jerk is never an accident”! Of course, that doesn't matter, because we were all talking about the possibility that someone might create an overpowered character accidentally, without being a jerk. If you were to say that creating an overpowered character automatically makes someone a jerk, then in accord with your use of the other sense of “jerk” I would then say that it's entirely possible for a player to accidentally be “a disruptive overshadowing jerk”.

You can pick either interpretation, but you have to be consistent, and in neither case will I grant the assumption that it is impossible to accidentally create a character that overshadows the rest of the party.


A Good Player does not be an Over Shadowing Jerk. Very simple. They either simply choose NOT to do it or even just change the character so they can't do it.
To be clear, you are stipulating that a “Good Player” is a player who has both good intentions and sufficient system mastery to consistently hit a chosen power level?


Like, if as has been said ''a wolf'' is so powerful...the player simply chooses to have the character turn into another animal. Maybe, say, a Dog.
Sure, sure. The only problem is that riding dogs are significantly more powerful in combat than wolves. Your hypothetical player has, through an insufficient understanding of the system, actually made the problem worse.


Really, I'm sure we will get an Optimizer to respond and say…
We have quite enough disagreement before us without bringing in hypothetical stupid arguments that absolutely no one is making.

[Elkad]

It's too easy to just languish on a fighter if you don't have any system mastery. (specifically the stacking of damage multipliers, which isn't obvious to a newbie)

At L1 you are doing 1d8+4 with your longsword.
At L9 you are doing 1d8+12 maybe, plus a 2nd attack sometimes (when you can manage a full attack and it doesn't miss, so maybe half the time)

Meanwhile the unoptimized Wizard throws a fireball for 9d6 to an area, or 5d4 worth of never-missing magic missiles.
If he decides to try that hydra thing, it'll be 9d10+50.

The Warblade, even with the same bad weapon choice as the fighter, is doing 1d8+10+6d6 with Elder Mountain hammer.

The Druid is two tigers, getting 6 attacks a round (plus potential rakes).

Even a Monk is better than the Fighter if the Fighter doesn't know to stack multipliers.


All of those other classes have obvious powerups. You flip through the spell/maneuver list, or the list of animals, and pick one that looks cool (which often means it has "roll a bag of dice" in the description somewhere). Nowhere does it hint that a fighter should dip an obscure barbarian alternate ability for pounce, 2-hand a lance, take spirited charge, put the valorous enhancement on it, and take Shock Trooper and Power Attack. The idea of 2-handing a lance doesn't even occur to most people. It's a weapon traditionally used with a shield, so why would they do something else? When he goes looking for damage enhancements, he's going to end up with Weapon Specialization and Cleave.

[Cosi]

I think accidental/intentional is to some degree the wrong distinction. Someone who intentionally builds a character that is more effective at some task than someone else in the party (even someone else who built their character for some degree of competence in that task) isn't necessarily behaving in a problematic way. It may simply be that they built the character they wanted, and that character happens to be more effective than some other character. The simplest example of this would probably be a Fighter and a Warblade. The Warblade is more effective as a melee combatant than a Fighter, and unlike an Incantatrix or DMM Cleric, it's "supposed" to be a frontline combatant.

The real distinction that should be made isn't accidental/intentional, but incidental/malicious. Darth Ultron is probably right that (in general) players don't stumble on to hyper-optimized characters. But he's wrong that only jerks play them. Some characters and some concepts are simply mechanically more effective than others, and it's entirely possible to like a concept that happens to be more effective than someone else's. That's not a problem behavior. What's a problem behavior is picking your concept because it is more effective than another player's. But I see absolutely no evidence of that happening. The question to think about is whether the player in question would play a different character if your character happened to be more effective. If the Fighter was as effective as a polymorphed Hydra, would the Wizard still cast polymorph? If he would, he's probably not the problem. If he wouldn't, he might be.

By way of analogy/example: I play Starcraft 2 Co-Op (a game mode where you and another player pick two different commanders from ~15 to complete a mission). One of the commanders I enjoy playing is Dehaka. It happens that he's a lot more effective than most of the other commanders -- he can basically solo a map where I would normally rely on an ally's help. I imagine that at least some of the people I've played with felt overshadowed playing with me. But that's not why I play Dehaka. I play Dehaka because I like making a giant kaiju monster that stomps on everything and clears an enemy attack in a couple of seconds.


Ahhh. I don't thinks that's what was being propossed. "Matching" does not mean "Overshadowing" to me. I have seen some 'niche protection' threads veer into that territory, so I get what your saying, but I don't think that's what was being discussed here.

Maybe? But I wouldn't trust someone whose position is that they play a Fighter because they enjoy the flavor, but don't want you to play a more effective character because they don't want to be mechanically overshadowed, to accurately identify the difference. I still don't understand why the optimal solution for AnimeTheCat isn't that both players play and enjoy frontline combatants, and he is simply somewhat less effective than the Wizard/Warblade/Gish/Cleric/Druid/Whatever.

[Acanous]

Hoo boy there’s a lot going on in this thread.

I’d like to weigh in on a couple points, but first a bit of background.

My first character in D&D was a fighter. The campaign was actually in a friend’s custom world where Paladins were a prestige class, and you had to grab a bunch of feats and cast divine magic before you could be one.

So I started the game as a fighter. Decent scores, low dex, not much else to complain about. I was building to go Paladin so I had an OK wis and cha.
I did ok in combat. Hit lv 2, BAB goes up, get another feat. Now I can start working on casting!
Had to role play being pious and going to the church, learning about the gods, donating to the poor, going on quests to protect the innocent. Hit lv 3, took it in Cleric. Cool! I can cast spells now, and I got another feat! My BAB didn’t go up, but I got spellcasting, and a pretty helpful bonus to a couple saves.
Lv 4 I take more Cleric, get BAB and an ability increase instead of a feat. That’s weird but ok. I put it in Wisdom, because it seems important. Almost all the way to being a Paladin now!
Ok so I hit lv 5 after adventuring for a while. I get to choose which class to level up in; Cleric or fighter. Cleric I get lv 2 spellcasting! That’s pretty cool, and I get BAB? Ok so what does fighter get?
Just a BAB. Well. Ok then, last level before Paladin, I take Cleric.
This is the very first time I had to draw a direct comparison between casters and mundane melee, and Cleric took it handily.
The next level I went into Prestige Paladin, got more casting and some cool abilities, *and* a feat. I went on an adventure and got magic armour. I levelled up and was pretty sad I wasn’t getting lv 3 spells yet. Also no feat, no ability increase. But I did get a special mount and some other stuff, so I supposed it was fair.
Lv 8 I finally got my 3rd level spells and I felt epic. I was hitting things hard, buffing, and even had a spell attack option for pesky ranged enemies. Level 3 spells were amazing! When I next went to level up, I looked at my options. I could go for more Fighter, and bring that up so that I don’t have XP penalties, more Paladin, which would give me... nothing great really, or more Cleric!

After checking the rules and noting that I could pick any class to be my favoured, I could just progress indefinitely as a cleric, because really I had everything cool that Fighter and Paladin were going to offer me.

This was my first game of DnD, my first real look through the books. I was limited to core and unfamiliar with the options. The DM wouldn’t even let me look through the DMG and printed off the Prestige Paladin for me. I think I had mounted combat, power attack, ride by attack, spirited charge, combat casting and Cleave. I was miffed I never got to bring my horse into the dungeon and by the end of the game (around lv 10) I was more of a caster than a melee, and I had lv 4 spells. The party was me, a rogue, a centaur ranger who joined later, and an evoker wizard. I was basically stealing the show all session, every session, until a lock needed picking or some ancient runes needed reading.

It was that obvious to me as a newbie how good spells were, and my next character I just played as a cleric from the get go. I rapidly and permanently outshone the party fighter, and after lv 7 he really had nothing to do but poke things with a stick and hope I would have a chance to buff him before combat.

It was my experience that with even minimal exposure to the system, clerics and other T1 casters just out-do the rest. By my second campaign, I was outshining people who had been playing for years! At the time I thought I was pretty smart, but as I learned the system I realized it was designed that way.
TLDR: it’s not just possible to accidentally outshine someone with a caster, it’s easy, because the system is set up that way.

Point two: I came to DnD from MTG. In Magic, it was understood that he who has the most money generally wins, but as you learn, trade, and specialize your deck you could make up for some of that gap. Also, the more years you put in, the more valuable your old stuff gets, and the more your collection grows until you can trounce a rich kid because you have better system mastery and card equity.
Going into DnD was like playing a board game instead.
Everyone had all of the options at character creation. Everyone could build *whatever* kind of character they want. Nobody was sitting there with the $12 starter character getting shown up by the guy who blew $300 on his glitzed out shiny character.
We also had people who wanted to play one thing one week, and switch it up every other week until they found something they liked. The DM made it a war campaign, so we were all part of a big army and they’d send us on missions. It kind of made sense we’d get assigned different people for different jobs.

Basically, if you were bad at something, you had no excuse not to get good. Don’t like your character? Look for something better. Print off a sheet for 25 cents and get it approved over lunch on Wednesday before the Sunday game.

Nobody is making you pay for the better character DLC or forcing you to spend on loot boxes. The only one responsible for your performance is you.

[Mordaedil]

So, I'm not really sure that picking Sleep, Color Spray, Glitterdust, Fly, or Haste are game breaking. I was playing just last night with a level 2 party, I am a Cleric 1/Wizard 1 (Mystic Theurge at level 7, it works with the party) with 16 Int/Wis, giving my Color Spray a DC of 14. That's not a game breaking DC, and on average, the enemy won't succeed at level 2. One of my Cleric Domains is the Domination Domain, which gave me Spell Focus (Enchantment) making my Sleep DC 15. I used both Sleep and Color Spray and I knocked out 3 of 8 enemies. Sleep and color spray are not game breaking, nor are most of the spells above you either. Most of those spells are fantastic spells that promote smart decision making and inter-party involvement. A powerful wizard, one using those spells you outlined above, won't break your game.

The spells that can become game breaking are Planar binding, the Alter Self line, Gate, wish, miracle, etc. Spells that say "you know those rules and system expectations that we constructed... ignore them" and that's the problem. Most of the games I've played in, the players read those spells and say "those will be nice if we really f***ing need it... Better make a scroll or two and move on. There are better options for my party". Those spells are why I think that the actual balance issue is due to the higher level spells from the Wizard and Cleric spell list, not with the lower inherent power level of the fighter or barbarian.



The italics portion seems like... I dunno a really bad idea... First you have to be in close range to use Shatter, more than close enough for the big bad orc to close and cut you. Also, you're using one round to dispel, then another to shatter, then another to dispel, then another to shatter. What about the backup weapon? What about the object will save? What about the fact that it takes you 4 turns to do literally no damage to the target... it just seems, not the smartest or even all that crafty. Maybe your experience has been different, but that just doesn't seem like a very effective use of actions.

Not sure why you picked my post when you think I singled out the spells for being game-breaking. That wasn't my argument at all, I picked them because they are pretty optimal picks that serve your character well, is in nearly any guide and can easily end encounters. That doesn't really mean they are game-breaking. My point was that you could easily fall into picking the optimal choices with minimal system mastery.

Also, uh yeah, I guess a mystic theurge with subpar stats wouldn't feel very OP by picking the spells since the saving throws struggles to bring down even early groups. And when it comes to Alter Self, Gate, wish etc. They require a lot of system mastery to break, honestly. If you don't have that, they aren't going to really stumble into system breaking parts of using these spells.

Also, my dispel and shatter example are, well, just an example of how a new player could trivilize a boss. If you as a DM give your NPC bosses backup weapons and such against a bunch of new players, you are probably overpreparing. Also, you spend 4 turns neutering the target. You dispel the enchantments on their weapons and armor and then remove said wepaons and armor. Not sure how that is so ineffective.

[AnimeTheCat]

Not sure why you picked my post when you think I singled out the spells for being game-breaking. That wasn't my argument at all, I picked them because they are pretty optimal picks that serve your character well, is in nearly any guide and can easily end encounters. That doesn't really mean they are game-breaking. My point was that you could easily fall into picking the optimal choices with minimal system mastery.

Also, uh yeah, I guess a mystic theurge with subpar stats wouldn't feel very OP by picking the spells since the saving throws struggles to bring down even early groups. And when it comes to Alter Self, Gate, wish etc. They require a lot of system mastery to break, honestly. If you don't have that, they aren't going to really stumble into system breaking parts of using these spells.

Also, my dispel and shatter example are, well, just an example of how a new player could trivilize a boss. If you as a DM give your NPC bosses backup weapons and such against a bunch of new players, you are probably overpreparing. Also, you spend 4 turns neutering the target. You dispel the enchantments on their weapons and armor and then remove said wepaons and armor. Not sure how that is so ineffective.

You were the only one to mention spells in particular at all, so I used your post to create a situation to share my opinion. Looking back on it, I didn't do a good job of just leaving it at my opinion.

About the Wizard 1/Cleric 1 character, the DCs aren't all that bad. A lavel 1 Goblin warrior isn't going to have a good will save, +0 or -1 IIRC from the MM. A DC 14 or 15 should allow one to expect only 35%-20% to succeed on their save, but in the reality of the game over 50% succeeded on their save. Having 1 more point to the DC (from the relevant ability score being higher) wouldn't have made a difference becuase the DM rolled 18+ for those goblins. 2 points in an ability score and level 2 of wizard wouldn't have given me any better advantage in that situation. And as for breaking the game with Wish or Gate... it's not difficult to wish for something game breaking or gate in something that also has gate... simply reading the spell you can learn that it overtly changes the game. That's just my opinion and it's fine to disagree.

The reason spending 4 turns to dispel and shatter equipment is ineffective is that every single one of those spells requires some roll and has a risk of failure. Also, you have to not get killed while you're doing that. It's just not a good example of trivilizing an encounter because 4 rounds of a strong opponent breathing down your neck is not trivializing anything.


I think accidental/intentional is to some degree the wrong distinction. Someone who intentionally builds a character that is more effective at some task than someone else in the party (even someone else who built their character for some degree of competence in that task) isn't necessarily behaving in a problematic way. It may simply be that they built the character they wanted, and that character happens to be more effective than some other character. The simplest example of this would probably be a Fighter and a Warblade. The Warblade is more effective as a melee combatant than a Fighter, and unlike an Incantatrix or DMM Cleric, it's "supposed" to be a frontline combatant.

The real distinction that should be made isn't accidental/intentional, but incidental/malicious. Darth Ultron is probably right that (in general) players don't stumble on to hyper-optimized characters. But he's wrong that only jerks play them. Some characters and some concepts are simply mechanically more effective than others, and it's entirely possible to like a concept that happens to be more effective than someone else's. That's not a problem behavior. What's a problem behavior is picking your concept because it is more effective than another player's. But I see absolutely no evidence of that happening. The question to think about is whether the player in question would play a different character if your character happened to be more effective. If the Fighter was as effective as a polymorphed Hydra, would the Wizard still cast polymorph? If he would, he's probably not the problem. If he wouldn't, he might be.

By way of analogy/example: I play Starcraft 2 Co-Op (a game mode where you and another player pick two different commanders from ~15 to complete a mission). One of the commanders I enjoy playing is Dehaka. It happens that he's a lot more effective than most of the other commanders -- he can basically solo a map where I would normally rely on an ally's help. I imagine that at least some of the people I've played with felt overshadowed playing with me. But that's not why I play Dehaka. I play Dehaka because I like making a giant kaiju monster that stomps on everything and clears an enemy attack in a couple of seconds.

Maybe? But I wouldn't trust someone whose position is that they play a Fighter because they enjoy the flavor, but don't want you to play a more effective character because they don't want to be mechanically overshadowed, to accurately identify the difference. I still don't understand why the optimal solution for AnimeTheCat isn't that both players play and enjoy frontline combatants, and he is simply somewhat less effective than the Wizard/Warblade/Gish/Cleric/Druid/Whatever.

I do agree with the majority of what you're saying about the accidental/intentional, incidental/malicious portion of the discussion.

As for why I think what I think, it's as Andor13 says. Having two players that are both frontliners isn't an issue, so long as the two can share that spotlight equally. If both people have built specifically for that (such as the situation with the sorcerer and the fighter I talked about) the DM should tailor encounters to be applicable to one or both people and there needs to be a lot more care put in to crafting each combat. That one's on the DM for not addressing that there might be power issues during session zero. If one person has built specifically for it (a fighter for example) and another has not (a Cleric, not planned for DMM but the later decides to use DMM) there still isn't a problem unless it results in overshadowing. Overshadowing, the way that I'm using it, implies that the person is removing the opportunity for the other player to use their character as intended. It's not just outdamaging (in the case of damage) but outdamaging against more targets while still being able to do more and solving encounters without the other character getting the opportuinty to act or deal damage as they are capable of. If there are two players and they are both dealing melee damage and neither are having any issues, there isn't an issue even if one character is doing it more effectively/efficiently, because both players are having fun.

My opinion and thoughts stemmed from the presence of forum posts and anecdotes of people complaining about "that OP character that made me feel useless" and to me, it's not very kind to say "well you're playing bad so you should feel bad. git gud scrub". I'll reiterate that I don't run in to the issue of feeling useless because I do posess a decent amount of system mastery and will take the time to do research to make sure whatever I'm putting forward meets the desired power level of the party. I'm not the kind of person who would bring a fighter to a cleric/wizard/druid party and then complain about being underpowered. I am the kind of person who, if I really wanted to play a "fighter" in a cleric/wizard/druid party I would brind a ToB initiator and still know full well i'm going to be less effective, and as such I would roleplay as maybe a vassal or a knight of one of the party members, using that inherent weakness and lack of versatility as a roleplaying keynote. All of that is to say that, if the party at all said "I don't think that's going to work well with the party" I would pick something different. From the get go, I do try my best to be a team player because I can have fun regardless of what I'm playing, as long as it's mine.

My opinion is not that the wizard is always wrong for using polymorph and contributing to combt. My opinion is that it is wrong for a wizard to use polymorph to make the fighter in the party unable to perform his function because the wizard is just solving it, unless it was determined earlier on that the wizard would be doing specifically that. It's all very case-by-case really. In general, when I hear that someone is upset about being overshadowed, my instinctive reaction is not "well build a better character" it's more "what exactly is going on, and was it planned that way?" I don't blame the wizard or the fighter in either case, I usually blame the DM, the moderator, for not taking the time to adequately discuss the power level or expectations of the game and for not discussing character plans and options from the beginning. I do tend to prefer if powerful characters tone it down because challenging a less powerful character is much easier than challenging a more powerful character, however I realize that is not always an option in which case I more regularly default to the party or group power level and the power expectations of the campaign (in the event that a prewritten campaign is being used).

Also, this is a lot of ramblings of what was on my mind at the time I made the original post. Niche protection is a thing, and I do kind of veer in that direction, but I am also critical of the situation. If the Wizard or Cleric is stepping in to fill the role because the fighter is not doing so adequately, there's no excuse for the fighter, they need to step up their game (and maybe play a warblade). If a party discusses what everyone is going to play before the game starts and theres a fighter and a warblade, the DM should haves stepped in and made sure that the difference in power would be immediately apparent and made sure that all parties were aware AND if necessary, made sure the Fighter player would be able to fill a different aspect of the niche (such as tripping as opposed to direct damage). That swings wildly if there is an established party and another player joins and plays a character that is out of balance with the party, but then that goes back to first making sure that the party as a whole are balance in power level or at least understand what is expected of them.

I'm rambling again... I don't have a problem with anyone else's opinion, and I don't think that anyone else's opinion is wrong. I also understand that I will likely have a different opinion from many others, and that's fine.

[Darth Ultron]

It is simple to not have such problems in a game, as I said:

1.Don't make the game to gentile
2.Scale the game up
3.Use Consequences
4.Make a dynamic complicated game play
5.Be wary of houserules

To give some simple examples:

The group save: this greatly over favors spellcasters. Ten monsters charge a spellcaster, and they cast one spell....the DM makes one save for all ten monsters. So a failed save effects all ten.

No tactics: Monsters just line up out in the open as perfect spell targets.

No Equipment: Monsters never have much except ''treasure''

[Elkad]

People use group saves for monsters?

Oh sure, if I have 80 monsters on the board I'll average their saves instead of rolling them all (4 get 1s, 4 get 2s, etc), but that isn't the same thing.


I don't even stick all my monsters on the same initiative. They'll go in small groups. Typically about as many groups as there are party members.

[Quertus]

I think people are misunderstanding that line (to be fair, it's not written super clearly). I don't mean balanced in the mechanical sense, I mean it more in the sense of having every niche covered. As far as I can tell, AnimeTheCat's logic is that you can't build a character that overshadows an existing character, so to do that you have to aim low if you want to do the same thing anyone else is doing, which implies that in a group that has whatever you consider the niches of the game to be covered, you have to intentionally gimp yourself. That's bad for the game.

Ah. I see. That's a different argument than what I read.


As for why I think what I think, it's as Andor13 says. Having two players that are both frontliners isn't an issue, so long as the two can share that spotlight equally. If both people have built specifically for that (such as the situation with the sorcerer and the fighter I talked about) the DM should tailor encounters to be applicable to one or both people and there needs to be a lot more care put in to crafting each combat. That one's on the DM for not addressing that there might be power issues during session zero.

Allow me to present the Lazy **** GM method: you build the content, telegraph its difficulty, and demand that the players build characters within the group power range. If the players fail to achieve that balance, it's on them.

I'm a bit baffled by the notion that anyone - player or GM - should need to be reminded that balance issues are a thing. But, even if someone does need that reminder, well, that someone may very well be the GM.


If one person has built specifically for it (a fighter for example) and another has not (a Cleric, not planned for DMM but the later decides to use DMM) there still isn't a problem unless it results in overshadowing. Overshadowing, the way that I'm using it, implies that the person is removing the opportunity for the other player to use their character as intended. It's not just outdamaging (in the case of damage) but outdamaging against more targets while still being able to do more and solving encounters without the other character getting the opportuinty to act or deal damage as they are capable of. If there are two players and they are both dealing melee damage and neither are having any issues, there isn't an issue even if one character is doing it more effectively/efficiently, because both players are having fun.

I can only say that you should keep in mind that not everyone's "I find this offensive" meter is calibrated the way that you describe.


My opinion and thoughts stemmed from the presence of forum posts and anecdotes of people complaining about "that OP character that made me feel useless" and to me, it's not very kind to say "well you're playing bad so you should feel bad. git gud scrub".

It's "tough love", being cruel to be kind.


All of that is to say that, if the party at all said "I don't think that's going to work well with the party" I would pick something different. From the get go, I do try my best to be a team player because I can have fun regardless of what I'm playing, as long as it's mine.

Good sentiments, those.

Better sentiment, IMO, is "why do you think that this character won't work" - both to catch errors in assumptions about the character, and to prevent you from accidentally bringing a different character who also wouldn't work.

Because, if you brought a character you think would work, and someone thinks it wouldn't, then, clearly, someone is misinformed, and it's time for a conversation, to get everyone on the same page.


My opinion is not that the wizard is always wrong for using polymorph and contributing to combt. My opinion is that it is wrong for a wizard to use polymorph to make the fighter in the party unable to perform his function because the wizard is just solving it, unless it was determined earlier on that the wizard would be doing specifically that. It's all very case-by-case really.

When the party wanted to deal with a traitor, they presented a number of horrible plans to do so. Hearing this, my character just handled it. It was the one and only time my character pulled out the most dangerous weapon in his arsenal.

We didn't have a pre-existing charter of "how will we handle things when we are betrayed" - in fact, there was clearly no precedent whatsoever for my character "going nuclear".

Point is, I'm struggling to see how something being determined earlier matters


In general, when I hear that someone is upset about being overshadowed, my instinctive reaction is not "well build a better character" it's more "what exactly is going on, and was it planned that way?" I don't blame the wizard or the fighter in either case, I usually blame the DM, the moderator, for not taking the time to adequately discuss the power level or expectations of the game and for not discussing character plans and options from the beginning.

I mean, I'm all for blaming the GM - it's kinda my go-to and all - but where do you draw the line? Just if they didn't cover it, or if they set the range larger than the group actually enjoys? If the group are the ones who set the size of the range, is it still the GMs fault?

If the GM covered the range, but a player made a character upside the range - or, even better, both players did - who is at fault?

Lastly, what if the overshadowing character is mechanically weaker than the overshadowed character, and that the overshadowing is occurring despite this fact by dent of vastly different levels of player skills?


I do tend to prefer if powerful characters tone it down because challenging a less powerful character is much easier than challenging a more powerful character, however I realize that is not always an option in which case I more regularly default to the party or group power level and the power expectations of the campaign (in the event that a prewritten campaign is being used).

I kinda start at that last bit myself.

As to that first bit, I suspect Cosi will agree with me in saying that, challenging weaklings may be easier, but challenging the truly mighty is more fun. :smallwink:


Also, this is a lot of ramblings of what was on my mind at the time I made the original post. Niche protection is a thing, and I do kind of veer in that direction, but I am also critical of the situation. If the Wizard or Cleric is stepping in to fill the role because the fighter is not doing so adequately, there's no excuse for the fighter, they need to step up their game (and maybe play a warblade).

If the GM isn't doing their job, and making things fun, then they need to step up their game? Or, my preference, fun is everyone's responsibility? My roundabout point is, what do you view the Fighter's role as, and, if it's "dealing damage ", then why is dealing damage the Fighter's exclusive role?

[Mordaedil]

About the Wizard 1/Cleric 1 character, the DCs aren't all that bad. A lavel 1 Goblin warrior isn't going to have a good will save, +0 or -1 IIRC from the MM. A DC 14 or 15 should allow one to expect only 35%-20% to succeed on their save, but in the reality of the game over 50% succeeded on their save. Having 1 more point to the DC (from the relevant ability score being higher) wouldn't have made a difference becuase the DM rolled 18+ for those goblins. 2 points in an ability score and level 2 of wizard wouldn't have given me any better advantage in that situation. And as for breaking the game with Wish or Gate... it's not difficult to wish for something game breaking or gate in something that also has gate... simply reading the spell you can learn that it overtly changes the game. That's just my opinion and it's fine to disagree.

The reason spending 4 turns to dispel and shatter equipment is ineffective is that every single one of those spells requires some roll and has a risk of failure. Also, you have to not get killed while you're doing that. It's just not a good example of trivilizing an encounter because 4 rounds of a strong opponent breathing down your neck is not trivializing anything.

Regarding the DC's, it's a matter of a compounding problem as you'll split your scores and it will remain split over the course of the levels as you go. Of course, if you chose to focus on one score over another, or roll really high stats early on, it's probably not going to matter too much, but later on the spell DC's aren't going to work out as well. But if you are pick your spells correctly, it isn't going to be an issue.

I suppose you do have a point with regards to the dispelling the item, but it's not like you have to do all 4 actions to accomplish that, it was just an example of things you could do with relatively low level spells anyone could happen to pick up that could end up doing something unexpected. I wasn't even originally taking this point with you, but with Darth Ultron who made the claim that people would need to use online guides for some reason to make optimized choices and that it was impossible to do so accidentally.

[JNAProductions]

It is simple to not have such problems in a game, as I said:

1.Don't make the game to gentile
2.Scale the game up
3.Use Consequences
4.Make a dynamic complicated game play
5.Be wary of houserules

To give some simple examples:

The group save: this greatly over favors spellcasters. Ten monsters charge a spellcaster, and they cast one spell....the DM makes one save for all ten monsters. So a failed save effects all ten.

No tactics: Monsters just line up out in the open as perfect spell targets.

No Equipment: Monsters never have much except ''treasure''

Two things: 1, I've only ever seen No Equipment, which is not a houserule or anything; and 2, don't you have your own suite of houserules you use?

[Acanous]

Back tracking a little here, I find the idea that someone can only be disruptive or unbalancing intentionally to be completely off-kilter.
In legal terms, there’s something called Mens rea (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea), or “guilty mind”. In most law, you not only have to prove that a crime occurred, and that the defendant committed the crime, but also that the defendant committed the crime intentionally. It’s the difference between murder and manslaughter, for example. Without Mens rea, you get lesser sentences (and sometimes no sentence at all, depending on the crime.) because it is possible to unintentionally break the law.
It’s also possible to build a character more powerful than you realized.
One time I was playing a Bard/marshal who was a buff boy for the party, and had the hero’s regalia. Around lv 15 or so I was reading through setting-specific house rules, and found that we were playing with action points, which nobody had bothered with since lv 3.
In the list of things you could do with action points? “At any time: Upgrade a move action to a standard action, 1 point. Upgrade a standard action to a full round action, 1 point.”
We all hadn’t been paying attention to our action points in forever and had minimum 15 each. I could sound the horn and grant the entire party move actions on my turn. We could all take an extra standard action, including myself, which was “blow the horn again”.
The boss lich really didn’t stand a chance. He got one action in and then we basically took 3 extra turns.
That was from an item, part of a set, that I took because it complimented my build, and it was way more powerful that I realized when I started grabbing bits of the set at lv 8.

of course it is possible for a player to make unknowingly amazing build decisions, in the same way it is possible to make unknowingly bad build decisions. Having a greater understanding of the system does tend to prevent both of these things, but unless you’re playing with Psyren or Tippy, you can’t assume they have encyclopedic knowledge of the game and build towards high end charop.
To do so is to commit post hoc ergo propter hoc, and it’s really not fair to your players.

[Darth Ultron]

People use group saves for monsters?


It is very common. And, like I said, it's a huge bonus to spellcasters. A single low roll and a whole group of foes is effected by a spell.


Two things: 1, I've only ever seen No Equipment, which is not a houserule or anything; and 2, don't you have your own suite of houserules you use?

I'm not saying don't use houserules, I'm saying be wary of them.

See what happens is the game uses a bunch of house rules, and is suddenly filled with problems and over shadowing and brokeness....and everyone just sits around and says ''well, nothing we can do this is just how the game is''. And, amazingly, they just don't grasp that it might very well be thier house rules that cause or exacerbate the problems.

A classic bad one is: All spellcasting classes have spellcasting based on just one stat. So that 10 wizard/10 cleric gestalt uses the high ''intelligence'' for the cleric spells and can dump stat wisdom.

[BassoonHero]

It is very common.
[citation needed]


A classic bad one is: All spellcasting classes have spellcasting based on just one stat. So that 10 wizard/10 cleric gestalt uses the high ''intelligence'' for the cleric spells and can dump stat wisdom.
I have literally never heard of this, nor do I ever expect to again. In what sense do you consider it a “classic”?

[JNAProductions]

[citation needed]

I have literally never heard of this, nor do I ever expect to again. In what sense do you consider it a “classic”?

Agreed.

And I've seen stuff like Kung-Fu Genius, that makes Monk's proc off Intelligence rather than Wisdom, but that's an official feat, not a houserule.

[Darth Ultron]

I have literally never heard of this, nor do I ever expect to again. In what sense do you consider it a “classic”?

Classic as players have been using it for years, from the start of 3E.

It goes along with ones like:

*Spontaneous metamagic does not take any longer than regular metamagic.
*Free Eschew Materials and Rapid Metamagic for spontaneous casters.
*The Extra Spell feat lets you pick from any class list.
*All bonuses are untyped and stack.

[Andor13]

Classic as players have been using it for years, from the start of 3E.

It goes along with ones like:

*Spontaneous metamagic does not take any longer than regular metamagic.
*Free Eschew Materials and Rapid Metamagic for spontaneous casters.
*The Extra Spell feat lets you pick from any class list.
*All bonuses are untyped and stack.

1) Absolutely nothing in this thread was concerned with house rules, or "gentle tables" until you brought them up at random.
2) You seem to be having trouble grasping that your experiences are not universal, and likewise that people who have seen thing that you have not, are not lying.
3) Yes, house rules can have consequences (that's what they are for, after all.) How does that relate to the actual topics of this thread like niche protection, class power imbalances, and a character overshadowing another character (deliberately or inadvertently) to the detriment of the game?

[Darth Ultron]

1) Absolutely nothing in this thread was concerned with house rules, or "gentle tables" until you brought them up at random.
2) You seem to be having trouble grasping that your experiences are not universal, and likewise that people who have seen thing that you have not, are not lying.
3) Yes, house rules can have consequences (that's what they are for, after all.) How does that relate to the actual topics of this thread like niche protection, class power imbalances, and a character overshadowing another character (deliberately or inadvertently) to the detriment of the game?

1)Yes, I brought them up. The thread is about how some people have problems with the game play of some characters over shadowing other characters. I gave reasons why this happens: gentle games and unwise house rules.

2)I'd say well rounded as I have gamed with lots of others. I under stand well that a great many people have only ever gamed with a small number of others. I have gamed with all sorts of people, from one end of the spectrum to the other. Many others, seem to have only gamed with a couple people, that amazingly agree with everything they think.

3)As I said, house rules make it worse and exacerbate the problem. When you take a class and add in unwise houserules, you can make the game much worse.

[BassoonHero]

I'd say well rounded as I have gamed with lots of others. I under stand well that a great many people have only ever gamed with a small number of others. I have gamed with all sorts of people, from one end of the spectrum to the other. Many others, seem to have only gamed with a couple people, that amazingly agree with everything they think.
Is it possible that the combined experiences of everyone else chiming in on this topic may be broader than your own individual experiences?

I mean, look at what this whole disagreement is about. Several people have said that a certain problem (a player accidentally creating a character so powerful that it is disruptive to the party) has occurred in their experience. I don't think I've explicitly said this myself yet, but consider it said now. You say that that problem has never occurred in your experience, and that in fact you believe it to be impossible. Then, you suggest that the culprit may be house rules that no one but you has ever seen used. If none of us has ever seen those house rules used, then obviously they can't be to blame for problems that we have personally observed in games.

I don't want to get into a stick-waving contest about whose D&D experience is the most comprehensive. Suffice it to say that I have gamed with a lot of people over the years. Most people who are still actively commenting on on these forums about D&D 3.5 fifteen years after its release have probably played with more than "a couple people". Unless you are literally Skip Williams, I suspect that you are significantly overestimating the breadth of your own experience in comparison to the combined experience of everyone else.

[Quertus]

[citation needed]

It's certainly common enough that I've seen it repeatedly. I'm having a senile moment, so I'm not sure, but I think that individual saves is most common IME, followed by "mooks always fail AoE saves", followed by group rolls.

[Darth Ultron]

Is it possible that the combined experiences of everyone else chiming in on this topic may be broader than your own individual experiences?

It seems doubtful. I have encountered players that, for example lie and cheat...but nearly every poster will type ''oh I have never even heard of that type of player''.




I mean, look at what this whole disagreement is about. Several people have said that a certain problem (a player accidentally creating a character so powerful that it is disruptive to the party) has occurred in their experience. I don't think I've explicitly said this myself yet, but consider it said now. You say that that problem has never occurred in your experience, and that in fact you believe it to be impossible.

Yes, I do think it is impossible to ''suddenly and accidentally'' make a character so powerful that it is disruptive to the party. It is done willing.



Then, you suggest that the culprit may be house rules that no one but you has ever seen used. If none of us has ever seen those house rules used, then obviously they can't be to blame for problems that we have personally observed in games.

Again, this seems odd. Ok, maybe you have never, ever heard of one specific house rule that I have seen used in a game. That does seem possible, even more so if you only often play with your friends and people that 'agree' with you. Still, the bigger idea: that houserules can disrupt the game is valid. And it seems odd you have never seen that...even once.

Though, granted this is a ''can't see the forest through the trees'' type thing. You play the game with say 25 house rules, and you have the problems that you have personally observed in games. Then you sit back and say ''well the game must be wrong some how'' and ''there is nothing we can do''. Amazingly you can't hold up the mirror and go, ''oh, wait, maybe it could be a house rule or two."

Like I mentioned the Feat Extra Spell and making the houserule that you can take a spell off ANY spell list. Now this is a very common exploit, to grab a powerful spell that would be a high level on one class, but use extra spell to get the super low level version.

And keep in mind, houserules are just one of the five things I mentioned too.



I don't want to get into a stick-waving contest about whose D&D experience is the most comprehensive. Suffice it to say that I have gamed with a lot of people over the years. Most people who are still actively commenting on on these forums about D&D 3.5 fifteen years after its release have probably played with more than "a couple people". Unless you are literally Skip Williams, I suspect that you are significantly overestimating the breadth of your own experience in comparison to the combined experience of everyone else.

Well, I have been gaming 3E right from the start. I live in a populated area. And for years and years I have gamed at 11 different game stores (not counting places like Borders). And I have gamed with way too many people I disagree with, don't like or even hate. Most game stores have polices where you have to let ''everyone'' play. On a good week end that could be ten games with 40 to 50 different people. Plus my two long running games, and a game or two each week. And that is just to start....but really, it's not like it is a contest.

[BassoonHero]

It seems doubtful. I have encountered players that, for example lie and cheat...but nearly every poster will type ''oh I have never even heard of that type of player''.
Rather than making bold predictions about what you imagine that other posters would say, why not instead talk about what they have said?

And if you're thinking of the sentence, “I've never seen a player lie about their skill level either.”, then you will observe that that is much, much more specific than saying that they've never heard of a player lying at all.


Still, the bigger idea: that houserules can disrupt the game is valid. And it seems odd you have never seen that...even once.
I don't see what the point is of your pretending I said things that I never did. All of the posts are out in the open for everyone to read.


You play the game with say 25 house rules, and you have the problems that you have personally observed in games.
You have absolutely no idea whether I play the game with no house rules, with few house rules, or with extensive house rules. Nor, supposing that the answer is other than “none”, do you have any idea what those hypothetical rules are or what impact they have on the game. You pulled this idea completely out of your assumptions.


Like I mentioned the Feat Extra Spell and making the houserule that you can take a spell off ANY spell list.
That's not even a house rule, just an inadvisable interpretation of a badly written feat. (If you're interested in re-litigating the ancient argument about this, I invite you instead to not do that.)


*stick-waving*… but really, it's not like it is a contest.
Sure, Skip. But let me tell you something that I know about your gaming experience: You're deeply insecure about it. You bring it up at every opportunity, whether or not it's actually relevant to the subject at hand. You think that people should defer to your opinions because you've been playing for a long time. You're afraid that they won't respect your opinions otherwise. You associate with other long-time players who similarly view their tenures as confirming their importance. When you disagree with other players, and you think you can get away with it, you impugn their experience either explicitly or by implication in an attempt to assert your grognard authority.

Of course, you'll tell me that I have it all wrong. After all, I don't know you. What grounds have I for such accusations as these? Answer: no lesser grounds than I have for taking your self-aggrandizement at face value. So why don't we put the stick-waving behind us and talk about the subject at hand?

[Darth Ultron]

Of course, you'll tell me that I have it all wrong. After all, I don't know you. What grounds have I for such accusations as these? Answer: no lesser grounds than I have for taking your self-aggrandizement at face value. So why don't we put the stick-waving behind us and talk about the subject at hand?

Well, sure you are wrong.

[upho]

@ Darth Ultron: First, I think a large part of the problem here is caused by you expressing your experiences and opinions as indisputable facts, and often with liberal amounts of hyperbole, piling often unrelated concepts together (optimization, roLLplaying, jerks, poor houserules etc) and/or insisting on definitions of terms which nobody else agrees with:
I think the big point is: it is never an accident.
And even IF it was possible to ''accidentally'' do so: A good player could choose NOT to do so. Even if the character can 'zap' the whole army in one round..the good player knows they don't have to do that and they can take another action(or even change the character).
Good and Bad are very simple.

A Good Player does not be an Over Shadowing Jerk. Very simple. They either simply choose NOT to do it or even just change the character so they can't do it.
Well, to be fair, I'm sure most have seen:

1.The player that is pretending to be a ''new player''. Like gosh, D&D, oh I will randomly be a Doo-Da, that likes nature Dire Wolf...you know all randomly as I am a new player.
Enter: The Optimizing Roll Player. One of the main goals of this player IS to make powerful character. And when you do that, you are going to over shadow others....and it will be no accident. When ever you do anything to the maximum extreme, or otherwise go above and beyond the norm, you will over shadow others.

And so you get the dual problem of the The Optimizing Roll Player: they both HAVE to have a powerful character and they HAVE to use that character to it's fullest no matter what.
This is the real telling bit of such a person. A normal person, one that did accidentally make a powerful character for real, would be more then open to doing something to not disrupt the game by over shadowing others. The normal person has the ability to do things like: not use their characters over powering abilities or even simply change those abilities.

So when the character encounters a group of foes, instead of blowing them all away with the powerful ability, the player can choose to do something else. The Optimizing Roll Player can't.And sometimes, you even claim other posters have said things which they simply never did, in effect telling readers you may even be incapable of reading what other posters write if it doesn't confirm your beliefs, or at least that you often base your conclusions on whatever tone you perceive rather than the what a post actually says:
The Optimizers came in to say they must and have to always be overshadowing and disruptive, no matter what.If you wanted people to actually listen to you and take you seriously, not to mention learn something of value yourself, it doesn't exactly help to throw out what largely reads like the forum equivalent of an emotionally over-charged tantrum while dismissing other posters' arguments and experiences. And I believe you actually know this. Which begs the question: why did you write all these posts?


Second, when it comes to your claims, I have a few questions:
I pointed out the level of disruption is equal to the players game and rule skill mastery. And only a player of great skill in both can be disruptive. A new or casual or clueless player can not ''accidentally'' do anything disruptive.So, you're saying it requires more "game and rule skill mastery" to say build and play a disruptive version of the previously mentioned "flock of wolves" druid than to build and play a well balanced one, regardless of whether the party's other members are three full casters played by very experienced D&D nerds or a rogue, fighter and monk played by inexperienced noobs?


I would note that you can optimize anything. You can optimize a monk, or anything else. To say otherwise is just a more personal thought.
Well, there is no such thing as ''a little optimization'', as if you do that, your not optimizing. So all optimizing is ''super high'', otherwise it would not count.So you're saying a ''super high''-optimized monk will be just as disruptively OP as a ''super high''-optimized wizard or cleric, again regardless of the mechanical qualities of the party's other members and the amount of experience and skill of those playing them?


First, we all agree..right..that no average player can ''accidentally'' make a problem character. Any player that knows the rules, knows what they are doing.So, you're saying it's impossible for a player to build say a disruptive druid without also knowing how powerful the party's other PCs are going to be?


It is simple to not have such problems in a game, as I said:

1.Don't make the game to gentile
2.Scale the game up
3.Use Consequences
4.Make a dynamic complicated game play
5.Be wary of houserulesI don't think I've never participated in or run a 3.5 or PF game where any of these factors would be lacking/inappropriate, much less a cause of serious party balance issues. And at least points 1 - 4 tend to benefit the most powerful PCs far more than the weaker ones. Why am I wrong here?


The group save: this greatly over favors spellcasters. Ten monsters charge a spellcaster, and they cast one spell....the DM makes one save for all ten monsters. So a failed save effects all ten.

No tactics: Monsters just line up out in the open as perfect spell targets.Yeah, these seem pretty horrible, especially when combined. And you're saying it's actually common for DMs/groups to do this?

Regardless, while I can definitely see these increase the risks of casters ending up OP, I'd assume they typically also lessen that risk when it comes to any optimized non-casters. So this is pretty much a zero-sum game as far as you're concerned, right?


No Equipment: Monsters never have much except ''treasure''Do you mean enemies never have gear which make them more difficult to fight, or that the loot is always generic enough to be traded for the perfect items during the party's next visit to the "Magic Mart"? Both?

Seems to me the former would often require quite a bit of extra DM work, since the combat stats listed for virtually all published monsters and NPCs able to use gear include suitable items. And at least with more experienced players, the latter usually benefits the weaker PCs more than the stronger ones IME, since the power of the weaker PCs tend to be far more dependent on magic items. Do you believe I'm wrong here, and if that's the case, why?


Maybe you just need to meet more gamers?Maybe. Though while a large majority of the hours I've spent on the hobby have been with friends in home games, I must have run games for more than a hundred different players, and probably played at least one session with nearly as many. And just to be clear, I have met players who actually were major jerks, they just didn't get the chance to display that side in the game. Or more likely they were smart enough to decide not to do so, since you have to be both a jerk and pretty darn stupid in order to intentionally optimize a PC to break a game. What do you think?


Or maybe the players in Europe are of a different mold then the ones in America. It could very well be a culture type thing.This seems more likely to me, even though I think I've seen a very wide variety of game and play styles during my years in the hobby. Hmmm... If there actually is some general truth in this, I wonder how it came to be. Ideas?

[Darth Ultron]

@ Darth Ultron: First, I think a large part of the problem here is caused by you expressing your experiences and opinions as indisputable facts

Well, a lot of things are facts...even many of the ones you quoted.

Like it is a fact, that a Good Player can choose not to overshadow another.



:And sometimes, you even claim other posters have said things which they simply never did,

Odd that I don't do that. You won't see where I said X said this, unless it is important enough for me to quote it...then you can see X did say that.

I do say ''some players'' or ''Optimizers'' or ''bad players'' do or say X, but that is not talking about any specific person.

And a lot of posters will say things like ''in my storytelling game there is no character death ever'', and I will comment ''so your game uses Plot Armor for characters?" that the poster will get all upset or something.



Second, when it comes to your claims, I have a few questions:So, you're saying it requires more "game and rule skill mastery" to say build and play a disruptive version of the previously mentioned "flock of wolves" druid than to build and play a well balanced one, regardless of whether the party's other members are three full casters played by very experienced D&D nerds or a rogue, fighter and monk played by inexperienced noobs?

Well, any jerk can be disruptive....but yes it takes "game and rule skill mastery" to make a powerful, over shadowing character. D&D is a complex game, and you do need to know what your doing when building a character and playing a character.



So you're saying a ''super high''-optimized monk will be just as disruptively OP as a ''super high''-optimized wizard or cleric, again regardless of the mechanical qualities of the party's other members and the amount of experience and skill of those playing them?

Real life skill and experience always matter. And any player with any character can be disruptive.



So, you're saying it's impossible for a player to build say a disruptive druid without also knowing how powerful the party's other PCs are going to be?

I'm not saying that. Only Optimizers obsess over the ''party'', the other players just make what they want to have fun.



I don't think I've never participated in or run a 3.5 or PF game where any of these factors would be lacking/inappropriate, much less a cause of serious party balance issues. And at least points 1 - 4 tend to benefit the most powerful PCs far more than the weaker ones. Why am I wrong here?

They are common enough, as even a simple search would show.

I'm not really sure how you see 1-4 benefiting the powerful characters?



Do you mean enemies never have gear which make them more difficult to fight, or that the loot is always generic enough to be traded for the perfect items during the party's next visit to the "Magic Mart"? Both?

Mostly foes not having gear.



Seems to me the former would often require quite a bit of extra DM work, since the combat stats listed for virtually all published monsters and NPCs able to use gear include suitable items. And at least with more experienced players, the latter usually benefits the weaker PCs more than the stronger ones IME, since the power of the weaker PCs tend to be far more dependent on magic items. Do you believe I'm wrong here, and if that's the case, why?

The optimizers need magic items much more then other players...lots of tricks and exploits need items.

Or more likely they were smart enough to decide not to do so, since you have to be both a jerk and pretty darn stupid in order to intentionally optimize a PC to break a game. What do you think?[/QUOTE]

The world is full of stupid jerks.



This seems more likely to me, even though I think I've seen a very wide variety of game and play styles during my years in the hobby. Hmmm... If there actually is some general truth in this, I wonder how it came to be. Ideas?

Well, each type of person brings with them who they are to the game.

[upho]

Well, any jerk can be disruptive....but yes it takes "game and rule skill mastery" to make a powerful, over shadowing character. D&D is a complex game, and you do need to know what your doing when building a character and playing a character.

Real life skill and experience always matter. And any player with any character can be disruptive.I'm responding to this first since it appears some clarification is needed: whenever I mention "disruptive" when discussing "optimization", "optimizers" and similar in this thread with you, unless I explicitly say otherwise, I'm referring specifically to being disruptive by building and playing a PC who is clearly mechanically superior to another PC in the party ("overshadow another" in your words). Nothing else.


Well, a lot of things are facts...even many of the ones you quoted.Then why have you not supplied us with the arguments and/or evidence which makes it abundantly clear to everyone that for example:
Optimizer = the only kind of player to "obsess over the ''party''"
Optimizer = roLL player
Optimizer = intentionally disruptive
Optimizer = "HAVE to have a powerful character and they HAVE to use that character to it's fullest no matter what"
Optimizer = unable to do anything but "blowing them all away with the powerful ability" when encountering a group of foes
:smallconfused:


Like it is a fact, that a Good Player can choose not to overshadow another.Most definitely not. See more below.



So, you're saying it requires more "game and rule skill mastery" to say build and play a disruptive version of the previously mentioned "flock of wolves" druid than to build and play a well balanced one, regardless of whether the party's other members are three full casters played by very experienced D&D nerds or a rogue, fighter and monk played by inexperienced noobs?Well, any jerk can be disruptive....but yes it takes "game and rule skill mastery" to make a powerful, over shadowing character. D&D is a complex game, and you do need to know what your doing when building a character and playing a character.The relevant question here is whether you believe it takes more "game and rule skill mastery" to make a disruptive version of said druid than it takes to:

Realize a certain option or combination of options will eventually result in a disruptive version
Realize which option or combination of options to change, should the version played turn out to be disruptive
Make a version which will be balanced to the party, game and group in question, even though that may require drastically different builds depending on those factors

So far, you have insisted a player doesn't need nearly the same levels of "game and rule skill mastery" to do any of these as the player needs to build a disruptive PC. Do you see how this is logically impossible, per definition paradoxical?



So you're saying a ''super high''-optimized monk will be just as disruptively OP as a ''super high''-optimized wizard or cleric, again regardless of the mechanical qualities of the party's other members and the amount of experience and skill of those playing them?Real life skill and experience always matter.

So, you're saying it's impossible for a player to build say a disruptive druid without also knowing how powerful the party's other PCs are going to be?I'm not saying that. Only Optimizers obsess over the ''party'', the other players just make what they want to have fun.But if you're not aware of the other players' skill and experience or the power of their PCs, just how in the Bony Buttocks of Baalzebul is a player supposed to be "a Good Player" and "choose not to overshadow another"? By trusting their gut feeling? Asking their magic 8-ball? Saying "above 10 means my build is fine" and roll a d20?

And speaking of, do you think it's possible for a player to have more skill and experience building a certain class/type of PC than another? And do you think certain classes/types of PC builds require less skill and experience to make disruptive than others in general?


Odd that I don't do that. You won't see where I said X said this, unless it is important enough for me to quote it...then you can see X did say that.

I do say ''some players'' or ''Optimizers'' or ''bad players'' do or say X, but that is not talking about any specific person.Well, obviously none of the many "optimizers" who have been posting in this thread, despite your original claim being that this is something optimizers otherwise do seemingly per default in your world. But fair enough, you didn't directly quote someone else.


I'm not really sure how you see 1-4 benefiting the powerful characters?Quick rundown in red:
1.Don't make the game to gentile The tougher the game, the more powerful a PC needs to be in order to succeed and survive.
2.Scale the game up The more varied the challenges, the less often the weaker PCs' specializations will tend to come into play (as they're typically some limited form of combat), and the more the powerful PCs' greater versatility will matter.
3.Use Consequences The more powerful the PC, the more capable of avoiding and dealing with consequences, and vice versa.
4.Make a dynamic complicated game play The more powerful the PC, the greater probability of having effective tools for complicated situations and the greater the adaptability to shifting demands, and vice versa.


Mostly foes not having gear.Odd. Not that I don't believe you, but it just seems like a stupid thing to do even if your goal is to be a lazy DM.


The optimizers need magic items much more then other players...lots of tricks and exploits need items.The more limited access to magic items, the stronger casters - especially full casters - become, as their power doesn't depend nearly as much on items as even the minimum viability level of power of non-casters do. But again, this typically isn't as pronounced in games with inexperienced players, and especially not during earlier levels.

Oh wait... I forgot you don't believe there's a power disparity between monks and druids, both classes being equally likely to end up disruptive regardless of the particulars of the game, other PCs and players. Sorry! :smallamused:


The world is full of stupid jerks.You mean it's full of stupid jerks who wish to intentionally ruin your games, right? :smallwink:


Well, each type of person brings with them who they are to the game.That's pretty much the reason I'm wondering if culture could have much impact. I mean, there aren't that significant general differences between say most Swedes and most Americans when it comes to other similar activities AFAIK.

[Mordaedil]

Darth Ultron is an oddity even in the American side of things, I can say, albeit his rarity stretches back to a toxic DM background established many years ago, which they've tried very hard to get rid of since.

[Cosi]

No tactics: Monsters just line up out in the open as perfect spell targets.

No Equipment: Monsters never have much except ''treasure''

Making encounters harder doesn't favor weaker characters.


1) Absolutely nothing in this thread was concerned with house rules, or "gentle tables" until you brought them up at random.

Darth Ultron said gentile, not gentle. Presumably he's concerned that being allowed to eat bacon or work on the sabbath makes casters too powerful.


*Spontaneous metamagic does not take any longer than regular metamagic.
*Free Eschew Materials and Rapid Metamagic for spontaneous casters.

Making the gap between Sorcerers and Wizards smaller doesn't make the gap between Wizards and Fighters larger. It may well make the gap between characters smaller if people who would otherwise make martials instead make Sorcerers.


*The Extra Spell feat lets you pick from any class list.

I'm not even sure this counts a houserule. This is just doing what the text in the book says. Certainly you're supposed to check the FAQ/Errata/wherever this is, but many people won't. Also, if you don't like that, you're sure not going to like the Artificer or the Chameleon, entire classes which exist purely to encourage people to plunder obscure spell lists for great power.

[Andor13]

Darth Ultron said gentile, not gentle. Presumably he's concerned that being allowed to eat bacon or work on the sabbath makes casters too powerful.

Well obviously being allowed to cast on the Sabbath would be more powerful than being an Orthodox Spellcaster, but it's won't make much difference to Reform Wizards who don't consider magic to be work. :smallbiggrin:

[upho]

Well obviously being allowed to cast on the Sabbath would be more powerful than being an Orthodox Spellcaster, but it's won't make much difference to Reform Wizards who don't consider magic to be work. :smallbiggrin:Wizards? Cheating infidels the lot of them, regardless of denomination. Now just imagine playing a Druid who accidentally eats a bit of cow, or a Cleric who simply forgot to shut down a teeny tiny little DMM persisted protection from evil before Saturday turned into Sunday? Then you're properly screwed in a "not too gentile"-game which "uses consequences", the DM declaring you've lost virtually all your class features as a consequence of your blatant lack of piety!

(BTW, does anyone know where to find detect bacon and detect cow spells?)

[Quertus]

(BTW, does anyone know where to find detect bacon and detect cow spells?)

Quertus, my signature academia mage, for whom this account is named, has got you covered! He has created a custom detect spell which, given a piece of flesh from a creature (or, heck, a whole creature - the spell isn't picky) to use as a focus, will detect the presence of creatures (or pieces thereof) of the same type.

Handy for finding pieces of regenerating creatures, or answering the inevitable "are there more?".

[Darth Ultron]

Then why have you not supplied us with the arguments and/or evidence which makes it abundantly clear to everyone

I do so often in many of my posts.



The relevant question here is whether you believe it takes more "game and rule skill mastery" to make a disruptive version of said druid than it takes to:

Realize a certain option or combination of options will eventually result in a disruptive version
Realize which option or combination of options to change, should the version played turn out to be disruptive
Make a version which will be balanced to the party, game and group in question, even though that may require drastically different builds depending on those factors

So far, you have insisted a player doesn't need nearly the same levels of "game and rule skill mastery" to do any of these as the player needs to build a disruptive PC. Do you see how this is logically impossible, per definition paradoxical?


1.It does take game and rule skill mastery to ''Realize a certain option or combination of options will eventually result in a disruptive version".
2.It does not take game and rule skill mastery to change things.
3.You need game and rule skill mastery and be an optimizer to do this, yes.

To put it simply: You must know the rules of the game and how to play the game to do anything of great effect in the game.

Any five year old can roll a d20 and make a simple attack, but you must have a lot of game and rule skill mastery to make a powerful character with tons of abilities.



But if you're not aware of the other players' skill and experience or the power of their PCs, just how in the Bony Buttocks of Baalzebul is a player supposed to be "a Good Player" and "choose not to overshadow another"? By trusting their gut feeling? Asking their magic 8-ball? Saying "above 10 means my build is fine" and roll a d20?

Well, you should be able to get a good sense of things as you play the game. Also, you can pick things that are not super powerful even at a glance.



And speaking of, do you think it's possible for a player to have more skill and experience building a certain class/type of PC than another? And do you think certain classes/types of PC builds require less skill and experience to make disruptive than others in general?

A player might have a bit more focus on one area then another, but a lot of rule and system mastery is general. For example, they need to understand the actions and how to use them in the game.



Well, obviously none of the many "optimizers" who have been posting in this thread, despite your original claim being that this is something optimizers otherwise do seemingly per default in your world. But fair enough, you didn't directly quote someone else.

It's common that the people I'm talking about don't post anything.



Quick rundown in red:
1.Don't make the game to gentile The tougher the game, the more powerful a PC needs to be in order to succeed and survive.
2.Scale the game up The more varied the challenges, the less often the weaker PCs' specializations will tend to come into play (as they're typically some limited form of combat), and the more the powerful PCs' greater versatility will matter.
3.Use Consequences The more powerful the PC, the more capable of avoiding and dealing with consequences, and vice versa.
4.Make a dynamic complicated game play The more powerful the PC, the greater probability of having effective tools for complicated situations and the greater the adaptability to shifting demands, and vice versa.

1.Less gentile is not just pure 'toughness', it applies to everything equally.
2.Scale covers a lot in the game. The more variations are more beneficial to the focused characters.
3.The point here is to simply not make that possible, as that is exactly what I'm talking about.
4.Not true, as 'power' is relative. Just as they have 'power' does not mean they can do anything.



The more limited access to magic items, the stronger casters - especially full casters - become, as their power doesn't depend nearly as much on items as even the minimum viability level of power of non-casters do. But again, this typically isn't as pronounced in games with inexperienced players, and especially not during earlier levels.

Optimized characters need magic items, far more then normal characters. For example, the optimizing jerk that has a character with an eternal wand of knock that they use to over shadow and bully any other player that has a character with the open lock skill...suddenly can't do it if they don't have the wand.



That's pretty much the reason I'm wondering if culture could have much impact. I mean, there aren't that significant general differences between say most Swedes and most Americans when it comes to other similar activities AFAIK.

I'd say we have huge differences.

[BassoonHero]

To put it simply: You must know the rules of the game and how to play the game to do anything of great effect in the game.

Any five year old can roll a d20 and make a simple attack, but you must have a lot of game and rule skill mastery to make a powerful character with tons of abilities.
Honestly, I'm not sure that there's anything to talk about at this point. You steadfastly maintain that something is impossible even while other posters tell you that they've seen with their own eyes.

You try to explain away these experiences by:

- Claiming that the player of the disruptive character must have been an expert lying about his level of knowledge, and that the rest of us are just too naive to see it.
- Claiming that a bevy of bizarre house rules are to blame, even though none of us uses any of them.
- Equivocating, using the same words to mean substantially different things within the same post and in subsequent posts.
- Asserting, inexplicably, that your experience is more typical than everyone else's.

[Darth Ultron]

Honestly, I'm not sure that there's anything to talk about at this point. You steadfastly maintain that something is impossible even while other posters tell you that they've seen with their own eyes.

Maybe a recap?

1.So the claim was mad that 'a lot of people' have seen the ''accidental surprise overshadow'' thing. Where they, or another player, is 'just' playing the game...and somehow 'suddenly' they overshadow one or more of the other characters. And this is a 'shock and surprise' to the one doing the overshadowing as they did not intend to do it...it 'just happened'.

2.I said that it is never an accident: people who do this are intending to do so. That A) It is just about impossible to random pick things like feats and spells that will ''suddenly overshadow others without the player knowing this will happen", a player needs a lot of game rule and system mastery to do this. The combo of feat+spell only works if you have both the right feat and spell, and you must know the right ones and pick them. B)Even if you did random pick a good ability, it again, still takes a lot of game rule and skill mastery to use it. This is very true of spellcasters. A player random picks a good spell, that is possible...but they need to know when and how to use it to have any real effect and overshadow others. They can't just cast the spell on round one of the game and disrupt things. C) Even IF the overshadwing was to come up: the player, if they are a good player, has the option of not doing anything. The character might have a bag of holding with 100 wands of knock, but the player can still have the character do nothing...and let Bob's skillmonkey character open the locked door.

3.People claim that everything I say is wrong. Even oddly the one above of ''you do not have to be an overshadwing jerk player'', and you'd think any good person would agree with that.

4.I mentioned a lot of players mislead. Again, you have to know what your doing to take a mix of abilities, feats and spells to ''suddenly by surprise'' do something. So when you take X, that lets you do an effect like say double damage, you do know what your doing(you did read X, right?)

5.It's five points I made that lead to overshadwing in games, houserules are just one of them. I listed some examples of such house rules, and said there are many more. Though everyone only focused on the ''house rules they have never heard of". And this is a good example of the misleading idea, as lots of games do the ''Free Eschew Materials and Rapid Metamagic for spontaneous casters".



- Asserting, inexplicably, that your experience is more typical than everyone else's.

Well, more diverse, yes.

[Arbane]

Well, more diverse, yes.

And de longer you play, diverse it gets?

[Darth Ultron]

And de longer you play, diverse it gets?

No, not at all.

Like all real diversity is has to be forced into being. It does not 'just happen'.

[Andor13]

No, not at all.

Like all real diversity is has to be forced into being. It does not 'just happen'.

Well, we know who took the dodge feat.

[Sun Elemental]

it is never an accident: people who do this are intending to do so.
It is just about impossible to random pick things like feats and spells that will ''suddenly overshadow others without the player knowing this will happen", a player needs a lot of game rule and system mastery to do this.
A player random picks a good spell, that is possible...but they need to know when and how to use it to have any real effect and overshadow others. They can't just cast the spell on round one of the game and disrupt things.

It's a game that can be played by young teenagers, not quantum physics. You can be playing your first session, and overshadow people.

1. Until lvl7, every Druid has companion that's their level or higher, just helping in combat. They overshadow other inexperienced people playing fighters or rogues just by choosing a particular class.
2. Just picking a monk, compared to someone lucky enough to not pick monk. Especially with low ability scores.
3. A fighter who doesn't really understand how bad dual-wielding is when your offhand isn't a light weapon, vs a fighter who 2-hands a greatsword. The greatsword guy can pick literally any feats at all, he'll do better in a every combat.
4. Someone makes a Wizard, they give themselves an 18 Int because the rulebook points out that Int is important. They have DC15 Color Sprays, and when they cast it on round one, the encounter is over.
5. Same game, the party is lvl3 now and the Wizard is throwing out DC16 Glitterdusts on round one. Same result.

I feel like your definition of "not system mastery" is people picking classes, spells and feats at random, or accidentally making weak characters.
Then people with who make accidentally good characters, people making a pretty good character like a Whirling Frenzy Barbarian, and a Tippyverse Wizard with a pet dragon Simulacrum all have "system mastery". You're putting very different people into one category that's separate from a badly-defined other category, then insulting them.



Even IF the overshadwing was to come up: the player, if they are a good player, has the option of not doing anything. The character might have a bag of holding with 100 wands of knock, but the player can still have the character do nothing...and let Bob's skillmonkey character open the locked door.



Only Optimizers obsess over the ''party'', the other players just make what they want to have fun.

Ah yes... it's great when a powerful character's best path of action is "do nothing". But if you communicate with your fellow players and make characters that don't do each other's jobs... it's dirty bad optimizing?

[EldritchWeaver]

Maybe a recap?

1.So the claim was mad that 'a lot of people' have seen the ''accidental surprise overshadow'' thing. Where they, or another player, is 'just' playing the game...and somehow 'suddenly' they overshadow one or more of the other characters. And this is a 'shock and surprise' to the one doing the overshadowing as they did not intend to do it...it 'just happened'.

2.I said that it is never an accident: people who do this are intending to do so. That A) It is just about impossible to random pick things like feats and spells that will ''suddenly overshadow others without the player knowing this will happen", a player needs a lot of game rule and system mastery to do this. The combo of feat+spell only works if you have both the right feat and spell, and you must know the right ones and pick them. B)Even if you did random pick a good ability, it again, still takes a lot of game rule and skill mastery to use it. This is very true of spellcasters. A player random picks a good spell, that is possible...but they need to know when and how to use it to have any real effect and overshadow others. They can't just cast the spell on round one of the game and disrupt things. C) Even IF the overshadwing was to come up: the player, if they are a good player, has the option of not doing anything. The character might have a bag of holding with 100 wands of knock, but the player can still have the character do nothing...and let Bob's skillmonkey character open the locked door.

...

4.I mentioned a lot of players mislead. Again, you have to know what your doing to take a mix of abilities, feats and spells to ''suddenly by surprise'' do something. So when you take X, that lets you do an effect like say double damage, you do know what your doing(you did read X, right?)

Let me provide my own experience. So for a game I then intended to join I got permission to make a SoP-based character. I collaborated with the GM in regards of my character - a shapeshifting unicorn pretending to be horse, so in battle enemies attack someone else, while still blasting everyone else. (Now I know that you will say that the unicorn makes a powerful character. In theory true, but in practice due to various circumstances the realized difference to a normal character was quite small. The biggest payoff was during the relevant timeframe that I could pull two trolls myself instead renting a horse.) The decision to be a blaster I made after looking at the list of various niches my GM gave me. The idea with unicorn came to me, because I realized that this would be the closest to an MLP game I'd get. The shapeshifting and bluffing I thought of after the GM's remark that unicorns might be valuable in the dead state, so I avoided this problem by not appearing as a unicorn and a caster. In the end, I had an optimized character which was capable covering several niches (because I like being able to do something) at the expense that I wouldn't be the best at anything compared to a specializing optimized character (except bluffing - I need that for Cunning Caster (for concealing the spellcasting) to work).

The problem I didn't realize was that the other players hadn't optimized characters. I hadn't talked with them about their characters in depth beforehand either. So I really was surprised that my character was able to compete with most of the party in their niches and be better than the supposed specialists. In fact, my unicorn was built better than I surmised initially. When the rogue decided not to scout a cave because of the high chance of being discovered, I was able to take over the job, because I could both fly and shrink down to Diminutive size. I thought of this only after the rogue declined.

So in regards to 1., 2. and 4. - yes, it is possible to overshadow people without intending to and not to realize the actual abilities of the build until you actually play.

(Also, I did tone down my playing after the others complained, in case you wonder.)

[Quertus]

Oooh, I've got a story to add!

So, this one time (not at band camp), the GM gave everyone in the (D&D) party cool new bodies, with cool new abilities.

I tested out the limits of what my abilities were, and used them accordingly.

I totally ROFLStomped everything that session.

After the fact, I looked back, and, metagaming, saw how the GM intended the session to go. 7 PCs, 7 bodies, 7 challenges. 6 were successfully designed for 6 challenges; the 7th - mine - was, in my hands (and especially in my character's hands), a bloody nightmare powerhouse of winning at everything.

The GM completely unintentionally gave me a tool that overshadowed everyone else, and, not metagaming until after the session, I completely overshadowed everyone else without realizing it until after the fact.

I try to be a little more aware during the session these days. :smallredface:

[Darth Ultron]

1. Until lvl7, every Druid has companion that's their level or higher, just helping in combat. They overshadow other inexperienced people playing fighters or rogues just by choosing a particular class.


This is exactly my point though. You, and optimizer just see the druids companion as a pure awesome combat ability. And I'm sure in game play you are flanking, aiding another, fighting combo of death, doom and destruction. Try and grasp that a player might, for example, never have their animal companion attack.



4. Someone makes a Wizard, they give themselves an 18 Int because the rulebook points out that Int is important. They have DC15 Color Sprays, and when they cast it on round one, the encounter is over.


My point here is still the player needs to know what they are doing. The foe on round one is a skeleton. So, color spray is wasted. Or foe is 25 feet away. Or foe is sightless.



I feel like your definition of "not system mastery" is people picking classes, spells and feats at random, or accidentally making weak characters.

If you don't have ''mastery'', the best you will make is an ''average'' character and you will only get ''average'' use out of it. D&D has a ton of rules...a player needs to understand them all to have and run an effective optimized powerful character.


Let me provide my own experience.

Well, your example is ''the DM being too gentile'' and....HOUSERULES!

And sure, when the DM is too nice, and changes the rules, then sure you might build a super powerful character.

[EldritchWeaver]

Well, your example is ''the DM being too gentile'' and....HOUSERULES!

And sure, when the DM is too nice, and changes the rules, then sure you might build a super powerful character.

I don't dispute that having houserules enabled the actual build. Still, not knowing the relative capabilities of the other group members and not noticing a powerful combo does not require any houserules. The former happens simply via not communicating enough, the latter lurks in D&D, too (e.g. cast Solid Fog and Stinking Cloud on the same area).

[BassoonHero]

Try and grasp that a player might, for example, never have their animal companion attack.
This is the fatal flaw in your position: it does not account for the large number of players with a basic understanding of the rules and a pulse.

Your examples are absolutely ridiculous.

- What if it doesn't occur to the druid that a pet wolf could be helpful in combat?
- What if the player doesn't read the range entry on their spell and casts it at nothing?
- What if the player doesn't read the spell text and casts it in a situation where it could not possibly have any effect?

The problem with your argument isn't that such players don't exist. We've all seen players utterly fail to grasp the basic mechanics of their own characters. The problem is that there is a much larger subset of players who lack a thorough understanding of 3.5 game balance but have read the manual and are not stupid. At every turn, you refuse to address this gap.

Casting color spray on a group of enemies is not rocket science. You don't need to be Sun Tzu. You don't need to be an optimizer. You don't need to read anything outside the Player's Handbook. You hardly need to read anything in the Player's Handbook. The most intuitively obvious thing to do with an area effect spell is to cast it on multiple enemies. The range is listed directly in the spell block (there's not even anything to calculate). It says right in the text that it doesn't work on sightless creatures. It says [Mind-Affecting] up at the top, and even if you don't bother to read the rules for mind-affecting spells it seems pretty obvious that a spell that is mind-affecting won't affect something without a mind (and if it is somehow unclear, then this is the sort of mistake that most players will make exactly once).

[AnimeTheCat]

It's a game that can be played by young teenagers, not quantum physics. You can be playing your first session, and overshadow people.

1. Until lvl7, every Druid has companion that's their level or higher, just helping in combat. They overshadow other inexperienced people playing fighters or rogues just by choosing a particular class.
2. Just picking a monk, compared to someone lucky enough to not pick monk. Especially with low ability scores.
3. A fighter who doesn't really understand how bad dual-wielding is when your offhand isn't a light weapon, vs a fighter who 2-hands a greatsword. The greatsword guy can pick literally any feats at all, he'll do better in a every combat.
4. Someone makes a Wizard, they give themselves an 18 Int because the rulebook points out that Int is important. They have DC15 Color Sprays, and when they cast it on round one, the encounter is over.
5. Same game, the party is lvl3 now and the Wizard is throwing out DC16 Glitterdusts on round one. Same result.

I feel like your definition of "not system mastery" is people picking classes, spells and feats at random, or accidentally making weak characters.
Then people with who make accidentally good characters, people making a pretty good character like a Whirling Frenzy Barbarian, and a Tippyverse Wizard with a pet dragon Simulacrum all have "system mastery". You're putting very different people into one category that's separate from a badly-defined other category, then insulting them.



Ah yes... it's great when a powerful character's best path of action is "do nothing". But if you communicate with your fellow players and make characters that don't do each other's jobs... it's dirty bad optimizing?

These are just my thoughts on your 5 points. Take the as the opinions they are.

1) I will agree, and can attest to, the situations Darth Ultron is talking about. Your statement is mostly correct, in the sense that yes every druid does have an animal companion. It is incorrect that said animal companion will be helping in combat, and that said animal companion will be overshadowing anyone, including inexperienced fighters. For example, a druid could select any of the many core subpar animal companions such as the badger, camel, dire rat, eagle, hawk, owl, pony, or snake. I have seen each of them selected as the animal companion and each used for non-combat functions. On top of that, there is added difficulty of tricks that are bound to the intelligence of the creature. But I digress. You aren't wrong, every druid gets an animal companion, you are wrong that every animal companion will be better in all combat situations than an inexperienced fighter.
2) if we are considering inexperienced decisions, monk isn't the worst. Your body deals scaling damage, starting off as the same as a short sword. As an inexperienced player, one of the first characters I played was a monk. We rolled stats, and I had 13/16/12/12/16/11. They clearly weren't great. I even made subpar feat choices like dodge and improved grapple. The party's druid had a wolf companion that went around biting and trip attempting. I too was going around punching for the same damage and trip attempting and being more successful. I was surviving encounters better than the wizard as well. We were all inexperienced and it showed. (More about said wizard in point 4 and 5). In other words, I didn't feel overshadowed in that situation and I didn't regret picking a monk, especially when I was getting a better two weapon fighting with what equated to dual welding greatswords.
3)on the note of two weapon fighting, I feel that it is slightly dishonest to consider that a druid will read the feat text of natural spell, but a player wanting to dual weird as a fighter wouldn't read the feat text of two weapon fighting and decided to dual weird longs words or something. If you consider selecting a feat and then poorly utilizing it for one example, but grant privilege of knowledge or even luck to another, that argument is flawed in its inception. If you argued that a druid selecting a hawk would contribute better or more than a fighter using two one handed weapons, I would still argue against that, but I that's an opinion. Bottom line, keep the arguments equal or you don't really have one. Anyone can argue "good x is better than bad y".
4/5) on the topic of spellcraft, as someone else pointed out, I agree that you must first even consider that a spell with a save like color spray is superior to magic missile or other saveless direct damaging spells. Once that is in consideration, you have to account for positioning and risk vs reward. Color spray is a 15' cone. That's plenty close enough for any enemy to give you a whak if they pass their save. And at levels 1-2, your mesley 6-12 hp (if you bothered with a 14 con) isn't going to take you far and, if we're talking inexperienced here, you probably have an AC of 12-13. Even if we're talking probability here, it's not a flat 75% chance of knocking all of them out its a 27/64 chance, so less than 50% chance of knocking 3 enemies without a will save bonus out all at once. Hardly a "combat ender" if you ask me. And that all is dependent upon being able to even get all 3 combatants in the same spell effect area. Intelligent enemies are likely to go one of two ways. Target the weakest looking opponents first (wizards or monks as they don't have much in the way of weapons or armor) or target the songs looking ones first (clerics, fighters, paladins, as they usually have heavier arms and armor equipped). Most intelligent opponents I know don't bunch themselves up. Think about dodgeball, most intelligent players spread out and cover wider areas so as to create more elusive targets and it prevent rebounds from getting them out. Beyond 1st level, starting at level 3, you get that +1 DC from higher spell level, meanwhile those CR1/3 or 1/2 creatures at level 1 are CR1 creatures now and probably have +1 to their will save, at least, making the prbability of a total enemy KO in one spell, less than 50% likely, even less still considering area of effect and line of effect.

Those are just my thoughts from reading what you wrote. I appreciate your opinions and views, I just happen to disagree that the game is in such diametric opposition to itself as you claimed, especially when considering inexperience on both ends.


This is the fatal flaw in your position: it does not account for the large number of players with a basic understanding of the rules and a pulse.

Your examples are absolutely ridiculous.

- What if it doesn't occur to the druid that a pet wolf could be helpful in combat?
- What if the player doesn't read the range entry on their spell and casts it at nothing?
- What if the player doesn't read the spell text and casts it in a situation where it could not possibly have any effect?

The problem with your argument isn't that such players don't exist. We've all seen players utterly fail to grasp the basic mechanics of their own characters. The problem is that there is a much larger subset of players who lack a thorough understanding of 3.5 game balance but have read the manual and are not stupid. At every turn, you refuse to address this gap.

Casting color spray on a group of enemies is not rocket science. You don't need to be Sun Tzu. You don't need to be an optimizer. You don't need to read anything outside the Player's Handbook. You hardly need to read anything in the Player's Handbook. The most intuitively obvious thing to do with an area effect spell is to cast it on multiple enemies. The range is listed directly in the spell block (there's not even anything to calculate). It says right in the text that it doesn't work on sightless creatures. It says [Mind-Affecting] up at the top, and even if you don't bother to read the rules for mind-affecting spells it seems pretty obvious that a spell that is mind-affecting won't affect something without a mind (and if it is somehow unclear, then this is the sort of mistake that most players will make exactly once).

A pet wolf would certainly be useful in combat, but there are far more options that "wolf" for animal companions. See my response to point 1 above for more on that opinion of mine.

There are arguments against "less privileged" classes that have assumed not reading the basics, like the above comment about two weapon fighting without an off-hand light weapon. See point 3 about how I feel about that. As a caveat, a fighter, barbarian, monk, ranger, rogue, or paladin have less content to read than a wizard, cleric, sorcerer, or druid. Would it be safe to surmise that an individual playing one of those classes would understand their content better since they have less to read? I'm playing devil's advocate because I don't believe that is the case and I believe everyone glosses over somethings at some point. There are regulars on these forums that forget basics too and they've been involved for years. It just happens.

I feel like you underestimate what pop culture has made people think about magic. A lot of new players immediately gravitate to evocation and, even after reading color spray, will still pick damage spells over others. This is even more outwardly true of new sorcerers, in my experience. I am no official source, but I tend to see fewer new players pick what are commonly considered "smart" choices and more pick spells based on damaging effect. What's more, a DC 15 spell is not impossible to beat at level one for a CR 1/3 or CR 1/2 critter, and doesn't just immediately end combat. I explained this above too. I would argue that if a player came from a particular background, like support role in a MOBA or similar, they would be more inclined to pick those less damaging options. This is just my experience and opinion. I regularly run games at the local comic shop that are geared towards new players to get them interested in the hobby and game, so it is an area I have a fair bit of experience in.

Again, I appreciate you sharing your opinions and viewpoints, even if ours differ from each others.

[BassoonHero]

For example, a druid could select any of the many core subpar animal companions such as the badger, camel, dire rat, eagle, hawk, owl, pony, or snake. I have seen each of them selected as the animal companion and each used for non-combat functions.
That's true. The player might choose an animal companion that will significantly contribute to interparty balance problems, or they might choose one that will have little effect. An experienced optimizer would choose a combination of abilities, including an animal companion, that harmonizes with the rest of the party without overshadowing them. A novice player doesn't have the system mastery to do that. This is the problem.


on the note of two weapon fighting, I feel that it is slightly dishonest to consider that a druid will read the feat text of natural spell, but a player wanting to dual weird as a fighter wouldn't read the feat text of two weapon fighting and decided to dual weird longs words or something.
The difference is that understanding why Natural Spell is good is easy — you can now do both of the things you're best at the same time — while understanding why Two-Weapon Fighting is bad requires that you crunch the numbers. TWF is a trap for a fighter because it sounds really cool but makes you worse at fighting (unless you're doing something complicated, but a novice player probably isn't). The standard “good feat” for a fighter is Power Attack, but understanding why requires more number-crunching, and it's complicated to use well. Rapid Shot is a good example of a fighter-oriented feat that both sounds cool and is actually good.


As a caveat, a fighter, barbarian, monk, ranger, rogue, or paladin have less content to read than a wizard, cleric, sorcerer, or druid. Would it be safe to surmise that an individual playing one of those classes would understand their content better since they have less to read?
No. Spellcasters are easier to build and to run effectively (I didn't say optimally). Fighters, in particular, are faced with an intimidating gauntlet of irrevocable decisions, there are many more bad decisions than good ones, and it's hard for a novice to tell which is which. Fighter-types also rely a lot more on synergistic abilities, and it's very unlikely that a novice player will luck into a sequence of good choices.

It's easy to underestimate the learning curve for melee combat — tactical movement, full attacks, flanking, attacks of opportunity, and so on. Casting a spell is relatively simple. For one thing, the spellcaster action economy is simpler, at least at the novice level. Most of the time, you move and cast a spell, or cast a spell and move. Routing movement is a lot easier when you don't want (or need) to be near the enemy in the first place. Sure, all of those fiddly combat rules do apply to you, but when they're relevant the appropriate response is usually to run away until they aren't anymore. Casting spells generally requires fewer rolls (for the player, at least). There are fewer situational bonuses and penalties that apply.

And from a build perspective, picking spells is much easier and more forgiving than picking a fighter's feats. If you aren't satisfied with a spell, you can pick another one. (Sorry, sorcerers.) While fighters are rewarded for carefully choosing synergistic abilities, spells generally work on their own. The text of a spell is all in one place, and it's usually easy to see what the spell is for and when it should be used. When a spell fizzles, it's usually easy for even a novice to see why.

I see a lot of new players choosing the fighter class because it looks easier than managing spells. I see a lot of new players picking Dodge and Weapon Focus as bonus feats. Most of them never figure out that their feats suck. I also see a lot of new players picking Burning Hands, and most of them figure out that it sucks and prepare a different spell next time. (Sorry, sorcerers.)


A lot of new players immediately gravitate to evocation and, even after reading color spray, will still pick damage spells over others.
Sure. And this isn't a bad thing; arguably, spellcaster balance was based on the assumption that players would pick Burning Hands instead of Color Spray, and Fireball instead of Stinking Cloud. And — as I said about druids above — a skilled optimizer can deliberately design their character for party balance. But a novice is going to pick whatever jumps out at them, and if the right spells jump out at them, this can be a real problem.

[JNAProductions]

I guess some of the disconnect here is that we, the people saying you can accidentally overshadow others, are not saying it ALWAYS happens, or anything like that. A Druid can pick an owl animal companion and not overshadow the Monk or Fighter. But if they choose a wolf, then there's a good chance they will, simply because the wolf has good stats and a nice trip ability.

[AnimeTheCat]

I guess some of the disconnect here is that we, the people saying you can accidentally overshadow others, are not saying it ALWAYS happens, or anything like that. A Druid can pick an owl animal companion and not overshadow the Monk or Fighter. But if they choose a wolf, then there's a good chance they will, simply because the wolf has good stats and a nice trip ability.

Eh... I'll take a fighter with combat expertise and improved trip over a wolf pretty much 100% of the time. The fighter is going to have a higher strength score, and an inherent +4 to trip before other modifiers. Additionally, will have full BAB and only need a touch attack to initiate the trip before getti g a free attack with what equates to a +4 bonus to the attack roll (in the form of a -4 AC penalty for being prone).

The wolf has slightly higher HP (possibly only equal) but lower damage than a sword/shield fighter. Also it will need to make a successful melee attack to attempt its meager +1 trip attempt. This may be effective at level 1, possibly even 2, but after that it won't keep up while that inherent +4 bonus from improved trip will keep a fighter's trip relevant longer.

BassoonHero, I will respond to your thoughts, but tomorrow, when I've slept and I'm not on my phone.

[JNAProductions]

Right... But all the Druid had to do to achieve that is think "Hey, wolves are predators. That'll be good in a fight,", whereas the Fighter needs to realize that tripping is something to specialize in, and if really doing it well, needs a reach weapon with tripping, such as the spiked chain, and allocate their stats right so they can have a decent strength score while having enough dex for Combat Reflexes...

[Sun Elemental]

AnimeTheCat, I respect your opinion and typing stamina, but I wasn't intending to spark an exact deliberation of numbers and such.
1) I honestly was just working with the assumption that new players who realize they get a combat pet, would choose a wolf, hunting dog, bear or large predatory cat. However, it is possible to pick something like a skunk, as a player of mine did.
2) I just wanted to make a Monk joke, forgive me.
3) In terms of fictional characters who dual-wield, I can't think of a single person who does the 'optimal' combination of 1hander+dagger. It's either a pair of 1h cool weapons like swords, axes or maces, or the 'almost optimal' double daggers. And if someone's making a Drizzt clone, they're dual-wielding scimitars. Roronoa Zoro or Deadpool? That's katanas. Even action movie heroes, dual guns. And I assume some people will ignore the text of TWF to do the cool thing.
4/5) I didn't want to consider all the statistics because it becomes an argument of "Your argument is invalid because you forgot this bonus or this rule". However, your points are fair.



Try and grasp that a player might, for example, never have their animal companion attack.

A Druid player is explicitly given the AC, attack bonus, damage, etc of their companion. If they don't think to have it attack, they might not think to attack at all if playing a fighter. They can both be equally passive and unskilled!



A Story
Is that the story behind your avatar? That's awesome!

[EldritchWeaver]

Is that the story behind your avatar? That's awesome!

Yes and thanks!

[Quertus]

This is exactly my point though. You, and optimizer just see the druids companion as a pure awesome combat ability. And I'm sure in game play you are flanking, aiding another, fighting combo of death, doom and destruction. Try and grasp that a player might, for example, never have their animal companion attack.

My point here is still the player needs to know what they are doing. The foe on round one is a skeleton. So, color spray is wasted. Or foe is 25 feet away. Or foe is sightless.

On the one hand, I've played with 7-year-olds who had sufficient sense to make that seem a laughable suggestion.

On the other hand, I've played with college-educated adults who've done just that. :smallredface:

Also, one of my players had a character who miraculously survived several deaths by being outside the AoE. In retrospect, I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't coincidence, and he might not have actually planned it...


(Also, I did tone down my playing after the others complained, in case you wonder.)

So, um, what did this look like in practice?

[Eldariel]

In the first two of my games of 3e that transitioned to 3.5 over the years, I (playing Fighter 6/Wizard 1/Arcane Archer in the first and Fighter 4/Scout 2/Dervish in the second) was overshadowed by party casters with equally little experience. In the first game we got to level 13-14 trying to believe against the increasingly strong evidence that the party Wizard and Cleric were more useful than the other 5 of us (me, another Fighter/Dwarven Defender, Rogue/Assassin, Ranger, Bard).

G1 had encounters where we could do nothing or not enough or being just effed (Ragewalker, Storm Elemental, etc.) kept baffling us while one of them always got to save-or-lose or Harm it. They had next to no items and started reading the spell list when they began the game on L1 and we still had them just become a 2-man party more or less. My biggest contribution was a 6th sense use of Scroll of See Invisibility to save us from an assassin: they never prepared divinations. We also had an intraparty conflict later: was solved by my character being Forcecaged by the Wizard. I spent time looking for answers and found out I'd need to use an 11k item every time I was spent 1.5k on.

I also realised they got new different ways to solve problems every level while I got slightly better at my one option. And that Fighter 6 is the wrong entry to AA and that casters half-progress fighting while warriors 0 progress casting. And that AA sucks; we eventually buffed the class giving it multiple uses of its abilities and 2/3 casting but eventually we realised that sucked too. At least I correctly identified Grease as the best level 1 spell to Imbue. In short, my character was the most multiclassed, rich as **** and not at all efficient. They were poor, singleclassed and singlehandedly carrying us.


The second, we had a 2man party and the second was a Wizard (second char; started a Warlock but got bored). We figured we needed extra muscle and he was enanoured by the idea of Planar Binding. One Cha check later we had a helpful Glabrezu (which we had encountered, and Knowledge revealed as a possible target) and made a casual stroll through Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. My char was largely superfluous; Scissorhand Ed outperformed me in every way. Hell, I couldn't even fly without magic items and when I was outta charges... Let alone not having Reverse Gravity at will or such.

[EldritchWeaver]

So, um, what did this look like in practice?

I need to expand on the situation before first: My character uses the Admixture option of SoP, which means that I can combine two different blast types. An effective combination uses Crystal Blast to entangle the enemies and Shrapnel Blast to set bleed damage to the number of damage dice. I also used the CL = damage dice Destruction sphere option to get bleed damage beyond 10+. Thanks to my high DC (which was lower than it should have thanks to being incorrectly calculated in Herolabs without me noticing for quite a while, since generally enemies failed their saves) my first attack - which was at range - the enemies were damaged and partially disabled. And since I could do an area effect, I didn't hit just one but two or more at once. And thanks to Selective Blast, I could exclude the two melee guys with no SP costs, so friendly fire actually was.

When the melees of my party arrived, I had my second attack already, which I aimed for a second group enemies, where possible. The gunslinger got two attacks in, but only single-target. The rogue didn't even got to do anything, because at that point the enemies were so weakened that round 3 ended the fight. So the complain was that I did more damage than even the melees and did kill stealing. More damage was only true thanks to AoE, since single target damage I was still outclassed. But since the fighters were only scraping 100 DPR despite being level 12, that comparison is skewed unfairly anyway. The gunslinger and rogue player (he had two chars) complained about his both characters being effectively superfluous. Which I agree on.

So what happened was in the end (I'm leaving out other solutions which weren't used or not effective enough) that I left the melees to handle enemies without involving my character doing anything damagewise (which considering my char could only do damage or cast flight meant doing nothing at all). Or waited a few rounds before involving myself after asking for permission. That delay got reduced in situations where it was clear that otherwise the enemies would be too much in the first place (like entering the depths of the dungeon).

[Quertus]

We also had an intraparty conflict later: was solved by my character being Forcecaged by the Wizard. I spent time looking for answers and found out I'd need to use an 11k item every time I was spent 1.5k on.

Hell, I couldn't even fly without magic items and when I was outta charges... Let alone not having Reverse Gravity at will or such.

You said you started in 3e - it was very cheep to buy a cloak that gives you flight at will. And what is it with you and limited / expendable items? 11k per Force Cage? Whatever it is, it's gotta be the third worst solution ever, after Wish and committing suicide.


I need to expand on the situation before first: My character uses the Admixture option of SoP, which means that I can combine two different blast types. An effective combination uses Crystal Blast to entangle the enemies and Shrapnel Blast to set bleed damage to the number of damage dice. I also used the CL = damage dice Destruction sphere option to get bleed damage beyond 10+. Thanks to my high DC (which was lower than it should have thanks to being incorrectly calculated in Herolabs without me noticing for quite a while, since generally enemies failed their saves) my first attack - which was at range - the enemies were damaged and partially disabled. And since I could do an area effect, I didn't hit just one but two or more at once. And thanks to Selective Blast, I could exclude the two melee guys with no SP costs, so friendly fire actually was.

When the melees of my party arrived, I had my second attack already, which I aimed for a second group enemies, where possible. The gunslinger got two attacks in, but only single-target. The rogue didn't even got to do anything, because at that point the enemies were so weakened that round 3 ended the fight. So the complain was that I did more damage than even the melees and did kill stealing. More damage was only true thanks to AoE, since single target damage I was still outclassed. But since the fighters were only scraping 100 DPR despite being level 12, that comparison is skewed unfairly anyway. The gunslinger and rogue player (he had two chars) complained about his both characters being effectively superfluous. Which I agree on.

So what happened was in the end (I'm leaving out other solutions which weren't used or not effective enough) that I left the melees to handle enemies without involving my character doing anything damagewise (which considering my char could only do damage or cast flight meant doing nothing at all). Or waited a few rounds before involving myself after asking for permission. That delay got reduced in situations where it was clear that otherwise the enemies would be too much in the first place (like entering the depths of the dungeon).

So, your solution was to have your character, contrary to their previous performance, suddenly and inexplicably start holding the idiot ball to keep everyone happy? If so, my question is, did this keep you happy, too?

And, I'm guessing that, after this, you paid more attention to balance to the party when building a character?

[Silva Stormrage]

I don't particularly care to get heavily involved in much of this debate. But I will point out an example of ease of accidentally overshadowing someone.

My first campaign I ever played in D&D, I had played Neverwinter Nights before so I knew the general rules but NWN is a veeeery different game than 3.5. I had decided that I wanted to play an undead necromancer as that was my favorite archtype. I selected a necropolitain human dread necromancer because DN's had a big undead cap. My character goal was to fight and take down a dragon and reanimate it as a zombie (I didn't even know about draconomicon's zombie dragon rules I just wanted a flying mount). I thus googled "Best way to take down a dragon D&D 3.5" or something similar and picked up the spell "Shivering Touch" which was apparently good against dragons because dragons had low dex. That made sense to me.

I picked up all the corpse crafter feats because duh I wanted to animate undead, I was going to be good at it. I think I had improved turning a couple times too. Basically anything that looked interesting in Libirs Mortis I took.

I started the session with one zombie minotaur. I ended the session with the minotaur, 6 zombie Xorns and an Adult Black Dragon Zombie (I didn't know about Zombie HD cap). The final fight was a horde of kobolds with spears and an adult black dragon. I was immune to the d4 damage of the kobolds due to Dread Necromancer's DR and I one shot the dragon with Shivering Touch delivered via spectral hand.

At one point another player pointed out that with my zombies "Why do we even need a fighter" and I was mortified because I felt like an utter jerk overshadowing essentially the entire party with an army. I came back next session with basically a tier 5 fighter with animate dead as an SLA (It was a homebrew class).

I spent very limited amount of effort on that character (Necromancer -> Play a simple necromantic class and be undead > Look at undead book and grab improve undead feat chain) and managed to just absolutely decimate the session. 100% accidental on my first session.

The rest of the party was, fighter, warlock (Blaster), cleric (healer/buffer).

[Eldariel]

You said you started in 3e - it was very cheep to buy a cloak that gives you flight at will. And what is it with you and limited / expendable items? 11k per Force Cage? Whatever it is, it's gotta be the third worst solution ever, after Wish and committing suicide.

At that point the campaign had already transitioned into 3.5e; we started in 3e and slowly updated as the changes came. I think we were around level 6-7 by the time we were fully 3.5e - the conflict was on level 13-14. As for the item, it's the Rod of Cancellation, which would cancel out Force Cage. Note, I didn't have access to the DMG or any magic item books (we kept those to the DM as per the instructions); I found this out through Forcecage description and then asked what it would cost. I never was offered Boots of Teleportation. The amount of system mastery you need to properly equip a martial efficiently even with ridiculous wealth is just stupid and with the starting point that magic items aren't freely accessible (that game world had no magic marts), it just doesn't work out.

[Silva Stormrage]

At that point the campaign had already transitioned into 3.5e; we started in 3e and slowly updated as the changes came. I think we were around level 6-7 by the time we were fully 3.5e - the conflict was on level 13-14. As for the item, it's the Rod of Cancellation, which would cancel out Force Cage. Note, I didn't have access to the DMG or any magic item books (we kept those to the DM as per the instructions); I found this out through Forcecage description and then asked what it would cost. I never was offered Boots of Teleportation. The amount of system mastery you need to properly equip a martial efficiently even with ridiculous wealth is just stupid and with the starting point that magic items aren't freely accessible (that game world had no magic marts), it just doesn't work out.

Actually as a side note, Rod of Cancellation doesn't actually become unusable when used on a forcecage. It's only used up when it drains an item (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rods.htm#cancellation). Kinda silly but figured I would mention that. Not that it has anything to do with the point you were trying to make though :smallbiggrin:

[EldritchWeaver]

So, your solution was to have your character, contrary to their previous performance, suddenly and inexplicably start holding the idiot ball to keep everyone happy? If so, my question is, did this keep you happy, too?

I suppose that would be right. And I wasn't really happy about this either, but I accepted this. Also I waited for one or more to die, but that situation didn't came up for quite some time, and me being required to participate at later time to my fullest ability helped as well.


And, I'm guessing that, after this, you paid more attention to balance to the party when building a character?

So it happened that the player of the rogue and gunslinger was mostly interested in roleplaying, and not in mechanical aspects of character building. Even though I offered him to help out on that regard, he in the end decided that the increased emphasis on combat (which was part of the AP) was too much for his enjoyment and he left. I do suppose that my presence didn't help either with that, but at best this only hastened the good-bye. Considering that another player did still have two chars and we had a very obvious gap in the scouting and healing departments I decided that we should close that gap. No healer in particular seemed a problem in the long run.

After confirming my plans with the GM and the other players I set upon on soliciting build ideas for such a character on this forum. I discussed the various versions with the GM and which ones I'd prefer. In the end I could go forward with my favorite - a ratfolk using Hellcat Stealth and Lurker in Darkness to scout and using the Life sphere to heal. In fact there is an option to provide a long-lasting fast healing pool, which I optimized to grant the best version possible (fast healing 5 until the hp run out - several times of the characters normal hp pool). In addition, I got the option to range heal someone in a single casting for about 60 hp, which I thought to be useful for the case that some enemy was about to drop one of the melees. I also made a promise that the ratfolk didn't do damage in general. All in all, a character who only does healing and some support stuff which no one else could (except maybe my unicorn, but that doesn't matter for the group dynamics).

Considering the abilities - support and utility in uncovered niches - you would assume that it is not possible to step on someone toes. But lately I found some advanced talents to use to group buff (Hypervitalize (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/advanced-talents#toc107)and Transfiguration (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/advanced-talents#toc113)). Those effectively prevent dying very well (every PC has 80 real hp more as well immunity against several damage types/vectors). Also in addition, the sorceress after her demise and following resurrection (being alone when being surprised by five enemies isn't good for your health) got respecced to use SoP as well (that character suffered from build choices and needed an overhaul). The player employed spellcrafting to recreate existing spells we used (Mage Armor, Shield, Heroism, Haste, Aura of the Unremarkable, ...) in a SP-cheap way and using Arcane Concordance it is possible to extend that to 24h+ durations. That got complains from the monk player as this makes his class features partially superfluous and makes combat less dangerous. Which is true. So we talked about this (actually still ongoing). The monk player doesn't like buffs covering the entire day, because that takes away the GM option to surprise us with our pants down (honestly, would a real adventurer deliberately choose a lesser version over playing safe?). He wants something more group and adventure friendly. But here I think part of the problem is that we ran into the linear fighter-quadratic wizard issue, which still applies to some extent to SoP characters. So even if I don't use the aforementioned Life talents, I have to choose something. And not using magic isn't an option either, considering the AP. So for the current problem I don't know what the solution will be.


Story time

Playing Darth Ultron's advocate here: Which house rules did you use? Was the DM "gentile"?

[Silva Stormrage]

Playing Darth Ultron's advocate here: Which house rules did you use? Was the DM "gentile"?


No house rules and DM was "Gentile" going by the definition seen so far.

[AnimeTheCat]

I don't particularly care to get heavily involved in much of this debate. But I will point out an example of ease of accidentally overshadowing someone.

My first campaign I ever played in D&D, I had played Neverwinter Nights before so I knew the general rules but NWN is a veeeery different game than 3.5. I had decided that I wanted to play an undead necromancer as that was my favorite archtype. I selected a necropolitain human dread necromancer because DN's had a big undead cap. My character goal was to fight and take down a dragon and reanimate it as a zombie (I didn't even know about draconomicon's zombie dragon rules I just wanted a flying mount). I thus googled "Best way to take down a dragon D&D 3.5" or something similar and picked up the spell "Shivering Touch" which was apparently good against dragons because dragons had low dex. That made sense to me.

I picked up all the corpse crafter feats because duh I wanted to animate undead, I was going to be good at it. I think I had improved turning a couple times too. Basically anything that looked interesting in Libirs Mortis I took.

I started the session with one zombie minotaur. I ended the session with the minotaur, 6 zombie Xorns and an Adult Black Dragon Zombie (I didn't know about Zombie HD cap). The final fight was a horde of kobolds with spears and an adult black dragon. I was immune to the d4 damage of the kobolds due to Dread Necromancer's DR and I one shot the dragon with Shivering Touch delivered via spectral hand.

At one point another player pointed out that with my zombies "Why do we even need a fighter" and I was mortified because I felt like an utter jerk overshadowing essentially the entire party with an army. I came back next session with basically a tier 5 fighter with animate dead as an SLA (It was a homebrew class).

I spent very limited amount of effort on that character (Necromancer -> Play a simple necromantic class and be undead > Look at undead book and grab improve undead feat chain) and managed to just absolutely decimate the session. 100% accidental on my first session.

The rest of the party was, fighter, warlock (Blaster), cleric (healer/buffer).

I don't mean to be rude but... part of your character was "I have and undead f****** dragon and miniature army" and your instinctive thoughts were "wow I'm totally surprised I can handle things for the whole party with my army"?

That basically saying "I took leadership and ended up not needing my party anymore"... were you really surprised that you were able to control a minotaur, 6 xorns, and a dragon to do more than the rest of your party?

I appreciate your input, but it seems a little farfetched to me that you "accidentally" acquired 64 HD of undead and were surprised that you controlling 9 characters, one a dragon and one a spellcaster, overshadowed the party. If I controlled 9 characters I would be disappointed if I couldn't singlehandedly solve lots of major issues that are designed for a party of 4-6.

[Silva Stormrage]

I don't mean to be rude but... part of your character was "I have and undead f****** dragon and miniature army" and your instinctive thoughts were "wow I'm totally surprised I can handle things for the whole party with my army"?

That basically saying "I took leadership and ended up not needing my party anymore"... were you really surprised that you were able to control a minotaur, 6 xorns, and a dragon to do more than the rest of your party?

I appreciate your input, but it seems a little farfetched to me that you "accidentally" acquired 64 HD of undead and were surprised that you controlling 9 characters, one a dragon and one a spellcaster, overshadowed the party. If I controlled 9 characters I would be disappointed if I couldn't singlehandedly solve lots of major issues that are designed for a party of 4-6.

I started with a single minotaur. I didn't realize how many undead I could control sense I didn't know how many HD each monster had. I didn't know what abilities monsters had so I thought zombies were balanced via losing all their special abilities and were just walls of flesh and minor damage. Thats how they function in Neverwinter which was my only D&D experience at that point other than OOTS. Which also portrays zombies in that way. I figured a fighter would just mow through them like butter. I hadn't run any of the number calculations myself because I didn't think I needed to. I obviously had the stats for my minotaur but I figured HD scaled much faster than CR or something like that.

We fought like 12 xorns and I asked the DM how many HD they had so i could see how many I could animate. Then I did the math and realized the answer was "All of them" I was a bit concerned then but I couldn't DO anything about it. It seemed massively out of character to just leave the corpses on the ground. (The DM also realized a problem at this point and had some of the retreating Xorn's "Take away some of their brethren so they could be properly buried". We were in high school give us a little break :smallsigh: ) the dragon later on was actually already planned and I didn't EXPECT to run into a dragon but once I did and realized I could animate it I was going to. I didn't actually get to use that zombie dragon since that was the end of the session.

But yes to answer your question I really did go in think that pet based classes wouldn't dramatically overshadow anything. Why would they? In games like WoW and Neverwinter having a pet doesn't cause you to be 10 times more effective than everything else. Warlock's pets aren't capable of being stronger than an entire class!

So yes in conclusion I DID walk into the campaign thinking "Okay if I have undead pets that should be fine. My spell list is probably weaker than a regular wizard since I only have necromancy spells but in exchange I get pets". That isn't an unreasonable assumption for someone coming in with only experience from D&D video games and other media.

[AnimeTheCat]

I started with a single minotaur. I didn't realize how many undead I could control sense I didn't know how many HD each monster had. I didn't know what abilities monsters had so I thought zombies were balanced via losing all their special abilities and were just walls of flesh and minor damage. Thats how they function in Neverwinter which was my only D&D experience at that point other than OOTS. Which also portrays zombies in that way. I figured a fighter would just mow through them like butter. I hadn't run any of the number calculations myself because I didn't think I needed to. I obviously had the stats for my minotaur but I figured HD scaled much faster than CR or something like that.

We fought like 12 xorns and I asked the DM how many HD they had so i could see how many I could animate. Then I did the math and realized the answer was "All of them" I was a bit concerned then but I couldn't DO anything about it. It seemed massively out of character to just leave the corpses on the ground. (The DM also realized a problem at this point and had some of the retreating Xorn's "Take away some of their brethren so they could be properly buried". We were in high school give us a little break :smallsigh: ) the dragon later on was actually already planned and I didn't EXPECT to run into a dragon but once I did and realized I could animate it I was going to. I didn't actually get to use that zombie dragon since that was the end of the session.

But yes to answer your question I really did go in think that pet based classes wouldn't dramatically overshadow anything. Why would they? In games like WoW and Neverwinter having a pet doesn't cause you to be 10 times more effective than everything else. Warlock's pets aren't capable of being stronger than an entire class!

So yes in conclusion I DID walk into the campaign thinking "Okay if I have undead pets that should be fine. My spell list is probably weaker than a regular wizard since I only have necromancy spells but in exchange I get pets". That isn't an unreasonable assumption for someone coming in with only experience from D&D video games and other media.

I guess I see your thought process, but zombies aren't "pets". I can kind of see your logic for coming from video games, but most video games I know don't let you have more than 1, maybe 2 "pets" max, so I can't follow the logic train all the way through the tunnel.

On a side note, I don't think you legally raised the 38 HD adult black dragon zombie (normally 19 HD doubled for being a zombie). Even though the HD cap is 4+cha mod, I don't think the HD cap per casting changed to 1/2(4+cha mod). I could be wrong though.

Like I said, I guess I can kind of follow, but I don't think I've ever perceived the ability to play multiple characters at once as balanced compared to a single character being played at a time, including "pets" from video games. Either the pet is going to provide an advantage, or it will do nothing. 2 moves and 2 standard actions will always be better than 1 and 1, no matter what game you're playing be it video game or ttrpg.

[Silva Stormrage]

I guess I see your thought process, but zombies aren't "pets". I can kind of see your logic for coming from video games, but most video games I know don't let you have more than 1, maybe 2 "pets" max, so I can't follow the logic train all the way through the tunnel.

On a side note, I don't think you legally raised the 38 HD adult black dragon zombie (normally 19 HD doubled for being a zombie). Even though the HD cap is 4+cha mod, I don't think the HD cap per casting changed to 1/2(4+cha mod). I could be wrong though.

Like I said, I guess I can kind of follow, but I don't think I've ever perceived the ability to play multiple characters at once as balanced compared to a single character being played at a time, including "pets" from video games. Either the pet is going to provide an advantage, or it will do nothing. 2 moves and 2 standard actions will always be better than 1 and 1, no matter what game you're playing be it video game or ttrpg.

/Shrug 2 moves and 2 standard actions isn't always better in D&D so I am not sure what you are saying (Unless you are saying 2 level 10 fighters is always better than a level 10 wizard). I was just sharing my experience on accidentally overshadowing someone pointing out it can happen fairly innocently. I mean I came in with the next character who was fine so it all worked out.

As for the zombie dragon clerics have desecrate to double that limit and I think I had a +1 CL from an item or something as well as leveling at the end of the session. Forgot exactly how it was a long time ago.

[Eldariel]

I guess I see your thought process, but zombies aren't "pets". I can kind of see your logic for coming from video games, but most video games I know don't let you have more than 1, maybe 2 "pets" max, so I can't follow the logic train all the way through the tunnel.

On a side note, I don't think you legally raised the 38 HD adult black dragon zombie (normally 19 HD doubled for being a zombie). Even though the HD cap is 4+cha mod, I don't think the HD cap per casting changed to 1/2(4+cha mod). I could be wrong though.

Like I said, I guess I can kind of follow, but I don't think I've ever perceived the ability to play multiple characters at once as balanced compared to a single character being played at a time, including "pets" from video games. Either the pet is going to provide an advantage, or it will do nothing. 2 moves and 2 standard actions will always be better than 1 and 1, no matter what game you're playing be it video game or ttrpg.

Zombie Dragons have their own template in Draconomicon, which doesn't double their HD (and incidentally doesn't have an HD limit).

And in most videogames minions are only dangerous in masses. Even in D&D based games you need to get hordes of underlings for them to matter. Even in D&D, hordes of skeleton warriors amount to nothing. It's just high power low HDs that cause problems (and are incidentally your first instinct to revive). And besides, if you want to play a necromancer, what are you to do?

[ExLibrisMortis]

I guess I see your thought process, but zombies aren't "pets". I can kind of see your logic for coming from video games, but most video games I know don't let you have more than 1, maybe 2 "pets" max, so I can't follow the logic train all the way through the tunnel.
Zombies/summons/assorted mooks are colloquially known as "pets" in gaming jargon. They're not-separately-customizable bodies on your side, ergo your pets. Don't have to be actual cats or dogs.

I'm guessing you're thinking of Skyrim, which at a glance only allows two pets, but ARPGs like Diablo allow many more pets (and then there's party-based and turn-based RPGs, which can allow more still). Even Skyrim lets you have five (two pets + follower w/ two pets), though the AI on them sucks a bit. In general, a pet class with only one or two pets is pretty bad.

[Quertus]

most video games I know don't let you have more than 1, maybe 2 "pets" max

Either the pet is going to provide an advantage, or it will do nothing. 2 moves and 2 standard actions will always be better than 1 and 1, no matter what game you're playing be it video game or ttrpg.

When I think undead videogame pets, I think the Necromancer from Diablo II. Horrible class, lots of pathetic minions who are as likely to trap you in a corner and make you get hit as do something useful take a hit for you while you the characters with actual useful abilities win the fight. :smallfrown:

No, I can totally see coming from videogames, and expecting an undead horde to do bubkiss (sp?), and taking them more for flavor than anything else.

[Eldariel]

D&D games actually have some of the strongest minions in general. You can get through some of the tougher fights in Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II by just spamming Summon Monster out of Wands for example, but even in those cases you need massive masses. Same with NWN and company; minions are useful but still definitely minions. 3.X has the problem that it doesn't do the policing for you; you can get overpowered minions or underpowered minions and there's nothing but your own build competency to determine which. A player who gets custom monsters or doesn't know the rules inside out can easily overpower random allies and even an experienced player has to essentially not use their class features to their fullest to fit into weaker parties, which is just lazy design from WotC. The power floor (a bunch of Human Skeletons) is just pathetic while the power ceiling (Dragons, Hydras, etc.) is actually problematically high in that you can become a one-man party with just one character out of 4. And the same goes for Planar Binding and such, but those are a lot easier to fix (since you can remove the help compulsion clauses to get to the point of "you bound a demon; now what" - still useful but not an "enslave" in addition to "bind"). Simulacrums, same problem as Animate Dead of course.

[Arbane]

I guess I see your thought process, but zombies aren't "pets". I can kind of see your logic for coming from video games, but most video games I know don't let you have more than 1, maybe 2 "pets" max, so I can't follow the logic train all the way through the tunnel.

Now you're making miss City of Heroes/City of Villains again. A Mastermind in that game at high levels had 6 minions minimum, and could have as many as 17. (Thugs/Dark Mastermind. Summon the usual 6 thugs, Dark Servant for another, and use Gang War for 10 extra-disposable minions. Instant crowd scene!)
That was a fun MMO. ;_;