Do 3.5 players actually care about optimization?

[NecroDancer]

So I’ve seen a lot of “optimization threads” which offer tips to squeezing 100% of the power from each class. However how often do you see players intentionally build super powerful characters?

Like when you play 3.5 is it a party full of ridiculous multi classes that exploit the system and plan their character from level 1-20 or is it more common to see players pick classes they like and try to play them competently but without any intention to be “super powerful”? Do you see players scour every source book for every advantage or do they tend to use only 1-3 books when they choose their feats and such?

[HouseRules]

Practically, most players play the "rule of fun" as the primary rule. Thus, the RAW and RAI are not important for most players. Only those that have the stinginess of playing rule lawyering would deal with the rules of the books.

Edit: Those "role protection" does not count thieves because Clerics come before them and have spells towards finding traps. Magic-Users come before them and have spells like "Knock" to open traps. In other words, the Thief class is taking away the roles of two classes if we ever need to discuss "role protection" as a balance.

[flappeercraft]

Out of the boards its uncommon but not rare from what I have seen, maybe 5-10%. However for that 5-10% at least a quarter is wannabe optimizers where they don't understand how the game works and say monk's are OP or think toughness and dodge are good feats, however they try make their characters powerful.

[HouseRules]

Out of the boards its uncommon but not rare from what I have seen, maybe 5-10%. However for that 5-10% at least a quarter is wannabe optimizers where they don't understand how the game works and say monk's are OP or think toughness and dodge are good feats, however they try make their characters powerful.

Some of those options you say do "feel" powerful, but that is based on their limited experience. Only the more experience knows what true power really is.

[ngilop]

the vast majority do not care. They just want a competent character and have fun with their friends around a table slaying goblins and rescuing kidnapped townsfolk.


the majority of tables I have played at would make just about every GiTPer want to burn the world with how crazy their characters are. I've had ranger 2/rogue 2/ druid 2/fighter 1 and if you would just red these forums, you say that is a worthless and useless character. But was far from useless, while he could have just been a rogue/druid I feel, he didn't cause the group to suffer.


Most people I see playing play the warriors as beat sticks, the wizards as blasters with the occasional battle field control or buff, the clerics as heal bots with buffs, and the rogue as a trap-monkey. I had a DM give me the side eye when he found out my 'ninja' was a bard, because bards are only supposed to be the face.

[PaladinX]

Personally it depends on what I'm playing Wizard, Cleric, druid I don't bother with that much work. If it's a fighter or rogue etc I do a lot more optimization.

[PunBlake]

Most people are not optimizers. It takes at least a little effort to optimize (ie. realizing you can search online for optimizations, performing the searches, reading opinions on forums), and then there's the obvious table limits (source allowances, gentlemen's agreements on approximate power level, etc).

At most of my tables, people are too lazy or intimidated by spell selection to play casters, so that's where I usually am forced to end up, as I fill whatever role is needed.

I like optimizing, but most of my tables do not have the time to do so. I have retired a character for being too powerful for the table. It was a bog-standard paladin / sorceror / abjurant champion gish abusing Polymorph.

[Particle_Man]

Most people I see playing play the warriors as beat sticks, the wizards as blasters with the occasional battle field control or buff, the clerics as heal bots with buffs, and the rogue as a trap-monkey. I had a DM give me the side eye when he found out my 'ninja' was a bard, because bards are only supposed to be the face.

That does seem to result in a balanced party. Wasn't that the assumptions of the 3.0 creators?

[HouseRules]

The 3.0 version is said to be able to play within the same role as AD&D 2E by any single class and equalized class character, but not those that multiclass back and forth and dipping a lot. Of course, the dippers tend to have experience penalty that makes them even weaker overall.

There is no intention to create the equivalent of "Dual Class" where taking levels in another class requires "much less" experience.

[Morty]

That depends on whether you understand optimization as making the most powerful character humanly possible or making an effective character within the idea or concept the player has. The major difference between those two is that the latter is actually used.

[Stormwolf69]

I think it depends on the player I normally just pick ask my self what do I want the character to do and go from there.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Yes, they do.

No, generally not as much as the people on this forum.


Take ngilop's ranger 2/rogue 2/druid 2/fighter 1 as an example. When that player picked their classes, they were probably choosing them to fit their character concept, for awesomeness, for power, or some reason--not randomly, is the point--all of which are a form of optimization (towards a concept, awesomeness, power, etcetera). As in:


My character is sneaky, therefore rogue.
My character can fight, therefore fighter.
My character can track, therefore ranger.
My character reveres nature, therefore druid.

(Alternatively:
"My character is a rogue, therefore rogue"
"My character is awesome, therefore rogue"
etcetera.)

All perfectly sensible, if taking rogue levels actually made you sneaky (or a rogue, or awesome, etcetera). We, relentless metagamers, know that it doesn't. Rogue (archetype), rogue (in-universe designation), and rogue (D&D class) are related, but only at a very abstract level, not at the level of describing a single character.

At some point, you have to look beyond the stated purpose of a class, treating the names of things as labels, instead of major fluff. You have to look close enough to find that some classes or abilities don't do what the designer promises in the writeup, and form a critical opinion on what the class or ability does do. I think a lot of people aren't willing to do that, for various reasons, but mostly because it's a lot of work for a casual hobby. But even if you don't go into it that deeply, there is still optimization at the level of class names or general notions of what a class is supposed to do.


In other words, forum-style optimization isn't qualitatively different from what people normally do anyway, but it's been through a lot more cycles of critical review.

[ericgrau]

So I’ve seen a lot of “optimization threads” which offer tips to squeezing 100% of the power from each class. However how often do you see players intentionally build super powerful characters?

Like when you play 3.5 is it a party full of ridiculous multi classes that exploit the system and plan their character from level 1-20 or is it more common to see players pick classes they like and try to play them competently but without any intention to be “super powerful”? Do you see players scour every source book for every advantage or do they tend to use only 1-3 books when they choose their feats and such?

I've had multiple DMs try to make the campaign challenging and so players try to build strong characters to handle it. Many of the crazy tricks would get laughed at by the DM, if not the players too. So it is a challenge to build. I've also seen milder DMs and players who try not to go overboard. Even in the challenging campaign they may try not to go overboard even when other players are shouting at them to kill monsters faster. Other rookies are struggling just to keep up. For the more experienced players part of that is laughing at the crazy tricks and part of it is not wanting to unfairly use anything way more complicated than what others are using.

So it's a little of both. Trying to build strong characters yet also trying to not exploit the system too much.

One of the biggest issues I have with 3.5 is then actually the power creep not the uber power tricks. Power creep is much harder to notice, both as a DM trying to reign in power and as a player intentionally trying not to abuse the system. Certain things can slip through until you learn better. Spells stronger than most other spells of their level, feats stronger than most other feats, etc., etc. For uber power tricks it's easy to say "Lol no". Finding out where people draw the line is also hard, because different people draw it in different places.

[Darth Ultron]

I'd say it's a bout a third of all players. The ''optimize and Rule Them All" is popular for many players. Quite often it's a player that is not having such a great life, in their own view.

And many of the players that play 3/3.5E only do it for the ''power", and the safe nerf rules.

[Menzath]

That depends on whether you understand optimization as making the most powerful character humanly possible or making an effective character within the idea or concept the player has. The major difference between those two is that the latter is actually used.

Very much this. I like the theory of optimization. I like theory crafting on the boards, it has given me a much deeper understanding of the games mechanics.

And because of that when I play(dnd or another game) I use my understanding of the rules and mechanics so that when I make a character, I can have fun and still be effective at what I want to do.

[Crake]

Practically, most players play the "rule of fun" as the primary rule. Thus, the RAW and RAI are not important for most players. Only those that have the stinginess of playing rule lawyering would deal with the rules of the books.

This is actually something very irritating for me to read. RAW and RAI are quite important for me and my players, because if you ignore them, why are you even playing dnd, go play some rules light system like fate (actually would recommend highly for a rules light system, fate is great), or just do freeform roleplaying even. Implying that anyone who cares about the rules is a stingy rules lawyer is close minded and just rustles my jimmies. The rules are there to set expectations for players, to give guidelines to GMs and to all around maintain some level of consistency.

[Kelb_Panthera]

My group is mixed on this and I don't live in the richest player pool.

One of our players is very casual. He just wants to hit stuff with a stick but he's willing to try to do what he can do be effective in that role with some help from me and the DM. Typically a simple build centered on a martial adept class recently.

One of our players is new to the game but not to RPGs. He's taking to it as quickly as he can but insists on minimal aid. He's on his third so far and dove head first into a cerebremancer. I helped him with some early entry trickery and gear choices but base classes and power choices were all him. Gonna be interesting to see where he goes from here.

The DM is very much of the opinion that optimization is welcome. He's not the best optimizer but he really likes the craziness that the system can turn out.

Then there's me; I've studied this game like I was aiming for a degree. I'm no Emperor Tippy but I can build Batman, God, CoDzilla etc from the ground up and I'm just as adept with melees. I've got builds in a folder on myth-weavers just waiting for the chance to see a game. I prefer building non-casters and avoiding overoptimization is much easier that way.


This is actually something very irritating for me to read. RAW and RAI are quite important for me and my players, because if you ignore them, why are you even playing dnd, go play some rules light system like fate (actually would recommend highly for a rules light system, fate is great), or just do freeform roleplaying even. Implying that anyone who cares about the rules is a stingy rules lawyer is close minded and just rustles my jimmies. The rules are there to set expectations for players, to give guidelines to GMs and to all around maintain some level of consistency.

Amen, brother.

[RoboEmperor]

As an optimizer, I'll tell you my experience.

1. I find a neat trick
2. I optimize its power to the best of my ability.
3. I optimize it to get it as early as possible at the cost of power.
4. I optimize fun stuff into it. Like making it free at the cost of power.
5. I compare the power build v.s. the earliest access build v.s. the fun one and see which I like more and try to merge them here and there
6. I post on the forums for advice.
7. I make a lot of changes to my build because the forum is that good. Crowd Sourcing always beats the individual.
8. I have my finished uber powerful build just to my liking
9. I now optimize downward. Going down tiers. Like wizard as base class into sorcerer as base class into warlock as base class if I can.
10. I compare a normal party mundane with my build and see at what level I overtake him, and then I optimize downward so I'm on his level or weaker until at least level 9.
11. Sometimes the build is too powerful and has to be ditched. So I do.

Ditched Builds:
Artificer abusing the Divine Crusader's spell list for early access Wish and Simulacrum. Simulacrum and golems made from Wish were just too powerful at level 6 and party level 10.
Artificer abusing Spell-Storing Item and PrC spell lists. Planar Binding at level 8 is just too strong.
Assume Supernatural Ability:Animate Objects + Alter Self or Phylactery of Change. DM couldn't even hope to overcome the Gargantuan Animated Object's hardness without using a monster that can one shot the rest of the party.

Not ditched Build
Setting Neutral Minionmancer Cleric that uses zombies for levels 1-8 and planar binding 9-14 and simulacrum and wish 15-epic. The optimization here was getting zombies at level 1 with DMM, a DMM:Persistent Spell for mass lesser vigor for the ability to go all day instead of resting for healing, and getting cheap wishes at 17 with Extract Demonic Essence.

I optimize for early access and free stuff rather than power these days. I sacrifice a good deal of power just to be able to get my shtick earlier. For example, if I was doing the mailman sorcerer, I'd optimize around lesser orbs instead of normal orbs because I can use lesser orbs from level 1 but not normal orbs and especially their metamagic'd version until like level 13.

Try to google my various build threads. The several page long posts shows my thought process and why I make the changes. In the setting neutral minionmaster cleric one, I had an early game strategy revolving around getting a Balor Skeleton at level 5. But then ditched it for DMM:Fell Animate because Balor Skeleton is too strong for a normal party and I'm into using free stuff rather than powerful stuff and DMM:Fell Animate is free.

As a side note, I go through denial before I finally ditch my builds. Because I really, really, really like getting robots as early as possible. I am ashamed that I did go through denial. The evidence was there that I was ruining the fun for everyone and I just didn't want to believe it because I was having that much fun with my giant robots.

The setting neutral minionmancer cleric is a build I'm using in two games right now with no problems, and it uses 17 non-core books so check it out. There's a bibliography section at the end where I wrote all the sources for all of my class/feats/spells/acfs/etc.

As to why I optimize, it's because I want my shtick online as early as possible and I don't want to be civilization dependent. Hence the optimization for early access and free stuff. I'm never happy plinking a crossbow for 8 levels before getting my shtick online so you can't stop me from optimizing a way of getting rid of that crossbow as early as possible. And I like free expendable minions I can toss around with reckless abandon. I don't know why I just do.

[Mechalich]

It's probably worth noting that a lot of online based optimization methods are built around certain assumptions that may not hold at a table and the resulting calculations of 'what is best' may change drastically as a result.

For example, my impression of internet-based optimization discussions is that they assume the following, among other things:
1. The 15-minute adventuring day is viable.
2. Money is fungible and any desired magical item can be found with little difficulty (including strategically important optimization items like Wands of Cure Light Wounds).
3. Heavy use of SoS or SoD spells does not result in the monster populace shifting to enemies immune to most such methods.
4. Free use of mechanical options with no consideration of fluff, meaning extensive prestige class 'dips,' bizarre early feat choices, unusual races, and illogical combos without any GM pushback.

We can see how some of these assumptions change in the case of D&D-based video games. Freed from the tyranny of having to make every roll with actual dice and do all the math in your head, video game versions of D&D tend to drastically increase the number of enemies and the number of encounters in total, which dramatically increases the value of martials. In fact, such games seem to assume that the party will complete the majority of combat encounters without casting any spells at all (though with persistent buffs in place).

[Pex]

From my experience, no. They certainly don't want to be incompetent, and many have asked for my help in making their character, but they do not create nor play the monstrosities people here love to whine about.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It's probably worth noting that a lot of online based optimization methods are built around certain assumptions that may not hold at a table and the resulting calculations of 'what is best' may change drastically as a result.

Less than you'd think. The classes at top of the tier list are able to mitigate their native weaknesses into near irrelevance with sufficient system mastery. It's part of why they're up there. The classes in the game are obscenely unbalanced relative to one another, albeit to a lesser degree than is commonly cited, in my understanding.


For example, my impression of internet-based optimization discussions is that they assume the following, among other things:
1. The 15-minute adventuring day is viable.

Remarkably bad assumption, in my experience. It can be forced on occasion but a DM can easily disrupt the methods for doing so if you try to make a habit of it.


2. Money is fungible and any desired magical item can be found with little difficulty (including strategically important optimization items like Wands of Cure Light Wounds).

This is actually an assumption of the system itself. The "Other Campaign Issues" and "World Building" sections in chapter 5 of the DMG lay this out pretty clearly. You can throw it out, as with anything in the system, but should do so with the knowledge you -are- changing a fundamental element of the system.


3. Heavy use of SoS or SoD spells does not result in the monster populace shifting to enemies immune to most such methods.

Immune to one is not immune to all and the ability of top tier casters to change the save or lose spells they're slinging is trivial. You'd have to get pretty heavy-handed to prevent it from working altogether but you and the casters can play the match-guessing game for important encounters.


4. Free use of mechanical options with no consideration of fluff, meaning extensive prestige class 'dips,' bizarre early feat choices, unusual races, and illogical combos without any GM pushback.

This one -can- get a bit shaky. The fluff-crunch relationship varies pretty wildly from one class to the next; eg the utterly generic nature of fighter next to the remarkably specific paladin, right in the PHB.

I, like many others, am of the opinion that being unnecessarily restrictive on refluffing is more harmful than helpful for letting players have the characters they actually want to play. That said, if a refluff completely discards the fluff of a class that does tie closely to its fluff, like a paladin, that's a bridge too far in my opinion.

Unusual mechanical choices have to be survived, generally. That problem tends to sort itself out, long as you don't pull your punches.


We can see how some of these assumptions change in the case of D&D-based video games. Freed from the tyranny of having to make every roll with actual dice and do all the math in your head, video game versions of D&D tend to drastically increase the number of enemies and the number of encounters in total, which dramatically increases the value of martials. In fact, such games seem to assume that the party will complete the majority of combat encounters without casting any spells at all (though with persistent buffs in place).

The video games are fun but they do an absolutely terrible job of representing the PNP version of the game. They're simply too restrictive in what you can do.


In a nutshell; the assumptions made tend to get exaggerated in some places but they're not baseless and changing them disproportionately affects the least flexible classes compared to the more powerful and flexible ones, rarely for the better.

Take the cash flow example; a druid or psion just doesn't care and a cleric barely feels it but a fighter whose stuck with no loot or whatever random crap the treasure table spits out is going to struggle to meet level appropriate challenges.

[Crake]

This is actually an assumption of the system itself. The "Other Campaign Issues" and "World Building" sections in chapter 5 of the DMG lay this out pretty clearly. You can throw it out, as with anything in the system, but should do so with the knowledge you -are- changing a fundamental element of the system.

As someone who frequently runs low/no magic games (that is to say, low/no magic in the hands of the players), I can attest to this very much so. If you try to just eliminate magic without balancing encounters and assumptions beforehand, you will very quickly find your players unhappy, and your campaign falling to shambles. Most DMs that I've heard of try to do this to make the game easier to run, but it's the exact opposite, the game becomes much more difficult to handle and balance straight out of the book.

[MeimuHakurei]

Optimization is not a binary - while I do not read extensively on effective statlines and don't really research what magic items are good for higher levels, I generally try at least on the baseline to be good at what I'm doing and try to find feats that help me improve on my selected specialty. It's still fun for me to theorycraft for higher optimization, however.


It's probably worth noting that a lot of online based optimization methods are built around certain assumptions that may not hold at a table and the resulting calculations of 'what is best' may change drastically as a result.

For example, my impression of internet-based optimization discussions is that they assume the following, among other things:
1. The 15-minute adventuring day is viable.
2. Money is fungible and any desired magical item can be found with little difficulty (including strategically important optimization items like Wands of Cure Light Wounds).
3. Heavy use of SoS or SoD spells does not result in the monster populace shifting to enemies immune to most such methods.
4. Free use of mechanical options with no consideration of fluff, meaning extensive prestige class 'dips,' bizarre early feat choices, unusual races, and illogical combos without any GM pushback.

We can see how some of these assumptions change in the case of D&D-based video games. Freed from the tyranny of having to make every roll with actual dice and do all the math in your head, video game versions of D&D tend to drastically increase the number of enemies and the number of encounters in total, which dramatically increases the value of martials. In fact, such games seem to assume that the party will complete the majority of combat encounters without casting any spells at all (though with persistent buffs in place).

A lot of your points seem to assume that addressing 1-4 will result in martials performing better; here's my take on why that doesn't hold up:

1. This is a highly level-dependent variable and the 15 minute adventuring day mainly comes to be because casters don't take a whole lot of time to clear objectives in a WotC-level dungeon. But even if you do 8 encounters a day (the recommended amount in the DMG), mid-to-high level casters have an absurd amount of spell slots to work with and many optimization tricks to gain a lot of value out of them (aka don't use blast spells). And martials run out of juice once they hit -1 HP and can't do a thing until they get healed - since most of them have to step into their enemies' range to attack them, they tend to get attacked and hit a whole lot more often.

2. Martials are far more dependent on magic items than casters are, since casters don't have to bring up their numbers as much as martials do. They also get to expend spell slots to do things martials can only accomplish with magic items or other casters (and no, having casters back them up doesn't close the gap). If you've ever played a Cleric at Level 8+, you'd notice they're actually surprisingly good at keeping the party topped off with just their spells, especially those with feats like Augment Healing.

3. Even if monsters adapt to negate a particular flavor of SoD/SoS spells, casters can just swap out to different ones. And many such countermeasures result in monsters that can easily overpower martial characters just as well, whom the monsters should logically adapt to as well - and Fly (or innate flight, which a good amount of monsters have) + Wind Wall shuts down almost every method a martial could possibly use to attack them.

4. That's actually a thing martials do to play catchup, or occasionally to make a gish work. All of the above and the vast majority of caster optimization tricks work with just core options and no multiclassing whatsoever.

Finally, the D&D video games (particularly the RTwP ones) tend to favor martial tactics because it means you have to micromanage less and not worry about blasting your own allies when trying to aim AoE effects. But exactly how the class balance is affected is different from game to game.

[Eldan]

I like to be decently powerful. Effective, certainly. So, yeah, there's a bit of optimization. Feats and spells that make sense, that kind of thing.

The other thing is theoretical optimization, which is what we do on the forums. The thing to understand here: this is an entirely different game than actually sitting down at the table. A lot of it is thought experiments. Someone comes to the forums and says "Hey guys, I found this neat trick that allows you to create a seperate, second universe which you reincarnate into if you die, so you are now immortal by time travel" and then people try to take it apart. Or just "Hey guys, how high can constitution score go, if we really push it?" or something like that. THat's not playing D&D, that's playing Optimization. It's fun too.

[King of Nowhere]

Almost everyone I know playing the game aims to be competent, but not much more. most of the reason is effort involved: getting more powerful requires an exponential increase in effort to sift through various sources and find weird combos. You can get decently powerful without putting too much effort into it, and have fun. You can be broken, but that would require too much effort (and probably get a DM veto). or you could put no effort at all and become a wimp. Given those three choises, most people get the "reasonable compromise" between effort and power.

I aim specifically for that power level for story reasons.
The thing is, a character who always succeeds is boring. A mary sue, a boring invincible hero, call it how you want, but those kind of guys make for awful stories. And going through a game with god mode on is also boring after a while.
So, my goal is to succeed at my stated tasks with a roll around 5. Enough success that I can reasonably feel competent, but I still fail once in a while - and all the best stories have the heroes sometimes fail and scramble to recover. there's much entertainment value in that.
If I can succeed with a 2, I try to tone down my character. If I fail on an 8, I try to get buffs.

[Mechalich]

A lot of your points seem to assume that addressing 1-4 will result in martials performing better; here's my take on why that doesn't hold up:

Actually they tend to most heavily favor 'all day' magical classes like warlock or dragonfire adept who have more or less guaranteed damage options. Anyway, I was actually making a point more generally. It's certainly possible to optimize martials.


1. This is a highly level-dependent variable and the 15 minute adventuring day mainly comes to be because casters don't take a whole lot of time to clear objectives in a WotC-level dungeon. But even if you do 8 encounters a day (the recommended amount in the DMG), mid-to-high level casters have an absurd amount of spell slots to work with and many optimization tricks to gain a lot of value out of them (aka don't use blast spells). And martials run out of juice once they hit -1 HP and can't do a thing until they get healed - since most of them have to step into their enemies' range to attack them, they tend to get attacked and hit a whole lot more often.

8 encounters a day? Ha! Try more like 40, which is actually closer to the total number of encounters present in many dungeons. The DMG recommends an approach that is highly favorable to casters and overrides the primary resource management balance method the game is intended to have. Also, the real time burden of conducting encounters makes it difficult to place low-level enemies at an actual table in order to chip off resources slowly or force casters to conserve. Video games, being largely free of this burden, spam such encounters and create a vastly different tactical environment.


2. Martials are far more dependent on magic items than casters are, since casters don't have to bring up their numbers as much as martials do. They also get to expend spell slots to do things martials can only accomplish with magic items or other casters (and no, having casters back them up doesn't close the gap). If you've ever played a Cleric at Level 8+, you'd notice they're actually surprisingly good at keeping the party topped off with just their spells, especially those with feats like Augment Healing.

Martials are highly dependent upon permanent magical items, while casters get far more use out of disposal magic items. If the abundance of disposable magic items drops significantly, or if the party simply hordes them for the final boss and never uses them (an extremely common play style). Also 'high level' is irrelevant. The game breaks utterly once 8th level spells come online. All discussion the final quarter of levels is completely pointless.


3. Even if monsters adapt to negate a particular flavor of SoD/SoS spells, casters can just swap out to different ones. And many such countermeasures result in monsters that can easily overpower martial characters just as well, whom the monsters should logically adapt to as well - and Fly (or innate flight, which a good amount of monsters have) + Wind Wall shuts down almost every method a martial could possibly use to attack them.

Okay, Tier 1 casters can swap out fairly easily, if given time to do so, they can't swap out on the fly. Other casters may not be able to do so nearly so effectively. A sorcerer can very easily get screwed over. And there are a number of monsters whose abilities crimp SoD/SoS fairly heavily, such as constructs, that aren't actually very heavy hitting. As to flight well, in the traditional dungeon, flight is of limited utility, because all it does is raise you a few feet off the floor until your head brushes the ceiling. Also flight is a fairly short duration, unless metamagic is applied, but then it costs you high-level spell slots (and if you're using metamagic reduces of any kind you have a surprisingly permissive DM), so it can be rather burdensome to have to cast it once every encounter or every other encounter.


4. That's actually a thing martials do to play catchup, or occasionally to make a gish work. All of the above and the vast majority of caster optimization tricks work with just core options and no multiclassing whatsoever.

It affects everyone. It's quite common to see a character build (not just in D&D but in many systems) that drastically sacrifices power and is remarkably ineffective until right at the moment the character would start play (high-level 'pirate' spellcasters with Str penalties and no ranks in Swim are a fun example). Or to see characters who drop dead more or less instantly the moment the DM splits the party and forces each character to fend for themselves - admittedly the d20 system is very much at fault here since spreading out your skill points to create a more well-rounded character is generally utterly useless and monsters end up being far worse offenders than PCs. That's actually part of a broader point about optimization - it often involves exploiting design flaws in the system to create characters that are all kinds of messes when it comes to the fluff. The Diplomancer, for example, is a concept built on the failure of the skill system to work for social interaction entirely, it's not supposed to exist. Early-entry tricks are very much the same. These are the kinds of things that will get shot down by most DMs.

Yes, at the end of the day casters tend to still come out on top, because the conversion to 3e involved giving casters a gigantic set of buffs system wide while simultaneously nerfing martials. They also benefit from a desire to conclude battles in a reasonable time frame versus the immense HP inflation that was also part of the 3e conversion which made 'death via HP damage' a laborious and cumbersome process for many enemies. For martials to get around that requires extremely torturous optimization pathways to produce super-specialized builds like uberchargers. Tier 1 casters just need a decent spell selection.

[Asmotherion]

i would say that a good majoryty of players optimise to a healthy degree.

For example you wouldn't expect a fighter to deliberatelly not get power attack or arguably some tactical maneuver of choice in favor of some crappy feat to debiliate his character's potential.

Then there are the ones who actually care a bit more about this stuff. Getting the exotic choices that can land you a character that's top percentage and arguably game breaking or at the very least that gives you a list of unfair advantages. This can be done for 2 perspectives. 1 is to play the game in a relative "easy mode". The other is to force the DM to give you a "hard mode" to the game.

Which is something that should be discussed before the game starts. Because the more you have played the system the more easyly you can optimise in it. Every time i build a character i find myself "beating" my latest creation.

From some point of view optimisation is just doing what you know works. When i play a Wizard or Sorcerer there are some spells and feats i know have great synergy with each other. So the DM has to Ban those from me or i'll just go and do what i know.

[Malphegor]

I enjoy 'absurd combos that somehow work'. Optimisation is fine, but there's something really nice about seeing synergistic properties click together to maximise their output in a given field.

I'm probably the worst for non-optimised characters, because I see shiny things like the luck feats in Complete Scoundrel and say to myself 'yes, I absolutely want to make my character beholden to the whims of dice more than they are already' and end up doing things worse than I would do otherwise had I picked a feat that, for example, standardised my damage output and made me not have to roll damage.

[Pelle]

I wouldn't say they care about optmimization necessarily, but I suspect everyone who choose to play 3.5 over other games/editions enjoy greatly the character creation mini-game.

[BowStreetRunner]

In my experience, most players do 'care about optimization' to some degree. However, they don't care about it a great deal. They certainly want to have a solid character, but they don't prioritize optimization to nearly the degree most of the regulars on this forum do. If you ask them to simply indicate in Boolean fashion whether optimization is important, they will say yes. But if you ask them to rank it alongside other things like how easy the character is to role-play or how fun it is to play, they will rank it fairly low.

I would also point out that most of the players I know tend to roll their eyes when I mention Giant in the Playground. They consider this a place for optimization fanatics and not ordinary gamers. So if you were to run a poll out on the forum asking how important optimization is, you would be dealing with some adverse selection merely by the fact that a certain type of player is more likely to be on this forum in the first place.

[ezekielraiden]

Question is ambiguously phrased. Consider a shirt with pink and green stripes; is this shirt green?

If by "is x green" you mean, "is some (meaningful) part of x green?" then the answer is clearly yes. If you mean, "is x all green?" the answer is clearly no.

Do some players build highly optimized characters? Yes. Do all players do so? No. But neither of these answers should surprise you. Only by changing the question can we get to a point where the answers are interesting (e.g. "how common are highly-optimized characters?")

IME, some minimal level of optimization is desired & expected for almost every character. There is a contingent that is vehemently opposed to picking anything good (turning the "roleplay not rollplay" fallacy into a second fallacy, denying the consequent), but they are merely a vocal minority. Most players want to do well. They want to avoid unwise choices, and derive at least a little pleasure from making good ones.

Heavy optimization is less common, but still common. People have learned that 3e is a pretty broken ruleset, in the sense that it allows degenerate results (in the mathematical sense--things that zoom off to infinity or crash to zero), and they understand that it's not all that useful to try to ignore that as a player. So each group finds its optimization level, and tries to make that work.

There are also people like me or even beyond, who just enjoy the act of crafting a character to certain parameters (be they mechanical or thematic). I'm still tinkering with an LA-buyoff half-battle-dragon gestalt C.Cleric/Ruby Knight Vindicator/Knight of the Raven||Crusader/Bard/Sublime Chord/Jade Phoenix Mage (see spoilerblock since it's off-topic). That's some relatively high-power gaming. Not earth-shattering, but up there. Tinkerers are going to appear more common online, because their requests never disappear and they can instantly poll a huge group of amateur experts on literally any topic.

*I call it the Sublime Jade Raven Vindicator. Meant to be sort of a magic-knight battle commander, doing Sonic damage Dragonfire Inspiration alongside buff and CC spells, pulling out maneuvers once the battle is properly joined. JPM's Quickening Strike synergizes with RKV's Divine Impetus to let me get those sweet auto-quickened spells and still have another Swift action to spend on something else. Actually found a way to get 19 BAB and IL18, while maintaining CL17 and 9th level spells on both sides! It even avoids having levels with JPM on one side and RKV on the other until level 16, and if I went for Abjurant Champion 1-5 instead of maxing out JPM, I'd totally avoid it. I'd even get CL19 Sublime Chord stuff, trading Quickening Strike for Swift Abjuration, which is less good but doesn't cost me a caster level.

[noob]

I have seen in those forums a real campaign about playing a full T1 team and resting only once every 14 monster encounters.

[Morty]

To use an example, let's say I'm making a warmage and spending a lot of time picking the right feats and magic items to maximize their potential to blow things up and make sure to use the best spells to do it. The end result is still moderately powerful at best, because warmages and blasting magic in general are weak. If I make a sorcerer or wizard and just pick the spells that look right, they'll be more powerful even though I hardly optimized at all.

If I'm making a dual-wielding martial character, I'm probably jumping through hoops just to keep up with someone with the same class who just grabbed a big stick and Power Attack. So optimization here doesn't result in power, just viability.

[Twurps]

A lot of people seem to confuse 'optimize' with 'maximize' (particularly: maximize power). I don't maximize the power of my build, but I do optimize the heck out of it, and by my definition of 'optimize' nearly everybody does. Or you wouldn't be playing this game.

Optimizing means you find the optimal (so not highest, but best) level of whatever it is you optimize.
So I optimize fun, I optimize power, I optimize playability, and when posible, I optimize synergies between my character and other characters and/or the game setting.
And from what I'm reading here, everybody is at least optimizing one of the factors above.

OP also mentioned planning a build to lvl 20:
level 20 might be a bit high, but I do plan ahead. I find the game very punishing for those that don't. I've found it very frustrating to play a character for over a year, discover at lvl 10 that there's a 10lvl PrC that's perfect for my character, but has prereq's I should have taken at 3rd and 6th level, and because I didn't I'll either have to wait to lvl15 to enter it, or play the same character-concept all over again next time. I know retraining is a thing, and have used it in the above example, but I prefer not having to resort to that.

[ezekielraiden]

So optimization here doesn't result in power, just viability.

Great summary, particularly this.

Optimization makes the most of a set of options. Power is related, but not the same.

[BowStreetRunner]

Good points about optimization not equaling just simply more power. I work as an analyst, and one of the most important considerations we take into account is the cost/benefit ratio. This definitely applies in D&D.

For instance, if you maximize your damage output, when you consider the resources you used to do it, what else could you have done with those resources instead? Is it worth sacrificing those things in order to maximize damage output? The truly optimized character maximizes something only to the point where the resources used wouldn't have been more valuable doing something else.

[Ruethgar]

I care abou optimization methods and use them in games for subpar classes or when others are building to a higher tier, but mainly for characters that I want to come out being a certain way so I use optimization techniques to get a thematic just right.

An example off the top of my head is using a self limited Mindsight on a Dvati archer so he can “see” who he is sniping from 1k ft away. His story has him as an assassin and while in play it is very doubtful he’ll ever have the chance to use that sort of sniping, him having the ability is what was important to me.

Another would be using Sculpt Self to get a few thematic abilities. Or the retraining rules/DCS for the auto-granted proficiency feats to make room for background feats.

I’ve found that, since switching to 3.P with SoP and SoC as the primary PF sources, I don’t need to do that anywhere near as much since the SoP/SoC system can so readily define a theme, but with just 3.5 I’ve used optimization techniques in suboptimal manner to make most of my characters hover around the T3/4 mark.

[HouseRules]

I have issues with Lanchester's [Differential] Equation. At one end of the extreme, we have the Lanchester's Square Law, and at the other end of the extreme, we have the Lanchester's Linear Law.

Experience Award always follows the Linear Law, and never the Square Law, as if the Monsters are too stupid to learn how to Focus Fire.

Not Optimized follows the Linear Law.
Average Optimized follows the Triangular Number (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_number)
Practical Optimized follows the Square Law.

Solo Party (1)
Dual Party (2)
Small Parties (3)
Medium Parties (4-7)
Large Parties (8+)

The best way to deal with large parties is to increase hit points for the monsters so that they survive focus fire from the players. Otherwise, they provide too few of a threat. The other issues is that DM need to increase monster quantity without quality, and follow the standard guide of stupid monsters do not focus fire. Only smart monsters know how to focus fire and never increase the quantity of these monsters when adjusting for party size.

[Resileaf]

Is taking an archetype in Pathfinder and building the entire character around its gimmick optimizing? I would think yes, but it's obvious that if the archetype is bad, then you're just optimizing the badness, which should make it not optimizing in the end.
Because that's a thing I really like doing. Just taking an archetype and building feats and equipment around it, without regards for whether it's good or not.

[zfs]

The vast majority of people only want to be able to contribute. I've only ever played with one person who did anything approaching a TO build, and it was in Epic Levels where any sense of balance the game once had falls apart anyway.

To the extent that a BSF with a two-handed weapon taking Power Attack is optimization, yes, most people do that.

[Jay R]

By definition, people who take an active part in this forum spend more time thinking about D&D away from the game than the average player.

That's what taking an active part here is.

[Bucky]

My only recent long-running campaign had some optimization-related problems.

We had two optimizers competing with each other, retiring characters and replacing them with increasingly optimized and specialized ones. We had a GM escalating to challenge those two players. We had one player building based on rule-of-cool without worrying too much about effectiveness, and dying a lot. And we had one player trying to keep a single character for the whole campaign with no rebuilds.

As a result, we sometimes had a player simply solo an encounter. We sometimes had one or more characters goofing around in combat because they knew they didn't matter. The low-op characters stopped using abilities that allowed saves because they literally never worked; the enemies' saves had to be high enough to deal with the high-op characters.

The problem almost killed the campaign, but eventually a couple of the players pulled the GM over for a talk on balance; it didn't level things out, but one of the high-op characters got nerfed to the point where it was possible to threaten them without shutting down the lower-op characters, and that ended the escalation.

[Morty]

The issue is definitely muddied by the game's balance problems making it so a character can be just fine in one group, but powerful or weak in another. To use my examples, the warmage might actually feel powerful next to an unoptimized wizard who focuses on blasting, especially in a low-level game. And the dual-wielder might actually look impressive next to someone who just made a fighter with a shield.

[noob]

The issue is definitely muddied by the game's balance problems making it so a character can be just fine in one group, but powerful or weak in another. To use my examples, the warmage might actually feel powerful next to an unoptimized wizard who focuses on blasting, especially in a low-level game. And the dual-wielder might actually look impressive next to someone who just made a fighter with a shield.

Dual wielding is so bad that a fighter which brings two shields and hit people with one shield while keeping the other close to him can make the dual wielding person look bad because at least the shield fighter does not have to fight penalties with all the attack rolls and the colossal amount of feat taxes with dual wielding.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Dual wielding is so bad that a fighter which brings two shields and hit people with one shield while keeping the other close to him can make the dual wielding person look bad because at least the shield fighter does not have to fight penalties with all the attack rolls and the colossal amount of feat taxes with dual wielding.

That's just a sword-and-board fighter with a bludgeon instead of a blade. Making that work is actually harder than a twf warrior because of it's lower damage output.

One feat and a pair of magic gloves really isn't -that- huge an investment for getting the extra attacks. Greater twf is a wasted feat outside of very particular circumstances. The steepest part of twf is the need to keep two weapons enhanced to the fullest degree you reasonably can.

[Oko and Qailee]

For me it strongly depends on the group.

One group I played with ~3/6 players didn't really care at all, 2/6 care but had bad ideas of what was truly optimal/overpowered, and one who optimized.

Another group I've Dmed for approx 3+ years has a bunch of people who optimize a good bit, but they always are optimizing weird builds, like a cat that was convinced he was a vampire, he was trying to recreate all the vampire features without being undead. His build was actually pretty powerful.

[Quertus]

Do I optimize? Of course. My characters are "not from around here", to optimize their viability at the greatest number of tables, their ability to form connections, and their ability to Explore the setting.

And I have lots of existing characters, to optimize the chance that I can pick one that fits a given scenario.

And i play lots of very different characters - lots of role-playing stretch goals - to optimize both the range of potential characters I can bring, and the range of characters I've experienced, to best understand what I like.

As far as power goes, meh, balance to the table.


how often do you see players intentionally build super powerful characters?

I rarely play with ****s like that. It's a sad thing when someone has the skill to build a strong character, but lacks the skill to know not to.


Most people are not optimizers. It takes at least a little effort to optimize (ie. realizing you can search online for optimizations, performing the searches, reading opinions on forums), and then there's the obvious table limits (source allowances, gentlemen's agreements on approximate power level, etc).

I am saddened by the extent to which people outsource character creation, that "optimize" can be viewed as "read online and copy" rather than "read books and think". :smallannoyed:


That does seem to result in a balanced party. Wasn't that the assumptions of the 3.0 creators?

I have yet to see an unoptimized blaster Wizard contribute meaningfully to a party.


One of the biggest issues I have with 3.5 is then actually the power creep not the uber power tricks. Power creep is much harder to notice, both as a DM trying to reign in power and as a player intentionally trying not to abuse the system. Certain things can slip through until you learn better. Spells stronger than most other spells of their level, feats stronger than most other feats, etc., etc. For uber power tricks it's easy to say "Lol no". Finding out where people draw the line is also hard, because different people draw it in different places.

Just balance to the table, fix as needed. Balance isn't just a point, it's a range. The larger the range your group can accept, the harder it is to be caught unawares by hidden imbalances.


I'd say it's a bout a third of all players. The ''optimize and Rule Them All" is popular for many players. Quite often it's a player that is not having such a great life, in their own view.

And many of the players that play 3/3.5E only do it for the ''power", and the safe nerf rules.

Yes, I suspect you're right, that you'll find more intentionally strong characters at the lower points of most people's lives. It's certainly not entirely untrue for me.

What are "safe nerf rules" in context?


This is actually something very irritating for me to read. RAW and RAI are quite important for me and my players, because if you ignore them, why are you even playing dnd, go play some rules light system like fate (actually would recommend highly for a rules light system, fate is great), or just do freeform roleplaying even. Implying that anyone who cares about the rules is a stingy rules lawyer is close minded and just rustles my jimmies. The rules are there to set expectations for players, to give guidelines to GMs and to all around maintain some level of consistency.

Preach it!


My only recent long-running campaign had some optimization-related problems.

We had two optimizers competing with each other, retiring characters and replacing them with increasingly optimized and specialized ones. We had a GM escalating to challenge those two players. We had one player building based on rule-of-cool without worrying too much about effectiveness, and dying a lot. And we had one player trying to keep a single character for the whole campaign with no rebuilds.

As a result, we sometimes had a player simply solo an encounter. We sometimes had one or more characters goofing around in combat because they knew they didn't matter. The low-op characters stopped using abilities that allowed saves because they literally never worked; the enemies' saves had to be high enough to deal with the high-op characters.

The problem almost killed the campaign, but eventually a couple of the players pulled the GM over for a talk on balance; it didn't level things out, but one of the high-op characters got nerfed to the point where it was possible to threaten them without shutting down the lower-op characters, and that ended the escalation.

It's a sad thing when someone has the skill to build a strong character, but lacks the skill to know not to.

I much prefer my tactic, of completely out-optimizing them, then asking if they'd care to scale back to the party's level. Came to be quite the spectator sport at some of my tables - some of my groups actively looked forward to playing with a clueless over-optimizer, just to watch that exchange.


One feat and a pair of magic gloves really isn't -that- huge an investment for getting the extra attacks. Greater twf is a wasted feat outside of very particular circumstances. The steepest part of twf is the need to keep two weapons enhanced to the fullest degree you reasonably can.

Which gloves are these? I've got a player going twf, and I don't think he'll need a power boost, but just in case...

[tyckspoon]

Which gloves are these? I've got a player going twf, and I don't think he'll need a power boost, but just in case...

Gloves of the Balanced Hand, MIC item. Gives the benefit of Two-Weapon Fighting, or Improved if the character already has the actual feat.

[Cosi]

I care about power level, not optimization. If out-of-the-box characters were capable of producing the kinds of stories I enjoy, I would play those. For the most part they aren't, so for the most part I don't.

[tadkins]

I care about optimization to a certain point. Like, I'll think of a cool character concept that may or may not be the most optimized thing in the world (a blasting witch, a frost champion cleric, etc) and then look for good options to make that concept work well in an actual game without compromising its flavor. Yes I know that if my wizard doesn't have Incantratrix levels or whatever that class is called, that it would be less powerful than one who does, but as long as it's a character that isn't just being carried by a party and can pull its own weight in the ways I want it to, then I am happy.

[kkplx]

So I’ve seen a lot of “optimization threads” which offer tips to squeezing 100% of the power from each class. However how often do you see players intentionally build super powerful characters?

Like when you play 3.5 is it a party full of ridiculous multi classes that exploit the system and plan their character from level 1-20 or is it more common to see players pick classes they like and try to play them competently but without any intention to be “super powerful”? Do you see players scour every source book for every advantage or do they tend to use only 1-3 books when they choose their feats and such?

From experience, players who still stick with 3.5 do so for the express purpose of abusing the system and its massive array of options.

[Cosi]

From experience, players who still stick with 3.5 do so for the express purpose of abusing the system and its massive array of options.

"Abusing" is a needlessly antagonistic word in this context. 3e is, by and large, intended to produce characters that are more like optimized 3e characters than any other game. If you want to play those characters, using 3e is the least abusive way to do so.

[noob]

From experience, players who still stick with 3.5 do so for the express purpose of abusing the system and its massive array of options.

I play 3.5 and I always use core only characters with a single class.
You do not need to abuse the system or to get 3 manuals to be stupidly powerful.
Getting a high level is enough to do stuff like casting teleport.

[DeadlyUematsu]

From experience, players who still stick with 3.5 do so for the express purpose of abusing the system and its massive array of options.

I have to agree. Last couple of times I went about recruiting players for a 3.5e campaign, I saw a great amount of overpowered, if not outright broken, characters as if it was a normal thing to do. As such I am very skittish about running 3.5e again until the tendency tampers off.

[noob]

I have to agree. Last couple of times I went about recruiting players for a 3.5e campaign, I saw a great amount of overpowered, if not outright broken, characters as if it was a normal thing to do. As such I am very skittish about running 3.5e again until the tendency tampers off.

Do not forget that monsters have all the tools players have plus some more so for a character to be broken it basically need to go 120% tippy(when the layers upon layers of contingent spells exceeds writable numbers and that nesting time stops infinitely and then forgetting what you planned to do because you spent too much accelerated time casting time stop and having a contingency reminding you what you planned to do is a normal thing).

If a character just goes around and teleport an infinity of times and casts all the damage spells an infinity of times per turn then it is not powerful enough to be truly broken.

Some dnd 3.5 players plays some sort of metaphysics game where Infinite spiral power seems just weak and where you start rewriting philosophy and the rules of physics.
Anything less than that is beatable by using the right tools on monsters yes even the person teleporting an infinity of times and casting all the damage spells each turn(including an infinity of no save no sr no attack roll just take damage spells)
You just need to figure out the right tools to use in the normal fights where the usual questions are stuff like "if I cast as an immediate action greater celerity and ready time stop to cast it if someone casts time stop or celerity what happens if my opponent readied an action to react to that situation before" and "If I make that each worshiper of kord as well as kord was never born will kord never be a god"

If on the other hand you face something as mundane as a character dealing BB(5345546,4324) and that you do not have super turing machine with an oracle to calculate that amount of damage there is then tons of ways to just make your monsters not take damage or to just swarm with enough monsters(which will have the side effect of making the player feel cool thus it is the encouraged tactic) or to have monsters immune to that form of damage and so on.
If you can calculate the damage you can just give more hit points to the monsters.
If your player is polite enough to cast spells which allows saves you can just boost the saves of the monsters if that player is too reliable.(for example make it fight higher level monsters)

The other problem that can arise is if two players decides to pick the same niche(example: hp damage) and that one does not do the job properly and have no other niche in which case finding a way to remedy to the weakness of that player could be encouraged(example: give it a shiny template without the usual la or if your players are a lot in the cooperation theme the players might themselves give extra magical items to the weaker character)

Then if your players are jerks in real life no matter the system it is going to not work.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I have to agree. Last couple of times I went about recruiting players for a 3.5e campaign, I saw a great amount of overpowered, if not outright broken, characters as if it was a normal thing to do. As such I am very skittish about running 3.5e again until the tendency tampers off.

I've found that, as long as you know what's out there, it's usually not all that difficult to make "overpowered" characters work for every inch of proverbial ground. To that end, there are two books I absolutely cannot recommend highly enough for a GM; The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook and Dungeonscape. The right environmental features can turn a foe that would be a pushover into a nightmare really quickly.

I'd be happy to provide examples if you could tell me where you put the line for "overpowered."

[Nytemare3701]

Most of the time, building a character to the specifications I'm seeking (usually a particularly esoteric combination of abilities like a martial character that has access to one or two spells in particular), I usually have to overshoot the target "balanced" character and double back. Character building is a resource allocation game, and the more powerful the build, the more efficient the resources are allocated, giving more breathing room to make non-optimal choices for fun without shooting yourself in the foot.

[CactusAir]

Pretty much this.

Most people care at least a little about optimization (though they don't think about it in such terms). They want a character who can "do things", preferably cool things. that's like very basic optimization.

Only a minority care about optimization in the sense of actually planning and designing character builds and combos and whatever.

As as people have noted, a good chunk of those who care enough to "dollcraft" still aren't any good at it

[skunk3]

In my personal experience I've found that optimizers are more like 50% (or better) of the people I've come across. By 'optimization' I mean making a particular class or combo as effective as it can be at the shticks that person wants the character to be good at. In other words, I've seen loads of reach weapon wielding, tripping, charger fighter types with rings of freedom of movement. As far as min-maxers go, they are pretty rare but I have met several and they take it seriously. They almost exclusively play tier 1 classes and only play lower tier classes if there is some sort of trick they can exploit, like ubercharger builds for example, or a crit fishing Disciple of Dispater build or whatever. They also scour forums (such as this one) for build ideas and feat combos that make them insanely effective at doing things or even one thing, so much so that it's almost game-breaking. One of these days I'm going to play a character that takes levels solely based upon what the PC has been doing in the campaign and have been interacting with, even if it ends up being a huge mess. I typically come up with an idea and build around it, but I totally admit I am one of those people who usually plans a character from 1-20 from the very start, feats and all. I have numerous .txt files in a folder with build ideas, many of which I've never had the chance to actually play. Sometimes I will just think of a PERSONALITY and decide what classes suit the character. Lately though I've been playing mostly Warlock-centric builds because they are so hassle-free and can be flavored in many ways, and no matter how much optimization you try to do with a Warlock it's never gonna be hogging the spotlight, lol. My personal gameplay style is ranged, mobile, and capable of being annoying but not so much that I become the primary target, so Warlocks are perfect for me.