PDA

View Full Version : Your forum makes me confused



Pages : [1] 2

hyperfreak497
2007-09-29, 11:12 PM
Flipping through a few threads here, I soon became utterly confused. I've never played hardcore D&D with minmaxing and different tiers of classes; I've basically just played with my friends, using the core rules and a few supplements. House rules are very rare. So, I've got several questions. I decided not to post this as a series of questions in the "Simple Questions" thread because I thought some of these might get complicated (like the one about different tiers). So, without further ado...

1) How do you minmax? I understand the concept of making a character ridiculesly good, but I'm not really clear how you could make a character so obscene at first level.

2) What is a "shock trooper" combo?

3) What classes are good; what classes are bad (core only, for now) and why? My friends and I have never noticed any of them being extremely bad or good, but we mostly play low-level anyway.

4) What's "ToB"?

5) What makes a druid so good?

I'll post more if I find more that make me wonder.

Skjaldbakka
2007-09-29, 11:19 PM
1) How do you minmax? I understand the concept of making a character ridiculesly good, but I'm not really clear how you could make a character so obscene at first level.

Minmaxing originally was optimizing in such a way as to have your important stats really high, while sacrificing stats that aren't important to you (making them very low). Nowadays, minmaxing is more of a catch-all for optimization.


2) What is a "shock trooper" combo?

I don't recall all the specifics, but essentially, you combine effects that give you more efficient power attack with shock trooper's ability to move your PA penalty to your AC instead of your to-hit.


3) What classes are good; what classes are bad (core only, for now) and why? My friends and I have never noticed any of them being extremely bad or good, but we mostly play low-level anyway.

This is a topic for its own thread, or possibly several.


4) What's "ToB"?

Tome of Battle. It is a new sourcebook. Some think it is good, some think it is bad, all agree that it makes fighter-types more powerful.


5) What makes a druid so good?

Wildshape + Natural Spell. After 7th/8th level, a druid can stay in wildshape all day, thus negating the need for any good physical stats. Since druids don't need int or cha for any important class features, you can prioritize wisdom to the exclusion of every other stat. See response to Q#1.

That and they are primary spellcasters.

Green Bean
2007-09-29, 11:23 PM
1) That's really a class specific question. Different classes can be easier/harder to optimize.

2) Shock Trooper is a feat in a book that escapes me at the moment. It's widely regarded as a way to almost let Fighters catch up to the casters (almost).

3) The 'Big Three' of Core DnD are Wizard, Cleric, and Druid. Wizards are on top, and Clerics and Druids are tied for second. These are fairly powerful at low level, but really come into their own at mid/high levels. Monks are generally considered the worst, with Fighters close behind.

4) ToB stands for Tome of Battle. It's a splatbook that includes different options for melee characters. Supporters say it allows melee combatants to keep up with casters, while detractors tend to either think that it balances the scales too far the other way, or disagree with the fluff.

5) Druids are good because they have so many powerful features, as well as only really needing two stats. They have access to Wildshape (negating their need to bump up STR or DEX), full spellcasting, animal companion, and a decent Hit Die.

AslanCross
2007-09-29, 11:24 PM
1) How do you minmax? I understand the concept of making a character ridiculesly good, but I'm not really clear how you could make a character so obscene at first level.
Min-maxing is pumping only a couple of important stats, to the detriment of everything else. Like dumping Charisma, for example. I'm not a fan of this playing style either.



2) What is a "shock trooper" combo?
Shock Trooper is a tactical feat from Complete Warrior that allows a character to be darn good at bullrushing, which includes being able to trip two characters at a time. (Like all tactical feats, it gives three abilities. In this case, you get to chose in which direction to push a target of your bull rush, you get to trip two targets if you bull rush someone into another's space, and you can sacrifice AC instead of AB when Power Attacking on a charge.) I'm not sure about the rest of the combo, though.



3) What classes are good; what classes are bad (core only, for now) and why? My friends and I have never noticed any of them being extremely bad or good, but we mostly play low-level anyway.

General consensus is that casters are good, fighters are bad, and monks are the worst of the worst. Casters get unrivaled versatility and damage output, while fighters (at least core-only fighters) don't really have much options. Monks don't seem to fit any intended role as they aren't as tough as other melee characters and yet aren't as flexible as rogues. Don't get me wrong, I like fighters a lot, and I actually appreciate monks. Just telling you what I hear in these forums a lot. (Not to say that the classes are without problems and that casters really are overpowered)


4) What's "ToB"? Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords. It introduces a different style of melee fighting that uses stances and techniques. It introduces the Crusader (similar to a paladin), Swordsage (has some rogue-ish and monk-ish attributes) and Warblade (d12 hit dice, but with more polish than a fighter)


5) What makes a druid so good? The druid and cleric get the best of both worlds: They have full caster progression and decent melee capability. A lot of their spells can make up for their physical stats if they are found lacking. [/quote]

Lavin
2007-09-29, 11:26 PM
4) What's "ToB"?

5) What makes a druid so good?

4: Tome of Battle.
5: Everything.

Zincorium
2007-09-29, 11:27 PM
I'll see if I can't help out a bit.


Flipping through a few threads here, I soon became utterly confused. I've never played hardcore D&D with minmaxing and different tiers of classes; I've basically just played with my friends, using the core rules and a few supplements. House rules are very rare. So, I've got several questions. I decided not to post this as a series of questions in the "Simple Questions" thread because I thought some of these might get complicated (like the one about different tiers). So, without further ado...

1) How do you minmax? I understand the concept of making a character ridiculesly good, but I'm not really clear how you could make a character so obscene at first level.


Very broad question, you can get answers for 'how do I make a good character with x', where x is what character you'd like to play, but if it's outlandish you should expect a few suggestions for alternatives that would work better.

Also, people rarely play the most brokenly powerful characters, those of us who know the game well enough to do so realize it's not a good idea; the DM will always win a conflict.



2) What is a "shock trooper" combo?


The Shock Trooper tactical feat from Complete warrior has a 'heedless charge' option where you transfer the to-hit penalty from using power attack to your AC instead. Since power attack is a very good way of dealing extra damage, and the AC penalty quickly goes away, it's a key move for many power attacking or charging characters.



3) What classes are good; what classes are bad (core only, for now) and why? My friends and I have never noticed any of them being extremely bad or good, but we mostly play low-level anyway.


Cleric and druid are very good because they are both tough melee characters and full spellcasters, with incredibly large spell lists. Wizards have spell combos that can defeat anything when they get to later levels, but the correct focus as far as spells go will make them potent at low levels as well.

Monks are generally considered bad because they only do one thing, combat, and don't do it as well or as easily as other combat only classes. Bards are not bad if you use them for what they are (spellcasting social types) rather than jack of all trades, which they are not.



4) What's "ToB"?


Tome of Battle: the book of nine swords (see why it's shortened?:smallbiggrin:). Generally makes fighting characters more versatile and more interesting to play. Often rejected because it is perceived as 'anime' (which is subjective) or as 'overpowered', which has more to do with the core classes they're supposed to take the place of.



5) What makes a druid so good?


You get to be a giant bear that either rips people apart or destroys them with spells. At the same time. Without losing anything.



I'll post more if I find more that make me wonder.

Feel free, but I suggest looking at the FAQ thread stickied at the top there, it'll have a lot of answers.

horseboy
2007-09-29, 11:29 PM
2) What is a "shock trooper" combo?

Shock trooper is a feat in Complete Warrior. It allows you to drop your AC to add to damage, when combined with a couple of other feats, it allows a barbarian/fighter to do several hundred points of damage in one hit.


3) What classes are good; what classes are bad (core only, for now) and why? My friends and I have never noticed any of them being extremely bad or good, but we mostly play low-level anyway.
Any full caster, namely Cleric, Druid Wizard

hyperfreak497
2007-09-29, 11:32 PM
Another question:
6. What's "That Damn Crab"?

And, secondly, I was specifically asking how you would minmax, I don't know, a fighter. I first encountered minmaxing when reading the webcomic "Goblins". One of the characters (named "Minmax") has 22 Strength and 60 ft. speed at first level. The only response to how this is possible is "So he moved a few stats around. What's the big deal?" I don't understand how "moving a few stats around" would change anything.

Thirdly, I own Complete Warrior, and I looked it up when I first saw the Shock Trooper combo referred to, and didn't get it. Maybe I'll go re-read it...

EDIT: And three more responses were up by the time I finished typing this post, making these comments somewhat obsolete. I guess I should expect more by the time I finish typing this edit.

Serenity
2007-09-29, 11:34 PM
Tome of Battle. It is a new sourcebook. Some think it is good, some think it is bad, all agree that it makes fighter-types more powerful.

More specifically, Tome of Battle (Full name, Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords) details three new base classes (The Crusader, the Swordsage, and the Warblade) which are essentially variants of the Paladin, Monk, and Fighter respectively. They have the ability to initiate maneuvers, special combat abilities that are mechanically similar to spells, though for the most part the effects they produce are mundane. Those in favor of it argue that it gives melee types a much-needed boost, addressing their problems of poor mobility and reliance on full attack among other things. Those who dislike it argue that the wuxia style that the book is presented in is incompatible with medieval European fantasy, or that the book takes the wrong approach in improving fighters by special powers that (they claim) basically make them into magic-users with a blade. Others even claim that ToB classes are overpowered.

UglyPanda
2007-09-29, 11:38 PM
2) Leap attack from complete adventurer vastly increases the amount of damage from power attack if you leap into your opponent's square from a charge. This combined with shock trooper turns you into a glass bazooka in comparison to the flying, invisible, heavily-protected, glass cannons which are casters.

Jasdoif
2007-09-29, 11:40 PM
Another question:
6. What's "That Damn Crab"?Here's a recent thread on it (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56749), including a link to its stats and why it's called "that damn crab". To summarize, its combat capability is notably better then its listed CR would suggest.

ocato
2007-09-29, 11:42 PM
When browsing these forums, just remember that D&D is not typically played how people treat it here. Yes, people consider Monks to suck here and Wizards to be Batman/God, and yes you can make a fighter with a spiked chain who trips/bull rushes and power attack/ leap attacks into Shock Trooper obscenity, but most of the time, the idea is to make characters of moderately similar power and to work as a team so people are having fun. I've seen far too many groups tear themselves apart when people get the minmaxing bug and start making characters that make the game unfun to everyone in their shadow. Just... take all of the things you read here with a grain of salt.

Jasdoif
2007-09-29, 11:45 PM
When browsing these forums, just remember that D&D is not typically played how people treat it here. Yes, people consider Monks to suck here and Wizards to be Batman/God, and yes you can make a fighter with a spiked chain who trips/bull rushes and power attack/ leap attacks into Shock Trooper obscenity, but most of the time, the idea is to make characters of moderately similar power and to work as a team so people are having fun. I've seen far too many groups tear themselves apart when people get the minmaxing bug and start making characters that make the game unfun to everyone in their shadow. Just... take all of the things you read here with a grain of salt.Players, like DMs, should remember that "just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

Zincorium
2007-09-29, 11:47 PM
And, secondly, I was specifically asking how you would minmax, I don't know, a fighter. I first encountered minmaxing when reading the webcomic "Goblins". One of the characters (named "Minmax") has 22 Strength and 60 ft. speed at first level. The only response to how this is possible is "So he moved a few stats around. What's the big deal?" I don't understand how "moving a few stats around" would change anything.

'Minmax' doesn't really represent the modern D&D rules. It's a lot easier to do that type of thing with point based games like GURPS, where you can take lots of 'flaws' that don't really affect you much in return for greater power. These (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm) are the flaws available in D&D. Murky-eyed is popular for melee characters. Don't expect to use them in most campaigns, though.

Dervag
2007-09-29, 11:48 PM
Another question:
6. What's "That Damn Crab"?An extremely powerful combat monster from somewhere, a gigantic crab. It's huge and fierce and well-armored, and because it's basically a mindless giant bug it's immune to mind-affecting spells, including many of the most useful ones a wizard can fight it with at low level. It can grab you and tear you in half.

The consensus seems to be that "That Damn Crab" is a reasonable monster, but is way more powerful than its CR would indicate.


And, secondly, I was specifically asking how you would minmax, I don't know, a fighter. I first encountered minmaxing when reading the webcomic "Goblins". One of the characters (named "Minmax") has 22 Strength and 60 ft. speed at first level. The only response to how this is possible is "So he moved a few stats around. What's the big deal?" I don't understand how "moving a few stats around" would change anything.Well, Minmax the Legendary Warrior is a parody of the type, but the idea is sound.

Frankly, minmaxing and other styles of overbuilding a character aren't especially effective unless:
a) the player has access to lots and lots of source books, allowing them to cherrypick the best race/class/feat combos for whatever they're trying to do, or
b) the player has multiple levels over which to build up their character's strength and gain multiple special abilities that work together to produce a superpowerful character.

Douglas
2007-09-30, 12:11 AM
Another question:
6. What's "That Damn Crab"?
The Monstrous Crab found here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040221a). It's rated as CR 3. Pit it against a typical level 3 party and it will massacre them.


And, secondly, I was specifically asking how you would minmax, I don't know, a fighter. I first encountered minmaxing when reading the webcomic "Goblins". One of the characters (named "Minmax") has 22 Strength and 60 ft. speed at first level. The only response to how this is possible is "So he moved a few stats around. What's the big deal?" I don't understand how "moving a few stats around" would change anything.
How to minmax a fighter depends a lot on the style of fighter you want. For a big damage dealer, take Power Attack, Shock Trooper, Leap Attack, Karmic Strike, Combat Reflexes, and one level in Barbarian with an alternate class feature from Complete Champion (I think) that gives you the ability to full attack when you charge.

The Minmax character in Goblins is more accurately described as a munchkin - his build is not actually possible within the normal rules. He is either outright cheating or has an extremely lenient DM who approved a lot of requests for house rules.


Thirdly, I own Complete Warrior, and I looked it up when I first saw the Shock Trooper combo referred to, and didn't get it. Maybe I'll go re-read it...
Fighter 20 charges and takes a -20 penalty for Power Attack. He uses Leap Attack to improve the damage ratio for his two-hander so he gets +60 (I think) damage in exchange. He uses Shock Trooper to redirect the penalty to his AC so he can still hit. Properly done (there are a few more things you can add to the combo), your AC will be negligible but your target will be unable to take advantage of this fact due to being dead. Add in Karmic Strike and Combat Reflexes, and anyone else who tries to take advantage of your vulnerability gets hit back with an AoO that does just as much damage as your charge attack did.

AtomicKitKat
2007-09-30, 12:49 AM
To clarify, "min-maxing" refers to minimising your weaknesses while maximising your strengths. Ideally, you want weaknesses that require Deus Ex Machina(God mechanism, aka DM intentionally screwing you) to occur(As an example adapted from an AD&D splatbook, you take a penalty on casting if you're in a river on the night of a full blue moon, drenched in orc blood...), while picking advantages that occur with sufficient frequency(...while getting a boost in casting ability when wrapped in fur; ie, by simply wearing a parka everywhere).

"That damn crab" works a lot like Trolls, in that it's far too strong in practical play, compared to the theory(Challenge Rating). I suspect that a lot of the times, the CRs are calculated for a party of a few levels higher taking on a few monsters of that CR(eg. 2 CR 3 Giant Crabs would be "suitable" for a party of level 5s, or something like that.), rather than a single monster of that CR facing off a party of that level.

Edit: Combat Brute is the other key component of the Leap Attack/Shocktrooper combo. Together, they form the SLACB triumvirate, dealing triple digit damage to all in their path. Frenzied Berserker essentially doubles whatever Power Attack exchange rate you get from there(the final result is something like 18-1 returns on Power Attack, which can then be multiplied further with Critical Hits, and the Headlong Rush Orc feat from Races of Faerun, since the number is a "fixed value", rather than "bonus damage dice".). Elusive Target(if you can somehow fit it) allows you to negate any chance of the opponent getting in a Power Attack to take advantage of your lowered AC. Especially useful, since Karmic Strike requires you to get hit before you get to hit back.

ocato
2007-09-30, 12:52 AM
I think that Robilar's Gambit and Karmic Strike work together so that if he hits you, you get to hit him back twice.

Draz74
2007-09-30, 01:04 AM
General consensus is that casters are good, fighters are bad, and monks are the worst of the worst.

I'll out-anti-optimize your Monk with a Samurai or Soulknife any day of the week. :smallwink:

Zincorium
2007-09-30, 01:11 AM
I'll out-anti-optimize your Monk with a Samurai or Soulknife any day of the week. :smallwink:

Those only exist because somebody decided "Monks are too powerful, they have way too many special abilities. We need to lower the power level of classes we make so that doesn't happen again".

Soulknife is mostly horrible because it's a bad combatant, with no secondary role, whose entire selection of class abilities can be summarized as 'free magic items' at levels where those magic items are simply not impressive.

Samurai sucks against all classes it's intended to compete against. And it would be nice if it's special ability worked. Kind of like an unoptimized truenamer with the worst weapon style and a lack of anything worthwhile.

Skjaldbakka
2007-09-30, 01:15 AM
Except that Truenamer beats everyone else in the 'worst class' category. 3/4 BAB and class features that eat all your feats and magic items before they can work 50% of the time? At least CW Samurai can ignore his crappy class features and still have full BAB and d10 HD. Even 2WF is better than Truenaming.

Which is too bad. I really like the flavor of Truenamer.

Draz74
2007-09-30, 01:16 AM
Samurai sucks against all classes it's intended to compete against. And it would be nice if it's special ability worked. Kind of like an unoptimized truenamer with the worst weapon style and a lack of anything worthwhile.

A Samurai could probably beat a Truenamer who didn't take any ranks in the Truespeak skill.

Probably. :smalleek:

Nowhere Girl
2007-09-30, 01:37 AM
How to minmax a fighter depends a lot on the style of fighter you want. For a big damage dealer, take Power Attack, Shock Trooper, Leap Attack, Karmic Strike, Combat Reflexes, and one level in Barbarian with an alternate class feature from Complete Champion (I think) that gives you the ability to full attack when you charge.

You can do way better than that.

psychic warrior 8/warmind 2/cavalier 10

Get Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge, Weapon Focus: Lance, perhaps Furious Charge or Saddleback if you're playing in Forgotten Realms and can take regional feats, Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Shock Trooper, Leadership for a good mount (like a giant eagle or griffon) ...

Congratulations. You can now execute charge attacks for thousands of points of damage per round. Your progression isn't even hard -- you start out good and become overpowered by level 4, when you pick up Psionic Lion's Charge and begin one-shotting all of your opponents in ridiculous full-attack charges for triple damage. And that's BEFORE you get really strong.

And the Batman wizard is still better than you are and always will be.

(Yes, there was a time when I believed that people were exaggerating about wizards. I concede that I was wrong. Per RAW, wizards are stupidly overpowered, and so are clerics and druids.)

Skjaldbakka
2007-09-30, 01:45 AM
I think samurai pretty much wins against equal level truenamer. Look at it this way: Samurai has crappy class features, but they work against a truenamer of equal level most of the time. A truenamer's abilities have an abysmal success rate against a foe of equal level.

Plus the samurai has a full BAB and d10 HD, armor profs, etc.

Of course, we are comparing rotten apples to rotten oranges here.



And the Batman wizard is still better than you are and always will be.

Not always the case. This doesn't kick in until around level 7, so your build gets to be the star of the show for like, 3 levels. Then the wizard is better and always will be.

Nowhere Girl
2007-09-30, 01:48 AM
For crappy classes, let's not forget about swashbucklers. As a 3-level dip, they're good, but beyond that, they barely even HAVE class features.

And their value as a dip class is meaningless. You could dip into samurai for one level for a free EWP: bastard sword proficiency, too. So what? Samurai is still a terrible class.

Nowhere Girl
2007-09-30, 01:58 AM
Not always the case. This doesn't kick in until around level 7, so your build gets to be the star of the show for like, 3 levels. Then the wizard is better and always will be.

Good point.

That build actually STARTS good (is even strong at level 1, as level 1 characters go), so you might even say it gets to be the star for 7 levels. Then just as it's about to become really strong, the wizard begins an ascent to godhood. Just as the mounted charge build becomes obnoxious, the wizard becomes completely unkillable by any non-caster.

*sigh*

I would never allow Celerity as a GM. EVER.

Skjaldbakka
2007-09-30, 02:04 AM
I would never allow Celerity as a GM. EVER.

I am considering adding it as a high level melee character option. Like a feat with a +15 BAB prereq, that gives you Celerity as an ex. ability X/day. Because fighter need the help. Actually, better make it BAB +16, so that druids and clerics can't get it.

Dervag
2007-09-30, 02:04 AM
You can do way better than that.

psychic warrior 8/warmind 2/cavalier 10...True, but different flavor. And the fact that your tactics depend on the use of your mount can limit you in some situations (for instance, your mount will not fit neatly into dungeon corridors).


For crappy classes, let's not forget about swashbucklers. As a 3-level dip, they're good, but beyond that, they barely even HAVE class features.In your experience do they work? I haven't gotten the chance to play one yet.

I don't mean "are they capable of holding their own in PvP against a wizard" or "are they as lethal against monsters as a super-power-attacking barbarian or super-lancer like the one you describe?" Sure, they're not; but I'm not asking them to be.

I mean "can they serve as one fourth of a party capable of taking on encounters of CR equal to its level without putting an undue burden on the other three members, the way that, say, a commoner would?"

And what prestige or multiclassing options can make them less ineffective?

Skjaldbakka
2007-09-30, 02:07 AM
I believe the issue with swashbuckler 20 is that the high level class features it gets, while interesting, very often don't work, due to being precision-based. At the same time, there are a number of dead levels in between the low-level goodies and the high level goodies, thus increasing the desire to PrC out.

This is all second hand from one of my players griping about Swashbuckler, so my data may not be 100% accurate.

AtomicKitKat
2007-09-30, 02:12 AM
Actually, Wizard wins levels 1-4 by virtue of Sleep, Colour Spray, and Grease. Level 3 onwards, he blinds you with Glitterdust. And tacks on Blindness/Deafness to gimp you further. Levels 1-7, if he gets enough Dex to beat yours(likely, because he only has Int to focus on otherwise), Ray of Enfeeblement literally renders you helpless as a baby, and he humiliates you by grappling you to death.

So yeah, you really don't get to shine at any level, compared to him.:smalleek:

Dervag
2007-09-30, 02:19 AM
Yeah, but at low levels you've still got a decent chance of beating him by rushing him, and there's still a nontrivial chance that he'll have burned enough of his spells per day to be fighting at less-than-total deadliness. You can lose, of course. It may even be that the odds favor you losing. But you can win, too.

AtomicKitKat
2007-09-30, 02:25 AM
Yeah, but at low levels you've still got a decent chance of beating him by rushing him, and there's still a nontrivial chance that he'll have burned enough of his spells per day to be fighting at less-than-total deadliness. You can lose, of course. It may even be that the odds favor you losing. But you can win, too.

True, but Improved Initiative is also about the only Feat tht will save your ass at those levels.:smalltongue:

Skjaldbakka
2007-09-30, 02:25 AM
Actually, Wizard wins levels 1-4 by virtue of Sleep, Colour Spray, and Grease. Level 3 onwards, he blinds you with Glitterdust. And tacks on Blindness/Deafness to gimp you further. Levels 1-7, if he gets enough Dex to beat yours(likely, because he only has Int to focus on otherwise), Ray of Enfeeblement literally renders you helpless as a baby, and he humiliates you by grappling you to death.

So yeah, you really don't get to shine at any level, compared to him.

We're talking about shining, not going one-on-one. At low level, the wizard is reliant on the fighter-types to keep him from getting killed, and the fighter-types are generally doing the monster-killing. Blind-Fight works wonders on Glitterdust and Blindness/Deafness, btw.

Nowhere Girl
2007-09-30, 02:31 AM
True, but different flavor. And the fact that your tactics depend on the use of your mount can limit you in some situations (for instance, your mount will not fit neatly into dungeon corridors).

Except it's a cohort, so it can gain levels, too. Giant eagles are highly intelligent and can easily gain class levels, like say in psychic warrior as well, which gives access to both Expansion and Compression.

Also, giant eagles are only Large-sized creatures. Unless the dungeon is ridiculously cramped, it will probably be alright. If the dungeon IS too tight, then there must not be much of anything big in it, right? ;)


In your experience do they work? I haven't gotten the chance to play one yet.

Swashbucklers?

Sure, as a 3-level dip, if you intend to do a lot with Intelligence.

Once nice thing about Insightful Strike is that it adds Intelligence to damage with any weapon usable with Weapon Finesse ... but along with Strength, rather than in place of it. So I suppose you could, say, use it with a spiked chain and still do Power-Attacking, Shock-Trooping, Improved-Tripping cheese, if you wanted.


I don't mean "are they capable of holding their own in PvP against a wizard" or "are they as lethal against monsters as a super-power-attacking barbarian or super-lancer like the one you describe?" Sure, they're not; but I'm not asking them to be.

I mean "can they serve as one fourth of a party capable of taking on encounters of CR equal to its level without putting an undue burden on the other three members, the way that, say, a commoner would?"

Well, here's a question for you:

If swashbucklers aren't as lethal against monsters as fighters or barbarians ...

And if they aren't able to do ... well, anything a wizard or any other caster can do ...

Then what ARE they supposed to do?

They can't even touch rogues at skillmonkeying, and even bards are still better at it, along with having other abilities besides.

A swashbuckler is mainly only good at melee, but they're subpar as meleers. They're not even on an even footing with fighters -- even fighters with so-so builds, let alone Shock Trooper monsters.

A 20 swashbuckler literally has NO role. Can't fight, can't cast, can't skillmonkey ... probably can't even garner sympathy from fellow PCs, all of whom spent the last 17 levels saying, "Class into something else, you fool!"


And what prestige or multiclassing options can make them less ineffective?

Taking them 3 levels up and then classing into something else. There's what I mentioned above, or you might use them as a 3-level dip in a finessing dervish build, if you like. It's hard to make finesse melee builds work, though, as they have difficulty competing with the obnoxious damage Strength-based Power Attack builds can deal.

Elusive Target makes you more competitive in that you can actually counter those builds, though. Throw in Hold the Line and Sidestep Charge, and you can actually make those charging builds cry since you're both negating their massive bonus damage and punishing them brutally for charging you. But then you're still, at the end of the day, a low-damage meleer whose only real benefit outside of countering Power Attacking chargers is that you have a great Initiative score and would go first a lot if it weren't for the fact that the wizard has Celerity and therefore ALWAYS goes first.

Nowhere Girl
2007-09-30, 02:44 AM
I believe the issue with swashbuckler 20 is that the high level class features it gets, while interesting, very often don't work, due to being precision-based. At the same time, there are a number of dead levels in between the low-level goodies and the high level goodies, thus increasing the desire to PrC out.

This is all second hand from one of my players griping about Swashbuckler, so my data may not be 100% accurate.

That's basically it.

Swashbucklers get basically one neat thing (ability damage attacks), but they get it at high levels, and it won't work half of the time anyway.

And at those same levels, fighters and barbarians are still killing opponents faster anyway. Even opponents that ability damage will work on.

AtomicKitKat
2007-09-30, 04:52 AM
We're talking about shining, not going one-on-one. At low level, the wizard is reliant on the fighter-types to keep him from getting killed, and the fighter-types are generally doing the monster-killing. Blind-Fight works wonders on Glitterdust and Blindness/Deafness, btw.

Well yeah, but the wizard puts out a group as large as the party with a single Sleep, or everyone in a cone in front of him with Colour Spray. Glitterdust+Deafness from B/D beats Blind-Fight, I think. Or at least, it should, since you're left with Smell, Taste, and Touch, none of which are particularly useful in a fight(Smell excepted, except for the fact that none of the PHB races has enough sense of smell to qualify. Not even Gnomes).

Checked the SRD, and apparently, it makes no allowances for being deafened in addition to blinding. Someone both blind and deaf should really be mostly helpless(No, I'm not an "ablist". However, this should hold true in the high-combat-frequency world of most D&D games).

Morty
2007-09-30, 04:56 AM
Well yeah, but the wizard puts out a group as large as the party with a single Sleep, or everyone in a cone in front of him with Colour Spray.


Of course, at least some of them will make their save, and low-level wizard doesn't have many spells to repeat casting them.

AslanCross
2007-09-30, 04:58 AM
I'll out-anti-optimize your Monk with a Samurai or Soulknife any day of the week. :smallwink:

Wait, Soulknife sucks? D: That's a shame, looking at it on paper I thought it was pretty interesting. What's wrong with it?

Skjaldbakka
2007-09-30, 05:01 AM
The soulknife's defining class feature (a magic weapon), is something that can be purchased or duplicated with a 3rd level spell. Every fighter gets a +X weapon. And a full BAB.

Yuki Akuma
2007-09-30, 05:10 AM
Wait, Soulknife sucks? D: That's a shame, looking at it on paper I thought it was pretty interesting. What's wrong with it?

Soulknives are monks without the 'survive absolutely anything' ability.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-09-30, 05:23 AM
Of course, at least some of them will make their save, and low-level wizard doesn't have many spells to repeat casting them.

With a first-level DC of 15 or 16, and Orcs having a -2 Will save, the odds of the will save being made aren't good.

The 6th Side
2007-09-30, 05:25 AM
Flipping through a few threads here, I soon became utterly confused. I've never played hardcore D&D with minmaxing and different tiers of classes; I've basically just played with my friends, using the core rules and a few supplements. House rules are very rare. So, I've got several questions. I decided not to post this as a series of questions in the "Simple Questions" thread because I thought some of these might get complicated (like the one about different tiers). So, without further ado...

1) How do you minmax? I understand the concept of making a character ridiculesly good, but I'm not really clear how you could make a character so obscene at first level.

2) What is a "shock trooper" combo?

3) What classes are good; what classes are bad (core only, for now) and why? My friends and I have never noticed any of them being extremely bad or good, but we mostly play low-level anyway.

4) What's "ToB"?

5) What makes a druid so good?

I'll post more if I find more that make me wonder.

{Scrubbed}

Morty
2007-09-30, 05:29 AM
With a first-level DC of 15 or 16, and Orcs having a -2 Will save, the odds of the will save being made aren't good.

There are whole lot of enemies that aren't orcs. Goblins, for instance, or any humanoid race without Wis penalty. Or undead. That, and not every wizard will have +4 Int modifier on 1st level. And even though these enemies may have low chance to save against spell, there is a chance, and wizard have only few Sleeps or Color Sprays on low levels, so if enemy makes his/her/its save, the spell is wasted. So on low levels wizard is surely useful and valuable, but not more so than figther, rogue or any other non-monk class.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-09-30, 05:29 AM
{Scrubbed}

This isn't 4chan, you know.

Yuki Akuma
2007-09-30, 06:00 AM
This isn't 4chan, you know.

It's not?!

You know, after reading his signature, it all starts to make sense...

Dhavaer
2007-09-30, 06:08 AM
It's not?!

No, you're thinking of the 'Mature' Boards.

AtomicKitKat
2007-09-30, 06:40 AM
It doesn't even have to be Sleep/Colour Spray. How about Animate Rope? Or Enlarge. I didn't say this first, but someone on this board once said: "The trouble isn't that the Wizard is weak at low levels, and then rules at higher levels. The Wizard is ruling at all levels."

Morty
2007-09-30, 06:45 AM
It doesn't even have to be Sleep/Colour Spray. How about Animate Rope? Or Enlarge. I didn't say this first, but someone on this board once said: "The trouble isn't that the Wizard is weak at low levels, and then rules at higher levels. The Wizard is ruling at all levels."

Except he doesn't. On low-levels wizard is too squishy and hasn't got enough spells to "rule", and is dependant on other party members.

Zincorium
2007-09-30, 07:40 AM
Except he doesn't. On low-levels wizard is too squishy and hasn't got enough spells to "rule", and is dependant on other party members.

For what? Their additional encumbrance value to be used for carrying a body bag/tombstone?

The unspoken thing about 'tanks' in D&D: it's only possible if monsters are played stupid. Any intelligent monster will attack the guy in robes carrying a staff, unintelligent ones will simply try to pick off the smallest one and eat them later, unless you have non-caster halflings and gnomes the arcane casters are generally the weakest looking.

A wizard at low levels who is targeted by monsters without a chance to get spells off will generally die, melee characters and healers are rarely effective in preventing that. By the time dying is not the time to roll up a new character sheet, the wizard will be on the way to batman.

In pretty much every game I've played in, the DM intentionally let the wizard escape the worst of what was going on at low levels just so the game can move forward.

Morty
2007-09-30, 07:45 AM
For what? Their additional encumbrance value to be used for carrying a body bag/tombstone?

The unspoken thing about 'tanks' in D&D: it's only possible if monsters are played stupid. Any intelligent monster will attack the guy in robes carrying a staff, unintelligent ones will simply try to pick off the smallest one and eat them later, unless you have non-caster halflings and gnomes the arcane casters are generally the weakest looking.

A wizard at low levels who is targeted by monsters without a chance to get spells off will generally die, melee characters and healers are rarely effective in preventing that. By the time dying is not the time to roll up a new character sheet, the wizard will be on the way to batman.

In pretty much every game I've played in, the DM intentionally let the wizard escape the worst of what was going on at low levels just so the game can move forward.

This is the result of game design and nature of combat, not wizard's effectiveness. So wizard don't rule at low levels either way. He can't replace other party members, and won't do more than others in combat.

Saph
2007-09-30, 07:58 AM
In pretty much every game I've played in, the DM intentionally let the wizard escape the worst of what was going on at low levels just so the game can move forward.

I think we must have different DMs. :smalltongue:

Seriously, here's how wizard (and most other full caster) progressions go:

Levels 1-2: You suck.
Levels 3-4: Mediocre-to-bad.
Levels 5-10: Well balanced, strong but not overpowered.
Levels 11-14: Overpowered.
Levels 15-20: Ridiculously overpowered.
Levels 21+: Just don't ask.

This is why so many people like to start campaigns at level 3 or so. It means the majority of the game will be in the 'sweet spot' of levels 5-10, where casters and melee classes can both contribute well.

- Saph

Zincorium
2007-09-30, 08:01 AM
This is the result of game design and nature of combat, not wizard's effectiveness. So wizard don't rule at low levels either way. He can't replace other party members, and won't do more than others in combat.

Given reasonable probability, they can negate an entire multiple monster encounter. In a single round. At range. With minimal resources expended. Even a raging barbarian with cleave has to have exact circumstances to do that.

That IS doing more in combat. A sleep spell and another person to help with slitting throats and it's over for the majority of low level monsters.

Solo, a wizard will either be facing lower level encounters or be gaining experience four times as fast if he survives.

Edit:

I think we must have different DMs. :smalltongue:

Um, yes to the obvious. But if you're implying that your DM doesn't do what I said, and instead sends the worst possible threats directly at the caster, then nobody is going to want to play an arcane caster at all at low levels, as there is no legitimate chance of survival except playing dead or running and hoping they have no ranged weapons.

And as DM, I don't start characters below 3 for usual types of games, for specifically low powered ones I go a lot easier on the threat level.

Saph
2007-09-30, 08:10 AM
Um, yes to the obvious. But if you're implying that your DM doesn't do what I said, and instead sends the worst possible threats directly at the caster, then nobody is going to want to play an arcane caster at all at low levels, as there is no legitimate chance of survival except playing dead or running and hoping they have no ranged weapons.

My DMs generally play monsters as they are - they'll go for the easiest or most obvious target. That's usually either the nearest PC, or the one that's causing them the most trouble. So by staying at the back you're safer, but not completely safe. There has to be some risk, after all.

Anyway, yes, a wizard can singlehandedly beat encounters at level 1 . . . if you tailor-build the character and stack the odds in his favour. But pretty much any class can do that. I've played several wizards at levels 1 and 2, and I stand by what I said - at those levels, they frankly suck. Fighters and Barbarians are far more efficient at taking down monsters.

- Saph

Morty
2007-09-30, 08:10 AM
Given reasonable probability, they can negate an entire multiple monster encounter. In a single round. At range. With minimal resources expended. Even a raging barbarian with cleave has to have exact circumstances to do that.

That IS doing more in combat. A sleep spell and another person to help with slitting throats and it's over for the majority of low level monsters.

Solo, a wizard will either be facing lower level encounters or be gaining experience four times as fast if he survives.

Wizard can do this three times per day at most. Wizard is deadly at low levels, but very unreliable, for the reasons you just stated. So he's not stronger than fighter on his level if this level is below 5. While wizard can put group of monsters to sleep, fighter of barbarian would just cleave through them, with smaller chance of being killed even if it takes longer.

Zincorium
2007-09-30, 08:22 AM
Wizard can do this three times per day at most. Wizard is deadly at low levels, but very unreliable, for the reasons you just stated. So he's not stronger than fighter on his level if this level is below 5. While wizard can put group of monsters to sleep, fighter of barbarian would just cleave through them, with smaller chance of being killed even if it takes longer.

Gah, that isn't my original point and there's no need to change this thread into another 'casters vs. noncasters' thread.

To clarify and expound on what I was trying to say before, arcane casters generally have less use for other party members than most classes. When any significant damage will simply leave you dead, healing is far less of a priority. And compared to getting back spell slots, something no cleric can do, healing damage is pretty much irrelevant. The most fighters can do is provide more targets and additional longevity when the wizard is out of spells.

Unless railroaded into a situation in which fleeing for a time is out of the question or the caster is simply too stupid to understand the need to replace the spell slots they've been burning through, a solo wizard will flee, rememorize spells, and see what's changed in the time he's been gone.

A wizard in a party, on the other hand, will have to convince the group to rest or hide in the back with a crossbow hoping the monsters will mistake him for a snazzily dressed henchman after all their spell slots are expended.

The one thing that the wizard does need is a trap/lock skillmonkey, preferably one who can quietly scout out the situation and report back so that spells can be cast for maximum effect.

Edit:

And because I missed restating my point (again): wizards should have additional reasons to be in a party other than lowering the odds of getting sniped and because people in dungeon lock doors from the inside.

Morty
2007-09-30, 08:27 AM
Gah, that isn't my original point and there's no need to change this thread into another 'casters vs. noncasters' thread.

To clarify and expound on what I was trying to say before, arcane casters generally have less use for other party members than most classes. When any significant damage will simply leave you dead, healing is far less of a priority. And compared to getting back spell slots, something no cleric can do, healing damage is pretty much irrelevant. The most fighters can do is provide more targets and additional longevity when the wizard is out of spells.

Unless railroaded into a situation in which fleeing for a time is out of the question or the caster is simply too stupid to understand the need to replace the spell slots they've been burning through, a solo wizard will flee, rememorize spells, and see what's changed in the time he's been gone.

A wizard in a party, on the other hand, will have to convince the group to rest or hide in the back with a crossbow hoping the monsters will mistake him for a snazzily dressed henchman after all their spell slots are expended.

The one thing that the wizard does need is a trap/lock skillmonkey, preferably one who can quietly scout out the situation and report back so that spells can be cast for maximum effect.

Edit:

And because I missed restating my point (again): wizards should have additional reasons to be in a party other than lowering the odds of getting sniped and because people in dungeon lock doors from the inside.

That's all true, but I never deinied that; my original point was that wizards do not rule on low levels as AtomicKitKat claimed.
Well, now it's cleared up we can stop derailing the thread.

Saph
2007-09-30, 08:27 AM
Gah, that isn't my original point and there's no need to change this thread into another 'casters vs. noncasters' thread.

Agreed, it's way off topic by now anyway. :)

- Saph

Green Bean
2007-09-30, 08:31 AM
No, you're thinking of the 'Mature' Boards.

Quiet! You're not supposed to tell people about that until they can prove they're 18!

Zincorium
2007-09-30, 08:31 AM
That's all true, but I never deinied that; my original point was that wizards do not rule on low levels as AtomicKitKat claimed.
Well, now it's cleared up we can stop derailing the thread.

I agree that they're too squishy, I was disagreeing with the 'dependent on other party members' claim that you made at the same time. Unless you want me to start chopping up posts into sentence fragments for clarity?

Morty
2007-09-30, 08:34 AM
I agree that they're too squishy, I was disagreeing with the 'dependent on other party members' claim that you made at the same time. Unless you want me to start chopping up posts into sentence fragments for clarity?

No need for that, but "other party members won't help wizard survive", while true, isn't quite the same as "non-dependent on other party members".

AtomicKitKat
2007-09-30, 08:34 AM
That's all true, but I never deinied that; my original point was that wizards do not rule on low levels as AtomicKitKat claimed.

Bear in mind here, I was merely paraphrasing what someone else has said. The point still stands. The Wizard has better than even odds of winning every encounter thrown at him with a single spell. Up till he runs out of spells. That is his only limiter(other than stupid spells known/memorised, but that's player limitation rather than class).

Edit: Wrong thread. Anyways, yeah, any more questions?:smallsmile:

Nowhere Girl
2007-09-30, 09:18 AM
The other problem with everyone else versus fighter classes is that even if you pick a fighter class that's capable of becoming fairly strong (such as psychic warrior, barbarian or ... fighter), you're only useful if there's a fight.

Think about it: out of combat, caster classes can do things like scrying spells, clairvoyance spells, transportation spells, thought detection spells, or whatever, or they can craft magical items if they bought the feats. Wizards favor Intelligence, so they probably have a lot of extra skill points they ended up spending on Knowledge skills, since they had nothing else to spend them on -- that can also be used for non-combat gains. Bards and rogues both have tons of things they can do outside of battles -- with the right skill combinations and a little creativity, the possibilities are seemingly limitless.

Fighters ... can maybe hammer together a mundane sword, if they bothered to train the skill. Or run around bullying people with Intimidate, or maybe try to train an animal. In a few cases, those abilities might even prove handy, but they're hardly going to come up in the majority of non-combat situations. Mostly, outside of combat, fighters twiddle their thumbs.

Lord Tataraus
2007-09-30, 10:37 AM
Flipping through a few threads here, I soon became utterly confused. I've never played hardcore D&D with minmaxing and different tiers of classes; I've basically just played with my friends, using the core rules and a few supplements. House rules are very rare. So, I've got several questions. I decided not to post this as a series of questions in the "Simple Questions" thread because I thought some of these might get complicated (like the one about different tiers). So, without further ado...

1) How do you minmax? I understand the concept of making a character ridiculesly good, but I'm not really clear how you could make a character so obscene at first level.

2) What is a "shock trooper" combo?

3) What classes are good; what classes are bad (core only, for now) and why? My friends and I have never noticed any of them being extremely bad or good, but we mostly play low-level anyway.

4) What's "ToB"?

5) What makes a druid so good?

I'll post more if I find more that make me wonder.

GET OUT! GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!
Ignorance is bliss my friend, ignorance is bliss.

Seriously, some times i wish I never learned about minmaxing and the various cheese options and could play an inoccent game not knowly that the druid was broken and my blaster wizard was suboptimal and that our fighter sucks. But, alas those days are long gone...

Zincorium
2007-09-30, 10:46 AM
GET OUT! GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!
Ignorance is bliss my friend, ignorance is bliss.

Seriously, some times i wish I never learned about minmaxing and the various cheese options and could play an inoccent game not knowly that the druid was broken and my blaster wizard was suboptimal and that our fighter sucks. But, alas those days are long gone...

I really have a hard time understanding this attitude. Would it be better if you were nerfing monks and giving non-blaster wizards benefits to compensate for their perceived weakness?

The problem with holding views that are true for the situation they arise from but don't accurately represent the underlying structure is that when you change situations, say joining a PbP on the forum, and find out that other people have observed the mechanics and have noticed, say, that a wizard at high levels can lock a fighter in a forcecage with a cloudkill inside all during timestop, and thus the DM has nerfed wizards, you'll get the mistaken impression that people on these forums just hate wizards.

And seriously, the knowledge of how the system can be broken is the primary thing preventing me from doing so. I don't want to smash tokyo as CoDzilla, I just want to sit in the back throwing group buffs and healing spells and occasionally smash something with a blunt object. And if I know using Divine Power is going to turn my character into something overpowered, I can avoid using it.

Rex Blunder
2007-09-30, 10:55 AM
I dunno, I agree with Lord Tataraus. There's an expression that is something like "Beginners see many options; experts just see a few". So a beginner, playing with other beginners, can have a great time playing a badass fighter while their friends play blaster casters and monks and other suboptimal builds.

When everyone is an expert, most people choose to play one of the few optimized types. It's not less fun, but it does offer less variety.

Also, by learning all the min/max rules from a forum, you lose out on the very real joy of discovering cool combos and showing them off to your friends. The process of going from beginner to expert is a fun one, and taking a shortcut right to the end does mean you miss out on some nice scenery. It's a little like following a walkthrough for a video game. It can open up some areas you'd otherwise never get to, but you lose something as well.

That said, if you join a new D&D group of min/maxers, or play online with others, you'll need to get up to speed quickly.

Zincorium
2007-09-30, 11:23 AM
So a beginner, playing with other beginners, can have a great time playing a badass fighter while their friends play blaster casters and monks and other suboptimal builds.

When everyone is an expert, most people choose to play one of the few optimized types. It's not less fun, but it does offer less variety.

Like I said above, this is not only unlike my personal experience but the precise opposite.

When you can optimize well enough to make any character combo work, and you and your friends have gotten over the urge to break the system (or were too dense to learn), you can freely play anything without worrying about sucking.

The worry about doing it 'wrong' and making a character who won't last is something that optimization has not only taught me how to avoid, but it's taught me that the problem is completely subjective.

hyperfreak497
2007-09-30, 12:12 PM
Whoa. Jeeze. Went to bed last night when there were ten or so replies up, and came back to this...

Well, first of all, can I ask that whenever you say something that assumed to be known (acronyms, names of feats), can you just assume that I don't know? I have no idea what half of the things you guys have told me mean. This is not to say that you haven't helped me, because you have. A lot. Here's some more questions I got while reading through replies and other threads.

7) What's a batman wizard?

8) What's a splatbook?

9) What book/source is Truenamer from? What exactly does it do?

10) PrC?

11) I read something about fourth edition. I've been playing 3.5 since it came out, and don't check the Wizards.com site much, so, when is 4th edition coming out? Is it already out and I missed it?

12) Elusive target?

13) Celerity?

14) CoDzilla?

That's all for now. Thinking about this, a lot of these look like they belong in the Q&A thread. I just posted these here 'cause I figured this would devolve into a debate about caster-vs.-non-caster or some such nonsense. Tell me that I'm wrong :smalltongue: .

Morty
2007-09-30, 12:22 PM
Heh, personally I kind of understand Lord Tataraus. When I first seen D&D, I've thought it's versatile, with thousand interesting options. After reading this boards I realized that most of those options are very weak. But then, I'd realize that sooner or later.


7) What's a batman wizard?

A wizard who instead of dealing damage to enemies uses weakening spells and traps them in various web/cloud/wall spell. Batman wizard is probably strongest character apart from cleric and druid. I personally find "batman wizard" horribly boring and un-fun way to play, but that's just me. Overall this term is very wide, some people claim that every half-inteligently played wizard is batman wizard, others that only the most min-maxed gamebreaking ones are.


8) What's a splatbook?

A book that's not Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide or Monster Manual. These three books are commonly referred to as "core". Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not so sure...


9) What book/source is Truenamer from? What exactly does it do?

That's a class from Tome of Magic book. It's a spellcasting class that needs to succesfully rol for Truenaming skill to use its spells. It's said to be very weak, but I'm not familiar enough with it to tell.


10) PrC?

Prestige Class.


11) I read something about fourth edition. I've been playing 3.5 since it came out, and don't check the Wizards.com site much, so, when is 4th edition coming out? Is it already out and I missed it?

It's going to be released in May, but it already causes much controversy.


12) Elusive target?

Feat from Complete Warrior book that allows to use few tricks in melee combat, such as negating opponent's damage bonus from Power Attack feat.


13) Celerity?

Extremely overpowered spell found in Player's Handbook II. It's cast via free action, and it grants another action in your round. With this spell, wizard can cast two spells per round.


14) CoDzilla?

Cleric or Druid Zilla. That means cleric or druid who uses his spells or class features to become as strong and combat-competent as fighter while still being a spellcaster.

Yuki Akuma
2007-09-30, 12:27 PM
The term 'splatbook' comes from a time when a certain RPG publisher (I think White Wolf? I don't know... I'm sure it wasn't TSR) would mark all of its supplemental materials with an asterisk (or 'splat').

Zincorium
2007-09-30, 12:30 PM
Whoa. Jeeze. Went to bed last night when there were ten or so replies up, and came back to this...

Well, first of all, can I ask that whenever you say something that assumed to be known (acronyms, names of feats), can you just assume that I don't know? I have no idea what half of the things you guys have told me mean. This is not to say that you haven't helped me, because you have. A lot. Here's some more questions I got while reading through replies and other threads.

7) What's a batman wizard?


A wizard who uses effective spells in an intelligent manner, taken from The logic ninja's guide to wizards: being batman (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19085) (a commonly cited thread on these boards), the name comes from the DC comics superhero Batman, who was highly intelligent and had a utility belt with gadgets applicable to almost all situations he found himself in.



8) What's a splatbook?


A term used for any books either not core or not specific to the setting, meaning varies but generally one of the above is true.



9) What book/source is Truenamer from? What exactly does it do?


Tome of Magic, it uses a skill called, appropriately enough, 'truenaming' to use the magical true name of creatures against it. Used as an example of bad game design because the DC to affect creatures rises much higher than the average truenamer's skill.



10) PrC?


Look Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18512) for most acronyms, PrC is prestige class, the DMG has more info on what those are.



11) I read something about fourth edition. I've been playing 3.5 since it came out, and don't check the Wizards.com site much, so, when is 4th edition coming out? Is it already out and I missed it?


4th edition is not out yet, it comes out in may 2008, so you've got a bit of time to wrap up what you're doing if you want to switch; many don't.



14) CoDzilla?


Cleric or Druid destroying tokyo and smashing monsters like godzilla.



That's all for now. Thinking about this, a lot of these look like they belong in the Q&A thread. I just posted these here 'cause I figured this would devolve into a debate about caster-vs.-non-caster or some such nonsense. Tell me that I'm wrong :smalltongue: .

AtomicKitKat
2007-09-30, 12:40 PM
Batman Wizard is because of "The Logic Ninja's Guide to playing Batman" or something like that, which was a guide to playing a Wizard "right". Essentially focuses on doing stuff beyond doing damage, because that's what the Fighter is for. Properly done, he beats any ClericOrDruidZilla unless they have Freedom of Movement(due to certain "grapply" spells), and sometimes even then(Forcecage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forcecage.htm) is by and large one of the most broken, since you lose if you lack any kind of teleportation abilities, and it allows no save nor SR/Spell Resistance. Mainly in conjunction with Cloudkill/Acid fog/whatever can pass through the bars while hurting).

Note that the guide is somewhat inaccurate. Celerity doesn't win you Initiative(By the way, it's Immediate action to cast, not Free). Foresight grants you the ability to avoid Flatfootedness(with a few minutes' duration, so can't be up all the time), and that allows you to use Celerity(no actions when Flatfooted, so Foresight bypasses that), which "interrupts" the normal flow of combat, and you use your free Standard action(Celerity comes in Lesser, Plain, and Greater versions, which grant Move, Standard, and Full round actions respectively) to cast Timestop, thereby bypassing the "cost" of being Dazed for one round. At a minimum, you still have 1(to 4) more round(s) in which to pull off other cheese. So you do. Round 2(within Timestop) is spent putting up the Forcecage, and then Round 3(whether in or out) you drop the Cloud of Death, and spend whatever other time picking your toenails, or digging for herbs for your Druid buddy or whatever. Yes, it's as cheesy as it sounds.

Ulzgoroth
2007-09-30, 12:54 PM
Foresight is 10min/level. That's good for 3 hours right off the bat, and you probably want a greater rod of extend to go with it.


....not 'a few minutes'.

Yuki Akuma
2007-09-30, 01:16 PM
And once those six hours have run out, you can always cast it again!

Arbitrarity
2007-09-30, 02:17 PM
My last 19'th level wizard had foresight running 24-7.

Of course, it involved abuse of UMD, beads of karma, and the fact that a bead of karma, on its own, technically costs nothing.

Or, he could've just used a 4'th slot. But meh.

Dr. Weasel
2007-09-30, 02:43 PM
That's all for now. Thinking about this, a lot of these look like they belong in the Q&A thread. I just posted these here 'cause I figured this would devolve into a debate about caster-vs.-non-caster or some such nonsense. Tell me that I'm wrong .
That really can't really be helped due to the glaring design flaw in class balance.

This is the reason so many people dig the concept of ToB, especially with Fourth Edition on the way. The closer the classes come to using the same mechanics (not necessarily to the same effects), the easier they become to balance against each other.

Roderick_BR
2007-09-30, 04:10 PM
(...)I don't want to smash tokyo as CoDzilla, I just want to sit in the back throwing group buffs and healing spells and occasionally smash something with a blunt object. And if I know using Divine Power is going to turn my character into something overpowered, I can avoid using it.
The real problem is when people need to be "nice" to not use overpowered options, even when you can do it without min/maxing or optimizing. Like, you find out that your cleric can kill nearly anything with a death spell. Why won't you start using it all the time (and relying on your others spells IF this one fail?)
Sometimes you may even do it by accident. "I'll use this spell, because I think it'll be cool. Oops, there went the BBEG that was conquering the world in the first turn of combat. My bad."
Well, not much different than criting the leader of an invading army when charging on a mount, but still...

hyperfreak497
2007-09-30, 04:25 PM
15) Pun-pun?

16) BBEG?

Zincorium
2007-09-30, 04:33 PM
15) Pun-pun?

Proof that the game can be broken. By definition the most powerful character design in existence. Others have details, but Pun-pun is a theoretical design, never to be used in game. That doesn't stop people from trying to beat him (doesn't work, generally) or compare things to him.




16) BBEG?

Big Bad Evil Guy. Kind of self explanatory. The 'boss fight'.

AslanCross
2007-09-30, 04:34 PM
15) Pun-pun?

16) BBEG?

15) Pun-pun was a thought experiment done to show how break-able D&D was. It's basically a kobold who can get infinite stat increases. No sane DM would allow such a combo.

16) Big Bad Evil Guy (or Girl). The main villain in a campaign.

Green Bean
2007-09-30, 04:35 PM
15) Pun-pun?

16) BBEG?

15) Pun-pun is a theoretical build created by the Character Optimization board on the Wizards of the Coast forum. It (ab)uses a loophole in a splatbook (Races of the Serpent? Something like that, anyways). It has effectively infinite stats and Divine Ranks. It is literally the most powerful character you can create. The best (or worst) part is that you can use this build at level 1, depending on what books the DM allows.

16)Big Bad Evil Guy. A campaign's main villain. Describing the exact role an NPC is going to play can be tiresome. This label essentially implies that a) this guy is going the be the major cause of problems in the campaign, b) when the party kills him, the campaign is probably almost finished, and c) he is going to be a extreme challenge for the PCs.

Chronos
2007-09-30, 04:36 PM
The closer the classes come to using the same mechanics (not necessarily to the same effects), the easier they become to balance against each other.I would disagree. Two classes are balanced if it's hard to choose between them. If everyone uses things that work like spells, then you just have to compare the spell lists and see which class has better spells. If, however, different classes have abilities which work in completely different ways, then it's more likely that which one is better will depend on the situation. For instance, were the classes balanced, the fighter's feats which he can use an unlimited number of times per day might give him an edge over the wizard with limited spells, if there are a lot of encounters in a day. So that might give someone a reason to play a fighter rather than a wizard.


15) Pun-pun?

16) BBEG?Pun-Pun is a completely broken build which lets a 5th-level kobold become a thing which gods fear. He's got scores as high as he likes (like, say, several million) in every ability score, and more special abilities than you can shake a stick at. In a way, he's a poster-child of optimization gone horribly wrong: You can't have Pun-Pun in a game, because if Pun-Pun's in it, it ceases to be a game any more.

BBEG is an acronym for "Big Bad Evil Guy", the main antagonist of an adventure or campaign.

Yuki Akuma
2007-09-30, 04:44 PM
Musings of an Omnificier:

"The most powerful being in the multiverse is a kobold."

"There's a guy out in the wastes who once threw a mountain into the moon, or possibly the other way around."

"Cats stalk alleyways at night, preying on innocent human commoners..."

"If you have enough commoners, you can get a quarterstaff from Waterdeep to Baldur's Gate in six seconds..."

"Oh, and there's a gnome who can create illusory blasts of fire that are more real than reality."

Did I miss anything?

Clementx
2007-09-30, 04:48 PM
The term 'splatbook' comes from a time when a certain RPG publisher (I think White Wolf? I don't know... I'm sure it wasn't TSR) would mark all of its supplemental materials with an asterisk (or 'splat').

Actually, it is older and refers to the fact that the asterisk is a computing symbol for "any" (e.g. *g.exe means any .exe file whose name ends in g). And an asterisk looks like a squashed bug (moreso on a dot matrix printer). It relates to RPGs in that supplements usually come in series, each describing one of a number of classes/tribes/clans/factions, being generically replaceable in format. The Complete Warrior/Divine/Arcane/Adventurer/Scoundrel/Champion/Psionic/Mage series is an example.

hyperfreak497
2007-09-30, 05:02 PM
Musings of an Omnificier:

"The most powerful being in the multiverse is a kobold."

"There's a guy out in the wastes who once threw a mountain into the moon, or possibly the other way around."

"Cats stalk alleyways at night, preying on innocent human commoners..."

"If you have enough commoners, you can get a quarterstaff from Waterdeep to Baldur's Gate in six seconds..."

"Oh, and there's a gnome who can create illusory blasts of fire that are more real than reality."

Did I miss anything?

17) What the hell is this? I understood the kobold one and the quarterstaff one.

Arbitrarity
2007-09-30, 05:06 PM
Musings of an Omnificier:

"The most powerful being in the multiverse is a kobold."

"There's a guy out in the wastes who once threw a mountain into the moon, or possibly the other way around."

"Cats stalk alleyways at night, preying on innocent human commoners..."

"If you have enough commoners, you can get a quarterstaff from Waterdeep to Baldur's Gate in six seconds..."

"Oh, and there's a gnome who can create illusory blasts of fire that are more real than reality."

Did I miss anything?


Omniscifier is a build abusing masochism and an infinite damage loop to get +infinity on skill checks, i.e. knowledge checks.

Pun-Pun is the most powerful being, with all abilities written, existing, or imagined. As well as infinite everything.

Hulking hurler is a build with an obscene strength score in the hulking hurler PrC, which allows him to throw up to his medium load, as a improvised weapon dealing 1d6/25 lb.

Paragon kitten. Enough said.

Commoner railgun, as passing someone an item is a free action, they all pass one after the other.

Shadowcraft mage with earth spell and heighten, for 10'th level spells, and improved shadow reality (or somesuch) resulting in 120% real fireballs, etc.

You missed the "savegame" function 0.o

Yuki Akuma
2007-09-30, 05:12 PM
Omnificier: An artificier (the most broken class in the entire game, by virtue of being able to use any magic items, and other goodies) taking advantage of an infinite loop to gain +(arbitrarily high number) to all Knowledge checks.

"Guy out in the wastes": Hulking Hurler. It's a PrC that allows you to pick up and throw anything, if your Strength is high enough. Many people have devised how to pump his Strength so high he can pick up and throw a small moon.

A cat can kill an average human commoner in a straight fight. And if the cat jumps the commoner (which is quite likely)...

The gnome is a Shadowcraft Mage (from Complete Arcane), with Heighten Spell and Earth Spell. She has an ability which allows her to use any Figment to replicate any Evocation or Conjuration (Summoning) spell as a partially-real Shadow spell. The spell is 10% real per level of the Figment. She also gains an ability that makes her Shadow spells 20% more real than normal.

If she Heightens a Silent Image to tenth level (taking up a ninth-level spell slot thanks to Earth Spell), her spells are 120% real. Which is nice.

If she has other feats, she can make the spell even more real...

Green Bean
2007-09-30, 05:12 PM
Paragon kitten. Enough said.


Actually, I think that it was a reference to the way a housecat would have a decent chance of killing a 1st level commoner with the way HP works.

Edit: Gah! Ninja'd!

Emperor Tippy
2007-09-30, 05:16 PM
"The most powerful being in the multiverse is a kobold."
Pun-Pun


"There's a guy out in the wastes who once threw a mountain into the moon, or possibly the other way around."
The Hulking Hurler. It's a build that is strong enough to throw the moon (or the earth).


"Cats stalk alleyways at night, preying on innocent human commoners..."
A cat will beat a level 1 commoner in a fight most of the time.


"If you have enough commoners, you can get a quarterstaff from Waterdeep to Baldur's Gate in six seconds..."
Because of how combat rounds work in D&D you can do some truly astonishing things. One of which is the above.


"Oh, and there's a gnome who can create illusory blasts of fire that are more real than reality."
Some illusion specialists builds can create illusions that are 120% real. A fireball by one of these builds does 120% the damage that a regular fireball would do.


Did I miss anything?
Yes.

"Drowning can heal you"
"One who is dead can still walk around"

Yuki Akuma
2007-09-30, 05:21 PM
Oh, damn, 'drowning can heal you'. Oops.

And I completely forgot about 'dead man walking'.

I do love these little quirks in the rules. Especially the Commoner Railgun.

Emperor Tippy
2007-09-30, 05:27 PM
Yeah, commoner railgun is pretty funny.

Oh, I remembered another one, not sure hwo to make it "zen" but. Commoner grappling, where you can fit an infinite number of people in a single 5 foot cube.

"One need never eat".."or sleep"..."or drink".

"One may recite every speech ever made in under 6 seconds" Free action speaking.

Some of the real fun ones arise when you get to mix real physics and magic.

hyperfreak497
2007-09-30, 05:42 PM
Ok, fine, I'll repeat it. When saying something you assume others understand, assume that I don't understand. Because the last few posts looked like gibberish to me.

puppyavenger
2007-09-30, 06:08 PM
just google pun-pun

Emperor Tippy
2007-09-30, 06:09 PM
"A fine greataxe allows for the greatest power"


Ok, It has to be Gestalt 15?

Lion Totem Barbarian 1, Crusader 14//Cleric 15

Take the feat "Imbued Healing: Luck" from "Complete Champion". This allows you cast a healing spell upon yourself, and, for a number of minutes equal to the healing spell's spell level, treat all rolled damage "1"'s as "2"'s.

Pick up the Crusader Stance "Aura of Chaos". This allows you to, while in this stance, should you maximize your rolled damage, to re-roll your damage dice, and add the new roll. This continues until you stop rolling your maximum damage.

Use a 1d2 weapon. You cannot use ANYTHING other than a 1d2 weapon. My personal recommendation is a Fine Greataxe, just for laughs, but It must be a 1d2 weapon.

Begin Combat: Drop beefiest Healing spell you can cast, Shift into Aura of Chaos.

If you hit, your damage will be 1d2. With Aura of Chaos, you will deal either 1 or 2. If it is a 2, re-roll and add. If it is a 1, treat it as a 2, re-roll, and add.

If your re-roll is a 2, add it, and re-roll again. If it is a 1, treat it as a 2, add it, and re-roll again.

Congrats, you're now dealing infinite damage on every hit.

The reason for "Lion Totem Barbarian"? Pounce, pure and simple. You combine the ability to make a full-attack action at the end of a charge with the Cleric spell "Righteous Wrath of the Faithful" which grants the caster an additional attack, every round, at their full BAB, and you're even more likely to hit.

"Hit" is the big one, here. If you've got the cash, blow it on a use-activated item of "True Strike".

You kill them, if you hit them. The trick becomes making certain you hit them.

Fhaolan
2007-09-30, 06:47 PM
Ok, fine, I'll repeat it. When saying something you assume others understand, assume that I don't understand. Because the last few posts looked like gibberish to me.

That would be because they're doing partial mentions of certain rule loopholes that create absolute gibberish results in D&D. Most of these are based on the concept of checking common sense at the door when you come in. They are literal reading of rules, which is where all rule loopholes come from. :smallsmile:

The most famous one being the 'Drowning reduces you to 0 hit points' rule. If you take it absolutely literally the rule could be read to say that if you are at negative hit points and then start to drown, you go back to 0 hit points. Drowning can technically heal you, according to a strict reading of the rules.

Another type of loophole commonly quoted is based on the idea that if it's not explicitly mentioned in the rules, it has has no game effect. It's not really reasonable to have *every* situation spelled out in the rules, there will always be this kind of thing in every ruleset. 3.x D&D just has a few really... strange ones.

The most famous of these being the 'Dead man walking' situation. A character can have certain conditions: stunned, helpless, etc. Each of these has explicit rules for what the character is capable of doing when in one of these conditions. However, there is a condition that is mentioned several times in the rules that does not have explicit rules in and of itself. Death. There are no rules that actually cover what a character can or cannot do when dead. Since there are no rules, some people believe that the logical interpretation is that a Dead character can do whatever a Live character can do. So, Dead characters can keep fighting, walking, etc.

Arakune
2007-09-30, 07:01 PM
man, neither I knew the dead man walking :smallbiggrin:, also, the fine greataxe isn't supposed to be a shuriken?

BardicDuelist
2007-09-30, 07:05 PM
Don't worry, I didn't know most of this stuff before either. Knowing it doesn't have to affect your enjoyment of the game. Infact, it really is just useless knowledge.

Kaelik
2007-09-30, 07:13 PM
man, neither I knew the dead man walking :smallbiggrin:, also, the fine greataxe isn't supposed to be a shuriken?

Well since it has to be a melee weapon to work, no it isn't.

Nowhere Girl
2007-09-30, 07:38 PM
A cat will beat a level 1 commoner in a fight most of the time.

Here's a report from a victim of this unfortunate truth, taken from http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1307458:

"The day after I got this in email, I was cutting my parents' Maine c o o n's claws. He decided he didn't like it, so bit the fleshy part of my hand. Using Improved Grapple, he then executed, as a free action, a rend attack. He then released me and ran. This was a good thing, since I was now at zero hit points and staggered. If I'd tried to do anything strenuous, I'm sure I would have passed out."

Dhavaer
2007-09-30, 07:43 PM
"The day after I got this in email, I was cutting my parents' Maine c o o n's claws. He decided he didn't like it, so bit the fleshy part of my hand. Using Improved Grapple, he then executed, as a free action, a rend attack. He then released me and ran. This was a good thing, since I was now at zero hit points and staggered. If I'd tried to do anything strenuous, I'm sure I would have passed out."

Nitpick: At 0hp he would have been disabled, not staggered.

Fhaolan
2007-09-30, 07:43 PM
Don't worry, I didn't know most of this stuff before either. Knowing it doesn't have to affect your enjoyment of the game. Infact, it really is just useless knowledge.

I would say the knowledge has a use. A very specific use. :smallsmile: To prevent you from being surprised when a munchkin pulls one of these out at the gaming table.

Good DM but lacking loophole knowledge:
"I do this."
"What?"
"According to rule x and rule y, I can do this."
"Show me."
*time spent*
"That's stupid. I'm disallowing it."

Good DM, with loophole knowledge:
"I do this."
"I know that loophole, it's stupid. I'm disallowing it."

[I'm not going to go into the Bad DM or Wuss DM scenarios. It's not worth the time. :smallwink: ]

Basically, knowing the loopholes saves time at the game table if you're dealing with players who like to pull this kind of stuff. Not every DM is, but there's enough out there that they will find this kind of knowledge useful.

So, technically it's not 'useless' knowledge. It's 'limited usefullness' knowledge. :smallbiggrin:

hyperfreak497
2007-09-30, 08:09 PM
just google pun-pun

People have told me who Pun-Pun is multiple times so far in this thread.

Jeeze, I just re-read that "Ok, fine, I'll repeat it," comment, and realized that I probably came off as a pretentious douche. I apologize. I really do appreciate all the answers all of you have given me.

That's basically the point of this post...I don't have any more questions...yet...

Tor the Fallen
2007-09-30, 08:12 PM
I think we must have different DMs. :smalltongue:

Seriously, here's how wizard (and most other full caster) progressions go:

Levels 1-2: You suck.
Levels 3-4: Mediocre-to-bad.
Levels 5-10: Well balanced, strong but not overpowered.
Levels 11-14: Overpowered.
Levels 15-20: Ridiculously overpowered.
Levels 21+: Just don't ask.

This is why so many people like to start campaigns at level 3 or so. It means the majority of the game will be in the 'sweet spot' of levels 5-10, where casters and melee classes can both contribute well.

- Saph

I'm DMing a game where the wizard started at level 1. He's been extremely effective at controlling battle. Grease, for instance, on my ogre barbarians, has been an incredible nuisance. They get torn apart by AoE's every round, even when I have them in cramped hallways, wielding longspears to take advantage of their reach.

Color spray or sleep works great against any CR equivalent mob, and scare also dominates. He took spell focus: enchantment & necromancy, so daze continues to work rather reliably, even at level 4.

Bassetking
2007-09-30, 08:14 PM
man, neither I knew the dead man walking :smallbiggrin:, also, the fine greataxe isn't supposed to be a shuriken?




Well since it has to be a melee weapon to work, no it isn't.

Both points have basis's in fact.

The original name for the Build was "The infinite damage melee build: OR How I learned to stop worrying, and love the Shuriken." And involved a halfling, that used small sized shuriken, in order to deal one damage, and trigger Aura of Chaos, by dealing max damage.

There were two problems with this build.

1) Aura of Chaos requires a melee attack to function, and a shuriken is not a melee weapon.

2) Dealing one damage does not count as rolling one damage, as nothing is rolled.

To fix this, the feat "Imbued Healing: Luck" was added, and the weapon changed to a Gauntlet. The weapon DOESN'T MATTER
as long as the weapon deals 1d2 damage.

Hence its current name, and the name it appears under on the Theo Op board's Campaign Smasher thread.

"The 1d2 Crusader"

hyperfreak497
2007-09-30, 10:14 PM
18 (I think...)) Gestalt?

Renegade Paladin
2007-09-30, 10:16 PM
That's basically it.

Swashbucklers get basically one neat thing (ability damage attacks), but they get it at high levels, and it won't work half of the time anyway.
"Won't work half the time" is highly subjective. I know I tend to throw more NPCs than monsters at my characters, mainly because I enjoy urban campaigns; there are very few humanoids that are immune to precision damage and ability damage.

Granted, swashbuckler could be better, but it leads straight into duelist fairly well. In fact, it'd be fair to say that that's basically what it was designed to do; at 3rd level a swashbuckler, human or not, can easily have met all the feat and skill requirements of the class and simply be waiting on the BAB. Now, designing a base class specifically to be prestiged out of is bad game design, but there it is. I'm fond of Otto the Bugbear's rewrite (http://dsenchuk.googlepages.com/swashbuckler) in terms of keeping playability at higher levels, but there's really nothing to trash about weakening/wounding critical other than all the dead levels it takes to get to them. Swashbuckling fits better thematically in campaigns that aren't standard dungeon crawls with undead, oozes, and constructs anyway.

Jasdoif
2007-09-30, 10:20 PM
18 (I think...)) Gestalt?Gestalt is a variant where you basically get two classes at each level, instead of one; taking the best of most features and the entirety of others. You can read about it here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm).

Zincorium
2007-09-30, 10:25 PM
People have told me who Pun-Pun is multiple times so far in this thread.

Jeeze, I just re-read that "Ok, fine, I'll repeat it," comment, and realized that I probably came off as a pretentious douche. I apologize. I really do appreciate all the answers all of you have given me.

That's basically the point of this post...I don't have any more questions...yet...

Just realize you're apparently intending to compress several months of lurking and asking individual questions in the FAQ thread into a single thread over a period of days.

Things can get crazy, and there are numerous resources outside the board that you'd be smart to use in addition to us, such as google and the FAQ thread (despite the fact that it'll take a while to read through).

Dervag
2007-09-30, 11:36 PM
Swashbucklers?

Sure, as a 3-level dip, if you intend to do a lot with Intelligence...

Well, here's a question for you:

If swashbucklers aren't as lethal against monsters as fighters or barbarians ...

And if they aren't able to do ... well, anything a wizard or any other caster can do ...

Then what ARE they supposed to do?

They can't even touch rogues at skillmonkeying, and even bards are still better at it, along with having other abilities besides.I think you completely misunderstood my question.

The question is not:

"Can a swashbuckler fight well, as well as some hypothetical other melee warrior that we might have instead of a swashbuckler?"

The question is:

"Can a swashbuckler fight well enough that they will not embarass themselves?"

You seem to be focused on building the perfect build for the sake of having a perfect build. What if I don't give a damn about the perfect build? What if I simply want a character who won't be useless in the literal sense of having no use and being unable to accomplish any level-appropriate task (such as a commoner who fights unarmed and puts all his feats into Toughness)?

Optimization of character builds is not an end in and of itself. In a roleplaying context, it makes sense that characters would not pursue tactics they know to be ineffective from experience (such as casting Ray of Enfeeblement on themselves, or attempting to Power Attack with a dagger, or throwing a Fireball into a melee). But it does not make sense that all characters would pursue the same tactics (that all warrior-types would become either barbarians carrying huge axes or super-duper-lancers, or that all wizards would attempt to 'be Batman'). Since there are many alternate tactics that work, if not as well as the super-tactics, focusing exclusively on the super-tactics removes much of the potential for fun from the game.

Kompera
2007-10-01, 01:51 AM
Optimization of character builds is not an end in and of itself. In a roleplaying context, it makes sense that characters would not pursue tactics they know to be ineffective from experience (such as casting Ray of Enfeeblement on themselves, or attempting to Power Attack with a dagger, or throwing a Fireball into a melee). But it does not make sense that all characters would pursue the same tactics (that all warrior-types would become either barbarians carrying huge axes or super-duper-lancers, or that all wizards would attempt to 'be Batman'). Since there are many alternate tactics that work, if not as well as the super-tactics, focusing exclusively on the super-tactics removes much of the potential for fun from the game.

I would say that it does indeed make sense that all characters would pursue the same tactics.

Mixing role-play and reality always has it's pitfalls. But in reality, and reflected into role-play, you always chose the tools which are proven to accomplish the job. To give an example, no modern police force (of which I am aware, at least) uses as a standard issue sidearm a .25 automatic pistol. Why? Because if an officer has to fire their weapon then their goal has changed from apprehending to killing in the most efficient way possible the perpetrator. Any other goal puts the officer's life and possibly other lives at risk. And a .25 automatic is simply not the tool with which to attempt to accomplish that job. A .25 automatic can work as a lethal weapon, but it is common knowledge that it is the less efficient option, and thus no police force selects this in place of the super-tactic of a higher caliber weapon which is easily proven to be a more effective choice.

The problem can then be described thusly:

It's not that all warrior-types must become either barbarians carrying huge axes or super-duper-lancers, or that all wizards must attempt to 'be Batman' (to use Dervag's description), it's that making other feat or spell selections can be proven to be so inferior when compared to those options as to make them poor character development choices.

Either the 'super-tactic' builds need to be toned down in effectiveness, or the other Feat/spell selection options need to be adjusted upwards in effectiveness. This is called good game design, or good game balance.

Leon
2007-10-01, 04:06 AM
3) What classes are good; what classes are bad (core only, for now) and why? My friends and I have never noticed any of them being extremely bad or good, but we mostly play low-level anyway.


Good is what works for you, some may say that one class is bad yet you have played that class and enjoy it or that another is really powerful and trumps all when youve found that it was not what you thought it would be




For crappy classes, let's not forget about swashbucklers. As a 3-level dip, they're good, but beyond that, they barely even HAVE class features.

And their value as a dip class is meaningless. You could dip into samurai for one level for a free EWP: bastard sword proficiency, too. So what? Samurai is still a terrible class.

Daring outlaw has made the Swashbuckler a more apealing class with a small dip in rogue for a more melee focused Skilled combatant



Whoa. Jeeze. Went to bed last night when there were ten or so replies up, and came back to this...

I just posted these here 'cause I figured this would devolve into a debate about caster-vs.-non-caster or some such nonsense. Tell me that I'm wrong :smalltongue: .

Everything has a habit of turing out this way


Wait, Soulknife sucks? D: That's a shame, looking at it on paper I thought it was pretty interesting. What's wrong with it?

Nothing, just some people cant see past the numbers

Overlard
2007-10-01, 05:39 AM
Nothing, just some people cant see past the numbers
That's not true. The soulknife obviously has large flaws, no matter how you look at it. The concept is interesting, but that's about it.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 08:38 AM
Nothing, just some people cant see past the numbers

Unfortunately, the numbers are the game. If you ignore the numbers, you're telling a collective story, not playing a game.

Which is fine, if that's what you want to do. But if you want to play the game, you need to consider the numbers.

Leon
2007-10-01, 09:11 AM
Ahh Stuff it,
i had a long item on this but ive decied it is like herding cats to try and counter the popular opinion of these boards of what the collective think should or should not be



To Aslancross
Take advice on what is deemed a Good class with a grain of salt and make a judgement on what is good for your PC or idea





Which is fine, if that's what you want to do. But if you want to play the game, you need to consider the numbers.

Numbers play but one part of the class, its what You do with those numbers that counts

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 09:20 AM
Just because I aknowledge that, for example, Monks are inferior to Fighters (which is really saying something) doesn't mean that I don't enjoy playing Monks (or Fighters).

My favourite character ever was a Monk, for example. Another of my favourites was a Soulknife who focused heavily on two-weapon fighting. Yes, you heard me.

Your air of superiority is entertaining, though.

Indon
2007-10-01, 10:44 AM
But in reality, and reflected into role-play, you always chose the tools which are proven to accomplish the job.

And that's a great argument as to why a fighter would choose, say, a +2 longsword over a +1 longsword.

But why would the Fighter choose to wield his longsword 2-handed all the time, rather than use a parrying dagger? He doesn't exactly go to a fighter-forum on the magic-net and study what martial techniques are generally more effective in his strange and quirky universe just because of a quirk in that universe.

Rex Blunder
2007-10-01, 10:55 AM
But, on the other hand, whatever the cause of the nature of reality, quirky or otherwise, those who follow a less effective fighting style will tend to die faster than those who follow more effective ones. Survival of the fittest combat memes. (Taken to the extreme, yes, this will result in no one in the world playing combat classes.)

Fax Celestis
2007-10-01, 11:20 AM
And that's a great argument as to why a fighter would choose, say, a +2 longsword over a +1 longsword.

But why would the Fighter choose to wield his longsword 2-handed all the time, rather than use a parrying dagger? He doesn't exactly go to a fighter-forum on the magic-net and study what martial techniques are generally more effective in his strange and quirky universe just because of a quirk in that universe.

He'd do so because he knows through experience that his foes die quicker when he hits them with both hands. He also knows, through experience, that it is easier to hit a target once than it is to hit them twice. He has also discovered through experimentation that wielding a longsword in two hands provides significant offensive benefits versus wielding a longsword with a shield--which is more defensive-minded. Being the proactive warrior he is, he prefers killing his foes quickly and definitively, and therefore wields a sword with two hands.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 11:30 AM
The best way to survive a fight is to stop the other guy from hitting you. So hit him really hard. Don't hide behind a sheet of metal and hope he hits it instead of you.

Indon
2007-10-01, 11:31 AM
He'd do so because he knows through experience that his foes die quicker when he hits them with both hands. He also knows, through experience, that it is easier to hit a target once than it is to hit them twice. He has also discovered through experimentation that wielding a longsword in two hands provides significant offensive benefits versus wielding a longsword with a shield--which is more defensive-minded. Being the proactive warrior he is, he prefers killing his foes quickly and definitively, and therefore wields a sword with two hands.

And the defensive warrior knows, through experience, that it is better to avoid a blow than it is to take it. He has discovered through experimentation that a shield can mean the difference between life and death versus wielding a longsword two-handed -- which is more offensive-minded. Not particularly eager to die, he prefers to minimize the chance that he is slain by an enemy with a lucky blow, and therefore wields a shield.

But that logic doesn't work in the metagame, because if a D&D character actually makes judgements based on his system, then it'll quickly become apparent that his universe doesn't mesh with what everyone thinks it is.

"Hey, watch this. Okay, guys, start passing that quarterstaff."

*20 commoners in a line pass a quarterstaff along from one side to another in well under 6 seconds*

"How does that even work? I mean, they aren't _that_ fast!"

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 11:54 AM
I'll reiterate: the best way to avoid getting hit is to make the other guy unable to hit you.

Tormsskull
2007-10-01, 12:03 PM
To hyperfreak497:

You're going to get a lot of different opinions from different posters here, and I think you will see "sides" emerge in the discussions. Some people prefer to concentrate on the mechanical side of D&D and try to make the most powerful mechanical character that they can.

In a Hack & Slash campaign (Hack & Slash meaning that the campaign focuses on killing opponents and taking their stuff as opposed to roleplaying) focusing on mechanical power is a very obvious choice.

Other players prefer to create characters that are actually apart of the world in which their character lives. They will go to lengths to create detailed backgrounds, histories, descriptions, etc, and won't be as concerned with mechanical power. If the character they want to play was a sailor for several years of his life they will actually take Profession Sailor or another skill of the like that a mechanics first-minded player would call "useless".

The problem occurs when you get players used to one style that play with a group that focuses on the other. I can tell you from personal experience that as a person who really loves the roleplaying side of D&D that I dislike Hack and Slash campaigns. And I know some Hack & Slash lovers who can't stand roleplaying campaigns.

As an example, when I mentioned to some players on these boards once that a fighter character of mine took ranks in Perform (Violin) because it was an integral part of that character, they immediately denounced my choice as very poor and useless.

I've personally noticed that in a roleplaying campaign a lot of the exploits or loopholes that exist in the D&D rules never come up, as the point of those exploits and loopholes is to achieve mechanical power, and in a roleplaying campaign mechanical power is not the goal.

Indon
2007-10-01, 12:14 PM
I'll reiterate: the best way to avoid getting hit is to make the other guy unable to hit you.

And if you're a level 20 warrior who needs to escape a castle flying 20 miles overhead, the best way is to jump! You know through experimentation that the fall can not kill you, and at most it'll take six days before you're back to prime condition even without magical healing.

Edit: Make that a level 12 fighter, with 20 con. If he has Improved Toughness, he can take a 20 mile fall and still survive a hit that would kill a commoner afterwards.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 12:33 PM
And if you're a level 20 warrior who needs to escape a castle flying 20 miles overhead, the best way is to jump! You know through experimentation that the fall can not kill you, and at most it'll take six days before you're back to prime condition even without magical healing.

Edit: Make that a level 12 fighter, with 20 con. If he has Improved Toughness, he can take a 20 mile fall and still survive a hit that would kill a commoner afterwards.

Er. I'm talking real life here. I'm sorry, have you never been in a real fight? The best way to win is to hit the other guy as hard as you can.

Also... some of the best roleplayers I've ever met are also the best powergamers I've ever met. You don't have to pick one or the other. It surprises me how often people seem to think being a good roleplayer is the total antithesis of being a powergamer.

You can't further the story if you end up getting slaughtered by a CR-appropriate encounter because you nerfed your character 'for roleplaying purposes'.

Indon
2007-10-01, 12:37 PM
Er. I'm talking real life here. I'm sorry, have you never been in a real fight? The best way to win is to hit the other guy as hard as you can.

In real life, guns are the best way to win a fight. After that, bows are the best way to win a fight. After that, formation usage of defensive weapons, such as polearms/spears in conjunction with shields, are the best way to win a fight.

2-handing a weapon is really low on the list of what works in real life, unless you're on the ground and you need to kill someone on a horse (and even then, the weapon is for the horse, not the rider.

Edit: Look. I just pointed out how characters justifying observation of behavior specific to a fictional world can generate absurd results.

This is in rebuttal to a blanket statement that optimization makes sense for all characters, because they can see the rules of their universe at work.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 12:39 PM
You don't get the point. In real life, the best way to win a one-on-one fight is to hit the other guy as hard as you can. In D&D, you do that by getting a big, heavy weapon, rushing in, and smacking your opponent before he gets an attack in.

Dungeons and Dragons is not historically accurate. It's not even realistic. While a zweihander might not work well in a close-quarters fight in reality, it does work in the world your Fighter character lives in. If you lived in a world like that, what fighting style would you pick? The one that means you're taking several blows and praying none of them end up being lethal, or the one that means you might take one hit and then win?

Indon
2007-10-01, 12:49 PM
You don't get the point. In real life, the best way to win a one-on-one fight is to hit the other guy as hard as you can.

As I already noted, the best way to win a one-on-one fight, in real life, is two to the chest, one to the head.



Dungeons and Dragons is not historically accurate. It's not even realistic. While a zweihander might not work well in a close-quarters fight in reality, it does work in the world your Fighter character lives in. If you lived in a world like that, what fighting style would you pick? The one that means you're taking several blows and praying none of them end up being lethal, or the one that means you might take one hit and then win?

Yeah, that's my point. Claiming it to be reasonable for characters to make decisions based on their unrealistic, narrative universe makes for an unrealistic, poor narration. The characters' decisions sound absurd and as if they are just badly-written justification for the most mechanically effective option.

Deepblue706
2007-10-01, 01:26 PM
Also... some of the best roleplayers I've ever met are also the best powergamers I've ever met. You don't have to pick one or the other. It surprises me how often people seem to think being a good roleplayer is the total antithesis of being a powergamer.

I think there's an assumption made that people who spend more time looking at ways to improve their combat capabilities, etc, have less time to improve upon their character's personality and background. Of course, that assumption doesn't address the idea that some people can make quality characters in less time than others, leaving them that additional time to tweak their abilities.



You can't further the story if you end up getting slaughtered by a CR-appropriate encounter because you nerfed your character 'for roleplaying purposes'.

There's a difference between nerfing and playing a suboptimal character, which should be duly noted. If I want to play a charismatic fighter, shifting a few points in that direction isn't going to automatically kill me. If you're using standard CR and WBL, above 28 point-buy allows for a lot of wiggle room. If I'm playing a slightly higher point-buy, 28 points in stuff that's "necessary" works well enough for standard CR, and a fighter using the extra 4 (or whatever) he has to increase CHA doesn't make him substantially weaker than someone who was "more efficient" with their attribute points.

However, I suppose it's not a good idea to be a venerable figher who uses two oversized bastard swords simultaneously.

My point is, there's plenty of grey-area that isn't strong or weak, but simply mediocre for standard play - which no player should ever really feel discouraged to explore. I think the mindset of those who support "suboptimal" play is one that sees powergaming as redundant, or boring. At least, that's how I see it (for the most part, anyway). I see no fun in using tried-and-true methods of shattering any foe I meet within a single round, in my games. Instead, my gaming style revovles around simply doing something different. I'll try to make it work well, sure, but I'm not going to be constantly noting how much easier things would have been if I started from another point. I'll go ahead and make a fighter who uses a longsword and a heavy shield, and grab weapon specialization to up my damage. I'll be a cleric with no spontaneous healing (eeevil). I'll be a blaster wizard. The character's abilities stem from what I imagine them doing, not from what seems to be mechanically superior.

And if my character dies, big deal. Okay, I didn't get through the "story", but, does that always matter? If the DM is holding your hand all the way, then what challenge is in the game? What's the point of using numbers, charts, tables, and dice? Yes, when you invest time into your character, you want to see him or her thrive, and you want to be a hero. But, if the game is fixed, it's no longer a game, but the sandbox.

I don't mean to say that in a way to put anyone down, but, I have no interest in a game that reaps assured rewards. For me, the risk makes it fun, and beating the odds makes me feeling like I'm playing much more of a hero.

horseboy
2007-10-01, 01:40 PM
As I already noted, the best way to win a one-on-one fight, in real life, is two to the chest, one to the head.

Why waste ammo? One to the knee, one to the nugget.

Tormsskull
2007-10-01, 02:47 PM
Also... some of the best roleplayers I've ever met are also the best powergamers I've ever met. You don't have to pick one or the other. It surprises me how often people seem to think being a good roleplayer is the total antithesis of being a powergamer.


In my line of work we deal a lot with Conflicts of Interest. A conflict of interest occurs when someone has a personal stake in something and is also involved in the decision making process.

I think that is very easily applied to powergamers who try to roleplay. It is in their interest for their characters to be as powerful as possible, which often runs into conflict with the story, their character background, or other "fluff" reasons. While it is impossible to say that a player may or may not have made a particular choice regardless of their personal investment in it, the fact that the conflict of interest exists is enough to give me pause.

I think that often times DMs who are powergamers themselves foster gaming sessions that have very little roleplaying in them, but the players in those games think they are roleplaying because they are playing a "roleplaying game".

Also "not roleplaying" or "Hack and Slash" has historically carried a negative connotation, and thus gamers have attempted to label themselves as roleplayers to avoid that scrutiny.



You can't further the story if you end up getting slaughtered by a CR-appropriate encounter because you nerfed your character 'for roleplaying purposes'.

Certaintly you can. The story doesn't have to be so character-focused, though it often happens to be.

Also, you don't "nerf" your character by selecting some flavor skills. That is, you don't unless you are viewing character creation from a powergaming viewpoint. If not taking the most optimal choices in skills, feats, and ability stat distribution is considered "nerfing", then where did the middle ground go?

Fax Celestis
2007-10-01, 02:53 PM
Certaintly you can. The story doesn't have to be so character-focused, though it often happens to be.

Also, you don't "nerf" your character by selecting some flavor skills. That is, you don't unless you are viewing character creation from a powergaming viewpoint. If not taking the most optimal choices in skills, feats, and ability stat distribution is considered "nerfing", then where did the middle ground go?

Yuki's not talking about making suboptimal choices, he's talking about making bad choices when there are good choices available that would still allow you to stay within your intended characterization.

Think of it this way: after the party, do you get in a car with Tommy the Drunk, or Sammy McSober? Both will probably get you to your intended destination (home), but only one of them will do it without a side trip to the hospital or a graveyard.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 02:54 PM
I've seen people play completely suboptimal, to the point of being crippled, characters and have heard them cite 'roleplaying reasons'.

I've seen someone play a Bard with no ranks in Perform once. He didn't last long.

I won't even go into the "powergamers cannot be roleplayers" thing, because I might start to take it personally.

Keld Denar
2007-10-01, 03:01 PM
Musings of an Omnificier:

"The most powerful being in the multiverse is a kobold."

"There's a guy out in the wastes who once threw a mountain into the moon, or possibly the other way around."

"Cats stalk alleyways at night, preying on innocent human commoners..."

"If you have enough commoners, you can get a quarterstaff from Waterdeep to Baldur's Gate in six seconds..."

"Oh, and there's a gnome who can create illusory blasts of fire that are more real than reality."

Did I miss anything?

How about the ability to spontaniously and violently spew quarterstaffs out of your wazzoo. By strict RAW, in order to craft something, you have to expend resourse equal to 1/3 of the end cost of the item. You also have to expend time equal to some fraction of the cost. No problem, pretty balance for crafting say.....a longsword.

Enter the quarterstaff. Cost = 0. Since all of the crafting rules are multipliers of base price, and that base price is 0, you can craft quarterstaffs consuming 0 resources and 0 time. Therefore, with a few points in craft weaponsmith (technically 1, since it costs 0 time, you can infinitely retry) you can spontaniously cause an arbitrarily large amount of quarterstaffs to come into being. This is great for plugging hallways, building bridges, daming rivers, and randomly annoying your DM.

Remember kids, just say no!

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-01, 03:08 PM
What's minmaxing? Quite simply, minmaxxing is a term coined to describe the act of using the minimum expenditure of resources to attain the maximum result. It's a fairly basic concept, and at the heart of all optimization, be it for D&D or anything else. Basically, it's being efficient.

Hmmm, what makes druids good? Well, I don't know many *other* fourth level characters who can charge, full attack, trip, grapple, pin, rend, and cast spells in the same round (bloody fleshraker wildshapes...), and *then* have their animal companion act.

The list goes on and on.

1) There's 9th level spellcasting. Full spellcasting is just about the most powerful feature you can have in 3.5. This is the biggest one, but probably lso the one that would take the longest to explain to someone clueless. Not only do you get to prepare spells... you get access to the *entire divine list.* No need to pick and choose like a Wizard.

2) The restrictions don't matter: Seriously, no one actually cares that a druid can't wear metal, because you wear dragonhide fullplate or darkleaf breastplates anyways. Or wildshape.

3) Wildshape. Turn into a dire bear or whatever. Heck, if you want to be really mean, turn into a Fleshraker (MMIII) for some overly ridiculous dinosaur pwnage. Makes it unnecessary to raise Dex or Str in any fashion, gives you powerful animal abilities, and doesn't hamper your spellcasting in any form whatsoever thanks to Natural Spell.

4) Animal Companion. These guys are like adding an extra Fighter to the party for free. When you're ALREADY the best in the party *without* the animal companion.

5) Jack of All Trades, Master Of Whatever You Feel Like At The Time: with 9th level spells and the ability to prepare anything from an extensive list (effectively, being able to choose your class features every day), a decent selection of skills, and wildshape, you can cover every party role. Druids can be melee, healers, utility, buffers, offense, defense, and whatever else you want *without even needing to have seperate builds.* They can actually have all those tricks up their sleeve in one character. Or even use many of them in one round. At any given time, a Druid is likely to be either the best or second best at any given role in the party.

Zincorium
2007-10-01, 03:12 PM
In my line of work we deal a lot with Conflicts of Interest. A conflict of interest occurs when someone has a personal stake in something and is also involved in the decision making process.

But having a personal stake in something and making decisions is not necessarily a conflict of interest. When you buy a car, you are in charge of the decision making process, with input from the car salesman. And you also have a quite personal stake in the outcome.

Character creation is like that. You have a personal stake in making the most fun character possible, and are in charge of the decision making progress so as to make that happen.


I think that is very easily applied to powergamers who try to roleplay.

I reject your base assumption that powergamers are automatically not roleplayers at the start.


It is in their interest for their characters to be as powerful as possible, which often runs into conflict with the story, their character background, or other "fluff" reasons. While it is impossible to say that a player may or may not have made a particular choice regardless of their personal investment in it, the fact that the conflict of interest exists is enough to give me pause.

If choices that are reasonable in terms of fluff are bad mechanically, they are badly designed. I've found the vast majority of feats to be at least neutral in both categories.

As an example, power attack and cleave. For what sort of muscular, heavily trained man at arms are those choices out of character? You would have to create a conflict between your character's mechanics and your character's story for any of the details resulting from that to be in conflict.


I think that often times DMs who are powergamers themselves foster gaming sessions that have very little roleplaying in them, but the players in those games think they are roleplaying because they are playing a "roleplaying game".

So, is your claim that anyone who you consider a powergamer is lying to themselves about roleplaying?


Also "not roleplaying" or "Hack and Slash" has historically carried a negative connotation, and thus gamers have attempted to label themselves as roleplayers to avoid that scrutiny.

So the evidence you use to justify a bias is that people try to avoid being the target of it?

Edit: ticked off.

HidaTsuzua
2007-10-01, 03:16 PM
In my line of work we deal a lot with Conflicts of Interest. A conflict of interest occurs when someone has a personal stake in something and is also involved in the decision making process.

I think that is very easily applied to powergamers who try to roleplay. It is in their interest for their characters to be as powerful as possible, which often runs into conflict with the story, their character background, or other "fluff" reasons. While it is impossible to say that a player may or may not have made a particular choice regardless of their personal investment in it, the fact that the conflict of interest exists is enough to give me pause.


I agree that this conflict of interest is the root of the whole min/max vs roleplayer false dilemma. When I'm forced to decide between reasonable fluff (which I'll get to in a sec) and being effective, there is something wrong with the rules. The rules of a roleplaying game should allow for balanced choices within the setting. If they don't (and most don't sadly), they need to be changed. This is why I generally go with true universal systems where I can match the rules to the setting (HERO) or make my own (L7R, D56 Shadowrun).

What do I mean by reasonable fluff? I mean fluff that makes sense in the setting. For a swashbuckling game, characters that play with the tropes of swashbuckling are reasonable. Fernandez, the happy-go-lucky daredevil who uses a rapier is okay. Hernando his over-cautious and intelligent buddy/foil would work too. Bob Killaton 2500 cyborg from the future wouldn't.

A good example of bad rules is TWF vs THF. In D&D, there's nothing wrong with a Conan style barbarian who uses a big axe or the iconic D&D ranger with scimitars style wise. However when it's clear the barbarian is far better off in a fight than the ranger, something is wrong. I might have a great idea of a character with his trusty longsword/dagger combo, but I know I'm shooting myself in the foot vs him picking up the notched greataxe instead.

Now this doesn't mean that TWF and THF have to be the same. Choices for characters should carry advantages and disadvantages unique to them. The problem comes when the choices are out-of-whack. This tends to appear when one choice's advantage is demonstratively better than the other in the vast majority of cases or a choice's disadvantage can be trivially accounted for.

My point is that the roleplayer vs min/max "schism" is the result of bad rules. We should fix the true cause of the problem then separating into camps in how to live with it.

tainsouvra
2007-10-01, 03:17 PM
I think that is very easily applied to powergamers who try to roleplay. It is in their interest for their characters to be as powerful as possible, which often runs into conflict with the story, their character background, or other "fluff" reasons. The bolded portion is only true if the player has insufficient skill with either the roleplaying or the powergaming, or is simply uncreative. It is completely possible to make an effective character that still fits an overall theme that one wishes to adopt, and the presumption that a conflict must sometimes occur is unfounded.

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-01, 03:20 PM
I reject your base assumption that powergamers are automatically not roleplayers at the start.

Indeed, that assumption (and pretty much the rest of his post...) commits the Stormwind Fallacy. And is thus wrong.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 03:24 PM
And the Stormwind Fallacy would be...?

Saph
2007-10-01, 03:25 PM
He'd do so because he knows through experience that his foes die quicker when he hits them with both hands. He also knows, through experience, that it is easier to hit a target once than it is to hit them twice. He has also discovered through experimentation that wielding a longsword in two hands provides significant offensive benefits versus wielding a longsword with a shield--which is more defensive-minded. Being the proactive warrior he is, he prefers killing his foes quickly and definitively, and therefore wields a sword with two hands.

Of course, if this hypothetical character really pays attention to the way his universe works, he'll eventually conclude that it doesn't really matter how effective his combat style is anyway. :P

"Seriously, guys, don't worry about it. Haven't you noticed that wherever we go, we always run into enemies that are just tough enough to give us trouble, but not quite tough enough that we can't beat them? I mean, we've been getting stronger and stronger for months and we always mysteriously seem to run into things that are exactly our power level. They're always about as difficult for us to beat no matter how tough we are or how strong we get. So I'm going to knock off training and get a beer. Wanna come?"

"Well, I would, but now you mention it, drinking beers never seems to have any effect on me no matter how many I have."

"That's weird, me too . . ."

- Saph

Bryn
2007-10-01, 03:28 PM
And the Stormwind Fallacy would be...?

This (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=11990222) should explain it :smallwink:

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-01, 03:32 PM
And the Stormwind Fallacy would be...?
http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=11990222&postcount=2

Anyways, it's actually the False Dillema fallacy (as anyone who knows a thing or two about logic will quickly recognize), just specifically applied to this particular common false dilemma.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 03:33 PM
My geekness is lacking, it would seem.

Fhaolan
2007-10-01, 03:42 PM
So I'm going to knock off training and get a beer. Wanna come?

That.... that was beautiful. Thank you, you made my day. :smallsmile:

Tormsskull
2007-10-01, 03:49 PM
I've seen people play completely suboptimal, to the point of being crippled, characters and have heard them cite 'roleplaying reasons'.


I haven't so I can't comment on that.



Think of it this way: after the party, do you get in a car with Tommy the Drunk, or Sammy McSober? Both will probably get you to your intended destination (home), but only one of them will do it without a side trip to the hospital or a graveyard.


I've rarely seen it that black and white. The form of powergaming I'm used to seeing is when a player scours several books looking for a class that gives him exactly the class abilities that he is looking for. Or the player that assumes that since the books don't specifically say no to something they mean yes.



*snip*


I'll wait to respond to this post until after the scrubbing bubbles get to it.



My point is that the roleplayer vs min/max "schism" is the result of bad rules. We should fix the true cause of the problem then separating into camps in how to live with it.


I would say that definitely is a factor, but I also think that when a player places mechanical power as the end all be all that they automatically suffer in the roleplaying region. You can't truly play an in-character role that is based upon obtaining character power without looking the other way on in-character decisions, class selection, ability selection, or the like.



The bolded portion is only true if the player has insufficient skill with either the roleplaying or the powergaming, or is simply uncreative. It is completely possible to make an effective character that still fits an overall theme that one wishes to adopt, and the presumption that a conflict must sometimes occur is unfounded.


I disagree. If a character's backstory indicated that they feared water, as an example, but then that character noticed a shiny magical item at the bottom of a fifteen-foot pit covered in water, 10 to 1 odds says the powergaming player would make up a reason, say a surge in bravery, or adrenaline, or some other reason in order to have their character descend down and get the magic item.

Again, is it possible that a character might have that happen in order for them to obtain the item (say under the circumstances that the item was needed to help save a town, or the character's friends or what not)? Definitely. But when the player has their character collect the item to increase the +'s or capabilities as represented on their character sheet, they have effectively said "My character's mechanical power is more important than representing my backstory".

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-01, 03:53 PM
2-handing a weapon is really low on the list of what works in real life, unless you're on the ground and you need to kill someone on a horse (and even then, the weapon is for the horse, not the rider.

I agree that weapon styles in D&D are quite unbalanced and unrealistic, but I should also note that two-handed weapons would be useful to adventurers because they often find themselves fighting things that are Large size *or larger!* You know, like horses. But EVEN SCARIER.

For the record, I made a thread in an attempt to get the community together to work on a solid fix for weapon styles, so that you could actually see advantages and disadvantages for different styles *at all levels* and *for different classes (Remember, folks, TWF is actually useful at higher levels with lots of bonus damage. And shields are good if you never actually intend to attack except maybe with spell stores or bonus damage or something), that also facilitates a heroic atmosphere (For example, how many movies have you seen where the hero or bad guy could spontaneously pick up a second weapon and go to town with it as easily as he could with one? In D&D, you actually make your legendary warrior *more unskilled in fighting than a commoner* when he picks up a dagger in his off hand instead of a shield without taking several feats! He actually is taking penalties comparable to being BLINDED. Except that the penalties for fighting while blind are easier to negate. How crazy is that?). It kinda got thrown by the side because no one seemed to care about actually fixing the rules... just complaining and calling each other minmaxxers or whatever. Kinda like this thread. :smallmad:

Skjaldbakka
2007-10-01, 04:05 PM
In the homebrew I am currently working on, 2WF is one feat, that allows you to roll two dice when attacking. Similar to the shadow blade technique, if you pick the lower die result and it hits, you deal extra damage to represent getting a hit in with your off-hand weapon. This also makes two-weapon fighting more reliable in terms of scoring a hit by reducing the odds of a 'bad roll'.

Dr. Weasel
2007-10-01, 04:17 PM
I would disagree. Two classes are balanced if it's hard to choose between them. If everyone uses things that work like spells, then you just have to compare the spell lists and see which class has better spells. If, however, different classes have abilities which work in completely different ways, then it's more likely that which one is better will depend on the situation. For instance, were the classes balanced, the fighter's feats which he can use an unlimited number of times per day might give him an edge over the wizard with limited spells, if there are a lot of encounters in a day. So that might give someone a reason to play a fighter rather than a wizard.

There's some sense in that. Point mostly conceded.

The problem still arises with Jack-of-All-Trades classes and effects. The Cleric is not intended to be very good at fighting, but it has access to the Self-Buff-Nova Mechanic, something denied to the Fighter. The result is the oft-cited Cleric-zilla. It doesn’t seem this mistake in the game design would exist if Fighters also had a 1/day (never to increase) explosion of Smash-ery mirroring what a Cleric can do to himself with one round of buffs at any given level.

HidaTsuzua
2007-10-01, 04:20 PM
I would say that definitely is a factor, but I also think that when a player places mechanical power as the end all be all that they automatically suffer in the roleplaying region. You can't truly play an in-character role that is based upon obtaining character power without looking the other way on in-character decisions, class selection, ability selection, or the like.


I have two comments about this. One is that I think you're looking at things the wrong way. When faced with bad rules that make justifiable character choices unreasonable, you can choose to go with the choice or not go with it. Some people prefer to go one way or the other. However you shouldn't have to choose to begin with.

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-01, 04:21 PM
There's some sense in that. Point mostly conceded.

The problem still arises with Jack-of-All-Trades classes and effects. The Cleric is not intended to be very good at fighting, but it has access to the Self-Buff-Nova Mechanic, something denied to the Fighter. The result is the oft-cited Cleric-zilla. It doesn’t seem this mistake in the game design would exist if Fighters also had a 1/day (never to increase) explosion of Smash-ery mirroring what a Cleric can do to himself with one round of buffs at any given level.

Seriously, people, stop saying "It was intended to be this way" when you actually don't know that. You're not the designers, so you can't just suddenly know what was intended. Besides, last I checked, the designers said it was fully intended for a cleric to be able to wade into melee.

Also, Cleric-zilla isn't some melee buff build. Coming from a friend of the guy who coined the term CoDzilla, it refers to any cleric (or druid), because clerics (and druids) can be amazing at whatever role you want. Core only. Without trying.

*sigh*

Indon
2007-10-01, 04:28 PM
Yuki's not talking about making suboptimal choices, he's talking about making bad choices when there are good choices available that would still allow you to stay within your intended characterization.

Think of it this way: after the party, do you get in a car with Tommy the Drunk, or Sammy McSober? Both will probably get you to your intended destination (home), but only one of them will do it without a side trip to the hospital or a graveyard.

Not if it was in response to my original comment, I don't think.

My original comment is that character optimization is generally _not_ in character, because characters don't know what's availible to them in order to optimise. I noted this in response to someone claiming character optimization was in character.

Edit: And when the response came that characters should be aware of the metagame, well, then I made up absurd examples of things characters could then reasonably do, and only then it came to this point.

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-01, 04:31 PM
Not if it was in response to my original comment, I don't think.

My original comment is that character optimization is generally _not_ in character, because characters don't know what's availible to them in order to optimise. I noted this in response to someone claiming character optimization was in character.

Edit: And when the response came that characters should be aware of the metagame, well, then I made up absurd examples of things characters could then reasonably do, and only then it came to this point.
Character building isn't in character even when it's suboptimal either. For the same reasons you just gave. Class, feats, all that... they're all completely metagame entities and concepts.

Indon
2007-10-01, 04:36 PM
Err, character building isn't in character even when it's suboptimal either.

Your point is what?

My point was in response to a post by Kompera two pages ago, and people have taken issue with it apparently without knowing what I was commenting on.

If anything, character concept, and thus development, is narrative in nature. It can have any level of optimization so long as it doesn't sound stupid. But "My character picked what's most effective because it's evident to him," sounds stupid, because your characters don't exist in such a way as to be able to observe that their world is inconsistent or absurd, and would thus have those flaws.

Indon
2007-10-01, 04:44 PM
I think an example may be appropriate. I'm going to be playing in an E6 game soon (A D&D ruleset that stops level advancement at 6, instead allowing purchase of feats only with further XP). My character is going to be optimized, and he will have no good in-character justification for his class selection.

Character Information, if interested:

Chaotic Evil Human

Urban Ranger 1 (Will be 1'st level for skills)
Sneak Attack Fighter 1
Soulborn 1
Ape Totem Barbarian 1
Warblade 1 (Will be 5'th level for 3'rd level manifester lvl)
Horizon Walker 1


It's an urban campaign. My DM okayed it (well, for the most part), and no doubt many jokes will be made about my character's class selection, which was selected - for metagame reasons - on the basis of being highly feat-enhancable.

But I will not try to justify my optimization as being in-character. Any attempt to do so would be absurd, and would be clearly percieved by my fellow players as me trying to say, "Hey, I can RP too!"

Edit: Well, okay, I might try to make up a story whenever I want to crack a joke about the character. "Yeah, and after escaping the tribe of wild ape-men whom he had lived with for two years, he encountered a master of the Sublime Way who was really good at backstabbing..."

Kioran
2007-10-01, 04:45 PM
Indeed, that assumption (and pretty much the rest of his post...) commits the Stormwind Fallacy. And is thus wrong.

While this is what Iīd call the "Formwind stallacy" - citing the Stormwind Fallacy as the ultimate turth solves the issue and makes it true forevermore. It doesnīt. The Stormwind Fallacy accounts for some Powergamers - those who pick an IC theme (for example Rat catcher following a divine calling) and the optimize it. Yes, optimizing along the lines of an IC theme can be done (emphasis on can) without a detriment to the "roleplay" aspect of the character.

But when someone says "Oh, Iīd always wanted play a Charcter with strength 38" and then construes a story around always admiring dragons....not so much. Itīs not like the result couldnīt be interesting as well, but chances are the player is cutting corners in the favor of mechanics.
When someone is optimizing for Metagame goals, itīs somewhat like law and chaos + evil and good to me - two axes, not opposed concepts. Still, if we take Goodness as the perpendicular axis, the other is not horizontal - itīs slightly tilted, with law leaning slightly upwards towards good. Being chaotic doesnīt preclude being good, but itīs just not as likely.

Same with excessive Meta-powergaming . Your character slips a tad further down the towards rollplaying if you powergame excessively, because mechanics will influence IC decisions, and "roleplay" will, in some cases, be relayed to a task of justifying the most mechanically sound decision. As Yuki Akuma, by the way, effectively demonstrated.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 04:49 PM
What did I demonstrate, now? Is that a good thing?

I'm lost. :smallredface:

Kioran
2007-10-01, 04:52 PM
What did I demonstrate, now? Is that a good thing?

I'm lost. :smallredface:

You said most sensible Fighters would pick up a Greatsword instead of Long-&Shortsword. Which stems from your experience as a player that the former is significantly more effective in terms of damage output. But itīs not, say, your kendo or Swordfighting experience talking, nor the picture in your head - you translate your metagame analysis into an IC concept.
This can be done elegantly, so as not to interfere with RP too much, but it will, at least, cut down on variety.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 04:54 PM
You said most sensible Fighters would pick up a Greatsword instead of Long-&Shortsword. Which stems from your experience as a player that the former is significantly more effective in terms of damage output. But itīs not, say, your kendo or Swordfighting experience talking, nor the picture in your head - you translate your metagame analysis into an IC concept.
This can be done elegantly, so as not to interfere with RP too much, but it will, at least, cut down on variety.

Iaido teaches me that a sword is easier to control if you use both hands...

But, yes, I get your point. I think. I'll just say I do.

horseboy
2007-10-01, 04:55 PM
Seriously, people, stop saying "It was intended to be this way" when you actually don't know that.

But we do.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49378

Dr. Weasel
2007-10-01, 05:04 PM
Seriously, people, stop saying "It was intended to be this way" when you actually don't know that. You're not the designers, so you can't just suddenly know what was intended. Besides, last I checked, the designers said it was fully intended for a cleric to be able to wade into melee.

Yes, I know very well that the Cleric was designed for melee. That's why the Armor/Weapon proficiencies and the Divine Power/Righteous Might spells are there. I just have a very hard time believing the self-buffs were originally planned to work as well as they do as frequently as they do.



Also, Cleric-zilla isn't some melee buff build. Coming from a friend of the guy who coined the term CoDzilla, it refers to any cleric (or druid), because clerics (and druids) can be amazing at whatever role you want. Core only. Without trying.
Nobody's arguing this.


But we do.
I'm not sure second-hand forum posts are sources for accurate knowledge so I don't like placing too much weight on that. It does make sense, though.

Kioran
2007-10-01, 05:04 PM
Iaido teaches me that a sword is easier to control if you use both hands...

But, yes, I get your point. I think. I'll just say I do.

And itīs not even that much the playerīs fault - the tilt in the axes is mainly a result of system inbalance.

You couldnīt build a stubborn-but-stupid ex-miner tough guy who is an unstoppable, but unrefined juggernaut effectively - either heīs going to suck (because his saves arenßt up to scratch and "Great Fortitude" and the like arenīt good choices) or heīll discover Spiritual strength (=Warblade levels with IHS and some Stone Dragon), because it actually serves the overarching theme (tough guy), even while itīs at odds with a minor trope (stupid and unrefined).
Basically, a hugely unbalanced system that asks such a staggering cost for an IC decision pits powergaming against roleplaying, if in minor ways. The conflict isnīt inherent as such, but in D&D it certainly is.

Tormsskull
2007-10-01, 05:29 PM
Thanks for the edit.



I reject your base assumption that powergamers are automatically not roleplayers at the start.


To each their own. We could honestly debate this for hours and hours but we have both probably been in several of the same kind, and neither of us have probably changed our viewpoints.



If choices that are reasonable in terms of fluff are bad mechanically, they are badly designed. I've found the vast majority of feats to be at least neutral in both categories.


I think that is being unrealistic. If you are saying that every choice that a player can make should be just as balanced as every choice that they didn't make, then I think you are aiming for the impossible.

Taking 3.5 as an example, can you possibly imagine that every skill is as good as every other skill? Every feat as good as every other feat?



As an example, power attack and cleave. For what sort of muscular, heavily trained man at arms are those choices out of character? You would have to create a conflict between your character's mechanics and your character's story for any of the details resulting from that to be in conflict.


Would you then agree that if a character was a sailor for 10 years of his 20 year life that you'd have to create a conflict between your character's mechanics and story to NOT take Profession: Sailor and/or Use Rope? I think you are supporting one vein of my argument here.



So, is your claim that anyone who you consider a powergamer is lying to themselves about roleplaying?


I think that anyone that I consider a powergamer considers character power more important than roleplaying, and thus is not a good roleplayer in my mind.

Examples might be a Druid putting a time-sensitive mission on hold so he can get a new Animal Companion upon level up because he doesn't want to go without that animal companion. Or a player who "dips" into other classes in order to get exactly the abilities he wants.



So the evidence you use to justify a bias is that people try to avoid being the target of it?


I'm not sure I am understanding you here correctly. What I was trying to say with my quote that you quoted is that in the past some roleplayers have been really harsh towards Hack & Slashers (non-roleplayers). They might say things like "That's not real D&D." Or "You're playing D&D like it was a video game" or what have you. In order for Hack & Slashers to avoid those comments, they would stitch together a meager "story" and or plot and then call it roleplaying.

Dr. Weasel
2007-10-01, 05:33 PM
It's an urban campaign. My DM okayed it (well, for the most part), and no doubt many jokes will be made about my character's class selection, which was selected - for metagame reasons - on the basis of being highly feat-enhancable.

But I will not try to justify my optimization as being in-character. Any attempt to do so would be absurd, and would be clearly percieved by my fellow players as me trying to say, "Hey, I can RP too!"

Edit: Well, okay, I might try to make up a story whenever I want to crack a joke about the character. "Yeah, and after escaping the tribe of wild ape-men whom he had lived with for two years, he encountered a master of the Sublime Way who was really good at backstabbing..."

You realize a perfect justification for this class (beside the Soulborn, I'm not familar with that) is saying "He's a Swordsman from the city." That really summarizes all of it.

horseboy
2007-10-01, 05:34 PM
Would you then agree that if a character was a sailor for 10 years of his 20 year life that you'd have to create a conflict between your character's mechanics and story to NOT take Profession: Sailor and/or Use Rope? I think you are supporting one vein of my argument here.


Depends on how good a sailor he was. :smallwink:

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 05:49 PM
I'm not sure I am understanding you here correctly. What I was trying to say with my quote that you quoted is that in the past some roleplayers have been really harsh towards Hack & Slashers (non-roleplayers). They might say things like "That's not real D&D." Or "You're playing D&D like it was a video game" or what have you. In order for Hack & Slashers to avoid those comments, they would stitch together a meager "story" and or plot and then call it roleplaying.

It's simple: people who continue to look down on anyone they consider to be a "powergamer" (and therefore, in their limited view, automatically a bad roleplayer) create a bad stereotype. It's not that powergamers are bad, it's that 'anti-powergamers' think they are. And then they tell everyone they meet that powergaming is bad and set themselves up as the antithesis to powergaming for no good reason, thereby creating a hostile atmosphere which can only damage the hobby.

(I like how you put "story" in quotation marks, there. It illustrates your bias perfectly.)

Indon
2007-10-01, 05:51 PM
You realize a perfect justification for this class (beside the Soulborn, I'm not familar with that) is saying "He's a Swordsman from the city." That really summarizes all of it.

Why not just say, "He's a guy, you know?" That way I could toss in Wizard.

Sure, I can summarize him by being vague and inspecific, and not actually integrating any of his abilities into his character. But you know what? That really is lower-quality roleplaying (by virtue of being uninteresting) than doing so.

kamikasei
2007-10-01, 05:55 PM
I disagree. If a character's backstory indicated that they feared water, as an example, but then that character noticed a shiny magical item at the bottom of a fifteen-foot pit covered in water, 10 to 1 odds says the powergaming player would make up a reason, say a surge in bravery, or adrenaline, or some other reason in order to have their character descend down and get the magic item.

That doesn't sound like a powergamer to me; it sounds more like a munchkin. I think perhaps you guys are using the same word for different things.


Why not just say, "He's a guy, you know?" That way I could toss in Wizard.

Sure, I can summarize him by being vague and inspecific, and not actually integrating any of his abilities into his character. But you know what? That really is lower-quality roleplaying (by virtue of being uninteresting) than doing so.

While it depends to an extent on the class you're using - wizards, for example, need spellbooks and preparation, so it's hard to change their fluff too much - there's no real need for every aspect of a class' abilities to be reflected in the character's backstory. A Warblade - especially a dipped Warblade - doesn't have to be described as a student of the Sublime Way. A Sneak Attack Fighter doesn't have to be RP'd as different to a Ranger or Rogue.

Dr. Weasel
2007-10-01, 05:55 PM
Why not just say, "He's a guy, you know?" That way I could toss in Wizard.

Sure, I can summarize him by being vague and inspecific, and not actually integrating any of his abilities into his character. But you know what? That really is lower-quality roleplaying (by virtue of being uninteresting) than doing so.
What I mean is he can have a background and character identical to those of a Swashbuckler or a Rogue with no clash between abilities and character.

[EDIT:] Upon checking the Wizards site to see what exactly a Soulborn is, it has come to my awareness that having a backstory suitable to any Swashbuckler or Rogue would not be appropriate.

It however, be more than acceptable to just go with a character/backstory that would be suitable for any street-wise Soulborn.

Indon
2007-10-01, 06:01 PM
What I mean is he can have a background and character identical to those of a Swashbuckler or a Rogue with no clash between abilities and character.

For the Fighter and Ranger levels, sure.

But Ape Totem Barbarian? Horizon Walker? And Warblade's kind of a silly stretch to just say you picked up your Iron Stone Ultimate Power, even at many low-level maneuvers.

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-01, 06:02 PM
My point was in response to a post by Kompera two pages ago, and people have taken issue with it apparently without knowing what I was commenting on.

If anything, character concept, and thus development, is narrative in nature. It can have any level of optimization so long as it doesn't sound stupid. But "My character picked what's most effective because it's evident to him," sounds stupid, because your characters don't exist in such a way as to be able to observe that their world is inconsistent or absurd, and would thus have those flaws.

Agreed.


But we do.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49378

Well, nothing in that post actually says that they didn't intend for clerics to have any melee capability (indeed, I understand they were designed to have more abilities in all areas because they felt that "just healing" was boring and they wanted to make the class more attractive). Anyways, all this really means is that WotC has really, REALLY inept playtesters. They seriously should be fired for not having a bloody clue how to do their job.

Seriously. They're REALLY bad at their job if that's how they played the game. If you go into video game testing or anything like that, they tell you right off the bat: "Your job is to break the game as hard as you possibly can, so that we can fix it and make it harder to break." That's what game testers are supposed to do. You might have a couple people on each build running on "intended course" testing, playing the game "as intended" all the way through to see if it works when you do everything normally. Then you have 50 guys trying their hardest and applying themselves in creative ways to break the hell out of every little tidbit of the game and every little line of code. (in D&D, it would be ability wording, etc) Optimizing is the paradigm for good playtesting established by at least the video game industry. Why hasn't WotC caught on, I wonder?

Dr. Weasel
2007-10-01, 06:05 PM
Ape Totem Barbarian: You can climb. Most Rogues can climb. Actually, everybody can climb. Isn't that neat?

Warblade:You fight well with a sword. Yup. That's it.

Horizon Walker:You can Hide/See Things/Swim/Whatever rather well.

Just drop the class and maneuver names from your character sheets and look at your abilities. Most are actually quite mundane.

Indon
2007-10-01, 06:07 PM
Agreed.


I think a lot of it has to do with people who think they need to justify their optimized character build, or who want to fit character optimization with a concept which would call for a less optimized character.

The kind of mental acrobatics that calls for, while amusing to hear the first time, really are very bad roleplaying.

If you want to optimize a character, you need to build your concept around your optimization; start with your highest priority. Otherwise it's going to sound ridiculous.

I think this is a major source of this "Stormwind Fallacy" stuff.


Ape Totem Barbarian: You can climb. Most Rogues can climb. Actually, everybody can climb. Isn't that neat?


I have a climb _speed_. That grants me a +8 racial bonus to Climb (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#climb).

Sure, I can just treat it like a generic climbing ability. But it isn't, not remotely, and to flavor it vanilla is to fail to do it justice.

Tormsskull
2007-10-01, 06:07 PM
It's not that powergamers are bad, it's that 'anti-powergamers' think they are. And then they tell everyone they meet that powergaming is bad and set themselves up as the antithesis to powergaming for no good reason, thereby creating a hostile atmosphere which can only damage the hobby.


That's your opinion. Personally I think that powergamers are a threat to good roleplaying sessions, and as such they are more likely to create a hostile atmosphere. Assuming we are using the same definition of powergaming, then yeah I do set myself up as the antithesis to that.



(I like how you put "story" in quotation marks, there. It illustrates your bias perfectly.)

I thought I had made my bias pretty clear when I said:


I can tell you from personal experience that as a person who really loves the roleplaying side of D&D that I dislike Hack and Slash campaigns.

*shrug*



That doesn't sound like a powergamer to me; it sounds more like a munchkin. I think perhaps you guys are using the same word for different things.


That's possible, regardless of the label used, I'm referring to people who place character power as the goal and story/background/fluff as secondary to that.

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-01, 06:14 PM
I think a lot of it has to do with people who think they need to justify their optimized character build, or who want to fit character optimization with a concept which would call for a less optimized character.

The kind of mental acrobatics that calls for, while amusing to hear the first time, really are very bad roleplaying.

If you want to optimize a character, you need to build your concept around your optimization; start with your highest priority. Otherwise it's going to sound ridiculous.

I think this is a major source of this "Stormwind Fallacy" stuff.

That's absurd. I always start out with character concept, and never sacrifice an iota of my detailed RP concepts for mechanics. I then build the mechanics around that character concept, and more likely than not in most groups I play with... I come out with the most powerful character in the group. Likewise, take a trip to Practical Optimization on the WotC boards and pitch them a concept, and odds are they can make something effective out of it without sacrificing the concept. Heck, we've already got builds for a thousand popular fiction characters (comprised of several exotic classes and so forth). Heck, in the rare case that I come up with a concept that, no matter what I do, will *totally suck* regardless of how I optimize it (for example, I want to play a monster race) then we make a houserule that's a lot more balanced than the underpowered "Hey, you can't play this type of character" BS WotC gave us. (*cough* LA *cough*) (Likewise, we ban stuff like Persistent Spell cheese or turning into Fleshrakers)

The assumption that an optimizer has to sacrifice his RP concept in order to make an effective choice is utterly and completely ridiculous. I have never had to do any such thing.

I don't make concepts to justify optimized builds. I optimize concepts. Same goes for friends of mine who are *great* optimizers (indeed, I've played with uncon optimization prizewinners and CO regulars and so forth, and they don't do what you describe. At all) You've got it backwards.

Indon
2007-10-01, 06:16 PM
That's possible, regardless of the label used, I'm referring to people who place character power as the goal and story/background/fluff as secondary to that.

I'm going to defend this before anyone actually attacks it, I hope.

I've already commented on what I think of people who try to optimize and then arbitrarily link their optimization decisions with whatever they want for their concept; I don't think it works and I think many would agree.

But even if you optimize your character and then masterfully justify your optimization with characterization, you are still, by definition, putting your characterization second.

So I feel both apply to this description, albeit with different degrees of severity and success.

Edit: OneWinged; I'm not trying to tell you how you build characters. I'm trying to tell you how I think people build characters who give optimizers a bad name.

And you're probably just better at optimizing than everyone else in your group. Probably because you frequent optimization forums.

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-01, 06:24 PM
And you're probably just better at optimizing than everyone else in your group. Probably because you frequent optimization forums.

Right. In many of the groups I play in, I'm the best optimizer. Does that mean I'm a worse roleplayer for it? I'm sure you'd have trouble finding one person who plays with me that would agree with that sentiment.

I consider myself a heavy roleplayer and a writer much more than an optimizer. Heck, I played freeform (that means no rules at all) for about 8 years before switching to D&D and other systems with rules for the most part. And yet, whenever I (or anyone, for that matter) says "I want to play a Rogue/Wizard" and come up with something like Rogue1/Wizard5/UnseenSeer10/ArcaneTrickster4 (this is actually a build I'm currently playing, though right now he's only level 2 =P) instead of something stupid like Rogue10/Wizard10, then half these boardgoers would call me (or whoever else) a dirty powergamer who doesn't roleplay without knowing the first thing about me (or whoever they're talking to). Even though the roleplaying concept is unchanged and actually *enhanced* by those PrCs, while preserving 9th level spellcasting and giving a good +16d6 or so sneak attack and high skills and lots of other goodies.

And again, I didn't say "I want to play an Unseen Seer" first. I said "I want to play an Aundairian exile with the Mark of Outlaw, a student of Arcanix convicted of a heinous crime he didn't commit as a result of a bitter betrayal and forced into a life outside the law. A man with a heart broken in two by the love who betrayed him, carried on only by the pull of a mystery rooted in his own heritage that led him to Karrnath..."

And kinda expanded from there. And then, after I wrote up my whole backstory, personality, motivations, description, and so forth, I made mechanics. And I thought "well, Rogue/Wizard with certain PrCs would fit, as would Beguiler. But I don't think Illusion or Enchantment really fits so much with the concept as an Unseen Seer with focus on divination, evocation, and a dash of necromancy would..." There was no "putting characterization second." There was optimization, though.

This all comes back to the point: There is no reason that an optimizer would need to put characterization second, nor any reason that an optimizer can't also be a great RPer.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 06:28 PM
That's your opinion. Personally I think that powergamers are a threat to good roleplaying sessions, and as such they are more likely to create a hostile atmosphere. Assuming we are using the same definition of powergaming, then yeah I do set myself up as the antithesis to that.

How exactly are a bunch of people you have no interaction with who play the game the way they want to play it more damaging than people who victimise and belittle people for playing the game their own way?

hyperfreak497
2007-10-01, 06:29 PM
*Coughs uncomfortably* *Shuffles feet*

Hi, guys...

This thread is kind of upsetting me. I believe I've created a monster.

19) What is the difference between a munchkin, a powergamer, and a minmaxxer?

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 06:33 PM
19) What is the difference between a munchkin, a powergamer, and a minmaxxer?

The terms are completely subjective and everyone will argue endlessly with anyone else who tries to define them.

("Munchkin" generally carries connotations of "cheater", though.)

hyperfreak497
2007-10-01, 06:36 PM
Is question 19 going to spark another argument?

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 06:37 PM
Is question 19 going to spark another argument?

Short answer? Probably.

hyperfreak497
2007-10-01, 06:38 PM
Short answer? Probably.

...Nice...

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 06:40 PM
At least it won't be a particularly heated argument. I mean, after all, it's just... definitions. How often do you find people hurling thinly-veiled insults over word definitions?

AlterForm
2007-10-01, 06:41 PM
At least it won't be a particularly heated argument. I mean, after all, it's just... definitions. How often do you find people hurling thinly-veiled insults over word definitions?

On the internet? All the ****ing time.

hyperfreak497
2007-10-01, 06:42 PM
Ever been to 4chan? Damn, those people can argue about anything.

Dr. Weasel
2007-10-01, 06:44 PM
This thread is kind of upsetting me. I believe I've created a monster.
Well, you've created a stagnant thread, which means we all get to have doodling arguments with each other.

I'm fairly certain the stickied Terms thread can answer any questions like #19 in a matter of seconds. Just check the first post.

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-01, 06:47 PM
There's a stickied terms thread that would explain what all our crazy lingo means. Though, people tend to be completely subjective when they use those words, which gets annoying pretty fast -_-

horseboy
2007-10-01, 06:54 PM
Anyways, all this really means is that WotC has really, REALLY inept playtesters. They seriously should be fired for not having a bloody clue how to do their job. In a word: "Duh". I've been bitching about this since I was first made to play this crap.


Why hasn't WotC caught on, I wonder?
Short answer: They're dumb asses. I had some minor hope for 4th, but reading their "version" of a playtesting session, I have no faith that it will be any better.

Dervag
2007-10-01, 06:57 PM
Is question 19 going to spark another argument?Nah, it'll just fold naturally into the existing argument.

I'd say that 'munchkin' is a highly derogatory term that usually denotes a player that bends the rules to the breaking point. A typical tactic would be sticking a character at negative hit points in a pond and asserting that the drowning rules will bring him up to 0 hp.

'Minmaxer' is a less derogatory term referring to someone who obsessively seeks the statistically optimum character build, often at the expense of creating a one-dimensional build or at the expense of common sense.

'Powergamer' is a term somewhat less derogatory than 'minmaxer', referring to a player that seeks to optimize character power, not necessarily at the expense of common sense or at the expense of creating a one-dimensional character.


I would say that it does indeed make sense that all characters would pursue the same tactics...What I'm trying to get at is that I don't want my character builds to be dominated by whatever builds confer the most power within the system. In many cases, that is purely an artifact of an arbitrary system we use to model the fictional space we play in.

For example, we have the arbitrary statistic of 'damage', the arbitrary statistic of 'armor class,' and the arbitrary statistic of 'attack bonus.' The way these two statistics interact decides how a fight is going to go in our model.

Because of the way the game designers created certain classes and feats, one particular interaction between damage, AC, and AB happens to produce optimum damage for (relatively) unimportant reductions to AC and AB. That would be the super-power-attacker.

The problem is that it's not a priori clear to me that this should be true. And if I want to play a character who bears no resemblance to said power attacker, my concern is not that they are suboptimal compared to the power attacker. The power attacker is beyond my horizon for creating this character, though I would certainly be frustrated if one of my fellow players built a power attacker and ran them as a competitor to my fencer or archer or dual-wielding ranger.

So I really don't care if my fencer or archer or dual-wielder is less powerful than a power attacking barbarian. I don't want a power attacking barbarian.

All that concerns me is that my fencer or archer or dual-wielder be able to fill the job description of 'fighter-type' without failing compared to monsters of equal CR. The power attacker might blast right through those CR-appropriate encounters that give me so much trouble, routinely one-shotting powerful enemies that would take my character several rounds to kill. But I don't care, as long as my character can kill those enemies and is not too weak to engage enemies of CR appropriate to his level in combat.

Likewise, I don't care that my wizard could be three times as deadly if I used a different spell lineup. I care that he can provide enough magical support of some kind (blasting, summoning monsters, making illusions, whatever) that the party isn't suffering for lack of an effective wizard to back them up.

I'm not asking for a mechanically optimal character; I'm asking for a mechanically adequate character. I don't want someone who can fight like Batman or who can defeat Batman in single combat. I want someone who can defeat, say, the big guy down the block who keeps pushing me around. Batman is irrelevant to my picture here.


Unfortunately, the numbers are the game. If you ignore the numbers, you're telling a collective story, not playing a game.

Which is fine, if that's what you want to do. But if you want to play the game, you need to consider the numbers.But if the numbers are more important than the story, then D&D stops being a roleplaying game and becomes an elaborate form of Yahtzee. And I don't like Yahtzee. I don't think it's any fun. So I'll take any character that works flavorwise as long as they aren't hopelessly crippled by the numbers to the point where they cannot perform any meaningful task.


But, on the other hand, whatever the cause of the nature of reality, quirky or otherwise, those who follow a less effective fighting style will tend to die faster than those who follow more effective ones. Survival of the fittest combat memes. (Taken to the extreme, yes, this will result in no one in the world playing combat classes.)Evolutionary pressures aren't evolution towards, they are evolution away from. Once you hit on an adequate strategy so that you aren't dying in droves anymore, evolution generally stops changing your species until the next crisis hits.

So a weak combat style in D&D might die off in a crisis (for instance, the entire order of Truenamers being wiped out in the Mage Wars by a guild of Batman-wizards). But an adequate combat style (such as the blaster-wizard) might well survive simply because it is good enough that its competitors can't casually dislodge it.

Look at the QWERTY keyboard if you want an example. QWERTY keyboards are terrible. They are specifically designed to slow down your typing speed by forcing you to hit many common letters with your weaker left hand, among other things. And yet everyone uses them, to the point where most people imagine a QWERTY keyboard almost immediately as soon as they hear the word 'keyboard.'

If evolution always promoted the best, QWERTY keyboards would have gone extinct decades ago, once the need to slow down typists so that they wouldn't jam their typewriters so often vanished. But instead, evolution merely weeded out the worst (like the six-row keyboard that had three rows of capital and three rows of lowercase letters, with no shift key), leaving the QWERTY intact, a sort of all-dominant living fossil.


I'll reiterate: the best way to avoid getting hit is to make the other guy unable to hit you.So why were shields so popular in real life that pretty much every martial culture except that of Japan used them extensively?

Dr. Weasel
2007-10-01, 06:59 PM
In a word: "Duh". I've been bitching about this since I was first made to play this crap.
What are you doing on your computer-unit? I thought it was perfectly clear that you have to play D&D v.3.5 as well as any other material published by WoTC at all times. I do not wish to hear of any further rebellions of this sort from you, horseboy.

kamikasei
2007-10-01, 07:00 PM
I've already commented on what I think of people who try to optimize and then arbitrarily link their optimization decisions with whatever they want for their concept; I don't think it works and I think many would agree.

But even if you optimize your character and then masterfully justify your optimization with characterization, you are still, by definition, putting your characterization second.

If we're talking about people who sit down saying "I want a character who can deal 100 damage at level one", or something similar, put together a character sheet that can achieve it, and then start piecing together a backstory for the character: yeah, sure. I doubt such people are at all common, though, and if they're your idea of a powergamer then you're tilting at windmills. OneWinged4ngel's description (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3277955&postcount=175) is, I think, somewhat more realistic and widespread.


Edit: OneWinged; I'm not trying to tell you how you build characters. I'm trying to tell you how I think people build characters who give optimizers a bad name.

But then you're just making it heads-I-win, tails-you-lose. You're not attempting to describe the attitudes or actions of powergamers at all, so if a powergamer says "that doesn't describe me or anyone I know", it doesn't count against your argument. You're describing some hypothetical subset of powergamers who may or may not exist, whose most notable feature is that you don't like their hypothetical existence, and justifying negative generalizations about optimizers based on these unreal strawmen.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-01, 07:02 PM
So why were shields so popular in real life that pretty much every martial culture except that of Japan used them extensively?

Humans are, by and large, cowards. It's comforting to have a nice, heavy slab of metal between you and the other guy.

Plus, not everyone understand the "one big attack" philosophy of combat.

I think it's actually more telling that some cultures didn't use shields; they're not intrinsic to combat. Japanese soldiers understood the 'one big attack' philosophy.

Leon
2007-10-01, 07:08 PM
And if you're a level 20 warrior who needs to escape a castle flying 20 miles overhead, the best way is to jump! You know through experimentation that the fall can not kill you, and at most it'll take six days before you're back to prime condition even without magical healing.

Edit: Make that a level 12 fighter, with 20 con. If he has Improved Toughness, he can take a 20 mile fall and still survive a hit that would kill a commoner afterwards.

Brings a new meaning to Fighter-Bomber



Just because I aknowledge that, for example, Monks are inferior to Fighters (which is really saying something) doesn't mean that I don't enjoy playing Monks (or Fighters).

My favourite character ever was a Monk, for example. Another of my favourites was a Soulknife who focused heavily on two-weapon fighting. Yes, you heard me.

Your air of superiority is entertaining, though.

its not superiority but you can enjoy it all you want

I just try to rally against the flow of opinion, mostly in regard to optimization

ive no issues with you having a Soulknife or a Monk as favoured PCs.
My favourite PC was a Fighter

i have issues with the consensus that someone asks about a class and is warned away from it due to its less than favorful aspects or someone asksfor help with feats and states the baseline that they are working from only to have X Y & Z suggested as what they should be having as a baseline instead as its more optimal

My view is that everything should be treated equal untill personaly tried and proven



Is question 19 going to spark another argument?

Quite Likely

Indon
2007-10-01, 07:08 PM
This all comes back to the point: There is no reason that an optimizer would need to put characterization second, nor any reason that an optimizer can't also be a great RPer.

A player who optimizes based on their character concept is perfectly capable of producing a character capable of contributing in a party.

But an optimizer who is unrestrained by character concept can create more powerful and useful characters than would be provided by most concepts, simply by limiting to the concepts that produce the most powerful characters.

Similarly, a player who characterizes based on their mechanical concept is perfectly capable of producing a character capable of contributing to a story.

But a player who is unrestrained by mechanical concept has the freedom to create difficulties - and thus story opportunities and complications - for their character that are inaccessable to more mechanically effective builds, by virtue of them being more effective.

Certainly, you can have both worlds. But there is definitely a balance between the two, and you _can_ sacrifice one for the sake of the other.

Jade_Tarem
2007-10-01, 07:10 PM
Humans are, by and large, cowards. It's comforting to have a nice, heavy slab of metal between you and the other guy.

Humans are, by and large, pretty intelligent when it comes to staying alive. Those who are not are generally cut from the gene pool. There was a discussion on this in the past, and the general consensus (from those who had actually tried it) was that combat was a lot easier with a shield and one handed weapon than any two handed weapon.


Plus, not everyone understand the "one big attack" philosophy of combat.

I do. Remember that real life and DnD don't always mix well. Actually, they almost never mix well.


I think it's actually more telling that some cultures didn't use shields; they're not intrinsic to combat. Japanese soldiers understood the 'one big attack' philosophy.

Not to knock an entire culture, but Japanese soldiers were required to kill themselves in the event that they lost, precluding the possibility of learning from their errors. Assuming we're talking about the elite. If not, then japanese soldiers mostly killed things with sticks and stones, from range IIRC. Either way, it's not exactly a fantastic example of brilliant strategy.

tainsouvra
2007-10-01, 07:10 PM
I disagree. If a character's backstory indicated that they feared water, as an example, but then that character noticed a shiny magical item at the bottom of a fifteen-foot pit covered in water, 10 to 1 odds says the powergaming player would make up a reason, say a surge in bravery, or adrenaline, or some other reason in order to have their character descend down and get the magic item. And, in your mind, that's poor roleplaying? Aren't we playing a game of heroic fantasy, where facing your fears and triumphing is one of the highlights of good roleplaying? I would say that facing down a character's fear in order to achieve one of his higher goals is an example of a good story!

I think your bias against munchkins is clouding your ability to see how powergaming is not mutually-exclusive with good roleplaying. As a quick check, you do know the difference between a powergamer and a munchkin, right? Your previous posts in this thread are using the terms interchangably, but they are not the same thing.

tainsouvra
2007-10-01, 07:19 PM
regardless of the label used, I'm referring to people who place character power as the goal and story/background/fluff as secondary to that. You have invented your own definition of "powergamer" that makes it mutually-exclusive with roleplaying, despite the fact that your definition of the term is different from the definition used by practically everyone else on these boards, then used that definition to make disparaging remarks about powergamers.

This is a nontrivial mistake to make, you know, in fact it runs dangerously close to one of the forum rules. Tread lightly.

horseboy
2007-10-01, 08:06 PM
Humans are, by and large, pretty intelligent when it comes to staying alive. Those who are not are generally cut from the gene pool. There was a discussion on this in the past, and the general consensus (from those who had actually tried it) was that combat was a lot easier with a shield and one handed weapon than any two handed weapon.

There's also the whole "shields are actually weapons" arguments (http://www.thehaca.com/essays/knightvs.htm) also. (That's further down that article)

Dervag
2007-10-01, 09:22 PM
Humans are, by and large, cowards. It's comforting to have a nice, heavy slab of metal between you and the other guy.Here's the catch.

Killing an enemy and being killed in return is a really pointless thing to do in any sane kind of a fighting style. It is to be avoided. Guys who charge out and get killed in their first battle because someone put an arrow through their belly as they were chopping the head off their first opponent don't make very effective warriors. They tend to lose to more disciplined, survivable forces such as the Roman legion and the Greek phalanx. They even tend to lose to forces that are not so disciplined, but wear enough protection to survive.

With all the random pointy stuff flying around on a real pre-gunpowder battlefield, being an eggshell armed with a sledgehammer was a losing proposition. There were missile weapons. There were enemies who had a longer weapon than you and could get the first shot in by default. There were enemies who were quicker than you. There were enemies who attacked you while you were preoccupied fighting someone else.

All these things made going onto such a battlefield with no protection extremely dangerous, if not outright suicidal. A somewhat improved (by no means guaranteed) chance of killing the enemies you do target doesn't offset a dramatically increased risk of being killed by the numerous enemies you don't target.

So while there were a few cultures that made a go of unarmored or shieldless fighting (such as the Celts, the Japanese, and the Norse), even for them it was by no means the norm to fight without armor or shields. There were lots of Celts and Norsemen going around in armor, and some or most of them probably thought the ones charging into battle naked were fools or lunatics.


Plus, not everyone understand the "one big attack" philosophy of combat.

I think it's actually more telling that some cultures didn't use shields; they're not intrinsic to combat. Japanese soldiers understood the 'one big attack' philosophy.If one culture didn't do it, and dozens of others did, then perhaps it was the one culture that was missing something, and not the dozens of others.

Or perhaps it's just that shields are utterly normal, and that a culture which does not employ shields is highly unusual, much as a culture that did not employ bows or spears or any of the other common tools of war would be.

Moreover, Japanese soldiers and samurai did not prove to have an advantage in conflicts with shield-using foreigners, which suggests that their fighting style was not objectively superior, but rather simply different.

And even the Japanese made extensive use of the best armor they could build to protect themselves, which suggests that they weren't quite as offensive-minded as you suggest.

Tormsskull
2007-10-01, 09:24 PM
Plus, not everyone understand the "one big attack" philosophy of combat.


Just out of curiosity, are you suggesting that IRL cultures would have been more successful in combat/war had their soldiers used two-handed weapons as opposed to shields?


You have invented your own definition of "powergamer" that makes it mutually-exclusive with roleplaying, despite the fact that your definition of the term is different from the definition used by practically everyone else on these boards, then used that definition to make disparaging remarks about powergamers.


I've invented my own definition of powergamer? Hmm. Look here:


- Power Gaming*: Varying definitions, but usually refers to attempting to “break” certain aspects of the game in the player’s favor. Also, the intent to gather as much power in game as possible, sometimes to the detriment of the campaign. Someone who does this a “power gamer.” Sometimes used as a synonym for the given definition of “min/maxing,” and other times as a synonym for “munchkin.”

Could you explain further? Or perhaps show me where "practically everyone else on these boards" is getting their definitions from?

Zincorium
2007-10-01, 09:57 PM
Could you explain further? Or perhaps show me where "practically everyone else on these boards" is getting their definitions from?

Last I checked, the term was an offshoot of the computer term 'power user'. That's gone out of style for the most part, but even in the heyday you never heard of power users as people who cheated or tried to break computers.

Power users were people who knew more about computers than the average user, who could effectively use programs, change settings without breaking things, and work through their own problems much of the time.

In the same way, powergamers are very familiar with the rule books, and know the systems and details of feats. This allows them to make good decisions as far as how to create their character and play the game.


And seriously, in what other situation has putting the word power before something meant worse than usual? That's been the context you've used it in so far.

Jannex
2007-10-01, 11:44 PM
*puts on helmet*

I think it's important to bear in mind here that just because one blanket generalization may be false, the opposite blanket generalization isn't automatically true. I often (and not just on this thread) hear people tossing around the phrase "Stormwind Fallacy" whenever anyone starts talking about the perceived tension between powergaming and roleplaying. However, while it may be fallacious to assume that all powergamers are bad roleplayers, it is also fallacious to assume that all powergamers are good roleplayers. Example:

I might make a statement that "I dislike the subset of powergamers who pursue character power at the expense of roleplaying."

If another person's instinctive response is to say, "But I'm the best optimizer in my group, and I never sacrifice characterization or roleplaying!" then, odds are, I'm not talking about you. But the fact that YOU don't sacrifice those things for power doesn't mean that NO ONE does.

Citing the Stormwind Fallacy doesn't make powergaming bad-roleplayers cease to exist. If it did, I think that I (and many other people on these forums) would pay you money to cite it. I have played with people who care more about mechanical power than roleplaying their characters, and sacrifice the latter to achieve the former. Fortunately, for the most part they haven't been very skilled at it; if they had, they would have been insufferable rather than merely annoying. And these people will continue to exist, regardless of how good a roleplayer any of the optimizers here may be.

By the same token (and I've seen this fallacy come up more than once on these boards), prioritizing characterization and roleplaying higher than mechanical power does not necessarily mean that the person doing so has a hopelessly nerfed character unable to fulfill his party role. Assuming that "roleplayers/non-optimizers" = "useless gimped characters" is just as much a fallacy as the much-vaunted eponymous error coined by Mr. Stormwind.

Also, regarding the housecat vs. commoner thing, I have a friend who says that the cat her family had when she was a young child nearly killed a burglar that tried to break into their house. So, truth may be stranger than fiction on that one.

Kaelik
2007-10-02, 01:51 AM
I might make a statement that "I dislike the subset of powergamers who pursue character power at the expense of roleplaying."

If another person's instinctive response is to say, "But I'm the best optimizer in my group, and I never sacrifice characterization or roleplaying!" then, odds are, I'm not talking about you. But the fact that YOU don't sacrifice those things for power doesn't mean that NO ONE does.

I might make the statement that "I dislike the subset of "roleplayers" who do so very poorly and have no idea how to deal with realistic character interactions or motivations."

But unlike some people, I don't associate the bad roleplayers with some other aspect of their personality. I just accept that I don't like bad roleplayers.

I also don't like people who make mechanically inferior choices for no discernible reason.

Player:I should take eyes in the back of the head so I can just rush into melee without worrying about being flanked.
Me:Our DM loves rogues, you don't want to be flanked anyway. You'd be better off getting a feat that allows you to do something cool rather then a small static bonus that encourages poor choices. Didn't you blow all your smites before we even got to the big skeleton yesterday? Maybe you should take extra smite, you do like smiting.
Player:No man, think about it, that's like 2AC, and Dodge is only 1.
Me:It's a situational 2AC, how many times have you been flanked yet this campaign?
Player:Well not yet, but this way I don't have to worry about it.
Me:*Face Palm*

The next day we ran into some bandits, guess who got SAed to unconsciousness?

Kioran
2007-10-02, 02:31 AM
Humans are, by and large, cowards. It's comforting to have a nice, heavy slab of metal between you and the other guy.

Plus, not everyone understand the "one big attack" philosophy of combat.

I think it's actually more telling that some cultures didn't use shields; they're not intrinsic to combat. Japanese soldiers understood the 'one big attack' philosophy.

I might add that Japanese have a word for shield, and actually, mostly with their footmen (ashigaru) sometimes used them, mainly for troops who couldnīt afford heavy armor. The weapon that caused the most casualties on a japanese battlefield, before the advent of massed musketeer squads, were improvised missiles like stones, rocks or similiar.
The only reasons to drop the shield would be using a longspear or similiar, or having enough protection otherwise. The fewest remember this, but in most battles, even during WW1, more people died in the aftermath than during the battle. Many were people who had received wounds like punctured innards or similiar, which are not instantly lethal, but kill you later on.
This isnīt heroic in the least, dying in retching filth of a ruptured stomach or an infected cut, so D&D doesnīt model it. But itīs the best reason to protect valuable assets, such as anything you canīt afford to amputate in a pinch.......

Jannex
2007-10-02, 03:30 AM
I might make the statement that "I dislike the subset of "roleplayers" who do so very poorly and have no idea how to deal with realistic character interactions or motivations."

But unlike some people, I don't associate the bad roleplayers with some other aspect of their personality. I just accept that I don't like bad roleplayers.

Your analogy here confuses me for a couple of reasons. I think I see what it's trying to get at, but I'm not sure it works.

First, it makes little sense to me to refer to a group of people as "roleplayers" and then to describe them as being bad at roleplaying. This strikes me as something of a contradiction in terms. My original example, "powergamers who pursue character power at the expense of roleplaying," contains no such internal contradiction.

Also, what "other aspect of their personality" are you (apparently) suggesting I'm implicating in the original example? This isn't clear.

Further, it is precisely the named group's means of pursuing their membership in that group (i.e. "powergamers") that is the source of the complaint, so it seems to me that mentioning their membership in that group is, in fact, relevant to the point. The idea is to be more specific about addressing a particular subset of a larger group, rather than making a blanket statement about the larger group as a whole--not to divorce the subgroup from the larger one entirely.

As an aside, I agree with you about being irritated by people who suck at roleplaying--especially if they call themselves "roleplayers."


I also don't like people who make mechanically inferior choices for no discernible reason.

Player:I should take eyes in the back of the head so I can just rush into melee without worrying about being flanked.
Me:Our DM loves rogues, you don't want to be flanked anyway. You'd be better off getting a feat that allows you to do something cool rather then a small static bonus that encourages poor choices. Didn't you blow all your smites before we even got to the big skeleton yesterday? Maybe you should take extra smite, you do like smiting.
Player:No man, think about it, that's like 2AC, and Dodge is only 1.
Me:It's a situational 2AC, how many times have you been flanked yet this campaign?
Player:Well not yet, but this way I don't have to worry about it.
Me:*Face Palm*

The next day we ran into some bandits, guess who got SAed to unconsciousness?

That example seems less like "making mechanically inferior choices for no discernible reason," and more like "not having your level of optimization-fu." The player in your example clearly has a discernible reason for his choice--he thinks it will benefit him. He may be mistaken, but it's not as if he opened the feat list, closed his eyes, and pointed.

Besides, it's not always immediately obvious (especially to less experienced players) which feats are ZOMGbroken!!1! and which aren't worth the investment. When I first started playing D&D, I thought Power Attack completely sucked, because you were making it much less likely for you to hit in exchange for a couple extra damage that you probably wouldn't get anyway, since you wouldn't hit. (I've since learned all about Shock Trooper/Leap Attack cheese, and now just never take Power Attack because the idea of being a meat shield bores me to the point of tears.)

Zincorium
2007-10-02, 03:51 AM
Jannex, think about it for a second, and it's pretty clear that the standard meaning of roleplaying carries no connotation of the quality of the act. It is merely playing a role.

Playing a role well, doing so interestingly and putting effort into it, does not constitute the entirety of all roleplaying behavior. Someone who plays nothing but Drizzt clones and cracks bad out of character jokes during serious moments is a bad roleplayer, but you can't disassociate them from the term roleplayer just because you have a poor opinion of how they do it. They call themselves roleplayers because they technically are roleplaying.


Also, poor feat choices, what you term 'lack of optimization-fu' has nothing to do with roleplaying in any of the instances I've seen or heard described. It stems generally from either mistaken assumptions or a simple lack of thoroughly reading the rules which you are attempting to use. It only bothers me when people do this if they then complain about being underpowered afterwards, it was entirely preventable.

You don't need to be a genius or have D&D as a second job to figure out what would work reasonably well for the character you've supposedly spent time thinking up. Most people only get them every three levels, there's generally plenty of time to do the ten minutes of 'what feat am I going to get to use in game'.

Jannex
2007-10-02, 04:13 AM
Jannex, think about it for a second, and it's pretty clear that the standard meaning of roleplaying carries no connotation of the quality of the act. It is merely playing a role.

Playing a role well, doing so interestingly and putting effort into it, does not constitute the entirety of all roleplaying behavior. Someone who plays nothing but Drizzt clones and cracks bad out of character jokes during serious moments is a bad roleplayer, but you can't disassociate them from the term roleplayer just because you have a poor opinion of how they do it. They call themselves roleplayers because they technically are roleplaying.

I guess that, like most of this discussion, is a matter of defining one's terms. I see what you're saying, but to me, constantly cracking out-of-character jokes (and being out-of-character in general) is not roleplaying. As I understand the term, in order to "roleplay," one must actually attempt to remain in character. Otherwise, one is not actually playing the role of the character.

Also, in the context of the discussion prior to this, which had significant "'powergamer' vs. 'roleplayer'" overtones, the word "roleplayer" does generally imply some quality or skill in acting, just as the word "powergamer" implies some skill in optimization. That was the context from which I was responding to Kaelik's post.


Also, poor feat choices, what you term 'lack of optimization-fu' has nothing to do with roleplaying in any of the instances I've seen or heard described. It stems generally from either mistaken assumptions or a simple lack of thoroughly reading the rules which you are attempting to use. It only bothers me when people do this if they then complain about being underpowered afterwards, it was entirely preventable.

You don't need to be a genius or have D&D as a second job to figure out what would work reasonably well for the character you've supposedly spent time thinking up. Most people only get them every three levels, there's generally plenty of time to do the ten minutes of 'what feat am I going to get to use in game'.

I didn't intend for it to have to do with roleplaying; I was responding to a separate point in Kaelik's post.

And in terms of choosing feats and suchlike, there is a difference between finding something that "would work reasonably well for the character" and choosing the most perfectly optimal feat--or even knowing what the "most perfectly optimal" feat would be.

Tormsskull
2007-10-02, 06:04 AM
In the same way, powergamers are very familiar with the rule books, and know the systems and details of feats. This allows them to make good decisions as far as how to create their character and play the game.


I know wikipedia is not the end all be all of correct terms, but:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powergaming


In role-playing games, powergaming (pg) is a particular way of playing in which the emphasis lies on developing a player character that is as powerful as possible, usually to the detriment of other aspects of the game, such as character interaction.

In table-top roleplaying
Table-top powergaming often involves an expert knowledge of the rules of the game, and knowing how to apply the rules to get maximal results with minimal penalties (often referred to as min-maxing). This implies one willingly takes actions which should be illogical within the game world, or following the rules to the letter rather than in their spirit.

Sometimes seen as an active abuse of the rules, when rules that are expected or intended to model a realistic game world (according to some well-understood definition of "realism") are applied in ways that are manifestly at odds with those expectations. For example, a Dungeons & Dragons sorcerer might take a two levels of the paladin class for the attractive synergies that come with this, even though paladins are traditionally seen as being devoted to their lifestyle, and the profession is not something you could train in briefly. It is important to note that powergaming, in this sense, doesn't imply active cheating or circumvention of the rules, merely using them in ways that are frowned upon by those who consider the intent of the game more important than its exact implementation - keeping to the letter of the rules, but breaking the 'spirit of the rules'.

Powergamers enjoy finding and exploiting all powerful synergies and combinations regardless of the author's intent, though houserules may be used to curb any abilities that make for particularly unbelievable characters.

The problem of powergaming
Younger and less socially experienced players are more often powergamers, and it is these same people who are often seen as potentially disruptive to the various types of social interplay that others enjoy in RPGs. Disruptive powergamers may focus primarily on developing their own character with disregard to any others, and may seek to have the play focus on their character's resulting extraordinary capabilities, leaving others with little to do.



Hmm, seems like wikipedia's definition of powergamer is pretty similiar to the one posted here on the GiantITP boards, which is very similar to how I have been using it in context.

Can you point me to where you are getting your definition of the term?



And seriously, in what other situation has putting the word power before something meant worse than usual? That's been the context you've used it in so far.

How about "power hungry"? "Power obsessed"?

If a "regular" gamer is someone who plays D&D without trying to squeeze every last bit of power out of a class/feat/skill combination, then the powergamer is better at making powerful characters than a regular gamer. That should be pretty obvious I think.

If, as I have said in previous posts and is supported in these board's terminology & wikipedia's definition, powergamers often have a negative impact on storyline/roleplaying, then a powergamer is worse at roleplaying than a regular gamer.

Ulzgoroth
2007-10-02, 07:00 AM
Table-top powergaming often involves an expert knowledge of the rules of the game, and knowing how to apply the rules to get maximal results with minimal penalties (often referred to as min-maxing). This implies one willingly takes actions which should be illogical within the game world, or following the rules to the letter rather than in their spirit.
The first sentence should provoke little disagreement, I think, but the second does not necessarily follow.

"Actions that should be illogical in the game world" is probably the main catch-all here. The problem is that it assumes the existence of a game world that is incompatible with the rules. Because otherwise, things that work by the rules work in the game-world.

Reference to the spirit of the rules is usually dangerous, and in D&D there is somewhere between little and no effort to let anyone know what that spirit is.

Indon
2007-10-02, 07:31 AM
"Actions that should be illogical in the game world" is probably the main catch-all here. The problem is that it assumes the existence of a game world that is incompatible with the rules. Because otherwise, things that work by the rules work in the game-world.


I think that's just poorly worded.

"Illogical within the scope of the narration" would probably be better. When one player goes, "Well, the Monk actually missed me because he's not proficient with Unarmed Strike" (to use an extreme example), and the DM, and all the other players, say or think, "No, that's stupid."

The reaction is not evoked because the 'spirit of the game' is clearly that monks should be proficient with their unarmed strikes, though that's perhaps part of it. The players and DM will react this way even if they don't care in the least about the designers' intent. The reaction is evoked because it is an absurd and ridiculous deviation from the story normally being depicted within the framework of the rules.

raygungothic
2007-10-02, 07:57 AM
Having read the above, I think I'm now more confused than the original poster.

Am I to understand that all the people in the above thread have DMs who don't require players to OK their characters? Who won't act to control disparate power levels in a game? Who will allow players to just go out and buy a book of kewl powerz and use them without checking for appropriateness first?

I don't have a lot of experience of the current version of D&D, but I have gamed a fair bit, mostly as GM. When I'm DM/GM/ref, I've invited people to play and they're putting in their time and effort to make a good game; I owe it to them to try to give them each a fair share of my attention, a fair share of the limelight, and involvement in the fun. Pre-emptively disallowing absurd power manipulations is a necessary part of that duty. So, for that matter, is gently guiding players who want to create "crippled" characters far below the power level I have in mind. Either extreme of power can seriously damage my ability to involve all the players, because it limits the ways they can influence the action - and if they can't influence the action, why are they bothering to trek over to my house bearing their customary tribute of cake?

Sure, there are some absurd combinations of powers in the D&D rules. There are strong optimizations in just about every published system. Roleplaying systems with no strong optimizations do exist, but look and feel utterly different from D&D and everything structured even vaguely like it. As long as refs are sensible about keeping them in check, strong optimizations are not that much of a problem. Weak classes are worse, because they're more work for the DM than banning abusive combos; if a player becomes fixated on playing, say, a martial artist monk and that character happens to fit the background, "I don't want to put the work in to make the monk as powerful as the party's fighter, but in a different way" is not a good answer to give them. I've not run into this problem in 3.5 yet, but in the past I've usually tried to steer around it at the worldbuilding stage.

The OOTS comic, funnily enough, represents a campaign run by a good GM in at least one very important aspect: all the characters receive reasonably balanced amounts of attention and have powers that allow them to make a contribution. If none of them have absurdly abusive abilities, that's probably because the GM worked to make sure it fell out that way - and it would be a lot less fun if it hadn't.

Indon
2007-10-02, 08:24 AM
Am I to understand that all the people in the above thread have DMs who don't require players to OK their characters? Who won't act to control disparate power levels in a game? Who will allow players to just go out and buy a book of kewl powerz and use them without checking for appropriateness first?


Apparently?

Discussions like this on the forum generally assume an infinitely permissible DM, since we all know DM's vary. Yes, it means that the discussions rarely have application in actual games. But it gives us something to talk about when at work, and that's enough for me at least.

Ulzgoroth
2007-10-02, 08:25 AM
"Illogical within the scope of the narration" would probably be better. When one player goes, "Well, the Monk actually missed me because he's not proficient with Unarmed Strike" (to use an extreme example), and the DM, and all the other players, say or think, "No, that's stupid."

The reaction is not evoked because the 'spirit of the game' is clearly that monks should be proficient with their unarmed strikes, though that's perhaps part of it. The players and DM will react this way even if they don't care in the least about the designers' intent. The reaction is evoked because it is an absurd and ridiculous deviation from the story normally being depicted within the framework of the rules.
I don't think that's an improvement, because it assumes the presence of a 'narration' or 'story' to be depicted. Which I (sort of) understand is some people's outlook, but seems less fundamental than the presence of a game-world to me.

As for 'the monk is non-proficient with unarmed strike' in particular, that appears to be a case of a needed house-rule, unless I'm missing something. Your choice of IUS granting unarmed strike proficiency or everyone being proficient with unarmed strikes automatically would be my suggestion. It's pretty well established that the rules as written ride close to the line between idiotic and unplayable. On one side or the other.

Added:
I'd say the situation with the quoted bit results from people feeling, perhaps quite reasonably, as if certain rules should exist, like the level of commitment to paladinhood that the article assumed (or 'yes, you are proficient with your fist'), but not being willing to make them actual house rules rather than informal assumptions.

And then complaining when actions following the rules 'don't make sense'.

raygungothic
2007-10-02, 08:28 AM
Indon: Good point, I suppose... that was why I was reading in the first place, I must admit. (Long time lurker)

Tormsskull
2007-10-02, 09:29 AM
I don't think that's an improvement, because it assumes the presence of a 'narration' or 'story' to be depicted. Which I (sort of) understand is some people's outlook, but seems less fundamental than the presence of a game-world to me.


I can't think of a campaign that I have been in that did not have some sort of story that was being depicted. A collective story created by the interaction between the DM's creations and the player characters.



As for 'the monk is non-proficient with unarmed strike' in particular, that appears to be a case of a needed house-rule, unless I'm missing something. Your choice of IUS granting unarmed strike proficiency or everyone being proficient with unarmed strikes automatically would be my suggestion. It's pretty well established that the rules as written ride close to the line between idiotic and unplayable. On one side or the other.


Needed houserule or simply interpreting the rules/applying common sense? I guess depending on your interpretation it may be one or the other. "House Rule" to me implies that the rule changes the way that the game is written or intended to be played. There are good house rules, and there are bad house rules.

Interpretations of the rules are not house rules, once again, IMO. If a DM interprets the "Dead" condition's lack of specific text preventing a character from getting up and moving around as meaning that the intent of the designers was that "Dead" in D&D is the same as "Dead" in real life, then I'd hardly call that a house rule.



Added:
I'd say the situation with the quoted bit results from people feeling, perhaps quite reasonably, as if certain rules should exist, like the level of commitment to paladinhood that the article assumed (or 'yes, you are proficient with your fist'), but not being willing to make them actual house rules rather than informal assumptions.


Perhaps, but once again, you don't need to house rule common sense IMO.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-02, 09:45 AM
Perhaps, but once again, you don't need to house rule common sense IMO.

Are you serious? You really do, because not everyone actually has common sense.

Ulzgoroth
2007-10-02, 09:47 AM
I don't see what you gain by differentiating 'common sense interpretation' (which is not always common, and often is not interpretation...hopefully it is sense) from houserules. Unless you feel obligated to have a written compendium of all your house rules on hand or something of the kind.


I can't think of a campaign that I have been in that did not have some sort of story that was being depicted. A collective story created by the interaction between the DM's creations and the player characters.
If you want to call the sequence of things that happen as a result of player characters existing in the game environment a story, fine. If you mean to imply that that 'story' can fill the role Indon was attributing to it, I don't see how.

Indon
2007-10-02, 10:01 AM
If you want to call the sequence of things that happen as a result of player characters existing in the game environment a story, fine. If you mean to imply that that 'story' can fill the role Indon was attributing to it, I don't see how.

I feel they're the same thing.

Even if your 'story' consists of nothing more than a by-the-book dungeon crawling campaign, without justification or even with characters speaking in character, or even having names.

Even then, there are assumptions.

Consistency: More than just the rules, but creature behavior is expected to be consistent. If Kobolds have been thus far depicted as clever, you don't expect to run into a band of mindless kobold berserkers without some reason.

Physics: Generally, there needs to be a reason for events to deviate too far outside the physical norm, unless maybe you're playing for humor. This includes things like "Hit point damage isn't neccessarily _real_ wounds" as that opens the door for things like your fighter being run through repeatedly, say by Longspears, and still acting just fine, and in fact his wounds just sealing up with a good night's rest.

Narrative: When players do express actual characters, the other players expect somewhat realistic characterization. Spontaneous personae shifts need to be justified with a mental disorder. The former Sardukar soldier is not a member of the Fremen unless he's had a chance to visit the desert or something. No, your character doesn't get to be immune to demonic corruption without a reason, and don't give me "He's just that awesome."

While things could be said for surrealist gaming, generally I feel all campaigns include the above.

Ulzgoroth
2007-10-02, 10:17 AM
I agree that a game generally will and should have those elements. I attribute them to the game world, though. They can exist without any player characters to have a story around. The story inherits basic consistency from the setting.

Indon
2007-10-02, 10:20 AM
I agree that a game generally will and should have those elements. I attribute them to the game world, though. They can exist without any player characters to have a story around. The story inherits basic consistency from the setting.

Then there isn't much difference, for the purpose of the discussion, as to the terminology.

To bring in a point you made earlier, common-sense things can each be made individual houserules, and sometimes they should because they aren't understood by the group. But this sort of thing probably comes up too often to bother actually declaring each individual circumstance, especially preemptively.

horseboy
2007-10-02, 10:22 AM
Your analogy here confuses me for a couple of reasons. I think I see what it's trying to get at, but I'm not sure it works.

First, it makes little sense to me to refer to a group of people as "roleplayers" and then to describe them as being bad at roleplaying. This strikes me as something of a contradiction in terms. My original example, "powergamers who pursue character power at the expense of roleplaying," contains no such internal contradiction.

Also, what "other aspect of their personality" are you (apparently) suggesting I'm implicating in the original example? This isn't clear.

Further, it is precisely the named group's means of pursuing their membership in that group (i.e. "powergamers") that is the source of the complaint, so it seems to me that mentioning their membership in that group is, in fact, relevant to the point. The idea is to be more specific about addressing a particular subset of a larger group, rather than making a blanket statement about the larger group as a whole--not to divorce the subgroup from the larger one entirely.

As an aside, I agree with you about being irritated by people who suck at roleplaying--especially if they call themselves "roleplayers."

Thanks to the vagaries of the English language, anyone who partakes in a roleplaying game can be said to be a roleplayer. This is a distinction between one who is or is not in the roleplaying hobby. Within the "society" of roleplayers the bar gets moved up before "we" would use the term within "our" groups as to who is "worthy" of the title of a roleplayer. And yes, I totally agree with what you said about the Fallacy, I would like to point out it's usually trotted out to defend against a perceived attack of an effective optimizer's role playing skills. I've never seen it used to initiate an attack against strong roleplayers.

Tormsskull
2007-10-02, 11:07 AM
Are you serious? You really do, because not everyone actually has common sense.

That's a situation for the DM to deal with. If the DM is the one who has no common sense, then I'd suggest finding a new DM.



I don't see what you gain by differentiating 'common sense interpretation' (which is not always common, and often is not interpretation...hopefully it is sense) from houserules. Unless you feel obligated to have a written compendium of all your house rules on hand or something of the kind.


Well, as an example, I have house rules that I use in nearly every campaign that I DM. One of them is that I add expensive material components to certain spells. If I forget to tell this to a player before he has created his Wizard character, I wouldn't suddenly deny him the ability to cast the spell in question. I would tell him that it is a house rule, I forgot about it, so I'd remedy the situation by giving him x amounts of the material component, or allowing him to select another spell, or some other remedy that is fair IMO.

However, I don't feel I need to tell a player that drowning someone doesn't bring them up to 0 HP from negatives, or that the Dead condition is the same as a person being Dead in real life, then I won't attempt to remedy the situation at all. In my opinion, both situations are clearly covered by common sense.

tainsouvra
2007-10-02, 12:10 PM
Thanks to the vagaries of the English language, anyone who partakes in a roleplaying game can be said to be a roleplayer. This is a distinction between one who is or is not in the roleplaying hobby. Within the "society" of roleplayers the bar gets moved up before "we" would use the term within "our" groups as to who is "worthy" of the title of a roleplayer. You are entirely correct. I will further point out that if one were to look up "roleplayer", due to the language you just described, it would group them all (worthy or not) under the roleplayer title. The same is true of powergamers, which is why there are different meanings within the optimization community for min/max, powergaming, and munchkining--and using the wrong one when referencing someone is just as insulting to a powergamer as calling "I play Drizzt clones all the time" gamers "roleplayers" (if not more!). There is a difference, and it is a huge difference in principle, but you have to have some experience with it all to see that difference--whether we're talking about roleplaying or powergaming.

Whether or not an overgeneralized definition written by someone outside of the community says it, that guy isn't "a roleplayer" to the roleplaying community and munchkins aren't "powergamers" to the optimization community. It's the same idea.

Winterwind
2007-10-02, 12:27 PM
I still maintain the difference between a roleplayer and a powergamer (though maybe munchkin is more fitting in the context of my use of the term) is a pure attitude issue.

They both might play precisely the same character. Let's say, a warrior who is supremely optimised for killing his opponents, but does so at the expense of his social skills. However, the roleplayer will do so because that's the character (s)he envisions to play - a famed warrior, yes, but including the low Charisma, which, the player figures, will lead to some interesting, possibly funny or tragic scenes, when the warrior wants to, say, confess his love, but can't find the proper words. The powergamer doesn't waste time with thinking about the consequences for the story, but rather thinks about how the points he saved here will help him slaughter even bigger beasts. The resulting character may have the very same stats, but the reason for arriving at those and the way the character will likely be played are completely different.

And I agree with Tormskull's definition of a powergamer; that's the one I have commonly see in use on other forums, and also what I think off when I hear the term.

tainsouvra
2007-10-02, 12:32 PM
And I agree with Tormskull's definition of a powergamer; that's the one I have commonly see in use on other forums, and also what I think off when I hear the term. For the sake of making a point, let me ask you--were those powergamer forums or roleplayer forums? The character-optimization boards, for example, do not use the definition Tormskull was using (they use munchkin for that).

Winterwind
2007-10-02, 12:34 PM
For the sake of making a point, let me ask you--were those powergamer forums or roleplayer forums? The character-optimization boards, for example, do not use the definition Tormskull was using (they use munchkin for that).Rather roleplayer forums, I would say.
Yes, that might explain that.

EDIT: And, if it matters, neither were D&D forums.

tainsouvra
2007-10-02, 12:50 PM
Rather roleplayer forums, I would say.
Yes, that might explain that. Yep. A pure-optimization forum might use "roleplayer" to mean "anyone who is playing a character in a role", while a pure-roleplayer forum would use the term quite differently and have different (and disparaging) terms for roleplayers who spoil a game.
The same is true of character optimization.
There are multiple terms for a reason--they don't mean the same thing, even if they look similar to someone with no experience with them.

In effect, grouping them all under "powergamer" shows an ignorance of the different types of optimization, and labeling others out of ignorance is impolite at best...let me try this another way, to show how much these terms can matter*:
Calling someone "a munchkin" violates the forum rules here. It's considered too insulting to be anything but a flame. Calling someone a powergamer is not only not an insult, but it actually violates a different rule to try to make it an insult. One is a forbidden term, the other is a protected term.

How could they possibly mean the same thing if one is an inexcusable insult while the other is a proud identity? The simple answer--they don't mean the same thing at all to the people who actually care about what these terms mean.

*I am not implying any ill intent on your part, but rather making a point about how different these terms really are. I can tell you don't mean any insult here.

Backing up a moment...
I still maintain the difference between a roleplayer and a powergamer (though maybe munchkin is more fitting in the context of my use of the term) is a pure attitude issue. As an aside, I would reiterate an earlier claim that roleplayer vs powergamer is a false dilemma. One can be both, it just requires two different sets of skills--in fact, some of the best gamers I know are firmly within both categories.

Winterwind
2007-10-02, 01:37 PM
How could they possibly mean the same thing if one is an inexcusable insult while the other is a proud identity? The simple answer--they don't mean the same thing at all to the people who actually care about what these terms mean.Makes sense. I am not quite sure which term describes what I am trying to make my point about best, but I think it might actually be powergamer nonetheless, as I shall explain in more detail below. If you think that's the wrong term to choose, my apologies; my understanding of the fine differences between the various terms is admittedly rather shakey.


Backing up a moment... As an aside, I would reiterate an earlier claim that roleplayer vs powergamer is a false dilemma. One can be both, it just requires two different sets of skills--in fact, some of the best gamers I know are firmly within both categories.Yes and no. The skills are unrelated, but the interests are not. One can most definitely be both a skilled optimiser and a great roleplayer, and I know such people as well, but contrary to the Stormwind Fallacy as written I do not think that being primarily a roleplayer or being primarily a powergamer is independent of each other. Because I think that intent matters much more than talent or skill. In my experience, the very approach to roleplaying tends to be different: The roleplayer thinks about roleplaying as telling a story and reflects upon what would make for the most dramatic scene, the powergamer thinks about roleplaying as overcoming challenges and reflects upon what would make his character most efficient in the specific sub-set of challenges that character specialises upon. Whether the roleplayer, at the same time, is also skilled in optimising his character for any specific task, or the powergamer has also a great personality at hand for his character and enjoys roleplaying that personality too is irrelevant - what matters is what their first priority is.

Let me re-iterate, that has nothing to do with skill, only with where the most fun is derived for the player in question.

The "skill" enters after that: What does the player focus on? If the player derives more fun from looking through equipment and skill options in order to prepare the character for coming challenges, rather than thinking about the character's background or personality*1 it seems reasonable to assume (s)he will spent much more time with the first activity, rather than the second. If the player considers the game primarily a strategical challenge, and acting as a character second, it seems reasonable to assume (s)he will prefer to choose an action which grants a higher bonus rather than the one which might make for a more dramatic scene. And so on.
This is often much less apparent because players of that kind tend to play characters who think strategically themselves, and have a good reason for having the kind of strategical understanding to arrive at exactly the right conclusions.

Why there is such a popular belief that powergamers make for worse roleplayers should be apparent from here: While they might possess equal roleplaying skills, they have a conflict of interests, and may choose against roleplaying due to their interests. The people who are both great optimisers and roleplayers? Either roleplayers at heart who happen to be talented in optimising and do it without losing their focus on roleplaying, or people who would be even better at roleplaying if they did not deem it secondary to challenge-overcoming.

There are already terms like "optimiser" or "minmaxer". Why would one need "powergamer" as well? To me, it seems because while everyone can optimise, there was a term required which actually referred to preferences, to the player's primary focus.

And hence why I believe that the difference between roleplayers and powergamers lies purely in the attitude.

(By the way, I tried to keep this as neutral as possible, even though I suspect it is clear from this rant to which camp I count myself. If I failed at that, I apologise - I'm the first one to say that neither of these styles is superior to the other, merely, that there are different people with different tastes)

Ulzgoroth
2007-10-02, 01:48 PM
In my experience, the very approach to roleplaying tends to be different: The roleplayer thinks about roleplaying as telling a story and reflects upon what would make for the most dramatic scene, the powergamer thinks about roleplaying as overcoming challenges and reflects upon what would make his character most efficient in the specific sub-set of challenges that character specialises upon.
Ignoring your main topic, I have to take issue with this definition of roleplaying. I at least like to think the effort at understanding and playing in line with my character's personality and interests that I do counts as roleplaying. But I couldn't give the rear half of a rat about what makes a 'dramatic scene', or about telling a story.

Winterwind
2007-10-02, 02:00 PM
Ignoring your main topic, I have to take issue with this definition of roleplaying. I at least like to think the effort at understanding and playing in line with my character's personality and interests that I do counts as roleplaying. But I couldn't give the rear half of a rat about what makes a 'dramatic scene', or about telling a story.Yes, you are right, I formulated that part very poorly.
For starters, roleplayer implies either a storyteller or a character player to me. For what I mean by that I shall quote myself from an older thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53092&highlight=Revisited), regarding my own classification of player types:
Gamist: likes overcoming challenges. Fun is derived by solving puzzles, employing strategy and optimising a character for a certain goal. Loot and Experience are rewards which help overcoming even stronger challenges and customising the character in order to explore the strategic possibilities inherent to the system. A good roleplaying system is one with lots of mechanical options from which to chose, long equipment lists and so forth. The rules have highest priority over everything, because they outline the strategic options. Fairness is absolutely necessary, because without it, there is no contest.

Narrativist 1 - Storyteller: likes telling a story. Fun is derived by advancing a plot and playing through dramatic moments. Loot are items relevant for the plot. Experience is a reward which helps shaping the character more into a form the player considers benefitial for the plot in the long run. A good roleplaying system is one with a well developped background against which the stories can be told. The plot overrules rules and everything - if it is more dramatic that these people die, it won't matter whether they have hit points left, and no healing spell will help.

Narrativist 2 - Character Player: likes exploring his character. Fun is derived by making decisive decisions and learning more about the character. Loot are items the character is meant to possess because they form a part of his personality. Experience is a reward which helps shaping the character more into the character the player ultimately envisions. A good roleplaying system is one with rules imposing as little limitations on developping the character the player wants to play as possible (which often means no rules at all). The character overrules both plot and rules - everything that happens to a character happens to him because the player wanted it to happen, not because dice-rolls dictated it, and also not because it would seem dramatic/tragic/whatever now.

Simulationist: means that, in addition to the above, believability of the rules and the world has a large priority. While being able to chose from a large selection of weapons would be nice to a gamist as long as none of them are unbalancing the world, if (s)he had additional simulationist tendencies (s)he would discard the ones that seem too whacky/off-worldy/whatever. While this NPC surviving his injuries, albeit crippled and out for vengeance, would be the best advancement of the plot, this player would discard this possibility if the injuries were to great. A good roleplaying system is one which does a good job of representing the setting rule-wise. The reality of the setting overrules everything.

In my laziness, I limited that example to only one kind.

And secondarily, a good scene is defined mostly by interesting character interaction. Taking that into account, substitute "dramatic" with "good" in my initial statement, and you should find your definition of a roleplayer contained in it.

horseboy
2007-10-02, 02:02 PM
There are already terms like "optimiser" or "minmaxer". Why would one need "powergamer" as well? To me, it seems because while everyone can optimise, there was a term required which actually referred to preferences, to the player's primary focus.

And hence why I believe that the difference between roleplayers and powergamers lies purely in the attitude.

Generally I do agree with this, the only real caveat I'd throw at it would be what kind of campaign you're playing in would actually determine just how much of a detriment/ an advantage that the "powergamer" would have in the "roleplayers" fun.

Winterwind
2007-10-02, 02:08 PM
Generally I do agree with this, the only real caveat I'd throw at it would be what kind of campaign you're playing in would actually determine just how much of a detriment/ an advantage that the "powergamer" would have in the "roleplayers" fun.What kind of campaign and also, as pointed out by Raum when I made that point for the first time, what kind of roleplaying game is played. Especially for the powergamer side - the easiest way to prove this is freeform. You can't crunch numbers if there are no numbers.
Roleplayers are easier to satisfy in this regard, but may grow unhappy if either the game does not allow for the character concept they envision, or someone is perpetually stealing their spotlight to the point where their character is not a protagonist anymore.

tainsouvra
2007-10-02, 02:10 PM
Winterwind, I agree with much of what you've been saying, so I'm just going to single out a couple statements that I'd like to comment further on.
Why there is such a popular belief that powergamers make for worse roleplayers should be apparent from here Actually, that's just a popular belief among heavy-roleplayer groups and generally not anywhere else--and that distinction is important because of an unfortunate human habit when it comes to generalization. Someone who is an unskilled roleplayer but a skilled powergamer, who comes to a roleplayer group, will stand out for his lack of the relevant skill. Someone who is a skilled roleplayer and a skilled powergamer, who comes to a roleplayer group, will not stand out because he has the relevant skill. Thus, the only powergamers that stand out in roleplaying groups are the ones that are also poor roleplayers. This causes the group to make the obvious connection--whenever they can notice that someone is a powergamer, it's because they're a poor roleplayer. Human generalizations being what they are, this causes "powergamer" and "poor roleplayer" to become synonymous within that group--despite the reality being that not only are they unrelated, but proof of that lack of relation is actually present in the group.
The people who are both great optimisers and roleplayers? Either roleplayers at heart who happen to be talented in optimising and do it without losing their focus on roleplaying I quote this to emphasize my earlier statement. Someone who is good at both will be seen by a roleplayer as a fellow roleplayer--but I submit to you that he would be seen by a powergamer as a fellow powergamer for exactly the same reason. This is due to the way humans generalize and build group identities, rather than any inherent attribute of these two skill/interest sets.

There are already terms like "optimiser" or "minmaxer". Why would one need "powergamer" as well? To me, it seems because while everyone can optimise, there was a term required which actually referred to preferences, to the player's primary focus. Actually, the term "optimizer" as a general usage is a relatively recent addition--it means the same thing as powergamer, but because it's not as familiar to roleplayers it lacks the negative connotation (mentioned above) among them. In short, "optimizer" is a group-politics trick rather than a separate identity. A history of that term can probably still be found on the WotC boards, if you're curious.

For the other terms, powergamer/min-maxer/munchkin have always meant three different things, so there are indeed multiple terms because they describe different people. I think you've already gotten that down, though :smallsmile:

horseboy
2007-10-02, 02:22 PM
What kind of campaign and also, as pointed out by Raum when I made that point for the first time, what kind of roleplaying game is played. Especially for the powergamer side - the easiest way to prove this is freeform. You can't crunch numbers if there are no numbers.
Roleplayers are easier to satisfy in this regard, but may grow unhappy if either the game does not allow for the character concept they envision, or someone is perpetually stealing their spotlight to the point where their character is not a protagonist anymore.

Oh yeah, it's all just a matter, too, of degree. I have a certain degree of each of your 4 types. We all do, contrary to what some people want to believe about themselves.

Ulzgoroth
2007-10-02, 02:43 PM
I do think there's a potential difference in core thought process. You can run a character who is, at the deepest level, a mechanical platform designed to fill a particular role. And then you can layer a persona over your mechanics, potentially sufficiently well that no one can even see the skeleton underneath. And it seems this is basically different from having a character's identity in mind first, and producing a mechanical build that supports the needs of that identity. Even if you wind up with the same character sheet and character bio either way.


For starters, roleplayer implies either a storyteller or a character player to me. For what I mean by that I shall quote myself from an older thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53092&highlight=Revisited), regarding my own classification of player types:
Maybe it's just because you were trying to show polar extremes, but do you really consider it an inherent part of being a 'roleplayer' to consider the rules of the game and/or setting completely unimportant anytime they interact with your particular object of interest?

Because I see your simulationist in my outlook, and understand but don't really want to be your gamist, but both forms of your narrativist just make my head hurt.

Tormsskull
2007-10-02, 02:52 PM
Whether or not an overgeneralized definition written by someone outside of the community says it, that guy isn't "a roleplayer" to the roleplaying community and munchkins aren't "powergamers" to the optimization community. It's the same idea.


Gorbash Kazdar, moderator here and the person maintaining the thread that the definition is pulled from, on this very website, is "outside of the community"?

Also, what are roleplayers and powergamers to the munchkin community (I ask because you seem well informed of these issues which I can't find any sources on)?



For the sake of making a point, let me ask you--were those powergamer forums or roleplayer forums? The character-optimization boards, for example, do not use the definition Tormskull was using (they use munchkin for that).


The purpose of the character-optimization boards is to make a character as powerful as possible (usually within a concept). In other words, a powergamer's playground. If we go along with the supported thought that "powergamer" has negative connotations, then it only makes sense for a person not to call themself a powergamer (or to change the meaning of the word).



In effect, grouping them all under "powergamer" shows an ignorance of the different types of optimization, and labeling others out of ignorance is impolite at best...let me try this another way, to show how much these terms can matter*:
Calling someone "a munchkin" violates the forum rules here. It's considered too insulting to be anything but a flame. Calling someone a powergamer is not only not an insult, but it actually violates a different rule to try to make it an insult. One is a forbidden term, the other is a protected term.


I would say labeling a moderator as "outside of the community" is very impolite.

The difference between a munchkin and a powergamer, as I have understood the words, is that a munchkin actually cheats. They will break written rules, hide dice, use loaded dice, what have you.

A powergamer doesn't cheat. They try to get as much power as possible into a character without breaking the written rules, but may break fluff, versilimitude, etc.



As an aside, I would reiterate an earlier claim that roleplayer vs powergamer is a false dilemma. One can be both, it just requires two different sets of skills--in fact, some of the best gamers I know are firmly within both categories.


I hear a lot of powergamers claim that, but I haven't seen it in my years of playing. And it really is very easy to understand why (to me at least). If a player is concerned primarily about aquiring mechanical power, then roleplaying, story situations, and other fluff issues can become hindrances to aquiring that power.

In those situations where the fluff gets in the way of aquiring mechanical power, a powergamer will choose to ignore the fluff.

Different DMs have different outlooks on this. Some think that it becomes their responsibility to craft adventures/situations where the player should not have to choose between character power and the integrity of their background, story, etc.

I personally think that those situations are exactly what makes for interesting roleplaying encounters.



Someone who is a skilled roleplayer and a skilled powergamer, who comes to a roleplayer group, will not stand out because he has the relevant skill.


Interesting theory. IMO it would be more likely that a skilled powergamer who enjoys roleplaying would take backstory, fluff, etc. into consideration in his quest for ultimate mechanical power. If he does, and chooses not to aquire certain mechanical power(s) in order to ensure the integrity of his backstory, fluff, etc., then it begs the question, is he really a powergamer?

tainsouvra
2007-10-02, 03:03 PM
Gorbash Kazdar, moderator here and the person maintaining the thread that the definition is pulled from, on this very website, is "outside of the community"? Is he a powergamer, posting on a powergamer forum? If not, then yes. I'm not talking about the GitP community, I'm talking about the optimization community, as the context indicated.
The purpose of the character-optimization boards is to make a character as powerful as possible (usually within a concept). In other words, a powergamer's playground. If we go along with the supported thought that "powergamer" has negative connotations, then it only makes sense for a person not to call themself a powergamer (or to change the meaning of the word). Do you know why they changed the name of that forum to "character optimization"? Yes, it didn't originally have that name. That change is rather relevant here, and pretty much destroys your theory.
Interesting theory. IMO it would be more likely that a skilled powergamer who enjoys roleplaying would take backstory, fluff, etc. into consideration in his quest for ultimate mechanical power. If he does, and chooses not to aquire certain mechanical power(s) in order to ensure the integrity of his backstory, fluff, etc., then it begs the question, is he really a powergamer? The answer to that question is "yes". A powergamer is capable of making the most powerful build available within the set of restrictions he is given, that's what his skillset entails and one of the major things that differentiates him from a munchkin (who tries to avoid restrictions). Backstory/fluff/etc are a subset of those restrictions, in fact ignoring them entirely can be a sign of a munchkin.

Edit: Oh, and just in case you're curious, I'm not aware of the presence of any munchkin-specific community. Munchkins don't tend to want to be recognized as such and often don't want to be associated with other munchkins for that reason.

Winterwind
2007-10-02, 03:47 PM
Actually, that's just a popular belief among heavy-roleplayer groups and generally not anywhere else--and that distinction is important because of an unfortunate human habit when it comes to generalization. Someone who is an unskilled roleplayer but a skilled powergamer, who comes to a roleplayer group, will stand out for his lack of the relevant skill. Someone who is a skilled roleplayer and a skilled powergamer, who comes to a roleplayer group, will not stand out because he has the relevant skill. Thus, the only powergamers that stand out in roleplaying groups are the ones that are also poor roleplayers. This causes the group to make the obvious connection--whenever they can notice that someone is a powergamer, it's because they're a poor roleplayer. Human generalizations being what they are, this causes "powergamer" and "poor roleplayer" to become synonymous within that group--despite the reality being that not only are they unrelated, but proof of that lack of relation is actually present in the group.

I quote this to emphasize my earlier statement. Someone who is good at both will be seen by a roleplayer as a fellow roleplayer--but I submit to you that he would be seen by a powergamer as a fellow powergamer for exactly the same reason. This is due to the way humans generalize and build group identities, rather than any inherent attribute of these two skill/interest sets. Wow. I never realised that, but it makes perfect sense. Will be a good lesson in humility and empathy for me, too, to not assume my experiences reflect the majority and to think a bit more about how other people arrive at specific conclusions.

I think it's a bit of both, though: people adopting specific playstyles due to their preferences, and scathing those who do not adhere to their ideals, while looking right past those who actually manage to unite many styles due to their perception being limited by the scope of their own focus.


Actually, the term "optimizer" as a general usage is a relatively recent addition--it means the same thing as powergamer, but because it's not as familiar to roleplayers it lacks the negative connotation (mentioned above) among them. In short, "optimizer" is a group-politics trick rather than a separate identity. A history of that term can probably still be found on the WotC boards, if you're curious.Ah, I see. Yes, that explains a lot.


For the other terms, powergamer/min-maxer/munchkin have always meant three different things, so there are indeed multiple terms because they describe different people. I think you've already gotten that down, though :smallsmile:Indeed. :smallsmile:


Oh yeah, it's all just a matter, too, of degree. I have a certain degree of each of your 4 types. We all do, contrary to what some people want to believe about themselves.Definitely. The rest of that post of mine I quoted would have stated precisely that, but I didn't quote it in order to not provide an unnecessary distraction. Though that might have been a mistake, in retrospect.


I do think there's a potential difference in core thought process. You can run a character who is, at the deepest level, a mechanical platform designed to fill a particular role. And then you can layer a persona over your mechanics, potentially sufficiently well that no one can even see the skeleton underneath. And it seems this is basically different from having a character's identity in mind first, and producing a mechanical build that supports the needs of that identity. Even if you wind up with the same character sheet and character bio either way.That's one way to summarise part of what I've been trying to say.


Maybe it's just because you were trying to show polar extremes, but do you really consider it an inherent part of being a 'roleplayer' to consider the rules of the game and/or setting completely unimportant anytime they interact with your particular object of interest?Short answer, yes. Long answer, no, because hardly any player is strictly one or the other. Neither the GNS theory nor these 4 types I stated there serve to classify players as one of those, but to show the various sources of conflicting interests. I know some people who are practically pure roleplayers. They play freeform. What need would a roleplayer have for dice? If it's about playing a character, shouldn't the player know far better whether it is fitting for the character to fail or succeed now? But almost anyone (myself included) still likes the thrill of rolling dice and the slow rising of the statistics. That's the gamist part. Like horseboy said, practically everybody is a mixture of those 4 types.


Because I see your simulationist in my outlook, and understand but don't really want to be your gamist, but both forms of your narrativist just make my head hurt.Probably because you try to fit yourself strictly into one of those types. They are far to narrow far that, that has got to hurt. Like putting on shoes two numbers too small. :smallwink:

Kyeudo
2007-10-02, 05:38 PM
I am pleasently surprised. This thread actualy has people on different sides of the issue finding understanding of the other side's view.

Now, I want to declare up front which side of the issue I fall in. I'm a powergamer. Probably better classified as an optimizer, but I think of myself as a powergamer.

I've run almost the entire gamut of possible player types since my first character about 2 years ago. I started out trying to be a roleplayer. Sure I spent time picking skills and feats, and I made my charcter so that I knew he would be able to contribute in his typical class role, but I didn't have more than the core three and I prioritized feats for helping the character's concept. I took Acrobatic and Nimble Fingers for my first feats, as I was playing a rogue who was the son of a locksmith, not Two-Weapon Fighting or some other more combat related feat. My first character died a horrible death, eaten alive slowly by kobolds.

I overcompensated for a while I guess, and dived headfirst into splatbooks and rules lawyering. I knew more of the rules after two months than any DM in town, and bordered on munchkin for a while. I didn't play much during this time, thankfully, so there wasn't many that had to stand me. I grabbed on to high power feat choices and classes and gave no thought to backstory, just to kill count.

I finaly came out of that stage with a real grasp of the rules of the game, but I developed a desire to have a character actualy come off the paper and start breathing, mostly due to exposure to the Wizards boards, including the CO boards. What I do now is find a concept or a class that I want to play and optimize it. Concept first, Mechanics second, and Back Story comes last, so I can account for my mechanical choices in the back story.

I have come to understand not only how to play an optimized wizard, but through that understanding learned to play a wizard that doesn't overshadow the fighter. Knowledge of the different methods to obtain power in a class helps me play less powerful characters without doing something moronicly stupid, like running a non-gish wizard into a melee.

I started one of the biggest pits of powergaming that I can imagine in D&D, a PvP arena ([shameless plug] BTW, if you want to join, recruiting is always open and there's a link in my sig [/shameless plug]). You want to know what my main character there is? A Truenamer. That's right, one of the weakest classes in existance, with no house rules to bring the Truespeak DC down to sane levels.

I've seen and been on both sides of the issue in real life, and I can most definately declare that powergaming knowledge is not the spawn of the devil and that if used properly creates characters that are actualy good at what they are supposed to do, rather than poor approximations of what the character should be.

People who perpetuate the Stormwind Fallacy with their antiquated definitions of powergaming are something of an enigma. The definition they seem to use is a better match for Munchkinism, not optimization. "True" roleplayers seem to want to criticize because someone sets their character up to succeed at what they want to do, rather than taking the world as it comes.

We powergamers simply have the undesirable status of being the victims of a stereotype, one that most of us try not to perpetuate. We may be the ones who find such rules loop holes as the "Drowing can heal you" nonsense, but when was the last time anyone actualy tried to pull that in a game? None that I know of. The thought experiments on the CO boards are just that, thought experiments. IIRC, the main thread for Pun-Pun himself even states that he is not intended to actualy ever be used and that anyone who attempts to create him should be hunted down and beated thoroghly for such a perversion of the game.

Now that I've said this, I can only hope the thread manages to hold up for a while longer before the eventual devolution into a flame war. I won't hold my breath, so I think I'll dig my fire-proof clothing out of storage and hook up the fire hoses. :smallwink:

Kaelik
2007-10-02, 06:48 PM
Interesting theory. IMO it would be more likely that a skilled powergamer who enjoys roleplaying would take backstory, fluff, etc. into consideration in his quest for ultimate mechanical power. If he does, and chooses not to aquire certain mechanical power(s) in order to ensure the integrity of his backstory, fluff, etc., then it begs the question, is he really a powergamer?

A Powergamer either does not exist, or has other motives then obtaining maximum power.

1)Pun-Pun is the most powerful character.
2)90% of "Powergamers" have heard of Pun-Pun.
3)90% of "Powergamers" don't play Pun-Pun. (I assume 10% of those who know about it have tried.)
4)By 1, 2, and 3-Most "Powergamers" do not attempt to obtain maximum character power.

Fudge with the exact numbers if you want, but it still proves that the vast majority of Powergamers have other motives.

Your problem is that you are really starting from a definition that can't possibly be true, or is so exclusive that it includes no one anyway.

Think about this, why is there an ubercharger build? Everyone knows a Batman Wizard is more powerful then any Ubercharger. Why would we waste our time pursuing a lesser degree of power?

The answer is that powergamers are those gamers who use the rules to make better characters. That's all. I'll come right out and say it, my character is better then yours. That doesn't always mean it is the most powerful I can make it.

Disclaimer:Note that having "better characters" refers only to the standard character sheet. Not that a non-Powergamer is inferior in idea, concept, usage, roleplaying, or anything else.

A powergamer makes the character they want to play, but makes smarter choices (IE useful feats, not limiting oneself to a single class, smart allocation of skill points), if you make smarter choices you are a powergamer. If you put a few skill points somewhere for fluff, that's doesn't really change your basic nature. If your Wizard has no ranks in Spellcraft or Concentration, a 12 Int, and took Diligent then you are not a powergamer. My character is better then yours. You might be able to roleplay well and have fun. But I can do that too with my 18 Int, Improved Initiative, Spellcraft maxed caster.

If something comes up where my character would not likely be the first to act, I will delay, or use my action to do something like walk forward and say something calming to divert combat. (I wouldn't take Imp Init if my characters was generally torpid in most situations.)

To use your example of the item at the bottom of the water, I know absolutely no one who would have their character jump in after it. Because if your character is really afraid of water, they wouldn't go in, they'd get someone else to get it for them. I don't know anyone who would come up with something as trite as a "surge of bravery" but if I did, it would probably be someone who looked down on powergamers.

Dervag
2007-10-02, 07:55 PM
I might add that Japanese have a word for shield, and actually, mostly with their footmen (ashigaru) sometimes used them, mainly for troops who couldnīt afford heavy armor. The weapon that caused the most casualties on a japanese battlefield, before the advent of massed musketeer squads, were improvised missiles like stones, rocks or similiar.The same goes for at least one other period of warfare, assuming that the Iliad accurately depicts the style of warfare current during the period of its creation (between 1200 and 800 BC in Greece). There are several mentions of Homeric heroes injuring or killing an enemy with a thrown rock.


The first sentence should provoke little disagreement, I think, but the second does not necessarily follow.

"Actions that should be illogical in the game world" is probably the main catch-all here. The problem is that it assumes the existence of a game world that is incompatible with the rules. Because otherwise, things that work by the rules work in the game-world.

Reference to the spirit of the rules is usually dangerous, and in D&D there is somewhere between little and no effort to let anyone know what that spirit is.As I see it, the rules exist to model the world I want to play in, not to govern the world I want to play in. If I want a world where fencers are effective fighters, the rules should let me do that; if not I might very well stop patronizing Wizards of the Coast and go find another game system that does.

So if the rules defy a reasonable sense of how the world in the game ought to work, it is the rules that are wrong. The game exists to amuse the players, after all.


Are you serious? You really do, because not everyone actually has common sense.If everyone at the table does, you don't have to houserule common sense. If they don't, then you get "Things I'm not Allowed to do while Gaming."


I agree that a game generally will and should have those elements. I attribute them to the game world, though. They can exist without any player characters to have a story around. The story inherits basic consistency from the setting.Sometimes, though, the rules fail to provide that sense of consistency in the game world, requiring the players to impose it from outside. They are fully within their rights to do so rather than to end up with absurd results like "drown me back up to 0 HP."


as calling "I play Drizzt clones all the time" gamers "roleplayers" (if not more!).In fairness, they are playing a role, even if it's a really stupid one and they always play the same one.

hyperfreak497
2007-10-02, 08:18 PM
Having read the above, I think I'm now more confused than the original poster.

Trust me, you aren't.

Kyeudo
2007-10-02, 08:33 PM
Any more questions, Hyperfreak?

hyperfreak497
2007-10-02, 08:37 PM
Not really. I just don't like the direction this is taking. Although I kind of expected it.

Roog
2007-10-02, 09:54 PM
Not really. I just don't like the direction this is taking. Although I kind of expected it.

If you want to divert the argument, you need to ask some more of those questions.

Winterwind
2007-10-02, 09:55 PM
Not really. I just don't like the direction this is taking. Although I kind of expected it.Really? Why is that, if I may ask?

Ironically, I find that it's the debates about other styles of roleplaying than one's own, just like this one, which are most insightful. One can learn quite a bit about both other players and oneself. Especially considering that Kyeudo's right - this debate is very civilised, as debates of that kind go.


If you want to divert the argument, you need to ask some more of those questions.I rather doubt that will help. The people would answer the questions, but continue exchanging arguments. He'd have to explicitly ask the people to stop in order to bring this discussion to a halt.

Kyeudo
2007-10-02, 10:06 PM
I think the debate is more controlled than it normaly would be, especialy with the thread title disguising it from the true flame warriors.

Questions would probably distract the debate a little, maybe slow it down for an hour or three while people answered them.

Roog
2007-10-02, 10:34 PM
I rather doubt that will help. The people would answer the questions, but continue exchanging arguments. He'd have to explicitly ask the people to stop in order to bring this discussion to a halt.

That would keep the original topic alive, as opposed to letting the thread become only about the arguments.

Jannex
2007-10-02, 11:32 PM
Thanks to the vagaries of the English language, anyone who partakes in a roleplaying game can be said to be a roleplayer. This is a distinction between one who is or is not in the roleplaying hobby. Within the "society" of roleplayers the bar gets moved up before "we" would use the term within "our" groups as to who is "worthy" of the title of a roleplayer.

Indeed, words have different connotations depending on context; this can often be a source of definitional confusion, and is a reason why specificity and clarity is important in discussions such as this.


And yes, I totally agree with what you said about the Fallacy, I would like to point out it's usually trotted out to defend against a perceived attack of an effective optimizer's role playing skills. I've never seen it used to initiate an attack against strong roleplayers.

I have actually seen, in optimization vs. roleplaying arguments like this, people make claims that people who prefer to focus on roleplaying rather than optimization make "hopelessly gimped" characters that can't pull their weight in a party. It happened a few months ago (I think it was in the thread discussing E6, but I'm not sure), but hopefully it won't happen again here.

Skjaldbakka
2007-10-02, 11:39 PM
roleplaying rather than optimization make "hopelessly gimped" characters that can't pull their weight in a party

This comes up at least once every time the great debate over monk rears up, and frequently shows up in caster v. non-caster threads, as well as in ToB threads. It is somewhat of a recurring theme.

Tormsskull
2007-10-03, 08:44 AM
Your problem is that you are really starting from a definition that can't possibly be true, or is so exclusive that it includes no one anyway.


I don't think so, but maybe I am not describing it clearly. If we assume for a moment that Wizards are the most powerful class, then based on your assumptions of the definition of powergamer that I am using, only the people at the table that pick Wizards are real powergamers. That's not what I am saying.

A powergamer generally picks a powerful class, but even if they don't their goal is still to aquire the most mechanical power as possible with whatever they have to work with.

A powergamer would be the kind of person who, when their character's NPC father gave them a sword on his death bed and said "Use this.", would say "How much damage does it do, what's its crit range, any special powers?" If not, they'd just use a different weapon that was better. It wouldn't matter if their character was good or evil, loved or hated his father, because all of that doesn't matter to a powergamer.

I think that you (and others) are trying to move the definition of powergamer from what it is (as listed on GITP or wikipedia) to "Tries to achieve as much mechanical power as possible while still keeping a character's backstory, personality, fluff in consideration." Then you would call someone who doesn't keep backstory, personality, and fluff in consideration a munchkin. But the definition of a munchkin is:



- Munchkin*: Sometimes a synonym for power gaming, especially when the desire for power overrides all other concerns and is a detriment to the game, more often refers to someone who has the same goals as a power gamer but violates or ignores rules in order to achieve his goals. Also someone who ignores issues of suspension of disbelief, ability to fit into a campaign in a role-play sense, and common sense in their quest for power in game. Can also refer to the process of doing things the way a munchkin would. Munchkinism refers to the mindset that leads to this, or the practice itself.


and (excerpts from Wikipedia)



Munchkins are infamous for various degrees of cheating, willfully misinterpreting rules that work against them while loudly proclaiming ones that work in their favor. As a matter of course they selectively obey the letter of rules while perverting the spirit blatantly. The worst munchkins will cheat shamelessly, ignoring inconvenient numerical modifiers and fouling dice throws till they get the result they want. During character creation, munchkins engage in vicious min-maxing, leading to exceptionally unrealistic or unusual characters who make no sense except in terms of raw power.

Munchkins are often accused of roll-playing, a pun on 'role' that notes how munchkins are often more concerned with the numbers and die rolls than with the roles that they play.


Seems to me that the definitions are already pretty well known. So what I am gathering is that people don't like to be thought of as the listed definition of powergamer because they don't believe powergamers are like that, but want to call themselves powergamers.

Doesn't that just seem utterly confusing?



To use your example of the item at the bottom of the water, I know absolutely no one who would have their character jump in after it. Because if your character is really afraid of water, they wouldn't go in, they'd get someone else to get it for them. I don't know anyone who would come up with something as trite as a "surge of bravery" but if I did, it would probably be someone who looked down on powergamers.

I do know someone who does these things. This is the kind of player who will borrow a Monster Manual and study it for days so he has a good idea of the strengths and weakness' of monsters. This is the kind of player that always wants his character to be the strongest in the party, and actually retired a character once when his character was defeated in a duel by another PC.

He's the kind of player that will look through the DMG and try to find the most optimal magical items for his character, then of course his character has somewhere heard of these magic items, has detailed knowledge of them, and will try to seek them out.

Does he cheat? Nope. Does he powergame? Totally.