Promethean
2022-01-06, 09:49 PM
Continuing the series of splitting up the topic into Different posts.
So, Assuming that people in a D&D setting largely understood optimization and the "mechanics" to a degree, how would that effect How cities, fortresses and kingdoms are designed? Tippyverse suggests walled off mega-cities similar to what you'd find in a post-apocalypse that humanity survived largely intact, but would that be the most optimal or even the most common? How would buildings look when common people can start making epic skill checks with Knowledge(Architecture & Engineering) or Profession(Stonemason) thanks to +30 skill check items?
If they had limited access to any material from any setting-specific books or *3rd party sources, including various production cost reducers, non-standard magic item types, and variant rules.
*by 3rd party I mostly mean the published 3rd party companies, let's leave out out homebrew(even balanced homebrew), because anyone can homebrew anything and making an exceptions list would make things complicated.
Clarification: The idea proposed isn't that everyone wakes up one day with complete knowledge of the game mechanics and how to optimize them or that everyone in this setting is optimized.
The central idea of this post is that various societies in said world were able to figure out the "mechanics" by trial and error, that they'd gravitate toward improving magic/technology to improve their race/group's standard of living, and make efforts to standardize class education and builds to increase their power by reducing the number of "NPC classes". Not everyone would necessarily be optimized for the same reason that not everyone is a soldier, a farmer, or a computer engineer.
Basically trying to build a setting where optimization organically grew out of the circumstances as a form of technology.
Note 1: Let's also nerf any Infinite or Arbitrary high stat booster builds(for our purposes let's say the cap on these builds is 2x modifier on base stat), things that rely on creating new epic spells(the epic spells in published material[example: Athasian dragon or Aumvor's fragmented phylactery] are fine), and abusing "Greater Effects" wishes(standard effects of wish are fine, assume greater effects are being fulfilled by a sadistic DM that's lost patience with the wish user).
Note 2:High PO and Low TO builds are fine. Broken, but reasonable builds are fine. "I ascend and slay the gods" builds are not. Otherwise, the setting will just become whatever the first person to discover these Wants it to be.
So, Assuming that people in a D&D setting largely understood optimization and the "mechanics" to a degree, how would that effect How cities, fortresses and kingdoms are designed? Tippyverse suggests walled off mega-cities similar to what you'd find in a post-apocalypse that humanity survived largely intact, but would that be the most optimal or even the most common? How would buildings look when common people can start making epic skill checks with Knowledge(Architecture & Engineering) or Profession(Stonemason) thanks to +30 skill check items?
If they had limited access to any material from any setting-specific books or *3rd party sources, including various production cost reducers, non-standard magic item types, and variant rules.
*by 3rd party I mostly mean the published 3rd party companies, let's leave out out homebrew(even balanced homebrew), because anyone can homebrew anything and making an exceptions list would make things complicated.
Clarification: The idea proposed isn't that everyone wakes up one day with complete knowledge of the game mechanics and how to optimize them or that everyone in this setting is optimized.
The central idea of this post is that various societies in said world were able to figure out the "mechanics" by trial and error, that they'd gravitate toward improving magic/technology to improve their race/group's standard of living, and make efforts to standardize class education and builds to increase their power by reducing the number of "NPC classes". Not everyone would necessarily be optimized for the same reason that not everyone is a soldier, a farmer, or a computer engineer.
Basically trying to build a setting where optimization organically grew out of the circumstances as a form of technology.
Note 1: Let's also nerf any Infinite or Arbitrary high stat booster builds(for our purposes let's say the cap on these builds is 2x modifier on base stat), things that rely on creating new epic spells(the epic spells in published material[example: Athasian dragon or Aumvor's fragmented phylactery] are fine), and abusing "Greater Effects" wishes(standard effects of wish are fine, assume greater effects are being fulfilled by a sadistic DM that's lost patience with the wish user).
Note 2:High PO and Low TO builds are fine. Broken, but reasonable builds are fine. "I ascend and slay the gods" builds are not. Otherwise, the setting will just become whatever the first person to discover these Wants it to be.