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Idea Man
2007-12-13, 12:14 AM
I see plenty of posts pointing out the fundamental weaknesses of one feat, build, or class over another. People pointing out how foolish it would be to play anything that isn't, at least, a well conceived, designed character, or, at most, batman.

I was wondering how many of us really play only super-optimized uber-beings, or if that's just forum fluff. Have you ever played a concept that you knew was "sub-optimal", or not taken a spell/power/ability because you knew it would take over the game? Things like "not taking the fly spell" or "not taking the natural spell" feat or "fighting two-weapon style without any of the feats to make it easier"?

One of my favorite characters was a straight-class fighter with spring attack and whirlwind attack. Using medium mithril armor/shield and a longsword, he was the most mobile low-level meat shield I've ever played, but couldn't dish out damage to save his life. As a monster slayer, he was sub-par (wizards had to do all the dirty work), and, as a fighter, he sucked out in the skills department, but he was lots of fun anyways. :smallbiggrin:

How many of us really play these "perfect builds"? I just have to ask.

Ulzgoroth
2007-12-13, 12:24 AM
I had/have a cleric with 12 strength and 14 dex. Not an archer either. That probably counts.

But, um, those examples in the middle paragraph are well out past the boundary of sub-optimal, somewhere between 'bloody stupid' and 'deliberate self-injury'. Except maybe not taking natural spell.

Your character may have been not particularly effective, but at least he wasn't going for the self-inflicted injury level.

Xefas
2007-12-13, 12:28 AM
Please excuse me, but this comes up often, so I borrowed some material.

-------

I see plenty of posts pointing out the poster's problems with powergaming. People pointing out how foolish it would be to consider the usefulness of a character in a combat situation, even though D&D is a tactical combat system first and foremost, and doesn't even take into consideration roleplaying of any kind.

I was wondering how many of us really play only sub-optimized poorly-executed-beings, or if that's just forum fluff. Have you ever played a concept that you knew was reasonably optimal, or taken a spell/power/ability because you knew it would actual accomplish something? Things like "not taking only damage spells" or "not refraining from being mechanically useful because you think it reduces the enjoyment to be had in the game" or "fighting in such a way so that the DM doesn't have to coddle you the entire way"?

One of my favorite characters was a straight-class cleric with divine power and righteous might. Using heavy armor/shield and a longsword, he was the most powerful meat shield I've ever played, and could dish out damage to save everyone's life. As a monster slayer, he was above-par, and, as a cleric, he also had out-of-combat utility, and was lots of fun, let me tell ya. :smallbiggrin:

How many of us really play these "terrible builds" out of some fallacy that it helps us enjoy the game more or roleplay better? I just have to ask.

Titanium Dragon
2007-12-13, 12:40 AM
Define "powergamed".

Really, it depends on the game. If I'm expected to be broken, I'll make a broken character; if I'm expected to be reasonable, I'll make a reasonable character. But you don't really have to optimize to make Clericzilla or Batman, and those are the "big problems", and it leads to the uncomfortable situation where the fighter has to be completly optimized to even really compete at high levels.

The solution? Don't play high level campaigns, obviously...

Really, my characters have varied considerably. I've made a half-dragon, half-giant anthropomorphic boa constrictor monk fighter blahblahblah cheese character before. I've also made a straight up fighter who wielded a shield and longsword and wore plate mail and really wasn't tricky (though, thanks to Improved Knockdown in NWN, he was probably still broken...) and a mage with six consititution (yeah, he had like 20 hp at level 15... good thing he had boots that brought his constitution up to, well, 10... :s). I've made a fighter who wielded a halberd and a fighter 1/sorcerer blah who, along with the Master of Many Forms, were pretty much capable of doing everything (and he had no cheese at all, just spells... :\).

The degree of optimization varies considerably, but in general, I don't play to win as hard as I can save when the DM tells me to in terms of character creation.

TheOOB
2007-12-13, 01:07 AM
There really is no problem with wanting your character to be effective, in fact it's a bigger problem if you do not. Adventuring is the most dangerous profession known to man. People who are not exceptional in some aspect find they don't have the abilities necessarily to realistically be taking into an adventuring party, and those people with glaring weaknesses find they don't live long once they join a party.

I remember once in a campaign we had a player who believe the (false) idea that players with powerful characters where bad roleplayers, and players with weak characters where good role players. To that end she created a fighter with 6 Con to join our party, and we rejected her character on a note of horrible role playing. First of all, such a sickly person is extreamly unlikely to take up armed combat as a profession, second there is no way they would have survived the training neccesary to become a full fledged fighter being so weak, third 16 strength doesn't work with 6 con, and finally when her character has to rest from walking a couple of blocks our party figured is was prudent to ditch her rather then lead her into a dungeon and her untimely death.

Characters who arn't powerful and have no easily exploitable massive flaws don't become PCs, they become NPC characters. D&D is heroic fantasy, not a reality show.

Porthos
2007-12-13, 01:23 AM
There really is no problem with wanting your character to be effective.

And who said you have to have characters who are optimized in order for them to be "effective"? :smallamused: Seriously, if people want their characters to be as powerful as they can be, go for it. There's nothing wrong with that. And nothing says that powergamers/optimizers can't be great role players either (Yes I am very familiar with the Stormwind Fallacy, thanks :smallwink: ).

But please don't try to couch it in language that says that you're "just" trying to be effective. Cause you're not fooling anyone. :smalltongue:

There are plenty of examples of characters that aren't the end all and be all of DnD that are plenty effective. After all, as the old saying goes, "It ain't what you got, but how you use it." A "pure fighter" can be plenty effective in many games. A Master Blaster can succeed in life. Are they very pinnacle of DnD evolution? No. But that doesn't mean that they can't be "effective".

As long as you can defeat your enemies and live to tell the tale, then you have won. It doesn't need to be anymore complicated than that. :smallsmile:

So to sum up:

Players who want to play "optimized" characters can be good role players.
Players who want to play "realistic" characters can be effective participants in DnD.
Players who want to play "optimized" characters can be bad role players.
Players who want to play "realistic" characters can be deadweight participants in DnD.

It seems to me that the common element in all of those points is.... The Player. Who would have thunk it. :smalltongue:

Hectonkhyres
2007-12-13, 01:25 AM
In most of the campaigns I have been in, nobody powergames until some jackass decides to try to show up everybody else. Once that happens, the arms race is on and anything can happen. Minmax the frenzied berserker with every powerattack trick ever concieved of, druids diving into obscure literature for abominations that the gods never intended, the Batman philharmonic orchestra...

Then, one fateful session, one of our number tried powergaming and pushed it just a little too far. The DM had Asmodeus pop in, rip out the guy's soul, and drag him back to be his (literal) buttmonkey for all time. No explanations given. The bastard has to reroll and things still looked a little too freakishly unbalanced so Asmodeus pops in again and further expands his harem. Our former powergamer finally got the hint.

Last campaign we had a cloistered cleric with the Night and Dream domains, an urban druid, two fighters and a kobold rogue. We ended up founding an (entirely cheeseless) mercantile empire with a secret society one step behind the scenes. A war was fought, tyrants were deposed and crowned, women were bedded, rivers were redirected, gnomes were punted, and our kobold (previously thought to be a male even by herself) became a proud mommy.

It was fun as hell and, best of all, we were eternally on the defensive. We actually had to think things through rather than playing flamethrower.

namo
2007-12-13, 01:39 AM
We ended up founding an (entirely cheeseless) mercantile empire with a secret society one step behind the scenes.

An empire without cheese ? No wonder you attacked it. I hope you introduced everybody to the joys of fermented milk.

The important is to be in adequation with the level of the other players and the DM. So I optimize my characters - I like it - then take a look at my neighbour's sheet and tone them down as needed. I also try to explain to the DM what my character can do, in order to avoid bad surprises.

Jerthanis
2007-12-13, 01:50 AM
How many of us really play these "terrible builds" out of some fallacy that it helps us enjoy the game more or roleplay better? I just have to ask.

I'm kind of sick of this being the response to every single thread that even tangentially makes powergaming out to be in any way a negative aspect of the game. We get it, Stormwind said something reasonable that you buy into.

This thread is about "Do you always play super-optimized characters, or do you sometimes play Fighters, Rangers, Rogues, Bards and the like?" not "Isn't optimization lame!?!?!lol" To be fair, the examples provided by Idea Man were not the best thought out... TWF is cripplingly bad when you simply don't optimize, not taking the feats that make it work at all is a whole other animal.

To answer the question, yes, I play a lot of classes other than optimized ones. I don't go out of my way to pump the one stat I need because I'll have a 5% increase in battle efficacy, but I do understand that there's way more RP potential in playing a living person than playing a rotting corpse. I also play wizards and clerics to the best of my abilities quite often. The wise Wizard is my favorite archetype, and the Cleric is my favorite class in terms of Mechanics/flavor blend/interaction. (The cleric's abilities, class skills, and nuances of their spells are determined in part by the character's personality, as well as the class itself, which is IMHO, the perfect blend in a class system)

My favorite unoptimized character was a Fighter who tripped using a Halberd, which means no reach. He would also take his follow-up attack as a disarm against weapon wielding foes, and as they lie on the ground disarmed, he would demand they surrender themselves to the law. He struck for subdual damage more than half the time, and cross-classed skills into search and sense motive to represent his detective bent. He was a town guardsman, and he was damn good at his job... but wasn't an optimal trip build. He still practically soloed the endboss of that game, but that was because my party was useless and I had the right potions for the job.

Mojo_Rat
2007-12-13, 01:52 AM
One thing that surprised me when i first started reading on-line information about D&D IS that alot of the time the Game talked about on the Wizards forums (and to a lesser extent here) does not seem to be entirely the same game as the one i play around a table every sunday with my friends.

However that said the only real issue i have with power gaming is that alot of the time the justification for a particular class/feat/race combo is often weak and thinly veiled. Players need to be able to use common sense. If everyone in a game is power gaming it works well. If 3 of 4 players are playing fun non optimized characters and the 4rth completely dominates the game then heres a problem.

sikyon
2007-12-13, 02:07 AM
If your character is too strong, your DM is going to have to throw encounters.

If your character is too weak, your DM is also going to have to throw encounters.

People sort of assume:

Oh, I'm going to be a level 20 monk. And my friend here is a level 20 fighter, and we have a level 20 rouge (no UMD) and a level 20 healer cleric. Oh look, here comes a tarrasque. Oh look, we got totally owned.

It's just as bad as if you totally owned the tarrasque.



Then, one fateful session, one of our number tried powergaming and pushed it just a little too far. The DM had Asmodeus pop in, rip out the guy's soul, and drag him back to be his (literal) buttmonkey for all time. No explanations given. The bastard has to reroll and things still looked a little too freakishly unbalanced so Asmodeus pops in again and further expands his harem. Our former powergamer finally got the hint.

If I were your player, I would have then rolled a character who was multiclassed into 1 level of everything he could be, with a very rich backstory like "I wanted to be everything when I was a kid and now that I'm an adventurer I can!", have very high charisma, wisdom, no synergy, vow of poverty, and extremely poor combat ability. When he quickly and inevitably died, I would then make another, pretty much asking the DM "Do you want my character to be overly powerful, which may degrade other playing experiances because they don't get to fight that much with their favorite characters, or do you want me to be overly weak, so that I get their favorite characters killed. Which would you prefer?"

Honestly, if a DM pulled that on me I would begin the Player vs DM conflict.

Skjaldbakka
2007-12-13, 02:10 AM
I optimize appropriately for the game I will be playing in.

Examples:

I was invited to play in an 18th level gestalt game, with a very-high powered stat generation method (best of 4d6, reroll all 1s). It is an 'evil overlord' game. So I am playing a very heavily optimized persistent spell abusing cleric, to match the assumed power level of the game.

I was invited to join an Arcana Evolved game. I decided I wanted to take the opportunity to play a Skymage, and so I am. Short of a sub-optimal PrC, I am doing everything I can to be an optimal buff-caster, as there are two PCs that are going to need the help (we have one with a barely viable gish build, and one that is a solid character, but the player tends to forget to use his class features).

I am currently playing in an online game, where I chose to roll my stats, and wound up with 52 pt. buy. So I am playing a somewhat under-par gish build (what I like to call my 'elf' build: Elf Paragon/Wizard/Fighter/Bladesinger).


"Do you want my character to be overly powerful, which may degrade other playing experiances because they don't get to fight that much with their favorite characters, or do you want me to be overly weak, so that I get their favorite characters killed. Which would you prefer?"

Way to promote a false dichotomy. Personally, I aim to either match the optimization level of my fellow players, or if I am feeling really nice, build a character that makes them better at what they do, and fills gaps in the party.

Porthos
2007-12-13, 02:27 AM
One thing that surprised me when i first started reading on-line information about D&D IS that alot of the time the Game talked about on the Wizards forums (and to a lesser extent here) does not seem to be entirely the same game as the one i play around a table every sunday with my friends..

It really does depend on the "culture" of a board. :smallsmile: For instance EN World (www.enworld.org) doesn't seem to me to have nearly the same focus on "number crunching" as Gleemax or GitP. Why? Beats me. But I definitely feel a different vibe here than I do over at EN World.

Mind you there's nothing wrong with either place. In fact, I enjoy both myself. :smallsmile:

The_Werebear
2007-12-13, 02:34 AM
Lets see...

For an Optimized non powerful concept-

Rorymac Crosswater
Halfling Paragon 3/ Paladin of Freedom 2
Stats- All 14's, save for dex which is 16.
Weapon of Choice- Merciful Sling

He fights by rapid shotting bullets into his foes. The DM ruled that Rapid reload would work for this purpose. He is a halfling, so the paragon and his race give him some nifty bonuses to damage, so he is firing off a pair of bullets a round for d3+d6+7 each.

The thing to remember though- The sling is a POS weapon. Who cares if he's good with it when it is fairly useless. The paladin levels are dead weight at the moment. My DM uses fluid alignment, so Detect Evil doesn't help much. Smite can't be used ranged, which is almost always what he does. Lay on hands can heal 4 hp a day for him.

I love playing him though. He is a surly, angry halfling who loves exploring and fighting in equal proportions. He took up paladinhood and a merciful weapon after he let his rage get the best of him and nearly killed his sister and his party. Once that incident was passed, he took up a personal vow to use lethal force as a last resort. Now, he tries to balance his anger with his compassion, focusing hard to avoid repeating the incident. To that end, he has a phylactery of faithfulness. Whenever he thinks he is straying, he uses that to keep on the path of righteousness. From a mechanical standpoint, he could have bought a lot better items. This fits him though.

SO- Example of an underoptimized concept taken to the best I could make it while staying in the bond of his character. And I love it.

Titanium Dragon
2007-12-13, 02:49 AM
If I were your player, I would have then rolled a character who was multiclassed into 1 level of everything he could be, with a very rich backstory like "I wanted to be everything when I was a kid and now that I'm an adventurer I can!", have very high charisma, wisdom, no synergy, vow of poverty, and extremely poor combat ability. When he quickly and inevitably died, I would then make another, pretty much asking the DM "Do you want my character to be overly powerful, which may degrade other playing experiances because they don't get to fight that much with their favorite characters, or do you want me to be overly weak, so that I get their favorite characters killed. Which would you prefer?"

Honestly, if a DM pulled that on me I would begin the Player vs DM conflict.

Actually, you made several large flaws in your argument:

1) A character with a level in everything, while not the most effective of beings, could potentially be interesting with the RIGHT levels in things.
2) The DM would simply leave the encounters at a reasonable challenging level.

See, the DM has the power here, and knowing what the party can take, he can throw such challenges at the party, tailoring them properly to the party's power level. So your character most likely wouldn't die horribly and simply would survive and contribute little (unless you were actually useful after taking all those levels, which wouldn't surprise me - you do, at least, have a wide -variety- of powers, if not much power at anything).

Not to mention, that kind of behavior indicates you aren't suitable for the group. You see, the way you're behaving is ruining it for everyone, so the correct thing to do is to tell you to change your ways or kick you out if you can't.

Indeed, if you exhibited that sort of behavior and told me that the options were you having an overpowered character or trying to get everyone else's characters killed, I'd tell you to hit the road and never come back.

Fuzzy_Juan
2007-12-13, 03:42 AM
Well...plenty of people play 'sub optimal' characters...mainly because they don't always have access to every single suppliment and/or just don't know all the nifty tricks out there. Also, sometimes it just is impossible in the campaign (take the all good campaign in which there were only 9 blackguards and they were all servants of the big bad evil guy...one player asked if he could join the blackguards...heh...didn't turn out too well)

Also note that people might have one idea for a character but then switch their build to focus on what is happening in game rather than what they wanted...they could have been making a pure two handed damage build to start but then switched to crowd control and anti small fry tech.

Sometimes people just choose what is available...if they don't have access to all manner of custom items...there will be no optimizing cheese like you see on the boards...just characters doing what they can with what is on hand.

Only a DM can really allow a player to 'powergame' since they have final say over what players can use...but any player will try and be as clever as they can with whatever their options are.

Dausuul
2007-12-13, 03:43 AM
Honestly, if a DM pulled that on me I would begin the Player vs DM conflict.

I wouldn't start the "player versus DM" business. That only perpetuates the problem. I'd simply walk away from the gaming table. Life is too short to waste my time on DMs who feel that the way to deal with power imbalances (or any other issue among the players) is to say "Rocks fall, you die."

Saph
2007-12-13, 07:03 AM
I'm kind of sick of this being the response to every single thread that even tangentially makes powergaming out to be in any way a negative aspect of the game. We get it, Stormwind said something reasonable that you buy into.

This thread is about "Do you always play super-optimized characters, or do you sometimes play Fighters, Rangers, Rogues, Bards and the like?" not "Isn't optimization lame!?!?!lol"

Yeah, this gets to me too. I used to join these arguments, and every time I made a post saying that optimising your character to the maximum wasn't always the best way to play the game, I always, always, within a few hours, got someone responding to me with "So I have to gimp my character and make them useless??? Huh??? Huh???" as though I'd told them to play a 6 strength Kobold Warrior. Always. Every single time. They seemed to have the attitude that there were only two ways to make characters: Twinkus Rex the Combat Monster, and Wiffly McFeeble the Commoner, with nothing in between.

Fact is, everyone with some knowledge of the D&D ruleset underoptimises their characters to at least some degree. Do you avoid using Polymorph? Avoid Diplomacy cheese? Not buy Candles of Evocation? Then you're making your character less powerful than they could be . . . for completely sensible reasons. It's really not that difficult for any character past level 5 or so to be totally unbalanced in power. Anyone can figure out how to do it with a bit of searching. It's just that the smart ones don't, because they know what the consequences are.

Players who don't optimise are generally much less of a problem than players who over-optimise, because one overpowered character messes with the party dynamics much more than one underpowered one does. It's also much easier to power up a weak character than to power down a strong one. If a newbie joins my party with his terribly weak Ranger, I can coach him, direct him to good magic items, and over time get him up to the level of everyone else (assuming that's what he wants, of course), but it works a bit differently when it's the other way round.

- Saph

Project_Mayhem
2007-12-13, 07:18 AM
Twinkus Rex the Combat Monster, and Wiffly McFeeble the Commoner

Wiffly McFeeble, utter comedic hilarity. Totaly cheered me up after reading the Terry Pratchet thread. That truely is awesome, I'm going to have to steal it for something.

On Topic, we don't have too much trouble with optimization, coz we play a lot of Call of Cthulhu. 18 in all your stats and 98% in Desert Eagle is going to do diddly squat to a Star Spawn. Player intelligence/skill is much more of an impact than cheesy characters when the eldar gods are involved

Neon Knight
2007-12-13, 07:43 AM
They seemed to have the attitude that there were only two ways to make characters: Twinkus Rex the Combat Monster, and Wiffly McFeeble the Commoner, with nothing in between.


That's because their is no standard for reasonable power. Everyone can agree that a commoner with 3s in every stat is underpowered, and that Pun-Pun is overpowered, but no can agree what is the right level of power, because the answer is so subjective. Some people only avoid outright cheese, while others tend to avoid merely upper tier levels of power, while some just build and play without concern for power and never establish standards for power regardless of what their final power level may be.

With no common point of view for reasonable, there literally is no middle ground, only a nebulous X.

Tormsskull
2007-12-13, 07:44 AM
Yeah, this gets to me too. I used to join these arguments, and every time I made a post saying that optimising your character to the maximum wasn't always the best way to play the game, I always, always, within a few hours, got someone responding to me with "So I have to gimp my character and make them useless??? Huh??? Huh???" as though I'd told them to play a 6 strength Kobold Warrior. Always. Every single time. They seemed to have the attitude that there were only two ways to make characters: Twinkus Rex the Combat Monster, and Wiffly McFeeble the Commoner, with nothing in between.


Oh yeah, I see that all the time too. The thing is, if a group sat down and said "Let's make the most powerful characters we possibly can, just for fun" I'd say more power to them. Heck, if they have fun working with the mechanics of the system and seeing what the most powerful character they can create using the ruleset, that's cool.

When you create a character for that purpose, you try to min-max a character that would be able to do some incredibly phenominal things, or maybe the goal is to make the most powerful character that would win an a 1v1 arena duel style thing. Whatever, that's totally cool.

But when players use that same mentality to craft a character for a typical D&D game that includes roleplaying, and then claim that just because they crafted their character with that mentality doesn't mean that it impacted the RP/story/fluff of their character, I find that laughable.

I think it all comes down to many of the players that like playing kick-in-the-door (hack n slash) don't like to say that they like playing that style because they are afraid other D&D advocates are going to chastise them for not roleplaying.

I wouldn't do that, as my only beef is when players play kick-in-the-door and try to say it is RP because it only serves to confuse the typical player as to the differences between kick-in-the-door and RP.

Jayabalard
2007-12-13, 07:46 AM
Yeah, this gets to me too. I used to join these arguments, and every time I made a post saying that optimising your character to the maximum wasn't always the best way to play the game, I always, always, within a few hours, got someone responding to me with "So I have to gimp my character and make them useless??? Huh??? Huh???" as though I'd told them to play a 6 strength Kobold Warrior. Always. Every single time. They seemed to have the attitude that there were only two ways to make characters: Twinkus Rex the Combat Monster, and Wiffly McFeeble the Commoner, with nothing in between.I agree.

Personally I find it more than a little ironic that these same people often repeat the "stormwind fallacy" as if it were some sort of holy mantra; if they can't come up with a better argument than this false dichotomy, then they obviously don't understand what makes the stormwind fallacy a fallacy.

Neon Knight
2007-12-13, 07:53 AM
Oh yeah, I see that all the time too. The thing is, if a group sat down and said "Let's make the most powerful characters we possibly can, just for fun" I'd say more power to them. Heck, if they have fun working with the mechanics of the system and seeing what the most powerful character they can create using the ruleset, that's cool.

When you create a character for that purpose, you try to min-max a character that would be able to do some incredibly phenominal things, or maybe the goal is to make the most powerful character that would win an a 1v1 arena duel style thing. Whatever, that's totally cool.

But when players use that same mentality to craft a character for a typical D&D game that includes roleplaying, and then claim that just because they crafted their character with that mentality doesn't mean that it impacted the RP/story/fluff of their character, I find that laughable.

I think it all comes down to many of the players that like playing kick-in-the-door (hack n slash) don't like to say that they like playing that style because they are afraid other D&D advocates are going to chastise them for not roleplaying.

I wouldn't do that, as my only beef is when players play kick-in-the-door and try to say it is RP because it only serves to confuse the typical player as to the differences between kick-in-the-door and RP.

You know, some of the best builds are perfectly plausible to come across by accident. I mean, Shock Trooper's Heedless Charge? Perfect for a big tough bruiser who throws himself howling at his enemies without any regard for his own personal safety.

And DMM Persist? Isn't is feasibly possible that ti could be taken by a cleric who believes that whenever he is subject to a buff he is being enlightened by his god's power, and seeks to prolong this state whenever possible?

It annoys me just as much when people assume the only way to arrive at a powerful build is to deliberately seek it out while ignoring every other concern.

Jayabalard
2007-12-13, 07:56 AM
You know, some of the best builds are perfectly plausible to come across by accident. I mean, Shock Trooper's Heedless Charge? Perfect for a big tough bruiser who throws himself howling at his enemies without any regard for his own personal safety.

And DMM Persist? Isn't is feasibly possible that ti could be taken by a cleric who believes that whenever he is subject to a buff he is being enlightened by his god's power, and seeks to prolong this state whenever possible?

It annoys me just as much when people assume the only way to arrive at a powerful build is to deliberately seek it out while ignoring every other concern.you seem to have mis-read his statement.


if a group sat down and said "Let's make the most powerful characters we possibly can, just for fun"Means that no, he's not talking about people who come across such things by accident.


When you create a character for that purpose, <snip>
But when players use that same mentality<snip>Still not talking about people who create a powerful character by accident

His beef (which I heartily agree with), is when people who are intentionally trying to push the power of their character to the limit try to claim that it has no effect at all on the RP/story/fluff of their character.

Grizzled Gryphon
2007-12-13, 08:02 AM
Wiffly McFeeble, utter comedic hilarity. Totaly cheered me up after reading the Terry Pratchet thread. That truely is awesome, I'm going to have to steal it for something.

On Topic, we don't have too much trouble with optimization, coz we play a lot of Call of Cthulhu. 18 in all your stats and 98% in Desert Eagle is going to do diddly squat to a Star Spawn. Player intelligence/skill is much more of an impact than cheesy characters when the eldar gods are involved

I DMed a group that was so bad at "optimization" I had to use the Gestalt option and many other tricks just to have them somewhat close to the level of power of a standard group of four characters. If I hadn't done this, I would have ended up having them face challenges under there ECL, and hoping they survived. But, they and I had a blast with that game, so I can't complain.

The last group I played in, I played a Scout. I used the same pregened stats as everyone else, and all the house rules like eveyone else. I had this scout more as a skill monkey than anything else. Even so, he not only out sneaked the rogue, he out damaged everyone with his bow. Eventually, the caster was able to deal more damage, but not by much. I didn't "optimize" him. Heck, most of my feats were to up his stealthiness and init. but he was real good at finding and harrasing the enemy until backup got there. In one case, he soloed a Draconic Hill Giant. Ironically, the fighter in the group tried to stay back and fire his crossbow at it, as he was sure it would just own him. He didn't hit, and my scout got right in this things face (so that skirmish would work) and was hit several times. I killed it, and wasn't all that wounded after the fight. Everyone in that sizable group didn't mind that I was more impressive then they were. They were mostly glad that I was there to kick butt as well as I did.

It all comes down to what the players and DM want in a game. If they all like powergaming, great. If not, that is great too. That group I ran sucked as far as making characters. We had a blast though, and that is all that matters.

Baxbart
2007-12-13, 08:40 AM
Optimised?

If I dared to speak that word around my D&D group, I'd probably get lynched (plus, they wouldn't give me booze). In fact, I get ribbed enough as it is for being able to quote rules from memory - Hell, these guys have been playing 20 years, and they found that while serious roleplay is all well and good, its a hell of a lot funnier to drink polish vodka and play a very surreal... I suppose, discworld-ish game. We don't have a serious bone amongst the four members of the party... and the DM hasn't written anything in the way of plot for 6 months...

Take last night for instance:
Our party currently consists of (though is regularly subject to change) four level 2 characters - a Gender-confused dwarf with no beard and a shaved head (Fighter 2), a human fighter (2) who insists on speaking with a heavy russian accent and wears furry hats. A female elf rogue (2), who keeps trying to convince us that she is a paladin - She has very high tumble/diplomacy etc, but can do little else. In fact, the player's handwriting is so bad that the DM revoked the 'Trapfinding' class ability and replaced it with 'Trafficking' - Which has yet to have been used to much effect. She also has ranks in Perform: ********, and Oil camel... Then lastly, we have a high and mighty cleric (also 2, myself) who rants endlessly about the Gods, and then turns a blind eye every time the rogue does something blatantly evil. Last week, the Cleric got drugged and ate a candle by accident.

Our DM doesn't use rulebooks (except occasionally when he feels like throwing a random encounter at us and can't be bothered to make some numbers up) - Combat is a chaotic and disorganised affair (We have initiative, but thats about it - Don't even mention AOO near these guys, thats another lynching offense), and often ends up with half the party or more bleeding to death (yes, my entire allowance of spells per day goes on healing party members).

We are being followed around by Death (Who introduces himself as Mr Dee-arth) - He wears a long black cloak with hood, rides a ghostly horse, carries a scythe and perpetually challenges party members to games of chess (Which has resulted in the death of at least one character). Unfortunately, since we lack plot, Death has become our guide as we blunder aimlessly through the desert to reach what is described as our 'Final Destination'. So far, we've convinced him to carry the torch for the party, and we also tried to blame him for an uprising we caused.

Last night's session pretty much consisted of us riding through the desert, being chased by desert pirates - Who are, quite literally, stereotypical pirates (except they have a West Country accent instead of the typical pirate accent, so its more 'ooh arr' than 'yarr'). Their 'ships' are camels with tall mast arrangements tied to them, and each one carries a small cannon. Out of about a dozen of them, I think half were killed by cannon mishaps, and the rest were just knocked over by the recoil. The only thing they managed to hit was the cart that we were dragging around a bunch of dead dogs in (The dead dogs being our food source.... another ingenious idea by the Cleric - Purify food/water on carrion meat :smalltongue: )

Somehow, the Rogue bested their captain in one on one combat, and then preceeded to declare herself the new captain. This was shortly after she made such a good tumble check that everyone in combat was forced to stop and clap (and a gnome with a flaming ring appeared out of nowhere for her to jump through).

Who needs plot when you have pirates? In fact, I don't think anyone could write a module that wouldn't get totally derailed by these guys.

I don't ever expect to live to see level 3, and because of the disorganisation, optimising is ultimately useless most of the time, but damn is it fun anyway.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the DM awarded the Rogue with a Supernatural ability - Detect: Plot. It points us in the direction of the nearest interesting event (Which... also usually results in PC death).

Counterspin
2007-12-13, 11:35 AM
Someone starts a discussion about a pretty much entirely subjective term that's often used as a slur, up with munchkin, and people are shocked when it devolves into an argument? People really find that surprising? Unfortunately there's no equivalent word for "excessive harmful RP," so let's start with grandstanding. I'm gonna go start a "To grandstand or not to grandstand," and I'm sure it will turn into a great discussion, full of insight on either side.

Duke of URL
2007-12-13, 11:37 AM
There's nothing wrong with wanting to play a powerful character. That said, character concept should always come ahead of optimization.

Of course, if the two happen to coincide... :smallamused:

Miles Invictus
2007-12-13, 12:30 PM
It all comes down to what the players and DM want in a game.

Thank you. I wish more people were capable of admitting this.

horseboy
2007-12-13, 01:29 PM
In D&D? Sure. In a respectable game system? Well, it's not nearly as easy or readily condoned.

Not to sound like Jay or anything, but the only thing D&D has over other systems is it's inherent brokenness. If you want something more, you should play a different game.

Aquillion
2007-12-13, 11:25 PM
You should devise your build to suit your character concept... but effectiveness is part of the concept, which you have to take into account. "CWar Samurai with Monkey Grip" is only a good implementation of your character concept if your concept is an ineffective fighter.

The other key point, much more than optimizing one character, is to ensure that the game is balanced -- that no characters totally outshine any others, and that the DM is shaping the challenges towards the party's actual abilities. I think most of the reason why optimization-related discussion sparks such bad feelings is because so many gamers have been burned by this -- they either have bad memories of a game that was overshadowed by one character, or bad memories of a game where one character kept forcing the party/DM to cover for their weaknesses; or both. As long as you have a a functional build, power is only really important in a relative fashion,

Ephraim
2007-12-14, 12:00 AM
There's nothing wrong with wanting to play a powerful character. That said, character concept should always come ahead of optimization.

Of course, if the two happen to coincide... :smallamused:

This is the position that I always take. I figure out who and what my character will be and then I build stats around that idea. My characters are frequently suboptimal and I'm perfectly fine with that. I don't make the fallacy that suboptimal characters are better for roleplay, but I would go so far as to say that sometimes, making your character's personality, ideology, or goals your first priority will result in a suboptimal character. (Yes, you can create a character whose goals are always parallel with optimization. If you feel that you must always do this, then I would question your motivations and *gasp* insinuate that you may be a poor role player.)

Jade_Tarem
2007-12-14, 12:00 AM
Players who don't optimise are generally much less of a problem than players who over-optimise, because one overpowered character messes with the party dynamics much more than one underpowered one does. It's also much easier to power up a weak character than to power down a strong one. If a newbie joins my party with his terribly weak Ranger, I can coach him, direct him to good magic items, and over time get him up to the level of everyone else (assuming that's what he wants, of course), but it works a bit differently when it's the other way round.

- Saph
Emphasis mine.

There we go. QFT, BBQ, and all that.

sikyon
2007-12-14, 12:19 AM
Actually, you made several large flaws in your argument:

1) A character with a level in everything, while not the most effective of beings, could potentially be interesting with the RIGHT levels in things.
2) The DM would simply leave the encounters at a reasonable challenging level.

See, the DM has the power here, and knowing what the party can take, he can throw such challenges at the party, tailoring them properly to the party's power level. So your character most likely wouldn't die horribly and simply would survive and contribute little (unless you were actually useful after taking all those levels, which wouldn't surprise me - you do, at least, have a wide -variety- of powers, if not much power at anything).

Not to mention, that kind of behavior indicates you aren't suitable for the group. You see, the way you're behaving is ruining it for everyone, so the correct thing to do is to tell you to change your ways or kick you out if you can't.

Indeed, if you exhibited that sort of behavior and told me that the options were you having an overpowered character or trying to get everyone else's characters killed, I'd tell you to hit the road and never come back.

You obviously missed the point. The point is that if the DM is willing to adjust the difficulty level of encounters down but is unwilling to adjust them up, then he is guilty of hypocracy.

Also, a character with a level in everything would have large multiclassing XP penalties, generally making him weaker not only from lack of speciallization, but being levels behind everyone as well.

Finally, I would not "tell you" that those were the choices. I would simply do that, and when you got fed up with it and confronted me, and asked "why are you doing this" I would say "the same reason Asmodeous kept popping in and taking the other character's souls".


Players who don't optimise are generally much less of a problem than players who over-optimise, because one overpowered character messes with the party dynamics much more than one underpowered one does. It's also much easier to power up a weak character than to power down a strong one. If a newbie joins my party with his terribly weak Ranger, I can coach him, direct him to good magic items, and over time get him up to the level of everyone else (assuming that's what he wants, of course), but it works a bit differently when it's the other way round.

- Saph

A player who needs to tone down his power can simply not use it, and just let the rest of the party do something. There's a difference between being able to do something and actually doing it. It's called self-control.

Yami
2007-12-14, 01:39 AM
I'm afraid that I'm in the "It's easier to tone down your characters than tone up a flaw build" camp. I've two games going at the moment, one I DM, and the other I'm a PC. In the game with the PC, it started out with just two of us, so we built our characters to work as a full 4 man party. One might say we tried a bit of optimising.

We finally got a third though, and he wanted to come in as a rouge. Now, in game we've spent the lions share of our loot on him, just too keep him at our level. And that only worked because he never got attacked much.

He still died first. Granted, when I tried toning down my character a bit (read tanking with what wasn't meant to) I died as well, so it might just be the way this group works, but all in all it seemed easier to tone down our characters slightly than to spend all our gold (very metagaming I might add, and not good RP.) Not that it seemed saner sadly.

As for the second group, well we seem to only have on person who tries to powergame, And the party's fine with it. He merely turns out to be a slightly stronger warrior on thier side, and no one minds that.

Skjaldbakka
2007-12-14, 01:49 AM
Also, a character with a level in everything would have large multiclassing XP penalties, generally making him weaker not only from lack of speciallization, but being levels behind everyone as well.

1) A level in everything incurs no XP penalty.

2) Such a character has absolutely retarded saves.

3) There are things you can do via feats with opposed saves.

4) Who uses those multiclassing rules anyway?

Deepblue706
2007-12-14, 02:21 AM
I've never played an optimized character. But, I don't look down upon those that do (well, so long as they haven't already done what build they have before - repeating the same old progressions and tricks all the time seems a bit silly to me).

The reason my characters end up the way they do, is primarily because of the theme of the character I originally have in mind. If something is thematically inappropriate for my character, I won't do it. For instance, if I have a Fighter who believes tripping his enemies is silly, because he'd rather just stab them, he won't bother picked up Improved Trip. But apparently, that means he's less effective now - like I care. I wasn't really keeping track in the first place.

To me, D&D is a roleplaying game, and my attention is going to be on the personality and background of my character, and I'm going to roleplay it as well as I can, and try to have a good time with my friends while doing so. Those are my priorities. Character effectiveness isn't neglected, it's just not emphasized, because I have no motivation to spend so much time analyzing what's most effective in D&D. I just happen to notice one thing is better than another, and I adjust to things as I stumble upon them. But, sometimes I'll still go with the poorer choice because I believe it's more fun - I mean, who cares the only benefit of a Toad familiar is +3 HP, essentially a useless boon beyond first level? It's a friggin' toad, and I'm gonna name it Pete, and he'll be remembered for being Pete the Badass Mother F****** Toad. No, I don't want a damn Weasel - who gives a bonus to reflex saves - even if it's far superior. Weasels are dumb.

I don't think people who try to maximize efficiency necessarily neglect their characters, but to do both well seems to require a lot of time and effort - far more than I'm willing to give. What's important to me is contributing to the social aspect of the game, not my damage modifier. I'd say skimping out on what you can contribute socially is against the spirit of the game - but what is the spirit of D&D? To have fun. So, do what you think is fun.

...I just won't play with you if your biggest concern is your character sheet.

...then again, I probably would anyway, as I have no RL games running :smallfrown:

KIDS
2007-12-14, 02:36 AM
I don't like optimization to the extreme (dump stats and such) but I do like elegant and strong characters. That said, I have frequently made suboptimal choices in the past just for flavor or theme, not really caring of the overall power as long as I could contribute.
Note that playing a gimped character on basis of game balance is not fun and it won't ever be!!! You can still be happy with it, but it's a poor starting point. Like a Wizard with only melee feats or a Rogue with all skills in Knowledges....

For example, some of my played builds as in optimal and unoptimal (I dislike term "powergaming", though it's nothing bad as a story well told motivated by that class/feat combo out there is still a story well told and thus awesome):

Human LG Female Monk 2/Paladin 2 - marathon runner, started as monk. Made a mistake of not realizing how awesome Stunning Fist was and took Improved Grapple as bonus feat, Run/Endurance as normal feats. Now Stunning Fist will have to wait until level 9... otherwise, apart from obvious MAD and those feats, the character is fairly well designed and has a niche in combat which she does well.
Human NG Female Bard 4 - some optimal choices like good spell selection to counteract the poor bard spellcasting, like Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Disguise Self and Glitterdust. On the other side, a lot of poor or useless choices like Obtain Familiar (Trush) (and bards have almost no touch spells!), Jack of all trades or Dodge without wanting that feat tree, also spent ranks maxxing multiple perform skills.
Elf TN Male Druid - optimal as in stat distribution, dumps str/dex though not cha, but the many physical-reducing flaws he has taken have been used to gain flavorful or not useful feats like Augment Healing (poor choice for Druid), Desert Fighter (+2 AC while in deserts) and his elemental companion is Fire, which isn't really strong.
Elf LN Female Druid (Shapeshift) - haven't dumped CHA, but otherwise well evenly distributed stats according to a guide I found, feats that mesh together, gets Spring Attack through shapeshift (while in Predator form, which grants mobility), etc. Quite optimised.

So anyways, I usually optimise a part of the build, especially classes (like maximising caster levels for gishes or not losing BAB where I don't have to) but I'm easier on abilities and feats are much more often serving the flavor function. I really like it that way!

Jayabalard
2007-12-14, 08:20 AM
You obviously missed the point. The point is that if the DM is willing to adjust the difficulty level of encounters down but is unwilling to adjust them up, then he is guilty of hypocracy.There's no hypocrisy involved; in both cases, the DM is unwilling to cater to a single disruptive player, but is willing to make concessions for the group as a whole.

Adjusting the power of encounters up does not fix the problem of a single player consistently overshadowing the other characters.

Adjusting the power of encounters down slightly does fix the problem of a single ineffectually character consistently causing the party to fail; that character will of course still be ineffectual, but since he's only affecting himself at that point and not the rest of the group, that's his choice.



Yes, you can create a character whose goals are always parallel with optimization. If you feel that you must always do this, then I would question your motivations and *gasp* insinuate that you may be a poor role player.You can do more than insinuate; if you can only role play one type of character, then you're not a good role player.

Fuzzy_Juan
2007-12-14, 08:48 AM
I do try my best to optimize for a role that I want to play. If you are gonna do something, you had best be able to do it well...a little rounding and versitility is fine and good, but only if you can make up for the lack in raw power in another way (good teamwork, excellent planning etc.)

I do try and avoid outright cheese....especially when it relies on a DM kinda bending a rule, or just flat out abusing a rule as written...

An example of that is the Talents in Star Wars Saga ed...(4th ed SW...we think) technically a droid can reprogram a talent into any talent tree it meets the prereqs for...if they have 1 level of Noble, the droid can take the 'wealth' talent...technically, the droid can retrain that talent between levels and only retrain back to having 'wealth' during times the droid levels...which is the only time it ever comes into play. As written the DM should allow it...but it is really just abuse of the rules to get free money...as is I am abusing the hell out of the reprogramming to make the most out of every single feat, skill, and talent slot I have...

In essence I am creating a build that is impossible with an organic character by virtue that organics have fixed abilities and I can just change mine. Nothing wrong with a little 'powergaming' and optimization...that makes your character a 'hero'...and that is what you are trying to portray...if you want 'joe blow' play a different system...a mortal in the World of Darkness is a good place to start. Straight up gouda and rule abuse is just bad though and should be avoided...when an obvious gap in the system is found, it should not be abused...or...the DM should just say..."no"...it won't work like 'that' in my game...

Vasdenjas
2007-12-14, 08:58 AM
How many of us really play these "terrible builds" out of some fallacy that it helps us enjoy the game more or roleplay better? I just have to ask.

As others here have stated, I dislike comments such as this. It's backwards thinking. It's not that playing a gimped character helps you RP better, but better RP'ing may sometimes include non-optimized characters, since the concept should come first and you base the character around that. Not to mention the fact that the best RP'ing typically comes from flaws in character.

I RP both sides of the argument. My two current characters are:
1) Druid/Warshaper/Master of Many Forms. I could easily overshadow everything my companions do with my many forms and versatility, but I choose not to ALWAYS turn into a Cave Troll or Was Troll at the first sign of combat. I like to mix it up a lot, as that keeps thing in balance, as it is in nature.
2) Soulknife/Illumine Soul. Easily thought of as one of the weakest classes, but this character works well in the group, and with the right support makes a great meat shield (High AC)

It's always best to go to the DM with your concept, character-wise, personality-wise, etc, and go from there, rather than building a beast, and then trying to make a story for him.

Fuzzy_Juan
2007-12-14, 09:02 AM
low level characters can do anything they put their minds to...this is the perfect example...

http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/

:smallbiggrin:

MartinHarper
2007-12-14, 10:27 AM
She created a fighter with 6 Con to join our party, and we rejected her character on a note of horrible role playing. First of all, such a sickly person is extreamly unlikely to take up armed combat as a profession

I don't see that. People take up inappropriate professions in real life, and heroic fantasy is full of unlikely heroes. Someone with poor fitness might take up fighting because she wants to become fitter and healthier. Or she might have been drafted. Or she might be trying to impress a father figure. Lots of possible reasons.


second there is no way they would have survived the training neccesary to become a full fledged fighter being so weak

Depends on the training. If it's done with non-lethal damage, then she might spend more time unconscious than her comrades.


third 16 strength doesn't work with 6 con

Someone who has good muscles and a heart defect might well have high strength and low constitution, for example.


and finally when her character has to rest from walking a couple of blocks

I thought that all characters could walk for eight hours a day without a problem?

sikyon
2007-12-14, 10:27 AM
There's no hypocrisy involved; in both cases, the DM is unwilling to cater to a single disruptive player, but is willing to make concessions for the group as a whole.

Adjusting the power of encounters up does not fix the problem of a single player consistently overshadowing the other characters.

Adjusting the power of encounters down slightly does fix the problem of a single ineffectually character consistently causing the party to fail; that character will of course still be ineffectual, but since he's only affecting himself at that point and not the rest of the group, that's his choice.

Seriously? Think about that for a second. Does that even make sense to you?

If the DM scales encounters up then the optimized character won't be able to beat them on his own, he'll have to rely on his teamates. While they won't contribute as much as he does, their contribution is still neccessary to win, so it really doesn't matter.

If a DM scales encounters down then the weaker character will be able to contribute more.

It's all about proportions.

However, what you are saying does have some truth in it, in that you can only make a party 3/4 weaker by being terrible but you can vastly increase their strength by being optimized. However, the entire game isn't about combat, and it is much eaisier to focus on the other 3 members of the group and give them challenges the 4th memeber isn't optimized for. In contrast, it's much harder to do that for a single weak character.

But please, elaborate on how adjust an encounter up doesn't benifit the whole group.

Mr. Friendly
2007-12-14, 10:42 AM
Seriously, the "anti-optimization" folks are just being silly. What is optimized and what is non-optimized?

You seem to have some mythical idea that character optimizers build Pun-Pun (or some other equally ridiculous build) in every campaign. Most people don't. As for optimization, sure I optimize all my characters. I take feats useful for combat for combat characters, feats useful for casting with spellcasters skill feats for skillmonkeys and social feats for social characters. I suppose all of you who "claim" to not optimize your characters all take Skill Focus: Basketweaking for your fighter-types and you take Power Attack for your healers?

Being good at what your character is supposed to do doesn't make you power gamer/optimizer/munchkin, it makes you a cut above the rest - it makes you an adventurer and hero. In short, it's what being a PC is supposed to be.

Ephraim
2007-12-14, 10:45 AM
One of the arguments that I frequently see in favour of optimization is that adventuring is dangerous work. Any character that would be part of an adventuring party would conscientiously prepare for the hazards of the job. One thing that I dislike about this model is the notion of the "adventuring party." It works for some game settings, but I prefer a more organic premise to my games. I like characters who are adventuring not because they want riches and fame but because of more intimate, personal reasons. That means that any given character might not be properly prepared for the hazards of adventuring. Nor will the character be willing to set aside their other goals and aspirations just because of the adversity they're facing now.

Jayabalard
2007-12-14, 10:48 AM
Seriously? Think about that for a second. Does that even make sense to you?Yes


If the DM scales encounters up then the optimized character won't be able to beat them on his own, he'll have to rely on his teamates. While they won't contribute as much as he does, their contribution is still neccessary to win, so it really doesn't matter.Nope. His teammates will get killed much more often because they'll be underpowered for these encounters. And this does nothing to deal with the fact that this individual is overshadowing the rest of the group.


It's all about proportions.Nope, it's all about catering to the group as a whole rather than to one individual. In one case you increase the power level of encounters because an indidual is overshadowing the rest of the group, in the other you lower the power level of encounters because the group as a whole is getting overwhelmed.




Seriously, the "anti-optimization" folks are just being silly. What is optimized and what is non-optimized?

You seem to have some mythical idea that character optimizers build Pun-Pun (or some other equally ridiculous build) in every campaign.Nope, as far as I'm aware, noone in this thread has suggested anything like this.

Personally, I think that powergamers base their character concept off of things that are powerful for the sake of being powerful; pretending that this has no effect on their character fluff/roleplay is laughable.


I suppose all of you who "claim" to not optimize your characters all take Skill Focus: Basketweaking for your fighter-types and you take Power Attack for your healers? I might, if that's appropriate to the character. I have no problems taking skills or feats that are less than optimal if they match the flavor of the character that I'm trying to make.

that's part of the difference between powergames and non-powergamers. Non-powergamers don't mind being sub-optimal in order to play a certain character concept.

KIDS
2007-12-14, 11:28 AM
I am adamantly against the idea that "roleplaying a character as it would fit some optimized build" is "poor roleplaying". That's a major untruth and generalization.

First of all, feats, skills and such are not an accurate followup to what your character did, and classes are only partially so. People train for and think about what they want to be as well as what they are.
Of course, one could make an argument that a 1st level Rogue with 4 ranks in tumble, when he advances to level 2 by killing orcs and delivering a message, couldn't have gained 5th rank of tumble if he hadn't used it during 1st level. Barring extremes, as soon as you state something like that it means that his choices do indeed mirror what he did during the last level which is just as ridiculous as the above. If you follow that, then surely not even 8 ranks are enough to mimic that level. How do you decide whether one use of tumble or one use of swim is worth more than two uses of diplomacy? What about Use Magic device which was used once but there is no room to add a rank to it now? As you can see, the example climbs up on an ungodly rate. You can model your advancement after what your character did, but not accurately, and not more accurately than anyone else.

We define roleplaying by characterisation, communication, decisions and thoughts. While it is subjective to some degree, we can say that if two people are playing nearly identical characters and one has his character much more fleshed out/detailed/characterized, that one is a better roleplayer (though not necessarily a better player).This has nothing to do with quiet or reserved characters, it works on any scale you put it on.

Different people have different roleplaying abilities, which is widely accepted. It is linked to imagination, ability to improvise, charisma, education, outside sources... now of course, a character that one likes or doesn't like will influence how well one gets in character, but there is some scale. There are people who can roleplay well and convincingly anything they play from a human rogue to a half-celestial bulette, and people who wouldn't know how to describe anything, let alone characterize it no matter what it is. Most people fall in between.

What I'm hinting at is of course that same goes for classes, feats, skills and such. Someone who takes classes depending on what he thinks his character did and someone who takes classes depending on some build or what fits with current abilities have absolutely the same potential and ability to roleplay. Here is one example:

Savali is a NG elf bard 8. He helps his party in combat and out of it a lot and is a good party face (mechanics) as well as very characterized and fleshed out (roleplaying). The player likes the idea of taking 2 Paladin of Freedom levels next to help his poor save, all saves and get a good damage/healing ability, and has seen Divine Power feat which he would like to have in the future. His character has been mostly benelovent and helped others, though the law-chaos axis is harder to adjudicate and simply hasn't been important in the game decisions so far.
During the next session, Savali starts seeing things in a different way. He thinks and comes to some conclusions not the same as his previous. Perhaps he has recalled an example of power of individual potential sometime from his life or has started seeing flaws in the government of the country he's in. Eventually, his alignment switches to Chaotic Good, he feels that fighting against evil opression in all forms is something close to him, and he takes a level of Paladin of Freedom, determined to upholds the ideals of CG and the powers above recognize this as true, watching over him (divine grace, lay on hands, detect evil).

DM: OMG You changed to CG because you wanted the abilities! Not fair, you're a poor roleplayer QQQQQQqqqqqq 11!!111!1!noob! You can't take Paladin of Freedom you haven't broken promises or given away your belongings in the game! QQQQQQQqqqqq.....

On a honest note, someone who can roleplay will roleplay anything well, and that includes changes for OOC reasons that he will roleplay as well and will make him happy to stay in the game. Unlike that Bob the fighter 6 who is thinking whether having spared life of that wolf last session is stronger reason to take a level of druid than a level of cleric because he's been to church in the last village or a level of fighter because he's killed an ogre last level and will roleplay all three choices good or bad depending on how he is. Whether Bob takes a level of Fighter, Druid or Cleric is entirely up to him and if he can roleplay it well, good luck to him.
But there is no such thing as "OOC reason = bad RP" since IC reasons are impossible to adjudicate, even for players playing their characters let alone for those who just observe and don't have any idea of what kind of a person that character who became CG is.

Now, I'm gonna go play my CG Desert Half-Orc Bard 2/Fighter 2/Lion Totem Barbarian 1/War Chanter 4/Warblade 2/Occult Slayer 5/Holy Liberator 4. I haven't powergamed in a fair while and I can already feel my RP ability increasing. Oh yeah.

Malachite
2007-12-14, 11:44 AM
My first 3.5 character was a dwarf (after whom I take my board name) that took about 5 levels in barbarian, followed by ~5 in fighter after meeting the father he'd adventured after for years, who promptly told him that he was lacking discipline and should be ashamed of himself.
I didn't take any great feats or dish out the damage, but I stuck at it and played my part in keeping baddies away from the spell-casters.
When it came to the big battle against an undead abomination of a fighter/rogue NPC (played by a friend of the DM so we'd believe he was a real PC) that had infiltrated the party before betraying us, we looked to be in trouble - he had a vorpal sword and sliced off daddy dwarf's arm (house rule - 20 for head, 19 for limb).
What did Mal do? He charged at him, grabbed hold of him and tried to tackle him into the stream of lava that flowed under us for dramatic effect, fully knowing he could well die. That he was later saved by a guy with Fly cast on him doesn't alter the fact he nearly died there.
Same with facing down a dracolich at lvl 18 to provide our rogue with the distraction she needed to destry him. Again, only a Miracle prevented his death.
These were only the culmination of lots of characterisation - the band got dubbed Malachite's Misfits by the BBEGs during the early levels not because he was the most lethal, but simply because he stood out.

That said, in my most recent RP I'm playing a wizard who will be as optimised as I can make her. She's mainly going to focus on battlefield control and buffing though, so even if she becomes far more powerful than the rest of the party in objective terms, that's being fed back to make the party as a whole better rather than her overshadowing them.


Optimising doesn't make the game bad, it's how you use the optimised character that does it.

Jayabalard
2007-12-14, 12:05 PM
I am adamantly against the idea that "roleplaying a character as it would fit some optimized build" is "poor roleplaying". That's a major untruth and generalization. I don't think that anyone in this thread has claimed this.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that multiple people have claimed that someone who can only "roleplay a character as it would fit some optimized build" is a "poorer roleplayer" than someone who can "roleplay characters that would not fit an optimized build"


DM: OMG You changed to CG because you wanted the abilities! Not fair, you're a poor roleplayer QQQQQQqqqqqq 11!!111!1!noob! You can't take Paladin of Freedom you haven't broken promises or given away your belongings in the game! QQQQQQQqqqqq.....Sounds like a bad DM, though if on the other hand it was


DM: You changed to CG because you wanted the abilities; that's pretty poor roleplaying. You're going to have to continue to demonstrate your new found faith to the order of <insert paladin of freedom order name> if you want them to train you in their ways, so, sorry, you can't take a paladin of freedom level this level. <side quest plot hook>Then I wouldn't see a problem. The DM calls you out for making an ooc decision in a game; since he's been DMing for the last 8 levels, the fact that has a problem with that should come as no surprise.


But there is no such thing as "OOC reason = bad RP" since IC reasons are impossible to adjudicate, even for players playing their characters let alone for those who just observe and don't have any idea of what kind of a person that character who became CG is.I believe that this particular fallacy is called a "false dilemma". The difficulty of adjudicating IC reasons has nothing to do with whether OOC reasoning is bad roleplying.

In character reasons are not impossible to adjudicate; it's impossible to have a hard and fast set of rules that cover all situations, which is why games have a GM/DM/Referee to adjudicate those situations.

Decisions made for OOC reasons are pretty much the definition of bad roleplaying; any time you decide something through OOC means rather than through IC means, you've stepped out of playing that role to make that decision.

Mr. Friendly
2007-12-14, 12:25 PM
Decisions made for OOC reasons are pretty much the definition of bad roleplaying; any time you decide something through OOC means rather than through IC means, you've stepped out of playing that role to make that decision.

Wow. So, how do you even pick feats or skills or even a character class?

Jayabalard
2007-12-14, 12:28 PM
Wow. So, how do you even pick feats or skills or even a character class?is this a serious question? The answer seems pretty obvious to me: using IC reasoning.

Deepblue706
2007-12-14, 12:31 PM
.
But there is no such thing as "OOC reason = bad RP" since IC reasons are impossible to adjudicate, even for players playing their characters...

I very much agree with the statement.

I think the problem most "non-powergamers" have is where the emphasis lies - I personally do not think the game should involve OOC decisions and then IC justifications, but rather OOC ideas and then IC implementation. For example, I would not be happy to know that a player of mine decided to say something OOC like "Fighter 3 dumb level. Thog not take." and then find reasons to avoid the class IC - even if they find a good way to roleplay the decision to follow another discipline. The attitude shows a desire to have a good character sheet first, and a good character second.

Kaelik
2007-12-14, 06:03 PM
Then I wouldn't see a problem. The DM calls you out for making an ooc decision in a game; since he's been DMing for the last 8 levels, the fact that has a problem with that should come as no surprise.

Okay some problems:
1) Maybe this is a natural evolution of the character. Is there some rule that characters can't change there personality and attitude when undergoing out of the ordinary situations? Saying characters can't change is bad DMing.
2) All concepts come from out of character reasoning. When you decide what to take at first level you are saying, "I want to play this type of character." When your character takes second level, you are saying the same thing. All IC concepts stem entirely from your OOC reasoning, so even if you make decisions based on what your character would do, what your character would do was created by your out of character reasoning.
3) A Paladin of Freedom Order? If a DM ever creates one of those he's a doing it just to have an IC justification to stop someones character from doing something. Which seems like exactly something you would do though, because you seem to support creating IC justifications for everything, and the doublethinking yourself in to thinking that is the only reason.

Bottom line, an Order for Paladins of Freedom makes no sense at all.

Darth Mario
2007-12-15, 12:06 AM
Why wouldn't a Paladin of Freedom order make sense (although granted I doubt they'd call it an "order")? Rogues have guilds. Barbarians oftentimes form tribes. Bards don't congregate much, but I've seen several Bard colleges in games. Elves almost always have a Monarchy of some kind according to the DMG, sometimes a Magocracy.

Chaotic doesn't mean loaner, or disorganized. More often it just dictates how the structure of the organization would work. A church with a group of Paladins of Freedom would have a loose structure, with little to no rank system, or one based on pure merit and skill. I can, as a DM, totally justify a PoF order. If a player can't come up with an IC reason his character would do or train in something, the character really shouldn't do it.

Tormsskull
2007-12-15, 12:24 AM
You seem to have some mythical idea that character optimizers build Pun-Pun (or some other equally ridiculous build) in every campaign. Most people don't.


It all depends on the terminology. What you call optimizing someone else might call "Not gimping their character" and someone else might call "Powergaming", etc. Since the name of the thread is "To powergame or not to powergame" let's look at the boards definition:



- 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.”




As for optimization, sure I optimize all my characters. I take feats useful for combat for combat characters, feats useful for casting with spellcasters skill feats for skillmonkeys and social feats for social characters.


I don't think I'd even consider that optimizing, and definitely not power gaming.



I suppose all of you who "claim" to not optimize your characters all take Skill Focus: Basketweaking for your fighter-types and you take Power Attack for your healers?


I have fond memories of a Fighter I had with ranks in Perform (Violin), but I can't say I've had Skill Focus: Basketweaving or Power Attack on a character who's primary role was healer.



Being good at what your character is supposed to do doesn't make you power gamer/optimizer/munchkin, it makes you a cut above the rest - it makes you an adventurer and hero. In short, it's what being a PC is supposed to be.

I think you are probably using a non-standard definition of power gamer, and since their is no standard definition for optimizier I can't argue with you because we probably have different definitions in mind for the word. I would say using the standard definition of munchkin, having a character that is good at what they do doesn't qualify them as a munchkin on those qualities alone.



I think the problem most "non-powergamers" have is where the emphasis lies - I personally do not think the game should involve OOC decisions and then IC justifications, but rather OOC ideas and then IC implementation. For example, I would not be happy to know that a player of mine decided to say something OOC like "Fighter 3 dumb level. Thog not take." and then find reasons to avoid the class IC - even if they find a good way to roleplay the decision to follow another discipline. The attitude shows a desire to have a good character sheet first, and a good character second.


Each group is going to have their own preferances. My personnal view is that each character should be made inside of a campaign world, so that they are as realistic to that campaign world as can be. Characters should not change on a whim to suit a particular mechanical desire on the part of the player.

If a character was Neutral Good at creation, and then after gaining a few levels discovers an awesome PrC they want to take in the latest splatbook that requires an Evil alignment, they shouldn't change their character's actions/outlook in hopes of having their DM agree to an alignment change.



2) All concepts come from out of character reasoning. When you decide what to take at first level you are saying, "I want to play this type of character." When your character takes second level, you are saying the same thing. All IC concepts stem entirely from your OOC reasoning, so even if you make decisions based on what your character would do, what your character would do was created by your out of character reasoning.


I'll agree that it is a fine line, but I think that you aren't considering the actions a player has their character take in response to IC events that occur.

If a PC encounters a lot of Orcs in their travels, and then on level up decides to pick up Speak Language (Orc) (After hopefully finding a suitable trainer and having informed the DM that they were studying the language for a while, then I would say that is a complete IC reason.

The player is still making the decision, which is of course true for all decisions made by the character, but it came as a result to an IC event, which makes it an IC reason.


I've never even heard of a Paladin of Freedom so I won't try to comment on that one.

Old_el_Paso
2007-12-15, 12:30 AM
I actually had to convince my DM not to let me nor anybody else play a minotaur, ever. Honestly, +8 Strength, +5 natural armor, 6d8 HD, a +6 BAB, and a 4d6+6 gore attack for only +2 Level Adjustment? If a level 3 campaign allowed minotaurs, the DM would either have to adjust the level of the NPCs, who would be able to completely annihilate the other players, or just let the minotaur rip all of his enemies to pieces in one turn.

Kaelik
2007-12-15, 12:30 AM
Why wouldn't a Paladin of Freedom order make sense (although granted I doubt they'd call it an "order")? Rogues have guilds. Barbarians oftentimes form tribes. Bards don't congregate much, but I've seen several Bard colleges in games. Elves almost always have a Monarchy of some kind according to the DMG, sometimes a Magocracy.

Chaotic doesn't mean loaner, or disorganized. More often it just dictates how the structure of the organization would work. A church with a group of Paladins of Freedom would have a loose structure, with little to no rank system, or one based on pure merit and skill. I can, as a DM, totally justify a PoF order. If a player can't come up with an IC reason his character would do or train in something, the character really shouldn't do it.

The point was in the given example that the player gave the IC reason that they were becoming a Paladin of Freedom (which doesn't mean they have to join an Order, even if you make one up.) The Characters belief in whatever tenants they follow (that are chaotic good and free and blah blah) is enough to mean that they should be able to take a level of Paladin of Freedom.

Then the DM throws out some BS about not getting to follow their characters goal because "The Order" doesn't trust them enough, and they need to work themselves in better with an Order?

A Paladin of Freedom's abilities have absolutely nothing to do with some people letting you join there club, and everything to do with your characters beliefs.

I'm not saying Chaotic people don't have groups, I'm saying that they don't form "Orders" where you have to do X, Y, and Z in order to get access to A, B, and C.

Tormsskull
2007-12-15, 12:34 AM
I actually had to convince my DM not to let me nor anybody else play a minotaur, ever. Honestly, +8 Strength, +5 natural armor, 6d8 HD, a +6 BAB, and a 4d6+6 gore attack for only +2 Level Adjustment? If a level 3 campaign allowed minotaurs, the DM would either have to adjust the level of the NPCs, who would be able to completely annihilate the other players, or just let the minotaur rip all of his enemies to pieces in one turn.

You do know that such a character would have an ECL (effective character level) of 8 right? You add the racial hitdice to the level adjustment. So a Minotaur Fighter Level 1 would be running around with level 9 humans.

Idea Man
2007-12-15, 12:39 AM
I actually had to convince my DM not to let me nor anybody else play a minotaur, ever. Honestly, +8 Strength, +5 natural armor, 6d8 HD, a +6 BAB, and a 4d6+6 gore attack for only +2 Level Adjustment? If a level 3 campaign allowed minotaurs, the DM would either have to adjust the level of the NPCs, who would be able to completely annihilate the other players, or just let the minotaur rip all of his enemies to pieces in one turn.

Whoa, don't forget hit dice in that calculation! I believe they have six (sue me for not actually looking it up), so that would make them a viable character in an eighth level game or higher (assuming I guessed right). Or go with a level progression method (Savage Species) and enjoy two levels of "fall behind".

Still, minotaurs are cool enough to be worth the cost. :smallcool:

Edit: nuts, ninja'ed

Titanium Dragon
2007-12-15, 02:02 AM
You obviously missed the point. The point is that if the DM is willing to adjust the difficulty level of encounters down but is unwilling to adjust them up, then he is guilty of hypocracy.

No, you totally missed -our- point. Which is to say the point of reality, and the point of ALL multiplayer games. You fail because you don't understand.

You see, you are trying to overshadow the rest of the party. When you're that much stronger than the rest due to powergaming, to the point where the DM is stopping you from playing them, the problem is not he needs to adjust the encounter level upwards. You see, this is the wrong way to go about it, because you'll continue to overshadow the rest of your party. If you intentionally gimp yourself so as to be a burden on the party, that's actually a lot better from the party's point of view than you being overpowered as time and accomplishments are shared much more evenly; raising encounter level difficulty does not fix this sharing problem and indeed exaggerates it so that the overpowered character contributes all the more and becomes all the more important.

So you see, you have it completely backwards. From a game design standpoint, a single overpowered character is MUCH worse than a single underpowered one. You'd know this if you understood game design, or really, multiplayer games in general, but it is quite apparent that you do not.


Also, a character with a level in everything would have large multiclassing XP penalties, generally making him weaker not only from lack of speciallization, but being levels behind everyone as well.

He'd actually suffer no penalties whatsoever because all of his levels are within a level of one another.


Finally, I would not "tell you" that those were the choices. I would simply do that, and when you got fed up with it and confronted me, and asked "why are you doing this" I would say "the same reason Asmodeous kept popping in and taking the other character's souls".

Again, it is obvious that you are an abusive player. Asmodeus was a way of telling you to shape up or ship out. The correct thing to do there would not have been to use Asmodeus but simply to eject you from the playgroup because you're obviously not willing to "play fair". It is sad that many DMs simply pop in Asmodeus rather than simply ejecting the player, but hey, there's no reason to expect them to have better social skills than you do.

Punishing people's characters for their out of game behavior is bad; if they can't behave out of character, kick them out, don't punish them in-game in hopes of getting rid of them, because these people tend to simply try and make others miserable.


You can do more than insinuate; if you can only role play one type of character, then you're not a good role player.

I disagree; you're not a great role-player, but depending on how -well- you can play that role you could be a good one. As long as that one character is interesting, its okay.


You seem to have some mythical idea that character optimizers build Pun-Pun (or some other equally ridiculous build) in every campaign. Most people don't. As for optimization, sure I optimize all my characters. I take feats useful for combat for combat characters, feats useful for casting with spellcasters skill feats for skillmonkeys and social feats for social characters. I suppose all of you who "claim" to not optimize your characters all take Skill Focus: Basketweaking for your fighter-types and you take Power Attack for your healers?

You're failing here because you're making what is called a "straw man argument"; what people complain about is powergaming, making a munchkin. People aren't arguing against people making a character with logical and interesting feat chains; people are arguing against making characters designed to be overpowered and overshadow the rest of the party. THAT is what powergaming is - your goal is to make an overpowered character.

There's a difference between overpowered and effective, and when you cross that line, you're going into problematic territory.


I am adamantly against the idea that "roleplaying a character as it would fit some optimized build" is "poor roleplaying". That's a major untruth and generalization.

I think it is poor roleplaying when you always are building a powergamed character then building their personality around that. It is fine to play hack and slash with munchkins, but if you're roleplaying the horse needs to be in front of the wagon, so to speak.

It is a flaw in a system when certain character types which are supposed to be balanced against each other aren't, and powergaming is an attempt to create or emphasize such gaps.


Savali is a NG elf bard 8. He helps his party in combat and out of it a lot and is a good party face (mechanics) as well as very characterized and fleshed out (roleplaying). The player likes the idea of taking 2 Paladin of Freedom levels next to help his poor save, all saves and get a good damage/healing ability, and has seen Divine Power feat which he would like to have in the future. His character has been mostly benelovent and helped others, though the law-chaos axis is harder to adjudicate and simply hasn't been important in the game decisions so far.
During the next session, Savali starts seeing things in a different way. He thinks and comes to some conclusions not the same as his previous. Perhaps he has recalled an example of power of individual potential sometime from his life or has started seeing flaws in the government of the country he's in. Eventually, his alignment switches to Chaotic Good, he feels that fighting against evil opression in all forms is something close to him, and he takes a level of Paladin of Freedom, determined to upholds the ideals of CG and the powers above recognize this as true, watching over him (divine grace, lay on hands, detect evil).

DM: OMG You changed to CG because you wanted the abilities! Not fair, you're a poor roleplayer QQQQQQqqqqqq 11!!111!1!noob! You can't take Paladin of Freedom you haven't broken promises or given away your belongings in the game! QQQQQQQqqqqq.....

I don't think it is reasonable to object to legitimate character advancement in this way, though I'd LIKE for the change of heart to have some roleplaying reasons rather than just arbitrary changes. Of course, if you came to me, the DM, and wanted to make such changes, I'd be more than happy to put in stuff to accommodate you and take suggestions on how and why you'd like your character to change so I can incorporate them...

And gradual random change is fine. But suddden change for no apparent reason, not so much. Not that having you change to CG over the course of, say, the 3-5 sessions it'd take to get you a level, but if it is a fairly rapid shift I'd like to know why. I don't mind that there are OOC reasons for it, but it should be justified IC and asking the DM for help implementing such things is perfectly acceptable. If you wanted to suddenly shift to CG, maybe I could incorporate some corruption or whatever into some adventures, put them under an authoritarian, ect. that might change their mind.

Basically, the purpose of roleplaying games is to have an experience, not to win. Powergamers are attempting to win, not to have the experience. And that's a fundamentally unhealthy attitude to take to an RPG.

KIDS
2007-12-15, 06:46 AM
Glad I managed to stirr up some more discussion without any flames being thrown around; keep it up like that!

Anyways, I think Kaelik did sum it up quite right.

The point was in the given example that the player gave the IC reason that they were becoming a Paladin of Freedom (which doesn't mean they have to join an Order, even if you make one up.) The Characters belief in whatever tenants they follow (that are chaotic good and free and blah blah) is enough to mean that they should be able to take a level of Paladin of Freedom.

Then the DM throws out some BS about not getting to follow their characters goal because "The Order" doesn't trust them enough, and they need to work themselves in better with an Order?

A Paladin of Freedom's abilities have absolutely nothing to do with some people letting you join there club, and everything to do with your characters beliefs.

I'm not saying Chaotic people don't have groups, I'm saying that they don't form "Orders" where you have to do X, Y, and Z in order to get access to A, B, and C.

About necessity of organization:
Apart from often nonsensical WotC descriptions of classes, particularly "advancement" chapters which always describe classes as being able to train only when together, even when they are loners, I'd guess that an order of those is just fine. Of course, you can just as easily find a convincing IC reason for why there isn't such an order. There is no preset law, not even DM decision, that governs whether there is an order or not. That said, there are often funny examples:
...Class: Avenging Executioners are lone, driven and vengeful individuals.
...Advancement: Avenging Executioners gather in secret cabals to train with each other.
WHAT THE!!!!
-> I don't expect WotC to follow common sense, but in cases like this (and many tamer ones), DM should think carefully of whether this organization has any reasons for existence.

With above said, yep, neither do even Paladins. I could see Druids as being necessarily in organization, since they have a language as a class feature, likely Wizards, and everything else... no one cares. It should be left entirely up to what makes a better story.

For those who followed my example, the said Bard was an example of how someone had an OOC goal (to increase survivability though not power of his character), which was not a "true fit" (if there is one, and I think that in 99% cases there isn't) but was at least "quite reasonable" and invented an IC story about it. It is about motivation. Follow the line:

OOC desire (wants to take Paladin of Freedom) -> OOC motivation (would this fit and how could it fit?) -> IC reasoning (character rethinks his ways and observes from different point of view) -> IC desire (character realizes his role in the world and wants to take up a mantle of a liberator) -> IC story (when he is confronted with a situation with a somewhat tangible outcome depending on alignment, stands up for someone opressed or something) -> OOC achievement (takes level of Paladin of Freedom) -> IC achievment (becomes a divinely inspired bard/wanderer with a guardian angel or special fortune as long as he stays that way)

In this case, there was an OOC desire, which led to OOC motivation and then IC process. If the player shown/roleplayed it ok (which above would imply) then yes, I think that anyone saying that it being less worth due to being a first OOC decision or it not being what he expected of a character would be grossly arrogant. You should be happy to find someone who roleplays and does so well for any motivation rather than someone who follows "IC decisions" the whole time (not that it is bad, but can you truly define an "IC decision"?) but describes them in a meaningless or goofy fashion.
We are also not talking about someone who just powergames and doesn't roleplay anything, because for such a person no one would allow even a simple transition like Ranger->Fighter. Same would go if a character just without any previous announcement, intent or description, said "I'm taking Paladin of Freedom". That I wouldn't allow, for Paladin or any other class.
But I do agree that roleplaying is more important, at least for me. Roleplaying is goal and game mechanics are tools.

One common rebuke to this "OOC desire" is "but it's not original!!!". Well, who cares that it's not original? The world you play in is not original either. It's not originality that makes anything good, it's characterization, description, personality, theme, in any order.
For further illustration consider this Q&A which is often asked at writers' advice or similar websites/gatherings:

Q1: "Will a publisher steal my book?"
A1: "No. Such things are easily uncovered. Any publisher even remotely suspected of doing that would be out of business pretty quick. Publishers don't steal books."

Q2: "What if he doesn't steal my book - instead he can steal other things - will a publisher steal my idea instead?"
A2: No. Publishers don't steal ideas. Anyone can come up with an idea. It is only execution that matters. A bad writer will not produce something as good from an awesome and original idea, compared to someone who is a good writer with any idea. A good writer can write well - not superbly, but well - about anything, and that includes common ideas you could gather by stopping people on the street and asking them for one. That is not to say that idea has no influence, but it is secondary. That is why publishers don't steal books, let alone steal ideas. An idea alone is worthless to them."

Now one might say, "here is your example but that's one case, there is still a trend of someone optimizing being a poor roleplayer". Really, there isn't. I don't think there's ever been such a study, I've gamed with hundreds if not thousands of people online (less in RL) and there was never a corellation between the two that I could see. I personally think that if there was one, it would be more likely to be a positive corellation, but that's just me. Anyone is free to disagree, but all I ask is: Give everyone a chance.

As a side note, think about this: an adventure, at least a common adventure as found in a bought module, but also many other adventures, does not leave much room for expression. People will roleplay and if they're any good you will get a glimpse of what their characters are and how they behave. But never presume that you know what their characters are, because that's playing others' characters.
The only excuse for that is when an (IC or OOC) choice is distrupting an adventure like a NE Rogue with good group or something that derails the adventure like it getting off track and becoming centered around one PC's quest, but in all other cases, my suggestion is to stop worrying about phantom RP purity and look at the provided motivation and, from it, roleplaying, as a blessing.

p.s. dissecting posts into multiple quotes is not nice; I appreciate replies as normal replies, if there are any.

MartinHarper
2007-12-15, 07:10 PM
According to the player's handbook, "No one ever chooses to be a paladin. Becoming a paladin is answering a call, accepting one's destiny."

That doesn't really work with the idea of an in-character decision to become a paladin, as far as I can see.

KIDS
2007-12-15, 07:25 PM
An in character decision is a change of feeling and realizing what you should be. Come to think of it some more, most people continually realize through life more of what they should be.

But I just picked Paladin for example, maybe because it was naturally controversial. It could have been something as benign as Ranger->Sorcerer or Rogue/Wizard/Unseen Seer->Abjurant Champion.

MartinHarper
2007-12-15, 08:22 PM
I guess if I was playing Savali, the NG bard, I'd be looking for more of a "road to Damascus" moment. Sudden realisation that Freedom is as important as Goodness. Shining lights from the heavens. A vision from an appropriate CG deity. Instantaneous conversion in terms of both religion and alignment. That's what the flavour text says to me, anyway. The call to be a paladin can come to anyone, and Chaotic powers might not always pick the obvious choices.

It'd seem odd for the DM to say "that's out of character for Savali", because it's not Savali that's acting. Instead, Savali is being acted upon.

Similarly, being a Sorcerer is something that happens to a character, not something a character chooses to do. Nobody gets to puberty and thinks "hey, I think I'll start manifesting spontaneous, uncontrolled and potentially dangerous magical powers".

MeklorIlavator
2007-12-15, 10:37 PM
According to the player's handbook, "No one ever chooses to be a paladin. Becoming a paladin is answering a call, accepting one's destiny."

That doesn't really work with the idea of an in-character decision to become a paladin, as far as I can see.

I think that quotes a bit misleading. I interpert it that anyone that is going to become a paladin is destined to because of what they are: very decent people who would confront evil/horrors so others don't have to, like it says in this goblins comic (http://goblinscomic.com/d/20061223.html) on the last three panels.

Deepblue706
2007-12-16, 03:39 AM
According to the player's handbook, "No one ever chooses to be a paladin. Becoming a paladin is answering a call, accepting one's destiny."

That doesn't really work with the idea of an in-character decision to become a paladin, as far as I can see.

Uh.....yeah....

Like Meklor said.