Optimization and DM's: A vicious cycle?

[Hawk7915]

*Puts on flame-retardant suit
The posting of this thead partially comes about from reading over This one concerning fighters.

So, I’ve been thinking. A lot of arguments on the boards are that The X (insert non-Batman wizard, DMM-Persist Cleric, Druidzilla, or ToB Class here) are bad because in any given situation they are not as good at doing stuff as above classes and should thus be scrapped.

Okay, well, maybe that isn’t totally true and probably a little unfair to most people here, so let’s be more specific. Here’s one example: Sword-and-Board Dwarven Defender is a terrible idea because the monster will just attack squishy wizards and rogues while you sit there in your metal suit. Indeed, a shield is always a waste of time since you do MOAR DAMAGE with Power Attack Greatsword. It is obviously more optimal to build a Spiked-chain abusing fighter and/or a Leap Attack Shocktrooper who just kills enemies on the first action or locks them out of the fight. Then you win (whatever “winning” means in a tabletop RPG game…)!

That’s true, of course…except for one problem. The monster is controlled by the DM. The DM’s primary purpose, I thought, was to be a “programmer” who creates a fun and enjoyable play experience. Am I mistaken in this assessment? So what sort of programmer looks at the options some classes have, and then negates them with a smile? I mean, if my player wanted a Sword and Board frontline defender in 3.5, what sort of sadist would I be to say “No, Timmy. No fighter for you. The <monster of the day> ignores you and kills Jim. You should really just be a wizard, kid”. If the DM’s job is to make things enjoyable for everyone, than he should have the Evil Wizard or the Dragon engage that shouting knight, since in heroic fantasy that’s what it SHOULD do, even though it is not tactically optimal. Maybe my fantasy lore is less-than-perfect, but in most fantasy settings the bad guys do hit the armored tanks. Otherwise LotR would have ended at Weathertop, when the Nazgul all decided “screw the crazy ranger with the torch/sword combo and hundreds of HP, let’s kill those squishy hobbits!”.

Of course, the title of my thread indicates that there is more to it than that. Clearly, some DM’s do not see it that way, and do purposely harass the Batman wizard and ignore the fighter. And why? Because once one person optimizes like crazy, the DM feels like they have to too. To make a challenge. So then it pushes players to optimize more, probably coming onto these boards to find that Shock Trooper build, which pushes DM’s to play each Dragon like Sun Tzu…and so on, and so on.

I recently had this very thing happen to me: I was playing instead of DM'ing for my group, and I rolled a Duskblade and asked for help here. I didn't even do it super-optimal (he's still S&B, doesn't have Power Attack or True Strike, and is a few levels off from Arcane Strike). Still, just having Ray of Enfeeblement, which my DM had never seen before because every wizard we'd had until then was a "good guy who banned necromancy", altered and trivialized our first few encounters. My DM was a good sport and still had everyone leave the beguiler alone and focus on me (S&B) and our big dumb barbarian, but after the session warned me that if I don't watch it, she'll start arbitrarily giving monsters +10 strength. Then, one of these days I'll roll a 1 on my touch attack and someone will get one-shot as a result.

So my argument is this: The DM is failing to do his job by invalidating certain builds and styles, and is pushed to this failure by optimizers.

Some may call this a subset of the Oberoni fallacy (I am only passingly familiar with it, so I hope I got it right). I respectfully disagree. The Oberoni fallacy comes in when DM’s purposely ignore or change rules to “fix” a problem (giving the Monk a +3 Robe of Heavy Fortification that, by RAW, cannot exist, for example)…i.e. Oberoni Fallacy is when DM’s use and abuse rule zero to fix an unbalanced system. But Rule 1 is to make sure your players have fun, and the game breaks down when DM’s play monsters “Tucker smart” and go against that rule, causing a vicious cycle of optimization by players and further departure from his duties for the DM.
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Tl;dr version: Optimization unhealthily pushes DM’s to do encounters that quickly trivialize all non-optimizers and breaks down the game.

That’s my rant…thoughts?

[The Neoclassic]

*Puts on flame-retardant suit
The posting of this thead partially comes about from reading over This one concerning fighters.

Not familiar with that thread, but this seems an interesting topic and I've no desire to start flaming about the matter.

The monster is controlled by the DM. The DM’s primary purpose, I thought, was to be a “programmer” who creates a fun and enjoyable play experience. Am I mistaken in this assessment? So what sort of programmer looks at the options some classes have, and then negates them with a smile? I mean, if my player wanted a Sword and Board frontline defender in 3.5, what sort of sadist would I be to say “No, Timmy. No fighter for you. The <monster of the day> ignores you and kills Jim. You should really just be a wizard, kid”.

Yes and no. The DM's job is indeed to make the game enjoyable. At least in my experience, the DM needs to balance challenge, realism, and fun. Purposefully screwing over non-optimized characters in the majority of encounters is, in my opinion, not fun and frankly dumb. In a group that is heavily focused on optimizing and optimizing alone, they might be happy with that, but usually players don't want to be penalized for making an interesting character that isn't pushed to the highest combat abilities possible (no, I'm not saying that optimized characters can never be interesting roleplay wise!).

If the DM’s job is to make things enjoyable for everyone, than he should have the Evil Wizard or the Dragon engage that shouting knight, since in heroic fantasy that’s what it SHOULD do, even though it is not tactically optimal. Maybe my fantasy lore is less-than-perfect, but in most fantasy settings the bad guys do hit the armored tanks. Otherwise LotR would have ended at Weathertop, when the Nazgul all decided “screw the crazy ranger with the torch/sword combo and hundreds of HP, let’s kill those squishy hobbits!”.

See, for me, this would interfere in my realism! Enemies shouldn't always make the best choices, since emotions or logical failures (or just failing to notice something) would sometimes lead to error. However, a group of intelligent enemies just hitting the guys with armor when spellcasters with few defenses are standing just fifteen feet away? To me, that is silly. I like a balance of smart tactics and realism with my fun. Heck, if monsters are stereotypically poor at strategy ("Hey, let's just hit the guy with the highest AC!") that would not be fun to me. However, if I was constantly up against enemies with amazing and merciless tactics, I would not enjoy that either. Different groups have different ideas of fun in combat (or even regarding how much combat), but I think most like some sort of balance. The DM's job is to find what works best for the group, within reasonable bounds.

Clearly, some DM’s do not see it that way, and do purposely harass the Batman wizard and ignore the fighter. And why? Because once one person optimizes like crazy, the DM feels like they have to too. To make a challenge. So then it pushes players to optimize more, probably coming onto these boards to find that Shock Trooper build, which pushes DM’s to play each Dragon like Sun Tzu…and so on, and so on.

Ah, yes. However, I'd argue that any DM who allows his character to reach Batman wizard level is kind of to blame. Why are you letting this character have access to any and all spells and splatbooks at their whim? If you are willing to do that, you need to be prepared to deal with the consequences, unfortunately.

So my argument is this: The DM is failing to do his job by invalidating certain builds and styles, and is pushed to this failure by optimizers.

If the DM is going to invalidate certain builds or styles (other than ones which are purposefully designed for strangeness with little combat usefulness), he should communicate this to his players at the character creation stage of the campaign. It's fine to say "Look, you're going to the Elemental Plane of Fire, so if you plan on being a fireball throwing mage, you are going to have a tough time killing anything."

In conclusion, the DM being aware of his group's wants, needs, and playing style is vital to having fun. If some players are into serious optimizing and others are most certainly not, the DM needs to find a balance or perhaps mediate the matter outside of actual playing session time so they can all figure out something that works and lets everyone (except for ridiculously rude, disruptive, or selfish players, who should not be invited back, of course) have a good time.

[kalt]

I would tend to agree that a large gap in between player characters will cause problems. Thing is though is that every character has it's weaknesses. Wizards have a limited amount of spells and if they try to rest put things on a timer. Super melee characters are just that melee characters so there are plenty of ways around that. You are correct though one optimized character can cause a DM that isn't worth his salt lots and lots of headaches.

[ChaosDefender24]

You know, if the players and DM are mature, they can work out a set power level, and the DM looks at the characters and their abilities beforehand, makes sure the party's balanced (unless the players for some reason want it to be otherwise), and plans the encounters accordingly (or vice versa if the DM wants a certain power level). Then, there should be no issue.

If the DM and/or the PCs are immature about it, this kind of thing will happen. For every DM who power trips by cranking up the difficulty arbitrarily whenever the players seem to have a fighting chance, there's a player who tells his DM that he's going to play a "ranger" and shows up with a wild shape ranger who PrC'ed into MoMF, took Frozen Wildshape and Assume Supernatural Ability, and spends the game walking around with a 33d6 damage breath weapon. It's because of these few bad players that "optimizers" are often portrayed as these goons who want to break the game. But I can optimize fairly well; one of my characters was a level 13 swiftblade who took on CR 17 encounters solo with little difficulty. There was an understanding that the campaign was to be high-powered, however. The next game, I played a monk, and me and the other level 6 character got TPK'ed by a CR 4 encounter, because we had decided to play characters that were low-powered. I dearly hope that optimizers with brains are the majority.

[Kantolin]

I think the biggest problem with optimization is when two people are at different levels of it.

This tends to not happen when you have your average party; while the monk is likely contributing less than the wizard, on average both are capable of doing enough that this isn't a big deal.

But when your fairly normal party of a fairly unoptimized bard, a wizard, a cleric, and a fighter gains an ubercharger who deals sixty billion damage per hit, then the DM has to account for that in anything he intends to be a challenge, resulting in the bar being raised higher.

Anyway, I do agree with your initial idea: If the DM intends to ignore someone who wants to be a frontliner because they don't do enough damage, said DM should be up front about this - at least as soon as he realizes what's going on.

Also, using/abusing rule zero to balance things is actually not a problem. I believe the fallacy comes when people use 'But the DM can house rule to fix it' to suggest that 'it' isn't a problem in the first place. When confronted with a problem, I don't think there are any problems with heavy appliance of rule zero for the purpose of fun. :P

[Random NPC]

I think it all boils down to this: The party is a group of people that should work as a team. And this should be applied even before character creation. Those who know how to optimize should help those who don't how to make a better character.

After that, the party should fulfill different roles and they should all help each other in order to pass the encounters. This mentality is the idea behind the Batman wizard. Batman wizard does not invalidate a role in the party and assumes it, he should enhance the other roles in order to finish off a threat, like weakening the enemies for the fighter to finish off, buff the rogue so he can infiltrate the camp and live through the experience, help the cleric protect the well being of the whole party, etc.

Now, when you have a character that is doing everything selfishly, then you don't have an optimization problem, you have a player problem. That includes the DM, who may have the mentality of DM vs. PCs, when it should be PCs and DM vs. The Ultimate Evil™

[Sucrose]

I agree very much with the random NPC. It seems as though basically all problems in D&D, whether optimization or roleplaying, are player or DM problems, not really style problems.

As long as everyone knows enough about the system to make a character about on par with everyone else's, and abides by the house rule of "Don't be a douche," everything tends to work out well.

It's only when those two conditions are broken that we get serious problems.

As what I said is kind of a non-answer to the thread, to be on topic, I'd say that optimization is only a problem when it's employed by a munchkin, someone who actually wants to hog the spotlight, rather than just take his fair share. An optimizer with a conscience will just pick a build out of his repertoire that is on the same level as the rest of the party (and, if he really wants to get the gamist spark out of his system, he'll just optimize a weak concept), which will result in the DM planning encounters that challenge the whole group, without making any of them superfluous.

Optimization doesn't kill games, douches kill games.

[Lycanthromancer]

Thing is, it's way too easy to accidentally invalidate any given fighter over the course of the game, when actively attempting to do so to any given wizard is just damnably difficult. Unless you layer every battlefield with dead magic areas, in which case fighters are going to suck even more than they already do.

If a given scenario negates a charger fighter's primary schtick (say, anything not related directly to 'I hit its AC' or 50-75% of the things that are, like terrain or flight), the fighter can't do anything about it. If another scenario negates a scorching ray-spamming wizard's schtick, he has any of three dozen other tricks up his sleeve that he can use as backup.

Also, it takes a LOT of really good optimization to make a fighter worthwhile in a lot of situations. It takes a LOT of really poor optimization to make a mage worthless in almost any situation.

A DM doesn't have to go out of his way to inconvenience a fighter player. On the contrary; he has to go out of his way to provide things for the fighter to do. He has to make sure the fighter's one or two tricks are useful in most scenarios, primarily because so many things are capable of negating them so very, very casually.

[Tehnar]

Lets not turn this into a fighter vs wizard debate. I find there are lots of ways of challenging a party with a wizard and a fighter, without rendering either of those useless. If you want Ill start a different thread about it. But yes, it takes a bit more work on the DM side.

Back to topic: I found that optimizing leads to a nuclear arms race between the PCs and the DM. Basicaly at higher levels, and if this persists long enough, you have the situation where one side completely annihilates the other in a few rounds. Its not pretty and its not fun. However this thankfully doesn't take place until PCs become one trick ponies, and monsters a amalgam of templates.

[Flickerdart]

The DM should just have a few Emerald Legion troops or Lernean Mutli-Headed Half-Golem Bat Swarms up his sleeve to smite the optimizers with. Can't out-arms-race that.

[AslanCross]

Whenever I DM, I always help the players with their character builds so that I know (and can somewhat control) what they can do with their characters. I don't say "You can't do that no matter what you do," I usually come up with a fluff argument as to why they can't do it. I've never had players protest such restrictions so far (then again, my players are mostly my students, so they're really not prone to protesting).

I learned not to just let anything and everything slide, because in the Eberron game I'm in, I've seen some pretty retarded things happen because of the DM allowing a lot of things, including 3rd-party material. 3rd-party material hasn't been so bad (Pathfinder rogue, for example), but there are some that've really nerfed certain encounters. The Grinder Room in Eyes of the Lich Queen, for example, is supposed to be a dangerous trap that everyone has to move through carefully.

My warforged warblade charged through the last few blade columns, successfully saving and taking 3 damage thanks to his DR. The rogue was wearing an armored greatcoat from Iron Kingdoms. He took no damage at all. <_< (As such I've banned Iron Kingdoms from my upcoming Eberron run of Red Hand of Doom).

I think communication and a mature agreement between the DM and players should prevent D&D, which should be a fun heroic fantasy game, into a silly arms race.

[Temp.]

In some regards, I agree. The party is exactly as big as the DM lets them be, no bigger. A Soulborn/Dragon Disciple/Spellthief/Shadowcaster party is going to have just as hard a time in combat as a Beguiler/Archivist/Wizard/Artificer group. Character optimization is not a way to meet in-game ends. But it can be an end in itself.

CO to me is a puzzle, tying together the disjointed ends of a gaming system for one goal, whatever it may be. Whether it's generating the most damage per round, stacking the most Domains onto a single Cleric or trying to make a Wizard out of a Lurk, I enjoy it. And I realize it doesn't make anything any easier for me.

I don't think the DM is "failing to do his job by invalidating certain builds and styles" in a heavy-optimization group. If this is the style of game players like (and you can probably assume it is if they're the ones instigating it), the DM is succeeding in catering to a certain nerd mentality. If this isn't the style of game players like, escalation won't occur in the first place. And if there's a divide in player preferances while this happens, the fault is a failure of communication and compromise.

But what you say about dumbing down opponents to fight the Fighter who can't hurt them and who they can't touch--even while the Rogue stabs them in the back and the Wizard is raining hell upon them--I disagree with. Maybe against enemies with the intelligence of a cow, but your average person? No. There's a point where that sort of stupidity becomes unreasonable. Unless the players are equally threatening to the baddies (replace the Rogue with Ranger, replace Wizard with Warlock), they should be able to tell who is and who is not a threat and should act accordingly, in my opinion.

[arguskos]

I basically agree that:
1. Those who wish to ruin the game with overpowering optimization will do so, no matter what the DM does. These people are the real issue.
2. If the DM and group are all on the same page as to the power level of the game, it's all good.

I'd probably add that I play monsters/baddies/whatever at the correct intelligence for what they are. A baddie with Int 5 WILL stand there and beat down whatever is in his path, unless something REALLY damages him, in which case the new stimulus changes his priorities. Something with an Int of 21? Yeah, he has advanced threat analysis and will destroy the major issues before they become such, leaving the irrelevant stuff for later.

That's just me though. On another note, really great opening post. Well thought out and enjoyable, thanks for sharing!

[Aron Times]

Not to start an edition war, but this is one of my reasons for switching to 4E. I don't have to hold back on monster tactics in 4E; I can go all out and know that each member of the party won't feel useless.

This is not the case in 3.5. I found myself having to hold back a lot on creature tactics, that is, dumbing them down so my players could reach level 2 and beyond. If I used intelligent tactics with the monsters that my starting party is fighting, it will almost always lead to a TPK.

It gets even worse when everyone has varying levels of CharOp knowledge. If I hold back, the optimizers will get bored. If I go all out, the non-optimizers will get pwned.

This leads me to another reason for switching to 4E. The gap between optimal and suboptimal is a lot smaller than in 3.5. As long as the player doesn't intentionally gimp his character (e.g. playing a wizard with 8 intelligence or a fighter with 8 strength), he will be able to pull his weight even if I go all out with monster tactics. And when I'm a player, I like how my optimized characters can fight side-by-side with suboptimal ones without making them feel useless.

Don't get me wrong; 3E and 3.5 were awesome for their time. They were a lot simpler compared to earlier editions, which meant less page-flipping to find that one table to compare your roll to.

4E is even more streamlined than 3.5, solving most of its flaws. After playing and DMing 4E, there's no turning back for me. In the end, I just want to play, and 4E lets me play with minimal headaches (I guess I'm a gamist player).

[Myrmex]

Thing is, it's way too easy to accidentally invalidate any given fighter over the course of the game, when actively attempting to do so to any given wizard is just damnably difficult. Unless you layer every battlefield with dead magic areas, in which case fighters are going to suck even more than they already do.

If a given scenario negates a charger fighter's primary schtick (say, anything not related directly to 'I hit its AC' or 50-75% of the things that are, like terrain or flight), the fighter can't do anything about it. If another scenario negates a scorching ray-spamming wizard's schtick, he has any of three dozen other tricks up his sleeve that he can use as backup.

Also, it takes a LOT of really good optimization to make a fighter worthwhile in a lot of situations. It takes a LOT of really poor optimization to make a mage worthless in almost any situation.

A DM doesn't have to go out of his way to inconvenience a fighter player. On the contrary; he has to go out of his way to provide things for the fighter to do. He has to make sure the fighter's one or two tricks are useful in most scenarios, primarily because so many things are capable of negating them so very, very casually.

There's plenty of stuff a wizard can do, though, for his party. In my experience, wizards spend more time putting up stuff like haste, slow, enfeeblement, and other buffs/debuffs, which makes the fighter-types useful. This doesn't make the wizard any less of a headache for the DM, but it does let everyone contribute fairly to a fight. Some of the best mage optimization involves buffing, rather than outright death rays.

I think the biggest problem is when you have players filling similar niches. Rogues are often outshone by charger builds since a charger only needs a standard action and 10' of space to hurt the bejeezus out of something, while the rogue must gain concealment AND get into a position to make a full attack. Rogues get a lot of love on these boards, since they can do a lot of SA damage with the TWF chain, but honestly, how often do you get a full attack? Fighter-types tend to do very consistent damage regardless of the situation, while rogues are going to do more poorly vs undead, fortified armor, DR, constructs, enemies with true sight, see invis, etc. So rogues are either very, very hot, where they slay something in a single brutal full attack, or near useless (unless they're pretending to be a caster with UMD, but anyone can UMD, so that doesn't really count).

[Nohwl]

as long as everyone in the group is about as strong as each other (or if one person is much better, but holds back) i dont see a problem with optimization. its a problem if you have one really good person and everyone else just isnt good.

[Zincorium]

Any experienced DM who is interested and cares about the game won't play with the vicious cycle unless that's the point.

If the DM, talk to your players. If a player, talk to the DM. And figure out how difficult the game should be. Work out a compromise.

Because some people like being superman (i.e. only threatened when the plot requires it). And other people go all the way to the 'holy cow, we're the mooks!'. But most like something in the middle. Don't try to attain some nebulous 'balanced' game if that's not what's going to be fun for your group.

[Kaihaku]

You know, if the players and DM are mature, they can work out a set power level, and the DM looks at the characters and their abilities beforehand, makes sure the party's balanced (unless the players for some reason want it to be otherwise), and plans the encounters accordingly (or vice versa if the DM wants a certain power level). Then, there should be no issue.

That's been my experience as well.

[Urthdigger]

I've always considered optimizing for optimization's sake to be a fool's game. While it works in computer games where there are hard rules on what can do what, probably the best thing about D&D is that it can be altered by the DM. So, while there may be an optimized build as far as the SRD is concerned, the DM is free to nerf or buff things as he sees fit.

The even more foolhardy part is trying to get into a competition with the DM, because you cannot win. If you view it as a contest to see who can be the strongest, you or the DM's monsters and consider every game you survive as a triumph over the DM's creativity, know that it isn't the case at all. The difference between the player and the DM is that the player is bound by the DM's rules, and the player has to earn xp. There's nothing stopping the DM from tossing out an ancient red dragon to wipe the floor with you at level 1, or homebrewing a monster in 5 seconds so powerful that it can turn the whole party into raspberry jelly before the first round is over no matter what your level is.

More than anything is the fact that if I wanted a game where the point was to see how many levels I could gain so I could kill orcs easier, I'd go play a video game. This is Dungeons & Dragons, a game where both the creator and the players are limited by nothing except their imagination. I encourage players to not only stray from the uber optimal cliched setups, but to see just how interesting and unique they can be. You want your familiar to be an even bigger part of the character than the wizard? Go for it. You want to fight by throwing hammers at the enemy? I'm sure the blacksmith will give a discount to a frequent customer. This ain't Final Fantasy or World of Warcraft, you can be anything you want here. So do it.

[Moofaa]

This touches on one of the worse points about 3.5. There are so many supplements for multiclass/presitge classing that its far too tempting for players to end up with half-dragon fighter/mage/swordtheif/warduid/godzilla as their class.

I pretty much don't allow supplements in my games, and prefer to limit people to two classes. I don't mind optimization, but getting overzealous with it means getting the DM treatment.

My current game consists of a standard sorceror and a fighter/rogue. The fighter/rogue has done some optimization with feats/skills/etc and of course can dish out some damage to the poor enemies that sometimes don't have a chance.

My solution? A recurring goblin commander that happens to have taken the same levels in fighter and rogue, the same weapon choices, the same feats, etc. Made for some interesting and fun confrontations.

Additionally, I prefer to influence battles so that its melee vs melee, range vs range, etc. My players seem to appreciate this and fall into their respective roles easily, and on occasion its an actual pleasant surpise when things get changed up.

[Kantolin]

While mildly off topic as well, insofar as 4e is concerned, a topic similar to this that can be found here, so 4e analysis on the subject should probably head there or to a new topic:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104644

Back on topic, I have also noted that when the most useful character in the party is weakening enemies and buffing allies, while this does indeed still put some stress on the DM... it's usually acceptable for the rest of the party. Everyone's doing things, everyone's feeling awesome, and thus it usually does promote good feelings - so in a party, that's probably the safest way to powergame a bit without being nuts about it.

Still, that does promote stress for the DM, so it's still something to ask first.

Also, most people who go nuts with trying out a variety of new things end up being relatively poor at most of them - we had a wizard/sorceror/harper mage and a ranger/rogue/warmage, and neither was of terrible relevance as in both cases the characters were just flowing with where the campaign seemed to guide them.

[PinkysBrain]

You should really just be a wizard, kid”.

No instead she should say ... "Okay Timmy, because you want to refuse to play the class which fits your character concept I'll just play all the monsters as idiots and make suspense of disbelief impossible for everyone else ... everyone say thank you Timmy!"

Optimization finds ways to make a character concept work ... he should be a Knight, or a tripper or something ... you know someone who can actually keep someone from attacking Jim, rather than relying on hand outs from the DM.

The high survivability low threat melee combatant who relies on pure metagaming to make a difference in combat is a terrible idea, Shocktrooper is a terrible idea as well. Two wrongs don't make a right. Relying on metagaming to avoid overpowered characters on one hand and more metagaming to facilitate badly played characters on the other doesn't make for an interesting game IMO.

Your DM should houserule shocktrooper into oblivion and stop throwing single melee opponent encounters at you so often ...

[aje8]

As long as everyone is on the same level of optimization, there will be no porblem. Even if they're different if Batman buffs the fighter to high heaven and debuffs the enemies the fighter will be useful.

The DM nerfing his own tactic to make an extremely weak build unplayable would destroy the realism of my game. I couldn't really stand a DM doing this honestly.

High Power is fine in the right campain and the esclating power you're talking about can be fun!

A campain I played a while ago had me playing GOD Wizard going Master Specalist-> Fatespinner and a DMM Codzilla cleric with some blasting thrown for good measure. We (just the two of us) would regularly take down encounters FAR above our CR and it was quite fun. The increasing power of the encounters made it a challenge, not an arms race.

[Thrawn183]

You know, in principle, sure balance doesn't matter because players can figure out what the level of optimization is supposed to be. Unfortunately, that has never worked out in a single campaign I've been a part of.

The people who complain about balance all the time? Make reasonable characters. Send me their character sheets ahead of time so I know what their characters are and will tone something down if I ask. The people who claim that balance isn't important because we can all be mature about it? Always seem to bring the most optimized characters they can build. Funny how it always seems to work out that way.

Then you also have the players who are new. I really try to tone down the most egregious powergaming for their sake. And mine really, its tough when someone has a full-caster with full-caster cohort and you're trying to figure out a challenge where the TWF fighter will shine.

Another point? The optimized characters never seem to be all that interesting. You know? I think the last year has really converted me on some of these arguments. There's theory and reality. Reality often makes me very sad.

[Leon]

Optimization is what you make of it.

The Game can be played quite happily without optimization.
I think quite a few people that come on here and ask for help are not interested in having the absolute maximum squeezed out of the idea they had, most probably want a suggestion or prod in a suitable direction but they get blasted with the full force of optimo-crap and told to play X, Y or Z as its better, powerful etc.

Some granted are after the full optimal workout but not all.

I personally like to have a Character that works to a Idea, regardless of where that idea may lead it - hence why I'm currently playing a Archivist with 2 lvls of Barbarian and future plans to go into a PrC thats not remotely a Spell casting one. We have a Halfling Monk in the party, a Pyro Evoker, a Sword and Board Fighter, a Spartan halfling Paladin, a Draconic Flavor Sorceress, a Half Elf Cleric (who i know really not much about) and a useless duskblade.
They are all normal PCs played by Normal players, in some cases I've had to help point them in the right direction as most of them are still more acquainted with the way 2nd Ed did things but that's a minor thing that comes with edition change.

When i DM i don't brook with Optimal junk from players, people who play with me know that and those that are new pick that up fairly quick (most do...)
Cos a Falling Rock does not miss. I typically run a harder hitting game but PCs are normally well geared or smart enough to deal with it and i reward good character role playing

[Lycanthromancer]

Repeat after me: "Optimization is not a bad thing."

After all, playing a TWF wizard who wields a mundane greatsword, doesn't cast buff spells, and wears mundane full-plate with full ASF without using Still Spell and all his spells use somatic components? Completely unoptimized.

Also completely unplayable.

You have to optimize somewhat to be at all useful. Otherwise you end up with stupid stuff like the above. You CAN make a greatsword-wielding, full-plate-wearing wizard and still be viable, but you must optimize for it.

It's part of making a character in 3.5. Optimization is necessary, to some degree; otherwise, you can't make the mechanics of any character work. Period.

For example, mundane and martial characters require considerably more optimization to work than most casters do (moreso or less so, depending on the systems used), simply because of the d20 paradigm. You have to optimize out the wazoo to keep up with even a lukewarm caster. Otherwise, you end up with a one-trick pony that the DM has to work to keep things interesting for.

Attempting to achieve triple-digit numbers by level 5 is going overboard, of course, and as so there's a limit to the amount of optimization necessary.

However, saying 'optimization is bad!' with no qualifiers and no limits to the statement lead to the aforementioned wizard in full-plate. There are concepts that you simply cannot make work in D&D unless you tweak the system through optimization. Even using a warblade instead of a fighter or rogue for a sword-and-board type, or a wizard instead of an adept as a blaster is optimizing, since you're using a class better suited for the role of choice.

Being completely unoptimized is using any and all options that are the most useless ones you have available.

Yes, there's a limit to how much optimization you should use on any one character concept; the ideal amount depends on four things, mainly:

1.) The tiers of classes used by the players in the campaign in question. Stronger classes lead to stronger characters, given the same amount of optimization.

2.) The optimization skills of the players you're playing with. Poor optimization leads to weaker characters, and nobody wants their character relegated to the backburner 100% of the time simply because someone else can do their schtick better than they can.

3.) The agreed-upon power level of the group. There needs to be a clear-cut idea in everyone's heads as to what the general level of optimization and power of the group. That way you don't have person A making Pun Pun and person B making Nup Nup.

4.) The optimization level necessary to make your character concept function appropriate to reasons 1-3. Some concepts simply require more work to make than others. Sword-and-board style takes a much higher level of opt-fu than a two-hander does, for example. And sometimes a character concept is so far from the standard D&D mechanics that it takes a LOT of optimization to make work. Not that this is a bad thing; a roleplaying system like D&D has to be able to encompass a wide range of character concepts (certainly larger than one designed to emulate real life; fantasy is a mix of everything that does and doesn't exist, after all). Not everything is mechanically-viable within the (relatively) limited framework of D&D, and sometimes it takes some gymnastics to make the infinitude of concepts work to the point of playability.

Some people spit out 'optimization' as if it were a curse-word. However, it's simply a matter of making a character powerful enough to hold his own against monsters that, in real life, would be able to stomp through cities, take down tanks and aircraft, and occasionally a direct barrage from a nuclear arsenal without even slowing down. Forcing the other players to take up your slack is never fun for them. And making a character that doesn't do what it's supposed to, simply because of poor mechanical choices, is never fun for you, either.

Optimization keeps your concept viable, so you don't have to sacrifice your character for his character sheet.

[snoopy13a]

Here's an odd level 1 Human Fighter build that tries to represent a "knight"

Using a 25 point buy and 200 starting gold

Strength 14
Dex 14
Con 12
Int 13
Wis 10
Chr 10

Feats
Combat Expertise
Combat Reflexes (will allow 3 AoO attacks due to the +2 Dex bonus)
Improved Trip

Equipment
Flail
Chainmail Armor
Heavy Wooden Shield

Pikeman modification:
Guisarme
Chainmail Armor
Heavy Flail as a back up weapon (if enemy ends up one space away and character cannot do 5' step backward they can drop the guisarme as a free action, draw the Heavy Flail as a move action, and do a trip attack)

It substitutes the traditional sword for a flail but it keeps in place "traditional" chainmail armor and a shield. Basically, the fighter tries to threaten squares and trip anyone they can. Remember, this fighter could threaten an area 15' wide which would likely be most passages in a dungeon. Two of these fighters could threaten an area 30' wide which could be most rooms in a dungeon.

In an open area or a very large room, a character with 30 feet move could be able to get past the fighter but there are also other characters in the party and they can also be positioned to cover the wizard. If the fighter is willing to forgo the "knightly" shield, they could arm themselves with a guisarme for better coverage.

Note: Obviously, going with a spiked chain is a better option and burning one exotic weapon feat is easy for a fighter. However, the spiked chain is considered by some to be a silly weapon while there is nothing silly about flails or guisarmes.

[Starbuck_II]

Repeat after me: "Optimization is not a bad thing."

After all, playing a TWF wizard who wields a mundane greatsword, doesn't cast buff spells, and wears mundane full-plate with full ASF without using Still Spell and all his spells use somatic components? Completely unoptimized.

If he somehow survives to get Arcane Strike: he might not be too bad.

[The Glyphstone]

Repeat after me: "Optimization is not a bad thing."

After all, playing a TWF wizard who wields a mundane greatsword, doesn't cast buff spells, and wears mundane full-plate with full ASF without using Still Spell and all his spells use somatic components? Completely unoptimized.

Also completely unplayable.

[Stormwind]

But it'll be teh most awesomely good RP character evar!!!1!

[/Stormwind]

[snoopy13a]

Repeat after me: "Optimization is not a bad thing."

.

Nor is optimization a good thing. It is inheritely neutral.

An optimized party will theorectically have more difficult encounters than an unoptimized party. Overall, optimization should be a zero-sum game.

The problems result if there are power differences within the party.