OOtS Optimization

[sims796]

Looking at the "The Order Will WIN" thread, a few comments got me thinking, which member of the Order are considered "optimal" and why? And vice-versa?

I heard Elan is the most optimal, while V & Belkar are the least. Why do people say that?

[F.Harr]

I wouldn't think any of them are. Otherwise, the whole "Incometant good verses apathetic evil" thing would be a wash.

[Dusk Eclipse]

V is an evocation (arguably one of the weakest schools, save for a few spells) wizard who banned conjuration (one of the top two schools) and (s)he focused for most of his/er career on blasting without metamagic.

Belkar is a TWF without a source of extra damage, against the enemies the order should face (huge amounts of mook are not a decent challenge for high level PC's, they should be facing fewer for stronger monsters, at least according to the CR rules) his damage would be negligible, 1d3+5 (when raging according to the class and geekery thread) is awful for their level.

Elan is said to be the best optimized of the bunch since he is the only one who has made character build choices that benefit (IE taking Dashing Swordman so he can use his rapier in melee).

[Agnostik]

If we're talking min-maxing, powergaming, etc., then V is certainly optimal to a degree, what makes you think s/he isn't? High INT, low pretty much everything else, that's what a wizard is all about.

Belkar seems suboptimal because of low WIS = no spells.

Haley seems perfectly optimal, high DEX and CHA are evident.

Roy is suboptimal in the sense of not dumping INT/WIS/CHA.

Elan has tons of CHA, so he should be quite efficient as a bard.

Durkon also seems mostly optimal, high WIS but low CHA (partly due to dwarf racial penalty).

But that's not really what OOTS is about anyway, I'm sure you understand that.

[Mike Havran]

Durkon was a pretty tough Cleric with high Wisdom. No problem there.

Haley is a perfectly good Rogue.

Elan is a perfectly good Bard/Dashing Swordsman

Roy is only not-so-good because he has stats that could send him up a few tiers easily, but it's fine for him to decide to follow in his grandpa's footsteps and spite his father

Vaarsuvius banned one of the most useful schools of arcane magic, so that's a poor choice but it's not like she can do much about it now. Stat-wise, Wizard is perfect for her.

Belkar is, mechanically, lame.

[Wayson]

Mr. Scruffy.

[Amphiox]

From what I understand, all the spellcasters (not just members of the Order) in the story who get to choose their spells haven made atrocious choices from the perspective of playing a D&D campaign.

Roy per canon had stats that would have allowed him to be either a Fighter, a Wizard, or a Cleric (with the implication that Cleric would have been his best option of all), but chose for emotional/story reasons to become a Fighter, the lowest tier, least useful, of all those options. Roy also does not carry a secondary weapon (and the one time he was shown trying to buy one, they were all sold out. Of everything.)

Elan on the other hand, has an original class that optimally relies on his highest stat, and picked a prestige class that also uses that highest stat. Elan's use of his bardic magic, however, has so far been laughable.

[sims796]

Ah, thanks you guys, felt like I was losing out on an inside forum joke or something.

[Amphiox]

I have heard some people say that Haley's feat selection is poor. Durkon's low CHA hurts his Turn Undead ability (and boy did that come back to bite him hard...) and his focus on healing is apparently less effective than using spells to lock down encounters. (Controlling the opponent is almost always more effective than reacting to the damage they deal to you by healing in battle in pretty much any rpg, whether it is D&D, Final Fantasy, or Yugioh)

I have to say though that Durkon and V are playing the "archetypal" Mage and Cleric. The healing Cleric and the fireball flinging evoking wizard were in many ways the "original" versions of those types of characters in literature, and in a narrative there is something to be said about sticking to the archetypes so present some familiarity to your audience, particularly those who are not D&D players.

This may be part of the reason the evocation school is actually so relatively weak. Over the history of the literary development of the wizard as a fantasy character, the evoking blaster was the original conception. Whenever someone wanted to extend the archetype and introduce new abilities it was necessary to justify its use. Why would my wizard do this cool thing I thought up instead of just blasting the bad guys with fireballs and lightning bolts? Easy. I will make my wizard's new skill BETTER than the equivalent level of just blasting. This pattern was probably well established long before D&D was even a thing. But the end result is that everything ends up better than evocation blasting.

[Lord Raziere]

the OOTS are optimal

in that, they are optimized to provide the best story for the reader

[Chantelune]

V is an evocation (arguably one of the weakest schools, save for a few spells) wizard who banned conjuration (one of the top two schools) and (s)he focused for most of his/er career on blasting without metamagic.

Sad thing is, her being already too powerful was probably (to not say certainly) the reason why. Barring conjuration means no teleport (and V stated that this spell was still transmutation when she choose her barred school) and metamagic... More power on a character who is benched quite often for being too powerful already... wasn't really an option, I'd say.

[sims796]

I have heard some people say that Haley's feat selection is poor. Durkon's low CHA hurts his Turn Undead ability (and boy did that come back to bite him hard...) and his focus on healing is apparently less effective than using spells to lock down encounters. (Controlling the opponent is almost always more effective than reacting to the damage they deal to you by healing in battle in pretty much any rpg, whether it is D&D, Final Fantasy, or Yugioh)

I have to say though that Durkon and V are playing the "archetypal" Mage and Cleric. The healing Cleric and the fireball flinging evoking wizard were in many ways the "original" versions of those types of characters in literature, and in a narrative there is something to be said about sticking to the archetypes so present some familiarity to your audience, particularly those who are not D&D players.

This may be part of the reason the evocation school is actually so relatively weak. Over the history of the literary development of the wizard as a fantasy character, the evoking blaster was the original conception. Whenever someone wanted to extend the archetype and introduce new abilities it was necessary to justify its use. Why would my wizard do this cool thing I thought up instead of just blasting the bad guys with fireballs and lightning bolts? Easy. I will make my wizard's new skill BETTER than the equivalent level of just blasting. This pattern was probably well established long before D&D was even a thing. But the end result is that everything ends up better than evocation blasting.

Interesting, thanks.

the OOTS are optimal

in that, they are optimized to provide the best story for the reader

Wocka Wocka!

[Ramien]

If we're talking min-maxing, powergaming, etc., then V is certainly optimal to a degree, what makes you think s/he isn't? High INT, low pretty much everything else, that's what a wizard is all about.

Belkar seems suboptimal because of low WIS = no spells.

Haley seems perfectly optimal, high DEX and CHA are evident.

Roy is suboptimal in the sense of not dumping INT/WIS/CHA.

Elan has tons of CHA, so he should be quite efficient as a bard.

Durkon also seems mostly optimal, high WIS but low CHA (partly due to dwarf racial penalty).

But that's not really what OOTS is about anyway, I'm sure you understand that.

You're missing a large part of what 'optimization' means (and for that matter, I think Roy rolled his stats, so he couldn't really take a good dump stat if he rolled well enough). Proper optimization for a game like D&D is not just about your stats, but your class, feat, and spell selections.

V, as mentioned before, is a terribly optimized wizard. V has the obvious high Int, but V's spell selection and specialization are some of the worst from an optimization point of view. The general view of wizard optimization, as I understand it, is to focus more on 'save or die' spells, along with the right defensive and utility spells.

Haley is a rogue who took a weapon that severely limits how often she can use her sneak attack - it's a lot harder to get combat advantage with a bow as opposed to a melee weapon - she would be a lot more lethal with Elan's rapier - finesse weapons and rogues are like peanut butter and jelly.

Elan's a secondary caster and support character who took a prestige class that focuses on melee more than improving his bardic abilities. It does make him more useful in melee or when having a solo adventure, but it doesn't help the rest of the group as much.

Roy's a single-class fighter. He gets points for mostly seeming to focus on using his ancestral sword, and that feat he learned during his enforced downtime will help a lot, but he's in trouble against anything resistant to his sword or that can keep range on him more than a half-ogre with a spiked chain.

Belkar's been screwing up by the numbers as much as possible. Twin halfling daggers aren't terribly impressive, and his relatively low str score means he's doing even less damage than he could be - he would have been better off using a ranged weapon and spending the ranger feats on that. The multiclass to barbarian hurts his xp gain, and his rages are low-level enough they're not going to have a huge effect. The reason he's still a sexy shoeless god of war is that he's still able to accomplish what he does with all his inherent disadvantages.

Durkon's the closed to being optimized insofar that he's a cleric with a high wisdom score. His spell selection is what hurts him. He does tend to stay more on the 'heal the party' than 'smite my enemies' or even 'buff myself or Roy into a juggernaut of destruction.'

This doesn't even go into having the party's casters create magic items when possible that would make life easier.

But, as has also been mentioned, a wholly-optimized party can be woefully boring - half the fun in OotS is watching them get into trouble, then dig themselves out with ingenuity (or luck) rather than just being the most efficient killing machines possible.

[sims796]

You're missing a large part of what 'optimization' means (and for that matter, I think Roy rolled his stats, so he couldn't really take a good dump stat if he rolled well enough). Proper optimization for a game like D&D is not just about your stats, but your class, feat, and spell selections.

V, as mentioned before, is a terribly optimized wizard. V has the obvious high Int, but V's spell selection and specialization are some of the worst from an optimization point of view. The general view of wizard optimization, as I understand it, is to focus more on 'save or die' spells, along with the right defensive and utility spells.

Haley is a rogue who took a weapon that severely limits how often she can use her sneak attack - it's a lot harder to get combat advantage with a bow as opposed to a melee weapon - she would be a lot more lethal with Elan's rapier - finesse weapons and rogues are like peanut butter and jelly.

Elan's a secondary caster and support character who took a prestige class that focuses on melee more than improving his bardic abilities. It does make him more useful in melee or when having a solo adventure, but it doesn't help the rest of the group as much.

Roy's a single-class fighter. He gets points for mostly seeming to focus on using his ancestral sword, and that feat he learned during his enforced downtime will help a lot, but he's in trouble against anything resistant to his sword or that can keep range on him more than a half-ogre with a spiked chain.

Belkar's been screwing up by the numbers as much as possible. Twin halfling daggers aren't terribly impressive, and his relatively low str score means he's doing even less damage than he could be - he would have been better off using a ranged weapon and spending the ranger feats on that. The multiclass to barbarian hurts his xp gain, and his rages are low-level enough they're not going to have a huge effect. The reason he's still a sexy shoeless god of war is that he's still able to accomplish what he does with all his inherent disadvantages.

Durkon's the closed to being optimized insofar that he's a cleric with a high wisdom score. His spell selection is what hurts him. He does tend to stay more on the 'heal the party' than 'smite my enemies' or even 'buff myself or Roy into a juggernaut of destruction.'

This doesn't even go into having the party's casters create magic items when possible that would make life easier.

But, as has also been mentioned, a wholly-optimized party can be woefully boring - half the fun in OotS is watching them get into trouble, then dig themselves out with ingenuity (or luck) rather than just being the most efficient killing machines possible.

If they were optimized, the Giant would have to literally make a whole new different type of story, I take it.

Question about Haley. Her weapon of choice - her bow - is it a good weapon insofar as it benefits the team more than herself, or would the melee possibilities simply outweigh that?

[littlebum2002]

If we're talking min-maxing, powergaming, etc., then V is certainly optimal to a degree, what makes you think s/he isn't? High INT, low pretty much everything else, that's what a wizard is all about.

Belkar seems suboptimal because of low WIS = no spells.

Haley seems perfectly optimal, high DEX and CHA are evident.

Roy is suboptimal in the sense of not dumping INT/WIS/CHA.

I think V is sub-optimal because of the schools of magic she choose to ban

You can't claim Roy is suboptimal just because he got good dice rolls when creating his character.

Roy per canon had stats that would have allowed him to be either a Fighter, a Wizard, or a Cleric (with the implication that Cleric would have been his best option of all), but chose for emotional/story reasons to become a Fighter, the lowest tier, least useful, of all those options. Roy also does not carry a secondary weapon (and the one time he was shown trying to buy one, they were all sold out. Of everything.)

Elan on the other hand, has an original class that optimally relies on his highest stat, and picked a prestige class that also uses that highest stat. Elan's use of his bardic magic, however, has so far been laughable.

The diva said Roy would have made a good cleric, not that he would have been a better cleric than fighter. If strength was his strongest stat, then fighter was the best choice, right?

Just because Roy and Elan don't play their characters intelligently doesn't mean they aren't optimal.

I have heard some people say that Haley's feat selection is poor. Durkon's low CHA hurts his Turn Undead ability (and boy did that come back to bite him hard...) and his focus on healing is apparently less effective than using spells to lock down encounters. (Controlling the opponent is almost always more effective than reacting to the damage they deal to you by healing in battle in pretty much any rpg, whether it is D&D, Final Fantasy, or Yugioh)

I have to say though that Durkon and V are playing the "archetypal" Mage and Cleric. The healing Cleric and the fireball flinging evoking wizard were in many ways the "original" versions of those types of characters in literature, and in a narrative there is something to be said about sticking to the archetypes so present some familiarity to your audience, particularly those who are not D&D players.

I actually made a thread specifically about this. I wondered why the Order used Potions and Healing spells instead of wands. I was told exactly what you said: it makes more sense to those not familiar with D&D. And since Durkon's daily spell choices don't affect his build, he can't be said to be sub-optimal just because of that. That is more a case if the Order itself being sub-optimal by forcing the cleric to be a healer.

So I would say that Durkon, Elan and Haley are the most optimal where V and Belkar are the least optimal. V because of her barred schools, and Belkar because he is really just a Barbarian with a bunch of wasted levels in Ranger.

[NerdyKris]

Sad thing is, her being already too powerful was probably (to not say certainly) the reason why. Barring conjuration means no teleport (and V stated that this spell was still transmutation when she choose her barred school) and metamagic... More power on a character who is benched quite often for being too powerful already... wasn't really an option, I'd say.

The giant has actually stated, I believe, that this is the reason Conjuration is V's barred class. Specifically so they can't just teleport from one objective to the next without someone else's aid.

[Chantelune]

Question about Haley. Her weapon of choice - her bow - is it a good weapon insofar as it benefits the team more than herself, or would the melee possibilities simply outweigh that?

Melee would be best, frankly, especially with a light weapon such as the rapier and the finesse feat allowing to use her dex to attack roll (not damages, though) instead of her strenght.

Sneak attacks can only be done when the target his unable to use his dex for defence. Basically if she act first, she can SA, or if the target don't see her coming (sneaking, invisible and so on). Out of those, only option is if the target is flanked. With a bow, Haley need two melee to flank her target so she can SA. If she was melee, she could just do the flanking herself with just roy or belkar.

Well, her fight against Bozok seems to indicate she has point blank as a feat, which would still allow her to do that, I guess... But regular bows don't apply stats damage modifiers. Which make them less powerfull than melee until you have the proper feat, then they can be deadly.

Oh, and SA with a bow as a rather limited range. Should be around 6/9ft if I remember correctly ?

[Ramien]

Melee would be best, frankly, especially with a light weapon such as the rapier and the finesse feat allowing to use her dex to attack roll (not damages, though) instead of her strenght.

Sneak attacks can only be done when the target his unable to use his dex for defence. Basically if she act first, she can SA, or if the target don't see her coming (sneaking, invisible and so on). Out of those, only option is if the target is flanked. With a bow, Haley need two melee to flank her target so she can SA. If she was melee, she could just do the flanking herself with just roy or belkar.

Well, her fight against Bozok seems to indicate she has point blank as a feat, which would still allow her to do that, I guess... But regular bows don't apply stats damage modifiers. Which make them less powerfull than melee until you have the proper feat, then they can be deadly.

Oh, and SA with a bow as a rather limited range. Should be around 6/9ft if I remember correctly ?

Sneak Attack with a bow has a range of 30 ft. Haley still can't flank with a bow because it's a missile weapon, and only melee weapons can threaten, and therefore, flank - the one time she did actually flank someone she was using her arrows as improvised weapons. She also can't take advantage of others' flanking a distant opponent because flanking only grants bonuses
to the people actually doing the flanking - unless she was allowed to take a feat that let her do so. Even then, she still spent a feat that could have been better used elsewhere.

[Amphiox]

The diva said Roy would have made a good cleric, not that he would have been a better cleric than fighter. If strength was his strongest stat, then fighter was the best choice, right?

The deva didn't just say that Roy would have made a good cleric, she more or less asked Roy why he didn't become a cleric. To ask that question implies that she was, at least a little bit, puzzled as to why he chose to become a fighter and not a cleric, and that implies that she thought that cleric was a better class for Roy than fighter was.

The thing is, Cleric is so much more powerful a character class than Fighter that even if Roy's strength were his strongest stat, he would have been a far more powerful character if he had been a Cleric.

Just imagine Roy as a cleric. With his high STR and STA he would be a tremendous tank to absorb damage and shield his allies. His high WIS gives him all the Cleric magic. His high CHA boosts his Turn Undead. His high INT.... well with his high INT he can better devise creative ways of using Cleric lockdown spells rather than stereotypically just healing.

And of course, if Roy had been a Cleric, he would have had access to "Cleric's Feather Fall" and he wouldn't have died in the first place....

Just because Roy and Elan don't play their characters intelligently doesn't mean they aren't optimal.

On the contrary, Roy plays his character very intelligently most of the time, with just a few blind spots.

[Amphiox]

Elan's a secondary caster and support character who took a prestige class that focuses on melee more than improving his bardic abilities. It does make him more useful in melee or when having a solo adventure, but it doesn't help the rest of the group as much.

This also goes back to the old narrative vs game mechanics thing. Elan took that prestige class specifically because he needed (or Julio offered it to him specifically because Julio knew that this was what Elan needed) to save Haley from Nale and needed to make himself capable of taking on Nale one-on-one, toe-to-toe. If not for those circumstances, Elan would never have even thought about taking such a prestige class at all.

Haley is a rogue who took a weapon that severely limits how often she can use her sneak attack - it's a lot harder to get combat advantage with a bow as opposed to a melee weapon - she would be a lot more lethal with Elan's rapier - finesse weapons and rogues are like peanut butter and jelly.

And of course, making your characters start out suboptimal offers you the option, if you as the author wish to, of later showing character growth through improved optimization. So, taking the example above, consider the possibility of a future sequence where Haley and Elan are in deep trouble, and Haley manages to save the day by picking up Elan's rapier and using it to make herself more effective in combat. And if training is required, the author has the option of showing Elan teaching Haley how to use a rapier as part of the development of their relationship.

And to reach as wide an audience as possible, the optimization-as-character growth needs to be broad and obvious, or else only dedicated D&D players will "get it". So the protagonists need to start out as very non-optimized.

[Maryring]

The deva didn't just say that Roy would have made a good cleric, she more or less asked Roy why he didn't become a cleric. To ask that question implies that she was, at least a little bit, puzzled as to why he chose to become a fighter and not a cleric, and that implies that she thought that cleric was a better class for Roy than fighter was.

The thing is, Cleric is so much more powerful a character class than Fighter that even if Roy's strength were his strongest stat, he would have been a far more powerful character if he had been a Cleric.

All up to and including the bolded is a valid interpretation, but you're hiding a false premise in that statement, namely that she thinks Cleric would be a better class for Roy purely from an optimization point of view. However, she was a Deva. She works for the gods. She often speaks with mortals. And Clerics are in many ways colleagues of her. She and Roy were on a good wave-length with one another, so a far more likely interpretation, in my opinion, is that she asks the question for the same reason that others ask me why I'm not a Doctor even though I enjoy medicine and have a good knack for aid. It's friendly conversation combined with wishful imagining the kinds of conversations that could be had if you shared work experience.

[Amphiox]

All up to and including the bolded is a valid interpretation, but you're hiding a false premise in that statement, namely that she thinks Cleric would be a better class for Roy purely from an optimization point of view. However, she was a Deva. She works for the gods. She often speaks with mortals. And Clerics are in many ways colleagues of her. She and Roy were on a good wave-length with one another, so a far more likely interpretation, in my opinion, is that she asks the question for the same reason that others ask me why I'm not a Doctor even though I enjoy medicine and have a good knack for aid. It's friendly conversation combined with wishful imagining the kinds of conversations that could be had if you shared work experience.

She could have had a whole host of different reasons to ask that question, but part of or one of those reasons being she thought Cleric would have been a superior class for Roy is a valid interpretation. Which is why I said "implied" rather than suggesting it was explicit.

[Gray Mage]

The diva said Roy would have made a good cleric, not that he would have been a better cleric than fighter. If strength was his strongest stat, then fighter was the best choice, right?

Well, actually, depending on the build, no. Clerics can make some great melee characters and still cast spells. There's a reason they're called CoDzillas.

[Chantelune]

I knew I had a some things wrong in my post. I barely meet any rogue who actually uses a bow. Should have checked it beforehand, but it was late when I posted.

[littlebum2002]

I didn't know Clerics were so powerful. Good to know.

Another question. If Rogue isn't a good class for ranged weapons, what is the best class for them?

[Chantelune]

Ranger, actually. Through his progression, a ranger can choose between two fighting style : two weapon fighting (as Belkar did) and long range. It gives a few feats for free, even if the requirement are not met (such as stats and other feats). This allow a Ranger to pack up feats to make him deadly with a bow.

In rarely come across a ranger that actually chose TWF instead of picking a bow.

[King of Nowhere]

I'm not the greatest expert in optimization, but haley as a melee character wouldn't be very squishy? I know most DM have the monsters focus the tanks, but any intelligent opponent woud realize the advantage of focusing the low-hp low-ac damage dealer. When I was DMing, and the party was facing smart opponents, the melee rogue rarely lasted more than a turn in melee.

[Gray Mage]

I didn't know Clerics were so powerful. Good to know.

Another question. If Rogue isn't a good class for ranged weapons, what is the best class for them?

Cleric, actually, with zen archery (substitute wis for dex in attack rolls), swift hunters (common nickname for ranger/scout multiclass). To tell the truth, rogue is not too bad, if you can get a steady source of SA, it's just harder than melee (besides, Haley is well optimized as a skill monkey).

Edit: Generally, archery gives you a bunch of attacks, so you need a source of bonus damage.

Archery needs more love in 3.5 though.

I'm not the greatest expert in optimization, but haley as a melee character wouldn't be very squishy? I know most DM have the monsters focus the tanks, but any intelligent opponent woud realize the advantage of focusing the low-hp low-ac damage dealer. When I was DMing, and the party was facing smart opponents, the melee rogue rarely lasted more than a turn in melee.

That is why it's a good idea to invest in miss chances.

Also, Thog is reasonably optimized, taking two levels of Fighter for a bonus feat and dungeoncrasher .

[Snails]

Haley seems to get plenty of Sneak Attacks with a bow, and does not have trouble using a bow in a melee scrum. Rapid Shot gives her an extra attack.

I do not fully understand what her build is, mechanically speaking, but it is a quite good one.

[Chantelune]

Well, a non-optimized build is not necessary a bad one.