Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories

[drotwaner]

Whelp this just keeps getting worse doesn't it?

[Talakeal]

This is more a point about optimization-blindness, which affects everyone in the hobby including the designers. People develop a mental model of 'what playing X game is like' which includes the options that made sense to them, or which fit their sense of the fiction, or which feel fun, etc, and they tend to not include the esoteric stuff that is in the system but which didn't really make itself a part of their experience.

Then a new player enters the group who has a different mental model, different expectations, etc, and suddenly you've got a 'broken character' to deal with.

Zinycor was saying 'AD&D characters are balanced just fine, and no character is particularly more powerful than another'. But that doesn't have to be because AD&D doesn't support massive imbalances between characters, it can just be because Zinycor's experiences didn't include e.g. a Lv1 wizard exploiting the pummel chart rules to trivially win a 1-on-1 melee brawl with the party fighter (actual event from a campaign I was in).

Similarly, you say 'perfect ability scores aren't going to more than double a fighter's power', but lets look at a Lv3 Fighter for example. They've got, what, THAC0 17 from levels, and something like 1d8 or 1d10 damage from their weapon? ACs around 5 are a good ballpark of what you might be trying to hit, so they hit for 5 damage about half of the time (9/20ths really). They probably have no bonuses from Strength since those don't start until 16 (checked). So that's about 2.25 damage a round that they can personally deliver, roughly. Now take that fighter with 18/00 strength. They have -3 THAC0 and +6 damage. That means now they hit 12/20ths of the time, for 11 damage on a hit. That's 6.6 damage a round, or about triple effectiveness from having one optimal attribute. Optimal constitution, dexterity, and gearing choices may mean they don't drop during that first round and so on, but its harder to figure.

I think the reality is a bit harder to see, which is that: despite playing in systems that allow for factors of 4 or factors of 10 or factors of 100 differences in power and ability, that doesn't actually make the games stop being fun. We might say to ourselves 'balance is important, I had fun, therefore it must have been balanced, right?' and be blind to the crazy stuff that the system actually allows in principle.

That campaign where the wizard pummelled the fighter (and later resulted in the party shedding their armor and weapons and punching out a copper hatchling dragon once the group figured out the cheese) was fun, despite the fact that the game was wildly and crazily unbalanced.

AD&D is not perfectly balanced by any means, which was my initial point, but it is a lot better balanced than most systems.

The "more than double" was just a ballpark, I didn't do the math, and could be off, but I think the level 3 fighter with no specializationor any exceptional stats is a bit extreme; once he gets a few levels under him and some magic gear the differences will flatten out.

Honestly, the unarmed rules never made sense and were almost never used, so I can't really say anything about them. My understanding is that they were simply ported over from Boot Hill with no expectations about how they would work in a fantastic game where you had wizards grappling dragons instead of a bunch of cowboys in a barroom brawl.

Edit: Are you sure you are getting the unarmed rules right? I am reading them right now, and while I admit they are pretty wierd and ill balanced, I am not seeing how you are getting the results you are.

[NichG]

AD&D is not perfectly balanced by any means, which was my initial point, but it is a lot better balanced than most systems.

The "more than double" was just a ballpark, I didn't do the math, and could be off, but I think the level 3 fighter with no specializationor any exceptional stats is a bit extreme; once he gets a few levels under him and some magic gear the differences will flatten out.

Honestly, the unarmed rules never made sense and were almost never used, so I can't really say anything about them. My understanding is that they were simply ported over from Boot Hill with no expectations about how they would work in a fantastic game where you had wizards grappling dragons instead of a bunch of cowboys in a barroom brawl.

Edit: Are you sure you are getting the unarmed rules right? I am reading them right now, and while I admit they are pretty wierd and ill balanced, I am not seeing how you are getting the results you are.

Are you looking at 1ed or 2ed? You mentioned specializations which weren't in 1ed D&D yet. The pummel chart was in the version of the DMG with the efreet on the cover (I think perhaps there was an updated one but still before 2ed that didn't have it?). It's under 'non-lethal and weaponless combat' on p72.

The main point about it is that there are several 'strike again' rolls. 1-20 is 'strike again', 41-60 is 'deal damage and strike again', 81-100 is 'deal lots of damage and strike again'. The damage amounts are also generally much higher than you'd get from weapons (81-100 is 8 points of damage + strength bonus, and 41-60 is 4 points of damage + strength bonus). The attack roll/AC comparison also works a bit differently, which gives an advantage to bad THAC0 classes compared to normal attacks.

So you basically have something like a factor of ~x1.5 due to 'strike again' results and your damage is generally equal to or greater than weapon damage (so maybe another ~x1.25 compared to melee). The effect is even bigger if you're a class with a bad THAC0, which doesn't matter for pummeling. So at low levels, punching things is up to something like ~x2 as effective as actually attacking with weapons unless you're specifically attacking a knight who can tick all the boxes for -x% penalties (a dragon may have good AC that should count as chain or banded, but they don't have a helmet). Against the knight, the Grapple chart seems like it would give more advantage since the more armor they have, the easier they are to grapple according to that chart.

Things like 'active defender' are also kind of interesting terms - its a bit unclear whether those defenses apply to someone who isn't also engaging in the pummeling contest and is instead e.g. trying to breathe fire.

[Talakeal]

Are you looking at 1ed or 2ed? You mentioned specializations which weren't in 1ed D&D yet. The pummel chart was in the version of the DMG with the efreet on the cover (I think perhaps there was an updated one but still before 2ed that didn't have it?). It's under 'non-lethal and weaponless combat' on p72.

The main point about it is that there are several 'strike again' rolls. 1-20 is 'strike again', 41-60 is 'deal damage and strike again', 81-100 is 'deal lots of damage and strike again'. The damage amounts are also generally much higher than you'd get from weapons (81-100 is 8 points of damage + strength bonus, and 41-60 is 4 points of damage + strength bonus). The attack roll/AC comparison also works a bit differently, which gives an advantage to bad THAC0 classes compared to normal attacks.

So you basically have something like a factor of ~x1.5 due to 'strike again' results and your damage is generally equal to or greater than weapon damage (so maybe another ~x1.25 compared to melee). The effect is even bigger if you're a class with a bad THAC0, which doesn't matter for pummeling. So at low levels, punching things is up to something like ~x2 as effective as actually attacking with weapons unless you're specifically attacking a knight who can tick all the boxes for -x% penalties (a dragon may have good AC that should count as chain or banded, but they don't have a helmet). Against the knight, the Grapple chart seems like it would give more advantage since the more armor they have, the easier they are to grapple according to that chart.

Things like 'active defender' are also kind of interesting terms - its a bit unclear whether those defenses apply to someone who isn't also engaging in the pummeling contest and is instead e.g. trying to breathe fire.

Ah, ok. Yeah, 1E was a bit before my time, i was talking about 2E. I dont really have much experiance with 1E, so I will take your word for it.

[Friv]

Well WoD is a piece of **** of a game when it comes to rules. But never found any balancing problems while playing it.

I take it you never encouraged the "Toreador with a scalpel" problem.

[Segev]

I take it you never encouraged the "Toreador with a scalpel" problem.

I'm unfamiliar with this particular problem. Could you please elaborate? (I do know what the Toreador Clan is.)

[zinycor]

I take it you never encouraged the "Toreador with a scalpel" problem.

Not familiar with it, please tell me about it.

[King of Nowhere]

How do you define playing as a team then? Because in my view they do the exact opposite.

For example, in combat I would say good team work would be something like the fighter draws the monster's attention, the rogue stabs it in the back, the wizard debuffs it, the cleric heals the fighter, and the bard gives everyone a bonus to their dice rolls.

But if you have an overspecialized character in the group they will either take out the monster solo or sit in the back doing nothing, which in my mind is the opposite of teamwork.

Likewise in an infiltration mission you might have one guy bluff the guards, one guy keep watch, and one guy open the locks. If you have an overgenerilzed guy in this situation, if he volunteers for any of these tasks he is just going to be told "No, let someone with a higher score in the relevant area do it," and thus he will either sit back and do nothing or he will attempt to participate and actively lower the group's chance of success; again not great for teamwork imo.

that's a very extreme view of what overspecialized or generalist work. you seem to consider overspecialized as "automatic success in one situation, automatic failure everywhere else", and generalist "there is always someone else in the party that can do it better".
in practice, a specialist can still contribute to other stuff, and a generalist can still help a specialist most of the time.

I can give my party as an example of how we balance and spread the limelight. we are a fighter, a paladin, a monk, two clerics, a wizard.
- the wizard can solve almost any situation with the right spells, but he can't always have the right spells, and he can only do it once per day. he generally casts low level buffs and blasts, or he does out-of-combat utility. he could step vvirtually on anyone's toes, but with limited uses he normally let the rest of us take the lead.
- the fighter deal damage. he's the best at fighting in melee. he's not worth much in social situations, though.
- the paladin fights worse than the fighter and heals worse than the cleric, but a secondary source of melee damage never hurts, and neither does a backup healer. he also has the best social skills
- the monk is specialized in tripping and being difficult to kill. he can neutralize a spellcaster or act as area debuff for the enemies. he also takes over scouting and rogue duties (who needs search and disarm traps when you can run around stomping on tiles and trust your saving throws and general defensive skills to keep you safe?).
- the cleric alternates blasting, healing and buffing. he also has diplomacy.
- the second cleric specialized in item creation

now, in theory we overlap a lot. we have 3 melee attackers and no rogue. but it very rarely happens that a character can alone handle a situation (sometimes the wizard). and even when someone is out of his specialization, they still contribute. the monk is fairly weak against any opponent too big to trip or grapple, and against hordes of mooks, but he can still deal a bit of damage. the paladin is outperformed in a fight by the fighter, but still deals a large chunk of damage. the paladin has more diplomacy than the cleric, but we still split often during downtime, and the cleric had plenty of occasions to use diplomacy while the paladin was taking care of personal missions. the second cleric is happy to buff the rest of the team with stuff and spells. the fighter has no social skills, but he picked up some personal quests. every player participates with ideas anyway.

So, even though we have many character that could count as too generalist, too specialized, or too unbalanced, we never have to sit out and watch someone else have all the fun.

in the end you also have to work to find your role in the party; we all made characters without worrying for what the others would do, and then we all gradually ended discovering how we could contribute best.

[Talakeal]

that's a very extreme view of what overspecialized or generalist work. you seem to consider overspecialized as "automatic success in one situation, automatic failure everywhere else", and generalist "there is always someone else in the party that can do it better".
in practice, a specialist can still contribute to other stuff, and a generalist can still help a specialist most of the time.

I can give my party as an example of how we balance and spread the limelight. we are a fighter, a paladin, a monk, two clerics, a wizard.
- the wizard can solve almost any situation with the right spells, but he can't always have the right spells, and he can only do it once per day. he generally casts low level buffs and blasts, or he does out-of-combat utility. he could step vvirtually on anyone's toes, but with limited uses he normally let the rest of us take the lead.
- the fighter deal damage. he's the best at fighting in melee. he's not worth much in social situations, though.
- the paladin fights worse than the fighter and heals worse than the cleric, but a secondary source of melee damage never hurts, and neither does a backup healer. he also has the best social skills
- the monk is specialized in tripping and being difficult to kill. he can neutralize a spellcaster or act as area debuff for the enemies. he also takes over scouting and rogue duties (who needs search and disarm traps when you can run around stomping on tiles and trust your saving throws and general defensive skills to keep you safe?).
- the cleric alternates blasting, healing and buffing. he also has diplomacy.
- the second cleric specialized in item creation

now, in theory we overlap a lot. we have 3 melee attackers and no rogue. but it very rarely happens that a character can alone handle a situation (sometimes the wizard). and even when someone is out of his specialization, they still contribute. the monk is fairly weak against any opponent too big to trip or grapple, and against hordes of mooks, but he can still deal a bit of damage. the paladin is outperformed in a fight by the fighter, but still deals a large chunk of damage. the paladin has more diplomacy than the cleric, but we still split often during downtime, and the cleric had plenty of occasions to use diplomacy while the paladin was taking care of personal missions. the second cleric is happy to buff the rest of the team with stuff and spells. the fighter has no social skills, but he picked up some personal quests. every player participates with ideas anyway.

So, even though we have many character that could count as too generalist, too specialized, or too unbalanced, we never have to sit out and watch someone else have all the fun.

in the end you also have to work to find your role in the party; we all made characters without worrying for what the others would do, and then we all gradually ended discovering how we could contribute best.

As I said to Zinycor, the key word is overspecialized / generalized.

Your party sounds pretty normal, and is willing to try and cover for one another. I am also assuming that this is 5E, which really doesn't let characters deviate too far from their class archetype.

If you had someone who was a five way multiclass, or your monk refused to engage in any traditionally rogue abilities because they are "evil" (both real characters I have had in my groups) it might look kind of different.

Keep in mind that the character whom we were discussing that started this issue wanted to play a sorcerer who had no spells other than blasting spells, no ability score that wasn't a 4 or a 20, and no skills / feats / or items that didn't directly revolve around casting direct damage spells. This is after they had already called dibs on the "smart guy with all the knowledge skills" when we were creating characters, and as a result everybody else in the party intentionally avoided those areas so they wouldn't step on his toes.

I take it you never encouraged the "Toreador with a scalpel" problem.

I would also like to here more about this.

[King of Nowhere]

As I said to Zinycor, the key word is overspecialized / generalized.

If you had someone who was a five way multiclass, or your monk refused to engage in any traditionally rogue abilities because they are "evil" (both real characters I have had in my groups) it might look kind of different.

well, yes, but the point where one becomes overspecialized to the point that one's unable to contribute meaningfully except for a few specific situations is very difficult to achieve. your player is a genius in his own way for having done so

as for being overgeneralized, that can only happen in a very large party, where literally everything is already covered better by someone else. even then, while you may be cut out from most social skills (because someone has a higher modifier, and diplomacy only requires one person rolling), you'll still be able to make yourself count in combat as long as you don't mind being outperformed by someone else. because in combat, every bit adds. even the monk

Your party sounds pretty normal, and is willing to try and cover for one another. I am also assuming that this is 5E, which really doesn't let characters deviate too far from their class archetype.

actually we are playing 3.5, with all the tier imbalances.

but the important difference is that we are reasonable people who actually want to cooperate. we don't have the paladin and the fighter keep track of damage dealt during combat for bragging rights. the monk does not grapple his companions just to show that while he deals less damage in combat, he can still 1v1 anyone. after the wizard does some major blasting, the cleric does not ignore fallen allies to show with a firestorm that he can deal magic damage too.

in fact, we'd have several major reasons for interparty conflict, as some backstories clashes. the wizard is mildly evil and power hungry. the monk lost loved ones to an evil wizard and trained himself specifically to fight evil wizard. the second cleric worship an homebrew deity of luck, whom the rest of the party dislikes because at some point we tried a ritual from said god that could give a random effect, and we were unlucky and we got some minor permanent debuff. the paladin especially has reasons to distrust this cleric because he considers that god an heresy. he's also trying to expand an empire, which clashes with the fighter (also mildly evil) who lost loved ones due to a (different) empire and distrust autorities as a principle.
really, the main cleric is the only one who'd have no reasons to kill anyone else.

but we decided to make it work, and it worked pretty nicely. the wizard is ruthless, but the paladin saw that he can be kept pointed at the bad guys with the proper incentives. the monk saw that the wizard hasn't crossed any major lines, and that they actually have a lot in common (both have a tragic backstory with a motivation of "if I become strong enough, they won't be able to hurt me again"); they developed genuine respect and friendship despite all odds. the second cleric and the paladin have agreed to disagree - though they engage in banter sometimes. the fighter doesn't really care all that much about politics, he's in for money and power and revenge.

that's how party dinamics should be handled. your backstory and personality puts you in conflict with another party member? find an in-character reason for why it doesn't. it's not that difficult

[Great Dragon]

I actually really liked 3x D&D.

It wasn't until there was a Flood of splat books that deliberately sought out new ways to break the game: Mostly Feats, but a few Classes, that caused me problems.

5e is ok, although I do wish, even as a DM, that they were less vague with the "rules".
Rulings are a lot easier with clearly defined guidelines.

I don't mind doing older versions of D&D, but I do find it harder to remember everything.

that's how party dinamics should be handled. your backstory and personality puts you in conflict with another party member? find an in-character reason for why it doesn't. it's not that difficult

Exactly this.
Every reason from: "Their useful right now."
To actual IC statements of "I'm watching you."

But everyone works to avoid direct PvP conflict.

Minor IC Drama is quite alright.
Anyone feeling that it crosses the Line, speaks up - and those involved quickly hash that out, and move on.

[Talakeal]

as for being overgeneralized, that can only happen in a very large party, where literally everything is already covered better by someone else. even then, while you may be cut out from most social skills (because someone has a higher modifier, and diplomacy only requires one person rolling), you'll still be able to make yourself count in combat as long as you don't mind being outperformed by someone else. because in combat, every bit adds. even the monk.

Ok, so are you saying that a party which contains a Druid 20, a Psion 20, a Cleric 20, and a Wizard 5 / Cleric 5 / Druid 5 / Psion 5 isn't less effective than one that contains a Wizard 20 in the last slot?

[zinycor]

Ok, so are you saying that a party which contains a Druid 20, a Psion 20, a Cleric 20, and a Wizard 5 / Cleric 5 / Druid 5 / Psion 5 isn't less effective than one that contains a Wizard 20 in the last slot?

I would say so.

[Satinavian]

Ok, so are you saying that a party which contains a Druid 20, a Psion 20, a Cleric 20, and a Wizard 5 / Cleric 5 / Druid 5 / Psion 5 isn't less effective than one that contains a Wizard 20 in the last slot?

That is specific to 3.x multiclassing rules penalizing caster multiclassing. Just switch to Rogue/Fighter/Paladin/Ranger instead and it is not clear anymore weather the single class group is better off or worse.

In general, there is no objective point, where overspecialization/overgeneraliszion starts. The sweet spot is very much dependant on the rest of the PCs, the kind of challenges that have to be solved and how the groups approach those strategically. Having more than one person who can do X will open new option while the whole group being weak at Y often leads to choosing another option.

[OldTrees1]

That is specific to 3.x multiclassing rules penalizing caster multiclassing. Just switch to Rogue/Fighter/Paladin/Ranger instead and it is not clear anymore weather the single class group is better off or worse.

In general, there is no objective point, where overspecialization/overgeneraliszion starts. The sweet spot is very much dependant on the rest of the PCs, the kind of challenges that have to be solved and how the groups approach those strategically. Having more than one person who can do X will open new option while the whole group being weak at Y often leads to choosing another option.

The point of over-X is also a bit dependant on what is being asked of the group and the individuals.

I often use the following as a high level example: Fighting a intelligent strafing spellcasting Red Dragon above and inside its own lake of lava.

At high levels any design decisions (on the part of the author[classes] or player[character]) have had time to deviate more.

With such a context a character falls into one of 4 buckets:

1. They can't engage with the challenge
2. They can engage with external help from others spending resources
3. They can engage but cannot enable others to engage
4. They can engage and can enable others to engage at the cost of resources

In this context, we can see that characters that struggle to be able to engage with an encounter, detract from the group's ability to engage with the encounter. Personally, I don't like category 1. I also want category 2 to be infrequent and paired with category 4. Otherwise the category 2 acts like a category 1.

[King of Nowhere]

Ok, so are you saying that a party which contains a Druid 20, a Psion 20, a Cleric 20, and a Wizard 5 / Cleric 5 / Druid 5 / Psion 5 isn't less effective than one that contains a Wizard 20 in the last slot?

no, im saying that a party that contains a Druid 20, a Psion 20, a Cleric 20, and a Wizard 5 / Cleric 5 / Druid 5 / Psion 5 is more effective than a 3-people party that contains the first three and not the fourth.

because that's the definition of "contributing": they are better off with you than without you. if we were arguing for "another heavily minmaxed character could do it better", then we should only play tier 1 classes to their fullest power. and that would suck for most of us.

just in case you were going to reply with "there is one more person with whom to split the treasure" or "there will be more monsters": a wise dm will give more treasure, and monsters accordingly.
otherwise, a dm that says, or implies, or even simply not disabuse "you only have a finite amount of treasure in this sandbox, so maybe you should kick away the less useful guy to have less people to share" or "all welcome dave, he wants to join us and learn the game. now, since there's 33% more of you, there will also be 33% more enemies, so if dave isn't pulling his weight from the beginning, he's doing you a disservice", welll, that kind of dm is actively encouraging all the kind of party disfunctionalities that you are describing.

I wonder if you having so many problems with your players is actually a result of your specific mindset and the expectations you create. you're the only one in this thread arguing for that kind of game dynamics, and you're the only one who faces a certain kind of crap on a regular base; maybe the two are related. or maybe not and you're simply adsorbing some of the toxic thinking from your players.

anyway, when i dm it's quite the opposite: my players being more careful, more optimized, more skilled simply makes me ramp up the difficulty. I'm always going to leave a clear way out to a casual party, not so to a more hardened one.

EDIT:

The point of over-X is also a bit dependant on what is being asked of the group and the individuals.

I often use the following as a high level example: Fighting a intelligent strafing spellcasting Red Dragon above and inside its own lake of lava.

At high levels any design decisions (on the part of the author[classes] or player[character]) have had time to deviate more.

With such a context a character falls into one of 4 buckets:

1. They can't engage with the challenge
2. They can engage with external help from others spending resources
3. They can engage but cannot enable others to engage
4. They can engage and can enable others to engage at the cost of resources

In this context, we can see that characters that struggle to be able to engage with an encounter, detract from the group's ability to engage with the encounter. Personally, I don't like category 1. I also want category 2 to be infrequent and paired with category 4. Otherwise the category 2 acts like a category 1.

In this case, if the party has too many character in category 1 and 2 and not enough in category 4, I'd simply avoid sending them against a strafing spellcasting red dragon above a lake of lava. something which i'd gleefully do to a more optimized party.

so, you can say that from the point of view of chances of success, optimizing is actually detrimental to the group, because the dm will overcompensate by raising the difficulty.

[MeeposFire]

Actually if look around enough you can find threads where 3e posters legitimately try to prove that having an extra character that sucks (most often a monk or fighter 20 but I am sure if you post a really poor caster multiclass like that they would do the much the same thing but then maybe not 3e boards tend to assume that spell casters can do all sorts of stuff) by taking more XP from the other characters than they contribute (particularly in combat) in other words the other characters would have been better off getting the extra XP from beating encounters without the other character around. Such conversations get really depressing.

[MeeposFire]

I actually really liked 3x D&D.

It wasn't until there was a Flood of splat books that deliberately sought out new ways to break the game: Mostly Feats, but a few Classes, that caused me problems.

5e is ok, although I do wish, even as a DM, that they were less vague with the "rules".
Rulings are a lot easier with clearly defined guidelines.

I don't mind doing older versions of D&D, but I do find it harder to remember everything.



.

To be honest though the most broken stuff in 3e are in the PHB. The most broken classes (in the highest concentration as well) and the most broken abilities (outside of sarukh stuff) come straight from the core 3 rule books and need no outside help to break the game. The game actually is more balanced by and large if you drop a number of core content and replace it with splat material often times lowering the ceiling of OP and also often raising the OP floor so your more poorly optimized players will do better and your more optimized characters will not be quite as potent at the same time. Now I am not going to make the claim that it makes the game better since it may not run how you want to but the game will be more tightly balanced.

[kyoryu]

My point for “balance” is pretty simple: characters should be able to meaningfully contribute to most scenes/encounters that they are in.

If this is not true, due either to over- or under-optimization, there is an issue.

It is ideal if this is due to organic reasons.

The issue is exacerbated if someone is rendered redundant because another class makes their role redundant - fighter with CoDzillas, or fighters with some Batman wizard builds. “Oh, sure, I’ve incapacitated the monsters, go have fun mopping them up.”

[King of Nowhere]

Actually if look around enough you can find threads where 3e posters legitimately try to prove that having an extra character that sucks (most often a monk or fighter 20 but I am sure if you post a really poor caster multiclass like that they would do the much the same thing but then maybe not 3e boards tend to assume that spell casters can do all sorts of stuff) by taking more XP from the other characters than they contribute (particularly in combat) in other words the other characters would have been better off getting the extra XP from beating encounters without the other character around. Such conversations get really depressing.

Yes, I am aware of those kind of threads, and I call them BS because rpg shouldn't work that way.

[Talakeal]

no, im saying that a party that contains a Druid 20, a Psion 20, a Cleric 20, and a Wizard 5 / Cleric 5 / Druid 5 / Psion 5 is more effective than a 3-people party that contains the first three and not the fourth.

because that's the definition of "contributing": they are better off with you than without you. if we were arguing for "another heavily minmaxed character could do it better", then we should only play tier 1 classes to their fullest power. and that would suck for most of us.

I wonder if you having so many problems with your players is actually a result of your specific mindset and the expectations you create. you're the only one in this thread arguing for that kind of game dynamics, and you're the only one who faces a certain kind of crap on a regular base; maybe the two are related. or maybe not and you're simply adsorbing some of the toxic thinking from your players.

Ok, I think you might be misinterpreting my point.

Directly, I am just giving an example of when a generalized character is weaker than than a specialized character. I am merely pointing out what I view as a mathematical fact with no value judgements attached.

In a broader sense, I am saying that the game is most fun when everyone is at a similar level of optimization; I don't think this is that outrageous a claim; you can find hundreds of threads about this on the D&D boards, plenty of videos on youtube and podcasts on itunes about it, and the entire tier system is predicated upon it.

Highly optimized characters tend to hog the spotlight, and the players of more normal characters often feel bored, frustrated, or jealous. Likewise, many optimizers view weaker characters as dead weight holding them down, and when they fail they will often take out their anger by blaming the weaker characters. This isn't good, but people aren't perfect.

IMO the GM's job is try and manage conflict with the group, and part of that is talking to people when someone wants to bring in an outlier character. This can take the form of a highly optimized character in a more normal party or a more normal character joining a highly optimized party. But its not just about power; an orc in a group of dwarves, a necromancer in a group of paladins, or a barbarian in a group of rogues could be just as problematic.

And again, I don't say you should solve this by banning characters or pointing fingers, but merely by talking to people and making sure everyone understands and agrees about what they are getting into.

anyway, when i dm it's quite the opposite: my players being more careful, more optimized, more skilled simply makes me ramp up the difficulty. I'm always going to leave a clear way out to a casual party, not so to a more hardened one.

I used to do the same thing. My players found it frustrating and condescending. It created what they called the "cycle of stupidity" where they would min-max to their utmost to try and get ahead of the difficulty curve, but I would just up the difficulty to compensate, and nobody was having fun.

These days I simply play systems with tighter balance, try and stick to a relatively standardized difficulty, and let the players play whatever they want, within the parameters set out at character creation; which in the game which I was discussing in the OP meant everyone uses a point buy that leaves their starting ability scores between 8-16, which "Bob" just couldn't abide because it didn't allow him to min-max enough.

Note that this is not to say that I don't tailor adventures to the party, I just do it "in universe" so that they are taking on missions that are appropriate to the group; a band of thieves goes on heists because that's the kind of job they are likely to sign up for.

That is specific to 3.x multiclassing rules penalizing caster multiclassing. Just switch to Rogue/Fighter/Paladin/Ranger instead and it is not clear anymore weather the single class group is better off or worse.

In general, there is no objective point, where overspecialization/overgeneraliszion starts. The sweet spot is very much dependant on the rest of the PCs, the kind of challenges that have to be solved and how the groups approach those strategically. Having more than one person who can do X will open new option while the whole group being weak at Y often leads to choosing another option.

I picked casters as 3.X melee classes don't really gain new abilities as they level up and they don't really get any utility abilities at all.

I could do the example with skills instead if you like:

There is a group with a ranger, a cleric, a wizard, and a bard. They decide to recruit a rogue.

The rogue is a "jack of all trades" build who puts a few points into every skill. He has a few points in survival and handle animal, but the odds of him actually succeeding when the ranger cannot are very small, he has a few points of heal and knowledge religion, but the odds of him succeeding when the cleric cannot is again small, same with his few points in diplomacy and bluff succeeding over the bard of his spell-craft and knowledge arcana succeeding over the wizard. But then when it comes to traditional rogue skills that the rest of the party doesn't have, well this guy only put a few points into them as well, so when the group comes up against a difficulty lock or trap, odds are they are just out of luck.

In short, redundant skills are less useful than unique skills, and if you try and do everything you risk over-extending your reach and succeeding at nothing.


Now, I typically play point buy games, where the problem of overgeneralize is a bit more of a problem than class based games like D&D. Especially when the character sacrifices their defenses for the sake of competence in a wide variety of fields, as they tend to spend most of their time hiding or disabled by injury instead of doing stuff.

[Great Dragon]

Spoiler: MeeposFire

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sarukh ?

It's been more than a decade since I really played 3x D&D, lost all the books when moving, and not sure if replacing them would be worth the trouble, without a RL gaming (or at least an online) group dedicated to that given edition, although I did get most of the 4e books, due to trying to understand that version beyond the "it's a tMMO" appearance.

I would be interested in seeing your modifications to 3x (what is kept from the PHB and which Features are replaced by Splat Book info) for a better Balanced Game, but that would most likely require moving that conversation to the 3e Forum.

Now, 5e - like every other Edition of D&D, has its problems, but there's enough people willing to make reasonable changes, that I can figure out what easily fits for my game.

Talakeal

I normally don't have too much trouble with the Players that come to my Table.

Even with both new Groups being "Open Tables".

Now, I can't determine whether that is because I take the time to explain how I Run my games, and I don't allow Abilities to go Over or Under a certain level, and also don't allow truly OP Characters ("Glass Cannon" Quadratic Wizards, ultra-built CoDzillas, and now that I know how it's done - Punpun) or because I'm just Super Lucky in the attitude of said Players. (I'm not talking about New Players, here, since most of these are just learning the game.)

Now, this is not to say that I've never dealt with the Munchkin (and Murder-Hobo) problem (as shown in my Ancient Realms Thread) But, I've learned ways to deal with people with these attitudes. And I make no apologies for "hurt feelings" when doing so.

But, even in my past games, where PvP and Murder-Hobo-ing happened, I never really ended up with anyone permanently hating me. (or the reverse)

They just found another DM to play under - or became the DM.

[patchyman]

My point for “balance” is pretty simple: characters should be able to meaningfully contribute to most scenes/encounters that they are in.

If this is not true, due either to over- or under-optimization, there is an issue.

It is ideal if this is due to organic reasons.

The issue is exacerbated if someone is rendered redundant because another class makes their role redundant - fighter with CoDzillas, or fighters with some Batman wizard builds. “Oh, sure, I’ve incapacitated the monsters, go have fun mopping them up.”

I would go even further. Sometimes overspecialised characters won’t even try to contribute because they feel, rightly or wrongly, that their participation would detract from the party’s performance. I’ve seen barbarians who won’t interact with NPCs because they dumped charisma.

[Great Dragon]

I would go even further. Sometimes overspecialised characters won’t even try to contribute because they feel, rightly or wrongly, that their participation would detract from the party’s performance. I’ve seen barbarians who won’t interact with NPCs because they dumped charisma.

I have seen this 'I can't do X' mentality being applied to a lot of Min/Max-ed PCs.
I mean, I can understand if your Int is Three that the PC isn't bright enough to do much more then Attack and Walk (maybe not both at the same time, depending on Dex) (LoL !!) - but that's why I normally don't allow below Eight in any Stat: a minus one isn't the end of the World.

Heh. I once had a Player make a Bard with a dumped Cha, said they weren't a Singer/Dancer/Musician but instead they were a Storywritter* that never saw their audience.
Their Spells were so weak that I wasn't sure why they didn't just go Monk with Vows of Silence and Poverty!

*No offense to actual storywriters (Tawmis is great), but the Player didn't actually write anything - either IC or OoC; which made me wonder how in the heck he was granting 3x Inspiration (which required actually vocalizing something to affect those within a specific distance) to the party...?

Oh, and not only would this Bard refuse to talk to NPCs, other Players had to work at getting the Bard to talk to them !!

(The Player left, not sure if they moved, or what. Don't remember, too long ago.)
Needless to say, this Bard found themselves wandering the Land alone.

[Talakeal]

I have seen this 'I can't do X' mentality being applied to a lot of Min/Max-ed PCs.
I mean, I can understand if your Int is Three that the PC isn't bright enough to do much more then Attack and Walk (maybe not both at the same time, depending on Dex) (LoL !!) - but that's why I normally don't allow below Eight in any Stat: a minus one isn't the end of the World.

Which is exactly the situation that started this entire conversation.

Bob wanted to drop his int from 16 to 4 (and raise his CHA to 20) after telling the rest of the party he wanted dibs on the "smart guy" roll, and I told him that the method of point buy we are using doesn't allow starting stats below 8 or above 16, which Zyncor thought overstepping my role as a DM.

[Great Dragon]

(I do apologize, I've been both tired and very busy, and as such I haven't read every post, especially older ones.)

Which is exactly the situation that started this entire conversation.

Bob wanted to drop his int from 16 to 4 (and raise his CHA to 20) after telling the rest of the party he wanted dibs on the "smart guy" roll, and I told him that the method of point buy we are using doesn't allow starting stats below 8 or above 16, which Zyncor thought overstepping my role as a DM.

I disagree with Zyncor, in that it's the DM's job to set the parameters of the Game, from Character Creation to World Building, and is their right to enforce them.
Suddenly changing the parameters after the game starts, is bad DM-ing, though.

I believe that you had informed the Group at the start of the game that these limits applied.

And Bob was in the wrong - twice - by (1) claiming the Smart Guy Role, and then wanting to not only stop being that (without really telling the rest of the Group, so that maybe someone else could take that over) AND (2) wanting to change his abilities beyond the already established parameters.

And Bob having the mentality that only by having those Super Stats was his PC able to be 'effective' - plus his attitude towards you about not letting him be the Snowflake, as well as being Rude in several other ways.

Now, if the Game had allowed for Lowering Stats to get Higher Stats from the beginning; Bob had made his PC using that - from the Start (and not claiming a Party Role before making the PC); and Bob stuck with the PC unless said died (or similar); and actually tried to be a participant in the Game as well as a Team Player, you might not need this thread.

Sigh. Almost forgot about Brian, but one can of worms at a time, What?

[kyoryu]

The GM has the right to set whatever constraints they wish.

The players have the right to not play with the GM.

Between the two happens negotiation and compromise and hopefully good gaming.

[King of Nowhere]

In a broader sense, I am saying that the game is most fun when everyone is at a similar level of optimization; I don't think this is that outrageous a claim

oh, it's absolutely true, I'm not contesting that as a general principle.

But I'm saying that when someone is putting too many restrictions on what anyone can or cannot play, or is putting too much focus on the builds of everyone to ensure that everyone is "balanced", that's taking it too far, and it can be equally detrimental to the game.

Highly optimized characters tend to hog the spotlight, and the players of more normal characters often feel bored, frustrated, or jealous. Likewise, many optimizers view weaker characters as dead weight holding them down, and when they fail they will often take out their anger by blaming the weaker characters. This isn't good, but people aren't perfect.

I'm also arguing that those are problems of the players, not the characters, and that fixing the characters won't really help with the broader issue and will simply postpone the problems. Like putting nice paint on a rotten wooden hut; now it looks fine, but it will still come down as soon as someone shakes it.

In a broader sense, I am saying that the game requires a measure of trust and cooperation and emotional maturity between the players (not cooperation to advance the quest, but cooperation to have fun together). If you have them, then you won't have to worry too much about balance and people hogging the spotlight. If you don't have them, you may be the best referee ever, but they'll still find reasons to argue and bicker.

I used to do the same thing. My players found it frustrating and condescending. It created what they called the "cycle of stupidity" where they would min-max to their utmost to try and get ahead of the difficulty curve, but I would just up the difficulty to compensate, and nobody was having fun.

I didn't do it by directly ramping up the difficulty of the encounters, but I threw more obstacles at them. the villlain that I was planning to use as a solo boss encounter found more minions than initially planned. the ally that betrayed them was always intended to be a betrayer, but his betrayal now did much more damage in terms of npc relations. the powerful organization that was supposed to be strictly neutral and out of conflict was instead coopted by an evil dude that decided to fight them. the party's allies became a lot less competent, less able to support them, more often requiring the party to come help them.

the net sum of all this is that they have more enemies and less allies.

[zinycor]

Which is exactly the situation that started this entire conversation.

Bob wanted to drop his int from 16 to 4 (and raise his CHA to 20) after telling the rest of the party he wanted dibs on the "smart guy" roll, and I told him that the method of point buy we are using doesn't allow starting stats below 8 or above 16, which Zyncor thought overstepping my role as a DM.

wait, what? Didn't I say multiple times that allow any min maxing within the rules?? WTF?

[Jakinbandw]

BTW: You can't claim an objective truth like that unless you have made an experiment, shared the method and results, and then the community has accepted your conclusions as truth.

That's just your opinion and not an objective truth. Prove me wrong.