How to measure the power of a character

[Zen Master]

I've been reading these boards for a long-ish while, and it seems to me there is a pattern many character builder threads that I don't understand.

Here is how it goes. When comparing two characters or builds, the arguments often take the form of 'character A would kick character B's ass'. Or the just as common 'why make character Z, when you could make character Y and get all the same things plus X'.

To clarify: A cleric is better than a fighter because a self-buffed cleric can kick the fighters behind six ways till sunday.

This is all very nice, but doesn't acknowledge even in passing that some people play in groups. A cleric buffed fighter can kick a clerics behind. A clerics spells and powers may - conceivably - be better spent healing party members rather than buffing himself. And not all encounters start off with all players buffed to the max - an unbuffed cleric is more or less a pushover.

I'm getting the impression that a majority of players here mainly PBP, or play some form of PVP. Am I completely mistaken, or?!

[MeklorIlavator]

Well, often the best buff are self only, so a cleric can't use them on a fighter. Also, most of the arguments for the big 3(Wizard, Cleric, and Druid) say that they can fill class X's role in a group at least as well as a class X can, plus do other things on the side, so why have class x in the first place?

[Thrud]

No. All these complaints are from people who create these mega optimised characters as thought exercises. I have never yet been in a game where any DM worth his screen allows anything like what these builds require. On the whole I tend to ignore them all, because whilst they are mildly interesting they don't actually have any basis in reality. They are doing the equivalent of saying 'if I had a long enough lever I could move the world.' Yeah, it is TECHNICALLY possible. But it is never going to happen.

All of these 'builds' don't actually take into account the problem of the DM who will start screwing with you if you start to play like that. At least I do, anyway.

[Grynning]

@ the OP: You are mistaken. Most theorycraft/optimization builds ARE designed with a party in mind. It's just how well the build fulfills its intended role.

4th edition lays out the roles quite clearly, but 3rd doesn't. Here's basically what they consist of though.

Striker: Melee damage.

Divine Caster: Heals plus awesome buffing, can also be a striker.

Arcane Caster: Control, save or lose spells, utility (teleportation and such).

Skill Monkey: Trap finding, lockpicking, party face, Diplomancy, etc.

Most of the optimized builds you see will fall into one of these roles. They still depend on the others to function in an actual game. The PvP threads and such are mainly just used as examples to illustrate 3.x's huge balance problems.

[nagora]

4th edition lays out the roles quite clearly, but 3rd doesn't.

Always remembering that "role" here just means "combat role" and not the type of role in "roleplaying"

[Jack_Simth]

I've been reading these boards for a long-ish while, and it seems to me there is a pattern many character builder threads that I don't understand.

Here is how it goes. When comparing two characters or builds, the arguments often take the form of 'character A would kick character B's ass'. Or the just as common 'why make character Z, when you could make character Y and get all the same things plus X'.

To clarify: A cleric is better than a fighter because a self-buffed cleric can kick the fighters behind six ways till sunday.

This is all very nice, but doesn't acknowledge even in passing that some people play in groups. A cleric buffed fighter can kick a clerics behind. A clerics spells and powers may - conceivably - be better spent healing party members rather than buffing himself. And not all encounters start off with all players buffed to the max - an unbuffed cleric is more or less a pushover.

I'm getting the impression that a majority of players here mainly PBP, or play some form of PVP. Am I completely mistaken, or?!

It's more that builds are generally made in isolation - that is, someone says "Hi, I need help with a melee build" and almost nobody asks "Okay, what can you reasonably beg off the party casters" - and if someone does, there's liable to be a comeback of "the party casters can do much more effective things with their combat actions" (which is often true - which is better: a 50/50 chance of ending the battle right now, or a mild boost to the fighter that'll last the duration of the battle?)

All a fighter has going for him is BAB, HP, a good Fort save, and fighter bonus feats. A Cleric's spells can give him BAB and HP, he's already got a good fort save, and quite a few of the cleric spells give better stuff than is available through Fighter Bonus Feats. In isolation, in a "generic" environment (spells and magic items work, there is room to maneuver, and so on), the Core 3.5 Cleric can make a better Fighter than the Core 3.5 Fighter, past a certain point (as can the Core 3.5 Druid). With noncore stuff added in, a Cleric gets lots of big nifites, but an ubercharger nonmagical melee build with key items sufficient that mobility isn't an issue can keep up with combat output of a buffed cleric (usually). Thus, in isolation (which is how most builds are made, and is how such questions are usually asked) this happens.

[only1doug]

Long duration buffs that assist the melee classes are routinely offered in my group, Keeping meat shields alive preserves the casters tender skins.

[Grynning]

Always remembering that "role" here just means "combat role" and not the type of role in "roleplaying"

Role-playing does not depend on mechanics. I've already been over that a bunch today in this thread.

[JupiterPaladin]

Although Clerics are technically my favorite class in D&D, I have to call bullcrap on the whole "buffed Cleric > Fighter" argument. I don't care if you can end up with +8 BaB higher and a +13 damage adjust or whatever, because a properly built Fighter can be capable of much better even without ubercharger builds. That's also not counting that a Fighter normally has a much better weapon because that's his thing, the Cleric would spend his WBL on much better things. Even making a tank Cleric you would sink all your feats into combat stuff like Power Attack and stuff like that, then your casting would suffer. A properly built Cleric would not allow his casting to be nerfed to get a few melee bonuses. Now on damage alone, the Cleric can not even dream of comparing to the ubercharger. I keep seeing people post otherwise but have never seen valid proof.

[Eldariel]

Basically, as has been said, most of the knowledge goes towards group optimization. The Batman Wizard-approach is popular specifically because it's the best group player you can imagine - it makes opponents weaker and less dangerous, works towards strategic party placing, ensures safe sleeping, works as the party mobility (teleports - never walk again) and so on while the others do the actual combat and talking and so on. Basically, a Wizard is the guy in the shrouds who really gets everything done without actually doing anything. And that's one of the most "popular" character archetypes, simply because it helps people to truly make the most out of a Wizard's spell list (it's the kind of help most players, especially those without the energy to go through all the spells, need).

As for the example you brought up, the Cleric's spells are not better spent healing. If he heals an ally instead of attacking, he probably undoes one turn's worth of damage. If he instead kills an opponent, he removes that opponent's damage from the combat for kingdom to come. Healing is almost always a waste of resources (save for the actual Heal-spell, which is powerful and versatile enough to cast in-combat - it can often heal more than a turn's damage or two, and fixes status too), so unless someone is actually about to die on your turn, the opponents still have a ton of HP left and that character would be more efficient in the combat than you, healing is suboptimal use of spells. The biggest problem is how little one spell slot actually heals. That means it's very taxing on your primary daily power to heal people with spells instead of Wands. You may end up burning 4-5 slots just to get the fighter up and running again, and that means you've got gas for two-three encounters less on the same day.

In other words, the Cure-line of spells gives you poor returns for how much effort it takes and generally you've got options that are both, less taxing on your resources and more effective towards minimizing damage to the party than healing in combat. This is why the slots are basically always better used towards buffing. Also, the reason Cleric-buffs are assumed is because of the Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell, hour/level buffs (Extended if necessary - Greater Magic Weapon falls under this) or simple one-turn buff in the beginning of the fight (Divine Power > Quickened Divine Favor, for example and race into combat, casting another Quickened buff (maybe Righteous Might using Rod of Metamagic: Quicken) while at it). Either way, the idea is that Clerics don't need to spend much resources or time on buffing, and the gains from those resources mean that the party will suffer considerably less damage than it would have without Cleric buffed. Also, the Cleric doesn't burn much valuable time if he only burns one turn - generally the opposing melee spends that turn closing in (casters admittedly begin slinging spells - Cleric can of course use quickened offensive spells or such).

[Toliudar]

At the risk of stating the obvious: as a DM, I'm usually out to create a mix of PC's that meet the following criteria:

• The characters are distinct enough that, if I were reading a conversation between them, I'd know who was saying what even if speech wasn't attributed.
  
• Everyone feels like there's something that they do exceptionally well, even if they don't get to do it in every fight or every situation.
  
• In crisis situations, everyone contributes materially to the success and survival of the group.

In one long campaign, which started at level 4 and wrapped at level 13, it got difficult to maintain a balance between full casters and everyone else so that all are happy. With that one exception, as long as I and the group have kept an eye on those three basic criteria (some gentle nerfing of full casters, a little help in keeping the skillmonkey and the tank optimized), the rest has kind of worked itself out.

[Chronos]

No. All these complaints are from people who create these mega optimised characters as thought exercises. I have never yet been in a game where any DM worth his screen allows anything like what these builds require.

So, do you mean that your DM doesn't allow druids to have an animal companion, or just that they have to get their animal companions from a non-core book? Seriously, the way you optimize a druid is by taking "Class: Druid"-- That's about all there is to it. You automatically get an animal companion, and spellcasting, and wildshape, and even just a wolf (the obvious first choice of companion for someone who just picked up the class and isn't attempting to optimize at all) is already nearly a match for a fighter.

[Frosty]

Well, a druid need TWO things to be optimized. The second thing is taking Feat: Natural Spell

[Saph]

The reason the arguments go on forever is because there IS no universally accepted way to measure the power of a character. Everyone has different standards and different assumptions.

Some people assume DMless-hypercheesed-level-20 games, where everything that's RAW-legal is allowed and the character uses stuff from about 10 different books. Other people assume core-only level 1 games where no-one tries to play outside the classic roles and the DM would ban them if they tried anyway. Most of the arguments aren't due to one side or the other starting from faulty reasoning, but from the two sides using completely different assumptions.

So one person can say that Wizards are way stronger than Barbarians, and another person can say that Barbarians are way stronger than Wizards - and both can be right, depending on what baseline they're measuring from.

And since there's nothing geeks like better than arguing over game power tiers, there's no real motivation for anyone to stop. :)

I'm getting the impression that a majority of players here mainly PBP, or play some form of PVP. Am I completely mistaken, or?!

You're mostly mistaken. Most players here don't play mainly PBP, and almost no-one plays PVP. However, there's a small minority of posters who play a very specific game called "My D&D character can beat up your D&D character" and they're very vocal about it. :P

Thrud put it pretty well, too. A lot of the builds are purely theoretical, and basically do come down to "if I had a long enough lever, I could . . ." regardless of whether it's likely to happen. Often these are created more as mental exercises than for an actual game. The downside of this is that it gives a bit of a false impression.

- Saph

[Starbuck_II]

I've been reading these boards for a long-ish while, and it seems to me there is a pattern many character builder threads that I don't understand.

Here is how it goes. When comparing two characters or builds, the arguments often take the form of 'character A would kick character B's ass'. Or the just as common 'why make character Z, when you could make character Y and get all the same things plus X'.

To clarify: A cleric is better than a fighter because a self-buffed cleric can kick the fighters behind six ways till sunday.

This is all very nice, but doesn't acknowledge even in passing that some people play in groups. A cleric buffed fighter can kick a clerics behind. A clerics spells and powers may - conceivably - be better spent healing party members rather than buffing himself. And not all encounters start off with all players buffed to the max - an unbuffed cleric is more or less a pushover.

I'm getting the impression that a majority of players here mainly PBP, or play some form of PVP. Am I completely mistaken, or?!

Divine power is personal...
As is Righteouds Might...
...

How does the Fighter get buffed by personal spells?! Personal means only on caster.

Thus a Cleric has to Divine Power and Righteous might himself: gaining full bab, Temp hp=caster lervel, +4 enchanment Str, +8 Size Str, DR, and + X (don't remember how much) Con.
Add in Divine Favor is feel like it (Quickened if smart): +1/3 or 4 levels bonus to hit (Insight?)

Fighter can't get any of that.

Any buff givable to Fighter can be given to Cleric (by himself mind you): aHowever, any spell given to Cleric may or may not even be castable on Fighter.

[Thrud]

So, do you mean that your DM doesn't allow druids to have an animal companion, or just that they have to get their animal companions from a non-core book? Seriously, the way you optimize a druid is by taking "Class: Druid"-- That's about all there is to it. You automatically get an animal companion, and spellcasting, and wildshape, and even just a wolf (the obvious first choice of companion for someone who just picked up the class and isn't attempting to optimize at all) is already nearly a match for a fighter.

Yeah, except that this requires a player to have encyclopedic knowledge of all the critters they could wlidshape into which they blithely assume they have due to having a few ranks of 'knowledge:nature' and thus without even having seen one of the things they want to change into they assume that they can.

To which I, and every DM I have ever played with say 'no'.

Thus the lack of lever. Again, it is TECHNICALLY possible. But the DM is there to say things like 'why would you be able to wildshape into that? You have never heard of it, never seen it, and even if you had, why would you think of doing it in the first place?' But that is an argument about keeping player and character knowledge separate, and I don't want to get into it here, as it has been dealt with ad nauseum elsewhere.

[CASTLEMIKE]

And since there's nothing geeks like better than arguing over game power tiers, there's no real motivation for anyone to stop. :)
- Saph

Obviously the other person is using the wrong ruler to measure PCs.

Thus the lack of lever. Again, it is TECHNICALLY possible. But the DM is there to say things like 'why would you be able to wildshape into that? You have never heard of it, never seen it, and even if you had, why would you think of doing it in the first place?' But that is an argument about keeping player and character knowledge separate, and I don't want to get into it here, as it has been dealt with ad nauseum elsewhere.

Isn't this what the various Knowledge checks do in game?

[Emperor Tippy]

Yeah, except that this requires a player to have encyclopedic knowledge of all the critters they could wlidshape into which they blithely assume they have due to having a few ranks of 'knowledge:nature' and thus without even having seen one of the things they want to change into they assume that they can.

To which I, and every DM I have ever played with say 'no'.

Thus the lack of lever. Again, it is TECHNICALLY possible. But the DM is there to say things like 'why would you be able to wildshape into that? You have never heard of it, never seen it, and even if you had, why would you think of doing it in the first place?' But that is an argument about keeping player and character knowledge separate, and I don't want to get into it here, as it has been dealt with ad nauseum elsewhere.

A dire bear, or a dire tiger, or a regular brown bear, etc. The standard monsters are plenty for wildshape.

[Talic]

OP, you are mistaken. A cleric can typically walk around with his buffs up all day long, if he chooses to build that way.

Further, if a cleric can outfight a fighter, then it stands to reason that a party with a fighter, a wizard, a cleric, and a rogue would be inferior to a party with a cleric optimized for fighting, a wizard, a cleric that can heal/buff/such, and a rogue.

EDIT: Yes, a DM can rule that you're not familiar with a creature. He can houserule that you're not considered "familiar" with a creature unless you've carried its children in your backpack through a trek of many months, fed them, and raised them on your own until they can fend for themselves.

But, IMO, that is CLEARLY against RAI, as if the wildshape was intended to be that restrictive, then it would have limited the amount of creatures you could turn into.

Most people would consider "familiar" to be "has either witnessed it personally or can make a knowledge check to garner 1-3 useful pieces of information about it (meet knowledge DC of 10+HD of creature, or beat it by 5 to 10, depending on restrictiveness). If you want to restrict it too much further, it's DM FIAT, and thus, has little place in an RAW discussion.

After all, if you, as a DM, are going to rule on a creature by creature basis what your PC druid can and can't do, based on your own personal opinions, then it's arbitrary. And arbitrary, changing descriptions, rules, and the like have no place in a fair game.

[Thrud]

OP, you are mistaken. A cleric can typically walk around with his buffs up all day long, if he chooses to build that way.

Further, if a cleric can outfight a fighter, then it stands to reason that a party with a fighter, a wizard, a cleric, and a rogue would be inferior to a party with a cleric optimized for fighting, a wizard, a cleric that can heal/buff/such, and a rogue.

EDIT: Yes, a DM can rule that you're not familiar with a creature. He can houserule that you're not considered "familiar" with a creature unless you've carried its children in your backpack through a trek of many months, fed them, and raised them on your own until they can fend for themselves.

But, IMO, that is CLEARLY against RAI, as if the wildshape was intended to be that restrictive, then it would have limited the amount of creatures you could turn into.

Most people would consider "familiar" to be "has either witnessed it personally or can make a knowledge check to garner 1-3 useful pieces of information about it (meet knowledge DC of 10+HD of creature, or beat it by 5 to 10, depending on restrictiveness). If you want to restrict it too much further, it's DM FIAT, and thus, has little place in an RAW discussion.

Yeah, but this sort of junk (wanted to use another word there, but what can you do.) doesn't really work for long. Buffs are fine and all, but if the group starts going around doing massively supernatural stuff all day long every day, then my Bad Guys will start hallowing areas with a dispel magic added, and every round everyone in the hallow gets hit by a dispel until all those wonderful buffs are gone, and now the player is just an ordinary cleric that doesn't even have many spells left because he spent then all on himself earlier. And that is only ONE of my MANY techniques for messing with people who think that they can make a character perfect in every way via using magic. And Hallow lasts for a year. It's not even all that high a level spell.

Mordencainens Disjunction can ruin a megabuffer's day too.

I also like to use Hallow on characters who think they will teleport in, mess with stuff, and teleport out. A Hallow with a tied in dimensional anchor can fix that right quick too. Heck, even guards and wards can make things trickier.

The simple answer here is that whenever someone thinks that magic is the answer to all problems, and that they can buff themselves to the point where they are indestructable, then just have NPC's realize that PCs will act that way, and find a way around it. If PCs get to know all possible combinations of magic and how they work, then why can't NPCs know how to deal with them?

That is why all of these examples are thought exercises and nothing more. If PCs start doing them all the time, NPCs will figure out ways around them all the time.

[Shazzbaa]

To clarify: A cleric is better than a fighter because a self-buffed cleric can kick the fighters behind six ways till sunday.

This is all very nice, but doesn't acknowledge even in passing that some people play in groups. A cleric-buffed fighter can kick a cleric's behind. A cleric's spells and powers may - conceivably - be better spent healing party members rather than buffing himself.

Here's the problem: someone is playing the cleric.
Our high-level cleric has the option of healing the fighter and enabling him to keep fighting, or to cast some save-or-suck/die stuff and ending the battle then and there. Which does he do?
If he's particularly socially aware, or particularly worried about the fighter's player being sore, the cleric's player will choose to heal or buff or whatever the fighter. If he's looking solely at efficiency, or if he's being overly in-character, he'll want to do the thing that will end the battle faster or do the most immediate good, even if that means overshadowing the fighter.

Which is better, a cleric-buffed cleric, or a cleric-buffed fighter? This might be a valid question in terms of which option is mechanically best for the cleric to take, but in the end there's another question in the minds of some players... "Which would be cooler, buffing the fighter, or running out there myself?"

So, unless the cleric deciding to make himself awesome is significantly disadvantageous, it's going to be a problem worth addressing that the cleric overshadows the fighter in 3.x.

[Akimbo]

Yeah, but this sort of junk (wanted to use another word there, but what can you do.) doesn't really work for long. Buffs are fine and all, but if the group starts going around doing massively supernatural stuff all day long every day, then my Bad Guys will start hallowing areas with a dispel magic added, and every round everyone in the hallow gets hit by a dispel until all those wonderful buffs are gone, and now the player is just an ordinary cleric that doesn't even have many spells left because he spent then all on himself earlier. And that is only ONE of my MANY techniques for messing with people who think that they can make a character perfect in every way via using magic. And Hallow lasts for a year. It's not even all that high a level spell.

If only that plan had more then a 0% chance of dispelling a single buff.

[TeeEl]

There was a really good thread on the gleemax forums which addressed this very question, at least in terms of character class...here it is. It's a thread about loosely ranking classes by effectiveness, which I know rubs some people the wrong way from the get-go, but it's very well thought out and in particular has an excellent definition of how to measure the power of a character.

The Tier System is not specifically ranking Power or Versitility (though those are what ends up being the big factors). It's ranking the ability of a class to achieve what you want in any given situation. Highly versitile classes will be more likely to efficiently apply what power they have to the situation, while very powerful classes will be able to REALLY help in specific situations. Classes that are both versitile and powerful will very easily get what they want by being very likely to have a very powerful solution to the current problem. This is what matters most for balance.

[Thrud]

If only that plan had more then a 0% chance of dispelling a single buff.

Yes, and this is where you compare this single low level technique against someone who is much higher level, and has been to the magic mega mart to have the perfet magic items. Even then Hallow would work eventually since rolling an area dispell every round to everyone within the area of effect will eventually get rid of most spells and/or temporarily disable most magic items. Still, even if it doesn't work as I said, there are many ways to deal with this sort of idiocy in a game.

Also note that I don't play 3.5 so I am not really interested in 3.5 descriptions. I don't play it so I can't be involved in discussions of it. If I did play it, however, I am sure that I could find ways to deal with this sort of garbage. But since my players are generally more interested in playing a game to have fun than to play a game to break it, it is of mostly academic interest to me anyway.

[Grynning]

Also note that I don't play 3.5 so I am not really interested in 3.5 descriptions. I don't play it so I can't be involved in discussions of it. If I did play it, however, I am sure that I could find ways to deal with this sort of garbage. But since my players are generally more interested in playing a game to have fun than to play a game to break it, it is of mostly academic interest to me anyway.

If you don't play 3.5, why did you say you "like to use" the Hallow tactic? That would imply that you are DM'ing it.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I measure the "power" of a character one of my players is using by how often I can throw them off. A combative character forced off the track by skill problems and roleplaying isn't as powerful to me. I try to make combat a smaller part of my games so a build is normally only so useful in my groups.

[Thrud]

If you don't play 3.5, why did you say you "like to use" the Hallow tactic? That would imply that you are DM'ing it.

No, DMing in 3.0, not 3.5

[Akimbo]

Yes, and this is where you compare this single low level technique against someone who is much higher level, and has been to the magic mega mart to have the perfet magic items. Even then Hallow would work eventually since rolling an area dispell every round to everyone within the area of effect will eventually get rid of most spells and/or temporarily disable most magic items. Still, even if it doesn't work as I said, there are many ways to deal with this sort of idiocy in a game.

No, this is where I point out that a level 9 Cleric can easily have a CL of 18 without even trying for any decent cheese, and as such you would need a 19 or 20 on a CL 10 Dispel Magic to break a spell, and then can kill you in one round and then leave. And this costs them 8000gp. Seriously, 8000gp. A level 3 character could have these things (at the expense of things he actually needs, but whatever).

[Talic]

Yeah, but this sort of junk (wanted to use another word there, but what can you do.) doesn't really work for long. Buffs are fine and all, but if the group starts going around doing massively supernatural stuff all day long every day, then my Bad Guys will start hallowing areas with a dispel magic added, and every round everyone in the hallow gets hit by a dispel until all those wonderful buffs are gone, and now the player is just an ordinary cleric that doesn't even have many spells left because he spent then all on himself earlier. And that is only ONE of my MANY techniques for messing with people who think that they can make a character perfect in every way via using magic. And Hallow lasts for a year. It's not even all that high a level spell.

So... What you're saying, is that the "Bad guys" will now hire cadres of level 9 clerics to go around setting these up in random areas? And what say the players can't just as easily dispel the hallow with minimal loss?

Mordencainens Disjunction can ruin a megabuffer's day too.

Mutual Destruction Pact. Though Clerics have, with Good will, and High wisdom, the best chance out of any class of passing this 9th level spell's WILL SAVE. Sigh.

I also like to use Hallow on characters who think they will teleport in, mess with stuff, and teleport out. A Hallow with a tied in dimensional anchor can fix that right quick too. Heck, even guards and wards can make things trickier.

And now, you're using level 9-17 tactics against something a cleric can do at LEVEL 1.

The simple answer here is that whenever someone thinks that magic is the answer to all problems, and that they can buff themselves to the point where they are indestructable, then just have NPC's realize that PCs will act that way, and find a way around it. If PCs get to know all possible combinations of magic and how they work, then why can't NPCs know how to deal with them?

Because not everyone has an army of level 17 clerics and wizards around to set everything up? Verisimilatude, perhaps?

That is why all of these examples are thought exercises and nothing more. If PCs start doing them all the time, NPCs will figure out ways around them all the time.

None of the above are valid for anything that doesn't have the following criteria:

1) Deific backing by a
2) Deity that has a top priority hit on you personally throughout his entire order.

[Thrud]

No, this is where I point out that a level 9 Cleric can easily have a CL of 18 without even trying for any decent cheese, and as such you would need a 19 or 20 on a CL 10 Dispel Magic to break a spell, and then can kill you in one round and then leave. And this costs them 8000gp. Seriously, 8000gp. A level 3 character could have these things (at the expense of things he actually needs, but whatever).

Yeah. a 19 or 20 on a spell that is cast on you EVERY SINGLE ROUND as long as you are in the hallow. Yeah, coz that isn't going to work at all.

It may not be instantaneous, but it IS inevitable.