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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 11:53AM
#21
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Date Joined:
Oct 25, 2009
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I think people forget the one basic truth of D&D.... the DM sets the difficulty level, not the players. The DM designs the encounters, picks the monsters, uses the monsters, and controls the social and exploration parts of the game. In essence, the DM can dial it up or down however they want to.
If everyone in the party is sub-optimised, the DM can easily choose a difficulty level that is appropriate to them. Likewise, when the DM is faced with a party full of optimizers, the DM slides the difficulty up and in essence the optimized party is facing the same level of threat as the sub-optimized.
The problem comes when you have a mixed party. If two members of the party are char-opped min/maxed to the limit while two other members of the party have 15 in their main ability score, then the DM has a big problem. This is not just a problem with 4e, all editions of D&D have had this problem.
There's no easy way to fix it. In my experience, discussing it as a group is the most effective option and try and get everyone to agree to a baseline level of optimization. (for example, every 3rd feat should be a non-combat feat, or agree that everyone or no-one will roll for ability scores).
Want to know more about the history of D&D, especially how to play older editions of the game? Check out Crazy Monkey's "Tour through the editions":
http://community.wizards.com/crazymonkey/go/forum/view/133793/225799/Asylum_Play-by-Post
The current edition is BECMI, the most popular form of Basic D&D and the adventure is the classic Red Box quest to kill Bargle the evil magic user. Check it out, learn about the games roots, and enjoy the story as it unfolds.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 12:02PM
#22
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Date Joined:
Jun 30, 2008
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Yes some optimization is required, with more optimization the higher level you are.
But all D&D requires some optimization. Its a game built around rolling dice and a near infinite different combinations of abilities that can effect those dice rolls. 3.5 required a lot more IME and at higher levels there was a lot more of a potential gap between optimized and non optimized PCs.
In 4E you can pick almost any race/class combo and come up with a decent PC without that much effort.
my handbooks & builds
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 12:35PM
#23
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This goes back to one of my previous posts, but If your pc has 16 in his main stat and you take a high proficiency weapon like a longsword, rapier, or a feat to use an accurate implement if you are a caster, you will still have a fairly decent hit to miss ratio and be effective enough in combat.
GelatinousOctahedron has already stated any other point I was going to make.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 2:15PM
#24
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2011
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I don't think you need to match race and class to get a racial bonus in your primary, but when you don't, put an 18 in your primary and get a racial bonus in your secondary. Dwarves don't get a bonus in dex, but you can build a wonderful dwarven ranger with con/wis bonus. There are plenty of races that don't get an INT bonus, but you can build very nice wizards with them. It's not necessarily about optimizing as not willfully "un-optimizing" Some classes can be build with different primaries. Cleric and paladins have attacks that run off different primaries depending on how you want to go. With the cleric you can pick mostly strength powers and build strength primary, or dump strength and go with all wisdom based powers. You run into problems when you try to go for both. Pick one and give that an 18 or 20 post racial. I have built a character with 16 primary, but it was a min/maxing situation - a sentinal druid gains alot from a high con - so I have built with a 20 con and 16 wis. Might miss more, but the build is for effects and durability, not necessatily hitting. But that was a special situation. The thing about 4e is that the math is pretty transparent, so unless the whole party is suboptimal and the dm dials it back, you really have to find some way to make up for a lower score. If I was your DM, and you had a character concept that required you to go with a 16 primary, I would say go for it. If it wasn't working we'd find an agreeable way to fix it. TjD
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 2:38PM
#25
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Date Joined:
May 17, 2009
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I’m also not asking for solutions that can be achieved through house rules or DM fiat. What I’m trying to determine is if you can make a “combat-effective” character, using the 4E game mechanics as given, without having an “18” in your primary stat and/or maximizing your feat selection?
It seems to me, that if you can’t do that without making DIY home repairs to the game mechanics, then it means that CharOp is a requirement for characters to achieve combat effectiveness.
Short answer: yes. Long answer: Where do you draw the line on "DIY home repairs to game mechanics"? So long as you don't have heavily optimized and rather unoptimized characters in the same group, the "fix" is as easy as actually taking the party's strength into account when designing encounters. I don't consider this "fixing" anything, it's something I do for groups of any Op level. The other question is where you draw the line between "combat-effective" and the nigh-useless PCs you were describing above. I don't expect you to be able to accurately verbalize this difference(I can't), so think of it as a rhetorical question. I would say, though, that it isn't a plain line, that it isn't an on/off switch. +1 to hit simply isn't a huge bonus, and that's what the difference between a 16 and an 18 is. Furthermore, I'd say "4e: some amount of party understanding about acceptable optimization required." but I'd only say it if I can also extend it to "D&D: some amount of party understanding about acceptable optimization required." 4e is pretty easy-going on this issue, in my experience. 3.5 is much harder. There's such a wider gap between less and more optimized characters. AD&D tends to seem easier on it, mainly because there's less optimization(in the modern day sense) possible. There are less build choices overall and stats were generally rolled. However, you still got all the same issues when some people rolled high and some rolled low.
Seriously, though, you should check out the PbP Haven. You might also like Real Adventures, IF you're cool. | Knights of W.T.F.- Silver Spur Winner | |
4enclave, a place where 4e fans can talk 4e in peace.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 3:28PM
#26
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Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2012
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Mr Durriken, GelatenousOctahedron and Boromancer, I am reading your posts to mean:
“4E. Some Optimization Required”
Is that a fair assessment of your positions?
Required for what? For fun?
I think for fun all you need is a DM with imagination and flexibility. You can have a blast playing an orc wizard who likes to run into the fray to hit stuff with his pathetic melee basic attack, and another player playing a paladin who's trying to use a heal check every turn to heal allies, while lacking any wisdom to do so. The same group could have optimized players who do all the real fighting. The DM just has to realize that this group of players is mixed, and give the power players a real challenge, while having the casual players and clowns handling shenanigans and laughing at the fact the DM just pit them against a frat boys wielding "greatpaddles" and initiates who lug "stale beer" and "hot sauce" at you.
Edit: I realize that I've forgotten your original post. If you want to be effective, you do have to think about how each decision you make on your character affects the character's ability to perform.
You need to have an idea what roles your character will have in the party, and what your character should do to handle those roles. They don't need to be "optimized" to have an effective performance, in the sense that the character can still do his job, but you still need to be able to hold your own and not drag the party down provided that the DM wants to push your team hard.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 6:33PM
#27
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Here is the system math at lvl1
Soldiers are AC 17, skirmisher, lurker, controller are AC 15, brutes/artillery are AC13 as are everyones other defenses.
Assume a 20 in attack ability race opt for +5 modifier and a +3 proficiency and +2 combat advantage, thus AC respectively require a 7, 5, or 3 roll, respectively 70-90% odds to hit.
Lets knock down to a 16 primary, no race opt for a +3 modifier use a +2 proficiency weapon and no combat advantage, now you need a 12, 10, or 8 or 45-65% success, also known as a moderate to easy task difficulty. Last I checked this is not a game about kill counts, it is about cooperative play. Work with your teammate and focus fire a NPC in the back you are doing nearly as good as the front line soldiers going at it.
This does not factor in the variance of the d20 not hitting the average consistently within one encounter. That could be as much as a +/-3 variance!
Those complaining are doing so because they do not hit every time need to be made aware the game is balanced for missing just over 1/3 the time, otherwise you could just skip the combat and say I win. Obviously the min-maxer can push his ability stack higher than I did with good feats and magic items or race picks, and so can the weak ability character. Given that the target is 65% you can go over/under that char opt or not easily I would say it is balanced.
Try a randomized point buy on your players, this is where you use your favorite bounded method to roll ability (2d6+8, 4d6d1 etc) in random ability order until you exhaust your point buy points, and you can also lower the point buy budget, do this before class selection. If they did a good roleplay creating their character reward them with some roll play buying back down to an 8 to tweak higher another attribute, or swap an attribute assignment if they hate it but encourage them to try and reroll on death first . My favorite character ever was a paladin with mostly 13 for abilities, he died early to undead but a very memorable RP.
With lower scores people play more strategically together as a team, the game becomes less of a "I hit it with my axe" board game.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 7:13PM
#28
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Date Joined:
Sep 19, 2007
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My original group which got to level 20 had a drow fighter and a shadar-kai warlord (pre dragon article even). Neither character suffered because they were lacking a racial buff to their hit stat. Class strength has a much more noticible impact.
-1 hit/damage than is optimal isnt going to be an issue.
I'm pretty sure dwarven fighters (with axes/hammers no less) were considered good before they got a strength buff.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 05, 2012 - 7:27AM
#29
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Date Joined:
Jun 30, 2008
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Janx is correct, Dwarfs were widely considered the best warden and one of the best fighter and paladin races even before they got a strength bump because their features and feat support were perfect for defenders.
If a race has the proper support or has powerful enough racial features it doesn't need a stat bump to be considered a good choice by charopers. I have tieflings as dark blue in my shaman handbook and I think at least one of the warlord handbooks has them as skyblue even though they don't get a wisdom or strength bonus. Unfortunately not enough races have gotten that support and pixies are the only essentials era race that I can think of that started out powerful for off stat builds.
If I ever DM 4E I will reward players with a slightly higher point buy if they pick an off stat build. I might be interested in doing a random selection of race/class for PCs too since some goups have had fun with that.
my handbooks & builds
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9 months ago ::
Sep 05, 2012 - 9:11AM
#30
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Date Joined:
May 25, 2012
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All quite interesting, potentially helpful, and great comments/suggestions… but like I’d said, I wasn’t necessarily looking for advice on how to “make ‘sub-optimal’ work” in 4E. The reason why I am asking is, as follows: I like the way that the DDN developers are doing the racial stat bonuses.
To me, adding just +1 to a “racial” stat is a great way to highlight a race’s strengths without predetermining its class options. I was informed, however, that having a +2 racial stat boost doesn’t predetermine race/class combinations… and that any race, can be any class with equal effectiveness. What I have experienced is; giving a particular race a “racial” stat bonus, that is high enough to create a mechanical advantage, in turn, discourages players from not taking full advantage of the race/class synergy that said bonus provides. Whenever a player makes the decision to break from racial stereotypes, their “creativity” is rewarded with reduced effectiveness.
I’m not trying to fix a “problem” with my game, or even with 4E, in general. I was trying to see if there is a pitfall, that needs to be avoided… so that we don’t find ourselves fixing these issues (if they even are issues) in the future of DDN.
I am pretty confident that I’m not the only one who’s seen the “sameness” that building a significant race/class synergy into the system creates. For example, I will never forget the RPGA D&D 3.5 event that I went to in San Diego, where my Warforged Druid had the opportunity to adventure with three differently-named, yet otherwise completely identical Half-Orc Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue/Rangers. Then there’s my current 4E group, where the hyper-optimized Goliath Barbarian’s secondary character is… drum roll, please… an identical Goliath Barbarian. “Some people just enjoy the challenge of CharOp”, you might say… or “That’s just what’s fun to them, there’s no wrong way to have fun”… but these games aren’t supposed to be about ONE person having THEIR fun, it’s about having fun as a group. I would like to see a D&D where “rewards” for an option aren’t high enough to be mechanically relevant when viewed alone… it wouldn’t be until after you’d made several choices that your character’s strengths and weakness would be fully realized. It would be a system where it would take more than a simple "race x + class y + tactic (or feat z) = battlefield dominance" equation to CharOp your character... and then CharOpers and RPers could contribute equally to the collective narative of the game.
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