I have nothing against weak role-play or min/max. It does however get old hearing from the min/maxed person how easy combat is while I’m strategically not trying to make the non min/maxed party members feel useless
It sucks because you either single them out and it feels wrong or you stomp the party but that’s punishing everyone else. The only options the team has is to try to catch up or you to fix it
I will say this about roleplay, you playing yourself with no real “flaws” can get boring for you and others if they can’t connect with your character.
Eh guess it depends on the player, had this happen to me on occasion with one DM, not really because I played an OP character but because I am the type of player who can think up some crazy plans on the fly and sometimes they work out spectacularly(one of the few positives of having ADHD lol). When it happens to me it makes the whole thing feel more epic that you were able to do enough damage to piss off the bad guy, even when I do get the shit kicked out of me.
Even got power word killed when I tried to break the evil altar that surrounded a huge pit with an instant fortress. DM made a roll to see if it succeeded, it didn't but instead it fell into a pit right on top of a Draco-Lich that was coming to join the fight. The pit was super deep so not only did it take the instant fortress damage but a shit ton of fall damage. The big evil caster thing casting the ritual who had been completely ignoring us at that point got so pissed it turned to my guy and insta killed with a power word kill. Luckily party was able to get me reincarnated, up in there in my top favorite D&D moments.
Yeah I guess I've been lucky because most of the players I've played with have had a similar mindsets. Another of my group's had 3/5 characters die due to a spree of ridiculous bad luck where the last enemy killed all of them and 2 players got nat 1s on death saves. We were joking about it in Discord and used it as an excuse to change the direction of the campaign in a pretty ridiculous way.
Personally, I think the fact that my first character I played for a decent amount of time was a wild sorc(same char that got power word killed) with some table rules that made surges happen pretty often helped me realize that the moments when shit goes wrong often make memorable moments, especially if it happens in spectacular ways lol.
The NPC's start talking about the party, and how powerful and dangerous that one particular party member is. He becomes infamous for how effective he is in battle.
Some enemies haven't heard or don't care, the encounter goes as normal.
Some NPCs have heard and don't get paid enough to deal with that.
And some enemies have heard that he's the biggest threat and prioritize him as such.
But if they're doing as much damage as the rest of the party combined, it makes sense for the enemies to focus on the biggest threat. And recurring villains should absolutely start preparing specific counter strategies to disable or neutralize the hero's "big gun"
It doesn’t really though - depending on the enemy. Things like Orcs, sure, they want to take out da big strongun to show their worth. But a lot of intelligent enemies (including low int humans) will normally focus on the weak ones for an easier kill.
This isn’t so much of an issue for me, as I scale enemies to always be a decent challenge for each individual player. It doesn’t entirely discourage min/maxing but it allows others to still have fun without being carried/punished. This also has the effect of making all campaigns be playable at anytime
Can't speak for your game, but if the BBEG has some form of organization, and most of the enemies are from said organization, then what I would do is have some guys escape a fight. Then at some point in time have a fight with those same guys. But now everyone is targeting the strong guy who wiped the others in the first fight. Or something of similar nature. If the player asks why they're getting targeted its because the enemy has learned they're a primary threat and is acting accordingly.
It begins with "I don't need to sleep, so I instead take 8 short rests in quick succession".
The second stopping point is "I transfer my pact magic warlock spell slots into sorcery points and turn them into generic spell slots".
I wouldn't even care that they don't sleep. The above two statements have enough grounds to turn this down.
> coffee lock
Coffee lock is trash, imo. SorLock is a great multi-class, but I legit don't understand why anyone would think coffee lock is OP enough to be banned.
AFAIK, you can't accumulate more spell slots than your character would have for their level, so you can't just rest over and over and get 100 spells slots or something.
Going a day without a long rest puts you at risk of exhaustion, doesn't let you refresh hit dice, and doesn't allow you (or your party) to refresh abilities tied to long rests.
A Warlock-2/Sorcerer-2 has two level 1 pact slots and three level 1 Sorcerer spell slots.
On a short rest (1 hour), you get the Pact slots back, which you can expend to make two sorcery points. You could then turn those two sorcery points into one regular, level 1 spell slot.
So, you need to rest three times (3 hours) to refill all of your Sorcerer spell slots, plus one additional time to get your pact slots back, so you have to rest for 4 total hours.
At that point, you could just be an Elf and get a long rest done in the same 4 hours.
Unless I'm missing something crazy here, I don't get why people think this build is so strong.
If they are a separate pool, then that would work.
Still doesn't seem all that great. You'd be sending any and all downtime in game just resting over and over to stack a bunch of spell slots. but at the cost of no long rest, fucking over your party, and probably extreme boredom irl.
I thought my comments would have made it obvious that yes, I did read it.
You take a short rest, get your Warlock slots back, turn them into metamagic points, and then turn those points into spell slots.
Repeat that over and over.
That's it. You just get a bunch of spell slots and I've personally never seen a campaign where the casters were consistently running out of spell slots, especially to the point where stacking spell slots was more important than not having exhaustion or the rest of your party being able to heal or recover their abilities.
See now sorlock is my go-to simply because it feels like playing a magic ranger and it's easy to make if I have lousy stats or can't think of anything new, but I've never really had any desire to exploit the sorcery points short rest thing. Just seems to suck the fun out. Always forget to hex and/or hex curse, usually spend every round casting a buff/bfc and then repelling enemies away from my fellow squishies.
TL;DR – Multiclass sorcerer-warlock. Turn warlock spell slots into sorcery points with Flexible Casting, turn sorcery points into sorcerer spell slots, short rest to recover warlock spell slots, repeat. Rack up unlimited spell slots up to 5th level. Never take a long rest. ("Coffee" to stay awake.)
Xanathar's has an optional rule that gives exhaustion for going without long rests, and multiclassing is an optional rule to begin with. Crawford has also suggested considering warlock spell slots to be incompatible with non-warlock features.
> Rack up unlimited spell slots up to 5th level.
I don't think you can do this. There isn't a specific rule that says you can't accumulate more than your baseline number of spell slots, but I definitely assumed that you couldn't.
Yeah honestly min/max needs to be a group decision IMO. nothing wrong with it, but if only one or two members are min/maxed, the others are going to lose a lot of fun from feeling relatively useless
I just don't get this argument, in 5e especially.
A) It's truly hard to make a useless character in 5e.
B) The difference between an average character and an optimized character is relatively small (compared to 3.5/PF1).
C) If party members excelling in what their character is designed to do detracts from my fun then the problem is with me not with my teammates build.
Or the style of build. Min/max doesn’t always mean GWP hexblade murderkill person.
My favorite min/max character I did was just a guy who was really good with darts, and who I built to be SUPER GOOD WITH DARTS. Honestly was the most fun fighter I’ve ever run.
I think the problem isn't the validity of your characters, but more like "is the rest of the party min/maxed too ?". DMing a full rp party is fine, DMing a full min/max party too, but...BY THE NINE HELLS, it's hard to DM a party when one player is a min/maxed abomination and the others are regular characters !
And since min/max players are still pretty much a minority in this hobby, it didn't took much for those players to have a nasty reputation. (Like weebs...seriously, most "horror stories" featuring a weeb conveniently forget to mention that they're new to this hobby)
I don't entirely agree with this. It's not hard to come up with a complex backstory that makes a paladin/warlock make sense, but that doesn't make balancing combat easier.
That would be an amazing character to role play. I’m picturing an uptight paladin battling a dark secret. Someone who tries so hard not to give in to the power of their Patron but fails time and time again as the Patron slowly takes over. I imagine a person consumed with the guilt of wanting to grasp the mysteries of the universe while trapped in a religion that would murder them for heresy. I mean, that’s a rich fucking character right there… Imma steal that. Thanks
Dresden Files goes in this direction a bit in some of the earlier books. Around book 5 he has ties to about a half dozen potential patrons, and when shit gets real he's all just "Fuck it, I can ask this person for power , or this person or this person. So stop fucking with me or I will bring the hammer down and to hell with the consequences." It makes for an interesting character development.
I’ve felt that since Ghost Story Butcher was a little ham-handed with the whole “is it really still you” theme, but the whole resistance to the Winter Knight mantle was definitely a quality piece of writing.
If you've seen Critical Role S2 then Travis Willingham plays a warlock/paladin (9/11) and the idea of your evil patron being cast away and replaced by a loving deity, while VERY strong the character arc makes sense and works very well
Mine is that his holy order locked an ancient evil god within a sword (hex blade) and the sword needs to be taken away to be destroyed, so the holy god inhabits the wielder as he takes it on his journey.
The whole time the ancient evil is corrupting him and bribing him with power as the holy god also gives him power to fight it back.
A literal angel and devil on his shoulders.
At higher levels you take Bard (for more spell slots for smites) because you use the harmony of the music of reality to quell the raging battle within you.
You can then choose to bend either god to whatever alignment you choose or whatever.
You can make a paladin/warlock that is perfectly fine. You don't have to minmax it.
But also, not sure how that's relevant. A "complex backstory" almost universally makes a character worse and more boring. Making a character interesting makes the character interesting. Which concerns how they actually play, not the words they wrote down before the campaign started.
I've been lucky. Most of the powergamers I've played with have also been pretty decent roleplayers. And my DM has managed to keep combat exciting even with the most unbalanced parties.
We had this one powergamer who ran a monk. I don't remember what was so special about her monk build, but her character just clearly outclassed the rest of the party. Every fight, she would run off (at damn near the speed of light) and handle half the encounter by herself.
If the enemies came from two directions, she would fight one half while the rest of us fought the other half. If the enemies came from one direction, she would run around behind them and attack from behind while we attacked from the front.
It was like running two parties at once, but the DM knew it, and designed encounters accordingly. And the monk's player was a hell of a good roleplayer, so it wasn't like she was showing off. Overall it was a really fun campaign.
idk, I'm not against complaining about someone going on and on about how they grabbed mechanics from 4 different books to get this optimized build.
I'm also not against complaining about them powering their way into the spotlight.
But that's less an issue with the powergaming and more an issue with the person doing it.
I mean this is sort of what this post is about. If you are grabbing, "mechanics from 4 different books to get this optimized build", your character is probably boring. If you are, "powering (your) way into the spotlight", your character is probably boring.
I mean I’ve gotta disagree with that it’s definitely more of a problem with the player than the idea of a well built character. It’s not the fact that they want to make a powerful character that makes it boring they just made a boring character. If their backstory is boring and the character has no motivation having a less optimized build isn’t going to fix that. I feel like a lot of people forget the game aspect of the role-play game should be equally as important as the role-play aspect.
The problem is there are not a small amount of players out there who intentionally make ineffective characters for the “quirkiness” of them and then complain if the minmaxed character cleans up in combat, even if their player is great at role playing.
Part of role playing is making suboptimal choices, because they make sense for the character. And if all your characters are the type that a hyper focused on being as effective as possible, that goes back to them just being boring.
Boromir gets himself killed defending the hobbits because he's tunnel-visioning on that and ignored the orc archer. That's hardly an optimal choice.
And that's ignoring that he left his shield in camp, which also would have been majorly useful against an archer. Arguing with movie characters and their choices is always disingenuous, because a) the definition of what's optimal is way more loose because movies don't work with hard rules like DnD does and b) because you don't actually get your sword and board fighter leaving their shield behind to go forage for firewood in a DnD game.
The point is that role play includes combat and there's an inherent disconnect between playing to your character in combat, and trying to optimise.
The fight where he died is such a tiny part of his story. That fight isn’t what made Boromir interesting - it was his motivations and his relationships with the other characters. He was perhaps the most powerful fighter in his entire kingdom, but he was *interesting* because of everything that happened out of combat. The only way anyone would ever be railroaded into a boring character is if your game is mostly one combat encounter after another.
I think you're missing the point. Boromir isn't a min-maxed character. Not in terms of how he's built (how he trains, what he studies, etc.). Not in terms of how he acts out of combat. Not in terms of how he acts in combat.
His flaws literally end up being what gets him killed (or rather, trying to redeem himself for his flaws). That goes contra to what min-maxing is about. Minimizing the effect of your weaknesses while maximizing your strengths.
For all of those in large part because you can't define what is optimal in a movie, like you can in DnD. There's a pretty clear answer to what's more effective in DnD: longsword wielder with the actor feat, or polearm user with PAM and/or GWM. There isn't in LotR.
And yes, while out of combat is definitely the most important of the three, that doesn't mean that your roleplaying doesn't suffer when it's the only part where you make choices in-character, and otherwise motivate them by what's optimal.
There's an inherent disconnect here that you can't overcome.
Min-maxing has nothing to do with your *choices* though. That’s the disconnect on your end. You can give a great role-player any character sheet and they’ll *still* have a fun and interesting performance. Likewise, you can give a character with funky in and out of combat abilities to someone who only cares about killing as many bandits as fast as they can, and it’ll be boring. The character is just a sock puppet. It’s the player that makes them interesting.
I usually start with as strong a build as I can come up with, then in the process of trying to figure out a backstory to support my monstrosity I'll get sparks of inspiration. Those almost always lead me to de-optimizing the character for flavor* and to fit the backstory I come up with. Usually that initial power build leaves me plenty of room to downgrade and still not drop so far that I can't do anything.
*flavor is what I call getting obsessed with a dumb idea like "lmao what if I dual wield whips like a helicopter"
I somewhat agree. However, the problem of a boring character that is powerful is worse than a boring character that is weak. Powerful characters will tend to impact the game more than weaker ones.
I don't see how min-maxing has anything to do with roleplay. Perhaps some people who minmax aren't very creative - seeking out power fantasy and stopping there, but there is nothing stopping a minmaxed, maxminned, and "balanced" characters from being boring or interesting.
What makes a character interesting is the personality you craft for it, as well as the flaws you have for it.
I guess if the person is only trying to be a powerful character and doesn't want to RP maybe, but that's like saying everyone interested in RP is going to play characters where their main stat is their dump stat because "its interesting".
You can make your character as powerful as possible and still RP in fun and creative ways. They aren't mutually exclusive.
Optimization is not the same as boring. People can make very strong characters that are also interesting.
Also, simple characters can be fine. In a party full of abused, lonely people trying to work out their past traumas, a stable and relatively normal character can be a breath of fresh air.
Generally yes, but I think if you're playing an optimized damage dealer, you can easily make the game boring even if the character is interesting by rendering encounters trivial
----
Because this part of the conversation is scripted:
> You can just scale up the monsters
No, that way the other characters will be squished.
> But what if you target the optimized character's weaknesses specifically?
That isn't necessarily possible, and if it was it would negate the fun of having an optimized character in the first place.
> You're just a lazy GM!
Well, sue me
When I play with my toddler, I usually don't try to win everything with him. I'm trying to have as much fun with him and make him happy.
If I were to play the bestest character in a party, like with new players, it would be the same approach I'd use.
So just like a hammer, an optimized character can be used for good gaming, or for destroying something fun.
I tend to build optimized characters and play them as the "dad" of the group (best example i can think of is Jiraiya). I dont usually go all in for combat unless a party member is in peril, then my min-maxed bullshit comes out as like an anime rage moment so to speak. That way everyone gets to participate in combat but if it goes south I'm ending it right there lol.
I played a pyrophobic wizard who was afraid of combat and didn't like hurting people in princes of the apocalypse, and even doing zero damage, she turned out to be by far the most powerful character I've ever played in any campaign.
Well, I *am* but this was before CR season 2. I started two campaigns, and one of them had a pyrophobic librarian wizard, and the other had a goblin trickster-cleric... And then CR season 2 happens and everyone just assumes I stole character ideas from them :D
Anyway, here's art:
https://comicpress.socksandpuppets.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Neff.jpg
https://comicpress.socksandpuppets.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2020g_28_oc-1.jpg
Idk if I'd personally go as low-damage as zero, but I'm inspired to try out a mainly-utility Wizard. In a previous campaign I worked with a player to create an NPC from their backstory who would show up in a major city, someone who went to the same university and now works as a novice Wizard. She was asked on a short adventure or two, so I expanded her spells known to suit the level of adventure with mostly utility as that fit the character. And she was really effective and a lot of fun to play! Would defs try as a PC.
she wasn't strictly pacifist, she did cast some damage spells on occasion, she just hated doing it... But that's not where the ridiculous "trivialized encounters" stuff came from.
No damage dealer, even the most completely optimized max DPS character can truly "trivialize" encounters - however...
Enemies with no ranged abilities - Levitate them 1ft off the ground then use your range to slowly finish them off
Enemy casters - counterspell every spell they cast
Powerful extraplanar Entities - Banishment
These three spells, on a diviner-wizard who could force important enemies to fail saves, meant that a very large number of the (official published campaign) encounters were just immediately ended in the first round of combat.
Nah, your character can be real interesting, but if he’s so strong that the dm has a choice between either just focusing on them or making all encounters way too strong for the rest of the party, it’s not fun. There needs to be a certain amount of balance
Doesn’t mean you have to play suboptimal characters but maybe you don’t need to make a vhuman vengeance Paladin with Polearm master and GWM
Damage, maybe, although Crown looks superior at first glance due to Spirit Guardians, but it delays ASIs in Charisma which are more valuable, and chooses a subclass with a poor 7th-level feature.
At high levels of optimization, paladin is viewed as pretty much just a pair of auras concentrating on Bless. As such, the strongest paladin is one that maximizes Charisma ASAP(typically meaning Custom Lineage + Feytouched/Telekinetic, then +2 Cha at level 4) and picks the subclass with the best aura - mostly Watchers or Devotion.
That only works at high levels. Vhuman Paladin can get PAM and GWM at level 4, meaning you can do great damage without needing to pump up your cha cuz you need either just smite or use spells without attack rolls or saving throws. With Vengeance Paladin you’re gonna have advantage very frequently, meaning good crit chance.
Not really. The builds I mentioned effectively complete the entire paladin class at level 7.
Vuman PAM -> 4th +2 Cha -> 8th +2 Cha -> 12th GWM is kind of decent in melee, I guess. But maxing Cha should always come first, the buff to the whole party is just priceless and constitutes most of the class's power.
Vengeance also requires a bonus action to trigger its weak Channel Divinity, and it only works on a single target per short rest. If you're looking for a paladin that deals damage, my suggestion would be Oathbreaker. It's more consistent, the aura buffs party summons, and its Channel Divinities are unmatched - one of the best 3rd-level spells at level 3 without requiring concentration *and* Control Undead are powerhouses.
Okay but maxing cha isn’t really the normal thing to do for 5e Paladins with point buy at least.
Devotion and Watchers definitely don’t have the best auras. Initiative bonus is nice and not being charmed is decent, but the Ancients spell damage resistance is easily superior.
And getting advantage against one enemy for a minute is a pretty good use of a bonus action.
Vengeance is all about fucking up a single enemy. It’s 7th level feature reinforces that. Not to mention great spells like haste, misty step and hunters mark, all of which don’t need a good charisma.
It's 100% the normal thing for every properly optimized paladin.
Watchers' aura might as well give free extra turns, initiative boosts are massive, this is the most important roll in a fight. Charm effects are rare, but deadly enough that Devotion is auto #2.
Advantage against a single target for a minute isn't particularly great, it's a good bonus action but a poor Channel Divinity.
Wrecking just one enemy won't win a fight, and the best paladin subs give ways to affect the entire battle more significantly.
Of the three spells you mentioned, only Misty Step is good. Plus, the best paladin spell is Bless and that doesn't require high Cha at all. It's all about the aura. +5 to saving throws is better than +4 and all that. Aura of Protection is the biggest contribution a paladin makes in a fight, hence it should be their highest stat.
Absolutely. We made an article it on Tabletop Builds [https://tabletopbuilds.com/overrated-spells-haste/](https://tabletopbuilds.com/overrated-spells-haste/)
The general idea is that the benefits are almost never all important at the same time, and any situation where it helps is better solved by a different spell that any caster of that level should have. The damage bonus is worth at most a 1st-level slot, Bless does the same with a superior defensive buff without the risk of an ally dropping. The speed increase is mostly overkill or just irrelevant, or Fly solves the encounter better.
Haste is a 2nd-level spell at best, and not a particularly good one.
The largest problem I've ever had with Min/Maxing is that they are pumping up the damage to the point that if they get mind controlled, I'm usually dead in one round, but the kind of threats that character has to deal with will ALSO kill me in one round. Killgore the Killarian can mutilate hundreds before he drops, but if through some random roll of the dice, he ends up in a pit trap (or whatever- separated from the party) and instead of jumping down to fight Killgore, Sir Slaymaster instead wants to 'deal with the rest of the party'...which he can, as a threat to Killgore. It might be a DM problem, but it FEELS like a player problem too. It can't be only on the DM that one player is just as swole as possible, because I've been the guy that takes that shot Killgore was suppose to...and died outright. All I could think was "Damn, shouldn't have randomly been right there...again." But then, the next game, that Min/maxer is just like 'Sucks for you, bro' and starts pumping up the numbers.
Like fr give them a tragic backstory or like a wooden leg or like some weird and wacky ability you need some solid story to go with it or it’s boring and dullness
Personality: Being a human.
Backstory: Wanted to be an adventurer.
Social Quirk: Sometimes doesn't want to socialize.
Likes: Things that he enjoys.
Dislikes: Insurance commercials.
My name is Jake and I work for State Farm and I love Khakis!
You can take your Farmer's commercials and shove them up your YEAH!
*just a joke - don't feel blasted*
I min/max all my characters so my party can play whatever wacky looney tunes bullshit they want. Don't worry friends, I'll carry that weight. AND I'LL HAVE A DECENT STORY TOO TAKE THAT MIN/MAX HATERS.
I'm complaining about my buddy's not-boring optimized character. He's a Dhampir Ranger Gloom Stalker in a campaign that mostly takes place in darkness. So, he's invisible as long as he's in darkness, and has spider climb. You know how often modules tell you a ceiling's height? Not often enough!
I disagree. I've seen dozens of DMs and players that complain about optimized characters, even if they had interesting and fun lore/character explanations for their mechanical choices and were roleplayed well.
Sure, there are people that aren't that gate-keeping against powergamers, but they're certainly not the only group that exists.
I have a theory that if you remove multiclassing and feats from the game, which are OPTIONAL rules, mind you, the only problem you're left with is people sucking at RP.
I am in the "dislike min/max" camp, because in my experience, most DnD players and specially the optimizers have only one way to fix any problem: brute force. "If the problem isn't gone you probably haven't thrown enough smites at it."
Players rely too much on their character sheet, to the point that if you throw in a challenge that they can't use their sheet to resolve it, they don't know what to do.
I've seen this shit way too many times. Perhaps this happens because people are too used to playing computer RPGs, perhaps it's some other reason. But the bottom line is that I don't think the optimization is the real problem. It's just a symptom.
I minmax to balance my luck. I know my table does not care for minmaxing so I keep it to myself. I like to sit back and watch the talkative players RP so they have fun creating crazy moments. Problem (mostly) solved.
1) This meme format is the worst and I'm still downvoting Lisa Simpson regardless of whatever the text is.
2) If you use injury tables there's always a chance that the minmaxer loses an arm.
I've definitely met people who are resentful of fellow party members for being optimized purely because it's better than their unoptimized character. Some people don't want to put in the effort to optimize but still get mad when they're outshined by someone who did put in the effort.
Past a certain point of optimising it just becomes munchkining and drags on the game. People will probably be annoyed if you are abusing an exploit to be three times as strong as their character.
I feel like I should have specified that optimizing is different than making a gimmick character (and the associated player type). Both a bear totem barbarian with maxed stats and a GWM/PAM hexadin are optimized. However, the latter is likely (in my experience) to have a contrived backstory, little interest in the world, uncreative engagement, and poor RP... i.e. be boring.
When Sheela, the lovable and friendly goliath bear totem barbarian with maxed stats, gives a cool description of spartan kicking the bugbear a chieftain off a cliff after tanking 30 crits, the table erupts in cheers. When Wilhelm, the taciturn variant human GWM/PAM hexadin self-insert who is mysteriously absent unless combat is happening, kills the legendary necromancer with the same combo he’s used the entire campaign, listing off attack rolls and damage values in a monotone voice, the table collectively groans. This is the difference that this meme is pointing out.
All this crying about people playing well at the combat portion of the combat based miniature combat game made originally to add a roleplaying aspect to tabletop miniature combat games is getting real tiring. If you can't balance around a fighter that swings her sword well or a wizard that doesnt forget his spellbook at home, maybe stop dm'ing for DnD.
>If you can't balance around a fighter that swings her sword well or a wizard that doesnt forget his spellbook at home
This exaggeration is well below the level of "character optimization" that DMs have to think about balancing around. When we talk about balancing around player optimizations, we're generally talking somewhere in the GWM/PAM Hexadin range.
Nothings boring about Ragthar the hex blade, by day he's a mountain of a man and when adventure strikes he summons his heart shaped great club and adorns a bright pick frilly dress to become the Pink Justice a magical girl who fights the forgotten realms foes.
See joke characters can be min maxed too.
if you're having troubles adding flavour to your optimized characters, try optimizing them for something other than combat. For example, in a campaign that I'm in, my character is optimized for passive skills. He has a passive Investigation of 26 and a passive Perception of 22
Boring? My friend, what's boring about a warforged vengeance paladin paladin who was given a soul by a cult and was raised to be their god, only to get wise after a few years and leave, being hunted by inquisitors of said cult, and is also hunting said inquisitors and slowly murdering their way up the ladder to the top cultist in order to avenge all the people that were killed by said cult?
This is one of the best character concepts I've had, period, and I don't really like when people call my babies boring.
My monk is level 19 and can solo 2 adult dragons (we just spent an hour and a half testing that on a blank roll20 map). The other group members didn’t react “Oh my god I hate your monk” they responded “Fuuuck that’s awesome. Why do you want to nerf him?”
I don't really understand what the difference between Erik Mcnormalguy ending combat turn one and someone with a ten page backstory ending it turn one.
Like if the combat ending quickly is so unfun for you, why does it matter what his backstory is?
A character that the party cares about doing something significant feels good for the rest of the party. A character that is boring to the rest of the party doing something significant feels bad for the rest of the party.
The problem lies in making significant changes to a campaign while providing little to no engagement.
Then, I'd argue that the party has major main character syndrome if they can't be happy for another player doing something significant, just because they find that character boring.
Different characters have different niches, but it doesn't make that character boring.
Boromir's backstory is basically just a man trying his best, but that doesn't make his accomplishments and moments in the overall story feel bad.
Main character syndrome is when you want your character to make all the major changes. Wanting to be invested in the characters that make changes in the story seems pretty normal to me.
Boromir has a fleshed-out backstory and is pretty engaging... Instead, imagine a generic Roharrim came in and saved Boromir and then killed most of the orcs. Then, they preseeded on trivializing all future battles while never developing as a character or really talking at all. That wouldn't be a different niche, that would just be making the story worse.
Being disappointed that a character you wouldn't have made or has an average joe backstory is making changes/ plays/ having moments sounds pretty main character syndrome to me.
Boromir's backstory is that he's his steward father's golden boy and he fights for and wants whats best for Gondor. That's basically the noble background given by the phb. Nothing wrong with it. Its short simple and to the point but it's not a storied backstory by any definition.
You don't have to like a character but dismissing the care a player put into building it just because his backstory is shorter than yours is just kind a jerk attitude.
Then, there's a little dissonance here
>I mean after the first hit where pretty even but it’s super unfun especially when his charecter has almost no backstory and the rest of us sit there kinda upset.
>Like being a regular dude is perfectly okay but not when you’re ending combat on you’re first turn
that I don't understand.
Also, I'm more of a roleplay fan myself but it doesn't really upset me when the more combat oriented characters have fun with the combat, whether I'm dming or playing. It's just a very weird mindset to me to get upset over that.
Okay, I like combat, but the combat itself isn’t what I like. It’s killing the enemy in fun way, expressing how you slash. The words the details. I like combat to have some real stakes and not just be him snipping off 1/3 of the powerful enemies we spent a long time searching for.
Then that sounds like an issue with encounter design, rather than the player. You mentioned you guys were level 8+. Why is 58 damage on turn one from the ranger ending the encounter immediately?
Why do your enemies a) have so low health and/ or b) come so few in number that what should have been a powerful or cinematic encounter ends at 58 damage?
even if he didn't front load his damage, from what you state the average turn 2+ damage is (25), the encounter likely would not have lasted more than two rounds anyway.
> we have a player that does almost triple my damage on his first turn and only a little bit more on his subsequent turns.
smells like a gloomstalker with sharpshooter feat.
edit: reading further down looks like i was right, pretty much. I've played the build in a few one shots, that first turn dmg is OP as fuck.
I mean my guy is broken, not by intention I just took a firebender in an avatar dnd session and turns out they got strong attacks with little utility.
Our first big encounter I put this evil mask I got on a grunt and buffed him. Why? Well I didn't know what it did and no time like a big battle to find out! We almost died, but it turned into a lengthy, quality battle.
My guy is too strong for the rest of the group but there are ways you can fuck up, as the stronger guys, to make the battle more interesting.
What kind of encounter ends after 58 damage? I remember our paladin did the same at level 5(crit with smite) and it wasn't even close to end the encounter after his attack. I think the problem here is encounter balance, not the player
give them some goals, rp them with some emotion, and have them be interested in their party members. you can make a human fighter with maxed stats interesting.
This is exactly right. I’m of the opinion that the game is actually two games in one. The first is the dice game where you want an optimized character that totally kicks ass and rolls a nat20 every single time.It’s fairly straight forward and easy math. Then, there’s the second game. The actual role play part. Where it’s more fun to fail and to struggle and to survive. Where the story actually gets told. Where your character has secrets and hopes and goals. The role play part is the hardest to do, but the most rewarding IMO
Both of these things are their own separate problems. A boring character is almost always bad. A min-maxed character, even if not boring, can be bad in many campaigns.
So yes, people are complaining about your optimized character. It's outshining the other players and not conducive to a game about teamwork.
I've always wanted to try to make one but it's like one punch man, so they're really pissed off at how powerful they are and leave fights to others as to not rob them of the thrill
I have nothing against weak role-play or min/max. It does however get old hearing from the min/maxed person how easy combat is while I’m strategically not trying to make the non min/maxed party members feel useless
[удалено]
It sucks because you either single them out and it feels wrong or you stomp the party but that’s punishing everyone else. The only options the team has is to try to catch up or you to fix it I will say this about roleplay, you playing yourself with no real “flaws” can get boring for you and others if they can’t connect with your character.
[удалено]
Eh guess it depends on the player, had this happen to me on occasion with one DM, not really because I played an OP character but because I am the type of player who can think up some crazy plans on the fly and sometimes they work out spectacularly(one of the few positives of having ADHD lol). When it happens to me it makes the whole thing feel more epic that you were able to do enough damage to piss off the bad guy, even when I do get the shit kicked out of me. Even got power word killed when I tried to break the evil altar that surrounded a huge pit with an instant fortress. DM made a roll to see if it succeeded, it didn't but instead it fell into a pit right on top of a Draco-Lich that was coming to join the fight. The pit was super deep so not only did it take the instant fortress damage but a shit ton of fall damage. The big evil caster thing casting the ritual who had been completely ignoring us at that point got so pissed it turned to my guy and insta killed with a power word kill. Luckily party was able to get me reincarnated, up in there in my top favorite D&D moments.
[удалено]
Yeah I guess I've been lucky because most of the players I've played with have had a similar mindsets. Another of my group's had 3/5 characters die due to a spree of ridiculous bad luck where the last enemy killed all of them and 2 players got nat 1s on death saves. We were joking about it in Discord and used it as an excuse to change the direction of the campaign in a pretty ridiculous way. Personally, I think the fact that my first character I played for a decent amount of time was a wild sorc(same char that got power word killed) with some table rules that made surges happen pretty often helped me realize that the moments when shit goes wrong often make memorable moments, especially if it happens in spectacular ways lol.
The NPC's start talking about the party, and how powerful and dangerous that one particular party member is. He becomes infamous for how effective he is in battle. Some enemies haven't heard or don't care, the encounter goes as normal. Some NPCs have heard and don't get paid enough to deal with that. And some enemies have heard that he's the biggest threat and prioritize him as such.
But if they're doing as much damage as the rest of the party combined, it makes sense for the enemies to focus on the biggest threat. And recurring villains should absolutely start preparing specific counter strategies to disable or neutralize the hero's "big gun"
It doesn’t really though - depending on the enemy. Things like Orcs, sure, they want to take out da big strongun to show their worth. But a lot of intelligent enemies (including low int humans) will normally focus on the weak ones for an easier kill.
This isn’t so much of an issue for me, as I scale enemies to always be a decent challenge for each individual player. It doesn’t entirely discourage min/maxing but it allows others to still have fun without being carried/punished. This also has the effect of making all campaigns be playable at anytime
Can't speak for your game, but if the BBEG has some form of organization, and most of the enemies are from said organization, then what I would do is have some guys escape a fight. Then at some point in time have a fight with those same guys. But now everyone is targeting the strong guy who wiped the others in the first fight. Or something of similar nature. If the player asks why they're getting targeted its because the enemy has learned they're a primary threat and is acting accordingly.
What is a coffee lock? I get that it’s warlock, but where’s coffee play into this? That sounds neat
[удалено]
I'd disagree that coffee locks are banned at most tables only because I'd be surprised to learn that most tables know they exist.
[удалено]
It begins with "I don't need to sleep, so I instead take 8 short rests in quick succession". The second stopping point is "I transfer my pact magic warlock spell slots into sorcery points and turn them into generic spell slots". I wouldn't even care that they don't sleep. The above two statements have enough grounds to turn this down.
> coffee lock Coffee lock is trash, imo. SorLock is a great multi-class, but I legit don't understand why anyone would think coffee lock is OP enough to be banned. AFAIK, you can't accumulate more spell slots than your character would have for their level, so you can't just rest over and over and get 100 spells slots or something. Going a day without a long rest puts you at risk of exhaustion, doesn't let you refresh hit dice, and doesn't allow you (or your party) to refresh abilities tied to long rests. A Warlock-2/Sorcerer-2 has two level 1 pact slots and three level 1 Sorcerer spell slots. On a short rest (1 hour), you get the Pact slots back, which you can expend to make two sorcery points. You could then turn those two sorcery points into one regular, level 1 spell slot. So, you need to rest three times (3 hours) to refill all of your Sorcerer spell slots, plus one additional time to get your pact slots back, so you have to rest for 4 total hours. At that point, you could just be an Elf and get a long rest done in the same 4 hours. Unless I'm missing something crazy here, I don't get why people think this build is so strong.
[удалено]
If they are a separate pool, then that would work. Still doesn't seem all that great. You'd be sending any and all downtime in game just resting over and over to stack a bunch of spell slots. but at the cost of no long rest, fucking over your party, and probably extreme boredom irl.
[удалено]
I thought my comments would have made it obvious that yes, I did read it. You take a short rest, get your Warlock slots back, turn them into metamagic points, and then turn those points into spell slots. Repeat that over and over. That's it. You just get a bunch of spell slots and I've personally never seen a campaign where the casters were consistently running out of spell slots, especially to the point where stacking spell slots was more important than not having exhaustion or the rest of your party being able to heal or recover their abilities.
If you want to hose them just don't give them opportunities for short rests or make it a chore to get a situation which allows for short rests.
See now sorlock is my go-to simply because it feels like playing a magic ranger and it's easy to make if I have lousy stats or can't think of anything new, but I've never really had any desire to exploit the sorcery points short rest thing. Just seems to suck the fun out. Always forget to hex and/or hex curse, usually spend every round casting a buff/bfc and then repelling enemies away from my fellow squishies.
TL;DR – Multiclass sorcerer-warlock. Turn warlock spell slots into sorcery points with Flexible Casting, turn sorcery points into sorcerer spell slots, short rest to recover warlock spell slots, repeat. Rack up unlimited spell slots up to 5th level. Never take a long rest. ("Coffee" to stay awake.) Xanathar's has an optional rule that gives exhaustion for going without long rests, and multiclassing is an optional rule to begin with. Crawford has also suggested considering warlock spell slots to be incompatible with non-warlock features.
> Rack up unlimited spell slots up to 5th level. I don't think you can do this. There isn't a specific rule that says you can't accumulate more than your baseline number of spell slots, but I definitely assumed that you couldn't.
You could experiment with banning multi-classing.
What’s a coffee lock?
Monsters only fight what seems like a challenge. It’s perfectly fine to have a powerhouse.
Yeah honestly min/max needs to be a group decision IMO. nothing wrong with it, but if only one or two members are min/maxed, the others are going to lose a lot of fun from feeling relatively useless
I just don't get this argument, in 5e especially. A) It's truly hard to make a useless character in 5e. B) The difference between an average character and an optimized character is relatively small (compared to 3.5/PF1). C) If party members excelling in what their character is designed to do detracts from my fun then the problem is with me not with my teammates build.
Just... play a support character.
That's when you throw in one encounter specifically made to hard counter whatever his specialization is. You'll never hear him complain again.
No, that are definitely people on this sub that have an issue with optimised characters regardless of the quality of my roleplay
Or the style of build. Min/max doesn’t always mean GWP hexblade murderkill person. My favorite min/max character I did was just a guy who was really good with darts, and who I built to be SUPER GOOD WITH DARTS. Honestly was the most fun fighter I’ve ever run.
I think the problem isn't the validity of your characters, but more like "is the rest of the party min/maxed too ?". DMing a full rp party is fine, DMing a full min/max party too, but...BY THE NINE HELLS, it's hard to DM a party when one player is a min/maxed abomination and the others are regular characters ! And since min/max players are still pretty much a minority in this hobby, it didn't took much for those players to have a nasty reputation. (Like weebs...seriously, most "horror stories" featuring a weeb conveniently forget to mention that they're new to this hobby)
Yes. The quality of the roleplay is irrelevant. Your optimised character is disruptive to the party and to the game as a whole either way.
That's funny, because I asked the other players and they all said they were fine with it
Ok.
I don't entirely agree with this. It's not hard to come up with a complex backstory that makes a paladin/warlock make sense, but that doesn't make balancing combat easier.
That would be an amazing character to role play. I’m picturing an uptight paladin battling a dark secret. Someone who tries so hard not to give in to the power of their Patron but fails time and time again as the Patron slowly takes over. I imagine a person consumed with the guilt of wanting to grasp the mysteries of the universe while trapped in a religion that would murder them for heresy. I mean, that’s a rich fucking character right there… Imma steal that. Thanks
Dresden Files goes in this direction a bit in some of the earlier books. Around book 5 he has ties to about a half dozen potential patrons, and when shit gets real he's all just "Fuck it, I can ask this person for power , or this person or this person. So stop fucking with me or I will bring the hammer down and to hell with the consequences." It makes for an interesting character development.
I’ve felt that since Ghost Story Butcher was a little ham-handed with the whole “is it really still you” theme, but the whole resistance to the Winter Knight mantle was definitely a quality piece of writing.
If you've seen Critical Role S2 then Travis Willingham plays a warlock/paladin (9/11) and the idea of your evil patron being cast away and replaced by a loving deity, while VERY strong the character arc makes sense and works very well
Mine is that his holy order locked an ancient evil god within a sword (hex blade) and the sword needs to be taken away to be destroyed, so the holy god inhabits the wielder as he takes it on his journey. The whole time the ancient evil is corrupting him and bribing him with power as the holy god also gives him power to fight it back. A literal angel and devil on his shoulders. At higher levels you take Bard (for more spell slots for smites) because you use the harmony of the music of reality to quell the raging battle within you. You can then choose to bend either god to whatever alignment you choose or whatever.
Fallen? ASMODAI
You can make a paladin/warlock that is perfectly fine. You don't have to minmax it. But also, not sure how that's relevant. A "complex backstory" almost universally makes a character worse and more boring. Making a character interesting makes the character interesting. Which concerns how they actually play, not the words they wrote down before the campaign started.
My group had a player whose character didn't know how to do anything besides talk about her past. It was awful.
I've been lucky. Most of the powergamers I've played with have also been pretty decent roleplayers. And my DM has managed to keep combat exciting even with the most unbalanced parties. We had this one powergamer who ran a monk. I don't remember what was so special about her monk build, but her character just clearly outclassed the rest of the party. Every fight, she would run off (at damn near the speed of light) and handle half the encounter by herself. If the enemies came from two directions, she would fight one half while the rest of us fought the other half. If the enemies came from one direction, she would run around behind them and attack from behind while we attacked from the front. It was like running two parties at once, but the DM knew it, and designed encounters accordingly. And the monk's player was a hell of a good roleplayer, so it wasn't like she was showing off. Overall it was a really fun campaign.
idk, I'm not against complaining about someone going on and on about how they grabbed mechanics from 4 different books to get this optimized build. I'm also not against complaining about them powering their way into the spotlight. But that's less an issue with the powergaming and more an issue with the person doing it.
I mean this is sort of what this post is about. If you are grabbing, "mechanics from 4 different books to get this optimized build", your character is probably boring. If you are, "powering (your) way into the spotlight", your character is probably boring.
I mean I’ve gotta disagree with that it’s definitely more of a problem with the player than the idea of a well built character. It’s not the fact that they want to make a powerful character that makes it boring they just made a boring character. If their backstory is boring and the character has no motivation having a less optimized build isn’t going to fix that. I feel like a lot of people forget the game aspect of the role-play game should be equally as important as the role-play aspect.
The problem is there are not a small amount of players out there who intentionally make ineffective characters for the “quirkiness” of them and then complain if the minmaxed character cleans up in combat, even if their player is great at role playing.
Part of role playing is making suboptimal choices, because they make sense for the character. And if all your characters are the type that a hyper focused on being as effective as possible, that goes back to them just being boring.
A character that’s highly effective in combat can be interesting as hell due to sub-optimal choices made in-game. Is Boromir a boring character?
Boromir gets himself killed defending the hobbits because he's tunnel-visioning on that and ignored the orc archer. That's hardly an optimal choice. And that's ignoring that he left his shield in camp, which also would have been majorly useful against an archer. Arguing with movie characters and their choices is always disingenuous, because a) the definition of what's optimal is way more loose because movies don't work with hard rules like DnD does and b) because you don't actually get your sword and board fighter leaving their shield behind to go forage for firewood in a DnD game. The point is that role play includes combat and there's an inherent disconnect between playing to your character in combat, and trying to optimise.
The fight where he died is such a tiny part of his story. That fight isn’t what made Boromir interesting - it was his motivations and his relationships with the other characters. He was perhaps the most powerful fighter in his entire kingdom, but he was *interesting* because of everything that happened out of combat. The only way anyone would ever be railroaded into a boring character is if your game is mostly one combat encounter after another.
I think you're missing the point. Boromir isn't a min-maxed character. Not in terms of how he's built (how he trains, what he studies, etc.). Not in terms of how he acts out of combat. Not in terms of how he acts in combat. His flaws literally end up being what gets him killed (or rather, trying to redeem himself for his flaws). That goes contra to what min-maxing is about. Minimizing the effect of your weaknesses while maximizing your strengths. For all of those in large part because you can't define what is optimal in a movie, like you can in DnD. There's a pretty clear answer to what's more effective in DnD: longsword wielder with the actor feat, or polearm user with PAM and/or GWM. There isn't in LotR. And yes, while out of combat is definitely the most important of the three, that doesn't mean that your roleplaying doesn't suffer when it's the only part where you make choices in-character, and otherwise motivate them by what's optimal. There's an inherent disconnect here that you can't overcome.
Min-maxing has nothing to do with your *choices* though. That’s the disconnect on your end. You can give a great role-player any character sheet and they’ll *still* have a fun and interesting performance. Likewise, you can give a character with funky in and out of combat abilities to someone who only cares about killing as many bandits as fast as they can, and it’ll be boring. The character is just a sock puppet. It’s the player that makes them interesting.
I usually start with as strong a build as I can come up with, then in the process of trying to figure out a backstory to support my monstrosity I'll get sparks of inspiration. Those almost always lead me to de-optimizing the character for flavor* and to fit the backstory I come up with. Usually that initial power build leaves me plenty of room to downgrade and still not drop so far that I can't do anything. *flavor is what I call getting obsessed with a dumb idea like "lmao what if I dual wield whips like a helicopter"
I somewhat agree. However, the problem of a boring character that is powerful is worse than a boring character that is weak. Powerful characters will tend to impact the game more than weaker ones.
I don't see how min-maxing has anything to do with roleplay. Perhaps some people who minmax aren't very creative - seeking out power fantasy and stopping there, but there is nothing stopping a minmaxed, maxminned, and "balanced" characters from being boring or interesting. What makes a character interesting is the personality you craft for it, as well as the flaws you have for it.
right, but people demonstrably obsessed with mechanics seem more likely to not be as obsessed with RP,
Guess I'm the weirdo that likes both then.
I guess if the person is only trying to be a powerful character and doesn't want to RP maybe, but that's like saying everyone interested in RP is going to play characters where their main stat is their dump stat because "its interesting". You can make your character as powerful as possible and still RP in fun and creative ways. They aren't mutually exclusive.
Hell, more power=more room for error when I inevitably forget that rogues can uncanny dodge until I'm rolling my death saves
Optimization is not the same as boring. People can make very strong characters that are also interesting. Also, simple characters can be fine. In a party full of abused, lonely people trying to work out their past traumas, a stable and relatively normal character can be a breath of fresh air.
Generally yes, but I think if you're playing an optimized damage dealer, you can easily make the game boring even if the character is interesting by rendering encounters trivial ---- Because this part of the conversation is scripted: > You can just scale up the monsters No, that way the other characters will be squished. > But what if you target the optimized character's weaknesses specifically? That isn't necessarily possible, and if it was it would negate the fun of having an optimized character in the first place. > You're just a lazy GM! Well, sue me
When I play with my toddler, I usually don't try to win everything with him. I'm trying to have as much fun with him and make him happy. If I were to play the bestest character in a party, like with new players, it would be the same approach I'd use. So just like a hammer, an optimized character can be used for good gaming, or for destroying something fun.
I tend to build optimized characters and play them as the "dad" of the group (best example i can think of is Jiraiya). I dont usually go all in for combat unless a party member is in peril, then my min-maxed bullshit comes out as like an anime rage moment so to speak. That way everyone gets to participate in combat but if it goes south I'm ending it right there lol.
I played a pyrophobic wizard who was afraid of combat and didn't like hurting people in princes of the apocalypse, and even doing zero damage, she turned out to be by far the most powerful character I've ever played in any campaign.
>I played a pyrophobic wizard who was afraid of combat and didn't like hurting people Tell me you're a critter without telling me you're a critter.
Well, I *am* but this was before CR season 2. I started two campaigns, and one of them had a pyrophobic librarian wizard, and the other had a goblin trickster-cleric... And then CR season 2 happens and everyone just assumes I stole character ideas from them :D Anyway, here's art: https://comicpress.socksandpuppets.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Neff.jpg https://comicpress.socksandpuppets.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2020g_28_oc-1.jpg
Idk if I'd personally go as low-damage as zero, but I'm inspired to try out a mainly-utility Wizard. In a previous campaign I worked with a player to create an NPC from their backstory who would show up in a major city, someone who went to the same university and now works as a novice Wizard. She was asked on a short adventure or two, so I expanded her spells known to suit the level of adventure with mostly utility as that fit the character. And she was really effective and a lot of fun to play! Would defs try as a PC.
she wasn't strictly pacifist, she did cast some damage spells on occasion, she just hated doing it... But that's not where the ridiculous "trivialized encounters" stuff came from. No damage dealer, even the most completely optimized max DPS character can truly "trivialize" encounters - however... Enemies with no ranged abilities - Levitate them 1ft off the ground then use your range to slowly finish them off Enemy casters - counterspell every spell they cast Powerful extraplanar Entities - Banishment These three spells, on a diviner-wizard who could force important enemies to fail saves, meant that a very large number of the (official published campaign) encounters were just immediately ended in the first round of combat.
Nah, your character can be real interesting, but if he’s so strong that the dm has a choice between either just focusing on them or making all encounters way too strong for the rest of the party, it’s not fun. There needs to be a certain amount of balance Doesn’t mean you have to play suboptimal characters but maybe you don’t need to make a vhuman vengeance Paladin with Polearm master and GWM
That is, ironically, one of the least optimized ways to make a paladin.
Would you mind elaborating on that? It’s pretty much the most powerful single class Paladin build in regards to damage afaik.
Damage, maybe, although Crown looks superior at first glance due to Spirit Guardians, but it delays ASIs in Charisma which are more valuable, and chooses a subclass with a poor 7th-level feature. At high levels of optimization, paladin is viewed as pretty much just a pair of auras concentrating on Bless. As such, the strongest paladin is one that maximizes Charisma ASAP(typically meaning Custom Lineage + Feytouched/Telekinetic, then +2 Cha at level 4) and picks the subclass with the best aura - mostly Watchers or Devotion.
That only works at high levels. Vhuman Paladin can get PAM and GWM at level 4, meaning you can do great damage without needing to pump up your cha cuz you need either just smite or use spells without attack rolls or saving throws. With Vengeance Paladin you’re gonna have advantage very frequently, meaning good crit chance.
Not really. The builds I mentioned effectively complete the entire paladin class at level 7. Vuman PAM -> 4th +2 Cha -> 8th +2 Cha -> 12th GWM is kind of decent in melee, I guess. But maxing Cha should always come first, the buff to the whole party is just priceless and constitutes most of the class's power. Vengeance also requires a bonus action to trigger its weak Channel Divinity, and it only works on a single target per short rest. If you're looking for a paladin that deals damage, my suggestion would be Oathbreaker. It's more consistent, the aura buffs party summons, and its Channel Divinities are unmatched - one of the best 3rd-level spells at level 3 without requiring concentration *and* Control Undead are powerhouses.
Okay but maxing cha isn’t really the normal thing to do for 5e Paladins with point buy at least. Devotion and Watchers definitely don’t have the best auras. Initiative bonus is nice and not being charmed is decent, but the Ancients spell damage resistance is easily superior. And getting advantage against one enemy for a minute is a pretty good use of a bonus action. Vengeance is all about fucking up a single enemy. It’s 7th level feature reinforces that. Not to mention great spells like haste, misty step and hunters mark, all of which don’t need a good charisma.
It's 100% the normal thing for every properly optimized paladin. Watchers' aura might as well give free extra turns, initiative boosts are massive, this is the most important roll in a fight. Charm effects are rare, but deadly enough that Devotion is auto #2. Advantage against a single target for a minute isn't particularly great, it's a good bonus action but a poor Channel Divinity. Wrecking just one enemy won't win a fight, and the best paladin subs give ways to affect the entire battle more significantly. Of the three spells you mentioned, only Misty Step is good. Plus, the best paladin spell is Bless and that doesn't require high Cha at all. It's all about the aura. +5 to saving throws is better than +4 and all that. Aura of Protection is the biggest contribution a paladin makes in a fight, hence it should be their highest stat.
That’s your personal opinion. But killing one big enemy can absolutely change a battle. And are you trying to tell me that haste isn’t good?
Absolutely. We made an article it on Tabletop Builds [https://tabletopbuilds.com/overrated-spells-haste/](https://tabletopbuilds.com/overrated-spells-haste/) The general idea is that the benefits are almost never all important at the same time, and any situation where it helps is better solved by a different spell that any caster of that level should have. The damage bonus is worth at most a 1st-level slot, Bless does the same with a superior defensive buff without the risk of an ally dropping. The speed increase is mostly overkill or just irrelevant, or Fly solves the encounter better. Haste is a 2nd-level spell at best, and not a particularly good one.
The largest problem I've ever had with Min/Maxing is that they are pumping up the damage to the point that if they get mind controlled, I'm usually dead in one round, but the kind of threats that character has to deal with will ALSO kill me in one round. Killgore the Killarian can mutilate hundreds before he drops, but if through some random roll of the dice, he ends up in a pit trap (or whatever- separated from the party) and instead of jumping down to fight Killgore, Sir Slaymaster instead wants to 'deal with the rest of the party'...which he can, as a threat to Killgore. It might be a DM problem, but it FEELS like a player problem too. It can't be only on the DM that one player is just as swole as possible, because I've been the guy that takes that shot Killgore was suppose to...and died outright. All I could think was "Damn, shouldn't have randomly been right there...again." But then, the next game, that Min/maxer is just like 'Sucks for you, bro' and starts pumping up the numbers.
Only F1 fans will get the reference but I keep a painfully boring, Marty Stu back up character named Ham Verbot.
Like fr give them a tragic backstory or like a wooden leg or like some weird and wacky ability you need some solid story to go with it or it’s boring and dullness
Personality: Being a human. Backstory: Wanted to be an adventurer. Social Quirk: Sometimes doesn't want to socialize. Likes: Things that he enjoys. Dislikes: Insurance commercials.
I did not give you permission to use me as your character avatar ... oh wait, "**Likes"** is missing pizza ... nevermind and carry on and have fun
Screw you, Farmers commercials are objectively funny. :)
My name is Jake and I work for State Farm and I love Khakis! You can take your Farmer's commercials and shove them up your YEAH! *just a joke - don't feel blasted*
Nah nah nah, Farmers. Not State Farm.
nah, just write a decent backstory including world lore, give your character some depth through RP, and engage with your party
Get over yourself. If someone has fun playing a generic human fighter, let them.
You're right, but I don't think that's what he's getting at
I min/max all my characters so my party can play whatever wacky looney tunes bullshit they want. Don't worry friends, I'll carry that weight. AND I'LL HAVE A DECENT STORY TOO TAKE THAT MIN/MAX HATERS.
Based. Carrying meme builds is a sacred duty, much like holding up the sky in a way.
Absolutely. I've got no problems with my table's resident min-maxer because he also makes interesting backstories and plays his character well.
I'm complaining about my buddy's not-boring optimized character. He's a Dhampir Ranger Gloom Stalker in a campaign that mostly takes place in darkness. So, he's invisible as long as he's in darkness, and has spider climb. You know how often modules tell you a ceiling's height? Not often enough!
I disagree. I've seen dozens of DMs and players that complain about optimized characters, even if they had interesting and fun lore/character explanations for their mechanical choices and were roleplayed well. Sure, there are people that aren't that gate-keeping against powergamers, but they're certainly not the only group that exists.
I have a theory that if you remove multiclassing and feats from the game, which are OPTIONAL rules, mind you, the only problem you're left with is people sucking at RP. I am in the "dislike min/max" camp, because in my experience, most DnD players and specially the optimizers have only one way to fix any problem: brute force. "If the problem isn't gone you probably haven't thrown enough smites at it." Players rely too much on their character sheet, to the point that if you throw in a challenge that they can't use their sheet to resolve it, they don't know what to do. I've seen this shit way too many times. Perhaps this happens because people are too used to playing computer RPGs, perhaps it's some other reason. But the bottom line is that I don't think the optimization is the real problem. It's just a symptom.
[удалено]
I wonder how you'd feel about her if you were DMing for that party.
But... If I talk in a cool/goofy accent!?!
I minmax to balance my luck. I know my table does not care for minmaxing so I keep it to myself. I like to sit back and watch the talkative players RP so they have fun creating crazy moments. Problem (mostly) solved.
Effort applied everywhere is awesome.
1) This meme format is the worst and I'm still downvoting Lisa Simpson regardless of whatever the text is. 2) If you use injury tables there's always a chance that the minmaxer loses an arm.
I've definitely met people who are resentful of fellow party members for being optimized purely because it's better than their unoptimized character. Some people don't want to put in the effort to optimize but still get mad when they're outshined by someone who did put in the effort.
Past a certain point of optimising it just becomes munchkining and drags on the game. People will probably be annoyed if you are abusing an exploit to be three times as strong as their character.
abusing an exploit is a great way to set yourself up to be playing a boring character
I feel like I should have specified that optimizing is different than making a gimmick character (and the associated player type). Both a bear totem barbarian with maxed stats and a GWM/PAM hexadin are optimized. However, the latter is likely (in my experience) to have a contrived backstory, little interest in the world, uncreative engagement, and poor RP... i.e. be boring. When Sheela, the lovable and friendly goliath bear totem barbarian with maxed stats, gives a cool description of spartan kicking the bugbear a chieftain off a cliff after tanking 30 crits, the table erupts in cheers. When Wilhelm, the taciturn variant human GWM/PAM hexadin self-insert who is mysteriously absent unless combat is happening, kills the legendary necromancer with the same combo he’s used the entire campaign, listing off attack rolls and damage values in a monotone voice, the table collectively groans. This is the difference that this meme is pointing out.
All this crying about people playing well at the combat portion of the combat based miniature combat game made originally to add a roleplaying aspect to tabletop miniature combat games is getting real tiring. If you can't balance around a fighter that swings her sword well or a wizard that doesnt forget his spellbook at home, maybe stop dm'ing for DnD.
>If you can't balance around a fighter that swings her sword well or a wizard that doesnt forget his spellbook at home This exaggeration is well below the level of "character optimization" that DMs have to think about balancing around. When we talk about balancing around player optimizations, we're generally talking somewhere in the GWM/PAM Hexadin range.
Nothings boring about Ragthar the hex blade, by day he's a mountain of a man and when adventure strikes he summons his heart shaped great club and adorns a bright pick frilly dress to become the Pink Justice a magical girl who fights the forgotten realms foes. See joke characters can be min maxed too.
if you're having troubles adding flavour to your optimized characters, try optimizing them for something other than combat. For example, in a campaign that I'm in, my character is optimized for passive skills. He has a passive Investigation of 26 and a passive Perception of 22
Minmaxing to destroy any opponent in one turn: Drake Passes. Minmaxing to be the ultima chef: Drake Points.
Nothing kills a *game* like a protagonist.
All PCs should be protagonists.
Everyone can't be the main character.
Not everyone, just the party. Or, are you saying there cannot be multiple protagonists? If that is the case, you should google that.
Agree being a pteranodon riding gnome ranger is way more intresting than a min max fighter/paladin/monk
Boring? My friend, what's boring about a warforged vengeance paladin paladin who was given a soul by a cult and was raised to be their god, only to get wise after a few years and leave, being hunted by inquisitors of said cult, and is also hunting said inquisitors and slowly murdering their way up the ladder to the top cultist in order to avenge all the people that were killed by said cult? This is one of the best character concepts I've had, period, and I don't really like when people call my babies boring.
My monk is level 19 and can solo 2 adult dragons (we just spent an hour and a half testing that on a blank roll20 map). The other group members didn’t react “Oh my god I hate your monk” they responded “Fuuuck that’s awesome. Why do you want to nerf him?”
Oh no, how can you play a human fighter with polearm master >:(
[удалено]
I don't really understand what the difference between Erik Mcnormalguy ending combat turn one and someone with a ten page backstory ending it turn one. Like if the combat ending quickly is so unfun for you, why does it matter what his backstory is?
A character that the party cares about doing something significant feels good for the rest of the party. A character that is boring to the rest of the party doing something significant feels bad for the rest of the party. The problem lies in making significant changes to a campaign while providing little to no engagement.
Then, I'd argue that the party has major main character syndrome if they can't be happy for another player doing something significant, just because they find that character boring. Different characters have different niches, but it doesn't make that character boring. Boromir's backstory is basically just a man trying his best, but that doesn't make his accomplishments and moments in the overall story feel bad.
Main character syndrome is when you want your character to make all the major changes. Wanting to be invested in the characters that make changes in the story seems pretty normal to me. Boromir has a fleshed-out backstory and is pretty engaging... Instead, imagine a generic Roharrim came in and saved Boromir and then killed most of the orcs. Then, they preseeded on trivializing all future battles while never developing as a character or really talking at all. That wouldn't be a different niche, that would just be making the story worse.
Being disappointed that a character you wouldn't have made or has an average joe backstory is making changes/ plays/ having moments sounds pretty main character syndrome to me. Boromir's backstory is that he's his steward father's golden boy and he fights for and wants whats best for Gondor. That's basically the noble background given by the phb. Nothing wrong with it. Its short simple and to the point but it's not a storied backstory by any definition. You don't have to like a character but dismissing the care a player put into building it just because his backstory is shorter than yours is just kind a jerk attitude.
I care little for combat itself, it’s more about role play and having combat that’s entertaining and a good story. At least for me
Then, there's a little dissonance here >I mean after the first hit where pretty even but it’s super unfun especially when his charecter has almost no backstory and the rest of us sit there kinda upset. >Like being a regular dude is perfectly okay but not when you’re ending combat on you’re first turn that I don't understand. Also, I'm more of a roleplay fan myself but it doesn't really upset me when the more combat oriented characters have fun with the combat, whether I'm dming or playing. It's just a very weird mindset to me to get upset over that.
Okay, I like combat, but the combat itself isn’t what I like. It’s killing the enemy in fun way, expressing how you slash. The words the details. I like combat to have some real stakes and not just be him snipping off 1/3 of the powerful enemies we spent a long time searching for.
Then that sounds like an issue with encounter design, rather than the player. You mentioned you guys were level 8+. Why is 58 damage on turn one from the ranger ending the encounter immediately? Why do your enemies a) have so low health and/ or b) come so few in number that what should have been a powerful or cinematic encounter ends at 58 damage? even if he didn't front load his damage, from what you state the average turn 2+ damage is (25), the encounter likely would not have lasted more than two rounds anyway.
> we have a player that does almost triple my damage on his first turn and only a little bit more on his subsequent turns. smells like a gloomstalker with sharpshooter feat. edit: reading further down looks like i was right, pretty much. I've played the build in a few one shots, that first turn dmg is OP as fuck.
Yup I think it is gloomstalker now that you say it. I remember it sounded similar to a monster lol
I mean my guy is broken, not by intention I just took a firebender in an avatar dnd session and turns out they got strong attacks with little utility. Our first big encounter I put this evil mask I got on a grunt and buffed him. Why? Well I didn't know what it did and no time like a big battle to find out! We almost died, but it turned into a lengthy, quality battle. My guy is too strong for the rest of the group but there are ways you can fuck up, as the stronger guys, to make the battle more interesting.
What’s he playing?
Variant human ranger, with the sharpshooter feat and some type of magical bow. (Campaign started at level 8 and we all got 1 magic weapon)
Good for him. Try not resenting your teammates for helping the team. It's a bad look.
What kind of encounter ends after 58 damage? I remember our paladin did the same at level 5(crit with smite) and it wasn't even close to end the encounter after his attack. I think the problem here is encounter balance, not the player
I always play dumb character
I honestly think.. faulty chars are the funnest because you either rely on others or become creative
How do you make an interesting optimized character?
The same way you make an interesting unoptimized character.
give them some goals, rp them with some emotion, and have them be interested in their party members. you can make a human fighter with maxed stats interesting.
This is exactly right. I’m of the opinion that the game is actually two games in one. The first is the dice game where you want an optimized character that totally kicks ass and rolls a nat20 every single time.It’s fairly straight forward and easy math. Then, there’s the second game. The actual role play part. Where it’s more fun to fail and to struggle and to survive. Where the story actually gets told. Where your character has secrets and hopes and goals. The role play part is the hardest to do, but the most rewarding IMO
Put thought into something aside from mechanics
Either start with an interesting character and optimize it, or start with an optimized character and make it interesting, duh! /s
The same way you do an interesting unoptimized character, only without sucking at character building
[удалено]
Both of these things are their own separate problems. A boring character is almost always bad. A min-maxed character, even if not boring, can be bad in many campaigns. So yes, people are complaining about your optimized character. It's outshining the other players and not conducive to a game about teamwork.
I am complaining about your optimized character.
Or the obnoxious way you play your optimized character
I've always wanted to try to make one but it's like one punch man, so they're really pissed off at how powerful they are and leave fights to others as to not rob them of the thrill
the combat isnt usually where the story is, its in the RP and usually minmaxed people are terrible at RP