Do 3.5 players actually care about optimization?

[ezekielraiden]

Question is ambiguously phrased. Consider a shirt with pink and green stripes; is this shirt green?

If by "is x green" you mean, "is some (meaningful) part of x green?" then the answer is clearly yes. If you mean, "is x all green?" the answer is clearly no.

Do some players build highly optimized characters? Yes. Do all players do so? No. But neither of these answers should surprise you. Only by changing the question can we get to a point where the answers are interesting (e.g. "how common are highly-optimized characters?")

IME, some minimal level of optimization is desired & expected for almost every character. There is a contingent that is vehemently opposed to picking anything good (turning the "roleplay not rollplay" fallacy into a second fallacy, denying the consequent), but they are merely a vocal minority. Most players want to do well. They want to avoid unwise choices, and derive at least a little pleasure from making good ones.

Heavy optimization is less common, but still common. People have learned that 3e is a pretty broken ruleset, in the sense that it allows degenerate results (in the mathematical sense--things that zoom off to infinity or crash to zero), and they understand that it's not all that useful to try to ignore that as a player. So each group finds its optimization level, and tries to make that work.

There are also people like me or even beyond, who just enjoy the act of crafting a character to certain parameters (be they mechanical or thematic). I'm still tinkering with an LA-buyoff half-battle-dragon gestalt C.Cleric/Ruby Knight Vindicator/Knight of the Raven||Crusader/Bard/Sublime Chord/Jade Phoenix Mage (see spoilerblock since it's off-topic). That's some relatively high-power gaming. Not earth-shattering, but up there. Tinkerers are going to appear more common online, because their requests never disappear and they can instantly poll a huge group of amateur experts on literally any topic.

Spoiler: Parenthetical build-related spoilerblock

Show

*I call it the Sublime Jade Raven Vindicator. Meant to be sort of a magic-knight battle commander, doing Sonic damage Dragonfire Inspiration alongside buff and CC spells, pulling out maneuvers once the battle is properly joined. JPM's Quickening Strike synergizes with RKV's Divine Impetus to let me get those sweet auto-quickened spells and still have another Swift action to spend on something else. Actually found a way to get 19 BAB and IL18, while maintaining CL17 and 9th level spells on both sides! It even avoids having levels with JPM on one side and RKV on the other until level 16, and if I went for Abjurant Champion 1-5 instead of maxing out JPM, I'd totally avoid it. I'd even get CL19 Sublime Chord stuff, trading Quickening Strike for Swift Abjuration, which is less good but doesn't cost me a caster level.

[noob]

I have seen in those forums a real campaign about playing a full T1 team and resting only once every 14 monster encounters.

[Morty]

To use an example, let's say I'm making a warmage and spending a lot of time picking the right feats and magic items to maximize their potential to blow things up and make sure to use the best spells to do it. The end result is still moderately powerful at best, because warmages and blasting magic in general are weak. If I make a sorcerer or wizard and just pick the spells that look right, they'll be more powerful even though I hardly optimized at all.

If I'm making a dual-wielding martial character, I'm probably jumping through hoops just to keep up with someone with the same class who just grabbed a big stick and Power Attack. So optimization here doesn't result in power, just viability.

[Twurps]

A lot of people seem to confuse 'optimize' with 'maximize' (particularly: maximize power). I don't maximize the power of my build, but I do optimize the heck out of it, and by my definition of 'optimize' nearly everybody does. Or you wouldn't be playing this game.

Optimizing means you find the optimal (so not highest, but best) level of whatever it is you optimize.
So I optimize fun, I optimize power, I optimize playability, and when posible, I optimize synergies between my character and other characters and/or the game setting.
And from what I'm reading here, everybody is at least optimizing one of the factors above.

OP also mentioned planning a build to lvl 20:
level 20 might be a bit high, but I do plan ahead. I find the game very punishing for those that don't. I've found it very frustrating to play a character for over a year, discover at lvl 10 that there's a 10lvl PrC that's perfect for my character, but has prereq's I should have taken at 3rd and 6th level, and because I didn't I'll either have to wait to lvl15 to enter it, or play the same character-concept all over again next time. I know retraining is a thing, and have used it in the above example, but I prefer not having to resort to that.

[ezekielraiden]

So optimization here doesn't result in power, just viability.

Great summary, particularly this.

Optimization makes the most of a set of options. Power is related, but not the same.

[BowStreetRunner]

Good points about optimization not equaling just simply more power. I work as an analyst, and one of the most important considerations we take into account is the cost/benefit ratio. This definitely applies in D&D.

For instance, if you maximize your damage output, when you consider the resources you used to do it, what else could you have done with those resources instead? Is it worth sacrificing those things in order to maximize damage output? The truly optimized character maximizes something only to the point where the resources used wouldn't have been more valuable doing something else.

[Ruethgar]

I care abou optimization methods and use them in games for subpar classes or when others are building to a higher tier, but mainly for characters that I want to come out being a certain way so I use optimization techniques to get a thematic just right.

An example off the top of my head is using a self limited Mindsight on a Dvati archer so he can “see” who he is sniping from 1k ft away. His story has him as an assassin and while in play it is very doubtful he’ll ever have the chance to use that sort of sniping, him having the ability is what was important to me.

Another would be using Sculpt Self to get a few thematic abilities. Or the retraining rules/DCS for the auto-granted proficiency feats to make room for background feats.

I’ve found that, since switching to 3.P with SoP and SoC as the primary PF sources, I don’t need to do that anywhere near as much since the SoP/SoC system can so readily define a theme, but with just 3.5 I’ve used optimization techniques in suboptimal manner to make most of my characters hover around the T3/4 mark.

[HouseRules]

I have issues with Lanchester's [Differential] Equation. At one end of the extreme, we have the Lanchester's Square Law, and at the other end of the extreme, we have the Lanchester's Linear Law.

Experience Award always follows the Linear Law, and never the Square Law, as if the Monsters are too stupid to learn how to Focus Fire.

Not Optimized follows the Linear Law.
Average Optimized follows the Triangular Number
Practical Optimized follows the Square Law.

Solo Party (1)
Dual Party (2)
Small Parties (3)
Medium Parties (4-7)
Large Parties (8+)

The best way to deal with large parties is to increase hit points for the monsters so that they survive focus fire from the players. Otherwise, they provide too few of a threat. The other issues is that DM need to increase monster quantity without quality, and follow the standard guide of stupid monsters do not focus fire. Only smart monsters know how to focus fire and never increase the quantity of these monsters when adjusting for party size.

[Resileaf]

Is taking an archetype in Pathfinder and building the entire character around its gimmick optimizing? I would think yes, but it's obvious that if the archetype is bad, then you're just optimizing the badness, which should make it not optimizing in the end.
Because that's a thing I really like doing. Just taking an archetype and building feats and equipment around it, without regards for whether it's good or not.

[zfs]

The vast majority of people only want to be able to contribute. I've only ever played with one person who did anything approaching a TO build, and it was in Epic Levels where any sense of balance the game once had falls apart anyway.

To the extent that a BSF with a two-handed weapon taking Power Attack is optimization, yes, most people do that.

[Jay R]

By definition, people who take an active part in this forum spend more time thinking about D&D away from the game than the average player.

That's what taking an active part here is.

[Bucky]

My only recent long-running campaign had some optimization-related problems.

We had two optimizers competing with each other, retiring characters and replacing them with increasingly optimized and specialized ones. We had a GM escalating to challenge those two players. We had one player building based on rule-of-cool without worrying too much about effectiveness, and dying a lot. And we had one player trying to keep a single character for the whole campaign with no rebuilds.

As a result, we sometimes had a player simply solo an encounter. We sometimes had one or more characters goofing around in combat because they knew they didn't matter. The low-op characters stopped using abilities that allowed saves because they literally never worked; the enemies' saves had to be high enough to deal with the high-op characters.

The problem almost killed the campaign, but eventually a couple of the players pulled the GM over for a talk on balance; it didn't level things out, but one of the high-op characters got nerfed to the point where it was possible to threaten them without shutting down the lower-op characters, and that ended the escalation.

[Morty]

The issue is definitely muddied by the game's balance problems making it so a character can be just fine in one group, but powerful or weak in another. To use my examples, the warmage might actually feel powerful next to an unoptimized wizard who focuses on blasting, especially in a low-level game. And the dual-wielder might actually look impressive next to someone who just made a fighter with a shield.

[noob]

The issue is definitely muddied by the game's balance problems making it so a character can be just fine in one group, but powerful or weak in another. To use my examples, the warmage might actually feel powerful next to an unoptimized wizard who focuses on blasting, especially in a low-level game. And the dual-wielder might actually look impressive next to someone who just made a fighter with a shield.

Dual wielding is so bad that a fighter which brings two shields and hit people with one shield while keeping the other close to him can make the dual wielding person look bad because at least the shield fighter does not have to fight penalties with all the attack rolls and the colossal amount of feat taxes with dual wielding.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Dual wielding is so bad that a fighter which brings two shields and hit people with one shield while keeping the other close to him can make the dual wielding person look bad because at least the shield fighter does not have to fight penalties with all the attack rolls and the colossal amount of feat taxes with dual wielding.

That's just a sword-and-board fighter with a bludgeon instead of a blade. Making that work is actually harder than a twf warrior because of it's lower damage output.

One feat and a pair of magic gloves really isn't -that- huge an investment for getting the extra attacks. Greater twf is a wasted feat outside of very particular circumstances. The steepest part of twf is the need to keep two weapons enhanced to the fullest degree you reasonably can.

[Oko and Qailee]

For me it strongly depends on the group.

One group I played with ~3/6 players didn't really care at all, 2/6 care but had bad ideas of what was truly optimal/overpowered, and one who optimized.

Another group I've Dmed for approx 3+ years has a bunch of people who optimize a good bit, but they always are optimizing weird builds, like a cat that was convinced he was a vampire, he was trying to recreate all the vampire features without being undead. His build was actually pretty powerful.

[Quertus]

Do I optimize? Of course. My characters are "not from around here", to optimize their viability at the greatest number of tables, their ability to form connections, and their ability to Explore the setting.

And I have lots of existing characters, to optimize the chance that I can pick one that fits a given scenario.

And i play lots of very different characters - lots of role-playing stretch goals - to optimize both the range of potential characters I can bring, and the range of characters I've experienced, to best understand what I like.

As far as power goes, meh, balance to the table.

how often do you see players intentionally build super powerful characters?

I rarely play with ****s like that. It's a sad thing when someone has the skill to build a strong character, but lacks the skill to know not to.

Most people are not optimizers. It takes at least a little effort to optimize (ie. realizing you can search online for optimizations, performing the searches, reading opinions on forums), and then there's the obvious table limits (source allowances, gentlemen's agreements on approximate power level, etc).

I am saddened by the extent to which people outsource character creation, that "optimize" can be viewed as "read online and copy" rather than "read books and think".

That does seem to result in a balanced party. Wasn't that the assumptions of the 3.0 creators?

I have yet to see an unoptimized blaster Wizard contribute meaningfully to a party.

One of the biggest issues I have with 3.5 is then actually the power creep not the uber power tricks. Power creep is much harder to notice, both as a DM trying to reign in power and as a player intentionally trying not to abuse the system. Certain things can slip through until you learn better. Spells stronger than most other spells of their level, feats stronger than most other feats, etc., etc. For uber power tricks it's easy to say "Lol no". Finding out where people draw the line is also hard, because different people draw it in different places.

Just balance to the table, fix as needed. Balance isn't just a point, it's a range. The larger the range your group can accept, the harder it is to be caught unawares by hidden imbalances.

I'd say it's a bout a third of all players. The ''optimize and Rule Them All" is popular for many players. Quite often it's a player that is not having such a great life, in their own view.

And many of the players that play 3/3.5E only do it for the ''power", and the safe nerf rules.

Yes, I suspect you're right, that you'll find more intentionally strong characters at the lower points of most people's lives. It's certainly not entirely untrue for me.

What are "safe nerf rules" in context?

This is actually something very irritating for me to read. RAW and RAI are quite important for me and my players, because if you ignore them, why are you even playing dnd, go play some rules light system like fate (actually would recommend highly for a rules light system, fate is great), or just do freeform roleplaying even. Implying that anyone who cares about the rules is a stingy rules lawyer is close minded and just rustles my jimmies. The rules are there to set expectations for players, to give guidelines to GMs and to all around maintain some level of consistency.

Preach it!

My only recent long-running campaign had some optimization-related problems.

We had two optimizers competing with each other, retiring characters and replacing them with increasingly optimized and specialized ones. We had a GM escalating to challenge those two players. We had one player building based on rule-of-cool without worrying too much about effectiveness, and dying a lot. And we had one player trying to keep a single character for the whole campaign with no rebuilds.

As a result, we sometimes had a player simply solo an encounter. We sometimes had one or more characters goofing around in combat because they knew they didn't matter. The low-op characters stopped using abilities that allowed saves because they literally never worked; the enemies' saves had to be high enough to deal with the high-op characters.

The problem almost killed the campaign, but eventually a couple of the players pulled the GM over for a talk on balance; it didn't level things out, but one of the high-op characters got nerfed to the point where it was possible to threaten them without shutting down the lower-op characters, and that ended the escalation.

It's a sad thing when someone has the skill to build a strong character, but lacks the skill to know not to.

I much prefer my tactic, of completely out-optimizing them, then asking if they'd care to scale back to the party's level. Came to be quite the spectator sport at some of my tables - some of my groups actively looked forward to playing with a clueless over-optimizer, just to watch that exchange.

One feat and a pair of magic gloves really isn't -that- huge an investment for getting the extra attacks. Greater twf is a wasted feat outside of very particular circumstances. The steepest part of twf is the need to keep two weapons enhanced to the fullest degree you reasonably can.

Which gloves are these? I've got a player going twf, and I don't think he'll need a power boost, but just in case...

[tyckspoon]

Which gloves are these? I've got a player going twf, and I don't think he'll need a power boost, but just in case...

Gloves of the Balanced Hand, MIC item. Gives the benefit of Two-Weapon Fighting, or Improved if the character already has the actual feat.

[Cosi]

I care about power level, not optimization. If out-of-the-box characters were capable of producing the kinds of stories I enjoy, I would play those. For the most part they aren't, so for the most part I don't.

[tadkins]

I care about optimization to a certain point. Like, I'll think of a cool character concept that may or may not be the most optimized thing in the world (a blasting witch, a frost champion cleric, etc) and then look for good options to make that concept work well in an actual game without compromising its flavor. Yes I know that if my wizard doesn't have Incantratrix levels or whatever that class is called, that it would be less powerful than one who does, but as long as it's a character that isn't just being carried by a party and can pull its own weight in the ways I want it to, then I am happy.

[kkplx]

So I’ve seen a lot of “optimization threads” which offer tips to squeezing 100% of the power from each class. However how often do you see players intentionally build super powerful characters?

Like when you play 3.5 is it a party full of ridiculous multi classes that exploit the system and plan their character from level 1-20 or is it more common to see players pick classes they like and try to play them competently but without any intention to be “super powerful”? Do you see players scour every source book for every advantage or do they tend to use only 1-3 books when they choose their feats and such?

From experience, players who still stick with 3.5 do so for the express purpose of abusing the system and its massive array of options.

[Cosi]

From experience, players who still stick with 3.5 do so for the express purpose of abusing the system and its massive array of options.

"Abusing" is a needlessly antagonistic word in this context. 3e is, by and large, intended to produce characters that are more like optimized 3e characters than any other game. If you want to play those characters, using 3e is the least abusive way to do so.

[noob]

From experience, players who still stick with 3.5 do so for the express purpose of abusing the system and its massive array of options.

I play 3.5 and I always use core only characters with a single class.
You do not need to abuse the system or to get 3 manuals to be stupidly powerful.
Getting a high level is enough to do stuff like casting teleport.

[DeadlyUematsu]

From experience, players who still stick with 3.5 do so for the express purpose of abusing the system and its massive array of options.

I have to agree. Last couple of times I went about recruiting players for a 3.5e campaign, I saw a great amount of overpowered, if not outright broken, characters as if it was a normal thing to do. As such I am very skittish about running 3.5e again until the tendency tampers off.

[noob]

I have to agree. Last couple of times I went about recruiting players for a 3.5e campaign, I saw a great amount of overpowered, if not outright broken, characters as if it was a normal thing to do. As such I am very skittish about running 3.5e again until the tendency tampers off.

Do not forget that monsters have all the tools players have plus some more so for a character to be broken it basically need to go 120% tippy(when the layers upon layers of contingent spells exceeds writable numbers and that nesting time stops infinitely and then forgetting what you planned to do because you spent too much accelerated time casting time stop and having a contingency reminding you what you planned to do is a normal thing).

If a character just goes around and teleport an infinity of times and casts all the damage spells an infinity of times per turn then it is not powerful enough to be truly broken.

Some dnd 3.5 players plays some sort of metaphysics game where Infinite spiral power seems just weak and where you start rewriting philosophy and the rules of physics.
Anything less than that is beatable by using the right tools on monsters yes even the person teleporting an infinity of times and casting all the damage spells each turn(including an infinity of no save no sr no attack roll just take damage spells)
You just need to figure out the right tools to use in the normal fights where the usual questions are stuff like "if I cast as an immediate action greater celerity and ready time stop to cast it if someone casts time stop or celerity what happens if my opponent readied an action to react to that situation before" and "If I make that each worshiper of kord as well as kord was never born will kord never be a god"

If on the other hand you face something as mundane as a character dealing BB(5345546,4324) and that you do not have super turing machine with an oracle to calculate that amount of damage there is then tons of ways to just make your monsters not take damage or to just swarm with enough monsters(which will have the side effect of making the player feel cool thus it is the encouraged tactic) or to have monsters immune to that form of damage and so on.
If you can calculate the damage you can just give more hit points to the monsters.
If your player is polite enough to cast spells which allows saves you can just boost the saves of the monsters if that player is too reliable.(for example make it fight higher level monsters)

The other problem that can arise is if two players decides to pick the same niche(example: hp damage) and that one does not do the job properly and have no other niche in which case finding a way to remedy to the weakness of that player could be encouraged(example: give it a shiny template without the usual la or if your players are a lot in the cooperation theme the players might themselves give extra magical items to the weaker character)

Then if your players are jerks in real life no matter the system it is going to not work.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I have to agree. Last couple of times I went about recruiting players for a 3.5e campaign, I saw a great amount of overpowered, if not outright broken, characters as if it was a normal thing to do. As such I am very skittish about running 3.5e again until the tendency tampers off.

I've found that, as long as you know what's out there, it's usually not all that difficult to make "overpowered" characters work for every inch of proverbial ground. To that end, there are two books I absolutely cannot recommend highly enough for a GM; The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook and Dungeonscape. The right environmental features can turn a foe that would be a pushover into a nightmare really quickly.

I'd be happy to provide examples if you could tell me where you put the line for "overpowered."

[Nytemare3701]

Most of the time, building a character to the specifications I'm seeking (usually a particularly esoteric combination of abilities like a martial character that has access to one or two spells in particular), I usually have to overshoot the target "balanced" character and double back. Character building is a resource allocation game, and the more powerful the build, the more efficient the resources are allocated, giving more breathing room to make non-optimal choices for fun without shooting yourself in the foot.

[CactusAir]

Pretty much this.

Most people care at least a little about optimization (though they don't think about it in such terms). They want a character who can "do things", preferably cool things. that's like very basic optimization.

Only a minority care about optimization in the sense of actually planning and designing character builds and combos and whatever.

As as people have noted, a good chunk of those who care enough to "dollcraft" still aren't any good at it

[skunk3]

In my personal experience I've found that optimizers are more like 50% (or better) of the people I've come across. By 'optimization' I mean making a particular class or combo as effective as it can be at the shticks that person wants the character to be good at. In other words, I've seen loads of reach weapon wielding, tripping, charger fighter types with rings of freedom of movement. As far as min-maxers go, they are pretty rare but I have met several and they take it seriously. They almost exclusively play tier 1 classes and only play lower tier classes if there is some sort of trick they can exploit, like ubercharger builds for example, or a crit fishing Disciple of Dispater build or whatever. They also scour forums (such as this one) for build ideas and feat combos that make them insanely effective at doing things or even one thing, so much so that it's almost game-breaking. One of these days I'm going to play a character that takes levels solely based upon what the PC has been doing in the campaign and have been interacting with, even if it ends up being a huge mess. I typically come up with an idea and build around it, but I totally admit I am one of those people who usually plans a character from 1-20 from the very start, feats and all. I have numerous .txt files in a folder with build ideas, many of which I've never had the chance to actually play. Sometimes I will just think of a PERSONALITY and decide what classes suit the character. Lately though I've been playing mostly Warlock-centric builds because they are so hassle-free and can be flavored in many ways, and no matter how much optimization you try to do with a Warlock it's never gonna be hogging the spotlight, lol. My personal gameplay style is ranged, mobile, and capable of being annoying but not so much that I become the primary target, so Warlocks are perfect for me.