If your looking for shenanigans in-game for me I like giving my characters flaws that don't impact their class somewhat impact combat and really impact the party in RP situations for example.
Fighter/Rogue (bugbear): this is a decently strong Assasin type build if you sneak up and plan and with the right feats you can use your sneak attack more often but if you give your character low intelligence how will they come up with those things, the way my dm home brewed it is that I was the animal companion of the beast master ranger and that is how my character moved around and did the things they did because the ranger didn't due the best in combat and I was a monster with 150+ dmg in some rounds but it also made for amazing RP having a strong bond with a character that preferred RP and me a Min/Max.
but the amount of RP vs battel also depends on the DM and should be influenced by the overall group
Well, since this thread's already been necroed, I feel like the question is a false one. Why does "roleplaying" mean having a character who's not very good or possibly even outright incompetent at what they do?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
imo It just depends on what type of campaign you guys are doing. If you're doing a campaign meant to be difficult and battle focused then Minmaxing is kinda required but if you're following a theme then of course you should do that.
I tend to make the mechanics of a character such that they are powerful and potent in whatever I wanted them to do, but I also find that I could have the most well balanced character in the world, if they don't have a decent character development to work through, I will tire of them. So for me, it's character development first, and then powerfulness second (I voted "Moderate".)
To me, character development is completely independent of mechanics and yet mutually inclusive, they co-exist to some degree.
As DM, i always require character development with appearance, background and backstory fleshed out. Mechanically speaking, how optimized your character is up to you.
As player, i always exercise character development with appearance, background and backstory fleshed out. Mechanically speaking, i usually build my characters moderately optimized.
I think it depends hugely on the campaign. If you are playing a campaign that doesn't give you many opportunities to express your character through choices -- like a lot of the WotC modules don't -- then it hardly matters how well developed your narrative concept is.
My Barbarian is a bounty hunter from a nation where mages are the elite class. He came up through his own charm and audacity and started going after mages for the ambitions of... Other mages, I think? To be honest, none of this has come up at all, so it's basically slipped my mind. What has come up is that he knows how to get information about new places, he's able and willing to insert himself into social situations where he doesn't belong, and he doesn't trust anybody, least of all wizards.
More importantly, he has very little magic of his own, which really feels like a hindrance when we're fighting a lot of magical monsters and dealing with a lot of magical hazards. He isn't as tough or as hard-hitting as a single 4th level spell slot from our Wizard or Druid. I'm right on the border between enjoying playing him and being frustrated with him.
But put him in a campaign where we have more agency over what we're doing? Or one with less magic? Even a campaign where we interact with the same small cast of characters instead of a new batch every couple of sessions? I might not even care that he can't keep up with the mages in and out of combat. The raw character of him might be more than enough.
Anyway, I always like to develop the two aspects in tandem. I can come up with a story for anything, and I can make anything approximately viable in 5e. The trick is that I want to feel clever about it.
Since it's not too hard to just reflavor things in this game, I tend to go the "moderate minmaxer" route slightly more when thinking of my build/abilities. It's not that I'm doing character backstory as an afterthought at all, but I know that I can adapt the build's flavor to fit my character concept. In my mind, I want to have a character who's both fun to roleplay and to be effective and fun in combat. The character build rarely changes how fun the character it to role-play, but it does have a huge effect on combat fun.
I tend to lean more into optimization (my preferred term, rather than min-maxing), however, I think that you don’t have to choose either character power level or RP. You can have both. In my current campaign, I am playing an extremely powerful and optimized 9th level Eldritch knight fighter (Shadar Kai) I use fog cloud and the blind fighting style along with elven accuracy to gain triple advantage on my three hand crossbow attacks using crossbow expert and sharpshooter. We are currently dealing with matters in the shadowfell, where Shadar Kai originated from and it is opening up a lot of cool RP moments and I find that I can have fun both optimizing and doing advanced roleplaying.
I tend to lean more into optimization (my preferred term, rather than min-maxing), however, I think that you don’t have to choose either character power level or RP. You can have both. In my current campaign, I am playing an extremely powerful and optimized 9th level Eldritch knight fighter (Shadar Kai) I use fog cloud and the blind fighting style along with elven accuracy to gain triple advantage on my three hand crossbow attacks using crossbow expert and sharpshooter. We are currently dealing with matters in the shadowfell, where Shadar Kai originated from and it is opening up a lot of cool RP moments and I find that I can have fun both optimizing and doing advanced roleplaying.
Do you use homebrew advantage rules? (RAW you can't have advantage more than once - 2 dice is the max!)
I tend to lean more into optimization (my preferred term, rather than min-maxing), however, I think that you don’t have to choose either character power level or RP. You can have both. In my current campaign, I am playing an extremely powerful and optimized 9th level Eldritch knight fighter (Shadar Kai) I use fog cloud and the blind fighting style along with elven accuracy to gain triple advantage on my three hand crossbow attacks using crossbow expert and sharpshooter. We are currently dealing with matters in the shadowfell, where Shadar Kai originated from and it is opening up a lot of cool RP moments and I find that I can have fun both optimizing and doing advanced roleplaying.
Do you use homebrew advantage rules? (RAW you can't have advantage more than once - 2 dice is the max!)
I tend to lean more into optimization (my preferred term, rather than min-maxing), however, I think that you don’t have to choose either character power level or RP. You can have both. In my current campaign, I am playing an extremely powerful and optimized 9th level Eldritch knight fighter (Shadar Kai) I use fog cloud and the blind fighting style along with elven accuracy to gain triple advantage on my three hand crossbow attacks using crossbow expert and sharpshooter. We are currently dealing with matters in the shadowfell, where Shadar Kai originated from and it is opening up a lot of cool RP moments and I find that I can have fun both optimizing and doing advanced roleplaying.
Do you use homebrew advantage rules? (RAW you can't have advantage more than once - 2 dice is the max!)
Having learned a fair bit about character mechanics, I feel I tend toward the Min/Max style, but at the same time, I look at the myriad of characters I've created, from level 1 through to 20, may different class/race combos and few, if any, are truly min maxxed. Odd, I think. I tend to go towards making the skills and abilities high enough to be competent and useful at all the things the character is going to do, but if I dropped stat X by 2 in the beginning, I'd have a 2 point bump in Y which would better optimize the character. The character, however, to me, needs stat X to be at least where it is, because of reason W, which is his history, who he is and why he is the way he is and so on.
I guess that puts me either middle of the road, or one step into min max territory. Being really good at what they do is important to me as a player. Being a fleshed out, full "living" character has to be part of it though. I need to be able to "be" that character to play them, so they need to have a personality. If I can't "be" someone entirely different for a while when I play D&D, I'd rather not play at all.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Based on my play style, I'd have to say that I have a strongly character driven play style.
Example: In my currently active groups, I am the only one who has not asked the DM for some specific magic item to be granted/sold/made available to the character. My character play style is more about building their story as they go, within the constraints of play, than powering them up with items that I, the player, think would be advantageous to game play. That's not to say that my characters hold no magic items, just that they came to the character(s) during regular play, and randomly or as part of the gaming scenario; usually picking up whatever the other characters' players decided that they didn't want. My character makes the best of what comes along. On a positive note, this means that should my character lose any possession(s) during play, that character's effectiveness changes little, if at all.
Ditto with character skills and abilities. Not once have I built a character with keeping the 'best fit for the party' in mind, much to the vocal dissatisfaction of at least two min-maxers that I share tables with.
I also tend to play single class characters, for simplicity's sake. I seem to spend less table time deciding the character's next action than others at the table, and far less time arguing the rules.
This story line heavy style of play is very enjoyable for me; maximizing overall game play effectiveness is not enjoyable for me at all.
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If your looking for shenanigans in-game for me I like giving my characters flaws that don't impact their class somewhat impact combat and really impact the party in RP situations for example.
Fighter/Rogue (bugbear): this is a decently strong Assasin type build if you sneak up and plan and with the right feats you can use your sneak attack more often but if you give your character low intelligence how will they come up with those things, the way my dm home brewed it is that I was the animal companion of the beast master ranger and that is how my character moved around and did the things they did because the ranger didn't due the best in combat and I was a monster with 150+ dmg in some rounds but it also made for amazing RP having a strong bond with a character that preferred RP and me a Min/Max.
but the amount of RP vs battel also depends on the DM and should be influenced by the overall group
Well, since this thread's already been necroed, I feel like the question is a false one. Why does "roleplaying" mean having a character who's not very good or possibly even outright incompetent at what they do?
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
imo It just depends on what type of campaign you guys are doing. If you're doing a campaign meant to be difficult and battle focused then Minmaxing is kinda required but if you're following a theme then of course you should do that.
I tend to make the mechanics of a character such that they are powerful and potent in whatever I wanted them to do, but I also find that I could have the most well balanced character in the world, if they don't have a decent character development to work through, I will tire of them. So for me, it's character development first, and then powerfulness second (I voted "Moderate".)
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
To me, character development is completely independent of mechanics and yet mutually inclusive, they co-exist to some degree.
As DM, i always require character development with appearance, background and backstory fleshed out. Mechanically speaking, how optimized your character is up to you.
As player, i always exercise character development with appearance, background and backstory fleshed out. Mechanically speaking, i usually build my characters moderately optimized.
I think it depends hugely on the campaign. If you are playing a campaign that doesn't give you many opportunities to express your character through choices -- like a lot of the WotC modules don't -- then it hardly matters how well developed your narrative concept is.
My Barbarian is a bounty hunter from a nation where mages are the elite class. He came up through his own charm and audacity and started going after mages for the ambitions of... Other mages, I think? To be honest, none of this has come up at all, so it's basically slipped my mind. What has come up is that he knows how to get information about new places, he's able and willing to insert himself into social situations where he doesn't belong, and he doesn't trust anybody, least of all wizards.
More importantly, he has very little magic of his own, which really feels like a hindrance when we're fighting a lot of magical monsters and dealing with a lot of magical hazards. He isn't as tough or as hard-hitting as a single 4th level spell slot from our Wizard or Druid. I'm right on the border between enjoying playing him and being frustrated with him.
But put him in a campaign where we have more agency over what we're doing? Or one with less magic? Even a campaign where we interact with the same small cast of characters instead of a new batch every couple of sessions? I might not even care that he can't keep up with the mages in and out of combat. The raw character of him might be more than enough.
Anyway, I always like to develop the two aspects in tandem. I can come up with a story for anything, and I can make anything approximately viable in 5e. The trick is that I want to feel clever about it.
I come up with a character idea, min max it a decent bit, and then fill out the rest of the character from there based off of my skills.
Charactar driven, in every aspect.
A role-player since birth, and one of the lowest forms of life on the planet. Fun!
Since it's not too hard to just reflavor things in this game, I tend to go the "moderate minmaxer" route slightly more when thinking of my build/abilities. It's not that I'm doing character backstory as an afterthought at all, but I know that I can adapt the build's flavor to fit my character concept. In my mind, I want to have a character who's both fun to roleplay and to be effective and fun in combat. The character build rarely changes how fun the character it to role-play, but it does have a huge effect on combat fun.
I tend to lean more into optimization (my preferred term, rather than min-maxing), however, I think that you don’t have to choose either character power level or RP. You can have both. In my current campaign, I am playing an extremely powerful and optimized 9th level Eldritch knight fighter (Shadar Kai) I use fog cloud and the blind fighting style along with elven accuracy to gain triple advantage on my three hand crossbow attacks using crossbow expert and sharpshooter. We are currently dealing with matters in the shadowfell, where Shadar Kai originated from and it is opening up a lot of cool RP moments and I find that I can have fun both optimizing and doing advanced roleplaying.
The melee sorlock is superior. Argue with me.
Do you use homebrew advantage rules? (RAW you can't have advantage more than once - 2 dice is the max!)
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Please read what the feat Elven Accuracy does.
Huh, well would you look at that!
I stand corrected!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Having learned a fair bit about character mechanics, I feel I tend toward the Min/Max style, but at the same time, I look at the myriad of characters I've created, from level 1 through to 20, may different class/race combos and few, if any, are truly min maxxed. Odd, I think. I tend to go towards making the skills and abilities high enough to be competent and useful at all the things the character is going to do, but if I dropped stat X by 2 in the beginning, I'd have a 2 point bump in Y which would better optimize the character. The character, however, to me, needs stat X to be at least where it is, because of reason W, which is his history, who he is and why he is the way he is and so on.
I guess that puts me either middle of the road, or one step into min max territory. Being really good at what they do is important to me as a player. Being a fleshed out, full "living" character has to be part of it though. I need to be able to "be" that character to play them, so they need to have a personality. If I can't "be" someone entirely different for a while when I play D&D, I'd rather not play at all.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Based on my play style, I'd have to say that I have a strongly character driven play style.
Example: In my currently active groups, I am the only one who has not asked the DM for some specific magic item to be granted/sold/made available to the character. My character play style is more about building their story as they go, within the constraints of play, than powering them up with items that I, the player, think would be advantageous to game play. That's not to say that my characters hold no magic items, just that they came to the character(s) during regular play, and randomly or as part of the gaming scenario; usually picking up whatever the other characters' players decided that they didn't want. My character makes the best of what comes along. On a positive note, this means that should my character lose any possession(s) during play, that character's effectiveness changes little, if at all.
Ditto with character skills and abilities. Not once have I built a character with keeping the 'best fit for the party' in mind, much to the vocal dissatisfaction of at least two min-maxers that I share tables with.
I also tend to play single class characters, for simplicity's sake. I seem to spend less table time deciding the character's next action than others at the table, and far less time arguing the rules.
This story line heavy style of play is very enjoyable for me; maximizing overall game play effectiveness is not enjoyable for me at all.