Additional reminder: The thread is derailing heavily again. Bashing other folks' preference for character generation isn't really a discussion of which one change people would make in 5e.
There's no reason to bash someone's choice of character generation. Much like all the Tasha's Cauldron rules everybody is constantly herneating over, one's choice of how to play is a table-by-table decision. Colville's method is not bad; it works for him and his table. The fact that some players would rather scrape their nipples off with sandpaper than be forced to roll stats/species randomly and 'play what you're given' does not invalidate his method, it simply means the method is not universal. Just as many players balk at the generic sameyness of Standard Array and choose to roll for stats because their souls shrivel at everybody having the exact same identical stats all the time.
This introduces intra-party imbalance, yes. Some tables consider that a worthwhile sacrifice for more unique character generation. Others do not. That is a table decision, not a book decision. There's a reason the book includes three separate 'Official' methods of stat generation.
Finally, a somewhat more personal note as I cannot help myself: please ****ing stop assuming that people who build/play "optimal" characters do not ever 'Role Play', or create characters with recognizable weaknesses, or all that other awful shit everybody keeps accusing players of. For many players, optimization of build is simply representative of their character being trained and proficient in their chosen class, which is important for someone who regularly risks their life for money. The idea that it's somehow more 'real' for one's character to be an almost completely nonfunctional pile of mucus that's only just barely able to get their own clothes on in the morning is fallacious; such individuals would not only never risk their bumbling moron selves as an adventurer, but if they did they would swiftly be killed.
Rather than assuming players are being Evil Eugenicists who're hand-forging an unrealistic avatar of perfection? Assume instead that the player is selecting the option to play that one fortunate individual in the thousands of pointless Colvillian plebs around him who was born with precisely the required gifts to rise as an adventurer. That individual must exist, after all - authors have been writing stories about him for centuries. What is so awful about wanting to play the story of the well-trained and competent adventurer, rather than the village idiot who somehow manages to bumble**** his way to level 3 before getting eaten by a harpy and replaced by the next village idiot in line?
Constantly assuming we're just trying to skip the story because we play competent characters is fallacious, disingenuous, and honestly just seriously ****ing tiresome. I'm an almost completely nonfunctional ****-up disaster of a human being in real life, I have no desire to play the 'Nothing above 12 and the 12 in the wrong place' bumble**** moron who has no business leaving his village in my recreational time. I want to be an awesome, highly trained and competent adventurer who gets shit done, being challenged by equally competent adversaries. If you're more into playing the bumble****, be my guest - but please stop telling me my fun is wrong just because you can't get over your desire to sabotage yourself to the point of inevitable failure.
Screw. That. Noise.
Ummm...no.
Talking about mechanics of stat generation for chars runs to the core of this game, and many other games. Discussing how some methods are utterly broken is indeed germane. I know what you want to see in 6e. You have made that explicitly clear. I am stating what I want removed in 6e, and by that any I mean any mention of 4d6 rolling, even as "optional", because the 4d6 method is nothing but trouble.
Whereas I on the other hand would scrap the others and only keep this one. 🤷♂️ Different strokes for different folks.
And I suppose that's the difference. Some people see a player character as an optimization problem to solve. Others see it as an alter-ego to immerse ourselves in.
That's a strawman and slight ad hominem. That is not what the two playstyles think of character creation. The side that likes randomness (rolling stats, random backgrounds, etc) thinks of it as leaving it up to the Dice Gods to determine who your next character should be and going from there, while those who prefer point buy/standard array prefer to choose who they are playing as.
A character who uses either version is just as capable at roleplaying. Stop saying/suggesting that those who like choosing their character are incapable of becoming another person inside the game. I have played characters with rolled stats, point buy, and standard array and I am no less inclined to roleplay and no more inclined to powergame in either way of generating characters. You're (general you, not specific) turning this into "us against them" when it is really "I have more fun this way instead of this other way."
I agree. I would hate D&D going all digital. My ADHD brain cannot focus on a digital book as well as it can for a physical one (this is true for most people, but worse for me than the average joe).
I also cannot focus on digital if I am “reading a book” like a novel or something. My brain just glosses over.
But for rules books for games like D&D or WH40k or whatever I would rather only have digital for the convenience of rapid research. I almost never actually sit and “read” a rules book the same way as a novel.
Off the top of my head, I would tweak the Rogue's Assassinate ability to work for the whole 1st round, or make the surprised condition last for the first round of any affected combatant.
Such an amazing feature is undone by simply rolling temporary initiative, even if circumstances are in your favour pre-combat. Even more unfortunate as generally most combats are sprung upon you rather than instigated by you (unless the party are murder-hobos).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
#Open D&D
Have the Physical Books? Confused as to why you're not allowed to redeem them for free on D&D Beyond? Questions answered here at the Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ
Looking to add mouse-over triggered tooltips to such things like magic items, monsters or combat actions? Then dash over to the How to Add Tooltips thread.
I agree. I would hate D&D going all digital. My ADHD brain cannot focus on a digital book as well as it can for a physical one (this is true for most people, but worse for me than the average joe).
I also cannot focus on digital if I am “reading a book” like a novel or something. My brain just glosses over.
But for rules books for games like D&D or WH40k or whatever I would rather only have digital for the convenience of rapid research. I almost never actually sit and “read” a rules book the same way as a novel.
I'm the same. I can absorb the mechanical information, but don't have the attention span to actually read the lore and fluff of the book (I discovered this after buying Mythic Odysseys of Theros on D&D Beyond. I was perfectly capable of learning the mechanics of the races, subclasses and background, but could not learn what the heck the setting was like.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I agree. I would hate D&D going all digital. My ADHD brain cannot focus on a digital book as well as it can for a physical one (this is true for most people, but worse for me than the average joe).
I also cannot focus on digital if I am “reading a book” like a novel or something. My brain just glosses over.
But for rules books for games like D&D or WH40k or whatever I would rather only have digital for the convenience of rapid research. I almost never actually sit and “read” a rules book the same way as a novel.
I'm the same. I can absorb the mechanical information, but don't have the attention span to actually read the lore and fluff of the book (I discovered this after buying Mythic Odysseys of Theros on D&D Beyond. I was perfectly capable of learning the mechanics of the races, subclasses and background, but could not learn what the heck the setting was like.)
I usually just skim those parts, realize I don’t care about them, and don’t read them anyway.
I agree. I would hate D&D going all digital. My ADHD brain cannot focus on a digital book as well as it can for a physical one (this is true for most people, but worse for me than the average joe).
I also cannot focus on digital if I am “reading a book” like a novel or something. My brain just glosses over.
But for rules books for games like D&D or WH40k or whatever I would rather only have digital for the convenience of rapid research. I almost never actually sit and “read” a rules book the same way as a novel.
I read D&D books like novels. Then again, I sometimes read the back of milk containers when I'm bored.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
Optimization is not merely point buy though. When the points given are relatively conservative, optimizers tend to complain. The current standard array has a lot of odd numbers, which optimizers tend to hate, since they are not 'optimal.'
I honestly cannot tell if you are trying to argue with me, and if so, what point you're trying to make to refute my post. Please help me understand what you mean.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Optimization is not merely point buy though. When the points given are relatively conservative, optimizers tend to complain. The current standard array has a lot of odd numbers, which optimizers tend to hate, since they are not 'optimal.'
I honestly cannot tell if you are trying to argue with me, and if so, what point you're trying to make to refute my post. Please help me understand what you mean.
They’re pointing out that for the worst offenders, it isn’t a matter of “making it the best you can with the combinations available” and becomes making it “THE BESTESTEST POSSIBLE EVER!!1!1!!!1” and that if they cannot they whine and piss and ***** and moan and cheat until the rest of the table collectively boots them.
They’re pointing out that for the worst offenders, it isn’t a matter of “making it the best you can with the combinations available” and becomes making it “THE BESTESTEST POSSIBLE EVER!!1!1!!!1” and that if they cannot they whine and piss and ***** and moan and cheat until the rest of the table collectively boots them.
In a previous thread you told me that you would refuse to play at a table that doesn't roll stats. I'm fine with that, that's just your desired style of play and I won't tell you that your fun is wrong. But if for you the game is no longer D&D unless you can play the most realistic-feeling version of the game, gaining the possibility of you have less than desirable stats in your class's main focus, why can't the game no longer be D&D to the people who see the game in an alternative way? If you see it one way and have fun in one style of play, why is it wrong to see it and play a different way?
I have never played with anyone who has acted the way you said some have acted, have never said or acted anywhere along the way you stated it, and never had a fun-destroying problem with powergaming in any of my campaigns. For me and everyone I have ever met that enjoys powergaming, it is all about making the best you can with the combinations available to your player choices, not about being the best in the game. If there are players who are jerks and problem-powergame, I assure you that it goes both ways, with characters so incorrigibly random and nonsensical that they're impossible to play with.
Edit: Fixed a fairly important typo. Accidentally wrote "acted the way you have" when I meant "acted the way you said some have acted." Got that fixed, and hope the accidental word didn't offend my good friend Sposta.
...fine. It's not like I spent hundreds of dollars on this account or anything. Ugh.
@Sposta/Lyxen:
Hitting the "Randomize" button on DDB and committing to trying to treat what comes out as a 100% serious character is neither High Art nor the Only True Road to Roleplaying. It is a method, certainly, but it is hardly the only method or even the best method, and neither I nor anyone else care that it was the first method. But this is a tangent. The real point of discussion, and what everyone seems to get super pissed off about and constantly berate the Evil Cheating Baby-Eating Powergaming Munchkin Buttholes for, is a difference in game tone. Namely, a difference between Underdogs and Competent Men.
Randomized characters are almost always Underdogs. They have abso-gobsmack-terrible stats, a miserable numbers/class line-up, and are generally just...just really bad. Really bad. Their stories and lore and fluff are not necessarily better or worse than the ECBEPMB's characters, they're simply mechanically awful. Where the ECBEPMB might see a +2 in a given check as the floor of basic usability and a +5 in one's attack roll as the start of Actually Being Good, a randomizer will see that +2 and that +5 as a gift from the gods. Those numbers are hella great, because the randomizer is usually used to rolling either a straight die or a negative number on their bonus. They like doing so. For them, watching the story of a bunch of ragtag ****-up underdogs who have no business being heroes turn out to be heroes anyways is awesome. Whether it's a life lesson or an Affirmative Message or even just the way they prefer their fiction, doesn't matter. These are folks who figure there's no entertainment value in watching a Heroic Hero do Hero Things with their Hero Face. They'd rather be Samwise Gamgee - just a regular-ass dood who's not at all suited to haring off on an Adventure, but has to anyways for reasons and scrapes through with nothing but determination, heart, and friendship.
Now. Allow me to start the other half of this by saying that one of my absolute favorite authors of all time is a man named David Weber. David Weber writes primarily science fiction, but also dabbles in fantasy occasionally. In either case, he's well known for a type of story some folks (disparagingly) refer to as "competence ****". In a David Weber novel, the protagonist is generally so skilled and highly trained that it borders on the absurd. They are possessed of exceptional talent and that talent has been sharpened to a razor's edge. When operating within their favored ability set, a Weber protagonist is extremely difficult to surpass. Bahzell Banahkson is an eight foot mountain of muscle possessed of explosive power, tremendous speed, superhuman strength and all the magical abilities of his status as a paladin of Tomanak; he does not lose fights to mortal foes. Honor Harrington does not lose naval battles; she's so far ahead of most of her peers, and so well known for her work, that she's not even the focus of her own series anymore - Weber had to put her on a shelf via promotion to the Admiralty in order to progress the series. Alicia DeVries is a single soldier with enough skill and power to topple governments. These characters are so good at what they do that a chunk of each book is devoted to establishing that these individuals are vastly rarer than one in a million.
Thing is? Their enemies are just as exceptional as they are. Sure, sometimes Weber indulges in the catharsis of letting his exceptionally competent heroes just absolutely walk over a boob what got in over their heads, but the primary antagonists of any given Weber series are every bit as outlandishly competent as the protagonists, and often possessed of far greater resources. Only bureaucratic incompetence on the part of the Baddites or feverish brilliance on the part of the Goodites keeps the protagonist ahead of the game - if they even are.
That is what is exciting to a great many of those Evil Cheating Baby-Eating Powergaming Munchkin Buttholes. Not 'killing' the plot with lolwinning, but creating an exceptional individual - one who is just exceptional enough to take on the challenge of dealing with truly devious, diabolical, or outright horrific villains. We want the DM to bring his A game, hit us with BBEGs that push us to our limits and challenge us in areas we're not strong in, force us to adapt and display even greater brilliance to keep up. I love stories where exceptional individuals are put through exceptional hell, and still manage to scrape a win. Those stories are ****in' awesome. But you don't get to play them unless you carefully craft an exceptionally talented and well-trained individual who can handle being subjected to an exceptional level of hell.
There's plenty of variation between those two extremes, of course. But nobody ever, ever, ever, EVER seems to acknowledge that maybe the Evil Cheating Baby_Eating Powergaming Munchkin Buttholes are not actually any of those things...but are instead simply looking for a different kind of story than Ragtag Underdog Farm Boy Uses the Schwartz to Save Hyrule?
It's a matter of different fun for you, me, and other powergamers and people who like picking their character instead of being given a Lightfoot Halfling Alchemist Artificer with the Haunted One background and an 4 in Intelligence. Someone on the "random characters and stats" side would enjoy playing this character, but for me, I cannot have fun in D&D as a player whose character sucks at their job. This is why I can't play Four Elements Monks, Non-CFV UA Beast Master Rangers, and Purple Dragon Knights. I enjoy randomness in my games, campaigns, and villains, but not in my characters.
Liking this does not make my fun wrong, my ways of playing "non D&D," or mechanics that support this kind of play deserving to be pulled from the game.
I've changed my answer. If I could change one thing about D&D 5e, I would change the inherent hostility towards powergamers that most older players seem to have. I like a lot of you, I really do. You guys are intelligent, creative, and have helped keep the hobby that I love alive for decades, but some of you are so adamant about hating powergaming that it hurts a bit whenever you go on rants or make snide comments about minmaxers/munchkins/whatever-you-call-us.
I don't understand the whole "Min-maxed characters can't have good story." Look at any of the Throwdowns DorkForge hosted, and you will find many characters that have excellent story that compliments the mechanically powerful characters.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I don't understand the whole "Min-maxed characters can't have good story." Look at any of the Throwdowns DorkForge hosted, and you will find many characters that have excellent story that compliments the mechanically powerful characters.
This 100%. No one can claim that powergamers can't roleplay unless they have no clue what a powergamer is.
Those of you that think that powergaming is incompatible with roleplaying, go to any of those threads and look at Yurei's builds, or nearly any other build in those threads. Read the posts and tell me if you agree with that sentiment anymore.
Mechanically powerful characters can be so much fun to play. I have a bard/paladin who is insanely optimized, and the whole party loves him cause he is a goofball. He one shot the first campaign boss three levels before we were meant to fight them, and the party loved it.
It is true in a pretty good, not great and terrible character as well.
If I had to change something, I would just add more 'or's I want fighters to be able to pick what they get past 3rd level. ATM everything is basically copy pasted.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
I will also throw in my two cents to add that the two powergamers at my table are also the two biggest contributors to any RP that comes up. Incidentally, one prefers point buy while the other prefers rolling their stats.
About point buy, even the most powergamey setup, three 15's and three 8's, actually feels like you are gimping your character. Sure you are going to be great at somethings, but you will die form saving throws. I like point buy, but I rarely deviate very far from the standard array.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
About point buy, even the most powergamey setup, three 15's and three 8's, actually feels like you are gimping your character. Sure you are going to be great at somethings, but you will die form saving throws. I like point buy, but I rarely deviate very far from the standard array.
Same. I normally recommend Standard Array over Point Buy for newer players who might not understand the consequences of putting 3 8's in stats that you think you don't need. Anyway, if this discussion is to continue, it probably should in another thread. Maybe we (as a thread) should discuss a different aspect of 5e that we think should change?
(I'm making a large post about rebalancing ability scores (STR, CON, INT) and changes that I hope come in 5.5e/6e, but it will be awhile until it is posted, as it is taking awhile to write.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Whereas I on the other hand would scrap the others and only keep this one. 🤷♂️ Different strokes for different folks.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
That's a strawman and slight ad hominem. That is not what the two playstyles think of character creation. The side that likes randomness (rolling stats, random backgrounds, etc) thinks of it as leaving it up to the Dice Gods to determine who your next character should be and going from there, while those who prefer point buy/standard array prefer to choose who they are playing as.
A character who uses either version is just as capable at roleplaying. Stop saying/suggesting that those who like choosing their character are incapable of becoming another person inside the game. I have played characters with rolled stats, point buy, and standard array and I am no less inclined to roleplay and no more inclined to powergame in either way of generating characters. You're (general you, not specific) turning this into "us against them" when it is really "I have more fun this way instead of this other way."
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I also cannot focus on digital if I am “reading a book” like a novel or something. My brain just glosses over.
But for rules books for games like D&D or WH40k or whatever I would rather only have digital for the convenience of rapid research. I almost never actually sit and “read” a rules book the same way as a novel.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Off the top of my head, I would tweak the Rogue's Assassinate ability to work for the whole 1st round, or make the surprised condition last for the first round of any affected combatant.
Such an amazing feature is undone by simply rolling temporary initiative, even if circumstances are in your favour pre-combat. Even more unfortunate as generally most combats are sprung upon you rather than instigated by you (unless the party are murder-hobos).
#Open D&D
Have the Physical Books? Confused as to why you're not allowed to redeem them for free on D&D Beyond? Questions answered here at the Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ
Looking to add mouse-over triggered tooltips to such things like magic items, monsters or combat actions? Then dash over to the How to Add Tooltips thread.
I'm the same. I can absorb the mechanical information, but don't have the attention span to actually read the lore and fluff of the book (I discovered this after buying Mythic Odysseys of Theros on D&D Beyond. I was perfectly capable of learning the mechanics of the races, subclasses and background, but could not learn what the heck the setting was like.)
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I usually just skim those parts, realize I don’t care about them, and don’t read them anyway.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I read D&D books like novels. Then again, I sometimes read the back of milk containers when I'm bored.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I honestly cannot tell if you are trying to argue with me, and if so, what point you're trying to make to refute my post. Please help me understand what you mean.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
They’re pointing out that for the worst offenders, it isn’t a matter of “making it the best you can with the combinations available” and becomes making it “THE BESTESTEST POSSIBLE EVER!!1!1!!!1” and that if they cannot they whine and piss and ***** and moan and cheat until the rest of the table collectively boots them.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
(This is a tangent, and I do apologize, Yurei.)
I mostly care because I paid for that content, and might as well read it to see if I can take inspiration from certain parts.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
In a previous thread you told me that you would refuse to play at a table that doesn't roll stats. I'm fine with that, that's just your desired style of play and I won't tell you that your fun is wrong. But if for you the game is no longer D&D unless you can play the most realistic-feeling version of the game, gaining the possibility of you have less than desirable stats in your class's main focus, why can't the game no longer be D&D to the people who see the game in an alternative way? If you see it one way and have fun in one style of play, why is it wrong to see it and play a different way?
I have never played with anyone who has acted the way you said some have acted, have never said or acted anywhere along the way you stated it, and never had a fun-destroying problem with powergaming in any of my campaigns. For me and everyone I have ever met that enjoys powergaming, it is all about making the best you can with the combinations available to your player choices, not about being the best in the game. If there are players who are jerks and problem-powergame, I assure you that it goes both ways, with characters so incorrigibly random and nonsensical that they're impossible to play with.
Edit: Fixed a fairly important typo. Accidentally wrote "acted the way you have" when I meant "acted the way you said some have acted." Got that fixed, and hope the accidental word didn't offend my good friend Sposta.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
...fine. It's not like I spent hundreds of dollars on this account or anything. Ugh.
@Sposta/Lyxen:
Hitting the "Randomize" button on DDB and committing to trying to treat what comes out as a 100% serious character is neither High Art nor the Only True Road to Roleplaying. It is a method, certainly, but it is hardly the only method or even the best method, and neither I nor anyone else care that it was the first method. But this is a tangent. The real point of discussion, and what everyone seems to get super pissed off about and constantly berate the Evil Cheating Baby-Eating Powergaming Munchkin Buttholes for, is a difference in game tone. Namely, a difference between Underdogs and Competent Men.
Randomized characters are almost always Underdogs. They have abso-gobsmack-terrible stats, a miserable numbers/class line-up, and are generally just...just really bad. Really bad. Their stories and lore and fluff are not necessarily better or worse than the ECBEPMB's characters, they're simply mechanically awful. Where the ECBEPMB might see a +2 in a given check as the floor of basic usability and a +5 in one's attack roll as the start of Actually Being Good, a randomizer will see that +2 and that +5 as a gift from the gods. Those numbers are hella great, because the randomizer is usually used to rolling either a straight die or a negative number on their bonus. They like doing so. For them, watching the story of a bunch of ragtag ****-up underdogs who have no business being heroes turn out to be heroes anyways is awesome. Whether it's a life lesson or an Affirmative Message or even just the way they prefer their fiction, doesn't matter. These are folks who figure there's no entertainment value in watching a Heroic Hero do Hero Things with their Hero Face. They'd rather be Samwise Gamgee - just a regular-ass dood who's not at all suited to haring off on an Adventure, but has to anyways for reasons and scrapes through with nothing but determination, heart, and friendship.
Now. Allow me to start the other half of this by saying that one of my absolute favorite authors of all time is a man named David Weber. David Weber writes primarily science fiction, but also dabbles in fantasy occasionally. In either case, he's well known for a type of story some folks (disparagingly) refer to as "competence ****". In a David Weber novel, the protagonist is generally so skilled and highly trained that it borders on the absurd. They are possessed of exceptional talent and that talent has been sharpened to a razor's edge. When operating within their favored ability set, a Weber protagonist is extremely difficult to surpass. Bahzell Banahkson is an eight foot mountain of muscle possessed of explosive power, tremendous speed, superhuman strength and all the magical abilities of his status as a paladin of Tomanak; he does not lose fights to mortal foes. Honor Harrington does not lose naval battles; she's so far ahead of most of her peers, and so well known for her work, that she's not even the focus of her own series anymore - Weber had to put her on a shelf via promotion to the Admiralty in order to progress the series. Alicia DeVries is a single soldier with enough skill and power to topple governments. These characters are so good at what they do that a chunk of each book is devoted to establishing that these individuals are vastly rarer than one in a million.
Thing is? Their enemies are just as exceptional as they are. Sure, sometimes Weber indulges in the catharsis of letting his exceptionally competent heroes just absolutely walk over a boob what got in over their heads, but the primary antagonists of any given Weber series are every bit as outlandishly competent as the protagonists, and often possessed of far greater resources. Only bureaucratic incompetence on the part of the Baddites or feverish brilliance on the part of the Goodites keeps the protagonist ahead of the game - if they even are.
That is what is exciting to a great many of those Evil Cheating Baby-Eating Powergaming Munchkin Buttholes. Not 'killing' the plot with lolwinning, but creating an exceptional individual - one who is just exceptional enough to take on the challenge of dealing with truly devious, diabolical, or outright horrific villains. We want the DM to bring his A game, hit us with BBEGs that push us to our limits and challenge us in areas we're not strong in, force us to adapt and display even greater brilliance to keep up. I love stories where exceptional individuals are put through exceptional hell, and still manage to scrape a win. Those stories are ****in' awesome. But you don't get to play them unless you carefully craft an exceptionally talented and well-trained individual who can handle being subjected to an exceptional level of hell.
There's plenty of variation between those two extremes, of course. But nobody ever, ever, ever, EVER seems to acknowledge that maybe the Evil Cheating Baby_Eating Powergaming Munchkin Buttholes are not actually any of those things...but are instead simply looking for a different kind of story than Ragtag Underdog Farm Boy Uses the Schwartz to Save Hyrule?
Please do not contact or message me.
Yurei, that was said perfectly.
It's a matter of different fun for you, me, and other powergamers and people who like picking their character instead of being given a Lightfoot Halfling Alchemist Artificer with the Haunted One background and an 4 in Intelligence. Someone on the "random characters and stats" side would enjoy playing this character, but for me, I cannot have fun in D&D as a player whose character sucks at their job. This is why I can't play Four Elements Monks, Non-CFV UA Beast Master Rangers, and Purple Dragon Knights. I enjoy randomness in my games, campaigns, and villains, but not in my characters.
Liking this does not make my fun wrong, my ways of playing "non D&D," or mechanics that support this kind of play deserving to be pulled from the game.
I've changed my answer. If I could change one thing about D&D 5e, I would change the inherent hostility towards powergamers that most older players seem to have. I like a lot of you, I really do. You guys are intelligent, creative, and have helped keep the hobby that I love alive for decades, but some of you are so adamant about hating powergaming that it hurts a bit whenever you go on rants or make snide comments about minmaxers/munchkins/whatever-you-call-us.
If your fun isn't wrong, mine isn't either.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I don't understand the whole "Min-maxed characters can't have good story." Look at any of the Throwdowns DorkForge hosted, and you will find many characters that have excellent story that compliments the mechanically powerful characters.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
This 100%. No one can claim that powergamers can't roleplay unless they have no clue what a powergamer is.
Those of you that think that powergaming is incompatible with roleplaying, go to any of those threads and look at Yurei's builds, or nearly any other build in those threads. Read the posts and tell me if you agree with that sentiment anymore.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Mechanically powerful characters can be so much fun to play. I have a bard/paladin who is insanely optimized, and the whole party loves him cause he is a goofball. He one shot the first campaign boss three levels before we were meant to fight them, and the party loved it.
It is true in a pretty good, not great and terrible character as well.
If I had to change something, I would just add more 'or's I want fighters to be able to pick what they get past 3rd level. ATM everything is basically copy pasted.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
I will also throw in my two cents to add that the two powergamers at my table are also the two biggest contributors to any RP that comes up. Incidentally, one prefers point buy while the other prefers rolling their stats.
About point buy, even the most powergamey setup, three 15's and three 8's, actually feels like you are gimping your character. Sure you are going to be great at somethings, but you will die form saving throws. I like point buy, but I rarely deviate very far from the standard array.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
rolls trump all. I love the diversity.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Same. I normally recommend Standard Array over Point Buy for newer players who might not understand the consequences of putting 3 8's in stats that you think you don't need. Anyway, if this discussion is to continue, it probably should in another thread. Maybe we (as a thread) should discuss a different aspect of 5e that we think should change?
(I'm making a large post about rebalancing ability scores (STR, CON, INT) and changes that I hope come in 5.5e/6e, but it will be awhile until it is posted, as it is taking awhile to write.)
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms