[D&D] What's with the Powergaming, seriously?

[x~Berserker~x]

Something I have always wondered:

Why do people optimize their characters (Powergamimg). I mean seriously, if you're in a normal group the only thing is does is give the DM a hard time, as he has to adjust the monsters just for you. You will not effectivly have it any easy, at least if it's a good DM.

Where would be the fun, if you constantly would just not get into dangerous situations and everything is a piece of cake for your character?

So, why all the optimizing?

On a related note: What's up with some new classes/Prestige Classes? Why do the exist, why do people chose them, if they are clearly unbalanced?
- The Warlock ("Spiderclimb! I climb up the wall and throw out a couple of darknesses on them, through which I can see perfectly. No I kill them with my blast, they can't see and are basically defenceless" wink
- The Choas Mage ("I teleport his heart to a nearby location... in front of his face... hm... I rolled a 16, so I take 2 points of subduel damage.." wink
-...

What's your opinion on Powergaming, powergamers and unbalanced Classes/Prestige Classes?

[Daelin]

Loaded post.

That is to say, you make your opinion so painfully clear that it almost feels pointless to try to respond.

How many truly ugly people do you see in a beauty contest? How many idiots do you see winning Nobel Prizes? How many wimps do you see in bodybuilding competitions?

The answer is 'not very many at all'. Why? Because people tend to gravitate toward what they are good at. I post in forums because I write well. I am a database hack because I understand data relations. I play video games because I have above-average hand-eye coordination. I do the things that I am good at, or have the potential to be good at.

... and so do my characters. Some people call that min/maxing. Some people call it powergaming. I call it putting a square peg in an appropriately-sized square hole.

What, exactly, is the definition of min/maxing? Twinking? Powergaming? These terms have wildly different meanings to different people at different times. I have known people who would chastise me for playing a wizard if I rolled a 17 Int on a standard 3d6-place-them-as-they-fall character creation. I have seen people who complain that point-buy is powergaming because nobody every buys a low stat in a prime stat. WTF?

I disagree with the proliferation of prestige classes, as a general rule, because their existence encourages players to take them. I would much prefer to see good guidelines for creation of PrC's, so that a DM could build a class around a character in mid-game. As it stands now, you're essentially forced to plan your entire character from level 1 in order to even qualify for many of the PrC's in the books.

I prefer seeing base classes that tailor to character ideas. Lots of base classes. Multiclassing works much nicer in 3.x, but is very, very painful to some classes. Monks, for example, multiclassing to most monk PrC's end up with a max BAB of 14 instead of 15, even though they sayed 'in concept'. Fractional BAB makes up for that, but it's an optional rule in an optional book.

Anyway. That's my $0.02

[Threx]

D&D3.X is setup for powergaming, and as such, you will see alot of powergamers playing it.

[Peddy]

Quote:

- The Warlock ("Spiderclimb! I climb up the wall and throw out a couple of darknesses on them, through which I can see perfectly. No I kill them with my blast, they can't see and are basically defenceless" wink

Darkness isn't, any more. It's more like shadowy fog, rather than an blob of utter blackness. Besides, what's keeping people from moving out of the darkened area after it lands? Any plan which requires several rounds in which the targets sit on their thumbs voluntarily isn't much of a plan, let alone a powergaming strat.

Quote:

- The Choas Mage ("I teleport his heart to a nearby location... in front of his face... hm... I rolled a 16, so I take 2 points of subduel damage.." wink

Has never worked, and never will. You can't teleport someone's heart out of their chest. It's all of the target or none of the target. The closest thing was a 2nd ed Cleric spell called Heart Call which was functionally just Slay Living but with a different visual - if you fail your save, you die, if you make your save you take damage equivalent to a Cause Serious Wounds.

[Peddy]

Threx

D&D3.X is setup for powergaming, and as such, you will see alot of powergamers playing it.

Heya Threx, how goes? What's with the nekidness, by the way?


Anyhow, the way I see it - powergamers will powergame regardless of system. Be it D&D with PrC/Feat abuse, Shadowrun with delta grade cyberware out the yin-yang, WEG Star Wars with a billion force abilities, lightsabers and thermal detonators, or Vampire with ridiculously low generation and enough disciplines to choke Caine. It's a function of the player rather than the system. I will agree, however, that the Snap On Tools approach 3e D&D takes does make it much more simple for those people to abuse it - tab A into slot B connected to assembly C and you've got an abuse-monkey. Nevermind that no DM that's not out of their gourd would allow it, heh.

[Threx]

Peddy

Threx

D&D3.X is setup for powergaming, and as such, you will see alot of powergamers playing it.

Heya Threx, how goes? What's with the nekidness, by the way?


Anyhow, the way I see it - powergamers will powergame regardless of system. Be it D&D with PrC/Feat abuse, Shadowrun with delta grade cyberware out the yin-yang, WEG Star Wars with a billion force abilities, lightsabers and thermal detonators, or Vampire with ridiculously low generation and enough disciplines to choke Caine. It's a function of the player rather than the system. I will agree, however, that the Snap On Tools approach 3e D&D takes does make it much more simple for those people to abuse it - tab A into slot B connected to assembly C and you've got an abuse-monkey. Nevermind that no DM that's not out of their gourd would allow it, heh.

With most systems the DM has alot more control over the game. With ShadowRun i have been playing for years, and never gotton my hands on anything delta. I usually pay out the butt for medical...
WEG is a loose system, and powergaming just doesnt feel like you are with that game. Its a fun game all around smile
Vampire, the DM can generally limit low gen vamps, usually through the prince putting a price on your head for all the diablorizations you have done.
and D&D just has the DM saying "no". Often after its to late :/

[elindred]

the prevalance of powergaming in dnd is directly related to the sheer richness of material which can be used. character options are legion, giving players powerful control over character generation.

of course, as with any system that allows a lot of freedom and power, it takes a little know how and foresight to use it responsibly/correctly by imposing restrictions on yourself (or, having them placed for you). it's not a big stretch for a dnd dm to say "ok, before we play, lemme know about your characters and what you intend to do with them" or "you can't use material x from book y" or "no 1 level dips into prcs" or "no races with more level adjustment than +1", etc.

[elindred]

of course, the other problem is players who've beome so drunk from their character creating power that they play only to see their characters achieve impossibly high numbers and unstoppable power, without regard for game balance, role playing, or the flow of the game. in that case, it's up to the dm to sit these people aside and sober them up a little, reminding them that it's not just a game of paper and dice, that he should be more interested in playing a persona/character than a person behind a piece of paper.

[maturin_shardik1919]

True, Every System has Loopholes in the Rules that Powergamers can explot but it is the role of the DM to stand up to those players and tell them how far they can go. And as a side note I still play and GM WEG Star Wars D6 system and I have had to learn about powergaming the hard way and I learned to crack down and control my players.

[Draco Obscura]

Peddy already said almost everything relevant, but I feel I should add something. There is a big difference between optimizing your character, and being a power-munchkin. Character optimization is working within the confines of your characters personality to make them as powerful as possible, which is something everyone does. Munchkins are the people who whip out the 9 PrC char who deals 300 damage a round. And the DM who allows such a thing to happen deserves it. I have never played with a DM who would allow that kind of thing, and hopefully, I never will.

[maturin_shardik1919]

Amen to that

[x~Berserker~x]

Daelin

I do the things that I am good at, or have the potential to be good at.

... and so do my characters.

I think that's a bit beside the point, because that alone is not min/max-ing. Of course the best attribute of a mage will be INT and not STR. But when we reach the point that players design the character prior to actually playing them, what skills they'll chose, which feats they chose on which level, and coordinate everything to get the most powerful character.

These characters tend to be just a shell without an actual personality.

Whereas other people play their character the way "My character actually did this and that since the level up, so I he's probably better at this and that" when they level their characters up. If your character has 10 ranks in tumbling (just so you forfill the requirements for some prestige class), but has never tumbled or done anything remotely artistic in an adventure, then there's something wrong.

Quote:

Darkness isn't, any more. It's more like shadowy fog, rather than an blob of utter blackness. Besides, what's keeping people from moving out of the darkened area after it lands?

Basically... that they can't see anything? They may try to get out, but that's not really easy and you might as well end up deeper in the dark.

Quote:

in that case, it's up to the dm to sit these people aside and sober them up a little, reminding them that it's not just a game of paper and dice, that he should be more interested in playing a persona/character than a person behind a piece of paper.

I agree 100%!

[Neko Ewen]

The first thing to remember about roleplaying is that finding truly "wrong" ways to do it usually requires really amazing feats of stupidity (e.g., LARPing with real swords). The thing is that it's a group/social activity, so everyone needs to be, if not on the same page, then at least within the same book. If killing things, taking their stuff, getting XP, and becoming more powerful is what the whole group wants as the main focus of the game, if that's what everyone finds fun, then more power to them (in more ways than one razz ).

While not explicitly designed or delineated that way, D&D is partly what some would call a "gamist" RPG, which is to say it's built around competition (which makes it more like the conventional definition of a "game," hence the term). Players don't usually compete against each other in D&D, but there's often a definite sense of the player characters competing against the DM's NPCs. To support that mode of play you need a system that has a sense of being a "game" to it, hence it has many options and things to play with in order to get a more powerful character, and it needs to try harder than most games to achieve some kind of balance.

If you're really strongly opposed to playing the numbers game, D&D probably isn't the RPG you should be playing. Sure, it can be used for any kind of play you want, but there's undoubtedly stuff out there that'd be a better fit for what you really want.

[Daelin]

x~Berserker~x

I think that's a bit beside the point, because that alone is not min/max-ing. Of course the best attribute of a mage will be INT and not STR. But when we reach the point that players design the character prior to actually playing them, what skills they'll chose, which feats they chose on which level, and coordinate everything to get the most powerful character.

These characters tend to be just a shell without an actual personality.

Complete overgeneralization, and while it may be your experience that this is the fault of the player, I argue that it is the fault of the play group.

If you group does not stress background story or in-character actions, then the characters created will typically not have them. If it does, then it is far more likely that a new character will have them. That's a part of the social dynamic of the game.

Level-dipping, maxxing scores, and trying to build a combat monster has nothing to do with it, and any half-way intelligent and creative person can build a character history outline and personality regardless of the class choices.

In short, attributing powergaming and lack of character history is bunk.

Further, as I stated in my first post, the proliferation of prestige classes (some of which can be useful in extending a character concept) must be planned for from the time of character creation, or it is likely that the list of required skills and feats will never be met. Let us take the Green Star Adept (CompArc) as an example. Not an over-powered PrC by any means, but one that I'd probably enjoy. Required to enter the class: Combat Casting, Knowledge (arcane) 8, Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) 2, Knowledge (history) 2, Knowledge (Geography) 2, Decipher Script 2, and, of course, Arcane Caster 1st.

A wizard, could, theoretically, have all of these skills by 9th level (I presume a straight wizard advancement here) in order to qualify...but would he? If this PrC were published tomorrow and presented fresh to one hundred play groups with characters between 9 and 10, how many characters would qualify for it at their next level? I'd be surprised at more than two.

The point of all of this is that the balance requirement to make PrC's difficult to enter ensures that many of them cannot be picked up at the drop of a hat unless you were fortunate enough to build your character Just So. This is why I would like to see wider selections of base classes, with mechanics and character options that encourage people to stick with them all the way to 20. That's part of my little dream world.

Quote:

Whereas other people play their character the way "My character actually did this and that since the level up, so I he's probably better at this and that" when they level their characters up. If your character has 10 ranks in tumbling (just so you forfill the requirements for some prestige class), but has never tumbled or done anything remotely artistic in an adventure, then there's something wrong.

In a recent group, I had a gish with a fairly high UMD score for his level (considering it wasn't a class skill, at any rate). I never used it prior to retiring the character. It was a core concept of the character that I never had an opportunity to use. Were UMD a prerequisite for a prestige class, would you have penalized the character for trying to take levels in it? Your post suggests so.

You're making the same sorts of blanket statements that I've been encountering in the D&D/roleplaying community for years. You never did really answer the definition about what makes choices power-gaming. How is planning a character, from 1 to 20, before the game even starts, powergaming? My stated goal is to become the greatest archer in the land, to honor the memory of my ancestor, the famed Rueben Hat, and as such I, the player, know that I need levels in ranger, fighter, order of the bow initiate, and/or deepwoods sniper in order to make that character vision happen (and no, that is in no ways accurate..I was pulling archer class names out of my posterier).

Bah, I say. Of course there is nothing wrong with it, and if required, a per-level, per-class justification is easily provided.

[Jonnydarkly]

The answer that I emphatically shove in the face of all D&D haters is that no one wants to play a weak character in a primarily combat based story. If DMs would take a note from my book and run a completely interaction based story every once in a while, then that barbarian beefstick of a brute wouldnt be any fun anymore, would he? Low charisma is often the sign of a powerplayer (at least with stat buy) because they figure that they can get along without it. I make my players really emphasize a low charisma score in all social interactions. Making role playing a painful experience for the offending player.

I guarentee their next character will have at least a 10 in charisma.

I found this out because my friend played a bard and had more fun with that character than any other he's ever played. Statistically, the character was horrendous, but this mattered little to him, because he had so much fun with character interaction. The emphasis should be on the character, not the sheet.