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Old Dec 22nd, 2015, 05:06 PM
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Suboptimal build for RP reasons

Hey there! Just as the title says, how do people in this forum, and DnD players in general, feel about someone having a suboptimal character for roleplaying reason? I've read in a few places that a lot of people think that suboptimal characters hinder the party too much.

I'm just going to use the character I'm planning to use to apply to Enthusiast's 5e Southern Realm Campaign. First off, for story reasons his background is Noble, which gives him proficiency in History and Persuasion which is an Int and Cha skill, two stats that monks don't really need. I want him to be a preachy Monk who tries to persuade people about his beliefs a lot. Using the 4d6 stats roll I got:

Str: 9
Dex: 14
Con: 13
Intelligence: 12
Wisdom: 14
Charisma: 13

As a human they become:

Str: 10 (+0)
Dex: 15 (+2)
Con: 14 (+2)
Intelligence: 13 (+1)
Wisdom: 15 (+2)
Charisma: 14 (+2)

Apparently not having +3 to your to hit stat from the beginning is bad. I also have one floating point in Intelligence since I'm unlikely to ever bump Int up to 14. But if I'm building him based on how I'd like his background and his story to be the stats would be like the above.

Side question: Say if my character is a noble but went to a monastery from 22-27 years old, can his background be Acolyte?

Last edited by InstantD; Dec 22nd, 2015 at 06:27 PM.
  #2  
Old Dec 22nd, 2015, 05:48 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by InstantD View Post
Hey there! Just as the title says, how do people in this forum, and DnD players in general, feel about someone having a suboptimal character for roleplaying reason?
In general, my gut response is to say that playing a sub-optimal character is a bad idea, especially if you are playing 3.x, 4e, or Pathfinder. That really isn't how those games are designed to be played and can produce some of the problems you allude to in your post. I don't know enough about 5e to comment on it, but I can't imagine that it is too far off its predecessors. Also, I have never found character optimization and role-playing to be in conflict, not even once in all my gaming years, so there's that too.

That said, I'll bet you'll get lots of responses here debating (and rightly so) exactly what qualified as "sub-optimal." That is certainly a matter of taste and of degrees.

And I'll bet you'll get lots of responses here explaining how sub-optimal builds don't really matter in this or that particular game (and they'd be right!). You may even get a "We play whole game sessions and never roll the dice!" response or two. While playing D&D without rolling the dice strikes me a lot like playing Monopoly without using the money, it does highlight the fact that lots of people play the various forms of D&D in a wide variety of ways that the designers never intended and often in direct conflict with the rules, and thus sub-optimal builds in many games are just fine and dandy!

And you may also get some hard-core stimulationist responses arguing that if you aren't playing your Wisdom 10 character differently than the Wisdom 9 character and the Wisdom 11 character, then you are meta-gaming! (And that is supposedly bad . . . I guess.)

So I'm going to go with . . . It depends and Ask the DM.

Last edited by RedRab; Dec 22nd, 2015 at 05:51 PM.
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Old Dec 22nd, 2015, 06:00 PM
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Are you sure that the rolls you've presented in your post are going to be the same that you'll get to use should you be accepted into that game? I ask because most DMs I've encountered on here ask that players make their rolls only after they get accepted. You might wind up with different stats altogether, and "sub-par" scores won't be an issue.
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Old Dec 22nd, 2015, 06:02 PM
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It really depends on the game, the other players, and what exactly you mean by sub-optimal. Just from your stat line that character doesn't really strike me as bad. You've fit the stats your roll gave to both your characters' identity and class in a way that shouldn't make him hopeless in or out of combat. In 5e, if you can use Dexterity with unarmed strikes, you should hit and do damage just fine and should have no problem contributing to a group of characters.

As for the Acolyte thing, that wouldn't bother me but as with all such things ask your DM.
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Old Dec 22nd, 2015, 06:35 PM
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@RedRab I guess what I'm trying to do with this thread is get the idea of how most people feel if I play a character they deem suboptimal. Though as you've pointed, people have different ideas of what suboptimal is.

@zevonian Enthusiast said in his thread that if we roll our stats we do it in the thread. Though I've seen him let people fall back to points system if they don't like the result, which is also an option for me.

@idilippy I'm glad to hear that you don't think the statline is bad. I made the bad decision of reading some guides (which always makes me question my decisions) and got the impression if I don't min-max, I'm a detriment to the team.

All in all, I think I'm keeping my character concept on the highly slim chance that I get accepted.
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Old Dec 22nd, 2015, 08:09 PM
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@InstantD: I think the guides you speak of are based on "how fast can we kill monsters as we level from 1 to 20 in our tabletop game" and not "how good of a roleplaying opportunity do we have in play by post with these number crunches." If your monk is more charismatic than he is strong, hey, it's your monk, if you get inspired to post good stuff because of where you placed the numbers, more power to you.

It's not like your character has a pair of 4s in his stat array, so no need to fuss over a lack of 18s. DMs can just weaken or strengthen their "bad guys" based on a party's combat prowess or lack thereof. Many Challenge Ratings for monsters are based on parties of four with "average" stats, and with the average party on this site seems to be about six PC, DMs (who will look over and okay all character sheets before game start) will already have to judge potential encounter levels before the first IC post.
  #7  
Old Dec 23rd, 2015, 12:37 AM
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eh, sub-optimal is in the eye of the beholder.

I played a wizard that many people would have screamed was Overpowered/Optimized, but honestly, I can't build an OP wizard... I find a trick here or there, but 99% of my wizards don't use metamagic feats... so by default, they are sub-optimal. I had a blast anyway.

I think you should build a PC you want to play... if playing to a flaw is fun, or a hook, or a key part of your persona, then more power to you. Like others have said, what's sub optimal to one person may be good role-playing to another.

There's nothing wrong with sub-optimal... it's more fun that way.

If optimal play was the ultimate goal, we would all play Pun-Pun, and the game would be over.
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Old Dec 23rd, 2015, 03:10 PM
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@zevonian Thanks! It's good to know that DMs would adjust encounters based on the party's power.
@dirkoth Yeah, I personally don't have any problem whatsoever with playing a non-optimal character. I just wanted to make sure that the others in my party wouldn't either :P
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Old Dec 24th, 2015, 12:10 AM
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If the party keeps winning in just a couple rounds against the opposition, it stands the reason that the DM would bring stronger opponents. The opposite of that is if the party always struggles, the DM might tone down the monsters a bit.

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Old Dec 24th, 2015, 01:56 PM
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I will say this - in terms of gaming on this site, I play nothing but "suboptimal" characters by most definitions, and it works out just fine. Some of my most recent characters can't fight effectively at all. Don't min-max a character just because you think the other players will look down on you if you don't. The only person you need to impress when applying is the DM, and they might not care.

When a game is about crawling a series of increasingly challenging dungeons, yeah, you might cause trouble if your character is not suited to the challenge, but a lot of games don't work out to be dungeon crawls. I tend to end up in games where my characters' lack of ability to cut a bloody swath through opposition is not a liability.

When I DM, I in fact want no "optimal" characters. I don't want to see min-maxed juggernauts of martial prowess. The sorts of plots I run favor well-rounded characters with well-defined personas who don't feel out of place in "talking scenes". The best way to make me put your application in the "reject" bin is if you talk about a "build" you saw somewhere that you want to try. I can't speak for other DMs, obviously, but you should look at the advertisement and try to gauge how important combat optimization is to the DM and the campaign - often this is discussed in the advertisement thread, and if it isn't, it might be something to ask the DM about directly.
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  #11  
Old Dec 24th, 2015, 04:48 PM
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Thanks for all of the help! I wasn't so much worried that I'd be looked down by others moreso that I'd be a hindrance. But now it's pretty clear that it's not a problem at all

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Old Dec 24th, 2015, 05:04 PM
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It really all depends on the DM and the game.

If it's all about the damage you can produce (say, an arena game, or something player versus monster), then going in with a mute truenamer, while a really "cool" concept, would be harmful to the party. If the DM says his game is a killer, and he's giving everyone a really high point buy for stats, way more wealth by level, and special bumps in feats and magic items, then creating a very sub-optimal PC might be a problem.

But, in 75% or more of games around here, it's not about your PC's power, it's about how you PLAY that PC. A well played PC can be a very middle of the line, vanilla fighter/rogue/bard/samurai, and be great. So long as you contribute at the right time, you'll be fine.

As a DM, I am like Aeternis: I prefer my players to have flaws, difficulties, and not be optimal. I have a game where I have banned tier 1 classes, just for that reason. I like challenging my PC's, and having them challenge me with good PC's, not challenging me with Galactus.

As a player, I like to have fun. If that's building a powerful PC, because the world is powerful, great. If it's running around with an average PC because the game world is average, that's fun. What's not fun is blasting through every encounter without breaking a sweat, because I am High-Op, and the DM isn't, or getting my butt handed to me by every kobold because they are all dragonwraught sorcerers with candles of invocation, gating in demons to do their housekeeping.

Best advice (that I think everyone has given here) is "play what is fun".
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  #13  
Old Dec 28th, 2015, 12:23 PM
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Hey, I just stumbled upon this and, being the DM of the game in question, I figured I'd chime in here...

You don't need to worry, InstantD. As others have said, emphasis on optimization will vary from one game to another, and you can usually gauge that from the game's advert. My ad for The Southern Realm, for instance, will tell you that I'm a story-first DM, so I'm not likely to assemble a party of optimized combat machines and you won't need to worry about being a hindrance. And like zevonian says, I (and most other DMs) will gauge the party's abilities before designing encounters, and then adjust the difficulty based on their performance. To add to that, I'll say that if there are optimized characters in my game (because, y'know, some players are into that sort of thing), intelligent enemies are likely to key in on them quickly, so min-maxing can be risky.

But yeah, you just apply to games that look fun to you, by creating characters that you'll have fun playing, and if the game and the character are a great fit, then everyone has fun. Huzzah! Fun for all!
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Old Aug 13th, 2016, 12:21 PM
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No such thing as sub-optimal characters. Only sub-optimal players and GMs.
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Old Aug 13th, 2016, 02:37 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EAKugler View Post
No such thing as sub-optimal characters. Only sub-optimal players and GMs.
Mute truenamer
One armed archer
karsite wizard

would all disagree
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