Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Brol_The_Mighty 06-15-06, 11:21 PM	Alright, here's the deal. I'm a frequent of THESE boards, and the :gasp: CO boards, although this is the first time I've posted here. Both the gaming groups I belong to apply the "Powergamer" title to me in every topic that bears my name. They've even quoted my name, when referring to characters that're above the average lvl of power. (My name is Eddie, and they called a character "Eddiefied" because he was strong.) Anyways, I LIKE to play the Hero. I LOVE to be good at whatever it is my character does. But I also love to RP as well. Here's my problem.... Most of the people in my groups, frequent these boards....for help with their background...or just ideas. I don't knock them for it, nor do I knock anyone who posts here, hence, I'm coming here for help. When I create a character, I create a concept. My current character is a Barbarian, from Savage Mountains. His mother was a Dwarf, his father an Ogre...but they're happily married, just as everyone else in the tribe. Now, me taking the Half-Ogre, and Feral templates instantly screamed "PowerGamer" to my DM....although I created a good background, and backstory for him. But, my character's a HERO, not a peasant who got fedup with the feudal system. Is this taboo? Should I sacrifice power, and heroism, for taking RP feats like Skill Focus(basketweaving) or whatever? My current DM just got done playing a wizard from the North....so being from the North he took the feats Armor Proficiency Light, and Weapon Proficiency Handaxe. I love to RP....am I doomed to have to do the same thing to prove it? I own almost every 3-3.5 D&D book put out.....but have become limited in the books I can use because of this. So I submit to you, as the Character Developement Boards...CAN you have awesome RP, while not having to sacrifice power? (My Barbarian build is:Barb 10/Frenzied Berserker 10)
The Game 06-15-06, 11:59 PM	Strike a balance between the two. I am not accusing you personally of it, but Ive seen people make up this backstory thats all wonderful and thoughtful ect, only to have it carefully tailored to justify the stinking pile of cheese that this their character sheet, and then expect others to roll with it by saying "Its an interesting concept, I thought it up!". One such was a force-sensitive treasure hunter working for the Empire that walked around in the biggest military powersuit available, with an e-web locked onto each arm and a lightsaber on his belt. The GM said "Sure, you can have it" with a smug smile. The first session, he got killed in one round by two Royal Guards that got a higher inititive than him. The player chucked a fit, left the group, and has never come back since. I used to do similiar things, now I prefer to take things in accordance with whatever story I thought up, not the other way round (Making a character then writing a backstory to suit it). Until I discovered that one didnt need to be a beard monger in order to still have a powerful character, or be good at what they do ect, because the abilities granted to me by class ect already put me head and shoulders above the average man, and what I did the way I utilized those abilities marked me out as a hero or tyrant (Generally the later, but thats not the point). As you can still have a 'strong' character without being overwhelming powerful one that farts lightning and eats plane wings when their bored. As to trying to make the balance actually work, well I find the GM can play a big part in it. Our GM started giving out free experiance to those who role played, or those who drew up a little back story for their character and showed it to him, or who didnt take the usual feats (Weapon Focus: Lightsaber, Dissipate Energy, Quickdraw, Defensive Martial Arts, Improved Initiative ect), and slowly, but surely, people started making more interesting characters and ultimately, the game became much more fun.
Brol_The_Mighty 06-16-06, 12:13 AM	Oh, I definately agree about making the character build around the character story, instead of the other way around. And I do strike a balance (usually, every now and then the DM will do/say something that pisses me off) but their perception of powergaming is a bit scewed. I played a straight Warmage. No PrC's, or anything like that....and they FREAKED. He LOVED Fire.....and so used it :D His favorite tactic was to walk up to BBEG....and blow up. He's use Fireburst or Greater Fireburst to wonderful effect. Used Metamagic to give his favorite fire spells the added effect. No cheese, no rule bending.....and they FREAKED. My point being is that I don't pull cheese (unless the DM CHALLENGED me, yes, CHALLENGED me, to make something that could dent one of his BBEG's) and yet am called a powergamer. I agree that the GM should reward RP, and things that aren't the norm. But when you play in a Hack and Slash campaign, doesn't it make sense to make a killing machine?
The Game 06-16-06, 12:22 AM	Well the type of campaign influences the balance that can be held between the two: if it is just hack and slash and little else, Id expect nothing but power gamers and min maxers, because the challenges before them can only be overcome if their characters are as power as they can be. Our GM likes running a mix of the two: he has told us many times before, he is not going to create the role playing for us, we need to formulate goals for our characters and role play it and he is going to be the sayer on consequences, unseen factors ect ect.
Brol_The_Mighty 06-16-06, 09:16 AM	Anyone else have an opinion on this? I'd like to get as many opinions on the subject before its brought to my DM.
Morka 06-16-06, 09:39 AM	I'm a regular here, and while I'm not a great writer, I love to throw ideas about character background. I also think that having an half-ogre feral dwarf or Sun Elf Wizard wouldn't prevent you from roleplaying. And I also think that having a great backstory shouldn't prevent you from being efficient. For example, in a low-point buy system, those two example characters would have Charisma as their dump stat. A raw powergamer would have his character enter a tavern, sit in a corner and simply order a beer drum or wine cup while the party's bard is chatting with waiters and patrons. A powergamer who's also a roleplayer would have his character enter the tavern, spot a lone patron in a corner and have a chat with him while the bard is shinning. However, what might be bugging the rest of the players is if one player is always doing the same thing. For a player, it might be to always be the shadowy rogue/ranger lone wolf; in your case, it might be always maximizing your character. Next time your character die, try playing a character with only Core feats for a change; you might be surprised how efficient it can be!
Dipteran_Legacy 06-16-06, 09:34 PM	firstly, it's almost sorta annoying how just because you're posting on the CD boards instead of the CO boards, you make a big deal about it, and even go so far as to imply that all of us should have a problem with that. I like the CO boards too, and always try to maximize my character after coming up with their concept(though usually just on my own, not with their help) my definition of maximizing is also more along the lines of making my character as independant of the party as possible, so it doesnt always fit nicely with the co boards idea of optimizing(as in, instead of making a character who can deal hundreds or thousands of damage in a turn, I'm happy to dish out around 100-200, as long as I am also somewhat versatile all-around. imho, heroes shouldnt need a party just to overcome obstacles. having a party doesnt hurt, but you shouldnt need one buddy to pick the locks, another one to buff and heal you, and another one to pull out quirky magic tricks ranging from save-or-dies, to insta-army destruction, to etc etc etc) but personal opinions of what is truly optimized aside, being a feral half-ogre really doesnt sound like something you thought up a cool story for before thinking up the mechanics. it sounds like you thought "what's the most ecl-effecient way to pump my str utterly through the roof??" and then built a story around it. I wont lie- I'll have a hard time beleiving you if you deny it. and while the story you built around that(or before that) may be good, It sounds sorta goofy from your summarization. I'd be interested in hearing your story, as it is unfair for me to really make up my mind on that until I read it. even if your story isnt bad, can you really blame your dm for seeing a feral half oger anything and not thinking you're simply trying to pump your str as high as possible in the most ecl-effeicient way? it also sounds like the rest of your group may be overly obsessed with rp. wasting 2 feats because you're from a certain place is just stupid. if the combat training of "northern" people(which sound very barbaric even from that small summary) was sooooo incredibly important to his wizard, it would not only have been more efficient, but also more logical in-game for him to have simply made his first level barbarian before entering wizard. then again, alot of people have a weird hatred of multiclassing, and just from hearing that bit, the group you game with may be one of them(or at least that dm in particular). it sounds almost like you want this board to determine which side of this argument is "right". from my point of view, both sides seem very silly, but then again, you've only given us a very basic explanation of the whole debacle.
Pandaemoni 06-17-06, 12:04 AM	You can have a powerful character who is well roleplayed...but imo in the end you almost always have to make a choice. No real person is "optimized", and any character who has no extraneous skills and feats is likely not being well role-played (unless his schtick is "I never do or learn anything save that which makes me stronger"). So, to some extent it depends on what you mean by "powergamer". If you mean "ironclad optimizer" then I'd say the two are at loggerheads. If you mean someone who usually takes feats/weapons/skills/spells/etc. in a way that improves his mechanical abilities, then both that and rolep[laying are possible in the same character, with some possible connflicts from time to time. In the end, sadly, Lord Acton's quote is entirely apt, "Power[gaming] tends to corrupt..." :D Of course many people who insist on being at the high end of the power curve nonetheless do everything they can to make their character interesting and complete...but you do deny yourselves some non-uber-powered possibilities. For examples of characters I've seen (or played myself) that are hard to justify to powergamers: the warrior who seeks to restore his family honor and uses his father's long sword for sentimental reasons through his entire career, even though that means passing on "better" (i.e. magical and masterwork) weapons; the rebel half-ogre who studies wizardry because he loves magic even though he's told he has no talent for it (Int 13 at level 1), the dwarven fighter who uses his first level feat to take Skill Focus (craft (gemcutting) because that was his character's pre-level-1 background and who always allocates his 1 skill point per level (he had a 9 Int) to craft (gemcutting) the wizard whose Constitution is so low that he's generally on the verge of collapse and almost always fails his Concentration checks--the Raistlin character--or the character who has forsaken his worldly goods and has taken a vow of poverty (not the VoP "exalted feat," mind you, as the BoED didn't exist at the time...this vow was all roleplaying upside but all mechanical downside--essentially I just never let my character have more than 200 gold on property ever, and in return I got "nothing" from the DM save the respect of local NPCs and the fuun of roleplaying such a selfless character). Personally, I don't feel the need to try to "beat" the game, so I'm more interested in playing an interesting character than one who always wins. Better to play the complex, but sad, wimpy and possibly crazy (and ultimately not entirely successful) Hamlet over the flatter, but more powerful, Conan or Merlin, in my opinion. In my view, so long as you are not the sort who hems and haws, grunts and snorts when he feels his co-players are making "bad" feat/skill/spell/weapon/armor selection decisions or when his character turns out to be far better at combat, though, then it doesn't bother me. If I can play the character I want, then I'm happy to let you play the character you want. Conan and Hamlet can adventure alongside one another, even though Hamlet will always be the more interesting of the two and the obvious "main character" in the novelization, with Conan as his bland, campy sidekick. :D (I freely acknowledge though that for every powergamer who gets upset at his fellow players "suboptimal" RP-driven choices, there is an obnoxious RPer who looks down his nose at powergamers...though, personally, I've seen more of the former than the latter.)
Need_A_Life 06-17-06, 04:59 AM	Of course they can coexist. It's not always easy but there is no reason you shouldn't be able to play an feral half-ogre half-troll half-dragon centaur if you wanted (by the way, that build is not optimal) and provided the background for your GM to review. In our campaign the amount of GP we're allowed to use depends on our background. This means that we have a lot less gold than the books suggest we have, reenforcing the idea that we should "cheese out" builds. I still write backgrounds, though I sometimes make the "preliminary build" first (Example: "changeling monk") then I try to find a way to set him apart from the stereotype (Example: "considers himself a dwarf as he grew up among them") and go with that Examples: "son of a doppleganger and a female dwarf of noble blood" "has a hint of draconic blood, causing him to awaken sorcerous powers over time" "attacked by monster (and failed to even hurt it) when trying to capture it" "uses his shapeshifting to hide hideous wounds that never fully healed," "considers wizardry dishonest, sorcery is the only acceptable form of magic" "tries to forget what happened to him when he was attacked by a powerful monster" "uses his training as a way to keep busy so he won't have to explain what happened to his superiors" First one is purely flavor, then comes one that implies multiclassing into sorcerer (actually that isn't quite accurate, but close enough), then comes two that simply show that I like having my characters have failures in their past, then one that would put him at edge with wizards ("Magic does not belong to those purely of mortal blood"), then the last two are an explaination of why he takes being a monk so seriously. Then I made the build: Changeling monk/monk of the cloaked fist*/kensai * progresses monk unarmed strike and gives level 2 arcane spells Hardly an extraordinary build, but he gets a pretty good unarmed strike, which is what I intended with it in the first place. Also he has a couple of tricks up his sleeve in the form of flight and a natural attack capable of breaking through thick walls. Is that unrealistic? Probably. But he has spent hundreds of years perfecting this, so why shouldn't he be able to send people flying? Also he does get several supernatural boosts so it isn't entirely unlikely
Tytalus 06-19-06, 02:52 AM	First off, I agree with Dipteran_Legacy that it's mildly annoying that you imply it's a problem to post both to CD and CO - or be interested in both. As for the problem at hand, I do both, too - powergaming and roleplaying. To me, however, the focus is not being the super hero, but to be good at what I do without overshadowing the rest of the party. Concretely, I take a interesting, but perhaps weak concept/race/etc. and make it workable through some CO. Like playing a kobold (before RoD came out and made them an obvious CO choice). The result is a character that fits right into the powerlevel of the rest of the party. I only (almost) go all-out when I'm playing a support character that can't overshadow anyone (like a bard focusing on bardic music). As for your character, I would probably not want it in my campaign, for a number of reasons. First, if he grew up and is living happily with happy parents, the feral template make no sense and screams of rollplaying. Plus, if you are a CO regular, you will be aware that the template is considered to be broken for a mere LA+1 (btw, same is true for the half-giant template at LA+1, but I assume you use the revised and current LA+2 version). Second, choosing Frenzied Berzerker has severe implications for the rest of the group. I would not allow this unless everyone in the group was happy with a member that's likely to chop them all up into little pieces if things go wrong. Third, you condemn your partymates to insignificance. If you are a CO regular, you know that FB is one of the ways to deal the most damage as a melee character. Any non-optimized character will not keep up, and from your description it seems your friends play with characters that fall into that category. Finally, your DM might not be fully aware of the implication for his game. Sure, you might frequent the CO boards and know about the FB's destructive power - but your DM might not be able to handle you easily dealing 100+ damage per round at level 8. Balancing encounters will require a *lot * of skill in this case. In fact, it might end up not being fun for anyone involved, even you (tip: optimized characters best fit into games where everyone is good at optimization). So: don't do it. Suggestions: play a dwarven barbarian 20. Keep the background (you took after your mother). Scrap the FB thingy. Stay away from the Leap Attack and Combat Brute feats. Given what you told us about your group, you'll be their hero regardless.
geekling 06-20-06, 08:06 AM	Such a silly question, of course you can. You are allowed to love all aspects of the game, not just one. There! you've got my permission, problem solved. :) See they are both part of the game, enjoying the intelectual puzzle of combining the mechanical aspects into a "build" does not really impact on the different challenge of turning that 'build' into a person in the game. Now I might disagree with a lot of people on these boards when I claim that the backstory is fairly irrelevant to roleplaying the character. It can be a help, but a super 50 page backstory don't bring diddly squat to the game if you can't RP you character as a person during the game. It's just nice reading material. If you can manage to bring your PC alive as a person, it doesn't really matter if you bring pun-pun to the table. You'll still be contributing more to the general enjoyment of the game than the one that plays their character as a wooden dummy or cardboard cut out of a stereotype. No matter how long and carefully crafted their background story is for that character.
Tramp4life 06-21-06, 12:50 AM	I agree completely! Power game away! Some min/maxing has to happen because this is a COMBAT GAME! I don't want to build a 25 point character! I'm built with more than 25 points! I want to play Conan, Lestat, Zorro, someone who is "the best" at what he does. I believe there is something inside that makes you and adventurer, but you also have to be capable of doing it (physically, ability score wise). So, role play, but don't forget that roll playing is part of it. And, have fun. Be powerful...live well!
Loto_GoCeraf 06-21-06, 09:51 PM	Hey, of course you can. But there's a great different between optimization and powergaming. To me, powergaming represent a complete lack of roleplaying, sense you're essentially creating a character solely for the purely destructive (or in some cases, restorative) capabilities they might have. For instance, one of my fellow players has been trying to get everyone in the group to take one level of Marshall, from the miniatures handbook. His thinking behind this is the morale bonus we can have will stack together. My argument is "Hey, look, I'm chaotic, alright? And my charisma is 11. There's no morale that's going to be gotten from me." Now, one of the points made was that taking solely combative feats would be the mark of a powergamer, instead of that skill focus (basketweaving). Now, I prefer playing a hero distrurbed by certain aspects of himself. For instance, the character I play is a planetouched Mongrelfolk psychic warrior variant who makes generous use of the Expanded Knowledge feat (energy cone, telekinetic thrust, and fly). His own internal conflicts stem from the fact that his powers can only destroy, or help him destroy. It was not until he was able to use fly to catch one of his companions after falling off a cliff that he thought that there was more to his power than that. That being said, your hero, whose capabilities lie solely in combat, can be roleplayed as a man (or woman) who interacts with the world by protecting it. So... there ya go.
stembolt 06-22-06, 02:05 AM	Now, me taking the Half-Ogre, and Feral templates instantly screamed "PowerGamer" to my DM....although I created a good background, and backstory for him. They scream that to all of us. Some of us just care more or less. To me, in my campaigns, your character would be a cripple in about a third of the game (diplomacy, character interactions and such). That would make up for the fact that he kicked the rest of the time. Also the guy has a huge target painted on him. For a DM it is often hard to justify every single bad guy not attacking him first.
stealth_monkey 06-22-06, 07:05 AM	Just one point. Yes, powergaming and rp'ing can co-exist, but when you get right down to it, it doesn't matter one iota how much fluff you wrap it in, it's still powergaming. What you did (sorry if this sounds accusatory, but hell, just telling it as I see it) is create a character designed to completely overshadow the rest of the party in combat (if it wasn't a great deal more powerful than the rest of the group, I doubt your gm would have called it powergaming) and then try to justify it by throwing together a backstory. If you're indeed putting role-playing before powergaming, you can just as easily roleplay a feral half-ogre by *gasp* playing a half ogre from an uncivilised land, half the cheese with no dent to your backstory
Brol_The_Mighty 06-23-06, 09:04 AM	Okay, here's an update to the situation, and of course, a reply to some of the replies here. Talked to the DM more, and he doesn't really have a problem with it...because first off, I'm keeping the party alive, and second off, as mentioned before....I'm a gimp in much of the campaign (which is one of the RP'ing aspects I LOVE) and I have a huge target on me. Also because we have a number of casters in the group, and magic will end up completely overshadowing EVERYTHING. As for the whole, it must be powergaming, because that's what they called it. They call having a Str of 14 at lvl 1 powergaming....because "someone with a Str of 12 could slaughter a whole village" so almost any build that doesn't rely on EVERY stat, instead of good synergy between race/class...is powergaming. We do about 1-2 combats a session. And our sessions are 12 hours long. Everything else is roleplay and such. I dropped the Feral template for the character....not for a balance issue, but because my INT of 7 was a problem for the group. I kept getting left behind in a field to eat all the sheep, instead of letting me come along to the RP time. (Yes I know that it was a likely thing, but still sucked) so I dropped the Template and now have a managable 11 INT. Anyways, I appreciate all the feedback. There have been suggestions, and comments that will help me get along better with my group. Both as a character, and a player. The next character I'm playing is a human Enlightened Fist....so that should be an interesting experience.