Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Ghenesh 05-10-06, 11:46 AM	As a DM and a player i found something in optimization that bothers me, and it's the concept-less character... i know this is a game and everyone wants to "win", i also know that as a DM i must ensure the fun of the players, but as i continue to play and DM i found myself dealing with more and more optimized characters... characters with a exhaustive selection of skills but no concept. When i say concept i mean the general idea of the character, i ask you guys this: ¿why in the world a person (character) whose enter a Prestige Class would abandon it at level 3? what's the reason if it's not metagaming? (once you got the skill you wanted that's it... you dip out). I can deal with 2 levels of Fighter in every build, that can be explained and role played... but 3 or 4 diferent classes and PrCs: one arcane, one mele, another one psychic. There's no more fonding (is this the word?) in a class or concept, everyone just want to win the combats. WotC is not inocent in this, we all know is their way of selling more and more splatbooks, every splatbook brings a dose of brokenness you can pick for your char. A friend of mine suggests that you can pick some competences (class skills and feats) that give your character it's concept, like: "my character has trained all of his life to send people flying away when hitting them in the frenzy of combat", in order to do this he's taking 2 core classes and 1 prestige, and like 4 diferent books on the feat selection. I disagree, that's just picking up class features that synergize with some feats and justifying it later on with a story... did i mention that the character is a Goliath (RoS) psychic barbarian frenzied berserker that blows the enemies away? Yes... psychic. A barbarian frenzied berserker goliath that sends enemies flying away is a concept, quite fun i must admit... but... psychic? i can deal with 2 levels of Fighter (it might even be more optimized) but no... pounce lion's psychic charge with shock trooper, leap attack, supreme power attack and of course grow a category before charging. Obviously i can trigger his frenzy attacking him before he can prepare his (always the same) combat strategy, but that's not the idea! I have read some splatbooks and find a lot of ridiculous PrCs... like the famous Dervish... c'mon WotC... what the heck is that? is just a collection of nifty class skills in a gayish dancing package. Even though, i'm not (completely) against the brokenness in the class... what i don't like is the dipping in search for brokenness. Have anyone see a Swashbuckler with more than 3 levels in an optimized build? Most dips are for specific class skills that grants special maneuvers in combat (fighter 2, ranger 2, monk 2/6, etc), some others are for gaining bonuses (paladin 2, swashbuckler 3, monk 1, etc). The problem is, i don't want to limit the number of classes or PrCs my players can pick... but i don't want them to dip too much either. How can i do it? I was thinking of making all of the ability score bonuses (Int or Wis for AC, Dex or Int to damage, Cha to Saves, etc) class level dependant, like the Duelist AC Bonus.
MrBrown 05-10-06, 11:55 AM	Hmm. There's alot of issues involved in this, but let me say this: If your players prefer "build" over "concept" (for a lack of better terms), nothing you do about the game will change that. At best, you'll get concept-excuses for builds. The only way to get it to really change is to have them, as people, change their minds. In other words, make them prefer concept over build themselves. As for what I'd do personally... I think preferring build over concept is a pretty natural thing to do with D&D, so I don't worry about it. Actually, I encourage it when I GM D&D.
Tormsskull 05-10-06, 12:37 PM	Most dips are for specific class skills that grants special maneuvers in combat (fighter 2, ranger 2, monk 2/6, etc), some others are for gaining bonuses (paladin 2, swashbuckler 3, monk 1, etc). The problem is, i don't want to limit the number of classes or PrCs my players can pick... but i don't want them to dip too much either. How can i do it? You could try a variant of one of my old rules. It was "You cannot be a non-PHB race unless you have encountered that race in the game." Just change the word "race" to "class" and you have yourself a rule that will limit the number of times a player multi-classes (and thus dips). Or you can say that if a character enters a PrC they must complete it before entering a new PrC. Or you can say that the player must present to you a reason which you determine rational before they are allowed to multi-class. Or you could tell your players your concerns, and ask that they control their own actions.
Puca 05-10-06, 12:40 PM	Stop DMing. Hear me out. Im not trying to be an ass, but to me, it sounds like you are suffering from a (hopefully temporary) malaise. The players are (I assume) having fun with their optimized builds. Youre just not having fun DMing that type of game right now. Switch out. Have one of the players take over for at least a little while. Play a character, optimized or not, and start having fun again. Best case scenario is you play the kind of in-depth, concept-first sort of character that youd like to DM for, and they start doing the same.
Pegasos989 05-10-06, 01:01 PM	Enforce the prequisites. It sound completely odd to me that anyone can have 3 or so prestige classes. Look at the special part of prequisites, there is almost always something: "Character must kill someone to join assasins" "character must spend 3 weeks in a sacred loam, ingesting gemstones" "Character must put an end to a conspiracy within his church" You DECIDE what characters can take. Just why do the assasins want to recruit the character? Who teaches him sacred rituals? Do you let him to put an end to a conspiracy? I am not saying that you should stp letting them join the PrCs, but this is completely valid: "So, you would like to take a level of assasin. You never mentioned it before. You don't kill people for living. You have had no contact with assasins. Sorry, n, you can't take that class. And no, I am not going to create a twist to make the assasins beg for you to join them for no reason."
CzarGarrett 05-10-06, 01:39 PM	While you've said you don't want to limit the number, that is definately the best choice. And its logical as well. I limit base classes to 2 and PrCs to 1, unless an extremely good RP reason is given for taking more than one class. Other than cherry-picking some of the low-level abilities, there is no reason to take more than 2 classes.
Tristan 05-10-06, 01:50 PM	hmmm, I dont do that
infideli 05-10-06, 02:08 PM	The characters in my campaigns don't know about anything they have not researched or encountered. The DM controls the encounters and the result of research. And just because the learn of something doesn't mean that they can suddenly start to gain a different set of abilities. You can limit the cheese builds by simply stating that "your character knows nothing about hulking hurlers". If the character has been throwing stuff, then it might make sense for him to develope a technique for it. If it is a more initiatory class like any psychic build, or supernaturally enhanced class, then he should probably need a mentor. It makes no sense to have barbarian levels other than at 1st. It doesn't make sense generally to have monk levels other than at 1st since there is so much training involved. Even the secrets of rogues are something that you should have special instruction ine, meaning the sneak attack. If the SA was a thing learned from fighting alone then every warrior would be able to do it. It has been said before: who would train a person in THEIR elite skill if the person has shown no dedication to anything he has done before? Make the classes part of the campaign (with organization running them, people training others) or NOT part of the game and the problems are solved. If the classes are just books the player decided to buy, then what does that have to do with the campaign? Nothing. If you are starting off above 1st level, then tell the players what classes they can't have... or at least in that order of picking. Make sure they have a background that fits your world and makes natural sense for the character to go in that direction. I had a player who ALWAYS grew-up in a monastery.. and laster discovered divine powers and then the planes... his second clones was laughed out of the game. G
Pandaemoni 05-10-06, 02:22 PM	Most of my characters have "conceptually" not been tied to a particular class. I am presently playing, for example, a somewhat miserly human character, with a decidedly military mindset, whose primary drive is his sense of duty to those who helped lift him out of his former life of privation. He could be almost any non-pacifist combination of classes with that outlook (and happens to be a Rogue/Sorcerer/Human Paragon). As such I feel free to select classes (and PrCs) based on what appeals to me power and abilitywise. Similarly, I happen to be a lawyer...if I had studied engineering instead, it wouldn't have changed by personal "character" in the real world, just my profession.
Ghenesh 05-10-06, 03:41 PM	Well, thx to the ppl that gave me their opinions, specially to those who gave me some recomendations. The problem is it that adding some rules is not "that" simple in this case, i'll explain this better: The campaign setting started about 3 years ago, a friend of mine made a tipical "errand for a powerful mage" campaign for 3rd levels (at that time we were playing 3.0), the campaign was a lot of fun and we all end up like in level 7. Then i took that setting (the map, some NPCs and some of the players) and DM a bigger campaign, the story was quite significant to me as a DM and the players at their level (6 to 8 i think) felt like they can make a diference but far from being invincible, i presented combats with low CR (7 or so) and by the end of that campaign (about 20 to 24 sessions) they end up in like... level 10... some of them. By the moment they knew all of the continent i had created, an important part of the mythology of the place AND they set free a powerful demon, they got the bad ending (i like giving diferent endings to my campaigns as if it were a videogame). I said "the end" but that was far from being true... a player said: "i want to DM the next part"... and he did, but there's were 3.5 comes in, we were just getting to know the splatbooks from 3.0 (tome and blood, fist and sword, etc) and we changed to 3.5. By now we have switched DMs 6 times and we have played 7 years of the life of our characters (from level 3 to 20 in some cases)... long story short: i'm gonna DM next... again... in the same world, the same characters. Many of us are using diferent books to build chars, get spells, gear, etc (I actually use only core + complete warrior for mine). While i would like to limit somehow the aquiring of classes and the sources of the stuff (i'm not gonna read the complete races series or the Book of Exhausted Feet or the Book of Cheese Madness), i can't simply make new rules, rules are already written or accepted by majority, so i cannot enter and say: "i don't care if we did it that way before, now is my way". I'm actually letting a retraining for most of the feats cause some of the chars were created and leveled until like lvl 11 or so without access of the Complete series and a reset of class levels (cause we weren't playing with multiclassing xp penalty and now the actual DM is introducing it). The NPCs will have access to these information so is an advantage i don't want them to find it unfair. While i understand that players want powerful characters (i'm a player myself and i don't want a weak char) i'm trying to enforce the concept of the class as a line of competence development... i think i'll limit the number of classes to 3 (base or prestige) unless is a PrC of 5 or less levels. The basic problem is that we have kind of a rule that states that you can practically dismiss your character and use a new one with a level equal to the level of the lowest char in the party minus 1, if the party is 5 chars of levels between 17 and 21 you get a new character of level 16, we're actually in those levels so is very easy and tempting to get in with a cheesey build and send to hell your older character, i'm not saying it's a pro-powergaming rule, it came in to solve a problem... the problem of the players that get bored of their character. It has happened twice... and i just don't like it, as i wasn't the DM i had no saying in the matter, but i will soon, and that's the issue.
kelvinaw273 05-10-06, 04:32 PM	While I am all for concept characters, I do not believe that concept and class are the same thing. A character concept should be something like: "An arcane warrior eager to weave their skill with a blade and their spells together", or "a nimble fighter relying on speed and grace to win rather than brute strength". Let's take the latter concept and put some Class into it: Start as Swashbuckler as the obvious place. OK, for a few levels, but then he sees that the party rogue can fell enemies withg a single blow, so he takes a few levels as rogue, learning from his friend, to gain a sneak attack. At this stage a monk joins the party, and he sees that the monk has no armour at all and avoids damage easily, so he gets the monk to teach him some tricks and takes a few levels of monk. He returns to his trusty blades, though and takes a few more levels in Swashbuckler to get his BAB up. At this stage he starts into the Duelist class to use the Canny defence that duelists use (he isn't so much interested in fighting just one enemy, though) and gets a few levels in that. So we have a character with, say, Swashbuckler 6 / Rogue 3 / Monk3 / Duelist 2. The Class has jumped around like mad (here is a character who adds his dexterity, intelligence and wisdom bonuses to their AC) but the Concept has remained true to the original statement.
Andorxor 05-10-06, 05:28 PM	If their PRC has a organisation use this organisations often in your game.If the have several connections to NPCs in this organisation,they will proable stay longer in their classes.
Langriman 05-10-06, 08:19 PM	I've found that it's not worth the trouble getting concerned with character concept too much during character creation. Most of the best characters I've seen grew into concepts that were quite different from what they started with.
Stafir Ortnev 05-10-06, 08:57 PM	I actually find dipping to make sense from a character perspective...if they don't get caught up with the intricases of the class they dip into. Some people do have a tendancy to jump from thing to thing..or try to weasle out everything they want from a group, then leave it behind. However..alot of people with such ideals sometimes wind up gettin caught up in things they never expected. And they wind up in something like that much longer than they origionally thought they would. The point is..I think dipping _can_ be explained ingame...however if they dip into classes that have some sort of social group..you might consider putting a bit of roleplaying pressure on them from other members of the class. The Assassins might not appreciate the fact your no longer training...and the clergy of whatever priesthood your cleric side is..might wonder why you havn't been around lately..a few might even think you merely a pretender. It really..well..depends.
allenchan 05-10-06, 10:20 PM	I strongly disagree with the OP. In fact, I find most builds focus to a very specific concept, so there's no antagonism between them. Sort of what kelvinaw273 said; the PC is a half-elf wanderer wants to be the best dual-swordsman possible, travelling the world to learn bits of knowledge here and there in his attempt to perfect his art and gain understanding of his elven heritage. He does not know he is a half-elf paragon/fighter/swashbuckler/dervish/tempest/champion of corellon larethian/duelist/whatever. edit: and as for the swapping of characters, the level penalty is plenty enough. Sometimes a character just gets boring or a concept you were trying turns out to be ineffectual and/or disappionting. I really see no reason to make a PC suffer simply because you're affraid their next one might be more powerful.
tsuyoshikentsu 05-10-06, 11:00 PM	Wow, this guy has made two posts and already I hate him. First off, you have COMPLETELY ignored that what, ten-page thread on this subject? Last I checked, it was on the front page. (And I mena before I posted in it.) ike the famous Dervish... c'mon WotC... what the heck is that? is just a collection of nifty class skills in a gayish dancing package.As a bisexual, an actor who occasionally gets conscripted into dances, and a fan of the Dervish, pretty much every tenant of that sentence (if that terrible assembly of characters attempting to emulate grammar even counts as one) offends me. Now, every single question you ask is answered in the other thread, so I'm just gonna make one more remark here. they got the bad ending (i like giving diferent endings to my campaigns as if it were a videogame)My question for you is: You're using videogame elements in your DMing style and wonder why people are treating classes like they would in a videogame?
Vaelan 05-11-06, 01:37 AM	When i say concept i mean the general idea of the character, i ask you guys this: ¿why in the world a person (character) whose enter a Prestige Class would abandon it at level 3? what's the reason if it's not metagaming? (once you got the skill you wanted that's it... you dip out). Because sometimes the character only cares about the ability they gain three levels in. Take, for example, a Wizard that seeks to learn to cast spells in armor. Through research or perhaps recollection of the academy in which he studied, he happens upon the Spellsword organization. He neglects his studies to learn how to use armor and weapons so that he can be trained as a Spellsword. He then further neglects his studies to undertake the Spellsword training. While doing so, he realizes that his spellcasting ability is and starts researching magical solutions to his problem of Arcane Spell Failure. He comes across an enchantment rumored to be used by certain celestial beings that does this very thing. Since he has already started to train under the Spellswords, he hopes to use this enchantment to minimize the diversion from his studies required to wield a chain shirt and heavy shield without hampering his spellcasting. Eventually, he learns how to simplify his somatic gestures to the degree that he can effortlessly cast spells using the shield and armor he has enchanted explicitly for this purpose. He is not particularly interesting in learning how to channel spells through weapons, nor is he interested in wearing heavier armor. He is, however, quite interested in getting back to his studies and learning more complicated and powerful spells. I simply must ask, Ghenesh... Why would this Wizard continue to neglect his studies to train as a Spellsword when he has no interest in what they can teach him and he is intensely interested in the studies that this training would cause him to neglect?
Amthyst_fire 05-11-06, 02:03 AM	I have read some splatbooks and find a lot of ridiculous PrCs... like the famous Dervish... c'mon WotC... what the heck is that? is just a collection of nifty class skills in a gayish dancing package. Even though, i'm not (completely) against the brokenness in the class... what i don't like is the dipping in search for brokenness. Have anyone see a Swashbuckler with more than 3 levels in an optimized build? Whirling Dervishes are real people: http://www.dankphotos.com/whirling/ is an example, explaining a little about the culture/history. Google the term sometime when you are bored. Maybe WoTC took a few liberties with the concept, but hey, what's the harm in playing with a concept that inspires, not limits?
Archangel62 05-11-06, 02:12 AM	A part of this is how classes are seen as well. An example in one of my games was this, I was playing a wizard who had heard of Geometers, their ability to turn arcane formula into a simple mathematical equation, one so simple that all spells only filled one page. It fascinated me so much that I sought one out, that was the only ability I wanted from it, their other powers were intruiging but not that interesting to me overall in comparison to my studies of the draconing prophecy but I had thought that with this knowledge it might help me to better decipher it. I found a geometer, he agreed to teach me the trick if I did a task for him. Did the job, got taught the ability, took a level of geometer to reflect it, and continued on with my regular classes. The reason was logical roleplay wise and also worked out quite well mechanically.
Last City 05-11-06, 02:36 AM	It is tough between the concept of a character, you have to realise even "concept characters" can turn out to be extremely game-destroying characters... I played a half-ogre barbarian to warhulk under the simple concept of a dumb strong melee monster. It was straight forward yet it was a pain for my DM. I m currently playing a shifter/monk/vow of poverty & i took the liberty to write to my DM 3 pages of background story of how the hell is that even possible... whos to say i didnt do a character concept for this class anyway? I read what i need to know bout shifters, monks in ebberon and watched movies as reference. Anyway the point is, if having "weird concept" (or no concept) characters bothers you, lay some ground rules... maybe nobody is allow to prestige more then 2 times? or demand to know how will the PCs level up and into what class in the next 10 levels so that you be ready for them?
Tormsskull 05-11-06, 08:09 AM	Because sometimes the character only cares about the ability they gain three levels in. "Welcome to the guild of classes sir, how may we help you?" "Well, I am leveling up here pretty soon, and I am looking for some cool abilities. I don't want to put too much effort into it though, what can your guild offer me?" "Excellent sir. For just one level of the SuperDuper prestige class you get unlimited attacks of opportunity per round, d12 hitdice, and your movement will be increased by ten feet." "Hmm. That sounds interesting. I get all those benefits at level 1?" "Definitely sir. We specifically bit this class with your dipping needs in mind." "Do you offer dental?" ...
Witch 05-11-06, 08:16 AM	"Welcome to the guild of classes sir, how may we help you?" "Well, I am leveling up here pretty soon, and I am looking for some cool abilities. I don't want to put too much effort into it though, what can your guild offer me?" "Excellent sir. For just one level of the SuperDuper prestige class you get unlimited attacks of opportunity per round, d12 hitdice, and your movement will be increased by ten feet." "Hmm. That sounds interesting. I get all those benefits at level 1?" "Definitely sir. We specifically bit this class with your dipping needs in mind." "Do you offer dental?" ... You completely misunderstood what he meant or are deliberately faking that. Personally I don't mind what my characters take, as long as they find a "concept excuse", and it's not too lame. That means there's still a storyline.
Vaelan 05-11-06, 09:49 AM	For just one level of the SuperDuper prestige class you get unlimited attacks of opportunity per round, d12 hitdice, and your movement will be increased by ten feet. They don't pro-rate the AoOs and make up the difference in skill points? What a rip off. :whatsthis You completely misunderstood what he meant or are deliberately faking that. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/DoNotFeedTroll.png
Witch 05-11-06, 10:00 AM	Edit: Nevermind. They should have a post removal option here.
tsuyoshikentsu 05-11-06, 11:26 AM	http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/DoNotFeedTroll.png :bored: More Torm, actually, and you for posting that. Vaelan's right: sometimes a character wants to learn how to do something. (I believe the example of armored casting was used.)
Scipion Emilien 05-11-06, 01:10 PM	I understand your concern and I think mister Brown got it right. It seem that your players see classes as differents way to "beat the game" while you see them more as a mean to express the mechanics of a character. There is no magic solution to that, people mature or change their view and this reflect after into their game. My suggestion would be to quit DMing too and to play the character you want to play. I ll sympathize with you, i had the same problems, when the game become bad because you cannot relate your players to your gaming world because of a difference in style, don't force yourselfs, it will not solve the problems.
Tristan 05-11-06, 04:33 PM	when it comes to class dipping. Well, maybe the character DOES just want to learn one skill. Take a mind blade, he is having problems with foes who play keep away, and him getting into melee with them. He learns to manifest a mindarrow(or whatever O_O) and then continues on his original path. makes sense
Dag 05-11-06, 08:53 PM	If you're taking over an existing game with established characters then there's nothing you can really do. As for new characters coming in or a campaign with new characters stop allowing the splat books. Stick with the core books and let players make their concepts from the classes there, you can pretty much fill any concept without the need of the splat books, they are primarily for new super kewl powers and making money for the people putting them out. They have very little to do with fleshing out a character's concept - Just dont allow them or limit what you will allow to your PCs and NPCs. It's really that simple and it's not that big of a deal.