Last December, I painstakingly crafted a 4th level half-orc Monk/Rogue hybrid and joined an existing 4e campaign. He leveled in May (hallelujah!!!!) and again in August or so. Meanwhile, in April I painstakingly crafted a 1st level minotaur Avenger for a separate campaign that has just finished Keep on the Shadowfell; we’re all 4th level now.
We don’t get much playing time in.
I’m probably the second-biggest optimizer in the two groups, and it’s been said that I’ve memorized the Player’s Handbook (because I have a pretty good grasp of the rules). But my actual playing experience, and therefore my functional understanding of the game, are quite limited. When I finally got my precious, long-awaited first retraining for my hybrid character, I traded in the utility Great Leap (PH p.119) for Arm and Edge (MP2 p.60), still clutching to my faith that having great Stealth and Perception bonuses would translate into long-range combat despite such things as the bizarre RAW on not getting surprise rounds when “blundering through the woods”. For my hybrid’s second retraining I gave up on Preparatory Shot (MP2 p.57) and took Piercing Strike (PH p.118), getting Bracers of the Perfect Shot about the same time (PH p.244); and soon I will finally, finally, finally dump his Skill Focus/Acrobatics (PH p.201) for Versatile Expertise/Ki Focus/Sling (PH3 p.184).
I hope you’re laughing. My story should be good for something, right?
(I had great reasons for designing a 205-pound character with a +16 Acrobatics bonus, but that’s beyond the scope of this post.)
I originally came to these discussion forums for help with interpreting the rules, particularly skills, but I’ve also enjoyed things like reading the character optimization guides. It’s rather a culture shock, though, to go from a campaign where at least one player will only take powers and feats that are in the original 4e Player’s Handbook to a forum where it’s assumed that you know what a Fullblade is (or at least how to find out) and that you think of the paragon and epic tiers as having some relevance to your life.
My avenger’s DM recently asked for magic item wish lists, and I’m sufficiently enthusiastic about getting a +2 Vicious Greataxe that that’s the only thing I put on her list. I didn't want to distract the DM with anything else.
It’s probably not the most efficient weapon she could have, but it’s fun and I’ve been happy about the decision. It saps the joy, though, to hear about Bloodiron Weapons and Jagged Weapons and Fullblades and Gouges, and to say, “Well it sure would be nice to get a critical hit on a 19, which is what it sounds like a Jagged Weapon does, but do I really want to go outside my self-imposed restriction of staying entirely within the books titled Player’s Handbook [#] or [Source] Power [#]? How far am I going to take this -- how many hours am I going to spend digging up more powers/feats/items and reexamining the decisions I’ve made?” In the interest of having time to live my real life, I’ll probably stick with the +2 Vicious Greataxe, but I won’t feel quite as stoked about it. And then six months (two levels) from now, not long after my character actually gets the +2 Vicious Greataxe, I’ll succumb to peer pressure of one sort of another and expand my self-imposed boundaries. I’ve already got my eye on Iron Armbands of Power (AV), though I could settle for Bracers of Mighty Striking (PH p.244).If I played Living Forgotten Realms, presumably I’d get in more playing time, but I imagine I’d be thoroughly inundated with more and more character options (constantly changing -- hey, guess what came out last week!), which I would either consider (thus increasing the time I spend on D&D support activities, when I'd rather just play more) or stoically refuse (thus increasing my feelings of self-denial, reducing what my character could accomplish relative to everyone else, and most likely giving me a bit of a curmudgeonly reputation). Also, the D&D groups I’m in now are composed of friends of mine, and while I’m not opposed to making new friends, it’s still a different thing.
I’m the kind of person who played Magic: the Gathering by acquiring 200 of each basic land card and 12 of each revised common and saying, “Ah, now I’ve got all the necessary equipment for 4 people to play a fair game.” Dominion is basically the answer to my prayers as far as M:tG is concerned.
So. I was going to call this post a “rant”, but I feel like if I were going to call it a rant it would have to be better justified. This is more just venting. I have to make choices about which D&D resources to use and which ones to ignore; and no matter what choice I make, there’s a downside. That appears to be the nature of the game.
When you sit down to play most games, there's an understanding that the rules are not going to be changed on you half way through. You don't start playing checkers and have it turn into chess on the 7th move or anything. An RPG campaign, though, can run for years, even a decade or two. In that time not only will there be new rules, but old rules will get completely re-written in new editions.
A policy that avoids that, which I've only rarely seen GMs use, is to 'freeze' the rules at the start of the campaign. Pick a set of existing books, or a more specific list of allowed stuff, and leave it at that. That way the campaign is built on a solid mechanical foundation, you don't have things shifting under you, which, I think, is what's causing you consternation, above.
Not that you have the option of doing that, just a comment...
This allows previously existing characters to be more easily updated when new material comes out that is more desirable for whatever reason than what you build your character with.
Tony_Vargas: Yeah. When I joined the first campaign I think they were playing more or less strictly out of the 3 main books (PH, MM, DMG) and I made sure to ask the DM whether I could make a monk (PH3) or hybrid (PH3) and especially whether I could give my character a power from MP2. He said yes to each of these, but we also checked in with the group to make sure people were okay with using these kinds of expansions. So originally it was me pushing the boundaries, but I’ve long since been outpaced.
(And it would never have occurred to me to play a githzerai, shardmind, or wilden in the first campaign: My concept of a “real” player race was based on AD&D/Lord of the Rings, and the idea of playing a race that’s only superficially humanoid (to use the shardminds as an example) would have seemed ridiculous. Though now that I check Wikipedia, I see that the githzerai were in the AD&D book Fiend Folio; I had assumed they were new to 4e.)
You can have constraints on building the characters you play, but separately build other characters to see how mechanical concepts fit together or how well you can mechanically match a character concept.