I do not usually post large comments, but I find myself with a large layover in Chicago and a wife crashed out next to me.......

As I look through this forum, I find myself constantly befuddled. I see threads for Optimization, Dice Math, Damage Spreadsheets, and "ranking" of Weapon Tricks/Martial Techniques based on their "usefullness". Now, I realize people play for different reasons and some prefer combats over RP encounters. However, if i were a newb and I saw these threads, I would think that Arcanis is about straining every once of "effectiveness" out of each character advancement, weapon, armor, and rune selection,etc.

I know many of you are much more mathmatically gifted than I, but do you really believe that you can strain and condense Arcanis into a magical mathmatical formula that allows you to "beat" the game? Why does there seem to be an aversion to making yourself less 'effective" for story purposes?

I remember in the last campaign, I took ALOT of crap from people whom I did not usually play with because I played an Altherian Sharpshooter. I went through 10 levels of ridicule until I got the "auto-crit". Then the rules changed and I had to wait 2-3 more levels. People begged me to switch to pistoleer, or a bowman. Of course, shortly after reaching the auto-crit, auto-crits were banned entirely because of the abuse melee users put into them (and those few Sharpshooters among us were suddenly "broken"). The 3.5 Sharpshooters put everything into 1 attack per round....none of that "iterative attack" stuff for us. Hell, 1 campaign head actually said something to the effect of "Sharpshooters should be the 1 exception to the auto-crit rule, but we will not make any exceptions." Others response? Re-build for "effectiveness". My response? Find my niche that made my character concept work.

People complained about the 3.0/3.5 "arms race" of powers/combinations, etc. Seeing these threads makes me think that some miss those "glory days" and want to start it all over again. I just want to remind everyone that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Every cheesy combo you think of, the opponents can have also. If you believe that an extra +3/4 to a martial techniques (due to the new definition of sources and stacking)....wait until you are ambushed by 6 Exceptional Specimen/Martial Minions that are now doing an easy +10 damage each. Yeah, you will drop them quick, but they just did 60 damage to 1 character before dice are picked up. (and, typically, i hear complaining of "that is not fair" or "it does not meet the fun test" from those who are more than happy to use the exact same tactics. I always build stats based on the authors specifications....and I try to make them as 100% story appropriate as possible. Fighting Milandisian Cantons? Light/Med Armor and polearm weapons coming right up. I dont care if it is not "effective". (and then people complain about fights being too easy).

Above ALL, Arcanis is about story. I just want to encourage those who see all the "math" threads and feel discouraged to know that there is another way to play!!!. Screw the math. Envision a character, decide wants/needs/motivations/fears/humor, etc and make your choices (both in character builds and roleplay choices) based upon those. Want to play a heavily armored, katar-wielding "punch fighter"? Do it!!! Forget the 1 Tick speed difference and make that character rock! Envision a Divine caster who focuses on Wards and not Healing/Buffs/Damage spells? Do it!!!

Hi Matt,

Everyone gets something different out of RPGs. As with everyone here, I love the setting and Henry's creations, but I have a hard time keeping as clear a view of the world as Cody does. I do enjoy roleplaying my characters, but I don't usually commit to it the way John Bellando does (loved the costume for Kelb at Origins, btw). Not trying to single out John and Cody, they were just good examples.

At the end of the day, the thing I most enjoy about any RPG is the tactical combat. Perhaps that makes me a 'rollplayer', but it is what I like. I do enjoy the entire experience, but my focus is mechanics based.

I would like to think that my focus doesn't detract from anyone else's enjoyment of the game. My wife's style of play seems to be much more in line with your style of thought, she doesn't care much about 'optimization'. Regardless, she keeps up just fine when she is playing with us.

At the end of the day, GMs are able to adjust module difficulty up, or down based on a group's composition and their style of play.

P.S. My primary is a divine caster who is focused on Wards...it is pretty powerful

Matt
You bring up some good points. The first thing I'd like to make clear is that it does not have to be one or the other...it's not "roll vs. role" for many of us. I'm an avid role player, as hopefully anyone who has played at a table with me can attest. I love the story, I want to achieve some goals within the world, and I want folks to remember my character in the next version of the Campaign in 5 years.

However, the adventures aren't won on 'story' unfortunately. You can have the best Diplomatic, Suave, Troubled-Past Reluctant Hero RP going on, but at some point in the game, combat is going to break out. It's inevitable and I've yet to see a module that didn't have at least 1-2 tough fights. To succeed (and survive in many cases), characters need to be 'effective' when it comes to encounters. In the end, things come down to dice rolls and like it or not, all the great RP won't turn that near miss into a hit (Fate will but that's also a mechanic). That doesn't mean every character has to be 'optimized' or 'min-maxxed' to be 'effective'. As Josh correctly points out, a character should have 2-3 concepts to focus on, one they are great at, a few they are good at and the rest come along for the ride. Maybe the 'great' focus is healing, maybe it's assisting your allies, maybe it's casting spells with high CTN's that obliterate your foes...but in the end it's 'something'.

This doesn't mean the game is reduced to number crunching. Most players are going to choose characters and abilities that fit their concept, maybe tweak a few around based on the rules, and then fill in the gaps with other things. However, when it comes time to decide between two weapons, or two maneuvers, or two spells, a lot of times it may come down to numbers (or other mechanics). It's been pointed out many times that all Talents, Weapons, Tricks, etc. are not created equal or even 'balanced' and this is by design. That's fine, there are some strong options and some weaker options. Taking a mix of the two can still make an effective character. Taking too many weak options can really hurt your enjoyment if you continually fail at skill rolls, fail to hit, can't use the talents you've chosen for your concept and the like.

Most of the analysis that I've been doing is to help characters understand their damage potential. Again, every adventure is going to have combat. If your characters want to survive in Tier 2 and beyond where things hit harder, have higher defenses, and better abilities, there is some analysis to do. We've already shown that Threat defenses/abilities progress at a higher rate than PC's, so making the most out of what's available to a character is key. That doesn't mean characters need to sacrifice the cool 'flavor' or 'concept' choices, but for those choices that are being made as part of a character's combat focus, it's nice to know the options and how they shake out. For instance, if it really doesn't matter to your character if you use a small or large shield, knowing the mechanical differences might help you choose.

Well that's all for now, as I have some pork roast to cook I guess in summary, again I'll repeat, paying attention to the mechanics and doing some analysis doesn't mean that you can't also play your concept how you want and enjoy the RP a lot. Kelb certainly isn't 'optimized' from any perspective, but he's a fun, interesting character to play. However, I do strive to make some good decisions when it comes to contributing in combat.

John

This is a key point and would greatly help. It would be great if it were universally followed, but particularly at conventions, this isn't always the case.

John

Like I said, I get that others have different aspects of the game that they prefer....and that is fine. There is nothing wrong with effectiveness. I love tactical combat as well. For me, the only "rollplayers" are the individuals who barely pay attention to what is going on and ask every now and then if we are in a fight yet. I bought one of the Agamassi Gladiators, for Pete's sake....I will make him a bloody, snorting, killing machine. But there is no way in hell I am just going to sit back and wait for fights....I am going to be involved in every scene.

I just want to remind everyone that, especially with Arcanis, true character/story motivations should always trump "optimization".

Well as a specific response, I only started down the math things because I was interested and bored at work an (unfortunate) common occurance, and math is one of my strengths. I love the hell out of the story but i can't make it my bitch like I can with math.

I'm trying to see where people are saying there are dips, from certain talents and such, but im not seeing them or havent looked in the right places yet

I wholeheartedly agree that 'optimization' is lame, though I will say that I am at least partially guilty of this myself. After all, I play a Val who built my character around the ability to knock out enemies in one or two hits. I built my character to Smite/Mighty Swing/Forward Stance, then I added Avalanche Runes to the mix. He is almost as effective at hitting and casting as I can make him.

Then again, I made a lot of 'stupid' choices in my character build. He is a Divine Caster/Initiate, which means I lose 1-3 Talents in my built. He is a war-priest, even though his Melee skill won't keep up to Martial characters, meaning he will become 'sub-par' by Tier III. He uses a Flamberge, which is (according to number crunchers) the 2nd least effective weapon class (d10/6 Ticks). Hell, I put ranks into Perform: Singing--considered to be a useless skill--because one throwaway references (in I believe the Canceri sourcebook) said that Cancerese Nierites (of which he is descended) have a fairly strong bardic tradition of War Ballads.

I personally think that ALL players should make a character CONCEPT before they make their character. Even if you don't have that much knowledge of the universe, there are several tropes that you can fill. I wanted to make a Divine Caster because as someone who has no religion (and is, admittedly, rather scornful of the concept of religion), playing a 'True Believer' is my version of playing the cartoonishly evil people a lot of people play in D&D campaigns. I made my character completely based on my old 3.5 Arcanis character, complete with backstory relating Nils val'Emman to Haakon Marcus val'Virdan before even the Quickstart Rules were released. I built a character, and then I fit the rules into that framework. Of course, I tried to make as effective a character as I could within that framework, but I still built on a character rather than a mechanic.

I actually think the best example of building a character who is remarkably useful despite taking a subpar path to get there was a guy named Kevin. He played 3.5 Arcanis before I did, but was never in it for more than a laugh. As such, he made a character that was focused on punching people in the face and being as chaotic as he could. He didn't care about doing damage (really), nor did he care about being able to be the ultimate warrior. So, he chose a combination which made NO sense at the time (unarmed, mercenary, dark-kin, acrobatic, and going for Cat Burgler and Assassin), but when it came to combat, he was one of the most effective people at the table. Granted, this is because unarmed and daggers work REALLY well against low-armour, minion-level enemies that formed the majority of early mod encounters, but even taking 'sub-par' builds, he made an effective character.

Its very easy to create a character that is scattered all over creation, to me thats a bad character and that is my opinion, because playing with people that have characters like that frustrates the hell out of me.

I think there are differnt playstyles, and characters can be focused for any of those playstyles.
the Best responsei can think of to Matt (the OP) is, if you start the threads on how you create the RP for your character im all ears and will happily participate.

I'd be curious which ones you're looking into. Maybe an extra pair of eyes or someone to bounce thoughts off of is needed.

let me know

John

I for one would love a thread like that