I have no problem with players optimizing their characters. People should play however they want and if it meets the vision of a character concept in mind, more the power to them. However, my only bone of contention is the steady stream of forum posts knocking talents, weapons, combos, etc and emphasizing the 'perceived' flaws in the rules. When these posts come from those that should be promoting the game, it becomes somewhat of a head scratcher...because I wonder what is exactly being promoted. If I was a new player on these boards with one of those builds, I'd feel like my character would be impotent in play and perhaps come to the conclusion that this game is not for me and would need to look elsewhere for something simpler. Just a thought

Hello everyone,

There's an issue with optimizing characters for combat and it’s something that everyone complained about in the 3.x LA days - the PC-Monster Arms Race.

Players complained that the combat was so difficult in LA that they had to min-max just to survive. This in turn lead to the writers having to make things increasingly difficult to challenge those optimized characters and so on.

So now in Legends of Arcanis, we are faced with a situation that certain players are once again optimizing themselves and waltzing through combats. Writers hear about this and want to up their game and we have the Arms Race all over again.

I'm not going to play that.

When I write the Hard Points, I analyze how tough an opponent should be and write to that with an eye on what Heroes can do at a certain level. So we're faced with this scenario:

Optimize and you'll probably be faced with easy combats that will quickly become boring and unchallenging, which in turn will require the writers to make things more challenging for those players and frustrate others who have no interest in optimizing (I fall into that camp in every game I play). These non-optimizing players get frustrated and leave, shrinking the player base.

Or, those who feel the need to optimize will start to lose interest in the campaign and the player base shrinks as they leave.

Either way we lose.

This is why I have been and will remain against the need to optimize characters for combat. It's about the story, not how many points you did on average.

People need to get out of this D20/WoW mentality. The philosophy of the Arcanis system was that each and every character was a three-dimensional hero on his/her own. No one needs to specialize to be the Tank or the Healer; each character could theoretically be lifted from a group and be able to hold their own.
So – as I see it, we optimize at our peril because I just don’t see a way where we’re all winners in such an environment.

I'm of two minds on this.

I get an immense amount out enjoyment on the character generation / building front, I view it as a super complex logic problem, where there are "optimal" paths that produce a more focused character, that's good at a few things. So yeah they, are a bit more optimized than other characters BUT at character creation that means 1-2 more points in skills and maybe a talent that's more in line with the characters focus.

The ARPG system is really good at starting people on a pretty even starting level, however like any systems its possible to create characters that don't start at that average starting level, just as easily as it is to create characters that start above that level.

Delbert is optimized, and he is a Human Martial Templar of Hurrian, going along the Knight and Holy Champion Paths. I think that the most "optimized" characters are the ones that have the most material made for them.

On the other hand, I can see where its very easy to become less "focused" in character generation, or to become focused in something that's not pertinent as often (as often as combat say) for example crafting is something VERY important to Dwarves, but hasn't had any impact on the Arcanis campaign, that might be why we don't have a lot of dwarves in the campaign, because the things they are fall into easily dont mesh with the campaign as much, and the ones we do see out there tend to be the outliers.

Unfortunately there will always be the power gamer types who view RPGs as some sort of competition. I do appreciate that you are sticking to your guns and not caving in to those types.

That's what pen and paper RPGs have over the other flavors: there's the gamemaster/human element to look in and say "hey, WTF?" if someone makes a character that's nothing more than an exercise in system breaking.

And I thought I had responded to Joe previously.

Joe you bring up some great points. You are right, and I'm totally listening.

I honestly don't think any of the posts or threads have really been about the kinds of optimization that occurred in 3.5. I have to say that the Arcanis RPG is pretty well balanced against the true min-maxxing that could be accomplished in 3.5. Part of that is the smaller number of resources available and some of it is the player base.

One thing I'd like to again say is that just because someone enjoys doing theoretical computations or optimizing certain aspects of their characters, in no ways implies they are a power gamer. It is possible to enjoy both the 'roll' and the 'role' aspects of the game with equal measure. I love the roleplaying, doing awesome things for fun, and making adventures memorable. However, I also worry about being an effective character at a table, so I try to make good character decisions. I spent a lot of time recently talking with Josh and he had some good insight.

And to Josh's point, there are definite areas in the campaign that haven't been explored much to help bring to the spotlight other races and choices. Josh brought up a good point about the dwarves and crafting. There was also a couple threads about challenging players which I think can provide a lot of good input. Encounters that can be more than just about the damage output or ability to withstand damage and utilize some other focuses could go a long way. I'm hoping to write some adventures and encounters that showcase some of my own points and I encourage others to do the same.

To Henry, I don't think anyone wants to walk through encounters with ease. There have been some really tough encounters (not even talking BI's) and a couple of them were won only due to some lucky spells (diminish senses is a big one). However, I think there's a difference between players wanting their characters to be effective and not missing throughout a combat and trying to 'win' the game through hard core optimization. I would keep an eye on things, but I don't think the campaign is headed for any doom or loss of players with what is currently going on. I think a big key is putting power into the DM's hands to really customize encounters/adventures for the group they are running for.

John

Hi Henry,

Its interesting to hear your thoughts on this. I think the overwhelming majority of us are here for a deeper gaming experience than some of the "popcorn" mods we sometimes see in other living style campaigns. Like you we care about the Arcanis Story. And all its secrets. I for one am not leaving until I know the creation story of the val'Holryn. At the same time PCI has made game that is fairly complicated mechanically.



Henry I want to be respectful, but I think its possible that there some very mixed messages coming out from the campaign on this subject.

There is the prologue of the Codex of Hero's ... Which made me laugh when I read it, but is also an ode to the roll side of roleplaying. FTW indeed!

There is also your mod Desecration. My personal opinion is that it has the hardest final combat outside of the toughest scenarios in a BIs. And you also specifically tell judges that if they fudge the encounter to make it easier they should then award half xp to the players. Again its my opinion, but I can see a party lacking a couple of very competent fighters getting creamed or TPK'd. And of course if you want full xp for the mod then you have a strong incentive to be able to bring the heat.

The fight with the Fiendish Huntsman could also be pretty ugly for a party of patricians.

Do you see these as incentives to look at the mechanical side of builds? Or have i misinterpreted these two examples?

Hello Eric and John,

John I'm not telling anyone not to do what they enjoy doing. Matt put out a question and I gave him my personal opinion on the matter. It's a concern I have and when people start posting spreadsheets and number crunching analysis, a terror fills me as I flash back to the D20 days.

I agree that a good first step was to put more options and power back into the hands of the GM, but from what I've heard, not everyone has the experience to juggle the numbers on the fly as most of our GMs at the BI, for example.

Eric - The fight in Desecration was supposed to be tough. It's the climax to a three-part story and I wanted the battle to be memorable and challenging. I playtested the adventure with non-min-maxed characters and while they had to be smart about the fight, there wasn't a TPK or even close to such a situation. Now obviously, a lot of other variables come into play in any given fight, such as how the dice roll, etc. but I don't think that fight or any others require fully optimized characters to succeed.

As for that note in Desecration, it was in reaction to some feedback I was getting of a couple of GMs who were softballing every fight and awarding total xp and items.A few players were miffed by this and I decided to add that note as a head's up to those who do softball things. If that's the playstyle for your group, fine; but they really shouldn't get the full XP, etc IMO.

The Tier mechanics offer us a lot of leeway that I don't think we had in the old environment. there's not much difference between what a Tier 1.1 and a 1.6 charcater can handle for the most part.

I only offered my spreadsheet of stat combinations not for optimization but for making character generation quicker. Although, I do look at optimizations. I have a ss'ressen worked out to go down the Adherent of the Claw and be able to cast Path of the Drake in Tier 4, and able to use armor runes while in drake form. So, I am guilty of placing in the arms race. I take part in optimizing because I am not the only person there to play and have fun. And so far, I have never used this ss'ressen.

One of the incidents I hated back in the 3.x days, I tried to roleplay and instead was forced into combat. We were waiting for a ship to arrive at the docks. The ship arrived. I considered the plan to act as the dock master going to register the ship and ask about cargo and business. My character walks down the pier acting as this is normal business, and then combat starts. What happened to subtlety and procedures? Half way down, and the crew starts firing guns.

With softballing, I understand most sides of the situation. I even went through concepts of structuring a living campaign system, and all I can find is no ultimate solution. It comes down to respecting the balance. It is up to the GMs to reward XP. It sucks to cut down the XP and rewards because the party was not properly balanced for the module, even after how much time and effort the party threw into it. On the other hand, your characters did not succeed, so why should they have the good ending? I still remember the one game that lasted 15 minutes where the player who got Fleshreaper in the intro encounter misunderstood the curse and killed the primary NPC while the rest of the party was sleeping. Got nothing. Couldn't replay the module. With current rules, can't get full rewards if replayed.

If only there were perks for having a well-populated graveyard...

From what I've seen Arcanis is the Anti-ROLE, Anti-ROLL RPG. No classes, so no roles. Thin but flexible crunch (compared to DnD and PFS) so ROLLS are not emphasized. Why not market this as the PCI strength?

"Arcanis: Putting Character in fantasy RPG's?" (Or something to that effect)

As for me, I would have come back to Arcanis sooner if I'd seen Henry say this five years ago. As near as I can tell there are a LOT of folks in PFS land that are looking for just that. A character based fantasy system. So, with the new website, is there any chance we can get a short Youtube video of Henry talking about the very concerns he raised in this thread posted to the website main page? I think that kind of candor would be a great advertisement.