22 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:Emphasis on the “ wunderkind ”, a prodigy . Even if he had one or two deficiencies, it’s because the character was probably min-maxed to focus on one or two key strengths that played into his career and specialization.
I’ve seen your character builds. I’ve read your threads on concept builds. In every one of them you look to mix and match careers and specializations that maximize a character’s abilities and minimize his or her weaknesses. You’ve also pushed others to do so as well, myself included. You always push Niman Disciple as the end-all be-all lightsaber spec that everyone should take because of how powerful you believe it is. For you it’s all about building the better stats . It’s all a numbers game . You do the exact same thing she is telling us many D&D players and GMs she’s played with do.Secondly, no, those aren’t scare quotes. And if you actually watched her video, she specifically doesn’t optimize her characters at all. She doesn’t take the most powerful spells of her class, she doesn’t pump up her class’ optimal stats, etc. For her, the numbers are insignificant. They’re just numbers. She builds the characters she wants and lets them grow organically, taking spells, skills etc that are often completely counter to the “accepted” norms for that class. Her signature character, Ashling (sp?), being her prime example: a Warlock without Eldridge Blast , nor many other powerful typical Warlock spells; a Warlock multclassed with Druid. Have you ever built a character like that? Have you ever built a Jedi who wasn’t strong in the Force? One who wasn’t necessarily good with a lightsaber? Have you ever not put most or all of your starting XP into attributes? Have you ever not taken the +10 starting XP option during character creation? No. You build to the career’s strengths. You optimize the stats. You maximize the chances of success in the dice rolling. To you it’s all about the statistics and averages. You’re a numbers person, always looking at the numbers. It’s why you’re an engineer. It’s how you think.
1) I've never min maxed a character I intended to play, I usually prefer broadly capable characters, and this one was mostly broadly capable other than the few weaknesses I design into him (social awkward, and brawn and DeX at 2 because he was a little klutzy and weak not being fully mature physically yet), btw this character started with a 4 in int, 3 in willpower (or maybe it was a 3 in int and 4 in willpower, I'd have to check) and +20 morality rather than +10 xp so yes to that question.
2) niman-disciple is not the best lightsaber form, ataru striker is, niman-disciple is the second best lightsaber form and the one with the most utility, and as noted in the previous bullet I generally optimize for broad utility.
3) it's not all a numbers game to me. I start with a concept a work the numbers to help fulfil the concept. Concept has "always" (standard disclaimer on always) come first on any character I intended to play.
4) I watched her video start to finish before my first post in this thread, she designed her character to be effective at fulfilling her concept which is optimization.
5) optimization of rpg characters does not mean choosing the most powerful or capable build although those are possible objective functions.
6) i always look at the numbers but it's not all/only about the numbers.
23 hours ago, Jegergryte said:The conflict between the "bold" and the "everything is optimisation" is a never-ending conflict of pedantism, with disparate premises, adherents always shoot past each other, never giving up, staying in the trenches, determined to ... I don't really know.
Not quite everything is optimization, but designing to fulfill a purpose/concept is, so everything could benefit from optimization.
Edited by EliasWindrider