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[MrRoboto75]

But at the same time if you don't play a core spell caster, you have to go splat dumpster diving to make a halfway viable character.

[wierd]

"halfway viable character" is missing the point.  Playing with faulted characters is how you actually get enjoyment out of overcoming obstacles in the campaign.


The game really isn't supposed to be "Group of murderhobo mary-sues destroy world while saving it."  It's really supposed to be "Wow, that was hard! But we WON!"
Min-maxed characters are mary-sues. They are designed to have nothing but perks, and every conceivable source of weakness eliminated or patched over with rule-lawyer armor.

The common counter-argument is that "Yeah, but dying is no fun bro."

I contend that it COULD be VERY fun. See for instance, the many Pen and Paper games out there, like Paranoia. In that game, death is integrated as a basic mechanic, since player characters are controlling a replaceable cloned avatar. 

Setting
The game's main setting is an immense, futuristic city called Alpha Complex. Alpha Complex is controlled by The Computer, a civil service AI construct (a literal realization of the "Influencing Machine" that some schizophrenics fear). The Computer serves as the game's principal antagonist, and fears a number of threats to its 'perfect' society, such as The Outdoors, mutants, and secret societies (especially Communists). To deal with these threats, The Computer employs Troubleshooters, whose job is to go out, find trouble, and shoot it. Player characters are usually Troubleshooters, although later game supplements have allowed the players to take on other roles, such as High-Programmers of Alpha Complex.

The player characters frequently receive mission instructions from the Computer that are incomprehensible, self-contradictory, or obviously fatal if adhered to, and side-missions (such as Mandatory Bonus Duties) that conflict with the main mission. They are issued equipment that is uniformly dangerous, faulty, or "experimental" (i.e., almost certainly dangerous and faulty). Additionally, each player character is generally an unregistered mutant and a secret society member (which are both termination offenses in Alpha Complex), and has a hidden agenda separate from the group's goals, often involving stealing from or killing teammates. Thus, missions often turn into a comedy of errors, as everyone on the team seeks to double-cross everyone else while keeping their own secrets. The game's manual encourages suspicion between players, offering several tips on how to make the gameplay as paranoid as possible.

Every player's character is assigned six clones, known as a six-pack, which are used to replace the preceding clone upon his or her death. The game lacks a conventional health system; most wounds the player characters can suffer are assumed to be fatal. As a result, Paranoia allows characters to be routinely killed, yet the player can continue instead of leaving the game. This easy spending of clones tends to lead to frequent firefights, gruesome slapstick, and the horrible yet humorous demise of most if not all of the player character's clone family. Additional clones can be purchased if one gains sufficient favour with the Computer.

The Paranoia rulebook is unusual in a number of ways; demonstrating any knowledge of the rules is forbidden, and most of the rulebook is written in an easy, conversational tone that often makes fun of the players and their characters, while occasionally taking digs at other notable role-playing games.

The deal is that people get so hung up on having "THE *PERFECT* character!" that they cannot abide that character's death.  There's ways that this could be overcome, if a streamlined chargen process was used, and combined with the plot narrative.

say for instance, you could use a mechanic like the Dungeon Master computer game:  There's "altars of VI" you can put dead player characters into, and it resurrects them with re-rolled stats, but keeps their class template.  GM Fiat is totally a thing, after all.  If instead of trying to create "the perfect character" gussied up to the hilt in rule-lawyer armor, you create a very solid template formula, then such "reincarnations" wouldn't be that big a deal. The best part is, since it's the same character's "soul" just getting re-fleshed via magic, they would have good reason to remember all the traps and travails of the dungeon they just got killed in, and their old incarnation's body would still be there for them to loot their gear from. Death of their character just means their stats get rerolled, and maybe some new randomly picked (using a weighted list and random selection and filter against base stat reqs) feats. It could add a lot of fun to a session.  You just have to let go of the notion of having "MarySue, The immortal and untouchable fantasy vehicle for wish fulfillment" as your character.

[Jimmy]

Of course, this position disregards the inherent fun that is present for a certain type of person in the mini-game of character creation.

Especially in crunchy systems with plenty of bloat, there's a lot of fun to be had in trawling through multiple resources, finding obscure options and bolting them onto a framework that creates something more than the sum of its parts.

Now, not everyone enjoys this part of the game, and would prefer a simple, streamlined option. There's plenty of games that offer this if so. Personally, I love watching my players take a concept and run with it. "My character is the best at X" can be fun too.

[Grim Portent]

Off topic, but my brother and I think we've worked out a 5e Orc that can run a mile in one minute with the assistance of a magic item or spellcaster.

Orc Monk 15/Barbarian 5, Mobile feat.

Base move 30, Monk levels give +25 movement, Barbarian plus +10, Elk Totem rage for another +15, get Haste cast on the Orc to double movement, Dash to double movement again, racial Bonus Action to move towards an enemy.

Movement speed while raging is 80 feet.
Double for Haste brings us to 160.
Double again for dash to 320.
Move twice, once as a Movement Action once as a Bonus Action to cover 640 feet in one round.

6 second rounds leaves us with a speed of 106.7 feet per second, or 72.7 mph.


We came to look into this after I pointed out to him how absurdly slowly things like horses move in D&D. A dashing horse in 5e moves 1/4 the speed of a real horse sprinting, and an unbuffed orc moves faster than a non-dashing horse when using it's racial Bonus Action move.

[GiglameshDespair]

"halfway viable character" is missing the point.  Playing with faulted characters is how you actually get enjoyment out of overcoming obstacles in the campaign.


The game really isn't supposed to be "Group of murderhobo mary-sues destroy world while saving it."  It's really supposed to be "Wow, that was hard! But we WON!"
Min-maxed characters are mary-sues. They are designed to have nothing but perks, and every conceivable source of weakness eliminated or patched over with rule-lawyer armor.

The common counter-argument is that "Yeah, but dying is no fun bro."

I contend that it COULD be VERY fun. See for instance, the many Pen and Paper games out there, like Paranoia. In that game, death is integrated as a basic mechanic, since player characters are controlling a replaceable cloned avatar. 

Setting
The game's main setting is an immense, futuristic city called Alpha Complex. Alpha Complex is controlled by The Computer, a civil service AI construct (a literal realization of the "Influencing Machine" that some schizophrenics fear). The Computer serves as the game's principal antagonist, and fears a number of threats to its 'perfect' society, such as The Outdoors, mutants, and secret societies (especially Communists). To deal with these threats, The Computer employs Troubleshooters, whose job is to go out, find trouble, and shoot it. Player characters are usually Troubleshooters, although later game supplements have allowed the players to take on other roles, such as High-Programmers of Alpha Complex.

The player characters frequently receive mission instructions from the Computer that are incomprehensible, self-contradictory, or obviously fatal if adhered to, and side-missions (such as Mandatory Bonus Duties) that conflict with the main mission. They are issued equipment that is uniformly dangerous, faulty, or "experimental" (i.e., almost certainly dangerous and faulty). Additionally, each player character is generally an unregistered mutant and a secret society member (which are both termination offenses in Alpha Complex), and has a hidden agenda separate from the group's goals, often involving stealing from or killing teammates. Thus, missions often turn into a comedy of errors, as everyone on the team seeks to double-cross everyone else while keeping their own secrets. The game's manual encourages suspicion between players, offering several tips on how to make the gameplay as paranoid as possible.

Every player's character is assigned six clones, known as a six-pack, which are used to replace the preceding clone upon his or her death. The game lacks a conventional health system; most wounds the player characters can suffer are assumed to be fatal. As a result, Paranoia allows characters to be routinely killed, yet the player can continue instead of leaving the game. This easy spending of clones tends to lead to frequent firefights, gruesome slapstick, and the horrible yet humorous demise of most if not all of the player character's clone family. Additional clones can be purchased if one gains sufficient favour with the Computer.

The Paranoia rulebook is unusual in a number of ways; demonstrating any knowledge of the rules is forbidden, and most of the rulebook is written in an easy, conversational tone that often makes fun of the players and their characters, while occasionally taking digs at other notable role-playing games.

The deal is that people get so hung up on having "THE *PERFECT* character!" that they cannot abide that character's death.  There's ways that this could be overcome, if a streamlined chargen process was used, and combined with the plot narrative.

say for instance, you could use a mechanic like the Dungeon Master computer game:  There's "altars of VI" you can put dead player characters into, and it resurrects them with re-rolled stats, but keeps their class template.  GM Fiat is totally a thing, after all.  If instead of trying to create "the perfect character" gussied up to the hilt in rule-lawyer armor, you create a very solid template formula, then such "reincarnations" wouldn't be that big a deal. The best part is, since it's the same character's "soul" just getting re-fleshed via magic, they would have good reason to remember all the traps and travails of the dungeon they just got killed in, and their old incarnation's body would still be there for them to loot their gear from. Death of their character just means their stats get rerolled, and maybe some new randomly picked (using a weighted list and random selection and filter against base stat reqs) feats. It could add a lot of fun to a session.  You just have to let go of the notion of having "MarySue, The immortal and untouchable fantasy vehicle for wish fulfillment" as your character.

There's also coming at it the other way, where being incapable of contributing effectively or even performing your base tasks better than other people isn't much fun, death or no. A 3.5 level 20 fighter is going to be completely outclassed in every which way by a level 20 wizard. Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit in full effect.

That said, I fundamentally disagree a min-maxed character must be necessity a mary-sue that is a perfect character with no weaknesses. A lot of min-maxed characters are very good at one thing and one thing only, and part of the fun is trying to wrangle the various situations you encounter into being able to use that one skill.

Paranoia is a very different game to Dnd, from the concept to the execution. It doesn't really compare.

[Persus13]

Off topic, but my brother and I think we've worked out a 5e Orc that can run a mile in one minute with the assistance of a magic item or spellcaster.

Orc Monk 15/Barbarian 5, Mobile feat.

Base move 30, Monk levels give +25 movement, Barbarian plus +10, Elk Totem rage for another +15, get Haste cast on the Orc to double movement, Dash to double movement again, racial Bonus Action to move towards an enemy.

Movement speed while raging is 80 feet.
Double for Haste brings us to 160.
Double again for dash to 320.
Move twice, once as a Movement Action once as a Bonus Action to cover 640 feet in one round.

6 second rounds leaves us with a speed of 106.7 feet per second, or 72.7 mph.


We came to look into this after I pointed out to him how absurdly slowly things like horses move in D&D. A dashing horse in 5e moves 1/4 the speed of a real horse sprinting, and an unbuffed orc moves faster than a non-dashing horse when using it's racial Bonus Action move.

The Elk totem rage part only works if you're being attacked or attack each round to maintain your rage. On the other hand, if someone casts Longstrider on you, that's an additional 10 feet of movement.

[MrRoboto75]

"halfway viable character" is missing the point.  Playing with faulted characters is how you actually get enjoyment out of overcoming obstacles in the campaign.

A lot of mundane creative bullshittery is blocked away behind dozens of skills or god-knows how many feats.  You can pick like three things to be playable at, as all those choices are both at a premium and permanent.  A cleric meanwhile just has to wait a day and pray for entirely new spells.  Like dedicating half your feats to swinging a sword just to meet some flying jerks and using your bare-bones bow.  A cleric could just fly himself or throw lightning or some shit.

It isn't really about being faulted, its about how you very well may have no way to actually deal with obstacles outside of your one crippling overspecialization.  A spellcaster would actually have tools to deal with shit, and honestly has a better chance to expand and get more tools to deal with more shit.

Not to mention dying means doing another day-long char gen.

[wierd]

"When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail"

It gets really boring when all the character does is wrangle ways (in increasingly improbable justifications) to use their mighty hammer to fix every problem.


'What's that, country peasant person? You have ED? You need more liberal application of hammer!"  Yeah-- that's as dumb as it sounds.


Also, there's a miscommunication here.  I'm not suggesting people need to stay in very narrow ruts-- You just cant go nuts with a hyper-specific build. No, your quarter-celestial, quarter human, quarter draconic, quarter demonic paladin who has "just the right" mix of very specific features to max out every possible score in just the right ways, and blah blah blah--- is not going to play well with a more streamlined stat-generator.  That does not mean that said stat generator is always going to output garbage.

Let's use a made up potential setting here, say it's a special pocket dimension embedded near the edge of the hells, used as a "personal prison" by the actual big bad. The big bad does not have much in the way of an actual fortress of doom on the prime material, because that's conspicuous and draws attention.  No, he's instead created an elaborate dimension of doom, that is designed to pit all the would-be heros that find out about his nefarious evil intentions against each other, and at the same time, save on having to source monsters to populate it with, by abusing it's hellish qualities to cause instantaneous physical reincarnation of all its inhabitants.  He decides you are a nuisance, and he banishes you. Since he had to GO there in order to construct it, it DOES have a way out-- but the more creatures and people he sends there, the more naturally fucked up and chaotic it becomes, and the harder it is to find and use that exit.  Naturally, nobody does, and he expects you never will. He's literally just going about his evil maniacal laughter over his cliche evil self, while you and the rest of your party literally kill the same monsters, and the same other inhabitants of the hell over and over again, looking for the exit.

Rather than define a perfect character, you define an "Acceptable template", with "First, second, and third picks" for feats, Necessary ranges for base stats to use them, and some other fun things that the GM can apply (for people who commit suicide to reroll their character if they dont like the current reincarnaton.).  When/if your character gets killed, they keep their EXP, because it's the same soul being reincarnated. That means they keep their level, and all that jazz. But they get a new body, which wont be quite the same as the last one they had. (It gets different re-rolled stats within the allowances defined, and possibly has muscle memory for different techniques (feats, from the leveled list provided.)  The generator script has provisions for these, and keeps track of things like permanent stat increases, which should not be lost on reincarnation, just reshuffled. (total combined sum of stat score is retained internally by the generator between incarnations; It reshuffles the stats, then applies random offset modifiers. the offset modifiers change on each incarnation, but not the base stat sum.  EG, let's say you have a fantastic barbarian with a natural 8 on STR, CON, DEX, and WIS, but abysmal CHA, and barely enough INT to be able to talk intelligibly. Say 4 and 3, respectively.  It retains this data. Upon reincarnation, the stat roller looks at the rules you have defined in your template-- STR between 6 and 8, Con between 5 and 8, ... etc...  It then calculates how wide that allowance is, and picks random values between 0 and the highest delta permitted, and applies them to the new stats, but it does not retain them if you re-roll again. (It keeps the actual ones. It re-rolls variations on the theme set, using the template.)  It would have a button to add additional real stat points for when a character gains one (such as level up, using an item that grants one, or wishing-- etc.), and a button to impose a penalty for purposeful self-termination. (randomly assigned by the stat-roller, based on a rules file.)

So, when your character dies, the GM basically presses a button on their phone, and BLOOP-- there's your newly reincarnated character, naked and wet on the floor of the first room again, with slightly variated stats, and possibly different feats, but still within the template you defined.

 

[Grim Portent]

The Elk totem rage part only works if you're being attacked or attack each round to maintain your rage. On the other hand, if someone casts Longstrider on you, that's an additional 10 feet of movement.

Ah, forgot Rage in 5e turns off if no one's near enough to smack each round, maybe because I often forget that fights in D&D are only expected to take place in a 60 foot area. That knocks 120 feet off the final movement speed, but Longstrider would bump it back by 80 so only 40s been lost.

Could always get people to shoot you with arrows as you run I guess, that would keep rage up.

If it weren't for the need to be an orc there's the Squat Nimbleness feat that'd plug 5 more feet on, but that's just for dwarves and small races.

[wierd]

Just grab the weak-kneed wizard's familliar, and scream at it the whole time. Or wad it up and shove it down your pants, so it's constantly biting you for 1 damage, or something.

[Persus13]

I mean, you don't have to be an orc to bonus action dash, you just need to spend a ki point as a monk. You can add another 5 feet that way by going wood elf. I think there's other races that get a higher move speed bonus too.

[MrRoboto75]

I'm not suggesting people need to stay in very narrow ruts-- You just cant go nuts with a hyper-specific build.

The game kinda asks you to.  A lot of the actually good feat stuff requires whole chains of investment.  And most of those feats are painfully specific to doing one thing with one type of weapon.

EG, let's say you have a fantastic barbarian with a natural 8 on STR, CON, DEX, and WIS, but abysmal CHA, and barely enough INT to be able to talk intelligibly. Say 4 and 3, respectively.

You do realize such a person would be worse in every way to the average peasant, ability wise?  The average joe on the street has a 10 in everything.  I'm not saying such a character can't be a character, but why would someone who's bad at basically everything even bother becoming an adventurer instead of something, I dunno, safer?

Even considering 1st ed where hard abilities really didn't do much, such a stat line wouldn't even be able to be a fighter, which needed a 9 STR.  Heck, with 3's and 4's in 1st ed you actually were restricted to a single class.

[Grim Portent]

I mean, you don't have to be an orc to bonus action dash, you just need to spend a ki point as a monk. You can add another 5 feet that way by going wood elf. I think there's other races that get a higher move speed bonus too.

The advantage of being an orc is it avoids the legal ambiguity of dashing twice on one turn. Been a while, but I believe there was a comment from one of the designers saying it wasn't intentional for Dash to be doable as both an action and bonus action. Orcs get 'move equal to your speed* towards enemy' rather than dash, so it's just a second move action effectively and bypasses the issue.

[Cruxador]

"halfway viable character" is missing the point.  Playing with faulted characters is how you actually get enjoyment out of overcoming obstacles in the campaign.  [...]

I get where you're coming from, but this isn't what 3.x is good for. You're gonna be better off with an OSR game than WotC's D&D. And that'll also make writing a script a lot easier.

The deal is that people get so hung up on having "THE *PERFECT* character!" that they cannot abide that character's death.

I don't know if there's some specific experience with problem players that you're remembering but in a general sense, this isn't necessarily a minmax thing. For people who go for a more role-play oriented game, it can be very frustrating to have a storyline ended early by the whims of the dice; in this case disappointment is understandable.

Of course, this position disregards the inherent fun that is present for a certain type of person in the mini-game of character creation.

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. I had a good time over a couple days trawling through many types of options, figuring out how they work and when they differ from 3.5 (which I was already more than passingly familiar with) and how they fit together. And besides mechanics, fluff as well – since it's a game set in canon Golarion, I was searching the races and languages and religions and everything else of all the different regions where my character might draw ancestry from, which the game doesn't require and which hinders minmaxing rather than supporting it (I wound up with a trait that doesn't really benefit me just to justify an unrelated mechanical choice and provide a plot hook for later, for example). Making characters is just a fun thing to do, if there's enough to it.

[Jimmy]

Making characters is just a fun thing to do, if there's enough to it.

It can also inform part of the character backstory too.

For example, I built a Pathfinder half-orc barbarian with alternate racial feature called 'sacred tattoo' that grants a permanent +1 luck bonus to all saving throws, then picked up a trait called 'fate's favored' that adds an extra +1 on any luck bonus, doubling the saving throw bonus I'd obtained. Another racial trait, 'shaman's apprentice,' granted me the Endurance feat.

So, using this backstory, I decided that my character was a child of a reclusive orc shaman and his human slave wife, raised in cruel conditions and branded by his dark magic until she could stand the abuse no more, flying into a rage and killing her father, then abandoning her home and wandering the world as an adventurer in search of a new life and family among her companions.

The mechanical benefits often come with flavor text that can help inspire more of a character background than 'hatched from a murderhobo-egg.'