On Powerbuilding

[Mighty_Draco]

Powerbuilding is not allowed!

This confuses me because of many aspects.

For starters, a search yielded something to the contrary

Regardless, both why and how one would enforce this confuse me.

For such a rule to exist, you would have to have some definition of "powerbuild." It would probably be defined as making your character as strong as you can during character creation. Which would be something I make sure to do with my characters. It wouldn't be any fun if Jack had a pansy swing behind his sword arm. The problem is that "powerbuilding" is often also defined as losing RP and the like.

If you ban making the most effective build possible, on the grounds that it's powerbuilding, which is also defined as munchkining, roll-playing, etc. you have rule based of what's called an Equivocation. Which is one of those logical nonos.

This is effectively what's known as the Stormwind Fallacy on the WizO's forums.

Lastly, if you note what the discussion in which the quote was made, you might notice the result is a monk who can cast spells, but not effectively, although enough to have some level on influence. This sounds about exactly how a monk who dabbles in the arcane should be.

Sorry if that was awful ranty, but I felt it necessary to say as it's a commonly occurring logical fallacy in role-playing communities.

[nickbeat]

Ooh neat! I love logical fallacies.

To be fair, I think Mach stepped in there because people were beginning to recommend alternate builds that are completely against my character concept merely for the power benefits, with no consideration to the root of the character. He didn't step in until people started recommending Sacred Fist and such.

Still, it is very kind of people to offer advice on optimization for me. I still think this has a place, since a clueless player with little knowledge of mechanics could end up having a very unfun time.

[rustediron]

I believe powerbuilding for those who want to is perfectly fine - after all, winning is fun

It's powerbuilding without RP that annoys people, I think. Take the orc with int 6, for example. That is less intelligence than a Gnoll (9). Probably on par with a goblin, maybe slightly more. Going by the old, NWN, less than 10 int = cannot talk coherently, this could become quite tiresome - especially if you have dumped wisdom and charisma as well.

If you RP that, then I believe your char deserves an ASBO. If you don't RP that, well, that's up to you, but it might not be very pleasant when a DM catches you.

[Mako]

I think the main point here, Jack, is that if we catch you RP'ing outside of what your stats indicate, i.e. having 8 int and talking like a scholar, we are going to hit with you a gigantic fish and give your computer to Kangleton...in all seriousness though, we'll do bad stuff to you.

[Jaeram]

First I have to say I agree with you Draco, I have seen those posts and when I saw a Dev saying power building - no and another dev saying power building - sure, I was a bit confused to say the least. I guess what I find most odd (and I haven't read all of the changes to classes and spells that the dev's may have made, because normally I just work with it anyways) but I've gotten the impression from many of the dev's, in many aspects, trying to make Sundren closer to PnP than NWN has had the ability to, but then I see things like SD HiPS is now level 4, and when I look at the PnP class it's level 1, I get confused again.

Don't get me wrong, I think the dev's do a great job, and I'm not going to argue with their decisions but a little bit of clarity would be nice, is it power building yes or power building no? Are you guys shooting for PnP or shooting for NWN?

On a side note to power building, personally when I consider power building I look more at the classes, because I see the classes as a box I have to work within to gain the abilities I want to use to make my character 'alive' and the way I want him to be. Stat padding (i.e. 20str, -6int) I do not do, not that I disapprove or approve of it, if there is a stat that is not going to be the focus of my character such as cha or int or whatever it may be, I always 10 those out (unless I feel like having a specific role playing reason for having it higher or lower) because the 10-11 score is 'average', according to another thread I read, he's not bad or good at it, just average.

[MKartMaster]

Whoo! Go Stormwind Fallacy!

All the other things I wanted to say were pretty much covered, so that's it for this post.

[Gairun]

I think the main point here, Jack, is that if we catch you RP'ing outside of what your stats indicate, i.e. having 8 int and talking like a scholar, we are going to hit with you a gigantic fish and give your computer to Kangleton...in all seriousness though, we'll do bad stuff to you.

Pfft you would actually have to 'Log In' to do bad stuff to us Mako, and we know that ain't happening!

[Mighty_Draco]

I think the main point here, Jack, is that if we catch you RP'ing outside of what your stats indicate, i.e. having 8 int and talking like a scholar, we are going to hit with you a gigantic fish and give your computer to Kangleton...in all seriousness though, we'll do bad stuff to you.

I don't have any sort of problem with wanting to keep things in character and the like. A ruling based on a logical fallacy, on the other hand, is something that should be reconsidered.

[Gairun]

That entire thread was really odd.

First off it's in the Off-Topic section of the forums, where we talk about. . . well . . . anything.

Secondly sean was talking about his death dealing monk, and he's a Dev. . .soooo.

Third it sounded like Mach was saying it was a powerbuild thread? *confused*

I totally must have missed something in that thread.

[sharringtonm]

Yeah, he was my OC (original campaign) PC. I would never play that build on a rp server. Its an obvious Powerbuild. He wanted to know if anyone had used them and if they were effective. The honest answer is yes, it can be. If the post made it seem like I'm encouraging powerbuilding I do apologize. I was of the assumption that since it was in the OOC section and not general discussion, we weren't discussing a build for the server.

[Mako]

I don't log in because you send me so many tells and PMs, Gairun! Duh.

[Machiavelli]

Clarification!

Right, time to clarify where I was coming from! You can make whatever character you like... really you can. They can have any combination of stats and classes. But it's like Mako says, those stats and classes need to be RP'd out and they need to make some sort of sense. Some of you good people who've posted in this thread wouldn't believe some of the things that crop up (Pop quiz: why would a half orc Barbarian/Cleric take a level of sorcerer when they have a CHA of 8? Why did they have a level of cleric when their wisdon is 10 for that matter?). You can powerbuild all you want so long as you can RP it and the combination isn't ridiculously silly. However, that said, the Sundren forums aren't really the right place for a lengthy discussion of whether your monk will 'pwnzlorz teh mobs' if you throw in a level of wizard. Go talk about that on the OE forums, or Thieves Guild or something... otherwise us DMs will see and despair! I wasn't angry with anyone when I posted to that thread... all I wanted to do was close down a discussion that had turned into one about whether taking a single spellcaster level for no particular reason will maximise a monk's combat effectiveness. Hell, people can take a single spellcaster level on their monk if they want. But please... discuss the combat effectiveness of builds elsewhere on the interwebs unless some poor Sundarian genuinely has no idea about NWN2 and really needs help to avoid unintentionally creating a character entirely constructed of Nerf Rubber.

Yes, my comment in that thread was pretty harsh, and actually I'm not anything like that nasty to players... I just wanted to shut down the discussion. Seriously, you're all great, I've been really impressed by the quality of players since returning. Hope this clears up the issue somewhat. If not, ask. I don't usually bite like that .

Toodles!

[nickbeat]

Good deal. The only reason I bothered to start the discussion was due to the fact that certain customizations exist in this server that effect decisions. Asking about this anywhere else would have returned uninformed advice.

Thanks to everyone for the help.

Is there a place I should look to see a master list of various tweaks that exist on the Sundren server?

[Kangleton]

Yeah, they're all scattered. A true list should really be compiled.

[Machiavelli]

In addition to what I wrote above... I went back and checked the link Draco put to GBXs post in his op at the start of this thread. That pretty much sums it up, and is effectively what I was saying above. In terms of a logical fallacy, there actually isn't one though that may not be immediately obvious (consider the following). There is no hard and fast rule about what stats/builds are allowed, but (1) if someone has an obvious powerbuild (2) and they don't RP it (stats, background/RP reasons for class combination, etc), (3) then DMs will be unhappy (we won't neccesarily do anything about it, though we might). Nothing illogical in that, I think you will find that the statement "If (1) and (2), then (3)" is actually logically self-consistent even if it does not give a tidy indication of outcomes or complete list of decision making conditions (not an exhaustive statement).