Notes on Optimization

[Rossbert]

I think he has such high weapon skill because he worries about breaking the first law.  If he uses magic he has to hold back, but if he uses his sword he can chop off heads all day and unlike Dresden most of the people he fights are humans.

This goes, to an extent, to the dilemma of writing vs gaming.  On the whole believable characters (and non-fictional people) aren't optimized.  They waste a whole lot of time and energy on unrelated and non-synergistic traits and skills.  On the whole they are good at a thing or two but don't devote the resources that would make them 'optimal'.

So the point of the exercise becomes how would a gamer maxing his investment make a character like Morgan (or whoever) but to do that you do sometimes have to push some characterization or detail aside.

It also serves to illustrate the point of communicating in the group about what level everyone wants.  Will the group have lots of characters with gratuitous stunts or powers and broad skills or will such a character be a drain on the group as a whole.  Sanctaphrax made a point as to how it is important to all be on a similar page regarding that.

[Sanctaphrax]

Esmerelda of the Eebs needs a rewrite as well, given a substandard build even I spotted. 

Sure, I can take a crack at her.

I think it's valid to note that there's optimization within a concept too.  So for Donald Morgan, that concept is "Warlock Hunter" essentially.  Given that, I'd build him with the idea that his excellent evocation skills center around maneuvers and counterspells rather than direct attacks.  For direct attacks, he'd use his sword.

Interesting idea.

I think it'd be hard to make work, though. If you have Evocation, you've spent 3 Refresh and several high skill slots on being walking artillery. It'd be hard to raise sword attacks to that level, and even if you succeeded it'd mean you wasted some Refresh.

Plus, it'd be tricky to get good at maneuvers and counterspells without getting good at attacks too.

[Rossbert]

Plus, it'd be tricky to get good at maneuvers and counterspells without getting good at attacks too.

It almost has to be an aspect specialization like Harry's not-so-subtle or Molly's Subtlety is its Own Power.

On the other hand it is literally the point of the warden sword.

[InFerrumVeritas]

It almost has to be an aspect specialization like Harry's not-so-subtle or Molly's Subtlety is its Own Power.

On the other hand it is literally the point of the warden sword.

That's not a bad idea.  You could conceivably get a self-compel quite often.

[Theogony_IX]

The talk of spellcasters made me think of this guy I built.  Maybe you could take a look at this character and see what you think.  It was for a heavy-action/thriller game.  I pulled the idea from the movie Maleficent, the way she transforms the bird into whatever she needs at the time.  This character is a mortal spellcaster that transforms a wolf familiar into a variety of North American animals, and merges his consciousness with the wolf to act through it.  Like some write ups I've seen for Binder, I didn't stick with the spellcasting powers, and decided to outline his magic through other power mechanics.

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,43658.msg2110749.html#msg2110749

[Sanctaphrax]

Looking at Esmerelda Batiste, three optimization problems stand out.

1. She's a Red Court Vampire. That's not very optimal.
2. She's got the totally-useless Cover upgrade for Flesh Mask. Spending Refresh on avoiding Compels is ridiculous. Frankly, Paranet Papers makes a hash of the whole protective-flesh-mask thing.
3. Her Discipline is too low. She can't control her hunger or do anything useful with Domination.

So I say drop Cover, drop Guns (which someone with such deadly claws doesn't need), and raise Discipline. Maybe buy a stunt with that Cover Refresh.

Does that sound about right to y'all?

The talk of spellcasters made me think of this guy I built.  Maybe you could take a look at this character and see what you think.

He's fairly powerful. He could be stronger, but looking at the other PCs I wouldn't recommend strengthening him. Then again, that game was stillborn. So...

High Intimidation and Lore in human form matched with physical skills in beast form looks like a good call to me. But I'm not sure Channelling is the best way to go. It's mostly for combat, which overlaps with your beast-form stuff. Ritual or Thaumaturgy might be better. If you did make that change, you could reduce Conviction to boost some other skills.

You can free up a bit of Refresh by attaching Human Form to your Modular Abilities. Would you ever use those powers without using Beast Change first, anyway?

You can also do without Second Set Of Eyes. +1 Alertness, only in one form, only under the right conditions? Seems weak. And not important to your concept.

It's usually best to attach Item of Power to as few Powers as possible, so losing it is less problematic. Alternately, you could make Voss into the IoP for flavour reasons. You won't be using those Powers without Voss around, will you?

I'm not sure if Superb Endurance is pulling its weight in Voss's list. An extra mild consequence isn't that great. With Speed you'll be using Athletics for defence a lot, so maybe raise that? Or go for Superb Stealth and be really sneaky? Or keep your human-form Discipline, so mental attacks are less scary?

Fire is a fine catch, and fitting, but you could get the same rebate from something harder to exploit. Then again, the Catch is already powerful enough without gaming it.

[blackstaff67]

I might let her keep Guns and give her a stunt to emphasize the Eebs hit-and-run tactics...that or drop Guns and buy up Deceit and give her a Stunt based off that, but that's me.  Good catch on the problem with Domination + low Discipline, was wondering if anyone besides me saw that!

[JayTee]

Well, since we're throwing character sheets to be reviewed for optimization, and I do love an optimized character sheet, here's my current character Isaac Meyer, Psy Agent for review. If you would be so kind. 

[Sanctaphrax]

Isaac looks unfocused to me. Not enough invested in any one place to really excel.

Specific issues:

-Fists and gun use are a bit redundant with Channelling.
-Splitting your foci between offense and defence isn't usually a good idea.
-Channelling + 1 Refinement isn't a very good way to do combat spellcasting. Evocation is, in this case, actually strictly better.
-Stunts are attached to lower skills, and some of them don't give you all that much bang for your buck.

So how about...

Skills
5: Discipline, Rapport
4: Conviction, Athletics
3: Alertness, Scholarship, Endurance
2: Lore, Presence, Fists
1: Empathy, Contacts, Resources, Guns, Deceit

Powers and Stunts
-3 Evocation (spirit, air, earth)
-1 Refinement (+2 spirit power, +1 spirit control)
Rings: +1 Offensive Power and Control

-1 Social Cues: Use Rapport instead of Empathy for detecting lies.
-1 Silent Confidence: Use Discipline for social stress.

And 4 Refresh of other stuff.

[Theogony_IX]

Does that sound about right to y'all?

Yeah, that makes good sense.  I think I've seen you say elsewhere, possibly even in this thread, that optimization and building toward a theme are not mutually exclusive.  I'm seeing a pattern emerge in these optimizations though that seem to go against that thought.  At least to some degree.

You mention that guns should be dropped because claws are so powerful, but thematically, Esmerelda is just as good with guns as with her claws.  The same with Morgan.  Magic is more powerful than Weapons on his sheet, so drop Weapons, but thematically, Morgans relies heavily on his sword skills.

How would you address these thematic strengths while sticking to your optimization criteria?

He's fairly powerful. He could be stronger, but looking at the other PCs I wouldn't recommend strengthening him. Then again, that game was stillborn. So...

High Intimidation and Lore in human form matched with physical skills in beast form looks like a good call to me. But I'm not sure Channelling is the best way to go. It's mostly for combat, which overlaps with your beast-form stuff. Ritual or Thaumaturgy might be better. If you did make that change, you could reduce Conviction to boost some other skills.

That's interesting.  I felt the overlap there as well, but rather than drop it entirely I decided to focus the magic on defense (see the rotes and focus) and let the transformations take the offense.  Grabbing ritual instead though, opens up more out of combat utility.  That is a marked upgrade except where group defense is concerned.  Or maybe it just shifts defense into an advanced preparation focus rather than an on the fly focus.

You can free up a bit of Refresh by attaching Human Form to your Modular Abilities. Would you ever use those powers without using Beast Change first, anyway?

The powers are distinctly less impressive when using Paul's skills, but they are constant regardless of which skill set is being used.  However, since technically Voss is the one carrying the powers, how does it work if Voss and Paul are separated?  Human Form would have been a good way to represent that.  That allows Paul to willingly leave Voss behind too without giving up the IOP.  That would have strengthened the compel-ability of a few of his aspects too.  Good call.

You can also do without Second Set Of Eyes. +1 Alertness, only in one form, only under the right conditions? Seems weak. And not important to your concept.

Yeah, this stunt could have been better spent, but I wanted to reflect the heightened senses of a wolf or hawk in the character.  The stunt could probably be a +2, but even then, still not the best.

It's usually best to attach Item of Power to as few Powers as possible, so losing it is less problematic. Alternately, you could make Voss into the IoP for flavour reasons. You won't be using those Powers without Voss around, will you?

I flip flopped between what to make the IOP.  I decided on the staff, though I'm not entirely sure why anymore.  I think it was a thematic reason.  Something about the powers being representative of his high level transformation magic and only working with the focus item staff.  Lose the staff, lose the ability to transform Voss.  Losing Voss isn't really an issue because the Beast Change is effectively a consciousness merge.  Distance isn't a problem.  I think that's what it was anyway.

I'm not sure if Superb Endurance is pulling its weight in Voss's list. An extra mild consequence isn't that great. With Speed you'll be using Athletics for defence a lot, so maybe raise that? Or go for Superb Stealth and be really sneaky? Or keep your human-form Discipline, so mental attacks are less scary?

Fire is a fine catch, and fitting, but you could get the same rebate from something harder to exploit. Then again, the Catch is already powerful enough without gaming it.

I like these thoughts as well.  Thanks for the feedback.  Since I doubt that game with be going anywhere, I'll make some adjustments and put this character in my back pocket for another game perhaps.

[Sanctaphrax]

Yeah, that makes good sense.  I think I've seen you say elsewhere, possibly even in this thread, that optimization and building toward a theme are not mutually exclusive.  I'm seeing a pattern emerge in these optimizations though that seem to go against that thought.  At least to some degree.

You mention that guns should be dropped because claws are so powerful, but thematically, Esmerelda is just as good with guns as with her claws.  The same with Morgan.  Magic is more powerful than Weapons on his sheet, so drop Weapons, but thematically, Morgans relies heavily on his sword skills.

How would you address these thematic strengths while sticking to your optimization criteria?

I'd just ditch the optimization criteria. They're NPCs, who cares if they're optimal?

I'm talking about how to buff them here, but only to illustrate what I mean when I talk about optimization.

As for concept vs power, there doesn't have to be a conflict. And in a perfectly balanced game, there would never be one. Perfection doesn't exist, but DFRPG is pretty balanced so the trade-off isn't too common. And when it does occur, it's usually not too large. Morgan can have a decent Weapons skill and still be fairly optimal.

Most of the optimization I suggest here leaves the concept unchanged. That's why I'm not suggesting Aspect swaps. And in real games, optimizing tends not to change concepts significantly either. For example, did any of my suggestions involve changing who Paul Williamson is?

That's interesting.  I felt the overlap there as well, but rather than drop it entirely I decided to focus the magic on defense (see the rotes and focus) and let the transformations take the offense.  Grabbing ritual instead though, opens up more out of combat utility.  That is a marked upgrade except where group defense is concerned.  Or maybe it just shifts defense into an advanced preparation focus rather than an on the fly focus.

Thing is, evocation defence isn't as impressive as evocation attack. And in order to use it, he has to be in his comparatively fragile human form. So I doubt you'd get much mileage out of that.

Yeah, this stunt could have been better spent, but I wanted to reflect the heightened senses of a wolf or hawk in the character.

Maybe invoke an Aspect? Or use Modular Abilities to pick up Echoes of the Beast/Supernatural Sense?

[JayTee]

-Fists and gun use are a bit redundant with Channelling.

That was a deliberate choice on my part. The Telepathy aspect of Spirit Channeling was intended for crowd control and battlefield manipulation, and attacking someone mentally is pretty hard to do without smacking up against the Laws. That said, I don't have a problem with compromising on my original plans and going for full on Telekinesis.

-Splitting your foci between offense and defence isn't usually a good idea.

Interesting, why not?

-Channelling + 1 Refinement isn't a very good way to do combat spell casting.
Evocation is, in this case, actually strictly better.

As mentioned, Channeling was meant to be representative of his psychic abilities, but if it's more optimal to go for Evocation, then I don't mind the switch.

-Stunts are attached to lower skills, and some of them don't give you all that much bang for your buck.

I'll defer to your superior wisdom here 

So how about...
(snip for space)

I like it, I'll see about steadily working him towards something like that as the game progresses. Thanks for the pointers!

[Sanctaphrax]

That was a deliberate choice on my part. The Telepathy aspect of Spirit Channeling was intended for crowd control and battlefield manipulation, and attacking someone mentally is pretty hard to do without smacking up against the Laws. That said, I don't have a problem with compromising on my original plans and going for full on Telekinesis.

I'm not saying you should compromise your plans. Using Spirit for telepathic effects is a perfectly fine plan. And while Fists isn't exactly optimal, you should still do it if you want to do it.

Interesting, why not?

You can't use both bonuses at the same time, and +1 offence and defence power on a focus costs as much as +2 power on a specialization.

Plus, I think it's usually better to focus on offence with Evocation. Shields are a bit situational, and offensive bonuses can apply to both blocks and maneuvers if you narrate them right.

As mentioned, Channeling was meant to be representative of his psychic abilities, but if it's more optimal to go for Evocation, then I don't mind the switch.

It is more optimal. Your setup gives power and control 5 if you have your rings. Swapping Channelling + Refinement for Evocation, taking a spirit power specialization, and halving the strength of your rings would give you the same power and control with spirit, two extra elements, and slightly less focus reliance. And if you keep the Refinement or buy one later, you can spend it on specializations. Which are better than foci.

I'll defer to your superior wisdom here 

I'm not sure that's the best idea, but okay.

[JayTee]

I'm not saying you should compromise your plans. Using Spirit for telepathic effects is a perfectly fine plan. And while Fists isn't exactly optimal, you should still do it if you want to do it.

Nah, it's fine. I always feel like I'm not living up to my potential if I have a sub optimal build, so it doesn't bother me much at all to adjust things based on that.

You can't use both bonuses at the same time, and +1 offence and defence power on a focus costs as much as +2 power on a specialization.

Plus, I think it's usually better to focus on offence with Evocation. Shields are a bit situational, and offensive bonuses can apply to both blocks and maneuvers if you narrate them right.

It is more optimal. Your setup gives power and control 5 if you have your rings. Swapping Channelling + Refinement for Evocation, taking a spirit power specialization, and halving the strength of your rings would give you the same power and control with spirit, two extra elements, and slightly less focus reliance. And if you keep the Refinement or buy one later, you can spend it on specializations. Which are better than foci.

Very interesting, thanks for the insight. I'll definitely keep it in mind, as I think I'll be slowly turn Isaac in to a dedicated caster. Probably not full Wizard, but definitely a caster.

I'm not sure that's the best idea, but okay.

Could you explain this?

[Sanctaphrax]

I don't really know your game, so my judgement might be off when it comes to the value of a stunt. Maybe +2 to black ops Scholarship is really quite valuable for you.

I tend to come across as confident in my opinions and beliefs, even when it's not 100% warranted. I don't want people to be misled by that, or by whatever measure of "authority" I have around here.