Poll: How powergamey/roleplaying are your CRPG parties?

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#4 as well. I generally adjust stats and skills to match how efficient I think a character should be, but if I'm going to have a half-orc barbarian as my party leader I cannot imagine him with a CHA and INT of 1. That said my "adjustments" apply mostly to BG and IWD. With PST, Arcanum, NWN and so on I usually have more balanced characters.

 

#4. I am reluctant to minimize stats - a truly unintelligent fighter, for instance, makes no more sense to me than a mage so weak he can't wear a robe.
But I don't think in those terms much, just play around with the game, which I have not yet finished but have restarted who knows how many times - in some ways the early stages are especially fascinating as you level up and choose what to increase among skills, feats, and stats, and then a bit less so in later stages as the party is more powerful.

 

Well, it is true however that on CRPG they did the huge mistake of not including the random rolls of attributes. In BG 1&2 or IWD1, I never reduce the attributes below 10. This does leads to difficulties in creating certain characters (Bards especially), but is way more interesting than characters that look virtually identical in every game.

 

I hate those random attribute rolls! That usually makes it possible to create super-characters that are good at everything if you just have patience. Those supercharacters usually makes the rest of the party seem weak or unneccesary and screws the game balance.
A given number of ability points like in IWD2 that can be distibuted means that you have to sacrifice power in some areas to be strong in other and that you have to balance that.
I never liked fantasy-heroes that are the best in too many things and have no weakness (like many main characters in fantasy books, action movies and so on.) The ones with some strenghts and a weakness or maybe a few, are more interesting.

The meaning with having a party is to have some characters that take care of the things that other are weak at, so that you have to use each character in the way that benefits the party the most to get through.

 

I picked number 2, although I enjoy using some weird MC I always find some kind of weird RP justification to get away with that.

 

I chose number 2. I cant recall a player ever being below an 8 in any rating, and then its usually a dwarf , barbarian, half-orc, or rogue with CHA. I generally use single class players, though a fighter/druid hybrid instead of a Ranger seems interesting.

 

Number 2 for me, as well.
Well actually, when I first play a game, I'm more number 3 or 4 - just to enjoy some powerful char.
after that I try to role-play more...
go figure!

 

#4 for me. When deciding stats and skills I don't go for useless stuff although I will pick a skill if it might be useful and then end up never using it With stats I use a minimum limit of -4 to base stats, so a Human in IWD II won't have any stat less than 6 (Minsc's Int stat). As far as role-playing is concerned I do most of it in my head. I always have a romance progressing in my games, even in IWDs.
One way that I go power is that more often than not I tend to level squat. I don't level anyone in the party unless I get to the required multiclass levels or I get to a fight where I just cant get ahead. Then I'll level 1 or 2 charecters and win the fight. Fights that were giving you a head ache become remarkably one sided when that barbarian of yours takes 10 levels just before taking out a monster.

 

I chose #7:

"I play the game the way I want and ignore the pissy attitude of some people who read in a book somewhere that powergaming is bad or roleplaying is for wimps."

 

I just re-read my post above. Speaking of pissy...

Anyway, I couldn't help but get the feeling that the poll was dissing powergaming (which, let's face it, the IWD series encourages). In particular, the description for "Balanced" doesn't seem very balanced at all. And the implication under #5 that powergaming is cheesy - well, that's just wrong.

I'd probably put myself somewhere between #4 and #5, although I have no idea who Jukka is.

 

@Splunge

This was not meant to diss powergaming. I said in my post earlier that I myself picked #5 so I'm quite a powergamer.
In #5 I try to imply that in HOF-mode you need either a powergamed party (at least #4 or #5) OR cheesy tactics to get through.
For #3 I couldn't come up with a good description by the time I wrote that but most people probably have some idea of how a "balanced" party is (somewhere in between #2 and #4).

And Jukka has written the "JUPP". It's the best and most powergamed party guide for IWD2 IMO and can be found here at SP. It analyzes everything carefully to optimise your characters for their task!
You sould really read it if you like powergaming in IWD2! Your ideas of how a really powergamed party looks like might change a bit...

 

I usually try and get powerful characters in IWD, but really don't have enough of a mind for the mech side of things so I end up with a bunch of horribly RPed, horribly PGed characters and die many terrible deaths.

 

The other D&D crpgs (including the BG series) encourage powergaming far more.

 

I like difficult challenges, for example, unarmed solo monk in HoF from scratch. Within such imposed restriction, I try to find efficient tactics with a chosen character. So I guess, I'm in the first category : pure role-playing (with hard restrictions at the brink of survival).

 

Another vote for #4, although it's on the verge of #5. My characters are fairly heavily optimised but it wouldn't be taken to extremes. I tend to have fairly set ideas of what they should be like and don't like to diverge too far away from that. Some stats would be lowered pretty far but I'd never drop it all the way down to 3. Multiclassing is only done if I feel it would be right. It's fairly easy to see why a druid who's in combat constantly might want to take a single class of fighter in order to improve his knowledge of weapons. Taking a single class of monk in order to benefit from the wisdom AC increase is a bit harder to accept. Nothing to stop a crazy story being concocted to justify it but it just wouldn't feel right to me. The distinctions may be arbitrary but they're in my head.

The most important thing to me in the party build is to try and maximise the roleplaying/story elements that are provided by the game. The party leader should have a high Int and Wis as well as 18 Cha in order to maximise the dialogue options available. One character will also have a high wilderness skill. It may be useless but it is interesting damnit!

 

normally #3 or #4 with an occasional foray into # 6 territory

 

RPG vs Powergaming??? Hmm for a long time player of AD&D..since 80s,it is mix and match of Role Playing and creating exciting characters(character creation is my buzz),or the game becomes boring. Good Portrait+Voice+Class+Race blended to your taste. Problem I see here in IWD2 is real life time demands..so have to powergame more to get throught he game in what time I have to play,limited Diety(for Clerics)and race options(I do not like fav level choice,I mod it to 'any')and no 'reputation' strictures so you can butcher anything even if 'good'(which turns the game into just hack and slash),unlike BG,and damn limited money to shop grrrrrrrrr. So I have to adjust my party to these variables and then the CR thingy...aghhhh. Stress. Many dialog links cut out so hard to Role Play some things also.

 

I'm between a 4 and a 5. Closer to a 5. I really like building my party and optimising it. Computer Adventure Games (I refuse to call them computer RPG's because I don't feel the RP aspect of them very much) to me are more about using your party resources to fight monsters.

If I play PnP D&D, then I would role play. I just find that a (good) human DM allows you to role play at a level that computer adventure games these days cannot come close to. IWD2 is too liner for me to really feel that I'm role playing. It's more like going from one room to the next and killing monsters (which I do enjoy). Some things in IWD2 are just stupid like when my invisible PC approches an important NPC and a conversation starts. After the conversation is over, I'm still invisible and the NPC doesn't know I'm there. If he doesn't know I'm there, how the heck can he start a conversation with me in the first place?

To me, computer adventure games are for powergaming, pencil and paper RPG's are for role playing.

 

#5 for me. I usually end up making crazy excuses to allow myself to make a little crazy minmaxing in CRPG's, I'll exploit the cheese to make the characters a little more crazy, then I'll go and justify it by saying to myself "it's in the game, if it's doable by not actually cheating, then it's ok" but I wont go all the way in making ultimate power-playing characters...