The value of optimizing sub-par styles

[Mooncrow]

It is also worth mentioning that if you are holding both a sword and a shield, you can't cast any spells. So not only is it self nullification in that you do no damage, it is self nullification in that you do nothing else.

Only if its a heavy shield, which prevents you doing anything else with that hand. A light shield or buckler does not restrict the shield hand.

At this point you're nullifying your damage entirely, getting nothing out of it but slightly more AC (that won't stop you from being hit on a 2) and getting even less AC from it. Still not helpful.

So last chance veekie. Will you take me up on the offer of a demonstration between the sword and board fighter, archer rogue, healbot cleric, and blaster wizard, or will you refuse to do so?

By which you mean; lowering damage output slightly, and eventually taking no AoOs for casting while in melee, while getting another place to stack on magic vestment and some decent cheap enhancement?  At higher levels, an animated shield is an option, but not at the levels we're talking about. 

[Basket Burner]

Against stock CR encounters from the MM?
Sure, though statblocks are going to take a while to cough up, RL being what it is.

The demonstration is against Koth, as I have mentioned before. And because it is against a character that my players are currently fighting and do not know the full capabilities of, the test will be via PM.

If I do not receive a PM from you within 24 hours, I will take that as a decline.

Moon: No, I mean a massive damage loss, to the point where you might as well be swinging for 0 as you're close enough to it and casting defensively is already trivial without wasting feats and a character on it.

[lans]

Does shielded casting trump mageslayer?

[Kethrian]

Does shielded casting trump mageslayer?

I would say yes, because Shielded Casting removes the AoO, and therefore the need for casting on the defensive.  Mageslayer only lets you remove the ability to cast on the defensive, so if they don't provoke, you don't get the AoO.

[Basket Burner]

Two feat tax to cast a spell in their melee range, or just smash them with your CoDzilla might? Oh wait, sword and board scrub, you're not winning that one.

Hero Member? That's an odd title.

[snakeman830]

Does shielded casting trump mageslayer?

Yup.  Mage Slayer means you can't cast defensively.  Shielded Casting makes it so you don't provoke an AoO anyway, so there's no need to cast defensively.

And although I've pretty much been sitting by passively and reading this thread, I find myself needing to join the sentiment shared by many others:

BasketBurner: you have no credibility whatsoever with your numbers and assertions until you show us exactly how you got said numbers and how they back up your assertions.  If you don't do this, we all must assume that you are simply pulling numbers out of your ass and have no idea what you're actually talking about.  More simplistically: put up or shut up.

[veekie]

Against stock CR encounters from the MM?
Sure, though statblocks are going to take a while to cough up, RL being what it is.

The demonstration is against Koth, as I have mentioned before. And because it is against a character that my players are currently fighting and do not know the full capabilities of, the test will be via PM.

If I do not receive a PM from you within 24 hours, I will take that as a decline.

In that case the case is irrelevant to the test unless you are talking about the value of optimizing sub-par styles in your game. Which we've already established as worthless.

What is up for contest is that sub-par styles remain adequate, but not excellent in the typical game without especial effort(like using questionable printings etc).

[Basket Burner]

Right. Well, this thread was already just mostly people trolling and contributing nothing productive. You were one of the few that was not doing so, so I chose to address you accordingly. However, if you are uninterested in the demonstration that means this thread has gone beyond any chance of producing something productive. It has already been established quite solidly that the scrub builds get swept by anything, from stock encounters to specific scenarios. Which don't do anything but make it more obvious who the weak builds are, and makes the encounters interesting to characters that are not weak. But it isn't as if they wouldn't get halted and salted anyways, as again the demonstrations proved even stock enemies swept them soundly.

If the scrub side were smarter, they'd have latched onto my scenario about 4 blaster Wizards all using Scorching Ray and barely one rounding a level 5 encounter at level 5. Of course that scenario was inaccurate, as I did not take into account the chances of the rays actually hitting and I also did not take into account whether or not their 24 HP and likely complete lack of any buffs worth mentioning was up to the task of taking the round of actions they'd almost certainly take in the process, and due to the first point it's likely at least 1 ray would miss, meaning it goes into round 2 with Magic Missile spam and gives the enemy a good chance of killing someone if it hasn't already but even aside from that, the blaster caster did a lot better than the sword and board scrub even with absolutely nothing to enhance blasting. Of course if the scrub side was smarter, they wouldn't be scrubs, so that is a catch 22.

Instead it's a group of people bad at the game, who wants to be good at it and yet refuses to learn how. Basket weaver, scrub, doesn't matter what you call them as the meaning is much the same. This behavior being endorsed so readily on an optimization board is nothing short of shameful. Whatever the case though, as veekie has given up his last chance to make something productive come of the thread it is clear nothing can or will. So before it becomes any more of a troll fest...