D&D 5E Where does optimizing end and min-maxing begin? And is min-maxing a bad thing?

[Arial Black]

Actually, where it runs into problems is with contested checks. There aren't that many bonuses that you can pile on after stat. Proficiency is around +3. Other than that, there isn't a whole lot of plusses out there.

So, you've got a character with a 14 vs 16 wis, means that his passive perception is only one higher. Ignoring proficiency, he goes from a 12 to 13 passive perception. Which means that either way, he'll spot most things that aren't actively hiding.

However, that 8 vs 10 is a HUGE difference. A passive perception of 9 means that virtually anything sneaks up on you. Base DC's for most activities are 10. So, now you're getting ambushed often. I mentioned this before but, that means you can only jump 9 feet - meaning that it requires a check to cover any 10 foot pit.

There's number of other issues, but, basically, if your base "passive" score is less than 10 for any skill, you have a serious problem. Once you've cleared 10, there isn't that much that you need to do. It doesn't matter too often if you can jump 11 feet after all. Let's not forget that those minuses accrue. An 8 con means that you're getting 1 less HP per level. Getting +2 or +3 generally isn't going to make an enormous difference. But, going from -1 to +2 is a serious disadvantage.

Hah! As if I'd fail to give my Wis 8 PC the Perception skill to make his Passive Perception at least 11! Do you think you're talking to a noob?

 

[OB1]

Bingo. That's ... kind of the thing. There's whiteboard mimaxing, which can be rewarding. But at actual tables, one of three things happens-

1. The Star. You minmax because not everyone does, which makes your character better than the other characters. You get to be the awesomest hero of all the heroes. Don't get me wrong- that can be fun! However, that often leads to less-than-optimal social experiences.

2. Easy mode. Everyone (or most) players minmax, and you're still having "level-appropriate" encounters. In that case, you get to enjoy absolutely demolishing your opposition. Again, this can be fun! But not mechanically hard.

3. Arms race. Everyone (or most) players minmax, and the DM is adjusting the difficulty based on how awesome everyone has minmaxed. Now, there might be certain bragging rights (we took out Tiamat with a party of 6th level characters!), but ... and this is the important point, because the game (DM) dynamically adjusts, the challenges aren't intrinsically mechanically harder than if you hadn't. It's a subtle, but true, point.

There's nothing wrong with the pleasure a person gets from system mastery. But because D&D can dynamically adjust (the DM), there is no real benefit for running a party of mixmaxers. The encounters can be just as hard (or just as easy) if you don't optimize. In the end, it goes to personal preference. If you enjoy the system mastery, and creating characters based on that, then do it, and play with those who also enjoy it!

Extremely well said lowkey!

As a side note, we have a Star in a long running campaign that I play in, but the star is the bicycle character. The three players all work to min-max the heck out of him while we do more interesting things with our primary characters.

My only quibble would be in equating min-maxing character mechanics with system mastery. That may have been true pre-internet, but it doesn't take any system mastery Now to go on-line and look at a guide.

I will say that player skill (and especially the combined playing skill of the party) counts for far more.




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[Arial Black]

No one seriously argues that optimization and role playing are mutually exclusive

Really? No-one? Geekmanese does when he says:-

"It's just the guy who brings the three dump stat character is usually (but not always) the guy on his iPhone distracted when it's not Combat.

Or the guy who's bored during Social encounters and cracks jokes and makes irrelevant side comments during actually engaging improvisational in-character Social interactions.

Or he's the guy who, during Exploration, has no useful skills and gets bored because the rogue and wizard is getting most of the spotlight finding traps or creatively using their skills/abilities to overcome challenges so he starts to do stupid things like intentionally and recklessly charging into rooms or whatnot. The three dump stat players typically (but not always ;p) are there to pwn! in fights as power gamers and check out in other situations.

Or lastly, I get the three dump stat player who espouse of their role playing ability and then start rationalizing to me that they're Int 8 char is actually a genius but grew up in a bubble and wasn't properly schooled, who's Wis 8 is quick-witted and extremely intuitive but has ADHD and Cha 8 is extremely good-looking with incredible presence but due to low self-esteem doesn't realize it and is anti-social. Child, please...

I'd rather have the players that are more interested in the narrative and being able to contribute to the evolution of the story meaningfully."

You also say, later in your post:-

"What I have found is that those who optimize are more likely to be disruptive"

Whether you label it as 'Stormwind Fallacy' or 'False Dilemma', the point remains: there is nothing about being interested/skilled in optimising that makes you less able/willing to roleplay. Certainly the player problems like not paying attention, disruptive play, and all the others are not caused by interest in optimisation nor are they possessed by optimisers to a greater or lesser extent than those who eschew optimisation in favour of role-play.

There was a cool example earlier in the thread about the driver who rates anyone driving slower than him as an 'idiot' and anyone driving faster than him as a 'maniac', because he is the one driving at the 'correct' speed. This is not limited to the idea of the 'correct' level of optimisation because it applies to life in general. We assume that what we do is 'normal' and therefore doing it differently is a bit weird, at least until we have the opportunity to re-examine the thing in question.

Yesterday I learned that my tongue is weird. My dentist commented. I assumed everybody had a tongue like mine. Oh well, you live and learn.

For me, there is no mutually exclusive pressure between optimisation and role-play (I think I'll borrow that shorthand I saw used, where optimisation = OP and role-play = RP). For me, I am interested in and (I think) am skilled at both. It matters to me that I have a well thought out PC both in terms of game mechanics and for characterisation. During character creation I don't do all the mechanics first then think of a personality after, nor do I have a complete personality thought out and start trying to represent that in game mechanics after (not really likely with point-buy anyway). For me it is a process where OP affects the RP and RP affects the OP, bouncing back and forth until I am finally happy with both.

And I think this is...normal. The way it should be. I am constantly astonished by players who don't care about the game mechanics and create a PC who can't mechanically do what their concept says they do. I am also constantly astonished by those who create competent PCs in mechanical terms but don't bother with a background worth the name, and who is called 'Dwarf #6' or something.

I sometimes hear such a PC's background story and think that I could eat a bowl of Alphabetti Spaghetti and excrete a better background story!

And why does your monk have a Wisdom of 11? You've described your monk as being hard to hit like Jackie Chan. Have you not read the monk class description? What do you mean "You don't know what your attack modifier for your Unarmed Strike is"? You've been playing that monk for months! You have a character sheet with a space for that number, and that number is generated by adding your Dex mod to your Proficiency mod, both of which are known and don't change from moment to moment. How is it that you have to ask. Every. Single. Time?

[/rant]

....anyway....

Whatever the assumed 'likelihood' of the stereotypical abilities and flaws of OP focussed gamers over RP focussed gamers, it is absolute tosh. You aren't dealing with a 'likelihood'. You are dealing with an individual. You have to find out what that individual is like, not make assumtions about his attention span based on the fact that he can make a mechanically competent PC.

I saw a clip of a male presenter of a martial arts show, goading a female MMA champion into a bout by saying things about 'women aren't as strong as men' and other stuff guaranteed to push her buttons. I think he ended up with broken ribs. The point being that it may (or may not) be true about, say, the 'average' man is stronger/better at fighting than the 'average' woman, bot that information is useless! Even if it happens to be true, the only thing that matters is how strong/good at fighting (or role-playing or optimising) the individual person in front of you happens to be.

"Oh, this PC has three 16s and three 8s so the player must not be interested in role-play, and probably will be disruptive and be on his phone instead of paying attention and be bored outside of combat and probably cheats on his taxes too. Better kick him out before he even starts."

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Arial Black]

So, yes. I stand by that. I have found that those who optimize are more likely to be disruptive at my table because they aren't playing the same way as the rest of the table.

First, are you saying that it's not that 'optimisers are disruptive' but that 'anyone playing differently than the rest of the table are disruptive'? If so, then this is not an argument about optimising at all.

Second, players playing in different ways is not necessarily disruptive.

And because they, like you, spend a great amount of time arguing with everyone.

Since we are arguing with each other, you and I seem equally guilty of that.

It's perfectly fine for you to enjoy yourself; it is less enjoyable when someone insists that their way is preferable to the way that others are playing.

Agreed. My mini rant was about my thoughts and frustrations, not my words at the table.

And, honestly, your rant about people's playstyles sort of speaks for itself. I am quite sure you enjoy the way you play- just don't insist on judging other people.

We all judge people all the time...in our heads. Whether we say this stuff out loud is a different thing. I don't actually lay in to players whose backstory or rules competence fail to reach my idea of perfection, but I do think it, and so do you, as evidenced by your posts equating optimisation with disruptive behaviour.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Caliban]

Ultimately, I don't think this is a rational problem. It has all the hallmarks of an emotional one. There is some underlying, fundamental thing that gets some folks riled up. I just can't quite put my finger on it.

I think it's a vocal minority of players that create this perception, and comes down to two things, described in very broad terms as: a feeling of being judged as "inferior" in some way because you aren't measuring up to the other side, and/or seeing the other side as belittling the playstyle you prefer. So you return the favor.

If I'm mainly a combat optimizer and not so good at the social side, I unconsciously feel like I don't measure up in the social stuff and my character is seen as "the dumb thug" who is useless outside of combat.

If I'm mainly a RP and story optimizer, I feel like I'm just a drag on the party when combat occurs and I also think the combat monsters are judging me and looking down on my "useless" character.

This isn't everybody by a long shot, but the minority of people who fall mainly into one category or the other tend to be the most vocal about trashing the other side. Because "F- you, I'm not useless, you're useless. And your play style is badwrong fun anyway."

In organized play (RPGA, Pathfinder, Adventure League) there is often a perception that the combat min/maxer's have the upper hand due to the frequent combats and limited time (four hours) to play each module. This tends to exacerbate the problem.

If you mainly play with a stable group in a long running campaign you may never experience these issues except on forum and facebook posts.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

My only quibble would be in equating min-maxing character mechanics with system mastery. That may have been true pre-internet, but it doesn't take any system mastery Now to go on-line and look at a guide.

If someone doesn't know why a particular build is considered optimal, then they may encounter difficulties in trying to apply that build at the table. Online guides have to make a lot of assumptions in order to have enough information to generate useful data, but those assumptions won't hold at every table, and someone who doesn't understand that process may well under-perform when they fail to realize that the underlying assumptions don't hold.

You can certainly try to optimize if you don't know what you're doing, and the internet certainly makes it easier to build the system mastery to help you figure out what you're doing, but the player who blindly uses a build from the internet is not that much different than the 3E player who chooses Toughness in order to optimize their own survivability. You need the system mastery in order to figure out what doesn't work (at your table).

Edit: I don't think I'm disagreeing with you, but it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong about what I thought someone was trying to say.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Quit TALKING ABOUT ME BEHIND THE SCREEN. Besides it os a 11 in roleplay and 15 in number crunching.

Those odd numbers are suboptimal....yeesh.....

Yep, me too. It's hard to say what the underlying issue is. I tried to peg it to fairness, at least with respect to Intelligence-dumping, in this thread or another. But there a lot of side objections that seem rooted elsewhere. I think some of it has to do with thinking acting is roleplaying and rules-as-physics combined in some part with just jerk behavior on the part of some players who are associated with min-maxing, but it's really just jerk behavior. Let's face it - our hobby is pretty rife with intelligent people whose social skills could use some polishing.

I have run for a lot of pickup groups in both D&D 4e and 5e since 2011 or so and that means having groups with varying experience and priorities. I've never had a serious problem. Sometimes you'll pick up a player with some behavioral issues, but even that is exceedingly rare in my experience. Even in my current campaign there are optimizers and folks who could barely get through making their characters with exactly zero effect on the game experience. I'm a pretty experienced DM and confident in my abilities, sure, but it can't all be me evening things out.

Ultimately, I don't think this is a rational problem. It has all the hallmarks of an emotional one. There is some underlying, fundamental thing that gets some folks riled up. I just can't quite put my finger on it.

Well, any problem with the game can be summarized as being an emotional one, really. System shortcomings and all that aside, any time there is an issue that arises between players at the table, it's more of a social thing than anything else.

But that doesn't mean that the root cause of the social issue can't be the optimization/min-maxing angle.

I said earlier in the thread several times that I mostly don't see either as a bad thing. But I do think it can be taken to an extreme and that when that happens, it can be an issue. But it really should be something that is more of an exception than a rule. If there is such disparity in player skill and also player expectation that one optimized PC upsets the players of the non-optimized PCs, there's a lot wrong with the group.

But I don't think that any such instance is automatically "oh there's something wrong with your group, clearly" the way a lot of people seem to dismiss the issue.

 

[clearstream]

I think it's interesting how we use the terms in different ways.

For example, I don't think the terms are interchangeable. They crossover, but describe different things.

I believe the terms were synonyms in the past - at least over 3rd edition. WotC's CharOp forums used the terms interchangeably, and if you check out this wiki http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build you will see that people who epitomised minimaxing treated the terms as synonyms. (The oft-cited optimiser/minimaxer, Tempest Stormwind is referenced as a contributor to that page.)

To be good at *everything* might be an optimized character, but it's not a min-maxed one (IMO). Where is the "min"?

The "min" part is a bit of a red-herring these days. Minimax was not originally a wargame or RPG term, it was a game theory term relating to decisions made by independent actors given a matrix of payoffs. Maximising potential gains while minimising potential losses leads to strategies which typically settle for less than the largest possible gains in order to avoid the worst possible losses. Following on in that vein, 13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12 is minimaxed because it has the largest bonuses that can be taken while minimising (avoiding altogether) any penalties. However, I think you are saying that under your definition 15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8 would be minimaxed because it has the most extreme maximums and minimums. That's quite a departure.

On the other hand, to be a rogue with a 12 strength, is not optimized (again IMO) no matter how well it suits your character concept. It can certainly be a fun character, and if you use min-maxing OR optimization tricks in other ways, you may be able to make it powerful enough to be not-gimped, but not what I would call optimized.

Ah, right! I think you mean to say that optimised is "not-gimped". That really puts roleplay at odds with optimising because any gimped character is automatically not optimised even though it may be roleplayable. I suspect that makes optimising and minimaxing much the same thing in practice, and runs into the problem that brought us here

For me, I currently like using "optimising" to mean choosing ideal values to match a character concept - including poor values if the character concept is to be inept. While "minimaxing" refers to seeking pure mechanical advantage. Thus 13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12 can be "optimal", while not "minimaxed" because it fails to give the greatest mechanical advantage: it wastes points on stats that a given class is unlikely to rely on. A minimaxed character avoids that, and puts the points where they will do the most work, given their class and feat choices.