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

[iserith]

And furthermore the stats still get rolled on - they aren't absolutes by themselves. An 8 INT will still roll high and succeed sometimes. An 8 INT fighter will sometimes beat a 20 INT wizard at a check. That's what the rules are, and where they stop.

Yep. As evidence, I was in a game last night, playing an Int 8 Fighter. While I would hope that the party's wizard would be doing this, nobody else was trying to recall lore on any of the monsters we were facing to gain an advantage, so I just started doing it. "I try to recall what I might have heard about this three-headed monstrosity - its strengths and weaknesses..." for example. There was no penalty or action cost to trying, so I might as well do it despite my -1 modifier to the roll. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I failed. In one case, I bested the druid at a Nature check. Might've somebody gotten annoyed at me because I wasn't playing to their notion of what an 8 Int means? Maybe. But why?

At the same time, I had a flaw that basically said I was so convinced of my special destiny, that I ignored the risk of failure. So I did a lot of foolish things, putting myself in danger a lot. While the DM didn't give anyone Inspiration for anything (GRRRR), I bet nobody would give me grief about playing to that.

 

[iserith]

You have to wonder if Intelligence interfaced more significantly with the resolution mechanics if much of this stuff would go away. Obviously Initiative is the easy (and more intuitive) one as it (a) devalues the already (too?) powerful Dexterity and (b) it makes sense for folks who are looking for some kind of causal logic (mental processing speed makes up for physical speed disparity, and then some, in sports). More Int saving throws. Maybe some sort of "Elementary My Dear Watson" deal where players get a # of Advantages on Ability Checks = to their Intelligence modifier (and maybe the GM gets to impose Disadvantage at their discretion if the PC has a negative), refreshed at Long Rest.

Stuff like that. Not that any/all of those are a good idea, but they are potent enough to frame the hypothetical. If that was in effect would folks still complain about players with low Int scores getting involved in puzzle challenges/problem solving?

Yeah, one wonders for sure. One of the complaints of D&D 5e is that Intelligence is so useless outside of wizards that it may as well be a dump stat for just about everyone. In the doing, you're freeing up the points to augment other ability scores and gaining a clear benefit. Some perhaps believe this must be offset with making bad decisions. Or at least not being the character with the good ideas. This goes back to that "fairness" I was talking about.

 

[iserith]

But painting with a broad brush, I would argue that it started out "alter ego" but added a significant "character as character ("CAC")" component in the 1970s, as you had the warring wargaming/Tolkien factions.

Then you'd probably want to look at when Monty Haul campaigns (1970s) and munchkins* (late 80s, especially prevalent in the 90s) came about. If I had to make a first stab at a dividing line, I'd put it at the 2e supplement era when concerns about "optimizing" and "munchkins" became more common. But others might have reasonable hypotheses. You would also note that the derivation of munchkin came from a young player, and came to mean an optimizer.

More importantly is the difference in you. All gamers evolve. IME, most of them learn to relax- and that relaxation can take different forms. YMMV.

*Not when they started- rather, use of the terms. The spread of a term can help you understand the prevailing norms.

That's a good start - a little bird sent me a picture of a section from the 2e PHB that talks about how to play to an Intelligence score "correctly."

But I think I speak for everyone when I say we should just blame White Wolf and call it good.

 

[Manbearcat]

Yeah, one wonders for sure. One of the complaints of D&D 5e is that Intelligence is so useless outside of wizards that it may as well be a dump stat for just about everyone. In the doing, you're freeing up the points to augment other ability scores and gaining a clear benefit. Some perhaps believe this must be offset with making bad decisions. Or at least not being the character with the good ideas. This goes back to that "fairness" I was talking about.

Yup. It just comes down to the question of:

% fairness

vs

% you must HERP DERP or ROLLplayer

Quick, ENWorld needs more polls! Make it happen!

That's a good start - a little bird sent me a picture of a section from the 2e PHB that talks about how to play to an Intelligence score "correctly."


But I think I speak for everyone when I say we should just blame White Wolf and call it good.

EDIT - Cross posted. I just wanted to +1 this with a few !!!!!! for good measure.

 

[Caliban]

Yeah, one wonders for sure. One of the complaints of D&D 5e is that Intelligence is so useless outside of wizards that it may as well be a dump stat for just about everyone. In the doing, you're freeing up the points to augment other ability scores and gaining a clear benefit. Some perhaps believe this must be offset with making bad decisions. Or at least not being the character with the good ideas. This goes back to that "fairness" I was talking about.

It's a tough call. A DM can ask the players to make a lot of rolls for Intelligence based skills (History, Nature, Arcana, Investigatem, etc) in order to figure things out, thereby giving incentive to not dump intelligence.

But the problem with that is that even intelligent, proficient characters can fail a check, and if you are requiring checks to proceed...what do you do when the entire party (including the wizard) fails them? And making everything hinge numerous checks with a stat that most classes don't need starts to feel less and less like fun after awhile.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I agree. Most of this is kind of silly; after all, it's the whole reason I only play characters with an 8 charisma (SHUT UP!). I can't even imagine roleplaying a character with a 20 intelligence.

Clearly, the distribution of abilities in the game world does not match the distribution of abilities in the real world, so it's hard to say how smart someone with Intelligence 20 actually is. It's easier to play the character if you interpret it as someone who is 25% more likely to solve a puzzle than the average person, than if you play it as the smartest person who ever lived, even though the game mechanics insist that those are the same thing.

 

[Boscogn]

I think the player evolution goes something like this.
Phase 1: Come to a table to play a game and don't want to suck and too awkward to talk in character or roleplay a challenging character who isn't optimized if not min/maxed. You determine your worth based on the amount of damage you deal to things.

Phase 2: Doing lots of damage is cool but not being able to figure out important plot points or pass skill checks starts getting annoying. You start optimizing characters to help the party.

Phase 3: you're really good at figuring things out and the table looks to you to hold their hands. You come to the realization you're just making characters to make the game mechanics smooth for others. You might start DMing here.

Phase 4: you make characters that are fun to play add some worth to the party but mostly fun and interesting with twisted back story's and lots of depth. You start tailoring your character's stats to its story instead of tailoring your story to match your stats. You start role-playing for the first time and might start getting in character.

I'm at phase 4 not sure what lies ahead haha.

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[iserith]

It's a tough call. A DM can ask the players to make a lot of rolls for Intelligence based skills (History, Nature, Arcana, Investigatem, etc) in order to figure things out, thereby giving incentive to not dump intelligence.

But the problem with that is that even intelligent, proficient characters can fail a check, and if you are requiring checks to proceed...what do you do when the entire party (including the wizard) fails them? And making everything hinge numerous checks with a stat that most classes don't need starts to feel less and less like fun after awhile.

I think for me it's just not a big deal and requires no special effort on the part of the DM to correct for it because the flatter math means dumping Int isn't all that big a gain elsewhere. So, fine, leave the Int to the wizards and, to some extent, rogues. Also, every campaign gets an intellect devourer encounter going forward. Case closed.

In my games, Intelligence will tend to come up in social interaction challenges quite a bit and failing the check generally carries a disadvantage going forward. For recalling lore outside of social interaction challenge, such as in a combat with a weird monster, a successful check will result in getting the info you want and a failed check will result in getting some kind of relevant info, just not what you wanted. Plus Intelligence (Investigation) is useful for secret doors and traps of which I tend to have quite a few. I do none of this to "correct" for Intelligence being a pretty obvious dump stat in D&D 5e, but because it seems like this is where Intelligence checks live in this game.

 

[iserith]

I'm at phase 4 not sure what lies ahead haha.

Phase 5 is the realization that you didn't just start roleplaying in Phase 4 - you were already roleplaying in Phase 1.

That's when everything starts to make sense.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*