Is this min maxing?

Ok so my friend is running a short game where the party starts at 18th level. We're essentially Wild Elf dragon hunters and at 20th level we're to take out this advanced probably templated green dragon he's created. The wild elves have ability mods of +3 dex, -1 con and cha and -2 for int. He gave us an array of ability scores of 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, and 12 pre-modifiers. We have 450k to spend. He limited our purchases to no weapon or armor above a +5 modifier. He also gave us a limited choice of classes which had to include a druid, a barbarian, a ranger, a sorcorer/ arcane archer, a rogue, and a cleric.

I decided I wanted to be a ranger (with the 2 weapon specialization). I placed my stats as str 18, dex 18 (15), con 16 (17), int 14 (16), wis 14, cha 11 (12). I spent my feats as follows: Improved Initiative (1st), Two Weapon Defense (3rd), Improved Two Weapon Defense (6th), Improved Critical: Scimitar (9th), Superior Off Hand Fighting (12th a feat created by him in a prior game that allowed you to attack with a 1 handed weapon in your off hand and still only suffer the standard -2 penalty for TWF instead of the -4), Greater Two Weapon Defense (15th), Improved Buckler Defense (18th).

I spent my money on a limited number of items figuring that a ranger would not play the role of snail and wear his house on his back. As such I'm equipped as follows: 2 gloves of storing, Heward's handy haverack, scimitar +3 wounding, +4 flaming scimitar, a +2 Wild Elf Comp Longbow (custom item he created), 50 +2 arrows, amulet of natural armor +5, belt of giant strength +6, cloak of resistance +5, ring of health +6, ring of protection +5, boots of springing and striding, +5 elven chain mail (easier to come by in his world then one would imagine), and a +5 darkwood buckler . Everyone pretty much went out and equipped themselves with +5 armors and weapons out the wazoo and a boatload of other nice items (see ring of regen and ring of wishes).

I ran all this by my dm prior to purchase, but still the majority of the party thinks I have min-maxed my character. The major cause for this is my ac of 43, and my attack bonuses with my scimitars being a 28 base (4 attacks) with the wounding and a 29 base (3 attacks) with the flaming one. Also, my detracters state that I spent every one of my feats (with the exception of improved initiative and improved critical) on 2 weapon fighting feats. I don't understand how that qualifies as min maxing. My character esteems his skill with sword play and views himself as the best swordsmen in the world (no this isn't Faerun, but I'd be happy to take on Drizzt and see who's the finer swordsman). Does the selection of feats reek of min-maxing or are they fair. We haven't started the game yet and won't until next week so if enough people here think I've min-maxed I'll yeild to the consensus and figure out a different way to run the character.

I think you're correct . It's DM fault , he gave you too much liberty .

I said yes, but I don't think there is anything wrong with it.

If you were an archer and took archery feats, would that be min/maxing? Yes, but it makes sense. Or a Wizard who took spell related feats.

'Though some of your Feats are unknown to me.

I suppose it is min/maxing in a way, but I don't see what the big deal is with making a fighter type character who is good at the style of fighting that they do.

Ask them if you should trade in some of those feats for Power Attack and Combat Expertise and maybe Improved Bull Rush. Even though your character would probably never fight with those styles, maybe you should have them so you have a well rounded character.

There might have been a regional feet that you could take to maybe give your character a little more character so to speak, but if its going to be an 18th level game, the extra +2 to a few skills isn't going to do much for you.

I think your ok. What is the context of the game? Are you a group of friends who will be fighting this dragon? Or maybe an Elf King or Lord has gathered the best from around the relm to go do battle with their foe? If its the latter, then you should have a lot of feats that match your fighting style (2-weapon fighting) because you are supposed to be the best at it. If your just a bunch of people who will fall in a dragon hole, then maybe you might want to swap one or two around if the min/maxing is such a huge problem to the rest of the players.

First off, the stat mods are completely wrong, and are prone to abuse: they should all be even numbers. Also not too sure about the custom-made feats, either.

Otherwise, since this is a short game, I'd say yes, the character is min-maxed, but no, there shouldn't be a problem with it. For one, it's not going to be a long-term character (from what I can guess from your post). Also, another key thing is that you are starting off at 18th level, with a lot of gold, very good stats, etc.--all of the PCs should be quite potent as it is.

If this was a regular, on-going campaign, then I'd have a problem with it--for one, if you're going to play a long-term campaign, then I'd say the race & class choices should be broader, and the PCs should either be beginning characters or somewhat low-level characters (to be able to develop the PCs through gameplay).

However, this seems perfectly fine for a short-term "themed" campaign, though it could be stale quickly if not done right.

re

Your character is definitely min-maxed. I don't know what your DM expected starting you at 18th level. The only reason standard characters aren't min-maxed is because sometimes you are forced to take less optimal feat choices due to circumstances you face during your career. You don't usually get such optimal magic item choices either. How do you simulate that starting out at 18th level? I don't know. I think most player's would instinctively min-max their character if they started out at 18th level. The character has no background. What else are you going to do?

I voted yes, but I'd say it's also what comes from starting a character at 18th level. If I were you, I'd start accusing the others of NOT min/maxing!

Of course it's min-maxing (at least to a degree). Any time a character takes something designed to minimize a weakness or maximize an asset, it's some degree of min-maxing. What are the other player's thinking min-maxing means?
Now, certain kinds of character builds might not fit the style of a particular campaign. Some campaigns may not be conducive to building a character with a narrow, maximized focus. But if this is a short term campaign involved mostly with slaying a few dragons and then fading away, then there shouldn't be much style conflict with min-max types of builds.
Go with the character and ignore your detractors. Or scrutinize their characters as well and point out their own min-maxing. I bet the wizard character has his highest stat in Intelligence! The sorcerer has his highest in Charisma! Maybe even one of them has a decent Con to help give more hit points and offset a bad Fort save. Uh, oh... MIN-MAXING!

Nice try, but it's not really min-maxing in my book because the shield bonus from your Two-Weapon Defense feat chain shouldn't stack with the shield bonus from your +5 darkwood buckler, even with Improved Buckler Defense, unless your DM is interpreting the rules liberally.

What's wrong with min-maxing, anyway? Those that can, do. Those that can't (or won't), don't.

EDIT: Removed potentially inflammatory word.

Yeah, Firelance is correct. The two shield bonuses won't stack.

But yeah, it's min-maxing. But... who cares? A game starting at 18th level is gonna be a freak-of-the-day type affair anyway, since people just pop out of nowhere ultimately powerful. That's what your DM specified, and what you've delivered. I don't get why that's suddenly a problem.