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

[Caliban]

What answer were you expecting? I thought all of my positions were transparently consistent, so if I said something unexpected, then I might need to re-evaluate something.

Based on your earlier comments about the role of the DM, I was expecting hear that you mainly run pre-written adventures. I would have thought suited the idea of the DM as an impartial referee more than writing your own adventures and world.

 

[Hussar]

You can view any post if you open the thread in a private window, and then you can copy+paste back into a public window. It's kind of a pain, but sometimes people have too much time on their hands. Or you could just manually enter the

I'd point out that if you use En World on your phone through the ap, blocking doesn't work.

 

[Shasarak]

Meta-gaming in an RPG is objectively bad, and no amount of debate will ever change that. If your method of playing D&D involves meta-gaming, by using out-of-game factors to determine the in-game reality, then you are very clearly not doing a good job of role-playing.

What version of DnD never used out of game factors to determine in game reality?

I have heard of some dice-less games but never DnD.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What version of DnD never used out of game factors to determine in game reality?

I have heard of some dice-less games but never DnD.

At least 2E and 3.X, possibly others. Dice are only used as a mechanic because they reflect the in-game reality, not the other way around.

If you come upon a hut containing 1d4 ogres, it's because there are between one and four ogres in a family unit and the die is an impartial way of determining how many are home, rather than because the party is level 3 so that many ogres would constitute various degrees of reasonable challenge. The causal chain always starts within the game world, instead of being rooted in the real world.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Based on your earlier comments about the role of the DM, I was expecting hear that you mainly run pre-written adventures. I would have thought suited the idea of the DM as an impartial referee more than writing your own adventures and world.

Oh, I can see how that might have come across.

Setting creation is often left up to the DM, but it's not a mandatory part of how the game is played; setting creation isn't even part of the game, itself, so much as the pre-game setup. You could run a published adventure, without establishing all of the background details yourself, but it would require a slightly different skill-set. I find it easier to maintain consistency if I start from scratch, since I don't need to worry about contradicting something in a later part of the book.

 

[Shasarak]

At least 2E and 3.X, possibly others. Dice are only used as a mechanic because they reflect the in-game reality, not the other way around.

If you come upon a hut containing 1d4 ogres, it's because there are between one and four ogres in a family unit and the die is an impartial way of determining how many are home, rather than because the party is level 3 so that many ogres would constitute various degrees of reasonable challenge. The causal chain always starts within the game world, instead of being rooted in the real world.

See that is the problem - the out of game "rules" say that a family unit of Ogres is between 1 to 4 which ignores the actual in game fiction of the family being more then usual.

But neither 2e nor 3e ever relied on the game narrative determining what was happening, you always have the meta-game outside the game informing on the narrative which in turn informs the meta-game.

 

[Hussar]

Just to turn this conversation back to important things, namely me (;p), I'd point out a couple of more details about our Ravenloft game.

Now, just to remind you all, I stated that the party is 8th level and I'm playing a hunter Ranger with a bow. In 8 levels, we have not found a magic bow or magic arrows (although we do have a number of silver ones) and it has been a serious challenge to my character. We have largely worked around the issue by having one of the casters drop a Magic Weapon spell on me when needed, although, that isn't a sure thing. And yes, the rest of the party has magic weapons.

Some people have expressed the notion that it's up to the DM to rectify this. He should drop in a magic bow or some arrows or something somewhere along the way.

I take a different perspective. This is a problem of my own devising, largely. There are a number of things I could have done to solve this problem on my own. In no particular order:

• Take a level in a caster class and cast my own Magic Weapon spells, at least a few times per day, and still have cantrips to rely on when the bow doesn't work.
• Take the Magic Initiate feat and again, cast my own Magic Weapons spells.
• Burn one of my ASI's to bump my 12 Str (see, I didn't dump stat) to a 14, pick up one of the other magic weapons in the party and stab things when my bow doesn't work. Heck, burn the two ASI's on Str, have a 16 Str equal to my 16 Dex and be a fairly decent melee combatant.

So, there's at least three things I could have done to resolve the problem, all on my own. I'm sure there are probably more if I really wracked my brain. Some people might argue that I'm having to give up my character concept, but, I would point out that it's my own fault. I made this character. No one is forcing me to play it. If it's not getting the job done, isn't it up to me to make a character that does get it done?

((Note, the irony of me defending DM choices is not lost on me. ))

I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect the players to shore up their own problems. You dump statted Str and have trouble with exploration because you can't climb for beans? Well, burn your down time, learn a Climbing Harness tool and now you've got a decent climb ability. Or, instead of jumping up on that 20 Dex, maybe boost your dump stat first and trade a little bit of your specialization for a broader character concept. What I don't think is reasonable is expecting the DM to tailor his or her adventures so that everything you face is squarely in your wheelhouse.

Look, if your campaign is 90% in one pillar (whether combat, exploration or talkie bits, doesn't matter) then the players are going to hyper specialize to their hearts content. Who cares if you dump stat Strength if your campaign features little or no combat? It's just not going to come up. But, if you make the honest attempt to balance all three pillars, then heavily specialized characters are going to really, really struggle outside of their specialization. And I really don't put any blame for those struggles on the DM. That's my fault, not his.

 

[JonnyP71]

It's rare I agree with you, but that post is right on the money.

 

[Gradine]

I've gone into it with him, it's all his own definitions, but they add up to some uncompromising internal consistency, indeed, that's kinda the core of the ethos - the imagined world must be /real/.

I can dig that. I was mostly over-exaggerating for effect. However, whenever I hear the words "meta-gaming" it almost always induces an eye-roll; for a certain level of strictness meta-gaming could include such acts as "opening the PHB" or "looking at your character sheet" or "rolling a die" and the whole concept becomes meaningless. Sometimes people tend to forget that the G in RPG stands for Game. And that "playing a role" doesn't always mean "acting!" But if you're all Fantasy-aesthetic, all the time? Sure, do you.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't consider it my job as a DM to design the world around their advantages or disadvantages. Whether we're talking about an individual or a group.

One thing that I've found over the years is that the groups that tend to be more into optimizing their characters, also tend to be less concerned about working as a group. Sure, they will often focus on trying not to overlap with other folks abilities and stuff, but it's often about carving their niche into the game.

The problem with that approach is that it assumes that the DM will cater to each niche for each character. I don't. I design the world the way I think the world works. If you've created too narrow a niche for yourself, you might find that you don't get as many chances to shine.

On the other hand, if your focus is on building an interesting character (personality) and working with your party to succeed at the goals that you set collectively, you'll never run out of things to do. In AD&D, if you were a wizard, until you reached, oh, 5th level or so, you were of limited use most of the time. Particularly when it came to combat where you were often a flat-out liability. Except when the group worked to protect the wizard so they could be used to the best of their ability in a really tough combat, and come out with their magic missile or sleep spell that would likely turn the battle in their favor.

Of course, once they did reach 5th level, it let the entire group consider options that they couldn't earlier. So protecting them early on lets you go for bigger rewards later on. I present the world, and I have a lot of schemes, stories, and other things going on and it's up to the players to determine how the characters interact with the world around them. And it's up to them to determine how they work together as a team.

I wouldn't say it's the DM's job to design around advantages or disadvantages...but I would expect that most DMs do it to some extent. I would think that at most points of design....unless a DM designs an entire campaign before the players have created characters...the DM is aware of the character's strengths and weaknesses.

I'm sure there are folks who would say that doesn't apply to them, that they design their adventures for some general party of PCs, much in the way that published modules are designed. But I would expect such an approach to be used far less often, especially since the DM may subconsciously consider the specific party in question.

Just to turn this conversation back to important things, namely me (;p), I'd point out a couple of more details about our Ravenloft game.

Now, just to remind you all, I stated that the party is 8th level and I'm playing a hunter Ranger with a bow. In 8 levels, we have not found a magic bow or magic arrows (although we do have a number of silver ones) and it has been a serious challenge to my character. We have largely worked around the issue by having one of the casters drop a Magic Weapon spell on me when needed, although, that isn't a sure thing. And yes, the rest of the party has magic weapons.

Some people have expressed the notion that it's up to the DM to rectify this. He should drop in a magic bow or some arrows or something somewhere along the way.

Being "some people" I want to clarify that I don't necessarily look at it as the DM's responsibility to rectify such situations, just that it's within his ability. You went on in your post to point out how the player could address the situation through ASI assignment or Feat selection. And that's fine...those certainly would help mitigate the situation.

But it's also within the DM's ability to solve...and in a much simpler manner. I mean, why do the other players have magic weapons? Because the DM rewarded them with those items. So the question is why reward some players and not others? Why not drop a quiver of +1 arrows into a treasure hoard somewhere? Seems far easier than expecting the player to take on a new class or to change his approach to ASI/fear allocation. After all, the other players did not have to concern themselves with such considerations.

Now, this is not to say that there can't be a compelling reason for one PC to lack a magic weapon...I'm sure that there can be a variety of reasons. And I don't reward such items all at once in my campaign either, so there are always times where such imbalance is present. And my players are fine with it....but I tend to want to reward them all with cool stuff as they go along, so it's usually something that gets addressed sooner rather than later.

So whether or not it's actually a problem for the table or not, if it is, there are ways that the player can address it that require a pretty significant expenditure of character resources, yes. Or, more simply, the DM can throw that player a bone like he has the others.