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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1585360" data-attributes="member: 3146">A true maximizer would have bought paired scimitars of wounding.However, the question "Is this min/maxing?" is a silly one. Of course it is. All character creation is. Could I create an utterly pathetic 18th level character. Of course I could. Hello halfling mnk 2/Ftr1/Rgr1/ex bbn 1/ex-brd 2/rog 2/ex-drd 1/Pal 2/Clr 2/Wizard 2/Sor 2 with his low score in wisdom, and his high scores in int and charisma. His saves are pretty good but at 18th level he can only cast 1st level spells and has a BAB +11. So he's no good at spellcasting and isn't good at fighting either. Now some people would create such a character and call it role-playing as if playing a character who can contribute nothing to a party except for (maybe) drawing a few attacks before his foes figure out he's harmless is the only way to prove that they're a "roleplayer" rather than a munchkin, power-gamer, or "roll-player." I believe the accepted term for such tendencies is "role-wimp." (Ironically, there is another category of characters that end up like this: those constructed by incompetent power gamers who think they're getting power by strange multi-class combos but end up neglecting important aspects of their characters and are consequently useless).While you took care to reduce your weaknesses and increase your strength vis a vis the role-wimp character, there's nothing unusual or unacceptable about that.On the other end of the scale, there's the fighter 2/ranger 2/ex-barbarian 2 (for uncanny dodge)/Monk 2 (for evasion)/paladin 3/Pious Templar 3(for mettle and weapon specialization)/Exotic Weapon Master 3/Dragonslayer 1 who talked his DM into creating a god with favored weapon: spiked chain, etc. This character (or a similarly optimized build--possibly substituting Occult Slayer or Holy Liberator for Paladin) has twisted the rules a lot more in order to exaggerate his strengths and minimize his weaknesses vis a vis your character. I would normally consider this a power gamed character. But I imagine that the folks of the WotC character optimization boards could create a better build than this.So, there's a wide spectrum of optimization and efficiency in design. The role-wimp character is designed to be as weak as possible. The power-gamer character is designed to be as strong as the creator can make him. That doesn't, however, mean that any character not designed to be weak is bad. Let's consider, for a moment, what the baseline for an 18th level character should be:For a fighter, let's consider this:Ftr 18. High strength, high con, mid dex. Wears adamantine fullplate, wields a bastard sword and large shield. He's got EWP, weapon focus, specialization, greater focus, greater specialization, and improved critical with his bastard sword. He's also got Power attack, cleave, great cleave, improved sunder. He's got combat expertise, improved trip, improved disarm, iron will, and lightning reflexes. He's also got quickdraw, dodge, and mobility. With his starting 25 strength (starting 15 +4 lvl+6 belt), boots of speed, +5 sword (we're talking an extremely basic fighter), he attacks five times per round at +33/+33/+28/+23/+18. He can disarm foes with weapons or sunder them, trip small foes (actually, if enlarged by the wizard, he's got a pretty good chance to trip some giants), boost his AC with Combat Expertise when he needs to hold the line, and punish low-AC foes with power attack (eschewing the buckler's AC bonus for two-handed power attack damage).  If he kills his enemy before he finishes his full attack action, he can hold his bastard sword in his buckler hand, and quickdraw and throw magic javalins (or javalins of lightning) with the rest of his actions--so he's competent at range. With his +5 buckler, +5 fullplate, +5 amulet of natural armor, +5 ring of protection, boots of speed, rose prism ioun stone, and +1 dex bonus, he has an AC of 42 before combat expertise (it's 43 against his dodge target, would be 46 if he had a tower shield, and could be 52 if he drinks a potion of alter self). With a basic +5 cloak of resistance and a stone of good luck, his saves start at +17/+14/+14. (Since he had has enough stats to have con, dex, and wis bonusses and money to but a con item and has a slot for gloves of dex, his reflex and fort saves are better than that). And that's very much a plain vanilla fighter. He hasn't multiclassed, hasn't taken any builder book or 3rd party feats, hasn't used any special weapon or armor abilities, and didn't start out with particularly impressive stats. (With your starting stats, he'd be a lot better).One could, of course, optimize that fighter a lot more. But at high levels, it would also be pretty easy to take the role-wimp road and deliberately make him weaker. However, if one did that, one would be intentionally making him weaker.I think your ranger shows up as pretty similar to that base-line, by the book fighter. Which means that he's neither particularly power-gamed nor has he been constructed as a role-wimp.</blockquote>

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