Interesting -- I think of myself as roleplaying-oriented, but I'm apparently much more minmaxy than I thought. Here's my philosophy:
- Make a character concept.
- Minmax the heck out of the rules to get the best possible implementation of that character concept.
In another thread awhile back, I talked about having the concept for "A fantastic lock-picker who is renowned for his skill with locks." That's the base concept. Eventually, he'll get hair color and a fun accent and some cute witticisms, but for game purposes, I need to build a character that supports that concept. I need to take skill-boosting feats. And yeah, if a splatbook had a feat that let you pick locks in half the time, I'd totally go for that. (Note: Not sure I'd want to play a character this focused -- spending all my feats on getting really good with locks sounds kind of dull -- but it's a legit concept.)
I have a similar philosophy for power attacks. In real life, if you and your buddy are fighting some big scaly monster, and you see that your buddy's axe got through the scales with an awkward swing but didn't really hurt the thing a ton, you're going to comfortably say, "Alright, time to forego careful measured strikes and flail away." Your character doesn't know that he just watched an attack hit on AC15, and that he can now Power Attack:3 with few consequences. He just knows what he saw. In my mind, that's intelligent in-game knowledge (for average Int and Wis -- I'd play a Low-Int character differently, and a Low-Wis character differently from that. The Low-Wis character is slower to catch on, while the Low-Int character draws less than logical conclusions from watching his friend connect, and probably Power Attacks too much).
At least a few of these situations arise from GM problems, not player problems -- a GM who doesn't describe the situation very well and then gets annoyed when his players compensate for his lack of description by reading what the dice tell them.
GM: You're minmaxing by not using Expertise! I said it was scary! Your character should be using Expertise!
Player: No, you said it was scary, and then I saw that it hit with a roll of 2 -- meaning that its clumsiest, slowest, most awkward strike connected anyway. My best bet isn't to parry and dodge and hope it misses. My best bet is to lunge in desperately and try to hack it to death.
(I played under a GM who, when I, wounded and battered in mid-fight rolled 6 points of damage (the first six points of damage I'd done), described my rapier as stabbing through the monster's chest. I thought, "Hey, by the flavor text, this thing is almost dead," and didn't bother wasting a round on a healing potion. 20 points of damage later, it was still up and fighting. After that fight, I ignored the GM's flavor text, since I knew that he wasn't going to give me the helpful information my warrior would actually see in this fight, and I was stuck with reading the dice and going, "Well, 30 points of damage killed the first monster, and this one looks exactly the same, and I've hit it for 18, so two more good hits ought to do it." If, as a GM, you give bad flavor text, the players have only the dice by which to observe their world.)
There's also the Minmax situation in which the GM accidentally turns the situation into an arms race, providing "challenges" by throwing monsters that are far too powerful at the party -- which makes the party start minmaxing in order to survive, which then frustrates the GM, who feels he has to increase the enemy's power in order to give the party a good fight... and so on.
Not as simple a situation as it would appear on first glance.
