D&D 4E Min/Maxing in 4e

[Kzach]

I'm about to start playing in a new 4e group. One of the players chose a sub-optimal stat allocation and I queried him on it. The DM replied that he shouldn't min/max and it immediately irked me that he said it.

Now before I go on, I should say that there is nothing personal about this thread and I totally understand where the DM is coming from, it's just that I realised something about 4e in that moment that made me think.

4e is designed for min/maxing.

Now, I don't mind this. I'm quite happy to min/max. I'm not a great believer in Rath being a playable character and never have been. The characters are adventurers, they're meant to be uber.

But it seems that now I'm on the other side of the fence (I hardly ever play, always a DM) I'm running into the opposite opinion. Which would be fine in a system where sub-optimal characters are still powerful, but in a system that is designed for min/maxing, I believe it's detrimental to the group if you don't.

Anyway, I was curious what other people thought so I put it to you, the audience: should min/maxing be encouraged or discouraged in 4e?

 

[Cadfan]

Define min/maxing? I haven't really seen a major problem yet with the character creation rules in terms of min maxing, but I look at it from either a point buy or an array perspective. With the array (and counting racial bonuses), your options for min/maxing are limited. You can basically end up with an 18 in one stat, and then a smattering of others. Or, you can end up with two 16s, and a smattering of others. That doesn't bug me.

With point buy, you could get a 20 in one stat, but it will cost you 16 points out of 22. And secondary (and tertiary) ability scores are important for most classes.

So I guess... what sort of stat arrays are you considering "min/maxed?"

 

[BlackMoria]

Here is a hard data point but it is only one data point.

I ran a test group of optimized characters through the first three encounters (ending with the Irontooth encounter) in KotSF.

No deaths, only one character dropped to single digits.

I ran a test group (same number of characters) of sub-optimal characters through the same three encounters.

It was ugly. Three character deaths and the remaining characters escaped with single digit hit points with Irontooth and some kobolds very much alive.

The experiment isn't scientific by any means but it was very noticeable that the sub-optimal party had a harder time of it and the combats lasted longer (this was the key issue in the final encounter because the min/max group put away the initial wave the kobolds before the Irontooth wave arrived and the sub-optimal group only put away about 2/3 of the first wave when the Irontooth wave arrived.) As I said....ugly.

 

[Ipissimus]

Mmmm, lemoncurry.

I think that every rpg can be min/maxed the moment that statistics of any kind come into play. Someone will always try to massage the statistics in their favor.

 

[Agamon]

I don't think 4e really lends itself to minmaxing very much. Optimal builds and sub-optimal builds, sure. Bur minmax to the point of brokenness is pretty tough now, I think.

 

[Argyuile]

Levels of min/maxing have always effected the overall power of a party. 3d6 for each ability and whatever you get you get is a lot different than a point buy, which is a lot different than 5d6 drop 2 and put them wherever the hell you want.

As a DM I am assuming that the point buy is the "default" character power level. If I change the method creation then I expect to have to adjust my encounters. It my be that if you dont optimize your stats many encounters as written may be to powerful for your PC's

This isn't really a big deal as I see it especially with the new encounter building process. All you need to do is say ok for THIS group of PC's they can only handle about 75exp worth of mobs per level per pc instead of 100 as a normal encounter. Then build your encounters based off a new (slightly weaker) baseline.

Can you imagine no min maxing at all. Lets get that fighter with a str of 8, maybe he's fun to roleplay but he's useless in combat since he can't hit anythings AC. Really crappy characters cause balance issues just as much as some overpowered character does.

I'd personally prefer if my players got as much out of their characters as they could. Its much easier in my opinion to realize encounters are to weak and throttle them up then to realize you made it way to hard and to throttle them back.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

I'm about to start playing in a new 4e group. One of the players chose a sub-optimal stat allocation and I queried him on it. The DM replied that he shouldn't min/max and it immediately irked me that he said it.

can you give the pc's stats, and what stats you think he should have had? that would help alot with the discussion. Min/Max, Power Gaming, and other terms tend to vary in meaning.

I tend to use the word Optimized.

I would consider My Charicter Optimized if he was a Elf Ranger with a 20 dex, and 16 wis, 11 con and 8 in cha.

 

[Mengu]

I tend to use the word Optimized.

I like that word too. I think 4e was designed to balance the optimized characters. So if you want a balanced party, I think everyone is expected to optimize, at least to a degree. You can get the occasional flavor ability or penalty, but character quirks and flaws are expected to be dealt with outside of combat parameters.

 

[Cadfan]

I like that word too. I think 4e was designed to balance the optimized characters. So if you want a balanced party, I think everyone is expected to optimize, at least to a degree. You can get the occasional flavor ability or penalty, but character quirks and flaws are expected to be dealt with outside of combat parameters.

I haven't noticed any problems with characters using the default array of 16/14/13/12/11/10, assuming that they assign their stats wisely. Then again, I haven't exactly played the game from level 1 to level 30 to test. Personally, I don't consider that optimization.

Even when not using the array, I find that my point buy characters end up awfully close to it. At most, point buy tends to free up about five points, from dropping the 13 to a 10, the 11 to a 10, and the 10 to an 8. And since you then spend those five points on high stats that cost more than one point of buy to obtain +1 to the stat, it doesn't make a huge difference.

 

[Nifft]

4e allows some optimization, but it's mostly stuff that is blatantly obvious.

The only non-obvious min/max decision that players will have to deal with is which stat array to choose: 16/14/14/13/10/8 or 16/16/13/11/10/8.

I guess the other (marginally) non-obvious thing is to realize that most classes have two "attack stat"s, and you only need one of them to be effective.

Cheers, -- N