[TOUCHY SUBJECT] Why all the hate for min-maxing?

[ph0rk]

First of all maybe we don't share the same defination of min/maxing to me a min/maxer only picks feats and skills and classes for how powerful it will make him the concept is how powerful the character can be so he in 3E took a level of ranger and a level of barbarian to get the benefits of thoses classes and if he took a prestige class it did not have anything to do with the game world or his character other than how powerful he would be. An example I saw of this was in one game where the person using a combo of classes and pRCs and I think a few magic items in a Forgotten Realm game had a will save at seventh level of +26 I don't remember exactly how he did it but

The DM needs/needed to rein that in. You can't just take PrC's willy-nilly unless they are core or (in that case) part of the FR setting. I don't have any of the FR books before me, but I remember most of the PrC's in FR required some roleplaying element, indeed many of the better ones from builder books do too. Either the DM made accomodations for the player to meet the rp requirements, or the player cheated. Either way, the DM needs to be on top of that stuff.

as for magic items, if you let players select their own magic items they will end up being dramaticaly more powerful than if they get what the loot tables and dice grant them. (they can pick items to enhance strengths and eliminate weaknesses, magic marts and the like throw balance way out of whack)

Its because they have read the rules that they are min-maxer's.

That sounds like you are saying the rules lend themselves to optimization. Is it cheating or isn't it?

The next time I run a module or two, you can bet I'd rather have players that have read the books than those that haven't. (Does anyone really want players that don't read the books?)

It seems like many of the examples people are using to depict the horrors of min-maxing include magic items out of control and PrCs selected without DM supervision. Are these campaigns following all the PrC requirements and wealth by level rules?

 

[Saeviomagy]

I have played a fighter who had a high int and I took a lot of cross class skills she did more than fight which she was also good at. I gave her a lot of knowledge skills in planes and religion and arcana the party did not have a wizard or a cleric and she provided quite well any thing we needed to know about these things. So a fighter does not have to be a one trick pony. And yes I put my highest stat an 18 in INT and my next which was a 14 in STR. Which to the min/maxers I know made no sense but the character rocked she was fun to play and she held her own in battle.

With those sorts of levels in knowledge skills, your DM must have been catering to the lack of a wizard or cleric in the party. Furthermore, when compared with a wizard who'd actually taken knowledges, you'd have been left for dust. And I daresay you wouldn't have been feeling too good about it.

This isn't a complaint about you. It's a complaint about the fighter class, and it's lack of anything but combat potential.

 

[jester47]

Well this one has gone ovewr my 5 page limit. Have a good one guys. I'm out of this thread.

Aaron.

 

[ph0rk]

I have played a fighter who had a high int and I took a lot of cross class skills she did more than fight which she was also good at. I gave her a lot of knowledge skills in planes and religion and arcana the party did not have a wizard or a cleric and she provided quite well any thing we needed to know about these things. So a fighter does not have to be a one trick pony. And yes I put my highest stat an 18 in INT and my next which was a 14 in STR. Which to the min/maxers I know made no sense but the character rocked she was fun to play and she held her own in battle.

It is impossible for a fighter to compete with any class for knowledge skills. Most other classes get more base skill points than a fighter, and those that also get 2 points (most notably wizards, sorcerors, and clerics) happen to get those three skills as class skills.

Just out of curiosity, why didn't you play a bard if you wanted to fight and have lots of skills? was the 5 points of BAB and hit points that big a deal?

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Well this one has gone ovewr my 5 page limit. Have a good one guys. I'm out of this thread.

Yeah, we've had a bit of this lately...

Some of it's even been productive.

I think.

 

[Elf Witch]

With those sorts of levels in knowledge skills, your DM must have been catering to the lack of a wizard or cleric in the party. Furthermore, when compared with a wizard who'd actually taken knowledges, you'd have been left for dust. And I daresay you wouldn't have been feeling too good about it.

This isn't a complaint about you. It's a complaint about the fighter class, and it's lack of anything but combat potential.

Well of course it would not have been the same with a wizard or a cleric in the party and I might have made a diffrent character then. I have this aid many timea about fighters that their of class skills make then boring to play outside of combat. And that is true if you use rolling for everything and there is no role playing.

I do not like the skill system in DnDI think in a lot of ways it is very limiting. You should see my rants on the sorcerer's skill list. It is one reason I like other systems like the Hero System it allows more customs characters without so many restrictions.

We have a lot of house rules dealing with skills in my various games. One of them is that there is no such thing as cross class skills. So you could have a fighter who is as good as rogue at say sleight of hand. So far it has not caused any problems because in this example the rogue still has a whole lot more skill points to use than a fighter.

 

[Elf Witch]

It is impossible for a fighter to compete with any class for knowledge skills. Most other classes get more base skill points than a fighter, and those that also get 2 points (most notably wizards, sorcerors, and clerics) happen to get those three skills as class skills.

Just out of curiosity, why didn't you play a bard if you wanted to fight and have lots of skills? was the 5 points of BAB and hit points that big a deal?

I did not play a bard because it did not fit the concept I was going for which was of an educated warrior. Mechanical reasons I wanted the extra feats a fighter gets I was following a feat chain that would have been hard to do as a bard.

It seemed the best compromise more feats less skills to get what I was going for.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

I did not play a bard because it did not fit the concept I was going for which was of an educated warrior.

I have a similar PC in an Oathbound game... I gave him high Intelligence at creation and twice he's taken the Versatile Feat from Rokugan (2 Cross Class Skills become Class Skills), which gave me 4 extra Class Skills: Appraisal, for rating mercenary contracts, Diplomacy, for negotiating contracts and negotiating an enemy army's surrender, Knowledge, cause he's smart, and Sense Motive, for determining the intentions of enemy troop movements. I'm probably pushing the limit on picking Knowledge overall rather than a single Knowledge skill, but discussing it with my GM, it was agreed that it fit concept and wasn't anything earth shattering, so it was allowed. He also puts a 1/2 Rank into Bluff every even level, for the use of hiding the actual intentions in his own manuevers.

Granted, when my copy of Fields of Blood arives, I might change these skills if there are other suitable Skill choices presented for the same purpose (and the GM approves), but these seemed to make the most sense, over all, with the rules on-hand (essentially a combination of bits from AEG's Mercenaries and WotC's Wheel of Time).

At any rate, for anyone interested in making an "educated" anything that doesn't have Knowledge as a Class Skill, I highly recommend this Feat. For those that feel that 2 Skills is too much, there's a 1 Skill version in the Netbook of Feats called Cross Class Learning (I, myself, use both in my campaign, with the NBoF version renamed as Aptitude and made a prereq to Versatile).

 

[Gort]

I find this quite odd, because unlike the prior two editions of the game, Charisma is a decent stat. Its not the dump for the lowest roll. Now a fair number of skills are based upon it, and a couple classes rely on having a decent number in it.

Yeah, but those classes are bard and sorceror, and there aren't any in the party.

You can argue that cleric charisma is important too, but our cleric prestiged out into the inquisitor class, forfeiting his turn undead progression anyway, so it doesn't matter at all for him.

And if you've got one character with high charisma, you just get him to do all your shopping for you, even if your personal charisma is 3. (if the GM is making high charisma characters get discounts)

I have a question when we do point buy taking anything below an 8 does not get you anything. A 6 cost the same as an 8 which is nothing. I was wondering if you allow extra points to be used for the lesser numbers

Yeah, I did allow them to get points back. However, there's only one character who did that, the elf wizard. The dwarf has a 6 due to his -2 charisma penalty.

Though hindsight is 20/20, I would have worked on making the low int and cha a liability from the start. A deficient Int and Cha can make a character unable to speak and relate well, and IMHO should be kept in the back of the DM's mind just like a high Cha when the character is interacting.

In other words, even if the player doesn't -seem- to be roleplaying the low stats, you as the DM should still be taking them into account. Higher prices, people ignoring them in the street, perhaps the dullwit being taken by a rolex vendor in the street, etc

Yeah, I do that from time to time, but I don't want to screw the players too badly for it. After all, the game's supposed to be fun

The other comment I would make on that party: the party is imbalanced. They don't have a primary warrior. The Druid, Cleric and Rogue will be ok secondary fighters, but spells like Silence and antimagic, and grappling are really going to hurt. Undead may well be a pain too, as the Cleric can't turn them. Maybe as a DM you should encourage party balance: e.g. after the Barbarian died, "The party really needs another frontline fighter. Maybe you should make your Dwarf a Fighter - they make very good tanks."

Heh, funny you should say that, they've recruited my girlfriend (up till now, a non D&Der) to be their new frontline fighter. I quote, "Hah, she'll be invincible, Gort won't dare kill her!"

 

[Gort]

Ach