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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bendris Noulg" data-source="post: 1438789" data-attributes="member: 6398">In this regard, you are right.  I mean, does anyone ever wonder how all these predators in the Monster Manual find food without Ranks in Survival and the Track Feat?  Aside from the few they gave Scent to... At any rate, I must admit that, as the GM of such a group, it's not particularly easy, because most of the challenges provided (MM, DMG, and most 3rd Party products) assume some measure of min/max occuring (and to design a product without that assumption raises issues of the material being underpowered and broken).  As such, I am either shifting CR on a party-by-party basis or redesigning creatures to be more fitting to their role within the setting. By the same token, we do end up with characters that are a reflection of their history.  For instance, one character was originally conceived as a straight Fighter.  However, after an extensive jungle trek, the player determined that a level of Ranger was in order after it was done and everyone leveled (this being the first Athas Ranger, not the Core Ranger, with Favored Terrain: Jungle).  Now they have been in an urban environment for some deal of time, and with all of the social interaction that has occured, he's seriously considering a level of either Rogue or Expert (similar to the UA version of expert...  Or, that is to say, the UA Expert is suspiciously similar to the version of Expert I've been using for nearly two years now...).  He's leaning towards Expert, since some of the Rogue's features (Sneak Attack, Traps) don't quite fit what the PC has been dealing with during this time, while the extra Skill Points from Expert, Skill Focus (which my Experts get at 1st Level), and the ability to choose the Skills he wants, greater assists him in reflecting both the social skills that he's been developing in-game as well as permit his character to gain a few Skills associated to his role within the party (military based, recently promoted from Squad Sergeant over four soldiers to Lance Sergeant over 15, and thus Skills like Knowledge: Military, Profession: Soldier, and Craft: Siege Engine are becoming relevant in-game). Is this character going to be uber-efficient in the min/max sense?  No.  But he is very effective within the gaming environment in which he is being played, being both a competant combatant (+4 BAB from Fighter, +3 BAB from Racial Hit Dice, +1 BAB from Ranger, +4 Attack from Strength, -1 Attack from Size), suitable survivalist (Favored Terrain and Skills from Ranger), and (with the next level up) will be a fully trained professional soldier with some competance relating to social interaction. This, then, would be an example of "Practical Min/Maxing" as defined earlier; The character's competance cannot be measured by the numbers alone, but rather by applying those numbers to the game environment in which the character is a part of.  The more inclusive that environment is, the less optimal "highest numbers" become because the impact on other facets of the character (i.e., the options declined by the player to obtain the highest numbers in the specialized features) become more relevant in game play.</blockquote>

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