D&D 5E Where does optimizing end and min-maxing begin? And is min-maxing a bad thing?

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[pming]

Hiya.

TL;DR I think [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] nailed it a few posts back but I'll toss in my 2¢.

Player: "Hmmm...if I take this, i get +1 to hit. If I also take this, I'll get another +1 to hit. I guess I can reduce my Int and Wis to get a higher Str, to get another +1 to hit. Oh! And if I take this over here, I can get another attack. Sweet!" <-- that is a min/MAX'er to me. Someone who primarily/only looks at the bonuses and mechanical adjustments in order to build a PC. Once it's done, then he/she goes into the "character" RPG stuff to figure out the personality, background story, and all that kind of thing.

Player: "Hmmm...he was a farm boy who didn't want to be a farmer so he always took extra militia training. In his late teens, he and his father had a really bad falling out, so he left to join the army full time. Yeah...I'll take this for him, and that gives him +1 to hit. He was used to using things with both hands...swinging big lumber axes, chopping wood, using a shovel, pitch fork, rake, that kind of thing, so he's not using a shield. Maybe I'll go with a big spear? I'll give him this fighting style then, which gives him a +1 to his AC when wearing armor. Yeah, that works. He's more well rounded, overall, so I'll just leave his stats as is, but I'll take this over here, he can have some extra skill points; Animal Handling, Nature, and maybe Athletics? Or maybe Medicine? Yeah...Medicine; he did well in first aid training." <--- that is NOT a min/MAX'er to me. Someone who primarily/only looks at the characters personality, background story, goals, and all the "character" RPG stuff, choosing whatever mechanical thing fits the bill.

To me, for my preference, I prefer players who are NOT min/MAX'ers. And yeah, I think min/MAX'ing is a bad thing...but only a very light version of 'bad'. Not like 'torture kittens to death' kind of bad, more like 'didn't put the top back on the milk' kind of bad. IME, if you have one min/MAX'er in the group, then everyone in the group has to do it (at least to some degree). Otherwise you have a Street Rat (with a knife), a Vagabond (with a hand ax), a Cyber-Doc (with a box of band-aids), and a Cosmo-Knight who just got to Rifts Earth (in his personal dimension-hopping star destroyer), all in a party.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[nswanson27]

Hiya.

TL;DR I think @lowkey13 nailed it a few posts back but I'll toss in my 2¢.

Player: "Hmmm...if I take this, i get +1 to hit. If I also take this, I'll get another +1 to hit. I guess I can reduce my Int and Wis to get a higher Str, to get another +1 to hit. Oh! And if I take this over here, I can get another attack. Sweet!" <-- that is a min/MAX'er to me. Someone who primarily/only looks at the bonuses and mechanical adjustments in order to build a PC. Once it's done, then he/she goes into the "character" RPG stuff to figure out the personality, background story, and all that kind of thing.

Player: "Hmmm...he was a farm boy who didn't want to be a farmer so he always took extra militia training. In his late teens, he and his father had a really bad falling out, so he left to join the army full time. Yeah...I'll take this for him, and that gives him +1 to hit. He was used to using things with both hands...swinging big lumber axes, chopping wood, using a shovel, pitch fork, rake, that kind of thing, so he's not using a shield. Maybe I'll go with a big spear? I'll give him this fighting style then, which gives him a +1 to his AC when wearing armor. Yeah, that works. He's more well rounded, overall, so I'll just leave his stats as is, but I'll take this over here, he can have some extra skill points; Animal Handling, Nature, and maybe Athletics? Or maybe Medicine? Yeah...Medicine; he did well in first aid training." <--- that is NOT a min/MAX'er to me. Someone who primarily/only looks at the characters personality, background story, goals, and all the "character" RPG stuff, choosing whatever mechanical thing fits the bill.

To me, for my preference, I prefer players who are NOT min/MAX'ers. And yeah, I think min/MAX'ing is a bad thing...but only a very light version of 'bad'. Not like 'torture kittens to death' kind of bad, more like 'didn't put the top back on the milk' kind of bad. IME, if you have one min/MAX'er in the group, then everyone in the group has to do it (at least to some degree). Otherwise you have a Street Rat (with a knife), a Vagabond (with a hand ax), a Cyber-Doc (with a box of band-aids), and a Cosmo-Knight who just got to Rifts Earth (in his personal dimension-hopping star destroyer), all in a party.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Nobody has to do anything with their character build. Do they find themselves with people that are a little better (your example exaggerates) at combat than them? Ok, RP that then. This can actually happen even if there aren't any optimizers in the group.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[The Crimson Binome]

So, if you're playing ToTM, you can use grid combat (minis). An if you're using grid combat, you can also use ToTM. It's not that they are necessarily mutually exclusive.

On the other hand, if your table only uses ToTM, a single player cannot insist on playing grid combat. And vice versa. It kind of goes without saying.

I don't follow your example. Whether or not you use a grid to help you visualize what's going on, it's the same reality that's being modeled. If the troll is fifteen feet away from the wizard, and the orc is ten feet to its left, then that's equally true whether you're using miniatures or just tracking everything in your head based on descriptions.

 

[nswanson27]

deleted

 

[iserith]

Player: "Hmmm...if I take this, i get +1 to hit. If I also take this, I'll get another +1 to hit. I guess I can reduce my Int and Wis to get a higher Str, to get another +1 to hit. Oh! And if I take this over here, I can get another attack. Sweet!" <-- that is a min/MAX'er to me. Someone who primarily/only looks at the bonuses and mechanical adjustments in order to build a PC. Once it's done, then he/she goes into the "character" RPG stuff to figure out the personality, background story, and all that kind of thing.

Player: "Hmmm...he was a farm boy who didn't want to be a farmer so he always took extra militia training. In his late teens, he and his father had a really bad falling out, so he left to join the army full time. Yeah...I'll take this for him, and that gives him +1 to hit. He was used to using things with both hands...swinging big lumber axes, chopping wood, using a shovel, pitch fork, rake, that kind of thing, so he's not using a shield. Maybe I'll go with a big spear? I'll give him this fighting style then, which gives him a +1 to his AC when wearing armor. Yeah, that works. He's more well rounded, overall, so I'll just leave his stats as is, but I'll take this over here, he can have some extra skill points; Animal Handling, Nature, and maybe Athletics? Or maybe Medicine? Yeah...Medicine; he did well in first aid training." <--- that is NOT a min/MAX'er to me. Someone who primarily/only looks at the characters personality, background story, goals, and all the "character" RPG stuff, choosing whatever mechanical thing fits the bill.

Try as I might, I just can't bring myself to care about how a player goes about creating a character.

 

[Tony Vargas]

On the other hand, if your table only uses ToTM, a single player cannot insist on playing grid combat. And vice versa.

Seems completely different, since it's a procedural thing. Though, really, even if you use a grid, you can still use your imagination... you can't quite grid when everyone else is all TotM, but you can keep on TotM'n even if there's a grid out, you'll just seem to be asking dumb questions now and then... ;P

Anyway, I don't happen to agree with you that OP and RP are "perfectly aligned" with each other, and that's okay.

They can be aligned, even aligned perfectly in some cases. They can also be at odds in specific cases depending on the system, among other things. If your group emphasizes one over another, there's a clear source of friction and a table-appropriate way to resolve it. That there may also be such friction and expected resolution when the two approaches are in accord is what I found less reasonable.

 

[pemerton]

The PC builds described by [MENTION=6855234]CTurbo[/MENTION] in the OP are not "exploiting rules loopholes". The point-buy chart for ability scores is not a rules loophole. The rule that allows a variant human to add to a couple of stats is not a rules loophole. Getting +1 STR from taking a "half"-feat is not a rules loophole.

Also, in a lot of threads I've read how "bounded accuracy" means that (in 5e) there is not a huge difference in effectivenss between a character with 12 or 14 in main stat, and a character with 18 or 20 in that stat. If this is true, then how is a 16 STR, CON, WIS cleric going to break the game, or force the GM to frame encounters that will kill all the other PCs?

 

[lowkey13]

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