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

[ScaleyBob]

As a Player I'm not against Min/Maxing, and do it myself, although I do dislike having an 8 for an attribute - I just dislike having a penalty on any stat, even at the cost of bumping something else up.

As a GM, I'm ambivalent about it. I can't really complain about someone doing it as I do it myself, but if someone has a very low stat, or more than one, then I'm going to make sure that it gets rolled against reasonably often. If they want to be weak in an area then that will have an effect on what the PCs are doing. I find it highly amusing when some of my players have a dump stat and then desperately try to rationalise never actually using for anything. "My Wisdom is high, so I can use Survival instead of Nature" Sorry No. "My Dex is High so Acrobatics replaces Athletics for any physical check" Also No. I like using Investigation and History quite a lot because several Players have dumped Int, and it's a good way of reminding them of the fact.

As an aside, why do so many people consider an 8 in a Stat as only slightly below average? If you use the Standard Array then the average is 12, if you points buy it's between 12 and 13, and if you roll using the 4d6, discard the lowest it's around 12. 8 is the lowest a standard PC/NPC can have in a stat in 5E. It isn't slightly low, it's the rock bottom.

 

[Mad_Jack]

As an aside, why do so many people consider an 8 in a Stat as only slightly below average? If you use the Standard Array then the average is 12, if you points buy it's between 12 and 13, and if you roll using the 4d6, discard the lowest it's around 12. 8 is the lowest a standard PC/NPC can have in a stat in 5E. It isn't slightly low, it's the rock bottom.

They're referring to the "human" average, the average score of the random folks in the game world, not the mechanical range of PC scores...
Although they haven't explicitly stated it in several editions, the 'average" human range of abilities in D&D is supposed to be between 8-12... With an 8 being below average but hardly handicapped and a 12 being rather good but not exceptional.
Adventurers, by their nature, are expected to be exceptional in many ways.

 

[ScaleyBob]

They're referring to the "human" average, the average score of the random folks in the game world, not the mechanical range of PC scores...
Although they haven't explicitly stated it in several editions, the 'average" human range of abilities in D&D is supposed to be between 8-12... With an 8 being below average but hardly handicapped and a 12 being rather good but not exceptional.
Adventurers, by their nature, are expected to be exceptional in many ways.

Pretty much my point really although I didn't word it very well. It's been maybe 3 editions since this was the case. Nowadays 8 is the lowest, rather than 3. Even NPCs don't seem to adhere to the old days of 10/11 being the average stat.

Who else remembers having to roll 3d6 and in order to make their characters?

I don't consider an 8 to be handicapped, but as I did sum it up to my players "You know the stupidest, or weakest, or sickliest person you know - that's an 8." Didn't stop some of them having multiple 8 on the Character sheet.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Nowadays 8 is the lowest, rather than 3.

8 is the lowest for a PC, probably most other adventurers (though the DMs free to do what he wants with NPCs), and likely for most humanoids willing to stand up to an adventurer in a fight (well, maybe WIS might be considerably lower). But for everyone else? Nah. The Village Idiot doesn't have an 8 INT, he as south of 6. The 5 year old kid does not have a STR of 8. The invalid on her deathbead does not have a CON of 8.

Who else remembers having to roll 3d6 and in order to make their characters?

A lot of us, I'm guess'n. 9-12 was the nominal average back then, you might get a penalty starting as high as 8, meaningful bonuses rarely kicked in below 15 (minor bonuses as low as 13). Since 3.0, 10-11 are dead-average, 8-9 & 12-13 above/below. So, yeah, slight shift, there. But 8 is nothing that'd stand out as particularly worse than 10. An 8 STR arm-wrestling a 10 STR will still win fairly often, it'll take a number of contests to get a clear picture of who's stronger, by then, CON may confound the results.

8-12 (really, 8-13 in practical terms of swinging a d20 check) is pretty darn average, and not a huge difference in any edition.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I definitely know people IRL with stats lower than 8.

Sent from my LG-D852 using EN World mobile app

 

[JonnyP71]

8 is only the lowest if you use point buy. Despite what some say here, rolling is still the most prevalent method.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I don't allow rolling for stats. I don't mind min-maxing as long as it's not using meta information from the adventure. Min-maxers are quite unlikely to gain inspiration in my games, though.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

I'm not sure about min/maxing but I know I am a fan of max/mixing.

Make mine a gin & tonic - and hold the tonic!

 

[iserith]

Min-maxers are quite unlikely to gain inspiration in my games, though.

That's interesting - it tends to be the opposite in mine. Rather than wait for the DM to award it, my players can choose to claim Inspiration when they play to their personality traits, ideals, bonds, or flaw (limit once per session per characteristic). So that's four chances for them to get that valuable resource per session. As a result, you end up seeing the players - especially those who care about optimization - striving to play to those characteristics. There's been many a time that Inspiration has made the difference between victory or calamity, life or death. A "min-maxer" given clear rules on how to earn that resource is very likely in my experience to be the one who demonstrates personal characteristics the most.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

That's interesting - it tends to be the opposite in mine. Rather than wait for the DM to award it, my players can choose to claim Inspiration when they play to their personality traits, ideals, bonds, or flaw (limit once per session per characteristic). So that's four chances for them to get that valuable resource per session. As a result, you end up seeing the players - especially those who care about optimization - striving to play to those characteristics. There's been many a time that Inspiration has made the difference between victory or calamity, life or death. A "min-maxer" given clear rules on how to earn that resource is very likely in my experience to be the one who demonstrates personal characteristics the most.

I only reward inspiration when putting yourself into a disadvantage by playing out a flaw, which is what min-maxers usually don't do. They would just complain "What's the point of inspiration when you first have to get disadvantage to even get it?" sometimes, but usually they just accept my rule silently. While my players that are heavily into roleplaying just play out their flaws anyway and are more like "Heh, I didn't actually do this to get inspiration, I just wanted to play out my character, but nice."