D&D 5E (2014) Where does optimizing end and min-maxing begin? And is min-maxing a bad thing?

[TwoSix]

It's another of those irregular verbs:

I create effective character concepts
You powergame
He/she is a total munchkin

Subtle but brilliant. Kudos.

 

[TwoSix]

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

 

[iserith]

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."

If that's the case, it seems like my rule for Inspiration would result in both your "min-maxers" and your players "that are heavily into roleplaying" playing up their personal characteristics. Presuming your goal is to see more of that in your games, that is.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

The goal of my ruling is that you can either min-max or play your character, it doesn't make a different in the end because inspiration balances that out.

 

[iserith]

The goal of my ruling is that you can either min-max or play your character, it doesn't make a different in the end because inspiration balances that out.

With my ruling, you can both "min-max" AND "play your character." I don't see why these approaches need to be mutually exclusive.

 

[jasper]

I definitely know people IRL with stats lower than 8.

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You ugly good for nothing loser. You just hate my smell good and my my wave with words. And the fact eye is way better looking than ewe.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[neogod22]

Really the difference comes in, when you are building your character purely on stats and not for the roleplaying aspect. He called you a min/maxer because you built 2 characters and asked him which you should play, instead of just building your character and saying "this is what I'm playing."

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[Hussar]

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

Swimming upthread a bit for this quote, but, this, right here, is the heart of the issue AFAIC. Min/maxxing or powergaming or whatever, is an issue when someone else makes it an issue. Very few people would describe their choices as min/maxxing. And, with 30 seconds, you can justify pretty much any character building decision you care to choose. The issue here is that there are players, primarily DM's, who feel that it is incumbent upon themselves to police the players and make sure that those players are playing "right".

While the persistent mantra is "trust your DM", I find that the opposite "trust your players", while equally true, is practiced a lot less frequently.

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."

To me, this is a case in point. Note that [MENTION=6801585]Rya.Reisender[/MENTION] has adjusted the mechanics for Inpiration. This isn't what is in the PHB. The question I ask is, "why?" Why alter the rules? You want to encourage players to play up their flaws, but, only their flaws? Doesn't that mean that players will become just a collection of flaws, rather than presenting well rounded individuals? Sure, characters have flaws and those should certainly inform play, fair enough. But, that's just one facet of a character. There are also goals and beliefs too, if we're sticking with just the stuff from Backgrounds. Why are those not also given equal weight and rewarded equally?

Look, it's your game, and do what makes you happy. But, for me, I think that this approach may not produce the best results.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I largely agree with folks who are saying it isn't really an issue. I think most often, it really isn't...unless, as [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] suggested, people make it an issue. I think the 5E mechanics make it far less of an issue than some prior editions.

I do have an example where this came up. This was during the time when my group had abandoned 4E and moved over to Pathfinder. This was the last time I DMed for a Pathfinder game.

I had a player who played every week. He built an Arcane Archer that he loved. The character had a good deal of versatility and utility, and was very effective with his bow in combat.

I had another player who played occasionally. Every time he played, it was with a new character. He had access to just about all the books, so the options available to him were plentiful. All of his characters were specialized in one way...he made a polearm fighter who focused on tripping his enemies, or a pure tank to have as high an AC as possible, and so on.

So the occasional player made a new character...a barbarian of some sort, and he could basically force enemies to attack him in melee through some BS feat. Character was min/maxed to the gills, multiclassed in some way that I can't recall, and was a beast in combat. A bit annoying, but we can deal.

The issue came up when, at a moment when the character was unable to rage, he found himself needing to draw his bow to try and reach his enemies.

And that's when I found out that this barbarian had a better ranges to hit than the arcane archer. And that just annoyed me. This is like the thing that he's third best at...and he's better than the arcane archer. Bonkers.

So now....what do you guys think? Should my regular player who uses the same character that he loves every session be outshines by the occasional player who just sits at home for hours and creates builds for different characters and then tries them once and discards them?