hawkeyefan
Legend
I don't claim that this is anything more than my opinion, but I think it's just a question of at what point certain decisions are made.
If you come up with an idea for a character first, and then try to make the best version of that possible, then that to me is optimizing. Your primary goal is to construct a character, and then your mechanical decisions are made to try and make that character as optimal as he can be.
If you always start with mechanics first, and all your decisions are made with game mechanics in mind, that's more a case of min-maxing.
I'm not offering any value judgment on either approach, but that would be the distinction I would make between the two approaches.
For the example given by [MENTION=6855234]CTurbo[/MENTION] in his OP...it's tough to say for sure without more info. I mean, the class was chosen ahead of time, but not much else. Stat allocation seems pretty textbook min-max...primary stats as high as possible, and others given little to no concern. No mention of any kind of backstory or personality trait or even what deity the cleric served.
It's kind of difficult to not see it as min-maxing. The only decision that seems to have been made without maximum mechanical advantage was that of class. And perhaps race...but both of these seem to have been selected already?
It may not be the case...it's hard to know for sure without knowing the reasons behind the feat choices and gear choices and so on. What I would do is see if any decisions were made for a reason other than maximizing stats and numbers.
Like if someone said to me "a dwarven thief just seems like a cool idea" I'd feel that was a good sign they weren't min-maxing. If the player then took the combo of dwarf and rogue and tried to make as effective a dwarven rogue as possible, that would be optimizing.
If you come up with an idea for a character first, and then try to make the best version of that possible, then that to me is optimizing. Your primary goal is to construct a character, and then your mechanical decisions are made to try and make that character as optimal as he can be.
If you always start with mechanics first, and all your decisions are made with game mechanics in mind, that's more a case of min-maxing.
I'm not offering any value judgment on either approach, but that would be the distinction I would make between the two approaches.
For the example given by [MENTION=6855234]CTurbo[/MENTION] in his OP...it's tough to say for sure without more info. I mean, the class was chosen ahead of time, but not much else. Stat allocation seems pretty textbook min-max...primary stats as high as possible, and others given little to no concern. No mention of any kind of backstory or personality trait or even what deity the cleric served.
It's kind of difficult to not see it as min-maxing. The only decision that seems to have been made without maximum mechanical advantage was that of class. And perhaps race...but both of these seem to have been selected already?
It may not be the case...it's hard to know for sure without knowing the reasons behind the feat choices and gear choices and so on. What I would do is see if any decisions were made for a reason other than maximizing stats and numbers.
Like if someone said to me "a dwarven thief just seems like a cool idea" I'd feel that was a good sign they weren't min-maxing. If the player then took the combo of dwarf and rogue and tried to make as effective a dwarven rogue as possible, that would be optimizing.