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

[Nathal]

Let me tell you about my last character, who rolled 4 18s, took levels in five different classes, and caused mass famine in three different real world countries.

Please do!


Sent from my iPhone using EN World mobile app

 

[Manbearcat]

Optimizing ends and min-maxing begins at:



As to "is min-maxing a bad thing?"

You're taking your life into your own hands.

 

[Boscogn]

To me optimizing and min max are separate. Picking Variant human just for proficiency in perception and an extra feat would be my definition of min/max. Making a mountain dwarf with high str not so much. Also another good example would be picking a background and then having a backstory that can't even relate to your class. Like a Salior Dwarf Paladin.. Or in my opinion multiclassing a Paladin into warlock and choosing to pact with a fiend...


Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk

 

[TwoSix]

You're taking your life into your own hands.

Or all four of them, if you're a thri-kreen.

 

[TwoSix]

To me optimizing and min max are separate. Picking Variant human just for proficiency in perception and an extra feat would be my definition of min/max. Making a mountain dwarf with high str not so much. Also another good example would be picking a background and then having a backstory that can't even relate to your class. Like a Salior Dwarf Paladin.. Or in my opinion multiclassing a Paladin into warlock and choosing to pact with a fiend...

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description[min-maxing], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the character involved in this thread is not that." -Potter Stewart (mostly)

 

[hejtmane]

To me optimizing and min max are separate. Picking Variant human just for proficiency in perception and an extra feat would be my definition of min/max. Making a mountain dwarf with high str not so much. Also another good example would be picking a background and then having a backstory that can't even relate to your class. Like a Salior Dwarf Paladin.. Or in my opinion multiclassing a Paladin into warlock and choosing to pact with a fiend...


Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk

Picking Mountain Dwarf is way min/maxing 2 str 2 con yea two key stats for str fighters or Barbs so if you go that class and you pick anything but Hill dwarf you are min/max. See I can twist that knife so hard and we can turn lots of things into min/max.

 

[Lanliss]

To me optimizing and min max are separate. Picking Variant human just for proficiency in perception and an extra feat would be my definition of min/max. Making a mountain dwarf with high str not so much. Also another good example would be picking a background and then having a backstory that can't even relate to your class. Like a Salior Dwarf Paladin.. Or in my opinion multiclassing a Paladin into warlock and choosing to pact with a fiend...
Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk

I actually had Blackbeard in my world planned as a Dwarf Paladin who follows the Pirate code as his oath.

 

[Boscogn]

I actually had Blackbeard in my world planned as a Dwarf Paladin who follows the Pirate code as his oath.

That sounds great. I was just thinking dwarf on water to be weird and hard to make a background for.

Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk

 

[Lanliss]

That sounds great. I was just thinking dwarf on water to be weird and hard to make a background for.

Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk

eh, depends on if you go stock dwarves or not. Most races in my world don't behave like default D&D versions, and honestly most of my characters don't either. I consider personality to be separate from race, otherwise you wind up with a thousand dwarves who all hate water, and elves. Makes them one of the most boring races IMO.

 

[Iain_Coleman]

It's another of those irregular verbs:

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