Would you min max a character to compensate for lousy attributes?

[Gold Roger]

Depends on what you mean by min maxing.

Making the character powerfull and interesting? Yes. I don't deny I'm in part powergamer.

Milking as much power as possible from the character, in that course completely disregarding gameworld, PC-group and character consistency? No way, because I'm not all powergamer and this would bother the rest of the group.

 

[Hypersmurf]

"... but hey, I've got a 12 in Charisma, so at least one ability isn't single figures. I'm gonna play a Commoner. Skill Focus in Handle Animal... he'll be the most kickass first level farmer around."
"But the adventure is escorting a caravan through goblin-infested mountains..."
"Dude, I'm not leaving my sheep to go goblin-hunting! It wouldn't be in character for Farmer Bob."
"I don't think Farmer Bob is going to work for this campaign."
"Awww... okay, hand me the dice..."

-Hyp.

 

[Fieari]

Everyone min maxes, or else they go Hypersmurf's route. Alternatively, you could max/min, which I've seen done on the WotC CharOp board. Someone figured out how you can rules-legally play as a turkey sandwich, with or without mayo.

 

[Crothian]

Everyone min maxes, or else they go Hypersmurf's route. .

I'm fairly certain there is a middle ground.

 

[Stalker0]

"... but hey, I've got a 12 in Charisma, so at least one ability isn't single figures. I'm gonna play a Commoner. Skill Focus in Handle Animal... he'll be the most kickass first level farmer around."
"But the adventure is escorting a caravan through goblin-infested mountains..."
"Dude, I'm not leaving my sheep to go goblin-hunting! It wouldn't be in character for Farmer Bob."
"I don't think Farmer Bob is going to work for this campaign."
"Awww... okay, hand me the dice..."

-Hyp.

I once played a commoner named Craften Roe, died in the second game session. Such a short life, but so loved by all who knew him.

 

[el-remmen]

I don't know abot "min/max" - but I would just see what the stats suggested to me and play it to the best of my ability.

Here. I will roll 4d6 drop the lowest straight up (can't change the order):

Str: 9
Dex: 10
Con: 12
Int: 16
Wis: 12
Cha: 11

Wow, actually that is not that bad. I could imagine playing either a wizard or a rogue, or maybe a half-elven rogue/wizard and having a lot of fun and not being "a burden" to the group.

Let me try 3d6 straight up. .

Str: 18!
Dex: 15
Con: 9
Int: 8
Wis: 12
Cha: 4

I immediately thought of a slow socially awkward, perhaps disfigured in his hulking size, cleric/fighter who grabs firmly to his faith to keep from having to think too much.

What feats? Power attack, blah, blah, blah. . . sure, I guess I do min-max but that stuff is so secondary to me.

P.S. These dice are great!

 

[Ron]

Last time I DMed D&D, I used the Rules Cyclopedia. Characters were generated with 3d6, in order, by demand of the players (I favored to choose the order). I liked to see how they created justifications to their stats and were quite pleased with their characters. Surely showed me how min/max is overated.

 

[sjmiller]

Everyone min maxes, or else they go Hypersmurf's route. Alternatively, you could max/min, which I've seen done on the WotC CharOp board. Someone figured out how you can rules-legally play as a turkey sandwich, with or without mayo.

I am not sure I even know how to min/max, to be honest. If I have mediocre attribute scores I figure out what class I can be and go with it. I would like to see what people call min/maxing so I know if I do it or not.

 

[Rhun]

I once played a commoner named Craften Roe, died in the second game session. Such a short life, but so loved by all who knew him.

In one of the Quintessential books there is a commoner prestige class called "Peasant Hero." Could be kind of fun, if you were up to the roleplaying challenge.


If I had really horrible rolls, I'm not sure what I would do. I would probably try to min-max to get the most of the PC. If I felt I couldn't do that, and the DM wouldn't let me reroll, I'd do something crazy, like make a paladin.

 

[Fieari]

Min maxing is minimizing weakness, and maximizing strengths. So every time you put your "high stat" in something beneficial for your class, like putting that 16 in strength for a fighter, that's min maxing, to an extent. When you choose one weapon over another due to the crit multplier or the size of the dice used, that's min maxing. All these things are min maxing. Anything that makes a character mechanically powerful at all is by definition min maxing.

But yes, there are DEGREES of min maxing. Pun Pun could be seen at the high end of that scale, and the Turkey Sandwich could be seen at the opposite end, with most people somewhere in the middle.

But this poll makes no distinction by scale. Where do things stop being "making a balanced character" and enter into "abusing the rules" as the implication is with regards to the phrase min maxing here. Well, that even varies between different groups!

The trouble is, min maxing is a very fuzzy term loaded with emotional baggage. As such, I had to vote the last option.