Sode #9- Min/Maxing

[Peaboo]

The sad reality is I'm not an optimizer. (I think by any definition.)

In fact, I was so sick of creating characters, and the wizard was the last one, that I didn't even bother to apply any of racial penalties. So, that character really wasn't incompetent. The words "half orc" and "wizard" were a preconceived negative connotation which was the reason for the dismissal without a second glance.

I know how you've defined min/maxers, but I see that in a different light. Let me try a different analogy. We'll use Magic: the Gathering.

There are people that love to build decks. They love to pull from the various cards to find new combinations. When playing, they're playing to see how well the deck works; they're not playing just to play the game to have fun. (That's NOT saying people don't have fun playing.)

Then there are those, (I guess I'll lump myself here...) who don't mind making up decks, but would be just as happy with a pre-constructed deck handed to them. It doesn't matter if the deck doesn't have the Ultimate Combo.

People don't fall into just those two extremes. Designing a dungeon is quite fun, as is coming up with adventure ideas and plots. But the impression I get is some folks like to play the rules rather than playing the game. "Let's see what we can build within the rules to make it work." vs. "Another princess is captured by the dragon."

As for getting penalties for nothing, I put forth that the real world does that all the time and if you want more "realism" in your game, that standard should be followed. My car died this past week and I have the penalty of having to get another. Where's my bonus for that?

I have to wear glasses because of the penalty of having eye surgery when I was 4 years old. Where's my bonus for that?

I whacked my leg on the table a couple of years ago, and once in a while I walk with a limp. (I don't notice I have one until someone points it out.) What sort of bonus trade-off do I get for that?

Someone smashed my car window while I was driving to a game, and I'm not seeing any sort of benefit from that.

 

[Meg]

Two points- but first I want to say that Peaboo, I love this.  I think you are making great points.

First: Min/Max is about minimizing your penalties and maximizing benefits.  It's not that one gives the other.  We've talked about flaws and benefits a couple of times and how we feel that can lead to some of the cheesiest powergaming out there.  The blind fighter who has super sensitive hearing was one of our examples-- that's not a penalty any more.  So it's not that you get a benefit directly from something bad, like the botched eye surgery or window smashed. 

In life, I want to be good at things.  I practice, I improve, I study, I play.  Then there are things at which I suck.  Actually, I'll use Josh as an example.

Last weekend, Zeke had a housewarming type party.  Josh and I went and there was a young boy there (11) that was very athletic.  First we played Horse with basketball.  I took a very early lead, and we got Josh out pretty quickly, but the boy managed to make some pretty awesome trick shots and won. 

I'm very much not athletic, but I do like shooting hoops.  I'm ok at it, but only ok.  This means that I'll pick up a basketball a couple of times a year, but not much more than that.

Then, we got out the whiffleball.  Josh, me and Zeke against the boy, his sister, and his father.  I think the last time I played whiffle ball was 20 years ago, but I only missed it once and got a home run. 

Then Josh got up to bat.  He must've swung 50 times in a row and missed every time.  We were all laughing so hard, if he had hit it (he didn't) he would've gotten all around the bases before we noticed through the tears in our eyes. 

Pretty safe to say that Josh sucks at Whiffle ball. 

Does that mean he's going to go out and play all the time?  That he'll try out of the whiffle ball championships?  That he'll sacrifice the things he is good at to play more whif? 

Maximize the things you are decent to good at and don't depend on the things at which you stink. 

Second:  Magic the Gathering is a perfect analogy to Min/Maxing. 
-- Deck building is all about finding combos and picking cards that work with each other and finding a theme to the deck and picking and choosing.  I'm all for premade decks too because they've already done all of the work for me in that regard.  There are some killer pre-constructed decks. 

So it's not "not min/maxing" to use a premade deck.  If you choose cards for a deck at all systematically, you are min/maxing.  Period.  If you don't want to min/max your deck, take all of your cards, shuffle, and choose 60.  Or better yet, do what so many used to do when the game first came out-- just use all of your cards. 

The difference of course is that MtG is about winning.  But I would compare it to defeating your opposition in D&D-- enemies, challenges, etc. 

But, if you choose character traits to be good at something (and why the hell wouldn't you?), you are min/maxing.  It's just about where on the spectrum you fall. 

[Josh]

Games are not like real life.  Sometimes games simulate some aspects of real life, but they are not real life.

The words "half orc" and "wizard" were a preconceived negative connotation which was the reason for the dismissal without a second glance.

Actually the preconception was on your part.  I looked at the stats and abilities of all the characters.  The Half-Orc was rejected because he wasn't any good.  Not because of his name.

[Dragon Snack]

Nice, if you preview your post and someone has posted while you were writing, the board software let's you know...

That said, I'll post this anyway even though Josh has given his reason why the HOW wasn't taken:

In defence of you players, how were they supposed to know you were going to give them treasure to boost Intelligence or remove/negate the penalties?  That's a very metagamey thing to do and I'm not so sure that would have gone over well even with the player of the HOW.  If I'm going to play a character with drawbacks (for "roleplaying" reasons) I don't want the DM to hand me something tailored to remove the drawbacks, I want to face them (or overcome them) myself.

And maybe they just didn't want to play a Half Orc.  I rarely see even melee centered Half Orc characters.

[Josh]

In Peaboos defense many of the other characters were interesting.  Off the top of my head I do not remember exactly what they all were, but things like a halfling fighter or a gnome paladin can be interesting characters.  The only characters that we rejected were iirc the orc wizard and the bard. 

The halfling and the gnome characters made use of their abilities and overcame their shortcomings to some degree. 

[brislove]

I min/max.

I have seen some mention of just tanking stats in order to gain bonuses, and being terrible at everything except combat. That is not a min/maxed character, it's not optimized and If you build this character as anything except a Big Stupid Fighter, you have designed yourself a crappy character. If you design a big stupid fighter, and he is big, stupid, and only hits things with a sword (really hard). He's still bad in fights against mobile foes, since the full attack is his job. This is still sub-optimal.

So you have a big stupid character, who lacks mobility but hits things really hard. Then you give him pounce...now he can move up and attack things and hit them really hard a lot of times. Adding pounce is min/maxing, because you reduced a weakness, and made another use of his strength.

-Max/+maxing isn't good character design in most circumstances. You can "dump" things that don't penalize you much - like cha on a fighter.

The point is that minimizing your weaknesses, and maximizing your gains is different from creating something that is good at combat, and just leaves the table in all non-combat encounters. That is a one-trick-pony and if everyone made those....well you would all die in a 10 ft pit at first level.

[Dragon Snack]

In Peaboos defense many of the other characters were interesting.

Actually that's not defending him, since his point was the HOW was thrown away because he was suboptimal.  Saying the other characters were interesting reinforces my point that the HOW may not have been taken due to other reasons...

[Josh]

In Peaboos defense many of the other characters were interesting.

Actually that's not defending him, since his point was the HOW was thrown away because he was suboptimal.  Saying the other characters were interesting reinforces my point that the HOW may not have been taken due to other reasons...

It is defending him as a maker of characters, not helping his point. 

[Peaboo]

It is defending him as a maker of characters, not helping his point. 

Which is funny because I hate making characters. Which is why (partly) I didn't apply penalties to the half orc wizard. I figured you don't see many of those around, why not give it a shot?

Sort of like when 3e first came out and people had fits over dwarves being wizards.

[heffroncm]

On the Half-Orc Wizard discussion, it is entirely possible to make a useful and effective HOW.  The one I played went the gish route, and maxed at 6th level spells, so the INT penalty never came into play.

Even without it, you can be 9th level spell capable by level 12 with a HOW.  You just need to be a buffer and conjurer, someone who doesn't rely on SoD's.

Min/Maxing is just a part of gaming.  As the podcast says, you try to make the best character you can given the rules of the situation.  If you are setting your own rules via backstory, then those are more to abide by.  Sometimes backstories contain less than optimal decisions.  This does not make the backstory better on it's own.  Sometimes the backstory is crafted to account for all the optimal decisions made.  This does not make the backstory worse on it's own.

[yellerSumner]

Liked it, though I agree there was A LOT of info.


I'm not sure I agree with the "everyone min/maxes" statement.

Sure, with the way you define it it has to be true, but many people do see picking things which fit the character they're trying to make as just part of the game.  Going far beyond making a character that's survivable is what I tend to think of min/maxing as.

Though, what's survivable depends on the GM, how well they know the system, how challenging they're trying to make the game, (if they're being a jerk and just trying to get a TPK).  If someone only played with a GM who never got too challenging so they never had to work too hard to make a survivable character and they started playing with a group that plays with well min/maxed characters and the GM's challenging them at that level, that first guy could suck a bunch.

It's probably this discrepancy which is what causes a lot of "OMG You're powergaming! Min/maxers are evil! SPELL SPELL SPELL SPELL SPELL!!!". 


I can sometimes see min/maxers as intimidating.  I've been young, impressionable, and read the "OMG THEY'RE RUINING MY GAME!!!11!" threads.

Any combo that I just now see, the "professionals" figured out a week after the book was released and will roll their eyes that it took me so long.  If I even think of playing a blaster mage they'll tell me how I'm playing a spell caster wrong.  They'll make mincemeat out of the encounter I spent hours working on if I'm GMing.

I honestly hope that these'll go away as I hang out with all the lovely CO ex-patriots here and learn to better min/max myself.



Things I'd like to hear more on in the future....

I'd like to hear how to become a better min/maxer.  Sure, I can figure out I'd be better off with Weapon Focus than a metamagic feat if I'm a fighter, but how do I learn to bump up my min/maxing to the next level?

How should a GM handle different skill levels of min/maxing amongst a group of players? 

How should a GM handle a player or group whose skill at min/maxing is beyond their own (having much difficulty creating encounters with an appropriate challenge)? 
Is this just a bad situation and the GM should step down?
Improve?  - Specific tips for how.


Sing more Disney songs.


I like to spell P-E-N-I-S at people. ... wait, I usually just shout that.


And I rewrote this post at least three or four times.

[brislove]

DMing for optimized parties is hard. It's really fun IMO, but its hard. The cool thing about it, is that optimized players understand that they are going to die sometimes, and that dying is part of D&D.

If you make encounters that are challenges, it is not impossible to kill 1-2 members of the party, a big monster crit can just do that.

by the same token, the party might walk through your monsters with one well-placed spell if you make a couple bad saves...glitterdust anyone?

I use a lot of rolling encounters, it prevents stinking cloud/glitterdust from simply winning, since it spreads out the encounter more. Rolling encounters also provide the benefit of being able to adjust the flow of the encounter based on how things are going, I don't have to do this much anymore, but It was nice when I was first learning how to DM.

Examples: Guard post, there are some guards outside. If one of them gets a chance he set's off an alarm, other guards trickle out as it takes varying amounts of time for them to equip themselves and/or reach the combat.

if the PCs manage to use stealth and take out the guards quietly, they are awarded by the combats becomming MUCH easier, and sometimes if they don't stop guards that are running away....it might become readily apparent that they are going to need to run away, or die.

At higher levels this becomes harder, you have to use NPCs that are pretty strong, in conjunction with monsters. I like using templated undead and fiends primarily. Often times on planes that aren't exactly beneficial to the PCs.

Terrain also plays a huge role, have a mobile party? use a confined space, and monsters that can bypass it, ghosts, earth elementals, ect.

[jcm]

Late to the party here, but I just started listening to the podcast on the say-so of Doctor Luke

You make a black and white distinction between a min-maxer and someone attempting to play an obviously broken character (pun-pun type stuff). I think there is a lot more grey area there. People who take 1 level of cleric for bonus feats. People who take 1 level of rogue and able learner to make everything a base skill. People who take a couple levels of a buffer class and an item creation feat just to get a specific buff (divine power springs to mind). These are all examples of PCs that aren't just good, but potentially far more powerful than any other PC. There are lots and lots and lots of classes and prcs in 3.5 that heavily reward a single level dip for bonus feats or saving throw bonuses or whatever.

Overall I agree with you guys that min-max gets an undeserved bad rap. I like to make a character that is good at his role, but I think going too far is easier than you made it out to be.

[Zeke]

We make a black and white distinction between these two ideas based on asking a simple question; Is the person creating the character trying to make something  they can actually play? If the answer is yes, the person is legitimately min-maxing. The examples you gave regarding taking one or two levels to gain a specific effect are  all things a person who is trying to make a playable character would do. However, if they do those kinds of things to make a thought experiment like Pun Pun then that is broken. It is the intent and the net playability of the character created that matter.

[Josh]

Here's something to think about:

If I sit down and say "I have a story idea for a character who is a strong arm for the thieves guild."  And then I make a fighter with one level of rogue.  That is fine.

Now if I sit down and say "I want to make a fighter X/Rouge 1."  And then come up with a story, identical to the one above, is that OK?

[PhoenixInferno]

Now if I sit down and say "I want to make a fighter X/Rouge 1."  And then come up with a story, identical to the one above, is that OK?

No, because at 20th level, you'll end up with odd levels of Fighter

[jcm]

Now if I sit down and say "I want to make a fighter X/Rouge 1."  And then come up with a story, identical to the one above, is that OK?

I think that's okay, and I even think it's okay to do it without making up a story and take a level of rogue because it means you can take able learner and cheap tumble for the AC bonus. And it's okay to make sure you take an even number of fighter levels.

I just think that can be taken too far.

[Josh]

Now if I sit down and say "I want to make a fighter X/Rouge 1."  And then come up with a story, identical to the one above, is that OK?

I think that's okay, and I even think it's okay to do it without making up a story and take a level of rogue because it means you can take able learner and cheap tumble for the AC bonus. And it's okay to make sure you take an even number of fighter levels.

I just think that can be taken too far.

OK so what makes it too far?

I take knife thrower PrC because I want to throw knives(all 5) and two levels of monkey handler to get a monkey (in my back story my family are monkey herders)  So I am Rogue1/FighterX/Monkey2/knife5.

If you are making a cool sensical character, where is the line?

[jcm]

If you are making a cool sensical character, where is the line?

I think when you start randomly changing alignments to qualify for the classes you want is *my* line.

So I'll start chaotic good because I want to dip a level of bard for RDD later. And then I'll switch to lawful good so I can turn that charisma bonus into a save bonus via a dip into paladin. And then I'll switch to lawful neutral so I can become a cleric of Snagglepuss who has strength/time domains and the greatsword as a favored weapon and I can take Divine Power with 5 levels and get full BAB progression for all levels, and then...

At that point though it isn't really a sensible character anymore.

(EDIT: when people spell at you make sure to use the Mickey Mouse club theme song on them. Add a quick M-O-U-S-E! or a slow and mournful M-I-C--Kay-Eeee-Whyyyy?-M-O- to the conversation whenever they spell at you. )

[Josh]

If you are making a cool sensical character, where is the line?

I think when you start randomly changing alignments to qualify for the classes you want is *my* line.

So I'll start chaotic good because I want to dip a level of bard for RDD later. And then I'll switch to lawful good so I can turn that charisma bonus into a save bonus via a dip into paladin. And then I'll switch to lawful neutral so I can become a cleric of Snagglepuss who has strength/time domains and the greatsword as a favored weapon and I can take Divine Power with 5 levels and get full BAB progression for all levels, and then...

At that point though it isn't really a sensible character anymore.

(EDIT: when people spell at you make sure to use the Mickey Mouse club theme song on them. Add a quick M-O-U-S-E! or a slow and mournful M-I-C--Kay-Eeee-Whyyyy?-M-O- to the conversation whenever they spell at you. )

R-O-L-E-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

What if a character actually legitimately made this journey?   In the course of play, this series of events happened?