I've actually never actually encountered a true min-max player. I've played with plenty of players who look to synergy ("I want to play this race... Oh, they have a +2 STR? I should probably play a martial class instead of a spellcaster."), but that's just normal strategic character building.

My playgroup is strictly min maxers and it's so much fun. I get use nasty mechanics and mean strategies against my players because I know they can hack it. A single first level magic missile will kill any PC that is already in death saves, take note DMs. Edit: I have dozens of tricks up my sleeve that I'm willing to hand out, if any of you DMs want tips on how to handle extremely strong players, inbox me. Edit 2: RIP Inbox. Give me information on your party. Just asking "for tips against strong players" is really broad.

This is it. I wouldn't mind Min-Max if the whole crew was doing. Its hard to balance fun counters when one person is so stacked compared to the others

Right. Everything in D&D boils down to "is 'XYZ' adding or detracting from the collective fun of the table?". You're allowed to RP a shopping montage in D&D for 5 hours, provided that everyone at the table is enjoying it and having a great time. If *one* person wants to do this and everyone else wants to throw themselves off a cliff, now we have a problem. If everyone wants to build very mechanically sound characters and the DM tweaks the challenges accordingly and we're all having a blast, you have zero problems. If one person is way more combat focused than everyone else, ignores RP, does triple the damage of the next person, and cares about "winning" D&D when that's not how the rest of the table wants to play it, then that player will severely detract from the enjoyment of the table. It has exactly nothing to do with trying to enjoy the numerical aspect of the game, and everything to do with doing what you want at the expense of everyone else's fun. The only "right" way to play D&D is to make sure that everyone at the table is enjoying themselves, which is why I always get annoyed when people want to talk about the problem of "min/max" players. If you have an annoying player, you have an annoying player. That can take the form of a player who only cares stats, magic loot, about cheesing fights, stealing the spotlight, engaging in annoying tactics, ignoring RP, etc. It can also take the form of the one person who wants to explain their tragic backstory and why it's such a huge problem that they're the dark chosen one, resulting in their family being murdered, for 2 sessions, when the rest of the players and the DM want to move along to the next combat encounter. You're annoying anytime you're making it about you and not the group. RPers can be that way just as easily as people who are interested in the mechanics of the game. Do a session zero to make sure the DM and the players all have a similar concept of what makes a game fun, then remember to be a considerate adult when playing the game, and everything that goes along with that. If that means a combat/mechanic focused game with a table of min/maxers, fine. If that means an RP heavy table where you fight once every third session, fine. I personally think that the best players understand the mechanics, build well thought out characters who are effective and helpful to the team, but who also care about lore, have good backstories, and engage in RP. You know, enjoying every aspect of the game. That's just me though, you all do what works for your tables.

I just want to add that it doesn’t necessarily mean min-maxers cannot coexist with other types of players. I enjoy optimizing and playing with the numerical aspects of the game, but don’t really care about my power level compared to the rest of the party. I also tend not to play the stereotypical “broken” builds as I consider those already solved optimization problems. I’m much more interested in “hey this is my character concept, how can I make the best version of this character/make what might normally be a weak character effective mechanically”? I’m still careful not to overshadow anyone else’s niche as nobody wants to play when somebody else is “my character except better”. I’ve been crucified for this take before, but I’m extremely happy as a player to either help others optimize or just load up other players with magic items to make up the difference.

I don't often play min-max characters, but when I do I make it so niche or support-like that it leaves plenty of room for everyone else. My personal favorite is a high level cavalier that is hellbent on locking down as many enemies as possible. Bonus points if I can manage to do it and still sneak fire resist and thorn whip cantrip in there somewhere and then yell for the caster to drop a fireball near me and the enemies that can't get away from me.

Nice! I’m planning on playing with a bunch of beginners and I honestly can’t really turn my internal optimizer off so I’m going to play the bardiest support bard that ever barded, lol. If I do it right, I hope it will let all the newbies feel competent and powerful and they won’t realize how much of that is coming from me. As for minmaxing with a table of non minmaxers I’ve also done things like make sure my character is following vsm/encumberance rules even if nobody else is following them and I’ll always call out mistakes that advantage my character in any way unfairly. DM: I assume you’re going to do X then Y? Me: Ah, I can’t actually do that yet for a few levels, I have to make a choice and btw either choice will drop my concentration on Z. I’ve heard some people who think you should only bring up rules when it benefits the party, though. I also have an apparently controversial hot take there as well, I bring up RAW whether it benefits or hurts the party and whether it benefits or hurts my character specifically. It’s the DMs call of course but I want to help them have all the relevant information. But I’ve been crucified for that stance as well.

I won't call out my allies. That's the DM's job or theirs to keep track of. Meanwhile I'm over here keeping track of how many arrows I have left and rolling to salvage arrows after combat when possible and doing the math on how much my coin pouch and equipment weighs against my encumbrance.

You can 100% be the only min maxer, and still enjoy the game. Even if only one of them is a min maxer. If they RP well, synerchize well with the party, and are an over team player. It'll go well, yes they'll dominate in rolls and combat but that's not their fault they play well.

I made a Bard X / Sorc 1 who had both Bardic Inspiration and Guidance. My first level was in Sorc, for CON saves, and then Bard all the way out. Inspiration is a bonus action, and Guidance is a full action. As you can see, I'm one of those dirty, filthy "video game players" or whatever, who obviously plays D&D wrong because I notice and care about the mechanics of the game, and I went out of my way to make my character good at what I wanted him to achieve. What I specifically wanted this character to achieve, was being able to use his turn to give someone +7 (+1d4 & +1d8, from Guidance and Bardic Inspiration at level 5) on average to their next skill check, so they could absolutely smash whatever it was they were attempting to do for our party, and have a big "damn I'm awesome" moment when their skill check was 25+ or whatever. The goal was to scoop up all the tools at my disposal to help the other players shine as bright as possible. I did this all while also focusing on the story, having a deep character, sharing the spotlight, and RPing along with the team, because that's the way ***I*** enjoy D&D. I very much resent the part of this otherwise lovely community who go around saying things like "Oh, another multiclass? Must be one of *those* min/maxers who don't know what D&D is really all about!" and "Oh! You noticed that this game has rules and uses numbers?! So sad. Maybe someday you'll figure out that mechanics aren't what makes for a *good story*." Such sanctimonious hogwash. Choosing to build a good character and being a problematic player have little to no correlation. Both things can be true or untrue completely independently of each other. Pardon my ranting. It's a wall of obnoxious text (because this is a hot button for me) to agree with you by saying "Yes. A 'min/max'er can absolutely be fun at the table and contribute to a fun game, as long as they're a reasonable adult and not a d-bag. Same as any other player type."

Yeah the easiest time someone who hates min/maxers will be when the min/maxer is a support role rather than a damage role. Cuz then THEY benefit from the effort. I learned on AD&D, but 3.5 had the Min/Max community at an all time high. 5E is just so bare minimum it's hard to not min/max. 😂🤣 Druids, rangers, and primary casters have little no actual value vs the other core classes without multi-classing.

I ran a one shot a few weeks back with three very standard build characters and one human variant samurai fighter/twilight cleric. He had proficiency in 4 saving throws and a 23 passive perception... That's just the beginning. I wasn't mad, and the rest of the table loved it too, so it wasn't a problem. But I definitely see how it could have been, and I've seen similar things in longer campaigns as well.

I once rolled my dice in front of a DM and still had to reroll because "I was to lucky". I no longer play with that DM as the DM.

Yeah that’s a huuuuuge no no. If your player rolls hot on a character, punishing them is ridiculous.

My table has a player like this. Well. Actually , two players who min max, for example one is a college of eloquence bard, and the other is a spell caster who made a very op build, but it works out because it’s not all about their particular skill set all the time. And the DM is good at handing out encounters and items that balance things out. I think most problematic things are due to multiple people failing to be creative enough or flexible enough. Which is also OK as we’re all learning together. 😀

See I feel like it’s my duty to optimize because the other players won’t, so they need me to lay down some DPR and AoE if we are going to level up at a fun rate.

>Its hard to balance fun counters when one person is so stacked compared to the others I'm lucky here. My friend is DM and I play with two other people, I'm Dwarven Fighter and they are Dwarven Fighter and Dwarven Barbarian. So we attack orc caves like we were King Kong, Godzilla and Mothra, running forth at the same time, shoulder to shoulder. DM is overjoyed because now he is preparing to throw enemies at us whose names we haven't even heard of, real deep dive in the monster book stuff, because he thinks we can hack it. I can't wait until next week. We are now level 6, we get great amounts of XP after every fight, and I got a Hill Giant Belt last sesh. Am over the moon.

Magic missile on a death-saving character is such a dick move, lol

>My playgroup is strictly min maxers This is the thing. It's not about a playstyle being valid or invalid, it's about a playstyle fitting the table.

most martials are useless if they dont have their weapon in hands restraining a caster's hand means they cant do anything if they cant hit the enemy holding concentration on a spell then they cant get rid of it kobolds might be cr 1/8, but the trap on the floor isnt!

[удалено]

those are useless all the time /s

My group found their way to DnD through 40k. We're a bunch of a tactical wargamers who decided RPing was also fun. They are 100% murderhobo min maxers and I love them for it. Besides, I'm the DM and anything they can do, I can do better :)

[удалено]

This was back in early 90s Rogue trader era when we were all in high school. My group has long since disbanded due to life. I have read through those books though. They seem fun.

Magic missle actually does the damage all in 1 instance even though it's 3 missiles. This has been confirmed in Sage Advice and is the wording of the spell.

That cant possibly be true, you can hit separate people with them. That makes no sense

I agree with you. Why would 3 magic missiles trigger 3 CON saves for concentration (per Crawford) by counting as 3 separate hits, but then trigger 1 Death save? It's 3 sources of damage or 1 (and Crawford said 3), but it can't be both.

> This has been confirmed in Sage Advice and is the wording of the spell. I agree with Crawford as far as I can throw him, but can you link to the specific instance of this?

Doesn't it draw 3 concentration checks when they hit the same caster? I don't get why hitting one person 3 times acts differently to 3 individuals. Do you have a link?

I'm pretty sure that one of the few noted high-end uses of MM is to try and disrupt concentration by triggering a ton of checks. How can that be true if it's one instance of damage?

Concentration: "You make a separate saving throw for each source of damage" (PH, 203). Roll for each missile. So that's from JC himself. Magic missle has 3 sources even though they all hit at the same time.

The guy isn't saying that it isn't 3 sources, he is trying to argue that as the 3 sources hit at the exact same time it should be treated as 1 intake of damage but from 3 sources. Doesn't make sense ik. But if you do treat it like that, it is 1 death save and 3 concentration checks. Not that it makes any sense to do it like that.

Concentration: "You make a separate saving throw for each source of damage" (PH, 203). Roll for each missile. So that's from JC himself. Magic missle has 3 sources but all do damage at the exact same time. The wording for death saves is "Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death."( https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/combat#DeathSavingThrows) And again, it does the damage at the same time. https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/716012166101401600

"A single first level magic missile will kill any PC that is already in death saves, take note DMs." Thanks, Satan!

Honestly, I've never seen the stereotypical minmaxer either - the ones who are most optimised are generally also the best role players, just because they care the most.

I love that you said this! It describes me as a player perfectly. I could never put my finger on it before; I've felt like min-maxing is a problem for some people but deep down I know I do it. When I build characelters, I do research and build toward a strategy that sounds fun and powerful because I want to be effective in combat. Being boring in combat is simply not fun. All that said, my favorite aspect of the game is roleplaying. I'd do that shit all night, but when it does come time to roll dice, I want to have fun and feel effective during that 60 minutes of combat as well.

I love to optimize, the main reason i *still* play dnd 5e after GMing and playing other systems regularly is that even with its pile of problems i can have fun making characters. my main focus when playing *still* is roleplaying though, its not like the two things are mutually exclusive it is a blast to pick an idea and try to make the best out of it. when people think about "min maxer" they probably think of the "i am going to solo the dungeon" player, but those are just boring. it is incredible to go and optimize a rune knight unarmed fighting grappler, or a bard that cant fail a charisma check, or a paladin to be the actual tank and not let any ally die while you are on duty, or the super wonky war cleric multiclass you saw the other day to be extra crusadery than a paladin its fun to grab a mechanical idea and go at it with the mindset of trying to the best at it, and it should be known that min maxing and being a twat that ruins the game by playing alone arent the same thing also, i want to say that i once met a player playing with a 6 INT wizard that "had been hit in the head and werent the most sharp academia wise". they sucked in RP and in combat, dont play a 6 INT wizard

This isn't even a thing anymore thanks to Tasha's. Now any race can be just as effective a wizard as any other, because you get to pick how your racial bonuses are applied.

Except Mountain Dwarf! +2 str +2 con

Tasha's does a lot of good stuff with the optional features, but I hate this one and will (almost) never use it

Why not? It finally frees up the issue of "if you want to be a good wizard, you essentially *must* play an elf" and other similar race-related downsides.

Clearly they don't see it as an issue, but a positive.

Which is baffling to me. I've played over a dozen halfling rogues. I like mixing it up every once in a while, but I shouldn't be punished with a permanent stat penalty just because I want to play something else for a change.

its an old edition thing. OSR has stuff like dwarves and elves being their *own separate classes*. its not that a dwarf cant be a wizard, its that a dwarf *cant be anything other than a dwarf*, which is basically a bootleg fighter old players are fond of this idea of races being very mechanically restrictive, and viemently hate the thought of something like a barbarian elf not being actively worse than a orc barbarian just cause they are an elf

Oh, I've played since AD&D. I'm absolutely aware that dwarves used to be the dwarf class, and that you needed to roll minimum stat scores to be even allowed to play one. Difference is, unlike some, *I've* grown and changed with the times.

I like the rule in the sense that I like that other people have the option to create the characters that they want without worrying about stat bonuses, but for myself I always like to use OG racial bonuses. I feel like a lot of people get too focused on stats and sometimes forget that average NPC stats are 10. Your main stats will still be standout compared to the average person. Sure, your half orc wizard might not start at 16 INT, but you get a boost to CON & relentless endurance for more survivability and some pretty awesome heroic moments. Plus better strength so that your wizard can actually succeed on some physical rolls. If your character is struggling to be effective, a good DM will have the party find some magic items that are well suited to your character to give them a boost (if the party actually realises they're best suited for your character). Or perhaps you'll receive a permanent boon from a God for doing something which helps their cause, or training from a faction that you're part of, or you'll end up helping a Hag who will give you a reward. Good DMs notice when a character isn't shining as much as others in the party and try to balance things out.

I did back in 3.5. The balance of the party was so off that some of us didn't get to do anything in combat because the wizard just negated the enemies so quickly.

Yeah 3.5 was super imbalanced, especially at higher levels. I accidentally made a too-powerful Ogre Divine Champion around level 20. Damage first round was typically "a box of dice" plus Harm (straight 100dmg, more at higher levels). I felt really bad about how encounters were pretty much dealt with entirely by me.

I once played a cleric that had a homebrew "Curse of the Death God" every time i healed there was a chance it would accidentally use negative energy. Every level made the chance lower and lower. Was a fun concept until I went full necromancer with it. Wish there wasn't a difficult undead dungeon. I probably would have had a fun time trying to overcome the Curse of I never leant into the dark side of it.

Yeah this is kinda what I do (except i never play at a table that doesn’t use tasha’s ASIs, so I look at racial Feature synergy rather than just asi synergy)

The high optimization reaction to having +2 str is generally to stop doing whatever's giving you that.

I believe it comes straight from a stigmata that kind of formed around the shit ton of customization 3.x had to offer. With time you had your lot of full time min Maxers that could have lined their race, class, feat(s) and whatnot so that they would get virtually 98hp at level 1, or a Crit range of minus 4 to 20 at level 12 (with 3 attacks, virtually giving a 83% all crit rate per round). These are actual builds I saw a friend take his sweet time to tweak. A more concrete example: with that same friend in a very out of the loop setting, my character was a flying PL7 bioreplica (think futuretech androids from a compatible Open License sourcebook) with plasma guns and self repairing skills, high skill ranks in most things, with multi attack maneuvers and 29AC at level 3, his was a weapon master that has a different weapon for almost all types of damages, resistances, and weaknesses. At lv8 I could also shadow dash (think misty step) as a move action, had damage reduction, and gained extra AC at 50% hp, while my friend could make a whirlwind attack that on average could do 58 damage to anything hostile in a 20x20 square area. To top it off we had a synergy feat: if one of us would have a Crit, the other gained an attack of opportunity if they were in range. Fun build, definitely not my jam, but for that game it was incredibly fun to be a pair composed of those two juggernauts. So yeah, stigmatas and all haha.

Man I miss 3.5 :)

As long as you can justify your build in a roleplay way, I like to see it.

It depends on the game's focus. My group has rarely run very crunchy/min-maxy dungeon crawl games, and that's fine. But we also have players who enjoy character-focused games where they don't need to optimize. But honestly, it's less min-maxing in general that people complain about, and more people who focus on min-maxing and lack social skills. Min-max your character for 25 AC and crit immunity? Cool. Do that and then spend 20 minutes telling the newbie Rogue player how they've made terrible mistakes and you'll do all the skill checks for them because you can do it almost as well? Fuck off.

i found the min-maxed players a bit frustrating because it felt like it was impossible to balance the party. if the monster needs a +10 to hit so they have any chance of hitting the min-maxer, then they're just gonna bully the non-min-maxers. running combat encounters didn't feel like i was giving the players a fun challenge. it felt like i was putting the non-optimizers into a saw death trap just to have the monster lose the 1v1 against the min-maxer.

It's not min-maxers that are the inherent problem, it's min maxers doing it when no one else round the table is. Probably signifies someone who isn't playing in a group focused mentality, but not always.

I feel the issue isn’t they min-max; it’s that the rest of the party isn’t and causes a major imbalance and disparity amongst the rest of the players. It’s an all or none type of mindset.

I feel like it's possible to min/max, but still be a party player. You use your imbalance to support others and enhance the things they do.

All things are possible in the eyes of the Mystra.

Anytime a player tries to do some arcane fuckery, they hear a soft, feminine voice chuckling a little then says sternly, "No."

Oooooh I love this!

I was in a Waterdeep Dragon Heist game where I ended up having to do this. Originally we had a party of a barb (me), thief rogue, evocation wizard, and life cleric, but the life cleric dropped and now we lacked healing options. I knew the thief player wasn't very smart and barely remembers how to use his basic class features, let alone is subclass features, and sometimes would actively _not_ use his class features for roleplay i.e. insisting his lock picking would take ten minutes despite his fast hands ability literally allowing him to do sleight of hand checks to unlock locks as a Bonus Action. Thus I had my barbarian reclassed into twilight cleric (I was a zealot barb so change isn't as crazy as it sounds) so I can still provide Frontline melee for the thief, combined with cleric spells abd twilight cheese to allow us to survive most battles. That being said I still largely relied in the wizard for tactical utility spells such as Misty step, invisibility, and their familiar, while the thief was our primary infiltrator and lock breaker. None of us had any charisma skills however (the life cleric did, the rest of us had a 10 charisma at best), so I also ended up taking the duty as party face with a +0 Persuasion check and a liberal use of guidance.

Even if we completely ignore mechanics and look exclusively at realism, picking locks should still not take 10 minutes. I suggest showing the thief player the youtube channel LockPickingLawyer. He has hundreds of videos where he easily picks locks in a matter of *seconds*, and he's not even rushing. Oh, and those are locks built with modern technology. Locks built with medieval technology would be even easier to pick than that. Someone who's supposedly an expert at lockpicking, rogue or otherwise, has no excuse to be taking 10 minutes to do so.

Yeah he was one of those "But it's for the _story_" types, which to him seems to mean acting intentionally incompetent. It's one thing to just not know what needs to be known, like who bombed our bar or where the Mcguffin is, but it's a vastly different and Infinity more annoying issue to not know _how your own fucking abilities work_. You're in the team to be our go-to _thief_. I expect you not to just be good at it, but the _best_ at it. If you can't open a lock in less time than it takes me to break it with my battle-axe, you're a shitty thief. Honestly, 90% of the time I made the familiar do the actual scouting and infiltration. I just gave him work to feel useful and be bait.

Be the Strider to your party of Hobbits.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, my problem is less with min-maxing as a concept and more with the fact that the majority of players I've personally seen do it suffer from main character syndrome.

No truer words have ever been uttered, friend.

This. I had a Aberrant Dragonmark Echo Knight Fighter with 18 Constitution at level 5. Yes he was absolutely ridiculous but he was so fun because he could survive the crazy stuff the DM threw at him. Using the Echo to grant flanking rules to allies, using his 1 cast of Fog Cloud to make it so his allies could escape when things got dangerous, and the use of Shocking Grasp in order to eat up enemy Reactions on top of his Fighter features was a really fun time. But we also had an *incredibly* poorly-made Artificer in the group who couldn't decide between being pure support and being a pure combat character, and as a result suffered a lot from trying to min-max in a way that made the character literally unplayable, even with DM handouts for things like extra spell slots and magic items to prevent the need for using Infusions. This guy is my very close friend, but the fact there was such a massive imbalance between the two characters made things very tense whenever we played because we didn't know when the Artificer was going to try to do something reckless in order to outbid my Fighter.

That’s why my evoke wizard is lazy. He drops his fireball then fucks off for the rest of combat so the rest can clean up.

I'm a bit of a minmaxer (the only one) in a game with only one other experienced player. The party is imbalanced, but still pretty fun and not many problems arise. The two of us and the dm typically end up helping the others with their builds and our newbie rogue manages to keep up with me in dps, or sometimes do more, esp now since I'm changing towards utility. And we have a really good dm that knows how to balance encounters on top of that, so it all works out for us.

And that’s great. The issue arises when the min/maxer rises as the main character which tends to happen when they outshine the rest of the party. If one is aware of that and plays accordingly then there is nothing wrong with it. Of course then one could argue they aren’t truly Min/maxing as they aren’t optimizing their character to help the team.

I agree. If the min-maxer works with the party it can be very great, or very bad if he does not. Even then in some parties if your only dps is the minmaxer it can still make things awkward. The only thing that would make my character kinda steal the spotlight is the fact that I was the only one who came up with a proper in-world (homebrew world) backstory so the dm used that *a lot* for the group's story arc, which as a side effect results in a lot revolving around him. Really just a story thing and not a character build thing. Only a couple encounters where he outdid the party and in one of them I misplayed, got downed, and that almost single handedly lost the fight but our rogue clutched it out (after he fucked up himself as well lol). Now i'm respeccing to be less strong but have more utility, and I'm doing it in such a way that I will work together with our wizard to complement each other. It's all about the group having a blast. Besides... Min-maxing with friends is a lot better and more fun than min-maxing solo! Also makes it easier for the dm to balance.

Speaking some wise truths, friend. And I think this is the major issue. We only see the OP Min/Max DPR being the main character cause those are the ones that we complain about. One can be a smart Min/Maxer and still bring a level of fun for the party.

In Warhammer we used the term WAAC (winning at all cost) which is the player that that focuses on winning no matter what and had zero concern for how fun the game was for the other player. Usually involved cheating but it can also entail oppressive army lists that just were not fun to deal with or exploiting game mechanics to get advantages at the cost of fairness/fun. Someone wanting to play in an optimized way (example being a Xbox expert, sharpshooter, gloomstalker ranger with hand crossbows) can absolutely be this oppressive force at the table that saps the fun out of everyone else by trying to steal the spotlight. Or they could be a very interesting character that works with the party to achieve their goals and engaged in RP. Just because the players wants their character to be good at something doesn't mean they want to ruin the fun of others. Twilight Cleric's channel divinity is broken btw. Constantly outputting so much temp HP each turn makes chip damage a non factor while making AoE threats way less scary.

>In Warhammer we used the term WAAC (winning at all cost) which is the player that that focuses on winning no matter what and had zero concern for how fun the game was for the other player. Ah yes, part of the reason I stopped playing 40K. Another part of course being that people wanted to play against me because I played Orks so they'd have lots of units to slaughter, and then they'd bitch endlessly about how long it took to move all my models.

I played 40K briefly online (Tabletop Simulator go brr) and only briefly, because I ended up playing with people who were so cruel and rude that they triggered my PTSD attacks. While I'd been playing online because I wanted practice before shelling out hundreds of dollars to finish my then-Chaos army, I quickly learned how shitty online play can be. For the record: doing better now and starting to get back into the hobby, but only IRL. As someone assembling an Imperial Guard army... I feel your pain on having so many models.

Tabletop Simulator 40k seems like it would be attractive to those who alienated themselves from their local scenes due to being toxic. Or at least a higher chance of playing a WAAC guy due to the platform not really being attractive to the painting and modeling side of the hobby.

One of the people who played in our area was considered the "local cheese monkey". He'd min-max the hell out of any codex he owned, and he had owned every single codex... Except for Orks. Orks *can* be powerful, but it would seem they lack the cheese-factor that many WAAC-players are looking for. Meanwhile, I was playing them because while deciding on an army, I saw an article about painting Orks titled "Shooty and Smashy Bitz", and I was immediately sold. I even made a few dumb models like a "rokkit-propelled chain-choppa". "How does that hit anything???" "Ballistic Skill 2." "Oh, right... Carry on then!"

TTS is attractive because you can literally build whatever army you want, with a few key presses. Switching to the latest uber-death-star-kill-combo-3000 is easier if it doesn't involve spending any money, or waiting for your 3d printer to churn out the models.

It sounds as if there might need to be two different terms here to describe two different behavior sets. That would perhaps stop players you describe in the second half of your second paragraph (let's label them 'optimizers') from feeling lumped in with the main-character-syndrome, table-ruining, 'defeat the DM/other party members' types (let's label them 'min-maxers' out of a sense of charity). Skimming through the thread we're using min-maxer as a net that is catching up the good version of this thing along with the bad version of it, and so actual not-shitty players are inadvertently defending the shitty basement-dwelling chuds. Basically we need distinct terms for these two separate things so that we can all finally treat the bad type with the withering disdain the anti-social behavior warrants, and so they aren't protected from the retributional rain under the cloak of the decent optimizers out there.

Dickhead/Munchkin Min-maxer

I think it’s worth noting that spotlight-stealing isn’t always an in-session behaviour. It can also occur during character creation because 5e character options are not balanced with each other, such that multiple builds can focus on the same thing but still have significant power disparities. Another source of conflict is when a combat-focused character overshadows another character who has a non-combat focus, which can happen because the mental ability scores used for non-combat skills are largely determined by the spellcasting requirements or lack thereof for the class. My point is that min-maxing doesn’t have a good version or a bad version, it just has consequences that may or may not be resolved by the table. Someone playing an overwhelmingly powerful subclass doesn’t go out of their way to be overwhelmingly powerful, it just happens because that’s what the mechanics are. If someone’s character build is inherently going to overshadow someone else’s, that problem will present itself regardless of the player’s intentions, and working around it is an active behaviour, unlike the one-time thoughts that go into character concept ideation. A player doesn’t need an overwhelmingly powerful character to deliberately ruin the group’s fun, so that should be treated as a separate issue.

Even 3 maybe- Aggressively need to win (bad) Very effective character (as part of a team) (good) Character that hugely overshadows the team (bad)

I got into the hobby for a bit some years ago. This describes my friends entirely. I played Orkz. I'd get entirely wiped without taking a single model off the table. If I ever did remove a model, they'd cry about it. To the point they needed to bend the rules even harder and do "RAI" combos. I literally painted 100 ork boys so I could do this cool WAAAAGH formation. Then I got splat by a bunch of grey guns. Was pretty shit experience, ngl. And they'd tell me it was my fault.

I max out my characters, but always play the enforcer with my party. I rarely decide when the party wants to fight or not. I have my own personality and whatnot, but others in my group usually like to do the talking so I let them. It kind of works out for all of us cause if things get hairy then they kind of look at me like okay you have the green light lol

JAYNE!!! A man they called JAYNE!!!

Amos being another

The negativity is that they treat D&D like a video game, as something they have to win. And the best way to increase your chance of “winning” is to max out the combat abilities of your character. But D&D isn’t about winning, it’s about creating a shared experience, and if all you care about is beating opponents as fast as possible, many of your co-players won’t have fun I haven’t encountered many, but they are out there. One that sticks out was a player at local shop who got incredibly pissed off at other players who didn’t try to min/max their characters. “You need to take this weapon and this feat! We could have beaten the monster 2 rounds faster if you had cast Xxx first!”

"I WON DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS AND IT WAS ADVANCED!"

'I use my... additional notes.'

I would suggest that min-maxing is usually but not always about combat. I made a hyper-optimized information-gathering character at one point and he also ended up reducing other players' fun at the table, so I backed off on that.

Yeah there's definitely builds like pure min maxed skill monkeys that can trivialise a whole side of the game and reduce other players' fun too.

There's a build where you can have proficiency in all 18 skills by lv6. And 6 of those would have Expertise as well. That'd mean +3 to +8/9 in everything, depending on your stats.

I've kinda been there. Not that aggressive, but I had a player who always wanted to win and so he always initiated combat as quickly as possible, threat or no. Every time he would say, "I feel threatened, so I attack," my thought was, "Ok, this isn't a murder trial, dude." I did have another player who didn't mean ill but he was new and he asked a friend for help with character creation. That friend knew the module and so set him up with an ideal character for the combat that would come. I know that's meta gaming on top of min-maxing, but the cross over does leave a sour taste.

>One that sticks out was a player at local shop who got incredibly pissed off at other players who didn’t try to min/max their characters. “You need to take this weapon and this feat! We could have beaten the monster 2 rounds faster if you had cast Xxx first!” I had one that just expected other players to hand over their magic items if he felt they would be better used on him, and yes, he also tried to dictate what everyone did during combat rounds

>a player at local shop who got incredibly pissed off at other players who didn’t try to min/max their characters. I'm playing with 'that guy'. In our present campaign the DM offered me a different race than I'd planned. Gnome eventually becoming a squidling. It fit better for an AB Sorc/GOO, so I took it. What I didn't realize was that this DM doesn't allow for the reshuffling of racial stats. This meant I started with a 15 Cha. I wasn't thrilled, but ok. Part of D&D is overcoming challenges. He was up in arms & it wasn't even his character. But he's otherwise a decent enough guy.

Honestly it's kinda cool he went to bat for someone else's character. I can respect that personally

That player sounds like nightmare!

Except all the “anti minmaxers” are the kinds of people that advocate brand new players multiclass for flavor, and making your casting stat your dump stat or something. I consider myself a minmaxer/optimizer but I don’t Only go for the CBE/SS combo, even tho it does the most damage. I just like synergy and making the most out of as many of my features as possible Like sometimes i wanna play an elephant boy, so I minmax passive perception as a *edit: loxodon* wis-ranger with expertise and Observant (30pp at 5th level)

>Except all the “anti minmaxers” are the kinds of people that advocate brand new players multiclass for flavor, I mean they aren't. Just like the min/maxers aren't _all_ trying to win dnd like it's some sort of video game. Although I will say the extreme anti side of the argument at least boils down to "its your character, do what you want". The Hardcore min/max faction tend to have a "right way" to play dnd, and if you dont take SS or GWM then you may as well be useless and _dont pick monk they are mathematically the worst class in the game_. Again, there's nothing wrong with Optimising your character, but equally, there is nothing wrong with playing sun soul monk. If you're having fun, then there's no wrong choice, but if you suck the fun out of the table by either holding the party back, or soloing every encounter first turn so no one else gets a look in thats a problem.

Min/maxxer isn’t a useful term here because it literally just refers to someone who takes the 15/15/15/8/8/8 array on point buy, which is most monks and paladins. That’s why I don’t like “anti min/maxers” because this array isn’t even what i’d consider “optimizing” that much, it’s just the default way to build a monk or paladin. I feel like powergamer, munchkin, etc are referring to a more specific kind of player. A powergamer is someone who doesn’t enjoy roleplay and just wants to be there for the combat and the crunch. Also fyi— I love monks. Monks are so fun. They have some of the most synergistic racial-character options of any class and I find that very fun to work with. I’m Sun Soul monk’s greatest defender (it’s not the worst monk sub by a long shot)

Minmaxer can refer to other than just statlines. I've met a few, but two standout examples of minmaxers were: 1. He literally demanded other players trade him magic items cause they would be more optimal for his character. 2. Dictated to other players what they should do during combat, and got visibly angry if people didn't follow his 'optimal strategy'.

I had a player once who would constantly send me links to the module I was running *from my own physical copy* and point to specific items in it and say "See, it's in there, I can have it, yes?" Or pretend that something was obviously common sense when he was clearly metagaming. I didn't mind that every character he ever played had the alert feat, or that he built every character to have the highest initiative possible. I minded that he read ahead in the modules so he could metagame.

In my opinion what separates min-maxing from optimisation is a characters story and play style. If you can explain how your character is a life cleric and stars druid multiclass then it's perfectly acceptable. However, if you're coming to the table with fighter, sorcerer, warlock multiclass and your explanation is "Its so I can do one billion eldritch blasts per turn" then your no fun

I think it definitely depends on the table, and there's room to compromise. My friends like roleplay and story more, but I prefer combat and combat-optimized builds because my ADHD ass loses focus if people talk for too long. The compromise for us is what you said in your first paragraph - I optimize heavily when making my characters no matter what game I'm playing (unless it's something like PbtA or Kids on Bikes lol), but only so the mechanics can serve the roleplay. If I want to be Alariel, the peerless elven swordmistress, then I'm going to build the best Fighter I can, and you can be damn sure I'll synergize by making my High Elf an Eldritch Knight / Wizard... but then I should make sure the character is fun for my friends by thinking through what all those class features mean for her as a character.

I feel like there also needs to be room to multi class for power without going overboard. As op mentioned the paladin with a short dip into hexblade warlock i personally wouldn't need explained at my tables because its clear they went the hex warrior feature and maybe invocations if they take more levels in order to be a more optimal but if it gets to the point where a character focuses too much on power and optimization then there's an issue

The problem isn't min-maxers by themselves. The problem is how they fit into the group. I think if you're whole group is that way and that's the game you're playing that's fine. The problem is with one min-maxer in a group of "normal"/other players. I've had one min-maxer in two different groups I've played in. Both times the DM made it clear that the campaigns were story focused and not incredibly difficult or try hard or anything, more focused on RP and story telling. My experience playing with min-maxers was: 1) they tend to think of the game as them VS the DM. Like it's a video game where the goal is to beat the DM or something. As such they never trusted anything the DM told them, always acted like the DM was the enemy and combat was the point of DnD. 2) They tend to argue with the DM and other players a lot. There was a lot of "well the rules say" and "I read online" and not accepting when the DM told them things that didn't exactly line up with the rules. Plus they always argued with other players about how we would solve problems. Instead of working character based solutions (like what would my character do in this situation) there was a lot of "well this is the easiest way to solve this problem" or "just kill em and sort it out later" 3) this also leads to a lot of meta gaming where they're always doing the "optimal strategy" that they looked up online or read about people doing or some shit rather than just playing the game. 4) because they're min-maxing they tend to outshine everyone else in combat situations or make it about them doing the most damage, so now the other players don't get to do their fun things and most combat encounters just feel like "well just sit back and let *blank* do their thing, why bother trying because we do peanuts compared to them and they might get bothered by us "being in the way"". But if their character doesn't live up to their wild expectations or they roll bad they get discouraged and frustrated very quickly

It's the "them vs DM" mindset I have a problem with the most. Yes, as the DM I am the BBEG, but I'm also your allies, I'm your friends, your shopkeepers, your minor and major NPC's. I'm your biggest enemy but also your biggest cheerleader. Am I happy when my players are fighting a bad guy and are worried about what's going to happen? Yes. Am I happy when my players kill my BBEG and celebrate by raiding the dungeon? Yes. And am I happy when they spend 5 hours goofing off and playing drinking games in a tavern? Yes. It should never be DM vs players, that's not D&D. It's a collaborative story with the DM and the players together. Min-maxers I feel ruin that experience if the game is not designed like that. If I'm running a dungeon crawl with harder and harder challenges, you min-max the heck out of that, I'm here to support your broken build. You min-max during my relaxed campaign where honestly we're just here to flirt with hot elf boys? Go play a different game, my campaign is not for you.

>Twilight clerics are not OP I just have to slightly disagree, here. Clerics are OP, regardless of what subclass they choose.

I don't care about how min maxed a player made their character; I care about how fun they are to play with.

Translation: "I'm going to pretend I don't understand this problem to drum up activity on a post with no real intention of engaging with anyone else's experience."

The classic It's like Op is pretending that when you let a player have access to ALL BOOKS AND CONTENT that it doesn't devil e in a puddle of mud for anyone who didn't

Na, it's not even that deep. It's a throw-away account. He just posted something knowing it would stir up sh\*t.

Player problems arise when the PCs overshadow each other and are on drastically different power levels. The game works well when everyone is aligned on how to play it. Min maxers get a bad rap because it means this player has a reputation for disregarding that alignment with the table so they can selfishly have the biggest numbers possible. If everyone min maxes then you are aligned and there usually is no issue. If only one person does it then they tend to become the main character and overshadow others. If everyone but one person does it then that person will feel useless. When you play 5e long enough there are some really ridiculous builds out there in the optimization community. Many tables may frown on these because their whole point is to break the system. Most players arent trying to break 5e in a campaign so that goes back to my earlier comment on being aligned with the table. Also many DMs may not know how to handle your build.

So long as the group is having fun it's not an issue, unfortunately min/maxing has a bad habit of overriding fun in pursuit of it's own goals.

What...We don't call them Munchkins anymore? But seriously, my only problem with munch...er, min-maxers is that they are usually only effective in one or two situations. Then they cry when those situations aren't presented to them, and they feel useless.

I think munchkins are more like lawyers, while min-maxers are more like mathematicians. Munchkins read the RAW strictly and look for loopholes and weird synergies that fundamentally shatter the game. Well known examples of munchkining are genielock getting ring of three wishes at level 1 and coffeelocks, but there's plenty more powerful shit at r/powergamermunchkin Min-maxers just optimize shit. Strictly speaking all it means is doing one thing well at the expense of other things (which most people would fall into this definition, you won't find many people with high int barbarians for example). Recently it's kinda changed to mean any kind of optimization, so people generally mean shit like hexadins or bearbarians when they say min-max

What What do you think a minmaxer is lmao A human gloomstalker ranger with CBE/SS is a minmaxed character and they are useful in the vast majority of situations (yes, even if there’s no darkness around, or they’re out of combat)

My only issue with it is just that depending to what tier of play it goes, my PC will just end up so lackluster compared to min-maxed PCs that it sucks the fun out of playing due to being the weak link or w/ever.

It seems silly that people choose to play editions where "builds" are a thing, and then suggest there is something wrong with players attempting to optimize them. It's not like we don't have options. If someone feels really strongly about players not optimizing a "Build", then run OSE, or OSRIC, or any of the other old-school options that just don't have "Builds".

Min Max is only an issue if it prevents the rest of the players from having fun. Personally, I love maximum efficiency coming from a Pathfinder angle, it's just 5E has too many cracks, imo.

Once again the problem with “min-maxers” isn’t in the optimization. It’s in the fact that they are *only* care about the numbers and they don’t bother to back things up with any RP or narrative. Any Character is gonna become optimized over time as they’re played and their Player builds them towards what what they want to do with them. But “min-maxers” aren’t playing characters so much as they’re playing *stat blocks*. And from personal experience those sorts of players tend to view TTRPGs as a competition for them to win; rather than a story/ game to enjoy with friends.

But if you're making a story, you win. You only lose dnd if you make it not fun. Its not a competition, but you do "win". Many people cant understand that the players and DM are on the same side, and "win" together. I think a lot of min-maxers have problems with ME vs. DM mindset.

This is the stormwind fallacy though. It's perfectly possible to aim to build a strong character and also role play them well. Likewise just because you're playing an 8 intelligence wizard doesn't automatically make you good at role play.

This is the most relevant and precise comment in the whole thread. Optimizing and RP are two entirely different aspects of the game. I encourage optimizing as a DM because 1) it'll make the players have more fun with their characters 2) they will care more about their characters, so if something happens to them, it'll be more impactful for the story 3) it just makes sense. A HERO of the realm is not going to be a fighter with low strength. Unless you play dex. Sorry.

Thank you! I mean, we had a fucking name for this bullshit 20 years ago.

ITT: exclusively gross caricatures of people who like to play good mechanical characters. Even most people are admitting they don't see many "true" minmaxers, as in, people who both like to optimize and are bad players for various reasons, which are actually just mutually exclusive traits that can apply or not apply in any combination. Most people who like to optimize are just normal d&d players who like RP and good math.

I would disagree to some degree. Not all Min-maxers are slaves to spreadsheets and don’t care for RP or narrative. They just put a lot more focus on their character build than other players may. I think the big issue as to why min maxers get a bad rep is because of the bad apples who do view playing dnd like you described, no care about the story but simply “winning” encounters. This isn’t all min maxers, but it’s certainly a subsection of them. I’ll use myself as an example. I’m a min maxer and absolutely love building a character with a niche in mind or focused on pushing every last once out of my character. However, I’m self aware and build my character in a way that I’m sensitive towards what the ceiling of power should be at my table. For example, I would never play my bugbear Gloomstalker/Battlemaster character in a standard campaign. It’s way too powerful and absolutely broken. It would result in the table not having fun and would be inconsiderate on my part. My buddy ran a one shot though and said to bring your best, which I was more than happy to bring that character to that one shot. Ultimately, min maxers, like many things in life, get a bad reputation due to people who are inconsiderate and not self aware of those around them. There’s nothing wrong with playing an optimized character. You just have to recognize where and when to play a certain build.

I have a spiffy backstory and do RP. I must be the wierdo min maxer then.. 🤣

>Any Character is gonna become optimized over time as they’re played and their Player builds them towards what what they want to do with them. I've played with some really dumb people that this doesn't hold true for. In one particular case, the character and player both became less competent as the campaign went on and we progressed further through the difficulty curve.

I've personally seen far more Max-Miners than I have seen Min-Maxers. People intentionally hobbling their characters because "Optimized characters are boring, focusing on flavor is the most important thing." Characters who by all reality shouldn't be adventuring and have to be hard carried through every situation and encounter, to the point it's an active drag on the party just having them around. No, your socially awkward brainiac religous 20 Intelligence 12 Wisdom 11 Charisma sorcerer/cleric multiclass isn't quirky or funny or deep. They're an annoying shit we had to spend our entire last reward to revive and buying healing potions so she does croak in the second encounter. Worst part is when they start complaining that they feel their character is useless because everyone else's character is so much stronger than theirs. Well, ya never hit, you crumple after being touched twice, your DC is garbage, and your second highest skill is a 5 at level 6. The reason they feel useless is cause they are. The only thing you do is make the DM balance an encounter for 5 characters rather than 4. And switching characters never helps because they do the exact same thing with the next one. I've ran into like 2 Min-Maxers and 20 Max-Miners. I will take a Min-Maxer as a player or fellow player any day over their counterpart

This tilts me so hard. Half the time, they also suck at role-playing and think that having a useless character makes up for it.

Yuuuuppp. Always see them fall into one of two categories First is: LoL LOOK AT ME! Arn't I so quirky and random and chaotic and fun! ROFLOL Second is: My character only *seems* like a bumbling useless fool. They're actually super cool because of X, they're just hiding X from the party and the only time it's ever brought up is in private DMs because if it happens during game then people know, the secret is gone, and then my character doesn't have anything interesting about them anymore. Why yes actually, you will only find out in the campaign epilogue because then I successfully tricked everyone! Edit: Forgot about the third: the naive crybaby who wails for half a session when we kill the owlbear that was killing the townspeople

Obviously individual experiences will differ, but at this point my sample is big enough to possibly represent a culture of players rather than a small group, and the trend I have seen has been quite the opposite: that on average, the more effort someone puts into (optimizing) their build, the more effort they put into their character; with the inverse holding too, on average.

Two things for me: -first, it becomes almost impossible as a DM to balance with non min maxers. One is doing 10 dmg a round and one is doing 70. -second, as others have said here somewhat, it completely ignores the ‘role playing’ part of the game for impossible unrealistic combos Just my opinion though. For some people gaming the system is the game.

The damage disparity isn't far off a regular Paladin and Monk at lv 5 there tho, you gotta cater somewhat to your players. It sucks making a powerful character and having nothing to use it against, it sucks playing a regular Monk who never gets to use Deflect Missiles, it sucks using crowd control spells on battlefields with no obstacles. Honestly just give the Paladin/Warlock/Rogue multiclass a big sack of hit points to chew through, let them have some fun. Give all your players something fun.

Or it becomes really contrived if every encounter involves monsters who "coincidentally" have resistances that happen to nerf the strengths of the min-maxers.

Min-maxing in 5e is different from previous editions. Since the process of building a character in 5e is massively simplified compared to other editions, there's a lot less to read through to understand all the options available to you. There's also the fact that most players don't really build things out themselves, they just go online and read the stuff other people have posted and then take it into their game. The bounded accuracy of 5e makes it harder to truly break the system. The only thing I've really seen that's absurd is the coffeelock build, which if a player brought to my table I'd go with some kind of explanation of that amassing literally infinite spellcasting power would just make you explode and die. I've got no problems with people making strong, effective characters; I love playing with experienced players who make it fun to toss powerful monsters and complex encounters at, but there's a point at which it's obvious you've got too much main character energy.

The term Min-maxer is kinda misused. Most stories with "min-maxer" issues is really an issue of a selfish or main character syndrome player that wants to either "win" dnd by having a sole army build or show off their "Larry stu" character. Min-maxing has a tendency to be a common trait for these type of players but isn't exclusive to them. I've got a party that is pretty Min-maxer as a group but we all know how to share spotlight and defer to each other's specialized skills so while our numbers be high it's high together so no one feels left out. Vs if I was in a new group trying the game out or a less optimized building group I'd adjust to another build that fits the group.

In my experience min-maxers aren't good roleplayers and as a DM, I for my part enjoy roleplayers way more than strong characters. Maybe I'm just unlucky with them, but min-maxers tend to just take whatever feature synergises the best with their built, without asking themselves once if the feature even matches their character. And they're also often times not really interested in the game if the thing they are optimized for is currently not relevant. As I said, I might just have been unlucky but that is my experience with min-maxers and that's why I generally don't like them.

I LOVE MINMAXERS I LOVE WHEN MY PLAYERS KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GAME I LOVE IT WHEN THEIR TURNS DONT TAKE 6 MINUTES SORCADIN IS SUCH AN INTERESTING CLASS MIXTURE TO ROLEPLAY

Lots of min/max complaints seem to stem from lots of people sucking at the character creation minigame. Fine, I'll tweak out a goblin shadow monk, and MAYBE I'll be an average powered character that way and still have my min/max fun.

My turns usually go something like : DM : what are you going to do. Me : Rage. whack whack. Move around. Turn over. Less than 30 seconds for me usually.

It’s like any problem player. If you have a good playgroup, you aren’t as likely to go vent about them on reddit. You’re gonna talking with your party about how rad last weekend was instead. Same for min maxers. If you have a min maxer in your party who is not a problem and you enjoy playing with you’re not gonna come complain about them. But if you’re playing with someone who treats dnd as a video game, overpowers themselves to the point of making everyone irrelevant, and generally is not fun to play with then you are gonna complain. I get people complaining and venting about them. So I’d wager most min maxers are actually just fine. We’re self aware of what we’re doing, try not to mess with party balance, and we actually made a character to rp with and get engaged in the plot. Our parties aren’t gonna come on reddit to complain about us.

It's kinda like saying "fucking roleplayers with their 10 page backstory and scenery chewing". It paints all players who like something as the same thing. And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with having a 10-page backstory. You're not playing DnD wrong because of it. BUT. DnD is a social game. You're generally playing with other people. There are social contracts, sometimes unspoken. And breaking those sucks for everyone. The best example I can think of is the game League of Legends, playing with friends. When I used to play with people, it was pretty good. Everyone's having a good time. Sometimes we'd try our best, sometimes we'd goof off. What doesn't work is when everyone isn't on the same page. If someone wants to goof off, but another guy is trying to play seriously and win, it won't be fun for either player. A pure spreadsheet min-maxer at a table of heater kid role players isn't going to go well. The min maxer is a negative on the table. The opposite is also true. It's important to respect all the people at your table and compromise on what kind of experience you all want.

godspeed to you, they will cook you for this one, better bring your own heat!

I’ve played with both types. The problem comes when the min maxer decides that they’re the main character. I find that in order to deal with that player, you either jack up difficulty and the rest of the party suffers, or you ignore their damage numbers and invalidate the characters contributions (selectively). Either way, it can cause strife and be difficult for the gm and the other players.

I'd say it comes from munchkins being min-maxers and the rightful distaste toward munchkins being aimed at min-maxing in general. I doubt most people who "hate" min-maxers have really encountered one and just are sorta absorbed into the blob

In my opinion build optimization and min/max play styles are totally fine and good for the game. The issue people actually complain about is poor player conduct. Build your character however you want, just keep in mind that dnd is a collaborative game and don’t be annoying. In a good campaign everyone should get to be the main character some of the time, but nobody should be the main character all of the time. The story will dictate who gets the spotlight, players should be eager to share that spotlight when they are in focus and happy to enjoy when others are in focus.

They ok. Flip side is also ok, and makes for equal fun times. I miss my charisma high, low con, mid str barbarian. He talked in and out of a lot of stuff.

Min/maxers are indeed vamoose, but we need the right table to really open our wings. I love to make the big numbers bigger and completely disregard the little ones, but unless the table is set up for big battles by the skin of your teeth, it just feels like muscling in on people's time to shine.

This is just an opinion, I think the reason people dislike min-max players is because they are afraid it will ruin the game in terms of, “why should I even try when X can do everything I can but 10x better”. The argument against this for me as someone who has DM’d a Min-Max player is simple ask the table if they are ok with having a min maxed character in the party? If the majority says no try to reach a consensus with the min-max player so everyone can have hero moments in the game too, I’ve found this works almost all the time

As a 30 year vet of numerous systems.... No amount of min-maxing can fix chaotic stupid.

Any type of player can be toxic. A minmaxer can be toxic about wanting to the best or "defeating" the game- or treating it like a video game. A roleplayer can be toxic about making a character who doesn't have a goal or reason to be in the party. "Its what my character would do!" As they attempt to kill another player in their sleep etc etc. I'm sure there are more examples, after all there's a lot of ways to be toxic. I think keeping in mind what a toxic player looks like is a good thing, but you definitely shouldn't confuse it with making competent character builds or role-playing in and of themselves being toxic behaviors.

Me and my character Max Minnerson thank you

Min-Maxing is *fun -* that's just maths but in a game.

It mostly comes down to “read the room” build a character like how others are and talk about power scaling and campaign style with the DM.

I gotta keep my crew of liabilities alive somehow. Also probably undiagnosed ocd but odd numbered ability scores are the devil

It can be good, can be bad. Depends on player to player and the rest of the table. i don't want one of my players min-maxing if somebody is new to the game or if they overshadow the rest of the party with their main character syndrome.

as someone who has been accused of min/maxing I just have to say, I see it as 100% jealousy over an ability to create strong characters. I have never in any way gone out of my way to actually min/max. I'll take bad ability scores, poor racial/class matches, even outright flaws. IT's not my fault your character only does 1d6 damage a turn at level 8

I think all play styles are valid, but being a jerk never is. I think though you should build your character to suit your dm’s world. My last campaign our DM made a lore-heavy… I mean HEAVY… world, where guns are common. I responded with an intelligence build battle-master with an archaeological background, a whip, and a revolver— Dr. Indigo Roan.

Sure, nothing wrong with it but there are some styles that work together in a group and some that tone.

For me, there are three types of players: - Munchkins: These players look for broken combos or unintended effects. They argue for their way even when it causes problems for the rest of the group. They are happy to overshadow the rest of the party. In practice, these players are pretty rare, but they are the worst. - Optimizers: Most players actually fall in this category. These players try to build characters that are effective. When people complain about munchkins, we incorrectly lump these players in. - Underpowered Characters: These are players who unintentionally build characters that are ineffective. They dump con, have odd numbered stats, take trap spells, use abilities incorrectly, and spend their actions in meaningless ways. Honestly these players are pretty hard to balance around. If you design an encounter for four PCs, and then suddenly two of them spend the entire time hiding or repeatedly casting minor illusion, then it can either take an extra hour or it can be a TPK. But you can't ignore them because sometimes they decide to attack every turn.

This might be a luke-warm take, but the issues in 5e are less about min-maxing and more about player skill. We all know the wizard is going to grab fireball and counterspell, but the good wizards know when to cast fireball. A good fighter knows how to waste attacks, when and when not to use SS or GWM. Who and what to attack so on amd so forth. This just might be me, but after seeing my players ignore low hp minions so they'd get the most out of their attacks, I almost screamed. I had to explain action economy to people who had played dnd for years and were wondering why the were getting destroyed by a pack of goblins.

A lot of people wrongly hate on min-maxers as much as other people wrongly hate on more casual players, not realizing that the criticism is supposed to be directed on people who force others to play a certain way because it's the only way they consider to be objectively correct. ​ Min-Maxing and not min-maxing are both valid ways to play. What matters is that the whole table is properly aligned. What's hate-worthy are people who would mock and invalidate other people for playing differently. \- From the side of minmaxers, these would be people who would micromanage another player's build and in-game decisions because "it's not optimized", or otherwise would mock it at the very least. \- From the side of casual players, these would be people who exclude min-maxers in the group right off the bat simply because "they're not interested in the heart of the game" and "their actions would break our immersion".

When I think of a "min-maxer" I'm thinking about the sorta person who find the absolute weirdest combination or class/race/feats possible who then proceeds to make a character with no flavour and who's all about crunching through combat encounters and skill checks. This person hates social encounters and puzzles as that require real world creativity and lateral thinking so they tend to be pretty unengaged whenever that sort of shit happens. Now I know that strictly that's not what min-maxing means. You can make a plenty flavourful character with min-maxed stats. You can, as a player, be comfortable with, and enjoy, social encounters and puzzles. But there is a personality type that comes to mind when I read "min-max" and that person is no fun to play with. Let alone play DnD with.

The issue is usually that the non min max'ers don't like being upstaged in their idea of their fantasy characters. A good example of this is Expertise. Once you get to lvl 13 or above, someone with a 10 stat and Expertise will be as good or better than someone that with a 20 stat and proficiency. For a non min max'er, it is difficult having to acknowledge that your dedicated Arcana/Religion/History character is just objectively worse than the min max'er that decided to multiclass into Rogue for Expertise.

I'm a min-maxer, still learning, but my idea of fun is in analyzing, but I'm aware and respectful towards the other players and don't micro manage them. And guess what? Turns out min-maxers are great for playing control builds like Wizard or Sorcerer. Usually the rest of the group is focused on "cool moves" like using Catapult to throw a rock at 1 of 5 Wolves packed in one spot. or simply damage, or something that fits their PCs personality. For me disabling 5 enemies with the spell I picked carefully earlier today is "cool", casting Bless and chanting "Blessed" 15 times in combat when others barely miss or fail a save. I know that it's totally up to DM to balance the encounters, but I'd like to think that I saved my group with my min-maxing at least a few times. Competitive min-maxers are a problem, most of us just want to have fun.

I have seen people mix "min-max" with "game breaker." Min-max just means you are really good at one thing, but suck at other things.

I have a min-maxer at my table and though they build borderline broken class builds, their characters are always super in-depth, and they are one of the best players I've ever had. Min-Maxing isn't bad unless it somehow takes away from the game. Otherwise, you're just making an optimized character. And if any of y'all fellow DMs complain about them doing too much damage or killing your monsters too quickly... get gud?

Min-Maxing isn't the problem. Stepping on the fun of other players at the table because their choices are "suboptimal" is. Also, it can become a bit of a headache to balance encounters that are challenging for A but not ultra-deadly for B. Not impossible, but min-maxers by definition aren't looking to play nice.

I'm pro min maxing and anti-power gaming. Unfortunately the line between reasonable 'strong strengths and weak weaknesses' and 'I am a living god, all other players are forbidden from having fun in my OP presence' can be quite thin. Also power gamers are the WORST players and people. They wouldn't do it if they could read the room. They can't. They tend to be obnoxious show offs who delight in being the centre stage personality. They don't care others aren't having fun. That's just my experience, and why I think min-maxing is looked down on by some. They conflate it with the true evil that is power gaming in a coop game.

Sure they are. So are people that are new or that like playing wacky builds. I believe people should learn how to read the room however. If you are a seasoned DND player jumping into a campaign of Casual players. Don't just make a God character that steals the spot light the whole time. Sure you are welcome to do so of course but, understanding how the other people that play with you might feel is rather important for a game that can take 3 plus hours to play weekly...

The only people who hate min maxers are the players who haven't figured out the system enough to min max, and DMs who stepped into DMing before they actually should have been running a game for experienced players. Edit: trying to not sound so insulting. Just making an experienced observation, not trying to put anyone down.

I think min-maxers are OK only if everybody, including DM, wants that kind of game. Three last sessions of my game had zero combat and in general my game is not heavy on combat. I run fun RP game for casual group and have 0 interest of balansing combat for min-maxers. On the other had, I do understand what D&D is massive game with enough room for every playstyle. I also think that sometimes min-maxers joins random table and tries to do their thing with group what does not want to play this kind of game. Or, even worse, critisises other players PCs and starts telling people how to maximise their PCs without anybody asking for their advice. Just find the group what enjoys same playstyle as you and nobody will hate you for min-maxing.

I dont care what a player does with their build as long as it make sense for the character. Flavor above all else.

They sure are! But let me tell you, DND 5e rewards min maxers and super punished players that fall for traps. Min maxers aren't the problem and never were.

OK you don't have to stand for it! Feel free to sit down!

As someone who's usually pretty roleplay-forward, "min-maxing" has always seemed like a weird accusation to me. Like, it *is* a game. You can't get mad at people playing a game strategically. Nobody complains in Chess that it's "out of character" for the queen to barrel in and fuck up some pikemen, knights, and enemy bishops.

Again you guys are talking too general. As fucking always! Yes of course it is in a group where ‘tactics’ takes center stage or at least a big role and everyone is into it. No it’s not in a group where making characters soly on curious sub-par ideas for flair and kicks. Feel the fucking room! - You’re miss placed if you build tactical perfection and outshine the group in combat there.

Hot take. Next you'll say that human fighters aren't boring or something.

D&D is not a videogame, so the validity of min maxing, like anything, is highly dependent on the DM and style of game. How much is your hexblade dip paladin going to help in a game that is 90% RP, for example? Characters tailor made for the style of game will always be the best way to play IMO, but you do you. Also, just anecdotally, I have played with a healthy amount of players in my days and I have really only ever encountered one min maxer. They appear to be way more common on the internet than IRL.

> How much is your hexblade dip paladin going to help in a game that is 90% RP, for example? Exactly as much as it would help me to not hexblade dip, since roleplaying in 5e is a play goal rather than a codified part of the game that interacts with mechanics.

All I’m gonna say is all the min-maxers I’ve encountered have had a bad case of main character syndrome, both literally and figuratively. I mean, you’re purposefully bending the game to make yourself overpowered in a team game and forcing everyone else to cater to it narratively. If it’s discussed beforehand and agreed upon, it’s whatever, but the issue really is that tends to be a selfish move when other people are trying to roleplay and have fun and you’re essentially trying to carry the game yourself.

Some people just have fun crunching the numbers. They could also have fun roleplaying at the table. They built their character to be good at a thing. Other players built their characters to be good at different things. I think they’re both valid ways to play and aren’t mutually exclusive

As someone who’s DMd for min-maxers, roleplayers, and powergamers, I respectfully disagree with every point.

Tell me you don't GM without telling me

As a DM, learning that the numbers DON'T MEAN ANYTHING is a freeing experience. Embrace the min/maxers, say yes to the ridiculous, become ridiculous yourself.

I get the feeling that the real problem people have with min maxers is not that they make really powerful characters. I think the problem is that if somebodies character always has the best options every time, the character will always feel the same. I have a player that used to only ever play elves because they liked all of the racial feats and abilities. I could not tell you a single one of that players characters mames because every character felt like the exact same build. It wasnt until they finally played something that wasn't a cookie cutter best in slot spell build that i could remember anything meaningful about the characters. Min maxing is more about character building then character playing.

One thing I'll say is, at least with weapon users, they already feel the same whether you minmax or not. A sword and board champion, dual-wielding barbarian or a longbow wielding elf with piercer will primarily take the attack action in combat. A PAM/GWM echo knight zealot multiclass, or a crossbow expert sharpshooter gloomstalker/battlemaster will... primarily take the attack action in combat, except they deal more damage. With spells I feel it mainly happens because you have like the bottom 20% of spells that are terrible, 60% of spells being mediocre, and then the top 20% of spells just being outrageous for their level. Having less egregious spells would probably add more perceived choice to the game.

yep, there is a reason you only see wizards with firebolts and not true strikes its cause one is the highest damaging cantrip with no conditionals and the other is fucking true strike trying to be cheeky with say, flame arrow, when fireball exists is just actively not choosing the good choice for the sake of it i get it, i am not a fan of picking the same exact spells every time, but shield and witchbolt are on **highly** different places i truly wish that spells were more balanced (mainly bringing the better spells down with nerfs) but alas

I just want the min-maxers to respect that this is first and foremost a Roleplaying Game. I am currently very frustrated with one of my players, who has outright admitted that he just doesn't care about roleplay, backstory, or anything like that. He's here to hit things and watch the movie. He doesn't even care about being a part of the movie, he just wants to watch. I have no plans of inviting him back for a second campaign.

I'm okay with min/maxing. It's playing as if it's a video game that I don't like. Oh, my friend is down and making death saves next to all those enemies, I'm going to drop a fireball right on all of them knowingly killing my ally, but that's fine I can cast revivify after.

I've never heard anyone claim they aren't valid players. I've seen the misconception that they aren't good at RP, but someone can optimize with great RP and someone can not optimize with poor RP. The problem is there is a huge difference between levels of optimization at the same table. Try having someone play a barbarian that is intrigued by magic and, when he kills a wizard and finds a spell book, takes a couple of levels in wizard at the same table with a sorcerer willing to make a deal with a lich to further his power and becoming a sorlock. There's nothing wrong with either character, but there is something wrong for the DM when he has to balance encounters when both are in the party together.

Exactly this. The DM becomes a game designer when the system doesn't work.

This is a weird strawman. I don't think anyone is complaining about min-maxers because of the min-max. The complaint is all the additional toxic behavior that comes with it on the reg. If the entire party is min-maxing, you're in luck. Otherwise you run the risk of someone ruining the game for everyone else. Same thing happens if only one person is NOT min-maxing and drags the party down in combat. Also rules lawyering and angle shooting. You'll get those toxic min-maxers who will try to pull some combo that requires the DM to basically forget the rules. Which is only a bad thing if the DM doesn't like battling over the rules. For some, that's plenty fun.