Min-Maxing / Powerbuilding

[Rick Astley]

Min-maxing / Powerbuilding, I personally don't think we should do it if we're a servervault that enforces roleplay. Otherwise, we'll just be attracting people with a PC Gamer mind-set, rather than a ROLEPLAYER mind-set.

If you don't know what min-maxing / powerbuilding is, there's an example below.

Example -> Fighter 7 / Rogue 5 / WM 13 -> Str: 22, Dex: 12-13, Con: 16-18, Wis: 6-8, Int: 13, Cha: 8 -> Okay, so you've got two dump-stats, WIS&CHA, then after you've got those you entirely neglect to roleplay the standards you should only be capable of showing, over-doing this would saying you've got the leadership skills of a 16 CHA w/ skill investments in (Persuade, Bluff, Intimidate, Taunt.) -> And/or typing a description depicting you're a sex-kitten love goddess that's totally fucking sexy -> And, then, to over-do the WIS, you'd be saying that you can't get anything past this individual, they're a VERY capable tracker, they've got overall GOOD senses and/or they're mentally, OVER AVERAGE or NORMAL.

Anyhow, CAST YOUR VOTES!

[Rick Astley]

For more information on how to prevent yourself from doing this, send ME a PM, and I'll be glad to help.

[Rick Astley]

All I'm saying, don't be fearful of going outside the NORM. It's okay to build a Fighter with 14 Charisma, or a Sorcerer with 9 INT & 9 Wis altogether. You can be stupid, and lack perception yet you're still capable of drawing onward that RAW power.

Edit : Go crazy. Make a HIGH Int & High CHA Rogue, that's a Lawful Good Thief-Catcher. There's thousands of possibilities out there, and I'm just hoping to see folks that're willing to break away from this NORM. -> Remember, "Everything is good in moderation." -> And, if you're really out to play the 'perfect' human, start with all 13's and by level 25 you're sitting on a 14 in every attribute, you're THEN superior.

[Coolreject]

"Power gaming" should be a non-issue. It's just something self-righteous role players like to bring up in order to start drama-packed witch hunts. I say make whatever character you want as long as it's not rule-breaking or an exploit.

[Rick Astley]

I think I am self-righteous, technically, but I'm definately not an asshole. The only reason I'm doing this, is because I know what this crowd is used to and I figured it would be considerate of me, if I presented something NEW to everyone.

We're not talking about powergaming, that's when you're out grinding continuously in an effort to get XP, whilst totally ditching RP. -> Not really a term that's useful for a server like this, considering we're all starting out at maximum level. -> It's for power-hungry players, in a sense. (one that only wishes to advance in a quickness; motives vary though.)

We're talking about min-maxing / powerBUILDING, I think we're a mature enough crowd that's more than capable of roleplaying our attributes. -> And, believe it when I say it, it's not just the fact that you're roleplaying your attributes it's a lesson in your Fighter actually getting something out of having a point-investment in something like Charisma, for instance, you're not ugly as **** and you're probably going to be MORE social. -> Although it's just as interesting of you to choose 8 Charisma as a Fighter, so long as you're roleplaying that you've GOT, 8 Charisma.

[dremos]

Hmmm.. I'd like the people to argue about it while remaining polite .. and then vote.. because this might trigger a DM-Stat-Check VS RP thing.. meaning we DMs will make sure that you RP your characters according to your stats.

[Rick Astley]

This isn't a nazi-like rule that's going to require our administrators to look at EVERY character sheet. -> If anything, I'd say it'll end up a mere guide-line if it's approved, it should be a known fact that it's NOT a bad thing to roleplay your attributes. -> And, if anything, this'll do ALOT more good, before it'll do any bad.

[Coolreject]

Yes, you should RP according to your stats.

Just please don't start throwing around terms like "power gaming" and "min-maxing" because they are extremely vague and mean different things to different people.

[Coolreject]

Also the way this poll is framed is kind of weird. "Power gaming? Should we allow it or not?" Well, obviously power gaming is a bad thing so people are going to vote no. But that's not actually what the poll is asking.

It's like how politicians try to get people to vote for a tax cut or something by calling it a "tax relief", right off the bat they frame the question to make taxes appear as a burden that needs to be relieved. Who would vote against a relief?

All we need is a rule that says: "Role play your stats accurately," and that's it. Simplicity.

[Coolreject]

Although we are an extremely small community so I guess we can just trust each other to not be huge faggots towards each other. That would be nice.

[Coolreject]

I dunno, I think 8-12 is anything an average person might have. Anything below that is debilitating and anything above that is above average.

I think it says something about it in the 3.5 manual.

[Kybshe]

Roleplaying beyond a character's actual abilities is creating a Mary Sue, as Poxx mentioned if you have a character with little charisma yet you are somehow "hot stuff" it doesn't make any sense.

Now, I am not saying that charisma = beauty, but people with no charisma are going to be socially awkward, even if they are good looking.

[Rick Astley]

It's not powergaming, it's min-maxing & powerBUILDING. I'm just used to everybody knowing what they mean, powergaming doesn't even apply to this type of server in any way. There's simply NO WAY to powergame.

Powerbuilding on the other hand, that's where you've got your Lvl1 Dwarf w/ 18 STR, 12 DEX, 16-18 CON, 8 WIS, 8 INT, 6 CHA, and it's even worse once you're not roleplaying the attributes. How to know you're a powerbuilder? You probably say things like this. -> Friend: "What are you doing?", You: "I'm working on my build, it's pretty powerful so far, I think I'll go in game and have a buddy help me test it with a duel." Friend: "Oh."

9-10 Charisma, that's AVERAGE. We've all likely got 9-10 Charisma. If you've got 6-8 Charisma, you're probably the guy that nobody likes, you'll lack things such as leadership skills, people skills, social skills, comeliness, hygiene, you're likely an outsider everywhere you go, it's likely you won't make many friends in life as a 6-8 Charisma, you'll possible have a personality disorder, and you could lack a great deal of confidence in yourself. -> Anyhow, that list could go on and on, but I'd like to present some equivalancies toward the attributes..

Basically, even 12 STR is pretty strong, you can bench press 200 lbs if you've got 12 STR.. But you can probably only do a couple repetitions, per day. If you've got 14 STR, you start looking very muscular, it really starts to show. If you've got 18 STR, you're a big motherfucker.

Dexterity, 12 Dexterity means you're slightly nimble footed, you've got good foot-work and you're kinda balanced. 14 Dexterity means you can juggle 4 oranges, easily. 16 Dexterity, about 6 oranges. -> 18 Dexterity & 14 STR combined, you can probably juggle 3 watermelons. 20 Dexterity? Spiderman.

Constitution, that's an easy one, if you've got a Constitution of 18 you can run a marathon, no problem.

Wisdom 18, you're like the ultimate tracker, you don't miss anything. You're very perceptive, always watching, think of Codename 47 in the Hitman movie when they're sitting in the restaurant and the girl's asking him stuff about the people that're dining, and he seems to have noticed/taken mental note of something about most of the people there. And, you've got alot of sense, you're mainly well directed if you've got a High WIS.

Intelligence goes like this, 10 INT = IQ 100, 11 INT = IQ 110, 15 INT = IQ 150, 18 INT = IQ 180.. 18 INT, with the IQ of 180 means you're like the dude from Good Will Hunting, basically. You can look at half of an equation, and figure that shit out.

Charisma? I explained that one first, I don't know why.

[Rick Astley]

And, no, it's not framed, I'm starting to feel like a victim here. I described to everybody what a min-maxed / powerbuilt character was, if you voted 'It should be disallowed.' -> I guess, speak up, so Coolreject is reassured everybody casted the vote they WANTED.

After all, this is what it's about, what the player-base truely wants.

Edit : (Notation) -> It's all been described in the very top post, the very one that started this thread, by me.

[Rick Astley]

Feb 8, 2009 2:40:15 GMT -5 Kybshe said:

Roleplaying beyond a character's actual abilities is creating a Mary Sue, as Poxx mentioned if you have a character with little charisma yet you are somehow "hot stuff" it doesn't make any sense.

Now, I am not saying that charisma = beauty, but people with no charisma are going to be socially awkward, even if they are good looking.

And, remember, it's not ALL about Charisma.. We've also got people that can run 10 miles without taking a breather that only have 10 Constitution. The only message that's to be put across here is that dump-stats = BAD unless roleplayed. -> And in extreme cases like our 8 Wis, 8 Int, 6 Cha Dwarven powerbuilt min-maxer, it's just obsurd.