Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

[Guizonde]

There was so much great stuff in this post, it was hard to know what to respond to. However, I will add that "5 individuals" gives interesting role-playing opportunities, and too much perfect team synergy can create the Determinator of parties rather than a good role-playing experience.

i'm not saying that individual characters are bad, far from it. i'm thinking that if everyone wants to be the team leader/mary sue/hero of the story, infighting will happen and reduce overall fun and efficiency. the last time i played true-blue dnd we had a unit of 4 (cleric, rogue, monk, wizard), and then we had the outliers: edgelord black dragon descended sorceress, perverted druid (who had a habit of chasing tail more than doing anything with animals), bored fighter... the dm accepted that there was the core team, and that the 3 outsiders were just there to penalize the team. you'd think a pre-written encounter is easier with 7, in that particular case, it was worse, slower, and full of infighting. it was really a case of "struggling together", as it were.

there could be a case made for 5 high-op specialists working together like a well-oiled machine as much as for 5 low-op roleplayers struggling to survive, and both would be equally enjoyable, so long as team dynamics are respected. this is also why a lot of roleplayers are against the concept of including one roll-player at their table. i've clearly more experience roleplaying than optimizing, but in my rogue trader group, i'm the only truly high-op guy out of necessity. i enjoy my roleplay, but with 25 charisma, i'm far from the face of the group. i shine in combat, and the rest of the team thank me for carrying them, just as i thank them for talking their way into bolstering my armament and advancing the plot. this is down to team dynamics. we've got 6 specialists, with very little overlap of duties (void master has tech-skills, tech-priest can pilot a bit, priest and i know medicine, seneschal is only bad in physical skills due to poor rolls, and the necron is both the melee specialist and the intimidation expert). it could be a mess of spotlight stealing (and i've been there before in past games), but it's extremely fluid, with everyone deferring to the specialist.

why i referred to tucker's kobolds was because what struck me about that story was that as the team was getting terrorized, they pulled apart rather than pulled together to fight them off. team synergy allows you to punch much higher above your weight class, and it's something that both optimizers and roleplayers alike underestimate or plain neglect.

[MeimuHakurei]

There's a 10% chance Darth Ultron completely exaggerates player reactions to challenge and a 90% chance he's completely making this up. No need to pay attention to anything he says.

I also agree with the sentiment that working together fosters a good roleplaying experience more consistently than infighting does, because without prior agreements or DM counseling, IC conflict can easily escalate into OOC conflict because the characters aren't 100% disconnected from the players.

Escaping from combat is more of an option at higher levels where you have speed boosts and teleports which aren't easily traced back - the enemy might run into unexpected resistance or has reason to believe you're creating a diversion. At lower levels, yeah, you generally don't have the resources or speeds to actually flee from high-level combatants.

Finally, I absolutely agree that the player should be made aware of the rules, *especially* the ones you plan on changing. You may have to admit you made a mistake, explain why something is detrimental to your play experience or accept that your players want consistency in their actions. But ultimately, you shouldn't strive to keep game rules hidden just so you can sucker punch them for a thing they couldn't have possibly known.

[Arbane]

But ultimately, you shouldn't strive to keep game rules hidden just so you can sucker punch them for a thing they couldn't have possibly known.

But gloating over players' mental inferiority for not reading my mind is the greatest joy of GMing!

[PhoenixPhyre]

But ultimately, you shouldn't strive to keep game rules hidden just so you can sucker punch them for a thing they couldn't have possibly known.

I'd call that gotcha DM'ing and I consider it to be a cardinal sign of bad play. It's about the fastest way to make me leave a table.

I had a DM decide that my spell a) hit allies (it normally doesn't) and b) wasn't endable at will (which it normally was). All for reasons that I had no way of knowing, not even with a check. Left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Boci]

And does said level 3 party have any chance of having those things, or the caster level needed to actually affect a CR 10 creature? Not a chance. It can out move you, it is immune to anything you can throw, can probably 1-hit-kill you, and has no save, just die abilities. I'm assuming 3.5 here due to your comments. 5e might actually be somewhat survivable/escapable in that situation, assuming you know early enough. And low level parties don't have the divination capabilities to know that their getting in over their heads. If you just mix the CRs too much, you have an unacceptably high (to me at least) chance of random, unavoidable TPK that kills a game. And that's no fun.

The truth is, the DM must always pull their punches, otherwise the party can't survive at low levels. And even at high levels, the DM can always win if he wants to.

To add to this:

And even if it works, and the 3rd level party escape the CR 10 random encounter, they stayed alieve, but they didn't achieve anything else beyond. Back to the drawing board/quest centre. Maybe the next once won't be hopesle

Plus then there's the reverse, you go on a quest at 12th level, and find the average CR of the encoutner is 2. Great, that was a waste of time. Maybe they used divination magic to find that out beforehand, but that still a waste of game time, just a little less. How plot hooks are a part going to stumble across every week? If the challenge can range from EHL 1-20, its going to be rather unlikely any one of them is suitable for you, no matter how you modle the distribution.

And this is assuming the CRs of a quest/segment are consistent, which if the DM doesn't enforce it there is no reason to assume. You could have a CR 6 random encounter on the way to clear a fort of monstrous humanoids where the average encounter is CR 3, except one of them is CR 9, hanging out with his friends.

[Quertus]

And does said level 3 party have any chance of having those things, or the caster level needed to actually affect a CR 10 creature? Not a chance. It can out move you, it is immune to anything you can throw, can probably 1-hit-kill you, and has no save, just die abilities. I'm assuming 3.5 here due to your comments. 5e might actually be somewhat survivable/escapable in that situation, assuming you know early enough. And low level parties don't have the divination capabilities to know that their getting in over their heads. If you just mix the CRs too much, you have an unacceptably high (to me at least) chance of random, unavoidable TPK that kills a game. And that's no fun.

The truth is, the DM must always pull their punches, otherwise the party can't survive at low levels. And even at high levels, the DM can always win if he wants to.

Hahaha, I was mostly focused on 3.x because of the term "CR 10".

In 3e, the PCs are generally assumed to be able to buy things, so, yes, the kind of competent party that can survive in the "real" world would have one or more of those, or some similar plan of escape.

And - even ignoring shenanigans or paying NPCs for casting services - "yes or no" divinations come online by level 3. Knowledge checks - and asking people questions - comes online at level 1.

AFB, but does Entangle or Fog Cloud or Green Blockade allow SR? I was under the impression "caster level" was usually pretty unimportant for BFC.

Yes, death and even TPK is absolutely a possibility. But the GM doesn't have to pull their punches, and some parties have actually survived even when the GM played the world honest.

Those, IMO, make for the most tense, best stories.

To add to this:

And even if it works, and the 3rd level party escape the CR 10 random encounter, they stayed alieve, but they didn't achieve anything else beyond. Back to the drawing board/quest centre. Maybe the next once won't be hopesle

Plus then there's the reverse, you go on a quest at 12th level, and find the average CR of the encoutner is 2. Great, that was a waste of time. Maybe they used divination magic to find that out beforehand, but that still a waste of game time, just a little less. How plot hooks are a part going to stumble across every week? If the challenge can range from EHL 1-20, its going to be rather unlikely any one of them is suitable for you, no matter how you modle the distribution.

And this is assuming the CRs of a quest/segment are consistent, which if the DM doesn't enforce it there is no reason to assume. You could have a CR 6 random encounter on the way to clear a fort of monstrous humanoids where the average encounter is CR 3, except one of them is CR 9, hanging out with his friends.

Personally, I prefer games where the party not only doesn't always make progress, but sometimes actually moves backwards. So if the worst you've got is "the party had to run away, and got nowhere", well, that sounds almost like easy mode in comparison.

[Boci]

Personally, I prefer games where the party not only doesn't always make progress, but sometimes actually moves backwards. So if the worst you've got is "the party had to run away, and got nowhere", well, that sounds almost like easy mode in comparison.

No, the worst I've got "the campaign devolves into the party embarking of series of quests, the majority of which are too hard best case scanrio they manage to run away, likely at least one of them dies, or trivial curbstomps not worth their time and energy, which stastically very few actually being challenging encounter, potentiall none, since theres no gurantee the challenge of the encounters is consistent".


But fine, I'll bite. How does the DM choose the CR of a questhook if they aren't paying attention to the party's level? The closest I can think of it they roll as d100 and consult a table like this:

1-50 = CR 1-4
51-76 = CR 5-8
77-89 = CR 9-12
90-97 = CR - 13-16
98-00 = 17-20

Which virtually gurantees a missmatched quest (plus see the above problem about mixing you ignored). If you have a better system I would to hear it. Actualy mechanics rather than vague assurences that, no, it totally works.

[Mordaedil]

There's a 10% chance Darth Ultron completely exaggerates player reactions to challenge and a 90% chance he's completely making this up. No need to pay attention to anything he says.

He's made it clear previously that he doesn't want players that challenge him before and often goes to extreme lengths to actively drive them away from his table. Basically, a classic bully.

[Florian]

There was so much great stuff in this post, it was hard to know what to respond to. However, I will add that "5 individuals" gives interesting role-playing opportunities, and too much perfect team synergy can create the Determinator of parties rather than a good role-playing experience.

It´s very depending on how you see the "balanced game" approach (of newer D&D editions) and who you really want to challenge, the player or the character.

I don´t have a problem with setbacks, failure and loss, but D&D is not the best game for that. The whole underlying system behind the rules is too closely keyed towards certain assumptions (CR, resource attrition, so on) and prone to breaking when not handled right.

While it seems amusing to have 5 "individuals" show up and have to deal with they can, but more so what they cannot do and have to find "creative" ways to deal with it using what they have, it can most likely lead to "pixel bi***ing" and the regular unwanted arms race.

You give some good examples for this task vs. solution kind of thinking, that reminds me of the older "I Win Button" thread: You can create a list of possible tasks and start "immunizing" yourself against that. Running away? Expeditious retreat. Solved. Swimming or climbing? Fly. Solved. And so on.

That is something you do on the pure meta game knowledge level. You need to know that a, say, Dominate Monster spell exists, that Vampire exist and can use it and that Protection From Evil is a straight counter to it, trivializing a vampire combat.

[Black Jester]

The paradox thing about minmaxing is that you have to be bad at something so that you can be get good at something else. This is not how real life works and it always feel artificial. I know that it is a balancing measure but it is not one that usually works (as balancing almost never does in a vaccuum) because the important aspect is usually the niche of the character where he or she excels, not any other aspects of the character; a wizard with an above average Strength score doesn't become a much more powerful character; he is first and foremost still a mage and uses spells as his core competence.
Niels Bohr won the Noble Prize in physics and was a professional football player and a quite handsome man. Why should a potential player character be more limited than that?

Really, I think that limiting player ressources to enforce minmaxing is a lot less sensible than it usually appears; establishing a ceiling and allow the players to set their abilities within this framework ("as high as necessary, as low as possible") and let them just do what they want is usually the better option, I think. The resulting characters are less one-sided and the players have more potential to be playful with their characters, adding hobbies and the like without having the impression that they impose a penalty to their more adventurous/central skills and abilities by "wasting" precious character ressources on fluffy, but ultimately relatively useless abilities that don't see much use in a typical adventure but contribute greatly to a character's personality and memorability.

And yes, allowing the players to go wild offers the potential for massive abuse. So what? Everybody will build his ultimate monster once, realise that such a character tend to become very boring very quickly. Afterwards, you can proceed to build characters which a) every player is probably very content with and b) which are not artificially limited by a randomly limited resource or random chance and thus often feel quite natural.

[Darth Ultron]

He's made it clear previously that he doesn't want players that challenge him before and often goes to extreme lengths to actively drive them away from his table. Basically, a classic bully.

Make me wonder how a player ''challenges'' a DM ?

The paradox thing about minmaxing is that you have to be bad at something so that you can be get good at something else. This is not how real life works and it always feel artificial.

Except it is how real life works?

[MeimuHakurei]

It´s very depending on how you see the "balanced game" approach (of newer D&D editions) and who you really want to challenge, the player or the character.

I don´t have a problem with setbacks, failure and loss, but D&D is not the best game for that. The whole underlying system behind the rules is too closely keyed towards certain assumptions (CR, resource attrition, so on) and prone to breaking when not handled right.

While it seems amusing to have 5 "individuals" show up and have to deal with they can, but more so what they cannot do and have to find "creative" ways to deal with it using what they have, it can most likely lead to "pixel bi***ing" and the regular unwanted arms race.

You give some good examples for this task vs. solution kind of thinking, that reminds me of the older "I Win Button" thread: You can create a list of possible tasks and start "immunizing" yourself against that. Running away? Expeditious retreat. Solved. Swimming or climbing? Fly. Solved. And so on.

That is something you do on the pure meta game knowledge level. You need to know that a, say, Dominate Monster spell exists, that Vampire exist and can use it and that Protection From Evil is a straight counter to it, trivializing a vampire combat.

It's correct that D&D doesn't lend itself too well to failure, since mostly it's just a TPK or retreating after an encounter took too many resources to allow progress. That's fine, not every tabletop system under the sun has to be a grimdark dystopia full of suffering and pain.

And if you think being able to use Protection from Evil means the vampire is now trivial, you're a pretty lousy DM - the spell is low-level and can be dispelled, but most importantly, *it's limited duration* - you can easily make a horror scenario out of the players racing to find and slay the vampire before they run out of Protection of Evil, leaving them at mercy of being dominated. Not to mention there's plenty of other means a vamp can kill players (thralls, blood drain, other spells, weapons etc.), without relying on this one trick.

The paradox thing about minmaxing is that you have to be bad at something so that you can be get good at something else. This is not how real life works and it always feel artificial. I know that it is a balancing measure but it is not one that usually works (as balancing almost never does in a vaccuum) because the important aspect is usually the niche of the character where he or she excels, not any other aspects of the character; a wizard with an above average Strength score doesn't become a much more powerful character; he is first and foremost still a mage and uses spells as his core competence.
Niels Bohr won the Noble Prize in physics and was a professional football player and a quite handsome man. Why should a potential player character be more limited than that?

Really, I think that limiting player ressources to enforce minmaxing is a lot less sensible than it usually appears; establishing a ceiling and allow the players to set their abilities within this framework ("as high as necessary, as low as possible") and let them just do what they want is usually the better option, I think. The resulting characters are less one-sided and the players have more potential to be playful with their characters, adding hobbies and the like without having the impression that they impose a penalty to their more adventurous/central skills and abilities by "wasting" precious character ressources on fluffy, but ultimately relatively useless abilities that don't see much use in a typical adventure but contribute greatly to a character's personality and memorability.

And yes, allowing the players to go wild offers the potential for massive abuse. So what? Everybody will build his ultimate monster once, realise that such a character tend to become very boring very quickly. Afterwards, you can proceed to build characters which a) every player is probably very content with and b) which are not artificially limited by a randomly limited resource or random chance and thus often feel quite natural.

That's exactly the wrong assumption about building effective characters - you only have so many stat points to allocate, so you should be having strengths and weaknesses. Do you want players to start with 20s across the board instead? Or have all 3s to claw their way to high stats?

There's also the fact that some fluff options don't actually accomplish what you're trying to do with your character - 3.5's Toughness being a prime example of this. It provides an okay bonus at Level 1 and amounts to basically nothing at Level 2 and on. Most martial characters already have enough hit points to convey a character being durable. (and you can always do things like splashing in Fighter/Barb levels).

And super-high power characters are only boring if you keep pitting them against rats in the basement - if you'd actually acknowledge that the average PC is stronger than an old-aged commoner with leprosy, high-power games can actually be fun.

[Jay R]

Min-maxing is like driving on a one-lane country road. Anybody slower than you is a slug; anybody faster than you is a maniac.

[Florian]

It's correct that D&D doesn't lend itself too well to failure, since mostly it's just a TPK or retreating after an encounter took too many resources to allow progress. That's fine, not every tabletop system under the sun has to be a grimdark dystopia full of suffering and pain.

And if you think being able to use Protection from Evil means the vampire is now trivial, you're a pretty lousy DM - the spell is low-level and can be dispelled, but most importantly, *it's limited duration* - you can easily make a horror scenario out of the players racing to find and slay the vampire before they run out of Protection of Evil, leaving them at mercy of being dominated. Not to mention there's plenty of other means a vamp can kill players (thralls, blood drain, other spells, weapons etc.), without

Unnecessary details. I just wanted to point out a paradox:
- I want a challenge.
- I want a system that ensures the challenge is fair.
- I want to have the tools to make a fair challenge into an easy one.

You could also use:
- I want the thrill of randomness, so we use a one die based mechanic
- Then I will want to control the randomness by being able to stack a high static modifier to the roll, up to the point that makes rolling unnecessary.
- I will try to avoid randomness by only choosing actions and spell that don´t need a die roll.

Both sets contain very heavy contradictions. It´s like saying that you want the thrill of Save and Die spells, but only face them when your saves are high enough that you know you will succeed at the roll.

[Max_Killjoy]

Unnecessary details. I just wanted to point out a paradox:
- I want a challenge.
- I want a system that ensures the challenge is fair.
- I want to have the tools to make a fair challenge into an easy one.

You could also use:
- I want the thrill of randomness, so we use a one die based mechanic
- Then I will want to control the randomness by being able to stack a high static modifier to the roll, up to the point that makes rolling unnecessary.
- I will try to avoid randomness by only choosing actions and spell that don´t need a die roll.

Both sets contain very heavy contradictions. It´s like saying that you want the thrill of Save and Die spells, but only face them when your saves are high enough that you know you will succeed at the roll.

In my experience, there are gamers for whom that "contradiction" is exactly the point, and exactly the "emotional hit" they're looking for.

They want a situation that is a big challenge or a big risk to start out with, and then through their own cleverness, knowledge, effort, skill, etc, to turn that situation into a sure thing. They get their thrill from being "that damn good" and turning a long-shot into a sure-thing.

[Arbane]

Make me wonder how a player ''challenges'' a DM ?

Except it is how real life works?

I'm guessing you played with this guy or a close relative at some time in the past and it traumatized you.

"Real Life" is what I play RPGs to GET AWAY FROM.

Both sets contain very heavy contradictions. It´s like saying that you want the thrill of Save and Die spells, but only face them when your saves are high enough that you know you will succeed at the roll.

"I want the POSSIBILITY of failure, not the actuality."

[Black Jester]

Make me wonder how a player ''challenges'' a DM ?
Except it is how real life works?

No, it really doesn’t. Do you think that Stephen Hawking for example is a renowned scientist because of his affliction or despite of it? (okay, the ‘renowned’ part may be at least partially a result of his ALS because it has probably formed his public image, but it would be grossly unfair to reduce Hawkins’ attributions alone to his disease and ignore his actual achievements).

That's exactly the wrong assumption about building effective characters - you only have so many stat points to allocate, so you should be having strengths and weaknesses. Do you want players to start with 20s across the board instead? Or have all 3s to claw their way to high stats?

I have no problems with powerful characters – player characters should feel relevant within the margins of the genre they represent – but the idea that you have to sacrifice secondary abilities just to achieve the expected levels of capability is neither logical nor is it actually necessary. It is just such a fixture in game design to artificially limit the player characters just as it was once the dominant concept to randomize character abilities. Both methods are ultimately superfluous in an environment of mutual trust.

Again, let the players decide. Give the players as many ‘stat points’ as they want. If you need to build the character with the perfect stat line to prove something, do it. Get it out of your system. It is not nearly as much fun as it seems at first especially when the all perfect stats basically mean that you have no development potential left.
There is no need to limit the resources of the players in the first place as long as the players can handle the responsibility –as the vast majority can. And the few that cannot handle this freedom without inevitably abusing it would also try to abuse any other unclear rules or wording to their utmost advantage whenever they gain the opportunity.

There's also the fact that some fluff options don't actually accomplish what you're trying to do with your character - 3.5's Toughness being a prime example of this. It provides an okay bonus at Level 1 and amounts to basically nothing at Level 2 and on. Most martial characters already have enough hit points to convey a character being durable. (and you can always do things like splashing in Fighter/Barb levels).

Thank you for making my point for me – if there is a fluff option that isn’t very helpful (Toughness isn’t that flavourful, but there are more than enough quite underperforming traits) but which can actually tell a significant part of the character’s story there is no good reason to punish people for taking it. If it is a minor trait anyway, what is wrong with just granting it to the PC, free of charge? There is clearly a finite number of relevant traits that fit the character image in the first place anyway.

[Pex]

The paradox thing about minmaxing is that you have to be bad at something so that you can be get good at something else. This is not how real life works and it always feel artificial. I know that it is a balancing measure but it is not one that usually works (as balancing almost never does in a vaccuum) because the important aspect is usually the niche of the character where he or she excels, not any other aspects of the character; a wizard with an above average Strength score doesn't become a much more powerful character; he is first and foremost still a mage and uses spells as his core competence.
Niels Bohr won the Noble Prize in physics and was a professional football player and a quite handsome man. Why should a potential player character be more limited than that?

Really, I think that limiting player ressources to enforce minmaxing is a lot less sensible than it usually appears; establishing a ceiling and allow the players to set their abilities within this framework ("as high as necessary, as low as possible") and let them just do what they want is usually the better option, I think. The resulting characters are less one-sided and the players have more potential to be playful with their characters, adding hobbies and the like without having the impression that they impose a penalty to their more adventurous/central skills and abilities by "wasting" precious character ressources on fluffy, but ultimately relatively useless abilities that don't see much use in a typical adventure but contribute greatly to a character's personality and memorability.

And yes, allowing the players to go wild offers the potential for massive abuse. So what? Everybody will build his ultimate monster once, realise that such a character tend to become very boring very quickly. Afterwards, you can proceed to build characters which a) every player is probably very content with and b) which are not artificially limited by a randomly limited resource or random chance and thus often feel quite natural.

Point Buy in D&D is a zero sum game. To have a high score somewhere you must have a low score somewhere else. When the success of doing stuff depends on an ability score, you want it as high as possible. Ability scores that see little use from you naturally don't matter so much so they will be low. The ability score is never totally useless, but there's only so much you can do. In 5E, Niehls Bohr at 1st level could have 16 ST 16 IN and 16 CH, but he'll have 9 DX 9 CO and 9 WI. Did they have to be 16s? That's subjective, but your description hints at it. A human character could have 14 14 14 14 14 11. That's not horrible. He can be fine at anything but will be lacking compared to the one who specialized a 16 in that specialized field. As the levels progress he'll get to 18 first and then 20. He's ahead for the majority of the game. It comes to personal taste which you prefer, but you are never, ever the superior player for choosing to play a character of 14 14 14 14 14 11 instead of 16 16 16 9 9 9 nor vice versa.

If you use dice rolling, you're bound to luck.

In my experience, there are gamers for whom that "contradiction" is exactly the point, and exactly the "emotional hit" they're looking for.

They want a situation that is a big challenge or a big risk to start out with, and then through their own cleverness, knowledge, effort, skill, etc, to turn that situation into a sure thing. They get their thrill from being "that damn good" and turning a long-shot into a sure-thing.

<raises hand>

[Florian]

In my experience, there are gamers for whom that "contradiction" is exactly the point, and exactly the "emotional hit" they're looking for.

They want a situation that is a big challenge or a big risk to start out with, and then through their own cleverness, knowledge, effort, skill, etc, to turn that situation into a sure thing. They get their thrill from being "that damn good" and turning a long-shot into a sure-thing.

The OP question is: "Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?"

I see three distinct levels to it:
- Tactical Mastery.
- Strategic Mastery.
- System Mastery.

As I see it, it will turn "bad" when one set of Mastery will begin to overshadow or even replace one or both of the others, possibly altering the game and the basic premise behind it by doing so.

Taking 3E D&D as an example, it´s "bad" when building up a character that can "auto win" tactical combat without you having to deal with any actual tactical choices anymore, or making build decisions that let you ignore the strategic part of resource management entirely.

[Max_Killjoy]

The OP question is: "Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?"

I see three distinct levels to it:
- Tactical Mastery.
- Strategic Mastery.
- System Mastery.

As I see it, it will turn "bad" when one set of Mastery will begin to overshadow or even replace one or both of the others, possibly altering the game and the basic premise behind it by doing so.

Taking 3E D&D as an example, it´s "bad" when building up a character that can "auto win" tactical combat without you having to deal with any actual tactical choices anymore, or making build decisions that let you ignore the strategic part of resource management entirely.

Ah, so then your example would be "system mastery" overwhelming one of the others, such that there is no tactical challenge at all.

Makes sense.

(I had partially misunderstood your point as being about only about the discrete challenges, not about the interplay, and was trying to explain why a player might seem to contradict themselves on whether they want challenges/risk or not -- they want a challenge or risk, but they want to overcome it along another axis such that they can in essence say to the challenge/risk "I've already beaten you, you just don't know it yet.)

[Florian]

Ah, so then your example would be "system mastery" overwhelming one of the others, such that there is no tactical challenge at all.

Makes sense.

A side effect is that it moves the whole decision making process from the actual game to the pre-game state of character creation, further disrupting the interplay on this.

The strategic element of an RPG is often based around long-term management of resources, the tactical element is most often the combat system and the choices you make each turn. The interplay here isn't just that being good at handling resources makes the individual encounters/challenges easier, "smart moves" like scouting ahead, gathering knowledge and doing research (mundane and divination) give the necessary edge to win, like you don´t charge into a dragon lair without finding out age and color beforehand.

So the one side is using the purely technical side of a game system to negate the tactical challenges, the other side is trying to negate the strategic side of it, for example by trying to eliminate resource management in the first place.

Overall, the disconnect here can be quite annoying.

[Mordaedil]

Make me wonder how a player ''challenges'' a DM ?

DM's are often challenged by player's doing actions they did not predict they would undertake.

Examples:
A bard goes off on his own to perform a diversion tactic of putting a noble-mans house on fire across town. He turns into a fly and lands on a soldiers pauldron. The DM has predicted the outcome so far and is mostly curious what sort of diversion he will pull off. The bard then says he transforms into a triceratops. The DM now has to deal with the bard going off rails.

Your villain is attempting to teleport away, but the wizard player has been readying an action all this time and finally interjects; He's counterspelling the villain. Now your villain is dead and you have to think of a new way to motivate your players (pro-tip, always expect your villains to die)

Your campaign has a big climatic finalé planned and one of your players gets in the wrong place at the wrong time and ruins everything.

But I'm sure you have an answer to every one of these, but then that kinda defeats the point. The entire point, if you will, of having players play with you.

[Black Jester]

Point Buy in D&D is a zero sum game. To have a high score somewhere you must have a low score somewhere else. When the success of doing stuff depends on an ability score, you want it as high as possible. Ability scores that see little use from you naturally don't matter so much so they will be low. [...]

If you use dice rolling, you're bound to luck.

I know. I don't suggest to use dice rolling instead of Point Buy. Both options have their obvious shortckmings. I therefore recomment using neither option and just pick the abilitiy scores you want for your character, based by the guideline "as high as necessary, as low as possible". Then, there is no need for minmaxing and the resulting all-too-common cookie cutter character clishés.

[Darth Ultron]

No, it really doesn’t. Do you think that Stephen Hawking for example is a renowned scientist because of his affliction or despite of it? (okay, the ‘renowned’ part may be at least partially a result of his ALS because it has probably formed his public image, but it would be grossly unfair to reduce Hawkins’ attributions alone to his disease and ignore his actual achievements).

But that has nothing to do with anything? Stephen is a scientist, and is good at one thing: Science. He, like most people, is an example of some one good at one thing.

I have no problems with powerful characters – player characters should feel relevant within the margins of the genre they represent – but the idea that you have to sacrifice secondary abilities just to achieve the expected levels of capability is neither logical nor is it actually necessary. It is just such a fixture in game design to artificially limit the player characters just as it was once the dominant concept to randomize character abilities. Both methods are ultimately superfluous in an environment of mutual trust.

Except, again, this is how Real Life works. To get ''levels of capability'' takes hard work and time and training and such...and simply put most people can only do one thing. There just is not that much time in a day...or life.

Just take any language: you can take some time and learn how to speak any language...but that does not make you speak every language in the world. Can you keep learning languages..yes, there are people can speak lots of languages....but not too many. The vast majority of people maybe max out at three, and maybe up to five. But as that number goes up past the first couple the quality goes down...very few people can handle so much. So the ones after six are more ''conversational'' or ''know a little''.

Again, let the players decide. Give the players as many ‘stat points’ as they want. If you need to build the character with the perfect stat line to prove something, do it. Get it out of your system. It is not nearly as much fun as it seems at first especially when the all perfect stats basically mean that you have no development potential left.
There is no need to limit the resources of the players in the first place as long as the players can handle the responsibility –as the vast majority can. And the few that cannot handle this freedom without inevitably abusing it would also try to abuse any other unclear rules or wording to their utmost advantage whenever they gain the opportunity.

If your going to have the players just make demi god characters, why even bother to play the game?

[Rhedyn]

I know. I don't suggest to use dice rolling instead of Point Buy. Both options have their obvious shortckmings. I therefore recomment using neither option and just pick the abilitiy scores you want for your character, based by the guideline "as high as necessary, as low as possible". Then, there is no need for minmaxing and the resulting all-too-common cookie cutter character clishés.

I need straight 18s for my character concept. So does the rest of the party.

"I care more about story than stats or game balance."

"Characters with the same array of stats are l literally the same."

[Boci]

I need straight 18s for my character concept. So does the rest of the party.

Whilst such an aproach would take a little more adjusting to, if players can be trusted to write their own backstories without abusing it to make themselves just about to inherit a kingdom and have 200 elite body guard follow them everywhere, I think the above is a little pessamistic for how players would respond to being allowed to ration their own point buy.

[Rhedyn]

Whilst such an aproach would take a little more adjusting to, if players can be trusted to write their own backstories without abusing it to make themselves just about to inherit a kingdom and have 200 elite body guard follow them everywhere, I think the above is a little pessamistic for how players would respond to being allowed to ration their own point buy.

I don't roll iniative with my backstory and spend 45 minute or more chunks in a very tactical, very rules heavy, game mode.

[Boci]

I don't roll iniative with my backstory and spend 45 minute or more chunks in a very tactical, very rules heavy, game mode.

You effectively do if your backstory includes: "As royal heir I offcourse have one of the Soltakan as my bodyguards, They are fanatically loyal to me and will lay down their life preventing even a drop of my sacred blood from being spillt. They are level 4 fighters with an initiative modificer of +6".

[Rhedyn]

You effectively do if your backstory includes: "As royal heir I offcourse have one of the Soltakan as my bodyguards, They are fanatically loyal to me and will lay down their life preventing even a drop of my sacred blood from being spillt. They are level 4 fighters with an initiative modificer of +6".

"Your character doesn't know stats as an in-character concept."

[Boci]

"Your character doesn't know stats as an in-character concept."

Really? That's pretty trivial to overcome. "They are at the peak of physical fitness and have a decade of training and 2 years experience on the battle field. Despite relying on strength they have not neglected their reflex, and indeed excel in seizing the initiative in a fight".

No, any DM worth their salt is in fact going to say "No, you don't have a body guard like that, rejigg your background story or you can't play them. If he must be of this royal family he cannot be next in line of success, unless you are okay with me coming up with a reason for why that doesn't happen, and you will need to write that bodyguard out of the picture for the start of the game. Maybe they left without their parents blessing so they never got one, or they were parted before the game begins".