Player Character Benchmarks?

[mcgreeno]

1.What determines an effective character vs. a min/maxed character?
2.How good does a character have to be at his role in order to succeed at the game?
3.What are the expectations of the Game Designers when it comes to Difficulty and Challenge?

[ShadowcatX]

1) Depends who you ask.

2) Depends on the group, play style, etc.

3) 15 point buy. 4 man party covering the traditional roles: Fighter, blaster wizard, skill rogue, healbot cleric.

[Mr. Green]

ShadowcatX wrote:

1) Depends who you ask.

2) Depends on the group, play style, etc.

3) 15 point buy. 4 man party covering the traditional roles: Fighter, blaster wizard, skill rogue, healbot cleric.

OK;

So assuming
Fighter: What BaB, Damage and AC should he have to fight average encounter?

Wizard (Blaster) What should his spell DC's be on average for each level?

Rouge: What should her or his skill checks be at each level for the average encounter?

Cleric (Healbot): How much healing should it provide for the average party facing the average encounter.

What are the statistics for the average party for success of a average game. Where is the baseline for the character classes?

[Jiggy]

mcgreeno wrote:

1.What determines an effective character vs. a min/maxed character?

Technically, "min-max" refers to a certain method of character creation. It involves reducing your effectiveness in one area to the minimum allowable level (the "min" part) in order to gain resources which you use to raise your effectiveness in another area to the maximum possible level (the "max" part).

Interestingly, this is actually independent of effectiveness. For instance, you could min-max the wrong things (like a wizard dumping INT to max STR) and be terribly ineffective. Alternatively, some classes function best when well-rounded and will be less effective when min-maxed.

There's also a second, more "slang" meaning of min-maxed - it can be used by players with elitism issues as a derogatory term to describe someone who builds more effective characters than they do. Use of the term in this way is usually accompanied by claims (or insinuations) that the accuser is better at roleplaying than the "min-maxer", though generally without any evidence to support such a claim.

Quote:

2.How good does a character have to be at his role in order to succeed at the game?

This is a self-answering question: If you succeed at the game (complete the quest, stay alive, etc) then you were good enough.

Quote:

3.What are the expectations of the Game Designers when it comes to Difficulty and Challenge?

Four-man party, 15pt buy.

[ShadowcatX]

There is no statistics for an average party. This is a roleplaying game, not a mathematical problem. Heck, I don't know that I've ever actually had (as a DM or a player) the traditional party.

If you're the DM roll with what your players draw up. If they're weaker than their level would dictate, compensate. Stronger? Same thing. If you're a player, draw up something you want to play and if you think its too weak or strong, talk to your DM about it.

[ChaiGuy]

Jiggy wrote:

mcgreeno wrote:

1.What determines an effective character vs. a min/maxed character?

Technically, "min-max" refers to a certain method of character creation. It involves reducing your effectiveness in one area to the minimum allowable level (the "min" part) in order to gain resources which you use to raise your effectiveness in another area to the maximum possible level (the "max" part).

Interestingly, this is actually independent of effectiveness. For instance, you could min-max the wrong things (like a wizard dumping INT to max STR) and be terribly ineffective. Alternatively, some classes function best when well-rounded and will be less effective when min-maxed.

There's also a second, more "slang" meaning of min-maxed - it can be used by players with elitism issues as a derogatory term to describe someone who builds more effective characters than they do. Use of the term in this way is usually accompanied by claims (or insinuations) that the accuser is better at roleplaying than the "min-maxer", though generally without any evidence to support such a claim.

Snip...

I agree with Jiggy that "min-max" is a method of character creation and that sometimes people use it as slang term. Generally though, I see min-maxing as minimising a characters weaknesses while maximizing their strengths. In this respect a wizard dumping Int. to increase St. would not be an instance of min-maxing IMO. I not saying that Jiggy's explanation of min-maxing is wrong, or that mine is better. It's just interesting to see differing view points on the subject.

[Maezer]

1) Min/Max is a build style. Effectiveness is a play style. And as such they are very nearly unrelated.

If you hand a novice a perfectly optimized (min/max) character. He's likely not to be very effective. He probably will not be making the most effective decisions during the game with whatever build/abilities he has.

On the other side of the coin. If you give an effective player (someone who knows and understands the rules and the consequences of most probable actions) A pre-built character with little thought to optimization he can still be very effective.

Of note message boards focus heavily on build style (min/max) because there are so many fewer variables and thus maybe convey in the posting format the boards allow. But being an effective is probably more important to having a good game experience.

2) He has too be good enough that the possibility of success exists. (And hopefully not so good that the possibility of failure does not exist, because that isn't much fun either). You want your choices to matter.

3) They are usually play tested based on 4 pre-gen characters. Usually one Arcane Caster, one Divine Caster, one melee oriented character, and one support character. Use of the elite array is very common in play testing as well. In the first several adventures paths, pre-gen stat blocks could be found in the back of the adventure.