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Nov 30, 2012 -- 9:26AM, rampant wrote:

Oh that, see that doesn't work.

At least if we mean the epic feats from draconomicon, those often required you to be a dragon and epic (cl 21+), there may have been one or two that alternate requirements for true dragons that pushed them down from epic requirements, but the feats were not technically epic. 

Being a monster doesn't give special early access to epic feats. It's just that monsters rack up HD faster than PCs and can thus qualify for epic feats despite technically being a 20- CR.

A PC doesn't get to play that game because his HD should never be higher than his CL. 

The text was vague enough to include ALL epic feats in the game. 'Course, most of them had prerequisites that were well out of reach for a lvl 3 character but there were enough were out there to break the system well and proper. It's been a while since I dug up that bit of text and when I did it was to laugh at it and put it away so I could be mixing up the details.

I personally never tried to make a character like that, 'cause it's stupid and disruptive. I don't think anyone who has any sense of fair play would unless the point of the game was expressly to abuse whatever they could get their hands on.

Nov 30, 2012 -- 8:29AM, kadim wrote:

Nov 30, 2012 -- 8:17AM, Pashalik_Mons wrote:

I gotta say, Kadim, I'm both impressed and appalled that you managed to reframe this as an attack on free speech.  

hah

Well I just think WOTC would write better games if they weren't such scrotums about speaking their minds. Good work is done by making a choice and being clear about your direction. This conciliatory nonsense that appears to be a culture in the books seems to rise from some kind of fear of criticism - justified or not.

I appreciate that TSR were plain in their opinions. I wish WOTC was.

Are you saying WoTC as in the higher ups or WoTC as in the devs currently working on 5E?  Because the devs are daily lambasted and insulted and criticized for every little thing they do.  Mearls is burned in effigy at least once a week.  Some people on these boards seem to equate his name with Hitler.  That would take thicker skin than your reference to dirty parts indicates. 

Min/max-ing is good.  Every character should try his/her/its hardest to be a productive member of the team, and that usually means playing to the character's strengths while trying to avoid becoming a liability for others.  It's a form of social responsibility.

What I think puts some people off about the practice is that it can be difficult for the player to figure out how to represent this in terms of game mechanics (ability score, classes, feats, weapon choices, etc).  It could be as straightforward as the strong guy wanting to use a heavy weapon to get the most out of his strength, and choosing to wear heavy armor to make up for his lack of mobility.  Once that is settled, he could feel free to select whichever other skills or feats he wants, knowing that he's done his part.

In practice, sometimes there can be unexpected interactions between particular feats and class features (or sometimes racial features, or magic items).  This can hurt immersion ("how is the prancy elf swinging that big sword harder than my dwarf paladin swings his axe?"), and sometimes it can lead to incredible power disparity ("why is my paladin even here, if the elf can solve everything by herself?").  Sometimes, especially as editions continue and feat lists grow, it can feel like you're obligated to justify every feat with some mechanical bonus, or you're not fulfilling your obligation - and even if you've resigned yourself to that, there's no guarantee that you've chosen the right combination of feats.

That sort of thing, if you're not a very particular kind of player, can feel like a huge burden.  (Point buy is a major culprit here.)  You just want to play your dwarf and beat up the bad guys, reclaim your homeland and all that jazz.  Blaming min/max seems like the easy way out, but it's hiding the real problem, which is a poorly written system (or to be more generous, it's a system designed for a different kind of player). 

A well-designed system (in my opinion), is one which doesn't obfuscate its rules with complex interactions, which very clearly explains what everything means, and which keeps the combinatiorial of choices to a minimum.  That way, everyone can very clearly see how to min/max appropriately, and there are no huge suprises down the line due to unforeseen circumstances.  (And then, if you want, you can add more choices on top of that, in an entirely optional feature for the kind of players who do like those extra choices.)

D&DN is actually doing a pretty good job of that so far, which is why it's such a tragedy that the fundamental math is so far beyond salvagable as to make the entire thing unplayable.