Power Gaming/Min-maxing VS Knowing what you're doing?

[Archfiend Damio]

Raganui: Yeah your right sorry and for weapon finesse (which by the way makes no sense what so ever). Sorry in Pathfinder they nex that which makes sense. But alright so if you take your first level as sword sage you take shadow blade feat and stealthy and skill focus.

If that class is not available but the feats are from that book. (Which some of my DMs do that because they like the feats but not the classes) then at first level you take The maneuver the stance and the shadow blade feat. This is all assuming flaws are allowed.  

[Durgress]

Just becuase your DM refuses to "cheat" to keep you in your place (i.e. giving every 6th monster blindsight or scent or something similar) or properly use creatures that would face a challenge, doesn't make you a min/maxer or powergamer. You just have a specific build that you want from the start. Thinking of which, been doing some reading, and now I want to combine Vow of Poverty with Forsaker. SR41 HELL YEAH!!! Mabey bend the Forsaker a bit to allow divine magic and throw in some cleric and you would have one nasty mage killer. Or just go rouge/barbarian and make silly finger wagglers go squish.  

[Rock_DS]

I ususly have a set idea I'm working towards with my charries.

I'm playing a Gnome Wizard who is going to have as many spells as he can get his hands on. I was looking up Gnomes and the Shadowcraft mage caught my eye. So I built him around that.

I never see it as my job as a DM to murder my players...they seem to be able to make bad decisions all on their own XD So I'd give you somthing that would make you scrach your head sometimes, but I'd also set up situations where the skills and focus is entierly awsome in usage.

Take Sneaky McRouge down there: I'd throw up some sneak attack imune creatures and blindsence. But a stealth/commando mission would come up to make use of those same skills =3

 

[Raganui Minamoto]

As a DM I normally try to work the situations that come up to give the players choices as to how to proceed. Of course I do also tend to not mention these choices to the players cause I want to see what the hell they come up with. It's quite likely that they will think of something I hadn't (seeing as I'd think of the basic ideas). I also like players that use powers or spells for more RP use than just 'blast the s**t out of everything' or what have you. Sorry, as much as I like combat, I like to see the players USE THEIR GOD DAMN BRAINS! And not just for coming up with over powered guys to do combat with...


I'm going to stop here before I slip back into the old rant.  

[Blue-ROMan]

Every DM that i have ever played under has come to expect, and usually encourage power gaming, so much so that combats tend to have things of much higher CRs than a normal party would fight. We have rolled stats 4d6 drop the lowest, reroll all 1's and 2's, since i joined the first group.  

[Raganui Minamoto]

Nah, you know you're in a good group when you don't really powergame and you fight something only to have the DM go "I didn't expect you to FIGHT the damn things' after you kick their asses. In one group I was in, it happened a lot. Not that we were overpowered with lots of equipment or even stat wise powerful. We were just crazy and did crazy things.

Such as rage, then use momentum and a tree and a good jump roll to bring down a CR 4 flying monster... who was an absolute wimp on the ground. So yea... if you go about problems from other angles, you might find it possible to beat encounters set up for higher levels.  

[Durgress]

Raganui Minamoto

I also like players that use powers or spells for more RP use than just 'blast the s**t out of everything' or what have you. Sorry, as much as I like combat, I like to see the players USE THEIR GOD DAMN BRAINS! And not just for coming up with over powered guys to do combat with...

Sounds like you are refering to utility spells more than RP spells. I.E. Fly, which every arcane spellcaster with access should prepare at least 2 of a day. Trust me, I've done/attempted some crazy stuff that brings down big guys with much less effort than it should. Such as climing a large pillar to get height advantage with a bow, and find out the enemy has a total -10 to climb. When I get outmatched, I start thinking. For example, our cleric once started pissing off a Great Wyrm Black Dragon that it seemed, by the ammount it was talking, wan't meant for us to fight. I offered the dragon to simply eat the cleric and let the rest of us move on. I got shot down, but the DM still liked the effort and gave me a xp bonus.  

[Foremek]

I've been known to to do just the opposite: make intentionally gimped characters. IMHO, it takes more creativity to make a gimped-yet-fun-to-play character, than minmax/powergamer/overpowered/whatever character

Prime example: Lvl 40 human fighter, core rulebooks only. Note by "core only" I mean items as well. This character wouldn't even accept epic loot, or weapons/armor greater than +10. He would simply take his share of gold, and buy numerous smaller items. I had to get creative to spend all the gold. Suffice to say, most of his items were intelligent enough to cast numerous spells, most notably floating shields (plural!) that would cast True Ressurection on him.

Also, Monk/Blackguard/Assassin/Mystic Theurge... because I can.