Minmaxer's Delight: Difference between revisions

These types of player abuses are most easily countered with [[Rule Zero]] -- the [[Game Master]] is always right. Abuses can be completely averted with a simple "No" from the GM.

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* The Bottomless Appetite ability in ''[[Billy vs. SNAKEMAN]]'', especially when combined with TACOS (ally) and TACOs (items).

* Stamina from the Fitness pool in ''[[City of Heroes]]'' gives a permanent boost to a character's Endurance recovery rate, with the only drawback being that you have to take two other powers in the Fitness pool to unlock it. As a pool power, it can be taken by characters of any archetype, and so it came to be viewed as being a mandatory choice for any character to be viable. With the Issue 19 update, the Fitness pool has become inherent, granted to all characters automatically and freeing up the power choices that would otherwise be filled by Stamina and its prerequisites.

* In the early days of ''[[Asherons Call]]'', the Item Magic skill quickly became almost mandatory to have in order to have a viable character in the game. Item Magic allows you to buff your items, debuff enemy items, makes locks easier to pick, makes it easier to identify the stats on items, and teleport to nearly any location in the game, provided there's a portal there and you've seen said portal (though you could only be bound to one portal at a time). The game world is approximately the size of Rhode Island and one easily accessible dungeon had portals to nearly every city. It didn't take long to reach a point where even an otherwise pure melee character would find it necessary to acquire Item Magic either from character creation or as soon as possible afterward, if only for the fast travel to that dungeon.

* The Gifted Trait in ''[[Fallout]] 1'' & ''2'' gave you one towards each of your SPECIAL stats at a cost of some skill points per level. Not only does a 1 to each stat mitigate some of the skill point loss in and of itself (skill levels are based on stat levels initially, and higher IN gives you more skill points per level on its own), but there are far more skillbook powerups throughout the game than PIP-Boy stat powerups. The opposite Trait, Skilled, gives more skill points per level at a cost of reducing your Perk gain rate to 1 every 4 levels instead of every 3 levels... which is actually a ridiculously huge loss, since Perks provide unique bonuses like healing more HP with medical skills or vastly increasing the chance of getting a critical hit. Some perks gave free skill points, but the special effects were more powerful.

** Not to mention the Fast Shot and Small Frame Traits. Fast Shot makes all weapons (Fallout 1) or all ranged weapons (Fallout 2) fire faster at the expense of being unable to make called shots. Since burst-fire guns can't make called shots anyway, the drawback vanishes around the second town, and at high levels can be used with a few traits to dish out six critical hits each turn (which can very easily make for six kills each turn). Small Frame grants one stat point (which is keyed to Agility, but points can be manually redistributed anywhere) in exchange for reduced carrying capacity. Not so great in Fallout 1 (followers aren't too bright and can't level up or equip better armour), and but in Fallout 2 you can get an NPC/Permanent Companion/pack mule in the very first town you enter.

* In ''[[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]]'', at level-up you have to choose between increasing your HP by 5, your FP 5, or your Badge Points ("slots" into which you can equip badges) by 3. But there were badges which cost 3 BP that increased your HP or FP by 5, making the BP option strictly advantageous once you could start collecting those badges.

* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' (3.5 Edition): The Natural Spell feat allowed a druid to cast spells while in [[Animorphism|wild shape form]], making it an easy pick.

** ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'': [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0354.html "Wait, I'm confused--there are druids who DON'T take the Natural Spell feat??"]

* One ''[[Exalted]]'' merit, with a name like Brutal Attack, allowed you to use Strength instead of Dexterity for attack rolls. This was a must-have for anyone who intended to engage the enemy in close combat, for a simple reason. Until the sourcebook containing merits and flaws came along, Dexterity was [[One Stat to Rule Them All]] and Strength was meh. As a result, there were a lot of cheap ways to increase your Strength, not so many for Dexterity. Especially absurd for Lunars, who could just take a tyrant lizard spirit shape and access, from character creation, Strength 14 in a system where 5 is defined as "peak human" strength.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', there's the Archer class's Support Ability, Concentration, with which you never miss in physical and some magical attacks. Then there's the Samurai class's Blade Grasp Reaction Ability, which ensures that your units will rarely get physically hit ever again.

** And then there's the Calculator skillset, which lets you cast nearly any spell instantly, at infinite range, at 0 MP cost, essentially turning the character you give it to a [[Person of Mass Destruction]]. The Calculator has the shortcoming of its spell targeting being very different from any other class, with the result that the only way to hit the intended target(s) might also put some (or in extreme cases, all) of your own party members in the line of fire. Fortunately, that flaw can very easily be turned in an asset by spamming Holy (a strong spell that no enemy is immune to) and equipping your party members with items that absorb Holy. Once that's done, it's a ''good'' thing if your Calculator hits himself and/or an ally with his spell, because they'll be healed by it.

** SRW Alpha 3 and Z took the less minmax-friendly route of making SP Regen an inherent skill available only to a select few pilots such as [[Turn a Gundam (Anime)|Loran Cehack]] and [[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED|Lacus Clyne]]. These pilots are usually top-tier just for having SP Regen alone. SP Regen can also be given temporarily to other pilots using an extremely rare part, but only two-three of these are typically made available.

* High elves in ''[[The Elder Scrolls|Daggerfall]]'' are immune to paralysis. The player can make a custom class with a critical weakness to paralysis, which allows the selection of more advantageous options, and will never trigger because the immunity takes priority over the critical weakness.

** Worse than that. Your custom class can have crippling weaknesses to virtually everything, and then just ignore them by buying immunity to all magic.

* Flaws in ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' (3.5). For the low, low price of making you worse at something you're probably never going to do (for instance, taking the "Shaky" flaw for a pure melee character that doesn't plan on ever making a ranged attack), you get bonus feats, which are very, very, very precious. In extreme cases, your new feat can make you completely immune to something the flaw gave you a weakness to.

** This applies to flaws in pretty much any system where they raise their ugly head. In ''oWoD'' games and ''GURPS'' you can almost always pick a bunch of minor disadvantages that will never ever hinder you in actual play. In worse cases, these disadvantages actually give you justifications for being an asshole.

** On the flip side, for anyone playing on the complete other end of the heroic scale, you have disadvantages that compel you to act heroic or tell the truth (though for the latter one, there's also the possibility that you're just very blatant when you lie).

** Let's not forget the [[Weirdness Magnet]] "disadvantage." Attract all the weirdest possible events in the world? Some people call that condition "being player characters in an RPG."

* "SINner" in the new version of ''[[Shadowrun]]''. You have a SIN, an ID number (basically an American Social Security number) that allows the government to track everything you do with it. The catch? There is ''nothing'' preventing you from purchasing and using fake SIN cards (and indeed, one of the sample characters has this combo!). Five free points and legitimacy as a citizen. Not a bad catch.

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''...I said a tip, top,<br />The tippy, the tippy<br />To the tip-tip top, your stats pop<br />You're gonna rock a<br />Bang bang to [[Dump Stat|CHA]]<br />So up jumps your STA<br />So every monster you can beat!''

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[[Category:Tabletop Games]]