I have to ask, what are people talking about when they say "min-maxing"? Because I get the impression we're talking about different things.
What "illegitimate" (recognizing that in an SP game nothing really is) mix-maxing means for me is to make characters that are implausible in terms of lore, because the things sacrificed are never relevant in terms of gameplay. For instance, I would consider it bad roleplaying to make a main character with any attribute of 3, because such a character would be unlikely to survive as an adventurer in any context not circumscribed by the inflexible mechanics of a video game. I'm not saying such a character is strictly impossible, but as a GM I'd require quite a bit of an explanation for such a choice, and I would impose significant costs. If a video game does not do that because it's not smart enough, then dumping a stat to 3 means making a character who is not real. In essence, just a template.
Another example of this kind of min-maxing is, say, setting CHA to 3 in your BG2 character because you know you can find an item that raises CHA to 18 a little later in the game. Or setting INT to 3 in BG3 because you know you'll find that item that raises it to 17. However, starting with an 8 for the same reason might be borderline implausible in most cases, but in that case, as the GM, I'd only ask if you really want to play a character who is actually dumb but has some "AI assistant" telling them what they need to know when things get tricky. And that item would be high on the priority list if a plot required something to be stolen from the party.
So in many cases, min-maxing is a matter of perspective. My concern, meanwhile, is this: is the game balanced in a way that places undue importance on combat effectiveness? Do I need to sacrifice a plausible level of non-combat utility to be able to fluidly play the game to its end without frustration? Do I need to resolve every situation with a fight in order to gain enough xp to be able to play the game to its end without frustration? Do I need to choose my party for combat effectiveness exclusively to be able to fluidly play the game on standard difficulty? In most games of this kind, I have to do most of that on higher difficulties and that's fine, but at standard difficulty I expect some freedom to choose my party and my skills with more balanced priorities in mind. And at the moment, I am not quite confident that BG3 is balanced in a balanced way. DOS2 is most definitely not balanced that way. It does not matter for character creation because non-combat skills use their own skill point pool and you can use different attributes for persuasion, but if you resolve a significant number of encounters without a fight (and thus getting no xp at all as a rule), you will definitely regret that later. I'm afraid BG3 might be too much like DOS2 in that.
