Power is Relative

[Wiseblood]

Oh there'd definitely be a point to me doing that. I'll go on merrily adventuring unarmed and unarmored whike fighting the monsters you've lowered down to my level, but then - just before facing the No Longer Big Bad Evil Guy - I'll put on my plate, hoist my maul, and let loose with all the power I've been holding back on, pulping the villain you've wimpified because I played possum.

All the benefits of Power Gaming with none of the optimization!


(This is actually partly why I'm not using the wand of lightning bolts my character has)

Ye olde rope a dope.

 

[Iry]

On a more personal level, I do a little of both.

If my party designs a group of combat heavy characters then I know they are telling me they want a game involving more combat. So I put more combats into the game to accommodate their desires. The increase in combat challenges is usually not as steep as their increase in combat ability, so it's not keeping up with them. It just has more emphasis. They still have to overcome some exploration and social challenges.

Likewise, if my party designs a group of social heavy characters then I know they are telling me they want a game involving more social challenges. The game will feature considerable intrigue, but fewer combat and exploration challenges. Those few combat and exploration challenges will be quite dangerous for them, but the party will spend most of its time in the social arena.

TL;DR
I increase the challenge, but not as steep as the characters increase in power.

 

[Wiseblood]

From what I recall, the association between police and donuts is that police are often required to patrol overnight, and donuts (and coffee) were often available at such hours. Their abilities would diminish if they didn't have access to donuts (and coffee).
Choosing to wear armor, rather than not, is optimization. It's all just a matter of degree. The major difference between the real world and the game world is that the game world appears to run on simplified physical laws such that it's much easier to optimize. That, and the player gets to decide on random genetic factors and background elements for their character, which are well beyond what anyone in the real world can arrange for themself.

I'm not really concerned about that, though. I'm more concerned with the player making decisions as their character would - whoever that character may happen to be. I actually have somewhat of a preference for random character creation, specifically for that reason.

What a player chooses for a character is not the character optimizing itself. It should be assumed that the charcter, as the player want its to be, exists in the world because it can. The concession being that the character is when and where the scene is taking place and the players has agency to interact with that scene.

 

[Sunseeker]

I feel like players who like to optimize their characters brag to much about the fact that they're optimized, because you're right, the DM has an effectively infinite difficulty slider.

Therefore, the most optimal strategy is to deliberately undersell your character's power and not let anyone know what you're truly capable of.

I don't disagree, but the DM isn't the world. The world may not think of you as God or Batman or a "Win"dicator but the DM knows what you can do. The DM can, at any time, ask for your character sheet, research all your spells and feats and combos and prepare for what you are capable of, not what you actually use.

Eventually though, even if you "punch down" the world will take notice. In the same way that eventually Superman always catches Darkseid's eye, Superman has god-level powers, but punches down because he's the "good guy". But Darkseid sees through that to the power Superman really has. A healthy, reactive fantasy world would operate much the same way. Eventually someone is going to take notice that you're always wiping the floor with these guys and there's gonna be a black-dragon demi-god who decides your soul would make a nice addition to his wardrobe.

I mean, I've "punched down" in games before. Mostly because that's how well I optimize, but I lack the desire to be a jerk about it. Eventually though, you end up in a sticky spot where you've got to actually use the power you have or it's game over.

And I think this calls for:

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What a player chooses for a character is not the character optimizing itself. It should be assumed that the charcter, as the player want its to be, exists in the world because it can. The concession being that the character is when and where the scene is taking place and the players has agency to interact with that scene.

When you're talking about character generation, some of it is decided by the player outside of the game, and some of it is decided on behalf of the PC within the game. For example, the PC doesn't have any say in which race they were born as or where they grew up, so those decisions are made purely by the player. Which sort of weapon and armor to use, or which feat (or spells) to learn, are things that the character would have actually decided at some point during their life (before the game starts).

For decisions that the character would have a say in, the player is obligated to make those decisions as the character would. For things that are beyond the scope of the character, the player has no such constraints.

 

[Gavin O.]

I think also that for a lot of people, it's the process of optimization and not the result that's the point. I know I have many, many more characters than I'll ever have a chance to play, because I find character building and character optimization to be thoroughly enjoyable in their own right, a complex numbers game with an easily calculable final result and effects that can be easily quantified. In the same way, no matter how much DnD we play, there will always be more dungeons to delve into, there will always be more and tougher dragons to fight, but that doesn't make the act of playing the game futile. It's the process, the act of doing, that's the point.

 

[CapnZapp]

As a DM, I find extreme character optimization efforts to be funny. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a player trying to make an effective character and I do it also when I’m the player, but not at the sacrifice of what I consider to be an interesting character to role-play. As a DM, it always makes me chuckle.

Players will often claw and scratch their way to being as powerful as they possibly can in some desperate hope to tilt the game to their advantage. I don’t know how most of you other DMs do it, but I write encounters specifically to challenge the PCs. Meaning, the more powerful the PCs are, the more powerful of an encounter I present.

Oh wow, you’ve made quite a monster for a character there! Excuse me while I push an extra couple of ogres into this encounter. Power is relative. Viola!

How far do your players go for power? Do you adjust accordingly, or do you let them run roughshod over the monsters?

There’s no right or wrong answer here.

What's truly funny is that, yes, optimizing the DM is the end-game of all min-maxers.

But you're forgetting one important facet: the relative power between characters. The DM usually won't amp up the difficulty past the weakest party member.

Anyway, it's all about min-maxing spotlight share in the end.

 

[Mistwell]

I feel like players who like to optimize their characters brag to much about the fact that they're optimized, because you're right, the DM has an effectively infinite difficulty slider.

Therefore, the most optimal strategy is to deliberately undersell your character's power and not let anyone know what you're truly capable of.

In many ways, this is the beauty of the Treatmonk guides.

It's one reason I have fun playing a bard too.

 

[Maxperson]

As a DM, I find extreme character optimization efforts to be funny. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a player trying to make an effective character and I do it also when I’m the player, but not at the sacrifice of what I consider to be an interesting character to role-play. As a DM, it always makes me chuckle.

Players will often claw and scratch their way to being as powerful as they possibly can in some desperate hope to tilt the game to their advantage. I don’t know how most of you other DMs do it, but I write encounters specifically to challenge the PCs. Meaning, the more powerful the PCs are, the more powerful of an encounter I present.

Oh wow, you’ve made quite a monster for a character there! Excuse me while I push an extra couple of ogres into this encounter. Power is relative. Viola!

How far do your players go for power? Do you adjust accordingly, or do you let them run roughshod over the monsters?

There’s no right or wrong answer here.

I do a mix. The players like challenging encounters, so I provide them no matter how powerful they have made their PCs. They also like to feel powerful when they make powerful PCs, so I also provide normal strength encounters that they blow through. When assigning XP, though, it's based on how challenging the encounters are, so the easy fights don't do a lot to gain them levels.

 

[Satyrn]

That sounds a lot like you're trying to game the DM. You're abusing their willingness to scale foes to your power level by intentionally under-representing your power level.

I'm just going to assume that this is a joke which isn't translating well in this format.

It is definitely a joke. In my way, I'm agreeing with you.

I think that a DM who scales foes to my power level is essentially gaming me, making all my optimization a pointless exercise. The joke I was trying to make was about how perhaps the only option available to me was to game him in return.

It's sort of the result you predicted early in the thread.