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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AaronOfBarbaria" data-source="post: 6703712" data-attributes="member: 6701872">I find that the only time a player heavily into optimization results in their being any problems at all, that it is not because the optimizer is present and is optimizing, but because the DM and group at the table are not prepared to play with an optimizer.The main mistakes made from that lack of preparation are: 1. The other players developing envy because the optimized character is good at what it is optimized to do - the answer is not to be upset by another players character by focusing on your own. If you like your character and the other players like their characters, and no one is playing against other players, the result will be a party of characters that work well together played by players that enjoy them (the optimized character is, factually, a boon to the party they are in).2. The DM thinking they are meant to challenge the optimized character. That's not at all the case. The optimizer has done what they can do to improve chance of success at some particular set of activities, so answering their effort by reducing those chances back down to "normal" with your challenge design causes the optimizer to either feel their level of optimization is absolutely necessary so that failure isn't more common than success (perceiving this higher challenge level as what your "normal" is), or to try harder to push even more performance out of their character (meaning you've started an arms race that never ends well).If the DM realizes that they can just build challenges as if the optimizer weren't an optimizer, the end result is that the non-optimizers at the table aren't overwhelmed by the challenges, and the optimizers at the table can scale their optimization to the relative level they want when it comes to chances of success at their optimized activities and be satisfied with the results.I've even found such an approach to lead to players once absolutely certain that to not optimize meant to die (their prior DM made this the case) reconsidering that idea and finding it to be false, so they now focuse less on optimizing their characters.</blockquote>

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