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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 8228415" data-attributes="member: 72555">There are three builds/strategies that might qualify; coffeelock and nuclear wizard.Coffeelock relies on (a) pact magic spell slots can be used for flexible casting, and (b) elves never need to take a long rest.Nuclear Wizard basically relies on the rule that magic missile rolls for damage once.Infinite Simulacrum relies on the fact that your simulacrum can cast simulacrum, generating a countably infinitely long chain of half-HP near-full-spell-slot duplicates of yourself.So, this is silly.  Even a game as relatively simple as 5e is going to have optimization tricks that a very mathematically literate and RPG literate DM isn't going to be able to pick up by just reading the rules.You might spot some, especially ones based off other tricks you have seen in similar games, but the idea that you are going to be able to head off your PCs ability to find optimization tricks, let alone the entire internet's ability to find optimization tricks, is basically arrogance.Anyone who thinks they have this ability is just arrogant and ignorant of their own limitations with a near 100% certainty.  That could be what you mean; to be a DM you have to be so arrogant to think you can do that?Or is this a no true scotsman joke?(I read and play lots of games and RPGs. I'm easily in the top 1% of human ability at mathematics.  I have no illusions about being able to find all optimization tactics in a 5e rulebook before the entire D&D community could find it.  I may spot some, but I won't spot anywhere close to all of them.)Hell, it was only a month ago that I saw someone do one punch man; and to exploit that, you end up trying to use the Lucky feat to force a miss to up your crit chance.(And yes, one punch man in 5e isn't what you call crazy OP, but rather a silly optimization game.)"Deliberately" is a weird word here.I play D&D with people who don't optimize their PCs at all.  They get a character concept, and they build the character using the D&D rules based off of that concept.  They go beastmaster because they want a beast companion.  They pick their beast companion based off of their character background, not the monster's statistics.Their stats are based off what they think their PC should be good at, and they spend their ASIs on things they want their PC to be better at.  Should the PC be stronger?  Increase strength.The fact that strength and dexterity have nearly no synergy in 5e is something that they aren't using to justify "if I am making a dex build, I should dump strength".  Their character's strength is based off of "how strong do I imagine this PC to be?"My position is: I want people who do this to have a viable PC.  I don't want there to be a factor of 5 between how effective that PC is, and how effective the optimizer's PC is.Now, I'm ok with a much smaller ratio of competence difference.The downside to this approach is it actually reduces the number of viable PCs builds and players.There are a lot more PC builds in the 1-7 range than there are in the 8-10 range.  And if you build a PC not based on the mechanical optimization outlook, you (a) get a PC in the 1-7 range, and (b) you probably get a PC that matches the idea you have in your head better.  Story-first PC building, not mechanics-first.Now, I personally enjoy taking game mechanics and using it to build a PC story from.  That is fun.  But I respect and want to play with people who start with a story and attach mechanics to it....So my first rule is, when I modify a game like D&D, is to make the naive builds better.I also want to give the optimizers something to play with.  So that means feats and multiclassing.So I attack optimization traps.  The ones I have identified are:1) The "back 10" problem.  All non-full-caster 5e classes have weak features in the 10-20 level range compared to the 1-11 level range.  Full caster features, except spells, are equaly weak; this leads to the 18-20 being "just multiclass it away", as the 1-3 features of other classes usually outdo the 18-20 features of your class.2) The spellcaster multiclassing problem.  The exception to the above is spellcasters, whose main feature is "how high level a spell do you have access to".  Slot stacking helps, but not that much.  The narrative difference between a Spellcaster 17 and a multiclass Spellcaster 8+9 is ridiculous.  One has a wider selection of T1/T2 spells, the other has T3/T4 spells.  This happens at every level.3) Most feats actually suck, like 90%+ of them.  They are worse than a +2 to your primary attribute.  Feats are more interesting, build-wise, but are mechanically sub-par.  When multiclassing, builds tend to avoid ASIs as near-dead levels, so they don't even match up with low level class feature's in power.4) Dip bait.  Front-loading of class features that synergize with each other makes going deep into many classes suboptimal.  To attack this, inject the obvious synergy abilities in-class at higher levels; Barbarians eventualy get a 19-20 crit range when it reckless attacks, for example, without champion 3 or hex 1 dip.5) The level 5 dead level.  Taking two classes past 5 probably means you get a dead level from the 2nd at around 5; sometimes this is extra attack twice, other times it is some other feature that doesn't stack with your extra attack.I will admit the above is work, but it is work I find fun.</blockquote>

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