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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grydan" data-source="post: 6013692" data-attributes="member: 79401">I don't think it's possible to punish optimization. It's pretty much a contradiction in terms. If something gets you negative results, then it's clearly not optimal and something else is, and that will be chosen instead.D&D, even at its simplest, had optimization. Rolling your stats in order and rolling a high Strength and low Intelligence, and choosing to play those stats as a Fighting Man rather than a Magic User? Optimization. Spell choice, when ever it is a choice, is clearly about choosing what spell or spells you think will be best.If your game system allows any choices at all, at any phase of the game from character generation through actual play, optimization will be present.What you can do is put constraints on optimization. Trying, as best you can, to make it such that choosing Option A instead of Option B isn't always the best choice. Making it so that choosing the "best" options still leaves you playing in the same ballpark as someone who doesn't, rather than putting you into a situation where you're not even playing the same game. Another name for these constraints? Balance.</blockquote>