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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DND_Reborn" data-source="post: 8497363" data-attributes="member: 6987520">IMO optimization has certainly existed in every edition of D&D, but each edition keeps offering more and more places you can choose to optimize, with 4E being the peak (from what I've heard, I never played it and could be wrong, maybe 3.5???).I don't see optimization as a bad thing at all. After all, IRL history people have always optimized. Consider weapons and armor. Using the more deadly weapons and having the best armor makes sense for your survival.When it comes to ability scores, playing to your strengths is encouraged by rewarding you for doing so. In AD&D if you had a good prime requisite, you earned bonus XP. In 5E, a melee fighter (non-finesse) gets a better chance of hitting and deals more damage with higher Strength. Nothing says you can't enjoy playing a melee fighter with a STR 10, of course.So, I do believe designers encourage optimization by rewarding making those choices, whatever they are. But it is important to remember that not optimizing doesn't mean you won't enjoy your game.The only real issue I've encountered is when one player optimizes and another doesn't, then the second player's character sometimes feels inadequate compared to the optimized character, and the second player seems to not be having as much fun. In such cases, the second player might feel compelled to optimize, just to "keep up".EDIT:I'll add that one of the most memorable and enjoyable PCs I got to play was Benson Miller, whose family trade was milling and he was the son of  Ben. He was an AD&D Cleric with WIS 12. He ACTUALLY had a 5% of spell failure every time he cast a spell! He also, of course, had no bonus spells for a better Wisdom. Finally, all of his ability scores ranged from 9 -12, with the average just under 11.I loved that PC and played him all the way to name level, High Priest (9th), build a temple and such before I retired him. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />For quick reference about the Wisdom, here's the table:[ATTACH=full]149065[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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