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Message: <blockquote data-quote="moritheil" data-source="post: 3460932" data-attributes="member: 30610">As a DM, I strive to encourage thought and planning on the part of my players, and to discourage indifference to my campaign.  Knocking down the best build to the level of the others not only discourages planning, it encourages apathy.  If three people show up with straight classes and one person shows up with a well-planned multiclass, then clearly the person who planned out the good build cared enough to do it.  In accordance with my philosophy, he should be rewarded.Now, I understand that some DMs ban material.  That's different.  I'm talking about when a failure to produce a competitive character is not the result of not having sources available, but is instead the result of a player not caring enough to look around and distinguish his or her character.  I could entertain an argument that some players are simply no good at min/maxing, but a web search takes under a minute and there are publicly posted examples of decent builds for every concept at this point.  It doesn't take any skill anymore.  The only plausible reason for a non-newbie player to not have a good build is apathy.Regarding CR estimates, I find that tactic highly questionable.  Power levels vary widely for monsters of the same CR; the concept that normative power level can be based on out-of-the-book monsters (who tend to have ridiculously bad feat selection and poor tactics) is just going to result in the need to gimp most builds (including most single class builds) if you stick to it.</blockquote>

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