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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eldritch_Lord" data-source="post: 5846001" data-attributes="member: 52073">Three points here:1) You're conflating "character optimization" and "min-maxing" (i.e. making your character good at what he does) with some other adjective, whether "theoretical optimization" (i.e. making a character such a good one-trick pony that he isn't suitable for a real game) or "powergaming" (i.e. deliberating making a character more powerful than the rest of the party in important areas so you can 'win' the game) or similar.  If a player says he is "optimizing his character for X" that doesn't in any way mean he's trying to do anything that would violate Celebrim's First Law, it just means he's trying to focus his character in a particular direction and make him good at it.2) For the bazillionth time, 3e core is no more balanced than full 3e, and in fact is less so.  At the higher levels of optimization, core casters can easily outdo everyone because there are fewer counters to their tricks and fewer ways for the martial types to compete, and almost all non-core casters are more limited than core casters while non-core martial types receive significant boosts both in options and in power; for every celerity or Incantatrix there are dozens of good options that improve and expand the game without making characters overpowered, and barely any non-core features in and of themselves are on the same scale as planar binding, glitterdust, and the like in terms of pure effectiveness or versatility.At the low end of the optimization scale, lack of power/options and gentlemen's agreements can hold the classes in rough parity regardless, so there is no benefit in excluding all of the varied and interesting non-core options for power reasons in that case.  I'm sure that 3.Celebrim looks quite a bit different from 3.5 and that your group has its own playstyle, which is part of the gentlemen's agreement: people who play in your group agree to play with your rules, both mechanical houserules and group rules of conduct, and asking people to optimize to the benefit of the group and the game rather than to their detriment is just as much a part of that kind of agreement as "we buy the DM pizza for dinner" or "no out-of-character talk during combat" or the like are.3) You can optimize for many different things.  You can optimize a class's strengths, for instance optimizing a barbarian/frenzied berserker to take him from being merely a tough and strong warrior to a practically unkillable warrior who kills mooks by the score.  You can optimize a class's weaknesses, for instance optimizing a fighter/rogue/duelist as a noble character by taking those martial classes and attempting to make him good at both combat and diplomacy without sacrificing too much of the other.  You can optimize for a theme, for instance making a pyromancer via a sorcerer/favored soul/mystic theurge with every single possible fire-related spell and feat you can find, even though it's not the most powerful option and in fact is relatively weak overall.An optimized fighter is not necessarily one who is good at everything and who solves everything through violence.  It can fall at many different places on the scales of power, well-roundedness, and flavor.  Even an optimized full caster isn't necessarily good at everything--I've optimized clerics before who could buff their team through the roof but had no offensive capabilities on their own, wizards who could completely shut down enemy mages but had no defense (or offense) against mundane threats, druids who tried to be as bear-y as possible (summoning bears while wild shaped into a bear commanding a bunch of bears while...) without regard for combat power, and summoners and necromancers who went for the highest possible volume of weaker minions instead of the fewer, stronger ones because they were trying to rebuild towns, support infrastructure, provide labor, and the like.Painting everyone who optimizes characters with the same brush (and a not-very-complimentary brush at that) is really doing us a disservice.</blockquote>

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