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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oryan77" data-source="post: 5647578" data-attributes="member: 18701">Strange that you brought this topic up at this time. I know I'm blabbering here, but I just recently dealt with this exact issue and I figured I'd give an explanation from my perspective.I just started a new campaign with half of the group being new to the group. After the first session, I parted ways with a player for this exact thing.I agree that just because a person knows how to build a good character doesn't mean he can't also roleplay it.I find nothing wrong with min-maxing to make an optimized PC. If that is what interests you, and you aren't making some insanely unfair & godlike PC (aka powergaming), then it's the smart thing to do. The thing is, I'm just tired of dealing with players that do make optimized PCs. Powergamers are simply not allowed in my game. But after DMing for 12 years, I'm pretty exhausted when it comes to managing a game. I now don't even want to deal with an optimized PC in the game anymore. I'm to the point where I realize that in order for me to enjoy DMing, I want it to be pretty laid back. I don't want to have to tweak encounters to deal with a PCs "trick" or the fact that he is tweaked out enough that he can thwart most any threat that I throw his way. I also don't want to hear other players going, "Dang man, how are you able to do all of that?" when they are only level 1.In this recent case, this player was a min-maxer, but I thought he was also a good roleplayer. He didn't seem like a problem player at all. In fact, he had a moment where he began to metagame and when I pointed it out, he handled the situation just fine. He picked a class known to be considered more powerful than core classes. I was fine with that since I didn't think the power increase was much different. But in the first session, at level 1, I'm already hearing other players balking at all the "crazy" things he is already doing at level 1. Then I realize that the power level is made a bit more strong by the player choosing a good mix of options. Basically, at level 1, being able to heal himself, gain DR, gain additional weapon damage, gain reroll chances, etc etc and being limited to doing this only per encounter rather than per day. Nothing wrong with that, but it does stand out more compared to players that stuck mostly to standard PHB options or options that were more roleplaying choices than optimization choices.It didn't really bother me until I'm told after the game that he admits that this class is more powerful at early levels, but it gets weaker at higher levels. So to compensate at higher levels, he'll be dipping into other classes to keep up with his power level. To top it off, he also wants to use a certain weapon known to give quite an advantage (and bogs down combat) and he will get to use it by dipping into these other classes.I understand there is nothing wrong with this. He wasn't powergaming at all. But he was definitely making choices that go far and beyond what the other players will be doing. These choices are going to cause me more work as a DM both during the game and outside of the game if I want encounters that will be challenging to him & his "tricks". I've DMed long enough and dealt with enough of this sort of thing to recognize what I will be up against. A basic encounter from a published adventure (even a lot of BBEG encounters) is not going to hold its own against an optimized PC. Like it or not, an optimized PC changes the groups CR even if the PC is of the same level as the other PCs. I no longer want to gauge what the parties actual CR is because of a single PC.After stating my displeasure of hearing about this future build, I'm pretty sure he was annoyed with me. I don't think he understood where I was coming from though. I think he felt more like I was saying his optimized build was a powergamey build (which isn't what I was saying). Going our separate ways was for the best. I'm sorry I couldn't have catered to his gaming preference, but I'm just not interested in dealing with that type of PC anymore. This preference was enforced even more after I played as a player in a new group the following week with a DM that was extremely easy going and low-key, along with several players that were just as easy going and low key. None of them were hardcore anything. No optimizers, no powergamers, no extreme roleplayers, no rules lawyers, no tacticians, and no whiners. I want what that DM has, a low maintenance group.</blockquote>

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