Dealing with way too high stats

[Galileo]

A member of my group consistently goes overboard when it comes to ability scores. He's absolutely fine anywhere else, but as soon as it's time to list the scores, his common sense seems to shut down. The ranger he built for a previous campaign had starting scores of 18, 18, 16, 16, 16, 16. That plus elf adjustments means he had 20 Dex and the rest 16s. He claims he rolled them fair and square but I didn't see them and as far as I know no-one else did either. And another time when he was DMing Cthulhutech, he showed me the stats of the NPC we'd be fighting next session (We co-DM most of the time, so we often bounce ideas off each other). In a game where stats go from 1 to 10, with 5 as the average and an elite few going beyond 10 with magical assistance, this guy had 10, 10, 10, 15, 15, 15. (The ability stats are identical to D&D, just renamed. In fact, you can simply double Cthulhutech stats and get the D&D equivalent.)

Am I being a jerk for wanting to keep scores at least vaguely realistic? What should I do to keep this from happening again? Apart from his miraculously high stat rolls, he's a great player and DM, and one of my best friends. I just want to get it through his head that these scores are TOO HIGH, gorrammit!

[Flickerdart]

Point buy, or demand that everyone rolls in front of you, or array. Elite Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) sucks, but something like 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8 is more than enough for most classes. If everyone wants high-power play, 18, 16, 16, 14, 14, 12 should do fine.

[ColdSepp]

Make him roll his stats in front of you. If he really gets that good of a roll, he should have no problem with doing this. Of course, you'll have to let him keep them, if he rolls well.

Option two is to play point buy. That makes it impossible to cheat or fudge the dice, and levels the playing field, since everyone will have the same starting point buy.

[Delandel]

I've had this issue too, but not to the same extent.

Easiest way to solve this is the point buy system.

EDIT: Made quick post as to not be ninja'd. WIN!

Anyway, elaborate: My IRL friends are kind of used to insane rolls. Not all 18's insane, but consistently above 38-point buy quality. A specific friend was notorious for disgusting rolls in particular. Nobody liked it but we didn't bring it up cause we're all friends and it's silly to bicker about a game.

So when I started DM'ing I made a simple rule: 38 pt buy, max hp first lvl, average after. Why? 1) Keeps everyone on an even playing field, which IMO they SHOULD be 2) keeps people from cheating without hurting the friendship.

It so happened that when I first implemented this, my "miracle rolls" friend complained that 38pt buy wasn't good for various reasons. Keep in mind 38pt buy is very generous. None of his reasons were good ("I can't make a monk with these rolls, you're forcing specific classes on me with point buy, wizards have the advantage, you're taking away character customization") and the rest of the players liked my idea, so he pouted for a bit and then got over it.

The result? Everyone is now happy, including "miracle roller."

[rezplz]

Here's what you do: Slap him in the face. He seems to be one of those people who wants to be the best at everything.

Now, for a BBEG? Huge stats in everything might make for a very fun, very challenging epic-boss-fight. As long as it's done right, it may be excusable.


For a player, though? He obviously didn't roll those stats, or if he did, he was using loaded dice. Even if he DID roll those (I guess you could give him the benefit of the doubt) just explain to him that he's too powerful compared to his teammates, and that his character will unbalance the game. Have him re-roll, with you watching.


If he throws a hissy fit, throw him out.

[expirement10K14]

All players make ability score rolls in front of you. No exceptions. Or go pointbuy.

edit: 4 people simul-posting ninja'd me....

[Mastikator]

Make him roll his stats in front of you. This.

Or at least have him roll in front of DM (in case that's not you).

[Myou]

What about implementing a point buy instead of rolls?

[Elfin]

Pointbuy is the best solution to this, IMO; assigning arrays can work too, but that seems rather artificial to me.

[Mando Knight]

When dealing with overpowered characters, there's always a solution:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG76.jpg

[Lysander]

You never know. Maybe he did roll them fair. But randomly awesome or randomly terrible characters are pretty bad either way. Point Buy makes the most sense.

[Kroy]

This happened to me once. 18, 18, 18, 17, 17, 15. Made him reroll right there. He got 18, 18, 18, 18, 16, 14 fair and square :smalleek:. Since then I just do 40 point buy.

[Starbuck_II]

Make him roll his stats in front of you. If he really gets that good of a roll, he should have no problem with doing this. Of course, you'll have to let him keep them, if he rolls well.



Just because he rolled awesome once or twice does'nt mean he will consistently.

The chances at winning the lottery once are better than winning twice.

[Kylarra]

Another alternative, of course, is to just give everybody absurdly high stats and play a high-powered game.

Of course since you'll be adjusting encounters to compensate for it, nothing really changes, but it'll seem like it for a little bit.

[Fax Celestis]

My general rule is, "If you're going to roll, do it where I can see it. Otherwise, use point buy." This way, the people that like rolling can roll, whereas the people that like point-buy can just use point buy. And the people who get crap rolls can opt for the point-buy instead.

[Starbuck_II]

A better idea is he takes a picture.

Can't argue with a picture. That way even if the DM isn't paying attention/looking like the OP he knows that he did at one time roll those stats.

[PLUN]

Always roll at the table. That easy. It stops you from doing a lot of math at home, might be a waste of some time, but once that rule is established these 'incidents' will drop off almost entirely.

[Curmudgeon]

I wouldn't give the option to roll. Even with fair dice, rolls can throw the party balance out of whack. Use point buy for stats, and average + ½ for hit dice after 1st level. Having one character who's unafraid of magic because they start with +4 bonuses to all saves, or a character who's afraid to walk outdoors because they rolled 1s for hit points, will make for weird party dynamics. Keeping the numbers consistent keeps the fun consistent.

[Myou]

A better idea is he takes a picture.

Can't argue with a picture. That way even if the DM isn't paying attention/looking like the OP he knows that he did at one time roll those stats.

But... he can just arrange the dice then take a photo. :smallconfused:

[Kylarra]

A better idea is he takes a picture.

Can't argue with a picture. That way even if the DM isn't paying attention/looking like the OP he knows that he did at one time roll those stats.My 6 sets of 18s disagree with you.:smallwink:

[ericgrau]

Uh, just have everyone roll stats in front of you? Doesn't even have to just be him, to avoid singling him out. It's a good policy to require for everyone whenever you think there's even a chance of cheating.

[Korivan]

We used to have this problem with two people in particular. They always had at least two 18's, and the rest were really high. In seconed edition, depending on the dm, we had them roll infront of us. But that didnt go over so well because these were they types that wouldnt play well (one simply complained and didnt do anything, the other went out of his way to kill the group so they'd kill him and he could roll a new character.). Our new system is random dice generators. I use Redblade. I just put the laptop infront of the DM, hit the button and run with it. Got an 18,18,18,17,16,9 once. That was cool.

[Drakevarg]

Like everyone else has said, make him roll in front of you. I personally don't like point by because I always wind up with mediocre stats (I use 25 point).

Alternatively, you could use a tactic of my cousin's, when his brother rolled all 18s, 16s, and 15s, he said one of the scores had to be knocked down to 10. (Everyone else in the group got incredibly mediocre stats.)

[Kemper Boyd]

Uh, just have everyone roll stats in front of you? Doesn't even have to just be him, to avoid singling him out. It's a good policy to require for everyone whenever you think there's even a chance of cheating.

As an alternative: if you prefer people to have their characters ready before the first session, get on irc and get a dice roller irc bot. That way no one can cheat and everyone gets to see the rolls.

[Enguhl]

I got accused of that a few times, but people found out that I just have freakish luck with stat rolls (nothing else though, I've gone entire battles without rolling above a 6, and these lasted 20+ rounds).
One time I really did roll straight 18s, it was amazing, in front of the group and DM. But we never got to play that campaign :smallmad:

[Myou]

Like everyone else has said, make him roll in front of you. I personally don't like point by because I always wind up with mediocre stats (I use 25 point).


So... you use a higher buy?

[Jergmo]

I use a point buy of 32, and while that's already pretty good, I have an idea I might like to try out so that there can be folks who are absurdly good without it being unfair; also allow, say, a 45 point buy, but if you take that option, you get a +1 level adjustment. (I also have half experience progression, so it takes some time to buy off the adjustment)

[sadi]

I've had it happen once with a new player, he shows up with a premade character, so I ask to look at it since I have no idea what he's running, it's some sort of fighter with 18 18 17 17 16 16. I said I don't think so, told him to take 6 points of ability mod off (12 stat points), he didn't say anything, did very little and when the game was over never came back. I heard later that evidently any character with an ability score lower than 16 wasn't playable, and he didn't want to play.

[Xenogears]

Personally I like the random element that 4d6 drop the lowest gives to the game. I like it a lot better than point-buy since I feel it just encourages min-maxing even if dice can potentially add imbalance to the game I think it ultimately adds to the experiance (besides it can be fun to play an underoptimized character. or a wizard with 18 str since you rolled so high).

[Kizara]

I have a firm policy regarding stats:

"Make the character you want to make, have fun."


I then advise against excessively high stats (over 95 total points) because it is lame to try to RP someone with all 18s. I've done it, and having no 'low point' makes it harder to RP, trust me. If someone REALLY wanted to have max stats, I'd probably let them though.

If you are dealing with a party concerned with balance, have everyone agree on a high number they are comfortable with. 90 points (like, add up all abilities, must be < 91) I find is a decent amount.


High stats:

1) Make you feel more heroic. People don't play DnD to play a 'slightly above-average' joe with a 'decent' 14 in their main attribute. Playing a paladin with 18/10/18/12/14/18 might seem crazy to some, but it certinally is heroic!

2) Makes the game better balanced. Better saves reduces the save or suck problem (doesn't help the no-save or suck issue, but I basically houserule ALL status effecting spells to allow a save), more stats to work with help the weaker MAD classes (monk, paladin), while not giving as much to the stronger SAD classes (wizard, sorc). To writ, a Wizard with an 18 Int and 14 Con and 8-10s everything else can manage fine. A paladin with an 18 Str and 14 Cha with 8-10s everything else is crap, as he still needs Con and Wis; Int wouldn't hurt ethier.

3) Its more fun. The DM has more fun as he can now throw more epic and powerful (read: interesting) challenges much earlier and his players have more fun because they get to overcome epic, challenging and interesting things instead of more goblins and dire rats. (Towards this end I also support reasonable levels of optimization.)

[kjones]

My general rule is, "If you're going to roll, do it where I can see it. Otherwise, use point buy."

This is my rule as well, though I usually don't leave it as an option - I choose either rolling or point-buy depending on the campaign.

[FMArthur]

My group changed to 28 point buy, and I make some very challenging encounters to make up for it. I don't know what some of you are trying to accomplish with point buy above 32. "High-power" is only going to be relative to the rest of the game-world and the power level of enemies... 32 allows you to make characters with no glaring weaknesses if you're into roleplaying characters like that, but I don't see any point to go farther with it. :smallconfused:


When dealing with overpowered characters, there's always a solution:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG76.jpg

Having NPCs flee in terror might be effective for delivering the message, but only so because it ruins the fun and challenge. :smallfrown:

[PId6]

My group changed to 28 point buy, and I make some very challenging encounters to make up for it. I don't know what some of you are trying to accomplish with point buy above 32. "High-power" is only going to be relative to the rest of the game-world and the power level of enemies... 32 allows you to make characters with no glaring weaknesses if you're into roleplaying characters like that, but I don't see any point to go farther with it. :smallconfused:
Higher point buys allow you to level the playing field between SAD classes (i.e. wizards) and non-SAD classes (i.e. melee and everyone else that suck). A paladin, for example, actually becomes pretty playable at 36 point buy, while a wizard moving from 28 to 36 really just gets a few more HP, AC, and initiative.

[Edea]

Point-buy, and ONLY point-buy (preferably higher totals, but the main point here is control). Can't stand rolling for stats -_-. Arrays are alright if forgiving enough, but the default arrays for both 3.5 and 4e D&D are, IMO and as someone already mentioned, crap.

[sadi]

I agree with PId6 , your "power" classes don't benefit from high stats anywhere near as much as rangers, paladins, bards. The classes where better stats actually help a little to make up the huge gap in class balance.

[FMArthur]

Okay, I guess that makes sense.

[Asgardian]

he could have very well have rolled them

its not too hard to do with a 5d6 roll but more than likely he rolled the array and kept rerolling it until he got one he liked.

Tell EVERYONE at the table how the character rolls should be done to "keep the game balanced". That way your player doesn't feel singled out or accused of cheating

[Mathius]

Whenever I run a campaign, I make all of my players make their ENTIRE character at the gaming session. This eats up the first half of the session, but I don't get the "uber stats" with my players. Of course I allow my players to roll 3d6 a total of 36 times and pick the highest scores. This allows for some pretty awesome stats, but believe it or not 18s are still pretty rare. My players usually average between 14 and 17.

This allows for it to be pretty balanced, with actual heroic characters. Of course I do not think that just because a guy rolls great stats that he should be penalized into using some bull**** point buy because some other shmuck can't roll decent stats to save his life.

One of my very first players rolled a character and did it the tradional way. 3d6 six times in order. He rolled strait 18s. I watched him do it. I rolled his dice and got random numbers. Freak occurence. But it does happen.

[KiltedGrappler]

I personally don't like Point Buy, so I'd just have him roll the stats infront of you and everyone else. Though back when I was running a 2nd edition game a friend of mine did manage to roll 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, with an 18/00 STR. Luckily he believed in party balance and fair play, and offered to lower his stats to a resonable level.

[Elfin]

Wow...that is even more unlikely than this (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1488). And that's saying something.
Wow. Just...wow.

[BillyJimBoBob]

You never know. Maybe he did roll them fair. But randomly awesome or randomly terrible characters are pretty bad either way. Point Buy makes the most sense.This is win. In a friend's campaign my character has improbably high stats due to a combination of the GMs generation rules and luck. Another friend looked at my character and commented that his highest stat (WIS, as a Cleric) was the only stat he has which was higher than my same stat. That was the point at which I became a "point buy or array" convert. In a game of equals there is no reason why 6(ish) die rolls at the start of a years long campaign should have such long reaching balance effects.

Edit: My most improbable character was rolled in Oe using the "3d6, roll stats in order" method. I rolled something for STR followed by an 18 INT (and a roar of amazement from the table) followed by a 3 for WIS (followed by another roar of amazement from the table). It's hard to role play a 3 WIS character, for me at least.

[Leewei]

One of the neater house-rules I've seen for character generation goes as follows:

1. All players roll up two sets of stats -- 4d6, drop lowest. All rolls are witnessed by the DM or another player.

2. Players decide which three statistics blocks are the "best".

Players choose from these three stat blocks. The DM uses these as he sees fit in place of the elite array for major NPCs and monsters.

[Temet Nosce]

It's already been said, but yeah make him roll in front of you. Point buy just annoys me personally, although I can stand it provided its not using the suggested numbers (32 is pretty much bare bone in my opinion).

Personally I use a 6d6 reroll 1s system when DMing. If you roll more than three 6s your stats can go above 18 (4 is 19 5 is 20 and 6 is 22... no one has rolled 6 yet in years of using this system). However, I'm trying to produce superhuman stats. My players should not have average characters in any way and I wouldn't object if someone rolled pure 22s in front of me.

Although honestly, it kinda annoys me that my system rarely produces flawed characters. I encourage players who want to take low stats to go with their high (if someone offers to take a really low stat I'll give them a free 18) but I do wish there was a rolling system which would produce both an assortment of superhuman stats and one or two abysmal ones.

[Elfin]

Yea, it's no fun playing flawless characters.

[Fax Celestis]

It's already been said, but yeah make him roll in front of you. Point buy just annoys me personally, although I can stand it provided its not using the suggested numbers (32 is pretty much bare bone in my opinion).

Personally I use a 6d6 reroll 1s system when DMing. If you roll more than three 6s your stats can go above 18 (4 is 19 5 is 20 and 6 is 22... no one has rolled 6 yet in years of using this system). However, I'm trying to produce superhuman stats. My players should not have average characters in any way and I wouldn't object if someone rolled pure 22s in front of me.

Although honestly, it kinda annoys me that my system rarely produces flawed characters. I encourage players who want to take low stats to go with their high (if someone offers to take a really low stat I'll give them a free 18) but I do wish there was a rolling system which would produce both an assortment of superhuman stats and one or two abysmal ones.

Try 5d4 (5-20) or 4d4+4 (8-20) or even 6d3 (6-18). Much bigger bell curve, so you end up with stats mostly in the middling range.

[tyckspoon]

Although honestly, it kinda annoys me that my system rarely produces flawed characters. I encourage players who want to take low stats to go with their high (if someone offers to take a really low stat I'll give them a free 18) but I do wish there was a rolling system which would produce both an assortment of superhuman stats and one or two abysmal ones.

A dice-pooling system can achieve this kind of result if your players will play along with it. Roll.. however many dice you want used and record the results into one pool. Now the players rearrange all the results into the stats they want; if they want most of their stats to be high, one or more of their stats will end up having to hold their 1-4's. You may not end up with 'abysmal', but it'll probably result in a few average scores. There's some things you could do to tip the swing, too- maybe let a player take a die out of one score to raise another, so you have one score built out of 4 dice and another that can't be any higher than 12 before racial mods.

[PLUN]

I do wish there was a rolling system which would produce both an assortment of superhuman stats and one or two abysmal ones.


That sounds like a CHALLENGE
Take a standard elite array. No. actually no.
Take 6,6,12,12,14,14
Roll 2d6, picking the highest, and add in order.
Distribute.
Season 'base' stats to taste of campaign.

Um... ta da?

[Temet Nosce]

Yea, it's no fun playing flawless characters.

Agreed. It's also a lot less interesting to be average than to have difficulty with something.


Try 5d4 (5-20) or 4d4+4 (8-20) or even 6d3 (6-18). Much bigger bell curve, so you end up with stats mostly in the middling range.

That's the issue. I want to completely flatten the middle of the curve, so it only produces stats in the high and low ends. Ideally, I'm looking to get my players to play characters with both major strengths, and scarring weaknesses.

Ideally, I'd be looking for something which produced stats something of something like 5, 19, 16, 7, 20, 18 with no chance of producing stats of 8-13 at all.

Edit: Heh, lot of responses... one moment.

[Myou]

I want to completely flatten the middle of the curve, so it only produces stats in the high and low ends. Ideally, I'm looking to get my players to play characters with both major strengths, and scarring weaknesses.

Roll 1d20, reroll 10s and 11s. :smallamused:

[Temet Nosce]

A dice-pooling system can achieve this kind of result if your players will play along with it. Roll.. however many dice you want used and record the results into one pool. Now the players rearrange all the results into the stats they want; if they want most of their stats to be high, one or more of their stats will end up having to hold their 1-4's. You may not end up with 'abysmal', but it'll probably result in a few average scores. There's some things you could do to tip the swing, too- maybe let a player take a die out of one score to raise another, so you have one score built out of 4 dice and another that can't be any higher than 12 before racial mods.

Hrm, so say for example I roll 18d6 (geeze, just did this and ended up with an 18 and a 17 on two of the 3d6 rolls) so I have 3, 5, 4, 6, 3, 2, 6, 6, 6, 1, 4, 2, 6, 6, 5, 5, 1, 1 and let my players rearrange these to something like 18, 18, 15, 11, 7, 3? Hrm... Might work, although it wasn't quite what I was looking for. I may try this anyways particularly since if I use your suggestion for letting them drop a dice from one score and add it to another it should skew the scores a bit.


That sounds like a CHALLENGE
Take a standard elite array. No. actually no.
Take 6,6,12,12,14,14
Roll 2d6, picking the highest, and add in order.
Distribute.
Season 'base' stats to taste of campaign.

Um... ta da?

So, roll 2d6 for each score, compile the highest number from each, and add in order of original highest? Lets give this a shot... 6, 5, 4, 3, 3, 3 which means 20, 19, 16, 15, 9, 9. Hmm, I'll think about this but if I use it I'll probably tweak it slightly. Roll 3d6 for higher numbers, 2d6 for middling ones, and 1d6 for low ones and have it start 4, 6, 12, 14, 14, 16 I think. It's a good idea though.

You guys have definitely given me some ideas though... Honestly, I've been using the same rolling system for a bit to long (It's been half a decade since I stopped trying new ones when I DMed)


Roll 1d20, reroll 10s and 11s. :smallamused:

That... is just evil. I might do it, "Ok guys, you're gonna roll 1d20 for every stat and reroll anything between 8 and 13... You rolled a 1? Nice, you had some luck there!"

[Myou]

That... is just evil. I might do it, "Ok guys, you're gonna roll 1d20 for every stat and reroll anything between 8 and 13... You rolled a 1? Nice, you had some luck there!"

"I know, what were the odds?!"

"About one in twenty."

x3

[Elfin]

Well, it would definitely give Nat 1s a new significance...:smalleek:

[Myou]

Well, it would definitely give Nat 1s a new significance...:smalleek:

I want to see how they take it when they roll 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1. :smallamused:

[Elfin]

I want to see how they take it when they roll 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1. :smallamused:

Muahahahaha!

[Myou]

Muahahahaha!

"Great! You're super lucky! Now, do you want to play a Wizard, a Cleric or a Sorcerer?"

[Gnaeus]

That's the issue. I want to completely flatten the middle of the curve, so it only produces stats in the high and low ends. Ideally, I'm looking to get my players to play characters with both major strengths, and scarring weaknesses.

Ideally, I'd be looking for something which produced stats something of something like 5, 19, 16, 7, 20, 18 with no chance of producing stats of 8-13 at all.

Edit: Heh, lot of responses... one moment.

You could make a % chart. Something like:
1-10---3
11-20---4
21-30---5
31-40---6
41-50---7
51-60---14
61-70---15
71-80---16
81-90---17
91-99---18
100---19

Adjust as desired.

[Mr. Mud]

It really depends on what my PCs are going to be, in most cases... which should happen. Anyway...:

I've been trying to devise a partially random point buy system... Something like 34+1d4 Buy? Or 32+1d6 Buy. Is there anything like this?

[sadi]

Do you roll in front of your players or behind a screen? If you think they're cheating there are simple answers. The ones that don't involve confrontation involve that player being easier to hit, having worse saves. Then when the death occurs, you can say, here are the dice roll it up.

[fryplink]

In my group, two of the characters are min-maxers at least during character creation. So im giving them an option. they can do a 2ed style stat roll (roll 3d6 and save your 6 highest rolls out of ? rolls {i gotta break out my 2ed manual to remember}) or they can point buy, if they roll they have to make their character in front of me. the point buy is medium (28 last game)

[Fuzzy_Juan]

I liked doing a 6x6 matrix and allowing players to roll 3d6 for each entry (or 4d6 drop the lowest) then allowing them to take any row or column. The entries must be input in a set order...no putting all high rolls in one slot.

helps give players a better stat boost and even out a few poor rolls. that way across the board noone should be 'das uber' and noone is too bad unless life hates them or they choose it. Never liked point buy.

[brandr]

i used to (and still do unfortunately:smallfurious:) play with a guy who did this all the time. i don't think he's ever had a stat lower than 16. personally, i play a bard, and my highest stats are in the 14's. i know how much low rolls suck. but this kid is ridiculous. he fudges EVERY SINGLE ROLL. listen, spot, ride, balance, attack, damage, everything. he gets a critical everyother roll, and does a massive critical once a sesssion. like clockwork.

it angers the DM, and everyone else. bring it up to him, tell him what needs to be done and the problems you have with it, otherwise it's almost not worth continuing to play because it's more of a chore to deal with the cheatery.

[Temet Nosce]

"I know, what were the odds?!"

"About one in twenty."

x3

"Before I adjusted them anyways... You're gonna need to reroll the 13, 12, and 9 I'm afraid, you can keep those 1s though!"


I want to see how they take it when they roll 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1. :smallamused:

Heh, I want to see what happens if they roll only 1s and 8-13... Then reroll 1s. The heartbreak... the sheer suffering.


You could make a % chart. Something like:
1-10---3
11-20---4
21-30---5
31-40---6
41-50---7
51-60---14
61-70---15
71-80---16
81-90---17
91-99---18
100---19

Adjust as desired.

Hm, although it's an interesting idea it seems like it would result in some players with only abysmal stats, and some with only incredible ones. I don't think a single dice would work quite right (I want to smash the middle of the curve, not eliminate the higher and lower ends of the curve), thanks for the suggestion though.

[Thrawn183]

3) Its more fun. The DM has more fun as he can now throw more epic and powerful (read: interesting) challenges much earlier and his players have more fun because they get to overcome epic, challenging and interesting things instead of more goblins and dire rats. (Towards this end I also support reasonable levels of optimization.)

A disagreement here. If you want your characters to be fighting more epic opponents, just start off higher level. The reason I like characters being closer in power to what the developers expected is that it makes things easier for me. While CR may not be the greatest thing ever, it's the best I've got, and figuring out what is an appropriate encounter doesn't need to be made any more difficult. Additionally, outfitting NPC's with the gear needed to fight the PC's causes more problems with skewed WBL and it takes longer to optimize NPC builds.

All around, it ends up being a lot of trouble for me as a DM when could just say, hey guys let's start at level 3.

[Sophismata]

I rolled a Psion who ended up with a -3 Con mod. He would have been killed in the first encounter, when an ally was struck with a flask of alchemical fire, had the GM not forced me to reroll.