DMs, how optimized are your players?

[GravityEmblem]

I'm running an IRL game, where I realized that one of my characters is really unoptimized. He's a Longtooth Shifter Arcane Archer with the Two-Weapon Fighting Style. Not really an optimized character build.

The other characters are a lot more well-suited to their classes. An Aaracockra Moon Druid, a Half-Orc Totem Barbarian, a Halfling Fist Monk, and a Half-Changeling (Disguise Self 1/day) Assassin. Nobody's really outstaged anyone, (and nobody's really trying to optimize) but the contrast may be jarring to y'all optimizing dudes.

So, how optimized are your players? Are there different levels of optimization? Is this a problem in your game?

[KorvinStarmast]

So, how optimized are your players? It varies from my nephew, mostly optimized, to my brother, optimized, to the rest: beer and pretzels, ask DM for advice now and again.

Are there different levels of optimization? Yes.

Is this a problem in your game?
No.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Without a criteria, it's hard to say what optimized looks like.

Max damage/turn? Best face? Best controller?

Something perfectly optimized is optimized for ONE THING, and there are more that one core interactions in D&D.

What I hope characters are optimized for is their players and other party members enjoyment.

The other thing, optimized generally means highest possible modifier to rolls. What's wrong with being second best at two things instead of being the best possible at one thing? 5% aint much when you mae a LOT of rolls...

[Demonslayer666]

The players in my current game range from optimized to not. There is one player that is a one trick pony and doesn't not want to optimize, ever. This is the player that values story highly, and the rest doesn't matter (character abilities, magic items, tactics, etc.). The rest of my players are somewhat optimized, but prefer a healthy balance between roleplaying and combat. One player likes combat a lot, and dislikes roleplaying, but they are pretty close to the same level of optimizations.

It's not a problem. We all play to have fun, not outshine the player next to us.

[Droppeddead]

Depends on what you mean by optimizing. I took the stats I rolled and put them to best use for what suited the character and so did the other players as well. I tend tend to read up on the rules to know best on how I can use my seplls and stuff, some of the other don't. I tend to want to play the dice as they fall, other players can be quite keen on asking for advantage or other benefits (magic weapons, wanting to use Acrobatics instead of Athletics, changing what spell they cast after they realize that it might backfire, that sort of stuff).

Oh, sorry. Didn't see that this was a question aimed at DMs. My bad.

[Bobthewizard]

For the most part, most things you see on here don't matter at low-mid levels. Some of the spellcasting optimization (coffee lock, simulacrum chains) can break the game later on but for the most part, maximizing DPR is barely noticed.

The only thing I've noticed is that spell casters feel behind if they took bad spells. Martial characters are barely any different with a 14 vs. 20 in their attack stat or a 16 vs 21 AC. But a spellcaster who took witch bolt as their only combat spell is going to notice their lack of contribution. New players trying to play sorcerers seems like the most common problem I've seen.

Otherwise, varied optimization is fine.

[RogueJK]

Varied optimization usually isn't a problem, unless you have one or two characters that are grossly outside the norm (either way) for that group, or if someone is especially optimized for something that doesn't apply to that group/campaign.

If the entire group is just in it for the storytelling and fun class combos, but one guy shows up with a super-optimized niche DPR build, that person is probably going to overshadow the other players during combat.

Similarly, if everyone is semi- to fully optimized, and then there's one joke character or a new player's character with nonsynergistic multiclassing and no stat above 13, that is going to stand out as being clearly less effective in combat.

However, this is usually especially noticeable in combat, which is only one pillar of the game. So if the group is heavy on combat but light on social/exploration, the differences can be dramatic. If your group is story/conversation heavy, then even an interesting but non-optimized character can contribute and even stand out at times.

It also depends on how that character is optimized (although "optimized" is typically understood to mean "effective in combat"). If someone creates an uber skill monkey, or a highly skilled orator, but the DM just runs a straight dungeon slog with combat after combat, that alternately-optimized character won't get the chance to shine. Similarly, it doesn't matter how much DPR your super optimized Fighter can output if the campaign is all about court intrigue and backroom machinations.

[da newt]

The two groups I play with have a fairly wide variety of PC build optimization and just as much variation of player skill.

In general, this causes no issues, but it can be a little frustrating when some of the party are making less than ideal tactical decisions without much thought. A personal peeve of mine is folks who don't bother to use bonus actions or movement or think about the other PCs, but we are all having fun so ...

[TyGuy]

I have 1 player that doesn't optimize and forgets half his features. Another that is optimized in build but doesn't play effectively at all.

As a DM both are easy to plan for and it's not a problem for me. For the players, they get annoyed with the second guy because they know he could be playing up to a higher standard but he's just dead weight by choice. I also don't like it when a player puts no effort into optimization and then complains about a "weak PC".

As a player I had a teammate that was very unoptimized (dumping wisdom on a monk, taking intellect instead) but he was an annoying personality to begin with, so it was harder to forgive his shortcomings since he was handicapping the party AND didn't really bring anything else to the equation. By contrast, another player was not very optimized (the same one that forgets to use half his features), but he has a good personality and is actually fun to be around, so we forgive his suboptimal play as a table.

[Contrast]

Without a criteria, it's hard to say what optimized looks like.

I mean, yes and no.

I play in a game where I am a variant human bard who took Res Con as my feat and +2 Cha at level 4.

Also in that game is a fighter/warlock who took 3 levels of fighter and then started taking warlock levels. When they finally got an ASI at level 7 they took GWM and always use it on every attack.

There is also a Dexadin who had Str 8, Con 14. Their level 4 ASI was +1 Str, +1 Con. It was clarified with them this wouldn't do anything but they felt the actions of their character would have caused them to become stronger and tougher so stronger and tougher they became.

Three characters doing three different things but even without putting any particularly criteria or going any deeper on it I at least think its pretty easy to tell there's different levels of optimisation here.


My experience is that most tables have quite low levels of optimisation. Oftentimes even people who have played a lot either don't really care to optimise or just aren't very good at it.

I don't think I've even seen over optimisation be a problem (typically people self manage and make sure they stay in their niche or whatever). I have seen under optimisation be a problem (either from someone getting frustrated with a useless character or from another player trying to get someone to play their character 'properly'). I think there's possibly some division in terms of optimisation when building a character and optimisation when playing a character as well. You can hand some people a well built character and they'll play it far worse than the player sitting next to them who built a sub-optimal character but plays it efficiently.

Its generally not a problem if I can tell the person is trying and making a sincere effort. The most frustrated I've ever been with another player was someone who wouldn't stop explaining how amazing their character build was except to bemoan how they could never seem to do anything useful (they were a rogue/bard/warlock at level 3 and at 5 were 1/2/2).

[RogueJK]

The most frustrated I've ever been with another player was someone who wouldn't stop explaining how amazing their character build was except to bemoan how they could never seem to do anything useful (they were a rogue/bard/warlock at level 3 and at 5 were 1/2/2).

I've played with a guy like that. We were currently Level 5, and his character was all over the place, and noticeably ineffective, but he kept bragging out how awesome his character would be in combat once it finally "came online" in Tier 3 or maybe even 4. (IIRC, it was some sort of odd "super Fire Bolt" Eldritch Knight/Draconic Sorcerer/Celestial Warlock concept.)

[Porcupinata]

My experience is that most tables have quite low levels of optimisation. Oftentimes even people who have played a lot either don't really care to optimise or just aren't very good at it.

We use Standard Array for ability scores and we don't use multiclassing, so our character choices are basically "pick a race and class/subclass, then occasionally pick a feat or ASI".

In our party we have:

Lizardfolk Champion Fighter (sword and board, heavy armor, defence fighting style)
Shifter Champion Fighter (dex-based, archer, sharpshooter feat)
Changeling Assassin Rogue
Lizardfolk Life Cleric
Kobold Wild Magic Sorcerer

I don't think we really count as "optimised" at all, to be honest...

We definitely fall into the "played a lot but don't really care for it" camp. Three of the five of us have 30+ years of D&D experience each (plus we've played lots of other RPGs too - we've never been a "D&D only" group) and the others are new players.

[stoutstien]

I'm running an IRL game, where I realized that one of my characters is really unoptimized. He's a Longtooth Shifter Arcane Archer with the Two-Weapon Fighting Style. Not really an optimized character build.

The other characters are a lot more well-suited to their classes. An Aaracockra Moon Druid, a Half-Orc Totem Barbarian, a Halfling Fist Monk, and a Half-Changeling (Disguise Self 1/day) Assassin. Nobody's really outstaged anyone, (and nobody's really trying to optimize) but the contrast may be jarring to y'all optimizing dudes.

So, how optimized are your players? Are there different levels of optimization? Is this a problem in your game?

Optimization is something that gets held in high regard on online forums because it isolates and focuses on parts of the game that players can measure in relative terms when the rest of the game is removed.

Each individual DM and game will be slightly different so that is the extent of the scale you can measure the gap between players or confirm if the gap exists at all.

outside a player mistaking some rubbish advice as gospel and then builds the ultimate lv 18-20 build that disregards the realistic range of play, most of the time the gap isn't a real issue.

[Yakmala]

It varies. I play both homebrew games and Adventurers League and in spite of AL being limited by PHB +1, I find overly optimized characters a bigger issue in AL than anywhere else. This is partially due to AL DM's having little control over the characters that are at their tables and the rules they can govern them by. But the big offender when it comes to over-optimized characters in AL is the magic item rules. Players who are serious about optimizing their characters pick and choose adventures that drop the items they need, or they trade for the needed items from other players, often players outside of their regular tables. This means that when DM'ing Adventurers League, you not only have to deal with highly optimized race and multi-class combos, but characters that have the exact ideal magic items to support the combo.

[Kane0]

In my group of 6:
I am by far the optimizer but also the eternal DM
One guy that likes to pick a wacky shtick and leverage everything he can into it (latest two characters were 'how much draconicness can I stack together into one character' and 'Polymorph EVERYTHING')
Two are casuals and don't care
The other two more involved with RP than mechanics

[J-H]

In my Castlevania campaign (find Castle Dracula on DM's Guild, it's fun), the most mechanically optimized player did the most damage (zealot barbarian with GWM and a maul in a campaign with frequent skeletons).

The dwarven life cleric (pretty optimized combo) rarely cast damaging spells, never ran out of spell slots, barely used Channel Divinity ever (as in, maybe once), and stuck with an Adamantine Breastplate instead of the available Full Plate.

The wood elf kensei monk was very mobile, but never, not ever, not even once, tried to use Stunning Fist.

Mechanical optimization and "play at the table" optimization are two totally different things. The cleric and monk could have both been more effective, had the players chosen to use the options that were already available to them.

[Hael]

It varies. I play both homebrew games and Adventurers League and in spite of AL being limited by PHB +1, I find overly optimized characters a bigger issue in AL than anywhere else. This is partially due to AL DM's having little control over the characters that are at their tables and the rules they can govern them by. But the big offender when it comes to over-optimized characters in AL is the magic item rules. Players who are serious about optimizing their characters pick and choose adventures that drop the items they need, or they trade for the needed items from other players, often players outside of their regular tables. This means that when DM'ing Adventurers League, you not only have to deal with highly optimized race and multi-class combos, but characters that have the exact ideal magic items to support the combo.

That’s what makes AL fun. It’s just a different mindset, that can be fun sometimes unless the rules get too arbitrary (see the past few seasons mess).

Most AL dms are pretty tough and try to up the difficulty lvl for that sort of play as well, which makes the converse much more problematic (highly unoptimized players at a table full of optimizers).

In general most white board optimizations on the internet usually are good starting templates for a PC, but the real optimization comes from group discussions to min max the party perse. This can lead to a number of seemingly suboptimal choices from the single players perspective.

[Lunali]

My group is a bit diverse:
1. optimizes for combat
2. optimizes for something other than combat
3. starts with a concept then shifts to fill a role as needed by the group
4. has #2 present semi-optimal options to choose from then selects based on aesthetic
5. explains what they want to #1 and has them optimize the character

[KorvinStarmast]

This means that when DM'ing Adventurers League, you not only have to deal with highly optimized race and multi-class combos, but characters that have the exact ideal magic items to support the combo. One of my goals with my AL character (Season 7) was to be able to get to level 4, recreate him, and get my hands on either a +1 bow or a pair of ogre gaultlets.
As it worked out, AL Season 8 created a serious downer for AL, so my level 5 AL Ranger has been basically in a stasis. The campaign is forever on hold and my odds of playing anything in AL any time soon are about nil.

[Eldariel]

My default group is quite well-optimised. But we cooperate to ensure that everyone is roughly on par and homebrew what the rules don't provide. For my other group, they're pretty much all beginners and not very optimised. I'm changing stuff up to give players more options and to keep the races and classes largely on par (mostly the classes and races since that's where the most glaring imbalances lie [especially PHB stuff like Dragonborn vs. Vuman, Moon Druid vs. 4 Elements Monk, Assassin vs. Arcane Trickster]). Of course, they won't break anything since Player > Build > Class so I can pretty much change whatever and it'll be fine.

[XmonkTad]

Current group I'm with has a bunch of new players, I like to optimize, but I don't bring anything too crazy to the table because the DM is also a first time DM.

1) Wood Elf Gloomstalker (new player)
2) Wood Elf Drunken Master
3) Wood Elf Arcana Cleric (New player, frequently forgets their spells, upcasts guiding bolt a lot)
4) Dragonborn Vengence Paladin (recently deceased, new player)
5) V.Human War Wizard (me)

Some of those options may look fairly optimized, but in the hands of a new player they aren't played to their maximum.

[Laserlight]

"Optimized" for what? To fast talk NPCs, deal single target damage in melee, stealth past traps and patrols, AOE at range, heal/rez/remove debuffs, tapdance across a tightrope in a snowstorm, represent that cool character in that last film you saw?

[Eldariel]

"Optimized" for what? To fast talk NPCs, deal single target damage in melee, stealth past traps and patrols, AOE at range, heal/rez/remove debuffs, tapdance across a tightrope in a snowstorm, represent that cool character in that last film you saw?

Probably for options and power; i.e. the largest amount of overall problem-solving power from the least amount of characters/character resources.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Optimization on the "strategic" level of D&D is pretty strong at my table. And a lot of that is due to me- I try to help every player that comes to me optimize for whatever concept they've got in mind, making oddball things work or really squeezing out the extra +'s on classic archetypes.

Optimization on the "tactical" level of D&D is all over the place, though. Having a well-optimized character doesn't automatically mean victory if you can't use it well. I try to help here, too- I probably give hints to my players a bit too often. Despite my reputation as a killer DM, I sincerely want my players to succeed and sometimes tip my hand a bit so the players can beat me.