[3.5] DM wanting tactical and challening combat, players with bad builds

[WarKitty]

It can always get worse. I've had to play a game with 1 player who thought like that...out of 6. Then he got frustrated because he felt useless.

Edit: I do sympathize. There is a certain set of players that just don't seem to want to bother with the rules, so they take whatever choice looks sort of good and stick to it. The player I referenced above was like that; he had Toughness for all but 3 or 4 of his feats as a level 7 fighter, because he didn't want to look through the rules for them.

However it sounds like you aren't going to win this one. It really depends on your players. If they don't want to bother, you're going to end up having to tone it down. I make encounters like that fun for me (as the DM) by starting with a REALLY sub-par option and then optimizing it. Like I'd start with core kobold warriors, and then see how powerful to make them.