this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2025
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I tailor my encounters to what my players like, not what's going to challenge their dice and IRL luck. If my players are finding themselves having to cheese their build and pick the optimum feats and talents just so they can stand a chance, then I've failed as a DM.
If you're cheesing your build because you want to feel powerful, just tell me, and I'll do a campaign where you can feel powerful without needing to cheese your build. You should be able to make the character you want to roleplay as without feeling like you're inadvertently gimping yourself.
It's why I like Genesys and Powered by the Apocalypse, because those are RP heavy systems that don't require you to spend ages messing with stats in order to play the character you want to play.
Some people like to cheese their build to feel clever. But then again, solving riddles has a similar effect.
Tbh, I don't really get why this is an issue. As a DM I balance the game however feels good for everyone. My main strategy is that being more powerful shouldn't make the game easier but should give you more freedom and options.
And the game should never be too hard. To most people, losing a character sucks really hard, so character deaths should always be consentual.
I'm that weird exception about character death, partly because I like building new characters, and partly because I like seeing characters get cool ends. Like my low-mid level bard who, while the party was on its last legs in a boss battle, leapt at the dragon's face from an elevated position to attack at its face, mouth, throat, whatever he could get. IIRC, that bard and the dragon both died from that choice.
Edit: The campaign was at that point based in a small-medium town in a cold region. I remember the town had like 4 notable families, ones whose names meant something to folks in the area, and my bard was of one of the upper couple ones. So his death was definitely storied, crazy Uncle Artanis who died saving his friends and the region from a dragon.
My replacement character was a half-orc cleric who had trouble figuring out how to respect both halves of his heritage, and, in a big BSOD moment, rather than execute the defeated members of an orc tribe who refused to change their ways, he cast off his magic gear (armor, weapons, rings, whatever he had) and just walked off into the snowy forest, never to be played again. Which was just the only action I could imagine for him; he had "life" inside my head, and it was what "he" chose (I do not have DID).
That was 15+ years ago, and I only recently decided that he ended up forming a community of outcasts, people who couldn't find a place in the world, and sponsored conscientious adventurers. I like to think that tribe of orcs, if they survived, at least respected his community and didn't try to raid it.