Sometimes I worry about my fellow players. Optimization is so dominant in conversations about the various classes we have to choose from, which, to some degree, I get. Like anything, there's always going to be a debate about what the "best" classes or features in the game are. Every one has their favorites, but if there's going to be any kind of honest ranking there has to be some kind of objective metric to stack all these disparate options against each other.
To do this, we turn to good ol' fashioned maths. People will sit endlessly arguing about why the average damage rolls for one set of class options makes their preference better than someone else's and again, I get it. If you want to compare basketball players, you look at their numbers so, why wouldn't you do the same here? The point of getting your party together is to go around hitting monsters until they die, so it follows that whatever character options increase the amount of damage you do are superior. More damage, after all, means things die faster, meaning you have an easier time winning.
Now, before I get too far into this, I want to make it clear that I don't have anything against knowing any of these things. Taking a minute to get down into the raw numbers of what each class is capable of is a good way for a player to make an informed decision about what kind of character they want to create and what they want that character to do in their game. But if optimization becomes the only way you view the game, your perspective risks becoming overly narrowed. To highlight this, I want to talk about my favorite class, the monk.
Go to any board on reddit, DnD Beyond, or anywhere that talks about DnD and the universal complaint you'll find about the monk is the classes d8 hit die.
It's almost impossible to keep up with the other martial classes with their d10's (or d12), even if you have a decent constitution modifier of +3. The averages just aren't in your favor so, sooner rather later, if you're playing with another martial class, you're bound to feel some hit point envy as your game goes on.
Every source points to this as a major drawback to the classes design (which we'll loop back to) but the binary focus of optimization leaves a lot to be desired even just on judging the attributes each class receives.
Monks get a lot of defensive maneuvers to protect their somewhat paltry hp pool. Deflect missiles will protect you from pretty much any ranged weapon attack the moment you get it at 3rd level. The only times I took damage from ranged weapons was if I had already used my reaction to cancel out another attack.
By 10th level, monks have Evasion, Stillness of Mind, and poison immunity. To put into prospective how effective these all are, let's pit the monk against some of the most popular enemies in the game: dragons.
Of the five chromatic types, three breath weapons are matched against dexterity saving throws, which, because you have Evasion, if you make the saving throw you take... zero damage. Even if you fail, you still only take half damage. You don't even have to roll against the green dragons breath because you're immune to poison. So out of five of the most devastating monster attacks in the game, monks potentially suffer full damage from just one of them.
Oh, and the terrifying presence all the dragons have? If you fail, use an action for Stillness of Mind to rid yourself of the terror, spend a ki point to go into Patient Defense, and you're all set to get back in fray on your next turn.
Still, even with all those defenses, you're still vulnerable. Things could go wrong, you could roll poorly, and then, well, then you're in trouble.
This isn't a design flaw. It's a choice meant to introduce risk because with risk comes choices and with choices come drama, aka the good stuff that makes the game enjoyable.
As a monk, you can get pretty much anywhere on any battle map your DM draws up. If monks had a d10 hit die, players would take off at every opportunity, safe in the knowledge that even if things didn't go quite as they hoped, they had a bit of slack from an hp pool that can absorb one or two bad hits.
With a d8, though, players don't have this safety. Which is good; combat has to be dangerous to be effective. So while you can get up close and personal with your end-boss lich mage, should you is the question. In that split second decision lies danger and glory, it's impossible to have one without the other.
It's important to remember that Dungeons and Dragons is a narrative experience. For narrative to work, there has to be tension and combat isn't exempt from that. The three pillars of combat, exploration, and social interaction form the narrative triangle of the game. Combat, at heart, is just another way to express your character. In the case of the monk, the d8 is a limitation which forces players to make choices. And it's choices, not stats, not average damage per round, not any quantifiable metric, that defines characters.
Combat isn't the only area to suffer from this mode of analysis. Another monk feature that gets universal dismissal is the one at 13th level, Tongue of the Sun and Moon. The feature grants monks the ability to understand, and be understood by, anything that speaks a language. It's a pretty cool feature, honestly, yet, as one breakdown of the class said, it's "of limited value for many monks given that charisma is the most common dump stat."
This is why the idea of optimization is especially limited- it encourages players to see the "best" attribute in a situation as the only way to do something. Yes, charisma is the stat that gives characters their primary social skills. It does not, however, give you a good tool set for figuring out if the people on the other side of the conversation are being entirely truthful. For that, you need a good wisdom score to get a good bonus to your insight checks. And, wouldn't you know it, wisdom is the second most important stat for a monk to have. What a coincidence.
The lack of imagination around what this feature would allow players to do is somewhat worrying. To me, it reads as the designers knowing that monks don't usually invest in traditional social skills, so they gave them an ability that grants players an avenue to participate in social interactions in a way that was supported by the classes core stats.
Beyond the mechanical level, the role playing opportunity of a character being able to speak every language because they have gained an understanding of the connection between all living things, of the oneness of all life, is incredible. Which is why it honestly baffles me that all the narrative and character possibilities get cast aside because it doesn't line up with one stat and optimization brain doesn't allow for any other creative possibilities.
At heart, what I see in optimization is the fear of failure dressed up as a design philosophy. Characters can only be highly specialized into doing what they're "supposed" to be good at, while anything their design may not automatically support is to be avoided at all costs. If you want to design a character who acts as the most efficient killing machine around, sure, I can see what the appeal is. But if you want a more well rounded character who incorporates their strengths and weaknesses into the narrative experience, this well runs dry incredibly quickly.
Obviously, knowing the most effective uses of your characters abilities is important. Even so, the best way to use that information is knowing when you can use those abilities to be reckless, daring, maybe even a little stupid. Take a risk, be creative, be okay with failing, trust me. The worst that can happen is you have fun in a way you didn't think you could.
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