Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?

[strangebloke]

And I have seen players purposely chose an "unoptimal" option even when presented with a better one that would not change the concept of the character and still had a blast playing.

Sure. I have done this fairly frequently. But wouldn't it be better if that cool option wasn't suboptimal to begin with?

I don't like to make assumption but I would dare say that people who go to internet forum to ask for optimisation help to squeeze that +5 DPR are not in the majority among players, let alone new players.

That's exactly my point. A new player won't go to the handbook, will pick a weak option, and feel crappy when he sucks relative to the guy who did. Weak and strong options are not friendly to new players.

Balance isn't important.

My first character was a 3e fighter. I sort of knew it was bad, but I liked the simplicity. By sixth level, I was totally sidelined by the party druid. I could still do things, sort of, but combat was mostly a game of 'try not to die.' by tenth level, it was basically unplayable. I still had fun, though. Role-playing is just that great, and I had a good group of guys. But I've had a lot more fun playing characters that were actually good at what they were intended for.

It's demonstrably false that players don't recognize how op sharpshooter etc. are. There are threads about this crap like every other week, by players or DMs who are frustrated. 20-30 damage a round against foes at level four or so is 100% obtrusive.

A BM sharpshooter with crossbow expert can pretty effectively nullify the cons of sharpshooter wilst simultaneously maximizing the pros of it. That is bad.