not sure. i think i'd rather dm for my nieces and nephews.

Let your players do cool shit. Let them be good at what they built their character for. You can challenge them while still giving them opportunities to be awesome.

But you know that I know that you know that I know!

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.

Congratulations, you found out what DnD actually stands for: Damage and Damage. Everything that helps you deal more damage is cool and innovative and everything that doesn't deal damage is just a waste of time. But here comes the problem. Your fertilizer bomb is extremely effective at doing the only important thing in the entire system. So why don't you use it every time against all of the enemies? Your DM has two choices if you decide to do that: Either block you from doing so which will almost always feel forced or use enemies with bigger hp pools which is effectively a debuff to all other character abilities. Either way sucks. Welcome to DnD!

You just gave a perfect example for my "How do I deal even more damage?" point and you don't even realize it. Do you? If all you have is a hammer...

I mean, the Monk being immune to poison doesn't save anyone else in the breath attack. Part of D&D is building synergy between the classes and operating as a team. At the same time, it's the group's biggest vulnerability. Mind-splort the meat shield, gum up the support, grapple the damage dealer, or backstab the controller. Suddenly, the team is scrambling as their game plan falls apart. And green dragons have so many tricks up their sleeves! The last thing I'm worried about is the breath weapon. It's my horny bard falling for her damned come-hither smile that keeps me up at night.

I very much did not. He was complaining about D&D having spells that made him feel bad and I offered an example of how there’s more to 5e than spellslots to get the job done. Do you think we don’t also talk our way out of problems? We do that all the time. I routinely, even with -1 charisma, would do shit all the time to get us out of dangerous fights and solve problems in more ways than “gun”. And none of you have even given examples as to why other systems are better so please, _do go on_.

I'll say that it's less of an issue, 9 times out of 10, because what they're going to be good at is weathering repeated encounters. There's so many monsters that do poison damage - especially in the mid levels - that you'd be hard pressed to run a campaign where they just stop showing up. Are you just not going to send anyone through the Underdark because a Monk is in the party? Stop using half the demons, aberrations, and magical beasts in the MM? But for climatic fights, it can add to the drama when the encounter is on disadvantagous terms. Sometimes the cool shit is overcoming the seeming impossible.

Im 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 it's face, mouth, throat, whatever he could get. IIRC, that bard and the dragon both died from that choice.