You can not control someone else's feelings and "too strong" is subjective. Since the OP's post title says "strong" and not "too strong" that is why he is facing opposition.
"Strong" characters are not a problem. "Too strong" is something different.
Rynjin wrote: kestral287 wrote: I have seen excellent, highly-dramatic stories written about a pair of characters whose powers amounted to "really, really awesome in the woods and can shoot a really heavy bow" and "fast, limited flight, better vision than normal". These characters were protecting a man who had all of their powers, but significantly higher powered, along with a quartet of other abilities and who was pretty much a walking weapon of mass destruction. Their job was to escort this man, because he'd been given a very good reason not to go all out. And it was dramatic, and well done, and the only real inter-party clash was not "why didn't you do this yourself?" but "why did you pick us?" (and that because our Gandalf was a jerk who withheld what exactly they were there for). All worth it when he realized that blisters suck. Actually, it was the premise for Book 3 of the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher.
And to be fair, each of those accompanying people were indeed masters in their own niche. The big guy was just master in ALL of the niches, and likely the most powerful individual on the whole continent!
==Aelryinth
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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Sissyl wrote: A strong character that needs to hold back to not outclass your character means, even if it never does a single thing to be overbearing, that the entirety of your character's existence, motivation, struggle, whatever you call it, becomes meaningless in a single stroke. If Superman is with us, why doesn't Superman solve every problem with the villains? Your character becomes a supporting cast character in Superman's story... and feels completely irrelevant. The fact that people feel this way doesn't mean they should feel that way, or that those feeling are valid concerns. The problem is not with the player who brings a "too strong" character, and is willing to adjust his/her playstyle to allow the rest of the group to have fun. The problem is with the players who are bent out of shape because:
A) they feel entitled to know the details of his/her character so they can tell when he/she's sandbagging a little to give the other players a chance to shine.
B) they feel entitled to be "the star" even when nothing about their character or their personal player skills justifies that.
C) they feel that "value" and "worth" of a character is inextricably linked to the mechanical power of that character.
The solution here, as always, is that some people just shouldn't play together, because they want such different things from the game, and/or they have widely disparate skills. If you want to play Bob and Alice, the plucky underdogs who barely get by with grit and determination, you can absolutely do that. If you want to play Dave the Almighty and wreck face with supreme cosmic power, you can do that to. If only one of those playstyles sounds good to you, then you should not play with people who want the other, instead of pretending that there is some perfect game balance or social contract that will make it so that "Supreme Cosmic Power" can be roughly equal to "I pick locks good".
Dark Immortal wrote: @ Marroar, I totally agree that the reverse can be true. I am sure I even said it somewhere, probably lost on page 1.
You're fighter story sounds incredibly amusing.
I've tried killing him several times. The dice gods and fellow party members have refused to allow it to happen.
I even got the GM in on it, so for the longest time everything we fought came charging at me or shooting their guns at my touch AC. The party responded by rolling heal-bot characters to keep my fighter up.
Oh and by dice gods, I mean the roll20 dice app, so my hand has nothing to do with it. I remember one time I suicidaly charged a line of gunners to great-cleave them. I thought "Ha there is no way I am getting out of this one alive", then my fighter laughed at such a thought and then proceeded to crit everything he hit with the cleave. My GM and I have decided that he is the luckiest man alive, since things like that keep happening.
Aelryinth wrote: Rynjin wrote: kestral287 wrote: I have seen excellent, highly-dramatic stories written about a pair of characters whose powers amounted to "really, really awesome in the woods and can shoot a really heavy bow" and "fast, limited flight, better vision than normal". These characters were protecting a man who had all of their powers, but significantly higher powered, along with a quartet of other abilities and who was pretty much a walking weapon of mass destruction. Their job was to escort this man, because he'd been given a very good reason not to go all out. And it was dramatic, and well done, and the only real inter-party clash was not "why didn't you do this yourself?" but "why did you pick us?" (and that because our Gandalf was a jerk who withheld what exactly they were there for). All worth it when he realized that blisters suck. Actually, it was the premise for Book 3 of the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher.
And to be fair, each of those accompanying people were indeed masters in their own niche. The big guy was just master in ALL of the niches, and likely the most powerful individual on the whole continent!
==Aelryinth
The only reason I didn't call Gaius the most powerful is because the Vord Queen existed and I don't recall which part of the world she was in at the time. But yes, when we see him go all out he decimates armies and creates his own volcano. He's rather ridiculous.
As for the rest... that serves as part of my point, really. Amara and Bernard are, indeed, both very powerful in their own rights (the latter moreso than the former, but Amara is certainly no weakling). But compared to Gaius? They're packing peashooters next to a cannon. And yet... the story is compelling and dramatic anyway.
Same thing with Gandalf and the Fellowship-- and earlier, to a lesser extent because he wandered off for a bit, Gandalf and the dwarves+Bilbo. Same thing that Dave the Almighty can do with Alice and Bob. They can be masters of their areas and still be less powerful than our hypothetical Dave the Almighty, but that's alright as long as they're still given their niches. Dave should support, not overwhelm.
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A thing to look at, even though this usually is not a spectator game, is whether or not your game and story are fun to actually watch. If it is about a group of people but one person does everything and everyone else does nothing because that one guy so so powerful in every aspect that he wins all fights, dominates all conversation and negotiation, can figure out all the puzzles, etc... It is very boring because the other characters are pointless. It becomes a bad movie with characters that don't need to be there since you have this one guy that does everything.
Think Doctor Who episodes where the companions did nothing to help the story, not because they were incompetent but because the doctor was just ultimate deus ex machina man. May as well write out the other people because even if they are capable, this guy is more capable than anyone else in anything. No reason to have those characters so take them out.
It's like in, say Harry Potter. Now a webcomic actually made a joke about this. You have all these wizards trying to solve all these mysteries. Get one guy with a shotgun and a time turner. Sure it can make sense but it wouldn't be any fun or interesting because it negates everyone else.
In RPGs, you are essentially putting on a play and those should never have meaningless useless named characters. Everyone should be flawed in some ways and great in others. You know, like how people are. My biggest rule when I make a character is "Is it believable."
Now, I know PFS is different but you shouldn't bring the PFS mindset into all home games unless that is your group. In those games, when you have a bunch of people that choose to specialize rather than be general because they want to work as a team and not push eachother out, they are not playing the game poorly or wrong. They are keeping the game fun for everyone and that is the correct way. A game is no fun if everyone does not get to contribute in some way. It is like the old four class system and each were designed for specific roles. The muscle, the heal guy, the spell guy, the lock and trap guy. it's also kind of like the A-Team. How good would that show have been if they were all identical in what they could do and nobody had special skills? I could go on about stuff like the four humours but that is a whole other tangent and I have to go out.
Aelryinth wrote: Rynjin wrote: kestral287 wrote: I have seen excellent, highly-dramatic stories written about a pair of characters whose powers amounted to "really, really awesome in the woods and can shoot a really heavy bow" and "fast, limited flight, better vision than normal". These characters were protecting a man who had all of their powers, but significantly higher powered, along with a quartet of other abilities and who was pretty much a walking weapon of mass destruction. Their job was to escort this man, because he'd been given a very good reason not to go all out. And it was dramatic, and well done, and the only real inter-party clash was not "why didn't you do this yourself?" but "why did you pick us?" (and that because our Gandalf was a jerk who withheld what exactly they were there for). All worth it when he realized that blisters suck. Actually, it was the premise for Book 3 of the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher.
And to be fair, each of those accompanying people were indeed masters in their own niche. The big guy was just master in ALL of the niches, and likely the most powerful individual on the whole continent!
==Aelryinth
I'm aware. I was just making reference to the part where he got blisters so bad his socks went *squish squish* when he walked. =)
Removed some posts. Speculations about how our messageboards "work", postulating about flame wars, and so on is just baiting. Don't do this thing. It seems like otherwise some miscommunication/snark has been smoothed out here, so don't stoke fires that don't exist. Flag and move on.
“We wish to find the truth, no matter where it lies. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact.” -Carl Sagan
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