I love to crunch as much as I love to fluff, enough so that I cannot deny powergamer or munchkin labels -I love to roleplay very well, but will always build a competitive character to match that.
But, players & DMs, has there ever been a point where you felt your powergaming, or efficiency, has perhaps gone off the deep end?
I ask because there has been times where I know it has created resentment on the tables on which I played, and I have to ask myself the hard question of do I value playing my best over playing in harmony with everyone else. That unity is hard enough to achieve and not guaranteed, but do I have to throw away that drive to win as an ante?
Case in point, the group I am playing with is a mix of married and single soldiers. This means weekend games. The DM is a young mother who had to juggle preparation with taking care of a energetic child. Another player is her husband.
Tucked him away, launched campaign. At Level 6, she dropped us into Book 3 of Curse of the Crimson Throne: Escape from Old Korvosa.
A Four player party. Alchemist (False Priest), Swashbuckler (Inspired Blade), Witch, and myself, a Druid (Menhir Savant) with a juvenile T-Rex. Only the Swashbuckler was Good. Personally, I chose NE to play a narcissistic Druid. For example, my opinion on the plague was the real crime wasn't that it happened, but the disposal of the bodies by fire denied the Food Chain its fair due. After all, whomever survived on their own would have a better chance of passing on resistant genes to future generations as well. Plus, City Folk suffering? Oh yeah...
I think our only boon was that this group consistently gets seeded at 25-point buy for builds instead of 20.
We destroyed it. Not as murder-hobos, but anything she presented to us were confronted directly, almost at a pace which overwhelmed her. As in aggressive Bluff/Diplo/Intim checks across the party. I kept up a constant rythm of perception along with holding detect magic and cycling resistance whenever possible, yatta yatta. Other players likewise kept alert and guarded. We even alternated buddy-pairs that would leapfrog corridors and rooms in a sequential search method.
Maybe she had problems coping with our style from the DM side of the table (she usually plays WarPriest and is very good at being a fighting healer), or maybe we just forgot the point, that sometimes, being a little overwhelmed and awed by the enemy lends itself to a fun experience. As a DM, I like to represent even my mooks well, and I can see where another DM would appreciate not having all of their encounters efficiently steamrolled into sheets of XP & loot.
After the session, beyond the glory, I felt kinda bad. Anyone have anything like this happen to them?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
AP's are balanced with 15 point buy in mind, and even then tend to err on the easy side. If you're going in with 25 point buy, demolishing it easily should be fairly straightforward. In general, GM's do need to tweak AP's to better calibrate to their party's power.
And honestly, I'd take any accusations of being a munchkin with a grain of salt. Every player is going to have a different level of competency and optimization, and even from one group to the next you'll get a very different overall power spread for the party. You could very easily take the same character to two tables and find him too strong at one and too weak at another.
|
My rule of thumb is that everyone at the table should have some time in the spotlight. Maybe not every session, but certainly most of them. And this includes the DM. If I find that someone has no spotlight time in two sessions in a row then it's time to take corrective action of some form; Because of the nature of the correction it's something that needs to be discussed as a group.
If the DM can't figure out how to bring their game up to match that of the players and the players can't help her do so, then the players have to bring theirs down until she can figure it out. Give your characters crippling character flaws, like an arrogance that causes them to use lighter armor than is optimal, or they demand more than they can require out of every diplomatic encounter and thus often fail just by pissing them off. Maybe they're the class Lawful-Stupid Paladin type and get themselves in trouble by not being suspicious of "innocents". Get creative here.
The problem isn't *really* the numbers. The problem is spotlight time, and the numbers can (if they go bonkers) lead to too much spotlight time for one and too little for another.
If all else fails, nerf the numbers. But this should be a last resort after a month or two of trying various other ways to bring spotlight time together.
15-point. Should've known that since I kept seeing "20-point" build in enemy descriptions as being significant in the APs.
The only imbalance I have encountered is when our niche players forget an all-aspect loadout.
As in, it's great for the Unchained Rogue we have that loves her light weapons, until a flier came in and she had neglected a bow. In essence, she was aiding until the rest of us found a way to ground the opponent. Opponent was a mage, had no obligation to come down to the dirt and pound it out, so it became of mage vs mage as we had no archers.
I've just had a bad history with me going too hard versus other players where I've been cut from the roster for it. I typically play tier-9 casters, and in an environment surrounded my melee folk, I do not do the majority of the DPS, but turn the tables sideways enough where it does feel like I am the one steering the story away in spite of DM desire and other players' chances to shine. Sometimes raw damage isn't the best way to win, and I have bypassed us out of at least one signature encounter, to the chagrin of the one who must have spent a lot of effort planning for it. Should have stayed on the choo-choo more for the scenic trip.
I alternated healing with a realpolitik attitude where I realized that I have to switch to offense periodically to drop key enemies at the right time or else it'd be a wipe.
It builds a lot of enmity when the "healbot" stops healing and starts using those spell slots to debilitate (dispels, debuffs, and curses oh my) and eventually wade into the morass created with the stabilized bodies of comrades lying around. I'm good enough to keep them from dying, but when I notice they get dropped faster than I can top them off, I make that hard (and unfriendly, I must admit) choice to go for the win.
Sort of became a meta-fight with the DM seeing as with high AC and a forward-but defensive & aware attitude, the enemies would ignore me as I plodded after them and keep nailing our melee specialists till it came down to me vs BBEG. Really feels hollow being alone at the end. It gets even worse when that high CR fight I just enjoyed was a TPK attempt at killing me specifically -everyone paid the price for my transgressions instead. Had to walk away from that group with some bitter-sweetness. To me, a good group doesn't just play together, they do things a poker circle would do -the game is an activity within the friendship, not the sole focus. Didn't know that my playstyle over time really drove them that crazy -it pays to heed every cue I suppose to tone it down.
I usually only play Arcane if I know I can absolutely rely on another player to cover me when my tactics fail (can't get mad at the dice, fortune happens or not), otherwise I go with a more survivable (w/o using up too many spell slots) Divine as in Cleric, Oracle, Druid (CODzilla), but it's a stylistic difference and I love both sides of casting.
The only imbalance I have encountered is when our niche players forget an all-aspect loadout.
As in, it's great for the Unchained Rogue we have that loves her light weapons, until a flier came in and she had neglected a bow.
"A way to be relevant at a range" is something that should be on your standard checklist for a 1st level character. By the time you're fighting flying wizards, a potion of fly should be a standard backup item for melee specialists.
It's something that I watch for as a GM. I actually tell my players when I notice a glaring hole in their capabilities and make suggestions on how they can fill it.
Sometimes raw damage isn't the best way to win, and I have bypassed us out of at least one signature encounter, to the chagrin of the one who must have spent a lot of effort planning for it.
That just comes with the territory. Subverting encounters and solving problems in unexpected ways is exactly what the 9-level caster classes are built to do. I personally love this free-form aspect to the full casters, but it's not well-suited to railroad plots because they have so many unconventional ways to overcome, subvert, or circumvent them. I do sympathize that there's no good way to solve this; there are too many offending spells to just ban them all, and banning the classes outright leaves a lot of concepts without a good class option.
It builds a lot of enmity when the "healbot" stops healing and starts using those spell slots to debilitate (dispels, debuffs, and curses oh my) and eventually wade into the morass created with the stabilized bodies of comrades lying around. I'm good enough to keep them from dying, but when I notice they get dropped faster than I can top them off, I make that hard (and unfriendly, I must admit) choice to go for the win.
In-combat healing is a very ineffective tactic. If your GM is upping the pressure, she should be unsurprised if you are forced to abandon it in favor of better approaches. Melee characters should be tough enough to live a few rounds without another character babysitting them, but increasing the difficulty can exacerbate existing power differences within the party and "weed out" the weaker ones. That's no more your fault for being too strong than their fault for being too weak. It's not your job to baby-sit the other players and make sure they have a chance to shine, and you need to talk to the GM to find a way to deal with this.
I help my players with building their characters if they need it. Pathfinder is a team-based game, but every character needs to be individually competent and I help my players meet that bar.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's okay to steamroller stuff.
Life is challenging enough, enjoy being a superhero on weekends. :D
Based on what you've shared, with the GM being a mom with an energetic child and little time to prep, I - as a GM - would say: "Yeah - dial it down a bit."
The APs weren't created for 25-pt buys, let alone the classes and archetypes that you all are playing. It's great to allow you to have such characters, but it also requires a lot of prep time to adjust the AP to account for that. If I don't have the time to adjust the AP, you're going to roll over everything, which isn't fun to run.
Steam-rolling on occasion is fine. But on a regular basis, not so much.
Unless, as alex suggests, that is exactly what your group wants on the weekend - a chance to be a super-hero and not have to struggle.
I love to crunch as much as I love to fluff, enough so that I cannot deny powergamer or munchkin labels -I love to roleplay very well, but will always build a competitive character to match that.
But, players & DMs, has there ever been a point where you felt your powergaming, or efficiency, has perhaps gone off the deep end?
I ask because there has been times where I know it has created resentment on the tables on which I played, and I have to ask myself the hard question of do I value playing my best over playing in harmony with everyone else. That unity is hard enough to achieve and not guaranteed, but do I have to throw away that drive to win as an ante?
That bolded bit is where things get hazy. Usually I would say that you should try to fit in line with the general power level of the party. But this time I would add that a "drive to win" is not a helpful attitude to have. You already explained the lack of free time your GM has, the powerful point-buy you recieved, and you still feel the need to "win" a co-operative game by steamrolling everything as fast as possible? I recommend talking with your GM to see if you should dial back, because I can tell you now that taking the extra time to buff up the encounters is not a reasonable option for her at this point.
TL;DR yes, you went a little overboard. But I don't want to sound like I'm calling you a bad player for that, I'm not. But you need to strongly consider how much your GM and other players appreciate it.
|
As you've stated your really good with the crunch, and your GM is less experienced and a little short on time, why not offer to GM for a while.
If you are playing, I would worry less at how effective you are at any one thing, but look and see if it is turning the game into a one character show? If your character does everything better than everyone else in the party, players are going to resent never having an opportunity to play in this collaborative game. You can't win RPGs in the conventional way, winning isn't defeating the module, winning is having and facilitating fun. Death isn't losing either, losing is inhibiting and detracting from fun. Sure killing monsters and getting treasures is fun, but if you compete to have the most fun you can kill it for everyone else.
My advice, for what it is worth, is try to be good at one thing, and supporting well at another, and either aid or ignore the rest, leaving room for your party to fill other niches well. And in role playing situations, the only person who legitimately dominate 1/2 the speaking is the GM who represents "everyone else."
Otherwise, another fun killer can be telling others what to do. I know it can be difficult to distinguish between helpful advice from the giving end, but many new or less experienced players dislike or disengage when every time it is there turn someone else says "you should do x" or "you should build your character with y".
Based on what you've shared, with the GM being a mom with an energetic child and little time to prep, I - as a GM - would say: "Yeah - dial it down a bit."
The APs weren't created for 25-pt buys, let alone the classes and archetypes that you all are playing. It's great to allow you to have such characters, but it also requires a lot of prep time to adjust the AP to account for that. If I don't have the time to adjust the AP, you're going to roll over everything, which isn't fun to run.
Steam-rolling on occasion is fine. But on a regular basis, not so much.
Unless, as alex suggests, that is exactly what your group wants on the weekend - a chance to be a super-hero and not have to struggle.
As long as the GM is okay with it, of course.
My favorite game to date was a group of level 40 characters, including mine who was immune to hitpoint damage (a combination of half-dragon/war troll and a PRC that made me immune to non-lethal, which regeneration turned all damage into...)
The GM could always just bump up all the monsters if she was so inclined (double HP, add +2 to all rolls etc).
Thank you all for advice coming from different perspectives on my scenario.
In retrospect I have probably ruined at least one campaign because of going in too hard and alienating the other players -shame on me, I know. One of my more egregious offenses I recall would've been when I stopped clearing for the party and edged further ahead in the dungeon just to see how a group of low-skill melee specialists would fare -and if it would stop their delaying and get them to move forward to we can clear at a more reasonable pace. It got them back on track, but there was some tangible butthurt there. In hindsight, they may have still been figuring out how to work in tunnels after having been playing a rather abstract above-ground field for most of that campaign. It's a haunt... if I can't solve it, I move past it and maybe come back if info drops... if one wants to linger there, even a CG character's patience would be tried, and I ended up doing a passive-aggressive tug to get them moving again. I think the funniest tell off I have been told was that "You have won Pathfinder, congratulations. Let's do something else now."
Looking back at that campaign, I think the other characters were afraid of mine, and that was naughty of me. If the campaign stalled for two long, I would find a way to engineer a conflict within the group or outside to force us into action. The DM more or less got forced to drop higher and higher CR I suppose just to challenge me, but I don't know why I was not the priority target as those monsters kept nailing my comrades instead.
Approaching the game subtler leads to other options for me. Then the old habits reappear. Leads me to focus on spikes and peaks rather than constant input. As in more of the table-tipping shenanigans I love to perform. No... gotta stop that, argh!
Gaming just to socialize is fun and I agree is the best and most relevant reason to get into the hobby and spend so much of oneself in, guess that means I just have to adapt and monitor the board as a player as much as I did as a DM to keep everyone civil and engaged.
Thank you all for advice coming from different perspectives on my scenario.
In retrospect I have probably ruined at least one campaign because of going in too hard and alienating the other players -shame on me, I know. One of my more egregious offenses I recall would've been when I stopped clearing for the party and edged further ahead in the dungeon just to see how a group of low-skill melee specialists would fare -and if it would stop their delaying and get them to move forward to we can clear at a more reasonable pace. It got them back on track, but there was some tangible butthurt there. In hindsight, they may have still been figuring out how to work in tunnels after having been playing a rather abstract above-ground field for most of that campaign. It's a haunt... if I can't solve it, I move past it and maybe come back if info drops... if one wants to linger there, even a CG character's patience would be tried, and I ended up doing a passive-aggressive tug to get them moving again. I think the funniest tell off I have been told was that "You have won Pathfinder, congratulations. Let's do something else now."
Looking back at that campaign, I think the other characters were afraid of mine, and that was naughty of me. If the campaign stalled for two long, I would find a way to engineer a conflict within the group or outside to force us into action. The DM more or less got forced to drop higher and higher CR I suppose just to challenge me, but I don't know why I was not the priority target as those monsters kept nailing my comrades instead.
Approaching the game subtler leads to other options for me. Then the old habits reappear. Leads me to focus on spikes and peaks rather than constant input. As in more of the table-tipping shenanigans I love to perform. No... gotta stop that, argh!
Gaming just to socialize is fun and I agree is the best and most relevant reason to get into the hobby and spend so much of oneself in, guess that means I just have to adapt and monitor the board as a player as much as I did as a DM to keep everyone civil and engaged.
Or you could help your allies come up to your level and all be powergamers. As long as the GM is okay with it, run with it.
I'm all for weekend superheroes, crunching dragon faces is fun.
Lots of flexing and boasting. Good times.
...Or you could help your allies come up to your level and all be powergamers. As long as the GM is okay with it, run with it.
I'm all for weekend superheroes, crunching dragon faces is fun.
Lots of flexing and boasting. Good times.
I'll chime in to offer the descending attitude. You should not do this. Many people do not want someone to 'help' them by cutting off character options they wish to explore simply because they're not optimal. Often, when a power gamer think they're 'asking' the other players will feel pressured to let them do whatever because they're already hogging the spotlight in one way or another.
I'll chime in to offer the descending attitude. You should not do this. Many people do not want someone to 'help' them by cutting off character options they wish to explore simply because they're not optimal. Often, when a power gamer think they're 'asking' the other players will feel pressured to let them do whatever because they're already hogging the spotlight in one way or another....Or you could help your allies come up to your level and all be powergamers. As long as the GM is okay with it, run with it.
I'm all for weekend superheroes, crunching dragon faces is fun.
Lots of flexing and boasting. Good times.
Several of my friends had 'substandard' characters, I pointed out some stuff they could do to bring them up a notch... for the most part they appreciated it, especially after realizing that they had basically wasted feats/archetype choices to make something that could still stick to their original concept and be significantly more... survivable.
Of course every gaming group is different, if your friends don't appreciate advice, you could always nerf yourself.
'weaker' characters can still be fun to play. Even a 'weak' wizard can stop time and clone himself. :D
I'll chime in to offer the descending attitude. You should not do this. Many people do not want someone to 'help' them by cutting off character options they wish to explore simply because they're not optimal. Often, when a power gamer think they're 'asking' the other players will feel pressured to let them do whatever because they're already hogging the spotlight in one way or another....Or you could help your allies come up to your level and all be powergamers. As long as the GM is okay with it, run with it.
I'm all for weekend superheroes, crunching dragon faces is fun.
Lots of flexing and boasting. Good times.
Several of my friends had 'substandard' characters, I pointed out some stuff they could do to bring them up a notch... for the most part they appreciated it, especially after realizing that they had basically wasted feats/archetype choices to make something that could still stick to their original concept and be significantly more... survivable.
Of course every gaming group is different, if your friends don't appreciate advice, you could always nerf yourself.
'weaker' characters can still be fun to play. Even a 'weak' wizard can stop time and clone himself. :D
And I've encountered many friends that expressed gratitude to the power gamer, only to immediately turn to the DM for help because they were too intimidated to express anything else and didn't want to get into a fight with the power gamer over a game. Caution is strongly advised.
That 25 point buy is probably the central problem. But changing that to 15 point won't fix anything if the group is composed entirely of similar, experienced gamers. Also, keep in mind that getting people to DM can be difficult to begin with. If you then make the game unenjoyable for them on top of it you aren't just potentially ruining that game or session, your potentially putting that person off from DMing in the long run. If it's *just* you that is pushing everything over the top, then I'll offer up the same challenge I've given other experienced gamers in a predominately inexperienced group:
Play support.
By that I mean create a character whose main thrust is to make *everyone else* shine. You won't have nearly the negative backlash and if the point buy is generally in line with expectations, you'll simply make things a tad easier and safer rather than outright steamrolling everything. This doesn't mean make a Wizard or Cleric that you can switch gears on and rescue bad situations with your normal tactics. Bards are excellent for this, as long as their combat role isn't heavily focused on. Think whips and nets for maneuvers and aid other actions, not dervish DPS. Granted, Bards can often be *too* good for this, but that's where "dialing it back" comes in.
Clerics with no martial bent (or Druids in the right campaign) are also good, particularly if you self edit your spell selection. Yes, I know control Wizards do this by default, but everyone (in the optimizer/power gamer crowd) knows this now and have for a long while. Find a new, non-full caster method of accomplishing it. Most of these can end up still being monsters at Bluff, Diplomacy, and/or Intimidate, but as long as you don't make the effort to specialize in them, you won't outshine anyone who might also want to handle them. Doubling up on the skills for those encounters is usually not as overshadowing as dominating a combat encounter in a couple turns.
Secondarily, when players get to this point, it's good to have them work with things that are known to be less than optimal. Go strap on one of those maligned classes/archetypes/prestige classes and make it fun... just fun... not over the top. Having an entire group of optimizers do this can re-inject new fun into the game.
In short, take the road less traveled.
Case in point, the group I am playing with is a mix of married and single soldiers.
Most adventure paths are also not designed to withstand a group of professional military personnel who know the value of teamwork in combat playing their characters in a smart manner, let alone with such a generous point buy.
Most players I have seen don't work as well as a trained group of military personnel (even if that is what they are supposed to be in the game hehe). I am sure that had something to do with how efficiently you all cleared the encounters.
She just needs to perhaps add some advanced templates to the creatures to make them appropriate challenges versus your point buy and tactics.
Or perhaps you could help her with encounter design tips since your so rules savvy? If you think your part of a problem (and I am not saying you are) then perhaps you can be part of the solution?
Sweet, the discussion continues, and I continue to see good arguments on multiple sides.
I do need to tone it down and I am progressively learning how to adapt without giving up too much of what I do; I have learned to stay away from building people's characters.
I have made them if not powerhouses then optimal builds as close as to their mental image/concept as possible, but sometimes, nothing against them, unless they built it themselves they will not know how to run it.
Plus, I do respect that some people love a concept they develop, even if mechanically it sucks. Either for flavor or just plain character, I could see why they chose to go the route they do.
There are those that happily accept advice (and it has to be offered graciously), and then there are those that'll feel patronized no matter what or just shut down because that isn't why they are on the table. To them just the chance to swing and periodically hit is enough, and I envy them their simplicity because of that purity of joy.
Example, I see awesome builds online all the time but still opt to go my own road because I understand how it works. I use the SRDs as the hard reference to see what is possible, and then consult the forum to see if my concepts are sound and legal, especially when it comes to RAW being vague.
The DM in the first game I mentioned games with her husband, whom I respect to be more capable at me than optimizing, especially as my RPG/tabletop experience is limited to 3.5/Dark Heresy/Mechwarrior prior to PF and these guys have up-to-date versions of Hero Lab PF while I live on the SRD. She is very competent as a player, but is newly developing as a DM, so she lives by the Module and is having problems adapting to how quickly we process through NPC interactions, investigations, and explorations. My style as a DM relies on using established material as guidelines and waypoints and free-forming everything else using stream of thought and reaction to the players. This way, the Choo-Choo can curve to their path, and the players cannot crap all over the place if there was never a set masterpiece for them to defile. They haphazardly create their own playground (me adapting to what they expect to do and happen as effects), as if some mischievous deity hears what they say in character and subtly bends reality to make it so... with interesting twists. Oddly, very few catch on that the more foolish their actions, the more silly the situation becomes. And by silly, I mean painful. It is also harder to Meta because the road is not solid,
The soldier thing does factor in I suppose but its not as if it adds CR to us, lol, though thank you, we are flattered on our side of the monitor right now. Its the optimization we perform. We are not jack of all trades. We are specialists able to adapt to contingencies and gaps within our capability. A lot of Sun Tzu is applied.
"For should the enemy strengthen his van, he will weaken his rear; should he strengthen his rear, he will weaken his van; should he strengthen his left, he will weaken his right; should he strengthen his right, he will weaken his left. If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak."
As in commit and be capable in an aspect. Be aware of your weakness and how to mitigate them. Trying to jack of all trades everything as individuals
We do have solid systems in clearing dungeons in our current group, lol, and I notice that we naturally move into fire team to buddy pair grouping quite efficiently and do not neglect to always be paranoid or keep someone on overwatch, or to treat every portal/container as if it were potentially live whenever we are actively involved or something feels off. Minimal fuss about positioning. A hole is seen. It is plugged. Viciously.
The DM has to declare we are ambushed by fiat instead of actually us failing our DCs because of our constant sweeps. We accept it with good grace since it grants us that next encounter we are craving, and it's been a minute since we ground somebody's kidneys in.
Or perhaps you could help her with encounter design tips since your so rules savvy? If you think your part of a problem (and I am not saying you are) then perhaps you can be part of the solution?
I'm going to second this part here, since I think it might be best for everyone involved. In fact, try your own hand at GMing for some players of a similar mindset sometime. You may also develop an appreciation for the effort a typical GM goes through while you're at it.
I am on cooldown as DM lol. When I state I run hardcore campaigns, I do not kid in any sense of the word. Every encounter I will elevate to proportionately challenge the party on the fly. Asides from a group of rivals that will level with you, even mooks are badasses. The benefit of this: a novice player becomes a veteran, scarred, talented, and ruthless over the course of a campaign, and rises at a very elevated rate than milkrun campaign participants. All without fudging dice or cheap DM gimme boosts and free XP. They earned it. Gear drops for them because the enemies use it against them and are part of the natural loot. Intelligent monsters gain character classes that punish them.
My goal was to drive from the field or render half of them combat ineffective every keystone encounter. If I had to fudge dice, I knew I was the one at fault for pushing too hard, but I did it when they just had bad rolls, and I will not punish people that have runs of consistent lows. But they EARNED their victories, and were scarred for it, lol.
Imagine players with characters suffering from PTSD, paranoia, and individual forms of neuroses and disorders... all in character because of what they are constantly going through. They wanted a loved one, I gave it to them... and then proceeded to give them the Biggest Damn Heroes moments when those loved ones paid for their strategic errors. They. Earned. Everything.
It got to the point where they had to bring in a two-decade veteran DM in as a player to help them survive... and he was scarred in due turn with his pretty little dark magical girl character too as I deconstructed his build without ever seeing his sheet. But, they we became a tight gaming group, and it became a Meta-Campaign to kill me in the side games we ran ^_^.
I taught them well.
Imagine 3.5 Monks w/ vows of poverty being your opponents, backed up by weapon specialists and mages that operate with actual team support. I only advise against the party's weakness once or twice before the enemy starts researching them and accounts for it in subsequent encounters.
You will earn your happy ending.
I wanted to run Dark Heresy. They wanted what they heard about: D&D. I gave them Dungeons & Dark Heresy without saying it.
But that's enough about me, derp.
Her personality doesn't seem open to suggestions, just open space to let her develop without getting swarmed by our actions, I have noticed. I respect that. She wants to try at it, and does not want to be dictated to. A friend of mine is a bit of a spaz and unintentionally interrupts narration and others' actions (I got used to it, as a DM I just used to send more hate his way to keep him under control for the rest of the party to act around him/survive the provocations he draws naturally from NPCs). We do our best to control him -it's a personality thing... and it's another body on the table willing to tolerate a lot for the love of the game... hell, even I appreciated having him around. If just so there is a common target for exasperation.
It's a learning experience. Our best recommendation to her is to fudge the dice a little or a quick addition of numbers/enhancement she feels is necessary to challenge us. It doesn't have to be a perfect CR conversion but something she feels can not be bent over the table in two rounds by us and yet reward us for the additional effort.
It takes her more time to draw on the map than it does to bury them, and I do feel for her there. Doing that to DMs for years has taught me sympathy and also helped me develop as a DM when it came my turn.
I do appreciate the input from y'all. I have described pretty bad habits and past sins and you guys have been pretty understanding and rather light on the criticism. It is noticed by me.
You also play tabletop games I take it? ;)
I feel for your GM, but she will learn. I would probably adopt an approach similar to yours, it can be a bit of bookkeeping, but gets to be second nature soon enough.
How much planning time does your GM have between games? I've ALWAYS liked adding class levels to existing monsters (Dragons with levels in Sorcer or Fighter are just super sweeeeeet)...
Templates are great too.
One thing I did in a previous campaign was basically create a race of half dragon trolls (Half Red Moss Trolls, so regeneration always works). Called them Shock Troopers. Gave them differing amounts of class levels to reflect difficulty.
You basically had to suffocate them to keep them down. :D Fifteen foot reach on their claws, doing D6's with a +8 STR... nasty.
Just be careful... you have to watch your players. Some people almost take the damage their characters do emotionally. It's an interesting phenomenon, but doing it too often without just cause is abusive.
I have some tabletop experience, but my competitive attitude really came from TCGs, the one and only Magic the Gathering. Probably why I play casters often, come to think about it.
Template + monster + actual adventuring class = pain. The threat may be greater than the mid-bosses in AP/Module, especially if you know how it'll run because you developed it yourself.
I've had one mummy demolish five players before unaugmented simply because they had a hard time understanding how to work together as a team. Asides that, it revitalizes a lot of mook classes.
Have a Ranger in the group? Hey, his favored enemies can level with him even if he took foolish choices like Orc vs. Undead in a standard fantasy setting.
I am reminded of something I encountered a long time ago called "Tucker's Kobolds" where I realized I did the same thing but was called evil for it as a DM.
But, readdressing the other point of the OP, how about everyone else's experience with reaching too far as a player?
Avaricious, I don't know if you're here to boast about how awesome you are at breaking campaigns or if you're really looking for advice. It really looks like both (but I'm giving benefit of the doubt on the latter).
So here's the advice:
1. Don't alienate players. Ever. You're there to have fun with them, and they with you. Stop it now. And for Pete's sake, don't count it as a feather in your cap when you do alienate them. It's not.
2. Don't ruin campaigns. Ever. The GM works hard on those, even the purchased APs. The players invest in those too, even if it's only months of their gaming lives looking forward to good stories and fun times. Then you ruin it. More than once. That player who told you "You won Pathfinder, now let's do something else" was not being funny and it's sad that you think it was funny. He was telling you that YOU ruined the game with your need to compete with the other players and the GM and that you had sapped so much fun out of the game that he didn't want to play anymore. You seem to have missed that point.
3. This isn't League of Legends. There is no leaderboard. You can't win this game. You can't get a higher score when you play it better than everyone else. So stop trying to win - when you try to win, all you do is lose, and everyone gaming with you loses too.
*********************************************************************
So how do you follow this advice:
Either:
A) Find a group who plays like you do. That includes a GM who plays like your group and who has the time to deal with it. Then you can all win and all tie for first place on your imaginary leaderboard.
B) Recognize that your current group is NOT playing this way and adjust your play style to fin in with the group. If this makes the game boring or un-fun for you, see solution A.
C) If option A is unavailable and option B doesn't work for you, then don't play RPGs. They're not really built for your style of play; playing your way isn't wrong, but it requires everyone, especially the GM but all players too, to be on board with it or it doesn't work right. So if you can't find that group and don't want to adjust your style, then play something more suitable like WoW or LoL or BF3 or whatever suits your fancy.
Disclaimer: I don't intend this post to sound mean or vicious, but I was going for truth as I see it, and re-reading it, it does sound harsh. Wasn't my intention. As a GM, I'm fully capable of handling players like this and love it when I have a group of them that want to steamroll my campaign - I'll smack them down with monsters and NPCs who can steamroll right back. But I hate it when one player does this and ruins the game for everybody. In fact, I won't allow that. I'll have serious discussions with that player and eventually remove him from the game if he cannot adapt - for the good of the game and everyone at the table. So to the OP, this is my very terse version of that same discussion. I hope you take it solely as the advice it was meant to be.
AP's are balanced with 15 point buy in mind, and even then tend to err on the easy side. If you're going in with 25 point buy, demolishing it easily should be fairly straightforward. In general, GM's do need to tweak AP's to better calibrate to their party's power.
And honestly, I'd take any accusations of being a munchkin with a grain of salt. Every player is going to have a different level of competency and optimization, and even from one group to the next you'll get a very different overall power spread for the party. You could very easily take the same character to two tables and find him too strong at one and too weak at another.
Just need to interject here, the developers have said that 15 point by for AP's was an error, they were always meant to be played at 20, sorry I can't quote where that's found.
Thanks for the reality check DM_Blake. The house of cards has already fallen over a month ago and the supergroup broke into:
Powergamers 1. Powergamers 2. Homebrewers. The Weird. Reorganized into four-to-five player/DM cells that simultaneously play -with vastly different styles. At its peak, we have had double-digit players and it challenged me like no other DM debacle before -I had to crash course so many 3.5 rules that it felt like a cram session for a DM Final. Then they deflected the madness into simultaneous 3.5 & PF Campaigns. Try sparring with Arcanes and Divines at the same time -it just made me get better. Short of no-reaction curbstomp, no drop from a DM will turn me off -the harder, the better, and bless the dice. Going from building destruction to focusing as a player unlocked something evil in me. In a way, the crash into the collective scene rekindled a bunch of veterans and raised new blood and from the glorious blowup (and it was ^_^), several crews emerged that now play across post.
We are soldiers. Single ones for the most part. Spending hours multiple days together smashing campaigns was my pace that I established during deployments. Do a patrol and your duties... then lose yourself in twelve-hour marathon sessions. Two years I sustained this. All of Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader as it was being released and broaching Black Crusade, Deathwatch, and Only War -as a mere Inquisitional Acolyte cell. We cleared game systems of all their published adventures and modules sequentially- a pace fatally flawed to groups that are casual. Players optimized just to survive the published encounters and threats.
Translating from win conditions to pure abstract fun was hilarious and painful at the same time when I recruited more casual players when we transitioned back to D20 from D10-did not know how fragile feelings were in RPGs. I trained my groups to beat the campaign and that transferred over back to when I returned as a player to other people's tables. No purely happy endeavors... it was completely up to the players to be "good" and choose the high or low road. As a player, I was initially frustrated that not only we weren't chasing goals like I was accustomed to, but the group began to chase its own tail -a whimsical game of grabass without end. It was only later that I realized I was playing with a DM that was an E6er at heart and I had stepped into the wrong magical realm. Did my best to keep his campaign and vision moving forward but did rough up the group along the way and thus failed the fun point.
Literally went from 3.5 Ranger fun to DMing Dark Heresy for my soldiers. The return to the board as player was such a culture shock that Lord, I accidentally hijacked settings as an individual.
I went through my phase of melancholy after the fall, but in the build-up to it... mon Dieu, it was so hard to go along. But, the fun of the many outweighs the fun of the few and we had to split according to our party lines. Led me to question my ways and make the hard admission that having a large happy crew was some of the most fun I have had in RPGs after the D10 super-campaigns.
Trust me, I know I ran the game tyrannical. Now immersed in a group where honestly, I think half the group can outbuild me, has put me into a comfort zone where I am learning more balance instead of being obsessed with building the lead and exploiting every miscue, be it Monster, DM, or even allied PC. Knowing someone can check me and from more than one vector opened up another way to wi-err-play.
Really it was the aggression and social game I ran I think that was more devastating than my characters. Mechanically, they were not that much more powerful than the party members, and none were ever the DPS King, just capable and surviving and turning the environment sideways. I took the "rebel" and "vigilante" personas of my characters to heart.
Example, Gnome Oracle (Dual-Cursed, Seeker, Variant Multiclass Sorcerer, and I ascended into Hierophant) should not have broken a campaign mechanically in the presence of a Gunslinger (Pistolero), Summoner (Shadowcaller), Samurai (Sword Saint), Fighter (Mobility), Inquisitor (unk arch but ranged, Mythic 1), Barbarian, Rogue, Brawler, & a Ranger. We averaged six or more at the table in that DM's sessions and mine. I played the Gnome so aggresively... lot of surreal fun he threw our way, so surreal we realized some of those encounters we were supposed to be awed by and back away from. Pfft!
The current DMs now (the group can all DM, it is weird...) I am still evaluating to find their comfort zones, and again, I think they are overestimating my mechanical capabilities versus being able just to run along with the story, and, since everything can be broken down into stereotypes and tropes, solve the puzzle.
Wish my old crews the best, though. Fun times. Hope I caused them more lulz that tears along the way.
Odd that video games keep getting quoted... never touched MOBAs. I was aware of D&D prior to Neverwinter Nights/Baldur's Gate, but the system didn't appeal to me till 3E. Dragon Age has an entirely different spin from these Arena MOBAs, as it is still goal-driven -that is probably my problem too... I need tangible achievements to pursue.
you sound like ten tons of awesome.
Can you be my daddy?
I would have to decline, but the sentiment is appreciated.
I think the prevailing attitude of play along makes a lot more sense in a game where people come together to have fun without a prize at the finish line.