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Some players I know have their normal characters and a few "power builds" built to have a chance in some of the very difficult scenarios like Waking Rune and Bone Keep. Most players don't complain when the "power" gamer is keeping them alive in a death trap.
Most scenarios though are written for a a well balanced game, and a well balanced group does best.
I've seen optimal characters built for combat feel left out in a social scenario like Blackros Matrimony for example. Good advice is having at least one social skill to help the party like diplomacy or even intimidate. Our local goblin(a rare boon) put a point into profession chef for fun.
My advice is build character you like with a nice back story for role play.
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Also, realize that one simply *cannot* hit every single iteration of character 'power-game' and that overly optimized characters (aside from fumbling in non-optimal situations) REALLY fall apart when they can't do their 'thing'.
And if one falls apart at a crucial moment, this can and has wiped a few tables.
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Additionally, it really depends on your local PFS group. While the Society does have some commonalities, each lodge or venue tends to vary a bit. Find your local PFS group and hang out with them a bit, it will probably give you a better grasp on the situation than people on the forums.
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It also really depends on who you play with.
If the other players in the table share your view in character-building, they're unlikely to complain. But given the nature of PFS, you cannot choose who you get to play with, so certain caution is recommended in going all out with your optimized characters until you figure out the situation.
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For power gamers, generally the key is learning to let other people shine, in my experience. Which sometimes means holding back when you could do something and letting others get a chance, but when things are going wrong or about to using your full abilities. It's a feel thing. Or power gaming into more support roles. My by far most broken character is a healer, but no one really notices or cares since he doesn't really take the spotlight. At least this is my experience and take on it as someone who more often than not makes characters others would call broken.
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In my area it's at least somewhat expected, more toward the combat side. "You have HOW MANY skill points? Dump your Int and bump your Dex so you can kill stuff better." "Take three levels of Titan Mauler so you can one-hand the glaive. Never mind that it doesn't fit your character concept or help your caster level progression." "Dip a level of fighter, dude. All the cool kids are doing it."
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BartonOliver covered it well.
It's not your build that matters, it's how you play it.
Also, I'm not sure there is a build that can handle everything. Often times when someone says "powergamer" they mean "optimized for combat". If that's the case here, then it's not your fellow players you have to worry about. *You* will simply get bored with it. Only a handful of scenarios are purely combat-oriented.
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Best option: Scale yourself as needed
You can build a combat beast or skill maestro, but you don't always have to use every ability for every encounter...and you don't always have to be the one who shines.
A combat beast can toggle off power attack, intentionally move so he only gets one attack instead of a full attack, set up flanks for others or aid another. If you hit THAT encounter and it's obvious it's go time, cut loose.
A skill maestro can, believe it or not, can aid someone else on their checks first. If it's plot important and they flub it, then you can step in, but you don't have to roll every time as the primary for every skill check you're eligible for.
I tend to do those options more with folks I don't know at Cons or at local tables with newer players. With my regular cohort or local tables with veteran powergamers, we enjoy cutting loose with our silliness.
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It doesn't really matter what your build can do - what matters is what your PC actually does. If you can end every encounter before it starts because of a powerful build, that is not a problem. If you end every encounter before it begins, and thus no one else gets to use *their* PCs, that is a major problem that breaks PFS (at least, the public-minded "anyone can be at the table" model - if you're in a home game, you have more leeway).
Again, I bring up the excellent sword fight in The Princess Bride: "I am not left-handed!" (If you don't know it, look it up - this should be the Golden Rule of PFS even more than "Don't be a jerk".)
The guiding factor is this: PFS is a team game. If you don't want or need a team, you either need to temper your playstyle, or don't play PFS. A character that doesn't need anyone else shows system mastery, but kills the fun for many other plays who just sit and watch you win initiative and defeat the enemies five times in a row. Design a PC to work within the PFS system and you are the others will have great adventures.
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I've seen a couple other people use this as a test, and I like it enough to repeat it:
Do other people have fun playing with you?
• If yes - you can do cool stuff but you leave room for others to shine as well, or, even better, you enable others to do cool stuff too - awesome, powergame away!
• If no - if you leap forward and end every encounter before it begins, void all role-playing situations (either through über skills or by just attacking and killing everything in sight), and basically leave everyone else in the party standing around feeling useless - yeah, powergaming sucks.
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As many have said here before - it is not the character - it is how you use that character.
I would say up to one third of great moments at my table was thanks to power gamers.
I would say more then two third of bad experiences at my table was due to power gamers.
So yes - power gamers can have a bad reputation. In my view they tend to be significantly more often involved in games that drives players or GMs away.
But as I said - I also had great moments involving power gamers. Mainly what they had in common was:
a) they have been aware PFS is a team game
b) they didn't play competitive aka trying to outshine everyone else at the table with their build
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depends on the players and GM....
in my area it gets you blacklisted from my games and table..
Anyone else as disappointed as me to see the "wrongbad fun" mentality alive and well?
My experiences have shown that a player can run a very powerful PC without being the least bit disruptive to the table. Builds aren't a problem. Player decisions can be.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I've seen it go both ways, many times either way.
If you completely trivialize the challenges of a scenario, well, anticlimax can be disappointing. If the GM was looking forward to providing stimulating challenge and the NPC never ever got to show off his cool thing, expect some cold looks.
On the other hand, if it's a hard scenario and you need to pull out all the stops to keep people alive and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, people will cheer you on. When I sit down down with a notably bloodthirsty GM and one of my fellow powergamers pulls out one of his creations, I breathe a sigh of relief because I'm sure we'll eventually make it out okay.
And of course, the same character can be "just right" in one scenario and "way over the top" in the next. If you're worried though, I think it's safer to aim for PCs that can survive punishment than for PCs that destroy BBEGs before the BBEG even gets to show off.
Finally, I refer you to panel 7 of Heaven.
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depends on the players and GM....
in my area it gets you blacklisted from my games and table..
Anyone else as disappointed as me to see the "wrongbad fun" mentality alive and well?
It actually struck me a chord with me as I've played in different places with varying levels of what "power gaming" was. On one table, they may consider you a powergamer if your TWF Archaeologist Bard has dipped into Wizard to improve your blasting skills, while another table might scoff at your Fighter for not completely dumping all of your mental stats. I had a vision of "the token roleplayer" in one table getting banned for "excessive powergaming" at another.
I've been starting to gravitate towards casters for this reason, actually, since I've got a lot more flexibility in how I can participate. Also, it's a lot easier (in my opinion) to back off than it is to try to scale it up.
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I had a vision of "the token roleplayer" in one table getting banned for "excessive powergaming" at another.
This has partially happened to my bard (except for the 'banning' part) and he doesn't have anything really 'powergamish' about him.
Playing in *redacted* the bard was big about social interactions and the only thing that kept the party from muttering about 'filthy roleplayer' was the fact he was bringing Inspire Courage and Triple Time to the table, which was really helping out in fights.
Was being very respectful but by the end of the session of the 'touchy situation' there were grumbles about the 'Bard knowledge monkey -GO!' and no one else wanted to make knowledge checks 'Oh, the bard's got it.' and 'Why do you keep talking us out of all the fights?'
And no, there was no roleplay of arrogance, if anything, he was *encouraging* folks to try to remember what they knew, because he knows he's not always right and having backup on knowledge is crucial.
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'Why do you keep talking us out of all the fights?'Being a 13th level bard now, this hurts my brain. That attitude will kill their characters one day.
Even at 4th level it was hurting my brain.
Even a well-organized and pro-active fight takes a lot longer than having a conversation from an 'out of the box' situation.
When we *did* roll into the fights towards the end of the module, though, people were quietly glad to have the extra stuff they would have expended earlier.
And when it became obvious that there was a time for talking and a time for deathing things, I absolutely stepped back.
...only to have one of the folks strongly advocating for death vagrancy stop the party because they noticed the people we were about to slaughter sight unseen weren't evil...
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I'm gonna hijack a speech from one of my favorite shows that shows my opinion on this matter:
Couple weeks from now, GM, you're gonna be in some game store somewhere with 6 or 7 players looking to you for everything. And some of them are gonna be good players. Some of them are gonna be young and stupid. A few are gonna be pieces of s%*%. But all of them will take their cue from you. You show them powergaming, they learn powergaming. You show them it's about the roleplaying, it'll be about the roleplaying. You show them some other kinda game, then that's the game they'll play.
While every PFS group might be playing Pathfinder, they are not all playing the same game. Some are trying to win a never-ending game of GMs vs Players. Some are playing a cooperative story-telling game with no winners. Some just like making crazy mechanical characters. Some have an arms race for RP showboating. Most groups are somewhere in the middle of all that. But no matter what the game is, it's the GMs that set it.
So when you ask how people feel about powergaming, it all depends on your local GM community.
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depends on the players and GM....
in my area it gets you blacklisted from my games and table..
Anyone else as disappointed as me to see the "wrongbad fun" mentality alive and well?
My experiences have shown that a player can run a very powerful PC without being the least bit disruptive to the table. Builds aren't a problem. Player decisions can be.
Honestly, I'm not a fan of powergamers. I can do it, and have done so. i've then quickly retired said powergamer character builds. I find if I make a character who's too overwhelmingly powerful, the character just stops being fun. That doesn't mean I try to make weak characters. I just don't actively try making as overpowering a character as possible. Where's the challenge if your level 1 (pick class) character has 28 AC and a +9 bonus to attacks while having +12 in every knowledge and social skill? And if there's no challenge, where's the fun of playing the build?
A large part of why I dislike the powergamer mentality though is a trait that tends to accompany it. Namely the mindset of "rules are meant to be bent into pretzel shapes". If you require abusing the rules to the point where the GM can legitimately call you out on cheating, maybe you shouldn't be participating in something as social as roleplaying? At least that's my opinion. If you have to roll your dice out of the GM's sight so you can claim to have gotten crits when you didn't and count on the GM not having read the exact rules that govern your character, you probably shouldn't be playing that character.
You also should examine your motivations for roleplaying. Cause if you have to cheat to have fun, the game may not be for you.
Me, even if the GM owns the book I'm using, I offer print outs for everything my PFS character is using to the GM. This actually came up on Sunday since the GM wasn't familiar with several mechanics behind what a kineticist does, such as that burn can't be healed by anything except resting for the night.
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depends on the players and GM....
in my area it gets you blacklisted from my games and table..
Anyone else as disappointed as me to see the "wrongbad fun" mentality alive and well?
My experiences have shown that a player can run a very powerful PC without being the least bit disruptive to the table. Builds aren't a problem. Player decisions can be.
I've run into things where you can almost get blacklisted when you have a valid PC build but it's not as powerful as it could be. On the level of say most of the pre-gens or slightly better, will get you odd looks when you then attempt to come back and play.
So your really going to have to get to know your local groups. Some discourage any and all RP aspects if it's not rolling dice and getting through everything. It's why I have PCs in both categories, ones' who are just stats and no personality, and others who were built around a concept and any choice makes sense for that concept (i.e. Elven slayer of Calistria)
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Anyone else as disappointed as me to see the "wrongbad fun" mentality alive and well?
I was indeed disappointed reading this but didn't say anything before. It's a shame but if it's a private table game then there's no issue I suppose.
"cheating accompanies powering"
I'm going to have to disagree with this. The whole point of making a strong build is you would never even need to cheat anyway. Cheating is something entirely separate and any person can commit it. The fun of making a strong character is that everything is done within the rules, otherwise you ARE just a cheater and your character doesn't even matter.
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depends on the players and GM....
in my area it gets you blacklisted from my games and table..
Anyone else as disappointed as me to see the "wrongbad fun" mentality alive and well?
My experiences have shown that a player can run a very powerful PC without being the least bit disruptive to the table. Builds aren't a problem. Player decisions can be.
Honestly, I'm not a fan of powergamers. I can do it, and have done so. i've then quickly retired said powergamer character builds. I find if I make a character who's too overwhelmingly powerful, the character just stops being fun. That doesn't mean I try to make weak characters. I just don't actively try making as overpowering a character as possible. Where's the challenge if your level 1 (pick class) character has 28 AC and a +9 bonus to attacks while having +12 in every knowledge and social skill? And if there's no challenge, where's the fun of playing the build?
A large part of why I dislike the powergamer mentality though is a trait that tends to accompany it. Namely the mindset of "rules are meant to be bent into pretzel shapes". If you require abusing the rules to the point where the GM can legitimately call you out on cheating, maybe you shouldn't be participating in something as social as roleplaying? At least that's my opinion. If you have to roll your dice out of the GM's sight so you can claim to have gotten crits when you didn't and count on the GM not having read the exact rules that govern your character, you probably shouldn't be playing that character.
You also should examine your motivations for roleplaying. Cause if you have to cheat to have fun, the game may not be for you.
Me, even if the GM owns the book I'm using, I offer print outs for everything my PFS character is using to the GM. This actually came up on Sunday since the GM wasn't familiar with several mechanics behind what a kineticist does, such as that burn can't be healed by anything except resting for the night.
You sir, are flat out wrong here. Powergaming and cheating are very much not the same thing.
There are a couple of things that these discussions always boil down too:
1) Everyone has a different idea of how much optimisation is 'powergaming'. I have played with an established group who stated they were very much against powergaming, character was far more important. I had one of the least effective characters at the table and I am an unashamed optimiser!.
2) Create a fun and engaging character and most people won't care as much about the power level of that character. Be disruptive and/or a 'richard' and people won't care at all about the power level of your character.
Be excellent and learn from your group, then influence them and be influenced by them to create something unique.
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I'd worry more about how you get along with the other players, than the power level of your character. If you dominate play and are generally not allowing others to participate, then you need to dial that back. A way to check yourself is to disallow yourself to build characters this way.
But generally, jerks will find a way to be a jerk no matter the power level of the character.
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Anyone else as disappointed as me to see the "wrongbad fun" mentality alive and well?
I was indeed disappointed reading this but didn't say anything before. It's a shame but if it's a private table game then there's no issue I suppose.
"cheating accompanies powering"I'm going to have to disagree with this. The whole point of making a strong build is you would never even need to cheat anyway. Cheating is something entirely separate and any person can commit it. The fun of making a strong character is that everything is done within the rules, otherwise you ARE just a cheater and your character doesn't even matter.
My experience has been that those who min/max the most, also tend to cheat. Sometimes blatantly, sometimes subtly. But most power gamers I've met also cheat. Weather it's by lying about their dice rolls at character creation or lying about how much of a finite resource they have left, players I've met who power game the most also tend to cheat somehow. It's like the whole idea of making as powerful a character as possible runs into the rules, and they can't stand that their concept lost the fight. Not all of them, but most.
Now I myself am no stranger to bending the rules. As a GM I've been known to fudge the dice in the players favor once in a great while. And I've asked GM permission to bend a rule or two, sometimes in half. But when I do ask to do such things, I give the GM my full reasoning for the request. And it's often something that's for RP flavor that actually weakens my character somehow. Or because the system's rules can almost, but not quite do what I'm trying to do. If the GM says "no" however I move to a different concept.
The times I have sat down to make as powerful a character as I legitimately can, I've usually walked away disappointed with the character. using various paladium games in the past (if you're familiar with the rules) I've made characters with +10 to strike and +15 to parry and dodge at level 1. A +1 to strike and +5 to parry/dodge is rather normal for most characters in that rules system. Also made a character using the system once with EVERY skill in the book, legitimately.
When a GM for 3.5 D&D made me use the half dragon template instead of taking levels in dragon disciple to represent being a half dragon, I found the character not to be very fun. Love the character, but starting at level 1 with as much HP as the barbarian and more AC then the fighter and 25 str... on a sorcerer The character was too powerful too quickly to be fun.
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I had a vision of "the token roleplayer" in one table getting banned for "excessive powergaming" at another.
This has partially happened to my bard (except for the 'banning' part) and he doesn't have anything really 'powergamish' about him.
Playing in *redacted* the bard was big about social interactions and the only thing that kept the party from muttering about 'filthy roleplayer' was the fact he was bringing Inspire Courage and Triple Time to the table, which was really helping out in fights.
Was being very respectful but by the end of the session of the 'touchy situation' there were grumbles about the 'Bard knowledge monkey -GO!' and no one else wanted to make knowledge checks 'Oh, the bard's got it.' and 'Why do you keep talking us out of all the fights?'
And no, there was no roleplay of arrogance, if anything, he was *encouraging* folks to try to remember what they knew, because he knows he's not always right and having backup on knowledge is crucial.
Run them through Fortress of the Nail; it'll kill that attitude real quick. :P
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Please dial back the "powergaming = cheating" rhetoric. Nothing good down that road. Thanks.
It's been my experience over 25 years. You might have had different experiences. But what we encounter in life develops our views and opinions.
At least in my area, power gamers are cheaters 80% of the time. Some that cheat don't do it intentionally, they just suck at simple addition. Or at least that's what they would like everyone to believe.
Trying to min/max a build as an intellectual exercise can be fun. And I have spent hours at a time tinkering with hypothetical builds doing so. As I said, I can be a power gamer when the mood strikes me, and do so without cheating. My distaste of the common (in my experience) correlation of power gaming and cheating is only half of why I dislike it.
The other half is that I find power gaming to take away the actual fun of roleplaying by removing the challenge. A character who can't be challenged isn't a fun character. Similarly I stopped reading Superman comics cause he's too damn powerful. Flash too, really. There's only so many times you can have an "unstoppable juggernaut" of the week before it becomes old hat and boring. And needing to constantly have contrived situations to force a character (player character or literary) to preform at less then their best due to whatever absurd reason also gets boring fast.
It's one reason when I'm writing a short story the protagonist isn't an untouchable absurdly skilled warrior, mage, or whatever.
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It's been my experience over 25 years. You might have had different experiences. But what we encounter in life develops our views and opinions.
If we were going to go on the life experience route, I'd humbly suggest that powergaming =/= cheating.
In the same way that Asmodeus =/= Rovagug.
Both are 'evil' for a measure of speaking, but one uses all the technicalities and loopholes to make sure it's Perfectly Legit.
The other wants to burn down all the rules and technicalities and conventions and could care less about them.
The same argument could be done as Torag =/= Cayden Cailean.
Both are 'good' for a measure of speaking, but one does good by upholding order and making sure it is Perfectly Legit, and the other does it by having the freedom to do as one wants.
Heroes need flaws. It's part of what makes the story work. A flawless character is not a hero, for they have nothing they need to overcome.
It was very interesting to watch over the weekend when we had a pretty impressive tank for a scenario and then in the last fight the GM asked the tank what their touch AC was... and the response was "Ten".
Cue a lot of curious stares and incredulous looks.
Player: "I don't have a dex modifier, it's all armor and shield."
Did that make things a lot more plausible? Oh, yes, definitely. It also highlighted the flaw that the player had intentionally built into the character, and the player wasn't irritated or frustrated about it, but accepting it as the price to be paid for optimizing other facets...
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But it does provide alternate viewpoints. And I do agree with Wei Ji. Heroes do need flaws. Without flaws and things to overcome, where's the drama? Where's the heroism?
When newly revived from the dead Clark Kent grabbed a gun, strapped on a jet pack, and rushes off to face Hank Hackshaw and Mongol I cheered. It wasn't because he was facing something Clark knew he could stop. No, it was because he was heading towards what he knew would probably be his death. Yet he still chose to do the right thing instead of the easy thing. Moments like that are why Superman is a hero. Not his neigh invulnerability, not his incredible strength, or any of the bajillion other powers he's got. It's his willingness to face certain death to save even one person.
Sadly many power gamers forget this. In their quest to make the supreme character, they remove as many flaws as they can. They create a mechanical monstrosity, sometimes abusing some obscure rule to the Nth degree. Or they seek out the hidden chinks of the system to empower their character. This is not cheating, usually, but often has as bad of an impact from what I've seen.
One guy in my lodge hates that PFS banned the Summoner class in favor of the Unchained Summoner class. Why? Because he can't make an excessively strong character without even trying hard. Also is upset that he can't craft anything in PFS, including sitting down and making blanches in an hour or two when he realizes there's going to be a werewolf in the next fight.
I'm sure everyone remembers the Spiked Chain Fighter from 3.5. That's a prime example of legally bending the rules to the detriment of the game. Or a certain songbird fighter build someone did here on the Pathfinder forums. A GM once let me play a pixie, full abilities up front. Yes, that included greater invisibility as my character's natural state. And there were so many nasty ways I could have abused that.
Hell, I worked up a very nasty rogue build that would be sneak attacking nearly 100% of the time for a minimum of 12 damage at level 1. As a pixie. Ended up not using that build cause I considered (and GM agreed once he'd looked it over) that the build was broken. It was 100% legal and by the books. But it would have been game breaking. I'd ended up going with sorcerer for a vastly less broken character. Would have opted for wizard, but as the GM said... "Who would be insane enough to take on a pixie as a wizard's apprentice?"
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My PCs are designed As optimized builds...I min-max....
Maximize the table fun with a minimum of non-fun stuff.
;)
I'm always interested in things that do this.
Just min/maxing isn't really an issue. I do so too usually, seeking to make a character as good as I reasonably can. Power gamers though take it to the extreme. If they can get away with it, many I've met would cheerfully trade away the ability to rhyme for a +1 on to-hit and damage, for example. To power gamers I've met over the years if a character's lowest stat isn't 15 they tend to consider it useless.
Do you go that far?
That said, I'm doubting I'll see too many power gamers in PFS in my area. Most of the ones where I live consider point buy attributes an abomination because you can't end up with three 18's and the rest 17's. heck, they hate point buy character building such as with Mutants & Masterminds because such systems have inherent checks and balances.
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I'm sure everyone remembers the Spiked Chain Fighter from 3.5. That's a prime example of legally bending the rules to the detriment of the game.
No. No it most certainly was not.
There was no bending at all, what so ever. It was a weapon, it gave you reach at range and still let you hit things close up. That was the rule, that was how it worked. There was no bending, at all, by any stretch of the word or imagination.
It was by the best melee option and thats why everyone took it. If you want to complain about that, complain about that, but do NOT equivocate and say that people are bending the rules when they pick the best option. They are not remotely the same thing.
Or a certain songbird fighter build someone did here on the Pathfinder forums.
Which relied heavily on a the ability of the master of many styles monk to skip feat pre reqs and has been shot to heck by that much needed errata. It also wasn't uber terrible to begin with: its just that in this system you need to jump through hoops to make other options even remotely competitive with "Stand still shoot bow", much less "force unhitable save, twice, they die, we loot"
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Funny thing. Personal anecdotal experience does not equal fact.
Clearly, many folks here, who likely have just as much gaming time under their belts, seem to not have the same experience.
-j