How to be a courteous player with overpowered character?

[Oli Ironbar]

Hi all,

I’ve made a hobby of building niche characters that tilt the balance of power very far in the party’s favor, but with the pause on games at the local gaming store, I don’t have the same people who know me and this tendency that can really cramp other’s play styles and enjoyment.

I found a balance there over time with the groups we formed for PFS. How can I do something similar with online games where I am less likely to know the other players well?

Thanks!

[VoodistMonk]

Make the character friendly and funny, constantly cracking jokes... slightly poking fun, but in a pleasant way (like in the 13th Warrior when the viking tells dude to grow stronger, or when dude dies they will give his sword to the women to be used as a kitchen knife).

And also, make a character that actually helps the team... like flanking/positioning, buffing/debuffing, whatever it is share the fun. Choose another person in the party to be your best buddy, and do everything you can to elevate them, make them shine instead of you.

Even if you can kill the enemy in one Power Attack from your greatsword, maybe you "forgot" to use Power Attack, and instead let the Rogue deliver the killing blow... or even if you kill the enemy, you give credit to the UnRogue's Dibilitating Injury condition on the target. Whatever it is, just deflect the glory.

[yukongil]

remember that everyone is there to have fun and fun is rarely watching Superman mop up all the opposition or solve every problem.

Never alpha-strike an encounter, never. If you have the perfect solution for an encounter, don't use it until the party looks like it's in dire straits. This allows everyone to contribute, every gets their chance to do something and then if things start to go squirrely, then you can save the group. This doesn't mean don't set ambushes and/or use good tactics mind you, but if you can capsize the enemy vessel before combat even starts and the rest of the group just gets to watch you declare an action, don't. If you're built to be a god-grappler, don't grapple the main boss of an encounter right off the bat and pin them, same goes for any other sort of niche ability. Target other foes and save the "win" button again for the end with things are starting to get dicey.

Help a player out; build characters that can make other characters better. You don't have to be just a buff-wand, but try and find some ways that you can make others shine occasionally; take a hit for the wizard, make sure you're always flanking with the rogue, aid another when you can, etc...

I too often build characters like what you describe, but I remember when it was not always so and other players were the superman of the group, and I remember how it felt to watch them fight all the big battles, solve all the problems and get all the rewards. It's not fun, so I always try and remember that when I play. Make Superman if that's what you want to do, but don't solve everyone's problems by yourself, let others shine, you'll have plenty of fun mopping up minions and helping out and watching your build work as intended.

[Oli Ironbar]

Thank you. That is good advice.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Why do you make characters like that? And for that matter, how did the PFS players take it the first few times you came to the table? I'm guessing the equilibrium you formed with other long-standing PFS folks is that eventually you were all bringing characters as perfectly optimized as they could be to the table. Did that continue being fun?

If your fun, and consequently the fun of the folks you used to game with is derived from building and using the most powerful, most optimized PC, intentionally hamstringing yourself with a weaker character ruins your fun, so that's not a good option.

Building a superman but pulling your punches all the time might also keep you from enjoying yourself, so that might not be an option either. This also has the added effect that, if your character ever cuts loose and shows what they're REALLY capable of, you might alienate your fellow players anyway since they think you're playing on "easy" mode for their benefit.

Then again, this might be a good time to see if you have fun designing sub-optimal characters. Seriously, think about it: when was the last time you designed an entire character that uses his trusty cast-iron pot as his main weapon and spends as much time cooking as he does fighting? What about a two-weapon fighter who averaged out their Str and Dex equally?

Fighter archetypes that gain skill ranks; non-unchained rogues; halfling wizard with a Valet familiar that spends all their spells/resources on buffing and Aid Another. Maybe your ability to optimize could be pushed in other directions?

Finally, sit down and think about what it takes to successfully contribute at each level. Go look over the average monster stats by CR. A CR 1 monster has on average a 12 AC and 15 HP. If you plan on being part of a 4-person party and using weapon damage to deal with enemies, all you need to be a contributing member of the group is a +2 to hit with some kind of weapon and to be able to deal 1d6 or more damage.

Heck, with that as a baseline you're almost there with any level 1 wizard, ANY build, so long as you've got a Dex of 12 or better and carry a flask of acid. Your Acid Splash targets Touch (usually lower than standard AC), gets a +1 to attack and deals 1d3 (average 2) +1 Acid damage.

Looking ahead to level 10, you need to be able to hit an average AC of 24 AC and deal 32.5 damage. A 3/4 BAB PC by level 10 has a +7 to hit already. WBL suggests you're rocking about a +3 weapon, so you're at +10. Give yourself a +1 from a Feat and a +3 from a stat, figure an average of 10.5 on your d20 roll, and you're at the average AC you need to hit.

That same 3/4 BAB PC has 2 attacks in a full attack round. On the rare occasion they hit with both attacks, this PC, wielding a 1d8 damage weapon, already deals an average of 2d8 +12, or 21 damage in a Full Attack before adding any extra feats, class abilities, etc. You need to make up a shortfall of 11.5 damage. Depending on the class, this may be easily achievable through the combo of a second magic item and two other feats.

If you were level 10 and only had to hit your baselines of effectiveness by taking 3 feats and spending your gold on 2 items, what would you do with the rest of your build? Like, look at ALL the general feats out there. What if you built the whole rest of your character around the feat Command Animals?

You need the Animal Domain and you need Channel Energy so boom; that defines part of your build right there. Now essentially you spend one Channel to dominate the will of Animal type creatures within 30'; they get a save (DC 10 + 1/2 class level plus Cha mod). They obey you as Charm Monster and you can affect HD up to your Class level.

So at level 10 you might have a 10 HD Animal type creature dominated all the time. More than that, what if over time you'd used that ability, with the GM's ok, to tame and train animals? You might be the Doctor Doolittle of your adventuring party, having mundane animal scouts, perhaps some big bruiser you can throw combat buffs on, and so on.

Is it optimized? Heck no. Is this the BEST use of a cleric? Not if you want to be the most combat-effective, no. But might it be fun? Sure, if you're into that kind of thing.

So I'd say really examine where your fun lies, why it is you feel you need to optimize, and consider putting your talents to use maxing out OTHER aspects of the character.

[Kir'Eshe]

Hi!
It is enticing to build superman. That said, there are players that can out-build that. I would guess that you could build an epic murderhobo and aren't challenged by it. There probably will be players in your group that are interested in being great at combat. Moving the story and having a reason for combat is another role. Develop what your character wants to do, or wants to right, or how he/she is. Enthusiasm for a cause would probably shine on your PC and the group.

[gnoams]

When I play (as opposed to GMing), the big enjoyment of pathfinder for me is pouring through all the different character options and putting together interesting combinations. I make extremely powerful characters, but I design them to be the best at only certain things. I start with a theme, it could be something simple like I want to make a pirate. Then I come up with a list of what I want this character to be able to do, and I put together a combination of abilities to make them the piratiest pirate I can make.

I also try to build my character with several layers.

Layer one is how I will play most of the time, it's at a sufficient power level to contribute as part of the team and not overshadow anyone. Layer two is for when things go bad, I can pop some buffs and step up to save the day. Layer three is the bs that was fun to theorycraft, but I don't really plan on using. It's for that rare instance when everything goes horribly wrong, half the party's down and it looks like it's going to be a tpk, then it's time to cut loose and see what the build can really do.

I actually had this discussion recently with one of the groups I play with. They were complaining about some other player they had gamed with, and how they made such overpowering characters. Which then turned to talk about my characters and the response was yes you make op characters, but they're interesting, they always have weaknesses, and you don't use their power to dominate games.

[Derklord]

The main advice I would give is be willing to adjust. Pathfinder is a game where you play a member of the party, if your character isn't fit to be a member of the group, you have failed at building the character. It doesn't matter if it's because your character is unfit because of flavor reasons (a robot with a lightsaber doesn't fit in some LotR-style setting), character quirks (a character who hides every time enemies use arrows doesn't fit in with battle-hardened adventurers), only useful at certain aspects when the game also focuses on other aspects (a combat-only-character or a pure skillmonkey in a half-combat-half-intrigue game), the character being too weak to meaningful participate, or too strong to allow the party to meaningful participate.

Unless the game starts at highish level, it's unlikely your character will be super powerful from the get go. The one thing that you have to accept is that the character working as a member of the group is more important than your plan. Be must be willing to adjust. If your party consists of the likes of the iconic Fighter with crappy two-different-weapons TWF and Ranger with a crappy crossbow build, you should abandon your plan of the 8-natural-attack sneak-attack-on-every-attack pounce monstrosity that can one-round-kill every enemy of up to 4 CR above your level. Because for that group, that's a bad character. Your plan is no excuse to build a bad character.

[yukongil]

Derklord wrote:

The main advice I would give is be willing to adjust. Pathfinder is a game where you play a member of the party, if your character isn't fit to be a member of the group, you have failed at building the character. It doesn't matter if it's because your character is unfit because of flavor reasons (a robot with a lightsaber doesn't fit in some LotR-style setting), character quirks (a character who hides every time enemies use arrows doesn't fit in with battle-hardened adventurers), only useful at certain aspects when the game also focuses on other aspects (a combat-only-character or a pure skillmonkey in a half-combat-half-intrigue game), the character being too weak to meaningful participate, or too strong to allow the party to meaningful participate.

Unless the game starts at highish level, it's unlikely your character will be super powerful from the get go. The one thing that you have to accept is that the character working as a member of the group is more important than your plan. Be must be willing to adjust. If your party consists of the likes of the iconic Fighter with crappy two-different-weapons TWF and Ranger with a crappy crossbow build, you should abandon your plan of the 8-natural-attack sneak-attack-on-every-attack pounce monstrosity that can one-round-kill every enemy of up to 4 CR above your level. Because for that group, that's a bad character. Your plan is no excuse to build a bad character.

in our most current game, I did this but in the other direction. Many of the other characters were either poorly built, or just built wrong (as in incorrect ruleswise), I offered to rebuild the entire team; 8th level mythic gestalt characters. I knew what they all wanted to build, I just made them actually be able to do it, or do it correctly in many instances. Built them to their themes, made them able to actually contribute to an adventure and most importantly figured out all their maths for all their skills, attack routines, etc. (seriously, my group is so bad at this I'm afraid for those of them that do their own taxes...they have a meeting with an IRS agent in their future and then jail time...)