Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Yaeri 09-12-05, 01:23 PM	One character in our group is already fairly min-maxed combined with lucky dice-rolls, and the player of this character roams through books, the forum and the net looking for good feats and such. Nothing wrong with that. There are other, new players however who don't know the rules that well and don't know all the feats, spells and equipment. And they'll probably never be reading through all of them. They're more interested in just playing, and not in researching all that stuff. Now that the player/DM with the strong character has announced that he's making a prestige class for his own character (Yes I know; The thing is we take alternate turns dm-ing...) I fear the balance may become a bit brittle. I see nothing wrong with either powergaming or roleplaying so I'm not gonna put limits on that. I am however looking for alternate encounters where high stats won't be that important. I've already got a small mission ready that will be all talking and no fighting. And I have several ideas for encounters where the dice rolls won't matter at all, but the battle will revolve around the players finding certain weaknesses, or another clever thing to win the battle. (One thing I already used for example, is something I got from a comic book. The players entered a room where on the opposite side their duplicates entered. They started battling themselves but the copies knew every move they were going to take so were undefeatable. The players had to think of battling a duplicate from a comrade instead of fighting their own) Now I was hoping you had some idea's for running encounters where players will be able to shine regardless of stats.
Abulafia 09-12-05, 01:39 PM	Now that the player/DM with the strong character has announced that he's making a prestige class for his own character (Yes I know; The thing is we take alternate turns dm-ing...) I fear the balance may become a bit brittle.You have to nip this in the bud. Power gamers are fine, but power gamers with the ability to change the rules are game-killers. Your guy is basically creating a horror story DMPC. If you are unwilling/unable to confront him on this, just run a few games where most or all of the problems can be solved only through RP (or use of diplomatic skills, if you prefer). Be prepared for combat-heavy encounters when next he gets his turn behind the screen.
Illion the Red 09-12-05, 01:48 PM	You have to nip this in the bud. Power gamers are fine, but power gamers with the ability to change the rules are game-killers. Your guy is basically creating a horror story DMPC. If you are unwilling/unable to confront him on this, just run a few games where most or all of the problems can be solved only through RP (or use of diplomatic skills, if you prefer). Be prepared for combat-heavy encounters when next he gets his turn behind the screen. ^ || What he said. You are going to have to put your foot down soon or this will get out of control quickly and there will probably be no way to bring it back under control short of retiring the character.
Yaeri 09-12-05, 02:03 PM	[QUOTE=Abulafia]If you are unwilling/unable to confront him on this...QUOTE] I am unwilling :D For many other reasons I've already decided that when these characters have retired, I'll only dungeonmaster from the start till the very end, with no swapping dm's. The reason this came into existence is because in the beginning, we all wanted to play and no one wanted to be dm. So we decided taking turns, but over time I've encountered too many problems with this. So hence, I want to try to make the best of this situation untill these characters retire.
Morka 09-12-05, 03:21 PM	So you have one big, min-max PC and a few "normal" ones. Could it be possible to target the min-maxed one with something that will dispatch him for the encounter? A pit trap, poison, or something like that... If the PC have some fame, you could have him be kidnapped or something, letting the other PCs the mission to rescue him...
pangalactic 09-12-05, 05:15 PM	Or maybe throw something with energy/level drain at them? And have it target the min/maxed character, obviously, because he presents the biggest immediate threat. Or he does to begin with, anyway...