Too powerful to play? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

dsmiles

2012-03-18, 08:08 PM

Aegis013

2012-03-18, 09:14 PM

I had a DM give up while I was playing a Killer Gnome. Unless the threats were ridiculously extraordinary (I had a post about a gigantic super ship that I managed to take down) I usually just dropped some battlefield control and spent my time buffing the warblade in group. I had made sure the other players were playing t1 too, so we didn't a bad party imbalance. (Until a late-comer, who I didn't get to assist in character creation, made a rogue... right as we began dealing with the enemy's army of constructs... he did not have fun)

Axinian

2012-03-18, 09:15 PM

Same here. I was running a campaign for a while, and the players made it to EPIC levels. One of my friends came back, and was asked to DM it, so I could play. They were 24th level. I made a Human Telepath/Shadow Mind (Mind's Eye PrC)/Thrallherd in a party with a Lizard Man Death Knight Crusader, an Elven Ranger (with Leadership and an Awakened Polar Bear Cleric cohort), and a Tiger Claw/Shadow Hand Swordsage/Rogue. I didn't even use my Thralls or Believers, and I started to feel like I should restrain myself after I dominated a Balor like it was a level 1 Commoner. I didn't, though. We were evil, and I fully intended to be the mastermind of the group.

Nevermind your character, THAT'S the overpowered one in the group!

People seem to think uberchargers and other massive damage melee builds are not overpowered. They really are in a lot of games. My Goliath Leap Attack/Shock Trooper Pounce Barbarian was really too strong for that group. And they weren't particularly low-op.

Rossebay

2012-03-18, 09:35 PM

Elven Courtblade on a Rogue/Scout with Swift Ambusher, Power Attack, Leap Attack, and Barbarian 1 for pounce.

I was the only optimizer in the group, and he only lasted 1 game before I had to get rid of him.

Hiro Protagonest

2012-03-18, 09:47 PM

Yup. Played a Tiger Claw/Iron Heart Warblade, and somehow managed to be more powerful than our tier one casters. They forced me to switch to Druid. *shrugs*

Well, ToB classes have high floors, low ceilings. Tier 1 casters start at ground level, but can get up to the top of a skyscraper. In your low-op group? Yeah, too powerful. Especially since you have a monk and fighter in your group. Tiers assume at least mid-op, in my experience.

I actually had the same problem. Game only lasted one session, though. I would've changed it rather quick (although I would've been a buffer caster of some sort, so I could to bring the scout and rogue up to the combat ability of the sneak attack fighter since we didn't have any dedicated melee other than me).

rmg22893

2012-03-18, 09:50 PM

Well, ToB classes have high floors, low ceilings. Tier 1 casters start at ground level, but can get up to the top of a skyscraper. In your low-op group? Yeah, too powerful. Especially since you have a monk and fighter in your group. Tiers assume at least mid-op, in my experience.

I actually had the same problem. Game only lasted one session, though. I would've changed it rather quick (although I would've been a buffer caster of some sort, so I could to bring the scout and rogue up to the combat ability of the sneak attack fighter since we didn't have any dedicated melee other than me).

Oh, no, this wasn't the same group as in that other thread. A different one entirely.

Hiro Protagonest

2012-03-18, 09:56 PM

Oh, no, this wasn't the same group as in that other thread. A different one entirely.

A different one where you built a Tiger Claw focused warblade and played a druid? Well, I guess your other build was more swordsage...

Particle_Man

2012-03-18, 09:58 PM

Venger

2012-03-18, 11:29 PM

Nevermind your character, THAT'S the overpowered one in the group!

People seem to think uberchargers and other massive damage melee builds are not overpowered. They really are in a lot of games. My Goliath Leap Attack/Shock Trooper Pounce Barbarian was really too strong for that group. And they weren't particularly low-op.

well, uberchargers are not overpowered. flight, difficult terrain, alternate movement modes, black tentacles, slippery ice, grease, stairs, etc. all ruin their one trick. the problem for DMs with an ubercharger in the party is that with a character who has options, they can lock down one of their choices and allow others, this isn't possible for chargers because they're generally pretty feat intensive, especially those of them who are cavaliers.

for example, party is investigating a dungeon. the DM's noticed the wizard's been just destroying eveyone with enervation and the charger's been dealing damage in the triple digits. he wants to do something new so recon says that it's all undeads in there. no problem for the wizard, he leaves enervation in the book and prepares some other stuff. the DM is letting the wizard take his finger off one of the kill buttons

it's also discovered that there are a bunch of awkward zigzags in the 5foot corridors, making charging essentially impossible. the charger is left to replace his charges with all the other zero options and essentially is not able to contribute.

Averis Vol

2012-03-18, 11:37 PM

played a DMM persist cleric in a group with a weapon master scythe fighter, a S&B dwarven defender and a rogue. now my group is very low-op so even i thought this was a little rediculous and decided once no one in the room was smiling nothing like this should have ever been made. now the whole act of playing an optimized character makes my stomach turn.

Menteith

2012-03-19, 12:23 AM

Joined a heavily homebrewed 3.5 game with some friends, who I've run other RPGs with. I asked about what power level I should build my character at, and was told that they allow everything, and like to play really powerful characters. I asked if it would be alright if I ran a full caster, and was told to go for it. I ended up making a Human Illusionist with Illusion Mastery, entering Mage Lord. It wasn't fundamentally world-shattering (at least, not more so than any other Wizard variant), but it was miles beyond what I should have been running. We had someone running Fighter 11 with 2WF and Toughness. I ended up running a Mineral Warrior Warforged Paladin of Freedom (because being immune to everything is cool), but still felt like I was overshadowing him - a lot.

Aegis013

2012-03-19, 12:49 AM

Wait, the warblade was t1?

I meant the other players whose classes weren't specified. I ought to have been more specific. Sorry. (They were Druid and Clericzilla)

Vizzerdrix

2012-03-19, 01:38 AM

I made a simple Gish. Fighter/Wizard Abjurant Champion with Arcane Strike and focused in divinations. I chose to retire him when I realized that I could walk all over his encounters. I still don't know why retiring the character upset the group so much. :smallconfused:

Golden Ladybug

2012-03-19, 01:41 AM

The first character I ever played, in fact, was too powerful for our group. We'd just started playing, and none of us really knew what we were supposed to be doing. I played a Ranger, my Friend played a Paladin, and off we went. The difference between us wasn't that I had more knowledge going on or anything, but that once I started playing, I went out of my way to get that Knowledge. I read through the Player's Handbook and the DMG, looked at the SRD after I found it by accident, and did my best to be a better player.

I found Prestige Classes that would make my ranger a more effective Archer, or at least what I thought would be effective, and simply trying to make my character good at what it did made the difference in power so dramatic that I was soloing the poorly thought out encounters of our DM (who wasn't the best; he had a DMPC who, at level 4, was permanently under the effects of Greater Invisiblility and Critted on a 8 or higher, and he assigned the level of NPCs by dice rolls, so we met some Epic Level Dwarves drinking in a bar at one point, and saying how scared they were of the tribe of Orcs nearby :smalleek:).

And so, after the campaign ended (far too quickly then the DM had expected, as a Volley of Arrows from my Ranger tore a hole through the Epic Sorcerer BBEG, whose only defences had been a highish Dexterity Score), they pulled me to the side and said that I should DM from now on.

So I did :smallsmile:

Since then, I've attained what I consider to be a decent level of system mastery, and my friends who I started playing with come to me for help building characters for my games. So, turned out okay in the end.

Tr011

2012-03-19, 01:55 AM

My level 6 wizard died due to a phantasmal killer so I had to make a new character. My party had a Roguish character, a psion and the rest I don't remember. I decided to make a ranged/melee Barbarian with the following build:
Neraphim Half-Minotaur Barbarian 1 (Improved Grab + Whirling Frenzy)/Chaos-Monk with Improved Grapple/Fighter 2 for Precise Shot and Brutal Throw/Warblade 1 for Wall of Blades, Sudden Leap and Punishing Stance.
The other feats where PBS and Fling Enemy.

The problem was, I was playing a 34 Str (without points from level up or enhancement bonus) Barbarian with an OK AC and good melee options, who had a good grapple modifier and could deal 20d6+Str (+1d6 from Punishing Stance). He was way to good for that level. I put him aside and re-used him at a higher level, I think it was level 12-15 (he was still very strong due to his Bloodstorm Blade progression, he used a +1 Wrathful Healing Ripper to heal himself up in combat).

Lonely Tylenol

2012-03-19, 08:00 AM

My first character was restricted to core-only (from level one), and I was met with protests when I later asked to play a warlock, so I played a wizard with the Fiery Burst feat who PrC'd into incantatrix instead.

I quit the game right around the point where I had access to Celerity, Animate Dead, and was just shy of stacking metamagics on Orb of Cold with Arcane Thesis (my planeswalker, telepath, blood magus and Sparrowhawk concepts were all getting shot down in flames, and I sort of painted myself into a corner with Fiery Burst given how long the dungeons were, so I took the ball and ran with it), but not before demonstrating that I could have more AC than the AC-focused cleric, three types of energy resistances from different sources (two of which I share with seven other members of the party as Inspire Spellpower is being sung around me), and also fly. (And in spite of all this, I probably still wasn't as powerful as the greataxe-wielding Bardbarian, if for no better reason than he got a magic ring from a quest on a week that I was sick which allows him to create three perfect copies of himself as an immediate action, which last for three rounds and can be controlled mentally as a free action. At level four. It made Celerity look a little silly.)

Since then, my characters have been a feinting human rogue, an elf evoker, an elf alchemist, a Vow of Poverty human fighter//swordsage gestalt, and a thri-kreen gladiator (E6)... And I haven't been the strongest member in any of those groups, which is quite alright with me.

Snowbluff

2012-03-19, 09:37 AM

Basically, have you had experiences where you made a character and then realized that it was too powerful considering the power of the rest of your party (or for some other reason) and had to either retire/replace, or scale back the power of, your character?

Yep. I play Clerics. I seem to be the only one who knows how to play the class effectively. Heck, it seems I am the only one who builds characters well. My last campaign everyone was asking me for building advice. ^^'

played a DMM persist cleric in a group with a weapon master scythe fighter, a S&B dwarven defender and a rogue. now my group is very low-op so even i thought this was a little rediculous and decided once no one in the room was smiling nothing like this should have ever been made. now the whole act of playing an optimized character makes my stomach turn.

You haven't been a DMM Cleric archer yet. The damage output is silly. Not amazing, just silly.

The best story is Metus, my avatar. He was Dipped into so many classes that he didn't have room on his character sheet for them, and then went into RKV/Ur Priest. He just went around smacking people, casting Slay Living with high fives as need. The rest of the party wasn't very optimized and so I ended up doing all of the dirty work until I brought in a friend and showed him the Three Elven Blades (Revenant Blade/ Warblade/ Eternal Blade). Eventually the DM and I got fed up with Metus and he was killed.

Was pretty cool. We got sent to Earth and I went into a melting nuclear reactor (I was a Human Heritage Undead, so I wouldn't die from cancer or burns or something like that). The rest of the party escape through a portal as I made my last desperate efforts to save the planets. But then the portal closed as the party watched. My friend, the Warblade, shed a single, manly tear. Metus's lover/my BFF's monk broke down and had a Heroic BSOD for the next few days.

My next character was a Swiftblade. I picked up the Avasculate spells since the DM decided it was a good time to throw a bunch of Dragons at us. After killing one pretty much by himself and giving me a White Raven Tactics so I could Avasculate a Great Wyrm 4 time consecutively, the Warblade proclaimed he was a monster. For killing the week long string of Dragons, we hit Epic Levels and we closed the campaign here after I told the DM that a caster with Epic Levels is not something he wants on his plate.

Venser

2012-03-19, 10:04 AM

A DM told me that I can make any level 4 character, using any books, and I can ignore LA as long as it is +2 or below.

I made a level 4 Goliath, Half-troll fighter with huge greataxe, fast healing 5 and around 102HP. Then a werewold gave me lycantrohpy which made me even more broken xD

Dr.Orpheus

2012-03-19, 10:31 AM

Lets see I had a few of these types of characters I had a 9th level character able to reduce himself to -1 hp explode stun everyone so that next turn he can regenerate and explode again he delt 14d6 a round to everyone, a 1st level ranger with a dire tiger, a 9th goblin that rode around in a mech suit that had a hydrolic spear and a gatling grenade launcher (It was all a DC 110 crafting check), a 2nd level druid/wizard with three imp familiars, and a 5th level summoner with an eidolon that is probably better that most 10th level characters.

FMArthur

2012-03-19, 10:49 AM

I've just been in a lot of low-op groups, so I've learned to just bring really simple stuff to the table the first time. Sometimes that isn't enough or a character concept doesn't really break down any further. It is the saddest thing when you bring a Dungeon Crasher fighter with the Knockback feat and it's "overpowered" before you've even got the second part of the Dungeon Crasher alternate feature. God forbid that your fantasy hero's combat involves you and your enemies actually moving each other around.

I've had no trouble getting along with mid-optimization groups at least. Those are easy to adapt a powerful character to by just hitting below your weight class.

Particle_Man

2012-03-19, 10:54 AM

Sometimes, you have to break out the (non-optimized) Samurai? :smallsmile:

gomipile

2012-03-19, 12:14 PM

Was pretty cool. We got sent to Earth and I went into a melting nuclear reactor (I was a Human Heritage Undead, so I wouldn't die from cancer or burns or something like that). The rest of the party escape through a portal as I made my last desperate efforts to save the planets. But then the portal closed as the party watched. My friend, the Warblade, shed a single, manly tear. Metus's lover/my BFF's monk broke down and had a Heroic BSOD for the next few days.

Was the nuclear reactor in Cardiff, Wales? :D

Snowbluff

2012-03-19, 12:20 PM

Was the nuclear reactor in Cardiff, Wales? :D

It was 3 Mile Island. The guys doesn't watch as much Doctor Who as I do, and I would of complained the whole time if it was. "I don't want to die in Cardiff".:smallsigh:

Elric VIII

2012-03-19, 12:23 PM

I once accidentally the Twice Betrayer of Shar.

I didn't use DMM: Persist/Occular spell, but I used Easy Metamagic: Persist and crafted items. It wan't quite the Twice Betrayer (I didn't know about it at that time), but it was very close and I had to systematically tone it down since I was nearly invulnerable.

gomipile

2012-03-19, 12:23 PM

It was 3 Mile Island. The guys doesn't watch as much Doctor Who as I do, and I would of complained the whole time if it was. "I don't want to die in Cardiff".:smallsigh:

It did sound an awful lot like Owen Harper's death.

Malimar

2012-03-19, 02:07 PM

I once played a telepath psion. I wasn't even trying to break anything, I just happened to max diplomacy, figuring the hype about diplomancers was mere exaggeration. It, uh, isn't. Luckily, that campaign ended before I even got to thrallherd. :smallyuk:

Morithias

2012-03-19, 02:14 PM

Warforged Juggernaut with the troll blooded feat. So powerful and hard to kill we actually had to put it on the "universal banned" list.

Averis Vol

2012-03-19, 02:37 PM

You haven't been a DMM Cleric archer yet. The damage output is silly. Not amazing, just silly.

i did say i play in a low op group now. but yea i've since had characters stronger and weaker then that cleric (from a water orc ubercharger to a halfling drunken master) and i still am never able to play high power characters for more then a map or two.

Krotchrot

2012-03-19, 02:57 PM

The people I generally play with are mid-low op. Sure they Play the T1 classes, but they go in directions that astound my mind. Currently we are in a Gestalt game with several head scratchers: Beguiler/Wizard(not a terrible combo) but the guy if fairly new with spellcasters. Monk/Planar Ranger variant(I shudder everytime he mentions he's a monk) oh and he's going the VoP line. Our Healer is a Cleric/Bard(again, not terrible, but he forgets to use Bardic Knowledge and Inspiration quite a bit.) Myself am a Warblade/Scout/Urban Ranger variant. I feel I am going to over power them quickly, even at level 2. Once I get Swift Hunter along with Leap Attack it's going to get real dirty.

Alienist

2012-03-19, 09:13 PM

I played with a group one time...

I made a tier 3 char, but that was too powerful
So I made a tier 4 char, but that was too powerful
So I made a tier 5 char, but that was too powerful
So I made a tier 1 char, and that was just right
So I rage quit

Particle_Man

2012-03-19, 09:44 PM

Tiers of rage? :smallbiggrin:

SilverSavio

2012-03-19, 11:37 PM

rmg22893

2012-03-19, 11:51 PM

SilverSavio

2012-03-20, 12:15 AM

...wait...what? What's the point of even having criticals if they happen more than 75% of the time...?

I know. This gaming group is my definition of power gaming because I was told that the sword (which I dubbed the big butter knife because they didn't tell me what kind of blade it was) was kind of on the weaker side of in this setting.

rmg22893

2012-03-20, 12:17 AM

I know. This gaming group is my definition of power gaming because I was told that the sword (which I dubbed the big butter knife because they didn't tell me what kind of blade it was) was kind of on the weaker side of in this setting.

Were monsters appropriately difficult? I can see if people just liked rolling big numbers, but if they were getting cut down in one stroke every time...

SilverSavio

2012-03-20, 12:30 AM

Were monsters appropriately difficult? I can see if people just liked rolling big numbers, but if they were getting cut down in one stroke every time...

A bbeg with a swing of his mace above his head dealt so much damage, that the DM said his entire army behind him became a fine red paint on the wall so that the group could live at 5 hp or so.

Snowbluff

2012-03-20, 12:31 AM

It did sound an awful lot like Owen Harper's death.

It's actually funny how much this lines upsince I was Undead as well. Good spotting, btw ^^

demigodus

2012-03-20, 12:46 AM

When I started out playing D&D, I once played with a group that was just too powerful to play with. The group had about 7 characters per player, and a basic weapon in that game could deal 9d20+41 damage with a crit range from 4-20x19. I still have the character sheet with that weapon to threaten people with if they want a challenge.

I sincerely hope that x19 on crits is a typo. If not, any trick whatsoever that gives you crit immunity would be invaluable in that campaign.

Currently I'm a similar campaign where the DM decided DnD hates non-casters, and the fix to these was letting them use homebrewed melee classes, as well as giving out items that allow our fighter to output around half that much damage (though crit is still only x3). It can be fun in its own way.

Of course, when I joined, I figured it would be fine if I played a planar shepherd, given the power level of the group... lets just say, nearly all enemies we face now either have massive SR, or sometimes straight up magic immunity, and have massive saves. And all of the party's equipment got a pretty hefty power up to try and keep our power levels consistent. So I guess a planar shepherd was still too powerful, even with these power levels. :smallbiggrin:

rmg22893

2012-03-20, 01:04 AM

I played a Pixie warmage once. I subsequently got turned upon by the rest of my party because I was being too powerful.

Krazzman

2012-03-20, 03:49 AM

Let me tell you the story of Bloud!

So we were a "don't care for optimization" group. I decided to run a game of DnD 3.5, 2 Traits, 2 Flaws allowed, pointbuy 40 in eberron starting at level 1.

The Group that started was:
Gamba Human Cleric (healing focused domains: Party, Healing) game age: 30, player age: 24, played out age: 10 to 20 (the latter mostly like he was high...)
Changeling Bard (forgot the name...)
BLOUD!!!!! Goliath Barbarian. AC 12 (in Rage 8?) DMG output: 3d6+14(?). He startet with an effective Strength of 22+.
Later:
Warforged Paladin game age: 6, player age 30 tried to make similar things like bloud.
Human Druid/Warshaper (the Bard retired with Bloud)
Human Fighter/Barbarian/FrenziedBerserker
Human Artificer (player of BLOUD!)

So storytime:
The adventure Started with the 3 guys venturing into sharn. It rained like hell and they see someone lying on the ground slowly bleeding out. They get ambushed by a Warforged which is directly critted into oblivion by Bloud.

They are dragged into the problems of House Cannith and venture to the mournlands with their newly got Warforged buddy. There Bloud again dominates everything and is favoured even by my dice which led to him losing 50 HP in the Whole 3 sessions (most due to elecrotraps).

He retired his character together with the Bard(who had made bloud his protagonist if his epic) since he saw that his defenses rose because of the loot they found and his dmg-output stayed brutally good with: 3d6+2d8(charging)+30(or something along this line...).

I later let them get news on Bloud who started hunting dragons in the west and if I remember correctly had him have his 32+ Strength for the next time they would meet him. Sadly it never came to this.

DigoDragon

2012-03-20, 08:25 AM

I've never had a D&D character too powerful for a group that I had to retire it. Granted I play nothing but Clerics, but I think the fact the GM only writes his adventures on sheets made of nerf foam has something to do with it. :smalltongue:

CTrees

2012-03-20, 09:15 AM

In my groups old PF campaign, I made a human fighter. Used the Giant template and the two-handed fighter archetype, but limited myself to a greatsword (instead of my first draft, using a reach weapon and armor spikes). He... had to die very, very quickly, because even halving what his reach should have been, he killing way too much. Granted, this was the group that was just sure that ~35 damage per round was ridiculous.

Then I made a Ranger2/Rogue3/Shadowdancer with a focus on skills, which was proclaimed to be an out-and-out munchkin character. He didn't actually do much damage, but the complexity of the character sheet made everyone sure he was overpowered. On this character, I dropped out of the game for awhile.

When I came back, I made a Wizard/Loremaster, which was apparently just right. Though... that's largely because I buffed everyone in the party, tossed some battlefield control (only some - that tended to be subverted in infuriating, anti-RAW ways, like the stone golem that jumped out of the pit I conjured with a move action, despite that distance being over double what it could climb in a round), and dealt virtually no damage over the course of the campaign. Though, I also took zero damage over that character's entire life, and was privately (in character) treating the party exactly like I would summons, feeling no need to waste my vast talents on something so mundane as setting things on fire... Anyway!

Less rambling, playing around with psionics for NPCs is making me really want to actually play a psion PC. Just a blaster, nothing fancy. Unfortunately, I'm the DM for the foreseeable future, and worse, I just know that making a psion who was actually capable of what he should be able to do would get a massive backlash, because of the "psionics is soooo OP!" belief everyone in the group holds.

dsmiles

2012-03-20, 10:37 AM

Unfortunately, I'm the DM for the foreseeable future, and worse, I just know that making a psion who was actually capable of what he should be able to do would get a massive backlash, because of the "psionics is soooo OP!" belief everyone in the group holds.This really irritates me. Just because they "can't be bothered" to read a supplement (or take the time to ask someone who has read it), "it must be overpowered." :smallmad:

mc.jesus

2012-03-20, 10:44 AM

A Thorn (MM3) Druid with a Dire Eagle companion. At low levels I was a better fighter than the fighters and at high levels my casting abilities were obscene.

Then the DM went and let me take Planar Sheppard...

Mikeavelli

2012-03-20, 11:09 AM

I played an Ultimate Magus with early entry shenanigans in a party with a VoP monk, VoP warmage, healbot cleric, archer ranger, and half-dragon Fighter.

We came up with a good reason for him to turn crazy and evil, and he became a villain. The warmage in particular took great pleasure in blasting the **** out of him.

Krotchrot

2012-03-20, 11:49 AM

Oh here is another one from another player in our group. It was still 3.5, but the DM allowed for use of a nice little feat, Green Bound Summoning. Oh boy did we have a long and boring couple of levels as we just let the Druid summon in animals and go to town.

SolitonMan

2012-03-20, 02:17 PM

I ran a ghaele eladrin from the Savage Species book for a while in one campaign. That was a good game, and although I was never petitioned to retire the character, I easily could have been had I played it to the hilt. The whole "turn into an incorporeal sphere of light with a fly speed of 150" thing made the eladrin sickly mobile, so I could have zipped into and out of combat easily (and did, in a lot of cases). I was mostly ignored by enemies because they could barely hit me.

When the DM finally put us up against opponents with ghost touch weapons, I was able to use Flyby Attack to easily hide within walls and pop out to blast the attackers from a distance. Ugly character to try to hit. The key to playing it without it becoming an attention hog, of course, was to limit the use of the uber powers. Overall the game was fun, the eladrin was powerful in abilities but wasn't the most powerful character in the game, and everyone had a good time.

The most interesting character in that setting, though, was the feral mineral warrior anthropomorphic baleen whale. :)