Making the only Munchkin play an Adept

[aabicus]

So, I'm a relatively experienced GM, and I've moved recently to a new town. I've started up a group with some of my new friends, and my brother and I are the only two with any Roleplaying experience.

My brother is a great guy, but he Munchkins and min-maxes and abuses loopholes and only plays tier 1 spellcasters like Wizard or Cleric. Rather than force him to make a subpar character, I came up with the idea seconds ago to make him play an Adept. He can do whatever he wants with it, it just has to be an Adept.

I'm hoping this'll keep him at the same level as all the unoptimised characters everyone else is making, which appears to be mostly barbarians and other 'sword' people. I'm aware that there are some landmines present if I do this, however.

Do you guys think I should suggest this to him? What are some things I should consider first?

[Kelb_Panthera]

I suspect this will result in hard feelings.

Telling a player, even if he is your brother, that he must play a particular class never goes over well. It's just like making the new guy be a cleric, because the party needs a heal-bot. (I know that heal-bots are unnecessary.)

I think it would be a better option to tell your player that the T1 and T2 classes are banned from this particular campaign. Don't use them yourself either. Player's get angry if the DM uses something they arbitrarily can't use because the DM said so.

The game is still perfectly viable without those classes. In fact it's generally considered far better balanced without them. If he somehow still breaks the game, then you may be better off playing without him.

[A_S]

Looks like it's basically gonna be "how good is your brother at abusing Polymorph," since the rest of the spell list sucks and Adepts get zero splatbook support. But Polymorph is a fairly easily abused spell.

It looks about in line, power-wise, with unoptimized thugs.

[Averis Vol]

you could, but that would only make him want to abuse the game more knowing that your specifically calling him out. Instead I suggest telling him straight up "Dude, you min-max like hell. I don't want to ruin the game for you but I'm cutting you off of tier 1-2 characters. If you want to be a divine caster go shaman or favored soul, and if you wanna be arcane go warmage or wu jen. I just don't want to deal with your constant attempts to overshadow the party."

It sounds hurtful but he's your brother, he kind of has no choice but to deal with it if he wants to play, and eventually he'll see the light and show that he wants to change.

[Ernir]

That sounds like an excellent way to validate the arms race. Asking him not to participate in it sounds like a vastly more viable plan.

[Malak'ai]

Just explain to him that your want him to tone it down for a while until the new players have more knowledge and experience with the rules. Let him use a Wizard, Cleric or Druid as much as he wants, just make absolutely sure he knows, and agrees to the fact, your running a low-op game so the others can learn in a fun environment.
Once the others are up with the play and know how to optimise properly then let him go to his heart content.

[Psyren]

Just ask him not to, or failing that, ask him to play a buffer class to help the others shine (that way, all his op-fu will go to making the others feel awesome.) Sticking him with Adept will just be a challenge to overcome so he can continue "winning D&D."