How to do an Overlord-style powergame in D&D 5e?

[Hemnon]

Well, yeah, that's the question: How'd you all personally do it without going crazy on Gestalting or Epic-level variant house-rules?
I always thought that limiting NPC power levels to be around 5-10 for regular humans and more powerful being would be akin to a 10-12th level character. Maybe remove some of those legendary abilities and lair actions?
And give the PCs the chance to start out at level 20 with possible templates to make them more than just 'human, elf, etc. etc.', like allowing a Progenitor-vampire, an Arch Lich, a Draconic Demi-goddess, etc. etc. But mostly I feel that one merely should lower NPC power over trying to overpower the PCs. I mean, the power jump between a level 15 wizard and a level 20 wizard can be immense in terms of the powerlevel, akin to the like-wise wide difference between a level 1 fighter and a level 6 fighter.


In any case, what fun thoughts and ideas did ya'll have for this kind of idea? :smallwink:

[Red Fel]

Overlord is D&D to begin with. It borrows the terminology, it references the concepts. It's basically a D&D campaign told from the perspective of the monsters whose temple you're usually raiding. So an "Overlord-style" campaign is basically just a D&D campaign, but playing as the monsters.

And there, it's my understanding, is the problem. Well, two problems actually, but we'll get to the second in a moment. I'm not sure that 5e is designed around the PCs playing monsters. My familiarity with 5e is limited, so I'm open to being corrected, but it's my understanding that 5e is much more strict than 3.5e was about what constitutes a playable character. So that might put the kibosh on the whole thing upfront.

Now, that second problem I mentioned is what struck me about your question. You refer to gestalting, epic levels, and house rules. This suggests to me that you're not just looking to play in the style of Overlord - you're looking to basically play Overlord, with the PCs as the characters in Nazarick.

Because here's the thing: In the setting of Overlord, those characters are obscenely over-leveled. Your average character is going to be someone more like Climb - competent, capable, growing quickly, but still pretty new at this. Your high-level characters are going to be folks like Gazef Stronoff or Evileye, exceptionally powerful and near-peerless in their fields.

The Guardians of Nazarick dwarf them all.

If you're talking about an Overlord campaign in which you're playing "a Progenitor-vampire, an Arch Lich, a Draconic Demi-goddess, etc." you're basically talking about playing Overlord. Not Overlord-style, not Overlord-setting, straight-up Overlord. And that's effectively an epic-level campaign.

And I don't think 5e even has those, does it?

[Hemnon]

So a whole other system would really be needed here, then? or is redoing the power balance of NPCs and monster be more fitting? I mean, as per Overlord, it's said that only one person who can use 6th tier magic, and even 3rd and 4th tier magic is thought off as being 'immensely powerful' on it's own.
Magic items are thought off as being artefact level if they do anything beyond a common or possibly uncommon-type magical item.

It wouldn't be too hard to fiddle with NPC power levels or allow certain types of templates that'd allow the PCs to be other things than Humanoids.
I'm not talking about playing specifically Overlord itself, just curious as to how to make a game in the realm of an overlord-style game. I wouldn't be avert to houserules, or homebrewing if done right either. Although would prefer to avoid using such as much as possible.

[GloatingSwine]

If you're playing a campaign where the players are so powerful they should have few to no mechanical challenges, why use a system designed to arbitrate mechanical challenges?

Some kind of narrative focused mechanics light system would probably be better.

[GrayDeath]

In would do tis one of 2 ways.

1.: The Classic Way: use D&D 3.5/Pathfinder, give all Player Characters free Templates equal to a total of 12 HD/LA, and start them at Character level 12-15ish on top of that, and go from there. level VERY slowly, add a mýhtic Level or 2 if PF is on the table, as while still broken its better than Epic.

Set most other People at Levels 1-4, very good ones around Level 6, Top of the World of the recent Generation at Level 10.

Enjoy.



2.: The Narrative Way: use FATE or a similarly narrative focussed game, and simply give the PC`s lots of FATE PTS and Special Abilities, with the Caveat of being rather obviously "Mosntrous" (for example Ains "Calming Stuff" and such) to limit their choices a wee bit to medium, and enjoy.
Say you use the Dresden Files Setup: Give them all powers equal to 12-15 pts AND 3-5 free Fate pts. Make the rest of the world vanilla mortals with at most feet in the water Power Level, with a few being Chest Deep.



Both should work well enough.

do NOT use Systems built to enforce rather clearly similar power levels like D&D 5, Savage Worlds or similar stuff.

[Red Fel]

Pretty much what has been said.

While D&D does seem, in many ways, to be an ideal system for these characters - again, Overlord is basically written in D&D-ese - it assumes that characters will be encountering level-appropriate challenges which will test their skills and consume their resources.

If your PCs are the equivalents of the Guardians of Nazarick, there are no level-appropriate challenges other than the PCs themselves. Look over almost every fight in the show. Unless they are fighting each other, every encounter is, at most, a mild nuisance, and more likely a total steamroll.

GloatingSwine correctly points out that, if you're going to be so mechanically superior to everything around you, why use mechanics? The protagonists of Overlord are so far beyond the rest of the world that using mechanics to approximate their abilities - particularly D&D-style mechanics, with marked failure chances - seems ludicrous.

I would second the idea of using a mechanics-light or theater-of-the-mind system instead. Although I haven't played either, I've heard good things about FATE and Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine.

If you feel strongly about having more crunch to your game, you might consider Exalted. Although the system has some flaws, it's premised around the idea that the titular Exalted are basically more powerful in every way. They're also considered kill-on-sight, which is fitting for the monstrous denizens of Nazarick. That said, I'm not sure that Exalted can necessarily approximate all of the stuff that these characters can do.

[GrayDeath]

Using Exalte d or Scion can accomplish almost to all of it....but, unless you use Scions Epic Attributes which in turn ahve other problems (in this case their OPness is an asset, their internal inconsistency stays a detriment) to a great degree, they never get the durabikity and "Cant hurt me anyway" feel the Guardians have without that being the central focus.

Its also a huge system to learn, and you ahve to learn it fully AND modify it to fully get to the Overlodness, which is a hurdle few ight want to cross for such a game.

[Hemnon]

I know of Scion.

Anyways, maybe just tone down and make it a sort of game from.... well.... the OTHER perspective? aka. The Guildmembers and Adventurers. Giving the world a sort of 'gamey feel' but only just enough to give it the feel of an RPG, but keep it grounded in a realistic and functional idea. Aka. no Log Horizon-style gold, potions and whatnot popping out of slain monsters, but rather you cut an ear off and get rewarded in return for the kind of proof-of-slaying you bring back.

[GloatingSwine]

That's the sort of thing that works better in computer RPGs where the computer can do the accountancy for exactly how many goblin ears and werewolf bollocks the party has harvested this time.

Sure, you could do it, but unless your players are really into meticulous inventory management they are liable to tire of it.

[Hemnon]

That's the sort of thing that works better in computer RPGs where the computer can do the accountancy for exactly how many goblin ears and werewolf bollocks the party has harvested this time.

Sure, you could do it, but unless your players are really into meticulous inventory management they are liable to tire of it.

I was talking more of a 'oh we finished our quest and slain the goblin skirmishers harassing random-village-number-5, collected 20 goblin ears in total so gets paid for stopping them as well as each kill'.

[Nifft]

A quick scan of the wiki shows that "premium" pay-to-win items were at least once a plot device.

So it's not D&D -- it's one of those FREEmium online video games where you pay to win.


Not sure if that helps in itself, but it's easy enough to make limited-use FREEmium items with artifact-level powers but only a few uses ever.

[DeadMech]

I'm a bit behind but when a good chunk of the story's drama centers around previously warring tribes banding together as a federation to bravely fight a battle with the risk of the extinction of their race on the line... and it's against the minions of minions of the main character... I mean that's just asking for some 3.5 leadership feat abuse.

[Calthropstu]

I'm a bit behind but when a good chunk of the story's drama centers around previously warring tribes banding together as a federation to bravely fight a battle with the risk of the extinction of their race on the line... and it's against the minions of minions of the main character... I mean that's just asking for some 3.5 leadership feat abuse.

You're not wrong.
Matter of fact, the entire show is running 3.5 vancian magic system without even trying to hide it. Lightning bolt... 3rd tier spell. Chain lightning, 7th tier spell. "Shooting star" max tier spell. The butler is a 3.5 monk high level using death fist. Each of the main bosses are the cohorts of the original pcs.
Overlord is running 3.5 d&d rules.