Overpowered characters - how to deal with them?

[Andor]

I'm kinda puzzled how a monk can be so dominant in a planescape game. He can't fly. He can't carry items to help him out with planar effects. He has no way to deal with enemies you don't want to fight bare handed. (Fire Elementals, oozes, etc.) He has to act like a paladin does or suffer worse penalties, and plancescape is all about moral relativism. He is not especially good diplomatically. (And every planscape game I've been in has been high diplomacy.) His damage should be well behind that of the party fighter, and druid, and wizard.

Looking over your party roster it seems far from 'twinked' but unless some of these characters are purposely built to be ineffective I just don't see the monk being that out of line...

 

[EdL]

That explicitly goes against the advice given by the BOED: it states that the "poor char" gets the standard share but except for keeping it he will spen it to some organization.

This, of course, is metagaming on the rules/GM's part. When one of our players showed up as a Poverty Dude we said: "Ok, he doesn't get a share of the treasure." The GM pointed out the rule. Our response? "Why?" He still hasn't come up with a good answer. (I do not consider the offical reason to be a good one. I consider it metagaming on a level that would get any player thrown out of the game. But we have to put up with it...)

 

[Dougal DeKree]

This, of course, is metagaming on the rules/GM's part. When one of our players showed up as a Poverty Dude we said: "Ok, he doesn't get a share of the treasure." The GM pointed out the rule. Our response? "Why?" He still hasn't come up with a good answer. (I do not consider the offical reason to be a good one. I consider it metagaming on a level that would get any player thrown out of the game. But we have to put up with it...)

I guess we have a different understanding of the books content. The book says that the encounters may still have the same "tresures" and that the "treasures" are still distrivuted equally. Only that the "poor monk" will spend his money on things helping poor beings. Thus nothing is different except that the player of the poor char will not spend his wealth on his equipment but rather for other beings in need.

And just for the protocol: I always really liked it a char had lots of cash and could a couple of problems using cash. Sadly a "poor monk" will never be able to do that... heh.

 

[shilsen]

The monk hasn't been helping, as the dynamics of the group arrived when he joined. The rest of the characters watch as their characters struggle and work together to survive, and he turns around and acts as the main combatant, and just seems to decimate everything. And I'm talking like taking 1-2 rounds to take out higher level humanoid opponents. It doesn't happen all the time....he has trouble with displacer beasts for instance....but in the last game he was caught against a drow cleric of higher level, and the drow used something like 4 harm spells, slay living, destruction, and cause critical wounds against him, and he either passed his saves, or SR rolls failed to penetrate, etc. And the opponent had an attack bonus of something like +8, so the only way he was going to hit was on a roll of 20.

Wait a minute - if the drow cleric was higher level than the Monk13, then the cleric's BAB itself is at least +10. No wonder the monk has no trouble with enemies, if he's fighting clerics with a 6 Str

More seriously, I just don't see why the monk is dominating the game that much. I especially can't see how he's overshadowing the Drd14 or the Wiz11. Are you sure you haven't misunderstood some of the benefits he gets?

 

[Banshee16]

Wait a minute - if the drow cleric was higher level than the Monk13, then the cleric's BAB itself is at least +10. No wonder the monk has no trouble with enemies, if he's fighting clerics with a 6 Str

More seriously, I just don't see why the monk is dominating the game that much. I especially can't see how he's overshadowing the Drd14 or the Wiz11. Are you sure you haven't misunderstood some of the benefits he gets?

The drow's probably not a good example. The drow was using a tentacle rod, which had an attack bonus of +6 (plus STR) which basically overrides his own innate BAB, correct?

The monk has had problems when the PCs were fighting giants.

The situation may change in the future. The period of time that the player of the monk has been in the game, the PCs have been stranded on Oerth....they entered the Vault of the Drow seeking a drow who might know the location of an object being sought by Tenebrous. But they basically broke the deal they made with the drow priestesses at the Fain of Lolth to kill the matron mother of one of the other houses....they realized that even if she was evil, they couldn't just kill her if she hadn't attacked them. So, they had to find another way to get back to Sigil, and ended up walking to the surface being led by a Svirfneblin scout they had met. This took them to Istivin, where they've been participated in the "Shadow of the Abyss" mini-campaign from Dungeon Magazine.....the sage Algorthas tasked them with helping to solve the mystery of what's going on in the city, in return for locating a portal that could take them home.

So, those adventures are basically a prime material plane dungeon crawl.....so the monk hasn't been challenged by standard planar environments, tasks etc.

We're finally coming to the end as the PCs have figured out who the BBEG is, and how to stop it.

Maybe upon returning, we'll see a difference.

As to the other characters....the Wiz 11 and Druid are both effective. The druid frightfully so. But they take their licks, the Wiz has died 3 times (otherwise he'd have been lvl 14). But they don't give the feeling of invulnerability that the monk does. Even the half-celestial was killed last session by a Phantasmal Killer. The druid was walking along a ledge over a chasm into which said drow cleric had cast a blade barrier to try and hit the monk. But the druid accidentally slipped and fell into it, and was almost killed trying to get out of it. The monk just walked through it..between his saves and his SR he didn't take any damage.

It's stuff like that.

The monk does get them into trouble. His inability to lie causes lots of issues when the PCs need to bluff or confuse someone....turns out as some good roleplaying...so that's not the issue.

Just when the dice begin to roll that it seems like he's invulnerable.

Maybe what part of the problem is, is that the group of players is generally focused on roleplaying rather than on twinking characters, whereas the player of the monk is more optimization focused.

Banshee

 

[Dougal DeKree]

Optimization focused character and good luck with dice. Well. Simply ask the monks player to help the others. When I rolled 13 nat 20es at one evening, I had to spend half of 'em to get the other players out of misery. Was fun. Arr, Matey!

Apart from that, maybe just watch KungFu Hustle with the player in question and ask him, which style he wants to play - thus he gains an advantage and a weakness, dependent on his style of fighting?!

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

We solved this problem by being not-too-concerned about Poverty Dude when he got surrounded by orcs and then laid bleeding on the ground. "Sucks that you can't carry a potion of healing, doesn't it?"

Hah...Awesome.

NCSUCodeMonkey

 

[KenM]

Have a big rock fall out of the sky and crush him while he is asleep. These things happen.

 

[The Shaman]

Have a big rock fall out of the sky and crush him while he is asleep. These things happen.

Works for me.

 

[IronWolf]

Kill them and take their stuff!