D&D 5E Are powergamers a problem and do you allow them to play in your games?

GameOgre said:

While I find nothing wrong with having a optimized or at least fully functional character who can do his"job" it is also fun to play someone who isn't. Though it does take buy in from others at the table as well.

One of my Fav characters was a Wizard(Sorcerer) with a 9 int who insisted he was a wizard and was unskilled at Arcana but just (KNEW) all about the 104 Rules of Magic. He did have a decent Cha though and so could actually do his job(Sorta) but he was definitely a hindrance to his party at times.

Sometimes its fun to just be a $%$% up. A entire party of $%$% ups is awesome to play but you have to have the DM's buy in as well because.........you will be much weaker........but not any less fun!

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Yes I've seen those kinds of tables - everybody seemed to be having a blast. Definitely highlights the importance of session 0.

nswanson27 said:

So in my experience this sort of situation is both an optimizer playing and others who have decidedly underpowered characters, where the underpowered characters are more to blame for the disparity than the overpowered one.
Closely related, but the optimizers usually are also the ones who make smarter decisions in combat than the underpowered ones, which sometimes I think is just as much of a factor too.

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Mmmmm no. If you've been playing D&D long enough, and running it, you will know that sometimes you can have one character that makes everything trivial to the point where it's pointless for the others to even do anything. Also, what ends up happening is the DM has to buff the enemies so much that they end up usually "one shotting" the others. Please don't try and pass this crap off about the others no being optimized enough. Experience is a wonderful thing.

Corpsetaker said:

Mmmmm no. If you've been playing D&D long enough, and running it, you will know that sometimes you can have one character that makes everything trivial to the point where it's pointless for the others to even do anything. Also, what ends up happening is the DM has to buff the enemies so much that they end up usually "one shotting" the others. Please don't try and pass this crap off about the others no being optimized enough. Experience is a wonderful thing.

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Been playing the game since the Elmore Red Box in the early 80's and haven't seen that. I see players with mediocre PC dominate the game since they were better at strategy, organizing the group, not making idiotic decisions, etc. While the guy with all the high stats gets smoked since he has no grasp of tactics or strategy or is just foolish. IME, YMMV, etc.

Corpsetaker said:

Mmmmm no. If you've been playing D&D long enough, and running it, you will know that sometimes you can have one character that makes everything trivial to the point where it's pointless for the others to even do anything. Also, what ends up happening is the DM has to buff the enemies so much that they end up usually "one shotting" the others. Please don't try and pass this crap off about the others no being optimized enough. Experience is a wonderful thing.

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In 3.5 it was certainly an issue with high level casters. Somewhere after level 12 or so, casters (both wizards and clerics) could obliterate any encounter, at least every once in a while.

On the other hand, this is a discussion about 5E and I haven't seen it in this edition. Sure, once in a blue moon the wizard will pull that Meteor Storm out of his pocket, but what about the other 4-7 encounters that day?

I'll ask again. What build is it that so trivializes your encounters? If you give some specifics, any specifics at all, even a crumb of a something specific maybe I'd have more sympathy.

On the other hand I've only been playing/DMing since the 70s so maybe I missed something.

What I've seen are PCs who are incredibly hardy - good HP, amazing AC, good saves too. So the kind of threat that is necessary to make that character/PC feel a bit, well, threatened, is absolutely lethal to any other PCs

... that being said, that seemed to be a 3.X problem. Haven't seen it in 5e yet.

Flexor the Mighty! said:

It doesn't take powergamers to make 5e a cakewalk but they will blow this system wide open. Which is why I finished my 5e campaign and dropped the system. Then again if I run a fantasy game again it will be a meld of skirmish wargaming with some RPG elements. Despite me slamming it as not D&D I may end up in 4e for that reason since it looks like it would fit my desires better.

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If you're looking for a fantasy skirmish wargame that doesn't have a great potential for powergaming, then 4E isn't the droid you're looking for.
Coming from someone who spent most of 3.5 and 4E hanging out on the WotC CharOp boards, in 5E your "blowing the system wide open" isn't nearly as big a deal as it was in 3.5 or even 4E... Look at the threads on this forum - there are only a handful of things (more specifically, ways of using those things in combination with others under specific circumstances) that are ever discussed as being "broken", and none of them are anywhere near the level of something you'd find in 4E, nevermind 3.5.
Being that there are so few options, even the moderately squeaky wheels tend to be perceived as squeaking just that much louder.

If you think powergaming/system mastery is a major issue in 5E, I have to wonder if you've ever looked at the CharOp forums of the older editions and seen what "blowing the system wide open" really looks like. In 5E, the disparity between "optimal" characters and un-optimized ones is negligible unless you're looking at it under a very powerful microscope - there just aren't that many things you can "optimize" since there just aren't that many elements to 5E. It's designed to encourage playing a single-class character who takes ABIs in preference to all but a handful of feats, and both multi-classing and feats are optional systems to begin with.
4E is a hell of a lot crunchier than 5E, and even after all the ridiculous nerfs it suffered there's still more opportunity to optimize any one class in that game than all the classes in all of 5E.
Not to mention, most of the optimization choices in 4E directly affect that tactical skirmish-game aspect you were looking at the game for.
If a 5E character being able to roll an extra damage die or two or getting an extra attack during combat offends your sensibilities, any 4E character built with even a moderate eye towards combat efficiency will make you cry...

Flexor the Mighty! said:

Been playing the game since the Elmore Red Box in the early 80's and haven't seen that. I see players with mediocre PC dominate the game since they were better at strategy, organizing the group, not making idiotic decisions, etc. While the guy with all the high stats gets smoked since he has no grasp of tactics or strategy or is just foolish. IME, YMMV, etc.

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Smart play wins the day.

When a DM encounters a situation where PC1 is Superman and PC2 is the Boy Wonder, and Superman is dominating the game, it usually means that "encounters" are heavily directed in Superman's favor. That is to say: the encounters possess little strategy to them, are filled with big brute monsters and have little else in the way of options for other players to do.

I've been that DM.

The takeaway from it of course is to ensure that most fights have multiple means of resolution. At least 3 is my general rule (usually: brute force, trickery and diplomacy). Sure, it's not very applicable to random encounters, but if you're running a game where the majority of combat is random and not scripted, then you should expect optimized characters to dominate. It's simply how the dice work, if you are hard and fast on the idea of "the dice decide the outcome" then people who master the dice are going to master your games.

Corpsetaker said:

To me powergaming is just another form of disruptive behaviour and I will not allow it in my games anymore.

Anyone else have this kind of problem?

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I know you only want to hear from people who agree with you, but no, I do not have this kind of problem in my game.

Li Shenron said:

I think powergamers are indeed disruptive mainly because they play for themselves and not for the group, and as a result they strongly steer the game towards what their PC does best (normally combat, but it could sometimes be stealth or social skills) and then trivialize the challenge, with little regard to the rest of the gaming group.

The only way a powergamer can be non-disruptive, is to play in a group where everyone is a powergamer.

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Really? I have seen folks who minmaxed hellacious well built characters, someties using support, and at times used to to help the others.

I have seen non minmaxing RP thespians who were only focused on their story and often followed that muse not only off the comon sense wagon gut also off the part of paery loyalty wagon too.

Disruptive is disruptive and ir has nothing at all linking it to particular focus as far as build, brawl, story etc.

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Li Shenron said:

Not what I am talking about. I am not talking about the GROUP trivializing an encounter. I am talking about ONE powergamer trivializing encounters, to the point that all other players have not much to do.

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I have never seen a case of that which was not directly attributable to GM error.

If you use an encounter that one PC can solo, why complain when that happens?

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