If you design a lot of games, you probably have a lot of experience both playing and GMing RPGs. In all likelihood, you have so much experience that you make a lot of judgements about various game systems pretty quickly. You know what you like, what you don’t like, what you’d change, and what works. However, as your experience as a game designer grows, your appreciation for good game systems will increase, and your awareness of what fails in other systems will, likewise, expand.
Overpowered abilities can mess up your game system. These can include: skills, powers, feats, special attributes, derivative statistics, spells, or anything else. Learning to pick them out quickly will serve you well. When you design your own game systems, you’ll probably already have a pretty good idea of which abilities are overpowered and which aren’t. The more game systems you design, the broader your understanding of overpowered abilities will be.
Nothing quite beats experience for expanding your repertoire of problem powers. In this article, I’ll try to help you get started on expanding that repertoire. I’ve come across a number of abilities which throw up red warning lights when I come across them. Some of these abilities you may just love, that’s fine. There’s nothing that says you can’t include any cool idea you can imagine. I’d like to offer my experience as a warning and caution. If all you take from it is that some abilities can cause problems in your games, my job is done.
The first kind of overpowered ability to watch out for is the one that’s not an ability at all, it’s a set of abilities. Stand back from your game design and look at the sheer amount of a page space devoted to any particular character build. Now you have to look at everything in combination. Are there any builds with much more page space than others? Much less? Often, the character builds with the most powers and abilities tend to be the most powerful just out of sheer probability of killer combinations. Multi-classing and classless systems tend to complicate things even further because of the infinitely large numbers of extra options generated.
Secondly, consider which, if any, powers are useless. This may be impossible to fix, but if 90% of everything in your game book will never be used in deference to the 10% of ‘good stuff’ it might be worth a second look at the weak and powerful stuff with an eye to balance.
Thirdly, recruit the help of some savvy players in building characters. Players can often find the best combinations as a matter of instinct and professional ability. This doesn’t mean you have to instantly remove any abilities they choose to play, but it can give you some great clues into what works and what’s overpowered in your system.
Here are some of the abilities I’m wary of, personally, in no particular order. Depending on implementation, they might not be a problem at all in your system:
1. Open-ended magic: anything with the term ‘magic’ in it which is too broad or open-ended can cause problems. Because magic doesn’t usually fall into normal laws of physics, players often abuse it to do things which would otherwise be impossible. Having a clearly designed protocol for how magic works can help here.
2. Invisibility: many people include invisibility in their game designs out of habit. That’s not a bad thing, it’s a classic. However, in my experience, it can cause complete havoc in the hands of a savvy player if not carefully regulated. How long can someone be invisible? Are they completely undetectable? Can they be targeted with attacks? Is there any way to negate the invisibility? Can they attack with impunity while invisible? Can they combine invisibility with other spells so they’re inaudible, flying, or invincible? Invisibility isn’t too much of a problem in the hands of a Hobbit, but when the guy was an almost super-human killing machine ‘before’ the spell, it can get pretty crazy.
3. Flight: as above. Most game systems will have some way for a character to fly. This could be levitation, weather control, pure flight, super-powers, or whichever. Flight generally doesn’t seem like much of a problem. The character can get around places fast, so what? However, if you use a lot of mundane foes like goblins and orcs and they don’t have ranged weapons, a character with flight can gain a serious advantage. Running away also tends to become a piece of cake. I would be careful with the implementation of flight powers in a game system. Can they run out? What happens if it’s negated and you fall? Can you be invisible while flying? Etc.
4. Detection: it might seem pretty normal to have some kind of water/gold detection power in your game. That’s fine. However, anything which can detect the personality or disposition of characters can be misinterpreted as a ‘who’s the bad guy?” plot-killer ability. Be sure that your power description clearly states that the ability won’t give away if a character is good or bad or something else that could totally ruin your plotlines. Ditto concern must be given to truth abilities, but they’re not as dangerous as an outright ‘everyone in this room is a troglodyte’ spell.
5. Automatic Abilities: most game systems have a scalable tier of abilities. As you gain levels you get better and better at doing things, but the enemies and challenges also become greater and greater. Some people make fun of this by saying, “It doesn’t matter what level you are—the chances are all the same.” This may be true, but it seems to work. It’s probably better if high level characters have ‘some’ cool things to look forward to apart from TN 40 challenges, even if this is only the ability to tromp on challenges they normally would have had a hard time with. Anything in your game which gives an automatic result can bypass this system. A power which has a 50% chance to kill any creature might seem like a good idea, but in gameplay it can cause serious problems. Carefully consider anything in your game system which yields an automatic result of some sort.
6. Mind Control: perhaps you have mentally powerful characters in your system like Wheels from the X-men. This is generally a very cool idea, but a lot of psychic abilities can quickly get out of hand. Telepathy and mind reading can easily have many of the same consequences as automatic ‘good guy/bad guy’ detection powers. Not only that, you also have to think up thoughts for everyone walking down the street. Outright control of minds, in whatever form, can also be a deadly power. Most of the players I know agree that the original Charm Person spell from basic D&D was probably one of the most powerful first level spells. Charm Person also had a lot of limitations: limited duration, limited application, can’t force the creature to act out of its nature, etc. Consider if you had a mind control power with no limitations, no duration, and no maximum strength of creature affected? This power could conceivably be used to control other party members or the villain of the story which would easily double the strength of the character in possession of the power. If he can control multiple subjects, he’s even more powerful.
7. Minions: most players will, at some point, want a henchman of some sort. A character they create or receive who follows them around and generally does whatever they want. Most GMs don’t have a problem with a farmer following around his great knight and helping him clean his armor. However, if there are specific rules in your game for receiving minions or a power or two which give you them automatically, some concern is in order. How many minions can they have? How loyal are the minions? Who controls the minion’s actions? If they lose some minions, how easy is it to get them back? How powerful can the minions be? One of my players is fond of creating a Necromancer build in a game system I wrote so he can have infinitely regenerating and large numbers of mindless minions under his command. I’ve already limited this to quite an extent, but it remains a very powerful combination. Numbers can be a strength if used properly.
8. Control: most game systems will allow you to gain some control over an element or force. These can include: gravity, fire, cold, electricity, water, matter, teleportation, etc. This is all very cool, but it’s a good idea to check out exactly what can be done with such powers. Often, it’s quite easy to balance a fire control power, but in practical application it’s hard to say the bad guy isn’t taking any damage when his armor is super-heated to 10 million degrees and the whole city is on fire. When designing such abilities, pay attention to the literal effect as well as the game statistics. Good players and GMs will often improvise ‘practical’ rules. You might have written that telekinesis does 1d6 damage; but if the telekinetic can drop a 50 ton anvil on his enemy’s head, the GM will have a hard time arguing that it only does minor damage.
9. Invincibility: lastly, try to make sure no one can become completely invincible with the right combination of powers. Yes, I know it sounds like a no-brainer, but there’s often a set of stacking powers, modifiers, or special abilities which will allow someone to turn themselves into a titanium giant with huge rocket launchers. Don’t ask me why, it just happens. If you’ve carefully made sure no one can become completely invincible, you’re one step ahead of the game.
Overpowered abilities can mess up your game system. These can include: skills, powers, feats, special attributes, derivative statistics, spells, or anything else. Learning to pick them out quickly will serve you well. When you design your own game systems, you’ll probably already have a pretty good idea of which abilities are overpowered and which aren’t. The more game systems you design, the broader your understanding of overpowered abilities will be.
Nothing quite beats experience for expanding your repertoire of problem powers. In this article, I’ll try to help you get started on expanding that repertoire. I’ve come across a number of abilities which throw up red warning lights when I come across them. Some of these abilities you may just love, that’s fine. There’s nothing that says you can’t include any cool idea you can imagine. I’d like to offer my experience as a warning and caution. If all you take from it is that some abilities can cause problems in your games, my job is done.
The first kind of overpowered ability to watch out for is the one that’s not an ability at all, it’s a set of abilities. Stand back from your game design and look at the sheer amount of a page space devoted to any particular character build. Now you have to look at everything in combination. Are there any builds with much more page space than others? Much less? Often, the character builds with the most powers and abilities tend to be the most powerful just out of sheer probability of killer combinations. Multi-classing and classless systems tend to complicate things even further because of the infinitely large numbers of extra options generated.
Secondly, consider which, if any, powers are useless. This may be impossible to fix, but if 90% of everything in your game book will never be used in deference to the 10% of ‘good stuff’ it might be worth a second look at the weak and powerful stuff with an eye to balance.
Thirdly, recruit the help of some savvy players in building characters. Players can often find the best combinations as a matter of instinct and professional ability. This doesn’t mean you have to instantly remove any abilities they choose to play, but it can give you some great clues into what works and what’s overpowered in your system.
Here are some of the abilities I’m wary of, personally, in no particular order. Depending on implementation, they might not be a problem at all in your system:
1. Open-ended magic: anything with the term ‘magic’ in it which is too broad or open-ended can cause problems. Because magic doesn’t usually fall into normal laws of physics, players often abuse it to do things which would otherwise be impossible. Having a clearly designed protocol for how magic works can help here.
2. Invisibility: many people include invisibility in their game designs out of habit. That’s not a bad thing, it’s a classic. However, in my experience, it can cause complete havoc in the hands of a savvy player if not carefully regulated. How long can someone be invisible? Are they completely undetectable? Can they be targeted with attacks? Is there any way to negate the invisibility? Can they attack with impunity while invisible? Can they combine invisibility with other spells so they’re inaudible, flying, or invincible? Invisibility isn’t too much of a problem in the hands of a Hobbit, but when the guy was an almost super-human killing machine ‘before’ the spell, it can get pretty crazy.
3. Flight: as above. Most game systems will have some way for a character to fly. This could be levitation, weather control, pure flight, super-powers, or whichever. Flight generally doesn’t seem like much of a problem. The character can get around places fast, so what? However, if you use a lot of mundane foes like goblins and orcs and they don’t have ranged weapons, a character with flight can gain a serious advantage. Running away also tends to become a piece of cake. I would be careful with the implementation of flight powers in a game system. Can they run out? What happens if it’s negated and you fall? Can you be invisible while flying? Etc.
4. Detection: it might seem pretty normal to have some kind of water/gold detection power in your game. That’s fine. However, anything which can detect the personality or disposition of characters can be misinterpreted as a ‘who’s the bad guy?” plot-killer ability. Be sure that your power description clearly states that the ability won’t give away if a character is good or bad or something else that could totally ruin your plotlines. Ditto concern must be given to truth abilities, but they’re not as dangerous as an outright ‘everyone in this room is a troglodyte’ spell.
5. Automatic Abilities: most game systems have a scalable tier of abilities. As you gain levels you get better and better at doing things, but the enemies and challenges also become greater and greater. Some people make fun of this by saying, “It doesn’t matter what level you are—the chances are all the same.” This may be true, but it seems to work. It’s probably better if high level characters have ‘some’ cool things to look forward to apart from TN 40 challenges, even if this is only the ability to tromp on challenges they normally would have had a hard time with. Anything in your game which gives an automatic result can bypass this system. A power which has a 50% chance to kill any creature might seem like a good idea, but in gameplay it can cause serious problems. Carefully consider anything in your game system which yields an automatic result of some sort.
6. Mind Control: perhaps you have mentally powerful characters in your system like Wheels from the X-men. This is generally a very cool idea, but a lot of psychic abilities can quickly get out of hand. Telepathy and mind reading can easily have many of the same consequences as automatic ‘good guy/bad guy’ detection powers. Not only that, you also have to think up thoughts for everyone walking down the street. Outright control of minds, in whatever form, can also be a deadly power. Most of the players I know agree that the original Charm Person spell from basic D&D was probably one of the most powerful first level spells. Charm Person also had a lot of limitations: limited duration, limited application, can’t force the creature to act out of its nature, etc. Consider if you had a mind control power with no limitations, no duration, and no maximum strength of creature affected? This power could conceivably be used to control other party members or the villain of the story which would easily double the strength of the character in possession of the power. If he can control multiple subjects, he’s even more powerful.
7. Minions: most players will, at some point, want a henchman of some sort. A character they create or receive who follows them around and generally does whatever they want. Most GMs don’t have a problem with a farmer following around his great knight and helping him clean his armor. However, if there are specific rules in your game for receiving minions or a power or two which give you them automatically, some concern is in order. How many minions can they have? How loyal are the minions? Who controls the minion’s actions? If they lose some minions, how easy is it to get them back? How powerful can the minions be? One of my players is fond of creating a Necromancer build in a game system I wrote so he can have infinitely regenerating and large numbers of mindless minions under his command. I’ve already limited this to quite an extent, but it remains a very powerful combination. Numbers can be a strength if used properly.
8. Control: most game systems will allow you to gain some control over an element or force. These can include: gravity, fire, cold, electricity, water, matter, teleportation, etc. This is all very cool, but it’s a good idea to check out exactly what can be done with such powers. Often, it’s quite easy to balance a fire control power, but in practical application it’s hard to say the bad guy isn’t taking any damage when his armor is super-heated to 10 million degrees and the whole city is on fire. When designing such abilities, pay attention to the literal effect as well as the game statistics. Good players and GMs will often improvise ‘practical’ rules. You might have written that telekinesis does 1d6 damage; but if the telekinetic can drop a 50 ton anvil on his enemy’s head, the GM will have a hard time arguing that it only does minor damage.
9. Invincibility: lastly, try to make sure no one can become completely invincible with the right combination of powers. Yes, I know it sounds like a no-brainer, but there’s often a set of stacking powers, modifiers, or special abilities which will allow someone to turn themselves into a titanium giant with huge rocket launchers. Don’t ask me why, it just happens. If you’ve carefully made sure no one can become completely invincible, you’re one step ahead of the game.
