Pathfinder 1E Help with a Power Gamer [Pathfinder]

[SmuggleNutz]

There are lots of little ins and outs... Some people have turned character optimization into a fine art. Sounds like your guy may be legit, though.

I am not too sure on the DR, that might need some checking.

The group I am DM-ing for right now has a couple of Half-dragons. Boy, are they a handful.

 

[Aran Thule]

There are a few things that others have mentioned.
What is the character doing most of the time in combat, being unable to use somantic spells must hamper their act.
The maths for his AC look right but if a monster has any intelligence they will either switch target once they find they cant hit them or go for another type of attack.
Also curious about the character's real Con stat, if they dumped it then if and when the eidilon goes poof they will probably get knocked out or die from the Con loss.

 

[pming]

Hiya.

I think you're heading in the wrong direction to try and curtail that kind of min/max behaviour. The bottom line of it is that he's doing this to get attention and have others oooh and aaaaahh at how "kewl" he is. He may not even be aware of it himself...but you did mention he is a GM, so maybe he's used to being "the focus of attention". Anyway, to quote "Joshua" (the computer from War Games): The only winning move is, not to play."

I had to do this two sessions in a row waaaaaay back in the late 80's when I was DM'ing. One player was horrible for 'min/maxing' his guys to the point of minor cheating (call it..."selective rules remembering"). Anyway, the way I got him out of that habit was to simply not play that game. When monsters attacked him, I'd pick up some dice, roll them and then say "He misses", and move on to the next guy...sometimes not really even looking at the dice. When he attacked an orc, before he rolled the die I'd blurt out "You kill him" and immediately move on to the next guy. Eventually he got annoyed and said "You're not even rolling!". I followed that up with a handfull of d20 rolls and said "OK, there. I rolled for the next 7 attacks against you. I'll tell you if you get hit". Needless to say, each of the next 7 attacks were even quicker with a simple "They attack you and miss...Next!". He was doubley perturbed about me not letting him roll his stupendous damage to hit the orc, for example. When his minimum damage is enought to kill the beasty 4 times over, it's pointless.

What was the result? He got bored very quickly...and not a triffle bit miffed. After the second game I confronted him about me "sensing he wasn't having much fun". I basically pointed out the absurdity of his character, and showed him all the bad guys they fought so he could see just how nigh-pointless it was for us to waste our time watching him roll and kill things. There was zero 'excitment' for us watching the inevitable, so I decided to just forego all that bordom and move on to people who *could* miss or not kill in a single hit. He took it to heart and realized that it was kinda silly.

He made a new guy and since that day has had more or less 'normal' characters who may excell at one particular thing...but are no where *near* the min/max'ed monsters he used to make. He enjoys the story and background of his characters more than anything now.

So...after that long-winded brain purge...I suggest doing something similar. Don't 'bother' rolling or just roll mass dice. Don't let him roll damage, just say "You kill it". Make blanket assumptions about skill checks for him..."Everyone make a Climb check at DC 15...except you. Don't bother, you make it"...when he complains, shoot him a sarcastic/annoyed look and say..."Oooo...ok...fine. Roll..." And when he rolls 12 and adds his +18, say (with sarcastic emphasis) "Didja' make it? ... ...".

In my experience, the only thing that catoring encounters to challenge this kind of player/character is going to lead everyone else in the group to try and min/max themselves in order to feel special and cool too. By hand-waving and otherwise 'assumingly gloss-over' the uber-PC, everyone in the group (sans the affected player) is going to see their characters as interesting and cool and the 'uber-PC' as lame.

If that doesn't work...just outright cheat and have something FAR superior to him kick his ass EVERY SINGLE ENCOUNTER. Either he'll quit in disgust, or start to make 'normal' characters simply because taking 4 days to make a new uber-PC isn't worth it anymore if he dies in the first 3 minutes of play.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[GM Dave]

Yeah, I think it is going to have to come down to what's best for the group and the game.

I appreciate the feed back that I have received as it has helped me think of how I want to go ahead with this situation.

He's a core player for the group (we use his house as he has three kids with a fourth on the way making it easier for the rest of us to travel to his place) along with his wife.

I haven't had any complaints from the others and the game goes into combat mode where he shines well around 50% of the time. If I did not home brew encounters and was using a published adventure then it would be more of an issue, I think. I just have to keep in mind his character's capabilities.

I think it rattled me a bit when I didn't realize he was already walking around with an AC that was not hittable for much of what I had planned and prepared. I knew his AC had been high but just was not ready for it to have reached that level yet.

I'm glad that I've kept the magic and the bonus to hit and bonus to defense items mostly out of the game or it would really be getting into the more super hero game.

I'll likely use a mixture of the excellent ideas here. There may be some fights where I don't bother much with the rolling to hit and there may be fights where I have something that is designed to work against the weak spots of the character. There will likely be times that I'll just let him feel uber because that is part of play too.

I think that last part is important too. He evidently put some vested effort in assembling this concept and abilities; so, it must feed some part of his ego. There are plenty of non-combat situations the group gets into that he has to rely on talents of the others of the group.

If I keep that balance then I can allow him some moments of walking through trouble while others will still have their opportunities to star.

 

[kitsune9]

To the OP, I would do nothing. The reason why is that I too created a character that had a super high AC using just stuff from the 3.5 Core Rulebook when I played RPGA.

My fighter at 5th level had full plate, tower shield, Combat Expertise, Dodge, and Mobility. All-in-all, I got my AC up to the low 30's and it made me very effective to run around the field, have monsters waste their AoO's on me, but it made me a one-trick pony. I couldn't really hit and when I did, I did minimal damage. However, my other trick was being able to trip, but only if we fought medium size or smaller creatures. It really wasn't worth it to go against large or four-legged creatures. My guy could only be hit on a 20 and killed on a double 20. It happened. I could also be easily charmed or other types of Will saves.

Given that your guy is a summoner and not a front-line fighter, I wouldn't worry about him. Besides, it's actually a good insurance policy if you want the players to fight, get into tough situations, and the summoner is the only one left who can run away and get his friends out of a jam later (or raise their dead butts).

 

[Lady Chaomii]

In out group we -kinda- have a powergamer, though he's not ridiculously so.

When we're waiting on other players to arrive, or during the weekdays, since we do this online, we discuss methods of making everyone's characters better. Rather than just hoarding his character building skill for himself. It's good because it lets us make the kind of characters we want to play and do it effectively.

---

Although in the aspect of an ac of 27 for a level 4 character, that sounds fishy as hell, especially if he hasn't been pulling alternative options from left right and center.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

Sounds to me like the rest of the group needs to step up their skills.

 

[hopeless]

Oh boy!

Best I ever got was a halfling sorceress with Dex 16 and access to Eschew Material, Extend Spell, Mage Armour and Shield managing to get an AC of 25 and 27 when fighting defensively and that was under 3.0 rules which under 3.5 would drop to 22 and 24 respectively due to changes in the Shield spell and the last time I played that character before moving house and too far away to continue gaming with that group she was a 5th level sorceror and 1st level rogue and looking at the arcane trickster prestige class.

My first reaction to this was wondering if this was before including spells they can cast fortunately that doesn't seem the case, by the way what would happen if a dispel magic was cast on the area he's in since I figure that fusion is magic in nature would it be effected to dispel effects?

Otherwise area effect spells might work would be interesting to see what would happen if he faced a group of foes who prepare for their fights as intelligently as he planned his character... bless to improve their hit chance, true strike on a spell or ranged weapon attack, they set off a trap that blocks off areas so they have to enter a maze like arena and their foes have the means to scramble atop the new pillars and strike at them from above and thats if they don't resort to pulling illusions so the heroes have no idea where their foe actually is...

If there's little or no magical items how does he get his new spells?
Does he get to choose what he wants or do you restrict what spells are available?

 

[Posr]

Until the other night I had the same problem only with a Synthesist at level 13. AC in the mid 30s, crazy attacks that did tons of damage, virtually untouchable. As many have said, initially part of his overpoweredness was due to a miscalculation of evolution points - he took the poorly worded half elf feat that gives +1/4 EVO points per level and had his ac at around 40 with regeneration and all kinds of crazy stuff. I pointed out that error and waited to see how it played out once he fixed his character. Once that was taken care of his AC _dropped_ into the 30s... All of this still causing the problems people have described - the imbalance of ACs makes encounter balance a mess and less fun for all.

Ultimately, the party was ambushed and he was taken on by a Shemhazian Demon. It dropped him in 2 rounds, the cleric barely saved him with breath of life and another villain coup de graced him. RIP little synthesist, RIP. The published encounter had the demon written into it so I dont feel too guilty, I just had him focus on the greatest threat - the synthesist.

Normally I try to get the balance of danger to fun right with few player deaths but with enough danger to keep them on their toes. The synthesist made it difficult to maintain that balance.

Said character came into the campaign at level 12 so I dont know how it would have played out in the earlier levels. It seems clear to me that the synthesist is broken and will simply not allow them back into any game I run unless they get fixed in future errata.

I'd like to see examples of synthesists that aren't overpowered relative to their peers.

 

[Lady Chaomii]

Sounds to me like the rest of the group needs to step up their skills.

That, my friend, is a one way ticket to everyone stopping playing and enjoying the game and spending all their time and effort trying to make their characters as good as possible mechanically.