Pathfinder 1E Help with a Power Gamer [Pathfinder]

[Squire James]

It is good that things in the actual game seems to have calmed down a bit. An experienced player in Pathfinder can create some monsters, and generally the more like a monster (as opposed to some kind of human) the character is the stronger they get!

Stacking armor and natural armor is a primary source of ridiculous AC values. Not letting them stack may be a little unfair, though, since small amounts of natural armor are rarely a problem. If that situation comes up in my games a lot, I would likely declare that only half the lesser value applies to AC (i.e. +6 armor and +6 natural armor = +9 to AC rather than +12).

 

[theredrobedwizard]

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.

That hasn't happened in any of my groups over the last 20 years, but your experience may vary.

 

[Elf Witch]

That hasn't happened in any of my groups over the last 20 years, but your experience may vary.

In my experience this causes a lot of resentful feelings. Not everyone wants to play a super optimized character and resent having to give up their concept just to match the powergamer.

Also some DMs can't handle a party maxed to the limit and the game becomes to much for the DM and boring for the players.


Here is how I handle powergamers. First if the other players are not having any issues with it and I have checked to see if it is a legit build I just go with it.

I don't care if I can't touch him if this is his idea of fun playing a super type character then why shouldn't I let him have his fun. My job as DM is to facilitate players having fun not to almost kill their PC.


If it becomes an issue with the other players feeling over shadowed then I sit down and talk to the powergamer and ask how they think we can fix this. I have found that doing it this way asking for his help makes him feel part of the solution not the problem.

9 out of 10 times the powergamer finds away to tweak his character so he is still having fun but not where he is stepping on the other players feet. In the rare occurrence where the player does not care that he is ruining everyone else fun then they have either made a new build or left the game.

 

[C4]

His response when I pointed out his AC was out of whack from the rest of the group was 'I had nothing else that I thought was worth spending my evolution points on.'

I don't know the PF ruleset, but when I hear something like this I think "One option is clearly better than the others, and needs to be nerfed."

I do know the 3.x ruleset though, and if PF is anything like it then giving players a stackable AC option like this is just asking for trouble.