How important is it to you or your players for characters to feel "overpowered"?

[mamba]

To me it is relatively important, but in the opposite direction. I am not interested in the characters feeling overpowered, I avoid it.

 

[R_J_K75]

My players can feel however they want, doesnt affect how I run or prep games, unless they start pouting, then it's save vs. death. They can feel overpowered, invincible, or on the opposite end sheepish and unsure, constantly weighing the odds against them. Only thing that really matters at the end of an adventure/campaign is if their characters succeeded or failed. Let the dice fall where they may.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

Yes, I don't think there's any dispute that a doctor should feel competent in their medical profession. But as regards combat specifically (I guess it doesn't matter in non-martial rpgs), how powerful should characters feel in relation to enemies?

Depends on the wargame's tone I guess. D&D and Pathfinder are wargames, and they have a mechanic to chase bigger numbers - and only combat numbers. So... they need a carrot on a stick. For the most part, its like Skyrim, the game levels up with you so you can always need to feel more powerful. There isn't a tradition, or common use, of often and always getting to level 10 in D&D only to go back and do lvl 1 modules = You do lvl 10 modules now = You chase the carrot.

So in the case of wargames = its important to never feel powerful enough.

 

[Gorg]

I think characters should be relatively balanced with the monsters in a game. I do like a good edge of your seat fight, where it can swing either way.

It's not about being OP- at ALL. it's about not being so fragile, I'm afraid of my own shadow- or useless.

 

[TiQuinn]

So I’m going to substitute “heroic” for overpowered here. Overpowered is always bad. Overpowered automatically means there’s an imbalance that is not intended.

I want characters that are the right level of power expected for the game I’m playing. If I’m playing a superhero game, I want the PC to be suitably heroic - because it’s literally in the name. If I’m playing original Call of Cthulhu, I want the character to be unheroic; I’m expecting the character to die, go insane, escape with their lives, or scratch out a victory by the skin of their teeth.

 

[Wolfpack48]

I think characters should be relatively balanced with the monsters in a game. I do like a good edge of your seat fight, where it can swing either way.

It's not about being OP- at ALL. it's about not being so fragile, I'm afraid of my own shadow- or useless.

I think where 'fragile' and 'useless' fall is the rub. How many hits should you be able to take to not feel fragile? I'd feel pretty fragile if I took one hit from a giant's maul.

 

[loverdrive]

I think where 'fragile' and 'useless' fall is the rub. How many hits should you be able to take to not feel fragile? I'd feel pretty fragile if I took one hit from a giant's maul.

That highly depends on how you can defend yourself within the system.

In a game, where there is no way to avoid damage through smart play (well, I guess other than not going anywhere dangerous in the first place, but that's not really an option, is it?), and HP is a resource, I'd expect a character who would fight giants to survive several hits.

For contrast, in the game I ran for my birthday last month there was this monster:

5 damage in that game is always an instant kill.

He never landed a single hit, because players, unsurprisingly, didn't want to instantly die and maneuvered around the map in a way to be protected from his attacks (which, in turn, often made them vulnerable to other enemies.

 

[dbm]

I voted ’somewhat important’. It’s a nuanced thing. My players want their character to shine at the appropriate time (like the ranger tracking as an example) but they don’t want to cake-walk things.

Also, being able to shine doesn’t mean that they are impervious to damage or threat. That is a completely different metric in my / our mind. So you can have great challenges where the characters are up against it and need to pull out all the stops to succeed, but they have the tools to do that.

This even applies to games like CoC in my mind. Playing an academic I should know obscure knowledge which helps peel back the layers of whatever cult we are investigating. But I would still expect for it to go badly if jumped by cultists or in an encounter with things from beyond our reality.

To negatively illustrate, if your character can’t reliable pull of their signature skill then it feels really annoying unless it’s a comedy thing. E.g. the incompetent wizard as a choice rather than forced into it by the system.

 

[Distracted DM]

This is a real finesse thing. As others have said, feeling weak/barely scraping by all the time can be as boring as stomping everything you come across.

I will say that some of my players strive to be as optimized as possible, while others make characters that are very middle of the road- the optimized characters end up feeling like it's their job to protect the "normies."

I heard this from Matt Colville years ago and I still agree with it, that overall players want their characters to be John McClain- they want to struggle, be bloody and bruised, but succeed despite the odds. Buuut it's important IMO for them to feel powerful here and there, to see how far they've come. Let their fireballs toast some hordes, let the fighter defeat some pompous blowhard knight.

I personally have the issue with 5e though where high level characters, t3+, can wreck near anything... And some of my players that got to t4 didn't want to do it again because "it feels silly" powerful. But others are not at all against reaching those heights....

Meanwhile I'm over here with my E9 rules that I have yet to actually implement in a game... I like the idea of the PCs having to pull in allies etc to take on big threats rather than becoming demigods that can 1v1 a balor without a scratch... But then that means, practically speaking during a combat, that they get less playtime unless I give them control of the allies.

Anyway, tangent. I don't like super powerful characters.
I discovered that I like Sword and Sorcery rather over High Fantasy... It's more personal.

 

[Wolfpack48]

That highly depends on how you can defend yourself within the system.

In a game, where there is no way to avoid damage through smart play (well, I guess other than not going anywhere dangerous in the first place, but that's not really an option, is it?), and HP is a resource, I'd expect a character who would fight giants to survive several hits.

For contrast, in the game I ran for my birthday last month there was this monster:
View attachment 394333

5 damage in that game is always an instant kill.

He never landed a single hit, because players, unsurprisingly, didn't want to instantly die and maneuvered around the map in a way to be protected from his attacks (which, in turn, often made them vulnerable to other enemies.

See, the bolded is where I think games could do a better job. Smart play is the best offence and defense. If players felt their strategic choices and planning provided a tangible advantage in the system (of course adjudicated fairly), that's where the feeling of power lies. Knowing you are David vs Goliath, and coming out on top through smart plays feels much more epic than "my feats and HP beat your stats."

I love your example of not getting hit in the first place to avoid massive damage over taking multiple giant hits "because my stats are so tough."