Intentionally underpowered psion - now what?

[Saeviomagy]

If the powers are simply those not really useful in a fight, then no problem. The guy can contribute (probably very well) outside of combat. Hell - there may even be combat applications for supposedly non-combat abilities.

If, on the other hand, he's got powers that are simply not useful at all, and he consciously chose it that way, then you might have a problem. Either the player is trying to prove something (for instance - my DM told me "a loremaster isn't really any good for adventuring", which sort of goaded me to play a loremaster who has been roundly appreciated). In which case, his experiment will either succeed or fail, but at least he'll try. If it fails, he'll either change his powers or change the character altogether.

Finally there is the possibility that any GM should dread. It's the max-minner. The player has, for some strange reason only he can understand, decided to play a character that is and will continue to be useless. Not only are his skill, feat, ability and class choices useless, but he will NOT attempt to make up for the shortfall in anyway. If he's a pacifist, he'll avoid even negotiating to avert combat. If he's got spell choices that seem useless in combat, he won't even TRY to use them - he'll probably sit in the corner and complain that he can't do anything. This in itself may cause the other players to resent him. If he whines about how useless he is, then YOU will resent him. He will probably also get in a huff if anyone tells him his character is useless, and proclaim himself a true roleplayer, and the rest of you hacks. Such players will probably also try to monopolise the GM's time by going off without the rest of the group for very long solo roleplaying encounters that have little to do with the task at hand.

No, really. I had one once. Not only would he do the above, but if you somehow DID make his character useful, key or necessary, he would immediately quit the game or change characters. After a short while of getting bored through (voluntarily) doing nothing, he would usually backstab the party. Or play with dynamite. One of the two.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

If the campaign is combat intensive, the character will either learn to pull his weight (develop more combat capability), the character will die (lack of combat capability) or the player will grow tired of his character concept since it is so at odds to the way the campaign is running and his character will feel like a fish out of water.

If there's any better way to answer this thread's question, I have no idea what it might be. Nicely done!


Don't bother making adjustments for this PC, other than being aware that he's probably going to try to avoid combat-based solutions to problems (in other words, you'd better be ready to handle non-combat solutions to problems!). I figure if you know what his powers are and how he's likely to try to leverage them in the game, you'll be fine; whether the character works in the game or is a huge flop isn't something you need to worry about or make any special preparations for, though, because it'll take care of itself.

And if the character does turn out to be a huge flop and the player wants to abandon it for something more appropriate to the game as it's actually being played, obviously you should let him do that without making a big deal out of it. There's no reason to punish someone for trying something new, right?

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besides, a noncombat approach in a noir-ish setting is much cooler than just fighting the bad guys
ryan