Rant: Your best friend is a munchkin!

[Storm Raven]

Example:

Good: "I think shuriken do too much damage even at one base point. A ranger can be powergamed to do over 400 points of damage at 20th level against a favored enemy with them, granted those would be nice to-hit rolls. Also there is the issue of assasins and getting three kinds of poison at once. A solution would be to rule that shuriken do 0-1 point of damage with the weapon doing no "bonus" damage (due to magic or poison or whatever) if a 0 is rolled"

This brings up a couple of important points that are often overlooked when people complain about "power-gamers" and so on that they see on message boards.

(a) Much of the time, the rants about "X is overpowered" are based on a faulty understadning of the rules of the game. I think Biuggus Geekus probably knows the correct rules regarding shurikens, and is just using them as an example, but the point I am making is that his rule assessment here is based on the faulty premise that bonus damage is applied to each shuriken. It is not.

However, in many of the rants I have seen, an alleged "power-gamer" will start with some sort of faulty premise (like, "double weapons are overpowered because you can get +1.5xSTR to damage with each end of the weapon"), and then proceeds to show why this means that X or Y is broken. This individual is not a power-gamer, power-gamers get their facts straight before ranting.

(b) In most cases in which the alleged "power-gamer" has gotten his facts right, he has failed to put his example of a super-character into perspective. The arguments made usually amount to something along the lines of "If you take X levels in A class, Y levels in B class, Z levels in C class, these six feats and have an 18+ score in four different ability scores then you can do LOTS OF DAMAGE!!!!".

Sure you can. You also usually have something like a 15th+ level character with insanely high statistics. Wow, the "power-gamer" has shown that high level D&D characters are powerful. In virtually all cases, the example super-character is no more powerful than a similarly levelled single classed fighter, wizard, rogue or whatever. But since they don't bother to pay attention to context, the "power-gamer" thinks he has hit on something big. He hasn't. True "power-gamers" get their context right.

Why is this a big deal? Because dummies in places like the Wizards Boards see arguments like this, out of context, and based on incorrect rules and assume that either (a) they should be able to do these things in their game, and if they can't their DM is a big poo-poo head, (b) assume their players might try to do this sort of thing, and immediately ram through a restrictive and silly house rule to correct an "abuse" that never happens (the various house rules designed to avoid the nonexistent "bucket of snails" problem being a prime example), or (c) cocnlude 3e is a game for munchkin power-gamers and loudly and obnoxiously declare that they will stick with the lovingly balanced 2e rule set without ever giving 3e a try.

 

[Storm Raven]

I wandering around in the woods when I see a sleep walking man muttering "The devil hath given me unlimited power, the devil hath given me unlimited power..." Being a good Paladin, I detect evil, charge, and smite.
"Okay that will be 3d8+27 points of damage," I say.
The only sound was that of various jaws smacking into desks, and then the latin teacher says, "No, that's too much damage, I'll roll a d12"

This is the point at which I would tell the latin teacher, "Why didn't you tell me you were going to eliminate the benefits of being a paladin and taking the feats I took before the game? I set my character up so he would be good at this one thing, and then when I was able to pull it off, you jerk me around by nerfing my character mid stream. That, in my book, makes you a lousy DM, and a jerk to boot."

I have toned down some of the language I would have used to avoid offending Eric's grandmother. To clarify, I would have not called the latin teacher a jerk, I would have called him a name that uses a common male name in the English language (Jack) combined with an alternate word used to describe a donkey or the back end of said donkey.

I hate it when DMs nerf PCs on the fly because they weren't skilled enough to deal with a PC that has appropriate powers for his level.

 

[Ulrick]

"Munchkin...Powergamer...I'm the one with the gun."



Ulrick

 

[Ulrick]

"Munchkin...Powergamer...I'm the Dungeon Master."



I hope somebody got those references.

Ulrick

 

[SarahHeacock]

Henry@home: about Swashbucklers "Have you ever known a group of PC's this stuff NEVER happens to? How many PC groups are the only ones in earshot when the messenger with the knife stuck in his chest whispers his dying message? This was an exemplary Kit to show Roleplaying Checks and Balances that failed. Given that a party is going to get into oddball trouble anyway, most DM's are unlikely to throw EXTRA trouble their way, because the trouble they're throwing is trouble enough."

We had a swashbuckler in our 2nd edition game. I was jealous of this aspect of the character. I had taken unlucky for my character in some hope of getting weird things to happen to her, but the swashbuckler became the "weirdness" magnet because he had this kit. And my own character's unluckiness was entirely ignored. The few "interesting" things that happened in that game had to happen to the swashbuckler.

 

[der_kluge]

I don't think I'm a powergamer. I'm probably more of a min/maxer than a powergamer.

And yes, I think there is a difference. A powergamer will choose their class based on the power or power potential over any other reason. A min/maxer will choose something that they want to play for role-playing purposes and then pick skills and feats that maximize that character. For instance, I made a gnome cleric - not something that most powergamers would do, but I took a level of wizard so I could give him a toad familiar (a definite min/maxer thing) and eventually got him up to 3rd so I could cast mirror image and blur on my cleric before charging into battle.

My DM is probably more of a powergamer than I am. He knows the rules inside and out, and in conversations is always suggesting PrCs or feats, etc, that would maximize my potential. I usually dismiss them sighting the fact that my character wouldn't do such-and-such.