What To Do With Silly, Power-Mongering Players

[Arthur Tealeaf]

Re: Re: Re: Re: What To Do With Silly, Power-Mongering Players

Xar, HOW did you miss all the discussion about a month ago about this very thing?

LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! ! ! !

Imperative reading!

Pleeeeease!

 

[Arthur Tealeaf]

Also, with all this stuff about realism at high levels, someone needs to start a good discussion about the Grim-N-Gritty system!

I just used 4 weeks discussing the Grim-N-Gritty with a player, and I've finally convinced him that it is great!

I agree that the cleric shouldn't be able to just ignore the peasants!

Even the lowliest peasant with a scythe shouldn't be able to be ignored completely by anyone of non-magical flesh and blood, and the regular type of soft skin (no Natural Armor!)

 

[reapersaurus]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What To Do With Silly, Power-Mongering Players

LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! LINK! ! ! !

Imperative reading!

Pleeeeease!

I'd love to, but it's on the old boards, so those are all lost for all time unless Morrus, et al can do something to fix the problems....
Actually, I have some of them saved on my HD, but I don't wanna have to upload em, and they're not complete.

 

[Hadraniel]

Well if I remember you said they have some planer enemies. Well the Manual of the Planes has these great ole' bounty hunters called inevitables. Have the PCs brought before someone they rubbed the wrong way and make it like a Dirty Dozen. They do the work they can go, or they die.

The idea of the monk could be good. When one of the players goes to get some children again have them run into the monk father who just moved into town. After he this he calls in his monk buddies to come help him out make those PCs run in terror.

dungeon crawls, places like undermountain can be humbling for anyone. One of these adventures could be fun for DM and player.

When the scenery is new PCs tend to be a little more careful. When the first time they try to scry and go blind, players tend to pause for a minute.

If you really wanted to be a mean DM send them to ravenloft, from the sounds of it they would be stuck in that place forever. But that is usually a last resort and if you just want to start the campaign over.

Also what works for the players works for you also. Scry on these guys and ambush have it when they are all apart and then ambush them all at the same using groups of two.

Remember you are the master of the world. If things are getting to out of hand then take the reigns.

 

[Pielorinho]

If the argument is that "I want to run a low-powered campaign without powerful characters in it, but that means I can't challenge my PCs because they're powerful characters," then your failure is in your original attempt: you're not running a low-powered campaign world if the PCs are high-powered.

That's almost tautological reasoning, and there are simple solutions. here's some of them:

1) Divide the experience received for encounters by 2, 4, or more.
2) Retire characters once they reach a certain level.
3) Retire spellcasters once they reach a certain level.

Complaining about how powerful characters get in D&D is a little like complaining about how burnt by sunlight characters get in Vampire. If it's a problem for the kind of campaign you want, change systems, or change the system.

The way I see it, the exponential power growth in D&D is a feature, not a bug.

Grim & Gritty might be good for you. But its appropriateness to your campaign doesn't bespeak a problem either with your PCs or with the standard system.

Daniel

 

[SonOfLilith]

One of our party members was like this. His quest for ultimate power reached its high when he became a vampire. However, this was how he met his downfall, because of a 2nd lvl character with a control undead ring, and a quick moving stream.

 

[Strider The Ranger]

What to do with Silly PowerMongering PCs

Alas, everyone always quotes how there is "always someone bigger and tougher than you" but I have a different viewing of this. I say "there are always surprises around every corner". Can't take care of this problem because there would be too many high-level NPC' and its not realistic? Well, there's two sides to that. one, this is D&D...a fantasy game...NOTHING is realistic LOL. Two, send hordes of little critters at 'em. I remember in 2nd E there was a quest made entirely of kobolds set for an 18th level party of 4-6 PCs. KOBOLDS!! Just recently, my PCs (6-8 of em when everyone shows, but mostly 7 of them) got into a fight with 8 CR 2 creatures.....two PCs died. Later, they were attacked by a ship crew of them (roughly 50). The trick is to use tactics....when the Paly stormed up the gangplank to the ship, 4-6 of them swarmed him and bull rushed him into the water....(Paly wearing full plate + water= no Paly for 30 rounds LOL) So what you gotta do is this: use clever combat tactics, use deception and hit-and-run. But the odds will be against the PCs. If you use the Instant Kill variant, ya there's a one in 40 chance it happens, but the baddies are firing on the PCs about 30 times more in a round...just some food for thought

 

[Orco42]

Re: What to do with Silly PowerMongering PCs

If you use the Instant Kill variant, ya there's a one in 40 chance it happens, but the baddies are firing on the PCs about 30 times more in a round...just some food for thought

That is a 1 in 400 chance. But you are right it is bad for the players to have this rule.

Which means you should use it!