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Powergaming IS Role-Playing. If you lived in a world with all those monsters and warring races, especially as a lowly Human without Darkvision, you can bet your ass you're gonna be Powergaming the shit out of your options to survive.
Speaking of powergaming has anyone ever thought of using Heat Metal as a damage buff spell? Cast it on the weapon of someone in the party who is immune to fire damage and they don't take any damage while holding it, nor do they have to make a Con save or drop the object, but you use your bonus action every turn for the duration to make the heat flare up so that when they attack it deals an extra 2d8 fire damage. Is this even possible? Or is this one of those "well the rules specify (any creature in physical contact with the object when you cast the spell) so..." moments? "Any creature in physical contact" could include a creature being attacked by the heated object with the only real restriction I can think of is that you use your bonus action and the spell deals instance damage that stops immediately after that moment and therefore can't be carried over for the remainder of the turn. BUT, if you want to argue that then the intended hostile target creature shouldn't ever be pressured into dropping the item because it just takes the damage for one instant that then goes away. The wording of the spell really makes it seem as though the intended hostile target is being affected by the damage of the spell in that instant but for the remainder of the turn the effect lingers causing them to need to drop the object or pass the save. If the effect then DOES linger, then couldn't this be used offensively as a buff spell as stated above? After all, the spell does not state that this damage goes away at any moment but rather that it can only be triggered once per turn. The spell also states that normally if the item isn't dropped the creature suffers disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks until the start of your next turn. So, I use my bonus action to cause the damage to flare up which SHOULD last until the start of my next turn otherwise the secondary effects wouldn't exist in the first place. If my target is an ally who is immune to fire damage they suffer nothing as any enemy also immune to fire damage would suffer nothing from the spell. I bonus action cause their weapon to flare up and on their turn they attack and deal an extra 2d8 fire damage per attack (if it truly persists until the START of my next turn). I have found a more powerful Searing Smite if there's no solid reason this shouldn't be possible and the literal only thing I can think of right now as an argument against this is game balance.
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Why doesnt anyone make situations in wich some mobs or people end up disliking the powergamer and focus on him and team up or become a third party during fights. Think kobolds that are super smart, and specifically hate the guy who acted arrogantly and helped knoms super well becuas eit was a super way to win the encounters and get all the wxtra support and extra power and counter the counters to his extra abilitites.
I took a slightly less high road but one that was kinda hilarious and it's surprisingly effective: Bait the power gamer with a lover interest and they'll just never see obvious set ups and traps coming. I got one guy that even when told not to walk into a trap intentionally ditched the party to go see the love interest NPC and predictably died to a well set up ambush.
Jokes on you. My character is specifically designed to ruin any and all campaigns. How you may ask? Small Harengon Warlock/Bard Multiclass, with Expertise in Intimidation, and the Cloak of Flies Invocation, reflavored into lovely hearts. Through the power of Furry Cringe, the cutest voice I can muster, and saying "uwu, bolgy-wolgy inspecktah," I roll to Intimidate *_THE DM._* Likely not the best in combat, but I don't have to worry about AC, since... well... nobody wants to be anywhere _near_ that level of cringe.
I have a soft disagree on that. I think the term 'powergamer' is used to describe a certain type of problem player. As in a 'powergamer' is the problematic extreme of a 'minmaxer'. I think every group has their own standards when a minmaxer becomes a powergamer, but a powergamer is per definitiona problem player. But that's just semantics ...
@@Curathol I think "Powergamer" is more of a red flag that a player may be a problem than a problem itself. Also, I wouldn't put minmaxers and powergamers under the same umbrella. Minmaxers understand than they have to sacrifice one area to be good in another, where powergamers are looking to be overwhelmingly great at everything. They are definitely related, but not quite the same thing.
@@Curathol I get that. But I also don't agree, simply because the term "powergamer" and "minmaxer" aren't just used interchangeably, "minmaxer" is just as often used to the describe that kind of problem player with "powergamer" being the more general version. It's all just semantics as you say, and it doesn't actually matter what you call it. Because at the end of the day, the issue isn't that they're a problematic extreme of a powergamer/minmaxer/munchkin/optimizer. They issue is that they're a problem player period. The extremes don't come from the powergaming in and itself, they derive from a player's inability to be empathetic to the other players and the DM, and their often selfish desires to be the best or treat something like a videogame.
Yeah. You can have power gaming, minimaxing, rules lawyering pedants. But, if they're not suffering from main character syndrome, and know how to work together, you're fine.
If players would all neatly fit into boxes and we'd arrange them in a venndiagram, then the overlap between problem player and powergamer would be quite a bit higher than for other boxes imo
As a power gamer myself and a DM, I think the 6th strategy (talking to them respectfully with an understanding that you both want to play the game) is definitely the way to go, especially when combined with giving opportunities for every character to have the spotlight
As a player, I have a conversation with my DM and say: "Hey, I made a character that can do ____, but I also built in a flaw of ____". As a DM, if there's a power gamer in the group, I encourage them to be a sort of leader for the group, as power gamers tend to be more experienced players, and help out other players where need be. Then I balance out and fill in gaps to make sure that everyone is having an equal amount of fun, best I can.
@@awetastic4280 me, as a player that likes to be powerful (minmaxer i guess?), i tend to have this rule: always ask the dm if it's fine when you think something's overtuned. For example, i was playing Pathfinder 1e, and charges there can be pretty strong. I made a build that, at lvl 3 (lvl at which we start), managed to have 45 dmg with a +10 to hit. That was too much, so, as to not disrupt the game, i talked to him about when should i take the broken feats, and we arrived at something that let me play my mounted knight who still hit hard with the charges, while, you know, not either one-shotting everything or forcing everyone else to minmax the hell out of their characters to be on par with me. Its something i always felt is easy, like, yes, i like being powerful and or useful, but i also like seeing my friends do their stuff and be useful as well, you know?
As a fellow DM and power gamer, I enjoy powerful player characters and encourage them. Just not the builds or exploits that spoil everyones fun! But power? Power is fun! Power means I get to throw very deadly encounters at low level parties. I'm contemplating throwing a young white dragon at a party of 5 level 2 players next session. Unless they roll like garbage, I really don't see the dragon living through 3 rounds of combat. But the breath attack is a bit much, if I'm not careful. I want them terrified and amused, not 1-shot and dead, so I might try giving them access to a few more cold resistance potions. That way the all get out of the 1-shot range. 🤔 But it depends how the rest of the session goes, if they're having a rough night I'm holding back until they're level 3. (They've had a Heroes Feast as a reward from the end of last session, so right now they've all got 13 extra hit points and have temporary hit points available from the druid, so with cold resistance on top of that it puts them all well out of 1-shot range from the average breath attack). I want to make them excited, not 1-shot them! 😁
@probablythedm1669 I do the same thing, except that I adjust the stat block if some ability can be too problematic for my players to handle. My only kirk is that I always roll the HP of the enemies. And if some player isn't maximizing their character, I make a magic item specifically to them to keep the balance of the party. And when they are creating their PC or picking a talent (I let them pick a talent without choosing between it or ASI), I always ask: "What you wanna do?" and I give a few pointers to help. When I'm playing, I let the power gaming half done, and I ask when I can go in overdrive for the campaign finale.
@@sergiogimenez3923I remember when I played Curse of Strahd and a similar situation happened because of me. I had a broken paladin build that at level 5 (the level we started at) could open combats by outright/almost oneshotting powerful enemies with a charge while still having 20 AC and being the party face. I worked with the DM to comeup with a campaign objective that would work around my characters strengths but would still challenge my character in a way that was true both to the campaign and my character. My party mates (they were all much newer players than me, to which the reason I was there was essentially to sure up the noob party because Curse of Strahd is known for being brutal) responded by asking me to guide them on how to build strong characters that were still true to their backstories and personality like mine.
Party composition can create the illusion of people being power gamers. In my current campaign, I'm a Level 3 Totem Barbarian. It's a great subclass but obviously not busted on its own however in a party with two sorcerers and a rogue we're currently at a point where most enemies are able to one shot them without proving a problem for me and most fights end up with me running after knocked out party members with healing potions. I've played enough D&D to know the sorcerers are going to come online more as the campaign progresses but right now everyone does think I'm pretty OP for just basically being a standard Barbarian
Done that. But the other way round. My wizard character spent the entire first 8 levels of the game getting picked up and carried through every encounter. Only useful for his utility out of combat. But once we got to 9th level and the higher level spell came online.. well the power dynamic changed in the party. Barbarian now takes a back seat an protects the wizard while he controls the crap out of the battlefield. Allowing the Paladin to Smite with advantaged attacks. And then just enabling fast travel to pre set Teleportation Circle. Prep work during the early levels laid the foundation for the later levels. When the wizard feels safe I Haste the Barbarian and Paladin and let them go wild.. everyone has fun..
A lot of people who complain about power gamers don't understand that different classes have power curves which make them above or below average depending on the level of the party. Circle of the Moon druids are combat monsters at low levels but transition to utility/support characters in mid to late game. Wizards are squishy, semi-useless utility characters at low levels but become game-changing powerhouses around level 9. Building a party with some characters that peak at lower levels and others that peak mid to late game can really help keep your party on top of the challenges regardless of the game stage. And then there's classes that are just plain broken after level 3 and every party should have them, like Twilight Clerics and Bear Totem Barbarians.
They sound like noobs if they say you are OP, lmao. A barbarian basically has no hard CC, and a DM can just ignore them if they want to with only 1 reaction a turn. Barbarians are honestly pretty weak for action economy, and only strong if the DM focuses monsters on them, and I say this as a barbarian main who loves barbs.
@@churchA.I Elementals are pretty meh in combat (low AC unless it's earth, low damage compared to fighter/barb) unless the fight specifically caters to their element/special abilities. Giant constrictor snakes and their grapple are where it's at.
I have played D&D since the 1st edition. The game has evolved a lot, for better and worse. With 5th edition, a good chunk of the fun is working through all the wild character creation options and trying to make it work narratively. At the end of the day, it’s a game and should be fun for all involved, however that works for each group. I really appreciate your videos man, rock on.
When I first played 3.5e, my friend found a group for us to join, made of acquaintances of ours, and asked if we could join for a one-shot sometime, noting it would be my first time playing D&D, but that I'd played a Star Wars table-top before, so I had the basics of how table-top worked down, and wouldn't need too much help to understand mechanics/character building. For our session zero, he talked to me about his idea of character creation, and said I would make it with him, out of standard order, so I could "build my character as though they were born into the world, and grew up there". We started off with him explaining the setting, and where we would start, and that this was a heavy mix of RP elements and combat encounters. I start off rolling my stats, and he asks me questions like, "melee? ranged? magic?" and as I answer different questions he explains stats that would correspond to my character's intended play-style, and we wind up building a min-maxxed bard for combat - focusing on "area control". I had no idea the concept of min-maxxing at the time, and my friend later, after the session, was praising the character creation we went through, and told me about min-maxxing, and that it was cool our DM not only allowed it, but made suggestions for me that were in fact, min-maxxxy. From this experience I learned : power-gaming/min-maxxing isn't about breaking the DM's game, it's about understanding the world you are playing in, and creating a character that grew up understanding the limitations of said world, and training/learning to "fill the role they want to play".
For anyone interested, his method went like this : example of the "out-of order character creation" (assuming the setting has already been discussed) 1) discuss/decide on vague role to fill for the party, be it combat related, or skill-monkey related, and ways to do so 2) roll/apply stats that benefit said role 3) pick a race 4) pick a background 5) pick class/classes, if starting above level 1, and you are multi-classing 6) if applicable, pick spells / warn player of "weaker spells", be it the damage they deal, or warn that the enemies of said campaign have may resistance/immunity to certain things 7) gold/gear from my understanding character creation has always been 1) roll stats/pick race 2) class / spells 3) background 4) gold/gear his method of character creation really helped put me "in character" from the get-go.
@@SunWukongSonGoku I really love having characters that feel either very organic to the setting and campaign, or alien in deliberate and compelling ways. I think the above method is a great intro to D&D and that sounds like a great DM.
A key thing is that min-maxing isn't necessarily powergaming. Optimising a character to be good at their specialistion is fine, the problem is if the play wants to outshine everyone else. And absolutely we should be rewarding EXP for overcoming encounters! If your character can get the party past a dangerous encounter, you stil overcame it. PS. What you got against Wales man? It's lovely!
Im also a big min-maxer but what a lot of people forget is that to MAX you have to MIN. Sure my character thrives in combat but I don’t need to be rolling and insight checks. I have a character that is the exact opposite as well. They can convince you that you are actually a clone and that he is the true version of yourself but he is only going to be buffing and debuffing people.
if you people weren't overly concerned about being equal to others it wouldn't be a problem, in the old days everyone put effort in their characters then you causes came in and got angry you don't get the same powers others got for putting effort into the game but for free, you people ruined the hobby
As a DM who *really* doesn't like powergaming, this is a key distinction to make. I expect a certain level of minmaxing from my players (basic stuff like putting stats where they belong for your class, or maybe choosing to use a raiper instead of a scimitar or something). My issues always come when I'm trying to run a narrative-focused game and then powergamers seem to be able to overcome every encounter (combat, social, and otherwise) with ease while the other players who built less optimized characters have to sit in the background. There's nothing wrong with powergaming in theory, I just notice that a lot of powergamers refuse to accept that their playstyle doesn't work for *every single dm ever*
I see a lot of DMs who make every combat encounter an epic fight. On the surface this seems like a good idea, but throwing in some easy encounters to mix things up can be an excellent way to add variety to the game and deal with a power gamer. This works best with enemies where judging the difficulty of the encounter isn’t readily apparent, like bandits. Players have to decide if the combat is dangerous enough to use their resources. The power gamer will probably enjoy demolishing the weaker enemies as well.
One of the evil groups in my game has low-level thugs that are constantly on drugs. I used them when the party was level 3 and haven't improved them at all. Mix them with actually threatening boss enemies and have the thugs do non-combat things, and you get a combat where the challenge is uncertain and not just about dealing tons of damage. Especially since addicts are prone to strange decisions.
The video aims to explain that power gamers are fun and easy to DM for! Although I can't take credit for making powergamers haha, this channel isn't an optimisation channel, it's an interesting builds + memes channel! Treantmonk and D4: Deep Dive are much better Powergaming channels if that's what you want to find!
The Spotlight Method is exactly how all of the best game masters I've ever had worked. This created synergy and fun games for all player types and character types alike.
One of my best friends is a power gamer (even when he tries to not be), and I love playing with him. He tends to make really fun, memorable characters that are a joy to play off of. And our DM mixes up the sorts of challenges we face so everyone still feels useful
As a power gamer myself i have noticed how my dm kinda straggeled with my character being really dominent in combet so i have started making combat moves to help the party members insted of being the direct damage dealer like: buffing allies insted of damaging so that i might not kill the enemy with that fireball but he will die to the ranger attacking more using haste or i'll turn our paladin invisable when she gets targeted by that cult so she could get a better attack angle my dm was really enjoing that and i found it really fun too cuz while i didn't deal the most damage i still made a really big impact on combat
I do something similar in one of my games. I play a homebrew race: undead revanent with DM approved chnages, GooLock/aberrant mind sorc (coffeelock style). I can easily trivialize most encounters, partly because our DM isn't great at building them to our party level, but mostly because I can cast most any spell I want for minutes straight. I mostly play in a psychic theme, primarily controlling other people's turns in some form or another or dealing some form of psychic damage, but 3 minutes of 5th level fire ball would do the same thing. I never get the last hit, or even the first for that matter, but I tend to be the reason why our party members do get to hit more often.
Another thing you could do is change the conditions for success with your encounters. Sure they can kill a bunch of your monsters, but can they also keep their favorite NPC alive? Can they also steal back a magic crystal from the monsters before they escape? Can they kill the monsters before time runs out and the castle collapses on top of them?
I once played a character named Big Mrow Mrow who became so strong so fast I worked with the GM to send him away on a solo quest and played as his brother Little Mrow Mrow for awhile. Once the other players got stronger I brought the big guy back and by the end we were all equally stupidly strong. It was a blast.
For dealing with many different problem players: I highly recommend the Pathfinder 1e Game Mastery Guide (p. 70-80 or so). Paizo detailed a number of problem player archetypes and how to address their behavior to benefit the whole table. It really is masterful advice! Remember, just because a TTRPG has been updated to a new edition or is superseded by newer games, doesn't mean that they haven't included troves of advice and content for you to use to improve your GMing or your role play.
Back in my 3.5/pf days i always played the Thanos style character before MCU Thanos was a thing. What i mean by that is, "Fine, I'll do it myself." Much of the time i way underplayed my characters power, then when crap got tough, i went full power. It was often fun seeing the other players suddenly go, "WTF since when could you do that?!" Often with the response, "Always, just didn't see a reason to." I made op combat characters because i wanted to get back to the rp lol.
The first campaign that me and the rest of my party completed had me be that role. I started with a power build Rogue Tabaxi and as things kept progressing, it became quite clear that A. The DM has to Legitimately Contrive circumstances for me to be found when I am stealthing(save for nat 20s, those just made for funny events); B. I had EVERY opportunity to fall into the Main Character Role, and aptly refused, letting the eldritch knight on our team have it instead. I just kept combat flowing simple by way of being too strong or having superior tactical control, and allowing the rest of the party to RP their hearts out.
Literally the best way to powergame, let everyone have fun and contribute. My Kobold Druid could singlehandedly destroy armies, but where's the fun in that?
@@colorpg152 I mean I disagree with that sentiment. 5e isn't my cup of tea but there are plenty of other fun systems like pf2e. My favorite is dungeon world and that's the simplest system ever.
@@scottsmith9936 in the past rpg used to mean something else, it started as wargaming and transformed into its own thing, what you people want is a impostor, a board game pretending to be a trpg wtih acting pretending to be role playing, you people replaced emergent sandboxes with narrative railroading and replaced theory crafting and building with mmorpg macros, 5e shouldn't even have the right to call itself a trpg
My one rule is that if you come at me with some optimized power gaming class combo, you need to have a story that fits it. If you can't do that, you can't do the combo.
If you can’t give me a reason why your sorcerer is also a Paladin narratively than I can’t allow your character to multiclass. I agree with this take; some multiclass just take away too much of the narrative.
As a habitual powergamer (It just kinda happens, I swear), I love these ideas. I wanna be strong and have fun, but I wouldn't be anything but excited if my friends got cool stuff to be just as strong. Also, if you're *really* having trouble figuring out how to deal with somebody who makes strong characters, talk to them! I definitely know the weaknesses of the character I've spent all this time making, and having those weaknesses exploited (Sometimes. Not every fight, please!) is great! Having weak points allows for great narrative moments, so I'm all for it!
When I first took up the DM mantle, I knew I needed to cater my games to power gamers. The meta to dealing with power gamers while giving epic story plots is; 1. Understanding action economy. Whoever has more wins encounters, usually. 2. Understanding resource management. Why are you giving your players free long rest? They need rest? Are they in a safe place to do so? If not up the chances for encounters because there's no rest for the wicked. 3a. Trigonometry of the battlefield. Where is everyone? Who's the weakest link? Casters need to die first is universal in 5e lore, your story and games. Waste npc action economy to find out these questions against the players. Running away to fight another day is the go to option DM's need to let players know and do. 3b. Above is why if you're dealing with power gamers never play 5e using theatre of the mind bullspit. And why im against TotM players and DM's playing D&D as their go to ttrpg, instead of some other ttrpg that does it better. 4. Use the Everloving spit out of the 5e DMG. It will balance your gameplay if you add the mechanics suggested in the book that you may and I say May need to enhance your games to the next level. 5. This is optional, but if you're too lazy as a DM to learn all the steps above than the simplest answer is to create storyplots where the npc's matter so much that it reflects on the player's actions. Power gamers will beat most encounters anyways so just make the plotlines hella intriguing knowing players will win but reflecting on said wins has its consequences. Makes players engaged on the storyline rather than combat. Hobo'ing the whole way through should have its ramifications. My meta for this style I call it, Leap of Faith, storytelling. Shout to DnD shorts for the video. Thanks for your insight.
My worst incident was someone who used a bunch of obscure rules to set up a tactic that would basically invalidate an entire boss fight that people were looking foreward to and of course, this HAD to be the moment where he had a horseshoe up his ass and rolled perfectly to make it happen. Bam, boss everyone was hyped for was basically beaten immediately. Not only was I very annoyed, everyone else at the table was giving him the stink eye. "Um...we kinda wanted to get to do something too Mr Glory Hound!" If you're thinking of going out of your way to try and break the game, don't. There's no scenario where you come out on top.
Personal suggestion in the matters of empowering other players As a powergamer myself i became the wiki of the groups i play with, the DM sends people to me to help plan characters and after they get their story in check building a build around is a lot of fun and takes off some of the job from the DM and engages the other players more in their character
@@mattcurnell2545It is the duty of those with strength and knowledge to share with those that lack them. The rising tide that lifts the fleet will also lift you.
And if the party still is unbalanced the powergamer can just hold back their strongest moves for emergencies only, acting qs safety net so all others can share the spotlight.
I always love doing some Min maxing, not because I like to "break the game", but because that turns my character into a bit of a puzzle. Figuring out how certain abilities interact with one another is fun.
One of my favorite characters is a rogue (soon to multi bard) uses actor, observant and keen mind to infiltrate and become anybody he meets to circumvent most fighting. My dm does a real good job of utilizing my skills in his campaign because when we hit the combat he lacks so everyone gets their fun.
In my campaign, I accidentally became a bit of a power gamer, partially through build craft, partially through being lucky with loot. But I took the opportunity to progress my character's story and in doing so limited his power a bit. It helps that our group rotates DMing duties. It started as a monster of the week style affair, so the mantle would pass around as we came up with excuses for our characters to not be involved in the hunt that week. So, I made a little three part story that ended with my character slightly depowered.
The issue with "power gaming" is that people think it's a bad thing. It's not. I love designing character builds, some are supposed to be "big number go brrr", but others are skill monkeys. I once designed an expy of Rasputin the Mad Monk, as a Monk/Ranger with lots of Wisdom. Others are more plot based, but the build requires specific features. A lot of players decry triple multiclassing, but the game is balanced around taking whatever levels you can, given specialists are stronger than a generalist. A player who takes a level of Nature Cleric and a level of Druid before taking the rest in Blood Hunter feels odd, because it delays the martial progression of BH, delays ASI and Extra Attack, and you have to get that far with a non-Optimized build. In reality, my design is for a druidic warrior in heavy armor smacking foes with a staff up to three times a turn, all using Wisdom to attack. Having access to both Cleric and Druid cantrips, couple healing spells, and crimson rite means that my triple multiclass can do a lot of damage while also tanking melee. Is it strong, sure; is it fun, I hope so.
In a game I'm playing in, our DM called his brother, who also plays with us, a power gamer cause he always finds ways to "break" the game, even if it's completely vanilla. His brother, who felt this was unjustified, told him "oh? You think I'm power gaming, do you? This isn't power gaming. THIS is power gaming." and proceeded to make a half-orc hexadin with greataxe, dual smite, booming blade and hex who regularly deals over 100 damage when he crits.
There’s also another way: you read the rules. Most times, power players purposely or not misinterpret or ignore the rules in order to make whatever combo they want to do plausible. Let’s get to your Infinite Wizard combo. First of all, it’s a spell that takes 12 hours to be casted so if anything it’s already the GM’s fault that the players had basically a whole day of literally nothing to do so many times that this could be casted “infinite times”. Then we go to the actual rules. The Simulacrum obeys you, but the Simulacrum’s Simulacrum doesn’t. Of course, it’s friendly towards anyone your Simulacrum deems friendly, but it’s still not obeying the og caster, so it’s basically an NPC. By the 3rd or 4th time you do it you already have NO WAY OF CONTROLLING IT unless you want to spend a turn doing Chinese Whispers. Let us all also remember that although speaking is a free action the turn only lasts 6 seconds. So even then, if you consider that your command took 1 second to be spoken, the second one wouldn’t be able to give a command at the same time so only 5 Simulacrums could speak a verbal command and by the time the last one spoke the action couldn’t be followed anyways. And that’s considering they won’t die in combat. Let us all be reminded that although you’re at 17th level you’re still squishy as a Wizard, and your Simulacrums are twice as squishy and your enemies at this point are NOT just twice as powerful as them. An adult blue dragon deals 12d10 damage with its breath for an average of 66 which is more than enough to wipe the floor with your Simulacrum - or even you depending on your HP rolls - in one turn.
My problem with the anger with "power gamers," is that some people confuse "rp focus" with "I don't memorize my spells/abilities and how they interact." They think everyone needs to be playing with as minimal a focus and understanding of the rules they interact with as possible, and like... there's better systems for that than DnD or DnD spin-offs like Pathfinder. I once got labeled as a "power gamer" just for reading my spells and noticing that I could use two of them in one turn for high burst damage due to how 11th level Pathfinder Magi work. I had role-play themes for him, but like... I just read the rules of what my one class build could do. No multicasting was used, but I had to leave that table before I fully joined a game because it was clear the DM wasn't happy with that, and I constantly felt like I was walking on egg shells around him
He was not a bad dm, he probably just wanted to tell an engaging story without someone treating the rules book like the constitution. I have a player/dm like that (same person) and he is cool, but takes advantage of the rules to such an extent that you as a dm must become a piece of shit in order to make the game fun for you and the others. Imagine you saying “im gonna implement this optional rule cause its sounds cool and i want them to play something different” just for that dude to exploit the hell out of it.
@@ttominable I *had* a story idea for this character. I *was* invested in the story. I felt like I was constantly walking on eggshells because of how the DM consistently misunderstood everything I wanted to do, and was very inconsistent with how he interacted with me. I left because I was not a good fit for the table, nor was he as the DM a good fit for me. Engaging story and understanding of mechanics are not mutually exclusive, especially in a game system like Pathfinder 1e which is notoriously number crunchy
This is one of the best D&D/DMing/GMing videos I've ever watched. Solid advice, solves and in fact questions a "problem" many people just whinge about. Thank you so much. I've been lucky to have a really good DM and I love playing but I can definitely see how this happens and I love the advice you give for solving the problems.
So this is a optimised combat monster? _No, he's a Eloquence Bard with a few levels in Divination Wizard._ So every social encounter is now.....? _Yup!_ And I assume you're a Halfling so you also have Luck? _No, I'm a Changeling._ Oh you f#$%
Time to bewitch them with the evil lord offering promises and prizes in exchange for the evil forces messing with the party, and then they have to redeem themselves.
I played in a game of Aberrant, White Wolf version, where a player made a power combat hero. He got annoyed when the party had non combat situations, where other players were better depending on situations... oh man, he complained so much that the GM just started adding more combat in. Yea.. that game fizzled.
Remember guys, if you want to reveal having an affair, you must run a campaign for the partner of the person you're having an affair with, and make them do power gaming somehow. There's no other way to do it.
In my game, one of the characters is a Bladesinger with an AC of "yes". But one of the other characters is a flying fairy mouse barbarian and another is a dwarf rune knight fighter... and these pale in comparison to the power of the *_literal god_* character in the party who can summon their god powers in a pinch when things get particularly nasty (though doing so has... _consequences..._ but yeah). And then there's the sorceress with an AC of like, 14. So I gave the godlike character the ability to make armor that gives everyone a base AC of 21 and let everyone take max HP every level. Now everyone's basically on an even playing field again. _I don't recommend this for every game by any stretch of the imagination,_ but for our game, everyone's having a blast.
No matter how "Shitty" some people on the internet may call a solution you come up with for a problem at your table, as long as your solution is one that all the players at your table is cool with, it is a good solution.
It's also worth asking /why/ somebody does it. Like, there are folks who don't get a thrill when their character's life is on the line, their investment is in playing one character for a long time, and so build the strongest thing they can to ensure character survival. There's also folks who don't find combat interesting and make a strong character in hopes of making it go faster so they can get back to the social stuff. Some folks want to play an expert, and find a more "balanced" thing leaves them failing all the time at what is supposed to be their core competence. Often, just because dice have more impact than a "normal" build.
I do enjoy making characters who are powerful, I like watching the theoretical numbers go up. Then I nerf them in rp. My best example of this is Elsie, my kobold who has another personality within them. Basically, the way it works is I have a short list of potential triggers, and I roll to see if they swap, and for how long. My party starts going down in combat and the one who's still standing watches her burn her two highest level spell slots casting a spell she's never used before (to them), and unleashes a burning fury in the form of scorching rays in a single turn (action surge). And then she goes back to being herself and has no idea that she burned half the battlefield into a smoldering wreck. The other players are usually the ones who shine in combat, but if we get unlucky with rolls or the DM underestimated a combat, she picks up the slack.
I use a similar system, I make incredibly powerful characters because I don't want to die but to make it still fun I don't play them to their extent and blitz every encounter, I enforce roleplay based limitations in the form of things like a character who has a lore reason to not want to use a certain ability or just prefers a certain type of combat that the build is not optimised for, like my lunar sorcerer moon druid who prefers non wild shaped melee combat with weapons, not because they are optimised for it but because they just prefer it. And doesn't like using sorcerer spells because of a bad relationship with their father whom they inherited them from. But if things go bad I unleash my might and save the day.
I think the first "solution" is likely to cause more problems. Part of the fun of powergaming is the puzzle of creating the best character at something within a set of rules. If you then "break" those rules by giving under powered characters something extra to get them on par you have just trivialized their effort. The rules of the system are as much part of the social contract of playing the game as it is to not speak over each other during social encounters. If you're going outside these rules like with the shield example in the video, you are breaking that social contract.
In a 3.5 game I was told to build my character level 5 and well and balanced for the party. The party (oddly enough) had zero characters with dark vision and there was no sneaky character at all. So I made a half elf shade assassin and I made him insanely good at his role with 1 minor exception, in daylight he was only half as powerful. I figured it would work out sense there was going to be minimal things to do at night. The issue there was with the character wasn't that he was min/maxed so much as that when compared to the rest of the team, my character was what he called "an invisible god in the dark". Funny thing was that nobody BUT the GM had an issue with it because that was my job in party and being nearly useless during the day would give everyone some great RP opportunities along the line. Still not sure why that character wasn't allowed in that game but I did get to play it for a few sessions in another game and it was a blast for everyone. Honestly just proves that "overpowered" is only an issue for some people. My advise for players is simple, if you are going to make a min/max a character then make sure you have a backstory and personality that allows for those skills at those levels. And make sure to RP that character with that backstory in mind. Far to many people come to games with the sole intention of min/maxing the fun out of the game with zero thought to they're own backstories, either because they never came up with one or because they came up with something so long and convoluted that nothing makes sense. sorry for the long post
That last one is exactly how I solved it I went, "Hey man this character breaks this entire module. I didn't realize how broken it was for this module but if you build a new character I will create a worthy death for this one and transition you into your new one." He then made a necromancer which gave me a great opportunity to build a zombie encounter where they were immune to slashing damage from the characters ax. And so his new character killed his old one and it made for a very intimidating introduction.
Hopefully, many people are able to learn from this video. I did this as a player once, and my DM wouldn't listen to the multiple stat weaknesses I had as a counter to my broken A.C.
This is missleading. This is not a problem with a powergamer, This is a problem with mixed groups looking for different things that align poorly. If you are looking for an action filled power campaign, a power game is not a problem, having one powergamer and 3 not would be. player agenda and game style should be explored, discussed and agreed on early. If you agree on an intrigue campaign with more diplomacy with horror team, and one player ignores this and super minmax anyway, then yes that could be a problem, but not because he is a powergamer, but because he is a problem player who broke the premise of the campaign.
Ive had several campaigns straight up wrecked by power gamers coming up with absurd characters that our DM allowed. They were basically able to solo almost every encounter in one of those campaigns because they snuck off on their own and ended up taking down an encounter that yielded a ton of experience that put them ahead of everyone else which was then leveraged into "we're doing what I say and I'll kill you if you dont like it."
An issue you didn't mention is the "arms race". Players build better PCs, the DM ups the challenge. The players think "wow, this GM is tough! Next PC better be even stronger!" etc etc
Nice quality upgrade on the vid. Love the diggingtrip "journey" and the comedy rewind about "your wife" in the end. You have certainly become better at this m8. Keep it up!
As I'm personally not a power-gamer myself and more focused on story-telling I find the advice to "simply find counters for the power-gamer skill" actually one of the problems. I want to craft a story for the players to explore and not have to bog myself down on the intricate mechanics of the game, where I *first* have to understand what makes the power-gamer strong in the first place and then *after that* do my own power-gaming deep dive on creatures/mechanics for leveling said playing field. Overall this sound like a solution for a DM who's also a power gamer, not one for casual roleplay enjoyers. On the other hand rebalancing the problem by giving the weak players more powerfull items/features, maybe even coming up with interesting character/story relations is definitely a *better* solution for roleplay focused DMs *at first glance* until you notice that this throws the already problematic D&D challange-rating completely out of whack and you have to instead invest more time into creating encounters for an overpowered party instead. Don't get me wrong, as always this is good advice by DnD Shorts, but this shows how busted D&D 5e as a system is once again... And if the OGL debacle hadn't made me test out different systems I'd still think that this is "just a pen & paper RPG problem" and not a problem with D&D 5e (and maybe WotC more specifically) today without knowing that there a systems where this is actually less of a problem.
I have a simple solution for you. Limit combat. Not eliminate, but limit. I'm betting with your style, you attract mostly people who enjoy the rp aspect more than combat anyway. Limiting combat would still give the power gamer what they want, but would also give the rest of the players what they want.
Yeah, in this case the solution sounds like either a) not playing with that player any more - not because they're a bad player, just a bad fit -, b) switching to a more narrative (or balanced) system, or c) convincing that player to tone it down, which they might very reasonably not want to, as that's where the fun lies for them. None of them perfect solutions, but solutions they are nevertheless.
Have this discussion at session 0. It shouldn't move beyond the start of the campaign. Have an adult conversation. Like an adult. If people disagree, it's time to move on.
@@MalloonTarka Definitely B sounds like the answer. When I heard that bit about mechanics, I was like "Well why D&D then? There are tons of more narrative focused systems and most of them are fun."
Being a long time player, and new DM. I find to balance the powergamer, more specifically op multiclass builds, is to put the burden on the player to RP or backstory the reason's for that multiclassing. This usually results in a more fun game overall.
My issue with power gamers that Im not a good DM. Im a new one. When on my very first session a murdering multiclassed changeling rolls up to a cooperative party... I dont know what to do. I dont know enough monsters or rules to handle it. Nowdays I can, but, honestly this just puts more load on the dm. Find the weaknesses of his build, search monsters for it that you can throw into the game. Dont get me wrong, it is absolutely doable but like, the in game solution is not as obvious as the out of the game one is. Especially if you dont know the monster manual by heart.
Yes, if the DM isn't knowledgeable, a power gamer can be quite difficult to handle. There's a lot of ways around it such as empowering other members, encounter balance, direct balancing, homebrew, and talking to the player. However, talking to the player can be intimidating especially for a new DM and the rest require a certain level of knowledge to do well. Since a lot of these are harder for newer DMs, my suggestion is to never allow your players to roll up with a sheet. All sheets are subject to DM approval. Ideally, talk to them about what kind of character they wish to make, why, and how they intend for them to play. There's a huge difference between knowing two weeks ahead of time that someone is whipping out a sneaky skill monkey changeling and getting sprung on it on session day. You may well have been able to handle it with no adjustments at all if you just knew ahead of time. If that's not good enough, it is way easier to talk to the player before they start playing said character than trying to deal with it in session. If the player has a combo in mind and is honest, they'll likely tell you about it when you ask them how they intend for them to play or somewhere in the pre creation discussion. This gives you the opportunity to figure out how to deal with it or litigate it at the design stage, before the player feels that they're "locked in" to playing this character. Dealing with the "issue" can take a decent amount of knowledge and experience a new DM may not have but taking precautions to prevent it from becoming an issue takes far less expertise on the side of the DM. In my opinion, doing this just helps in general because a power gamer has fun by optimizing and to a degree, that's fine. Trying to solve it with choice use of the monster manual isn't really solving the issue, just cherry picking matchups to knock someone down a few pegs which usually doesn't solve the issue. Knowing what everyone wants and how they intend to have fun is much more helpful. Perhaps the others in the party are more concerned about roleplay or other matters and don't care if the power gamer hard carries a lot of encounters. In that case, you may wish to provide occasional encounters to let other players shine and other than that just let the power gamer do their thing. Perhaps another player wants to be strong too but doesn't know how. In this case, you may not need to mess with the power gamer but just suggest the two talk to each other. Maybe let the power gamer mentor the other player who wishes to play a strong build. The power gamer likely has many builds to share. So forth and so on. Many times it doesn't really require correction.
Wales isn't boring! We have fun traditions! Like South Wales having Mari Lwyd! (A horse skull that comes around at Christmas time singing songs at people's front door trying to gain entry into their house. If the inhabitants of the household run out of ideas (in song form) to use to deny Mari Lwyd entry, then Mari Lwyd enters the house and has to be provided with food and ale) Besides, it beats being English, those conniving thieving villains have destroyed/damaged many cultures (especially when we consider the displacement of the Celtics (and that's before they even owned "England") and then the damage that they did to the Celtic countries (Wales, Scotland, Ireland, (Republic and Northern), Brittany, Isle of Man, Cornwall and Galicia) And this isn't forgetting the fact that the only Celtic language that isn't considered endangered (according to a recent study that I can't find) is Welsh! (Yes, I am Welsh and feel very protective of my country))
@@aleisterlavey9716 I imagine that it could be very funny if Mari Lwyd only does it in Welsh and the other side doesn’t know Welsh and has to guess what’s happening and respond in English.
I think the powergamer is a challenge to any DM. When a player starts to view the game like Doom or any other video game and demands high stats, tons of feats and those combos that you find after looking att various "cheat sheets" on the internet, then you will have a problem. Even if you bolster the rest of the crew so that everyone has +19 on every save and a ton of "do or die"-abilities, encounters will still be over in about two rounds. And when a player rolls a nat 1, failing a save or ability it will likely mean the end of the road for that character. Then the player gets mad and you are starting to derail your game. Not because of the game, but because the powergamer wants to be OP and thus rushing through the scenario an unclear goal. Well, in spite of a lot of ranting, I hope you get my point.
And not just that, ironically overshadowing your power gamer, who will most likely be understandably pissed that the others get OP and badass items while they get: +1 weapon with symbolic story iconography (the sword was made using the salt from the DM’s tears of frustration)
@@abdallahhakeem5185this happened in my campaign I was the only person who decided to read their class and subclass abilities and understand how the class functioned people complained because I did to much dmg so they all got insanely powerful items I got nothing and ended up being essentially useless in and out of combat.
We have a wizard that said at the begening that he didn't prioritize combat, but focused on alchemy and his potions turned out to be very powerful with the custom ingredients DM provided, so I (the barbarian) asked the DM if I could get something similar in the form of cooking- at first my chracter just enjoyed cooking, but then, while using the meat of a magical creature in one of the recipies he thought up an effect appeared, so now when we kill a magic creature I get the meat and the wizard gets the rest
I like building broken characters, but I dont like playing them. Sounds wierd, but I dont want to ruin the experience for all my friends. So its really fun to build an almost unkillable Moon Druid and see how high I can cheese his AC/saves and other stuff, but I dont like to play in such a way that I cheese the encounter my DM has spent hours working on.
The problem in my group isn’t just power players but also… me as a lowly lil roleplay and lore obsessed player who deals little damage in combat so I’m always knocked down. It’s so annoying to see other players getting so much damage off and then not giving a shit about their actions in the story.
I suggest you talk to your dm about that, if you aren’t interested in combat but every other player doesn’t care about story then you might need to think if you’re in the right game
Having a chat with the DM is definitely needed. I have a similar party dynamic at my table. My party wouldn't listen to the wizard and for most of the early campaign my wizard was useless. The party just wandered around and hit everything that got in the way. I spoke to my DM. And he added information to the game that the party needed to survive a combat against our enemies. The party did their usual approach and got stomped on hard by the BBEG's underlings. We managed to run away. Wizard an rogue having to drag the dead corpses of our companions back to the nearest Temple. Party spent more time doing its research after that point. The "problem" players learnt a few valuable lessons. The DM got to rebuild his campaign in a way which was more balanced and allowed them to put the amazing lore of the world on display for all to see, something every DM loves. And my character survived to the levels where a wizard takes over the group. And I could play well within the power levels of my wizard and match the other party members. Everyone had fun. And having extra power left over for the jaw dropping moments when you want to show-off or when the party really needs the wizard to step up. As an experienced player role play is the foundation of the game for me as a player. The lore of the world and its history. How our player characters leave their mark on the worlds lore and history. But that is not everyone's cup of tea. So each table is unique. Communication is key❤
I have two main issues with "power gamers". 1) "Power Gamers" frequently (but not always) don't understand what the primary game in a ttrpg is. It's the one where we sit at the table and have a conversation that creates a story, it's a colloborative process. An optimal designed character for the primary game is one that both the player and gm can use to push the story forward in interesting ways and that the other players at the table can get plenty of interaction with. Instead many players latch onto the bits of character design with numbers attached to them (in D&D this is combat), and work to optimize the numbers. Once you have taken this approach then it often becomes the man with hammer problem and they will continually try and push the game in a direction that is less interesting as a result. Outside of the survival horror type game that 1970s D&D was (and 5E D&D is absolutely not geared towards) you want your players making interesting decisions over optiimal decisions, at least some of the time. 2) I personally find that as you push the power level up, my level of immersion in the story and my ability to imagine what is going on drops. Once a party is can is say taking on multiple dragons, I am no longer immersed in the world, and we are just doing abstract puzzle solving on a grid and going through the motions, at best it's like I am watching a bad 80s action movie. Power gamers will tend to make the situation worse as they will push for more combats more often (it gets to the point where I would be happy to skip my turn in combat so I can just check out). I am pretty sure I am not the only one and this is part of the reason that there is a golden zone of levels where most campaigns tend to live and why higher level campaigns are much less popular.
I power game myself. I just love the research and development aspect of finding combinations that tear through enemies. But on the coop flip side I also make characters that happily take the background to let the other players have their glory. I stand back while other players act as the party face, make the plans, make the major decisions while I quietly wait for the DM to say roll initiative. Then that unassuming samurai I've tweaked with two other classes turns into a flying buzzsaw that cuts down most of the encounters monsters and severely wounded the boss on the first round like they've just fire off a Final Fantasy limit break.
One of the coolest things I read about was a situation where a DM had a super overpowered character, a raging wild shaping druid barbarian iirc, and how they handled it was the party came up on the big bad and the big bad new they were coming. So they had prepared a magic item that created a wall of force prison for the druid barbarian and summoned a pit fiend or similar in the cage. It then became a cage grudge match for the more powerful character and the rest of the party was desperately trying to to drop the big bad before the power gamer died to dismiss the pit fiend and walls of force. Apparently they all had a blast because the power gamer had to use every single exploit they could come up with to survive and the rest of the party had validation of they could do stuff without the power gamer and they were very meaningful parts of the party. Plus it just makes sense, your party is usually known to the target so of course they would prepare for the parties strengths.
Or you could just cast sunbeam on him and force him out of his Druid shifts. Not everything has to be complex some cases are terrible but there are spells in game and ways to bypass them. From what I understand the difference between a minmaxer and a power gamer is they try to see how far they can go with rules before they’re not following them to gain player power. If they’re a Druid barb hybrid use enemies with more int and psychic attacks they can’t resist it. Abuse their potentially weak intelligence or like I said sunbeam Unless he is like what level 14 I think he has a limited amount of wild shapes per day.
Don't be the player that get's bored and leave in the first place. I enjoy as much being a support character not being in the bulk of the action and celebrating crazy combos from my companions. I still have my turn and if I can't make a dent on the monster I will be useful some other way. The first problem is trying to balance everything and make everyone equal, I'd say this translates to real life too.
I'm sorry, I simply was not prepared for "Hello! Do you live in a boring country? Like WALES?" nearly fucking spat my drink out 😂😂😂 you woke up and chose violence towards the entire country of Wales lmaooo EDIT: I THOUGHT I WAS SAFE. I CARRIED ON MY DRINK. LIKE A BUFFOON. LIKE A WELSHMAN. I am now dead okay thank you.
As for a in world way to deal with a infinite anything combo. I'm pretty sure mystra or someone similar is going to slap a guy silly whenever some overconfident wizard breaks magic with a recursive spell combo.
usually, when I know there's a busted combo, I try to read the spell and see if there's any in-built counters to it. Usually I find that most busted stuff is due to the rules of the game being poorly written and allowing for something that clearly feels like it's not intended. So I usually nerf those before the game even gets rolling or talk to the player to nerf it. While not a great example of this, one spell that I have soft-nerfed is Wish. It's still really powerful but not as powerful as a "I can wish for literally anything" spell. In my games, when you cast wish, you can cast any non-homebrew spell from the game as an 8th level spell. Still really good because being able to spend a 9th level spell slot to cast any spell regardless of spell lists and preparation offers unmatched versatility but you're still within the same power-level as a normal level 17-20 full-caster.
8 місяців тому
@@Zulk_RS The thing about Wish is, it's already nerfed enough in the spell description. If you read it, you can see that there are three main uses of it: 1. A level 8 spell. Any level 8 spell. This is safe to do, and there are no negative effects to the caster. 2. Five other options described in the spell. The DM can't twist those wishes (at least not RAW), but that wizard shouldn't cast spells for the rest of the day (1d10 necro damage per spell level), and there's a 1/3 chance that they won't be able to cast Wish ever again. Obviously this one can be chained with Simulacrum to eliminate the drawback, but those options are definitely not "I can wish for literally anything". 3. "I wish for literally anything", i.e., a wish outside the scope of the aforementioned five options or a level 8 spell. The rules as written literally give the DM license to monkey-paw the shit out of those wishes: "The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong."
Your videos, and others like it, actually help me pull along as I try to build my own setting and narrative with my group helping me. Nothing crazy, no insane homebrew, just a world in a fantasy setting sprinkled with small... world inconsistancies, to slowly breadcrumb them into unraveling that question
Another solution i have seen is party player type composition, and willingness to co-operate. I was Part of a group with a powergamer, a Roleplayer, a lore seeker, and me the explorer/all rounder. The Power gamer dealt with all things combat, the roleplayer got us good payment, quests and was the diplomat, the lore seeker made the world feel alive by asking questions and interacting with the world, where as i did a little bit of everything and acted as the healer. It worked, because everyone at the table coordinated with each other. If you are part of a good table, the DM doesn't have to reign you in. It is really the "no one but my fun matters" type that are the problem.
Turns out "Have you tried asking them to tone it down a bit?" is indeed the solution to most "omg power gamers are ruining my table" complaints. People will do what they think is fun if they think it isn;t causing anyone else to have less fun, once confronted with the notion the other players or even the DM is not having fun because they have made too strong of a build most will simply hold back a bit on the non-essential encounters which normally sorts the entire problem out. (both in and out of combat, yes there are people who power game the out of combat interactions I should know I have several characters that focus on exactly that... admittedly that is to enable the combat power gamers at my table but that is besides the point)
Agreed, with one small ammendment. A DM should also be able to say 'No' at character creation. Saying 'No' to a power build mid way through the game is OK, but I think when possible- if you can see it coming and you've a good reason, you should be able to say 'No' to a player at the start.
I personally don't allow multi-classing. This alone does a wonderful job of killing off metagaming. For me powerbuilds and metagaming is NOT in the spirit of D&D. It's a coop game where everyone has a use and purpose and to have a weakness is a good thing that adds to the flavour and quirkiness of the team dynamic. If you have one player who is literally god and fulfils every role singlehandedly it just makes all the other players feel redundant and pointless and sucks all the fun out of the game for them. All to stroke their own ego and fuel their arrogance. And 95% of power gamers rely on multiclassing to accomplish this. So, nope.
@@robinhood5627 problem with outright banning multiclassing is it dose stunt player creativity as well as power gaming. a bit of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
@@blakenelson4158 But that's what subclasses are for. You wanna be a rogue wizard? Arcane trickster. Power gaming as no place at my table at all. It just utterly ruins the game for other players and makes everyone miserable. I'm running a normal game for 6 players right now and not one of them is multiclass or power builds, and we are having the best time of our lives right now. There is just no need for it.
Best comeback to a powergamer I have seen, (to some "Wolverine man with X, Y, and Z all synergising to be ungodly gross piece of sickness at the *start,* not an ultimate build") was: "That's not a character, that's an excuse..."
The issue with solution to problem 1 is that if you're giving incredible boons to the other players, the power gamer is going to complain that they are not getting similarly OP items. They are not going to look at it from an overall perspective rather than a 'gained loot per PC' idea or start insisting that the best loot that the party finds that isn't by default tied to a PC should go to them for fairness. And no, they will not see, realise or accept that others are getting these items to balance their build out, or see this as a direct insult or challenge. Similarly offering the powergamer some kind of boon for removing their OP trait, will likely lead to them asking for something equally OP or broken to replace it with, and will see any less potent/broken boon as a downgrade punishing them. Not all of them will pick something roleplay-wise, since sometimes it's all about the power play and not about the roleplay for them. I know that most power gamers are not complete assholes that know only mechanical dominance, but for power gamer solutions, we kind of have to assume the power gamer at their worst/base instead of assuming they also have different sides/like other things. I agree that preventing nova-PCs by more often enforcing more encounters per long rest is one of the best solutions, but that's potentially also punishing on the rest of the party.
It's not really a problem. Give the Power gamer something cool but ultimately inconsequential, like a +1 sword with a cool backstory that ties into their character and some fun but weak extra effects or a powerful narrative effect that's useless in combat and they should be happy as Larry while you hand out more impactful items to the other players. For example, in my last D&D campaign I was playing a Hexblade Paladin, so when the GM created my family blade for me, he gave me a magic Greatsword which allowed me to cast augury and had the cool "snuffs out natural flames" effect from Frostbrand. He let me name and describe it and promised me it would gain improved powers as I levelled up. I was absolutely delighted with it, although sadly the game didn't last much longer as the GM got a new job that has prevented him from running for us.
Depends on the player. I don’t consider myself a power gamer by any extent, but I’m the most experienced player at my table and am playing an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer. I’ve received the least magic items and boons because I understand where my character is useful and make the most out of the abilities I have. The lack of loot hasn’t hurt me, because it hasn’t made me less useful than the other characters.
I feel like this complaint is comparable to saying "the problem with roleplay players is they hold everyone back and steal the spotlight by droning on and on". It might be that the item has some utility bonus, or else youve picked a bonus that allows the power game to have spells that buff other players. The power gamer (if theyre good) will then consider that the teamwork benefit of the given item is optimal for a given encounter and this allows said players to not steal the spotlight in combat. I think something of note is that said "power gamer" is probably a friend, and assuming that absolute worst possible interpretation in basically your entire comment seems to me to be unreasonable
@@yunusahmed2940 At what stage did you NOT realize that I am "that power-gamer" and I'm recounting a personal experience where I was perfectly happy with weaker item tailored to my backstory because I recognized that I didn't need a strong item to make the build sing? I am a literal living, breathing, walking refutation of your argument - and to be honest, in my experience the so called power-gamer who never role plays and demands all the best gear simply doesn't exist.
My issues with power gamers is more that they are usually making choices for optimization of the character build rather than for narrative reasons. The narrative/telling good stories part of D&D is one of my favorite parts and a big focus for my style of DMing. So what I do is tell my players that they must have a narrative justification for their choices, and if there's something that they want to do, like take a level of warlock, that they can let me know and I will help build in moments to the story to help set it up. Sometimes though, its just a matter of different play styles, and I'm ok saying, "I don't think I'm the DM for you."
i somewhat agree, but some things dont need big narrative justification. things like fighter, rogue, barbarian and wizard levels are fine, because those are driven by the player characters. but when it comes to more involved things, like you said, warlock, then a discussion is definitely needed.
@@sparkiano I dont think everything needs to be included, if some hexadin wants their paladin powers to come from their warlock patron rather than an oath thats fine. If someone wants to play a warlock without a patron thats fine. Its literally in the multiclassing rules that you dont need justification cuz classes arent real, you arent building a ranger/rogue/fighter/cleric youre building your dude that doesnt fit within the bounds of any one class.
YASSS! Reasonable, empathetic, and hopeful. DnD Mentors need to show more of this. Thank-you! Also what we need more of: roleplaying difficult conversations, not just talking about them. You did a great job with that powergamer and his wife 😉
The main issue I have with power gamers and min/maxers is they are generally more concerned with the numbers than in the role play. Many times they simply won't engage unless they are showing off their power gaming in combat situations. Your solution only works if everyone else actually wants to be equalized. In my experienced, that often isn't the case. I encourage players to have characters with some flaws as it makes for better RP. Powergamers just can't stand doing that in any meaningful way. So yes, I make it clear from the start that my table isn't the place for those wanting to min/max or powergame. Multi-dipping classes doesn't happen in my games. If you start as a class you keep it for at least 4 levels and then you can change to a different one and that's the class you then stick with from then on. That by definition equalizes the game while still allowing for some creative builds. The players have fun and I have fun.
Glad it works for you, but I'd wager they're not having fun "because" they can't multiclass, but rather in spite of that. Removing core game mechanics and player choice can rarely be called an enhancer to the experience.
Finally! REAL balance! The video that not only justifies your other power gamer videos, but, more importantly, explains the basics of thinking outside the box and building a world of MAGIC to dms. In addition to responsibility. This is the kinda advice that can encourage dms and players to build upon the existing rules, do their research with official and fan made material, and actually learn about the fucking game their playing! This earned my subscription.
When everyone else deals an average of 7 damage per hit then the wizard or paladin crits for 45, that's a problem. What I've done is give the ranger special ammo to balance things out and make her average damage even with the others
If the balance of the group is being thrown off because ONE person is power-gaming, the reasonable solution is not put in tons of work to change everyone else. ONE person is the problem, not everyone else. People who want to do a Sorc/Warlock/Paladin aren't doing that because "This is the only possible way to realize the character concept I have in my head!", they're doing it because it's OP as shit, and they want to be OP as shit. Any reasonable person can take a normal class and find a way to make it fit the concept in their head, or they can collaborate with the GM to make something custom that fits their concept, while still being balanced. Anybody unwilling to do that is just WAY too focused on being OP as shit.
I think the thing about the rogue sneaking past and still getting the xp is a good point, they didn't technically help in the encounter but if it hadn't been for the other players not being as stealthy as they are they would have beaten the encounter by getting past the monster, this is why the milestone system is better than xp. It also encourages plot development rather than murderhoboing for level ups.
Treantmonk made a really good point when he said that there is a social contract when playing D&D. You shouldn't have to ban things that exploit or break the game because your players shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Those players break that social contract because they are ruining the experience for others and themselves when they break the game.
Something you can try, if the rest of the party is okay with it, with single power gamers is have them chip in to other players' builds in some way. Chances are they just like the puzzle, and so if the other players are okay with giving up the reigns of the character sheet a bit, you can have the power gamer equalize for you. And yeah, for the love of Bahamut, please remember these are people. They're just people who like optimizing.
I gotta thank you man, it’s hard finding DMs who let me run my favorite sorcerer paladin combo so you making it easier for DMs to DM an optimized character at the table.
The powergamer problem isn't restricted to player Vs GM. There's a more toxic situation where one or two characters are significantly tougher in combat than the rest. You'd hope this would get resolved through party dynamics, but guess what? Some power gamers don't care for party dynamics. You can easily end up with the power guys doing all the fighting, while the best option for the support guys is to buff the power guys. OK if everybody likes that, but not so much when the GM's balancing means the regular characters going near monsters means insta-death. For added "WTF am I dong here" have the power guys interrupt any social encounter longer than 2 minutes and turn it into a fight. I know this is where a lot of UA-camrs say "Hey, leave that group, no D&D is better than ....". I'm sure popular UA-camrs have no problem rustling up more opponents. It isn't always so easy when you're ordinary folks with ordinary jobs and limited opportunities to play.
1) See video’s point about buffing the rest of the party. 2) Interrupting role play/ general disruptive behaviour isn’t a power gamer issue. That’s just having bad table etiquette. Don’t conflate the two.
Or just go into session zero and say that you wanna run a balanced game. Made a one shot and at zero I just said "hey guys. This is my first time being a gm/dm and I'd like you guys to make fun but fair characters." Everyone was super cool with it and they ended up having allt of fun playing those "that's try this new class" or "here's a goofy idea" characters that made it a learning experience for all of us.
There's a lot of good stuff in this video and it's good practical advise for most DMs. My only point to bring up is that it does sort of have a few issues unaddressed: 1) The giving the weaker players magic items thing is a great idea, but it has two issues: First, this assumes that said players know how to use their characters effectively, when the unfortunate thing is that many players who play weaker characters and dislike feeling weak are often just newer to the game and thus giving them more things to keep track of can often not be a great idea. Second, the video while talking about this point doesn't address the very real likelihood of said powergamers (who again often tend to like to feel powerful) feeling jealous about other characters getting fancy perks, items, or abilities while they basically are given nothing, or are only given weaker stuff. Many of these people would respond poorly to being told "It's to make the others less weak", especially if they are the sort to either be competitive or enjoy trying to use their system knowledge in order to make a powerful character. Often powergamers like this tend to just get tunnelvision and not realize they are even hurting the game simply because they like creating build synergy and feeling like they are being rewarded for knowing the rules. This is only going to make them feel "punished" by getting less shiny stuff for this knowledge. 2) Powergamers are also often a problem because they are known for trying to "help" other weaker or newer players by giving them "advise" on how to play their characters, and this is often an issue with them being present in a group. While arguably an issue, it's still just as frustrating an issue to many DMs and other players, especially if the powergamer starts being a jerk and uses poor phrasing by saying stuff akin to "Your character build is wrong." or "Why did you take that spell? It sucks!" It makes those other players feel like their choices are invalid or dumb. 3) Third, and unfortunately quite often. There are a number of powergamers out there that will *only* play cheesy or problematic builds. I've ran into quite a few of them and our group literally just ousted a player for precisely this after he's played his 4th Paladin Warlock combo or sorcerer warlock combo with ALWAYS the same subclass selections WITHOUT fail. It's annoying as hell and even though he's a good roleplayer he NEVER provides any justification within character for taking said choices and often expresses frustration with any DM who actually imposes any sort of roleplaying impact on his character for effectively signing a deal with an eldritch entity while being a paladin. He also NEVER plays a paladin who follows a god, and while this is a perfectly valid choice to make, it's always the same BS line of "But paladins never NEED gods anymore in 5e!" Like we get it dude, you like smite using warlock slots. It's freaking obvious and annoying to have to CONSTANTLY play with your characters that are specifically made to one-turn bosses. Valid builds or not it's not fun for the rest of the group. And this is an issue. Like it or not, this is a negative trait that only powergamers exhibit and it's something that needs to be acknowledge and addressed. Obviously there are many negative traits of other types of gamers (i.e. the roleplaying spotlight hog being a prime example) but simply blaming this as a "problem player behavior" is limiting and unhelpful for DMs. 4) Rant aside, the last thing this video doesn't acknowledge is even *if* a powergamer in a group being allowed to shine in combat is fine and you make the game to try to cater to other characters, it doesn't change that there are times where other players *will* steal feel like they are weak or useless when combat does occur. Worse yet, odds are they'll actively try to avoid combat all together if every encounter just turns into a game of "put the enemy in front of the meatgrinder powergamer and wait until it's time to loot". Nor does this address the concern that there are often powergamers who care for literally nothing BUT combat. There are literally players who refuse to cast spells or use any resources outside of combat and NEVER prepare any spell that isn't strictly a combat spell. Yes, there are ways to handle this, but this video doesn't address any of that. Nor does it address how to handle players on either side of the power level fence trying to consciously or subconsciously sabotage or prevent combat or non-combat encounters from occurring. Again. Great video, but it leaves some things unaddressed. Frankly speaking enough concerns that this could easily warrant a second video or even multiple videos addressing them.
For the items, I think it can be pretty easily explained. "Hey, I totally get where you're coming from. (Other Player) though isn't into the whole character creation process enough to use all the mechanical advantages you're getting. This isn't to punish you for your build, it's just to make it so you can both face the same sorts of threats in the same party. I'm totally down to brew something cool for you, just be aware that it'll be some sort of fun or situational extra rather than a straight power increase."
That is as much or more of a problem in the system's game design as the players. Character options are badly imbalanced, especially when different campaign types are considered. If playing the game optimally makes for a worse engagement/experience, then the game itself is badly flawed.
@@sethb3090That rarely works. It comes off as punishing towards the player in question, as it is asymmetrical rewards since they, by definition, prioritize mechanical optimization to a high degree. Many will interpret it as condescending and taking away their agency.
@@NevisYsbryd I don't disagree that it's a systemic issue that needs to be addressed, and in an ideal world it should be, but there is also such as thing as players choosing...*not* to take the overpowered options and break the game for everyone? It's part of the concept of the Social Contract, a thing widely understood by the gaming community and largely agreed upon by pretty much any player aware of the concept that isn't a sociopath or some sort of problem player is a good thing for the game. Heck, even *this* youtube channel discusses the social contract in other videos if I am not mistaken.
@@s.p.1434 That fails in the context of 5e because that inevitably writes off character builds and thus concepts purely for being too strong due to bad mechanics in much the same way that it can make build choices non-viable through being too weak to contribute adequately. It also completely dismisses playstyles where power or competition is part of the appeal for some players, which is a problem only insofar as people at the individual table consider it to be a problem. What is overpowered is inherently contextual to begin with. A ranger will quickly become able to completely negate many of the concerns of wilderness travel... which are irrelevant in an entirely urban campaign where such difficulties are never relevant. A wizard oriented around mass crowd control is going to be contextually a lot weaker if the overwhelming majority of the fights focus small numbers or single powerful enemies. Build power is as much a matter of context as the build itself outside of the most completely broken builds; conversely, a campaign catering a large proportion of challenges directly into a build's niche can make it circumstantially more powerful than the player expected or intended, and given the complexity and learning curve of build creation, it is similarly entirely possible to create something overpowered inadvertently. The social contract is specific to each table. Some players and thus tables want a powergamey competitive wargame with fantasy elements comparable to a sports team. This is why your point 2) is not necessarily correct; depending on the goals of the table, to the degree that they are approaching it as a game with objective rules and a fail/win state, there are objectively preferable approaches to play and hashing that out as an expression of collaborative collective agency and mastery is sometimes part of the appeal for them. Or directly contrary to it, such as is often the case to the degree to which personal agency and self-expression is their goal. This is not (necessarily) a problem in dominance or malice but can just as well be a divergence in the mode of engagement or type of experience sought, with the system being badly adapted to reconcile them simultaneously. While there certainly are instances where the player themselves is a/the problem, 'powergaming' is a problem that often results from a misalignment in approaches towards degree of prioritization of individual vs collective agency and game vs narrative/story nested in some bad game design built into the system that makes variation in that priority tend to conflict. Were the efficacy of various builds less divergent, or better variation in mode of contribution to prevent direct competition between characters, this would be far less of a problem. As it is, it is, at the end of the day, a problem inherent to 5e, and the best that can be done is to mitigate it, not to solve it. I would not know, I am not a regular viewer.
The thing with dealing with power gamers is that at most you can distract them. They still want to power game and whenever they get bored or a situatuon occurs its gonna happen again. Just dont play with them or invite them to a hardcore battle focused game and dont do much of storytelling.
Most recent game I decided to min/max the hell out of a support character, so now the entire party is super strong and I routinely do no damage in combat but the DM still knows it's all my fault lol
In my experience, most (not all, but most) power-gamers are also gatekeepers. It's the gatekeeping that's the problem, not the power-gamers. If you don't power-game, then you're doing it wrong. Or "let me fix your character for you." Basically, Solution #1 in this video. That can be really toxic behavior if you aren't careful.
I’ve got a player running a drow assassin rogue 3/gloomstalker ranger 3/shadow monk 7 and it’s getting incredibly difficult to change him, without creating brightly-lit areas and a dozen skirmishers to restrict his movement and his attacks from invisibility. High level play, in general, is a challenge to create. I like your suggestion of planar travel to compensate.
Boring Country like Wales... I would LOVE to visit Wales... There's even a few beekeepers AND DnD players I admire who live and work there, so allow me to disagree on that opinion 😁
8 місяців тому+1
Most of this problem isn't with classes but spells. Usually DM don't mind if fighter/barbarian bonk monster, because he has to risk himself. Most of the problems comes from overpowered spells that break reality, makes every obstacle obsolete, counter Bosses and ruin campaigns. Not Martial making 50 dmg in one turn.
I just know that multiclassing is an optional rule, and I choose to not allow that option. That pretty much stops any "builds" from making it to my table. The game just runs better if I know what my players can do, and a multiclass doubles the amount of work necessary to do that.
@@manuelferrari6685 Should I give them foot rubs too? should I wash their feet? should I taste test to make sure they're clean? should I make sure to get all the toe jam out with my tongue? should I suck each toe one-by-one to make sure that they all
@@manuelferrari6685 That is not necessarily the case. They can be spending a lot of time fleshing out the game world or NPC back stories, reviewing their notes for encounters they are planning to run, brainstorming ways to work the players' backstories into the narrative etc. And even if you were right and they didn't want to spend hours upon hours in preparations to somehow balance the game for a mix of power players and others, DM-ing is usually an unpaid activity, so they have every right to ban an optional rule that doesn't fit in the way they run the game. I think DMs should be appreciated for all the work they do, which tends to be more than players ever realize.
@@ciarandwynvil273 not necessarily the case but pretty likely. A DM who limits his players' choice just because it's annoying is unlikely to put too much effort into the rest. Furthermore, being a DM is not a job, but a hobby. If entertaining your friends isn't enough, it's not the hobby for you.
@@manuelferrari6685 Yes, it is a hobby. Why should anyone put up with an optional rule of that hobby if they find it annoying? Not everyone wants to deal with every aspect of the game, which doesn't mean that their table is inferior to those that use all the published content. Btw, I played with a DM who too limited multiclassing. He was a great DM who put a lot of effort into the game, and I had much fun playing with him.
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Powergaming IS Role-Playing. If you lived in a world with all those monsters and warring races, especially as a lowly Human without Darkvision, you can bet your ass you're gonna be Powergaming the shit out of your options to survive.
You should make a video about the bad types of GMs. and or the types that can ruin a potentially fun game.
Speaking of powergaming has anyone ever thought of using Heat Metal as a damage buff spell? Cast it on the weapon of someone in the party who is immune to fire damage and they don't take any damage while holding it, nor do they have to make a Con save or drop the object, but you use your bonus action every turn for the duration to make the heat flare up so that when they attack it deals an extra 2d8 fire damage. Is this even possible? Or is this one of those "well the rules specify (any creature in physical contact with the object when you cast the spell) so..." moments?
"Any creature in physical contact" could include a creature being attacked by the heated object with the only real restriction I can think of is that you use your bonus action and the spell deals instance damage that stops immediately after that moment and therefore can't be carried over for the remainder of the turn. BUT, if you want to argue that then the intended hostile target creature shouldn't ever be pressured into dropping the item because it just takes the damage for one instant that then goes away. The wording of the spell really makes it seem as though the intended hostile target is being affected by the damage of the spell in that instant but for the remainder of the turn the effect lingers causing them to need to drop the object or pass the save. If the effect then DOES linger, then couldn't this be used offensively as a buff spell as stated above? After all, the spell does not state that this damage goes away at any moment but rather that it can only be triggered once per turn. The spell also states that normally if the item isn't dropped the creature suffers disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks until the start of your next turn. So, I use my bonus action to cause the damage to flare up which SHOULD last until the start of my next turn otherwise the secondary effects wouldn't exist in the first place. If my target is an ally who is immune to fire damage they suffer nothing as any enemy also immune to fire damage would suffer nothing from the spell. I bonus action cause their weapon to flare up and on their turn they attack and deal an extra 2d8 fire damage per attack (if it truly persists until the START of my next turn). I have found a more powerful Searing Smite if there's no solid reason this shouldn't be possible and the literal only thing I can think of right now as an argument against this is game balance.
Dude, I freaking HATE most ad reads. I not only sat through the whole thing, I laughed, I cried, and now I want airship crap. Curse you Selling Welshman!!!
Why doesnt anyone make situations in wich some mobs or people end up disliking the powergamer and focus on him and team up or become a third party during fights.
Think kobolds that are super smart, and specifically hate the guy who acted arrogantly and helped knoms super well becuas eit was a super way to win the encounters and get all the wxtra support and extra power and counter the counters to his extra abilitites.
I’ve got to admit, “talk to the power gamer respectfully” is a better solution than the obvious “hit them with the shovel” option I was expecting.
But I just paid money for the shovel
@@Mr_Welchif they don't listen to the talk, then we can bury them later. But try the talking part first
I was 100% expecting the skit to be about him digging a grave in the middle of nowhere...
In general, 90% of RPG problems are best solved by talking to people.
But it’s also fun to screw with them ingame
I took a slightly less high road but one that was kinda hilarious and it's surprisingly effective: Bait the power gamer with a lover interest and they'll just never see obvious set ups and traps coming. I got one guy that even when told not to walk into a trap intentionally ditched the party to go see the love interest NPC and predictably died to a well set up ambush.
I guess thinking powergamers are fun and inspiring to DM for is a hotter take than I thought it was haha!
Jokes on you. My character is specifically designed to ruin any and all campaigns. How you may ask?
Small Harengon Warlock/Bard Multiclass, with Expertise in Intimidation, and the Cloak of Flies Invocation, reflavored into lovely hearts.
Through the power of Furry Cringe, the cutest voice I can muster, and saying "uwu, bolgy-wolgy inspecktah," I roll to Intimidate *_THE DM._*
Likely not the best in combat, but I don't have to worry about AC, since... well... nobody wants to be anywhere _near_ that level of cringe.
@@LucanVaris Jokes on you when the DM comes to game night in full furry BDSM outfit ;)
Looks like you had a lot of fun filming this one, and I had a lot of fun watching it, soooo. Win win!
@@LucanVarisMy character is literally the Doomslayer. He would be going out of his way to annihilate you (so would I).
@@LucanVaris jokes on you, the DM is into it, and you're now in a very uncomfortable and awkward position
Power gamers aren't a problem, problem players are. It's just that sometimes, the problem player is a power gamer.
I have a soft disagree on that.
I think the term 'powergamer' is used to describe a certain type of problem player. As in a 'powergamer' is the problematic extreme of a 'minmaxer'. I think every group has their own standards when a minmaxer becomes a powergamer, but a powergamer is per definitiona problem player. But that's just semantics ...
@@Curathol I think "Powergamer" is more of a red flag that a player may be a problem than a problem itself. Also, I wouldn't put minmaxers and powergamers under the same umbrella. Minmaxers understand than they have to sacrifice one area to be good in another, where powergamers are looking to be overwhelmingly great at everything. They are definitely related, but not quite the same thing.
@@Curathol I get that. But I also don't agree, simply because the term "powergamer" and "minmaxer" aren't just used interchangeably, "minmaxer" is just as often used to the describe that kind of problem player with "powergamer" being the more general version. It's all just semantics as you say, and it doesn't actually matter what you call it.
Because at the end of the day, the issue isn't that they're a problematic extreme of a powergamer/minmaxer/munchkin/optimizer. They issue is that they're a problem player period. The extremes don't come from the powergaming in and itself, they derive from a player's inability to be empathetic to the other players and the DM, and their often selfish desires to be the best or treat something like a videogame.
Yeah. You can have power gaming, minimaxing, rules lawyering pedants. But, if they're not suffering from main character syndrome, and know how to work together, you're fine.
If players would all neatly fit into boxes and we'd arrange them in a venndiagram, then the overlap between problem player and powergamer would be quite a bit higher than for other boxes imo
As a power gamer myself and a DM, I think the 6th strategy (talking to them respectfully with an understanding that you both want to play the game) is definitely the way to go, especially when combined with giving opportunities for every character to have the spotlight
As a player, I have a conversation with my DM and say: "Hey, I made a character that can do ____, but I also built in a flaw of ____". As a DM, if there's a power gamer in the group, I encourage them to be a sort of leader for the group, as power gamers tend to be more experienced players, and help out other players where need be. Then I balance out and fill in gaps to make sure that everyone is having an equal amount of fun, best I can.
@@awetastic4280 me, as a player that likes to be powerful (minmaxer i guess?), i tend to have this rule: always ask the dm if it's fine when you think something's overtuned. For example, i was playing Pathfinder 1e, and charges there can be pretty strong. I made a build that, at lvl 3 (lvl at which we start), managed to have 45 dmg with a +10 to hit. That was too much, so, as to not disrupt the game, i talked to him about when should i take the broken feats, and we arrived at something that let me play my mounted knight who still hit hard with the charges, while, you know, not either one-shotting everything or forcing everyone else to minmax the hell out of their characters to be on par with me. Its something i always felt is easy, like, yes, i like being powerful and or useful, but i also like seeing my friends do their stuff and be useful as well, you know?
As a fellow DM and power gamer, I enjoy powerful player characters and encourage them. Just not the builds or exploits that spoil everyones fun! But power? Power is fun! Power means I get to throw very deadly encounters at low level parties.
I'm contemplating throwing a young white dragon at a party of 5 level 2 players next session. Unless they roll like garbage, I really don't see the dragon living through 3 rounds of combat. But the breath attack is a bit much, if I'm not careful. I want them terrified and amused, not 1-shot and dead, so I might try giving them access to a few more cold resistance potions. That way the all get out of the 1-shot range. 🤔
But it depends how the rest of the session goes, if they're having a rough night I'm holding back until they're level 3. (They've had a Heroes Feast as a reward from the end of last session, so right now they've all got 13 extra hit points and have temporary hit points available from the druid, so with cold resistance on top of that it puts them all well out of 1-shot range from the average breath attack). I want to make them excited, not 1-shot them! 😁
@probablythedm1669
I do the same thing, except that I adjust the stat block if some ability can be too problematic for my players to handle. My only kirk is that I always roll the HP of the enemies.
And if some player isn't maximizing their character, I make a magic item specifically to them to keep the balance of the party. And when they are creating their PC or picking a talent (I let them pick a talent without choosing between it or ASI), I always ask: "What you wanna do?" and I give a few pointers to help.
When I'm playing, I let the power gaming half done, and I ask when I can go in overdrive for the campaign finale.
@@sergiogimenez3923I remember when I played Curse of Strahd and a similar situation happened because of me. I had a broken paladin build that at level 5 (the level we started at) could open combats by outright/almost oneshotting powerful enemies with a charge while still having 20 AC and being the party face. I worked with the DM to comeup with a campaign objective that would work around my characters strengths but would still challenge my character in a way that was true both to the campaign and my character. My party mates (they were all much newer players than me, to which the reason I was there was essentially to sure up the noob party because Curse of Strahd is known for being brutal) responded by asking me to guide them on how to build strong characters that were still true to their backstories and personality like mine.
Party composition can create the illusion of people being power gamers.
In my current campaign, I'm a Level 3 Totem Barbarian. It's a great subclass but obviously not busted on its own however in a party with two sorcerers and a rogue we're currently at a point where most enemies are able to one shot them without proving a problem for me and most fights end up with me running after knocked out party members with healing potions.
I've played enough D&D to know the sorcerers are going to come online more as the campaign progresses but right now everyone does think I'm pretty OP for just basically being a standard Barbarian
Done that. But the other way round. My wizard character spent the entire first 8 levels of the game getting picked up and carried through every encounter. Only useful for his utility out of combat. But once we got to 9th level and the higher level spell came online.. well the power dynamic changed in the party. Barbarian now takes a back seat an protects the wizard while he controls the crap out of the battlefield. Allowing the Paladin to Smite with advantaged attacks. And then just enabling fast travel to pre set Teleportation Circle. Prep work during the early levels laid the foundation for the later levels. When the wizard feels safe I Haste the Barbarian and Paladin and let them go wild.. everyone has fun..
A lot of people who complain about power gamers don't understand that different classes have power curves which make them above or below average depending on the level of the party. Circle of the Moon druids are combat monsters at low levels but transition to utility/support characters in mid to late game. Wizards are squishy, semi-useless utility characters at low levels but become game-changing powerhouses around level 9. Building a party with some characters that peak at lower levels and others that peak mid to late game can really help keep your party on top of the challenges regardless of the game stage. And then there's classes that are just plain broken after level 3 and every party should have them, like Twilight Clerics and Bear Totem Barbarians.
@@ClipperHorizonMoon totem scales pretty fine though, at higher levels they can turn into full ass elementals
They sound like noobs if they say you are OP, lmao. A barbarian basically has no hard CC, and a DM can just ignore them if they want to with only 1 reaction a turn. Barbarians are honestly pretty weak for action economy, and only strong if the DM focuses monsters on them, and I say this as a barbarian main who loves barbs.
@@churchA.I Elementals are pretty meh in combat (low AC unless it's earth, low damage compared to fighter/barb) unless the fight specifically caters to their element/special abilities. Giant constrictor snakes and their grapple are where it's at.
Thank you very much for this video. I hope it does well.
Kobold spotted in the wild
@@parkerwalaitis2890 🐊
Considering the needs/wants of different players is optimal
Kobold rolled low stealth, should have used passed without trace
I have played D&D since the 1st edition. The game has evolved a lot, for better and worse. With 5th edition, a good chunk of the fun is working through all the wild character creation options and trying to make it work narratively. At the end of the day, it’s a game and should be fun for all involved, however that works for each group.
I really appreciate your videos man, rock on.
Still a lot less options than 3rd edition, and even more so compared to Pathfinder
When I first played 3.5e, my friend found a group for us to join, made of acquaintances of ours, and asked if we could join for a one-shot sometime, noting it would be my first time playing D&D, but that I'd played a Star Wars table-top before, so I had the basics of how table-top worked down, and wouldn't need too much help to understand mechanics/character building.
For our session zero, he talked to me about his idea of character creation, and said I would make it with him, out of standard order, so I could "build my character as though they were born into the world, and grew up there".
We started off with him explaining the setting, and where we would start, and that this was a heavy mix of RP elements and combat encounters.
I start off rolling my stats, and he asks me questions like, "melee? ranged? magic?" and as I answer different questions he explains stats that would correspond to my character's intended play-style, and we wind up building a min-maxxed bard for combat - focusing on "area control".
I had no idea the concept of min-maxxing at the time, and my friend later, after the session, was praising the character creation we went through, and told me about min-maxxing, and that it was cool our DM not only allowed it, but made suggestions for me that were in fact, min-maxxxy.
From this experience I learned : power-gaming/min-maxxing isn't about breaking the DM's game, it's about understanding the world you are playing in, and creating a character that grew up understanding the limitations of said world, and training/learning to "fill the role they want to play".
For anyone interested, his method went like this :
example of the "out-of order character creation" (assuming the setting has already been discussed)
1) discuss/decide on vague role to fill for the party, be it combat related, or skill-monkey related, and ways to do so
2) roll/apply stats that benefit said role
3) pick a race
4) pick a background
5) pick class/classes, if starting above level 1, and you are multi-classing
6) if applicable, pick spells / warn player of "weaker spells", be it the damage they deal, or warn that the enemies of said campaign have may resistance/immunity to certain things
7) gold/gear
from my understanding character creation has always been
1) roll stats/pick race
2) class / spells
3) background
4) gold/gear
his method of character creation really helped put me "in character" from the get-go.
@@johannesstephanusroos4969 Agreed, certainly. Pros and cons to all of them. The flavor has changed a lot over time.
@@SunWukongSonGoku I really love having characters that feel either very organic to the setting and campaign, or alien in deliberate and compelling ways. I think the above method is a great intro to D&D and that sounds like a great DM.
The "Also I've been doing you wife had me cackling
✔️👍
I believe they have the same wife.
Could be mistaken, though.
Probably happened more than once, DMs are basically bards without the spellcasting😂😂😂.
ArchibaldVonSkip it does make sense I mean they are the same person…. Right?
right?
The smile and thumbs up cracked me up xD
A key thing is that min-maxing isn't necessarily powergaming. Optimising a character to be good at their specialistion is fine, the problem is if the play wants to outshine everyone else. And absolutely we should be rewarding EXP for overcoming encounters! If your character can get the party past a dangerous encounter, you stil overcame it.
PS. What you got against Wales man? It's lovely!
Wales is a lovely place. Unfortunately, it's full of Welshmen.
Im also a big min-maxer but what a lot of people forget is that to MAX you have to MIN. Sure my character thrives in combat but I don’t need to be rolling and insight checks. I have a character that is the exact opposite as well. They can convince you that you are actually a clone and that he is the true version of yourself but he is only going to be buffing and debuffing people.
if you people weren't overly concerned about being equal to others it wouldn't be a problem, in the old days everyone put effort in their characters then you causes came in and got angry you don't get the same powers others got for putting effort into the game but for free, you people ruined the hobby
As a DM who *really* doesn't like powergaming, this is a key distinction to make. I expect a certain level of minmaxing from my players (basic stuff like putting stats where they belong for your class, or maybe choosing to use a raiper instead of a scimitar or something). My issues always come when I'm trying to run a narrative-focused game and then powergamers seem to be able to overcome every encounter (combat, social, and otherwise) with ease while the other players who built less optimized characters have to sit in the background.
There's nothing wrong with powergaming in theory, I just notice that a lot of powergamers refuse to accept that their playstyle doesn't work for *every single dm ever*
@@colorpg152 bro stop pitching a tantrum, who you play with is your prerogative, it only "ruins" the game if you let it
I see a lot of DMs who make every combat encounter an epic fight. On the surface this seems like a good idea, but throwing in some easy encounters to mix things up can be an excellent way to add variety to the game and deal with a power gamer. This works best with enemies where judging the difficulty of the encounter isn’t readily apparent, like bandits. Players have to decide if the combat is dangerous enough to use their resources. The power gamer will probably enjoy demolishing the weaker enemies as well.
One of the evil groups in my game has low-level thugs that are constantly on drugs. I used them when the party was level 3 and haven't improved them at all.
Mix them with actually threatening boss enemies and have the thugs do non-combat things, and you get a combat where the challenge is uncertain and not just about dealing tons of damage. Especially since addicts are prone to strange decisions.
variety is the spice of life
Bro really tries to explain how to handle power gamers like he is not the one creating them 💀
Power gamers are fun.
It’s true, this channel is responsible for 95% of all Power Gamers.
The rest come from the Kitchen Nightmares channel.
The video aims to explain that power gamers are fun and easy to DM for! Although I can't take credit for making powergamers haha, this channel isn't an optimisation channel, it's an interesting builds + memes channel! Treantmonk and D4: Deep Dive are much better Powergaming channels if that's what you want to find!
Bro really tries to comment without watching the whole video. Just want likes
🤣🤣🤣🤣
The Spotlight Method is exactly how all of the best game masters I've ever had worked. This created synergy and fun games for all player types and character types alike.
One of my best friends is a power gamer (even when he tries to not be), and I love playing with him. He tends to make really fun, memorable characters that are a joy to play off of. And our DM mixes up the sorts of challenges we face so everyone still feels useful
As a power gamer myself i have noticed how my dm kinda straggeled with my character being really dominent in combet so i have started making combat moves to help the party members insted of being the direct damage dealer like: buffing allies insted of damaging so that i might not kill the enemy with that fireball but he will die to the ranger attacking more using haste or i'll turn our paladin invisable when she gets targeted by that cult so she could get a better attack angle my dm was really enjoing that and i found it really fun too cuz while i didn't deal the most damage i still made a really big impact on combat
The problem isn't power gamers. The problem is Bad players. You are clearly a good player. Well done.
Im struggling with reading your gibberish, so i stopped reading.
I do something similar in one of my games. I play a homebrew race: undead revanent with DM approved chnages, GooLock/aberrant mind sorc (coffeelock style). I can easily trivialize most encounters, partly because our DM isn't great at building them to our party level, but mostly because I can cast most any spell I want for minutes straight. I mostly play in a psychic theme, primarily controlling other people's turns in some form or another or dealing some form of psychic damage, but 3 minutes of 5th level fire ball would do the same thing.
I never get the last hit, or even the first for that matter, but I tend to be the reason why our party members do get to hit more often.
@@murderyoutubeworkersandceos ok bro sorry my dislaxia and the fact english is my second leguge is bothering you so much you had to comment
@@idokaminsky5471 any more pathetic excuses? Cuz both of those r treatable
Another thing you could do is change the conditions for success with your encounters. Sure they can kill a bunch of your monsters, but can they also keep their favorite NPC alive? Can they also steal back a magic crystal from the monsters before they escape? Can they kill the monsters before time runs out and the castle collapses on top of them?
Btw I love the friendliness of this video, with the different places your in, feels rlly personal you know? Love your stuff thanks man
I once played a character named Big Mrow Mrow who became so strong so fast I worked with the GM to send him away on a solo quest and played as his brother Little Mrow Mrow for awhile. Once the other players got stronger I brought the big guy back and by the end we were all equally stupidly strong. It was a blast.
For dealing with many different problem players: I highly recommend the Pathfinder 1e Game Mastery Guide (p. 70-80 or so). Paizo detailed a number of problem player archetypes and how to address their behavior to benefit the whole table. It really is masterful advice!
Remember, just because a TTRPG has been updated to a new edition or is superseded by newer games, doesn't mean that they haven't included troves of advice and content for you to use to improve your GMing or your role play.
Back in my 3.5/pf days i always played the Thanos style character before MCU Thanos was a thing. What i mean by that is, "Fine, I'll do it myself." Much of the time i way underplayed my characters power, then when crap got tough, i went full power. It was often fun seeing the other players suddenly go, "WTF since when could you do that?!" Often with the response, "Always, just didn't see a reason to." I made op combat characters because i wanted to get back to the rp lol.
The first campaign that me and the rest of my party completed had me be that role. I started with a power build Rogue Tabaxi and as things kept progressing, it became quite clear that A. The DM has to Legitimately Contrive circumstances for me to be found when I am stealthing(save for nat 20s, those just made for funny events); B. I had EVERY opportunity to fall into the Main Character Role, and aptly refused, letting the eldritch knight on our team have it instead. I just kept combat flowing simple by way of being too strong or having superior tactical control, and allowing the rest of the party to RP their hearts out.
the good old days of fun before everything got ruined by casuals
Literally the best way to powergame, let everyone have fun and contribute. My Kobold Druid could singlehandedly destroy armies, but where's the fun in that?
@@colorpg152 I mean I disagree with that sentiment. 5e isn't my cup of tea but there are plenty of other fun systems like pf2e. My favorite is dungeon world and that's the simplest system ever.
@@scottsmith9936 in the past rpg used to mean something else, it started as wargaming and transformed into its own thing, what you people want is a impostor, a board game pretending to be a trpg wtih acting pretending to be role playing, you people replaced emergent sandboxes with narrative railroading and replaced theory crafting and building with mmorpg macros, 5e shouldn't even have the right to call itself a trpg
My one rule is that if you come at me with some optimized power gaming class combo, you need to have a story that fits it. If you can't do that, you can't do the combo.
If you can’t give me a reason why your sorcerer is also a Paladin narratively than I can’t allow your character to multiclass. I agree with this take; some multiclass just take away too much of the narrative.
I mean as someone who has that limitation put on them, I can say that it didn't stop me.
As a habitual powergamer (It just kinda happens, I swear), I love these ideas. I wanna be strong and have fun, but I wouldn't be anything but excited if my friends got cool stuff to be just as strong. Also, if you're *really* having trouble figuring out how to deal with somebody who makes strong characters, talk to them! I definitely know the weaknesses of the character I've spent all this time making, and having those weaknesses exploited (Sometimes. Not every fight, please!) is great! Having weak points allows for great narrative moments, so I'm all for it!
I was sure you were gonna bury a power gamer with that shovel
100% thought that was where it was going.
When I first took up the DM mantle, I knew I needed to cater my games to power gamers. The meta to dealing with power gamers while giving epic story plots is;
1. Understanding action economy. Whoever has more wins encounters, usually.
2. Understanding resource management. Why are you giving your players free long rest? They need rest? Are they in a safe place to do so? If not up the chances for encounters because there's no rest for the wicked.
3a. Trigonometry of the battlefield. Where is everyone? Who's the weakest link? Casters need to die first is universal in 5e lore, your story and games. Waste npc action economy to find out these questions against the players. Running away to fight another day is the go to option DM's need to let players know and do.
3b. Above is why if you're dealing with power gamers never play 5e using theatre of the mind bullspit. And why im against TotM players and DM's playing D&D as their go to ttrpg, instead of some other ttrpg that does it better.
4. Use the Everloving spit out of the 5e DMG. It will balance your gameplay if you add the mechanics suggested in the book that you may and I say May need to enhance your games to the next level.
5. This is optional, but if you're too lazy as a DM to learn all the steps above than the simplest answer is to create storyplots where the npc's matter so much that it reflects on the player's actions. Power gamers will beat most encounters anyways so just make the plotlines hella intriguing knowing players will win but reflecting on said wins has its consequences. Makes players engaged on the storyline rather than combat. Hobo'ing the whole way through should have its ramifications. My meta for this style I call it, Leap of Faith, storytelling.
Shout to DnD shorts for the video. Thanks for your insight.
My worst incident was someone who used a bunch of obscure rules to set up a tactic that would basically invalidate an entire boss fight that people were looking foreward to and of course, this HAD to be the moment where he had a horseshoe up his ass and rolled perfectly to make it happen.
Bam, boss everyone was hyped for was basically beaten immediately. Not only was I very annoyed, everyone else at the table was giving him the stink eye.
"Um...we kinda wanted to get to do something too Mr Glory Hound!"
If you're thinking of going out of your way to try and break the game, don't. There's no scenario where you come out on top.
Personal suggestion in the matters of empowering other players
As a powergamer myself i became the wiki of the groups i play with, the DM sends people to me to help plan characters and after they get their story in check building a build around is a lot of fun and takes off some of the job from the DM and engages the other players more in their character
exactly, if they need help with a vison, its our power gamer ass job to get them workable
@@mattcurnell2545It is the duty of those with strength and knowledge to share with those that lack them. The rising tide that lifts the fleet will also lift you.
And if the party still is unbalanced the powergamer can just hold back their strongest moves for emergencies only, acting qs safety net so all others can share the spotlight.
I always love doing some Min maxing, not because I like to "break the game", but because that turns my character into a bit of a puzzle. Figuring out how certain abilities interact with one another is fun.
One of my favorite characters is a rogue (soon to multi bard) uses actor, observant and keen mind to infiltrate and become anybody he meets to circumvent most fighting. My dm does a real good job of utilizing my skills in his campaign because when we hit the combat he lacks so everyone gets their fun.
In my campaign, I accidentally became a bit of a power gamer, partially through build craft, partially through being lucky with loot. But I took the opportunity to progress my character's story and in doing so limited his power a bit. It helps that our group rotates DMing duties. It started as a monster of the week style affair, so the mantle would pass around as we came up with excuses for our characters to not be involved in the hunt that week. So, I made a little three part story that ended with my character slightly depowered.
The issue with "power gaming" is that people think it's a bad thing. It's not.
I love designing character builds, some are supposed to be "big number go brrr", but others are skill monkeys. I once designed an expy of Rasputin the Mad Monk, as a Monk/Ranger with lots of Wisdom.
Others are more plot based, but the build requires specific features. A lot of players decry triple multiclassing, but the game is balanced around taking whatever levels you can, given specialists are stronger than a generalist. A player who takes a level of Nature Cleric and a level of Druid before taking the rest in Blood Hunter feels odd, because it delays the martial progression of BH, delays ASI and Extra Attack, and you have to get that far with a non-Optimized build. In reality, my design is for a druidic warrior in heavy armor smacking foes with a staff up to three times a turn, all using Wisdom to attack. Having access to both Cleric and Druid cantrips, couple healing spells, and crimson rite means that my triple multiclass can do a lot of damage while also tanking melee. Is it strong, sure; is it fun, I hope so.
In a game I'm playing in, our DM called his brother, who also plays with us, a power gamer cause he always finds ways to "break" the game, even if it's completely vanilla. His brother, who felt this was unjustified, told him "oh? You think I'm power gaming, do you? This isn't power gaming. THIS is power gaming." and proceeded to make a half-orc hexadin with greataxe, dual smite, booming blade and hex who regularly deals over 100 damage when he crits.
"How to handle power gamers"
*takes us for a long walk in the woods with a shovel.
There’s also another way: you read the rules. Most times, power players purposely or not misinterpret or ignore the rules in order to make whatever combo they want to do plausible.
Let’s get to your Infinite Wizard combo. First of all, it’s a spell that takes 12 hours to be casted so if anything it’s already the GM’s fault that the players had basically a whole day of literally nothing to do so many times that this could be casted “infinite times”. Then we go to the actual rules. The Simulacrum obeys you, but the Simulacrum’s Simulacrum doesn’t. Of course, it’s friendly towards anyone your Simulacrum deems friendly, but it’s still not obeying the og caster, so it’s basically an NPC. By the 3rd or 4th time you do it you already have NO WAY OF CONTROLLING IT unless you want to spend a turn doing Chinese Whispers. Let us all also remember that although speaking is a free action the turn only lasts 6 seconds. So even then, if you consider that your command took 1 second to be spoken, the second one wouldn’t be able to give a command at the same time so only 5 Simulacrums could speak a verbal command and by the time the last one spoke the action couldn’t be followed anyways. And that’s considering they won’t die in combat. Let us all be reminded that although you’re at 17th level you’re still squishy as a Wizard, and your Simulacrums are twice as squishy and your enemies at this point are NOT just twice as powerful as them.
An adult blue dragon deals 12d10 damage with its breath for an average of 66 which is more than enough to wipe the floor with your Simulacrum - or even you depending on your HP rolls - in one turn.
My problem with the anger with "power gamers," is that some people confuse "rp focus" with "I don't memorize my spells/abilities and how they interact." They think everyone needs to be playing with as minimal a focus and understanding of the rules they interact with as possible, and like... there's better systems for that than DnD or DnD spin-offs like Pathfinder. I once got labeled as a "power gamer" just for reading my spells and noticing that I could use two of them in one turn for high burst damage due to how 11th level Pathfinder Magi work. I had role-play themes for him, but like... I just read the rules of what my one class build could do. No multicasting was used, but I had to leave that table before I fully joined a game because it was clear the DM wasn't happy with that, and I constantly felt like I was walking on egg shells around him
Thank god you got out in time. Wrong table!
then that's just as shitty gm who shouldnt be gming. you dodged a bullet
He was not a bad dm, he probably just wanted to tell an engaging story without someone treating the rules book like the constitution.
I have a player/dm like that (same person) and he is cool, but takes advantage of the rules to such an extent that you as a dm must become a piece of shit in order to make the game fun for you and the others. Imagine you saying “im gonna implement this optional rule cause its sounds cool and i want them to play something different” just for that dude to exploit the hell out of it.
@@ttominable I *had* a story idea for this character. I *was* invested in the story. I felt like I was constantly walking on eggshells because of how the DM consistently misunderstood everything I wanted to do, and was very inconsistent with how he interacted with me. I left because I was not a good fit for the table, nor was he as the DM a good fit for me. Engaging story and understanding of mechanics are not mutually exclusive, especially in a game system like Pathfinder 1e which is notoriously number crunchy
This is one of the best D&D/DMing/GMing videos I've ever watched. Solid advice, solves and in fact questions a "problem" many people just whinge about. Thank you so much. I've been lucky to have a really good DM and I love playing but I can definitely see how this happens and I love the advice you give for solving the problems.
So this is a optimised combat monster?
_No, he's a Eloquence Bard with a few levels in Divination Wizard._
So every social encounter is now.....?
_Yup!_
And I assume you're a Halfling so you also have Luck?
_No, I'm a Changeling._
Oh you f#$%
Time to bewitch them with the evil lord offering promises and prizes in exchange for the evil forces messing with the party, and then they have to redeem themselves.
Just remember that persuasion is not mind controll and there is no problem with that build.
@@gloryrod86the most charismatic and socially skilled ppl in real life can do some insane shit
@Niffunn sure, usually over weeks to years, they don't have mind control.
@@gloryrod86 ofc not mind control but it gets pretty crazy
I played in a game of Aberrant, White Wolf version, where a player made a power combat hero. He got annoyed when the party had non combat situations, where other players were better depending on situations... oh man, he complained so much that the GM just started adding more combat in. Yea.. that game fizzled.
Remember guys, if you want to reveal having an affair, you must run a campaign for the partner of the person you're having an affair with, and make them do power gaming somehow. There's no other way to do it.
There is responsibility on the players not to intentionally create absolutely broken stuff
In my game, one of the characters is a Bladesinger with an AC of "yes". But one of the other characters is a flying fairy mouse barbarian and another is a dwarf rune knight fighter... and these pale in comparison to the power of the *_literal god_* character in the party who can summon their god powers in a pinch when things get particularly nasty (though doing so has... _consequences..._ but yeah).
And then there's the sorceress with an AC of like, 14.
So I gave the godlike character the ability to make armor that gives everyone a base AC of 21 and let everyone take max HP every level. Now everyone's basically on an even playing field again.
_I don't recommend this for every game by any stretch of the imagination,_ but for our game, everyone's having a blast.
No matter how "Shitty" some people on the internet may call a solution you come up with for a problem at your table, as long as your solution is one that all the players at your table is cool with, it is a good solution.
It's also worth asking /why/ somebody does it.
Like, there are folks who don't get a thrill when their character's life is on the line, their investment is in playing one character for a long time, and so build the strongest thing they can to ensure character survival.
There's also folks who don't find combat interesting and make a strong character in hopes of making it go faster so they can get back to the social stuff.
Some folks want to play an expert, and find a more "balanced" thing leaves them failing all the time at what is supposed to be their core competence. Often, just because dice have more impact than a "normal" build.
I do enjoy making characters who are powerful, I like watching the theoretical numbers go up. Then I nerf them in rp. My best example of this is Elsie, my kobold who has another personality within them. Basically, the way it works is I have a short list of potential triggers, and I roll to see if they swap, and for how long. My party starts going down in combat and the one who's still standing watches her burn her two highest level spell slots casting a spell she's never used before (to them), and unleashes a burning fury in the form of scorching rays in a single turn (action surge). And then she goes back to being herself and has no idea that she burned half the battlefield into a smoldering wreck. The other players are usually the ones who shine in combat, but if we get unlucky with rolls or the DM underestimated a combat, she picks up the slack.
I use a similar system, I make incredibly powerful characters because I don't want to die but to make it still fun I don't play them to their extent and blitz every encounter, I enforce roleplay based limitations in the form of things like a character who has a lore reason to not want to use a certain ability or just prefers a certain type of combat that the build is not optimised for, like my lunar sorcerer moon druid who prefers non wild shaped melee combat with weapons, not because they are optimised for it but because they just prefer it. And doesn't like using sorcerer spells because of a bad relationship with their father whom they inherited them from. But if things go bad I unleash my might and save the day.
I think the first "solution" is likely to cause more problems. Part of the fun of powergaming is the puzzle of creating the best character at something within a set of rules. If you then "break" those rules by giving under powered characters something extra to get them on par you have just trivialized their effort. The rules of the system are as much part of the social contract of playing the game as it is to not speak over each other during social encounters. If you're going outside these rules like with the shield example in the video, you are breaking that social contract.
In a 3.5 game I was told to build my character level 5 and well and balanced for the party. The party (oddly enough) had zero characters with dark vision and there was no sneaky character at all. So I made a half elf shade assassin and I made him insanely good at his role with 1 minor exception, in daylight he was only half as powerful. I figured it would work out sense there was going to be minimal things to do at night. The issue there was with the character wasn't that he was min/maxed so much as that when compared to the rest of the team, my character was what he called "an invisible god in the dark". Funny thing was that nobody BUT the GM had an issue with it because that was my job in party and being nearly useless during the day would give everyone some great RP opportunities along the line. Still not sure why that character wasn't allowed in that game but I did get to play it for a few sessions in another game and it was a blast for everyone. Honestly just proves that "overpowered" is only an issue for some people. My advise for players is simple, if you are going to make a min/max a character then make sure you have a backstory and personality that allows for those skills at those levels. And make sure to RP that character with that backstory in mind. Far to many people come to games with the sole intention of min/maxing the fun out of the game with zero thought to they're own backstories, either because they never came up with one or because they came up with something so long and convoluted that nothing makes sense.
sorry for the long post
So it was basically a Drow?
@@urixl basically. And equally hated by the general public.
1. 9 Volt to tongue.
2. Car battery.
3. Taser
4. 110 volt
5. 220 volt
6. Lightning bolt.
But everyone knows fireball is stronger than lightning bolt!
@@weaponizedpizza8825ssssshhhhhhh
Nah that's situationally cap.
@weaponizedpizza8825 but a great storyteller knows that lightning is inherently funnier
That last one is exactly how I solved it I went, "Hey man this character breaks this entire module. I didn't realize how broken it was for this module but if you build a new character I will create a worthy death for this one and transition you into your new one." He then made a necromancer which gave me a great opportunity to build a zombie encounter where they were immune to slashing damage from the characters ax. And so his new character killed his old one and it made for a very intimidating introduction.
Hopefully, many people are able to learn from this video. I did this as a player once, and my DM wouldn't listen to the multiple stat weaknesses I had as a counter to my broken A.C.
This is missleading. This is not a problem with a powergamer, This is a problem with mixed groups looking for different things that align poorly. If you are looking for an action filled power campaign, a power game is not a problem, having one powergamer and 3 not would be. player agenda and game style should be explored, discussed and agreed on early. If you agree on an intrigue campaign with more diplomacy with horror team, and one player ignores this and super minmax anyway, then yes that could be a problem, but not because he is a powergamer, but because he is a problem player who broke the premise of the campaign.
Ive had several campaigns straight up wrecked by power gamers coming up with absurd characters that our DM allowed. They were basically able to solo almost every encounter in one of those campaigns because they snuck off on their own and ended up taking down an encounter that yielded a ton of experience that put them ahead of everyone else which was then leveraged into "we're doing what I say and I'll kill you if you dont like it."
An issue you didn't mention is the "arms race". Players build better PCs, the DM ups the challenge. The players think "wow, this GM is tough! Next PC better be even stronger!" etc etc
Nice quality upgrade on the vid. Love the diggingtrip "journey" and the comedy rewind about "your wife" in the end. You have certainly become better at this m8. Keep it up!
As I'm personally not a power-gamer myself and more focused on story-telling I find the advice to "simply find counters for the power-gamer skill" actually one of the problems. I want to craft a story for the players to explore and not have to bog myself down on the intricate mechanics of the game, where I *first* have to understand what makes the power-gamer strong in the first place and then *after that* do my own power-gaming deep dive on creatures/mechanics for leveling said playing field. Overall this sound like a solution for a DM who's also a power gamer, not one for casual roleplay enjoyers.
On the other hand rebalancing the problem by giving the weak players more powerfull items/features, maybe even coming up with interesting character/story relations is definitely a *better* solution for roleplay focused DMs *at first glance* until you notice that this throws the already problematic D&D challange-rating completely out of whack and you have to instead invest more time into creating encounters for an overpowered party instead.
Don't get me wrong, as always this is good advice by DnD Shorts, but this shows how busted D&D 5e as a system is once again...
And if the OGL debacle hadn't made me test out different systems I'd still think that this is "just a pen & paper RPG problem" and not a problem with D&D 5e (and maybe WotC more specifically) today without knowing that there a systems where this is actually less of a problem.
I have a simple solution for you. Limit combat. Not eliminate, but limit. I'm betting with your style, you attract mostly people who enjoy the rp aspect more than combat anyway. Limiting combat would still give the power gamer what they want, but would also give the rest of the players what they want.
Yeah, in this case the solution sounds like either a) not playing with that player any more - not because they're a bad player, just a bad fit -, b) switching to a more narrative (or balanced) system, or c) convincing that player to tone it down, which they might very reasonably not want to, as that's where the fun lies for them. None of them perfect solutions, but solutions they are nevertheless.
Combat is roleplay tho… it sounds like your problem is with a combat centric system like 5e. Maybe try a different system?
Have this discussion at session 0. It shouldn't move beyond the start of the campaign. Have an adult conversation. Like an adult. If people disagree, it's time to move on.
@@MalloonTarka Definitely B sounds like the answer. When I heard that bit about mechanics, I was like "Well why D&D then? There are tons of more narrative focused systems and most of them are fun."
Being a long time player, and new DM. I find to balance the powergamer, more specifically op multiclass builds, is to put the burden on the player to RP or backstory the reason's for that multiclassing. This usually results in a more fun game overall.
My issue with power gamers that Im not a good DM. Im a new one. When on my very first session a murdering multiclassed changeling rolls up to a cooperative party... I dont know what to do. I dont know enough monsters or rules to handle it. Nowdays I can, but, honestly this just puts more load on the dm. Find the weaknesses of his build, search monsters for it that you can throw into the game. Dont get me wrong, it is absolutely doable but like, the in game solution is not as obvious as the out of the game one is. Especially if you dont know the monster manual by heart.
Yes, if the DM isn't knowledgeable, a power gamer can be quite difficult to handle. There's a lot of ways around it such as empowering other members, encounter balance, direct balancing, homebrew, and talking to the player. However, talking to the player can be intimidating especially for a new DM and the rest require a certain level of knowledge to do well. Since a lot of these are harder for newer DMs, my suggestion is to never allow your players to roll up with a sheet. All sheets are subject to DM approval. Ideally, talk to them about what kind of character they wish to make, why, and how they intend for them to play. There's a huge difference between knowing two weeks ahead of time that someone is whipping out a sneaky skill monkey changeling and getting sprung on it on session day. You may well have been able to handle it with no adjustments at all if you just knew ahead of time. If that's not good enough, it is way easier to talk to the player before they start playing said character than trying to deal with it in session. If the player has a combo in mind and is honest, they'll likely tell you about it when you ask them how they intend for them to play or somewhere in the pre creation discussion. This gives you the opportunity to figure out how to deal with it or litigate it at the design stage, before the player feels that they're "locked in" to playing this character.
Dealing with the "issue" can take a decent amount of knowledge and experience a new DM may not have but taking precautions to prevent it from becoming an issue takes far less expertise on the side of the DM. In my opinion, doing this just helps in general because a power gamer has fun by optimizing and to a degree, that's fine. Trying to solve it with choice use of the monster manual isn't really solving the issue, just cherry picking matchups to knock someone down a few pegs which usually doesn't solve the issue. Knowing what everyone wants and how they intend to have fun is much more helpful. Perhaps the others in the party are more concerned about roleplay or other matters and don't care if the power gamer hard carries a lot of encounters. In that case, you may wish to provide occasional encounters to let other players shine and other than that just let the power gamer do their thing. Perhaps another player wants to be strong too but doesn't know how. In this case, you may not need to mess with the power gamer but just suggest the two talk to each other. Maybe let the power gamer mentor the other player who wishes to play a strong build. The power gamer likely has many builds to share. So forth and so on. Many times it doesn't really require correction.
Wales isn't boring! We have fun traditions! Like South Wales having Mari Lwyd! (A horse skull that comes around at Christmas time singing songs at people's front door trying to gain entry into their house. If the inhabitants of the household run out of ideas (in song form) to use to deny Mari Lwyd entry, then Mari Lwyd enters the house and has to be provided with food and ale) Besides, it beats being English, those conniving thieving villains have destroyed/damaged many cultures (especially when we consider the displacement of the Celtics (and that's before they even owned "England") and then the damage that they did to the Celtic countries (Wales, Scotland, Ireland, (Republic and Northern), Brittany, Isle of Man, Cornwall and Galicia) And this isn't forgetting the fact that the only Celtic language that isn't considered endangered (according to a recent study that I can't find) is Welsh! (Yes, I am Welsh and feel very protective of my country))
TL:DR Rap battle against a horse skull ghost. If you loose, it drinks all your beer.
@@aleisterlavey9716 I imagine that it could be very funny if Mari Lwyd only does it in Welsh and the other side doesn’t know Welsh and has to guess what’s happening and respond in English.
@@Foxcub1289 🤣
I think the powergamer is a challenge to any DM. When a player starts to view the game like Doom or any other video game and demands high stats, tons of feats and those combos that you find after looking att various "cheat sheets" on the internet, then you will have a problem. Even if you bolster the rest of the crew so that everyone has +19 on every save and a ton of "do or die"-abilities, encounters will still be over in about two rounds. And when a player rolls a nat 1, failing a save or ability it will likely mean the end of the road for that character.
Then the player gets mad and you are starting to derail your game. Not because of the game, but because the powergamer wants to be OP and thus rushing through the scenario an unclear goal.
Well, in spite of a lot of ranting, I hope you get my point.
Equalization method: Homebrew to fix the shortcomings in DnD 5e 😂
And not just that, ironically overshadowing your power gamer, who will most likely be understandably pissed that the others get OP and badass items while they get:
+1 weapon with symbolic story iconography (the sword was made using the salt from the DM’s tears of frustration)
@@abdallahhakeem5185this happened in my campaign I was the only person who decided to read their class and subclass abilities and understand how the class functioned people complained because I did to much dmg so they all got insanely powerful items I got nothing and ended up being essentially useless in and out of combat.
Homebrew bullshit is half the problem 😂
We have a wizard that said at the begening that he didn't prioritize combat, but focused on alchemy and his potions turned out to be very powerful with the custom ingredients DM provided, so I (the barbarian) asked the DM if I could get something similar in the form of cooking- at first my chracter just enjoyed cooking, but then, while using the meat of a magical creature in one of the recipies he thought up an effect appeared, so now when we kill a magic creature I get the meat and the wizard gets the rest
There can't be power gamers in your game if your game is properly balanced
I like building broken characters, but I dont like playing them.
Sounds wierd, but I dont want to ruin the experience for all my friends. So its really fun to build an almost unkillable Moon Druid and see how high I can cheese his AC/saves and other stuff, but I dont like to play in such a way that I cheese the encounter my DM has spent hours working on.
The problem in my group isn’t just power players but also… me as a lowly lil roleplay and lore obsessed player who deals little damage in combat so I’m always knocked down. It’s so annoying to see other players getting so much damage off and then not giving a shit about their actions in the story.
I suggest you talk to your dm about that, if you aren’t interested in combat but every other player doesn’t care about story then you might need to think if you’re in the right game
Having a chat with the DM is definitely needed. I have a similar party dynamic at my table. My party wouldn't listen to the wizard and for most of the early campaign my wizard was useless. The party just wandered around and hit everything that got in the way. I spoke to my DM. And he added information to the game that the party needed to survive a combat against our enemies. The party did their usual approach and got stomped on hard by the BBEG's underlings. We managed to run away. Wizard an rogue having to drag the dead corpses of our companions back to the nearest Temple. Party spent more time doing its research after that point. The "problem" players learnt a few valuable lessons. The DM got to rebuild his campaign in a way which was more balanced and allowed them to put the amazing lore of the world on display for all to see, something every DM loves. And my character survived to the levels where a wizard takes over the group. And I could play well within the power levels of my wizard and match the other party members. Everyone had fun. And having extra power left over for the jaw dropping moments when you want to show-off or when the party really needs the wizard to step up. As an experienced player role play is the foundation of the game for me as a player. The lore of the world and its history. How our player characters leave their mark on the worlds lore and history. But that is not everyone's cup of tea. So each table is unique. Communication is key❤
I have two main issues with "power gamers".
1) "Power Gamers" frequently (but not always) don't understand what the primary game in a ttrpg is. It's the one where we sit at the table and have a conversation that creates a story, it's a colloborative process. An optimal designed character for the primary game is one that both the player and gm can use to push the story forward in interesting ways and that the other players at the table can get plenty of interaction with. Instead many players latch onto the bits of character design with numbers attached to them (in D&D this is combat), and work to optimize the numbers.
Once you have taken this approach then it often becomes the man with hammer problem and they will continually try and push the game in a direction that is less interesting as a result. Outside of the survival horror type game that 1970s D&D was (and 5E D&D is absolutely not geared towards) you want your players making interesting decisions over optiimal decisions, at least some of the time.
2) I personally find that as you push the power level up, my level of immersion in the story and my ability to imagine what is going on drops. Once a party is can is say taking on multiple dragons, I am no longer immersed in the world, and we are just doing abstract puzzle solving on a grid and going through the motions, at best it's like I am watching a bad 80s action movie. Power gamers will tend to make the situation worse as they will push for more combats more often (it gets to the point where I would be happy to skip my turn in combat so I can just check out). I am pretty sure I am not the only one and this is part of the reason that there is a golden zone of levels where most campaigns tend to live and why higher level campaigns are much less popular.
Playing a character with strengths and weaknesses means you cannot roleplay? Mkay.
I power game myself. I just love the research and development aspect of finding combinations that tear through enemies. But on the coop flip side I also make characters that happily take the background to let the other players have their glory. I stand back while other players act as the party face, make the plans, make the major decisions while I quietly wait for the DM to say roll initiative. Then that unassuming samurai I've tweaked with two other classes turns into a flying buzzsaw that cuts down most of the encounters monsters and severely wounded the boss on the first round like they've just fire off a Final Fantasy limit break.
So your compromise is ok you all do that talkie talkie ill doo all the combat? not fun for other players that like combat.
@@blakenelson4158 No complaints from any in the group. Not your table is it?
One of the coolest things I read about was a situation where a DM had a super overpowered character, a raging wild shaping druid barbarian iirc, and how they handled it was the party came up on the big bad and the big bad new they were coming. So they had prepared a magic item that created a wall of force prison for the druid barbarian and summoned a pit fiend or similar in the cage. It then became a cage grudge match for the more powerful character and the rest of the party was desperately trying to to drop the big bad before the power gamer died to dismiss the pit fiend and walls of force. Apparently they all had a blast because the power gamer had to use every single exploit they could come up with to survive and the rest of the party had validation of they could do stuff without the power gamer and they were very meaningful parts of the party. Plus it just makes sense, your party is usually known to the target so of course they would prepare for the parties strengths.
Or you could just cast sunbeam on him and force him out of his Druid shifts. Not everything has to be complex some cases are terrible but there are spells in game and ways to bypass them. From what I understand the difference between a minmaxer and a power gamer is they try to see how far they can go with rules before they’re not following them to gain player power. If they’re a Druid barb hybrid use enemies with more int and psychic attacks they can’t resist it. Abuse their potentially weak intelligence or like I said sunbeam
Unless he is like what level 14 I think he has a limited amount of wild shapes per day.
I love power gamers at the table. God forbid they actually read the rules.
Don't be the player that get's bored and leave in the first place. I enjoy as much being a support character not being in the bulk of the action and celebrating crazy combos from my companions. I still have my turn and if I can't make a dent on the monster I will be useful some other way. The first problem is trying to balance everything and make everyone equal, I'd say this translates to real life too.
I'm sorry, I simply was not prepared for "Hello! Do you live in a boring country? Like WALES?" nearly fucking spat my drink out 😂😂😂 you woke up and chose violence towards the entire country of Wales lmaooo
EDIT: I THOUGHT I WAS SAFE. I CARRIED ON MY DRINK. LIKE A BUFFOON. LIKE A WELSHMAN. I am now dead okay thank you.
I sometimes wonder if I'm strong enough, which makes me worry if I'm power gaming, but I want to be stornger because I feel weak
As for a in world way to deal with a infinite anything combo. I'm pretty sure mystra or someone similar is going to slap a guy silly whenever some overconfident wizard breaks magic with a recursive spell combo.
usually, when I know there's a busted combo, I try to read the spell and see if there's any in-built counters to it. Usually I find that most busted stuff is due to the rules of the game being poorly written and allowing for something that clearly feels like it's not intended. So I usually nerf those before the game even gets rolling or talk to the player to nerf it.
While not a great example of this, one spell that I have soft-nerfed is Wish. It's still really powerful but not as powerful as a "I can wish for literally anything" spell. In my games, when you cast wish, you can cast any non-homebrew spell from the game as an 8th level spell. Still really good because being able to spend a 9th level spell slot to cast any spell regardless of spell lists and preparation offers unmatched versatility but you're still within the same power-level as a normal level 17-20 full-caster.
@@Zulk_RS The thing about Wish is, it's already nerfed enough in the spell description. If you read it, you can see that there are three main uses of it:
1. A level 8 spell. Any level 8 spell. This is safe to do, and there are no negative effects to the caster.
2. Five other options described in the spell. The DM can't twist those wishes (at least not RAW), but that wizard shouldn't cast spells for the rest of the day (1d10 necro damage per spell level), and there's a 1/3 chance that they won't be able to cast Wish ever again. Obviously this one can be chained with Simulacrum to eliminate the drawback, but those options are definitely not "I can wish for literally anything".
3. "I wish for literally anything", i.e., a wish outside the scope of the aforementioned five options or a level 8 spell. The rules as written literally give the DM license to monkey-paw the shit out of those wishes: "The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong."
Your videos, and others like it, actually help me pull along as I try to build my own setting and narrative with my group helping me.
Nothing crazy, no insane homebrew, just a world in a fantasy setting sprinkled with small... world inconsistancies, to slowly breadcrumb them into unraveling that question
Another solution i have seen is party player type composition, and willingness to co-operate. I was Part of a group with a powergamer, a Roleplayer, a lore seeker, and me the explorer/all rounder. The Power gamer dealt with all things combat, the roleplayer got us good payment, quests and was the diplomat, the lore seeker made the world feel alive by asking questions and interacting with the world, where as i did a little bit of everything and acted as the healer. It worked, because everyone at the table coordinated with each other. If you are part of a good table, the DM doesn't have to reign you in.
It is really the "no one but my fun matters" type that are the problem.
I just finished DMing a 3 year game with a party of 3 power gamers and I didn’t think it was a problem
Turns out "Have you tried asking them to tone it down a bit?" is indeed the solution to most "omg power gamers are ruining my table" complaints. People will do what they think is fun if they think it isn;t causing anyone else to have less fun, once confronted with the notion the other players or even the DM is not having fun because they have made too strong of a build most will simply hold back a bit on the non-essential encounters which normally sorts the entire problem out. (both in and out of combat, yes there are people who power game the out of combat interactions I should know I have several characters that focus on exactly that... admittedly that is to enable the combat power gamers at my table but that is besides the point)
Agreed, with one small ammendment. A DM should also be able to say 'No' at character creation. Saying 'No' to a power build mid way through the game is OK, but I think when possible- if you can see it coming and you've a good reason, you should be able to say 'No' to a player at the start.
I personally don't allow multi-classing. This alone does a wonderful job of killing off metagaming. For me powerbuilds and metagaming is NOT in the spirit of D&D. It's a coop game where everyone has a use and purpose and to have a weakness is a good thing that adds to the flavour and quirkiness of the team dynamic. If you have one player who is literally god and fulfils every role singlehandedly it just makes all the other players feel redundant and pointless and sucks all the fun out of the game for them. All to stroke their own ego and fuel their arrogance.
And 95% of power gamers rely on multiclassing to accomplish this. So, nope.
@@robinhood5627 problem with outright banning multiclassing is it dose stunt player creativity as well as power gaming. a bit of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
@@blakenelson4158 But that's what subclasses are for. You wanna be a rogue wizard? Arcane trickster.
Power gaming as no place at my table at all. It just utterly ruins the game for other players and makes everyone miserable. I'm running a normal game for 6 players right now and not one of them is multiclass or power builds, and we are having the best time of our lives right now. There is just no need for it.
@@robinhood5627 rouge mage is not what anyone would call power gaming. and i more meant a mage with a splash of rouge.
Best comeback to a powergamer I have seen, (to some "Wolverine man with X, Y, and Z all synergising to be ungodly gross piece of sickness at the *start,* not an ultimate build") was:
"That's not a character, that's an excuse..."
The issue with solution to problem 1 is that if you're giving incredible boons to the other players, the power gamer is going to complain that they are not getting similarly OP items. They are not going to look at it from an overall perspective rather than a 'gained loot per PC' idea or start insisting that the best loot that the party finds that isn't by default tied to a PC should go to them for fairness. And no, they will not see, realise or accept that others are getting these items to balance their build out, or see this as a direct insult or challenge. Similarly offering the powergamer some kind of boon for removing their OP trait, will likely lead to them asking for something equally OP or broken to replace it with, and will see any less potent/broken boon as a downgrade punishing them. Not all of them will pick something roleplay-wise, since sometimes it's all about the power play and not about the roleplay for them.
I know that most power gamers are not complete assholes that know only mechanical dominance, but for power gamer solutions, we kind of have to assume the power gamer at their worst/base instead of assuming they also have different sides/like other things. I agree that preventing nova-PCs by more often enforcing more encounters per long rest is one of the best solutions, but that's potentially also punishing on the rest of the party.
It's not really a problem. Give the Power gamer something cool but ultimately inconsequential, like a +1 sword with a cool backstory that ties into their character and some fun but weak extra effects or a powerful narrative effect that's useless in combat and they should be happy as Larry while you hand out more impactful items to the other players.
For example, in my last D&D campaign I was playing a Hexblade Paladin, so when the GM created my family blade for me, he gave me a magic Greatsword which allowed me to cast augury and had the cool "snuffs out natural flames" effect from Frostbrand. He let me name and describe it and promised me it would gain improved powers as I levelled up. I was absolutely delighted with it, although sadly the game didn't last much longer as the GM got a new job that has prevented him from running for us.
@mattbowden4996 lol you missed the point.
They're not going to want a measly +1 they want a cool Backstory AND a strong item.
Depends on the player. I don’t consider myself a power gamer by any extent, but I’m the most experienced player at my table and am playing an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer.
I’ve received the least magic items and boons because I understand where my character is useful and make the most out of the abilities I have. The lack of loot hasn’t hurt me, because it hasn’t made me less useful than the other characters.
I feel like this complaint is comparable to saying "the problem with roleplay players is they hold everyone back and steal the spotlight by droning on and on".
It might be that the item has some utility bonus, or else youve picked a bonus that allows the power game to have spells that buff other players. The power gamer (if theyre good) will then consider that the teamwork benefit of the given item is optimal for a given encounter and this allows said players to not steal the spotlight in combat.
I think something of note is that said "power gamer" is probably a friend, and assuming that absolute worst possible interpretation in basically your entire comment seems to me to be unreasonable
@@yunusahmed2940 At what stage did you NOT realize that I am "that power-gamer" and I'm recounting a personal experience where I was perfectly happy with weaker item tailored to my backstory because I recognized that I didn't need a strong item to make the build sing?
I am a literal living, breathing, walking refutation of your argument - and to be honest, in my experience the so called power-gamer who never role plays and demands all the best gear simply doesn't exist.
As a Welshman I feel hurt, but the truth does hurt unfortunately...
My issues with power gamers is more that they are usually making choices for optimization of the character build rather than for narrative reasons. The narrative/telling good stories part of D&D is one of my favorite parts and a big focus for my style of DMing. So what I do is tell my players that they must have a narrative justification for their choices, and if there's something that they want to do, like take a level of warlock, that they can let me know and I will help build in moments to the story to help set it up. Sometimes though, its just a matter of different play styles, and I'm ok saying, "I don't think I'm the DM for you."
@potifex9883 It's only a limit if they aren't communicating with me about it to build it into the story.
i somewhat agree, but some things dont need big narrative justification. things like fighter, rogue, barbarian and wizard levels are fine, because those are driven by the player characters. but when it comes to more involved things, like you said, warlock, then a discussion is definitely needed.
@@sparkiano I dont think everything needs to be included, if some hexadin wants their paladin powers to come from their warlock patron rather than an oath thats fine. If someone wants to play a warlock without a patron thats fine.
Its literally in the multiclassing rules that you dont need justification cuz classes arent real, you arent building a ranger/rogue/fighter/cleric youre building your dude that doesnt fit within the bounds of any one class.
YASSS! Reasonable, empathetic, and hopeful. DnD Mentors need to show more of this. Thank-you!
Also what we need more of: roleplaying difficult conversations, not just talking about them. You did a great job with that powergamer and his wife 😉
The main issue I have with power gamers and min/maxers is they are generally more concerned with the numbers than in the role play. Many times they simply won't engage unless they are showing off their power gaming in combat situations. Your solution only works if everyone else actually wants to be equalized. In my experienced, that often isn't the case. I encourage players to have characters with some flaws as it makes for better RP. Powergamers just can't stand doing that in any meaningful way. So yes, I make it clear from the start that my table isn't the place for those wanting to min/max or powergame. Multi-dipping classes doesn't happen in my games. If you start as a class you keep it for at least 4 levels and then you can change to a different one and that's the class you then stick with from then on. That by definition equalizes the game while still allowing for some creative builds. The players have fun and I have fun.
Man, your table sounds like fun. Not.
Glad it works for you, but I'd wager they're not having fun "because" they can't multiclass, but rather in spite of that. Removing core game mechanics and player choice can rarely be called an enhancer to the experience.
Finally! REAL balance! The video that not only justifies your other power gamer videos, but, more importantly, explains the basics of thinking outside the box and building a world of MAGIC to dms. In addition to responsibility. This is the kinda advice that can encourage dms and players to build upon the existing rules, do their research with official and fan made material, and actually learn about the fucking game their playing!
This earned my subscription.
When everyone else deals an average of 7 damage per hit then the wizard or paladin crits for 45, that's a problem.
What I've done is give the ranger special ammo to balance things out and make her average damage even with the others
I've done this, my friends come up with the concept I do the mechanics, the concept might need a tweak but you seldom need to alter it that much.
If the balance of the group is being thrown off because ONE person is power-gaming, the reasonable solution is not put in tons of work to change everyone else. ONE person is the problem, not everyone else. People who want to do a Sorc/Warlock/Paladin aren't doing that because "This is the only possible way to realize the character concept I have in my head!", they're doing it because it's OP as shit, and they want to be OP as shit. Any reasonable person can take a normal class and find a way to make it fit the concept in their head, or they can collaborate with the GM to make something custom that fits their concept, while still being balanced. Anybody unwilling to do that is just WAY too focused on being OP as shit.
I think the thing about the rogue sneaking past and still getting the xp is a good point, they didn't technically help in the encounter but if it hadn't been for the other players not being as stealthy as they are they would have beaten the encounter by getting past the monster, this is why the milestone system is better than xp. It also encourages plot development rather than murderhoboing for level ups.
Treantmonk made a really good point when he said that there is a social contract when playing D&D. You shouldn't have to ban things that exploit or break the game because your players shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Those players break that social contract because they are ruining the experience for others and themselves when they break the game.
Something you can try, if the rest of the party is okay with it, with single power gamers is have them chip in to other players' builds in some way. Chances are they just like the puzzle, and so if the other players are okay with giving up the reigns of the character sheet a bit, you can have the power gamer equalize for you.
And yeah, for the love of Bahamut, please remember these are people. They're just people who like optimizing.
I wouldn't "power game" if I didn't feel like the DM was trying to murder me and I needed ever advantage possible to survive.
I gotta thank you man, it’s hard finding DMs who let me run my favorite sorcerer paladin combo so you making it easier for DMs to DM an optimized character at the table.
The powergamer problem isn't restricted to player Vs GM.
There's a more toxic situation where one or two characters are significantly tougher in combat than the rest.
You'd hope this would get resolved through party dynamics, but guess what? Some power gamers don't care for party dynamics.
You can easily end up with the power guys doing all the fighting, while the best option for the support guys is to buff the power guys.
OK if everybody likes that, but not so much when the GM's balancing means the regular characters going near monsters means insta-death.
For added "WTF am I dong here" have the power guys interrupt any social encounter longer than 2 minutes and turn it into a fight.
I know this is where a lot of UA-camrs say "Hey, leave that group, no D&D is better than ....".
I'm sure popular UA-camrs have no problem rustling up more opponents.
It isn't always so easy when you're ordinary folks with ordinary jobs and limited opportunities to play.
1) See video’s point about buffing the rest of the party.
2) Interrupting role play/ general disruptive behaviour isn’t a power gamer issue. That’s just having bad table etiquette. Don’t conflate the two.
@@TheTsugnawmi2010 In my experience, one often leads to the other.
Or just go into session zero and say that you wanna run a balanced game. Made a one shot and at zero I just said "hey guys. This is my first time being a gm/dm and I'd like you guys to make fun but fair characters."
Everyone was super cool with it and they ended up having allt of fun playing those "that's try this new class" or "here's a goofy idea" characters that made it a learning experience for all of us.
There's a lot of good stuff in this video and it's good practical advise for most DMs. My only point to bring up is that it does sort of have a few issues unaddressed:
1) The giving the weaker players magic items thing is a great idea, but it has two issues: First, this assumes that said players know how to use their characters effectively, when the unfortunate thing is that many players who play weaker characters and dislike feeling weak are often just newer to the game and thus giving them more things to keep track of can often not be a great idea.
Second, the video while talking about this point doesn't address the very real likelihood of said powergamers (who again often tend to like to feel powerful) feeling jealous about other characters getting fancy perks, items, or abilities while they basically are given nothing, or are only given weaker stuff. Many of these people would respond poorly to being told "It's to make the others less weak", especially if they are the sort to either be competitive or enjoy trying to use their system knowledge in order to make a powerful character. Often powergamers like this tend to just get tunnelvision and not realize they are even hurting the game simply because they like creating build synergy and feeling like they are being rewarded for knowing the rules. This is only going to make them feel "punished" by getting less shiny stuff for this knowledge.
2) Powergamers are also often a problem because they are known for trying to "help" other weaker or newer players by giving them "advise" on how to play their characters, and this is often an issue with them being present in a group. While arguably an issue, it's still just as frustrating an issue to many DMs and other players, especially if the powergamer starts being a jerk and uses poor phrasing by saying stuff akin to "Your character build is wrong." or "Why did you take that spell? It sucks!" It makes those other players feel like their choices are invalid or dumb.
3) Third, and unfortunately quite often. There are a number of powergamers out there that will *only* play cheesy or problematic builds. I've ran into quite a few of them and our group literally just ousted a player for precisely this after he's played his 4th Paladin Warlock combo or sorcerer warlock combo with ALWAYS the same subclass selections WITHOUT fail. It's annoying as hell and even though he's a good roleplayer he NEVER provides any justification within character for taking said choices and often expresses frustration with any DM who actually imposes any sort of roleplaying impact on his character for effectively signing a deal with an eldritch entity while being a paladin. He also NEVER plays a paladin who follows a god, and while this is a perfectly valid choice to make, it's always the same BS line of "But paladins never NEED gods anymore in 5e!" Like we get it dude, you like smite using warlock slots. It's freaking obvious and annoying to have to CONSTANTLY play with your characters that are specifically made to one-turn bosses. Valid builds or not it's not fun for the rest of the group. And this is an issue. Like it or not, this is a negative trait that only powergamers exhibit and it's something that needs to be acknowledge and addressed. Obviously there are many negative traits of other types of gamers (i.e. the roleplaying spotlight hog being a prime example) but simply blaming this as a "problem player behavior" is limiting and unhelpful for DMs.
4) Rant aside, the last thing this video doesn't acknowledge is even *if* a powergamer in a group being allowed to shine in combat is fine and you make the game to try to cater to other characters, it doesn't change that there are times where other players *will* steal feel like they are weak or useless when combat does occur. Worse yet, odds are they'll actively try to avoid combat all together if every encounter just turns into a game of "put the enemy in front of the meatgrinder powergamer and wait until it's time to loot". Nor does this address the concern that there are often powergamers who care for literally nothing BUT combat. There are literally players who refuse to cast spells or use any resources outside of combat and NEVER prepare any spell that isn't strictly a combat spell. Yes, there are ways to handle this, but this video doesn't address any of that. Nor does it address how to handle players on either side of the power level fence trying to consciously or subconsciously sabotage or prevent combat or non-combat encounters from occurring.
Again. Great video, but it leaves some things unaddressed. Frankly speaking enough concerns that this could easily warrant a second video or even multiple videos addressing them.
For the items, I think it can be pretty easily explained. "Hey, I totally get where you're coming from. (Other Player) though isn't into the whole character creation process enough to use all the mechanical advantages you're getting. This isn't to punish you for your build, it's just to make it so you can both face the same sorts of threats in the same party. I'm totally down to brew something cool for you, just be aware that it'll be some sort of fun or situational extra rather than a straight power increase."
That is as much or more of a problem in the system's game design as the players. Character options are badly imbalanced, especially when different campaign types are considered. If playing the game optimally makes for a worse engagement/experience, then the game itself is badly flawed.
@@sethb3090That rarely works. It comes off as punishing towards the player in question, as it is asymmetrical rewards since they, by definition, prioritize mechanical optimization to a high degree. Many will interpret it as condescending and taking away their agency.
@@NevisYsbryd I don't disagree that it's a systemic issue that needs to be addressed, and in an ideal world it should be, but there is also such as thing as players choosing...*not* to take the overpowered options and break the game for everyone?
It's part of the concept of the Social Contract, a thing widely understood by the gaming community and largely agreed upon by pretty much any player aware of the concept that isn't a sociopath or some sort of problem player is a good thing for the game.
Heck, even *this* youtube channel discusses the social contract in other videos if I am not mistaken.
@@s.p.1434 That fails in the context of 5e because that inevitably writes off character builds and thus concepts purely for being too strong due to bad mechanics in much the same way that it can make build choices non-viable through being too weak to contribute adequately. It also completely dismisses playstyles where power or competition is part of the appeal for some players, which is a problem only insofar as people at the individual table consider it to be a problem.
What is overpowered is inherently contextual to begin with. A ranger will quickly become able to completely negate many of the concerns of wilderness travel... which are irrelevant in an entirely urban campaign where such difficulties are never relevant. A wizard oriented around mass crowd control is going to be contextually a lot weaker if the overwhelming majority of the fights focus small numbers or single powerful enemies. Build power is as much a matter of context as the build itself outside of the most completely broken builds; conversely, a campaign catering a large proportion of challenges directly into a build's niche can make it circumstantially more powerful than the player expected or intended, and given the complexity and learning curve of build creation, it is similarly entirely possible to create something overpowered inadvertently.
The social contract is specific to each table. Some players and thus tables want a powergamey competitive wargame with fantasy elements comparable to a sports team. This is why your point 2) is not necessarily correct; depending on the goals of the table, to the degree that they are approaching it as a game with objective rules and a fail/win state, there are objectively preferable approaches to play and hashing that out as an expression of collaborative collective agency and mastery is sometimes part of the appeal for them. Or directly contrary to it, such as is often the case to the degree to which personal agency and self-expression is their goal. This is not (necessarily) a problem in dominance or malice but can just as well be a divergence in the mode of engagement or type of experience sought, with the system being badly adapted to reconcile them simultaneously.
While there certainly are instances where the player themselves is a/the problem, 'powergaming' is a problem that often results from a misalignment in approaches towards degree of prioritization of individual vs collective agency and game vs narrative/story nested in some bad game design built into the system that makes variation in that priority tend to conflict. Were the efficacy of various builds less divergent, or better variation in mode of contribution to prevent direct competition between characters, this would be far less of a problem. As it is, it is, at the end of the day, a problem inherent to 5e, and the best that can be done is to mitigate it, not to solve it.
I would not know, I am not a regular viewer.
The thing with dealing with power gamers is that at most you can distract them. They still want to power game and whenever they get bored or a situatuon occurs its gonna happen again. Just dont play with them or invite them to a hardcore battle focused game and dont do much of storytelling.
Oh boy, this is gonna be a controversial one to say the least
Most recent game I decided to min/max the hell out of a support character, so now the entire party is super strong and I routinely do no damage in combat but the DM still knows it's all my fault lol
In my experience, most (not all, but most) power-gamers are also gatekeepers. It's the gatekeeping that's the problem, not the power-gamers. If you don't power-game, then you're doing it wrong. Or "let me fix your character for you." Basically, Solution #1 in this video. That can be really toxic behavior if you aren't careful.
Oh my god YES. Especially when there's more than one and suddenly every round in combat is a discussion on what would be the optimal thing to do. 😮💨
I’ve got a player running a drow assassin rogue 3/gloomstalker ranger 3/shadow monk 7 and it’s getting incredibly difficult to change him, without creating brightly-lit areas and a dozen skirmishers to restrict his movement and his attacks from invisibility. High level play, in general, is a challenge to create. I like your suggestion of planar travel to compensate.
Boring Country like Wales... I would LOVE to visit Wales... There's even a few beekeepers AND DnD players I admire who live and work there, so allow me to disagree on that opinion 😁
Most of this problem isn't with classes but spells. Usually DM don't mind if fighter/barbarian bonk monster, because he has to risk himself. Most of the problems comes from overpowered spells that break reality, makes every obstacle obsolete, counter Bosses and ruin campaigns. Not Martial making 50 dmg in one turn.
I just know that multiclassing is an optional rule, and I choose to not allow that option. That pretty much stops any "builds" from making it to my table. The game just runs better if I know what my players can do, and a multiclass doubles the amount of work necessary to do that.
It seems like you're simply taking away players' options because you only want to put the bare minimum effort into it.
@@manuelferrari6685 Should I give them foot rubs too? should I wash their feet? should I taste test to make sure they're clean? should I make sure to get all the toe jam out with my tongue? should I suck each toe one-by-one to make sure that they all
@@manuelferrari6685 That is not necessarily the case. They can be spending a lot of time fleshing out the game world or NPC back stories, reviewing their notes for encounters they are planning to run, brainstorming ways to work the players' backstories into the narrative etc. And even if you were right and they didn't want to spend hours upon hours in preparations to somehow balance the game for a mix of power players and others, DM-ing is usually an unpaid activity, so they have every right to ban an optional rule that doesn't fit in the way they run the game. I think DMs should be appreciated for all the work they do, which tends to be more than players ever realize.
@@ciarandwynvil273 not necessarily the case but pretty likely. A DM who limits his players' choice just because it's annoying is unlikely to put too much effort into the rest.
Furthermore, being a DM is not a job, but a hobby. If entertaining your friends isn't enough, it's not the hobby for you.
@@manuelferrari6685 Yes, it is a hobby. Why should anyone put up with an optional rule of that hobby if they find it annoying? Not everyone wants to deal with every aspect of the game, which doesn't mean that their table is inferior to those that use all the published content.
Btw, I played with a DM who too limited multiclassing. He was a great DM who put a lot of effort into the game, and I had much fun playing with him.