A little advice about one of our players...

[karloss01]

surely theres a spell to like triple his weight, so he hits the ground with a splat when he decides to fly. the DM of my games rolled his dice secretly so that he could control the outcome to an extent, like not allowing fights to end in a single round but he did so fairly.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Well if it's silly damage that you want try the war hulking hurler (you can google the build). You see that build does more damage the heavier stuff it can lift and throw and after a certain point carrying capacity increases exponentially so it's actually quite easy to be able to throw the known universe. I've seen variations of that build that do tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of d6 per throw.

Why not just Punpun if you're looking to absolutely break the game?

There's another build called the "Gatling Tripper" I saw back when I was first starting out. I don't remember specifics, but it was something like using a spiked chain to literally trip everything that came within 30ft of you. It wasn't gamebreaking in term of damage output, but it broke the combat down to nothing but one guy making trip attempts and everyone else either sitting around or trying their damndest to keep up with the munchkin. And EVERYONE knows you can't keep up with the munchkin in their own habitat.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

surely theres a spell to like triple his weight, so he hits the ground with a splat when he decides to fly. the DM of my games rolled his dice secretly so that he could control the outcome to an extent, like not allowing fights to end in a single round but he did so fairly.

Unfortunately, Raptorans have a natural Feather Fall ability that negates all damage from falling down to 1d6 damage no matter how far they fall.

 

[pffh]

surely theres a spell to like triple his weight, so he hits the ground with a splat when he decides to fly. the DM of my games rolled his dice secretly so that he could control the outcome to an extent, like not allowing fights to end in a single round but he did so fairly.

Well there is earthbind. It won't make him go splat but it will ground him.

Captcha: HatUnit government

 

[honestdiscussioner]

I haven't played any straight D&D, but if my understanding of how RPG's work, would not lots of daggers be affected by the difference between armor and health?

Let me explain what I mean.

Take the battlecruiser from original Starcraft, fully upgraded. It's armor was at least an eight if I recall. That meant the little marine who did six damage only did one damage, and another unit that did 9 also only did one damage. Now attack it with a Yamoto gun which deals 255 damage, and the armor only protects a little itty bit, but it would take 255 marines to do that damage in a single volley. My point is, do these daggers not do lots of itty bitty damage over and over again? Therefore increasing the armor rating of the opponents but decreasing the health would balance things out?

Since I never had the opportunity to play D&D, I could be totally off base on this.

 

[starhaven]

Bad will saves you say? Destroy him with all of the most broken psionic shit you can throw at him. Tell the DM you'd really like to fight some ithilids or whatever else that uses mind control powers which tickles your fancy. Shoot, even a Bard can use charm. Mind affecting powers are the way to go and they will royally piss this guy off when instead of tossing wisecracks and knives left and right he's busy running head first into a wall.

dont forget harppies they are so much fun to the over powered but low willed char's

 

[Da_Schwartz]

Not to be a troll or anything...but maybe you should play 2nd edition if your worried about pure stat feat dmg rolls consuming a party. 3 and 4th are Combat systems at the core. Nothing else. If someone is exploiting the idea that they are pure pwnage epic incarnate then give a different version a try. SOmethign more balanced,team,thinking,and storytelling based. If some ppl dont get what its all about to sit around the table and roll dice with some friends and wanna be a munchkin about it all then whatever. Play a system that isn't about being as epic as fast as possible. Okay I'll shutup.


OR: Have the DM play against his alignment. U want his character gone then put him in a scenario that is too good to resist. FOr example. I once lost a NE rouge the first day i ever sat at the table with him. I had crazy lucky rolls loved his background and he filled in whatever comabt gaps our party had. Until the party got almost wiped to the last cavalier with 1hp laying dead amonugst the last drow bleeding out of the ambush that attacked us. I had no other option but to simply loot the bodies load up the caravan they were trying to protect and ride off into the darkness..without ever drawing my blade just hid and watched them stabby each other. SO yea my point being...if u put him in a situation that plays to his alignment and he declines then you can legitimatley penalize him in game..without it feeling like the group isnt having fun and pointing the finger at him for stealing everyones glory..or something.

 

[Dogstile]

Has anyone who's faced a similar problem with a spotlight stealing powergamer that has some friendly advice?

The problem as old as Munchkinism itself.
Your instinct is right.
Talk to your DM, suggest some change - it's actually very easy to "scold" powergamer. By weakening him and making him dependable on the rest of group he'll restore balance.
It's very easy to do without using some restrictions. Poison in the food, sickness, enemy with spell/weapon capable of slowly draining forces, curse - there are plenty of ways to do so.

Either that, or you can just fuck with him until he stops being a spastic.

Seriously, that's what I do all the time, which is impressive considering I try not to kill anyone too easily. Wrangling players is the DM's second most important job.

Transcript of my last D&D game with one frind we'll call "Jim":
Me: Okay, so you're standing in a field of rolling hills. As you look around, you notice a tower a few hills over.
Jim: Where's the nearest town?
Me: Fifty miles.
Jim: Okay, I'm gonna start walking there.
Me: Well you don't know which way it is.
Jim: I'll just start walking north then.
Me: That's towards the tower.
Jim: South it is then!
Me: The sky darkens and it swiftly begins hailing.
Jim: I'll be fine.
Me: The rain turns into hail rapidly.
Jim: I'll weather it.
Me: Hail the size of tennis balls.
Jim: Fuck, fine I guess we'll go to the tower.

I absolutely love it when a DM takes charge of a game like that to keep things going the way they should. When I started I was playing a character who had it in for a thief on my team who was stealing from my character. I knew it, the DM knew, the rest of my party knew it. My character didn't, so I weathered it.

Eventually the DM got so fed up with him doing it and crippling my character (I couldn't buy anything because my money turned up missing) he ended up giving us a potion simply marked "power". The thief, seeing it first did what he usually did and rushed ahead, drinking it before the rest of the party even realizes there was a pile of loot. (If one character can see something and the other can't, they are told via note). It made him tell the truth. Safe to say, the only thing stopping my character from killing him was that there was two paladins in my party who wouldn't let me murder him, but they did grapple him and let me take my money back.

OT:

Get your DM to take control and disable him. Its clearly causing problems so he needs to grow a bit of a spine. Nobody likes a DM who can't direct the flow of a game, it ends up not being fun for anyone.

 

[Mr Thin]

The group enters a chapel to the wife's god
Me: "Your knock rings low, indicating a thick, strong door. Shortly later the door opens, and you are greeted by a rather homely, but warm and welcoming grin. The man is broad, and draped in the garb of the patron deity. His wide lower jaw jutting forward, revealing his powerful tusks, his skin, a light green, indicative of his people. 'Come, come in children. Tell us of your travels, and pray.'"

Her: "What? Hold on, why is there an orc here?"

Me: "Why not?"

Her: "Orcs don't worship her."

Me: "Why is that?"

Her: "Because they have their own god, they hate elves, and orcs aren't listed as her followers."

Me: "And why do you think that is?"

Her: "Cause it says so in the books." She flips a few pages in Forgotten realms to point to a very short non-descriptive paragraph.

Me: "And you take that at face value?"

Her: "yeah, why not?"

Me: "Because it's arbitrary, it's idiotic, and it's flat out racist. There is no reason for orcs to hate elves, there is no reason one deity, considering what they are in this game, wouldn't accept a worshiper who is just as devout as an other. The very text you pointed out is perfect reason why mixed societies cannot exist in D&D. It's idiotic and it breaks the game. SO I ignore it."

Her: Obviously grumbling because he didn't get her way and her expectations are not being met.

The rest of your post sounded fairly reasonable; attacking innocent farmers, whatever race they may be, is clearly out of line. But in this section here, she seemed the reasonable one.

You have here a player who actually bothered to read up on the lore, which lots of players don't; she has developed an understanding of the world, and based her expectations upon that.

Then you, the DM, decide to ignore that particular piece of lore, without informing her, and get all high and mighty when she objects. You can certainly do so if you wish, but I would hardly consider that an example of good DMing. All she's guilty of at that point is staying true to the source material.

 

[Ridley1987]

I suggest, suggestion. A low leveled wizard spell that won't look custom tailored to the powerbuilder. My few D&D experiences have been with guys who have mastered the art of powerbuilds and powerbuild breaking. Power words are also good traps. I was able to kill an entire party of those powerbuild bastards with a single Power Word Blind, the frenzied berserker (which was below 200 hp at the time) slaughtered his companions with bad rolls.

A way to stop him without killing him is enviroment change. Since he flies, small narrow corridors, low ceiling rooms, gravity flipping traps, and natural effects like strong winds to keep him on the ground. The strong winds would also stop the dagger barrages.

Similarly, A player I partied with used a machinegun dagger thrower that threw like 32 darts/shuriken in a round. magnetized areas as well as things that destroyed his daggers or stole his daggers shut him down completely.

Edit: If you want to look at some overpowering optimized builds, the D&D wikis have them under optimized builds (naturally). My favorite pair are the Wish and the Word.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Wish_and_the_Word_%283.5e_Optimized_Character_Build%29

 

[captaincabbage]

Snippity snip

Your story brought a single DM tear to my eye. That was fuckin' marvellous.

And you're completely right, nobody likes a DM who, well, can't DM, so OP should either get him to stop being such a pussy or call for another player to be DM.

I gotta note as well, my D&D adventures have one of my own characters in the game as well whilst I DM, to act as an avater on my behalf and help guide and direct the group accordingly if they're hopelessly lost.
If the OP thinks the DM could handle it, they could try giving it a go, although it is a lot more work.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Sounds like a weak DM. Face him off against five Copper Dragons. See how well his knives do =D

 

[Syzygy23]

Sounds like a weak DM. Face him off against five Copper Dragons. See how well his knives do =D

Almost misread that as "Face him off against 50 copper".

30d6 knife throwing skills are of no use in a Rap Battle against 50 copper and LudaDrizz. I gotta go read that transcript again.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Ugh, this guy physically can't go without min/maxing. He said he wouldn't be a Raptoran, but instead he's making a Scout/Master Thrower/WarBlade/Bloodstorm Blade so he can get some kind of bullshit ability where his ranged attacks count as melee so he can technically do ranged grapples.

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

Can you injure fellow players? If so, cut off his wings and then club him in the knees. [sub][sub]I have no idea how this game works...[/sub][/sub]

Same...reading all this has left me thoroughly confused.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Can you injure fellow players? If so, cut off his wings and then club him in the knees. [sub][sub]I have no idea how this game works...[/sub][/sub]

Same...reading all this has left me thoroughly confused.

What are you confused about?

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

Can you injure fellow players? If so, cut off his wings and then club him in the knees. [sub][sub]I have no idea how this game works...[/sub][/sub]

Same...reading all this has left me thoroughly confused.

What are you confused about?

All of it. I've never even touched a D&D box, let alone played it. :3