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Overpowered PCs

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 50
Characters naturally accumulate power over time. And in a game that relies on random resolutions of complex interactions, that power accumulation isn’t always smooth. If one PC—or all the PCs—at your table makes a quantum leap in power, it’s worth taking a good, hard look at whether that power is disruptive to the ongoing narrative and sense of fun.

Consider the Cooperative Dynamic: The Pathfinder RPG differs from most games in that it’s fundamentally cooperative. Because you aren’t playing “against” anyone in a meaningful sense, it might not matter that the PCs suddenly became much more powerful. You aren’t likely to run out of powerful monsters. You might have to alter encounters to compensate, but once you’ve done so, your game continues unimpeded.

When You Need to Rein It In: By the same token, the cooperative nature of the game is why you sometimes need to “nerf ” a character’s power. Do so when one PC is too powerful relative to everyone else at the table. Before you take action, though, consider the following steps:

Provide early warning. Say a player comes up with a devastating combo—something that takes a monster out of a fight with a high success rate and no countermeasure. Let it happen the first few times, but tell the player, “I’ll let you know when that combo gets tired.” The player can still feel clever, but you’ve delivered notice and the whole table knows you take the balance of power seriously. Sometimes the problem power doesn’t emerge at the table anymore—and you’ve got time to plan further. And the player might volunteer to be part of the solution, a “negotiated settlement” you can work out at the end of the session.

Know what you’re nerfing, and why. After the session where something overpowered emerges, it’s time to hit the books. Read everything relevant, even if you think you know the rules backward and forward. Think like a player and explore the problematic power, then put your Game Master hat back on and search for countermeasures. A complex game system has lots of moving pieces, and it takes effort to isolate which components and combinations are actually overpowered.

Nerf it to the ground, but make it a surgical strike. Once you’ve isolated the problematic element, bring it back into line with similar powers available at that level. Do your homework in terms of rules study and arithmetic; you want to make sure that the overall technique is no longer overpowered, not just the specific application you saw at the table. But make sure the PC still has viable options—and that the player still has interesting choices to make during an encounter.

Explain it outside the game. It’s tempting to solve a balance issue on the spot, but consider the other players at the table. They might be bored by a rules discussion about somebody else’s character. They might leap to the player’s defense, or recommend a harsher nerf because they’re tired of being second banana. Talk to that player away from the table before the next session begins, so that everyone’s got time to pore over rulebooks and consider alternatives. It’s also a good time to tell the player that you’re acting for the good of the table, not to save your monsters. Most players respond better to a nerf when they realize they’re diminishing others’ fun and the change isn’t driven by Game Master competitiveness.

What you break, rebuild. Overpowered situations rarely emerge overnight. They’re often an intentional or serendipitous collection of smaller elements acquired over time. Spell x, magic item y, and feat z are fine by themselves, but you’ve got a problem once a player has all three. When you change the rules to make something less powerful, it’s only fair—and certainly doesn’t hurt anyone at the table—to let the player retroactively make different character advancement choices to compensate, so they haven’t wasted half the game achieving a build that’s no longer viable.

Overpowered Monsters: Sometimes the proverbial shoe will be on the other foot, and a monster will be unexpectedly powerful. At first, let it play out a bit. Once the power disparity is clear to everyone at the table, take action—either nerf the monster on the spot and tell the players (in general terms) what you’ve done and why, or forego use of that monster, telling the players that “the dragon turtle has some problems, which I’m going to fix before our next session.”

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Overpowered PCs