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Hi everyone.

I'm GMing a Rouge Trader group where one of the player characters has become too powerful. At rank 2, the character has WS 50, Strength 60 which rockets up to 80+ with power armor on, Toughness 60 and Agility 60. No mistakes were made when coming up with these stats, he deliberately geared his character towards being the dominant combatant in the group. He also has a power fist which deals 2d10 damage with pen 9. Everyone else in the group has stats around half of these, which means this character dominates in combat and ends up one shotting even the most difficult enemies I put before the group.

The game has reached an irritating point where he is able to blow through challenges I set before the group, and if I were to put something in front of my players that would be difficult for him to defeat, it would likely kill the other players because no one else is on his level.

The player himself is a 'power gamer' who is an extremely sore loser. Like, if he has to sit out a few rounds of combat because he fails a shock or fear test, he'll call bull gak and get fussy. I want to confront him on how he's built his character and how difficult he's making combat, but he's also related to two thirds of the group. If I confront him directly about dialing back his character's power, he's likely to up and quit the game, which would mean the rest of the group would probably follow.

It's not that we don't enjoy playing with him, he's a nice person. It's just not fun to play when there's no challenge, and it's putting me through a lot of strain to try to balance this game for a group that is heavily weighted towards his character. Has anyone else dealt with this kind of situation before? How did you solve it?

You're the GM
simply do the classic "Rocks Fall, You die"
Obviously they will question it, reply saying that you are the GM and its also your campaign, so its your rules

Allow him to create a new character, just say that it shouldnt be OP for the level

commander dante wrote:
You're the GM
simply do the classic "Rocks Fall, You die"
Obviously they will question it, reply saying that you are the GM and its also your campaign, so its your rules

Allow him to create a new character, just say that it shouldnt be OP for the level

He'll quit if I do that. And the group will fall apart.

It sounds like he built a one trick pony. He’s obviously going to shine in those spots. As a GM, move the spotlight to different characters. Have a few social situations to let those type of characters shine. Put some puzzles in for the problem solvers. And yes, some combats for the thugs.

The fact that he gets torqued when he fails a shock/fear test says a lot about him. Those are parts of the system. He probably dumped the stats that would help him with those, so doesn’t really have a leg to stand on when it comes up. If he gripes about being a one dimentional monster with flaws, offer to let him re-roll or adjust to compensate for them. If you want to, subtly press the point home. Run up against things that exploit his flaws, but not in an obvious way. It’s a point system, there are drawbacks. If you center the entire game around his strengths, don’t be surprised when he dominates.

You might want to pm a mod to have this moved to the roleplaying games subforum, you'll get more responses there.

The easiest (or not, depending on your campaign) is to create scenarios or situations where things are happening that can't be tackled by brute force(ie combat), or where the other characters abilities are necessary to overcome the challenge (techs, priests, psykers, etc.).

Its usually easiest to play rpgs as all the time fighting, but if theyre in a ship, and its caught in a meteor storm, or trapped in the warp, they have to use their brains to escape, as there may be nothing substantial to fight. Once the other characters have a chance to succeed and its not all fighting, the other player may either switch things up, or at least the group will stay together because the other characters are more engaged.

Psykers generally do not care how physically strong and tough you are, and your armor is useless against most psychic attacks.

Hordes don't much care, either, you cannot dodge them when wading into melee, they just deal damage.

Lascannons pop power armor like tissue paper, and then deal horrific damage to the person inside said power armor.

Entities with a "Warp Weapon" ignore physical armor.

Dreadnoughts are AP 40 and hit like trains in melee, they will mock his puny powerfist while going all DOW2 on him (that is, crushed in Dreadnought Power-claw before opening up with the heavy flamer at point-blank range. You cannot Dodge while grappled.)

Melta weapons also aren't so impressed by power armor. Turbo-penetrator rounds aren't, either.

You might have to sacrifice the rest of the party in order to get it through his head that his character doesn't fit with the rest of the group. Let the other players be the ones to get him to dial back. Be like "if I gear the encounters towards you guys, Bob's character just blows through them, so I have to gear the challenges to Bob."

That said, this player sounds like he has the mentality of a child, so the best option for you might be to just cut him loose. If the group splits up because of him? He's the problem, not you.

Have you discussed the issue with the other players in the group? They've got to be aware of the power imbalance. And yes, it IS totally fair to throw up challenges that he's weak against - heck, I'd consider it bad GM-ing if everything was a cakewalk.

That all being said, he sounds like an extremely selfish player - he has emotional outbursts if something doesn't go his way and he builds his character in a fashion that sets it far apart from the other players in the group. For whatever reason, he's not considering the rest of the party or the GM. This sounds like much more of a social/personal situation than a game one.

I appreciate all the responses. Ideally I'd like to find some kind of in character way to reduce his power, without killing him or any of the other characters in the group.

He’s got flaws, use them.

If it’s his gear, look into ways to mitigate/remove it. This will piss him off, so be careful. But if you set up a social encounter, where power armor/fists are not acceptable to be in (restricted area, ballroom, etc.) see how well he does when he’s down to a knife/sidearm like everyone else. Not sure if RT has rules for breaking things, maintenance, etc. If it does, use them. IIRC doesn’t non-SM level power armor have very limited endurance? I thought it only had power for short engagements. If that’s the case, long trips away from support will shut him down.

Also remember that someone in power armor is considered Hulking, so enemies gain +20 BS when shooting at them. They also suffer a -20 to all Stealth/Concealment tests, and most technological sensors gain a +20 on tests made to detect them. Non-Astartes power armor is *not* subtle (unless you are Inquisitor Obi-Wan Sherlock Clousseau).

As noted previously, non-Astartes power armor has a limited operational time. Non-military suits offer 1d5 hours of use from the battery pack.

Other than killing the character off through the variety of perfectly-legit methods available, the other option is to take it directly to the player.

Like, "Bro, this is a game designed for a group of players to participate in. The character you've designed is leaving nothing for the rest of the group to do. The options this leaves me are these: 1) a lot of hardcore combat that will result in the eventual deaths of every other character present, 2) a bunch of social/stealth encounters where your character will, at best, have little to contribute or, at worst, be an actual liability. We need to work together to bring the party back into balance."

The game has reached an irritating point where he is able to blow through challenges I set before the group, and if I were to put something in front of my players that would be difficult for him to defeat, it would likely kill the other players because no one else is on his level.

This is a known problem for tabletop RPG's. Most DND DM's will run into this. You might want to search the web for more general solutions on rpg fora.

But Rogue trader it is not your average rpg. Most RPG's are like DND and DIABLO. Players start as farmers, end as heroes and the environment lvs with them. Rogue Trader is different. The players start as kings who can order armies just as simple as you can mail order a book. They can destroy cities from orbit and a space battle wil usually result in thousands of deaths. This game is not about who is the best in hand to hand combat at all. Fantasy Flight did not even try to balance the player characters to their environment.. This will only get worse in the next levels. This game is about Kings dealing with other kings.

The way to fix this problem in Rogue trader would be to make sure that personal close combat power is cool but not really that relevant for the game.

Ways to do this could be

- Include Social and Ship combat encounters rather then Close combat encounters.
- Make the dissensions of the players be the most important factor how hard the combat will be.
- Include vehicles
- Include heavy weapons.
- Include squadrons to command, or a few nasty mercenaries or murder servitors.

To sum it up. Subtlety convince the players that being a kick ass warrior with a big gun doesn't really matter that much when you have the resources of multiple worlds at your disposal and commanding a ship that has the power to destroy civilisations. Let him be conan the techno barbarian if he wants to just make sure that the other players also have something fun to do. I

Put them in situations where 'power' can make things worse.

*Maybe be in an area where heavy electrical equipment will set off alarms or an overwhelming attack.
*Have them in a situation where they have to be incognito as a full assault would get them all killed.
*Have interactions with characters who have bigotry against the particular character, (Power armor, Powerfist, Maybe your NPC hates space marines?) He either needs to submit to restraints for the mission or else.
*Give other players macguffins to boost their power or extreme luck so they can survive extreme threats while player gets wailed on.
*Strip him of gear for a mission or two.

Or realize the guy is a turd... If the group likes munchkining, then you can suck it up and feed the baby his bottle or quit.

 oldzoggy wrote:

The game has reached an irritating point where he is able to blow through challenges I set before the group, and if I were to put something in front of my players that would be difficult for him to defeat, it would likely kill the other players because no one else is on his level.

This is a known problem for tabletop RPG's. Most DND DM's will run into this. You might want to search the web for more general solutions on rpg fora.

But Rogue trader it is not your average rpg. Most RPG's are like DND and DIABLO. Players start as farmers, end as heroes and the environment lvs with them. Rogue Trader is different. The players start as kings who can order armies just as simple as you can mail order a book. They can destroy cities from orbit and a space battle wil usually result in thousands of deaths. This game is not about who is the best in hand to hand combat at all. Fantasy Flight did not even try to balance the player characters to their environment.. This will only get worse in the next levels. This game is about Kings dealing with other kings.

The way to fix this problem in Rogue trader would be to make sure that personal close combat power is cool but not really that relevant for the game.

Ways to do this could be

- Include Social and Ship combat encounters rather then Close combat encounters.
- Make the dissensions of the players be the most important factor how hard the combat will be.
- Include vehicles
- Include heavy weapons.
- Include squadrons to command, or a few nasty mercenaries or murder servitors.

To sum it up. Subtlety convince the players that being a kick ass warrior with a big gun doesn't really matter that much when you have the resources of multiple worlds at your disposal and commanding a ship that has the power to destroy civilisations. Let him be conan the techno barbarian if he wants to just make sure that the other players also have something fun to do. I

Can I just say how much I absolutely loved reading this response?

Another trick one of my GMs goes with is allocating spare shots to the powergamer. If you have a 5 man party, and 7 mooks shooting at them, everyone gets shot once, and then the two extras shoot the troublemaker. He’s the obvious threat, after all. He just turned Bob into a cloud of gore!

Totally justifiable as well. You are not singling him out for being a tool, the bad guys are just reacting to threats. If he’s not overshadowing everyone else, he can go back to being treated like everyone else.

 Valena wrote:
I appreciate all the responses. Ideally I'd like to find some kind of in character way to reduce his power, without killing him or any of the other characters in the group.

You are focusing too much on his strengths. Focus on his weaknesses. Read oldzoggy's post above.

Have more social interaction. That's where the money is.
Hit him with psychic attacks, and remember that insane psychers don't care about the dangers of pushing a psychic technique to land a psychic scream or a dominate.
Have more ship combat.


Take the focus off of him. Your responsibility is to make the game fun for everyone, not one power gamer.

As said above, preferably introduce a "larger scale" conflict, spacecraft conflicts are ideal. The other thing is having encounters that take the focus off fighting, say an investigation on a manse or a social event that all "high status" nobles should attend in formal ware.

The problem is of course, that he's just geared up in the action role, and rogue trader lends itself to a lot more social/stealth stuff as well as puzzle solving.

The other thing could be introducing taxes/permits for armour or weapons, or have the group investigated for "contraband"

The reality is that you are going to have to end up either doing non-action encounters for a few sessions, or straight up tell this guy that he's causing issues to the whole group, not you.

How much does it weigh?

Ruins are not always so strong and Conan clad in a walking tank might just drop clean through a wooden floor. Take them into some areas where its a disadvantage. Super confined area, walking tank has spend half the game ducking low cealings.

Not every situation benefits a walking tank.
Escape and evasion? Party has got on wrong side of a powerful faction and has to escape and evade? Power armour not br a y good there and soon left behind the party to be caught by hunters.

Plenty of situation Conan the techno barbarian is not the best equipped to handle.

I'd echo the comments of those suggesting switching the focus to other arenas. I ran a rogue trader game a few years ago, and the Master at Arms was a total beast. But it wasn't really a problem once I realised this game didn't work how I expected it to, and once the players realised winning a personal combat was only relevant to them when the gak had absolutely hit the fan and they were without all their other resources.

Rogue Trader is not a game about killing stuff, it's a game about trade and exploration.

Ship to ship battles can be very exciting and give people lots of ways to participate. He could even lead a boarding action or repel boarders and still feel like he was contributing in a bad ass way, but the focus wouldn't be entirely on him.

If he's the Master at Arms or whatever it's called, then being a total combat beast is his schtick. Let him do it, but don't focus the success or failure of the mission or game on it so often.

What are the other party members? I'd like to suggest ways to engage and challenge them that could work in tandem with your powergamer's engagement.

I hope we can help - we've all had this situation at one time or another and it can be really annoying and stressful.

Genestealers.

Just Genestealers.

Drop him through a rotten floor into a room with a nurgle terminaitor lord ? joke, but tank meets, well super heavy.

But yeah, shape the environment to cause them problems, to small, having to take long way round a weak bridge rest of party can cross. Maybe the decay has ment the grating is rusty and only able yo take a humans weight.

Or land mines rugged to above human pressure. The first can pass, Conan gets blown up.

Environment with tiny changes makes life very hard. Just because a tank, does not mean tanks can go everywhere. Power armour is very tough, but fast? Not likely, mot agile. Maybe introduce eldar to just dodge the tank? I don,t think the problem is unbeatable

Yeah, he's geared to win fights with smashing. The answer to that is to throw other challenges where he can't just punch through them.

If I could counter some of the above suggestions, I don't think designing to beat a player is a smart way to go about it. The player is going to feel pretty annoyed about that, and it breaks the consistency and logic of the game world.

It's better to let him have his fun in combats, but broaden the scope of the game so that combat is not so important and let others shine in these moments.

It will eventually make plot sense for a recurring adversary who has been thwarted by him a few times to plan to beat him using the above methods, but that should be rare enough and justified enough so that the player does not feel picked upon.

In that way, you keep everyone happy and create a more positive atmosphere around the table.

I realise given that the guy whines when he gets reduced in effectiveness by legitimate stuff like shock and so on that he is probably not a reasonable player, but it's best to rise above it as a GM, especially if he's a group lynchpin.

Try to free yourself of the mindset that you "need" to create challenging or "balanced" combat encounters and just roll with what he's come up with while switching focus to some other stuff. In a way you're lucky that you're playing Rogue Trader, as the nature of the game lends itself towards this sort of play anyway. I would definitely recommend not spending a lot of time building or prepping combat encounters which he's going to chew up in seconds - that is often the most frustrating part especially in rules heavy systems like D&D 3.X or FFG RPGs. It takes so long to stat your cool villain and then the heroes kill him in two rounds of combat before he even gets to do anything cool. So invest less in the threats they're going to fight, and more into antagonists they can't easily deal with in personal combat - rival traders, Inquisitors, alien diplomats etc.