I don't think anyone wants to limit their player's creativity and freedom, but I have that ONE player whose bulked up his brawn, his crit, and the level of crit he can do, so as he plays now, he has a Would Threshold of 23, a Soak of 10, and crits on even one leftover advantage, and when he cris it does + 40 to the level of crit.

At first I thought it was my fault, handing out XP to easily maybe, but all the other characters are in the same pool with the same XP and they have, well...Normal characters. Is there a limit or way to cap some of this craziness or am I doomed to only assign him Dark Jedi and actual ships to give him a challenge?

Is combat the only kind of challenge this character has ever faced?

How does he do against a Discipline check in the face of something fearful?

Or a Resilience check to fend off extreme environments?

What about Social checks?

This subject comes up a lot in this game, and the answers tends to be that if your characters have only ever faced combat, then combat is the only place they'll spend their XP. If they regularly face other types of challenges, they'll have more incentive to invest in a more diverse set of skills.

At this point, with the character already having bulked up in such a way, then your best options are either to craft specific Nemeses for that character, with Adversary 3 and huge wound thresholds, so that your combat monster can get a good fight while the PCs go and slice the computers, deactivate the bomb, stop the escaping crimelord, etc...

...or do the opposite. Craft your encounters in such a way that the combat monster finds a challenge because there's not always something for him to fight. If the encounter or the adventure is designed in such a way that just shooting things or being tough isn't going to have much impact on the success of the mission, then your character will face a challenge.

I don't think anyone wants to limit their player's creativity and freedom, but I have that ONE player whose bulked up his brawn, his crit, and the level of crit he can do, so as he plays now, he has a Would Threshold of 23, a Soak of 10, and crits on even one leftover advantage, and when he cris it does + 40 to the level of crit.

At first I thought it was my fault, handing out XP to easily maybe, but all the other characters are in the same pool with the same XP and they have, well...Normal characters. Is there a limit or way to cap some of this craziness or am I doomed to only assign him Dark Jedi and actual ships to give him a challenge?

Sounds like a Marauder, throw Glop Grenades at him.

Social encounters, intellectual puzzles, powerful enemies who focus on the most obviously dangerous target, etc.

I don't think anyone wants to limit their player's creativity and freedom, but I have that ONE player whose bulked up his brawn, his crit, and the level of crit he can do, so as he plays now, he has a Would Threshold of 23, a Soak of 10, and crits on even one leftover advantage, and when he cris it does + 40 to the level of crit.

At first I thought it was my fault, handing out XP to easily maybe, but all the other characters are in the same pool with the same XP and they have, well...Normal characters. Is there a limit or way to cap some of this craziness or am I doomed to only assign him Dark Jedi and actual ships to give him a challenge?

Sounds like a Marauder, throw Glop Grenades at him.

Far horizons has some crowd-control weapons even nastier than glop grenades.

Also, destroying a weapon, while a jerk move, is a legitimate strategy in this game. A certain beta book just came out with plenty of weapons that have the sunder quality.

I don't think anyone wants to limit their player's creativity and freedom, but I have that ONE player whose bulked up his brawn, his crit, and the level of crit he can do, so as he plays now, he has a Would Threshold of 23, a Soak of 10, and crits on even one leftover advantage, and when he cris it does + 40 to the level of crit.

Sounds like a Wookiee Marauder with a nasty vibro-axe and the mono-molecular edge attachment. To that degree, it sounds just like my character, only mine has a pair of modified vibro-axes that can each be used one-handed, so that I can do Two Weapon Combat with them. Oh, and my WT is higher.

At first I thought it was my fault, handing out XP to easily maybe, but all the other characters are in the same pool with the same XP and they have, well...Normal characters. Is there a limit or way to cap some of this craziness or am I doomed to only assign him Dark Jedi and actual ships to give him a challenge?

Marauders tend to have low ST, so you can always hit them with stun attacks. Anything that locks them into one place or makes it so that they can’t attack back, will let them be taken down with relative ease. Like another poster suggested, that could be glop grenades. Or, that could be weapons with the Concussive attribute.

If they’re Brawl/Melee monsters, then they will fall pretty quickly to ranged attacks, especially from a Heavy using an LRB on auto-fire and with high skill and high Agility. The most damage that was ever done to my Wookiee in a single shot was from his best friend (a Heavy) who accidentally shot him in the back, when he fired into a minion group where my Wookiee was Engaged and managed to get a Despair.

Of course, outside of combat they’re going to be pretty bad at just about everything else. So, you can always get them with scenarios where combat can’t happen or where combat cannot be used to solve the problem.

Yes, I’m fully aware of all these methods and issues with regards to Marauders, and that’s why my Wookiee almost never increases his combat skills or talents any more — he’s already good enough in those areas and where he really needs to improve is in all the non-combat areas.

Also, destroying a weapon, while a jerk move, is a legitimate strategy in this game. A certain beta book just came out with plenty of weapons that have the sunder quality.

Once the idea for a weapon has been created, it’s easy enough to create that weapon again, if the original should happen to be destroyed or stolen.

So, destroying or stealing the weapon only "solves" the problem in the short term and doesn’t do anything to help with the long-term problem.

IMO, you’re better off dealing with them in ways where you don’t need to destroy or steal their weapon.

Also, destroying a weapon, while a jerk move, is a legitimate strategy in this game. A certain beta book just came out with plenty of weapons that have the sunder quality.

Once the idea for a weapon has been created, it’s easy enough to create that weapon again, if the original should happen to be destroyed or stolen.

So, destroying or stealing the weapon only "solves" the problem in the short term and doesn’t do anything to help with the long-term problem.

IMO, you’re better off dealing with them in ways where you don’t need to destroy or steal their weapon.

You're not wrong. That "solution" is a jerk move and should be considered very carefully before employed at your table.

haha! Brad Knowles, you sound EXACTLY like my one problem player. Unlike you however, he has no intention nor inclination to upgrade any of his Glaring weaknesses just continually upgrade his battle prowess. That's alright though. Everyone's suggestions have been excellent (especially your initial post Progressions) and in such a timely manner no less. I'll use most of what's mentioned here for battle involving him.

I like the idea of using social skills, and other specializations to test him, but he IS the kind of player, who, when the blaster fire stops effectively stops being a part of the party, you try to motivate him or get him involved in something besides fighting and his attitude is a confused "Wha-? That's not my job." kind of thing. Now obviously he feels he is the protector and warrior of the group, but I've tried to explain that doesn't mean there isn't more to him as a player and character...something I'll keep working with, but you have all suggested things I haven't tried so thanks again for the input.^^

unless everyone in the group and the gm is happy with this kind of playing style...

find another player.

the ffg star wars games can be exploited very easely. if you can make the munchkin stop, good for you. if not, don't focus your play on him. don't let 1 powergamer-character dictate the direction of your campaign.

talk about the issues. if he gets it, great! (redistribute his xp and keep on gaming) if he doesn't... get rid of him. harsh, but i don't see any other way that works.

Well if he doesn't feel like contributing in any way out of combat, maybe it's time for some NPC directly approaching him and demand some interaction and skillchecks.

To give him some more room for roleplaying and make the situation be familiar for his character I would let one or two wookies approach him. Give him some bonus dice because he is dealing with other wookies. The scene could be the start for a possible adventure for the whole group on kashyk and maybe the wookies will only be willing to talk to him, because he also is from kashyk or from the same tribe.

You could make it so that the rest of the party depends on his negotiation to get the information, mission or what ever the wookies want from your PC. You should give additional boost die if the player is trying to roleplay the negotiation and the whole social encounter doesn't need to be very defficult, as your PC has no experience in this anyway. Maybe the mission brought up by the wookies could offer more than credits for the party, but reputation for you marauder for being a fearless warrior.

Anyway: The Player might learn that sometimes the party relys on his social skills, his social skills can mean the difference between grat opportunitys or a few weeks without any income for the party and he might learn that his actions outside of combat will have great effects if he likes it or not and that he can not always count on the other party memebers to handle the talking for him.

Really like your approach Slave0! He does have kind of a honor thing going and has actually regretted and used med kits on two warriors he wanted defeated but not dead. I think this is the right way to go and the wookies will add a nice touch and possibly a worthy cause for him to carry. Great suggestion!

Shlominus, I've had players in the past for who reconciliation with the rest of the group was simply impossible and I've had to let them go as you suggested, but as my job as GM IS to entertain them, I feel I'd have ignored my responsability by just chucking a player whose playstyle doesn't exactly match mine. I agree that the game can be exploited easily, but as a GM that's always made it very easy for me to make something approriate in response to whatever my players bring.

I've run into similar problems, when a droid Marauder in my group recently one-shot a captive rancor (the one in the EotE CRB). It gets to the point where nothing is a challenge, combat-wise, and the only thing you can do is put bigger, badder enemies in their path. This, of course, makes things more dangerous for those who aren't combat spec'd, so you certainly can't do that.

Most of the suggestions made to me included using setback dice for everything . Uneven ground? Setback die. Not perfect lighting? Setback die. Raining? Setback die. Huge monstrous creature kicking up lots of dust? Setback die. You get the point? Use a setback die for everything .

Beyond that, the suggestions here are all valid. Introduce scenarios the player can't ignore. Give him non-combat confrontations with other wookiees, or aggressive (but again, non-combat) situations with the hated trandoshans. Maybe separate him from the party by a closed airlock and have him deal with some sort of puzzle to need to reach them - while they're dealing with the combat situation. Time it right, and he'll come through just as they've achieved victory.

Challenge the character. Remember that combat isn't a challenge anymore, so you have to attack the situation from other directions.

Or, well, you can just suck it and deal with it? (Which I'm suspecting you have been...)

By this I mean:

Is the Player having fun now? If yes; Is his Fun dependent on "absolutely wrecking the enemies"? If yes; Keep adding Rivals and Nemesis level enemies for him to a Total Bad-ass against. Let those enemies be there because "I heard you were a powerful warrior, I'm here to take you rep" or just 'flub it' and keep those big enemies off the "weaker combat' characters so they aren't immediately steamrolled (as long the other players aren't feeling totally over shadowed).

It's what our GM did with us. Our characters were my Jawa Technician (no combat abilities), total Techhead, good thieving, middling talking; a Twi'lek Smuggler (Scoundrel/Thief) with middling combat abilities, but mostly thieving and piloting and talking; a Human Explorer (Scout/Survivalist*/Big Game Hunter), All Survival all day, good Ranged Combat; and the Hisssk .

Hisssk is a Trandoshan Bounty Hunter (Gadgeteer, Assasin, Enforcer*). He was a combat monster who did very little outside of combat and physical activities. Our running joke** was "Hisssk can only articulate 3 words in GalStandard: I am Hisssk." We knew every time Hissk had to talk, everything would go wrong. Hilariously. The player had a ball doing the "I am Hisssk" routine when things went wrong (it was actually his battlecry).

Did we, the other players feel threatened by his MASSIVE COMBAT MONSTER status? No, we knew the DM was throwing the big-uber-bads out there for him to wail on and have fun defeating (usually with help, sometimes even running away***).

* Out Of Career specs, but we houseruled them into those careers because it made sense for the characters.

** He actually would make long, eloquent, intelligent speeches... and then roll the dice and happily fail miserably... happy because it usually meant combat was starting, which was mostly all he was there for. He did roleplay, and have fun in other encoutners, but he was pretty much just interested in being The Combat God. Which is fine, we do our own things (mine was "Is it break? I fix! Is it fix? I break!")

*** Another running joke was that we'd run away from things we could easily defeat and stand our ground when we should really have been running away. Ah, standard PC tactics.

I've run into similar problems, when a droid Marauder in my group recently one-shot a captive rancor (the one in the EotE CRB). It gets to the point where nothing is a challenge, combat-wise, and the only thing you can do is put bigger, badder enemies in their path. This, of course, makes things more dangerous for those who aren't combat spec'd, so you certainly can't do that.

Done, problem solved, the other PCs can pew-pew at it all they want, as long as they aren't overshadowing Mr. Combat Munchkin, the Big Bad generally ignores them (or occasionally swats one down to show how friggin bad-ass he is and how bad-ass Mr. Munchkin is).

Most of the suggestions made to me included using setback dice for everything . Uneven ground? Setback die. Not perfect lighting? Setback die. Raining? Setback die. Huge monstrous creature kicking up lots of dust? Setback die. You get the point? Use a setback die for everything .

Like I said, it's better to throw out minions for the scrub PCs to fight and bigger foes the Wookie to rip the arms off of.

That is terrible advice. You are literally making the entire combat harder for everyone just to reduce ONE character's abilities.

Like I said, it's better to throw out minions for the scrub PCs to fight and bigger foes the Wookie to rip the arms off of.

To be fair, in my case it wasn't one character. It was five combat-spec'd characters out of seven in the game, and all of them are getting a bit big for their britches. So yes... for my group that was good advice, but maybe not so much for a group that has only one "Mr. Munchkin".

Although it's also just generally good advice to add setback dice liberally.

This lets players whose talents remove setback dice take advantage of them, while enemies or others without those talents don't get the benefit.

In my games, one or two setback dice on most checks that aren't made in a calm, comfortable environment with no time pressure is pretty normal. I'm not talking about five or six setback though. For me, three is a lot, four would be pretty extreme environment. (Holding your breath, clinging to the side of a ship in space, while under fire from an enemy cruiser, during a supernova)

To be fair, in my case it wasn't one character. It was five combat-spec'd characters out of seven in the game, and all of them are getting a bit big for their britches. So yes... for my group that was good advice, but maybe not so much for a group that has only one "Mr. Munchkin".

For my taste though 2 is pretty limiting. 3 for a terrible scene, 4+ for progressions' example (2 for environment (SPACE 1 - extreme cold/discomfort, 1 - lack of breath), 1 for clinging to the ship, 1 for "under heavy vehicle class weapons fire")

Now I really want to create a scene where someone has to be holding their breath, clinging to the side of a ship, under enemy fire, during a supernova!

I think throwing endless minions and extremely maxed rivals or nemesis into combat to target the PC battle monster can be a solution once or twice but this will also get out of hand over time.

First the maxed combat pc is further encouraged to optimise his combat skills, as he finally gets new challenges.

Second, the other players barely have control over the encounter, they can lay minions as much as they want, if the battle pc fails, their fight will also be over pretty fast. Yes, you can add super creative elements that will allow the slicer to end or escape the encounter, but why shouldn't those options not be used before the battle pc falls.

I think in a group where everyone has a lot of fun with the battle monster and his limited ways, everything is fine. But i can see many groups were it becomes a pain for everyone. It is not fun if one person shows no commitment when other players are trying a creative approach. It is also not fun for a gm to have a player that is not enjoying the session, because there is no encounter.

If the imbalanced combat focus of the party is a problem for the majority i would try to address the issue in the most apropriate way.

Also keep in mind that, at a certain point, a character is just kinda maxed out and it might be time to retire the character and start over.

Now I really want to create a scene where someone has to be holding their breath, clinging to the side of a ship, under enemy fire, during a supernova!

I've already decided I'm having a lightsaber fight as the PCs and enemies freefall from sub-orbital hieghts, using the Force and other stuff to zip around in the air maneuvering (Gain The Advantage anyone?) and fighting as the ground looms ever closer...

I'm just not sure yet how to keep them alive let them save themselves...

Also keep in mind that, at a certain point, a character is just kinda maxed out and it might be time to retire the character and start over.

By then though, the other characters should be nearing max as well, so it might be time for a full ending.

I've already decided I'm having a lightsaber fight as the PCs and enemies freefall from sub-orbital heights, using the Force and other stuff to zip around in the air maneuvering (Gain The Advantage anyone?) and fighting as the ground looms ever closer...

I'm just not sure yet how to keep them alive let them save themselves...

At a certain point they could reach the layers of speeders zipping through the air, a la Episode II

At a certain point they could reach the layers of speeders zipping through the air, a la Episode II

No need to level caps.

If you have the luck that your players are enough mature use the gold rule: Common Sense.

- First, don't let pick talents or ranks just because s/he has earned enough XP to buy it. Make that s/he have to "train" or justify that improvement.

- Second, warn players about that issue: The Power Gamer fact. If they broke the game just because a mechanic thing, sessions can be not so funny because of the "I always win fact".

- Third, options that our forum mates said are pretty good. Not is always resolved by a fight.

Also I would like to add one personal similar case. In my game I have one player with an XP monster with 2625 XP (Combat+Social+Knowledge...) but even with almost full ranks, game mechanics make that some kind of monsters like those can fall. It's just a "probability thing". I haven't tested yet the new "Jedi/Force rules" but I supose that the difference will make that combats will last a few more turns, but players will still be mortal. So don't worry so much