I am the Game Master for a game of three other people and I have 1 character who has simply become too powerful. I try to make it difficult to even the playing field but he can withstand anything I can throw at him. It is difficult to make a fair campaign because the other players are still behind him in experience so it either turns out too easy for him or too hard for the others. How do I balance this out so that it is still a fun and fair campaign for everyone.

In what way is he too powerful? Why is there a disparity of experience among the characters? What is a typical encounter that he is easily over coming?

How exactly did he get that powerful?

Did you run games for him alone and they wasn't able to play or is he using an old character and they're running new ones?

If he's simply more advanced, i.e has more xp, just declare some special training camp for the rest of the group and hand them enough xp to be at the same level.

If he's got too much soak so combat is extrmely easy for him 8and deadly to everyone else), well challenge him in his weak spots (meaning, social, techinical or knowledge skills),or bring vehicle scale weapons into play to deal with him or swarm him with minions or rivals dedicated only for him. I.e. the death troopers squad engages him with the standard stormtroopers shoot the rest of the group, or maybe they aren't even stormtroopers, just regular army soldiers. Be generous with piercing weapons, or burning weapons or stun weapons.

A basic lightsaber ignores 10 soak, but only does 6 base damage, but make it a weapon that is activated using the force so that non force sensitives can't use it if they kill him and take the lightsaber.

Rather than ramping up the power level or trying to 'get' that one PC with things designed specifically to shut him down, if you have one combat-oriented character and several who aren't then combat scenarios need to play to their strengths with objectives other than 'kill the bad guys'. They can do their thing(s) while he does his and their relative combat power won't be an issue.

In my experience XP is less overpowering than equipment for non-force characters. So the first step to better balance is probably getting some of the crazy equipment off the character that's too powerful.

A basic lightsaber ignores 10 soak, but only does 6 base damage, but make it a weapon that is activated using the force so that non force sensitives can't use it if they kill him and take the lightsaber.

Until they pull the crystal out and put it in a hilt of their own making. Any idiot can whip up a basic light saber hilt in this system.

Without more information, it's impossible for us to make a proper diagnosis of your problem. Is he a Marauder in a group of Diplomats? Is he an older character in a group of newbies? Is he a mono-focused One Trick Pony in a group of Jack-Of-All-Trades? We cant tell you what to fix without know a bit about how it got broken.

A basic lightsaber ignores 10 soak, but only does 6 base damage, but make it a weapon that is activated using the force so that non force sensitives can't use it if they kill him and take the lightsaber.

Until they pull the crystal out and put it in a hilt of their own making. Any idiot can whip up a basic light saber hilt in this system.

In that case I would actually ask PC's to make an impossible knowledge check if they haven't had prior knowledge. Assembling a lightsaber isn't common knowledge; for having the hilt in their procession I would downgrade it to a formidable, and downgrade it again if they have knoweldge lore to hard. Lightsabers aren't particlarly common weapons and without having some idea of what goes into building them,

My PC started his quest of becoming an inquistor hunter this way; there was a accent sith spirit in the lightsaber (though he wasn't force sensitive at the time, his hand was unconsciously guided with knowledge) and he succeeded on a formidable check with two thrumphs, and thus was able to restore a sith saber he had found. abandoned in a temple quickly. It wasn't easy to do but because it was with his speciality he maintained and hid the lightsaber from the party for several months; prior to joining the allience he recognised that actually wielding the blade would be more trouble then it's worth so he kept it aside for a rainy day. However, if your characters A) Have no interest in starting on the path of power or B) just want it because OCC knowledge, I would either deny them of it entirely (small charge in the lightsaber damages the crystal) or make it really great prize; if they have the skill to unlock pandora's box.

That being said; the TC's question can't be answered without information. What is his build?

In what way is he too powerful? Why is there a disparity of experience among the characters? What is a typical encounter that he is easily over coming?

He is incredibly well balanced and has an incredibly high amount of luck, this makes it hard to balance the game as he can overcome most challenge thrown at him. He has over 500 xp compared to the other relatively new characters. All this makes an incredibly unbalanced game.

Without more information, it's impossible for us to make a proper diagnosis of your problem. Is he a Marauder in a group of Diplomats? Is he an older character in a group of newbies? Is he a mono-focused One Trick Pony in a group of Jack-Of-All-Trades? We cant tell you what to fix without know a bit about how it got broken.

An older character in a group of newbies.

You could always give him tougher tasks to complete that keep him busy, while other easier things have to be done by the rest of the party.

That would be effectively splitting the party, but not necessarily doing it physically.

If they’re in combat, then the big combat monster opponents always go after him, and leave the small minion groups to go after the others.

If it’s a social situation, he gets pinned down in a difficult social situation that he can’t immediately escape, while the others have easier tasks to perform.

Just because they’re together doesn’t mean that the enemy has to apply the same amount of “force” to each member of the party.

In what way is he too powerful? Why is there a disparity of experience among the characters? What is a typical encounter that he is easily over coming?

He is incredibly well balanced and has an incredibly high amount of luck, this makes it hard to balance the game as he can overcome most challenge thrown at him. He has over 500 xp compared to the other relatively new characters. All this makes an incredibly unbalanced game.

Still need more specifics here. "Incredibly well balanced" is too vague to understand what this character has. Can you give specifics, such as his characteristics scores, and skill ranks in his best skills? Maybe his career and spec(s), along with any powerful talents? What 'challenges' are you presenting to this character (e.g. specific number of purple, red, and black dice)?

I have a campaign with XP over 1000 for some characters, they are not by any means un-challengable. It does mean however the challenges become pretty epic when necessary. The mundane 1, 2 or even 3 purple skill checks aren't really much of a challenge.

Agree with the others, need more data.

However, our current group is pushing 1400 xp and they are still challenged by things. I have had to adjust my/Imperial tactics, but it has worked well. At first they hae been facing several minion groups and few rivals or nemesis and none have been left to identify the characters as a threat. After a few survivors have come about, the groups got bigger and a few more rivals have appeared. A couple of sessions ago I "upped the ante". The Empire laid a trap for them AND altered their tactics. I used the Squad rules for then stormies this time with Captains (slightly upgraded sergeants) and sergeants at the core. Completely de-railed them. They got away, but did not accomplish their mission. These will not be the tactics every time, however if the Empire knows it's this particular rebel group, you better bet your bottom they will use what has worked.

Once they figure a way around the squad rules, I will have to see how things go from their, but they do have their very own inquisitor on their tail as well as sneakin' ISB...hehehe

Add side quests for the other PC's to give them a chance to gain some bonus xp.

Give extra xp for coming up with genius plans or excellent role playing, things that his xp boost won't give him an advantage in.

Talk to the player and explain that you need to start giving the other players extra xp to balance the game.

Let any new characters start with enough xp to balance your game.

A quick fix is to bestow extra abilities for free using plot devices.

A holocron that will give a free ability, victim of Sith alchemy/imperial experimentation, step on a landmine and get new (better) legs, infected with a parasite, addicted to a reflex heightening narcotic etc.

I agree give more xp to the starting charcters and less, even much less to the experienced one untile everybody is on the same level. Somethink like 20-30xp to the newbies and 10 to the older charcter. Also do split him from the group with vital and dangeorus missions, like Obi-Wan did on the Death Star. If the character is so well balanced and lucky he will relish the added challenge to overcome.

Also you could houserul that the older charcter can act like a mentor and turn some non class skills to class skills for the other character as long as he is around and until they have matched his level (ie he has piloting space 3, everybody treats it as class skill until they reach 3 ranks in it).

In what way is he too powerful? Why is there a disparity of experience among the characters? What is a typical encounter that he is easily over coming?

He is incredibly well balanced and has an incredibly high amount of luck, this makes it hard to balance the game as he can overcome most challenge thrown at him. He has over 500 xp compared to the other relatively new characters. All this makes an incredibly unbalanced game.

It's time for him to retire. What system can you stick a 10th level with a bunch of 1st levels and not have it matter? You can't have a party that out of whack in xp, there is no in game fix for that. Hand waving fiat is the only answer and that might as well be "dude, re-roll time."

In what way is he too powerful? Why is there a disparity of experience among the characters? What is a typical encounter that he is easily over coming?

He is incredibly well balanced and has an incredibly high amount of luck, this makes it hard to balance the game as he can overcome most challenge thrown at him. He has over 500 xp compared to the other relatively new characters. All this makes an incredibly unbalanced game.

It's time for him to retire. What system can you stick a 10th level with a bunch of 1st levels and not have it matter? You can't have a party that out of whack in xp, there is no in game fix for that. Hand waving fiat is the only answer and that might as well be "dude, re-roll time."

Or just find a way to have him frozen in carbonite until the other players manage to rescue him...once they have equivalent XP.

I ran a group that was purposely off-balanced. 3 starting characters, 2 knight level at +150xp, and 1 +300xp.

The goal was to recreate the Firefly effect with both non-combatant newbs alongside Big **** Heroes. It's a good campaign (technically still going even though a string of pregnancies for multiple players has slowed our playing schedule considerably).

The way I approached it was this: don't worry about challenging the PCs in combat. For certain, make sure there are enough challenges to go around, there's always a door that needs to be opened, a chasm that needs jumped, an informant that needs convincing, a guard that needs to be passed undetected, an engine that showers the room in sparks during a chase that needs to be fixed on the fly, etc. Combat will happen, but just don't make that the ONLY thing that happens, and it won't be that big of a deal. I would advise that, when you're creating your goals for your players, to not think about WHO they have to defeat, but What. If they have to enter an Imperial base, worry less about how many stormtroopers there are, but have difficulties ready for doors, walls, computers, survival if they have to trek through an environment to get there... give them a 5 inch ledge to inch across above a 60ft drop, in the rain, and you'll get more points spent on Coordination.

Typically in my campaigns, especially in point buy systems, if I find players are spending lots of points on combat it's because I'm spending too much time shooting at them. If you make combat easy, then your combat monster won't think he has to advance in it, or he might, but if he does, then it's a non-issue. "Okay, you killed off those eight stormtroopers who were guarding the control room in one action. What do you do now?"

As others have mentioned, occasionally give him bigger targets to defeat. Occasionally. Will an AT-ST give him cause for concern? Would he have to spend resources to defeat that challenge?

Also, occasionally, and by that I mean maybe once every other session at most, hit him in the dump stat:

"You are obviously the strongest/largest/quickest/most armored person in the group. The natives of this planet recognize you as the party leader, and you appear unable to convince him otherwise. They will ONLY talk to you. Let's begin negotiation for their help, which you need because of the dangerous area (quicksand/beasts/poisonous by touch plants)." <-- Stolen directly from the Order 66 podcast.

"The group is on this speeder and flying crazy fast through this canyon, being chased by armored Imperial Assault speeders (with Armor 2-3). Your small arms appear to have little to no effect. What do you do?"

"You all need to leave the area immediately because of the unstable reactor. What you came in on has been destroyed. The only other thing are Personal Speeder Bikes that only have a single person canopy, so everyone will have to take their own."

The point being that, as long as you have a varied enough set of challenges for the group to overcome, he'll feel no more useful than anyone else. Extremely good in his chosen field, and just as ready to stand by while others do their thing.

The other thing is even if the person is broadly talented; they are just one person and can only do one thing in a given time frame. The character might have built in flaws or a lack of formal training that might make him unsuitable for a given situation; for starters, a con man can only get so far by lying to a professional thus having an actual guy with ranks in knowledge skills would help in dealing directly with other professionals.

Again, your question is very vague; this relationship between high exp and low EXP can work, but it requires precise understanding in what your problem actually is

For example my PC has over 1000 exp assigned to him, which nearly triples some members of the party (we have an alt system), but because of his broad spread (he was a mechanic turned outlaw into LS duelist) he has a defined area where no one can exceed him (crafting) but otherwise is broadly balanced. He's a unparalleled mechanic, but there are better slicers in the team, and plenty that can rival him in the firepower department and there there are characters that are tougher (his soak is 5 most of the time, thus has sto spend a lot of strain to ward off damage) so broadly speaking there area lot of characters out there that can do better then him in any particular area.

The key thing with our balence however is that no one character can do everything. Tobin Stryder is just one guy, he can fight an inquistor, break a lock fly ships and sneak around but he can't do anymore then one of those things at any given time. He might be comparable to a Queen on a chess board, but even a queen can only go in one direction at any given point.

If you want to accommodate a higher exp player, you have to present a lot of high stress situations were time is of the essence; where players and PC's start assigning roles to complete all these challenges. If your players are relying on him to do everything in a timely manner, don't give them that time. Make them prioritise and diversify.

In what way is he too powerful? Why is there a disparity of experience among the characters? What is a typical encounter that he is easily over coming?

He is incredibly well balanced and has an incredibly high amount of luck, this makes it hard to balance the game as he can overcome most challenge thrown at him. He has over 500 xp compared to the other relatively new characters. All this makes an incredibly unbalanced game.

Okay, not to be mean - but why are you asking us for advice when the root of your problem is pretty clear. Tell him "no, make a starting character like everyone else" and move on. Problem solved.

Confront him and tell him that he's making the game not fun for everyone else. If he won't agree to accept a lower level character, dump him. No one likes a power gamer.

Confront him and tell him that he's making the game not fun for everyone else. If he won't agree to accept a lower level character, dump him. No one likes a power gamer.

As an alternative offer him to have his charcter injured and put in a bacta tank (or frozen in carbonite) for a long time, and have him reroll an alternate character to use until the rest of the group has cought up xp wise...then bring back the older character.

Without more information, it's impossible for us to make a proper diagnosis of your problem. Is he a Marauder in a group of Diplomats? Is he an older character in a group of newbies? Is he a mono-focused One Trick Pony in a group of Jack-Of-All-Trades? We cant tell you what to fix without know a bit about how it got broken.

An older character in a group of newbies.

Sounds like a retirement party, and maybe the character can become a useful NPC ally.

"Hello, rest of the party. Allow me to introduce my nephew, Li'l Rok-N-Raul. I've trained him the best I could, and he knows some of my secrets. He still has a lot to learn, but he'll do his best for you, I'm sure. Now, if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to find a drink, a lady, and a beach with a fine view of the sunset."