Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Soulliard]

Most of the characters in my current pulp game seem pretty balanced, and everyone gets a chance to shine from time to time. Considering the character variety, I'm very happy with that. One character, however, is substantially more powerful than the rest.

Ironically, the player controlling the character is not a power-gamer at all. It just so happens that his character concept is an extremely powerful one.

He is playing an ex-German weird scientist. His powers include deflection, burst, confusion, and quickness.

Here are the problems I've noticed:
- His character almost never runs out of power points. As a weird scientist with a large number of powers, he has a huge power point pool, and even if one of his devices runs out of charges, he has so many that he can easily switch to another without losing effectiveness. He saves his bennies so device failure has not yet been a major issue.
- Confusion reliably disables 5 targets per round. Most enemies have a Smarts of d6 or less, which makes it almost impossible to make the Smarts check at a -2 penalty (let alone -4).
- Quickness is absurdly good. On round 1, he casts Quickness and immediately gets another turn, so almost nothing is lost. From then on, he is double-attacking with Burst and Confusion.

It's not unusual for this character to take out 1/3 of the enemy forces on his own, in a group with 6 other characters.

Has anyone else run into these problems? Are there balancing factors that I'm just not seeing? It's still a fun character, and the imbalance isn't really hurting the game, it's just something that's been bugging me.

[chugosh]

I felt your pain.

I had a guy with the same kind of character, mostly using quicken and blast. So many Primals and Minions died from that guy. But then one of the others in that party--the player always rolled so well that when sh missed a week, we simply assumed two extras died on each of her cards.

[VonDan]

Have them rescue a NPC researcher, give her Nerdilicious x 2 , a d10 in smarts, week eyes corrected with glasses and the bake strudel skill at d8. This should make her irresistible to the German Mad Scientist. She is really a high tech spy like a pulp version of the baroness from GI Joe and she will attempt to steel or disable his devices and learn his secrets. Thus the Mad Scientist can have some time to work his PC with out his uber devices and the other players can shine

And BF Zar outside the library today there was a street kid panhandling with a cardboard sign saying he was a Mad Scientist needing money to make a lab. In case he was a SW player I slide my SWDX into my bag to hide it when he walked in the coffee shop
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[geijhan]

[TheLoremaster]

[JackMann]

Also remember that if he's using his bennies to avoid malfunction, he isn't saving them for soak rolls.

[Dracones]

Really if it's not hurting the game, I'd just roll with it. The PC disables 5 NPCs, well, if there are 30 of them then who cares?

I'd think the only real factor is to make sure every player has a role and you allow that role to shine. Your mad scientist might be good at mowing down swarms, but maybe another PC is a crack shot or another one is a great investigator.

That multi-action thrown grenade blast won't be so hot when the mooks are at 30 inches behind -4 cover with long rifles, but your crack shot rifleman PC will feel like a star. But hey, maybe wild dogs are attacking and that mad scientist needs to hold them at bay so your marksman can pick off the mooks.

[Soulliard]

Yeah, it's not really hurting the game. All the other characters still get their chance to shine. They handle themselves better in melee, can handle big targets better, have skills or powers that set them apart, etc. I don't expect to make any big changes to this game, I was more interested in finding solutions for the next one, in case such a character comes up again.

[TheLoremaster]

[UmbraLux]

[Clint]

[GranFalloon]

Using a skill other than Weird Science is often seen as a drawback, as you have to invest in other skills, but it can be a boon as well. An auto-aiming lightning gun that requires a Weird Science roll is only usable by the Weird Scientist. But put a simple point-and-click-interface (you know, like a barrel and a trigger) on that sucker and you can hand it to the gunslinger and let him wreck shop.

[Soulliard]

[chillburn]

Just to make sure: You know that malfunctions happen when he rolls a 1 on his skill die, regardless of the wild die?

[Soulliard]

Yes

[ogbendog]

I had no idea area attacks worked that way. Is that in the RAW?

I mean, it could effect none gizmoes (as it should). Flashlights and lanterns, for example

[Shadowdragon]

I've always hated how many PP weird scientists get, it seems really unfair when compared to other ABs. I try to use no-PP magic systems when I can, which helps balance things. Otherwise I always rule that devices recharge from the scientist's personal PP pool, they don't recharge on their own.
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[chillburn]

I was always disappointed by how Mad Scientist devices and Ghost Rock got decoupled in DLR. It's talked about and all, but in the end the devices regen PP at the rate of 1/hour just like any setting. I would have preferred a "one ounce of ghost rock restores one Power Point" rule (which is what I did, but then no one played a Mad Scientist )

[jpk]

[Clint]