I think the question as to whether characters are overpowered is how they function in play. Is the DM capable of creating suitable challenges for them? Is there an element of risk in the characters actions, etc.
Let's also keep in mind CR is built not to just play a game, but perform a game as a show sustaining an audience. I haven't delved much into the behind the scenes story of CR, but the fact that the players are playing characters their audience have come to see play, that's de facto plot armor. Deaths are "staged" in that haphazard accidents are rare if ever and anything with lasting consequences occurs as a "beat." So the fact that the CR crowd seem to be pretty robust builds, think of the purpose for which they/re made.
I don't think
Molly dying
was intentional, even if it spawned a story arc later on. The main advantage the Mighty Nein have over the average other party at other tables is that there's seven of them - eight, if there's a guest character coming along for a while. Two of them are clerics as well. That's a big safety margin to have in case somebody goes down
or gets charmed into joining the big bad's posse because the player can't join a bunch of sessions due to other obligations
compared to a more common party of 3-5 with one healer and maybe an off-healer in support.
I think the question as to whether characters are overpowered is how they function in play. Is the DM capable of creating suitable challenges for them? Is there an element of risk in the characters actions, etc.
Let's also keep in mind CR is built not to just play a game, but perform a game as a show sustaining an audience. I haven't delved much into the behind the scenes story of CR, but the fact that the players are playing characters their audience have come to see play, that's de facto plot armor. Deaths are "staged" in that haphazard accidents are rare if ever and anything with lasting consequences occurs as a "beat." So the fact that the CR crowd seem to be pretty robust builds, think of the purpose for which they/re made.
I don't think
Molly dying
was intentional, even if it spawned a story arc later on. The main advantage the Mighty Nein have over the average other party at other tables is that there's seven of them - eight, if there's a guest character coming along for a while. Two of them are clerics as well. That's a big safety margin to have in case somebody goes down
or gets charmed into joining the big bad's posse because the player can't join a bunch of sessions due to other obligations
compared to a more common party of 3-5 with one healer and maybe an off-healer in support.
Without going into a detailed discussion of the spoiler you're protecting, I think that incident, and the fan fall out or at least conversation between creator and fandom necessitated by it, sort of serves my point. Plot armor isn't impervious but production supporting game decisions ranging from builds of characters to, as you point out, party builds, the show and shows like it privileges its ensemble more than conventional gamers lacking a need to sustain an audience following an ensemble (and also lacking the resources of that production). I don't think it's a bad thing, CR is good entertainment for a lot of folks. I do think it may engender false or unreasonable expectations in some players as to what a game "can" or more probamatically "should" be, which may have been a factor in the OP's posting this thread in the first place.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
In C1 Matt has been killing them left and right. IDK about plot armor but he did not avoid instant death effects (the ones when you reach 0 you are dead, not uncoscious)
1. Beholder's death ray killed one of them
2. Killed by a trap doing damage and instant killing when brought to 0
3. 4x kill by a dragon just from raw damage
4. Killed by falling damage (Matt didn't cap the upper damage and instakilled the player)
5. Power word kill
6. Disintegrate on a paralyzed (Hold Monster) player
7. Drowned in a one shot
These are not all but some of the most memorable.
In at least one instance Revivify didn't work due to Matt's resurrection rules and one time he denied True Resurrection because of plot reasons.
In comparison, campaign 2 is much safer but this can be attributed to the fact that so far they have fought less dangerous enemies, have two clerics in party. Even so, there was at least one death by friendly fire and one death by Power Word Kill trap.
IDK about that plot armor, seems about what regular D&D can bring, considering how genuinely hard it is to permakill someone in this edition ;-)
AFAIK they all rolled for stats and Matt has a mulligan that let them reroll if the sum of all scores was lower than a certain number.
I remember Matt saying that if the total of their ability scores is less than 70 - they reroll. They can also reroll if they don't have at least one ability at 15 or higher.
I remember Matt saying that if the total of their ability scores is less than 70 - they reroll. They can also reroll if they don't have at least one ability at 15 or higher.
Again this is fairly standard and Coleville has a similar rule.
However, Coleville also forces his players to accept their rolls in order to "discover" their character, so they can't put their stats wherever they want.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BioWizard
I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
However, Coleville also forces his players to accept their rolls in order to "discover" their character, so they can't put their stats wherever they want.
Ewwww. 🤢
Edit: I just tried it with DNDBeyond's ability score roller method. 11 12 17 8 12 12. What would you do with that?
I remember Matt saying that if the total of their ability scores is less than 70 - they reroll. They can also reroll if they don't have at least one ability at 15 or higher.
Again this is fairly standard and Coleville has a similar rule.
However, Coleville also forces his players to accept their rolls in order to "discover" their character, so they can't put their stats wherever they want.
Ewwww.
Wouldn't be my choice either but to be fair, most of his players are veterans who have played various characters left and right in many campaigns so they probably scratched the itch of playing what they want and can now just try new approach to their game.
Wouldn't be my choice either but to be fair, most of his players are veterans who have played various characters left and right in many campaigns so they probably scratched the itch of playing what they want and can now just try new approach to their game.
Actually he purposely does it with new players. He has had bad experiences with people bringing a pre-made concept to the table that doesn't fit his campaign, so this way, he makes sure they are doing a concept that they made up specifically for his game.
Also he has a deal with them, that if the original character dies, their replacement character can put stats anywhere they want. This takes some of the sting out of dying.
I just tried it with DNDBeyond's ability score roller method. 11 12 17 8 12 12. What would you do with that?
I suspect Coleville might have you re-roll that since the 17 is not in a prime stat for any class (I mean yeah fighter but you need STR or DEX for a fighter). I think he also has some rules about at least 2 stats have to be over 13 so you'd get a re-roll based on that as well.
My main point, getting back on topic, is that Matt Mercer's rules about rolling up characters are not that different from other rules and Coleville's are very similar, so it's hard to define those as "OP".
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BioWizard
I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Wouldn't be my choice either but to be fair, most of his players are veterans who have played various characters left and right in many campaigns so they probably scratched the itch of playing what they want and can now just try new approach to their game.
Actually he purposely does it with new players. He has had bad experiences with people bringing a pre-made concept to the table that doesn't fit his campaign, so this way, he makes sure they are doing a concept that they made up specifically for his game.
Also he has a deal with them, that if the original character dies, their replacement character can put stats anywhere they want. This takes some of the sting out of dying.
I just tried it with DNDBeyond's ability score roller method. 11 12 17 8 12 12. What would you do with that?
I suspect Coleville might have you re-roll that since the 17 is not in a prime stat for any class (I mean yeah fighter but you need STR or DEX for a fighter). I think he also has some rules about at least 2 stats have to be over 13 so you'd get a re-roll based on that as well.
My main point, getting back on topic, is that Matt Mercer's rules about rolling up characters are not that different from other rules and Coleville's are very similar, so it's hard to define those as "OP".
17 11 8 14 12 12 wouldn't exactly be a dream array either, provided you can't rearrange them. Rolling in order can be interesting, but also shitty. If you really want players to come out of their comfort zone a bit in terms of character, I suggest letting them generate stats using one of the conventional ways after rolling to determine their class (they can exclude one class they absolutely don't want to play and roll 1d12 to see what they get, for instance). Still going to be tricky with a MAD class, but gives you some control at least.
Given that all of the CritRole characters have high stats, I'm sure Matt's system is pretty permissive. Doesn't make it overpowered though, since that's easily compensated for with frequency and difficulty of encounters and bounded accuracy puts a cap on stats anyway.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
However, Coleville also forces his players to accept their rolls in order to "discover" their character, so they can't put their stats wherever they want.
Ewwww. 🤢
Edit: I just tried it with DNDBeyond's ability score roller method. 11 12 17 8 12 12. What would you do with that?
The thing is, that is how D&D character creation originally was. Not counting the fact that some classes had stat requirements.
Of course this just lead to people generating a ton of characters until something useable came up.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
However, Coleville also forces his players to accept their rolls in order to "discover" their character, so they can't put their stats wherever they want.
Ewwww. 🤢
Edit: I just tried it with DNDBeyond's ability score roller method. 11 12 17 8 12 12. What would you do with that?
Rock Gnome rogue. I get the INT out of penalized space and make them even tougher on CON. I'm thinking a rogue who's sort of a fall guy. If the odds aren't with them, they can take their lump. Playing around I named mine Fort I. Tude.
The thing is, that is how D&D character creation originally was. Not counting the fact that some classes had stat requirements.
Of course this just lead to people generating a ton of characters until something useable came up.
That happens, see Colbert talking to Joe Mangienello about "farmers" (which anticipated the first edition of Traveler, where characters were generated through a "life path" process where the character could actually die during life path).
The older way of rolling characters were more designed as step one of "who is this character". Low stats were flaws the player would learn how to adapt through play (or not through short lived play). The modern method gives more license to "this character is" declarations. Could well be one of the fault lines between some of the disagreements between old school and modern players.
Traditional drama and acting is done in service of a character whose establishment was not in the characters control. There is a process the actor contributes to, but it's more discovery, like finding a sheet of paper with some 8s or 7s or even something sub 5 on it. Current D&D flips the script there and has the player ("actor") showing up with a concept without necessarily knowing the story. And within Critical Role, to loosely bring this back into thread alignment, you have a number of actual actors doing this ... which is probably why many people of the acting persuasion find TTRPG such a fun diversion.
I don't think
Molly dying
was intentional, even if it spawned a story arc later on. The main advantage the Mighty Nein have over the average other party at other tables is that there's seven of them - eight, if there's a guest character coming along for a while. Two of them are clerics as well. That's a big safety margin to have in case somebody goes down
or gets charmed into joining the big bad's posse because the player can't join a bunch of sessions due to other obligations
compared to a more common party of 3-5 with one healer and maybe an off-healer in support.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Without going into a detailed discussion of the spoiler you're protecting, I think that incident, and the fan fall out or at least conversation between creator and fandom necessitated by it, sort of serves my point. Plot armor isn't impervious but production supporting game decisions ranging from builds of characters to, as you point out, party builds, the show and shows like it privileges its ensemble more than conventional gamers lacking a need to sustain an audience following an ensemble (and also lacking the resources of that production). I don't think it's a bad thing, CR is good entertainment for a lot of folks. I do think it may engender false or unreasonable expectations in some players as to what a game "can" or more probamatically "should" be, which may have been a factor in the OP's posting this thread in the first place.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
In C1 Matt has been killing them left and right. IDK about plot armor but he did not avoid instant death effects (the ones when you reach 0 you are dead, not uncoscious)
1. Beholder's death ray killed one of them
2. Killed by a trap doing damage and instant killing when brought to 0
3. 4x kill by a dragon just from raw damage
4. Killed by falling damage (Matt didn't cap the upper damage and instakilled the player)
5. Power word kill
6. Disintegrate on a paralyzed (Hold Monster) player
7. Drowned in a one shot
These are not all but some of the most memorable.
In at least one instance Revivify didn't work due to Matt's resurrection rules and one time he denied True Resurrection because of plot reasons.
In comparison, campaign 2 is much safer but this can be attributed to the fact that so far they have fought less dangerous enemies, have two clerics in party. Even so, there was at least one death by friendly fire and one death by Power Word Kill trap.
IDK about that plot armor, seems about what regular D&D can bring, considering how genuinely hard it is to permakill someone in this edition ;-)
I remember Matt saying that if the total of their ability scores is less than 70 - they reroll. They can also reroll if they don't have at least one ability at 15 or higher.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
Again this is fairly standard and Coleville has a similar rule.
However, Coleville also forces his players to accept their rolls in order to "discover" their character, so they can't put their stats wherever they want.
BioWizard
I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Ewwww. 🤢
Edit:
I just tried it with DNDBeyond's ability score roller method. 11 12 17 8 12 12. What would you do with that?
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
Wouldn't be my choice either but to be fair, most of his players are veterans who have played various characters left and right in many campaigns so they probably scratched the itch of playing what they want and can now just try new approach to their game.
Actually he purposely does it with new players. He has had bad experiences with people bringing a pre-made concept to the table that doesn't fit his campaign, so this way, he makes sure they are doing a concept that they made up specifically for his game.
Also he has a deal with them, that if the original character dies, their replacement character can put stats anywhere they want. This takes some of the sting out of dying.
I suspect Coleville might have you re-roll that since the 17 is not in a prime stat for any class (I mean yeah fighter but you need STR or DEX for a fighter). I think he also has some rules about at least 2 stats have to be over 13 so you'd get a re-roll based on that as well.
My main point, getting back on topic, is that Matt Mercer's rules about rolling up characters are not that different from other rules and Coleville's are very similar, so it's hard to define those as "OP".
BioWizard
I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
17 11 8 14 12 12 wouldn't exactly be a dream array either, provided you can't rearrange them. Rolling in order can be interesting, but also shitty. If you really want players to come out of their comfort zone a bit in terms of character, I suggest letting them generate stats using one of the conventional ways after rolling to determine their class (they can exclude one class they absolutely don't want to play and roll 1d12 to see what they get, for instance). Still going to be tricky with a MAD class, but gives you some control at least.
Given that all of the CritRole characters have high stats, I'm sure Matt's system is pretty permissive. Doesn't make it overpowered though, since that's easily compensated for with frequency and difficulty of encounters and bounded accuracy puts a cap on stats anyway.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
The thing is, that is how D&D character creation originally was. Not counting the fact that some classes had stat requirements.
Of course this just lead to people generating a ton of characters until something useable came up.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Rock Gnome rogue. I get the INT out of penalized space and make them even tougher on CON. I'm thinking a rogue who's sort of a fall guy. If the odds aren't with them, they can take their lump. Playing around I named mine Fort I. Tude.
That happens, see Colbert talking to Joe Mangienello about "farmers" (which anticipated the first edition of Traveler, where characters were generated through a "life path" process where the character could actually die during life path).
The older way of rolling characters were more designed as step one of "who is this character". Low stats were flaws the player would learn how to adapt through play (or not through short lived play). The modern method gives more license to "this character is" declarations. Could well be one of the fault lines between some of the disagreements between old school and modern players.
Traditional drama and acting is done in service of a character whose establishment was not in the characters control. There is a process the actor contributes to, but it's more discovery, like finding a sheet of paper with some 8s or 7s or even something sub 5 on it. Current D&D flips the script there and has the player ("actor") showing up with a concept without necessarily knowing the story. And within Critical Role, to loosely bring this back into thread alignment, you have a number of actual actors doing this ... which is probably why many people of the acting persuasion find TTRPG such a fun diversion.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
They rolled for their statistics and have custom magic items. I certainly don't think they're overpowered for the game they play.