I've always been one that played on the idea that all PCs should be relatively low power. Â It's something that's stemmed from my pen and paper days where we weren't roving bands of bad-asses fighting mobs of enemies, but low class adventurers going toe to toe with orcs and goblins, and where a trained wizard was a massive threat.
Thusly I've never played very powerful characters, or even characters there were exceptionally versatile unless I was playing a villain. Â They've always tended to be either on the weaker civilian end; or very highly specialized individuals. Â Their weaknesses came not through personality, but simply through their specializations natural weaknesses. Â Personal was developed separately with respect to why they chose to do what they do.
In FF14 in particular, my character Katiti serves mainly the role of Tataru does in the story. Â A helper, an assistant, a manager, with very weak combat skills. Â If she was to ever focus she'd be at most 15-25 level-wise if you're using that to gauge character power.
This has opened her up a lot more readily to social and event-based RP, but any form of adventuring or combat RP and she's immediately outclassed by nearly everyone without question. Â Rather than being a bit miffed at being locked out of a lot of RP because of this, or 'leveling up' to shoe-horn her in, I've worked it into her personality. Â It gives her a bit of a inferiority complex and need to be important that manifests as overcompensation.
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In terms of powerful characters and their flaws, I'm against the personality-as-a-flaw and the Superman type of flaw for balancing. Â
Personality flaws tend to be rather samey at time (even alluded to in earlier posts) and they're flaws that don't really show up in situations where the character is powerful unless purposefully scripted in. Â These are things like Batman having no sense of humor or real social skills with his co-workers, it's a nice quirk, but it's not a balancing flaw.Â
Superman flaws tend to be very specific flaws that either come in play very rarely, or require some sort of knowledge base to be able to play off of. Â Superman's' kryptonite flaw is useless as a balancing flaw because, again, it needs to be specifically scripted in and requires characters have massive luck stumbling on it or tons of knowledge based on it.
A good balancing flaw would be something like an incredible hulk type of powerhouse running out of steam very quickly, one-and-done super types, glass-cannoning, or an obvious opening that needs to be protected. Â Flaws that a powerful character needs to be aware of and work around in a fair number of their battles. Â Think characters like Zantana, who had very obvious method to stop her magic, or even real-life Jackie Chan- amazing fight with a literal weak-point on his head that could end him.
These flaws are also great because they allow other characters to participate in protecting your weakness. Â If D'Urist has almost unparalleled short range attacks, he shouldn't be able to use his sword to deflect off or redirect arrows/magic spells. Â He should be weak to them, and needs help from Urist Uriurist to keep up a powerful magic shield on him. Â Of course Urist Uriurist has very low physical capabilities so D'Urist needs to use his combat skills to keep him covered.
This kind of back-and-forth is what people feel overpowered characters tend to miss or lack, and this back-and-forth can result in some of the best shared RP ever.
Thusly I've never played very powerful characters, or even characters there were exceptionally versatile unless I was playing a villain. Â They've always tended to be either on the weaker civilian end; or very highly specialized individuals. Â Their weaknesses came not through personality, but simply through their specializations natural weaknesses. Â Personal was developed separately with respect to why they chose to do what they do.
In FF14 in particular, my character Katiti serves mainly the role of Tataru does in the story. Â A helper, an assistant, a manager, with very weak combat skills. Â If she was to ever focus she'd be at most 15-25 level-wise if you're using that to gauge character power.
This has opened her up a lot more readily to social and event-based RP, but any form of adventuring or combat RP and she's immediately outclassed by nearly everyone without question. Â Rather than being a bit miffed at being locked out of a lot of RP because of this, or 'leveling up' to shoe-horn her in, I've worked it into her personality. Â It gives her a bit of a inferiority complex and need to be important that manifests as overcompensation.
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In terms of powerful characters and their flaws, I'm against the personality-as-a-flaw and the Superman type of flaw for balancing. Â
Personality flaws tend to be rather samey at time (even alluded to in earlier posts) and they're flaws that don't really show up in situations where the character is powerful unless purposefully scripted in. Â These are things like Batman having no sense of humor or real social skills with his co-workers, it's a nice quirk, but it's not a balancing flaw.Â
Superman flaws tend to be very specific flaws that either come in play very rarely, or require some sort of knowledge base to be able to play off of. Â Superman's' kryptonite flaw is useless as a balancing flaw because, again, it needs to be specifically scripted in and requires characters have massive luck stumbling on it or tons of knowledge based on it.
A good balancing flaw would be something like an incredible hulk type of powerhouse running out of steam very quickly, one-and-done super types, glass-cannoning, or an obvious opening that needs to be protected. Â Flaws that a powerful character needs to be aware of and work around in a fair number of their battles. Â Think characters like Zantana, who had very obvious method to stop her magic, or even real-life Jackie Chan- amazing fight with a literal weak-point on his head that could end him.
These flaws are also great because they allow other characters to participate in protecting your weakness. Â If D'Urist has almost unparalleled short range attacks, he shouldn't be able to use his sword to deflect off or redirect arrows/magic spells. Â He should be weak to them, and needs help from Urist Uriurist to keep up a powerful magic shield on him. Â Of course Urist Uriurist has very low physical capabilities so D'Urist needs to use his combat skills to keep him covered.
This kind of back-and-forth is what people feel overpowered characters tend to miss or lack, and this back-and-forth can result in some of the best shared RP ever.
