What is in your opinion called "Powergaming"

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Às the topic said, I was just wondering that how do you define "powergaming"?

Just curios and wondering if I should give it a try..

 

Playing the game with as powerful a character/party as you possibly can, to the point of defying/overriding any actual role playing. Rolling minimal scores in non-essential stats in favor of jacking other desired stats up to 18's, overriding any sense of realism (a cleric with 18 WIS and 3 INT, for example). Choosing stats based purely on the benefits, ignoring the actual development or background of your character. Playing the game not for the story or interaction, but to be the most powerful and obliterate everything in your path.

In short, powergaming is the opposite of role playing.

 

Hmm, does that count character hacking? IE. placing a Dex to 21 on shadowkeeper?

considering that, I'd never put it on 25 though, it would spoil everything, I say

 

To me, a powergamer:
- rolls stats at the start until he/she gets a set that he/she is happy with
- tries to create a party that will make the game easier rather than more challenging
- tries to get the best equipment possible
- doesn’t worry too much about how alignment should (from a roleplaying perspective) impact on actions in the game
- doesn’t worry too much about whether something is cheesy (this does not mean cheats)

Personally, I usually do a bit of both (powergaming an roleplaying)

Edit - didn't see D.R.'s post, so some of mine is repetitive. Shadowkeepr is powergaming, and is OK if you don't do something that the game wouldn't normally allow. 21 DEX is cheating, not powergaming.

 

Bare in mind that any stat over 18 is considered "superhuman." That's why some races can roll a natural 19 in some stats, but that's absolutely pushing the natural gifts of their race. Ability scores of 20 or above are godlike, and no mortal could "naturally" possess such a high ability score. Hence, cheating. By that same token, min/maxing stats serves no purpose other than powergaming. Imagine a character who is so intelligent his genius is renowned throughout the world, yet has no concept of his surroundings and never learns from his mistakes (18 INT, 3 WIS). Doesn't make much sense. Some ability scores seem to go hand in hand.

 

Further to the issue of stats, one of the biggest powergaming tactics is to minimise CHA. To me, from a roleplaying perspective, a leader almost has to have reasonable CHA in order to be effective, and other factors might require it to be very high. For example, I am soon going to create a new party a try out the Tactics mod. My PC is going to be a halfling multi-class fighter/thief. To me, neither a halfling nor a thief is a natural choice for a leader, so he's going to have to have 18 CHA to compensate.

 

Never forget that this is not just black and white. There are degrees of powergaming.

I think trying to "beat the game" is one aspect of powergaming.
This manifests itself in different ways, like for example getting the stats as high as you can. Cheating, for example by getting higher stats using ShadowKeeper, is also powergaming, but there's a difference. If you try to "beat the game", cheating completely destroys that effort.

 

Well, DMC, there is a roleplaying explanation for taking your time to find Imoen even for a Paladin. i would say that given the fact that you know Irenicus must be significantly more powerful than you are, you would want to gather as much experience and gear before facing him. No point in displaying a low Wisdom and going off half cocked, finding Imoen, and then getting your butt whooped.

 

Good point, dmc. I guess I've always powergamed from that perspective, in that I always do all the Ch 2 quests before I go to Brynnlaw. But LKD makes a good point as well.

Question: is creating a party in multi-player (to play it in single-player) powergaming? In other words, do you need NPC's in order to roleplay?

 

I would argue that in some senses powergaming is necessary when roleplaying. It would take a pretty stupid character to not recognize the fact that in a hostile dungeon there are likely to be traps, and bring along a thief or equip a cleric accordingly. By the same token, a Mage with 18 INT who goes looking for a fight without a warrior of some sort to do the melee work in his party is obviously not roleplaying his INT very well.

There are storytelling rationales for many behaviours that some could call powergaming. I like to think that during my time at Candlekeep I surrounded myself with a group of people who shared similar ideas about adventuring and who worked well as a team. From that is born my MultiPlayer games.

 

Some of the powergaming that I do in my NRP:
my thief drinks 4 potions of master thievery and steals - potions, arrows of dispelling, full plate mail, scrolls, ...
Then he also sell and steals wands of monster summoning, wand of cloudkil and wand of fire. It's still a part of the game and it's not a bug exploit. Then we go in the sewers - check on that party waiting for us. Sorcerer throws 3 Webs and 3 Cloudkills from a wand - and pick up the loot. Then I go visit Roger the Fence and sell and steal back those plate mails again and again until I have around 100000. Then I buy Robe of Vecna and other stuff. And I will still probably dia against Improved Bodhi or Improved Irenicus in the first try. And there are also Improved Beholders, Improved Liches with nasty Teleport Field, Improved Mind Flayers, ...

 

My main character, (a dwarven Kensai actually ) has 3 in charisma. I put it that low because i knew that i would find a ring in irenicus' prison in the absolute beginning that raises charisma to 18! I dunno, would that be considered cheating, or powerplaying?

I'm pretty green, so i try to beef up everything to make the game as easy as posible the first time i play it, then raising the difficulty next time i play it. And still, i'm having problems at some times.

And i've completed all the ch2 quests to before i went to the island.

 

Both, really. Powergaming certainly, but if not cheating, then definitely cheesy. How would your character know how "lucky" he would become to find a ring that would make his nappy as so darned attractive?

And you get that ring from Kallah in the Circus Tent, not Jon-boy's dungeon.

 

A charisma of 3 in expectance of getting the ring of Human Influence is a good example of powergaming and it is at the same time cheesy.
It's cheesy (in this case an example of what is called "metagaming") because you're using your knowledge of the game to get away with a charisma of 3.
It most definitely is not cheating!


Lord Keldin Depaara wrote:

Powergaming is something that improves your character(s) without making any roleplaying sense. If your character realises that he isn't a match for an enemy it makes sense to try and become more powerful first.
How you go about building up your power is another question.

 

I don't agree with Death Rabbits statement that 19 is "superhuman" and 20 is "godlike". If you remember Coran, he had a dexterity of 20, and Kagain a Constitution of 20. 20, in my opinion is extremly talented, and few others match your ability. anything above 21 would be rediculously refined, while anything above that would be godlike or mystical. 25 would be mega-magic and would involve some serious diety butt-kissing. 19 is very good though. They want to give you lots of room for improvment though. If you play the game with one character from BG1 and get the two Wisdom tomes, you can get a grand total of 22 Wisdom some way through ToB (I think).

I'd say choosing weapon proficiencies based on your knowledge of the game and what weapons it holds would be considered powergaming, but we all do it (even if they have a warning for Katanas). I would say choosing any stat of 3 (or less!) would be powergaming, knowing you won't be using it. For instance a Fighter with 3 Wis and Int but 18 everywhere else would be a powergaming character. It's impossible for someone to be charismatic but be a complete idiot. He'd barely know how to talk with 3 Int! If you've played the game twice, you've probably powergamed.

I really don't see what wrong with powergaming, or even cheating. As long as you've played the game from start to finish (without cheating) a few times, then you should be able to do whatever you want. I personally don't cheat because I like the game the way it is, but I don't see anything wrong with someone who does.

 

A stat of 20 is not merely "extremely talented"! It is Godlike.

18 is extreme. 19 is superhuman. Humans can't get 19 at creation.
The fact that some characters in BG1 had such extreme stats does not take away from how the stats should be perceived.

On a related note the large number of tomes in BG1 was IMHO a mistake by the designers. Note the total lack of such tomes in BG2

 

Some people earlier talked about how using Shadowkeeper to up your stats was powergaming. It is not. I prefer Roleplaying to powergaming, lots in fact. Most of you would probably have realised that by now. But using shadowkeeper can be a fickle thing. In fact, at some points I use Shadowkeeper to roleplay.

Say I had a character portrait with a hood, but my halfling fighter can't have a hood (Fighter Avatar). So I use ShadowKeeper to change his avatar from Fighter to Thief. Is this cheating, or roleplaying?

I'd say real powergamers wouldn't even think of using SK. I know some guy (can't remember is name.. you know Earl Grey, whatisit?) some time ago on these boards was a really good powergamer. He went from BG1-BG2 solo, powergamed, tried to get the best stats/character possible.. hmm.

Yeah.

 

Using Shadowkeeper can help roleplaying. Or not.

About high stats. Remember that, after all, your character is Bhaalspawn, and s/he can have superhuman abilities (With this I mean, that one or two 18's or 19's is okay, but putting all stats to 18 is definitely cheating and powergaming)

Hmm... there are few clear powergaming items in the game. Like Cloak of Mirrorring (all magical damage is dispelled) and Shield of Balduran (beholders can't do anything against you!)

What do you think about them? Do you use them because you can, or leave them where they are, because you don't want to spoil the challenge?