General Stance on Powergaming

[Orleron]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We will never eliminate powergamers entirely, but we will never condone them and we WILL persecute those who are chronicly powergaming.

There is no real reason to powergame. If you want to be 20th level, fine. If you powergame your way to 20th level, and the team sees you do it, you *probably* won't be banned. But you also won't be part of any plotlines or special quests either. Basically you will shoot yourself in the foot because once you reach 20th there will be nothing for you to do in the world, and you will leave or keep powergaming characters to 20th until you get sick of it and then leave. Avlis will not miss you either, because you didn't contribute anything to it while you were here. c'est la vie.

It's the people who take time to smell the roses and put emphasis on roleplaying that will get the most out of Avlis, that being the old pnp feel of D&D.

[Garate]

How do you define power gaming? The reason I ask is because I have run into a bit of a debate with others on other boards about this. I define Power gaming as min-maxing your character and doing nothing but hack and slash your way through the game to gain levels and items. Others though, seem to think that exploring and adventuring are key indications of a power gamer. I myself enjoy playing the role of my character when conversing with others...but I also enjoy the occasional monster hunt and gaining levels....I don't really think it's out of character for the fighters I usually play.

[Orleron]

Powergaming is level advancement without character development. Sure, you can make an excuse like "My character is a fighter so he likes to go around killing stuff.", but that does not make for an in-depth character and such a person will likely not be included very much in community affairs and relationships.

Good rule of thumb is that if you reach level 20, I should know who you are. If you reach level 20 and I don't know who you are, and I see you on the server, I ALWAYS look into your items and database records for a possible cheat. It's not only me looking. It's the entire team. The one big thing that catches our eye is high level people whom we have not interacted with at one point or another. Those people always get slammed by us eventually, or at least researched in preparation for a slam.

[choraldances]

Loner concept != No RP with other players

Best example, Vroshgrak, a half orc druid, IS a loner. But he won the RPer of the month award once. Why? He RP's a loner with other PC's around.

With that said, transplants from other worlds will have it tougher because other players see you for the first time, no matter what your level is.

in effect, your character's "reputation" starts at 1st level. Even though your character level is 15+. No one knows you, you can't get involved in anything, you're basically a newbie to the world. Take time to interact, act like your character is 1st level and just came into the world for the first time, join guild if it's IC for you to. If not, RP with others, build up your reputation in this world, then slowly, your reputation will catch up with your character level.

[Turin]

Quick question regarding the issue:

Are there any banned feats that a person should be aware of? Some of them are incredibly overpowering (such as devastating critical).

[Fifty]

Quick question regarding the issue:

Are there any banned feats that a person should be aware of? Some of them are incredibly overpowering (such as devastating critical).

The crafting feats are not banned, but they are utterly useless in Avlis's crafting system.

The "shapeshifter" feat which shows up occasionally should not be taken, it is for shapechangers only. That might be fixed anyway now though.

[FurrorNos]

Is it powergaming if:

A) my char goes in to a cave by himself. he discovers that he can kill the impossible creatures that live there with little risk. he continues to explore the rest of the cave and in the process racks up 2500xp in 2 hours. he leaves the cave when it is completely explored.

B) a few RL days later, and a few avlis days of non-cave diving later, the character returns to the same cave by himself and explores it again, racking up another 2500 xp.

[Melakin Skywieder]

Is it powergaming if:

A) my char goes in to a cave by himself. he discovers that he can kill the impossible creatures that live there with little risk. he continues to explore the rest of the cave and in the process racks up 2500xp in 2 hours. he leaves the cave when it is completely explored.

B) a few RL days later, and a few avlis days of non-cave diving later, the character returns to the same cave by himself and explores it again, racking up another 2500 xp.

IMO yes. If you were doing this in the context of a group the second time less so but since you are soloing it for the singular purpose of getting alot of xp's.

[FurrorNos]

If Ive been power gaming, should I

A) Never power-game again and keep the character.
B) Start completely from scratch and never power-game.

i.e. is there redemption for power gamers?

[Chasman]

Gentlemen, this is a Rule thread. Please discuss this somewhere else.

[Kareth]

Is it powergaming if:

A) my char goes in to a cave by himself. he discovers that he can kill the impossible creatures that live there with little risk.

If you find out a place where you can get lots of exp for no risk, then it might be a good idea to report it to the team as it could be considered an exploit. I think the team ruling is that people who use exploits get banned.

[apandapion]

Is it powergaming if:

A) my char goes in to a cave by himself. he discovers that he can kill the impossible creatures that live there with little risk. he continues to explore the rest of the cave and in the process racks up 2500xp in 2 hours. he leaves the cave when it is completely explored.

B) a few RL days later, and a few avlis days of non-cave diving later, the character returns to the same cave by himself and explores it again, racking up another 2500 xp.

If you can kill them by a "honest method", I don't see a problem with this. Say you're killing ice creatures with fire spells. That's reasonable. But if you're exploiting layout or monster-pathfinding, you are doing a bad thing.

Regarding returning to the same spot, I would see that as patrolling. If you have a good reason to attack them the first time, and a good reason to be concerned that monsters are in that location, then you have sufficient IC reason to return. (But you shouldn't clear the same play spot repeatedly in the same play session, of course.)

However - if you are killing impossible creatures and pulling in a thousand xp per hour, you should probably send a DM a note. Even if you arn't exploiting it, someone else will, and it should be brought to the team's attention.