Ideas for Campaigns with Over-Powered Characters

Game referees, Dungeon Masters, and everyone responsible for exciting a group of role-players:

What do you do with overpowered characters?

There are other tricks and tacts than to simply keep throwing more and more powerful adversaries up against them. Sapping their powers is an adventure idea that players always find gripping, because it slaps them in the face. It can even be run as a simple side quest or one-shot when you don’t have something else prepared. Powerful characters attract attention. What happens when they wake up in an unfamiliar place to find their favorite magic items or weapons missing? For one, they are extremely motivated to get them back. They also get to re-experience some of that low-level fear in which even an ordinary opponent could prove deadly.  They may have nothing to go on except that someone saw something, and sets them on a trail that leads to a thieves guild or crime syndicate that wanted their renowned items. Perhaps they recover them piecemeal, or perhaps they will white-knuckle a final battle in which their favorite gear is used against them. Making them feel vulnerable can really get their attention and immerse them in the story. It doesn’t take much to make this a memorable scenario for players.

When players become a little too combat-immune, you can also make them win the day in other ways. High-powered weapons, armor, or spells don’t solve puzzles, or navigate deadly intrigue. A really gripping non-combat scenario might take a great deal of preparation, but it’s another good way to take your players a bit out of their element when they’ve gotten used to perfunctory die rolls that usually go in their favor. It’s fun and rewarding for the players to solve puzzles instead of having their characters rely on a stat check.  You can also appeal to their godlike characters’ inflated egos by having a dire need for their well-known talents arise, in which guild-masters or rulers seek them out to uncover a subversive plot or ferret out spies using mostly their wits and a series of clues.

As fun as winning in combat can be, it gets boring when you’re a walking tank routinely blasting through stone walls.  Take away the ammo, or give them something they can’t just blast through, and dive deeper into everything role-playing offers. Making a session more personable and less about system mechanics can be a rewarding way to cement player bonding, encourage teamwork, reinvest them in who (not just what) their characters are, and twist things up in a pleasant new direction in the middle of a hard-fought campaign. Anything that makes the game fresh is vital for keeping players engaged, and a change of pace can provide a fun session or mini-campaign for players and characters of any degree of experience.