The Danger of God Mode

  Those of you within our closer circles have already seen, or heard of, the exploits of my Pathfinder character, Bigby.  His story has been driven into the hearts and minds of all he graces with his crotchety presence, and many have been saved (or horribly killed) by his hand.  And though playing Bigby was A LOT of fun, there were pitfalls in my approach to him, at least mechanically speaking...  So let's take a look.

Initial Concept

  I wanted to make an old, grizzled, crotchety fighter well into his 60's...that can still swing an axe and battle monsters that would make his ancestors shake in their armor.  He's a little forgetful, but he means well, and he gets frustrated when things get too complicated.  Not one for political moves or cloak and dagger, Bigby deals with his problems directly and decisively, and holds little stomach for cowards.  His backstory is pretty tragic in connection to his many sons and estranged wife, his entire destiny tasked to wreak vengeance upon the warlords, gangs, and circumstances that took each of his sons from him.  And this doesn't do much to help his own mental state, as sometimes he sees the ghosts of his sons following him through life, but also guiding.  He doesn't feel guilt for their deaths, almost at peace with the idea that they cannot rest until he fulfills vengeance for each, and they grant him the fortitude to soldier on.
  That's some heavy and sad stuff...  So I tried to make him the buffest of buff old men.

Tearing Into The Mechanics - My First Optimization 

  I've gone in depth a bit HERE, when I gush about my love of Pathfinder and its numbers, and give a little heads up as to the plan of Bigby's build.  BUT, it's worth noting that ANYONE can build this character.  There's no homebrew here; everything he has is within published, canonical materials inside the Pathfinder D20 system.

So, CORE CONCEPT - Grizzled FIGHTER, adept at close combat, hard to hit, hard to kill; literal tank of the party.
Gotcha.  So, in order to fully benefit from all the things the system has to offer when it comes to combat, I have to be a Fighter.  The Fighter class has persisted in D&D and all of its variants as an industry standard.  Often viewed as a "simple" or straight-forward class, the Fighter is considered a master of martial combat, proficient in just about everything (except Exotic Weapons, in this case), and wearing any armor they can get under the sun.  This can make them unbound when it comes to equipment, but also equipment dependent in order to keep up with casters and other variants.
  The main benefit of the Fighter in PATHFINDER however is their ability to Feat Chain.  
I once did a video on this exact concept, but looking at it from a negative managerial point of view when comparing how Pathfinder handles Feats as opposed to 5th Edition D&D.  Upon revisiting Pathfinder in the last year and a half, I've come to appreciate the huge amount of thought and mechanical considerations of the extensive Feat list in the game.  It really makes it so incredible things are possible mechanically.
  Fighters can "feat chain" because of a blend of two main mechanics.  As Feats are essential to making a functional character, EVERY character (regardless of class or multiclassing) gains a Feat every odd total level (1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th...you get the idea).  A FIGHTER gains a Bonus Feat at level 1 in the class, then every EVEN level in the class (so 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th...you got it).  Therefore, if you're following here, as long as you stay straight Fighter and do not multiclass, you are effectively gaining one Feat EVERY LEVEL, and TWO Feats at level 1 (when most others get one).  Add in the fact that a Human gains an ADDITIONAL bonus feat at level 1...and we've got it made early and often.
Let's RECAP.  Bigby, at level 1, is a Human Fighter, so he starts the game with 3 Feats of his choice (it should be noted that the bonus feats from the Fighter must be classified as Combat Feats [there are different categories], but there's no reason for us NOT to take a Combat Feat when considering our plan here).

Level 1 Choices

Concept Path - Human Fighter, 3 Feats to start, good golly
  How do I want to fight?  Well, armor is awesome, and I want to get the best bang for my buck with any gear I'm using, and hit hard and often.  Great offense with great defense?  Of course.  Sword and Board.
  This choice immediately puts me at a combat disadvantage without Feats.  If I want to slice and bash, I am now engaging in Two-Weapon Fighting, and in so doing suffer HUGE penalties to my attack rolls (a whopping -6 on your primary attack and -10 on your off-hand attack).  These penalties drop a little if the off-hand is a light weapon, but I don't want that (it's my shield.  Not gonna' happen).  Penalties like this make sense, though.  Any schmuck can pick up two weapons and swing them around, but they're not TRAINED in it, so they won't be as consistently effective.  This is how Pathfinder uses numbers to represent this lack of training.
  Which means, I need to lower that initial penalty.  Feat #1 is easily Two-Weapon Fighting, which drops my initial fighting penalty to an even -4 for my primary and -4 for my off-hand.  With a great starting Strength score of 20 and modifier of +5 to add to my attack rolls, I'm doing okay so far (+5 modifier to both attacks, after math = +1/+1). 
  Now we add in the fact that every class benefits from a mechanic called the Base Attack Bonus (or BAB) - a general numerical bonus to each of your attack rolls (not unlike the general Proficiency Bonus from 5th edition).  In a martial class, your BAB often matches your class level, but for more varied classes, it progresses a little slower.  Bigby is a Fighter, so his BAB equals his Fighter level easy, adding another +1 to each attack in his two-weapon fighting (+2/+2).
  So, Feat #2?  Improved Shield Bash.  Normally, if one were to bash with their shield, they would lose the bonus to AC (Armor Class) that the shield provides in the round following the turn that they bashed; justification being that you're too busy crushing a dude's nose with the shield to use it to defend against oncoming attacks.  Improved Shield Bash allows me to bash...and keep my AC bonus.  Also, less thinking for me.
  Feat #3 - Double Slice.  This feat allows me to add my Strength modifier to the damage roll with my off-hand (where normally I would not be allowed to...so yeah, less floating numbers for me.  Nice and streamlined.)
RECAP: Attack twice each round with a +2 to each attack, keep my AC bonus when I do so, and add my strength modifier (+5!) to both attacks.  With a d10 for his Hit Points, and high Con score (17, so +3 HP), Bigby's pretty beefy so far.

Fast-Forward to Level 6

Bigby's seen some things, and taken only a few hits along the way.  Most of the damage dealt to the party has been dealt to others, because at this point, between Armor Training, a rare set of Warplate, and a Ring of Protection, his AC is 27.  That means that most thugs have to pray to hit him with a Natural 20.  To top it all off, his hit points are easily triple the other party members (a gaggle of casters, a druid, and a rogue).  He's grabbed a good many Feats along the way, each adding to either his attack/damage with a shield, or his AC with a shield.  Quick breakdown:
Level 2 - Fighter Bonus Feat: Shield Focus = +1 AC while wielding a shield
Level 3: Two-Weapon Defense = +1 AC while wielding two weapons (shields included in Close Weapons category)
Level 4 - Fighter BF: Missile Shield = longbow or crossbow bolt hits me?  Nah, I block it with my shield once per round.
Level 5: Weapon Focus - Shield = +1 Attack roll with Shield
Level 6 - Fighter BF: Improved Two-Weapon Fighting (second off-hand attack, so two shield bashes)**
**It should also be noted that when Fighters (and many other classes) reach Level 6, they can attack twice with their primary hand during a round whenever they take a Full-Attack Action (forfeit all but 5 feet of your movement to attack a lot).  The way Bigby functions at this point allows him to wade into the fight, stand mostly still, and wail on enemies (attacking 4 times every round), confident in the idea that they will rarely hit him with their attacks...and if they do, he can take it.

The Consequence

  With all of this front-loaded force, battles began to feel pre-ordained.  Bigby was an unstoppable truck, even with his weakened Will saves; if he were upended by a spell, his party would back him up, and he'd only grow more angry at the idea that someone attacked his mind.  His vengeance would be devastating and decisive.
  I started to fall into a trap.  I had picked everything I had based all within the realm of the rules in the game.  But other than a few mind-affecting spells, Bigby was unkillable at this moment, and I felt myself becoming BORED.  I had made a super-adventurer, and we were just over halfway to double digits in character level.  What sort of insanity would Bigby be capable of when he reaches level 10, or 13, when I literally run out of applicable feats for the build (Shield Master happens, and by then I'm attacking three times with my shield, and suffering no penalties for it).  
  My mentality began to pull toward ripping through enemies, and tearing down conflicts with violence, not diplomacy, because that's what I knew to be MOST EFFECTIVE.  Maybe it didn't help that the rest of the party had low agency themselves, so the violent old man was driving the story.  It got a little frustrating, but we used it as an opportunity to BE FRUSTRATED in character.
  But I cannot deny the rush of power in each fight...I just wish things didn't die so easily.  Saitama-syndrome aside, a powerful player represents a unique challenge to a DM.  He can scale the difficulty to accommodate for a beefy PC, but often at the expense of the more squishy player-characters.  One dangerous martial combatant puts the rest of the party at greater risk.  It makes sense, but from a group play scenario, it can get a little complicated.
  The DM has to make sure that the main threats target the optimized player so as not to paint the picture of punishing the party for a player who just followed the rules, but then that player could feel, well, TARGETED for just playing the game.  What really has to occur is a delicate scaling of encounters that affect the party in more dynamic ways.  Instead of a big bruiser just becoming a BIGGER BRUISER, use intricate spells and traps to offset a heavy martial character, and provide a counter-balance to the rest of the party.  A well-prepared wizard is a dangerous foe, even against the mack truck that is Bigby's build.

Shenanigans.

  Pathfinder especially supports insane play through its mechanical system.  Crazy-high numbers at low levels is not unheard of, and the entire system expects optimization and multi-classing as a rule.  Playing the game can be exhilarating, satisfying, and massively entertaining...but it IS a LOT to manage, from both a player perspective (in ANY class) and the DM's perspective.  
  With so much going on, you might think you'd never be bored, but when you're nearly unkillable...  You might feel a greater pull toward the more insane levels of shenanigans and odd-ball problem-solving that puts the group at greater risk.  They're great stories, win, lose, or draw - but the ensuing madness can become the norm.

So what do we do?  
  Well, building a trust-empathy relationship with the party and your DM is paramount to having a positive experience regardless, and we (here at Questers' Way) err on the side of rising to the occasion as opposed to diminishing a player's power level (there's an exception to this, when players abuse rules, but this isn't it).  If you have a powerful party, well, then you have to grow as a Game Master, and find new tactics, strategy, spells, and other tools to offer greater challenges.  It's a push and pull, and you never want to appear cheap (like a monster "suddenly" gaining extra resistances, abilities, etc.), so having a discussion with the group of players is totally welcome and encouraged to help the GM level the playing field.

In the end, we're just creating more epic stories, and one must remember that this is a collaborative experience, not a GM vs. players mentality.  An optimized player is not an insult to the game, they're an opportunity to grow.

See you at the table.
​-Adamus