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From: "Mr. Mad" <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.archives
Subject: LIST:  The 101 Ways to Know if Your Character's Too Powerful.
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.misc
Date: 6 Dec 1995 11:05:13 -0500
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*************************************************************************
           The 101 Ways to Know if Your Character's Too Powerful
                                version 1.0
*************************************************************************

Very special thanks to the Amorphous Mass, who sent me well over half
this list.  And thanks to all contributers.

I'm the Marvelous Magnificent Michael Morris the Maniacally Mad,
and these are the tell tale signs that your character is just TOO
powerful.

*************************************************************************

You know that your character is too rich and powerful when ...

HARTMANN:
1)  You can only fight yourself if you want to have a real challenge

Philippe V.H.:
2)  Thakesis promises you she will be a nice girl from now.
3)  You made a pact with a demon stating that in exchange for that
      little puny sword you keep in your closet, he would give you HIS
      immortal soul.
4)  Each morning, you have to wake up at five to let Tiamat take his
      walk.
5)  For your party, a normal random encounter consist of, at least, two
      squads of dragons. (Great wyrms of course!)
6)  You have more wishes (in ring, scrool, ect...) than you have hp's,
      even at your level.
7)  The weight of your gold pieces alone have made the continent sink a
      whole foot...
8)  Your DM has to give the treasure in scientific notation.
9)  You know EVERY spell that have been written, ever.
10) You are so bored because you defeated every villain:  now someone in
      the group kidnaps the local princess and hides her while the others
      try to find her.
11) Last time you met a god, you wore a blindfold, held your weapon in
      your left hand, by the blade, and while jumping on one foot to have
      a little challenge (And your priest cursed you beforehand).
12) You will have to go and talk to your god because he did not made is
      bed this morning. (Who can put his life and soul in an omnipotent
      power that cant take care of himself?)

Jeremy <[e-mail]> compiled the following for me (All Anonymous):
13) You refuse Ao in your party because he would get hurt.
14) The DM increases his weight by 200 lbs to account for the additional
      muscle mass to suit the character's strength score.
15) The DM increases his weight by 200 lbs to account for the additional
      brain mass to suit the character's intelligence score.
16) He isn't satisfied with his last wish and starts a revision.  And the
      DM lets him.
17) All his friends are weapons and he talks to them.
18) Your new DM laughs when you show him the character.
19) Your new DM cries when you show him the character.
20) Your new DM leaves when you show him the character.
21) Your new DM shreds your character sheet and hands it back with an
      evil smile.
22) When the player punches the DM and he cant take it out on the
      character.
23) You charge Demons/devil/minor dieties/etc.  admission to your three
      properties; also known as Oerth, Realms, and Krynn.
24) The DM prefers to use your character sheet over the DMG as the Magic
      Items listing is more complete then the DMG"s lists.
25) Your DM struggles to comprehend what exactly happens AFTER your
      character BECOMES a pantheon.
26) You `worship' the god Thor by keeping him in a little bottle in your
      backpack so you can keep him from getting hurt (and he doubles as
      your cigarrete liter).

I wrote:
27) The other players are surprised that you died from taking only 73
      points of damage in a single hit.

Anonymous response
    ... Everyone else is surprised that you took a single hit at all.

Penguin:
28) You have an armor class in negative double digits.
29) The last thing that hit you was years ago and an area of effect
      spell.
30) No DM will let you near a game with anything resembling your full
      equipment list.
31) You pay people to build all your magic items.
32) The only thing that really scares you is a mirror of opposition.

Rolf M. Bunchner:
33) Your pet "fido" is the tarrasque.

Vegard:
34) When he's not allowed by his mother to keep the balor who followed
      him home, and he has to take it to the back yard and put it to
      sleep.
35) When he buys a staff of magi from a traveling mage because he needed
      somthing to light his pipe with.
36) When his cockroaches are red dragons.
37) When he gets home and notices that there's a tarrasque stuck under
      his boot.
38) When he can't get a bag of holding big enough to hold his pocket
      money.
39) When his son just comes home with a note from his teacher saying that
      the boy has to stop beating up the gods that comes to school to
      show and tell how it is to run a universe.
40) When the DM tears up all his adventures and resignes.

Chris Pierson:
41) You forget where you left your spare Hand of Vecna.
42) You say the words "I don't care who you're an avatar of, get out of
      my palace!" (and get away with it!)
43) You pick up the Weaver non-weapon proficiency, because you've already
      got 20s in all the rest.
44) You own more than three swords that go snicker-snack.
45) You sell your summer house, and the kingdom's economy collapses.
46) You while away the afternoons skeet-shooting with beholders.
47) You say the word "Hastur" at the end of every sentence, and he's too
      afraid to answer.
48) Your servants prepare a nightly menu of Braised Blink Dog (which is a
      real bitch to eat), Kraken Calamari, Shambling Mound Salad and
      Juiblex Custard for dessert.
49) This Raistlin guy keeps sending you fan mail.
50) The kit on your character sheet reads "Ubermensch".

Captain Comrade:
51) You use the Abyss as a ballpark
52) The Lady of Pain (Loviatar) grovels at your feet
53) You don't like Hell, so you make it disappear
54) You can out-legal TSR (sorry, cheap shot) [Hey, Gygax needs you
      then.]

Michael Sandy:
55) The only thing you can use to trim your nails is a Sphere of
      Anhilation.
56) You start giving POWERFUL magic items to your henchmen because you
      can do all the item's powers yourself better.
57) You have an armor class WITHOUT armor better than -10.
58) You look at the listed armies for the greater kingdoms in your world
      and realize you could beat them all at once.
59) The only thing you fear is the legendary anti-magic disenchanter
      kobold legion mounted on rust monsters, and that only because they
      are infested with Cerebral Parasites!
60) The only thing that holds your interest to the game is the
      description of the treasure from the hapless monsters you
      slaughter.

Cynthia Coffman
61) Lord Mourngrym feels he needs to ask your advice.
62) Elminster comes looking for YOU. (usually much the other way around
      in our campaign...)
63) You start to need a vacation, and a trip to Hades "to unwind" sounds
      good.
64) Demon lords avoid you.

Paul R. Chisholm:
65) You kill a Death Knight by punching it in the face once (been there,
      done that)

Ronald G. Butler
66) You slay 4 oncoming great wyrm red dragons with your least powerful
      dagger.

Nathan Thorensen:
67) Your AC is so low you can't even hit yourself.

CB:
68) You can't cut yourself shaving--with a magical razor.

Michael Rudnin
69) When you kill 14 Great Wyrm Evil / Chromatic Dragons by yourself
      and the other 5 PC's aren't impressed by your heroic actions.

John Horton <[e-mail]>
70) You reach the limit of your encumbrance, and you're using multiple
      Deep Pockets spells and Tenser's Floating Disks and only carrying
      portable holes, bags of holding, and pouches of accessibility.

Wade Schexnaydre:
71) The pluses to your magic armour and sword are written out in
      scientific notation.

Lucifer:
72) You hand enemies + 5 vorpal weapons to try and make it fair.
73) The gods ask you what spheres they can cast from.
74) Your gardener is a solar.
75) You can afford to copyright the colour green.

Paul A.K. Amala:
76) After your successful quest through the 666 levels of the Abyss,
      all you've left behind are "For Rent" signs and liquidation
      sales!

Lone_Wolf:
77) You need a calculator to compute your to hit roll.
78) You need a calculator to compute your damage.
79) You joke about hitting an AC of -22 while blind, held, paralyzed, and
      mind-controlled (This happened once. It's a long story).
80) Your list of magic items carried takes up more than 1 page of paper,
      typed, front and back.
81) You offer to *buy* the villain's castle from him. And can afford it.
82) You complain about failing any save only on a roll of 1.
83) There's only one libram/tome/manual left in the DMG that your
      character can benefit from for stat/level increase (Another long
      story).

Kenton Abel:
84) when he had a hard time in a sword fight with this big creature, to
      learn after he won it was one of the evil gods brought down through
      a dark ritual......

Scott Milne added:

    ...And even more so when you DIDN'T have a hard time in the sword
         fight with the big creature, and then found out he was one of
        the evil gods brought down through a dark ritual.

CFarmer:
85) You sneeze and map makers have redraw that moutain range in front of
      you as a canyon.

Mark Charke, Chris Pierson and John Edwards together:
86) He turns down deity requests politely.
     He turns down deity requests RUDELY.
      He turns down diety DEMANDS rudely

87) He buys property by the continent.
     He buys property by the plane.
      He doesn't buy property, he just says "It's mine now."

88) He builds a SPARE castle.
     Then hires an army to sack it for fun.
      no, he hires the army to Guard it, and then sacks it for fun.

89) He doesn't want that vorpal sword.
     So he gives it to his worst enemy.
      Along with some 'old' adamantite armor, just to even things up.

Amy Sender, Lucifer and Chris Pierson:
90) you're fighting a Pit Fiend and YOU summon more of them to help!
     You CAN'T summon any more, because you killed them all last week.
      No, you CAN, because you brought them back again with your spare
      Rod of Resurrection. And they respect you for it now.

Jahua <[e-mail]>:
91) When, no matter where you look, you just can't seem to find an
      opponent for your army of lich mind flayers.
92) When you call for Divine Intervention to clear the troll marshes of
      the trolls because "that sort of work" is beneath you.
93) When the forces of law and chaos comes to you to be their arbitrator.
94) When Black pudding gets up and runs away.
95) When you strip down buck-naked, walk into the center of a ancient
       dragon's council and invite them to take their best shots.
       Afterwards flip a coin to see if you'll let them try again.
96) When the only thing in the universe that you can't do, is get lost.
97) When you realize that you're about to miss supper, so you stop time
       until you get there.

Gordon Burditt:
98) Your character accidentally destroys all 666 planes of the Abyss
      while shaving ...  Then he re-creates them with all the evil
      creatures' alignments changed to good.

Myself again:
99) Your sneezes rate as A1 breath weapons, and everyone dreads your
      colds.
100) Your experience total has more digits than the number pi, with no
       decimal

And finally the infamous "Orcus line" (Unkown, Mischa Gilman, Deanna
[Jason]
Hatter, Captain Comrade, Chris Pierson and Gordon Burditt)

#101
  your character slaps a friend on the back in jest and kills him.
  your character slaps Orcus on the back in jest and kills him.
  your character gets slapped on the back by Orcus, and Orcus dies...
  your character comes within three planes of Orcus, and Orcus dies...
  when your character was born, Orcus died...
  your character thinks, "maybe I should kill Orcus," and...