Gob

So there has been some talk of Gob being over powered. While I agree that he does appear to be, I believe it is a convergence of several factors, rather than intended min/maxing. Given my knowledge of the game, I feel that my ability to min/max is superior to most of my friends/players. You don't play a game for seventeen or so years (and obsess about it in a way that would be akin to how a fundamentalist feels about their religion) without picking up a few tricks and gaining a knowledge of the game that could be called knowing it to its bones. That said, I am aware of this fact and try to avoid it, especially in my npcs. The game is the story of the players, not my npcs. I like my npcs to have important roles, otherwise they're just tagalong window dressings, but I don't want them to make the players look inadequate or use them as a way to walk through all their challenges. Gob is unusual in that he is a talker, his express role is to tell the guys things they don't know about Orcunraytrel. Normally I make my npcs quiet guys. Kethranmeer was there to take hits for the guys because they were all rogue or spellcaster type classes and had about thirty hit points between them, not teach them about the world around them. Gob's non-educational role is less well defined, but he is quickly becoming the heavy artillery of the group.

Alright, so Gob is a Goebleen. It is no secret that the Goebleen are Hekinoe's version of Goblins. So Gob is a Goblin. They're small, they have a +4 bonus to Dexterity, and they can see in the dark. I knew I wanted my npc to be two things: a Goebleen and Gunslinger. There was a third thing, but that hasn't come to light yet, and it is irrelevant to this post. Beyond that, I haven't really planned much more than he takes Leadership at 7th level and uses the Pistolero archetype.

Now one factor of Gob's OPness is that using a feat from Pathfinder (and guns in general) completely eliminates the penalties for his small size. The feat is called Goblin Gunslinger, it allows Goblins to use medium size guns, rather than small size guns. So he can fire guns that do 1d8 damage rather than 1d6. Not a huge deal, but better than a 1d4 shortbow arrow like his cousins shoot. Guns are also ranged weapons, so again his low Strength and small size are removed from the equation. Gunslingers also have a feature that allows them to add their Dexterity bonus to damage rolls with firearms, so his high Dexterity is worth as much as a high Strength would be to a melee warrior type.

None of this is exactly OP, there are lots of feats, racial features, and class features that can let a character use bigger weapons or add their Dexterity bonus to ranged damage and that sort of thing (or at the very least increase the damage like the Order of the Bow Initiate's "philosophy" attack, hehe). The OPness isn't Gob's stats or his class or his feats alone. It is the combination of all of that, guns, and the enemies the guys are facing right now.

Asosa is a highly militarized country, their soldiers are their heroes and they get the best of what the nation produces. Most citizens and farmers and whatnot are completely destitute because their sole purpose is to support a military infrastructure. Asosans are heavily armored. Their grunts wear chain mail and use spears when most other nations go with leather armor on everyone but their elites. The Asosans are also a tough and strong people, so they're not exactly rolling in high Dexterity. The Mork race is basically the same, except they use steel instead of iron and wear heavier stuff than chain mail. The half-giants use hides and leather, but again, they have little in the way of Dexterity bonuses and compensate by having to be hacked apart and bled out to die.

Now, we all know guns use touch AC within their first ten range increments, so even with pistols Gob's guns are touch attacks for like two or three hundred feet (I can never remember if the range increments are twenty or thirty feet). So the point is that Gob is OP in this area of Orcunraytrel. Once the group starts fighting Morlocks that skitter around on a dozen legs moving from walls to ceilings or surface Nock that slink through the forests like ghosts, things are going to even up a little bit. He'll still obliterate stuff when he does 4d8+20 on a critical hit though. Hehe. Of course by then he'll also probably have like ten ranks in Craft (Alchemy) and have built a crazy alchemy lab atop the tower and have like a grenade launcher or portable mortar or something. Oooooo, new idea for arming Fort Jagged Tooth! Go west and enslave giants and have them carry around cannons.