Why is the Player Character [Tarnished] so overpowered?

[ElectricMutt]

I'd like to know how the player character became so strong, right out of the (First Step, Grace point) gate.

For reference, Godfrey was the first to become Elden Lord and this guy can cause a cataclysmic event with his hands alone. You as the tarnished player character HAVE to defeat him to finish the game, regardless of what direction you're going with the RP endings.

Another such mandatory boss fight is Maliketh whom the demi-gods themselves feared. There's a real chance this guy could've put the fear in just about anyone we fight as the PC and with good reason too. He possesses the rune of death and this very thing was used to kill Godwyn, causing the first true death to occur in this realm for literally ages.
He also ends up using this very thing against us when we fight him.

Of course, we as the player character slap him around like a street mutt.

If that wasn't enough, we end up killing an actual god and the very source behind its godhood. Even if we assume the PC has the rune of death in their possession at this point, I have my doubts as to how it could be used against the Elden Beast due to its nature.

Even Godrick and certainly Margit, could take out just about anything less than a demi-god. Yes, Godrick supposedly hid among the women after he knew Malenia was coming for him, but again, Malenia could make just about anyone ♥♥♥♥♥ themselves so even a "coward" like Godrick would be impossible for anything lesser to kill.

We don't start out with a great rune either and none of the backgrounds of the classes really gives any clue on how your character could be the next Horah Loux or whatever.

There's a few other Tarnished we know about who became very strong I guess.

• Vyke who earned the favor of the dragons
  
• Knight (Recusant) Bernahl
  
  But can you honestly imagine either of those two accomplishing what the PC ends up doing? I don't know, it just doesn't sit too well with me. We have this elaborate world building and here comes a level 1 Wretch clubbing a literal god to death.
  
  What's your take on it?

[zero]

toe to toe you are not as strong as anything you fight, you just have tools they don't.

you're functionally as special as any other tarnish that can see the grace and has a maiden: you have the power to grow stronger over time, if given enough time. you also have a potion that literally no other non-tarnished has, it appears.

[Bobo]

It's the power of time travel. After each death, The Tarnished goes back in time and gets a do-over until xe can get it right.

[Sabaithal]

Overpowered? Even with 60 vigor most enemies at the end of the game kill you in 5 hits or less, and it takes 5 times as much to kill them without abusing bleed or dual-wielding greathammers, or something as equally as ridiculous.

The only reason you could be considered overpowered is because you keep coming back after death.

[causality]

Maidens.

[Wild]

It’s not the “player character” that got so strong, it was you, if you actually managed to get so strong to beat these bosses.
You make it sound like the player character has a background you’re trying to understand, when it’s you getting stronger as you play and learn, and you make up the backstory.

[76561199439072584]

Because souls like are piss poor copy and paste games down to a T for losers who have never touched a women so they can feel big about themselves because they rolled passed a boss 48 times and eventually killed it. Very impressive.

[CazadorDeLobo]

Because you're cut from sterner stuff than the decrepit life found in The Lands Between which, apart from other tarnished, is mostly comprised of old beings that have only grown weaker with time. Since you're being re-birthed at the start of the game as the descendant of Marika and Godfrey, it's all uphill from there, and just like the Chosen Undead/Ashen One before, your ceiling for power is beyond that of everything around you. In lore, you are the antithesis to the big bad, usually in some predestination and repeating cycle type prophecy.

It's the Oroboros once again. Your PC is an analogue of the Oroboros.

[Norm Macdonald's Ghost]

Originally posted by Epstein's Go Fund Me Page.:

Because souls like are piss poor copy and paste games down to a T for losers who have never touched a women so they can feel big about themselves because they rolled passed a boss 48 times and eventually killed it. Very impressive.

You know what they say...






















Git gud.

[Koala 4peace]

Originally posted by Epstein's Go Fund Me Page.:

Because souls like are piss poor copy and paste games down to a T for losers who have never touched a women so they can feel big about themselves because they rolled passed a boss 48 times and eventually killed it. Very impressive.

Not bait. At all...

[zero]

Originally posted by Koala 4peace:

Originally posted by Epstein's Go Fund Me Page.:

Because souls like are piss poor copy and paste games down to a T for losers who have never touched a women so they can feel big about themselves because they rolled passed a boss 48 times and eventually killed it. Very impressive.

Not bait. At all...

his post history makes it obvious

[ajv941]

You're depicting how the fights go with these bosses like we effortlessly beat them, but that's far from the average player's experience. It's technically possible to first try every boss in this game since you have access to iframes, but it's practically impossible that you did first try every single one. I, for one, definitely did not slap Maliketh around like a street mut.

Lore wise we were always supposed to be able to beat the bosses of the game. In every game the player character's caste is made specifically for that. You're made to feel like the only one who overcame whereas the rest of them made it to different points only to fail or find another purpose, thus expanding upon the lore/endings for us if not simply enforcing the atmosphere of desperation and challenge.

If you want a more specific answer than that, I don't think FS really gives it. You can get more insights for yourself or from lore channels. As far as I know the only way to access the tree is to burn it. The Greatrune-Bearers (between a combination of being too weak, being aligned with the greater will, being forced to comply by the greater will, or simply having their own designs) will not go through with that. You can speculate for yourself why the Tarnished are chosen to be able to go through with this task. It might have something to do with the fact that the Empyreans can't/don't want to, like in the other games. This time, however, it also seems to be implied that our maker wants us to do away with the power in question. We probably wont get more much more insight than that until the DLC.

As to why we are the only ones physically able to, I don't think we are. You can actually look on youtube to see boss v boss fights. They usually go how you'd expect. If anything deathrite bird should be the true Elden Lord. But you know, he's the primeval god of death, so, he doesn't really care.

[Cootswig]

Originally posted by ElectricMutt:

I'd like to know how the player character became so strong, right out of the (First Step, Grace point) gate.

For reference, Godfrey was the first to become Elden Lord and this guy can cause a cataclysmic event with his hands alone. You as the tarnished player character HAVE to defeat him to finish the game, regardless of what direction you're going with the RP endings.

Another such mandatory boss fight is Maliketh whom the demi-gods themselves feared. There's a real chance this guy could've put the fear in just about anyone we fight as the PC and with good reason too. He possesses the rune of death and this very thing was used to kill Godwyn, causing the first true death to occur in this realm for literally ages.
He also ends up using this very thing against us when we fight him.

Of course, we as the player character slap him around like a street mutt.

If that wasn't enough, we end up killing an actual god and the very source behind its godhood. Even if we assume the PC has the rune of death in their possession at this point, I have my doubts as to how it could be used against the Elden Beast due to its nature.

Even Godrick and certainly Margit, could take out just about anything less than a demi-god. Yes, Godrick supposedly hid among the women after he knew Malenia was coming for him, but again, Malenia could make just about anyone ♥♥♥♥♥ themselves so even a "coward" like Godrick would be impossible for anything lesser to kill.

We don't start out with a great rune either and none of the backgrounds of the classes really gives any clue on how your character could be the next Horah Loux or whatever.

There's a few other Tarnished we know about who became very strong I guess.

• Vyke who earned the favor of the dragons
  
• Knight (Recusant) Bernahl
  
  But can you honestly imagine either of those two accomplishing what the PC ends up doing? I don't know, it just doesn't sit too well with me. We have this elaborate world building and here comes a level 1 Wretch clubbing a literal god to death.
  
  What's your take on it?

Because we level up? Can't be that hard to comprehend.

Also your tarnished character is only as good as your fingers are. So its basically a glorified look at me I'm good at the game post.

Well done tarnished, well done.

[Koros Antavo]

Tarnished are special in a couple of ways.

1) They rise from the dead. You don't remember how you end up in the Curch of Awakening, and you die upon exiting it. Typically for the Lands Between, the dead are burried in the roots of the Erdtree, so that their souls could be absorbed by the tree and possibly redistributed back into the land. The Tarnished, however, are excluded from this grace, but grace still guides them and forces them onto its path.

When the Tarnished with the guidance of grace dies, their soul stays in the body, and with the power of the Golden Order they get resurrected. I don't think we ever meet another Tarnished besides ourselves who still can see the guidance of grace.

2) They have maidens. Their primary role is to convert runes, pieces of the shattered Golden Order, into strength. We see powerful Tarnished assemble their own Great Runes, though that almost always requires more than just pure strength. If we imbue ours with nothing but strength, we get the fragile Fractured Order ending. If we use Death, Curse, or Enlightenment, they manifest in the order we create. Tarnished gather their power over time.

3) They have i-frames. Nobody in the world really comments on this, but every Tarnished in the game has an innate capability to ignore all damage done to them for a fraction of a second at a time, and can repeat this ad nauseum. NOTHING else in the game has this ability.

4) They can always deal at least some damage. Normally, a bare fist would not even be capable of peeling a layer of dead skin from a Fire Giant, but each blow of a Tarnished will always steal some amount of life force from the recipient. They could poke someone with a finger, and it would hurt. They could kill by tickling. They could kill by repeatedly sneezing at their adversary. Anything they do against an opponent takes away vitality from that opponent. It doesn't matter what they do or where specifically, it will always hurt, at least a little bit.

The Tarnihsed are biologically and theologically engineered killing machines. They are made to be unstoppable, uncompromising, untouchable, and inescapable. Is it any wonder that one of them eventually rises to godhood?

[Koros Antavo]

If you reeeallly think about it, such a being is absolutely terrifying.

[mldb88]

Not exactly sure if Tarnished and Hollowing follow similar premises, but as Koros mentioned above, the fact that the Tarnished following the guidance of grace as well as the PC in the souls games who hasn't fully hollowed essentially can continue to perservere through death so long as they don't give up hope or stagnate I think also makes up a large part of why lorewise the player is able to kill these bosses. The revival mechanic isn't just part of the gameplay loop, it's also built into the lore. It's not like the Tarnished player overwhelmed these entities with brute force and facerolled them. They wore them down through a brutal war of attrition throwing themselves at it over and over and over until they triumphed.