| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
In my experience when a character is that good at one thing, they are not good at a whole host of other things, and without a good complementary party around them would fail miserably at adventuring. There's nothing wrong with watching as the character that has put all of their focus into doing one thing well, do that thing really well. Any good game is going to be comprised of myriad "things," so everyone will have a chance to do what they are good at, and hopefully come up with creative ways of tackling the "things" that nobody is particularly good at. That's the game. :)
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I have found that this is generally only a problem under two circumstances. One is that they are hogging the spotlight and stepping on toes. The other is if they wigout when they are out of their element, such as wanting to just skip to the next fight.
In my experience when a character is that good at one thing, they are not good at a whole host of other things, and without a good complementary party around them would fail miserably at adventuring. There's nothing wrong with watching as the character that has put all of their focus into doing one thing well, do that thing really well. Any good game is going to be comprised of myriad "things," so everyone will have a chance to do what they are good at, and hopefully come up with creative ways of tackling the "things" that nobody is particularly good at. That's the game. :)
This.
The only real exception I've found (unless it's someone who built specifically to counter a particular adventure, like making a Paladin/Cleric in an adventure with 99% undead enemies) is the Synthesist Summoner, which is why the archetype is banned more often than it's allowed. One day though, I'll find a DM that lets me use my Synth build in a WotR campaign so we can see just how goofy numbers can get.
This is easily solved with encounter variety. Highly optimised specialised characters have large holes in their capability. If the party entirely consists of highly specialised characters then there will be encounters at a given CR that will be far easier than intended for an average group and some that are far harder.
Over time and levels the smart party are likely to fill their capability gaps and reduce their specialism. Those that pursue the optimisation route are likely to be rolling for new characters.
All too often, a very high skill is merely duplicating a modest-level spell (Knock, Fly, Invisibility, See Invisible, Create F&D, etc). The martials have to be good at something.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Oh joy, another "I hate competent characters" thread.
In recent memory, I've had a player in my Skull and Shackles game with PHENOMENAL Perception checks. Usually beat the module DCs by a WIDE margin.
Then, when his character was killed, he made a new one with even HIGHER perception modifiers, and all the knowledge skills too! Then he crafted fog lenses and Goz masks for everyone and started relying on fog spells to cake walk nearly every encounter.
Players are having a blast, and I must say, I am too.
As for my own experiences...they've been less than great. I once had a character who specialized in petrifying enemies with flesh to stone. After the first few enemies fell to the DC 34 (take lowest) save DCs, everyone miraculously started passing the saves. Suddenly natural 20s felt more common. A few were outright immune. After several battles of literally not contributing anything due to enemies somehow passing the save or dies, the party kicked the character out of the group for not being a worthwhile contributor. A competent character ruined by GM fudging.
I had another character who used magic jar and Osirion spirit jars to great effect, essentially making it impossible to be killed. Though that character didn't suffer like the previous one, the GM openly admitted that he HATED her for being so unkillable.
Some GMs are just weird I guess. Or incompetent asshats.
Oh joy, another "I hate competent characters" thread.
There's a world of difference between being highly specialised and competent. It's also worth differentiating between a competent character and a competent player.
A highly specialised character is very good at one or two things and is very poor at many others. A player who has a great deal of system mastery can create a character that is so specialised that they appear broken. But the player relies on the GM not presenting an encounter that plays to the character's weaknesses or having the rest of the party cover the .The competent player will have rounded out their character so that their weaknesses can be covered and are not fatal. The competent group will have covered each other's weaknesses and identified their collective strengths.
Ravingdork's example of the fog is one where considerable resources were devoted by a presumably a medium-high level group into a tactic to gain significant battlefield advantage, by depriving the enemy of sight. It's good play and a solid tactic that is also used in modern day real-life close tactical combat i.e. with smoke grenades. The group would be incompetent if their pursuit of this tactic meant they were ill equipped to handle CR appropriate encounters against creatures with blindsight, fighting in or from underwater or fighting in strong winds.
I've never had a big issue with a character excelling at one thing. I just let them get their way with their speciality and make sure that they are tested in other matters they are not so proficient with. Everybody wants to be special and good at something so why not reward my chatactersfor having strong points? I just make sure that everything that they do doesn't fall into their sphere of specialisation and everything gets too easily done.
I had this player playing a bard who could talk her way out of Hell and we played really nice diplomacy encounters. I knew that she would probably just overcome anything I could throw at her in that matter but it made very interesting roleplaying anyway. Not everything has to be an impossible struggle for your players, you know.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
I really dislike the method of attempting to undermine a character's specialisation, just because of how much they need to dedicate to become so specialised. This is more a problem for martials, particularly rogues, who have had to dedicate in order to make up for being unable to present the solution on demand like a wizard can, and better.
If a dedicated specialist is shining in your game and you are upset, imagine what would happen if you had a wizard in that same situation just doing wizard things, like always prepping Knock, See Invisibility and Invisibility.
And additionally, ask yourself why you want to see your players fail. What exactly do you get out of it? What about your players? Is there something fulling? Whose fun is it for? How would the player feel when they are suddenly incapable of doing the one thing they are dedicated to doing?
'Fixing' a character that is good at a thing only ever breeds resentment and is usually the result of inexperienced DM's or very controlling and confrontational DM's, and if your players are the ones complaining, then it could be due to a lack of system mastery to help find their own niche, or they are in the wrong kind of game for them.
Here is one example in a different edition but similar problem:
The wizard was a serious throwback to old edition 'The Wizard has the Solution' bag of tricks character. They were a diviner, so they could manipulate rolls in the parties favour and force failed saves via Portents. They also started without a single damaging spell at 10th besides fireball, and only for terrain shaping and manipulation, and dealing with groups of mooks. Otherwise, they did only one thing. And that is battlefield control and buffing. And they were GOOD at it. We were facing back to back dragons before they arrived, and the dragons were absolutely demolishing us. Then in comes the Wizard, and with one spell they managed to completely shut down the encounter. They also scry, divine and commune till they have absolute knowledge of their enemies, frequently utilised cheap tactics like greasing into Web, sectioning enemies behind walls of force to take out the remainder of the group in a leisurely fashion, and counterspelling every single mage. All of them. We had a high level enemy cleric rendered completely useless because they just couldn't fight back against the relentless barrage of counterspells. (Counterspell is a spell in 5e that is multi-purpose. It might be the most OP spell and honestly, makes spellcasters so much weaker. Genuinely wish counterspelling was better in Pathfinder as a result)
Then the DM got frustrated. Genuinely frustrated. Next big encounter, suddenly none of the 'spellcasters' were using spells. They were using abilities that replicated spells and did damage and effects like spells. They frequently had teleportation abilities. And more importantly, even unorthodox solutions that I would, as a DM, would have allowed didn't seem to have any effect. The solution to these strange situations apparently beyond divination (there are tricks for this so I don't hold that against him), and so utterly obscure that I couldn't have thought of it myself and apparently were put there to just f+~~ing mess with us enough to render me useless due to being unable to seemingly predict how best to approach a situation that would end up with us getting killed if I didn't make the right choices, and I suddenly started making way more wrong choices than I could predictably cut down due to obscure counter-metagaming.
And worse, it not only hit me, but the rest of the party, who comprised of two other spellcasters and a fighter (who have gained abilities this edition which are about as effective as spells, if not more because they use Strength and Dexterity for the save bonus, and a ton of cool fighter only out of combat features. I love 5e fighters, but I digress), who also could not contribute due to me being seemingly unable to resolve a situation with anything, and THEIR abilities being unable to contribute either. I would have been fine if the DM wanted the others to shine, but when he started doing it to the fighter using their abilities, then the cleric, and the sorcerer (our new weakest caster due to being only a damage machine and who...might want to take counterspell...). We nearly wiped. Again and again. And we apparently couldn't do anything to resolve the situation because it was situations that were tailored to counter what we did, or the DM started just saying 'No, it doesn't work'. Our specialisations were completely useless, mostly because anything that countered me also countered their stuff, and not to mention the DM fudging critical rolls that should have been successes. Portents were the only way I could tell the DM 'No, they g~$!~%n fail and they are not a legendary monster so they can't auto save. They get banished to the Shadowrealm and they are STAYING THERE'.
Suddenly all the players resented that DM. They hated that suddenly this was a Him vs. Us situation again, or more precisely, that he has admitted it was always Him vs. Us. We had gone through that, and it was tough but it also had some huge flaws despite the fairly dramatic payoff. Our one consistent character, my warlock, was just comic relief and dramatic angst machine to keep the plot rolling. Everyone else died again and again. And now we suddenly are being slapped down AGAIN for having tried to overcome that. We haven't played that campaign since, mind you. Mostly due to being super busy, but that also soured that game horridly. Don't be this DM. He was otherwise really good, and he has taught me a lot of things in my time and is one of my best friends. But g*~$@&nit that was just dirt f*+&ing cheap and I learnt something even more important to when it comes to DM'ing, and that was what NOT to do.
Let specialists do their thing. Never fudge against players (which seemingly was what happened to Ravingdork as well as me, so you can see how much THAT sucks), and most importantly of all, don't ever see this as a competition against your players. It's collaborative story-telling. That includes the DM.
'Fixing' a character that is good at a thing only ever breeds resentment and is usually the result of inexperienced DM's or very controlling and confrontational DM's, and if your players are the ones complaining, then it could be due to a lack of system mastery to help find their own niche, or they are in the wrong kind of game for them.
I completely aggree. I've had some players who complained because another player was shining while they could barely manage any encounter. When they saw another player shining at a roleplaying encounter they decided to start spending all their skill points at diplomacy/bluff even if they were best spent on other skills and charisma was a dump stat. Then if another character had better resilience in combat they started picking only defensive feats even if they were going for a full aggro build. At the end they weren't able to get anything done right and didn't fill any niche at the party. That only increased discomfort.
So I think of having strong points as something desirable for a PC and for the group. That will be what makes your character be special and useful for the party.
|
So far as I can see, the only issue with characters that excel is building stories to keep them challenged. LET them excel. LET them stomp all over things that would humble lesser characters.
And then, when they're growing complacent, throw something at them which shakes them to their core and forces them to improvise and up their game even more just to get out alive... knowing that the big bad is still out there, some day it will be coming for them... and they have to find a way to be ready.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oh joy, another "I hate competent characters" thread.There's a world of difference between being highly specialised and competent. It's also worth differentiating between a competent character and a competent player.
A highly specialised character is very good at one or two things and is very poor at many others. A player who has a great deal of system mastery can create a character that is so specialised that they appear broken. But the player relies on the GM not presenting an encounter that plays to the character's weaknesses or having the rest of the party cover the .The competent player will have rounded out their character so that their weaknesses can be covered and are not fatal. The competent group will have covered each other's weaknesses and identified their collective strengths.
Ravingdork's example of the fog is one where considerable resources were devoted by a presumably a medium-high level group into a tactic to gain significant battlefield advantage, by depriving the enemy of sight. It's good play and a solid tactic that is also used in modern day real-life close tactical combat i.e. with smoke grenades. The group would be incompetent if their pursuit of this tactic meant they were ill equipped to handle CR appropriate encounters against creatures with blindsight, fighting in or from underwater or fighting in strong winds.
Competent, specialized, who cares what label you use. The problem is a GM who is upset that a character is good a something. If yo want a game where the characters can barely tie their own shoes play Paranoia. Pathfinder is a game of epic heroes.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Let the wookie win.
Put them in circumstances where their whole mission hinges on the players being able to do exactly what the specialized player does so well. Make the difficulty so great that anyone other than the specialized player would have no chance. Celebrate and praise them when they pull off their victory.
Then put them in similar situations that allow the other players to shine, and in situations where they all must work together to have a chance of victory.
Let everyone have a turn in the spotlight, and make everyone depend on everyone else.
This is what heroic adventures are made of.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Oh joy, another "I hate competent characters" thread.There's a world of difference between being highly specialised and competent. It's also worth differentiating between a competent character and a competent player.
This.
So much so that it can be painful.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
There's really only one reasonable response.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
There's really only one reasonable response.
That name gave me a good hearty gut laugh. Thanks for that.
So, I generally agree with letting players excel. Like, I strongly believe that characters excelling is fine because it just lets the party be able to take on more and more epic challenges, and that balances itself.
But Ravingdork actually brings up a great example of a place that could be troubling with the flesh to stone spell. He's specializing in a save or die spell with a high DC, and that's the sort of thing that warps a campaign. I can see other players getting very frustrated if they want challenging combat where every character can contribute equally (if they don't mind, then it's not a problem!). That doesn't excuse the GM for fudging dice, which is possibly the worst way to counter the problem, but it's a genuinely tricky problem, and I'm not sure 100% how I'd deal with it in a way that allows him to excel fairly often but also allows equal time for other characters to excel. Besides every enemy group ever being composed of 4+ monsters (preferably monsters with high Fort saves, thankfully that isn't hard), but in a way that's just as contrived as enemies always being immune to petrification.
It seems like the solution to "what to do with characters who are really good at something" ought to be obvious - occasionally give them something that they want to do which cannot be trivially solved via their gimmick.
This is far easier when their gimmick is "sword-fighting" than it is "I rewrite reality to suit my whim" but it's always doable. This is a challenge for a GM to think creatively, not to say "no" but to give the player with a hammer a reason to look for things that are not nails.
So let the flesh-to-stone specialist petrify a bunch of folks because doing the thing you're designed to excel at is fun, but make sure you mix in some golems, elementals, non-corporeal undead, etc. or even just some people you want to take alive and not-as-statues. Alternatively, just making adventuring days long enough that people run out of slots to cast sixth level spells is pretty doable. At higher levels, the PCs probably have a rep and the intelligent antagonists probably do recon, so having enemies start carrying around stone salve is a better response than "everybody makes their save."
See, those are all pretty much exactly what I'd do to counter that, but it'd worry me. Having a sudden surge in golems, elementals, and incorporeals when a character starts specializing in Flesh to Stone seems like it would be quite difficult to pass off as not a contrived excuse to artificially challenge the party (Ravingdork even complained about monsters being immune in his own post, hopefully that was just bs arbitrary immunities he was complaining about).
Flesh to Stone itself is one of the easiest ways to take someone alive, tbqh, as long as you have a way to Un-Stone them, so that one doesn't really work for me. Forcing long adventuring days is pretty much the nuclear option- there's only so many times you can throw a time limit at the players before they figure out what's going on. Having the players be stuck in the dungeon is a bit more natural, but that's a bit tougher to pull off at higher levels.
The "adapting to reputation" thing is my favorite, as it's a fairly natural response to a strong strategy- but it's not suitable for all campaigns, only campaigns with a strong, intelligent antagonistic force that doesn't mind doing recon, listening to rumors, etc. Thankfully that's a common trope in D&D games, but I still can't feel confident recommending it as a cure-all, it might a bit more difficult to pull off in, say, a campaign about giant slaying.
Anyway, my point is just that while all of these are great ideas on a small scale, incorporating most of them more than once or twice every so often would start to feel contrived to me, like I'm playing Me vs the Players, which is something that I like to avoid. But if I don't take measures like these, the Save or Die situation could spin out of control, making the game less fun for everyone. THAT is the essential conundrum that I would be facing if one of my players was a Save or Die specialist.
(Note that I haven't ever had this problem. That's why I honestly don't know how I'd deal with it, and why I bring it up- so that I'm better prepared when it happens).
I like it when my player have characters that excel in few things each. That's kind of the point. Fighters should excel in melee or ranged or both.
Where I find the excelling a problem is in skill points. It's not that the players excel but that the player don't. Quite often I have players don't have the right skills at level capable of hitting the DC in knowledge check given in some Adventure Paths.
See, those are all pretty much exactly what I'd do to counter that, but it'd worry me. Having a sudden surge in golems, elementals, and incorporeals when a character starts specializing in Flesh to Stone seems like it would be quite difficult to pass off as not a contrived excuse to artificially challenge the party.
I think you fix this by mixing in unfleshy enemies with fleshy enemies, so the petrifier has someone to nullify but they don't get to just obliterate the opposition with their gorgon impression.
Like an encounter can take place in a workshop where there are some golems, the wizard who made the golems, some unfinished golems sitting around, and the hired help (he's not going to carry around the raw materials himself.) This is entirely plausible, and not unfair. The most dangerous thing there is the wizard, and the petrifier has that handled.
I mean, even though the fight is basically won once the party has the edge in action economy, this still lets the other players have fun beating on the golem for a while.
do nothing unless the other players are complaining about it. You may need to privately poll your players to make sure they are having fun, it's an easy way to draw out any issues they have. If there's an issue it's easy to start a group chat saying, I'm worried that your flesh to stone might be limiting the play and fun of others, what does everyone think and what should we do?
Potential solutions are:
The caster agrees to some limit on how many or how often he casts that spell.
The caster agrees to rebuild and make a new character.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It surprises me how many GMs seem so willing to jump in the way of a player's fun*, before anyone even speaks up about there being a problem.
Me? I let my players have their fun, until someone stops having fun. When that occurs, then we talk it out and try to get back on track.
Being pre-emptive is likely to cause more damage than it would otherwise have prevented.
When dealing with things like flesh to stone, my advice is to just leave it alone most of the time, and continue on with the campaign's story as if the spell didn't exist and wasn't being used. For me to get the build that I did, it took me NINE feats, fifteen skill ranks, and fifteen levels. At the time such a thing even comes online, the PCs will likely be facing enemies who are naturally immune to being petrified (such as the Great Old Ones and their minions, for example). Though there weren't many at the time that I played the character, they have long since become far more common at these high levels.
If there is a specific individual who absolutely must not succumb to flesh to stone in your games, for the purposes of continuing the campaign story for example, use something like an amulet of proof against petrification. It's easy enough to say that the villain had taken steps to protect himself after hearing stories of the heroes' powers--especially if it was his minions said powers were being used on!
Or better yet, don't put the villain in a position where he can get petrified, at least until such a time that it doesn't matter if he does. As the storyteller, that should be pretty easy.
In any case, never ever, EVER take away a player's power--especially through something underhanded like regularly fudged dice rolls!
haha, my bad GM story didn't involve fudged dice, no. They involved a huge dragon having evasion and a ref save of 40 against my blaster wizard, and to add insult to injury, the dragon's worst save was still higher than my highest DC spell (which was against ref) and I was the only caster in the party.
haha, my bad GM story didn't involve fudged dice, no. They involved a huge dragon having evasion and a ref save of 40 against my blaster wizard, and to add insult to injury, the dragon's worst save was still higher than my highest DC spell (which was against ref) and I was the only caster in the party.
My bad DM story involved the arbitrary ruling that everything had 90% magic resistance.
I killed the DM's pet wizard BBEG with a much lower level wizard.
Don't get me wrong- Before doing *anything* I'd ask my players how they feel about it. I'm a big fan of communication as a GM.
I'm proceeding off of the assumption that the players are actually unhappy with the state of affairs and have made it clear that they are unhappy. Otherwise it's a nonissue.
Strongly agree that fudged dice is an absolutely awful way to deal with that situation. I'd sooner admit that I'm stuck in challenging a party than resort to that.
PS: I like the idea of the amulet, mostly because in order to use it, the players get a bit of extra loot out of the deal. A bit of compensation for otherwise invalidating a character's main strategy during an encounter. Not much, but it's something.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't think making ocassional encounters that go against my main strategy is going against my fun.
I play a witch who has slumber hex and I enjoy encounters in which all enemies are immune to sleep. Actually I find pretty boring spamming slumber all the time. As a witch I have many resources and I like to be forced to be creative with my strategies rather than just spamming.
I play a ninja too and I find it difficult when I cannot sneak attack but I always try to have something to do (actually I had an encounter or two where all I could do was using healing wands). I always expect to get some of this cases if I'm playing a specialized character so I try to make sure I'm always able to do something with my character.
Going against fun? I don't think so, I think finding a way to be useful even when your character meets his weak points is fun.
I agree, Kileanna, Greymist.
The key word is "occasional", it's totally fine to occasionally throw in enemies that are immune to a PC's main tactic to challenge them, and it can actually make things more fun but if every second enemy is totally immune to their favourite gimmick they are gonna get frustrated eventually.
The problem is twofold.
Let's take an example character - Mr Sunder is a min-maxed machine focused around his one trick, Sundering enemy weapons with his greataxe. He's so good at it no enemy can possibly resist him. He's put every feat, class feature, attribute and skill point he has into this one trick. He has no utility skills, no defences, average damage output in melee, and is REALLY, REALLY good at Sundering.
In a campaign about warring human tribes uniting under Warlord Abraxis and fighting his vast (99.9% human Fighter) army, the uber-specialist shatters the campaign apart. Destroying every opponent's weapon, it leaves the GM's NPCs unable to do anything much interesting, and defeats the threat without the rest of the party having to do anything
In a campaign where there's a more normal mix - 1 out of every 4 combats has an opponent he can Sunder at (the rest are monsters, ranged attackers, etc), Mr Specialist is also screwed. Since he has no other tricks, he can't really contribute in combat. Since he has no out-of-combat-utility, he simply sits around and waits for something to sunder during most other scenes.
My experience is that the kind of players who end up in this situation are also the kind who complain relentlessly when the encounter doesn't suit their Special Trick.
A better compromise for everyone tends to be to de-specialise the character a bit. Remove some of Mr Sunder's powers and spread them round so now he can only successfully sunder 7 times out of 10, but can competently use a ranged weapon, has some skill points in a Knowledge, puts a feat into having better defences, etc. The character ends up contributing less during moments his One Trick would be useful, but a vast amount more over the course of the game.
I really like putting my players through situations that can be solved better by roleplaying than by sheer force.
I've had a player who had a long story of building ineffective characters (being the most iconic an only fire wizard who put himself in first line of battle and refused to learn any battlefield controls or deffensive spells as he felt they went against everything what he thought a wizard should be).
This player grew tired of playing ineffective characters so he looked through guides and created a min-maxed inquisitor with charisma as a dump stat.
It must be said that this player is not new in our gaming group and he knows me well as a GM. He knows I emphasize roleplaying a lot. But he dumped anything that wasn't combat oriented because a guide was telling him to.
The result was that he didn't enjoy his character. He wasn't as good at combat as he thought he would be because he made a lot of bad decissions (the last one ended with him dead) and he wasn't able to do anything aside of that.
Sometimes optimizing is not optimal. You have to know what kind of story and what kind of GM you have in front of you, as optimzing heavily depends on how the GM deals with the game and the characters.
BTW. When he lost his first character he rerolled to a min-maxed magus with more or less the same issues than the first character.
I have a player that is quite the opposite: he only plays Fighters (it's near impossible to talk him into another class), and he always tries to be the best at all: he tries to be the diplomancer, the scout, the tank, the damage dealer, the healer... So at the end, he has a Str of 14 (his higher stat), Skill Focus in whatever skill another player has higher than him and so on. The other players love Bards and Rogues, so you can see the problem here. Every time we reach lvl 7 he is unable to hit the broad side of a barn and, of course, auto-fails almost all skill checks.
By the way, he has around 8 years of experience in RPG's, including 3.5 and Pathfinder, so no noob here.
He might be happy to hear about some of the new options for Fighters that give skill ranks based on BaB, and Item Masteries to get magic, including healing like lesser restoration, remove blindness/deafness and remove paralysis.
|
My one example of this in recent memory was the skald in my skull and shackles game who managed to get a +34 in profession sailor at level 7 or 8. Given how much of that path involves ship to ship combat it was like he was driving a rally car around the open ocean.
Reach the end of book 3 and the major final set piece of the entire book becomes a host of take 10's and it's over. Up the difficulty of the situation to a base DC 40? Suddenly the entire shackles is full of inexplicably 'raised to be a sailor, obviously has the blood of a minor deity of sailing in his or her blood' types.
On the other side of the coin after that major encounter profession sailor becomes less relevant for a lot of the rest of the path which meant that he would have invariably gotten bored with his character and, if previous experience is any indication, would have asked if he could retire the character to play something else.
As a DM, I let players know that one of my meta-rules is that if you build a one-trick pony, some of your foes will probably figure out ways to hobble the pony and/or ride it.
(Particularly by the time you get to the point where your enemies are casting legend lore on you.)
But ... some foes will not have heard, some foes will take one-shot precautions that foil the first attack but not the second, some foes will take sometimes-effective measures (boosting saves, but they can still fail).
I have a player that is quite the opposite: he only plays Fighters (it's near impossible to talk him into another class), and he always tries to be the best at all: he tries to be the diplomancer, the scout, the tank, the damage dealer, the healer... So at the end, he has a Str of 14 (his higher stat), Skill Focus in whatever skill another player has higher than him and so on. The other players love Bards and Rogues, so you can see the problem here. Every time we reach lvl 7 he is unable to hit the broad side of a barn and, of course, auto-fails almost all skill checks.
By the way, he has around 8 years of experience in RPG's, including 3.5 and Pathfinder, so no noob here.
Is he having fun? Are the other players having fun? Is the GM having fun?
He might be happy to hear about some of the new options for Fighters that give skill ranks based on BaB, and Item Masteries to get magic, including healing like lesser restoration, remove blindness/deafness and remove paralysis.I love playing fighters and that's right with the new options brings a lot of possibilities, I enjoyed making a Desna Starknife fighter with 18 in Charisma and 14 in intelligence, a good social play, I'm still not the game-breaking character, but it open a lot of good way to RP and versatility to a class.
But I will not be as efficient like a bard or rogue but it is still fun to play.
I absolutely love the new Fighter options, but that is not the problem: the problem is that he needs to be the best in everything. Of course, he isn't and he frustates himself a lot for that. I tried many times to focus him in two or three things to do, but it's a useless thing to do:
If a player uses Improved Trip to great effect, he ditches his build and picks Combat Expertise to start the feat tree. If then another player uses Multishot, he thinks "Wow, that's cool" and starts the archery feat tree. When the Cleric heals a partner and saves his life, he thinks "I should be able to do that", picks Skill Focus: UMD and buys a wand.
He also dislikes the idea of "limited resources". In an "only wizards" game we played together, he was always ranting about the limited spell slots; we all had INT 30 at lvl 1 (and yes, that was absolutely insane. Never again, please).
He might be happy to hear about some of the new options for Fighters that give skill ranks based on BaB, and Item Masteries to get magic, including healing like lesser restoration, remove blindness/deafness and remove paralysis.
I play in the same group as him. He'd get lost with all that options. If we tried to explain them to him he'd probably give us a scared look and say: "That's too much, I'd rather stick to the basics"
Is he having fun? Are the other players having fun? Is the GM having fun?I have a player that is quite the opposite: he only plays Fighters (it's near impossible to talk him into another class), and he always tries to be the best at all: he tries to be the diplomancer, the scout, the tank, the damage dealer, the healer... So at the end, he has a Str of 14 (his higher stat), Skill Focus in whatever skill another player has higher than him and so on. The other players love Bards and Rogues, so you can see the problem here. Every time we reach lvl 7 he is unable to hit the broad side of a barn and, of course, auto-fails almost all skill checks.
By the way, he has around 8 years of experience in RPG's, including 3.5 and Pathfinder, so no noob here.
He feels constantly frustrated when he cannot solve a single issue specially if another character can. Also it's not fun to be playing the group's face and having this player trying to shut me up as he wants to roleplay diplomacy encounters all on his own and mostly by being disrespectful to NPCs. When Dalindra is the GM he knows how to deal with him without collateral damage but other GMs in our group just make negotiations to be ruined by his interventions. So no, it's not fun.
I'm running Way of the Wicked and I managed to guide him into picking another class so he finally chose an antipaladin. Dalindra already was playing one but I let him play it because I didn't want to have him playing another photocopy of the same Fighter. He seemed happy with the flavor of the class and I was happy that he was willing to try something new. But in the first season he was already complaining for having to be a follower of a god (even though he previously stated he liked the idea) and asking if there was a way he could betray his god and retain his powers. So I guess he just wants to stick to his fighter even though he is constantly frustrated because he cannot make a lot of things that fighters cannot do and other classes can.
(...) the problem is that he needs to be the best in everything. Of course, he isn't and he frustates himself a lot for that. I tried many times to focus him in two or three things to do, but it's a useless thing to do:
If a player uses Improved Trip to great effect, he ditches his build and picks Combat Expertise to start the feat tree. If then another player uses Multishot, he thinks "Wow, that's cool" and starts the archery feat tree. When the Cleric heals a partner and saves his life, he thinks "I should be able to do that", picks Skill Focus: UMD and buys a wand. (...)
I play in the same group as him. (...) He feels constantly frustrated when he cannot solve a single issue specially if another character can. Also it's not fun to be playing the group's face and having this player trying to shut me up as he wants to roleplay diplomacy encounters all on his own and mostly by being disrespectful to NPCs. When Dalindra is the GM he knows how to deal with him without collateral damage but other GMs in our group just make negotiations to be ruined by his interventions. So no, it's not fun.
I'm running Way of the Wicked and I managed to guide him into picking another class so he finally chose an antipaladin. Dalindra already was playing one but I let him play it because I didn't want to have him playing another photocopy of the same Fighter. He seemed happy with the flavor of the class and I was happy that he was willing to try something new. But in the first season he was already complaining for having to be a follower of a god (even though he previously stated he liked the idea) and asking if there was a way he could betray his god and retain his powers. So I guess he just wants to stick to his fighter even though if he is constantly frustrated because he cannot make a lot of things that fighters cannot do and other classes can.
I'm not sure if you guys are looking for advice or not, but I reckon my advice (based on the tried-and-true methods) can't hurt:
Sounds like he needs to learn his lesson (which, after 8 years or so, is long overdue) and accept that this game is about teamwork and that his fighter can't be the best at everything . If he wants to play a fighter, that's fine; if he wants to be a jack-of-all-trades, that's fine. But the way he is playing now just doesn't work and isn't fun for anyone, it seems.
One of you should take a moment and talk to him about this. Explain the situation. And, if possible, offer suggestions. If the problem behavior continues, kick the man out of the group.
I must say I've never heard of this kind of problem player. It could be that he's just used to different types of tabletop RPGs where one player can do everything. Or that he's a man-child with inferiority complex. Who knows. But it's always best to talk about the problem.
He might be happy to hear about some of the new options for Fighters that give skill ranks based on BaB, and Item Masteries to get magic, including healing like lesser restoration, remove blindness/deafness and remove paralysis.I play in the same group as him. He'd get lost with all that options. If we tried to explain them to him he'd probably give us a scared look and say: "That's too much, I'd rather stick to the basics"
But he is a fighter...what other meaningful choices would he have other than choosing more weapon groups...and feats...
I'm sorry this is derailing this thread, but honestly this person sounds like...they don't fully grasp the constraints of this system at all. Or how to properly work within the system itself to achieve most of what he wants. Why does he feel the need to do what everyone else is doing? That is so weird!
Has he considered a Free Style Fighter then? Or are we back into too many options territory?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As a player last campaign, Diplomacy, couldn't fail that. Had put traits, feats, ranks in it. Halfway down I realized it didn't matter when the party is telling you to "shut up and don't say anything stupid cause you're LG". I still pumped it cause it fit the character.
The GM dealt with my high diplomacy by
- making the npcs hostile
- making the friendly npcs hate ME SPECIFICALLY (they'll talk to the others but not YOU they really HATE clerics)
- giving godly saves to the npcs (don't even bother)
- role playing out most dialogs so my diplomacy didn't matter
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
- role playing out most dialogs so my diplomacy didn't matterWow. In my experience any GM worth their salt still has you roll Diplomacy in conjunction with role playing out the conversation.
hmph! I wish!
There was a trial I was to speak at (don't remember my stats now but +25 Diplomacy, +20 Perform oratory, cha 16 etc) and I even wrote my characters speech. I rolled it, got a 18 something, added surge, delivered the speech.
NPC with better skills that you stands up after you, your speech is forgotten, the trial goes the other way... and that's how you deal with Diplomacy ... *grumbles*