Tormented New Player Looking for Help!


Advice


Hey guys, would some backstory make sense?
First off, Im EXTREMELY new to dungeons and dragons in general and my experience has been... uh, less than optimal. For years I've spent times listening to the experiences of Geek and Sundry being led by Matthew Mercer(God and Savior). So I can at least pick up on when the DM is exercising bad habits. The real issue is with my entire group being faced with a relentless DM that offers no learning curve for new players.

I still dont know how anyone managed to level! Everyone has had at least 2 near death experiences(Those are the lucky ones) and we are still in the 2nd! The worst part is that most of it could be avoided if the DM recognized our general ignorance with mechanics. After taking it upon myself to do a ton of research to sort of buffer our difficulties, not only have I learned that he is a generally mean, but has been cheating our attempts at trapping.

At this point I just want to try to stick it to him as best as possible.

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If you dont care about why Im asking:
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Anyone out there have any suggestions about how to build a Knife Master Bandit beyond getting the core? Most builds only really go as far as 10th and I wonder if thats because of getting a prestige or switching to multiclass? Essentially, what is the ideal build path for a Knife Master Bandit with or without multiclassing all the way to 20th?

Aside from that, What kind of feats and such do you pros look for when trying to make things easier? I'd love to learn any tips and tricks. There is so much to look into, its hard to know where to start looking.


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Best advice: DON'T try to "stick it to him".
Responding to an external problem at the gaming table with spite will create a bigger, much-harder-to-fix problem.

Can we have some context for these near-death experiences? I'm unfamiliar with Geek and Sundry. It could be possible that the play-style you're familiar with via Geek and Sundry is simply not the play style of this GM, and you're instead viewing it as unfair, or vindictive.

The best thing you can do - and you will see this in pretty much every thread about problem-players and problem-GM's - is talk to you GM, and tell him you feel like he's being too relentless, and it's negatively impacting your experience. Do this one-on-one. If he doesn't acknowledge your concerns, talk to the other players - again, one-on-one, so there's no group pressure. Ask any players who share your opinion to join you in talking to the GM. Repeat the first step in a group with all players who consented to talking to him with you. Never have these discussions in an offensive, threatening, or overly-assertive manner. If you follow these steps, and you see no changes, and feel like you're not having fun, consider leaving the group and searching for a new one.

Shadow Lodge

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Quote:
what is the ideal build path for a Knife Master Bandit with or without multiclassing all the way to 20th?

I have a theory as to why your GM isn't offering you a learning curve.


This sounds like an out-of-game problem. Trying to solve it in-game is only going to go badly.

If the problem is mostly that you don't understand the mechanics, and the GM isn't willing to teach you, then look to other sources. The Strategy Guide has a pretty good explanation of how everything hangs together.

However, it sounds like the problem is larger than that. You should talk about it with the GM and other players, out of character. It could be that you have differing expectations of the game. Talking about it is the only way to resolve it. In-game fixes for an out-of-game problem just don't work very well.

And honestly, Matt Mercer (hallowed be his name) is an exceptionally good GM. That's a super high bar for comparison. If he's your sole point of reference, then you may possibly have unreasonably high expectations.

None of us know the situation or the people involved as well as you do. You probably need to talk with them, not with us.

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