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"Okay, can I play a human paladin?"
"Yes, so long as you understand that you're going to have some baggage coming into..."
"Oh I know. I want to play Lawful Good, not Lawful Stupid."
"Ah."
"Like, he's actually good, you know? Big on redemption, respect for others."
"Alright. And that's starting on the right track. What else can you tell me about him?"
"He was an orphan, so one of his goals is definitely going to be finding a way to support the needy kids. I know I'm supposed to use my wealth on equipment, but..."
"Oh no, don't worry. Do what makes sense for the character. Things will work out one way or the other."
"Cool. He's also really diplomatic, within reason that is. I don't see him as a leader so much as a peace maker."
"Nice."
"He's also big on respecting other cultures when it is possible."
"S'good. Sounds reasonable so..."
"And he's got Tourette's."
"..."
Tourette's was once considered a rare and bizarre syndrome, most often associated with the exclamation of obscene words or socially inappropriate and derogatory remarks (coprolalia), but this symptom is present in only a small minority of people with Tourette's.
let let him do it, but he dose not swear he has some other tic. As most people with Tourette's syndrome just make noises when they are stressed or have a facial tic. I think that they will get bored with the whole thing and just play the character
also I have had to say no to a mummy character. Why would anyone want to play a mummy anyway.
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let let him do it, but he dose not swear he has some other tic. As most people with Tourette's syndrome just make noises when they are stressed or have a facial tic. I think that they will get bored with the whole thing and just play the character
I'd agree, but a certain flavor of Tourette's was definitely what he had in mind.
Not that the concept couldn't work somewhere...
also I have had to say no to a mummy character. Why would anyone want to play a mummy anyway.
Stealth bondage or Egyptophilia.
Possibly both.*
*Not speaking from experience.
Commoner for the kingmaker game. Was long term planning on sorcerer -- but wouldn't play a sorcerer that didn't know they had spells -- had to have those commoner levels.
Racist!!! What's wrong with a were-chicken, lycanthropy is a terrible genetic disorder than is difficult to control. You should be ashamed.
Mr. Fishy has an idea for a monk that was baneful polynorphed in to a chicken but kept his mind. Thats cool right because Mr. Fishy doesn't have a disease!!! You're the monster!
A guy wanted to start off with the venerable age, and in his backstory he kept switching to a new body. Since he kept getting old several times he wanted to keep getting the mental bonuses. He would have ended up with a 30ish intelligence at level 3, but he would have started in a young body so he had no physical penalties.
There is a psion power combo he found that allowed him to do this. I forgot how it works. I think it was a very liberal reading of a few of the powers.
I thought he was joking at first, but he was not.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Racist!!! What's wrong with a were-chicken, lycanthropy is a terrible genetic disorder than is difficult to control. You should be ashamed.
Indeed. This was in 1st Edition, where lyacanthropes could not be harmed by non-silver weapons. So he would have an enormous, "chicken-man" form, immune to normal weapons. And he wanted to buy trained chickens. Chickens cost 3 cp apiece. Trained animals cost twice the price of untrained ones.
So, for 6 gp, he had 200 trained chickens.
No.
Summoner|Sorcerer with a focus on Conjuration in a Gestalt game.
Player was already playing a Summoner|Alchemist. Denial was twofold: One, I'm not going to let you switch a character (unless they die) for another character that does the same thing; if you want a new character, you pick new class(es). Two, with just one or two summoned critters you already take three times as long to do your turn as any of the other players; with a character like that your turn will be as long as everyone else's - including me as DM - combined. No, no, and no until you learn at least a little better time management and to do your rolls between turns especially when dealing with summoned critters.
"You" being the player in question, of course. There are only two players in my group who I think could handle a concept like that, and for them I would have allowed it, but this guy would have easily doubled session time/halved session progression with a character like that any time combat was involved.
I've allowed my players to get away with a good bit of craziness and rolled with it, I think this was the first time I really put my foot down and told a player I was fed up with his shenanigans. Normally they're a pretty good bunch about that sort of thing but this guy loves his summoned critters and couldn't quite catch the fact that no, he's not very good at playing them.
whisper gnome
the player did not have any roleplaying idea, not even an explanation why no one had ever seen this race before, no idea where he should come from.
just pure powergaming reasons: "look,. my concept will be much stronger with whiosper gnome than with any other race"
and evil PC's in good groups
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Hmmmm, there are quite a few I suppose.
Turned down a group I didn't want to play with composed of evil cleric, frenzied berserker and rainbow servant beguiler. No thank you.
One person wanted to make nothing but psychotic characters. The Hitler to Gnomes being the big one. That guy was a freak.
One guy had a baby with an RPGA membership, that was eventually shut down thankfully.
Oddly my 4th edition Kobold rogue was shot down back when we were playing that.
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Character concepts I've had to say no to?
In general I try to avoid saying no, but I do ask players to think about how their character is supposed to fit in the genre.
I think I'M the one who gets told "no" most. Mostly because I'm a GM so I have a lot of off-the-wall concepts that I want to try, but never can because I rarely get to play.
I was told to reroll my Halfling Psychic (GR Psychic's Handbook) because I set fire to the GMs dungeon.
So I made a human necromancer with skeleton familiar. The GM found he couldn't do much to damage the skeleton. Asked me to reroll.
(To be fair the GM was inexperienced, and I like wacky concepts).
I've tried to tone back to something more reasonable.
Mostly I've told people "no" when it's gone against character creation guidelines. A level 1 character with LA of +0 is what I wanted, and class from a book that I own/am familiar with. Someone asking to be a Noble Drow, I say thee nay. Suggesting a common, drow I say thee "maybe, but justify it."
In the games I'm used to, almost everything is given "yes" unless it very drastically doesn't meet the parameters of the game, and even those are specific cases - like trying to play a male character in Planescape Magical Girls.
Yes that is a thing.
So what has had the "no" given? Considering I've seen mummy fighters and undead half-orc paladins? Hoooooo, boy.
Half-elf vampire necrophiliac necromancer.
"The floating hands from Super Smash Bros with the weapons from God of War"
GNOME IN A STEAM-POWERED MAGITECH CAR.
Catboy sniper with a three barreled rifle named "Dogslayer" who tries to "wing" people with it to do nonlethal damage.
Psionic red dragon wyrmling
Transvestite naga. Yes, a snake with a human head. That identified as a transvestite.
Half dragon ork with occupation "pro wrestler, OHHH YEAAAAAH!" Whenever he felt the mystic fod "Reff" wasn't looking he'd drop his greatsword, take out a crowbar, and hit the enemy with said crowbar.
Actually, that last one was accepted. And was awesome.
also I have had to say no to a mummy character. Why would anyone want to play a mummy anyway.
I played a mummy and had a blast doing it. I didn't treat him as a shambling undead monster, but more as a Tomb Warden(in concept, not the PrC) who was chasing thieves who stole his Pharaoh's crown. I gave him monk levels so he could be devastating to his foes with his hands, and not be terribly gear dependent. His movements were always very subtle and subdued, but could punch through walls and intimidate the hell out of people.
Not to mention, the fun with Coup de grace that ensues when your character can paralyze enemies fairly often. FATALITY!
GNOME IN A STEAM-POWERED MAGITECH CAR.
That one got a thumbs up from my GM, and it was awesome. It was an intelligent motorcycle that turned into power armor, and the GM treated it as an animal companion.
Recently I had a fun time turning someone down. In kingmaker, he wanted to play someone in the pay of the local thieves guild. No problem really, until 3 days later when I realized player 2 told me he wanted to play an inquisitor of the god of craftsmanship and comunity. If there is 1 thing a lawful good god of hard work and helping your friends hates, its organized crime. No real way I can see the 2 of them will not kill eachother midway through the campaign, and I know which player will win.
GNOME IN A STEAM-POWERED MAGITECH CAR.That one got a thumbs up from my GM, and it was awesome. It was an intelligent motorcycle that turned into power armor, and the GM treated it as an animal companion.
I will have to try this one myself. Maybe not gnome, but dayum if I wouldn't like a MagiTek walker :D Just need to figure out a class in the game that will legitimize it. (Summoner? Effigy Master?)
GNOME IN A STEAM-POWERED MAGITECH CAR.That one got a thumbs up from my GM, and it was awesome. It was an intelligent motorcycle that turned into power armor, and the GM treated it as an animal companion.
Recently I had a fun time turning someone down. In kingmaker, he wanted to play someone in the pay of the local thieves guild. No problem really, until 3 days later when I realized player 2 told me he wanted to play an inquisitor of the god of craftsmanship and comunity. If there is 1 thing a lawful good god of hard work and helping your friends hates, its organized crime. No real way I can see the 2 of them will not kill eachother midway through the campaign, and I know which player will win.
We later ruled that if he actually wanted to make it over the top, it would've been fine.
He didn't want it to be fun and a bit goofy though, he wanted it DEAD SERIOUS, and to also go on and completely alter the way the setting worked to keep it DEAD SERIOUS.
Like if he was a big burly loincloth wearing barbarian in a magical car that ran on pixie dust and shot out rainbows, we would've allowed that in a heartbeat.
In theory, none - but that's probably only because I have very clear and somewhat rigid guidelines that are well known up front if I am to be the DM of a game.
If someone wants to got against these guidelines, someone else is free to DM. (Never happened. It's all theory...)
I've had to pretty much blacklist anything from Bastards and Bloodlines.
In theory, none - but that's probably only because I have very clear and somewhat rigid guidelines that are well known up front if I am to be the DM of a game.
If someone wants to got against these guidelines, someone else is free to DM. (Never happened. It's all theory...)
Considering our disagreement a few topics down, I'd be interested in hearing about your guidelines.
"I want to take just a single level of barbarian, and he'll be a totem worshiping one from the tiger clan. That way he has pounce and rage at first level. After that though I'll just be taking fighter levels." - Veto
"Can I use the 3.5 rules for wild shape and prestige into Master of Many Forms? I don't get why they removed it!" - Veto
"Can I take the spell ???? from Spell Compendium?" - Veto
"I want to be a shadow gnome who turns into an illusionist!" - Veto
Curse you 3.5.....
I can't think of anything people have done with Pathfinder characters I've had to turn down. I do have one character obsessed with Tengu even though they only ever use elven curved blades.
I've have to nix a few evil PC ideas, but the one I should have banned was the cat folk ranger in FR. It's not because he character was broken per se, but the player was an epic idiot. He was hateful, but he was certainly inappropriate. I didn't want to just throw him out, but he was a complete RL social bonehead and a tactical moron, so I figured he would just get his character killed and I'd let him know not to make another one at that point. That freaking character would not die! He had the most obscene luck I have ever seen. Eventually I just had to break down and boot him out of the group because he was so irritating.
Hmm...stuff I should have said 'no' to before the character hit the table:
The aarakocra ranger. That one was a huge pain that ended up being a disappointment for the character as much as it was a hassle for me. If I had to hear the question "Can I fly in here?" one more time...
The skirmisher prestige class from AEG's Mercenaries. That thing is likely the most powerful combat PrC I've ever seen. Take a 5th level fighter, give him this PrC, and by 15th level you have a combat monster that always catches his opponents flat-footed, can take a move action after a full attack action, and every attack (since the opponent is always flat-footed) is an automatic critical threat, which if confirmed has its modifier increased by one. I must have been asleep at the wheel the day I said yes to this monstrosity.
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Commoner for the kingmaker game. Was long term planning on sorcerer -- but wouldn't play a sorcerer that didn't know they had spells -- had to have those commoner levels.
Hey now, I was really considering the Sorcerer! I thought up both concepts at the same time too...
And now I'm playing a goblin Oracle, so I think it worked out nicely, despite my wanting to play a Commoner.
I don't DM much lately, but my DM has always turned down my proposal to play a Hound Archon, using the rules that spread him out over several levels. Not trying to power game....just love that damned critter.
I've had to pretty much blacklist anything from Bastards and Bloodlines.
By the Gods, I have a sneaky player who uses that book more than the freakin' PHB. He constantly gets shot down, because a lot of that book is stupidly broken and over-powered.
For example, they have a half-vampire, who, just like the Marvel Comics character Blade, gets all the advantages and none of the disadvantges of being a vampire(even walking in daylight) all for LESS than the level adjustment a standard vampire has as is. Oh wait, you have to be allegic to garlic or some such. Oooh, that totally balances it, lol!
I'm sure I missed some of the specific text, but this is how it was presented to me by the guy with the book. So, um, no thanks.
In a Dragonlance 3.5 game, I wanted to play a Gully Dwarf Barbarian with weapon focus in "headbut to crotch" as his only weapon. DM said no.
I was sad.
In a Dragonlance 3.5 game, I wanted to play a Gully Dwarf Barbarian with weapon focus in "headbut to crotch" as his only weapon. DM said no.
I was sad.
I love Dragonlance with a passion that defies logic, but there are so many things(races, classes, prestige classes, etc.) that I and a lot of other DMs would have to say no to.
Death knight ex-paladin/blackguard with a dracolich mount. It was a very high level game.
Death knight. Death knight. Death knight. None of these were in a high level game.
A cat that can talk. Not a cat person. A regular has-no-hands cat. With sorcerer levels.
Several large and burly lycanthropes.
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I rarely get D&D characters turned away, but I learned to make about six GURPS Supers characters if I wanted to play one of them, and to put the one I wanted to play *least* on top of the pile (since the GM just assumed that was the one I wanted to play most, and therefore must have something very wrong with it that he wasn't seeing yet).
My prize 2e character was a Gnomish Giant Space Werehamster in a Spelljammer game.
The other party members included a 1/2 Ogre Magi, a Wemic and a Minotaur, so I felt pretty 'normal,' by comparison. Having a burrow speed also proved handy when we got captured by mind flayers and left in jail for later snackage...
I still remember (sadly) a Weretiger Ninja/Paladin in a second edition game. As a player, I strongly felt the master should have said no.
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A cat that can talk. Not a cat person. A regular has-no-hands cat. With sorcerer levels.
I'd totally allow that, assuming it would fit into the campaign.
Granted, I'd require the player to take Still Spell, because I can't see a cat casting spells with somatic components. Casting most spells as if they're one level higher is a pretty big hit, so they'd have to choose whether they wanted to be a less effective spellcaster just to go with the concept.
It's giving me ideas though, I must say. I'm running Second Darkness soon, and I'm sure I could work something like that in somewhere. :)
A cat that can talk. Not a cat person. A regular has-no-hands cat. With sorcerer levels.I'd totally allow that, assuming it would fit into the campaign.
Granted, I'd require the player to take Still Spell, because I can't see a cat casting spells with somatic components.
It uses its tail.
A cat that can talk. Not a cat person. A regular has-no-hands cat. With sorcerer levels.I'd totally allow that, assuming it would fit into the campaign.
Granted, I'd require the player to take Still Spell, because I can't see a cat casting spells with somatic components. Casting most spells as if they're one level higher is a pretty big hit, so they'd have to choose whether they wanted to be a less effective spellcaster just to go with the concept.
I had a player in STAP playing a Tibbit Warlock who wanted to spend almost all his time in cat form. I made him take Natural Spell if he wanted to get away with it.
For a cost of a feat, I'd allow it.
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Psion Telepath / Mindbender with a Thrallherd Cohort.
The "character" was a 3-ring binder of followers, metaconcert, and other wonkiness. As a thought experiment, sure. In a game, no.
Artificer. In PF Core rules. Yes, again, Thom.
Frenzied Berserker. Again, in PF Core rules game. No, not even in 3.5, not again.
That's pretty much it, I'm usually up for anything; the weirder, the better.
Of course I only found this out after they started playing the character but somewhat the same thing.
Now to set up the only character I have had to say no to before the dice started rolling. The player wanted to play a character whose form/mind randomly switched between two different people. The two different people were a man and a woman that hated each other and despised the fact that had to split their time between one another. They disliked each other so much that (actual example I was given) if one sensed the change into the other person coming, that they might strip naked and run into a public place to create problems for the second person.
A cat that can talk. Not a cat person. A regular has-no-hands cat. With sorcerer levels.I'd totally allow that, assuming it would fit into the campaign.
Granted, I'd require the player to take Still Spell, because I can't see a cat casting spells with somatic components. Casting most spells as if they're one level higher is a pretty big hit, so they'd have to choose whether they wanted to be a less effective spellcaster just to go with the concept.
As I recall, he didn't much like that idea. It struck me as a combination of rather silly (not the kind of game I was shooting for) and the sort of PC he'd be insanely frustrated with inside of a month anyway thanks to the exciting prospect of spending four levels taking full-round actions to cast cantrips.
I didn't think of Natural Spell at all, though. I suppose that would have made quite a difference.
Frenzied Berserker. Again, in PF Core rules game. No, not even in 3.5, not again.
I've said no to those too. Anything that's pretty much designed to explode all over the rest of the party in normal use is not an acceptable party member. It's one thing to kill another PC through a misunderstanding or by mistake. It's quite another to set up a ticking time bomb.
The closest I came was a long thought experiment about allowing a high-level wizard to have one with some kind of kill switch built in. I think the guy was built so that he had no hope of making a will save and given an extremely low Wisdom on top of it. Somewhere in the area of 3. Then the wizard always carried a spell that would do a minimum of 4 Wis damage even on a save. The specifics elude me now.
I've said no to those too. Anything that's pretty much designed to explode all over the rest of the party in normal use is not an acceptable party member. It's one thing to kill another PC through a misunderstanding or by mistake. It's quite another to set up a ticking time bomb.
Frenzied Berserker. Again, in PF Core rules game. No, not even in 3.5, not again.
Yeah. Our group had its problems with the 2nd ed. precursors to the Frenzied Beserker. One group I DMed had a fighter using the dwarven battlerager kit. She was constantly going after her party members when combat was over, because she had a 50/50 chance of snapping out of her rage and the player (with entirely too much glee) hardly ever made the checks. Eventually the party adapted "escape routes:" the wizard would use an illusion to hide party members; the rogue used his slippers of spider climbing to get up out of reach; another would use boots of levitation. Then she got hold of a magical axe called "Tunnelrunner" that gave her the ability to run up walls and onto ceilings...time to change contingency plans.
I ran a barbarian that had the kit that would become the Frenzied Beserker. Ragnar was constantly flying into rages over the slightest things. His weapon broke in combat; he raged. A grig threw snowballs at him from a tree; he raged and tried to cut the tree down. He was awesome in combat but a real pain to play otherwise.