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I don't think he is being rewarded for being a coward, or what do you mean? Because he survives battles? Well, if you can run away, then so should you all before you die.
Optimizing is not wrong, you all seem like a funny bunch
Not contributing to combat is 100% okay. The Gm has to balance combats for one fewer character, but as long as he is contributing to fun.
Yes, you are a huge drama queen, okay not really, but somehow I feel like calling you that. No, you're just a little bit too mix-maxing focused (which is okay), but you have to respect those that play for fun.
I was unsure if I should reply or not, but given that I'm the DM in the mentioned situation I thought I would drop in some more background information.
SeaBiscuit01 plays the Magus and as the Monk and Paladin, they do love their min/maxing and optimization bit. Which is pretty OK, I'm way cool with that. The Rogue player falls on the opposite camp, he loves the roleplaying part, he loves being the sneaky guy that scouts ahead, figures inventive ways of progressing and defeating traps and such. Not being a min maxer, his role in combat is very small. Knowing this, he falls in support roles and tries his best at not being a burden.
As some people have pointed out, its the DM's job to harmonize the table, all the players are friends of mine and my goal at DM'ing is to provide a fun environment where all the players are having fun and getting what they're looking for. So in order not to burden the rest of the group, fights are calibrated not considering the Rogue and so far have never been unbalanced or unfair. PCs have died as in any other game and I even dare say the death rate is probably lower than any standard table (I'm not a killy killy DM) but this has never been way over the top and never because of the lack of combat skill from the Rogue.
Short story, the min/maxing side of the table gets their fun with the fighting (and roleplaying too, they also RP a lot and as some other people say optimizing and RP'ing are not mutually exclusive) and the part of the table that enjoys other kinds of challenges gets their way too. I think the conflict arises when one side tries to push the other into having fun THEIR way.I hope this brings some light into the conversation, sorry if I'm a bit defensive but I wasn't way happy being "told on" to the Interwebz.
Why aren't you happy about the Seabiscuit01 seeking advice about improving the game? Okay, he wasn't especially friendly about you, for he opened with, "I think I entered a stalemate with my GM." But would you rather he silently festered in his attitude instead of ranting to an audience of experienced players, some of whom said that you, the GM, were right?
I missed this thread back in September, and I would not have commented anyway, because I view the Optimizer versus Roleplayer spectrum to be a misconception. However, in the meanwhile, my group of Rise of the Runelords players has defeated Mokmurian, so I am now well-informed on exactly what your party ran into.
My game has two players, out of eight, who share some similarities to the cowardly rogue criticized by Seabiscuit01. One is a lyrakien bard who is lousy at combat. She, however, is a master diplomat, an excellent scout, and casts supportive spells. She has neutralized enemies with Diplomacy rolls alone. Another is a dwarf bard who has not got the hang of using her character's abilities effectively. I have played with the player for a few years, and she does not think about properly exploiting all her character's strengths, not even with the advice of her husband and son. I arrange for her to find a few magic items that support the way she has chosen to play.
The two rogues in my party, on the other hand, are not like the non-combat rogue. They are optimized and took down Mokmurian in two rounds.
Maintaining harmony at the table is not the GM's job alone. Back when my wife was the GM of the RotRL game, I was the chief harmonizer. I was playing a gnome monk/ranger, proof that I am not devoted to min-maxing. My wife and I swapped roles, so now I am the GM and she is the harmonizer. She plays the lyrakien bard. Maintaining harmony at the table is everyone's job, but some of us are better at it than others.
This forum could have been a means for teaching Seabiscuit01 how to measure characters by more than their effectiveness in overcoming high-CR encounters. Don't begrudge him the opportunity to learn from voices away from your gaming table.
Second, to the issue between you and the player. Some questions. Most campaigns are not all combat. Many are not even mostly combat. It appears you have a group with plenty of combat muscle. Does the PC provide enough value outside of combat to make up for the lack of value in combat? I have played a cowardly scout/skill/social monkey before and it worked out fine. Does the rest of the group have a problem with him or just you? You already said the GM doesn't. If it is just you, learn to adapt. If it's everyone and if he is really into the IC role playing, you can try the IC having the PC's complaining to him about his not helping. Not sure whether that will work or not, but is worth a try. If that doesn't work, you need to have a NON-ACCUSATORY conversation with him about not pulling his weight in the campaign. But if he's been playing like this for 20 years he will probably not...
The OP said the campaigns were the third and fourth modules of the Rise of the Runeloards adventure party. Both modules could easily be 99% combat if that is the way the adventurers wanted to treat them.
My own players did a lot of sneaking around and sabotage instead. The fourth module, The Fortress of the Stone Giants, which was a story of a war raid, in their hands became a tale of espionage and double agents.
It would have been a roleplaying rogue's chance to shine. Since their rogue did not shine, either he was not a good scout, or the party's roleplaying style prevented the best use of the rogue's abilities for stealth and intrigue.
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If a player takes an improbable combination of character options and a bizarre ability score array and uses strategies in and out of combat that strain credulity, and as a result is incredibly effective at overcoming standard game challenges, that's called "being a munchkin".
If a player takes an improbable combination of character options and a bizarre ability score array and uses strategies in and out of combat that strain credulity, and as a result is incredibly ineffective at overcoming standard game challenges, that's called "prioritizing roleplaying".
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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If a player takes an improbable combination of character options and a bizarre ability score array and uses strategies in and out of combat that strain credulity, and as a result is incredibly effective at overcoming standard game challenges, that's called "being a munchkin".
If a player takes an improbable combination of character options and a bizarre ability score array and uses strategies in and out of combat that strain credulity, and as a result is incredibly ineffective at overcoming standard game challenges, that's called "prioritizing roleplaying".
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Why aren't you happy about the Seabiscuit01 seeking advice about improving the game? Okay, he wasn't especially friendly about you, for he opened with, "I think I entered a stalemate with my GM." But would you rather he...
I wasn't happy because the real purpose of the thread was looking for "weaponry" to use in a discussion about this. He did approach me afterwards to talk about it and he mentioned all the points in this discussion that favored his "side" but failed to hear all the people that didn't support his view. I only recently found the thread and connected the dots. In short, I don't think he was looking for advice on improving the game, but for advice on "proving he was right".
I'm also unhappy because I think he's misrepresented the situation. He's failed to mention that the Rogue has made other contributions to the table akin as those you mention your non-combatant rogues made. As I briefly mentioned he's the kind of Rogue that will find tricky ways of solving things.I don't think there's a right or wrong here (though I guess I might be wrong on that!) just as there's no absolute right or wrong way to run a table. In fact making it about being right or wrong is probably what I disliked the most.
A lot of us tried to put in thoughts about both sides.
Every character does not HAVE to contribute to combat. But he must contribute in some way. This does not just apply to rogues. i have seen it come up with bards and healer pretty often also.
Heck, sometimes the diviner I'm running right now doesn't have a single combat spell prepared. We are currently investigating somethings and all my spells are geared for that. If a fight breaks out, I'm going to have to rely on magic items and try to stay out of the way while the others fight. The group knows that and seem to be ok with that. My spells have found out a lot of information much faster than would have been possible otherwise.
- Yeah well a character might look and act different but they need to be resourceful and contribute something to a combat. See Conan and tell me how cool would he be if he ran around casting a spell from a scroll...
- A bard could do a lot of things to boost us without actually engaging melee! Have you seen bardic performance? That would be so helpful. And he could even cast higher level spells and do a lot of other tricks each round.
- Our party is quite pacifist, we dont kill the majority of our enemies and let them run having previously bowed to make ammends and we are filling Magnimar's Jails lol, our monk actually specializes in pinning and gagging. Because the monk doesnt believe in killing and its starting to permeate other characters!
- Just my two cents :)
This makes it sound like you're not looking for advice so much as you want vindication for feeling the way you do.
Also, are you aware there are non combat aspects to DnD? Conan wasn't a rogue. It's possible to play a character who contributes nothing in a combative capacity.
That said, if he isn't contributing equally when he should (as in, does he have a lot of good skills, social, disarming, etc) he's not got a place in an adventuring party, and you should fire him.
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I have been reading a bit of these comments and wanted to throw my thought into the mix.
Reason is simple: I could be that rogue.
I have played D&D since early 80ties and have had my share of "ROLEPLAY" more the "Rollplay" which the term use to be. Since 3.0 came out things turned more and more Rollplay than Roleplay, with 3.5 going overboard.
However have said that does not mean I am against it, just stating the facts. Along with the shifting of time came computer games where more and more learned to think in mechanics and it became accepted that was the way to build characters. It is.... for some!!
Currently I am an sorcerer in PFS that choose the Undead bloodline. Already there people that goes for mechanics starts to grow grey hair. I basically stinks compared to everyone else I play with which can be annoying for everyone. I am aware of that fact.
But why then - reason is simple if we all went with the best possible optimized character of a given race/class why the devil have the variety.
With my current 5th level sorcerer I am starting to come at age and starting to become more and more necromanic in my abilities with summoning undeads etc. Still they wont ever match up to a blast focused sorcerer but aint that part of the game to - trying to find new ways to play a character ?
If people ONLY are allowed to play a class with the best build why play RP at all why not go for a different type of game where rules are made to FIT the box of those people that believe its the only way.
So are the author wrong in his assumption about the Rogue: YES he is.
The rogue way to play his character is completely up to him. If it ruins it for everyone else, then I hope the rogue understand that because then its the social of playing together getting ruined not the adventure in it self.
Is optimizing WRONG : Most certainly NOT - its just what people fancy. I love number crushing and made a ton of builds with 3.5 but with Pathfinder I simply don't wanna spent the time going into depth with it.
What to do about people like "us" that called themselves Roleplayers ages ago - well we are getting old and dying out soon that later :-) but in the meanwhile if you come across one of us and you feel its ruining your pleasure of the game - have a talk with the person. PF have hit the core with one rule: IT SHOULD BE FUN!!! (and thats for everyone).
What would I do if my PFS character are annoying the people I play with. I of course would do my very best to get it to fit in knowing very well that I could not ever fill the shoes one with a power build could. But I would try my very best to be a party member,for better or worse WITHOUT feeling I lost the fun of it myself.
So my advise would be bring up the concern around that table because many more might feel the same and if lets say 6 out of 8 expect different and losing the fun then its 6 TOO much. Maybe the Rogue can change his "roleplay" a bit and take a feat or two to make him more useful - it can be little things but it has to be settled around that table.
Here it is plain and simple. When you played superman as a kid did you run around pretending to be the dopey sidekick of the hot reporter, or did you pretend you could fly?
When you played cops and robbers, were you the moron bandit with a gun who fired 100000 times and never hit the cop, or the cop who could shoot the bad guy from 100 yards with a snub nosed .38?
When you go to the movies, do you come home talking about how cool the extra in scene 14 was, or about the hero?
Looking back at the 5000 comics you have possibly read, do you remember Spiderman, or the names and faces of the 1500 miscellaneous but humorous bandits that he has stuck to lamp poles, mail boxes, walls etc.?
Playing an optimized character is playing a hero. Like any good hero an optimized character has a background explaining where they came from, and how she got to here. If she has any powers (e.g. a class) and she gained that class. You should also have the family tree, home-town, general region or location for the home town, a physical description, a reason she is adventuring, motivations, fears, goals, and how she reacts to general events.
My experience with optimization is wholly positive. Players who invest in their characters love them, and work on them continuously, updating campaign journals, sketching maps of regions that have been explored, and trying to fill in the blanks on their maps.
A pile of random stats that someone slaps together with a cute fluff story in 10 minutes before gaming then dubs "role play character" is a waste of space at the game table. They are the annoying kid in front of you at your favorite movie who keeps asking their older brother to explain every damn scene to them.
So who are you?
The invested player, or the waste of space? OPTIMIZATION IS ROLE PLAY. I don't know how a player could invest the dozens of hours needed to pour over the rules for their class, pick the abilities they want, map the progress to those abilities, calculate the stat arrays necessary to best take advantage of their design, and then have 0 emotional investment. I KNOW it is a 0 emotional investment to slap together an interesting idea and a pile of stats. I do it 20 times a week when I build the NPCs my party will encounter. They all have a concept, I have a good idea about all their traits, goals, roles, and reasons for being, and in general when the party feels blood thirsty and slaughters them all, I don't bat an eye.
Lets see if we can make 10 decently optimized sorcerers in 10 seconds without using the same race twice!
Ready .... Set.... GO!
7 Str 14 Con, 16 Dex, 9 Wis, 8 Int, 18 Cha
Now apply +2 Cha with either :
Half Elf, Half Orc, Human, Gnome, or Halfling.
Note, if Halfling or Gnome switch wis and Str so not completely disabled.
Next!
10 Str 12 Con 12 Dex 12 Wis 12 Int 18 Cha
Again apply races above
8 Str 14 Con 14 Dex 10 wis 10 Int 18 Cha
Apply races above.
can even make races with no -to Cha. Could make a dwarf I suppose, if you really wanted to.
so there 3 stat arrays, 5 race options, 15 builds, took 3 minutes.
I would have allowed a npc party member to join before him and that's saying a lot. There is something appealing to casual gaming. However if a commoner could beat his character I think there's a problem.
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Actually its super that my reply provoked ya people. It was ment that way. I think the general problem here is people try to explain why they want to make a character with minimum stats somewhere and maxed in the right places. Its not a matter of "I roleplay, you do not".
All of us try to make a character and play in. Some put a lot of effort into the mechanics others into their story. Most I believe even do both!
When I read the first post of this by now very LONG thread I smiled. Mainly because it was a fustrated player that did not understand why one of the people in the party did not play the way "he/she" expected. This is actually GREAT in my termonology. Its the challenge of having different people at the table. That should make it more fun, after all PF (or any RPG) are social games. Did we not care completely about roleplaying, then I would think picking up PF would be a huge mistake. It simply wouldn't be interesting in the long run, after all its only fun to smack the Goblin so many times.
Should people be allowed to make Strange Roleplaying Characters, surely. Should people be allowed to make characters that have sevens in all mental stats to be ultimate fighting machines, of course they should. One aint better than the other. And that's the tone I feel this thread has taken. Which is the main reason I took the "other approach".
As for my Sorc. being an issue (to take the personal attack). I developed that one via background story first then try to fill in the blanks with mechanics. Is his crappy damage dealer. No doubt but still there is a complete plan from 1 to 12th with him. Trying to get as much flavour into the characters and mechanics as I can. Will he be outstanged at level 10 probably but far from useless. And thats the difference be that character and the rogue described in the begin.
Playing a character that right out ruin the party, or worse the fun for the people around the table should reconsider their purpose of playing.
As for the hero approach I find that very valid. In PFS we start with 20 pts which provide a possible average of 13.167 or approximately 2.67 more than the commoner. or 25,4% better at pretty much everything, so no doubt Adventurers are above average people.
All I am pointing out, is there are no reason to believe one or the other way is the one true way. The Rogue is entitled to his behavour, as are anyone else around the table, as long as they aren't ruining the fun of the game.
Question then would be : Do the Rogue ruined the game, then its the GMs job to spot that and have a talk with both parts (those who feel that and the Rogue).
But I do disagree that Optimizing is Roleplaying.
It has nothing to do with roleplaying as I see it.
Roleplaying is as the word says playing the role. Whether the character has 14,13,13,13,13,13 or 18,10,16,7,7,11. Aren't what matters roleplay wise - its being the character with THOSE stats. First being pretty much just that bit better than everyone in the street no matter what, and second being a babbling idiotic that can lift a mountain - both are valid roleplaying. But Playing the second like a genius battle machine that out smarts everyone, should be reconsidered (however still roleplaying).
Anyway I guess what I am trying to say with these long posts are simply that people should accept the different aspects and enjoy the game time they have. After all we all invest huge amount of hours into this for the enjoyment we get!!!
A revenge obsessed Rogue that was a former slave of the Gorilla king
I know the player might have tried to play this seriously, but how could you avoid all the Planet of the Apes references? There's just no way around bringing up those "damned dirty apes" and ruining any drama inherent in the character's plight.
But in the end, this did not matter because he was killed by another PC for trying to listen in on a private conversation. And the player who killed him is the major optimizer in our group. In fact he was already plotting to kill this PC becasue of how ineffective he was, and it was only circumstance that gave him a reason to do it sooner.
I...wow. Just...whatever happened to talking with the other players and the DM?
PvP can work with and enhance a story, though too often it becomes a tool of OOC vengeance, and that's...
Forgive me if I'm reading in too much, here. It just seems as though that's what happened.
Regarding the original topic: just make sure everyone's on the same page. Playing styles differ, and are going to. Likewise, what everyone wants out of a game can be somewhat different as well.
That said, this may help: perhaps the rogue is in something of an odd position. That is, the rogue itself is more of a social-conflict class rather than a damaging one. Sure, they can pull damage...yet they have a certain strength out of combat.
Is it wrong to want to go that route? No, perhaps just more difficult in a game like DnD, which was originally based around a set of combat miniatures...
So while this is not the entire issue you may be running into (yours seems more a difference in goals), it may contribute to it.
Seriously, there are no armies of optimisers out there just waiting to unleash their fury on everyone daring to play anything non-optimised. Believe it or not, most of us don't care. Most of us even play less powerful concepts ourselves, we just try not to be total asses about it.
This is and is not true...most of the conflict I see happens from a difference of goals, out of what a person is wanting in the game. However, I HAVE had to take players aside, and ask that 'you must' and 'you're stupid if you don't' comments be toned down.
These are comments no one wants at their gaming table. I don't see them as intentionally malicious...in fact, like as not the commenters thought they were helping.
...except well, no they weren't. In fact, it tended to result in:
A. Someone feeling as though they were being told they were an idiot
B. A 'you must be this high to play' feeling
C. ...and so on.
None of these are positive. Intentional? Probably not. However, it just shows the importance, underlines it in fact, of being aware of one another and of the potential for differing goals...and exactly what that means.
Likewise, it can be very difficult to accept that 'play this way' comments aren't always seen as helpful, even though that may be the intent. To put it this way: NO ONE likes being told what to do...
...and isn't that part of the heart of this argument?