Am I an anachronism?

[strayshift]

I wonder what people’s thoughts are on expecting players to compromise their character builds to cover party weaknesses (e.g. taking levels in cleric to increase the amount of healing available to a party) rather than allowing them to buy magic items?

In the last couple of years I have returned to d&d after a many years out. I have been playing since the 1980’s however and have certain reservations about how the game has progressed.
I welcome the progress the game has made by and large, however as a DM I have noted that there is now an emphasis on maximisation of build and this is supported by both the point allocation systems (I HATE dump stats) and the players being (in theory) being able to buy or make magic items to cover individual weaknesses. It is also my experience that players often design and plan this at the outset and are extremely unwilling to compromise this.
As a player and a DM I am not comfortable with this. It puts a subtle pressure on the DM to comply and to a certain degree from a role-playing perspective I would rather the adventures had some role is shaping the character and eventual abilities of the characters. I fully accept the purpose of playing an RPG is to have fun, and that the ‘building a character’ aspect was not present to anything like the same degree when I started playing, however when I see a character planned to 20th level and with a shopping list of items I do despair – where is the frame of reference to what we are going to spend half a year or more building between us?
Your thoughts welcomed on this.

[Strannik]

I haven't been gaming quite as long as you, but I understand your concerns, I remember that old school atmosphere.

What I would suggest is speaking to your players and see if they would be playing a game like you would prefer (less prevalent magic?). Maybe even an AD&D game. If they are not interested, then you are probably going to have to learn to live in the new era of gaming. Most players today expect to have complete control of their character from the start (ie, planning all the way to level 20) and most will stick to that plan regardless of the story they are in. Also, most people expect magic items to be available (eventually, perhaps not in the first town).

Just talk to your gaming group. I'm sure you all can work something out.

[GermanyDM]

Hmm. Tough one. My first thought was, if that's part of their enjoyment, then let 'em plan. That doesn't mean things will go the way they expect. But if you find that it's leading to mismatched groups with glaring weaknesses that cannot be resolved without frequent trips to the magic store, then consider having them plan out their characters together instead of separately.
I think the perfect group is a rare find, but if the other players don't seem bothered by it, then I'd shake it off. They don't have a healer; they need more time between encounters. It's not the end of the world. They don't have a trap finder; they need to find creative (or painful) ways to deal with that.

[DeciusNero]

My two bits;

I do agree with the sentiment that the party should work together in achieving their goals with teamwork rather than be individual power machines, at the same time, I don’t think everyone needs to fit into the perfect cleric/fighter/wizard/rogue party. It can be fun and challenging to try to play in other ways (though may be tougher or easier depending on the situation). Unless you’ve a steady influx of equal currency (or good item ‘drops’, magic items shoring up the weaknesses can be limited.

I’m not interested in the “Level pre-plan with all magic items/accessories included” cookie-cutter build myself, but I havn’t experinced that to a large degree (having a few "wish-list" items doens't count). If the players want to do that, then it'll happen, unless the DM wants to put down a "low magic" game.

[The Golux]

Because classes have more features in pathfinder, multiclassing is kind of more discouraged by the system. While I'm not saying that you should necessarily make everything the players want available to them, especially easily, and while it's a bad idea to rely on purchased potions for healing anyway, having someone just take a few cleric levels will not make them a very good healer either. Perhaps more importantly, their healing will be several levels behind the current level of threat, and that's assuming one of your players has a high enough wisdom and charisma to be a decent healing cleric in spite of not having built for that.

For the record, I hate dump stats too, but if I have a 7 in something I would rather it be because I chose to and am getting a higher score in something else in trade than because I just rolled badly and don't have anything outstanding.

[Adamantine Dragon]

There are dozens of threads on the horrible evils of having magic items available to party members. Some of them decry the evils of characters planning ahead. Some of them consider a player expecting to be able to find any specific magic item to complete their "build" to be evidence that the game has fallen into a wicked death-spiral of player-entitlement decadence.

I just don't get it myself. I consider it to be a group consensus thing, and if your group prefers to play that way, then play that way. If your group prefers to play a low-magic do-the-best-you-can-with-whatever-you-can-find sort of game, then play that way.

Most of this gets into the "but it doesn't feel realistic to me for XXX to happen in this game where characters wiggle their fingers to make balls of fire fall from the sky and giant fire-breathing lizards hoard mountains of treasure."

Meh. Whatevs.

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

If you have to ask...

[Fergie]

I generally play in groups with 3 players and a GM, so the idea that each player can show up with their pre-planned character, and expect everything to just work out isn't happening. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect a dwarf fighter, halfling rogue and elf wizard, but I expect the party to be able to handle the challenges of an adventure. They need to be able to participate in combats, heal injuries and conditions, talk to people, and a variety of other tasks. They don't have to do these things well, but they do have to be able to function in an adventuring environment. When I GM I also don't tolerate "lone wolf" characters, morons, insane, or characters who are useless.

When it comes to magic items, I generally allow characters to buy items that are minor (for their level), but not items that are considered powerful for their level. There is a guide for how much gp worth of items characters are expected to have at each level, called Wealth By Level. I have discovered that the game can function with little adjustment at 1/2 WBL or 2X WBL.

As a side note, I often find that optimizers are willing to follow a few constraints if these are presented up front. For example, I always use point buy, but I generally don't allow characters to start with scores over 17 or 18. I also generally don't allow dump stats.

[Interzone]

Personally I am all about planning out a character build in all the details (although I usually only build up to about 12th level) but I usually just make a list of 'which items would be most desirable' in my head.... But when I am actually playing in a campaign I get whatever items I happen to come across one way or another... If they match up nicely with what I wanted, that's lovely, but if they don't, hey thats how the game goes.
I don't like having every character gain access to whatever exact items they want the most (unless they put the time and resources into crafting it themselves)

[Jarl]

It's OK for an adventuring group to have weaknesses.

It's not really OK to expect me to take levels in classes that radically alter my character's concept.

[LazarX]

Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 and later have put in a builder culture in the game that's pretty much here to stay, and a person who's been primarily of the 1.0 and earlier school and is just comeing back into the game is going to run into culture shock as the game's emphasis has definitely shifted from the game master to the player. (it sells lots more books).

You can enforce cooperation by reminding players that as a group, it's there responsibility to address the groups needs, including recovery. You'll find that many Pathfinder players, especially those in PFS have become used to buying wands of curing even if their own characters can't use them.

It's a different culture but it's not that hard to adapt your methods to the new ways.

[mplindustries]

strayshift wrote:

I fully accept the purpose of playing an RPG is to have fun, and that the ‘building a character’ aspect was not present to anything like the same degree when I started playing, however when I see a character planned to 20th level and with a shopping list of items I do despair – where is the frame of reference to what we are going to spend half a year or more building between us?

Your thoughts welcomed on this.

agree on magic item shopping lists--but that's because I don't really use magic items except as MacGuffins. I also dislike the aesthetic of relying on my "stuff" to be functional. I should be awesome--my stuff should just be a bonus, not a necessity.

However, I feel like you're misrepresenting the full 20 level planning thing. That didn't exist when you (and I) started playing because there were no choices to make, so no plan was necessary. There wasn't "on the fly" multi-classing, either. You chose to begin multi-classed or dual classed and that was that. You picked what you were going to do from level 1 and then you did it. The only choices, really, were where to put your discretionary Rogue skill points.

It's not that people back then just didn't plan because it wasn't the spirit of the game--it was that there was literally nothing to plan. Because I can guarantee you, if there was something to choose, people would have planned on choosing it.

So, again, while I understand the annoyance with shopping lists, I feel like the only way you're going to avoid planning is to remove all meaningful choice from levels past 1, and I can't get behind that at all.

[Hawktitan]

strayshift wrote:

I wonder what people’s thoughts are on expecting players to compromise their character builds to cover party weaknesses (e.g. taking levels in cleric to increase the amount of healing available to a party) rather than allowing them to buy magic items?

In the last couple of years I have returned to d&d after a many years out. I have been playing since the 1980’s however and have certain reservations about how the game has progressed.
I welcome the progress the game has made by and large, however as a DM I have noted that there is now an emphasis on maximisation of build and this is supported by both the point allocation systems (I HATE dump stats) and the players being (in theory) being able to buy or make magic items to cover individual weaknesses. It is also my experience that players often design and plan this at the outset and are extremely unwilling to compromise this.
As a player and a DM I am not comfortable with this. It puts a subtle pressure on the DM to comply and to a certain degree from a role-playing perspective I would rather the adventures had some role is shaping the character and eventual abilities of the characters. I fully accept the purpose of playing an RPG is to have fun, and that the ‘building a character’ aspect was not present to anything like the same degree when I started playing, however when I see a character planned to 20th level and with a shopping list of items I do despair – where is the frame of reference to what we are going to spend half a year or more building between us?
Your thoughts welcomed on this.

As a GM If you don't like point buy make your own array for players to use- example of a 20pt array: 15/14/14/12/12/9. Personally I hate rolling for stats since the potential disparity between characters can be glaring thereby increasing chances for 'suicides' or just having one 'hero' and one 'weakling'. I know it appeals to some, but not to me.

The game also assumes a certain amount of gear by a certain level. If you are a good DM and can adjust encounters based on your party then everything should be fine. The only problem exists when a certain item is required for a build to succede, in which case the best thing is to be upfront with your players "you might not get that item when you expect it, or possibly never".

[BillyGoat]

Adamantine Dragon wrote:

Most of this gets into the "but it doesn't feel realistic to me for XXX to happen in this game where characters wiggle their fingers to make balls of fire fall from the sky and giant fire-breathing lizards hoard mountains of treasure."

Meh. Whatevs.

While I agree with you on the general thoughts (and a review of the threads where we've had this conversation before should bear this out), I do want to point something out on this.

I've found that, for most people, accepting the "big lie" (flying fire-breathing lizards with massive piles of wealth) actually depends on avoiding the "small lies" (the little details of realism). Those little details vary for everyone, you and I have no problem with the magic item shops, for example.

Now, for players (and some GMs), this has been trending towards accepting more and more "small lies" into the "big lie" of fantasy. An example of this can be seen just by looking in the Advanced Race Guide. The group I played with ten years ago would've flipped at the idea of Tengu and Ratfolk not being shot-on-sight in town. The group I'm playing with now is fighting over who gets to play a catfolk. And this group is made of many of the same people as the old group.

Sorry, I recognize this is a bit of a tangent, but it seemed like a good place to insert that caveat. When one's sense of disbelief is already being strained by magic and dragons, any number of relatively minor breaks in realism can be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

[Adamantine Dragon]

BillyGoat, yes, there is a limit to the willing suspension of disbelief, and that limit is different for everyone. But suggesting, as the OP did, that it was perfectly acceptable to have magic items, classes and all of the other things in the game, but not acceptable for players to actually plan around them isn't really the same thing. This isn't a case of "adding an amulet of mighty fists ruins the verisimilitude of the game". It's more "I'm fine with the existence of amulets of mighty fists, but it bugs me when a player actually plans his character around finding one."

I have to admit that many times when I see these sorts of posts what I actually hear the poster saying is "I don't like the player having the ability to control their character." As I've dug into the objections in other posts I have just become more and more convinced that the bottom line is frequently that the "old school feel" is all about the players having to accept whatever the GM allows them to do. In fact many of the comments I've seen come right out and complain about "player entitlement" (How DARE a player expect to be able to find a +2 furious falchion! That's MY decision what goes in my games!)

Sure, that's true. And a GM can definitely thwart the players' desires. My only question is "why?" There are different flavors of the game. If the group agrees to play a low magic game where they will have to scrape and beg to find anything of value, that's OK. I've played a lot of campaigns that way and they have their own charm. But I've played the other way too, and it feels more like I am in control as a player and that has ITS own charm too.

I have no problem either way. I enjoy the role playing, the problem solving and the tactical challenges of battle. I sort of like the fact that the "modern" game has so many more options to work with.

In our group we just decide before we start a new campaign how low, medium or high magic it's going to be and then we just go with it. Most of our campaigns are sort of medium magic, neither high (where a player character can pretty much expect to find or have made anything they want) nor low (where a player character can't even depend on purchasing a few low level potions and wands at need). Mostly we allow for lower level items to be pretty freely available and if you want something expensive or special, you have to travel to a larger city or hope you get lucky.

It's a collaborative game, both in setup and execution. So collaborate. Take a vote if you like. If you are the GM and the group votes for a campaign you don't want to run, tell them "I don't like to run that sort of campaign". Or find another group.

This constant "I don't know what happened to my game!" posting on these boards just gets old. I'm getting to be an old man and my whole life would be full of "I don't know what happened to XXXXX (movies, games, TV shows, comic books, food, sports....)" if I wanted it to be.

[strayshift]

Thank you all.

No issues with the any of the above, it is pure personal preference ultimately.

Basically as I see it, the more pcs, the more freedom people have to deviate from ‘sub-optimal’ and still fulfil a role within the party (the group I play in/DM for is 6 strong so typically 5 pc each with different tastes as players).
The variety of settings also creates different demands (dungeon, town, wilderness, etc) so I can create different challenges and approaches to challenges (and do reward accordingly).
I also, by and large, try to welcome and try to accommodate each player’s tastes, whilst also giving the player the opportunity to develop background, foibles, history, sub-plots, etc.

The thing I value most however is role playing and a sense of ‘journey’; this to me means an element of the player’s character being on one – not everything being pre-ordained at the beginning and it is this tension I am seeking to resolve (hence the posting and appreciated responses, not having explored the site much yet).
I strongly suspect that this ultimately comes down to how ‘a character’s concept’ (thank you Jarl) is developed and GM’s role in this, even nuances such as getting player’s to create characters together rather than individually will influence this. Influence the big picture, let the player work out the details as they see fit (aware that I will not be freely allowing the purchase of magic items or providing a convenience healer npc).

[roguerouge]

Forcing everybody to play Colson when they want to be the Hulk or Agent Romanov is not your job as a DM. What's fun for you is not necessarily fun for me. Let players play the characters they want to play, then find a way to challenge them. It's a truism for a reason.

[strayshift]

Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

If you have to ask...

And thank you tiny - that made me laugh!

[Raymond Lambert]

I cannot agree more with mplindustries and LazarX.

I am curious, you say you dislike point buy and dump stats? How did you handle PCs who unfortunately rolled below an 8? Especially those dreaded 3's and 4's? Did you just buff them up to an 8? Did you tell the players to reroll or suck it up? Did you not care when a player rolled an high numbers only in the stats good for classes they had no interest in playing? How many players decided they did not want to play at all with you when you made them waste time with characters with fatal flaws or classes they did not want to play?

There is no reason people should not be able to choose their options within reason.
That reason being:
any race in the core handbook(maybe others at the GM descretion),
any class(or combination of),
an equal point buy for every player(GM still determines where that is, anywhere from 10-25[15-20 work best]),
any skill point distribution,
any feat they qualify for that does not call itself out as a monster intended feat or other such special choice like maybe mythic stuff,
Any item worth no more than half their total WBL(maybe even 1/4 if buy on demand)

[Jonathan Michaels]

I think players are afraid to have any glaring weaknesses because they have dealt with evil DMs who take intense delight in focusing on those weaknesses and exploiting them.

Oh, nobody has more than a plus three in Swim?

Guess what? You're going to swim or die.

Oh, all the wizard's attack spells he prepared are fire spells?

The monster that's immune to fire is making a beeline towards the wizard.

And so forth.

[BillyGoat]

@AD, I agree whole-heartedly, and perhaps a private message about the topic would have been a more appropriate venue for my original comment. I wasn't trying to disagree with your whole post, as regards this thread. Rather, the idea of limits on suspension of disbelief have been on my mind recently, especially given the number of threads where it has, to some degree or another, been relevant. As such, it seemed like a relevant opportunity to bring it up on the forum & yours an appropriate post with which to I could respond.

I certainly agree that in this case, the OP's concerns have little to do with verisimilitude or realism, and more to do with who has control at the table over what.

roguerogue wrote:

Forcing everybody to play Colson when they want to be the Hulk or Agent Romanov is not your job as a DM. What's fun for you is not necessarily fun for me. Let players play the characters they want to play, then find a way to challenge them. It's a truism for a reason.

I would contend that this depends on the style of game being run. However, unless they're the Hulks of the game are the villains, the players certainly shouldn't be out-done by many other characters in the world.

Raymond Lambert wrote:

I am curious, you say you dislike point buy and dump stats? How did you handle PCs who unfortunately rolled below an 8? Especially those dreaded 3's and 4's? Did you just buff them up to an 8? Did you tell the players to reroll or suck it up? Did you not care when a player rolled an high numbers only in the stats good for classes they had no interest in playing?

Since it's the preference at my table, we used the Organic Dicepool (see the PCR for details). this gives them a decent odd of getting good stats where they need them.

We allow for one stat to be re-rolled, unless the entire array is terrible. Terrible is a subjective call usually made by most everyone at the table (we roll mostly as a group).

If you have a bad array, but still want to run with it, we usually hand out bonus feats/skill ranks/gear at char gen to shore up. Some people want to try playing the "weak but gifted/blessed" archetype.

Occasionally, we've had the powerhouse character with lots of high stats right where they needed them. It's never really broken the game and only ever once inspired irritation in other players feeling out-shown. I admit I don't recall how we resolved that issue. The game may have ended without a good solution.

[Proley]

Personally I don't mind it someone subscribes to the philosophy of "Hey, I could really use an agile weapon since I'm a dexterity based fighter, so I'd like to ask around town to find someone who can do that.", there's nothing wrong with a player putting thought into their gear and in-game, an adventurer is eventually going to say "I'm fighting Dragons the size of my house, I need something more than this scythe I picked up at my farm, and I've seen/heard about this fancy thing bob has, I should grab one."

Now, asking for something to be available is different than "Give me X, y, and Z because I need it".

As for planning, my group has players that put thought into their character with planning, and we have players that don't know the rules of the game and have no idea how/what to build, from a players perspective, I'd rather have people who put effort into their builds (note effort, not just optimization).

[strayshift]

I won’t pretend that all the players in the group prefer to roll their stats but given that in our group of 6 we have 4 who are willing to DM they have plenty of opportunity to play on points buy systems, buying magic items, etc. So this is just accomodating DM preference (and another example of external context influencing how the game is played).

We do play a minimum overall stat bonus a player should have (+4) so if your overall stats are crap then you get to re-roll them. Also regarding having a low stat – point buy systems encourage low stats just not in key areas like Con. i.e. the dump stat.

Regarding being an evil DM: I do value players doing research (knowledges and diplomacies, etc) so if there is going to a specific type of challenge that will target a weakness then they do know to do their homework (e.g. I'll put a dragon 21,000 feet up on a mountain so as well as its lightning they had to solve problems around serious fatigue and cold).

[LazarX]

Jonathan Michaels wrote:

I think players are afraid to have any glaring weaknesses because they have dealt with evil DMs who take intense delight in focusing on those weaknesses and exploiting them.

Oh, nobody has more than a plus three in Swim?

Guess what? You're going to swim or die.

Oh, all the wizard's attack spells he prepared are fire spells?

The monster that's immune to fire is making a beeline towards the wizard.

And so forth.

I think we're just jumping the gun a bit here with impugning the DM's motives. It's more likely that he's simply an old school DM from the days when everybody just used one of various D6 stat rolling schemes. (and being one of those older gamers,I can tell you there where a crap tone of them) That doesn't mean he's an EVIL DM, he's just old school culture. The hobby spans 4 decades after all, there are going to be generational differences within the D+D derived culture.

[Mark Hoover]

Y'know what? I'm becoming disheartened by the prevalance of these threads. Back to something the OP hinted at and Ad/dragon has noted, many of the "players should rely on their character's powers and not items and such" type threads is that the underlying theme is players controlling their PCs, down to item creation, somehow = entitled (spoiled) players or a broken system.

I submit that this is NOT directly what the OP is saying. However they did post:

strayshift wrote:

I welcome the progress the game has made by and large, however as a DM I have noted that there is now an emphasis on maximisation of build and this is supported by both the point allocation systems (I HATE dump stats) and the players being (in theory) being able to buy or make magic items to cover individual weaknesses. It is also my experience that players often design and plan this at the outset and are extremely unwilling to compromise this.

As a player and a DM I am not comfortable with this.

This inherently suggests a frustration with working with the players on their own vision for their characters. This, IMO, is one of the BIGGEST changes to the game at the outset of 2e and beyond; this idea that each player should begin sculpting their character from options THEY controlled, not bestowed upon them by a benevolent system.

In 2e you had kits and skills. In 3e you got feats, some of which were magic item creation feats. In PF you get archetypes, traits, and even more. The game has been trending this way for a long time now.

That being said - you don't have to play that way.

Point Buy is optional. Traits are optional. Heck, by RAW any rule of the game is OPTIONAL if you're willing to monkey around a bit. But in 1e, you didn't HAVE the options to then remove them in the first place.

I still remember my first fully customized character in 1e. His name was Banion Rashada; an elf wizard but I wanted sort of a multi-class feel. My GM graciously let me blend some aspects of thief and magic user, right down to custom designing my own spells all the way to 9th level if I got that high. My concept was a Barrier Mage; a guy who could create, destroy, or circumvent ANY barrier (wall, spell, lock, etc) using skill or magic. Oh man, I worked on him for weeks making sure he was fair and balanced.

Game one, scene one: I'm seduced in a freaking DREAM by a sucubus, fail my save, and now I'm the puppet of the GM. What's more, as the game goes on my vision of my character and the GM's instantly began to skew. He saw me more as a thief and didn't think my spells should be as powerful as they supposedly were, so my spells HE ok'd were suddenly nerfed, useless in certain situations or otherwise ineffectual.

Now had I had ratchet-on abilities, or the potential to customize some magic items and fill in some of the gaps, I may have presented more of a resource to my team. As it was my character became the boat anchor of the game and at one point a fellow player turned to me at a tough spot and actually said "kill yourself."

All I wanted was to achieve the vision I had of that character. The dwarf fighter pulled off his vision; so did the female halfling thief. Our half orc cleric was in a similar boat but he got a lucky drop of a +1 hammer that eventually got a thunder-clap power. Me? I got some magic lockpicks "out of pity" my GM later admitted.

My own sob story aside, this owes to the larger point: since the game came of age out of pamflets in the 80's players have wanted to control their characters and not just wait around for the GM to hand them the things they wanted. In PF I feel like players finally have most of what they have been asking for.

Yet the GM STILL has the power to curtail this if they want. All they have to do is communicate with their players, work with them, to make the game everyone at the table wants. Its not hard, and its not negative. There's nothing wrong with the CRB saying a settlement should have any magic item the players might want, but the GM discussing this openly w/their players and saying "y'know what guys; this seems a little TOO convenient for the game world I'm running, so I think I'm going with this revised settlement chart I came up with." The players might not complain at all, knowing that if worse comes to worse their GM will have no issue with the wizard scribing scrolls or the cleric who took Brew Potion going to a shrine and turning holy water into potions.

I say it OVER and over in these kinds of threads: there is nothing wrong with players being in control of their characters and playing to their own strengths. In fact, in the business world or other aspects I've observed in real life that's actively encouraged. Be the BEST at whatever you have set your mind to being and use all your resources to get even better. Strengths Finder is a product employed in many business units: it's core premise is find your strengths then play to them to maximize your impact to the business.

In the meantime to all GMs out there: make the game what you want. Let's face it; every GM has monkeyed with the system since there's been systems to monkey with. So why stop now? I don't know about anyone else, but my players are more than willing to work with my houserules. But they do that because I talk to them ahead of time.

Communicate. Tinker. Collaborate. Game. Repeat.

[Hayato Ken]

Yes there is a difference for sure between games who grew up with WoW like so called RPG´s and first or second edition D&D and most probably such people also expect different things from the gaming experience.

[blackbloodtroll]

As a DM plans a campaign, a player plans the growth of his PC.

Some DMs simply react accordingly, and have no real plan. Same is true of some PCs.

None of these are wrong. It is simply a matter of taste.

[Silent Saturn]

My thoughts? You asked for 'em.

On covering party weaknesses: most groups I've played in will at least ask each other what they plan to play so they can cover any glaring weakness, though my current group tends to get along fine without a trapfinder or an arcane caster. D+D is modeled after heroic tales, and most such tales have one definitive hero, so that's what people want to try and play. It'd be nice if more groups focused more on teamwork and group tactics, but you can hardly blame the player who gets an idea and builds his character to suit it.

On magic items: I would never assume I'm going to be able to afford a certain item by a certain level. Even if the GM tells me up-front that he's going to stick to the WBL table like glue, a natural 1 at the wrong moment can be deadly and scrolls of Raise Dead aren't cheap. My group mostly just spends their gold on tricked-out magic weapons-- we hardly ever go for the stat-booster ones. Personally, I wish more people treated themselves to quirky wondrous items like the Horn of Blasting.

On planning your character to 20: Personally I never do it-- I build my plan around what kind of class I want to play and what kind of weapon or spell I want to wield, and I build around that. Usually every time I gain a level I pore over the books for an hour trying to pick my next feat/spell/rage power/whatever. I don't think I've ever even seen anyone plan that far in advance, simply because adventurers are at risk of dying. I'd hate to plan out a character like that and then have him die by level 2 or 3.

[Fergie]

I think blackbloodtroll is right.

The GM has an idea of the campaign world they want to present, with its rare magic items and sinister markets. The players have the idea of existing in a campaign world where they charge up their G.P.Express Card during adventures, stop by any old thorp or hamlet and swipe it for any item in the book or their imagination.

As long as players/GMs come to an agreement in advance of where to fall on the above spectrum, things should work out alright. I think the real difference we are talking about here is; sometimes getting the item you want in a large settlement, and almost always getting it. Not really that big a difference.

[MC Templar]

Mark Hoover wrote:

strayshift wrote:

I welcome the progress the game has made by and large, however as a DM I have noted that there is now an emphasis on maximisation of build and this is supported by both the point allocation systems (I HATE dump stats) and the players being (in theory) being able to buy or make magic items to cover individual weaknesses. It is also my experience that players often design and plan this at the outset and are extremely unwilling to compromise this.

As a player and a DM I am not comfortable with this.

This inherently suggests a frustration with working with the players on their own vision for their characters. This, IMO, is one of the BIGGEST changes to the game at the outset of 2e and beyond; this idea that each player should begin sculpting their character from options THEY controlled, not bestowed upon them by a benevolent system.

I am a big fan of the customization of character concepts, and a player's own vision of a character.

But where I agree with the OP and respectfully disagree with you, Mark, is... when someone's "vision" of his character includes specific named magic items at specific intervals, because his "vision" isn't a character so much as a series of statistical optimizations timed into a leveling chart.

I'd love every character in my game to show up with a plan to level 20. I like it even more when something they encounter in the game causes them to deviate from that plan to feel more naturally a part of the narrative world.

What I dislike, is a character build where half the levels are an insignificant preamble until level 9 "where the weath by level charts state I can finally afford 'X'" (X being the actual point, a 'character' wasn't being developed or envisions, a magic item delivery system was.)

So, to wrap up, I think character building should include the character elements, feats, trait, skills, concept, story, spells etc. But if you are creating your 1st level character with a specific magic item in mind, you better plan on crafting it yourself, because if it is "that" important to your conceptual character, make it part of the decisions that you control.

[blackbloodtroll]

Why can't an item be an integral part of a PC's vision?

Why must it be wrought from some "statistical optimization urge"?

Imagine a PC who has a concept in mind, that revolves around a Thor-like PC.

Getting that Throwing/Returning Hammer is pretty key.

What if one of your PC's life goals is to wear the frightening armor of the Hellknights?

[GeraintElberion]

This isn't about changes over time, it is about finding a group that suits you.

When I was a teenager (early nineties) all of my friends min-maxed hard (although, back then, the first step was cheating on your dice rolls to get that 18/87 strength).

Now, my players say things like, "Hmm, Power Attack would be cool but I've not really been smashing through opponents so maybe I should take Breadth of Experience instead..."

Of course, the easiest way to sort this out is to bring players into the hobby: they'll learn from your style and that will seem the norm for them.

[Steve Geddes]

I'm in a similar boat to the OP. However, in my view, the concept of planning out a character (including stats and equipment) is pretty hard coded into the modern games. Stat bonuses mean more than they used to and the games' challenges are now built on an assumption of an expected power level. I think if you want to play a campaign with more organic character development it's best to use an old school system (Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, AD&D, etc). Trying to run the more modern games from that mindset leads to problems of expectation and balance. (Problems which can be solved with sufficient DM effort, but still problems).

[blackbloodtroll]

So, let's list these "issues" being discussed:

1) Players are planning how they wish their PC to develop.

2) Players have expectations based on magic items available.

3) Players plan around their weaknesses.

4) Players have weaknesses(like a low stat).

So, these are all the naughty things, correct?

Are there more?

Why are they so naughty?

[Adamantine Dragon]

Hayato Ken wrote:

Yes there is a difference for sure between games who grew up with WoW like so called RPG´s and first or second edition D&D and most probably such people also expect different things from the gaming experience.

Sigh, I see this all the time too. "WoW runed the game, all teh spoylsd MMORPG dudz...."

I've been playing this game since the end of the Carter administration.

I think the game as it is today is every bit as fun and magical as it was back then. My first character was a 1 hit point wizard who failed his "learn" roll on "magic missile". That character had to scrape and claw for every little thing he ever got.

And now I have PF characters that can buy a magic sword in a much-maligned "magic shop" and yet my current dryad/elf druid archer is one of the most fun and interesting characters I've ever played, and my flamboyant voodoo priest witch is right up there with any character I've ever played.

MMORPGs did not ruin the game. Every single aspect of the game that "purists" whine incessantly about on these boards existed as far back as I can remember. My second campaign as a player was one overflowing with magic shops because the GM just thought it "made sense" in a magical world that you'd be able to buy magic stuff.

In the end it is hard to come to any conclusion other than "people gonna complain, no matter what you do."

[Animation]

You don't have to make your players build in a certain way, nor do you have to disallow it. Also, you can certainly make magic shops unavailable, or limit them. I use an online thing I found for whats available in a city, and every once in a while half the items change out. Players can either buy those, use what they find, pay an NPC to craft something, or do it themselves.

It seems to work fine, despite players not trivially being able to buy wands of cure light or enlarge person or etc.

So just give your own preferences a try. If they don't work, just adjust as you go.

Or you could always play GURPS, which is a game I like. You don't ever have to give out a single magic item in that game, and it won't screw your players at all if you don't. The economy of power isn't build around items.

But I think Pathfinder will still serve you well. Just look for issues as you move forward, and deal with them if you need to.

[Fergie]

Damn Adamantine Dragon, you started off with a pretty harmless quote and finished it off with a, "...so don't even bother trying!"

That 1hp wizard has made you a bitter, bitter man.

;)

Blackbloodtroll- The problem is that desires and expectations of material goods can lead to a sense of unfulfillment.

[Adamantine Dragon]

Fergie, no, you misunderstand me.

My "advice" is not "don't even bother to try."

It's more "quit your damn b##@+in' and if you want to play a certain way, just do it. The game allows you to do whatever you want and it always has."

[blackbloodtroll]

I have a hard time wrapping my head around some of this.

A player looks at prestige class, and says "wow, that's cool, I want a PC who is one of those".

Suddenly, that player is a bad person, ruining the game, with his "planning" and "goals"?

Some player want to play a frail Bard, with a 7 strrength, who gets by with his wits, and silver tongue.

He is a bad min-maxing monster, with his "dump stat", vomiting his foul optimization all over the purity of the game?

[Dazaras]

I'm afraid I don't have the time to read through the whole thread right now, but I just wanted to post my two cents:

The DM decides what style of game he or she wants. If you want your game to have a specific style, make that clear to your players so they can build their characters accordingly. If they don't like it, tough, you're the DM. If you don't want them to rely on having specific magic items, make it clear that they won't be able to buy whatever items they want and will have to deal with that. I love to optimize, but that's not the same thing as min-maxing. To me, optimization is about doing what you can with what you are given: if the DM places restrictions on the PCs then I consider it a challenge to make a successful character under those restrictions.

Second: I don't get what people have against dump stats. What I do get is what people have against bad roleplaying, ignoring carrying capacity, and certain other things that often go along with dump stats. If you have a dump stat, I expect you to pay attention to it. If it's a mental stat, that means roleplaying. If it's strength that means keeping careful track of carrying capacity (which I don't usually bother with for characters with decent strength). This is another problem that you should be able to fix by being clear with your players about your expectations.

Lastly: When I plan a character to level 20, it is just a rough guideline. I expect it to change as I get to know what the other players in the party can and can't do, our DM's style, and our weaknesses as a group.

[Adamantine Dragon]

Also, I am really, really sick of the constant WoW bashing. As I said, I've played D&D in all its versions plus other RPGs for virtually my whole life, going back over 30 years now and I have been a video gamer since Pong. I was a raiding guild member in Everquest and World of Warcraft, as have been most of the people I game with.

WoW does not "ruin" players any more than they've been ruined by "Doom" or "Halo."

If you've got a problem with WoW, take it to a WoW forum.

[Steve Geddes]

Dazaras wrote:

Second: I don't get what people have against dump stats.

I don't really have anything against them - I just prefer the old way of playing with the hand you were dealt rather than selecting where your strengths and weaknesses are (it's all a matter of degree, in my view, no doubt influenced by what you got used to when you learnt to play - despite liking games where characters develop more organically, with some planning and some chance, I wouldn't enjoy a system where your class was randomly allocated).

[Ascalaphus]

I don't like that the game system itself rewards planning far ahead quite so much. Traits like Magical Lineage, long feat chains, and feats that lock on to specific gear like Weapon Focus or Improved Critical, lock you into a long-term plan. If you want the ultimate cool stuff, you need to start working on it many levels in advance.

I wonder if retraining rules from Ultimate Campaign will reduce this problem? If you can retrain stuff, maybe you can "get away" with not planning ahead quite so much; if halfway through the campaign you decide you want to pursue a different direction for your PC, it's not too late to start pushing your resources (feats..) in the new direction.

[Adamantine Dragon]

Nobody will admit it, but point buy was introduced to stop people cheating on their "random" character generation rolls.

I've played with guys who somehow "lucked out" to get four 17s and two 18s out of six 4d6 drop lowest rolls.

More than once.

[Azaelas Fayth]

I am able to admit I am lucky when it comes to Char Gen Rolls. Even if the GM Rolls the dice for me.

The In-Game Action Rolls can swing either way...

[blackbloodtroll]

Adamantine Dragon wrote:

Nobody will admit it, but point buy was introduced to stop people cheating on their "random" character generation rolls.

I've played with guys who somehow "lucked out" to get four 17s and two 18s out of six 4d6 drop lowest rolls.

More than once.

This guy.

I know, this guy.