The general definition is that a character who cannot make any meaningful contribution to the party is dead weight. Where opinions tend to vary a lot is at what point a character stops making a "meaningful" contribution to the party. For some folks, anything that's not utterly optimized isn't making a meaningful contribution, while other people will insist that a character who can only hit on a natural 20, does one point of damage per attack, and has all his skill points in profession (miller) can still contribute.
Personally, I find that the biggest issue isn't mechanics, but whether or not the character/player makes the game more fun. That's a pretty subjective thing, though. I've seen games crash and burn because one player's idea of fun was very different from everyone else's.
That said, I do tend to find that mechanically ineffective characters make things less fun for everyone. Most players like to have their chance to do something awesome, and if their character just doesn't have any way of pulling that off...
PFS does make things a bit more complicated when it comes to dead weight characters, if you're playing that. In a home game, the GM can make adjustments to account for low-powered characters. PFS GMs have a lot less flexibility, so getting stuck with dead weight characters is a lot more likely to end in TPKs.
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Dead weight is when I was playing at a convention and the guy who was playing a 7th-level pregenerated wizard (one he'd played copies of in his previous game or two, as well) is running around throwing daggers and using his CL1 wand of magic missile while most of his spells still have not been cast, and then the party TPKs.
Dead weight is when I was playing at a convention and the guy who was playing a 7th-level pregenerated wizard (one he'd played copies of in his previous game or two, as well) is running around throwing daggers and using his CL1 wand of magic missile while most of his spells still have not been cast, and then the party TPKs.
I'm speechless at this, but I am reminded of a player (in a one-off) who was capable of this play style. The word wrench comes to mind.
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I once played a session at level 1 with a pacifist oracle who wouldn't cast anything but Cure Light Wounds and Guidance, and didn't even own a weapon. Not that having a dedicated healer is necessarily bad, but I was playing a bard in the same game who could have done that. So her only contribution to combat was Guidance. I'd call that one dead weight.
Playing PFS, especially since I frequently end up GMing the newbie table at my local game days, I see a lot of players who don't know how to contribute to the team. But usually, by the end of their first session, they at least have some clue about swinging a weapon at things, or at least firing a crossbow.
And really, most sorcerers and wizards will end up being dead weight for much of the combat at level 1 or 2. But those couple of moments when they pull out the level 1 spells give them a chance to shine, so at least they're not totally useless to have around. And by level 3 or 4, they're usually as useful as any member of the team.
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So it would seem that dead weight is due to the player rather than the character is that a fair conclusion ?
Well, ultimately the character is just a piece of paper. A badly designed character can be a dead weight, and that's the fault of the character designer, who is probably but not necessarily the player. A badly played character is of course the fault of the player.
I'm not sure how good a player you'd have to be to make an Int 8 wizard other than a dead weight.
Funny, I think this relates to something that's been bothering me lately. I actually was going to start a thread asking if this was a hobby with no place for middle ground reasoning. Now, to beat a dead equine, I've heard similar references during world of warcraft raids/instance/dungeons, implying there was a preset standard that wasn't met. In my opinion, wow is a game for children, and fosters ugly, narrow minded power gaming. I have no hard evidence. Alternately, but more pre 3rd ed dungeons and dragons , we had the angsty, overwrought drama clusters that ousted players whose characters were not fatally flawed in some way. Now, to me both of these = badwrong fun. However, my playstyle by its own nature is not about ruining anyone's fun at the table where as both extremes previously listed take pleasure in it. Especially the power gaming WIN machine. Anything not optimized to the 5th degree will be dead weight to someone with full legacy gear and 8 level 90 wow toons.
Had a druid in the last PF game I tried to run, who spent too much time playing with her phone, and ignoring anything and everything that was going on. Game went from level 1 until 7, and even at level 7, she just tossed around CLW, had her animal companion "go hit that thing," or occasionally attacked with her longsword(Elf race).
An obstacle arose that required someone in the party to be able to assume a small, flight-capable form(read: animal) to check out something across a lake. The entire party was clueless on how to proceed. I literally had to spell out to her(and the rest of the party) that "oh, hey, druids can Wild Shape. Didn't know if you guys knew that." Thing is, everyone at the table was en experienced gamer.
That game imploded.
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Dead Weight is what you're dealing with when the NPC you were torturing for information dies, so you have to quickly hide the body before the party paladin returns from his distraction and raises a stink about the whole matter.
I'm not sure how good a player you'd have to be to make an Int 8 wizard other than a dead weight.
Give him 19 Strength and the Transmutation school, and he could be a decent melee fighter at low levels. Who cares about arcane spell failure? Load him up with armor!
Great question, and such good answers so far!
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IMHO, to make a character "dead weight" three things must happen:
Casters who spend all their spells/actions buffing themselves are frustrating.
Characters who are build to do only one thing well, and that one thing rarely comes up.
A powerful character played by an unskilled player may never realize its potential.
Effectiveness aside, sometimes a player is so entertaining to have at the table, that it doesn't matter if the character is any good at adventuring.
Taking up the GM's time and attention is sometimes more important.
An extremely weak melee character may require constant healing, using up all of the Cleric's spells and actions.
If this third requirement isn't being met; if nothing is being lost, then what is there to complain about? The character may be "dead" but it's not adding any "weight".
i think what scares me a little about the concept of certain players being perceived as 'dead weight' is that this notion may very well be exacerbated by the concept of 'elite scenarios' like Bone Keep
you want to bring your 'A-Team' to such an event and this may result in players from your gaming circle feeling excluded or that they are not good enough
this is something that has been on my mind ever since I played Bone Keep at my last Con
i don't want all the great folks at my PFS location to begin to feel segregated by their status as players in terms of accomplishments, player skill and/or experience
nevertheless, I am worried this might happen
I'm not sure how good a player you'd have to be to make an Int 8 wizard other than a dead weight.Give him 19 Strength and the Transmutation school, and he could be a decent melee fighter at low levels.
A decent melee warrior, perhaps. A fighter with 1/2 BAB and no bonus feats?
There's a difference between simply not knowing how to play, and not caring enough to know how to play.
In my druid example above, the player did zero reading outside of the play session. She didn't lift a finger to bother learning any more about the class she was playing, and just fell back on one of three options she's pretty much had available since level 1(cast CLW, order animal to attack, and/or attack with sword).
i think what scares me a little about the concept of certain players being perceived as 'dead weight' is that this notion may very well be exacerbated by the concept of 'elite scenarios' like Bone Keep
Well, there's a reason that computer games come with easy mode, moderate mode, hard mode, ohexcrementimgonnadie mode, et cetera. The audience for the game does to some extent naturally segregate. There's a reason that most MMOs have PvP servers and non-PvP servers; it's the same one. And the audience for RPG scenarios does the same.
I think the term 'elite scenario' is needlessly, well, elitist. But if you can get a group of people together that like challenging tactical puzzles, then it makes sense to offer them challenging tactical puzzles. And, of course, one of the things about challenging tactical puzzles is that they challenge you and you therefore have to be on your toes. That doesn't make you an 'elite' gamer, just a hard-core tactician, possibly at the expense of other fluff-like factors. (Who here can tell me the name of the character you're ostensibly playing in Doom?)
But it does mean that when someone else brings in their rogue/monk/commoner multiclass, it will cause problems for that group -- they either won't get what they want, or they'll try it anyway and have it not be fun because the new character isn't "pulling his weight" and they're losing.
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Even a 0-level commoner can contribute to the group, if he wants to.
Anyone can stand lookout and take a watch shift.
Anyone can provide a flanking bonus and Aid Another.
Anyone can make Perception checks.
Anyone can participate in RP conversations, puzzle-solving, spiking doors open or shut, retrieving lost/dropped items, searching rooms, etc. etc.....
I think you have an unusual understanding of what "contribute" means. First of all, most of those actually demand that you have substantial Perception skill, which not all characters have. Second, most of those are not actually that helpful. Some of them are actually harmful. A first level commoner trying to provide a flanking bonus is going to cost the party more in healing than he grants in bonuses -- a poor watchman will simply result in the entire party getting ambushed during the night.
If the best that your character can do is provide the +2 bonus given by a 50gp masterwork tool....
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Even a 0-level commoner can contribute to the group, if he wants to.
Anyone can stand lookout and take a watch shift.
Anyone can provide a flanking bonus and Aid Another.
Anyone can make Perception checks.
Anyone can participate in RP conversations, puzzle-solving, spiking doors open or shut, retrieving lost/dropped items, searching rooms, etc. etc.....Being dead weight is a player choice.
If your character's best "contributions" are things that anyone, including a 1st-level commoner, can do; then he's firmly into "dead weight" territory.
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If your character's best "contributions" are things that anyone, including a 1st-level commoner, can do; then he's firmly into "dead weight" territory.Even a 0-level commoner can contribute to the group, if he wants to.
Anyone can stand lookout and take a watch shift.
Anyone can provide a flanking bonus and Aid Another.
Anyone can make Perception checks.
Anyone can participate in RP conversations, puzzle-solving, spiking doors open or shut, retrieving lost/dropped items, searching rooms, etc. etc.....Being dead weight is a player choice.
Pretty much this. IF everyone ahs to work harder, optimize more, or otherwise have to make up for your slack (effectively playing a 3 man group versus 4) you are dead weight.
I'm not even talking about least/most powerful characters here. I'm talking about overall contribution. IF you are not enhancing your group, beating the living crap out of the bad guys, or making life hard for the bad guys in some other profound way than you are literally accomplishing nothing.
"But Tark what about non-combat characters!" You gibber at me.
What about them? I'm sitting on bards, paladins, alchemists, sumoners, heck even a cavalier that can do tons and tons of out of combat things and each and every one can kick your sissy trapper/diplomancy/fat merchant rogues ass. HEck it's not even optimization at that point just some thought put towards what I wish to do for the group and how I intend to do it.
I look at ti from this sort of perspective. I am part of an elite group. We are highly specialized, highly trained, and capable of murdering those that threaten us and ours for whatever goal we've put ourselves to. Our lives are constantly in danger and we often have to give up the idea of settling down and having a family in order to ensure our very survival. We are fantasy navy seals, we are the BagEnd PD. S.W.A.T. team, when Elric let his evil demon sword stab him to death we thought he was a big wansy pansy.
And then somehow the fates dictated we let a clown join our crew when we lsot Richards (every guy named Richards who joins us dies tragically. We don't know why.).
Now with lives on the line and blood to be shed what would you do? LEt the clown die or cause your life to be at risk? Or cut the clown off and find someone worth replacing Richards good name?
Being "dead weight" is more about the player than the character.
Example #1 - The Sniper
I play with Rick in a high-level adventure path. His character is a Rogue(sniper). He has no STR modifier, and no Weapon Finesse, so he is completely incapable of melee combat. He travels 20-30 feat from the party, stealthed, which means his character can't contribute to conversations. (He's unwilling to give away his position to us by speaking.) In dungeons he's frequently still around the last corner when a fight begins, so he misses the first round of combat.
He only makes one attack per round, ever! Even when he was given the opportunity to make a hasted full round attack with his bow, against a flat-footed enemy, with allies blocking that enemy's only possible path toward him. So, when he was able to take 4 shots with sneak attack damage, he elected only to take one, "because I'm a sniper."
Seriously? He could have, without any risk to his own safety, dealt ~100 damage to an enemy. Instead, he took one shot and dealt ~25.
Example #2 - The Spell Saver
Short version: A Sorcerer who almost never cast spells, because he didn't want to use them all up. We struggled with fights because we had a small party, yet he went to sleep every night with his arsenal 90% full.
Um...was she special secret friends with the .gm or just random favoritism?
Reecy, quit leg pulling ...it wasn't that tough to read now come on!
Haha nice flank frompy!
Oops red dead thread threw me off Fred! Continue!
This is definetly a player problem, if your character is lame then it's because.
A) You are a rookie. Well get some help
B) You are playing pre-gen characters. Get a new game
C) You dont care. Go play something else
Or D) your idea of fun conflicts with the other people at the table.
There are a lot of times where a well-designed character and a well-designed setting go together like a tunafish and jelly sandwich. James Bond would not fit well into the gritty, double-crossing, intellectual world of John LeCarre. You may be deeply, deeply into Commander Bond, but it's still not going to work.
There are a lot of ways this can be problematic. If you're a hard-core tactical simulationist in a group of theatrical role-players, you may find it problematic when you haven't fleshed out enough of your character's backstory to know what kind of food he likes to eat in a restaurant. (You probably know exactly where he wants to sit, though...) Conversely, if you're a theatrical role-player, you may be deeply frustrated when silly, flashy, but cool things don't work the way they're supposed to. If you want to explore deep philosphical questions of good and evil, you may dislike the way everyone thinks in black and white and commits genocide on unsuspecting orcs because it says "evil" on the stat sheet. And vice versa.
If you have the luxury of pre-screening your group, this is one of the things to make sure everyone understands. In PFS, you don't have that luxury, so you need to be prepared to deal with a lot of people with different ideas of fun and to help make sure that everyone has fun.
Personally my definition of dead weight is this:
Does your character contribute anything useful to the party that someone else could not do, and do better?
If no, you're dead weight.
If yes, is that thing something that is useful on at least a semi-regular basis, not just once or twice a game?
If no, you're still dead weight, I don't care if your Profession: Thatcher skill came in handy ONCE, it's not useful any more.
If yes, good. As you were.
I wish there was some kind of psychological formula for telling someone who wants their first character to be a monk "don't" without offending them. There probably is a way to do so, but I've got no ranks in Diplomacy in real life and can't figure it out.
Several years back I was running one of my friend's three kids through their first gaming session. I decided (unwisely?) to use half of the first session letting them create their own characters. The youngest - the daughter - decided to make a gnome monk and used her 1st level feat to gain proficiency in the longsword. I tried to steer her away from this feat choice politely, and the looks I got from this 12 year old girl! I knew i was offering sound advice but the entire time I'm thinking "Am I really this big of an a~$&#*!?"
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The 10 con, 14 dex rogue (yes that is an AC of 14) that continues to rush ahead of the party and get dropped so I as a cleric has to spend my actions healing him and the fighter not attacking things near him but rushing over to the rogue side and drawing AoO is dead weight. Not only is he losing his action, he's wasting mine and the fighters. In low level play, I would say that is pretty much the ONLY dead weight character I have ever seen in PF. Now at higher levels...oh so many ways to get things wrong by the time your at 7+....
I think Dead Weight might be a poor term, at least when it comes to things I would consider "dead weight". I feel like the only way to not contribute to the group is to actively choose to do things that bring the party back.
For example, a non-optimized Sorcerer with only 15 charisma can still contribute meaningfully without the bonus spells/save DC by buffing or slinging Acid splash.
The only way he would be not contributing at all is if he insisted on attacking everything with his spike gauntlets and never hitting OR casting spells.
So it's someone making an active choice to do something ineffective, not someone trying to contribute and being completely unable to.
I think Dead Weight might be a poor term, at least when it comes to things I would consider "dead weight". I feel like the only way to not contribute to the group is to actively choose to do things that bring the party back.
For example, a non-optimized Sorcerer with only 15 charisma can still contribute meaningfully without the bonus spells/save DC by buffing or slinging Acid splash.
The only way he would be not contributing at all is if he insisted on attacking everything with his spike gauntlets and never hitting OR casting spells.
So it's someone making an active choice to do something ineffective, not someone trying to contribute and being completely unable to.
I think you're being far too generous. Someone unable to to contribute has made an active choice (probably at character design) to do something ineffective, to wit, play a competent character. Possibly through ignorance, possibly through malice, possibly through selfishness, but unless you were handed a sorcerer with charisma 8 and all of the skill points in Profession (tailor), then you decided to make a sorcerer with neither useful skills nor spells.
But if you decided, for flavor reasons, that you only wanted to take personal range spells, you've also taken an active choice to do something that (you should realize) will be ineffective a very large fraction of the time.
It's just that, when I think of the term "Dead Weight", I think of someone isn't capable but is trying, whereas when I think of the previously described people, I think "saboteur/problem character/guy that needs to die"
Not an important distinction, but I wouldn't consider someone trying to contribute to be dead weight, because there's always SOMETHING you can do that will help unless you choose to do something obviously not helpful like charging the orcs with a +1 base attack.
EDIT: You could have all of your ranks in Profession skills and spend all your money on wands of Magic Missile and still not bring the party down much.
Yes, but just because you're trying to help doesn't mean you are. That wand cost 750gp to buy,15gp a charge, about 4gp per hit point of damage you do with it.
Which would the rest of the party prefer, 4 more gp or one hit point of injury?
I submit that in many cases, the BSF would rather you paid him 15gp per round of combat for the privilege of watching than burn a charge.
Kmal2t has the right of it, I think. If the group would be better off without you, because they would get more treasure and Xperia divided three ways instead of four, you're dead weight. Even if you "help," but not enough to justify a full share, you're still dead weight.