What's The Absolute Worst PC You've Ever Seen?


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TarkXT wrote:
The only real difference is window dressing. Both accomplish the same thing. For the same reasons.

But only one wrecks the verisimilitude. Window dressing is vital to the tabletop experience.

TarkXT wrote:
I do agree that the cleric and the dying guy is bad GMing. But not because he suddenly ripped narrative control from the players. But only because he messed up and dropped the illusion of choice.

You know, you can give players actual choice. Would it really spoil the story that much to allow the PC to save the life of a minor character? Would it be any worse than disempowering the player?

(The most similar thing I can think of from playing is when my cleric met a minor character in Carrion Crown who had been blinded in a fire. My first thought was 'Remove Blindness is on my spell list'. But he was suffering from plot-related blindness.)

TarkXT wrote:
The fact that people believe anyone actually goes "no because that's bad for the story" explains certain things.

Well, in the story we're debating it sounds like the GM didn't even give that much of an excuse.


Matthew Downie wrote:
he was suffering from plot-related blindness.

There is no known cure, to genre blindness.

I think we went off track with the whole bad PC thing. Sucks, tonight I remembered a lot of the bad ones I've met in my life.


Matthew Downie wrote:


You know, you can give players actual choice. Would it really spoil the story that much to allow the PC to save the life of a minor character? Would it be any worse than disempowering the player?

Depends. Bear in mind in this instance the GM had already decided that this man was dead. Having already rolled that this man was going to die he provided a dramatic death scene which one guy decided was simply not going to happen.

Was it the player being disempowered because he was not allowed to reverse the work already spent killing the guy? Or the GM being disempowered because he could not provide a good roleplaying opportunity?

In fact would it not kill versimillitude harder to suggest that an entire army did not have one guy who could cast stabilize?

But, I think this is the kind of thing for another thread. IT's not a good place for a debate about narrative control.


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A low level sorceror whose only spells known were Mount, Feather Fall and an undisclosed third spell which was apparently even more situational, since he never once used it.

In fairness he actually did manage to get a lot of utility out of those spells - especially Mount, which he used both as a combat distraction and to pull off out of combat horse sale cons.


Matthew Downie wrote:


(The most similar thing I can think of from playing is when my cleric met a minor character in Carrion Crown who had been blinded in a fire. My first thought was 'Remove Blindness is on my spell list'. But he was suffering from plot-related blindness.)

It wasn't so much that Karl (I believe his name was Karl, anyway, been a while since I looked at trial of the Beast) had "plot blindness that couldn't be cured" so much as he was badly BURNED and his eyes physically destroyed, which falls more under the purview of Regenerate than Remove Blindness.

Remember:

Remove Blindness/Deafness wrote:
The spell does not restore ears or eyes that have been lost, but it repairs them if they are damaged.

And that's just a simple explanation for if it actually did say you couldn't cure his Blindness. Which it doesn't.

His Blindness actually isn't plot relevant, except that you could use his sighted testimony to help exonerate the Beast.

Which still isn't a huge change since you can describe things to him and have his testimony count anyway (as a HUGE help in the trial).

So yeah, him being Blind isn't relevant at all, it was just a nice little extra bit thrown in for people to deal with as they choose.


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Actually the worst PC I have ever seen was a guy that thought that he should tell every other PC what to do (as if he was playing a six-men party on a computer). And when we finally explained that everyone can do what they want (still letting everybody realise that coorperation is fun and beneficial), we started on this great adventure. During this adventure we came upon an obviously trapped construction, that was basically some trapped fire elementals in a gem sitting on top of this pile of treasure, that would explode if we meddled with it. We managed to dispell a trap spell from the gem (some sort of high level acid blast) and then we realised that we were only able to safely set of the trap and combat the fire elementals as we were unable to dispell it. The space was limited, so the use of a cold ball (just a fireball spell with cold based damage) was very usefull as we could block the only exit and blast away safely.
I was a wizard and explained that I would cast 2 globes of invulnerability at marked positions and anyone within those globes would be invulnerable to the cold balls. After confirming if everyone liked the plan or had suggestions we fine tuned somewhat (changing some positions) and readied to begin the fight. The problem was that we had to trigger the trap first and then cast the globes and after the trap was triggered (it had a delay)our PC suddenly realised he had a potion of spider climb and used this to climb to the ceiling of the 'battle pit', after being warned by the DM that the space was not bigger then the effect of the 'Cold Ball' and reminding him of the plan that was being executed at the very moment he got this into his head. Several team mambers asked him not to do this as it would put him in serious harm and he replied 'well on the ceiling the blasts cannot reach me' and the DM warned him a second time that the blasts would fill the chamber and everyone in the chamber not standing inside a globe would be affected.
And so the trap was triggered and the fire elementals were set free and we did not get blasted with acid as our cleric had succesfully dispelled that. And the battle commenced with me blasting as many cold balls into the room as I had slots and our main fighters fighting relatively safe from within the globes. We took mayor damage from the elementals but managed to defeat them, having only one casualty and that was the PC who stubbornly climbed to the ceiling realised after one cold ball that he was in the line of fire and tried to get away and was cut down by some fire elementals that were able to reach him on his way out and hit him with several AoO. Needless to say this resulted in a discussion between him and the GM why he died and the PC claiming that he was outside of reach of the Cold Ball on the ceiling and the GM this time using the PHB to again explain that the effect of a fireball (the spell my cold ball was based on) is a three dimensional effect and that he was warned of this (by the GM and me as well as I explained the plan) several times and decided to stubbornly ignore the warnings after the trap was sprung and the point of no return was passed.
I still cannot get over the sheer stupidity of that player, the entire party had spent recources to figure out how the trap worked and we spent a nights rest on preparing specifically for this encounter. The library in the building was full of clues how the trap worked and we all prepared to specifically defeat this trap and combat the trapped guardians of the treasure. The cleric used every bit of buffing and protective magic he had available. One of the second line characters lend his ring of fire resistance to the weakest of our front line fighters and we all adjusted and agreed to the battle plan. One of the second line characters even suggested using a piece of chalk to draw two circles to indicate to the frontline in what area they had to remain in order not to leave the globe. The GM even gave them a small AC penalty because of that restriction, but also declared that they would be immune to the violence of my spells. And after all that planning and consulting with each other, we initiated the battle by triggering the trap and he suddenly ignored the battle plan and started climbing to the ceiling, exclaiming that he would be useless shooting his bow out of the safety of the corridor, where he would have been completely safe from the violence (untill the front line would break off course).

Grand Lodge

Awakened Cat PC.

This PC was so bad, every player, and the DM, refused to game with the player, ever again.

Banned from even being around a game.

Eventually, the player of this PC was banned from every household who played with him.


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blackbloodtroll wrote:

Awakened Cat PC.

This PC was so bad, every player, and the DM, refused to game with the player, ever again.

Banned from even being around a game.

Eventually, the player of this PC was banned from every household who played with him.

That is... spectacular. I mean, wow. So what specifically about the awakened cat was that epicly bad? I mean, I can see where an awakened cat is kinda a bad idea from the word go but banned from every gaming group he went in? This requires a story.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I once had a player play a changling in Eberron (similar to a doppelganger). She wanted to join the assassin's guild and was tasked with killing an artificer while making it look like an accident--plenty of opportunity for creativity. She, through no effort of her own, found her way to the artificer's workshop, a tall tower. Rather than change shape and infiltrate the facility (which had people coming in and out all day long) she hid outside the facility until nightfall trying to think of a way in (there were numerous windows, not that they mattered to a changeling that could infiltrate the place with ease). After waiting for FOUR HOURS of real time for her to figure something out, I threw her a bone. The artificer left the facility and started for home. She trailed him, keeping to the shadows, loaded her heavy crossbow, and tried to shoot him in the back.

She missed. The would be target called for the city guard and ran around a corner while she struggled to reload her crossbow. He got away. Even if he hadn't, it wouldn't have looked anything like an accident.

It was such a waste. I even had a cage full of girillons inside the facility that the artificer adn his colleagues had been experimenting on. She could have released the enraged beasts and let them kill everyone while she made her escape in the distraction, thereby fulfilling her obligations to the assassin's guild. Pactically handed the entire mission to her on a silver platter--and she never even made it through the front door! A CHANGELING!

She never got the target. We didn't invite her back after that. Clearly the young blonde wasn't cut out for creativity or problem solving.


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That changeling story is perfect! Here's a player who liked the idea of her character, but had no idea how to actually play it! It's funny, too, because one of my very first characters (back in 3.5) was similar: a ninja that preferred direct confrontation to espionage (in the style of a fighter or barbarian). It was only after witnessing a friend play a ninja did I consider skills like Bluff or Disguise to be worth my while (posing as a feeble old man carrying a cane, which is actually a sword cane, for instance--now that's a ninja!).


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

She knew she could take the appearance of any humanoid at will. Why she didn't use that to her advantage, I will never know.


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We had a young lady that played a cleric of the god of chance and chaos, luck, that sort of thing. She was a nice girl but was only playing to be sociable. Stats were rolled and she didn't do well, refused multiple offers to reroll, placed them in a haphazard pattern and we started.

The character was horribly ineffective in most situations due to the scores, the lack of effort by the player, and her "cute" ideas of interviewing trees and talking to doorknobs in the middle of combat. Expended a lot of spells trying to cure dead people, wandering around with Sanctuary and whispering nonsense to other PCs in fights, etc etc.

Her boyfriend was first in line to ask her to stop playing by the end of the night.


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I once played with a cleric and the player wasn't too interested in the game. He was relatively distant during combats and he said he wanted to be a pacifist. Most turns were "is someone hurt? I channel!" or he did... nothing, aometimes buffed, but not often. He let someone else do his spell prep for him, and another person built his character for him(one who wasn't too good themself). Lots of dump stats and little armor because he wanted to play his character half naked to show off his good looks. His character's big thing was charisma. He liked getting chatty. I mean really chatty in character. His character existed to steal the spotlight in social encounters it seemed, as he would do 2 hour solo roleplay sessions with his character. I don't think he was the best negotiator though, because his idea of negotiation was berating and insulting the people around him until they did what he told them to do, which apparently is diplomacy. He was so excited to have a +10... at lvl like, 5. I never told him my character had a larger bonus in diplomacy and sense motive, because really that felt like the only reason he showed. On the upside, he brought soda.


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MrSin wrote:
On the upside, he brought soda.

A true team player.

Dark Archive

Ross Byers wrote:
the David wrote:
I'm playing a Aasimar Evangelist Cleric of Asmodeus in Way of the Wicked, but...
Silverware

Oops. In my defense, English is not my first language.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

the David wrote:
Ross Byers wrote:
the David wrote:
I'm playing a Aasimar Evangelist Cleric of Asmodeus in Way of the Wicked, but...
Silverware
Oops. In my defense, English is not my first language.

No worries.


TarkXT wrote:
Matthew Downie wrote:


You know, you can give players actual choice. Would it really spoil the story that much to allow the PC to save the life of a minor character? Would it be any worse than disempowering the player?

Depends. Bear in mind in this instance the GM had already decided that this man was dead. Having already rolled that this man was going to die he provided a dramatic death scene which one guy decided was simply not going to happen.

The whole point is that it was NOT dramatic. THere was a 8th level cleric next to him, the PC cleric have the right spell to solve the situation, the sense of "I could not do anything to save this man life" get totally erased by the "you can no it because plot".


Deadmanwalking wrote:

@Rynjin:

And there's also everyone, not just the GM, disagreeing with them. Arguing RAW to be more important than the group's social contract isn't a good sign either.

This was the main thing that annoyed us. We were perfectly fine with and enjoyed sitting back and letting our GM tell his story. It was only when this guy threw a wrench in the plans that it broke everyone's immersion.

And because I forgot to clarify: the GM went with the "you cast the spell and he dies anyway" route. Keep in mind that this was his very first time dealing with this problem, as nobody else in our group had tried to interrupt the story in the same way. If the GM said no, we would stop, but this guy just kept on arguing


Can't recall any "worst PCs" off the top of my head. Only worst players :)


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Once I played with a rogue. This rogue died. Then the GM let them come back as a ghost! A ghost who didn't do anything helpful. The ghost just kind of haunted one character. Totally spaced how the person died, I just remember them not doing much, dying, and becoming a ghost to haunt the other PCs after begging to play. This wasn't that bad because the person just sort of stopped coming soon after because I guess they weren't as interested as they said or something, but somehow later on the GM used it against us by having her evil aura(now an evil undead...) show up on one of our characters.

There was also a ranger I once played with. He wanted to play a catgirl princess, and he did. Funny enough, his character concept was "I don't want to be a princess" so the princess thing never actually came up from him, and we pretty much forgot about it soon after. His character really liked trying to make friends though, probably a little too much because he insisted we healed things up from near dead(who proceeded to maul me...) and that we stop to talk to an elephant(who was territorial and gored me) and that we bring said elephant into a town(where it proceeded to rampage and I tried my best to avoid blame and becoming a fugitive).


Worst PC? Rogue that never existed. Was a gf of the gm, she played through skype while the rest of us were there and simply rolled and made up numbers. GM knew and simply changed the dc's to whatever he felt to allow her to succeed.

Often he wouldn't force her to roll at all.


Tie between Javaris Xianidor and Deden Elslayer. Javaris is an under leveled fighter that wants to be the party's face with a cha of 13 and hardly no diplomacy. Which is whatever I guess but he doesn't improvise conversations well which leads to him getting flustured and calling the opponent some obscinity like the c word or just a b*&%*.

Deden... Now deden is just horrendous. He's a human ranger who dual wields swords and has a wolf companion. Which is fine, but whenever combat breaks out he makes himself worthless. "Oh are we fighting a group of kobolds? Wolf come to my side! I sit down and pet my wolf." Or the classic time the party rogue was decimated by ghouls and deden's first response is to turn tail and run (3 ghouls, 6 PCs level 5-6)


Worst character? It's not pathfinder, but rather WoD. A Sabbat vampire whose player rolled so many ones we should have called him snake eyes. The characters constant failure to do things like hit an enemy with a shotgun blast at point blank range made him the object of party jokes, but the player was a good sport about it, and began playing along with the bumbling idea. He learned for the next character, and focused on abilities that the target had to roll to resist rather than rely on his rolls.

Honourable mention goes to a PF player I had who, when offered a character rebuild, built as a Cavalier/Barbarian just to get a special mount... only to never ride it once and promptly forget about it.

As far as "not really bad character, but bad player", we had a player that would find a way to turn on everybody else in each game. We found it amusing rather than frustrating though, constantly anticipating and trying to predict his betrayal.


Scythia wrote:


As far as "not really bad character, but bad player", we had a player that would find a way to turn on everybody else in each game. We found it amusing rather than frustrating though, constantly anticipating and trying to predict his betrayal.

Curse you sudden but inevitable betrayal!

Grand Lodge

FuelDrop wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:

Awakened Cat PC.

This PC was so bad, every player, and the DM, refused to game with the player, ever again.

Banned from even being around a game.

Eventually, the player of this PC was banned from every household who played with him.

That is... spectacular. I mean, wow. So what specifically about the awakened cat was that epicly bad? I mean, I can see where an awakened cat is kinda a bad idea from the word go but banned from every gaming group he went in? This requires a story.

This PC would go everywhere, the PCs didn't, or attack important npcs(or pcs), activate traps, reveal stealthing PCs, attempting "inappropriate" actions with npcs and pcs, and generally do a**hole cat stuff, without ever being a help to the group, ever. If there was something that could be done, that would screw everyone over, this PC would do it.

It was made 100% worse by the fact that this awful PC, was run by an awful player, who was the group "eccentric", which basically meant he would do, or say, random horribly rude things, and it was always hand-waved, as him being "eccentric". Some of this included things like, going out of his way to avoid bathing, randomly telling someone how stupid their actions or words were, refusing to be "bound by the idea of home"(choosing to be homeless), and generally being offensive.

He ruined the game for us so badly, that those who gamed with him stopped playing TRPGs for the next year.

The worst thing, of all, for me, was that I disliked this guy the moment I met him, but put up with him, as he was an old friend of many of my friends. I warned them all, that it would end horribly, and that they would all eventually regret it.
I was told it was just a "personality conflict", and that I would get used to this "eccentric" individual.
I didn't.
I never stopped hating him, but bit my tongue the whole time, every once in while, reminding others that I did.
It became a running joke, how much I hated him.

In the end though, everyone ended up hating him, even if they hated admitting it.

Eventually, he burnt every single bridge, and lost every single friend.

Last I heard, he was alone, homeless, without a friend in the world.

-

Jerk deserves it.


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This weekend I played with:

More sword and board fighters and paladins than I have ever seen in my life. Not a 2 handed weapon between them. Damage output was desperately low.

A level 8 dual wielding fighter with a will save of +1 who was rather depressed about the minimal number of full attacks she managed. I think she got one in the whole scenario.

A level 7 druid wielding a quarterstaff as a double weapon running into melee.

None of them were what I would call effective but on the plus side they were all lovely people and a pleasure to play with.


Funny, that. In my experience "Worst PC" nearly always goes hand in hand with players who can´t disconnect "roleplay" and charakter stats.
It´s a common thing in my erea (where neither Pathfinder nor any D&D edition is the premier rpg in the market) to see a lot of player´s who need to see things translated to stats or they can´t connect to a charakter.
"Hm.. I play an average Human, those guys can cook, so I need Craft: Cooking to show that, maybe he´s a good cook? Skill Focus could show that. He can´t be an adventurer all his life, so maybe Profession: Inn Keeper? Yes, that should do it...."
(Plus: games are more Story-driven around here. It s nearly unthinkable that an player charakter could die in combat as the story would end right there. That leads to people acting stupid in tactical combat as they know nothing bad will happen).

So, most of the time, every new player I have at my table recreates the "Worst PC ever" from scratch, mostly the "Former Apprentice" who can´t do ****.


Taube wrote:

Funny, that. In my experience "Worst PC" nearly always goes hand in hand with players who can´t disconnect "roleplay" and charakter stats.

It´s a common thing in my erea (where neither Pathfinder nor any D&D edition is the premier rpg in the market) to see a lot of player´s who need to see things translated to stats or they can´t connect to a charakter.
"Hm.. I play an average Human, those guys can cook, so I need Craft: Cooking to show that, maybe he´s a good cook? Skill Focus could show that. He can´t be an adventurer all his life, so maybe Profession: Inn Keeper? Yes, that should do it...."
(Plus: games are more Story-driven around here. It s nearly unthinkable that an player charakter could die in combat as the story would end right there. That leads to people acting stupid in tactical combat as they know nothing bad will happen).

So, most of the time, every new player I have at my table recreates the "Worst PC ever" from scratch, mostly the "Former Apprentice" who can´t do ****.

Ouch!

They do realize that most routine tasks (EG cooking an edible meal, chatting with friends, ect) are DC 10 or 11, which means that most average people with 0 skill can take ten and succeed, right? I mean, most of the population in the middle ages ate pretty much whatever they could scrounge together, throw in a pot and boil. That's where Britain's infamous predilection for boiling everything comes from. That's about DC 8. 7 if people aren't really caring if things have been over-boiled.


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Taube wrote:

Funny, that. In my experience "Worst PC" nearly always goes hand in hand with players who can´t disconnect "roleplay" and charakter stats.

It´s a common thing in my erea (where neither Pathfinder nor any D&D edition is the premier rpg in the market) to see a lot of player´s who need to see things translated to stats or they can´t connect to a charakter.
"Hm.. I play an average Human, those guys can cook, so I need Craft: Cooking to show that, maybe he´s a good cook? Skill Focus could show that. He can´t be an adventurer all his life, so maybe Profession: Inn Keeper? Yes, that should do it...."
(Plus: games are more Story-driven around here. It s nearly unthinkable that an player charakter could die in combat as the story would end right there. That leads to people acting stupid in tactical combat as they know nothing bad will happen).

So, most of the time, every new player I have at my table recreates the "Worst PC ever" from scratch, mostly the "Former Apprentice" who can´t do ****.

This is something where I have to disagree with you. I believe that a character's stats should be a reflection of your own character's backstory and behaviour. It's much more fun to get a character concept and then try to stat it out than to roll a generic min-maxed wizard (which we're all perfectly capable of) and play that. It's good exercise in roleplaying, and stats based off of a character concept are never necessarily "bad".


Fetchystick wrote:
Taube wrote:

Funny, that. In my experience "Worst PC" nearly always goes hand in hand with players who can´t disconnect "roleplay" and charakter stats.

It´s a common thing in my erea (where neither Pathfinder nor any D&D edition is the premier rpg in the market) to see a lot of player´s who need to see things translated to stats or they can´t connect to a charakter.
"Hm.. I play an average Human, those guys can cook, so I need Craft: Cooking to show that, maybe he´s a good cook? Skill Focus could show that. He can´t be an adventurer all his life, so maybe Profession: Inn Keeper? Yes, that should do it...."
(Plus: games are more Story-driven around here. It s nearly unthinkable that an player charakter could die in combat as the story would end right there. That leads to people acting stupid in tactical combat as they know nothing bad will happen).

So, most of the time, every new player I have at my table recreates the "Worst PC ever" from scratch, mostly the "Former Apprentice" who can´t do ****.

This is something where I have to disagree with you. I believe that a character's stats should be a reflection of your own character's backstory and behaviour. It's much more fun to get a character concept and then try to stat it out than to roll a generic min-maxed wizard (which we're all perfectly capable of) and play that. It's good exercise in roleplaying, and stats based off of a character concept are never necessarily "bad".

I don't think anyone would object to a character's stats reflecting their backstory as long as it produces a viable adventuring character.


Chengar Qordath wrote:
I don't think anyone would object to a character's stats reflecting their backstory as long as it produces a viable adventuring character.

I agree, especially with the emphasis; some people just aren't cut out for the adventuring life no matter how long and intricate their back story is...


chaoseffect wrote:
Chengar Qordath wrote:
I don't think anyone would object to a character's stats reflecting their backstory as long as it produces a viable adventuring character.
I agree, especially with the emphasis; some people just aren't cut out for the adventuring life no matter how long and intricate their back story is...

Indeed. If someone puts all their character resources into making their character an awesome innkeeper because that's their backstory, then that character should probably still be an innkeeper. Most people aren't going to go out adventuring unless they've got the skills to actually be good at it.


FuelDrop wrote:
Scythia wrote:


As far as "not really bad character, but bad player", we had a player that would find a way to turn on everybody else in each game. We found it amusing rather than frustrating though, constantly anticipating and trying to predict his betrayal.

Curse you sudden but inevitable betrayal!

As the person running the games, I admit, I'd often dangle opportunities before him, knowing he was waiting for the chance. Sort of like leaving a trail of m&ms in front of a chocoholic.


Fetchystick wrote:
This is something where I have to disagree with you. I believe that a character's stats should be a reflection of your own character's backstory and behaviour. It's much more fun to get a character concept and then try to stat it out than to roll a generic min-maxed wizard (which we're all perfectly capable of) and play that. It's good exercise in roleplaying, and stats based off of a character concept are never necessarily "bad".

I can only partially agree to this.

There is a marked difference between playing the stats and playing the charakter, insofar that in a system where your job, stats and choices are interconnected, you should, as a player, find a way to do your job and portray your character, but not one in excluse to the other because the gm will fix it for you.

As an example: Start of Wormwood Mutiny. One player made a Half-Elvish Gunslinger with STR 14 (Guns have recoil!) and more or less all other Stats at 12. Skill were Athletics, two Craft and two Profession skills, all solely connected to a backstory that didn´t matter, Feat was Two-Weapon Fighting to portray the ability to wield a pistol and a dagger at the same time, ´cause that´s cool and the SKill Focus set on Perform (Singing) so he could sing along with the party bard. No Armor ´cause that went against the picture in his head.

Ok, that is decent thinking on transporting an image of a charakter into the game, no problem here, commendable, really, but it isn´t a working charakter.

As we still had time, I took that player aside and wanted to talk his choices through with him, so he could more easily enjoy his charakter in a combat heavy game like an adventure path. He seriously told me that he´d need to have those stats and skill pouints or else he couldn´t reach immersion into the game. I told him that he could simply describe singing alongside the bard, that no roll would be necessary to do this. This was commented like this: If no roll was necessary, I can´t know how good my charakter performs at singing which leaves me at no clue how to decide how he sang. That I countered by: Mate, it´s your charakter, it´s your choice!
At that answer the guy practically turned 180 degrees and left the game, as that was not good roleplaying.


Taube wrote:

As an example: Start of Wormwood Mutiny. One player made a Half-Elvish Gunslinger with STR 14 (Guns have recoil!) and more or less all other Stats at 12. Skill were Athletics, two Craft and two Profession skills, all solely connected to a backstory that didn´t matter, Feat was Two-Weapon Fighting to portray the ability to wield a pistol and a dagger at the same time, ´cause that´s cool and the SKill Focus set on Perform (Singing) so he could sing along with the party bard. No Armor ´cause that went against the picture in his head.

Ok, that is decent thinking on transporting an image of a charakter into the game, no problem here, commendable, really, but it isn´t a working charakter.

As we still had time, I took that player aside and wanted to talk his choices through with him, so he could more easily enjoy his charakter in a combat heavy game like an adventure path. He seriously told me that he´d need to have those stats and skill pouints or else he couldn´t reach immersion into the game. I told him that he could simply describe singing alongside the bard, that no roll would be necessary to do this. This was commented like this: If no roll was necessary, I can´t know how good my charakter performs at...

To be honest if you started to tell me how I should play my PC in a game I'd have walked too.

Perhaps it would have been better for him/her to come to their own conclusion.


@Cardinal Chunder:

Nah. There is a difference between explaining someone how to play his charakter and how a system works.

The game systeme most people around here are used to is one of those where something is either on your charakter sheet or you simply can´t do it. Better still, if you´re not really good at it, it harms you (best example: Cooking. Yes, it can actually lead to food poisoning and knowing how that systems skills work, that can happen quite easily.)

So it´s necessary to explain the differences and talk about the assumptions people have on how to play a game.


A level 21 fighter with near all his feats focused on coup de graces. He was so excited about being able to auto crit as a standared action, the look on his face when I told him it would only work on helpless foe was priceless. The sad part is the I had only just made my 3rd character ever and he had ben playing for years.


Taube wrote:

@Cardinal Chunder:

Nah. There is a difference between explaining someone how to play his charakter and how a system works.

The game systeme most people around here are used to is one of those where something is either on your charakter sheet or you simply can´t do it. Better still, if you´re not really good at it, it harms you (best example: Cooking. Yes, it can actually lead to food poisoning and knowing how that systems skills work, that can happen quite easily.)

So it´s necessary to explain the differences and talk about the assumptions people have on how to play a game.

Seconded. There's a huge difference between telling someone how to play a character, and telling them that the mechanical choices they've made are going to lead to character who won't perform well within the limits of the Pathfinder system.

If someone wants to play a spellcaster who's prone to making poor choices and not thinking things through, I don't think anyone would complain. If someone wants to fulfill that concept by playing a wizard with a 7 in his intelligence...


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One type of bad PC you'll encounter frequently is the One-Note Joke. A character built entirely around one silly 'joke' concept, which the player finds endlessly amusing and repeats, over and over again, throughout the session while failing to pay attention to the story or do anything to contribute.

It can take many forms:

"Meow, I'm a cat. I curl up and play with string. Yes, I know we're running from a band of hill giants but I'm a cat so I play with string. No, I won't use my skills or spells to help out. Because string."

"His name is Kig Ash. Get it? Grarr, I'm totally KIG ASH! Hahahahaha. Hey, Important NPC--sounds like you need an Ash Kigging. Get it? Hahahahaha."

"My gnome is short and silly. I climb up on the table to see what's going on. I dance in the food at the royal banquet. Waagggh, the big nasty troll is scary, so I hide under an anthill. Did I mention I'm short and silly? What? I can't hear you up there...."

"I have a dinosaur. Hey, Venture Captain, check it out--a friggin DINOSAUR. I send my dinosaur in. He makes all his saves because he's totally a dinosaur. I let my dinosaur talk to the prisoner. Dinosaur dinosaur dinosaur."


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Absolute WORST PC? Probably my fellow adventuring companion in our last campaign, Thalgar the Dwarf Wizard. His player, much older than I, and much more experienced in previous role playing games, enjoyed being "twisted, dark and angst y" so Thalgar's whole goal was to slay us, his fellow party members by trying to contact what was our world's elder gods, great old ones, Cthulhu stuff!He blatantly told us at every session our doom was upon us, and we have strict rules on player knowledge versus character knowledge, so alas, we couldn't act on it. Now, keep in mind this campaign lasted for an actual year, and nearing end game, our characters confront the now fully traitorous dwarf upon a charred, blackened landscape, but we're a little too late. He finishes a ritual, and calls upon his dark, unknowable gods for assistance to claim this world. The GM asks him for what I believe was a Will check. He critically fails on a 1 when he tries comprehending the words of the gods and gains narcolepsy, dementia, and multiple personality disorder, and is then left to his own devices. As he tries to cast a spell, he immediately falls asleep and collapses face first into a pool of blood made from his many living sacrifices. Needless to say, he drowns. Luckily for him, he had a resurrection stone but as soon as he was brought back to the world of the living, he found a near seven foot tall, giant Lizardfolk knight (my character) standing above him. My character steps on his chest and drowns him a second time, stabbing him repeatedly in the process

Thalgar, the narcoleptic, dementia ridden Dwarf wizard. You will not be missed


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

lol.


Worst character built by me was my first 3E character - a bard/cleric/herald (herald was a Dragon prestige class that got its own casting progression (Like 3.X assassin and blackguard), sneak attack, and some neat custom spells, most of which now exist in Pathfinder is some form) who was decent at social skills (though she rarely did it, because the cleric's player was actually gregarious and did all the talking) but utterly useless in combat. She could do a LOT of low level buffs. But that was it.

If that campaign hadn't died due to irreconcilable player differences, I'd have retired her in favor of her paladin cohort (who was legitimately bad-ass).

In retrospect, I'm floored I played that character to L17. I guess I kept expecting the character to straighten out somehow.


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Had a friend who was playing for the first time. One of the most magnificently played characters I've seen in terms of laughs. This was 3.5 mind you.

He decided to play a bard and he found out that he could cast light on things as many times as he wanted. So, his first task was to pick flowers outside of the building our half of the group was in (DMs way of introducing us to the other players. One half of the team inside a lighthouse, the other shows up later, meeting for the first time.) Our wizard was very paranoid and when the mysterious figure comes bursting through the doorway throwing lit up flowers into the air near the wizard, he got a face full of magic missile.

Bard follows my rogue (who was trying to get better ground from the invaders) up the lighthouse for some reason. My rogue was hiding best he could, but was attacked on sight. We fight and he ends up in the position where if he does a standard action he'd faint (DM said at least). So what does he do? What does any jolly bard do? He casts light on his shoes and blacks out.

......One of the characters that was playing a pirate type saw the shining shoes and stole them.


MilesBeyond wrote:

One of the joys of playing with people who are new to the system - or RPGs in general - is seeing what sort of fun and insane combinations they come up that no one with any experience with the game would ever dream of playing unless they were deliberately gimping themselves. I don't mean that in a sarcastic way - it's actually a lot of fun.

So what's the worst PC you've ever seen that wasn't deliberately trying to be bad?

It was 3.5, and it was a monk, but to be fair the problem was not the monk.

The player came in at level 7 and he took feats such as run, toughness, and the feats that boosted two skills such as persuasion. I have no idea what he was trying to do, but he just failed at everything, and then wanted to blame the GM.

PS: Everyone knew this GM ran difficult encounters, and did not adjust the difficulty to help you out, so it was not a "gotcha" moment.


A Rogue7/Sorcerer1/Fighter1/Dragon Disciple3 who was just always all over the place. Not a caster, not usefull in melee, couldn't get to SA against anything...


Storm Sorcerer Arcturus wrote:
Absolute WORST PC? Probably my fellow adventuring companion in our last campaign, Thalgar the Dwarf Wizard. His player, much older than I, and much more experienced in previous role playing games, enjoyed being "twisted, dark and angst y" so Thalgar's whole goal was to slay us, his fellow party members by trying to contact what was our world's elder gods, great old ones, Cthulhu stuff!H

This sounds like the general rule about "not playing with jerks" would apply.

Also, too many players forget that the party can just say "good bye" to any PC that is being nasty. Of course, like you said the party can;t act on player knowledge, but there was likely plenty of hints, clews and just plain nasty behavior apparent.

Scarab Sages

I had someone play a monk once...

non-troll-post:
The worst was a halfling rogue / monk who perm'd reduce person, then lobbed shiruikens all over the place with a gamey feat combo that made everyone else roll their eyes as he was utterly useless against anything that made its perception check or was immune to sneak attack


I was a guest DM at houstonderek's home game once, running an original scenario. Session 1 ended with all players agreed that the PCs were going to attempt an audacious, stealthy museum heist the next session. It was going to be a serious challenge to pull this off without being declared outlaws, so the players had a week to prepare: rogues could buy specialized equipment using their treasure from the 1st session, prepared casters could customize their spells lists, players could discuss their getaway strategy over IM or email, etc.

Session 2 rolls around. The wizard had diligently filled his 1st level slots with mage armor, shield and magic missile, his 3rd level slots with lightning bolts, and his 4th level slot with black tentacles.

Spoiler:
They narrowly escaped the museum alive, without the McGuffin, and the adventure unsurprisingly ended in a TPK. I did not feel at all bad about the ending.


The worst PC I have ever played with was a friend of mine that used to RP a lot on board, basically every character she ever played was directly taken from her RP board. She managed to convince the DM to let her play a non-evil assassin, because of this she could only use her "Death attack" to paralyze people. The sad part is that even with every bit of help of the group should would always make the most sub optimal decisions, she was more focused on how her character would act a given situation ratter than actually making a remotely-logical choices.

Relatively she refused any attempts a teamwork even in the most dire situation, refused to even carry any sort of gear whatsoever.

Please note that our GM was not pulling his punches and that having encounters where basically only 4/5 of the group could actively do something useful drove me insane.

She wanted to used a wrist mounted crossbows, never kept more than 3-4 bolts and never bothered taking feat to improve her aiming. At level 8 she was barely able to hit anything. We tried to explain for hours how a short-bow would be a better ranged alternative, but to no avail, on her crude drawing of her character she had decided for "looks" that the wrist mounted crossbow was the best fashionable choice and that having very little bolts on her other wrist was also way more pretty.

Hell she did not want her character to be an adventurer! She wanted to be a high fashion courtesan, but alas even with insane bonuses on her skill check she did not have to social abilities to even translate a fraction of her character charisma into anything remotely useful, my paladin with a vow of chastity was a better liar and seducer than her character!

You would guest that somebody with 5 level of rogue would have started to learn to look for traps after a while, but no, if we did not specifically asked her to do so she would not do anything.

In the end she died failing to fall back when we faced a Bebilith, because I guess that taking a full action to load and shoot ONE non-magical, non-sneak attack hand mounted crossbow at a demon eating huge spider was the best action instead of full retreat...

Sometimes having a lot of gold, skill points, HP and items is not enough. It was not lack of competence of her PC it's was about the lack of judgement of her PC.


I once saw a guy who made a free-runner rogue in D&D 3.5. Had a decent set up of skills and feats that increased his movement. Let him jump really high and far, tumble and balance anywhere at all. Whoo!

But it's a game where people can fly. And his combat ability was basically null. Poor guy.

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